Where's the outrage

Where's the outrage from the left about the president's rampant fundamentalism? Oh yeah, wrong president. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

Can't we turn the refugee weapon around?

This bit on Instapundit caught my attention. The international community - which of course means the United States - should go to China and offer to help them manage the refugee crisis - route them to South Korea, or Siberia or somewhere. I expect they'll be happy to go anywhere there's food and no sociopathic tyrant in charge.

North Korea is a humanitarian nightmare. We can do the right thing by helping these poor people and defuse Kim Jong Il's refugee bomb at the same time.

9/11 1565

France had signed a treaty with Turkey some years before, and although much of the Order was of French descent, that country was neither able nor inclined to ride to its rescue.

<snicker> Of course they signed a treaty. I hadn't realized how long the French have been committed to appeasement.

Good news from Africa about AIDS?

This seems like a good thing.

Kidman, et al.

Yeah, it's nice that a bunch of Hollywood types have condemned terrorism - how hard is that, anyway? But it's still a little annoying to have entertainers offering opinions on non-entertainment topics and having people pay attention to them as if they were experts, or somehow involved in that arena.

I mean, I'm glad to see them showing (IMHO) some ability to recognize that we are in fact at war, but how can I reasonably credit them any more than their cohorts who speak out so vehemently against Bush and our Iraq policy?.

Nicole's pretty cute, though. She was pretty hot in Eyes Wide Shut. Bet she's glad she dropped that alien-worshipping freak Cruise.

coffee

Top source for antioxidants

Money quotes:

Larger quantities of coffee seem to be especially helpful in diabetes prevention. In a report that combined statistical data from many studies, researchers found that people who drank four to six cups of coffee a day had a 28 percent reduced risk compared with people who drank two or fewer. Those who drank more than six had a 35 percent risk reduction.

"We were surprised to learn that coffee quantitatively is the major contributor of antioxidants in the diet both in Norway and in the U.S.A.," said Rune Blomhoff, the senior author of both studies and a professor of nutrition at the University of Oslo.

These same anti-inflammatory properties may explain why coffee appears to decrease the risk of alcohol-related cirrhosis and liver cancer.

EXCELLENT!

The system's all broked up

Medical bills not the patient's concern.

although you may not be interested in terrorism, terrorism is still interested in you.

Well put, Glenn.

Army of Terrorist Davids the future?

Bruce Sterling offers up a vision from a British military thinker that suggests national borders will be less defined, the world population will be more mobile, and the third world will invade the first on 737s with laptops and blackberries.

Best fans in the NFL

Favre looked fairly sharp in front of a sold-out Lambeau Field crowd during the Green Bay Packers' "Family Night" scrimmage on Saturday.

Brilliant!

Synchronized treadmilling.

Lileks high school reunion

I think Lileks is a wonderful writer. Really excellent. I don't own any of his books (yet) but I read the Bleat most every day and usually really enjoy it. This week he's been writing about his trip home for his (30th?) high school class reunion. After reading today's installment I think this is one of the things he's best at. I'm not sure what to call it - the retrospective, the look-back-and-forth. It's not earth-shaking, but he captures an essence that seems not often to be distilled.

Babies and Their Fathers

Oh my, this is funny. ROTFLMAO.

NY Times

I agree with this thread on Instapundit.

I think there should be consequences for someone who releases secret information.

Instapundit buys deck chair from FRANCE!!

Is the boycott over?

The Professor has been tempted by the charms of a high-priced French deck chair.

What could he have been thinking?

:-)

WMD

Holy cow, they found WMD in Iraq.

I agree with Prof. Reynolds that WMD was never high on my list of reasons for freeing Iraq. At the same time I never doubted that they existed. I always thought everyone jumped too quickly to the conclusion that since we didn't find them in the middle of the road into Baghdad they weren't there. Iraq is a big country. Why anyone thought it could have been thoroughly searched in the midst of war just wasn't thinking clearly or honestly.

I'm glad they found them so maybe people will shut up about them now. I always thought there were more important reasons for the invasion -

• Saddam was evil
• He was violating UN sanctions
• He was a supporter of terrorists
• He wanted to kill all the Kurds (and yes I think we should be doing something more in Darfur, too)
  

Mainly, though, I think it's vital to the war on terror that we work to change the culture in which islamic terrorism flourishes. A free, democratic Iraq will flourish and serve as a constant reminder to the rest of the Middle East that such a system can work. The people of Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Iran will find it hard to blame anyone but their own governments and religious leaders for the state of their countries and their lives.

It won't be easy, but it needs to be done. Chasing down individual terrorists and blowing them up may be fun and rewarding, but ultimately this is a cultural war. For the moment I'm taking the word of everyone who says it's not a religious war, who says Islam is a religion of peace and the jihadists are extremists not unlike some white supremecist groups in the US. For the moment.

To truly win this war we have to change the cultures that are attacking us.

Yahoo mail

The last few times I've sent group emails, Yahoo has made me verify by typing in a verification string. If that keeps up I'll probably switch completely to Gmail.

The UN hates homeschooling

This (HT instapundit) piece on the trials of a couple of home-schoolers in Belgium is chilling.

Fear the nanny state - it wants only to rub down the rough edges that make life interesting.

Euro-hooligans

If you've watched the world cup at all you've probably noticed that the players benches are protected by clear enclosures. This strikes me as a capitulation to the hooliganism that's given soccer fans - particularly in Europe I think - a bad reputation. I don't really think emotions run any less high in American football stadiums, but I haven't noticed any sort of shield protecting the players. Any fan who threw something at a player would be thrown out of the game and - I expect - charged with a crime. Apparently that's not the case in Germany.

An unfortunate turn of phrase ...

See if you can spot it ...

When Moscow's mayor can abuse fundamental freedoms with impunity, it is doubtful that Russia is fit to hold the presidency of the Council of Europe - or even be a member.

President Putin's silence is damning. He has said nothing in defence of the right to protest or of the human rights of Russia's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Nevertheless, Moscow Pride was a huge success, despite all the homophobia it revealed and the savage repression it unleashed. It is a major milestone in Russian queer history. A handful of courageous gay Russians got up off their knees and stood tall, proud and defiant. They dared to take on the authoritarian regime of Mayor Luzhkov.

By insisting on the right to protest, they were defending more than gay rights: they were defending the democratic freedoms of all Russians, gay and straight.

Spotted here on Instapundit.

I admire their resolve and courage, but I did laugh out loud as I read one bit.

Smaller government now!

From Wired:

A 2004 study by the agency found that 2 percent of fireworks-related injuries that year were caused by homemade or altered fireworks; the majority involved the mishandling of commercial firecrackers, bottle rockets, and sparklers. Nonetheless, Wolfson says, "we've fostered a very close relationship with the Justice Department and we're out there on the Internet looking to see who is promoting these core chemicals. Fireworks is one area where we're putting people in prison."

The story is about a mail-order chemical company that got busted because they sell ingredients - among many, many other things - that CAN be used to make fireworks.

Isn't blowing yourself up making fireworks kind of a self-limiting sort of activity. Is it REALLY worth spending tax-payer money to crack down on this epidemic that involved 2 whole percent of injuries last year.

Moles, holes, and other earmarks

About this. I wonder if the reason the porkers are acting so seeming stupid is that they've already written off their chances in November and are in a feeding frenzy to get all they can of the other white meat before the barbecue ends.
(Can I flog this metaphor any further?)

Schools

I was just looking back at this bit from blackprof.com and had some further thoughts.

Mr. Jeffries argues, as have many others, that school choice is the answer for fixing our deteriorating school system. I mentioned in the comments that I'd read some research years ago that suggested most students in a pioneering school choice program in Milwaukee who actually took advantage of the program did so either for social or athletics reasons. That is they either wanted to go to school with a friend/boyfriend/girlfriend or they wanted to play for a particular school's athletic team.

Another commenter suggested I was wrong.

I don't pretend to be an expert on school choice, education in general, or inner-city education in particular. I'm not completely inexperienced - I actually have a (never-used) masters in education and my student teaching took place in the closest thing Knoxville, Tennessee has to an inner-city. But - to reiterate - I know I'm no expert in this area and the little knowledge I have is many-years old.

That said. While school choice may be laudable it can't - by itself - fix the nation's education problems. And it especially can't fix our inner-city education problems because those problems are ultimately the problems of the inner-city itself.

Schools don't operate in a vacuum. They are products of their communities.

