Argent Palidin / Zacharyblog
October 6 back to June 7, 2007

Saturday, October 06, 2007

My vice becomes virtue!

So I decided to help out the Forty Days For Life campaign, which is organizing continuous prayer vigils in front of 89 abortion centers throughout the country. As many of you know, I have a hard time going to sleep on time and a hard time getting up. So, I volunteered to be "on call" for any midnight to 4 am shift in an emergency. But then I decided to try to regularize my life a bit more, so I am trying to stick to an asleep by 2 am, wake up by 11 am schedule. So, I arranged to have the 12-2 Saturday morning slot.

Well, that was this morning and what a night it was. I got there a bit late (of course). Then I prayed a full 20 decade rosary. About halfway through the sorrowful mysteries, a guy came up in a bike. He asked me what I was doing and then started engaging me in conversation. He asked me whether I was a Republican and whether I am against the war in Iraq. He asked me why I wasn't praying in front of the White House. I calmly replied that I was a Republican and was in front of Planned Parenthood because I was against the murder of 4000 innocent lives every day, more than the number of Americans killed in 4 years in Iraq. He then asked me about Iraqi lives. I replied that studies by peace groups before the war indicated that UN sanctions were directly responsible for the deaths of up to a million Iraqis, mostly children. I asked him if he was against the sanctions and against the war. He said yes, so then I asked him what other action was there to stop Saddam who was responsible for wars against Iran and Kuwait and murdering his own people. I then asked him if he thought the Coalition with UN approval and about 90 countries, including Saudi Arabia, was justified in forcibly ejecting Saddam from Kuwait and he said yes. I then said that as part of the peace agreement, Saddam agreed to regular weapon inspections. He violated the peace agreement leading to sanctions and no-fly zones, both acts of war. I said that we had really been at war with Iraq for the past 16 years, not just the last 4, and that therefore it wasn't George Bush's war, but Clinton's too, and GWBs.

We then argued about the efficacy of me praying the rosary in front of Planned Parenthood at 2 in the morning. I defended my right to freedom of expression as protected by the first amendment. I asked him if he supported the right to protest and the right to freedom of expression. He, of course, said yes and was getting really confused (It helps to have studied in Berkeley). I said that I wouldn't harass him if he were exercising his rights at the White House so why was he harassing me? Then he started coming towards me and put his finger in my face. Soon he was shoving me in the chest. I never felt in danger, mainly because I outweighted him by at least 50 pounds. I didn't back off. I started shouting at me that I made him sick. (Oh we had a mini-argument over health care when I mentioned to him that the Catholic Church is the largest private provider of health care in the world (heh)). He then said that I was a terrible Catholic and that Jesus hates me. Of course, I then said "Do you have a direct line to Jesus? How do you know? You probably accuse conservatives of speaking for God and then here you are saying that you know what Jesus thinks." etc. etc. I never came close to losing my temper or feeling in danger in any way.

Part of me feels good about crushing him with my logical arguments, to the point that he lost control. I hate bullies and enjoyed seeing him turn from bully to helpless in a few minutes. On the other hand, I have two masters degrees and am a good debater. He was probably a bit drunk. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. (But I think he was the same guy who often came by to harass vigil people, so if he comes around less, it was worth it.) I feel like i missed a chance to turn the other cheek and show humility. Instead I exercised my intellect and truly enjoyed beating him. But I do think that he might think twice before he does it again.

Of course, I didn't even address his main argument and only thought of a good response later. I should have asked him, in response the question "Why aren't you in front of the White House protesting the war?" "Why are you only asking me that question? Why don't you ask people who are in bars, clubs, walking down the street, shopping, etc? If protesting the war is mroe important than praying in front of a Planned Parenthood clinic then surely it is more important that partying. Why is it that you only are bothered by anti-abortion not protesting the war?" I had told him that I was against the invasion of Iraq initially but not that we are there, it seems we must stay in order to minimize the loss of innocent Iraqi lives.

After he left, I saw out of the corner of my eye 4 girls all dressed up getting out of a PT Cruiser. Apparently it had a flat. They also seemed a bit drunk (well, not all of them). I asked them if they needed help. I tried to find the spare and then found it underneath, but couldn't get it out. I called AAA and was connected to AAA in California, she transfered me to DC AAA and he said that there was a jack and spare in the car. By this time I had found the manual in the glove box so I hung up and found the page that said where the jack was. Then I unhooked the tire and jacked up the car. Then I took off the old tire, put up the tiny temp tire and soon they were ready, but by this time a crowd had formed (even though it was 2 am). Apparently one of the girls called her boyfriend. They talked about paying me but I would have none of that. So I quickly disappeared after putting the jack back and my replacement had arrived. We talked a bit and then the organizer and her bf/fiance/husband? were there as well. I guess they couldn't get someone for the next shift so she came in. So instead of none there were now four of us. Ahh, the comedy of errors. I was so hyped from the argument and the tire change that I couldn't sleep and volunteered for another hour. Now I have the midnight to 3 shift ever friday night. We shall see if it is as exciting next week.

So, for the next hour I sang hymns. I think I will brink a breviary next time and sing from that. Now to sleep.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

What is up with the Vatican?

Lately it seems that the Vatican curia has its priorities a bit screwed up. After the molestation crisis here and around the world, the challenge from Islam, the continued fallout from the changes after Vatican II it would seem that the Church would have her hands full dealing with matters of faith and morals. But apparently global warming is more important than salvation and soccer is more important than enforcing orthodoxy.

USA Today reported earlier this year that the Vatican planned to become the first "carbon neutral" sovereign state by planting trees to absorb its carbon dioxide emissions.

In May, Catholic Online reported that the Vatican believes that "Global warming threatens world’s security, existence."

