Your humble narrator was awarded the MSM last Saturday.
20031211
20031210
Fatherhood, the greatest job in the world
Firstborn's cast has been off for a week, and she's back to her normal high-speed low-drag self. Middlechild has begun occupational therapy, wherein we urge her to sit on a basketball when she has difficulty containing her energy, and to crabwalk to the bathroom in the morning to brush her hair.
Boy is being very boyish. Some pics of him are coming soon.
Fetus kicked Barbaloot in the ribs today.
I haven't posted anything in weeks, but I have a life, Christmas is coming, I'm supposed to be learning Photoshop and Linux, Christmas cards should have already been in the mail, and we've a new Baby in the house too (AMD Athlon XP 2500, 512MB, GeForce 2, dualbooting Win2k and RedHat 9) and Hallelujah, Comcast's cable modems have reached the neighborhood. We're considering it.
Boy is being very boyish. Some pics of him are coming soon.
Fetus kicked Barbaloot in the ribs today.
I haven't posted anything in weeks, but I have a life, Christmas is coming, I'm supposed to be learning Photoshop and Linux, Christmas cards should have already been in the mail, and we've a new Baby in the house too (AMD Athlon XP 2500, 512MB, GeForce 2, dualbooting Win2k and RedHat 9) and Hallelujah, Comcast's cable modems have reached the neighborhood. We're considering it.
20031123
Disneyfication not only sucks, it isn't necessary
Disney lobbies Congress to extend the duration of copyright, to 'protect' their intellectual property rights in the absolute worst sh1t they've ever made, which turds happen to be stories they've grafted on to characters they've appropriated from history and literature rather than created themselves. They'd be better off dropping the campaign, and diverting their political contributions into hiring a few more American writers, actors, voices, and animators, and let them create something original and worth copyrighting.
If copyright law is amended, one useful change would be to prohibit taking any work already in the public domain, or work that is declared open by its owner, back under copyright by publishing a work derived from the original. "You want to Disneyfy the Prioress' Tale? Groovy, baby, just, well, you can't copyright it. Canterbury Tales are open. You won't make enough off of it to hire Amanda Bynes."
Need some examples? On one hand, Pooh, Tarzan, Hercules, and Aladdin, shamelessly derived from stories by A A Milne or Edgar Rice Burroughs, hotwired from the rich but abandoned parking lot of Arabic culture, or nicked from Greek myth.
For example, an insipid animated episode wherein the aforementioned Burroughs character was confronting a blond, voluptuous white-skinned jungle priestess commanding an army of leopard men to seize him for her mate. I turned the television off, over the protests of all the airbreathing offspring units, and it had nothing to do with how the priestess was attired. Intellectual property is too generous a term for this stuff. Where exactly is the intellect?
On the other hand, Fillmore, Kim Possible, and Buzz Lightyear, original Disney works or derivatives of original Disney works. With the inane exception of Lilo and Stitch, they are good or at least entertaining programs (Señor Señor Senior suspends Kim Possible over a pond in a Bondian moment: "The piranha won't be delivered until next Tuesday. But these koi haven't been fed in days."). Granted, it's not the one-liner quality you'd expect from Buffy, but consider their audience. As a side benny, these programs keep Ricardo Montalban employed as voice talent.
Disney's live-actor fare falls somewhere in the middle, aimed at raging-hormone pre-teens and obsessing over dating and parents who just don't get it.
Their best stuff was probably produced by accident, by and for a company that owns so many channels on the satellites and in cable headends that their program directors are desperate for material to fill them: consider how often they rerun material like the twin girls who played basketball, or Cadet Kelly. The kids will notice but they don't care; I do. Had Disney been paying more attention to their content suppliers and compelling them to adhere to Disney traditions, Fillmore would not make it through. All of it would be crap.
Another troubling aspect of Disney's dominance is their revival of the studio system---they're cultivating a cohort of child actors who are moved from one Disney program to another. I hope I don't read about these kids thirty years from now like we hear about Michael Jackson and Liza Minelli today.
If copyright law is amended, one useful change would be to prohibit taking any work already in the public domain, or work that is declared open by its owner, back under copyright by publishing a work derived from the original. "You want to Disneyfy the Prioress' Tale? Groovy, baby, just, well, you can't copyright it. Canterbury Tales are open. You won't make enough off of it to hire Amanda Bynes."
