"The United States can't impose its will on any country."
-Sen. Chuck Hagel (R), Nebraska

Hail the long awaited transfer of power in Iraq! (No, I'm not joking) Every little step in the right direction helps, I think...

Also, I thought I'd add a bit more fuel to the Fahrenheit fire (that's 9/11, not 451). It seems a sticky little web we're all weaving here.

As I hear Michael Moore's critics tell it, it's okay to have political views; it's even alright to express those views, so long as we're completely factual and put everything into context.

But there seems to be a living, breathing opinion out there that unabashed political expression, even when not having any concrete connection to political parties or candidates, should be subject to campaign finance reform laws.

I can only assume that if this squabble could be settled, that is, with every politically charged film, advertisement, or other media falling under the umbrella of these reform laws, then there would be no issue with such forms of expression lacking truth or context.

Because it's abundantly clear that the advertisements from the parties and candidates (which are clearly subject to these laws) are not limited in contextual creativity.

This rant was really brought on by several media comments about the importance of making sure people who go to see Fahrenheit 9/11 understand that it isn't completely straightforward. Maybe it would be good to start by making sure everyone watching TV or listening to radio understands that almost every political ad they watch is going to be as factually misleading as any Michael Moore film.

Clearly, there's much more danger of someone involuntarily taking in a political ad than watching a movie. But I haven't seen any of the media observers worrying about that yet.

(The quote from Sen. Hagel appearing at the head of this post was an answer to a question last night from CNN 's Aaron Brown regarding what measures Hagel thought the U.S. should take to keep the majority ethnic groups from taking over Iraq. He said we should do what we can, but he qualified his reply with the sentence I quoted above.)

Terror suspects get court access

-finally, a little legal sanity in this whole mess. I recall a quote from a moderate Muslim religious leader saying he had too much faith in the American system to believe this would go on forever. I guess his faith was somewhat justified.

I figured since I mentioned it before and I'm about to mention it in passing once more, I should give some sort of plug for Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. It's a veritable classic, and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it yet.

Two pertinent links for this entry:
US groups want Moore film banned
Kerry endorsement from The Philadelphia Daily News

I got out to see the new Michael Moore film Fahrenheit 9/11 the other day. We were in one of those theaters that seats around 400 or so people, and it was packed, but it did resemble a more or less one-sided political rally. As much as I was actually fascinated by the film, I got the distinct impression that about 90% of the patrons sharing the room with me were of two basic groups:

1. Those whose hatred for the current Bush White House outweighs any capacity for reasonable thought; some of the banter I heard bore out how little some seemed to understand about politics in general.
2. Those who had very well thought out reasons for disagreeing with the President. Some demonstrated this by the fact that they would quietly discuss parts of the movie as it was playing out, but they weren't as prone to cheer like hooligans at a British football match.

Unfortunately, the first classification easily outnumbered the second. The balance of the crowd may have been a little more like me, sometimes fascinated, sometimes skeptical.

The film itself was reminiscent of Roger & Me and Bowling for Columbine, in that it did make some very worthwhile points. Unfortunately, it was more like the latter film in that it suffered from a severe lack of direction (a flaw that I think a director should be concerned about). Though it did make some worthwhile points, and many with which I would agree, I think to some viewers many of these points are going to be effectively drowned out by the less reasonable parts of the film. But it was humorous at times, poignant at others -- sometimes it was both at the same time.

So if you are going to see this film and are not in the Michael Moore Kool-Aid Club, you will profoundly disagree with some of the portrayals made in this film. If you are a hard-core Bush supporter, you're probably going to disagree with the entire film, as you're probably drinking an entirely different flavor of Kool-Aid (and as such, you probably won't need to even see the film to denounce it completely). If you are one of the millions who regularly cheer Moore's work, you will probably enjoy this to an immense degree.
For what it's worth, I want to endorse one point of this film, as it pertains to the lack of military spending that trickles down to those in our armed forces who are risking their lives in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places around the world. Moore makes the point more than once in this latest "documentary" that far more is allotted to the salaries of civilian contractors in Iraq than is to those in the armed forces charged with securing the peace. He highlights some military spending cuts that severely affect retired military personnel and those left behind when the family breadwinners go away to serve. But some of us already knew about those things, even before Michael Moore's film.

That said, I think it's ridiculous that there are groups trying to have this film banned. These same groups could claim a share of the credit for the early success of this film. Such groups would be infinitely better served to have kept their mouths shut and let this film run its course, without all the free publicity they've now furnished.

Of course, these groups will claim that this film violates the spirit of campaign finance reform, but trying to actively ban a commercial film because of political content, no matter how inaccurate it may be, just sends a chill through my mind.

Moore's film is not a documentary in any classic sense; think of it more as an op-ed film (a category more befitting to many so-called documentaries).

