The Inkblots

Top Tips for Pilots

2006-02-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

1. Every take-off is optional. Every landing is mandatory.

2. If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger. If you pull the stick back, they get smaller. That is, unless you keep pulling the stick back-then they get bigger again.

3. Flying isn't dangerous. Crashing is what's dangerous.

4. The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

5. The propeller is just a big fan in front of the plane used to keep the pilot cool. When it stops, you can actually watch the pilot start sweating.

6. When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No one has ever collided with the sky.

7. A "good" landing is one from which you can walk away. A "great" landing is one after which they can use the plane again.

8. You know you've landed with the wheels up if it takes full power to taxi to the ramp.

9. Stay out of clouds. The silver lining everyone keeps talking about might be another airplane going in the opposite direction. Reliable sources also report that mountains have been known to hide out in clouds.

10. Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the number of takeoffs you've made.

11. You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck.

12. If all you can see out of the windscreen is ground that's going round and round and all you can hear is commotion coming from the passenger compartment, things are not at all as they should be.

13. The three most useless things to a pilot are altitude above you, runway behind you, and a tenth of a second ago

State of the Union

2006-02-01T10:05:00.000-08:00

So tonight, I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative -- a 22-percent increase in clean-energy research -- at the Department of Energy, to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas. To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants, revolutionary solar and wind technologies, and clean, safe nuclear energy.

Dear Mr. President,

What exactly do you mean by saying revolutionary solar and wind technologies? Are you trying to say you are funding amazing new advances in these fields, or are you just becoming aware of these centuries old techniques of gathering energy?

Adam

P.S. I accidentally started reading your 2003 SOTU address and almost didn't realize I was reading one that was three years old. Get some new material.

Rain Falls Up In The Sky

2006-01-28T08:24:00.000-08:00

Here's another fun one, about ambiguous sentences and how to parse them. (I also recommend some of the links in that article, particularly this one.)

In this case, the headline wasn't factually misleading, only syntactically so. It's a great example of the kind of ambiguous sentence that teachers of introductory syntax classes often present to their students (like the old standby, "I hate visiting relatives").

I remember learning sentence diagramming in my linguistics class in college (which I still think was one of my most interesting and useful classes ever, along with physiological psychology). It's a nifty little skill that allows you to categorize the function of every word in a sentence, providing, of course, that the sentence was well-formed to begin with and every word actually has a function. But there are also plenty of well-formed sentences that legitimately have multiple meanings, not usually on purpose. For instance, newspaper headlines are a perennially favorite source of ambiguous sentences. But a lot of ambiguous sentences get passed around in ordinary life, too—enough to drive some of us nuts while we try to figure out what other people mean. Much of the time, context makes the correct meaning of the sentence clear, but not always.

This page has a little more explanation and some more examples at the bottom. Here are a couple more for your amusement:

"They hit the man with a cane." (Did they use a cane, or did the man have a cane?)
"I saw her duck." (Was it an animal or a body movement?)
"Students hate annoying professors." (Are the professors annoying, or do the students hate making them annoyed?)

[Then, after posting this entry, I went to the Comcast website so I could pay my bill. In the news headlines I saw another kind of ambiguous sentence: "Frey' Won't Pen Book About Fall From Grace." There, the syntactic structure of the sentence is unambiguous, but the word "won't" is ambiguous. Does it mean Frey simple isn't going to write the book, that he will be barred from doing so, or that he refuses to do so? When I clicked the link and read the article, it turns out that the latter construction was the correct one. Do headline people write deliberately ambiguous sentences to draw readers into the article? What say ye, KG?]

Pardon me, but isn't that the Catholic Bible?

2006-01-23T14:32:00.000-08:00

Oh, I just overheard something that totally reminded me of my freshmen roommate.

Picture two girls walking to class, books in hand.

"I mean, you're talking about Jerusalem before Christ was even born! What does that have to do with him?"

I just love it when students don't give a damn about historical context. It makes my day.

You mean there is this whole other realm outside of the tiny sphere I've made my life into. What? There is something more than expensive tuition and soaring textbook costs? No! It can't be!

For-Profit Universities

2006-01-23T11:38:00.000-08:00

Here is another link that participants of this blog might enjoy. It deals with for-profit universities like the University of Phoenix. An excerpt:

Many of the private and public non-profit colleges and universities are guilty of shoddy teaching, misleading claims in their handbooks and advertising about what students would learn at their institutions, taking students in PhD programs where jobs are almost impossible to find upon graduation, and other false, misleading, or immoral practices. The late George Stigler, a Nobel Prize winning economist, wrote a humorous essay entitled "A Sketch of the History of Truth in Teaching" (reprinted in his collected essays The Intellectual and the Marketplace) where he basically argues that if traditional universities were held to the same standard of truth as private companies, they would be subject to large and numerous lawsuits.

The article is part of The Becker-Posner Blog, written by two University of Chicago professors. Becker is an economist and Posner is a Federal Judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Parasite Personality

2006-01-23T10:26:00.000-08:00

Recent studies suggest that biological parasites (not just memes) can infect the human brain and effect personality changes:

Some scientists believe that Toxoplasma changes the personality of its human hosts, bringing different shifts to men and women. Parasitologist Jaroslav Flegr of Charles University in Prague administered psychological questionnaires to people infected with Toxoplasma and controls. Those infected, he found, show a small, but statistically significant, tendency to be more self-reproaching and insecure. Paradoxically, infected women, on average, tend to be more outgoing and warmhearted than controls, while infected men tend to be more jealous and suspicious.

It's controversial work, disputed by many. But it attracted the attention of E. Fuller Torrey of the Stanley Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. Torrey and his colleagues had noticed some intriguing links between Toxoplasma and schizophrenia. Infection with the parasite has been associated with damage to a certain class of neurons (astrocytes). So has schizophrenia. Pregnant women with high levels of Toxoplasma antibodies in their blood were more likely to give birth to children who would later develop schizophrenia. Torrey lays out more links in this 2003 paper. While none is a smoking gun, they are certainly food for thought. It's conceivable that exposure to Toxoplasma causes subtle changes in most people's personality, but in a small minority, it has more devastating effects.

(Read the rest of the article here.)

Udderly Ridiculus

2006-01-08T17:37:00.000-08:00

Check out this article on MSNBC. If I only had a nickel for everytime I've heard this phrase:

With the police in pursuit, the cow ran...

Ah...good times.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Dating but were Afraid to Find Out.

2006-01-05T16:54:00.000-08:00

I’ve been out there for awhile in the sometimes murky world of dating and there are just a few things I’ve learned that I thought I’d pass along for your edification, amusement, or whatever you can get out of it.

Dating Guidelines:

Know what you want out of dating. Looking for a “soul-mate”? (sidebar - sheesh, I sincerely hate that phrase) Then look for people who fit whatever “soul-mate” criteria you might have. Looking for a piece of ass? (And don’t get all hoity-toity on me, we all know that sometimes that’s all we’re looking for) The point is, know thyself before thy dates begin.

Know whom you want to date. This isn’t easy as some people think this is shallow, i.e. only looking for a certain facial features, body-type, etc. I’m here to tell you, it’s not shallow. The human visual system takes up about 50% of the human brain activity. There are studies that have been done on babies where the baby is shown various objects in pictures. Every single time, the picture the baby focuses on the most is the human face picture. Even when simple geometric shapes were used, such as an ovals or rounds, that shape was the focal point. So, we are inherently visually oriented. There is nothing wrong with having a certain criteria for a person that you might possibly end up spending A LOT of time with. I mean, seriously, if you end up marrying someone, that’s the person you’re gonna wake up to every morning. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to find someone that pleases your eye?

Know your numbers. Dating is a numbers game. The more people you meet greet, converse with, the more you’ll find out about yourself, what you want, and whom you’d like to spend time with. If you think about it logically, statistics play a HUGE part in dating. There’s nothing wrong with going out for coffee or a meal with someone a few times to see whether the two of you are compatible or not. At the worst, you had a nice time with someone you are mildly acquainted with but will probably never see again. Shake hands; make suitably gracious meaningless noises about nice meeting you and good luck in your search, then go home. Throw his/her number away and call the next person.

Don’t drink and then go on a first date. First hand experience. Trust me on this one.

So, Gentle Readers, just a few simple guidelines for today’s world. Now go forth and date!

And why not?!

2005-12-26T13:50:00.000-08:00

Today was a day to adventure. To spend my vacation doing what I wouldn't normally do on say, a Monday.

Today, I saw a man.
And why not?! You know, I've never thought about this, but what would Jesus do? Do you think Jesus would go over to this man and say, "Look jackass, my cross was way bigger than this and it wasn't made out of lightweight kiln-dried 2x4's. And what's with the fucking training wheels?" Or maybe he would say, "Good job, the Romans had laws about walking in the street too, I always avoided the sidewalks just to piss them off."

And why not?! I've always thought to myself that, should I ever pave a parking lot with asphalt, I would go with the standard rectilinear design, but then put my parking spaces on the bias so as to utilize the space as inefficiently as possible.

It was at this point that a small bird shit on my shoulder. But my spirits couldn't be dampened after the laugh I had at the scene captured in my first picture.

And why not?! And so, since I havn't told you yet, I was on my way to the zoo. But now a detour was necessary. For you see, I wiped most of the birdshit off with my hand, which wasn't so bad. And the palette that bird shit offers mixed remarkably well into a grey very similar to my hooded sweatshirt.

It was at this point that the paranoia hit. Somewhere in life, I picked up the idea that birdshit is a carrier for lots of bad things and whether or not this is true, I felt that I should wash my hands somehow. SaveMart to the rescue. A little hand sanitizer, a Snickers, and Dr. Pepper. I should have picked up a pack of condoms just so I wouldn't look so weird buying these things, but they weren't on my shopping list. Always take a list, never shop hungry.

Let's just hope that Bird Flu is not in the .01% of germs not killed by my trusty Purell with Aloe.

All worth it to catch a kangaroo napping in the sun if you ask me. Oh, and the dude trying to get the attention of a Colobus monkey by throwing leaves at the cage. That was funny as hell but I couldn't discreetly take a picture of that idiocy and he was bigger than me.

Old topic

2005-12-15T08:54:00.000-08:00

So I don't know how relevant this is to current discussions out there in the world (seems like old news now), but my friend emailed me this essay on video game violence and I thought I would share with all and see if anyone had anything to say.

Check it out. Looks like it was written 2003, maybe 2004.

Sanger, that bastion of religious conservatism

2005-12-11T12:45:00.000-08:00

'Religious Suppression'

As a teacher and mother, I'm feeling saddened by society.

Children are allowed to use vulgar language and bring all types of violent materials to read in school. Yet when the children pledge their allegiance to their God and country, people revolt.

Evolution is a debated theory, but it is taught in schools as an absolute fact.

Teaching abstinence is not politically correct. Children are taught to say "no" to drugs, but merely to use protection with sex because they can't stop themselves.

It is politically correct to show tolerance of abortion and every type of sexual perversion, yet the mere mention of Christ is offensive.

Eighty percent of the people in our country believe in creation, yet the 20% who do not have decided for everyone else that it's not politically correct to even acknowledge the origin of Christmas--the birth of Christ.

Every religion is treated with tolerance except the religion of our own country. Our children are being taught to feel ashamed of their faith and Christianity is being systematically silenced. Why? Because morality means accountability.

Let's face it, the phrase "politically correct" is really a soft term for religious suppression.

Melinda Bohannon
Sanger

The Philosophy of Calvin & Hobbes

2005-12-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

I love this comic. And since winter has arrived, I thought it appropriate to post some old favorites.

Hopefully, you can read them, but if not click here.

This guy....

2005-11-29T12:20:00.000-08:00

So what follows is an article The Bee printed Saturday and then a letter from today (Nov. 29) that "responds" to the article.

Leadership Academy blossoms
Young women to gain experience, confidence.
By Valerie A. Avalos / The Fresno Bee

(Updated Saturday, November 26, 2005, 8:57 AM)

Irma Cobarruvias, a petite Hispanic woman in her 30s with long, wavy hair, is not the quiet, perhaps passive, person some might think.

The opinionated Latina oozes with confidence and doesn't go unheard when she has something to say. That is part of what she hopes the young women in her Female Leadership Academy in Tulare County will learn over the next year. This is a pilot program that the Advocacy Coalition in Tulare County for Women and Girls — also known has ACT — has been working on for two years.

"Teenagers have the capacity to make a change if they are given the appropriate tools. ... they have the potential; they just need the guidance from us adults," said Cobarruvias, an ACT member and project coordinator for community outreach for the Kaweah Delta Health Care District.

"It's important to give them the feeling that they have the power to make a change."

The academy is a program aimed at blossoming confidence and leadership skills in young women between the ages of 15 and 20. The 13 youths in the program will be mentored by local female leaders on various international issues, with a specific emphasis on women's rights and reproductive health, Cobarruvias said. The mentors who will be involved have not yet been selected.

Sarah Khawja, 17, an El Diamante High School senior, applied to the program hoping to contribute to the community and learn more about women's rights. She wants to go to UC Irvine after high school and pursue a medical career.

"I've always wanted to do something for the community," Sarah said. "If we learn about stuff like this, then we can help our friends. This is our age of exploring things. If we learn a little more, we can bring it out to our community and friends, too."

The girls will participate in four- to six-hour Saturday retreats twice a month, with guest speakers such as legislators, attorneys and community professionals. During the retreats, the girls will learn about public speaking, how to do power point presentations and how to make effective changes on issues they are passionate about.

Savanna Estrada, 16, applied for the academy to gain more leadership skills and become more confident in public speaking, and to just have fun, she said. The Redwood High School junior wants to be a youth minister when she gets older.

"I know I have leadership qualities and that I have what it takes to change the world and make a difference. I want to learn more about myself and society," Savanna said. "And when I grow up I want to turn around and do the same — give back what was given to me."

Savanna's mother, Jessica Vasquez, said the program will enhance her daughter's existing confidence and wished this program existed when she was her daughter's age.

"Back then there were a lot of difficult times. There was very little help for teens when I was their age. There were very few mentors. I'm really glad this program is here for these girls," Vasquez said.

Vasquez beamed about Savanna being a straight-A student and how when she sets her mind to something she goes for it. That includes playing right defensive guard for the boy's Redwood High School football team.

"I didn't want her to do it, but I wasn't going to stop her from doing it. I'm very proud of her," Vasquez said. "I wish I was like her when I was young."

And here is the letter from Mr. Chynowyth:

'Better suited'
(Updated Tuesday, November 29, 2005, 5:35 AM)

One hopes the "leadership" taught at the new Tulare County "Female Leadership Academy" [story Nov. 26] will include study of history, human nature, right order and the common good, along with its "specific emphasis on women's rights and reproductive health." We doubt that girls must exercise "leadership" to learn about "reproductive health," a discipline practiced for ages by their ancestors. Furthermore, since throughout history there has never been a society based on female "leadership," the exercise seems overreaching.

Male leadership considers both men's and women's "rights," as shown by the Titanic men who gave up lifeboat seats to women and children.

In judging "female leadership," one must start with the voices. KMJ Radio's "Radio Tradio" reveals women's sweet, delightful voices, best in intimate milieus and relationships, lilting and alluring, designed to please. The male's is more authoritative, utilitarian, deeper and easier to understand, better suited to public leadership.

The Catholic Church suggests women become fully aware of the greatness of their true mission, important both for the renewal and humanization of society and for rediscovery by believers of the true face of the church and for rearing strong, wise sons. May we hope the new school will teach this?
W. Edward Chynoweth
Sanger

This could be like shooting fish in a barrel, but I'd still like to hear what others have to say.

No Cig Pics for Kids

2005-11-18T20:01:00.000-08:00

Since I already wrote this on my own blog, I'm not going to repeat it here. But I thought some of you might find it interesting.

DID YOU VOTE?

2005-11-08T14:56:00.000-08:00

GO TO THE POLLS AND EXERCISE YOUR VOTING RIGHTS!

Doesn't matter what your personal politics are, just vote.

Just do it!

(climbing down off of Soap-Box and putting it away)

Voting To Go To H - E- Double L

2005-10-30T09:16:00.000-08:00

Sunday is my catch-up-on-my-serious-reading day. Stuff like news, work-related stuff, and, if applicable, ballot measures that must be voted on in upcoming elections. In the course of doing some online research on the special election taking place in our fair State this Nov. 8th, I ran across this interesting little tidbit in the muddy backwaters of the Internet.

Some hilarious quotes:
“Anyone who knowingly or through indifference votes irresponsibly is not a practicing believer. Only practicing believers are admitted into Heaven.”

“To vote for automatically excommunicated Catholics or for members of Secret Societies and Others that are Highly Offensive to God is Condemnatory.”

“A grave offense against God is committed when someone votes for anyone who is pro-abortion or pro-choice from the instance of conception. A candidate who is not morally for innocent life should not be expected to be just in civil affairs. One who votes favorably for such a candidate is guilty as an accomplice in murder against the Commandments of God.”

The funniest quote:
“How one votes can mean the difference between going to Heaven or to Hell. Those who are not careful about who they vote for rate as being offensive to God. Those who vote for any of the following and fail to sincerely repent before death –an event that can take place at any stage of life– should expect to spend eternity suffering in Hell:”

I didn’t include the “following” in the quote above as y’all can go to the WebCultSite™ and read it yourselves.

This is the first time I’ve ever read how I vote weighs in the decision as to whether I make to the Big House in the Sky or the Fiery Pit Below. I mean, I know I'd go see Lu (if I was a Believer) for drinking too many shots of tequila, smoking that special cigarette that one time, eating too much at every Thanksgiving I’ve attended at my sister’s house (gluttony is a sin you know), fornicating, looking at pornography and my fucking swearing habit, but I didn’t know I’d go to The Pit of Despair for voting wrong. I thought the Constitution’s 19th Amendment (for you males, it’s the 14th & 15th) gave me the right to vote and the rest of it guarantees no one interferes with how I vote? Now The Almighty™ is moving in on how I vote? Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, is nothing sacred anymore?