Need some examples? On one hand, Pooh, Tarzan, Hercules, and Aladdin, shamelessly derived from stories by A A Milne or Edgar Rice Burroughs, hotwired from the rich but abandoned parking lot of Arabic culture, or nicked from Greek myth.
For example, an insipid animated episode wherein the aforementioned Burroughs character was confronting a blond, voluptuous white-skinned jungle priestess commanding an army of leopard men to seize him for her mate. I turned the television off, over the protests of all the airbreathing offspring units, and it had nothing to do with how the priestess was attired. Intellectual property is too generous a term for this stuff. Where exactly is the intellect?
On the other hand, Fillmore, Kim Possible, and Buzz Lightyear, original Disney works or derivatives of original Disney works. With the inane exception of Lilo and Stitch, they are good or at least entertaining programs (Señor Señor Senior suspends Kim Possible over a pond in a Bondian moment: "The piranha won't be delivered until next Tuesday. But these koi haven't been fed in days."). Granted, it's not the one-liner quality you'd expect from Buffy, but consider their audience. As a side benny, these programs keep Ricardo Montalban employed as voice talent.
Disney's live-actor fare falls somewhere in the middle, aimed at raging-hormone pre-teens and obsessing over dating and parents who just don't get it.
Their best stuff was probably produced by accident, by and for a company that owns so many channels on the satellites and in cable headends that their program directors are desperate for material to fill them: consider how often they rerun material like the twin girls who played basketball, or Cadet Kelly. The kids will notice but they don't care; I do. Had Disney been paying more attention to their content suppliers and compelling them to adhere to Disney traditions, Fillmore would not make it through. All of it would be crap.
Another troubling aspect of Disney's dominance is their revival of the studio system---they're cultivating a cohort of child actors who are moved from one Disney program to another. I hope I don't read about these kids thirty years from now like we hear about Michael Jackson and Liza Minelli today.
20031115
Twenty-first Century Shmoo
We were repairing some cracks in the concrete porch here at chez Fûz, because the earth beneath it was not compacted properly. Twice, by the way: twice did the earth subside and cause the porch to crack in half, twice did we show this lousy work to the builder, twice was it repoured under the builder's warranty.
We tired of this when it cracked the third time, so Barbaloot called in the mudjackers, who bored holes through the porch slab and pumped in a cement-sand mixture under pressure. We are told that it will not move again, but it's not exactly where we wanted it. A crack remained, more than a cent and a half wide, showing where the roving half of the slab used to be part of the rest of the house. The mudjackers told us to fill the big void with expanding foam, and finish the crack with cement caulk.
Expanding foam, after a few minutes of working with it, impresses me as the Twenty-first Century's shmoo, a Swiss Army substance so to speak (duct tape is the Twentieth's). It will do just about any damn thing.
We're always looking out for useful tools and substances in case of emergencies. We'd appreciate any comments our readers may leave here, describing the unique uses to which this wonder substance has been put.
Firstborn's broken ankle suggests: could you set a fracture with it? How about it, Dave? Grunt Doc?
Could you use it to fashion expedient insulated housing? A flotation device? There are some limitations: once you start the can, you'd better finish it, because it glues its own can shut.
Is this stuff worth the weight and the bucks to stuff a can of it into a bugout kit, or a crisis kit you'd keep in your car or at work?
We tired of this when it cracked the third time, so Barbaloot called in the mudjackers, who bored holes through the porch slab and pumped in a cement-sand mixture under pressure. We are told that it will not move again, but it's not exactly where we wanted it. A crack remained, more than a cent and a half wide, showing where the roving half of the slab used to be part of the rest of the house. The mudjackers told us to fill the big void with expanding foam, and finish the crack with cement caulk.
Expanding foam, after a few minutes of working with it, impresses me as the Twenty-first Century's shmoo, a Swiss Army substance so to speak (duct tape is the Twentieth's). It will do just about any damn thing.
We're always looking out for useful tools and substances in case of emergencies. We'd appreciate any comments our readers may leave here, describing the unique uses to which this wonder substance has been put.
Firstborn's broken ankle suggests: could you set a fracture with it? How about it, Dave? Grunt Doc?
Could you use it to fashion expedient insulated housing? A flotation device? There are some limitations: once you start the can, you'd better finish it, because it glues its own can shut.
Is this stuff worth the weight and the bucks to stuff a can of it into a bugout kit, or a crisis kit you'd keep in your car or at work?
20031114
"Dad . . . our secret mission!"
The pumpkins grew well in our backyard this year. They volunteered from seeds left from last year's Hallowe'en jack, and Barbaloot cultivated them into giant smothering vines that dominated the irrigated bed.