Vatican buys soccer club 03/10/2007 17:28 - (SA)

Milan - The players of Italian third division side Ancona will most likely think twice before misbehaving on the pitch after the club was bought by the Vatican.

La Stampa reported on Wednesday that the Centro Sportivo Italiano (CSI) has bought 80% of the club through a group of Milanese Catholic entrepreneurs, leaving 20% to the former president Sergio Schiavoni.

CSI, which is run by the Vatican's Conference of Bishops, has drafted an ethics code both for players and fans and will invest the profits in projects to help developing countries and Catholic youth in Italy.

"It is a way to moralize football, to bring some ethics to a sector that is going through a deep crisis of values," said Ancona archbishop Edoardo Menichelli, who recently played a benefit game against an Italian national team of singers.

Of course, much of this is media distortion and fun, but still, shouldn't the Curia try to avoid giving them such fodder? One of the perennial criticisms of the Catholic Church is that they have all this money and don't give it to the poor and now they buy a professional sports club? I really hope there is no official papal pronouncement on global warming. We shall see.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Why Universal Health Care and Public Sector Unions are a Bad Idea

First, some definitions. By Universal Health Care I don't simply mean that everyone has access to a doctor, which would be great. What I mean is that the government pays for everyones health care through our taxes. Nothing pro-choice here. No opting out. The healthy will subsidize the unhealthy, the young pay for the old, non-smokers for smokers, the prudent will pay for the risky. And I would guess that the pro-life would pay for the abortions and contraceptions of the pro-abortioners.

But that is not the heart of my problem with it. The reason why health care is in crisis is that it costs so much, too much for most companies to pay for on their own. And the costs are rising faster than inflation. This is because we are mortal and delaying our deaths is costing more and more money. Since companies can't pay for it, and individuals can't afford it, the only one left to pay for it is the government. The problem is that if someone can't afford health care and goes bankrupt that is a tragedy, but a single one. If a company cannot afford health care and goes bankrupt (or more likely renegotiates health care like GM-UAW is doing) that is a tragedy but affects only hundreds or perhaps thousands. If the US cannot afford health care and goes bankrupt, that affects 250 million Americans and the rest of the world as well. It is like a sinking person grabbing on to someone else and both going down and them grabbing others leading to a chain reaction. And with healthcare already taking up so much of GDP and growing so quickly, as well as the continued aging of society, it wouldn't be long before it would drag down the whole economy and no one would have health care.

Similarly, I don't like public sector unions, including teachers' unions for similar reasons. If a large corporation (or a small one) makes a mistake in negotiating a contract, say by offering too generous a pension package, it will then eventually go out of business or renegotiate (as seen by GM or PanAm). Thus, it is a self-correcting problem. But, government pensions are guaranteed by the US government. Theoretically, Congress could renegotiate but all of the House is reelected every 2 years and as the percentage of public sector grows, so does their electoral clout. GM can screw their workers rather than go out of business and the government won't intervene because GM workers only represent a tiny fraction of voters. But if they challenged the teachers unions or the national government unions, they would be against a sizeable fraction of voters.

Of course, some challenge the very idea of public sector unions, since "management" in this case are the elected representatives of the American people. So, are those unions working against the interests of the American people? It seems so. And they just keep growing and growing, slowly spreading further and further through Virginia and Maryland. There was a real estate bust after the boom in Silicon Valley. There was a bust after the boom in Detroit, Boston, New York, etc. But the Federal Government will keep on getting bigger (the first rule of any organization is to grow, the second is to do its mission). So, the safest bet in all real estate is to buy land in the D.C. suburbs. It is recession proof.

Monday, September 24, 2007
You may be a traditional Catholic if... You walk into a TGI Friday's on a Saturday night, read the sign that says "In here it's always Friday" and think "Darn, I guess I'll have to order the fish." I actually had the fajita combo plate though. But I did think about it before I ordered.

Thursday, September 20, 2007 Valuable Canadian Quarters For years and years, it was a classic scam to find a Canadian quarter in your change (well, it was when I was living in Wisconsin and Washington State). The game then became to try to pass it off to someone else. But now all that has changed. A Canadian quarter is now worth more than a US quarter! So, collect all your Canadian money and take a trip across the border and by your ccheap prescription drugs, marijuana, poutain or Tim Horton's.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Catholics: the True Libertarians

The central paradox that all libertarians must eventually face is whether they support the right of freely choosing to surrender their freedom. The classic case of this is whether someone can freely sell themselves into slavery, perhaps for a given number of years. If so, then why would libertarians be against a society freely choosing to surrender its liberties at the ballot box? If an individual can sell himself into slavery, then surely America can take the freely chosen road to serfdom, right?

But, if you modify the libertarian principle so that one can do anything as long as it doesn't harm others or eliminate the agents freedom, then what about addiction? Doesn't addiction enslave? Doesn't someone who is hooked on heroin or cocaine now have a chemical and psychological dependency on the drug and thus his freedom is greatly reduced? But then if certain drugs reduce freedom, what about gambling addictions, sex addictions, pornography addictions, etc? Shouldn't these be regulated as well so that people don't surrender their freedom and find themselves trapped?

The question then becomes: what is truly meant by freedom? Is it having no external restrictions on one's activity? Or is it having no internal restrictions? Isn't internal freedom a more precious kind--A freedom where one is not a slave to whatever feelings seek to overwhelm your mind or person? But then, we are at an Aristotelian/Thomistic conception of the good life as virtue-- seeking to maximize our positive potential and align it with reason.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

A Combination of Breathtaking Arrogance and Startling Ignorance No, I am not talking about me. I am talking about the atheist authors of a spate of books about God and religion. It is amazing to me that anyone would read, let alone publish, this trash. Imagine someone trying to write a book about, say computers, with no computer background, who denied the very foundations of computer science. It would require an incredible amount of hubris to try this.

