Social Engineer No. 31415926536

2011-10-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

Emotional Pleas of Executive Impatience Imperils All

Philosophers and historians have shown us the root cause of societal malaise down through the ages: it begins and ends with the values and mores of the underlying culture. If the culture is growing in knowledge and virtue, you can predict a rising standard of living - however that is defined by the culture - and it is a unifying force. One symptom of cultural sickness is a weakened, though prevailing, system of thought, and this post is about a type of thinking commonly emoted by our political leaders in their speeches. That our leaders can talk to us in this way - with imperious emotion - without being seriously criticized is further cause for concern.

Below I give to you two recent examples. As you read these excerpts, think about the implied cultural rot that requires such speeches, and perhaps allow yourself to see the underlying disintegration and true powerlessness of them. To those who would accuse me of glamorizing the past and so dismiss my point, I respond that I believe in the tragic view of human endeavors and acknowledge the imperfection found in even the so-called Golden Eras of civilization. Power can unite or it can divide, but where the underlying culture is rotting, it can only divide.

October 11, 2011 at Pittsburgh IBEW Local 25 Training Center
Democrat President Obama:

"The American Jobs Act that I'm putting forward obviously contains many ideas like infrastructure investment that should be pretty straightforward, and our hope is -- is that we are able to get those passed in the next couple of months. But we're not gonna wait for Congress. So my instruction to Jeff and Gene and Valerie and all the advisors who are sitting around the table is: Scour this report, identify all those areas in which we can act administratively without additional congressional authorization and just get it done. Anything that's within our authority to do as an administration we start doin' immediately, and we don't wait for Congress."

October 21, 2011 at Ohio State House
[Editor's note: the tragedy referred to here was the release of dozens of wild animals - yes, lions and tigers and bears - from a private reserve just prior to the suicide of the animal's owner. This occurred on Tuesday October 18th. Almost all of the animals were shot on sight by the authorities to protect the public as darkness fell.]
Republican Governor Kasich:

"...but you know I have to also tell you that - I think that many of you know - I'm a pretty impatient person. And when you see the kind of tragedy that happened in Muskingum County you can't just look away from it, you know, it just was a unbelievable situation as somebody said we lost one percent of the Bengal population and, you know, these are God's creatures and it's difficult. And so I asked the staff to get together across our cabinet and figure out what we could do in the short run, what authority was currently on the books and what kind of innovative and imaginative thinking could be brought to bear to help to deal with this problem in the short run. And I'm very pleased to tell you today that we have some things that we believe we can do, where we have authority, or agencies or entities that had authority but frankly hadn't been used."

2011-09-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

Mithridates for Leftism Disease

One can read Pynchon and Gaddis because, in doses, they provide a mithridatic cure against foolishness from the Left. I have learned first-hand how ingesting a little oil of poison oak can help overcome the allergic skin rash received after physical contact with its leaves. Some say it is a placebo, and maybe it is, but it works for me. Because some artists by their own admission have no philosophical moorings in absolutes, they cast about in Time and in Story seeking a relative unity within the chaos of existence. As such, they catch fish where I might not even choose to cast a line, but somehow I find myself enjoying the depths they have plumbed.

In Gaddis's "The Recognitions", a character named Janet is taken in as a housekeeper by the Reverend Gwyon, a man who is losing his faith. She is described as "a girl with a tic which drew her head to one side in bright affirmative inclinations of idiocy." Gaddis chose the name Janet, says critic Steven Moore, as an allusion to the titular character from Robert Louis Stevenson's short story "Thrawn Janet." This led me to an excursion within one of my favorite literary genres: horror. RLS's story took me out of time as I found myself voicing his words phonetically in order to decipher the story. I experienced a new sensual phenomenon: comprehension via aural senses where ocular ones failed. I could not sight read the story and understand it; I had to read it out loud.

Unlike modern rudderless fiction, Stevenson's scary tale, with an explicit warning against spiritual apathy, while it provided sustenance beyond the confines of its story just like Pynchon's or Gaddis's might, also served up a healthy dose of heavenly gold. We find Janet devoured by Satan AFTER she was given a chance at grace and she inwardly rejected it while outwardly affirming it. Eventually, that inward choice became obvious to everyone and Janet herself was reduced to a mere shell, a tool of the Devil.

And so I read the acerbic Gaddis whose anti-Christian stance caused him to create a Christian character, Rev. Gwyon, who while losing his faith in God, hired a simpleton named Janet who was just like Robert Louis Stevenson's Thrawn Janet, a seemingly pious woman who was conquered by evil and used by her story's author to warn Christians against spiritual apathy.

2011-07-09T22:59:00.000-07:00

"Disorientation"

"...When daybreak came we were zooming through New Jersey with the great cloud of Metropolitan New York rising before us in the snowy distance. Dean had a sweater wrapped around his ears to keep warm. He said we were a band of Arabs coming in to blow up New York. We swished through the Lincoln Tunnel and cut over to Times Square..." -Jack Kerouac, On The Road (50th Anniversary Edition), Part2, Chap2, Paragraph3

There are wonders to be found among the old and the new, and I am easily amused. I find it almost as wonderful to know I walk this earth as a contemporary of President John Tyler's grandchildren as it is to have the chance to befriend a proud and subsistent Ohio family with Jewish and Native American roots. I recently was invited to watch the Buckeye Lake fireworks with the latter family on July 1st from a magnificent hilltop overlooking the lake. As our children played together, fishing in the pond with Zebco rods or running with glowing sparklers up to the chest-high grass boundary of our picnic spot, I found the internal beam of my mental flashlight too narrow to illuminate at once all of the apparitions their conversation was evoking in me. Also lurking in the shadows was the fear of a predictable future disaster, the clues of the present somehow elusive because the collective conscience of our culture had already chosen to believe "we are the ones we've been waiting for" and so was blind to them. Jack Kerouac had been aware of an Arab threat to NYC way back in 1951. Why did I presume to think 9/11 was such a big surprise? Or the coming financial collapse? We all can see it coming, and this won’t be the first time it has happened anyway. Wonder of wonders.
-His granddad was a shaman.
-Wow and so he
-He was an expert herbologist. Had to be.
-I s’pose because they didn’t have
-They didn’t need what we call modern medicine back then. Their lifestyle was different. What we call "holistic" today. Don’t get me wrong, modern medicine is fantastic for handling acute symptoms but they’ve got it all wrong on the chronic side.

The waters of Buckeye Lake roiled with ocean-sized swells among the pontoon boats moored just outside Papa Boo's as we pulled up in a beat up Ford pickup. Ol Papa’s place was packed, and the parking lot attendant stared at us before arm curling a Bud Light beer can to his mouth and taking a giant swig. He set the beer can down on the fence next to a couple other beer cans and I wasn’t sure if he was just starting or well on his way. Line ‘em up, Joe. Somebody inside hadn’t forgotten about him, at least. As we idled, the spry octogenarian who had boxed me in, between my host and herself, my legs alternately straddling the four-on-the-floor gear shift rod or knees-to-chin like a ridiculous imitation of Audrey Hepburn impersonating a male contortionist and all depending on whether we were in third gear or not during the ride over, got out of the vehicle to pick up our pizza order. By the time we got turned around, she was ready with two blistering hot boxes of cheesy pie which she promptly decided to balance on my kneecaps (I was in the Hepburn pose at that moment).
-I like riding with you because there is more room on the bench for my big butt.
-Hey, I wouldn’t say its
-Ha, I’m just joking with you. So as I was saying we can pretty much survive on our own when the whole thing falls apart. We’ve got a well-stocked fish pond, and you should see my daughter’s garden. You love Palin, don’t you? I heard you were
-Sure. At this point, I would prefer a toothbrush or any other inanimate object as Commander-in-Chief to what we’ve got.
-I just love her.
-Hmmm. May I say I think it is a rare and wonderful thing to find a Jewish person like yourself talking like this. And I need to apologize for what I said earlier to your daughter about "quackery" as I do see the benefit of a holistic herbal approach to life.

On our way back to the farm, we passed a fella walking down the middle of the road who had obviously been there and back again. Maybe he had gotten bounced. But then only a hundred feet up the road from there, we came upon a street corner where a group of buxom cougars in light summer attire were posing for a photograph in a questionable girls-night-out-and-we-started-at-11am-with-Natty-Light-back-at-Ginny’s-house manner. All of this among the cornfields of Ohio on a Friday evening and the sun still had some life left in her.

Everybody seemed a little disoriented is all.

2011-03-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

Rapid mutability breeds vapid inability

Oh, the siren call of change, how it lures the unsuspecting to their doom! Mankind, as Poe once observed, is neither better nor wiser than it was thousands of years ago, but don't try to tell that to a contemporary. King Solomon warned us there was "nothing new under the sun" and we all think we know what he meant by that even as we allow our minds to indulge in the fantasy of real "newness." After all, our technology has begun to interface with our biology, while to many there is the promise of nanotechnology leading the way to immortality, and our very understanding of words like "identity" and "gender" as fixed terms are in play like never before. Are these not new things under the sun?

Yes, they are new, but unfortunately for us Utopians, Poe and Solomon are not wrong in what they say for they are talking about human nature. Of course, there was certainly a time when human nature was capable of bringing forth some act, some thought, some motivation, or some philosophical expansion of consciousness that could be flagged as an original thing. Way back in antiquity one can find the first murder (a new thing!), the first attempt to enhance one's vanity via sartorial adornment (was it a fig leaf?), the first attempt to impress by "shock and awe", the first act of indecision, and the first motivated snake oil salesman ready to get rich off of human gullibility. (The first gullibility was so patently a new-but-permanent part of the human condition.)

By the time of Solomon, the bounds of human nature had been charted completely: there was nothing new, only variations on the theme. Who knows when the last "new thing under the sun" happened, but Solomon was wise enough to interpret the signs of his time - of all times - and he passed on to all who came after him this very important piece of wisdom. Ironically, Solomon's spiritual revelation, his brilliant peek from outside the closed system known as human nature has led to no utopia or state of enlightenment for that would be a "new thing."

Imagine how world peace might be attained if human nature was capable of truly learning from its past mistakes! Would we not be a better cut of people if we were not so proud of so-called progress and accomplishments which are merely the gradual accretion of God's blessings coming down from above - undeserved and bountiful - upon the stalagmite of humanity? But, alas, humanity can be as dumb as a rock. That is not new.

This brings me to a couple of exhibits on this topic which I find somehow reassuring. They are quotes from the distant or not-so-distant past which have been buried in plain sight; that is, quotes like these are not hard to find if you pick up any history book containing primary sources.

Exhibit A - from The Federalist Papers No. 62 written by James Madison where he explains how the structure of the Senate was designed to limit rapid change:

The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessings of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulged, or undergo such incessant changes, that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess, what it will be to-morrow.

Exhibit B - from a speech Maryland Representative John Pendleton Kennedy - a personal friend of Poe's - gave in Congress on February 19, 1839 concerning his views on the Jackson Administration:

His administration was one ceaseless change: change, sometimes stealing along in noiseless advance, sometimes bursting forth in bold, open-day achievement; one while sweeping with the breath of spring, at another with the rage and havoc of the tornado. We had ever change of men, change of measures, change of principles.... The pervading characteristic of that most anomalous and extraordinary administration was mutation - uncertainty - experiment. It lived in turmoil, and reveled in paradox.... The idea of political consistency never entered the President's head - he had no perception of the meaning of the term.

Solomon's body had hardly achieved the ambient temperature of Mediterranean soil before his kingdom began to experience the violent throes of self-destructive tendencies. It seems that his books only sold well while he was alive.

John Kennedy of Maryland went on to greater national fame, and it is rumored he was considered by some to be a viable candidate for Vice President of the Republican Party in 1860. Could there be a bigger dream ticket than Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy? (For me, I might suggest Jefferson paired with Madison as a greater, but I digress.) As it turned out, Vice President Hannibal Hamlin had hardly met his new boss, Lincoln, before the United States began its brutal and systemic process of mass murder known as war. How human of everyone. Again, nothing new here.

2010-10-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

Rabbit Ears, say hi to espn3

I've always tried to keep pop culture at arm's length. Arm's length? Actually, more like at a football field's length. I have a personal aversion to it in the same way I would steer a wide arc around a town with a zombie outbreak. (Did pop culture give us zombies, or were zombies introduced as an offshoot of freedom of religion - Haitian-style voodoo - in the Americas?)

This aversion has manifested itself throughout my life by the glaring inadequacy of my "home entertainment center." Yes, I had to put quotes around it. Over the years, friends and visitors to my bachelor pads, the newlywed starter house, or my current upscale domicile have found themselves nonplussed at the first sight of it. A modest Magnavox TV with rabbit ears sitting on a makeshift stand, the stand itself composed from a decrepit end table missing one of its side panels. This was not a box to which one cozied up; it was a displayer of moving images with which one scheduled time.

Over the years, the ability of the TV to capture electromagnetic radiation signals and convert them into sights and sounds became less important as gadgets like a DVD player or Nintendo's Wii allowed one to use the TV for other purposes. But the rabbit ears were always there to provide a portal out during the Ohio State University college football season or the Thanksgiving Day parade. And then along came the national mandatory conversion to digital broadcast TV, the Big Ten Network which put an end to the free football season broadcast schedule, and our family's move to the hinterlands where the only broadcasts are agricultural in nature.

And so we survived for nearly two years with no broadcast TV of any sort. Until yesterday. It was yesterday that Windstream, our phone and internet provider, informed us via a catchy ad on our monthly bill that we have a subscription to espn3.com compliments of the big W. What is espn3? It is the internet equivalent of rabbit ears. It provides live and archived access to major sporting events like college football. So now I don't have to buy a car in order to watch the OSU vs. Michigan game like I did in 2009.

What will I miss now that I don't have to listen to games on the radio? I think I'll miss most the endless clichéd drivel that passes for informed play-by-play coverage and analysis. I'm talking about the kind of dialogue that could be used without real-time reference to an actual game 10 years from now and it would still fill the dead-air void. Below is a sample of what I am talking about:

...if the team can execute its game plan they're going to be tough to beat. But if they turn the ball over, the repercussions could be disastrous. You got to be willing to leave it all out there on the field. You can't play at this level and expect things to be easy. He's stuffed at the line. He's not managing the clock. The prevent prevents you from winning, I say. He dishes, spikes, pounds, shuttles, picks, waves at, corrals, scoops, flubs, and directs the ball through the uprights, through the outstretched hands, toward the sideline, into the breadbasket, at the numbers, on the ground, on a wire, threads the needle with it, pounds the turf with it, dunks it over the goalpost...

2010-08-12T05:43:00.000-07:00

Big Guv messes with Texas

Ah...the stench of "redistribution of wealth" emanating from the recently passed Bill-That-Shall-Remain-Nameless H.R. 1586. And I mean that literally: the House did not find the time to name the bill and so it is labelled on Congress's official website as '______Act of____'.

Tucked away in the 20 page bill is a stiff-uppercut-followed-by-a-"roundhouse" to the concept of federalism in general and Texas in particular. Briefly, federalists believe the Federal Government was created by the states to serve the interests of the states and not the other way around. But power-hungry Democrats are determined that Texas will use the provided slush money for likely Democratic voters. Here is the excerpt from the bill:

(11) ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR THE STATE OF TEXAS.—
The following requirements shall apply to the State of Texas:
(A) Notwithstanding paragraph (3)(B), funds used to
support elementary and secondary education shall be
distributed based on local educational agencies’ relative
shares of funds under part A of title I of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6311
et seq.) for the most recent fiscal year which data are
available. Funds distributed pursuant to this paragraph
shall be used to supplement and not supplant State formula
funding that is distributed on a similar basis to part A
of title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6311 et seq.).
(B) The Secretary shall not allocate funds to the State
of Texas under paragraph (1) unless the Governor of the
State provides an assurance to the Secretary that the State
will for fiscal years 2011, 2012, and 2013 maintain State
support for elementary and secondary education at a
percentage of the total revenues available to the State
that is equal to or greater than the percentage provided
for such purpose for fiscal year 2011 prior to the enactment
of this Act.
(C) Notwithstanding paragraph (8), no distribution
shall be made to the State of Texas or local education
agencies therein unless the Governor of Texas makes an
assurance to the Secretary that the requirements in paragraphs
(11)(A) and (11)(B) will be met, notwithstanding
the lack of an application from the Governor of Texas.

These are the kinds of "laws" that Progressive/Marxist/Democrat/Liberal/Socialists pass. Laws dreamed up by mis-educated elitists that are destined to prove the oft-forgotten conservative adage: The history of the world is one of tyranny with all-too-brief interludes of liberty.

2010-07-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

The Rise of the DEMZIs

Phoenix (RBPress) - With the chaotic last-minute ruling by an activist Federal judge in Arizona, a ruling that overturned an immigration law passed by a duly-elected state legislature, the Democratic Socialist Party of America (The Demzis) has clearly revealed its bias towards certain ethnic classes within the United States.

Even while this above-mentioned Federal judge, a Democratic Socialist Party appointee, blocks the enforcement of immigration status by expressing concerns about the new law's requirement for illegal immigrants to provide proof-of-citizenship, the Demzis are actively pursuing strict paper-trail requirements for its social engineering domestic policies.

The Demzis have recently enacted laws that would require legal U.S. citizens to provide proof of insurance or be subject to IRS fines and possible imprisonment. This ruling will have an inordinate effect upon law-abiding taxpayers who must actually file a Federal return compared to the illegal immigrants who - thanks to the Demzis - will be allowed to remain anonymous to state authorities. The ethnic bias is, once again, hard to ignore.

Under the cover of political promises of peace, prosperity, and economic justice, the Demzis have risen to never-before-attained pinnacles of power. Under conditions of anonymity, one operative familiar with the rise of the Demzis disclosed how the far Left factions of the former Democratic Party have hijacked the levers of power through studied methods of deception, propaganda, and lies. "When you look at all of the Leftist uprisings of the past, from the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks, Germany's National Socialists, the Khmer Rouge, the Maoists, they all have always reached a tipping point once the groundwork of deception was laid."

Another tool in the Demzi's arsenal is anarchy through massive regulation. "When you have thousands of pages of new laws, you get the same effect as if you have no law. Nobody knows how things are going to turn out. This crisis is being successfully exploited by the Democratic Socialists."

One of the prominent leaders of the Demzis sat for 20 years at the feet of a preacher who is famous for talking disparagingly about the U.S. as being run by "rich white people". It appears current racial and ethnic politics are being inflamed by the Demzis and they are poised to finally overturn the rule of law as provided by an out-dated U.S. Constitution and replace it with a mirage of law controlled by an all-powerful executive/judicial power clique.

"We'll see if the American people catch on before their country is pulled right out from under them," he laughs, "and then we have a revolution".

2010-06-08T14:28:00.000-07:00

Cat On The Rise May Point To Better Days

[updated Friday June 11, 2010 - see images at the bottom and compare PREDICTION (from June 8) to ACTUAL (June 11); also, typically, a wordy and glowing predictive article followed by a terse get-it-over-with admission of bad news.]

Just when all seemed lost, Obama and the Democrats applied their collective magic and brought my dead cat back from the brink. After close observation, occurring at regular time intervals, it is expected that the latest report on my formerly dead cat's health and activity will show the tenth straight improvement in its life and health functions.

Not many time intervals earlier, I was on the roof of my Midtown apartment building enjoying the company of my wife and two of her best friends. They three were conversing, lying flat on a calico quilt their feet almost touching while their bodies emanated equidistantly making a tri-pointed star, speaking out loud to each other and to the unseen heavenly bodies above and below them. The Village Voice dripped slowly into my brain through the Mr. Coffee-like delivery mechanism of my ink-stained hands holding the paper like-so, the better to maintain a view of my wife in her spotless white chemise as I read a quick snippet of newsprint, her image a phosphene appearing among the words, processing their meaning cortextually and allowing the words to dissolve, then glancing over again.

"What is that?" asked my wife with the tone of voice she reserved only for me. I looked up and then into the direction of her straightened arm along the planar surface of the roof, briefly distracted because she had chosen to not raise her head off the blanket. Sometimes her langour overwhelmed me.

It turned out to be our dead cat curled up and rigid next to a gently humming ventilator. The rising shaft of air rustled the multicolored fur as I walked over to inspect it.

There were several time intervals of consolation and attempts at consolation from all quarters directed towards my wife, her the true animal lover while I merely loved the cat as a way of vicariously loving her, but the futility of it all eventually drove the bathing beauties into the bowels of the building through the rusty access door. I stayed behind as the undertaker.

It further turned out that the cat had somehow bonded with the sticky asphalt of that section of roof on which it had expired, perhaps drawn in and comforted by the convection and hum, with its claws fanged in forever. Simply put, my attempts to politely pick up the animal were repeatedly thwarted by some unseen mechanism which kept the poor unfortunate beast at one with the roof's surface. At last, after I had looked over at the roof's scarred metal exit door to gauge the probability of my wife's unwanted return, I reared back my foot with its Nunn Bush boat shoe aligned for maximum impact and gave the deceased a decent boot. This manuever elicited a wet sort of noise that I hope it is my fate to never experience again.

I looked over. I looked down. Reared back. And kicked. Really hard. So hard, in fact, that I lost my balance and fell over onto the hot grit, but even as I fell an internal smile flashed across my consciousness for I knew the cat had been dislodged. The universal perversity known as Murphy's Law, attributed by me to the paradoxically deterministic way quantum energy levels work, making my first kick barely inadequate and my second kick gross overkill, required the feline body to catapult stiffly over the low balustrade destined for the 3rd Avenue pavement twenty-three stories below.

An Associated Press journalist, surprised in flagrante delicto by the tumbling cat passing by the window, jumped up and ran quickly to the balcony arriving in time to see the final time intervals of its descent. Joined quickly on the patio by a fellow journalist who just happened to be employed by Reuters, the fellow journalists compiled a joint description of the event placing the blame for the unfolding tragedy on former President Bush and the Republican Party.

As the time intervals ratcheted forward and my wife's cat reached the inverted apex or trough of its fall, it reacted to the unforgiving pavement, having barely missed a pedestrian jaywalking off the curb in search of a cab, by reversing direction one hundred and eighty degrees and rising up off the pavement minus a certain amount of matter which chose to remain behind.

At this exact moment, the entranced journalists began to compose regular time interval reports detailing its miraculous rejuvenation and crediting said improvement to Democratic policies. Which brings us back to the starting point of this narration which narration was inspired by the Reuters article reproduced below.

THE PREDICTION ON JUNE 8TH

THE REALITY ON JUNE 11TH

2010-03-22T11:45:00.000-07:00

Tyranny On Your Behalf

I would like to point out one of the many Progressive policy gaffes related to the passed health care bill, but first, the insult: after what has occurred with this travesty and its glaring example of abuse of Federal power, I no longer respect any citizen who is a registered member of the Democratic Party or any citizen who aids or defends Democratic policies. As the Democratic Party wages war against EVERYTHING I HOLD DEAR - EVERYTHING! - I can only esteem its partisans as dunces, mis-educated dupes, and dope-addled simpletons. And I apologize to dunces, dupes, and simpletons for sullying their good names.

