Latino vs. Hispanic.

I'm honestly good either way.

Just let me know which one is "offensive" before you accuse me of being racist for saying it...

Rod Dreher has got a smart kid:

"No matter how much I might pine at times for NYC, there's nothing I'd exchange for hearing a four-year-old say, 'Thanks for moving us to Texas, Daddy.'" -Rod Dreher

This is the last in the Whigs and Federalist series of posts, though I'll make reference to this all off and on because of the ways that these two parties in this fictional world where super powers exist and we're at war against South America matter to me in the world of Republicans and Democrats.

The little quiz I wrote says that I'm a Moderate Whig. The way I wrote it made it have to say I was something (I didn't have an "independent" option). The truth is that I am actually neither. In the world that I wrote, I am absolutely, 100%, in between.

This provides me a great deal of insight to real political issues (or at least I'd like to think I have the insight that I believe this mental trick provides me). It allows me a greater degree of objectivity because if I find myself in a purely partisan dispute, I can usually transfer the argument to Whigs and Federalists and get a whole new look on things.

Lex Alexander sometimes refers to The Hillary Test, in which you take an action of President Bush's and apply it to President Hillary Clinton and see if you approve of it or not.

In one sense, such tests are helpful. If you don't support a member of the opposite party having a particular power, then you shouldn't support a member of your own having it. There are, in my experience, two problems with this method:

1) Antagonism towards the opposition: Republicans often shriek at the thought of Hillary Clinton having any power. It is in some ways not rational. The Republican view of Hillary is in itself not rational. I know because I harbor a deep dislike for the woman, but I'll be damned if I can give a good reason for feeling the way that I do. That's just it, it's a feeling, not an objective analysis. As such, I would not be willing to give her powers that she needs to carry her office effectively.

The same applies with Democrats towards Bush. The belief that Bush is a moron is belied by his MBA. Yet they believe it anyway. It's more than just that Bush disagrees with them, but it's a feeling that they have towards the person. The same goes for various postings I've seen by liberals where Bush is an evil entity or, as I've seen in a couple places, a psychopath.

Being a Republican, I am not in any position to make an objective analysis of either President Bush or Senator Clinton. Because Bush supports most of the views that I do, I am naturally inclined to look at him more favorably not only from a political standpoint (I agree with him on the issues) but from a personal one, too (I believe that he is a good person). Because Clinton opposes most of the views that I do, I view her unfavorably professional (she supports things I don't) but personally as well (she's opportunistic and shallow).

None of this is to say that my views are inherently invalid and when I take knocks at a Democrat you should just shrug it off. There are liberals that I admire (I like Russ Feingold) despite our disagreements.

But often the personal creeps in to the political. It's difficult for anyone, no matter how well-intentioned, to completely seperate the two.

So, for me, the Hillary test would likely result in my not giving any president any power. Libertarians would undoubtedly view that as a good thing, and as a libertarian-minded Republican I'm sympathetic to it, but sometimes powers must be given to protect the state from enemies outside and in.

2) Some views are not transferrable. If someone is afraid of John Ashcroft using powers for nefarious ends, it does not necessarily follow that they should fear Janet Reno using powers for similarly nefarious ends. Ashcroft is a social conservative with antipathy towards moral licenciousness, homosexuality, abortion, and a host of other topics.

If there are laws in place making homosexuality and abortion legal, which there are, there is somewhat less reason to fear Ashcroft than if the law was ambiguous or against such things.

A similar argument could be made in regards to Janet Reno and guns. If there are numerous laws in place restricting gun ownership rights, and Reno is very much a gun opponent, there is more reason to fear a certain right that she could use against the private ownership of guns than there would be by John Ashcroft, who is in favor of private gun ownership.

Both of these apply to broader principles as well. It's not a very easy thing to do to say "What if the situation in Florida in 2000 had been reversed? What if it was Bush that had the voters that had voted wrongly and thus costed him the election? What if it were Gore that was saying that the election is over and therefore we should accept him as the winner?"

It's a difficult scenario for a couple of reasons. First of all, while it could happen, an aspect that would be newsworthy would be how the two sides were reversed. Instead of the stereotypical conservative disinfranchising the minority, it would be the liberals doing it. Take it a step further, and it's less likely that Republicans would vote technically improperly to begin with.

Elderly voters are, in general, Democratic. So are first-time voters. So are uneducated voters. Republican voters, in general, are wealthier (more educated) and in rural areas (where there are less voters and they can get more attention if they are confused). So the question of "what if the roles had been reversed" is a difficult one to imagine.

As it was, it was an easy conclusion for both sides to come to. The Republicans, being less tolerant of error and more skeptical of "pro-democratic" laws (such as instant voter registration) that allow a greater chance of abuse or mischief, quite easily came to the conclusion that if you undervoted or overvoted, you should pay more attention next time.

The Democrats, believing that democracy is only democracy if everyone participates, quite easily came to the opposite conclusion: Every vote should count.

I'm oversimplifying it in a number of areas, including the overseas ballots, but in some ways that underscores my point. That was struck as odd by me and a number of other people because not only were both sides arguing against what they were saying a day earlier, but they seemed to be running contrary to their philosophical instincts.

Incoincidentally, throughout all this, there is the matter that low turnout (ie ones where we make sure everyone votes properly, registered six months in advance, etc.) helps Republicans and high turnout (ie ones with spontenous or inspired voters) helps Democrats. This dovetails nicely with each of their position.

Many of the very same issues were at work in the last New Jersey senatorial election, where Democrats felt that the laws are there to provide a choice and if the laws don't account for a choice, democracy trumps legalism and the Republicans felt that no, no do-overs here.

In many ways, it all folds in together. We view politics in general as a left-right continuoum with the well-to-do (and all that entails) voting Republican and the poor voting Democratic. Therefore, on any given issue, you're going to run in to the party that supports second chances, safety nets, and so on and the party of strict rules.

Both sides run contrary to this on occasion on issues (the vouchers issue, for instance) and specific cases (a Republican governor's kid caught using drugs), but these issues and the invariable shouts of "hypocrisy" make them the exceptions that proves the rule.

So if the personal and the political fold together, and if expediency and ideology fold together, it's often very difficult to seperate your personal views and partisan expediency from political ideas.

That's where the Whigs and Federalists come in.

Just about any issue I can imagine that exists between Republicans and Democrats can also exist between Federalists and Whigs. The educated generally vote Whig and the uneducated Federalist. The wealthy splits their vote, allowing me even more flexibility.

So take the New Jersey 2002 senatorial election situation and put it in W/F terms. It is likely that the "everybody-should-participate" Whigs would be of the mind that democracy trumps law while the "democracy-doesn't-exist-without-law" Federalists would say that's not the case.

So I can then look at the 2002 election with Torricelli, Lautenberg, and Forrester without looking at the people involved and without looking at the parties involved.

In the case between Whigs and Federalists, where I don't have a dog in the hunt, I can say that I agree completely with the Federalists. In turn, my agreement with the Republicans in NJ'02 was not a partisan issue.

To take it to Florida is a more complicated issue. In a similar situation between the Whigs and the Federalists, my view was that the race for Florida is indeterminantly close and within the margin of error. I could see both sides of the issue and I'll be darned if I couldn't decide which one was right.

Thus, in the real world, I was relatively neutral during the recount. I obviously wanted Bush to win, but I was hard-pressed to be too critical of Gore. On the other hand, once the Florida State Supreme Court made what I considered a liberal partisan decision, I became fiercely partisan and supporting a Supreme Court ruling I otherwise wouldn't have, viewing that two wrongs in that case do make a right.

In other words, there came a point where, for both sides, partisanship was all that matters. Since (with the help of the W/F continuoum!) I had initially tried to approach the situation fairly, I hold no regrets for believing what I did and do.

(Note: This post is not a platform to rehash the 2000 elections. I chose it as an example of a highly partisan dispute. Any comments that focus solely on this tangental issue will be ignored.)


The other great advantage of the W/F continuoum for me is the ability to see how provisional politics really is. We have in this country what we view as conservative and liberal. In some ways, they make a lot of sense, and in others they make little.

Neither is pro-government or anti-government in any consistent way. Both support using government in ways that advance their agenda and oppose it in ways that set their agenda back. Republicans wear the banner of federalism except when it comes to drug policy, partial-birth abortions, gay marriage, and so on. Democrats are establishmentarian as long as that establishment is the government and not corporations or a church.

The long and short of it is that they stand for what they need to stand for in order to satisfy their bases. As Dr. Lutz said, the purpose of a political party is to get elected.

Some of their base is demographic. Democrats have to satisfy the black community and Republicans their religious one. A lot of it is ideological with socialist Democrats and puritanical Republicans.

What I found most interesting was when I was trying to put real life politicians in the W/F continuoum. One would expect most of them come into the center, as the Republicans and Democrats distribute relatively equally among the Whigs and Federalists.

