I guess I'm out of the loop on Georgia politics, but apparently Denise Majette, primarily known for unseating the loathsome Cynthia McKinney, will be running for the senate. McKinney is seeking her old job back and apparently the only Democrat to declare isn't demographically fit for the district.

I try not to get involved in the internal politics of the party whose policies I generally oppose, but can Democrats please find a way to make sure that McKinney does not get back into the house? The Dems, Georgia, and the entire United States got very lucky when she was unseated. It was a combination of factors that I fear may not be duplicated over two and a half years removed from 9/11.

Sigh.

Apparently, the trouble with music today is that too many artists are writing their own music:

No one begrudges [Jessica] Simpson her ambitions. But spend three or four minutes with Simpson's "With You"—"With nothing but a T-shirt on/ I never felt so beautiful/ Baby as I do now"—and you might find yourself longing for the days when professional songwriters ruled the pop charts. Happily, there's no reason to think that the future of pop music is one in which all of the songs will be written by the artists themselves—there are still pop singers who show no inclination toward songwriting. More important, it's pretty clear that there are plenty unequipped to write anything at all. And as the novelty wears off in songwriting, as in most things, the marketplace will hopefully begin to distinguish the wheat from the chaff. Thank God for capitalism.

I honestly don't know where to begin with this. I will write more on this later, but right now I'm trying to figure out whether it is Mr. Canfield or myself that is living in Bizarro World.

Meanwhile, Warliberal corrects some of the more dubious aspects of Canfield's analysis of musical history.

I could have gone all my life without knowing that MPAA head Jack Valenti is a University of Houston alum. I really could have. Honest.

John J. Moores has been good to the University of Houston. Since he graduated and went on to make a fortune founding BMC software and buying the San Diego Padres, he has donated untold amounts of money to the university. He helped build a fountain on the part of campus where he proposed to his wife. He donated enough money to the music program that it's called the Moores School of Music.

Unfortunately, Moores falls on the left side of the political spectrum. He donated heavily to Al Gore's presidential campaign in 2000 and was appointed to the University of California Board of Regents by Gray Davis.

With that in mind, I was surprised to read that Moores has apparently taken a stand against UC's blatant lawlessness in disregarding Proposition 209. He's paying a price for it:

Californians probably think racial preferences in college admissions ended in 1996 when voters approved Proposition 209. But John Moores, chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of California, says some UC administrators have been manipulating the system and defying the law for the past eight years. Mr. Moores's fellow regents voted 8-6 to censure him for expressing these views in a recent Forbes magazine opinion piece. A medal is more like what the man deserves.

In his article, Mr. Moores details how Berkeley, the UC system's flagship school, is admitting hundreds of blacks, Latinos and Native Americans with SAT scores as many as 400 points below the whites and Asians who are being rejected. This is because the liberals who run Berkeley, and their enablers on the Board of Regents, all worship at the altar of "diversity."

They're more interested in some ideal racial mix on campus than in matriculating students who are best prepared to do the work and most likely to graduate. In the real world, Mr. Moores had the temerity to write, this idealism translates into "kids who struggled with eighth-grade math hav[ing] to compete with kids who aced advanced-placement calculus."

While my own views on affirmative action are somewhat conflicted, the law is the law and congratulations to Moores for standing up for it.

Canada may be adding an 11th province.

Marvel has authorized a handful of motivation posters using its characters. While the original motivation posters are hokey and downright obnoxious, the parody demotivators are funny and these Marvel motivation posters are actually pretty cool.

Well, some of them. A few of them - such as Storm's - are little more than pin-ups for the characters. Others have rather hokey mottos, but then they got that from the original motivators. But the combination of ideals, advertising, and character description is really quite fascinating.

Note: The poster to the left says: "To fight when others fold, pursue while others retreat, conquer while others quit, and make right when all else is wrong."... you can see the full image by clicking on it.

Update: Heretical Ideas points to another site with funnier superhero motivation posters.

The Justice Department has seen fit to defend a young Muslim girl's right to wear a head scarf despite the fact that it runs against an Oklahoma school's dress code.

Good.

This is a no-brainer in my mind. Freedom of religious expression is clearly outlined in the constitution. If one's religion obligates someone to wear a head scarf or kippah, then I believe a district is obligated to bend the dress code accordingly. There are practical limits to this freedom (wearing a full burqua for identification photos, for instance), but I maintain that the freedom of religious expression must be upheld to the greatest extent possible, and that's not what the Oklahoma school is doing.

I am curious, however, how liberals feel on the matter. I'm not being facitious, but rather I can see a genuine conflict. The ACLU and their ilk consistently argue that the government should not recognize or make exceptions for religious organizations. I disagree with this position, but I can see how one can earnestly come by it if they accept that the only freedom of religion is freedom from religion.

On the other hand, liberals (who may or may not be the same or different liberals than ones that make the above argument) also take great moral pleasure in defending the rights of minorities. Followers of Islam definitely minority in this country and in some circles a very unpopular minority. If anyone is going to take up this girl's cause, it ought to be liberals.

So how does a good liberal respond on this issue?

Conservatives, for their part, may be equally in a bind. Since social conservatives in this country are generally of the Christian faith, they might see the bending of the rules for Muslims or Jews as a special protection that they are not afforded. Some might argue that a head scarf does not fall within freedom of religious expression, but given their stances when it comes to their own religion, this strikes me as somewhat hypocritical. I view the conservative position as pretty clearly being the same as the Justice Department's.

How do my conservative readers feel about the subject?

Note to self: See Goodbye Lenin:

Also, the previews showed a teaser for a movie called "Goodbye Lenin" that looks interesting as well - it's about a German woman who wakes up from a coma. However, during the course of her coma, the Berlin Wall comes down and everything changes. The doctors warn her family not to expose her to anything new or exciting because it could cause more damage. So they begin an elaborate charade to make their new Westernized lives appear to be just like the Communist times they emerged from.

Sounds intriguing.

Like Paul, I recently saw Eternal Sunshine. I want to see it again before I do a review, but one is forthcoming. One of the biggest reasons that I'm glad I saw the movie in a theatre is the previews. There is an upcoming movie called The Last Shot, which looks to be hilarious. It's about a director (Matthew Broderick) trying to make a movie with a producer (Alec Baldwin) that's actually an undercover FBI agent trying to run a sting on one of the movie's financiers. Looks to be absolutely hilarious.

There was also another intriguing comedy about a Christian school. The ad was effective enough that I'd like to see the movie, but not effective enough for me to remember the title.

Sigh.

There are many legitimate arguments against and in favor of legalizing gambling in order to fund state projects. It's a subject that I'm somewhat conflicted on myself.

On one hand, the lottery is a voluntary tax. If you don't play, you don't pay. The same can be said of revenue made from slot machines or casino taxes. It gives the state more funds to run worthwhile projects such as education without raising taxes for those that, like myself, don't really gamble.It also allows more freedom for more people, which can be considered a good thing in and of itself.

On the other hand, gambling is enormously stupid. It's addictive and it ruins lives. The government, by keeping its hand in the gambling jar and running its own gambling institutions, is actively preying on the least educated. I never gave this point of view much weight until I started spending time at the truckstop, watching poor, drunk, and uneducated people literally spend their last drop of money on lottery tickets. If a people cannot ask their government to refrain from taking advantage of people that can't do simple arithmetic, what can it ask?

These are the questions I ask when contemplating whether or not it would be a good idea for the state to endorse gambling.

Silly me, I was worried about the education of an entire generation versus thousands upon thousands of potential addicts gambling away their paychecks. According to the Chron's editorial board, I should frame the entire debate around 600 Kickapoo Indians in south Texas:

Unfortunately for the Kickapoo, the proposals put forward by the Texas Lottery Commission, if adopted without special accommodation for the tribe, would mean the end of their Class II casino. The depressed Eagle Pass area alone cannot support the tribe's casino, which depends on customers from San Antonio, about 150 miles to the north. If San Antonio's tracks offered video gambling, there would be little reason for residents to go to Eagle Pass.

Because of the Kickapoo tribe's history, cohesion and surviving language, federal law allows it to apply to operate a Class III casino that would offer the full range of gambling: blackjack, roulette, dice games and the like. However, the Kickapoo leaders say they have no wish to operate a large casino, which many Texans would oppose.

If race tracks get video gambling machines, the Kickapoo leaders say, the tribe just wants a variety of games broad enough to compete with the race tracks. If their casino goes under, the impact on Eagle Pass and the tribe would be disastrous. The unemployment rate, already at 25 percent, would skyrocket. The state would have to pay for much of the tribe's social services, costs the tribe now pays with its earnings.

Gov. Rick Perry has long opposed gambling and says he does not wish to increase gambling's footprint in Texas. However, the need to reform school finance might cause his resolve to weaken. If expanding the range of gambling at race tracks does not intolerably enlarge the state's gambling footprint, there would be little danger in accommodating the Kickapoo tribe's reasonable desire to remain competitive.

I sympathize with the Kickapoos. The gambling loophole is indeed one of the few things that the Native Americans have going for them. But they ran across that loophole because they made a choice to endorse gambling while the state of Texas chose not to. Texas is under no moral obligation to delcine to emulate the Kickapoos because it would hurt the tribe if the state did precisely what the tribe is doing.

Apparently UH football is putting some serious thought into changing its helmet design. I have some strong opinions on helmet design and have even been considering doing an NCAA helmet tournament where I seek out the best helmets in each conference to ultimately determine what is the best helmet design in college football. Perhaps I'll do it or maybe I'll spare you. Not sure yet.

In any case, on my criteria the UH helmet fair too well, but my criteria don't take into account tradition, which can be important in its own way. I may rank the helmets of Nebraska or Notre Dame low, but that doesn't mean I think they should necessarily change it.

As for the Cougars, I can't say one way or another because I haven't seen two of the three designs (the third being the current one). One of the proposed replacements has the "wet cat" logo and the other is a combination of the interlocked "UH" and the cat.


Since the football program is hopefully on the heels of a strong turnaround, a new look might be in order. The problem with the wet cat logo is that it's awfully similar to a number of cat teams out there (NFL's Carolina and Jacksonville, NCAA's Pittsburgh). On the other hand, as someone points out on Coogfans, the UH logo is similar to that of higher-profile Kentucky Wildcats.

They've been going around the campus and asking students what they think, so this might just be a ruse to garner student interest (or at least recognition) of the football team. I still wish I could find out more about this. It also might have been nice to hear about this in the "official newspaper of the Houston Cougars," but I suppose that's too much to ask.

I actually got to wear a jacket out tonight. I didn't need to, of course, but down here any excuse is excuse enough.

I saw Minority Report with Dad last night.

Outstanding special effects. They looked cool, but more importantly they were not overdone and instead of the plot being written around the special effects (a la Final Fantasy), the special effects were implemented around the plot.

The story itself was really cool and the mystery fun to try to figure out.

On the other hand, I have never seen a movie with such potential completely undermined by poor dialogue and bad acting. Tom Cruise was downright awful. I don't regard Cruise as a true thespian, but even by Cruise's standards he was either really bad or horribly miscast. I was pretty impressed by Collin Farrell, though.

As for the dialogue, it was unsalvageable. Some of it is understandable because they have to explain the backstory. A lot of it is melodramatic. The characters are supposed to live in the future and be unsurprised by the world they inhabit. Being surprised and thrilled is what we are supposed to feel. And don't get me started on the melodramatic tone of it all.

Nonetheless, I give it three stars out of four. It aimed really high with a particularly good concept, but it did miss the mark. It was still quite enjoyable despite its flaws.

Houston Cougars quarterback Kevin Kolb was listed on ESPN's 100 hot college players in the country!

The observations section has been problematic here for the past week or so. Anyone wanting to observate without the risk of writing a really long observation that won't go through, feel free to do a test post first to check. I'll delete them for you when I see them.

Owen is right, a lengthy introduction wouldn't do this amusing post.

My car's inspection tag expires at the end of the month. On Friday I got it inspected. Despite running better than ever after 100,000 miles, it failed on account of a worn belt. No way I could have known that.

Oh yeah, and it also failed due to windshield wipers.

Harrumph.

After watching some of the NCAA basketball tournament, I propose that a cease-and-desist order be sent to every sportscaster forbidding the use of the word "irony" until such a time as they look up the definition of the word in the dictionary.

One of the reasons that I love the Chron's Outlook section is because it has interesting opinions written by people that aren't on the paper's payroll (and therefore may be of remote interest). Today's Outlook section had an solid piece on the pressure on the young to succeed:

Here's the recipe for success these kids have learned: Get high SATs and a high GPA so you can go to this college so you will get this kind of job (and perhaps find a partner with a comparable job) so you will make a lot of money and live happily ever after. The part that's never spoken — and would be disavowed if put into words — is that money will make you happy.

These children's parents (and I count myself among them) are the first generation to have grown to adulthood in largely carefree economic times. We have not lived through world wars or a national financial catastrophe. Many of us saw our families go from frugal to fairly prosperous. Lately, however, we've seen great reversals of fortune in industries from automotive to steel to high-tech, local businesses failing to compete with big conglomerates, and blue- as well as white-collar jobs being outsourced overseas. Economic changes have been hard to predict. As one of my friends has asked, "What career do you advise your child to go into today?"

My parents did not pressure me much to go in one direction or another. If they were guilty of anything (and I don't believe they are) it was underestimating my abilities instead of overestimating them. When I told them that I wouldn't be graduating with honors, Mom said "Alex, I never thought in a million years that you would graduate at all."

It wasn't that Mom thought I was stupid. Rather, she knew that I hated school much as she did and felt like I was a prime candidate to drop out. To be honest, I felt the same way going in to college. My parents never compared me to my higher-achieving brother and instead judged me on my own merits and (for the most part) my own priorities.

High school counselors as well as independent consultants agree that competition to get into elite colleges has increased dramatically in recent years, and that many state colleges also have become more selective. Many parents could not get into their alma maters today. Sheer numbers are part of the issue: There is a population bulge in this age group; students are also applying to more colleges than they used to, partly because of the ease of the common application and partly to cover more bases. Participation in SAT prep classes is at an all-time high. Collegeconfidential.com, a Web site I was tipped off to by a high school senior, reports that the Ivies reject many applicants today with combined SAT scores of 1550. (Compare that with the stats reported during the last presidential election campaign: Bush's SAT score of 1206 was good enough to get him into Yale; Gore's 1355 took him to Harvard.)

