[sociopolitical] 

I stumbled across news of "The Loan Shark Prevention Act", thanks to Eschaton. This resembles the kind of amendment activity I mentioned in my 2/28 post when Congress was debating the "Consumer Credit Card Company Protection Act of 2005."

Unfortunately, such redemption for that greedy little bill never materialized. But while I'm on the subject, I also noticed a story in today's Philadelphia Daily News, on page 11 (sorry, I couldn't find an online link to it) about a response by the state of Pennsylvania to the recent Brookings Institute study that focused on poverty in Philadelphia.

The article, entitled "Rendell aims laws to help the poor", included news of possible measures to crack the vicious cycle of multi-generational poverty that seems to run in many inner-city families. One or two of the solutions in the article were ideas I pushed in my 2/28 post. Though I'm sure they didn't get any ideas from me, I'm glad to see some of these things, like beefing up financial education for school kids, mentioned as part of a more comprehensive course of action. Here's a brief excerpt:

"The report said that low-income families in Philadelphia pay higher prices for cars, appliances and other necessities -- and higher interest rates on a variety of loans -- than higher income families. Poorer families lack access to financial information ...

"State officials also are working to integrate financial education into existing reading and math programs in public schools."

The article also mentions potential regulations regarding "payday" loans, which routinely charge interest of 400% or higher. It's nice to see someone in government taking action on these types of issues; now I only hope there's enough pressure behind the pols to keep them moving.

NOTE: Though I couldn't find a link to the aforementioned Daily News story, they do also have this featured editorial which lightly traces some of the same points.

 [sociopolitical] 

"Sleep, sleep tonight,
and may your dream be realized..."
-U2

Dragonballyee posts Rev. King's Mountaintop speech (given the day before he was assassinated), which I think is a nice way to commemorate the anniversary of his passing.

 [personal/blog] [sociopolitical] 

This via Dan Gillmor:

San Francisco May Regulate Blogging

I guess they figure since the federal government has yet to step in and regulate online speech, someone's got to do it, right? If this passes, it'll give me another reason to thank God I don't live in San Francisco.

 [personal/blog] [sociopolitical] 

As we mourn the passing of a Pontiff, I'd like to echo much of the admiration others have shown for his 26 tenure. He was a man who sought compassion for the least of us, lived forgiveness, yet adhered to some of the most strict Church principles -- sometimes in the face of popular and political criticism. Instead of acting a salesman, he lived a life of stewardship, recognizing that the Church's purpose wasn't just to comfort parishioners, appease popular demands or cozy up to governments, but to follow the will of God.

Whether or not you agree with the message of John Paul II or the Roman Catholic Church, you should recognize that his leadership was based on principle. This, in an age of churches (especially in the West) that seem more motivated by filling membership rolls and collection plates than following Christian teachings. Here in America, if you aren't Catholic, chances are you attend a church that makes major decisions based on democratic rule or membership sentiment (if you attend church at all). This makes most churches into social clubs run by their members, rather than led by their leaders.

Over the past several months, I've been seriously considering the Roman Catholic Church for my own practice of Christianity and worship. It's in part because of the rigidity of the structure, because it doesn't sway or cave in to popular pressure. But it's also in part because of the example of forgiveness that I mentioned a couple days ago, in my last post on the Pope. His leadership wasn't swayed by public outcry, yet it was compassionate.

Perhaps nothing is more integral to Christianity than practices like compassion and forgiveness. These are certainly the two most important lessons one should take from the life of Christ; they are also two incredibly important lessons to be learned from the life of Karol Józef Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II.

God bless him, and may he rest in peace.

 [sociopolitical] 

"I saw a man who was holding the hand
that had fired a gun at his heart..."
-Steve Taylor

It appears the Pontiff is "fading serenely." Here's what I'll remember most: a legacy of forgiveness.

 [sociopolitical] 

Conservative direct-mail firm buys Schindlers' list

Who's to say everyone who sides with the Schindler family is automatically conservative? Or pro-life, for that matter?

 [sociopolitical] 

Local Schiavo family threatened

In case you needed a good blueprint for proving you're an absolute idiot...

 [sociopolitical] 

Your Law Suit is Junk, Mine Seeks Justice

-from Wampum, what Dan Gillmor refers to as "chapter and verse" on the hypocrisy of certain champions of tort reform. I have my own set of thoughts on tort reform, much of which I've scattered throughout other posts (here is one of them).

 [personal/blog] [sociopolitical] 

I get email at the address available on this page. Sometimes it's from people who actually want to offer feedback or suggestions for this site; other times, it's just spam.

Penis enlargement, online drugstores, run-of-the-mill porn sites, and every couple days, one of those polite, if grammatically-challenged, foreigners asking me to help them invest some money by sending them my bank information; they don't even make me bat an eyelash anymore. I've seen pretty much everything, or at least, I thought I had.

Sometimes I get emails from other webmasters who think I'd enjoy their site, and they want to know if we could exchange links. My linking policy, vague though it may be, is rarely contingent upon reciprocity. Usually, I link to content that I find in some way fascinating, whether or not the linked page links back to this one. A few days ago, I received what appeared to be such an email for someone's Geocities site. I went to visit the web page from their email, and I was immediately shocked by what I was seeing.
Now, as I said, I've been exposed to a good sampling of your average inappropriate web content, but this was exceptional. The page in question contained some extremely inappropriate images of underage children -- and not of the "I swear she looked seventeen, officer" variety -- the titling of the site suggested very clearly that this site specialized in "artistic" images of 5 to 13 year-old girls. Almost as noticeable as the site itself was a disclaimer that this site was not in violation of the law.

I'm not a legal expert on what constitutes child pornography, but whether or not what I was seeing fit that definition, I knew I didn't want to know anyone who found these sorts of images enjoyable, even as "art."

I promptly emailed my ISP, and then the (hopefully) good people at Geocities, and finally I sent a message to the people at Cyber Angels, just in case the first two didn't work. What scared me the most about this site is that it had slipped through the parental control software that runs on my machine (a machine which is used by my young niece from time to time).

Thankfully, I finally received feedback that the offending site had been disabled, and indeed it has, so now I feel a bit more secure in writing about it, though I still won't publish the url. I guess I'm haunted by the statement that was on the website in question, the one that boldly claimed the site was not illegal, that all children had been photographed with their parents' consent (which made me feel a whole lot better), and that it was strictly for artistic purposes, despite the fact they were charging a high monthly membership fee, and had sickeningly suggestive captions accompanying some of the front page photos.

I have to say there wasn't a whole lot of authoritative content available from my ISP to tell me where to go -- in fact, I never actually got a response from my ISP. I did end up finding Cyber Angels via Yahoo search, but I'm wondering if anyone else out there who's more security savvy would be able to suggest other good sites for reporting possible cases of exploited children. I'd like to add a couple links to the sidebar for this purpose.

Feedback is appreciated. Thanks.

 [sociopolitical] 

The Culture of Guns

Tom Carter, an retired soldier himself, ruminates on the topic of last week's school shootings in Minnesota and the the gun lobby's response.

 [sociopolitical] 

Some Creditors Make Illegal Demands on Active-Duty Soldiers

This New York Times story courtesy of the same kind of folks who brought you the new bankruptcy rules. I came across this tidbit via the Daily Kos.

 [sociopolitical] 

Dan Gillmor comments on the way business leaders are evaluated.

 [sociopolitical] 

TALLAHASSEE — Republicans on the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to pass a bill that aims to stamp out "leftist totalitarianism" by "dictator professors" in the classrooms of Florida's universities.

The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, passed 8-to-2 despite strenuous objections from the only two Democrats on the committee.

The above excerpt from a story in the Independent Florida Alligator may be the tip of the iceberg as it pertains to solving our widespread educational funding problems.

Imagine if, instead of having the classroom ruled by some authoritarian tyrant, we brought the concept of democracy to a new level. Imagine what we could save on education if we instituted a system whereby a classroom majority would decide which theories are correct and how classes are conducted, instead of wasting all that money on things like books and qualified educators.

I have to go now. The soundtrack in my mind is fading to a Pink Floyd song...

 [sociopolitical] 

Okay, I admit it; the title line was borne of an urge created by the new tag line at Ales Rarus, as well as my love for that old song by Stealer's Wheel. There wasn't any real substance to the "jokers to the right" part, at least not when I stubbornly decided to use the adapted song lyric.

But in the substantive segment of this post, I wanted to point out two shining examples of the liberal search for moral values clarification, so to speak. One was found courtesy of Karl Martino, who linked this Jim Wallis interview from Mother Jones. The other is an American Spectator feature on Democratic Virginia Gubernatorial hopeful Tim Kaine. It starts something like this:

"Meet Tim Kaine. His views on abortion are roughly in line with those of George W. Bush. He thinks John Kerry spent too much time on the campaign trail talking about windsurfing and not enough time talking about God.

"And the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is spending an unprecedented $5 million to help him get elected governor of Virginia. ..."

Both articles are interesting and indicative of the ongoing shift in non-conservative politics.

 [sociopolitical] 

Try as I might, I just couldn't convince myself not to weigh in on the current Schiavo crisis brewing, both in the Sunshine State and in the federal courts. Call this my IRWGTBATTSSB post...

I may have already stated, either here or in someone else's comment section, that I favor the idea that when there is doubt as to a person's viability we should err on the side of life -- if for no other reason than the alternative is much less reversible. My feelings on sanctity of life issues are a deeply held portion of my personal philosophy and faith. Yes, I do find it a bit ironic that I've already echoed a sentiment recently voiced by our illustrious President, especially because I think that his idea of the "culture of life" is to mine what Swiss cheese is to American cheese (or any other variety of cheese without the holes). If it were my decision, and clearly it isn't, I'm not sure what I would do, but I've always been less than satisfied with the idea of removing certain forms of life support from folks who are capable of breathing autonomously. That's just my opinion, and I'm sure many others differ on the matter.
That said, could we please stop making our arguments for or against the removal of Terri's feeding tube by resorting to the same old political trick of demonizing one side or the other? If we're going to air the personal business of the Schindler's or the Schiavo's, could we at least attempt to be respectful? Maybe I'm not as cynical as some people are, but what if neither side is the devil in this matter? What if they're all just trying to do what they think is the right thing? What if we allow that Michael Schiavo could actually be a half-decent person who isn't merely trying to murder his wife? What if we stop talking about Terri's parents like they're merely conducting an exercise in parental selfishness?

Could one party, or perhaps both parties, in this matter be misguided or wrong? Absolutely. But how many of the millions of spectators cheering this conflict on from such distances actually know anything about the situation besides the basic undisputed facts of the case? So, in the absence of evidence of either side being evil or purely selfish, can't we at least stop with the vitriol?

And finally, can we dispense with the naive notion that all of the dozen jurists who heard this case over a period of years in different venues are part of some paranoid conspiracy? Can we accept that the posturing by Congress, however pure or opportunistic their motives may have been, was at best futile, and at worst abusive. There is a reason we have judicial review as part of the constitutional structure of our government, no matter how many lawmakers or pundits want to label any sitting robe-wearer with whom they disagree as an activist judge. Whether or not the courts have made the proper moral decision in this case, the consistent judicial rulings on this matter at least instill in me the notion that this isn't just the work of one or two wacky leftist judges. The most conservative judges are as likely (if not more) to bristle at the thought of Congress writing laws tailor-made to force the judiciary hand.

That's probably a bit more than my two cents, but I had to get it out of the way. Now I'll just say that my thoughts and prayers go out to Terri Schiavo and all the folks affected by or involved in the decision whether or not to end her life.

I also recommend reading some of the recent posts on this subject over at Ales Rarus, or perhaps Tom Carter's post on it, or even this born-again liberal post, for other nuanced perspectives. There's some good discussion going on in the blogiverse, as long as you can weed out all the character assassination and name-calling.

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical]  [stories]  [writing/literature] 

Tattered Coat has thoughts on several political causes and activities, both locally in Philadelphia, as well as nationally. Among these happenings, Matt laments the scaling back of Philadelphia's free library system, which includes not only fewer hours of operation at most branches, but also the eradication of qualified librarians at most branches.

Sure, some people may think anyone with a modicum of intelligence and interpersonal skill can fill a librarian's shoes, but consider the following recollection from my own experience at a local Borders store a couple years back:

I was looking for a copy of Charlotte's Web to give to one of my nieces as a gift. After looking through the sprawling children's section for a few minutes, I decided that it might be better to ask one of the customer assistance folks in that section for a little help.

I approached a fresh-faced young woman who was behind a computer station in the midst the children's material alcove. She was in the 18 to 20 range and had the look of one of those hip youngsters just quaint enough to be employed by a cool bookseller like Borders. Just as I approached, she was accosted by a young man about half her age, who asked her where he could find Around the World in Eighty Days. She asked the boy who wrote the book he was looking for. He didn't seem to be able to push the author's name to the tip of his tongue, so I chimed in the name of Jules Verne.

The book girl looked up at me, apparently surprised that a passing stranger would know such a thing. She then started typing into her computer workstation. A few brief seconds later, she informed the boy that Borders apparently didn't carry that book. Incredulous (not just me, but the inquiring boy as well), I leaned a little over her desk and quickly noticed why she couldn't find what the boy was seeking; she'd entered the words "Jewels Vern" as her search terms. I politely corrected her spelling and she proceeded to find that there were a whole bunch of different titles in stock that had been authored by this mysterious Verne fellow. She then pointed in the direction that the boy would have the most luck finding his book, and she turned to me.

She marveled at how I could know so much about books. Rather than say something to make her feel like a total idiot, I explained that I'd majored in English in college (a lie, but one told to spare her fragile, if naive, psyche). This made perfect sense to her, as she explained that she was only studying sociology. She thanked me for helping with the boy's book, and then she asked if she could help me find something. I gave a soft "no thanks" and went back to searching the children's section myself, not wanting to find out if she'd have similar trouble spelling E.B. White's name.

For days after, I wondered about the sorry state of professional bookselling, that we couldn't find college students familiar with names like Jules Verne to staff the information desks at major bookstores.

As if that wasn't bad enough, just imagine the horror that would have overwhelmed me if this episode had happened at the local library.

This isn't to condescend to anyone out there who would have been just as lost as the girl in the store, because to be honest, I grew up reading a lot of books; it's entirely possible I'd be more familiar with this information for that reason alone. The point isn't whether the typical person knows a lot about books, or even whether or not the typical person should. The point is that the person directing a city's knowledge-hungry youth around the local library should know at least this much.

And as Matt points out, in a city (and state) that sinks hundreds of millions of tax dollars into lavish pro sports complexes we should at least have few million lying around for something as socially redeeming as a decent public library system.

 [sociopolitical] 

Tom Carter offers his take on why we should give the Wolf-man a chance, which inspired me to dig up other columns on the issue, both pro and con. Here's a small handful of what I found:

Sheep in Wolf's Clothing:Why Paul Wolfowitz may be a good choice ...

Wolfowitz To Rule the World (Bank)

Why Wolfowitz?

 [sociopolitical] 

Slogans: Good. Policy: Bad.

Will Durst offers some thoughts on the White House PR push that has brought Karen Hughes back into the mix. He caps it with a list of slogan suggestions for the new campaign; my favorite so far is "Aren’t You Glad You Use a Free Market Economy? Don’t You Wish Everybody Did?" (Guess you'd have to have a background on my love-hate relationship with the free market concept to get the irony there.)

[sociopolitical] 

US Senate mulls right-to-die case

It seems national legislative efforts to save Terri Schiavo are now in full swing, but as I was perusing this news story, I couldn't get past the one terminology question: why do we refer to certain people as "invalids"?

I can't say it ever occurred to me before that a person who is generally limited in motor capacity can be somehow described as the opposite of:

1. Well grounded; just: a valid objection.
2. Producing the desired results; efficacious: valid methods.
3. Having legal force; effective or binding: a valid title.
-Source

This is less a philosophical complaint than a basic curiosity that just popped into my head.

 [sociopolitical] 

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Cziltang's latest post deals with popular misconceptions on the topic of respect, or more to the point, the way so many of us confuse respect and civility. For what it's worth, I agree with him (doesn't always happen), and I couldn't have said it better.

 [sociopolitical] 

Bankruptcy Protest: A Coalition

I suppose I already informally joined the coalition (as of my 2/28 post), but in case anyone was still wondering which side I take on whether or not this bill is good legislation, here it is: I oppose this bill.

I don't oppose it because it holds individuals responsible for their own debts. I oppose it because, as I mentioned in an earlier post, it doesn't attack half of the real problem. When a company consistently engages in bad lending practices, the result tends to be higher rates of bankruptcy filings. If consumer bankruptcy were truly threatening the health of the lending industry, don't you think they should have the initiative to look at the role their own practices play in the bankruptcy problem? They probably should, but what they've done instead is go full force in favor of a legislative solution that attacks only consumer behavior, while completely ignoring the irresponsible practices they (the lending institutions) routinely engage in.

This reminds me of the NHL owners in their current labor dispute; they rail on and on about how they're losing money, and still they continue to pay their players far too much. Their solution? Make the players sign a binding agreement that officially limits player's rights. It's certainly a whole lot easier than practicing discipline in the way they hand out money. And that's why the NHL owners pursue a salary cap agreement -- they know that as a group, they lack the discipline to run their businesses responsibly. While not perfect, it sounds like a pretty fair analogy to this situation. Why can't the lending institutions simply apply more discipline to the way they do business? Wouldn't that alleviate a significant number of bankruptcies right there?

That's my most essential problem with this bill. The parties that set lending policies are the ones complaining the system's broken -- doesn't it logically follow that they should look first at the policies they set that have essentially broken the system?

That's what has me scratching my head about this whole thing.

 [personal/blog] [sociopolitical] 

Fred Clark at Slacktivist has been posting some pretty well thought out stuff on the current bankruptcy bill in Congress. If you're interested in the subject (and most people should be), I encourage a visit to his blog, but I especially like this grass-roots method of fighting the credit card madness:

Free Your Campus

 [sociopolitical] 

(Note: The Glenn Reynolds link in the first paragraph of this entry originally pointed to the wrong Instapundit post. That has been fixed, now that I am back from a weekend in blog purgatory, and it should jibe more clearly with the rest of this post now.)

I really thought I was painting myself into the most liberal of corners on this bankruptcy bill, right up until yesterday, when it occurred to me just how many non-liberals are against it too. I direct anyone who hasn't read it yet to Glenn Reynolds' post on it yesterday. I don't do this to suggest that I'm justified by the Instapundit's agreement with my position, but rather to rejoice in the fact that even conservatives can see how one-sided the so-called Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 really is. By the way, I've been reading up on it, desperately trying to find the "consumer protection" provisions in this bill ...

Even realizing that this apparently wasn't a simple conservative/liberal debate, I still marvel at the number of Democratic senators who piled on in yesterday's vote.

To be fair, I want to offer a glimpse into the mind of someone who isn't so outraged by the bankruptcy reform bill. Cziltang shares his perspective on the situation. While I don't agree with him, his position is reasoned and not nearly as annoying as some politicians I've listened to who've defended the bill as if it had nothing to do with a tremendous lobbying effort on the part of credit card companies.

I called and emailed both my senators in the last round of this matter, so why not do the same with my trusty congressman? It could work, right?

 [sociopolitical] 

Senate defeats minimum-wage plans

It seems that two different versions of efforts to raise the federal minimum wage have failed.

I find it hard to make a purely political argument for raising the minimum wage, but I have no trouble advocating it anyway. I believe it would have a positive effect on so many people -- thus I believe it should be done. There are too many people who can't make ends meet in our society, no matter how honest and hardworking they are. There are also too many people who voice the idea that a person should have a post-graduate degree to simply get by. These are problems, and I don't understand why more people don't see them as such.

But still it's good to see some politicians are pushing back as others in Congress are fighting to protect big business by dismantling bankruptcy protection for consumers. It seems only fair that everyday people should get something out of the deal.

 [personal/blog] [sociopolitical] 

Thanks to Karl at Philly Future, I came upon Dan Gilmor's post on the Apple court decision regarding bloggers as journalists.

I share Dan's fears on this subject. Having studied journalism a bit, I'm extremely uncomfortable with the court's ideas of what constitutes a "legitimate" journalist -- it suggests a little too much on the regulatory side. Dan, who is a former "legitimate" journalist and does a fine job "imitating" one on his blog, shouldn't be automatically barred from the same protections he enjoyed when he wrote for newspapers simply because he writes for his own website now.

Of course, many people might want these protections without following the same rigors that ethical journalists need to follow. While we shouldn't limit legitimate journalism to just those who write for major news organizations, we also shouldn't confuse anyone who has an blog and an opinion with a journalist.

