Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Today's Quote on Fiscal Irresponsibility (or Hypocrisy)
"It is extraordinary that the president would request an 11 percent increase for the Department of Defense, a 12 percent increase for foreign aid, and $195 billion of emergency funding for the war while asserting that a 4.7 percent increase for domestic programs is fiscally irresponsible" -- Sen. Robert Byrd (D- WV), chairman of Senate Appropriations Committee
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
News Weirdness for Today
Some days the weirdness of people just comes to the fore. This, apparently, is one of those days. Here's what today's news brought to my attention.
A fellow named Timothy Elliott won $1 million dollars on a scratch ticket; he's already received the first $50,000 annual installment of his prize. One problem: he's on five years probation for a January 2006 bank robbery in Cape Cod, and one of the conditions of his probation was no gambling -- including purchasing lottery tickets or being in establishments where lottery games are played. He goes before a judge December 7.
My wife heard Paul Harvey talk about someone burglarizing a shop named Everything Amish. He stole a big screen TV. Um, does this sound like a very un-Amish product to anyone else?
She also heard of a man in Aiken, South Carolina who went to the bank to open a new account. He handed the teller a $1 million bill. Hmmm. Seems the last place you want to go to pass off a bill in a non-existent denomination would be someplace where money is exchanged and transferred -- like, I don't know, a bank. He was arrested for disorderly conduct (he cussed the bank tellers when they refused his deposit) and two counts of forgery (he'd earlier bought cigarettes with a forged check).
Finally, I read of Richard Roberts speaking at a chapel at Oral Roberts University, where he told his student audience that he resigned as ORU president because God told him on Thanksgiving to do so the next day. "Every ounce of my flesh said 'no'" said Roberts, but he said he listened to the divine intervention after praying about it with his wife and his father Oral Roberts.
And so it goes.
A fellow named Timothy Elliott won $1 million dollars on a scratch ticket; he's already received the first $50,000 annual installment of his prize. One problem: he's on five years probation for a January 2006 bank robbery in Cape Cod, and one of the conditions of his probation was no gambling -- including purchasing lottery tickets or being in establishments where lottery games are played. He goes before a judge December 7.
My wife heard Paul Harvey talk about someone burglarizing a shop named Everything Amish. He stole a big screen TV. Um, does this sound like a very un-Amish product to anyone else?
She also heard of a man in Aiken, South Carolina who went to the bank to open a new account. He handed the teller a $1 million bill. Hmmm. Seems the last place you want to go to pass off a bill in a non-existent denomination would be someplace where money is exchanged and transferred -- like, I don't know, a bank. He was arrested for disorderly conduct (he cussed the bank tellers when they refused his deposit) and two counts of forgery (he'd earlier bought cigarettes with a forged check).
Finally, I read of Richard Roberts speaking at a chapel at Oral Roberts University, where he told his student audience that he resigned as ORU president because God told him on Thanksgiving to do so the next day. "Every ounce of my flesh said 'no'" said Roberts, but he said he listened to the divine intervention after praying about it with his wife and his father Oral Roberts.
And so it goes.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
We Are Not At War
It's the pat answer, the four word phrase that is the other side of the coin from "9/11." It is the verbal mechanism meant to put critics of the president's war in Iraq on the defensive, George W.'s trump card whenever our liberties are eroded, our domestic priorities shoved aside, our basic decency closeted in favor of "enhanced interrogation" methodology.
He smiles into the crowd or the camera, and with the air of an explanation of the obvious to a small child he says "We are at war."
No, Mr. President, YOU are at war -- you and your cadre of Cheneys and Rumsfelds. If WE were at war, we would have been asked to sacrifice, to give of ourselves materially and emotionally as we have in wars past. Certainly we would have had more asked of us by you than to continue shopping. Shopping!
The devil is in the details, and a close look at your conduct of this "war" shows no real commitment of your soul, no summoning of the soul of America -- just a half-hearted deployment of military resources and a concentration of power in the executive branch to stifle debate and dissent. What motivated you to go to war in Iraq has still never been revealed. It certainly wasn't the noble-sounding fiction of WMDs under Saddam Hussein's control.
If this were really "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century and the calling of our generation," as you put it in your address to the nation on the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, there would not be a higher priority given to continued consumer spending to keep economic numbers up than to sacrifice for the greater good. Give up basics like "the greatest generation" did with nylons in the '40s? Heavens, that would be bad for business! Just wave a flag on your porch, watch Fox News, and be scared when we want you to go along with the next shenanegans - that's all we ask of you.