The worst part is that the basic argument is the theodic argument: Bad things happen therefore God is evil, weak or non-existent. Since by definition God must be powerful and good, He must not exist.

It is, of course, a very good question. But these authors seem to think that they invented it, and that it is so air-tight that they don't even have to listen to any response. Of course, anyone with any experience in theology or church history knows that this was a central problem for St. Augustine, St. Thomas, etc, etc. Tens of thousands of books have been written on this topic. It is not new, and Christians are still Christian thousands of years after this argument was first put forward.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Currently Reading By Knowledge & By Love: Charity and Knowledge in the Moral Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas By Michael S. Sherwin see related

Internet + Proctoring = blogstravaganza!

First some personal blogging. I am proctoring SAT practice exam 1 right now at a Mariott in Fairfax, VA. Getting paid $25/hr for blogging is pretty good. In other news, it is expected to reach 100 degrees today. With some ugly humidity thrown in. And I have no air conditioning in my car. Speaking of my car, it failed an emissions test yesterday on a technicality. Therefore I won't get my plates for a bit longer. Therefore I risk getting a ticket because my registration expires at the end of the month. I hate dealing with the DMV. So many hoops.

School starts up again this week. I am taking The Natural and Infused Virtues of Thomas Aquinas with Angela McKay, Early Greek Philosophy with Fr. Kurt Pritzl, OP and Philosophy of Law with V. Bradley Lewis. I am really looking forward to it.

I also have to get some things done that I failed to get done this summer (come on, the break was only 4 months long!). I am applying to the Steubenville conference on the philosophy of Dietrich von Hillebrand. If anyone has any suggestions for a topic, let me know. I am also applying to a few more conferences. My goal is one per semester, but I might do two in the spring.

I am studying for the LSAT on October 1 so I can teach prep classes and German for my program. I also need to work on the Graduate Reading List which is being revised this year. And I need to finish up revising my conference paper for published proceedings. And I am working 4 jobs (but not as bad as it sounds). One is at the library, only 6 hrs per week (which I might quit soon), one is the SAT prep, one the GRE prep (both include tutoring and courses) and finally my research assistanceship. I am also looking forward to my dissertation proposal. And taking a reading list exam.

My garden is good, but neglected. I need to do some weeding, etc but it is 100 today so, maybe later. But I gotta at least water it today. I think I like the planting more than the reaping.

There is a Huckabee fundraising dinner tomorrow in VA to which I was invited. But at $250/plate, it is too rich for my blood. But I do want to help. Maybe a bumper sticker and some volunteer time in the near future.

Speaking of politics, the personal stuff ends here. Now off to some classic theocon blogging.

First, I wanted to direct your attention to a great article in First Things, extolling the greatness of Thomistic Philosophy. Oakes, SJ begins by discussing literary standards and then discusses the relationship (or lack thereof) between literary and philosophical greatness (Hegel is a horrible writer). Then he discusses the fact that philosophers fundamentally disagree and have disagreed since the beginning of philosophy and there can only be 4 explanations: scepticism (we can never get to ultimate truth), pick and choose (choosing best arguments from philosophers of past), genealogical (history of philosophy as narrative) and finall Thomist (or the Truth) which basically says that Thomas got it right. Then the question is, how did later philosophy go astray and how did Thomas alone get it so right. The answer to both, he says, lies in Christian Revelation, which I think is a pretty good answer. Aristotle failed because he was pagan. Descartes and the contemporary philosophers fail because their view is too narrow. Revelation gives us the right answers. It is the difference between having the answer key and not. You still have to work out the answers, but you know what you are aiming for.

That Thomas proved so successful in applying this method, using revelation to point out errors in the reasoning of past philosophers while keeping what was true in them, can be seen in the judgment of non-Thomist experts in ancient philosophy. The famous Aristotle scholar A.E. Taylor, for example, says that “the so-called Aristotelianism of Thomas is much more thoroughly thought out and coherent than what I may call the Aristotelianism of Aristotle. . . . By comparison with the Thomist synthesis of Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine, how comparatively incoherent and loose is Kant’s synthesis of Hume and Leibniz.”

Oakes concludes that Thomists must not become isolated from the rest of the world, in their own reality, but must seek to join the world and reality to the unchanging principles. Quoting Gilson:

“For us, as for them, the great thing is not to achieve a system of the world as if being could be deduced from thought, but to relate reality, as we know it, to the permanent principles in whose light all the changing problems of science, of ethics and of art have to be solved.”

The Telegraph had a story that projected that women will outnumber men in the clergy in England by 2025, perhaps sooner (women were allowed to become priests in 1992). This is an astounding thing because, as you know, priests are priests for life so large changes usually take a very long time to accomplish. In 33 years, far less than the average career of a priest, we have gone from 100 male clergy to 50-50. Seven years ago women accounted for 10% of clergy, in seven years that will be about 30%. Unfortunately the numbers are missing as to gender ratios in seminaries, but since 100% of "priests" who have been "ordained" for more than 15 years are male, the proportion of "priests" who are female has to be very high, almost certainly more than 1/2. And it doesn't seem like the trend will slow. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if by 2025 no heterosexual males are "ordained" in England.

The reason this interests me so greatly is that it fits exactly the prediction by Steven Goldberg in his book Why Men Rule. In that book he says that men compete for high status postions, so high status positions are mostly male (but that doesn't mean that mostly male professions are high status). As the status of a position declines, so will the percentage of men. It is clear that being a "priest" in the C of E is not as high-status as it was, say, 50 or even 30 years ago. And so, it is now open to women. That is why, I believe, it is futile to expect more women to become US senators or representatives, for instance. It is interesting to note that at least 3 senators wouldn't be there if it weren't for their senator/president husbands/fathers. Dole and Clinton only won election after their better known husbands were near retiring from the scene. And Lisa Murkowski was appointed by her father, the current governor of Alaska, to fill his own seat after he won election. And the first women in the senate came in the same way.The first elected woman senator filled her husbands vacancy after he died and then won election.