Some bloggers are just as legitimate as any other journalists; others aren't. Some want to be; others don't. I don't consider myself a journalist, mainly because I deal almost exclusively in my own personal opinions on matters. But if I were to engage in what I know to be legitimate journalistic practice, whether as a reporter for a major news outlet or as a simple blogger with a basic journalistic background, I'd like to think the constitution would still protect me to a reasonable degree.

Of course, Dan's post goes on to discuss further threats to online free speech, including the fray over some alterations to FEC rulings, another part of the ongoing issue about which anyone concerned with our most basic rights should be concerned.

Whatever your view of the haphazard manner in which many online pundits gather and disseminate their information, journalism isn't something that can be rightly limited to just those who labor under the umbrella of major news organizations, especially when so many major organizations don't seem to adhere to basic ethics anymore.

[sociopolitical] 

THOSE %$#@-ING #%@$ AT THE FCC

Above is the title of (and link to) this past Thursday's column by Michael Smerconish in the The Philadelphia Daily News. It's his take on the recent spate of FCC fines (and non-fines). It especially focuses on the glaring inconsistency and hypocrisy with which so-called decency rules have been applied over the past couple years, and how those applications seem to have been driven not by static benchmarks, but by organized protests.

[sociopolitical] 

Slacktivist put together a more comprehensive (and coherent) post on the currently-debated bankruptcy reform legislation than I happened to muster in my last post. Just wanted to point it out. Some of the comments are worth notice too.

He notes an E.J. Dionne column on the current reform proposals that aptly differentiates between bankruptcies brought on by careless spending and those wrought by expenses like medical/prescription bills and other legitimate family crises. It's a distinction worthy of discussion by all who are truly concerned with family values.

Incidentally, Fred also highlighted one of the links from his comments to an Angry Bear post that I previously referred to in my vague endorsement of his comments section...

 [rants]  [sociopolitical] 

Today is the day they start debating a bill that would make it harder to get relief from creditors. A proposed measure, which may as well be sponsored directly by the nation's kind-hearted lenders (you know, those sweet institutions willing to give a credit card to anything with a pulse?), will make consumer bankruptcy rules much more stringent than they currently are.

Please understand, I'm not advocating that we should all be able to simply skip out on our debts no matter what, but I do find it insidiously hypocritical that the same forces pushing hard to collect every last penny they lend have also strongly resisted tighter standards on how they lend.

So maybe the lenders themselves don't want to be "unfairly" restrained by a modicum of fair lending procedures. How about making intensive high school courses on personal finance and credit mandatory for all students -- it's becoming clear that some kind of training on these issues is as vital as reading, writing and 'rithmetic.

And while you're formulating the course, throw in some highly involved retirement planning theory.

You see, I actually like the idea of encouraging people to be more responsible for their own ways and means, but it seems like every measure being pushed in this arena right now should be coupled with an honest endeavor to educate people on how to avoid becoming one of these unpleasant statistics. It seems that while we're doing away with all the safety nets, we might as well also do something to make the safety nets less necessary. And while we're at it, why not balance the scales by also restricting corporate bankruptcies and frivolous lawsuits?

I've yet to really get wound up about how beneficially one-sided both this current bankruptcy reform effort and the recent tort reform measure are going to be. They only restrict the rights of consumers. They don't do anything at all to protect consumers from corporate bankruptcy or frivolous lawsuits by corporations, both of which cost more public money than the combination of consumer bankruptcy and class action lawsuits.

It's sad that we boast of such "reforms" when we're really only attacking the lesser part of the overall problem, almost always the part of the problem that doesn't have as many professional lobbyists on the payroll.

 [sociopolitical] 

Susan J. Douglass wrote a scathing piece on financial institutions, many of which are involved in lobbying for privatized social security accounts, using current credit practices as a partial predictor for what the future social security might be.

"Just imagine -- the same financial interests that gouge you now, have indecipherable rules in their microscopic agreements, enjoy no regulation and can do whatever they want to screw the average American will soon control our retirements. Priceless."

I happen to agree with much of her argument, especially as it pertains to credit card lenders preying on the most financially vulnerable on one end and lobbying against bankruptcy protection for all but the most wealthy on the other end. Of course, I find it a little disgusting already that we as a nation seem to survive financially on an ethic of revolving debt.

The more financially responsible among us might be tempted to look down on those who are less fiscally responsible, but keep in mind what would become of those of us in the investor class (and more pointedly, to the banking industry) if all consumer credit were paid off tomorrow. I know that's not going to happen, but maybe we should all be disturbed by the amount of wealth in this country that counts solely on the financial irresponsibility of everyday Americans.

There's something uniquely unhealthy about such dependency.

[sociopolitical] 

Spy's Eye View

Dame Stella Rimington is the real-life inspiration for the female "M" in recent James Bond films. She became the first woman to head the British spy agency MI5, and according to Sandip Roy's column, she's not quite sold on the concept of a war on terror. This article also dips into one aspect of the "Yellow noise" post towards the end.

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

Following Gannon-gate isn't one of my usual pastimes, but I came across this CNN interview via The All Spin Zone. I think it's telling that a guy with dubious-at-best press credentials who's been pretty much sponsored by Republican partisans can't just come out and admit what side his bread's buttered on, or why he felt the need to use an alias.

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

"In desperate times, you know everybody's part;
it's your own lines you'd like to forget-
-'til what you were meets what you've now become,
grins and says, 'Hey, haven't we met?'"
-Bill Mallonee

What is normal?

I have heard many people bemoan the lack of normalcy -- in their jobs, the people they meet, and in everyday life -- but I'm not always sure what they mean. Is there really such a thing as normal? Aren't things always changing, society always shifting, gradually sliding to new places on the scale? Isn't normal whatever we happen to have grown used to?

Case in point: I was watching CNN yesterday afternoon, when I noticed the streamer at the bottom of the screen informing me of the current terror threat level, which -- surprise, surprise -- was sitting at yellow. Again. It's been so long since I'd seen it at anything below yellow that I was almost thinking that yellow was the color for "everything's just peachy; everyone just go about your business without any worries." I had to look it up when I got home to find that yellow actually means "elevated: significant risk of terror attacks." Then I had to give myself a refresher course on what other colors were on the chart.

I did already know that yellow was the color for "elevated," but I was mildly surprised to be reminded that there were actually two colors, not just one, beneath yellow in the hierarchy of the DHS color code. I actually forgot that there was a color blue on the chart -- which may be just as well, because what are the chances we'll ever see it again in the daily briefings? And green? -it seems relatively safe to assume that we won't be hearing that color called in the near future (if ever). Perhaps the fact that blue and green remain on the chart is a testament to the inexplicable optimism of an agency that never seems to have any good news, but I can't recall what it was actually like before yellow became a way of life in America. Would I recognize the sensation of a day without the specter of yellow or orange in our lives? Would you?

If the President's many warnings about the ongoing nature of the War on Terror are accurate, shouldn't the government come to grips with the reality that, while it may technically signify "elevated" risk, yellow is the new normal. Like it or not, that's the way it comes off to the general public, if they're even paying attention. Your average citizen doesn't see the terror threat level at yellow and scramble to find ways to be more observant or vigilant; he simply looks at it and says, "oh, look, it's yellow again. Hmmm..."

Face it, people hardly wince on the occasions the level reaches orange, which I believe is the color right beneath end-of-the-world red. I'm not suggesting these color-coded warnings should be simply disregarded; in fact, I strongly feel they should mean more, because once we've all become numb to the effects of yellow status, what's the point? And for those who do live in constant fear of the "elevated" threat of terrorism, what kind of life is that? Bruce Schneier, an author and security technologist, wrote an essay on the subject wherein he makes this parallel to the vague earthquake threat that people in California live under:

"According to scientists, California is expecting a huge earthquake sometime in the next 200 years. Even though the magnitude of the disaster will be enormous, people just can't stay alert for 200 years. It goes against human nature. Residents of California have the same level of short-term fear and long-term apathy regarding the threat of earthquakes that the rest of the nation has developed regarding the DHS's terrorist threat alert."

He makes other equally (if not more) compelling points about the approach taken by other countries, like Israel, whose history with combating domestic terrorism is much longer than our own. They don't use color-codes. He also argues that by maintaining a ubiquitously elevated terror threat level we help instill a brand of fear in our more responsive citizens not unlike the fear many terror groups seek to inspire.
I lament that this is the new version of normal. I hate admitting that the incessant terror warnings have worn on me quite a bit, but they have. Like most people, I can't live in a constantly fearful state, dreading what might possibly go wrong if the worst happens. It's almost necessary to good health that I ignore the constant alerts, that I wait for something more substantial than unspecified threats and vague warnings.

It could also be likened to parents who resort to yelling at their children. It works once in a while, but when it becomes a constant, kids adjust and learn to tune it out -- in some cases, they tune it out as a necessary defense mechanism. The problem comes when the parent resorts to yelling to warn his child of truly imminent danger. The child who's gotten used to being yelled at every time he ties his shoes the wrong way, or spills a glass of milk, will be more likely to dismiss the urgency of parental hysterics, even if the hysterics are to warn the child of oncoming traffic.

The same happens when a government elects to speak in a constantly raised voice. Some of us still flinch, but most of us have managed to tune it out. Now what happens when the danger truly is imminent? Too many people were joking about the last orange threat level -- will red be taken that much more seriously? Or have we gotten so used to the myriad unnamed dangers that we'll just shrug it off like we already do with the ever-present yellow?

Has our government gotten into the practice of crying wolf? Should the local traffic report announce that the auto accident threat level has been raised to elevated every morning and afternoon during rush hour? Should McDonald's announce a heart attack threat level of high as the customers walk in the door? Should we wear bells when walking down a hallway at work, just to remind everyone else of the risk of collision as we walk around corners? Maybe, maybe not.

I may not have all the answers, but I'm seriously wondering if, in the absence of a credible and imminent threat, I need to warned every single day of my life about the possibility of a terrorist attack. While I know I can't speak for everybody else, there's a certain indelible image forever on standby in my head: it's the image of an airplane striking a tall building. If the government chose to stop warning me on a constant basis, would I ever really forget that? Isn't that the only thing I really need to remain aware of the possibility of another terror attack?

I'm not saying I don't want to be warned when there's real news for the DHS to report, but in the meantime, I could really do without all the yellow noise.

[sociopolitical] 

Wal-Mart Agrees to Pay Fine in Child Labor Cases

This from the New York Times, chronicling a most improbable tale of child labor violations by the gold standard of labor law compliance in the retail industry.

"Labor Department officials said most of the 24 violations covered by the settlement involved workers under age 18 operating dangerous machinery, including cardboard balers and chain saws. In the agreement, Wal-Mart denied any wrongdoing."

Well, of course they denied any wrongdoing. How dare those anti-business zealots in the Bush Labor Department besmirch the fine reputation of America's finest corporate citizen!

On behalf of all U.S. taxpayers, I would like to offer my sincerest apologies to the big blue retailer for the inappropriate actions of an activist labor department. I demand that my tax dollars be better spent -- on things like welfare measures to supplement the sub-poverty level compensation packages Wal-Mart lavishes on its "associates."

It's things like this that make me feel ashamed to be an American.

[sociopolitical] 

"There's No Crying in Baseball"

Sean Gonsalves has published this piece over at Alternet. In it he deals with the question I've debated with others many times:

"Is it acceptable for blacks to use the n-word while whites are morally castigated for it?"

I have to admit, while I have generally thought of the rampant use of the n-word by some black people as being a double standard, I never really thought of it in the context of some of the slurs that other ethnic groups sometimes throw around jokingly.

I'm not entirely sure whether all ethnic slurs carry equal weight (not my area of expertise), but Gonsalves makes an excellent case that those of us white people who rail against the use of the n-word by blacks may also be guilty of a double standard, at least if we don't also rail against inside use of slurs among other ethnic segments.

[sociopolitical] 

Looking for Love Doesn't Take Long

This WebMD article I just stumbled upon explains a lot to me. We've all heard people give the politically correct answers when asked about who they would or wouldn't consider dating, but this article suggests political correctness flies out the window rather quickly when we see either favorable or unfavorable physical traits.

I always knew this was true, but it's nice to see a study that comes right out and admits it, even if people aren't that honest about it.

I'm sure I'll have another Valentine's Day observation or two as Monday approaches...

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

Here's a brief sample of Melody Joy Kramer's clever commentary on recent paid propaganda scandals:

"... I try to manipulate my readers as much I can. How will I take advantage of the unsuspecting public this week, I muse. Should I use the Jedi mind tricks? Subversive messages? Embedded acronyms? ..."

Or maybe she really does need the money...

Also, thanks to Philly Future for the heads up on the Rittenhouse Review link that led me there.

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

I might have stumbled upon this CNN story sooner or later, but thanks to this post by Nicole over at Lower Merion Grassroots, I was able to glean some more interesting perspective on the abortion struggle within the DNC.

I have been and will most likely continue to be an outsider on sanctity of life issues -- as long as we have one major party banging a drum for the death penalty and the other banging a drum for abortion rights. And then there are other issues, too.

I often lament being the Mr. Potato Head of personal politics, but if the Democrats can show some flexibility on abortion, I might have a chance at rooting for a big party again. Well, it's a lot more likely than Republicans coming around on the rest of their social agenda.

And I kind of like the sound of "Senator Bob Casey, Jr."

Somewhere between tolerance and advocacy: Dr. Dobson's misunderstood crusade

[sociopolitical] 

A note of thanks to an excellent Ales Rarus post, which led me to another excellent post at Christian Conservative -- both were thought-provoking and helpful in putting these thoughts into words.

(This follow-up post was originally spawned by a comment from Steve about the lost differences between tolerance and advocacy -- the comment appears under the January 21 entry "Sure they look harmless...".) The We Are Family Foundation, accused by Dr. Dobson of being concerned with pushing a pro-homosexual agenda, claims to be a group advocating tolerance and respect -- aiming these messages at school children. I posted about this a couple weeks ago, just in passing, mostly because I thought it was a strange and ironic story. Tolerance and respect seem like worthy lessons for today's youth -- God knows so many of them have so little of both qualities.

At the time, much doubt had been cast on Dr. Dobson's claims that the WAFF was a tool of the pro-gay agenda. In the time since, many subtle changes to the WAFF website have come to light, causing me to comprehend Dobson's concerns a bit better. Dr. Dobson may have a valid point about certain pro-gay sentiments being fostered by the WAFF. But the mission of the WAFF, admittedly, is tolerance of those who are different. Within that scope, homosexuality could certainly be seen as a difference, and historically, people have been mistreated for exhibiting even the vaguest symptoms of it. That said, for the sake of argument, I'll allow that Dobson's assertions can be completely proven.

Understanding why Dobson is so concerned about this doesn't stop me from asking, "Is any level of teaching children tolerance of homosexuals acceptable to Dr. Dobson?" Because while I agree with Dobson's beliefs that homosexuality is sinful, I wholeheartedly believe in the old "love the sinner, hate the sin" axiom, and thus the need to teach children to treat all human beings with dignity and respect. My question, which isn't laid to rest at all by the good doctor's letter of explanation, is can we teach our children to treat homosexuals with dignity and respect without crossing the line of what he considers gay "advocacy?"

I was raised in a conservative religious home, and I have always adhered to more conservative Biblical teachings on the subject of homosexuality. My first real-world exposure to homosexuality (of which I'm aware) was in a job I held as a young college student.
The restaurant where I was working hired two new employees, both male, and apparently friends with each other at the least. Some of the mannerisms exhibited by these two young men led most of my co-workers to believe they were gay. As a result of this perception, an alarming majority of my co-workers began harassing these two "gay" men and spreading vicious rumors about them behind their backs.

At one point when I heard one of my co-workers spreading one of these rumors, I confronted him and told him I thought he was acting like a child. With a surprised look on his face, he responded by saying he thought I'd understand. I asked why, and he mentioned that he'd heard I was one of those Christians who thought homosexuality was wrong. I told him I was, but even if these two guys were gay, it wouldn't be okay to treat them so badly, almost like they were sub-human. He just shook his head and went on telling his rumor to someone else.

After a few days, and a few more of these confrontations with various co-workers, I approached my boss and reported to him that these two guys were being picked on mercilessly. He responded by telling everyone to knock it off. This worked for a day or so, after which one of the workers who had spearheaded the campaign of harassment against the two young men reported that he'd been inappropriately propositioned by one of the guys. A day later the one who'd been accused was let go by the boss; the other one ended up quitting a week later (the chorus of harassment had been revived by the departure of his friend).

Some people wonder, "Why do we need to teach our children this tolerance stuff?" The answer is simple. As per the example above (and a thousand other stories just like it), too many children are growing up today thinking it's okay to treat people who are different with little or no respect. It really doesn't matter that we believe their conduct to be sinful -- especially for those of us who are Christians, who've been commanded to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. The most abominable behavior on someone else's part doesn't excuse us from this command, yet we often think that any show of kindness to people whose lifestyles we disapprove of is somehow dangerous, when the deprivation of compassion on such conditional grounds is far more sacrilegious. The mere idea that most of us know we're not perfect, but somehow we paint our faults as being less egregious than that of other people, especially (gasp!) gay people, is sacrilege unto itself.

So, is the We Are Family Foundation a blatant supporter of normalizing homosexual lifestyles? I don't know, but the problem I have with this situation is even if they aren't, if they really are just trying to teach people good old-fashioned tolerance, I'm not sure it would make a difference in the eyes of James Dobson.

Perhaps we wouldn't have to worry about what the world is trying to teach our children if we would just teach them Christian compassion and human decency ourselves. Unfortunately, this theme doesn't seem nearly as prominent as it should be among evangelical Christians; my experience growing up with Dr. Dobson's commentary seemed heavier on judging -- which we're not supposed to do. We tend to forget that our highest commands have to do with showing love, even (or perhaps especially) to those we're sure don't deserve it.

[sociopolitical] 

Sporadic violence doesn't deter Iraqi voters

I have been breathing a slight sigh of relief that the Zarqawi-predicted election day bloodbath did not occur on any large scale, as Iraqis participated in their country's first ever national democratic election process.

One can at least hope that the majority turnout of eligible voters in yesterday's polling might send a message to the insurgents that so many in Iraq are willing to participate in their own nation's future. Well, maybe at least foreign elements like Zarqawi will start to realize how hypocritical they come off when they criticize the U.S. for imposing its will on foreign countries.

Or not.

But I'm still optimistic that the Iraqi people will start to feel a little bit of ownership in their own destiny now.

[sociopolitical] 

In his column "Iraqi election is a story of great courage", The Toronto Sun's Salim Mansur writes:

"The Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's warning to Iraqis ahead of tomorrow's election makes unambiguously clear what the insurgency is about.

"Al Zarqawi warned in a taped message: 'We have declared a bitter war against democracy and all those who seek to enact it.' ..."

It's a good column that sums up what's really at stake this weekend in Iraq. I know quite a few people from each side of the debate on whether or not we should have gone into Iraq, but I'm hoping that wherever we individually stand on the war in Iraq, we can all agree that Zarqawi's agenda is not one with which we should sympathize. All of us who appreciate freedom, no matter whether we're fans of Bush, his policy, or the war, need to be pulling for a high-turnout, low-casualty election tomorrow.

Everyday is dangerous enough in Iraq, but this weekend is an especially good time to pray for threats of violence to come up small.

[sociopolitical] 

I was fascinated by this Alternet story from Dr. Chyng Sun, which begins with the following lines:

"Most liberal-minded people rush to defend pornographers' right to free speech. Maybe we should stop and ponder what we are defending. ..."

I like Alternet, mostly because it provides a liberal online outlet that occasionally manages to defy common expectations and stereotypes associated with liberal or progressive thought. For instance, one common argument expected from liberals when it comes to things like pornography and censorship is a sentiment like: "porn must be protected, not because it's any good, but for the sake of free speech." That is the crux of many an argument against censorship, and though I'm not sure how I really feel about free speech as a crutch for all things foul in our society, I know at least a few liberals who don't buy into it.

The story makes several good points, one of which is the effect of pornography on the expectations of younger people with little or no sexual experience. Sun observes that most interview subjects for an upcoming documentary professed to having first been exposed to pornography in their early teens or younger, and there appear to be links between this exposure and the increasing commonality of casual, detached sexual activity among youth. Sun also notes that in interview subjects of both genders, there were similarities between the gender roles observed in pornographic material and the roles the interviewees seemed to identify with.

And one way that pornography apparently affects men, especially those exposed to it prior to first-hand sexual experience, is that it fosters unrealistic expectations of what real women are like, and Sun suggests that this can actually bring about a fear of or anxiety toward real women -- this general warning was offered to me and my fellow male classmates at the parochial school I attended, and I suppose it's a common enough warning, as it always sounded perfectly sensible.