This country is better than you've asked it to be, Mr. Bush. The lip service you've paid to war betrays the shaky rationale behind the Iraq misadventure, which continues to bleed the real war front in Afghanistan dry, not to mention domestic issues like, say, the SCHIP program. You may have fooled the country into invading Iraq, but you can't lead it in a war on terror if, instead of asking for its help, you continuously try and scare it to death. Oh, and tell it to keep going to the malls.
He smiles into the crowd or the camera, and with the air of an explanation of the obvious to a small child he says "We are at war."
No, Mr. President, YOU are at war -- you and your cadre of Cheneys and Rumsfelds. If WE were at war, we would have been asked to sacrifice, to give of ourselves materially and emotionally as we have in wars past. Certainly we would have had more asked of us by you than to continue shopping. Shopping!
The devil is in the details, and a close look at your conduct of this "war" shows no real commitment of your soul, no summoning of the soul of America -- just a half-hearted deployment of military resources and a concentration of power in the executive branch to stifle debate and dissent. What motivated you to go to war in Iraq has still never been revealed. It certainly wasn't the noble-sounding fiction of WMDs under Saddam Hussein's control.
If this were really "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century and the calling of our generation," as you put it in your address to the nation on the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, there would not be a higher priority given to continued consumer spending to keep economic numbers up than to sacrifice for the greater good. Give up basics like "the greatest generation" did with nylons in the '40s? Heavens, that would be bad for business! Just wave a flag on your porch, watch Fox News, and be scared when we want you to go along with the next shenanegans - that's all we ask of you.
This country is better than you've asked it to be, Mr. Bush. The lip service you've paid to war betrays the shaky rationale behind the Iraq misadventure, which continues to bleed the real war front in Afghanistan dry, not to mention domestic issues like, say, the SCHIP program. You may have fooled the country into invading Iraq, but you can't lead it in a war on terror if, instead of asking for its help, you continuously try and scare it to death. Oh, and tell it to keep going to the malls.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Philip Pullman, Boogeyman Du Jour
I got one of "those" e-mails over the weekend. You know, the alarmist ones circulated by either well-meaning or propagandistic Christian e-mailers about the latest horrible threat to all things Christian. This one is about a new movie The Golden Compass, set for December release and starring Nicole Kidman. The Golden Compass is the movie adaptation of the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy written by children's author Philip Pullman.
The e-mail (with errors included) states that Pullman is "a proud atheist who belongs to secular humanist societies ... hates C. S. Lewis's Chronical's of Narnia and has written a trilogy to show the other side." It continues with "The movie has been dumbed down to fool kids and their parents in the hope that they will buy his trilogy where in the end the children kill God and everyone can do as they please." The alarm culminates with Pullman and the movie-makers "hoping that unsuspecting parents will take their children to See the movie ... then the children will want the books for Christmas. That's the hook. Pullman says he wants the children to read the books and decide against God and the kingdom of heaven."
So competing for our Halloween fright, we have an accusation of a plot by an atheist author and the "liberal Hollywood elite" to infiltrate the minds of American youth with a major studio movie that has a supposed anti-God subtext, released just in time for Christmas. How many buttons can you push at one time?
A Google search of Philip Pullman reveals the literary success of His Dark Materials (information that my bookaholic wife already knew). The protagonist of His Dark Materials is Lyra, who encounters witches, armored bears, an ominous church called the Magisterium, and travel between parallel worlds. The Golden Compass (U.S. title, original British title Northern Lights) won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in 1995; The Amber Spyglass, the third book, was awarded both the 2001 Whitbread Prize for best children's book and the Whitbread Book of the Year in January 2002, the first children's book ever to receive that award. His Dark Materials achieved popular acclaim in 2003, and Pullman shared the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for children's literature in 2005.
That search also turned up a New Yorker magazine article from December 26, 2005 with an interesting, deft insight into Pullman's avowed atheism. In it, Pullman is giving a speech at an English university and relates to a tombstone of a turn-of-the-nineteenth-century woman who, according to the inscription, "shone with superior Lustre and Effect in the great School of Morals, the THEATRE." Amid chuckles at the thought, Pullman insisted such a notion of the theater wasn't ironic -- “We learn from Macbeth’s fate that killing is horrible for the killer as well as victim,” he said, then read a passage from Jane Austen's “Emma” where the heroine is mortified when Mr. Knightley reproaches her for mocking the babbling Miss Bates. Pullman said scripture need not be consulted, for “we can learn what’s good and what’s bad, what’s generous and unselfish, what’s cruel and mean, from fiction.” The New Yorker also quoted Pullman from an unnamed newspaper column that “‘Thou shalt not’ might reach the head, but it takes ‘Once upon a time’ to reach the heart.”