Young people absorb this pressure from the air they breathe. They soak it up at home, at school, in books and magazines. It comes from parents, relatives, teachers and now even from their peers. And it can start at frighteningly young ages, like the 10-year-old girl who worried to me that she was not smart enough to get into a really good college. Then there was the 11-year-old whom I asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. She replied in a nanosecond: a law clerk, and then a partner, and then a judge and then a member of the Supreme Court.

I remember in sociology class, the teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. A majority of the students said either lawyer or an aerospace engineer (note: in the shadow of the Johnson Space Center, a disproportionate number of us had parents that were aerospace engineers). She made a good point about how important it was for us to evaluate more options.

For my part, I wanted to be a teacher at the time. I'd wanted to be an aerospace engineer like Dad when I was growing up, but when my brother decided that was what he wanted to do it freed me up to explore other options. While trading emails years later, David said that he felt Dad wanted him to go in to computers, which is what I did. I'd always wondered if he wanted me to be an engineer like him.

Another change comes in the form of increasing pressure from peers. One father whose child had been excited about her early-decision acceptance to an excellent, but not Ivy League, college in November told me that his daughter was having second thoughts, after hearing a friend go on and on about getting into a more "prestigious" school. I have heard high school students make disparaging comments about community college. One counselor described seniors collecting acceptances and then advertising them to their peers "as an ego trip." As he rightly observed, "One kid's safety school is another's first choice."

As has been documented here before, I was ill-fit in many ways for Clear Lake High School. The materialism and elitism there drove me completely nuts at times. But after various discussions with Audrey and Ed on the subject, I've come to the conclusion that Lake was leaps and bounds better for me than Kingwood High School (their alma mater). Despite its good reputation, for all the things that Clear Lake was hypercompetitive was not one of them. In anything, the opposite was the problem: students thought their parents' money and influence could overcome bad grades.

The school of choice for most Lake graduates was UT or A&M. Apparently at Kingwood that was considered second-rate. That's one problem I didn't have to deal with. For that I am thankful.

The article also makes some really good points about finding what happiness means to each of us:

Sometimes what I hear is almost eerie: Young men and women who seem incapable of separating their own aspirations from those their parents hold for them. There are Americans who no longer make a distinction between needs and wants, even between expectations and entitlements. I have heard young men in my office express anxiety about their earning potential, especially in the eyes of their future mates. And I sometimes have to wonder whether their concern is not neurotic, but rooted in present-day American reality. Perhaps they are perceiving in their contemporaries an inability or unwillingness to adapt to whatever life holds for them.

[...]

There is another price that relentless striving can exact, and this is perhaps the most pernicious one: a joylessness and weariness that shows up in children as young as middle school and can last the rest of their lives. In many of these situations, a disturbing undercurrent develops in the parent-child relationship. Even from very young ages, kids can smell a rat. They know if they are being called upon to realize their parents' ambitions and make them look good regardless of the price.

Whatever happened to young people charting their own courses? Marching to a different drummer? As fellow therapist Neil Schiff said when we were discussing this issue recently, "Whatever happened to ordinary? To just making a way through life?" These days, ordinary is equated with failure. Yet only a small percentile (in SAT terminology) will be the superstars that many parents have trained their kids to expect to be. The majority of us and our children are destined to be ordinary, normal, regular folk. In superstar-think, this means being a loser. Maybe we need to resurrect that long-lost virtue, humility.

While I've quoted extensively on the article to the point that you might think that the rest of the article isn't worth reading, if the subject is of interest to you, don't let my liberal quoting stop you.

It's not what it is, it's how you phrase it to be (search: affirmative action by another name"):

So, I hear from an email that a Toledo, MA teacher is in big trouble after she said that her school system was "about to establish one set of performance standards for Hispanics and whites and a lesser standard for African-Americans." Quite correctly, this was complained about as racist. (Well, not exactly correctly -- the statement was called racist, not the different standards -- but the idea of different standards is what people are angry about.)

As with any email with an unsourced story, readers ought to be skeptical about its veracity. That said, does this strike anyone as outside the realm of possibility?

Update: Adrianne comes through with a link from the Toledo Blade.

I firmly believe that there are elements in the left that are totalitarian. One could, in fact, argue that the left's utopian worldview necessitates fascism, and that even those on the left that do not support totalitarianism are still leading us down that road by alligning themselves with totalitarians.

Except that the same could be said for the right. This argument only holds true if you believe that those on the left or right that support totalitarianism are, in fact, in control of their respective political organizations (Republican and Democratic Parties). That's pretty laughable in my view. While I worry about our freedoms in the days to come, neither party can rule without the consent of the people, both parties know that and it has a tremendous (and healthy) moderating influence.

With that in mind, I find this downright silly.

Not the fact that a pro-Bush blogger was assaulted by thugs that are critical of the president. That's nothing short of serious. Rather I'm talking about the letter that Instapundit approvingly cites:

Something I never wanted to believe seems to be playing out daily: the Democratic party has been overrun by totalitarians. The party is marginalizing old-guard Dems who might (might!) hold differing opinions but who also could be counted on for civility and a rational basis for their arguments...

Last I checked, none of the major Democratic candidates (Kerry, Edwards, Clark, and Dean) made an honest appeal to the "totalitarian leftists." If the Democratic Party were bring overrun by such people, then they likely would have had to in order to win the nomination.

This is totalitarian. So is this. Universal health care, the New Deal, and the Great Society - however flawed - are not. A few thugs in Massachusetts no more make the Democratic Party totalitarian than do some homophobic vigilantes in Wyoming make the Republican Party such.

Let's get a grip, folks.

I seem to disagree with everyone involved with this story:

NEW ORLEANS -- It's a groundbreaking court decision that legal experts say will affect everyone: Police officers in Louisiana no longer need a search or arrest warrant to conduct a brief search of your home or business.

Leaders in law enforcement say it will provide safety to officers, but others argue it's a privilege that could be abused.

The decision was made by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Two dissenting judges called it the "road to Hell."

The ruiling stems from a lawsuit filed in Denham Springs in 2000.

I disagree with the courts, which argue that a warrant is not needed in the case of a complaint.

I disagree with the critics because it's not a matter of "could be abused" but "will be abused."

I disagree with the news service that seems to think there is a word called "ruiling."

Uh oh.

Sources say "Law & Order" veteran Jerry Orbach will depart Dick Wolf's long-running crime drama at the end of the season after 12 years on the beat as wise-cracking Detective Lennie Briscoe.

Noooooooooooo!!

However, Orbach may still remain in business with Wolf with a role on the upcoming fourth installment of the franchise: "Law & Order: Trial by Jury."

Oh, well okay then.

As for the flagship series, there is no word yet about a replacement for Orbach, but one scenario involves his character's partner, Detective Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin), being promoted.

Would Green get promoted to "lead detective" or would he replace Van Buren as a captain, requiring an entirely new detective cast?

" 'Law & Order' has a 15-year track record of Dick Wolf never commenting on casting changes during the season," a spokesman for the show said Thursday. Indeed, "Law & Order" has famously weathered many cast changes since it bowed in 1990.

True enough. The series should be fine as the franchise is still expanding. L&O wisely never made the detectives the focal point of the show. While I like some (George Dzundza and Ben Bratt) more than others (Paul Sorvino and Chris Noth), I'm not too too particular. I'm not a big fan of the Ed Green character, so they'll have to do well to carry it on the police end (as long as Sam Waterston is on the court end, that part'll be fine, or if they can find someone else in the Moriarty/Waterston mold).

One person that I always thought would be great for the series is Paul Gleason. Gleason is best known for playing the principal in Breakfast Club, but he has a long resume including some police roles. He was the lead FBI agent in Die Hard as well. He has a good cynical look to him that would take Orbach's spot quite seemlessly. He even starred with Sam Waterston in Shadow Conspiracy, though that may not be a point in his favor.

Not that I need to tell Dick Wolf how to do his job.

I'm looking forward to yet another L&O spin-off. Though the flagship is far and away my favorite, I've been enjoying Special Victims Unit reruns on USA. I've only seen one part of one episode of Criminal Intent, I think the concept (L&O from the criminal's POV) is great and I look forward to someone picking up the reruns for it. SVU focuses too much on the police work and not enough on courtroom action for my tastes. A show called "Jury Duty" would probably focus more on the courtroom end of things to even it out.

Of course, that probably leaves Lt. Briscoe (Orbach's character) in a smaller role much like the DA in SVU. Orbach's been doing the show for over a decade now so he's probably interested in scaling it back. He'll be missed, but I certainly wish him the best.

Nuke's commenting capabilities seem to be down. That's not good.

Update: Okay, seems to be working again.

I'm a big fan of the You Don't Know Jack series of games. Kevin points out that they're coming out with a new version:

Speaking of "loot," a silly pirate theme seems more of an afterthought than a new feature. Aside from a couple of pirate-themed bonus questions, it has little to do with the game, though the amateurish intro movie asks players to help a cursed pirate find lost treasure.

At the end of each game, the amassed loot is tallied, and if players earn enough, a second mini movie is unlocked, confirming the player has freed the pirate from his curse.

Say what?!

I've been having some trouble sleeping lately. Not like my battles with the Sandman. I'm getting between 7-8 hours of sleep every night. Every night. Even when I need and want more, I just can't sleep longer than that. I wake up an average of four times a night (lingering effects of pneumonia), so it's not remarkably good sleep. I spend half the day every day somewhat sleepy.

But this morning I had a breakthrough. I made it to 9 hours. That made all of the difference in the world. I was fully awake ten minutes after getting out of bed. Outstanding!

Goldie has made it 100,000 miles and is still going strong. The car's mileage keeps getting better and better. For the first time since I bought the car, it has topped 40MPG. Three years ago it was getting a nidge under 30 (about 33 for freeway driving). The only difference between now and then that comes to mind is that I don't listen to the radio or CD player when I drive anymore. That couldn't possibly account for that much better mileage, could it?!

Random observations from the CCR show:

Cross Canadian Ragweed has the best selection of apparel that I have ever seen. It's remarkably impressive. Different colors and different styles. I got a CCR shirt that's unlike any of the other band shirts I've been collecting.

Unfortunately, they seem to have retired their characteristic orange shirts. I rather had my heart set on getting one of those, but I'm pretty happy about what I got.

They have every shirt in XXL. That's amazing. I've never, ever seen that.

I listened to their new CD on the way back home. It's definitely a departure, though not in the way I expected. In my mind, it's the first country album they've put out.

Unsurprisingly, they do country better than just about anyone in Nashville.

The new CD lacks the energy that I believe made the Purple CD great. I'm not sure how much I like the new direction. I listened to it in the car and unfortunately that means the volume was kind of low. When I hear it again, I might have to cross out everything I've said about the CD thus far.

I can't wait to see the DVD!

CCR put on a really good show, as usual. They played a few too many covers for my taste, but for a two hour show I consider that quite forgiveable.

I was the beneficiary of a show they put on at the same venue a couple weeks back. Apparently the band was feeling under the weather and put on a really short show. So tonight they put on a particularly long one. The show cost $18, though, so it's a darn good thing that it was a longer set.

Unfortunately, they didn't play a couple songs I really would have liked to have heard, such as Alabama (which is re-cut for their new CD). Surprisingly, they didn't play 17, their first national single.

I wish I'd known that Stoney LaRue was opening. LaRue is better every time that I see him.

It seems that Stoney might have lost his band. Mention of "and the Organic Boogie Band" has been removed from his site. He was backed up by Jeremy Watkins (Jason Boland's fiddler) and members of CCR.

LaRue may have lost his band, but he found out this week that he's going to be a daddy for the second time!

Amazingly, CCR's Cody Canada and Randy Ragsdale were on the stage for both LaRue's and CCR's sets, the latter being over two hours in case you've forgotten. That's really impressive!

One of the great things about Texas music is how the artists really seem to love playing. Canada (CCR's lead singer) really didn't have to be up there for both shows, but he was anyway and looked like he had a great time up there. It was like a jam on stage. Canada sang during some LaRue songs and LaRue during some CCR songs. You don't get that type of thing with big acts in my experience.

When introducing the band, they said that Canada was from Galveston. I did not know that.

The Katy Midnight Rodeo venue still hasn't warmed on me. It's an absolutely huge venue with a variety of bars. That's very convenient. But the place still looks and feels like what it is: a mall store cleared out and made into a music venue.

The sound set-up is better than I remember it being, though. It rivals the Firehouse as the best in the Houston area.

The KMR's security staff was oddly invasive. They were looking at everyone (including yours truly) really suspeciously all night long. There were a total of ten of them there and they all acted this way. They were telling the bartenders to cut certain people off when they looked reasonably sober to me and I could see them looking at my hand every time I bought a beer to make sure there wasn't an "X" on it.

They require that you remove your cars from the lot at 2am or it will be towed. Signs to this effect are posted everywhere. Is it me or does that encourage drunk driving? The Firehouse usually has a handful of cars there on Saturday and Sunday mornings from people that couldn't drive home.

I left right when the show ended (I didn't have a tab and had already bought my shirt). That gave me a head start on the inevitable drunk drivers who couldn't leave their cars in the lot. Unfortunately on I-10 there's some construction going on and speed limits are lowered to 55mph. All of the construction is on the feeders so there's not an imminent feeling like you should be driving slowly. Having had two tickets in the past year I was determined not to speed. Unfortunately, that meant that the scary drivers caught up to me.

And scary they were.

I made it home in one piece, though. In case you couldn't tell.

I'm watching an informercial on how to make bazillions through real-estate through a simple-yet-effective plan that doesn't require a good credit rating or a down payment.

I don't know about the dude behind the scam investment opportunity, but if I found a way to make a whole lot of money really easily in something that involved a competitive market such as real estate, I don't suspect I would be so generous as to try to make a pittance selling the plan to others. I'd just keep making money until I wanted to retire, then I'd keep my mouth shut about how easy my plan is so that people would think that I'm smart.

[Note, I may have posted on this before. If so, disregard. Oh wait, it's probably too late now that we're at the end of the post. Well, it was short and probably didn't waste too much of your time]

Update: They just informed me that the infomercial is over. Good thing, too, I was begining to wonder if it was a get-rich-quick-package-and-super-inflatable-matress-in-one deal. Unfortunately, the inflatable matress ad isn't the one with the sumo wrestlers.

