another place to donate for New Orleans

If people are looking for yet another way to help New Orleans, Direct Relief International -- name notwithstanding -- is offering to "replenish medical inventories or provide emergency medical material". Hopefully they'll be able to get these supplies to wherever the refugees are going, as well as any remaining hospitals/clinics still open in the city.

Only wrinkle: their website, as I write this, doesn't have a way to designate donations for Katrina relief. However, there is a place for comments. Enough comments might spur them to set things up for specific Katrina relief donations.

Leaving out the good parts

For some reason, the partial text of the proposed Iraqi constitution that was published in the NY Times and many other media outlets left out some pretty reassuring provisions re the role and treatment of women. That's assuming that the complete version I found at what looks like the Sacramento Bee's website is accurate. It's not an elaborate joke a la Snappleface, is it? If it is, then a big "Never mind...." (NOTE/UPDATE: while I was looking for this text and before I found it, I found the text of the interim constitution -- the one that's been in effect for a while -- and thought that was the new draft's text. I posted a comment on Ambivablog, quoting the interim constitution as though it were the new draft. That comment got quoted in an Ambivablog "Update". So I feel foolish now. I believe the author of Ambivablog will be re-updating sometime soon to note my error, or something.)

Of interest on the women's rights issue:

--The preamble notes that "men and women, young and old" went to the ballot box on January 30, 2005.--The preamble also states that "We the people of Iraq, newly arisen from our disasters and looking with confidence to the future through a democratic, federal, republican system, are determined - men and women, old and young - to respect the rule of law, reject the policy of aggression, pay attention to women and their rights, the elderly and their cares, the children and their affairs, spread the culture of diversity and defuse terrorism."

--The much discussed provision which the NY Times translation gives as "No law may contradict Islamic standards" is translated in this full Associated Press version as "No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam." Pretty interesting adjective! Any Arabic speakers who can tell us whether this means that no one who counts disputes the truths of Islam, or instead that only the undisputed rules are binding?

--Now here's a nice one: "Article (14): Iraqis are equal before the law without discrimination because of sex, ..." Similarly, Article 16 guarantees "equal opportunity" to "all Iraqis". Without Article 14, I might worry that this didn't include women, but....

--"Article (20): Citizens, male and female, have the right to participate in public matters and enjoy political rights, including the right to vote and run as candidates."

--Two excerpts from Article 29:"The state shall guarantee the protection of motherhood, childhood and old age and shall take care of juveniles and youths and provide them with agreeable conditions to develop their capabilities." and: "Violence and abuse in the family, school and society shall be forbidden." The first could be read to suggest a protective condescension towards mothers if not for the other provisions I've mentioned. Article 30 also groups women with children as getting special protection re "social and health insurance."

Now, there are some other aspects that could concern civil libertarians, such as freedom of expression if and only if it doesn't violate "public order and morality" (Article 36) -- but that may not differ much from our obscenity laws and our time-place-and-manner restrictions on various protest activities.

Article 45 is a nice catch-all precaution: "Restricting or limiting any of the freedoms and liberties stated in this constitution may only happen by, or according to, law and as long as this restriction or limitation does not undermine the essence of the right or freedom."

I've become gradually convinced that most MSM, including the New York Times, cherry-picks the news out of Iraq to create a discouraging picture. This is another example -- but it's so obvious that I wonder if I'm missing something.

Shuttle Foam -- Try the Original Drawing on the Board

I just read an AP story about the problem with foam on the space shuttle, titled "Nasa Stumped by Shuttle Foam Loss". The article ended with a list of "long-term options". Those options didn't include returning to the original foam formula (unless that was the meaning behind the somewhat cryptic "adding fiber to the foam to make it adhere better"). As I understand it, the original foam formula was abandoned because it included flourocarbons, and fluorocarbons are thought to cause some damage to the ozone layer. I don't know whether this is firmly substantiated -- far from a certainty where claims of environmental damage are concerned -- nor what level of damage we're talking about from what amount of use. But I seriously doubt that the amount of fluorocarbons involved in space shuttle foam is significant enough to justify using a substitute foam that won't stick to the shuttle.

a magical meme for Harry Potter fans

OK, I've got a meme to propose.

