Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the
exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.
- P. J. O'Rourke
Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.- Jules Feiffer
I suppose it was just a matter of time....
One of the things I love about where we live in Seabrook is the small lake in our backyard. Some people fish, some paddle a canoe, I hit golf balls into it. One family even built a tree house/diving platform.
That treehouse is about a block from our backyard. It was put up about a month ago, and we've been concerned about it for safety reasons, but also because the lake is privately owned. The treehouse is built on someone else's property. Now, EVERYONE is concerned, because the treehouse has apparently also been used as a deer blind.From one direction, the treehouse overlooks the small lake in our backyard. If you turn around, it overlooks the athletic field at Seabrook Intermediate School. Last Thursday afternoon, some neighborhood kids decided to use SIS students for target practice, hitting one in the back with a pellet gun. Seabrook police stepped in quickly, made a couple of arrests, and the safety of SIS seems to be back to normal.
Police soon arrested five teenaged suspects near the tree house, and confiscated the weapon and some others. "We recovered three different weapons. One was a pellet pistol, another was a BB pistol, and then a pellet rifle, I believe," explained Sgt. Mike Nolan of the Seabrook Police Department.None of the five suspects are students at Seabrook Intermediate School. The 16-year-old suspect will be charged with assault, and police say the other four could be charged as well. In the meantime, the tree house is being dismantled. Police say they contacted the land owner, who said he had no idea that these kids were using it for that purpose.
While I'm glad that this incident seems to be the end of the story, there are some things that concern me:People live in Seabrook because it is a quiet, peaceful place. This is not inner-city Houston, where shootings and drug deals and the like are every day occurrences. At least that's what we like to tell ourselves. While no one was seriously hurt on Thursday, I wonder if anyone realizes just how close Seabrook came to being mentioned in the same breath as Columbine, Jonesboro, AR, and Springfield, OR?
- Why were school-age students out of school and up in the tree house during school hours?
- Why was the treehouse built in the first place? The people who built it knew, or should have known, that they were building on property they did not own. Of course, given the people involved, it makes sense. From what I've seen and heard, they don't much care about anyone but themselves anyway.
- Why did it take four days for the school district to make this incident known? We live a quarter-mile from SIS, and knew nothing of the shooting until we turned on the local news last night. It seems as if Clear Creek ISD is primarily concerned that they not be made to look bad. If parents had not gone to the local TV stations, would CCISD had said anything about this incident? Judging by their past actions, probably not, and that is reprehensible.
- What if the kids had been firing more than pellet guns? This could have been a real tragedy.
- Most of all, where were the parents of the kids in the treehouse? They should bear some of the responsibility for this incident as well.
Happy 69th Birthday to Willie Nelson!!
There are those poor, unfortunate souls who don't play golf, and cannot understand it's purpose. If you don't play the game, it is difficult to comprehend the beauty, the serenity, the challenge, and the insanely masochistic nature of the sport. Every now and then, though, there are days like I had yesterday that keep me coming back for more. I shot an 87, which was the first time I'd EVER broken 90. I shot a 40 on the front nine, and for a few moments was thinking I might actually have a chance to break 80. It was a day when even my bad shots weren't disastrous, and if I hadn't missed a few putts by THIS MUCH, my score would have been even better. I've been playing the game since I was 11, and I've never had a day on the golf course like I did yesterday. I can't wait to get back out there....
"Don't worry, please...."
When I fly to Minnesota in a couple of weeks, I will try mightily to remember that things could always be worse. I could be flying Afghanistan's Ariana Airlines. At least I'll be flying on an airline that actually has airplanes, has an actual schedule, and doesn't have to concern itself with unexploded ordnance on the runway. Yes, things could always be worse....What's more, there are land mines on either side of the runway, and a 2,000-pound bomb lies unexploded among the wreckage of Ariana's former fleet.For entertainment, you could always try to book reservations through Ariana's website.... (moxie.nu)"There is a group clearing the mines. Sometimes there is a big noise," Timar says, raising his arms to indicate an explosion. "We tell the passengers, 'Don't worry, please."'
Yep, we've got it down to a science (or is it an art?)....
Here in Texas, if there is one thing the state is good at, it's killing people. The execution chamber in Huntsville can at times resembling an assembly line. Beginning today, nine people (including a Frenchman) are scheduled to be put to death over the next 31 days. This killing spree will restore Texas' place as the nation's leader in capital punishment- and if there is one thing Texans hate, it's being #2.
This week's sign that the Apocalypse is upon us....Mattel introduced the first "multi-ethnic Barbie," a doll named Kayla who has the same dimensions as Barbie, but slightly darker skin and a face that doesn't look quite so WASPy. Mattel spokeswoman Julia Jensen declined to say just exactly what ethnicities were included in the design of Kayla. "She could really be anything," she said. "It's whatever a little girl sees in her." Seeking more concrete information, we asked Ken, who said, "She's a dream booty call--half Thailand bar girl, half Brazilian beach babe."
Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.- Amelia Earhart
Another week dawns. My wife leaves for work, and I am left to...look through want-ads, send out resumes, and make phone calls. I can do that, and spend the remainder of my day doing projects around the house, but while that is worthwhile, it doesn't help pay the bills. At times like this, it's easy to feel pretty useless....
One of the guys? Not quite yet....
Though the US military is officially the land of equal opportunity, waging war is still a very definitely male undertaking. Though the law of the land has changed to allow women more and better opportunities within the military, the culture of the military has been much slower to come around. This is particularly true in the Marine Corps, never a bastion of liberalism to begin with. Historically, women and the Marine Corps have gone together like oil and water- you can mix them, but the combination was not destined to last.While women are still barred from direct-combat jobs on the ground, in Afghanistan they have flown missions over Taliban targets and manned weapons atop Humvees as military police. They have been combat engineers, intelligence analysts, aviation mechanics and air-traffic controllers.The debate about women in combat is not one I care to get into here, because it is both too complex and too highly emotional to discuss in this format. Women, however, deserve to have the same opporunities for promotion and advancement, and combat experience has always been the fastest way to climb the chain of command. It stands to reason, then, that as long as women are denied access to combat units, they will also be denied access to opportunities for career advancement that comes with experience in combat units.With more than 50,000 U.S. troops deployed in the region in the war on terrorism, women have played a visible part. If there were ever a large-scale ground war, many experts agree that large numbers of women could die side-by-side with men.
The moment that women show up for boot camp, they see that gender is an issue. They are separated from men even as they stand on the yellow footsteps of Parris Island for their ritual introduction to Marine life. "Females at the back," a drill instructor thunders.With the changes in attitudes toward the military brought on by the events of 9.11.01, it will be interesting to see if women will be allowed to exist on a par with men. Now that the war-fighting emphasis has shifted from the foxhole to the keyboard, women should be able to handle every bit of the responsibility that men do. The question is: will they be allowed to do so?From then on, women belong to their own platoons. They train separately. Eat meals apart. Sleep in their own barracks. They are guided by female drill instructors, wearing the same Smokey Bear hats and booming out the same angry orders -- women who run with them, march, mount obstacles and generally show it can be done. Still, the measuring up to men goes on.
One year later, and nothing has changed....
Chandra Levy is still missing, though you'd never know it judging by the complete lack of media coverage. Now the Gary Condit's political career has been destroyed, there is probably no impetus for the media to devote any more attention to the issue. Except for the fact that a young woman is still missing, and her family still wants to know what has become of her.
How about we give them a map next time?The British marines invaded Spain by mistake, going off- course in an amphibious training exercise and landing on the beach at La Linea instead of in Gibraltar. The embarrassed soldiers stayed five minutes, then left, destined for the HMS Ocean, which is enroute to a support operation for Afghanistan. Fortunately, Afghanistan has no beaches.
Tom Tomorrow's take on The Bachelor. Now here's an interesting twist to the story...
If you're not Catholic, shut up!! Oh, OK. Sorry....
I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue.- Lloyd Bridges, "Airplane"
You generally get the representation you deserve....
Houston Mayor Lee Brown has never been accused of being out front- of anything. Now that he has won what he says is his last election, he appears to have gone into voluntary retirement- while still in office.....[D]isappointed supporters and jaded critics say Brown, already known for lackluster political and communication skills, has even less sway now than in his first four years as mayor...."He's out the door," said Bob Stein, a political science professor at Rice University and husband of Marty Stein, Brown's agenda director. After the hard work of the campaign, Stein added, "he's now looking to rest."This should not be taken as an endorsement of Orlando Sanchez, the Republican candidate Brown defeated (if I ever endorse a Republican, you can rest assured I've been possessed by demons...), but at least Sanchez had some energy. Lee Brown is doing the city and his supporters a disservice with his "ride into the sunset" strategy. He seems more interested in out-of-town trips than in developing new initiatives....."The mayor believes he's done a great job and that 57 percent of the people voted wrong" during the Nov. 6 general election that forced him into a runoff, said one political adviser to the mayor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "A lot of the mayor's strong supporters hoped that he would loosen up and reach out more after the election. But that doesn't appear to be the case."
Part and parcel of any big-city mayor's job is ensuring that the mundane things happen to keep the trains running on time. Currently, those things aren't happening. Anyone who drives Houston's streets knows what poor condition most of them are in. How many street lights are out city-wide on a nightly basis? How about adequately staffing fire trucks? These are among the things that Brown should be attending to. Instead, he is using his position to travel the world. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it should be secondary to keeping the city in good working order. At the moment, he has delegated those issues to his underlings so that he can concentrate on the "fun" things. Houston deserves better.
Sure it's a tax on (someone else's) ignorance....
I've always had a lov/hate relationship with state lotteries. Sure, I know the odds, and I realize that I have a better chance of being gang-raped by a troop of disturbed Girl Scouts than of winning anything at all, but someone always seems to win the damn things, and it's only a buck, right??I've read Chuck Kuffner's dissertation on the lottery a couple of times, and I must admit that I can't disagree with what he's got to say. Thanks for depressing the hell out me, though, Chuck. I had no idea that there were 18,595,558,800 different combinations of six numbers from 1 to 54. Perhaps the next time I get the urge to buy a lottery ticket, I'll go stand in the middle of a freeway during a thunder and lighting storm while holding a 9-iron up in the air. The odds of getting hit are probably a bit better, and I'd save myself a buck....