I tend to think Dr. Sun's observations and conclusions are fairly accurate, but in the end, for some people, it really does come down to whether or not we subjugate these concerns to free speech, or vice-versa.

[sociopolitical] 

I'm no champion of smoker's rights, but there's something chilling about an employment policy that can displace workers for activities like smoking on your own time.

Okemos, Michigan-based Weyco Inc., has instituted a pervasive no-tobacco policy, and has taken to discharging employees who refuse to take a urine test to rule out their use of tobacco products -- on or off the clock. Though it's being done in the name of health and cost-cutting, I have a hard time seeing this withstanding a legal challenge. But if it does, the companies overweight employees are forewarned; Weyco's president plans to target them next.

There are other perspectives in the discussion, like the Detroit News (Firing Smokers Is Wrong Way to Curb Health Costs), the Richmond Times-Dispatch (You vill not smoke -- und ve're not sure ve like your tie, either), and Law.com (Heat Rises Over 'No Smokers Hired' Policy) -- but yours is always appreciated, too.

As a non-smoker, I absolutely applaud not being forced to breath smoky air against our will, but does anyone else think this is a little too much?

[sociopolitical] 

Man gets 10 to 20 years for raping child

-this from the local paper this morning. Apparently 10 to 20 is double the mandatory minimum, a fact which shocked me more than the sentence itself, which I perceived as light on first glance. The man probably needs some heavy duty psychiatric help himself, but neither of the young people involved are likely to ever fully recover from what he did to them.

I have strong feelings about this kind of abuse, and I'm not normally known as the law and order type, but how can 10 to 20 be twice the mandatory minimum for a case like this?

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

Tom Carter has posted consecutive gems that at least peripherally deal with anti-Semitism. The first shares some thoughts on the Holocaust during WW2, and the second is about a news story on some measures being considered in Russia to curb Jewish organizations. It's not a topic I deal with much, if at all, but it still interests me very much, and I consider Tom's posts recommended reading, as so many of them are.

The posts are linked below, by title:
Remembering the Holocaust
Anti-Semitism in Russia

[movies]  [personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

"Is there a cure among us
from this processed sanity?
I weaken with each voice that sings."
-Collective Soul

I just saw The Assassination of Richard Nixon, and I thought it was fairly interesting, not to mention thought-provoking. The movie is based on real events that took place in 1974, and it tries to fill in some of the unknown plot points of a man who hatched his own plan to crash an airplane into the White House. But it wasn't actually about crashing a plane into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, nor was it really about Richard Nixon.

The story is more focused on Sam Bicke, the film's almost sympathetic villain, as he spirals into his own little underworld, descending into a reality where the world is full of lying and deception. He comes to identify Richard Nixon as a target for his frustration, though throughout the movie he finds enough blame for his situation to place on just about every set of shoulders besides his own. Of course, he's not totally off-base in his assessment of society's dishonesty, and certainly the Nixon White House wasn't a bad example of such an ethic, either.

The problem with the Sam Bicke character is his response to the perceived problem. And that led me to consider one question: how did he end up that way? Was it serious mental illness, or was it just a faulty attitude carried too far?

We all know people who blame everyone but themselves for their problems in life. At times, these people even have a point. The problem, as I see it, with the mentality of everything being someone else's fault is that people who become obsessed with it tend to avoid proactive solutions to their problems. They either become involved in an ineffective crusade against whoever they hold responsible, or they become satisfied with living a substandard life and blaming it on someone else. Like I wrote earlier, we all know people like that, and chances are those of us who don't may be those people.

But Bicke's dysfunction seems to relate to a realistic observation, that dishonesty and deception are common in our world. It seems as if he might have been a believer in an admirable set of ideals, only to have been disillusioned. This reminded me of myself, in that I have tried to cling to a lofty set of ideals, even in the presence of overwhelming ugliness and despair. I wonder if that's where the movie's tragic hero comes from, and if the crashing of reality on his dream was all it took for him to come unhinged.

I don't really see myself responding like Sam Bicke, but I often wonder if some day I'll completely let go of my ideals, like the other half of the dysfunctional people out there, not the ones who become infinitely frustrated with the world's imperfections, but the ones who completely, and indiscriminately accept them. I'm not sure which fate would be worse.

[sociopolitical] 

"The biggest regret is that we didn't stop 9/11. And then in the wake of 9/11, instead of redoubling what is our traditional export of hope and optimism we exported our fear and our anger. And presented a very intense and angry face to the world. I regret that a lot."
-Richard Armitage

I posted this quote a couple of days ago over at Philly Future, just because I continue to marvel at how many Bush administration members tend to make less than glowing comments on their way out the door. Given the "liberal" bent of our media here in the U.S. I wonder why I haven't heard more reports of this interview from The Australian.

[sociopolitical] 

Thanks to Bene Diction for the heads up on another grand conspiracy from those insidiously cute children's show characters. And to think, I gave my nephew some Bob the Builder toys for Christmas a couple years ago.

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

I recently started checking out Camassia (she's also linked in the UnRight Blogroll on the left), and I've been impressed by the depth of her writing and the overall thoughtfulness of her site.

In addition to her essays, I especially like the way she groups her links on the side of her blog. (I fall under "pundits in their free time," which, for some reason, tickles me.) Thanks to her link categorizations, I discovered another politically moderate weblog called Ambivablog, which, in turn, pointed me to another good item.

It's an essay by Barney Lerten on the need for a viable political option between the current conservative and liberal extremes that rule our politics. Though I recommend a thorough reading of the entire essay, here's a taste of Barney's logic:

"I want a third party to vote for - not a new, out-there "wing" that's simply lefter than left, or righter than right, or on another plane of existence entirely. But smack-dab in the middle, where most of us live our lives, watching the rhetorical missiles fly over our heads (and sometimes land on them.)"

I know a few people out there will like this one (like maybe Steve and Funky Dung).

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

Dr. Adrian Warnock has awarded the first ever Warnie to Dr. John Mark Reynolds. I saw the news on Ales Rarus, and noticed the good doctor (Warnock, that is) has requested a little publicity for his award winners -- it's just part of his effort to recognize the less-recognized bloggers out there. After zipping over Dr. John's site, I decided it was worth a mention, with or without the plug from Dr. Warnock (though I appreciate him bringing it to our attention) -- especially after reading a recent entry on the Senate confirmation hearings of Dr. Rice. (- "No Proof Rasputin Evil!" Boxer claims. Russian Revolution a mistake!)

(Okay, maybe I did use the "Dr." thing a little gratuitously)

[sociopolitical] 

Weight, Weight, Don't Tell Me

-an interesting Alternet piece on the rise in more aggressive obesity solutions, which apparently aren't just for adults anymore.

I'm not sure where I'd come down on this phenomenon. My initial response to the premise of using surgery on kids was extremely negative, but given some of the specifics mentioned in this article, maybe extreme measures are warranted in certain situations. I assume it has to be better than dying of an obesity-fostered heart attack before your twentieth birthday. Still, it scares me how many young people are rushing in for surgical procedures these days, whether it be a stomach staple or a breast augmentation.

[sociopolitical] 

The lead-in story that prompted this topic is out of the Waco Tribune-Herald, and it's titled "Young workers cautiously optimistic about revamping Social Security."

It's thoroughly troubling how few people my age and younger I've talked to who have no clue about the importance of retirement planning, and often they're the same young people paying almost no attention to the Social Security issue that's saturated headlines recently.

There is no mistaking the reality that, even though the system is not in imminent danger (-no, it isn't going to collapse in the next five years), it is broken and in definite need of fixing. Those who have been pounding their fists on the table for the past few days over the Bush administration's misrepresentation of the Social Security mess are right, but only in saying that the administration has overstated the imminence of the threat; one shouldn't be fooled into thinking, simply because the threat was overstated, that it isn't real. It most definitely is.

On the other side of the issue, the private investment proposals will require an immense commitment to educating citizens on how to invest responsibly. Choices are really only useful to those who know how to make decisions, and many people find themselves in unfamiliar territory when it comes to investing. And the very real danger of simply giving people the opportunity to invest their own money is that someday we may need another layer of social security to bail out those who've made disastrously uninformed choices. Without proper guidelines and educational materials, some people are bound to mistake themselves for day-traders.

Still something needs to happen, to change, if the Social Security system is to remain any kind of use to society. Even as many in opposition to Bush's privatization plans correctly say the system isn't about to disintegrate in the next few years, is that really a justification for society to plant its head back in the sand on this issue? And when people speak of not messing with Social Security, what are they really clinging to -- a system that already fails to provide for those who need it most?
There should be sympathy for those in the most dire situations, those already retired and those within a few short years of retirement. We need to take care of them, because thirty years ago, nobody was warning them to take matters into their own hands (thanks to all the politicians too afraid to tell us the hard truths). For most people heading out of the career phase of their lives, there are no golden parachutes or reliable company pensions, and Social Security checks don't pay anywhere close to what most retired people have been used to making -- and God help those who have any kind of existing debt going in. For these people, Social Security, at least as it is today, needs to stay in place.

It's the rest of us, those who have another 25 or 30 years before retirement, who need to be responsible for ourselves, because when it's time for us to walk out the career door, Social Security simply won't amount to much; it will only work if it's a last resort for those in the most dire straits. If it has to hold up all of us, it's bound to fail. Those of us who have a decent shot at looking out for ourselves absolutely need to, even as we bear much of the benefit burden for those already retired.

I count myself fortunate that when I opened a bank account several years ago, at the age of 24, in a complimentary session with the bank's financial planner, I was strongly urged to begin saving for retirement, advice that I promptly heeded. I may have a certain amount of pension benefits when I'm set to retire, but I've also been contributing what I can into a 401(k) plan for the past seven years.

I may not live like a king in my old age, but I've got a better than average shot because of how early I started saving. I'm planning my retirement as if Social Security won't exist when I'm retired, which is the best approach for younger workers today.

For those reading this expecting a complex position on the Social Security mess, I don't have one. All I'm suggesting is that we take the best care we can of those who didn't have the benefit of advanced warning, and that we who do have some advanced warning simply do what we can to support ourselves when we're old and gray. We've been warned for the future, and we should know enough about the past to understand that counting on the government to provide for us isn't the safest bet. The best chance Social Security has is if it once again becomes what it used to be -- a safety net.

For more information on retirement planning, I've found the tools at CNN Money pretty useful. They have financial calculators and an entire set of tutorials called Money 101, for those unfamiliar with the basics of money management, saving and investments.

[sociopolitical] 

"How much of this is failing flesh?
How much the course of retribution?
My, my, how loudly we plead our innocence
long after we've made our contribution."
-Bill Mallonee

I've never spent much space here on the subject of tort reform, but one line of propaganda that consistently annoys me coming from conservative talking heads (and politicians) is the constant whining about "trial lawyers" and their lecherous, money-grubbing, corporation-suing clients. I listened, often with disdain, to many political voices in recent election cycles who've parroted the familiar mantra about how everything is so expensive because of the trial lawyers, frivolous lawsuits and huge jury verdicts. The problem, as Jim Hightower contends in "Bush's Junk Claim About Junk Lawsuits", is that trial attorneys are not the easy villains we like to make them.

For reasons that aren't easy to hash out right now, I am completely against any of the "tort reform" measures that I've heard proposed recently. I tend to find that people who are gung ho in favor of tort reform, are usually people with little knowledge of our tort system, and often, even less knowledge of the actual measures they nominally support.

Why is it that when we have a crisis like this, we resort to the simplest, most intrusive solution? Why can't we, instead of categorically denying the right of redress, figure out a way to simply discourage the completely meritless lawsuits?

And speaking of meritless suits, why is that many of the same corporations that favor limits on awards, generating calls for an end to "frivolous lawsuits," make up the courtroom demographic that brings the lion's share of frivolous suits and takes home most of the biggest awards? A recent Public Citizen study details how 80% of lawsuits are brought by our upstanding corporate citizens -- the same folks who take the cake when it comes to being punished for "frivolous lawsuits." Just something to keep in mind next time you hear someone claim that most of the baseless suits are brought by personal injury attorneys.

If you need some specific examples of frivolous corporate-initiated suits, check out this interesting site that counts down the top 10 frivolous corporate lawsuits of 2003 (the site does have some language on the periphery, but there's some interesting content on this list).

[sociopolitical] 

Bush: 'Sometimes, words have consequences'

-perhaps there is hope for him yet.

[sociopolitical] 

Bill Would Boost Payment to Killed Soldiers' Survivors

I heard this on NPR while driving to work yesterday, and I thought it was a good idea. Hopefully the legislation will pass, finally raising the benefit from a modest to $12,000 to $100,000. I'd heard a snippet of another military-related story about my home state of Pennsylvania considering a bill to provide certain health benefits to active duty soldiers or guard members and their families -- I couldn't find that online yet, but I'd like to see that one come through too. (Incidentally, if anyone reading this knows more about the latter item, an email or comment with a link to the pertinent story would be appreciated.)

There are a lot of things our government spends money on that have people up in arms, but I tend to think that you can't do enough to reward the sacrifice of military families. Hopefully everyone else agrees.

God's politics

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

Talking Donkeys, a blog whose link can also be found in the UnRight Blogroll on the sidebar, is perhaps one of the best names ever for a Democratic Christian-themed weblog.

In digging through some of the recent posts, one particular post, about the poor fit between popular American political theories and comprehensive Christian teachings, caught my eye right off. The Sojourners article and the book Tim mentions, along with his commentary on the subject, provide an interesting alternative theory for those like me who don't find ourselves at peace with the "godless" left or the "religious" right.

Drawing lines in the middle ground is always harder than adopting extreme measures, but I know there are many out there who'd support a more thoughtful application of religion in politics.

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

Thanks to an email from my brother-in-law, I found out about a blog called The Virtual Salt, in which the blogger chronicles events in the life of his schizophrenic friend. It'll probably be enlightening to many of us who've had little exposure to the mentally ill, which seems to be the author's aim, and that's probably the best effect it could have. All I know is that after reading a couple of the most recent posts, I was compelled to click back into the archives and start from the beginning. I'll be returning soon to read the rest.

The same man, Robert Harris, runs another website, Virtual Salt (no "The"), which offers some interesting resources on different subjects, including writing, education, religion, and internet skills. The one I stumbled across first was a sort of PSA called Gullibility Virus Warning.

I've found both his sites fascinating, and with such variety of content, I'm sure others will also.

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

Columbia House Plans Porn Club

-ran into this news item while sifting through the PhillyBurbs news and politics blog. As an old Midnight Oil song would lament, "Who can stand in the way when there's a dollar to be made?" And there are many dollars to be made in the porn industry.

[sociopolitical] 

"You were talking about the end of the world"
-U2

Congress has passed a "doomsday" plan, freeing it from certain minimum attendance requirements in the unlikely event of certain catastrophic occurrences -- just the kind of news to brighten your outlook...

[sociopolitical] 

Abortion Foe Roemer Running for DNC Chief

In an interesting turn of events this past weekend, it became a possibility that the next head of the DNC has an ever so slight chance of being pro-life. Are Democrats finally developing a sense of self-awareness on the abortion issue?

Over the past decade, while Republicans have allowed many pro-choice politicians to become more vocal in party politics, Democrats have clung to the sacred cow of abortion, showing little respect to any Democratic politician with the temerity to oppose their platform view. There are many in the Democratic party still holding out hope for some genuine wiggle room on this topic (like Democrats for Life), while staunch abortion advocates cling to rhetoric that touts the Dems' abortion stance as if it were centuries-old tradition (note that even some of the most liberal Democratic politicians weren't comfortable with pro-choice position until well into the 1980's).

Well, my position on abortion is already stated several times over in past blog posts (I'm pro-life, for those still wondering), but there are other reasons I think it's important for the Democratic party to seriously consider flexibility on an issue which has yet to build a solid national consensus, especially if they want to regain relevance with any of the less liberal democrats who are slowly drifting to the other side.

It's currently the only national issue on which Democrats are this dogmatic. And if Democrats ever again want to convincingly portray the Republicans as the exclusive party, they're going to have learn a little more tolerance themselves.

A couple related posts I found on this news:
-Democrats: soften hard-line abortion stance (Cave News and Views)
-The direction of the Dem Party: Which side will it take on the abortion issue? (Mr. Left)

[sociopolitical] 

Tom Carter has put up an introspective piece on the battle of the labels. In doing so, he evokes an issue that hits close to many of my concerns about the liberal-conservative paradigm -- that this way of thinking, though extremely convenient for a society bent on quick evaluation, betrays our overall intellectual laziness.

Tom laments that he is neither liberal or conservative, because, like so many of us, he is both. But alas, we are not a society that looks kindly on nuance, hence too many of us claim undying allegiance to ideological templates, most likely because we want to be, or at least to appear, simple and straightforward; perhaps it's that we associate simplicity with honesty and nuance with deception. That's an unfortunate prejudice in itself.

It bears noting that the conservative and liberal labels provide a vital and pragmatic way of defining certain ideas and people, but these labels also provide shortcuts for those of us who are simply too lazy, impatient or hurried to analyze things for ourselves. We are left with too many deferential tendencies, wherein we let ideologically-driven media outlets and special interests serve as disturbing proxies when it comes time to take part in important decisions.

Anyway, Tom's post is intriguing, not only because of his ideas, but also because of the thoughtful comments he's received so far.

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

In response to Magnetic troop support last Wednesday, Jon Sharp wrote:

"We are hosting a site selling Tsunami Remembrance Ribbons giving 45% of ALL our sales to World Vision International (my favorite charity as well). It is not a "TROOP SUPPORT" Ribbon but nonetheless there are SOME people who want to do something commercially to help people in need! And WE manufacture our decals, they are NOT made in China..."

Jon Sharp's company is called Vertigo Creative Concepts, and they are in fact selling such a decal through their tsunami relief site www.ribbonaid.com. Ribbons are $2.50 each, with $1.12 going directly to World Vision for each ribbon sold.

While Mr. Sharp's note wasn't exactly about troop support items, it was worthy of mention, and it does sound like a decent way to support the relief effort.

But back to the topic of troop support, after hearing from Mr. Sharp, I also noticed the local 7-11 selling some camouflage-colored wristbands for $2.99 and giving $1 for every wristband sale to the USO. I guess that's better than nothing, but how much of their net proceeds would that $1 equal?

Meanwhile, pertaining to troop support decals and the like, I located several online companies that claim to give "a portion" of their proceeds to military charities, though for the most part such portions were completely unspecified.

After a modest search, I found at least one online seller of troop support wristbands, One Nation, that was more descriptive, promising to give all net proceeds to families of troops in Iraq and Afganistan, though I have no idea how "all net proceeds" for their wristband compares to 7-11's flat rate of $1 per sale.

All in all though, it's seeming pretty difficult to find a troop support enterprise that lays it all on the line, letting us know percentage of net proceeds and what that amounts to in relation to the entire sale. (I'm still open to readers offering more information on this subject.)

[sociopolitical] 

Did Al Gonzales say the president can authorize torture?

-Chris Suellentrop analyzes yesterday's testimony from AG hopeful Alberto Gonzalez, and his take on the hearings is relatively close to my own.

Also giving voice to my growing concerns were quotes like this one from Lindsay Graham, the only Republican senator to show any outward expression of distaste for Gonzales' hedging:

"I think we've dramatically undermined the war effort by getting on a slippery slope in terms of playing cute with the law...and I think you weaken yourself as a nation when you try to play cute and become more like your enemy instead of like who you want to be."

The ending of the column suggests better answers could have been had if only better questions had been asked -- given the way Gonzales tap-danced his way around most of the important questions, I'm not so sure about that.

[sociopolitical] 

Just a note about yesterday's post in which I took a couple paragraphs too many to suggest two worthy charities I hijacked from Tom -- for those who haven't the patience to wade through all that drivel, here are the important links:

Army Emergency Relief

Fisher House

And Tom also noted in the comments that the other branches of the service have similar charitable organizations:

Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society

Air Force Aid Society

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

The Core 4 posted an entry about the proliferation of magnetic "Support Our Troops" yellow ribbon signs on cars, and it got me thinking. But first, a sample of the entry in question:

"...the fact is, that the vast majority of these magnets are made in China. The sale of these magnets do not support our troops in any real financial sense whatsoever. They provide profit for the companies that have contracted cheap labor in a third world country. That way, we can buy our 99 cent easily removable magnetic sticker (we wouldn't want our unwavering patriotism to mar the finish of the SUV) and slap it on the back of the vehicle without actually getting into the messy logistics of truly supporting our troops."

The post seems to lament a couple things. First, that most people who simply slap these signs on their cars probably don't truly support the troops in any exceptional way. In terms of money (i.e. taxes) most of us actually support the troops, whether or not we choose to announce our patriotism with a magnetic decal (not that there's anything wrong with that).