Perhaps in the coming days I will be able to calm down and present a more reasoned essay pertaining to the loss of individual liberty inherent in the language of the health care bill, but not today.

Supporters of the bill talk about health care as a right, and they applaud this significant vote as a step towards universal health care for all. In a free society I would not quarrel with them because everyone is entitled to their freely-held opinion. But - thanks to the "health care reform" bill - our society is no longer free. That's right, folks. The moment this bill is signed into law by President Obama the land of the free and the home of the brave no longer exists. Big Brother becomes self-aware; that is, aware that the victim has been cornered. Soon, the Leftist Model of Government will be permanently ensconced in Washington, D.C. and the once-free citizen will serve the State. What if, like me, a citizen denies health care is a right? That's okay, says Big Brother, we will protect your right to health care whether you believe in it or not, a-a-and, A-A-AND, we will give you the mandatory opportunity to pay fines in support of your rights.

Again, I can live with someone who thinks that health care is a right as long as his/her opinions do not pose a threat to my individual freedom and private property. Alas, the Democratic bill does pose a threat. It is, to those who are acutely aware of and devoutly esteem the right to private property, the philosophical destruction of private property and the watershed ruling in favor of THE COLLECTIVE.

Take Section 1501 of the Senate Health Care bill. It contains many chilling paragraphs of Orwellian Newspeak and I find it incomprehensible to believe freedom-loving Americans would allow the government to so nakedly force its will on its citizens. The section is subtitled "Shared Responsibility for Health Care". As if there is such a thing! I want out of here! Where can I go to get away from such evil tyranny?

Section 1501 lays out a tortured rationalization with the goal of circumventing the Constitutional safeguards against tyranny. The end result of the rationale: You, the Citizen, will be forced under threat of fines (and perhaps imprisonment) with supporting your own right to health care. A right you may not even believe in!

Progressive "compassion" requires Other People's Money (OPM). It is not compassion at all. Heaven forbid progressive groups should ever start a private charity to provide health insurance to the uninsured using funds from its own members. There is no POWER in that alternative. But if progressives can force others to surrender private property and resources to accomplish progressives's own goals, victory is sweet as long as the OPM lasts. When the OPM dries up, as it inevitably does in countries with progressive/Marxist histories, and goes underground into black markets and offshore bank accounts, then we are left with a progressive "compassion" administered by faceless and bored bureaucrats who rather enjoy the power rush of rationing services and denying care. There is no recourse.

To add insult to injury, the Democratic Party will continue to strengthen its base by offering more "free" government services to its valueless voters with money that it tyrannically extracts from productive and law-abiding citizens like you and I. Soon, food will be a right; transportation a right; child daycare a right. You and I will pay for our food, transportation, and child daycare AND for the food, transportation, and child daycare of all of the Democratic voters out there. It's already happening.

Oh, and by the way, once you are cornered by a tyrant, he can extract your blood and as much poundage of flesh as he wants until you are dead. But don't be alarmed: he's a caring and progressive Democrat and he's just doing all of this for your own good.

R.I.P. The United States of America
(July 4, 1776 - March 21, 2010)

2010-03-17T05:23:00.000-07:00

sukiah era ereh here are haikus

elbow mac-a-ron
beef o'brady's got a gut
no "i" makes it five

meet me in hill-yard
don't forget to wear your teeth
won't need 'em for beer

zanesville yesterday
seventeen north seventeenth
too much space out here

Notes: first two stanzas refer to annual st. pat soiree w/ tso; third is tea party protest against Democrat Congressman Zack Space (OH 18th district)

2010-01-27T15:57:00.000-08:00

Tyranny tightens the Noose

I have watched the blessed reject their blessing. I have watched our formerly civil society listen to the siren's call of the culture of death and dash millions of lives on those black rocks. I have watched the educated grow in ignorance and stupidity and utopian assiduity. I have watched as another imperfect empire begins its final dissolution in debt and tyranny. And I wonder if the victim - the human individual - will turn its head quick enough to catch the poisoner in the act, to distinguish the dissolving powder from the champagne bubbles, and then to flee back to the truth.

On this most recent Tuesday, January 26th 2010, the New York Times ran an article written by Andrew Ross Sorkin titled "Still Needed: A Sheriff of Finance". Two chilling paragraphs emerge from the otherwise hopelessly simple-minded analysis:

Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who is also planning to travel to Davos (thereby providing cover to all the Wall Street chiefs who might otherwise be derided for flying to Switzerland for a slope-side boondoggle), is worried that arguments like Mr. Davies' -- taken to the extreme -- will be used to stifle reform.

"The objections to tough restrictions in the United States are that it will put American businesses in a disadvantaged position and financial companies will take their operations to friendlier shores," he said in a statement. "I believe this is wrong, and, in fact, since becoming chairman of the Financial Services Committee, I and other American officials have been working with others to prevent this situation from arising." He added, "My major goal this week is to further our efforts at cooperation and work to prevent any national regulatory approaches that allow companies to dodge the kind of accountability and responsibility that is needed."

The liberal lions do not like freedom of movement and choice; it allows the victim to get away to friendlier shores. An evildoer likes to get the victim to such a place where - if it suits the evildoer's fancy - the evildoer can have free reign with the victim's person and property. The victim must then deal solely with the evildoer and, oh, that surrender to naked power is so thrilling, so dark, so progressive.

It is the way of the Left. One of the things Hugo Chavez did to consolidate his power and prevent an immediate collapse of his socialist agenda was to control Venezuelans' private property. What private citizen of means would not attempt to move possessions and person outside the jurisdiction of a growing tyrant? It had to be stopped and Chavez was evil enough to do it:

Chavez began regulating access to dollars and making it harder for businesses and people to transfer money in 2003, after confidence in his government was shaken by a failed coup and a subsequent strike. Venezuelans must now apply to the currency agency Cadivi for dollars at the official rate of 2.15 bolivars to import goods or take vacations.
...
The Chavez government cut in half the amount of dollars residents can get to send to relatives abroad -- from $1800 to $900 a month. It also cut in half the amount of dollars travelers can spend on their credit cards abroad, to $2,500 a year. Manuel Barroso, who heads Cadivi, estimates the credit card restriction will keep an extra $2.3 billion in Venezuela. (from an Associated Press article by Rachel Jones titled "Venezuela loses billions despite Chavez's controls" June 18, 2009 - featured in an earlier post of mine dated June 19, 2009)

America has been flirting with the Death Siren. The unmitigated disaster that was FDR and the New Deal is taught by our educated idiots as a model of greatness. (Never mind that a cursory reading of the Federalist Papers could effectively debunk all of the false claims of the power-grabbing Progressives.) And so we get other progressive milestones like the Great Society and the War on Poverty and Rowe v Wade and BHO's Remaking of America.

And the Great Democratic Depression II (from January 2007 - ?)

2009-12-18T13:50:00.000-08:00

Ohio State vs Michigan, 2009, Sedan vs Coupe, Ooops

My ten-year-old Chevy Metro automobile was mortally wounded back in May when my seven-year-old twins and the next door neighbor's eight-year-old twins slipped the clutch into neutral and let it glide out of the garage and down our steep driveway. The timbre of their shrieks signalled a life change and I dashed downstairs fearing the worst: mangled bodies and the necessity of 911 ambulance lights. But all turned out well as I first counted heads and then followed the path of destruction over the embankment through the smashed remains of idyllic white pickets and a snapped-off 4X4 fence post which lay across the jumbled and displaced cement-constituted decorative 300-lb rocks and arrived at the car. Upright, the car was, and normal-looking. I drove it off a different neighbor's land and back up the hill to my garage; amazingly there appeared to be no damage.

Six months later, the transmission case's severe damage becomes apparent after I request a long overdue manual transmission flush at the dealer and, following its implementation, drive home a formerly-non-leaky-but-now-leaky car (not to mention a leaking wallet as well). The flushing process had removed the accumulated internal grime from a crack in the transmission case which the mechanic said - responding to my immediate return and request for a refund - looked as if it had come from "runnin' over somethin' big." Somethin' big like large landscaping rocks?

So I walk over to a salesman and ask him to find me a Chevy Cobalt XFE sedan (I've had my eye on a suitable replacement just in case the aging Metro let me down) without any power options or expensive add-ons. To round out my specifications, I asked that it be a neutral color (no "beach" colors), that it have a manual tranny, and that it be ready for delivery by the following day: Michigan Saturday in Ohio. (College football fans know what I'm talking about here.) And so he lets me go home because he can't find what I'm looking for just yet.

Saturday arrives and I give the salesman a call and he tells me he's found a car that meets my specifications and "do I want to come in and buy it?" and I say "Okay." He says "do you want to wait until after The Game?" And before I can answer he says "we got a TV set up here so you won't miss it" which works out fine because now I'll actually get to WATCH The Game because before he offered I wasn't going to watch it - don't believe in paying money for TV shows - but so now I get an added value from having to buy a car today.

About three hours later, as The Game winds down, I walk outside the dealer to see my new car for the first time. A gray metallic two-door sedan...what?!? A two-door sedan? What have I done? A two-door sedan is an oxymoron like "conservative dictator" or "tax-paying Democrat". I've just bought a coupe. A quick cell phone call to my wife confirms what I already know: I'm an idiot and I need to exchange the car I bought for another one. Problem is: they don't have another Cobalt XFE ready-at-hand A-A-ND (wait for it!) there isn't another OSU vs Michigan game to watch. So I bail out of there in my new coupe. After all, its just a way to get from A to B.

2009-11-16T14:43:00.000-08:00

Placeholder Blog
This post is a placeholder blog. If this had been an actual post with new content and eyebrow-raising insights about the World We Live In, you would know because the word "placeholder" would not be part of the post. As it is, this placeholder blog will provide a substitute for content, as such, and will remain active - holding court at the very top of this blog - until a non-placeholder blog is posted which will instantly relieve it of its duties.

I repeat, this is a placeholder blog. Do not expect any content of value until you see a non-placeholder blog to follow this one. Follow, in the chronological sense, that is.

2009-09-10T07:48:00.000-07:00

JOE WILSON FOR PRESIDENT

President Obama lied again last night. His lies have lies. He and the Democrats are in the process of creating a Big Government "solution" that will destroy our individual liberties.

Last night, Congressman Wilson interrupted President Obama's speech before a joint session of Congress with the outburst "You lie!" I wish there were more Joe Wilsons.

Obama and the Democrats (The Dems, btw, have controlled national policy since they took over both houses of Congress in the November 2006 elections; about a year after they gained control, their policies plunged our nation into the worst recession since The Great Depression. As a parallel to today's malaise, during the first eight years of FDR's failed New Deal policies, the annual unemployment rate NEVER dropped below 14%. It was WWII that broke the malaise caused by Democratic rule.) are trying to deceive the American people.

Here are just two of the many "Animal Farm"-like deceptions perpetrated on us by President Obama:

1.Campaign finance:

THE PROMISE -November 2007, Obama promised "I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."

THE LIE - June 2008 - Obama opts out and declares "the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken."

Source: "Obama Chose Winning Over His Word" by AP reporter Liz Sidoti

2.Single-payor health care

THE PROMISE - March 2007 SEIU health care forum "My commitment is to make sure that we've got universal health care for all Americans by the end of my first term as President...I would hope that we set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a Federal system or a state pool of some sort, but I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's gonna be potentially some transition process - I can envision a decade out or fifteen years out or twenty years out...."

June 2003 AFL/CIO conference "I happen to be a proponent of the single-payor universal health care plan. And I see no reason why the United States of America - the wealthiest country in the history of the world - is spending fourteen percent, fourteen percent, of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what Jim's talkin about when he says 'Everbody in, nobody out.' A single-payor health care plan. Universal health care plan. That's what I'd like to see, but as all of you know we may not get there immediately because first we gotta take back the White House and we gotta take back the Senate and we gotta take back the House."

THE LIE - Obama says the public option or the government-run health care option is "just one sliver" of his health reform package. He lies and states that no one is trying to take away your private health care plan: "...if you like your plan, you can keep your plan."

2009-08-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

Hodge Podge

The Lyin' of the Senate has died and we mourn his passing, but hated Death cares not a wit about health care reform.

Interesting how we never knew this about Teddy until today.

"Mary Jo, Mary Jo
wherefore art thou Mary Jo
I'd like to thank the people of
Massachusetts and my swim instructor
down at the Y without which I would've never
survived..."
- bad poetry by rb & tso

n.b. My first trip to any Yankee Stadium

August 26th
Yankees beat Texas 9-2
memories: stuffed standing in the 4 train headed north (and I mean STUFFED); a moment of confusion while faced with the choice of stadia - the old one was still intact and looked very similar to the new one - in the end I followed the crowd; ticket says section 224 row 7 seat 10; Jeter singles with the bases loaded; Pettitte snags a screamer line drive near his ankle and then tosses a celebratory Eephus ball to the second baseman; line drive foul fwhacks against the railing less than 15 feet from me and falls to field level; other attendees: Paul McCartney & Jack Nicholson (not there together) (Jack got the bigger applause - I was surprised); my business companions insisted on staying until the last out; a D train pulled up EMPTY EMPTY and we got seats and then it becamed stuffed, but seated stuffed is not as bad as standing stuffed; nice but not as nice as Fenway.

'From A Buick 8' is added to my very small list of books that I have started to read and then put down knowing I will never finish it nor be tempted. It's hard to believe The Dead Zone was written by the same person.

2009-06-26T08:13:00.000-07:00

The Wimpling Hems of Manhattan

I walked south on Third Ave during the nooner ensconced in the crowd as 54th Street approached, speaking relativistically here as I was in fact moving toward 54th and not the other way around, when the buildings across the street (I was walking on the left-hand side) exploded in shards of broken glass and pulverized brick.

There emerged from the CGI-like backdrop of expanding debris two young women crossing Third Ave toward my crowd; these two, who among the ubiquitous beauties of young women in NYC were in the top one percentile of the top one percentile, presented the same riveting aspect as did The Terminator's first movie's antagonist who loomed up out of the flaming wreckage of a detonated eighteen-wheeler, high-heeled and summer-dressed, the girls, not the Terminator, approached with rippling lower hems that could have been extended by a double-digit number of inches and still not threaten the knee with so much as a shadow. I did not stare - I merely took the opportunity to chronicle the scene for you, gentle reader - but almost every male within my localized crowd did.

One brazen thirtyish-something New Yorker decided - to the amused embarrassment of his male companion - to misbehave in such a way that a scene might be made. As the distance of intersection between our southward-moving group and the two eastward-moving street-crossing girls shrank, this fellow, full of bravado and confidence, made a flourish toward the young women and gave them the complete up-and-down stare which culminated in a neck-thrust-forward gaze that nearly grazed the young beauty's cheek who was hapless enough to be positioned northward of her companion and, thus, closer to Mr. BT-SNY as they attempted to pass by him.

This elicited a response from Miss Northward to the stargazed admirer. She slowed slightly as her companion Miss S continued her pace unaltered and passed us by, and exposing her anatomically-perfect teeth in a momentary grimace, her face seeming to shimmer as glossy fringes of her dark hair, cast softly but violently forward by the quick turn of her head towards Mr. BT-SNY, it, the hair, briefly shrouding her beauty and then amplifying it as it danced and fell to, she asked her tormenter/admirer "didn't he know it's rude to stare?" to which he retorted: "You WANT me to stare!"

For a brief moment, I could tell this response was unexpected, the way the smile froze and a stray tress lingered across her teeth as she turned her head away and strolled on, catching up with her friend. By now, I had overtaken Mr. B and his friend, and eavesdropped as they walked behind me, the bolus of our crowd crossing 54th and then gradually dispersing throughout the metropolis.

"She wanted me to stare. Wanted me. She knows what she's doing. At the store she goes 'I want something sexy.' Does she know what that word means? Like I'm not gonna look. When a woman looks that good and is dressed like that...."

I looked back over my shoulder to see the wreckage of crumbling buildings only to discover that they had not suffered any violence after all, then I descended below.

2009-06-19T07:44:00.000-07:00

Socialism is Dead! Long Live Socialism!

Just in case it got past you, gentle reader, I want to excerpt a recent AP story about the fluctuating fortunes of Latin America's rising star: the Socialist State of Venezuela.

It is yet another cautionary tale to be ignored and downplayed by the typical voter of the United States. Here is the link: (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090618/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_venezuela_currency_crunch_1)

One of the most chilling aspects of this story is the implied financial regulation that enables the Venezuelan government to oversee private monetary transfers. This coming at the world's collective consciousness just as the U.S. Administration and Congressional leaders are proposing massive increases in Federal regulation of the financial sector. I feel as one must feel who waits, bound hand and foot, in line for the firing squad, watching as bullets tear open the chest of another, and knowing that in a very short time it will be their turn. Overdramatic, yes; the firing squad metaphor is a bit much, but how else do we describe a growing tyranny that does not value life and liberty?

The Democratic Party of the United States does not respect, firstly, the right to life of every citizen - born or unborn - and it does not respect the liberty and private property of its citizens. Venezuela shows us where these kinds of policies lead.

Here's a lengthy excerpt:

General Motors Corp. is halting production in Venezuela for three months starting Friday. Ford Motor Co.'s subsidiary announced 10 percent cutbacks last week. Other automakers also are shrinking their business — but not because Venezuelans don't want to buy cars.

They're closing down because the government won't give them enough dollars to import parts.

It's a crisis entirely brought on by the currency controls imposed by President Hugo Chavez, Gabriel Lopez, president of Ford Motors for Venezuela and the Andean region, told The Associated Press. "Year after year we're shrinking by about 10 percent compared to the year before," he complained.

Chavez began regulating access to dollars and making it harder for businesses and people to transfer money in 2003, after confidence in his government was shaken by a failed coup and a subsequent strike. Venezuelans must now apply to the currency agency Cadivi for dollars at the official rate of 2.15 bolivars to import goods or take vacations.

These controls have backfired with a vengeance — businessmen, companies and private citizens transferred some $72.7 billion out of Venezuela over the last six years — nearly double the outflow of the previous six years, according to the Central Bank — distorting the economy, fueling inflation and discouraging private investment.

But the controls themselves haven't led to a political backlash, perhaps because Venezuelans with means tend to be opposed to Chavez's socialist policies already. Poorer Venezuelans haven't been as affected, partly because the government subsidizes food and free health care.

2009-05-27T14:21:00.000-07:00

This IS racism

President Obama's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, has been quoted as saying (from a symposium speech sponsored by the Berkeley La Raza ("The Race") Law Journal in October 2001):

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life."

It is a racist statement. It is an evil statement and should disqualify her from serious consideration.

Most historians and lay students who study the rise of National Socialism in Germany during the 1920s and 30s can ably relate what happened and when it happened and where it happened and perhaps even why it happened, but after all of the analysis the question of HOW IT COULD HAPPEN in a industrially-advanced and modern society is left unanswered.

Once again, I see what is happening. You see what is happening. But, once again, I don't know how this could happen.

2009-04-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

Does Perez Hilton think President Obama is a "dumb b-tch"?
On April 19th, 2009, Carrie Prejean, representing California in the pageant, was asked the following question by Perez Hilton:

"Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why? Or why not?"

Miss Prejean responded:

"Well, I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. Um, we live in a land that you can choose: same sex marriage or opposite marriage. And, you know what, in my country and in my family I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman - no offense to anybody out there - but that's how I was raised and that's how I think that it should be between a man and a woman. Thank you."

Perez Hilton didn't like her answer and later, in a video rant, called her a "dumb b-tch."

In Nelsonville, Ohio on March 3rd, 2008, Presidential candidate Barack Obama was asked about his position on gay marriage; he responded:

"I will tell you that I don't believe in gay marriage, but I do think that people who are gay and lesbian should be treated with dignity and respect and that the state should not discriminate against them. So, I believe in civil unions that allow a same-sex couple to visit each other in a hospital or transfer property to each other. I don't think it should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state. If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans. That's my view. But we can have a respectful disagreement on that."

Notice the similarity in the stated opinions of both responders.

I wonder if Perez Hilton doesn't have some choice words for President Obama as well.

2009-03-25T19:07:00.000-07:00

DEMOCRATS HAVE HELD POWER SINCE NOVEMBER 2006
DEMOCRATS HAVE HELD POWER SINCE NOVEMBER 2006
DEMOCRATS HAVE HELD POWER SINCE NOVEMBER 2006
DEMOCRATS HAVE HELD POWER SINCE NOVEMBER 2006
DEMOCRATS HAVE HELD POWER SINCE NOVEMBER 2006

I've been watching the U.S. House of Representatives Budget Committee on CSPAN2 as it debates the FY2010 Federal Budget, and there is one statement Democratic reps continue to make without any pushback from the Republican opposition. This misleading and inaccurate statement needs to be addressed and rebutted at every instance whereever and whenever it is voiced. The statement is: "We have inherited this mess from the last 8 years of the Bush Administration...etc."

The truth is Democrats have created this mess since their ascension to power after the November 2006 elections. When Democrats took over BOTH chambers of Congress after that fateful day at the ballot box, the economy was stable and growing, and the projected budget deficit was around 200 billion. Since January 2007, Democratic policies have authored the mess that we "inherit" today. All of the increase in deficits since then have come from the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives where Federal spending originates.

President Bush and the GOP prior to 2006 bear some responsibility for increasing Federal spending beyond acceptable limits, for "spending like Democrats" as it were. But today the first sixty days of one party rule under President Obama and the Democratic Party have proven Republicans don't know anything about off-the-charts deficit spending.

The American economy began to go over the cliff at the exact moment the Democratic Party gained control over the Federal Budget in November 2006 and convened the subsequent 110th Congress in January 2007 under the leadership of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

DEMOCRATS HAVE HELD POWER SINCE NOVEMBER 2006
DEMOCRATS HAVE HELD POWER SINCE NOVEMBER 2006
DEMOCRATS HAVE HELD POWER SINCE NOVEMBER 2006
DEMOCRATS HAVE HELD POWER SINCE NOVEMBER 2006
DEMOCRATS HAVE HELD POWER SINCE NOVEMBER 2006

2009-02-04T15:48:00.000-08:00

Where Boredom Goes To Die

NYC 6:36 pm 28 degrees F E 57th

Nod to the doorman who starts the revolving door spinning, and step outside into the street. The M31 bus roars by with standing room only and the City exerts its charms. Turn left in the direction of Lexington Ave as fast-walking pedestrians move past you: there's a couple dressed in the obligatory dark colors of the City passing the warmth of friendship back and forth as buses roar across Manhattan Island.