The more I looked at it, the more I realized that's not necessarily the case. A lot of what our politicians purport to believe they do so out of expediency. That's one reason why so many of their views change with their demographics. Al Gore and Dick Gephardt used to be pro-life and then, magically, as the Democratic Party became nigh prohibitively pro-choice, they had changes of hearts.

I do not believe that means that Gore and Gephardt are without beliefs anymore than formerly pro-choice George H. Bush is by becoming pro-life. There has been a lot of talk of Condaleeza Rice running for the presidency and in Republican circles such as The Corner a debate (that I'd find if I had time) occured on whether or not they would accept her "becoming" pro-life (at the moment she was not on the record on that issue, whether she is now I do not know).

The argument broke down between those that felt if she took it opportunistically and those that felt as long as she took it and remained steadfast, it didn't matter as much.

The latter happens a lot more than we recognize, I believe.

While running through the politicians and their views, I stumbled on the realization that most of us have a core set of beliefs. We believe in an economically aggressive government or we oppose it. Perhaps we're somewhere in between viewing aggressive as being good as long as it is incentive-based or socially egalitarian-based, but not simply the redistribution of wealth.

We also have certain social beliefs. We are pro-life or pro-choice, we view abortion as good, neutral, or bad. We view homosexuality as something to be prohibited, tolerated, or embraced.

The more I thought about it, the less confident I was that politicians had any more than a small number of broad strokes in their personal platform and the rest of the positions they take, they often do out of expediency or, more likely, clustering.

Take "New York Governor" Jack Kemp. The real Jack Kemp is a supply-side capitalist. It's my personal belief that the rest of Kemp's beliefs spring from that. Holding the economic position that he does, I suspect that he "goes along" with Republicans a great deal because they support his supply-side agenda. More than that, I believe he takes a lot of these positions because if they're smart enough to take the right position on supply-side economics, they're probably right on drug policy, foreign policy, and so on.

The left-right continuoum has a tendency to pull everyone in. The libertarians like their four-dimensional map, but from a practical standpoint it isn't particularly useful. It's only the X-axis that matters. Once it's flattened into two dimensions, it is somewhat difficult for a person to remain out of the fray when neither party is talking to them or speaking their language with any consistency.

That's how I moved from staid libertarianism to being a Republican. My views have changed, though not so much in a specific direction. What's changed is my understanding that I was not "in between" and that for all of my views, one party represented them more than the other.

Once I accepted that I was a Republican, I noticed that my approach to new issues tended to be the Republican one. That's not to say I reflexively agree with Republicans on every issue that comes down the pike, but rather I find myself with a more open ear towards a Republican's argument than a Democrat's.

If I am ambivalent or seriously conflicted about an issue, I will more often than not (at least tentatively) side with the party that sides with me on all of these other issues. I don't do it consciously, but I look at my rightward shift on affirmative action, for instance, and I can see that it's there.

I believe that most of us do this to an extent or another and that's why even self-professed independents will, if pushed against a wall, lean one way or the other. Even if they don't particularly care for the party that better represents their beliefs, you'll hear it in their hostility towards the other party.

There's a reason that 57/43 is considered a landslide in a country where a third of the electorate professes to be moderate or independent.

Which brings me back to Whigs and Federalists. Most likely, if I existed in their world, I'd lean in one direction or another. Since I don't, however, I can have the objectivity that I lack in the here and now and allow the partisan drift to become minimized.

Dear Crickets Outside,

I have a confession to make. I cannot sing. I mean, with enough effort, I can hit the right note. Unfortunately, I just don't have that instinctive ability to sing on-key and am, in fact, rather tone deaf.

I often sing in the car alone, however. No one can hear me and I enjoy singing along with the record in the CD player. I figure "Hey, there's no harm done and I get to enjoy myself."

In public it's a bit of a different story. My gift to God on Sundays is not singing during the hymnals.

I personally don't wish for others to have to endure my singing voice, so I remorselessly keep my mouth shut.

God's creature to God's creature, between you and me, YOU MIGHT OUGHT TO CONSIDER DOING THE SAME! As much as it pains me to inform you, the noise that you are making outside is thoroughly unpleasent.

Not only that, but you make it at sundown every day, which is when I usually like to go out and watch the sunset. I'd go out there and sing with you, but I'm not a sadist to my neighbors, who are enduring you all with me, or a masochist to have to listen to you guys go at it.

Even when I don't go outside, you make it so loudly I can hear it through the walls. I have had a perpetual headache for the last four days thanks to you guys.

So stop. Please?

Best,
Author of the Blog You Do Not Read

Federalists
Full Name: American Federalist Party
Shorthand: Federalists, AFP
Mascot: Beaver
Direction: "Right"
Regional Base: New England, Rust Belt
Presidents since World War II:
Earl Warren (1945-52)
James F. Knight (1965-66)
William B. Keller (1967-72, 1977-80)
Clifford Ellington (1985-92)
Maxwell Knight (1993-2000)
David Hockley (2000-01)

Quote:
"As the nations original party, the Federalist Party stands for America against all of its threats at home and abroad. We believe in a vigorous national defense. We believe in pro-actively handling foreign threats before they reach our shores.

It's become chic to argue that the United States needs to be more humble and tread more carefully. We reject that notion and believe that we have been blessed by God with the most prosperous nation in the history of the world. We will never apologize for that.

"Despite our prosperity, there is still much work to do at home. A truly free people cannot exist side-by-side poverty and want. As such, we believe in worker's rights, the rights to collectively bargain, and a livable minimum wage so that our children can afford clothes and school supplies.

"None of this should come at the expense of business, however. We believe that corporations make the backbone of our success and we would never want to do them harm. As such, we support reforming our legal system to a business-friendly, or as we say 'innovation-friendly', environment. For too long we've blamed problems the problems in this country on those that have made it most successful.

"There are those that say the reward for our success is to stop doing those things that have made us successful. That sounds to me the path to ruin. Our debt to ourselves and, more importantly, or children, is not to cash in our chips, but rather to continue our prosperity.

"The chief reason to the success of our nation is the moral righteousness of our cause. We spread our ideals of democracy and freedom abroad and at home we prove that liberty is not license. We reject the notion that liberty is the right to be a danger either to our safety or our moral climate. Therefore we support an aggressive criminal justice system there to assure that we remain a moral people, worthy of the prosperity and freedom that has been bestowed upon us."
-President James Maxwell Knight, January 20, 1997.

Positions:
In favor of a balanced budget
Against legal abortion
In favor of gun control
In favor of robust, or even nationalized, health care system.
In favor of tort reform
In favor of tight smoking restrictions
Ambivalent to the "seperation of church and state"
Against an unfettered free market
Against environmental regulations
In favor of a strong, security-based national defense
Against disarmament
In favor of tough drug laws
In favor of tough immigration laws

Strongly supported by:
Unions
Catholics
Military personnel
Married women
Jews
Media
African Americans
Large corporations

Strongly opposed by:
Hollywood
Feminists
Environmentalists
Homosexual groups
Small businesses
Hyper-sapiens
NRA
Immigrants


Whigs
Full Name: National Alliance Party
Shorthand: Whig, Alliance, NAP
Mascot: Platypus
Direction: "Left"
Regional Base: Pacific Coast, Southwest
Presidents since WWII:
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-60)
Albert Gore (1961-65)
Peter Mitchem (1973-77)
Martin Holt (1981-85)
Franklin R. Cale (2001- )

Quote:
"America is about more than a flag or invading a foreign land. The Constitution is more than simply something locked away under protective glass, frozen from time.

"Freedom is about more than the freedom to live a moral life. It's about determining for yourself what actually is a moral life.

"They call us Whigs. I, for once, accept that label proudly. In England the Whigs were known for standing up against the crowd. Centuries later, our party finds itself standing up against a new crown - a triumvirate of government, corporations, and the military industrial complex.

"I submit to you that the conglomeration of these three forces is the true threat to our way of life. It isn't United South America or hyper-sapiens, it is those that would tell us how we must live.

"We support a woman's right to choose, an immigrant's right to make a new life, a homosexual's right to follow his or her own destiny, and a hyper-sapien's right to simply exist. Freely.

"We support freedom of commerce. That means the consumer's right to choose - a right denied by monopolistic corporations everywhere.

"The Federalists argue that they stand for America and Freedom. Yet they support those that dirty our air and water. Yet they support a draft for their questionable wars abroad and high taxation at home - yet another choice freedom they are denying the American people.

"They say they stand for America and freedom, yet they sell it away dollar by dollar. America is about freedom and freedom is about the ability to choose and, most of all, to live freely."
-Senator Evan Edward Dobbs (NA-IL), August 10, 1996

Positions:
In favor of lower taxes
Pro-choice
Against the death penalty
Against gun control
Against affirmative action
Against tort reform
Against restrictions on smoking
In favor of environmental regulation
In favor of market competition
In favor of the League of Nations
In favor of disarmament
In favor of the "seperation of church and state"

Strongly supported by:
Hollywood
NRA
Small businesses
Trial lawyers
Immigrants
Feminists
Environmentalists
Homosexual groups
Hyper-sapiens

Strongly opposed by:
Military personnel
Married women
Jews
Media
Unions
Catholics
African Americans
Large corporations
Oil industry

So, to those of you that took the quiz, how did it do? Where did it put you and where do you think you ought to be?