When I'm trying to capture a screenshot into the clipboard to paste in to my image editor, I still don't know whether it's "PrintScreen" or "Shift+Printscreen"... I've been doing both since my Windows 3.1 years.

Jay has some great stories to tell of the movie theater at Baylor and their silly attempts to censor feature films. They even replace "Hell" with "Hades"... for the benefit of college students!

This evening the movie Dave was playing on TBS. They changed what I considered one of the funnier lines. President Mitchell tells Dave to lose the grin because it makes him look like a schmuck.

They changed out the word "schmuck" for "jerk".

I didn't know the word schmuck was really worse than jerk. I feel like I felt when Dad admonished me for saying "geeze!" during the legendary Oilers-Bills game because "geeze" is apparently derived from "Jesus."

What, if anything, is schmuck derived from I wonder...

I ran various posts through the Gender Genie, an algorithm that claims to be able to discern whether the author is male or female.

I'm not remarkably impressed.

It gets me right about half the time. Perhaps I'm just an enigmatic writer that it can't tell, except that there's a notable pattern. My posts about politics and technology are almost always "male" and my posts about relationships and those with a narrative voice are almost always "female."

[link via Michael Williams]

The Chron has an informative article on the University of Houston System's strategic vision:

One way to make UH more selective would be to increase admissions standards -- SAT and GPA requirements. But Jay Gogue, system chancellor and UH president, hinted recently that the most likely option might be to cap the number of freshmen -- say, at the current level of 3,400 -- making it cater more to upper-division and graduate students. Given the area's projected growth, Gogue said, that would make UH more selective.

But just funneling students to UH-Downtown is complicated by a lack of physical space there and, perhaps more importantly, the belief that the open-admissions school should not just be seen as a UH feeder school.

"Listening to comments at the UH-Downtown forum, I picked up a strong sense that they view it as a unique institution and not just a place for students who don't get into UH," said Gogue. "That's a valid perspective. Because of that, we might want to rely more on community colleges in the future."

Nevertheless, UH-Downtown President Max Castillo says he's planning for significant growth from the school's nearly 11,000 students. He says he expects UH-Downtown to reach 18,000 students in a decade.

UH presently has two options: Expand or become more exclusive. I think that there's something to be said for each.

The flagship presently has a reputation for accepting just about anyone and consisting of an irregular student body. There are many among the alumni, administration, and student body who would like to see UH become a more traditional university. As long as it caters a great deal to non-traditional students, that may be difficult.

The most obvious answer to that is to do precisely what the article infers they will (despite protestations to the contrary) which is to ship off a lot of the lower-performing students to UHD. The UHD administration and students obviously don't want it turning into a junior college of sorts, but frankly I'm not sure why anyone would spend their first two years at UHD instead of a much cheaper juco. Where's the problem here?

I also think it's worth noting that a lot of potential students with money that can't get in to UH may simply choose to go to school out of the city. I'm not sure UHD would recieve all the fallout. Those that aren't going "off" to college due to lack of funds or a full-time job that can't get in to UH will probably go to UHD, but that's exactly the kind of student an open-enrollment university like UHD is supposed to serve, isn't it?

Anyhow, doing this and raising standards would allow UH to become more of the kind of university a lot of people would like while still giving those in Houston that need a college degree a way to get it.

Making UH more competitive would definitely raise the university's stature, which would be a good thing. Would that in and of itself be sufficient? Without more highly touted professors and more research cash? Probably not. It might have the effect of bringing in more such people, however. Also, capping the number of students allowed would free up money that would otherwise be used to facility expansion towards hiring more professors and opening more classes with lower prof-student ratios. Moreover, it would help the university shed the Cougar High image - which it really mostly has - and bring in more traditional students and the campus activity that brings.

The downside to this plan is that it would hinder UH's expansion. One of the things UH has going for it presently is that at 35,000 students, it's the third largest university in the state. If it holds at this number, though, there's a solid chance that #4 North Texas and #5 Texas Tech could pass up UH in size pretty quickly. It's something that shouldn't matter, but every little bit helps with recruiting Texas kids.

Regardless of which direction they decide to go, the residential problems are not going to go away. They've been talking about building two new dorm towers since I was a freshman there and they still haven't been built. Students were literally being housed at Texas Women's University and bussed over (not to mention getting cots in spare classrooms and office buildings). They've got some new high-class facilities such as Cambridge Oaks and they bought the former motel across the street, but this is an area that needs "strategic vision." The market is there and the university wants more dorm residents. They just need to figure out a way to make that happen.

If I ever saw something like this down here, I would assume that it was a mistake.

The University of Houston has apparently hired Tom Penders to coach the basketball team. Anyone who can get Kevin's approval despite formerly coaching the Longhorns sounds good enough to me.

Reaction elsewhere seems to be mixed. The Coogfans seem mostly positive, but they are wonderfully the eternal optomists. There was more resistence there before he got hired.

On the Killerfrogs message board contributers seem to be more skeptical.

The Chron's John Lopez thinks it's a mistake, which makes me feel better about the selection.

Relationship guru John Gray - formerly known as Dr. John Gray - has been getting a lot of heat for apparently being disingenuous with his qualifications. The institution that he got his doctorate from was apparently more of a diploma mill than a university. In any case, they've been shut down.

This has been met with delightful glee by Gray's detractors who believed his advice was as fraudulent as his degree has turned out to be. I'm not inclined to defend Gray if he is a fraud, but I must say that I believe that a number of the people saying "I told you so" aren't entirely correct. Whatever his credentials, I found what Gray had to say to be very insightful. It has really changed the way that I've interacted with girls and women (be they romantic interests or just friends).

Gray has always been a controversial figure. His message strikes some as "a sexist, patronizing, male-centered invective which does little more than perpetuate long-held negative gender stereotypes."

Granted, a lot of what Gray has to say is rooted in stereotypes. If my experience is any indication, while the stereotypes may not always be right they seem to be so quite often.

I first read John Gray at the urging of my then-girlfriend Anna. There weren't any problems in our relationship, per se, though there was always room for improvement.

Since most readers of this blog never met Anna, let me say that she was not the typical girlie girl. I can count on my fingers the number of times she ever wore a dress or so much as a skirt. She'd always done better in the maths and sciences than the liberal arts (her major was accounting). She was not very visibly emotional. In fact, of the two of us I was considered moreso (which says a lot considering where I was in my life at the time).

For my part, I am not exactly a guy's guy either. The word "machismo" is not in my vocabulary. I can be startlingly romantic at times. I am a writer that focuses largely on emotions and relationships.

So by all accounts what Gray had to say shouldn't have worked. To be honest, a significant part of it did not apply. But when Anna and I talked about it after we'd both read it, we found that most of it did.

Particularly the parts of it that pertain to communication and the different styles that men and women use. It not only talks about how important communication us, but outlines quite effectively how to actually go about doing it. It helped me understand why she'd irrationally get angry with me at times and helped her understand why I'd irrationally get frustrated with her at others.

It's not just Anna, either. I use a lot of the lessons learned from that book every day in communication with female friends and acquaintances of all stripes. It's very rare that I find a woman that is so atypical that everything Gray has to say falls flat. Lisa insisted that Gray was a crock, but when I scratched below the surface I discovered that a lot applied to her as well.

So does the effectiveness of the message diminish since the messenger has been exposed as a phony? Not really. Psychology is an inexact science and the best trained people in the world disagree much of the time. There are psychologists with actual degrees that buy in to what Gray has to say. Gray's cousin holds a legitimate degree from (and has taught classes at) my alma mater and holds seminars with much of the same content.

None of this of course makes what Gray allegedly did any better, of course, but I'm not going to unlearned what I've learned because of it.

With Blogger you can never tell, but if your itemlinks to individual posts on your blog are not working, making sure that this is on your template:

[a name="[$BlogItemNumber$]"] [/a]

It ought to be in the Blogger area of it. Example:

[Blogger]
[BlogDateHeader]
[div class="date"][$BlogDateHeaderDate$][/div]
[BlogDateHeader]

[div class="posts"]
[a name="[$BlogItemNumber$]"] [/a][br]
[$BlogItemBody$][br][br]

Be sure to replace the ['s and ]'s with the corner brackets.

I've mentioned this in the past but it bears repeating. My name is not Rayford Alexander Whitlock. I have chosen not to divulge my first name for privacy reasons. At Gattaca and possibly my next employer, I went by my first name to avoid being Googled. It's still possible for them to discover who I am, but not putting R_____ on the site makes it more difficult to do so.

Since my father and I share the same first name, I will also use "Rayford" for him. I am also giving my mother a pseudonym. Since I've already used my brother's name repeatedly, I'm keeping his as-is. I haven't decided what to do with my extended family yet.

Heidi has an quality personal post (search: "what's in a name") up regarding the changing of names that often - though not always - comes with marriage:

But, I would consider it an honor to assume my (prospective) husband's last name. I would take great pleasure in the instantly-presumed alliance because, although I am my own person, very important aspects of who I am are due, in no small part, to my beloved. We do not determine each other's identity, but we do (quite often) sharpen one another, for the benefit of the individuals as well as the whole.

At the same time, much of who I am has also been shaped by my parents. We are kin in every sense of the word -- that is, perhaps even more than blood-relations, we are kindred spirits. And, I like the idea of the continuous reaffirmation (via shared last name) that we are, indeed, of the same "make". That my parents are my roots, my history, my foundation.

As I tend to think about a lot of things, this is a subject I've cogitated on a great deal dating back to high school when a classmate wrote an opinion piece on the subject.

The tradition of a woman changing her name upon getting married is a holdover to yesteryear when the public's perception of a woman and a wife were greatly different than today. One doesn't need to be a bra-burning feminist to question the tradition or even reject it.

As a male, it's not a topic that I would have to confront myself, though as a heterosexual male with the intention of marrying a woman I am involved in the situation. Being an imaginitive male prone to hypotheticals, I've illogically pondered what I would do if I were female.

The answer falls somewhere between "I don't know for certain" and "it depends."

I don't know for certain because I'm not female. If I were, my perspective on the issue might be entirely different. It depends because it depends on my occupation, my name, and my spouse's name.

If my name were Smith in this alternate universe, I would likely take my husband's name. Heck, I would strongly consider taking my wife's name in the present universe to avoid having such a bland name. If my husband's name were Smith, however, I'm not sure what I would do.

All things being equal, however, I would probably take my husband's name. When it comes to marriage and family, I am very much a traditionalist at heart. Beyond that, the notion of a single family without a common name just doesn't sit particularly well with me and if I were to have a different last name than the rest of the family, I'd feel less a part of it. If there were no children involved, I would be less likely to change my name (and in that vein, I wouldn't really care one way or the other about what my wife chose to do), but there will be children whether by conception or adoption.

I was unsurprised but still disappointed when Eel told me that she intends to keep her name when she gets married. I'd rather live in a Whitlock household than a Whitlock-slash-Lafayette one. Perhaps it's petty and illogical, but it's how I feel on the subject.

On the other hand, were she and I to get married I could easily take the Lafayette name and we'd still have a single name for the household. Interestingly, Anna was disinclined to take her husband's name when we were dating and I briefly considered the possibility of becoming Alex McLoed (ultimately I think she would have taken my name, though).

The reasons that I'm not hot on taking my wife's name have a little to do with cultural tradition but more to do with some of the particulars of my name and the Whitlock line. Firstly, I am the third generation named Rayford Whitlock and it's a tradition I would like to pass down to my son (if I were to have one). Secondly, I am the last Whitlock of this particular strain dating back to my grandfather. My father's only brother never had kids, my father's sisters children have their own father's name, and my brother and sister-in-law do not intend to have children. So if my sons were to become Lafayettes or McLoeds instead (or I only have daughters), this strain of the Whitlock family comes to an end. Lastly, it would involve dropping one of two prevalent names: my first name or my public name. Interestingly, this is what Mom had to do. She went by her middle name as well.

On the other hand, however much I would like it it's unfair of me to expect my future wife to take my name. Despite my reverence for the tradition, I do recognize this. On a practical level, though, I'm still not particularly thrilled at having a split-named household. In the specific case of Eel, who has spent tens of thousands of dollars to become Dr. Lafayette, expecting her to turn around and change it to Dr. Whitlock could be a bit much.

So it's a stalemate of sorts. Not just with Eel, but with any of the large number of female-types I know that don't want to change their names (whose future husbands' views might be more like mine).

There are a number of options available, however.

The most common option is for the wife to go ahead and take the husband's name. This made more sense in yesteryear when women didn't have careers as they do today. Feminism aside, there are many practical issues with the changing of names. My sister-in-law, for instance, intended to take the Whitlock name but was put off by the immense amount of paperwork required for her pharmacist certifications. For my part, if I were to intend to be married once and for the rest of my life I wouldn't let aversion to paperwork dictate this major life choice.

Another frequent option is that the wife keeps her name and the husband and kids take his. This is pretty frequent among couples that don't have kids. One public figure that chose to do this is Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs, whose husband and kids are named Diaz (or Ruiz, I forget).

I'm slow to compliment Hillary Rodham Clinton, but I've always thought her choice in this manner was a good one. She took her husband's name (when having her own didn't poll well in Arkansas) but kept her maiden name very public, which keeps her in touch with her background. This would be a particularly attractive option for me because it doesn't involve "sacrificing identity" but keeps with tradition and keeps a single household name. On most official documents, the extent to which your middle name is prevalent is up to the individual. I have credit cards ranging from R. A. Whitlock to Rayford A. Whitlock to R. Alex Whitlock and my mail and bills come in however I filled it out. Some documents have seperate space for middle names and initials and strip that kind of discretion, however. Texas Comptroller Carole Keaton McClellan/Rylander/Strayhorn also chose to do this, as did Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.

My absolute least favorite option - which has caught on in England but not in the US - is hyphenation. It's perhaps the "fairest" of all systems because it involves changing both the husband's and wife's name. It has the added benefit of keeping the lineage on both sides at least temporarily in tact. My problem with this option stems from the fact that it can't be shortened (and Lafayette-Whitlock or McLoed-Whitlock is a mouthful) but more from its temporary nature. If I had a McLoed-Whitlock child who married a Davis-Hardwick then it would become a McLoed-Whitlock-Davis-Hardwick... or names get dropped.