I feel a lot of the same reaction when I see this type of decal on every other car on the road. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a bad thing to show support, but it's a better thing to give support. I like to think that people sporting these decals truly have their hearts in the right place, and certainly, the mere appearance of such a sign may well remind other motorists who haven't already become numb to its sight. Unfortunately, I know some people with such car markings who make me wonder if they even give the troops another thought once they've slapped the magnet on their car.

Second, these decals may well be a means for some cynical business to capitalize on an honorable public sentiment. In the event that any of the businesses manufacturing, marketing or selling these items are, in fact, making substantive contributions to veterans' causes out of their sales, I commend them -- but recent history is rife with such attempts by those whose only consideration is profit.

In the event that such businesses are soliciting suggestions for what to do with said profits, I personally have a soft spot in my heart for the many American families whose incomes are drastically affected by having a spouse and/or parent deployed overseas. Just before Christmas, Tom Carter posted links to two organizations that help provide assistance to military personnel and their families in various times of need. Army Emergency Relief and Fisher House are both excellent destinations for whatever excess profits are gained from the sale of the aforementioned troop support decals.

Just a thought, or if normal everyday folks want to support these causes, that's not a bad idea either.

Incidentally, if anyone reading this knows of a company that markets these troop support items and does use the profit to support our troops in a tangible way, I'd love to hear about. I intend to try to find out more myself.

Thanks for reading.

[sociopolitical] 

U.S. military on relief mission

I have no special point here, except to draw attention to a completely positive story regarding our fine military men and women. It's good to see a story that shakes some of the negative images that are often cast on our military personnel. It's far from the first time our armed forces have been deployed for non-military purposes, but I wanted to draw a little more attention to it, because these items don't always get as much press as they should.

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

I have been out of the blog-loop for a day or so, but just a little bit ago I came across a mention at the Ratlands of some satellite photo galleries from Digital Globe. They chronicle the devastation wrought by last week's tsunami. Even from high above the earth, it's pretty compelling, especially at first glance, to see the lingering effects of what took only a couple hours to happen.

[personal/blog] [sociopolitical] 

Feeling like a bit of an idiot, I noticed after posting the last entry about how to help disaster victims in Asia that my own adopted charity, World Vision, has their own established relief efforts in that part of the world, and they are appealing to donors. I don't advocate replacing your current charity with the one I've chosen, but if you don't have a charity in mind and you'd like to help, I might suggest World Vision, which has posted a page of the Top 10 myths of disaster relief. You may find it informative, or not, but I couldn't let the new year get too old without plugging them in another blog post.

[personal/blog]  [music] [writing/literature] [sociopolitical] 

"When the flood calls
You have no home, you have no walls.
In the thunder crash
You're a thousand minds, within a flash.
Don't be afraid to cry at what you see..."
-Peter Gabriel

I've been a little numb on the writing side this week. It was supposed to be the ideal week to relax a little, start reading some new books, and maybe write something worth reading.

Then Sunday came. And I've been internally preoccupied ever since.

I did start in on some new reading material I received for Christmas, but I haven't gotten far with it. And the writing end of things has been stifled quite a bit by the oceanic events that have infiltrated the entire blogosphere, including this small corner of it. I don't mean to suggest that an event the magnitude of last Sunday's earthquake-induced tsunami belongs anywhere but on the front burner -- however, I seem to have been saturated to the point that I wish I could write intelligently about something, anything, else. And in the absence of a decent post without tsunami content, I wish I could have written something more profound about it, as Steve did in yesterday's post. At the very least, I'd like to publicly thank my brother-in-law for filling in a bit yesterday.

The quote at the head of this post is from a Peter Gabriel song called "Here Comes the Flood", which I've had in my CD collection for about ten years. It floats back into my head every time I hear news of any kind of water-related tragedy, from the flooding that seems to periodically trouble the Midwestern U.S. to hurricanes in the Caribbean to things like the tsunami that has led to the perpetually rising body count in Southeast Asia. The tone of the song is quiet, slow and sad. I've appreciated the song over the last decade or so, the way that a tragic song could only be appreciated by someone with no realistic frame of reference on the tragedy being described.

I sometimes wonder if there isn't something cheap about my vicarious experience through such a sad song. I have not even the most remote idea what it is to flee the crashing waves. Most of us have no idea of it, as most of us, even this short distance from lower Manhattan, have no clue what horror was experienced by those who died, or even those who narrowly escaped the falling towers.

But sympathy, even as it falls far short of true empathy, is better than callous disregard, is it not? That's the question I've held silently these past few days, as I notice how many people are literally oblivious to the worldwide news from this past weekend. Some of the same people no doubt would have thought of people in the middle east as callous or even hostile to not express sympathy for the U.S. in the wake September 11.

My point is not to draw any blatantly apples-and-oranges comparisons, but to note how we tend to think our tragedies more tragic than those that happen on the other side of the world. Causes aside, the deaths of tens of thousands (close to 70,000 at last count I received) can not be considered anything less than supremely, profoundly, tragic. But many of us here in the U.S. are still oblivious to it.

The rest of us just wish we could be.

[sociopolitical] 

by Steve Nicoloso

(I've been attempting to post a message very much like this one over at Ales Rarus, but have been unable to upload. An essay quite similar to one may appear there at some point in the future, but considering the timely nature of these musings, I've begged the indulgence of H² to post it here.)

The problem of evil has long been one of interest to me. This problem, concisely stated, pits the existence of evil against the presumed goodness of God, e.g., if God is good and all-powerful, why does he let planes crash? By my estimation, the lion's share of the problem of evil is the suffering inflicted by men & women upon their fellow creatures. Thus for me, very little of the problem of evil is really a problem with God at all, except perhaps with him having made us freewill creatures, with inherent abilities toward evil, in the first place. While I suppose we could fault God for having created us this way, if he hadn't there wouldn't now be anyone or anything capable of finding such fault. In the main, I'd say we're better off having been created with free will.

But when 9.0 earthquakes happen, resulting in catastrophic tsunamis, and death, suffering, and loss for untold millions, this is a problem with God, is it not? That's why there's that bit in our insurance policies about "Acts of God", right? Surely no human agency can prevent earthquakes and tsunamis. In such instances, the wisest and most godly must simply admit that God's ways (if we take by faith such ways exist) are simply inscrutable.

Nevertheless, at least some of the time with catastrophic "Acts of God", a big piece of blame continues to rest on our own mortal shoulders. Across the world, those most at risk of pain and suffering due to "Acts of God" are the poorest and least powerful among us. That's why the 1970 typhoon in Bangladesh killed around a million, and not 1/100th of that number. That's why Hurricane Mitch in 1998 could kill around 10,000 in Honduras, but 4 hurricanes hitting Florida in 2004 only a few dozen. And that appears to be why Sunday's Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis are to be blamed for (at most recent count) over 50,000 deaths instead of just a couple thousand. Warning systems could have been installed. Civil governments could have had means and methods of warning and evacuating the public.

They could have, but they didn't. And that is because the poor and powerless can't afford (or are not judged worthy to have) such systems, which we in the wealthy west would surely take for granted. This article over at CNN tells us:

Most of developing Asia lacks such infrastructure, and casualties were by far highest in three highly impoverished areas -- the coasts of eastern Sri Lanka and southeastern India, and the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island.

Now we could argue about why the east coasts of India and Sri Lanka, and the northern tip of Sumatra are so poor, or so poorly served by their civil governments, or both. But that is not the point. Suffice it to say that, as usual, a grossly inequitable distribution of wealth is to blame for most of the pain & suffering caused by an "Act of God". While we in the west sip our lattes, drive our climate-controlled SUVs, and relax in our super-sized McMansions, a significant portion of the world lives in bone-crunching poverty, fully exposed to and at the mercy of the "Acts of God."

So go ahead and blame God, if you must. But only blame him for his part. The rest of the responsibility, the vast majority of it, belongs squarely to us.

Red Cross calls for quake aid

The tsunami waves sent by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake onto Asian shores have left survivors with the terrible task of trying to restart their lives, while the death toll continues to rise, though we may be days, if not weeks, from knowing the real numbers. Prayers and thoughts should also go to the many profoundly affected by this sudden tragedy.

The Red Cross is calling for monetary donations to help deal with the aftermath of this disaster. Aside from the dead and injured and homeless, the affected areas will likely struggle with waterborne diseases like malaria and diarrhea, as well as respiratory tract infections.

Today's two posts haven't exactly relayed the happiest of news, but this is the news that I came back to, and it's definitely worth mentioning, even though most people have already heard the news.

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day to talk about my Christmas gifts -- I definitely hope so.

Update: Mouse Musings has posted a whole list of information for various relief agencies, for anyone inclined to donate to help the victims of the Asian earthquake/tsunami.

(the title is an acknowledgement of a friend whose four-year-old doesn't yet completely grasp the lyrics to "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer")

It is now the day before the end of epic consumption for the Christmas-celebrating population. Millions will be swarming malls everywhere today, as their deadline draws near. Holiday music is ubiquitously piping through these great halls of commerce, but its time is quickly running out. Families are traveling, including members of my own family -- for me, the driving probably won't begin until tomorrow morning (because in another nod to materialism, I'm working this evening).

Tomorrow, I will most likely post no more than a brief Christmas greeting, not likely to exceed two words. Today, I leave you with three posts, this being the last of them. These are a few simple wishes, or maybe just hopes:

I hope that everyone still shopping for Christmas gifts keeps in mind that the best things that can be given still can't be bought with any amount of cash or credit.

I hope that people on the roads today can find the grace, patience and discipline to not drive aggressively, recklessly or intoxicated.

I hope that those who are alone this holiday season don't feel it too much so.

The above hope goes at least double for those serving far from home this Christmas, some in more dangerous places than I will ever see; I hope and pray for the safe and relatively quick return of all of them. And I pray for their families to be comforted and provided for until they return.

And finally, I hope that those of us who celebrate Christmas as Christians would keep in mind the grace brought by a baby in a manger a long time ago, and that we'd continually realize the most vital examples from his life were ones of compassion, sacrifice and humility, not self-righteousness, greed or pride.

Omni posted an essay yesterday that offers the non-Christian perspective on why some people think so lowly of Christianity. Relax, she keeps it civil, and maybe it would be useful for some of us who are Christian to keep some of her essay in mind when we interact with those who don't believe as we do. I don't completely agree with her reasoning, but I definitely see what she's saying.

It's a shame Omni doesn't allow commenting, because many of her posts are good conversation-starters -- but I see where a comment thread on this particular post could go awry. Probably the same reason Den Beste never allowed live comments? Hmmm... anyway, anyone with comments on Omni's post can comment here (in abbreviated fashion -- sorry Steve).

I just came across this entry at Rishon Rishon, many thanks to Bene Diction for the heads-up. I'd never had much insight into the background of Steven Den Beste's retirement from the legendary essay blog USS Clueless, but the aforementioned Rishon Rishon post casts some informative light on the subject by cataloging some comments from Den Beste himself. This comment collection was an eye-opener for me, and I'm a little bit sadder for having read it, but as someone who was challenged many times by his writing, I have a renewed sense of appreciation for his work.

For anyone who appreciates fine analytical essays who isn't already familiar with the name Steven Den Beste, I'd say you missed out. I would say you missed out, but apparently you haven't yet. As a result of skimming the Rishon Rishon entry I linked at the top of this post, I was prompted to once again visit the old USS Clueless page, where I discovered that Den Beste has made his writings from the site available in a zip file for anyone who's inclined to download them. I have, in fact, just finished downloading the file for myself. I know there are other folks out there who would be inclined to do the same; I'm just trying to make sure they know about it.

Thanks again SDB.

Michelle Malkin wrote a worthwhile critique of current air marshal policies that may be inhibiting their effectiveness.. I'm not a regular Malkin reader; otherwise I would have noticed this on her website a few days ago, rather than wait for it to hit the pages of the Philadelphia Daily News just yesterday. Since I get the sense that maybe some of my readers aren't necessarily Malkin fans, I thought I'd point this one out.

If you are a Malkin fan, please pardon the redundancy.

I've recently been engaged in a comment discussion at Ales Rarus about the appropriateness of religious leaders making declarations from the pulpit regarding issues that are also political. It's fascinating, and I can see where people who are against this sort of thing get their rationale; I don't entirely disagree. I think it's a little scary to have religious leaders invoking God's will into presidential politics, which is something that happened on both sides this past election season, but I don't think the problem is at all related to the establishment clause -- that is, unless religious leaders are making such statements in the public forum under the guise of church teaching. Otherwise, it just seems a lot better left to the churches involved to decide what's appropriate within their own confines.

Of course the other great issue in that debate has to do with the non-profit status of churches, but keep in mind that a churches non-profit status isn't born from a lack of political involvement, but rather the fact that they aren't for-profit organizations. And it seems a little creepy to me that so many people (many of whom let their voices be heard when certain Catholic leaders made general statements about not supporting pro-choice candidates) think the federal government should ostracize private non-profits simply because their principles coincide with hot political issues.

Keep in mind, for instance, that religious groups had positions on things like abortion, civil rights and slavery long before the government became willing to deal with them. According to the model that some people have, the church should cease speaking on certain issues once the federal government (or perhaps, the general public) starts to acknowledge that the issues exist. It doesn't seem to be an idea that makes any sense when you consider the establishment clause of the Constitution (often euphemistically referred to as the "separation of church and state") was intended to protect religious practice from the government.

People who argue against church leaders spouting rhetoric that happens to oppose the issue du jour seem to be of the mind that the establishment clause also implies protecting the state from any form of religious influence. Then it follows that religious leaders are also prohibited from influencing their followers (who then might influence government in some way). This is nonsensical. Religious institutions have always had a right in this country to influence the hearts and minds of their own attendees, and those attendees, as individuals in this society, have the right to influence government as their conscience leads.

There seems to be a popular misconception that was furthered by certain statements from figures like Senator John Kerry this past year: that people can have their faith, but that their faith should have no influence on their politics or decision-making. I don't know who came up with this concept, but it falls amazingly short of what I have always believed about spirituality: a person's spirituality always has, at the least, implicit principles. It follows that if you truly believe in a principle, then that principle will show in your actions. People who are more concerned with curbing religious leaders from sharing interpretations of principle with church-goers seem to think that not only can we separate our belief systems from our actions, but furthermore, that we should separate the two. As my mind tires of trying to figure out this argument, I honestly believe that is the real dividing line in the debate.

(I am pleased to present this guest appearance by my brother-in-law, Steve.)

My children were asking me recently, as they do every year, what I wanted for Christmas. And I, having the genetic disposition to not really care much for receiving presents, and wanting nothing in particular, told them what I really wanted: their success. Yes, what I wanted was for them to grow up to be godly, successful in their endeavors, and to be happy. And in exchange for this I would gladly forego any Christmas or birthday presents for the rest of my life. And this I would do, gladly. What father wouldn't?

In this I am reminded of C.S. Lewis' bit about the child who uses his father's money to buy him a small gift. Although the father is thrilled with gift, even though it was bought with his own money, only a fool would think the father is richer for it. Such is our relationship to God... only more so. (For those who don't know, this where the band Sixpence None the Richer took their name.) My children can't really enrich me with any gift they might purchase at store with their allowance. But my how they can do so by living lives well lived!
But now that I think about it, there is something I would really like. And though my kids might play a small role in procuring it for me, I doubt they can afford it all on their own. What I would really like to get for Christmas is the world that ought to be. Yes, I would like a world like the one promised, the one longed for.

I want a world at peace. I want a world where wicked leaders and their plans are brought to nothing. I want a world where those blessed with abundance willingly and cheerfully share with those less fortunate. I want a world where, when women and children are kidnapped, exploited, and trafficked to serve the greed and lusts of men, the whole world hears of it, condemns it, and does something the hell about it. I want a world where 13 year old boys don't have to choose between the suffering of their families and joining renegade militias, where they will learn the arts of rape, torture, and murder. I want a world, where no amount of demagoguery can incite even one man to take up a machete against his own neighbors. I want a world where the sick are cared for, the naked clothed, the hungry fed, the ignorant taught, the repentant forgiven. Yes, this would be the perfect gift for me.

But wait a minute! Isn't this the gift that Jesus was supposed to be? So where is the promised peace? Where is the good will toward men? Where is the guarantee of justice? Let's not for a moment assume some "spiritualized" notion of this so called peace and so called good will and so called justice. For this would be to emasculate our religion of any real power. Instead let's assume, because it is true, that it is God's absolute and unambiguous will that there be real peace, real good will, and real justice on earth. Moreover, let us assume, because it is true, that his will is for right now, and not some non-corporeal future state of bliss. For any God whose will does not include such things is certainly not a god worthy of our devotion.

Ah, but any god worthy of our devotion would also surely be powerful enough to rid the world of evil, right? Well God can't do everything. He can only do things that are logically possible. And it is not logically possible for God to create free will beings in his own image, and then force them, against their will, to do his will. We might as well ask God to make square circles or blue redness. And of the world's horrors that need be eliminated for me to get my perfect Christmas package, all of them stem directly from the actions and desires of morally corrupted free will beings.

So at the cosmic level, though we might wish it weren't true, God mysteriously allows human free will to trump his own. Yet we are called to believe, even in the face of seemingly impossible odds, that this self-imposed weakness of God will somehow accomplish his purposes--that this weakness will somehow prove stronger than the corrupted strength of man.

Thus we find in Bethlehem, 2000 years ago, a theodicy, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. Here is a Prince of Peace so helpless to bring peace and justice, that hundreds of children die in his stead as a monomaniacal King Herod seeks to stamp out the "Newborn King." And this is only the beginning. Not considering equality with God something to hold onto, this so-called king's self-imposed weakness and helplessness persists, not bruising a reed, not quenching the smallest wick. So it goes, right up til the end when the very hands that formed the iron are pierced by it. And the very creator of the tree is nailed to it. Such is the strength of the weakness of God.

So it turns out that the gift I want, the world as it ought to be, is fully contingent upon our gifts to God. And the gift that God wants this Christmas is the same gift I told my children about: for all of his children to live well, to live lives worthy of the calling with which he's called us into his glorious light, to live lives of self-giving sacrifice in the microscopic recesses of our daily lives. For in doing so, we find that it is in us and by our actions, living in the strength of Christ's weakness, that these promises are fulfilled: peace, justice, and mercy flowing to the world's nooks and crannies wherever we bring them.

And with all this, of course, the Father is very well pleased. But lest we become too puffed up, remember that we would be fools to think he is any richer for it. The power came from him to work through us in the first place. We are the ones who are the richer.

-Steve Nicoloso, Second Executive Assistant to the Blogger

I titled this post the way I did for a reason. It was meant to illustrate one of the popular societal trends that particularly annoys me. I'll call it the "don't offend" trend. Do you know whereof I speak?

This trend can be found in many corners of society. The "holiday" season only provides a narrow glimpse into the crux of it. It's not just about the prohibition of religious specific language in public life, but also about how stupidly we pursue this strange ideal. We bend over backwards to appease those we fear offending, even when they couldn't care less. Our tendency towards tolerance for the minority view has been turned inside out to the point that it reeks of intolerance toward anyone in the majority.

We don't let Christmas decorations into public schools anymore -- many districts won't even allow the word Christmas, even in the labeling of the vacation days that just happen to fall right around December 25. It's likely that many who celebrate Christmas aren't really celebrating a religious holiday at all -- for most people it's just another excuse to spend money, exchange gifts, perhaps attend a few extra parties, or in a more noble mindset, a great excuse for family gathering (though some might argue family gatherings aren't the most enviable situations).

So really, when most of us say the word "Christmas", are we really cognizant of the word's meaning? Are we really thinking of it as the celebration of Christ? Or are we thinking about the trappings that have been shrewdly tied to the original meaning? Maybe we should ban people from using the word "Christmas".
-not all people mind you. And certainly not for fear of offending those in our society who don't celebrate Christmas. Do it for the fact that by allowing the rampant use of the word to describe what it was never supposed to describe, we have allowed it to be diluted of its real meaning. I would encourage those who honestly see it as a celebration of Christ's birth to continue using the word "Christmas". In fact, use it until your voice goes hoarse on you. But for those who don't see Christmas for what it is, maybe another term would be more fitting, more honest.

But that aside, is it really a constitutional concern whether or not someone says the word "Christmas"? Like I was pointing out earlier, how many people even see it as a religious matter? I know several people who celebrate Christmas without its religious inspiration -- what of them? Are they saying a dirty word when they unwittingly offend a non-Christmas person by saying a word that, to them, has no spiritual meaning? Should banks be sued for closing on Christmas, but not honoring Kwanzaa or any of the days of Hanukkah? The Post Office?

