So, the Madman in the Tree Says to the Pig...

Confront life

2007-04-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

Everyone, at some point in their lives, is faced with tragedy. It varies much from the mildest to the most horrific, and the responses vary in like fashion... but today, in the aftermath of the massacre at Virginia Tech, we are faced with a lesson we spend our lives deliberately ignoring at all costs:

Tragedy happens, and there is nothing we can do, short of total isolation from other living things, to avoid it.

My personal lesson came with the passing of my mother, who at the age of 63 had lived nearly two lifetimes worth of experience, much of it negative. As we put it to the doctors who feared our blaming accusation at the manner of her passing: her body simply had no more to give. She gave up.

The lesson continued through the next 18 months or so after her passing, starting with a psychotic breakdown that required 13 months of weekly therapy to reconcile. To say that her passing caused it would be wrong; to say that she was at the center of it would be completely accurate.

I cannot, except by extension -- having parents who survived, separately, one of the most violent spans of time in human history -- know how it feels to be confronted with violent death. Violence sickens me, physically. I'm one of those who will react as he must during a violent crisis, but will toss his cookies (even if there are none to toss) afterwards. But, despite several opportunities, I have never had to confront violent death.

The beloved and loving survivors of war casualties know this next part very well -- and I can assert that because I have yet to meet such a person who didn't know it. We dishonor our dead if we refuse to recognize their manner of death in the time and place -- the context -- in which it happened. When a soldier dies in combat, this recognition is easy. When children are gunned down by a psycopath in the context of everyday life, that recognition can be beyond difficult... but it is no less important than the recognition we offer our soldiers who die in combat.

So, for all of us who are grieving, at whatever proximity or remove, the death of children at Virginia Tech, we must -- for their sake -- understand the context of their deaths.

We must avoid quick judgment of the situation. We must withold judgment of the murderer until his background and motivation can be ascertained; and, with that, we must refrain from speculative conclusions about him and his motivation if we fail to obtain the necessary facts to come to a rational conclusion about him.

Above all, we must avoid stereotyping the situation or the people involved. The British author J.R.R. Tolkien has entered the mass consciousness in recent years, with the Peter Jackson movies being so widely seen, so I won't hesitate to use a quote from his novel The Lord of the Rings:

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

This expresses the importance in both ways. We can, not because we think he deserved it, offer the murderer compassion. We may never know for certain, but that he was a student at the school narrows the possibilities of his motivation. Was he a social scapegoat? Was he under more pressure than he could handle? Was he that rare case of a psychotic just waiting to explode? These and other, similar, possibilities point to one thing: there is nothing anyone could have done to prevent his actions. If we can, as is appropriate, console the survivor of a suicide in like fashion, we must extend this notion to our college campuses, because the real crime would be if we turned them into armed fortresses, made them into gated communities cut off from the surrounding culture. I promise every parent who might say, "yeah, I want that" one thing: it will happen again despite the best of any such effort.

If we do nothing else, we must teach our children one thing: to live life to its fullest, to confront all that life might bring, and to never let fear rule life.

I will end with one other bit of wisdom from Tolkien's pen. I offer it as both solace and recognition of our grief.

"I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil."

May the Great Mother take you to her warm and loving embrace.

Hang Imus from the tallest tree, but first you must answer these questions three:

2007-04-11T17:27:00.000-07:00

I have a question to ask, but I especially would like to hear from people who enjoy gangster rap:

Why am I supposed to feel any respect for the reactions to Don Imus, when the very people calling for his figurative head have been basically silent about black rappers?

What is the difference between ruining Imus' career and trying to beat or kill him?

Show me the evidence that any woman on the Rutgers team has been or will ever be harmed by Imus' words?

Rush to Judgment

2007-04-07T08:22:00.000-07:00

I've struggled with expressing myself about the recently concluded events in the waters off Iraq and Iran. I've had to walk away from the computer twice, just this morning, to avoid writing a post that should rightly be deleted (this, in a blog in which I have some personal investment as a participant); I'm not sure, even so, if what I posted will not cause enough offense to be deleted.

So, before my head explodes, some thoughts and rants about judgment, honor, and the idea that we (in general) know a damn thing at all about the hearts and minds of others.

=====o====

I am the son of a warrior. I phrase that deliberately. My father was born to a militaristic culture. His schooling was militaristic in the literal sense. His expectation upon reaching his majority was primarily an officer's commission in an army. He was, himself, special in his native skills, so the expectations of others were if anything well beyond what any young man might have on his own.

He had, in my never humble opinion, as accurate a sense of honor as any person I can name. And, in any rational sense, he was completely unworthy of my personal trust.

In his own culture, he was eminently sane. In the US, he was rightly diagnosed with clinical paranoia, and the only reason he was not involuntarily committed was because a judge wasn't convinced that he was a threat of physical injury to himself or those around him. The emotional scars he left in myself, my siblings, and my late mother were, of course, of no matter. [end brief sarcasm]

But that in no way contradicts the fact that he was an honorable man, that he comported himself with honor while a soldier, and that he accurately commented on the state of military conduct in the US. I have his letters and personal notes, collected over 40 years. They are lucid, direct, and in some cases brilliant.

Yet, in his personal life, he could not trust others, thus preventing him being in any way trustworthy in himself.

====o====

We are faced with a mindset, in our contemporary world, that is by itself capable of more destruction than any other single mindset I know of. It is, in short, the notion that one's faith, ethnicity, form of government or nationality are somehow more important no matter the circumstances than one's own life, or short of that one's own personal dignity or physical well-being.

We see it in action every day in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We see it in hate crime legislation (more details about that in a future post). We see it in the current debate over the behavior of the captured sailors and marines held in Iran, and I find it exceedingly difficult for anyone to offer the slightest criticism of that group of men and one woman at any point prior to knowing exactly what transpired during their incarceration, and without knowing what their standing orders were from their commanders concerning being caught in that sort of situation.

I find all of the commentary, even the parts that praise them prematurely, cowardly posturing at best.

Do them a favor. Say nothing about them until you know all the facts, on both sides of the question. Every commentator has a completely random chance of being either completely right or completely wrong. If nothing else, that random chance should cause one to hesitate.

But no. In this journalistic world of me-first, get the prize, scoop the world regardless of the confirmation or even possession of facts, we get inundated by personal takes on a situation that most writers have never faced, not even vicariously through someone close to them. We get inane comparisons with isolated (but oh-so-well documented) cases like that of John McCain, inane because every logical point in the comparison is ignored; only the outcome matters. And, in the end, being the one to publish commentary about the outcome before it manifests is all that matters.

Civility

2007-04-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

I have acquired, in some circles, a reputation for online civility. While I join those who know me in real life in some chuckling over this, I can also say that the reputation is deserved.

There are several key elements to online civility in its practice, but it all starts with the internal processes, the attitudes and perspective of the person. In my never humble opinion (all puns intended), the ego is the prime culprit in lack or loss of civility.

At the top of my list of personal practices, kept in mind especially when an egregiously uncivil forum is encountered, is the notion of acknowledgement of feelings.

This notion is simple: before replying to a post or statement, before exploring my personal feelings and reactions, I take a moment to acknowledge the feelings of the author whose words I just read. This is simple, non-judgmental, and in no way assumes or implies that I agree with the statement or the feelings. They exist, they have been expressed, and a fundamental component of respect for others is recognizing common ground, that being in just about every case being human.

In most instances, I don't have to state the acknowledgement, at least not beyond a bare "Okay" or "I hear you". Usually, my response is composed to show the acknowledgement, even in the subtlest ways. However, sometimes it is profitable to both parties (and to those reading) to explicitly write that acknowledgement, in direct proportion to the strength of the feelings: the stronger they are, the more attention they deserve.

My personal proof of this notion is also simple: whenever I forget to use it, I find myself quickly becoming embroiled in argument rather than discussion, I expend much greater effort to be understood, let alone heard, and my own feelings become more likely to get in the way. In short, I fall in the ego trap that is present in every uncivil forum. Indeed, I can point to many a thread where an immediate improvement occured because someone acknowledged my feelings.

So, do please try this at home. Injuries incurred by the confluence of head with desk, monitor or other unyielding surface is the responsibility of the user. Management will disavow any claims of philosophical validation. This message will self-destruct in 1,000 years or at the advent of the next ice age, whichever comes first.

Witches on TV, oh my.

2007-01-30T13:13:00.000-08:00

Here is the blog postings about yesterday's (Monday, January 29) broadcast of The Tyra Banks Show "Witches and Other Controversial Topics". I'm not providing the URL for the show synopsis because the address refers to "yesterday's program" and obviously is not permanent. You'll have to navigate to find it.

The synopsis is worth reading, I do emphasize. Judging from the outpouring of upset on the blog (my first post in it was one of the earliest, and can be found near the bottom. I use my mundane name...), Ms. Banks was rude, cutting people off before they could complete sentences, and played up on the promotional video used before the show aired, where witches in general were "Halloweenized" to the max. By all accounts, she even commented on the air that she wanted to use a cleansing ritual with sage after the pagans left the stage. The synopsis is mild by comparison and might be construed as deceptive. It certainly mentions nothing of what has been complained about.