I attended a Harry Potter birthday party yesterday. While most of the guests were adults, there was a table full of craft materials, including glitter-glue bottles and index cards. These inspired me to start making business cards for various business establishments in the Harry Potter universe. Which was fun. Here are the names/slogans I came up with (some of which won't make much sense or have much point unless you're familiar with the books):
--Free Elves Clothing Emporium
--Ministry Censor's Office -- "Better Not to Know"
--Whoosh! Floo Powder Wholesalers
--All Hollow Inn -- Hearty Fare for Hungry Wayfarers
--Wanting Wizard Pawn Shop -- "Knutts for your Knick-Knacks"
--Chocolate Menagerie -- "Frogs are Not Enough"
--Red's Rubbish Removal -- "With Red, It Stays Dead"
--The Waffling Quaffle Tote Shop

So there's the meme: names/slogans for businesses in the Harry Potter magical community.

Anyone want to play?

Fifty

I've been thinking of myself as almost-50 for years now. So I thought I'd make the transition to actually-50 with little trouble. I'm finding it a bit troubling, nonetheless. I'm counting down the days in which I can still say I'm in my 40's, with a somewhat sinking feeling. It is some comfort that my husband, in whom boyish qualities are very much alive, is several years into his 50's -- except that I still have trouble believing that, and it's a bit depressing in its turn. Apparently a good mutual friend of ours, a friend of my husband for several decades, is close to 60. That's positively scary. (I assume I will look back at these complaints some day in a spirit akin to some Supreme Court Justice -- I'm embarrassed to have forgotten which -- who, in his 90's, looked at a girl walk past and sighed, "Oh, to be 70 again....")

Learned the Hard Way

I was driving around today, erranding, and listening to the soundtrack of Somewhere in Time, which I consider rather beautiful and very romantic. Which made me think how much my brother, who was one of the most romantic souls ever, would have loved it. I doubt he ever heard it, and I never thought to play it for him. He died on June 1st of this year.

I didn't have very much contact with my brother in the last 15 years or so of his life, after I moved to Indiana (he lived in Southern and then Northern California). He had chronic fatigue syndrome most of that time, and didn't answer the phone much, let alone make trips across country -- though he did manage to come once, early on. I visited my parents in L.A. once or twice a year, but it never seemed like the time to go visit him instead, or in addition.

I'm sure that one reason I didn't try harder to stay in touch was that I have tended to suppress some sides of myself that were much like him -- sentimental, easily moved, easily agitated, embarrassingly open. When we spoke, we usually had a warm and loving exchange. But I was always on guard against our contact somehow becoming invasive, threatening my boundaries or my way of coping with the world. I was not entirely content with this delicate balance -- but I didn't know there was any urgency about changing it. His chronic fatigue syndrome symptoms masked the earlier stages of small cell lung cancer. He lived less than three months after he was diagnosed.

So I drive around town, trying not to cry too much for safety (there's a phrase with two meanings...), wishing I'd been able to share this music with him -- and inviting him, if he somehow can, to listen to it with me now.

Religion in Schools - another possible outcome

I'd like to suggest that those who want more religious observance -- prayers, etc. -- in the public schools consider how that idea can turn out. In Bloomington (Indiana), we have quite a lot of religious diversity (including a Buddhist community), and some fairly fervent devotion to protecting that diversity. The surrounding county is more religiously and politically conservative. I'm sure there are plenty of people in the county who would like every school day to start with a Christian prayer. However, if the voters or officials in Bloomington proper ended up with much say, I can easily imagine a rather different outcome, if the prohibition against school-sponsored prayer were somehow removed. How would all our evangelical Christians feel about a mandate that every month, all month long, a prayer from a different religion would start the school day? Buddhist one month, Moslem the next, then Jewish, Bahai after that -- and we actually have quite a few pagans living hereabouts....

Justice Roberts and containing Kelo

I haven't studied Judge Roberts' opinions -- I've only picked up, secondhand at best, the idea that he may believe in paying some attention to what the Commerce Clause was meant to mean. Which doesn't bear directly on the Kelo decision and eminent domain -- but to me it suggests that if he is confirmed, and some case comes up which offers the opportunity to confine Kelo to relative irrelevancy, he may come through. Here's hoping.

A Reply to Anti-American American Liberals

I sometimes imagine conversations, and tonight I was imagining a reply, verging on a rant, to certain liberal acquaintances of mine who confess to feeling rather anti-American at present. It went something like this:

We are facing some extremely difficult dilemmas, having to do with how to fight a vicious and fanatical enemy while maintaining our grasp on generally decent, and specifically American, values. If the problem were an easy one, we would not have bone-deep civil libertarians like Alan Dershowitz tossing around ideas like torture warrants. It is not just evil right-wing evangelical corrupt corporate puppets who consider countenancing some dubious tactics.

