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Thoughts on culture, politics, music and stuff by Eric Olsen, Marty Thau and Mike Crooker, who are among other things, producers.
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Saturday, June 15, 2002
Judged Stupid I was under the impression that stupid people are not allowed to be judges. I was wrong. U.S. District Judge William Young dropped one of nine charges in the indictment against the alleged shoe bomber Richard Reid - "attempted wrecking of a mass transportation vehicle" - on the grounds that an airplane is not a "vehicle":
The Insanity Offense U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled on Thursday
Self-Organizing Liberals Armed Liberal just started blogging in May and he is already rocking harder than just about anyone. He has begun a fascinating series on "Self-Organizing Systems":
‘Wicked’ problems, on the other hand, inherently cannot be modeled in a reductive fashion, and cannot be simplified into models which can be readily analyzed in an isolated environment. In effect, to model a wicked problem, you have to completely reproduce the thing modeled, much like Borges’ famous map. Problems in street traffic analysis, economics, weather prediction are ‘wicked’ problems. Advances in math applications and computer science, however, have enabled us to come up with ways to predictively model wicked systems, and that, I’ll argue, is the foundation of ‘chaos theory’.
Wolfram, in his new book, seems to be making the argument that this isn’t just a representation, but the real underpinning of much of modern math and physical science (note: haven’t read the book yet, would love to hear from someone who has). I’ll argue that it provides a great metaphor for understanding human behavior and social systems, and right now in looking at the appropriate response in the WoT. Lying Like Rugs A new study shows that people lie with amazing frequency, with 60% lying at least once in a ten minute conversation:
...The study also found that lies told by men and women differ in content, though not in quantity. Feldman said the results showed that men do not lie more than women or vice versa, but that men and women lie in different ways. "Women were more likely to lie to make the person they were talking to feel good, while men lied most often to make themselves look better," Feldman said. A group of 121 pairs of undergraduate UMass students were recruited to participate in the study. They were told that the purpose of the study was to examine how people interact when they meet someone new. Participants were told they would have a 10-minute conversation with another person. Some participants were told to try to make themselves appear likable. Others were told to appear competent. A third, control group was not directed to present themselves in any particular way. ...The lies the students told varied considerably, according to Feldman. Some were relatively minor, such as agreeing with the person with whom they were speaking that they liked someone when they really did not. Others were more extreme, such as falsely claiming to be the star of a rock band. "It's so easy to lie," Feldman said. "We teach our children that honesty is the best policy, but we also tell them it's polite to pretend they like a birthday gift they've been given. Kids get a very mixed message regarding the practical aspects of lying, and it has an impact on how they behave as adults." Does this practice being honest make us more honest overall, or do we store up our prevarications and pile them on even more in verbal discourse than most people? I would guess the former applies more often, as habits are hard to break: even the habit of honesty. Perhaps we also become more accustomed to disagreeing with people - and having them disagree with us - in a noncombative manner through blogging, thereby removing some of the psychological need to agree to get along that so many apparently feel. And since blogging is such an impressive thing to do, perhaps we would be less likely to lie to impress others as well. But why do people lie? ScienceNet says:
Children cannot lie when they are born. As they acquire language, they learn to co-operate with others - and learn about deception, in order to survive in society. Sufferers from autism cannot lie or understand deception, and live in a lonely and isolated world. Lying has an irrefutable value in human culture, for the ability to deceive one's peers has evolved into one of the most advanced and powerful of our cerebral functions. It is a power that helps us succeed in love, war and commerce. Paul Ekman, a UCSF psychiatry professor, says avoiding punishment is the most common reason people lie, although personal gain in the form of money, power, or approval are not far behind. But a lot of people lie, sometimes at great personal risk, for little apparent reason at all:
Judge James Ware of the U.S. District Court in San Jose had his hopes for a promotion sunk after he admitted last year ['97] to making up the story of his brother being shot dead by white racists as he watched. Ekman has looked at both cases. He notes that the lies were devised before Ware and Lawrence became so prominent. People liked the stories, so they stayed in each man's repertoire. "It becomes part of their life," Ekman says. "They almost believe it is true."
...Retired Chief Master Sgt. Spencer Dukes was a celebrated figure at March Air Force Base and a speaker on the plight of prisoners of war. In 1996, however, it was revealed that Dukes had made up his story about being in the infamous Bataan Death March during World War II. In a recent interview, Dukes, 79, of Riverside, said he started telling the bogus story around 1981. "It just snowballed with a few people and it kept going and going," Dukes said. He added, "I probably pushed it a little bit." ...The response of those who are lied to can also seem out of touch with reality. Consider the reaction Burkett gets when he exposes phony war stories. Instead of getting angry at the liar, people often get angry at Burkett, he says. That's because people love a good story. And because exposing the lie calls into question everyone's tales of military exploits. Plus, "we all want to know a hero," Burkett says. "It's like schoolboy adulation." Essentially, these people are facilitating the lies, Burkett says.
Mission Accomplished Okay, this is on a NEED TO KNOW BASIS ONLY, but I am back from my mission. Likely, it is understood that I can't reveal details of this clandestine operation, but I am at liberty to pass on the fact that I am a REGIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY. Austin Powers is an INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY, and today I received CRUCIAL CREDITS on my way up the ladder. If I keep this up, I will have enough credits to take my NATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY test in the near future. Again, no questions please about the details of my operation, but per the Freedom of Information Act, I am obliged to reveal that an artichoke, puce nail polish, a State Senator from North Dakota, chop sticks, and an ice core from the Pleistocene were involved. Enough said. Issues, Issues, Issues I'm on a mission for the State Department this morning and thus will reluctantly be away from the computer for a few hours. There are three topics under open discussion that still haven't received their full due. Ross has brought up another element of unwanted pregnancy of which I was unaware. We still seek your personal stories regarding experiences with unwanted pregnancy, as the debate typically centers on generalities and generalities don't get pregnant. Dawn has given her own experience, and many have shared theirs on her site. I am still disappointed that more bloggers have not picked up on this issue - perhaps it is too painful - but these kinds of personal issues are what blogging - personal journalism - may address best. The debate over guns rages on, though we are mostly in agreement that the term "loophole" is too charged to be of much use at this point. The real issue is do we want greater governmental control over the exchange of private guns, or do we not. Another issue came up almost of its own accord. I linked a feminist critique of a Jonah Goldberg column on same that got reader Brian Wachs all fired up and he wrote an essay's worth of refutation in the comment section. Is the job of feminism 99% completed in this country? Jonah and Brian think so. I think it's more like 75% with some crucial attitudinal issues yet to be resolved. What do you think? Friday, June 14, 2002
Reflections I can be a bit hypocritical. I admit it. I tend to shy away from diarist-type bloggers because it's so ... subjective and all, yet I write about myself plenty and expect people to be pretty damned fascinated and edified. But other people's lives....well.... One of the good things about Dawn blogging is that she has introduced me to an entire universe of bloggers I might not have been exposed to otherwise, and this is all to the good because we all need to be broadened and stretched and told we are full of shit sometimes. Dawn tells me this often. So anyway, I got to know Matt Moore through Dawn, and they both like Sweat Flavored Gummi Rebecca, who actually scares me to a certain extent, especially after that interview if you know what I mean. BUT, her post today about a dying favorite aunt is touching, funny, brave, honest, and a lasting tribute: all in three paragraphs. I am humbled. Another Perspective Ross at Health Welfare Warfare contributes to the teen pregnancy/abortion discussion:
Is this a widespread problem that the legislation seeks to address? Probably not. But it is a very public issue. And, as Dawn & others have already discussed, the whole issue of what to do when a teen gets pregnant is traumatic enough without having to end in a situation with a mom killing her newborn and being thrown in prison. Hacker's Punctuation A very interesting conversation has developed regarding punctuation in the comment section of this post below. I come to blogging from a writing background. My use of computers is limited to the Internet, word processing, and some fairly low-end database work. So I was surprised to get this info from Michael:
Hackers tend to use quotes as balanced delimiters like parentheses, much to the dismay of American editors. Thus, if "Jim is going" is a phrase, and so are "Bill runs" and "Spock groks", then hackers generally prefer to write: "Jim is going", "Bill runs", and "Spock groks". This is incorrect according to standard American usage (which would put the continuation commas and the final period inside the string quotes); however, it is counter-intuitive to hackers to mutilate literal strings with characters that don't belong in them. Given the sorts of examples that can come up in discussions of programming, American-style quoting can even be grossly misleading. When communicating command lines or small pieces of code, extra characters can be a real pain in the neck. I have a suggestion: bloggers can use whichever style they prefer if they make a STATEMENT OF STYLE on their site like some have "terms of use" and the like. Then hackers can follow their logic wherever they may go. Rand Simberg and LakeFXDan contributed valuable thoughts on the subject as well. Back In the Saddle Gary Farber is back after a blog break - it's that time of year. He is describing himself in this post:
Gun Game Theory Rand Simberg - at home here on the ground as well as in space - offers some interesting evidence in response to my statement that "the seemingly obvious fact that the more guns there are, and the more people who have them, the more likely it is that someone will get shot." I KNEW someone would say something about that:
For instance, if only criminals have guns (which is, unfortunately, the end result, if unintended, of many measures urged by gun-control proponents), then the number of gunshot victims might be high, or low, depending on whether the intent of the criminals is to cause mayhem, or to simply extort the citizenry. If the latter, it would be possible for them to get what they want by simply brandishing the weapons, against which the law abiding would have no defenses. If the goal is to prevent felons and terrorists (sorry to use the term, but I would rather deal with a terrorist armed with a box cutter or a knife or a bludgeon than a gun - the effectiveness of the box cutters was due to the fact that we were caught off guard) from getting guns, why not check everyone every time? More Traffic Mac Frazier has an interesting follow up to his discussion of blog traffic:
Not as obviously, quantity of posts also has an influence—those that are steady and frequent posters get more, whereas people like me that post in surges and then get quiet for a week retain fewer visitors; Not all referrers are created equal—the more frequently a major referrering blog updates, the shorter the duration of the traffic wave (e.g., InstaLinks are powerful, but short-lived compared to the once-a-day Best of the Web links which generate "wider" traffic bulges); Most blogs are very dependent on referred traffic, with the smallest and largest blogs being the ones whose "core", non-referred traffic is largest for them, percentage-wise; Nearly all but the absolute top-tier (e.g., InstaPundit and USS Clueless) who responded in one way or another readily admitted that traffic is important to them, though for various reasons; Feminism's Work Done? While we're on flashpoint topics, Justin Sodano's fiancee Lindsey "Weighs In" with some thoughts on feminism:
First, some definitions to get us all on the same page. There are really two different kinds of feminism—activism and theory. Activism is when groups of feminists get together to change policy or laws in the real world. Activism got women the right to vote, hold their own property, and go to college. Theory is for thinkers; it examines why things are the way they are, often with great depth and sophistication that people like Jonah Goldberg haven’t bothered to understand. Feminist activists include Gloria Steinem and Susan B. Anthony. Feminist theorists include Luce Irigary and Teresa de Lauretis. In his article Goldberg deals only with activism and ignores theory altogether. Clearly all the theories that will ever be thought in the past, present, and future of humanity [sic] haven’t already been published, so that knocks out Goldberg’s 99% number right there. Now let’s drill down into activism—have 99% of feminist activist goals been accomplished? If so, that would mean that 99% of women throughout the world have qualities of life equal to those of the men in their countries. I can pretty much guarantee you that wherever in the world there is a man crapping in the street, there is a woman sleeping in crap. A Gun Through the Eye of a "Loophole" The comments on the gun show loophole post below are good enough and interesting enough to put up here. Remember they are in reverse chronological order. Read from #1 up if you want to follow the debate in its original order.