I urge my siblings in faith to remember certain things. Those who are afraid of us, and are adamant in their beliefs, are not going to be convinced no matter what. They are a lost cause, and while their behavior should be monitored, they can as individuals be ignored. Those who hate us, and are likely to or intend to take action against us, are also not going to be influenced one way or the other. I will reiterate a caution I made to one of the show's guests who chatted with me in email a bit: take this lesson to heart, and be very careful about the sort of media invitations you receive from now on. Do not be gulled into participating in your own smearing. Set terms and conditions and stick to them, including walking out if you were deceived or the agreement is broken.

But most importantly: don't let this show stop you (in general) from making an ongoing effort to educate society-at-large, to make your beliefs understood in their proper context, and to help dispell ignorance.

I'm thinking that should be disspell ignorance. Has a ring to it, dontcha think? :-D

Are the times changing?

2007-01-30T11:42:00.000-08:00

I apologize for my long absence. I hope this is the start of a regular posting pattern from now on.

The setup of this one will be a bit long, I'm afraid, so please bear with me. I promise that the punchline will be short.

Bush Admin acts to take control of regulatory activity.

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

As a former, professional participant in a regulated industry and contributor to the regulation-development process (public testimony, etc.), I can state without hesitation that the analysis of cost and benefit is a part of the legislative process, not the regulatory process. I'm not saying they do it particularly well in all cases, don't get me wrong on that.

Climate scientists who are also federal employees assert that scientific findings are being changed or suppressed by Bush Admin.

The Union of Concerned Scientists distributed a survey to over 1,600 federal climate scientists, which asked for information about the state of federal climate research. Responses were received from 279 scientists. Results of the survey include:

* Forty-six percent of respondents perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words “climate change,” “global warming,” or other similar terms from a variety of communications.
* Forty-three percent of respondents reported they had perceived or personally experienced changes or edits during review of their work that changed the meaning of their scientific findings.
* Forty-six percent of respondents perceived or personally experienced new or unusual administrative requirements that impair climate-related work.

I have to wonder: did the over 1,300 non-respondents not respond because someone was looking over their shoulders, or because they were in some way afraid for their jobs? What margin of error do we need to use these findings on the larger population, in light of the large non-response?

So, my question is this: are we seeing the symptoms of a theocracy, an anti-science mentality that refuses to acknowledge facts and evidence as well as the considered analyses and opinions of those who are accounted experts in those analyses and opinions?

It could be, instead, a garden-variety attempt at cronyism and influence peddling. I like asking the edgier question, is all. :-D

Don't waste the vote

2006-10-23T07:33:00.000-07:00

Many people, moreso for this election cycle than any in living memory, are expressing disgust and anger at the lack of choice being offered by the two major parties. This note is meant for each person whose disgust or anger may cause you to stay away from the polls on November 7th.

Don't waste the vote. Go to the poll, and vote for a write-in person for every office where the other candidates have nothing politically acceptable to offer you for your vote.

We hear or see almost nothing concerning the write-in vote. It remains a legal option in every state of the Union. It should be available to every voter for every elected-office race on every election day. If it is not, go to your local election enforcement officials and complain loudly.

Now, here's the thing: a write-in vote requires much more effort on the voter's part than just choosing a candidate. You have to actually find someone who you think deserves your vote, who will -- if elected, and don't laugh because it is always possible -- serve in the office effectively. You may be surprised in your search to find several people actually running as independent, write-in candidates, and you just might find one for whom you can vote.

Vote. Don't let the cut-from-a-mold idjits in the Republicrat and Democan parties force you to stay away. If you think voting for a write-in is a waste of your vote, at least it's better than not voting, and get this: if enough people use the write-in, even if no one person gets any significant number of such votes, the media will have a field day writing about how the major parties have failed.

Wouldn't that be something?

If you like this idea, and can think of someone who can benefit from it, please, pass it on.

"Defense" of marriage

2006-10-23T07:31:00.000-07:00

I'm rather sick of the whole "defense" of marriage schtick as it is, what with a 50% divorce rate embedded in our social consciousness well before anyone thought about "non-traditional" marriages in any context, let alone in the context of civil rights.

Where were the religious right when divorce began to skyrocket? Were they perhaps too busy having their own divorces to bother with it?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

The Superiority of Christianity

2006-10-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

Over the last several years, and particularly in the most recent couple of years, I've heard and read a number of commentaries on how the US is descending into a pit of sin, and that the only way to reverse this descent is through Jesus Christ. That's a terrible over-simplification of the rhetoric, and I apologize for that, but it does capture the gist of it.

I'm here to call for proof. I want to see numbers. I want to see actual, verifiable evidence.

Here's what I do know:

Somewhere between 75% and 80% of all Americans self-identify as Christians.

The vast majority of crimes in the US are committed by Christians (hereafter meant as a direct reference to self-identify as Christians).

The vast majority of our political office-holders, judicial appointees, law enforcement professionals and legislators are Christians.

The vast majority of all places of worship are Christian.

100% of the men involved with the sex scandal in the Roman Catholic Church are Christian.

What I want to know is the actual foundation in observable fact that being Christian will make my society better than it is. And to those who choose to answer, I give fair warning: vaguely worded statements, vague references to holy text, and assertions made without direct citations will be rejected out of hand. The "promise" of salvation is not evidence; indeed, believers in Jesus Christ seem to me to be the bulk of the problem up to now.

Compulsory public education: yes or no?

2006-10-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

I was going to stay away from this discussion, because my opinion is rather far from most extremes, and I don't know of anyone who both agrees with me and has the chutzpa to implement the ideas.

I'll just throw it out there. Anyone who wants to pick it apart, all I ask is that you come up with alternatives that will work. I don't much care whose idea gets used, so long as it addresses the key issues.

1) Self-esteem. This has become the defacto "family value" of choice in the whole education debate. It is predicated on the worst possible concept: that all children in a given peer group are equally intelligent, equally mature, and capable of progressing at an equal rate. We push them not to do their best, but to do as well or better than their peers. This is the single, most destructive influence in education.

2) Authority. I don't care what else you do, I don't care if you bust all the unions or fire the whole damn faculty, so long as you institute a simple rule and enforce it to the max: if you give a teacher or administrator responsibility, you must give hir the authority to match it.

3) Respect for expertise. Teachers and administrators go to college, take certification exams, and are interviewed by veterans before being hired. Teaching majors spend at least a full semester apprenticed to an experience teacher in a live classroom. Some of them read all the horror stories out there, and still deliberately vie for positions on the front lines. You (general) could have the basic decency and courtesy to believe them when they say a theory, program or approach wiil or will not work, and keep your (general) untrained and ignorant paws off of them while they try to do their jobs.

In general, there are glaring examples of each of the following all over, and sometimes in the private sector as well: desparate need for fiscal accountability (as in, someone is lining their pockets with your tax dollars to the detriment of your children: why aren't you doing something about that?); a small but vocal minority of parents are behind the politicians who are not hesitating to promote their personal agendas on the backs of failing children, with no intention of actually doing something about it; there are good, decent, successful schools out there who are being aggressively and vindictively attacked because they are successful, because they are surrounded by a district that is killing itself and can't abide this glaring and local comparison for their failures...

I am by a long stretch not the first one to say these things, nor am I alone at all in being public about it... but if more people don't start seeing and hearing this message, then I'll just have to take my words and eat them, for all the good they might do.

I know, I've managed to bore you (general) to tears and not actually say a thing about compulsory education. Try reading it all the way through with this thought in mind: if education were actually the way it should be, "compulsory" would be the last word on anyone's mind.

Dead girls and handguns

2006-10-03T07:22:00.000-07:00

Okay. The emotions have run their course -- well, really, I've gone from boiling to a simmer -- and I read something this morning that made me look in the mirror and see my own hypocrisy. There must be a dialogue on the issues, and (as one online acquaintance put it) making political hay is not the answer.

As of this writing, five Amish girls between the ages of 6 and 12 are dead, two are out of danger and three more are listed in critical condition after surgery. A man who has left copious evidence of suicidal depression went into their one-room school with a handgun, a shotgun, a third weapon and 600 rounds of ammunition, with -- as one law enforcement official put it -- no intention of surviving his actions. His targeting of the school and the girls, by all accounts, was dispassionate and convenient. A 20-year grudge, and the death of a daughter three years ago are mentioned as motivating factors.

Those are the facts.

Banning handguns would not have been enough to prevent this and similar events. My own desire, strictly regulating both guns and users just as we do with automobiles and drivers, would not prevent all such events, but it would make them more difficult to carry out. Calling for a school violence summit to be held next week with education and law enforcement officials to discuss possible federal action to help communities prevent violence and deal with its aftermath, as spoken by Bush administration representatives on Monday, is not the answer.

The answer is difficult. It requires us to reverse a trend that from my POV has been strengthening over the last 40 years and more. In fact, the answer is so difficult that only the conscious commitment of every citizen, with the fullest pressure from the rest of society, will make it work.

Every one of us is responsible for every child around us.

Every one of us is responsible for law enforcement.

Every one of us is responsible for the actions of our elected officials.

And every one of us must take the appropriate actions to exercise those responsibilities.

Anyone who disagrees with any part of that deserves neither the status of citizen nor the rights and protections that go with that status. No voting. No use of the administrative functions of government. No access to anything but temporary aid and assistance in time of need, to end once that person is capable of leaving the country.

No more free rides. Put in what you expect to get back. No more privilege or special treatment due to accident of birth, wealth or popularity. No assumption of privilege for convenience. No more tolerance for inherent bullying behaviors.