Why do you leave out of the equation the fact that this country sometimes promotes, and even supports, democratic ideals and democratic reform movements? I have little confidence in my historical knowledge on this point, and I welcome corrections (if supported with specific and reliable citations) -- but haven't we pushed democracy more, maybe a lot more, than any of the other major democracies out there? The sins we've committed against that ideal -- the backroom deals, the blind eyes, the hypocrisies, the betrayals -- we share with our European counterparts, but how often have they put cynicism and pessimism aside to urge democracy on? At least we've talked the talk -- and lately, we've been doing a little better at walking the walk.

So give us some g-----n credit!

Fireworks Fans Against Eastern Daylight Time

Through a series of contentious and to me annoying political events, we are likely to be stuck with Eastern Daylight Time next April. Until these events took place, most of Indiana has ignored the whole Daylight Savings Time exercise. I am highly skeptical that said exercise serves any very useful purpose. Since serious accidents apparently increase annually during the time people are adjusting to Daylight Time (not sure about re-adjusting to Standard), you'd think all the Safety Uber Alles folks would be clamoring to dump it. Most of Indiana belongs, geographically speaking, in the Central Time Zone -- so we will be seriously out of whack during the DST part of the year.

Particularly galling is what it will do to Independence Day fireworks. It's been bad enough when the fireworks started at 9 p.m. Now they'll START at 10 p.m. and end near 11 p.m. I doubt all the other holiday events will start an hour later -- the day will be interminable and even more exhausting than previously.

We still have a couple of surviving drive-in theaters hereabouts, which will probably crater when shows all have to start late. (I'm not sure of the logistics of drive-ins showing Adult movies, which could be an option, though not one that appeals to me....)

The legislature could still abort this scheme next March, but I'm not very hopeful. What gets me stirred up seldom stirs large enough crowds to reverse political inertia.

My husband, Hoosier Gadfly, recommends that we all go to Greenwich Mean Time, aka Universal Time, and schedule events at whatever hour is workable. He walks the walk -- his watch and computer are both on GMT.

Omniscience and Quantum Uncertainty

(Yes, I do tend to use titles with "and". Doesn't seem worth refraining, if it comes naturally.)

My husband, Hoosier Gadfly, has said on occasion that Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (and possibly other credible theories of quantum physics) precludes divine omniscience. I'm not convinced.

As I understand it -- though perhaps I don't -- Heisenberg's Etc. is essentially about measurement. Measurement may yield the most accurate knowledge, but if one is predicting the result of a very thoroughly controlled future event, one could be said to "know" that result. If, for example, one rolls a ball of a certain mass, whose surface has a known degree of friction, down a surface with a known incline, on a path from which no deviation is possible, for a fixed number of seconds -- and yet, for any reason, one is unable to perceive and measure the result -- one could calculate in advance where the ball would end up. That information would be essentially known, though not perceived at the time of the event.

If one postulates a Creator capable of thoroughly calculating in advance (or in some timeless manner) all the interacting events that would make up a universe and its history, that Creator would essentially know what would happen in that universe, even if unable to observe those events unfolding.

I should not attempt this sort of discussion when underslept and racing the clock to minimize tomorrow's undersleptness....

Kelo decision - expletives deleted

My reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court's Kelo decision could be summed up as WHAT THE *^&^)()*)&)*???!!!??? (UPDATE: For a more considered approach, though still preliminary and minimally informed, please scroll down a bit.)

To pretend to be fair, I haven't read any of the opinions. I've just seen reports, short excerpts, and blog entries. But c'maahhhn. A city government can decide, or pretend to believe, that it's in the public interest to make you sell your home for a privately run housing development (or is that exempted?) or shopping center or office building, because that'll generate tax revenue, and that'll be good for the city, because of all the OTHER great decisions the city government will eventually make about how to spend it....

Is the overall theme of this term the intention to create despair among libertarians, advocates of small government, and others who have some dim memory of how this country came to exist in the first place?...

I won't have much time to read the opinions over the next couple of days -- so if by any chance there is something in them to complicate or blunt my righteous indignation, I won't have to deal with it just yet.

UPDATE: As predicted, I haven't (the next day) read the opinions yet, but have read a bit more about them, and thought a bit more calmly. I can see that making the outcome revolve purely around technical public-vs-private ownership issues might not be a sound approach. While I'd listen to arguments that eminent domain should not have been allowed for the building of privately owned railroads to make cross-continental travel much easier, I doubt I'd end up accepting such arguments. However, I do not see this as an adequate reason to throw up collective judicial hands and simply defer to local governments. I'm not a great fan of elaborate judicially crafted tests on constitutional issues, but they're often the only alternative to a simple and wrong solution. My preliminary feeling is that we need such a test for claimed "public use" that goes beyond the obvious categories like major transportation, utilities, or governmental buildings. (Query whether all proposed governmental buildings should get an automatic pass....) Here's a thought -- perhaps a referendum, or at least some sort of thorough public comment procedure, should be a prerequisite for approval of a taking for a proposed "public use" that is in fact private development. (The electoral alternative of "throw the rascals out" doesn't do much good years after the house has been razed.) The input could be as major as a referendum, or some sort of thorough public-comment procedure with a minimum absolute number of discrete positive responses as a prerequisite for eminent domain.