I think you've missed a couple of points here. 1) The "Gun Show Loophole" is a phrase being used to get the public to favor changes to the law that McCain and Lieberman (et al) want to make. The "Gun Show Loophole Closure Act", of course, will actually be a "Notify the Feds Every Time a Gun Changes Hands Act", but proponents don't want to call it that. In other words, it's not the gun control opponents who keep bringing up the non-existent loophole, but the gun control advocates. 2) Once we stop chasing the red herring of gun shows, we might wonder if the Constitution allows the Federal government to require every sale to be checked. There's that interstate commerce clause, y'know. Not every desirable goal is allowed under the Constitution, which is why we can add amendments. I don't think this problem is serious enough to require an amendment, but I expect Nick Kristoff and Sarah Brady do. So why aren't they proposing one? I suggest it is because an amendment would have to be clear and to the point, and would be much harder to bend after the fact than a simple law would be. We saw that recently when the NY Times and others complained that Ashcroft wasn't taking the opportunity to turn the "instant" background check system into a national gun registry. As Brian says, we are already on the slippery slope. PJ/Maryland --- #8. Sandra: This whole thread began with Reynolds and Goldstein bashing Kristof in The NY Times for a piece that was based on the idea of terrorists using gun shows to supply themselves with weapons. There may not be statistics to wave around yet, but one incident of terrorism on US soil with arms obtained at a gun show would have a devastating impact on the argument that there is no problem here. In all other areas we seem to be preoccupied with the government's responsibility to preempt terrorism. Why not preempt the possibility in this area? You are right, though, about the all or nothing. If my scenario were to occur, we'd likely not see another gun show AT ALL for a very long time. Brian Linse --- #7. Ah yes, gun shows are dangerous because terrorists can buy their guns there. Excellent point. Except... allowing potential terrorists (humans, anotherwords) to have friends who can buy guns is dangerous in the same way(moreso, actually). So are garage sales. So are the classifieds. So is allowing any firearms in the country except in the hands of the poilce and military (and even they can be bribed or robbed). So you say that the problem isn't so much that there is or isn't a loophole (verrrry slippery, pal) as the fact that gun shows exist as a place for private citizens to sell their guns, period. Mustn't let those gun nuts congregate. Who knows what damage they might do? Lets move on and examine the point you seem to wish to debate: "the wisdom of laws that allow firearms to change hands without the benefit of a criminal background check." Note that for that above statement to be truthful, it has to be understood that it refers to private citizens exchanging firearms, not liscenced dealers, who always have to do checks. Yet at the time the law requiring background checks was passed, there was a lot of promising going on by proponents of the law that this would never apply to private citizens. The law certainly would never have passed had it targeted every gun owner in America, as you now seem to wish to discuss. The point of debate has shifted from weather we should do these background checks at ALL, to weather we should ban private citizens from selling their property in a manner of their choosing, because they are not required to preform checks. So now, perversely, the freedom from performing checks that private owners retained is now used as a justification for more restrictions like banning gun shows. Slippery slopes are not a logical fallacy, and especially not in gun rights because the historical pattern of gun banners has been a chip-at-a-time approach. 'Reasonable restrictions' is a chameleon-word whose object changes to whatever the next chip is. Once that goal is gained, the next target is the next 'reasonable restriction'. This is progress, but certainly not in the manner that you mean. Brian Wachs --- #6. Everyone seems to have overlooked something: the so-called "loophole" as a source accounts for only 0.7 percent...LESS THAN 1% of guns used in 'criminal activity. 33% are acquired from 'Friends/Family", the next 33% are acquired from "black markets" [non-gunshows], leaving the "loophole" a VERY distant 5th. All this according to Law Enforcement statistics. Where's the "urgency" ?? MommaBear --- #5. JG, "Squarejawed" as in stentorian in the earnest manner of a Roger Ramjet, or something. Just popped into my head actually. Thanks for the follow up link, dude. Eric Olsen --- #4. Strawman, Lynn. Care to delineate who such "idiots who refuse to accept reasonable restrictions" are? And while you're at it, care to define "reasonable restrictions"? I think you'll find that defining what is a "reasonable restriction" is precisely what's being debated in the majority of gun control cases. For instance, many states believe that keeping ammunition in a separate location from the weapon is "reasonable" (and have passed laws to that effect -- so-called "Child Safety" laws) but opponents think that such a restriction hinders their ability to competently defend themselves in the event of a break-in, say. Who's right? Well, opinions differ. But it's hardly cut and dry, I don't think. Jeff G. --- #3. I think people get way waaaay too worked up over this issue. Sure I think law abiding citizens should have the right to own guns but the worst danger to the "right to keep and bear arms" are those idiots who refuse to accept reasonable restrictions. Anyone who takes an all or nothing stance could very well end up with nothing. Lynn --- #2. Eric, I think you're getting off-base by bringing terrorists into the argument. Obviously, the terrorists involved in Sept. 11th didn't need guns at all. Also, when I think about the things I worry about terrorists possibly acquiring, guns are quite far down the list. I don't own a gun, and I have no desire to do so. But if some cretin out there is aware that I can get a gun just as easily (if not more so) than he can, perhaps he might think twice before breaking into my house. All the professional crybabies here in Texas were sure that if our concealed carry law was passed that it would immediately take us back to the days of the shootout at high noon. That has not been the case. I don't have the exact stats, but I think violent crime in Texas has declined since that law was passed. Sandra --- #1. "Surprisingly square-jawed"? What in tarnations...? You may be right: Brian's point may be that the practice of transfering guns without some sort of federal oversight is dangerous. Of course, many people believe the opposite to be the real threat -- that having the government keeping tabs on all privately owned guns is a step toward fully disarming a law-abiding populace. I'm unconvinced by the argument that private sales practices allow unsavory types to can get guns they might otherwise have been unable to acquire. Could a terrorist get a gun at a gun show without having to submit to a background check? Sure, theoretically. But there are a number of other ways a terrorist could get a gun -- and he being a terrorist, he likely won't be deterred until he gets one. Jeff G. What to Do About Mistakes? First, allow me to restate that I have nothing but respect for Alex Whitlock: he is gracious and intelligent, and his response to my experience is all the harder for me personally to bear as a result. I cannot, and do not dismiss him as a fanatic or a nut: he is simply someone who has a very well-delivered opinion that happens to differ from mine:
If the baby had been kept and Eric would have stuck with her, it's very possible they would have had a happy ending. Or not. Maybe they would have gotten a divorce and ended up meeting Dawn and marrying her anyway. It's impossible to say. What is possible to say, by taking the path that he did, the potential child never actualized. Whether his or her parents would have been happy or divorced; whether he'd been attractive and charismatic or overweight and shy; whether she'd been queen of the prom or a bookworm who liked the read poetry surrounded by incense, life is invariably better to me than never having lived it. He won't be any of those things. She will never be whatever she was created to become and would have become without termination. That, to me, is impossible to ignore and nearly impossible to rectify. Ultimately Alex's judgment is that the life of the fetus has to overwhelm all other considerations. I understand this opinion and can easily see how it is morally supportable: we ARE talking about a life, or at least a potential life. But for me, in such matters the actual life of the parents outweighs the potential life of the fetus. I searched to my deepest being in an effort to determine if I could make the decision to marry this young woman. I could not. It would not have been fair to my two existing children, to her, to me. Is this "selfish"? Ultimately, I imagine it is, but a selfishness that refuses to be a martyr and make life miserable for all concerned. I made a mistake; I regret that mistake; I do not believe I made a second mistake in - coldly and with calculation, I freely admit - eliminating the results of the first mistake. Alex and I will simply have to agree to disagree in, I hope, a friendly manner. McLuhan Blog Marc Weisblott will be blogging his course in McLuhan:
Daily Back From Weekly Quick Bill is back from NY and not a moment too soon, buddy. Go see what he has to say. A Woman's Burden Dawn has her own wrenching story regarding an unwanted pregnancy:
Stormy Just got back from radio. I had to drive through a rainstorm of Biblical proportions the last few miles; saw a very large boat that seemed to be filled with animals - in pairs oddly enough - go floating by. I wonder what that means. In the Meantime Hey - how're they hanging? Late start today and I have to go take care of the radio show. Be back later with lot's of goodies. In the meantime, I think the gun issue and teenage pregnancy are very important. Check them out please. Thursday, June 13, 2002
Cabal Jen Raj. is having no end of parking ticket problems of her own as she relates in the comments of this post. So I checked her site out and found that she is a member of a secret cabal carrying on clandestine activities within the very shadow of our nation's most revered monuments. Jen assures us she looks better in person. That's what they all say, babe. UJC Approves Funding Over Green Line I have been extremely remiss lately in not mentioning the "fourth producer," Jerry Balsam, who every day except Saturday forwards a vast amount of well-chosen material for our use on the site. He just sent this story on with a note:
I don't know how big a story this will be, but I think it represents a terrible mistake by the United Jewish Communities. I know it makes me less likely to send a contribution. Jerry
Historic move signals communal shift rightward, effort to 'help Jews everywhere.' Gary Rosenblatt - Editor and Publisher After 35 years of confining its Israel-designated funds to within the Green Line, the primary fund-raising arm for the American Jewish community has changed its policy. In an historic move, the board of trustees of the United Jewish Communities, meeting Monday in Chicago, unanimously "adopted a broad interpretation of the UJC charter to permit the organization to provide assistance to Jews around the world, irrespective of where they live," according to an official statement. "We are changing the process," said UJC president and CEO Steve Hoffman in an interview Tuesday, though the group is not changing the wording of its charter, which dates back to 1960. Acknowledging "the environment has changed" since the outbreak of the Palestinian violence in September 2000, with the need for human services growing in the Jewish communities of the West Bank and Gaza, Hoffman said his group felt the need to "re-examine our charter and our practice." He said he consulted with attorneys recently who concluded "it would be within our charter to provide relief and rehabilitative services to Jews anywhere." The board action came in response to increasing criticism from some quarters that UJC was providing social services and humanitarian relief for Jews all over the world - except for those 200,000 or so living in Jewish settlements beyond the 1967 borders in the Holy Land. UPDATE Jerry checks back in:
(2) Because innocent people are suffering, I made a contribution, anyway, but it was somewhat smaller than it otherwise would have been. All the best. Jerry Unusual Programming "What's on the telly, dear?"