So, does this mean that the idiotic Californians who voted to put Da Terminator in the Governor’s House are all going to Hell™?

Is it just my small sample size or...

2005-10-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

Is it really just old people that do the sort of complaining I'm about to describe. I've only witnessed this type of thing with conservative evangelical Christians who were most likely born in the 30's, 40's, or 50's, but I have a rather small sample and limited pickings.

I hear it all the time. Things like, "I never fly American Airlines. Back in '77 I got delayed on my flight because they didn't put brake fluid in the resevoir." Or maybe, "I only drive Ford because my '83 Dodge had a bad starter."

For whatever reason, I keep hearing these old people denounce something completely because of one incident, no matter how long ago. Is this a generational thing? Is it a cultural thing? I'm curious one because it's bizarre and two because it's annoying.

Breast Cancer awareness

2005-10-14T13:59:00.000-07:00

If, and I mean if, you have a strong stomach and/or you support breast cancer awareness and/or you want to know what the after effects of a mastectomy are, I suggest you look at this.

I believe that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, so while this is gruesome to some degree, I feel that it really drives home the point of what sufferers of this have to go through. And how much support the research and development of treatments for cancer need to have. Although this picture is of one of the more extreme cases (from what I can tell in some brief research), it's sort of mindnumbing how coarse a lot of our treatments still are.

I found this picture by hitting the "next blog" button by the way. I wasn't doing any weird searches or something like that.

Look out everyone!

2005-10-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

Here's some very important late-breaking news: Katie Holmes is reportedly pregnant.

Hooray! I can't wait to see what Tom Cruise says/does on his next round of talk show visits. Let's see, jumping on couches: out. Swinging child from balcony: been done. Shoving vitamins down Katie's throat after birth to deal with postpartum depression: YES!

Miers Nomination

2005-10-03T16:11:00.000-07:00

I’m just wondering how a person without any experience as a judge can get nominated to the highest court in the nation. It just boggles the mind. The only thing that keeps me optimistic about the whole fiasco is that Pat Buchanan is “deeply disheartened” by it. If this nomination can disappoint that wacko then that has to be a good thing. That fact kinda makes me happy. Confused but happy.

Anyone else’s thoughts?

Some Random Things I Witnessed Today

2005-09-27T20:59:00.000-07:00

1. A group of old men having coffee together at McDonald's (one "old man activity" I'm looking forward to later in my life). One of them had an unlit but half-smoked cigar protruding from his mouth the entire time I was there.

2. A license plate frame, on the car I parked behind at school, that read "F*ck you bi*ch, Stop looking at my *ss."

3. A truck tire pop while the driver made a U-turn up a slope (the northbound Gateway exit for those of you who know the location). I was behind the truck waiting to make the same turn watching the truck almost complete the turn when, BANG, the tire pops. I guess there was too much weight on the tire due to the slope, but yeah, it did sound like a gunshot.

4. A local Wal-Mart employee ask a customer for the time.

5. A girl I used to work with (my age) who just got engaged to the boyfriend she's had for years (also at Wal-Mart).

6. A license plate frame on a car I was behind (on the way home from Wal-Mart) that read, "Granda is my name, Slot machines are my game."

Now, some of you may think that I have too much time on my hands if I can make posts like this online. Others may surmise that I'm a very bored person. I guess there is some truth in both of those statements, but hopefully not too much. I think a better explanation is that all of these things I witnessed today just kind of popped into my head at once, and it just so happens that I have a few minutes to kill before "House" come's on. Speaking of which, I'll be going now. I hope you all had interesting days too!

More From Uncle John

2005-09-24T14:04:00.000-07:00

Hey Folks!

Thought you might all enjoy another round of funnies from "Uncle John's Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader," volume 14.

SURVEY SAYS...
Remember the Fast Money round on Family Feud? Answers come easily when you're sitting on your sofa...but imagine the pressure you'd feel on national television. You might even say something stupid.

Q. Name a fruit that is yellow.
A. Orange.

Q: Name something that floats in the bath.
A: Water.

Q: Name a famous cowboy.
A: Buck Rogers.

Q: A number you have to memorize.
A: Seven.

Q: Name a part of the body beginning with "N."
A: Knee.

Q: Something you do before going to bed.
A: Sleep.

Q: Name a bird with a long neck.
A: Naomi Campbell.

Q: Name somthing with a hole in it.
A: Window.

Q: Name a sign of the zodiac.
A: April.

Q: Name something you might accidentally leave on all night.
A: Your shoes.

Q: Name a holiday when the stores are always busy.
A: Monday.

Q: Name something some people do clothed that others do without clothes.
A: Ride a motorcycle.

Q: Name something you do in the bathroom.
A: Decorate.

Q: Name the first thing you take off after work.
A: Underwear.

Q: Something that flies that doesn't have an engine.
A: A bicycle with wings.

Q: Name an occupation where you need a torch.
A: A burglar.

Q: Name an animal you might see in the zoo.
A: A dog.

Q: A job around the house that has to be done every fall.
A: Spring cleaning.

Q: Something you might be allergic to.
A: Skiing.

Q: Name a famous bridge.
A: The bridge over troubled waters.

Q: Name something a cat does.
A: Goes to the toilet.

Q: Name a song with moon in the title.
A: Blue suede moon.

Q: Name an item of clothing worn by the three Musketeers.
A: A horse.

Q: Name a famous group of singers.
A: The Simpsons.

Maybe now it'll work

2005-09-22T22:20:00.000-07:00

Remember this? And this? And finally this?

The first two were tragic incidents. I've always admired the space program and enjoyed reading many books about it as well as periodically perusing NASA's press releases on different aspects of the program. I wasn't really conscious of the Challenger tragedy but the Columbia destruction was a hard thing to see, causing me to look back at Challenger. I've posted here before about my dislike for the design of the Orbitor and its launch characteristics and now I'm happy to see some changes.

After the Return to Flight mission in July (in which, as mentioned before, the alleged problem that brought down Columbia was still an issue after millions of dollars of research and rebuilding), I was skeptical of the program and still am.

Now, it appears that NASA has finally seen the error of piggy-backing seven people on a huge gas tank and gone back to a way that worked way better. As you can see, the design is extremely reminiscent of the Apollo spacecraft. There are two obvious pluses here. One, the crew is at the very top of the launch vehicle and therefore out of the way of falling debris. Two, the module that carries the crew is easily seperated from the launch vehicle in the event of any emergency.

As far as reentry, the problem that Columbia faced, this is a much more simplistic design without landing gear and what not. The good thing there is that there is no part of the heat shield with seams in it (ie. no wheel wells).

I'm glad to see that someone has seen the obvious benefits of this design and am hoping that the implementation of it will make a drastic reduction in preventable disastrous incidents (specifically, zero, none, no more).

In closing, this is a great way to show that more complex does not equal better. Just because I can buy a phone with a camera, video games, PDA, music programs, and a blender, does not mean that it is better than just a regular old phone. Just because we can put heat shields on the bottom of a plane does not make it a better space ship than the teardrop designs of the 60's and early 70's.

Stifled artist in Fresno

2005-09-21T16:47:00.000-07:00

I thought this was a good story to discuss here. It's in today's Fresno Bee. Here's the excerpt that really got me.

Last Wednesday morning, the painting was gone. The instructor painted over it with semi-gloss paint, whiting out the form, then sanded the wall and covered it with powder blue paint and white clouds before giving the spot to another student.

Frank Quintana, the associate dean of fine, performing and communication arts, said the instructor told him she didn't paint over it because of the portrait's pointed content or the buzz around it.

He says the instructor decided it didn't conform to the standards of a mural and that it didn't blend in with the work of the other students. Repeated attempts this week to reach the instructor, Donnalee Dunne, were unsuccessful.

Well, I've been thinking about taking an art class and this sounds like just the professor for me. I mean, what's an art class that doesn't require conformity?

What the hell? "[The painting] didn't conform to the standards of a mural...." What?! Is there a book of standards for murals? I wasn't aware of it. "[Her work] didn't blend in with the work of the other students...." Because that's what makes a good artist, someone whose work looks exactly like everyone else's.

If I was the dean, I would fire this lady as fast as I could.

Cool English

2005-09-21T16:26:00.000-07:00

The following excerpt is from "Uncle John's Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader" volume 14.

BEGIN EXCERPT

In Japan, English words are "cool"--it doesn't even matter whether they make sense, which is why they're so funny. Here are some actual English phrases found on Japanese products.

On Fresh Brand Straws:
Let's try homeparty fashionably and have a joyful chat with nice fellow. Fujinami's straw will produce you young party happily and exceedingly.

Warning on a toy box:
A dangerous toy. This toy is being made for the extreme priority the good looks. The little part which suffocates when the sharp part which gets hurt is swallowed is contained generously.

On Koeda brand chocolate-covered pretzels:
The sentimental taste is cozy for the heroines in the town.

On a fondue set:
When all family members are seated around the table, dishes are all the more tasteful. If dishes are nice, the square ceiling becomes round.

Advertisement for a restaurant:
No on really goes to Aqua Bar for the drinks, but we make sure our drinks won't kill you.

On a paper coffee cup:
The Art of Hot. Side by side, I'll be yours forever. Because please don't weep.

Sign for Cafe Miami:
We established a fine coffee. What everybody can say TASTY! It's fresh, so mild. With some special coffee's bitter and sourtaste. "LET'S HAVE SUCH A COFFEE NOW!" is our selling copy. Please love Cafe Miami.

On a coat label:
Have a good time! Refreshed and foppish sense and comfortable and fresh styles will catch you who belong to city-groups. All the way.

On a package of prawn-flavored crackers:
Once you have opened the packing it will be entirely impossible for you to suppress the desire to overcome such exciting challenge of your tongue. However, don't be disappointed with your repeated failure, you may continue with your habit.

In a Honda repair manual:
No touching earth wire, fatal eventuarity may incur.

On a toothbrush box:
Gives you strong mouth and refreshing wind!

On a package of bath salts:
Humanity are fighting against tired. Charley support you.

On a washing machine:
Push button. Foam coming plenty. Big Noise. Finish.

On the front of a datebook:
Have a smell of panda droppings. This one is very fragrant.

On children's play microphone:
Mom ma! Pap Pap! I and Lady Employees to play with it together!

On a photo developing envelope:
Takes the thirst out of everyday time. A pure whiff of oxygen, painting over a monochrome world in primary colors. We all know that. It's why everyone loves fruit.

END EXCERPT.

I don't know about you, but that last one actually sounds pretty profound. I think the toy box and the washing machine phrases are my favorite. The funny thing is, most of them make sense. I mean, think of it from the point of view of someone looking in a Japanese-English Dictionary. A lot of the words they use have the intended meaning, it's just that they're trying to use common English phrases, and substituting literal synonyms doesn't always work quite the same (but it's often hilarious to English speakers!). For instance, in the example of the photo developing envelope, "A pure whiff of oxygen" is probably intended as "A breath of fresh air" or something along those lines. The meaning is about the same, but the form is different. A lot of the phrases actually make pretty good sense when you look at them--although some of them are just weird (e.g. "If dishes are nice, the square ceiling becomes round").

Anyway, hope you all got a few chuckles out of these. I think they're hilarious!

The Funeral

2005-09-18T23:29:00.000-07:00

A woman was leaving a convenience store with her morning coffee when she noticed a most unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery. A hearse was followed by a second hearse about 50 feet apart. Behind the second hearse was a solitary woman walking a pit bull on a leash. Behind her, a short distance back, were about 200 women walking single file.The woman couldn't stand her curiosity. She respectfully approached the woman walking the dog and said, "I'm sorry for your loss, and I know now is a bad time to disturb you, but I've never seen a funeral like this. Whose funeral is it?"
"My husband's."
"What happened to him?"
The woman replied, "My dog attacked and killed him."
She inquired further, "Well, who is in the second hearse?"
The woman answered, "My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my husband when the dog turned on her."
A poignant and thoughtful moment of silence passed between the two women....Finally the inquiring lady asked, 'Can I borrow the dog?"
The widow answered, "Get in line."

Y'all have a nice week, ya hear?

Today's Jokes

2005-09-12T23:51:00.000-07:00

Jesus came upon a small crowd who had surrounded a young woman they believed to be an adulteress. They were preparing to stone her to death. Jesus said: “Whoever is without sin among you, let them cast the first stone.” An old lady at the back of the crowd picked up a huge rock and lobbed it at the young woman, scoring a direct hit on her head. The young lady collapsed dead. Jesus looked over towards the old lady and said: “Do you know, mother, sometimes you really piss me off"!

Did you know.....? There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.

That is all for today. Over and out.

The wonder of stem cells

2005-09-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

Following this paragraph is a recent message from a member of the "Community" where I work. I have changed the names because I didn't ask permission to post it here.

A message from Johnson Smyth to the Community… a note about my recent absence…

As some of you know, my older brother Lewis, who lives in Canada, was diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma in January 2004. He successfully completed chemotherapy and was in remission for about a year. Everything changed in May when tests revealed that his lymphoma had mutated and was aggressively attacking him. He and his wife Shannon soon learned that his only hope for survival was a stem cell (similar to bone marrow) transplant.

His first step was to undergo “salvage chemotherapy” (actual doctor’s term). This is designed to keep the mutated cells from spreading until an appropriate stem cell donor can be located. An identical twins makes the best donor, a sibling is the next best possibility with about a 25 percent probability of a match.I volunteered to be tested as a possible donor. About two weeks ago I learned I was a probable match. I flew to Canada on Wednesday of this past week for further testing and final preparations. I subsequently learned that despite our many differences, including different blood types, Lewis and I are a perfect-10-for-10-match on each of the 10 stem cell markers that relate to the immune system. Lewis, the retired engineer, calls this “wonderfully improbable”. I call it a “miracle”.

Lewis was admitted to the Leukemia/BMT Unit at [such and such] General Hospital this past Friday. He will receive chemo and radiation treatments over a six day period designed to totally eliminate the cancer as well as his immune system.

Meanwhile, I am receiving a series of daily injections designed to stimulate excessive stem cell production. On Wednesday I will undergo the first “extraction”. This is a 4-8 hour process that effectively suctions blood out of my right arm, separates it, extracts the stem cells, reassembles it and returns it to my system through a vein in my left arm.

Once enough stem cells are collected they will be transplanted into Lewis – probably next Thursday or Friday. Once that is done, my donor role is complete. The doctors suggest that it will take a few days of rest for me to recover. It is a much different story for Lewis. It will take 3-6 weeks for my stem cells to stimulate new/appropriate growth in him and there are many obstacles and dangers along the way. He will be hospitalized a minimum of 3-6 weeks and probably as long as 100 days, possibly longer. To survive 100 days is a major milestone. To survive 12 months is an excellent indicator of full recovery. With a sibling donor-match like his/mine the probability of reaching 12 months is 75 about percent. We are encouraged.

A 4-year age gap between Lewis and I contributed to a less than close relationship when we were growing up, but by choice, as adults, we have developed a wonderful friendship. Over the years we have learned that we have many common interests and hobbies. We have become closer with this challenge. I am thrilled and humbled to be able to help him.

Shannon, who will be Lewis' primary caregiver, has rented an apartment directly across the street from [such and such]GH. We appreciate your thoughts, good wishes and prayers.

Just amazing! When I hear about this kind of stuff, I can't imagine why anyone would want to hamper stem cell research. Stupid "playing god" argument.

"Intelligent Design"? Pshaw!

2005-08-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Jumped the Couch, oh my

2005-08-27T22:50:00.000-07:00

August 27, 2005
Bike-Deep in the Big Muddy
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
New York Times

W. has jumped the couch.

Not fallen off the couch, as he did when he choked on that pretzel.

Jumped it.

According to UrbanDictionary.com, "jump the couch" has now become slang for "a defining moment when you know someone has gone off the deep end. Inspired by Tom Cruise's recent behavior on 'Oprah.' Also see 'jump the shark.' "

The former stateside National Guardsman who was sometimes M.I.A. jumped the shark by landing on that "Mission Accomplished" carrier. (With Tom Cruise cockiness.)

Then, as president, he jumped the couch by pedaling through the guns of August - the growing carnage and chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He did do a few minutes of work this month, calling a Shiite leader in Baghdad a few days ago to lobby him to reach a consensus with the Sunnis, so Iraq doesn't crack apart. But the Shiites and Kurds ignored the president and skewered the Sunnis.

Iraq, it turns out, is the one branch of American government that the Republicans don't control.
W. had a barbecue for the press on Thursday night. (If only the press had grilled him instead.) He mingled over catfish and potato salad with the reporters, who had to ride past Cindy Sheehan's antiwar encampment to get to the poolside party.

Dan Froomkin wrote on the Washington Post Web site that many of the reporters "fawned over Bush, following him around in packs every time he moved." W. chatted about sports and the twins, still oblivious to the cultural shift that is turning 2005 into 1968.

As the news correspondent Dan Harris noted on ABC on Wednesday, the mood is much different now from what it was when the Dixie Chicks got pilloried for criticizing the president just before the war began.

The No. 1 music video requested on MTV is Green Day's antiwar song, "Wake Me Up When September Ends," about the pain of soldiers and their families. On Sunday, Joan Baez sang peace anthems at Camp Casey, including "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" The N.F.L. did not cancel its sponsorship of the Rolling Stones tour, even though the band has a new song critical of Mr. Bush and the war.

Gary Hart began his Washington Post op-ed piece this week by quoting from an anti-Vietnam War song, "Waist-deep in the Big Muddy, and the big fool said to push on."

The former campaign manager for George McGovern's antiwar campaign in 1972 wrote: "We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began. Who now has the courage to say this?"