The list of theoretical offenses could drag on for miles, but the point is that if someone really has a problem with the idea of Christmas, that person's got more to worry about than a public school teacher or some civil servant using the word -- if that person really wishes to sanitize religious (read that "Christian") references from our culture, he would need to aim much higher. Such a bold crusader would need to wipe the influence of abominations such as Christmas from places as high as the federal government (which does, in fact, bestow special status on the 25th, simply because of Christmas).

But our brave anti-Christmas warrior needs to be prepared for more than just a throng of angry Christians -- he'd also have to fight off a formidable corporate structure that relies on Christmas sales to bolster profits. Then there's organized labor, and so on. The point is, it's a tough road to travel, if you really wanted to take it so far.

But the scary thing is, some people actually do.

Cziltang has posted a profound piece about how so many of us who have spent our entire lives in this country often overlook the simpler blessings in our lives. We, as U.S. citizens, do tend to be melodramatic about the negative aspects of American life. But the truth is, unless we are intimately familiar with the truly horrible conditions under which so many people in the world live, it's too easy to forget how good we really have it.

For a brief reminder, wander over to yesterday's post in the Ratlands.

"Richard Corey" by Edwin Arlington Robinson

-this poem is linked, at least in my memory with another Robinson poem, "Miniver Cheevy" (which I linked to a couple weeks ago). We studied the two poems side by side, with our teacher using "Miniver Cheevy" as a cautionary tale about those who complain too much based on the wrong criteria. This poem was the one about how even those with outwardly glamorous lives can be profoundly sad on the inside.

Activists Dominate Content Complaints

I wasn't really in the spirit of blogging most of this week, which is an odd reason to have no real content these past three days, because I really do try to maintain a consistent rate of drivel here at the smedley log, regardless of inspiration. I have been a little busier than usual with school work (end of the semester very soon), and a couple other matters of planning related to this weekend. That aside, I had to link to the above-mentioned story from MediaWeek.com. It underscores the reason why the popular outcries we often hear about in the news aren't always such popular things after all.

"I am blinded by need when it is only desire..."
-Guilded Lilies

Two recent things reminded me of this subject. One was a song off the new U2 album called "Crumbs from Your Table". The other was a recent post on Ales Rarus called "Green Chri$tma$". I'd be remiss if I didn't also give a little credit to the song from which my lead-in quote was taken (a song called "Needs of Another" that, sadly, has yet to make it past the analog format, unlike a handful of Guilded Lilies demos). The idea that has stricken me so, especially in the context of the Christmas shopping season, is that so many people feel pressured to spend, spend, spend -- and usually on things that are far from necessary.

Beyond exceeding necessity is the rampant ignorance of those in our world who have true needs. Using the term ignorance to describe this phenomenon will probably be met with skepticism, but it's true. We may see the news of those in third world countries, or even those in the parts of this country that merely resemble the third-world in many ways, but are we actually aware of these hardships? I wonder sometimes. And if we believe ourselves to be truly aware, what do we do about it? How many of us believe we have a responsibility to do anything? I suppose for those reading this who have no spiritual or conscientious impetus to act on such problems, this type of diatribe is fairly useless, but what about the many people of faith in this world whose religious/moral directives are intimately connected to caring for the less fortunate?

Part of this problem may be the paradigm that many Christians hold, the idea that if you're a good Christian, God will bless you with material wealth. I know Christians who look at the less fortunate accordingly, not as a group of people they've been commanded to help, but as a class of people who've obviously shunned God, hence they deserve whatever lowly condition they happen to be in -- meanwhile those of us with jobs, health insurance and other things we refer to as basic needs, well, we must've done better in God's eyes.

Most Christians in our society tend to think that what we have is ours to keep, and charity is just something you do with your spare resources (what's leftover after we've satisfied our own desires). We feast on what we have, as though we truly deserve it; meanwhile the needy are generally relegated to mere crumbs from the table. And far too many of us are okay with that.

I usually take part in the alternative custom of buying nothing on Black Friday, but yesterday there were a couple exceptions. One was the purchase of sorely needed shoes, and the other was three dozen apple cider doughnuts from The Market at Styer's Orchard just down the road from me. I only bought the shoes because the last pair seemed to have spontaneously self-destructed the other day, and I had to go into work for a few hours last night.

I took the cider doughnuts in to work with me, because on days that are holidays (for everybody except a skeletal crew in my department) there are only a dozen or so people there, and even after nine years, I'm still trying to make friends at work. Apple cider doughnuts are good for this, because people who've never had them, even people who are determined not to like them, almost always fall in love with them. Then they ask for the next several months when I'm going to bring in more cider doughnuts, but not wanting to spoil them (or contribute too much to anyone else's poor health), I generally only bring them in once in a blue moon.

Styers Orchard has made and sold these cider doughnuts for about fifteen years or so. When they first started making them, they only made a few dozen a day and the price was a quarter a doughnut. Now they often make several trays full of them and sell them for about four dollars a dozen (I'm not up on the individual price). Though not well-known, they're quite popular to those who are familiar with them, and I've noticed that even though there are other places that have marketed doughnuts under the name "Apple cider doughnuts", they rarely taste the same anywhere else. I've loved them since my own misspent youth, but I generally don't go near them more than once or twice a year these days, mostly for health reasons.

The hours spent working last night were brief, and having dispensed two dozen cider doughnuts into the hands of various co-workers, I left work with a dozen to spare. I knew it wasn't a good idea to carry them all the way home, where they would eventually become an irresistibly unhealthy temptation. So as I drove home the long way in freezing temperatures, I passed by the local turnpike interchange, where ten or so striking employees were picketing in the cold. I decided to turn around and see if anyone was hungry.

As I pulled up to the picket line and parked, a few of them looked my way, probably to see if I was one of their co-workers. I got out of the car with a white box of doughnuts in my hands and said hello. I introduced myself and asked if they wanted some apple cider doughnuts.

I've been a union member for over nine years now, but this was the first time I'd ever approached another union's picket line and offered food to picketers. I recalled my mother once bringing coffee to some picketers once or twice, but I'd never done that sort of thing -- I had visions of people getting suspicious of me, thinking I was trying to lure them with poisoned doughnuts. But they were very friendly -- trusting and appreciative, too.

As I talked to a few of them, cars drove by, to and from the turnpike toll booths, some honking and waving to show support; others just drove by ignoring the strikers, and some even shouted and gestured toward the picketers in less friendly terms. I wondered how many of the people driving by had any idea why the strike was taking place. I wondered this mainly because the local news media doesn't really give much coverage to the situation, despite the amount of people who are being affected by it. And the coverage that is available is so vague that it's impossible to be truly informed if that's all you know of the situation.

After several minutes, and a seeming drop in my body temperature, I bid them farewell, shivered my way back to my car, which was (thankfully) still warm, and I made my way home, unlike my new friends, who carried signs, waved good night and ate apple cider doughnuts.

"Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?"
-George Bernard Shaw

I was thinking more about materialism, and it occurred to me that perception seems to be the biggest perpetuating force behind our culture of "having".

How many times have you judged someone based on superficial criteria? If you are of a dating mindset, how many times have you passed up approaching someone you were considering talking to simply because you noticed some physical flaw? What about because of the clothes a person wore or the car they drove?

Have you ever seen a couple walk by and wondered how one person could be happy with the other, vis-a-vis one person looks much more "beautiful" than the other, or perhaps when neither person strikes you as being very attractive? I will confess I have, but it's been a while, and the last time it happened, I probably didn't have a very sophisticated understanding of adult relationships.

I was confronted by a disturbing statement from a friend of mine who lamented that good looking people always seem to end up together and then all the ugly people are stuck with each other. This person went on to wonder why she had to settle for an ugly guy just because she doesn't think she's very pretty.

Beyond it being a good question, it struck me as being one with the mindset that favors the good looking over the not so good looking, which is what it seemed she was complaining about in the first place. If you don't think physical appearance should be the dividing factor in who dates who, why would you then assume the same sort of bigotry for yourself?
For my own experience, I've dated a variety of females. Some have been what my friend would call "good looking", and some have been more off-beat in their appearance. But all of them had something that attracted me. It was sometimes a physical characteristic, maybe a smile or a stunning pair of eyes; sometimes it was more about a personality that impressed me to the point that nothing else could have mattered to me; often, charm played a vital role in the attraction, and usually it was a combination of all the preceding qualities.

For all the superficial differences I could gather about all these women, most of them seem qualitatively similar. And, believe it or not, external (fake) beauty is not always proportional to internal (real) beauty -- I can think of at least one instance in which this idea proved painfully true.

I've had enough experience to recognize how misleading it can be to "judge a book by its cover", yet the misperception thrives in many people's minds. Going past dating experience, I can say that some of the most seemingly abnormal people I've ever met are coincidentally among the most sane, and often most intelligent, people I've ever known. And some of the blandest looking books contain the most interesting, inspiring stories, but those who only look at the surface tend to miss these things, and they rarely realize what they're missing.

And while it's disturbing enough to think of other people as irreparably ugly, it's equally disturbing to think of yourself this way. The materialistic paradigm says you're only as good as you look to other people. Those who crave the "good" life from afar might believe if they were just a little wealthier, or if they were thinner, taller, prettier or more handsome -- then life would be better. Many people adopt this paradigm because in looking from afar, it's easy to miss the flaws and miseries that accompany such a hollow thesis.

What sticks out as analogous to me is the concept of architecture wherein if you wish to build a good house, you need to start with the substructural foundation. Then you move to the frame, and so on until you get to the outer shell. The outer shell, no matter how pretty, is rarely sufficient without the inner workings -- the structure you can't see gives the house its most vital support. In other words, a house with a bad foundation and termite-ridden frame can't be rescued by aluminum siding.

Too many people are falling into the trap of believing if they change the outer perception, that will be enough to compensate for the flaws in the inner structure. But it never is.

I wonder how many people realize that.

"My possessions are causing me suspicion, but there's no proof."
-Crowded House

At work last night, I was thinking of materialism, greed and our American obsession with "having." I hadn't been online since yesterday morning, so I didn't get a chance to notice that a post on Ales Rarus yesterday had much to do with the same topic. Poor me, I got in on this a little late, but it's still a worthy topic. In his post, Funky notices some of the incomplete nature of Christian political activism:

"Tying this into the Red vs. Blue craziness, I find it interesting that Red Christians get most of the moral teachings right but disregard the economic teachings, and the Blue Christians get the economic teachings while mostly ignoring the moral teachings. As a Purple Christian, I find this to be very frustrating."

I like the term "Purple Christian," especially when discussing the red state / blue state phenomenon. I probably appreciate it because I identify with it, apparently in many of the ways that the Funky man does. I do find it frustrating that many religious liberals endorse the the sanctity of choice, while many religious conservatives endorse the Godliness of greed. And yet both sides have positions in other areas that are more in line with Christian principle, but it seems neither side has the complete package.

Of course, the interesting similarity between both sides is that when you come to some of the "Christian" issues being ignored, each side will defend itself by maintaining that while these are good ideals for individuals, it isn't the government's place to facilitate society's spiritual cooperation. At the same time, each side does embrace a certain set of forced moral values. Each side will tell you they believe some things should be mandated by the government, while other things aren't the government's business.

One of Funky's key points, and a point I was hoping to make before he beat me to it, is that we shouldn't settle for half of the ideal. In his post, he might seem to couch the struggle in terms of "moral imperatives" versus "social justice." In reality, both sides fall under the umbrella of the morally imperative, and when seen that way, there really is no conceptual struggle. Stopping halfway was never part of the plan.

I still remember going to see a Nixons concert scheduled for same day we heard Spiro Agnew had died and finding out the concert was canceled when we got to venue. I'm still not sure if they canceled the show out of deference to Agnew's passing, or for some other reason -- but I've always wondered.

Whatever the case, we walked over to South Street and window shopped at Tower Records, got some ice cream and eventually went home.

I was just driving into the city last night and I crossed Arch Street, on which the Trocadero, the venue the Nixons were supposed to play that night, is located. I guess the question just popped back into my head as I was driving through the city -- to be honest, I think that thought crosses my mind every time I go through that section of the city. I know it's strange, but that's all you getting for a Monday post from me.

To open things up early this Sunday morning (very early), I would like to acknowledge that two significant females are celebrating birthdays today, neither of which will be mentioned by name. One is a lovely niece of mine, and the other is my esteemed f3 (favorite female friend). I hope both events go extremely well.

Speaking of my f3, I have been thinking about a movie we saw a while back that I thought was a very well-made, poignant film based on true events that occurred in Australia. It's called Rabbit-Proof Fence. This feature chronicles the story of three aboriginal girls who escape from a government-sponsored camp in 1931 to try to get back to their mother, using the rabbit-proof fence that bisects the continent as a guide to get back home. I don't want to write too extensively about the story line, except to say that I found it extremely interesting and provocative, especially in the sense that it spurred me to do some research on my own about the historical context of the subject matter. It is rated PG, and should be suitable for family viewing, except that some of the social implications of this story will be lost on some younger viewers.

I highly recommend this film. (My f3 liked it a lot, too.)

(Warning: if you don't reside in PA, this post will be even more boring than usual.)

Here in Pennsylvania, we are in the last weeks of the 2003-2004 state legislative session, the weeks otherwise known as the "lame duck" session. IssuesPA has an overview of what issues may be broached in the coming days. Among the most likely issues are gambling (i.e. slot machines), mass transit, gas tax increases, Pittsburgh's financial woes and last, but hopefully not low enough to slip under the concerned citizen's radar, pay increases for state legislators.

Lawmakers are typically the only nonself-employed workers who have the power to set their own salary without approval from their bosses -- they don't generally come up to us and ask about these types of things, which heaves it upon us to tell them what we think, assuming we're paying attention.
According to a November 5 article in the local paper here in Bucks County, PA lawmakers are the fourth highest paid state lawmakers in the nation, despite being the sixth largest state in the nation. Add in the fact that we have the largest legislative structure in the nation, which makes our legislature the most expensive one, hands-down.

I don't know how many members of the state house or senate favor the idea of a legislative pay raise (despite the cost-of-living increases that were written into the last PA legislative pay raise), but I've decided I don't think this is the most productive use of legislative energy -- I dare to say it rarely is. Perhaps, before legislating their own pay raises, maybe they'd consider giving the state minimum wage a slight hike first? Right now, we are one of many states that rest on the same minimum wage level as the federal government's paltry $5.15 an hour standard. Would it really be right for lawmakers to deny the lowest paid workers in the state some sort of relief while asking for a larger contribution from them at the same time?

But that's just one issue that would be more worthy of legislative attention. There are also the others, like slot machines, or public mass transit, or (for my friends who live out in the Steel City) the financial woes in Pittsburgh, about which our representatives might need some gentle (or not-so-gentle) guidance from those of us who call Pennsylvania home.

If you are one of those who, like me, calls the Keystone State home, you might want to look into offering your representatives in the state house or senate your opinions on these issues. One resource you can use to help figure out who and where to send your concerns can be found at www.legis.state.pa.us, where all you will need to do to find your representatives is put in your zip code.

It seems Yasser Arafat has finally died, not like that other time when some idiot reporter fooled the President into commenting on Arafat's death when it hadn't happened yet. I don't know if this is good or bad news -- yet. I tend to think it has positive potential, though a power vacuum can be among the most perilous of situations, especially in a society with so many different radical organizations.

As the Fallujah offensive continues in Iraq, troops have apparently stumbled upon some of the locations where hostages were killed over the past several months. Without pointing too much of a finger, I have to wonder how different some of those situations might have played out if we had kept up the pressure last spring, instead of pulling back. I've never been a war hawk, but it seems like once you decide to do something, you're usually better off doing it decisively -- just one of the lessons I've learned from the executive skills exhibited by George W. Bush.

And in lighter news (though that could change with time), the President has named his choice to replace John Ashcroft as Attorney General, and the heir-apparent to leading the Justice Department's war on civil liberties is White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez. And I think that's all for now.

First, I noticed over on Omni's site that she's celebrating 20,000 hits. Congratulations to Omni -- she mentioned she "was thrilled and flattered to see that, despite the extreme popularity of political blogs over the last few, pre-election months, or perhaps because of it." It occurred to me that she's probably got a point with the last few words of that last sentence. I have a huge appetite for political talk, but after a while many of the poli-blogs start to sound the same, even to me. I have been refreshed by those out there who post about more than just politics, even by those who avoid the subject altogether. (Unfortunately, I wasn't one of those who were able to ignore political discussion these past few months.)

Then there's the award for post-election thought provocation, which goes to Ales Rarus. The Funky one truly has a knack for concise, incisive content that cuts down the middle, showing little regard for established party lines. He shows the world through a Christian lens while still questioning inconsistencies in the mainstream of the religion. One angle he's recently spent time on is near to my heart -- the plight of centrists, especially as it pertains to Christians who don't fit comfortably on either side of the political fence in America (the linked post contains a couple interesting philosophical arguments in it, not all from a religious perspective, either). Whatever the content is, he generally comes up with something to challenge or enhance my mindset on politics and religion.

And congratulations also to Keeme, who has hopefully ended his long bout with comment spam, though I have to say this new system of his deprived me of the instant gratification of seeing my comment post -- some kind of review thing for the first comment in the new mechanism, I think?

"It's the Charisma, Stupid"

Paul Graham has offered a compelling explanation of our Presidential selections in the age of television. In an arena where issues and substance should carry the day, we're apparently still obsessed with packaging...

"Honey, we're all resplendent.
Yeah, honey, we are all thrift store.
I'm like a wino with a twenty-dollar bill,
forever and eternally yours..."
-Bill Mallonee

My response to this year's election is a difficult thing to formulate, mostly because I don't know how much happier I'd be if Kerry had won. It was, to me, the perfect intersection of two mediocre candidates, both of whose platforms intersected with mine so sparingly that it would be hard for me to profess any disappointment or joy that MC1 (mediocre candidate 1) beat MC2 (mediocre candidate 2) by a whopping four million votes (which accounted for a whole three percent difference?). Again, as has been the case in so many elections, it was essentially a two-way race and we're still a 50/50 nation (yes, you can say 51/48/1 if it really sounds that much less divided to you). For another view of the election, I got a little out of this Alternet piece, which seems to analyze both major party agendas coming out of Tuesday's election.

I guess I shouldn't have expected a substantial consensus either way, and I really didn't, but the numerical proximity (relative to the size of the electorate) underscores the notion that neither of the men who had a realistic shot at the White House had the charisma to win over any substantive numbers from the other side.

Now we have, perhaps, a conservative justice or two to add to the U.S. Supreme Court, which, in some ways, pleases me a little, but we also have the same administration that has had a chronic blind spot on many domestic issues, as well as a war on terror that can do no wrong, so to speak.

If Kerry had won, I would have rued his stance on embryonic stem cells and abortion (to name just two), but some of his other socio-economic stances might have comforted me a little.

The point is, like four years ago, we have a President who made some more promises, and now it's sink or swim, at least in terms of the Bush legacy.

But I'm not holding my breath, since some of his promises from last time didn't end up meaning much. According to one poll from a while back, many of the people who planned to support Bush this year claimed they would do so in spite of some of his perceived shortcomings (Iraq, deficit spending, etc.), and many conservative thinkers expressed as much (some even endorsed Kerry).

So, who will the President answer to this time? Will it be the partisan base, or will it be the voters who swallowed their doubts and pulled for him anyway? I guess that's the real question. Four years from now, will I still be thinking of this election as a tossup between MC1 and MC2? Or will I actually be pleasantly surprised by the path we take this time around?

I'll give it a chance, but like I said before, I won't let myself turn blue waiting.

It's a good number. Some people in other places may not think so, but it's twice as high as my previous number... in 2000, the number was 642.

What does the number represent? It's the number assigned to me as I was processed to enter the voting booth this evening. I arrived at the polls around the same time I usually do -- roughly 4 p.m., maybe a few minutes before. The difference was that this time the line to get in and vote was literally around the building (I wish I'd had my camera; I would have taken a picture to show everyone). Parking was a nightmare -- I couldn't leave for about a half hour even after I voted, simply because someone else had triple-parked and blocked me in. Oh well, at least they showed up to vote, right?

So, in 2000, 641 people voted ahead of me. In 2004, 1318 people voted ahead of me, at the same general time of day. And when I got out of the booth, the line was still around the building. Woohoo!

The thing about it that surprised me most was that I don't live in an especially Democratic district, which is where I initially expected most of the higher turnout precincts to be. And I'm sure in the city, the numerical turnout was much higher, though I'm not sure if the turnout percentage could have been much higher than it was at Neshaminy Middle School (where I voted).