Speaking of which, if such groups really want a target, they might try going after my favorite hometown news source, which published the first newspaper endorsement of John Kerry on June 16. I have known The Philadelphia Daily News (a.k.a. "The People Paper")to be a left-leaning paper, but their early endorsement is obviously motivated by an overall effort to campaign for the Democratic contender. Despite my lack of interest in George W. Bush's policies, the blatancy of their editorial effort made me uneasy. I went ahead and linked to a reprint of the piece here, as I know how most people feel about registration sites. Go ahead and read it to see what I'm referring to, and see if you agree.

That's all for now.

Rather than apologize for his use of vulgar language on the Senate floor, Vice-President Dick Cheney claimed it made him feel better and that it was long overdue.

I don't think I have anything to add to that; it's just something to think about.

"Otherwise" by Jane Kenyon

This is one of several poems that hit me as I was skimming through Poetry 180: a Turning Back to Poetry, the Billy Collins-edited anthology I mentioned in yesterday's post. I mention this because most of the poems I refer to on Fridays here are poems I've known for years, but this is brand new -- at least to me. Simple, but profound.

I recently set about trying to broaden my literary experience. It's probably accurate to say that the two toughest books I've actually read cover-to-cover have been Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and the The Holy Bible. Both very popular books, and both often misunderstood. My depth of understanding of both volumes could be enhanced, but I believe I've come to a suitable level of comprehension of both.

I am not as adept, or perhaps, patient with reading long works as some people are, though I have forced myself to complete the reading of a few books since I learned to read many years ago. I have always been mildly jealous of people I know who seem to be able to plow right through long novels in fairly short intervals. This group of people comprises most of the people I know well, pretty much my entire family, several friends, etc.

But I get sidetracked sometimes, wrapped up in little concepts that hit me along the way. I recently read a piece on the anniversary of Blooms Day, the fictional day recounted in James Joyce's Ulysses. The article I was reading noted how Joyce seemed to revel in writing about what he saw as epiphanies, the little moments when individuals come to a greater understanding of things. To many people these moments go by unnoticed, and that, the author of the article suggested, was why many people can't seem to finish Joyce's literary products.

Without knowing if this assertion was true or not, I was tickled by the thought that an author's work might be driven by somewhat similar moments to those that often keep me from reading longer works of literature to the end. (And I fully allow that my supposition here suggests some kind of intellectual comparison between my short attention span and the inspiration behind one of the greatest works in English language literature. I mean no such elevation of my personal demons, so if the past paragraph leaves that impression, please ignore it.)

So, in a conscious effort to broaden my literary base, I went to the nearest bookseller to try to secure a copy of Joyce's famous novel, only to find they didn't stock it. So I went to the next nearest bookseller, and was dismayed to find the same result. I am now resigned to ordering it online, as that rarely fails me. But in the course of my pilgrimage, my pursuit of this great book, I did happen upon copies of Finnegan's Wake, and The Dubliners, as well as a copy of The Portable James Joyce.
The first, while a definite classic, and more immediately available than any physical copy of Ulysses I could locate, was just too long, and I feared I might waste all my reading energy getting through it, leaving me incapable of moving on to my initially targeted book when done with the first.

The second book seemed infinitely more suited to fill a few weeks time (at most) while waiting for Ulysses to arrive.

Then I happened upon the third book, which contained the complete text of the second book, along with several other of Joyce's products (excerpted and in whole), and was only three dollars more than the second book.

So I walked out of that particular bookstore with The Portable James Joyce (and a book called Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, which has nothing to do with this story, for those still reading).

Anyway, after all that searching in physical stores for a copy of Ulysses, and then resigning myself to going over to Amazon to order it, I stumbled upon the entire text over at The Literature Network, during the simplest of web searches on the word "Ulysses." I guess I'm not really one to invest that much time in staring at a computer screen (and I'm definitely not going to print it all out), but go figure.

Well, I suppose it'll be good to have a copy anyway.

Not quite sure the world had been convinced their cowardice, they took another innocent life. It seems about the only remotely positive thing that can be said about these men is that they seem to keep their word.

But then there are other issues. Prior to hearing news of the discovery of Mr. Kim's body in Iraq, I was listening to a radio news piece on Pakistan's anti-blasphemy laws. Upon hearing the report on anti-blasphemy reform efforts in Pakistan, I decided to do my own informal research. Having been raised in a religious setting, I am familiar with the idea of blasphemy; but to make sure I'm on firm ground, I'll quote the first definition in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: "the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God"

In hearing of the harsh penalty levied for the crime of blasphemy in the Muslim world, I wondered what it was about these masked murderers that endears them to some (hopefully) limited portion of the Muslim population. Why doesn't there seem to be a popular outcry from Muslims over people who have shamelessly invoked the name of God while murdering innocents?