Katrina analysis

Jonah Goldberg does a little urban myth busting on the subject of Katrina and who screwed up what. (HT Instapundit) My favorite bit - paraphrased - if the President screwed up so badly in New Orleans, how did he manage to do okay in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida - the other states hammered by Katrina and her siblings? What should be obvious is that in a crisis, it's the people who are there that ultimately need to deal with it.
And they just re-elected Ray Nagin.
Wow.

Where have all the heroes gone?

Here they are.

Indeed.

Carter administration offers assistance with Iran

This struck me as kinda funny. I mean I know Jimmy had some ... experience ... with Iran, but I'm not sure that's what we're looking for.

Skool Choys

This was always my argument against school choice and vouchers:

"Many of the most empowered parents and families are removing their children. What's left, in even working-class communities, are schools filled with the least empowered families. Families with the least parent involvement to offer, families with the least help with homework to offer.  There's been a continual outflow for at least 10 years, and it isn't stopping now."

School choice is great for involved parents and motivated students - also for students who want to play sports on a different team or go to school with a boy/girlfriend - but they don't do anything for the VAST majority of poor, inner city students.

Christianity in the US

Map of dominant churches by county in the US.

Links to maps for each major religion - with Christianity broken down by denomination.

Interesting to me, at least. I grew up a Catholic (nominally, at least) in Tennessee. Recently we've started attending a Lutheran (ELCA) church in Minnesota. There's also a map of Religious Adherents which suggests how the coastal power brokers might have a little trouble understanding and relating to those of us in the fly-over states.

traffic light cameras

profits up along with accidents

Very cool medical stuff

It's not sci-fi anymore - they're actually cloning organs and re-implanting them. Excellent.

What a classy response in the most horrible of situations

"I don't have anything to say. I appreciate your interest. I just have nothing to say right now." -- from the father of the Tennessee woman who has confessed to shooting her pastor husband.

Can't imagine many more horrible situations for a parent to find himself in.

war casualties

from Glenn

I've had the feeling that by and large our casualties have been relatively light in the WOT (war on terror), and I suspected they weren't too much higher than the numbers in peace time.

That's not to discount any of them. Every single death is a tragedy for a lot of people, and I regret every one. Nevertheless, the aggregate numbers are interesting and really impressive considering the type of war we're fighting.

Being a soldier (airman, marine, etc) is a dangerous profession even in times of peace, and naturally more so when actively engaging an enemy. If anything it's a credit to the training and leadership of our forces that we haven't lost more people.

Steer clear of Mississippi

The Cory Maye incident appears not to have been too unusual. Sounds like the Pearl River Basin Narcotics Task Force possibly should be on the other side of the bars.

kids

My youngest child is six. It seems that she grows older by the moment. I find myself holding her on my lap, my head to her head, eyes closed as I try to fix that moment, to burn it into my memory forever. There are only a limited number of those moments available to us and they are the most precious commodity in the world.

G and I were talking about one of my old girlfriends who has no children, and I remarked that she was never terribly maternal. "I can't imagine," was G's comment. And I had to agree. I can't imagine my life without my kids. I guess that's not strictly true. There's nothing wrong with my imagination. What I really mean is that when I imagine my life without my kids it seems so empty, so desperately empty.

What would I do? I'd obviously have more time for myself. I could go to movies, plays, and concerts. I could go out to eat. I could travel more and it would be more relaxing. And I'd be able to afford to do those things since I wouldn't have kids hoovering up every scant penny that I hadn't yet earned.

I wonder if I would be more liberal. Would I hate George W. Bush? Would I think Islamic terrorists were moral equals of US troops fighting to create a democratic Iraq? I know that opinion doesn't break that cleanly on the demographic fault line between those with kids and those without. But ... still. It makes me wonder if there's more than a casual correlation between the declining birth rates in Europe and their rabid hatred for our President and anything he does.

It's hard to be completely selfish when you are a parent - and I'd say impossible when you are a good parent.* You have to be concerned with something other than yourself. You have to make sacrifices of time and money and attention. And you become concerned with the future in a more concrete way than previously. I think you begin to be less concerned with small endangered animals and more concerned with small human animals and the kind of world they will live in.

Life is more complicated than I'm drawing it here. But I think it's an interesting thought experiment.

Oh, one interesting tidbit - the old GF has lived in Europe since she graduated from college.

* Yes, obviously, I consider myself a good parent. I guess we'll see how good in 20 years or so.

math

This was interesting. I've been regretting for a while that I didn't suck it up and learn more math in college (the first time). Hindsight being what it is, though, it's hard for me to be too upset about it. If I had been a more dedicated student - and less a dedicated hedonist - I'd have gotten that Math\Comp Sci degree instead of the English degree. I would likely have gotten a job in Atlanta instead of moving back to Tennessee and meeting my wife-to-be working in a restaurant.
So, being thoroughly happy with my life, it's hard for me to have much regret for anything I didn't do that might have put me on a different path to today.
Still, I've always had it in the back of my mind that if I found myself financially secure I'd go back to school and learn all the math I skipped back in the day.

Extremely cool game

I don't know who Will Wright is, but here's an hour long presentation by him of the new game he's working on. The presentation is very entertaining and the game looks VERY cool. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, fast forward to the bits where he shows the game.


update:
I guess that video is almost a year old. Game's not out yet and apparently has not firm release date, but I saw one projection on Gamespot that it would be coming out Q3 of 2006.

I'm not a gamer - at all. But this looks really, really cool. I'm a little afraid of it.

Exercise yer mind

Exercising your body and mind along with eating well can improve brain function

Lileks on the UAE and our ports

The recoil should not be your first clue you grabbed the wrong gun.

More demographic analysis from Mark Steyn

Scary stuff

Careful, it's kind of like crack

blueprint

Interesting thinking about thinking

Dammit, Fenster, close those blinds -- I'm trying to make a decision in here: Today brings fresh evidence that it's not wise to trust too much to your conscious mind (see " You think you know what you think? Think again"). A Dutch study on the decision-making process found that while the conscious mind, with its limited bandwidth, is find for making little choices like which cereal to buy, it tends to fumble anything much bigger. Much better choices in complex matters, the researchers found, come by "deliberating without attention," or in technical terms, "sleeping on it," letting the unconscious, with its non-linear processing system, do the heavy crunching.

D'oh! or is it Duh!

From Instapundit:

GUN REGISTRATION: Such a bad idea that even the Canadians are scrapping it. "One former Mountie called the registry 'totally useless' because criminals don't register their guns." Too bad they didn't figure that out a few billion dollars ago, but at least it's an object lesson for the United States.

Who'd 'a' thought?

Soccer highlights

Some incredible soccer highlights in this google video.

If you're into soccer at all you'll probably enjoy this.

Katrina report

I look forward to seeing a summary of this

"Our investigation revealed that Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare," the report said. "At every level -- individual, corporate, philanthropic and governmental -- we failed to meet the challenge that was Katrina. In this cautionary tale, all the little pigs built houses of straw."

It sounds a little bombastic. I still think that first response has to be the job of the people on the ground and that most of the failure in Katrina rests with the Mayor and Governor. Yeah, the FEMA director probably was "clueless", and cetainly that reflects somewhat on his boss, but I can't see it as really being the President's responsibility except in a buck-stops-here sort of way.
I wonder if the report has anything to say about the media's horrible job of reporting on conditions in the Superdome?

Blizzard of '93

Glenn's mention of the Blizzard of '93 brought back some memories.

We lived in Knoxville - it was the spring before we moved to the great white north. I was waiting tables at Calhoun's on the River. She was a nurse at St. Mary's and pregnant with our second child. When the city shut down after we got - I think it was - 18 inches of snow, our son was at his babysitter's house, and we decided we had to go get him. Somehow we got the Civic out of the driveway and eventually got to within a couple of blocks of the sitter's house before the driver (the one who grew up in Wisconsin) went in the ditch.

We didn't want to be stuck at the sitter's house, so we walked and hitchhiked back home. There was no getting the Integra out of the driveway - well I did actually get it just out of the driveway,but then it was stuck and it was all I could do to get out of the road.

We ended up begging our neighbor - a teenager with a 4WD toyota pickup - to take us to pick up the kid. So we got into his truck which reeked of smoke (not tobacco smoke either) and took off. As we got into the sitter's neighborhood, the drifts got a good bit higher and our driver chickened out. He was afraid of getting stuck or running out of gas - 'cause most of the gas stations were closed. So he ended up dropping us off on the wrong side of our stuck car and we walked in to get the boy.
Our sitter was not too sure about the whole situation. Our boy was three at the time and our plan - such as it was - was to walk out to the main road (Chapman Highway) and get a ride towards home.