Rob Booth kindly points out that this year's CMA actually has real country artists on it*.

In other words, Shania Twain and Faith Hill were shut out.

I'm a little sorry that Keith Urban was, but only because he made a hit out of Radney Foster's "Raining on Sunday" which has always been a favorite (note: Foster's version is better).

So everyone, let us shed a tear for Miss Twain.

Okay, done now...



*- This statement does not imply nor should it be construed as meaning that what comes out of any quarter of Nashville radio absent a long, grueling regional career can rightfully be called "country music." I'm working off a piss-poor grading curve here, folks.

UPDATE (9/1/3): More Shania Twain goodness... if you can put "good" and "Shania Twain" in the same sentence, anyway...

For anyone interested...

1942-1943: The Freedom Squadron, a group of super-powered beings, make their debut fighting Nazis in World War II. After this, the existence of "hyper-sapiens" could no longer be denied.
1944: Franklin Roosevelt dies, Henry Wallace assumes presidency. Attorney General Earl Warren (F-CA) elected president later that year.
1945-52: President Warren drops the bomb and completes World War II.
1949: After President Warren's landslide victory, the National Republican Party and the Alliance Party merge.
1952: President Warren does not run for re-election. The newly formed National Alliance Party, dubbed the "Whigs," nominate Dwight D. Eisenhower as President with a young senator named Albert Gore as Vice President and win
1954-67: Hyper-sapiens take a higher profile. Various informal committees (or "teams") are formed to "police themselves" since it's difficult for standard law enforcement to. A colony is set up in North Dakota for those that don't wish to live in general society.
1960: Albert Gore becomes the first Vice President to be elected straight to the presidency in over a century.
1961-72: Protests across the country against "American imperialism" and in favor of sexual liberation persist around the country, cutting at the heart of the National Alliance Party. Native Americans and hyper-sapiens become exalted to living the "ideal" life.
1964: Gore's failure to become involved in Vietnam becomes central issue in campaign, which he loses to Senator James Forrester Knight (F-DE).
1965: Fidel Castro assassinated. President Knight denies involvement as his popularity soars.
1966: President Knight Assassinated, Vice President William B. Keller becomes 38th President.
1966-68: Faced with deficits, rising crime, and a civil war in Cuba, Keller's popularity lags. He proposes government licensing for hypers to use their powers in public and fines and penalties for acting without proper licenses regardless of intent. Hypers take a lower profile.
1968: President Keller wins re-election as Whig party remains split between Gore and Goldwater factions.
1968-70: General Fernando Andujar stages coup in South America, begins invading nearby countries, forms United South America (SU), and allies with the Soviet Union. When he invades Chile, Keller sends down troops and Brazile declares war against SU.
1970: Elliot Goldstein (NA-CA) becomes first hyper-sapien elected to congress.
1971-72: Chile liberated, Whig-dominated congress launches investigations into allegations that Keller bribed Brazile to wage war on SU. Clifford Ellington, leader of operations in the region, becomes a household name.
1972: President Keller faces strong primary challenge by Senator Robert F. Kennedy (F-MA) and ultimately loses to Senator Governor Peter Mitchem (NA-MD).
1973: Mitchem attempts to normalize relations with hyper-sapiens, folding their internal criminal justice system with the federal one.
1974: Hypers are hired as federal agents and the first government penatentury is set up in Alaska.
1975: Elliot Goldstein appointed Secretary of Energy and becomes first known hyper to serve in a cabinet.
1976: William Keller becomes the second president in American history to serve two non-consecutive terms when Mitchem fails to deliver on his promises of economic recovery and is seen as too sympathetic to Communists, immigrants, and hyper-sapiens.
1977: Elliot Goldstein retains his post as Secretary of Energy. At Keller's request, he compiles a list of all known hypers. Cliff Ellington appointed Secretary of Defense.
1978: Keller creats Iron Forces, a branch of the military with superior training and armor for special missions abroad and domestic cases of hyper-sapien criminal activity.
1980: Senator Martin Holt (NA-CA) wins presidency in landslide in what is largely seen as an admonishment of the increasingly unpopular President Keller, whose Vice President suffered the defeat. Before leaving office, appoints Goldstein as CIA Director.
1981: President Holt orders records on hyper-sapiens to be sealed and brings troops home from South America.
1983: Hyper-sapien "renaissance" occurs when Holt proposes allowing hypers to join the Iron Forces division.
1982-84: Chile, Paraguay, Guyana, Suriname are forcefully admitted into SU. SU forces invade Panama.
1984: Percieved as weak or uninterested in foreign policy, President Holt is defeated by Clifford Ellington.
1985: SU pushed out of Panama.
1987: USSR collapses. Southern Chile and Paraguay win independence.
1988: Ellington easily re-elected.
1989: SU President Andujar announces that he has a nuclear weapons.
1991: South American Summit held between Ellington and Andujar. Elections held in each of the SU states to determine their own status.
1992: Ellington seeks amendment to Constitution to allow him to run again. Governor Maxwell Knight (F-NJ), son of the former president, announces candidacy and becomes 43rd president.
1993: In the SU elections, only Bolivia and North Chile elects to become independent. Skeptics argue that the other states were afraid, proponents argue that it's democracy at work. In their first constitutional election, Bolivia elects a unionist and is promptly rejoined with the SU.
1994: President Knight announces the division of Iron Forces with Hyper Forces and that the two will no longer train together.
1995: SU soldiers enter Paraguay to "maintain order." After two month stand-off, they return to the SU state of Peru.
1996: President Knight wins re-election.
1997: Civil war erupts between Venezuela and United South America.
1998: In a long battle between hyper-sapiens, Washington DC is destroyed. Fortunately, due to the prolonged nature of the battle, only a few hundred are killed before everyone is evacuated.
1999: Venezuela wins its independence.
2000: Despite winning a majority of the popular vote (51%), Secretary of State Kenneth Patterson comes up short in the electoral college. During investigations of vote tampering in Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas, Patterson is assassinated by an SU national and shortly after, his opponent declared the victor. President Knight announces his resignation and Vice President David Hockley takes office as the 44th president for the shortest term of any president in US History (24 days).
2001: After the most controversial election in United States history, Senator Franklin Cale (NA-OK) assumes office of the presidency. Then the story begins...

What creates a political party? Is it a single set of coherent beliefs? Or is Jane Galt right and for the Republicans it's a set of ideas and Democrats it's a set of groups? Even looking at the supposedly ideologically consistent Republican Party, it's not hard to tilt the axis a little and see how a great deal of it is circumstancial.

I once took a Constitutional Design class by Dr. Donald Lutz at the University of Houston, where we learned quite a bit about constitutional design, political parties, and how people generally align.

On the first or second class, he asked "There is only one function of a political party. What is it?"

Some people suggested to advance ideas, but they were shot down. Others suggested to provide a platform for candidates, and Dr. Lutz said that they were closer. The answer, he explained, was simply to win elections.

In systems with a large number of parties, you often see groups that represent a narrow political interest. In the United States, such a system would likely include a Feminist Party, a Fundamentalist Party, a Libertarian Party (that actually matters), an Environmentalist Party, a Black Caucus Party, and so on.

That gave me an idea.

I was working on a story at the time which involved two parties that I did not feel comfortable making Republican and Democratic parties because of the unique circumstances of the world they're living in (see questions 6-8 of the quiz).

At the same time, I didn't know what these parties stood for, precisely, and that always bothered me, even though it was a relatively minor thing until Election 2000 (which in my world was even MORE debated than our own, and determined such before the Florida Fiasco). I'd named the parties the Federalist Party and the National Party.

President Maxwell Knight was a Federalist serving out the remainder of his second term. He followed the more controversial Federalist President Clifford Ellington. The 2000 election revolved around a National Party Senator Franklin R. Cale of Oklahoma and Federalist Secretary of State Ken Patterson.

Beyond that, I had no idea what the party's were for except that the Federalist Party was more pro-military, anti-hypersapien, and the demeanors of Knight and Ellington were largely conservative and establishmentarian.

I considered making the Federalist Party a rip-off of the Republicans and the Nationals the Democrats, but I decided to have a little more fun with it. I later considered making the Nationals de-facto libertarians, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized they'd never win elections that way.

So when Dr. Lutz taught me about the interest-group parties, I felt that interest groups were probably the best way to form new parties. If I could switch enough of them around, it might seem more random, but perhaps I can figure out unifying ideals around each party.

So I made a list of the interest groups in the existing parties and then put them in a pool to figure out how to divide them.

There were a number of routes I could have gone, but many of them seemed slight variations of the Christian/Business vs. Minority/Women breakup we have now.