I planted the idea with Firstborn that this form of wealth must be shared with the community. By the dark of night, we would secretly plant seeds from this year's crop at various places around the housing development, along the trails and footpaths that snake through the various filings and under the powerlines. She liked the idea so much that I couldn't beg her off of it any longer, cast or no cast.
Tonight we did it, with a red-filtered flashlight and one of Barbaloot's garden trowels, and the tap-clunk of Firstborn's walking cast.
We smelled but did not encounter a skunk. That was useful cover, though, because any neighborhood dogs we disturbed were disregarded as still apesh1t over the skunk.
I planted the idea with Firstborn that this form of wealth must be shared with the community. By the dark of night, we would secretly plant seeds from this year's crop at various places around the housing development, along the trails and footpaths that snake through the various filings and under the powerlines. She liked the idea so much that I couldn't beg her off of it any longer, cast or no cast.
Tonight we did it, with a red-filtered flashlight and one of Barbaloot's garden trowels, and the tap-clunk of Firstborn's walking cast.
We smelled but did not encounter a skunk. That was useful cover, though, because any neighborhood dogs we disturbed were disregarded as still apesh1t over the skunk.
The strongest argument in favor of human cloning I've heard so far
We need a large number of Alex Kozinski clones to write more court opinions like this one:
We reverse Stewart’s conviction for machinegun possession under section
922(o) as an unlawful extension of Congress’s commerce power . . .
Iraqification? (revised much)
The buzz today is that the United States is pressing for the provisional government of Iraq to take form and take charge as quickly as possible, to "Iraqify" the occupation of Iraq and relieve the US and coalition of much of the political burden that comes with that occupation.
That would be a mistake, for one big reason. Modern "Iraq" is much like Yugoslavia. It was a political creation fusing different peoples with different religious and ethnic traditions. When the strong leader who forcefully held this mess together departed the scene, centrifugal forces flung them apart. Many of the people held together involuntarily as Iraqis didn't want to be Iraqis in the first place, they were forced into it; the rule of Saddam Hussein merely aggravated it. Guarantees of individual rights under a brand-spankin' new constitution will not assure the minorities that they can safely assign their loyalty to the provisional Iraqi government.
Don't try to build or rebuild a democratically governed Iraq. We should, instead, partition The Country Formerly Known as Iraq along those ethnic lines again. While the country is still reeling from its violent recovery from Saddam Hussein, we have the opportunity to draw some wide chalk lines on the map, to shove these people back into ethnic/religious cantons. Provide incentives for people to move themselves into cantons that identify with them.
The canton will issue passports that don't even mention "Iraq" on them, to people who can verify their birth there, through a combination of family members witnessing for each other, and whatever Iraqi official documents can be rounded up. Each canton's passport will have to be unique in size, shape, color, everything to impress on the bearer that he's no longer Iraqi. He's a Baghdadi, or a marsh Arab, or a Kurd, or so forth. Self-erasing temporary passports can be issued to people who can't prove their birth or affiliation with the canton, to help sort out the interlopers from neighboring provocateur countries.
Regulate the hell out of movement of goods and people between these cantons. Allow unfettered telecom and commerce from any one province directly to the rest of the world that speaks the same language and observes the same religious customs, but limit the bandwidth among each other (direct all telecomms from one canton to another through a coalition-controlled portal), until they've settled down.
Build quickly on each province's independence, give it incentive to control its own borders, let it issue its own currency or use a Western one. Westernize it out of sight of its like provinces. Make it a damned-independent canton with a government so close to the governed that merging it with other like provinces would be perceived by the guy in the street as a step backward.
Some of those cantons will be delighted to have budding independence and might need occasional restraint---the Kurds in particular. Some will want to do some stupid things with that independence, such as the Shi'a maybe getting cozy with Iran.
Some of those cantons will remain holdouts of Saddam's loyalists, if not Saddam himself. As the other cantons mellow out and can be managed by coalition partners, US forces can withdraw and concentrate our forces on those holdouts.
Divide and liberate this stretch of land, and quit calling it Iraq altogether.
That would be a mistake, for one big reason. Modern "Iraq" is much like Yugoslavia. It was a political creation fusing different peoples with different religious and ethnic traditions. When the strong leader who forcefully held this mess together departed the scene, centrifugal forces flung them apart. Many of the people held together involuntarily as Iraqis didn't want to be Iraqis in the first place, they were forced into it; the rule of Saddam Hussein merely aggravated it. Guarantees of individual rights under a brand-spankin' new constitution will not assure the minorities that they can safely assign their loyalty to the provisional Iraqi government.