Such a School of Morals, Pullman continued in his university speech, is inherently ambiguous, dynamic, and democratic -- a “conversation.” Opposed to this ideal is theocracy, which demonstrates “the tendency of human beings to gather power to themselves in the name of something that may not be questioned.” Interestingly, Pullman put Khomeini's Iran and the explicitly atheist Soviet Union together as examples of theocracy. He stated that man's impulse toward theocracy will defeat the School of Morals in the end, then continued “But that doesn’t mean we should give up and surrender. . . . I think we should act as if. I think we should read books, and tell children stories, and take them to the theatre, and learn poems, and play music, as if it would make a difference. . . . We should act as if the universe were listening to us and responding. We should act as if life were going to win. . . . That’s what I think they do, in the School of Morals."
Perhaps Philip Pullman is a boogeyman to some, much like J. K. Rowling became when Harry Potter books got wildly popular and the narrow minded among us thought it all a glorification of witchcraft. But I'd rather believe in Pullman's "as ifs" than Rick Santorum's "thou shalt nots" any day. In a far-too-often cynical world, that spirit of resilient optimism slogging through life's mysteries is sorely needed.
The e-mail (with errors included) states that Pullman is "a proud atheist who belongs to secular humanist societies ... hates C. S. Lewis's Chronical's of Narnia and has written a trilogy to show the other side." It continues with "The movie has been dumbed down to fool kids and their parents in the hope that they will buy his trilogy where in the end the children kill God and everyone can do as they please." The alarm culminates with Pullman and the movie-makers "hoping that unsuspecting parents will take their children to See the movie ... then the children will want the books for Christmas. That's the hook. Pullman says he wants the children to read the books and decide against God and the kingdom of heaven."
So competing for our Halloween fright, we have an accusation of a plot by an atheist author and the "liberal Hollywood elite" to infiltrate the minds of American youth with a major studio movie that has a supposed anti-God subtext, released just in time for Christmas. How many buttons can you push at one time?
A Google search of Philip Pullman reveals the literary success of His Dark Materials (information that my bookaholic wife already knew). The protagonist of His Dark Materials is Lyra, who encounters witches, armored bears, an ominous church called the Magisterium, and travel between parallel worlds. The Golden Compass (U.S. title, original British title Northern Lights) won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in 1995; The Amber Spyglass, the third book, was awarded both the 2001 Whitbread Prize for best children's book and the Whitbread Book of the Year in January 2002, the first children's book ever to receive that award. His Dark Materials achieved popular acclaim in 2003, and Pullman shared the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for children's literature in 2005.
That search also turned up a New Yorker magazine article from December 26, 2005 with an interesting, deft insight into Pullman's avowed atheism. In it, Pullman is giving a speech at an English university and relates to a tombstone of a turn-of-the-nineteenth-century woman who, according to the inscription, "shone with superior Lustre and Effect in the great School of Morals, the THEATRE." Amid chuckles at the thought, Pullman insisted such a notion of the theater wasn't ironic -- “We learn from Macbeth’s fate that killing is horrible for the killer as well as victim,” he said, then read a passage from Jane Austen's “Emma” where the heroine is mortified when Mr. Knightley reproaches her for mocking the babbling Miss Bates. Pullman said scripture need not be consulted, for “we can learn what’s good and what’s bad, what’s generous and unselfish, what’s cruel and mean, from fiction.” The New Yorker also quoted Pullman from an unnamed newspaper column that “‘Thou shalt not’ might reach the head, but it takes ‘Once upon a time’ to reach the heart.”
Such a School of Morals, Pullman continued in his university speech, is inherently ambiguous, dynamic, and democratic -- a “conversation.” Opposed to this ideal is theocracy, which demonstrates “the tendency of human beings to gather power to themselves in the name of something that may not be questioned.” Interestingly, Pullman put Khomeini's Iran and the explicitly atheist Soviet Union together as examples of theocracy. He stated that man's impulse toward theocracy will defeat the School of Morals in the end, then continued “But that doesn’t mean we should give up and surrender. . . . I think we should act as if. I think we should read books, and tell children stories, and take them to the theatre, and learn poems, and play music, as if it would make a difference. . . . We should act as if the universe were listening to us and responding. We should act as if life were going to win. . . . That’s what I think they do, in the School of Morals."