But back to the CofE. A major argument that women's ordination advocates give is that ordaining women will increase the number of priests. Well, that didn't happen in England. The ordination of women coincided with the halving of male priests. They would say that that would have happened anyway, but I think an equally plausible scenario is that fewer men are interested in doing "women's work".

This is readily apparent to any parent. Girls don't mind doing boy things. But young boys recoil from anything girlie. Girls want to join boys teams, but boys don't seek to join girls teams. When something is seen as feminine, the straight males aren't attracted. And so the cycle continues and soon the CofE will be all women and gay men and cease to be relevant to families in England. Notice how the most "masculine" religions in the world Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Mormonism, Evangelical Protestantism and traditional Catholicism are the religions that flourish the most. If men don't lead, they don' t get involved. If men don't get involved, the religion is not a total religion and it fails. To my knowledge no religion has flourished for hundreds of years that has been explicitly lead by women.

In possibly related news, a record number of people fled Britain. 385,000 left Britain this past year (though many were long-term migrants and not British citizens). What is interesting to me about the story, though, is that they completely bury the fact that the US is one of the most popular destinations, a fact doubly surprising because of the much greater barriers to entry compared to EU or Commonwealth countries.

Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa seemed to be the most popular destinations for emigration, Mr Morgan added.

But the accompanying graphic shows that far more people immigrate to the US than Canada and almost 5 times as many come to the US as to South Africa. The BBC couldn't have an anti-American bias, could it? It reminds me of the story that more people are emigrating to Canada than every before, but more Canadians come to America than Americans to Canada, an astonishing fact considering that there are 10 times as many Americans as Canadians and America is far more densely populated. And don't Canadians live in a socialist paradise, with free health care, etc? I guess all the hardworking, smart Canadians come to America and all the free-loading, draft-dodging, pot-smoking Americans go to Canada. That is a trade I can live with.

And now, an example of how the news media can spin any good piece of economic news in to bad news when a Republican is in office. Unemployment is at record lows across the Mountain West, so, how to present that? Usually, the newspapers side with the workers, but not here. Now the story is about the pathetic plight of the poor owners who have to pay their employees more. Funny how they only have pity for small-business owners when they want to find a way to complain about Bush's economic boom. Here's the second graf:

Record low unemployment across parts of the West has created tough working conditions for business owners, who in places are being forced to boost wages or be creative to fill their jobs.

I don't think that I have seen "record low employment" spun so negatively. Soon, Congress will be calling for maximum wage laws and for economic stimulus packages that will halt the economy so that more workers will be on the dole rather than on the job.

Want more disasterous news from low unemployment?

The effects are everywhere. Logging equipment in Idaho sits idle as companies have a tough time finding workers. A shortage of lifeguards has forced Helena to shorten hours at children-only pools. A local paper in Jackson, Wyo., has page after page of help wanted ads.

In Jackson Hole, the Four Seasons Resort still had openings in late July. The problem has created longer hours and tougher working conditions for current employees.

Just think of the poor, crying children in their little waterwings and flippers staring forlornly at a "Pool Closed" sign! Doesn't your heart go out to them? We must increase unemployment, for the children.™

And wait, why do we need unemployment laws?

Now, workers with more options in some places are unwilling to take $12-an-hour jobs.

The answer must be... More Immigration!!

That's all for today. See you soon.

EDIT: One more British Isles update. 10 years after banning most handguns, the peaceful island kingdom of the UK has seen its incedents of gun violence double. I certainly wouldn't want to be the one to make the argument that what a small island with secure borders and tv cameras everywhere with little history of gun ownership and no constitutional right to bear arms has failed spectacularly at, the United States will suceed at. The us has porous borders, millions and millions of guns already in America and a strong tradition of gun ownership. In fact, carrying handguns has never been easier (well not for a long time) in most states. So, to recap: More Guns, Less Crime.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Books bought but not read

NRO's The Corner has a thread about the most popular books bought but not read. The Closing of the American Mind is a popular choice, as is Finnegan's Wake and the Bible (as in reading the whole thing). Here are some books that have been glaring at me from the shelves for the better part of a decade:

1. Rawls' Theories of Justice
2. Heidegger's Being and Time
3. JPII's Theology of the Body and Love and Responsibility
5. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and War and Peace (got halfway through twice)
But I guess the number one book (or rather series) is the Philokalia. It's not a book that you read straight through and it is really intense.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Oh, Shenandoah! I'll be away backpacking in the Shenandoah Valley for the next couple of days. Tomorrow morning I'll be at the Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady in Baltimore, America's First Cathedral.

See you later.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Personalized Plates Or Vanity plates

I am planning on getting this:

ST I-II

I think that is catholic nerdy enough.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Dreamwalking in Detroit

Last night I dreamed that I was in Detroit. Just before I went to bed, I was listening to a podcast about the riots, 40 years ago and I also was downloading thing about pirates or something. And of course, there is a wedding in Detroit today.

So, my dad brother and I were driving to Indiana. I complained that if I had known we were going to Indiana, I would have arranged to have stayed in Detroit for a day or two for the wedding. I asked my brother if he had ever had a coney taco, he didn't know what it was so I described it in glowing terms. So, we stopped off in Detroit and I ran to get something to eat. We went to a library and I took a bunch of books, then I went to another library and left them there. I dropped a netflix DVD and thought it was a library dvd but it was mine (and they sent the wrong one!)