No more standing on the sidelines, waiting for someone else to make the hard decisions, do the difficult tasks, take the difficult responsibility.

The list could go on much longer, and should be delineated clearly, because this is not some emotional desire for a band aid on an isolated situation or issue. This is the heart of what it means to be a member of a community, a citizen of a state and nation. It crosses all lines, gender, age, ethinicity, language, and religion. Dare I use those three simple words, a phrase that has been poked, prodded, spun and spat upon by generations of greed and lust?

We the People...

A moral society

2006-09-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

There is a moral concept I first encountered in explicit form in Frank Herbert's Dune. I don't have the exact quote handy, so I'll have to paraphrase on my own.

A society, and by extension the members of that society who are present for local, individual incidents, is responsible for the care and protection of its members who are socially incompetent.

This description is intended without prejudice. It includes those who are not yet competent (children, immigrants) and those who will never be competent (mentally ill, developmentally deficient). This moral concept prompts two logical outcomes.

1) When a social incompetent commits a crime, punishment should be that which corrects the incompetence, and removal from any further opportunity to commit that crime in order to protect the rest of society.

2) A socially competent person who commits a crime falls under two general categories: sie made a mistake (crime of passion, ignorance of the law); sie made a deliberate decision to take the action that constitutes a crime. We may not need to punish differently in each case, but we do need to acknowledge that distinction, and treat the willful criminal as sie deserves: no longer welcome in our society, period.

A hallmark of civilization is, using this moral concept as a starting point and in my not so humble opinion, the effort made to acknowledge the nuances of this morality and to permit case-by-case application of that morality. Thus, blanket approaches, laws that exclude leeway or flexibility in their enforcement, and the more general existence of bigotry, all of that I would consider immoral.

For example, a society that claims to be civilized will acknowledge the breaking of a law with the intention of pointing out its immorality. The segregation laws that were abolished by the civil rights movement fall into this category. Civil disobedience in service to the moral protection of those who cannot protect themselves is of the highest moral attainment.

One POV on public education

2006-09-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

I entered kindergarten in 1961, graduated from high school in 1974; my eldest child graduated from HS in 2001, my youngest is in 8th grade. All of that is public schooling.

And no, it didn't happen in some idyllic, wealthy gated community in the mythical heartland. I grew up right outside Philadelphia in a mostly blue-collar community. My children all attend/ed Philadelphia public schools.

40 years ago, there were certain things taken for granted. Parents met their children's teachers, in person, three or four times per year just while everything was going okay. Children were expected to behave (and not behave) in certain ways, to offer the teacher the same respect and acceptance of authority as they offered their parents; the concept was called in loco parentis (which has long since become obsolete).

In the workplace, a parent was expected to drop everything and go to a school in an urgent or emergency situation; the supervisor or manager automatically provided coverage, or had a standing agreement about making up lost time or charging it to personal, sick or vacation time. (There were, of course, significant exceptions to that last part that lead to the passage of the Family Leave Act.)

At some point, I don't know when or how long the transition lasted, a shift occured. Parents became less involved, and more inclined to put schools in charge of their children that contradicted in loco parentis. A good part of that can be blamed on a changing workplace, on changes in expectations of parents and their work-life balance. Many teachers will tell you that there was a significant drop off in the number of parents they actually met face-to-face, and this drop off excluded only those whose children either had special needs or were at the high end of the performance curve already.

Then a new population of special needs kids arrived: children of single mothers, children of drug addicts, children who float between two or more homes within the family unit and sometimes out of it. There are other descriptors I'm not listing, but many of these children had endemic problems that required more than any mainstream classroom with 33 kids could possibly offer; and there were enough of them that full-time professional people needed to be in the school to give them the help they needed to just learn the basics.

Aside: you cannot possibly grasp the difficulty a special ed teacher has when her students lack impulse control of any sort (due in equal parts to upbringing and medical conditions), have damaged or non-existant skills like short-term memory, pattern recognition or fine motor skills needed for writing. You cannot further imagine what it's like when (as has been true for about 10 years) these various types of needs are thrown together into one classroom, when even mainstream teachers with no academic exposure to special ed can tell you that they all need different approaches besides the increased one-to-one time.

Here's the personal statement that I am leading to: don't you dare blame the teachers and administrators who've spent multiple lifetimes successfully helping the majority of special needs children. They were doing it, as mandated by law, well before any Catholic or private school even considered opening its rolls to anyone but the best behaved and best conforming of children. I was there, in the classroom, with kids expelled from the Catholic school three blocks away, because they were either behavior problems or couldn't keep up academically. And it's still true, at least here in PA, that public schools still deliver special ed services (disabilities and gifted) to parochial students at no expense to the parochial schools, including busing.

My experience of archdiocesan schools in my corner of PA is and always has been positive. They do an excellent job of delivering basic education. What I cannot tolerate is the easy throwaway rhetoric that refuses to acknowledge that the public schools do as good of a job in most cases, and do a hell of alot more that no other schools do.

What 9/11 means.

2006-09-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

I am very much not on the beaten track when it comes to certain things, like patriotism. So, unless you wish to run the risk of getting very pissed off with me, I suggest you skip this one. In any event, I wouldn't post this if I didn't want to see responses, so if you are so inclined, have at it.

What 9/11 means, to everyone.

It means that no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, living in a free and open society means being vulnerable to the events of five years ago. It means that as soon as we step back from the precepts of and commitments to a free and open society, we damage all that went before us and begin to lose the ability and the time to repair that damage.

A free and open society is based on trust. That we can be hurt by that trust is not a reason to move away from a free and open society. Indeed, such incidents should bolster our resolve, should cause us to renew our commitments, because we are in fact the enemies of those who perpetrated these acts, not because we choose to be their enemies, but because they choose to be our enemies.

The founders of the American colonies shed their blood and flesh in order to make a life here. Later, when that life was threatened, was being taken away in small increments by those who neither paid the blood price nor felt the obligation to do so, those same colonists founded the US and again paid the price of flesh and blood to win the right to found the nation, and to make sure that the nation would never again be subject to that threat and that theft.
They were volunteers. They saw the necessity, but they were under no obligation to do anything about it. They offered of themselves, freely and because they believed in the vision of the future of a free and open society.

On September 11, 2001, over 3,000 people paid that price again. They were not volunteers. No one offered them advanced notice. They could not have anticipated it in any way. But, if the stories about flight 93 are any indication, and I'm going to boldly make the assumption that they are a strong indication, then we should know and remember that they paid that price with the same integrity and intention that our founders had.

In the end, my assumption doesn't really matter. The truth is that this is the price to be paid for a free and open society. Anyone who says otherwise, anyone who claims that the price can be avoided, is a bald-faced liar. You can quote me on that.

Our free and open society is no more. Our rights and our liberties have been curtailed. They've been changed in a manner that allows no dissent, and promises no restoration in either the short-term or the long-term. That, my fellow citizens, is the true measure of success of the suicide terrorists who brought the reality of war to our soil, and their surviving cronies are celebrating their success right now, and looking for ways to increase it.

We cannot defeat them by trying to capture them. We cannot anticipate their next moves beyond an arbitrary listing of the possibilities. We will have no success in removing them from our reality by somehow bringing to them the joys and freedom of some form of democracy. No, there is only one way to approach this, and no one is going to like to see this spelled out.

The irony, btw, is that we almost did it twice, Gulf War I and Afghanistan. That we stopped short in both cases is a testament to the need to go all the way.

Here's the deal: mess with us, and you go down. No exceptions, no mitigating protective circumstances. If you make a town or city your base of operations, you will be able to use human shields exactly once, and they will fail you because we will do whatever is necessary to kill you.
Apply this directly to Iran. Take off all restrictions and threats concerning the development of peaceable use of nuclear power, and give them this simple warning: test a nuke, anywhere under any circumstances, and we will declare war on you and destroy your infrastructure, starting with whatever progress in nuclear technology you've made. Use a nuke against others, whether civilian or military, and we will destroy every soldier you have in the field. Explode a nuke on US soil, no matter how limited the yield and scope of damage, and we will turn your major cities into fused slag. It would all go for chemical and biological weapons as well.

Anyone protesting this policy can take the following response: no one has the right to use a nuke as a first-strike weapon. That is the crux of the policy. Tell the world, right now, if you agree or disagree with that statement, and we can place you in the friend column or the enemy column, and that will be that.

That last statement is intended for the global picture, not for the reactions and opinions of individuals reading this. If you disagree with the policy I've outlined, then be prepared to defend your take on it, but don't hesitate to state it in whatever terms you choose.

Schools, family and community

2006-09-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

Not a very exciting subject line, but I've been invited to continue a discussion begun on another blog, and I'm very pleased to accept.

The gentleman involved will further identify himself as he chooses. I know him as JohnT. We join the tangent from the other thread, right where it begins...

Pressure from charter schools is making the public schools more responsive. However, they still cater to the middle or slower students. A lot of teachers are heroic in their efforts to supplement the better students. Mostly it is up to the parents to educate their children.

I find the comparisons problematic on a number of levels, the primary one being that charter schools are like private schools, and the private-public comparison is worse than apples-oranges: they're not even both fruit.

Charter schools are a response to the pressure placed on public school administrations, so I must take issue with your logic in the first statement. The rest I can cover with one response: unfunded initiatives. I must limit my further remarks to Pennsylvania, since that is the situation with which I am familiar.

