I was driving back from the Dub Miller show last night. I needed to change the CD in the player, so I slowed down from the 65mph I was going to a more cautious speed of 55 so that I could put some distance between me and the van in front of me. Safety first, you know. As I'm switching out the CD my spider-sense goes off and I look up and I'm about to collide into the van, which is now going 10 miles an hour. On a major freeway. At 2:30 in the morning. I slam on the breaks and move into the other lane wondering what the heck is happening. Was there a broken down car in front of him? No. I don't realize what's going on until I see one of the light signs above that says "DWI Laws Strictly Enforced."

Great work, guy. Drive cautiously at 10 miles an hour on a major freeway just past closing time. No officer in his right mind would suspect you're drunk. Good thinking!

Get Donkey's Rob Humenik ponders whether or not outspoken atheist Michael Newdow is perhaps too extreme for the secular movement, citing a couple articles where Newdow lays out his real agenda: Getting God completely out of the public sphere. Up to and including getting the President to stop mentioning God.

I'm actually not that far from Rob on the subject. I thought that the Pledge was fair game, but a misplacement of priorities that was bound to create a bigger backlash than it had effect. Newdow takes it a few steps further and suggests that God ought to be removed from the debate entirely. It's not an uncommon view among many liberals (including many of my lefty friends) that religion ought to be a 'don't ask don't tell' issue. That is, of course, ludicrous. Religion strikes at the heart of who we are. Sure, sometimes it's used to cynically push unrelated causes, but using the arm of the law to squeeze it out of the public discourse is unrealistic and undesirable.

Rob clarifies a bit in the comments section and he's not quite as anti-anti-faith as I had originally hoped. One poster in the comments section suggested that one cannot be a "fundamentalist atheist" (a great term Rob derived) because atheism isn't a religion. It isn't a church, but it is a religion in that it requires certain beliefs about the world and it's creation. Agnosticism is the only true lack-of-religion. Several years back when I was agnostic I made the comment that Rob's ponderances reminded me of:

The only thing worse than a pushy Christian is a pushy atheist.

"I think nannies are for people who like to name kids but not raise them. In general, if you can afford a nanny, you have the money for one parent to stay home and raise the kid." -Lee Ann Morawski, Spinster.

I don't entirely agree, but I do think that some people don't always understand the sacrifices involved. I know that if we can afford it, I would like my future wife to stay home from work or, if she doesn't want to and can bring home enough money, I'll stay home.

Orrin Judd links out to an Atlantic article about the consistent draw of violent action movies where the violence is predominantly delivered by blacks on whites:

What has already appeared is of immense importance in the history of mass culture, even if it is aesthetically null. The film makers, whether white, or black, have sensed the audience's rage and its mood of revolt against insulting images of blacks in past movies and against the white man in general. The black cinema has discovered the profitability of revenge: the desires to make money and to erase a legacy of racial humiliation coincide perfectly in a cinema whose moments of purest audience joy consist of black men and women responding to white racism by killing oppressors. Movie audiences always wanted heroesfor fantasy release or just the basic pleasure of watching beautiful physical action, but this may be the first time an audience has demanded physical heroism in order to confirm an emerging sense of identity. The mood in the theaters is festive, alternating between admiration and mockery. If a white person wanders into one of these movies, he will have the novel experience of complete exclusion.

I actually have no problem with these movies, despite what the title of this entry might imply. There is a lot of rage out there against "the man" and movies are a healthier expression than many of the alternatives. There is the argument that this type of thing inspires young people to violence, but it's not an argument I've ever really bought into. But that's another post. The entry title refers to my experience with seeing such a movie. Since Orrin related his over there, I'll relate mine here.

When I was about seventeen or so, four friends and I went to the movie theater in the predominantly minority area of Greenspoint. The only movie that none of us objected to was one called Dead Presidents. Most of us had never heard of it. So we were the only five white people in a theater with about forty or so people in it. The plot follows a group of Vietnam veterans through (graphic images) of the war and their return to racism at home. The climax involves the death of about a dozen white guys (mostly cops and security guards) along with a scene at the end where the main character justifies the slaughter as the honest response to racial injustice.

Every time a white character would die (whether at the hands of one of the black heroes or the Vietcong) the crowd erupted in cheers. Terry, Alana, and Julia started joining in the cheers about halfway through. It was partly because this was the closest thing they had to a party to go to that night, partially a when-in-Rome sort of thing, and mostly a way to digest the horror (particularly of the devestatingly graphic Vietnam scenes) that was all too real in their LSD-induced haze (My date Presh and I were the sober caretakers). It was a little creepy at the begining, but in the end (particularly when our friends joined in) it became part of the experience. I also should note that it wasn't entirely racial. When the hero beat the crap out of his wife, they were cheering nonetheless.

In the end, I had a great time. I don't think I'll ever rent the movie though. Since I don't hang out with druggies anymore or have angry black friends, it just wouldn't quite be the same.

Venucians love talking about their feelings. They can go on and on about them and it's great because it makes them feel better. Most Martians, myself included, are not so (directly) expressive of themselves. I am generally quite articulate about how I am feeling (it helps my writing), but the more personal it is the more it drains me to share. I wrote a rather lengthy letter to Ora after we had a few awkward moments in a conversation today. I wanted to clear something up and one thing lead to another and one paragraph to eight or ten. I shouldn't have hit "send" because after I did, I didn't want to think about it again for a long time. However, she is generally good at responding promptly, so as I was at the Charlie Robison show tonight, it was lingering in the back of my mind that I would probably come back to quite a response.

I was not disappointed.

Blogging tomorrow will either be light or heavy, depending on if I'm absorbing or avoiding. Probably the former.

Last new year, I lit a cigar and toasted a Budweiser to the new year. My resolution was to leave behind 2001, which was a pretty tough year. I succeeded.

Now if I can just leave 1996 behind.

It was a very interesting discussion and thanks to those who waded through it. Please let me know your thoughts. Owen posted yesterday on his blog that he's moderated his opinion of how dangerous and file-swapping really is an accepts, though not to the degree I do, the "pox on both houses" argument. For my part, he may well be correct about the CD prices. I would love to hear an explanation for how music videos are anything but a sinkhole for money and a luxury competitors in a non-oligarchic industry would not be able to afford, but by and large considering their influence over the airwaves, they could be worse. The rest of my arguments still stand, though, and I believe provide sufficient ammunition to shoot down the rectitude of the RIAA.

As a fiction-writer-type-person, one thing that interested me most about the discussion with Owen was the character motivation. I've been accused of seeing the world in black and white before, but very often I'm skilled at taking an argument and being able to turn it into a red-blue argument (or, to avoid the famous 2000 map, a green-orange one). It helps me insofar that I don't plug my philosophical beliefs into my favorite characters and view moral worthiness is not determined by whether they are a Democrat or Republican. The main character in my first novel is a libertarian-minded Republican and in my second is a pro-life Democrat. Different experiences lead to different conclusions. They're both still wrong, though, of course. It's nonetheless helpful in both my fiction and non-fiction writing to be able to take a disagreement I am having and put it in the green-orange context.

I thought about this and started doing it during my discussion with Owen as we both admitted our various biases. In Owen's case, he saw a computer platform die due to piracy so the evils of it is very real to him. He prefers national musicians over local ones and is not a music afficionado in the sense that I am, so the record company provides him with a valuabe service by filtering artists and presenting the best ones for his consumption. Furthermore, he is in college which is where the most blatant piracy in the country takes place, so he's seeing the worst of it and therefore much more concerned.

In my case, I would say 2/3 of my CD collection is composed of artists that have never been signed or, even if they have, have either been dropped or recieved relatively little national airplay. Most of them I would have discovered even if they hadn't been signed. I rarely listen to the radio anymore. The services provided to me by record companies is minimal. Their primary effect on my life and music selection is obstructive. They shut down Napster, they are trying to keep me from burning CDs that I already own, and they dominate the airwaves and squeeze out my favorite musicians. I am also inclined to purchase CDs where I download the mp3s so my anecdotal evidence suggests that they won't go out of business anyway. If they do, I won't lose any sleep at night over it.

In both of our cases, this colors our perspective of the entire debate. Even though we more or less are sharing the same set of facts, our primary concerns are different. To him, the record company may be out of bounds, but they have to protect themselves. To me, I don't care about the RIAA much one way or another; I just want them to get out of the way so that I can buy the CDs (most of which aren't theirs) and do with them what I want. We both agree that the record companies are wrong. We both agree that the freeloaders are wrong. The question is, who is more wrong and where are the wrongs more damaging? That's where we disagree, and if you look at our character backstories, you understand why perfectly.

My mind has been a bit fried lately, so it's time for some prepackaged (yet wholesome and entertaining) material! I was actually intending to blog this anyway, and what better time than the present?

I had a very interesting discussion with Owen Courreges of the Owen Courreges blog (hey, I guess not everyone has initials that make a devestatingly punny blog name). There are links to the original posts, but it is not necessary for the sake of the conversation for you to read them. It may provide helpful context, though. I will follow up the emails with some final thoughts.