Well, it's not as if she's going to make any news on the tennis court....
Millions of horny American males are demanding to know: Did Anna Kournikova post nude for Penthouse magazine?? Her agent, of course, is seeking to take the high road, denying his client ever posed naked for anyone."The magazine has committed numerous violations of Miss Kournikova's rights, including portraying her in a false light," Schwab said. "We will take all appropriate actions to protect our client's name, rights and image."I guess I don't get it. I mean, Kournikova is an attractive woman, but it's not as if the is any more or less attractive than hundreds of other women. Still, she's not going to set the world afire as a tennis player, so you can't fault her for using the means she has at her disposal....
How about the Highway to Hell?A Washington state legislator is demanding that the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway, better known as Highway 99, be renamed the William P. Stewart Highway in honor of a black Civil War veteran who fought for the Union and settled in Snohomish, Wash. We have a suggestion that will save a lot of time on talk shows and a lot of ink on editorial pages. Let's call it Highway 99.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.- Frank Leahy
How do you lose $54 Billion (more than the annual GDP Of Ecuador)??
Easy. All you have to do is buy AOL at an inflated premium price, and then watch the stock underperform to a degree you couldn't have imagined in your worst nightmare.Such losses in actual value used to be quietly swept under the rug, amortized away over the course of as much as 40 years. But this year the rules have changed. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (yes, there actually standards in accounting) has decreed this year that companies must test their goodwill assets for "impairment" annually — and when they find some, they've got to fess up. And while AOL Time Warner's number may be the biggest (just topping JDS Uniphase's write-down last year of just over $50 billion), the media giant (and corporate overlord of this writer) isn't standing alone. A recent Bear Stearns study anticipates that some 500 companies are candidates for write-downs this year, with perhaps a dozen in the billion-dollar club.Chalk it up to bad timing and bad judgement. When AOL & Time Warner first decided to do the corporate mating dance, the dot-com lovefest was in full bloom. At the time, the merger made sense. It was the wedding of content (TimeWarner) and bandwidth (AOL). Now, as in many marriages, the reality has turned out to be somewhat different than the fantasy.
Why do porn actors have to use such foul language?
We're going to need a LOT of kitty litter....
In an attempt to counter criticism that it's Middle East policy is ineffective and unfocused, the US government announced that it has in fact parachuted 225,000 cats into Belgium.Said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer: "The U.S. continues to support the peace process between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and that is why we have been dropping cats into Belgium, and will continue dropping cats into Belgium, until all of Brussels is purring under a two-foot-deep blanket of cats."Did anyone consult the Humane Society on this one??
So what DOES "Chu Mei-Feng" mean in Chinese??Chu Mei-Feng, a former politician in Taiwan, was filmed by a secret camera having sex with her married lover. Just before Christmas, the story broke in a Taiwanese tabloid, which gave new subscribers a free 40-minute video of the bedroom hijinks. The government moved in to stop distribution of the video, saying the publishers had broken laws against indecent material, but the words "Chu Mei-Feng" are now among the most popular search-engine terms in the world, and black market copies of the video are on sale for up to $30. The highlight of the video, according to those who have seen it, are when Chu Mei-Feng writhes naked on the bed and begs her lover to "Chu mei feng."
No, you may NOT chu mei feng, thank you....
It figures that I'd get in on the tail end....
Some of the cognoscenti are already proclaiming the end of blogging. If this is true, my time is, as usual, execrable. Trends on the Net come and go with amazing speed and frequency, but I'll have to admit that I don't much care if blogging goes the way of Tammy Faye Bakker. There's something about the word I hate anyway. Let's find something else to call it and we'll move on.For me, this is an opportunity to work on my writing. Ideally, it would lead to a paid writing gig for me, but if it doesn't, my weblog will hardly prove a wasted effort. It fascinates me that people from 40 countries have been able to read what I have to say. That in itself is almost reason enough to continue. (That and the fact that I enjoy it...)
Perhaps someday this will lose it's meaning for me. All things end eventually. Until then, I'm going to enjoy putting myself out there in writing in a way that I can't begin to do verbally. It drives my wife nuts from time to time, and I feel badly about that, but writing has always been my release and my solace. Now I just happen to do it in a manner that people from all over the world can read if they so choose- and that is beyond cool. (get donkey!)
I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.- Garrison Keillor
Today's essay: Cinderella gets her slipper....
Thanks to Brian Kane for passing this one along (enjoy, fellow Monty Python fans):
"Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again...."
I STILL want to know what made "The Bachelor" so popular....
Honey, I think I know what I want for Christmas....
I went to the practice range this afternoon to hit a few golf balls and work on my swing. As luck would have it, it was "Demo Day", and a representative from Ping was there with clubs for players to try out. So, being the curious type, I grabbed one of the company's new drivers. Ohmigod.... IwantoneIwantoneIwantoneIwantone....The beautiful thing is that I can get it on sale for $400. What a steal! Of course, I don't know how in the hell I'm going to be able to justify spending $400 on a new golf club, but IwantoneIwantoneIwantoneIwantone....
There is something incredible about almost effortlessly hitting a golf ball 300+ yards. It's like validating your manhood without the risk of contracting a social disease. And it's impossible to explain to someone who doesn't play golf. I know what's going to happen here. When Susan comes home, I'll explain this to her, at which point she'll get this "that's it, you're drinking decaf from now on" look in her eyes. What's a man to do??
What WILL Satan do if the Twins win??
Republicans really DO eat their young....
There are few things in life that I enjoy more than listening to Conservatives fighting among themselves. The latest gnashing of teeth in know-nothing circles revolves around Conservatives being caught in what George Will refers to as Conservatives being "caught in a time warp"Three Bush decisions, all contradicting long-standing Bush positions, dismayed conservatives who care deeply about free speech (he signed campaign finance reform legislation), free trade (he imposed steel tariffs that will be ineffectual without being innocuous) and Israel's freedom (he began speaking the way the State Department thinks). Then Al Gore gave a speech.According to Will, an arch-conservative himself, True Believers in reality have much to be pleased about. Shrub will like have the opportunity to reconstruct the political orientation of the federal judiciary, his education bill devolves control of education reform to the states, and his intractability in matters of medical ethics (stem cells, cloning) is straight out of the the Religious Right's handbook.At a Democratic confabulation in Florida, Gore reprised his paint-by-numbers populism of 2000 ("we stand with the little guy") and said nothing about today's largest issue, Israel's peril. Suddenly, conservatives remembered.
They remembered what Bush never forgets: that the country is tied, politically. That in 2000 half the country favored Gore. That three consecutive elections have produced merely plurality presidents, that at the end of the 19th century five consecutive elections did that, and that the 2004 election might.
Conservative would do well to remember that their hold on power is tenuous at best, and it took stealing a Presidential election to accomplish it. It's not as if Shrub has a mandate, and his current popularity is more a reflection of events than it is his ability to lead. Remember, his Daddy won a war, but couldn't win his next election....
It's the strategy of choice for a nation with a short attention span....
Your company sells a product that is addictive and has killed thousands. Despite your best efforts, you're getting killed in the PR arena and in the press. What is a company to do?? The answer should be obvious- change your name! Does Accenture mean anything to anyone?? Of course not. Since splitting from Arthur Andersen and changing it's name, the public has forgotten it ever used to be Andersen. Now, Philip Morris is taking it's cue from Accenture, and is changing it's name to Altria.No matter how often a snake sheds its skin... It's still a snake. "Altria" is Philip Morris.Here is your chance to get your two cents in. Philipmorriscanthide.org (part of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids) is using an on-line petition to try to convince Shrub to aggressively pursue the Federal Government's lawsuit against Big Tobacco. Make yourself heard....
No, she is definitely NOT the Brawny guy....Everybody's afraid of Martha in the wake of Christopher Byron's critical Martha Stewart biography "Martha Inc." First all 2000 Kmart stores refused to carry an edition of the The Globe tabloid, which ran a cover story based on the book, and now public radio station WNYC in New York has refused to allow the book's author to underwrite a program. It seems that Martha gives big bucks to the station and they don't wanna soil her doilies.
You mean we're not the only country dealing with right-wing nutcases??
Welcome to France, a country apparently trying mightily to drag itself back into the 15th century (No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!!) courtesy of one Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the National Front. Le Pen, who finished second in the first round of the French Presidential election, essentially wants to eliminate immigration to France by creating the equivalent of a cordon sanitaire around the country.France has, in fact, served for centuries as a kind of lifeboat for Europe, welcoming the political, intellectual, and artistic castaways of nations with less tolerant regimes, and enjoying, in return, the reward of seeing Paris as the home address for an enormous amount of the Continent's proudest cultural and intellectual inheritance. But that's not the France the National Front hopes to bung and bail back into shape under its banner slogan, "France and the French First." In the words of Le Pen's son-in-law, Samuel Marechal, who is the leader of National Front Youth, "France no longer has the means to feed all the weirdos of the world."Though no one can be certain what the consequence of Le Pen being elected would be, his words are alarming enough. Combine that with the platform of the National Front, and the prospects are truly frightening. Not since Nazi Germany has a political party so close to power been so aggressively anti-"them". This could get ugly....One of the Front's most famous posters says, "Three million unemployed, that's three million immigrants too many!" Another depicts a jet airplane silhouetted against a setting sun, and promises, "When we come in . . . They go out!" For its mascot, the Front has claimed Joan of Arc, the illiterate fifteenth-century farm girl who heard voices telling her, in the name of God, to muster an army and rid France of its English occupiers. Joan did as God told her, and by the time she was burned as a heretic, shortly before her twentieth birthday, she had pretty well shown the foreigners the door.
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.- Oscar Wilde
Gone but not forgotten.....