Don't try to build or rebuild a democratically governed Iraq. We should, instead, partition The Country Formerly Known as Iraq along those ethnic lines again. While the country is still reeling from its violent recovery from Saddam Hussein, we have the opportunity to draw some wide chalk lines on the map, to shove these people back into ethnic/religious cantons. Provide incentives for people to move themselves into cantons that identify with them.
The canton will issue passports that don't even mention "Iraq" on them, to people who can verify their birth there, through a combination of family members witnessing for each other, and whatever Iraqi official documents can be rounded up. Each canton's passport will have to be unique in size, shape, color, everything to impress on the bearer that he's no longer Iraqi. He's a Baghdadi, or a marsh Arab, or a Kurd, or so forth. Self-erasing temporary passports can be issued to people who can't prove their birth or affiliation with the canton, to help sort out the interlopers from neighboring provocateur countries.
Regulate the hell out of movement of goods and people between these cantons. Allow unfettered telecom and commerce from any one province directly to the rest of the world that speaks the same language and observes the same religious customs, but limit the bandwidth among each other (direct all telecomms from one canton to another through a coalition-controlled portal), until they've settled down.
Build quickly on each province's independence, give it incentive to control its own borders, let it issue its own currency or use a Western one. Westernize it out of sight of its like provinces. Make it a damned-independent canton with a government so close to the governed that merging it with other like provinces would be perceived by the guy in the street as a step backward.
Some of those cantons will be delighted to have budding independence and might need occasional restraint---the Kurds in particular. Some will want to do some stupid things with that independence, such as the Shi'a maybe getting cozy with Iran.
Some of those cantons will remain holdouts of Saddam's loyalists, if not Saddam himself. As the other cantons mellow out and can be managed by coalition partners, US forces can withdraw and concentrate our forces on those holdouts.
Divide and liberate this stretch of land, and quit calling it Iraq altogether.
Sauce for the gander
We've had an official change of heart regarding Rush Limbaugh's pain-med dependence, prompted by Swen's report.
If anyone is bothering to tabulate the blogosphere's sentiments, put me down for Send him up.
If anyone is bothering to tabulate the blogosphere's sentiments, put me down for Send him up.
20031111
Two broken tarsals
Chez Fûz now nurses a Firstborn child who broke two bones in her ankle while playing in the school playground.
She's a trouper about it. She winced and barely slept the night after it happened. Now she hobbles around as if it were only a heavy weight on her foot, barely an inconvenience.
She's a trouper about it. She winced and barely slept the night after it happened. Now she hobbles around as if it were only a heavy weight on her foot, barely an inconvenience.
Thank you, I think
TriCare, DoD's servicemember health insurance, is now available to drill-status National Guardsmen and Reservists. It was included in the DoD supplemental appropriations for our occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, which President Bush signed into law.
I think the President opposed it, as did SecDef. Barbaloot on the other hand likes the idea.
Fûz is ambivalent. On the one hand, it's very inexpensive insurance at the prices being quoted, for a household that seeks to control costs until I find permanent employment. On the other hand, it further cements the relationship between health care and employment, a shotgun wedding arranged by US tax code.
I was content, Barbaloot somewhat less so, with the private-sector bought-by-my-own-goldurned-money catastrophic health care. The insurer actually checked my health out, asking me about various and sundry conditions before quoting. Barbaloot's reservations concern their refusal to cover one or two conditions, not even quoting a high premium to cover them. Overall, though, it did what we needed it to do, except pay for birthing Tadpole, who wasn't foreseen at the time anyway.
I could not use the fact that I carried my own health care as a bargaining chip with an employer---save money on your health plan and split the difference with me through my salary? Why, that's against the law, Fûz. Even the insurer's application warned me against it.
TriCare, offered as a benefit where I'd pay thirty percent of what the DoD pays for it and they pay the rest, is worth almost all of what I gross as a drill-status Guardsman. It was pushed through by some powerful lobbies, not just those lobbying for the National Guard, but by some members of Congress who are otherwise No Friends of Mine: Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative Diana DeGette, to name two.
Both worked for giving TriCare to the Guard, but are active against my RKBA, in ways that interfere with my ability to train privately to save my own a$$ and those of my team through the application of rifle fire. My AR's are very sensitive and take exception to phrases like "no legitimate sporting purpose" or "weapon of choice of gang-bangers."
