Gov. Palin's experience

I thought of it first, I bleat.... One of Instapundit's readers notes Alaska's proximity to the former USSR and calls it "two years of foreign policy experience". I've been talking about this since my husband and I started tossing Gov. Palin's name around. Any governor of Alaska who's good at her job would keep a close eye on what's happening in Russia and surrounding countries -- and Palin is reportedly good at her job. A related point (not yet scooped...) -- a competent governor of a state to whom oil is so important would keep up with what's happening in oil-producing states -- which would entail a fair amount of awareness of developments re Islamic extremism.

So Palin may add some real foreign policy expertise (if not exactly "experience") to her executive experience, toughness, reformer credentials, etc.

It Just Don't Look Right

I watched the Democratic Convention roll call, on and off. Since Hillary had released her delegates, the numbers were far more lopsided in Obama's favor than they would have been had they reflected the actual primary/caucus votes. Then, of course, Hillary moved for Obama's selection by acclamation.

I assume this was all negotiated and considered. I assume Obama and staff thought this would be a helpful way for things to go. But I have my doubts. Though I didn't support either candidate, I watched those accumulating numbers and felt that this drastic understatement of Hillary's real support was somehow disrespectful -- of her and of those who voted for her. It looked like a distortion and even, in some sense, a humiliation. Numbers like that belonged to a race between an overwhelming favorite and a pathetic also-ran with delusions of seriousness. If I were a Hillary supporter having trouble swallowing the current situation, those numbers would REALLY tick me off. And Hillary's being a team player, good sport, etc. would make me angrier, not more reconciled.

Mazel tov!

A red-letter day, a personal and family triumph -- daughter Alissa tried and enjoyed a bagel with lox and cream cheese.

Alissa is quite fond of salmon, but had the notion that she didn't like lox, aka smoked salmon. (Feel free to enlighten me on when smoked salmon is and isn't technically lox.) I am not very picky about my lox, and she may have previously tried a worse-than-average sample of the cheap stuff with which I usually content myself. Paul, with craft and persuasion, managed to get her to try the expensive variety he likes. One small taste, and she admitted with only slight sheepishness that she liked it too. The two of them dined on toasted bagel, cream cheese and lox.

Paul was triumphant that one of his daughters, at least (the other is a vegetarian), would eat this Jewish staple henceforth. I find this somewhat endearing and amusing, given that he's a blond (now gray-blond) Texan ex-Methodist, Jewish by conversion only (via a particularly tolerant rabbi who somehow overlooked agnosticism verging on atheism).

I am also pleased. Tradi-tion!

McCain campaign needs to tell stories like this

When voters get bored with hearing in general terms about McCain's captivity and fortitude in North Vietnam, they need to hear stories like this (from the Wall Street Journal via Powerline):

"[Colonel Bud Day, a Medal of Honor recipient and America's most highly decorated veteran, shared a cell for some time with McCain.] Day escaped his original detention in North Vietnam, but was recaptured. Upon recapture, the North Vietnamese conveyed a harsh message:
'When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple."
'The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.
'But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place.Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complimented the treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.' "

The Wall Street Journal article has other stories as well, including how Cindy McCain brought a dying orphan from Bangladesh to the U.S. for medical treatment and the McCains adopted her.

If the McCain campaign can't find a way to tell stories like these effectively, 527's had better get on the stick!

Su-per Senator passes laws solo!

Not once, but twice! Both of Obama's general election ads have trumpted that he "passed laws" doing thus-and-so. As has been noted elsewhere, no one legislator can pass a law. But since Obama is supposed to be the harbinger of a new kind of politics, maybe Yes He Can....

(I also read an article somewhere claiming that he didn't end up supporting one or more of the laws on which his claims (in the first ad) were based -- but other articles, such as the post I just linked to, seem to disagree.)

Let Uncommitted be Uncommitted

One thing should be easy about the overall-difficult issue of the Florida and Michigan delegates. At whatever strength the Michigan delegates are seated, the proportion derived from the vote for "uncommitted" should get to be -- gee -- uncommitted! That's what people voted for. Like superdelegates, the delegates in the uncommitted group could wait until the convention to announce their preferences, or could let people know (in a nonbinding way) ahead of time.

armchair sociology

I had occasion to see some interesting social patterns in action a couple of weeks ago. (And if I were close to diligent about blogging, I'd have mentioned it then.)

Joshua Bell, world-famous classical violinist, hails from Bloomington, IN, and was gracious enough to give a free concert here last weekend, with a pianist friend of his, Jeremy Denk. Tickets were available as of 11 a.m. on a weekday morning. The line started forming around 8:40 a.m. (I know because an acquaintance of mine was first in line). I arrived around 10:40 a.m. and found a line of people waiting in the cold -- a line that looked surprisingly short, until I saw that most of it was inside the building. The line snaked back and forth through the lobby. The loops were crowded so close together that it was sometimes difficult to keep track of which was which, especially since people kept stepping across to chat with each other. And yet no one, so far as I could see, made any attempt to jump the queue. Nor was there any impatience evident, although those of us in my part of the line ended up waiting for two hours. The line etiquette/ethos may have been bolstered by the presence of auditorium staff, giving occasional updates and reassurances, discreetly keeping an eye on things. And of course, it was reasonably clear what we were supposed to do and where we were supposed to go.

On to the nearby parking garage -- and a very different scene. Cars converged from several directions on the narrow exit. The line of cars with the clearest shot did not, most of the time, take turns with those coming from the side. It took ingenuity and/or recklessness to get one's car out of a spot in the first place, and then to get the heck out. (I had to create a new lane of traffic -- yes, there was room -- in order to get out of my spot, and then play chicken with a driver in the favorably positioned lane.)

And of course, these were pretty much all the same people who'd been following the rules so nicely in the line at the auditorium.

One main difference was that there were rules apparent in the auditorium. Another was the presence of those who might enforce those rules. And finally, as my husband pointed out: people are different in cars.

Snow and the ebbing of the American spirit

Apparently some of the local schools no longer let kids play in the snow at recess. I find that appalling enough. But what's really dispiriting is the collection of letters that were in the paper the other day. It appears that some 6th grade class was given the assignment of writing letters to the editor re whether they approved or disapproved of the no-play policy. (Here's the link, but I don't think it'll work for anyone who doesn't subscribe to the Bloomington Herald-Times.) Given how much the letters resembled each other, the kids may have had a list of pros and cons to choose from. What really makes me wonder where America went and how long it's been gone is that 9 out of 16 kids thought they should not be allowed to play in the snow at recess. Reasons:
--Kids could get wet and cold. (Example: "Just imagine every kid cold and wet from playing in the snow and how fast kids would get sick.") And they might not have snow gear.
--Kids could get hurt. Someone could put a rock in a snowball.
--Whatever will the teachers do with the wet outerwear?...

Risk is the only thing to consider. Any risk is too much. The way to handle the risk of inappropriate behavior is to ban all related activity. Any difficulty is too much to handle.

Is there ANY way to turn this around?!!??...

Woman, the tool-using animal

We had ice raining down the other night, covering pretty much everything. (My daughter described this in, I think, quite amusing terms on her live journal.) One temporary casualty was the flag on our mail box: frozen in the down ("nothing here, guys!") position. So I took a screwdriver out there and chipped away the ice. Presto, functional mailbox flag!

It doesn't take much in the way of technical achievement to make me feel proud of myself....

Thompson Blogburst (notwithstanding...)

Despite my reservations about Fred Thompson, noted earlier, I'd like to see him stay in the race, and I may prefer him to the rest of the pack. He is bright and can write. He does not steer by polls. Most important to me, he understands that we are in a real, hot war to preserve a number of things that make humanity a worthwhile accident-or-invention (that's for another post) -- like democracy, scientific method, freedom of conscience, secular thinking, treating women like human beings, treating human beings ditto.

Right Wing Nut House asks bloggers who support Thompson (I refuse to say "Fred") to ask their readers to cough up some money. In the event I have any readers, please consider it....

What Thompson's campaign says about his ability to reshape a bureaucracy

Since Fred Thompson's campaign actually began, I've been quite disappointed in its feel and tone -- cookie cutter EveryPolitician stuff with no individual touch and no appearance of respecting the voter's intelligence. It occurred to me today that the campaign tastes and smells as if it's run by the campaign equivalent of bureaucrats. Which doesn't bode well for how a President Thompson would deal with the entrenched federal bureaucracy. Would he be able to shake it up at all, to reshape it, to exert much control over it? I'd like to think so, but I'm not too optimistic at present.

Some improvs

A few days ago, younger daughter Alissa asked me to give her some improv acting assignments. Here are a few I came up with. Feel free to try these at home....

--Porcupine with an itchy rash
--Extreme fishing
--Game show host with a hangover
--Dracula at a job interview
--Boxer with a phobia about contact
--Underdog at the vet
--Realtor showing a haunted house
--Infomercial for hemorrhoid cream
--Time traveller in ancient Athens looking for the bathroom
--The Queen in Snow White shopping for a new mirror

Does Fred Thompson want my money?

I was excited about Fred Thompson for a while, before he actually got in the race, because I liked his blog posts -- both their content (usually) and their style. I was not thrilled with the style of his campaign -- recycled politician-pap for the most part -- but I am still inclined to prefer him over the other major candidates, so I decided to pony up a bit of money. I tried to contribute $15.00 -- the same amount I've recently sent to ACLU Indiana and to St. Jude's -- to his campaign. However, when I entered that amount at the Donate link on his campaign website, I got a little message in red saying the amount was "inappropriate".

And how inappropriate is it to diss a would-be contributor? (Is that how to spell "diss"?)

I've sent an email, also through the website, asking whether they really don't want my money. I'll update with any response I get.

