While searching for information related to the Clarence Hill execution I encountered a column by Sam Cook at the Southwest Florida News-Press (no, not Sam Cooke, this newspaper dude is White and besides the R&B Sam Cooke with an “e” has been dead since 1964). The newspaper Sam Cook is comfortable with the death penalty. In his article he says things like:
“…Hill’s death is a step in the right direction for capital punishment.”
“Long live the death penalty.”
“If you don’t think death is a deterrent to murder, you’ve never held a gun in your hand.”
“Paying the ultimate price is the lone obstacle that stands between killer and victim.”
I think Sam is comfortable because he is focusing on this one instance of the death penalty and on an individual whose guilt is certain and, as much as anyone, probably deserves the ultimate penalty. It’s hard to find anything positive to say about Clarence Hill beyond that he deserved to have his case heard and was denied that based upon a filing deadline.
Still, I think Sam needs to step away and look at the wider picture so I sent him the following e-mail.
Dear Sam,
I read your article about the execution of Clarence Hill. While I respect your position, I think that you misunderstand the problem that many of us “bleeding hearts” have with the death penalty.
You ask “Didn’t Hill deserve to die for taking the life of a cop, a man sworn to serve and protect?”
Yes he did, but are we smart enough to play God with men’s lives? The fundamental problem with the death penalty is that, as a species, we’re just not smart enough to administer something that requires perfection. If you don’t believe it requires perfection then what kind of error rate are you willing to live with?
Would it be ok with you, in order to insure that people like Hill get what’s coming to them, if one execution in a thousand were of an innocent man? What about one in a hundred? What about one in ten? There has to be an error rate because men aren’t perfect and never will be.
If you don’t have a ready answer to this question then you’re not being realistic about the situation. Consider the number of men that have been exonerated and released from death row. And no I’m not talking about those who are released because they get a new trial based upon a legal technicality and the evidence and witnesses can no longer be located, I’m talking about real exonerations such as those based upon DNA.
If we haven’t executed an innocent man yet, then it’s only a matter of time. Personally I’d rather see ten thousand Hills living out their worthless lives in prison than have to live with the suspicion that one innocent man has been executed.
You rightly bemoan the length of time prisoners spend on death row and the terrible effect this can have on the families of the victims.
Well the problem here is that we know we’re not perfect and we have to go through all sorts of contortions to reduce the probability of a mistake. I have a simple solution. Life with no possibility of parole and I mean absolutely no possibility. Closure is immediate and the victim’s family can at least try to get on with their lives as difficult as that’s going to be.
You say “If you don’t think death is a deterrent to murder, you’ve never held a gun in your hand.”
While I’m a bit uncertain what holding a gun in my hand has to do with death as a deterrent to murder, study after study appears to show no deterrent effect from the death penalty. The South, with by far the highest rate of executions, continues to lead the nation in murder rate year after year while the Northeast, with only four executions, all of so-called volunteers, continues to have the lowest murder rate year after year. Where’s the deterrent effect?
Would the death penalty deter rational men from committing murder? Sure it would. The problem is that most murderers aren’t rational or they aren’t rational at the instant they commit the crime.
The death penalty is riddled with uncertainty, the convoluted appeals process is torture on the victim's family, it demonstrates no deterrent benefit and is arbitrary as hell to boot. Perhaps you can explain to me why the state of Texas has found it necessary to execute 376 people since 1976 while the state of New York hasn’t found it necessary to execute anyone. Are there that many more evil people in Texas than New York or are New Yorkers just too kind hearted?
Heck it even costs more than Life in Prison without Parole. What’s the benefit? While it may be satisfying to see those who clearly deserve the needle, or a date with Old Sparkey, get what’s coming to them, overall the death penalty is a bad deal.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Friday, September 29, 2006
Death Penalty Update
The execution of Clarence Hill in Florida on September 20th brought the total number of executions in the U.S. this year up to 43. Hill’s story is one of those that make you shake your head and wonder if you haven’t been transported through the looking glass.
In June the Supreme Court unanimously decided that Hill’s challenge to Florida’s lethal injection law on the basis of a civil rights violation was proper and should proceed. However, a district court in Tallahassee and an appeals court in Atlanta both refused to hear Hill’s suit saying that HE SHOULD HAVE FILED EARLIER! The Supreme Court then denied his request for a stay of execution by a vote of 5-4.
Let me make sure I understand this properly. In June the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously agreed that the man’s challenge was proper. In other words that he was entitled to have his day in court and be heard. However, this was denied by the lower courts because he filed his case too late and the same Supreme Court, that said his case should be heard, didn’t lift a finger to correct the fact that it had not been heard due to a filing deadline TECHNICALITY!
Just to further add to the Wonderland aspect of the whole thing is that the American Bar Association, three days prior to Hill’s execution, issued a report saying that Florida’s application of the death penalty fails to comply with ABA standards to ensure fairness and accuracy.
Among the problems cited in the report were the twenty-two Florida death row inmates exonerated since 1973, the fact that capital crime defense counsels were inadequately compensated, that there was juror confusion about the rules related to mitigating factors during the sentencing phase, that jurors did not have to arrive at a unanimous death penalty recommendation and that judges can overrule the jury’s recommendation and impose the death penalty which occurred in 166 of the 856 Florida death sentences from 1972 to 1999.
Well at least this time it wasn’t Texas looking ridiculous.
On the plus side of the ledger New Jersey continues to display indications that the death penalty is on the way out there. A state legislator from Cape May has announced that he has changed his mind and now opposes Capital Punishment which increases the majority in the legislature leaning toward abolition and the Asbury Park Press has published an editorial calling for replacing capital punishment with the sentence of life without parole.
There are twelve prisoners, including one woman on New Jersey's death row but the state has never executed anyone under its current death penalty statute.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund's "Death Row USA" for 2006 shows that the number of people on the death row in the United States is continuing to decline, falling to 3,366 as of July 1, 2006. The size of death row has been in a slow but steady decline since the year 2000.
Nationally, the racial composition of those on death row is 45% white, 42% black, and 11% latino. Of jurisdictions with more than 10 people on death row, Texas (69%) and Pennsylvania (70%) have the largest percentage of minorities on death row. Nearly 80% of the victims in crimes that resulted in executions were white.
California, with 657 inmates, and Texas, with 401 inmates, have the largest death row populations in the country. California has a judicial moratorium on executions in place due to problems with its lethal injection procedures but there’s nothing slowing down the death factory in Texas.
Maybe one day we’ll become as modern and sophisticated as countries like Liberia, Mexico and South Africa and realize how bad an idea capital punishment is.
In June the Supreme Court unanimously decided that Hill’s challenge to Florida’s lethal injection law on the basis of a civil rights violation was proper and should proceed. However, a district court in Tallahassee and an appeals court in Atlanta both refused to hear Hill’s suit saying that HE SHOULD HAVE FILED EARLIER! The Supreme Court then denied his request for a stay of execution by a vote of 5-4.
Let me make sure I understand this properly. In June the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously agreed that the man’s challenge was proper. In other words that he was entitled to have his day in court and be heard. However, this was denied by the lower courts because he filed his case too late and the same Supreme Court, that said his case should be heard, didn’t lift a finger to correct the fact that it had not been heard due to a filing deadline TECHNICALITY!
Just to further add to the Wonderland aspect of the whole thing is that the American Bar Association, three days prior to Hill’s execution, issued a report saying that Florida’s application of the death penalty fails to comply with ABA standards to ensure fairness and accuracy.
Among the problems cited in the report were the twenty-two Florida death row inmates exonerated since 1973, the fact that capital crime defense counsels were inadequately compensated, that there was juror confusion about the rules related to mitigating factors during the sentencing phase, that jurors did not have to arrive at a unanimous death penalty recommendation and that judges can overrule the jury’s recommendation and impose the death penalty which occurred in 166 of the 856 Florida death sentences from 1972 to 1999.
Well at least this time it wasn’t Texas looking ridiculous.
On the plus side of the ledger New Jersey continues to display indications that the death penalty is on the way out there. A state legislator from Cape May has announced that he has changed his mind and now opposes Capital Punishment which increases the majority in the legislature leaning toward abolition and the Asbury Park Press has published an editorial calling for replacing capital punishment with the sentence of life without parole.
There are twelve prisoners, including one woman on New Jersey's death row but the state has never executed anyone under its current death penalty statute.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund's "Death Row USA" for 2006 shows that the number of people on the death row in the United States is continuing to decline, falling to 3,366 as of July 1, 2006. The size of death row has been in a slow but steady decline since the year 2000.
Nationally, the racial composition of those on death row is 45% white, 42% black, and 11% latino. Of jurisdictions with more than 10 people on death row, Texas (69%) and Pennsylvania (70%) have the largest percentage of minorities on death row. Nearly 80% of the victims in crimes that resulted in executions were white.
California, with 657 inmates, and Texas, with 401 inmates, have the largest death row populations in the country. California has a judicial moratorium on executions in place due to problems with its lethal injection procedures but there’s nothing slowing down the death factory in Texas.
Maybe one day we’ll become as modern and sophisticated as countries like Liberia, Mexico and South Africa and realize how bad an idea capital punishment is.
Liar, Lunatic or Lord?
I watched The Chronicles of Narnia on cable Saturday night. I thought the movie rather mediocre, the Christian allegory rather obvious and the level of violence rather surprising.
I noticed that even C.S. Lewis’s famous argument, mistakenly labeled “The Trilemma,” got into the movie. When the Professor is considering the youngest girl’s story about a world through the wardrobe he says that since she’s not lying, and she’s not mad, then she must be telling the truth.
The argument was first expounded by Lewis to counter the position that Jesus was simply an inspired moral teacher. Amateur Christian Apologists are attracted to the argument due to its air of elegance and simplicity but better educated Apologists realize that it has serious flaws and isn’t going to impress anyone that isn’t either already a committed believer or not too bright.
The argument goes something like this. Jesus claimed to be God and Jesus claimed the authority to instruct people how to achieve salvation. If his claims were false then either he was delusional, and therefore a lunatic, or he was lying, and therefore committing an evil of immense proportions. In either case it wouldn’t be rational to consider him a great moral teacher. Since Jesus was obviously a great moral teacher, he could not have been either lying or a lunatic therefore his claims must be true and he must be the Lord.
Like I said, simple and elegant, and at first glance it looks like a pretty good argument. Unfortunately if you think about it for a couple of seconds the flaws become rather obvious.
The first problem is how do we know Jesus claimed any such thing? That, based upon the gospels, he instructed people about how to achieve salvation I’ll have to admit is pretty obvious but his teaching was standard first century Judaism with a twist of apocalyptic fervor. There is nothing in his game plan for salvation in the Synoptics (Mark, Matthew and Luke) that is very radical other than some very liberal interpretations of some parts of the law such as concluding that it’s acceptable to heal on the Sabbath.
Nowhere in the Synoptics does Jesus claim to be divine. To the contrary, in Mark 8, Matthew 16 and Luke 9 Peter identifies him as the Messiah, or Christ, and Jesus accepts the identification to various degrees. In Mark he simply tells Peter not to tell anyone which could be interpreted as either a confirmation or a denial. In Matthew he clearly confirms the identification and then utters the famous play on words about establishing his church upon this rock (Peter = Petros = Rock). In Luke he appears to confirm it and then makes two very interesting statements.
Luke 9: 26 “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”
This statement seems to indicate that Jesus, the Son of Man and the Father are three distinct entities doesn’t it? Without getting into the whole mess related to the Trinity this statement could be interpreted as a denial of divinity.
Luke 9:27 “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
Was this a bad prediction? While there are all kinds of spins that apologists put on this passage to demonstrate why it’s really not a failed prophesy, I’ve yet to see one that would impress anyone who wasn’t either already a believer or a complete idiot.
The funny part about it is no explanation is necessary. Jesus often speaks in metaphors and this could easily be a metaphoric statement that simply means that some will understand his teaching which will allow them to “see” the kingdom of God. One of the reasons I suspect that the gospels are fairly accurate is the consistency of the metaphoric language of Jesus. It's only the insistance on a simple literal interpretation that requires a defense.
Even accepting that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, or the Christ, the Jewish Messiah was mortal, not divine and certainly not on a par with God the Father.
It’s not until the Gospel of John that Jesus makes statements that can clearly be interpreted as claiming divinity.
John 8:58 "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"
John 10:30 “I and the Father are one."
John 10:38 “…believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."
The author of John certainly appears to think that Jesus claimed to be God and he reports the Pharisees arguing with Jesus as coming to that conclusion as well. So, what’s the deal here?
There are several possibilities. The obvious one is that the author of John, or some future modifier of the Gospel of John, put words into Jesus’s mouth that he never actually said either because he thought they were said or as a pious fiction to support the Christological position that Jesus was divine. In other words an editor made the gospel more clearly reflect what he already knew to be true. There is considerable evidence that this occured in other passages although none to my knowledge that these particular passages have been tampered with.
If you accept on faith that the bible is the inerrant word of God then this isn’t a possibility that you need to contend with. For those of us that accept the more likely definition that the bible is simply the output of pious well meaning men, with all the fallibilities of men, then it is a possibility that must be contended with.
Even if you accept the accuracy of the report that Jesus said these things, the interpretation that this is a claim to be God isn’t necessarily correct. Jesus consistently claims that he speaks with the authority of God, he equates his words with God’s words and his motives with God’s motives. In John 8:58 and John 10:30 we may simply be seeing the strongest affirmation of this claim that Jesus is speaking words that are synonomous with what God would say.
I also think it’s important to keep in mind that in John 10:34 Jesus quotes Psalm 82.
John 10: 34 Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'”
Psalm 82:6 "I said, 'You are "gods"; you are all sons of the Most High.'”
In other words we are ALL sons of God so claiming to be a son of God is no blasphemy. In Psalm 82 God is chastising man.
Psalm 82:1 God presides in the great assembly; he gives judgment among the "gods":
Psalm 82:2 How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?
Psalm 82:3 Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
Psalm 82:4 Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
So the entire exercise could simply be an incredibly subtle criticism of the Pharisees that Jesus is arguing with. Anyone familiar with Psalm 82 couldn’t miss the implication that God’s chastisement in the Psalm applies to those rejecting the message of Jesus. Of course to think something like that up on the fly, in the middle of a rather heated discussion, would be the mark of a man whose mental agility ranks with that of Leonardo DiVinci.
On the other hand, Jesus could simply have been delusional. We have a number of cases down through history of mere mortals confusing themselves with divinity often with tragic results. Does this by definition render everything else they say or believe reprehensible? Not at all, men are complex entities and rarely is one all good or all bad. A man can have a delusion about one thing while still being lucid and insightful, even inspired, about another.
Most of the moral teachings of Jesus were not original but positions well established in either Jewish Theology or Greek Philosophy so inspiration wasn't even necessarily required, simply the ability to recognize a good idea when he saw one. The delusion of a religious experience as the source of the sudden recognition of a moral or philosophical truth isn't all that unknown. As a matter of fact it happens all the time to believers when it's really simply the subconscious mind intruding abruptly on the conscious mind.
So the argument that one has to either discard everything Jesus said and did or accept him as God is an oversimplification. Men, and events, are much more complicated than that.
I noticed that even C.S. Lewis’s famous argument, mistakenly labeled “The Trilemma,” got into the movie. When the Professor is considering the youngest girl’s story about a world through the wardrobe he says that since she’s not lying, and she’s not mad, then she must be telling the truth.
The argument was first expounded by Lewis to counter the position that Jesus was simply an inspired moral teacher. Amateur Christian Apologists are attracted to the argument due to its air of elegance and simplicity but better educated Apologists realize that it has serious flaws and isn’t going to impress anyone that isn’t either already a committed believer or not too bright.
The argument goes something like this. Jesus claimed to be God and Jesus claimed the authority to instruct people how to achieve salvation. If his claims were false then either he was delusional, and therefore a lunatic, or he was lying, and therefore committing an evil of immense proportions. In either case it wouldn’t be rational to consider him a great moral teacher. Since Jesus was obviously a great moral teacher, he could not have been either lying or a lunatic therefore his claims must be true and he must be the Lord.
Like I said, simple and elegant, and at first glance it looks like a pretty good argument. Unfortunately if you think about it for a couple of seconds the flaws become rather obvious.
The first problem is how do we know Jesus claimed any such thing? That, based upon the gospels, he instructed people about how to achieve salvation I’ll have to admit is pretty obvious but his teaching was standard first century Judaism with a twist of apocalyptic fervor. There is nothing in his game plan for salvation in the Synoptics (Mark, Matthew and Luke) that is very radical other than some very liberal interpretations of some parts of the law such as concluding that it’s acceptable to heal on the Sabbath.
Nowhere in the Synoptics does Jesus claim to be divine. To the contrary, in Mark 8, Matthew 16 and Luke 9 Peter identifies him as the Messiah, or Christ, and Jesus accepts the identification to various degrees. In Mark he simply tells Peter not to tell anyone which could be interpreted as either a confirmation or a denial. In Matthew he clearly confirms the identification and then utters the famous play on words about establishing his church upon this rock (Peter = Petros = Rock). In Luke he appears to confirm it and then makes two very interesting statements.
Luke 9: 26 “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”
This statement seems to indicate that Jesus, the Son of Man and the Father are three distinct entities doesn’t it? Without getting into the whole mess related to the Trinity this statement could be interpreted as a denial of divinity.
Luke 9:27 “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
Was this a bad prediction? While there are all kinds of spins that apologists put on this passage to demonstrate why it’s really not a failed prophesy, I’ve yet to see one that would impress anyone who wasn’t either already a believer or a complete idiot.
The funny part about it is no explanation is necessary. Jesus often speaks in metaphors and this could easily be a metaphoric statement that simply means that some will understand his teaching which will allow them to “see” the kingdom of God. One of the reasons I suspect that the gospels are fairly accurate is the consistency of the metaphoric language of Jesus. It's only the insistance on a simple literal interpretation that requires a defense.
Even accepting that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, or the Christ, the Jewish Messiah was mortal, not divine and certainly not on a par with God the Father.