Forgive me if I imply any disrespect to them and to anyone else who voted specifically to make me eligible for TriCare when I come off active duty. None was intended. But I can't get very excited about taking up a benefit that almost exceeds the dollar value of my normal peacetime level of service (which level of service I'd like to get back to before I retire, by the way) and in a way that furthers the nationalization of health care. There's got to be something in it for them and their agenda. So I'm grateful, but with serious reservations.
Next time Congress wants to do drill-status Guardsmen a favor, fund a live-fire shooting range, equipped for sidearm, carbine, shotgun and LMG, on every Guard and Reserve facility. Staff it (hire retirees and disabled vets! Another lobby to pander to!) so we can sign in on our own time, sign out a piece and work with it any time from 0500 to 2300. We'll police our own brass and clean the pieces; hell, we'd even buy our own practice ammo from the Gummint, at five-percent over Uncle Sugar's price, to defray range operation costs if necessary.
I think the President opposed it, as did SecDef. Barbaloot on the other hand likes the idea.
Fûz is ambivalent. On the one hand, it's very inexpensive insurance at the prices being quoted, for a household that seeks to control costs until I find permanent employment. On the other hand, it further cements the relationship between health care and employment, a shotgun wedding arranged by US tax code.
I was content, Barbaloot somewhat less so, with the private-sector bought-by-my-own-goldurned-money catastrophic health care. The insurer actually checked my health out, asking me about various and sundry conditions before quoting. Barbaloot's reservations concern their refusal to cover one or two conditions, not even quoting a high premium to cover them. Overall, though, it did what we needed it to do, except pay for birthing Tadpole, who wasn't foreseen at the time anyway.
I could not use the fact that I carried my own health care as a bargaining chip with an employer---save money on your health plan and split the difference with me through my salary? Why, that's against the law, Fûz. Even the insurer's application warned me against it.
TriCare, offered as a benefit where I'd pay thirty percent of what the DoD pays for it and they pay the rest, is worth almost all of what I gross as a drill-status Guardsman. It was pushed through by some powerful lobbies, not just those lobbying for the National Guard, but by some members of Congress who are otherwise No Friends of Mine: Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative Diana DeGette, to name two.
Both worked for giving TriCare to the Guard, but are active against my RKBA, in ways that interfere with my ability to train privately to save my own a$$ and those of my team through the application of rifle fire. My AR's are very sensitive and take exception to phrases like "no legitimate sporting purpose" or "weapon of choice of gang-bangers."
Forgive me if I imply any disrespect to them and to anyone else who voted specifically to make me eligible for TriCare when I come off active duty. None was intended. But I can't get very excited about taking up a benefit that almost exceeds the dollar value of my normal peacetime level of service (which level of service I'd like to get back to before I retire, by the way) and in a way that furthers the nationalization of health care. There's got to be something in it for them and their agenda. So I'm grateful, but with serious reservations.
Next time Congress wants to do drill-status Guardsmen a favor, fund a live-fire shooting range, equipped for sidearm, carbine, shotgun and LMG, on every Guard and Reserve facility. Staff it (hire retirees and disabled vets! Another lobby to pander to!) so we can sign in on our own time, sign out a piece and work with it any time from 0500 to 2300. We'll police our own brass and clean the pieces; hell, we'd even buy our own practice ammo from the Gummint, at five-percent over Uncle Sugar's price, to defray range operation costs if necessary.
Possibly some answers
Barbaloot and I have been distracted for some months now, because Middlechild's teacher has raised concerns with us about her behavior in school. Her academic progress is good, but she disrupts class, cannot pay attention, shows affection at inappropriate moments, and becomes absorbed in fantasy play.
Asperger's syndrome? The onset of autism? Dammit, what?
A psychologist has seen her and compared notes with the teacher. Barbaloot's sister independently guessed too. The consensus is sensory integration dysfunction.
Easily treated by an occupational therapist, such as Barbaloot's sister, though there may be an underlying cause we can't see. Federal monies are released to school districts to provide therapy, including a so-called sensory diet. By the end of the school year, the behavior might be resolved and the academic progress will not be at risk. Other kids in her class will no longer be molested.
Ah, the catch. Federal monies are strung with a gamut of meetings, conferences, and paperwork that can take weeks to grind through. To me, this condition sounds like a developmental or even medical one, which schools would be wise to detect, and possibly treat, but it is primarily medical and not educational. The FedGov has too much influence on how medicine is practiced today.