Then, I went to a dance party dressed like a pirate. But I was a normal pirate, no patch, no hook or peg-leg. Other people were dressed as pirates. I then stumbled into a production of Pirates of Penzance, by a high school group. I was basically an extra/tech. After a while we took a break and did some swing dancing. I then realized that my dad was going to kill me because we were just supposed to stop in Detroit for some food and I had been here for hours. So I panicked and ran down stairs, frantically searching through a trunk of clothing looking for my cell phone. It was broken. Then I woke up.

It is interesting how much of the dream related to what I was exposed to just before sleep, and how much relates to my current hobbies (swing dancing and netflix watching).

Too bad I couldn't be in Detroit for real today.

Some political logic

I just wanted to write briefly about two contentious issues, confining myself only to irrefutable premises and iron-clad logic.

1. No society can have both unrestricted immigration ("open borders") AND extremely generous welfare (medical, educational, etc).

Either a society must limit its citizens or limit the largesse it grants to its citizens or else it will bankrupt itself. Therefore, those who advocate both fewer border restrictions and more government aid for the poor are working at cross-purposes. There must be a balance between the two. If you want more immigration, you have to be willing to accept a lower standard of living than at present. If you want a higher standard of living for all citizens, you must be willing to reduce immigration.

That is always the hidden fallacy of international comparisons of wealth distribution. America is always criticized for having so many poor people even though it is such a rich country. But what is not taken into account is that the vast majority of recent immigrants are poor and as long as there are many, many recent immigrants, the US wealth distribution will always be "worse" than the rest of the world. In essence, we have a surplus of poor people because we import poor people, unlike any other country. If one excluded all immigrants and children of immigrants from the surveys, the average wealth and income levels would be much higher. But America is blamed because it lets poor people into the country. And countries like Luxembourg and Norway are the wealthiest because they have relatively few immigrants (and Norway has lots of oil).

2. Most people will eventually die because the cannot afford further medical treatment.

If you were to look at every one who died today, you would likely find for the majority of cases that the person didn't have to die today, either because of an avoidable accident, ignorance of a problem, or lack of resources to pay for treatment. Except for the super-rich, more money will get a better doctor or two, access to more tests, more drugs, etc. Even someone with a terminal illness could be made more comfortable with more money or even extend his life by a week or two. However, our medical resources are finite. There are only so many world-renowned, talented, brilliant experienced doctors, drugs are getting more expensive because they require years of testing and research, equipment is getting more expensive because it is pushing the edge of the possible.

The corollary to this is that at some point someone has to make a hard decision, either a father for a child, a child for a parent, an insurance company for a client, etc. Every single person, except for billionaires perhaps, will eventually have to decide that a particular procedure, drug or specialist is too expensive. There is simply no way of getting around this. We simply do not have the resources to spend millions per person to extend life. At some point, someone has to ask, how much is it worth to live a year/month/week longer? No health care system can abolish the scarcity of medical resources or the law of supply and demand. We can't all get the best health care, by definition. We all will die, sooner or later.

Or as a friend says (usually while smoking, eating bacon-wrapped bacon, or avoiding exercise) "You gotta die of something!"

Saturday, July 28, 2007

H-Mart!

I finally went to a Korean grocery store in the DC area for the first time today. I stopped to get some really cheap gas and the kid at the counter looked Korean. So I asked him if he know of any Korean grocery story around, since I knew Northern Virginia is rife with Koreans. He asked if I was Korean and then told me that there was one down the street. It kept driving (back the way I came) but couldn't see it. So I turned around in this mall parking lot right where I started from. And then I saw the H-Mart had Korean signs in the windows. So, I went in.

They had the best, cheapest produce I have seen and an amazing variety of meats and seafood. Turnover is very high so everything is fresh.

But they did have some weird stuff...

Friday, July 20, 2007

My aunt in Oregon has some chickens. And, coincidentally, my uncle lives in Colleyville, TX. He's probably not getting any chickens anytime soon. I'd like to get some when I settle down more permanently.

More People Turn to Chickens as Pets
GRANT SLATER
The Associated Press
D.J. Peters

COLLEYVILLE, Texas - The leaves shiver, the branches quake and 9-year-old Sophia Genco bounds out of the bushes, clucking at the top of her lungs while sprinting after a flock of scurrying chickens. She isn't chasing down dinner. She's just playing with one of the family pets.

The Gencos are among a growing number of urban and suburban families keeping chickens in their backyards. While the birds don't cuddle like kittens or play like puppies, owners say they offer a soothing presence in the yard and an endless supply of organic eggs.

"Nothing calms you more than sitting out in the yard watching your chickens poke around for bugs and carry on conversations with each other," said Carla Allen, who keeps chickens on her ranch in San Marcos.

There are no firm numbers available to illustrate the growth because it's hard to define who's keeping chickens for pets and who's keeping them to eat, said Bob Vetere, president of the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association. Vetere, whose trade group tracks trends in the pet market, said there is evidence to suggest the organic trend is fueling a pet chicken underground, especially in middle America.

Backyard Poultry magazine was resurrected about a year and a half ago after being halted in the 1980s. Readership in the Medford, Wis.-based publication has skyrocketed compared with its publisher's other two animal magazines , sheep! Magazine and Dairy Goat Journal.

Publisher Dave Belanger said Backyard Poultry's more than 50,000 subscribers exceeded his expectations tenfold.

Bud Wood, president of the Murray McMurray Hatchery in Webster City, Iowa, said he's amazed at the number of calls he's gotten from urban residents.

"The biggest growth I see is the organic group that want to know where their eggs are from," he said. "A lot of urban people fall into that family."

That's the case for Natalie Genco, who lives in Colleyville, a Dallas suburb. The mother of four said eggs from the family's chickens taste better than the store-bought variety and that her children have fun looking for them.

"It's like Easter every day," Sophia said.