Walk one hundred yards to the corner as car horns serenade and upbraid you. This City can't sleep because there is too much noise going on. There are no children here; you see more pets than children. Watch as the Shih Tzu terrier dressed to the nines with warm clothes and booties squirts its excess liquids upon the pile of black Hefty bags stacked along the curb. The dog's owner appears to be in a trance, completely unaware of the City, only having eyes for its loved one as it fritters about the frozen dirt of the street.

Turn left and try to not to gasp as a courier bicyclist avoids instant death by dealing a hearty slap on the fender of a cab moving right toward the curb. How does a person live with such encroachment? The cabbie brakes and waits for the tender soul to pass: there is a respect even here for the fragility of human tissue versus money-making metal.

There is no bell curve of beauty here. Like Paris, the inhabitants are either beautiful or ugly. And even the ugly have a beauty all their own.

Turn left on 56th and it's more of the same. Activity breeds activity. The buildings seem to be packed full of people who can't wait to hit the streets. After watching a continuous stream of people issue forth, it is natural to assume the building is now empty. But that assumption would be wrong wrong wrong. There are always more people inside.

Turn left on 3rd and try to resist the urge for a warm bagel at the vendor's stand across the street. The swirling winds waft aromas over the yellow cabs and you resist because you've got half of a sub from Toasties waiting at the apartment. An out-of-towner sizes you up as you approach and asks for directions to the subway and you purposely put on native airs and direct him a couple of blocks behind you to the E train. Yes you can get to Penn Station from there. Pad softly past the news stand with the invisible vendor snuggled down into an unknown depth of glossy merchandise. Oh, there is a young man who desires to make a purchase and up pops the man of the store. The stand is inhabited and all is right with the world.

Turn left and stroll past the HSBC bank as floor-to-ceiling windows show young professionals still ensconced in their offices - there is a recession going on after all and it wouldn't do to leave too early. How do you work in a fishbowl like this? People walking past watch as you update your blog, shop at Macy's, and get some work done.

Back to the apartment building now, nod thanks to the doorman and let your eyes take inventory of the lobby. See the business man with the sun tan that only comes from flying a window seat above the clouds. See the model, see the immigrant twice-removed, see the energy of charmed lives living in a City that moves.

2009-01-02T08:19:00.000-08:00

BIG BROTHER 2009

I apologize to my reader for another boring political post, but I will be brief; this blog functions as a note-to-self at times. Some might say all the time.

In terms of fiscal responsibility, the formerly-reigning Republicans during President Bush's time in office did poorly. The tax cuts were nice, but they were not accompanied by any decrease in government spending: so Big Government got bigger while the taxpayer got poorer. The GOP gets a grade of F.

You ain't seen nothing yet.

The Democratic Party regained control of Congress in November 2006, and their anti-business and anti-profit policies brought about the current recession that started in December 2007.

When Obama takes office in a few days, you can expect any and all revenue streams to be subjected to confiscatory taxation. The triumphant marketing machine that has made all things labelled Democratic uber-cool will continue to crank out its messages: Americans must pay more taxes, and a growing Big Government with Democrats at the helm is a Kind Government. Notice the headline from an AP story published today (see picture at top of today's post)...Motorists' Habits Spur Call For Tax Increases. You see? To Democrats, YOU are the problem. You buy too much gas and you don't buy enough of it. The motorist is caught in a heads Big Government wins tails Big Government wins dilemma.

Remember during the summer of 2008 how Democrat's flat-earth environmental policies caused them to cheer as gas prices increased and you, the ignorant motorist, were chided for wasting gasoline for recreational vehicles and other frivolous uses? Well, you lost as the coin flip saw gas prices go through the roof.

Now, as gasoline prices have declined, Democrats will make sure that you lose again. With gas prices so low, they can increase the Federal tax on gasoline all the way up to approximately $4.00 to generate revenue for the bloated-but-happy Big Government. The recent summer gas price spike provided real-time insight into the demand curve for gasoline and it looks like $4 is the magic number. A recent article in Time by one of its miseducated Marxist reporters stated the case quite clearly: Big Government could tax gasoline back up to its $4 price and reap two Democratic policy victories. Victory number one would be the free "found money" of tax revenue estimated at as high as five hundred billion per year, and victory number two would be less fossil fuel use.

Never mind the massive destruction such policies would wreak upon the free market and our economy.

Even more distressing is the incroachment Big Government will make upon its citizenry under Democratic leadership. In the same article already cited, read this juicy tidbit and think about how Kind and Wonderful a growing Big Government can be:

"According to a draft of the financing commission's recommendations, the nation needs to move to a new system that taxes motorists according to how much they use roads. While details have not been worked out, such a system would mean equipping every car and truck with a device that uses global positioning satellites and transponders to record how many miles the vehicle has been driven, and perhaps the type of roads and time of day."

Now that's CHANGE!

2008-12-21T20:36:00.000-08:00

Bat Out Of Manhattan

He stepped out of the shelter of 919 Third Avenue onto the sleet-slaked sidewalks of The Big Rotten. The secret of making it here in the land of Type A personalities had eluded him from the getgo but still he had tried for four days to run it down and capture it. He wanted to put this town full of tourettes out of his misery, but he couldn't just blink and make it happen. No, he'd have to go down into its hidden parts, into places where the sun's reflection off a dozen carefully arranged mirrors still fell short.

The subway at Lexington & 3rd swallowed him up. Down, down, down he went to where the E train pushed the December air through the barrel of a gun aimed at any unfortunate soul who wasn't wearing DKNY or Hugo Boss. Does anyone speak English around here? Ellis Island can't be far away from this iPod haven, he supposed. Things he made bank on here included laughing girls, tattoos, Overcoats, ESL speakers, Blackberries with their owners and other admirers, dreds, and blank faces with the brims turned down and off.

Downtown train to Penn Station, and then he walked right through the very bowels under 33rd above, he supposed, and on toward where 32nd graced the mantle that he was invading. The people who flowed past him, their faces blurred from relative speed and the miasma of indifference, became his own personal optical illusion: he stood inert on a belted floor that hurtled him into a parting crowd. The immensity of life here in the depths winded him.

He paid $15 for a New Jersey Transit Rail One Way Adult ticket to New Jersey Liberty Airport and thought, just under a dollar a mile. Not bad if you're city folk.

And then he came to Newark - New Jersey not Ohio. A torturous ten hours later, after two flight cancellations consecutively and unceremoniously and an unexpected wait of over two hours on the runway - ON THE RUNWAY! - he feared that he had died in his sleep and ended up back in The Big Rotten. But no, he knew he was in New Jersey because he could see the HSBC logo on every terminal; Manhattan was an Amex town. So the rumor was true, then, what happens in New Jersey, stays in New Jersey.

But he heard the jets roar, and knew he had broken out. He looked down at his boarding pass and smiled as he began to read the name of the destination printed on it. Cleveland? What? That's not my - oh, Cleveland's just a connection - there's another boarding pass underneath. Columbus ah now that's more like it, he thought, and then he noticed the departure time for that trip was already in the past.

2008-11-22T14:37:00.000-08:00

Green Movement is Gangrenous

Presumably named after the chlorophyll-based color of living plants, the Green Movement has told those same plants to prepare for a permanent diet of less carbon dioxide.

As with most progressive movements, this one is bound for history's junk heap. Will it be before or after the usual massive cost in human life is exacted upon the world's population?

2008-11-07T07:18:00.000-08:00

Big Government posts record US quarter
Thursday October 30, 10:35 am ET
By Amanda Shooterkiss, APO Business Writer
Big Government shatters own record for largest windfall profit from operations by a burgeoning bureaucracy.

WASHINGTON,D.C. (AP) -- The U.S. Government (ticker: GUV), the world's most bloated bureaucracy, reported income Thursday that shattered its own record for the biggest profit from operations by a burgeoning bureaucracy, earning $666 billion in the third quarter. A careful analysis of the factors contributing to Big Government's growth show 2003's tax cuts as the most definitive cause.

The Washington,D.C.-based company has reported unprecedented back-to-back quarters, the end of the most recent coinciding with a rapid plunge in economic benchmarks which does not bode well for the coming quarter. Not to worry says CEO and President-elect Obama who has promised to grow Big Government in good times and in bad.

"We've relied entirely too much on tax cuts to fuel these record Big Government receipts and that has left us open to major fluctuations. I intend to raise taxes which provides a finer level of control over..." - here it appeared that Obama started to say 'you' before catching himself and glancing at the teleprompter more closely - "...future tax receipts. I promise that I will make Big Government the biggest its ever been."

Also helping GUV's bottom line were record tax receipts from oil companies like Exxon. Exxon, alone, contributed nearly $11 billion dollars to Big Government in the most recent quarter - a monumental record. Bureaucrats in GUV have their eye on the remaining $14 billion in profits that Exxon selfishly distributes to its shareholders. "It's all your money," new CEO Obama tells shareholders left holding the government's bag.

Big Government's results have garnered their largest boost during the Bush Administration. Total federal spending per household has risen 115 percent since 1965, and the sharpest increase occurred during the Bush Administration and totaled 11 percent. Republicans spent money like Democrats and the shareholders were ready for a change. With a glowing hatred for CEO Bush, the shareholders paradoxically elected a proven spender who has promised to grow the Big Government corporation beyond all expectations.

"This is the change that we've been waiting for," said Obama.

But is it really a change? Economists note that Big Government has increased its annual budget every year since 1965 - in good times and in bad.

Said one observer on Capitol Hill, "Big Government defies our conventional wisdom of budgeting. It appears to have an unstoppable momentum to the upside. If I was a betting man, I would lay my money down on Big Government."

All of us are forced to agree.

2008-11-04T06:13:00.000-08:00

Kristallnacht 2008?

Seventy years ago almost to the day, on November 9th 1938, National Socialists engineered a massive campaign of state-sponsored stealing. It was justified on the basis of economic inequality and an entrenched and growing anti-Semitic sentiment. Instead of objectively analyzing the failures of its own culture which had experienced a massive shift to the Left - as evidenced by its racism, eugenics, and centralization of power - it took the easy road and decided to appropriate the property of its avowed enemies. The astounding thing about the whole event is how everyday citizens seemed to justify the taking as a form of economic justice.

"ExxonMobil announced that it had made the greatest profits of any corporation in the history of the world: $14 billion dollars in one quarter. That's all your money." -Senator Barack Hussein Obama during a campaign rally at the University of Missouri-Columbia 10/30/2008

2008-10-22T08:12:00.000-07:00

Dialogue With A Liberal
What follows is the transcript of an actual conversation between myself (Beach) and a more progressive acquaintance (Mr. S) that happened on September 9th while strolling down 16th Street in Denver.

Mr. S: Where is your compassion? There are needy people who are incapable of providing for themselves.
Beach: We do not disagree on that although I feel the word "incapable" is a bit of an overstatement; we disagree on whose responsibility it is to help them. Why don't those wealthy progressives among us who say they feel something needs to be done create a charity or foundation or other private-sector entity to alleviate the perceived problem?
Mr. S: I doubt a privately-funded organization would be able to raise enough money to significantly impact the problem.
Beach: Why not? There seems to be a vocal majority of those who lay claim to "compassion, always compassion" and "care for those in poverty". Either they care, or they don't?
Mr. S: It sounds cynical for me to say this, but you are partly right: people really don't care. Not enough to personally do something about it. They say they do, but what they really want is just to have the problem taken care of.
Beach: But government entitlements create more problems than they solve - just look at Social Security and Medicare. It is difficult to imagine more inefficient mechanisms than these compassionate debacles.
Mr. S: They may be inefficient but they are a lifeline to millions. We need to work to make them better.
Beach: Translation...we need more money. To my mind, there is an icy heart behind the modern move towards governmental benevolence and the hand that bestows is a cold one indeed.
Mr. S: Here's the steak place I told you about.
Beach: I hope the asparagus is fresh.

2008-09-26T06:25:00.000-07:00

The Guilty Promoted: Democratic Congressman Barney Frank

Political posts are a drag - I know - so I'll be brief. With the current financial crisis being debated in Washington, and all participants, except for a much-maligned band of lowly GOP conservatives, teetering on the brink of a massive nationalization of private debt, I find it interesting that the national "mainstream" media have placed Congressman Barney Frank in the de facto spot of on-the-scene expert. It is no different than bringing forth a mugger and proclaiming him as most knowledgeable of the crime committed and charging him with restoring the mugged victim to wholeness. Barney Frank represents the Democratic Party as its failed policy of providing housing to those who can't afford it - abetted by a corrupt big-spending GOP who betrayed its small-government platform - blows up in the taxpayer's face.

We are living in "Animal Farm." A corrupt media, fueled mainly by a socially progressive agenda, is distorting all reality with the aim of getting Senator Obama elected. Social Engineering Absolute Truth # 23: The heart of discord between the political parties is one of values: namely, abortion and homosexuality. Though seldom discussed, these issues are at the heart of national rancor. There are economic differences, of course, and the progressives's ongoing support for disproven Marxist policies would be humorous if it weren't dangerous. So the media presents Napoleon the pig (aka the Democratic Party)'s failed policy of mortgages-to-anyone-who-can-make-their-mark-on-the-sign-here-line as a GOP FAILURE that can only be fixed by electing more Democrats. And Barney Frank has become the spokesman.

The problem is that Frank was one of the architects of this debacle as 30 seconds with any search engine will attest. Here are two examples:

1. Back on September 10th, 2003, in a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, as the GOP-led Congress was proposing added regulation over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Democratic Congressman Barney Frank had this to say (http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/hearings/108h/92231.txt):

" I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the
legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a
crisis. That is, in my view, the two government sponsored
enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting
problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being
dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this
point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury.
I must say we have an interesting example of self-
fulfilling prophecy. Some of the critics of Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac say that the problem is that the Federal Government
is obligated to bail out people who might lose money in
connection with them. I do not believe that we have any such
obligation. And as I said, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy by
some people.
So let me make it clear, I am a strong supporter of the
role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play in housing, but
nobody who invests in them should come looking to me for a
nickel--nor anybody else in the Federal Government. And if
investors take some comfort and want to lend them a little
money and less interest rates, because they like this set of
affiliations, good, because housing will benefit. But there is
no guarantee, there is no explicit guarantee, there is no
implicit guarantee, there is no wink-and-nod guarantee. Invest,
and you are on your own.
Now, we have got a system that I think has worked very well
to help housing. The high cost of housing is one of the great
social bombs of this country. I would rank it second to the
inadequacy of our health delivery system as a problem that
afflicts many, many Americans. We have gotten recent reports
about the difficulty here.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have played a very useful role
in helping make housing more affordable, both in general
through leveraging the mortgage market, and in particular, they
have a mission that this Congress has given them in return for
some of the arrangements which are of some benefit to them to
focus on affordable housing, and that is what I am concerned
about here. I believe that we, as the Federal Government, have
probably done too little rather than too much to push them to
meet the goals of affordable housing and to set reasonable
goals. I worry frankly that there is a tension here.
The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of
safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the
possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which
I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally
sound financially and withstand some of the disastrous
scenarios. And even if there were a problem, the Federal
Government doesn't bail them out. But the more pressure there
is there, then the less I think we see in terms of affordable
housing."

2. And a more recent editorial by Sam Dealey found here (http://www.usnews.com/blogs/sam-dealey/2008/9/23/barney-frank-fesses-up-on-financial-crisis.html?s_cid=rss:sam-dealey:barney-frank-fesses-up-on-financial-crisis):

"Now, finally, Frank acknowledges that he dismissed ample warnings about Fannie and Freddie shenanigans five years ago.

Here's an exchange with CNN's John Roberts yesterday:

ROBERTS: Congressman, you know, a lot—big question that people asking is, how do we get to this point here. And minority leader John Boehner there in the House has pointed fingers at Senator Chris Dodd and you four years ago opposing reform of entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Wall Street Journal says in the year 2000 when Representative Richard Baker proposed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reform you dismissed it. New York Times reports that an administration proposal in 2003 to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was met by response from you where you said, "I do not believe that we're facing any kind of crisis." Were you responsible for the delay—

FRANK: Of course not. Can I make a point here?

ROBERTS: Yes.

FRANK: In 2000 and 2003, who was in control of Congress? The Republicans—Mr. Boehner. The Democrats were in the minority. And yes, I did not think we were facing a crisis in 2003. But that didn't mean we didn't have to have reforms. Here's the deal. ...

Frank then goes on to his now standard lament that a Republican-controlled Congress failed to produce reform and that it was only under his Democratic stewardship that the siblings were reined in. Leaving aside that the 2007 reforms were hardly the stuff that was needed, Frank shows uncharacteristic modesty. While the White House was unable to push through meaningful reforms five years ago, that's in good part because Frank did his best to thwart them."

It appears to me the American public is ready to sell its free-market soul to prevent the necessary pain of correction. What we need is the kind of accountability that the free market provides when a hair-brained scheme like subprime mortgages is adopted and allowed to run its course: recession, depression, and a throw-the-guilty-bums-who-caused-this-out-of-office mentality. I fear that we have passed the point of no return, that my arguments will appear to most as angry ravings, but I am gratified that a small contingent of GOP conservatives have decided to stand up and resist the current plunge toward Marxism.

2008-08-31T09:06:00.000-07:00

The Divine Comedy vs. Harley Davidson

I've been reading an English translation of Dante's "The Divine Comedy." It has taken me over forty years to get to it, but the delay was probably a boon: a forty-year-old male is likely to be more receptive than one half his age. Considering the obvious fame of Dante's masterpiece, I should not have been surprised at the joyful density of its content, but I have been.

It is a work to be sampled in small portions, to be imbibed and then savored. It is a delicacy with the potency of an energetic trail mix. I can trace its germinating influence upon the garden of Western literature; surely, Dickens and Joyce and Eliot were enriched by it. At last, I have found a "conservative" author - I risk being anachronistic here - to put up against Pynchon. Both provide a heady buzz, but Dante goes to the heart and soul, Pynchon to the hips and thighs.

As an exercise in comparison and contrast, I have put together a brief sample of excerpts from "The Divine Comedy" and a sales catalog. The catalog came to my house the other day addressed to the former resident - I have only lived here for 5 months - and I learned a thing or two from it. It is the "Harley-Davidson 2009 Genuine Motor Accessories And Genuine Motor Parts" catalog and it contains over 800 pages of beautifully detailed photographs accompanied by energetic text. Who knew something like this existed?

From it I learned that Harley Davidson bikers may be nothing more than grizzled Hummel collectors who crave wind in the face over a Chopin recital. And I learned that Harley D is a hugely successful corporation flush with an enviable trend line and healthy cash flow. Its ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange perfectly captures its essence: HOG. Hog, in the sense being used here, refers to a popular nickname for some of the motorcycles that it produces.

So, without delay, here are some excerpts:

You picked a Harley-Davidson motorcycle because you wanted a bike like no other. A one-of-a-kind ride that shows everyone who you really are. With almost 6,000 parts in these pages, you've got the tools necessary to personalize your motorcycle any way you desire. So, turn the pages, jot some notes, fold over a few corners and visit www.harley-davidson.com/customizer to bring your bike to life.

Through me the way into the suffering city, through me the way to the eternal pain, through me the way that runs among the lost. Justice urged on my high Artificer; my Maker was divine authority, the highest wisdom, and the primal love. Before me nothing but eternal things were made, and I endure eternally. Abandon every hope, who enter here.

Now it's personal. The direction you choose is yours and yours alone. And you'll never let anyone tell you different. At Harley-Davidson, we respect that. We know your custom journey is a process in constant motion. It is an act of will, dedication and originality. This genuine motor parts and accessories catalog is our commitment to stand by you every step of the way.

"O my dear guide, who more than seven times has given back to me my confidence and snatched me from deep danger that had menaced, do not desert me when I'm so undone; and if they will not let us pass beyond, let us retrace our steps together, quickly." These were my words; the lord who'd led me there replied: "Forget your fear, no one can hinder our passage; One so great has granted it. But you wait here for me, and feed and comfort your tired spirit with good hope, for I will not abandon you in this low world."

The process of achieving your custom vision is genius in its simplicity. Fit, Function and Style are the three core steps of customization. First, determine if the bike feels natural and fits your body type. Next, establish how your bike's functional qualities will reflect your riding preferences. And last, bring your own personal sense of style to the table.

Faced with that truth which seems a lie, a man should always close his lips as long as he can - to tell it shames him, even though he's blameless;...

2008-07-07T10:33:00.000-07:00

WMDs FOUND IN IRAQ

You won't find this on the front page of the mainstream media, but here's an article from AP news as linked to by the Drudge Report (link: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080706/D91O8E100.html ). I've indented the "money paragraph" near the bottom of the article reprinted here:

AP Exclusive: US removes uranium from Iraq
Jul 6, 4:45 AM (ET)
By BRIAN MURPHY

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program - a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium - reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" - the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment - was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad - using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

"Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq," said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called "dirty bomb" - a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material - it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.

The Iraqi government sold the yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer, Cameco Corp. (CCJ), in a transaction the official described as worth "tens of millions of dollars." A Cameco spokesman, Lyle Krahn, declined to discuss the price, but said the yellowcake will be processed at facilities in Ontario for use in energy-producing reactors.

"We are pleased ... that we have taken (the yellowcake) from a volatile region into a stable area to produce clean electricity," he said.

The deal culminated more than a year of intense diplomatic and military initiatives - kept hushed in fear of ambushes or attacks once the convoys were under way: first carrying 3,500 barrels by road to Baghdad, then on 37 military flights to the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia and finally aboard a U.S.-flagged ship for a 8,500-mile trip to Montreal.

And, in a symbolic way, the mission linked the current attempts to stabilize Iraq with some of the high-profile claims about Saddam's weapons capabilities in the buildup to the 2003 invasion.

Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the African nation of Niger - and an article by a former U.S. ambassador refuting the claims - led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks that reached high into the Bush administration.

Tuwaitha and an adjacent research facility were well known for decades as the centerpiece of Saddam's nuclear efforts.

Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site - surrounded by huge sand berms - following a wave of looting after Saddam's fall that included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns.

Yellowcake is obtained by using various solutions to leach out uranium from raw ore and can have a corn meal-like color and consistency. It poses no severe risk if stored and sealed properly. But exposure carries well-documented health concerns associated with heavy metals such as damage to internal organs, experts say.

"The big problem comes with any inhalation of any of the yellowcake dust," said Doug Brugge, a professor of public health issues at the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Moving the yellowcake faced numerous hurdles.

Diplomats and military leaders first weighed the idea of shipping the yellowcake overland to Kuwait's port on the Persian Gulf. Such a route, however, would pass through Iraq's Shiite heartland and within easy range of extremist factions, including some that Washington claims are aided by Iran. The ship also would need to clear the narrow Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, where U.S. and Iranian ships often come in close contact.

Kuwaiti authorities, too, were reluctant to open their borders to the shipment despite top-level lobbying from Washington.

An alternative plan took shape: shipping out the yellowcake on cargo planes.