One possibility that I've thrown around is both surnames changing their name to a third. The third could be a combination of the names if it fits (Whitlock and McLoed could become Whitloed) or something random. This would be fair insofar as the wife wouldn't be expected to make any sacrifice the husband isn't expected to. Unfortunately, it cuts lineage and that's more of a sacrifice than I would be willing to make.

As mentioned above, my sister-in-law originally intended to take the Whitlock name. She is of Middle-Eastern descent and her last name has caused her grief in that regard, so changing her name is something she's always wanted to do. Unfortunately it has created a boatload of problems when it has come to her pharmacy certification and while looking for work she found it advantageous with recruiters seeking diversity if she had a foreign-sounding name. She came up with a neat compromise that I also like, having a seperate professional and personal name. As someone who did the same with my last job (going by Rayford instead of Alex) as well as someone whose first name has seven variations and middle name has six, I don't consider having two names to be a very big deal. This option gives her the best of both worlds. The Maggie Malone Seaver character in the TV show Growing Pains also did this.

The last option is one that isn't often discussed (I've never actually seen it discussed), which kind of surprises me. It's a variation of the husband and wife keeping their own names but without a single member of the family necessarily having a different name than everyone else. Unlike hyphenation it also could work on a long-term basis if everyone did it. Basically, the husband keeps his name and the wife keeps hers, all of the sons get his name and the daughters get hers. This is the most fair and practical one I've come across. However, I still don't like it because it leads to a slash household.

Ultimately, it's for women to figure out on their own or husbands and wifes to figure out together. Despite my earlier mentioned preferences, I would like to go on the record and say that anyone who makes this a dealbreaker is a lunatic. I obviously prefer the traditional approach, but even before I determined that Anna could be convinced and in light of Eel's present preference, as a husband I would want my wife to be happy with whatever name she wanted.

Kevin and Ginger have a mini-debate on the biases of the Houston Chronicle.

The fact that both right and left claim it's biased in the other direction could mean that it's actually not biased or biased to the center since neither side is pleased.

But let's get real.

I don't think the Chron is particularly biased to the left, despite the notable absense of socially conservative voices. It's worth noting that it has historically generally endorsed Republicans in competitive races since I've been reading it (2002 being an exception). Except that schizophrenically the editorial board poses one liberal editorial after another. Almost all of their non-oped columnists are liberals of one stripe or another and every editorial board editorial is somewhere to the left of center. In fact, since Jane Ely left I cannot think of a single writer (up to and including their sports writers) that doesn't espouse liberal opinions.

I think the mistake in looking for bias patterns in terms of liberal and conservative is a mistake. Like most of the sane city, I see the Chronicle as biased, but not in terms of the national political parties but rather the local ones.

Despite Republican dominance on city council and Democratic dominance of the mayor's office, Houston is very much a one-party down: The Chamber of Commerce Party.

The business community has signed off on every mayor since I've been following city politics. Much of the great resistence to Orlando Sanchez in 2001 was that he wasn't in particularly well with the business community and so they preferred incompetent COCP member Lee Brown instead as he tore the city's infrastructure to shreds. Sanchez made an effort to be more business-friendly in 2003, but Bill White is the poster boy for the COCP so Sanchez never really had a chance against him.

What I mean by "pro-business" isn't the same as what makes someone pro-business on the national stage. It's not about low taxes or deregulation as much as it is about the city and county governments spending money on businesses and making Houston "world class." Like most political parties, there are a few key principles that make anything else pretty much expendible: light rail, taxpayer-financed sports arenas, development, business tax-incentives, and beautification.

The degree to which a politician is in favor of these things is the degree to which the business community will look favorably on them. When the business community looks favorably on a candidate, the Chron will as well. Tom DeLay's bad press didn't reach full-throttle until he stood in the way of the hallowed light-rail. John Culberson met the same fate.

Light rail has been the issue more recently, but stadium financing was the issue a couple of years back. County Judge Robert Eckles was something of a poster boy up until he (temporarily) opposed the basketball arena in order to get more concessions.

So how does this largely economic policy dovetail with its staunch social liberalism? Pretty easily.

Any Chamber of Commerce is rightfully concerned with a city's image. Houston has the reputation of being a backwards conservative metropolis in the heart of Red America. As such, the COCP (and Chronicle) are particularly concerned with just about anything that furthers this reputation. Cities are supposed to be cosmo, progressive, and hip. Opposition to gay marriage and abortion are contrary to this. It's analogous to a mainstream gay being resentful of those gays that fit every stereotype and makes it harder for him to be mainstream.

So just as their insane support for light rail had more to do with image than mobility, so too does their opposition to the Christian right.

On another key social issue, the COCP (and thus the Chron) staunchly supports affirmative action. The business community, for all of it's "evil-conservative" tendencies, is actually quite liberal on this particular issue. Most businesses have aggressive affirmative action programs that they feature prominantly on their web site. Being multi-culti and diverse is good for a company's image - and in their view good for a city's image as well.

Having never lived in another city, I'm not sure if the business communities there are as tight as they are down here. Whatever the case, the Chron found it's gravy train and they're going to run with it.

David Chartrand has an amusing piece in the Chronicle about the insufferability of some weddings:

So while President Bush and our state legislatures are devising laws to prohibit certain types of unions, I'd like to see them clean up the nuptial process first. I see no reason why Congress and the states shouldn't outlaw:

• Wedding ceremonies that last more than 60 minutes, start to finish. This is a ritual of commitment, not endurance. Jail terms are handed down in less time.

• Wedding services where someone sings Noel Paul Stookey's The Wedding Song or anything by Kenny Rogers.

• Ministers who insist that every wedding ceremony include that venerable passage from 1 Corinthians ("Love is patient, love is kind, love is this, love is that ... "). More than 30,000 verses in the Bible and we have to hear the same shopworn scripture reading at every wedding?

During the run-up to my brother's wedding, Mom commented that she could imagine me wanting to get married barefoot on some mountaintop somewhere. It was an interesting observation.

I've never put much thought into what I want from a wedding. All things being equal, I'd prefer one in a church but from the looks of it that will probably not happen and I'm hardpressed to be too disappointed in that area. I think my mother has a longer list of people she wants at my wedding than I do.

Going to Adam's Baptist wedding was an eye-opener for me in some respects. Prior to his, the only weddings I'd been to have been Catholic, Episcopalian, or non-sect. Catholic and Episcopalian weddings resemble a church service with a special event and non-sect are pretty much anything-goes. So to have the religious overtones without the service was interesting.

I think shorter is probably better (Adam's was quite short). I'd probably prefer to get married somewhere interesting than in a rent-a-chapel. Ultimately, though, I suspect that most of it will be left up to the bride and her mother.

But under no circumstances will Kenny Rogers songs play.

Adrianne has an interesting post (search: pursuit of justice) on the ethics of unforseen consequences. Well, not entirely unforseen and that's the problem. There are certain behaviors that leave someone exposed to certain results as recurrences of the event aggregate.

For instance, the chances of getting pregnant from having sex once (even without protection) are relatively small. With protection it's even smaller. However, every form of contraception has a "failure rate" and the more you have sex, the more you leave yourself open to the possibility of getting pregnant. Condoms burst, pills aren't taken correctly, and so on.

Another example is war. No matter how much an army makes an effort to avoid civilian casualties (if they make such an effort, of course), it is inevitable that mistakes will be made and civilians will get in the way.

Adrianne's post deals with car chases, a subject that I've written on before. The average car chase will have no fatalities. But the more you have, the more likely a fatality will result. Therefore, by engaging in car chases, you are accepting the unintentended but inevitable result.

This is one of many cases where the question of police chases is raised. Often it is the person being chased who ends up hitting other people, but police are also known to have killed themselves and others in accidents during chases. (Ambulances are also fairly frequently in accidents as well; while this is especially traumatic for the passengers, few people argue that ambulances should take their time in getting to hospitals and not demand right-of-way). The question is: high speed chases obviously increase the chance of traffic accidents. Is it worth it? If you're chasing someone, as in this instance, who hasn't even been charged with anything but is simply running away, does his capture hold greater weight than the immediate safety of the public? Can it be argued that his capture, by any means, is good for the ultimate safety of the public (assuming, of course, that he is indeed guilty as alleged), and therefore worth while?

Adrianne takes the question and considers it in other lights.

Ultimately, it's my belief that intentions do matter. The police officer making the chase is only doing so reluctantly. If he or she had a choice, they would rather the other person turn themselves in. Of course, one might argue that the fleer may have no choice, but if that's the case then they did something to put themselves in that situation to begin with.

Similarly (to use a later example Adrianne gives), if someone will kill people to cover up their crime and avoid being arrested, then the responsibility lies not with the system that would incarcerate them but whatever they did to get themselves there to begin with.

Of course, there are questions of innocence and whatnot (which is the most interesting one that Adrianne poses) and that's where it becomes more iffy.

I actually agree with Walter Cronkite!

I'm not generally a fan of college basketball, though since I have some time on my hands I've been paying attention to this year's tournament.

Much has been made of Conference USA's success in its final (basketball-focused) year bringing in six teams to the tournament: Memphis, Cincinnati, UAB, DePaul, Charlotte and Louisville.

Unfortunately, four of those six teams will be leaving the C*USA at the end of the year. Also unfortunately, five of the six teams have been eliminated from the tournament. Interestingly, however, the only one that has not been eliminated from the tournament is UAB, one of the teams that was not invited into the new basketball-friendly Big East.

In an amazingly close game, UAB upset the First Seed Kentucky Wildcats who were predicted by many to take the whole thing. The game literally came down to the last seconds. It was fantastic.

In addition to being great for the C*USA and an exciting game, I appreciated it on a personal level. You see, up until that game the overdog won every game that caught my interest (because it was close). The biggest example is (Eighth Seed) Texas Tech loss to (First Seed) St. Joe's.

After becoming disenchanted with that game, I didn't raise a brow when they said that the Stanford/Alabama game was close and didn't get to see the unranked Crimson Tide oust the #1-ranked Cardinal of Stanford. I also missed unranked Nevada when they took out the #2-ranked Gonzaga.

The only three teams to recieve votes to be ranked #1 were Stanford, Gonzaga, and Kentucky. They've now all lost.

The highest ranked team in the country that's still in the tournament is Oklahoma State who were inexplicably given a Second Seed.

Theoretically, the contest should only consist of First to Fourth seeds now (four of each). Only nine of the Sweet Sixteen were actually seeded such.

I'm tempted to root for OSU since they were bilked out of a First Seed. Not only are they the only school in the top four still in the game, but they've completely breezed by their opponents. I may not be rooting for them, but I'm predicting that they'll do it.

Both Mom and Dad's universities (Georgia Tech and Texas respectively) are still in the tournament. Right now they get my worthless support.

Oh, and so does UAB.

Does anyone know why all of the Durrett Motor Company signs in Houston have been upside down in recent weeks? Not just new signs going up, but some that have been there (up-side-up) for as long as I can remember.

It's truly bizarre.

I updated the Blogrolodexical adding three "New Links" that consist of three bloggers returning to the fold: Page, Heidi, and Daniel.

You also may have noticed a test post up today from Jason Paris. I didn't realize that it actually went through. Oops. Anyhow, he will hopefully be contributing a post or two soon.

Greg Wythe is pretty harsh towards outgoing congressman Chris Bell:

Much is now made of Bell's next step. Allow me to offer one idea for suggestion: private law practice. Harsh, I know. And I say this of a man that I may well find myself supporting for another run at public office soon enough. The party could do a lot worse. But I'm tired of seeing candidates that think the art of campaigning is a rote methodology of going by the same stale playbook that leads to use getting fewer and fewer votes every damn election. If Chris Bell wants to run for anything (it won't be for State Sen. 15, as Kuff hopes ... if he does anything, I believe it will be statewide), he needs to rethink himself as a campaigner and learn to be much more engaging publicly. He also needs to get off the DCCC hobbyhorse litany of "economy, jobs, health care" that clearly isn't working wonders in Texas.

I didn't find Bell to be a particularly bad campaigner (he didn't lose any races he should have won) and I find it hard to believe that Bell could even approach his predecessor Ken Bentsen in the "bad debater" area (Bentsen was truly awful). I liked Bell right up until he endorsed Lee Brown and particularly after he went to Washington and followed Bentsen's "I don't even have to pretend to be a moderate Democrat because people will automatically assume that I'm a moderate Democrat because I'm white and from a moderate district" lead.

I think Bell's political career is through, however, thus making every 2001 mayoral candidate unelectable for future office. When it comes to statewide office there will be competition from former Democratic Reps with a lot more experience (Nick Lampson, Charlie Stenholm, and Jim Turner to name three).

Kevin has a review of Cross Canadian Ragweed's latest on his site. I can't wait to get it. I must own it for no other reason than that there's a new version of "Alabama", one of my all-time favorite Ragweed tunes.

It's hard to believe that it's only $11.99 on Amazon (and comes with a DVD!).

It's a weird feeling when I look around me and some of my friends that previously had very full heads of hair are starting to lose it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta find a way to see the back of my head in a mirror...

Unlike Lex, I knew about the Zug site, though I thought it had gone the way of Satirewire.

In any case, they sent letters "from a 10 year old" asking U.S. Senators what their favorite joke was. Several responded and they have the results posted.

John Kerry's joke is funny, though I'm not sure such cynical humor is particularly good for ten year olds. Orrin Hatch's really isn't a joke except in that humorous-bumper-sticker kind of way. Chuck Hagel's is an awful, awful, awful pun. John McCain's joke is rather self-centered, but that would be his favorite joke now wouldn't it?

On a side note, they also have a bi-partisan list of "unfunniest senators." Their reasons for Arlen Specter being "unfunny" make me actually want to vote for him (and I've never been a fan of Senator Specter).

One of the biggest societal issues that I have yet to write about is how contemporary western society fosters a prolonged adolescence. Anyone unfortunate enough to be present when I rant on the subject will surely tell you that you should be grateful I haven't written about it.