Each of the family's nine hens lays an egg every day, providing up to 63 eggs a week. The chickens eat grasshoppers and mosquitoes that thrive in the humid summer weather, an added benefit, Natalie Genco said.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Democrats pledge support for wide access to abortion

By Mike Dorning
Washington Bureau
Published July 18, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Elizabeth Edwards said Tuesday that her husband's health-care plan would provide insurance coverage of abortion.

Speaking on behalf of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards before the family planning and abortion-rights group Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Edwards lauded her husband's health-care proposal as "a true universal health-care plan" that would cover "all reproductive health services, including pregnancy termination," referring to abortion.

....
Asked about his proposal for expanded access to health insurance, Obama said it would cover "reproductive-health services." Contacted afterward, an Obama spokesman said that included abortions.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Pope Benedict uses older ritual for his private Mass

Vatican, Jul. 16, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI, who recently issued a motu proprio allowing all Catholic priests to celebrate the old Latin Mass, uses the older ritual himself for his private Mass, CWN has learned.

Informed sources at the Vatican have confirmed reports that the Holy Father regularly celebrates Mass using the 1962 Roman Missal.

In his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum the Pope says that the older form-- the form in universal use before the liturgical changes that followed Vatican II-- was never abrogated.

Since becoming Roman Pontiff, Benedict XVI has always used the new ritual-- which he identifies in Summorum Pontificum as the "ordinary form" of the Roman rite-- for public celebrations of the Eucharistic liturgy. However few people have witnessed the Pope celebrating his private daily Mass.

Unlike his predecessor John Paul II, who regularly invited visitors to attend the Mass that he celebrated each morning in his private chapel, Benedict XVI has made it his regular practice to celebrate Mass with only a few aides. The Pope's closest associates have established a reputation for preserving confidences.

Like attending your own funeral...
Weird. Apparently a teen named "Zach Foreman" was killed and has a YouTube tribute. It's really bizarre for me to see it. Zach is not a common name, nor is Foreman, and we both shortened it the same way (not Zack nor Zac etc). So, in tribute to my fellow Zach Foreman (and at the risk of being a bit morbid) , here is the YouTube video entitled "Zach Foreman... the best":

Update: I hope people don't accidentally go to my website www.zacharyforeman.com rather than his: zachforeman.com. Mine is, er, not really mourning-appropriate. Unless you really like Hi-Ho. I blame Dismas.

Update 2: No that I am superstitious, but I am being extra careful because I don't want to die right now and have this be my last Xanga entry. Starting your own memorial blog would be perhaps the most ironic thing since, well, ever.

And finally, I gotta make more friends. The other Zach Foreman was only 14 and had like 300 people attend his memorial service. I'd be lucky to garner a dozen. I guess that's the downside of moving around all the time. And shunning all human interaction.

Update 3: I should say that my prayers are with the Foreman family at this time. May he rest in peace.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Amy Welborn links to a NYTimes article about a woman who decides to keep her baby even though she is living a writers life in Mexico and her husband wants her to abort it.

One passage particularly struck me:

The more he spoke, the more I saw babies. Mexico, for me, was suddenly a country of babies — chubby-cheeked, squirmy babies cradled in fathers’ arms, swaddled in enormous blankets, or toddling along behind their siblings. In Morelia, the capital of Michoacán, people take their children everywhere, to concerts and restaurants and on Sunday evening strolls through city plazas. Watching them now made it seem so natural to start a family of our own.

To me, this passage shows the importance of the Culture of Life that JPII talked so much about. If babies are present, at church, at the theater, in movies, on the metro and, yes, on airplanes, then that is a sign that babies are welcome in our world. However, if they are shut up in nurseries, with nannies, in "quiet rooms", etc, it shows that we cannot accommodate babies in our world. We are tolerant of the disabled and build million-dollar ramps and additions. But we cannot tolerate a little crying or yelling from infants in any public space and wish that parents of toddlers stay at home for years on end or hire babysitters or, perhaps, not have children at all.

This welcome attitude toward children confirmed the writer in her decision:

Through it all, my swollen belly has been less a liability than a passport to a whole new world. I’ve found fresh conversational terrain with Mexican women. My hairdresser loves to rub my belly and feel the baby kick, and recently she showed me the scar from her Caesarean section. As I type this, our baby’s new clothes are drying on the balcony in anticipation of his imminent birth. I can’t wait to see where he’ll take us.

Even though she used emotion rather than logic, she arrived at the truth. But, sadly, had she been living in America, she almost certainly would have aborted. The culture of death must be fought.

Monday, July 16, 2007

How different are these, Fr. Andy?

Say Hello To "Genius Baby"

She's the daughter of a couple of parishoners at our parish. She is the darling of the parish, always in a different persons arms. Her mom goes to every liturgy and her dad is a deacon.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Green Habeneros are still hot!

I decided to try one of the habenero peppers growing in my garden. Apparently, they vary in heat depending on type, soil, weather, etc. So I destemmed and deseeded one green one (you are supposed to take some off early to stimulate further growth). I put one tiny seed in my mouth, and nothing. But about a 1/4 second later, I got a lotta heat. I must have wiped my forehead because it started burning a bit later. Then I washed my hands. I put one finely sliced and sauteed pepper in about two gallons of vegetable soup. It was so hot! So I cooked up about 2 quarts of rice and put it in. Still hot.

I will end up with about 2-3 pounds of habeneros, which will end up being about 30 to 40 peppers. One was enough to severely burn me, I don't know what I will do. I also have chili peppers and bell peppers.

Monday, July 09, 2007

For Fr. Andy And Bacon-wrapped cheese prevents Alzheimers!