Not being a Muslim, perhaps there's some esoteric dynamic I simply don't understand here, but I know how angered I get, as a Christian, when other people purporting to be Christians justify bad behavior with the cloak of doing God's will. Granted, I don't really agree that governments should be involved in doling out punishment for blasphemy, but I do think members of a religious faith should feel slighted when someone attempts to high-jack their religion as a poor excuse for cold-blooded murder.

Maybe part of my confusion is that I have seen, and agreed with, a lot of criticism pertaining to the abuses in U.S.- maintained prisons overseas. It has been a pretty prominent criticism in the American media since the story initially broke. This is because it is the job of the press to act as something of a watchdog, to notice when things are getting out of hand. But for some reason, when I have heard samples of the sentiment from the Muslim world regarding the brutal behavior of these masked cowards, it seems not only lacking in condemnation, but sometimes outright supportive.

And it may be that there is more condemnation than I have seen from the outlets I have been monitoring; I certainly hope so, because it's clear to me that just about all the masked high-jackers of Islam accomplish is to galvanize the will of those who already think the worst of the Muslim faith. And perhaps what should frighten Arabs even more is that some recent atrocities are discouraging other, more moderate voices from defending Islam.

How could such sadistic cruelty ever inspire sympathy for anyone except the victims? That's the question I can't seem to answer.

Finally... I got a bit of comment spam yesterday, and I really thought this site was too small for that.

It was actually a bit vengeful, as some extremely anonymous member of the Blogrank.net forums apparently targeted several of the higher-ranked sites on the list. (Come to think of it, should I have been flattered?)

To be honest, it was obvious that some sites on the list were artificially inflating their numbers, which was made easier by the fact that until last night the blogmaster apparently didn't have any way of stopping them. But now he seems to have remedied the problem a bit by adding cookies to the process.

I can't be sure that all of my rankings came from unique visitors one way or the other, as I was credited for about 50 referrals by midnight, and that would mean more than half my visitors in the past 36 hours would have had to click through to the Blogrank site. Not impossible, but not completely likely either.

Apparently this courageous spammer (whose IP address I do have) thought me to be as likely an offender of this policy as the top two or three blogs on the list (each of which had literally hundreds of click-in's -- making my mere fifty click-in's look quite meager.

Anyway, it was a little annoying, as the spammer violated my unwritten commenting sensibilities with regards to language. Looking at it, I guess I tried out the Blogrank network because it looked kind of like an upstart little blogging community, but now I notice it more than less resembles the BlogHop phenomenon, which was equally abused, despite the use of cookie-based tracking.

In that vein, I think I'm just going to do away with all the blog vanity rating / ranking sites, and be done with the whole controversy.

"People may expect too much of journalism.
Not only do they expect it to be entertaining,
they expect it to be true."
-Lewis H. Lapham

(File under double-edged swords and fine lines)

I happened upon an article about the blooming legitimacy of blogging while surveying Ales Rarus this morning. It appears the bloggers are taking over -- well maybe not quite yet, but it does seem more people are getting their news from less traditional sources as time goes by.

While I welcome the idea that people are straying from the establishment, it's a truly strange world when bloggers take on the mantle of "real" journalism. Of course, in the age of Jayson Blair and the rest, I'm not sure how many real journalists are actually left. And more relevant is the fact that our nation's first recognized journalists were really nothing more than people with opinions and the means to disseminate those opinions.

I guess some things never really change.

Moore Film Title Angers Author

I came across the above link while trudging through the Drudge Report site a few minutes ago, and I thought is was interesting. As a longtime fan of Ray Bradbury, I have mixed feelings.

One reason is that I do think Michael Moore's choice of movie title is absolutely intended to help him feed off the concept of Bradbury's classic story, but as far as I know copyright protection does not extend to titles. That's something we learned early on in journalism courses, as we covered the ever-important concept of plagiarism.

Now, I'm not entirely sure how this plays out when / if the main concept of a title is used specifically to capitalize on the original author's concept -- so there might be a violation in this case, though it may not be a copyright issue, so much as an issue of intellectual property, an area where I have very little knowledge.

The article mentions that Bradbury, as I would have suspected, is a registered independent, so it's hard to tell if Bradbury's opposition to Moore's title is politically rooted. Still, to think of how many authors, film-makers and other various creative minds have borrowed similar concepts, I have a hard time seeing that Moore is violating any accepted standard by using the word "Fahrenheit" in his film title.

Granted, Moore's assertion that his title symbolizes the "temperature at which freedom burns" is hardly analogous, but nobody ever said a title had to make sense.

B's poetry

"Writers write for themselves and not for their readers and ...
art has nothing to do with communication between person and person,
only with communication between different parts of a person's mind."
-Rebecca West

I came across an interesting website while surfing the website promotion page provided for members of my ISP. It's the poetry website of a thirteen-year-old girl, and she's quite skilled with words.