The backstory:

RAW writes something a long time ago:

More than the law, though, there is an ethical implication to all of this. It is their moral right to charge what they want and disseminate their works as they so desire. It is our moral wrong to subvert that buy downloading and burning CD's that we would otherwise buy. Most claim not to do this -- and many don't -- but many do. They know they do.
...
However (am I on the fourth hand now?), even non-hack-artists need to eat. If they don't have to spend their days working at IBM, the consumers win because they can write and perform more. Recently I have read many proposed ways that record companies could capitalize on the Internet, get increased listenership AND make money.
In the end, that's what it's going to come down to. We have to spend money. We have to be willing to spend money. We need to let go of the idea that art should inherently be free and anyone who charges for it is some sort of criminal. Even if (in the case of the RIAA) we really don't like who is charging us for it.

RAW writes something recently:

It turns out that [file-swappers] may unknowingly already have [demonstrated good faith]. As most people are aware, mp3 quality is traditionally lower than on the original CD. Why is this the case? Because the file-swappers chose for it to me. Somewhere early on, 128kbs (kilobytes per second of music) became the standard for ripping mp3s. If the original rippers had been looking to replace CDs, they likely would have tried to rip the music at the near-CD-quality 192kbs. If the purpose of this was to circumvent the record companies and get music for free or at very reduced cost, why would we not have ripped the songs at full quality?
...
Because that's not the goal. it never was. People knew full well they were burning at a quality loss at 128kps and chose to do so anyway. It saved HD space and the trouble of having to get a second HD just to hold the music. People who really care about quality are going to buy the CDs because they want the best possible copy. People who don't care that much are the types that in yesteryear would have just made tape copies of their friends' CDs, so the record companies aren't losing them either. There are cases where people will not buy a CD for one song like they might have before, but there are also cases of people becoming exposed to music they otherwise never would have. It's possible that in the end mp3's and CD-burning is hurting the industry, but that is partly due to a series of antagonistic moves by the record companies.

Owen blogs back:

With all respect to Whitlock, this is a flimsy rationalization, like so many I've heard before. First of all, his argument is speculative - who is to say the MP3 using public would use the low quality music files? It seems more likely to me that they would simply rely on file sharing much as they do now rather than accept inferior subsitutes.
...
I could think up other analogies, but the point should remain clear - file sharing, although popular, is still piracy. If you do it, you doing something illegal and unethical. It may not be the crime of the century, but it's still wrong. File swappers can continue to do it if they wish, but I don't want to hear anymore weak justifications. They don't work.

RAW comments on Owen's blog:

I will continue to do it because I discover new music through it and, in the end, buy CDs because of it. There are those pure rationalizers who have stopped buying CDs (because they "refuse" to support record companies or whatnot) and one of my earliest posts was a condemnation of that mindset.

[Read More!]

On the way back from the computer store, I saw a sign for SBC Communications DSL service.

"The Autobahn of the Internet"



Yep. You just truck along on it. Let me tell you...

you take yourself way too seriously.

If your computer randomly shuts down for the fifth time in a day and you flip it the bird, you can see your own reflection on the black screen. So, in essence, you are only flipping the bird to yourself.

And it wins yet again.

I have an Excel spreadsheet template designed to insert the prices and speeds of various processors. From there it goes into a formula to determine what is the optimum price (highest spead for lowest cost). Today I bragged about this to the coworker I need to supply a computer for. If I keep telling myself "I'm not a nerd, I'm not a nerd, I'm not a nerd" maybe my knowledge of the spreadsheet will magically disappear and I will do what any normal person does: Blow money unnecessarily for the fastest processor we can afford.

One area where I would actually like to see the government get more involved with is inside sales telemarketers. I have spent the last two hours dealing with what I believe is a scam and trying to convince them that no, I did not in fact order it. I do not have authorization to order it without the president's approval. Instead, the invoke a "verbal contract." I gave them our address so that they could send us some information, but they didn't tell me that constitutes an agreement to purchase the costly subscription. Obviously, this isn't legal. However, since it is a verbal contract there is nothing written down it will likely require more time and effort to cancel this order than the subscription costs.

A few months back, I ordered try-before-you-buy printer toners. They did not mention on the phone, in our "verbal contract," that if you are dissatisfied with the product and ship it back, you pay a restocking fee of 25%. Well I learned my lesson on that, but it may not have even mattered if I had told them I didn't want it. They could have just sent it anyway and it would have cost more to deal with it than to buy it.

In the age of the Internet, verbal contracts ought to be backed up with an email quote and response. That way if it's forged the salesmen would have hell to pay and people would not find themselves in the situation that I am in.

Does anyone have any advice for dealing with this except hiding under my desk and refusing to answer the phone? I remember the phone companies used to do this. Does anyone know how the law dealt with that?

Anna Quindlen is not my favorite writer, but she sure hit the nail on the head with this one. I am actually going to be writing on a similar topic in the future:

"But it does have something to do with a curious attitude that seems to have taken root among some modern parents. And that is that life with kids is just like life without kids, only with bunk beds.

It is possible to have children and still work punishing hours. It is possible to have children and still have a bitchin? social life. It is possible to have children and still booze it up and do drugs, just as you did when you were young and single.

It is possible. It is surely not desirable.

Having children changes everything. There?s constant grousing about the failure of various sports figures to serve as national role models, when all they really are qualified to do is pass a little ball around a little area. But the moment that little cord gets cut with those little scissors, two little people have been turned into role models instantly, whether they like it or not."

Amen.

To those of you that aren't keeping up with your Drudge, there was recently a flap at the Connecticut Democratic convention where liberal activist Ned Coll, referring to Republican Governor John Rowland, said, "In fact, I know things about him that I don't choose to bring out in public today, that I have observed with my own eyes. He is a snake!" and then "Death to the prince of darkness!"

I know practically next to nothing about Rowland other than the basics (governor, Republican, Connecticut, Bushie) and only remember his name from speculation about who he might appoint to the Senate in case Lieberman had become VP. Nonetheless, look at the picture of this guy. I mean really look at it. Imagine for a moment that you are in a comic-book like world where demons walked the Earth in human form. Isn't this the first guy you would expect to sprout horns, grow red skin and a black goatee and use his giant bat wings to fly off into the night with a pitchfork in hand. Maybe it's the smirk or the evil looking squint in his eyes. Maybe I'm more overworked than I had previously imagined. [note: the original picture I used to illustrate the point was removed from its original source and I didn't have local hosting at the time, so I replaced it with another picture in which he, I must admit, does look slightly less evil. He does, I should still add, look eerily reminiscent of one of the bad guys in Fox's 24]

On a similar note...



In 1998 and 2000, Congressman Ron Paul drew a challenger by the name of Loy Sneary. Loiy. Sneeeeeary. From what I remember about him, he seemed like a pretty decent guy and I wouldn't have minded too much if he had won. Nonetheless. Loy. Sneary. Isn't that name of the character Christopher Walken played in Batman Returns? If not, it should have been. The name just screams out "corrupt" of "powermongering." I actually looked around on the net for a picture of the mild-looking man, only to discover that the only picture I could find he is holding a dangerous weapon!

Geeze Louise, politicians need to learn not to look like and have names of demonic characters.

And I, quite apparently, have been working too much and need to go home and take a nap. Catch y'all later.

UPDATE: Yet another one!


Edmund Stoiber

Is that Edmund Stoiber, candidate for German Chancellor, or Edmund Stoiber, Anime supervillain??

[Thanks to Warliberal for this one]

It says "buns?"

I was knockin' around Get Donkey earlier when I came across this post:

UggaBugga's Quiddity Quack describes how ABC News doctored some footage of a fumbling Bush to make him sound better. Very Interesting, but unfortunately not surprising.

So I headed over to Quack's place to see what the fuss is about:

What actually happened was shown on CBS:
In a report by Bill Plante:

BUSH: ... when I say I'm a patient man, I mean I'm a patient man. And that we will look at all options and we will consider - uh, .. uh, .. uh, .. uh - all technologies available to us and diplomacy and intelligence.
The four seconds where Bush was trying come up with the items he was going to consider were unflattering to the President. He looked hesitant and not focused on the issues.

However, a different George Bush was seen on ABC:
In a report by Terry Moran:

BUSH: ... when I say I'm a patient man, I mean I'm a patient man. And that we will look at all options and we will consider - uh, ? all technologies available to us and diplomacy and intelligence.
How did ABC do that? Instead of a continuous shot, which would have shown a "jump", the viewer saw Bush at the podium up until the words "we will consider", and then the image was switched (?) to a side view - the four-second fumbling excised - where "all technologies available" was heard as if he spoke whole thing seamlessly.


There is a noticeable difference when comparing two video clips, but it still carries some punch in an audio version which is available as a 250k .wav file here. The first part is CBS / Bill Plante, the second part is ABC / Terry Moran. (The .wav file is as small as possible: 8bit, mono, 8khz sampling.)

Who says the media doesn't polish Bush's image?

Okay, if Bush had said "... and we will consider - uh... nuking the hell out of everyone with all the technologices available to us and diplomacy and intelligence" and the part in italics was cut out, that would be trying to polish Bush's image. Taking out superfluous "uh"s does not qualify. I'm sorry. The idea that the press is trying to "cover up" Bush's inarticulateness is just plain goofy. It's well documented. People have come to expect it and knew about it during the election. To detractors of the president, it's proof that he's an idiot. To the rest of us, it's merely proof that he is not articulate. Many of us aren't. Because I don't get a kick out of watching Bush squirm (and most don't), I have no need or care to see every "uh" and fumble.