Dreams and Aging

Do people tend to get mellower, or less anxiety-ridden, as they age? Well, here's one little data point.

I've had certain anxiety dreams periodically throughout my life. One of them involves being unable to get to or find some important destination. It can go on for quite a while, with one thing after another going wrong. However, in the last year or so, I've started finally getting where I'm supposed to be. What was a straightforward anxiety dream has become more like a succeeding-despite-adversity dream. That's gotta be good....

Cougar Bait

There have been a number of cougar sightings in our community lately. None were very close by, but at least two were within about 5 miles of my house. An acquaintance (who got to listen to a cougar snarling repeatedly at 4-something a.m.) mentioned in passing that cougars will attack a menstruating woman. So, when I fit that description, do I stick to my treadmill? or venture forth with my trusty (though concealed) pistol and hope to reduce the cougar population? I'm not sure I'm a quick enough draw for the task, particularly as I usually don't have a round chambered.

Religious Justifications for Violence

The ongoing flap (here)/outrage and violence (in Muslim countries) about alleged mistreatment of the Koran raises the issues of cultural and moral relativism.

The U.S. military apparently -- though perhaps a bit belatedly -- decreed what non-Muslims might call extraordinary precautions against treating copies of the Koran in any of many ways that Muslims deem sacrilegious. Contrariwise, some interrogators may have tried to use Muslim sensitivity to treatment of the Koran as a way to demoralize prisoners -- though I don't believe this has been reliably established.

Underlying the factual dispute about what occurred is the question of how huge an issue this should be. The issue of whether interrogators should be allowed to play intense mind games with prisoners is important, but it is not the issue I am now addressing. I believe it is appropriate to cast a critical eye at a religious outlook that considers prohibited treatment of a book as justification for not only violence against individuals, but actual war. (I wish I could precisely recall and link to a post by a blogger who recently contrasted the potential penalties for U.S. flag "desecration" with the Muslim reaction to desecration of the Koran.)

Islam, or at least some branches of Islam, also considers death the proper penalty for heresy or apostasy by those calling themselves Muslims, and -- at least according to some extremists -- for any questioning of Muslim precepts by nonbelievers. While Muslims' reverence for the Koran may be extreme compared to how other religions treat physical symbols, the willingness to slaughter either religious dissenters or those outside the fold is not unique. Christianity's history is rife with such.

I do not believe that respect for cultural diversity or any other valid principle requires respect for those aspects of any religion that dictate violence, let alone lethal violence, against people based on any grounds other than mistreatment of other human beings. A religion that purports to authorize, let alone encourage or demand, such violence is harmless only to the extent that it is powerless.

Virus Wars, the Old-Fashioned Kind

My younger daughter is in the final two weeks of a three-year class that has been marvelous for her. She has now entered into her inheritance: in these final two weeks, the third graders get to help run the class, go out for golf-pizza-etc with the teachers, and graduate in a highly individualized ceremony. And I have a cold, which she must not get.

We tend to be fatalistic about viruses in our family, assuming that we'll pass 'em around. This time, we are trying to fight what may be fated. I am washing my hands constantly, and warning Younger Daughter to do the same. I am allowed only brief hugs with no kisses and breath held. I am picking things up with tissues. I am feeling like Typhoid Mary.

And yet I know I'm still not managing to keep the home environment virus-free. I touch the keyboard where my virus-ridden fingers have been, and then move a stool that someone may touch or answer the phone without protective gear.... I'm not sure whether I wish I could see some glowing leering triumphant virus wherever I accidentally leave it.

I've decided to give up on the keyboard and mouse, and caution everyone to wash their hands immediately after using either. And not to touch their faces while on the computer. Yeah, right.

Do we get credit, somehow, for drastically reducing the number of ways she can get this cold?...

Where are antiviral nanobots when we need them?!?