But a couple of pieces written have broached the subject that I feel obliged to share. The first is an Opinion Journal article written by Donald Sensing:

Today, though, sexual intercourse is delinked from procreation. Since the invention of the Pill some 40 years ago, human beings have for the first time been able to control reproduction with a very high degree of assurance. That led to what our grandparents would have called rampant promiscuity. The causal relationships between sex, pregnancy and marriage were severed in a fundamental way. The impulse toward premarital chastity for women was always the fear of bearing a child alone. The Pill removed this fear. Along with it went the need of men to commit themselves exclusively to one woman in order to enjoy sexual relations at all. Over the past four decades, women have trained men that marriage is no longer necessary for sex. But women have also sadly discovered that they can't reliably gain men's sexual and emotional commitment to them by giving them sex before marriage.

Nationwide, the marriage rate has plunged 43% since 1960. Instead of getting married, men and women are just living together, cohabitation having increased tenfold in the same period. According to a University of Chicago study, cohabitation has become the norm. More than half the men and women who do get married have already lived together.

The widespread social acceptance of these changes is impelling the move toward homosexual marriage. Men and women living together and having sexual relations "without benefit of clergy," as the old phrasing goes, became not merely an accepted lifestyle, but the dominant lifestyle in the under-30 demographic within the past few years. Because they are able to control their reproductive abilities--that is, have sex without sex's results--the arguments against homosexual consanguinity began to wilt.

When society decided--and we have decided, this fight is over--that society would no longer decide the legitimacy of sexual relations between particular men and women, weddings became basically symbolic rather than substantive, and have come for most couples the shortcut way to make the legal compact regarding property rights, inheritance and certain other regulatory benefits. But what weddings do not do any longer is give to a man and a woman society's permission to have sex and procreate.

In agreement with this, Lee Ann Morawsky writes:

Erich Frommer (I think, some shrink named Erik anyways) once said that fewer than 10 percent of all people really matured into true adults. Everyone else remained mental and emotional children. In the past, people were forced into adulthood by society. Society expected people to grow up and shoulder the burdens of manhood. Today, the opposite is true. Society encourages permanent childhood, the adolescence of Dorian Gray. Modern society, with its Pill and it s consumerism and its self-esteem, actively campaigns against adulthood. Adulthood involves responsibility and the shouldering of burdens. An adult takes responsibility not only for himself but also for those whose lives he impacts. Adulthood ain’t skittles and beer. The modern Adultescent wants the sensual games of childhood, with all the consequences tucked away, with pills and scalpels, into the ever expanding apron of Nanny State.

As it turns out, I'm something of a fan of the pill. For I suppose entirely selfish (and adolescent according to many) I don't particularly lament the disassociation of sex from procreation. Did that disassociation lead to the breakdown of the family that we see today? Both Sensing and Lee Ann make a pretty solid argument that it does.

That puts me in conflict. I find myself one of the most traditional and socially conservative people my age that I know (which says as much about my friends as it does myself). As I get older I find myself increasingly so. When politicians talk about family values, I no longer squirm.

At the same time, I have no desire to return to the way things were (or were supposed to be) in yesteryear. I believe that as a society we've screwed up a lot of useful norms and when I finally get on my soapbox you'll see that I do lament a lot of the changes made. But the notion of how the only way we as a society can be righteous is by being trapped is markedly disturbing to me.

On the other hand, if I lament the effects - such as a society that discourages maturity, stability, continuity, and morality - then am I somewhat obliged to lament the cause?

The easy out is to deny what Sensing and Lee Ann have to say, but I find myself agreeing with much of the premise. So then could the advent of the Pill have turned out any other way?

For me, it's a very important question.

Jennifer Larson has a good question.

As a general policy, never open an email attachment file that has an extention that you don't recognize. With rare exception, never open a file from someone that you do not know well. Be careful before opening any file - even if from someone you know - that you are not expecting.

Most people know not to open .EXE or .VBx (x = any letter, generally "S"). But also don't open any file that ends in .BAT or more deceptively .PIF.

Details.

It's getting that time of year. The stupid noise-bugs are out, the weather is starting to top 80 degrees.

Blah.

The strangest thing about this year, however, is the cob webs. They're everywhere! I parked my car last night and this morning there were not only webs between my antenna and the car, but also between the car and the curb!

It's like the set-up to some freaky spider horror flick!

One argument I regularly find myself in with various people - particularly female-types - is the validity of comics as a medium. A lot of people still view them as entertainment-for-kids or entertainment-for-morons, though that perception has wonderfully been changing over time.

A lot of it comes down to superheroes and the aversion to the superhero "genre" by those who don't care for it for one reason or another. Of course, I object to the notion of superheroism as a genre to begin with. The great thing about superhero comics in my mind is their wonderful diversity. You get everything from comedy (Keith Giffen's JLI/JLA/JLE) to romance (Young Heroes In Love) to mystery (Sandman Mystery Theatre).

But that's an argument for another time. One argument against comics that has never held true is that the writing is inferior or aimed at an adolescent audience. In fact, one of the complaints in message boards among many fans is that there aren't enough comics aimed at a young audience anymore. Due to seriousness of content and perpetually rising prices (comics cost twice what they did in 1992 when I first started collecting) kids are all but squeezed out of the market.

As for inferiority, writers of comic books are very often the same writers of novels you read and movies you see. The article paints it as a new phenomenon, but it really isn't all that new. Writers are often writers and they'll write in any medium they can find. Peter David is a well-known comic book and film writer. When asked why he bothers writing comic books (which doesn't pay as well as Hollywood) he says that unlike other mediums, he is guaranteed to be able to tell the story that he wants to tell (instead of Hollywood where the end-product is vastly different from the screenplay sold).

It's not much of a secret that my ultimate goal is to make a living writing. While I would love to write in film, I would rather get my story out there for a small audience than some director's and studio's bastardization of my story for a large audience. In that vein, comics provide a unique opportunity for screenwriters that the big screen doesn't.

As for novels, every medium is different and novels are not a visual medium. This can be a good or bad thing depending on the story being told, but different stories are often told better in different ways. When asked about making a movie out of his successful and critically acclaimed Watchmen graphic novel series, Moore explained that he had little interest in it because Watchmen was made for the comic book medium. Anyone who has read the series (even those of us that would kill for a Watchmen movie or TV miniseries) would likely agree. While comics and film are both visual media, comics allow for a greater depth of subtlety in the artwork that is more noticeable (and that Watchmen exploits to a great degree).

None of this matters of course if you're alurgic to guys and girls in costumes. Even so, there are countless non-superhero comic books out there ranging from magic to Japanese imports of every stripe. Of course, many of the people who hate superheroes for being unrealistic enjoy serials about people using magic and other vastly unrealistic things... but, again, that's a subject for another time!

[Article thoughtfully provided by Audrey, who has in the past been a constant sparring partner on the subject but sent up the white flag after she actually read the Watchmen]

Update: Owen puts in his two cents.

It says ill of my college experience that I attended more parties in my high school years than my university ones. Sad, but true.

The reason for this is my friend Eddie. Eddie had an apartment off Westpark on the west side not far from where my old apartment complex was. It's funny how it seemed like such a longer drive then, but that only made the parties there more fun.

Eddie lived with two and later three other guys. I never really got to know Helm very well and I think he was just fine with that. He spent most of his time in his room - which, for all the times I'd been there I'd never actually seen. Stuie was a Wiccan dwarf who later became a pretty good friend. Not long after Eddie moved in to the apartment, another guy named Meth did as well. Meth... well he's a story unto himself.

The apartment itself was less than 1000 square feet. Eddie and Stuie piled in to one room, Helm got the other, and when Meth moved in he slept on the couch. The complex was far from ideal with a couple downstairs that got into screaming fights in Spanish. The access gates were constantly ajar which worked for us guests but didn't provide much security. At night they had an off-duty police officer who never raised an eyebrow when fourteen and fifteen year olds were drinking liquor in the pool.

The gang loved to throw parties, much to my social development's benefit. I remember the first party very clearly and wrote about some of the drama here. Being underage and quite intoxicated, I felt the need to tell him that he was a cop. Repeatedly. It was similar to how I felt the need to tell everyone there what their name was to demonstrate that I was sober enough to remember their names.

The mornings after were always tough. Never really because of a hangover (I wouldn't get those until my later years), but because of the smell of a couple dozen sweatty kids, vomit, and most of all excrement.

In addition to Eddie, Helm, Stuie, and Meth, there lived a couple of cats and a ferret. No one ever seemed to clean out the ferret cage or kitty litter boxes. Some mornings, the combination of vomit and excrement was so severe I'd step outside into humid Houston weather over 100 degrees just to escape it.

But Eddie was the only one we knew with an apartment. He and his gang were the only ones that would supply us alcohol. So over and over again we endured the smell, Helm's inhospitality, the drama that oozed from the walls (okay, okay, we were young and stupid and liked the drama), and did I mention the smell?

Best. Apartment. Ever.

In 1984, I remember seeing a flier on top of the television set that had the word "President" and someone other than Ronald Reagan's name on it. Being an inquisitive kid, I asked Dad what it was. He told me that it was a brochure for Walter Mondale, who wanted to be president. I still remember the brochure and subsequent conversation because it was very unsettling to my six year old self.

From the time I was two until I was ten, Ronald Reagan was the president. Until the junk mail I assumed that he would always be president, though I was vaguely aware that there had been presidents before Reagan. After 1984 I became aware that there were people other than Reagan who wanted to be president and there were these things called elections that determined who would get to be president.

My view of Reagan was abstractly positive. America was a good country, I was taught, and if Reagan was leading America than he too must be good. When Reagan stepped down in 1989, his vice president became president and I was first introduced to the notion of presidential succession. Bush, however, had been Reagan's first aide. It was my firm belief that when Bush's terms ended in 1996, Dan Quayle would probably become president.

In 1992, when Clinton became president, there was something surreal about someone outside the Reagan/Bush/Quayle dynasty becoming president. By that point I had an understanding of the existence of political parties and a vague idea of what they stood for (Republicans wanted to spend money on military, Democrats on poor people) and that Democrats were president before Reagan, but having never experienced a Democratic presidency it was a very new and exciting thing when Clinton was elected.

When I got in to high school, I started paying more attention to politics. I was in a sociology class that had us reading the op-ed section of the paper and there was a ten minute news program we watched day in and day out that taught us about such people as Newt Gingrich (this was during the 1994 Republican Revolution). So while Reagan was the first president during my cogniscent years, Clinton was my first president during my politically cogniscent years.

Being somewhat unfamiliar with how much the Democrats hated Reagan and George H. Bush, Republican hatred of Clinton was both new to me and utterly repulsive. To a degree I believe that was one of the factors that had me tilting against the Republican Party during my formative high school years. The Republicans seemed petty and spiteful. This was further entrenched by a young person's tendency to have more liberal politics than conservative as well as my contrarian nature and desire to be different in conservative Clear Lake, but ultimately my animosity towards Republicans was largely instinctive and personality-based.

With my history in mind, I find it unsurprising that George W. Bush is relatively popular among young people. Some right-leaning folks are trying to make some hay out of this, but before Republicans pat themselves on the back (or more likely use this as a mace to "what's wrong with the Democratic Party") I think they should consider that a lot of youth sentiment is very similar to my own during the Reagan and Clinton years. It has less to do with Bush and even the Democrats than it does with the ebb and flow of parties being in and out of power. I believe that there is a natural tendency of blank slated young people to gravitate towards the leader until they start paying enough attention to start deciding what issues are important to them and what their views on those issues are.

I expect a lot of their views to move left once they get into college and then move right again once they enter the work force and start paying taxes.

That said, initial impressions are very important. I have no data to back me up so anyone who can provide some before or against this is invited to do so, but from what I recall those whose formative years were during the Reagan/Bush administration are disproportionately conservative. Anecdotally, while most of the friends I have my age lean left, most of those between 30-40 are more conservative (though this can also be explained by entering the workforce and settling down), despite only marginal temperamental differences between these two sets of friends. I also think that to a degree, Clinton had the ear of my subgeneration and I think that my peers will remain more sympathetic to the Democratic Party in mildly higher numbers. If Bush wins re-election, he has the young folks' ear for eight years and it'll swing the other way.

On the other hand, if this were an exact science there would be a snowball effect and Republicans never would have rebounded from the drought of the Kennedy/Johnson years. On the third hand, it wasn't until those years that television exposure became so pervasive and therefore it's arguable that it doesn't count and it's possible that Nixon was aided by the Eisenhower Children.

But not really, it had more to do with the Vietnam War and race politics than anything else. Whatever benefit a party gains by simply being in power is relatively minor compared to bigger issues on the table. On the other hand, as 2000 demonstrated, every little bit helps.

The Belief-O-Matic Test:

1. Bahá'í Faith (100%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8051_1.html
2. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (91%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8028_1.html
3. Sikhism (87%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8049_1.html
4. Orthodox Judaism (86%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8053_1.html
5. Liberal Quakers (82%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8038_1.html
6. Reform Judaism (82%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8054_1.html
7. Islam (79%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8052_1.html
8. Unitarian Universalism (77%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8041_1.html
9. Mahayana Buddhism (75%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8045_1.html
10. Theravada Buddhism (75%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8042_1.html
11. Jainism (73%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8048_1.html
12. Orthodox Quaker (70%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8037_1.html
13. Hinduism (68%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8047_1.html
14. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (63%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8029_1.html
15. Seventh Day Adventist (60%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8036_1.html
16. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (59%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8035_1.html
17. Eastern Orthodox (58%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8033_1.html
18. Roman Catholic (58%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8030_1.html
19. Jehovah's Witness (53%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8034_1.html
20. New Age (52%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8055_1.html
21. Neo-Pagan (50%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8058_1.html
22. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (49%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8039_1.html
23. New Thought (49%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8056_1.html
24. Scientology (46%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8057_1.html
25. Taoism (41%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8059_1.html
26. Secular Humanism (36%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8040_1.html
27. Nontheist (30%)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8027_1.html

This test pegged Eel pretty well, but it missed the mark for me, I'm afraid. The Bahá'í Faith appears to be a little too abstract to accurately convey my beliefs. Though, in fairness, I can see how the test came to the conclusion that it did. Wrong questions, I guess.

Oh well, at least I didn't get "New Age."

I've been using Mozilla Firefox for the last couple of days. So far I prefer Opera, I think. Firefox is less buggy, but unfortunately handles atypical code inferiorly. More sites programmed for IE come up flawed on Firefox than do on Opera.