But the yellowcake still needed a final destination. Iraqi government officials sought buyers on the commercial market, where uranium prices spiked at about $120 per pound last year. It's currently selling for about half that. The Cameco deal was reached earlier this year, the official said.

At that point, U.S.-led crews began removing the yellowcake from the Saddam-era containers - some leaking or weakened by corrosion - and reloading the material into about 3,500 secure barrels.

In April, truck convoys started moving the yellowcake from Tuwaitha to Baghdad's international airport, the official said. Then, for two weeks in May, it was ferried in 37 flights to Diego Garcia, a speck of British territory in the Indian Ocean where the U.S. military maintains a base.

On June 3, an American ship left the island for Montreal, said the official, who declined to give further details about the operation.

The yellowcake wasn't the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.

Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a weapon, according to the official. Their Ottawa-based manufacturer, MDS Nordion, took them back for free, the official said.

The yellowcake was the last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts, but years of final cleanup is ahead for Tuwaitha and other smaller sites.

The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency plans to offer technical expertise.

Last month, a team of Iraqi nuclear experts completed training in the Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat, which once housed the Chernobyl workers before the deadly meltdown in 1986, said an IAEA official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decontamination plan has not yet been publicly announced.

But the job ahead is enormous, complicated by digging out radioactive "hot zones" entombed in concrete during Saddam's rule, said the IAEA official. Last year, an IAEA safety expert, Dennis Reisenweaver, predicted the cleanup could take "many years."

The yellowcake issue also is one of the many troubling footnotes of the war for Washington.

A CIA officer, Valerie Plame, claimed her identity was leaked to journalists to retaliate against her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who wrote that he had found no evidence to support assertions that Iraq tried to buy additional yellowcake from Niger.

A federal investigation led to the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

2008-06-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

Oh the irony!

It looks like the economy is public issue no. 1 as we head into the Presidential election. Rising energy costs ($4/gallon gasoline) are hurting this economy. Usually when the economy is perceived as bad, the incumbent person or party is ready for a good comeuppance, but I predict only a partial fulfillment of this informal rule. Though we have split governance at the moment, only Republicans will be thus judged, and lose, by this applied standard.

The Democratic marketing machine is a fantastic juggernaut and people are willing to take a chance on the product it is pushing. So, the GOP will be held accountable and the Democrats will not. This, in spite of the fact that 1) gasoline prices have almost doubled since Democrats took over Congress in 2006, and 2) the Democratic platform WANTS the price of gasoline to go ever higher to curb demand and thereby ease the problem of so-called "climate change".

Due to the wholesale broadcast of misinformation coming from the Democratic marketing machine, the average citizen is inclined to blame the oil companies for the price spike OR free market speculation. In either case, the Democratic Party wins big. It can TAX oil companies (which will apply further upwards pressure to the price) and it can blame "capitalism" and "unbridled greed" for the problem. Never mind that speculation only exists, in the long term, where there is a rational basis for it. Speculators can lose money just as fast as they make it when the bubble bursts.

The Democrats see Americans's pain at the pump and they know that they will not be held accountable for it. Republicans will pay the political price. Democrats are free to promise smoke and mirrors: energy independence by yet-to-be-developed green energies.

What a marketing coup! Get your opponents thrown out of office due to public anger at the consequences of YOUR OWN implemented policies. Wow!

2008-05-31T10:05:00.000-07:00

Big Wind defends profits before irate senators
By H. JOSEF STEINBERG, Associated Press Writer
Wed May 1, 2013 7:22 PM ET

WASHINGTON - On a day wind energy prices leaped to unheard-of highs, Democratic senators lined up Big Wind's biggest executives and pummeled them with complaints that they're pretending to be "hapless victims" while raking in record profits. Big Wind has come under increased scrutiny due to its alleged role in climate change models which show that the world's 13 million windmill generators have diminished the Earth's cooling capacity by over 7 percent. The cooling winds over the North Atlantic have all but stalled due to the windmills that were erected there as part of the Democrats' climate change policy beginning in early 2009.

No more. Democrat senators blame Republicans for Big Wind's dominance and troubles and the public agrees.

"Where is the corporate conscience?" Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked the top executives of the five largest U.S. wind energy companies.

It's all about economics, came the reply. Supply and demand. The company leaders tried to shift attention from consumers' anger over $4-a-kilowatt wind energy prices to a debate over new areas for wind farm development.

But senators at the Judiciary Committee hearing weren't having any of that. They wanted to press the executives about public anguish over paying $4000 or more to run their TVs and heat their houses.

"People we represent are hurting, the companies you represent are profiting," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told the executives. He said there's a "disconnect" between legitimate supply issues and the wind energy prices consumers are seeing.

The executives, sitting shoulder to shoulder in the hearing room, said they understood people were hurting, but they tried to blunt the emotion with economic analysis.

Profits have been huge "in absolute terms," conceded J. Dick Beachmon, executive vice president of Green Energy Wind Corp., but they "must be viewed in the context of the massive scale of our industry." And high earnings "in the current up cycle" are needed for investments in the long term, including when profits will be down.

"'Current up cycle,' that's a nice term when people can't afford to go to work" because wind energy is costing so much, replied Leahy with sarcasm.

An industry analyst said that the senators are "trying to break Wind and having no success...something's going to give and I wouldn't want to be nearby when it does."

Beachmon was joined by executives of Green Lifecycle Corp., Sustainable Environmental Group, NatureGreen Inc. and SorosGore Co. Together the five companies earned $360 billion during the first three months of this year.

As the executives sought to explain their profits and why prices are so high, the global wind energy markets were moving into new, uncharted highs, touching $4.07 per kWHr for the first time. The national average price per kWHr hit $3.80, with $4 showing up in more places. Aromatic crude wind prices increased even more than heavy smelly wind: in late electronic trading Wednesday hitting $4.37 for the first time.

It was the second time this year the executives had been summoned to testify before Congress. This time the exchanges got personal.

"I urge you to resist these punitive policies, breaking Wind could have disastrous consequences," said Beachmon.

It was not what many senators wanted to hear.

You have "just a litany of complaints that you're all just hapless victims of a system," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told the executives. "Yet you rack up record profits ... quarter after quarter after quarter. I've gotten my state past gasoline dependence and I'll break wind if I have to."

One senator after another cited the pain that high energy prices are causing farmers, small businesses and people trying to find a way to afford a vacation trip this summer.

"Is there anybody here that has any concerns about what you're doing to this country with the prices that you're charging and the profits that you're taking?" Durbin asked.

The titans of America's Big Wind industry sat quietly for a moment.

"Senator," replied GEW Corp's Beachmon, "We have a lot of concern about that. A few years back you Democrats rose to power using the anti-Oil slogan: 'Pass Gas, America'. Now, you are trying to break Wind. If you ask me, you guys are full of (expletive deleted)."

2008-04-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

The Moral High Ground of Stoner Culture

From the Hollywood rag Variety comes this morsel of values in conflict:

TOP STORY
'Baby,' 'Kumar' vie for box office
Comedies compete for different audiences

By Dave McNary, Pamela McClintock

...
Stoner comedy "Harold & Kumar [Escape From Guantanamo Bay]," starring John Cho and Kal Penn, is tracking strongest among younger men. Next up are older males. The R-rated pic, an irreverent look at the Bush Administration's post-9/11 policies and a follow-up to DVD cult fave "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle," opens in 2,510.
...

The article describes movies opening nationwide on Friday, April 25, 2008. I have not seen the previous "Harold & Kumar" movie but I can predict the kind of characters presented to viewers as enlightened pot smokers. They are the Bill Mahers of the world: comfortably middle-class smart alecks who base much of their camaraderie on the fun of taboo-busting while swimming in a volatile mix of innate intelligence and historical ignorance.

The article refers to the stoner's irreverent look at Guantanamo Bay, but the word irreverent is redundant. It is difficult to imagine a stoner viewing anything with reverence unless we are talking about the normal depraved values of wine, women, and song. Not that those values don't have their place (I am not judging them for values I have held dear at various stages of my life.) but they certainly are not relevant starting places for broadside attacks on critical national defense policies.

Perhaps the film has artistic merit; I doubt it, but I'll give it leeway to operate on its own terms. I love Art. I have even found an appreciation for Art that contains messages and values I disagree strongly with. But Art does not provide the slightest toe-hold upon the cliff of political policy. The society that relies on Art for political direction has already fallen to the rocks below and is experiencing the final disconnected thoughts as they flit through a disintegrating mind.

2008-03-06T06:35:00.000-08:00

Challenge to Deb Reichmann - Another ignorant AP writer

Ms. Riechmann, in an unintentionally-funny piece of what passes for news these days titled "Bush endorsement may be risky for McCain", you wrote:

Beware, John McCain. The money comes with a price. Sure, President Bush will raise millions of dollars for your Republican presidential campaign and GOP candidates. But he'll also give you the aura of a presidency tarnished by painful gasoline prices, a sagging economy, the threat of recession, a blemished U.S. reputation around the world, turbulence in the Middle East and many more problems.

Now, Ms. Riechmann, I do not expect you to rise out of your cloistered and close-minded liberal view of the world and write a balanced article between Right and Left ideals; if you did that, you would probably lose your job. But you better make sure what you write is factually correct or you might have a lawsuit on your hands. So, I ask you...

1. How can a presidency be "tarnished by painful gasoline prices"?

2. How can a presidency be "tarnished by...the threat of recession"?

3. How can a presidency be "tarnished by...turbulence in the Middle East"?

You've just ascribed blame to the presidency for matters that fall into the same category as hurricanes, the picking of rodeo winners, and the prevalence of foreign-born taxi drivers in NYC. Oh, wait! Did I say hurricanes? My bad.

Final word: a rational person would say that to tarnish a thing you have to have some level of control over the thing. Ms. Riechmann, please inform me how a president (of any political party) can successfully control market prices, eliminate the threat of a recession, or bring lasting peace to the Middle East.

2008-02-12T06:41:00.000-08:00

Hillary Clinton Promises Not To Touch GM's Profits - a parody
Feb 12, 2008

DETROIT (rb) - Today, car maker General Motors announced an all-time record negative profit of $38.7 billion. This amount is almost the exact reverse of the recently announced positive profit by GM's fellow-American corporation, the oil producer Exxon: $40.6 billion.

A campaign spokesperson for Hillary Clinton said that the senator from New York has no plans to come anywhere near General Motors's profit. This comes on the heels of her much publicised promise to "take" Exxon's profits after it had announced its stellar results.

GM executives were downcast at Clinton's campaign stance toward their company and had openly lobbied for her to take their profits, too. Said Ivy Libman, an associate CFO and twice-removed member of GM's board, "We know exactly where Exxon's profits would do the most good. We could use them here. Hey, if you don't have automobiles to burn the gas, you don't need the gas, right?"

At her recent press conference, Hillary Clinton was praised by free-marketers in the audience for her "exceptionally strong support for the separation of business and government" in GM's case. She took the opportunity to elaborate on her position of support for GM saying, "I hope they turn it around - we need them to be strong because our CAFE standards are going to be a real challenge for them. We wish them well."

2008-01-31T07:43:00.000-08:00

AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger - Zero Credibility

As I have noted before (in a November 1, 2007 post), the AP headlines on Martin Crutsinger's economic pieces are sometimes flat-out wrong. See the picture below for the latest example:

The headline is: "Consumer spending slowed in December".

The first couple of paragraphs in the piece are:

WASHINGTON - Consumers increased [my emphasis - r.b.] their spending at the weakest pace in six months while applications for unemployment benefits soared last week, two more signs the economy is weakening.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that consumer spending edged up just 0.2 percent in December — the year's peak shopping season — down sharply from a 1 percent gain in November. It was the weakest performance in this area since a similar 0.2 percent rise in June of last year.

Once again, the simple concept of spending vs. spending growth proves too difficult a challenge for this reporter. He and his editor are incompetent and should be fired.

2008-01-24T06:21:00.000-08:00

The Recession That Never Came

All apologies for another boring economic-based post, but I've finally figured out what I'm doing with this: I'm providing a benchmark to compare against the financial reporting that will occur under a Democratic-led White House and Legislature.

As for the headline below, give it some points for originality of expression. It is almost certain that its particular configuration of five words has never been met with before. Here's my *SE-inspired headline: "Fewer Reporters Eschewing Clicheless Headlines". The article goes on to say the "experts" were surprised by the relatively strong job market and they expect things to get worse. Watch out, bub.

*SE = Social Engineering

2008-01-01T06:26:00.000-08:00

AP subliminal message: Democrats in '08

I have no problems with the news media reporting bad news. Although I tend to avoid the fires-and-murder reporting - regardless of whichever political party happens to be the majority party at the time - there is nothing inherently biased about giving the public heavy doses of bad news where there is, in fact, bad news.

But I get angry when a so-called "journalist" takes a story - at its kernel a good story about the balancing effect of free markets - and puts an ignorant and misinformed spin upon it. Take this screen print of a whopper I came across this morning:

I guess the journalist understands the word "bleak" in a different way than I do. In strict terms of reality, she is correct: the situation is bleak. But not for the reasons that she puts forth in her article. Instead, it is bleak because of ignorance; bleak because our constituency does not have economic know-how to deal with this. Bleak because it appears that we have reached the Magical Socialist Tipping Point: a constituency that doesn't believe in scarcity; a constituency that believes in free lunches and balloons that only go up.

What I see is the Fed wanting to raise interest rates to strangle inflation as a strong economy grows. What I see is folks like me who benefit when interest rates rise enjoying the other side of the teeter totter while the spend-now-think-not-of-tomorrow borrowers reap what they have sown. Certainly, an unassisted meltdown in the sub-prime market would deal a strong blow to the markets, but there are those of us who would benefit. Those of us who have waited for prices to come down as they eventually must always do.

If the government would just let the markets take care of this, the hedge funds and financial services companies who underwrote these bad loans would reap what they have sown. Ironically, it is "the rich" (as Democrats understand them to be) who would suffer great loss. At the end of the day, the market would correct and it is likely that borrowers and borrowees would pay greater attention to the terms of their loan agreement.

One last point: I notice the irony of modest good news being blanketed with dire pronouncements. Sales Up! BUT it's bad, folks, it is bad out there.

(BTW, Let's not be too hard on the reporter of this story, she is probably just another run-of-the-mill miseducated Marxist from the Ivy League: she doesn't know any better.)

2007-12-30T09:20:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, & Good Night and Good Luck

This will be my last post of the year. It's been a good year and I've been blessed beyond measure. I want to take this moment to thank you, gentle reader, for exploring the cliches of what passes as knowledge in the mind of a modern autodidact. The grave insights that we've explored over the last twelve months have been. I repeat, they have been. (Haven't they?)

As a final entry into this online journal, let me share below an excerpt from M. Stanton Evans's book Blacklisted By History. His book is about Senator Joe McCarthy and in it Evans goes back to primary sources to uncover and expose the bias in today's historical renderings of the man. What he finds may be shocking to some: that the passage of time has proven Sen. McCarthy to be correct on almost all of his assertions, and that there has been a concerted effort by historians to smear his reputation in spite of facts known at the time.

In fact, the smears continue to the present day - as if somehow the collective liberal conscience won't let this skeleton lie down in its closet. Actor/Director George Clooney's gripping 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck. is an excellent example. In the movie, Clooney distorts the historical record by presenting Annie Lee Moss as an innocent martyr of McCarthy's subcommittee hearings. That she was overmatched and outgunned during her hearing is evident from live video of the event made famous by Clooney's hero CBS's Edward Murrow. Her defenders actually tried to confuse the matter by questioning whether she was the right "Annie Lee Moss" and pointing out there were three such entries in the D.C. phone book. But a single fact was missing from the film that might have caused audiences to come to a different conclusion than the one Clooney wanted: Annie Lee Moss was a Communist.

I was happy to come across the following passage on page 538 of Evans's book:

Amazingly, in a press interview about all this, Clooney made it clear he had been informed that Mrs. Moss was a Communist and that he didn't deny it. Instead, he said, the real question stressed by Murrow and his colleagues, and therefore in the Clooney film, was that "they simply demand that she has a right to face her accuser." We are thus informed, after fifty years of being told Mrs. Moss was not a Communist but a mistaken-identity victim, that wasn't the point at all! It was, instead, her right to face her accuser.

If you care to see Clooney's film (I liked it but would not recommend it), check it out and see if you think the movie goes for the low-hanging emotional grab of a poor defenseless innocent woman being mistakenly identified as a Communist spy or whether it pushes the truth that "she has a right to face her accuser." Regardless of which way you lean during the portrayal, ask yourself how you would have viewed Mrs. Moss's character had she been shown earlier reading her personal copy of The Daily Worker, paying dues to the Communist Party, and/or attending CP meetings.

Thanks to all of you for reading and I bid you Happy New Year.

Good Night, and God Bless.

2007-11-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

Caught In A Lie

One of the unfortunate stereotypes of liberal arts majors and/or "heart-before-head" types - this is casting a large net: may those unjustly accused escape with their calculus intact - is their woeful grasp of mathematical concepts. I should like to present a recent example and try to "raise awareness" (an activist's pet phrase) of a serious editorial gaff. It is similar to the common mistake of substituting for one another the brother/sister pair of words: "there" and "their".

Except the misuse of this mathematical concept results in a lie. (Is it willful or an innocent mistake?)

Here is the headline and first few sentences of an online "news" story by the Associated Press:

Consumer Spending Slows in September
Thursday November 1, 8:51 am ET
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer
Consumers, Battered by Housing Downturn and Credit Crunch, Slow Spending in September

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Consumers, battered by a steep downturn in housing and a severe credit crunch, slowed spending growth in September to the weakest performance in three months.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that consumer spending rose by 0.3 percent in September, slightly lower than the 0.4 percent increase that analysts had been expecting. Incomes grew by 0.4 percent, matching the August gain, and in line with analysts' forecasts....

Notice how the "journalist" confuses the mathematical concepts of slowed spending and slowed spending GROWTH. A careful reading reveals consumer spending increased in September and so the headline and byline are ENTIRELY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY WRONG.

A more accurate headline might have read: CONSUMER SPENDING GROWS IN SPITE OF HOUSING AND CREDIT WOES.

Here is the link for as long as it lasts: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071101/economy.html

UPDATE (3:30PM EST): The original AP story has been updated with a truthful headline (see below). But the starkly negative tone remains and will remain until Democrats are elected. Then, when THEY really screw things up, I expect "journalists" like Martin Crutsinger will find the positives in it all.

Spending Growth Slowed in September
Thursday November 1, 10:49 am ET
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer
Consumers Slow Growth in Spending While Key Manufacturing Gauge Flashes Weaker Reading

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Consumers, battered by a steep downturn in housing and a severe credit crunch, slowed their spending growth in September while a key gauge of factory activity flashed its weakest reading in seven months in October.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that consumer spending rose by 0.3 percent in September, the smallest rise in three months and lower than the 0.4 percent increase that analysts had been expecting. Incomes grew by 0.4 percent, matching the August gain, and in line with analysts' forecasts....

2007-09-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

Witness Redux

Location: Men's Restroom at Ohio Theatre
Time: September 23 1:58 pm

Tucked away in a darkened stall, encased in seductive marble as it were, combinations of organic and synthetic blends of rock and odor fighting the good fight, I sat a solitary figure. Orchestral movements sounded from without, pitching about as the flutist brushed scales with the oboe, the viola grunting disapproval at their pre-symphonic antics. The magnificent building housed no ghosts today, her rooms sunlit and empty, on this day of municipal largesse: a free performance by the Columbus Symphony. Where is everybody? Score: occupied seats 500, empty 2300. Apparently, you can't give away tickets to the symphony anymore. Puccini anyone? Dvořák and - gulp - Andrew Lloyd Webber. (Shhhh! I hear voices.)

A quick peak through the crack and I saw Amish youth. Feasible in their drab colors, angelic beings tucked away and hidden for the glory of God, two boys headed for the glossy upright urinals. The younger boy chanted wonder, his voice all gilt echoes and amazed marble resonance. I shrank back into my dark corner and considered raising my feet for anonymity's sake.

Ten: "...this building is wonderful. The rooms with their high ceilings and the walls all covered with magnificent designs." This boy doesn't sound like he's been public-schooled.

Fourteen: "It was built a long time ago." The elder has learned to downplay emotion. Head AND heart.

Ten: "I love sitting high up above the orchestra and feeling STABLE. And everything is clean. Look around. Marble floors and velvet - "

Fourteen: "Some of it is a facade."

Oops. My invisible shield just ran out of batteries. Or perhaps odor finally trumped rock. There was an unseen communication between brothers.

Fourteen: "Silly, that's what this room is for."

And then there was normal silence.

2007-08-16T06:39:00.000-07:00

Warren Buffett's Hypocrisy

After reading this bloomberg.com article titled "Obama Can Spread Prosperity, Fairness, Buffett Says", my mind struggles to understand the colossal ignorance that espouses an Entitlement Government. When rich liberals wring their hands over "poverty" and decide that the best way to solve it is by killing the goose that lays golden eggs (i.e., the free market of capitalism), they put lipstick on an irrational and disproven policy that ultimately leads to MORE poverty.

Let's see...what do we know about Mr. Buffett?

1. When he was amassing his fortune, he was famous for his maniacal avoidance of taxes. I remember a story about him spending hours figuring out how to shave a few more tax dollars off one of his tax returns. Now that HE'S GOT HIS, he wants to tax the up-and-comers.

2. The liberal do-gooders try to give him credit for "pledging" his fortune away to charity. What a laugh! Why wait until he dies? He doesn't like the "inequality" between rich and poor? Why doesn't he liquidate ALL of his assets and give them away NOW? (He - like other rich liberals - are simply hypocrites.)

3.If he thinks it is wrong for him to have so much money and not be taxed for it, WHY DOESN'T HE SEND IN A HUGE SURPLUS TAX PAYMENT? Why not just write in a check with the amount of money he thinks he should be paying, and leave the rest of us alone.

4. In fact, weak-minded liberals are always talking about fairness. In spite of the Marxist mantra being disproved time and again where ever it is tried, liberals continue to espouse an economic system based on it: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." I've got a better idea of fairness: "Let him that thinks the government should tax more, pay more taxes; and him that thinks the government should tax less, pay less taxes." NOW THAT'S FAIR!

5. Lastly, Buffett's own soft-headed senility just proves that you can be the smartest guy in the room in predicting financial outcomes and still not understand the basic premise of Economics 101.

2007-08-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

Schlesinger Jr vs. Rove

Here are two extracts from the Associated Press, one about Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. just after his passing and the other from today about the announcement of Karl Rove's resignation. The extract of only two articles is neither scientific nor is it meant to be a straight-up apples-to-apples comparison, but the tone of both can be analyzed and an approximate conclusion reached: liberal policy wonks are presented as respected scholars and conservative policy wonks are presented as meddling dilettantes.