It’s not until the Gospel of John that Jesus makes statements that can clearly be interpreted as claiming divinity.
John 8:58 "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"
John 10:30 “I and the Father are one."
John 10:38 “…believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."
The author of John certainly appears to think that Jesus claimed to be God and he reports the Pharisees arguing with Jesus as coming to that conclusion as well. So, what’s the deal here?
There are several possibilities. The obvious one is that the author of John, or some future modifier of the Gospel of John, put words into Jesus’s mouth that he never actually said either because he thought they were said or as a pious fiction to support the Christological position that Jesus was divine. In other words an editor made the gospel more clearly reflect what he already knew to be true. There is considerable evidence that this occured in other passages although none to my knowledge that these particular passages have been tampered with.
If you accept on faith that the bible is the inerrant word of God then this isn’t a possibility that you need to contend with. For those of us that accept the more likely definition that the bible is simply the output of pious well meaning men, with all the fallibilities of men, then it is a possibility that must be contended with.
Even if you accept the accuracy of the report that Jesus said these things, the interpretation that this is a claim to be God isn’t necessarily correct. Jesus consistently claims that he speaks with the authority of God, he equates his words with God’s words and his motives with God’s motives. In John 8:58 and John 10:30 we may simply be seeing the strongest affirmation of this claim that Jesus is speaking words that are synonomous with what God would say.
I also think it’s important to keep in mind that in John 10:34 Jesus quotes Psalm 82.
John 10: 34 Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'”
Psalm 82:6 "I said, 'You are "gods"; you are all sons of the Most High.'”
In other words we are ALL sons of God so claiming to be a son of God is no blasphemy. In Psalm 82 God is chastising man.
Psalm 82:1 God presides in the great assembly; he gives judgment among the "gods":
Psalm 82:2 How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?
Psalm 82:3 Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
Psalm 82:4 Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
So the entire exercise could simply be an incredibly subtle criticism of the Pharisees that Jesus is arguing with. Anyone familiar with Psalm 82 couldn’t miss the implication that God’s chastisement in the Psalm applies to those rejecting the message of Jesus. Of course to think something like that up on the fly, in the middle of a rather heated discussion, would be the mark of a man whose mental agility ranks with that of Leonardo DiVinci.
On the other hand, Jesus could simply have been delusional. We have a number of cases down through history of mere mortals confusing themselves with divinity often with tragic results. Does this by definition render everything else they say or believe reprehensible? Not at all, men are complex entities and rarely is one all good or all bad. A man can have a delusion about one thing while still being lucid and insightful, even inspired, about another.
Most of the moral teachings of Jesus were not original but positions well established in either Jewish Theology or Greek Philosophy so inspiration wasn't even necessarily required, simply the ability to recognize a good idea when he saw one. The delusion of a religious experience as the source of the sudden recognition of a moral or philosophical truth isn't all that unknown. As a matter of fact it happens all the time to believers when it's really simply the subconscious mind intruding abruptly on the conscious mind.
So the argument that one has to either discard everything Jesus said and did or accept him as God is an oversimplification. Men, and events, are much more complicated than that.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
A Theocracy Called for
I always figured Katherine Harris, the Florida attorney general that oversaw the chad recount in 2000 and now a Congressional Representative from Florida, was a political hack, now I see that she’s a certifiable religious loony bird with no understanding of western democratic principles as well.
Some quotes, with commentary, from a recent speech.
"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin.”
So, in other words, only Christians are moral or is it that everyone needs to accept the Christian definition of morality? This is, always has been, and always will be, my major problem with so-called “moral values.” Who gets to chose what is moral and what isn’t?
Christians, in the immense arrogance of the breed, figure their definition is the only definition. Harris, like most religious people, can’t differentiate between what SHE BELIEVES to be true and objective truth. Her beliefs are merely opinion and, in a democracy, anyone else’s opinion is just as good.
"…we have to have the faithful in government" because that is God's will.”
Well in that case there’s no need to vote is there? If it’s God’s will it’s going to happen no matter what isn’t it? Personally I'd rather have people that focus on facts rather than faith in the government.
Separating religion and politics is "so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers.”
I refer you to the comment above. If Sky Daddy is making all the decisions, then my vote isn’t worth a whole hell of a lot is it? Is it just me or does this sound a lot like the concept of Rule by Divine Right so popular in the Dark Ages? Tell me, oh great loony bird, you figure that I shouldn’t oppose the policies of Bush the Unhinged because God chose him to be President so everything he’s doing is God’s will?
"And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women," then "we're going to have a nation of secular laws. That's not what our Founding Fathers intended, and that certainly isn't what God intended."
Actually, it’s precisely what the Founding Fathers intended because they were committed to Religious Freedom. Men like Madison and Jefferson were smart enough to realize that only a secular society, with secular laws, could be relied upon to protect that freedom.
As for what God intended, I haven’t got a clue. What leads you to believe that you do?
I consider it a disgrace that a member of Congress can hold such views and the people of Florida should hang their heads in shame. Let’s hope they correct the situation next election day.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the form of Evangelical Christianity as exemplified by people like Pat Robertson, Roy Moore, George Bush and Katherine Harris, is the greatest danger to American Democracy that has ever existed. It is fundamentally incompatible with democracy, it is fundamentally incompatible with science and it is fundamentally incompatible with all of the progress made by mankind since the enlightenment.
Some quotes, with commentary, from a recent speech.
"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin.”
So, in other words, only Christians are moral or is it that everyone needs to accept the Christian definition of morality? This is, always has been, and always will be, my major problem with so-called “moral values.” Who gets to chose what is moral and what isn’t?
Christians, in the immense arrogance of the breed, figure their definition is the only definition. Harris, like most religious people, can’t differentiate between what SHE BELIEVES to be true and objective truth. Her beliefs are merely opinion and, in a democracy, anyone else’s opinion is just as good.
"…we have to have the faithful in government" because that is God's will.”
Well in that case there’s no need to vote is there? If it’s God’s will it’s going to happen no matter what isn’t it? Personally I'd rather have people that focus on facts rather than faith in the government.
Separating religion and politics is "so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers.”
I refer you to the comment above. If Sky Daddy is making all the decisions, then my vote isn’t worth a whole hell of a lot is it? Is it just me or does this sound a lot like the concept of Rule by Divine Right so popular in the Dark Ages? Tell me, oh great loony bird, you figure that I shouldn’t oppose the policies of Bush the Unhinged because God chose him to be President so everything he’s doing is God’s will?
"And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women," then "we're going to have a nation of secular laws. That's not what our Founding Fathers intended, and that certainly isn't what God intended."
Actually, it’s precisely what the Founding Fathers intended because they were committed to Religious Freedom. Men like Madison and Jefferson were smart enough to realize that only a secular society, with secular laws, could be relied upon to protect that freedom.
As for what God intended, I haven’t got a clue. What leads you to believe that you do?
I consider it a disgrace that a member of Congress can hold such views and the people of Florida should hang their heads in shame. Let’s hope they correct the situation next election day.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the form of Evangelical Christianity as exemplified by people like Pat Robertson, Roy Moore, George Bush and Katherine Harris, is the greatest danger to American Democracy that has ever existed. It is fundamentally incompatible with democracy, it is fundamentally incompatible with science and it is fundamentally incompatible with all of the progress made by mankind since the enlightenment.
Asleep in Seattle
Last year I thought the Giant’s defense looked awful in pre-season but they played pretty well during the season. This year they looked really good in the pre-season but, at least so far, are absolutely dreadful in the regular season. Eleven grannies with orthopedic shoes could score on these guys.
I mean it takes talent to give up 35 points in the first half. Bah, enough of this nonsense, the Giants have another debacle in Seattle getting clipped by the Seahawks 42-30. Thank goodness for the bye week.
I mean it takes talent to give up 35 points in the first half. Bah, enough of this nonsense, the Giants have another debacle in Seattle getting clipped by the Seahawks 42-30. Thank goodness for the bye week.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Why not Gay Marriage?
That’s the title of a booklet and DVD authored by Glenn Stanton and being offered by Dobson’s Focus on the Family group. The booklet promises 10 persuasive answers to the question.
Now since they want $15 for the DVD and booklet combination and I’m not about to provide any funds for Dobson, I had to go looking for a newspaper report on the thing to give me an idea what it says. The best I found was from the Baptist Press (BP) News in Nashville which, given it’s not exactly what I would call an unbiased party, gave a very neutral journalistic description of some of the questions and answers. Among the questions BP says are included in Stanton’s booklet are:
-- How will my "same-sex marriage" hurt your marriage?
Stanton answers "It hurts my marriage by teaching my children that their gender does not matter. As a father, I will never, never allow that to happen."
You will excuse me but I don’t see where gay marriage, which would be practiced by at most a small portion of the population, says any such thing. Even if it did, how could it possibly have any impact against the literally thousands of signals we get daily from parents, peers, siblings, teachers, role models, television, magazines and Hollywood that gender DOES matter.
Personally I think the reverse issue, that we’re teaching our children that gender matters way too much, is the bigger problem.
-- Could "gay marriage" lead to polygamy?
Stanton points out that some gays live in multiple partner relationships now and claims that if we accept gay marriage "There is no logical stopping point."
My reaction to the first point is so what? There were group sex communes in the 60’s and they didn’t bring the world to an end nor were they ever viewed by society as anything but an aberration. There will always be a tiny percentage of the population that will engage in what the rest of us consider a bizarre life style. Most of us learn to ignore it.
As for the “no logical stopping point” argument, this is the old slippery slope logical fallacy. The fact is there are stopping points. In a previous post I pointed out the biggest difference between gay marriage and other alternative life styles such as polygamy and group marriage. While homosexuality appears to be at least partially rooted in genetics and not in a free lifestyle choice, the alternatives are clearly lifestyle choices. I can therefore easily justify recognizing one while condemning the others.
-- Is it healthy to subject children to experimental families?
I assume by “experimental” families Stanton means other than one man one woman families. Well I have two news flashes for you bubby. First ALL families are experimental because no two families are identical.
You need proof of this? How about the fact that 50% of all heterosexual marriages end in divorce? I might also point out that evangelical Christian families have a higher divorce rate than the average. I’ve been married for 34 years and I’ve raised three children and you want to lecture me on family values?
The second news flash is while, as you properly point out, Social Science hasn’t had enough time to study the effects of growing up in a male – male or female – female parent household, it has had enough time to study the effects of growing up in a NO PARENT household and those effects are not terribly comforting. I find it hard to believe that being raised by two mommies or two daddies could possible be worse than being raised by no mommies and no daddies.
Often gay couples adopt, love and raise children that no one else will take, minority children, children with health problems or children born with drug addiction. You will excuse me again but I don’t see you Focus on the Family folks lining up to adopt these kids. I wouldn’t have the courage to do it myself but many gay couples do and I say more power to them. A loving home, even one that you think is aberrant, is a lot better than growing up in a state institution.
What the other questions may be I don’t know, but as for “persuasive,” only if you’re either already a believer or not too bright. Oh, wait a minute, aren’t they the same thing?
When I started this blog I promised myself not to use a certain word regardless of how deserved it might be. Therefore, all I have to say is, dear Mr. Stanton, go perform a reproductive function on yourself.
Now since they want $15 for the DVD and booklet combination and I’m not about to provide any funds for Dobson, I had to go looking for a newspaper report on the thing to give me an idea what it says. The best I found was from the Baptist Press (BP) News in Nashville which, given it’s not exactly what I would call an unbiased party, gave a very neutral journalistic description of some of the questions and answers. Among the questions BP says are included in Stanton’s booklet are:
-- How will my "same-sex marriage" hurt your marriage?
Stanton answers "It hurts my marriage by teaching my children that their gender does not matter. As a father, I will never, never allow that to happen."
You will excuse me but I don’t see where gay marriage, which would be practiced by at most a small portion of the population, says any such thing. Even if it did, how could it possibly have any impact against the literally thousands of signals we get daily from parents, peers, siblings, teachers, role models, television, magazines and Hollywood that gender DOES matter.
Personally I think the reverse issue, that we’re teaching our children that gender matters way too much, is the bigger problem.
-- Could "gay marriage" lead to polygamy?
Stanton points out that some gays live in multiple partner relationships now and claims that if we accept gay marriage "There is no logical stopping point."
My reaction to the first point is so what? There were group sex communes in the 60’s and they didn’t bring the world to an end nor were they ever viewed by society as anything but an aberration. There will always be a tiny percentage of the population that will engage in what the rest of us consider a bizarre life style. Most of us learn to ignore it.
As for the “no logical stopping point” argument, this is the old slippery slope logical fallacy. The fact is there are stopping points. In a previous post I pointed out the biggest difference between gay marriage and other alternative life styles such as polygamy and group marriage. While homosexuality appears to be at least partially rooted in genetics and not in a free lifestyle choice, the alternatives are clearly lifestyle choices. I can therefore easily justify recognizing one while condemning the others.
-- Is it healthy to subject children to experimental families?
I assume by “experimental” families Stanton means other than one man one woman families. Well I have two news flashes for you bubby. First ALL families are experimental because no two families are identical.
You need proof of this? How about the fact that 50% of all heterosexual marriages end in divorce? I might also point out that evangelical Christian families have a higher divorce rate than the average. I’ve been married for 34 years and I’ve raised three children and you want to lecture me on family values?
The second news flash is while, as you properly point out, Social Science hasn’t had enough time to study the effects of growing up in a male – male or female – female parent household, it has had enough time to study the effects of growing up in a NO PARENT household and those effects are not terribly comforting. I find it hard to believe that being raised by two mommies or two daddies could possible be worse than being raised by no mommies and no daddies.
Often gay couples adopt, love and raise children that no one else will take, minority children, children with health problems or children born with drug addiction. You will excuse me again but I don’t see you Focus on the Family folks lining up to adopt these kids. I wouldn’t have the courage to do it myself but many gay couples do and I say more power to them. A loving home, even one that you think is aberrant, is a lot better than growing up in a state institution.
What the other questions may be I don’t know, but as for “persuasive,” only if you’re either already a believer or not too bright. Oh, wait a minute, aren’t they the same thing?
When I started this blog I promised myself not to use a certain word regardless of how deserved it might be. Therefore, all I have to say is, dear Mr. Stanton, go perform a reproductive function on yourself.
A Reversal of Fortune
Whoo-hoo we won one in Philly! Usually it’s the Eagles that come up with bizarre winning finishes against the Giants. This time the Giants came up with a wild one against the Eagles.
Let’s start with a lucky fumble recovery in the end zone, followed by a lucky fumble, followed by a fortuitous personal foul penalty that brought the Giants within field goal range and then a kick that just about scrapped the left upright and you had a 17 point 4th quarter comeback that tied the game at 24-24.
Then the topper came in overtime. After the Giants had penaltied their way back from a run to the 5 yard line to the 30 yard line, little brother Eli lofted one to Plaxico in the end zone to wrap up a totally improbable victory 30-24.
Good thing too. An 0-2 start coupled with a Philly 2-0 start would have been more than a little bit of trouble.
Now the guys head for Seattle, the scene of last year’s debacle by Jay Feely. Here’s hoping we do better this year.
Let’s start with a lucky fumble recovery in the end zone, followed by a lucky fumble, followed by a fortuitous personal foul penalty that brought the Giants within field goal range and then a kick that just about scrapped the left upright and you had a 17 point 4th quarter comeback that tied the game at 24-24.
Then the topper came in overtime. After the Giants had penaltied their way back from a run to the 5 yard line to the 30 yard line, little brother Eli lofted one to Plaxico in the end zone to wrap up a totally improbable victory 30-24.
Good thing too. An 0-2 start coupled with a Philly 2-0 start would have been more than a little bit of trouble.
Now the guys head for Seattle, the scene of last year’s debacle by Jay Feely. Here’s hoping we do better this year.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Islam is Mad at the Pope
Uh-oh, the Pope quoted a Byzantine Emperor and has the Muslim world all in an uproar. What was the quote? It was "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
Considering that the Emperor then goes on to explain how spreading faith through violence is unreasonable, which is a Greek concept not a Christian concept by the way, the implication that Muhammad was an unreasonable war monger is, I think, pretty unmistakable.
What I don’t understand is why the surprise? Interfaith co-operation my rear end. Look folks, the Pope, and ALL other Christians, believe Muhammad was a false prophet and therefore they have to believe either (a) the Quran is full of lies, (b) Muhammad was an evil liar or (c) Muhammad was a lunatic. If they didn’t, they would convert to Islam.
In the meantime, no Muslims believe that Jesus is the Lord God Savior so therefore they have to believe either (a) the gospels and epistles are full of lies, (b) Jesus was an evil liar or (c) Jesus was a lunatic. If they didn’t, they would convert to Christianity.
DUH! Get it? All this about interfaith co-operation and respect is basically “you let me fleece my flock and I’ll let you fleece your flock.” They’re smiling at each other while holding daggers behind their backs! They’re all freaking hypocrites.
If you learn nothing else young Padawan learn this, NEVER trust anyone who claims to speak for God.
Considering that the Emperor then goes on to explain how spreading faith through violence is unreasonable, which is a Greek concept not a Christian concept by the way, the implication that Muhammad was an unreasonable war monger is, I think, pretty unmistakable.
What I don’t understand is why the surprise? Interfaith co-operation my rear end. Look folks, the Pope, and ALL other Christians, believe Muhammad was a false prophet and therefore they have to believe either (a) the Quran is full of lies, (b) Muhammad was an evil liar or (c) Muhammad was a lunatic. If they didn’t, they would convert to Islam.
In the meantime, no Muslims believe that Jesus is the Lord God Savior so therefore they have to believe either (a) the gospels and epistles are full of lies, (b) Jesus was an evil liar or (c) Jesus was a lunatic. If they didn’t, they would convert to Christianity.
DUH! Get it? All this about interfaith co-operation and respect is basically “you let me fleece my flock and I’ll let you fleece your flock.” They’re smiling at each other while holding daggers behind their backs! They’re all freaking hypocrites.
