darinsmasthead2

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

can't help myself

Great Orators of the Democratic Party-
"One man with courage makes a majority."--Andrew Jackson
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."--Franklin D. Roosevelt
"The buck stops here."--Harry S. Truman
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."--John F. Kennedy
"We're going to do something. We're not going to do nothing."--John Kerry

you are what you want to be

This is no great enlightenment of intelligence, but; you are what you think you are.

Or to paraphrase Eminem, aka Slim Shady-I am whatever you say I am. If I'm not--then why would say I am?

I used to know a guy that fancied himself a true hippy, and sure enough, by the time we finished college he was. Living out of a van, with a dog and his grateful dead music, traveling to shows, no job, no education, no clothes, no shoes...just a lot of music and all the other paraphernalia that comes with hippies (patchouli, incense, weed....)

Monday, April 25, 2005

A.W. Merrick was a blogger

I think a lot of people may be reading more into the success of blogs and the importance of blogs than there is to report.
Blogs, while an interesting new wrinkle in the brave new world of modern media, are nothing new. Deadwood character Merrick was a blogger. He attended events and chronicled them and a few people would read his thoughts and opinions of what transpired, some people would even pay to advertise through his written word. The difference was that comparatively few people had the resources, time, and equipment required to produce "The Pioneer."
Today, of course, we are all riding on a wave of "blog popularity" because we all have access to the resources needed to produce our own little "Pioneer."
Just a thought....
I am not saying that blogs aren't cool, but I think the great expectations that some have for blogs to change the world around us is overly optimistic, (a psychologist might call it "projection"---I want blogs to be important therefore I proclaim that they are important.)

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

it's getting hot in herrr

good lord, they turned off the AC in my building, (renovations).

There is nothing like sitting in a window-less cube, reading accounting reports, hearing the noises of the outdoors while sweating through your uncomfortable casual pants.

I spent all weekend outdoors, I even went on a 5 hour Kayak trip on the Maries and I can honestly say that office work sucks.

You always hear that one motivational jerk-off say, "if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life...."
Well, what if you don't? (love what you do--- that is) Do you just quit like Peter from Office Space? Start wandering around in a daze until you are eventually picking up trash at a construction site but smiling? It's that time of year where I start asking those fundamental questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is that funny smell? Why does salmon have an "l" in it?

sneers

I am still surprised that the Schiavo thing has somehow turned into a popular reference as an example of the extremes of "those crazy right wing christian fundamentalists." As though only a religious zealot could possibly be on the side of life, (as opposed to physician assisted euthanasia).

I watch some idiot talking head on CNN (I think it was Dan Abrams) dismiss the whole episode off hand as evidence of the backwardness of Christians.

We have now been treated to Howard Dean on at least two occasions discussing how the republicans misstepped during the Schiavo controversy will haunt them in 06 and 08.
"The Republicans are willing to reach into our personal lives at any moment," Dean told the St. Petersburg Times , dismissing the notion that the controversy would fade with time.
"There is a deep scar on the American psyche," he said. "This is a great tragedy for the American people and I think the behavior of the governor (Jeb Bush) and the president and the senator (Mel Martinez) is something that will long be remembered."

Let me see if I have this correct: a judge declares that a woman who is severely disabled but not dying should be starved to death by order of her estranged husband. Republicans step up and say "let's review this particular case very carefully to make sure that every procedure was followed carefully (otherwise known as a de novo review)" the judges then dismiss the request and starve the woman to death by court order anyway,--and Dean thinks this will come back to haunt republicans?
I doubt it. People deride the whole episode as another opportunity for Bush and Rove to cozy up to the "evangelicals." They can't believe that perhaps they attempted to do what they thought to be right. I am glad that at least they tried.

Benedict XVI

So there is a new pope, this doesn't really affect me, not being Catholic, but it is funny to read about.
Depending on your source he is either a German neo-Nazi, or a young man who fled the Hitler youth corp and spent time in American prisoner of war camps until he was released and rejoined the seminary.
I'm guessing the latter is closer to the truth but watch for smear jobs as the new pontif takes over.

Friday, April 15, 2005

response

In response to the "debate" post anonymous asked: "Did you just call us stupid?"

No, I am not calling you stupid, Mr./Ms. Anonymous (if that is your real name).