So, am I just saying that because I am a Bush supporter? Actually, no. I am not a very big fan of Houston Mayor Lee Brown. During Tropical Storm Alison, he was on television a lot. For those of you who are not familiar with Brown, he is not a very articulate person. He doesn't unload Bushisms, but he does say "uh" a lot. I remember watching him on the news at the Firehouse in the middle of the storm as he stumbled his way through explaining that he was asking for federal assistence. After the umpteenth uh, I noticed that it wasn't a live broadcast and wondered why they felt obligated to leave the footage unedited and waste our time. (I was a bit short-tempered about it; we were in the middle of a tropical storm, after all)

Of course, Brown stumbled for what have been fifteen seconds. Bush's edit was only four seconds.

That's the point, though. Four seconds. Not exactly Kurtz-worthy material.

A new study is out, declaring:

1. People don't like their jobs.

2. The less they make, the less likely they are to like their jobs.

3. Middle-aged workers are no longer as happy stuck in middle management as they were when they were younger and sure they wouldn't get stuck there.

So why do we do it? Why do we toil away for hours on end far and above what is permissable in many countries?

Cause we like stuff more than we hate work.

(link found via Off The Kuff via Sneaking Suspicions)

Jane Galt has an impressive rebuttal to those in the blogosphere and out of it that are overreacting to the recent New York Times Magazine article suggesting that fat isn't nearly as harmful as carbohydrates. Jane has stood admirably firm on the matter, having done considerable independent research for an article she wrote for Salon. I am more or less in agreement with her. The problem isn't fat, per se. It's not sugar, either. It's both of them combined and consumed in unheard of quantities. Anyhow, read what she has to say because she says it a lot better than I do.

In her comments section, Fred Boness writes:

I have tried a number of diets over the years. The best strategy I have found is to pick two diets and follow them both simultaneously. I have found it is too hard to get enough food on just one diet.

It reminds me of an old joke that I used to have when I was a chubby kid whenever anyone told me to go on a diet. I don't know if I came up with it or I swipped it from the likes of Abbot and Costello, but it goes "I am on a diet. I'm on two, actually. One says I can have 1,200 calories and the other says 1,500. So I eat 2,700."

Badda-beeeesh!

Things look like they're starting to turn around in the Texas Lieutenant Governor race between stellar Democratic former Comptroller John Sharp and morally bankrupt Republican Land Commissioner David Dewhurst (can you tell who I am rooting for yet?). Dewhurst had led or was tied in all the polls I'd seen until the most recent set. The newest poll gives Sharp a slight edge. In addition to the recent uptick in the polls, he has now picked up the endorsement of a Republican State Senator:

"I am a dedicated Republican who whole-heartedly supports the Republican ticket. However in the Lt. Governor's race I believe John Sharp is the better choice. I have seen him in action and trust him to be a conservative problem solver." -State Senator John Carona (R-Dallas)

Sharp was the Democratic nominee in 1998 and lost a squeaker to now-Governor Rick Perry. Despite having nearly every worthwhile endorsement (including that of the conservative Texas Farm Bureau, which practically built Perry's career) fell just short of being the only Democrat elected that year due to poor Democratic turnout. I was worried that he would have a hard time getting the momentum that he had and lost in 1998, but that appears not to be the case.

I was having lunch with a couple Republican activists during the '98 elections and they more or less agreed that Sharp was by far the better candidate, but Republicans couldn't risk a Democratic Lt. Governor hurting Bush's chances at the presidency. Helping them in their decision was the fact that Rick Perry himself was a solid candidate. Dewhurst was running for Land Commissioner that year and the agreement there was that he was not. Two of the three of us crossed party lines to vote for the other guy.

This is not a Democrat vs. Republican choice, folks. This is the choice between one of the most qualified candidates ever for the post and a man that would be the least qualified in nearly two decades. The worst Republican officials can find on Sharp is that he didn't actually save the state $8.5 billion during his eight years as Comptroller as his ads say, it was more like $5 billion. His budget fell during his tenure despite the fact that in the middle of it the state treasurer post was abolished and his department took responsibility for all its functions.

Dewhurst, on the other hand, has got to be the only Land Commissioner in the history of the office to be a runner-up in Texas Monthly's annual Bum Steer contest, which holds a write-in vote on the worst Texas has to offer. The Land Commissioner is not exactly a high-profile position. Garry Mauro used the post to garner less than 30% of the statewide vote against George W. Bush in 1998 (considerably worse than Gore did in the state in 2000). Yet Dewhurst came in second place only to the infamous Kenneth Lay for the honor. He managed to get the Republican nomination for Lt. Gov. by chasing everyone else out of the race. Acting Lt. Governor Ratliff (the only person as qualified as Sharp for the post) was run right back into the Senate, Greg Abbott had to jump ship to the Attorney General race at the first opportunity. It would be one thing if he chased them out with his competency or qualifications, but it was simply his war chest.

It's tempting for Republicans to like the idea of a candidate funding his own campaign so that he doesn't owe anything to anybody, but money doesn't help when the more people know about you, the less they like you. He may squeak by in the 2002 Lt. Governor's race due to the competitive gubernatorial and senate races, but the sooner Dewhurst is laid to rest the better off Republicans, and all Texans, will be. Dewhurst has made no bones about his ambitions and had to be convinced by Rick Perry not to enter a divisive primary battle with John Cornyn for Phil Gramm's senate seat. It's a good thing that he did or Texas would surely fall into the Democratic column, which would be a monumental embarassment for President Bush and hurt Republican hopes for taking back the senate. Dewhurst's ego will not let him languish in the lt. governors spot for long. If Hutchison retires in 2006 (and I believe she might), expect him to have just enough money to hurt his Republican rivals for the nomination and lose or come out with the nomination broke, bruised, battered, and as obnoxious as ever.

It will be a sad day for Texas and the Texas GOP if he wins in November.

I think I'm going to print my Republicans for Sharp bumper sticker now.

I am rarely hungry around lunch time so I generally spend my lunches either writing for the blog or at a truck stop down the street. Today I was tired of sitting in front of the computer so I stopped by the 'stop. Right as I was about to leave, a frequenter of the 'stop named Larry was bumming around for a ride. I didn't offer up because I don't know Larry all that well, but I like the guy if for no other reason that he embodies the modern concept of a rugged cowboy. I am working on an ad campaign for a fictional cigarette company that needs a cowboy and if I had my druthers he would be cast for it. Everything from his cowboy had to his full moustache amid a sea of stubble. Perfect. Until he opens his mouth with a squeaky voice that even the slur of his perpetual drunkenness cannot compensate for. In fact, it only amplifies it and lately he's been amplified a lot.

Everyone else there either had walked or driven a bigrig that they obviously wouldn't want to take just a couple miles down the road, so I agreed to go ahead and take him. The combination of the smells of alcohol, burping gas, and dirt never smell so putrid as when they are in your car. It was only a couple blocks to the trailer park where he "works" (he's been unemployed for over a month now). I took him to the end of the park and dropped him off right by the colorful plastic swingset by the "office next door." In the meantime, I was regaled of how he was living with his ex-wife a couple months ago and how they *shudder* "made love" every night. Actually, all he said was "I used to live with my ex-wife. We made love every night" with periodic repetitions of "every night" and "made love" thrown in at periodic intervals, just in case the smell alone wasn't making me feel sick.

I make my way back to the truck stop and Stan is still hanging around. "Did he take you to his trailer?" he asks me. I tell him that I did. He then asked, "Did you see the blue trailer across the road? That one's mine. Biggest in the lot. Painted it myself!" To which I replied with a hardy congratulations.

Several months back I was telling my former roommate about one of my adventures at the 'stop when an angry wife threatened to drive-by shoot us all. He asked why in the world I keep going down there.

"You meet the most interesting people there," I replied.

So does anyone out there have any idea how to fumigate a car?

I'm not exactly a libertarian, but I am probably closer to being one than any other label (I'm not exactly neoconservative or Religious Right either), so I can't answer Chris Bertram's charge to Stephen Den Beste and other libertarians, but I will tackle it from a quasi-libertarian standpoint.

Chris says (achiving buggy, search for "transnat" if you need to):

I'm willing to bet that Den Beste believes that members of some groups should have some rights that others just don't have. Citizens of the US, for example, typically find there are fewer legal obstacles to becoming resident in New York City than citizens of, say, Syria do. Of course, if Den Beste really thinks it outrageous that "You don't get to choose your group" and "Someone else will categorize you into your group" then, presumably he will support the right of Syrians just to renounce their Syrian citizenship and adopt, at will, US citizenship. I take it that he doesn't support such an unrestricted right, and that he supports the right of the US government - "someone else" - to assign those individuals to a group (the group of those who are not US citizens).

First of all, Bertram's view of the libertarians views are not entirely accurate. I don't know that there is a consensus at all on the matter. However, the Libertarian Party (which to be sure does not speak for all libertarians) platform states:

We therefore call for the elimination of all restrictions on immigration, the abolition of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol, and a declaration of full amnesty for all people who have entered the country illegally. We oppose government welfare and resettlement payments to non-citizens just as we oppose government welfare payments to all other persons.