If you learn nothing else young Padawan learn this, NEVER trust anyone who claims to speak for God.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Survivor’s Racial Teams
This year’s Survivor program has apparently chosen to divide the teams by race. There will be a White, a Black, a Hispanic and an Asian team. Needless to say there has been more than a little criticism and some people have even called for the show to be canceled.
I don’t watch Survivor but I have to admit I was more than a little surprised when I heard about the teams divided by race arrangement. Shocked would be too strong a word but I was surprised.
Then I thought about it a bit and decided who cares? Is this any different than dividing the teams into blue eyed and brown eyed or left handed and right handed? No it isn’t. How about we grow up and stop being offended by every little thing. I might even watch an episode to see how things work out.
I don’t watch Survivor but I have to admit I was more than a little surprised when I heard about the teams divided by race arrangement. Shocked would be too strong a word but I was surprised.
Then I thought about it a bit and decided who cares? Is this any different than dividing the teams into blue eyed and brown eyed or left handed and right handed? No it isn’t. How about we grow up and stop being offended by every little thing. I might even watch an episode to see how things work out.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Wal-Mart and the NGLCC
This is too delicious. The Mecca of Red State America, Wal-Mart, has entered into a partnership with the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) a staunch supporter of homosexual marriage.
As a part of this partnership Wal-Mart will be donating $25,000 to the NGLCC and will pay for two conferences scheduled by the organization. Wal-Mart will also give homosexual-owned businesses special treatment when making purchases.
Needless to say the Religious Right is going absolutely bonkers over Wal-Mart joining the Ford Corporation in supporting Gay Rights in general and, apparently, Gay Marriage in particular.
Like I said in a post not too long ago support for Gay Marriage is approaching critical mass in many states. At heart Americans are fair minded people, ignorant as hell, but fair minded. If they act like jackasses sometimes it’s due to the demagogues taking advantage of that ignorance. Once that ignorance is resolved they can usually be relied upon to do the right thing. This is the reason that the Religious Right is ultimately going to lose on the issue of Gay Marriage, because the right thing is to extend the benefits (or pain and suffering depending on your outlook) of marriage to all Americans regardless of sexual persuasion.
Let's hear it for Wal-Mart. Now if only they would give their work force decent benefits I might actual shop there a little more often than when I have absolutely no other choice.
As a part of this partnership Wal-Mart will be donating $25,000 to the NGLCC and will pay for two conferences scheduled by the organization. Wal-Mart will also give homosexual-owned businesses special treatment when making purchases.
Needless to say the Religious Right is going absolutely bonkers over Wal-Mart joining the Ford Corporation in supporting Gay Rights in general and, apparently, Gay Marriage in particular.
Like I said in a post not too long ago support for Gay Marriage is approaching critical mass in many states. At heart Americans are fair minded people, ignorant as hell, but fair minded. If they act like jackasses sometimes it’s due to the demagogues taking advantage of that ignorance. Once that ignorance is resolved they can usually be relied upon to do the right thing. This is the reason that the Religious Right is ultimately going to lose on the issue of Gay Marriage, because the right thing is to extend the benefits (or pain and suffering depending on your outlook) of marriage to all Americans regardless of sexual persuasion.
Let's hear it for Wal-Mart. Now if only they would give their work force decent benefits I might actual shop there a little more often than when I have absolutely no other choice.
The Manning Bowl
Yes I went to the game Sunday night to watch Peyton spank his baby brother and the Giants. I was just so annoyed with the parking debacle at Giants Stadium that I was in no mood to write about it.
The Colts offensive looked good. The Giants offense looked ok. The Giants defense was a big disappointment other than the one big turnover opportunity they supplied which, unfortunately, the offense turned right back over to the Colts. The officials refereeing the game should probably get hit in the head with semi-limp noodles. I’ve probably seen worse calls by officials but off-hand I can’t remember when.
The NFL wants parity. This makes sense because it makes more of the games exciting and keeps the playoff races going almost invariably until the last week of the season. This keeps the television audiences glued to their chairs and the revenues flowing. One unfortunate side effect however is that the officiating can loom large in more games. I wonder how many games are ultimately decided by the officials rather than the teams?
Anyway, the Colts handled the Giants 26-21 and the Giants now head down the turnpike to Philadelphia where they rarely have much luck. An 0-2 season start is more than likely.
The Colts offensive looked good. The Giants offense looked ok. The Giants defense was a big disappointment other than the one big turnover opportunity they supplied which, unfortunately, the offense turned right back over to the Colts. The officials refereeing the game should probably get hit in the head with semi-limp noodles. I’ve probably seen worse calls by officials but off-hand I can’t remember when.
The NFL wants parity. This makes sense because it makes more of the games exciting and keeps the playoff races going almost invariably until the last week of the season. This keeps the television audiences glued to their chairs and the revenues flowing. One unfortunate side effect however is that the officiating can loom large in more games. I wonder how many games are ultimately decided by the officials rather than the teams?
Anyway, the Colts handled the Giants 26-21 and the Giants now head down the turnpike to Philadelphia where they rarely have much luck. An 0-2 season start is more than likely.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
September 11, 2006
It’s difficult to believe that it’s been five years since the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. I think the media is luxuriating a little too much in the anniversary this year. Perhaps it's because mother nature didn't supply them a hurricane disaster that they could blubber over and the media feels that it isn't doing its job unless it's trying to scare the hell out of us about something. For instance, I’m getting a little tired of hearing the constant argument about do we “feel” safer as opposed to are we in fact safer.
Obviously we’re safer. We would all be complete idiots if some things haven’t gotten a little safer in the aftermath of the attack. If nothing else they’re checking my shoes for explosives at airports and as little as that may be, it certainly counts for something doesn't it? Should I suddenly start hearing the chant "God is great" in my head and decide to pack some plastic explosives into my Nikes in order to take out a 747, they're going to prevent that from happening. At least I think they would prevent that from happening.
Just as obviously we feel less safe since we now know with absolute certainty that it can happen here. I feel less safe but I’m pretty darn good at not letting it affect my day to day activities. I decided a long time ago that if I allowed myself to be afraid of all the things I could be afraid of, or of all the things our society of fear would like me to be afraid of, I wouldn't be able to do anything but be afraid. Screw that.
I got stuck in Fullerton California in 2001. I had flown from Newark to South Orange airport the evening of the 10th and was greeted at 0700 the next morning by an overly excited co-worker staying at the same hotel with news of the events transpiring in New York and Washington. I saw the collapse of the towers on television from my hotel room.
The remainder of the day consisted of a series of reports filtering in about individuals lost on the aircraft or unaccounted for in the towers. It’s difficult to accomplish much in a business meeting when every few hours someone sticks his head into the room to announce someone else who was on one of the planes even if you’re not personally acquainted with the individual.
Eventually our attention focused on how, and when, we might be getting home. The hotel and rental agency told us that our rooms and cars would be available for the duration so we at least had no concerns there. Neither the hotel nor Avis Rental charged for the extra days.
There were five of us stranded in Fullerton. Two were from Ft. Wayne, Indiana, two from Scottsdale, Arizona and one poor schnook (me) from New Jersey. I was about as far away from home as I could get and still be in the continental U.S.
The two guys from Scottsdale decided to drive home and offered to take us along thinking that it might be easier to get a flight out of Phoenix than LAX. We decided against that since we at least had someplace to stay in California but had no such guarantee in Phoenix. Next we got a call from two other guys from Ft. Wayne that were stuck in California who had decided to drive to Indiana. They offered to drop me off in either Chicago or Indianapolis where I might be able to get a train. This didn’t sound like a real good idea either and again we decided to stay put.
In the final analysis it didn’t take all that long to get back it just seemed long. All of us got on flights Friday morning by which time I was on a first name basis with the Continental booking agents at both Orange County and LAX. I was on the first Continental flight out of John Wayne Airport and based upon the advice being loudly broadcast over the TV, I arrived about 5 hours before the flight or around 4 AM. It took an hour to return the rental car because they searched every conceivable place in the car, under the car, in the trunk, in my bag and on me that you could imagine. If I had suddenly woken up that morning and decided that Allah was God, Muhammad was his prophet, Satan America needed to be chastised and those 72 virgins sounded like a pretty good deal, they at least had that contingency covered.
After finally getting rid of the car I confronted THE LINE which stretched out of the terminal building and down the block. Lucky for me that was the American Airlines line. The Continental desk was completely empty so it took me all of 10 minutes to get to the gate. Four hours later I boarded a very full plane and five hours after that landed in the ghost town that was Newark Airport. Let me tell you how eerie a feeling it was to walk through what is normally a beehive of activity when it is virtually empty. We were the only passengers working our way through the terminal.
So I managed to make it home and found out about more losses in and around town. The father of a child in my wife’s 3rd grade class was killed as was the son of the interim principal at the school where she worked. All of the small towns in Northern New Jersey suffered losses. Like the man said, after 9/11 the Red States put magnets on their cars and the Blue States put coffins in the ground.
Five years have passed and I find myself annoyed at the constant drum beat in the media of how everything changed on 9/11. For many people, especially those who lost spouses, parents or children, everything did change, but for most of us things didn’t really change. Our perceptions were simply brought more into line with reality. We’re not immune from the insane acts of fanatics driven by extreme political beliefs or extreme religious beliefs and we never have been.
In the 60’s and 70’s the danger was from radical left wing organizations or those who claimed to be radical left wing organizations. In the early 21st century the danger is from right wing fundamentalist religious groups of both the Islamic and Christian varieties. Islamic fundamentalists crash planes into buildings and send suicide bombers into restaurants and hotels. Christian fundamentalists bomb abortion clinics and kill gays. At least the Muslim terrorists have the courtesy to die while they’re committing acts of terrorism; the Christian fundamentalists always seem to figure out a way to survive and continue to be a wart on society's rear end.
Ok, enough complaining and moaning. Perhaps some day we’ll all grow up enough to realize that there’s no reason to kill each other. If there is a Sky Daddy he must spend an awful lot of time weeping.
Obviously we’re safer. We would all be complete idiots if some things haven’t gotten a little safer in the aftermath of the attack. If nothing else they’re checking my shoes for explosives at airports and as little as that may be, it certainly counts for something doesn't it? Should I suddenly start hearing the chant "God is great" in my head and decide to pack some plastic explosives into my Nikes in order to take out a 747, they're going to prevent that from happening. At least I think they would prevent that from happening.
Just as obviously we feel less safe since we now know with absolute certainty that it can happen here. I feel less safe but I’m pretty darn good at not letting it affect my day to day activities. I decided a long time ago that if I allowed myself to be afraid of all the things I could be afraid of, or of all the things our society of fear would like me to be afraid of, I wouldn't be able to do anything but be afraid. Screw that.
I got stuck in Fullerton California in 2001. I had flown from Newark to South Orange airport the evening of the 10th and was greeted at 0700 the next morning by an overly excited co-worker staying at the same hotel with news of the events transpiring in New York and Washington. I saw the collapse of the towers on television from my hotel room.
The remainder of the day consisted of a series of reports filtering in about individuals lost on the aircraft or unaccounted for in the towers. It’s difficult to accomplish much in a business meeting when every few hours someone sticks his head into the room to announce someone else who was on one of the planes even if you’re not personally acquainted with the individual.
Eventually our attention focused on how, and when, we might be getting home. The hotel and rental agency told us that our rooms and cars would be available for the duration so we at least had no concerns there. Neither the hotel nor Avis Rental charged for the extra days.
There were five of us stranded in Fullerton. Two were from Ft. Wayne, Indiana, two from Scottsdale, Arizona and one poor schnook (me) from New Jersey. I was about as far away from home as I could get and still be in the continental U.S.
The two guys from Scottsdale decided to drive home and offered to take us along thinking that it might be easier to get a flight out of Phoenix than LAX. We decided against that since we at least had someplace to stay in California but had no such guarantee in Phoenix. Next we got a call from two other guys from Ft. Wayne that were stuck in California who had decided to drive to Indiana. They offered to drop me off in either Chicago or Indianapolis where I might be able to get a train. This didn’t sound like a real good idea either and again we decided to stay put.
In the final analysis it didn’t take all that long to get back it just seemed long. All of us got on flights Friday morning by which time I was on a first name basis with the Continental booking agents at both Orange County and LAX. I was on the first Continental flight out of John Wayne Airport and based upon the advice being loudly broadcast over the TV, I arrived about 5 hours before the flight or around 4 AM. It took an hour to return the rental car because they searched every conceivable place in the car, under the car, in the trunk, in my bag and on me that you could imagine. If I had suddenly woken up that morning and decided that Allah was God, Muhammad was his prophet, Satan America needed to be chastised and those 72 virgins sounded like a pretty good deal, they at least had that contingency covered.
After finally getting rid of the car I confronted THE LINE which stretched out of the terminal building and down the block. Lucky for me that was the American Airlines line. The Continental desk was completely empty so it took me all of 10 minutes to get to the gate. Four hours later I boarded a very full plane and five hours after that landed in the ghost town that was Newark Airport. Let me tell you how eerie a feeling it was to walk through what is normally a beehive of activity when it is virtually empty. We were the only passengers working our way through the terminal.
So I managed to make it home and found out about more losses in and around town. The father of a child in my wife’s 3rd grade class was killed as was the son of the interim principal at the school where she worked. All of the small towns in Northern New Jersey suffered losses. Like the man said, after 9/11 the Red States put magnets on their cars and the Blue States put coffins in the ground.
Five years have passed and I find myself annoyed at the constant drum beat in the media of how everything changed on 9/11. For many people, especially those who lost spouses, parents or children, everything did change, but for most of us things didn’t really change. Our perceptions were simply brought more into line with reality. We’re not immune from the insane acts of fanatics driven by extreme political beliefs or extreme religious beliefs and we never have been.
In the 60’s and 70’s the danger was from radical left wing organizations or those who claimed to be radical left wing organizations. In the early 21st century the danger is from right wing fundamentalist religious groups of both the Islamic and Christian varieties. Islamic fundamentalists crash planes into buildings and send suicide bombers into restaurants and hotels. Christian fundamentalists bomb abortion clinics and kill gays. At least the Muslim terrorists have the courtesy to die while they’re committing acts of terrorism; the Christian fundamentalists always seem to figure out a way to survive and continue to be a wart on society's rear end.
Ok, enough complaining and moaning. Perhaps some day we’ll all grow up enough to realize that there’s no reason to kill each other. If there is a Sky Daddy he must spend an awful lot of time weeping.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Dawkins, Harris and Me
There was an article in this week’s Newsweek about atheist scholars which was, not unexpectedly, heavily related to the philosophies of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins.
Harris and Dawkins are probably the most radical and outspoken voices criticizing religion and faith. I’m especially looking forward to Dawkins’ new book “The God Delusion” which should be released sometime this year.
So where do I line up here? I don’t make it any secret that I consider religion not only false but dangerous as well. At the moment I consider today’s brand of Conservative Evangelical Christianity the single biggest threat to Western Democratic principles that has ever existed. The hatred and intolerance that led Christianity to enslave people different from themselves, attempt to erase all traces of pre-Columbian culture and destroy the Library at Alexandria is alive and well in the message of today’s Evangelical Preachers and the oft fleeced flock, with vapid expressions on the faces, nods unthinkingly at the words like bob head dolls in the back of a car going down a bumpy road.
So in terms of religion I’m squarely in the Harris and Dawkins camp. I’m convinced that either our species frees itself from religion or religion will ultimately lead to our destruction.
I’m not as ready to side with Harris and Dawkins in terms of the existence of God. Logically speaking the only honest intellectual position is Agnosticism. Dawkins claims he’s Agnostic about God in the same way he’s Agnostic about Santa Claus which means he’s certain that God doesn’t exist. I’m not so sure. There is only one thing I’m absolutely certain about and that’s Shakespeare had it right when he put the words “There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” into Hamlet’s mouth.
The universe is a strange place and the knowledge we possess is minuscule. Relatively speaking what we know compared to what there is to know is probably about the size of a flea compared to an elephant. Actually I’m more of what I’ve heard called a “Militant Agnostic.” A Militant Agnostic’s philosophy is “I don’t know and neither do you!”
I’ve also described myself as an “Agnostic Deist” which means I don’t know if God exists but if he does exist then I believe the Deist concept of God is the most accurate. So I guess I’m a Militant Agnostic Deist.
Harris and Dawkins are probably the most radical and outspoken voices criticizing religion and faith. I’m especially looking forward to Dawkins’ new book “The God Delusion” which should be released sometime this year.
So where do I line up here? I don’t make it any secret that I consider religion not only false but dangerous as well. At the moment I consider today’s brand of Conservative Evangelical Christianity the single biggest threat to Western Democratic principles that has ever existed. The hatred and intolerance that led Christianity to enslave people different from themselves, attempt to erase all traces of pre-Columbian culture and destroy the Library at Alexandria is alive and well in the message of today’s Evangelical Preachers and the oft fleeced flock, with vapid expressions on the faces, nods unthinkingly at the words like bob head dolls in the back of a car going down a bumpy road.
So in terms of religion I’m squarely in the Harris and Dawkins camp. I’m convinced that either our species frees itself from religion or religion will ultimately lead to our destruction.
I’m not as ready to side with Harris and Dawkins in terms of the existence of God. Logically speaking the only honest intellectual position is Agnosticism. Dawkins claims he’s Agnostic about God in the same way he’s Agnostic about Santa Claus which means he’s certain that God doesn’t exist. I’m not so sure. There is only one thing I’m absolutely certain about and that’s Shakespeare had it right when he put the words “There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” into Hamlet’s mouth.
The universe is a strange place and the knowledge we possess is minuscule. Relatively speaking what we know compared to what there is to know is probably about the size of a flea compared to an elephant. Actually I’m more of what I’ve heard called a “Militant Agnostic.” A Militant Agnostic’s philosophy is “I don’t know and neither do you!”
I’ve also described myself as an “Agnostic Deist” which means I don’t know if God exists but if he does exist then I believe the Deist concept of God is the most accurate. So I guess I’m a Militant Agnostic Deist.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
When the Levies Broke
I’ve been watching Spike Lee’s four part documentary about the Katrina disaster on HBO on Demand and I feel obligated to make a number of observations.