Well it was a long walk out to Chapman, but we were young and it was an adventure so I guess that made it okay. Matt was fine with it, I think. He walked most of the way. Eventually we got out to Chapman and it didn't take too long for someone in an RV to stop. They were hippies hot on the trail of 'white gas' (propane) and did we know of anywhere that was open and selling it. We didn't but they offered us a ride in the back of their vehicle with their dog. The dog, naturally, turned out to be a pit bull who - at least to my parental eyes - seemed to be sizing up the boy as a possible snack. I spent the entire trip keeping myself between the dog and the child.

They dropped us off and we walked the rest of the way home - me, my 6 month pregnant wife, and our three-year-old son. We were very happy to get home to our cold, dark home.

The hospital ended up sending a van to pick Gerri up since there was no way our cars were going anywhere. They were also opening the hospital to employee's families, but I said we'd be fine in the house without heat or lights or pretty much anything but a lot of snow outside. We did have a gas grill to cook on, and at night I used it to heat water that I poured in gallon milk jugs and took to bed with us. It was cold and I remember I didn't sleep well, because I kept waking up to check on Matt.

The Great Zucch

Lileks recommended this piece about a children's entertainer in the Washington DC area. I second his praise. The writing is wonderful and the story as well. I was struck by the way the Great Zucchini's dysfunctions seemed wrapped up so intimately with his genius. He's a gambling addict and a kid's magician. Gambling is like another magic trick - predicting the winner of a game, throwing a particular combination of dice. At the craps table he's as popular with adults (while he's winning) as he is with the kids at one of his gigs.
Now if he'd just bump his rates by $100 and hire an assistant to manage his life he'd be golden.

Frey tempest

I'm not a big fan of Oprah, anyway, and I didn't see the show where she lambasted James Frey.

I did read the book - A Million Little Pieces - though. I thought it was excellent - powerful, raw, compelling. It matters less than a whit to me if some of the details were not strictly factual. I don't see how it compromises the message of the book in any way. If it were entirely fictional it would be no less powerful.

I think it's a shame that Oprah couldn't say the same.

Yeah, that sounds good ...

Say Anything's SOTU

Google's evil

Google's crossroads deal with China has a lot of people upset, and certainly it's a slippery slope they tread. But I'm not convinced that they've truly - at least with this deal - turned their back on their famous motto.

I think they sat down and they made a real world decision recognizing how bad it would look, but that the potential for good outweighed the blow to their cred.

Google of all organizations has to understand how hard it is to effectively censor the internet. Information flows too quickly and in too many directions to be easily confined. I suspect that China's thought police do not yet grok this in fullness.

Google, however, certainly does. At the same time, they can't come right out and say so.

I think Google.cn will be good for the Chinese people, though now it appears to support a totalitarian regime.

I guess we'll see.

Car Quiz

If you're an RX-8 (like a certain prominent blogger) then your WhichSportsCar Quiz must look a lot like this:

Are you an Italian exotic or an American muscle car? A classic roadster or a high-tech racer?

This test will show you your true inner vehicle...

Are you passionate?
Yes

Do you change direction quickly?
No

Are you powerful?
No

Are you loud?
No

Are you high-maintenance?
No

Do you easily spin out of control?
No

Do you like to go topless in the summer?
No

Are you competitive?
Yes

Are you practical?
Yes

Do you have expensive tastes?
No

Are you happy in the rain?
Yes

Which tool would you be more comfortable wielding?
Sledgehammer

I don't know, Glenn, I think you're somewhat powerful ...

Hmmm. Can't complain ...

I'm a Porsche 911!

You have a classic style, but you're up-to-date with the latest technology. You're ambitious, competitive, and you love to win. Performance, precision, and prestige - you're one of the elite,and you know it.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Lileks

At the checkout Gnat saw a Seasonal My Little Pony named Wish I Might – it had red wings and a red box of chocolates on its haunch. Special to Target. She was enthralled. When she wasn't looking I tossed it in the basket, and took it out when we were in the car.

She was ecstatic. Daddy, why did you get this for me?

Because it's special for Valentine's day. Because I knew it would surprise you, and you didn't beg, and because I thought it would make this day even better. Because I like to make you happy.

I can never say the other reason: because some day you won't want a My Little Pony.

This is not good

40% of children fall asleep without a resident father regularly within reach

travesty

If you haven't heard the story of Cory Maye, take a look at this.

Lileks and Atkins

I wrote everything at home – a rare five-column day, alas – and ventured out only to go the grocery store, where I confronted the fact that I am fargin' sick of Atkins, and want a stack of pancakes about seventeen miles high. Also caramel rolls and cinnamon buns and burritos with warm soft tortillas and all the other things I forbid myself in order to maintain a trim physique in case I should be required, by some sort of public referendum, to walk around naked all the time. When it's two. 

lileks nails the essence of a happy childhood

It's not really what you remember when you're older. It's what you don't have to remember or try to forget.


--
tom

"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work." - Stephen King (1947-)

Downsize FEMA

This article from the WSJ describes how the nations business community was the driving force behind a vast relief effort in Katrina's wake. They recommend FEMA take some pointers from the people who do logistics 24/7.

That just seems silly to me. FEMA's never going to be proficient at the kinds of things that FedEx and WalMart do day in and day out. Instead of trying to train FEMA, lets just downsize it. Put them in the position of doing long-term projects that aren't so time-sensitive, but that require a more substantial commitment than our corporate first responders can probably sustain.

I know. Downsizing government - that's just crazy talk.

Obi-wan or Gandalf

Warning: Harry Potter spoiler ahead.

I've been reading the newest Harry Potter book to my kids and we're nearing the end. We were a little depressed at Dumbledore's death. After the initial attack I was sure Snape had only pretended to kill Dumbledore and had actually healed him. But it definitly seems he's dead - like Obi-Wan and not like Gandalf. I wonder how Rowling will replace Harry's protector and two most common nemeses?

We have only the last chapter to finish and we'll be anxiously awaiting the next installment.

Damn it.

Romantic cruise

My wife and I decided to take a moonlight boat ride the other night after the kids were tucked in. As we were leaving our cove, I pulled up on the driver's seat so I could better see over the windshield and the whole seat pulled right out of the floor. I had just 'fixed' the seat a couple of days before, but apparently my screws didn't take. So I drove the rest of the way standing up. I prefer that anyway.

There's a small island in the lake near the northern shore where we stopped and dropped anchor. We sat for a while enjoying the night and having the lake to ourselves - there wasn't another boat to be seen. We chatted and finished our drinks and listened to the stereo. After a while we noticed that the storm we'd been watching seemed to be getting close enough that we ought to head for cover. I pulled the anchor in and went to start the motor, but it wouldn't turn over. The gas tank showed a quarter tank, but we'd had trouble with it not being too accurate. I was sure we were out of gas.

I dropped the anchor again to keep us from ending up on the rocks by the island and we considered our options. I had grabbed my cell phone as we were walking out the door so that was good., but it was late and we didn't really know anyone else who lived on the lake. After a little discussion I called our son at home and told him we wanted him to go next door and see if our neighbor would come out and tow us back in.

Naturally, he didn't want to do this, and said, "Don't you have a paddle?"

This had occurred to me, but we were a good ways from home and it's a fairly heavy boat. I said something along the lines of "A paddle?!"

Well, that was all my wife needed to hear - "That's right! We have a paddle. We'll just paddle in."

Great.

So she handed me the paddle and she grabbed one of the skis and we commenced to paddling for home. After a little practice we were making pretty good progress and had made it maybe a third of the way home when the wind came up. Of course it was blowing right in our face and all of a sudden we couldn't seem to keep the boat pointed toward home. The wind kept pushing the nose around and tired as we already were, we couldn't get it turned.

By this time the wind had pushed us to within about 50 yards of the shore, but further from home. I decided to drop anchor again while we rested for a minute and tried to come up with a new plan. I tossed the anchor toward shore and let us drift back. Looking around we saw we were right by a private neighborhood marina and thought if we could get over there we could just tie the boat up and walk home. The problem was the wind was trying to blow us past the marina toward the north shore where we'd have ended up with a MUCH longer walk around the lake.