So I'm willing to bet that Bertram might be surprised at many libertarians view on the matter. As it turns out, I part company with both the Libertarian Party's platform and Bertram's suppositions on how libertarians would view immigration.

In the case of Chris's Syrian, I actually would support his right to come to the United States and become a citizen. I oppose arbitrary limits on immigration. However, when in Rome they ought to be expected to do as the Romans do to some extent. Therefore, I would support an open immigration policy with the following limitations:

(1) They must be able to speak English fluently. I don't support making English our national language, but I firmly believe that if a significant portion of the country is unable to speak it, the productivity that makes us so strong will diminish. This is particularly true if they don't know our primary (English) or secondary (Spanish) languages. However, I also believe that the government ought to take the initiative and offer English classes to anyone who wishes to take them free of cost. Libertarians won't like this idea too much because it means more government, but this is definitely a case where it would be well-applied. Liberals might object because they don't feel that English ought to be a requirement, but they might like government-spending aspect of it. At some point before naturalization, they would have to take a test demonstrating basic understanding of the language.

(2) Current naturalization requirements be left in tact. They need to know about our history and culture. They don't need to adopt it all (in fact, I would hope they wouldn't), but they do at least need to know why we believe what we do and where we are coming from.

(3) They must accept the principles on which this country was founded. In other words, if they want to come here and turn the United States into a religious or communist state, then they don't really want to be Americans, do they? While we can't read there minds, they ought to take an allegiance of some sort or sign some document pledging allegiance to the concept of individual liberty.

(4) I believe that we ought to have some sort of visa or green-card system but that it ought to be applied to those seeking citizenship or those that plan to go back after a specified amount of time. They should not last any more than a couple of years during which they ought to have the time to do what they need to in order to become citizens or make the money they need to in order to go home.

I'm writing this on the fly, so there may be something I'm missing, but there ya go. Bertram may still argue that this is arbitrary since people born in this country need not meet all these requirements in order to be citizens, but I believe that anyone that supports the notion of an American Muslim or Communist state, or has no inclination whatsoever to learn English ought to move to a country which is more closely aligned with their beliefs or customs. I'm not saying "love it or leave it," but I am saying "if you want the United States to be like Europe or Lebanon, you ought to live in Europe or Lebanon."

(Bertram's article found via What She Really Thinks)

A study has proven that women are more attractive to men when they are drunk. I've actually be running a study of my own for the past four or five years that has produced similarly astonishing results. I reached these five conclusions

1) Alcohol induces me to dance more

2) There is a bell-curve on my quality of dancing during the alcohol consumption cycle. After a couple beers, I recieve higher marks on my dancing capabilities. After a couple more, my scores fall eventually to the point of being below the pre-beer level. So I guess it's not exactly a bell-curve, but it appears more scientific if I stick the term in there.

3) There is a linear relationship between alcohol consumed and my inquisitive nature about the slur in my voice or lack thereof.

4) There is also a linear relationship between alcohol consumed and my feeling the need to tell everyone what their name is and, if I do not know their name, I will assign them one.. This will generally be followed by the proclamation: "I told you I'm not drunk."

5) #4 is often followed by #3.

Now, I shared with you the results of the experiment thus far, but I would like to experiment further. Unfortunately, I need sponsorship. Anyone interested in subsidizing future analysis, please email me.

Until then, check out the UMass study on binge drinking in The Onion.

My brother David popped the question to his girlfriend Melissa last night and she accepted. No date yet and they're not in a rush, but I am nonetheless incredibly happy for both of them.

American Kaiser Justin Weitz watched a teeny-bopper award show so you don't have to.

In an open-letter to America, one W.R. McDougal flies so far off the deep end I think he lands back right back where he started in an Esher-painted view of the world. He has some kinda mean things to say about America. You've heard it all before, but there are two interesting things I found about it.

1. He doesn't even try to tell us to do right because he feels that we are beyond hope. Now, the anti-American left often firmly believes in whatever America doesn't do (ie "You intervened? You cads!" vs "You idly watched bad things happen? You cads!"), but I've never seen it quite so brazen as this. We are lazy. We are stupid. Quiz question: Can anyone name a period in history where the most lazy and stupid nation was the most successful and powerful in the world? In any case, if we're beyond hope then why even bother with the letter? I generally don't waste my breath when it comes to lost causes.

2. He says:

Your whole economy is controlled by what is for the most part ravenous, international private banking interests in the form of The Federal Reserve, which with your government's consent leads you down the garden path to certain financial ruin thanks to a national debt you will never be able to repay.

There is a saying that "God will get him." It was, for instance, said a lot when OJ Simpson was acquitted. By and large, it is said that "God will get them" when the human justice has no more hope of doing so. It is said by the defeated so that they may comfort themselves into the belief that, in the end, there will be justice. God is naturally on their side and thus God will surely smite the slippery bad guy. Several paragraphs, including the above, reminded me of the "God will get them" mentality. Just as God gleams moral judgments based on the virtue (and lack thereof) with which we have lead our lives (as well as our humility in asking for His forgiveness), the economy god will surely smite the United States for its many sins. It has to. America is so wrong, darnit! Not only do we sponsor terrorism and dictators and blah blah blah, but we are also so brazen about it! We don't ask for forgiveness from the gods of international political correctness and international consensus. We don't give a rats petard what he has to say (which he mentions in his letter, as though it devalues us and not him).

Just as the "God will get them" is, in a way, an admission of already apparent defeat in the legal system (OJ Simpson, Rusty Yates), his ranting is perversely an admission that his predictions are at best not going to happen in our lifetime, at worst (for him) not at all. If it was so true and obvious, then why does he feel the need to say it? If I were in his shoes and I believed that a dirty, immoral system were right about to collapse, I would not say a word. At most, I would voice my "concern" so that I could say "I told you so" later. I would not waste my energy ranting and raving about it. It would be like the New York Yankees trash talking the Montreal Expos. What's the point?

The point, of course, is that the imminent collapse of America isn't so imminent. He may publicly profess to know what's going to happen, but on some level he must smell the bull[excrement] coming from his mouth or else he wouldn't need to waste so much time and energy saying it loud and long enough to have to convince himself... err... us, I mean, that it's true. Because believing that we are bad and wrong is not enough, and apparently it isn't, he has to believe that we will pay for our sins. We have to. No one can be that wrong and get away with it! His anger suggests that he believes we will, but can't admit it because it would shatter his fragile perceptions of the cosmic justice of the world.

But if it lets him hold on to his dementia enough so that he can sleep tonight, I'm happy to help. We Americans are a charitable bunch.

ESPN.com columnist Ralph Wiley writes about what he considers the 10 phoniest things in American sports. I'm not on top of sports like I used to be, but a couple did catch my attention:

7. Jose Canseco and Ken Caminiti on steroids in baseball
They really set it off, didn't they? They used steroids to the point of giving them rages, twitches, inner-ear imbalances, delusions of grandeur, but to smear half of the players was truly phony. You're done, so now you want to drag everybody down the hospital waste chute with you. Sad. Pathetic. And world-class phony, too.
(Media gets some steroid phoniness by then smearing the likes of Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds, but never questioning the likes of, say, Bret Boone; what turned him from a ping-hitting journeyman second baseman with Fred Patek power into a bat-flipping, bomb-hitting second coming of Joe Morgan? Honey-Nut Cheerios?)

Admittedly, I have a soft spot for Bret Boone. I was his father's only fan to live outside of Pennsylvania. I have the old Apple ][e game Micro League Baseball to thank for that. I was the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies playing some other team from some other year and Bob Boone the first home run I ever saw on that game. Being as young as I was, I immediately put him at clean-up in every subsequent lineup. Nevermind his .229 batting average and nine homeruns, I was a fan for life. So naturally I like Bret and Aaron Boone as well, so lay off buddy!

Seriously, it's a fair question to ask. It's also not an entirely unreasonable question to ask of Bonds and Sosa. McGuire was consistently asked and admitted to taking "performance enhancers' (well, duh) that might have been the equivalent. Given that these guys are taking fifty year old hitting records, their drug history is of substantially more importance than Bret Boone's. They can respond to the questions however they like, but we do have the right to ask them. Hopefully there will be standardized testing sometime soon and they will prove that they are great without any narcotical assistance.

10. O.J. Simpson and the Great Simpson Trial & us
Undisputed champion of the sports phonies. Had -- and in some cases still has -- people believing he's a nice guy who doesn't need to be fawned over and would never hurt a fly. Still sticking to his story instead of disappearing. The great USC tailback of lore, hiding behind the skirt of a woman named Faye Resnick? Sad. And sad are the people who bought his phoniness. You know who you are.

Wiley goes on to denounce just about everyone involved with the trial, including none other than the victim's parents*. His most vicious accusations are levied at the media for turning it into a racial issue (Wiley himself is black). I remember when it first happened and he was going to trial, I honestly didn't think that race would be an issue because I thought of Simpson as a sports hero, not a black man. I don't know if that was racist or colorblind of me, but it was how I felt. I was obviously in for a rude awakening. It had become a full-fledged racial trial by the time the jury was selected and I knew by the composition of the jury that the best we could hope for would have been a hung jury and better jury the next time around. Many around me in my rich suburban school were more oblivious, though, including my liberal sociology teacher who thought he should fry. When we heard there was a verdict that would be read at noon, I was one of only three people in the class who thought he would be acquitted.