Perhaps Philip Pullman is a boogeyman to some, much like J. K. Rowling became when Harry Potter books got wildly popular and the narrow minded among us thought it all a glorification of witchcraft. But I'd rather believe in Pullman's "as ifs" than Rick Santorum's "thou shalt nots" any day. In a far-too-often cynical world, that spirit of resilient optimism slogging through life's mysteries is sorely needed.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Majoring in Minors
There was a saying I encountered around the time I was in college or perhaps in my first office job afterward: majoring in minors and minoring in majors. One can call up a lot of forest-for-the-trees sorts of analogies to this phrase, but the point is a warning of getting lost in the trivial at the expense of what's important.
I thought about this as I looked at the bells and whistles bloggers use to decorate their sites. From You-Tube-ish video clips to elaborate webpage templates, there's probably an embarrassingly large amount of what's possible on a blog layout that I don't know about. I notice, however, that when I read other people's blogs I gravitate toward those which have compelling content, however it is displayed, as opposed to those emphasizing an entertaining visual effect.
Obviously, "majoring in minors" can refer to wide swaths of human endeavor, be it personal, social, business, or political. And this is not to mention mixing those areas -- for example, how much focus on self-interest would be "majoring in minors" when compared to the good of society, or how much emphasis on governmental and/or political power would so qualify relative to the rights of the individual.
The realities of our household lifestyle, particularly its limitations, tend to focus attention away from typical middle-class social norms of entertainment. We don't entertain, nor do we socialize away from our jobs or our individual entrepreneurial activities (music for me, handcrafting for my wife). Also, we choose to find ways to utilize resources in a more frugal manner and practice as much self-sufficiency as we can develop. Suffice it to say that the latest exploits of the Kentucky Wildcats basketball team are not as central to my life as they once were.
So it is that my humble blog here is relatively basic in layout. If I could not express an idea worthy of interest to the reader, I would shut the blog down before I'd cover things up with eye candy. This is a vehicle for my expression, not a competition with the elite of the blogosphere, and what I say is more important than how pretty it could look.
I thought about this as I looked at the bells and whistles bloggers use to decorate their sites. From You-Tube-ish video clips to elaborate webpage templates, there's probably an embarrassingly large amount of what's possible on a blog layout that I don't know about. I notice, however, that when I read other people's blogs I gravitate toward those which have compelling content, however it is displayed, as opposed to those emphasizing an entertaining visual effect.
Obviously, "majoring in minors" can refer to wide swaths of human endeavor, be it personal, social, business, or political. And this is not to mention mixing those areas -- for example, how much focus on self-interest would be "majoring in minors" when compared to the good of society, or how much emphasis on governmental and/or political power would so qualify relative to the rights of the individual.
The realities of our household lifestyle, particularly its limitations, tend to focus attention away from typical middle-class social norms of entertainment. We don't entertain, nor do we socialize away from our jobs or our individual entrepreneurial activities (music for me, handcrafting for my wife). Also, we choose to find ways to utilize resources in a more frugal manner and practice as much self-sufficiency as we can develop. Suffice it to say that the latest exploits of the Kentucky Wildcats basketball team are not as central to my life as they once were.
So it is that my humble blog here is relatively basic in layout. If I could not express an idea worthy of interest to the reader, I would shut the blog down before I'd cover things up with eye candy. This is a vehicle for my expression, not a competition with the elite of the blogosphere, and what I say is more important than how pretty it could look.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Work Comp at the Stripper Pole
I read this morning that a woman in Indiana has been awarded worker's compensation for an injury she sustained while performing her job . . . as an exotic dancer.
Quick question: how many people knew that worker's comp covered exotic dance businesses? Not many I'd wager, or this would not be national news.
This morning's report is actually the Indiana Court of Appeals upholding the award to Angela Hobson, who injured herself while dancing on the pole at Shangri-La West club in Fort Wayne on December 20, 2001. Hobson underwent surgery for a herniated disc in her cervical spine, according to court records. The court ordered the state Worker's Compensation Board to determine if she was entitled to double compensation, due to Shangri-La letting its workman's comp insurance lapse.
Marginalize or demonize the exotic dance business if you will. But business is business, and an injury on that job is just as deserving of worker's compensation as an injury in a warehouse or mine. The only difference? Thanks to our culture, it just makes news.