I am simply pointing out that many times when debating anything from social security reform, to American hegemony, to how much wood could a woodchuck chuck, sometimes the opposition willfully misunderstands. It's a rhetorial/logical fallacy, sometimes it is intentional, and sometimes it is ignorance.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Jay Nordlinger

This is from his "Impromtpus"
Bear in mind that Charles Rangel is not some street-corner ranter. He is a member of the U.S. Congress, and the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. If his party wins a majority next year, he will be chairman.
Rangel gave a speech about Social Security before black retired workers outside New York’s City Hall. Meghan Clyne of the New York Sun reports:

. . . For black Americans, the congressman added, the struggle against the proposed changes in the entitlement system was “not only a civil-rights fight, but a fight for America.” Mr. Rangel called on African-Americans to continue their “missionary” work against the Social Security proposals and likened the effort to his marching with Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery.
“We have to get rid of the bums that are trying to take it away from us,” Mr. Rangel said of the Social Security system, referring to Republicans in Washington and City Hall — “people who sleep with Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and the rest of them.”
A member of the City Council from Brooklyn, Charles Barron, joined Mr. Rangel in urging African-Americans to stand against alterations to the system. “It’s bad enough they won’t pay us our reparations,” Mr. Barron, who for a time was seeking the Democratic mayoral nomination, said. “Now they’re trying to take away our Social Security!”
Neither Mr. Barron nor Mr. Rangel detailed at the meeting why the president’s proposals were harmful to the black community. When asked for specifics by The New York Sun after the event, Mr. Rangel said, “The progressive nature of being able to get returns means that lower-income people benefit more than higher-income people” from the Social Security system. Since members of minority groups disproportionately constitute the lower income brackets, the congressman said, they stand to lose the most from Mr. Bush’s efforts — which the congressman labeled “fraud” and an “impeachable offense.”


I’m trying to figure out which is most interesting: that Rangel considers opposition to Social Security reform a civil-rights stance; that he regards reform as an “impeachable offense”; or that he saw fit to invoke the name of Paul Wolfowitz, the former deputy secretary of defense, in a speech demonizing Social Security reform.
Anything to get that name out, I guess — a name that, as Mark Steyn says, begins with a scary animal and ends Jewishly.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Jonah

My apologies to Jonah, but when someone says something so well, I feel an obligation to post it. Here is an column that Mr. Goldberg wrote that I truly enjoyed.
April 13, 2005, 7:52 a.m.
Disrobing Our Masters
The judicial days of decorum are past.
Last time I checked, activist federal judges weren't riding into towns on horseback, whoopin' and a-hollerin', burning crosses on lawns and lynching folks for no good reason.
I bring this up for the benefit of James Dobson, who needs to spend a couple minutes breathing into a brown paper bag before he does his next radio show. The other day, while discussing federal judges, Dobson had this to say: "I heard a minister the other day talking about the great injustice and evil of the men in white robes, the Ku Klux Klan, that roamed the country in the South, and they did great wrong to civil rights to and to morality. And now we have black-robed men."
Uh, yeah. We do have black-robed men. But — I want to be perfectly clear — the robes really aren't the interesting part. Dobson is committing what logicians call a "category error." Lots of folks wear robes. Hugh Hefner wears one all day. That doesn't mean he lynches people, nor does it mean he's freelancing the meaning of the constitution.
Dobson's hyperbole is a symptom of the runaway nature of the fight over judges in Washington. I say "in Washington" rather than "in America" in part because this is a debate about the division and nature of federal power.
On this score, the Democrats deserve far more blame than the Republicans. It's simply a historical fact that liberal Democrats (and the progressives before them) have empowered the courts to run roughshod over democratic and republican principles. It's almost impossible to think of a major area of life in America where a judge somewhere hasn't ruled in flagrant defiance of the democratic will of the people as expressed in a referendum or through the state legislature.
Sometimes this is necessary, of course — but only sometimes. In the last few decades, however, judges have often seemed less inclined to defer to the will of the people than to indulge their own sense of what's good for them. And several Supreme Court justices, unable to find their own views reflected in American laws, have even claimed the prerogative of fishing in the laws and court decisions of foreign nations for useful precedents.
This drift in the courts has suited liberals just fine. Stymied at the polls, they have run with the ball wherever the field is open, in this case the courts. And that's why Democrats can talk as absurdly as Dobson, often from the well of the Senate. Just last month, Sen. Robert Byrd — that actual former Klansman and towering titan of southern gothic asininity — compared the "nuclear option" — i.e., the attempt to impose majority rule in the Senate — to Hitler's rise to power. And Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid calls the GOP's desire to reform Senate rules to end filibusters on judicial appointments an example of Republican craving for "absolute power"! Zoiks!
Naturally, each side is convinced the other started this endless spiral of absurd rhetoric, bad-faith tactics, and hypocrisy. It's certainly true that Republicans tried all sorts of stuff to block Clinton's judges and that Democrats were once much more favorably disposed toward filibuster reform.
But, again, the point is that such maneuvering is the natural consequence of giving judges more power than they deserve or need. Debate over judicial appointments used to be more decorous, largely because the stakes were lower. If we empowered the head of the U.S. Postal Service to rule vast swaths of our lives, we'd have huge confirmation battles over the postmaster general.
For good or ill — and I certainly think for ill — the days of decorum are over for the foreseeable future. Judges are unilateral legislators, unchecked by democratic accountability. Liberal judges have held sway for so long that any conservative judge who tries to undo what has been done will inevitably look "activist" in his own right. And let's be honest, some conservative judges are perfectly happy with an imperial judiciary, so long as it's a right-wing imperial judiciary.
Perhaps the best way to correct the courts' drift away from democratic accountability is to increase democratic accountability elsewhere. My unoriginal solution: real filibusters. Senators like the current filibuster rules because blame is diffused in the confusion of institutional logjam, parliamentary procedure and generic partisan squabbling. The old system required senators to pack a thermos and ramble from a podium for hours or days on end. Restoring the old-school filibuster would put a human face on these fights. It would give partisans someone to jeer and someone to cheer. It would create drama and force the media to explain why that fuddy old senator is reading from the phone book. And, best of all, it would allow voters to punish or reward specific senators at the polls for stopping the people's business.
That would inject some democratic accountability into the only available vein. After all, nothing focuses the mind of a senator more than watching a colleague get fired — save perhaps seeing judges burn a cross on his lawn.
— (c) 2005 Tribune Media Services