At any rate, we've begun the process and are anxious to learn what we as parents need to do for a bright but out-of-sync child.
Asperger's syndrome? The onset of autism? Dammit, what?
A psychologist has seen her and compared notes with the teacher. Barbaloot's sister independently guessed too. The consensus is sensory integration dysfunction.
Easily treated by an occupational therapist, such as Barbaloot's sister, though there may be an underlying cause we can't see. Federal monies are released to school districts to provide therapy, including a so-called sensory diet. By the end of the school year, the behavior might be resolved and the academic progress will not be at risk. Other kids in her class will no longer be molested.
Ah, the catch. Federal monies are strung with a gamut of meetings, conferences, and paperwork that can take weeks to grind through. To me, this condition sounds like a developmental or even medical one, which schools would be wise to detect, and possibly treat, but it is primarily medical and not educational. The FedGov has too much influence on how medicine is practiced today.
At any rate, we've begun the process and are anxious to learn what we as parents need to do for a bright but out-of-sync child.
20031110
More fun than you thought you could have wearing a helmet
A mountain-bike/pistol biathlon of sorts will be conducted by the Wildlife Hunters' Association of Colorado, on 6 December. I've got plans but wish I hadn't. More info forthcoming.
Update: direct from an organizer. Entries accepted up to the start of the event. Awards for the winners, men’s and women’s classes.
Questions? Please call 303-795-9677 and ask for Bill (or leave a message), or e-mail BLLEW(at)RMI.NET
Call anyway; I need a head count. Please arrive at least a half hour before the scheduled start. Assistance with timekeeping and scoring gratefully accepted.
Update: direct from an organizer. Entries accepted up to the start of the event. Awards for the winners, men’s and women’s classes.
Questions? Please call 303-795-9677 and ask for Bill (or leave a message), or e-mail BLLEW(at)RMI.NET
Call anyway; I need a head count. Please arrive at least a half hour before the scheduled start. Assistance with timekeeping and scoring gratefully accepted.
20031105
Certificate of Appreciation
After work today, I stopped at the Commissary to pick up, at Barbaloot's direction, our Thanksgiving turkey. Plus cookies for the girls' lunches, 'Murcan cheese and broccoli, large eggs, and so forth. It's easier for me to get home half an hour later than usual bearing groceries than for Barbaloot to drag Boy with her to the King Sooper's, and still pick up the girls from school on time.
The turkey was sixty-eight cents a pound. The cashiers were polite, cordial even. The grocery bagger was careful and made eye contact with me. After I tipped him and walked my own groceries out to the car, the tang of winter air on my nose punctuated a paragraph God had been quietly composing for me all day.
You, Fûz, have the Life of Riley. You are so very lucky.
And I am. I'm jobless, strictly speaking, and in a way that Official Jobless Figures do not capture and probably wouldn't understand. On 28 March 04, I'll be unemployed again and I have no idea what I'll be doing. But here and now, I enjoy what I'm doing and it doesn't drive me to Zantac, I put my kids to bed every night, another kid is on the way, the mortgage is being paid, I can get these thoughts out of my head and record them here without fear of retribution.
I'm grateful. That gratitude must go first to the taxpayers of the United States of America. I recall somewhere the idea proposed by a libertarian gadfly, that anyone receiving a subsidy, service, or other payment from the government should be asked, not required but merely asked, to sign a statement saying he or she was grateful for the benefit he or she received from the nameless hundreds of thousands of people who actually paid the taxes to make it possible.
Since the FedGov is in no particular hurry to start asking for such statements they won't even prepare blank forms to take them, so I hacked one together by myself. Technically, I receive the privileges of Tricare, the Commissary, and Class Six all in consideration for military service rendered, but since I feel lucky and grateful today, I'll express the gratitude anyway.
If you are a recipient of a similar Government-provided charity, feel free to copy/paste this certificate and replace my name with your own, or work up a competing design. Meanwhile Barbaloot and I consider with whom we will share our fortune, and our turkey, this Thanksgiving Day.
The turkey was sixty-eight cents a pound. The cashiers were polite, cordial even. The grocery bagger was careful and made eye contact with me. After I tipped him and walked my own groceries out to the car, the tang of winter air on my nose punctuated a paragraph God had been quietly composing for me all day.