I guess I find such a thing interesting for at least one personal reason: I started writing poetry around the same age. I suppose it has to do with the fact that it's the same age when you start to realize you're not really a child anymore. For me, this realization carried a lot of confusion, and writing (mostly in verse) furnished me with the capacity to begin to make sense of my confusion. Only some of my confusion was internally-based, as I also started to wonder about more worldly issues, things like fairness, or the lack thereof, in the world at large.

I have yet to make a living as a writer; I actually haven't even seriously attempted to, but writing has served me well, if only as a way to communicate with myself, and sometimes with other people, too -- on a really good effort, I might accomplish both simultaneously.

Happy Father's Day to all who are Fathers today...

My father probably won't be reading this post (he's not much of a blog reader), but I'd like to acknowledge how blessed I've been to have a father who provided such a fine example of what a man should be. Someday I hope to live up to that standard also.

My father's not a loud man, not one to boast, even when he's right and everyone else is pretty much wrong. In my youth I mistook his humility for weakness, but now I realize that the measured approach he took with life's little twists and turns is what helped him not turn and run when times were tough. He taught me, among other things, that love requires humility (sometimes even humiliation) and that strength is more often demonstrated through patience than through brute force.

He has always been on the quieter side of things, revealing a sense of manhood that can't be mimicked with the chest-beating machismo so often mistaken for manliness. Physically, he's always been a strong man, but his intellectual depth and perspective are what have impressed me most as I've grown older, and some might even say, wiser.

I just wanted to say that much.

Another innocent victim has been taken. I wrote an angry little post about "Disgusting Spectacles" a month ago. I suppose those thoughts roughly fit my mood at yesterday's news of the murder of Paul Johnson -- but I didn't feel like writing about that all over again, except to say I still think those who perpetrate such crimes, deliberately against non-combatants, are cowards.

But I came across an editorial in the L.A. Times about the seemingly endless list of rationales these cowardly thugs seem to come up with as justification for killing civilians. (As a warning, the L.A.Times is one of those registration sites we all hate so much.) Here is one passage from the editorial:

Six clerics who once espoused Islamic radicalism recently condemned the wave of attacks on Westerners, issuing a statement through a government news agency calling the assaults "a heinous crime." Osama bin Laden had praised two of these clerics several years ago. The Saudi government clearly was counting on their change of heart to woo some of the faithful away from violence.

I guess this is where we find out if any of this is even based on religion, or if it is, as I would suspect, just a bunch of frustrated cowards searching for any reason to kill innocent civilians.

"Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. I think it's in my basement... let me go upstairs and check."
-M. C. Escher

It seems to me that if we replaced the colonial settlers, circa 1770, with average Americans from the current population, the revolution never would have happened. It would have been unrealistic to believe we could overpower an empire with a ragtag group of untrained and ill-equipped fighters. The idealism of our forefathers would be replaced by our current strains of pragmatism.

The current situation is similar to the time leading up to the revolution. One similarity being that so many people feel oppressed by the twin-engine political scheme of U.S. government, but at the same time, they feel powerless to change it. People resign themselves to whichever popular theory vaguely resembles their own, knowing things could be better, but not really thinking themselves capable of improving the situation. The primary difference between then and now is that we know there were people brave enough to stand up to such long odds back then. But what about now? It's probably too soon to tell; at the same time, it may be bordering on "too late" as well.

This is just a continuing observation from yesterday's train of thought. I do appreciate the bits of positive feedback on it, as well as the mention from Ales Rarus; he makes an interesting point about how we expect companies to compete for our business, but we don't demand the same from our political parties. Or maybe it's just a case of brand loyalty run amok. You know, the way they used to conduct blind taste tests to see if people really liked Coke better than Pepsi, or if they had just fallen in love with the notion of Coke's superiority. Which makes me wonder even more...

(By the way, the Constitution Party candidate for President this year is a man named Michael Peroutka, in case anyone was wondering.)

"The Grave of Keats" by Oscar Wilde

Forgive me if that last post made me sound hopeless about the electoral process. The only two sorts of hopelessness I feel on this subject are when people either surrender their votes to the wills of largely non-representative political platforms, or they don't bother to get involved at all.

Lest anyone reading this is confused about my intentions on this issue, let me be clear: Vote, but also try to understand why you're voting and how your vote will make a positive impact. If you are not registered, try this link from the American Library Association.

"If a picture's worth a thousand words,
then what I've seen is what I've heard,
as the image writhes and flickers on the screen,
the distance grows wide between the glory and the dream."
-Bill Mallonee

I've recently become disillusioned with the state of American politics... okay, more disillusioned with the state of American politics. I just keeps hitting me how hard people on each side of the traditional aisle are trying to distinguish themselves from each other, while actually differing on very little.