The anchor had given me an idea, though. When I had dropped it last I had tossed it toward shore. As the boat drifted with the wind we wound up a few feet closer to the marina. I thought if I could just keep doing that we could slowly make our way in.

I grabbed the line and pulled in the slack until the boat was back over the anchor. Then I pulled the anchor up to find it covered in weeds. The wet weeds more than doubled the weight of the anchor and severely hampered my ability to do much more than just drop it in the water. I tried to swing it toward the marina, but it didn't go far and the next time I pulled it up it seemed to have attracted even more weeds. Refusing to give in, however, I tried swinging it back and forth a little before heaving it once more toward our destination.

In retrospect, standing on the nose of a moving boat swinging a 40 pound weight on a rope seems like an obviously misguided idea. I promptly found myself in the water. When my wife appeared leaning over the side of the boat - after having gotten control of her laughter - I handed her my cell phone which had, of course, been in my pocket. As I handed it to her, I noticed it was ringing - not for long, though. We found out later that it was our son calling back to check on us. When we didn't answer he just went to bed.

Our next plan was that we would tie a couple of our ropes together and I'd swim into the marina and then I could pull the boat in and we'd tie it off and walk home. I took off my already wet shirt, grabbed the end of the rope, dove in, and headed for shore.

Naturally I didn't have enough rope to make it all the way. I swam back to the boat, added a ski rope to my other rope and took another crack at it. This time I made all the way in and was able to pull the boat in - after my wife strained her back pulling the weed enveloped anchor up - and tie it to the dock.

All that was left was for us to walk home - barefoot of course - and fall into bed just as the rain started coming down. Apparently the rain gods missed a meeting as they obviously should have arrived much earlier.

I got up early the next morning, grabbed our two six-gallon gas cans, filled them up, and parked at the marina. After emptying the first one into the boat, I once again turned the ignition. No good. The starter sounded fine, but the engine wouldn't turn over.

Okay. Maybe it's the battery - although it doesn't sound like it. So I go back to the truck and head home to pick up the jump starter I bought last year when we kept running our battery down. Hooked it up to the boat battery and tried the ignition.

Nope. No go. At this point I was fuming - sure that something was Really Wrong with the boat and I was going to have to beg someone to tow us to a boat ramp so we could trailer it and take it into the shop. As I stood looking around the boat, trashed from our efforts of the previous night, I noticed a red cord laying on the ground.

Our boat has a safety feature that consists of a switch attached to a string with a clip on the other end which one is supposed to attach to one's clothing while driving the boat. I guess the idea is that if you get thrown out of the boat, the switch is pulled free and kills the engine so that the boat doesn't just keep going. Apparently, as we were moving the broken driver's seat around after we'd anchored the boat we pulled the switch loose.

I picked the cord up, reattached the switch, and turned the key.

The boat started right up.

Rehnquist 5

Dave Kopel investigates the history of the term "Rehnquist Five" and finds its first use in 1988. As used most recently, the five are "Rehnquist and O'Connor, Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Thomas". So who was number five back in '88 - before Thomas was appointed in '91?

Hurricane musings

I continue to be awed by the devastation in Katrina's wake. The property damage as well as the breakdown in civilization. I think we largely think of ourselves (in America and the rest of the 'civilized world') as above the barbarism that has manifest in New Orleans these last couple of days.

I know I do.

It's depressing to think we're all one big disaster away from living a third world kind of life. A life where gangs of thugs - I keep picturing cave men - wander around taking whatever they want, raping and pillaging. How quickly our social fabric shreds.

I know that's not the only story, and in reality it's really a small part of the bigger picture. The much bigger story is the one where people are digging deep to help strangers who are their brothers and sisters in this time of need. That's the big story and the one that will absolutely win out.

And yet, I can't get the other story out of my mind. It makes me wish I was a gun owner. Because when you find yourself in a jungle surrounded by vicious animals there's nothing else that's quite so effective at helping you protect your family and your property.
--

UPDATE (29 Sept)
I'm glad to hear that things in New Orleans were not so barbaric as they were portrayed at the time, but I'm frankly furious that better information wasn't available from the MSM - and from my trusted bloggers.

This was a situation where bloggers could only do so much. There was no power, no phones, no cells in the heart of the devastation. This was a situation where it was up to the MSM to get people in there, talk to people on the ground, and find out what was really happening. Instead they relied on 2nd, 3rd, and nth hand accounts that turned ou to be completely unreliable. It was essentially a game of post office presented as fact.

Hurricane Relief

Gas prices have jumped in the last few days. That's pretty much it for how Katerina affected my life.

Others were more significantly impacted. Here's what the city of New Orleans has to look forward to:

"  First they have to pump the flooded city dry, and that will take a minimum of 30 days. Then they will have to flush the drinking water system, making sure they don't recycle the contaminants. Figure another month for that.
  The electricians will have to watch out for snakes in the water, wild animals and feral dogs. It will be a good idea to wear hip boots and take care of cuts and scrapes before the toxic slush turns them into festering sores. The power grid might be up in a few weeks, but many months will elapse before everybody's lights come back on.
  By that time, a lot of people won't care because they will have taken the insurance money and moved away — forever. Home rebuilding, as opposed to repairs, won't start for a year and will last for years after that.
  Even then, there may be nothing normal about New Orleans, because the floodwater, spiked with tons of contaminants ranging from heavy metals and hydrocarbons to industrial waste, human feces and the decayed remains of humans and animals, will linger nearby in the Gulf of Mexico for a decade."  (from The Washington Post)

Here's an interview with a New Orleans resident who chose to remain in town with his wife, an oncology nurse who stayed her post rather than head for higher ground.

The population of New Orleans is 1,337,726 with about 484,674 in the city proper.

And that's just New Orleans. The hurricane came ashore across the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama, and into the Florida Panhandle as well.

Millions of Americans will need help for a long time.

Please do what you can.

I donated to Mercy Corps. And I'm planning to make a family project out of putting together some relief kits as described here over the weekend.

Other ideas:
Soldiers' Angels - relief effort targeted at families of servicepeople in the area.
American Red Cross
Feed the Children.
Salvation Army
Canal Street Presbyterian Church - this is church in New Orleans
Brett Favre is collecting materials to help with the clean up.

FEMA has published a list of recommended organizations here

Be aware that there are, of course, people looking to take advantage of this situation, so use a bit of caution if you're inclined to donate to other organizations. Many certainly are legitimate, but many are not.

thanks for your time,
tom

Soccer crunch time

Both our boys won their district tournaments last weekend and are on to state. Pix up here, here and here, though can't imagine anyone would care...

Happiness is a warm bed ...

I listened to the Wendy Wild show last night on the way home through a downpour. Her guest was The Factman - a professor at a local university.

They covered several topics mostly dealing with economics - he's not professor of economics, of course, but he's the Factman so it's okay. One of the arguments they made was that the American Dream is essentially over. While it may have been true in the golden days of yore, now the disparity between the super rich elite and the common person is so great that if you're not already rich you may as well resign yourself to a life of serfdom.

Sorry, not buying any of it, thanks.

Obviously, not everyone can be rich. In order for the word rich to have meaning it's opposite must exist. There will always be some people who are more asset-endowed than other people and every attempt to make things otherwise has failed miserably.

They cited a report that Europe has recently passed the US in terms of economic mobility (sorry no link). This was their evidence that poor people can't become rich anymore. I can't address the report other than to quote Twain - "lies, damn lies, and statistics". If you have an agenda it's easy to find numbers to support it. I don't know if that's the case here, but I'm just sayin'...

The US as portrayed in 1950's sitcoms may be only a pleasant memory - to whatever extent it ever existed - but look around. People in the US are doing okay, today. Not just the super rich. And most of them start out at less than zero.

My wife and I are both college grads and we came out of school with a bunch of student loans. At the age of 22 I was an unmarried college grad working as a waiter with a child on the way. When my girlfriend (eventually my wife) and I moved in together we took my bed from my parents house and I think we had a card table and chairs. That was it for furniture. For our first Christmas I bought us a microwave and a television.

Money was tight for a lot of years. There was nothing easy about it. I went back to school (twice!) and worked full time. Our story together started out some 17 years ago and we've had our share of ups and downs, but today we live in a really nice house.

We're not wealthy (yet), but we're successful by most any measure, and frankly, we're happier than anyone else we know. But we're no happier now than we were when we started out with less than nothing. We just kept working and believed that things would eventually be better. And they were.