Special education in PA has never been funded separately. It was made a mandate from day one, and every school district was required to comply no matter what difficulty they might have in coming up with funding. Personally, the tactic of unfunded mandates is the real reason for all the cutting of all "non-essential" curricula like art, music and academic competitions.

It should be noted that support for gifted students is part of the same mandate. Most people don't realize that (at least in PA) "special ed" includes students at both ends of the spectrum.

Again, I favor smaller schools with more of the emphasis for learning placed on the family.

I have absolutely no argument with this statement. In fact, a bit of disclosure before I go on: my wife has been a public school, special ed teacher here for over 30 years. She's seen a host of things come and go, and the one thing that has never changed is the imposition of arbitrary policies often having little to do with educational quality or integrity, by politicians who don't know the first thing about the profession of teaching. The rare exceptions, the ex-teacher turned politician, are quite thankfully rare, because they are usually taking their personal experience and projecting it on all schools in every set of circumstances.

Anyway, smaller schools and emphasis on family involvement has been the cornerstone of public education for longer than I've been alive. It comes and goes for a variety of reasons, the chief one being large egos with agendas deciding to make problems where there are none, or who think nothing of tying the hands of the people on the front lines trying to implement real solutions to real problems, then blaming them for failing.

I'm eager to see John's response, and I urge anyone reading this to post responses, too.

Writing of Moronic Deletions

2006-08-22T06:47:00.000-07:00

Earlier I wrote about MAD, the two-way deterrent when two superpowers have faced off and neither is willing to blink first. "Mutual assured destruction", while certainly insane from any civilian POV, is a bona fide and valid military strategy. It brought down the USSR... and the aftermath of its demise (there being only one superpower left for now, until China shows its military hand) may bring down the US.

I know, I know, hyperbole is rampant in this topic. I don't mean to hang cowbells around my neck and prance around like Chicken Little. I do mean to suggest that there is a simple solution to the weapons of mass destruction problem, and the US can lead the way, can be the global policeman it claims it wants to avoid, with really no additional expenditures and with a potential savings in the military and diplomatic budgets. Um, that last statement is about half facetious, by the way.

I'm talking about massively assured suicide, which I hereby designate MAS. Its mechanics are very simple. The US, even with its reduced arsenal from the Cold War heyday, is capable of laying waste entire cities and the square-mileage of most of the sovereign nations of the world, just with some simple computer-driven targeting adjustments. It's intelligence gathering is more sophisticated and more accurate than it's ever been, and simple vigilence is all that's necessary to implement the following policy:

Any nation on the planet is welcome to develop nuclear capability for peaceful applications. However, the moment it is determined that weapons-grade fission or fusion material is being mass-produced, the US goes on ready alert, and the moment a nuclear device is detonated -- for any reason, in any location -- the US will respond with the nuclear destruction of the launch site of the device. This includes the terroristic method of personal delivery of a small device. Once we track down the source -- no matter where it may be located -- that location will be dust in a cloud.

No negotiation. No hesitation. Verification of source, total destruction of source.

Imagine, if you will, a generic terrorist planner sitting in an apartment in Damascus. He has spent the last two years acquiring a "pony" nuke, a bomb designed to be delivered by a small, tactical rocket or missile, including the type needing only two people to use: one to hold it on a shoulder, the other to help aim and fire it. He has painstakingly researched how to hide the device from radiation scanners, ways of entering the US secretly, and how to detonate the device electronically from a safe distance. He has even made sure that it has a deadman switch, something made famous by suicide bombers. He smiles at the prospect of hurting the US dogs right where it hurts the most, in a manner from which they will not find it easy to recover. Then, an assistant runs in with the latest news: the US has announced, in no uncertain terms, that if they were to go through with their plans, the US would destroy Damascus.

Imagine, again, a small commitee in Teheran, meeting to decide the future of their country's domestic and strategic nuclear capability. There is no doubt in anyone's minds that nuclear-generated electricity is critical to the economic success of their country. There is now grave doubt about the creation and deployment of a nuclear arsenal, possible now only without any testing whatsoever (something their scientists have become worse than panicked about: how can they promise the devices won't destroy the users instead of the targets?). None of them can justify this weapon program that could, if used just once, assure the destruction of not just their capital, but also their religious domination of their culture.

Imagine, finally, a young man who knows in his heart that his only reason for being given a subsidized luxury apartment is so he and his family can serve as human shields for the terrorist cell in the same building. Imagine his feelings, upon learning of the US policy, and his own awareness that a pony nuke is very likely under construction just a few meters away. I don't know about you, but I see him doing one of two things: packing up and leaving for anywhere else, even if it means living in a ditch; finding a weapon and killing every member of that cell that he can before they kill him in return. I like to think that the building would be mostly empty of human shields when the US retaliation arrives. I would like even better the high-level moral response of killing the criminals who would uncaringly bring that retaliation upon them.

MAS is a pipe dream, no question or doubt about it. The citizens of the US do not understand how it would be possible, how it would work, the moral implications of such a policy or even whether our politicians as a group could actually be trusted to oversee such a program. After all, it cannot leave room for mistakes or any level of ambiguity. It must be left, tactically, day-to-day, in the hands of trained professionals whose training and profession are just completely outside the experiences of the bulk of the politicians.

But, damn. I would love to see the faces in Iran, North Korea, and around the hidden tables of Hezbollah and al-Qaeda. "They beat us to the punch," I can hear them saying. "They took a page from our playbooks, and did us one better."

Wouldn't that be something...

Belief and unbelief

2006-08-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

The current homepage article for Beliefnet provides very brief bios of the "leading" figures in atheism and secular humanism in the US. Some of the details of these people's lives and activities got me to thinking.

In the rhetoric of the "culture war", the us vs. them definitions keep shifting, or the voices who have been loudest in expressing those definitions periodically go silent as they ponder a shift in their targeting. While my personal scope has been admittedly limited, there seems to be two major targets: atheists/secular humanists, and non-Christians -- but more often as a catch-all phrase, pagans.

Upon much thought, remembering where my head as been over my adult-life journeys, it is accurate to say that I am both. I reside in both target groups.

That I am Pagan is easy to describe. Heck, I'm literally a card-carrying Pagan. It is less intuitive to see me as a secular humanist, but I avow that my attitudes fit the mold rather closely. It is counter-intuitive to think of a self-described, devoutly spiritual person such as myself as an atheist, but this, too, is accurate in a basic sense: I reject completely all the notions that derive from anthropomorphism, the symbolic and emotional representation of deity in human form. I think about deity in such terms and I sling the lingo with my deistic siblings-in-faith, but I don't believe in deity in those terms at all. Unlike most atheists, I do have a replacement in my faith for the concept of deity.

That's a point that I've come to think about alot in recent years, that an atheist is not definitionally without spiritual depth or belief. Profound thinking is not the sole realm of spirituality, not by a long shot, and while profundity is most often associated with religious expression, it's long past time to expand people's awareness.

Through the voices of the characters in his book Contact, Carl Sagan promoted the notion that if we are truly alone in the universe, it would be a collosal waste of space. One does not need to believe or disbelieve in a God to understand and embrace that notion. There are many more such notions floating around. Perhaps it's time to grab a few and think about them.

Terrorist nukes against the US? I don't think so.

2006-07-27T06:05:00.000-07:00

Lest we forget: MAD -- mutual assured destruction.

I know it's a bit of hyperbole, but for the sake of argument I can safely say that MAD is what won the Cold War for the west. The result was that the USSR ruined its economy and infrastructure to try to maintain nuclear parity. Nukes are expensive to make, to maintain, and to dispose of afterwards... and it's that last point that gives us the real reason to fear that USSR nukes might be wending their way through the global black market in arms.

I will not deny the possibility of a "suitcase nuke" being used against the perceived enemies of the Muslim fanatics. My point is that it would have happened by now if they had the nukes in their possession... and now I must add to that the possibile role that MAD may be playing in keeping those suitcases unused.

Think, just for a moment. Afghanistan under the Taliban openly and vehemently supported the group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Where were they a year later? Dead, in hiding, in exile. The US missed a golden PR opportunity (or maybe I missed seeing it?) by not emphasizing the point: fuck with the US, and you go down, hard. Let us be clear about it: we forcibly removed a sovereign nation's government because it allowed people on its soil to perpetrate an act of war upon our soil.*

In terms of proportionality, it was exactly right.

So, here's where I hope our then leaders understand the situation should a suitcase nuke be used here (or in Europe for that matter). Find the source, fasten the responsibility including the passive blame, and wipe them out. I'm pretty sure the fanatics understand this very well, and their "hosts" are warning them that there are lines that must not be crossed, or the "hosts" will waste no time in saving their own asses and hunting the fanatics down themselves.

I sincerely hope my little scenario does not get a chance to be proven correct. But that is my view.

* For another topic: this is precisely the scenario at work in the Israel/Lebannon mess right now.

Stem cells, ethics and fear.

2006-07-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

On Rod Dreher's "Crunchy Con" blog on Beliefnet, I waxed sarcastic about President Bush, "snowflake" children, and the expediency of politics (or is it the politics of expediency?). I've taken to consciously reexamining my positions whenever I get sarcastic, if only to make up for years of hypocrisy about the sarcasm of others... but I digress.