Of course, a statement like the preceding is relative. There are many differences between Republicans and Democrats, but the deep divides in political philosophy touted by folks like Al Franken and Rush Limbaugh don't exist. To get to the substantive differences, one must depart from the main highways and thoroughfares of political discourse. The real departures occur on the fringes, the back roads, so to speak. If you favor a nominally liberal or conservative philosophy, you might try to convince yourself that George W. Bush and John F. Kerry are totally different animals, but you're mostly just kidding yourself.

And that's what recently re-occurred to me: maybe the talking heads on both sides aren't employed to categorically prop up their respective sides, but rather to keep drilling into our heads that there really is a major difference between the major parties. But let's face it, liberal pols are rarely as liberal as their label suggests, and conservative ones are often more radical than anyone else, at least among those in the higher reaches of government.

Can you name the last national-level Democrat to oppose the death penalty? That's a classic liberal view, but you'll find precious few significant (also read that "electable") liberals who support it with any sincerity.

On the other side, what is so conservative about a president who urges his country into what is at the least an unprecedented war? (I'm not judging the war, just making an analytical observation that the policy leading to it was not quite traditional.) And the surge in deficit spending (one common legacy between G.W. Bush and Reagan) is hardly the policy of a true fiscal conservative.
To be fair to the labels themselves, there have been folks on each side who have been critical of their respective party's reluctance to enact the sort of ideas nominally espoused by each party. And while there are those in each party who do want purer versions of ideology, they are just voices in the wilderness, wielding very little influence when all is said and done.

Even a guy like George Soros, with all his money and various contributions to the Kerry campaign, is really only playing for bragging rights, much like local sports fans when a local team wins a sports championship. What is it going to actually benefit the everyday citizen of Detroit, now that the local NBA team has won a championship? -probably not much, if at all. They'll feel good that they supported a winner, but will their lives change for the better just because of that victory (not taking into account any gambling profits)?

George Soros, as an ideologue, will gain nothing in a John Kerry triumph. The government will not make a hard left; at most, it will change lanes, and that shouldn't be enough for a man like Soros, if he believes as he says he does. Much the way a guy like Ralph Reed doesn't garner victory on every ideal he supports by advising George W. Bush. I suspect these are folks who see some good in merely being on the winning team, even if the prize is somewhat empty.

It's true, if your only issue is one of the few on which the candidates actually do disagree, you may have a horse capable of winning this race, but both of these competitors are wrong on enough issues for me to have my doubts.

I wonder who the Constitution Party candidate will be this year?

"SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. is still on track to offer an anti-virus product that will compete against similar software offered by Symantec Corp. and Network Associates Inc., the world's largest software maker said late on Monday."

-Does anyone use Microsoft products for anything other than convenience? It looks as if the folks in Redmond are looking to make a name for themselves in security now, too. (Notice I didn't make the mistake of mentioning the company's name in the same sentence as the word "security.")

I also noticed in the above-mentioned article that Symantec seems to welcome the news, while there was no comment from Network Associates. I assume this will only negatively affect Network Associates, as they currently get a bit of business by providing services through MSN's bundled internet access. I have to imagine that this business will shift to Microsoft's own AV software once it becomes available...

I have known several people along the course of my life who don't seem to be able to hold down a job, no matter how important it would be to do so. I often wonder about that. I'm not referring to those who get down-sized, but rather to folks who seem to have an almost ingenious knack for getting fired from some of the lowest paying jobs in existence. What makes me get up and go to work, even when there is no inherent desperation, that would be different in other people who desperately need employment, but can't seem to keep it?

I don't know, but I do know of one particular old (former) friend who was perpetually challenged on the employment front. In the time I knew him, he probably held over fifty jobs in under ten years.

He was one who made frequent requests for loans from just about anyone who might have a few bucks to help him pay his rent. I loaned him a few bucks once -- never to see it again. Then my parents, who also knew him, made the same mistake; which bothered me, because I had specifically asked him not to take advantage of my parents' kindness -- so he waited until I wasn't around, at which point he secured a $200 loan from my father, a loan for which my father was led to believe I had vouched.

Anyway, I haven't seen him in a few years now, since the last time he asked me for money. I recall it well.
He called out of the blue, told me how he had been at the same job for a few months (which sounded promising), and asked if I wanted to get lunch; I said sure. The next day we met up for lunch, and just prior to walking into the restaurant, he cautioned me that he didn't have any money to pay for his lunch because he had just lost his job. I told him I would pay, but I asked him what had happened with his job. By the time we were seated, he had relayed a story of how the manager had had it in for him since he was hired. I told him my employer was hiring, and that the pay was above average, with excellent benefits if he stuck it out a couple months. He said it sounded nice, but then he asked if I had a little money to lend him in the meantime. I told him I could probably give him $20, explaining that I only had a little bit on hand, that most of it was invested, either in a stock account or in 401(k) (meaning that I didn't have much disposable cash to lend him). He proceeded to ask how long it would take me to sell some of my stock.