My first observation is that if I had any doubts that Spike Lee is THE premier film artist of our time, this documentary eliminated them. My second observation is that the Bush administration is at least guilty of criminal incompetence and my third observation is that, for all the talk about the “New South,” blacks are still treated like crap down there aren’t they?
I mean, it sounds to me like the place was a freaking disaster if you were black, or poor white, before the freaking disaster and Katrina took it from really bad to catastrophic. I wouldn’t let a dog live in some of the places shown in the film. They were little more than shacks. No wonder they got flattened by what wasn’t even a direct hit by the hurricane.
I can understand why some of the people displaced by Katrina are considering not going back. Since they have to start from scratch anyway they’re realizing that they might be better off doing it in Texas or Oklahoma or Pennsylvania.
As for the New Orleans city administration and the Louisiana governor’s office, both underestimated the impact that a category 5 hurricane was going to have. Bianco should have activated the National Guard BEFORE the storm struck and Nagin should have used them, his police force and every bus they could find to enforce the mandatory evacuation. Yes this is 20-20 hindsight on my part, but if you want to be the leader, then be prepared to pay the piper when you drop the ball.
After the storm struck I think Nagin did the best he could with an impossible situation and Bianco was more concerned about politics than doing what needed to be done. I’d vote her ass out of office but he can play on my team anytime.
Of course on the other hand, we’re not talking about the sharpest tools in the shed here. While I sympathized with what happened to them I couldn’t help observing that a lot of the people involved were not prone to logical thinking. I loved the lady that explained how Jesus helped them wade through the water to safety. Err, wouldn’t he have done better by you to keep the storm away or at least keep the levees from breaking? I’m amazed by the attitude that God helped me AFTER the catastrophe struck so that shows his love. I guess he didn’t love those that drowned did he? I think I would prefer a God that either prevented the catastrophe or was at least totally neutral rather than one that allows the catastrophe to occur and then plays favorites helping some while leaving others to their fate.
My first observation is that if I had any doubts that Spike Lee is THE premier film artist of our time, this documentary eliminated them. My second observation is that the Bush administration is at least guilty of criminal incompetence and my third observation is that, for all the talk about the “New South,” blacks are still treated like crap down there aren’t they?
I mean, it sounds to me like the place was a freaking disaster if you were black, or poor white, before the freaking disaster and Katrina took it from really bad to catastrophic. I wouldn’t let a dog live in some of the places shown in the film. They were little more than shacks. No wonder they got flattened by what wasn’t even a direct hit by the hurricane.
I can understand why some of the people displaced by Katrina are considering not going back. Since they have to start from scratch anyway they’re realizing that they might be better off doing it in Texas or Oklahoma or Pennsylvania.
As for the New Orleans city administration and the Louisiana governor’s office, both underestimated the impact that a category 5 hurricane was going to have. Bianco should have activated the National Guard BEFORE the storm struck and Nagin should have used them, his police force and every bus they could find to enforce the mandatory evacuation. Yes this is 20-20 hindsight on my part, but if you want to be the leader, then be prepared to pay the piper when you drop the ball.
After the storm struck I think Nagin did the best he could with an impossible situation and Bianco was more concerned about politics than doing what needed to be done. I’d vote her ass out of office but he can play on my team anytime.
Of course on the other hand, we’re not talking about the sharpest tools in the shed here. While I sympathized with what happened to them I couldn’t help observing that a lot of the people involved were not prone to logical thinking. I loved the lady that explained how Jesus helped them wade through the water to safety. Err, wouldn’t he have done better by you to keep the storm away or at least keep the levees from breaking? I’m amazed by the attitude that God helped me AFTER the catastrophe struck so that shows his love. I guess he didn’t love those that drowned did he? I think I would prefer a God that either prevented the catastrophe or was at least totally neutral rather than one that allows the catastrophe to occur and then plays favorites helping some while leaving others to their fate.
Telephone Telepathy?
You know the phenomena where you think about someone just before the phone rings and it’s the person you just thought about? That’s what, according to Reuters, a scientist named Rupert Sheldrake at Trinity College in Cambridge is calling “Telephone Telepathy” and for what he claims to have experimental evidence that it really does exists. Not only does this precognition work with telephones, supposedly it also works with e-mails!
Yeah right. The article explains that Sheldrake performed small scale tests asking people to predict, out of four family or friend choices, who was going to call and got a success rate of 45%. Granted that’s a lot higher than the 25% one would expect by pure chance but the article doesn’t give a lot of detail about the protocol used or even if it was a double-blind study. Experience has shown repeatedly that only double-blind studies can be relied upon. It’s amazing what non-verbal clues are sent out and can be picked up, especially when the examiner has a vested interest in the outcome of the experiment.
Sheldrake’s basic hypothesis is that there is an interconnectedness of minds within a social group. My reaction is that’s all very interesting but I think I’ll wait until other folks duplicate Sheldrake’s results before I get too excited.
My problem with all this is that if it works for I’m going to call you or send you an e-mail, then it should work for just about everything and despite lots and lots of trying, no one has ever, to my knowledge, come up with any credible evidence of telepathic capabilities even between the closest of family members.
As for the “Hey, I was just thinking about you” phenomena when the phone rings, it called “confirmation bias.” You remember weird stuff when it happens, because it is weird, but forget about all the times you thought about your wife or girlfriend and she didn’t call.
Yeah right. The article explains that Sheldrake performed small scale tests asking people to predict, out of four family or friend choices, who was going to call and got a success rate of 45%. Granted that’s a lot higher than the 25% one would expect by pure chance but the article doesn’t give a lot of detail about the protocol used or even if it was a double-blind study. Experience has shown repeatedly that only double-blind studies can be relied upon. It’s amazing what non-verbal clues are sent out and can be picked up, especially when the examiner has a vested interest in the outcome of the experiment.
Sheldrake’s basic hypothesis is that there is an interconnectedness of minds within a social group. My reaction is that’s all very interesting but I think I’ll wait until other folks duplicate Sheldrake’s results before I get too excited.
My problem with all this is that if it works for I’m going to call you or send you an e-mail, then it should work for just about everything and despite lots and lots of trying, no one has ever, to my knowledge, come up with any credible evidence of telepathic capabilities even between the closest of family members.
As for the “Hey, I was just thinking about you” phenomena when the phone rings, it called “confirmation bias.” You remember weird stuff when it happens, because it is weird, but forget about all the times you thought about your wife or girlfriend and she didn’t call.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Death Penalty Update
Governor Mike Rounds has placed South Dakota executions on hold due to concerns about the state’s lethal injection procedures. The governor’s decision stopped South Dakota’s planned execution of a “volunteer” that had waived all appeals. This would have been the state’s first execution since the death penalty was re-instituted in 1976. The governor’s directive appears to put a hold in place until at least July of 2007.
Thanks to Rounds’ action South Dakota remains in the club of states with death penalty statutes that have never used them along with Kansas, New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire and joins California, Missouri and Delaware in the club of states with executions on hold due to questions related to lethal injections.
The incompetence of the Texas capital punishment system continues to amaze. Now The San Antonio Express-News reports that the lawyer for Justin Fuller, the 19th execution in Texas this year, "filed an appeal with incoherent repetitions, rambling arguments and language clearly lifted from one of his previous cases, so that at one point it described the wrong crime."
Apparently even the assistant district attorney was disturbed by the quality of the legal brief. This so-called lawyer is still on the list of "competent counsel" for Texas death penalty appellate work.
You will excuse me, but if you live in Texas and you are not OUTRAGED then you are NOT PAYING ATTENTION! The criminal justice system in the state of Texas has a bad case of dry rot and an overhaul is long overdue. I blame the newspapers in Texas for not making the sad state of affairs clear to the electorate. I find it hard to believe that the good people of Texas would tolerate the situation if they knew about it.
In the meantime Texas has already matched its total of 19 executions last year in 2006 and seven more are currently scheduled.
Elsewhere another statistical study, this one based upon cases in South Carolina, has shown that prosecutors are more likely to ask for the death penalty in rural areas or if the victim was white or female.
This is what, about the 50th such study? The Supreme Court originally stopped capital punishment because it was “arbitrary.” Well guess what? Study after study has demonstrated that it’s still arbitrary.
I expect the death penalty in New Jersey to be a thing of the past after the commission studying it issues its report in early 2007. Perhaps that will start he ball rolling and other states that either have not used their statutes or have executions suspended for one reason or another will consider scrapping their capital punishment laws.
It was a bad summer with a total of 14 executions in July and August bringing the total in 2006 to 39.
Thanks to Rounds’ action South Dakota remains in the club of states with death penalty statutes that have never used them along with Kansas, New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire and joins California, Missouri and Delaware in the club of states with executions on hold due to questions related to lethal injections.
The incompetence of the Texas capital punishment system continues to amaze. Now The San Antonio Express-News reports that the lawyer for Justin Fuller, the 19th execution in Texas this year, "filed an appeal with incoherent repetitions, rambling arguments and language clearly lifted from one of his previous cases, so that at one point it described the wrong crime."
Apparently even the assistant district attorney was disturbed by the quality of the legal brief. This so-called lawyer is still on the list of "competent counsel" for Texas death penalty appellate work.
You will excuse me, but if you live in Texas and you are not OUTRAGED then you are NOT PAYING ATTENTION! The criminal justice system in the state of Texas has a bad case of dry rot and an overhaul is long overdue. I blame the newspapers in Texas for not making the sad state of affairs clear to the electorate. I find it hard to believe that the good people of Texas would tolerate the situation if they knew about it.
In the meantime Texas has already matched its total of 19 executions last year in 2006 and seven more are currently scheduled.
Elsewhere another statistical study, this one based upon cases in South Carolina, has shown that prosecutors are more likely to ask for the death penalty in rural areas or if the victim was white or female.
This is what, about the 50th such study? The Supreme Court originally stopped capital punishment because it was “arbitrary.” Well guess what? Study after study has demonstrated that it’s still arbitrary.
I expect the death penalty in New Jersey to be a thing of the past after the commission studying it issues its report in early 2007. Perhaps that will start he ball rolling and other states that either have not used their statutes or have executions suspended for one reason or another will consider scrapping their capital punishment laws.
It was a bad summer with a total of 14 executions in July and August bringing the total in 2006 to 39.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Back to Ft. Wayne
Another trip out to Ft. Wayne with a return the next day. This time I tried it in the good hands of Delta Comair via Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport. You know them, they’re the airline that managed to crash a plane Sunday by trying to take-off on too short a runway. The running joke walking along the tarmac to the aircraft was “I hope they use the right runway today.”
We got off an hour late from Newark due to the plane arriving late. That meant all kinds of trouble for the folks on board making a connection. The guy across from me had a connecting flight to Albuquerque leaving 5 minutes before we landed in Cincinnati. Unless his flight was delayed, he spent the night in Kentucky because that was the last flight out.
I was a little better off having about 20 minutes to get to my connecting flight to Ft. Wayne. Unfortunately my flight was leaving from terminal A and I landed at terminal C. For those of you unfamiliar with Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport, that means a shuttle bus ride between terminals, on the runway, while ducking taxing commuter aircraft. I just about made the Ft. Wayne flight run by good old Chautauqua airlines under the Delta banner. However there wasn’t any music, and no inspirational lecturer, just a rather wet and bumpy 20 minute flight.
This time I arrived in Ft. Wayne early enough to get a cookie and managed to finagle a decent car from Avis. Things went downhill from there. The first problem was my cell phone battery was dead. I swore I had a full charge on the thing before I left, and I hadn’t packed a charger for a one day trip, so I had a visit to a local Verizon store in my future.
Driving along Interstate 69 (how do you suppose anyone allowed an Interstate Highway in the moral Midwest to be numbered “69?”) it looked like I was heading into Dante’s Inferno. The skies were black except when punctuated by lightening bolts so big they must have been incinerating acres at a time. Then the emergency broadcast system kicked in with tornado warnings for places I didn’t know. That made it a tad difficult to figure out whether I was heading away from the tornadoes or toward the tornadoes. I thought the specific warning to folks living in trailer parks or mobile homes particularly enlightening.
I managed to get only partially drowned going from the parking lot into the Marriott Courtyard. With some doubts about the intelligence of going out into the weather again, I asked the clerk behind the desk to locate the nearest Verizon store for me and then went upstairs to unpack. When I got back he had Mapquest directions printed out for me for a store about a mile and a half away. Someone in the lobby was walking around in a near panic asking everyone if they knew how far away the tornadoes were. When he asked the clerk, the clerk thought he was asking about the Verizon store he had just given me directions to. When he told the guy about a mile and a half I thought the guy’s eyes were going to pop out. The panic was now complete.
The directions seemed so simple yet I couldn’t find the place. The darkness and the rain didn’t help but ultimately the problem turned out to be it wasn’t a store. It was actually a Verizon office building tucked away in an industrial park that required a U-Turn in order to get to the entrance. Oh well, at least he had tried to help out.
I popped into a Home Depot that was about to close and found only a car charger. A short discussion with a helpful clerk let me find out that was all they had but he suggested I hit the 24-hour WAL-MART down the road.
WAL-MART, the cathedral of Red State America. WAL-MART, the promised land. Whenever I hear the name I always have visions of rednecks burning incense outside while chanting the praises of low retail pricing financed by not providing any medical benefits for the hourly employees that slave there. I figure you could draw a direct line between the tornado warnings including a specific message for trailer park residents and the WAL-MART employee register. Ok, I was desperate. I swallowed my pride and headed for WAL-MART.
It worked out pretty well. Not only did I locate a charger that claimed to work for my phone model but a replacement for the Rightguard confiscated in Newark and a Subway sandwich for dinner. The only problem was when I got back to the hotel, the charger didn’t work. In disgust I sat down to eat my Subway. The only problem with the Subway was they didn’t have any Swiss cheese and I like some Swiss with my turkey.
I did my thing the next day and headed home. The first check came when the young lady at the Delta counter couldn’t print out my boarding pass for the Cincinnati to Newark leg of the trip. After about 20 minutes and getting everyone working for Delta, Northwest and some other airline I didn’t recognize, to look at the problem someone finally figured out that it was because the flight had been CANCELLED! She did manage to get me on a substitute Delta flight an hour later. Now, with a dead cell phone, I had no way of letting the driver picking me up know that both my arrival time in Newark and the terminal I was arriving at had changed so I talked the young lady at the desk into letting me use Delta’s phone. With that squared away I headed for Gate 7 stopping by the free Internet Hook-up to check my e-mail and do a little web surfing. There were several folks enjoying the little aviation museum while I was surfing the web. Two other people were sacked out in the overstuffed armchairs near the computers. I’ve decided I like the Ft. Wayne airport better than any other airport I’ve been in recently.
At Cincinnati I had to reverse my shuttle trip going from terminal A to terminal C but at least I had plenty of time so I turned my attention toward obtaining a quick byte to eat. My choices were Moe’s, McDonald’s or Subway. I ended up eating another turkey sandwich also without any Swiss. Does the Midwest have something against Swiss cheese or what?
The flight was overbooked and the guy at the desk kept asking for volunteers offering a flight an hour later into LaGuardia of all places. He seemed surprised when no one took him up on the deal so I felt like asking him if he had any idea how far away LaGuardia Airport was from Newark Airport?
How they eventually resolved the overbooking situation I don’t know but we took off about 20 minutes late and then circled Newark for an additional 20 minutes. That got me in about 40 minutes late on a flight that was an hour later than my original flight to begin with.
I never check baggage and especially not on puddle jumper flights. Most people don’t but some folks have to because their bags are too big to fit in the tiny overhead compartments on the commuter aircraft. So how come an entire plane of 50+ folks has to wait for the dozen or so bags to be brought forward in front of the wing? Why not let those of us who don’t need to wait for a bag deplane? Delta did do one smart thing, some poor lady was about to miss her Paris flight so they got her off the plane while the rest of use were waiting for the bags to be ready. Intelligence on the part of an airline, what will they think of next?
I located a payphone (an endangered species) to let my driver know I had finally arrived. He took me to pick up my car and I wearily headed home in the rain. I fell into my house around 11 PM. Since I had left for Ft. Wayne airport about 2 PM the trip home had taken about 9 hours. I gave the Ft. Wayne Airport cookie to my wife. She deserves it for putting up with me for all these years.
We got off an hour late from Newark due to the plane arriving late. That meant all kinds of trouble for the folks on board making a connection. The guy across from me had a connecting flight to Albuquerque leaving 5 minutes before we landed in Cincinnati. Unless his flight was delayed, he spent the night in Kentucky because that was the last flight out.
I was a little better off having about 20 minutes to get to my connecting flight to Ft. Wayne. Unfortunately my flight was leaving from terminal A and I landed at terminal C. For those of you unfamiliar with Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport, that means a shuttle bus ride between terminals, on the runway, while ducking taxing commuter aircraft. I just about made the Ft. Wayne flight run by good old Chautauqua airlines under the Delta banner. However there wasn’t any music, and no inspirational lecturer, just a rather wet and bumpy 20 minute flight.
This time I arrived in Ft. Wayne early enough to get a cookie and managed to finagle a decent car from Avis. Things went downhill from there. The first problem was my cell phone battery was dead. I swore I had a full charge on the thing before I left, and I hadn’t packed a charger for a one day trip, so I had a visit to a local Verizon store in my future.
Driving along Interstate 69 (how do you suppose anyone allowed an Interstate Highway in the moral Midwest to be numbered “69?”) it looked like I was heading into Dante’s Inferno. The skies were black except when punctuated by lightening bolts so big they must have been incinerating acres at a time. Then the emergency broadcast system kicked in with tornado warnings for places I didn’t know. That made it a tad difficult to figure out whether I was heading away from the tornadoes or toward the tornadoes. I thought the specific warning to folks living in trailer parks or mobile homes particularly enlightening.