Know Thyself

I got an unusual call last Thursday. A bride-to-be wanted to talk about inexpensive wedding packages. I explained why I don't try to be the bargain-basement option: my style is somewhat untraditional, and if people were to choose me because I'm cheapest rather than because they like my style, the result would be unhappiness all around. She then said something about how I probably wouldn't be available anyway. I said, thinking I was joking: "Well, is your wedding next week?" No, it was Saturday. As in the day after (Thursday's) tomorrow.

I had the day available, and I wanted to be helpful, and I was intrigued by someone who would call up a photographer two days before the wedding without sounding panicky. She said the wedding would be small and very short, and she just wanted a handful of poses, and I didn't need to show up an hour ahead of time (as I usually do). So I gave her an unprecedented low price.

Come Saturday, I found myself getting more and more nervous as I waited around. Showing up just beforehand doesn't suit me, it seems. I decided I may as well just go, and showed up almost an hour before the ceremony was due to start. And since I was there, I started shooting (photographically speaking).

After the ceremony, we did the poses we'd agreed upon. But the bride kept thinking of others, and it didn't feel right to wave the contract and refuse.

If I'd been quoting the photography I actually did that Saturday, it would've cost three times what I charged. So now I know -- I am incapable of sticking to that pared-down a package, and won't quote one again. No harm done -- I like the pictures.

Which raises another question. In our brief acquaintance, the bride has already told me three times (I think) that she doesn't like pictures of herself. Will she like any of mine? I think that in some -- admittedly not all -- she looks beautiful. But then, she comes to pictures of herself with a lifetime of appearance issues. She's looking for familiar imperfections she both dreads and expects to see. I don't have that baggage, and can appreciate the positives -- her beautiful complexion, for example -- perhaps more than she can.

Linking to the Great

I have added Instapundit to my Links list (right side of the page). This may be viewed as presumptuous -- am I claiming some particular relationship to the Blogging Exemplar? Well, no -- but I can almost say I "knew Glenn when". My husband (Hoosier Gadfly) used to talk to Professor Reynolds occasionally about Second Amendment issues. This may or may not have been before Instapundit existed, but it was before everyone knew about it. He generally addressed Prof. Reynolds by a nickname that originated with Professor Don Kates. Prof. Kates may be as short as I, which is short, and he named Glenn Reynolds "Too-Tall". Neither Prof. Kates (as far as I know) nor my husband has yet been struck by lightning.

Besides, I read Instapundit several times a day, pretty compulsively, and it has links to most of my other favorite blogs.

Hubris or Not

As part of our house's campaign to make us regret buying in a hurry, its foundation wall has been buckling, and a contractor will soon begin major work including excavation of much of our front yard. For several years, we have had two saplings -- one sickly evergreen and one alarmingly healthy maple -- growing out of the gravel near the house. My two daughters have each designated one of these little trees as their own. When the excavation happens, the trees would be ploughed up in minutes. So, despite a consistent orange thumb (isn't orange the opposite of green?) and no relevant experience, I'm transplanting trees.

I bought me a nice little shovel, the right size for short folks. I already had a spade and a spade-sized raking thing. I read an online article or two about transplanting trees, which suggested that the sickly evergreen is probably doomed anyhow. I spent much of a warm afternoon digging, trying to cut unidentified roots to make holes big enough, tugging at roots until they came loose and sent me sprawling, etc. So far, I've transplanted the evergreen, which I hope can survive being planted at a slant reminiscent of a certain famous leaning tower. The far taller maple sapling is today's project. (Today's going to be even warmer.)

If I had to bet, I'd probably bet against either tree making it. I know I'm not putting in enough learning time to maximize their chances. So am I just begging the universe to swat me down by giving this such a casual (if exhausting) try? On the other hand, if I begged off on the grounds that I don't have time to do it right, would that be prudence, or laziness and/or cowardice?

Digging has been kind of fun, anyway.

Wish the little trees luck.

Toilets and Public Expectations

My family and another just went out together for a pleasant Mother's Day dinner. In the restroom was an unflushed toilet. The flushing mechanism worked very nicely -- but someone hadn't used it. This was not an automatic toilet, and I wondered whether the previous user was just a slob, or had become accustomed to toilets that (at least much of the time) flush themselves. We're in an awkward period where automatic toilets are common but not yet ubiquitous -- people may assume that they no longer need to perform what had been a routine and expected function. Sooner or later, then, business owners who have resisted installing automatic toilets are likely to consider them a necessity.

It's similar to what happens when government takes on an ever larger role in protecting people from risks. (Yes, I'm on that again.) People start to assume that they don't need to assess risk or investigate for themselves -- that if something is for sale, or some activity is legal, then it must be safe or it Wouldn't Be Allowed. Then that public expectation becomes the justification for regulating any previously unregulated aspect of life.