Still, regardless of parking hassles, long lines, and a few ornery line-dwellers I came across, most people were pleasant and appreciative to see numbers like that in our little suburban district.

And 1319 is the best number I've gotten yet.

Now all that's left is to hunker down with some popcorn and watch the results creep in.

vote.

why I hope you will

...and that's why I'm done with political discourse until at least then -- or I will be after I pass on one more link to a political orientation quiz my brother-in-law sent my way. After you answer all the questions, it gives you a listing of the candidates, based on how closely you match each candidate -- and it works for more than just the Presidential race.

I hope as many people as possible will go out (if they haven't already) and make informed decisions about the direction they want this country to take. My mind is finally made, but I'm not going to mention that here, not yet anyway.

I also hope this one turns out better than the last one -- in terms of partisan bickering and acrimony, that is.

With his typical flair for drama, Osama Bin Laden inserted himself directly into the presidential election yesterday, and both parties believed it would boost President Bush's reelection hopes...(read the rest of the NY Daily News story)

I didn't originally think Osama bin Laden's recent statement deserved to be dignified with so much critical response, but after reading a little more reaction from other corners, I couldn't help it.

In short, if you think bin Laden's recent videotaped statement should play into the U.S. election (i.e. - as an implicit endorsement of one candidate or the other), I hope you aren't eligible to vote November 2. Besides the fact that bin Laden didn't endorse either candidate, there are those who seem to think that because bin Laden says one thing, we should do the perceived opposite (the opposite of whatever we think he wants us to do).

Your perception of bin Laden, the U.S. election and the world in general should be based upon something resembling reality, not on campaign rhetoric. If bin Laden's little speech tells you he thinks Kerry will be easier to kick around than Bush, or if it tells you he thrives on having a tough-talking antagonist like Bush -- whatever it tells you, you're probably much better off putting it out of your head, and making an independent judgment on the entire situation.

Because the truth is nobody this side of the oceans really knows who bin Laden would prefer us to elect, though everyone seems to have their own ideas. The more disturbing idea to me is that nobody here really seems to have any objective way of determining if we're even winning this war on terror. Every victory has it downside, some sort of silver lining for those who recruit for al Qaeda. Every time American missiles pummel some compound, and even one innocent lies among the resulting dead, there's at least one more person who is finding bin Laden's rhetoric a little more valid.

It's not valid, mind you, but sometimes our rhetoric is just as likely to be questioned as his. We tend to forget that in this little idyllic sanctuary we call America.

"A politician next door swore he'd set the Washington Arena on fire;
Thinks he'll gladiate them, but they're gonna make him a liar.
He's a good ol' boy who was born and raised in the buckle o' the Bible Belt
Just remember when you step into your voting booth
He'll never lie -- he'll just embellish the truth..."
-Steve Taylor

I haven't published in a few days now, and I even forgot to do a Poetry Friday post. Many apologies to anyone who was waiting for new additions, but I have been extremely busy with a host of responsibilities, ranging from work to school to real life (I'm relieved to report I still have a real life).

The above quote comes from a song by one of my favorite Christian recording artists (which accounted for a significant chunk of my music collection when I was a teenager). As I dwell on concepts like co-opted Christianity and other entire demographics of society that willingly surrender their votes to one party line or the other, lines like the ones quoted above tend to float freely through my head. But I'm tired of politics for the time being, so that's all I'll write about that for now...

"When I was three, I thought the world revolved around me; I was wrong."
-U2

I fondly remember taking several trips to the beautiful state of Virginia in years past. I had the convenient excuse of going down to visit my sister, my brother-in-law and their first two children while they were living down there. I remember once, while on my way down I-81, stopping in a roadside restaurant to eat, and hearing two members of the wait staff joke about how funny one of the other diners (who seemed to speak with a Canadian accent) sounded. The irony of this conversation wasn't lost on me, as these two waitresses spoke with quite the southern drawl themselves.

I, of course, didn't have any accent at all, so in my mind, it was easy to find humor in their perspective on the other diner's accent-- it was almost as funny as hearing them try to mimic a Canadian accent while tripping over their own accents.

I have since realized that even I have an accent. I just don't notice it because it's my accent. And when conversing with many people familiar to me, I also fail to notice any significant accent in their speech -- but even they have some sort of accent. When our scope of familiarity is limited, and our perspective is relatively myopic, it's easy to believe that we are the norm, while everyone who differs from us is, well, not normal.

In a recent response to something I wrote, I was rebuked for relying on biased news sources (and it was suggested by more than one person that I should spend more time watching Fox News). After reading such thoughts, I was initially indignant, but then I altered my internal reaction, simply by re-applying what I had realized a long time ago about accents.

It occurred to me, quite suddenly, that a philosophical bias is just as dispositive as an accent. It's taken a fair amount of cultivation (both formal and informal) to realize that while everything may be relative, everything is not strictly relative to me; whatever we like to believe about ourselves, no human being is the true hub of reality's wheel. This theory is not completely unified, but is analogous to the way most of us discern little things like bias.

To people raised staunch conservative, Fox News may well represent a norm, at least from one perspective, and from said perspective, all other mainstream outlets may appear hopelessly left-leaning. Likewise, to people from a more liberal background, Fox News may well appear to be another wing of the GOP, while CNN, The New York Times, etc., are more synchronous with their ingrained political theory.

I can't speak for either of these theoretical extremes in a firsthand sense. I was raised in a decidedly conservative home, but with enough blue-collar influence to not be a wholehearted conservative. My conservative roots helped me identify a certain fallibility in, and dissatisfaction with, many mainstream media outlets, but I was never really sold on the apparent mission of operations like Fox News or the bulk of talk radio. My mixed allegiances left me with a level of uneasiness with any philosophy that tilted too far to the left or the right.

Again though, this analysis is couched in terms of my individual perspective, and that perspective is bound to be as flawed as anyone's. But what I have learned is to firmly distrust the words of any human being who claims to be wholly objective. Even the most cultivated individuals still have blind spots when it comes to their own idiosyncrasies. Remember, no matter how well you think you know yourself, the accent you'll have the hardest time noticing will always be your own.

"...But every writer knows we have to write to find out
We have to write to discover what wants to happen
We have to write to know where the story needs to go
We have to write to learn why we are here
We have to write to find we are not alone..."

"Personal Work" by Linford Detweiler

I thought this one felt right for today, in its own winding, rhythmic way. The quotation is just a brief excerpt, but you can click the link to read the whole poem.

I know people who seem to think the world is going down the drain -- and quickly, too. I wonder why these are some of the same people who don't believe they can do anything about the conditions that upset them. Meanwhile, I share some of the dismal view I hear from these folks, but I also still feel like something can be done about it, if only one person at a time.

For a while now, I've been intent on trying to do little things to make a positive difference in the world. I don't want to rule the world, or even lead the movement to change it; I just want to always be a part of something positive, especially because of the negativity that seems so prevalent.

Some of my online correspondents have questioned what I'm prescribing as a solution when I rail against things like the slow, ineffective twin-engine Spruce Goose that has become our political system. The answer is I'm not prescribing anything grandiose enough to single-handedly fix any of our broken down system. I actually just want people to think, and I have said that before. But sometimes I may sound like I'm trying to effect a grander scheme than that, when the truth is, I don't think there is a grander scheme.

I remember being challenged to think for myself, by things I've read, by personal conversations, etc. Many such challenges have become critical turning points in my life, where I don't change to suit someone else's beliefs, but rather, I change to suit a more consistent application of what I already believe. In political discussions, whether in the media or in real life, I hear too many people who are just repeating the same sound-bites they hear and read in the news.

And from people who don't care to participate in discussions of politics, I often hear that they don't feel like they know enough to comment. This may be true at times, but often I find in talking to these same people that they know more than they think they do. What they think of as their own ignorance is simply an ignorance of the more established opinions that dominate political discourse. Well I say those established opinions are usually over-rated. I gain more useful ideas about political theory by listening to people who feel like they don't belong in the discussion at all.

We have a system that's fairly happy to see half of all would-be voters stay home on election day (or election month in some places), which isn't to say all current non-participants would vote third party, but that keeping the voting pool relatively small and stagnant makes outcomes more predictable. And even with those that might go major party in the voting booth, there are countless others who might just as well bring a third party into the mainstream of American politics -- and trust me, if you're part of the two-party machine, that's not a good result, even if it is democratically ideal.

Which is one reason why I favor movements that draw more citizens into the process, even if they don't agree with me on policy. That seems to be the grandest solution to a troubled democracy.

(And having said that, if I do write more tomorrow, it won't be about politics.)

When I first gathered my information on the Sinclair plans to broadcast their special news event, I noticed their website claimed much misinformation had been spread by "ill-informed sources." At that point in time, their website indicated that they would be airing the documentary as part of a special news event. Perhaps the confusion for some of us lay in that announcement. If they did in fact intend to "air the documentary", which usually means the entire documentary (all 42 minutes of it, which I have seen), then everything I wrote yesterday stands.

But I see they've revised their website information slightly. The first paragraph of their disclaimer now reads:

"We welcome your comments regarding the upcoming special news event featuring the topic of Americans held as prisoners of war in Vietnam. The program has not been videotaped and the exact format of this unscripted event has not been finalized. Characterizations regarding the content are premature and are based on ill-informed sources."

Now, I still can't tell, even from this revised statement, whether or not the documentary will be screened in its intended form, or whether they are trying to indicate that they intend to excerpt it as part of a broader discussion. I hope the latter is true, but the wording is still so foggy that I don't feel completely assured.

The suggestion that the program hasn't yet been videotaped and the exact format of the event isn't yet finalized might be a genuine statement, or it might just be a way of trying to lull protests to a minimum. It may simply reflect their reaction to all the bad press and email reaction they've received, or it could be the threat of stockholder suits against the company. Who knows? And I won't be in the fortunate few who get to see the broadcast, as Sinclair owns no stations in the metro-Philadelphia area, so I guess I'll never get to see for myself.

"I mean, the Lord told me it was going to be A, a disaster, and B, messy. I warned him about casualties."
-Pat Robertson to CNN's Paula Zahn

I notice most references to the above-linked interview are in the spirit of pointing out how yet another Bush supporter has spoken out against the issue that Bush often touts as part of his crowning achievement. You know, usually people who disagree with Bush will point to statements like the one above, or the ones made by several departed Bush appointees and a few Republican lawmakers, and use it as a way of detracting from the President's agenda. But that's not the thing that stands out to me.

This isn't so much political as it is theological. Assuming President Bush and Reverend Robertson are following the same God, how could they both have received such divergent messages regarding Iraq? How could one be painting such a rosy portrait while the other insists it was doomed to disaster from the start?

"The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proven wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right..."
-George Orwell

I was just reminded of this quote while watching Al Gore give a speech at Georgetown University on C-Span (this was right after watching the President speak to a crowd of supporters in nearby Marlton, NJ). Then I thought of Kerry's "Orwellian" comment during the second debate. Then I wondered if this Orwellian theme might not be part of the Democratic talking points -- which isn't to say there's nothing to it.

I have often wondered if the President and all of his faithful servants really believe everything they say, about domestic policy, about the economy, about Iraq. Or do they really know that it's mostly just political strategy? I'm really not sure sometimes, and that may be the most disturbing thing of all when I try to evaluate the President.

Then I thought of the Sinclair political correspondent who has just spoken out against his company's decision to preempt programming for a commercial-free showing of Stolen Honor. It's probably worthy of mention that Stolen Honor is an anti-Kerry movie with much the same kind of creative editing as Michael Moore applied to Fahrenheit 9/11. I've heard many Bush supporters voice strong support for the Sinclair decision to air this "news" programming, often making the familiar "what's good for goose is good for the gander" argument. This is what we've come to; we decry Michael Moore for twisting the truth and trying to sway the electorate, and then when Republican sympathizers pull the same exact trick, the (sadly) predictable response from Bush supporters is "they did it first."

Okay, so that's politics. I despairingly acknowledge as much, but it may also be worth noting that Fahrenheit 9/11 was not released in the final days before a Presidential election, and further, it wasn't subsidized the way Sinclair is subsidizing the broadcast of Stolen Honor. It isn't as if you can accidentally turn on your local channel and find yourself watching a free presentation of Michael Moore's biased little masterpiece. People who saw Fahrenheit 9/11 actually had to fork over some money to see it; countless unsuspecting couch potatoes will tune in next week expecting their normal prime time fare, only to find themselves watching this "news"-- not quite analogous, is it? After all, even Michael Moore had the decency to admit his movie was serving a slanted political purpose, and he had no stockholders to defraud, either.

Even if these two instances were more similar, I thought Bush supporters weren't the type to bask in moral relativism. Guess I was wrong about that one too. But in the end, I suppose we believe what we want to believe, even when we know it's not true.

I don't watch CNN's Cross-Fire anymore, probably for the same reasons Jon Stewart was taking them to task last week. If you're interested, you can watch the streaming video of his appearance with Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala. Thanks to Sharon at Watermark for cluing me in to this one...

(Part 1 was way back in February)

I ran across this Opinion piece at Philly.com. It was written by David Crawford, the president of a consulting firm and adjunct professor at the Wharton Business School. He has a much more educated perspective than I do on our first MBA President's performance as National CEO. (As a brief warning to the "subscriptophobes" in the audience, Philly.com is one of the growing ranks of free subscription sites.)

I know this one's already been mentioned, but it warrants repeating. Michael Badnarik and David Cobb, Presidential candidates of the Libertarian and Green parties, respectively, were arrested on Friday night, prior to the start of the first debate. You can read more detailed information on both the Badnarik and Cobb websites.

Badnarik's site offers up the interesting point that the Commission on Presidential Debates isn't non-partisan, but rather bi-partisan, in that it unfairly bolsters the dominance of the two-party system and circumvents, if not violates, campaign finance law. Cobb's site also offers criticism of the CPD "infomercials," contending that if the process allowed for every candidate on enough ballots to have a chance at winning, there would still only be six participants in the debates.

Badnarik's communications director Stephen Gordon added, "We'd have preferred to see John Kerry and George Bush stand up like men to debate the issues facing America."

Sounds like a good idea, but I don't think the Republicans and Democrats are in any hurry to give up their stranglehold on U.S. democracy.

Thanks to the Ales Rarus post-debate analysis, I no longer feel the need to vent about the lack of substance in last night's event. There was substance, but interestingly, Funky seems to have covered most of the points I would have gone after. If you want to see what I might have said about it, you can get an idea by reading his post.

The only thing I would add, which he touches on, is that the continued inability of George W. Bush to name any sort of mistake he's made is profoundly maddening to me. This is a classic job interview query, and he's a business school grad; someone should have taught him how to answer it by now...

In other, less relevant news, I was delighted to see a pair of comments from Norma in two of my recent posts. Delighted is the word I use because I like that some who seems to disagree with me has been thoughtful enough to post a comment. I actually appreciate that.

I fear her perception of me is that I'm an unabashed liberal. Other people have approached me that way, and it may or may not be true (see? I'm even waffling). What I voice on this weblog is my opinion, as I have previously stated, but I could jot down enough criticism of either of our two giant political parties to wallpaper a small house. Norma is correct if she gathers that I'm not a Bush supporter, but she may have jumped from that small bit of truth to the conclusion that since I am not a Bush supporter, I must be a Kerry supporter. This would be a fine example of how our political pop culture incorrectly indoctrinates many people; this idea that you have to be one or the other (with us, or against us?).

I think the pervasive nature of this outlook in American politics is symptomatic of what I've been railing against more than anything -- but I have discussed that in several previous posts, and I have very little to add to that for now (and unlike the candidates, I'm not afraid to tell you that).

I am not conservative, though I hold some distinctly conservative views, and I am not liberal, though I hold some of those views also. If you take me for a Democrat because it sometimes appears I prefer criticizing Republicans in the posts where I do write about politics, just wait until the Democrats are in control (if that ever happens again) -- then you might mistake me for a Republican.

I am a political independent. I am registered as such, I vote as such, and I firmly believe this country would be a better place if more people shared that perspective. Which isn't to say I want people to think like me, but that I want people to think for themselves.

There, now I can give the soapbox a few hours of rest before something else pops into my head.

P.S. - I forgot to mention that I'm really enjoying reading from the links on UnRight Christian Blogs, which is apparently how some recent visitors are finding me, like Norma.

"There's a small boat made of china;
it's going nowhere on the mantle piece."
-Crowded House

Every time I hope for better in these political situations. I keep thinking this time people will embrace civility, see the value in treating each other with dignity, acknowledge our commonality -- rather than find minor fault lines into which sizeable wedges can be driven.

Some comments to my Wednesday post about the lack of substance in the debates got me thinking a little, and I think I realized something; something that should have me shrugging at the whole scene and maybe walking away from it altogether.

My esteemed brother-in-law made a point in a comment about how there are merits to the two-party system, in that they both gravitate toward the general area of the middle. I figure he's right about that, but the best part of moderation is lost on American politicians -- the idea that we should take the best ideas, regardless of who might be credited for them, is sometimes more unlikely than the thought of Ralph Nader winning even one state in the upcoming election.
I also figure most of us who are least content with the quality of political candidates and parties in the U.S. aren't necessarily radical leftists or rightists. It's probably more a case of people who don't see society's problems as questions that can all be answered by any single political viewpoint -- at least not the ones that dominate the discourse. That's where I find my disenchantment. It's not that there aren't good ideas in the existing parties, only that very few of those good ideas are in any one place politically.

But there are so many folks who see things in black and white terms. I'm not just referring to issues and problems in the public debate, but also to solutions. We've been conditioned, for the most part, to see certain answers to political questions as left or right, conservative or liberal, even right or wrong. While these labels sometimes fit, solutions are too often disqualified by whole segments of society simply because of a blanket association with one political view or another.

For instance, pro-life means conservative in most people's internal thesaurus, and anti-capital punishment usually translates as liberal (if not ultra-liberal). Given that popular perception, what to make of people who are pro-life, even to the point of being against the death penalty? This is just one version of no man's land that many people find themselves in when it comes to evaluating major political candidates. (The last haven of this for me was the dearly departed Bob Casey, Sr., former Governor of Pennsylvania -- and the way he was ostracized for being out of step with his party on abortion did not bode well for a Democratic return to many key sanctity of life issues.)

So where do those of us without pre-fabricated political views fit? I suspect that if all of us who really felt left out in this way were to band together, there would be some kind of chance, not necessarily to create a new party, but at least to significantly sway one of the existing major parties. But, even with numbers, such movements are hard to start, even harder to lead, unless you have a large bankroll to supplement your ideals.

As I wrote earlier in this post, some of these disparaging thoughts might have been enough to elicit the surrender of my idealism, but I am more stubborn than even George W. Bush when it comes to certain ideas, and so, my hope isn't exhausted yet.

At first, the idea of raging against this machine often seemed like swatting flies. But maybe it's more apt to say the machine is doing the swatting and we're the flies? Even so, you know how persistent those flies can be...

Now back to what I really enjoy, poking fun at conservatives...

By now, it is no doubt a well-publicized fact that the Vice-President mis-stated a certain web address last night when he touted "FactCheck.com" in response to a point by Senator Edwards in the debate. He not only misrepresented the spirit of what FactCheck.org had reported, but he also gave the wrong web address. To see what FactCheck.org had to say about his statement, click here.

On the other hand, if you want to see the web site he unwittingly suggested people visit, click this link for FactCheck.com .

There's a slight difference, right?

Well, I watched the late great debate re-broadcast on C-Span again. As far as the ability of the speakers to sound like they were intelligent, this was better than the first Presidential event, which isn't saying very much.

Moderator Gwen Ifill was off a bit more than Jim Lehrer was last week. She actually lost track of whose turn it was to speak near the end of the debate, with John Edwards trying, almost in vain, to set her straight. She discovered about fifteen seconds into his extra turn that she should have gone to the Vice-President instead -- but who could blame her? Aside from the more polished tone of the debaters (when compared to last Thursday), there was enough inaccuracy being spun by both sides to make your head spin.

But at least we saw some subtle (and some not-so-subtle) jabs from each of the candidates.

As I was watching, and then sitting afterwards thinking about it, it really became obvious to me how desperately these past two debates needed at least one third party candidate to shake things up, maybe shout at the two major candidates, "Why are you guys so afraid to answer the questions?" It certainly didn't seem as if the moderator was going to do anything to keep them on-point.

But they both sounded so smooth and well-spoken that if you de-focused your hearing a little bit, you almost thought they might be making sense. Of course, the Vice-President tarried down the same path as the President had last week, insistent that Iraq was going well, even amid admissions from those in his own party to the contrary. And Senator Edwards continued to talk about plans, as if he'd actually offered one that was substantively different from the administration's.