And I am. I'm jobless, strictly speaking, and in a way that Official Jobless Figures do not capture and probably wouldn't understand. On 28 March 04, I'll be unemployed again and I have no idea what I'll be doing. But here and now, I enjoy what I'm doing and it doesn't drive me to Zantac, I put my kids to bed every night, another kid is on the way, the mortgage is being paid, I can get these thoughts out of my head and record them here without fear of retribution.
I'm grateful. That gratitude must go first to the taxpayers of the United States of America. I recall somewhere the idea proposed by a libertarian gadfly, that anyone receiving a subsidy, service, or other payment from the government should be asked, not required but merely asked, to sign a statement saying he or she was grateful for the benefit he or she received from the nameless hundreds of thousands of people who actually paid the taxes to make it possible.
Since the FedGov is in no particular hurry to start asking for such statements they won't even prepare blank forms to take them, so I hacked one together by myself. Technically, I receive the privileges of Tricare, the Commissary, and Class Six all in consideration for military service rendered, but since I feel lucky and grateful today, I'll express the gratitude anyway.
If you are a recipient of a similar Government-provided charity, feel free to copy/paste this certificate and replace my name with your own, or work up a competing design. Meanwhile Barbaloot and I consider with whom we will share our fortune, and our turkey, this Thanksgiving Day.
20031103
Consciousness-raising
My good friend Sandy is devoted to a unique charity. It depends on money, as they all do, but depends much more on pure word of mouth.
Talk to your spouse and to your friends about child organ donation. Think about it now, before the prospect of losing a child is even on the horizon.
Talk to your spouse and to your friends about child organ donation. Think about it now, before the prospect of losing a child is even on the horizon.
A glum week to be sure
if my antelope is the only bright spot in it. Send Alphecca some cheer, see another pic of me and the antelope, and read Jeff's weekly Gun Bias review. Please donate to his nitrocellulose meditation fund too. Turn that frown upside down, Jeff!
Never watch either one being made
Laws and sausages, that is. But Firstborn, Middlechild and I enjoyed the hell out of making them. The girls took turns cranking on the Porkert Number 5 grinder on Saturday afternoon. Here's the lot of them:
After dinner, they did not like the look of the hog casings filling with red goo, and opted to watch an old Maurice Sendak animation instead.
About twelve pounds of sausage resulted, including chorizo, Italian, and Weird Contrived Hickory-smoked with Cranberries.
After dinner, they did not like the look of the hog casings filling with red goo, and opted to watch an old Maurice Sendak animation instead.
About twelve pounds of sausage resulted, including chorizo, Italian, and Weird Contrived Hickory-smoked with Cranberries.
The right to confront one's accusers, the obligation to confront the accused
DenPost's Diane Carman made sense yesterday.
Her column leads me to one of those posts that in the beginning seems to demand word counts of DenBeste proportions to set forth, but by the time I mull it over and struggle with it to commit it to words, it's over as quickly as marital sex.
Here goes: Bravery is difficult. It sets the mature and the confident and the innocent apart from the unsure. We pay bravery lip service in the abstract and the general, though every one of us has failed it at least once when the concrete and personal need points its gnarled finger to a single one of us. If bravery were easy, everyone would be brave, but it isn't so we aren't. But that is no reason not to insist upon bravery, even from the victim of a horrible crime. That bravery may be the only tool a victim of rape has to get justice for herself.
Anonymity, such as that little piece of it I kid myself that I have at this weblog, is the opposite of bravery. The anonymity of rape shield laws is meant to take away the sting of an embarrassment that the victim likely did not bring upon herself. But the dullness these laws leave in place of that sting does not benefit the victim in the long run, nor other victims struggling with the choice of staying silent versus coming forward, nor other women who know they may someday suffer the same crime.
Regrets for the misspelling.
Her column leads me to one of those posts that in the beginning seems to demand word counts of DenBeste proportions to set forth, but by the time I mull it over and struggle with it to commit it to words, it's over as quickly as marital sex.
Here goes: Bravery is difficult. It sets the mature and the confident and the innocent apart from the unsure. We pay bravery lip service in the abstract and the general, though every one of us has failed it at least once when the concrete and personal need points its gnarled finger to a single one of us. If bravery were easy, everyone would be brave, but it isn't so we aren't. But that is no reason not to insist upon bravery, even from the victim of a horrible crime. That bravery may be the only tool a victim of rape has to get justice for herself.