Sometimes What Is Practical IS What Is Moral I know I am going WAY out on a limb here. I just found blogger Alex Whitlock of RAW Musings because he left a comment on our site (see, I told you it works), and he is clearly a good and earnest conservative. He is brave enough to take on two of our most contentious issues: teenage pregnancy and abortion:
I've long thought it was a tactical mistake that conservatives pound so hardly on teenage pregnancy. For every single mother, there is a girl who made that admirable choice. 1) shouldn't have sex 2) if they do, they should use every means of birth control available to them 3) if this fails and they get pregnant and don't want to marry the father (and this means they would have chosen to marry this person even if they weren't pregnant) or the father doesn't want to marry them: get the abortion. This is what I would suggest to my 18 year-old daughter. Here is my philosophy on the matter: if you are an unwed teenager, then end it ("it" being the pregnancy, not the fetus) as early as possible, learn the lesson, move on, don't repeat the mistake. No one should be so stupid as to put themselves in a position to require more than one abortion. Everyone gets one do-over. Everyone is entitled to one mistake they can take back. That is how I view abortion under these circumstances. I don't take it lightly; I don't advocate abortion as a form of birth control, but I don't find teenagers having children out of wedlock "admirable" either. I find it highly disadvantageous to the individual mother and to society as a whole. The #1 indicator of downward social mobility is unwed teenage motherhood. Sometimes what is most practical is what is most moral. Regarding the morality of abortion: the earlier the better, time is of the essence - I am against voluntary abortion past the first trimester and would rather see it no later than the first month. I do not believe a fetus is a person. I believe a fetus is a potential person in a three-way equation: fetus + mother + time=baby. There is no baby without all three. All of this is well and good, but what is hidden in discussions of abstract morality and practicality is real people and their real lives. People should be a lot more open about their experiences and maybe at least those in the middle would feel a little more comfortable with their agonized decisions. The fringes are never going to change their minds. I am responsible for one abortion. It was ten years ago. I was 33, she was 19. The relationship was inappropriate, I was a fool. There was no way we belonged together. It was a friendship with occasional sex. She used birth control. I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway. I liked her and still do, but I didn't LIKE her, and she was way too young. When she said she was pregnant I was utterly floored, as if such a thing weren't possible. Clearly it was. Some will say the responsible thing would have been to marry her anyway. Some will say the responsible thing would have been to offer to support the baby. I thought the responsible thing to do was pay for an abortion, so I did. While I deeply regret my actions in causing the pregnancy, I do not now and never have regretted the abortion. It was right for her and right for me. Many will say, "What about what was right for the baby?" There was no baby, there was a newly-formed fetus. A baby would have also required a willing mother and time. As far as marrying the girl no matter what: if I had, I never would have met Dawn, married her, and had the family I have now that is so right for all involved. Is this heartless, cold, overly practical? Maybe, but I know in my deepest of hearts that it was the right way out of a bad situation. I have prayed many times for forgiveness - I believe I have it. I am very leery of older men in relationship to my daughter. I am very happy her boyfriend is a few months younger than she is. I believe she is very sensible and protective of herself. I also believe she is still a virgin. But if something like this happened to her, I would suggest she do the same thing and not have one mistake alter the course of her entire life. That's my story - what's yours? For Your Ass Although I share Layne's notion that ur-blogger Tony Pierce will soldier on in one bloggy form or another, I do not take his threat lightly to hang up this particular iteration of same on July 9. Tony's goal of 100 "permanent links" - now Tony we discussed this: you are not looking for "permalinks," or "permanent links," you are looking for inclusion in people's "blogrolodex," or their "roloblogdex," or their "list of recommended blogs on the right or left of the site that is part of the template and doesn't change from day to day" - so anyway 100 of these things by July 9 is a noble goal and I hope you make it because EVERYONE should know of the ineffable genius that is TP. But what I think is more important to note is that this is another flapping-in-the-wind-tunnel BRILLIANT-ASS passive-aggressive publicity ploy. And I thought Dawn was good. I would also like to note that Tony's site was THE VERY FIRST BLOG IN OUR TOUR O THE BLOGS way back in February, so we anticipated this movement by four freaking months. If you haven't added TP to your roloblogdex, get on it buster, maybe he's serious. Hypocrite For the record, I want to state here and now that although I think people could make better use of their time than looking at pornography, I do not object to this page because it's arty and stuff. Plus, I think I know that girl in the upper left, although she used to be a bit meatier. Alright Already, Guns I have stated before that I find the issue of guns tedious. This is largely because I have had so little contact with guns. I have never owned a gun, and I believe the last time I held or fired one was at camp around 30 years ago. They simply have no place in my life, but that doesn't mean I can't see that guns are an important issue, from a constitutional and a societal perspective. I am well aware that several of my blogger friends, with whom I am agreement with on many issues, take a strict constructionist point of view regarding guns: citizens have a right to them and that is pretty much that. I can honestly say that I do not know which is more important: a citizen's right to unfettered access, or the seemingly obvious fact that the more guns there are, and the more people who have them, the more likely it is that someone will get shot. One of the reasons I started blogging was to help myself resolve issues within my own head, and I hope that I will eventually be able to resolve this one, but for now it remains open. With all of that buildup, allow me to dip my toe into the torrent that is the running "gun show loophole debate." Brian Linse rather intrepidly takes on the issue here:
Glenn Reynolds, Jeff Goldstein, and Dave Kopel all argue that the loophole that Kristoff (and many others including Sen. John McCain) is referring to does not exist. Referring to warnings about the dangers of the loophole by Senators McCain and Lieberman,... But his central point remains: unlicensed dealers can sell up to "X" number (I don't know what that number is, but it doesn't matter for this discussion) of guns per year privately within their own state without having to do background checks because the federal regulation does't apply to unlicensed dealers who don't engage in interstate commerce in order to sell their guns. Linse (and Senators McCain and Lieberman) believe this is dangerous because terrorists or other unsavory folk can buy their guns this way. As far as I can tell, that's all he is trying to say, and, in fact, I agree with him. This IS dangerous. Linse gets into trouble, though, by calling this state of affairs a "gun show loophole," which allows a surprisingly square-jawed Jeff Goldstein the room he needs to attack the argument, correctly, on technical grounds:
Dirty Little Secret This big old cat is finally out of the bag:
The game is simple: If you're given a traffic ticket in the city, you plead not guilty, hoping the police officer who cited you doesn't show up for trial. If you're lucky, and he doesn't, the judge dismisses the case "for want of prosecution." Donald F. Alexander, 41, of Cleveland, knew the odds were in his favor when he went to trial May 29 for driving 10 mph over the speed limit. The officer who wrote him the ticket didn't show, and Alexander walked out a winner. It was the fourth time since 1997 that Alexander had a traffic case dismissed because a Cleveland police officer failed to appear in court. "You make the officer show, just like you have to show," Alexander said. Cleveland Municipal Court does not keep records on how many people have their cases dismissed because an officer failed to appear in court. But judges and prosecutors estimate that a third to a half of the minor misdemeanor cases going to trial, including not just traffic violations but also other crimes such as marijuana possession and disorderly conduct, are thrown out for that reason. Using the more conservative figure, a rough calculation suggests that at least 4,000 cases each year are dismissed "for want of prosecution." I've known this since the very early '80s when we lived in a broom closet in Hermosa Beach, where there are NO GARAGES or legal STREET PARKING leading to a vast number of parking tickets. You can have all the good will and intentions in the world, AND get up at 4AM to move your car across the street in compliance with the street sweeping ordinance, AND STILL get enough parking tickets to line a dumpster for a homeless person. In the course of three years in Hermosa I had something like $500 worth of tickets (in early '80s dollars), of which I paid none. Finally, when Kristen was about to be born and we were moving inland to get more space and HAVE A PLACE TO PARK, I went to court to plead NOT GUILTY to all of my tickets at the same time. That meant that every one of those freakish, deformed, and rodential meter geeks had to appear with me on a specified day in South Bay Municipal Court and whip some habeas corpus on me or forever hold his/her peace. ONE of the ten or so meter geeks showed up, most of the others had been fired, or quit, or promoted to rousting bums from dumpsters and beneath the pier. I paid about $60 of the $500 INCLUDING court costs, and laughed my ass off all the way home. I am a super careful driver, learned from my years of drunk driving in the '80s, and I got my first speeding ticket in ten years last year for going 77 in a 65. When I was pulled over on the Turnpike near Warren, I took my seatbelt off to reach over and get my wallet out of my backpack, and the freaking idiot gave me another ticket for failure to wear my seatbelt. I complained vociferously and probably would have ended up in jail or shot if the baby hadn't been asleep in the back seat. God, I was pissed. Spurred mostly by the seatbelt ticket, I resolved to fight it. I had to drive twice about 40 miles each way, which was inconvenient and time-consuming, but the seatbelt charge was dropped and the speeding ticket reduced to the lowest possible violation in a plea bargain. I paid $60, including court costs, for two charges that would have run almost $300 had I just paid them. Another reason to fight all of your tickets is that the courts would become hopelessly clogged and they would have to streamline the stupid process and even eliminate some of the stupid traffic laws like in some other sparsely populated Western states where they don't care if you drive naked backwards at 120mph drinking cocktails and snacking on vienna sausages. Back to Cleveland:
"You can't have it both ways," he said. "If you're going to give a ticket, then someone has to be there [in court]." Bob Beck, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, said part of the problem was that officers are expected to write large numbers of tickets, and they do - more than 120,000 last year. More tickets mean more subpoenas, which sometimes require officers to appear in more than one courtroom at the same time. Some judges and their clerks accommodate officers who are juggling court appearances, but others do not, Beck said. Besides, he added, officers sometimes don't learn they have been subpoenaed until they return from vacation, when the court date has already passed. "It's not a good system," Beck said. "It never has been." Party In Your Head In what is, without question, the longest post in the history of the blogosphere, Dawn hosts a virtual blogger's bash with A. Beam, Matt Moore, and Marc Weisblott. Well into the next century, students of free association and stream of consciousness will mine this fertile ore. The party even continued when the hostess finally came to freaking bed around 1:30AM or something like that: I don't know, I had finally fallen asleep having grown tired of waiting. At least there was nothing to clean up in the morning. In fact, now that I think of it - ALL parties should be virtual from now on, saving a lot of time, effort, expense, and worry of the part of parents - okay Kristen?? More Stupid Animals: Bunnies Eat Poop You cannot tell me there is no such thing as zeitgeist: I love animals and everything, blah, blah, blah, but I spend as much time thinking about them as I do thinking about vinyl siding. We went to the horsey restaurant Monday night for my brother Kirk's birthday (Happy Birthday, by the way) and visited the stables afterward, and here is Dawn and my mother fawning all over them and talking baby talk and all of that disgusting girl crap, and my main reaction was "these things are really big and smelly and I hope I don't step in any horseshit in my good shoes." I had to keep telling Lily "that may look like what comes out of the lawnmower, but I assure you, that is horse poop, so don't touch it." Damn. I SO don't get the whole horse thing: what the hell is it with women and horses? I have two cousins off in different directions who eat, sleep and drink oats. They live for their freaking horseys and it strikes me as so odd and misdirected. I can see why cowboys got all worked up about horses: they DEPENDED on them for transportation, and were with them all of the time when they weren't off drinking and whoring in the saloon, so of course they would develop a relationship - no problem - but these women do it voluntarily. For fun or something. Damn. Yet back to my original point: animals are the subject of three out of my last four posts. This is very weird. I found this cool new site - well they found me - called "Silflay Hraka", which means "bunnies eating poop" in Watership Down talk. I remember my sister going on and on about Watership Down when she was reading it years ago: "It's really great, and it's about bunnies who talk and think like people and blah, blah, blah," and I said "No thanks, I'll stick with Harvey." So anyway, "Bigwig" (not his real name) at Silflay Hraka put of a really funny list called "How to Know When We've Won the War On Terrorism." Here is #14-9:
13. Frederick's of Hollywood announces the Martha Stewart line of see-thru burkhas. 12. "Dykes to Watch Out For" is the newest addition to the Cairo Times comics section. 11. Debkafiles is reduced to running theatre reviews. 10. Mecca celebrates Mardi Gras, and the Saudi Girls get all the beads. 9. Andrew Sullivan links to Eric Olsen...wait, wrong list, that's from "How to know when the Apocalypse is nigh." UPDATE I've noticed a lot of this lately so I'm not picking on these guys, swear, but in America - land of the free, home of the brave - we put our periods INSIDE our quotation marks, unlike the twee British who put theirs outside. But then, they make pudding out of blood and shit, so make a note of that, please. Failing the IQ Test Since I am merely a conduit - a blank slate - for the events of this world, I must again pass on that there is much strangeness in the air: three times in the last week birds have flown into my windshield, thereby becoming ex-birds. You can go three YEARS driving a delivery truck through a freaking Wild Bird Santuary and not hit three birds. This is fodder for investigative environmentalists and birdy activists everywhere: what is suddenly making the birds so motherhumping stupid?? Here in semi-rural Ohio we have birds out the ass and they are always darting and diving around the vehicles. It seems to be a game for them - like "chicken," although they probably call it "person" - how close can you get to the great metallic moving boxes without getting thumped? Well someone is spiking the suet or contaminating the seed because these little peckers are way off of their games. I mean, sure I feel bad and everything, but as John Hawkins said here, I am more worried about my windshield. It's like a small bomb going off when they make contact and go flapping lamely off into the bushes. Bring back the Head Start project for fledglings or something, this is getting out of control. Wednesday, June 12, 2002
Field of Grumpiness David Hogberg has a suggestion for me: since I am unhappy to be leading Dawn's Grumpiest Blogger poll (although Bennett is sneaking up on the inside lane), I should point the pollers in his direction. He went thataway. Eat Them Nicely I might as well continue my pattern of hippity-hopping from left to right and back again: I love this new article by John Hawkins, "I Practice Speciesism," though I only agree with about half of it. This part rocks:
• I don't believe animals have any rights other than those that man gives to them. If animals want their rights, let them have a revolution, overthrow the humans, and then they can write their own Constitution. • When I hit a deer with my car a few months ago I was more concerned about my car than the deer. However, I did briefly consider sticking the deer in the trunk so I could take it home and eat it. • I don't have any moral qualms about neutering dogs although I'm sure they'd have strident objections to the idea if they could speak. • If I had to choose between saving the life of a human being and the life of an animal, it would be a no-brainer for me to choose the human. That would be the case even if the animal was cute and fuzzy and the human in question was Noam Chomsky...(OK, if the human was Yasser Arafat, you might have me but that's an extreme case!) • I don't think apes, dogs, or dolphins are particularly intelligent. If they're so smart let them write up their own articles to get across their point of view. I think eating animals is fine, although I am less thrilled about killing animals for sport. But that's more of a personal thing than a policy I would defend. I have no objections whatsoever to hunting for food. I am sympathetic to the karmic argument against taking animal life, but I care more about steak, pork roast, chicken, fish, etc. If the Bible says eat them, then eat them I will. I would agree with Hawkins' first point about animals having no rights other than what we give them, but I believe we owe it our Creator and to ourselves to be kind as possible to all living things, even if we decide to kill them and eat them. I remember an old Prairie Home Companion monologue where Keillor told about being present at the slaughter of a farm pig as a child and horsing around just prior to the kill, as children are prone to do. His uncle, or whoever the relative was, sternly reprimanded him that this was a sacred time, a time for seriousness and reflection as another living being was about to give its life for the benefit of ours. That really hit me and I agree with it - we shouldn't take the life of any creature frivolously, or for granted. But I'll tell you what: if some damn creature is bugging me, threatening me, eating my food, or in any way pissing me off, I'll kill it. Then Hawkins and I take divergent paths and I think I know why:
• If I have a choice between letting farmers get water for their crops or having enough water for some endangered salmon, the farmers will win out every time. • The majority of species on the planet were wiped out before man even hit the scene. So if spotted owls go the way of the raptors, I'm sure we'll do just fine without them. • I think the Endangered Species Act should be revoked. The Constitution says you can't be forced to quarter soldiers against your will, so why should private landowners be forced to quarter animals? Similar the ANWR argument: it isn't just the caribou, it's the fact that we have to maintain SOME relatively natural places - with an emphasis on those with special biodiversity - or there won't be any place left for Mother Nature to continue her experiments. We can't/shouldn't save it all, but we have to save some of it, and oil - which is relatively abundant throughout a significant portion of the earth - isn't a good enough reason to debilitate this one. Same argument with the Endangered Species Act: of course there are individual applications of it that appear absurd, but in general we DO want to preserve as many species as possible. This is just common sense besides good karma. There needs to flexibility on both sides of ecological issues: the tree-huggers and the bulldozers need to seek out those of good will from the other side of the divide and find areas of agreement that will result in neither devastation nor the absurdity of hospitals being moved for the benefit of flies. ReBush Last Friday Dave Roberts suggested I do an update of my six month review of Bush. I've been thinking about it and putting it off and all of a sudden it's almost a week later. Fortunately, I have been saved by Oliver Willis, who basically did it for me:
Now there's backpedaling on Iraq, and some of the most strident voices in favor of Israeli self defense have been from Democrats (like Sen. Clinton) while Bush has lamely preached restraint while continuing on his step-n-fetch it show for the Saudis. Usually on the namby-pamby peace and love train, the Democrats have given unprecedented support to the administration, a mandate to smash Al Qaeda and their supporters. But Bush seems to be squandering this. Instead of using Democratic support to be a "war era" preseident and coasting to reelection, the war on terror seems to be screeching and halting, new developments happening only when criticism of the administration heats up. We're supposed to cheer when Afghanistan attempts to rebuild its infrastructure, but the victory over the Taliban isn't and wasn't the goal of the entire conflict in the first place! The Dawn Chronicles Dawn tells the tale of our meeting from her perspective. It's sweet and a little sad, though the ending is "happily ever after" as far as I'm concerned. When we met I was at the end of five very difficult years: five years of dating inappropriately young, appearance-oriented women who were good for my ego but in no particular danger of taking up long-term residence in my life. Then I met Dawn: what I remember the most from our initial radio conversations was her befuddling combination of abuse and flattery. Very peculiar (things aren't all that different now). But as we talked on the phone more and more I became amazed by her perceptivity, her heart, her sense of humor, her sincerity, and her intelligence. I wanted to meet her. There were complications: she hadn't totally cut things off with the D.C. boyfriend, I still talked a fair amount about my previous girlfriends including the last one, the 22 year-old exotic dancer/centerfold. I was 37. I was eager to meet for the same reason she was hesitant: we knew we were falling in love and I wanted the 3-D confirmation that this was happening, and she didn't want the 3-D meet to mess things up. Finally we met at the radio station: remember I had just spent five years looking at nothing other than appearance. She was very beautiful but a little more curvy than the waifs I had been seeing, or my petite first wife for that matter. It took me that evening to recalibrate the thinking of much of a lifetime, but by the end of it, I knew deep down I was there. I was very, very afraid and confused, knowing deep down that this was in all likelihood THE person, but not knowing if I was ready for THE person. After a futile attempt at keeping her at arm's length, I gave up fighting, and after she went on a serious exercise regime, I REALLY gave up fighting. I don't think even Dawn knows how screwed up I was emotionally: how damaged I still was by the failure of my first marriage; how difficult it was to narrow the world of future possibilities, the endless unfolding of the women of the world, down to one woman. I'd like to think I was over it by the time we got married in June, 1998, but I don't think I really, really settled things in my addled brain until our honeymoon a few weeks later. Then I really knew that not only was she the right ONE - which I already knew - but that I wouldn't screw things up because I just couldn't handle it, couldn't handle the pressure of being with the right ONE. In many ways it's a lot easier being with NOT the right one because there is no pressure if things don't work out, WHEN things don't work out. In the four years since our marriage I have fallen more and more deeply in love with Dawn, a bottomless abyss of feeling. We have an incredible 2 year-old girl of our own. She is a tremendous stepmom. She is the love of my life. I am no longer afraid of such a thing. Has It Been Three Months Already? It's back and all I can say is SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP.................................and, SHUT THE FUCK UP. Consiberals Eric Raymond thinks both conservatives and liberals suck stagnant hosewater, calling conservatives "villains" and liberals "fools," a seeming double bind. Howard Owens says phooey:
For example, there are many conservatives who are pro-choice. Why? Because they believe that the right to privacy is a fundamental right. There are also conservatives who oppose the death penalty because they see it as a violation of due process. Meanwhile, there are liberals who oppose abortion as an affront to life itself. And they oppose the legalization of drugs because drug trafficking helps oppress people in third world nations. I could go through the whole laundry list of Raymond's "issues" and for most of them, find plausible conservative AND liberal positions. The notion of conservative or liberal is one of belief and principles, not positions or ideology. In fact, I think one of the major issues in American politics today, a chief reason politics is so screwed up, is that most people don't know what they believe or why. Too many people take positions based on the changing winds (including most politicians), which leads them into all kinds of contradictory, even hypocritical stances. Think of the vegan who supports abortion rights. Or the school prayer advocate who opposes religious use of peyote. I think it's important for people to identify whether their basic nature is either liberal or conservative and then construct their issue-based opinions on that foundation.
I want the government to spend the least it can to accomplish its mandate WELL: not adequately or marginally, but WELL. There are some problems that you CAN throw money at, but rarely is money the only answer. I believe in welfare reform: make the slackers work, break the cycle of indolence, but I don't want children to starve or even be particularly inconvenienced in their critical formative years. I also believe many issues work on the Fram Oil Filter principle of "pay me now or pay me later," and "now" is usually cheaper and more effective than "later." So what am I? I am not particularly confused on given issues, but I certainly am confused as to what the hell I am in the big scheme of things. If I was forced to choose one or the other, I guess I would reluctantly pick "liberal," but none of the following applies to me:
Liberals embrace egalitarianism. For the liberal, anything that makes us unequal, such as success in business, is bad. Conservatives believe we are equal in rights, equal in opportunity, but it is a law of nature that some people will achieve more. I do believe in certain immutable principles as voiced in the U.S. Constitution, but the application of those principles may change over time. And on and on. Hey, that's me. Cool Tunes - The Avalanches Guest columnist Dawn Olsen
This is what listening to the title track of Since I Left You, by Melbourne, Australia's The Avalanches, is like. This ethereal blend of soulful trip/hop conjures images of the Rascal's "Groovin" and Sly and the Family Stone's "Hot Fun in the Summertime," fused with the smoothest of Delfonics' earthy soul. The perfect day begins: hopping into your candy apple red convertible Mustang GT - top down of course - you begin the gorgeous drive to the perfect beach as warm air whips your hair into a frenzy. You are listening to this beautiful music. "Since I Left You" gracefully gives way to "Another Season," then "Radio," as they all blend into a perfect soulful, groovy backdrop. The white-sand beach awaits you. Plopping down your umbrella, you and your sweetheart crack open the frosty cold Coronas. You insert freshly cut limes, slather on the sunscreen and take a large gulp of your intoxicating brew. The local islander's smoke wafts by softly, giving you the perfect contact high. Now you are ready for "Two Hearts in ¾ Time" and "Avalanche Rock." The sun, the libations, and the warm smell of colitas lull you into a dreamy state as you float back and forth to the infectious grooves. This is trip-hop as God would have made it. As if the Avalanches were saying, "Don't sleep too long, my love," you're suddenly jolted back to Earth. It's time to party and "Flight Tonight" is just that. Now you're ready to take your honey on a globetrotting adventure replete with hot spots, paparazzi, and sweaty body moves on the dancefloor with the DJ spinning these nuggets: "Close To You" and "Diners Only." Let's shift things a bit now – the Avalanches don't want you to achieve climax too early. "A Different Feeling" is a hit of Ecstasy. Everything turns to love and good feeling good, "Electricity's" bleeps, bloops, and 70's funk sounds get all your parts moving and swaying. "Tonight" is just the right shot of romance, with alien piano loops reminiscent of a balmy night in Casablanca. Time to run to port to catch the train to "Pablo's Cruise." Hurry, or it may leave without you. Your high is at its peak – you have suddenly been transported into a Hunter S. Thompson novel and everything gets a little weird as you enter "Frontier Psychiatrist." Delirious children run amok; witch doctors probe your cranium; beautiful Arabic women dance around your dream. Is that Clint Eastwood over there with Sergio Leone at the end of the bar? The rush is beginning to die down and you breathe a little easier. It's time to relax and recoup your strength. "Etoh"'s lilting trance is just the shot of opium you need to take the edge off, and your love is whispering "take me home." You know what that means. "Summer Crane's" saccharine coma transforms your mate into a doting kitten purring in your lap, eager to please. Crossing the threshold to your cozy accommodations, "A Little Journey" adds a little spice and everything is oh so nice. "Live at Dominoes" gets everything bumping and grinding into a frenetic, feverish, fervor-filled session of orgasmic lovemaking. Ahhhhhhhh…. now it's time to eclipse into post-coital bliss as "Extra Kings" cradles you into a womb-like sleep. The perfect day is over, but you can always pop in this amazing CD to relive the memories. Thanks to Jim Treacher for kindly sharing this experience - or at least the CD - with me. Cool Tunes Playlist Cool Tunes is a radio show in a magazine format Saturday nights at 10pm (Eastern) on WAPS, "The Summit," in Akron, Ohio. I play new music, reissues, and preview shows coming to town each week. Musically it is among the widest-ranging 2 hours in the country: modern rock, punk, electronica, jazz, reggae and ska, roots rock, Americana, blues, world, funk, hip hop, avant garde, etc. - if it's cool I play it. Cool Tunes has been proudly serving humanity since 1990. 6/8/02 Artist, Song, Album, Label Green Day "Church On Sunday" Warning Reprise; Costello, Elvis "Oliver's Army" The Very Best Of Rhino; Southern Culture on the Skids "Liquored Up and Lacquered Down" Miss Congeniality soundtrack TVT; Edmunds, Dave "I Hear You Knocking" Rocker Parlophone; North Mississippi Allstars "Storm" 51 Phantom Artemis; Social Distortion "Bad Luck" Somewhere Between Heaven Epic; Sixer "Tired of Waiting" Beautiful Trash BYO; Thrice "The Bettsville Crucible" The Illusion of Safety Sub City; Podstar "Never Enough" Lovely32 Noisome; Hatfield, Juliana "Everybody Loves Me But You" Gold Stars 1992-2002 Zoe; Dressy Bessy "There's a Girl" Sound Go Round Kindercore; Ray, Amy "Late Bloom" Stag Daemon; K's Choice "Not An Addict" (live) Almost Happy Epic; Warlocks "Song For Nico" Rise and Fall Bomp; Atticus Fault "She's a Vision" Atticus Fault MCA; Bowie, David "Afraid" Heathen ISO/Columbia; Flaming Lips, The "Ego Tripping At the Gates of Hell" Do You Realize? EP Warner Brothers; R.E.M. "The Lifting" (Knobody) Remix Warner Brothers; Avalanches, The "Frontier Psychiatrist" Since I Left You Modular/Sire; Apes of God, The "Transpositional Landscapes" Transpositional Landscapes Oracular; Prodigy "Baby's Got a Temper" single Maverick; Oakenfold "Ready, Steady, Go" single Maverick; Queers, The "Get a Life and Live It" Pleasant Screams Lookout; Audio Karate "Senior Year" Punk Rock Is Your Friend Kung Fu; Rise Against "Reception Fades" The Unraveling Fat Wreck Chords; Montoya, Coco "Wish I Could Be That Strong" Can't Look Back Alligator; Kaukonen, Jorma "Blue Railroad Train" Blue Country Heart Columbia; Watson, Doc and Richard "Columbus Stockade Blues" Cool Blue Outlaws Sugar Hill; McCoy, Robert "Bye Bye Baby" Bye Bye Baby Delmark; Ferrell, Rachelle "With Every Breath I Take" Live In Montreux 91-97 Blue Note; Baker, Chet "My Funny Valentine" (inst) Deep In a Dream Pacific Jazz; Rypdal, Terje "Orren" Rarum 1-8 ECM No Excuse for Prejudice Before I quit stalling and write up my weekly Cool Tunes playlist, I want to talk a little bit about prejudice - namely mine. I check out blogs all the time and communicate with a lot of bloggers. I like them - really - and almost all of my communication has been positive. Unfortunately the negative stuff - of my own doing I freely admit - gets most of the attention, this being the real world and all. I have at least communicated with most of the obvious people, and if you include the one-degree of separation of my wife, my circle of bloggy familiars is quite broad. When the Bear put up his link ranking system I was pleasantly surprised to find how many "top" bloggers I have become friendly with in my 4 1/2 months on the bloggy highway. But I also noticed one of the very top guys - Sgt Stryker, now revealed as Paul (can't find any name other than "PBR" on his site now, though he is of the "Palubicki" clan) - who I had not communicated with, and whose site I had never even LOOKED at. Hmm. Last week Doc, who is my bud, linked to him in reference to this whole blog philosophy debate going on regarding community vs. individualism. The Sarge was way individualistic and I have come out for a certain amount of responsibility inherent in taking part, but his post was very well written and made a lot of sense. I made a comment on his site, he responded and made even more sense. Then he made another post that was REALLY anti-community:
I don't like communities. Whenever someone mentions community or neighborhood, I think of those neighborhood associations that tell you what you can and can't do with your own house. You have to mow your lawn, no you can't paint your shudders that color, get that flag down, you have too much playground equipment in your backyard, we don't like your drapes, my husband can't see into your bedroom window so would you please move your dresser 4 inches to the right, thank you very much. Fuck that.