I managed to get only partially drowned going from the parking lot into the Marriott Courtyard. With some doubts about the intelligence of going out into the weather again, I asked the clerk behind the desk to locate the nearest Verizon store for me and then went upstairs to unpack. When I got back he had Mapquest directions printed out for me for a store about a mile and a half away. Someone in the lobby was walking around in a near panic asking everyone if they knew how far away the tornadoes were. When he asked the clerk, the clerk thought he was asking about the Verizon store he had just given me directions to. When he told the guy about a mile and a half I thought the guy’s eyes were going to pop out. The panic was now complete.
The directions seemed so simple yet I couldn’t find the place. The darkness and the rain didn’t help but ultimately the problem turned out to be it wasn’t a store. It was actually a Verizon office building tucked away in an industrial park that required a U-Turn in order to get to the entrance. Oh well, at least he had tried to help out.
I popped into a Home Depot that was about to close and found only a car charger. A short discussion with a helpful clerk let me find out that was all they had but he suggested I hit the 24-hour WAL-MART down the road.
WAL-MART, the cathedral of Red State America. WAL-MART, the promised land. Whenever I hear the name I always have visions of rednecks burning incense outside while chanting the praises of low retail pricing financed by not providing any medical benefits for the hourly employees that slave there. I figure you could draw a direct line between the tornado warnings including a specific message for trailer park residents and the WAL-MART employee register. Ok, I was desperate. I swallowed my pride and headed for WAL-MART.
It worked out pretty well. Not only did I locate a charger that claimed to work for my phone model but a replacement for the Rightguard confiscated in Newark and a Subway sandwich for dinner. The only problem was when I got back to the hotel, the charger didn’t work. In disgust I sat down to eat my Subway. The only problem with the Subway was they didn’t have any Swiss cheese and I like some Swiss with my turkey.
I did my thing the next day and headed home. The first check came when the young lady at the Delta counter couldn’t print out my boarding pass for the Cincinnati to Newark leg of the trip. After about 20 minutes and getting everyone working for Delta, Northwest and some other airline I didn’t recognize, to look at the problem someone finally figured out that it was because the flight had been CANCELLED! She did manage to get me on a substitute Delta flight an hour later. Now, with a dead cell phone, I had no way of letting the driver picking me up know that both my arrival time in Newark and the terminal I was arriving at had changed so I talked the young lady at the desk into letting me use Delta’s phone. With that squared away I headed for Gate 7 stopping by the free Internet Hook-up to check my e-mail and do a little web surfing. There were several folks enjoying the little aviation museum while I was surfing the web. Two other people were sacked out in the overstuffed armchairs near the computers. I’ve decided I like the Ft. Wayne airport better than any other airport I’ve been in recently.
At Cincinnati I had to reverse my shuttle trip going from terminal A to terminal C but at least I had plenty of time so I turned my attention toward obtaining a quick byte to eat. My choices were Moe’s, McDonald’s or Subway. I ended up eating another turkey sandwich also without any Swiss. Does the Midwest have something against Swiss cheese or what?
The flight was overbooked and the guy at the desk kept asking for volunteers offering a flight an hour later into LaGuardia of all places. He seemed surprised when no one took him up on the deal so I felt like asking him if he had any idea how far away LaGuardia Airport was from Newark Airport?
How they eventually resolved the overbooking situation I don’t know but we took off about 20 minutes late and then circled Newark for an additional 20 minutes. That got me in about 40 minutes late on a flight that was an hour later than my original flight to begin with.
I never check baggage and especially not on puddle jumper flights. Most people don’t but some folks have to because their bags are too big to fit in the tiny overhead compartments on the commuter aircraft. So how come an entire plane of 50+ folks has to wait for the dozen or so bags to be brought forward in front of the wing? Why not let those of us who don’t need to wait for a bag deplane? Delta did do one smart thing, some poor lady was about to miss her Paris flight so they got her off the plane while the rest of use were waiting for the bags to be ready. Intelligence on the part of an airline, what will they think of next?
I located a payphone (an endangered species) to let my driver know I had finally arrived. He took me to pick up my car and I wearily headed home in the rain. I fell into my house around 11 PM. Since I had left for Ft. Wayne airport about 2 PM the trip home had taken about 9 hours. I gave the Ft. Wayne Airport cookie to my wife. She deserves it for putting up with me for all these years.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
The JonBenet Ramsey Case
So now, after almost 10 years, the police have a suspect.
I'm not a JonBenet case junkie. Certainly I'm aware of the case and I'm familier with the general outline. When I first heard about the "child beauty pagents," which are apparently rather common in some parts of the country, I almost choked. As the father of three daughters I couldn't imagine anything more degrading that someone could do to a child.
Like many people I developed an instant dislike for the Ramseys and especially for the mother. As the media and the authorities seemed convinced that they were somehow resposible for their daughter's death, I sort of accepted that it was just a matter of time before the case was cleared up with one, or both, sent to prison.
As it turned out, everyone that was ready to draw and quarter the parents, was wrong. I'm still a bit mystified how a six year old can get from her bedroom to the basement, either voluntarilly or by being forced, without either of the parents waking up. Be that as it may, clearly sleeping too soundly is about the only crime, other than the crime of degrading their child by having her participate in child beauty pagents, that the Ramseys are guilty of.
Now we have a confession from someone called John Mark Karr who claims that he "accidentally" killed JonBenet. Accidentally? What the hell was he doing in the house? Karr is clearly a wacko. The question is was he in fact involved in the death of JonBenet, is he imagining things or is he simply in search of his 15 minutes of fame?
I assume that the Boulder Prosecutor has something other than this guy's confession to go on here. I'll guess we'll learn more in the coming weeks.
I'm not a JonBenet case junkie. Certainly I'm aware of the case and I'm familier with the general outline. When I first heard about the "child beauty pagents," which are apparently rather common in some parts of the country, I almost choked. As the father of three daughters I couldn't imagine anything more degrading that someone could do to a child.
Like many people I developed an instant dislike for the Ramseys and especially for the mother. As the media and the authorities seemed convinced that they were somehow resposible for their daughter's death, I sort of accepted that it was just a matter of time before the case was cleared up with one, or both, sent to prison.
As it turned out, everyone that was ready to draw and quarter the parents, was wrong. I'm still a bit mystified how a six year old can get from her bedroom to the basement, either voluntarilly or by being forced, without either of the parents waking up. Be that as it may, clearly sleeping too soundly is about the only crime, other than the crime of degrading their child by having her participate in child beauty pagents, that the Ramseys are guilty of.
Now we have a confession from someone called John Mark Karr who claims that he "accidentally" killed JonBenet. Accidentally? What the hell was he doing in the house? Karr is clearly a wacko. The question is was he in fact involved in the death of JonBenet, is he imagining things or is he simply in search of his 15 minutes of fame?
I assume that the Boulder Prosecutor has something other than this guy's confession to go on here. I'll guess we'll learn more in the coming weeks.
No More Pluto?
Mickey will be devastated. Astronomers meeting in Prague and discussing guidelines for what is a planet and what isn't a planet have demoted poor Pluto. There are now, according to the Prague group, only eight planets in the solar system.
I say that this is clearly a capitalist plot aimed at artificially inflating the price of planetary real estate for nefarious purposes. All true sons (and daughters) of the solar system should rise up in outrage (cue the playing of the Nationale) until Pluto has been returned to its rightful place!
Nah, only kidding. I guess they're trying to avoid having to declare a whole slew of Kuiper Belt objects planets. Still, I think they could have justified Pluto's status for historical reasons. What am I going to get from my very educated mother now?
I say that this is clearly a capitalist plot aimed at artificially inflating the price of planetary real estate for nefarious purposes. All true sons (and daughters) of the solar system should rise up in outrage (cue the playing of the Nationale) until Pluto has been returned to its rightful place!
Nah, only kidding. I guess they're trying to avoid having to declare a whole slew of Kuiper Belt objects planets. Still, I think they could have justified Pluto's status for historical reasons. What am I going to get from my very educated mother now?
Friday, August 18, 2006
Competence or Pride?
I’ve been away. That’s why I haven’t posted anything. I’ve been on the road and have encountered another instance of what appears to be the general lack of competence in modern society.
I was at a hotel. The name of the hotel is unimportant but it happened to be Bally’s Park Place in Atlantic City. There is a very nice Chinese restaurant there called Mr. Ming’s. It’s overpriced like all hotel restaurants but it’s pleasant enough and the food is pretty good. Since reservations are advised I decide to call down shortly after checking in. I checked the number in the hotel directory, which turned out to be a general reservations number, and called. I got a recorded “thanks for calling and someone will be with you shortly” message and then got put on hold listening to recorded advertisements about Bally’s. Ten minutes later I was still on hold and decided perhaps it was too early to call for reservations, hung up and wandered off.
Two hours later I tried again, with the same result. I then tried several more time with the same result. At that point I decided to stay on hold. Perhaps lots and lots of folks were calling for reservations. Twenty minutes later I gave up and called the front desk. I got a busy signal. At that point I noticed an express button for the hotel desk and hit it. Amy answered the phone. I explained that I had been trying for a good part of the day to make a restaurant reservation. Amy asked me what number I had been calling and then profusely apologized saying that all the numbers in the directory had been changed and that she would transfer me to the right number.
Hmmm, while it seemed strange I was happy that at least now I had ringing. I continued to have ringing. Then I continued to have ringing. After about 30 rings I decided to hang up and call Amy back. She apologized again and again said she would transfer me. This time I managed to ask her what the new number was and wrote it down, just in case. This time a very polite gentleman answered the phone and took my reservation for 7:30 PM. It had been a struggle, but at least I finally had a dinner reservation.
Or at least I thought I did. At the appointed time we went down to Mr. Ming’s only to find the door closed. Asking at the coffee shop next door I was informed that Mr. Ming’s was closed on Monday’s and, sure enough, it was a Monday.
I also enquired at the Bell Station about getting an updated phone list since Amy had told me that the numbers had all been changed. The Bell Hops assured me that the numbers were in fact correct. One Bell Hop wryly observed that I could always tell if I had the right number for restaurant reservations by the fact that no one answered the phone. I suspect that they’ve heard about this before.
The next day I decided to try again by calling the extension Amy had given me. I got a busy tone even before I typed in the full number which usually indicates it’s an illegal extension. I hit the front desk button again and this time Sheryl answered. I explained the situation and Sheryl asked me which restaurant. I told her Mr. Ming’s and she said she would transfer me to a direct line. I got the same recorded message as the general number. I hit the front desk button again and Sheryl transferred me again. This time a woman answered the phone and when I tried to make a reservation rather curtly informed me that Mr. Ming’s was closed on Tuesdays, and, sure enough, it was now Tuesday.
This is a hotel that has clearly lost its vision. This was so far beyond my experience that I didn’t know what to make of it. Hotels are usually the most precise outfits around. Usually you are in awe of how effortlessly they manage to account for your merest whim. The crew at Bally’s had me looking around to see if Allen Funt had been resurrected and I was on Candid Camera. Talk about a gang that couldn’t shoot straight?
So what’s the deal here? Previously when I’d bemoaned the general lack of competence in the world people countered with something like it’s due to the complexities of modern society. Well there was nothing complex here. How could no one answer the number for restaurant reservations at a hotel which has several restaurants at which reservations are advised? What was with Amy? Was she playing a trick on me by telling me the numbers had been changed? Last, but not least, who was the guy who took my reservation? Was he playing a trick or didn’t he know the damn restaurant was closed?
Why do I have the feeling that these people didn’t care either? There was a time when folks prided themselves on doing a job as well as they could. Now, more often than not, I get the feeling they’re trying to do as little as possible to get by. If that inconveniences someone or causes a problem, well that’s just tough because they’re not getting paid enough to worry about it.
Perhaps modern complexity sometimes causes things to go wrong beyond anyone’s control. Unfortunately I’m beginning to suspect that more often than not things go wrong because people just don’t have the self respect and pride to always do the best they can anymore.
If that’s true, then why is that now the case? What has gone wrong with this country?
I was at a hotel. The name of the hotel is unimportant but it happened to be Bally’s Park Place in Atlantic City. There is a very nice Chinese restaurant there called Mr. Ming’s. It’s overpriced like all hotel restaurants but it’s pleasant enough and the food is pretty good. Since reservations are advised I decide to call down shortly after checking in. I checked the number in the hotel directory, which turned out to be a general reservations number, and called. I got a recorded “thanks for calling and someone will be with you shortly” message and then got put on hold listening to recorded advertisements about Bally’s. Ten minutes later I was still on hold and decided perhaps it was too early to call for reservations, hung up and wandered off.
Two hours later I tried again, with the same result. I then tried several more time with the same result. At that point I decided to stay on hold. Perhaps lots and lots of folks were calling for reservations. Twenty minutes later I gave up and called the front desk. I got a busy signal. At that point I noticed an express button for the hotel desk and hit it. Amy answered the phone. I explained that I had been trying for a good part of the day to make a restaurant reservation. Amy asked me what number I had been calling and then profusely apologized saying that all the numbers in the directory had been changed and that she would transfer me to the right number.
Hmmm, while it seemed strange I was happy that at least now I had ringing. I continued to have ringing. Then I continued to have ringing. After about 30 rings I decided to hang up and call Amy back. She apologized again and again said she would transfer me. This time I managed to ask her what the new number was and wrote it down, just in case. This time a very polite gentleman answered the phone and took my reservation for 7:30 PM. It had been a struggle, but at least I finally had a dinner reservation.
Or at least I thought I did. At the appointed time we went down to Mr. Ming’s only to find the door closed. Asking at the coffee shop next door I was informed that Mr. Ming’s was closed on Monday’s and, sure enough, it was a Monday.
I also enquired at the Bell Station about getting an updated phone list since Amy had told me that the numbers had all been changed. The Bell Hops assured me that the numbers were in fact correct. One Bell Hop wryly observed that I could always tell if I had the right number for restaurant reservations by the fact that no one answered the phone. I suspect that they’ve heard about this before.
The next day I decided to try again by calling the extension Amy had given me. I got a busy tone even before I typed in the full number which usually indicates it’s an illegal extension. I hit the front desk button again and this time Sheryl answered. I explained the situation and Sheryl asked me which restaurant. I told her Mr. Ming’s and she said she would transfer me to a direct line. I got the same recorded message as the general number. I hit the front desk button again and Sheryl transferred me again. This time a woman answered the phone and when I tried to make a reservation rather curtly informed me that Mr. Ming’s was closed on Tuesdays, and, sure enough, it was now Tuesday.
This is a hotel that has clearly lost its vision. This was so far beyond my experience that I didn’t know what to make of it. Hotels are usually the most precise outfits around. Usually you are in awe of how effortlessly they manage to account for your merest whim. The crew at Bally’s had me looking around to see if Allen Funt had been resurrected and I was on Candid Camera. Talk about a gang that couldn’t shoot straight?
So what’s the deal here? Previously when I’d bemoaned the general lack of competence in the world people countered with something like it’s due to the complexities of modern society. Well there was nothing complex here. How could no one answer the number for restaurant reservations at a hotel which has several restaurants at which reservations are advised? What was with Amy? Was she playing a trick on me by telling me the numbers had been changed? Last, but not least, who was the guy who took my reservation? Was he playing a trick or didn’t he know the damn restaurant was closed?
Why do I have the feeling that these people didn’t care either? There was a time when folks prided themselves on doing a job as well as they could. Now, more often than not, I get the feeling they’re trying to do as little as possible to get by. If that inconveniences someone or causes a problem, well that’s just tough because they’re not getting paid enough to worry about it.
Perhaps modern complexity sometimes causes things to go wrong beyond anyone’s control. Unfortunately I’m beginning to suspect that more often than not things go wrong because people just don’t have the self respect and pride to always do the best they can anymore.
If that’s true, then why is that now the case? What has gone wrong with this country?
Friday, August 11, 2006
Liquid Explosives on Airplanes!
The world is nuts. I’m really having a hard time comprehending what kind of nutcase would seriously consider blowing up a dozen aircraft over the Atlantic and dying along with the planes.
Oh yeah, that’s right, the worst kind of nutcase, a religious one. When I place this story of two dozen Pakistani Muslims in the United Kingdom planning mass murder up against the one from the day before about an American Muslim of Pakistani nationality being refused a pilot position for a small airline, I have to kind of understand why the guy didn’t get the job.
Is it fair to discriminate against all Muslims because of the fruitcakes running around? No it isn’t. Is it going to happen? Yes it is. Am I going to get upset over it? No I’m not. I admit I’m being hypocritical but I can’t help it. I feel absolutely no sympathy for the Muslims with no ill intentions that are paying for the actions of those with ill intentions. It’s not fair, but then again random terror isn’t fair either. Get your co-religionists to stop their insanity and the other will disappear.
Don’t think that’s feasible? Do you think that you can't possibly do anything about that? Well then perhaps you might want to reconsider adherence to beliefs that can give birth to such an aberration. Religion has more than outlived its usefulness and I mean ALL religions. At the moment I view religion as the single greatest threat to the advancement of human society and even to the survival of the species.
Oh yeah, that’s right, the worst kind of nutcase, a religious one. When I place this story of two dozen Pakistani Muslims in the United Kingdom planning mass murder up against the one from the day before about an American Muslim of Pakistani nationality being refused a pilot position for a small airline, I have to kind of understand why the guy didn’t get the job.
Is it fair to discriminate against all Muslims because of the fruitcakes running around? No it isn’t. Is it going to happen? Yes it is. Am I going to get upset over it? No I’m not. I admit I’m being hypocritical but I can’t help it. I feel absolutely no sympathy for the Muslims with no ill intentions that are paying for the actions of those with ill intentions. It’s not fair, but then again random terror isn’t fair either. Get your co-religionists to stop their insanity and the other will disappear.
Don’t think that’s feasible? Do you think that you can't possibly do anything about that? Well then perhaps you might want to reconsider adherence to beliefs that can give birth to such an aberration. Religion has more than outlived its usefulness and I mean ALL religions. At the moment I view religion as the single greatest threat to the advancement of human society and even to the survival of the species.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Well it has been a long day
Actually it has been a long week. Did you ever notice how work tends to get in the way of living yet living is dependent upon work?