The first thing I noticed was how incredibly hypocritical Bush's rhetoric sounded to me. The first test tube baby, the opening shot in the in vitro fertilization war, was born June 25, 1978. I count 28 years during which I neither heard nor saw one public word of debate over the idea that viable embryos were immorally being created and destroyed. The issues in this are complex, the people who use IVF many times are anti-abortion, and there's plenty of room for otherwise well-meaning and sincere people to be hypocrites, but for one fact:

A frozen embryo could not have existed to begin with without arbitrary controls, and could never become a child without significant intervention during and after implantation. While I do not concede any points on the latter comparison point, the moral standing of a frozen embryo by definition is different from that of a naturally conceived embryo before, during and after natural implantation in the uterus.

Couple this with the pseudo-science and mass-marketing shenanigans of a White House ceremony to veto a bill from which it requires a huge leap in logic to talk about eugenics, euthanasia and cloning, and my cynicism starts to look damn close to reasonable.

If Bush's decision to veto was solely based on principle, as Mr. Dreher insists, explain to me please the media circus his staff created. Principles should not need to be sold. The act of selling immediately diminishes both the principle and the seller.

Peace for Israel and Palestine

2006-07-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

Instead of ranting and lecturing on the situation, which most readers of this will find in abundance, I wish to draw your attention to the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize acceptance speach of Yitzhak Rabin in 1993.

For over a hundred years, we have fought over the same strip of land: the country in which we, the sons of Abraham, have been fated to live together. Both peoples, Israelis and Palestinians, have known suffering, pain, and bereavement.

I further call your attention to the co-recipients of the award.

Yassir Arafat:

The historical achievement represented by the Declaration of Principles between the PLO and the Israeli Government, has required a great deal of courage and firmness from both parties. It also needed vision and foresight in order to explore the future and to assimilate the lessons of history.

Shimon Peres:

Morally, we have returned to the values of the history of our people. For almost four millennia the Jewish people never ruled, were never tempted to rule, another people. An inclination to dominate the Palestinian people is not just a violation of Palestinian rights, but a contradiction to the Jewish moral heritage. Whoever chooses peace can not ignore the dictum of Isaiah, ‘Never shall a nation lift a sword against another’, – a resounding call which has never been surpassed.

Weep, o my friends. Weep for the peace that died aborning. Weep for the price now being paid daily for the failure of the world to support these men when they most desparately needed it.

Weep.

A politician's faith

2006-07-14T06:22:00.000-07:00

Driving in the morning is always made easier for my two, local public radio stations. I start with WXPN, which some of you may know as the producing station for the syndicated World Cafe Live show with David Dye (sp?). I feel quite blessed to live in the broadcast area of this fine station. The other station, WHYY, does the usual news-based format for most of the day (and again you may know it as the producing station of the very widely heard Fresh Air with Terry Gross, gods I love this town), and I listen to Morning Edition when the WXPN morning show music is not quite to my liking.

This morning they interviewed Senator Barak Obama. They asked him to clarify or expand some of his recent points concerning faith and politics. I'm very impressed with his rhetoric, and look forward to watching him move up on the national scene, but he said something (which I may mangle verbatim-wise) that really stuck and made me think (and guffaw ruefully).

He said concerning poverty that the conservatives -- you know, the ones who devoutly believe in salvation and forgiveness -- believe in personal responsibility and expect those under the poverty line to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, or better yet should consign their souls and consciences to the faith-based organizations who may soon be their only recourse for external help. He contrasted this with the liberal approach, which is to fund bigger and more widespread government-based programs -- which stikes me as being exactly what prayer to a merciful God might be expected to produce.

Is it just me, or should we be lambasting the right for outrageous hypocrisy, and at the same time reexamining the so-called loss of faith on the left?

I dunno. I just live here. :-\

Discrimination Charges

2006-07-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

In my neverending quest to demonstrate correct usage of statistics, and to of course promote my personal agenda items, I periodically lecture... um, rant and rave about a subject for which the numbers are readily available... if only the people reading them would understand what they mean.

For example, the only objective measurement of something like discrimination (in any form) is the verifiable reporting of the incidents and the accumulation of that data by a reputable agency. I stipulate that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is just such a reputable authority.

The first and main caveat, as should not surprise anyone, is that not all incidents get reported. It is incumbent on the reader of the statistics to keep that in mind, and to view all numbers and analyses under the heading "for the data reported". Social scientists can and do gather auxiliary data that can reasonably indicate the proportion of reported to unreported. If this is available, it may be validly mentioned, along with the statistically rigorous application of the error factors concerning how the reported data informs the unreported data.

So, some tidbits from the EEOC data.

Total reported cases have remained essentially flat over the 14 years worth of data displayed. The annual average for the period was 81,143, bracketed by 72,302 in the first year and 75,428 in the last year. I would like to see an analysis of the large peak in 1993-95, and the lesser peak from 2000-04. Was it sunspots, or did enforcement change?

Except for what may be an anomalous peak in 1992, racial charges have remained virtually flat around the mean of 35.5%. Can this be attributed to a last bastion of racial bigotry embedded in some corner of our society? If so, why isn't the federal govt focusing on and cracking down on them? Or it is just the lowest we can go, there being always and forever the chance that a person will find racial discrimination?

Charges of religious discrimination, the lowest rate of incidence with disability, increased from 1.9% in 1992 to 3.1% in 2005, but the part that caught my eye was the steady annual increase starting in 1996, with a 0.4 point increase in 2002, breaking the 0.1 point per year trend. I bet we could get Muslims to comment on that.

Let's dig further the religion charges, and see how that total number in 2005 breaks down.

Receipts: 2,340
Resolutions: 2,352 (we have to keep in mind that there is carryover from one calendar year to the next.)

By type of resolution.
Settlements: 227
Withdrawals w/Benefits: 98
Administrative Closures: 384**
No Reasonable Cause: 1,442**
Reasonable Cause: 201*
Successful Conciliations: 36
Unsuccessful Conciliations: 165
Merit Resolutions: 526*
* These two categories are not part of the total resolution count; merit resolution is an internal subtotal.

I leave it to you to read the definitions of these terms. I will offer a personal observation.

1,826 [**] out of 2,352 resolutions were not in favor of the person(s) bringing the charge. That's 77.6%. No reasonable cause was found in 61.3% of the charges. This tells me (IMO, of course) that the vast majority of workplaces can be expected to be reasonable about employing religious minorities, and make an effort to prevent discriminatory practices from occuring. Someone else might say that this really means that too many employers are getting away with it. What do you think is more reasonable to assume?

Food for thought...

Status quo

2006-07-12T13:09:00.000-07:00

I wrote the following two years ago. I offer it unedited mainly because I'm too lazy to replace the first paragraph with something pithy and entertaining.

This is the "condensed" version of my recent attempt to spur discussion. I believe that some of the responses so far, while being sincere and valid in their own context, seem to be skirting the main issue as I see it. Rather than create tension in that other discussion, I offer this as a new starting point. I am not looking for isolated examples, such as whether religion is an appropriate part of a work environment (I agree that it is not, nor do I imply that I'm trying to change that). I am looking for a more general discussion, because I feel that this is central to our efforts to build a community and integrate it into our society at large.

Those who are not adversely affected by the status quo can't understand why some of us want to change it.

Those who are adversely affected by the status quo (personally, I have it rubbed in my face daily) can't understand why some of us fail to see the necessity.

We are dealing with a fundamental change in the human social structures. Call it "one world order", call it what you will.

The "status quo" of boundaries and hierarchy, of pecking orders and aristrocracies, is being eroded in a serious way. I am a human being first, then I am choices from column A or B second. Most people find this frightening, and not just out of ignorance. Majorities get to be majorities at the expense of those who don't meet the membership requirements. What we are talking about is an entrenched majority, and any challenge I make, no matter how well stated, no matter how significant or trivial, is going to be perceived as a threat.

A friend of mine offers an important perspective, one that I feel is ubiquitous. He says, in part:

"The only thing that I have ever noted as a constant in all of this is the fact that I have never met a minority opinion to an accepted majority-perceived existing reality who gave anyone from the majority side the least bit of credit as to how being on the minority side must feel. Each minority opinion has its own special pain and, regardless if one exists within a different minority opinion, this special pain cannot possibly be understood by anyone outside that particular minority opinion."

There are two forms of pain here, in general... at least, that I consider relevant to the discussion.
There is the internal pain, that the group feels in attempting to adapt to a world that their grandparents, let alone someone a thousand or more years ago, could not possibly have imagined or envisioned. This pain is valid, indeed I call it necessary. Pairing this pain with my friend's statement, I agree with him completely.

Then there is the pain imposed on the group for the fundamental reason that they are not the majority. This is the pain I feel, every day.

I submit that the difference lies in the secondary effects. Being a pagan in a world of Christians does not always mean I will understand the secondary effects. There are plenty of pagans, self-styled leaders of one sort or another, who take on the mantel of paganism and claim understanding. They are worse than whiners; they give the rest of us more pain from damage control than those who cause the damage on their own.

I don't want change. I don't want to alter reality, after all I can create my own reality all too easily in several ways and happily live my life isolated from most of the rest of the world. I speak for many of my co-religionists, and q.e.d. other minorities feel/have felt the same way.
Please look at it this way, stating it as objectively as I know how.

The majority forces me to abandon my choices. It does so vigorously, violently and in direct contravention of the written laws of this nation. I sweat the details and trivia, I add my voice to seemingly superficial debates, because there is no single target for me to aim for. The target is mostly comprised of a large number of those small details and trivia, lumped together under the "status quo".