Of course, since I'm white so my belief that he is guilty is immediately suspect. Similarly, blacks that believe he is not guilty are equally suspect. The truth is that we will never know with absolute certainty. I can't say the jury is entirely wrong for letting him off because the defense did a spectacular job in creating reasonable doubt. If he was white in the hands of a white jury, he probably still would have been acquitted (even if your remove the racial element entirely and leave the victims white). In the end, OJ Simpson didn't get off because he was black. He got off because he was rich. Outrageous, perhaps, but not an unfamiliar theme.

*-Wiley says that her folks, among other things, "sold her to O.J. for 40 pieces of silver, to do with her as he pleased, and then had the nerve to have righteous indignation afterward after turning a blind eye to her swollen jaw and bruised eyes. Oh, they knew what was going on. But they wanted to protect their vested interest." Does anyone have any idea what he's talking about? I don't remember anything about it, so it's not a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious.

BTW, this site rules.

As you've read, last week was one of the toughest I've had in a while. And that's just what I can talk about here. There is, unfortunately, more. Therefore... I bet you thought I was going to say posting would be down for the next few days, huh? WRONG! There is nothing so effective at dealing with stress as the great old American passtime of diversion. Posting will likely increase for the next couple weeks. Enjoy!

Jane Galt tracks down why she hasn't found Mr. Right yet with this article about how men, on average, prefer shorter women and women prefer taller men. I'm 6'5". I like this study. It does make sense, but they put an genetic spin on it that I don't buy. In fact, I would say that it is a product of the height difference, rather than a possible evolutionary cause of it as the article suggests. I believe that it primarily spins from the fact that women and men alike generally feel awkward when the woman is taller than the man. Therefore, a tall woman has a smaller pool of candidates because the man has to be taller.

I've noticed that many tall women in particular are very sensitive about their height. In high school, one attractive, leggy girl I knew (6'0") chose a date to one of the dances by putting the two boy candidates back to back and choosing the taller one. When a woman is 6'0" tall and insists that her boyfriend be taller, she has already eliminated 3/5 of all potential candidates. Most don't insist, of course, but I would suspect almost none insist that the man be shorter. However, short girls generally do not mind taller guys and therefore tall men are rarely summarily eliminated from anyone's pool of candidates. So the formula of attraction is not based on C<1+A+B (C = male height, A = female height, B = difference in height that the woman can tolerate), but rather simply C>A. In such a formula, the higher the C value the more values (ie girls) that A can represent.

The inverse is also true. Short guys are also generally sensitive about their height. If a guy is 5'4", he's not going to generally be really hot on a 6'1" woman reminding him how short he is. Plus, as guys grow older they become more and more attracted to people that they feel will be attracted to them. When I noticed a better response from taller girls, I became insinctively more attracted to them. So, practically speaking, he knows his chances are better with a woman that is shorter than he is and therefore that is where he will focus his energy, thereby eliminating 50% of possible candidates. So, to return to the C>A formula, the lower the A value the more values (ie boys) that C can represent.

In general, this primarily an issue for high A values and low C ones, but it works incrementally, too. As mentioned, I am largely unaffected buy it, but have learned that where there is disparity there is opportunity. If the z axis (at least I believe that's what it is called) is centered on the average woman's height (D) then the female demand (F) begins to fall as the difference between the axis and woman's height (A) increases. If A>D, F=1/(A-D). The one is on top so that the greater disparity will result in a low value. The F=1/(A-D) formula only works if A>D (woman is taller than average), then in cases where, the formula would be some variation of F=D-A because the higher the disparity, generally speaking, the less romantic candidate pools she is summarily eliminated from due to her height (and so F, demand, would be greater). However, even if women's heights are a bell curve, its distribution does not discriminate according to the demand and therefore there will be an equal number of women to the left (D>A) of the axis than the right (A>D). Therefore female supply (G) of tall women is likely to exceed female demand, of G>F.

However, one must remember there are qualifications as far as the tall women go, which brings us back to C>A formula. So if C>A, the G>F. Therefore it would behoove those men that exceed the average male height (H) to reconsider taller girls. Because where G>F and C>A and J=C-H (J = male demand) but F=D-A and F=1/(A-D) then K=(A-D)L (K = your chances with the girl adjusted for height, L = your initial chances with the girl) if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

NOTES:
1- There are cases where a guy is too tall for a girl and I've run into this personally more than once. However, the value is offset by the larger proportion of taller women that will not date shorter guys.
2- The actual values of F and J are arbitrary and to be used only for comparison purposes. They do not represent any concrete value whatsoever. If graphed, the trend would show a much steeper curve than the actual (sadly immeasurable) demand of the woman. The purpose of the exercise was to note the direction of the trend, not the degree of the curve.
3- The entire exercise was complete in generalities to note logical trends and the consequences of society's disposition for romantic couples to compose of a male that is taller than the female.
4- The Alex's Poor Attempt At Math Talk to Standard English translation of the formulamatic bottom is: "Tall guys are more likely to be appreciated by tall girls." Logically speaking, short girls are likely to be appreciated by short guys as well.
5- Everyone is different. I am writing in generalities here. While a million billion emails would be nice (I'm still small-time enough to be on top of my email), I don't need a million billion boys and girls saying "I'm not that superficial."
6- If you made it all the way through this, thanks!

REVIEW:
A = Female subject's height
B = Tolerable difference in height
C = Male subject's height
D = Average female height.
E = Energy, not applicable in these formulas
F = Female subject and/or height demographic's demand in the dating market
G = Supply of women in female market of a height demographic
H = Average male height
J = Male subject and/or height demographic's demand in the dating market
K = A male subject's chance of romantic status with a particular female adjusted for height.
L = A male subject's chance of romantic status with a particular female based on factors other than height, such as income, intellegence, physical appearance, and charisma level.

HappyFunPundit Dan makes some very interesting points about the possible conflict with Iraq. If Hussein turned this into an urban war, the effects could be disastrous. Worldwide opposition will probably rise considerably. I haven't decided for sure that we should do this, but I'm still leaning in that direction. This does make it a lot more important to have the Europeans and other faint-hearted "allies" as much on board as possible, though. If we jump in there and Dan's scenario comes true, we may be in for headaches the likes of which us warhawks to not appreciate.

Dan says "Nonetheless, it's a difficult problem, with many risks. I'm not suggesting that this means Iraq should be left alone, but we need to be clearheaded about the danger of military action if we wish to make intelligent choices. No one is served by downplaying real risks to gain political support for the war."

Very true.

Dear Person That Stole A Black Binder of CDs From A Gold Ford Escort in the Walmart Parking Lot Off Dunvale In Houston,

At first I thought that I had misplaced them, which was the case last time I thought someone stole my CDs. Turns out that isn't the case, the CDs were stolen and you exist. Congratulations on your procurement of over 80 CDs from my illustrious collection. As you will notice, most of them are not the original CDs but rather ones burned on my computer. Unfortunately for you, that means you don't get track lists that come with some of the CDs. Fortunately, however, it means that the per-track quality quotient is particularly high. Those are mostly the songs I have chosen from the various performers I enjoy. You have most likely not heard of most of them, which provides you an excellent opportunity to aquaint yourself with many of Texas's best musicians. The CDs I most recomment are ones by Phil Pritchett, Two of the three are actually originals that I will need to go out and buy again, but that's okay. You can make it up to me by playing it for all your friends so that they can hear all the majesty that is Phil. If you really enjoy the CDs, there are some additional songs available on his web site . I recommend Feeling Port Aransas, which is on a CD you missed out on. Luke Skywalker is also well-recieved.I would also strongly recommend "Beautiful Day," but that's a song about giving thanks to God for your gifts and not stealing other people's crap. Don't worry, though, Phil only has two faith-based songs, so feel free to listen to his other songs to your hellbent heart's content.

There are too many great artists for me to name all of the good ones. One way you can tell is by quantity. If they are store-bought, it means I once liked it enough to buy the entire thing. Good stuff. If they get two CDs that don't have the same handwritten title, that means that I like them enough that my favorite songs don't fit on a single CD. If there are two CDs delineated by Version numbers (ie Great Divide v1 and v2) they are going to mostly contain the same music. I reburned them because I didn't like the track order. That means that I care enough about the artist that I wanted a better homebrewed CD, so they're good, too. If there is only one CD in there of an artist, you may want to give it a listen. If the original copy is in there, that means I liked it enough to buy the whole shebang, so you had better appreciate them, asswipe. Sadly, you probably disdain country music, so I have to recommend the CDs with blank ink on them, as most of those are non-country tunes. The ones in red are country to one extent or another (some only marginally so, check out Cross Canadian Ragweed). I'm afraid there is a strong lack of rap, but you should get your fill of songs about fellow criminals and degenerates from some of the country stuff. Think Guy Clark and Steve Earle.

There is also one that I would particularly like to recommend. My best friend since the first grade Jason has two CDs in there under the band name Courtesy Flush. One from mp3.com and another that was homemade. His music is reminiscent of They Might Be Giants or Barenaked Ladies. Please give him a listen and if you like him, show him off to all your friends. It's really good stuff. "Smith's Severed Head" is a particular favorite and what I usually recommend for people I know to download from his site. If you take free stuff from other peoples' cars, the least you can friggin' do is take some of his music from online so he gets more hits and downloads.