The Catch-All Amendment

A while back (it takes an idea a while to make it here), as I was dealing with some statute or other, it occurred to me how often statutes listing factors for trial courts to consider end the list with some sort of catch-all. Such a provision typically authorizes the judge to consider "all other relevant factors" or something of the sort. Viewed in this context, the Ninth Amendment seems somewhat less troubling and impractical. If statutes can have catch-all provisions, why not the Bill of Rights? In each case, it's left to members of the judiciary to fill in the blanks.

Chill

I just read a post on Pajamas Media about how to deal with potentially nasty political discussions at family gatherings (e.g. Thanksgiving dinner). It reminded me of last summer's trip to Los Angeles, where much of my generally-liberal extended family resides.

Some time before, one of my daughters came up with the idea of a "CHILL" sign, to be produced and displayed when a political or other discussion became heated. During the summer visit, we spent some time at a cousin's house, gathered around a long table. At one end, I got into a spirited but friendly debate with an uncle about Iraq. One daughter, at the other end of the table, feared that things were getting out of hand, and made a CHILL sign from a napkin. The other daughter, closer to the action, could see that all was civil. She responded with her own napkin stating "They're just discussing". We then put the two signs together to read "Chill -- they're just discussing".... I rather like the idea of having both signs available, and deploying either or both as needed.

some thoughts on abortion and technological advances

I sometimes think up imaginary conversations while driving, and today's concerned abortion. I imagined someone asking me how I felt about abortion. The initial answer: "Queasy...." However, I went on, I basically thought that up to some point in the pregnancy, it should be the mother's (if that's the right word) decision. Trying to figure out just where that point was, I ended up with an answer dependent on technology we don't have yet: once we have artificial wombs capable of nurturing a fetus until it's full-term, it should probably not be the woman's option to kill it rather than off-loading it.

Althought that raises lots of sticky questions: who pays for the out-of-mother gestation? Can a woman still abort if the state won't pay? And what parental rights, if any, does a woman retain who was ready to kill her fetus? May she veto a social service agency's decision as to where to place the baby? A factor further confusing things: once it's possible to end pregnancy early without harming the fetus, many women will want to do so, without any present intention of avoiding the maternal role post-partum. At that point, it will often be impossible to determine who was ready to abort, and who decided later that she wanted to give her baby up for adoption. I don't know whether parents who give up babies for adoption have any leverage, at present, as to what happens to the baby.

That's as far as I can follow this tangle for the moment.

The genocide resolution: more than one way to skin a president

I haven't seen any discussion of what seems to me a likely motive for the Democrats' persistence in pushing the genocide resolution.

The Democrats have been unable to muster the political will-muscle combination to force a withdrawal from Iraq. However, passing this resolution is likely to do serious, possibly fatal, harm to the Iraq military mission. Turkey may well withdraw various key permissions. Our position might finally become as untenable as the Democrats keep pretending it already is. Gee, I wonder who'd be happy about that (aside from AQ in Iraq, Iran, etc.)?

This way, they can undercut "Bush's war" while acting self-righteous about something supposedly unrelated.

UPDATE: At least one commentator has now made this point -- Thomas Sowell.

The deterioration continues

In other news, my arthritic toes aren't giving too much trouble, but I now have tennis elbow. I believe I acquired this from utterly sedentary activity -- too much image processing in too short of time. (I photographed a wedding on 7-07-07, and had to edit 1000+ images and post the better ones before leaving town on 7-25.)

I'm oddly un-resentful of this sort of sign of aging. I'm less complaisant about the cosmetic changes. It has something to do with having decided, at 50+, to finally start paying attention to dress and grooming. I'd like not to have my nose rubbed in the fact that I got started just a lee-tle late.

Miscellanea, including a rant and Harry Potter questions

Someone actually looked at my blog recently, which inspires me to stop proscrastinating and post. Actually, I can blog and procrastinate simultaneously, as I have literally a pile of work to do (exhibits to review).

As I was contemplating writing this, it occurred to me that someone should cobble together and market a gizmo allowing one to dictate and transmit draft blog posts while driving. Hands-free, please.

I've promised a rant and some Harry Potter questions -- I feel more like the latter, so it'll come first.

SPOILER ALERT! These questions may imply plot points in the seventh HP book!
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Hope that's enough >'s....

I've finished the last book, reread the second, am rereading the first, and am VERY glad that Rowling is likely to write an encyclopedia. I am not ready to un-immerse myself.

Rowling has done interviews and at least one long chat in which she's answered various questions the book didn't answer. I was pleased that she answered one of mine: what's the Hufflepuff common room like?... However, I have a few left:

--Why does Dumbledore repeatedly show and declare SO much trust in Hagrid? He's completely goodhearted, of course, but his judgment is very unreliable. (Examples aren't limited to his persistent tendency to underestimate the dangers posed by various magical creatures. When Harry encounters Draco Malfoy in a shop -- I forget in what part of which book -- Hagrid is wrongly confident that Draco wouldn't cause trouble in such a public place.)

--Why (other than for literary reasons) does Dumbledore usually refer to "Voldemort" rather than "Tom Riddle"? Wouldn't it be useful for V's origins to be more widely known? And doesn't Dumbledore believe in calling things by their real names?

--How did Dumbledore defeat Grindelwald? The usual way to defeat an owner of the Elder Wand is by underhanded stealth (e.g. murdering the owner in his sleep). One hopes that wasn't Dumbledore's approach, and I believe there are references to a climactic duel -- but how would he defeat someone wielding the Elder Wand in a duel?

--This may be a plot hole: Voldemort thought he was the only one to know about the Room of Requirement. Therefore, when he hid the tiara there, there can't have been any other hidden possessions in the room. But when Harry hid his (Snape's old) Potions book in that room in Book Five, there were generations' worth of hidden possessions there. Voldemort can't have specified a hiding place no one else could discover, because Harry saw the tiara there, without knowing what it was. Did all the other hidden items accumulate after Voldemort's time? Seems unlikely, given the quantity and the age of Hogwarts.

Please add more questions in Comments!

... OK, the rant. You've heard (read) this song before -- here's another verse.

It appears that we now have a growing societal problem with Vitamin D deficiency, attributable to people following all the advice to avoid exposure to sunlight. (Here's a link, and another, to a couple of the articles on the subject.) I find this nicely symbolic of the effects of our societal obsession with safety. As in this instance, it is often simplistic, short-sighted, focusing on one or two trees and ignoring even the possibility of a forest.

The sun has historically been a symbol of life. We've been telling people to hide from it. It fits. We've trained the younger generations to spend all their time poised to recognize and protect themselves from one supposed hazard after another. That attitude is fundamentally inconsistent with a spirit of exploration and innovation -- and even with enjoying the everyday incidents and pleasures of life. A pervasive and constant fear of death ends up, in effect, as fear of life.

OK, who's next on the soapbox? Be sure it isn't too high, and that it's been inspected for its weight-bearing properties....

an open letter to Fred Thompson

Dear Senator Thompson:

[Query: is that the proper form of address for an ex-Sen?]

I am one of those who have been hoping you would seek the Republican presidential nomination. I have read a fair number of your columns. I was excited by how often I agreed with them, and thrilled at the prospect that someone as articulate and straightforward as you appeared to be might have a real chance at the Presidency.

I sent a modest contribution, and here are some excerpts from the email I got in return.

"Now we’re moving forward together. . . . [I]f I do take on this challenge, we’re not going to do things the same old way. . . . We’re going to plow some new ground and make a real difference for our nation. . . . I believe there is a real sense across our country that we’re tired of the same old petty politics. Our fellow Americans want to see some real change."

This is the same type and style of politician-speak that I would have expected to see in a message from the campaign of Mark Warner, or Barack Obama, or who knows how many politicians past and present. It is stale. It is boring. It is fungible. It belies the very idea of "real change".

Please, Senator -- don't subside into this sort of sludge before you've fairly begun.

Sincerely, Karen A. Wyle, would-be actual supporter of a Presidential candidate

The defeated inflating the victory -- campaign finance decision

OK, I'll post about a legal topic for a change -- though not in a particularly lawyerlike manner.

I've been looking at articles and posts about the USSC's latest 5-4 decision on campaign finance regulation. A couple of articles or posts (I don't remember which) are making this out to be a great victory for opponents of such regulation. Count me as an opponent -- I think political speech like "Vote for Joe and against Jack" is exactly the kind of political speech that the First Amendment is intended to protect to the fullest possible extent. And as an opponent of regulating political speech, I don't think the Roberts opinion, at least, is a great victory -- it's just a lot better than a defeat. It improves the status quo ante; it includes some good language that could have been used to greater effect; and it provides a wink-wink-nudge-nudge loophole of adequate size. Call me a grouch, but I consider it demeaning to have to phrase a political ad in a particular way to get it past censors.

UPDATE: I should read the opinions before commenting further, but here I go anyhow: SCOTUSBlog paraphrases Roberts as saying that "[th]e case did not provide an occasion to revisit [the 2003 ruling that upheld the constitutionality of the federal law restricting such radio and TV ads close to elections]." IMHO, cases provide such "occasions" when the Justices want them to. As did three of the Justices in the majority.

to waterproof or not to waterproof (mascara)

Setting the scene: most of my life, I have thrown on any old schlumpy clothes and worn no makeup. I have had a few form-fitting tops here and there, and even a very few dresses (well, I remember one, actually -- I wore it to high school graduation under my robe). Somehow, some months ago, watching What Not to Wear and hanging around my younger daughter added up to a critical mass, and I started an amateur makeover project. My folks got wind of it and added funding -- and I've been having a blast clothes-shopping for the first time in my life. I've gotten a number of nice comments (and some bemused expressions) on my new look, though I am still finding my way with a fair amount of fumbling. I'm particularly tentative where makeup is concerned.