Study finds smoking wards off Parkinson's disease

Mon Jul 9, 2007 5:26PM EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - There is more evidence to back up a long-standing theory that smokers are less likely to develop Parkinson's disease than people who do not use tobacco products, researchers reported on Monday.

The apparent protective effect of tobacco against the degenerative nerve disease has been observed for years but a University of California Los Angeles School of Public Health report said a new review of existing studies seems to confirm it, with long-term and current smokers at the lowest risk.

The review also found that the effect seems to extend beyond cigarettes to pipes and cigars, and possibly to chewing tobacco, and that it persisted among those who had stopped smoking years earlier.

What would cause such a preventive effect is not well understood, said the report in the Archives of Neurology, but studies on test animals suggested two possibilities.

One is that carbon monoxide or other agents in tobacco smoke exert a protective effect and promote survival of brain neurons that produce dopamine, which allows muscles to move properly and is lacking in Parkinson's cases.

Cigarettes may also somehow prevent the development of toxic substances that interfere with proper neurological functioning.

While there have been a number of previous studies, most were too small to be conclusive, the report said. So the UCLA researchers looked at 11 studies done between 1960 and 2004 covering more than 11,800 people, of whom 2,816 had Parkinson's disease.

"Our analyses confirmed prior reports of an inverse association between cigarette smoking and Parkinson's disease," the study said.

"Although we found that current smokers and those who had continued to smoke to within five years of Parkinson's disease diagnosis exhibited the lowest risk, a decrease in risk (13 percent to 32 percent) was also observed in those who had quit smoking up to 25 years prior to Parkinson's disease diagnosis," it said.

"Other tobacco products also appeared to be protective. Men who smoked pipes or cigars had a 54 percent lower risk. The number of chewing tobacco users was small, but there was a suggestion of reduced risk associated with this product," it added.

Saturday, July 07, 2007
Garden-blogging, with a vengance!

Here's the flowerbed in my front yard. I put a row of sunflowers in the back and assorted flowers in the bed. On the front steps I have green onions and ginger (foreground), which has finally started growing. Here is a row of tomatoes. From left to right: Mr. Stripey, Old-Fashioned, Early Girl and Cherry (which I grew from seed). Here's a close-up of Early Girl. Just past the tomatoes are a row of sunflowers, bred for large seeds. Here's my back porch. I have squash, the miracle Roma tomato plant, dill, cilantro and chives. I love cilantro! On the other side, I have large pots of mint and chamomile as well as some seedlings. Next to the tomatoes I have containers of peppers and herbs. Here's a close-up of some unripe habanero peppers. Here's the view of the backyard from the kitchen door. Easy access to all my culinary herbs!! Finally, here are my little trees, lime on the left and bay on the right. In front is my lemongrass.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Currently Reading Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (A Free Press Paperbacks Book) By Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles Murray see related

Global Warming Warning!! Johannesburg Gets 4 Inches of Snow, First Since 1981 (Update1)

By Stewart Bailey

June 27 (Bloomberg) -- Johannesburg recorded its first confirmed snowfall for almost 26 years overnight as temperatures dropped below freezing in South Africa's largest city, grounding flights at its main airport.

The heaviest falls were over the southern suburb of The Hill, where four inches of snow fell, said Venetia Magane, a forecaster at the South African Weather Service in Pretoria. Temperatures in the city fell to minus 1 degree Celsius (30.2 degrees Fahrenheit) during the night, she added.

``It started last night and by this morning everything was covered,'' Bernice Hodkinson, a beautician in the southern suburb of Mondeor, said in a telephone interview. ``The kids are making snowballs in the veld, it's beautiful.''

Snow last blanketed Johannesburg for a single day on Sept. 11, 1981. The city's average minimum temperature for June over the past 47 years is 4 degrees Celsius, according to data provided by the South Africa Weather Service. This year's average minimum is 4.7 degrees compared with 0.7 degrees in 1968, the coldest on record.

Flights leaving O.R. Tambo International airport were delayed for as long as three hours this morning while ice was cleared from runways and snow removed from aircraft, the South African Press Association said, citing Tasniem Patel, spokeswoman for Airports Company South Africa Ltd.

Light snowfall was also recorded in Pretoria, the capital, which last had snow on June 11, 1968, the newswire said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Stewart Bailey in Johannesburg Sbailey7@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 27, 2007 06:59 EDT

And in other news, I will be taking a blogging break until the 4th of July. And my parents are flying to Africa as I write. See you in July!

Friday, June 22, 2007

Education and Immigration

David Brooks, a writer who I used to admire a great deal, wrote in a recent column that the divide between the pro-immigration and anti-immigration forces can be best explained by education. The educated are pro-immigrant and the uneducated are anti-immigrant. He says that this is because the educated have more virtuous values, tolerance, diversity etc. However, I think that there is a simpler explanation. The vast majority of illegal immigrants are unskilled and uneducated. Who will they compete with in the job market? Not the Ivy-leage educated. Not the politicians. Not the journalists, who make their living with words. Not the professor. The educated benefit because they will buy their food and houses cheaper but their jobs are not threatened.

Legal immigrants, African-Americans, part-time workers, single mothers, ex-cons, in short, the marginalized, will all suffer because of the propose amnesty. So, yes, the divide is between the highly-skilled and the unskilled. But they shouldn't kid themselves that this is because they are more enlightened. On the contrary, it is pure self-interest that drives them.

Afghan schools try to make new start By Soutik Biswas
BBC News, Kabul
More girls are returning to school A group of girls returning home from school in Afghanistan's Logar province recently did not for a moment expect what lay ahead. As they walked down a dirt track, insurgents sprang out of the parched farms and began firing on them. Some of them fled into the farm, but two girls, one aged 13, the other 10, were killed in the ambush. Three of their friends were wounded.