Rove to leave White House Aug. 31
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/rove_resigning)
- by AP reporter, Terence Hunt
date of article: 08/13/2007

"Rove became one of Washington's most influential figures during Bush's presidency. He is known as a ruthless political warrior who has an encyclopedic command of political minutiae and a wonkish love of policy. Rove met Bush in the early 1970s, when both men were in their 20s."

Kennedy Insider Schlesinger Dies at 89
(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/01/ap/national/mainD8NJF3SO1.shtml)
- By AP reporter, Hillel Italie
date of article: 03/01/2007

"Schlesinger was among the most prominent historians of his time, widely respected as learned and readable, with a panoramic vision of American culture and politics."

2007-08-07T21:03:00.000-07:00

The Pacifist’s Dilemma

Civilized people of all creeds, persuasions, personality types, and hair color hate war. To some - I include myself in their number - war is a hated last resort. To others, war is never an option. An example of the latter category is George Lansbury, a lifelong Christian pacifist, and the popular leader of the British Labour Party during the mid-1930s. A Wikipedia article says that he once sent a message to the constituency of the Labour Party stating that he “would close every recruiting station, disband the Army and disarm the Air Force. I would abolish the whole dreadful equipment of war and say to the world ‘do your worst.’” In an effort to win peace, to pacify, Lansbury even met with rogue leaders Hitler and Mussolini but history shows the futility of his efforts. It is the pacifist’s dilemma: anti-war activism is only effective against the “good” guys. The rogues will cut off your head if you raise it too high.

Ghandi is accorded great respect for his leadership of the nonviolence movement in British-occupied India, and intellectual heavyweights like physicist Freeman Dyson point to him as an example of pacifism that actually worked. I am talking about political pacifism here; personal pacifism is another and, for the most part, a separate thing. It seems as if political pacifists would have us believe that if we choose not to fight and we show our enemies our unprotected chest, then they will choose not to fight us. Indeed, pacifists seem to assert that some motivational force (is it shame of prior aggression, the buried goodness of humanity, or a sense of global brother/sisterhood?) will prevent our enemy from exploiting our vulnerability and peace will blossom. Why Ghandi’s movement succeeded and Lansbury’s failed I don’t know, but I would suggest that more credit, or discredit, should be given to the opponent in both cases.

Imagine Ghandi attempting to assemble a following of peace protesters in Hitler’s Berlin. Contrast and compare that with a fictional Lansbury meeting with the English Prime Minister and protesting the occupation of India with a hunger strike. I suspect that in this alternate reality, physicist Dyson would be talking grandly about Lansbury’s achievements as a pacifist rather than Ghandi’s. I know that what I am about to write is an oversimplification of a fundamental complexity, but there is some truth in it: the success of an anti-war movement depends far more on the character of the enemy than it does the character of the pacifist. If the enemy is bent on evil (my anachronism), then all appeasement will be skillfully manipulated until total domination is achieved – mutual respect be hanged.

On pages 121-122 of The Scientist as Rebel, Freeman Dyson’s book of collected essays and book reviews, he writes:

The great nations were not about to disarm, as Lansbury well knew. His policy meant that England would simply do nothing, neither arm nor disarm. He was caught in the tragic dilemma of political pacifism. The pacifists of England and France, by announcing their unwillingness to fight, made Hitler more reckless in risking war and made the war more terrible when it came. There is no easy answer to this dilemma. A country facing an aggressive enemy must decide either to be prepared to fight effectively or to follow the path of non-violence to the end. In either case, the decision must be whole hearted and the consequences must be accepted. The example of England in the 1930's proves only that a halfhearted commitment to pacifism is worse than none at all. Halfhearted pacifism is in practice indistinguishable from cowardice.

I would add that the halfhearted prosecution of a war is in practice indistinguishable from slow surrender.

2007-08-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

The Liberal Paradox
- a short commentary inspired by God And Man At Yale – by William F. Buckley Jr.

At the beginning of chapter four, a chapter entitled ‘The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom,”’ Buckley Jr. describes the Ober controversy as a case where liberal administrators at Harvard gave Mr. Frank B. Ober the “full treatment” of intellectual abuse and rebuttal in response to his criticism of Harvard. Mr. Ober, a Harvard alumnus, had written an irate letter to President Conant of Harvard because Ober had witnessed various Harvard professors actively promoting the Communist ideology. Conant allowed Ober’s letter to be printed in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and an ensuing war of words began as liberal academics responded. When the dust settled from the dispute, the editors of the Bulletin published a total of 9,350 words of rebuttal – from six highly-placed administrators and professors - against Ober’s 2,600 words. No letters friendly to Mr. Ober’s position were printed.

Buckley Jr. writes,

‘I have taken the time to describe the Ober controversy because it indicates to me the power of the machine and the techniques that are so readily available to the academic “liberals” for the immediate use against anyone meddlesome enough to find fault with existing policy. Up against such a machine, the Obers are relatively helpless, for they have no similar weapons, no organization.’

Continuing a paragraph later, Buckley summarizes what I have called The Liberal Paradox,

‘Here as with an increasing number of the issues that confront the democratic community, the “liberals” have it – without so much as a gesture of obeisance to the toleration and open mindedness they so ostentatiously enshrine – that there is a Right Side and Wrong Side. Mr. Ober was on the Wrong Side. He was treated not as an alumnus offering a tenable policy alternative for Harvard, but as a recalcitrant Main Streeter who didn’t understand “academic freedom,” the implication of education, or the mission of the university. For this reason, Mr. Ober got no proper hearing, and his allies no hearing at all.’

My hardcover copy of God And Man At Yale is from a November 1951 3rd printing by Regnery, but the ink is still drying on the page.

2007-06-29T22:53:00.000-07:00

Suffering Under Capitalism?

Commenting on Kropotkin’s collected essays as published in the book “Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings”, an Amazon reviewer writes:

Kropotkin writes with the heart of one true to his ideals, with depth that Marx cannot reach, and intelligence that few can exceed. Revolutionary and scientist, this anti-aristocratic man of aristocratic birth explains elegantly and pleasantly the sound empirical foundations of his theory of anarchist philosophy. From the bottom up, he creates his compelling arguments in support of a world where all men and women are equal, where private property is abolished, and all work together, freely and voluntarily for the common and individual good. The libertarian communism of Kropotkin inspires orders of magnitude beyond the authoritarian communism described by Marx. His pamphlets, contained in the book, bring to life this long maligned political philosophy called anarchism. If you read these works and walk away without a sympathetic view towards anarchism, you have either not truly read them or your soul has become poisoned with the dark sufferings of life under capitalism.

I metaphorically licked the lead tip of my pencil and came up with the following rebuttal in the age-old manner of a wizened social engineer:

Anarchism is a belief system based on a fairy tale. Just read pages 157 and 158 to see how the well-documented depravity of humankind is ignored as the author tries futilely to distance his anarchist ideals from their utopian roots. Humans do not now, nor will they ever (without divine intervention), behave in such altruistic ways as would be required by anarchy. Since any clear-headed individual can see this, anarchists will always be on the fringe; they will always be advocating violence and revolution, defending murders and robberies, and showing anarchism to be the vile lie that it is.

On page 12, Kropotkin goes so far as to propose we provide "friendly treatment" to hardened criminals. No prisons. No restraints on anybody. No morality. Kropotkin says that when a person murders someone else, they aren't being evil, they're just doing what gives them pleasure at that moment in time. (page 84)

Here is my rendition of a dialogue between Charles Manson and an anarchist peer in the mold of Kropotkin:

Anarchist: "Hey, Manson, how 'bout a steak dinner? You should not have killed those people; now, what are we going to do with you? I'll tell you what, Manson, I'll give you five thousand hours in free labor checks if you'll go live somewhere far away from here. What you did wasn't wrong; at the moment you snapped, you were presented with a clear pathway to pleasure. It must've been fun writing in blood on the walls, but we're going to get you help at a voluntary hospital far way from here."
Manson: "Get off my case, man."
Anarchist: "No problem, comrade. You are a noble individual who seems to lack the Do-Not-Murder behavioral gene."
Manson: "What's the point? You tell me there is no free will; that's a gas, man."
Anarchist: "That's right. We are simply a collection of particles spinning randomly through this massive void. One day we'll be able to chart the spin of your electrons and predict every move you make. Until then, Manson, if we could convince you to accept some of our gene therapy - nobody is going to force you - but if we could convince you, you might find fulfillment outside of this rapin' and killin' that you been doin'.

The more I read Kropotkin's ideas, the more amazed I became. How could an adult believe such pablum? It would've been funny if I didn't know that anarchists like him and Emma Goldman were so damned dangerous in their day.

Ironically, Kropotkin repeatedly put forth the Golden Rule (i.e., page 97) as the pinnacle of anarchist morality. He likes the Rule, but without the cloying religious sentiment that is usually attached to it.

There are dozens of silly statements scattered throughout this text; I will finish my comment with this one from page 103:

"...while leaving to each the right to act as he thinks best; while utterly denying the right of society to punish anyone in any way for any anti-social act he may have committed, we do not forego our own capacity to love what seems to us good and to hate what seems to us bad. Love and hate; for only those who know how to hate know how to love. We keep this capacity; and as this alone serves to maintain and develop the moral sentiments in every animal society, so much the more will it be enough for the human race."

2007-06-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

The Virtue of Stealing?
The scariest remarks that I have heard in the last couple of months come from one person.

"I want to take those profits..."

"...the free market is not working..."

"...something has to be taken away from some people."

- U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton

The first qoute was from a Feb 2, 2007 DNC meeting; the last two were from a June 4, 2007 forum on faith and values.

2007-06-07T21:32:00.000-07:00

A college roommate of mine was deep into philosophical exploration of a person's sense of identity and liked to compare and contrast it with the latest ideas of artificial intelligence. I was eighteen and confident and living the highlight reel of a happy life, and I remember dismissing his conjectures prima facie. I believed then, instinctively, in the duality of human life and knew that regardless of the future complexity of A.I. machinery, the monumental singularity of artificial self-awareness would never be reached.

I still believe that way. But...the years have passed and enough memories have come and gone that I sometimes feel as if the reverse scenario is playing out in my life. I am becoming less human and more androidic. My memory is not as sharp. I have become more predictable as if running an internal program where programming instruction A always follows stimulus B and so on. Like a computer processor, I find myself running through algorithmic behavioral scenarios as I go through my daily activities instead of living "in the moment."

A few years after college, I read Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?" and compared it to the 1982 film that it inspired named Blade Runner. Director Ridley Scott's adaptation is a masterpiece inspired by a masterpiece. One of the most beloved scenes of the film - most fans agree - didn't come from the book, but it created a deeply rooted memory in me that somehow reinforced my own humanity to myself. It still does. In that scene, Rutger Hauer's character says the following lyrical lines right before his "death":

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe:
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion;
I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate.
All those moments ... will be lost ... in time ... like tears in rain.

Time to die.

2007-04-07T23:23:00.000-07:00

There is a point at which pathetic overtures made toward one's opponent can generate a latent self-loathing which only strengthens the weakness of placation and will eventually lead to a violent undoing. The ruthless opponent sees things for what they are and makes plans to exploit them. All the while smiling and glad-handing. This all reminds me of Judge Holden and the Glanton gang from Cormac McCarthy's novel "Blood Meridian". The abrupt betrayal of the benefactor, the bullet sent into a friend's unsuspecting brain, the stirring up of strife for its own anarchic sake: these are evil fruits to observe and then to resist. There is a difference between the Christian concept of loving your enemies and the secular concept of appeasing them. The former says "I believe you to be wrong and I do not trust you in the slightest, but I will seek your good even to the risk of my own hurt"; the latter says, "We're both basically right, you just need to let us know what we can do or how we can change so that we can all get along." Human nature has always seemed to ensure the appeaser's outcome: stone dead or supplicating upon deaf and heartless ears.

From 'Blood Meridian' by Cormac McCarthy we find the character Judge Holden talking (page 250 - chap. 17)):

Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man's vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgements ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.

2007-02-22T07:33:00.000-08:00

On simplistic progressive utopias

I found this comment (concerning the film 'A Scanner Darkly') out on imdb.com interesting:

"I enjoyed the book and the movie. I admire Linklater and look forward to each of his projects as they come out. He thoughtfully tackles themes I find interesting and creates works of art that ask as many questions as they answer. My rating for ASD is a 9/10.

The commentary track, however, should be a warning to all minds: "Most artists make horrible politicians."

Why? Mostly because artists deal in the realm of the ideal and have little patience or understanding for the way humans REALLY ARE. Even as touched on by Linklater, many, perhaps most, artists believe in the progressive "enlightenment" of humankind. In spite of all historical evidence to the contrary, there is a muted optimism that if humanity can only rid itself of conservatism, capitalism, and Christianity, it may reach new heights of utopian splendor.

Or course, the biggest problem with such a progressive idea is the human animal itself. I am reminded of Edgar Allan Poe's pronouncement on the idea of human progress; he said in a letter to James Russell Lowell, "I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate--the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active--not more happy--nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary--and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain-- that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future--that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves--nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass.--I have no belief in spirituality. I think the word a mere word. No one has really a conception of spirit. We cannot imagine what is not." link:http://www.eapoe.org/works/letters/p4407020.htm

It is ironic that a group of wealthy artists who are products of a capitalistic society, whose art in fact is successfully distributed by for-profit corporations, can sit around and speak nostalgically about a (Marxist?)future that will never exist. Capitalism is far from perfect, but it has proven to be a far better economic model than anything proposed to date. Why? Because it is based on human nature THE WAY IT IS, not the way a sensitive, caring artist-type person would LIKE IT TO BE.

Also, mention was made about the paranoia surrounding the current U.S. Administration's anti-terrorist policies. The comments showed once again a colossal blind spot in terms of what humans create governments to do. The hyperbole of suggesting that all 300 million Americans be considered terrorists and then sorted out, as one commentator suggested, shows the irrational nature of progressive thought. If this same person is so concerned about the government tracking our every move, then perhaps we should start from the beginning of our lives where, immediately upon birth, we are given a "Social Security" number which is used to track us and extract increasing amounts of money from us as government grows out of control. Ironically, it is progressives who increasingly want to grow government by increasing taxes.

When I listen to these simplistic rantings on the Drug War ("'Just say no' is too simplistic because it doesn't educate kids on how fun drugs are" or something to that effect.) and the prison society, I am reminded of the implicit promise of progressives: we will become better humans once we can alter who we are by safe drugs, genetic manipulation, and the elimination of all of morality's baggage. We are simply "scanners" (pieces of meat with a powerful processor and I/O mechanisms) who by our own ingenuity will someday reach nirvana. In other words, humanity will succeed once it changes into something less human. "

2007-01-26T07:23:00.000-08:00

Excerpts from Buñuel's autobiography: My Last Sigh

It has become a perverse pleasure of mine to study the classic films of directors like Luis Buñuel (approx. pronunciation = "been well") whose films are so highly touted by the critics. Although many of the films are considered inaccessible, in measures of pure entertainment, I find the slower pace well suited to my aging mentalities. Having it on DVD helps as well: I can watch a little at a time.

Outside Buñuel's persona as a filmmaker, I have been interested by reports he experienced a rebirth of faith on his deathbed. His followers like to discount it as one last trick played upon them by the aged director - he passed on at age 83 - who was known for his bizarre sense of humor.

Born in the year 1900 and raised in Spain by a devout Catholic family, he talks about his faith and the effect that the public high school had on it:

During those two years, I met a law student who introduced me to certain philosophical, literary, and historical works (in cheap editions) that no one at the Colegio del Salvador [the Catholic school he had been attending] had even so much as mentioned. Suddenly I discovered Spencer, Rousseau, Marx! Reading Darwin's The Origin of Species was so dazzling that I lost what little faith I had left (at the same time that I lost my virginity, which went in a brothel in Saragossa).

In the chapter titled "Earthly Delights," he describes his love of alcohol and tobacco and women. Now, an old man, he writes:

Much of this has changed, of course, over the years; lately, my own sexual desire has waned and finally disappeared, even in dreams. And I'm delighted; it's as if I've finally been relieved of a tyrannical burden. If the devil were to offer me a resurgence of what is commonly called virility, I'd decline. "Just keep my liver and lungs in good working order," I'd reply, "so I can go on drinking and smoking!"

On the art around him (he was personal friends with Salvador Dali and hung out with all the "important" painters of that era):

Don't ask me my opinions about art, because I don't have any. Aesthetic concerns have played a relatively minor role in my life, and I have to smile when a critic talks, for example, of my "palette." I find it impossible to spend hours in galleries analyzing and gesticulating. Where Picasso's concerned, his legendary facility is obvious, but sometimes I'm repelled by it. I can't stand Guernica (which I nonetheless helped to hang). Everything about it makes me uncomfortable - the grandiloquent technique as well as the way it politicizes art. Both Alberti and José Bergamín share my aversion; in fact, all three of us would be delighted to blow up the painting, but I suppose we're too old to start playing with explosives.

On dreams:

If someone were to tell me I had twenty years left, and ask me how I'd like to spend them, I'd reply: "Give me two hours a day of activity, and I'll take the other twenty-two in dreams...provided I can remember them."

...I had another dream which moved me even more. In it I see the Virgin, shining softly, her hands outstretched to me. It's a very strong presence, an absolutely indisputable reality. She speaks to me - to me, the unbeliever - with infinite tenderness; she's bathed in the music of Schubert. (I tried to reproduce this image in The Milky Way, but it simply doesn't have the power and conviction of the original.) My eyes full of tears, I kneel down, and suddenly I feel myself inundated with a vibrant and invincible faith. When I wake up, my heart is pounding, and I hear my voice saying: "Yes! Yes! Holy Virgin, yes, I believe!" It takes me several minutes to calm down. The erotic overtones are obvious, yet they always remain within the chaste limits of a platonic devotion. Perhaps if the dream continued, it would have vanished, or given way to desire? I don't know. I simply feel overwhelmed, my heart is full; it's an ethereal feeling I've often experienced, and not just in dreams.

I'm only halfway through the book, but I would like to point out a criticism that I have of liberalism, in general, and wealthy liberals like Buñuel, in particular. Buñuel came from one of the wealthiest families in all of Spain. As a child, he had exposure to kings and queens along with many of the intellectual movers and shakers of his day. He never once experienced a lack of money to pursue the things he wanted, and yet, he was a committed leftist pretending to be a brother of the common man. His family's wealth and position protected him throughout his life from sharing in the violent deaths that many of his friends and compatriots suffered.

I've always wondered how a self-described socialist could justify holding onto any personal wealth when one of the party platforms is to close the gap between rich and poor. Surely, distributing ALL OF YOUR PROPERTY to the poor - and thereby eliminating one of the "gaps" - would be one of the surest proofs of your sincerity. And yet, we never see it happen. (Generous bequests upon one's death do not count.)

2007-01-09T14:15:00.000-08:00

Buckeyes Lose Identity

As a long time Ohio State fan, I've seen good and bad football over the years, but the Monday night championship game against the Gators provided the most embarrassing kind of football that I can remember from a Buckeye team.

As the first quarter ended, I wondered whether the entire team, coaches and all - especially the coaches - hey, throw the marching band in, too, had been shanghaied on the way to Arizona, and a set of doppelgangers put in their place.

First, give credit to Florida. They did exactly what Ohio State did against the Miami Hurricanes a few years back when the Buckeyes "stole" the BCS Championship away from the highly touted 'Canes. The only difference is that Ohio State did not show up this year, and defend its pride, like Miami did back then.

Ohio State fans have been wringing their hands today wondering what went wrong. If I had to pick one thing, the biggest goof of the game, I would have to pick the defensive game plan. Others have cited the lack of offense, but I tend to think that the offensive meltdown occurred BECAUSE OF the defensive fiasco.

Sometime prior to January 8, in some quiet athletic bunker on the Gainesville campus, the following conversation took place between Urban Meyer (UM) and a naive booster(NB):

NB: Coach, if you could pick the kind of defense that you would face in the national championship game, what would it be?
UM: Well, offensively our team has been up and down this season. The attacking defenses of the other SEC teams have sometimes made us look pretty ineffective.
NB: Oh yeah, those blitzing Tigers of Auburn and LSU really pounded Chris Leak.
UM: Yeah, we would like to face a soft defense, a defense where they only rush three, drop 5 or 6 defensive backs into zone coverage, and give us the underneath stuff. We could protect the quarterback and control the clock that way.
NB: In other words, a "prevent" defense.
UM: Ha. That'd be great, wouldn't it?
NB: Ha. Gators would tear that kind of defense apart.
UM: Exactly. Too bad for us, though. Ohio State doesn't play that kind of defense. They attack. They'll stack the box with 7 or 8 guys and go man to man. I don't know how we can protect Leak, but we'll do our best and hope for a couple of big plays.

The joke was on us when Ohio State decided to play into Florida's strength

Ohio state went with a new defensive scheme that I had not seen all year. Now, I'm just a layman, but I did not recognize the defensive lineups off the ball. The linebackers were 7 yards off the line-of-scrimmage, the DBs were completely out of the picture frame before the snap of the ball. It was the worst defensive scheme imaginable against a fired up Gator team. With the exception of a couple plays of outstanding individual effort from OSU linemen, Chris Leak was never knocked out of his rhythm. The "prevent" defense didn't do anything AND - MOST SURPRISING OF ALL - OHIO STATE NEVER ADJUSTED.

What follows is a series of screen captures along with my opinion about what went wrong:

Here we see Ted Ginn Jr. just before he is tackled - and injured - by his own teammates after returning an opening kickoff for a touchdown.

Here we see a soft defensive scheme from Ohio State.

Here we see an aggressive defensive scheme from Florida.

And finally, the OSU marching band decided to add its own distinctive mark of insanity as it performed the theme song to Titanic the movie. I'm not making this up! The band played the moving ballad as its members formed the shape of the Titanic steamer and then sank beneath the billowing ocean waves as represented by a gigantic blue tarp. It makes me wonder whether the band had two half-time shows ready to go; the Titanic one if OSU is losing badly, and a rousing "Hang On Sloopy" dance fest if OSU is winning.

In summary, it was painful and I demand an investigation. I implore House Speaker Pelosi to inquire into the matter and get to the bottom of it. While we're at it, let's see if CSI Las Vegas can uncover illegal betting. I want the FAA scanning all planes for the real Buckeyes. Where's Tressel? Not the guy on the sidelines Monday night PRETENDING to be Mr. Tressel, I want the gridiron genius who would never panic and go for a fourth down on his own 29 while still in the second quarter. Until, we find them, I cannot believe there is any way those football professionals who saw how badly the game was going, and still did not make aggressive changes, are the same ones who coached us to a 12-0 season.

2006-12-08T08:26:00.000-08:00

December 7th Infamy

I came across this in a Global Gaming League newsletter. (I receive these because I like to spy on the youth culture.)

December 7th, 1941, is a day that shall live in infamy. December 7th, 2006, is the day you read the GGL Email Blast! (But seriously, let's give a moment of silence for that terrible day that gave us so many great WWII games.)