Wendy's chili update

Dressed to the NinesAnna Ayala, the sue-happy Las Vegan who claims to have found a human finger in an order of chili at a San Jose, Calif., Wendy's, now says she doesn't plan to litigate, the Associated Press reports:
Ayala dropped her claim because it "has caused her great emotional distress and continues to be difficult emotionally," said her attorney, Jeffrey Janoff.
Court records show Ayala has a history of making legal claims against corporations, including a former employer, General Motors and a fast-food restaurant. She acknowledged receiving a settlement for medical costs a year ago after claiming that her daughter was sickened after eating at a Las Vegas restaurant.
Well, that's what you get when you bite the hand that feeds you. Wendy's is still taking the incident seriously:
Wendy's spokesman Denny Lynch declined to comment on Ayala's decision to drop the lawsuit but said a reward hot line to receive tips will remain open. Wendy's has offered $50,000 to the first person who can provide verifiable information that identifies the origin of the finger.
Hey Denny, wasn't "receiving tips" the problem in the first place? But seriously, we'd like to claim the $50,000, and our information can be verified through the State Journal-Register of Springfield, Ill.:
Charlie Mullin hasn't felt whole since his black leather jacket was stolen from a Springfield tavern two weeks ago. It's not so much the jacket itself but what's in one of the pockets that he misses most."Normally I wouldn't care, BUT, I had the tip of my finger in my coat pocket," the suburban Chicago resident wrote in an e-mail to The State Journal-Register.
We looked up the full story on Factiva. It seems Mullin was at a "rugby party" last June, where his finger was severed by the chain of a minibike. "It's a pretty good chunk of my finger; what I lost is from the knuckle up," Mullin told the paper. "It was a pretty crazy party":
The wife of one of Mullin's friends works with epoxy and offered to seal it for him. Mullin said he wanted to keep the finger for sentimental reasons.
"It's pretty well preserved," he said. "I brought it that night so I could show it to people."
Although Mullin said his leather jacket was expensive, he doesn't really care about its return. What he wants back is his fingertip. "I could replace another jacket," he said. "I want people to know (the finger) belongs to somebody." . . .
Although he misses his finger, Mullin said he can't help but appreciate the humor in someone inadvertently discovering the precious memento. "It would almost be worth losing a finger to see somebody finding it," he said with a laugh.
Mullin lost the finger March 15, exactly a week before Ayala's digital discovery. We don't exactly know how it might have traveled halfway across the country, but San Jose is in the heart of Silicon Valley, center of the digital revolution.