My Minnesota North Stars, long since a memory to most, made a reappearance this morning. The "Did You Know?" question on ESPN's "SportsCenter" was this:Q: "Who was the first player to ever score his first career playoff goal on a penalty shot?"Wow. Does THAT ever bring back some powerful memories. When I was 12 years old, I delivered newspapers for the Minneapolis Star and the Minneapolis Tribune, which have long-since merged into one newspaper. As a reward for selling a certain number of new subscriptions, I won a trip to see the North Stars play the Philadelphia Flyers (the old Broad Street Bullies). It was a thrill that can only be adequately experienced by a hockey-crazed 12-year-old boy from a small northern Minnesota town. When people ask me why I'm such a hockey fan, this is the example I use. Until I started looking into colleges, hockey was my window to the outside world. I think there is a big part of me that wishes I was Canadian. I guess I'll have to settle for having grown up two hours south of the border, eh?A: "Wayne Connolly of the 1967-68 Minnesota North Stars, in a Stanley Cup quarterfinal game against the Los Angeles Kings."
The truly ironic part of all this is that I've never learned how to ice skate....
The shocker is that he actually HAS one....
Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), an 80-year-old troglodyte if ever there was one, is scheduled to undergo open-heart surgery this week. Apparently an artificial valve that was installed 10 years ago is wearing out. I don't know why; it's not as if the compassion-impaired Republican has actually used his heart for anything except his own self-aggrandizement....
And for our next trick, we're going to bury our heads in the sand....
I admire teaching abstinence as a noble goal for teenagers, but what upsets me is the tactic of associating sex with fear- of disease, of abuse, of pain. Yes, teens need to be aware of the risks involved, but to use fear as a teaching tool strikes me as represhensible.What began as a modest, grass-roots effort in the religious community is emerging this week as a major public policy debate in Washington. The first congressional hearing on funding for such programs was held yesterday as part of the effort to renew the nation's welfare laws....Abstinence-only seems wrapped in contradictions. All you have to do is to turn on the television or pick up a magazine to understand the degree to which sex sells in this country. While there are teens that will accept and live the message of abstinence, there are likely many more that will experiment with their sexuality early and often. How do we reach those children? I don't pretend to have the answer to that question, but I'm fairly certain that abstinence is not it.Opponents say abstinence-only is a largely unproven and possibly irresponsible approach that withholds potentially life-saving information from American youth...."There is some merit in promoting abstinence," said Belle Sawhill, senior researcher at the Brookings Institution and president of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. "But it's also the case that there are going to be kids, no matter what adults tell them, who are going to be sexually active, and it doesn't make sense to deny them information about how to protect themselves."
News from Kosovo:
Belgrade to order war crimes suspects' arrestOnly six of the 23 accused war criminals harbored by Yugoslavia have agreed to voluntarily surrender to the UN Tribunal in the Hague. While Washington contends that Belgrade needs to do more to bring the accused to justice, Serb officials have said that they should have the remaining suspects rounded up within the next two weeks.Most of the nearly 17,000 Albanians who remained in Orahovac during the NATO air campaign stayed hidden from Serbian forces. But the report details witness allegations of specific murders, abductions and expulsions of Orahovac Albanians from the start of the NATO campaign March 24 until the end in June....
Atrocities in Orahovac did not halt once Milosevic accepted the international peace deal and pulled his troops out, Kandic said. Nor was NATO's arrival in the city a guarantee of protection for the Serb population there, she said. The report recounts crimes by the rebel ethnic-Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army, which entered the city before NATO troops and allegedly began searching Serb houses and taking people away. More than 40 Orahovac Serbs had disappeared by July 10, and all of the Serbs from the houses and the 142 apartments in the center of the town were evicted, the report said.
There is nothing remarkable about Orahovac (except perhaps the local winery), which is little more than a wide spot in the road about halfway between Pristina and Skopje, Macedonia. The only thing that sticks out in my mind about it is the garbage dump along the road in the center of town. I was never able to figure out why they put a dump in the middle of town. Even so, the people who lived there deserved to be left in peace. Perhaps now they'll at least be able to find some closure and move on with their lives.
Was one of them the Brawny guy??Two F-16s were scrambled to intercept an American Airlines jetliner en route from London to New York when flight attendants became suspicious of two men who made repeated trips to the bathroom together. The men were escorted off the plane by agents from Port Authority, Customs and the FAA. Under questioning, the men protested their innocence, insisting that all they were doing was...smoking crack and having sex. At that point they were, of course, cordially welcomed into the country and invited to a private reception at the Department of Justice.
Turn off my TV? During the Stanley Cup playoffs??
Even though no one noticed, this week (4.22- 4.28) is "TV Turnoff Week".It's like we either have a world with TV, or a world with healthy lives and happy fun communities. And that's so disingenuous -- just as it is to say that a single week without television will help solve problems that are very real and deserve attention. It's so easy, isn't it? Turn off your TV, and your kid will lose weight, your family will be happy again, and your community will come together like never before.Indeed, why is it so easy to blame television? It's like anything else in life, when used in moderation. The problem is not with the medium, but rather the people who use it. Still, I suppose blaming the medium beats the hell out of actually taking responsibility for your own actions (or lack of same).Stepping back for a moment, why are we so obsessed with finding something easy to blame and then just ignoring everything in the periphery? And why blame TV for these admittedly real problems?
More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.- Woody Allen
Shakesqueer??
You know there is not much else going on in the world when one of the day's top stories is the sexual orientation of a man who had been dead for, oh, over 400 years.A 400-year-old painting previously believed to be that of a woman has been found to portray the male patron and friend of William Shakespeare, its owner said on Tuesday.Other than purely intellectual curiosity, the question of Shakespeare's sexual orientation would seem to be a more than moot point. I can hear the drumbeats of ignorance and prejudice now, though. Somewhere, concerned citizens, parents, and church officials will be demanding that schools stop teaching Shakespeare. Mark my words....The picture of the Earl of Southampton, featuring a figure with long, black curly hair, pursed red lips, an earring and a slender right hand, has prompted speculation in British media that Shakespeare was gay. "He is wearing perfectly fashionable male attire of the day, but the earring and the hair are effeminate and unusual for the 1590s," the painting's owner Alec Cobbe told Reuters.
Couldn't we just arm clinic workers and turn abortion clinics into free-fire zones??
RICO laws have been a godsend to federal prosecutors. Because of the breathtaking scope and adaptability of the laws, the feds have been able to use them for an amazing number of successful prosecutions. While this may be good for law-and-order types, it gives the civil rights folks the heebie-jeebies. Now the Supremes get their crack at RICO. Initially intended only for mobsters and drug traffickers, RICO has been applied in the case of abortion clinic protesters who use violence and intimidation in attempting to shut clinics down. While I am all for keeping protesters and their ilk as far away from clinics as possible, their are some obvious free-speech issues involved here.Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Action League, as well as individual protest leaders, are asking the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court's order that they pay $257,780 in damages to abortion clinics around the country and that they refrain for 10 years from using aggressive tactics to interfere with abortion clinic business.In the case before the Supreme Court, the question is the application of RICO laws to prevent protesters using violence and intimidation in an effort to deny women their legal right to abortion.Other groups involved in protests, including organizations as divergent as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, also have urged the justices to decide the issue. They argue that the court's decision in the matter could determine whether other types of protesters can continue to demonstrate without being sued.
"Social protest has a long and revered history in this nation," attorneys for Operation Rescue wrote in court papers. "From the burning or hanging of effigies in colonial times, to the temperance activists' disruption of taverns, to the civil rights and anti-war sit-ins of the 1960s and 1970s, demonstrations -- even illegal ones -- have been both an outlet for dissent and an instrument for social and legal change."
But Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women -- which brought the original lawsuit along with clinics in Wilmington, Del., and Milwaukee -- called it "ludicrous" for opponents to suggest that NOW, which has a history of organizing massive protests, would do anything to limit free speech. "This case is not about peaceful protests or pickets or sit-ins or prayers, nor is it about isolated incidents of violence not condoned by the principals," Gandy said. "This is about a coordinated plan of violence."
...a jury in Chicago decided unanimously in NOW's favor in 1998. It found that the protesters had engaged in an organized effort to use violence and intimidation to drive clinics out of business and deprive patients of their legal right to seek abortions. Evidence in the case showed that the protesters had trespassed on abortion clinic property, blocked access to clinics, destroyed medical instruments and other property and physically assaulted clinic staff and patients who were trying to enter the clinics.In my mind using RICO to deter abortion protesters may be a bit of a stretch, but protesters themselves have shown themselves unwilling to follow state and local laws designed to police their behavior. In cases like this, where one group is intent on using fear and intimidation to deny another group something they are legally entitled to, I believe the federal government has the right to use whatever means may be at their disposal to deter these sorts of nutcases.The protesters were ordered to pay damages and the judge in the case also placed them under a nationwide injunction, barring them from such activity in the future. The protesters appealed, but the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago last year upheld the lower court's decision and rejected arguments that the protesters had merely been exercising their free-speech rights.
In a sense, this can be viewed along the lines of Brown v. Board of Education. It took action that drastic to segregate Alabama schools; RICO gives the feds the ability to ensure that one group cannot deny the rights of another group. For some reason, anti-abortion protesters see it as their God-given right to break laws, harrass and intimidate women, and destroy property. Short of allowing clinic workers the freedom to arm themselves and fire on protesters, RICO would seem the best currently available alternative. That is, unless Congress wants to stir itself from it's slumber and actually pass legislation with teeth.
News from Kosovo:
Ethincity outweighs raceBosnia has long since become a haven for various Islamic fundamentalist groups. After the war in Kosovo, there was legitimate fear that it would head in the same direction, especially since the majority of Albanians are Muslim. If there is one thing that I learned during my time in Kosovo, it's that religion is a secondary concern to ethnicity.Although Kosovo, the U.N.-run province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic, has a similar profile to that of Bosnia--a large Muslim population grateful for help in the wake of a painful war--the similarities end there. "The religion of Albanians is Albanian-hood," said Naim Trnava, the principal of the only madrasa, or Islamic religious school, in Kosovo. "We are Albanians, and we belong to the Muslim faith. And the greatest joy we ever had in our lives was the night the U.S. bombing started against Serbia."There have always been tensions between Catholics and Muslims within the Albanian community, but securing independence from Serbia has always been the primary driving force. Now, all they need to do is to secure independence from the UN.