On the other hand, Kevin has strongly recommended their seperate email program and as soon as I'm surfing on my computer again, I can't wait to give that a try!

Owen has a link to an interesting finding that once upon a time, Africans made slaves of Europeans:

North African pirates abducted and enslaved more than 1 million Europeans between 1530 and 1780 in a series of raids which depopulated coastal towns from Sicily to Cornwall, according to new research.

Thousands of white Christians were seized every year to work as galley slaves, labourers and concubines for Muslim overlords in what is today Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, it is claimed.

Scholars have long known of the slave raids on Europe. But American historian Robert Davis has calculated that the total number captured - although small compared with the 12 million Africans shipped to the Americas in later years - was far higher than previously recognised.

Owen ponders that while this obviously doesn't make our enslavement of Africans okay, it does provide context. I find it interesting how those who wish to provide context for every society's ills decline to offer one iota of context for America's sins of the past.

What I find as relevent - or moreso - than this in providing context is not that Africans enslaved Europeans, but rather that Africans enslaved other Africans. The slaves that were brought over to the US were not kidnapped from Africa for the most part. Slave-traders had no desire to go to war with the tribes by kidnapping their kin. Rather, they bought the slaves from African tribes which had enslaved other ones that they defeated in battle. They were slaves before they got here.

So does it provide context for the US? Yeah, but ultimately not a whole lot. What early America did was not unspeakable at the time, but it absolutely ran contrary to the ideals on which the nation was founded. America was never supposed to be like the rest of the world and it should be held not to the actions of African tribes, but according to the ideals on which it was founded. In that vein, the economic necessity of slavery and the "everybody was doing it" defense is enormously hollow.

The US was an extraordinarily innovative government with radical ideas of freedom and that ought to be recognized despite that they fell short in many ways. That said, it should be recognized that we did, in fact, fall very short of our ideals and continue to strive for improvement.

I've been to the UH campus a few times over the last few months. There's a lot of construction and expansion going on, which is great. One of the places they've been doing the most work has been the MD Anderson Library where they're adding new facilities for the Honors College.

I am an exception in that I liked the old Honors College location, which was essentially a basement. I'm not sure why, but I was kind of partial to the humble abode. Plus, the couches there were unbelievably comfy.

That said, the addition will probably be helpful when it comes to recruiting. UH has a very aggressive National Merit Scholar recruitment program and it's befitting of the University to have an active Honors College. Not only that, but the Honors College played a positive role in my selection of UH. The University of Houston has the unfortunate reputation of being an unserious university. This is accented by being in-state with the very academically competitive University of Texas and Texas A&M.

The biggest issue confronting Texas universities and their future students is what happens to the best and brightest that can't get in to UT and A&M. Texas Tech's football program gives them the inside track to be the choice of many of those that want a large high-profile university with a built-in college experience. Below Tech is Houston and North Texas, both of which are saddled with commuter university lite reputations. Neither are viewed as particularly competitive and unfortunately many outside their urban areas (Houston and DFW respectively) are generally overlooked.

Both Houston and North Texas are first-rate universities given "Doctoral/Research University—Extensive" designations by the Carnegie Foundation, their highest honor. Both offer ample opportunity for students who haven't decided what they want to do along with respected specialty programs (Hotel & Restaurant Management for UH and Real Estate and music for UNT). The problem for UH and UNT - and to a lesser extent Texas State - is to grab the attention of bright students that couldn't get in to or otherwise didn't wish to go to UT or A&M.

I didn't know about the National Merit Scholars recruitment program when I chose UH, but programs like that and the Honors College (which I was aware of courtesy of Adam and Anna) could successfully make a lot of students give these universities a second look (note: I'm not sure what kind of programs UNT has in this regard, though I assume they have an Honors College of some sort and they have TAMS, which may help). If the UH can manage to become an obvious choice for Houston area high school students (and UNT from DFW) then it's drawing from a pool larger than many states.

Unfortunately, UH has a long way to go to get there. They're not only losing many of Houston's best to UT and A&M, but also to Tech and in many cases to out-of-state universities. If the University ever wants to shed the ill-founded "Cougar High" reputation (which it continues to do) and make the transition to a traditional university (a prospect that I have mixed feelings about), aggresiveness is a requirement. None of this is news to the administration of UH, however, and they're on the right track.

Even if that means they scrap the Honors College basement that I thought was kind of cool.

Update: One very tangible advantage of the new facilities is that there are more classrooms. This was something that bothered me about the basement headquarters. With the exception of a couple of Human Situation courses, all the honors classes were spread around the university, so there wasn't a central location as there are with most of the academic colleges (College of Engineering, College of Technology, etc.). It's excellent that they appear to have rectified the situation. Hopefully it'll be followed by adding more purely honors classes and less regular-with-sign-off honors ones.

Dateline: 1996

Drew was my first boss. It was an unpaid position at ACME, but he was the first person (other than a teacher) I ever had to report to and did work for. He and I were never particularly close on a personal level, though I do think of him as a friend as much as an employer. On top of that, I hadn't been to very many parties. So when Drew invited me to a party, I quickly accepted the invitation.

I had another motivation. A friend (Amy) of Drew's girlfriend (Molly) was going to be there and from what I'd heard, she seemed like someone that would interest me. Mostly, though, I wanted to go to a party and drink.

I drove to Drew's house and he took me and his friend Robb there. Most of the people were older than me (I was seventeen), though I have always gotten along with an older crowd, so it didn't bother me. Amy hadn't gotten there yet, so I made conversation with random other people.

There was an extremely attractive (to my eyes, anyhow) brunette there that I made a point to talk to. I told her that I was a junior at Clear Lake. She introduced herself as Tracey Holley commented that she had a brother that was also a junior at Clear Lake named Brett.

As it turned out, Brett Holley and I had been good friends in junior high. Man, Brett never told me that he had a hot sister! "Wait, did I say that out loud?"

"Say what out loud?" Tracey asked.

"Oh, nothing," I replied, breathing a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, it's never a good thing to be the same age as a sibling of an older girl because that often becomes their cut-off point of interest. You remind them too much of their sibling (the same, to a lesser extent, applies to older brothers and their younger sisters). I'd had a double-shot of Peppermint Schnopps, so I didn't let it get me down. I had another double-shot and became uber-charismatic.

Then I had another double-shot and became even more so. I impressed everyone with my burps!

I stuck around Tracey and she didn't seem to be annoyed by that, which was unusual at the time. She went to Lamar University, which was a ways away and I thought that could be problematic, but another double-shot later I didn't seem to mind that too much. She was soooo my type. She laughed whenever I burped.

The burps got louder after another double-shot.

By the time Amy got to the party I was a bit schloshed. All I remember about meeting her was verbally taking note of her race (she was black), quickly saying that it wasn't a problem for me, and telling her that I was going to go get another double-shot and asking her if she wanted one. She declined and by the time I got back from another double-shot, I'd forgotten all about her and went back to talk (and burp!) to Tracey some more.

When I woke up the next morning, I was staring into a backyard that I didn't recognize. I was on a bed and in a room I didn't recognize. I couldn't remember for the life of me where I'd been last night to land me in this unfamiliar bed. Then I had vague recollections of drinking at a party. I turned around to see if there was anyone laying next to me and I noticed that there was not. Damn, I thought, before correcting myself, I mean... uhhh... whew... my purity is still in tact.

When I got out of the room I realized that I was in Drew's house in the guest bedroom. As the morning wore on I began to remember more of the party. I remembered drinking quite a bit. I also started remembering some of the time-lapse between drinking and waking up in Drew's guestroom. I remembered people freaking out as I keeled over and passed out. They'd prop me up and I'd fall right back down again. That's about all I remember from the time-lapse.

Robb woke up shortly after I did. "Hey, whatever happened between me and that Tracey girl?"

He just shook his head.

I never found out the answer. That's probably a good thing.

Which Old Testament Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

---

Congratulations, you're a Principality, a princely
(no pun intended) appearing humanoid who is
perhaps as Machiavellian as it's possible for
an angel to be. You are a spirit of
personality, and are charged with the
management of all the races and kingdoms of
man. Those whom are worthy you elevate to
positions where they can do the greatest good.
You also oversee the actions of the lower
angels, the angels and archangels.


What Order of Angel Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

In thirteen hours, my former roommate (and frequent RAW360 commenter) Adam will be a married man.

Wish him luck, y'all.

Wish her luck, too, cause she's gonna need it! ;)

The TRIO network on satellite just finished playing a documentary on Bill Hicks. Hicks is an interesting figure with an incredibly sharp sense of humor, which was portrayed well. My biggest problem with the documentary, though, was how sycophantic it was. After an hour of hearing what an absolute genious he was, it got a bit tiring. I don't mean anything against the late Mr. Hicks by that.

Should I ever become a famous writer, however, I hope no such documentary is made of me. Don't get me wrong, I'm an extraordinarily vain individual and would love documentaries made of me after I die, but the one-dimensional portrayal - even an exceedingly positive one - is somewhat diminishing.

In my documentary, I want Adam talking about how impossible I was to live with during college. I want Anna talking about how tragic it was that for all of my abilities to articulate my thoughts and feelings I failed at it with her. I want Audrey's ex-boyfriend, an ex-girlfriend or two of mine, and any adversary they could get their hands on putting in their two cents.

Naturally, I also want my wife calling me the greatest man that ever lived and my friends sliming everyone who has a sum negative opinion of me. I just think it would be cool to have a debate about me!

One where the pro-R. Alex side wins, of course...

Jay once told me a story he'd heard regarding a prostitute in Denver. She was hired by a successful businessman, except instead of being hired for sexual acts, she merely had to play the housewife for fifteen minutes or so before he left for work. It involved dressing as a housewife, kissing him on the cheek, and telling him to have a good day at work.

In the movie Memento, there is a scene where Leonard Shelby, the protagonist, pays a hooker to spread his deceased wife's belongings on the bed and hide in the bathroom so that for a fleeting moment he can forget that his wife has died.

I was reminded of Jay's story and Memento when Michael Williams posted on a web site that apparently offers a pretend girlfriend:

Tired of your friends and family telling you to get a girlfriend?

Want to make that certain someone a little jealous?

Need a confidence boost? Just feeling lonely sometimes?

With an Imaginary Girlfriend, you can carry on a completely fictitious, yet authentic looking relationship with the girl of your choice.

Browse through our site and choose your favorite girl to see what she can offer as your Imaginary Girlfriend.

Just make up how you met and include any details about yourself that you want your new girlfriend to know. Within days you'll receive personalized love letters by mail, e-mails, photos, special gifts... even phone messages or online chat. Every Imaginary Girlfriend is unique.

Real Looking Relationships!

The girls are real. The relationship is not. When your time is up you can break up with her for whatever reason you decide, and she'll write you a final letter begging you to take her back. Our service is easy-to-use, lots of fun, and discreet. The privacy of our customers and Imaginary Girlfriends is always protected.

Go ahead, pick out an Imaginary Girlfriend today. We won't tell anyone that it's not real!

I'm very curious as to how successful this venture will be. It seems that they will need more than three girls to sign up or anyone remotely familiar with the site might recognize the faux girlfriends.

Though honestly, it seems to be less for appearence sake (the answering machine messages can't be just to show off) and more like some sort of contemporary role-playing like the businessman in Denver of Leonard Shelby.

My #1 result for the SelectSmart.com selector, What Civil War General are you like?, is Brig. Gen. J.J. Pettigrew (Confederate): Pettigrew, a graduate of North Carolina, led a brigade at Gettysburg but became the division commander when Henry Heth was wounded. He led his division in Pickett's charge, along with Isaac Trimble and Pickett himself. He was killed 11 days later.

[via Owen]

MTV2 is running a B&B marathon this evening. I loved the movie but had a harder time getting in to the show. I had a hard time again this evening and I think it's the darned music videos that do it. It's like having triple the commercial breaks. I'm waiting 5 minutes for another 3 minutes of the actual episode.

From what I understand the DVDs don't have the music videos and I'd be able to watch them through. I might should look in to that.

Oh, and I wanna see the movie again.

Your score is...

38

31-50 points: Your libertarian credentials are obvious. Doubtlessly you will become more extreme as time goes on.

My how far I've come since my libertarian college days.

Note to self: make fun of Owen Courreges for being more of a libertarian than you are.

The movie Dogma has been playing a lot of Comedy Central in recent weeks. I've found myself watching portions of it here and there, though I've seen it two or three times all the way through. I like the movie less and less the more I see of it.

For those of you unfamiliar, Dogma was a controversial 1999 comedy by Kevin Smith that takes aim at, among other things, the Catholic Church. Catholics were determined from the get-go to hate the movie. Defenders of the talented Smith came out in droves to call Catholic objections to the movie 'silly' and another example of the no-fun nature of the church. I was among such people.

Then I saw the movie and I felt that the Catholics had a point. Those that argued that Smith didn't have an axe to grind with the Catholic Church were mistaken before the movie was released and blind afterwards. That said, if the film were simply a comedy - and the defenders of the movie were more honest about the movie's intentions - I wouldn't harbor the objections to the movie that I do.

But Dogma is not entirely comedy. Nor is it entirely social critique. In fact, my foremost criticism of the movie is that it does not know what it wants to be. Sometimes it seems like the jokes are only there to deflect criticism and at other times it seems like the soapbox is just there cause Smith feels an obligation to say something serious in a movie about God. In my view it fails on both levels.

In some ways this is particularly disappointing because its extremely close to being a great movie at certain points. The scene between Bartleby and Loki after the run-in on the train was ingenious. Stripped of the sophomoric humor and conceited plattitudes of the rest of the movie it sets up a truly great religious epic. It's even enough to make me ignore the mountains of inaccuracy regarding the angels themselves.

As a comedy, it takes aim at the Catholic Church. That's not exactly the most difficult target in existence and many of the jokes strike me like those of a bully at the class nerd. It's not funny because the bully is particularly witty, but rather because the target is such an easy one. So much of the humor is built around animosity towards the Catholic Church that if the hostility is not pre-existent, it's not particularly funny.

The insistence among many that it is, in fact, hilarious to me says a lot more about the movie's fans than it does about the Catholic Church or religion in general. "It's funny because George Carlin plays a bishop and he hates religion!!" "It's funny because Alanis Morisette is God and she doesn't like Catholics!!"