I looked at other paradigms. Could the US be seperated into Social Democrat and Christian Democrat? Given the history of central Europe compared to our own, it seems unlikely two parties would spring up in the US that late. I also considered a variation of England and Australia's Labor Party for us. What if in the late 19th century, the unions had been more successful and able to overthrow one of the existing parties?

Eventually, I looked at the America's early Federalist party and did some reading up on why they won and why they dissipated. There I found what I was looking for (which was perfect since I'd already named one of my party's Federalists). The Federalists were in many ways the bridge between British Aristocracy and American Democracy.

What if we'd never entirely crossed that bridge? What if, during the Adams/Jackson years, something happened? So I changed up history and Adams became the last Democratic-Republican president. Jackson, in his anger at being denied the presidency despite winning the popular vote, was successfully recruited by a (non-existent) historical figure named Edmund Fox to join the Federalists.

The Federalist Party was revived and the Democratic-Republicans were decimated. The Whigs originally gathered in opposition to Andrew Jackson, though I eventually took the name National Republicans (used by John Quincy Adams in the real world in his race against Andrew Jackson) and they became stand-ins for the Whigs.

Flash forward roughly 100 years and the National Republican Party was perpetually in the outs against Federalist President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Eventually, a new progressive party called the Alliance Party formed, hindering the NRP further by splitting the FDR vote until eventually they both merged into the National Alliance Party shortly before FDR's death.

They were referred derisively as the Whigs. The original British Whigs were those protesting against the crown and the American Whigs were named such because of their view of Andrew Jackson as a proto-king. Eventually, not sure what to call themselves, they decided Whigs was somewhat better than Allianceers or Nationalists and ran with it.

The first National Alliance President was Columbia University president and former military commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, elected in 1952.

Okay, so now that I knew the history of how the Federalist and Whig Parties became the dominant two, what would this history suggest that they stood for? In a roughly similar timeline, the Whigs would be the Republicans and Federalists the Democrats.

So I looked over my list of interest groups and realized that a number of them hinged on the protests of the 60's. I also realized that the next three post-Eisenhower presidents (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon) were all definitely Federalists and decided that the 60's protests would be aimed at them, and NAP would be taken over by protesters. the only difference would be that the Federalists would neutralize the racial protests pretty quickly, alienating the South and solidifying the black vote.

So I looked at the 60's protesters: feminists, anti-war, and later environmentalists and homosexuals, and put them in the Whig camp. If the Federalists are American proto-aristocrats, then immigrants would largely also fall with the Whigs.

Pro-war folks and big government folks were natural Federalists. As were those uncomfortable with the sexual revolution. So Federalists included New Dealers, unionists, and Catholics. Their actions during the civil rights struggle solidified them the black and Jewish votes as well.

So the ball ricochets back to the Whigs, and since big government people are Federalists, small government people are Whigs, which makes sense because this is the party of Senator Taft and the anti-New Dealers of yesterday.

To make a long story a little less long, the system was largely left with a consolidated, pro-America, pro-government party in the Federalists and the Whigs, who were in many ways merely a reaction to it. As such, and much like today's Democratic Party, they are often a disparate combination between free marketers and former hippies.

I also had to figure out regional strengths and weaknesses. The aristocratic Federalists are strongest in the East and the Rust Belt (Michigan and Illinois through New Jersey). The Whigs are strongest off the Pacific Coast (California being a stronghold) and do well generally in the west and mid-west. That said, the Federalists are the dominant party and it's generally quite tough for the Whigs to take a presidential election.

When choosing mascots for each party (since the elephant and donkey need not apply), I chose the beaver for the Federalists and more fittingly the platypus for the Whigs.

The party divisions in the world are somewhat messy. They're also exacerbated by the "hyper sapiens" which have a definite effect on the political climate and help meld disparate parts of the Whigs together.

This is all a relatively minor part of the story - a story I'll likely never actually get to write - but it has a profound effect on how I view contemporary American politics in this world. I'll post on that part next.

I actually wrote this to (a) test out how Quizilla works and (b) to see what my answer was.

If you've got a few minutes, take this 9-question quiz to determine whether, in my alternate history, you would be a member of the National Alliance ("Whig") Party or the Federalist Party.

Three warnings, though:
1) This quiz may be the strangest political one you've taken to date. You'll see what I mean when you get to questions 6-8 and get the results.

2) I wrote it late at night, so forgive spelling and gramatical errors.

3) I'll explain what in tarnation this is and how it's relevent to the real world (to me, anyhow) tomorrow afternoon.

4) My answers are in the "read more" section.

[Read More!]

One of my favorite button-down shirts got wet yesterday in the rain. I put it out to dry and it is now painted gray, courtesy or the complex's remodeling team that's repainting the building.

Other things painted partially gray:
Two (2) chairs
One (1) table
Two (2) pairs of swimming shoes.

Via Cluth, I found a great guide to incoming freshmen to MIT on how to score dates. There are 20 in all, but here are some samples:

1. Personal hygiene goes a long way. You’d think that people would’ve learned this in health class, but it’s amazing how many people can just plain forget when they’re coding for 72 hours straight.

[...]

7. Young ladies, know this: you not only have freshmen guys seeking you out, but upperclassmen as well.

8. Young men, know this: you don’t have older women checking you out. However, Wellesley, an all-female college, is a short Senate Bus ride away (to find a date).

I love how the author added "(to find a date)" because I could just imagine some engineer asking "If it's an all-female college, why would I go there?

Reminds me of a joke about engineers:

An engineer is walking down the street one day when an attractive woman on a bicycle stops, takes all of her clothes off, and exclaims to the lad "You can take anything you want!"

So he takes the bikes.

He goes and talks to his engineering friends, recounting the story on the naked woman and the bike.

"Good move!" one engineer states.

"No kidding," another adds, "the clothes never would have fit."

I am a quite proud Texan. Despite the weather and some of the kooky politics that go on here, my car is proudly fashioned with a "I wasn't born here, but I got here as fast as I could" bumper sticker (we moved down when I was two).

I am one of the few people that notice when the Texas flag is raised lower than the US flag (we have an exemption to that general rule because of our former nationhood), I believe that Texas is home to much of the best music in the country and the geographical, ethnic, and cultural diversity of this state make it truly one-of-a-kind.

That said, this is a bit much:

Students in Texas public schools will be required to recite a pledge of allegiance to the Texas flag beginning in the 2003-2004 school year.

A new Texas law mandates that students recite the Texas pledge after reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag.

At a convocation Wednesday for teachers in the Northside Independent School District, teachers were given a card that has the words to the Texas pledge.

It's every district's right to do as they see fit, and I'm disinclined to suggest that Texas needs to leave the union, but I'm inclined to give the teachers a bit more control over their classroom. It's one thing to require the pledge to the stars and stripes, as we are a nation that lives and dies together.

Texas, despite our beloved "It's a whole nuther country" slogan (which I like), is not actually a nation unto itself anymore and we live and die with the rest of the country.

They're apparently doing a bit of work on E. Cullen. The cement pond is looking pretty good these days.



We apparently have two of these mad little critters in front of E. Cullen. They were donated by the Moores family, who created BMC software and, last I checked, owned the San Diego Padres.




This is where I spent most of my time at UH. The building to the left is now called the "College of Technology Building" presumably because they haven't found a Cullen or donor to give enough money to rename it. Maybe when I make fifty bazillion dollars with one of my neato inventions, it'll be the Whitlock building.

The building to the right is now called "Technology Annex" though that's recent, because when I went there it was called Tech and the COTB was called "T2"... I'm not sure how the building feels about the demotion.

Not that I'm shedding any tears. It's one of the University's oldest buildings and was not, shall we say, state of the art. T2 on the other hand, is reasonably decked out. They upgraded computers three times while I went there.



This is in the "Annex"... the two right-most postings were posted upside down. We're like Einstein that way. If it isn't technological or scientific, we don't know how to do it.



This is in the human resources building and I found it cute.



Went down to the UC Underground to get one of their awesome spicy chicken subs. Enter Starbucks, goodbye spicy chicken sub.

That wasn't there before.

Sigh.




For anyone who has read, tried to read, or intends to read Something So Perfect, a number of scenes take place right here, in the Quadrangle commons.

An interesting article on spousal infidelity on the wife's side. As the gap between unfaithful husbands and wives narrows (unfortunately in the wrong direction with wives going up instead of husbands going down), it poses some interesting questions on how and why wives cheat.

The "types" of affairs read to me more like rationalizations than anything else:

Empowering Affairs
With more opportunities for women in all aspects of life, they have increased experience of younger men and of workplace affairs.

Sex-Driven Affairs
The marriage becomes old and sex declines. This type of affair compensates for that lack. It is by definition the most passionate, lacking boundaries or rules and can almost seem like an out-of-body experience for the woman.

Love Affairs
Unanticipated and heartbreaking, these affairs happen when women least expect them. Often they break up the marriage or are used as a wake-up call for the husband to battle for his wife to stay.

Self-Esteem Affairs
Consumed with the responsibilities of child care and household duties, women have lost their way. A lover makes them feel special in a way their husbands do not.