Serbs & Albanians come together over the Internet to protect Kosovo's environmentThe shadow of a spyDuring the war in Kosovo, rumors of a mole within NATO passing information to the Serbs were persistent. TIME magazine says that, according to the BBC, a Pentagon review determined that someone was getting NATO's daily "air-tasking orders" directly to the Serbs during the first two weeks of the war. NATO is understandably, shocked and appalled and in full damage-control mode. They do acknowledge, though, that security wasn't what it could or should have been.
Actually, I think he looks like the Marlboro Man. Was he gay, too??After years of declining market share, the mustachioed lumberjack on Brawny paper towels is finally getting the heave- ho, to be temporarily replaced by racing legend Richard Petty, who, come to think of it, doesn't look that different from the Brawny man. The current Brawny man "looks like a 1970s porn star," branding consultant Martyn Straw told The Wall Street Journal. "Everything on the package says 30 years old." That's because he IS 30 years old. The original Brawny man carried an ax over his shoulder and wore a red and black plaid shirt. In the early eighties, the ax was dropped. Since then his bushy mustache has been trimmed and the part in his hair has been moved from the middle to the side. Somewhere along the way his plaid shirt disappeared in favor of blue denim. Unfortunately, none of the changes have helped in Brawny's ongoing battle against Bounty, which controls a third of the paper-towel market, or more than three times what Brawny's current owner, Georgia-Pacific, is able to command. That's why in 2003, there will be a new Brawny man, and if current trends are any indication, he'll be gay. (Scratch that. Look at the current one. He IS gay.)
It's all about protecting our children....
In an effort to protect children, the New Jersey Senate has passed "Egan's Law", which will require local police departments to notify residents whenever a Catholic Church moves into the neighborhood.The law also mandates that Catholic churches register with authorities, wear electronic monitoring devices, and be prohibited from moving to within a half-mile radius of a school....Critics are already threatening to take New Jersey to court in an effort to void the law on constitutional grounds, claiming that the law relies on religious profiling and is really designed to protect only one segment of the population: young males. In response, one sponsor of the bill had this to say:"Last year, we discovered that a Catholic Church had been in our neighborhood for 30 years! And nobody told us!" said Ruth Harper of Redbrook, N.J. "My sons used to walk by that church every day on their way to school. Even now I shudder to think of what might have happened."
"I always told my kids to steer clear of that place," added neighbor Scott Carlyle. "But that's because there were a lot of strange people going in and out at odd hours, even at midnight on Saturdays. I was worried it was some kind of druggie hangout. To think the whole time it was a Roman Catholic Church. Now I know why they had all those stained glass windows — so nobody could look in."
"In the Catholic Church, after 2,000 years, Mary is still a Virgin," she said. "So clearly, they're not interested in girls."
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Today's essay: This ol' house (Chapter 2)...
Today, we get new carpet laid in the back of the house- that is, if the carpet guys show up. All three of us- Susan, Eric, and I, have busted our humps for the past four days getting everything ready to go. Now I just want it to be over with. It's hot, humid, and miserably uncomfortable, and I'm tired, sore, and cranky as hell. Still, getting rid of the ten-year-old carpet will make all of this worth the effort we've put in. All I have to do after that is scrape, and paint, and replace the ceiling fans, and hang the bathroom mirror, and paint the outside of the house, and mow the lawn, and....
God, I LOVE the First Amendment....
Protests on the Mall in Washington, DC, are hardly news. What makes them occasionally interesting, though, is the message behind the madness. If you're not paying attention, the message can sometimes be quite disturbing.When does anti-Semitism become an even darker form of Jew-hatred? If this weekend's demonstrations in downtown Washington D.C., particularly those on Saturday, didn't answer that question, they demonstrated the perilously thin line between dark and darker.Of course, the protest was supposed to be about bringing peace and justice to the world and about decrying the abuses of modern corporate capitalism. Of course, you can't always pick who you dance with, right??It wasn't the endless chants of "Free Palestine, Free Palestine" or the sea of black, red and green flags. That's fair enough. But it was the other things — the posters of Israeli flags with a swastika substituting for the Star of David, the coterie of members of the New Black Panther Party calling for "Death to Israel," the kids with white headbands written in Persian, looking like children bent on suicide.
Every third person represented a different obscure group, or at least tried to. One speaker, ostensibly from a New York union against the war, said he didn't really speak for his union, or even his local, but he was sure that a whole bunch of union workers agreed with him.When everyone is trying to talk over everyone else, how will you know if you've been able to get your message across? Perhaps all you've done is waste your weekend.
Did anyone mention this in Florida??
I think Wisconsin might be on to something. Built into the state's election code is the provision that, in case of an electoral tie, the contestants will choose names, cut cards, flip coins, or draw straws."The code says that ties should be broken by 'drawing lots,' " said Kevin Kennedy, Wisconsin's chief elections officer. "We take that as a generic way of saying any game of chance -- except dueling. We discourage that."That's too bad, really. I think duelling would be a test of just how badly one wanted the office he or she happened to be running for. Of course, the odds of this sort of resolution actually being necessary are slim, but in small towns it's not unheard of. By using Wisconsin's method, you can settle an election without bringing charges of political manipulation into play. Then both contestants can go ice fishing afterwards....
Operations Clambake....
The Church of Scientology would present hours of endless fun and targets for ridicule, if only church leaders weren't so deadly serious about quashing anything that smacks of criticism. Operation Clambake will help explain why Scientology is less a religion than it is an attempt at corporate mind-control. The FAQ's themselves are rather interesting....
Hey, Bud...contract this!!
In spite of the looming threat of being dismembered and scattered to the four winds before next season, both the Montreal Expos and the Minnesota Twins are refusing to play by the script. You know- lay down and die with barely a whimper so Satan can remove their asses from baseball's sacred landscape. Both the Expos and Twins are in first place in their respective divisions. Of course, it IS only late April, and who knows what things will look like in August and September? Still, it is refreshing to think that the decision to contract two teams might just become a bit more complicated than Satan would have liked. Instead of insisting on Minnesota and Montreal, other teams might have to be thrown into the mix (Tampa Bay and Kansas City, anyone??).Given that Montreal is averaging barely 5,000-10,000 fans per game, and also that the team doesn't even have an owner (MLB is running it), there seems little doubt that the Expos are living on borrowed time. Minnesota may actually be able to get a stadium deal, though, and thus keep Satan from their doorstep. If the Twins are able to secure a stay of execution, that means some other moribund team must step into the breach. It will be interesting to see where the contraction debate goes from here....
A cat's guide to Human Beings:
Puny human, you just think you're in charge. Read this and quiver in fear, knowing that you're just a hairball away from total annihilation....
It kinda makes you wonder what he did during those two days....Ronald Popodich shot his married girlfriend, then two days later intentionally ran over 18 people on a New York street. He escaped, went home to his New Jersey basement full of S&M devices and porn. After another two days he hijacked a car at gunpoint, returned to New York and ran down seven more pedestrians. When cops finally got him, he said "I wanted to hurt more people." Since no one died, he's expected to be released from jail in the year 3742.
Apolitical blues....
ESPN's Peter Gammons discusses some of the surprises to arise during the baseball seasons first three weeks.
It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy.- Groucho Marx
Today's essay: This ol' house....
I am looking to move my weblog to a new host. Of course, where is exactly the question. If anyone has suggestions, feel free to email me. I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep doing this the "hard way", but eventually I may want to use Movable Type or Greymatter (or something similar), which I cannot do on Tripod. Plus, Tripod is amazingly expensive considering how little real functionality it gives me. Time to move up in the world....
Bumpersticker seen today in a Kroger parking lot:
"ONLY FOOLS BELIEVE THE BIASED LIBERAL MEDIA". To which I would respond "ONLY NARROW-MINDED MORONS EQUATE "LIBERAL", "BIASED", AND "MEDIA". It never ceases to amaze me how Conservatives demand to be respected, and yet they seem to have no trouble at conducting themselves in a mean-spirited, disrespectful manner when it comes to those who don't think like they do (and I would proudly include myself in that lot). Since when is disrespect and name-calling considered good form? Remember, kids; it's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
And people wondered why Wired lost it's edge??
File this one under "This is a must read".... It appears that Wired has discovered blogging. Thanks for getting out in front of this story, guys....This article was written by of all people, Andrew Sullivan, who has his own weblog. I'm not certain who he is trying to reach here, but the article reads like it was written by someone who needed a few bucks and just tossed something off the top of his head. (Nothing But The Truth)
What, you couldn't just order a pizza like everyone else??
A man in Phoenix, while under the influence of PCP, bit off his two-year-old son's thumb, and kept it in his mouth for about six hours. Eeeewwwwwwww....
Please go away; your 15 minutes were up two years ago....
As if helping Shrub steal the 2000 Presidential election wasn't enough, now some of the main players from that drama are trading on that in their quest for political office. All told, four players from Florida's "chad crisis" are running for Congress, including former Secretary of State Kathryn Harris....no politician in Florida generated more attention than Secretary of State Katherine Harris. A Republican who certified the disputed vote count giving the win to now-President Bush, Harris was pilloried everywhere from the nation's editorial pages to "Saturday Night Live" and the online magazine Slate, which dubbed her "Lady MacBeth of the Everglades."It sounds like they're all flakes....Now, Harris is the front-runner for an open congressional seat in her home district around Sarasota, and is expected to easily win her party's primary. Her Republican opponents include a former Sarasota news anchor and a computer consultant named Chester Flake, whose campaign slogan is "Flake for Congress."
Caveat emptor
You're 22 years old, gifted, handsome- and considered to be the savior of an entire city's NFL fortunes. I wonder if David Carr has any clue at all what he is getting himself into? Though he will be extremely well-compensated, his life in this city will be scrutinized to a degree not even those running for political office can relate to.Yet minutes after the Texans made David Carr the first choice in the NFL draft, the first pick in the history of the expansion franchise, virtually the new first citizen of Houston, the nit-picking, the second-guessing, all of the analyzing and the overanalyzing began. Change Carr's throwing motion. Change his footwork. Change his haircut and his wardrobe too. While we're at it, why not just send him in for the full Marvin Zindler treatment and let's see how he can hit Jabar Gaffney on the deep out from behind those blue-tinted glasses?I wish him luck, because he is going to need it. No matter how well he plays, or how competitive the Texans become, he will be living and working in a fishbowl the size of the metropolitan Houston area. It's not a role I'd want to fill...not for any amount of money. Rotsa ruck, kid........He barely had his name called out by commissioner Paul Tagliabue and fitted the logo cap on his head when Carr's game, especially his throwing motion, was poked and prodded and dissected more than a dead frog in biology class.