Anxiety is growing among politicians on both sides of the aisle. More and more Americans don't want to stay-the-course on stay-the-course.

You'd think that by now, watching the meshugas in Iraq, the Bush crowd would have learned some lessons about twisting facts to suit ideology, and punishing those who try to tell the truth. But they're still behaving like Cinderella's evil stepsisters, who cut their feet to fit them into the glass slipper: butchering reality to make the fairy tale come out their way.

Eric Lichtblau reported in The Times this week that the administration was dumping the highly respected Lawrence Greenfeld, appointed by President Bush in 2001 to head the Bureau of Justice Statistics, because he refused superiors' orders to delete from a press release an account of how black and Hispanic drivers were treated more aggressively by the police after traffic stops. The Justice Department study showed markedly higher rates of searches and use of force for black and Hispanic drivers, compared with white drivers.

Fearing that the survey would give ammunition to members of Congress who object to using racial and ethnic data in terrorism and law enforcement investigations, Mr. Greenfeld's supervisors buried it online with no press release or briefing for Congress.

Mr. Lichtblau wrote that when Mr. Greenfeld sent the planned press release to the office of his supervisor, Tracy Henke, then an acting assistant attorney general, the section on the treatment of black and Hispanic drivers was crossed out with a notation: "Do we need this?" Ms. Henke herself had added a note: "Make the changes."

Like Condi Rice, Stephen Hadley, John Bolton and others who helped spin reality to suit political ends, Ms. Henke was rewarded by the president. She has been nominated for a senior post in the Homeland Security Department.

I feel safer already.
E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com

The Game™

2005-08-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

Peter and Adam have been arrested for robbing the World Savings Bank and placed in separate isolation cells. Both care much more about their personal freedom than about the welfare of their accomplice. A clever prosecutor makes the following offer to each. "You may choose to confess or remain silent. If you confess and your accomplice remains silent I will drop all charges against you and use your testimony to ensure that your accomplice does serious time. Likewise, if your accomplice confesses while you remain silent, he will go free while you do the time. If you both confess I get two convictions, but I'll see to it that you both get early parole. If you both remain silent, I'll have to settle for nominal sentences on firearms possession charges. If you wish to confess, you must leave a note with the jailer before my return tomorrow morning."

According to the information given above, which is the better strategy - Confession or Silence?

Do you confessss? (Bonus points to the first one who can name the movie that line comes from.)

Ocean Pictures

2005-08-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

Oops! I almost forgot to put up a few of my ocean pictures, now that I have a broadband connection to the internet again. So, without further ado, here are three of the "ocean pictures" I took during my trip to the coast.

Just your basic shot of the ocean. I included a portion of greenery from the cliff top to add some vibrancy and depth. You can also see a few boats here and there if you really squint.

Here's a cool shot with a house or hotel on an ocean-side cliff. There is also a lone canoer in the water below.

I like this one a lot. I love how the protruding strip of land separates the grey, overcast sky from the dull, blue water. But that strip of earth slowly disappears as your gaze moves further from the shore, and the two entities of sea and sky slowly merge together. I also like how the pier crawls into the scene on its crooked legs, with several sailboats floating just beyond its reach, waiting for their next voyage.

All of these shots were taken in Capitola, CA. There is a road that goes right alongside the cliff, with strips of parking on alternating sides, where I stood to capture these pictures. I actually had to hop over the fence in front of the parking spots onto the edge of the cliff so I could get an unobstructed view, but it was virtually from the road. (Don't worry Mom; the "edge of the cliff" was plenty big and safe).

I hope this has satisfied your desires to see ocean pictures, but if you're like me, they will only further whet your appetite to take another trip to the coast.

You've been Steyn'd!

2005-08-21T12:32:00.000-07:00

More from everybody's favorite guy!

Here's a sample:

They're not children in Iraq; they're grown-ups who made their own decision to join the military. That seems to be difficult for the left to grasp. Ever since America's all-adult, all-volunteer army went into Iraq, the anti-war crowd have made a sustained effort to characterize them as "children." If a 13-year-old wants to have an abortion, that's her decision and her parents shouldn't get a look-in. If a 21-year-old wants to drop to the broadloom in Bill Clinton's Oval Office, she's a grown woman and free to do what she wants. But, if a 22- or 25- or 37-year-old is serving his country overseas, he's a wee "child" who isn't really old enough to know what he's doing.

Okay, let's make it a clean fight: no knives, no biting, no scratching, no spitting, no kicking, no hitting below the belt, no logical fallacies.

A shameless, desperate plea

2005-08-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

As some or all of you may know from prior posts, I've had a disproportionate (compared to the number of years I've been driving) amount of car problems in my life. Well, I've soon got another one.

I'm currently driving Peter's old car, which was a sweet car until that drunk driver crushed it like a tin can in the middle of the night. It didn't run so well when I got it, but I can't complain about a free car that helped me not get up at 5:50 in the morning to ride the bus. Anyway, that car is now due to take the evil impending smog test this September I believe, ha, that's in a couple of weeks. It won't pass. Trust me on this one. I don't have the money to fix it (a problem that will come into play again in a moment or two). I wouldn't want to continue driving it even if it did pass smog simply because it's not safe after the damage it sustained.

So, my plea is this. If you see someone giving away a late model Honda with 10,000 miles or an abandoned mint condition 2005 Celica, give me a ring. I obviously can't afford a new car or even a used one. I just don't have the cash (or credit) to do so. I'm not asking for a handout either. I know you all have your own financial woes; I'm just asking you to keep your eyes peeled for the deal of the century, and I'll figure out where to get the cash (selling drugs, pimping, etc).

My current solution which isn't entirely disagreeable is to go back to riding the bus and getting a bicycle for fair weather traveling. I don't have to pay insurance, registration, gas, and the list goes on. (This is probably the only way I'll save any money to buy another depreciating money pit anyway.) So, thanks for your help in advance. Advice is welcome.

Current car

Previous car

There is something very similar about these two cars...if I could just put my finger on it...

Money, That's What I Want

2005-08-15T06:20:00.000-07:00

Grandma was wrong, money can buy you happiness! Interesting. But the Beatles were still right: money can't buy you love.

I Have Returned

2005-08-14T19:12:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from a four-day trip to the coast. I positioned my main base of operations in the town of Watsonville, and staged trips to both Santa Cruz and Monterey.

I must say first off that the weather was DEE-LIGHTFUL! The sky was cloudy; the air was moist, cool, and smelled slightly of salt; the chilled breeze was invigorating; and the sights of the sea were, as always, hypnotic and tantalyzing. I could sit on the end of a pier and look out over the water all day and never grow tired of it.

The only experience I missed during my trip was the huge crashing waves that weren't able to make it to the shores of the bay without losing most of their gusto (alas!).

But on the whole, the trip was wonderful. I can only hope that I will return to the coast again in the very near future, but only time will tell.

And, as an added bonus, I will show you all the funniest thing I saw while I was away. The following picture was taken just off of the Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey:

On one hand, it is very sad that such a sign is needed (for more than one reason). But on the other hand, it's just pretty dang hilarious!

Until next time.

Second most complicated table I've built

2005-08-09T23:50:00.000-07:00

I don't think that anyone outside of my coworker, the guy I made this for, and anyone who has been in his office have seen this table I made last winter. I am extremely proud of it, considering the conceptual drawings are small sketches made on the side of a another drawing for something completely different.

The fun thing about it is I had an idea for a top, and a basic idea for the legs, but after I built the original understructure, found it too unstable. So, in the middle of fabrication, I added the side braces to the crosses that go from leg to leg. That doesn't sound too complicated, until you consider that the curve and angles on those four pieces were all cut and shaped by hand.

The table top is made from 3/4" plywood with a cherry veneer and the rest is made from solid cherry. The entire thing is mortised and tenoned together except where I scabbed on the improved design with screws and plugs. I then stained it and lacquered it. Pretty cool if you ask me.

If you ever want to see the most complicated table I've built to date, you'll have to visit one of my parent's houses because I'm not putting pictures of those up on the internet. I'm not ready to share that design with the world. Someday I'll work in a high end furniture shop and make stuff like this all the time. For right now, I'm content making it for nearly nothing (for right now).

Interviewing & Hiring

2005-08-06T16:50:00.000-07:00

Well. I just had a fascinating afternoon. My boss decided to have me do the interviewing for our next couple employees. So yesterday I called three applicants and scheduled them for interviews today. After thirty minutes each, I had a pretty good idea of what needed to be done, so I decided to hire one of them. Nifty. And I learned that interviewing is a lot more fun when you're on the employer's side. In fact, it can be downright enjoyable. Shoot, I got paid to sit for an hour and a half, ask people hard questions, and watch them squirm! Well, there wasn't too much squirming, actually. I went for a more laid-back conversational approach and used more oblique kinds of questions than my boss uses. She tends to ask questions that have right and wrong answers (e.g., "Are you a fast worker or a slow one?") which means everybody says the right thing. Duh. I tried to shoot for questions that have no right answer, which was way more interesting. It made them think harder, and it kept me from having to show my hand. For instance, "If you had to work with somebody you personally didn't like, how would you deal with it? Would you try to overcome the problem with communication? Put the task at hand ahead of your personal differences? Just focus on your job and try not to worry about the other person? What's your style?" Way fun. I could get to like this.

In the urinal?!

2005-08-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

I like cellular phones. I think the technology is spectacularly convenient and magically delicious...my bad, started thinking about one of my favorite cereals.

What I don't like about cellular phones is the application of Newton's law: For every convenience humans invent, we must invent the inconvenience.

Some examples, and then I'm done:

Example number one happened not ten minutes ago here at work. I went to the bathroom, hoping against all hope (like I always do) that no one is having the same need to evacuate the body at the exact hour I do.

Side note: I don't like awkward bathroom conversations. I don't like people who crap up a storm and don't think about waiting for the only other person in the bathroom to exit before opening the stall door. And it's sometimes hard to go pee pee when you're standing right next to someone else.

Anyway, this guy is at the urinal next to me, and his phone rings. So he turns to me and says, "What timing?!" Does he ignore the phone? No, he pinches off in mid-stream and holds it while he answers and then talks on his phone! First of all, I try to minimize the amount of time my no-no parts are exposed in public areas. Second, he broke my first rule of bathrooms. Third, it was a meaningless conversation that could have taken place anywhere else. Fourth, HE PINCHED IT OFF! That's not healthy.

Ok, ok. Second example. In line at any retail establishment. If you're in line at a place where you are purchasing something and your phone rings, you have two options. Option one, the phone call is important, emergency important. In this case, you throw down whatever you've got, apologize to the nearest store employee and rush out to take care of said emergency. Option two, the phone call is not important. It is what so-and-so's girlfriend did last week at what's-his-face's party important. In this case, you hang up the phone and apologize to everyone else around you for being the moment's most annoying person in the world, then buy your things and call your friend back outside.

You are not your couch. You are the all singing all dancing crap of the world. Your phone does not own you. And take that dumbass-looking Bluetooth thing off your ear before Trekies start calling you 4 of 9.

Moving Day

2005-08-02T10:01:00.000-07:00

For those of you on the move today; try to stay cool, drink lots of water, and try to make the least amount of trips up & down stairs as possible!

Here's a picture to keep in your head when the heat and exhaustion begin to set in!

NASA, third time's a charm?

2005-07-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

Ok, so two-and-a-half years ago, the space shuttle Columbia, or mission STS-107 as it was called, came down in a blazing fireball killing all the crew members. The reason that consensus has fallen on is that a piece of insulating foam from the booster rocket fuel tank hit the wing of the shuttle on lift-off cracking or knocking loose some heat shield tiles. That injury then let plasma into the well of the landing gear upon re-entry ensuing in the aforementioned fireball.

Over the last two-and-a-half years, Nasa has spent millions of dollars on research, safety, etc and grounded all manned launches. In fact, here is a link to the archived press release that states how much the committee's budget could be: Stafford-Covey Task Group.

So, fast forward to earlier this week when the first launch since the tragedy of Columbia took place. Here is the press release from two days after the launch of the 12-day mission: More falling foam. Pardon me? Did that press release say that the same problem we just spent millions and millions of dollars on is still there? I would think that all this time, money, and work would at least produce a solution to the problem that probably killed seven people and has now put seven more dangerously close to disaster.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of space exploration, specifically manned space exploration, but I think there are things that should be taken care of. When Apollo One burst into flames killing the three astronauts inside and they couldn't get them out because of problems with the hatch, they redesigned the hatch. Seems pretty simple to me, if giant pieces of your spaceship are falling off and hitting other pieces of your space ship and damaging said pieces, stop building them with the goddamn styrofoam, or use better glue.

Blogging History

2005-07-21T16:24:00.000-07:00

Check out this nifty article on the historical antecedents of blogging in the early decades of the American Republic.

Bring back the '70's?

2005-07-19T18:23:00.000-07:00

These are hilariously bad album covers. The "christian" axe and ManOWar are hideous. Ken looks like a white Freddie Prinze Sr. - a scary version of him.

What's it for?

2005-07-15T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hey, I was pondering the existence of armpit hair. I know I'm not the only one here that thinks about these things. Well, maybe.

Anyway, why do we have so much of it? I mean, let's say that it's there because we evolved from creatures that had more hair on their bodies (most likely to stay warm). Why didn't the armpit hair diminish like the rest of the hair on our bodies, especially considering it is one of the hottest frickin' places on the human body?

Or, let's say that we were created in God's image. What the hell does God need armpit hair for? I mean, was he sitting in his design studio with the near-finished human prototype thinking, "Hey! Why don't I throw a couple of tufts of coarse hair under the arms for shits and giggles?" This God fellow doesn't seem too bright.

Money, Money Everywhere and Not a Bit of Change

2005-07-12T23:29:00.000-07:00

So, I recently took a slab of granite to a local business, hoping they could make a couple cuts in it to square up the edges. To my delight, they said they could. The man and I put the slab into his truck so he could take it out with him the next day and get it cut; I would be able to pick up the granite the next day.

Alright. No problem.

The Next Day:
I return to the business the next afternoon and find my slab of granite leaning against the front counter waiting to be picked up, as promised. On the edge of the rock, "$25" has been written in what appears to be Sharpie™ ink.

Excellent. Twenty-five dollars is within the ballpark cost I was quoted the day before.

I ask one of the two ladies in the office if they take credit cards; they don't. They can accept cash or check.

Shoot! I didn't have my checkbook because I had driven their straight from work, and the only cash I had included a hundred dollar bill, and two one dollar bills.

I hesitantly ask if they have change for the hundred; they don't. The lady said something along the lines of, "Normally I would have change, but today I don't."

Okay, so they don't have change for that big of a bill. I can understand that because it happens sometimes. Unfortunately, I happen to be under a time constraint, and don't have a lot of time to dilly-dally with getting change, but I do have a little time.

I drive down the street to the nearest bank to get change. Sorry, the bank doesn't exchange cash for people without an account there.

Damn. I figured as much, but still. Damn.

I race across the parking lot to the nearby super market. I wait in one of the two open lines, get to the cashier, ask for change for a hundred: the cashier doesn't have the change and even opens his drawer to prove it. He suggests I try the other cashier. Okay. I wait in line again, get to the cashier, ask for change for a hundred: hallelujah! He gives me five 20-spots, I run to my car, and race back to the business where my slab is.

I'm in a hurry now. I park my car, pop the trunk to save time on my way out, walk into the office, and slap $40 down on the counter. The lady walks over, looks at the money, and says something along the lines of, "Oh, you didn't get the exact amount?"

I look at the woman with contempt and say, "You don't have ANY change?"

She proceeds to pull a ten-spot out of her purse. "How much do you need?" the woman asked stupidly.

"I need $15."

The lady turns to the other woman and asks if she has any change; she doesn't.

Hooray! I don't have the exact amount, they don't have the right change, and I'm now not only out of time, but running late!

Upon discovering she doesn't have the proper change, the lady looks at me.

In response I say, "I'll have to come pick it up tomorrow. I don't have time to go get more change. Is it okay if I leave it here 'till tomorrow?"

"Oh yeah."

I walk out and drive away.

Bodice Rippers

2005-07-09T01:26:00.000-07:00

Found this hilarious website spoofing romance (a.k.a. “chick porn”) novel book covers. My two favorites are “I’m About to Let One” and “For the Love of Scottie McMullet.” Make sure you view the naughty section as well.

Exploring the Vagaries of Liability in Thievery and Sex

2005-07-06T15:07:00.000-07:00

Just a short note here. I was reading this fascinating article about Buddhist Case Law on Theft by Andrew Huxley of the University of London Law Department. There I came across this great line:

"If you think you've committed theft, check with an expert first. If you think you've had sex, then you're probably right."

Thought that information might come in handy for somebody.

Stitches

2005-07-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

Well, here is the story of my trip to the dermatologist.

I went to the dermatologist two or three weeks ago to have some moles checked out to make sure I wasn't dying from melanoma at age 24. Everything checked out until I wanted her to look at a small mole on my shoulder (closer to my neck than my arm, so I couldn't see it by turning my head).

I said, "Can you take a look at this mole?" And gestured as such to the general area of said mole. Expecting her to see which one I was talking about (because I had not noticed any other ones in that general area) she said, "Well, that looks a little off to me so I'm going to be safe and remove it and have it biopsied." I said, "Sounds good to me, I'd rather know than not."

Right then and there, she shoots me up, cuts away and puts in five stitches (there were a lot because I told her I was going on a backpacking trip in a month or so and didn't want the strap to be riding on a healing cut).

I left and went home. When I got home, I look in the mirror to see the damage and notice that the mole I was talking about...ta da, is still there. Well, having the faith that I do in the practice of medicine, I figured (and still do) that she decided that mole was okay and saw something else that I hadn't.

Two or three days later, I'm looking at the incision and seeing some redness, feeling some warmth, and noticing a little bit of pus on my bandages when I take them off. Great, an infection! Sweet!