Chili finger update

Dressed to the NinesAnna Ayala, the sue-happy Las Vegan who claims to have found a human finger in an order of chili at a San Jose, Calif., Wendy's, now says she doesn't plan to litigate, the Associated Press reports:
Ayala dropped her claim because it "has caused her great emotional distress and continues to be difficult emotionally," said her attorney, Jeffrey Janoff.
Court records show Ayala has a history of making legal claims against corporations, including a former employer, General Motors and a fast-food restaurant. She acknowledged receiving a settlement for medical costs a year ago after claiming that her daughter was sickened after eating at a Las Vegas restaurant.
Well, that's what you get when you bite the hand that feeds you. Wendy's is still taking the incident seriously:
Wendy's spokesman Denny Lynch declined to comment on Ayala's decision to drop the lawsuit but said a reward hot line to receive tips will remain open. Wendy's has offered $50,000 to the first person who can provide verifiable information that identifies the origin of the finger.
Hey Denny, wasn't "receiving tips" the problem in the first place? But seriously, we'd like to claim the $50,000, and our information can be verified through the State Journal-Register of Springfield, Ill.:
Charlie Mullin hasn't felt whole since his black leather jacket was stolen from a Springfield tavern two weeks ago. It's not so much the jacket itself but what's in one of the pockets that he misses most."Normally I wouldn't care, BUT, I had the tip of my finger in my coat pocket," the suburban Chicago resident wrote in an e-mail to The State Journal-Register.
We looked up the full story on Factiva. It seems Mullin was at a "rugby party" last June, where his finger was severed by the chain of a minibike. "It's a pretty good chunk of my finger; what I lost is from the knuckle up," Mullin told the paper. "It was a pretty crazy party":
The wife of one of Mullin's friends works with epoxy and offered to seal it for him. Mullin said he wanted to keep the finger for sentimental reasons.
"It's pretty well preserved," he said. "I brought it that night so I could show it to people."
Although Mullin said his leather jacket was expensive, he doesn't really care about its return. What he wants back is his fingertip. "I could replace another jacket," he said. "I want people to know (the finger) belongs to somebody." . . .
Although he misses his finger, Mullin said he can't help but appreciate the humor in someone inadvertently discovering the precious memento. "It would almost be worth losing a finger to see somebody finding it," he said with a laugh.
Mullin lost the finger March 15, exactly a week before Ayala's digital discovery. We don't exactly know how it might have traveled halfway across the country, but San Jose is in the heart of Silicon Valley, center of the digital revolution.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

debate

I have been reading an excellent debate between two editors of two of my favorite dead tree mags, National Review and The New Republic. TNR is not typically representative of my personal opinion, but at least it is typically well presented. I will link to it here;
http://www.opinionduel.com
I have engaged in lots of debates with gentleman/ladies of different political stripes, and regardless of how smart or ignorant, well written or poorly thought out, the debate almost always collapses under the weight of the semantics of the argument instead of the principles.
Very seldom do you actually get down to the red meat of the disagreement because the misunderstanding of the definitions of the words and labels, or the context in which the words or labels are used causes such a stumbling block as to alter the perceived premise of the argument.
Regardless of how clearly one states something, one cannot force another to comprehend it.

Monday, April 11, 2005

papal wanderings

I am not Catholic, and my opinion on the pontification of the next supreme leader of the catholic church shall not be construed as an endorsement of any condidate. Having said that...does it seem like the calls for a more "liberal" pope from some of the talking heads come across as self-serving? I mean, the pope, as far as I understand, is going to be a "strict constructionist" when it comes to social issues. I doubt that we will have a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-contraception pope. Perhaps all three of those positions are valuable and "good" (that's an argument for another afternoon) but they are pretty specifically the oposite of what is written in the text (of the bible).
Honestly I have a kneejerk channel changing reflex everytime I turn on the TV and there is more wall to wall pope funeral coverage.

Best of the Web

This is from Taranto's daily page; too funny to not pass along.

Lady Fingers"The woman who claims she bit into a human finger while eating chili at a Wendy's restaurant has a history of filing lawsuits--including a claim against another fast-food restaurant," reports the Associated Press. It seems 39-year-old Anna Ayala "has been involved in at least half a dozen legal battles in the San Francisco Bay area," including a sexual-harassment case and a suit against a car dealer:
Speaking through the front door of her Las Vegas home Friday, Ayala claimed police are out to get her and were unnecessarily rough as they executed a search warrant at her home on Wednesday.
"Lies, lies, lies, that's all I am hearing," she said. "They should look at Wendy's. What are they hiding? Why are we being victimized again and again?"
Ayala acknowledged, however, that her family received a settlement for their medical expenses about a year ago after reporting that her daughter, Genesis, got sick from food at an El Pollo Loco restaurant in Las Vegas. She declined to provide any further details.
Apparently her sons, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, ate somewhere else. Oh, and Homer nods: Our item Friday on this subject stated there was "no word" if the chili finger had been checked for prints; in fact the article to which we linked said it had, and no match turned up.