I guess it's better if I explain this in a micro/macro fashion. Sullivan's behavior, and other's subsequent reaction, is the micro. It was a single, clear example of the individual vs community thing. When I saw Doc Searls pick it up, and use the "it's a big fuck you" in relation to Sullivan's broken permalinks, it really piqued my interest. As you say, if Sullivan's playing the game, he ought to follow the rules. If he's offering permalinks, then they should work. That was the micro issue. Now Doc picked up the non-working permalinks bit and expanded it into a whole thing over a series of posts about people who don't link to others in the course of their posts (as a reference or source) or don't have some sort of blogroll on their site. That's what got me to thinking about the macro issue. Are people under any obligation to link to anyone else? Why would people have a problem with non-linkage? Does it threaten a sense of community and if so is such a community a good thing? To try to get an answer to these questions, I've spent a lot of my recent online roaming time reading the technoblogs, the warblogs and personal journals to get a feel for where they're coming from, what they advocate and loathe, and what their beliefs are concerning blogs and their place in the world. What I found was that those who are fiercely in favor of maximum linkage and are quite snarky when they see someone not towing the line tend to have a general sense of community and consider those who do not follow their conventions as pariahs that should get with the program. There is also a strong streak of "blog evangelism" among these types. I also found that those who are not big into linking (judging from the scarcity of links on their sites), don't have that same sense of community and are not as concerned whether someone links to them or not. The general feeling I get from these people is that for them, the blog is merely a tool for personal empowerment and ego gratification. It allows them to write and to speak their mind, and that's all they really seem to want. So it seemed to me that linking seems to be the keystone of community. Links help bind a loose community of bloggers together and also help re-inforce ties in the form of a blogroll. Those who have a greater sense of community naturally value links because they realize in some sense that they are important for maintaining and expanding a community. When people start talking about "community", I become worried because of my own personal experiences online. Once people realize they are part of a community, they become protective of it and wish to preserve it. Much navel-gazing ensues wherein the members of the community explore what makes them special, and they want to protect that "specialness" from threats real or imagined. It's pretty much downhill from there. From my experiences, such a thing has always been disasterous. All the creativity and goodwill collapses into little sects of people who are constantly bickering and sniping at each other. Now is there a happy medium between communities and individuals? I don't know. I do know that this blogging business is a good thing, and I don't want it to have a bunch of baggage tied to it. I started thinking about why this surprised me, and why I hadn't bothered to check in on his well-known site in all of this time. Then it hit me: the military. I am all for our military kicking ass and taking names wherever necessary, and I truly grieve whenever one of ours gets killed or injured, and I am very proud of our military AS A WHOLE. But it occurred to me: I am prejudiced against military people. I pride myself on my open-mindedness, but here I was making generalizations about an entire class of people - people who defend my way of life every day of the year - without really being aware of it. The anonymity part was a factor: I am bugged by not knowing who a person "really" is. I figure if I have to take personal responsibility for what I say, everyone should have to; but mostly it was the military part. This sucks on my part. I grew up in San Pedro , CA, home of Fort MacArthur, "a U.S. Army post which guarded the Los Angeles harbor from 1914 to 1974." It wasn't a "real" fort like F-Troop or anything: just a drab, kind-of-scary assemblage of low buildings behind a fence. It was ugly, forbidding, and sometimes you would hear about soldiers getting drunk and beating people up. I knew some kids in school who had military parents and they seemed fine, but the whole military-life thing seemed weird and alien. There are really three military units in my mind: individually, people are basically cool; collectively THE MILITARY is worthy of respect and admiration, even affection; but in small groups these motherfuckers are best avoided. Too much pent-up energy and testosterone and hostility in one place, especially when alcohol is involved. When I was in Japan in the summer of '79 there was some big incident with U.S. military people going apeshit and terrorizing the locals; when we were in Korea for the Olympics in '88 the first thing a Korean cab driver asked when we hopped in was were we military? And if we were, "Get the fuck out of my cab." Obviously, these problems primarily apply to young, hopped up trainees released from bondage and itching for a fight, but prejudice is a broad brush that often colors where it is least appropriate or expected. I am guilty. The current military of professional volunteers is an entirely different animal than that to which I was exposed as a child anyway. Elements of my prejudice have included: dumb, boring, routine, pack-oriented, unimaginative, dangerous, hostile. I am now aware of this and will strive to fight it. Other than perhaps "dangerous" - this is the military after all and they are supposed to be dangerous - Paul, Sgt. Stryker is none of these things. I wonder what other stupid shit is clogging up my brain. Sleep=Cheerful Yesterday my son finished up the 9th grade with THREE finals - the kid was spent. So, today was the first non-holiday weekday in nine months I didn't have to get up to take him to school. I'm not sure if I can explain in words the difference between six and eight hours sleep makes upon my disposition. Today I noticed the warmth in the air, the effulgence of green everywhere; hey, it's summer! I don't want to be the Grumpiest Blogger, and that's not my natural inclination. I am so looking forward to the next three months of better sleep and a little more time off to fart around. Man does not live by the blog alone. Now if only I could figure out a way to write full-time and make some fucking reasonable money. This is the dilemma for a 43 year-old married man with three kids. Yeah, yeah, you guys kicking in some loose change to the PayPal would be nice - please do it in fact - but that is not going to add up to the $100K+ my lifestyle requires, now is it? Tuesday, June 11, 2002
The Big Picture Whenever there is a REAL meta-blogging issue, I turn to Jeff Jarvis, because he stands astride all camps and sees the VERY BIG PICTURE. He does not disappoint re the NY Times blogger article from yesterday:
And nobody should give a rat's rump who got there first. There is a very big graveyard in California today filled with tombstones for first movers and early adopters. Being there first plus $1.50 gets you a chance to ride the NY subways and get nerve-gassed. I live on both sides of this alleged divide. I was there early. Nick Denton introduced me to Blogger and, as a result, my company invested in Pyra and I also ended up on the board of Plastic.com Personally, I did not start blogging until September 11 -- because I didn't have something to say until that day and after that day, I had so much to say and needed a place to say it. Blogger provided the incredibly easy tools to make it easy for me to join. The war bloggers should be grateful to the tech bloggers for helping invent the simple tools. The tech bloggers should be grateful to the warbloggers for helping to spread this wonderful technology. And both sets of bloggers had damned well better hope that all kinds of new bloggers follow and if they have half a brain, they'll be generous and welcoming to every one of them. The Poll Is Over After a leisurely tour of all of blogdom, the Sexiest Female Blogger poll is over. I won't spoil the secret of who won, but I will tell you that MY sexiest blogger came in a very respectable, if undervalued 6th out of 35. I will choose to see the cup as half-full, since I am appallingly leading Dawn's Grumpiest Blogger poll right now and clearly need to mend my ways. A Friend In the Region What is the only country in the region to support Israel? What country in the region refuses to join the "despotic" Arab League? What Islamic-plurality country affords women a large role in government, including full voting rights and a constitutional affirmative action mandate for women to hold at least one-third of the seats in the legislature? What regional country severed relations with Sudan in 1994 because of its relationship with Osama bin Laden? What regional country is striving to be a free-market democracy, private-property rights, vast natural resources, a 700-mile coast along the Red Sea? The answer to all of the above is Eritrea. Eritrea is profiled by Joel Mowbray in NRO:
Located just across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, many in the Pentagon eye Eritrea as a valuable strategic ally in the Mideast, particularly for an eventual assault on Iraq. Still recovering from the ravages of war — a two-and-a-half year border dispute with Ethiopia ended nearly two years ago — Eritrea is likewise very interested in a tighter alliance. Forging a closer relationship with Eritrea — U.S. Special Forces already train their soldiers and the Marines conduct cooperative exercises there — could increase our profile in the region, improving our standing with Arab nations. "An open partnership would heighten [United States] leverage with other Arab nations by showing that going after Saddam is not just wishful thinking," says a senior administration official. Gen. Tommy Franks has made several recent trips to Eritrea, and various reports from Voice of America and the foreign press last month confirm he has discussed basing issues with the Eritrean government. At least some of the necessary infrastructure for a military base is in place, with a new, fully functional, modern-day airport in the port city of Massawa, which the United States has been given the option of utilizing for a military base.
In 1974, a Marxist military junta known as the Derg ousted the Ethiopian emperor in a coup. But the political upheaval did little to change the country's attitude toward the Eritreans, as Derg strongman Mengistu Haile Miriam continued the fight against the EPLF. By 1977, the EPLF, led by Issaias Afwerki, seemed to be on the verge of driving the Ethiopians out of Eritrea. However, a cache of arms airlifted by the Soviet Union to Ethiopia enabled the Derg to regain the upper hand and forced the EPLF to retreat. Between 1978 and 1986, the Derg launched eight major offenses against the freedom fighters, mostly unsuccessful. For the Eritreans, the big break in fighting came in 1988, when the EPLF captured Afabet, the Ethiopian Army headquarters in Northeastern Eritrea, prompting the army's withdrawal from the western lowlands. Later, the Soviet Union informed Mengistu that it would not be renewing Ethiopia's defense and cooperation agreement. Ethiopian Army morale plummeted and, with that, the EPLF and other Ethiopian rebel forces began to advance. In May 1991, the Mengistu regime fell and rebels captured Ethiopia's capital of Addis Ababa. Defeating Ethiopian forces in Eritrea, the EPLF took control of their homeland. Talks with the four major war combatants began in London that month to formalize the end of the 30-year war.
The fighting generally subsided, replaced by a huge troop and weapons build-up from each side. By February 1999, tens of thousands of troops had poured into the front that ran along the two countries' 600-mile border. That month, fighting resumed anew in the disputed border area of Badame, claiming heavy casualties on both sides. In late February 1999, Ethiopia declared victory in the war and Eritrea acknowledged losing most of the ground it has occupied since the summer.
Another Voice For the Wall Jim Hoagland in the WaPo:
And 60 percent believe that new physical means of separation are necessary to decrease terror attacks. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon approved last week a 65-mile line of defense along the West Bank frontier similar to the high-tech perimeter in place around Gaza. It will take at least a year and $100 million to erect the fence, which will at some points be a wall up to 26 feet high, at others a set of electronic detection devices and scattered military checkpoints. It will roughly retrace one segment of the 215-mile-long Green Line that separated Israel and the pre-1967 West Bank, and quarantine the towns of Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarm and Qalqilyah. Coexistence arrangements that do not insult the future are a responsible goal for now. Overreaching, either for the diplomatists' final peace settlement or the generals' unattainable total destruction of the other side, would be folly. It is a moment for clear thinking that is modest and focused on saving lives. Strolling Down the Layne I'm not sure which version of Ken Layne I like best. I love the formal political humorist as appears in his FoxNews.com column. I really like it when he has time to set up his set pieces:
Based on ignored CIA and FBI intelligence, I've put together a handy list of warning signs every parent should print out and hang on the fridge. Should your teen-ager exhibit any of the below-listed behaviors, please just lock him up in the basement or something. Maybe he'll grow out of it, eventually, 40 years from now. Don't bother calling the federal authorities ... they're all busy blaming the other federal authorities for not finding your little terrorist in the first place.