I do not see a windmill to charge with a rusty lance. I see a windmill surrounded by tulips sheltered and nurtured by the windmill, with hundreds of weeds sprouting and attempting to choke the flowers. I try to pluck as many weeds as I can, knowing that at any moment the windmill vanes could easily be tipped down by others who don't see weeds, but see their own flowers, and knock me out of the flower bed.

Short of revolution, I don't know how else to fight it.

Theory of God

2006-07-11T12:41:00.000-07:00

There are two general ways to approach the concept of deity: as an objective entity that humans struggle to perceive and understand; as a subjective entity that humans "create" for a variety of purposes. Have your chickens and eggs handy; grains of salt will be provided.

1. Objective entity.
This is arguably a dead-end pursuit. We have yet to see conclusive evidence to support any of the myriad theories that have sprouted over the millenia. This, of course, should not prevent us from discussing it.

2. Subjective entity.
This is a barrel of worms that even the most adventurous will hesitate to delve. It can be measured, though.

Source and form.
Most mythos have, at the core, at least some lip service towards a primary source. It is frequently vague in form, though notably takes on anthropomorphic semblance more often than not. At the nebulous end, we have the disembodied voice/force/will. At the specific end, we have the matri- or patriarchal form (occasionally, the duality of gender is strong, but one is usually in ascendance over the other.)

Most modern (less than 50,000 years ago) mythos focus on secondary sources, which most often have a recognizable, physical form. Unsurprisingly, it usually takes the monarchic structure, with a single or dual form at the top. The top is usually represented as having conquered or otherwise replaced the primary source, often with the usual explantion about dissatisfaction with the prior administration.

Singularity and committee.
This is not just mono- vs. polytheism. Most pantheons recognize "All" as either a single figure or the sum-total of the many figures. Pantheons usually have a head honcho who seems to have an easier time of it vs. the all-encompassing solo act, who always seems to have a multitude of lesser entities who envy him (he usually being a him). It's a testament to the schizophrenia of the ancient Greeks that they gave us both monarchy (in its recent (less than 5,000 years) form) and democracy, and that all-time-favorite hybrid -- bureaucracy.

And now, the $64,000 questions, in no particular order:

Is it possible to define an objective entity by exploring the myriad of subjective entities?

Is anthropomorphism a bankrupt approach? (Prerequisite: all of J. Campbell and some of Jung) (or is it all of Jung and some of Campbell...)

Speaking of subjective entities, is the quest for deity valid, or is it just spiritual (ego) masturbation?

(My personal favorite) Do we really need deity, and isn't it just another way for the few to control the many? (Marxian opiates, anyone?)

Just remember, Christianity did not invent circular logic, they are just the poster children for the concept.

2006-07-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

In looking for this Koehl person, I ran across this blog entry from three years ago. It's under the Friday, May 23 section.

Sometime correspondent Stuart Koehl, an orthodox Byzantine Catholic, has some keen observations on neo-pagan tomfoolery. The practitioners don't literally believe in the gods and goddesses they worship - they see them as Jungian archetypes of male and female or suchlike (which I'm sure the demons have a good larf about). Neo-paganism, with its sexual overtones, is a modern invention for women - by men! (Wicca was invented by an Englishman in the 1930s - he spelt it Wica - and included nudism, unknown to real European pagans centuries ago.) Stuart points out it's really a sanitized, Christianized set of beliefs ('harm no one', white magic, etc.), created whole cloth by apostate Christians and striking out Christ as the head - real paganism OTOH was/is about bashing in an animal's skull and sacrificing its blood on a rock to put curses on people and to appease gods who are very much believed in.

Maybe there should be a revival of 'pagan fundamentalism' (yea, brother) to give the ex-Christian dabblers a reality check and perhaps teach them a very scary lesson or two.

I found some writing by Stuart Koehl, but there is not enough time in the day for me to go much further in my search, so I'll take Serge's description at face value.

My reaction is simple: I'm so glad Mr. Koehl has gone to such great effort to explain my beliefs to me, and to clarify and help me to focus on the many vague and troubling thoughts I've had about my beliefs. Just like all Christians are, under a thin veneer, ready to take up a new Crusade in a heartbeat, would love to see floggings and burning at the stake returned to regular use, and really do think that they should be the only religion on the earth, all Pagans have no belief in literal deities, are only in it for the sex (I gotta ask: am I in the wrong place?), and can only somewhat favorably (if that) be compared to "real European pagans centuries ago".

Get a grip, my good fellows: we are real people, with real beliefs and with an actual depth to our faith that is not explainable (or to be explained away) with some convenient sound bites.

The Failure of Online Community

2006-07-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

Previously, I introduced my experience of online community by describing the one place in cyber space that I consider worthy of the term. My goal is not to advertise that place so that you too may have the joy of it (though, of course, those of you who really do need to find it will make your way there with or without me), but to provide a basis for comparison.

Online community is attempted daily, and fails nearly every time. I'm not referring to those insular places where no ill word is ever spoken -- because such places do not offer an open door to all comers no matter their interest in the local definition of topicality. Such places have never been tested with a good, visceral flame war. I'm referring to those places, insular and open, which have been tested and have come up short.

I have to confess, my standards for success are very high, but I deeply believe that those standards belong at that height, because it is only by that standard that online community can be truly compared to real life. In real life, we have the direct analogs to flame wars, and we judge our ability to recover from such conflicts by the character of our community and its continuity.
I should point out, too, that an aspect of that standard is going to eliminate most insular places. For a community to be a success, in my not so humble opinion, it must be truly open to all comers.

The success of alt.callahans is not even close to its avoidance of conflict, because conflict is a hallmark of that space. Its success is not in its ability to protect itself from unwanted attention, because it is just as vulnerable to spam, scams, trolls and instigators as any analogous space in real life. No, its success is not in exclusion, but in inclusion, and the shared mechanisms that gently and dynamically fit the disruptions into their appropriate places in the overall community.

Amazingly, astoundingly, the place gets broken and fixes itself cyclically. There is no guardian, no person or small group that takes it upon itself to maintain the community. The entry price of the community is simple, yet profound: members of the community share equally and collectively in the preservation of the basic ethics of that community, and rules of conduct and moderation fall far short of the efficacy and power of such shared responsibility.

That, for me, is where it starts. Any cyber space that claims to be a community must have that shared energy, or its claims hold no water. It must be self-sustaining, or it must eventually fail, especially when that small group that wants the community to continue hit the wall of burnout because they don't get the level of commitment from enough of the members of that community that they themselves have given.

The structure of that community makes no difference. It can be the wild and woolly Usenet newsgroups, where alt.callahans resides. It can be a private website, like Beliefnet's discussion boards. It can be a publicly provided service, like Live Journal. It can be as simple as a reply-to-all email group. Wherever it resides, if it lacks that fundamental, uncoerced but fiercely supported ethic of commitment, it will fail sooner or later, and that failure will take the form of at least one person leaving with a bad taste in the mouth, combined with one or more people with a self-righteous conviction that they've "taken care of" someone as sie deserves... without realizing that unless they are in real life, they have no basis for that conviction outside of their own minds, and chances are excellent that they don't have a clue to the real person behind the screen to whom they've transmitted their ire.

Feelings are real. Pain is real. The ethic of Callahan's, that shared pain is lessened and shared joy increased, recognizes those realities, celebrates them, embraces them and in every respect validates them. The difference is not in the lack of fights (Callahan's has plenty), but in the explicit support for the notion that every voice is worthy of sounding and of listening, and that judgment is reserved for 20/20 hindsight. We do not refrain from judging, but we always own our judgments and never assume (at least not successfully) that anyone necessarily agrees with our judgments.

So, if you really want a successful community, if you want it to thrive on its own energy and not be a black hole sucking the life out of the community organizers (a sure deathknell to many such places), then you could do a hell of alot worse than to study the dynamics of alt.callahans closely.

Online Community

2006-07-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

Online community has been much on my mind for several years now, and I've decided to try to put those thoughts into a coherent structure. This post will introduce the concepts I have in mind; the next post will expand on those concepts.

While several blogs and social spaces undergo upheavals and meltdowns, a little-known place on Usenet (outside of its denizens) called alt.callahans has thrived as a balanced, dynamic community of people who, regardless of the face they choose to show, generally bring a minimum level of honesty to their dealings with each other.

For those of you not familiar with the term, the "callahans" part refers directly to the work of Spider Robinson and his vaguely located (on Long Island somewhere off 25A) Callahan's Saloon. It is important to understand the foundation of that cyberspace, not because it takes its genesis from a fictional establishment, but because it takes the nascent ideas of a remarkably insightful writer and applies them with vigor to the only place in Real Life where diversity and access are maximized.

A.C., as we Patrons like to call it -- or sometimes The Place -- is not a paradise. It is totally public, completely unmoderated, requires not even minimal access to browse it (it is easily found in Google Groups, and a Google registration lets one post to it); it is subject to spam (more about that later) and there is absolutely no external enforcement of any sort.

How, one may ask, does it work? The simple answer is consensus, and the shared root of this word with consent is very important to remember.

The aspect of consensus, what makes The Place work without explicit controls like a rules of conduct, is that the people bring with them the same socialization that they acquired in real life. Courtesy has the same priority; freedom of speech is fiercely supported; and in no situation for any reason can anyone claim to speak for everyone, let alone a majority. Every voice is given its due.