I told him I wasn't going to do that, but that I would gladly get him an application for an entry-level position with my employer. I'll never forget the look of disdain as he heard me say this, or the annoyance I felt as I observed his reaction. I was trying to help him, but I couldn't understand how he could just ask for money from people as if he was entitled to whatever they had, all the while forgetting he still owed me money. There was no "thanks for lunch," or "I appreciate the line on the job -- when can you get me that application?"

I don't know where this is going, but I guess it all had to do with wondering how people get to certain places in their lives, and what makes people behave differently. And after all this writing on it, I still haven't much of a clue...

I came across an interesting site called The Poet's Voice yesterday. It includes a lot of poetry; some from the site mistress, and some from other contributors. If you are at all interested in some pretty good poems (especially if you are among the kind folks who occasionally sift through The Smedley Drafts) you may enjoy a visit to Cynthia's site.

I've added it to a new trio of links that appear on the right side of the index page, in case anyone's interested. Enjoy!

Having come across a strange, but revealing post regarding conceptual and ethical problems of different concepts of identity by Den Beste, I have finally been able to establish a noticeable difference in his thought pattern that truly sets him apart from someone like me. I used to think this would have to do with the fact that he is an avowed atheist, while I am one of those mush-brained theists -- but that now seems to be just a tiny facet of the great divide between us.

In this most recent essay, Den Beste concluded, among other things, that it is wrong to create artificial intelligence solely for the purpose of serving humans. Of course, in reading his post, I draw that his ethical objections apply to a certain minimal level of artificial intelligence, and not to all artificial intelligence, as I assume he has no qualms about the enslavement of his PC or the server which bears the burden of his many thoughtful words. And these are, after all, machines with artificial intelligence which have been manufactured specifically to serve humans. At several points in his essay, he implies that the creation of such mechanical "slaves" is somehow equal to genetically breeding humans to serve as slaves. This is all linked to his refusal to accept traditional definitions of life, which, in turn, seems linked to his denial of the existence of a God -- all apparently based on the idea that such definitions and beliefs are not rational.

It was upon realizing the depth of difference in our notions of life, identity, and the way they are defined, that I finally concluded a couple basic things:

1. It may not be that Den Beste is above believing in a higher power, but rather that he is somehow afraid to admit there are questions that, even eventually, will not be answered by human science.


2. One should be careful how much dramatic anime and sci-fi is watched (or read). While either dramatic form can offer interesting questions about human existence, neither is entirely based in reality -- and both serve as a poor substitutes for reality.

Marching to the Beat of Someone Else's Drummer

I read a news report alleging John McCain has rejected a bid by John Kerry to form a political alliance for the upcoming election. I can't say I'm surprised -- not by the idea that John Kerry would consider McCain as an ally, nor by the idea that McCain, no matter how tenuous his relationship with the current White House, would reject any such offer. Although, I would like to be able to say McCain's alleged response wasn't so predictable.

Why is it in our society that politicians should be so inextricably tied to political labels? -as if it's more important to be true to a self-serving organization than to be true to the common good of the people who are supposedly being served, even if the interests of the people led in a direction other than that of party affiliation?

This is my issue with folks of various political persuasions, at least those who seem to believe that all the world's problems would be eradicated if we all just bought into one political philosophy or another. I have yet to come across the party platform that so transcends our societal issues. There may be a philosophy that comes close, but it has yet to be embraced by either of the prevailing political machines currently smogging up the American electoral climate. Yet our system seems to doom independent political thought, while it rewards conformity to party lines -- ensuring the survival of mammoth, slow-moving political organizations, as I'm sure it was meant to do. Whether by design or by default, it's sad.

I'm not suggesting that John McCain should abandon his longtime party allies, but it would be nice if our system weren't so driven by ideological fervor that such a crossing of lines weren't unthinkable. I spent enough time in my life trying to convince myself I was a conservative that I am now sure the philosophy of the Limbaugh's and the Hannity's is a long way off from curing America's problems, but I'm pretty sure a straight liberal agenda is also lacking -- so maybe an alliance that meets somewhere else over that spectrum wouldn't be such a tragedy.

If only such things weren't so unthinkable...

Doh! - Homer's Catchphrase Tops Poll

The following essay was written by Mary Agnes Taylor (married name), a distant aunt from my paternal grandmother's family. It appears in a book called Remembered Days, written by Elizabeth Brett White (© 1966, James Harry White) about the history of the White family of Yorktown, New York. The piece that you'll read if you choose to read on was written by Mary Agnes shortly after the passing of her husband of over fifty years. It represents her imaginings of what heaven is like.
1 a.m., April 25, 1945

"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love Him." -1 Cor. 2:9

I know it will all be wonderful. We could not know what it will be like, because it will not be like anything we have known, so our language cannot express it. We have been given suggestions… "Home" … "Light" "No sorrow" "We shall be satisfied, because we shall see Him as He is." "Not through a glass darkly, but then face to face." But I have longed to know of companionship with my dear ones. What can it be like? Can I feel and see and hear those spiritual bodies? … But memory brings me to the thrill I have felt as our voices have united in song. The harmony of sound, made not by one beautiful note, but by the blending of our tones making a melody that seemed to lift our spirits in ecstasy. Perhaps the meeting of our spirits will be like that. I think I would be satisfied to have it so.