Anonymity, such as that little piece of it I kid myself that I have at this weblog, is the opposite of bravery. The anonymity of rape shield laws is meant to take away the sting of an embarrassment that the victim likely did not bring upon herself. But the dullness these laws leave in place of that sting does not benefit the victim in the long run, nor other victims struggling with the choice of staying silent versus coming forward, nor other women who know they may someday suffer the same crime.
Regrets for the misspelling.
What we're reading
Middlechild enjoys The Picture of Morty and Ray.
Firstborn is working through The Tin Woodman of Oz (we used to live just down NY 13 from Chittenango, Frank Baum's birthplace). Then she finishes a Harry Potter and promises she'll try The Hobbit.
Boy, well, he enjoys anything read to him.
I'll start The Bride of Texas after I'm done gut-checking myself on Atkins induction. Czechs in the Civil War? Gotta be good.
Firstborn is working through The Tin Woodman of Oz (we used to live just down NY 13 from Chittenango, Frank Baum's birthplace). Then she finishes a Harry Potter and promises she'll try The Hobbit.
Boy, well, he enjoys anything read to him.
I'll start The Bride of Texas after I'm done gut-checking myself on Atkins induction. Czechs in the Civil War? Gotta be good.
20031031
the pelvic thru-u-u-u-sts, they really drive you insay-ay-ay-ay-ayne
This blog is in urgent need of jpegs, mpegs or written procedures of the MOPP Dance.
It's just a step to the left . . .
It's just a step to the left . . .
20031029
Good friends and egg-salad sandwiches
My good friend Daredevil looked me up recently. He's still in the tech industry, living in the Bay Area, and business brought him to Westminster. He called me up to take dinner.
Daredevil and I used to teach seminars together. I was Lewis to his Martin, Martin to his Rowan, Madden to his Gifford, Satchel to his Paige, you get the picture. A room of twenty or so people would sit in a meeting room at a Courtyard by Marriott, or a Doubletree, or whatnot, for three solid days listening to us describe how IEEE 802.7 broadband local area networks operated, or how to shove an entire band of cable TV signals down a wavelength of a singlemode fiber. And they paid for the opportunity.
His girlfriend at the time was becoming jealous of me, we spent so much time together. But hey, no wiry blonde in dire need of having her meds adjusted can compete with golf in Palm Springs on Super Bowl Sunday (it was a ghost town), for example, or golf in Orange, Connecticut on an autumn evening, or freezing our asses off in Hartford, or blackpowder hunting for deer, or a tour of Johnson Space Center, or dropping dollars in the gentlemen's clubs of Houston, Baltimore, Denver, the LAX vicinity, Hartford, et cetera.
We eventually were bitten by the sales engineering bug, and sought positions over there, in the early Nineties. He relocated to take a position with a business unit in Fremont, I stayed in Pennsylvania, and we hardly saw each other. As business those days took off, he followed his career to other companies in the area, and I eventually did too. But we stayed in touch, some times better than at others.
Since telecom started sucking, we've both been battered around, but he's sticking it out in the industry while I've practically forsaken it for Guard-bumming.
Thanks for dinner, Daredevil, and may business bring you to the Front Range again soon.
Daredevil and I used to teach seminars together. I was Lewis to his Martin, Martin to his Rowan, Madden to his Gifford, Satchel to his Paige, you get the picture. A room of twenty or so people would sit in a meeting room at a Courtyard by Marriott, or a Doubletree, or whatnot, for three solid days listening to us describe how IEEE 802.7 broadband local area networks operated, or how to shove an entire band of cable TV signals down a wavelength of a singlemode fiber. And they paid for the opportunity.
His girlfriend at the time was becoming jealous of me, we spent so much time together. But hey, no wiry blonde in dire need of having her meds adjusted can compete with golf in Palm Springs on Super Bowl Sunday (it was a ghost town), for example, or golf in Orange, Connecticut on an autumn evening, or freezing our asses off in Hartford, or blackpowder hunting for deer, or a tour of Johnson Space Center, or dropping dollars in the gentlemen's clubs of Houston, Baltimore, Denver, the LAX vicinity, Hartford, et cetera.
We eventually were bitten by the sales engineering bug, and sought positions over there, in the early Nineties. He relocated to take a position with a business unit in Fremont, I stayed in Pennsylvania, and we hardly saw each other. As business those days took off, he followed his career to other companies in the area, and I eventually did too. But we stayed in touch, some times better than at others.
Since telecom started sucking, we've both been battered around, but he's sticking it out in the industry while I've practically forsaken it for Guard-bumming.
Thanks for dinner, Daredevil, and may business bring you to the Front Range again soon.
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