I call the doctor and get another appointment so she can take a look. When I get there, she decides that yes I have an infection and posits that I do because what she actually removed was an inflamed hair folicle that was infected. All right, missed the mole, got the infected pimple/ingrown hair/whatever, gave me five stitches to boot, and I got an infection. The best part, during this visit and my last (to get the stitches removed), both the doctor and the nurse practitioner imply my fault in the whole incident because I was "picking" at the folicle. Yeah, ya dummy, they itch, I scratch.

She should have said, "I'm sorry, I mistook this red bump on your shoulder for cancer because you were scratching it." Damn, I'm sorry, I'll try not to get any more of them and if I do, I'll chew on painsticks to avoid scratching any of them.

Someone told me that it's malpractice, but I'm not so hard up for cash or such an idealist that I think medical professionals are perfect. I'm just upset I was one of the mistakes. Oh, well, glad it's not cancer.

Why I don't like small talk

2005-07-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

Taking place during the removal of a small number of stitches:

Nurse Practitioner: Have a good Fourth?

Me: Yeah, it was laid back. BBQ with a few friends.

NP: That's good, it's always hard to get back into the routine the day after a three-day weekend, huh?

Me: I wouldn't exactly call getting stitches removed routine.

NP: Yeah, that's not really a fun thing to do after a three-day weekend.

Me: Way better than getting stitches.

NP: Yeah, I guess you're right. Ok, all done.

Me: Great, bye.

New Employees

2005-06-30T15:31:00.000-07:00

We have recently hired a few new people at work, and I have witnessed a similar behavior among them that has caught me completely off guard: In response to a question or instruction, these people will quip back with a wise-ass remark or comment. So far, I believe these instances have begun occurring within the employees' first week of training.

I assume that each of these people means their replies to be humorous, but I find it extremely out of place and irritating--at least for a brand-spanking-new employee. It's a little different with some of us who have been there a while, who have developed somewhat of a relationship with each other. Sure, a new employee often knows one of the people already working there (i.e. their connection to getting hired in the first place), but they do not know me.

Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about.

Me: Would you like to come make a smoothee? (When employees are new, I often use polite questions, rather than harsh demands, to get them involved; All the same, I expect them to respond and do what I ask [most of them do].)

New Employee: Do I have too? (Uttered in somewhat of a joking manner.)

Me: Can you make me a such-and-such sandwich?

New Employee: No, I don't really want to. (Again, in somewhat of a joking manner.)

Me: (Walk up to register on one of my days off to order some food and/or a beverage)

New Employee: I'm sorry sir, I can't help you.

Me: Ha, ha. Yeah, yeah. (Look at menu, even though I've worked at establishment for over four years.)

New Employee: Sir, you're taking too long to order. We have a line of customers waiting. (The store is actually quite empty.)

Me: Ha, ha. Yeah, yeah. I'll have such-and-such, for here.

New Employee: We're out of that. (Again, a joke)

etc.

Like I said before, those of who have worked with each other at the store for a while will often joke in a similar fashion. But the point is, we know each other much better.

I understand that being in a new job environment might be stressful, but to behave in a way such as this still doesn't seem right to me. I never would have dreamed about talking to someone like that when I was a new employee. I did what I was told, asked questions when I didn't know how to do something, and shocked the people working on the same shift by actually taking notes! (Oh my God!)

So, is this kind of behavior inappropriate for new employees? Or is it just a double standard on my part, seeing that those of us who have been there together for a while do similar things? Or is the behavior inappropriate for all of us, new and old employees alike?

New Phrase of the Day

2005-06-30T15:21:00.000-07:00

Here’s an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal. Since I’ve been home, I’ve been feeding my news junkie habit and I’ve seen a great deal of what she’s talking about. What is wrong with politicians? I think the power goes to their heads…they either want it or are fighting to keep it. Either way it makes them look like power whores. That’s the new phrase of the day; "Power Whores". Feel free to use it other sentences. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Whole Foods

2005-06-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

So, I recently observed a woman walking through the parking lot of a Whole Foods store with a cart filled with organic foodstuffs. Hooray for her being healthy. But, where was this lady walking to in her salmon-colored dress? To a Toyota Land Cruiser, which gets 13/17 on the MPG by the way.

I must say the only thing that stopped me from making a comment like, "Seen much dirt with that thing," or "I'll bet that has a lot of torque in the low gears, doesn't it?" besides being beaten to within an inch of my life by an $80 dollar handbag was my girlfriend locking the rolldown window on the passenger side of the car. Damn electric windows.

SUV's: slowly making the world safer by killing off the people that drive them.

Cruise Out of this World

2005-06-25T06:12:00.000-07:00

Did anyone else see the Matt Lauer interview with “I’m just so very happy and I have to slop it all over the place” Tom Cruise? Is anyone else disgusted with his denouement of psychiatry (Yeah, because the Church of Scientology is really a “top gun”, Grade A science/religion), drugs, and Brooke Shields? He was pretty scary in this interview – the Washington Post article
describes it better than I could. Basically, I thought he was acting like a jerk. Just because he’s read a few research papers doesn’t make him a scientist or an expert. And I doubt he’s read the papers himself, he’s probably read someone’s summary of the research.

Comments? Thoughts?

Rotten Kids? Or Rotten Parents?

2005-06-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

Today at work I overheard a snippet of a conluding conversation between a couple of customers (I believe it was just two women, maybe three) who were on their way out of the store after lunch. One of them made a comment along the lines of, "I'm just glad to know that I'm not the only one with rotten kids. I was beginning to think it was just my kids. (Slight pause). I'm glad that your kids are rotten too."

Now, that last sentence was said very much "toungue-in-cheek," and the lady may have even kind of chuckled while saying it, but it still came off to me as being rude (a quality that seems to come quite naturally [as well as invisibly] to many of the jerks that come through the store). But that's not all that troubles me about the woman's comment.

Though I must allow for the fact that I did not hear the entire conversation, having worked at the store for as long as I have has allowed me to overhear many conversations and snippets of conversatoins, so I like to think I can probably make a few assumptions pretty safely.

The woman's comments imply that she believes the "rotteness" she spoke of is an inherent trait of her children. Now, if she wants to make that assumption about her own children, I guess I must grant her that right. However, she should not apply her skewed judgements to her so-called friend and her kids.

Why is the inherent rotteness manifest only in the children? It seems more likely that the rotteness is inherent in the woman's parenting ability, especially if her way of dealing with her "rotten kids" is simply to bitch about them to her friend (while, I assume, she either just screams at her kids at home, or gives in to everthing they wish--I have seen both tactics used heavily, just inside the store!).

"I was beginning to think it was just my kids." Now, I might not have that quote verbatim, but the woman in question definitely said something close to that. My only response is, "WHAT!?!?!?!?" (or, for my Spanish speaking friends, "¿¡¿¡Como!?!?"). Has this lady been walking around with a bag over her head? (Whether or not she should walk around with a bag on her head is a different discussion entirely). I have but to walk from my front door to my car to be exposed to "rotten kids" (not to mention rotten chickens!--also another discussion). This woman is living in an opaque bubble of denial.

Whatever the case, I was, once again, not impressed by a customer. But don't worry, come the next round of "Monday through Friday," I'm sure I'll be unimpressed several times each day.

In Memory of Henry Snowden

2005-06-23T14:23:00.000-07:00

I was running an errand for work today and saw a license plate frame on the back of a "tricked out" Dodge Stratus. It said, "In Memory of Henry Snowden".

I just want one thing from my family when I die. I want a license plate frame in memory of me. Don't donate money to a good cause. Don't write my biography. Don't even talk about me. Just the license plate frame will do. I think it really portrays the depth of any relationship I've ever had better than anything else. It symbolizes my love and my sacrifices. I'm tearing up. I better go.

One Woman's Swimsuit is Another Woman's Dinner

2005-06-22T23:11:00.000-07:00

Tubini, or not Tubini: that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler at the pool to suffer
The burning UV rays of the sun above,
Or to take up a pan in the kitchen,
And by the stove make dinner? To tan: to meal;
Tubini; and by a meal to say we eat
The pasta and the thousand cheese flakes
That food is heir to, 'tis a consumption
Devoutly to be wish'd. To tan, to meal;
Tubini: perchance to sunbathe: ay, there's the rub:
For in that sunbath of death what dreams may come
When we have sweated off this suntan oil,
Must give us a towel: there's the pool boy
That makes eye-candy for so long afternoons;
For who would bear the job of cleaning pools,
The chlorine strong, the vacuum cleaner,
The pangs of fallen leaves, the skimmer's prey,
The insolence of office management
That patient merit of the unworthy tasks,
When he himself might his cleaning make
With a bare chest? Who would body bare,
To grunt and sweat under a burning sun,
But that the dread of something after swimming,
The undiscover'd urine from the boys
No swimmer returns, polluted the pool
And makes us rather ill those gulps we swallowed
When we dove into the urine we knew not of?
Thus knowledge does make cowards of us all;
And thus the chlorinated resolution
Is spread o'er the top of the water,
And enterprises the great task of the moment
With the moving current from the pump,
And cleanse the heinous action.--Soft you now!
The fair poolboy! Hottie, in thy swim trunks
Be all my sinful thoughts remember'd.

(Adapted from Hamlet's soliloquy, by William Shakespeare)

Jer-ry, Jer-ry, Jer-ry!

2005-06-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

If you're in a relationship, and differences over the fundamental principles of your respective subjectivities are making things difficult, maybe it's time to move on. Find someone new, someone who will accept you and the way your laughably limited human intelligence chooses to codify and rationalize the chaos of existence. After all, in the absence of a clear, unquestionable revelation from God, that's all we're all doing anyway. So remember: take care of yourselves - and each other.

Just read the rest.

Someone Else's Thoughts (and Observations)

2005-06-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

Today at work, one of the girls was taking a woman's order (no, this time the story is NOT about the employee, but rather, the customer). This woman, being particularly rude, I thought, was talking on her cell phone while placing her order. Not only was she rude, but she seemed to be taking an attitude with the girl behind the register (the only thing I witnessed the employee doing was asking questions about the order, so the rest of us employees could make it the way the customer wanted it--but I guess the woman thought the girl was interrupting her phone conversation too much, or something). At any rate, upon completing her order, the woman apologized...TO THE PERSON SHE WAS TALKING TO ON THE PHONE!!! Needless to say, I was a little bit irked, but I've learned to let things like that go. Fortunately, the girl behind the register was either ignoring the woman's behavior, or was too stupid to pick up on it.

At the gym I go to, there is an aerobic room immediately to the left of the entrance (walking into the building). For those of you who may not know, what I call an aerobic room contains treadmills, elliptical machines, and the like, and is typically used by people trying to lose weight and/or keep it off. In passing the room today, I noticed that the several people in the room were all watching the TV attached to the wall: they were watching Emeril Live™ (or whatever it's called, for those of you who have Almighty Cable). Now, is it just me, or is it strange and somewhat masochistic to watch a show all about food while one is working and sweating on a machine, trying to counter the effects of exactly what they are staring at the whole time? I dunno, just seems kinda cruel.

On my way home from the gym, I am blessed with a route that passes by a church with a marquee sign that displays highly profound and pathetic (oops, I mean poetic) messages. The latest message:

We are all pencils in the hand of God, sending love letters to the world

It really makes you stop and think, doesn't it? Maybe that's why all pencils come with erasers.

Stick it to the man!

2005-06-12T14:34:00.000-07:00

Now, I know this comes from those evil liberals at MoveOn.org, but still it's a nifty little breakdown of the Social Security, uh, thing that the President keeps raving about.

Looky looky. I'd like to see 6.2% of Bill Gates' income in the system, wouldn't you?

First Grader on the Bible

2005-06-09T14:52:00.000-07:00

"There's something nasty in the Bible in my backpack," she says. She has a little red "My First Bible" that she has been displaying prominently on her desk and reading during silent reading time.

"Something nasty?" What's in the Bible that's not nasty?

"Yeah, it's a man and a lady . . . and . . . they're . . ." Her voice drops to an unintelligible whisper.

"What are they? If you're going to talk so quietly, you'll need to come closer," I say.

The little boy next to her darts up to me and cups his hands to whisper, "They're naked!"

"Ah. Well, yes." Adam and Eve, of course.

Then the girl comes over and says, "They must have been poor, huh? Cuz they didn't have clothes to wear."

"Ah, well . . . uh . . ."

Another day in public school.

Some thoughts

2005-06-08T19:59:00.001-07:00

Was the term "extension cord" not ambiguous enough? I bought one at Target and apparently they call it a "16 gauge do-it-yourself cord." Pardon me, can you tell me what aisle the do-it-yourself cords are on?

Is it bad if I don't mind that all the people I went to school with who got married in school or right after graduation are now having marital problems only two or three years later?

Are Christians that drive huge SUV's for no necessity-based reasons "bad" Christians because they don't believe that the bits of the Bible about being stewards of creation apply to them and their grossly overweight vehicles?

When did we decide as a society to let peace officers and rent-a-cops be above the laws in instances like the following?

Fresno PD parked in front of a fire hydrant so he doesn't have to walk as far to get his Starbucks.

Parking in handicapped spaces to run into our breakroom and get a soda out of the vending machine.

It's not a PDA that will make me a brilliant administrator. I was wrong. It's having a Blackberry. *smack* my forehead. I'm so dumb. Oh, and I need a shiny new car of a make, model, and/or color that no one else where I work has.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Ladybug Paradise

2005-06-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple pictures from the latest backpacking trip to Redwood Canyon in Kings Canyon National Park, CA.

I've never seen this phenomenon before, but my dad mentioned that he saw it every year while working at a youth camp in a mountain area near where these pictures were taken.

Ladybugs!

More ladybugs!

Yep! Believe it or not, that red substance covering the trees like moss is, you guessed it, ladybugs! Thousands of them!

A couple members of our group came across them by happenstance, shortly after we had settled camp. I happened to be nearby when they found the bugs, and they beckoned me across the stream to see them (the water was FREEZING cold!). Upon returning to camp, I told the rest of the group about "The Gathering," and we all made a short trek to the site to see the "ladies."

It was awesome. I don't know how else to describe it.

The rest of the trip was good too. The weather was absolutely perfect, there weren't too many bugs, and one member of the group almost had a retarded deer fall on him during the night (we saw the deer wandering around our camp in the dark right before we went to bed; we figured it had fallen near our fellow camper due to the noise made by the fall; and we decided it was retarded simply because deer are usually quite nimble, and falling down seems quite odd for a deer--and hilarious!).

The trail we were on had not been cleared at all this season, so we had to go over/above/around/through a lot of debris along much of the trail (I thought it made the trip more of an adventure). Along the way we saw some very large redwoods (both standing [see Hart's Tree below] and fallen), numerous Dogwoods, and several kinds of beautiful flowers. We did not come in contact with much animal wildlife though--over the two days, our entire collective saw only a couple birds; a few flies, mosquitoes, and miscellaneous bugs; a small snake; the ladybugs; and the retarded deer.

Hart's Tree

But on the whole, it was a very enjoyable, laid-back trip.

8th Graders on the New Testament

2005-06-01T17:09:00.000-07:00

Well, once again, eighth graders were the most entertaining part of my day. This morning I got stuck herding a bunch of kids onto buses, then riding across town with them to the stadium, then telling them how to walk around the corner while they walked through their graduation ceremony, which will be tomorrow night.

And the Gideons gave them little orange KJV New Testaments, which led to the entertainment. Here are some of the things I heard students saying in class when we got back from graduation rehearsal:

Girl #1: "Why do they give us the New Testament?"
Girl #2: "Cuz they think we're Christians or something. I don't know; I don't go to church."

[sarcastically] "Let's read a passage from the Good Book!"

[upon observing a friend reading the New Testament] "You're reading it?! Oh. My. God."

[trying to read it; wrinkling nose] "I don't understand it!"

"How come the Bible's so confusing?"

[after putting it into his shirt pocket and patting it] "Now if I get shot I have the Good-Luck Book."

Activities with the New Testament: Two boys were playing catch with one. (I didn't stop them because watching kids throw the New Testament around was so fun, I just didn't have the heart tell them to stop throwing things.) Another boy had collected a bunch of them, which he then set up like dominoes and knocked down.

And, my personal favorite: "I'm already going to hell; what do I need this for?"

Then there was an interesting little conversation about the movie The Exorcist:

Girl #1: Everything in that movie really happened. That was a real story.
Girl #2: You got proof?
Girl #1: I don't need proof.
Girl #2: You need proof to prove it's right!

At least one of them is thinking rationally.

Mayonaise SUCKS!

2005-06-01T14:30:00.000-07:00

What happened? Why is mayonaise so freaking popular? Why does every restaurant have to slather it all over every sandwhich and hamburger they make? Why don't they put ketchup and mustard while they're at it (not that I have anything against those two condiments)? I mean, who decided that the entire population likes mayonaise on their sandwich while simultaneously deciding that ketchup and mustard would have to be specially requested? I think that all you people out there that like mayonaise should live for a year in my shoes and have to go to every fast food joint, diner, sit-down restaurant, club, and Mammoth Orange and have to say, "No ketchup on that please," and then repeat yourself three times and still get a sandwhich with ketchup. Bastards!

Evolution: have we come that far?

2005-05-30T22:12:00.000-07:00

Today, Karie and I went to the park (hoping to go to the Japanese Gardens but, contrary to the web page, they were not open). We saw some dragonflies. Dragon flies are pretty much the same as dragonflies from millions of years ago, maybe a little bit smaller. We saw some kids in their teens fishing. Kids in their teens didn't exist millions of years ago. People haven't been around as long as dragonflies.

It seems some people haven't learned very well that so far, we haven't found any other planets nearby that readily sustain human life either. Of course, dragonflies cannot manufacture two-liter soda bottles either, so they don't have such a problem with littering or causing much waste at all for that matter.