Power corrupts, but apparently political power corrupts absolutely....
Despite promising not to take money from people and firms who might contest tax issues with her office, State Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander has taken almost $500,000 in contributions from just such folks."When you've got these huge tax matters, I would not," Rylander said in 1998, promising that if elected comptroller she would not accept donations from anyone with a contested tax case before her office. "I would also instruct my campaign staff not to take contributions from anyone with a pending tax matter," said Rylander, a Republican.That was then; this is now. Rylander, no doubt having to shout over the sound of her furious backpedaling, is now saying that she meant her pledge to cover taxpayers, not the consultants and lawyers who might represent them. Oh? Well, THAT certainly makes me feel better. So, if I as an individual were to contest my tax bill, Rylander would not accept a contribution from me. OK, that sounds fair. However, If I were wealthy enough to have a lawyer or a consultant working on my behalf, Rylander would have no problem accepting that same contribution- albeit from the lawyer or consultant?? For someone who claims to be so concerned about the appearance of impropriety, this would seem as if it should be beyond the pale.Who says you can't buy good government? Here in Texas, you get what you pay for....
Haven't I already seen these on Ebay already??Mike Fusella of Pound Ridge, N.Y., launched a line of "museum quality" Nazi dolls, including Adolf Hitler and Josef Mengele. Each hand-painted doll has 24 movable pivot points, allowing for quick and easy "Heil Hitler" salutes, and retails for $170. They're going so fast that he now plans to add Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels to his National Socialist menagerie and predicts that, in 100 years, they'll be sold by Sotheby's. That means they would last approximately eight times longer than National Socialism itself. Of course, his ultimate goal is to produce the Klaus Barbie.
It sure beats prowling singles bars, eh??
Looking to marry a millionaire? Not sure where to look next? Have you thought about the IRS?
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mr.Ashcroft, let my people go....
John Ashcroft, when first confirmed as Attorney General, promised to enforce the law of the land, not force his own personal views upon said enforcement. Sadly, and this should hardly come as a shock to anyone with a brain, Ashcroft was lying. To illustrate this, I offer his current conflict with the state of Oregon over it's assisted suicide law- what in Oregon is called the Death with Dignity Act.Mr. Ashcroft's interference with the Oregon law was hardly in keeping with the states' rights creed that is normally a point of pride among conservatives. In this case, Mr. Ashcroft's commitment to federalism has taken a back seat to his policy views. Oregon's law legalizing assisted suicide under tightly controlled circumstances may have been passed twice by state voters. It may have withstood legal challenge. And it may have conflicted with no clear federal law or principle. But it had to go -- somehow.One of the hallmarks of Conservatism has always been an insistence on the primacy of state's rights. Mr. Ashcroft is taking this a step further by insisting on the primacy of his own deeply-held religious views. While I would not dispute his right to his religious faith (however objectionable I may find it), this would seem a clear case of Ashcroft contravening what he told the Senate during his confirmation hearing- that he would not seek to make his personal views the law of the land.So last year Mr. Ashcroft issued a directive declaring that assisting suicide was not a "legitimate medical purpose" under federal rules and permitting the Drug Enforcement Administration to revoke the license to prescribe controlled substances of doctors who prescribe drugs in order to end a terminally ill patient's life. Such a federal policy, had it gone into effect, would have nullified the Oregon law. The trouble, according to Judge Robert Jones, is that in order to accomplish this objective, Mr. Ashcroft bent federal drug law entirely out of shape.
One could argue the moral underpinnings of the Death with Dignity Act until the cows come home, but that does not change the fact that the voters of the state of Oregon have spoken. Federalism, writ large, is anathema to Conservatives. As a true Conservative, Ashcroft has always believed in the primacy of state's rights. It's time for him to demonstrate that and leave the state of Oregon alone.
Today on the Tom DeLay Show: "Why My Religion Is Better Than Your Religion":
I almost hate to beat on the man, because he is such a #*)^&@$ idiot (and such an easy target), but he is our idiot...."Ladies and gentlemen, Christianity offers the only viable, reasonable, definitive answer to the questions of 'Where did I come from?' 'Why am I here?' 'Where am I going?' 'Does life have any meaningful purpose?'...."Only Christianity offers a way to understand that physical and moral border. Only Christianity offers a comprehensive worldview that covers all areas of life and thought, every aspect of creation. Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world -- only Christianity."Thank you, Congressman, for marginalizing me and everyone else who doesn't share your self-righteous, ego-centric view of religious faith. I am constantly amazed at the blatant ignorance and intolerance that issues from DeLay's mouth. It's as if there is a disconnect between his brain and his tongue, and yet he gets re-elected easily every two years. What does that say about the people in Ft. Bend County??Tom DeLay is living proof of the theory that "it is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt".
Do not avert your eyes....
It's Show-and-tell Day at the Children's Assessment Center in Rice Village. Only what is on display is not designed to make parents proud. What is on display are horrific tales, condensed down to a sentence or two so that it can fit on a T-shirt.As if growing up wasn't already difficult enough....
Houston, we have an image problem (this is news??)
Like any city, Houston is a collection of the good, the bad, and the ugly. OK, perhaps Houston's share of "the ugly" is larger than most cities, but a city is a collection of many things, and one person's blight is another's treasure. So why is the Houston Chronicle so interested in becoming head cheerleader?It's always struck me as rather comical that city leaders are so image-conscious. People are going to think what they will. Why concern ourselves with that, when that same energy can be directed towards making Houston a better place for those who actually live here? If people don't think this is a good place, fine. There are enough people clogging the freeways as it is. Does anyone really think we need more?
If there is one thing I've learned after all the places I've lived, it's that you can be happy anywhere you choose to be. If you're here, enjoy it if you choose to. Or not. It's your choice. As for the people who think less of Houston: screw 'em. At least we don't spend five months of the year shovelling our driveways.
Inescapable error
Imagine being John Rocker. The man may or may not be a bigot, a misogynist, and/or an idiot (and I'm not here to defend him). Just for a moment, though, put yourself in his shoes. Let's says that at some point in your life, you made an egregious error that you are sincerely sorry for. And let's say that no matter what you do, say, or how you live your life, you will not be allowed to forget that error. Now, I honestly don't know if Rocker is remorseful or not, but imagine having to live with this appended to every article written about you:"Rocker made disparaging remarks about gays, minorities and others in a Sports Illustrated interview before the 2000 season."Those remarks were made 30 months ago, and that one sad fact has come to define the man. The sad reality here is that we will not allow Rocker the luxury that most of us would demand for ourselves were we to be in his shoes: a second chance, an opportunity to prove that we have learned from our mistake and are a better person for it.What does this say about us as a culture? Who knows, really? It does point out our inability to forgive and forget, particularly if the public figure involved is not a particularly sympathetic figure. Bobby Knight will always be remembered for "the chair", Monica Lewinsky for "the stain", Reggie White for "the homophobic speech", etc.- ad infinitum, ad nauseum. I suppose that is one of the inherent risks of being famous. Anonymity does have it's rewards....
Hey, it worked for the Soviets....
Rewriting history has always been the province of those writing the history. Now, HISD, along with other schools districts in Texas, are rethinking the way they teach Texas history. Take, example, the Battle of San Jacinto.For decades, Texans were taught that on April 21, 1836, a ragged but brave band of mostly Anglo-American rebels led by Sam Houston defeated the Mexican army, avenging an earlier loss at the Alamo and winning Texas its independence from Mexico.It used to be just that easy. San Jacinto was for years taught as a historic victory of "us" (Anglos) over "them" (Mexicans). Now that more than half of the students in HISD are Hispanic, that kind of black & white analysis is clearly no longer appropriate. So how do you teach the about the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution when so many of your students are descendants of the vaquished?"Would an American participate in a celebration of the evacuation of Saigon?" asks current Mexican Consul General Enrique Buj Flores, as a way of explaining his refusal to commemorate the Battle of San Jacinto. The Mexican defeat at the marshes near the San Jacinto River in 1836 "is something that still smarts," Buj Flores says. "In Bosnia, people still kill each other over things that happened 500 years ago." Of course, Buj Flores quickly adds, Mexicans and Americans are not doomed to live out centuries of Balkan-style ethnic unrest. The flow of trade from NAFTA and the movement of people across borders mean that the two sides have no choice but to learn to live in peaceful coexistence, he said.No matter how it's taught, history is often little more than interpretation written by the victors. Given the demographic realities of our state, it's good to see that the Revolution that gave birth to Texas is not treated as an example of good vanquishing evil. There is so much more to it than that.Even some U.S. observers suggest it is naive to believe that the differences of San Jacinto will soon be reconciled with the Mexicans. "We're probably more tolerant," concedes Adrian Anderson, a historian at Lamar University who has worked on updating Texas textbooks. "But isn't it always easier for the winners to be more tolerant than those who lose?"
Talk about aversion therapy....Eleodoro (Tiny) Villafane of New York recently weighed in at 408 pounds, which is comparatively svelte considering that exactly one year ago he topped 840 pounds. Villafane is the guy who holed up in his East Village apartment, watching TV and eating for months to get over depression caused by the death of his mother. Finally his body gave out, he slipped in his bedroom, and rescuers had to tie him up in a net and drag him to an ambulance. He woke up in the hospital a week later, and the first thing he saw was Richard Simmons weeping at his bedside. Now THAT will make you lose weight.
I'll believe it when I see it....