As a makeup newbie, I have decisions to make. One is whether to use waterproof mascara. Pro waterproof mascara: I cry over country songs in the car. Con waterproof mascara: I may end up with indelible interesting and unintended designs around my eyes and elsewhere . . . .

While it can't solve all my petty makeup problems, I love reading this makeup blog.

BloomingtonGirl, are you sorry yet that you urged me to post more often? :-)

Too Short the Fireflies (cue sappy music)

I think the amazing firefly season may be over. When I walked the dog last night, I saw hardly any. Reminds me of when I first saw daffodils, visiting England in the spring of 1976. I didn't realize how briefly they'd be around -- I thought I had all the time I could want to savor them. This time I knew it wouldn't last too long, but really didn't know when it would end. I was hoping for another few weeks at least. At least I hauled the girls out to see them once.

DAUGHTRY

I haven't been a particular fan of many musicians or bands, though I've had various non-exclusive favorites over the years. But I am pretty near jump-and-squeal territory where DAUGHTRY is concerned. (I understand that all-caps designates the band, as opposed to its raison d'etre, Chris Daughtry. He's the primary reason I love their sound, but he picked a great band.)

I was rooting for Chris D. to win American Idol, but cooled off when he got too full of himself. I wish I could somehow test my guess that he was voted out because he bragged about how female fans wanted to know what type of underwear he wore. Now there's a way to turn off quite a few of your female fans and most of your male fans . . . .

Younger Daughter and I went to see the American Idol finalists perform at the 2006 Indiana State Fair. We were at the very top of the bleachers, which had the sole benefit of letting us stand up without blocking anyone's view. When Chris Daughtry performed -- and he is one hell of a performer -- it was the closest I've had to a rock-concert experience. (I had about the tamest youth of any late baby boomer you'll meet.) We stood up and hollered, and I waved my cellphone! (blush)

So I have five of his songs on my ipod, and I crank 'em up when they come on. I hate to think what he'd think of an over-50 fan doing the fan thing at his concert. But what the heck.

Fairyland

The fireflies are still spectacular -- far more so than any summer I remember. Walking up our street is like walking uninvited into fairyland, hoping for welcome. Fireflies all through the trees, high and low; fireflies floating by in the air; fireflies on the path....

UPDATE: Younger Daughter loves fireflies, but doesn't much like walking after dark. Still, I thought that this she had to see. I coaxed her outside and held onto her while she braved the dark street. She was impressed even by the first few scattered fireflies we saw, and utterly awestruck by the full display in the trees. She cried because it was so beautiful, and because it might be the only time she would see the like....

We went and got Older Daughter, who doesn't voluntarily venture outside that much by night or day. She was also highly impressed. I believe she summed up her reaction with "Holy crap!!!"

Fireflies

There is something going on with fireflies and trees lately. When I walk the dog after dark, it's not a matter of waiting for the occasional firefly sighting. There are fireflies all through the trees, flashing in beautifully random patterns, like Christmas lights escaped into the wild. They seem as likely to be signalling to the stars as to the glowworms in the grass below. Watching as I walk, I can't tell from simple observation whether any of the stars are flashing back.

Soylent Green is -- a good movie

We belong to Blockbuster Online, and even occasionally watch the movies. Usually I have to unearth the current selection from under a pile of notes and grocery coupons, but I haven't yet actually lost one. Elder Daughter requested Soylent Green, and I put it in the queue, vaguely expecting it to be clumsily made, over-the-top if not cartoonish. I don't know why, except that I had occasionally heard people hamming up the movie's final line (can't tell ya -- it's a spoiler).

Turns out it's quite a good movie. Charleton Heston stars in what is NOT a one-note performance. There are a number of nice cinematic touches. I choked up twice, which is not unprecedented, but doesn't happen all that often. (Listening to country music, that's different. I tend to be sappy about that.) I also appreciated little bits of consistency -- after our hero gets the unheard-of chance to take a shower occasionally, he looks much less grubby for the duration.

Younger Daughter had heard the last-line spoiler several times, but still didn't put things together, so she got to experience the movie's intended big surprise. It was great fun to watch her mouth drop and her eyes go extra-wide.

UPDATE/P.S.: The movie's assumptions about the future -- population explosion, massive environmental degradation by early 21st century -- are very wrong indeed. Husband (Hoosier Gadfly) often has difficulty enjoying movies with whose political assumptions he intensely disagrees, but he managed to enjoy this one.

Pledge of Allegiance, revised (meme?)

While driving my daughter to school this morning, I did a quick rewrite of the Pledge of Allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the republic
of which this flag is a symbol,
united by common principles,
dedicated to providing liberty and justice for all.

Other rewrites welcome....

This, I like

Saw a billboard (I think -- could have been a poster, it was a couple of days ago) putting a nice twist on some classic American language. If I recall this much correctly, it was advertising the Marine Corp.

"Life, Liberty -- and the Pursuit of Those Who Endanger Either"

Right on, as my brother would have said (about other things).

dog-walking haiku

Last night, I came up with this -- well, something close to it -- while walking the dog:

Because of the dog
I walk outside every night.
Moonlight -- a dog's gift.

That message ain't private

So Nancy Pelosi is pleased to have sent a strong message to Iraq. I guess nobody else would be so rude as to listen. Good thing, since otherwise, our enemies in Iraq and in the region would be hearing something like: "Hang in there! Just keep things messy for a while longer, and the Americans will bug out, leaving you to shoot innocents in the head or blow them to bloody scraps with far less hindrance. May the best future tyrannical enemy of America win!"

How loud can dogs...

...fart? I was just wondering. Our mutt can certainly release a stink bomb, but she doesn't make much noise. Whereas I have startled her a bit on occasion. Do we have an unusually discreet dog? If this is a basic species difference, what is the evolutionary basis for it?

I have a partial draft of a more literary post, but I'm too sleepy for anything that requires real thought.

A less unhelpful way to oppose the surge

I assume any readers I have are aware that Congress has been debating nonbinding resolutions opposing the troop surge in Iraq. ("Resolution" is an odd term for a way of expressing a lack of resolution. But I digress.) I take a dim view of this exercise. For largely domestic political reasons, the Congressfolk are strongly reinforcing the view, so prevalent before 9/11 and partly contributing to it, that the U.S. is a paper tiger.

However, there is a way that Congress and commentators could express skepticism about, and outright oppose, the "surge" without doing such damage. They could simply point out that Iraq is only one front in the larger war against resurgent Islamism, and demand that we move on to other targets. Point out that the situation in Iraq is threatening to us mainly insofar as it empowers or undermines other countries in the region, and argue for a focus on those countries instead. "On to Iran!" "On to Syria!" No paper tigerdom there.

Unrelated note: I gather this will be my last opportunity to post before attempting the switch to New Blogger. If I never post again, please assume it's due to technical inability rather than the also-plausible mental lethargy.

Vietnam

I grew up liberal in the 60's, which meant I grew up antiwar. The war was Vietnam. I marched with my parents in the streets of San Francisco, an event I remember as exhilarating rather than solemn. All my life, I've believed without questioning -- in that learned-it-in-church way -- that everything about our involvement in Vietnam was 100% wrong.

As we on the home front keep fighting about the Iraq war, it's been quite disconcerting to find myself wondering whether my views on Vietnam have been oversimplified, or worse. I doubt I'll come around to thinking it was an appropriate war to fight with draftees. But if we'd had an all-volunteer military. . . well, I won't list all the questions I'm finally asking, because they're pretty easy to guess.

One thing I don't know is whether the horrors of post-war Cambodia followed more from the war itself (that is, the American phase of a longer war), or from our manner of disengaging, or both equally, or neither.

Movie day

We recently signed up for Blockbuster Online, similar to Netflix. I think we'll be watching more movies as a family now. On Sunday we watched Art School Confidential, which my artist daughter (age 15) wanted to see. Younger Daughter still wanted to see a movie in a theater, so later the same day, the two of us went to We Are Marshall.

Neither is Art for the Ages, and each is predictable in its own way. I preferred We Are Marshall. Though it's based on real events, there are still stock characters -- but most of them are well acted and some well written. The movie tries to do justice to, and quite obviously believes in, such qualities as courage, determination, perseverance, and generosity. Art School Confidential wouldn't dream of messing with such stuff. There is nothing whatever redeeming about either the school, or the artist's life to which its pupils aspire. It's sophomorically cynical. Emotionally and philosophically, it's a one-note song.

Cloning isn't Enough

My husband of the ever-active intellect (aka Hoosier Gadfly) pointed out something that was obvious once he came up with it -- but I've never heard it discussed before. If you want to make an exact genetic replica of someone, start with the same biochemical building blocks that that person started with, it isn't enough just to clone 'em. You need identical mitochondrial DNA. He suggested inserting the regular (I forget what to call it) DNA in an egg from the person's mother's female line.

That could make it more difficult to clone people who've been gone a while, even if their DNA is somehow preserved. I guess one has to plan ahead and preserve an appropriate egg as well. . . .

stories, books, songs that helped shape me/you/anyone

Here's a meme, if anyone wants it: What stories, books, or songs had such an influence on you that they helped form who you are?

One story that made such a difference for me: well, I can't remember the title or author. Great. I'll update if I figure out either. The story was science fiction. The main character was a man who was mildly obsessed with the notion of being able to live in one's ideal world. He'd seen an ad claiming that such a process existed. He kept thinking about checking it out -- but the wife would give him a chore, or the boy had a ball game, or -- and so on.

The story ends when he wakes up -- from that life -- and is asked if his time in his ideal world was satisfactory. He answers that it was, very -- and asks to be notified if it becomes possible to make the transfer permanent. Then he hands over his payment -- a salami and some wire, I think -- and goes out to pick his way through the post-apocalyptic rubblescape to his bit of shelter, hoping to get there before dark.