The funniest jokes were Smith's signature stuff which had little to do with the plot at hand and, by his fourth movie, were getting a bit old for my tastes. Your mileage may vary.

But those that argue that they movie isn't meant to be taken seriously overlook the non-humorous aspects of it, which try to be very serious. Poop-monsters aside, there is a moral to the story: religious institutions are a barrier between man and God.

I have no problem with the message per se. If they'd fleshed it out, I might have a better opinion of the movie's handling of its theme, but it approaches religion with all the seriousness of a bunch of pot-smoking college students banging on the bongos at the Last Concert. "It's thoughtful cause God is a chick!" "It's thoughtful cause Jesus is black!" "It's thoughtful cause it's about spirituality and how different that is from religion!"... as if this all hadn't been done before.

I neither agree nor disagree with the message itself, but the movie itself makes a very unconvincing case. There is little sense that those that have a problem with the church are happier or more in-tune with God because of their rejection of the barrier. They're closer to God only because the script places them physically so. They understand God better only because angels are explaining it to them. The only real argument of the angels is "We know God, so we know what he feels."

It pokes at the Catholic Church for presuming to speak for God all the while Smith presumes to speak for God.

Or is that supposed to be part of the joke?

"It's funny because God hates the Catholic Church!!"

Susanna writes on political messages in odd places:

And apparently someone ran up the warning flag for everyone in the media to pile on the Traditional Values Coalition and anyone questioning the decisionmaking by the National Institute of Health on what research to fund. I saw a West Wing episode where the "Traditional Values Alliance" (good job of disguising who their real target was) tried to block some funding, and was characterized as scary right-wing religious freaks. The real Traditional Values Coalition responded to the episode, and its flagrant efforts to connect the organization with the truly vicious and bizarre Fred Phelps, who I won't link. How can the Coalition defend itself again a fictional program on a major network? The show even flashed a few seconds worth of a website image eerily like the actual Coalition's website.

Susanna expresses little surprise at political potshots on a political show such as West Wing and a little more on seeing it on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She seems to lament the injection of politics in seemingly inappropriate places.

It brings me a bit to my view on politics and entertainment. While skeptical of entertainers giving us political expositions in between songs or on TV interviews, I actually wish there was more politics in fictional entertainment. Well, sort of.

Politics is a touchy subject and as such, TV shows tend to tread carefully with subjects that are generally non-controversial. Or at least they think that's what they're doing, which ultimately tells us more about them than they think it does.

I recall conversations I've had recently with Brian and Audrey (social liberals both) on the subject of political correctness in entertainment. I tend to associate political correctness with a mushy liberal stance, but both of them on seperate occasions both of them assumed I was referring to social conservative political correctness. I remember reading on Salon.com a while back complaints that popular entertainment is too conservative.

They may be right if they define conservative as cautious. Even when trying to confront issues, they tend to take non-controversial stances. At least subjects that they don't view as controversial which ultimately tells them more about themselves than anything else. When they inject politics, it's usually through slapshot characterizations. If they want to present someone as serious and thoughtful, they'll make them an environmentalist or whatnot. I recall an episode of a TV show where the thoughtful main character went on a crusade against genetically modified foods, for instance. Every now and again they will also have "message" shows that "confront" serious topics and they invariably seem to involve a character learning the error of their ways. I remember several years ago three consecutive episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 were dedicated to the kids learning valuable lessons on how great unions are, how gays should be able to adopt, and some other liberal message that flowed as moral messages with the same moral clarity and thoughtfulness as a Saturday morning cartoon will have a "don't steal other kids' toys" message.

This is the kind of injection of politics in TV that I can do without (even when I agree with the message, as I do from time to time).

The kind of injection I would like to see involves actual debate in which characters actually disagree. It doesn't work if one of the characters learns the "error of their ways" at the end or if a view is presented inarticulately by an unsympathetic character.

You can often tell a lot about a character by his political dispositions and I think by withholding this (or acknowledging it in a base manner) they are withholding a bit of the character. I also think that they are depriving the viewer of some interesting interplay between two sympathetic characters that disagree on a particular issues.

Of course, I say this on one hand but I have generally held back on getting into the political views of my characters in my novels. I know what their views are (if they have them, some don't really), but I fear by injecting the political worldviews of the characters I am distracting from the task at hand.

I am recalling an unwritten subchapter in Something So Perfect where similarities are drawn between the protagonist and Al Gore. I thought it spoke volumes about the character and in a thoughtful way. I ultimately left it out because it was my fear that conservatives (and liberals) would ultimately let their political perceptions of Gore creep in to their reading of the portion and the character throughout the rest of he piece.

Maybe I was right and maybe that's why network television has a general (though not universal) preference for not going there except when they're out of plots or need some quick-fix characterization. Or perhaps (and this is my current line of thinking) a character drama isn't the best place to even broach the subject.

Regardless, it's better that it is avoided than done wrong. As a Republican, I can't tell you how often I have to roll my eyes and haphazard politicization where my kind are presented as having scales and theirs with the halo.

A long while back I asked in a public forum about the best way to please minority audiences with minority characters. I wanted to avoid stereotyping or being accused of whitewashing minority characters. It's a thin line to walk. They told me simply to present more than one minority face. As such, any time I've put one minority in one of my pieces I've put in two to prevent from using (or being accused of using) tokens.

It's something worthwhile to remember when writing about politics as well. Just as all minorities aren't the same, nor are all Republicans. Nor are all points of view among likable and good-hearted characters the same.

Matthew Hoy notices a prank that nearly made papers by fooling Dear Abby:

DEAR ABBY: I am 34 and have three children. My husband, "Gene," and I have been married for 10 years. He is greedy, selfish, inconsiderate and rude. I don't know why I married him, nor why our marriage has lasted this long.

Gene put off getting me a birthday gift for as long as he could; then he bought me a bowling ball. It was the last straw. Not only do I not bowl - he had the holes drilled for his fingers and his name was on it.

The next day I went to the bowling alley determined to keep the ball and learn to bowl. It was there that I met "Franco." Franco is kind, considerate and loving - the polar opposite of Gene.

Check it out.

California is considering giving kids 14-18 the right to vote. Sort of. If you're 14 or 15 then your vote counts as a quarter of a vote while 16 and 17 count as half. Leaving aside the insanity of allowing 14 year olds a say in statewide government, if passed would this be permissable under the national Constitution? Leaving aside letting the young vote, but that some votes count 4x as much as other votes strikes me as problematic in the one-man-one-vote sense. On the other hand, the very people getting "shafter" don't get any vote presently, so this would sort of be an improvement (to them, anyway).

Hmmmm.

One of the pleasures of coming down to visit my folks in Seabrook is their satellite TV. I don't generally watch much television (neither cable nor antannae were set up in my room in Jersey Village), but it's nice to break out and get to watch some.

One of my favorite shows has been an A&E crime documentary show called City Confidential. It follows a crime from perpetration to conviction as do most of such shows, except that it spends a great deal of time talking about the location where the crime was committed, the community reaction, and how the community was changed by the crime.

It's a bit formulaic and somewhat over-dramatic, but it beats similar shows such as "American Justice" hands down in large part because of the sinister voiceover of Paul Winfield.

Winfield has unfortunately passed on. I'm not sure if City Confidential is going to continue or not, but his boots will be nigh impossible to fill.

When I do pretty much anything that requires exertion for two straight hours, I tend to get very tired. Even if it doesn't require exertion, I get bored.

When the vacuum is running for two straight hours, it doesn't get tired because it is electric. I understand this.

When the woodchipper outside is running for two straight hours, it doesn't get tired because it, too, is electric. I understand this as well.

When the lawnmower outside is running for two straight hours, it doesn't get tired because it is gasoline powered. Understood.

So my question is how can the dog next door be barking loudly for two straight hours without getting tired. Are dogs gasoline or electric powered now?

Maybe I'm just bitter cause it says I'm voting for Kerry and I'm a "typical Democrat," but it sure seems like they go out of their way to show the conservatives are particularly evil in this test.

[via Adrianne]

Stuart Buck has an interesting post on segregation in the music business:

It occurs to me that much of the music world is effectively segregated, perhaps more so than ever. When I look at the Billboard top 100, all the black artists are in the rap/hip-hop genre. When I think back over the past 15 years or so of pop/rock music, I can think of only one major pop/rock group that had a black lead singer, or (as far as I know) any black members at all (Hootie and the Blowfish). There are a couple of rock bands with black lead singers that I like -- Splender, and the Tait Band -- but they aren't all that well-known. My overall impression is that right now, you just can't find any major black artists outside of rap/hip-hop.

It's not something I guess I think about. The Firehouse hasn't had a black act in a year or two. There are a fair number of Hispanics in bands and a couple of leadmen, but not much. On the other hand, given the relatively few blacks in the audience (there are a lot more Hispanics), I'm not sure there is any solution to it.

A girl I dated briefly in early 2001 apparently unblocked me from her AIM list. Three years later. I'm not surprised I was blocked. I'm not that surprised that I eventually got unblocked. I am a bit surprised that it happened some three years later.

And kinda disappointed. Now I'm going to have to go through the trouble of deleting her from my list. When you work with Trillian and multiple computers, that's a lot more complicated than it sounds.

Christianity is often a two-headed religion. Hate the sin, love the sinner. Eye for an eye, turn the other cheek. God the wrathful, God the loving. Hippie Jesus, Warrior Jesus.

I don't agree much with Margaret Cho. I find her to be an astoundingly unfunny comedian. Her politics are crazy and her tone generally sanctimonious.

Regardless, I found her treatise on Passion of Christ and gay marriage to be very articulate and measured (last paragraph aside). Her visions of God and Christ differ from my own and I don't agree with the notion that Christ's first priority for us is to be happy, but I still found it touching.

The Corporate Accountability Project presents How to Overthrow Corporate Rule in 5 Not-so-easy Steps. It's a good touchstone as to a lot of the problems I have with Naderite liberalism. I honestly believe that if these policy changes were implemented, America would be ruined.

In any case, the template error that has each of the steps labelled Step One to be the technological version of a Freudian slip. The only way to fix everything is to fix everything... at once.

It all started on Monday night, though I didn't realize what was starting. My throat started feeling particularly dry and it hurt to swallow. Tuesday afternoon I drove back to Seabrook for a dentist appointment on Wednesday. When I got here I had to do some fiddling to get the VCR to work so I could watch satellite. I started feeling really light-headed. I put my head down to avoid getting dizzy and fell asleep / passed out for about ten minutes. It got worse as the evening progressed and other symptoms started popping up. By the end of the evening I decided not to go out to Boondoggle's Pub as I had planned and just spent the evening in.

When I woke up Wednesday I felt considerably worse and with a host of new symptoms. The enchilada leftovers I'd been looking forward to for lunch looked revolting instead of tasty. My muscles started aching to the point that even laying down felt uncomfortable. I started randomly shaking. I talked to Audrey in the afternoon. She'd been sick with similar symptoms a few weeks ago so I asked her for some advice. She suggested I go to the hospital as she'd waited too long to her detriment (neither of us are insured), so I considered making plans to go the next day. I talked to Eel when she got off work and asked for her non-official medical advice. It sounded like the flu to her and she suggested that if it didn't get a whole lot worse to give it another day or two to get better. As Audrey's visit to the hospital cost in the four digits, it wasn't a trip I wanted to make unnecessarily.

But by the time I got up Thursday, it felt a lot worse. My entire body ached from head to toe. I didn't want to eat, move, or breathe. I was going to need some medical help. Painkillers if nothing else. So I called the local clinic and made an appointment. They asked what was wrong and instead of listing off symptoms (I know from history when you list symptoms, they only put down the first one you list and the doctor tends to go in uninterested in anything other than that one symptom) I just said "flu-like symptoms."

The only thing that seemed to have gotten better was my fever, which didn't feel half as bad on Thursday as it did on Wednesday. In fact, I was afraid the temperature had fallen to normal levels and that the doctor would think I was just a hypochondriac or something. Well, to whatever degree my temperature had dropped, it dropped to 103.9. The doctor ran a flu test that involved sticking Q-tips up my nose. The tests came out negative. He checked my out more thoroughly and determined that I had strep-throat-turn-pneumonia (which actually made sense, given that the throat was the problem's first battleground).

He asked me about my insurance and job situation. Since I'm unemployed and uninsured, he decided that I would take some medication and they wouldn't consider IV-fluid or other expensive treatments if I weren't better in a week. Somehow, some way that doctor took so much pity on my situation that I got out of the clinic (with medication!) owing a measly $27.

I drove up from Seabrook back to Jersey Village where I had a full bed to sleep on. Audrey wonderfully took care of me. She cooked me the only food that I managed to eat any substantial amount of, she reminded me (via phone call or in person) to eat and take my meds, and on moving day she helped me get my stuff together so that my father and brother could take everything down to Seabrook.

The weirdest thing about this has been the musical chairs of symptoms. Almost every day it's been something different.

Monday: Sore throat, cough
Tuesday: Light-headed
Wednesday: Fever
Thursday: Aching muscles
Friday: Aching throat
Saturday: Fatigue

I've been down in Seabrook since yesterday. I'm feeling better, day by day. The worst thing now is the fatigue. Before it was aching muscles stopping me from exerting myself, but these days I get tired if I walk too far or do anything strenuous. So I'm watching a lot of TV. Hey, there are worse lives than this.

If there's one thing I hate, it's going to the doctor and finding out there's nothing wrong with me. It's one reason I don't go to the doctor.

But I apparently didn't have to worry about that today when I finally forced myself down there.

My temperature was 103.9... and I have pneumonia.

I've been suffering from a physically dabilitating ailment over the last couple days. Very light-headed, not very coherent, and it's exhausting to just sit up.

The fever seems like it might have could possibly have broken tonight [knock on wood], or I'll wake up with it again tomorrow and my near-death status will return.

So keep an eye out for my prompt return, but no guarantees.

Update: No such luck.

For some strange reason, I was thinking about the old movie Johnny Be Good last night. I saw the movie when I was like eleven and liked it well enough, but I liked almost all movies at that age. By all accounts, I shouldn't be interested in seeing it again. So anyone who happens to dig lousy 80's movies might be able to help me out.