Quick question: how many people knew that worker's comp covered exotic dance businesses? Not many I'd wager, or this would not be national news.
This morning's report is actually the Indiana Court of Appeals upholding the award to Angela Hobson, who injured herself while dancing on the pole at Shangri-La West club in Fort Wayne on December 20, 2001. Hobson underwent surgery for a herniated disc in her cervical spine, according to court records. The court ordered the state Worker's Compensation Board to determine if she was entitled to double compensation, due to Shangri-La letting its workman's comp insurance lapse.
Marginalize or demonize the exotic dance business if you will. But business is business, and an injury on that job is just as deserving of worker's compensation as an injury in a warehouse or mine. The only difference? Thanks to our culture, it just makes news.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Got Nothing to Say?
What to do when you want to say something but you can't put your finger on anything to say? Sounds like blogging and songwriting are not too dissimilar in that respect. Many don't want to make the effort to say something if there's nothing particularly important to say. On the other hand, having nothing to say doesn't get in the way of a great many who go right out and say it; in fact, saying nothing has been done entertainingly at times in both the written and musical media (and if you want to see it elevated to a real art form, look no further than politics).
If there's an answer to the above question, I guess it's this: when in doubt, ponder. It may seem like pointless noodling before you get into it, but it gets your mind's wheels moving, and the destination you didn't see when you were mentally parked may present itself while in motion.
I fear pointless or fruitless action, which may explain why I've always been a procrastinator. This world of limited spare time tends to reinforce that behavior in me. There are times to risk the discomfort, break the familiar pattern, and discover what's lurking in the mind. What you find to say may be important, or it may discover the rock underneath which something important lies waiting to be uncovered.
If there's an answer to the above question, I guess it's this: when in doubt, ponder. It may seem like pointless noodling before you get into it, but it gets your mind's wheels moving, and the destination you didn't see when you were mentally parked may present itself while in motion.
I fear pointless or fruitless action, which may explain why I've always been a procrastinator. This world of limited spare time tends to reinforce that behavior in me. There are times to risk the discomfort, break the familiar pattern, and discover what's lurking in the mind. What you find to say may be important, or it may discover the rock underneath which something important lies waiting to be uncovered.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Droopy Pants and Drippy Laws
Drought has gripped much of the south, while Texas, Oklahoma, and the upper midwest are plagued with storms and excess rain; either way, food prices are pressured upward. On top of the continuing violence in the Iraq mess is the rising boldness of the reformulating Taliban in Afghanistan, who has now taken to kidnapping foreigners. The sub-prime home lending crisis has crept into the general housing market, crimping everyone's home values and drying up credit. Misery and injustice are all-too-abundant.
But what has got Atlanta burning? Baggy pants, if the city council is to be believed.
Yep, Atlanta's city council has proposed an amendment to their indecency laws that bans baggy pants worn to reveal boxer shorts, the kind that urban black culture has made either popular or epidemic (your call). Ladies, wearing that waistline where your thongs show would also be illegal. Councilman and co-sponsor C. T. Martin said "I don't want young people thinking that half-dressing is the way to go. I want them to think about their future."
Their future? We're not talking about a full-torso tattoo. The solution is a lot easier than salt and a stick of butter.
Personally, the half-covered-seat look is just butt-ignorant. How many folks have felt an inkling to get a staple gun and affix some yahoo's britches up above the crack line? And it certainly doesn't look any better on some of the local appropriatin' white dudes where I live.
But the Atlanta amendment, and the similar local ordinances that have passed in Louisiana, is more ignorant than the look it combats. I think we can have a mature discussion of the value issues of hip-hop culture without resorting to dress codes. Besides, all of us adults drew the ire of our parents' generation with the way we dressed and groomed ourselves, from ten-inch pompadours to mod hair to purple hair, from spiked dog collars to the first Madonna look to the once-innocuous flannel shirt.
Though part of me may cheer a beating back of something that just looks stupid to me, we've had way too much government intervention the past few years. And, as I suggested above, we've got a lot more important things to be concerned with.
But what has got Atlanta burning? Baggy pants, if the city council is to be believed.
Yep, Atlanta's city council has proposed an amendment to their indecency laws that bans baggy pants worn to reveal boxer shorts, the kind that urban black culture has made either popular or epidemic (your call). Ladies, wearing that waistline where your thongs show would also be illegal. Councilman and co-sponsor C. T. Martin said "I don't want young people thinking that half-dressing is the way to go. I want them to think about their future."