An excellent case in point is this very post. If I could get a representative mixture of people from A.C. to comment here, the distribution would be roughly even: some will agree with me, some will disagree with me, and the rest will say "Yes/No! But..."

The conventions of The Place are indicative of the base culture it maintains. There is the chalk line, a place from which one may declare a toast of any sort, on any subject, with the implicit understanding that politely worded questions will be accepted (or not, but with an equally polite "I wanted to toast, but I don't want to discuss it..."). There is the Danger Room, where one may publicly let the flames and fur fly, and entry is by explicit invitation only. There is the Harsh Light of Reality [tm], a device used on occasion when the fantasy has gotten a bit carried away, and someone wants to make a point with no room for misunderstanding.

And yes, there is plenty of fantasy involved. There are kissing threads, in which a wide range of styles and types of smooches are described in great detail (and where certain denouements get left undescribed). BBQ buffets, wine tastings, food fights, story threads with multiple authors, several of Spider's characters from his stories fulfill useful roles as foils or sounding boards... I could fill two posts with further descriptions.

The last thing I wish to mention is the affectation by some of us (myself included) to post in third-person narrative, complete with dialogue and exposition. This by itself is, for me, the clearest indication of the grounding in reality and the commitment to truth that sets A.C. apart from other online communities of my acquaintance. People make an unusual effort to be understood the first time. They bring details to their writing that are not usually available in text-only media, that convey things we take for granted in face-to-face encounters.

This finally leads me to the point of this post. I've had an ongoing debate over the validity of online relationships with my friend Lady Belle, who has graciously given me permission to link to the latest incarnation of that debate. I recently pointed out to her, and for my own benefit, that the two loves of her life -- including her husband -- were encountered for the first time on A.C., and the other recent tumult in her life (me) steered her there in the first place.

Go ahead, scratch your heads. I've implied that online relationships can work, and further implied that my friend Belle takes the opposite stance, when in reality our positions are just the opposite. I cast a very jaundiced eye on cyber connections (with The Place being the exception that proves the rule, IMO), while she swears by her online friendships and takes them very seriously. We found out recently that each of us has edged towards the other, taking a less extreme view than we previously held. I suspect, when I allow myself some objectivity, that the true value of online relationships is somewhere in the middle, and that I may need to rethink my view of A.C. as the exception that proves anything... except that it is indeed possible to have worthwhile connections with others that start online, can be maintained online, and that need only that final physical connection to validate the rest, not just to make them possible.

If you've read this far, and you find yourself curious about this strange place where people really don't care what your real name is, but do care to know you, this general information website is a perfect place to start, particularly since it includes information about other incarnations of The Place besides Usenet, and will also help you find the FAQs (called All Abouts) and provide you with some historical background and a few words from our Creator himself.

Do you know what July 4th really means?

2006-07-05T07:44:00.000-07:00

Do you know what July 4th really means?

I considered doing a July 4th posting, for all the obvious reasons, the chief of which is my strong opinion about the definition of patriotism, and how it applies to being a US citizen.

Instead, I offer my anti-July 4th posting, and it goes a little something like this (cue acoustic guitar)...

US citizens more than two-to-three generations removed from immigration do not, in my experience, understand what freedom is. Many of them can be excused in part for their separation from the coin of liberty (blood shed in defense of or in acquiring it), but those who have seen this payment cannot use that excuse, and it is all the more damning for their lack of understanding in the face of the proof.

I do not ask anyone to reverse their course concerning the current firestorm over immigration. We are all, myself included at least twice so far in this post, free to be wrong and to declare our being wrong in a loud voice. I do demand that everyone, opponents and supporters alike, stop for a few minutes and put yourselves into the shoes of the impoverished Mexican who risks his life to cross the border. What is he thinking? What is his goal? What motivates him to take those risks?

If you are having difficulty imagining any of that, and I am not faulting you if you are, then allow me to give a brief synopsis of my own background. I'm sure you can find someone near you with a similar story, who may even be pleased to share it with you and help you answer those questions.

Father: raised in a militaristic culture (Montenegro) to support yet another militaristic culture (Serbia), he was on the losing side of a civil war (Tito's communist conquest of Yugoslavia), held in prison as a possible war criminal (losers often get charged as war criminals), and was saved from extradition and certain death only by the grace of the Allied liberation of Italy.

Mother: raised in a Jewish family in Croatia, she with her brother and parents escaped the Ustashi (the local Nazis) only because a Catholic priest helped them acquire false baptismal and confirmation papers, and because they were wealthy enough to travel quickly; made their way to northern Italy, where for almost four years they survived only due to the noble grace and sacrifices of the Italian peasant farmers who refused to be accomplices to murder, and gladly entered the displaced persons camp outside of Asti when the Allies came through, which is where my parents met.

Family: my eldest sibling was born in Asti, which with the marriage papers made them Italians in the eyes of US immigration, forcing them to the end of a very long waiting list for the quota. So, they spent many months in Santiago, Chile, to establish residency and qualify for the Chilean quota. They finally arrived in the US just before sibling number 2 could be born in Chile. I'm number three. Of my father's three brothers only the youngest survived by fleeing to Switzerland, the other two were captured and executed along with their father. None of his sisters had children; his surviving brother had one daughter that I know of, and has two grandsons. Of my mother's extended families, more than 75% were murdered by the Nazis.

That is the blood price of my citizenship.

I'm not saying Mexico is that bad, or that it is better. I am saying that you should all make an effort to get the facts and stories straight before deciding either way about illegal immigration from that country. Understanding the blood price may be the most important history lesson you ever learn.

The Fallacies By Which We Live

2006-06-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

[With this post, I introduce my preferred usage in referring to people in my writing: the genderless pronouns. I use sie to replace he and she, and I use hir to replace him and her. There are other genderless pronouns floating around, but these are the ones I prefer.]

There is an identifiable need in humans to find a role within the group dynamic that fulfills the person’s requirement for self-identity and a clear understanding of hir place within that group. Using technology levels as a comparison point, anthropologists have shown that this need has been expressed according to the current level of survival skills present for the group. Hunter-gatherers have well-defined roles for each person. Agriculture-centric groups have well-defined roles. As groups evolve into more complex models, specialization becomes increasingly important, and one category begins to develop into a self-sustaining role: the leader.

Speculating freely on the evidence: a hunter-leader is the person who demonstrates the most success in hunting; a farm-leader demonstrates the most accurate knowledge and decisions concerning crops and weather. In a complex culture, though, competence begins to lose its importance due to two factors: the difficulty in developing an objective method for determining who leads, and a person’s ability to take the leadership role by force and without having any objective qualification for that role. Modern cultures have shown that any objective method is increasingly eclipsed by the use of force.

Force is not just the use of violence. It can be any medium that facilitates the acquisition of the leadership role. It can span the spectrum from outright coercion to subtle persuasion. In modern terms, there are broad categories: violence, economics, religion and nationalism.

Regardless of which category hir actions fall within, the putative leader’s competence to lead is always secondary. In cases of subtle persuasion, the leader’s competence is at issue but there need not be any accurate connection between hir actual competence and hir appearance of competence. All that counts is the leader’s ability to successfully manipulate the process by which sie becomes the leader.

An important premise is the observation that human personalities fall within one of two groupings: followers and leaders. This is independent of a person’s desire to be in either grouping. It foms the basis for a fundamental cause of group strife when an individual refuses to accept hir appropriate place in one of the groupings or, as a consequence of manipulations, becomes convinced that they obtain some negative connotation to belonging to that grouping.

In earlier cultures, followers accepted leaders readily because they had objective proof that the leaders deserved to be leaders, proof which was often continuously provided. In later cultures, epitomized by modern cultures, proof is formalized and institutionalized, allowing any objectivity to be avoided or suppressed.

For your consideration...

The Aristocratic Fallacy: the leader is qualified to lead on the basis of birth or other arbitrary entry into the role.

The Democratic Fallacy: the leader is chosen by the followers using an arbitrary and, most often, subjective decision process.

The Egalitarian Fallacy: anyone can be a leader.

Why the Electoral College is ridiculous

2006-06-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

Or, the irony of the lie "My vote doesn't count". Politicians have wet dreams about having a small, captive electorate to manipulate.

This is admittedly an extreme example, but it doesn't take much to translate it into a stolen election. If you thought the final "result" in 2000 was bad, consider:

Sort the states in ascending order by the number of electoral college votes. Alaska, DC and Delaware are at the top of this list with 3 votes each, and NY, Texas and California are at the bottom with 31, 34 and 55 respectively.

Next, determine the number of eligible voters in every state (not hard, these stats are published... don't worry, I've done this for you). An important assumption: ignore the fact that a few states allow for a split in their electoral votes, rather than winner-take-all. This can skew the results by a measurable but small amount. For our purposes, this is a safe assumption.

Now, calculate the minimum majority vote in each state, starting at the top. This is 50% plus one-half, rounded to the nearest integer.

Okay, stay with me. Add up the electoral votes until you get enough to elect the President. On our list, Georgia becomes our lone "swing" state, because the total up to that point is 267 and 270 is needed to win, which means that the winner in our little exercise gets 282 electoral votes. (In case you haven't heard, it is possible to have a 269-269 tie. Go ahead, shudder.)