At least that's the case if you are a member of the peasantry like I am. Work tends to pre-empt things when it gets hot and heavy and that's been the situation around here. This is not a bad thing as long as it comes it short spurts. I've had the misfortune of being under prolonged work pressure and that can burn anyone out.
So anyway, I just decided to take a breath and post a little something here. Nothing much has changed. There's still war in Iraq and the Middle East, people are still being executed around the country, gays still can't get married and Christians are still exchanging the philosophy of love and tolerance preached by Jesus for a philosophy of hate and intolerance preached by today's evangelists.
At least that's the case if you are a member of the peasantry like I am. Work tends to pre-empt things when it gets hot and heavy and that's been the situation around here. This is not a bad thing as long as it comes it short spurts. I've had the misfortune of being under prolonged work pressure and that can burn anyone out.
So anyway, I just decided to take a breath and post a little something here. Nothing much has changed. There's still war in Iraq and the Middle East, people are still being executed around the country, gays still can't get married and Christians are still exchanging the philosophy of love and tolerance preached by Jesus for a philosophy of hate and intolerance preached by today's evangelists.
Monday, July 31, 2006
The REAL ID Regulations
What are these REAL ID Regulations? I have no idea and neither does anyone else at the moment, at least not definitively. The Department of Homeland Security has until the end of 2006 to define regulations associated with state driver’s licenses, the most common form of identification used in the U.S., to make them more secure and harder to forge.
Congress passed the bill but the idea has been running into some opposition by people that think it will amount to turning your driver’s license into a National ID Card. New Hampshire, selected for a pilot program, has balked and I suspect that opposition is just starting to get organized.
In the final analysis, I suspect that the regulations will end up being rather mundane and not include any of the more exotic elements that are causing such an uproar. Before I take a position one way or the other, I’d like to see the final list.
Strangely some Conservative Christian groups are opposed to the idea because, according to one report, they view the law as the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy related to the end times. Such groups refer to scripture that predicts that humans will be numbered by marks on their foreheads or hands.
The passage being referred to is probably Revelations 13:16 “He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead.”
Allow me to make a couple of points here. First I thought the arrival of the end times was supposed to be good news for Christians? Aren't you all expecting to get whisked away in the Rapture before any of the nasty stuff happens? I thought it was just us sinners that were going to suffer?
Second, the “He” in this passage is the second beast, the one that comes out of the earth and forces everyone to worship the first beast. It was the first beast, the one with the ten horns and seven heads, who was given the throne and the authority of the dragon. The dragon of course is Satan who got kicked out of Heaven after a war with Michael and his angels. It was Satan who fell to earth and chased the woman who had given birth to the male child. The male child who was the Christ, but luckily the woman escaped into the desert thanks to a pair of eagle’s wings that she was given. So the dragon got pissed off and proceeded to make war upon all “those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus” – Revelations 12:17.
You got that? You don’t want me to repeat it do you? Good, because I almost gagged on it the first time.
No, I haven’t slipped into Milton’s Paradise Lost and I haven’t lost my mind, this is all laid out in Revelations 12 and 13. It’s total gobbledegook and besides, they’re not talking about stamping numbers on your hands or forehead, but simply trying to make driver’s licenses harder to forge.
The people that believe this stuff are mental cases. The synod must have been drunk or hung over when they decided to include Revelations in the canon. I don’t see why anyone would want folks who believe the gibberish of Revelations as allies in any cause. If allying with such people is what it takes to avoid having a National ID Card, I think I’d rather have the National ID Card. Why? Because Conservative Christianity is a much greater threat to my liberties than any silly ID card could ever be.
Congress passed the bill but the idea has been running into some opposition by people that think it will amount to turning your driver’s license into a National ID Card. New Hampshire, selected for a pilot program, has balked and I suspect that opposition is just starting to get organized.
In the final analysis, I suspect that the regulations will end up being rather mundane and not include any of the more exotic elements that are causing such an uproar. Before I take a position one way or the other, I’d like to see the final list.
Strangely some Conservative Christian groups are opposed to the idea because, according to one report, they view the law as the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy related to the end times. Such groups refer to scripture that predicts that humans will be numbered by marks on their foreheads or hands.
The passage being referred to is probably Revelations 13:16 “He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead.”
Allow me to make a couple of points here. First I thought the arrival of the end times was supposed to be good news for Christians? Aren't you all expecting to get whisked away in the Rapture before any of the nasty stuff happens? I thought it was just us sinners that were going to suffer?
Second, the “He” in this passage is the second beast, the one that comes out of the earth and forces everyone to worship the first beast. It was the first beast, the one with the ten horns and seven heads, who was given the throne and the authority of the dragon. The dragon of course is Satan who got kicked out of Heaven after a war with Michael and his angels. It was Satan who fell to earth and chased the woman who had given birth to the male child. The male child who was the Christ, but luckily the woman escaped into the desert thanks to a pair of eagle’s wings that she was given. So the dragon got pissed off and proceeded to make war upon all “those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus” – Revelations 12:17.
You got that? You don’t want me to repeat it do you? Good, because I almost gagged on it the first time.
No, I haven’t slipped into Milton’s Paradise Lost and I haven’t lost my mind, this is all laid out in Revelations 12 and 13. It’s total gobbledegook and besides, they’re not talking about stamping numbers on your hands or forehead, but simply trying to make driver’s licenses harder to forge.
The people that believe this stuff are mental cases. The synod must have been drunk or hung over when they decided to include Revelations in the canon. I don’t see why anyone would want folks who believe the gibberish of Revelations as allies in any cause. If allying with such people is what it takes to avoid having a National ID Card, I think I’d rather have the National ID Card. Why? Because Conservative Christianity is a much greater threat to my liberties than any silly ID card could ever be.
Heaven, Hell or Hoboken?
That was the inscription on the top of a war memorial in the city of Hoboken outside of John F. Kennedy park. The bottom of the monument had the inscription “Freedom isn’t Free” and the center the seals of each of the armed services including the Merchant Marine.
I’d like to focus on the “Heaven, Hell or Hoboken” question though.
If I had my choice, I’d take Hoboken. From what I’ve heard of Hell it sounds like a downright nasty place and, if Christianity is right, it’s going to be awfully crowded. On the other hand I expect Heaven to be rather sparsely populated with insufferably smug and self-righteous morons. I don’t want to have anything to do with the people Christianity claims are getting into Heaven. I wonder if you can get demoted from Heaven to Hell for acting like a jackass in Heaven?
That leaves Hoboken. The city is Greenwich Village west of the Hudson. One of my regrets is that I will never live in Hoboken. The place is narrow street crisscrossed by narrow street lined with brownstones or modern apartment buildings designed to fit in with the surrounding architecture. There are little parks tucked away in unexpected places and the main drags near the Path Trains are lined with an assortment of bistros and sidewalk cafes. Then there’s the train hub and the open area along the Hudson River. I could be very happy there for a very long time.
Yes we’re talking Yuppieville to a large extent and it’s probably not a great place to raise kids, but it would be a really nice place to live during your single twenties and maybe into your early thirties. That’s the new formula. The old formula of married in your early twenties and a four bedroom house in the suburbs complete with kiddies by the time you’re thirty was my generation’s formula. I did it that way and I never got the chance to live in Hoboken or Greenwich Village. I did live for a year in the Brighton section of Boston but that’s not nearly the same thing.
If you head north out of Hoboken along the Hudson River you encounter a whole ‘nother lifestyle. There are row after row of luxury condominiums, townhouses, luxury apartment buildings, what look to be very expensive restaurants and fancy area names like Port Imperial.
I don’t want to know how much those places cost. I’m certain that’s New York financial district living territory as it seems to radiate out from the ferry area. We have to be talking very high six figures, or even seven figures, of income oozing out of 100 hour work weeks. It’s a lifestyle beyond my comprehension.
So last weekend I got a peek at two lifestyles I’ll never know. Now it’s back to my four bedroom house on a half acre lot on a cul-de-sac. God that’s sounds insufferably dull doesn’t it?
I’d like to focus on the “Heaven, Hell or Hoboken” question though.
If I had my choice, I’d take Hoboken. From what I’ve heard of Hell it sounds like a downright nasty place and, if Christianity is right, it’s going to be awfully crowded. On the other hand I expect Heaven to be rather sparsely populated with insufferably smug and self-righteous morons. I don’t want to have anything to do with the people Christianity claims are getting into Heaven. I wonder if you can get demoted from Heaven to Hell for acting like a jackass in Heaven?
That leaves Hoboken. The city is Greenwich Village west of the Hudson. One of my regrets is that I will never live in Hoboken. The place is narrow street crisscrossed by narrow street lined with brownstones or modern apartment buildings designed to fit in with the surrounding architecture. There are little parks tucked away in unexpected places and the main drags near the Path Trains are lined with an assortment of bistros and sidewalk cafes. Then there’s the train hub and the open area along the Hudson River. I could be very happy there for a very long time.
Yes we’re talking Yuppieville to a large extent and it’s probably not a great place to raise kids, but it would be a really nice place to live during your single twenties and maybe into your early thirties. That’s the new formula. The old formula of married in your early twenties and a four bedroom house in the suburbs complete with kiddies by the time you’re thirty was my generation’s formula. I did it that way and I never got the chance to live in Hoboken or Greenwich Village. I did live for a year in the Brighton section of Boston but that’s not nearly the same thing.
If you head north out of Hoboken along the Hudson River you encounter a whole ‘nother lifestyle. There are row after row of luxury condominiums, townhouses, luxury apartment buildings, what look to be very expensive restaurants and fancy area names like Port Imperial.
I don’t want to know how much those places cost. I’m certain that’s New York financial district living territory as it seems to radiate out from the ferry area. We have to be talking very high six figures, or even seven figures, of income oozing out of 100 hour work weeks. It’s a lifestyle beyond my comprehension.
So last weekend I got a peek at two lifestyles I’ll never know. Now it’s back to my four bedroom house on a half acre lot on a cul-de-sac. God that’s sounds insufferably dull doesn’t it?
Friday, July 28, 2006
I Have a Splitting Headache! Where’s the HeadOn?
I’m sure we’ve all seen the commercials about “Head On.” You rub it on your head and your headache goes away. I sort of wondered how that could possibly work but was never curious enough to take it any further.
This week’s commentary on the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) site explained it for me. It’s a homeopathic remedy so it doesn’t work outside of any placebo effect it might provide.
Randi’s comments got me to get off my butt to take a look at the Head On site. It was interesting to say the least. Since I wasn’t that familiar with homeopathy I had to go do a quick check on what the dilution measures meant. Terms like 3X and 6X are used. These are equivalent to scientific notation and represent a value of 10 raised to the power of the number. So 3X is 10 raised to the 3rd power or 1,000 and 6X is 10 raised to 6th power or 1,000,000. Some quotes, with commentary, from the Head On site.
“HeadOn® is very safe. It can be used by anyone and as often as needed. There are no dosage restrictions or health risks associated with its use.”
Well considering what you’re doing is basically rubbing WATER on your head I’d say that this is probably an accurate statement. The list of ingredients has a minimum dilution of 6X or 1 part per 1,000,000. One ingredient, Golden Seal, a native American root, has a dilution of 30X or 1 part per 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!! Like I said, it’s basically water.
“HeadOn® is one of the safest medications available on the market today.”
While I debate that it’s a medication, again it’s hard to argue with the safety of water in a bottle unless someone wants to get into the whole Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) hoax thing.
“The active ingredients in HeadOn® are diluted precisely to achieve 2 important results: the first is to eliminate any safety concerns whatsoever associated with their usage. The second is that by diluting these ingredients, their medicinal properties are released.”
Released? How does diluting something to one part per billion release its medicinal properties? More likely it releases its profit properties as people are paying medicine prices for what they can get out of their kitchen tap. Notice the constant drum beat about safety. First of all water is safe so no one can really argue with the claim and second of all I suspect that one of the major consumer targets of homeopathy are those who are suspicious of drugs in general or have had a bad experience with a side effect.
Well now I get it, so I don’t have to wonder any more when I see a HeadOn® commercial. Now I can just shake my head and laugh.
This week’s commentary on the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) site explained it for me. It’s a homeopathic remedy so it doesn’t work outside of any placebo effect it might provide.
Randi’s comments got me to get off my butt to take a look at the Head On site. It was interesting to say the least. Since I wasn’t that familiar with homeopathy I had to go do a quick check on what the dilution measures meant. Terms like 3X and 6X are used. These are equivalent to scientific notation and represent a value of 10 raised to the power of the number. So 3X is 10 raised to the 3rd power or 1,000 and 6X is 10 raised to 6th power or 1,000,000. Some quotes, with commentary, from the Head On site.
“HeadOn® is very safe. It can be used by anyone and as often as needed. There are no dosage restrictions or health risks associated with its use.”
Well considering what you’re doing is basically rubbing WATER on your head I’d say that this is probably an accurate statement. The list of ingredients has a minimum dilution of 6X or 1 part per 1,000,000. One ingredient, Golden Seal, a native American root, has a dilution of 30X or 1 part per 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!! Like I said, it’s basically water.
“HeadOn® is one of the safest medications available on the market today.”
While I debate that it’s a medication, again it’s hard to argue with the safety of water in a bottle unless someone wants to get into the whole Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) hoax thing.
“The active ingredients in HeadOn® are diluted precisely to achieve 2 important results: the first is to eliminate any safety concerns whatsoever associated with their usage. The second is that by diluting these ingredients, their medicinal properties are released.”
Released? How does diluting something to one part per billion release its medicinal properties? More likely it releases its profit properties as people are paying medicine prices for what they can get out of their kitchen tap. Notice the constant drum beat about safety. First of all water is safe so no one can really argue with the claim and second of all I suspect that one of the major consumer targets of homeopathy are those who are suspicious of drugs in general or have had a bad experience with a side effect.
Well now I get it, so I don’t have to wonder any more when I see a HeadOn® commercial. Now I can just shake my head and laugh.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
The Fighting in Lebanon
A mixed bag in the news related to the war in Lebanon including, dare I say it, an instance where I actually agree with the Bush administration about something. Do you suppose after that admission the stars are beginning to blink off?
What I agree about is the administration’s position that Prime Minister Maliki has the right to have his own opinions about Hezbollah as well as the right to voice them publicly or not voice them publicly as he chooses. However I disagree with the interpretation that the Democratic Party’s criticism of Maliki is a free speech issue. They’re not saying he’s not entitled to his own opinion, they’re saying they don’t care for his opinion and therefore don’t want to extend to him the privilege of addressing a joint session of congress as a result.
Just because I recognize you’re entitled to your own opinion doesn’t mean I can’t criticize that opinion nor does it mean I have to associate with you if I think your opinion stinks.
In Rome Condolizza Rice has declared the talks on Lebanon not a failure even though the joint diplomatic resolution issued didn’t call for a cease fire. It called for working toward a cease fire with the “utmost urgency.” What a load of crap. How hard is it to say “STOP KILLING EACH OTHER AND LET’S TALK!”
To my mind, any diplomatic resolution related to a shooting war where innocent people, including children, are at risk every day which doesn’t DEMAND a ceasefire is the very definition of failure.
Four U.N. Observers were killed in an Israeli air strike yesterday and the AP is reporting that more than a dozen Israeli troops have been killed in heavy fighting for a hilltop in southern Lebanon. Apparently Hezbollah is turning out to be better equipped, better prepared and a much tougher nut to crack than the Israeli’s expected.
Israeli jets are also reported to have attacked Hezbollah offices in the city of Tyre. Tyre? Didn’t the bible say that Tyre would be destroyed and “never again be found” in Ezekiel 26? Do you suppose this is the beginning of the fulfillment of that prophecy some 2,500 years after it was made? Nah, Tyre has been sacked by the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Turks and just about everyone else but it’s still there, and I suspect it will always be there.
I don’t see an end to this fighting soon. I’ll be happy if it doesn’t spread.
What I agree about is the administration’s position that Prime Minister Maliki has the right to have his own opinions about Hezbollah as well as the right to voice them publicly or not voice them publicly as he chooses. However I disagree with the interpretation that the Democratic Party’s criticism of Maliki is a free speech issue. They’re not saying he’s not entitled to his own opinion, they’re saying they don’t care for his opinion and therefore don’t want to extend to him the privilege of addressing a joint session of congress as a result.
Just because I recognize you’re entitled to your own opinion doesn’t mean I can’t criticize that opinion nor does it mean I have to associate with you if I think your opinion stinks.
In Rome Condolizza Rice has declared the talks on Lebanon not a failure even though the joint diplomatic resolution issued didn’t call for a cease fire. It called for working toward a cease fire with the “utmost urgency.” What a load of crap. How hard is it to say “STOP KILLING EACH OTHER AND LET’S TALK!”
To my mind, any diplomatic resolution related to a shooting war where innocent people, including children, are at risk every day which doesn’t DEMAND a ceasefire is the very definition of failure.
Four U.N. Observers were killed in an Israeli air strike yesterday and the AP is reporting that more than a dozen Israeli troops have been killed in heavy fighting for a hilltop in southern Lebanon. Apparently Hezbollah is turning out to be better equipped, better prepared and a much tougher nut to crack than the Israeli’s expected.
Israeli jets are also reported to have attacked Hezbollah offices in the city of Tyre. Tyre? Didn’t the bible say that Tyre would be destroyed and “never again be found” in Ezekiel 26? Do you suppose this is the beginning of the fulfillment of that prophecy some 2,500 years after it was made? Nah, Tyre has been sacked by the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Turks and just about everyone else but it’s still there, and I suspect it will always be there.
I don’t see an end to this fighting soon. I’ll be happy if it doesn’t spread.
Gay Marriage and the Courts
A court in the state of Washington has joined a court in the state of New York in upholding a state ban against same sex marriages. I also now expect the Supreme Court of New Jersey to uphold that state’s ban.
Believe it or not these are good things. We certainly don’t need a repeat of the artificial backlash against the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision legalizing Gay Marriage in that state orchestrated by the Republican Party just before another election day.
Support for Gay Marriage has gone beyond relying upon the courts to protect the minority’s rights and in many states is rapidly approaching the critical mass necessary for legislative action. It’s not going to happen tomorrow but I expect it to start happening within the next decade.