That's the American dream. You can get pretty much anything you want if you're willing to work and wait for it. It's not easy and it shouldn't be. But the dream is definitely still alive and flourishing. So the rich have gotten richer. So what. The poor have gotten richer, too.

Churchill, youth, idiot ...

We moved recently and had a lot of stuff to unload. Over the weekend I put some ads up on Craigslist and got a great response. I had heard of the site a few years ago, I guess, but never spent much time looking at it.

As I was clicking around on it last night - in between responding to emails about my big internet/garage sale - I took a look in the Rants and Raves section and there was a post (language warning) from a (presumably) college student who was offended by a group of pro-life activists on campus.

By and large I don't disagree with much of what he had to say regarding abortion. My own nutshell thought on abortion (which was similar to at least one point made by the poster) - is that whether abortion is legal or not it's going to happen. Either it happens in a clinical setting with counseling services or it happens in back alleys with coat hangers. I think the whole late-term abortion issue is something of a straw-man. It's good PR for the anti-abortion folks, but I just don't think it happens very often. My wife is actually an OB nurse and she agrees.

Anyway, my point was that I agree with his view on abortion, but I had issues with his broad generalizations about Republicans as basically evil - " because lets face it, if you’re die-hard pro-life, you’re a fucking republican."

I'm neither pro-life, nor a Republican, although I have voted primarily Republican in the last few elections. I lean more to libertarian than either of the big parties.

Here are his arguments that pro-choice=Democrats>pro-life=Republicans(=devil):
"1) The person is poor. They cannot afford to sustain themselves and a child without adversely affecting the quality of their already shitty lives. The pro-choice left seeks to offer the lower class tax breaks and transfer payments from the upper class. The left increases funding to social welfare programs and public assistance. Republicans burden the poor with taxes while passing tax cuts to the wealthy. Welfare programs are eliminated."

The poor don't pay taxes - at least not income taxes. I think it's the bottom 20% of earners pay $0 in taxes, and of course the highest tax rates are on the wealthy. As a society, I think we need to take care of the less fortunate, but with the provision that being lazy doesn't make you unfortunate. If there's a good reason somebody doesn't have a job then they should get help. And kids should always get help - food, medical care, education. Young mothers, too, as the caregivers of the kids should get some help - food, medical care, daycare, education.
BUT I'm pretty sure the government is not the right organization to handle all of that. There's no reason that kind of thing can't happen in the non-profit sector - churches and other organizations already do a lot of charitable work and more efficiently than the government ever could.

"2) The person is uneducated. They aren’t aware of birth-control options that are at their disposal. They are unskilled laborers and therefore have little to no potential to “make-it.” The left seeks to educate high-school students over birth control, offer birth control to teens, and make plan-B available without a prescription. The left supports education by increasing funding to schools. Republicans tend toward the opposite. Children are, with a degree of futility, taught to “wait until marriage” and are fed mis-information that claims birth control can lead to infertility. Public education programs are cut, creating more working class individuals while manufacturing jobs are exported to exploitable regions of the world. "

I have a son in high school. Last year I handed him a box of condoms and told him that his mom and I would prefer that he wait until he was older before having sex, but that we didn't expect that he would consult with us and we wanted him to be prepared. I don't expect him to wait until marriage. I'd rather he wait a year or two at least, but I know that's not realistic. If some girl wants to have sex with him, I don't see him saying, "No, thanks". I know I wouldn't have.
And as far as education funding - it's a bottomless pit. We've been throwing money at it for a lot of years and it has made no noticeable difference. Education needs help, but there's no easy answer for providing that help. School administration needs to get more efficient so that money that's spent on administration can be spent on classroom teachers.
Outsourcing is a touchy issue, but the reality is we live in a global economy and manufacturing can be done a lot cheaper in other countries than here - at least for some things. It's not about exploitation, it's about cost of living. I don't think the people who are getting the jobs are feeling too exploited. There will always be outliers and so there will always be instances of evil being done, but by and large I don't think that most US corporations are looking to exploit their foreign workers. They're just looking for cost savings.
Many on the left seem to be all for a Global Community, but not so much interested in a Global Economy. I'm not sure you can have the one without the other.

"3) The birth is unsupported by friends and family. Meaning the abortion seeker is afraid of alienating themselves from their friends and family, school and workplace, and their entire community. Leftists offer support centers and their families tend to be much more accepting. Right wing nuts threaten the woman with the wrath of god, disown her, or send her to a hospital where the child and mother are nurtured in a concealed and unfit environment. "

We seem to be talking primarily about younger mothers here - most likely teens. I think there's almost always some stigma attached to teens - especially high school or younger - becoming pregnant, no matter your position on the political spectrum. I think the number of 'right wing nuts' who behave as described is pretty small, but he seems to be applying the label to anyone who's right of left. That's just a silly generalization.

Riding report

Weather's gorgeous. The ride in this morning was even a little brisk. We
have a bike trip coming up and if we have weather like this it'll be
perfect. Can't imagine we could be that lucky, though.

Not quite a year later ...

and nothing's changed in Darfur.
But that's not important right now because Jacko got off and was found not guilty - and a few isolated incidents in Guantanamo prove that America = Fascism.
Okay.

Reply from Senator Coleman

July 22, 2004

Mr. Tom Clements
(Address removed)

Thank you for taking the time to contact me concerning the Darfur region in Sudan. I share your concern for the violence in the region and your desire to see an end to the four decades of conflict in Sudan that have claimed an estimated 2 million lives and displaced 3 million people. I applaud the intensive diplomatic efforts of the Bush Administration to find a lasting resolution to Sudan's crises, and I agree that we must press the Sudanese for more progress concerning Darfur in particular.

I recently sent a letter to the Administration urging the President to take steps to prevent the current crisis and to stop the atrocities being committed in Sudan. I followed that letter with another letter to Secretary Powell asking for additional funding for emergency assistance, an international monitoring operation and long-term aid for the affected people. My letter also urged the new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations to pressure the U.N. Security Council to take action to prevent any further tragedy.

With my support, the Senate recently passed a concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 99) introduced by Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) condemning the Government of Sudan for its participation and complicity in the attacks against innocent civilians in the impoverished Darfur region of western Sudan. I also supported an amendment to the fiscal year 2005 Defense Appropriations bill to provide an additional $70 million in humanitarian aid to the Darfur region.

President Bush has called on the government of Sudan to "immediately stop local militias from committing atrocities against the local population and [to] provide unrestricted access to humanitarian aid agencies." U.S. officials have stressed that there will be no normalizing of relations between the U.S. and Sudan until the government addresses the humanitarian and security needs in Darfur.

I was pleased that on June 28, Secretary of State Colin Powell made a trip to Sudan to pressure the Sudanese government to stop the violence perpetuated by the militias. He received assurances from the Sudanese government that they will ease all restrictions on visas for humanitarian workers and make sure there is no interruption of humanitarian supplies or relief convoys. He received a specific commitment from the Sudanese government that they will use their police and military forces to disarm the militias and to provide security for the people. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan also made a visit to the Sudan to increase international pressure on Sudan to stop the crisis.

Because of Sudan's sponsorship of terrorism and violation of human rights, a range of sanctions are in place against Sudan. The U.S. has threatened to seek U.N. sanctions against Sudan if it does not cooperate with the international relief effort geared to the Darfur region. Further, the U.S. has called for a special session of the Commission on Human Rights to deal with Sudan, as well as, a strong resolution condemning the ongoing atrocities in Darfur.

Please know that as a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, I will continue to work toward lasting peace in Sudan and a halt to the crisis in Darfur.

Thank you once again for taking the time to contact me. I value your advice. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance to you.

Because of Sudan's sponsorship of terrorism and violation of human rights, a range of sanctions are in place against Sudan. The U.S. has threatened to seek U.N. sanctions against Sudan if it does not cooperate with the international relief effort geared to the Darfur region. Further, the U.S. has called for a special session of the Commission on Human Rights to deal with Sudan, as well as, a strong resolution condemning the ongoing atrocities in Darfur.

Please know that as a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, I will continue to work toward lasting peace in Sudan and a halt to the crisis in Darfur.

Thank you once again for taking the time to contact me. I value your advice. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance to you.

Reply from Senator Dayton

Thank you for taking the time to contact me in Washington. I appreciate
your message. However, due to the large volume of e-mails I receive daily
and the variety of issues they address, it may take some time to respond
to your concerns. I regret any such delay, and I assure you that you will
receive a response in the near future.