Finally, add up the minimum majorities in each of those states that go to our winner. Here is what the numbers would have looked like in 2000:

Total eligible voters (obviously an estimate) -- 205,815,000
Total % of eligible voters to get 267 electoral votes -- 21.536%
Total % of eligible voters to get 282 electoral votes -- 22.968%

That's right, my children. You too (if you are a native born citizen) can be elected President with only 23% of the popular vote.

But wait!! The actual voter turnout in 2000 was 105,284,707, which is 51.155% of the eligible voters. If we redo our calculations, but use the actual turnout presidential vote in each state, our numbers look just a little (snerk) different.

Total turnout -- 105,284,707
Total % of turnout voters to get 267 electoral votes -- 22.745%
Total % of turnout voters to get 282 electoral votes -- 23.972%

Adjusted % of eligible voters in 2000 to get 267 EVs -- 11.635%
Adjusted % of eligible voters in 2000 to get 282 EVs -- 12.263%

So, my children, it's even easier than first meets the eye. All you need to do is convince a bit more than 12% of the eligible voters in this country to take the highest office in the land, to become the most powerful leader in the history of the world.

If you need to vomit, be sure to use a bucket.

Rights, privilege and the legislation of morality

2006-06-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

The key element of danger in the legislation of morality, particularly when religion is allowed to dictate (even in the smallest degree) the creation of and the enforcement of civil laws, lies in the distinction between a right and a privilege.

A right must apply to everyone, without exception, or it is no longer a right, it is a privilege. The legal state of marriage, as it stands in the US at present, is not a right, it is a privilege -- because it bestows benefit and/or advantage to some but not to others. Health care is not a right, it is a privilege because without the position of having money, it is not obtainable.

The right to freely practice and express my religion is predicated on the necessity that the exercise of that right does not result in my obtaining any privilege along with it. A case in point is the tax-exempt status of churches -- in the US, any place of worship of any religion, so long as it complies with the regulations involved, may be tax-exempt. The moment a place of worship is denied tax-exemption solely on the basis of what religion it is, this right becomes a privilege.
At no time is any importance placed on whether a given religion is in the majority, whether it be locally, regionally or nationally. The principle of distinction between right and privilege remains the same.

I'm sure some of you will notice that I've apparently ignored some things, like what is (and should be) the legal definition of a religion (or a place of worship for that matter). However, that question is critical to the whole structure, and the apocryphal "wall of separation between church and state", while not codified in our laws, remains the fundamental requirement if the right of religious freedom has any chance of surviving in the US. I hope this last point serves to explain to some why any governmentally-sanctioned display of Christian religion in this Christian-majority society is an alarm bell for non-Christians.

Like it or not, my Christian fellow citizens, the reputation of your religion's history precedes you, and visions of Crusades, Inquisitions and coercion of belief are impossible to avoid.

None of the Above

2006-06-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

I love numbers. Like the spinmeisters, numbers can say pretty much whatever I want them to say, but my main love is in the beauty that numbers can have by simply letting them express themselves without interference.

Take the "none of the above" concept. In the US, we vote for candidates for office, and if we don't vote, we don't get counted in the election numbers. If you will suspend your disbelief for just a few moments, I will ask you to make an assumption with me: that all those who did not vote in the 2000 Presidential election were actually casting their votes for "none of the above", or Nota. Please also note that I am ignoring any of the candidates besides Bush and Gore. Their numbers do not greatly affect the illustration I'm about to present.

I'd say I'm pretty safe in my assumption. Think about the ramifications, and I believe you will feel safe also. Then, if you start to feel scared, you can join me in wondering about paranoia and conspiracies.

Every state has an estimated number of eligible voters, the vast bulk (but not all) of whom register to vote. Thus, the numbers I'm about to describe cannot be called exact, but as an illustration, if most of them are close enough, my point is safely made.

Calculating the total vote for Nota is not difficult. Setting up a chart showing the total votes for Bush, Gore and Nota is quite easy with modern spreadsheet programs. What is shocking is the result: except in exactly four states, Arkansas and Wyoming for Bush, Maine and Minnesota for Gore, Nota is the clear winner in every state election count.

Let's take a small sampling of some of the results in the states.

Rhode Island: Bush 130,555; Gore 249,508; Nota 345,089
Nebraska: Bush 433,862; Gore 231,780; Nota 538,961
Maryland: Bush 813,827; Gore 1,144,088; Nota 1,906,164
Missouri: Bush 1,189,524; Gore 1,111,138; Nota 1,745,543

There were states where the margin was smaller, and Nota "won" by smaller numbers than in the sampled states. There were states where the margin was larger. But if you look at election numbers as the pulse of the nation, as the ultimate referendum, the voice of the people, the numbers speak for themselves.

On second thought, I'll add the two largest states (in terms of number of voters) to my sample.

Texas: Bush 3,799,639; Gore 2,433,746; Nota 8,443,130
California: Bush 4,567,429; Gore 5,861,203; Nota 13,925,526

I think it's shameful that in our two largest states Nota got more votes than both of the major candidates combined.

At the very least, any winning candidate better think long and hard before claiming that he or she has a mandate from the people. Nota will haunt them every time.

Who is this guy, and why does it smell like moose droppings in here?

2006-06-26T07:38:00.000-07:00

Since I can remember, except those times where I was deep in ego fulfillment, I've always had a jaundiced view of the image I see in my mirror. Not for any physical anomalies (of which I've had my share) or for any essential vanity (I have some, but less than other men, or so I've observed), but for the sheer comedy of it all. I am my own best comedian. I firmly believe that this is true for all of us.

I am also as stubbornly opinionated as anyone you will meet, and likely moreso than most. But I've also learned the value of empathy, and the need to understand this skill independently of sympathy and the reactions of a friend to another's adversity. Empathy is understanding, but without agreement or any value judgment. The flipside of this is that I don't have to like you to agree with you. I work hard every day to live up to this dualistic ideal, and I seem to succeed most of the time (defined as greater than 50%).

I have, so far as I've encountered, a unique background. One part I share with several hundred others, and that's being a once and future Patron of the fiction-made-real incarnation of Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, created and conveyed with genius and heart (and the most outrageous puns in history) by Spider Robinson. It is at this incarnation, the Usenet newsgroup alt.callahans, that I learned the simple and beautiful truth of the gift of sharing, where pain is lessened by its dissolution, and joy is increased by its propagation, and those who understand and apply this principle are by and large people I am more likely to want to trust, love, or just spend my time with. Spider, if you ever read this, it is quite deliberate that I give the influence of your work the top spot in this self-description. I love ya, man.

The second part is a lifelong obsession with human behavior, with the mechanics of it as much as with the motivations for and effects of it. I didn't fully appreciate the sheer elegance of the human psyche in all of its glory until I developed and honed that skill of empathy. I didn't understand my obsession until I discovered the other abiding aspect of my personality: mediator.

The third and perhaps crucial part is my pursuit of the skills and accomplishments of mediation. I don't plan to put them to use much in a place like this blog, but to understand me is to understand the power of objectivity, and to fully grasp its narrow limits in conducting the human condition. I would never, I think, be capable of being a judge (my opinions of lawyers will get their own post(s), to be sure), nor do I think mediation skills are so much a prerequisite for that difficult and honorable job.

I like being right as much as the next person, some would say moreso (and would not be far off the mark). I strive instead, though, to get it right more often of late, this being for me a much more long-term satisfaction than crowing over a soundly defeated opponent. So, because I like that sort of explicit structure, here are the ground rules for this blog, and in no particular order.

1) Don't apologize for your feelings. If you are passionate about something, then have at it and pull no punches, so long as you avoid using ad hominem or dismissal of others as your mode of expression.

2) I don't post things about which I want to avoid commentary. I may, occasionally, post about personal things that some might consider TMI or just painful to consider. If that is true about you, simply skip the post. I will try to avoid such topics; I have a Live Journal account, and people there who will read such things without needing alot of details to understand what I'm feeling.

3) Be civil to each other. I mean it. If you have a history, or you just rub each other the wrong way from the start, take it outside. I expect this blog to embody the speech clause of the 1st Amendement to the Constitution of the United States. But I also expect you to understand the two-way street it defines, not the me-me-me part that many seem to get stuck on in recent decades.

4) IANA: stands for I Am Not A and gets completed with various things like lawyer, doctor, physicist, etc. This means two things in my mind: I choose to speak in authoritative mode only about topics for which I have a high level of confidence that I not only have my facts straight, but I have my concepts straight and I have a valid opinion or conclusion to state; I make mistakes, and your default assumption is that I want to be corrected, and I want reliable citations to help me carry that correction forward. Nothing ruins a debate more than lack of data. I respect data, and I appreciate elbow room to assimilate and apply new data. This also means that I will listen respectfully to your comments in the same mode, and you can lubricate the way a bit by clearly caveating your statements and providing factual citations as appropriate.

It is very important to know and remember that I am not territorial. I occupy this space, but I do not own it, and unless you intend to injure I will not take even the most intensely expressed opinion as an invasion. I do have a water pistol, though, and I will use it if the heat gets out of hand. But that does not worry me.

As for details of my personal life, you may find it interesting that I am an international folk dance instructor (retired), but that doesn't tell you why I think Robert A. Heinlein was one of the geniuses of our age in the realm of politics, patriotism, and the roles gender and sexual preference play in human relationships. He was a rolicking good story teller as well, but this blog is not (only) about literary criticism.

So, did you hear the one about what the pig said to the moose whilst sitting at the bar...?

My Photo

2006-06-25T18:51:00.000-07:00