Their future? We're not talking about a full-torso tattoo. The solution is a lot easier than salt and a stick of butter.
Personally, the half-covered-seat look is just butt-ignorant. How many folks have felt an inkling to get a staple gun and affix some yahoo's britches up above the crack line? And it certainly doesn't look any better on some of the local appropriatin' white dudes where I live.
But the Atlanta amendment, and the similar local ordinances that have passed in Louisiana, is more ignorant than the look it combats. I think we can have a mature discussion of the value issues of hip-hop culture without resorting to dress codes. Besides, all of us adults drew the ire of our parents' generation with the way we dressed and groomed ourselves, from ten-inch pompadours to mod hair to purple hair, from spiked dog collars to the first Madonna look to the once-innocuous flannel shirt.
Though part of me may cheer a beating back of something that just looks stupid to me, we've had way too much government intervention the past few years. And, as I suggested above, we've got a lot more important things to be concerned with.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Overlooked Civil Rights Pioneer Dies at 90
I read today via Rational Review News Digest of the death of Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, a woman who refused to give up her bus seat a decade prior to Rosa Parks' more famous act of civil disobedience. I'd never heard of Kirkaldy's act, which occurred on a Greyhound bus from Gloucester to Baltimore in 1944. She was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white couple and for resisting arrest. The former charge was appealed -- she willingly paid the $100 fine for resisting because she kicked the officer who tried to remove her, saying "Sometimes you are so enraged, you don't have time to be afraid" -- and the U. S. Supreme Court in 1946 struck down the Virginia law that mandated racial separation on buses as an invalid interference in interstate commerce. Kirkaldy was represented by an NAACP lawyer named Thurgood Marshall, later to become a Supreme Court justice himself.
Kirkaldy died last Friday at age 90 at her daughter's home. Her case did not get the notoriety that Rosa Parks' case did, but it led to the first Freedom Ride in 1947, where 16 civil rights activists rode buses and trains in the South testing the Supreme Court decision, and eventually to Parks' famous act in 1955. President Bill Clinton gave Kirkaldy the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2001, the second highest civilian honor a president can bestow. Asked where her courage to not change her seat came from, she is quoted as saying "I can't understand how anyone would have done otherwise."
In an age where courage in the face of governmental power has been lacking until lately, Kirkaldy's passing deserves notice and her actions deserve spotlight.
Kirkaldy died last Friday at age 90 at her daughter's home. Her case did not get the notoriety that Rosa Parks' case did, but it led to the first Freedom Ride in 1947, where 16 civil rights activists rode buses and trains in the South testing the Supreme Court decision, and eventually to Parks' famous act in 1955. President Bill Clinton gave Kirkaldy the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2001, the second highest civilian honor a president can bestow. Asked where her courage to not change her seat came from, she is quoted as saying "I can't understand how anyone would have done otherwise."
In an age where courage in the face of governmental power has been lacking until lately, Kirkaldy's passing deserves notice and her actions deserve spotlight.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Props to Glavine and Rodriguez
As a postscript to my earlier post "The Scandalous Sporting Life," let's note credit where it's due to this weekend's milestones achieved on the diamond. Tom Glavine reached the 300 win plateau yesterday, only the 23rd pitcher to earn 300 in MLB. Also, Alex Rodriguez not only reached the 500 home run mark this weekend, he became the youngest player to get to 500. Already, A-Rod has been hailed as the best hope to reach -- honorably -- the all-time home run record and eclipse that other guy who just tied Hank Aaron's mark of 755 this weekend.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Sometimes It's 'How' Before It's 'What'
The empty page before me now
The pen is in my hand
The words don't come so easy, but I'm trying
This examinant ode to being stuck while writing always comes to mind when I'm, um, stuck while writing. I wonder, often impatiently, why ideas don't come when my conscious mind wants to create and express but my subconscious acts like it wasn't consulted.
Approaches to writing may vary, but I see it primarily in two camps. The one I historically belong to is reliance on motivation. There's just something you find that you have to say, and the writing becomes finding the best way to get across that which you just have to express. The other camp I have started dabbling with, what I call mining your experiences and interests in the hope that you find something that strikes your fancy. You're not particularly moved to write; you just sit your ass down and play with ideas or things that happened or how you see things that happened.