Let's give credit to this "gamer" organization: they remembered.

2006-11-23T21:03:00.000-08:00

high culture

i see it coming
will dolphins make the playoffs?
yes if i don't watch

2006-10-11T07:41:00.000-07:00

The Cult of Comic Personality

I'm bemused by recent headlines suggesting that Jon Stewart's fans want him to run for President in '08. As if "being funny" is the one credential every politician needs to be effective. We wouldn't think of saying, "He's funny and smart, I want him to perform my appendectomy", would we? That is not to say that he is not qualified to run for political office, but that, perhaps, he should set his sights on something more reasonable, something more local. As much as we all distrust politicians, we still prefer that our national ones have extensive experience at some junior level.

To Stewart's credit, he has downplayed the fan mania, but this story brings into the light - not for the first time - another irritating issue: that is, the misleading perception that he is an independent voice who castigates Republicans and Democrats alike.

Whenever I hear someone say that a Hollywood liberal - I put Stewart in this group - tends to see absurdity in both parties, they make the implication that the Hollywood liberal is, in fact, a moderate with a fairly independent view of things.

This is misleading.

Similarly, to say, as many do, that fellow comedian Bill Maher is basically cynical about both parties, and thereby place him in the political camp of independents and "free thinkers", is misleading.

When liberals like Jon Stewart or Bill Maher criticize a political party, the abstract level of their critique depends on what party they are criticizing. So that, when they speak out against Republicans, they speak out against GOP policy - what the party stands for. When they speak out against Democrats, they tend to denounce Democrats for going along with Republicans or, as they see it, acting like Republicans. Either way, the net result is a slam on Republicans.

This is not an "independent" view.

2006-09-07T21:12:00.000-07:00

God Love Humans Loving Animal Lovers
I came across an amazon.com review by a New Jersey reader - and a zealous lover of animalkind - of the best-selling novel "Water for Elephants" written by Sara Gruen. Here is the excerpt that caught my attention:

"...I certainly get it that circus life during the Great Depression had its grim side, but if I'd known in advance how much the author would concentrate on that aspect of that world, I would not have read the book. There is more than enough abuse to go around, both human-to-human, and even more distressingly, human-to-animal."

It distresses me to think I might be attacked by a rabid pit bull and the New Jersey reviewer might be the closest human around to help. Which one of us would she help? (I think the reviewer is a she because her profile name is "missalix.")

2006-08-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

A Writer's Conference

A man on the panel said, "We'll take questions from the audience moving left to right - it'll be just like things in the country politically."

A presenter, a professor from a nearby college, said, "Cormac McCarthy is the greatest living American writer. He may be the greatest ever. He is our Shakespeare, our Dickens." (Should I remove the double quotes?) He was serious. His was my favorite session.

An agent, asked to name one of her favorite novels, said, "'Love In The Time of Cholera' by...I always have trouble remembering his name...oh well, it's an amazing book."

Another agent, analyzing first paragraphs of unpublished novels, happened to pick my submission at random; she commented: "It's fairly well-written; a little heavy-handed; too ideological; it does not introduce the protagonist; although, it looks like I'd find that in the next paragraph if I decided to read on." For my loyal reader, I present The First Paragraph that prompted her critique:

Almost everyone was surprised when the social fabric that had held the United States together for almost two hundred and fifty years split down the middle. Concerned observers watched in disbelief as the citizenry divided itself into two distinct ideological camps and, with the summer’s outbreak of civil war, butchered the country’s geography into four distinct sections. No one could have believed that a prosperous nation would prosecute its own divorce with such brutality, brother against brother, sister against sister. But the rancor was like an abandoned oil refinery waiting to be blown sky high by spontaneous combustion as events aligned and the heated rhetoric of the day took fanatical shape. In May of that infamous year, a med student from North Carolina, minding his own business, performed a heroic deed that unwittingly created a national flashpoint. It was the end of unity.

I admit that it is too "on point." Maybe I can tone it down into a 15-year-old girl's lament about having to move from L.A. to San Francisco. I also admit that I use the word "that" too much (I learned that - oops - this weekend.) I'll let you know how that turns out...

2006-07-29T23:19:00.000-07:00

Old Testament Author's priorities out of whack?
I'm reading "The Bible Unearthed" by Finklestein and Silberman. F & S are skeptics who have decided that modern archaeological research combined with their own well-exercised powers of induction provide a death shot to those few antiquarians around who still believe the Bible to be historically accurate. As F & S attempt to rewrite history, they in turn accuse the 7th century BCE Judahite king Josiah as being the most blatant revisionist of all. In chapter after chapter, the authors relish the opportunity, it seems, to craft an alternate version of Israelite history that centers on the following premise: Old Testament history from the Exodus to the glorious kingships of David and Solomon was concocted by King Josiah for political gain. They claim that the biblical account of Israel's origins is mostly thin air mixed with just a tiny smidgen of historical truth.

So far, I've tossed around their suggestions of what REALLY happened way back when - following along as they make assumptions and sketch conclusions based on 3000-year-old evidence, and I've found myself chuckling at the futility of the effort. To those whose faith may be shaking from the daily assault of modernity, you have nothing to fear here.

Most of the book is a dry description of archaeological findings followed by newly proposed histories that severely strain Occam's razor in terms of plausibility. Occasionally, however, there are paragraphs that are so firmly rooted in what passes today as finely nuanced intellectualism that they illuminate the very truths they are trying to overturn. One of the most startling paragraphs in the book so far is a perfect example of this. It exposes the chasm between God’s historical viewpoint vs. “historians in the modern sense.” God has always valued the state of a man or woman’s heart more than He has mere accomplishments, but it seems F & S know better:

“The Omrides are remembered as among the most despised characters of biblical history. Yet the new archaeological vision of the kingdom of Israel offers an entirely different perspective on their reigns. Indeed, had the biblical authors and editors been historians in the modern sense, they might have said that Ahab was a mighty king who first brought the kingdom of Israel to prominence on the world stage and that his marriage to the daughter [Jezebel] of the Phoenician king Ethbaal was a brilliant stroke of international diplomacy. They might have said that the Omrides built magnificent cities to serve as administrative centers of their expanding kingdom. They might have said that Ahab and Omri, his father before him, succeeded in building one of the most powerful armies in the region – with which they conquered extensive territories in the far north and in Transjordan. Of course, they might also have noted that Omri and Ahab were not particularly pious and that they sometimes were capricious and acted brutally. But the same could be said of virtually every other monarch of the ancient Near East.
Indeed, Israel, as a state, enjoyed natural wealth and extensive trade connections that made it largely indistinguishable from other prosperous kingdoms of the region….” Pg 169-170

2006-06-28T22:31:00.000-07:00

The Last Good Woman by William Luse
- a review

First and foremost, The Last Good Woman is a novel about fear. Intimacy, religion, and mortality - these weighty subjects give journalist-to-be Lewis Worth almost more than he can handle. One senses as the story progresses, that Lewis is not even aware that he is a drowning man in need of rescue. His well-honed machismo and the ready availability of drinking buddies - and where there's drinking buddies, there's sure to be plenty of drink - provide enough support for him to reckon himself a confident man. But as he tells us his story, we begin to see that there is a more profound reason for his swagger.

The story begins with Lewis and his live-in girlfriend, Liz, entertaining her family at their little apartment near the college campus where they met. Liz's family has traveled across the country to visit her, and it is a tense situation because Liz has hidden from her parents the fact that she is cohabiting with Lewis. Added into the mix is the transparent distrust with which Gerald, Liz's father, regards Lewis from the start. As the rest of the book unfolds, we find ourselves doubting Lewis just as Gerald does. And so we are thrust into a dense psychological examination of what it means to live in "the land of uncertainty", as Lewis puts it. It is a modern land where promises are only good for as long as they remain unbroken.

Later, we meet Lewis's college friends and watch as Lewis struggles to balance his growing affection for Liz with his much practiced love of nights on the town, roaming free with plenty of beer and loose women on hand. How he jeopardizes the good thing he has with Liz and to what result, I will leave for you to discover, but these passages perfectly capture the fun and awful moments that one experiences during that time of life when one feels invincible.

Luse's prose is balanced and - except for the Hildegard chapter which is too long and too starkly different from the rest of the novel - a real cut above good, and when he analyzes, through Lewis, the inner workings of lust, morbid desire, and infidelity, the pages practically turn themselves. The heart of this novel lies not in its plot, which in the end is simple enough, but in the way the author exposes Lewis's internal weaknesses and then reveals the epiphanic moments on which his external actions turn. Everyone experiences such moments in their own life but they are not so easily conveyed to the page.

I said at the beginning that The Last Good Woman was a book about fear. It is, but there is plenty of humor and wit to go along with the serious tone, and one suspects that the biggest fear of all for Lewis is that one day he might lose the last good woman in the world due to his own foolish meanderings.

2006-06-23T07:29:00.000-07:00

The Shower Song

I weigh one-forty-eight
I must admit that's great
I'm happy with my fate
I've shown my fat the gate

Please don't recoil with hate
I will not take the bait
When sugar's on the slate
My appetite to sate

I'll sum up my estate
From Bunky-love to Nate
(We tried to have a Kate)
A girl with 4 boys equate

But now back to my weight
Not better, but never late
Envy me my state?
Put veggies on your plate.

2006-05-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

Book Meme

Grab the nearest book.
Open it to page 161.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence along with these instructions.
Don’t search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

"If I can't have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat."

-from Ernest Hemingway's "The Short Stories" published by Scribner (1997)

(P.S. My book marker was at page 159 which is the title page for Cat In The Rain which ends on page 161 so this was NEXT IN THE QUEUE. Spooky.)

2006-04-25T21:45:00.000-07:00

Vox clamantis in deserto

If you say something in Latin, does it mean anything if no one can interpret it? I spent the summer of '88 working in Hanover, NH and occasionally frequented a quaint street level watering hole with a beautiful sign of wood and beaten gold near Dartmouth College. I don't remember the name of the tavern or even if the sign belonged to the place itself, but the street had a medieval flare about it. As I strolled the summer paths not far from there, I could not escape the wilderness of my own mind. The fear that I had made a mistake by spending four years - and over
four times that out-of-pocket - getting a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering had manifested itself in one or two colossal professional embarrassments that would ultimately lead to the end of a very short career. Within six months, I would be blissfully happy working twenty hours a week at near minimum wage and playing rock'n'roll guitar for a Christian rock band. I'm still trying to make out that "voice crying out in the wilderness." (translation - wink wink - everyone should own a good sturdy Latin/English dictionary)

On another topic entirely, do you think the following epigram has any chance of being remembered?

"Marxism is the opium of the 'enlightened' intellectual."
- Richard Beach (2006)

2006-04-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

LIBERALS DON'T MUCH LIKE PATRIOTISM

Here are some movie reviews about the controversial film "United 93" coming out next week. Notice the disdain of patriotism "oozing" from these liberal reviewers:

Dennis Lim (The Village Voice):

"It may be the film's most compassionate gesture—its single most humanizing touch—to indicate that the heroes of Flight 93 were motivated not by patriotism, as it may be comforting for some to think, but by unthinkable fear and a primal survival instinct."

Lisa Schwartzbaum (Entertainment Weekly):
"Pulling the bandage of sentiment cleanly away from oozing concepts like ''heroism'' and ''our nation's war on terror'' in the aftermath of recent wounds, here's a drama about the most politically charged crisis of our time that grants the dignity of autonomy to every soul involved. In this telling, each passenger has a life that began long before he or she boarded the aircraft, not a mere representation of citizenry. Each hijacker is a man with a temperament and a religious conviction, not a cartoon monster. Todd Beamer (played by David Alan Basche) utters his now-famous ''Let's roll'' as a brief organizational statement to fellow passengers in on the plans to disarm the terrorists, not as a booming call to patriotism."

2006-04-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

The ACLU: Suppressor of Free Speech?

I found the following discussion on the www.imdb.com message board for the film "V for Vendetta" intriguing in an obscure sort of way. A member started a topic with the heading "Being bashed on the radio today" where he or she complained that an ignorant conservative talk show host was making disparaging remarks about the film. The topic morphed into a discussion of free speech in the U.S. which is where we pick up the action (I added the text in brackets to improve clarity.):

by - misphit12 4 days ago (Thu Mar 30 2006 10:09:23)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[An earlier member wrote:"]I know Americans have Freedom of Speech (well, when they allow them to have it) but that's so wrong and bad and offensive and stupid and I think this guy sealed the door on his fate and credibility the moment he opened his mouth.["]

[misphit12's reponse:"]Um when aren't we allowed to have freedom of speech? Unless your talking about yelling fire in a movie theater which I'm sure some people wanted to do when they say this movie["]

by - gouge_away 1 day ago (Sun Apr 2 2006 21:19:11)
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The far left (i.e., ACLU types) has consistently supported the suppression of free speech in the public marketplace of ideas whenever that speech was deemed to be religious.

According to them, a student who extemporaneously prays out loud (i.e., a form of speech) at a high school football game is committing a federal crime. Ironically, if that same person chooses to use the name of God in a profane way (i.e., "Jesus H. Christ" or "God damn!"), I'm certain that the ACLU would defend that student if he or she were subsequently sued or muzzled by the authorities.

by - sickchazz 23 hours ago (Sun Apr 2 2006 22:49:40)
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actually the ACLU is for every American. It's right there in the title. And they support everyone's right to pray whenever they want. It's funny when people refer to the ACLU as liberal when they protect the right's of everyone including Rush Limbaugh. No one has ever been prosecuted for praying at school. What is illegal is for the state to force a religion on its citizens, hence it is illegal to REQUIRE prayer at school. If you are for prayer in school, who would you require all students pray to? God? Allah? Yaweh? Buddha? Zeus?... Oh I loved the movie by the way. I wish people would look at the movie for what it stands for and not be offended by what they believe are direct parallels to actual people. All the characters are inspired by several hundred different sources, no story is created in a vacuum. One last thing, the movie glorifies Guy Fawkes who was a, gasp, Catholic! Go figure.

by - gouge_away 50 minutes ago (Mon Apr 3 2006 21:01:42)
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The ACLU not liberal? It is a strong supporter of abortion and gay rights, to name just two of their many liberal tendencies.

In the Supreme Court case Santa Fe Independent School District v. Jane Doe (2000), the judges on the Court (6 "for" vs. 3 "against") deemed the following public high school policy unconstitutional, and by their decision trampled on the free speech rights of our fellow Americans. If you take the time to read it, you will see that the policy in no way forces religion on the students. They are free to determine 1) whether there will be any invocation AND/OR MESSAGE* given at all, and 2) to choose a student who will then be free to give any message that they deem fit:

“STUDENT ACTIVITIES:
“PRE-GAME CEREMONIES AT FOOTBALL GAMES “The board has chosen to permit students to deliver a brief invocation and/or message to be delivered during the pre-game ceremonies of home varsity football games to solemnize the event, to promote good sportsmanship and student safety, and to establish the appropriate environment for the competition. “Upon advice and direction of the high school principal, each spring, the high school student council shall conduct an election, by the high school student body, by secret ballot, to determine whether such a statement or invocation will be a part of the pre-game ceremonies and if so, shall elect a student, from a list of student volunteers, to deliver the statement or invocation. The student volunteer who is selected by his or her classmates may decide what message and/or invocation to deliver, consistent with the goals and purposes of this policy. “If the District is enjoined by a court order from the enforcement of this policy, then and only then will the following policy automatically become the applicable policy of the school district. “The board has chosen to permit students to deliver a brief invocation and/or message to be delivered during the pre-game ceremonies of home varsity football games to solemnize the event, to promote good sportsmanship and student safety, and to establish the appropriate environment for the competition. “Upon advice and direction of the high school principal, each spring, the high school student council shall conduct an election, by the high school student body, by secret ballot, to determine whether such a message or invocation will be a part of the pre-game ceremonies and if so, shall elect a student, from a list of student volunteers, to deliver the statement or invocation. The student volunteer who is selected by his or her classmates may decide what statement or invocation to deliver, consistent with the goals and purposes of this policy. Any message and/or invocation delivered by a student must be nonsectarian and nonproselytizing.”

*[My emphasis]

The Establishment Clause of the Bill of Rights states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;...." In closing, I would like to say that the ACLU has a stellar record supporting the first part of the Establishment Clause, but a very poor record on the second part, as the case in point exhibits clearly.

2006-03-09T18:19:00.000-08:00

Criticizing a Postmodern Critic's Analysis of T.S. Eliot

I've just finished a Modern Library anthology of T.S. Eliot's writings entitled simply "The Waste Land And Other Writings". It begins with an entertaining if somewhat controversial introduction by Mary Karr, and is followed by a 234-page glimpse into Eliot's creative and critical mind. Being an autodidact, I confess ignorance about where Mr. Eliot stands in the esteem of academia today, but I was able to easily find - thanks to the internet - plenty of current syllabi showing that his works are still being discussed.
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My interest in Catholic writers during what I consider the New Golden Age of Western Literature (1920 - 1970) led me to this book. I was not disappointed. You may not agree with my designation or its range of years but you will perhaps agree with me that, in a macro sense, this prior era is our nearest peak in literature. It was modernity barely alive after the coronary thrombosis of World War I. American and British education just prior to this gilded age had been at its peak in terms of quality if not quantity, and a high school graduate from 1890 to 1920 would have been a master of English, a worthy apprentice of Latin and Greek, and more than a little acquainted with French. Compared to today's students, most of them would appear to be polyglots.
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Not only that, but the culture then was fairly stable (no culture is perfect) and uniform, based on the now-tired hyphenate: Judeo-Christian principles. This does not mean that people were more religious then; simply, that they consciously or unconsciously played by the cultural rules. The stigma of "sinner" was greater for both those who believed and those who didn't, but for those who didn't, it didn't mean much outside the public eye. If this seems an oversimplified explanation, I plead innocence by reason of my education, if you'll tolerate the joke. In any event, when World War II came along and finished ole Modernity, up flew the phoenix called Post-Modernism.
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The old modern may not have worried much about the application of Judeo-Christian principles to his individual life, but he did place some value on the macro effects of that culture. He transgressed, perhaps, but he did not proselytize his sin; he did not want his transgression to become accepted in the culture because he saw the bigger picture. With postmodernism, there is no big picture, "there's only you and me and we just disagree" or so the pop song goes.
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Keeping the discussion at its current level of abstraction, I would define postmodernism as modernism without the Judeo-Christian framework. Modern man has always transgressed, but with our new era, he can transgress and be accepted at the same time. He can be ignorant of the facts and still be a teacher. He can make vice virtue and virtue vice and the world still turns. There is a love of progress without any clear idea of the destination; there is no accountability because there is no reality to account for; and, after putting the puny human animal in his insignificant place in the universe, most postmodernists then exalt this humanity, especially the individual human, to the center of everything. All of which makes for entertaining ideas but strangely empty minds if by empty we mean to say unable to comprehend the truth.
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Take, for instance, the essay by Syracuse University's Mary Karr that opens the book. Professor Karr writes with clarity and humor, but there is a certain deficiency, a hollowness, to be found there. Early on, she praises Eliot for his avant-garde techniques while acknowledging that there are some who, while they admit he's still avant-garde, "eschew actually reading Eliot because he's a dead white guy who represents the old guard." You can't get past the irony here. Her reason for allowing Eliot to be characterized this way becomes apparent when, concerning the semi-explanatory notes that Eliot included with his poem "The Waste Land", she writes: "It's a little-recognized fact that the controversial notes were an afterthought...." Later, "Even knowing the randomness of the notes' insertion, you still can't ignore them wholesale. There they squat in the text. But once you stop cowing in their shadow, you can decipher them as whimsical rather than smug." Still later, they are "capricious and shifting in both purpose and attitude." And there are many more of the same. (Karr is not alone; I read an analysis by Nancy K. Gish in her book "The Waste Land - A Student's Companion to the Poem" that also gave short shrift to Eliot's notes.)
-
By devaluing the notes, Karr fashions her analysis using a favorite tool of the postmodernist: linguistic theory that places the word on the page above the intent of the author. She makes it clear that, for her, "The Waste Land" is a much better poem without bothering too much with what Eliot was trying to communicate. She does this because Eliot was far more conventional in his personal life than perhaps she and her readers would like to admit, and his later scholarship and the essays that came out of that scholarship lend an authority that works against the postmodern desire to turn "The Waste Land" into a life creed; and because Eliot ultimately rejected the latent nihilistic world view that others found there and renewed his devotion to his Catholic faith. To read a poem as a juxtaposition of words that communicate some inchoate feeling or desire without reference to the author's meaning is to miss the point. Not so, says the postmodernist, there is no point to miss.
-
One final note about Karr's essay, and then I will leave you with some quotes of Eliot culled from the book. She appears to be aware that many of her reader's will be indoctrinated by postmodern narcissism when she writes "Not to read it [The Waste Land] is to pretend that we of this twenty-first century have drawn ourselves whole (M.C.Escher-like) from our own heads. It's to ignore history, taking on faith that what now seems beautiful or important or right...has no source other than this time, this place." Well said. I would only add that "reading" involves discovering, as much as is possible, the author's intent otherwise we shall still be drawn whole from our own heads.
-
Now, for some excerpts, here are Mr. Eliot’s thoughts on...
-
...creating characters with real emotion:

"What may be considered corrupt or decadent in the morals of Massinger is not an alteration or diminution in morals; it is simply the disappearance of all the personal and real emotions which this morality supported and into which it introduced a kind of order. As soon as the emotions disappear the morality which ordered it appears hideous. Puritanism itself became repulsive only when it appeared as the survival of a restraint after the feelings which it restrained had gone. When Massinger's ladies resist temptation they do not appear to undergo any important emotion; they merely know what is expected of them; they manifest themselves to us as lubricious prudes." (pg 166-167)

-
...recognizing talent:

"His early poems show what the poems of a boy of genius ought to show, immense power of assimilation. Such early poems are not, as usually supposed, crude attempts to do something beyond the boy's capacity; they are, in the case of a boy of real promise, more likely to be quite mature and successful attempts to do something small. So with Blake...." (pg 181)

-
...on poetic vision:

"Dante, more than any other poet, has succeeded in dealing with his philosophy, not as a theory (in the modern and not the Greek sense of that word) or as his own comment or reflection, but in terms of something perceived. When most of our modern poets confine themselves to what they had perceived, they produce for us, usually, only odds and ends of still life and stage properties; but that does not imply so much that the method of Dante is obsolete, as that our vision is perhaps comparatively restricted." (pg 195)

-
...on Andrew Marvell:

"His grave needs neither rose nor rue nor laurel; there is no imaginary justice to be done; we may think about him, if there be need for thinking, for our own benefit, not his. To bring the poet back to life - the great, the perennial, task of criticism - is in this case to squeeze the drops of the essence of two or three poems; even confining ourselves to these, we may find some precious liquor unknown to the present age." (pg 197)

2006-02-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

Give us this day, our daily Meme...