The Yugoslavian Foreign Minister has said that he believes that his country will soon begin handing over accused war criminals to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Of course, no one should believe that this is being done voluntarily, despite the spin control emanating from Belgrade for internal consumption. It has taken a concerted effort by the international community, in particular the US, to convince Yugoslavia to hand the accused over (keep in mind that no one has actually been arrested yet). This was accomplished only by threatening the withholding of millions of dollars in international aid that Belgrade so desperately needs to rebuild it's economy and infrastructure.Of course, the acid test of Belgrade's resolve will be whether or not they will deliver the two most notorious war criminals- Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. Suffice it to say that I'm not holding my breath. My own experience in Yugoslavia demonstrated that when their backs are to the wall, the Serbs will lie, equivocate, and prevaricate until the last possible moment. When they finally cave in, they will act as if it was their idea all along. It's a maddening way to do business, but such is the way of the world in the Balkans.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Happy 19th birthday to my stepson, Adam! We miss you!!
It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing MilkBone underwear....
I finally had a job interview yesterday, and it was a disaster from the beginning until the end. I arrived in plenty of time from my 1:00 appointment, only to be kept waiting for 25 minutes. Just before I was about to walk out, someone came out to get me. I'd have been better off just leaving when I had the chance.I'll save the gory details, but the job is something I would be truly miserable doing, were I to actually have to take it. It would be a major step backwards, and at a serious pay cut to boot. On top of everything else, it's a 45-mile drive. Other than that, I suppose, it's probably a wonderful opportunity. I can still go back on Monday for a follow-up interview, but...I think I'll pass.
It was a pretty depressing experience all in all. I sat in my truck afterwards, feeling guilty because my reaction was so negative, but do I honestly need to jump at the first thing that comes along? Even if I know it will be a miserable experience? No, I know that I deserve better than that. Still, it's hard not to feel guilty when Susan is working 50-60 hours a week, and I'm drawing unemployment. Thankfully, she has no expectations that I'll take anything that comes along, even if I would be miserable. All I want is to be able to do something meaningful, where I can make a contribution that is important. The more I think about it, the better getting back into teaching is beginning to sound. It may mean that I might be out of work until August, but it does have some possiblities. We'll see....
Reading this, I suddenly don't feel so old....
Jesse Orosco turns 45 tommorow. That fact might not seem like such a big deal until you realize that Orosco is still pitching in the big leagues. Orosco made his major league debut in 1979, my freshman year in college. Of course, he's not the only player to be pitching past his 40th birthday (Nolan Ryan, anyone??), but the fact that he is still taking the mound deserves a hearty round of applause. Since 1980, only six other players have played past their 45th birthday. I know how physically beat up I feel sometimes, and I'm in pretty good physical condition (and only 42). I can only imagine what it must be like to perform at a high level in your mid-40s. Amazing....
Let us remember....
Today is the anniversary of the Columbine massacre, and yesterday was the Oklahoma City bombing, as well as the relaunching of the USS Cole. Combine these tragedies with the attack of 9.11, and we should all be humbled and cognizant of the risks involved in our world. No, we don't live in Israel, and we don't live with the daily terror of knowing that simply going to a pizzeria for lunch or taking a bus to the mall may be your last mortal act. Nonetheless, the hatred and conflict that has long infected other regions of the world has now been visited upon us. We may not necessarily understand it, but it is here, and likely is here to stay. Our "sanctuary" is not necessarily less safe than it was before, but we should all certainly be painfully aware of our vulnerability.
Hope takes flight in Kosovo
During my time living and working in Kosovo, it became clear that tensions between Albanians and Serbs would eventually bring both sides to war. Though it took a few years, life is slowly on the mend.Although the province is governed today by the United Nations and relative quiet reigns in the region, ethnic mistrust runs deep. Ethnic Albanians harbor a deep hostility for and live separately from the Serbian neighbors they consider their former oppressors. But in spite of the fact that ethnic Albanians are free to study once more in Albanian, have reclaimed the schools, and have mandated a different curriculum, unemployment is over 70%, poverty is rampant, and infrastructure is slow to recover, three years after the end of the war.As in many conflicts, hope for reconciliation begins with the younger generation. In Kosovo, it's no different. This is the story of two young Albanians and their journey towards making a life for themselves and their country.For the first time, when asking Kosovars about their take on the ethnic tension between the Serbians and Albanians, I met an untarnished vision of coexistence and goodwill. Both teens were at their most eloquent and outspoken in making a case for people being judged on their personal merits rather than their ethnicity or religion. Both had participated in conferences sponsored by international non-governmental organizations to promote youth activism and leadership in fostering peace and coexistence. Although they had both lived through the war, they were ardent proponents of peace and of finding the means to reintegrate the Serbian youth into their school and daily environment. As Anisa said to me, "It is up to us to create a place where people are judged for who they are as individuals, not for being Serb or Albanian."
Not everyone wants to be someone's girlfriend
An inmate alleged in a lawsuit yesterday that Texas prison officials failed to protect him from being repeatedly raped and sold into sexual slavery."Prison officials knew that gangs made Roderick Johnson their sex slave and did nothing to help him," said Margaret Winter, associate director of the ACLU's National Prison Project. "Our lawsuit shows that Texas prison officials think black men can't be victims and believe gay men always want sex -- so they threw our client to the wolves." According to the complaint, Johnson appeared before the prison unit's all-white classification committee seven times asking to be placed in safe keeping from predatory prisoners. Instead of protecting Johnson, the lawsuit charges, the committee members taunted him and told him he needed to learn to fight.I suppose it doesn't help that Texas' prison system is considered by Human Rights watch to have the worst record for prison rape of any state. Is it too much to ask that inmates be allowed to live free from fear of sexual assault? Johnson was in prison because he bounced a $300 check while on parole; it's not as if he is Public Enemy #1. Even if he were, he still deserves to be protected from sexual predators behind bars. I always thought the goal was supposed to be rehabilitation, not dehumanization.
You mean two Wongs DON'T make it white??
It sounds like someone fell asleep during the PR lecture in their Marketing 101 class. Abercrombie & Fitch, in an unfortunate attempt at humor, has been forced to pull T-shirts with slogans deemed racially offensive out of their stores. Of course, where is the first place something goes when it is deemed inappropriate or offensive? Yep, straight to Ebay. I love this country....One shirt shows Chinese laundry workers with conical hats and the phrase, "Wong Brothers Laundry Service: Two Wongs Can Make It White." Current bids on eBay were as high as $249. A second design pulled by Abercrombie & Fitch showed a smiling Buddha and read, "Buddha Bash: Get Your Buddha on the Floor." Bids were also at $249 on eBay. The shirts retailed for about $25.You'd think Abercrombie & Fitch would have figured things out by now. Either that, or their marketing & design departments must be staffed with morons who majored in misogyny, racism, and insensitivity. This is not the first time something like this has happened to the company. Of course, there may actually be a strategy involved here- especially if you believe that any publicity is good publicity.I wonder if A&F is getting a cut of the Ebay sales??
But the beach-front property is a bargain....The island nation of Tuvalu--population 10,600, with one hotel and one factory producing dried coconut meat--decided to join the web in 1996 and was assigned the international domain suffix ".tv." A little while later a Los Angeles-based company made Tuvalu an offer it couldn't refuse: $50 million for rights to the ".tv" suffix. Now Tuvalu has used the money to join the United Nations so they can vote on the only issue that matters much to them: global warming. If global warming trends continue, Tuvalu will disappear under the ocean within 50 years. At the airport in the capital of Funafuti, you can buy a souvenir poster showing the ocean with a solitary flagpole sticking out of it and the legend "Tuvalu was here." The Tuvaluans are trying to show how ahead of the times they are.
Don't cry for me, Argentina. I can't afford the Kleenex....
Argentina yesterday suspended all banking activities. Apparently, keeping track of people's money was just WAY too much trouble. Beginning today, Argentine citizens will be issued coffee cans and shovels. If they do not have their own back yard, they will be issued mattresses. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Border relations between Canada and Mexico have never been better.- George W. Bush
I actually have a job interview today. I wish I could say that I'm excited, but I'm not yet sure just how I feel. It's for a job that I'm not sure that I want, but I also don't know that much about it yet. Perhaps after I learn more, things will look better. I've always believed in going into something like this with an open mind, and who knows? Perhaps I'll be surprised. We'll see....
Never misunderstimate the power of Shrub....
Our beloved 43rd President is apparamently not so enamorized of the English language, given the way he mangulates it. Thankfully, there is a site dedicated to Shrub's myriad magnificent malaprops. Bon appetit, y'all....
Eating your way to good health....
The US Department of Health and Human Services has announced that antibiotics-injected McDonald's hamburger meat is now the primary source of antibiotics for uninsured and low-income children."Unfortunately, some children still fall through the cracks in our health-care system, but luckily, McDonald's is there to lend a helping hand," Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said at a press conference announcing the findings. "So even if a child's family has no health insurance and can't afford medicine, virtually anyone can afford a delicious 99-cent Big Mac with pickles, cheese, and a heapin' helpin' of [the antibiotic] quinupristin-dalfopristin."What about those poor or uninsured children that are vegetarian??In HHS tests, 82 percent of children who had not been properly inoculated were still found to have significant levels of antibiotics in their bloodstreams. The antibiotics, the tests concluded, were the result of sustained intake of McDonald's meat.
"Disadvantaged children tend to eat at McDonald's a lot, which is a good thing," Thompson said. "If you think about it, where else are these kids going to get their fluoroquinolone?"
How fast can you backpedal??
Tom DeLay is in full spin-control mode, saying that he apologized for the "misunderstandings" caused by his criticism of Baylor and Texas A&M."My response to a concerned parent has created a misunderstanding. I was giving advice for the specific type of education they were seeking for their child. Let me make it Texas clear: I've been a longtime supporter of Baylor and Texas A&M. My daughter went to A&M and in Congress I've worked hard to help fund these two prestigious universities. I apologize for any misunderstandings my comments may have caused."In other words: "I'm sorry that any of you liberal sympathizers heard me and twisted my words." Whatever.... It is interesting to note that DeLay attended Baylor from 1965-67 and was kicked out of the school, allegedly for using alcohol and committing "lots of pranks".According to a 1995 article in the New Republic, DeLay was kicked out of Baylor for "dancing and painting buildings green at rival Texas A&M." At the time, Baylor did not allow dancing on campus.If there is anything that I detest more than a hypocrite, it's an idiot who also happens to be a hypocrite. It sounds as if Ft. Bend County is getting exactly the quality of representation in Congress that it deserves.