Rants about "72 black-eyed virgins" whenever you ask why he's not interested in girls. Watches the movie "Airplane" and wonders aloud why a guy named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was in the cockpit yet didn't fly the jet into a building. Volunteers as a janitor at the university medical center's radiology clinic. Always the last to leave.
Whenever he whines about poverty (which is all the time), I encourage him to spend one day on a simple outline. I have repeatedly offered to edit and fine-tune this thing, collect some of his best articles as evidence, and send the package to a few agencies I know would be interested. He will not do it. It would be a terrific book, both an important history and a primer for anyone covering or following Rancid Ralph's 2004 campaign. It would sell well in hardback (Christmas 2002) and paperback (fall of 2003, with an updated edition released at Christmas 2004). But I've also heard nothing but the best about his novel, reviews here, including these intriguing words from Jim Treacher:
More South Asian Cheer I noted early yesterday that things seem to be heading in the right direction between India and Pakistan. More good news today:
As Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld headed to the region to keep the pressure on, Indian and Pakistani forces fired artillery and small arms across their border in disputed Kashmir overnight, killing at least seven people. The ship movement came a day after India announced it would allow Pakistani aircraft to fly over its territory after a six-month ban.
But in each case, the missiles stayed in their silos. The Indians and Pakistanis are doing the same thing, and they're not likely to end up using their nukes either. Nuclear deterrence worked in the Cold War, and it should work in South Asia. India, which enjoys conventional military superiority, has no reason to go nuclear first. Musharraf may threaten to respond to an Indian incursion by raising mushroom clouds over New Delhi. But he and his military officers know that would only assure an all-out Indian response that would turn Pakistan into a radioactive desert. So even a ground war in Kashmir isn't likely to lead to nuclear war. ....The matters that divide the two countries, in short, are not trivial but terribly important--important enough to risk war and even to endure war. Neither, though, is deluded enough to think it can win a nuclear exchange. Both have a powerful interest in avoiding that scenario. Both think they can manage the confrontation without precipitating catastrophe. So far, they've been right. UPDATE Chris Suellentrop of Slate echoes the "talk war, wage peace" theory of the situation as expressed earlier in these pages by Ernest Lefever:
Many critics of India argue that Vajpayee's bellicose rhetoric was designed to boost his party's support at the polls, and perhaps that's true. But the alternatives were worse. After all, actual wars have been started to boost political parties at the polls. If a little tough talk and chest-thumping was required to keep some of the hard-liners in Vajpayee's party behind him, so be it. What's remarkable about the conflict isn't that India and Pakistan were on the brink of nuclear war, it's that the two countries didn't start blowing each other up immediately after militant terrorists assaulted India's parliament in December. Think of it this way: Talk of peace brought only more war, so perhaps this time Vajpayee gambled that talk of war would bring more peace. Crossblog Traffic (With Apologies to Hendrix) And while the meta mood prevails, I got an email from Glenn "Mac" Frazier today asking about my thoughts on traffic. My short answer: I couldn't be less interested. Okay, I lied. I find myself, at times, almost fanatically interested, which is counterproductive in the long run. There are things I can do at any given time to spike my traffic - which is public by the way, and has averaged just over 20,000 "visits" (around 25,000 "page views") a month since April, or around 666 per day (we are the devil's blog) - like write something specifically tailored to appeal to a given high-traffic blogger, or write something that I think will have broad-based appeal and send out an email to those I think will be interested. But I find that all of this takes time and diverts my attention from following my semi-unguided inclinations, which when followed, ALWAYS end up getting more unforced attention, hence regular readers, hence traffic I can count on in the long run. For what is this all about? Maximal attention, certainly, but deep down it's about communication, and "traffic" isn't synonymous with communication. We have about 600 readers now, steadily growing, on a given weekday without a heavy link. That is our core - they come because they want to, not because someone told them to. The best way to make that number grow is to get the exposure afforded by an InstaLink, a Best of the Web, Daily Pundit, Virginia, Kaus (not yet); or lately, my dear wife Dawn, or TBOTCOTW, Den Beste, etc., (there are many, many others and you know they/you are), and then PROVIDE CONTENT that will spur people to return ON A REGULAR BASIS. Re the last part, you will say, "obviously," but this is the crux of the matter: you have to write what most interests you and captures your own attention or you will not be able to sustain it, become frustrated, and give up. The key is to trust your own judgment and instinct enough to not freak when traffic slows down for a day, or even a week. There are often extenuating circumstances that are beyond your control and are attributable to the calendar, world events, sunspots, menstrual cycles, yo mama. Even InstaMan was scratching for hits on Memorial Day Weekend. People had better things to do than fiddle with their computers. This brings up weekends. Traffic is down. Den Beste says 30%. I find mine - again, barring a biggy link - goes down as much as 40-50%. The longer you are in business, the more "regular" your regulars will be, I imagine. Although we have made great strides quite quickly, we've still only been up for 4 1/2 months, and people have only known of us since the end of March when we got our first InstaLink. Before the InstaLink we had averaged about 50 visits per day, since the InstaLink about 666 per day, bringing the OVERALL total to 404 per day as of this very moment. But remember, that overall daily average has to constantly fight against the dead weight of the first two months at 50 per day. So I'm pretty darn happy about things overall. Then there is Dawn: she's been at it for only two months and her OVERALL average is 601 per day, with over 800 a day so far in June. Of course she had the advantage of writing for us periodically before she started her own blog, and I did my best to help her with marketing (for that's what it is) from the beginning: we got her InstaLinked on her VERY FIRST DAY, a booster shot that generated over 1000 immediate friends. But mistake me not: I take no credit for her success because even if I helped get people there in the first place, her force-of-nature personality, writing, humor, creativity, sexiness, and joie de vivre have kept them coming back with a vengeance. I am very curious to see how things go for my good friend Matt Moore at TBOTCOTW, now that the all time hit-cow, the Sexiest Female Blogger poll, is over. I'd like the hear the exact numbers, but that dude went from about 14 total hits two weeks ago to over 23,000 as of today. I'm exaggerating only slightly. That thing has been the most BO, BO, BO of BONANZAS. Part of the reason the poll has done so well for him, though, is that peple have liked what they have seen and come back again and again. They may have come the first time for the sex, but they came back for the Matt. I'm sure his numbers will drop off to a certain extent, but he has found a throng of new fans who like HIS personality, writing, humor, etc., and they will stick around to see what he does next. That's the way it's supposed to work. For someone so attuned to traffic, we use a primitive tool: the free version of Site Meter. We don't get very much referrrer information. The only way I can find out who linked me is to note when the spikes occur, look at the subject matter published around that time, and search around manually to find the linker. Sometimes it's just regular traffic flow: mid-morning, midday, early-evening all generate their own natural spikes as people get to work, take lunch, and finish up work. There is also a cool late-night spike here in the East when the West Coasters start rooting around on their computers in the evening. Which brings me back to the main point: do your own thing and people will find their way to you. I am interested in many things, so I jump around, knowing that some people like some stuff better than others, but that it all comes out pretty even in the end. Aggressive marketing can speed things up, but in the long run the quality of your site will either interest people or it won't; and the surest way to to interest them is to do what interests you. With that approach you also get the side benefit of actually enjoying what you are doing, which should sustain you through the lean days/weeks/months, even if you are checking your traffic feverishly every half-hour. UPDATE I forgot to mention, especially now that people are putting in comments sections on Blogger/Blogspot sites, THE ABSOLUTE BEST WAY TO DRAW THE ATTENTION OF ANY BLOGGER IS TO PUT COMMENTS ON HIS/HER SITE. Even more than email, which can come in downpours and be overwhelming, the best way to get the attention of a given blogger is to write pithy comments on his/her site. I ALWAYS check my comments, always look at the commenter's site and make note of it. THIS SHOULD BE A VERY LARGE HINT. If you like the give and take of debate, this is the way to go. Thanks. Courtesy and Silver Linings Time for some good old metablogging. I appreciate courtesy. Even when I am attacking the shit out of someone I try to be courteous about it, at least in the form of admitting mistakes. This is, in fact, the difference between the nonsense of a few weeks ago and the Bikini Wars debate of this weekend: Den Beste plays by the rules, is courteous, and Sullivan doesn't, isn't Even in the heat of rather heated debate, Den Beste linked all of my statements, as well as posts on the subject by others. Even when Sullivan acknowledged the legitimacy of my complaint he didn't link me: twice. This rather neatly summarized and confirmed the substance of my complaint: he was discourteous even while discussing courtesy, pretty amazing really. The net result of all of this is that through Den Beste's links to those who wrote on the subject, I found another crop of interestng blogs to check out. This post from Kevin Whited focuses on my intro to the original piece, where I took some satisfaction in finding fault with the Captain. As I have now stated several times elsewhere, this was meant to be a compliment regarding his erudition and acumen. That's all. Whited's rather obsequious (toward Den Beste) post neither mentions me by name nor links me - discourteous - and praises Francis Fukuyama - dubious at best. I can only guess that he did not bother to go to my site to read the actual post, not wanting to cloud his mind with facts. I imagine I shall not return this way in the foreseeable future, but then again, just the other day monkeys flew out of my butt and circled overhead. One of them crapped on my computer. Moira Breen named and linked me - thanks - and agreed that
I can certainly understand a taste that finds the string bikini lewd and less sexy than either nudity or more modest clothing, and that most women ought to stay out of thongs. (Technical aside here: there is a distinction between a string bikini and a thong bikini.) Still, there's something a bit too fastidious about someone whose first reaction to a good-looking young woman in a string bikini is to fret that the style doesn't promote the illusion of a tiny butt. Eric must be quite the man of exacting taste if he finds thongs unflattering to those shapely tushies he links to. But, to each his own.
What a load of twaddle. Most of our myriad sexual interactions are "no go". By this definition just about all female sexual display is "hostile", since most females have not the slightest interest in having sexual relations with any but a tiny percentage of the men who are attracted to them. Modest little black dresses that are nonetheless sexy as hell must thereby be "hostile". Outrageous but "non-goal oriented" flirtation - hostile. And asexual. Huh?
I will return to Moira, who at least writes in a spirited manner if with questionable logic. This brings me to the real find of this exercise, a rather self-effacing gentleman named Lex Gibson. Den Beste doesn't actually link him, but links to Jen who links to him. Lex strikes me as an eminently fair-minded individual, who, though he was unfamiliar with me, seems to have wanted to weigh both sides of the argument before passing judgment:
10 years ago, I used to go out quite regularly and Try To Get Laid. I wasn't very good at it. I had a couple of Training Relationships, as young people are wont to have, and gained some perspective on what I wanted in a partner. I was certainly not looking for marriage at this point in my life. 5 years ago, I was in a relationship with The Woman Who Set The Standard By Which All Others Are Judged. I was in love. And she had Everything going for her (including a really cool boyfriend, though I say so myself). The relationship with her set the bar pretty high. This is The One That Got Away. Now that relationship is over, and I'm at a point in my life where I'd like to find the One. But that doesn't just happen. And I don't expect every girl that grabs my attention to Be the One. There's sort of a triage at work here. So I go out quite regularly and Try To Get Laid. The difference here is that I can go out and look at a 20 year old girl and find her attractive. But it's been my experience that 20 is too young for me. I've slept with dated enough younger women that I know that they are highly unlikely to have what I'm looking for, even for a short term partner. But I still look, and I still appreciate. Unfortunately, if I'm in a club, and you've got an 'X' on your hand, you're too young to ride this ride. Instead, I look for women nearer my age. The perspective that I have chosen on the matter tells me that this is a better choice for me. Would I rather still be with a girl that had the body of a 20 year old and the maturity of a 35 year old? You bet. And it wouldn't matter how old she actually is.