Four Jobs I’ve Had (not including present)
General Contractor (painting, roofing, drywall)
Researcher (Army Corp of Engineers)
Hardware Delivery Man
Beer taster (I was never hired, but I showed up for work anyway.)

Four Movies I Watch Over and Over Again
The Cutting Edge
Moulin Rouge
All The Real Girls
Dumb And Dumber (alt. title: Glengarry Glen Ross)

Four Places I’ve Lived
Bryson City, North Carolina
Saint Johnsbury, Vermont
Gorham, New Hampshire
in the hell of my own making

Four TV Shows I Watch
Buckeyes Football
Buckeyes Basketball
n/a
n/a

Four Websites I Visit Daily (besides fellow bloggers)
Video Mel (rules schmules)
Yahoo Most Popular
Dictionary.com
610wtvn.com

Four Places I’d like to be right now (Besides Heaven)
Yuma, AZ
Summit of Cadillac Mtn, Maine
Florence, Italy
At the head of the table in the Disney boardroom

2006-02-10T10:31:00.000-08:00

>People magazine as Soul Food

My wife received the following solicitation letter from People (I think her name was added to their database of potential-subcribers-who-fit-our-profile after redeeming a 4-hour spa package that she received as a gift from her siblings.):

"Dear Friend,

It seems life is more hectic than ever. When you finally manage to wind down, the time is often fleeting. A quick manicure on your way home from work. A phone call to your best friend between errands.

Well, you deserve more time to yourself than these fleeting moments - and we want to treat you to the relaxation remedy you need ...

PEOPLE.

Once a week for 4 weeks.

The perfect therapy for your mind, heart, and soul.

Each issue of PEOPLE provides a refreshing mix of celebrities and real-life heroes....

Steal moments with Johnny Depp or Jude Law over your morning coffee....

Then, for an afternoon of pure bliss, curl up in your favorite armchair and catch up with friends old and new - like Julia Roberts or Jennifer Anniston.

The quiet moments you spend with PEOPLE are yours to savor all month long. ...Your heart and soul will reap the benefits. Enjoy!

Nora McAniff

President"

I reproduced about 80% of the text of the letter because it educated me on the continuing miseducation of the general populace by a society steeped in postmodern and hedonistic tendencies. The lives of celebrities can be fascinating but I tend to view most of their published activities as the childish antics of adults who don't want to grow up. Being immersed in this immaturity as it stews in its own juices of money and fame may be entertaining but I don't see how it is perfect therapy for the soul. I'm more of a Cosmo fan myself.

2006-01-20T21:21:00.000-08:00

A Short Analysis of Political (Un)Truth in the Film The Constant Gardener
-
I do not wish to go into the plot here except to say that the film maligns the British government and some fictional pharmaceutical companies in unapologetic ways. Ascribing repugnant atrocities to these institutions makes for a shuddery thriller but one does well to keep in mind that "it's only a movie."
-
It's only fiction; in fact, there is an epilogue in the film's end credits that says:
-
"Nobody in this story, and no outfit or corporation, thank God, is based upon an actual person or outfit in the real world but I can tell you this, as my journey through the pharmaceutical jungle progressed, I came to realize that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as a holiday postcard." - John Le Carre
-
I would add the observation that this tortured sentence contradicts itself on its own terms. First, it disclaims ("thank God") that the film's story has any connection to known reality and then ends by saying that had the author written what the author had actually observed it would have horrified us even more than this fictional account.
-
To which I say: give us the true story. For what reason would one make up a horrific story about a corporation or government when the true story would expose even more corruption? (Perhaps one should doubt the political truth the filmmaker is trying to expound.)
-
For example, this movie was extremely kind in its portrayal of the U.N. when that organization is likely to be as corrupt, or more so, than the governments and pharmaceutical companies portrayed in the film.

2006-01-06T09:01:00.000-08:00

On 'The Book of Daniel' controversy, two words:
Controversy sells.

2005-11-16T11:26:00.000-08:00

Book Review: I Am Charlotte Simmons - Tom Wolfe

Or, The Miseducation of PostModern Youth, is a voyeuristic look into the socio-economic and political landscape of today's universities and colleges. The author's gaze does not penetrate; it only illumines the characters actions seldom going deeper into their motivations than the pleasure-pain principle. This superficiality seems to be a requirement and rings true because, in fact, the story is about immature men and women being raised in an immature society.

The narrative is not intricate. To anyone who has attended an institute of "higher learning" in the last 40 years, the unraveling of the title character comes as no surprise as soon as it is discovered, as indeed it is in the early pages, that she is a hayseed from the hinterlands who has been raised in the old school ways. I can imagine hosts of college youth scoffing at the supposed ignorance of the author to think that there is any conflict worth mentioning in this book at all. Nobody thinks sexual purity is that big of a deal anymore: a youth's identity as a personalized mix of songs on an iPod is more important. Charlotte held ridiculous ideals, they would say, or, she received her proper education in the ways of the world and was enabled to become a proper cynic like the rest of us; our colleges exist for the very purpose of making pomace out of such traditionalists.

Most of the scenes in I Am Charlotte Simmons take place in Pennsylvania's collegiate basketball power: Dupont university. Among the peerage of Ivy Leaguers, Dupont is seen as the salvation of little Charlotte Simmons from Sparta, North Carolina. As the story progresses, one sees Charlotte's identity - "I am Charlotte Simmons!" - change from the one that her parents gave her to one that she crafted for herself within the all-emcompassing liberality of Dupont. To borrow a biblical metaphor, Charlotte had to die to her old values, had to become degraded and a vessel for cheapness, had to trade her body for acceptance, gold for trinkets in order to rise from the depths victorious as "one of them." A wholesale values change is what today's colleges and universities are all about.

There are other stories intertwined with Charlotte's: the "student athlete" who can barely spell his name, the hypocritical Republican (surprised?) governor who accepts fellatio from coeds while running a family values campaign, the Millenial Mutants - a group of liberal students who hope to reshape the world to their enlightened ideals, gay pride rallies, and the perceived callousness of that last bastion of machismo known as the fraternity. Wolfe does a realistic job portraying the immaturity of coddled youth as they are released into an environment where there is ample tinder for whatever fire of passion they want to start. Whether it be activism, alcoholism, sexual antics, or even saying the F-word as often as one likes, the university setting is an ideal one for them. Is it any wonder that conservative Christian universities are seeing widespread growth in enrollments?

Our time is one of ideological conflict between the fading Judeo-Christian worldview and the "consenting adults" mantra discovered and espoused by the childish baby boom generation. The wealthiest generation to date - a generation that tries to define itself by the trinity of sexual revolution, compassion, and justice but which instead has become a generation of bondage to obscenity, self-centeredness, and political correctness - has thrown off the parental bonds of Judeo-Christian culture as Nietzsche longed to do but has found that there is no net below to stop the fall as Nietzsche also saw. Instead of encouraging sublimation of primal desires as a cornerstone of society, boomers have passed on to their children the notion that giving full expression to one's desires is the highest plane of fulfillment. Incredibly, Wolfe recognizes this as can be deduced from the excerpt that follows:

"The man sitting across from him, the butterball grotesquely squeezed into a dark gray sweater, was of another sort entirely, despite the fact that they were both Jewish and agreed on practically every public issue of the day. Both believed passionately in protecting minorities, particularly African Americans, as well as Jews. Both regarded Israel as the most important nation on earth, although neither was tempted to live there. Both instinctively sided with the underdog; police violence really got them steamed. Both were firm believers in diversity and multiculturalism in colleges. Both believed in abortion, not so much because they thought anyone they knew might want an abortion as because legalizing it helped put an exhausted and dysfunctional Christendom and its weird, hidebound religious restraints in their place. For the same reason, both believed in gay rights, women's rights, transgender rights, fox, bear, wolf, swordfish, halibut, ozone, wetland, and hardwood rights, gun control, contemporary art, and the Democratic Party. Both were against hunting and, for that matter, woods, fields, mountain trails, rock climbing, sailing, fishing, and the outdoors in general, except for golf courses and the beach."

What is important here is to notice that the forces arrayed against the naive Charlotte Simmonses of the world take their stand against her not from some deep-seated desire to educate her and broaden her mind but because they hate what she stands for. Charlotte was raised to believe that submission to authority was holy, they believe only in power; to be sure, they desire to do good with the power they are entrusted with but they have no foundation for knowing how to be good with it. Charlotte was raised to believe that sexuality is a gift from God and that her virginity was of immense value; they believe that sexual experience is a catalyst for maturity and worldly wisdom and that sexual repression is the root of all evil. Charlotte was raised to respect her elders and to value their input into her life; they believe that the greatest promise for humankind resides in the new generation: parents should learn from their children, parents should become teenagers again.

Yesterday's generation, with its lack of historical perspective, faced with the telescoping potential for societal change within the blink of an eye - social changes that formerly took centuries can now be accomplished in one generation, has been taught to rely solely on the humanistic mind of rationality, and has created a bastion of "enlightenment" like Dupont University to carry the message to the youth: "You Are!" To which the youth reply: "I Am!"

2005-10-20T08:20:00.000-07:00

7 People I Admire (in no particular order & excluding friends and family):

1. C S Lewis
2. Baz Luhrmann
3. Associate Justice Antonin Scalia
4. Charlie Chaplin the Artist
5. Anyone who has lost a child and accepted God's grace
6. Philip K Dick the Author
7. Kids who remain sexually pure in today's cultural wasteland

2005-08-10T13:44:00.000-07:00

For those whose trip down the rabbit hole have landed you here at the end of the line, I present:

My three biggest non-reference books (excluding the Bible and text books):

1. Literature of the Western World Vol.1 MacMillan
2. Les Miserables (complete and unabridged) Signet Classic
3. The Brothers Karamazov Penguin Classic

Paperbacks all of them, I keep my hardbound books at the public library for safekeeping.

2005-08-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

Faulkner's Campfire
by Richard Beach

Au gust of wind near blew out the fire
'sept ember in the corner of the pit
As Oct McCoy and Jan Vember huddled and hunched
Heat bent ole Oct ober the glowing metal shard
That no Vember or McCoy could touch
Oct said, "'dec ember ees never gonna die"
But Jan had other plans and reaching
forth the stick began to pry
"Jan u ary looking for trouble doin' that"
From which Jan this retort did quickly fly
"It ain't no fooly-folly-feb u ary worried about
Jes keep your poker out of my fi'e
Or I'll march right over and make sure
your April's in that great big ole Paris in the sky"
Oct leaned back an' roar'dy roared, "May as well...
Did june ever hear sech hifilutin' pie?
Folks know'd ju ly ever' chance you get!"
lordy lordy we laughed so hard and high

2005-07-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

This was National "Rove-ing" Reporter Week. Everyone knows that if you can get KR, then Dubya will melt like a wicked wizard, the GOP - oops...Oz - will be discredited and disappear in a puff of green smoke, and Hillary - I mean Dorothy - gets the keys to Kansas & the greater Hinterlands in 2005: no need to wait for a 2008 election cycle. The good guys win and we get back on the yellow brick road to socialism. Seldom have I been so amused by the futility of frothing journalists who've decided that since they've been branded as liberals they might as well act the part and get something to go with the scarlet letter.

2005-06-21T22:35:00.000-07:00

The punching bag is on the right

I met an old friend for lunch the other day. We get together quarterly to discuss this and that. The years since our collegial friendship began have been kind to both of us, this in spite of our both renouncing - temporarily for me but not for him - the faith of our fathers. Mine fell victim to the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life while his, from what I can discern, was eradicated by the intellectual pull of liberal ideology and his self-admitted immersion in pop culture.

(So there we were conversing in relaxed tones eating identical Greek lunch entrees: when asked by the Hellenic owner why I ordered the same thing as I my friend I'm sure I surprised him with "it's all Greek to me.")

At one point I asked my friend if the recent death of his father, a Catholic who had requested and received last rites shortly before passing, had in any way softened his heart toward the Church of his father. "I've got a lot of problems with it - so I could never go back," he says. (As a sidebar, let me say that I am not a Catholic, but I do not wish to be too far away from the blessing whose earthly omphalos is near the Eternal City.) It would have been hypocritical for me to chastise him so I let him share his reasons, reminding myself that Rome wasn't built in a day.

One thing he said bothered me at the time and it has continued to bother me. Now, gentle reader, I will take this burden and give it to you to ponder. When an intelligent person faults the Catholic Church with the misery that is the African continent's AIDS epidemic, I can't fathom the many levels of misguided rationalizations that one would have to accept to embrace such a premise. To suggest that the answer to Africa's problems is an ex cathedra proclamation endorsing birth control is like using a bomb as a babysitter. You may quiet the "problem" but what do you have left?

More than likely, it would not work because of the same reasons that created the AIDS problem in the first place: the blatant disregard of proscriptions against sex outside of heterosexual matrimony. Do we think that Africans having illicit sex are afraid to use a condom because the Church forbids it? Is it the Catholic Church's fault that the AIDS epidemic is spreading? Is THAT a good reason for not embracing your former faith?

Jab left body blow jab jab right uppercut body blow...

2005-05-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

Baseball Diamond Number Four

"Don't sue me if I hit your kids", I said as I grabbed my first baseman's softball glove and headed for the mound. A gentle cascade of chuckles from my fellow parents provided the only encouragement I needed. As I reached that hallowed spot, the center of attention of a "hunnerd plus" 8-year-olds, moms, dads, step moms, step dads, younger brothers, older sisters, brats, along with a Reynoldsburg cop on Diamond Number 4, I asked myself how I got here. And, more shocking to me, I wondered why I was so doggone happy.

I didn't have time to figure it out: I was on the mound and there were baseballs to throw. I was back "in the moment". No deep analysis, no self-consciousness, no doubt or indecision. It was little league tryouts and my son and thirty others like him needed somebody to throw strikes so that the coaches could scout the talent and pick teams.

EVERYTHING WAS PERFECT! I was feeling an emotion rarer to me than Boss Hogg's liver; I was feeling cool. How lucky was it that I decided to wear my Walmart thin clip-on shades over my Nikon prescription lenses, my Wrangler relaxed-fit jeans with the cuffs rolled up, dress socks and Nunn Bush boat shoes (purchased at 50% off retail with a $25 Meijer coupon on top of that), authentic second-hand Starter brand T-shirt with tiny moth holes on the left shoulder, and my faded Otis Spunkmeyer baseball cap to the park?

My first pitch left our local zip code - it was THAT BAD - and I dug down into the bucket of balls looking for a lucky one. This kid had me rattled already. Next one was over the plate, off the meaty part of the bat, and headed for the outfield. I watched it with Teddy Ballgame eyes as it went over my head, the sky brilliant, the euphoria real.

"Four pitches per player", the coach said, so I did my best. A pitching machine I'm not, but I owed it to each slugger out there to get at least one of their allotted four near the plate so they could show their stuff and win a spot at the top of the batting order.

In the dirt. Bounced off home plate. Over the catcher's head. No one was safe. I noticed one of the coaches, taking notes on a clipboard near the home plate area, shuffling slowly away from ground zero so as not to offend me. His caution was unnecessary because I was, quite frankly, high as cigar smoke over the Eiffel Tower. High on life.

To quote the bard: "this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this [Baseball Diamond Number Four]!"

After a couple of batters, my pitches got more consistent and I was beginning to brush the little buggers off the plate. You hit me on the first pitch and I'll send you some chin music on the second. Glorious. But I didn't hit a single player.

Until...

...my second pitch to my son. He stood in there and let the ephus hit him square in the solar plexus. Remembering my own fear of the ball and how it took five long years for me to conquer it, my mind swelled with admiration; the kid is better than his old man. Dear God, let me die now, my life is complete.

Merciful ending, I let the last batter take a couple extra swings because I was the pitcher - in charge - and stalling. I had dug come-backers out of the dirt, fielded multiple return balls all at once from overzealous fielders who failed to notice that I had but one glove hand, and provided some comic relief for some of the other parents, but, most of all, I had experienced the thrill of being a kid again.

It was better the second time around.

2005-04-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

On Relativism
Comparing Light to Love

Years ago, before I had completed my apprenticeship and earned the world's first Ph.D. in Social Engineering, I fooled around a little in physics and electromagnetics. A mere journeyman, I loved to contemplate the dual nature of light. Does light travel as a waveform or a particle? Is a photon of light visible by itself or does it require another invisible photon to illuminate it? My personal theory is that we haven't yet developed a concept that describes the nature of light, but if I had to choose what kind of light I would be, I would choose to be Waveform Light.

Waveforms give off good vibrations. They have amplitudes and troughs. They are less discrete than photons. These are, hopefully, good reasons to prefer them.

Much has been written about the various manifestations and types of love. Agape v. Eros v. Philos. I'm concerned here with something different. Suppose that there are only two kinds of love: the absolute kind and the relative kind. Similar to light's waveforms and photons, it is difficult for scientists of Love to determine which is the determinant strain. We've all experienced, at one time or another, the slow metamorphosis of love fever as it changes into a tepid reminiscence and contrasted it with an absolute love like the love of chocolate or beauty or faith.

In human relationships, the environment in which love plays out is the same whether that love is absolute or relative. I use the terms "absolute" and "relative" in all of their moral, spiritual, and physical senses. Either we experience and create love as an absolute entity that touches our lives forever, or we see love as a monistic effervescence that is purely a result of one reality structure interacting with another reality structure until those structures disintegrate and die.

There will be pain, there will be frightening vulnerability, there will be uneven power, and mistakes will be made and paid for. If we compare the two kinds, neither will show itself to be superior to the other until it is judged by an objective observer.

The relativist does not believe in an objective observer - someone outside the closed system of life as we know it. This does not spare them from great pain and heartache; it is of a different kind however than the pain of an absolutist. They are free to pursue any kind of love at any time that suits them best, disregarding all judgments and moral feelings of guilt. Many are willing to do this because they hold out the chance that there is The One True Love headed their way that will remove any effort to defeat it. Complete bliss. They can finally stop working at love and just let it happen to them. Even if they achieve this lofty haven, they have had the full measure of their reward and it ends when they die.

Christians believe that the objective observer is God. Because of God's revelation of absolute love, the Christian can endure the pain of rejection, betrayal, and denied gratification because they believe that something additional is added making a greater whole: a person closer to the heart of God.

Like waveforms of light that can be amplified and that cause resonations, I prefer absolute love because there is a Power behind it that makes it...well, absolute.

If this sounds absurd, there are some things that should be believed because they are absurd.

2005-03-05T19:32:00.000-08:00

In a panic, I called a good friend and asked him for inspiration for a new entry because I post so often that I didn't want blogger.com to take away my site due to inactivity. So he sent me some questions to perpetuate the recent revival of interviews in blogdom...

1) Was there a particular moment (or stock experience) when you thought that the stock market was not going to be your vehicle to financial independence?
The whole month of June 2000 comes to this mind as the particular moment of pain as good money followed bad down the ever-present gullet of financial decisions based on wishful thinking. What hurt the most was that I had been a bear since late 1998 having taken all but a token percentage completely out of the market and invested it in real estate (my mortgage) and a guaranteed return fund in my 401k. My personal portfolio under performed the 1999 market by nearly 15 percentage points. But I had hatched a plan that would allow me to give myself a gold watch at the tender age of 34.

If only I had followed through.

The plan was to keep the powder dry and be ready to short EBAY and YHOO just prior to their earnings announcement in January 2000. I'm gonna fire all my guns, I told friends as the over-hyped projections of ONLINE seasonal buying pushed PEs on these and other dot-coms into the closest parallel universe. Unfortunately, YHOO's performance was so unworldly (it's price doubled in Dec 1999 alone!) that I felt no basis to short or go long or even consider it as a STOCK any longer. It had metastasized into something I did not recognize.

So a mildly, but not wildly, successful short position on EBAY brought me to June 2000 with nearly 15% of my net worth in the driest of tenders - CASH! So I put it all into August Call Options of a certain semiconductor company whose PE in the middle of the double digits looked tame compared to the still unreal valuations of the dot-coms. Instead of cashing out in 3 days with a 50% gain, I held on for four days and never cashed out. Why, you ask? Because they don't give no cash to worthless option holders.

Today, I believe that hard work and dependence on God within your vocation are the vehicles to financial independence.

2) You took a year's sabbatical. How long did it take to adjust to the working life after such a long break?
One microsecond. It's like riding a bike or making love, you never forget how to bend over and grab your ankles. I'm kidding. No I'm not. Er...

3) Other than the bible, what are the three most influential books you've read?

1. Crime And Punishment
2. How Should We Then Live?
3. Surprised By Joy
4. Ubik
5. Lamentations & Exaggerations
(Sorry for not supplying the authors's names but I didn't want to mispell - two inside jokes there - any of them and I'm too tired at the moment to look them up. Oh yeah, and I gave five titles instead of three....)

4) Are you raising the twins differently from your first child? In other words, what did you learn from the eldest two?
Yeah. Basically, we let them have the run of the whole place. Their dad was a rotten character so I'm sowing the seeds of their rebellion; they can't help but turn out good. But they must REBEL...see?

Like most parents - I imagine - I learned with the first two that you can only do so much. I love 'em all I should have called 'em My Aorta, My Vena Cava etc. I boil down my fatherly lectures to the Big 2 Principles and try, with questionable success, to practice what I preach. Namely, Love God & Love Your Neighbor.

5) You've experienced highs from making music, making money on stocks,
making screenplays and saving money. Which was the most personally
satisfying?
Of those you mentioned, the results of my lifelong love of frugality provide the most satisfaction. But recent circumstances have taken all of these out of focus.

2005-01-29T21:56:00.000-08:00

Breaking Up (written circa Mar 1994; blood since turned to water)
She stood crying, hands over her face, her body slumped, supported by the doorframe. I was in shock, observant but without cognition I felt the air around me change. Growing thicker until I could no longer breath normally.

Einstein's Relativity taught me that matter was a form of energy so I imagined her, from her position of power, changing all of the invisible air and energy into solid matter. Suffocating, Pompeii-like, I became a corpse doubled-over and dead but still breathing.

"It's the truth...I loved you for the warmth of your friendship, but I don't think I ever loved you like that." My eyes followed her slender arm as she pointed to my prized photo of us kissing on New Year's Eve.

Why was she crying? She was dumping me, her soul getting lighter by the minute. Five minutes from now, after a final hug, I will close my apartment's front door, and she will slowly walk away...but not before lighting up a cigarette. Two minutes after that she will discard the cigarette, and my ember in her thoughts will be extinguished.

2005-01-01T21:30:00.000-08:00

2005...

...is just a number like 39 or 104,000.
...don't take no jive, y'all.
...will see cheapskates become rich and cheapskates become poor.
...alive.
...will bring stinging truth like Brighton Rock.