One teen, after finishing off whatever liquid is in a two-liter bottle, screws the cap back on and tosses it into the pond. Yes, there are onlookers. Yes, none do a thing. Karie and I, walk over to the edge of the pond, where the poorly tossed bottle has landed and she plucks it from the water. She then walks past the boy and his friends to place it in the trash can, I swear to you, not eight feet from the child. Of course, he does not notice her because he is busy beating the surface of the water with his fishing rod for reasons unknown to me.

Is this to say that humans have not been around long enough to develop a sustainable way of life without "beating" nature? I don't know. Is this to say that dragonflies are better stewards than some humans? I don't know. Is this to say that this boy needed a good whoopin'? I don't know. I just don't know what wires have to be crossed or which marbles have been lost in order for someone to blatantly disregard respect for our environment and the people in it. It's a public space, not your backyard, dumbass.

Faul Language

2005-05-27T18:04:00.000-07:00

A letter from today's Bee:

Aha! The truth is finally out. Atheism is a religion! The article on the "All atheists weekend" (May 23) held in San Francisco states: "To the uninformed, this weekend gathering here may have seemed like a church revival, full of zeal and fervor."

Webster defines religion: "A cause, principle, system of tenets held with ardor, devotion, conscientiousness, faith." Synonym: Church. Someone said: "If it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck ... ."

What excited the atheists? "The blurring of lines between church and state?" What a laugh! One goal of the stealth religion of atheism is to purge God from the government. So what is a government that can't recognize God? People aren't that stupid. It's an atheistic government. So whatever happened to drawing a line "between church and state?"

And who can forget two atheistic governments, Adolf Hitler's Germany and Josef Stalin's Russia?

For more than 200 years, this country has been governed by people, most of whom believed in a God who created all men equal. That is the basis for democracy. A democracy should have the right (remember freedom of speech?) to recognize God by means of speech, symbols and actions. (Donald Faul, Fresno)

He threw in everything but the kitchen sink. Check 'em off:

Atheism is religion. Check.
Webster's definition. Check.
Hitler and Stalin. Check.
Infuriatingly common misunderstanding of "freedom of speech." Check.
Inability to reason correctly. Check.

The Bee will certainly be getting a reply letter from me. You should write one, too, if you think you can.

Call me a Socialist if you must

2005-05-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

I just discovered that the jackass they hired as the head supervisor for my department has 129 hours of vacation saved up. Good for him. The thing that bothers me is that he's worked here for just a month over a year. With that information, also consider that 40 hours equals one week of vacation so, he has accumulated three weeks of vacation in one year. Interesting considering employees who have worked less than two years are only allowed to accumulate 80 hours of vacation per year. And if you've worked more than two years, you're only allowed to accumulate 120 hours of vacation per year.

So by my math, he has more vacation time than he "deserves" even if he's been working here for over two years. I say "deserves" because he is administrative and therefore overpaid and was most likely offered way too many incentives to take the cushy job he calls his own.

Now, my argument is that anyone with an administrative degree, a telephone, a computer, and a sweet-ass PDA can do his job. Wow, go to meetings and make informed decisions on stuff. That's tough considering all the parameters are set before you even start and the information is provided by your underlings doing all the hard work.

My job on the other hand, is very specialized. I build high end custom furniture. Very few people can do it well, let alone do it without cutting digits off. My co-worker and I save the orginization I work for thousands of dollars a year (mostly through our meager paychecks). And yet, this jerk probably gets paid $70,000 more than I do. Why am I penalized for doing something that no one else here can do, while he is rewarded for a job that almost anyone here can do? Is it because my job is service oriented? Is it because my job doesn't necessarily require having post-secondary education? Why shouldn't I be rewarded for having a highly demanded niche skill (we're backlogged at least 8 months)? I really don't like administrative professionals.

Question

2005-05-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

Why is there now a May 1990 archive containing only the reading list?

I Can See Clearly Now

2005-05-21T17:28:00.000-07:00

Last night 20/20 had a special about "The Resurrection" of Jesus. When the program came on at ten o'clock, I was in the middle of watching "A New Hope" to see how well it dovetails with "Revenge of the Sith" (very well, actually), so I put the landmark of cinematic history on pause to see what Official 20/20 Hot Chick^© Elizabeth Vargas had to say about Jesus.

Unfortunately, Vargas decided to pull a Lee Strobel and only interview believers. I remember seeing William Lane Craig, Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, John Shelby Spong, Luke Timothy Johnson, and even Lee Strobel himself. There were others, too, but the liberal Spong and a couple Jewish guys were about as close she got to real critics of Christianity, Jesus, or the resurrection. Brilliant move. So we have here a religion that claims the impossible at its core, and the only people you interview are ones who have a vested interest in perpetuating the myth. Not a single one of her interviewees was a skeptic or an atheist or a historian not attached to Christianity. How exactly are you going to come up with an honest, balanced perspective on this bizarre "event" if you don't portray the full range of scholarship on the subject? Instead, they basically just decided to give Christianity a free hour on national television to advertise for converts, which in itself is not so horrible, except that it was fobbed off as journalism.

What bugged me the most, though, was how these evangelical hucksters were allowed to assert without challenge their tired old argument that Jesus must have been resurrected from the dead, because early Christians died for their conviction that he did, and people just don't die for a lie. Whatever. That completely ignores the possibility that early Christian martyrs, even the ones who might have known Jesus personally (if he did indeed exist), died not to protect the modern doctrine that the resurrection was—and absolutely had to be—a literal, materially verifiable event, but for their anti-Roman movement.

These modern Christians confuse their own motivations with those of the early Christians, about whom we know precious little beyond inference, partly because once the Christian movement came to the zenith of its power, its leaders systematically suppressed alternative viewpoints. Sure, early Christians may have faced execution because they believed Jesus had been resurrected, but they could have had other motivations, too, particularly the advancement of their cause, which was not primarily theological in those days, but social and political. As well, there is the problem that Christianity didn't really get off the ground until years after Jesus allegedly rose from the dead, so there is no way of connecting the earliest Christian martyrs with positive knowledge that Jesus really was resurrected, outside of speculation or inference. That is, they might have been dying for the same reason that later martyrs died for—a fervent belief, without proof or having witnessed it themselves, that Jesus came back from the dead, even if he really didn't!

Nothing even remotely like this perspective showed up on the 20/20 program. In fact, it was so boring that I fell asleep midway through (but I have confirmed from other sources that no real skeptics made any appearances), then woke up two hours later to see Jimmy Kimmel showing off all kinds of Star Wars merchandise and paraphernalia (e.g., the Chewbacca Pregnancy Test, the Tauntaun "and I thought they smelled bad . . . on the outside" Sleeping Bag, which looks like guts on the inside, etc.—is this stuff for real?). Strangely enough, just before I woke up to Kimmel and his schtick, I had been having strange dreams that conflated the 20/20 program with the Star Wars merchandise, where evangelical Christians were explaining how Star Wars was evil and sinful by presenting the paraphernalia as idolatry. So, you know, their fantastic stories are okay as objects of worship and devotion, but Star Wars is not.

May the force be with you.

If there is an all-powerful being, I don't think he likes me

2005-05-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

So, sometime last night marks the sixth time a car that I own or drive has been involved in a collision. I'm 24, and that works out to nearly one collision per year that I've been driving. Let me recap.

First collision: jackass runs a stop sign while driving around the car legally stopping at the stop sign in order to run a groove down the side of our minivan with his mirror.

Second collision: jackass "swerved because there was a dog" and pushes my parked truck 30 feet up the street with his now totalled Crown Victoria. The cigarrette burns on his shirt make me doubt the dog story.

Third collision: bumped by a jackass not paying attention at a light who lets his foot off the brake ever so slightly (only collision there was neither paperwork, nor damage).

Fourth collision: jackass runs a red light and luckily for both of us, the only part of his car I touch is the rear hubcap.

Fifth collision: I get tired of everyone else hitting my cars, so I turn left in front of a lady in a Civic to get my revenge and total my favorite car.

Sixth collision: Well, I was walking out to my beautiful "Golden Wonder" as some have named it and find that it's been involved in a hit-and-run during the night.

"If there is a god up there, he's a dick," he said wearily shaking his fist at the sky.

Coffee Break

2005-05-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

We have a coffee pot at my office that is used regularly. The past couple of weeks, some people in the office have decided that the coffee pot should be used as some sort of coffee experiment and began making pots of flavored coffee. The first couple of pots weren’t too bad as the flavors were palatable with coffee; light touches of vanilla or hazelnut or Irish Crème. Then came the berry flavors. That’s right – raspberry, blackberry and the like. Flavors like that have no business in coffee except as jam on toast while drinking coffee.

The final straw came this morning when I arrived at work, ready for that first cup. In the pot was coffee flavored to taste like homemade apple pie. Now I like apple pie as much as the next person but mixed with coffee beans it smells disgusting. Kind of like used coffee grounds thrown in the trash on top of rotten apples. If I want apple pie flavor with my coffee, then it’s ala mode on a plate with a cup of black coffee.

So, now I’m sitting at my desk, bitching on the blog and drinking a diet Coke from the vending machine that I’m thankful we have here. And lurking to see when the last of the disgusting “apple pie” coffee is gone so I can whip in there and make a pot of real coffee. Or I might just pop over to the Starbucks across the street and have a latte.

Fresno Bee Columnist Promotes TV-Watching

2005-05-17T18:11:00.000-07:00

Extra! Extra! Woman writes a stupid column for local newspaper! Read all about it!

The Fresno Bee has done it again, folks! We have been provided a truly intellectual and stimulating opinion of watching TV by none other than some columnist working for the newspaper in the "Big City" next door.

Unfortunately, again, I have had to post the entire article here on the blog, seeing that online Fresno Bee articles do not seem to be accessible via links. It seems that "they" will only provide the "news" to "outsiders" in exchange for a bit of personal information (nevermind that anyone can walk into our local bookstore/coffeeshop/semi-restaurant and read the entire paper for, get this, free!). But there are obvious business reasons for requesting personal information, so I will not dwell on the issue any longer.

Without further ado, I present, "The Article."

I'm proud to admit I watch TV
By Mary Lou Aguirre / The Fresno Bee
(Updated Tuesday, May 17, 2005, 7:10 AM)

I don't care what those killjoys at TV-Turnoff Network, formerly TV-Free America, say: Weird and wonderful things happen when families watch TV together.

Last month, the organization suggested Americans turn off their television sets for one week.

Oops, I forgot to do that. And my family and I don't feel the worse for it.

At our house, we routinely watch anything from "Smallville" reruns on ABC Family to the Travel Channel's "Great Hotels" to "Emeril Live" on the Food Network. These all are shows I have watched with our 12-year-old daughter.

I have to admit it threw me the night we watched Emeril Lagasse "Bam!" his way through desserts such as baklava and Russian tea cakes. It seemed weird that Natalie didn't balk at watching a cooking show. I kept expecting her to ask to change the channel. Instead, she snuggled next to me, and our dog, Biscuit, settled in beside her. All in all, a very pleasant evening.

On Sunday mornings, we watch the Disney Network cartoon "Teacher's Pet." Nathan Lane does the voice of the dog Spot, who dresses as a boy, goes to school and often breaks into song. I enjoyed the feature film and even own the soundtrack. How weird is that? In any event, the cartoon has positive messages of personal responsibility and is a favorite of Natalie and me.

The whole family enjoys watching "MythBusters" on the Discovery Channel, "Planet's Funniest Animals" on Animal Planet, "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" on ABC Family and "What Not to Wear" on TLC.

The weird thing is how my husband likes to watch the American version of the English fashion makeover show "What Not to Wear." This is the same man who will wear a dress shirt until it's just an outline on his body. My husband also likes the History Channel (the official resting place for grainy black-and-white footage), "America's Funniest Videos" on ABC, and "The Amazing Race" on CBS.

During the early days of our marriage, we watched TV in bed. It was just the two of us, our cat Bugsy and two pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream (New York Super Fudge Chunk for me and Chunky Monkey for him).

My husband always felt guilty about our Thursday night dessert/TV fests. "My mother would be appalled if she knew we did this," he would say.

"Let's not tell her then," I'd say.

And we didn't.

My mother enjoyed watching TV, so I guess I got it from her. Although she was strict about so many things, she let us watch "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" and "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" during dinner. During the week, she ironed clothes while watching "General Hospital" back in the days when Nurse Jessie Brewer and Dr. Steve Hardy were the stars of the show.

Today, I carry on the ironing tradition while watching recorded "Oprah" and "Dr. Phil" shows. It makes ironing less of a chore. I also clean my kitchen and watch TV at the same time. What I need is a portable TV so I can clean the bathrooms while watching "The King of Queens" reruns.

As you can tell, I'm fond of television. It has not corrupted my mind or led my family down the road to ruin.

Actually, it has made me laugh, inspired me to decorate my home (HGTV) and, thanks to Emeril, made me want to "Bam!" a brisket into submission.

Does this article make anyone else cringe? (She actually watches recordings of "Oprah" and "Dr. Phil" shows...blech!) Is this woman actually advocating the watching of television?!

Aguirre claims that TV "has not corrupted my mind or led my family down the road to ruin," but watching copious amounts of TV has other effects too (some of which pertain to Aguirre and her family).

According to TV-Turnoff Network, the association dismissed by Aguirre in the first sentence of her article. Obesity (see picture of columnist here, and note the ice cream "dessert/TV fests" that took place), violence, reinforced sex roles and stereotyping ("Today, I carry on the ironing tradition [...]"), and increased risks of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and cardiovascular disease (no surprises if these exist in the columnist's family) are a few of the effects of watching too much television.

And then there's the fact that watching a lot of TV detracts from other productive and stimulating activities, such as reading, writing, conversing with other real people (or combining all three of these by interacting on an Internet blog!), and countless physical activities.

But who would want to have an attention span longer than 14 seconds; be able to think critically and engage in stimulating conversations and arguments; live a healthier, physically active life; or ponder life, its origins, and its mechanics? I know I don't! And judging by the actions and declarations of Aguirre, neither does she or her family.

But if anyone still has doubts about the glories of television, one need look no further than Aguirre herself. I mean, since she had such a perfect, television-watching childhood, and since her current family (hell, even Biscuit the dog "snuggle[s]" in for the action, as did the cats) has such perfectly pleasant experiences with TV, who's to stop the rest of the world from plugging into the Matrix™ and doing the same? Nothing, I guess.

And not only does this family watch taped talk shows and "Smallville" reruns (talk about intellectual stimulation!), but they have reaped such bountiful benefits from television: "it has made me laugh, inspired me to decorate my home (HGTV) and, thanks to Emeril, made me want to "Bam!" a brisket into submission." Ah, who could ask for more?

Now, it is not my intent to imply that television is purely evil (although I'm sure the argument could be made) or that it should be completely eradicated. But to study the researched effects of watching lots of TV only to blatantly disregard those facts simply because "I don't care" what the "killjoys" have to say about it, is staggering. And then to go one step further and advocate the deleterious practice to the community, by and large, is astounding. It is one thing to disregard one's own health and intellect, but quite another to disregard those of everyone else.

Bay to Breakers

2005-05-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if y’all get any coverage of this but for the past two years I’ve watched the Bay to Breakers footrace.
It’s eclectic as only San Francisco can be. Serious runners, costumed runners, and neked runners, they have it all. The race began in 1912 as a way to lift city spirits after the 1906 earthquake and today it has more than 50,000 participants (official registered runners and unofficial). The serious race takes about 30 minutes and the rest of the time is watching all the costumes. I, of course, watch from the comfort of my armchair as the race is broadcast on the local TV station. Maybe next year I'll participate. Maybe.

Looking for a New Job?

2005-05-14T01:47:00.000-07:00

Found this job description on the ABC news website.

iPod Loader: About 10 million iPods have been sold — not all of them to tech-savvy music fans — and millions more are expected to be sold this year. And now there's the iPod photo — so you have to know how to load music and photos. I'd love to own one, but I don't have a clue how to load the music, let alone select some 200 songs, nor do I have a lot of time or patience in which to do it! I'd hire someone to do it for me. (Time is a big factor: if it takes 10 minutes per song, and you want to load 200 songs, that's more than 33 hours of time — many people are willing to pay to save time.) Start by promoting your service to family and friends — you can charge $1 or $2 per song, plus the cost of the music. It's a nice chunk of change, especially if you're handling a couple hundred songs at a pop.

Man, it must be nice to be stupid AND rich.

Maybe I can find a job somewhere setting the preset radio stations on BMW stereos. Hmmm...if the stereo memory can hold 18 stations, and I charge $50 for each one, that's $900 a car. That means I only have to preset the stereos in 6 cars a day, for 10 days a year, and I'll make $54,000. And if they pay me in cash, I won't have to pay taxes!

Now all I need are some stupid rich people.

Yet Another Story of Moronic Coworkers

2005-05-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

The following dialogue occurred at work today. It's probably no where near verbatim, but it captures the essence of the stupidity involved.

More mature, somewhat rational employee:

You know those people who patrol neighborhoods to make sure people don't water their lawns when they're not supposed to? They never come by my house at the right time. The other day I was going home at about 2:00 in the afternoon and four of my neighbors were watering their lawns. I almost called the water patrol place, but didn't.

Moron:

You shouldn't call in your neighbors.

More mature, somewhat rational employee:

Well, there are certain times when you're supposed to water.

Me:

Besides, watering in the afternoon is the worst time to water because it all evaporates. It's best to water in the morning or evening, but morning is best.

More mature, somewhat rational employee:

Yeah, the lawn just burns it off in the afternoon. It's a waste of water.

Me:

And we don't exactly have an endless supply of water in this region

(I physically step aside from the conversation at this point, to do something a couple feet away [well within hearing range]. I also refrained from saying anything else on the subject at all [due to past experience with this particular moron, who seems unable to digest any kind of rational, logical thought if it is presented in opposition to "his or her" opinion].)