Whether a woman or a man, I take an anti-cheating position when it comes to marital affairs. It's almost sad that I have to feel the need to take a "position" because so many people are increasingly permissive towards it.

For the record, I have a solid, albeit not entirely unblemished, record of fidelity. When mistakes have been made, they've been minor (ie no sex, Clinton-defined or otherwise) and dealt with very seriously. In other words, I've not only felt guilty, but I've done something about it.

As that goes, none of these rationales hold much water for me.

Empowering Affairs

This one is a very involved subject I'll have to tackle at a later date, except for a few thoughts. This, along with the third factor (increased availability) probably accounts a great deal for the closing of the gap.

In this case, I'm sure many women - particularly if they marry young or were not promiscuous when they were single - feel that they are missing out on something. This accounts for whatever transgressions I may have had in the past. That being said, it doesn't excuse me any more than it excuses the women in the survey (except to the extent my transgressions were more minor and dealt with honestly).

Sex-Driven Affairs

This excuse is the one most commonly afforded by men and is possibly the least unreasonable. I say this with two qualifications and a clarification.

First, it can't be ex-post facto. In other words, saying "I didn't realize how much I missed intimacy until Pat came along..." doesn't cut it.

Second, the other partner can't know what the first doesn't tell them. If the husband or wife is not aware of the other's unmet sexual needs, the guilt falls on the cheating spouse alone. It would be nice to say "My man/woman should know when I'm unhappy" and indeed it is nice when they do, but sexual issues often lag behind other issues and clear vision of the relationship becomes unclear. As I've said before, it's not a spouse's job to be a mindreader.

Lastly, to avoid letting the jilted spouse off completely, if a partner voices his or her concerns about the lack of intimacy (be it sexual or otherwise, especially since sexual often follows otherwise) and these complaints go unresponded to, then there's enough blame to go around.

To put a finer point on it, I believe that intimacy is a requirement in a marriage. Sex every night isn't, nor is she required to do the various positions that he wants or vice-versa, but a partner who doesn't even try to sexually satisfy his or her spouse is as negligent as one who is not providing in other ways.

"To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. 3 Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 4 The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. 5 Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. 6 But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment. 7 For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that." - 1 Cor. 7:2-7 KJV

Naturally, not everyone is in the mood every night. There will be times when a man or woman is physically incapable of sex. However, "not in the mood" headaches or stressful days at work that reach out for weeks or months is creating a situation in which an otherwise faithful spouse would stray. Don't even get me started on those who use sex as a weapon or to "teach him/her a lesson."

Even if one isn't in the mood, they can at least try. If they are impotant or dry, there are other ways intimacy and sexual needs can be satisfied. Refusal of compromise puts the other person in an impossible situation.

There are times that's unavoidable, which is what makes compromise and communcation on this matter so important. It requires compromise on both sides as to what their partners will and will not do.

That one side or the other isn't being completely satisfied does not constitute a valid rationale for cheating.

Self-Esteem Affairs

This rationale for cheating is subject to a number of the same rules as the second. The jilted spouse will often deserve some of the blame, but this sort of thing is also often derived ex-post facto.

Just as intimacy is required of both parties, so too is the emotional needs. To an extent. I have run across many women in my life (and a few men) whose self-esteem has become too heavy an anchor for any guy. Men, fearing her well-being if they were to leave, do what they can, fall short, and get cheated on. The same has happened in reverse, I'm sure, though I've not seen it first-hand (or perhaps guys are less likely to use self-esteem as a rationale even when it might be).

I am a believer in the credo that happiness is an inside job. There are things the spouse can be doing (and specifically things they can not be doing) to improve things, but at the end of the day we all feel down sometimes. We all feel worthless and stressed and worn down. It's the spouse's job to do what he or she can to keep things afloat, but just because he or she can't doesn't mean that you're free to go off and find someone that can.

Conclusion

To me, the last two reasons are both part of the same coin. There is, in relationship, a belief that they should be constantly reinvigorated. Every month together ought to be life the first.

The truth is that relationships change over time. That's not to say that sex will stop, intimacy will dissipate, and so on. Rather, that there are certain trade-offs. A lot of men and women look back at the earlier stages of their relationship and think that things were better back then. He said so many nice things and she was so much more aggressive in bed and so on.

Except that during that time, one of the biggest fuels to the flame was uncertainty. They did many of those things to try to win their partner over. Things were new and exciting. Well, excitement cannot exist without uncertainty, and it strikes me that a lot of men and women out there are trying to inject excitement into their life. By doing so, of course, they have to sacrifice the increased certainty they had before.

Except that in many cases the uncertainty is a deferred payment. They can have the excitement now and then go home to a stable family situation. These things have a tendency to blow up and the consequences are disastrous when they do.

Even when they don't, however, they're still irreversably damaging. Once you've crossed that line, you can't uncross it. You can no longer honestly say that you've been a great spouse. That sort of thing eats away at your soul because once you've cheated, it becomes easier to cheat again. With each bout of unfaithfulness, there comes a numbing to it until eventually the numbness bleeds over to your feelings for your partner.

And what's the cure to that numbness? Another lover, of course.

Dear Son,

We haven’t met and it’s unfortunately become apparent that we never will. Let me introduce myself: I am your mother’s ex-husband and your father. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to be there for you as much as we both might have liked and circumstance prevents us from doing so.

I’ll never forget the day that I found out about you. It was five days after your mother had kicked me out. It’s about the only thing I remember from the otherwise alcohol and drug-induced haze. I was a time bomb waiting to explode. It was amazing that I had survived so much booze, so many injections, and all of those pills. I’m certain that if it had lasted another week, I wouldn't be here writing this letter.

When they told me I was going to be a father, it didn't hit me until the next day. I started thinking about my father, and how he was never there for me. Perhaps if he had been, things would have turned out differently. I must confess that I have never handled responsibility responsibly. But until you, I had never had so much riding on me. Instead of a woman’s happiness, or an employer’s bottom line, I was responsible for another human life. That was when I decided that I would be the father to you that my father never was to me.

Understandably, your mother didn’t see it that way. I had burned that bridge and was no longer welcome in her, or your, life. To be fair, she was well justified. She'd given me two dozen more chances than I deserved and I squandered them all. As far as she was concerned, I was not to be anywhere near you. The judge agreed. Not that I blame her or that I would have done anything differently if I were in her shoes. I was, sadly, not a very good man.

My youth was spent in and out of juvenile hall. I smoked my first cigarette at eleven, my first joint at 13, and took my first dose of acid before I could legally drive. Not that the law stopped me from driving of course. I was addicted to at least four different substances by the time I hit twenty-one. Your mother, God bless her, tried. I, of course, in my arrogance and self-centeredness, pushed her away every chance she gave me to.

She lived in constant fear of me. I let it happen. I wanted her to fear me. The final straw was when I brought out the gun, I suppose. I don’t know why I did it. I loved your mother. I still do. But there was so much anger and hatred. I wish I was strong enough to defeat it, but obviously I wasn’t.

I don’t know what happened, but when I found out I was going to be a father, suddenly all the hatred seems so empty and pointless. I finally had something to live for. I only wish I was able to convince your mother that I had changed. I tried, but it was undermined by the smell of alcohol on my shirt that I couldn't afford to get washed. I told her that I would prove that I’ve changed and I’ve been working to that end ever since.

I haven’t touched any of the drugs in years. I don’t even drink socially anymore. Twelve steps and twenty-eight days and I was a new man. Without those things eating away at me, suddenly everything seemed so much easier. I was showing up to work on time. They even gave me a promotion.

I have tried to atone for the sins I’ve committed. I’ve volunteered at church (I’m attending church!) and helped build homes for Habitat for Humanity. I also visit prisons through the church, trying to reach out to other souls who, like me, are trying to find their way free from the mist.

Two years ago I met someone. She is a public school teacher and a saint of a human being. We get along together very well. I don’t need her to fear me to feel big - just being around her does that. She has a daughter a couple years older than you. Sometimes I dream that your family and my family are in the park together, and all my sins have been forgotten.

Unfortunately, sometimes our past catches up with us long after we think we’ve escaped. About a year ago I coughed up blood for the first time. The doctors explained it to me but when the medical mumbo-jumbo becomes English, it says that I’m dying. They’re going to open me up tomorrow, but the chances are strong that I won’t survive the surgery. In fact, if you’ve gotten this letter, it means that I didn’t.

Your mother, out of her love for you, granted me my last wish.

Sometimes I think about who I was before you came along. I was going full-speed ahead into self-destruction. I couldn’t possibly have survived as long as I did if it hadn’t been for you. Over the years, I’ve started living for the first time. I can see the beautiful world around me unfiltered by the narcotics and hatred that so jaded my view before. I have become someone. I have actually enjoyed life. I have even become a family man, even if you couldn’t be a part of that family.