I remember, too, walking in the springtime, when the air was filled with fragrance. It was not merely the breath of one kind of flower that the breezes brought to me, but the mingling of several, coming and going, faint, delicate, constantly changing, always so lovely that I involuntarily reached out my arms to try to caress the invisible Something that spoke to my soul. Perhaps our spirits will mingle in some such beautiful way. I think I would be satisfied to have it so.

I have seen color, that wondrous thing -- in sunset clouds, in rainbows, in the petals of flowers, in all nature. Not just one color. It is almost never one alone. It is the blending of several that God uses in his paintings, making beauty so great that we feel that it is beyond our comprehension and our souls yearn to break earthly bonds and be free. Perhaps our spirits will blend as sounds and colors do, until we, like them, shall merge in beauty. I think I would be satisfied to have it so.

And now I think I can sleep.

-Mary Agnes Taylor

"When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d" by Walt Whitman

I suppose this poem will have been brought up at least once or twice over these last few days -- a piece written about our earliest Republican President, and now it comes to mind as a nation marks the passing of one of our most recent Republican Presidents. Though some would say they were worlds apart, it might be said that the Republican parties of then and of now are also worlds apart.

I have had a ritual for the past several months.

I go to the page of my ISP's website where special offers and service enhancements are advertised, and look over the ways in which I could fill their coffers with more currency by buying the latest service.

A while back they started advertising DSL service for $39.99/month, with $20 off for the first three months, and a mail-in rebate for the cost of the self-installation package. The first thing I did when I saw this offer was punch in my home phone number to see if I could obtain this service on my home line. Every time, I was greeted with an apologetic response about the service not yet being available to my home number. I had gotten this response as recent as a week or so ago.

But last night, or should I say this morning, I was greeted with happier news. I am now eligible for the service. At long last! -but then I started thinking: I rarely engage in heavy uploading or downloading, and I'm usually pretty happy with the speed at which my dial-up connection moves. In the grand scheme, I don't think it's an all-out necessity. Which is to say, I know DSL would be significantly faster, but is it $25/month faster? Is it $300/year faster? There is a 30-day money back guaranty associated with the offer, but I have to be honest, if I spoil myself with DSL service, even for just a few days, I am sure I won't be able to tolerate dial-up thereafter. In a recent visit to my sister and brother-in-law, I test drove their new DSL hook up, and after only a half-hour, I felt spoiled enough.

So this service for which I've been pining for months is now in my reach, and suddenly I'm not as sure of my desire for it. Though desire is not so much the issue as practicality and fiscal responsibility is. I just read something from Cziltang about not minding "a simpler life, but it better have internet access and 900 or so channels on cable." And I wonder if I really have a legitimate need for speed -- or is it just an infatuation?

(But this also ties into something I'm not quite ready to publish yet...)

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld a Bush Administration order opening all U.S. roads to Mexican trucks, without any authority to enforce transportation (safety or environmental) standards on Mexican trucks or their drivers. Unanimously.

It was a few years ago that we had an epidemic of accidents here in the Philadelphia area caused by improperly trained, unlicensed drivers in commercial trucks that didn't meet safety standards. There was an uproar about it after the human toll started to rise, and authorities aggressively clamped down on the problem. I recall the reports indicating that some of the drivers were unlicensed (and usually untrained) because they were illegal aliens, and therefore ineligible for proper licensing.

Now what happens? Do we go back to that, this time without the ability to enforce traffic laws? And this says nothing of the inevitable rush by domestic trucking companies to shift more of their work to cheaper, less regulated Mexican truckers. Say it with me now: "Less regulated equals cheaper" -which usually leads to lost earning capacity for the more regulated, better trained workers who will (sadly) be changing careers soon.

I have no inherent problem with allowing Mexicans to drive huge commercial vehicles in the United States, but if safety is at all important to our federal government, foreign truckers need to meet comparable guidelines to those required of domestic truckers. I recently heard some idiot on the radio speaking of how it has been so unfair of our government in the past to not allow Mexican truckers past certain points, especially since we allow Canadian commercial drivers to penetrate our borders and roam so freely -- an incredibly ignorant and irrelevant criticism.