I don't know Mr. Olsen. At all. And I'm certainly not passing judgement on him. (Since I don't know him, I'm rather unqualified for that, dontcha know?) But he seems to be missing the perspective of someone who can look at pretty girls merely for the sake of looking at pretty girls. It's likely to be a function of where he is in his life (He's married, I think?) and where he's been. But other people, I think, can achive a pretty clear separation between what we want to look at, and what we want to interact with. Girlwatching is a harmless diversion. I like eye-candy. I also like women that I can interact with. I can even talk to one woman while watching another - it's that fast paced multitasking brain that I have. And while I'm at it, I can appreciate both.
He seems to be confusing sex with love. I do this all the time, sub-consciously. It's impossible for me to sleep with someone and not care about them forever after. Which is why I choose to avoid sleeping with women that are too young. But I couldn't choose to not find them attractive.
The women most attractive to a middle-aged man should be those with whom he could have an actual relationship. Beauty isn't only found in the very young, and the combination of physical beauty with some actual life experience is vastly more sexy than the callow beauty of youth alone - that is if you find actual living, breathing women more sexy than stereotypical abstractions. There are any number of people out there that like to tell you how you ought to feel and ought to behave. Pay them no mind. The problem here is that if you're wired like most of us, you don't have a choice about what you find sexually attractive. What you have a choice about is how you behave around someone you find sexually attractive. I am an unrepentant round-heeled, flat-backed slut. But I can still separate thought from action. I can look without touching, and I can know that it's probably a very bad idea for me to get involved with someone much younger than I am. I hate one night stands. With this in mind, it's entirely not in my self-interest to sleep with someone that I can't maintain a conversation with. And that's what keeps me from doing it. If I met a twenty year old that I found was mentally stimulating, would I go for it? Perhaps, but the odds are stacked hard against that happening. I believe that most people learn that as they get older that relationships with younger people will tend to be less fulfilling. And I'm thinking that that is what Mr. Olsen was trying to put across. Maybe.
After my attempt at a wrap-up yesterday, Gibson had this to say:
Eric Olsen answers all of my objections - or perhaps I should say "all of the objections that I voiced, and some that I kept in reserve". He doesn't name me, of course, but I know you were talking to me! Heh. As if The lexfiles is even a blip on his referrer log. In any case, it's a good conclusion to the topic. He hits on the married with 18 year old daughter thing, which fairly well places his perspective on the issue. It struck me as kind of amusing that even though I even included the "Bikini Wars" byline, I actually don't have much to say on them. I still don't. Sometimes they work for me, sometimes they don't. Pretty much like every other kind of clothing I can think of. It's more about what the girl looks like. Eric also (mis)linked to this piece by Eric Raymond on pornography usually being bad. That sentiment raised my ire of course, until reading it and finding that the author was merely stating that usually, [instances of] pornography are bad. Which I can deal with. I get in moods where I actually like bad porn, not for the reasons Mr. Raymond would attribute to me, but that's beside the point. The point here is that I can understand why somebody would have something against instances of porn that are "bad porn". Which brings me to my final thought. I have a thing for good Bad movies (For Instance, "Hudson Hawk"), and good Bad novels (pretty much anything by Carl Hiassen). There's gotta be good Bad porn out there. Complete with bow-chikka-chikka-bow-bow music. Just a thought. This post is getting really long, but John "Akatsukami" Braue also has some interesting things to say even though he calls me an "idiot" (in a nice way):
The male mind is strange and fascinating. Whenever guys act like....well, guys...it's so easy to feel superior to them and to think of them as nothing more than horny adolescents. And yet, men can be fascinating conversationalists, capable of profound insight. Why are there so few (if any) great female philosphers, composers, artists, etc? You can make the argument that it's because throughout most of history women have been repressed and forced into the traditional roles of wife and mother. There is some merit to that argument but I think that to completely dismiss the disparity in acheivement based on this one feminist theory is to deny reality. Finally, Gena Lewis of Spinsters makes some excellent points, especially about genetic determinism and even lightly thumps InstaMan re same, Jeff Goldstein is as hilarious and disturbing as usual, and Glenn himself makes some fine points and some dubious points. But I already knew those guys. UPDATE I'll tell you what! You think my original post on the matter was dripping with abstract idealism? Au contraire, mon frere. New dude, the firey Armed Liberal, takes it to another level. And you know what? He's right. I love the interactive, communicative aspect of computers. I hate that virtual shit, and that's what porn and ogling (looking=okay, ogling=creepy) are all about. Go to it, buddy:
It’s not just p0rn, it’s the NBA and NFL and NASCAR: the replacement of sport in which we can participate - at the park, or rink, or even local dirt-track - with spectacle, in which hundreds of participants entertain tens of millions of spectators. The idea that we would ‘professionalize’ sex in the same ways that we have professionalized sports and entertainment appalls me. I try to explain to my sons…who all have a healthy teenage interest in the female form…that it’s better to hold hands and smooch with a real girl than to jerk off to pictures of someone you’ll never meet, much less get to go to bed with. I also love the part about "core human experience." That's what sex should be: that's what makes it human and not just BIOLOGY. That's why we are better than the bees and the bunnies: because they just hump to satisfy instinctive impulses to perpetuate the species, the "selfish gene." We can be above that, and at our best we are above that. A.L. and I believe we SHOULD be above that whenever possible. There's more:
Grommets and Soles Per Andy at World Wide Rant, Americans seem curiously eager to hand over their privacy in pursuit of security:
Concern about future threats is the backdrop for public sentiment on these issues. Today 55 percent of Americans, the most since Sept. 11, lack confidence in the government's ability to prevent further attacks — up more than 20 points since the night of Sept. 11, as the nature and extent of the dangers have come more sharply into focus. Support for Intrusion At times of national crisis the public's priority is the mitigation of threat. Seventy-nine percent say it's more important right now to investigate terrorism, even if that means intruding on personal privacy. Just 18 percent say it's more important not to intrude on privacy, even if that limits counterterrorism efforts. More specifically, most Americans support expanded FBI surveillance authority even though the majority, 62 percent, sees it as an encroachment on individual privacy rights. Even among those who see it as an intrusion, 52 percent support it anyway. Still, as in the past, this poll underscores the public's preference for such intrusions to be as targeted and limited as possible. Among those who think the new FBI authority does not intrude on personal privacy, 86 percent support it. Among those who think it intrudes "somewhat," 61 percent support it. But among those who think it intrudes "a great deal," support plummets to 30 percent. Anxiety seems higher now than it has been for some time, with a very large shoe suspended above us in the clouds. All of this intelligence and Homeland Security Office work is to prop up that shoe and build sturdy scaffolding under it while it is ripped apart and hauled away in manageable pieces like yesterday's foiled "dirty bomb" attack. That's a shoelace, or a sole, or a grommet , or some damn piece of the Big Shoe in the Sky. Another source of anxiety is the fact that we won't know when the Shoe has been deconstructed, or if it is even possible to fully deconstruct it; but man, we want that scaffolding as secure as possible in the meantime. The challenge is to find the proper balance between scaffolding and personal freedoms. I am willing to give up some convenience: at airports, at the border, upon entering public events, but not fundamental rights. We must also be extremely vigilant that politics and security concerns not become hopelessly entangled:
....After touring the water plant and speaking at a local school, Bush turns to politics by raising money for Talent in an effort to wrest control of the Senate from the Democrats. Political analysts believe Talent, who spent eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives, has a reasonable chance of ousting Carnahan, who was appointed to a two-year term to the Senate seat won by her late husband, Mel Carnahan. Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash three weeks before the 2000 election but his name remained on the ballot and he beat then-incumbent Sen. John Ashcroft, allowing Missouri's governor to name Carnahan's wife to the seat for two years. Talent and Sen. Carnahan are vying for the term's remaining four years. Bush named Ashcroft to be U.S. attorney general. Monday, June 10, 2002
Small Tiger World Though as often as not I get nuked in the comments section, I have also met some fascinating readers and some great bloggers that way. Take Sheauga of the delightful Sassafrass Log. She has more varied and interesting links than the proposed fence around Israel (including a number of foreign language blogs), with a special emphasis on science, art, and coolness: kind of like the Whole Earth Catalog. Now I find out she is a fellow member of the Chagrin Falls HS (Tigers) class of '75!!! Now I have to find out who the heck she is since I don't recall any "Sheauga's" and there is nothing whatsoever about her on the site (that I can find). Amazing. Anyway, she has a very interesting post today on everyone's friend/enemy, savior/demon: caffeine
Why the obsession with sleep and staying awake? Because I have worked at jobs which required top mental alertness, and my 9-hours-of-sleep, night owl body clock is at odds with the rest of the world. Since it's tough to prioritize the requisite 2-3 hours of daily light aerobics for getting by with less sleep, I'm always on the prowl for alternatives. Up In Liberal Arms Howard Owens and I were discussing the difference between a "hawk" liberal and a conservative awhile back. Howard has now codified his position and it's quite enlightening:
Nor can government perpetually provide hand holding services for every person who encounters economic hardship. The purpose of welfare, from a conservative point of view, is not to ensure a lifetime endowment (hell, before welfare reform, it used to be a generational endowment) for poor people. It is supposed to be a safety net. It is supposed to be a system that helps people become productive members of society. But because conservatives believe in individual initiative and accountability, we are often called heartless. To me, conservatives have never done a very good job of answering this charge. Conservatives don't want to see people get jobs and pay taxes because we have a cruel streak. We want to see people become productive because it is good for their health and self-esteem and contributes to the overall welfare of society. Yes, the rich get richer, but the poor get richer as well. Why are these values anathema to liberals? They are values that any caring, sympathetic person should embrace. Spirits Stephen Green, he of the famous neutral spirits site, has rearranged his roloblogdex: I am a "Micro Brew," spitting out small quantities of heady refreshment, and Dawn is a "Tequila Shot." Yes, she'll be the one dancing on the bar soon. Welfare Reform From the Horses Mouth, So to Speak David Hogberg is not only an excellent blogger, but he is a real policy maker in his own right as a research analyst with the Public Interest Institute in Iowa. He just published a very important study on welfare reform that should be of interest to many, not the least of whom is Mickey Kaus:
A study that I authored and released today by the Public Interest Institute, examines the reform vs. economy question. Titled “The Decline in Welfare Caseloads in the United States and Iowa: Reform or the Economy,” it looks at month-to-month and quarter-to-quarter changes in welfare caseloads in both the U.S. and the state of Iowa from 1977 to 2001. Using a statistical procedure called “Time Series Regression,” it gauges the effect that welfare reform in the 1990s had on caseloads. At the same time, it controls for numerous economic factors, including the unemployment rate, gross domestic product, industrial production, and personal income. The key findings are on page 6-9. What I found was remarkable. None of the economic variables had a significant impact on welfare caseloads. This means that it was not the booming economy of the 1990s that resulted in the decline in welfare caseloads. Indeed, my results show that it was largely the result of changes in welfare policy. All of the variables that controlled for changes in welfare policy had a significant impact on welfare caseloads. Specifically, in the U.S., the welfare reform adopted by Congress in 1996 has resulted, on average, in a 1.26% decline in caseloads per month. In Iowa, it has resulted, on average, in a .35% decline in caseloads per month. Sporty Blog Via blog bud Matt Moore, a primarily sports blog called Off-Wing by Eric McErlain. He has a very interesting list of positions called the "Free Market Sports Fan Manifesto." There are 20, I won't comment on them all but:
Check this guy out. The Intellectual and the Sublime Man, is Dawn on a roll lately. In one fell swoop she just encapsulated much of the best of life on this mortal coil: she has an absorbing, largely intellectual discussion with the always-interesting John Scalzi for some first-rate yang; and then she has a NEW CONTEST where she is giving away CD's for those who write the BEST DESCRIPTION OF AN ORGASM for some resounding yin. Someone put in a call to Meg Ryan. Maybe she can borrow Glenn's Radio InstaPundit. Conflict, What Conflict? This article certainly turned out better than anyone had expected, as evidenced by the concerns expressed in this post by Glenn Reynolds last night:
This time it is happening to Weblogs. Five years ago a few programmers pioneered this form of hyperlinked online journal, posting their thoughts on technology matters and personal musings. Later they built Weblog publishing tools for nontechies, and a vast spectrum of Weblogs — blogs for short — quietly bloomed.