What were the names of the schools competing for Johnny? I recall the name of only one (Piermont) and I remember that another was a knockoff of TCU (It was the Texas Something Horney Toads). It's possible that the other two or three were never named (I hate it when movies do that! I want specifics!!). So does anyone recall?

Chris Caldwell has a worthwhile review in the New Yorker:

In the real world, neither people nor firms maximize utility. Life is complicated, the options of the marketplace are numerous, and the human intellect is frail. As Herbert Simon, the 1978 Nobel laureate in economics, observed, any firm that tried to make decisions that would “maximize” its returns would bankrupt itself in a never-ending search for the best option. What firms do instead is “satisfice,” to use Simon’s term: they content themselves with results that are “good enough.” Schwartz, who is a close reader of Simon, worries that the profusion of choices we face—a hundred varieties of bug spray, breakfast cereal, extra-virgin olive oil—is turning us into maximizers, and maximizers, he thinks, are prone to misery and depression.

[...]

Schwartz suggests that it has to do with the irrational way people measure “opportunity costs.” Instead of calculating opportunity cost as the value of the single most attractive foregone alternative, we seem to assemble an idealistic composite of all the options foregone. A wider range of slightly inferior options, then, can make it harder to settle on one you’re happy with. Similarly, when people direct their wants toward “classes” of goals, they tend to figure they’ll get a better-than-average example of the class. When a person says, “I feel like a plate of spaghetti,” he envisions a particularly good plate of spaghetti. And, as the psychologists Daniel Gilbert, of Harvard, and Timothy Wilson, of the University of Virginia, have observed, “If it is difficult to know whether we will be happy fifteen minutes after eating a bite of spaghetti, it is all the more difficult to know whether we will be happy fifteen months after a divorce or fifteen years after a marriage.”

I've had a half-written post about opportunity costs on my hard drive for a while now. I think that there is a lot to the notion that opportunity costs are driving some of us crazy.

For those of us that had the opportunity to go to college, we could have chosen a series of different majors and different programs throughout the state to train us for the "real world." We're the lucky ones - except that a lot of us are often left to wonder if we made the right choices. A number of my friends majored in the liberal arts and couldn't find work when they graduated. I majored in something "useful" only to graduate into a weak economy and have been left to wonder if perhaps I should have found something I was interested in, majored in it, and become a teacher. Except that if I'd done that I would have been limiting my options down the road. Opportunity costs.

Romance is another example. We're born into a nation where marriages are not pre-arranged. Social barriers for inter-racial marriages have fallen and, to an extent, so have economic barriers. Instead of finding someone we're compatible with, we are to find someone that we feel strongly about. But only one. If we make the wrong choice, we could be divorced ten years down the road and starting all over again with more gray hairs. Beyond that, who's to say that whoever is making us happy is the person that could make us most happy?

There's really no way of knowing, so often we're left with opportunity costs that we can't even measure because they're built on the intangible.

Many of my generation are raised on the notion that we can absolutely do anything. When doors start closing - as they always do as you get further along in life - we're left to wonder why we're not on the path to being President or extraordinarily wealth. For most of us, we made decisions along the way that became mutually exclusive with our goals. Truth is, how many of us would be really happy working 15 hours a day as an upward-bound politician or millionaire-in-training? Not many, but as we gauge the opportunity costs of the paths we've taken, we often ignore the actual costs of other opportunities.

As children of Baby Boomers, we're taught through culture (and/or our parents) that self-actualization is everything. We're taught that there is this place that we can get where we will be always happy all of the time. If we're not there, it means that we made some wrong choices along the way. We took the job with the paycheck, married a man or woman that we loved, or took the job that we love but doesn't pay anything. Whatever the case, if we're not self-actualized - if we hadn't made all the right choices all of the time - then we're leading somewhat empty lives.

This is something that, from the looks of it, the book mentioned above doesn't seem to address. In addition to the opportunity costs of all of the other options conglomerized, we're left with the opportunity costs of the impossible. The inkling that - if we handle things right - we should be able to have the best of everything all at once.

I think a lot of middle-aged women are learning this. By choosing to enter a high-powered profession, they sacrificed either children or being involved with their children on a day-to-day basis. Or by choosing to stay at home, they sacrificed the prestige of a high-powered profession. To a lesser extent, men are often forced to choose between a high-powered job and a satisfying home life as well. Those men and women that try to do it all are often in the worst place of all with no down-time whatsoever and little time to even put towards the inner-peace of self-actualization that they crave.

In debates about whether or not it's better for a woman to go to work or stay at home, the most common defense I see by working women is that it was financial necessity. No doubt. Staying at home is expensive and only possible if one parent or the other brings home a lot of money. But regardless, I find it interesting that necessity is often the first line of defense against being accused of making the wrong choice.

They seem to take comfort that it wasn't their choice and, by extention, there really weren't any opportunity costs.

I saw part of the Southern Cal Democratic debate re-running on CSPAN. Unfortunately, it looks like I missed some of the better parts:

DAN RATHER: Welcome to the 27th Democratic Debate of the 2004 primary season. With us this morning are Senator John Kerry and Senator John Edwards -- and two other people we're just going to ignore. Senator Kerry, let me start with you. The National Journal just released a report calling you the most liberal Senator in the Senate. Senator Kerry, would you call yourself a Senator?

SEN. KERRY: I don't think the American people want this campaign to be about labels, Dan.

DAN RATHER: So you would not call yourself a Senator?

SEN. KERRY: I would call myself a fighter for the American people, but, no, I'm not going to make this campaign about political labels.

DAN RATHER: Senator Edwards, is Senator Kerry a Senator?

SEN. EDWARDS: I believe he is, Dan. And I believe he's been one for a long time, in Washington. Washington is an evil place, Dan. And Senator Kerry has been a Senator there for a long time. In Washington. Ooooh.

What lesser-known Simpsons character are you?

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How MEXICAN are you?

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How DUMB are you?

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If this is what he does in legal papers, I hate to ponder what it would be like trying to read his writing in emails or IM:

Finding that attorney Brian Puricelli's courtroom work was "smooth" and "artful" in securing a $430,000 verdict in a civil rights suit, but that his written work was "careless" and laden with typographical errors, a federal magistrate judge has ruled that his court-awarded fees should be paid at two rates -- $300 per hour for the courtroom work, but $150 per hour for work on the pleadings.

"Mr. Puricelli's complete lack of care in his written product shows disrespect for the court. His errors, not just typographical, caused the court a considerable amount of work. Hence, a substantial reduction is in order. We believe that $150 per hour is, in fact, generous," U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacob P. Hart wrote in his 12-page fee opinion in Devore v. City of Philadelphia.

In the suit, plaintiff John Devore, a former Philadelphia police officer, claimed that he was harassed and ultimately fired in retaliation for reporting that his partner had stolen a cell phone.

Hart said he recognized that the case was a complicated one, but said he found some of Puricelli's writing in the amended complaint to be "nearly unintelligible."

When defense lawyers complained that the typographical errors in Puricelli's work were "epidemic," Puricelli's response included several more typos, Hart said. The judge quoted a paragraph from Puricelli's response, adding "[sic]" after each typo.

Puricelli wrote: "As for there being typos, yes there have been typos, but these errors have not detracted from the arguments or results, and the rule in this case was a victory for Mr. Devore. Further, had the Defendants not tired [sic] to paper Plaintiff's counsel to death, some type [sic] would not have occurred. Furthermore, there have been omissions by the Defendants, thus they should not case [sic] stones."

Amazing...

In case you haven't noticed, I've devoted a lot of space around here on the subject of universities. Outside the blog, I've devoted quite a bit of time towards research. I get on these kicks every now and again so you'll just need to bear with me.

A while back I found out that a couple universities in Florida that I'd never heard of five years ago (specifically South Florida and Central Florida) were among the largest in the nation (40k and 43k students respectively) and that the University of Florida is in competition with the University of Texas for the largest in the country (both hovering around 50k students). One reason for this is that Florida, I read somewhere, only has 11 public universities (which is about as many as Louisiana, a much smaller state, has). Off the top of my head I can name ten:

University of Florida (Gainesville)
Florida State University (Tallahassee)
Florida A&M University (Tallahassee)

University of West Florida (Pensacola)
University of South Florida (Tampa)
University of Central Florida (Orlando)
University of North Florida (Jacksonville)

Florida Atlantic University (see below)
Florida International University (Miami)
Florida Gulf Coast University (Fort Myers)

There is neither an East Florida nor Florida Tech (that I can find) and the University of Miami is a private institution. Can anyone tell me what the eleventh is?

On a side-note, it appears that most of their universities are in metropolitan areas (or at least places I'd heard of prior to knowing there was a university there). South Florida is also oddly named as it's located in Tampa, which geographically is only about halfway down the panhandle. Florida Atlantic is a geographically diverse school with campuses in multiple towns. Also, depending on the 11th university, Florida is the only state I've found that doesn't use the University of Statename at Cityname naming convention.

Jonah Goldberg:

Meanwhile, American liberalism has grown cowardly and anti-democratic. It boldly spouts clichés about "giving power to the people," but in reality it increasingly distrusts the people. Unable to win at the polls and unwilling to compromise on ideological objectives, liberals empower judges to fight their battles for them. Gay marriage advocates claim to favor federalism, but federalism requires that local communities democratically decide the issue. That's what happened in a referendum in California, and yet when Mayor Gavin Newsom broke the law, the harshest criticism from gay activists was Massachusetts' Rep. Barney Frank's admonition that the mayor's "timing" was bad.

We like to say that the increasingly ugly battles over judicial nominations are a sign of increasing partisanship in the culture, when in reality they are a completely rational outgrowth of the culture wars. Because from abortion to affirmative action to gay rights (all issues where the bulk of the public disagrees with elite liberal opinion), liberals have gladly ceded the unpopular choices to an imperial judiciary that is more or less immune to democratic correction. John F. Kerry says he's against gay marriage, but does anyone doubt that he would appoint precisely the sorts of judges who rubber-stamp the practice? Indeed, speaking of America's leading "multilateralist," one could say that the Democratic Party's fetishization of the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and "coalition-building" generally suggests that many liberals would like to outsource all their losing issues to undemocratic institutions and hence absolve themselves of any responsibility for unpopular policies.

This is my biggest problem with the current debate and why, though I disagree with him, I find it difficult to find fault with the reaction of the other side on the issue. Even when I agree with the results, I can't agree with bending the Constitution to achieve them.

What is really sad to me is that they could have gone to court with an argument that I'd really have approved of that very likely would have legalized gay marriage across the country:

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the Public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State [U.S. Constitution - Section 1, Article IV]

Basically, if gay marriage is legalized in one state through the proper means (the legislature), it is then executed as a matter of public record that a couple is married. As such, the same way that Texas would have to recognize the marriage of someone too young to be married in its state, it would similarly be forced to recognize the marriage of two men that would be equally unable to marry within state lines. Conservatives would balk, but there is nothing in the Constitution that suggests that a marriage certificate recognized by the law is somehow different from any other legal document. It would end up in court anyhow, but the liberals would have an ethical leg to stand on and I would be behind them 100% percent on this issue.

It's much easier, though, to ignore the will of a public that disagrees with you.

As my friend Pierce said, the last time Microsoft did this they inflicted Windows ME on us.

The Voorn Project has humorous takes on universities in Texas. I remember being quite amused by this (or some variation) when it was making the email forwarding circuit so I was excited when Kuff provided a link to the page. For the most part, it didn't disappoint.

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
I live in a town where you stand out if you don't have a purple Mohawk, facial piercing chained to nipple piercing, a homosexual lover, or hang out at the Magnolia Cafe. More people go to my school than live in Australia. I honestly believe that Ricky Williams is a god. I also really hate Chris Simms. I am open-minded and spiritually in tune - except towards people who are closed minded and spiritually out of tune. Liberal women with armpit hair are cool. You can see my dorm from Chicago for it is as tall as Florida would be if it stood up. I protest everything - except protests. I am a gold card carrying member of Amnesty International. I am openly bi-curious.
I am a Longhorn.

[...]

STEPHEN F. AUSTIN STATE UNIVERSITY
I am drunk or having sex right now. I went to class once. That about sums it up.
I am a Lumberjack.

[...]

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS - ARLINGTON
I go to UTA where we have a marching band, cheerleaders and drill team but no football team. We had one at some point and built them a really nice stadium but they sucked so much we just got rid of them but kept the half-time show. The only thing we're good at is engineering so Asians outnumber everyone else 3-1. This is the last resort for most Arlington students so my classmates are either Asian or too drunk to come to class. Since we don't have a football team (or any decent sports teams for that matter) we don't even have a mascot. Actually we do, it's the Maverick, but there's still no football team. In Texas, that doesn't cut it.
I am a Maverick!

However, in true uptight, I do have to raise some objection over their characterization of the University of Houston:

UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON
I work all day or all night. I attend school part-time. I'm trying to get a degree, any degree, to help get a decent job. I live with my parents, and spend as little time on campus as possible. Football games?? You mean we have a football team??? When I say my school is in an urban setting, I'm serious. In the shadows of the fourth largest city in the U.S., right in one of the most crime ridden Wards of the Bayou City. I hate Texas, A&M, and any other big school because they get a real degree. I wish I hadn't flunked out when I was attending a real school.
I'm a Cougar.

It's pretty spot-on until the last couple of paragraphs. In my experience there were very few students at UH that failed out of other universities. In fact, if you failed out of your previous institution you're not allowed in to the University of Houston (most bigger universities have this policy). I'd also add that, with 34,000 students we do, in fact, qualify as a "big school." I'm relatively certain it's one of the 15 largest universities in the nation. I'd go a step further and say that I don't recall very many people at UH who were there because they couldn't get in to a bigger university. I'd say that money was a much bigger factor (both in terms of UH offering scholarships and people going to school from home). Most of the folks I remember from high school that wanted to go to UT or A&M but didn't make the grade ended up going to a small party school (SFA or SWT) or, if their grades were good enough, Texas Tech.

They could have gotten some mileage out of UH not being a "real university" and, in the spirit of humor, I wouldn't have objected. Fighting traffic would also have been a good angle to take. Next to UCLA, there is no bigger university in a larger urban area and more commuters than UH and I think they really should have played that up. The "Cougar High" reputation isn't academically, but it's accurate enough student body-wise to be funny.