Moron:

Well, you shouldn't call them in. That's not right.

Me (thinking):

How is it not right to report them, if what they're doing isn't right?

Moron:

I wouldn't want to be your neighbor.

More mature, somewhat rational employee:

Well, I didn't call. I debated about calling, but decided not too. I don't know if I will.

Me (thinking):

Why the hell didn't you call if you so obviously feel strongly about the issue? The neighbors are in the wrong. There are rules for the situation; they are breaking the rules. And not only do the rules in this case make sense, both scientifically and geographically, but breaking rules causes disorder. There is a legal system to deal with rule-breakers and maintain order. If people like More mature, somewhat rational employee do not help uphold that system (that they are a part of) upon seeing infractions, the system, as well as that person, fails. If the system fails, we end up with a community/society that is unbearable to live in, where people who do wish to uphold the legal system are helpless to do so and, thus, have to suffer the constant idiocy of those around them (i.e., Moron, my neighbors who let their chickens run loose in our front yard, the thugs and idiots who think car engines and stereos must be deafening in order to be pleasurable, idiots who block traffic in parking lots and get mad at people who get mad at them for getting in the way, employees who get mad at their boss for telling them to do their job rather than stand around and talk, and the list goes on (unfortunately).

Moron:

You shouldn't call. Well, not unless they deserve it.

(Note: I believe the last sentence uttered by Moron is actually verbatim. And in this case [again, I know from past experience with Moron], " Well, unless they deserve it" literally translates to "Well, unless they've done something to you that you don't like. Then it's okay to do whatever the hell you want to them.")
At this point, the conversation pretty much ended.

This is the kind of stupidity that I suffer through at work. Not once does the thought of law, order, justice, environment, or just plain common sense enter Moron's head.

By the way, this is the same Moron who, just the other day, got quite angry that our boss had had the nerve to tell "him or her" to work (i.e., do "his or her" job). I tried to illustrate two points to "him or her".

(1) Maybe our boss has a different (and justified) perspective when she wants her employees to work: no one wants to pay people for standing around and talking to one another; they pay people to work; that's the point of having a job.

(2) There is no justification for getting mad at the boss for expecting employees to work, if five minutes earlier (this is true!) Moron was complaining about how a particular coworker does non-customer-related work at a table while other employees help customers (i.e., Moron expects this other employee [who is working] to stop what "he or she" is doing to "suffer" with Moron and the other employees [who, by the way, should be able to handle the customers without said employee] in helping customers. It doesn't make sense for Moron to get mad at the boss for expecting "him or her" to work, if Moron is going to get mad at other employees for "not working."

I know, I know. These two concepts I presented make absolutely no sense, but hey, call me crazy.

At any rate, upon suggesting these things, Moron asked me to stop talking because "he or she" was getting mad and didn't want to hear it (i.e., Moron was being pushed to consider the fact that "his or her" anger was wrong and unjustified, and didn't want to think about that because "he or she" KNOWS the boss was wrong in telling Moron to get to work.

And now you know the rest of the story.

The History of History

2005-05-10T19:15:00.000-07:00

All this discussion on history has got me wondering about the purpose of history. In our current culture, history is not only telling us about our past, it is a complete industry. People receive degrees verifying they are certified experts in history. We have the History Channel. We even sell history with commemorative coins, plates, books, museum fees, etc.

My question to all on this Blog is: What do you think is the purpose of learning/telling/teaching history?

I’ve come up with my own short basic list:
1. Story telling either for entertainment or pass along a moral or value or information
2. Perpetuate an ideology

There are all kinds of history, too. Family, personal, medical, government, religious, military, racial, cultural, state, city, county, civilization – which can all be combined under the big umbrella of Human history. Then there is Plant, Insect, and Animal history (if one considers Human history separate from Animal history). All of those categories fall under Earth history.

All of these histories are of various levels of importance to different people, depending on their perspective. An interesting viewpoint was made by Heath in the last blog regarding the clothing worn by 19th century soldiers which raises an interesting question of cause and effect. Did the clothing cause the 19th century values or did the values cause the clothing? How far back in history can we wonder about the cause and effect of such things? No one can speak to the values of prehistoric humans as there isn’t any written record of their thoughts, actions, and behaviors. Early human forgot to leave their stone diaries for us to voyeuristically peruse. We can only guess “through a glass darkly” based on the few artifacts they left behind. Even if we were to “reenact” prehistory, it would still be viewed through 21st century eyes. B.F. Skinner, the “radical” behaviorist who based his entire theory on operant conditioning, would insist that the environment is the cause of all that effects humans. Some, including myself, think it has major effect but is not the sum of all our behavior.

I’m still not convinced of Victor Davis Hanson’s idea of “real” history. If history for multicultural studies isn’t real history but therapy, then what is history for people of non-color, non-female, non-homosexuals? Why are stories told from the perspective of dead white men considered “real” history and all else is “therapy”? I agree with Peter’s comment that multicultural studies are guilty of teaching with monocular vision, however, I think until very recently, the same could be said of history that teaches us about “those who gave us what we have.” Hanson points out that the Greeks’ “notion of history meant inquiry about important events that cost or saved thousands of lives, or provided ideas and lessons that transcended space and time.” So, if the purpose of “real” history is to perpetuate an ideology or pass along a lesson, then my first question is whose ideology and lessons are we perpetuating? Why is “real” history defined by gender and race at all? If old white men are allowed their therapy, why aren’t others allowed the same? “Equal therapy for all” will be on my next T-shirt.

So, I put the question to the Blog!

Always On Target

2005-05-08T14:30:00.000-07:00

Victor Davis Hanson always writes the most awesome of articles. I tried posting a link to the article on the Fresno Bee's website, but you have to register in order to gain access to the article. So, seeing that some of you may not want to register, I've included the entire article here.

History no longer gets the respect it deserves

(Updated Sunday, May 8, 2005, 5:45 AM)

Our society suffers from the tyranny of the present. Presentism is the strange affliction of assuming that all our good things were created by ourselves -- as if those without our technology who came before us lacked our superior knowledge and morality.

We naturally speak of our own offspring in reverential tones. Do this or that "for the children" -- youth who are the most affluent and leisured in the history of civilization. A new Medicare prescription drug benefit will add a mountain of national debt. Yet contemporary "seniors" as a group, even apart from the largess of Social Security and Medicare, are already the most insured cohort in our society.

We rarely mention our forebearers. These were the millions of less fortunate Americans who built the country, handed down to us our institutions, and died keeping them safe. Such amnesia about them was not always so. Public acknowledgment of prior generations characterized the best orations of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, who looked for guidance from, and gave thanks to, their ancestors.

We rarely do. We argue endlessly over the academic freedom of a Ward Churchill -- plagiarist and faker -- as he becomes famous for calling the 3,000 murdered on Sept. 11 "little Eichmanns." Few in the debate pause, if just for a moment, to think of the thousands of now anonymous Americans blown apart over Berlin or on Okinawa to ensure that we can freely embarrass ourselves over this charlatan.

Why do we not carry with us at the least the whispers of those who gave us what we have, from the Hoover Dam and Golden Gate Bridge to penicillin and relief from polio? In part, it is a simple ignorance of real history. The schools and university curricula today are stuffed with therapy -- drug counseling, AIDS warnings, self-improvement advice, sex education, women's/gay/Chicano/African-American/Asian/peace/
urban/environmental/leisure studies. These are all well-meaning and nice -isms and -ologies that once would have been seen as either non-academic or left to the individual, family or community. But in the zero-sum game of daily instruction, something else was given up -- too often knowledge of the past.

What history we know we often judge as illiberal, forgetting that we are the beneficiaries of past sacrifices and wealthy largely because of the toil of others far less secure. History is also not easy melodrama, but rather tragedy.

It was hard for women to be fully equal in the pre-industrial world of rampant disease and famine, when they were pregnant 15 or so times to ensure that three to four children survived to keep the family alive. In the so-called intolerant past, nine out of 10 Americans worked on the farm until dark just to feed the populace; less than 1 out of 100 do it now. Before dismissing them as hopelessly biased, sexist, superstitious or prejudiced, at least concede that most of us sensitive suburbanites would collapse after a few minutes of scything, threshing, milling and baking to get our daily loaf.

To appreciate the value of history, we must also accept that human nature is constant and fixed across time and space. Our kindred forefathers in very dissimilar landscapes were nevertheless subject to the same emotions of fear, envy, honor and shame as our own.

In contrast, if one believes human nature is malleable -- or with requisite money and counseling can be "improved" -- then history becomes just an obsolete science. It would be no different from 18th-century biology before the microscope or early genetics without knowledge of DNA. Once man before us appears alien, the story of his past has very little prognostic value.

Finally, there is a radically new idea that most occurrences of the past are of equal interest -- far different from the Greeks' notion that history meant inquiry about "important" events that cost or saved thousands of lives, or provided ideas and lessons that transcended space and time.

The history of the pencil, girdle or cartoon offers us less wisdom about events, past and present, than does knowledge of U.S. Grant, the causes of the Great Depression or the miracle of Normandy Beach. A society that cannot distinguish between the critical and the trivial of history predictably will also believe that a Scott Peterson deserves as much attention as the simultaneous siege of Fallujah, or that a presidential press conference should be pre-empted for Paris Hilton or Donald Trump.

Reverence for those who came before us ensures humility about our own limitations. It restores confidence that far worse crises than our own -- slavery, the great flu epidemic or World War II -- were endured by those with far less resources at their disposal. By pondering those now dead, we create a certain pact: that we, too, will do our part for another generation not yet born to enjoy the same privilege of America, which at such great cost was given to us by others, whom we have all but now forgotten.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. You can reach him by visiting www.victorhanson.com. His column runs Sunday.

He never hesitates to pound the masses (except for his seemingly out-of-character, flowery article about the Pope) with his accuracy, clarity, and poignancy. He has a broad and critical historical perspective that gives power and meaning to everything he writes.

Truly inspiring.

Sacred Cows

2005-04-29T16:34:00.000-07:00

Some of you may ask, "How are you so lucky to be an atheist imbedded in a conservative christian institution?" Well, I just don't have an answer for you. Sometimes good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people I guess.

Today, at lunch, I got to enjoy a wonderful moment with some co-workers. Now, my department is known by many (actually just me) as the "blackhole of unskilled laborers and temp agency employees," so we get some really "interesting" people. Normally, I take my lunch at a time when I'm eating with just my coworker Harry, who is not a moron and generally refrains from saying moronic things and mispelling simple words and contractions. But today, I took a late lunch and endured the company of three other coworkers with a combined IQ just over 150 (obviously an estimation that is +/- 30 points, most likely in the negative direction).

They were discussing Terri Schaivo when I came in so I promptly tuned them out seeing as how that issue is a moot point and about a month old. At some point, I tuned back in at precisely the right moment to hear this statement: "Can you believe there is some country where they worship cows?!" At this point, I looked up to see the reaction from the other people in the room. Not one word, so the man continued, "I mean, you hit one with a car, you're busted! I can't remember what country, I think it's Pakistan." So, a fourth coworker who had entered and was at least bright enough to conclude four years at university tried to stop the man from verbalizing his idiocy by saying something like, "Well, I think it's actually some forms of Hindu and in India." So, the man changes directions (he doesn't care where these "crazy people" are). "I just can't believe anyone would believe that a cow is a god. It's a cow! It's McDonald's! Not a god!!"

Of course, I wasn't going to ask him to name a country where the entire population worships within one religion because I don't think one exists, but apparently, the entire population of Pakistan worships cows. I also wasn't going to point out that at least these people worship something that's not invisible, intangable, unknowable, and vengeful on top of that. I promptly left with my reading and couldn't wait to get back home and post this story. Interestingly, he was correct with two of his last three statements. It is a cow. They are sometimes used at McDonald's.

Medicine ain't perfect

2005-04-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

Had a dental appointment yesterday, not one of those regular cleanings though. It was more specific, two fillings to be exact. Anyway, I'm going to this new dentist, new to me, not to the practice of dentistry and apparently, he saw in me after two visits either a gullible guinea pig or someone who didn't mind the idea that medicine is a practice that constantly develops and improves and also makes mistakes.

The backstory runs something like this. On my last visit (and the first to this particular office) he noticed a cavity in one of my wisdom teeth and what seemed to him to be a stain or very, very slight surface cavity that was about the size of a pin hole.

So, showing up at my appointment yesterday expecting to be shot up with novacaine on both sides of my mouth, he offers me the chance to go without the numbing, which would require me to wait until several hours after dinner before I could actually eat. So, never having had that opportunity before, I said, sure. Especially after he said that wisdom teeth have very few nerves and the other tooth was basically going to be lightly ground.

So, he started on the wisdom tooth and the spotlight they use to see into your mouth, flickered and died. So, rolling with the punches, he says, "No problem, I got this handy-dandy drill with headlights built into it." He finishes drilling out that tooth with only a couple of points when I felt some pain (oddly enough, not with the drill but the cold water and air used to clean away the filings and dry the hole in preparation for the polymer filling). Great. One down, one to go.

Well, upon commencement of drilling on the second "stain" he discovered a sizable cavity that had developed under the enamel and spread bigger than the pin hole. Of course, I was without novacaine and could immediately feel the pain. Noticing my discomfort, he tells me that what really hurts is the cold water that sprays onto the high-speed drill bit, so he pulls out this low speed bit with what appears to be a dull sort of burr. Then he says, "This actually isn't sharp at all and wouldn't hurt your enamel one bit. See." And then proceeds to turn the drill on and push on a couple of my other teeth with no noticable effect (I'm watching through a mirror). He then described a tooth cavity as having the texture of rotten wood which is why the bit doesn't really need to be sharp except to go through the enamel as he had done with the high-speed bit. He was right of course that the low speed bit didn't really cause any pain at all because it didn't require the water to cool it off.

Anyway, throughout the process he would lean back for a few seconds to decide which bit he wanted to put in the drill or what remedy he could use because the light was out and the gun with the light on it blew cold water or talk to me about Doubt because I had brought it with me to read or tell me exactly what he was doing and what problems he was running into while working on my mouth. Overall, it was a fun experience because I learned a lot and because he was honest about the process. It was the most fun I ever had while having teeth filled.

OnStar

2005-04-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

Last night, Karie and I were watching a little bit of the free programming provided on my rabbit-eared boob tube and caught a commercial for that new-fangled dealio called OnStar that they're putting in automobiles now. Apparently, it does all sorts of things like mapping out destinations, and keeping you from getting lost. It also calls emergency services when you crash or fall asleep at the wheel and then crash. Neat, huh? At the end of the blurb, they say which car manufacturors are providing OnStar in their cars. Surprise, HUMMER is putting it in their personnal carriers as well!

Well, this is how the commercial is formatted, there is a narrator who tries to scare the shit out of you and then an excerpt from an emergency call is played for the listeners' enjoyment. Something like this:

OnStar operator: "Hello? Sir, Ma'am? I see that your airbag deployed, is anyone injured?"

Passenger in car: "Help, [garbled] unconscious, I'm scared!"

OnStar operator: "Emergency services are on the way, I'll stay on the line until they arrive."

And so on and so forth.

So, finding humor if both the idea that you would talk to your dashboard in the event of a collision and that HUMMER offers this service, I started joking around with Karie, making up my own emergency call which went something like this:

OnStar operator: "Hello? Sir, Ma'am? I see that your airbag deployed, is anyone injured?"

HUMMER passenger: "I just hit something, it came out of nowhere. We're all ok and everyone seems fine."

OnStar operator: "Can you describe what you hit? Do you need emergency services?"

HUMMER passenger: [in the background] "My neck hurts a little." [original passenger] "I can see what it was in the rear view mirror, I think...yeah...that looks kinda like a flattened Toyota Prius. Yeah, it is!"

Fade back to narrator.

"OnStar, we're there when you need us." Or whatever the hell their annoying slogan might be.

Vindicated!! Ha Ha!

2005-04-22T16:49:00.000-07:00

Well, it has finally paid off. I knew that apathy and idleness would someday reward me and that day has come. I moved into my apartment in October of 2003. My dishwasher stopped draining in October of 2003. I waited until November of 2004 to put in a work order, never set up an appointment with the maintenance guy, and apparently my work order fell to the wayside. Well, I called again in April of 2005 to finally rectify things. A new repair guy was immediately sent out (yesterday, in fact).

A funny thing about dishwashers (especially those built in the 80's or earlier) is that they don't really work that well if you stop running them for oh...a year and a half. That's because all the rubber parts crack and shrink causing all sorts of leaks and what not. So the repair dude immediately told me the value of the washer was less than the cost of repair (in other words, my dishwasher was totalled).

Today, I am sitting here with a beautiful new dishwasher that is white like my other appliances, not wood-grained. See kids, if you let stuff go long enough, it'll eventually turn out better than it might have if you had intervened at an earlier date.

God works in mysterious ways folks. He is risen!

P.S. I'm getting linoleum in my bathroom and kitchen instead of the wonderful carpet they have here now. Yay!

So Very, Very Tired...

2005-04-17T23:15:00.000-07:00

Enough, enough. I need hear no more about our raging gasoline prices. The horror, the horror! If I hear one more person say something like, "I remember when you could get gasoline for 20 cents a gallon in 1937." Oh, poor you, have you heard of inflation? No? Ok, well, according to the 2005 dollar, you were paying $2.68 a gallon back then. Yes, yes you were. Don't argue with me. Go to the U.S. Department of Energy and ask the for the records. It's all there.