Thank you again for taking the time to be in touch with me.

My best regards.

Sincerely,

Mark Dayton
United States Senator

home improving

I'm in the middle of laying slate in our mudroom. Kind of a longish story -


Gerri's sister built a new house. After they moved in, they decided they wanted a black washer and dryer, not the white one they picked out initially. This led to Gerri deciding we should buy their white set to replace ours.


Since we were going to have the washer and dryer out anyway, she figured we might as well go ahead and replace the vinyl. It's a project that's been on our list for a few years, but never near the top. Until now.


It's going okay, but none too quickly. Last night I made all the straight cuts. Most of the whole tiles are down. Hopefully tonight I can finish up the tiles I cut last night. Then all I should have left are a handful of fitted cuts to do to go around corners, the gas pipe, and the central air vent.

France - appeasers even at the micro level

A 23-year-old mother is attacked by 6 young men on a commuter train and 20 witnesses stand by and watch. Supposedly she was "mistaken for a Jew."

The woman told police that the men, described as North Africans and blacks, then cut off locks of her hair, opened her shirt with their knives and used markers to draw three swastikas on her stomach.

There's something ironic about that.

Darfur

My letter to my congressman:

Mr. Kline

Please do not allow our great nation to stand by and watch genocide
take place yet again in Africa. We should do whatever we can -
including the use of force - to stop the wholesale murder of innocent
people.

We can't be the world's police force, trying to stop every crime and attacking every government we don't agree with. But we should not let the fear of this perception stop us from doing the right thing when so many people are being slaughtered.

Thank you,

tom clements

I sent something similar to the president.

soccer dad

Both boys' soccer teams had districts over the weekend. No. 1 son lost, No. 2 son won. They were good games, but it was a lot of driving.
The U14 team are a lot of fun to watch. They're have talent at every position, but they have a tendancy to get down and quit when things aren't going their way. In Saturday's game we went up 1-0 at the start of the second half and held the lead for a while before the opponents snuck one in (we snuck ours in, too :-)).

That was okay, we were still playing well.

Then the game got a little physical - not out of control, but more physical - and my son wound up getting a yellow card for a slide tackle from behind. He definitely deserved the penalty. I thought the card was maybe a little much, only because one of the players on the other team was called for three separate dangerous plays without a card. Actually, I don't mean to complain about the ref - I really thought he did well. I would have liked for his assistants to be a little more helpful, but all in all the game was well officiated.

The problem was with our team. As soon as my son got the card, the wind was completely out of our sails. We just quit trying. The other team scored two goals in quick succession and won 3-1. We need to learn to continue playing hard even when everything breaks against us.

The U11 games were less frustrating - but then winning usually is. My boy was in goal for both games and did well. He had played in the field for the last few games, so he was a little rusty in the first game on Saturday. They scored one on him early, but that was all.

The championship game on Sunday was very exciting. The other team scored first. The field was soaked and there was puddle in the box that made it hard to play the ball - it would be heading in at a good pace, my boy would head out to pick it up and it would hit the puddle and stop well before he expected. That left him out of position and allowed the opposing player to get to the ball first and tap it in.

We scored one to tie it and that's how the game ended. My son had a couple of diving saves in the second half to hold them and we managed to win in the second overtime period on a corner kick that one of our players bent into the goal. Very exciting stuff - at least for a soccer dad.

Gifted and talented

Got a form letter yesterday that eventually told me that No. 2 son was being dropped from the local Gifted and Talented program. There's a phone number listed to contact the school director for the program. It's the main school number, not a direct line. And of course there's no one in the office until August.

I'm sure it's a coincidence, the letters coming out in early July.

In the first place, I'm not a big fan of Gifted and Talented programs and would probably just let it go except that No. 1 son is still one of the select few.

I think enrichment activities are beneficial for all kids - not just the ones who score better on standardized tests or meet some subjective criteria of the staff. I don't think that G&T kids get anymore out of it than others. I don't like the idea of institutionalizing an intellectual elitism at the elementary school level. Everyone already knows who the smart kids are, they don't need the schools to tell them.

The same day we got that letter, we got the letter saying the No.1 son was still in the program (level 1 - the higher level) and listing the 'criteria' for both levels. Level 1 is supposed to be the top 5% and Level 2 is the top 10%. A number of qualifying factors are listed - test scores being one. From what I remember, No. 2 son scored well on his standardized tests - 97th percentile, I think, in at least one area,and I think above 90th in all areas. Pretty similar to No. 1 son, actually, although they definitely have different personalities and intellectual strengths.

So I'm going to track down the powers that be and have them explain their decision to me. Even though I'd rather just see the program trashed and the money go toward enrichment activities for everyone.

I knew it!!

Coffee: the new health drink. (registration required)
I can finally thumb my nose at all those green tea snobs and their antioxidants - "coffee may contain even more--specifically polyphenols."
I have to observe that some (at least) of the research is funded by coffee-producing countries.
I can live with that.
And - Finland turns out to be the coffee-drinkingest country on earth.

War Doves in the Press

Reading this from Instapundit I'm just appalled at the shameless, arrogant stupidity of some of our MAJOR news outlets. I don't know if the idea of the objective journalist has always been a myth, if the reality has always been that reporters (and probably more so publishers and editors) try to shape public opinion with what they report. I know some papers are well known to be more liberal than others, but haven't they taken their bias to a new level in the last couple of years?

I don't think I'm too naive, but this kind of thing pushes me closer to cynical than I'd like to be.

gMail

I signed up for my new gmail account last week when I rediscovered Blogger. They asked if I wanted one, and I said, 'yes. OH yes.'

so far, so good. I like the conversational organization, the labels, and the keyboard shortcuts. I look forward to a few more features -

more filter options - like being able to forward messages to another email address
pop access - this will be huge. I've been pissed at Yahoo ever since they dropped this service. I hope google doesn't get greedy and try to make it a premium service.
contacts - it's awesome that it automatically adds people to the contacts list, but I would like to be able to organize all my contact info here. Import and export options would be nice. In fact why not integrate search functionality to try to look up addresses for people. That would be hard to do well, but google is the search company.

Now I just have to decide at what point do I tell people I have a new email address. I hate that. That's one of the main reasons I use yahoo as my primary email - no matter who my ISP is my email stays the same.

Latest jones

I'm getting an itch for a new bike. Okay, the itch is in full swing.

We went to Arizona a couple of months ago to rent Harleys and ride around for three days. We went with 5 other people and had a great time - better by far than we even expected.

We stayed in Belmont, an exit about 10 miles west of Flagstaff. We expected that all of Arizona would be hot in May. It never occurred to us - until all our reservations were made, at least - to check the usual temps. It was a little chillier than we anticipated.

Day one we picked up the bikes - in the snow, of course - and then rode down to Sedona. It was beautiful and considerably warmer. One of the most interesting aspects of the trip was the way temperature, vegetation, and general appearance changed so dramatically in an hour's ride out from Flagstaff - temperate forest in the canyon on the way to Sedona giving way to desert, pine forests around Flagstaff, chaparral to the northwest on the way to the Grand Canyon.

Day two - no snow - we headed east out of Flagstaff stopping first at Walnut Canyon. We hiked the tourist trail through the park and looked at the handiwork of the Sinagua people who built their homes in the cliffs of the canyon. Our next stop was the Meteor Crator made famous in the movie Starman. It was interesting, but hardly worth the US$10 per person to see the big hole in the ground.

Continuing east we stopped for lunch at the The Brown Mug in Winslow Arizona, such a fine sight to see. Winslow is a sad little town. Truly the only clean, well-kempt part was the corner where they had created an homage to the Eagle's song Take it Easy. There was a mural on the side of a building and a statue of a guy with a guitar standing on the corner. The food was really good, though. At both our previous stops that day a stranger had recommended that we go there for lunch. That was too compelling to pass on. It was Mexican fare, and really, really good. Couldn't tell you what I ate, but it was tasty.

After lunch we continued east (less trepid travelers would have turned for home, but that wasn't us) to the north entrance of The Petrified Forest\Painted Desert National Park. The park has two entrances with 26 miles of blacktop between them. We rode through stopping at every scenic turn out and took many pictures. It was truly stunning and we enjoyed it a lot.