Perhaps if Mexican truckers were held to anywhere near the same standards as U.S. or Canadian truckers, there wouldn't be such an uproar over decisions like these. But then, if Mexican truckers were held to similar standards, they would be in a much better position to bargain for better compensation, which would pretty much kill the U.S. corporate lobby to allow them over the border. Unlike the corporate lobby, I would be all for it under those conditions.

You don't have to be a Rocket Scientist -- In fact, they might hold it against you if you are.

File under scary:
I came across this story about a man turned down for work with the New London, Connecticut Police, specifically because testing revealed his IQ to be too high. This happened in 1996, after which he launched a federal lawsuit against the city. The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has just upheld the city's decision, maintaining that the city did not discriminate because the same criteria were applied to everyone who took the test.

Perhaps the legal challenge was doomed from the start, and this makes some sense, as we have yet to define intelligent (or stupid) people as a protected class. But is that really the issue of the most importance here? According to the story, the average police officer has an IQ of about 104 (just above average). Robert Jordan, the plaintiff in this case, scored the equivalent of 125. The decision not to interview applicants testing over a certain range was couched as a way to insure officers wouldn't get bored with police work and move on before the city got its money's worth from the costly police training.

I don't think police officers should have to be geniuses to get work, but is it really wise to set an absolute ceiling for such a thing? Who's to say how many more crimes might be solved if, God forbid, a few geniuses did slip through? Now, I understand that 125 doesn't qualify you for Mensa, and maybe that just cements the point. A policy like this doesn't just preclude geniuses from joining the force; it actually draws the line firmly in the "above-average" range.

I wonder how many other police departments use similarly insane guidelines. I'm tempted to check with my local P.D. on it, though I'm not sure how well I'd sleep at night if I found this was the case. So I guess I don't really want to know.

(I did find it interesting that Jordan, who couldn't secure work as a police officer, has been working as a prison guard since he took the test.)

Can't Stop the Pop-ups?

In a return to "non-important" issues, I came across this article on CNET about the survival instinct of the pop-up ad in an increasingly resistant online culture. I suppose it's just like any other malady of the information age...

"There are some veterans in this service who remember
because they cannot forget"
-UK Chaplain General David Wilkes

Several world leaders and many current and former soldiers gathered to remember the Normandy invasion yesterday.

It's good once in a while to recall that France isn't really our mortal enemy, though there are many who seem to feel that way. It seems a popular retort to French opposition to the Iraq war to say that without us they would be under Nazi rule, but it reeks of short-term focus, to be sure. Few people, when recalling our role in World War II, choose to draw on the history of France's involvement in our independence.

But perhaps it's good not to dwell too much on detail, especially if it's only for the purpose of pride. It's better to remember we help each other from time to time, and despite differences, that's what friends do.

There were soldiers from many nations who sacrificed for others on those beaches and battlefields. It's fitting to give them a little credit too.

I was watching Washington Journal on C-Span this morning, as the host was taking calls from people about the passing of President Reagan. It was fascinating.

The phone callers offered a wide array of opinion on Reagan, both personally and politically. There were those who saw Reagan as a hero, and those who saw him as an oppressor, whether to women, working people or minorities. It was mostly polar, with those who disagreed with his politics usually showing the decency to offer sympathy for his passing.

One dissenting caller, however, stuck out, and it may have been due to the fact that she was cut off by the moderator. She had started to go off on a tangent about how all pro-lifers are either directly or indirectly pedophiles. Up to that point, I found myself at least understanding, if not agreeing with, those who expressed displeasure with Reagan's politics, but the budding criticism I heard from this particular caller only annoyed me.

Part of me wished I could have heard the rest of her assertion, if only to know whether she was totally insane or if there was some semblance of logic associated with her grievance against the late President. I guess this isn't so much about remembering Ronald Reagan as it is about my disbelief in how people can be so uncivil in their disagreement on issues. And abortion is an issue on which people have been known to lack civility from both sides.

I'm just trying to imagine how being pro-life is equal to pedophilia. (And to think people thought Rick Santorum had gone of the deep end with his comments on the Texas sodomy laws.)

But I guess this brings me to one bit of credit a few political foes have been attributing to Reagan over the past half day since his passing: that he was capable of holding strong, uncompromising views without coming off as disrespectful to his adversaries. It's an interesting assertion, which probably isn't universally accurate, but he did have an optimistic way of disagreeing-

-a skill most people don't seem to have anymore.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th President of the United States of America, passed away today at his home in California.

He was 93. He suffered from Alzheimer's Disease for the last ten years, and he succumbed to pneumonia, reported to be linked to his Alzheimer's.

May he find his rest tonight.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference."
-Reinhold Niebuhr

I was thinking about the old serenity prayer last night. And I was thinking of how the third phrase in the above excerpt is probably the most important one of the three. I mean, if you don't know the difference between what you can and can't change, how are you going to do the other two things effectively?

It occurred to me as I was contemplating people I've known who seem to get stuck on either accepting changeable things as unchangeable or