Gas costs money. Get over it. Yes, gas prices are regional, get over it. There's no sales tax in Oregon. You don't like sales tax, move to Oregon. You don't like high gas prices, move to Arizona. You make certain compromizes to live in certain places. If I want to live in New York city, I'm going to pay thousands of dollars for an apartment. If I want to live in San Francisco, I probably won't own a car. If I want to live in Phoenix, I should invest in sunblock and air conditioning companies. Because I live in California, I pay more for my gas, but I get fresh produce, I get to be mere hours from ocean, mountains, lakes, and even closer to hills, plains and rivers. Within a 6 hour radius, I can see Half Dome, the Golden Gate Bridge, Hollywood, some of the largest living trees on the planet, a booming worldwide agricultural center, some of the greatest wine country in the world, Monterey, SF, LA, Carmel, Morro Bay, Pismo, Civil War forts, one of the most historically famous prisons in the world, one of the most diverse regions in the world, several of the best universities in the world, and I still have to hear some jackass call into a conservative radio show and complain about paying more money to fill up his car/truck/SUV. Ride the goddamn bus or train, get a bicycle, do whatever, just shut up.

D'oh!

2005-04-02T12:41:00.000-08:00

Sitting here in the bookstore at a table with my computer. A woman and her little daughter are examining the remaining Easter books, which are for sale. Most of the bunny books are gone, but there are plenty of Jesus books for kids. The girl was looking at one a minute ago and commenting that in one picture "There are only a few drops of blood on him!" Because, you know, it's important to visualize Jesus beaten to a bloody pulp. If there's anything Mel Gibson has taught us, it's that Jesus was beaten to a bloody pulp. Bloody. Pulp. Beaten. Like strawberries in a blender.

So the mother said, "Well, they probably didn't want to draw all of the blood."

Because, you know, some Christians just don't have the kind of devotion it takes to make children visualize their Precious Lord and Savior beaten to a bloody pulp on the day of his brutal murder, also known as Good Friday. It was such a good day, when Jesus was beaten to a bloody pulp. Beaten, beaten, beaten.

Christianity. It's a religion of peace. Just like Islam.

Because, you know, it's okay for people to beat their Lord and Savior to a bloody pulp, because that just demonstrates their depravity, and they can't help it anyway, you know. It's also okay for other people to beat Christians to a bloody pulp, because that just demonstrates their depravity. It's a religion of peace. Peace, peace, peace, peace, peace. Bloody peace. Just don't forget to get yourself washed in blood. It's the only way you'll get that peace that transcends understanding and logic.

All Popes Are Like Grass

2005-04-02T12:03:00.000-08:00

So, uh, has anybody else noticed the way the Pope is being eulogized before he's actually dead by the same people who did some serious freaking out when it was suggested that Terri Schiavo had no chance of improving or surviving without technological intervention? Why is it okay for the Pope to die, but not for Terri Schiavo? When those doctors let his blood stop circulating, will there be an uproar? Ha!

This whole "Culture of Life" thing is just one big sham.

Atheist’s Ode to Easter Weekend

2005-03-25T17:36:00.000-08:00

There was an email circulating recently that brought this idea to mind and combined with “Easter” resulted in the little lyrical out-take below. Sing to the tune of “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music and feel free to compose your own verses! Mine is verse/chorus/verse/chorus, so it deviates from how the original song was written but you’ll figure it out.

Chocolately bunnies and marshmallow chickens
Baskets with colored eggs and bright yellow ribbons
Mimosas with strawberry pancakes and cream
These are a few of my favorite things

When the lash bites
When the thorn pricks
And I’m thinking “ewww”
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad

Darwin and Dawkins and green evolution
Car sales and new clothes and non-violent revolutions
Bundles of books citing pagans of spring
These are a few of my favorite things

When the Cross hangs
When the Lord dies
Then the Christ appears
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel at all

Dogma the Movie and puppy tails wagging
Lattes and late nights then asses are dragging
Surfing the ‘Net for pornography rings
These are a few of my favorite things

When the dawn breaks
And the church sings
And I’m still in bed
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I am so, so glad!

Ten Commandments

2005-03-21T21:36:00.000-08:00

I've been reading stuff at FindLaw lately. It's one of those immense, interesting, and genuinely jam-packed (yes, that's the technical term) sites that almost makes me feel guilty for reading it free of charge. (But then, this is the future, I think. Maybe sites like this one and WebMD will reveal these high-level, priestly-esque professions for what they are--complicated bodies of knowledge that require little more than literacy, patience, and research skills to navigate. The expensive degrees are just what you need to legally profit from them.)

Anyway, this evening I ran across a fascinating commentary about one of the latest cases regarding the Ten Commandments, and thought I would share the link to see what any or all of you think: "Kentucky's Ten Commandments Display at the Supreme Court"

Test vs. Assess

2005-03-21T12:50:00.000-08:00

While looking up a couple things in the Online Etymology Dictionary (which is way cool if you can't afford a nice copy of the OED, by the way), I ran across entries for the words "test" and "assess." Folks in education can tell you that "assessment" is the jargon that has recently replaced "test," for reasons that are beyond my knowledge.

(I suspect, however, that the reason behind the shift is simply that educational jargon is so fragile as a professional delineator--people can learn it too easily and negate the obscurantism inherent to jargon. While every idiot knows what a "test" is, the word "assessment" is a little more obscure, so using the latter shores up the ramparts of educational elitism. Now, aren't you happy that your degree in education gives you a dense professional lingo, just like degrees in real subjects like science or medicine? That means you really did spend all those years in school for a reason, and your professional field is not something that anyone else can or should do.)

First, here's the etymology of test:

c.1386, "small vessel used in assaying precious metals," from O.Fr. test, from L. testum "earthen pot," related to testa "piece of burned clay, earthen pot, shell" (cf. L. testudo "tortoise") and textere "to weave" (cf. Lith. tistas "vessel made of willow twigs;" see texture). Sense of "trial or examination to determine the correctness of something" is recorded from 1594. The verb in this sense is from 1748. The connecting notion is "ascertaining the quality of a metal by melting it in a pot." Test-tube is from 1846; test-tube baby is recorded from 1935. Test Act was the name given to various laws in Eng. history meant to exclude Catholics and Nonconformists from office, especially that of 1673, repealed 1828. Test drive (v.) is first recorded 1954.

Incidentally, if you're having trouble with all those abbreviations, as I did the first time I read this, check out the list of definitions on this page.

Now, here's the etymology of assess:

1423, "to fix the amount (of a tax, fine, etc.)," from Anglo-Fr. assesser, from M.L. assessare "fix a tax upon," originally frequentative of L. assidere "to sit beside" (and thus to assist in the office of a judge), from ad- "to" + sedere "to sit." One of the judge's assistant's jobs was to fix the amount of a fine or tax. Meaning "to estimate the value of property for the purpose of taxing it" is from 1809; transf. sense of "to judge the value of a person, idea, etc." is from 1934.

I'm not going to suggest that the recent switch from "test" to "assessment" was some kind of conspiracy implemented by a secret commission on educational jargon, or even that the perpetrators of the switch are aware of the nuances in historical definitions of their words (or even that they are capable of finding such things out), but am I the only one who sees a dispiriting difference between the origins of these two words?

To my mind, the Latin progenitor of "test" suggests a more experimental, open-ended meaning. A testum is simply the vessel in which materials are heated and purified, revealing a previously unknown composition. On the other hand, the Anglo-French ancestor of "assess"--assesser--seems to apply an independently decided standard to its object.

So it goes in education, where we no longer give tests to reveal the knowledge of students, but assessments to ensure that the students have the knowledge predetermined by "standards." Maybe the difference is subtle, and so subtle that it doesn't really matter, but I, for one, was fascinated by the historical divergence between the roots of these two words, despite their apparent interchangeability in modern English.

Questions? Comments? Rejoinders? Rebuttals?

Look Who's Designing Now

2005-03-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

I really don't mean to always tread on Peter's postings, but the last couple of times we just seem to have found something to say at the same time. So please take notice that he has a new post below this one (although I haven't read it yet myself because it's SO FREAKIN' LONG! But I'll get to it).

Anyway, I thought you might all be interested to check out the budding fashion-philanthropist/activist/ubersupermegastar.

Then you can scroll down (and down, and down, and down) to read Peter's posting.

Also, go down one more posting to see a response I posted to Peter's other blog, about fixing mistakes in published postings.

More News from the Front

2005-03-14T17:14:00.000-08:00

Showed up at work today in one of our lovely local elementary schools, ready to sub in a first grade class. The front office was deserted. I even did a walk-thru all the way to the back. Nobody. And I was already seven minutes past my call time, which was 7:30 AM. So I left the office and tracked down the principal, who was gabbing with someone else in the hallway nearby. As politely but firmly as I could, I said, "Hello, I'm here to sub. There's no one in the office to take my time sheet or give me a key. Can you possibly help me?" She skipped a beat, like she wasn't sure what to say, then put on that horrid expression that can only be called a flaccid institutional smile, and said, "Of course!" (Unfortunately, this is just about the only expression I have ever seen on this particular administrator's face.) Back inside the office, she asked me who I was subbing for. When I told her, she said, "Oh, [that teacher] has had a lot of health problems." This is educational jargonese for, "Oh, that teacher is either a flake or someone who ought to retire, but has tenure and cannot be touched." (Once, I subbed three weeks for a teacher who had, for all appearances, simply stopped showing up at work. The principal was actually quite upset and annoyed with the teacher. When I finally begged off the job after three weeks, another sub came in and took the class for the rest of the school year. This was in October. That particular flaky teacher still has her job, by the way.)

Anyway, I finally got my key and the roll book (usually spelled "role book" by teachers, who apparently think school is like Dungeons & Dragons or something; they also instruct subs to "take role"--really? which one? can I play Polonius today?). At last it was time to enter the classroom. There I met with the instructions reproduced below, which you'll see are rather sparse and almost entirely pointless. So I picked up the lesson plan book and flipped through to see previous daily plans, hoping to find more details. The book was mostly empty, and the last plans were about two weeks old, which means I would have to interrogate the children to see what pages they were on in various books. If you know anything about first graders, you will know that this will be an almost futile task. At any rate, without further ado, here are the entirety of the "lesson plans" I had to work with today, presented as close to their original visual layout as I can manage:

Substitute Teacher
Have a great "Day"
(Check for Yard Duty)
(My class is easy to work with)
Rules:

Sharpen your pencil at 8:00-10:15 1:00 (only)
No talking No standing UP
White boards (only for math)

Materials:
Each student has a basket with

white board + marker
Workbooks
pencil etc
Each student has a journal
Dice for math

To Do:

Board Work
Workbooks
Math with dice
Read with a partner
Watch reading videos

Read Read Read
10:30 Maribel bring lunch cards
11:25 Lunch
1:40 Clean Clean Clean
Thanks

So, let's see. Set aside the lack of punctuation and capitalization, if you can manage to think that someone who wrote such a lousy note is actually charged with teaching children to read and write. She didn't tell me when recess was. She didn't tell me what time they are dismissed. She managed to tell when lunch begins, but not when it ends. Most importantly, however, she stuck me with five hours (as I later calculated) of classroom time with only five extremely vague "To Do" items. "Board Work" should have been called "Bored Work," because it mainly involved copying lists of words off the board, lists that, by all appearances, had been there for days and had been copied several times already. "Workbooks" would be nice, but I don't know which pages they're on. It might be a simple matter to figure this out, but it wasn't, as you'll see soon enough. "Math with dice" meant taking a blank sheet of paper and two dice, rolling the dice, and making an addition problem out of the numbers. Really great, if you don't ever want kids to learn to add numbers higher than six. "Read with a partner" is self-explanatory. "Watch reading videos" seems self-explanatory, but that's assuming the "reading videos" in question are not all removed from their slipcovers and left in a huge stack of almost undifferentiated black cassettes.

Meanwhile, almost all the "information" in these pathetic "lesson plans" was completely worthless. I don't need to be told my job title, or told to have a "great 'Day.'" Yes, she really wrote "Day" in quotation marks. Teachers do that a lot. Usually it's clear that they are using quotation marks where literate people would use underlines, but in this case I'm not so sure. We shall press on, however. Why is she telling me that her class is "easy to work with"? That's worthless information, because it's not information. It's subjective opinion. Incidentally, every time a teacher has fed me a similar line, the class has been difficult, if not atrocious.

Then there are the "Rules." The first rule is just common sense (if you can get past the formatting nonsense and figure out that what she means is that children can only sharpen pencils at the beginning of the day, after recess, and after lunch); letting first graders sharpen their pencils whenever they want can only result in (1) a noisy classroom and (2) very, very short pencils. The second rule is just standard classroom procedure and would be enforced anywhere, by anyone with half a brain. The third "rule" is not even a rule. "White boards"? That's a noun phrase, not a rule.

Or how about the list of "materials"? Why would she go to all this trouble to tell me that the students are supposed to have all these things when it's inevitable that some of them won't have these things and there isn't a thing I can do about it? Furthermore, why spend a good quarter of the single, handwritten page telling me this when she could much more helpfully provide things like page numbers, particular ongoing assignments (if there are any), or subjects currently being covered? I soon discovered answers to these questions.

She didn't tell me page numbers because they're not all on the same page. Worse, despite being divided by alleged abilities into three groups, the members of any given group were on different pages, sometimes the same pages as members of one of the other groups. I.e., the groups were meaningless. Worst, many of the students didn't even seem to know what pages they were supposed to be on anyway. My solution? Let's all do the same six pages of math together. Turns out this was more than they had ever covered in a single day, and they were quite jazzed about doing so much work. Bad sign.

She didn't tell me about any ongoing assignments because there weren't any. According to all the accounts I could get from the students, every single day is an apparently unplanned free-flow of low-level, mind-numbing drudgery, doing the same things over and over and over again. (Remember those "reading videos"? Apparently there are two of them that they have watched over and over and over. One little boy retrieved them from the big stack of nearly undifferentiated black cassettes for me, and crawled under a table to plug in the TV and VCR, which were inexplicably unplugged, despite being on a cart that clearly never moves to any other location in the room, a situation corroborated by student testimony. We're clearly not trying to save electricity, though, because all the computers were plugged in.)

She didn't tell me about subjects currently being covered because--surprise, surprise--there aren't any. You know what these kids do all day every day? Math with dice, "partner reading," "board work" (i.e., copying words), video watching, and random pages in their workbooks; I looked through a few and found no apparent pattern in what they were doing. (The reading workbooks--technically called "practice books" now--are actually designed to go non-sequentially, but they are still arranged in groups by lesson and unit; however, no group or unit had been completed according to my random survey of the kids' books. This was corroborated by student testimony.)

There was perhaps an explanation for this extraordinarily shoddy classroom: most of the children speak English as a second language. In fact, I never once heard them chattering or talking amongst themselves in English; it was all in Spanish. At first I tried to enforce the "English at school" rule, but this proved futile, so I gave up. No doubt they are used to speaking Spanish in the classroom, as their teacher is clearly a native Spanish speaker. The bachelor's degree on her wall was from a university in Puerto Rico. (Furthermore, in a dual assault on effective American education, she had a table that commemorated her recognition as the school's "Teacher of the Year" two years ago, upon which was scrawled, completely in Spanish, a prayer. Yes, a prayer, that included the repeated line, "Gracias Senor, Gracias." Translation, "Thank you Lord, Thank you.") In the back of the room was one boy who spoke no English at all (except a very, very rough, "can I go bafroom?") and none of the children made any offer or attempt to translate. The kid just sat there most of the day making random marks in his "practice book" and trying to at least look like he knew what was going on. I felt bad for him, but really couldn't help much. The last thing he needs is to be in a classroom where the teacher apparently speaks Spanish and all the other students do their interpersonal chatter in Spanish. At any rate, the best rationalization I could come up with for the poor state of things is that the teacher is treating her first grade class like little more than a "let's sorta kinda try to learn English" course. Meanwhile these kids are barely learning anything, and it shows, sadly.

Anyway, I managed to fill all five of those hours: It took almost two hours for most of the kids to finish their "board work," I had them "partner read" for another hour; we did math together for another hour; and the last hour was spent watching their worn out reading videos until I was so sick of them that I found a Muppet video, in which the Muppets retold old stories like "The Three Little Pigs," "King Midas," and "The Boy who Cried Wolf." When I put that on, several of them said, "Those are for babies!" and one little boy said, "The Three Little Pigs is gay!" These were first graders, remember. Nevertheless, it was the high point of my day to watch the Muppets.

You might be wondering why I didn't go proactive or Gatto-esque and try to do the more inspiring stuff I've occasionally done in the past when faced with classes like this. (Once, when kids showed interest in science, I found the science books they'd never seen and passed them out for an impromptu science lesson. "Look through 'em," I said. "What looks interesting? We'll talk about that.") Simple: Because none of these kids ever gave any indication that they wanted to reach beyond the status quo. Lots of classes have seemed to sense somehow that I'm a smart guy (even a cool guy) and understood that it's okay to ask me for something more interesting or challenging, that I'll put out. But these kids were so satisfied with their mind-numbing drudgery (except for the hour we did math, although participation was never complete and it wore them out very quickly), I never got the feeling from them that they were interested in transcending the hopelessness within which they were mired. Anybody who's worked with kids can tell you that if they show no interest or initiative, pushing them is probably not going to work, even if you're pushing them into something fun and interesting. For instance, despite having watched their exceedingly boring "reading videos" numerous times before, they made a vocal protest when I put on something "fun" for the last thirty minutes of the day. It's like they were saying, "Please! Don't take away our drudgery!" Pathetic.

Christians Claim Atheism in Decline

2005-03-13T21:43:00.000-08:00

Here's a fun one: "Science, 'frauds' trigger a decline in atheism."

Atheism's "future seems increasingly to lie in the private beliefs of individuals rather than in the great public domain it once regarded as its habitat," [Alister] McGrath wrote in the U.S. magazine, Christianity Today.

Just more evangelical propaganda. What is "the great public domain" and when was it ever the "habitat" of atheism? Last time I checked, anything that might pass as "the great public domain" was purely the habit of religions and ideologies, not the pared down, demystified stuff that is atheism.

Lions and Tigers and Atheists, OH MY!