The bad news was that we came out of the park 90 miles from Flagstaff and it was getting dark. Flagstaff, for those of you as igorant of Arizona topography as we were, sits at an elevation of about 7000 feet - pretty well up the shoulder of a mountain. It was a long cold ride home. We made decent time - averaging a little over 80 mph all the way.

Day three we spent at the Grand Canyon. Wow. 'Nuf said.

It was an awesome trip. Gerri said she enjoyed it more than our last cruise, and I had to agree. We're already planning for another trip.

Meanwhile, since riding that Softail around for three days I've been looking at bigger bikes and trying to decide what I want. I don't want a Harley. I just feel like they're way overpriced - even the used ones. Someone was explaining to me that they were an investment. I didn't contradict them, but I don't agree. I keep surfing through CarSoup and CycleTrader.

Gerri likes the cruiser style, but I'm leaning more toward a sport touring look. I think I just need to go for a few test rides to see what feels best. I was pretty comfortable on that Harley, I have to admit. I just think I'd like a bigger fairing and more storage up front. For now, I'll just keep dreaming...

Darndest things

Maia: "Mommy are you missing your mom today?"

Mommy: "Sweetie, I miss her everyday."

Maia: "I think you're just sad because you can't see her. But she's
not sad because she's in heaven and she can still see you anytime."

Grief

My wife's mother died about a month ago. She was golfing with her friends and a blood vessel in her brain essentially blew up. For her part it was in all likelihood a nice way to go. No pain - just a little confusion and then fade to black.

For the rest of the family it has been horrible. My wife has a brother and a sister. Everyone was together for the 4 or 5 days she was on life support and for 3 days after she died - planning and then living through the wake and funeral.

Then everyone went back to their lives.

Now it's been just over a month and many people expect the grieving to be winding down. And that makes it even harder, because it's not. People who've lived through it know better. It takes at least a year before you START to feel normal again - before the grief is not sitting right there on your shoulder waiting to blind side you when you aren't looking.

The first year is the hardest because it's the year of firsts - everyone has their first birthday without their mom (or wife or sister ...), the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas. And as hard as those are, sometimes it's the other days that are worse. My wife talked to her mom about twice a day every day. Close doesn't begin to describe how they were. The impulse to call her is deeply ingrained. That's the part many people don't get.

At least a year before you BEGIN to feel normal, and several more years before you really feel normal.
Of course, you never get over it. You learn to live with it as people have always done, but you don't get over it.

Twelve-stepping The West Wing

Gerri and I are addicted to The West Wing. We were late to the party - never watched it until the last six or eight months. We discovered it was on Bravo every weeknight, and now we're hooked.

It's frustrating to watch, because you want people like these running the country - principled, honest, driven to find and do the right thing even when it's not the easy thing.

In the episode I just watched, five US DEA agents have been kidnapped in Columbia and the President sends in the army to get them out rather than agree to have a drug mob leader released from prison. It was the right thing to do - you don't negotiate with terrorists.

But this show is pre-9/11 and the message ends up being that sometimes the means (negotiating with terrorists) is justified if it gets you to the ends you want (your hostages free). And while I (being a post 9/11 kind of guy) can't agree with that - I have zero tolerance for terrorists - I still can't help loving a show that has the president meeting a military transport plane at 4:00 am because it's bringing home the bodies of 9 soldiers he sent into harm's way.

Yes, it's television, and Martin Sheen is a political LOON in the real world, but damn it Josiah Bartlett is a Democrat I might actually consider voting for.

Like I said, it's television.

What this country needs ...

is compulsory national service.

Graduate from high school and give two years to your country in the military. Drop out of high school and start right away.

Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines - it's a great place to start.

What got me started down this path was Toys for Tots - the Marine Corps 50+ year-old tradition of collecting toys for poor kids. A nice warm fuzzy program that's hard to criticize.

I got the pitch today in an email at work. This was the part that caught my attention:

The Toys for Tots message of hope for the future has motivated youngsters to grow into responsible, productive, patriotic citizens and community leaders. Toys for Tots has earned the distinction as a program which plays an important role in helping youngsters emerge from a background of poverty to adulthood as assets to society. Toys for Tots is one vehicle for addressing the issue of poverty among children.

The more I thought about it, the more I decided that it was far more likely to generate resentment among many of the recipients. The only long-term benefit I could imagine was that the sight of marines in dress blues might inspire some of the kids to join the military which would probably do as much as anything to get someone out of poverty.

Full disclosure: I was never in the military. But I've often thought it would have been better for me to go into the service before going to college. I got to college with a lousy work ethic and no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I wound up with an English degree - which I don't use much in my life as a software engineer. It ended up taking me almost ten years and two more degrees to find my career.

A little esprit de corps might help us all just get along a little better. I'm concerned that if something doesn't happen to curb the income disparity that's been growing for the past few years we could be in for some hard times. Ghettos and projects could make good recruiting grounds for homegrown terrorists.

I gotta get back to work, but in a nutshell - I think compulsory military service could address poverty and give everyone a little common ground.

Synchronicity
To the best of my memory, I've never seen the term Kubrickian before in my life.
Now, I've seen it twice in one hour.
First from Lileks

But it was the dank Kubrickian fog of hopelessness that grew tiresome. The boy’s search for meaning and redemption is just another variant of the human search for the same, since we’re all machines in one form or another. He prays uselessly to a Coney Island statue, humankind prays pointlessly to various deities, and none of it matters because the world freezes over and everybody dies.

Then in a piece in the New York Times Magazine:

Making a soldier stronger and better through stress inoculation and operant conditioning seems a bit Kubrickian -- and unsettling. I wasn't sure what to think when Col. Charles King, who commands the First Special Warfare Training Group at Fort Bragg, told me that he trains his soldiers in negotiation and combat -- and that they can turn from one to the other in a split second. ''These guys have got to be able not only to work with you but to shoot you, if necessary,'' he said. We laughed awkwardly, and he quickly added that Special Forces soldiers would never shoot a journalist. We laughed again, awkwardly, and I chose not to mention that a U.S. military commander had threatened to shoot a Washington Post journalist who was trying to visit a site in Afghanistan where an American airstrike appeared to have killed civilians

That's just weird - and kinda cool.
*[Italics mine, of course]

my free host bolted on me
I'm trying to switch to Blogspot.
Ha.

Funny one
We don't get to church as much as we probably should. We're Catholic. What can I say. Anyway, we were there Sunday.
Maia (3) is understandably a little confused about the whole experience. First of all, we've told her that Bogie (our dear departed Miniature Schauzer) has gone to live with Jesus. So whenever we're at church she's pretty sure that Bogie is there somewhere.
This week we explained (in hushed tones) that Jesus was up on the cross behind the altar. And on the other wall was an image of his Mary and Joseph with him when he was a baby.
So Mass is over (finally, don't get me started...) and we're walking out past Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Maia says, "There's Jesus with his mommy and daddy."
And we nod happily. (Religious education proceeding)
Maia looks around and says, "Where's Bogie?"

Phidipedes and me
I ran in the Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday. First time and in all likelihood it will be the last time.

Gerri ran it last year and I ran with her for the last 10 or so miles. more later ...

update
I'm finally getting back to this after a couple of weeks. I don't have time to blog. The real bloggers amaze me.
Anyway, about the marathon - it was an experience. I don't really consider myself a runner. Gerri's a runner. She's into it, runs all the time, gets edgy when she doesn't get to run. I run occasionally when the stars are properly aligned (warm enough outside, no kid events to attend, etc.) for exercise only.
I wish I was a runner, but I'm too Type B. I think you have to be at least a little obsessive/compulsive to really be a runner, but I could be wrong.
Despite this fact I did actually complete the marathon - an hour after Gerri, of course, but hey, give me a break. My shirt (thanks, dear) said First Marathon on the front which generated a fair number of comments and Last Marathon on the back which got a handful of laughs from people who actually noticed.
I got quite a few comments from other runners on the Last Marathon bit.(As they were passing me, obviously) Most along the lines of "Oh, sure. I say that every year."
I haven't really decided if it was really my last marathon, but it's my last for a while. I don't want to attempt it again until I have more time to train properly. What I found was that I wasn't going to get up at 5:00 a.m. to run (I wasn't too surprised) and running after work just didn't work. Our evenings are way too busy.
Maybe when the kids are older ...