Wake me up when it's over...oh, it IS over.
The Houston Rockets (mercifully) ended their season Wednesday. Did anyone actually notice? In a season marked by minimal effort, poor defense, and too many injuries, there was little to be remembered. One of my relatives has two season tickets, and the face value of the tickets are $112 per game. All I can think is...he paid $10,000 for THAT?? Talk about not getting a return on your investment....
Shrub to Sacrifice Own Life for Good of NationWASHINGTON, DC— Displaying the selfless courage that has defined his presidency, President Bush announced Tuesday that he will heroically lay down his life that the rest of the nation may live on. "It is the only way," Bush said. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. I must, therefore, die to preserve future generations." Over the vociferous objections of his closest Cabinet members, Bush brushed aside their outstretched arms, repeating, "It is the only way."
Now might just be the right time to own a yurt....
And you don't even have to move to Mongolia to do it. (Good Shit)
I'm much too young to be this damn old.- Garth Brooks
Today's essay: All I know is that it's a LOT of dog years...
Happy Birthday to me!!! (42, and feeling every bit of it...)
Like most adults, I suppose, birthdays are no longer a big deal, which is too bad. When I was a kid, it was the one day out of the year that I ruled. I got exactly what I wanted for dinner, I could basically do what I wanted, and people paid attention to me. Now, I pretty much always have what I want for dinner (I'm an adult, right??), I still have to do things I don't want to do, and I wish people wouldn't pay attention to me. It's not always fun being reminded that I'm eligible for the Senior PGA Tour in just eight short years. Of course, I might be excited about that fact if I actually had a decent game.Birthdays have always been kind of a bummer, although that may be more coincidence than anything. I almost committed suicide on my 21st birthday, I got a divorce for my 30th, and I'm out of work on my 42nd. Given that kind of track record, I suppose it's understandable why I'm not planning on blowing out any candles.
I'm going to try not to feel sorry for myself, though. It's another day that I'm drawing breath, which certainly beats the alternative. So, happy birthday to me. Let's hope there will be many, many more....
War is not healthy for children and other living things....
Four Canadian soldiers were killed near Kandahar, Afghanistan today when an American F-16 dropped a 500-pound laser-guided bomb on them during a training exercise.The Canadian soldiers were conducting a live-fire training exercise in an area about nine miles (14 kilometers) south of the Kandahar airfield, the Canadian statement said. The soldiers were firing at inert targets in a "recognized training area," according to Maj. Jamie Robertson, a spokesman for the Canadian Joint Task Force.The sad reality is that things like this happen on a regular basis in the military. You cannot simulate the commission of deadly acts without assuming at least some of the risks associated with the actual commission of those acts.Canadian military authorities said they would carry out an investigation of the incident with the cooperation of the United States. "The details are something that need to be determined ... but certainly my understanding is that there was no hostile activity in the area that would have created this incident," said Gen. Ray Henault, chief of defense staff, at a news conference in Ottawa.
Henault said the American fighter pilot could not visually identify the troops because the exercise took place in the middle of the night. "Without a doubt, there was a misidentification of the Canadians and what they were doing on the ground and that was obviously the cause of this accident," Henault said.
Lutheran Minister Arrested On Charges Of Boring Young ChildrenPERU, IL— St. Luke's Lutheran Church was rocked by scandal Tuesday, when Rev. Bob Tillich, the church's pastor of 12 years, was arrested on suspicion of boring as many as 23 children within the congregation. "Reverend Bob always seemed like the sweetest man," parishioner Vera Crandall said following the arrest. "When my son said he made him watch three 1975 filmstrips about the suffering of Job, I was shocked." In the wake of the arrest, seven former Sunday-school students, dating as far back as 1989, have stepped forward with charges that Tillich subjected them to inappropriately tedious parables.
When life imitates art....
A Florida murder suspect hanged herself in her jail cell recently. That in and of itself is not particularly newsworthy. What is unusual is the suicide note that she left behind, asking her attorney to sue the jail for failing to prevent her from killing herself. Only in America would someone litigate from the grave.
Would YOU take advice from the GOP's poster boy for intolerance and ignorance?
Texas Congressman Tom DeLay (R- Sugar Land), a man not noted for reasoned, intelligent political discourse, has managed to piss off his own constituents. That takes some doing, because the people in his district have loved his act for years, despite his ignorance, xenophobia, and megalomania.While speaking at Pearland's First Baptist Church last Friday night, a questioner asked him where he should send his kids to school (does it frighten anyone else that someone is asking DeLay for college advice??). DeLay's response:
"Don't send your kids to Baylor," said DeLay, a 1970 graduate of the University of Houston. "And don't send your kids to A&M," he continued to loud applause. "There are still some Christian schools out there -- good, solid schools. Now, they may be little, they may not be as prestigious as Stanford, but your kids will get a good, solid, godly education....Texas A&M used to be a conservative university," he said. "It's lost all of its conservatism, and it's renounced its traditions. It's really sad. My daughter went there, you know, she had horrible experiences with coed dorms and guys who spent the weekends in the rooms with girls, and all this kind of stuff went on there. It's just unbelievable."I find it ironic in the extreme that DeLay would criticize Baylor (full disclosure: Baylor is my wife's alma mater), a school noted for it's conservative religious atmosphere. To me, it just proves again what a #%^*&)@ idiot DeLay is. The sad part is that the voters in his district keep re-electing him. What does that say about them?? (Welcome to Ft. Bend County. You're in DeLay Country; please check your open-mindedness and intellectual curiosity at the door. Thank you.)DeLay presumably focused on A&M and Baylor because they are generally regarded as two of the most conservative universities in the state, and they draw many students from predominantly white suburban areas.
Saying "goddamn" 26 times seemed OK, but the 27th time was just too damn much....
In another victory for ignorance and intolerance, a Conroe production of "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" may be cancelled due to a disagreement over profanity.The word "g--damn," used by Flournoy's character in the musical, offended a majority on the Crighton Players' board. On Monday, the board ordered director David Fernachak to get rid of them or resign....Fernachak, who also is a board member, resigned as director and the cast followed after learning of the board's decision at a meeting Tuesday.I find it interesting that the community would have no problem with putting on a musical centering on a whorehouse. A whorehouse, if memory serves, is a house of prostitution, and yet the conflict is over profanity?? I wonder if the board members who objected to the profanity realize how blindly hypocritical that is? Not likely, I suppose, but then Conservatives in this state have never been noted for their reasoned, dispassionate opinions. As usual, this is just another knee-jerk reaction based on little but their own prejudices. Here's a suggestion, folks: why not put on a production of "Our Town" for the 543rd time? You won't have to sanitize that one."I don't think they really expected the whole cast to walk out," said Ric Sadler, 49, a police officer who would have spoken the profanities in his role as Sheriff Earl Dodd in the musical.
If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.- Woody Allen
Today's essay: Can I Supersize that for you?
Did someone say "cattle call"??
One of the things I "love" about being out of work is going to things that I would never otherwise go to- like job fairs, f'rinstance. I always go with high hopes, and I invariably leave with my tail between my legs (figuratively speaking, of course). I go there thinking that there will actually be companies there looking to hire people like me (writers), and what I find are companies looking to hire commission sales people, which appeals to me about as much as Chinese Water Torture.I don't mean to sound snobbish, but, like anyone else, there are things I just cannot and will not imagine myself doing. Selling cars ranks high on that list, just above selling funeral services (at the job fair I went to this morning, one company was looking for exactly that). At this point in my life, I want to be able to do meaningful work that I can feel is important to me. I've done the "work to earn a paycheck" thing, and it can be incredibly frustrating and empty.
I enjoyed working for my (soon to be previous) employer. I was good at what I did, and it mattered to me. Being able to write was like a dream come true. In the end, what seemed too good to be true turned out to be exactly that. Being laid off and lied to about it in the same sentence isn't sitting well with me, in case you haven't noticed.
I did manage to get an interview out of this morning's job fair, though I had to drive 46 miles to do it. My interview is on Friday afternoon, and since it is mere blocks away from the Westchase Adam's Mark Hotel (where I was this morning), it will mean another road trip for me. I'm not even certain I'm all that excited about the job or the interview- but it is a step in the right direction. I suppose I should be grateful (and I am) that someone wants to take the time to talk to me about potential employment.
I hope this doesn't sound whiny, but this is not what I had expected to be doing at this point in time. Until last month, I worked for a company that was selected one of "Houston's 50 best places to work" last year by the Houston Business Journal. When I think of that now, all I can do is laugh. I could have handled losing my job, but to lose it and be lied to about it? I would have thought I could have expected better. How naive of me....
Such is the American Way....
I suppose it was just a matter of time before this happened, but "The Osbournes" (which, I must confess, I've never seen and don't plan to) want more money for a second season on MTV. I've heard good things about the show, but I lost whatever minute interest I may have had in Ozzie when he bit the head off a bat onstage...it's what's for breakfast. Yuck.
It was just too much of a good thing....
In an all-out attempt to get government off their backs, the state of Nevada has decided to eliminate the rule of law altogether. All statutes currently on the books will be phased out over a five-year period, slowly easing Nevada residents into a state of total anarchy. I'm just wondering if anyone will actually notice any difference??As a result of the eradication of laws, more than 20,000 police officers and other law-enforcement officials stand to lose their jobs. The loss should be offset, however, with the creation of jobs in new fields. "Nothing stimulates employment like lawlessness," Raggio said. "We estimate that this move will create more than 400,000 jobs in such newly legal professions as prizefight rigger, ticket scalper, drug runner, bribe coordinator, and arsonist. In the construction industry alone, some 20,000 workers will be needed to build whorehouses and install stripper poles in fast-food restaurants."Surprisingly, the return to lawlessness has received a very positive response from Nevadans."I've been waiting for this moment for 20 years," said Reno blackjack dealer Dale Everson, polishing his new machete while enjoying a lapdance. "Pretty soon, I won't have to worry about speeding tickets or emissions tests. Only the common sense and inherent decency of the people of Nevada will govern this state. That'll be more than enough for me."
What does not kill me only makes me whinier
Gentleman, start your rhetoric....