2005-03-03T16:36:00.000-08:00

Evil Atheist Conspiracy

I couldn't read much of this because it hurts too much to laugh right now, but I'm sure the rest of you will appreciate it.

2005-02-23T09:53:00.000-08:00

This is what I thought of when reading Michael's article posted below.

It Has Begun...

2005-02-21T14:13:00.000-08:00

The following is a letter to the editor (with some added commentary) that was printed in the Fresno Bee on Monday, February 21, 2005. This is an example of the mentality that is becoming so prevalent in society today.

'Hot Topic'
Preschool is a hot topic these days and rightly so. As kindergarten teachers at Ayer School, we know the importance of children coming to school prepared. If parents are unable or unwilling to do so, then preschool becomes a necessity [empahsis added].

Kindergarten curriculum has changed drastically over the last few years. We are teaching many skills that used to be taught in first grade. A child who begins kindergarten unprepared, has a difficult time "catching up" [quotation marks added]. Universal preschool will help prepare children for kindergarten.

Preschool should also involve screening children for health concerns, such as hearing, vision and speech problems, which inhibit learning. If problems are identified early, parents and teachers can work together on appropiate interventions [i.e. kids can be singled out and sorted into fabricated learning levels that will act more as separators than motivators].

If the emphasis of public education is on standards and student performance, then let's give our children a better chance to succeed by preparing them [yes, let's not question the system of standardized schooling, but embrace it by cookiecutting (yes that's a word now) our children at the earliest age possible]. Children who start school with some preschool experience are more ready, both academically and socially, for kindergarten [because afterall, that's what life is about isn't it?].

I don't know about anyone else, but I suddenly feel an incredible urge to go start making some babies so I can provide some good workers for the economy. At least I know I won't have to raise my own kids. I just have to get 'em started for about the first three years and then it's off to the assembly line! Sounds pretty easy to me.

Or maybe I can send them to the coal mines so they can grow up a bit and get some hands-on life experience. Oh wait, that's right, parents don't have the authority to permit their own children to have a bonafide paying job. Oh well. School it is.

Give in to your feelings...

2005-02-21T10:51:00.000-08:00

...and (breathing) give me a bigger crescendo (breathing) and together we will rule the galaxy!

Invite to the Veritas Forum

2005-02-15T21:01:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to invite you all to one of the discussions at "The Veritas Forum" that is occuring at the California State University of Fresno on Thursday night.

The brochure I received describes the overall three-day event as follows:

veritas:

Truth, truthfulness, verity; the true or real nature, reality.

forum:

A public meeting place for open discussion or voicing of ideas.

A public meeting or presentaion involving a discussion usually among experts and often including audience participation.

The particular discussion I am planning to attend, entitled "Does God Exist," is "between Dr. Austin Dacey and Dr. William Lane Craig with Q&A - moderated by Professor Arthur V.N. Wint (Coordinator, Peace and Conflict Studies Program at California State University, Fresno)".

The discussion is taking place at 7:00 PM on Thursday, February 17. Any and all who would like to go are welcome. However, seeing that I do not possess a parking pass (or a "hunting pass," as they are so called by a man who felt obliged to interrupt a conversation Peter and I were having once at Books & Bagels) there would be a slight amount of walking, but probably not much: maybe a ten minute walk.

I thought this particular discussion sounded the most interesting of them all, and it happens to occur at a time that I can attend. I first mentioned it to Peter, and he, too, is planning to attend. If the rest of you could R.S.V.P either on the blog or by email, it would be most helpful in determining the possible meeting-up/driving/carpooling situation.

Once again, any and all who would like to attend this discussion of "Does God Exist" are invited.

Students kept under surveillance at school. Some parents angry over radio device.

2005-02-10T08:32:00.000-08:00

Interesting article in the San Francisco Chronicle today:

Sutter, Sutter County -- Angry parents, saying their children's privacy rights are being violated, have asked the board of the tiny Brittan School District to rescind a requirement that all students wear badges that monitor their whereabouts on campus using radio signals.

Located between the massive silos of Sutter Rice Co. and the Sutter Buttes, this small town has 587 kindergarten through eighth-graders who are the first public school kids in the country to be tracked on campus by such a system, which is designed to ease attendance taking and increase campus security.

"This is the only public school monitoring where children go, with kids walking around with little homing beacons,'' said Nicole Ozer, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer aiding several parents who oppose the badges, which students wear around their necks.

Although all students have identification badges, only seventh- and eighth-graders are being tracked in a test run, according to school officials and representatives of InCom, a Sutter-based company developing the system.

"There is no danger or I wouldn't put it on my son,'' Florrie Turner, a school district employee helping the company develop the software, told the school board at its Tuesday night meeting.

The student tracking system uses radio frequency identification technology used mainly to monitor inventory and livestock.

Ozer said a district in Texas was testing the technology for use on school buses to see that students get on and off.

Several parents in Sutter complained they weren't given a choice about their child participating in the new system and argued that the badges violated their children's right to privacy.

"Our belief is these children have never done anything to give up some of their civil rights. They've never done anything wrong, and they're being tracked," said Michelle Tatro who along with her husband, Jeff, wrote a formal complaint to the school board protesting the program.

Tatro said when her 13-year-old daughter came home from the first day of school in January, when the students began wearing the tags, she had waved the tag in her fist and said, "Look at this. I'm a grocery item. I'm a piece of meat. I'm an orange."

Their daughter was threatened with disciplinary action if she did not participate in the program, according to a letter sent by the district.

Although the board said nothing in response to parental complaints, several attendees defended the system, saying it would keep kids in school, free up more time for teachers to teach and increase security for pupils and teachers.

"It's baffling why so many people are bothered by the district being able to tell them where their kids are at," said Tim Crabtree, a high school teacher who said he hoped the technology would come to his classroom.

The Tatros' complaint and objections by other parents to the tracking system have led the district to relax its rule that all children wear the tags. If parents send a note saying their children don't want to wear the tag, they don't have to display it, but they must carry it on their person until the board makes a decision on the program's future at a special meeting called for next Tuesday.

The badges contain a photo of pupils, their grade level and their name. On the back is a tube roughly the size of a roll of dimes.

Within it is a chip with an antenna attached. As the chip passes underneath a reader mounted above the classroom door, it transmits a 15-digit number, which then is translated into the student's name by software contained in a handheld device used by teachers to check attendance.

Seven classrooms were equipped with the readers, as were two bathrooms. The bathroom readers were never turned on, according to school and company officials, and were removed Wednesday by InCom because of objections by parents.

InCom has also disabled its system and deleted data it has collected to date. Readers have been turned off until the board reaches a decision next week.

Developers of the system say parents concerned over privacy violations don't understand the short range of radio frequency identification devices.

"The tags physically can't be read from a long distance," said Doug Ahlers, an InCom partner.

Several of the aspects of the program the Tatros didn't like were not the idea of InCom but of Principal Earnie Graham.

InCom said it could have tested its software simply by mounting the chip on a blank piece of paper carried by students. It was Graham -- who also wears an ID badge -- who wanted the chip attached to a student identification card with names and photos.

Parents still objected to the requirement their children wear the badges.

"You're saying, 'We don't have a choice. They have to wear the badges or they'll be suspended.' That's my child, my blood," said Toni Scrogin, whose daughter attends the school. 'It should be my choice."

Graham said that in retrospect parents should have been consulted about the program rather than simply notifying them about it with a brief blurb in the school newsletter.

But a dry run on the badge readers during summer school caused "no outcry, " Graham said. "It wasn't an issue."

Despite testing the new system, the school is still using its old software to take attendance, Graham said. Allowing the testing of InCom's system cost the school nothing, Graham added.

Ahlers said the company had donated some computer equipment to the school for its trouble.

Another Long Rant

2005-02-03T17:50:00.000-08:00

There's something we didn't get to in our discussion of Gatto, and it's been bothering me ever since, so I thought I'd bring it up here.

Gatto makes a pretty good case that our compulsory educational system is not just the creation of American industrial and commercial interests, but that it's a necessary part of their continuance. The transformation of people from willful individuals into obedient cogs may be, as Gatto argues, a process of self-alienation and deeply antithetical to the basic experience of being human. But as several in our group have pointed out on many occasions, our industrial and commercial strength have brought us more general prosperity, better general health, longer life spans, greater creature comforts, easier access to information and entertainment, and so on. Does this thing that Gatto describes require an intractable dichotomy between social prosperity and individual fulfillment?

For instance, everyone complains about taxes, but we all enjoy the services they provide, which probably wouldn't be available in such high quantity and quality without the economic power of centralized government and corporations. And we might complain about the power of corporate conglomerations and monopolies destroying small-time mom-and-pop business, but who among us hasn't traveled to a strange city and gone straight to the McDonald's, Starbucks, or Wal-Mart precisely because we are comforted by the homogeneity of experience that only centralized power could provide?

It seems to me that there is a fine line between learning personal discipline and crushing an individual's sense of independence and creativity. I think a lot of educators at every level rationalize their bizarre schemes of imposition according to the former--we're teaching children that they need to discipline themselves in order to function within our stable society where people whose personal beliefs might make them hate each other can sit down in the same McDonald's or a Starbucks and there are no eruptions of gunfire. But at what point does teaching discipline turn into will-crushing and psychological training for corporate cog-functions? Or is not that Americans have learned to rein in their naturally destabilizing individuality and animosity, but that Americans just no longer have convictions that would make them kill each other in, say, four years of civil war that would shock the rest of the world? Are we more peaceful than the Middle East because we have learned more self-control, or because we have successfully unlearned anything that would possibly get our dander up to do more than just complain to each other? Are we civilized or merely tamed?

Gatto makes the point somewhere in the middle of his book that the system works as intended. We have the most powerful economy in the world, the most powerful military, and the biggest and best of just about everything. (For now.) We are regimented into ranks that complain without serious dissent, and even our dissenters can't manage to dissent without looking comical and unthinking (e.g., the protesters at the Republican National Convention--what were they protesting, and how will standing in a big group and holding signs mean anything to anyone?). People who suggest major changes to the system are seen as cranks, and nobody seriously questions the hegemony of the two political parties, neither of which seriously questions the status quo. (Did anybody else think it was bizarre to have so much of the President's State of the Union Address focus on Social Security? Of all things? Here we are the most powerful nation in the world and apparently our biggest worry is what to do as our aging population stops showing up at work and how to make sure they have "comfort and dignity" in their non-working old age? Did anybody in any position of real authority step back, look at the big picture, and think, "Wow, this could be a symptom of our further national decline into complacency??" I listened to the President last night and thought, "He doesn't sound like he's talking about the aging and retirement of just individual Americans; this sounds like the aging and retirement of the nation itself!" Or was I the only one to think that?)

Personally, I'm pretty disturbed as I listen to the news reporters make the switch from Iraq to Social Security, watch middle schoolers decline into infancy, see the commercial for pre-schools that includes business leaders telling people to send their kids to pre-school so we can have the "workers" we need to maintain our economic supremacy, and watch as Americans seem to complain as much as anybody, dissent as little as possible, and let themselves be lulled into a bizarre state of increasingly elderly helplessness. It was summed up pretty well in another book I read a couple days ago, called Law v. Life by Walt Bachman. The book's subtitle is "What Lawyers Are Afraid to Say about the Legal Profession." After spending most of his book painting a dismal picture of real-life lawyering, Bachman (writing in the mid '90s) comes to the end with a scathing indictment of our increasingly law-reliant culture:

Legalisation and litigation, rather than leadership or moral suasion, are the ready solutions we throw at every issue.

Nowhere is this development more apparent than in the rapidly expanding field of employment law. Hoards of unhappy employees are besieging the courts, sometimes with claims that rest upon no more than unspoken but fervently held assumptions that they have a right not to be fired, not to be passed over for promotion, not to be insulted, not to be slighted, or not to be adversely affected in any way in the workplace. With the aid of creative lawyers, those who cast themselves as victims dress up their perceptions in varying legal theories, most of which boil down to some kind of right not to be treated unfairly. So much for the rugged individual. So much for the idea of rebounding from the hard knocks of life, and forging ahead. [Shades of Gatto there, eh?]

Wherever you look these days, some public official or crusading citizen is proposing to extend the frontiers of remedies under law. We are on the verge of embracing such propositions as: spanking is actionable child abuse; children dissatisfied with their parents can "divorce" them; a job, once obtained, is an entitlement, not a privilege; smoking anywhere outside your own home should be prohibited; and short, tall, fat, skinny, or ugly people are entitled to sue someone who fails to treat them like all others. We are now dedicated to the proposition that life's vicissitudes must be lessened or eliminated by law, that every conceivable inequity carries with it the compulsion to create a legal right to remedy the wrong.

. . .

During the past thirty years [now forty years], American society has altered itself from being determined to overcome obstacles to being fixated upon hammering away at the obstacles themselves. . . . Time after time, the answers to problems are the same: See a lawyer. Pass a law. Sue. Stand up for your rights.

. . .

Although all societies need dispute resolution systems, we stand alone in the extent to which we insist that law and courts are the answer to the problems every society faces. Many people go through life today defining every setback as an injustice, and we Americans have demanded a legal system that spoon-feeds this proclivity.

I have little doubt that the educational system is part of this problem. Gatto also talks about the introduction of "due-process" into school discipline, and the way it destroyed teachers' authority and inflated the students' sense of rights, especially their right not to be punished. In a bizarre twist, though, at times it seems that the students may indeed be punished unjustly, because if the compulsory school system itself is breeding the kind of "self-alienation" that transcends mere self-discipline, and that is antithetical to the basic experience of being human, how fair is it to punish the kinds of outbursts that are likely to happen when all that's left of a student is the animal nature inside and the truly thinking part, the sapiens in the Homo sapiens has been carved out to create a more docile member of society, one who really believes that not doing to work will destroy your education, followed by your chance at employment, followed by your very life? By robbing people of the ability to think clearly and rationally about themselves and their lot in life, by insisting that the best world is one where everybody gets an "education," everybody goes to college, everybody is an employee, and everybody has government protection against everybody else, what else could possibly occur but the legal nightmare of victimization and entitlement for everyone? Are Americans even capable of signing on to the "social contract" anymore?

But maybe even more importantly, do Americans even want to sign on to the social contract anymore? Or are they just happy to have tax-supported government programs and social services and interstate highway systems and OSHA regulations and Social Security and all those other things that make it easy to slide through life without thought or worry or personal responsibility? Let the government take care of it. Wait for Microsoft to come up with the ultimate "solution." Or the final solution.

Gatto argues convincingly that our school system was designed by utopians. But looking at American society, we have something that, in many ways, is just as oddly soothing and easy to live with as what's described in so much utopian literature. For the most part, Americans seem to like the way things are. People complain or "protest" but nobody really challenges the status quo. And the people who do are either ignored and marginalized, or held up as carefully cordoned off examples of "inspiration," made to look so wonderful and so good that they just can't possibly be achieved society wide. No sir, we don't believe in utopia, even though we're probably living in one. And strangely enough, just like all the doomsaying authors who have portrayed utopian societies, we're all quite aware of the seedy underbelly of our system. We know it's not perfect. We know it's built on all sorts of irrationalities and injustices, but nobody seems to care enough to try to change it. Should we just leave the educational-industrial complex be and enjoy its benefits instead of worrying about its problems? Personally, I like the prosperity that comes from our national economic strength. Can I object to the way we treat our children with our compulsory educational system of that economic strength requires such treatment?

On the Front Lines

2005-02-03T13:56:00.000-08:00

I'm reporting now from my embedded position in a seventh grade classroom here in America. After the break this morning I sat in my classroom with the door unlocked but closed, and watched out the window as studens accumulated outside. None of them came in, or even attempted to open the door. Finally, I opened the door and a girl standing nearby practically leaped through and said, "Thank you! I've been waiting!"

"For what?" I said.

"The door."

"It's been unlocked the whole time. When the break is over it's your responsibility to come back to class."

To which she replied: "How are we supposed to know if the door's not locked? We're not wizards."

There you have it. More evidence that the school system has got kids so dumb that they have forgotten how to check the doorknob to see if a door is unlocked.

Also this morning, a seventh grade boy asked me, "What season are we in?"

"Winter."

"Then what comes next?"

"Spring."

"After that?"

"Summer."

"Then?"

"Fall."

"Fall again?"

"Yes, then winter again."

Remember, this was a seventh grader.

And now it is the end of lunch, the door is closed but unlocked, and no one has yet come inside. We shall see...

Using Logic with 8th Graders

2005-02-02T11:56:00.000-08:00

Here is a rough transcript of an actual conversation I had with an eighth grade boy this morning. I'll call him "Juan."

Me: Why aren't you doing your work?

Juan: I don't want to.

Me: So you're just going to refuse to work?

Juan: Yeah.

Me: Why?

Juan: Because they make me do it.

Third Student Observing the Conversation: You have to do your work. If you don't do your work, you won't get a good education, then you won't get a job, then you won't be able to live, and then you'll die.

Juan: I don't care. I don't want to do this work.

Me: So don't come to school then.

Juan: I can't do that. They make me come.

Me: Wait, wait. So you do come to school because "they" make you come, but you don't do your work because "they" make you do it? Which is it? If you're going to refuse to work just because it's forced, then why aren't you refusing to come to school just because it's forced? If you're going to refuse to do something just because it's forced on you, then it doesn't make sense to show up in the first place and then start refusing. If you can't follow through all the way, it's not worth saying what you're saying.

Juan: Are you trying to give me an idea?

Me: Nope. Think for yourself.

You should have seen the grin on his face when I confronted him with the logical results of his own propositions. It was like, "Yeah, okay, you got me, I'm not interested in being logically consistent; I'm just lazy." Beautiful. And that third student, boy does he have the whole public school mythology down pat, eh?

Be you Yank or Reb?

2005-01-31T09:53:00.000-08:00

Take the quiz and find out!