Anyhow, I'm not bitter and honestly hope that you enjoy all the CDs you've gotten. Give them a listen. You won't be disappointed, dickhead.

Have the Best time you possibly can burning in Hell,
Alex

PS: Thanks for leaving the CD player. I realize, being the heartless crook that you are you probably thought that the Phil Collins CD I had in there (Hey now, I was in a nostalgic mood, lay off) is contagious and would give you gangrene or something, but rest assured the rest of the music is cool.

The Green denotes changes from the earlier version.

He took my Dean Selzer CD. That's it, now I'm mad. It's not about the money. Oh, no. I'll spend more money recovering my Phil Pritchett CDs. It's the principal. I met Selzer and talked with him after one of his shows and he was a prick. Now I'm going to have to pay that prick for another CD. Why? Because there is one song on there (that he didn't write) that he sings (not very well) that I have to have every copy of. Hmmm, Dean has some songs on there ("Jack and Dianne" and another one) that I am relatively certain he doesn't own the rights to. Maybe I can buy his CD and call the RIAA on him. No, no, as They Might Be Giants say, "You can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

I will think of something. In the meantime, I have edited the letter I wrote earlier (next post down).

My roommate and I were served with an eviction notice tonight. We have three days to get this straightened out or to move somewhere else. Details to come. Blogging will be light tomorow as a best-case scenario. In a worst-case scenario, it'll resume next week.

UPDATE:

I was in a really bright mood when I got home from my birthday lobster buffet dinner. I walked down the boardwalk in front of my string of apartments to get to mine at the very end. I noticed a letter tacked to someone else's door and was very curious what it said. I'd never gotten a letter on my door. That, of course, changed two minutes later when I got to my own apartment and there was a trifolded sheet of paper between the doorknob and the doorjam. Now, suddenly, I didn't want to know what a letter posted to a door said. Of course, I read it anyway. It said something to the effect of:

To [roommate's name],

Hello, remember us? Yeah, we own where you're living. The arrangement is that you give us money and we give you the space. So cough up, dead-beat. Actually, you know what? Don't cough up. Get lost. You have three days to get your sorry rear ends out of here. Oh yeah, and give us $782.10 plus $325 in late fees before the door hits your sorry butt on the way out. So get your ass out of here AND cough up.

blah blah blah eviction is unconditional blah blah blah will brings the cops down on your ass if need-be blah blah blah.

Have a nice day,
The Slumlords

I gave my roommate Jason the check before I left town and I had faith that he had in fact turned in the check, so I raced upstairs to talk to him and figure out what might have happened. I asked him if he turned in the check and he said that he had. I went to the apartment office to see if they were still open, but they weren't. When I got back I noticed something that I just scanned over before: We owe $782.10. Our rent is $869, including electricity. Jason thought that it might mean they have the wrong room. But it had our name on it, which was reason enough to worry. They also hadn't cashed my rent check (or, at least, $869 hadn't been taken out). Of course, they cashed my first and last month rent checks after my second month check, so that in and of itself was never a reason to worry. Here, of course, it was reason to panic.

The 782.10 was interesting, though, so I decided to plug it in to a calculator along with my rent and see if there was any corrolation. Sure enough: 869 - 86.9 = 782.1.

So apparently they cashed a check for exactly 1/10 the amount owed, didn't inform us there was a problem, then tacked us with an eviction notice. Unfortunately, I'm awful about keeping check copies and receipts so the check's copy was nowhere to be found. For all I know I wrote "$86.90" in the number box and "Eighty Six Dollars and 90/100" on the text line, probably along with "Why yes, I'm a dumbass" on the comments line. The bad news: These are the kinds of mistakes I make when I'm distracted. The worse news: I was in the middle of packing for Florida when the check was written.

So I searched high and low for the check, all the while figuring out how profusely I can possibly apologize to Jason for all of this if we get kicked out. Finally, I find the check copy in the most unlikely of places: still on the checkbook. It's always the last place you look, you know?

I read it. I read it again. I re-read it just to be sure. $869.00, clear as day.

I was relieved at first. It was pretty obviously a mistake either on their part of the part of their bank. Then I became very angry. Not because they made a mistake. God knows, we all do. Rather that they ran across something awfully curious and just fired off an eviction notice without the slightest inquiry. Jason and I put together the 782.1 and 869 connection in ten minutes and that's WITHOUT the ledger these people must have. Did they really notice that I sent them a check for 1/10 of the amount of rent and figured that I was a deadbeat worthy of eviction? If I was a deadbeat, I wouldn't pay 1/10 of it just to call attention to myself. There was obviously some sort of mistake made (even if it had been my fault) and it would appear to me, if I was on the other end, a mistake made in good faith. Something to at the very most issue a warning and charge a fee for (if it had been my fault).

Instead, we got an eviction notice. That was their warning, to an extent, because most people I've talked to say that if you get one and you pay them they will usually let you stay. Nonetheless, what they view as a standard procedure in an eviction case was half a night spent worrying. To them, it was an account. To me, it was my life. If I had been evicted, I would have had to miss three days of work (somewhere between $275 and $375), and gone into (brief) debt for all the payments I'd have to make at once. I understand that they deal with a lot of deadbeats, but common decency would tell me to try to seperate the deadbeats from the people who made a genuine mistake (or, in my case, didn't). I'm not talking about "renter's rights" or anything like that, but rather customer service.

The problem has been taken of and they were pretty nice about it. It turns out that they don't know where the $782.10 came from. They had my check (for $869) and it was just sitting there. They changed systems and now our checks are supposed to bear my roommate's name because he is the primary renter (don't know how that happened).

With every week, we love our apartment more and more. That is inversely related to our apartment's management. More on that later. For now, disaster averted.

It's late. Maybe I'm misreading this. I don't think so, though.

Chicago Sun-Times writer Jim Derogatis writes that he is looking for a good 9-11 anthem. He ticks off the existing one and gives his expert opinions of him. If you read carefully, you'll notice a pattern:

Songs of which he does not approve:
Toby Keith's "Angry American": "But it's a superficial, jingoistic piece of propaganda, hollowly beating the war drums, claiming a victory that America has yet to achieve and showing little consideration for the many lives lost on every side." -JD

Neil Young's "Let's Roll": "Young took an interesting approach for this single, focusing on the heroics of the passengers aboard the doomed United Airlines' Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania while apparently en route to attack Washington, D.C. Like "Ohio," it was written in a rush of inspiration shortly after Young read of the events. But it lacks the earlier anthem's barbed anger ("Tin soldiers and Nixon comin' "), profound sadness and call for human understanding ("What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?")." -JD

Paul McCartney's "Freedom": "Son of a fireman, Sir Paul was the first out of the box with this hastily dashed-off tune, which he debuted during the "Concert for NYC." broadcast from Madison Square Garden. "I'm talkin' about freedom," Macca sings again and again, but he doesn't really say anything about it. "This is my right/A right given by God/To live a free life/To live in freedom," he contends--overlooking the fact that those who attacked America did so in the name of their own God, leaving open the question, "Whose side is He on?"" -JD

Pre 9/11 anthems of which he approves:
Wilco's "War on War" and "Ashes of the American Flag" and Natalie Merchant's "House is on Fire." He also cites Bob Dylan's Love and Theft album. "Whatever the reason, it's interesting to note that the music most resonant of recent events--and the songs that stand as the best art--were all composed before the terrorist attacks, and they became eerily prescient only in retrospect." -JD

He also, of course, like's Steve Earle's Jihad Johnny song: "As poetic as those lines are, their true meaning becomes apparent only in the context of the music, with the sad resonance of Earle's mournful voice, and the even greater eloquence of a tortured feedback guitar solo that seems to say, "There are no winners in this conflict, only death and delusion on every side as we turn further from our quest for peace."" -JD

Now, music is subjective by nature and I agree with some of Derogatis's assessments of some of the artists and songs above. I dig Wilco and Natalie Merchant. McCartney's "Freedom" bites the big one. I'm not arguing with his taste, but I strongly take issue with his lack of honesty over what he's looking for in a "9-11 anthem." His criticisms are inconsistent with his criteria. He's not looking for a 9-11 anthem as much as he is looking for an anti-war anthem. That's fine, I guess, except he twists himself in knots with convoluted commentary to avoid mentioning that.

Take, for instance, his criticism of Neil Young's "Let's Roll." He claims that lacks the "barbed anger" of some of his more youthful protest songs. You want barbed anger? Toby Keith gives you barbed anger. But no, Keith's anger is a "jingoistic piece of propaganda." So it's not an issue of anger, exactly, but who the anger is aimed against. Obviously, a good 9-11 anthem would demonstrate anger at America. It would recognize how wrong we are to defend ourselves and recognize the validity and humanity of those that slaughtered 3,000 Americans (and tried to kill many, many more).

A real anthem, after all, would be about validating the human worth of the killers. It would express profound sadness. That can't be one-sided though. We have to be sad at the third-world poverty that raises the kind of people that would do this sort of thing. A real 9-11 anthem would be about the bad guys, except we can't call them bad guys. That would be jingoistic. We also can't mention God, despite the renewed faith that has swept the nation since the attacks. It was faith in god that inspired our (tragic, but human and therefore not to be treated derogatorily) attackers. No, it would have to be an atheistic tune to reflect the trials and tribulations of the most Christian nation on the planet.