2004-11-29T13:24:00.000-08:00

"Lamentations & Exaggerations" by Thomas D. Smith

Borrowing the structure of a famous phrase, I have always suggested that "you are what you read." For the social engineer who only reads anthropological tracts or sociology journals, this might be a liability, but, do not despair for there is now a cure. Thanks to the peripatetic author of "Lamentations & Exaggerations", Thomas D. Smith, you will find heady discourse juxtaposed with jovial insights that will bring much-needed balance to your reading life.

Lesser writers provide ample proof that erudition will only get you so far; it is Mr. Smith's God-given talents of phrase-turning and mind's eye-filling that pull him above the lot of ambitious intellectuals that aspire to literary importance. Almost as humble as his surname, Mr. Smith seems to write with the same ease with which he breathes, preferring a lucid style that enchants and beguiles.

Take, for instance, this passage from his travel essay (one of many such trip logs) entitled "Sanibel Island, FL - Jan 2003":

Later in the week we visited a nearby beach. Mirage-like it floats into my consciousness; here I am endorphined on Bowman's beach with a houseboat sitting big as life just offshore, some fellow alone with the golden sunlight split between the rudders. He fishes in the reflected glory of God's creation, putting out in the great 75% of the earth. Worries there dissolve like seltzers, cast like dead mollusks on the shoreline, gleaming gleams of embarrassed delight, embarrassed that worries ever saw the light of day. Oh sailor man, in your life less traveled, what did you catch today? What briny fish of unblinking eye hath caught your eye?

These are the words of a steady observer, of one who has traveled and can match words read with places visited. Reading the fictional story "Country Dance", his "Groundhog Day" film review, or the fecund poem "Wanting it all" one feels the stroboscopic hypnotism that only an inchoate theme perfectly rendered and exquisitely focused for our enjoyment can provide.

2004-11-26T08:31:00.000-08:00

Interesting Review of Dogville

I saw Dogville the other day and thought this review out on imdb.com was crazy enough to be interesting:

"Let me start my review by saying that this film accomplishes what most filmmakers hope for when they begin the mountainous task of creating one: it provokes and engages the viewer's mind. I will not review the film's plot because prior posts have amply covered the many questions that are presented and only partly answered. This was an unforgettable film for me even though I do not accept its ideological foundations.

One of the subtextual layers of the film involves what I see as a severe criticism of the film industry as a whole. I'm sure that most readers are aware of Lars von Trier's grievances. In many ways, the things he has said about modern cinema ring true. How many times have we viewers left the movie hall, after watching the latest blockbuster, shaking our heads? The special effects may have astounded us, but the characters seemed petty and one-dimensional, or even worse, a GLORIFICATION of all that is bad about our culture. I emphasized the word "glorification" in the previous sentence because I do not believe that a film should ignore the bad - just that it shouldn't make the antagonist the hero.

The moving picture was invented by Thomas Edison. Because of him, we have the gift of film. Dogville begins with a father/son duo named after this famous inventor and it is here that I detect a critique of contemporary films. The younger Tom struggles to come up with a story; he wants to create something of value but he can only manage a meager three words. He walks around Dogville wanting to help its citizens, but he cannot relate to their situations. He, unlike them, does not have any financial worries because he lives with his father, Thomas Edison Sr., who brings in a comfortable pension.

Tom the younger is living off of his father's success. (Edison Sr. represents old Hollywood and is presented in a kinder light than the other town residents - i.e., he does not molest Grace.) Ineffectual in influencing his culture, young Tom is the first to recognize that Grace, played by Kidman, is a gift. He introduces her to the townspeople.

Grace is accepted by the townspeople and for a while all are content to share in her sunshine. But then, the benefactors begin to long for a greater exploitation of Grace. Through Tom the younger's mediation, they seek more "balance" from their relationship with Grace. No longer interested in her goodness and humanity, they want physical gratification at her expense (and ultimately Tom's). Tom eventually goes along with them and is corrupted himself. (Tom, representing modern cinema, panders to them by wooing Grace even as he furthers her captivity. He gives them the equivalent of the gratuitous sex scene, car chase, or mass explosion with resulting body count.)

Grace leaves Dogville and, in the spirit of the Dogme manifesto, decides that the world would be better off if the current societal malaise were eradicated, along with all of the money and capital of the modern film industry. Hence, Grace provides the coup de grace to young Tom."

2004-11-20T21:14:00.000-08:00

The 3 Bs of Success 2004

Boston (Red Sox)
Bush
Buckeyes (Ohio State beats Michigan.)

2004-10-25T21:03:00.000-07:00

A couple years back I read a news story in the local paper that I haven't quite been able to forget which is remarkable because I am sure I have forgotten more than I have ever learned. It involved love and death and unconscious betrayal and went something like this:

A young woman not quite eighteen years of age is surprised at her house by her boyfriend when he knocks at the door on a Sunday evening and invites her to go on an impromptu drive in his brand new sports car. That was the last time her parents would see her alive because a short time later she was ejected with fatal force through the window of her boyfriend's car. Her boyfriend also died in the crash.

It seems that the boy's claim of ownership was a bit premature. A peace officer noticed that the brand new sports car looked identical to one reported stolen from a dealer's lot earlier that day; he put on his flashers and attempted to apprehend the young larcenist. The boy responded by stomping on the gas pedal and not letting up until both he and his passenger were beyond help.

The news article does not say whether the girl suspected that the car was stolen but, human nature being what it is, we can probably assume that she knew her boyfriend was the type of fellow that might steal a new sports car and take it for a joyride. Did she deserve her fate? She was dating the wrong person at the wrong time but no one can single her out for blame; love or its pyritic, infatuation, makes beaus out of beggars and all the happily-married ugly, fat, or bald men say Amen to that. Perhaps her parents tried to talk some sense into her repeating the collective past of untold scores of such ultimately unsuccessful interventions.

I don't know. What interests me now is the sense of malaise (in the Walker Percy sense of the word) that compels social engineers like myself to attempt to find rational (as opposed to revelatory) answers for such tragic behavior. With all of "enlightened" modernity at our disposal, why do we continue to discount the potential darkness that lurks inside?

It appears to me that there is no enlightenment, only knowledge. The heart of rationality depends on the oft-quoted sentence "know thyself" as if that were a possibility. How do we, as liberal SEs, ever admit that "the perfectibility of man" is a chimera?

The tragic story of the girl, the boy, the stolen car, and the date with death was rekindled in my mind when I read this excerpt from Sam Staggs book "All About 'All About Eve'" on page 314:

"Gwyda DonHowe and her husband, producer Norman Kean, spent their lives in the theatre, from the time they met while working in summer stock in 1957 until a January day in 1988 when he murdered her as she lay sleeping and then jumped to his death from the roof of their apartment building."

2004-10-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

On Coincidences

In Borges's essay "Coleridge's Dream", he discusses the mysterious palace of Kublai Khan (built according to plans Kublai Khan saw in a dream) and the poem composed by Samuel Taylor Coleridge describing it. According to Borges, Coleridge could not have known about the dream palace because Asian books describing it had not yet been translated into Western languages. To deepen the mystery, Coleridge says that he received the description of the palace in a dream, the exquisite lines a gift from some unknown place. A shocked Borges (at one point he admits "I always try to belong to the group" that reject supernatural explanations) attempts an explanation for the many coincidences presented by the story.

I, too, must wrestle with the meaning of what happened to me yesterday during a routine trip to the store to develop 3 rolls of film. First, let me say that I detest having to plunk down more than a couple bucks for this service - it is the age of digital photography after all - but my wife likes the traditional glossy prints. So I prayed something like this: "God, please let there be a special at Meijer Department store - something like $2.99 for double prints would be nice. Oh yeah, and may I not hear any political commentary for the rest of this month." (I jest on that latter request.) Meijer does have such sales on developing about once every eight weeks so the coincidence factor is high, but read on and you'll see why I prefer to believe that my prayer was answered.

Here's what happened. I walked to the photo kiosk and smiled when I saw the sign for $2.99 double prints good for 10/16/2004 only. That's today. Hmmm, I began to think about the paranormal but I was not quite yet ready to call it anything more than a coincidence. At first I could find no envelopes to put my film rolls in, but refusing to give up my dream of cheap prints I located 3 slightly mangled but unused ones that someone must have discarded. The bright green neon labels confirmed that these were to be used only for today's special. They were the only 3 that I saw and I hesitated before writing my name on them and dropping them into the one-way slot, my mind bothered a little about taking the last ones. Was this also a coincidence - that these final three envelopes remained, meant for me? Had they appeared spontaneously at the moment of my prayer to be found solely by me? Or, looking at it another way, had they always been there but invisible to all eyes save mine? I walked over to a Meijer employee to let them know that they needed to restock the envelopes for the next person. She said there weren't any more envelopes for the special. I had gotten the last. Perhaps she was right about that or maybe she gave me a quick answer so that I would leave her alone, who knows?

Was that an answer to prayer? It's not an easy thing for a hardened social engineer like me to admit, but I think it was.

2004-09-23T22:05:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one that sees through it all? I'm educated, enlightened, and liberal. (When I use the term liberal, I mean that I like lots of syrup on my pancakes (a liberal portion of both), and don't ever try to serve me a Guinness beer in anything less than a quart stein.) Let me educate you so that you can reach the top shelf of social engineering greatness and pierce the gauze of maya that surrounds you. Some will say that the previous sentence is vague (or worse) and that I should speak plainly or shut up. OK, then, here it is: how long would YOU survive without electricity?

2004-09-07T23:38:00.000-07:00

According to Eckermann, Goethe said the following about giving advice:

"If anybody asks me for good advice, I say I am ready to give it, but only on condition that he will promise me not to take it."

In the spirit of that quote, I say: vote for Kerry in November.

We all want to dream the Hollywood dream; a world where everyone realizes the value of a boob job and the ability to keep it hip-hoppin' real. Where androgynous sex and epiphytic fantasies of life-on-the-streets are the keys to our intellectual heartstrings. Where "reality TV" shows us how much we are missing when we don't smash the bottle or bang the bimbo or whisper to pseudo-friends about being "done wrong". Where adult doctors with almost a decade of post-graduate education and "moral enlightenment" drill a hole into an unborn child's cranium and suck out the gray matter.

If I'm a liberal and I want to love and be loved, what's wrong with that?

2004-08-30T09:19:00.000-07:00

Saw Bill Maher on The Tavis Smiley Show the other day. He'd make a formidable social engineer; like me, he considers himself the smartest guy on the planet, discovering the existential truths of individual freedom one sweet decadent kernel at a time. What he lacks is coherence. At the beginning of his interview, he railed upon the "red state" mentality of the GOP and the tendency of its present leader to see things in black and white. Implication: it is close-minded to see things as simply right or wrong. Later, when answering why he didn't run for office, Bill said simply, "...I think faith is wrong and drugs are right." Way to go, Bill. Let's bring it on - drugs for everyone ala Huxley's "Brave New World". It's a SE's dream come true. People are much easier to manipulate when they are high and oversexed. Just ask Bill.

What distresses me about his statement, even more than the drug reference or the anti-faith bias, is the way it comes across as absolute and dogmatic.

2004-08-20T23:46:00.000-07:00

Pacifism, defined in Webster's New World Dictionary Third College Edition as "opposition to the use of force under any circumstance; specif., refusal for reasons of conscience to participate in war or any military action", is based on the ideal that all disagreements should be solved by non-violent means. I will not venture into the philosophical/anthropological/sociological discussion about whether the human race is capable of living up to that ideal or not.

Instead, I'm interested in talking about what passes muster as pacifism today - August 21, 2004. Most, if not all, of us probably think of "use of force" in physical terms describing kinetic motion applied with intent to harm another person or object. There is at least one other type of violence that does not involve the fist, gun, or handy skillet: verbal abuse, slander, and libel.

Ironically, some of the most strident people to scrape across the surface of the earth are so-called pacifists. They beat us down with their sense of moral and intellectual superiority; they flout laws and deride their opposition as stupid chimps, lazy fundamentalists, or apathetic cableholics. They are forever protesting. Protesting is a pastime, a passion, a way to recapture the feeling of youth.

To the trained observer, one notices that an overwhelming majority of pacifists and protesters come from the left side of the political spectrum. A majority of the protesters outside of the Democratic National Convention in Boston could be described as the type who hang in circles where "one has never voted for a Republican nor does one know of anyone else who has done so." The RNC in NYC is sure to bring out a majority of the same crowd later this month.

I've gotten sloppy and mixed my themes of pacifism and protesting, but I hope that you won't protest too much.

2004-08-18T21:07:00.000-07:00

I've got a dilemma. As a sworn imbiber of liberal enlightenism (A "bright" and proud of it), I want to jump on board the class warfare that Kerry, who's just following the party line, engages in when he talks about taxing the rich.

But I can't.

I can't because I know that rich people are a "symptom" of economic health, and I like the standard of living that economic health brings.

When a leftist talks to me about the ideals of their party - small gap between rich and poor, ultra-clean air, and free health-care for all - I always get an image of a small Third World village where there are no evil rich, the air is clean because there is no industry, and the health-care is pro bono compliments of the local shaman or missionary doctor. You get all of that...along with a laundry list of negatives that you can well imagine without me spelling them out.

Who would campaign for that way of life?

P.S. BTW, just kidding about being a bright. I'm still dealing with some religious issues.

2004-07-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

After watching Apocalypse Now Redux, I switched over to PBS to catch the end of the Democratic National Convention - Tuesday Edition. Thought it interesting that the theme of the evening was patriotism and "we're proud of America" etc. as if it wasn't normally evident that the other major American political party would be such.

When did the Democratic Party lose its backbone? Come on, we Dems and SEs are all about the U.N. and the fellowship of nations and the shunning of nationalistic fervor. We hate Bush because he dares to stand up for "God, family, and country" and then we try to lure independent voters by pretending that we actually believe in those things.

When will we throw off the mask and get the credit that we deserve for "enlightening" fellow Americans? Here is the beautiful platform that we liberals embrace:

1. All forms of love are good. One should not get hung up on the morality of love (i.e., the adulterous affair, pre-marital test drive, or so-called "gay" love) because we all need all the love we can get.

2. Consenting adults are the cornerstones of our creed. Ask yourself: do I consent enough? (If you answered "yes", you haven't gotten the message yet.)

3. We love diversity of skin tones. But diversity runs only skin deep, brother. You better follow our "enlightened" ideals or you're a bald-faced bigot.

Finally, will someone explain Ms. Kerry's Clintonian semantics in her Tuesday DNC address where she said America should be a "moral nation" but not a "moralistic" one?

2004-07-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

(To the tune of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame")

Take me out to Con-ven-tion
Take me out with the cool
Raise me some taxes and PAC money
I don't care for the E-con-o-my
For its root, root, root for the best hair
If issues rule it's a shame
For it's Moore, an-ger!, Edwards, Ker-ry
At the D-N-C!

Perhaps I could be one of the DNC's official bloggers. I believe in the perfectability and enlightenment of human nature.

2004-07-08T21:21:00.000-07:00

In the current scene, the typical argument against anti-war protestors goes something like this:

Terrorists do not want the US military over in Iraq fighting.
The anti-war crowd does not want the US military over in Iraq fighting.
Therefore, terrorists and pacifists are on the same side in the big sense of things.

One can't PROTEST the war and claim to support the troops. By protesting, activists are merely trying to do peacefully what the terrorists are trying to do violently.

I suggest that the anti-war cartel do a little experiment: fly over to Iraq and protest the Iraqi insurgency side of the war and see how things go. After all, it takes two to keep a fight going and anti-war ideology is the sweet enlightened nectar that BOTH SIDES of the conflict need.

I suspect that the reason it will never happen is because of the disparity in treatment that those who decry would receive in the land of Mesopotamia.

2004-07-02T21:52:00.000-07:00

An eldritch moment is not easily forgotten. Like the recent time a coworker described Democratic nominee for President John Kerry skating around on the ice and the temperature outside was 88 degrees even as he spoke. My opisthognathous face must've registered severe shock because he quickly mentioned that "sports were the ultimate reality in his life." Thus, another Kerry fan is unmasked.

Not me. If there was a reaction, it was because I wished we had Senator Wellstone around to wake up the party. He believed in the intellectual capacity to bring about change. Not little changes, no sirree, but the kind of changes that make humans into something greater, into something that transcends its own natural boundaries. According to a Wellstone liberal, no one should be confined by nature itself; a man can become a woman if he wants; a woman can kill her unborn baby if she wants; zero population growth strategies can lead to the well-being of those fortunate enough to be born. I like ideas that trample on our collective humanity and force us to evolve into something better.

Weird.

2004-06-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

The future is looking up. Thanks to the excellent social engineering of Michael Moore and others, the Reign of Conservatism will come to an end in November 2004. Moore knows that it is not the truth but the PERCEPTION of the truth that influences the masses. You learn that in SE 101. Moore knows how to make it seem like a political discussion, but we insiders smile along with him because we know it is all about religion. Christianity is evil and a strong powerful Christian like Bush is the worst of all. Ditto for Ashcroft.

All one has to do is look at the great brainwashers of last century to see how it is done: Hitler, Jones, Sartre, & Sagan to name a few. The key is to reach critical mass, the point where a host of less knowledgeable people begin parroting your ideas as if it were Stephen Hawking's own truth. SE's believe that it is ok to lie if that means exposing an even bigger lie. Lie early and often and soon you shall have the desires of your heart.

We are in the midst of a culture war - the old-fashioned Judeo-Christian worldview vs. the hedonistic Age of Aquarias. Personal responsibility and other-centeredness vs. behavioristic sensuality and self-awareness. SE's welcome a world where the currency of life revolves around pleasure; if we must talk about responsibility, then let it be on superfluous global terms. Let's all get naked and pose for a picture to show our solidarity against the war - it'll be fun and titillating. Let's host a costume dinner to save the world's oceans and the whales and other wildlife in them - it'll be a nice buzz and, who knows, you just might meet your next sexual partner there. Let's call the President names and hang out with society's upper crust - I hear that there are threesomes going on in the back rooms.

The two most basic premises (the first two commandments?) for the SE are:

1. Whatever two or more consenting adults want to do, as long as no one gets hurt (that doesn't want to), is okay.

2. Make love not war.

Imagine what kind of world it would be if society really got behind those exalted premises. To hell with personal responsibility - just give me my MTV.

2004-06-13T21:03:00.000-07:00

A book I'm reading right now:

I Am Alive And You Are Dead - A Journey Into The Mind Of Philip K. Dick (by Emmanuel Carrere)

Excerpted without permission (one way to increase site traffic since the sole reader of this site will turn out to be Carrere's publisher), here's page 168:

"The concept of the Eucharist haunted Phil. He took completely to heart such expressions as 'whosoever eats of my flesh and drinks of my blood has eternal life.' To be able to say that a piece of bread is the body of Christ and have this piece of bread immaterially but incontrovertibly become the body of Christ seemed to him the greatest gift a man could receive, even though it was one that cannot be possessed. This was why it so saddened him when Bishop Pike renounced his ministry to start over in "the private sector." In The Man in the High Castle, Phil himself had celebrated - or at least had had his fictional double celebrate - the mystery of the Invisible Kingdom, albeit in a profane and inferior way, by depicting a world different from the one his contemporaries saw and holding this other world out as the true one. And in some mysterious way that neither Phil nor anyone else could prove, he was right.

"Phil continued to reproach himself for having committed the sacrilege of describing a negative Eucharist in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. He felt that in doing so he had empowered the evil demiurge...."

Here's to PKD - the penultimate SE.

I am the Last Social Engineer and I approve of this message.

2004-06-03T19:30:00.000-07:00

It was a day off of the bottom shelf. Some so-called "social engineer" (using the term in its modern high tech sense) hijacked my eMail account and it took me two hours to get it back. Don't be paranoid - just careful. Some day we'll all share in each other's possessions so I guess it was a practice session for me.

I appreciate the important things in life like Zoloft and cab drivers who are pro-hygiene.

2004-05-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

Just watched the movie The 6th Day and thought how easy it would make SE-ing. See that fundamentalist religious fanatic - ZAP 'em, cook the DNA, and then clone 'em back into tolerance. Or how 'bout that militant atheist whose idea of heavy metal is 6 facial-area rings and 5 studs - ZAP, cook, and all the tattoos are gone leaving behind a nice guy in an Oxford shirt.

Problem is, if I was in charge of it, I'd only create people that I thought were nice, people like me. Imagine a rejuvenating society full of sensitive rock'n'roll loner types who attract sexual partners by appealing to pity, who manipulate one into sleeping with them purely for the recreation of it, who listen to Marilyn Manson and KORN and moan about all the nice, happy, straight people in the world.

I better tweak my formulae or the Central Committee will never buy it.

2004-05-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

How NOT to do social engineering by MGM studios.

The film "Saved!" is due to open May 28th around the country and Samuel Goldwyn, the "G" in MGM, is a grave-turnin'. His well-worn advice - "If you want to send a message, use Western Union." - has been kicked to the curb by studio execs at the company he formed. The same studio that turned down a chance to distribute "The Passion of the Christ", understandable perhaps because of its over-the-top message, has decided that a film that is patently mean-spirited and anti-Christian is entertainment without a message.

This is not how you change the world, folks. There are still too many Christians in this country, living everyday lives, raising kids, snug in their heterosexual worldview. One movie reviewer at Slant Mag opined "though director Brian Dannelly has every right to address and relieve his obvious beef with right-wing Christianity and the threat it poses to democracy (especially now that gays are moving ever closer to full civil rights—make that human rights—in this country), he makes absolutely no distinction between the good Christian and the right-wing nut." Which bolsters my point that Christians must be resisted before they bring down the house.

What does a model citizen look like to an enlightened social engineer? He or she or it should refer to heterosexual couples as "breeders" (but not to the face). Blame religion for all of the world's wrongs. (We'll have a small problem sweeping the Holocaust and the Stalin purges and the French Revolution under the rug because they were non-religious in nature, but remember an earlier lesson about neglecting history.) Watch violence as entertainment. Listen to enlightened screamers like Marilyn Manson and KORN. In a word, the ideal SE will be a hard individual, lacking in compassion for the person in front of them, but full of zeal for mankind in general. Full of ideals about how to make the world better (and safer for whales), how to make it more secular, and less crowded by bigots who believe in old-fashioned ideas.

But NEVER let your subversion appear to be emotional and vindictive or it will backfire and set our movement all the way back to the last Democratic administration.

2004-05-13T05:57:00.000-07:00

Read a little Chomsky the other day. Without a doubt, he is one of the greatest SEs to ever walk this planetarium. He makes you think that anything is possible - it's all in the language, man. I hope that I can be as scathing and rational as I try to become one of the intellectual elite.

Take his well known adage: "If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all." I love the word "despise"; it's much purer than, say, "disagree with".

Chomsky makes some valid points as he dances on the line between sagacity and sanity. This morning I woke up, and had this radical thought: we should give anarchy a chance, and I'm not talking about a revolution. Instead, let's stop fighting the aggressor, let's let them win, let's let them take over the world and turn this place upside down.