I’m not afraid to die. I have sinned and the Devil must be paid his due. I am only sorry that I couldn’t have been there for you like I would have liked. I am sorry that you, too, suffered from my actions. I owe you so much. These past ten years have been by far the best of my life, and you gave them to me. Furthermore, when I meet God I will see him as a redeemed man and not the sinner who would have met him a decade ago.

Thank you, Son, for putting ten years onto my life and salvation into my soul.

Love,
Dad

[Written in March 2001]

Sorry for the lack of posting. I've been burning CDs and reading this, a lengthy, but gripping account of Alison's stay in a Harris County jail.

here is a list of things they take away from me when i get to jail:
1 set of keys
1 wallet
1 astros game ticket stub
1 belt
1 hat
2 elastic hair bands
3 necklaces
5 rings
8 earrings
1 nose ring

i don't want to take out my navel ring for fear it will close up, so i lie and tell the warden it won't come out. "that's okay," she says, "one of the girls in your cell will just rip it out for you."

i take it out.

I found this via Greg.

I have a question. When I was in Florida, I was watching an episode of West Wing where President Bartlett used a latin phrase to say "It is, therefore it is because of" meaning that corrolation is causation.

Anyone know the appropriate phrase for that?

Also, does anyone know what the opposite phrase would be, the one that means "It is, therefore it was always going to be"... meaning that there was no causation except perhaps fate.

Can anyone help me out here?

Good grief! I had no idea this even existed:

The Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service said Thursday it is loosening the ingredient requirements for meat pizzas. The agency is charged with enforcing standards that restrict how much meat, fat, and water goes into making frozen pizzas that are topped with sausage, pepperoni, hamburger, chicken or other meats.

Part of me says "It's good that they're lowering it" but a bigger part of me says:

WHY IS IT THERE TO BEGIN WITH?!

There is an old episode of The Simpsons in which Lisa runs a series of parallel tests between a lab rat and Bart. When stung by an electrically charged muffin, the rat slinked away. Bart, on the other hand, repeatedly reached for the muffin and was shocked each time.

Score one for the rat.

Less than a year ago, the California GOP had a choice of whom to pick to oppose Governor Gray Davis. On one hand, there was businessman Bill Simon, a staunch conservative undeniably out of touch with the liberal politics of the state. On the other was former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. Riordan alienated many conservatives by distancing himself from his party on social issues. He was pro-gay rights, pro-choice, and pro-business fiscally.

The Republicans, figuring that they could put up anyone this side of Josef Stalin and emerge victorious, banked on Bill Simon.

Accordingly, a governor with approval ratings in the low 30 percentile was handily re-elected governor of the most populous state in the union.

The California electorate's message was loud and clear: we would rather have an incompetent, irritating, smug, and corrupt boob than a self-defined conservative.

In an unprecedented (since the 20's) recall drive, Republicans are given a second chance to oust Governor Davis, whose popularity ratings are somewhere south of Congressman Jim Matheson's name identification numbers.

From the start, I've been against the recall because I believe that recalls make bad law. Doesn't matter if it's Governor Davis of California or Bush of Florida, if a governor is as corrupt as Gray Davis is accused of being by his critics, he ought to be impeached.

Conservatives and Republicans have set out to convince us all that Davis is such a special case, such a spectacular failure, that this makes a recall (which a plurality of Republicans, like me, don't care much for) justified.

Davis, they say, is a threat to the state.

So along comes a candidate with high enough name recognition numbers to defeat Davis. His politics are not dissimilar from Riordan's. Like Riordan, he has the support of the White House. Arnold Schwarzenegger is essentially a chance for Republicans to undo their 2002 error.

Like Bart Simpson and the muffin, however, they won't stop picking at it. He's not conservative enough, just like Riordan. He's liberal on social issues, just like Riordan. He's not particularly fiscally conservative, just like Riordan.

Except that Arnold, like Riordan, can actually win. He can actually help remove the statehouse from the reportedly dangerous Davis and give the Republicans a governorship that they are unlikely to win in the future.

So they're willing to deride the candidate most likely to succeed. They're willing to cut the wave that Schwarzenegger's riding because, despite his dangerous incompetence, he's somehow better than a liberal Republican. They're willing to boost the chances of Cruz Bustamante, an intraparty rival of Davis's and a man unlikely to become governor in a regular election.

Why? Because State Senator McClintock and is more conservative. Just like Mr. Simon.

They just keep reaching for that electrofied muffin.

UPDATE: Just a bit for perspective, courtesy of Michael Williams:

Returning home, Bustamante began attending Fresno State University, where he also failed to graduate but immersed himself in local and student politics, including the racial activism of MEChA, a group whose name is an acronym for “Moviemiento Estudiantil Chicano de AZTLAN,” the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan.

[...]

The “A” in MEChA stands for “Aztlan,” their word for the entire southwestern United States from Texas to California and from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, lost in war or sold by Mexico to the U.S. Mechistas aim to reclaim all this land for Mexico in a new reconquista, a “reconquest” like the re-taking of Spain from Moorish Muslims by Roman Catholics that was completed in 1492.

Well, at least he's not economically liberal, pro-choice, and pro-gay rights like Arnold is...

Oh wait, he is.

My roommate and I are discussing our leasing future and have run across a possible snag.

We are presently on month-to-month lease, which means that there is no lease agreement. Therefore they are free to raise rent or kick us out at any time and we are free to move out at any time (with one month's notice in each case).

Except that according to our slumlandlords, we have to give sixty days notice upon leaving. We never signed any documents stating this nor expressed consent in any written or oral form. As I understand it, the typical thirty-day notice requirement is law.

My question: Do they have a right to request 60 days notice on a month-to-month lease? If they can make up changes like this (it was thirty days notice when we last signed a document), what's the point in having leases and contracts to begin with?

A couple years ago, I turned my back on law school, never to return.

I have officially changed my mind! I want to go to law school at LSU just so I can take this course:

Comic heroes such as Batman, Superman, the Green Lantern, Spiderman, and the Atom are essentially vigilantes. What message do they send about the effectiveness of law to meet criminal threats? What message do comics about alternative worlds send about the inevitability and the origins of crime and injustice?

[...]

Among the interesting topics to explore are the roles of Catwoman and other female villains compared with other female evildoers in popular culture, and the question of whether upbringing or unfortunate accident (the Penguin) should excuse antisocial behavior.

Where do I sign up?

This is perhaps the most succinct description of one of the many things wrong with our public school system right here:

"The teachers are afraid of the principal, the principal is afraid of the superintendent, the superintendent is afraid of the parents, the parents are afraid of the kids, and the kids are afraid of NOBODY."

Cited by someone named Vicki at Dustbury's comments forum.

I have something rather strong to say about the failure to fail kids, but I'll have to get to that later.

It's funny when a piece of art falls right in to your life at a time when you seem to need to hear it's message. It's happened a couple times in mine. One of the biggest examples in my life was the Key: The Metal Idol anime series. More recently, it has been Hedwig and the Angry Inch. So I've moved on from Key, a little robot girl trying to become human, to Hedwig, a transsexual rock star trying to find herself.

Is my life screwed up or what?

More seriously, Hedwig is by far the more surprising of the two because transsexuality is something that I've never been comfortable with and, for the most part, still am not. Yet by the time I was done with this movie, I felt that I had everything in common with her, minus the musical talent and sex change operation.

What helped tremendously in this regard was how inconspicuously it dealt with the issue. Instead of making this an anthem about tolerance towards transexuality or martyring Hedwig as a victim in a cold, transgenderophobic society, it merely presents a character, tells how he becomes a she, and what happens to her. The reactions of all the characters around her are genuine as is John Mitchell's portrayal of Hedwig.

Hedwig was born Hansel Schmidt in Communist East Berlin. She gained an affection for western culture by listening to the American Forces Network, which played American music and such television shows as "Jesus Was Good."

Along comes an American sergeant named Luthor Robinson (picture Toby Keith, except bald, black, and bisexual), who originally thinks Hansel to be a girl and, when he finds out otherwise, doesn't seem to mind so much. After all, when they get married, he has to become a girl to get out of the country.

Then comes the botched sex change operation, leaving Hedwig with "an angry inch."

That's all the backstory for how "a slip of a girly boy from East Berlin becomes the Internationally ignored song stylist barely standing before you," in her words.

The story of Hedwig's adventures through life are interesting in a bizarre way, but wouldn't have been able to carry the story for someone like me who is intrinsically uncomfortable with transexualism. What is most powerful to me is the same thing that brought me to the movie to begin with: The Origin of Love.

I first heard the song in my friend Ed's car and it struck me as one of the most interesting songs I'd heard in a long time. The story of how we all had four arms and legs and two heads until we angered the gods who then seperated us. Thus we spend the rest of our lives in search for the part we were seperated from, searching for "the other half" of us.

The Jerry Maguirish notion of "you complete me" is not one I necessarily buy in to, and yet I have had that feeling when I've been in love before that without that other person, I'd be somehow an incomplete person. As I'd been single for most of the two years prior to seeing the movie, the feeling that something was seriously missing from my life stayed with me, however much I wished to lose it.