Natalie Merchant's song is about the Seattle riots. That's what a 9-11 anthem should be about. A bunch of bored kids that started looting and attacking cops when things didn't go their way. It should be about all the protests against the American government that has occured since the attacks. Except they haven't. People have united around the flag and many reluctantly around the President in the face of a common enemy. The ones attacking America now are terrorists and not anti-globalist protesters. Well, maybe there is something to that. Merchant sings about America's day of reckoning and we were attacked, just like we were in Seattle. Unfair comparison? Maybe, but any less fair a comparison than the religious nation that uses their children as pawns and the religious nation that has become so prosperous that even those that it defines as living in poverty still live better than most of the rest of the world?

Wilco's "War on War" song may sound good, but its lyrics are hardly fitting the tone of the nation. Actually, on further reflection, the lyrics suck. There are good anti-war tunes out there, even abstract ones. This one ain't it. But hey, it's anti-war so it'll have to do. The lyrics of the other Wilco song are better, but an anti-commercialism screed. Anti-commercialism? Anti-capitalism? That's definitely the mood of our country. Oh wait, I was thinking of the value-laden and respect-deserving souls that attacked our country (and whose humanity should be validated at every opportunity, even and especially when they act inhuman, which of course they are only doing because they are humans who have not been validated).

It is very fitting, though, that he believes that songs written before 9-11 are better "resonant of recent events." Derogatis is seemingly living in a world where "the war" is and always will be Vietnam. Where rampang capitalism is the biggest threat to our country. When patriotism was considered derogatory and being called unpatriotic was a badge of smirky rebellion instead of being slander. The anthems of the age ought to simply be repackaged revamps of the 1960's because that's where the art intellegensia was able to successfully reside up to and including 9-10-01. Then something happened. The ashes of World Trade Center has obstructed our view of the golden decade. No one is interested anymore.

How is a good leftist able to cope?

It's easy. Just see it through the convex, distorted lens of the 1960's. The government is still the enemy. America is still the evil empire. Protest and revolution against the government is still the rule of the day. If only the rest of America would cooperate.

I have a number of songs that I would recommend. Most of them are country (Aaron Tippen's "When the Eagle Flies", Alan Jackson's "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)."

There are a couple songs that I believe particularly reflect the tone of America since 9-11. Cary Pierce, formerly of Jackopierce, has a song critical of the war on drugs and our involvements in South America ("Drugs mean war, they don't mean peace anymore, we've got foreign bodies washing up Domestic shores") and another one critical of military conflict:

Every generation makes the same mistakes
and still they sends their sons away to do the same.
And still the mother's cry and the daughter's die inside,
and the sons like the fathers
and now the sons and the daughters
march

After 9-11 he wrote a song called "I Believe in America" that did a wonderful job reflecting the shock and dismay of the attacks, followed our collective vow to never let it happen again:

They tried to tear us down
as we watch the towers fall
They thought they could take our pride
but they can't take our soul
This is my own This is our land
on this great soil We'll take a stand
We'll walk as one hand in hand
To see that this will never happen again

Pierce's first response was not fear of a military response. He implicitly endorses it. There are no lines about fear of lost American (or Afghani) lives. There is no equivocation or fear. There is nothing slipped in about this being the price we're paying for our past sins. Nothing about a cycle of violence. They left did not jump to blame the Cold War nor did they try to exploit the link between religious fanaticism of the terrorists and their domestic opponents. Instead, it is about the faith and patriotism that has resided in the responsible left all along.

On the opposite end is Hank Williams Jr. One of his most well known songs is "A Country Boy Can Survive" which is preaches the superiority of country life over city life. In the Red-Blue battle that took place in the 2000 elections, Williams represents the red:

The interest is up and the stock market down
And you only get mugged if you go downtown
I live in the backwoods you see
The woman and the kids
and the dog and me
I got a shotgun rifle and a four-wheel drive
and a country boy can survive

His 9-11 Tribute altered the wording of the same song:

The flag goes up and the stock market down
but now we're united from the country to the town
We live back in the woods you see,
and big city problems never bothered me
But the world has changed and so have I,
and America Can Survive".

The WTC attacks happened in a blue city in a blue state. The victims were generally urbanites. Most future attacks would likely be cities and since the terrorists have no chance of a full-scale invasion, rural conservatives could have mostly sat this out as the Europeans have. Instead, the red states include the most vigorous hawks. It wasn't just a matter of warmongering, either. Not too long ago, conservatives were consistently opposing the use of military force (Kosovo, Bosnia) and were being accused of isolationism. The culture wars were put on hold. Jerry Fallwell made some jackass divisive comments and no one shouted him down faster than the right did. Conservatives that promote federalism and regionalism demonstrated that they take pride in all of America, warts and all. A poll was taken a couple years back of Texans questioning whether they think of themselves as Texans or Americans. The response was overwhelmingly Texans. If a similar poll were taken today, I suspect the reaction would be very much different.

Whether you have ever heard of Cary Pierce or can stand Hank Williams Jr. (I often can't), any 9-11 anthem would have to be about American unity. It doesn't need to be brash like Keith's tune, schmaltzy like McCartney's, or uberpatriotic like Tippin's. What it can't be, though, is about trying to sympathize with the enemy that few Americans are the least bit sympathetic to or critical of the nation that is being boosted with a level patriotism that has not been seen in a long time. It can't be a protest over a war that over 90% of Americans support or a protest of the capitalism that has made them revile and envy us. As much as Derogatis would like the divisions to be us verses ourselves, that paradigm relates to a war that ended nearly thirty years ago.

We may not always get along with each other, but we are united against the outside threat. The liberal Pierces and conservative Williamses understand that. Derogatis is clueless.

I'm never on time for anything, but I've still got seven hours till midnight.

Happy birthdaaaaay toooooo yoooooou
Happy birthdaaaaay toooooo yoooooou
Happy birthdaaaaay dearest Allllllex
Happy birthdaaaaay toooooo yoooooou
and many moooooooooore

Ted Barlow puts forth a credible candidate for the dumbest law ever:

In Florida, in order to put a child up for adoption, a woman has to place an ad in the paper. She has to "list her name, describe herself, name or describe the possible father(s) and list the date and the city or county of conception."

It tastes like ash. Eating my own words, that is. One of my earlier posts denounced the very thing that this poorly thought out law seeks to prohibit. I thought about making this post RAW Cooking Show For Bachelor's guide to frying and eating crow, but decided that it deserves a more serious and somber response. I said:

Whether you believe that the not-yet-born deserve rights or not, we all more or less agree that the born have rights, and that the father is responsible for much of it. If the father is responsible for at least part of the welfare of the child, he should also have at least some rights as far as child's lifestyle and future. That includes the ability for regular visitation or, at least, keeping the child from being given away.

Conservatives are often criticized for allegedly holding on to the notion that the father is the CEO of the family with the mother as the subordinant Vice President of Child-Rearing and Domestic Responsibilities. Can we now criticize liberals for supporting the notion that the mother is in fact the CEO of the family and the father is the subordinate Vice President of Bankrolling?

I believe the thrust of what I said. The state of father's rights in this country is tragic. The rights and obligations of fatherhood are described in terms such as "responsibility" while the rights and obligations of motherhood are described in the flowery terms of "the freedom to choose." If she chooses to have the baby, he is financially obligated to financially contribute for the next eighteen years. If she chooses to abort or give the baby up, he has no rights to the child.

Ideally, a pregnant mother would inform the father of the child and give him the option to take sole possession of it if she doesn't want it. Ideally, abortion wouldn't even be a consideration and all of the thoughts would go to what would be best for the child. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world and laws such as this one that fly in the face of reality do far, far more harm than good. The major battlefield for the fate of the unborn no longer lies in the letter of the law or the courts, but in the decisions of the unexpected mothers. Short of a nationwide ban on abortion (and even then), this will be the case for some time to come. The more pro-life advocates ignore this, the more we will lose the war.

In another previous post, I applauded young mothers for their decision to keep the baby. While I am reluctant to praise mothers who give the baby up for adoption without any input from the father, I feel morally bound to respect their decision, given the primary alternative. In most cases, the father is likely uninterested in bearing sole responsibility for the child. In many cases, he might not want to do anything about it and may even prefer not to know that his son or daughter exists. In some cases, however, the father will know and may be legally powerless to do anything about it (it's worth noting that this law, to my knowledge, does absolutely nothing to address this issue, which adds substantially to its folly). I believe that to be abhorrant, but at this point in time I can think of no alternatives that would not promote the worse alternative. Sometimes we have to accept things that we do not like to avoid things that we really, really do not like.

I do not believe that women that choose to have an abortion are inherently immoral. In fact, many miguidedly convince themselves that it is best for the fetus. Others firmly believe that the unborn part of the unborn child is more important than the child part. That being the case, it is our moral obligation to make the choice of life the least difficult that we can. Many choose to have an abortion (and convince themselves that it is for the best) because they don't know what else they can do. They cannot afford to care for the child and the prospect of being haunted by that for the rest of their lives lead to abortion and subsequent rationalization. We ought not get in the way of the most obvious alternative in search for an ideal that is quite simply not going to happen. Refusal to allow annonymity qualifies.