Thursday, April 07, 2005

belated Shiavo point

What if the first people to weigh in on Terri Schiavo had been Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, saying that a wife must be in the complete control of her husband, come what may — even unto decisions of life and death. The husband rules.

Al Sharpton said this:
"I am saddened by the death of Terri Schiavo. I am also saddened by the blatant attempt by right wing extremists to use her condition and family disagreements to galvanize an anti-choice fervor in this country. I respectfully declined an invitation to come to Florida by the Schindler family because the situation was being used by the right wing to distort the issue of a person's right to make life choices.
The National Action Network and I offer our condolences to the entire family, but also remind the nation to critically view what was said by Congressman Tom DeLay, who tried to cynically manipulate public opinion against people's right to choose in this country."
I am still stunned that greedy conservatives were on the side to keep Terri alive (despite the costs) while feminist liberals were on the side of the estranged husband's right to starve his disabled and brain damaged wife to death.

Monday, April 04, 2005

maybe I'm wrong?

Why is it that it seems like everyone is reflexively disagreeing with me? I mean , of course I expect people to have differences of opinion and not simply nod their heads in empty headed approval at every thing I declare, but it seems like I am unable to make even the most benign observation without being challenged.

It's not just political stuff, although I typically enjoy those disagreements, it's about everything. Ex: I was trying to tell a story the other day, and I was talking about the engine in my truck, and how it is sluggish, and I compared it to how a well-made engine just seems to run up through the tach (I'm making engine noises right now but they are very hard to hear, listen carefully). The point is, this was not something that anyone should be correcting me on, it is my opinion of the feeling I get when driving MY car.

I suppose when you make declarative statements you must expect people to take issue with some of them.

irony

Without lapsing into an Alanis Morissette song, isn't it ironic that I wanted to start writing about politics and culture, and then when I start writing I haven't been able to find a suitable topic to get started with?
Here is a quote from Martin Paretz in the latest issue of The New Republic...
“If George W. Bush were to discover a cure for cancer, his critics would denounce him for having done it unilaterally, without adequate consultation, with a crude disregard for the sensibilities of others.”
"The significant fact is that Bush's obsession with the democratization of the region is working. One does not have to admire a lot about George W. Bush to admire what he has so far wrought. One need only be a thoughtful American with an interest in proliferating liberalism around the world. And, if liberals are unwilling to proliferate liberalism, then conservatives will. Rarely has there been a sweeter irony.”

Saturday, April 02, 2005

daylight

It's daylight savings time, and I feel an hour older already.
I want my hour back!
I know, I know: It will be returned to me later this year, when we "fall back" on the weekend of October 29-30.
Can we please slow down and get something straight? There is simply no way to "save daylight." People can spin the hands of their clocks like roulette wheels, but come Monday we're still going to have sunshine for about 12 hours and 45 minutes. The sun can rise at a time of day we call dawn but the stubborn facts of astronomy are at work here and they can't be wished away.

Virtual guarantee

It's virtually guaranteed that most of what is said has already been said.

It's all been done. The point of this excercise is not to illuminate something that has been hidden.

bovine observation

I am not sure why they do it, but mother cows will catch the urine stream of their calf in their mouth. It seems to be some sort of "check-up" like a doctor would examine a child as they develop to make sure that all systems are "go." Mother cows can apparently evaluate a lot by tasting the calves' urine.

Fantastic day

In the sunshine with my sons, hiking in the woods, stumbling over rocks, following a ravine until it spills into a river, its easy to take for granted how lucky I am.

Friday, April 01, 2005

Ceramic tile

Easy do-it-yourself projects are never quite as easy or do it yourself as you envision.

Manifesto

It seems like a perfect time to identify my purpose for starting a blog, why I think I have something worthwhile to contribute to the cyber-dialogue of the planet, etc....

Let me come back to that later.

Thanks, Steve

Thanks for helping me get started, and encouraging me to try my hand...I can guarantee that this will be an interesting excercise for me, and predominantly boring for anyone who bothers to read along.