The idea that ordinary life is good enough to be someone's dreamt-of ideal has never left me. I was quite tickled when a fairly recent country song -- "Another Day in Paradise" -- took up the same theme. (If an annoying pop-up ad with audio pops up, my apologies -- it did once,but not the second time I tried the link.)

Is God Messing with my Ipod?

I got my first Ipod (Nano, 2nd generation) for Christmas -- well, for some unidentified winter holiday (my folks didn't specify) -- and I'm a little weirded out right now.

(Sorry, somewhat lengthy) background: I'm a Jewish agnostic. I have a certain emotional tug toward belief in some sort of Involved and Caring Presence. I see no compelling intellectual justification for believing in the tenets of any religion I know of (despite the smooth and occasionally tricky arguments of C.S. Lewis).

One reason I'm not an atheist is my awareness of the dictum that you can't be angry at God without in some way believing in him. My parents are, by some definitions, Holocaust survivors (they fled just barely in time, and most of their extended families didn't make it). From the holocaust to tsunamis to horrendous diseases, I have a hard time believing in a God who is both good and anywhere remotely close to omnipotent. My own life, while not trouble-free, has been a very good one so far, and I sometimes feel, in relation to any God there might be, the way the favorite niece or granddaughter of Josef Stalin might feel. Grandpa Joe has always been loving and generous with me -- in between starving millions of peasants to death and so forth. How should I feel about Grandpa? How is it right to feel?

I must acknowledge the argument (was it Lewis who made it, or Jonathan Kellerman in Conversations with Rabbi Small?) that free will allows people to choose to do evil, and evil hurts the innocent -- that's what makes it evil. One can certainly find enough free-will choices behind the Holocaust, and various individual choices made the havoc wreaked by the 2005 tsunami worse, etc., etc. . . . I'm still not entirely won over.

So, finally, to the Ipod, which I'm playing mainly in my car (with a neat gizmo that uses the cassette tape player). I'm still learning how to use it. I accidentally turned off the volume during Tom Paxton's "Home to Me", and missed a few bars. I felt briefly wistful about it. Then I left the car and turned off the Ipod while Simon and Garfunkel's "Benedictus" was playing, and somehow messed things up so that when I got back to the car, the shuffle started over with something else. I was thinking about going home and playing "Benedictus" on the computer when the current song ended and up popped -- "Benedictus". Oy. Coincidence, or a tap on the shoulder?

A song or two later, along came -- "Home to Me". Alright, already! And the next song -- from Handel's Messiah, "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth." ALRIGHT, I GET IT!! Although, of course, I still don't know whether I do.

I have to admit that along with fear of being irrational, there is the fear of the implications of belief. . . .

The next song was Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay" -- which could be interpreted theologically, I suppose, but I don't hafta.

Note to Elder Daughter

To my teenage daughter:

On those occasions when I kick myself in the butt hard enough to make myself vacuum, it would be helpful if I could actually gain access to some appreciable portion of your floor, without needing to move papers and clothes about (possibly, in the process, noticing something you'd prefer to keep private).

(No, I didn't find anything interesting -- this time....)

Puppy and Puppy

When my younger daughter was about 9 months old, and going through the trauma of being required to sleep through the night, she attached herself to a stuffed dog. With our usual minimalist approach to naming things, this toy was named "Puppy". We have since acquired a backup called "Puppy's Sister", but Puppy reigns supreme to this day. Puppy is naturally somewhat threadbare, and stuffing-bare, and generally worn -- but is still recognizable and basically whole.

Our real live dog is now well past one year old, but we still tend to call her "the puppy" and to address her as "Puppy". She used to sleep in her crate in the guest room, but when we actually had guests coming for a change, we put her in my daughter's room, where she sleeps on the bed. The other morning, when I came in to wake girl and dog, Puppy was curled up next to Puppy. They looked very sweet together.

Our assignment from God?

My husband, the Hoosier Gadfly, has an interesting take on the question of life after death. He suggested the other day that if there is a God who in some manner created homo sapiens sapiens, he might be expecting us to figure out how to become immortal. He/She/It got us started -- the rest is our job. An exercise for the student, as it were.

We might, for example, figure out feasible procedures for the electronic storage of personality and memory, in programs able to interact with each other, with the outside world, and with other data storage banks. You can see this idea explored in depth in Frederick Pohl's Heechee Rendezvous and The Annals of the Heechee.

I thought my husband should blog about this, but he hasn't been blogging much these days. He has an excuse at the moment -- the all-too-common cold.

Morning conversation

On weekday mornings, I get up just after my 15-year-old daughter, mainly to make sure she makes it out the door on time. She has to be at the bus stop down the street by around 7:05 a.m. We often have a few minutes to chat while she drinks tea, though she is not always awake enough to talk.

One morning recently, we had an exchange something like this (I'm K, daughter is L):

(L) It was pretty spooky waiting for the bus yesterday. I thought there was a swirling vortex of death behind the trees. There was a lot of movement.

(K) It was probably a deer.

(L) Would a deer make loud moaning and hissing noises?

(pause)

(K, brightly) It might if it was caught in a swirling vortex of death....

Almost healthy, and well fed

The universe is being kind to me for a bit. It's unseasonably temperate and pleasant this week, and I can sleep later on the holiday weekend, so the day is not so cold when I first take the dog out. I suspect that's why this is the first day in some weeks that I've hardly coughed at all. (Little cough.)

We had Thanksgiving at a restaurant with a buffet -- hence no leftovers from the holiday meal itself. I took several steps to avoid feeling deprived: I had turkey and dressing twice at a local cafeteria earlier this week, and I made turkey (a breast and four drumsticks in the crock pot) on Wednesday and yam casserole and stuffing today. (Well, Alissa did at least half the work on the yam casserole, though she has no interest in eating it.) Tomorrow we make pumpkin pie. So there will be lots and lots of leftovers.

Only wrinkle was, after our restaurant feast, I had very little interest in leftovers, and not much in food. I resolved to clean out the freezer and make room for some turkey, yam casserole and stuffing.... However, it's been a few hours, and I can actually contemplate eating tomorrow, and even eating leftovers.

Chicken Soup

I have been sick. Quite. If it wasn't the flu, it was close enough. The up side was that my family was driven to be helpful in unaccustomed ways. My husband, who has not willingly relinquished the era when people let their dogs roam freely, finally took the dog out for walks on a leash.

My mother of course prescribed chicken soup. We had some packaged chicken noodle soup, but the instructions looked too challenging (in that standing, reading, and keeping track of anything were all beyond me at that point). I mentioned this fact to my husband. Shortly thereafter, my 10-year-old stood before me asking me how to make chicken soup. Turned out my husband had presented the girls with a choice: either walk the dog in the rain, or make Mom some chicken soup. I told my daughter that she'd need to figure it out with her big sister's help. Paul took the dog out; I went to take a shower, while sounds reminiscent of a Three Stooges routine floated after me....

Dog, husband, kitchen, and girls all survived (as did I), and the soup was the best thing I'd eaten in days. I ate almost all of it. (The dog got the rest.)

one of my creative daughters

I've thought of nothing to write for ages, but at least I have creative daughters. The younger one had pancakes at our usual Sunday morning restaurant, and took most of them home. On the takehome box, she wrote many rapturous slogans about waffles and how wonderful they were (including the claim "Chickens eat waffles!"). Then, in teeny-tiny print in a corner, she wrote, "This container does not contain waffles.". . .

In other news, Mom likes the dog

I never had a pet as a kid. I wanted a dog, but my mother -- raised in rural Poland -- saw dogs as farm animals, and we didn't have a farm. In our overlapping lives up until now, I only knew her to like one dog -- a beautiful Samoyed named Lapa, belonging to a family friend.

Well, my folks visited us for the first time since we became a family-with-dog. Davida is shy -- loudly shy -- of strangers. She barked at my folks for about a day. Then she settled down, except when she'd just woken up or they turned up in pajamas, and then she'd bark again.

A couple of days before they left, my mother announced that she would miss the dog! And when Davida would beg for food, my mother would tell her, "I like you, but no."...

Amazing! (Although Davida is a pretty appealing animal, I must say.)

MLF Lullaby, redux

In the short term at least, it sounds like good news that Japan may rearm itself in response to North Korea's nuclear saber-rattling. But I keep remembering Tom Lehrer's classic "MLF Lullaby". The MLF, or multilateral force, was a US proposal during the Cold War. Submarines and warships armed with nuclear missiles would be manned by international NATO crews -- including Germans. Quoth Lehrer:

Sleep, baby, sleep, in peace may you slumber
No danger lurks, your sleep to encumber
We've got the missiles, peace to determine
And one of the fingers on the button will be German....

Once all the Germans were warlike and mean
But that couldn't happen again
We taught them a lesson in nineteen eighteen
And they've hardly bothered us since then....

(Follow the link for the full lyric.)

Disturbed and Uncertain

I was going to do a passionate denunciation of the recently passed detainee bill, but I'm now not sure that what I thought was its most outrageous aspect is actually in there. Nonetheless, there is plenty I either dislike or am queasy about. Although the question of how to interrogate suspected terrorists, and what to do with them afterwards, is not easy either conceptually or morally (or legally).

I'll post more analysis when I have time and energy, but on the subject of the statute's removing federal court habeas corpus jurisdiction and otherwise restricting federal judicial review:

--I gather the issue of when non-citizens have habeas corpus rights may be complex, or maybe I just haven't seen the right sources explaining it.