That leads to my next, and perhaps more controversial, position.

On the way to Florida, I saw a bumper sticker that promoted the right of an adoptee to locate his or her parents. In the same vein, this is also a mistake. Just as the right to a mother's privacy is important in convincing borderline pregnant mothers to carry the child to term trumps the right of the father's knowledge of the adoption, it also ultimately trumps the right of the child's search for identity. I do not believe this out of concern for the mother (or the father), but rather for the rights of the rest of the children.

I'm lucky. I know exactly where I came from. I have my mother's nose, cheeks, and flambouyance. I have my father's hair, eyes, and brooding analytical temperament. I can only imagine how not knowing these simple details could gnaw at those who do not know where they came from. In recent decades and the advent of Carl Rogers's clinical psychology paradigm, the knowledge of oneself is paramount to self-actualization. In recent and not-so-recent centuries, wars have been fought over the simple question of where we come from. What god created us. What parents created us, on many levels, is also important to who we are. Ideally, everyone that wants to know would know. Unfortunately, as often mentioned, we don't live in an ideal world.

In a previous discussion on a similar topic, Eric Olsen commented that sometimes the practical is moral. I disagreed with the point he was making at the time, but the broad statement remains true nonetheless. While it would be ideal for every inquisitive child and adult to have their most fundamental question answered, there are immeasurable costs involved. When adoptees who discover who their parents are against the parents' consent it invariably leads on the invasion of the privacy that allowed them to be born and adopted to begin with. The self-discovery of some leads to the pre-natal termination of others. The cost is simply too high.

I am sorry to those that will go their entire life without knowing who their parents are, just as I am sorry to the father who loses his child However, I ask that the adoptees delight in the fact that they were given life and the father's rejoice that their child was allowed the gift of life. In the end, that is what is most important.

It started with a post by Orrin Judd about why Bush may be the most conservative president since Eisenhower, listing off 10 pillars of conservatism. I rebutted, claiming Bush could realistically only receive a 7 of 10 ratings. Judd responded. I left town. Then Mark Byron came up with a new scoring system, also used by Joshua Claybourn that allowed for partial credit, both scoring him between a 7 and an 8. Jim Haney also commented on it, and I will be responding to his post at length later. In the meantime, do your homework and be prepared for class tomorrow.

When I decided to ditch the RAW Musings name, I went through several possibilities. Behold, the genious that is my thinking process:

WARS AND RUMORS OF WAR
Pros: Great for a warblogger
Con: My focus isn't on war

LETTERS FROM THE TREEHOUSE
Pros: Sounds neat.
Con: No one realizes how much my apartment looks like a treehouse.

RAWBSERVATIONS
Pros: It's funny cause my initials are RAW. Pun city!
Con: It's not very funny if you have to explain the joke

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
Pros: My column with the Houston Review went by that title.
Cons: Taken

PARIAHSIGHT
Pros: It is the name of your secret web site you did for that one class
Cons: You lost access to the surver and can't take that sorry thing down

LONESTARPUNDIT
Pros: Everyone is something pundit
Cons: No, if everyone jumped off a bridge, I still wouldn't

SWEET DREAMS, FLYING MACHINES, AND PIECES ON THE GROUND
Pros: It's a neat quote from a good song
Cons: It has nothing to do with anything and I was drunk when I thought it up

SMART ALEX
Pros: Smart Alec, Smart Alex, get it??
Cons: No. Next.

THE CLASSICALLY LIBERAL NEOCONSERVATIVE TRADITIONAL LIBERTARIAN ESTABLISHMENT MAVERICK REPUBLICAN HEADQUARTERS
Pros: It's conveys where you come from politically
Cons: TCLNTLEMRH, which it would invariably be abbreviated to, sounds like the speaker is choking on a hair-ball. Or barfing. Or both.

EAT MY SHORTS
Pros: Randomness is good
Cons: For about five minutes.

Well, I made my choice. Too late to turn back now...

RAW

Well, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is not exactly the last Kennedy, but she may well prove the last relevent one. Until recently, I had taken her election to the governorship of Maryland for granted. Maryland is, after all, a left-leaning state that hasn't had a Republican governor since Spiro Agnew. On top of that, well, she's a Kennedy. People were talking about her being a vice presidential possibility as a lieutenant governor. It didn't take very long for her to be eliminated from the list, but that's what the governorship will be for: To keep her on it in 2004 and pur her on the list for the top spot in 2008 or 2012. Given that she's the Democratic nominee in a Democratic state, the race ought to just be a formality. So why has her opponent closed the gap making the race competitive?

Eight years ago, George W. Bush was in a similar situation. Except Bush was running against a popular governor and most people expected him to lose until Governor Richards was revealed to be surprisingly vulnerable for a national media star. Bush's biggest asset has often been the opposition's constant underestimation of him. He may not speak gramatically correct English or give the air of intellectual superiority, but he has always had good people skills. He comes across as likeable and has a good instinct insofar as trustworthiness goes. Those skills helped him constantly surpass artificially low expectations and capture the governorship and presidency to the dismay of Democrats in both cases.

If anything, Townsend has the opposite problem. Expectations of her are artificially high. She's not only a Kennedy, but she's the good Kennedy. She didn't kill anyone or drink herself silly (or both) or rape anyone as other members of the Kennedy clan did. She's the one that survived the "Kennedy curse" where Kennedy's are tragically assinated, die in accidents, or kill people in drunk driving accidents. She graduated with distinction from law school. Unlike W, she might have even been elected if she didn't have the Kennedy name. Well, not really, but the idea isn't as outlandish as it is the tortured couple of times I've seen Republicans try to defend the idea that George W. Smith would have been elected president. Mostly, though, she's special because she's a Kennedy that managed to avoid screwing her life up.

The Kennedys will always have a special place in the media's heart. Whereas when the son of a Bush or Gore is elected, they may be scoffed at for having made it on a family name, when a Kennedy gets elected they're fulfilling their birthright. They are, by their very nature, outstanding. Townsend's problem is that she's not outstanding. She has the Bushian tendency for verbal gaffes. She is not up to speed on all the issues and relies heavily on her handlers. None of this is that unusual, but since she's a Kennedy it will likely haunt her for some time to come. Who says liberal media bias can't help Republicans?

Most of her problems should sound somewhat familiar because our president is more or less the same way. The coincidences don't end at their weaknesses, though. For different reasons, they both have fascinating personal stories. Say what you will about W., but his tale of personal redemption resonated with a lot of people. It helped most people overlook the probable drug history and many (though not enough) people overlook the drunk driving charge. Townsend's story is that of overcoming tragedy and remaining strong. She was a teenager when her father and uncle were killed. She's watched her family destroy their lives. Yet she remained level-headed and respectable. She even accepts her father's credo to never cry in public, though few would blame her if she did.

Bush acted and Townsend acts as moderating influences on their parties in states where they don't have to. Bush may go down in the history books as a conservative president, but while in the Lone Star State he remained forcefully pro-immigration and toned down the harsh rhetoric that has plagued Republicans in many years. That took political gumption because it incurred the wrath of a number of right-wingers who carry more clout down here in Texas than they do nation-wide. He didn't enter the governorship to later run for president as many do. Things changed as the Republicans scrambled for a candidate, but at the time, he simply wanted to be governor. Townsend may indeed have her eye on the prize, but she has maintained a moderate figure even at times when it wasn't particularly popular to be a moderate in her party. She told the Democrats to end the hostility towards religion that was pervasive in her party during the 80's. She pushed for boot camps in a state that does not have the Texan temperament regarding crime and punishment. Even before Bush really grew on me, I didn't much doubt the sincerity of his core views. I am ambivalent towards Townsend, but she does seem sincere.

If she can scrape past this election and a re-election, she will be an attractive candidate in the future. I suppose that's not a risky prediction to make, but I am talking about more than just her family name. After all, Joe Kennedy is a Kennedy too and even before his fall from grace, he was hardly on the fast track to the presidency. I've always felt the George W. Smith question to be an unfair one because just as George W. Smith would never win the presidency, neither would Neil Bush. It takes more than just a family name, and Townsend may well have it.

First thing first, though, and she won't be elected the first female president as a former lieutenant governor. In addition to California, keep an eye on Maryland. It's an unduly important race.

RAW

'No really, my eyes are always this red'
R. Alex Whitlock
University of Houston Daily Cougar, 6/4/2000

I have worn glasses since high school. I've never had a problem with it because I've always looked good (well, as good as this baby-face and pudgy nose can look) in them. Lately I'd begun to wonder about the possibility of making the transition to contacts when I ran across an ad in the Cougar to take part in an experiment. If I was ever going to make the transition, here was the opportunity.

I went in for my initial visit, and I was assured that the lenses were safe. Of course, right after he said that there was no danger, he brought out a bunch of different gizmos. When he said "We're going to poke my eye with this little rod. Raise your finger when it hurts," I knew I was in trouble. It tingled more than hurt and was so thin that it bent. Watching something poke your eye and bend right in front of it is an experience I won't soon forget.

They scraped some DNA off my eye and then stuck a dropper in my lower eyelid to collect tears, which apparently I don't shed many of because the process t