The real problem, as usual, is that we only had two choices in the debate last night, and they were both so stilted in establishment politics that nobody dared venture off the beaten path to seriously discuss what have become known as "kitchen table issues" -- that is, issues that affect those of us not in the the same economic or social stratosphere as any of the four men being featured in the nationally-televised debate process. The only attention paid to those matters last night was more in the vein of skimming newspaper headlines, as opposed to reading the actual stories.

Rumsfeld backs off al Qaeda assertions

Bremer: U.S. "paid a big price" for having too few troops in Iraq

These two headlines caught my eye last night, not because I'm bent on slamming the Bush administration, but because, for a long time, I had faith in what they were doing. And while I did, and in many ways, still do believe in the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, I now see more clearly why so much criticism has been leveled at the President and his inner circle of advisers. Unlike, the ruling party, I don't believe all criticism should be dismissed as sour grapes, even if it is born of such sentiment. We have opposition in a democracy for good reason, and it's never wise to forget that.

The types of confession being made in the news stories linked above were met with cries of "heresy" not too long ago. Perhaps from some ideological corners they still would be, at least when spoken by some of the Bush critics who spoke them long before Rumsfeld and Bremer ever did.
This is the tone that has always disturbed me in political discourse; too many of us follow our leaders as if we were sheep. (I refer not as much to elected leaders as to party leaders.) Our current President has gone back on too many sweeping proclamations to be afforded the kind of automatic credibility he seems to crave. That so many people have refused to acknowledge this is a uniquely disturbing phenomenon to me.

I supported the concept of this war that was first presented to all of us, even though I have disagreed with many strategic and tactical moves that have since been made. I am not inconsistent simply because I refuse to surrender my political will to whatever viewpoint the President and his staff happen to embrace this week. And do you know what? It doesn't make John Kerry inconsistent either.

Of course, John Kerry already was a bit inconsistent, but the secret that doesn't seem to have slipped out yet is that the President is also fairly inconsistent himself. And the kind of political worship that surrounds each of these men and their supporting party machines is probably what disturbs me the most. These men are not in and of themselves principles to be cherished, and neither are their party platforms.

TTLB had a post (that I found courtesy of Ales Rarus) about the notion that our current political system could be considered in violation of a sort of anti-trust provision, though sadly, no such provisions seem to extend to political parties, as insidiously inefficient as they often are at representing the will of the people (what this country is supposed to be about).

But alas, when will free market principles extend to where they are most sorely needed?

"Number of HealthSouth executives charged with conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, or lying since March 2003 : 20
[U.S. Attorney's Office (Birmingham, Ala.) ]

"Number who have pled guilty : 17
[U.S. Attorney's Office (Birmingham, Ala.) ]

"Number of these now in prison : 0"

-Harper's Index, September, 2004

I came across this series of statistics while desperately hoping to find an online excerpt from the current month's issue. The specific piece I was searching for was an excerpt from a Wal-Mart management resource guide entitled "Labor Relations and You at the Wal-Mart Distribution Center" -- a publication that apparently verbalizes Wal-Mart's institutional hostility towards both labor unions and their own employees. I couldn't find it, but I did stumble upon the above-quoted Harper's Index items. Still, if you're into reading, you can pick up the October issue and find the piece I'm talking about on page 23.

If you've never read Harper's, you can sample past index items by following the link below the quoted text leading into this post. I often find the various statistical offerings thought-provoking, if not humorous.

Okay, so this story actually happened on Friday, but I didn't see too much mention of it in my regular blog circles -- so here I go.

First point, I already figured Fox News was biased -- it really only takes about ten minutes planted in front of their jovially slanted morning show Fox and Friends to come up with that nugget of truth. But what I didn't figure was that they were this dedicated to slamming John Kerry.

Fox News' website had been carrying a story by Carl Cameron about a post-debate campaign stop in Florida that contained a couple fabricated Kerry quotes. The story was later amended (after lefty blogger Josh Marshall inquired about it), and then pulled from the site altogether -- Fox News passed it off as a misjudgment of Carl's sense of humor. It sounded a little contrived to me, but then we're all familiar with Dan Rather's misunderstood sense of humor, aren't we? Click here to read the original version of the story.

Then, as if that weren't enough for Fox, they then proceeded to mistake Communists for Kerry for a serious pro-Kerry group -- a mistake I now also see that they've conveniently edited out by adding in a paragraph or so about Billionaires for Bush and pretending to know all along that both groups were being facetious. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to locate an archived version of the Fox story in this case, but it did, at one point, exist. (The current version is even buried somewhere on this page.)

"There has been comment upon my contribution to Democrats like Senator Kerry. Senator Kerry is a good man. I've known him for many years. But it happens that I vote for Viacom. Viacom is my life, and I do believe that a Republican Administration is better for media companies than a Democratic one."
-Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone

I know people who work in management positions at my company who express pretty much the same sentiment. Some of them complain about being "encouraged" to contribute to the corporate PAC. That's when I'm glad I'm not in management.

Though I do find it curious that amid ever-tightening regulations on the way Union finances are managed (purportedly to ensure members' dues money isn't spent for political purposes without their express consent), a company could get away with coercing political contributions from its management employees. Hmmm...

I heard the debate on radio before watching it on the late C-Span broadcast after I got home.

All the outlets are asking who won the debate, and while many are boldly proclaiming for one candidate or the other, I'd rather take a cue from the debaters and give my own non-answer. Most people in the early returns seemed to think it was Kerry, and I suppose in a cosmetic sense, that's probably accurate. But in reality? I don't know if a winner can be picked. Neither podium last night was inhabited by anyone resembling a straight-talking candidate, but I suppose that's par for the course.

While I wasn't especially impressed with either candidate last night, I was surprised to see and hear the President sounding very distracted. He could often be heard repeating an arsenal of two or three different phrases, and several times when those phrases weren't directly related to the questions being discussed. He was the only one to venture into flashing warning light territory (referring to the visual timer warnings being used last night).

Kerry, on the other hand, did seem to like talking about "plans" whether it be the one he has, or the one the President does not have. While I do tend to question the course of events in Iraq over the past year (especially following the "end of major hostilities"), I don't think the debate format lent itself to explanations of complex foreign policy, and that may be my biggest problem with the debate. But if Kerry was just looking to mimic the President's over-use of catch-phrases, well, he did a pretty good job of it.

Then there's the debate format itself, which no one will ever confuse for anything that transpired between Lincoln and Douglas. It's a given that any time you constrict explanations of complex issues to time periods no longer than two minutes (at the longest), well, you shouldn't complain if the candidates start over-using the talking points. I sincerely thought Jim Lehrer should have been able to do something to keep the discussion more on topic.

And the questions -- who thought of these questions? There were some decent ones, but why even bother asking the President of the United States if he believes electing the other guy will result in more terror attacks? Can you blame him for dancing around that one? Perhaps the question could have been framed by asking what he thought of his Vice-President making a statement to that effect.

Both these guys just had it too easy.

The only demonstrable difference between the two candidates in my observation (and apparently I wasn't alone in this one) was the almost surreal stupor that seemed to be plaguing the President through half the debate. I seriously started wondering if he was on some kind of industrial-strength allergy medication -- actually, I sincerely hope he was, because some of the other scenarios that come to mind have far more disturbing ramifications. And then I thought maybe he just didn't have enough rest for his big night -- either way, his demeanor didn't play too heavily into my opinion, other than I thought it was a bit off.

But I guess I'll corral this all by saying I don't think people expecting heavy-duty policy discussion were hanging their hopes too heavily on last night's event -- or any of the coming Presidential debates either. And that's the real dilemma; we shouldn't really expect anything too deep or meaningful out of this contrived process, which is one of the real curses of U.S. politics.

Maybe if I was dyed in the wool of one major party or another, I could have made one of those typically snap judgments for one candidate or the other. As I heard people's opinions for about 20 minutes on the radio last night, I settled into a firm belief that most people who believe the debate was won by a landslide were already supporting the candidate they proclaimed to have won. Which makes the perception meaningless.

Being an independent, I think I'd be in the pool of voters they'd be looking to sway. And by that yardstick, they both failed miserably.

I was watching two campaign advisors discussing the upcoming debate format on one of the cable news channels last night. One of them was Ralph Reed; the other was some guy from the Kerry campaign. (No disrespect to the unnamed Kerry guy, but I tend to remember Ralph Reed more easily ever since his days at the Christian Coalition -- he always reminded me of Dave Foley for some reason...)

Anyway, the discussion was about debate format and how they thought their respective candidates would fare in the format. It was strange to hear each man arguing so persistently about how the other guy's candidate was a better debater than his own candidate. Of course this is a common practice in the build-up to debates, where each side tries to quell high expectations in hopes that if their candidate manages to make it through the debate without losing his composure or sounding like a complete idiot, he might be perceived as having won the debate. It is a common practice, and a very, very sad one, at that.

In the midst of each man trying to make the other man's candidate seem like the better debater, they were each asked about the debate format itself. On this topic they couldn't agree more; they both touted the debate format we will get to see tonight on national television as one that will provide, without a doubt, the single most substantive and comprehensive tool for evaluating who the next President of the United States should be.

All this, with no consideration given to third-parties and independents -- you know, the fake candidates. Or in the other way of looking at it, the candidates who can actually keep the "real" candidates a little more honest.

As always, this country is being controlled by those who get to frame the debate, and right now, that task is being left in the greedy hands of two parties, both of whom understand that their success is predicated upon keeping everybody else out of the game.

I was pointed to this idea by an Ales Rarus mention of an aggregator being run by the man who maintains a website called Connexions. The aggregator is being dubbed "UnRight Christians."

The idea intrigues me, mostly because I've been fascinated for some time with the way many people like to lump Christians in one narrow portion of the vast political spectrum -- and it's usually somewhere on the far right flank.

I bookmarked this cartoon a couple days ago, and then I completely forgot about it, but I think it's related to that train of thought from the post above this one. It had something to do with spin, or at least the silly arguments we have to avoid real issues. And it comes from both sides, not just from the Republicans (think of all the Swift Boat/National Guard crap).

"She never read much, but she loved to quote."
-Chagall Guevara

I heard a political observer warning about how the spin that follows the upcoming Presidential debates will be at least as important as what transpires during the actual debates. And I started to wonder, "why?"

I'm not really that naive -- I fully recognize that spin plays a pathetically huge role in the way we choose political leaders. But the question is still a genuine one -- why do we allow barely connected pieces of spin to influence our voting process?

The answer, as best I can figure is that we don't usually observe enough of the actual campaign process or assorted speeches and policy statements to really have even a semi-independent idea of the reality that's being spun, whether from the right or the left.

I heard someone criticize Kerry's style yesterday by saying that he doesn't speak in sound-bites. The tone of the statement left me under the distinct impression that Kerry's tendency to not speak in snappy one-liners was an inherently bad thing. And I suppose that politically it is, given our society's distaste for paying attention to items that take more than seven seconds of our time.

Perhaps if most of us learned to view spin as merely supplemental to reality, we might not be so easily spun ourselves. It occurred to me that political spin is akin to Cliff Notes, but for one small difference: Cliff Notes tend to be much more representative of the items they capsulize, whereas spin tends to rewrite its antecedent's meaning to varying degrees.

In short, spin is the revision of what didn't get said or demonstrated in the way one side or the other would have preferred. It gets rewritten in a snappier, less substantive form -- you know, because we're all too stupid to make up our own minds, so they happily spoon-feed us what we're supposed to think in clever little half-truths.

Keep that in mind whenever you hear John Kerry oversimplify the President's tax policy, or whenever the President attempts to tell you how much of a flip-flopper Kerry has been.

Remember that reality rarely fits into the sound-bites you hear on the nightly news.

(In reading back over this post several hours later, I noticed a few typos that I can't believe slipped by me originally, so if you've read this more than once, you may notice a difference. It's not in your head. The substance is the same, but the typos are, hopefully, gone now.)

"If you can't Google your blind date, that doesn't make them a freak."

I think I found it with the Stumble Upon browser bar I can no longer use with the new Firefox (I still like the browser itself, though). Like most sweeping manifestos, it over-generalizes and over-emphasizes the evils of the internet, but I know people who seem to believe everything they read online -- and for them, a visit to my favorite little cautionary site is worth it.

For the record, I agree with the main thrust of what it says, even though my self-imposed website language restrictions keep me from printing the name of the site, I would like to echo the concept of people really thinking and checking facts for themselves. This task, however, has become exponentially more daunting, as many major news organizations have teetered on the brink of being as factually useless as much of what can be found online.

And for many of its evils, the internet does one good thing (at least so far); it allows us to sample information from different sources, lest we should only be subject to that which is handed down from for-profit news organizations. And it's communication benefits are fairly useful, as long as we don't completely forget there are worthwhile people who don't go by names like "chunkylover5120@aol.com" (there are some pretty fascinating and useful people who don't even have computers). But gaining perspective from different people in different places and situations, that can be as educational as any formal schooling.

So here's my little disclaimer for readers of the smedley log:

I don't purport to be a viable news source -- except when I'm telling stories about my own life (-most of that's the truth, I promise). What I do here is share thoughts, mostly in the realm of opinion. Though it would be mighty flattering if everyone followed me around and did everything I suggested, I'm not sure the world would be that much better for it.

So now that that's all been said, I'll just leave the link below for anyone wishing to visit the site at which I've been hinting.

Visit my favorite cautionary internet site.

I came across a BBC News article last night, and while I don't have much commentary to add at the moment, it resonated with me, at least partially.

The quoted phrase that serves as a title above this post is from the article, and the sentiment reflected by the speaker of that comment is something I've been struggling to articulate (-I even made a feeble run at it in a recent post), The closing comments from that one interviewee came very close to what I think of the President's very public spirituality. I'm not critical of his spirituality, but of the limited version he seems to embrace, one which sometimes seems more obsessed with grand gestures and proclamations than with humble practice.

"Nothing turns a conservative into a liberal faster than being arrested."
-?

I pulled the above line from a letter to the editor in yesterday's Philadelphia Daily News. I know I've heard it elsewhere, but I can't seem to establish the definitive source, if there is one.

It was written in reference to Rush Limbaugh, who, among other things, has received significant support from the ACLU in his efforts to keep his medical records from the prying eyes of prosecutors in his little drug fiasco. Which reminds me of another related thought about another typical conservative target, trial lawyers. It seems like some of the most conservative people in the world forget how much they hate trial attorneys until they get arrested, have a reason to sue someone (frivolous or not), or perhaps when a disputed election hangs in the balance?

Okay, that last one really doesn't sound like me, as I really detest all the whining about four-year-old election results -- there's really nothing that can be done about it now, at least in the judicial sense. But I have found it strange that the President has such a dislike for trial lawyers (as evidenced in campaign criticism of both members of the democratic ticket, with their ties to the trial lawyer lobby), especially considering how much trial attorneys have done for him and his party.

Oh, and as long as I'm mentioning Rush Limbaugh during football season again, it appears Rush's favorite overrated quarterback is off to a pretty impressive start -- which keeps us Philly sports fans happy, for now...

"Easy reading is damned hard writing."
-Nathaniel West

Okay, so I was sifting through Google keywords used to access my little blog here, and I saw "the smedley log" among the keywords used, a regular thing, really, and there's no reason someone wouldn't use the title of a blog to find it on Google. But this time I decided to Google "the smedley log", as some visitors had done, just to see what the results of that search actually are.

Another unsurprising result is that several of the results are linked to this blog, but I came across a blog I didn't even know had linked to me. It's called hardscrabble, and it's written by a Computer Sciences graduate student in Chicago named Azzari Jarrett. Not only had she linked to me in one of her posts, but it was three months ago! Even more interesting is the fact that she was referencing a tsl entry from ten months ago, so I wondered if she had found it by virtue of reading this blog on any kind of regular basis, or if she had googled her subject in order to find me. (The Subject of her post and mine was the possible relationship between reality TV and blogging.) I may never know, but this brings me, in my usual winding way, to another observation.

I seem to have gotten a lot of feedback, and sometimes blog mention, from bloggers who are grad students. When I say a lot, I don't mean in the thousands, or even the hundreds, but safely in the dozens. And I want to say that I find that both flattering and intimidating. Actually, the mere thought of my brother-in-law (a graduated grad student himself) reading this sometimes frightens me, not only because I think he knows a lot more than I do about many things, but also because he's in a position to call me on the carpet for my mistakes in a way that most readers will never be. And I think, not knowing all their educational backgrounds, that most of my responsive readers are a pretty clever bunch of people. Therefore I tend to think that most of them will see the holes in my ideas and arguments.

And, to be clear, I don't talk about grad students here because I think they are inherently smarter than others, like myself, who aren't, and maybe never will be, at that academic level. I've met enough "uneducated" folk to know much better than that. Although I would like to think the "grad student observation" I'm making underscores the intelligence level of my average reader, and, quite possibly at the same time, reveals my general elitist attitude. (But hopefully not that last part.)

And speaking of the relative intelligence of my readers, a readability report I got from Readability.info showed that my readability scores were fairly high, meaning the education level required to make sense of my writing is fairly high by conventional standards; something about sentences being long (me? long sentences?) and syllables per word, I think... but apparently you should pat yourself on the back if you get past the first two or three sentences of most of these entries. Incidentally, I'm aware that reading difficulty often reflects more negatively on the writer than on the reader, as good writers usually strive to be understood (see lead-in quote).

The other part of this is that I've noticed a ton of blogs by graduate students. One of the more obvious examples from my list of links is my inquisitive Catholic friend at Ales Rarus , and there are many others out there, including some who are law students -- which I honestly don't get.

I mean grad school is hard enough, but as someone who has spent time mulling the prospect of law school, I've heard some pretty gruesome stories about how little time is left for leisure. I recently went back to school myself and I'm nowhere near that level of difficulty, and if pecking away on a computer wasn't one of my favorite methods of winding down before bed, I don't think I could do much, if any, blogging at all.

Upon skimming Azzari's sidebar, I came across PhD Weblogs, a "non-profit initiative to bring together PhD students' weblogs from all around the world." I'm trying not to get too jealous -- some people just have a gift, I guess.

I read Omni's post about art yesterday, and I found it interesting, as I usually do when reading her thoughts. She offers some ideas about art and its definition, with her own definitions sprinkled in. I think it's interesting as much for her ideas as it is for the chance to observe how different people define art.

Geez, I really need to write real post again someday...

This is a link I almost tripped on after checking out the above-mentioned essay from Paul Graham. It's a chart from Political Compass showing where 7 of the current White House candidates land on a graph where the x-axis is Left-Right, and the y-axis is Authoritarian-Libertarian.

I like this model, mostly because it recognizes the incomplete scope of the way we define politics in this country (almost exclusively in terms of Left and Right).

There is also a test you can take to find out where you fit on their graph, and then you can compare your results to results based on various political figures. I scored a little to the Left (-3.25), as well as a little Libertarian (-2.95).

Perhaps we can all now just take the test and vote for whichever candidate we fall closest to? I didn't think so, but it does sound like an interesting idea...

I can no longer tolerate hearing about polls from serious polling organizations asking respondents questions like "which candidate would you rather sit down and chug a beer with?"

I just don't get it. At all. I do understand that we have this collective mental problem that deludes us into thinking we'd rather have someone just like us in the White House; you know, someone we can relate to. The problem with this mindset is multi-faceted, though I'll only bother to mention two facets right now.

One, it would be much smarter to want someone smarter than us to run the world's sole remaining superpower; I mean, wouldn't that be a much better idea than electing someone just because he seems like a "regular guy"?

The other facet that strikes me like a baseball bat right now is this: does anyone really believe that either of the major candidates for President of the United States would really be just a regular guy anyway? Did either one of these guys really grow up middle class? Did either of them really have to start at the bottom at any point in their lives?

Just by being a several term U.S. Senator, John Kerry is statistically unlikely to be anything but rich, with or without a familial head start or a ketchup mogul for a wife. And George W. Bush? Well, that's where these survey results really confuse me. Here's a guy who's had pretty much everything handed to him, and yet many people seem to think "hey! He's just like me!"

I'm not saying being born with a silver spoon in your mouth makes you a bad President, but it certainly doesn't give you the socio-economic perspective of a typical American.

I lamented twelve years ago that many people seemed drawn to Bill Clinton because of his folksy charm, and I didn't vote for him in either of his Presidential runs -- though I suppose he had a better chance of understanding how typical Americans had to live. Now looking back, I wonder if 1996 will have been the last time I'll get a chance to see two major party rivals in the same election who have both come from modest to humble beginnings.

I guess I'd personally feel like I had more in common with someone that I know has had to start with fewer advantages and has still found a way to the top, in which case, I sense the two major party VP candidates know more about living like the rest of us than Kerry or Bush ever will.