The Supreme Court yesterday struck down a congressional ban on virtual child pornography (Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 00-795). This, I am certain, will not go down easily among the nation's Conservatives. To them, I would direct this question: "You would fight to the death to protect the First Amendment. How do you reconcile the law that the Supreme Court struck down with the First Amendment?"I would in no shape, manner, or form advocate for child pornography, but when a law is written so broadly that it threatens even the concept of child pornography, that cuts dangerously close to censorship and the undermining of the First Amendment.
I'm not certain what the answer is in this case. I think everyone would agree that child pornography is an abomination and has no place in civil society. We must find a way to proscribe this sort of travesty without undermining our rights to free speech and expression.
The law was an an expansion of existing bans on the usual sort of child pornography. Congress justifed the wider ban on grounds that while no real children were harmed in creating the material, real children could be harmed by feeding the prurient appetities of pedophiles or child molesters. The Free Speech Coalition, the pronographers' trade group, said it opposes child pornography but that the law could snare legitimate, if unsavory, films and photos produced by its members. The group did not challenge a section of the law that banned the use of identifiable children in computer-altered sexual images.A federal judge upheld the law, but the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided in December 1999 that the challenged provisions violated the Constitution's free-speech protection. The appeals court said the government did not show a connection between computer-generated child pornography and the exploitation of actual children. The Supreme Court upheld that view.
On The JobIt is the first day of school in Houston, Texas, and the teacher thought she would get to know the students by asking them their name and what their father did for a living.
The first little girl said: "My name is Mary and my daddy is a postman."
Next, a little boy said: "I'm Andy and my dad is a mechanic."
Then, one little boy said: "My name is Jimmy and my father is a striptease dancer in a cabaret for gay men over in the Montrose district."
The teacher gasps and quickly changes the subject, but later in the school yard the teacher approaches Jimmy privately and asks if it was really true that his dad dances nude in a gay bar.
He blushed and said, "No, ma'am, I'm sorry; I told a fib. My dad is an auditor for Arthur Andersen, but I was just too embarrassed to say so.
As if we don't objectify men and women enough as it is:
I actually watched the first ten minutes of ABC's "The Bachelor" before it began to make me ill. Did we learn nothing from Darva Conger? Let's see; we take one single guy, put him into a horribly unrealistic situation, surround him by the trappings of (someone else's) wealth, and then give him his pick of 24 beautiful women, whom you can bet wouldn't be anywhere to be found if the guy worked at a Dairy Queen. Are we so badly in need of our fifteen minutes of fame that we would subject ourself to this sort of debauchery on a weekly basis? Apparently so.I write this with tongue firmly implanted in cheek after seeing my first episode of "Fear Factor" last night. You know the one- where all six contestants have to get naked and walk a runway before a crowd of photographers? Interesting how they were all in incredible physical condition, wasn't it? No beer truck drivers allowed, from what I could see.
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.- Will Rogers
"I did everything but drink the bong water...."
Thanks to Cameron Brown for forwarding this link to me, although I don't think he reacted to this the same way I did....One of the things that has always mystified me about drug laws in this country is how recreational drugs (marijuana, f'rinstance) has been demonized, but alcohol is both socially and legally sanctioned. Perhaps I'm too dense to grasp the distinction, but what, really, is the difference between alcohol and marijuana (outside of the fact that one is socially acceptable and one is not)? I've always believed that alcoholism is every bit as dangerous as drug addiction. The fact that this is ignored by our legal system and social mores is a tragedy. (Try this test: How many teenagers die from drinking and driving? How about from toking and driving? See what I mean?)
I'm not going to advocate marijuana use, any more than I would alcohol. What I am saying is that making one illegal and the other legal is hypocritical (and dangerous), although apparently politically acceptable and expedient. I happen to think that the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) has a very strong argument in this respect. Deroy Murdock makes a very good argument for allowing marijuana to be the equivalent of a nip of Jack Daniels after a hard day at the office.
Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, R-Calif., quipped on "Politically Incorrect" that in the 1960s, "I did everything but drink the bong water."All I am advocating is that we accept reality and deal with alcohol and marijuana fairly and equally. If you're going to demonize one, you're missing the point. Until politicians recognize the waste, inefficiency, and unfairness inherent in our current legal approach to drugs and alcohol, we will be saddled with a system born in dishonesty and raised by denial.Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, R - Ga., told The Economist that he smoked pot while studying in the 1970s. To do so, Gingrich said, "was a sign that we were alive and in graduate school in that era."
Despite drug warriors' claims, marijuana does not necessarily demolish young people's life prospects. In fact, Americans evidently can smoke grass, then wind up in governors' mansions, the U.S. Congress and even the White House. [New York Mayor Michael] Bloomberg...recalled his zany days at a Johns Hopkins University fraternity in the early 1960s....: "Maybe all that enjoyable 'wasted' time had long-term benefits after all."
Naturally, those who light up, then head for the highway should be prosecuted for driving under the influence. Ditto those who operate heavy machinery while stoned.Can we lose the hypocrisy?But when it comes to policing grown-ups at leisure, the War on Marijuana is sillier than a weed-fueled giggle. The same government that permits Americans to soften the edges of modern life with Xanax, Tylenol PM, Lotto and Jagermeister immediately should put a match to the entire anti-pot project. If marijuana amuses the mayor of America's premier city, it should be available to entertain adults in Anytown, USA.
Pork: The Other White Meat....
It has often been said that one should never witness sausages or legislation being made, as it is likely to turn one's stomach. To that list we should probably add "watching your tax dollars being spent".A youth-outreach program in Missouri expected to spend $273,000 to combat "Goth culture" was among the $20.1 billion that Congress doled out for pet projects in fiscal year 2002, according to the "Pig Book" released today.Of course, one man's pork is another man's sustenance. Still, you have got to wonder how $273,000 will help to eliminate Goth culture- not to mention whether that is even a worthwhile goal. Just another crude attempt at social engineering by narrow-minded and intolerant white men in positions of power?? (JillMatrix.com)The "Pig Book," the annual report on pork projects from Citizens Against Government Waste, calculates the number and dollar total of earmarked projects from parking garages to grants to universities.
The 8,341 "earmarked" projects are 32 percent more than last year's 6,333, and the $20.1 billion appropriated represents an increase of 9 percent over 2001.
Among the other projects funded are a $50,000 tattoo-removal program in San Luis Obispo, Calif., and a $450,000 appropriation to restore chimneys on Cumberland Island in Georgia.
Earmarks are projects that Congress says must be funded; the rest of the appropriations are left up to executive departments and agencies to spend.
I was the 42nd President of the United States. Do you remember me??
Has anyone else noticed how thoroughly and completely Bill Clinton has been ignored by the mainstream media? It's as if the man just disappeared from the face of the earth. The only time he even warrants a mention is when some backstabbing Republican blames him for everything from AIDS to al-Qaeda. It may be fashionable (if not defensible) to bash Clinton, but I know I'm not alone in stating that Bill Clinton did a hell of a job as President. No, he will not be remembered as a President who conducted himself in a highly moral and admirable fashion, but his was certainly a high-risk/high reward Presidency. That does not and should not diminish the good things Clinton did during his eight years in office. The man was nothing if not busy.The Shrub Administration is almost reflexively determined to do the exact opposite of what the Clinton Administration might have. That is their loss, and demonstrates what mean-spirited, small-minded folks Republicans can be when they take the reins of power.
I believe that, in the long run, history will treat Bill Clinton kindly. Does that mean it will ignore his missteps? No, and that is as it should be. Just don't write the man off because an intern wanted to sample "the other white meat".
Why I hate local news....
From Laurence Simon at file13 (who speaks with the voice of one who has been regurgitated from the belly of the beast) comes this screed. It will definitely make you think twice about watching Judy Happytalk and Fred Morprozac do the "talking head" routine on the 5:00 and 10:00 news.Here in Houston, local news is heavily into shameless homerism, as if they think their average viewer knows or cares little for anything outside Harris County. What I wouldn't give for some intelligent, in-depth discussion of issues (yeah, like THAT'S going to happen...). Instead, what we get are stories designed almost solely to illicit an emotional reaction. Channel 2 is the worst in this respect. The pandering and homerism is applied so heavily you can almost see it.
It took me a long time to realize that it really isn't about news at all. It's about ratings, and news is simply a product to be packaged in whatever manner is most likely to attract viewers. To say that this is superficial is to miss the point. Of course it's superficial, but it does nothing to serve the public interest, which all local stations purport to do.
Is there anything the man cannot do on a golf course??
Tiger Woods won another golf tournament on Sunday. Ho hum.... Well, not this time. The victory in the Masters marked the third time Woods has claimed the coveted (and garish) green jacket. It just goes to show that when he is on his game, everyone else is playing for second. Trust me, the game is not nearly as easy as he makes it look. Unbelievable....
Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings.- George Will
Today's essay: So long, Big Guy; we'll miss you.
Don't let the door hit you in the butt on your way out, OK??
Now here is a disturbing trend. As if layoffs in and of themselves weren't bad enough, some companies don't even have the balls to do it face to face. It should be a matter of respect and common courtesy to tell an employee in person if he or she is being laid off. Apparently, we were wrong.Employers seem more interested in a speedy termination rather than doing it in a dignified and humane way, said Houston employment lawyer Joe Ahmad, who has had a number of clients get their termination notices from phone answering machines.There should be a rule No. 3 in there as well, and this is a lesson that my (likely former) employer could stand to learn: Don't lie to your employee. Don't tell them that layoffs are being done on the basis of seniority when thIt's a cowardly trend, or as John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger Gray & Christmas in Chicago, says, "a pusillanimous act."
Losing a job is among the most traumatic events in a person's life, said Bill Sala, vice president and managing director of the Innis Co., a human resource consulting firm. It ranks right up there with the death of a loved one, catastrophic illness and breakup of a marriage.
There has been so much interest in how to terminate an employee with class and dignity that Innis, along with the law firm Ogletree Deakins, put on a seminar in October. For the folks who didn't attend, here are some basic tips.
Rule No. 1: The supervising manager should be the one to break the news. Don't send in someone from human resources the employee has never met.
Rule No. 2: Do it somewhere private and off the beaten path.