And so it is with Hedwig, who spends the greater part of the movie in search for her counterpart until she is eventually reduced with dealing from the wreckage of her relationship with rock star Tommy Gnosis, who left her and made a name for himself off her material.

On Hedwig's thigh is a tatoo of two halfs of a circle, a yin-yang of sorts except that they're not connected. Without Tommy, and without that other person, she is merely a broken half in search of the other.

The most tragic element of all of this is that Hedwig is, on her own, such a remarkably talented musician and songwriter. Her lyrics are exemplary, her voice magnificent, and her appearence wholly sensual. Songs that she wrote propelled Gnosis, whose voice is centrally inferior, to stardom.

Yet, despite all of this, she keeps coming back to the broken circle. The incompleteness that seems to drive her being. It also impairs her songwriting.

"Why don't you write a new song?!" her husband Yitzak asks. In a sense she can't. A number of her songs deal with the surgery that left her understably feeling sexually incomplete.

It's been said that a musician's first CD is always their easiest. The material is the artist's life. One of the reasons for the so-called "sophomore jinx" is the inability of some writers to find something else to write about.

Hedwig is in a similar rut. She's trapped in her past, the surgery, the ex-husband, and the rock star.

The last ten to fifteen minutes of the movie is three songs. Her struggle coming to head, her long awaited confrontation with Tommy, and the resolution.

In a way, it's a fitting way for the movie to end. The plot is interesting, the characters immensely believable, and the movie's focus on the characters rather than making it a "we're loud, we're transexual, and we're proud" statement. But the best part of the movie is the music. Three of the best songs I have heard to date come from the soundtrack.

I got the DVD through Netflix and watched it over and over again. First the movie, then the song portions, then the movie again. It even includes an 85-minute "making of Hedwig" feature on the DVD which details its transition from an idea to stage musical to film. I'd give almost anything to see a stage production, but I own both soundtracks (one from the musical and the other the movie) and the DVD, which will have to make do until the tribute album comes out.

If you appreciate an interesting story and great music, I strongly advise you to check out this movie.

I got back this evening. The posting went off almost without a hitch, but the glitch was either Blogger's or mine, so Lovely Assistant Poster Girl deserves a hardy thanks. There are hopefully going to be some changes around here this week as well as some posts and thoughts I had in Florida but couldn't write because I was working on my novel like a madman. Stay tuned.

I am about to head out for our family's yearly trip to Not Louisiana. I will be returning a week from Sunday but posting will be light for the first couple days when I get back.

Worry not, though! I have finally finished the long awaited conclusion to the Identity Crisis and Me, Myself, & I sagas. It's a bit long, but it's all you're getting from me for the next week, so check it out.

For those of you who read the parts I posted on the No-Lyfe Journal, it's changed significantly. I was dissatisfied with the format of the older version. The introduction is almost the same, though, so just skip to that to get a clue-in to the next part.

So what are you waiting for? Click on the collage below!

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that those of you that the previous two treks are not required for Intersections. They all three stand on their own.

Sugarmama has the funniest post on 80's music ever! Not that there's a whole lot of competition in that area mind you, but hers takes the cake!

It also feeds in to why 80's music never resonated with me. I'm a lyrics guy. I like the stories and imagery in lyrics. Music in that vein actually inspires a lot of my writing, which I'll go in to more in depth at another time and place.

Sample:

Everything She Wants
George Michael

Some people work for a living
Some people work for fun
Girl I just work for you
They told me marriage was give and take
Well you’ve shown me you can take
You’ve got some giving to do
And now you tell me that you’re having my baby
I’ll tell you that I’m happy if you want me to
If my best isn’t good enough
Then how can it be good enough for two

Several lines in this song are hilarious. Girl I just work for you: What he’s saying here is that while some people have to work to pay bills, and others work because it’s fun (let me know if you have met any of those people, I haven’t), he works for his woman. Twue lub.

Hmmm. I actually like that song.

Funny stuff, though.

Ginger has a post on the chasm between childful and childfree households that has garnered quite a response.

I used to go to brunch regularly with some girlfriends of mine, and I kind of drifted away after a while because I got tired of all the mommy talk. I adore my friends’ kids; most of them are charming and well-behaved, even though they’re all rowdy in groups. And I don’t mind talking about the kids, either. But I find that I only have so much interest in the details of diapers and potty-training, or early schooling, as opposed to, say, school policy issues, and none at all in E&E talk (episiotomies and epidurals). Not at the table, please!

Agreed. Not at the table!

Though none of my friends have kids, I've run in to similar issues in regards to friends who get into serious relationships (and, as I get older, marriage). I've been on both sides of it (Serious relationship from 1997-2001, single afterward) and it's difficult to explain.

When it comes to big lifestyle changes such as that it can have a big effect. Single people think about getting into relationships a lot and who they like and likes them and so on while married couples have "been there, done that" and when the married person tries to join in, it can be a bit awkward like a father trying to act "cool" or whatnot.

As Ginger points out, however, there are things other than children to concern oneself with. I hope very much to have kids, but not at the expense of everything else.

I think it's also worth noting the chasm between having kids that are of school age and a mother who is up all night with their screaming baby. The latter might very well not have much else to talk about.

I'm more or less of the live-and-let-live attitude. If two friends don't have as much in common because of that chasm, then so be it. Find people with which you have more in common to hang out with. Then again, absent a couple really close friends, my friendships are an ever-changing koleidascope depending on a multitude of factors. So that I tend to change social groups pretty easily (too easily in some cases) might be an indication as to why I feel the way that I do.

I also have the present luxury of not being in an age group where my present status (unmarried, childless) is not in the minority.

The comments section is rife with complaints on parents of one type or another, and I'd love to comment on that when I get a chance, but unfortunately it may not be particularly soon.

[betcha wouldn't have guessed that I still haven't gotten any sleep! C'mon, be honest!]

Did You Know That...?

1. Driving at 60mph on cruise control, it takes you approximately 37 minutes to circle the 610 loop.

2. That means that the 60 loop is approximately 37 miles long, cause you're taking 37 minutes, dividing it by 60 miles an hour, then multiplying it by 60 miles per hour.

Think of it this way:
37 minutes 1 hour 60 miles
---------- * -------- * --------- = Z
1 60 minutes 1 hour

37 minutes 1 hour 60 miles
---------- * -------- * --------- = Z
60 minutes 1 hour 1

37x60
----- = 60 miles*
60

*- "miles" being the only measuring quantity that is not divided unto itself. You see, you can divide measuring quantities just like you can numbers! Well, as long as you're equalizing them (and changing the value accordingly) and then they're cancelling each other out.

3. My father is a professional mathematician, in a way.

4. He hates being woken up at 4 in the morning for inane math questions.

5. He would also want to know why I am up at 4 in the morning.

6. So I didn't call him and figured it all out by myself.

7. Yes, I did generally get A's in math, thanks for asking.

8. This is all much more fun when it's 10 in the morning and you haven't gone to bed yet.

9. Driving loops around 610 does not cure insomnia.

UPDATE: 10. Nucleus doesn't like it when you use multiple spaces on an entry and just allows it to be for 1 space.

11. I don't know what the HTML code is to insert a space. It's something like the ampersand with nbsp or something.

12. I'm too lazy to look it up.

UPDATE II: 13. 1 Woodchipper + 8-10:30 in the morning = -|sleep|

14. When a value is surrounded by "|"s, that means it's the absolute value. The absolute value is what is assigned to a number when it is based on the deviation from the number 0, as opposed to it's actual value. So |4| could equal 4 or -4, since they both have the same deviation from 0.

15. By putting the negative sign in front of it, I was essentially saying that it equals "the negative absolute value of sleep" which means that I am soooo awake.

16. That's funny because I'm using mathematical terms to register my protest at the woodchipper outside.

17. Those who say "a joke isn't funny if you have to explain it" are wrong.

18. I crack me up.

You're welcome for the knowledge.

Dear Rent-a-cop That Was Driving on 610 at 3:00 This Morning,

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR EVER-LOVING MIND?!

Do you know what kind of trouble you can get in to using your flashers to get through traffic? I don't, but I imagine it's pretty severe!

Do you think the cops won't notice? That they'll think you're a cop? Dude, let's go over some facts, here:

1. There is no "professional courtesy" between cops and security guards. That's like a receptionist at a law firm considering herself "practically a lawyer."

2. Security flashers are yellow, cop lights are generally red and blue. They are SOOO not going to think you're probably a cop.

3. Your car doesn't even look like a cop car. They generally drive Chevy Caprices, Camaros, or Ford Crown Victorias. You drive a Geo Prysm. Geo. Prysm. (or at least some other not-a-cop-car pugmobile).

4. I am not a cop and I didn't even buy it. That would be why I didn't get out of your way, even though I probably should have because you are a crazy man! Well, that's half the reason. The other half of the reason is that I had to find out how long it takes to circle 610 at 60 miles an hour. Yeah, I would have pulled over if you were a cop, but...