--Whatever the scope of habeas corpus, the Constitution says it can't be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion. Neither of which is happening. The Constitution (Article III, Section 2., second paragraph) does say that the U.S. Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction, as to both laws and fact, over a host of matters "with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." Lower federal courts exist only "as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish" same -- which could be read to allow that they be established with the same sorts of "Exceptions". Also, it's not entirely clear that the Founders intended the U.S. Supreme Court to have the power to declare statutes unconstitutional. HOWEVER -- now that we have hundreds of years of case law saying that the federal courts do have that power, then it seems to me we cannot read Article III, section 2. as making it perfectly OK for Congress and the Executive Branch to conspire to pass unconstitutional laws by prohibiting the courts from calling them on it.

By the way, appellate jursidiction as to fact is part of what the detainee statute explicitly purports to take away. Which leaves detainees without recourse if the military commission makes utterly unsupported findings of fact -- unless you can call that a legal issue, or unless the statute's own procedures say that factual findings must be supported. (I don't have the energy right now to read it through looking for the latter.)

UPDATE: a reasonable way to read the "exceptions and regulations" language is that Congress could, in some initial legislation, have done some fine-tuning of the Supreme Court's jurisdiction, as long as it didn't outright remove any of the broad categories of jurisdiction listed in Article III, sec. 2. That'd be quite a different kettle of fish from passing a statute later on that violated some part of the Constitution, and then tacking on a tailor-made exception to keep the Court from entertaining challenges to that statute.

My New Slogan

Here's my latest slogan, ready to put on a bumper sticker or T-shirt:

"JUST SAY NO . . . to the Caliphate."

As for what I'm talking about, see this article by Daniel Pipes of the New York Sun., or this one by James Brandon for the Christian Science Monitor.

Caveat re Constitutional Law

To clarify a slightly earlier post: I wrote (in general terms) about the significant differences between the ACLU principles I grew up with (as I then understood them, at least), and constitutional law as it has been shaped by the U.S. Supreme Court. I do not mean to say that when ACLU and USSC are in conflict, I always agree with the USSC. For example: not that anyone cares, but I do not endorse the degree to which 4th Amendment protections have been eroded during the drug war. I have also felt for many years that the right to peaceably assemble is under-protected in comparison with the rights to freedom of speech and of the press. ("Time, place and manner" regulations of an assembly are intrinsically more burdensome than "time, place and manner" regulations of primarily verbal expression.)

And I emphatically do not endorse the decades-long weakening of the fundamental principle of limited federal powers, with the concomitant drastic expansion of the scope of the Commerce Clause. I was cheering for the turn toward constitutional reality that U.S. v. Lopez seemed to herald. Raich v. Ashcroft (aka Gonzales v. Raich - ??) largely squelched that hope, and the Rapanos/Carabell cases were not much more encouraging.

Mission Statement

Here's a mission statement I'd like to see from Bush & co.:

"We are fighting those who want to establish an Islamic theocracy over most of the world. It is necessary to fight them because, even though they're religiously batshit, not all of them are technologically batshit or logistically batshit."

Bureaucrats and Secular Puritans

I'm not surprised, but I'm still ticked off -- even though it doesn't directly affect me.

The local public schools, based on what they say is state law, are telling parents not to bring home-baked goodies to school on their kids' birthdays -- because home kitchens aren't Inspected the way commercial kitchens are. And because sugar is sinful, anyway. Not their language, but that's the underlying feeling, as I read it.

We've got an unholy coming-together (damn, I know there's a word for that!) of governmental nannies and busybodies who think every human activity needs their oversight and regulation, and the contemporary secular equivalent of Puritans, who don't want people indulging in anything that's fun instead of wholesome. (Hey, guys, remember that chocolate is good for you after all!...)

And again I say DAMN! -- Americans should be able to sell or give away food from their kitchens without interference! Are we supposed to be unable to figure out that people's kitchens vary, and that there's some slight theoretical risk that a particular household is too sparing with the disinfectant? Or must we march on toward the utterly impossible goal of risk-free living?

Shopping while hungry

So this is what happens when I eat breakfast too early and go to Marsh at 10 a.m.:

--polenta (which I have eaten in restaurants once or twice and don't know how to prepare -- but the package says I can just "heat and serve"...)
--breaded chicken livers
--half a spinach quiche
--3 ounces of smoked salmon, which must be kept at 38 degrees F or lower, and I have no idea how cold my refrigerator is, except I think it's pretty cold
--half a chocolate cake (my eldest had requested this one)
--grape tomatoes, even though I had some, because the ones I had were getting wrinkly

Now I'm trying to stall eating it.

An Echo of my Past

I'm just now getting around to posting my reactions to a Molly Ivins column from late August. She's discussing the opinion by federal district court judge Anna Diggs Taylor, holding the NSA warrantless surveillance program unconstitutional. Ivins notes that many "soi-disant" (self-styled -- I had to look it up) legal scholors are complaining that Judge Taylor's opinion was not well written. (More on that in a moment.) Her response: "Nevertheless, warrantless spying is illegal. Did it ever occur to these literary critics that Taylor has a lay-down hand? The National Security Agency program is flat unconstitutional . . . ."

Ivins doesn't appear to be troubled by even a hint of doubt about what the law is. She betrays no sign of knowing that the case involved -- and should have turned on -- several very complicated legal issues. Assuming that she's not being disingenuous, I think I know where she's coming from.

I grew up in the ACLU the way Catholics grow up Catholic. The creed I absorbed was quite straightforward. I wouldn't have stated, in so many words, that civil liberties were simple and absolute, because those terms would have suggested the possibility of limits and complexities. (Disclaimer: I'm not saying that ACLU's lawyers held or hold such views. I can't say the extent to which my parents, extremely intelligent laypeople and first generation Americans, saw the shades of gray that I didn't even imagine.)

It was a significant shock to get to law school, take constitutional law, and discover that the case law of the U.S. Supreme Court did not always uphold what I believed to be our constitutional rights. I wish I could remember more details about that encounter with cognitive dissonance. I'm not sure how Molly Ivins has protected herself against similar disorienting experiences -- but it appears she has managed it.

As for Judge Taylor's opinion: here are links to a few comments from the "soi-disant legal scholars", otherwise known as law professors whose widely read blogs regularly include technical legal commentary.

--Prof. Ann Althouse's op-ed in the New York Times;
--an August 17, 2006 post by Prof. Eugene Volokh;
--Prof. Orin Kerr's August 18, 2006 post about the opinion, the criticism of the opinion, the criticism of the criticism, and how the opinion's defenders are unwittingly echoing the arguments of President Bush's supporters.

UPDATE: see more recent post, "Caveat re Constitutional Law".

Heads gotta roll

Call me an armchair overseas military planner, but I do believe something drastic had better happen in the Israeli military. They rested on their laurels and forgot how to be the amazingly effective fighting force that Israel still needs. Major housecleaning and redirection of energies is indicated. Someone is a lot more likely to call the next bluff, so it had better not be all bluff.

the ones that didn't get away

I've been too sluggish and too busy (not a great combination) to blog, even though I've had a few ideas for a change, and now I can't remember all of them. So here's what I can still dredge up:

--Braces are a whole different critter than when I had them. Elder Daughter is now sporting what I'd call tooth jewelry. It's delicate, rather pretty, and directs attention away from the crookedness of the underlying teeth. What I wore certainly merited the term "metal mouth".

--It is Not Good to start five days out of seven with the bone-deep knowledge that I shouldn't have to be awake yet. This is at the top of my gripes with the school year (my kids', that is). And of course, it is a terrible idea to get my night-owl insomniac teenage daughter out of bed at 6:35 a.m. -- which leaves barely enough time for her to make the bus.

I assure you that those ideas that have gone a-glimmering were more profound. Even.

A Moment of Peace Dearly Bought

Is there any way to look at this Israeli-Lebanon ceasefire other than, "Hezbollah wins"? Or less succinctly: "Many Israelis and even more Lebanese died so Hezbollah could win"?

I hope to G-d we didn't pressure Israel into this. That would bode extremely ill for our own future in the war against Islamist jihadism.

I can find a silver lining or two. Israel now knows, though I hope its intelligence forces already knew, how sophisticated and well-prepared Hezbollah has become. The rest of the world knows it too. That's a mixed bag, but may eventually come in handy.

And maybe there's some complex and under-the-table way that this is preparation for some move by somebody against Iran or Syria. But I ain't betting on it.

reaping

Once a year, at least -- rarely, twice -- my daughters and I go to visit my parents and much other family in Los Angeles, CA. And every year, as our date of returning to Indiana bears down on us, I get to explain to one or both daughters just why my husband and I decided to leave Los Angeles and start our family so far away.

This year, my younger daughter's anguished questions focused on just why we didn't fully appreciate how weird and wrong it would seem to spend so little time in a place that feels so like home, full of family we love. She hasn't quite focused yet on the fact that every time we visit, it may be the last time my parents or aunts or uncles are there, or are healthy, or are able to enjoy our visit and their own lives.

I try to remember the reasons and the way we weighed them -- the way I weighed them. My husband had disliked southern CA from the moment he got there (seeking a major change of scene). I didn't see it as the best place to raise a family. Bloomington, IN sounded like it might be a better one. I'd lived away from my parents and the other L.A. relatives for much of my adult life up to that time. I was younger, all the relatives were younger, this part of our lives ws dimmer in the distance. My parents didn't have a slew of doctors they would have to live near, and we knew less about why they wouldn't be comfortable in Indiana -- not that I think we thought about that very much.

If I hadn't been willing to relocate, Paul and I might well have parted -- our bond was still tentative then. And of course, if anything -- even far less major events -- had been different, our children would have been conceived at different moments and they wouldn't be the same children....

It's still not right, even if I can't say (as if it would matter if I said) that I want the alternate never-leaving-L.A. future with all its implications.

two hands

On the one hand, it's frustrating and too bad that this last week of summer vacation, I'm too busy and too jet-lagged to enjoy sleeping late.

On the other hand, it's a good thing I have this last week to recover from jet lag before I have to resume getting up at a ridiculous hour.