A songwriting book I once read by Kenny Rogers decried the former camp, stating that a certain writer of the First Edition's hit songs did not rely on "fickle inspiration" but on a regimented schedule of writing. My historic mistrust of that camp aside, I believe that it all depends on what you're comfortable with. So I'm dabbling with the mining approach along with the motivation approach to see if I can get comfortable with mining and still produce the level of writing I'm used to. And just maybe I can do away with the dry patches where I'm less inspired and can still create something worth the effort.
All this assumes that real life doesn't get in the way . . . as it does at least occasionally.
Never did decide what to say this time . . . just some thought on how to go about saying something, even when you're not sure and the mind starts as blank as the page.
The pen is in my hand
The words don't come so easy, but I'm trying
- Kerry Livgren, from "On The Other Side" by Kansas
This examinant ode to being stuck while writing always comes to mind when I'm, um, stuck while writing. I wonder, often impatiently, why ideas don't come when my conscious mind wants to create and express but my subconscious acts like it wasn't consulted.
Approaches to writing may vary, but I see it primarily in two camps. The one I historically belong to is reliance on motivation. There's just something you find that you have to say, and the writing becomes finding the best way to get across that which you just have to express. The other camp I have started dabbling with, what I call mining your experiences and interests in the hope that you find something that strikes your fancy. You're not particularly moved to write; you just sit your ass down and play with ideas or things that happened or how you see things that happened.
A songwriting book I once read by Kenny Rogers decried the former camp, stating that a certain writer of the First Edition's hit songs did not rely on "fickle inspiration" but on a regimented schedule of writing. My historic mistrust of that camp aside, I believe that it all depends on what you're comfortable with. So I'm dabbling with the mining approach along with the motivation approach to see if I can get comfortable with mining and still produce the level of writing I'm used to. And just maybe I can do away with the dry patches where I'm less inspired and can still create something worth the effort.
All this assumes that real life doesn't get in the way . . . as it does at least occasionally.
Never did decide what to say this time . . . just some thought on how to go about saying something, even when you're not sure and the mind starts as blank as the page.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
The Scandalous Sporting Life
While we view the looming potential constitutional crisis in Washington, let's not forget that professional sports are broadly involved in scandal. Not forget? Hell, we can't avoid it.
Major League Baseball seems positively embarrassed by Barry Bonds. He's about to break Hank Aaron's all-time home run mark, and only San Francisco Giants fans seem the least bit excited. MLB plans no commemoration if/when Bonds passes Aaron, and fandom has passed judgment on the BALCO-fueled superstar. Someone give him a t-shirt that reads "World's Biggest Asterisk" and be done with it.
The NFL has its own headache with Atlanta Falcons star quarterback Michael Vick, who has been indicted on federal dogfighting charges. With his reported involvement in both dogfights and the cruel execution of losing dogs, few people want to wait until his trial to kick him out of football.
Perhaps the worst scandal is just breaking with NBA referee Tim Donaghy accused of betting on games he officiated. The league's first point-shaving scandal, as the sports press is viewing it, has commissioner David Stern spinning like crazy, calling Donaghy a "rogue, isolated criminal" and hoping the NBA can ride out the storm. Stern has cause to worry, as Donaghy's Pete Rose moment, for which he is being investigated by the FBI, strikes at the very integrity of the game.
Speaking of integrity, don't get me started on the Tour De France, which is seeing doping scandals this year that make last year look like an expedition of Boy Scouts trying for their cycling merit badges.
Throw in NASCAR Nextel Cup crew chiefs that have been suspended for bending rules that got caught in inspections (is Dale Jr.'s chief Tony Eury back yet?) and you have a season of athletic cheating that makes it seem that the halls of Washington have integrity.
Major League Baseball seems positively embarrassed by Barry Bonds. He's about to break Hank Aaron's all-time home run mark, and only San Francisco Giants fans seem the least bit excited. MLB plans no commemoration if/when Bonds passes Aaron, and fandom has passed judgment on the BALCO-fueled superstar. Someone give him a t-shirt that reads "World's Biggest Asterisk" and be done with it.
The NFL has its own headache with Atlanta Falcons star quarterback Michael Vick, who has been indicted on federal dogfighting charges. With his reported involvement in both dogfights and the cruel execution of losing dogs, few people want to wait until his trial to kick him out of football.
Perhaps the worst scandal is just breaking with NBA referee Tim Donaghy accused of betting on games he officiated. The league's first point-shaving scandal, as the sports press is viewing it, has commissioner David Stern spinning like crazy, calling Donaghy a "rogue, isolated criminal" and hoping the NBA can ride out the storm. Stern has cause to worry, as Donaghy's Pete Rose moment, for which he is being investigated by the FBI, strikes at the very integrity of the game.