5. YOU ARE NOT A FRIGGIN' COP you pathetic loon.

Sincerely,

Author of the Blog You Do Not Read

According to this, if I don't count the last question, I'm 2/3 Californian!!

More commentary on this to come.

Ack!

Instapundit linked to an interesting article on a girlfriend who was caught cheating, exposed by, miraculously, writing all about it on her blog!

Well, okay, to be fair, she did it pseudonymously, and even then only because she didn't clear her cache.

It's an interesting story, but one thing that caught my interest was:

"Incidents like this happen all the time on a lower scale," Johanna says. "With online journaling, you're mad at someone, so you write about it because it's your journal and your place to express yourself … and the person you're mad at just happens to read it."

There are options to keep your business on the down-low, even if you do decide to publish intimate secrets. Filters on sites such as LiveJournal.com let you restrict access to your written thoughts, but it isn't fail-safe.

"Someone could use a search engine to find their name," warns techno-guru and Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution author Howard Rheingold, who's been blogging since the early days. "Suddenly thousands of people are finding out what happened with your girlfriend last night, and your girlfriend might not be so happy about that."

This is primarily why I don't tend to write about significant events in my life as they are unfolding. I've only once referred to a relationship that I was in at the time that I wrote it (and showed it to the girl in question). Most of what I write about significant things is actually posted a week after its occurance so that I have time to mull it over.

Also, in case you think there have really been people in my life named "Ora" and "Elciem", I do use pseudonyms unless I have permission to do otherwise. I also change insignificant facts in order to conceal a person's identity if my portrayal of them is unflattering or I don't believe those that know me need to know who I am referring to.

I'm not so much trying to be dishonest to you as I am trying to be honest to my friends and avoid the Perry Mason Effect. I am also, at root, using blogging as a tool to improve my writing skills, provoke thought, and entertain. If I don't think I can write something entertaining so my blog doesn't read like this.

When I was younger, I used to love lawyer and detective shows. I also had a soft spot for Perry Mason until I discovered a disturbing pattern: Mason would always be working for someone in some other capacity (writing a will, handling divorce proceedings, etc.) when someone would die.

Mason pounces on the client like a cat on a ball-string and is suddenly the defense attorney because everyone he accused was always the one needing a defense attorney.

Contrived, contrived, contrived.

Some other detective and lawyer shows did the same thing. Someone around Angela Lansberry in Murder She Wrote was always dying. Same with Dick Van Dyke's doctor character in Diagnosis Murder.

In the case of Lansberry and Van Dyke, the reason was obvious. How else are you going to have a murder mystery with an author or doctor as the detective if someone around him doesn't die and provide the mystery?

Perry Mason is a different matter, as people who hire him are almost always accused of murder. So if I needed a lawyer for a will or something, I do believe he'd be the last lawyer I'd ever hire, because someone I know is gonna die and I'm gonna be accused.

On the other hand, Mason's client always gets off, so maybe if I wanted someone around me to die, I would hire him so that they'd be killed by Old Man Smithers or something, I wouldn't have to bloody my hands, and in the end I'd get off free.

In any case, I've always dubbed the phenomenon that I'm-around-the-lead-so-I'm-doomed the Perry Mason Effect.

It not only applies to doctors, authors, and civil attorneys with a knack for mystery solving, but also drama queens who use the men in their lives as a platform for increased drama, much as the writers lazily kill off someone near Burr, Van Dyke, or Lansberry for an InstaPlot.

For those of you unaware, I stand at approximately six feet and five inches. That's tall by most standards and extremely tall by others.

There are certain advantages to being tall. I can never need a ladder to get to the stop shelf. It has always helped somewhat in the romance department where I've always needed whatever help I can get.

Of course, there are drawbacks, too. Before installing a CD player in my `98 Ford Escort, if I rested my legs, it would turn down the volume on my radio. My bed is too short for me and so I often wake up with sore cavs.

The biggest drawback, however, is clothes. Luckily, while I am taller than most, I'm not gargantuan. Unfortunately, what I am is oddly shaped.

I don't mean that as a euphamism for "fat" or "big-boned" (itself sometimes a euphamism for being overweight), but rather in its most literal sense. First, I have abnormally large feet and getting new shoes is a big, big deal!

More unusual, though, is the more usual size of my legs. Despite being 6'5", my pants length is shorter than my brother's and the same length as father's (6'2" both). In fact, a 5'10" woman that I know who wears men's jeans has legs as long as mine.

The rest of it is all torso. That means that while I could wear an L-sized shirt were it not for the fact that it doesn't reach my wasteline. XL-sized shirts make it, unless I lean over, which makes tucking in shirts difficult. So I have to buy XXL-size shirts, which make me look considerably larger than I am.

Woe is me, and stuff.

But apparently, I should fear no longer. We may not have an interest group table reserved in the Democratic Party, but we do have a magazine now. Neat!

50 Things Every Guy Should Know.

The question is not whether or not the everyguy has a shot at Jennifer Lopez, but whether or not they would want said shot. I don't care how good looking she is, like Shania Twain, all you have to do is look at her to know that she's more trouble than she's worth.

Though this is about a comic book character, this is not about comic books. Rather, it is about art in its many forms. It could just as easily be about television or movies, but the dichotomy between the way DC and Marvel handles superheroes makes the comparison easier.

For those of you that are not familiar with comic books, I will explain the characters and stories I refer to. For those of you that cannot take any discussion that involves modern mythology remotely seriously, go buy and read Watchman and then get back to me.

I was looking over at noted comic book author Christopher Priest's web site, where he has various personal and professional writings (which I will assuredly comment on at some point) as well as stories from his time at DC and Marvel.

While talking about the character Triumph, he delivers this indictment of DC Comics in favor of Marvel.

I was more than taken aback, though, by many staffers' absolute loathing of the character, which, honestly, shouldn't have surprised me. DC, in those days at least, trended towards being The Nice Guy Company. The Jay Leno of comics. All their heroes pretty much knew each other's secret ID's, and all liked each other [...] DC's stationery had the characters, smiling and waving, standing on one another's shoulders as Wonder Woman, at the very top, held up the DC Comics logo. And that was the harmonious, Comics R For Kids family-friendly environment most of us worked in at DC. Marvel, meanwhile, was a more competitive environment where the heroes were handled a bit more realistically, where the heroes routinely kept secrets from and mistrusted the motives of one another. My edge on Triumph— I called him The Hero You Love To Hate— would have worked much better at Marvel, a place where cynicism was the hallmark and where Stan Lee set the tone 40 years ago with his irreverent take on super-heroing and his grounding of the same in the people politics of The World Outside Your Window.

As Priest explains, Triumph was an unsuccessful DC character launched in the late 90's that was loathed by fans and the company alike. He was self-centered, bratty, and all too human. I personally found him to be a compelling character but the more I think about it, the more Priest is right. He never fit in there. Rather than breaking the mold, as Priest was aiming for, he stuck out like a sore thumb.

Priest, and many others point to this as a limitation of DC superheroes. Namely, that they aren't allowed to be human. Mike Ahlf touched on this when he wrote a while back:

None of their villains are simply evil businessmen like Kingpin. Nobody in their pantheon has shades of gray. They're evil, or they're not.

While this is an over-generalization of DC Comics and I rebutted specific inaccuracies here, there is an element of truth to the criticism as well as Priest's above.

Except that I consider it a feature, not a bug. Contrary to Mike's assertions, there are corrupt businessmen (Blockbuster) as well as a number of anti-heroes (Huntress, Deathstroke). In the end, though, a bulk of the stories are devoted to Good Versus Evil.

In the confines of the DC Universe, good is not always like other good and evil is not always like other evil. I'm reminded of a showdown between establishmentarian Captain Atom and liberal Wonder Woman over the fate of some interstellar fugitives.

Captain Atom acted basically as an agent of the government trying to capture the fugitives. The President so ordered it, and Captain Atom headed the call. Captain Atom history with the government is mixed, to say the least. He was manipulated and abused by it. He was lied to and betrayed. When it's all said and done, though, he was the loyal soldier, doing as he was ordered to.

Wonder Woman is neither an establishmentarian nor a native American. She is a bona fide liberal with an understandably feminist outlook of the world (understandable because she was raised on an island in which there were no men). She is concerned that the fugitives are being railroaded and wants some assurances before giving up the captors.

They're examples of two kinds of heroes. They don't particularly get along and don't always trust one another (their problems bleed over into later storylines long past the fugitive conflict), but at the end of the day they are allies and recognize that fact.

In the DCU, their are no "alliances" and "us versus them" among the heroes. Conflicts, sure, but when push comes to shove they invariably fight side-by-side. Most importantly, it's not about them as much as it is about their cause.

That's why Triumph could never have fit in. With Triumph, it was always about him. He did the right things for all the wrong reasons. Maybe we're supposed to like him because he's "realistic" or whatnot, and maybe if he didn't exist in a world in which the contrasts are so stark, we would.

Mike used the word "pantheon" which I find interesting because that's the exact word I would use and is emblematic of the difference between the DC and Marvel out