Yoplait, et al and their 'philanthropic' promotions
If Yoplait is so interested in funding research for breast cancer, why do I have to send in the lid from my yogurt? If you want to impress me just donate the money - a nickel for every tub sold or whatever. Tell me about it all you want. You can have the same huge ad campaign, print the same self-congratulatory slogans on your lids, and have the same or greater impact on cancer research.
If you want to generate some mail you could even ask your customers to match your contributions. I'd be more inclined to do that than to send you back the lid from my yogurt. Yuck.

Another Falling Woman bit
I hadn't seen the sculpture - just references on Instapundit and other sites. So I finally made an effort to find an image.
The first link I found to it was blocked by our corporate filter (Websense) with the category of offensive site designated 'tasteless'.
If I were inclined to apoplexy it would have been ugly.
I understand (but don't necessarily agree with) the company's desire to keep me from visiting porn, or gambling, or hate-related sites. But I'm a little upset that my employer is now going to audit my 'taste' in the workplace.
Natch, I didn't let this stop me and had relatively little trouble finding an image I could get to. I Googled for 'falling woman statue', I think.

Ben and Foster
Foster and Ben are bonded. We just laugh. The dog tolerates the rest of us - the kids more than Gerri and me - but he just adores Ben.
Now that the kids are back in school, Foster spends most of his day looking for Ben. Gerri said she's sure if he could talk he would just repeat, "I can't find him. Have you seen him? Where is he? I can't smell him. Can you help me find him?"

Carlin
Watching George Carlin on HBO. Omigod, he's a riot. The really scary thing is a lot of times he makes perfect sense. At least to me.

His solution for ending the 'drug problem': capital punishment. Not for the dealers or the users - kill the bankers who launder the drug money.

Darndest things ...
I just got back from lunch and had the following message on my voicemail from Gerri.

"Maia told me to call and tell you that the next time she gets on your motorcycle she wants you to put her car seat on it so she doesn't fall off and get an owie. And don't laugh about it."

Looking back

I've been looking at some of the re-posts from year-ago blogs. Interesting that a couple (that I've seen) of the stars of the blogosphere(Eric S. and Instapundit (look for 'Tom Clancy')) saw immediately that the biggest danger facing our country post 9/11/01 wasn't Osama or Saddam, but our own (over)-reaction to the attack.


I don't mean the military stuff. I'm down with that. I'm talking about the way we couldn't wait to give up our freedom and privacy. Judicial review for wiretaps? We don't need no stinking judicial review. Big Brother keeps us safe. Big Brother is our friend.


Politics is opportunistic. And there's been a lot of opportunity, lately, to wreak havoc on the founding ideals of this nation.

9/11 Rant
I'm a little fed up with the tributes to the victims and heroes of 9/11.

I realize this is an unpopular position, but what irritates me is that every day in this country and around the globe people die tragically and act heroically. How many people starve to death every day? How many are tortured, maimed, abused? How many people save others from burning buildings, perform CPR, defend their homes from criminals or their countries from enemies?

The World Trade Center is gone along with several thousand people. We can do nothing for those people or those buildings or those airplanes. But there are other tragedies occurring right now that we can actually do something about.

How about instead of another tribute or memorial for the events of 9/11/2001 we do something a little more constructive.

When you say, "Have you thought about counseling?" ...
Does that really mean - "I think you're fucking up, but I'm not going to tell you why I think that. Go see a stranger."


Does counseling ever really work? I know with marriage counseling it usually seems like a last resort for two people who've already checked out of a relationship. Something to do so they can say they tried everything.
Which isn't to say they DIDN'T try everything. Maybe they did, but by the time they got to counseling at least one of them was already gone.

How not to leave your wife
Don't tell her you haven't loved her for X years. She doesn't need to know this.
Don't tell her you're not attracted to her body type. Bad enough you're leaving her - why destroy her self-esteem.
Don't tell her you're scrogging a 21-year-old co-ed. Yeah, she'll find out eventually, but she doesn't need to hear it now.
I'm sure there are more, but those are the mistakes one of my old high school friends recently made. At least IMO.
Divorce is no big deal when there aren't any kids or they're older. When you have small kids it should be an absolute last resort. Suck it up!

UPDATE:
Okay, just looking back over my posts and I'm laughing at my contradictory statements. In this post I'm dogging my buddy for leaving his kids. In a previous post (July 3) I stated that I thought my wife's friend should divorce her husband.

To try to clarify - I DO think divorce should be a last resort and a certain amount of sucking-it-up is sometimes necessary. But I also don't think you do your kids much of a favor if you continue in a marriage where you can't stand your spouse - where you come to despise them.

My high school buddy was probably at that point, and so it may well be for the best. And my wife’s friend has been separated for two years – her kids are already used to it.

What to do with people who abuse kids
I was just reading about the rape and murder of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion. I don't understand. How can anyone do such a thing?
It doesn't help that I have a 5-year-old daughter. I can't help imagining how I would feel if it happened to her. I don't think that's something you can ever get over. It would consume your whole life. To know that the last hours of her life were spent in terror and confusion.
I don't support state-sanctioned capital punishment. ONLY because I think that one innocent person put to death by the state is unacceptable.
However.
If anyone were to rape and murder my daughter, I would certainly kill them if I could. If I were absolutely sure that they did it. Certainly if I caught them in the act.
Some people do deserve to die. Absolutely, they do.

Monogamy
We were philosophizing last night after our softball extravaganza. (We won one, lost one - a good outing for us) Gerri and I were the oldest folks - at 40 and 36 - at the table and the only couple. Z was giving us a bit of a hard time and she said, "You're so OLD, and you act like a couple of 18 year olds."
Someone else said, "That's why you're still together."
Thinking about that the next morning (now) I think there's certainly some truth there. We are the happiest couple I know. We like each other. We like to be together. Not to say it's paradise, we have spats. We get crabby with each other, sometimes. But on balance I can't imagine being happy without her.
So how does that happen?
A lot of our friends are divorced or in not-so-happy marriages. One of Gerri's friends is just divorced (or almost divorced, I don't remember) and it was a torturous decision for her. Gerri and I had many conversations about her situation and what we thought she should do.
She's not in love with him anymore. But she's afraid of divorcing him and then suddenly finding herself in love with him again.
I just don't think that happens. So my thought is that divorce is the right thing for her. They have two small kids, but they've been separated for the last 20 months. Their kids are used to them not being together and I think divorce is actually easier on younger kids. (Guess I could do some research on that theory ...)
I'm rambling a little. What I was trying to get at was how do you know when you've found a soulmate. And I guess you just know. I never had any real doubts about Gerri and me, and we had quite a few obstacles thrown in our way. We just knew that we had to be together.

The New Patriotism
I'm not sure what bugs me so much about the new patriotism that's sprung from the ashes of the WTC. I haven't added any new flags to my wardrobe. I haven't taped a paper copy of Old Glory to any windows on my house or car. I don't think this makes me any less a patriot than the masses who have made such displays.

In the weeks following the attacks I felt a heightened sense of community with my country-mates. Though I have to confess, one of the first things I did on the day of the attacks was to look up the number of people killed when we A-bombed Japan. I wanted to put this event in some sort of context.

That initial communal instinct was a natural one, I think. Sometime after that first month or so, though, I felt like it began to feel different. The entrepreneurs and marketing firms were in full stride to find the most profitable angles. The government was blowing the trumpets of the War on Terrorism. It just began to feel too managed, too contrived, too spun.

There was a lot of posturing. Threats were made. Tears were shed. And in the end - or should I say to date - not a whole Hell of a lot has really been done. We took over the weakest Muslim country we could find where - so it was said - U/Osama bin Ladin was holed up.

Much like the heralded War on [some] Drugs, we've declared War on [some] Terrorists [who most of the world agrees suck and don't control any oil]. Part of the problem, see, is that sometimes it's hard to tell the terrorists from the freedom fighters. I would think England considered the colonials who dumped tea in Boston harbor to be terrorists.

There's a big difference between the Boston Tea Party and the terrorists of today, but there are some parallels.

Later, a different day ...
Okay...haven't been here for a while.


We got a new dog. An Australian Shepherd (a red merle if that means anything to you) He's great with kids, but isn't too fond of adults. I'm hoping he outgrows that. Makes me wonder if the people we got him from weren't so nice to him ...


In other news, we're mostly going to soccer games. With both boys on travelling teams we have a game or practice Monday through Thursday for sure. Sometimes they have something on Friday and if they have a tournament that pretty much is our weekend. It's fun to watch, but ... a lot.