The war bloggers and veteran bloggers have largely ignored each other, rarely reading or linking to one another's sites. What brought some factional tensions to the surface was a plan, hatched by several war bloggers, to compile the best Web writings about the aftermath of the terrorist attacks into a book to benefit charity. In mid-April two bloggers, Eric Olsen and Ted Frank, took charge of the project, setting up a Weblog (blogbook.blogspot.com) and asking people to nominate their "favorite 9/11-related posts from ANY blogger." Mr. Reynolds agreed to make the final selections for the book, which is not yet titled. The project was in part a reaction to the release of "September 11 and the U.S. War: Beyond the Curtain of Smoke," a book of left-leaning essays about the attacks. On the project site, Mr. Olsen called on fellow bloggers to crush "Western-civilization-hating, lefty-fascist essayists." The best thing about the article, though, is that Gallagher allowed the facts and the statements of the principals to dictate the outcome, not some preconceived notion of what the outcome should be; and after stating the essence of the perceived conflict between the tech bloggers and the political, or "war" bloggers, he ended with a conciliatory statement from Reynolds:
Mr. Reynolds said he was not sure why the old guard should have a problem with war blogs. "The essence of the Internet is constant change, and to get your nose out of joint about that is just silly," he said. Dave Winer, from the tech end, has several interesting thoughts about the article:
As to be expected, wise and truthful Doc has other thoughts:
When journalists write stories they're often like attorneys: advocates looking for evidence that helps argue a case. Except with journalists, the case isn't for one side or another, but rather for the story itself. And since the best stories are about conflicts, the case journalists often make is is for the conflict itself. A good story therefore works as a brief against the absence of conflict. ....Whatever David Gallagher's intentions here (and I believe they were good), he wasn't just writing a story. He was writing a product. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Nothing wrong with stories, either. They are the very format of human interest. There's a good reason they sell papers and keep us watching the evening news. My favorite priest even says "There are some truths so deep only a story can tell them." But this story has no deep truth. It's just another feature about another transient topic. ....blogging is a form of journalism that is proving very, very hard for mainstream journals to cover. I believe that's because blogging enlarges the journalistic world beyond what you get from newspapers, magazines, broadcasts and books — much as personal computing enlarged computing far beyond what you got from mainfraimes, minicomputers and other systems controlled by professionals. Computing got out of control. And now journalism is out of control too. It's personal now. There's no going back. Put that together with traditonal journalism, and you've got:::: The Boutinsphere. And the Searlsphere. And the Reynoldsphere. And the Winersphere. One sphere per blog. All out of control. Competition Reader Warren Celli offers these interesting thoughts on the War on Drugs A.C. Douglas and I have been discussing:
It is not the war on drugs! It is the war on competition! They are not drug dogs! They are competition dogs! Think about it. Have you ever seen cops, traumatizing your kids, as they go through their schools with sniffing, snarling, competition dogs? If you have, what are the cops doing in the parking lots or in their cruisers as this goes on? They are smoking drugs! Cigarettes! A competitive drug! Let me say that again. A competitive drug! Loaded with highly addictive nicotine. I went by a Sheriffs department cruiser the other day at a traffic light and the air inside his cruiser was so blue with smoke you could hardly see inside. It looked like he had tinted windows. It was just another druggie! And what do these very same cops do at the end of the day, after they have chased down some poor fourteen year old for possession of marijuana in school and set in motion a whole range of life staining, anger inducing, events in his and his family’s life? I’ll tell you what they do. They go home or out to a bar at the end of the day and have some more drugs! Competitive drugs! Let me say that again. Competitive drugs! Highly addictive beer, wine and hard drinks, loaded with highly addictive alcohol! It is not the war on drugs it is the war on competition! Warren Celli Gestures It would appear that Ernest Lefever was right regarding the sabre rattling of India and Pakistan:
Like animals that show their fangs or inflate themselves with air to appear more menacing to adversaries, both men have resorted to this hallowed ritual of political rivals, which more often than not has prevented a deadly showdown.
The foreign ministry announced the move in response to a pledge from Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to crack down on Muslim militants whose attacks over the disputed territory of Kashmir have brought the nuclear rivals to the brink of war. Ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao said further Indian steps to ease tensions would follow when India saw more evidence that the infiltrations had come to a permanent halt. "This is a sequenced reaction," she said. Bikini Skirmish In order to close the loop from my end on the bikini wars issues - as they have apparently come to be known - please indulge a few final comments. As is evident in this comment by Steven Den Beste from Dawn's site:
I don't quite understand how this got misunderstood. That said, I was attacking the point of view expressed in those essays, not the person who wrote them, and I still believe strongly that that point of view - of visual consumption from afar - is symptomatic of a detachment that is encouraged by the Internet revolution and the easy availability of fundamentally impersonal porn :
My methods were that of polemic and I grossly generalized and overstated to make my points; having done so, I would like to specify a bit more finely. I admit I am particularly sensitive to the very young woman's role in this drama, not the least of which reason is that I have a recently-turned 18 year-old daughter. She's "legal," and I'm certain that she is not as innocent as I would have her be in my perfect world. As Glenn Reynolds has noted, these are young adults with the full biological complement of equipment, hormones, etc. Of course children present a different picture to their parents than they do to the rest of the world. I was briefly ENGAGED at 18 before I came to my senses. But I also believe that this is a different world than the one in which I was 18. A much greater public frankness about sex as reflected in the media (both news - AIDS, Clinton's escapades - and entertainment; every kid with cable can get a big fat dose of sex from an early age - you don't even need cable, just a TV) has had the salutary affect of demystifying sex, and I think we have a new generation of which many members have willfully chosen delay and restraint regarding sex as being in their personal best interest. The '60s and '70s saw an explosion of sexuality as the cultural corsets were loosened and people, especially young people, encouraged by the general atmosphere of liberation and tolerance, started humping like rabbits with an abandon theretofore repressed. The '80s and '90s saw the societal results of that abandon, and now we are seeing the pendulum swing back the other way as society, sadder but wiser, realizes that there is no such thing as a free lunch, sexual or otherwise. This perfectly rational fear of the consequences of sex, and the role-confusion caused by the societal equalization of the sexes, is, at least to a certain extent, behind the move toward virtual sex, voyeurism, objectification, etc. Regarding my attack on the string, or more accurately, thong bikini, I really don't think they are very flattering. That's just personal opinion. Among my generalizations was that string bikinis are worn for power: I should have said in my experience this has been the case. I have dated several women partial to string bikinis and when asked why, they all said something about the "power" it gave them over men: "I know they're watching, they basically have no choice, but they also know that this display is not an invitation so it's a big tease upon which they cannot act," is the gist of these conversations. I am so clueless, egotistical, or whatever that I've always just talked to whomever, regardless of what they were wearing, but I'm weird like that. The biggest objection to my perspective on the bikini matters has been my presumption to tell people how they should feel and how they should act regarding the opposite sex. I will respond on a couple of different levels, the first being that I should have made it more clear that I was stating my personal opinion on the matters, not some absolute TRUTH, and that I was offering advise based upon personal experience, not passing judgment. I am 43: I have found that as I've gotten older, my tastes in women have changed with my ideal locking in at somewhere between 5 and 15 years my junior. I'm sure the fact that I had a daughter at 25 who is now 18 has altered my perspective to a certain extent. That's just me and I should have said so, but in my defense I will also say that this kind of normative shorthand is hardly unusual in blogdom. Blogs are almost all opinion sites - this is usually assumed and often not stated. The last issue I'd like to address is that of tone. I was accused of attacking what was largely humorous, or at least lighthearted, writing in a moralistic, grim manner. That is partly true, but I thought my inclusion of links to bikini sites and the fact that the pictures I approved of were virtually indistinguishable from those I attacked was quite funny. At least I amuse myself. We Dig 'Em It's not news, but in the proud parent category, please check out pictures of the kids here from my daughter's graduation yesterday. Dawn's tribute to Kristen is about all you need to know about why she is the world's finest stepmom. Sunday, June 09, 2002
Must Be In the Air Tackling the subject of porn, Eric Raymond takes it on from a novel angle: not whether or not porn is a good or bad thing, but why does porn have to be so bad? So poorly done? Such wretched drivel? I had some of the same thoughts here, but Raymond goes into much greater detail as to why unreality is the biggest problem:
One reason could be simple old-fashioned sexual guilt. If you believe sex is sinful and desire is dirty, if you have that old madonna/whore complex, than you may be more comfortable thinking of porn models as whores. You may indeed, be so conditioned to associate sex with sin that you can't get it off without feeling wicked first. A more plausible construction for most potential porn consumers today is that they have issues about female power. Men who get lots of attention from attractive three-dimensional women are not likely to be buying porn-site subscriptions. Therefore, we can safely assume that the consumers who define demand patterns for porn producers generally feel that their sex life is hemmed in by female choices and the female power to refuse. Defining the objects of their desire as "cum-sucking sluts", to be used but not related to any emotional way, is a kind of equalizing move in the sexual-power game. This theory differs sharply from conventional feminist critiques pf porn, in which porn seen as a ratification of existing power relationships that privilege males. The difference is testable. If the conventional theory is correct, porn should be becoming more and more irrelevant as women become more independent -- or, at least, assume the nostalgic character of references to a golden age of male privilege that has already passed. On the other hand, if bad porn is a compensation for male feelings of powerlessness, we should expect it to become steadily tackier, uglier, more strident, and more popular in direct proportion to the degree that female power in the real world increases. I think it's pretty clear which of those worlds we are living in. The gloomy conclusion is that porn is likely to get worse before it gets better. If it ever does. Warring Analogies I know I'm good at annoying people when I want to, but I wasn't even trying with this post last night. In reference to an article about the futility of the Drug War, I said this:
A.C. - we're on the same side. I agree with everything you said, and I will concede that on some levels your analogy with the Salem Witch Trials is more apt than mine of a civl war, but I don't agree that the civil war analogy is without merit. The actual issue a civil war is fought over isn't nearly as important as the fact that countrymen, kinsmen are so divided they can't settle their differences any way short of war. I think this holds here. While the government would allege the war is against the drugs themselves, of course it is against those who sell and use drugs, most of whom are American citizens and, at least on the user side of the ledger, are otherwise law-abiding citizens. There is one aspect where I think the civil war analogy holds better than that of the Witch Trials: a civil war is a two-sided conflict. There are losers on both sides. The Witch Trials were a pretty much one-sided affair where all the losses were felt on one side: that of the alleged witches. I think the War on Drugs takes its toll on those prosecuting it in terms of corruption, the psychic toll of hypocrisy, and the loss to society of otherwise contributing members. Commencement Twas a beautiful cloudless summer afternoon: low 80s, low humidity, light breeze. I had feared an unstoppable rush of emotions as my daughter Kritsten both graduated from high school and sang the "Vocal Selection" duet, "When You Believe," with her friend Misty, which afforded the opportunity for both of them to improvise some diva-like vocalizations and to blend seamlessly together. Keeping with regulations, halfway through the song the karaoke backing cut out - it's what the crack audio crew does best - but the two vet performers plowed on through without missing a beat, earning trouper status and the adulation of the crowd of familes, friends and well-wishers. That dramatic moment over early in the program, the rest of the commencement was pro forma with just the right element of tedium to keep the emotions in check. There was pleasant but undistinguished speechifying, the alphabetical litany of almost 200 names, and then - just as the sun was becoming overbearing and our 2 year-old was at the end of her rope - it was over, the next phase of the young graduate's lives "commencing." There were many dry eyes in the house, or in the home stands of the football field, as the case may be. In addition to the tedium of the ceremony, I also think by the time the kids actually officially GRADUATE, most people are drained and emotionally exhausted after all of the final concerts, band performances, awards presentations, and sports banquets. The actual graduation is kind of anticlimactic. After a summer of work and a three-week break for Hawaii, Kristen will spend nearly a year in AmeriCorps serving her fellow man and collecting a scholarship before shipping off to college. I am biased without a doubt, but the future looks unlimited for my sweet, intelligent, charming, talented, beautiful girl, who is now a young woman. It was symptomatic of her two-family existence, that after the ceremony and the obligatory meet and greet afterward, my family drove the 70 miles back to our home and celebrated Kristen's graduation without her as she had parties to attend with her mother's family and her friends from school. We'll see her on Tuesday. After 12 years, stuff like that doesn't even seem strange anymore, but consider this: we are not invited to Kristen's graduation party next weekend because it is at her mother's house and the families will mix in public when necessary, but certainly not in each other's homes. Yet Kristen's best friend invited us to HER graduation party at HER house the following weekend. At least we'll see Kristen there. We snagged a digital camera yesterday, snapped quite a few pics of the festivities today and will get some up either here or on Dawn's site later on. Come on back. |
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