Did Israel decide Iran had enough rope?

So Israel has decided to treat the latest act of war by Hezbollah as, by gum, an act in a war, and is fighting a war in return. Israel's ambassador to Washington is also talking very tough about Iran's part in Hezbollah's activities.

I wonder if this is as much about how to solve the problem of Iran-about-to-have-nukes as about Hezbollah. Perhaps Israel has been biding its time, waiting for Iran's interference in Lebanon to become blatant enough that (a) there'd be sufficient provocation to go into Lebanon and (b) attacking Iran would be a logical next step. If Iran's nuclear program wasn't sufficient casus belli, now Israel has a better one.

Meme offered -- jobs you'd be lousy at

As I was wondering what the heck I could post, since I haven't been posting often enough for anyone to keep checking my blog, I recalled occasional past thoughts of being a columnist. Clearly I don't have something to say often enough to be good at that job. Hence the meme: what jobs would you be lousy at, suck at, be promptly fired from?

--Cook. I barely and rarely cook, even after producing a daughter who claims to want to be a chef. When I do cook, it's either assisting her, or using the crockpot. I'd say I generally assemble meals rather than cook them.

--Taxi driver. I have overcome a fear of driving that haunted me through and beyond my 20's, but I still have no sense of direction to speak of. I could get people places, but I'd spend too long studying maps.

--Truck driver. I do not like driving anything big. My CR-V is at my limit.

--Teacher of masses of young children. I have insufficient patience, am not very playful (except verbally, to some extent), and have no idea how to control more than three kids at a time. (I have two.)

--Waitress. In college, when people typically brought coffee back to a tableful of people in the dining room, I could barely manage two cups. I do not have much upper body strength and couldn't balance anything tricky with one arm. I have a fairly bad memory, and I constantly forget what I left or entered a room for. The diners would lynch me before my first shift ended.

--Anything that requires a lot of physical strength/lifting ability.

--Con artist. I'm a lousy liar and dislike trying to lie.

Anyone else want to play?...

There shouldn't be a way to get there from here

OK, here is how the National Academy of Sciences summarizes its recent report on global temperature over the centuries:

"There is sufficient evidence from tree rings, retreating glaciers, and other "proxies" to say with confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years, according to a new National Research Council report. There is less confidence in reconstructions of surface temperatures from 1600 back to A.D. 900, and very little confidence in findings on average temperatures before then."

And here's how the Associated Press summarizes the same report:

"It has been 2,000 years and possibly much longer since the Earth has run such a fever.
The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress . . . ."

Scuse me?? !

Not only in biology

I gather there has been some recent support for the hypothesis that too clean an environment is bad for children's development. If kids don't have bacteria and dirt to exercise their growing immune systems, those systems don't, in effect, learn what they're supposed to be doing, and instead go apeshit about the wrong stimuli. Result, the ongoing increase in allergies and asthma.

Is it too cute to draw a parallel between this problem and the effect of our overall societal obsession with safety? If people don't grow up in an environment with a certain baseline level of risk, if they don't learn how to handle some risk as a matter of course, what may be the permanent distortions in their social and political development, and what sort of society will they produce?...

the Dixie Chicks are dissing me

I was not particularly hot and bothered about the infamous Dixie Chicks remark (something like "we're embarrassed the President is from Texas") -- although I didn't think much of their (well, her -- the lead singer's, I guess) judgment in making this crack to an audience outside the U.S. I don't know whether it was more self-expression or pandering to an anti-Bush audience. Certainly, some of the reported reaction was way out of line. (Boycott, sure, if you feel like that. Death threats, go lock yourself up.) But I think I am by now fed up with the angry smugness and offhand condescension that has been showing up in their interviews. They seem to be making a point of telling country music listeners that the Chicks are too smart and cool and progressive to want their patronage.

So why is their new album -- consistently reviewed as not really country in sound -- going to debut as #1 on some country music chart(s)?? Do that many listeners miss their music that much??

Publicity is not always the obvious answer

So. We have personal data on millions of veterans in a laptop computer. It's stolen in a routine burglary. The chance that either the thief or the fence knows they have a gold mine of data: pretty small. Eventually, some user may stumble on this data. Chance that this user, this purchaser of a hot laptop, will have the know-how and mindset for massive identity theft, or for marketing the personal data: hard to determine.

If I had to decide whether to alert millions of veterans, giving them a chance to protect themselves but greatly increasing the chance that some bad guy would know what s/he was sitting on -- it wouldn't be an easy call, and I probably wouldn't make it overnight.

So maybe we should cut the VA some slack on this one.

Open Bed, Insert Child

My daughter liked that description of how quickly I would put her to bed if I allowed her to stay up and watch a late-evening television show on a school night. (Her usual bedtime ritual is a good deal more prolonged.)

About that wolf

I consider it simplistic and inaccurate to label Bush's actions re Iraqi WMD as "crying wolf". However, even accepting that formulation for the sake of argument, and considering the threat posed by Iran in that light, there is a fairly important aspect of the original fable that people should keep in mind:

The last time, when the villagers didn't come running, a real wolf showed up.

And the flock Bush is guarding is us.

Nice Jewish dog

It turns out our dog is well situated in our more-or-less-Jewish household. We had our seder the other night, and the dog loves both gefilte fish and matzoh ball soup.

slightly sheepish about Daylight Savings Time

I was adamantly and loudly opposed to Indiana's going on Daylight Savings Time -- especially if we were to remain in the Eastern time zone, where we don't really belong. I made a point of asking whether perhaps Gov. Mitch Daniels' mother should have said more often, "I don't care what all your friends are doing. If your friends were jumping off a cliff . . . ."

So I feel compelled to report that I am enjoying having light so late in the evening. Taking the puppy outside at 8 p.m. and not needing a flashlight is pretty neat.

I am still indignant on behalf of the schoolkids walking to, and standing at, school bus stops in darkness or near-dark. But I must acknowledge that I'm getting something good out of the change.

Bambi and Hitlerjunge Quex

I was pondering the anti-human undercurrent in many environmentalists' world view, and wondering where it comes from. What leads people to view their own group as the enemy? One answer is: propaganda. Bambi is perhaps the clearest, but far from the only story anthropomorphizing animals and omitting any humanity from the human portrait.

I happen to know from family history that this sort of storytelling can have the effect I speak of. My father grew up a Jew in Nazi Germany (in Berlin). At age 12 or 13, he, like all Berlin's schoolchildren his age, were taken to see the Nazi propaganda movie Hitlerjunge Quex. This was the story of a young German boy with Communist parents, martyred because of his loyalty to Hitler and National Socialism. My father found himself profoundly moved by the film, identifying with the boy, and -- briefly -- hating those villianous Jews....

My husband, the Hoosier Gadfly, notes that religions preaching self-abnegation have had an appeal for centuries, with Medieval Christianity an important example.

Are Harvard and Stanford as bad as Yale?

I've read a few news stories and blog posts about Yale's welcome of the former Taliban spokesman (the context definitely does NOT suggest the word "spokesperson"), Rahmatullah Hashemi, as a student. The common theme of the (few) responses from both students and the administration is moral relativism. As Penraker points out, the Yale community is more than ready to be morally intolerant of various domestic figures and positions, but where a foreigner is concerned, perish the thought.

I was a Stanford undergrad and went to Harvard Law School. (I don't usually admit the latter straight out -- for some reason I usually adopt the customary circumlocution that I went to law school "back East" -- but my point precludes adhering to that silliness here.) I wonder whether either Stanford or Harvard has a less appalling political/moral environment than that to which Yale has descended.

Fed up with yet another aspect of Islam

OK, this is f---ing ridiculous. Afghanistan, post-"liberation", is getting ready to try and quite possibly execute someone for the capital crime of converting from Islam to Christianity. What kind of religion depends on death threats to keep its adherents? What the hell is this kind of judicial set-up doing in a country with any connection to the modern world? Where are the protests from "moderate" Muslim leaders worldwide? (Maybe I just haven't heard about them yet. Any bets?) And are we, the U.S., going to apply any diplomatic muscle to get this guy sprung?

robberies and filibusters

I've noticed that in many robberies of banks, stores, etc., there's no weapon displayed -- and the news reports don't indicate that any was even mentioned. It appears to be common these days to hand someone a note saying "This is a robbery", and immediately get cash handed over. I understand that the rob-ees don't want to ask "Well, are you armed?" and get a fatal, nonverbal reply. I believe that most employers tell their employees to be very cooperative with robbers to reduce the chance of violence. Reasonable as those attitudes may be, they still feel somehow odd to me. I'm reminded of filibusters. Back when, a filibuster was work. You had to actually stand up and pontificate for hours on end. Now, a senator essentially hands the Senate a note saying "This is a filibuster", and the Senate rolls over and gives up the intended legislation. In both circumstances, neither the victim's powers of resistance nor the determination of the perpetrator are tested. Am I being an old crank to sense a whiff of decadence?

Any good enough translation software yet?

I haven't kept up on translation software -- but if there are any programs that're more than halfway decent, for translating Arabic to English (or to any other widely read language), let's give 'em a crack at the newly available trove of Saddam documents! (They are in Arabic, aren't they?)

Guantanamo and marijuana policy

I wish I could believe that anytime soon, the U.S. government would acknowledge that a number of the prisoners at Guantanamo don't need to be held, and release them. I strongly suspect that is so -- not necessarily of a majority of those held, but of some not-trivial percentage. However, any such acknowledgement would be an implicit admission of having overreacted, cast too wide a net, skipped a crucial weeding-out step (to mix my agricultural metaphors). Admitting that a government policy was a goof doesn't come naturally to governments. Continuing a misguided and counterproductive policy to avoid such an admission comes far more easily. Hence we still have not only a drug war, but an active war against possession, growth and sale of marijuana. When the DEA admits that marijuana should be taxed and sold in liquor stores and served in tea shops, I'll hope for a thorough and accurate review of detentions at Guantanamo.

pet euthanasia and capital punishment

Is there any doubt that the injections used to put sick dogs and cats to "sleep" are essentially painless? If so, a lot of pet owners would want to know it. If not, would that be a simpler approach than the multi-stage "lethal injection" for condemned humans, now the subject of several court cases?