That will lead to the half and half condition so intolerable to the Supreme Court with some states sanctioning Gay Marriage and others banning it. Would you like me to guess in which region of the country the states banning it will be?
Sometime around 2020 a Supreme Court decision will declare all those laws prohibiting Gay Marriage unconstitutional based upon the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. There will be lots of screaming and yelling from evangelical church leaders and from south of the Mason-Dixon line but it will be the law of the land.
And guess what? The world won’t come to an end. Sky Daddy won’t incinerate the country with lightening bolts and within 10 years of the decision everyone will be wondering what the fuss was all about anyway. I’ll bet someone will even discover that the bible doesn’t really mean what people are claiming it means today but something else entirely so even the infallibility of the bible will be preserved. Oh well, all good things have a cost associated with them.
Believe it or not these are good things. We certainly don’t need a repeat of the artificial backlash against the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision legalizing Gay Marriage in that state orchestrated by the Republican Party just before another election day.
Support for Gay Marriage has gone beyond relying upon the courts to protect the minority’s rights and in many states is rapidly approaching the critical mass necessary for legislative action. It’s not going to happen tomorrow but I expect it to start happening within the next decade.
That will lead to the half and half condition so intolerable to the Supreme Court with some states sanctioning Gay Marriage and others banning it. Would you like me to guess in which region of the country the states banning it will be?
Sometime around 2020 a Supreme Court decision will declare all those laws prohibiting Gay Marriage unconstitutional based upon the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. There will be lots of screaming and yelling from evangelical church leaders and from south of the Mason-Dixon line but it will be the law of the land.
And guess what? The world won’t come to an end. Sky Daddy won’t incinerate the country with lightening bolts and within 10 years of the decision everyone will be wondering what the fuss was all about anyway. I’ll bet someone will even discover that the bible doesn’t really mean what people are claiming it means today but something else entirely so even the infallibility of the bible will be preserved. Oh well, all good things have a cost associated with them.
Death Penalty Update
The New Jersey commission reviewing the death penalty held its first public hearing and got an almost steady stream of testimony against maintaining capital punishment in the state. Legal experts, religious leaders and victim’s families all testified against keeping the death penalty in the state of New Jersey.
Larry Peterson, exonerated by DNA testing of a rape and murder for which he spent 18 years in a New Jersey prison said that he was grateful that jurors in his case chose not to hand down the death sentence sought by prosecutors because "if you take a life, you can't turn around and correct the wrong that has been done."
Larry has an excellent point. Why is it that so many people can't seem to understand this simple fact.
Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project in New York City, testified that "It's ridiculous . . .to assume that mistakes will not be made. We have demonstrated that there is a lot of error in the system."
Yeah, and especially in Texas, when you have the most executions I guess that it’s only to be expected that you will make the most mistakes. It’s idiotic to assume the degree of certainty required to justify a sentence of death.
Speaking of Texas, members of the Bexar County prosecutor's office, which is investigating whether or not Ruben Cantu was wrongfully executed in 1993, have been caught on tape indicating that they may have made up their minds before talking to those who now say that Cantu was innocent. One ADA was recorded as saying "They're all lying" and another saying "It's going to go forward with the fact that it was justified and everything was correct and that's the way it is."The District Attorney of Bexar County has been criticized for her office not being impartial in the investigation of the allegations of a wrongful execution.
Gee, ya think? Maybe the fact that the Bexar County DA was the judge that set Cantu’s execution date might have something to do with that?
In Arizona a death penalty assessment team from the American Bar Association's (ABA) has recommended an overhaul of that state’s capital punishment system due to serious problems with fairness and accuracy.
Serious problems with ACCURACY! That should make Arizona stand up and take notice but it probably won’t. This is not an area where mistakes can be tolerated now is it?
Both the American Medical Association (AMA) and the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) have issued public statements reminding their members of their ethical obligation not to participate in legally authorized executions.
July was a bad month with six executions carried out and still one more scheduled. That brings the total number this year to thirty-one, sixteen of which have been in Texas.
The most recent execution was in Virginia and was carried out by electrocution. Here I thought that we had at least gone beyond frying folks to death. It’s the only execution this year that wasn’t done through Lethal Injection. The last use of the Electric Chair was in South Carolina in 2004.
Larry Peterson, exonerated by DNA testing of a rape and murder for which he spent 18 years in a New Jersey prison said that he was grateful that jurors in his case chose not to hand down the death sentence sought by prosecutors because "if you take a life, you can't turn around and correct the wrong that has been done."
Larry has an excellent point. Why is it that so many people can't seem to understand this simple fact.
Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project in New York City, testified that "It's ridiculous . . .to assume that mistakes will not be made. We have demonstrated that there is a lot of error in the system."
Yeah, and especially in Texas, when you have the most executions I guess that it’s only to be expected that you will make the most mistakes. It’s idiotic to assume the degree of certainty required to justify a sentence of death.
Speaking of Texas, members of the Bexar County prosecutor's office, which is investigating whether or not Ruben Cantu was wrongfully executed in 1993, have been caught on tape indicating that they may have made up their minds before talking to those who now say that Cantu was innocent. One ADA was recorded as saying "They're all lying" and another saying "It's going to go forward with the fact that it was justified and everything was correct and that's the way it is."The District Attorney of Bexar County has been criticized for her office not being impartial in the investigation of the allegations of a wrongful execution.
Gee, ya think? Maybe the fact that the Bexar County DA was the judge that set Cantu’s execution date might have something to do with that?
In Arizona a death penalty assessment team from the American Bar Association's (ABA) has recommended an overhaul of that state’s capital punishment system due to serious problems with fairness and accuracy.
Serious problems with ACCURACY! That should make Arizona stand up and take notice but it probably won’t. This is not an area where mistakes can be tolerated now is it?
Both the American Medical Association (AMA) and the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) have issued public statements reminding their members of their ethical obligation not to participate in legally authorized executions.
July was a bad month with six executions carried out and still one more scheduled. That brings the total number this year to thirty-one, sixteen of which have been in Texas.
The most recent execution was in Virginia and was carried out by electrocution. Here I thought that we had at least gone beyond frying folks to death. It’s the only execution this year that wasn’t done through Lethal Injection. The last use of the Electric Chair was in South Carolina in 2004.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
I'm Sorry Ft. Wayne
Sheesh! Two points in response to the beating I took on the last post. First, I didn't mean to insult Ft. Wayne. When I said it had no redeeming qualities I wasn't being completely honest. Second, it was NORTHWEST airlines and not Northwestern Airlines. I guess I was thinking the whole operation was undergraduate in competency.
Now back to Ft. Wayne. I've spent a lot of time in Ft. Wayne. The trip described in my last post was far from my first trip and probably won't be my last. I am willing to admit that Ft. Wayne has two, count'em TWO redeeming qualities. One, it has one of the nicest airports I've ever been in. It has a nice little aviation museum and even a lounge area upstairs where you can hook up your laptop to the internet for free. Don't have a laptop, no problem, they even supply a courtesy computer that you can use. It's also the CLEANEST airport I've ever been in.
The second redeeming quality is the people tend to be polite and friendly. Naive almost beyond the bounds of belief, but polite and friendly. Sophistication is not high on the list of things considered important there. This strikes me as a conscious choice rather than an unintended result.
There's nothing wrong with this. It's differences of opinion that make horse races and different outlooks on life that makes different lifestyles. I like to hit MOMA, FringeNYC and sleep in on Sundays. If I want baseball on the level of the Ft. Wayne Wizards I'll go see the Newark Bears, the Trenton Thunder or the New Jersey Cardinals. But if I want something world class I can go to Yankee Stadium or Shea Stadium. You have to shlep all the way to Indianapolis to see the Colts. I'm 45 minutes from Giants Stadium with the Jets and Giants. Then there are always the Knicks, the Rangers, the Nets and the Devils.
Besides MOMA there is the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and dozens of smaller museums. And that's not to mention Broadway, off-Broadway, the PNC Arts Center, the Newark Center for the Performing Arts, the Metropolitan Opera House, Carnegie Hall and the Jersey Shore. Ok, we also have Atlantic City but we try to forget about that. What do you do for excitement in Ft. Wayne, the Three River Festival? Hell, the Hoboken Street Fair is on that level and the Boardwalk in Wildwood is there all summer.
Then try and find a decent bagel there! We used to carry out bags on the plane from New Jersey when we were heading out by private jet. Not because we wanted them but because the folks from Ft. Wayne who had been to New Jersey asked us to!
If you want to get into crime rates and stuff like that, surprisingly New Jersey and Indiana are about equivalent. In 2004 Indiana was ranked 27th and New Jersey only an eyelash above it at 25th. The murder rate was higher in Indiana than New Jersey. Indiana was ranked 20th and New Jersey 25th. So much for the fiction of the Sopranos. The incident of rape was also higher with Indiana ranked 33rd and New Jersey 50th. New Jersey was much worse in robbery though ranked 12th while Indiana was ranked 25th. I mean what the heck is there worth holding someone up for outside of Indianapolis? A tractor?
Indiana voted for Bush the Unhinged while New Jersey voted for Truth, Justice and the American Way! In Indiana they belive in God and the bible while in New Jersey we believe in equality under the law for all Americans regardless of sexual orientation. That's a left handed way of saying we don't have a problem with Gay Marriage.
New Jersey may be the home of "da Family" but Indiana has the dubious pleasure of being known as the Ku Klux Klan state because it's the only state to have ever elected a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan to the office of governor!
Ok, ok, I'm getting bored with this. I had a similar tongue-in-cheek e-mail conversation with Professor Doug Linder at the University of Missouri-Kansas City about his position that the East Coast and the West Coast shouldn't treat the Midwest like a vast wasteland. He's right about that of course and I probably shouldn't have said that Ft. Wayne has no redeeming qualities. If nothing else, it's not in the South.
I'm sorry Ft. Wayne! I rather be there than in Philadelphia.
Now back to Ft. Wayne. I've spent a lot of time in Ft. Wayne. The trip described in my last post was far from my first trip and probably won't be my last. I am willing to admit that Ft. Wayne has two, count'em TWO redeeming qualities. One, it has one of the nicest airports I've ever been in. It has a nice little aviation museum and even a lounge area upstairs where you can hook up your laptop to the internet for free. Don't have a laptop, no problem, they even supply a courtesy computer that you can use. It's also the CLEANEST airport I've ever been in.
The second redeeming quality is the people tend to be polite and friendly. Naive almost beyond the bounds of belief, but polite and friendly. Sophistication is not high on the list of things considered important there. This strikes me as a conscious choice rather than an unintended result.
There's nothing wrong with this. It's differences of opinion that make horse races and different outlooks on life that makes different lifestyles. I like to hit MOMA, FringeNYC and sleep in on Sundays. If I want baseball on the level of the Ft. Wayne Wizards I'll go see the Newark Bears, the Trenton Thunder or the New Jersey Cardinals. But if I want something world class I can go to Yankee Stadium or Shea Stadium. You have to shlep all the way to Indianapolis to see the Colts. I'm 45 minutes from Giants Stadium with the Jets and Giants. Then there are always the Knicks, the Rangers, the Nets and the Devils.
Besides MOMA there is the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and dozens of smaller museums. And that's not to mention Broadway, off-Broadway, the PNC Arts Center, the Newark Center for the Performing Arts, the Metropolitan Opera House, Carnegie Hall and the Jersey Shore. Ok, we also have Atlantic City but we try to forget about that. What do you do for excitement in Ft. Wayne, the Three River Festival? Hell, the Hoboken Street Fair is on that level and the Boardwalk in Wildwood is there all summer.
Then try and find a decent bagel there! We used to carry out bags on the plane from New Jersey when we were heading out by private jet. Not because we wanted them but because the folks from Ft. Wayne who had been to New Jersey asked us to!
If you want to get into crime rates and stuff like that, surprisingly New Jersey and Indiana are about equivalent. In 2004 Indiana was ranked 27th and New Jersey only an eyelash above it at 25th. The murder rate was higher in Indiana than New Jersey. Indiana was ranked 20th and New Jersey 25th. So much for the fiction of the Sopranos. The incident of rape was also higher with Indiana ranked 33rd and New Jersey 50th. New Jersey was much worse in robbery though ranked 12th while Indiana was ranked 25th. I mean what the heck is there worth holding someone up for outside of Indianapolis? A tractor?
Indiana voted for Bush the Unhinged while New Jersey voted for Truth, Justice and the American Way! In Indiana they belive in God and the bible while in New Jersey we believe in equality under the law for all Americans regardless of sexual orientation. That's a left handed way of saying we don't have a problem with Gay Marriage.
New Jersey may be the home of "da Family" but Indiana has the dubious pleasure of being known as the Ku Klux Klan state because it's the only state to have ever elected a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan to the office of governor!
Ok, ok, I'm getting bored with this. I had a similar tongue-in-cheek e-mail conversation with Professor Doug Linder at the University of Missouri-Kansas City about his position that the East Coast and the West Coast shouldn't treat the Midwest like a vast wasteland. He's right about that of course and I probably shouldn't have said that Ft. Wayne has no redeeming qualities. If nothing else, it's not in the South.
I'm sorry Ft. Wayne! I rather be there than in Philadelphia.
Monday, July 17, 2006
What a Miserable Trip
Yes, I’m going to complain. Feel free to roll your eyes and ignore me. I don’t care; venting is such sweet sorrow and it’s cathartic as well. I always feel SO much better after I let off some steam.
I don’t travel much these days. I never liked to travel; getting stuck on the road during 9/11 didn’t do anything to change that attitude and the emergence of the “Electronic Office” philosophy provided an excuse not to travel. That being the case I usually work very hard at staying home, unfortunately, sometimes you have no choice but to pack up and hit the road.
That was the situation last week; I had to schlep to Ft. Wayne Indiana of all places. If you haven’t been there, then take it from me, Ft. Wayne has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Even the corn is unfit for human consumption and is only used to feed hogs. It’s feed corn.
The game plan was Newark to Detroit and then Detroit to Ft. Wayne Thursday evening and then a reversal of the trip Friday. I hate the Detroit airport. It seems that you always land two miles from the mood tunnel that takes you to Concourse C. Concourse C is where you find the puddle jumper jets that they fly to Ft. Wayne. I call it the “mood tunnel” because of the light show and audio as you ride the moving sidewalks.
I spent two hours in Detroit going through three gate changes. The flight to Ft. Wayne is only an hour. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky so I have no idea what the problem was. Overall it took some 7 ½ hours to get from New Jersey to Ft. Wayne. That meant no dinner as it was pushing 9:30 when I finally got to the hotel.
The Ft. Wayne airport was basically in shut down mode when I arrived. Luckily someone was still at the Avis booth. They gave me one of those Chevy HRRs. Was it something I said or did they have to stay overtime waiting for my flight to arrive and were ticked off? Saddling me with an HRR was a terrible thing to do. So much for Midwestern hospitality, not only is the thing ugly as sin but the slope of the roof troubled my ability to see the road properly. I really didn’t like the thing. The hotel was nice though. I stayed at a Marriot Courtyard which is always pleasant.
I did my thing and around 3 PM the next day headed back. I arrived at the Ft. Wayne airport only to be informed by Northwestern that my flight was canceled and they were booking me on Delta. The transfer was not smooth. It took a combination of Delta and Northwestern folks about forty minutes to work it out. Now I was going through Cincinnati.
The flight from Ft. Wayne to Cincinnati wasn’t the problem. It was the flight from Cincinnati to Newark. Let’s see, how do I put this? Basically I was booked by Northwestern on a Delta fight flown by a surrogate local airline pretending to be Continental. No wonder they were having a problem. I flew the same class of puddle jumper jet from Cincinnati to Newark as I flew from Ft. Wayne to Cincinnati.
The bottom line is I ended up sitting in Cincinnati for 2 ½ hours instead of Detroit. Cincinnati has a lot better vendors in the concourse and I managed to eat dinner on the way back. I bought a Quiznos turkey sandwich and munched on it by the gate. Overall it took me better than 9 hours to get home and I crawled into my house a little past midnight.
Air travel really sucks. It used to be merely annoying but now it has progressed beyond annoying into the realm of torturous. I'm definitely going to continue to focus on not traveling. Maybe I could write a book called "Not Traveling for Dummies."
I don’t travel much these days. I never liked to travel; getting stuck on the road during 9/11 didn’t do anything to change that attitude and the emergence of the “Electronic Office” philosophy provided an excuse not to travel. That being the case I usually work very hard at staying home, unfortunately, sometimes you have no choice but to pack up and hit the road.
That was the situation last week; I had to schlep to Ft. Wayne Indiana of all places. If you haven’t been there, then take it from me, Ft. Wayne has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Even the corn is unfit for human consumption and is only used to feed hogs. It’s feed corn.
The game plan was Newark to Detroit and then Detroit to Ft. Wayne Thursday evening and then a reversal of the trip Friday. I hate the Detroit airport. It seems that you always land two miles from the mood tunnel that takes you to Concourse C. Concourse C is where you find the puddle jumper jets that they fly to Ft. Wayne. I call it the “mood tunnel” because of the light show and audio as you ride the moving sidewalks.
I spent two hours in Detroit going through three gate changes. The flight to Ft. Wayne is only an hour. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky so I have no idea what the problem was. Overall it took some 7 ½ hours to get from New Jersey to Ft. Wayne. That meant no dinner as it was pushing 9:30 when I finally got to the hotel.
The Ft. Wayne airport was basically in shut down mode when I arrived. Luckily someone was still at the Avis booth. They gave me one of those Chevy HRRs. Was it something I said or did they have to stay overtime waiting for my flight to arrive and were ticked off? Saddling me with an HRR was a terrible thing to do. So much for Midwestern hospitality, not only is the thing ugly as sin but the slope of the roof troubled my ability to see the road properly. I really didn’t like the thing. The hotel was nice though. I stayed at a Marriot Courtyard which is always pleasant.