Speaking of integrity, don't get me started on the Tour De France, which is seeing doping scandals this year that make last year look like an expedition of Boy Scouts trying for their cycling merit badges.
Throw in NASCAR Nextel Cup crew chiefs that have been suspended for bending rules that got caught in inspections (is Dale Jr.'s chief Tony Eury back yet?) and you have a season of athletic cheating that makes it seem that the halls of Washington have integrity.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Counterveiling Force
OK, so there hasn't been an offering here for awhile. I chalk it up to the principles of counterveiling force.
A great deal of frustration was relieved -- lanced like a boil -- with the 2006 mid-term elections. When one sees a political leadership so blindly beholden to patronage, so seemingly pursuant of theocracy, and so ruthlessly in pursuit of consolidating power in the executive branch under cover of fighting terrorism ... and when mainstream society voices support of this leadership on either religious or patriotic grounds, to the extent that dissent is made to appear disloyal to the country ... well, faith in one's fellow man ebbs and contingencies get considered to relocate to relatively dismal urban areas that at least have free thinkers.
These frustrations also acted as a burr under the personal saddle, prompting me to express my outrage into written opinions on the web and in letters to the editor of several newspapers. It was my way to stand and be counted for rational thinking, for the America I had always known before the current administration. It was my individual attempt at a small bit of counterveiling force.
The 2006 mid-term elections served to change the scenery. Instead of managing to scare the American public into falling back into blind faith, the Bush Administration and its party started to get crushed under the weight of its own hubris. A Congressman from Florida known for his stances on child protection became embroiled in a male page scandal. Combined with a book on how the Administration used the religious right while scoffing at them behind their backs, it made the conservative Christians who re-elected Bush in 2004 stay at home in 2006. Support for the Iraq war melted away as the body count mounted without much progress to show, and Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were seen with a certain disconnect from reality and with a fresh doubting of their competence in prosecuting the war. Democrats narrowly took back the Senate and comfortably captured the House.
There's not the sense in my mind that our country and society are heading down the road to hell without brakes. That is thanks to the counterveiling force of the legislative branch now controlled by Democrats, who now put a check on the executive branch's excesses. The principle of counterveiling force, as I hazily recall it from college, holds that no power will get so great that a counterveiling power will not rise to check it. That principle has been bourne out once again, and while it has made me undermotivated to express opinions at the same rate as before, I rest significantly easier because of it.
A great deal of frustration was relieved -- lanced like a boil -- with the 2006 mid-term elections. When one sees a political leadership so blindly beholden to patronage, so seemingly pursuant of theocracy, and so ruthlessly in pursuit of consolidating power in the executive branch under cover of fighting terrorism ... and when mainstream society voices support of this leadership on either religious or patriotic grounds, to the extent that dissent is made to appear disloyal to the country ... well, faith in one's fellow man ebbs and contingencies get considered to relocate to relatively dismal urban areas that at least have free thinkers.
These frustrations also acted as a burr under the personal saddle, prompting me to express my outrage into written opinions on the web and in letters to the editor of several newspapers. It was my way to stand and be counted for rational thinking, for the America I had always known before the current administration. It was my individual attempt at a small bit of counterveiling force.
The 2006 mid-term elections served to change the scenery. Instead of managing to scare the American public into falling back into blind faith, the Bush Administration and its party started to get crushed under the weight of its own hubris. A Congressman from Florida known for his stances on child protection became embroiled in a male page scandal. Combined with a book on how the Administration used the religious right while scoffing at them behind their backs, it made the conservative Christians who re-elected Bush in 2004 stay at home in 2006. Support for the Iraq war melted away as the body count mounted without much progress to show, and Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were seen with a certain disconnect from reality and with a fresh doubting of their competence in prosecuting the war. Democrats narrowly took back the Senate and comfortably captured the House.
There's not the sense in my mind that our country and society are heading down the road to hell without brakes. That is thanks to the counterveiling force of the legislative branch now controlled by Democrats, who now put a check on the executive branch's excesses. The principle of counterveiling force, as I hazily recall it from college, holds that no power will get so great that a counterveiling power will not rise to check it. That principle has been bourne out once again, and while it has made me undermotivated to express opinions at the same rate as before, I rest significantly easier because of it.
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