Related question: why do states insist that lethal injections be administered by the one group -- medical professionals -- whose code of ethics prohibits doing harm? I suppose it'd be impractical to have "executioner" as a non-medical technical career -- there wouldn't be enough work to keep anyone fully employed. One hopes.

Meme: pet names for pets

I'm sure we're not the only family that gives pet names to pets. Our dog is "Sweet doggy-dog" to one, "Puppalicious creature" to another.... Anyone care to confess to any such?

Jihadists and Greens -- room for temporary alliance?

My husband, the Hoosier Gadfly, now and then comments that environmental extremists are the greater enemy, but that it appears we'll have to deal with Islamic jihadists first. It occurred to me this morning that there is some possibility we'll at some point be dealing with them simultaneously. If bin Laden and Saddam Hussein could contemplate some mutual assistance, despite fundamental differences in their world views, then mightn't these two groups, both of whom are deeply suspicious of scientific and technological progress (though willing to use same for their own purposes), both of whom are nostalgic for eras several centuries past, find ways to help each other out in the short term?

I am more worried than I used to be about the worldwide vigor of an Islam that wishes not to tolerate various democratic freedoms. The chance that environmental extremists will try to tap that energy or benefit from it in some way may not be huge, but it exists.

Climb in and stay a while

This morning my husband and I and younger daughter had the day off, and my older daughter did not. And it was very cold out. So in addition to getting up and making sure she made it out the door to the school bus, I drove her there and waited until the bus came. (This is harder to do when I have to get ready to take daughter #2 to school.) Then I came home and got back into bed, and spent some time contemplating beds, sleep, sleeping positions, expensive mattresses we don't have that may be very comfortable, etc. One thing that occurred to me is that most of the pleasure of getting into bed (leaving out any sexual possibilities) comes from knowing you'll be allowed to stay there for a while. It's an anticipatory pleasure. Having a young child or (as in our case) puppy in the household makes the prospect of staying in bed somewhat iffy.

OK, Mr. Hewitt

Hugh Hewitt asks bloggers who are discussing the cartoon controversy to answer the questions: "Are we at war with Islam? Do you want a war with Islam?" He goes on, "My answers and the answers of any sensible person ought to be 'no,' and 'no.' "

It may be almost that simple, but not quite. We are not at war with Islam in general in anything like the sense that we are at war with radical Islamic jihadism. But if Islam, in some monolithic general way, requires an end to any political commentary that could offend religious sensibilities, then it seems we are or should be at war with that demand. Using the term "at war" in this context is unnecessarily inflammatory -- unless it turns out that the Islamic world as a whole takes this demand seriously enough to condone and organize violence in support of it. I hope and so far believe that this is not the case. But let us stay tuned.

Iranian nukes, space shuttles, and the Cold War

An article in some MSM today, I forget which, indicated that many people are shrugging their shoulders and saying that well, the Iranians will get nukes sooner or later. They're counting on the roomier estimates of when, and hoping that something lucky happens by then to change the Iranian leadership or its intentions.

This is a continuation of Cold War thinking. It's a "well, we've lived with nukes this long..." approach. The difference is that it's hard to deter people who think that glorious destruction of self and populace is a good second best to glorious victory, with either outcome highly acceptable to Allah. It also reminds me of the thinking that contributed to both space shuttle disasters. Each time, those dealing with the shuttle got used to seeing certain anomalies. They weren't per spec, they weren't supposed to happen, but they kept happening and the shuttle kept making it home. Rather than blessing their good luck while feverishly trying to solve the problem before next launch, they redefined what was acceptable to include the anomalies -- since, after all, they hadn't caused any problems so far. (I'm oversimplifying, but it's that or never get it written.) (And no readers will explode as a consequence, at least not literally.)

Wake-Up Calls

The latest eruption of militant Islamic intolerance, this time over the cartoons featuring Mohammed, has served as a much-needed wake-up call to many in Europe. I won't exactly say "Ain't it great?" about intimidation and arson, but the impact these events have had, and the refusal of many European media to roll over submissively, is a nice silver lining, to say the least. Of course, not everyone wakes to a wake-up call; some just mutter a rejection of unpleasant reality and keep sleeping.

I was ready to blast the State Department for failing to defend and explain freedom of speech, but it does seem that the higher-ranking spokesfolk did do some of that, and that the reporting here at home re State Department statements has been (once again) misleading. See this post at the Volokh Conspiracy, and the discussion currently at the top of the Media archive page at Right Wing Nuthouse, entitled "More Lazy Reporting from the Media". However, as Instapundit noted, "this was not a time for nuance." Or at least not for confusion and internal contradiction. One can acknowledge that some might be offended, and still not suggested that the world would be better if everyone trod too carefully to cause such offense.

After I'd already drafted some of this post, my husband, the Hoosier Gadfly, sent me the link to this article at RealClear Politics, which semi-scoops my conceit of a wake-up call. So I'm being fair and linking to it....

T-shirts are one way to petition government

I more or less detest Cindy Sheehan, despite the magnitude of her loss, but it was outrageous of the Capitol cops to disturb her, let alone arrest her, because she wore a T-shirt with a political message. It was delightful karmic retribution that the same force then had to figure out what to do about a T-shirt with a less disagreeable political message, worn by the wife of (so I read) an influential member of Congress.

Note to everyone connected in any way with any branch of government or law enforcement: the First Amendment specifically protects "the right of the people . . . to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." If a law enforcement officer has occasion to shout "Protester!" when spotting a political T-shirt, it should be in respectful recognition of a citizen exercising this basic right -- saying "Right on!", if you will.

If Bush is happy...

In his recent Kansas appearance, and some other recent appearances and speeches, President Bush has seemed to be in a good mood. I can't imagine he'd be in a good mood if he had given up on defanging Iran, and was going to let the international muddlers handle it or fail to do so. So maybe we will be invading Iran, after all....

Warmongering, or What I Sent the President about Iran

Well, this post on the Belmont Club scared the hell out of me, just by summing up what I more or less knew so well -- so despite the insignificance of such drop-in-the-bucket actions, I sent the following email to the White House.

------

Dear Mr. President:

I write urging you, in the strongest terms, to take whatever military action is necessary to stop Iran from becoming the first – but hardly the last – Islamic jihadist nuclear power.

Invading Iraq was good long-term strategy. Invading Iran – and it will take full-scale invasion – is far more critical. Once Iran has nuclear weapons, other Islamic regimes and terrorist organizations will follow. We will have a far more dangerous situation than the Cold War, because these religious fanatics will not all, always, be deterred by the possibility of nuclear retaliation.

God helps those that help themselves. If we sit back and allow the Islamic jihadist movement to acquire nuclear weapons, what will prevent them from pursuing and quite possibly realizing their dreams of a resurgent Islamic theocratic empire in Europe and beyond? The survival of Western democracy, and of the United States, is not inevitable – but it is still achievable.

If you have a destiny, if you are President at this time for a reason, that destiny and that reason is to stop the Islamic jihadists from becoming a nuclear juggernaut. And time is short. Nor will half measures suffice. This is the most important battle – no, war – for this country since World War II at least. If we do not use all the force necessary, even if that is every soldier and bit of armament we can spare, we will only reduce our strength without reducing the threat.

I hope that this email is unnecessary, and that you have been preparing for just such action as I am urging. God be with you as you steer our course.

Sincerely,

Karen A. Wyle

---------

I'm not as religious as this message suggests, but the President is, and I can get into that mindset with not too much imaginative stretching.

All Right, My Horizons Have Expanded

The Dog has led me places I might not otherwise have gone. Like our back yard. It's more of a back forest, and for the last (blush) 16 years or so, since we moved here, I've avoided climbing around in it. Which is how I thought of it. Within a couple of weeks of our acquiring Davida, she led me back there, and I found that it was not actually intimidating. One can walk around in the fairly sparse forest, and it's not all steep and thorn-filled (though parts are).

Today, in celebration of finding some lost toys, my 9-year-old headed back there as we took the dog out for fresh air. It has been delightfully and unseasonably warm, all the way up to the upper 60's, which feels like due payback for winter coming several weeks early. Anyway, we headed down the slope toward the creek at the boundary of our property, which my daughter didn't even know was there. Davida and I went most of the way; Daughter made it all the way, triumphantly stuck a finger in the water, leaned against a tree and contemplated her achievement in happy satisfaction. Thanks, dog.

Now What

Artificial as year endings/year beginnings are, this one has had me pensive and sometimes sad or morbid. This will be the first year (in my lifetime) without my brother, who died in June. It will be a year with the dog to whom we gave his name (a decision that seemed right at the time and isn't readily changed, except via nicknames).

I am, more than on any New Year's Eve I can clearly remember, aware that the coming year -- like any year -- could bring the loss of people I love, or things I value.

But for now, the dog doesn't need my care at the moment, my older daughter is at a friend's and not nauseous enough to call for pickup, my younger daughter is playing video games with a friend, my husband is writing a story, the house is cozy, there's pumpkin bread in the kitchen, and I am grateful for all of it.

Still out here

I've been in a sleep-deprived, bronchitis-aggravated, dog-related fog for weeks, but I thought I should make a post, even if I have no clear (let alone interesting) thoughts to record.

It's a beautiful, unseasonably pleasant day with a deep blue sky, and I wish I was energetic enough to do much with it. Maybe this afternoon I'll take dog and daughter to the park -- it'd be a first for the former. She's afraid of parking lots, so she won't like the idea at first, but....