I did my thing and around 3 PM the next day headed back. I arrived at the Ft. Wayne airport only to be informed by Northwestern that my flight was canceled and they were booking me on Delta. The transfer was not smooth. It took a combination of Delta and Northwestern folks about forty minutes to work it out. Now I was going through Cincinnati.
The flight from Ft. Wayne to Cincinnati wasn’t the problem. It was the flight from Cincinnati to Newark. Let’s see, how do I put this? Basically I was booked by Northwestern on a Delta fight flown by a surrogate local airline pretending to be Continental. No wonder they were having a problem. I flew the same class of puddle jumper jet from Cincinnati to Newark as I flew from Ft. Wayne to Cincinnati.
The bottom line is I ended up sitting in Cincinnati for 2 ½ hours instead of Detroit. Cincinnati has a lot better vendors in the concourse and I managed to eat dinner on the way back. I bought a Quiznos turkey sandwich and munched on it by the gate. Overall it took me better than 9 hours to get home and I crawled into my house a little past midnight.
Air travel really sucks. It used to be merely annoying but now it has progressed beyond annoying into the realm of torturous. I'm definitely going to continue to focus on not traveling. Maybe I could write a book called "Not Traveling for Dummies."
War in the Middle East
Not all that surprising when you come right down to it. Palestine is always on the edge of open warfare. The immediate cause this time around was the kidnapping (capture?) of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah forces. In response the Israeli Air Force has been pounding targets in Gaza and Lebanon and now I see that Israeli ground troops have sortied into Lebanon as well.
Incredible as it may sound I actually agree with Bush the Unhinged on this one. The Israeli’s do have a right to defend themselves. As to whether or not the response is appropriate, that’s another question.
I don’t question the proportion of the response. In Heinlein’s Starship Troopers Ron Rico is in Officer Candidate School and his Political Ethics instructor raises the question of prisoners of war not being returned. The class agrees that 1,000 prisoners not being returned is a casus belli, but the discussion bogs down when they try to identify a lower bound Is it 100, 10, 1? Rico finally gets frustrated with the instructor’s attitude and gives him the Cap Trooper’s answer. It doesn’t matter whether it’s 1,000 or 1, you fight. To Rico’s surprise, the instructor agrees. The number is irrelevant, it’s the principal that matters and the principal states that you protect your own. Regardless of the consequences, you never leave a man behind, and an attack upon one is an attack upon all.
What is unclear is whether or not the target of the response is appropriate. Does Lebanon really have any control over what Hezbollah does?
In the meantime Bush and company at the G8 summit got trapped by an open mike that they were unaware of including Bush’s use of an expletive to describe Hezbollah’s actions. Tsk, tsk, and here I thought the Unhinged was a nice Christian lad.
I’m not a pacifist. I prefer peace to war and I consider conflict a last resort but I’m smart enough to know that sometimes peace can only be found on the other side of war. Is Fundamentalist Islam a force that can be negotiated with and a philosophy that the west can live peacefully with? From what I know of our own Christian Fundamentalists I have to say I doubt it. Tolerance for other ideas is a foreign concept to these people. If they have any power whatsoever they will cheerfully crush anyone that disagrees with them or who doesn’t follow their rules. You can’t negotiate with a fanatic.
What you can do is encourage the more moderate elements of these movements. These people you can negotiate with because they don’t really adhere to the same medieval philosophy. As soon as I discover any moderates in the Islamic Fundamentalist movement, I’ll let you know.
Incredible as it may sound I actually agree with Bush the Unhinged on this one. The Israeli’s do have a right to defend themselves. As to whether or not the response is appropriate, that’s another question.
I don’t question the proportion of the response. In Heinlein’s Starship Troopers Ron Rico is in Officer Candidate School and his Political Ethics instructor raises the question of prisoners of war not being returned. The class agrees that 1,000 prisoners not being returned is a casus belli, but the discussion bogs down when they try to identify a lower bound Is it 100, 10, 1? Rico finally gets frustrated with the instructor’s attitude and gives him the Cap Trooper’s answer. It doesn’t matter whether it’s 1,000 or 1, you fight. To Rico’s surprise, the instructor agrees. The number is irrelevant, it’s the principal that matters and the principal states that you protect your own. Regardless of the consequences, you never leave a man behind, and an attack upon one is an attack upon all.
What is unclear is whether or not the target of the response is appropriate. Does Lebanon really have any control over what Hezbollah does?
In the meantime Bush and company at the G8 summit got trapped by an open mike that they were unaware of including Bush’s use of an expletive to describe Hezbollah’s actions. Tsk, tsk, and here I thought the Unhinged was a nice Christian lad.
I’m not a pacifist. I prefer peace to war and I consider conflict a last resort but I’m smart enough to know that sometimes peace can only be found on the other side of war. Is Fundamentalist Islam a force that can be negotiated with and a philosophy that the west can live peacefully with? From what I know of our own Christian Fundamentalists I have to say I doubt it. Tolerance for other ideas is a foreign concept to these people. If they have any power whatsoever they will cheerfully crush anyone that disagrees with them or who doesn’t follow their rules. You can’t negotiate with a fanatic.
What you can do is encourage the more moderate elements of these movements. These people you can negotiate with because they don’t really adhere to the same medieval philosophy. As soon as I discover any moderates in the Islamic Fundamentalist movement, I’ll let you know.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Not Much Going on?
Every once in a while you have to catch yourself when you’re leafing through the news and you begin to say, “Gee, there’s not much going on.”
The problem is that even on a so-called slow news day, there are terrible things going on. Children are missing, people are on death row, Bush is still in office, the troops are still in harm’s way in Iraq and every day there are more that will never come home again.
I’m sort of reminded of the old question, “When does a minor problem become a major problem?” Answer, “When it’s YOUR problem.”
I’ve got a few problems, we all do. Because they’re my problems, they appear catastrophic. Yes, a piano just fell on your head but at least your car battery hasn’t died on you. Your problems are minor and nothing to worry about, but mine are major crises that I have to worry about.
I understand the psychology but it doesn’t stop me from worrying. Sucks, doesn’t it?
The problem is that even on a so-called slow news day, there are terrible things going on. Children are missing, people are on death row, Bush is still in office, the troops are still in harm’s way in Iraq and every day there are more that will never come home again.
I’m sort of reminded of the old question, “When does a minor problem become a major problem?” Answer, “When it’s YOUR problem.”
I’ve got a few problems, we all do. Because they’re my problems, they appear catastrophic. Yes, a piano just fell on your head but at least your car battery hasn’t died on you. Your problems are minor and nothing to worry about, but mine are major crises that I have to worry about.
I understand the psychology but it doesn’t stop me from worrying. Sucks, doesn’t it?
Ken Lay and Forgiveness
Ken Lay, who took Enron down the tubes while lying about the health of the company all the way, is dead. Ken Lay hurt a lot of people. He cost them their life savings or pensions and many of them would have liked to see him as the cell mate of Bubba for the next 20 years or so. They feel cheated that he kicked the bucket.
I don’t blame them and not only that, I agree with the New York Daily News which, in its inimitable blue collar earthy style, ran a banner headline saying that someone needs to make certain that he’s really in the box when it gets buried. After seeing an article that his assets have stopped being seized due to his death, one has to wonder.
I mean we‘re talking very rich, friend of Bush the Unhinged and Texas. Let’s remember that as recently as last year this is the guy that could afford to rent a boat for his wife’s birthday for a cool $200,000. I wouldn’t exactly call him repentant so it wouldn’t really surprise me if Ken is sipping iced Tropical Surprises on a private beach somewhere near Tahiti and its some poor homeless schnook with a resemblance that’s actually in the box.
Anyone in Texas that comes in contact with demised homeless folks suddenly come into a load of cash? Calling all Investigative Reporters in Texas, this could be your big chance. I’d check this out if I were you.
I don’t blame them and not only that, I agree with the New York Daily News which, in its inimitable blue collar earthy style, ran a banner headline saying that someone needs to make certain that he’s really in the box when it gets buried. After seeing an article that his assets have stopped being seized due to his death, one has to wonder.
I mean we‘re talking very rich, friend of Bush the Unhinged and Texas. Let’s remember that as recently as last year this is the guy that could afford to rent a boat for his wife’s birthday for a cool $200,000. I wouldn’t exactly call him repentant so it wouldn’t really surprise me if Ken is sipping iced Tropical Surprises on a private beach somewhere near Tahiti and its some poor homeless schnook with a resemblance that’s actually in the box.
Anyone in Texas that comes in contact with demised homeless folks suddenly come into a load of cash? Calling all Investigative Reporters in Texas, this could be your big chance. I’d check this out if I were you.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Death Penalty Update
The Alito and his fellow conservative Supremes may have restored the Death Penalty in Kansas, but the New York Assembly has again blocked a Death Penalty restoration bill by a whopping 13-5 margin and two Federal District Court judges have found problems with lethal injections in both Arkansas and Missouri. In Arkansas a stay of execution for one inmate was granted while in Missouri all executions have been suspended. So Missouri joins California, Illinois and New Jersey as a state with a judicial, an executive or a legislative moratorium in place.
Two Chicago Tribune reporters are claiming that Texas, yes Texas again, likely executed an innocent man in 1989. This is starting to get ridiculous. Hello Texas, are you paying attention? If so, then why aren’t you doing something about this?
Dr. Orin Guidry, president of the America Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), has issued a memo reminding members that the ASA has adopted the American Medical Association's position that doctors should not participate in executions and strongly urging members to "steer clear" of any participation in lethal injection executions.
The statement was in reaction to the Missouri ruling where the court said that a board certified anesthesiologist needed to be present.
Dr. Deepak Chopra has joined the chorus of people that are pointing out that the death penalty in the U.S. is irrational. It does not deter crime, risks innocent lives, and isolates the U.S. among the majority of First World nations making us look like a third world despotic regime. Hey wait a minute, with Bush the Unhinged in the Oval Office we ARE a third world despotic regime!
So even a New Age Woo-Woo like Chopra can figure out that the Death Penalty is a bad deal, so WTF is wrong with the rest of us? Is it that we’re not paying attention or are we too busy with counting the days until the next round of American Idol that prevents us from rising as one and putting an end once and for all to this idiocy?
In the meantime, the machinery of execution grinds on. There have been 25 executions in 9 states this year including 13 in Texas, a state that stories of mistakes and incompetence keep appearing about. There are 26 more scheduled including 11 in Texas and the first execution in South Dakota since executions resumed in 1976.
The execution in South Dakota is a volunteer, an individual that has waived all additional appeals. A volunteer was executed in Connecticut last year which was that state’s first execution since 1976. As a matter of fact all four executions that have occurred in the Northeast have been of volunteers. If the South Dakota execution occurs, then it will reduce the number of states that have passed Death Penalty statues but have never used them to four, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey and Kansas.
Two Chicago Tribune reporters are claiming that Texas, yes Texas again, likely executed an innocent man in 1989. This is starting to get ridiculous. Hello Texas, are you paying attention? If so, then why aren’t you doing something about this?
Dr. Orin Guidry, president of the America Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), has issued a memo reminding members that the ASA has adopted the American Medical Association's position that doctors should not participate in executions and strongly urging members to "steer clear" of any participation in lethal injection executions.
The statement was in reaction to the Missouri ruling where the court said that a board certified anesthesiologist needed to be present.
Dr. Deepak Chopra has joined the chorus of people that are pointing out that the death penalty in the U.S. is irrational. It does not deter crime, risks innocent lives, and isolates the U.S. among the majority of First World nations making us look like a third world despotic regime. Hey wait a minute, with Bush the Unhinged in the Oval Office we ARE a third world despotic regime!
So even a New Age Woo-Woo like Chopra can figure out that the Death Penalty is a bad deal, so WTF is wrong with the rest of us? Is it that we’re not paying attention or are we too busy with counting the days until the next round of American Idol that prevents us from rising as one and putting an end once and for all to this idiocy?
In the meantime, the machinery of execution grinds on. There have been 25 executions in 9 states this year including 13 in Texas, a state that stories of mistakes and incompetence keep appearing about. There are 26 more scheduled including 11 in Texas and the first execution in South Dakota since executions resumed in 1976.
The execution in South Dakota is a volunteer, an individual that has waived all additional appeals. A volunteer was executed in Connecticut last year which was that state’s first execution since 1976. As a matter of fact all four executions that have occurred in the Northeast have been of volunteers. If the South Dakota execution occurs, then it will reduce the number of states that have passed Death Penalty statues but have never used them to four, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey and Kansas.
300 Million People
I saw a headline in the paper the other day that the U.S. population is approaching the 300 million mark. Ouch, no wonder no matter where I go it's too damn crowded!
Seriously, that a lot of people. My calibration point is the population counter from the 1964 New York World's Fair which was showing, if I remember correctly, around 173 million. So we're talking about a net gain of almost 130 million people in 40 years.
Like I said before, no wonder everyplace is too damn crowded.
Seriously, that a lot of people. My calibration point is the population counter from the 1964 New York World's Fair which was showing, if I remember correctly, around 173 million. So we're talking about a net gain of almost 130 million people in 40 years.
Like I said before, no wonder everyplace is too damn crowded.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Child Sacrifice, Abortion and Morality
The post I did a while back on “Human Sacrifice in Ancient Canaan,” which focused primarily upon the theory that child sacrifice was practiced, resulted in a number of reactions. Allow me to describe the two most prevalent.
The first was simply folks pointing out that while most scholars accept evidence of child sacrifice in Carthage and other Phoenician settlements, a strong minority debate those conclusions. The alternative hypothesis is that the consecrated child remains in areas dedicated to Tanite and Baal-Hammon actually represent cemeteries reserved for miscarriages and young children that died of natural causes.
After reading the arguments of both sides, I’d say that the minority position has significant merit. Unfortunately the biblical passages, which I am treating as history and not scripture, aren’t completely explained away. The most the minority position can say is that they are misinterpretations of biblical text. Perhaps, but there are a fairly large number of passages, expressed a number of different ways, that would have to be misinterpreted. I guess the primary question is whether the phrase “pass through the fire” should be consider equivalent to “sacrifice” or whether it refers to some sort of non-fatal religious right of passage.
The primary reason I am hesitant to accept that this phrase describes some sort of religious rite of passage, is that it appears to be applied equally to sons and daughters. Given the culture of the time, I find it hard to believe that anyone would bother with a rite of passage for females.
I never actually accused the Carthaginians in my previous post of child sacrifice, but I will admit that scholarly conclusions about the “Tophet” discovered in North Africa did influence me to more readily accept the conclusion that child sacrifice was prevalent in Canaan. While I find the arguments against Carthaginian child sacrifice rather compelling, it’s unclear to me that if the practice didn’t exist in Carthage, or if it died out as Carthage rose to prominence, then the practice didn’t exist among the Canaanite civilizations. However I have to admit that I’ve been shifted toward “uncertain.”
The second reaction equated child sacrifice to abortion and went through, often lengthy and lurid, explanations related to the parallels between the two practices. The implication of course being that if I condemned one, as I was clearly doing in the Canaan post, then I was being at least inconsistent, and more likely hypocritical, by not also condemning the other.
There’s only one problem, I don’t ever recall actually saying that I didn’t condemn abortion. I consider the practice detestable. However, and this is the big however, I recognize that placing the mother’s physical or mental health in jeopardy is equally detestable. How then does one balance two detestable choices? I have no right to do that for someone else nor do I have the right to decide when in fact those ARE the choices. Neither does anyone else, other than the woman, her family and her advisors, have that right.
The issue is not whether abortion is a good thing, its not, it’s a very bad thing. The issue is whether anyone has the right to enforce an abstract moral theory upon everyone else, especially when all the specific detailed variations of future situations cannot possibly be known.
I believe that the answer to that question has got to be no.
The first was simply folks pointing out that while most scholars accept evidence of child sacrifice in Carthage and other Phoenician settlements, a strong minority debate those conclusions. The alternative hypothesis is that the consecrated child remains in areas dedicated to Tanite and Baal-Hammon actually represent cemeteries reserved for miscarriages and young children that died of natural causes.
After reading the arguments of both sides, I’d say that the minority position has significant merit. Unfortunately the biblical passages, which I am treating as history and not scripture, aren’t completely explained away. The most the minority position can say is that they are misinterpretations of biblical text. Perhaps, but there are a fairly large number of passages, expressed a number of different ways, that would have to be misinterpreted. I guess the primary question is whether the phrase “pass through the fire” should be consider equivalent to “sacrifice” or whether it refers to some sort of non-fatal religious right of passage.
The primary reason I am hesitant to accept that this phrase describes some sort of religious rite of passage, is that it appears to be applied equally to sons and daughters. Given the culture of the time, I find it hard to believe that anyone would bother with a rite of passage for females.
I never actually accused the Carthaginians in my previous post of child sacrifice, but I will admit that scholarly conclusions about the “Tophet” discovered in North Africa did influence me to more readily accept the conclusion that child sacrifice was prevalent in Canaan. While I find the arguments against Carthaginian child sacrifice rather compelling, it’s unclear to me that if the practice didn’t exist in Carthage, or if it died out as Carthage rose to prominence, then the practice didn’t exist among the Canaanite civilizations. However I have to admit that I’ve been shifted toward “uncertain.”
The second reaction equated child sacrifice to abortion and went through, often lengthy and lurid, explanations related to the parallels between the two practices. The implication of course being that if I condemned one, as I was clearly doing in the Canaan post, then I was being at least inconsistent, and more likely hypocritical, by not also condemning the other.
There’s only one problem, I don’t ever recall actually saying that I didn’t condemn abortion. I consider the practice detestable. However, and this is the big however, I recognize that placing the mother’s physical or mental health in jeopardy is equally detestable. How then does one balance two detestable choices? I have no right to do that for someone else nor do I have the right to decide when in fact those ARE the choices. Neither does anyone else, other than the woman, her family and her advisors, have that right.
The issue is not whether abortion is a good thing, its not, it’s a very bad thing. The issue is whether anyone has the right to enforce an abstract moral theory upon everyone else, especially when all the specific detailed variations of future situations cannot possibly be known.
I believe that the answer to that question has got to be no.
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