Not that I'm sure that would mean much; in fact, I don't at all believe humble beginnings are necessary to being a decent president. It's really just a thought about the changes to the national political playing field, and the way we sometimes mistake charm for commonality.

I didn't expect to be deterred from the log for almost three days, but here I am, having slacked off this whole time...

Actually, I had my first two papers due over this past weekend, and I was a little behind on starting them, thanks to Labor Day and all the festivities. I swore to myself that I wouldn't let blogging get in the way of schoolwork, and that oath may keep me from posting as often as I normally would, but I'll still be here quite often.

As for the last post, I'm appreciative of the flow of ideas from a small handful of readers, through both email and comments. I was reminded of (if not introduced to) a few ideas I wouldn't have thought of on my own regarding terrorism, so it's good to not be stranded on this island alone.

Of course, I didn't set out to provoke too much thought with Saturday's memorial post, but now I'm thinking of expanding on some of those things I purposely neglected to mention on Saturday -- it's become apparent that I wouldn't be alone in some of my thoughts. But it remains to be seen if I'll have the ambition write that expansion post.

-had many clever thoughts to share, but then it occurred to me it's just better to keep it simple.

A few weeks back I visited the Camden County (NJ) Victims of Terrorism Memorial on the bank of the Cooper River. It commemorates the lost lives of U.S. citizens in various terror attacks from the Marine barracks attack in Lebanon in 1983 to the September 11 attacks three years ago.

It moved me more than I thought it would, and now I realize I have nothing more sufficiently profound to say about it.

In response to a couple comments about yesterday's post expanding on the demystification process, I want to further clarify one thing:

I didn't mean that I just want people to vote, though it may have come out that way. When I speak of more people getting involved in the process, I am referring to people actually becoming more involved, not just by registering or pulling random levers in November, but also by becoming aware of issues and how those issues affect the voting public. Education was kind of key, but for the most part, I guess it was only implied.

So now I'm coming right out and saying it, that we need to become more involved as an electorate, not just in the voting part of the process, but in understanding why and how we vote.

I'm fairly sure Steve wasn't really confused about that, but just in case anyone else was...

In other random thoughts, I really wanted to post something on "third rail"-type issues, how they matter immensely, and how most American politicians are so afraid to touch them that they fail to seriously address solutions. But that may be a little too ambitious, and even a stripped-down version is a little ways from being ready to post.

"A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy,
but won't cross the street to vote in a national election."
-Bill Vaughan

I wrote a post called The Demystification Process last month. It was a primer of sorts on how a politically uninvolved, citizen might get more involved in the election process, along with a brief argument for getting involved. One thing I may not have included in that post is a link for unregistered voters to register for the upcoming election, so here's one.

Readers of this blog will know that I have not made any outright endorsement of any of the candidates for President this year. I would much prefer people use their own best judgment; that's essential to my beliefs about democracy. It's important to get involved, even if you're not a die-hard political junkie (as I sometimes am).

I felt it was a good idea to rehash last month's post about Demystification, especially considering that voters not yet registered, but wishing to take part in this November's election, have less than a month left to register (in most cases). If you aren't registered already, please do so. If you don't care about politics, please start to. And if you don't know who to support this year, please don't ask me to tell you who to vote for. If this last dilemma is familiar to you, please consider using some of the resource links at the bottom of the previously-mentioned post to familiarize yourself with the candidates, their stated positions and other important voter information. You may not agree with my politics (or what you can glean of my politics from these ramblings), but it is vitally important to get as many people involved in the democratic process as possible.

"...and you wanna ask God about things like cancer,
but you don't think that you'll get much of an answer."
-Bill Mallonee

I recently came across what I consider to be a great compliment in a post from Cziltang, whose weblog played a part in inspiring my blog beginnings:

"...The Smedley Log is one of the few bastions of civilized discourse I've found on the web. The author seems like a genuinely nice guy. I disagree with a significant chunk of his political commentary, but I read him regularly because his opinions are grounded in his real-world experience, he asks questions that I don't always have easy answers to, he is brave enough to offer suggestions as to what might be done (rather than just whine about what "they" are doing wrong), and it is all done without name-calling, mud-slinging or any significant rancor..."

There is something strangely gratifying about being appreciated by readers who don't necessarily agree with you. I was a little slow to post the above text, because I generally don't like to come off as patting myself on the back, but there is a point to this mention; it's about a train of thought that really got going in my head when I was directed (by Ales Rarus) to a post entitled "Everything you wanted to know about blogging but were afraid to ask."

Apparently according to Simon (or maybe I should hope he's being facetious), being reasonable isn't a great way to get noticed in the blogosphere, nor is being polite. Among his list of blogging tips are the following:

"36. Logic and reason are for the weak. Knee-jerk and off-the-cuff reactions are for the blogger.
30. Just like in life, extremism beats moderation and emotion beats logic. If you want reasoned discourse prepare to dwell in oblivion. If you want invective and ill-considered responses, watch the hits come in."

I have, as usual in my life, ambled down the road less traveled, and in so doing, I suppose I may have mired myself in blog oblivion.

And do you know what? I like it that way.

Call me a niche blogger. I don't want to be right all the time, nor do I want to be the most controversial voice on the internet. All I can hope for is to write something (once in a while at least) that makes somebody think a little. I've no desire to play the part of one of those pundits on cable news shows who engage in nightly talking points duels. To steal a thought from Steven Den Beste's "unintentional manifesto", I'd rather readers know why they agree or disagree with me than to just have readers agree with me. And sometimes, I'd like to leave a few folks scratching their heads a little. It's good once in while to struggle with the more difficult questions in life, ones where the answers don't seem so readily available.

Those are the types of the blogs that spawned in me the initial urge to to start burdening the blogosphere with my many opinions, and so, whether or not my strategy results in legions of loyal fans, I think I've held fairly close to my original ideal -- and that fills me with a certain sense of satisfaction.

It's either that, or somewhere deep inside I really believe that logic and reason will eventually overcome emotion and extremism. Yes, I can hear the snickering already.

I really expected much more from Zell Miller the other night, and I have to say I was a bit disappointed by some of the rhetoric in his keynote speech.

The first thing that stuck out was his stated anger at anyone who would refer to American troops as occupiers rather than liberators; which brought me to a(n apparently imagined) memory of the President musing how he understood the displeasure of the Iraqi people, saying that he wouldn't like being occupied either.

Then I thought a bit about Miller's condemnation of Kerry's votes to cut weapons funding, during which he cited some specific weapons that Kerry voted against funding for; it was almost as if the Secretary of Defense who had proposed several of his mentioned weapons cuts wasn't on the same ticket that Miller was supporting. I wouldn't think so much of it, except this argument was a cornerstone of Miller's contention that Kerry is unfit for duty as Commander-in-Chief.

In short, I actually thought I'd hear a more reasoned, less hysterical appeal from the Republicans' key Democratic defector. And then to see his onstage performance followed by some fairly inexplicable words to correspondents from two different news networks, first on CNN, followed by what appeared to be some wistful thinking about challenging Chris Matthews to a duel... I'm not sure I understand where all that was coming from.

Oh well, first Arnold, then Zell Miller; they somehow both managed to let me down this week. Andrew Sullivan has an angle on Miller's speech at his site, where he also critiques several other convention speeches. After reading several more conservative voices than my own talk about Miller's speech, I'm convinced that Miller's brand of Democratic politics is more fiery and conservative than most Republicans will ever be.

To temper the politically flavored posts a little, and because I found this particular news item humorous, I wanted to link to the story of a Pennsylvania cashier who accepted a $200 bill (with the current President's picture on it) and actually gave over a hundred dollars in change to the customer. I have to wonder if the customer's effort to pass a $200 bill was initially a joke, and if it was just too hard to pass up getting $200 in merchandise/cash for the phony note. Or, considering that the cashier was not even aware of the counterfeit nature of the bill, perhaps it was not a joke at all and the customer actually believed she was passing a genuine bill.

Incidentally, as I was unaware, this is a pretty widespread ruse, as I might have known had I been a regular at The Smoking Gun.

I'd been skimming Talking Points Memo when I stumbled across a Slate link this morning; it's a rundown of some pretty strange comments about George Soros from House Speaker Denny Hastert.

I usually find Josh Marshall a little strong on lefty bias, but I like getting that perspective in a relatively civil, well-written fashion, so it's become an occasional internet check point for me lately. This story, which I originally heard in a cable news blurb a few days ago, is one that I thought I should have heard a little more about -- and I can't figure out why such scandalous comments from such a prominent politician haven't garnered more attention from mainstream news sources.

It has been my unwritten policy, for just two weeks all summer, to avoid any sort of critical commentary regarding ongoing convention fare, so please forgive me if this comes off as anything but humorous. Because really, I do like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but one particular stretch of his address to the Republican National Convention last night had me scratching my head a little. (By the way, I linked to the speech text here.)

It was the part of the speech where he launched into a litany of "if...then" statements about how to tell if you're a Republican. About halfway through his speech, I realized something: I'm a Republican! I agreed with almost every single ideal he was setting forth. How could I have missed my obvious party affiliation for so long?

Come to think of it, pretty much everyone I know is also a Republican (I'm not sure, but I could verify it with a little survey based on the text of Arnold's speech, right?). Everyone I know -- even the people who swear they're voting for Kerry in November. All Republicans! Hmmm...

I guess the President must be having a little trouble with his base these days, what with so many of them leaning towards Kerry at this point.

In light of this, I wonder how they snuck that old Patriot Act through a couple years ago? It couldn't have been a Republican president, because even Arnold knows that all Republicans believe government should be accountable to the people and not the other way around. Somebody must have forged the President's signature on that one -- pretty sneaky.

Come to think of it, I think John Kerry (also a Republican by most of Schwarzenegger's criteria) voted for that legislation too. Wait, something doesn't sound right here.

Okay, okay, I know we're not all Republicans, but it was too obvious, listening to the Governator's speech that we are supposed to infer only Republicans embrace the good, decent, democratic principles; thus everyone else must not believe in mom, baseball and apple pie.

Of course, all is fair in love and war... and political conventions. We saw just as much overly simplistic rambling a few weeks ago in Boston; it just didn't seem quite as hilarious to me as Arnold's speech last night. Still, I watch intently.

I know everyone else goes for the movie stars, but I'm still waiting to hear the Zell Miller speech tonight.

In what will be another tip of the hat to Ales Rarus, I found another useful bit on his site this morning -- this one's about a simplified primer on stem cells, especially as it pertains to diabetes.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post about my displeasure with Laura Bush's comments on stem cells; not displeasure because I disagree with her stance, but rather because I didn't see the need to mince words or come up with secondary excuses for her position, especially when the secondary excuse has no firm scientific backing.

After reading the above-mentioned primer, I have softened a little (not much, mind you), but I still think it's important to recognize that the harvesting of embryonic stem cells would be wrong even if it were proven to be an effective answer to diseases like diabetes. And as a diabetic, I am emotionally sympathetic to those who look to stem cells for a cure, but I am firmly against doing something I believe is wrong just to get where we would all like to be.

I am pleased to report that one of my more infrequently-updated favorite blogs has been updated, with a string of three new entries over the past day or two. New material from Cziltang is always a welcome sight.

The most recent of those three is about "Political Vegetarianism," in which he makes an interesting and, I think, plausible point correlating "ethical" vegetarians with certain far-left responses to specific geopolitical situations like the war on terror. In attempting to synopsize his post, I'm sure I've already done a disservice, so I hope readers will consider hopping over to the Ratlands to read the article for themselves.

When I was a child, I remember being in religious settings and hearing older people bemoan the liberal nature of other so-called religious folks. I suppose that's where it came from, this idea I held for years that being liberal was a bad thing. And so, for the first eighteen or twenty years of my life, I dared not allow myself to be perceived as anything but a conservative, truly believing that the more conservative I was, the more likely it was that I was following the right spiritual path.

I remember an argument I had once with an ex-girlfriend who happened to be from a Catholic family. It was just after I heard the results of some survey that suggested Catholics were more likely to support Democratic candidates than Republican ones. I wondered how this could be, and she (the ex) told me that it was just the way her family thought about politics. I continued not understanding it, and simply chalked it up to one more instance supporting my idea that Catholics were not really in tune with God's will.

How my perception has changed over the years.

It took years of consideration, most of it independent of many of the religious influences that had taught me all those ideas about liberals and Catholics, but I at some point started to realize that the story of Jesus Christ, the icon upon which my faith has been based, does not exactly endorse one political philosophy over another. In fact, as I've listened over the years to the same voices towing the "Christian Conservative" line, I've noticed a couple of discrepancies.

One inconsistency is when I hear endorsements of the capitalist system, as if it was passed down in some ancient religious manuscript the rest of Christianity somehow missed. I'm not suggesting that capitalism and all of its practitioners are purely evil, but it has become quite clear to me that anyone who clings to a system based on acquiring material wealth as if that were the holy grail is somehow missing the bulk of Christian theology.

And quite often, this phantom link between the Christian Gospels and greed is used, without further justification, to grant a sacred exemption to all those who make it their mission to accumulate as much personal wealth as possible, by any means necessary, as long as their backside rejoins the church pew every Sunday.

The philosophy is sorely lacking.

It seems that many of the classic liberal interests were driven, at least originally, by more spiritual motivations (think social justice issues, defense of the weak and disadvantaged, and skepticism of anything rooted in greed). Yet it seems like many of the more vocal Christian movements of recent years have been overwhelmingly supportive of right-wing politics. True, there are issues on which right-wing politicians tend to favor some traditional Christian issues, such as sanctity of life debates (at least in some cases). Unfortunately, many of their pro-Christian stances are strictly reactive.

True, the conservative movement generally is against things like abortion, though it lacks a more constructive agenda to distinguish itself as actually being pro-life (instead of just anti-abortion). But the fact is that many religious-minded voters who oppose abortion and see it as a pivotal issue will support a pro-life Republican over a pro-choice Democrat every trip to the voting booth. And most of them don't mind the lack of a truly constructive pro-life agenda.

Perhaps that is the pivot upon which the Conservative Christian movement hinges; if so, it may also be the greatest smokescreen of all time, because while beating the family values drum all the way to the voting booth, there are many other ways in which typical staunch conservative politicians make the family values mountain increasingly insurmountable for the average American family.
Think about it, how many times has degradation of American moral fiber been attributed to a lack of prayer in schools, or the general movement of society away from Christian principles? A more likely culprit is the breakdown of the American family. True, some conservative voices echo this sentiment, but how many would support measures that make it possible for lower income parents to spend less time at work, and more time at home with their kids? The two-income family has also been decried as a root of family breakdown, but how many conservative politicians support measures that would make it possible for the typical family to have a full-time stay-at-home parent? Surely, the lack of parental involvement plays a much larger role in kids growing up without principles than simply disallowing a prayer in school. And what would foster parental involvement more than holding large employers responsible for the kind of compensation that was once tradition?

Instead the conservative political agenda struggles to (and sometimes thrives at) finding ways to keep the minimum wage low, giving tremendously profitable companies incentives to move overseas and all the while telling us with a straight face that this is the way Christ would do it. It wouldn't take a bundle of new entitlement programs, just the guts to ask our corporate citizens to provide what used to be normal compensation.

The other inconsistency in conservative politics that someone pointed out to me recently is that sometimes conservative Christians tend to want government to pass legislation to make our society more holy, when, as Christians, we should all know that the battle is for hearts and minds, and that is never won by force. It's akin to the old knock on liberals for wanting government to fix all societal ills. Sometimes it doesn't work that way. The best we can hope for government to do is provide an atmosphere where we can achieve our ideals, and that's all I expect. Not to give a free ride; not to raise barriers to success; but to allow us the honest opportunity to reach our ideals.

Now, like I suggested earlier, it's not as if the liberal agenda is magically in tune with my Christian roots; it has many deviations from Christian theology as well, but at this point, the far more popular misconception as it pertains to Christianity and politics is that the current state of conservatism actually fits like a glove -- it obviously does not.

And if there's one idea I'd like to spread with these thoughts it's to encourage other Christians to think for themselves, not just accept that the alliteration between the words "Christian" and "conservative" are some kind of sign from God that you should automatically vote one way or the other.

It would just be nice if we do away with the pack mentality of accepting a whole political ideology because of one or two favorable positions.

Thanks by the way, to one specific (anonymous) catalyst for this post. For better or worse, I found a couple of the ideas passed along to be very helpful.

"If you listen real close, there's the audible sigh"
-Bill Mallonee

I have often wondered about people complaining, and I actually was talking to a friend about this last night, so it came back to the front burner of my brain. I'm not necessarily referring to everyone who complains, but rather those who complain about little things -- and I could put myself into this category sometimes. That specific segment of complainers fascinates me because I've heard it suggested that people who complain about little things are often trying to avoid thinking about bigger problems.

I have observed people about whom that statement seems especially true; meanwhile, I've seen a lot of people who put up a strong front, even though their problems are both huge and real. While I'm not totally sure about this, I suspect that those who complain the most are the most restless about their bigger concerns in life, either out of a sense of futility or lack of will to solve their problems. And the folks who carry themselves in a quieter fashion about life's bigger problems are those who have come to some level of understanding, if not resolution, concerning life's detours. Either that, or they're just walking around like human time bombs -- depending on the person, I suspect there are plenty of examples of each kind of quiet coper.

Anyway, in my discussion last night, I was thinking of a principle illustrated in Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey bases some of his theory on the idea that we need to identify two circles:

• a circle of concern, made up of all the things that concern a person.
• a circle of influence, made up of all the things we can actually control (at least to some degree)

Part of Dr. Covey's prescription for a successful life requires a person to identify these two categories and then figure out which items appear in both circles, thereby limiting our focus to the things that both concern us and and which we can control to some degree.
I'm not a hard-core self-help book consumer, but I must admit that reading this theory in Seven Habits represents a crystalline moment in my life. So people know, I didn't just bring up the Covey book to promote it to everyone, though I'm sure there are many folks who could benefit from it. Truth be told, the aforementioned two-circle concept is by far the clearest recollection I have of the entire book.

I think it stuck with me because I immediately recognized the truth in it, and it wasn't as if Steven Covey was the first to think of the idea (indeed, I believe he goes out of his way in the book to suggest that his ideas are gleaned and compiled from other self-help models). But Covey was the first person I read that put it in a way I could instantly understand.

There are so many people who concentrate on what they can't do, and for the purposes of this post, "can't" is to be taken literally. Many of us, myself included, can benefit from focusing on what we can accomplish and prioritizing from that point. Everything else we can wish, hope or pray for, but our energies are better spent on what we care about and can do something about.

Anything else just gives you anxiety.

After all that, I'm completely unsure that I've done anything to address how this specifically fits people who complain about little things -- maybe it should have just been a grander statement about people who worry too much, whether they complain or not.

At least I meant well.

I quite honestly have no idea what to make of John Ellis O'Neill, John F. Kerry's longtime nemesis from the days of the Vietnam protests, recently revived in his criticism of Kerry's post-war activities (and apparently some in-war activities too).

On one side of my mind's coin, I don't buy into the criticism leveled against John O'Neill in this recent Newsday piece. Some Kerry defenders have latched onto his "lie" to Richard Nixon, as revealed in formerly secret Oval Office tapes, but I think O'Neill's explanation of it makes sense. People are sometimes casual in references, especially when they've no idea they're being recorded. This isn't to say I'm on board with O'Neill and the rest of his "Swift Vet" buddies; it's just that if you're going to try to catch someone in a lie, I'd like to think you'd want more than something that seems like a relatively innocent mis-statement.

But like I said, O'Neill isn't necessarily off the hook in my mind yet. I've heard people tout him like he has no stake in this argument, other than to defend the good reputations of fellow vets who've allegedly been besmirched by Kerry's various claims. This may not be the whole truth on his intentions. In following the career of John O'Neill (beginning with his usefulness to the Nixon efforts against Kerry), you have to allow for some possibility that his cooperation with White House interests may have played a role in some of the jobs he held that have been known to propel people to somewhat lofty perches in the field of law. To look at his career ascent in a total vacuum, disallowing any boosts from Nixon or his staff, would be rather naive.

But that doesn't mean O'Neill is lying, only that if he is, there would be a motive. Much the same can be said for John Kerry. My only point is to point out that anyone who suggests John O'Neill has no potential ulterior motives is being disingenuous or unaware of his history. I read a National Review article referring to O'Neill as the "Un-Kerry", which implies his status is very much dependent on the role he has played opposite John Kerry.

I tend to think it's at least possible such a dependence could factor into his motivation to get involved once again. Which isn't to say it does factor in, just that it's possible it could. The whole matter makes me wonder what it must be like to live your whole life as a derivative of John Kerry.