Talking to invisible dogs

Well, talking to absent dogs, to be more precise -- but invisible sounded catchier.

When I'm home alone with The Dog, and she's awake, and we're not in the middle of tug-of-war or some such, I tend to think out loud at her. Whether it's more to make her feel like she has company, or to make me feel that I do, I won't try to assess.

So now, when I'm on my own in Kroger or someplace, I find myself thinking out loud. About nothing more interesting than milk or sandwich bags. I have probably been on the verge of talking to myself in public places anyhow, but The Dog has pushed me over the line.

one of many terrific drawings

My daughter Livali is an artist and cartoonist. She drew a holiday picture involving various characters from a comic book she is writing/drawing. She wasn't able to post it on her live journal for size reasons. So I'm posting it here, Blogger permitting.

Happy Holidays, my Livali!

Love sponge with teeth

Well, we're still working on being a dog-owning household. The puppy turns out to grow like something alien -- in 2 weeks and one day, she went from 10 lbs. and change to 14 lbs. 13 oz. The duffel-bag carrier we got for her is too small -- today, puppy and I went shopping together (a great luxury Petsmart provides) and got her a plastic car crate. It could be used on a plane, but the only place I tend to fly at this stage of my life is to my parents, who most emphatically will not be hosting a dog. I am pretty boggled by how fast she's getting big. It would be nice if I could establish more complete dominance while she's still a fairly small percentage of my size.

She loves people, and is always begging for belly rubs and the like. When she's particularly happy to see someone, she wags her whole body. When she's in a crate, the rhythmic thumps of the wagging tail are kind of cute.... She's very cooperative and tolerant in most respects -- quiet on car rides, good at the vet, good with strangers. She has only one bad habit, but it's disconcerting. She lunges at legs and nips, alternately chewing on pants instead. I have strategies for coping with this -- getting her to chase a stick, making her go on a walk, dragging her inside to her playpen -- but my 9-year-old falls apart when the puppy starts this up. We have a somewhat desperate call in to a trainer recommended by our vet. My husband, Mr. Alpha Male, has no such problems. We've had him shadow us and step in when the puppy starts lunging -- too soon to say if it's helping.

Thank G-d puppies sleep a lot!

This is my life...

... repeatedly droning "Potty spot ... poop ... "at an oblivious puppy dog as I watch her chew on a rock.

We got a 3? month old Corgi-and-who-knows mutt at the shelter on Monday. We knew she was smart and/or somewhat trained -- she'd come when you clapped. (She is less likely to do so now. Guess she knew when she had to impress us....) She turns out to be paper-trained -- except she sometimes shreds and eats the paper -- and partially housetrained, and pretty good on the leash for a pup. She is not easily dissuaded from chewing on people and their clothing. She is more interested in people than toys, which is part of what attracted me to her. Downside, she wants lots of attention, and I am not a very playful person, word play aside. Word play being wasted on the pup.

We got the dog because daughter Alissa had wanted a dog for years, and she's 9-1/2, and it seemed like time to stop stalling. We did not get the dog because I wanted a dog, though I often enjoy her. She was sick for a day, and I felt maternal and protective for that day -- too bad I can't feel that way when she's healthy and chewing again.... I'm feeling some of the trapped, lost-freedom feeling I had when my older daughter was an infant, with fewer payoffs. However, there is the option, this time, of leaving the baby in a crate, or in a duffel bag in the car.

Bad grammar makes cases more fun

I was just reading an opinion from the Indiana Court of Appeals, and here was this bit:

"
While questioning Murray on the driver’s side of his vehicle, Officer Moore noticed that Murray’s eyes were watery and bloodshot, his speech was slow and slurred, and there was a strong odor of alcohol on his breath. After failing several field sobriety tests, Officer Moore arrested Murray."

I'm having fun visualizing this scene, if read literally. "After failing several field sobriety tests, Officer Moore arrested Murray." So Officer Moore failed several field sobriety tests, eh? Who administered these tests? Was it Murray, drunk as a skunk though he was? This is a comedy routine someone MUST perform! I'll suggest it to our local kids' theater....

Circular Accomplishment

Seems to me, the increasing nervousness among Republican Congressfolk, and their willingness to undercut Bush's policy by passing legislation carping at him (while he's out of the country yet), is most likely traceable to media reports of decreasing public support of the war. Which dwindling support, even if the reports of same are not slanted in themselves, is most likely the result of slanted reporting of what's happening in Iraq -- failure to mention Iraqi attitudes and Iraqi or American accomplishments that might give U.S. readers some hope that things are working out. So by selective and sometimes misleading reporting about Iraq, the press has managed to reduce even passive home-front support for our military/political operations there, and then has milked that decrease in popular support for all it's worth (or more) so as to undercut Congressional support.

Which I find disturbing.

Which does not mean I'm always critical of critical press re Iraq. I'm somewhat conflicted about the Post's scoop re secret CIA detention centers. I wish I knew more about whether the interrogation tactics they're using there are actually at all helpful in obtaining critical information on Islam jihadist plans, locations and tactics. Then I'd at least know whether the questions -- is the existence of these places disgraceful, and was the Post justified in reporting about them -- are easy or hard.

Does Zarqawi have Jordanian underlings?

The news of the slaughter in Jordan made me wonder if Jordanian Zarqawi has any Jordanian staff/underlings. And if so, whether they are as ready to kill innocent wedding parties, etc. in Jordan as Z. is. And if not, whether we might get some good news sometime, like Z. being found in the street in various bloody pieces.

Bush, Alito, and Saddam Hussein's miscalculation

I've been following the nomination of Judge Alito with great interest, and reading many articles and posts about him and opinions by him. There have been some commentators who, with some reason, have described him as less conservative than partisans on both ends of the political spectrum have painted him. Which raises the question of whether (as some liberals darkly mutter) the conservatives know something the rest of us don't, or whether they've been believing oversimplifications just as the liberals have.

Whatever the answer, the question leads me to wonder whether Bush has been playing a delicate game -- assuring conservatives that Alito is just what they've been dreaming of, while pointing out to Democrats and other non-conservatives the evidence against that view. If so, he might want to remember what turned out to be Saddam Hussein's downfall. Saddam wanted to get out from under sanctions, and apparently didn't want to count 100% on oil-money bribery -- so he apparently destroyed his WMD stockpiles or allowed their destruction, though keeping the knowledge necessary for quick rebuilding. But he wanted his neighbors to keep fearing him, so he simultaneously tried to maintain the illusion that he still had WMD's aplenty. Turned out he convinced the wrong people of the latter -- and down he went. Bush could end up undermining his conservative support, while failing to assuage liberals -- though I doubt he'll fail to the point of setting up a filibuster.

Old dog performs new trick

There's a new link at the side of this page -- the link to my new lawyer web page. I started out using a form offered by the host, but that didn't allow me to include sample briefs for folks to look at. The host's technical support was too basic to help me out. So I found some primers about html and read some instructions the host had. And I figured out what to do! And did it! And added some italics, even!

To anyone under age 25, this will look like bragging about learning to wipe one's nose. But I'm a dinosaur twice that age, and though I started working with computers before most folks my age, this is only my second attempt to do anything with even the simplest html. So I am pleased with myself!

While I'm at it, I guess I'll add the link to my wedding-photographer web page. Yes, I have many talents. Or two heads. Or something.

Words of Wisdom, apparently

If my teenage daughter thinks something I came up with is worth writing down, I guess I should offer it here...:

"There has to be a happy medium between blissful ignorance and paralyzing fear."

This could apply to many contexts, I suppose, including the one I talk about ad nauseum, our societal obsession with safety -- but it arose from a discussion of shoes. A blog entry I read about brown recluses prompted me to suggest that my kids shake their shoes out before putting them on. My daughter complained that she was now afraid to put on shoes. Hence my new-minted proverb-or-whatever.

The phrase "happy medium" always makes me think of the Happy Medium in A Wrinkle in Time -- a chronically cheerful clairvoyant.

Anywhere to go back to?

I don't have time or mental clarity, this late in the evening, to say much about the violence and destruction in France. However: it appears that a great number of people left various places in Africa and came to France, the Netherlands, and I dunno where else in Europe, presumably to escape poverty and/or find work and/or live under less oppressive governments. It doesn't seem to have worked out very well. They may be less poor than they (or their parents or grandparents) were, but they don't appear to be looking at their economic status as a glass half full. A high percentage are unemployed. And they're going to end up making their governments more oppressive, at this rate.

Fox News (online) reported that some of the rioters set fire to a middle-aged woman on crutches. If that's true, it'd sure be nice -- and quite unexpected -- if some of the rioters reacted the way Gandhi did when members of his noncooperation movement in Indiana attacked and killed (burned, if I'm remembering correctly) some Indian policemen. He called off the noncooperation tactic and went on a hunger strike until his followers went along. Of course, that'd require drawing a sharp ethical line between property destruction and torturing disabled women to death in the street.

As for solutions, oy. If I were a French policymaker, I'd be inclined to cut back drastically on immigration from Africa, if much of it is still happening, until my country had figured out how to cope with the previous immigrants and their descendants -- unless some humanitarian emergency were involved, in which case I'd be scurrying to come up with some improved intake/assimilation procedures. What about all those folks who are already in France and unhappy about their lives there? Is there any African country whose languages include French and which is welcoming new citizens with some knowledge of Western ways??? I'm not talking "send them back", a la Abraham Lincoln at some stage of his thinking, but if there were such a place, and if any of the disaffected were interested in relocating, some program could be developed to assist in that process. Those who didn't choose that option might become clearer in their minds about their own investment in France. Which still leaves what I gather are very serious French cultural obstacles to effective assimilation. Which I doubt will change soon.