This kind of attack on schoolchildren, the first incident of its kind in Afghanistan, highlights how the insurgents are trying to disrupt education in the war-ravaged nation. A surge in violence over the past year threatens to neutralise the gains made by the country in sending its children back to school after the fall of the Taleban.

"Insurgents"? I don't mind the word "insurgent" as long as it is used accurately. And I believe that many if not most of those killing Coalition forces in Iraq are, in fact, insurgents, which is synonymous with guerillas, with the nuance that they are fighting an outside force.

But this attack is nothing other than terrorism. The difference is that an insurgent attacks a foreign powers military troops or installation. These terrorists were attacking defenseless Afghan girls coming home from school, not American marines. Terrorists are those who use violence or the threat of violence to achieve political change by means of intimidation or fear. That is exactly what they were trying to do.

Journalism is supposed to enlighten not obfuscate. The BBC does a disservice by calling them insurgents, when they are in fact cowardly child-murderers.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Caption: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid walks from his Chevrolet Suburban (left) to attend a news conference on energy efficiency Wednesday in Upper Senate Park. Reid rode in the sport utility vehicle from the Capitol to the event, which was across the street."

Hmmm... I can't understand why the approval ratings of the (Democratic) Congress are at record-breaking lows. They couldn't be comically out of touch and hypocritical could they?

Women and minorities are encouraged to apply.

________ University is an Affirmative Action Equal Opportunity Employer.

I just got a job notice via email with this at the end. Does this mean that white men are not encouraged, or even discouraged, from applying? If so, how is that "Equal Opportunity." Why not, like in the old days, post this:

But maybe they mean "women and minorities, as well as eveyone else, are encouraged to apply and just ran out of space (in an emai?) so cut out the middle part. Although "everyone encourage to apply" would be snappier and more accurate.

Of course, it could also be that they assume that women and minorities can't read as well as white men, so they had to put a special notice just for them in the ad. That way, they can jump up and down and say "That's me! That's me!" when they read the ad. It's sorta like when Miss Hostess would say your name at the end of Romper Room and you would get all excited. (If you are too young for this reference, see wikipedia article).

So, it seems that the government considers some types of sexual and racial discrimination to be legitimate, even beneficial and other kinds to be bad. But the particulars change. However, isn't it a bad precedent to say that one may, and sometimes should, discriminate based on skin color or gender for hiring? If it's ok to discriminate against men today, why was it bad to discriminate against women yesterday? And if it is just to compensate for past discrimination, why can't someone decide that they will compensate for present discrimination by adopting an opposite policy?

There are many, many other arguments against affirmative action (such as it waters down credentials, undermines authority/legitimacy, reduces achievement, creates/extends racial and other group tensions, etc).

Currently Reading
Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News
By Bernard Goldberg
see related
Biased Reporters
Everyone thinks that they have a "good sense of humor". But if that were true, then the term is meaningless, because no one would have a bad sense of humor or no sense of humor (full disclosure: I have a good sense of humor). Similarly, everyone, especially if they are a reporter, thinks that they are unbiased, or at least their biases don't affect their thinking and writing (Find the flaw in this reasoning: "If giving money to a politician prejudiced my ability to think and write honestly, I wouldn't do it. Fortunately, it doesn't.") Can you say, "begging the question"?

MSNBC ran a facinating article about everyone who worked for a news organization who contributed money to a political group from 2004-2006. First, as should be no shock, Dem contributors outnumbered Republican ones 9-1 (but the Repubs gave larger average contributions). Second, almost every news organization has rules against their reporters contributing to a political campaign, to prevent an "apparent conflict of interest". I guess it does to that, but it also may hide an actual conflict of interest, which is far worse. I think all reporters should be allowed to contribute as much as they want, and to participate in whatever organizations they want. But there should be full disclosure. At the bottom of an article on, say, the Obama campaign, it can read "This reporter contributed $300 to the DNC in 2004 and $200 to Kerry" The reporters are no less biased because they are not allowed to contribute money. In fact, that might make them more likely to act in a biased manner. If they aren't allowed to help their candidate finanically, they might decide that they should then do it by slanting the news. (BTW, draconian, tyrannical FoxNews is the only major news organization that allows its employees to contribute freely. And it's about evenly split between Dems and Repubs.

I was appalled at the number of journalists, you know, those dedicated to the truth, who stonewalled (Forbes was the worst by the way), didn't return phone calls and even threatened those doing this report. Apparently, the public has a right to know the truth, unless it involves a newsroom. What's also interesting is that most of them used the excuse "I didn't know it was against policy". Now, if a politician answered one of their questions like that, would they just give them a pass? I don't think so. And the second is even funnier. They say "Just because I'm a reporter doesn't mean that I give up my right as a citizen." So, apparently campaign contributions are an inalienable right. But then, why did they give such fawning coverage to the McCain-Feingold Reform, that capped contributions? I guess reporters can always contribute, but the rich, well, their rights don't matter. I'd like to single out three especially funny/sad examples. First, the so-called Ethicist for the New York Times spent several paragraphs justifying his contribution to MoveOn.org. He considers MoveOn non-partisan, like the Boy Scouts or the Catholic Church (really!) even though it was formed to prevent Clinton's impeachement and describes itself as progressive and contributed millions to Democratic candidates in the past four election cycles. Oh, and its a 527 POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE. Apparently The Ethicists is ethically challenged. Or understands the meaning of the term "non-partisan" to include "gives millions to political candidates of a particular party. Oh, and after several paragraphs justifying what he did, he emailed the reporters later and said, "That said, Times policy does forbid my making such donations, and I will not do so in the future." Funny stuff.

Here's an excerpt from a pulitzer prize winning car critic: "I'm a columnist, not a straight-news guy, and my political affiliations are not, I don't think, in doubt. Goes to the question of whether my 'activism' by donation is indicative of some covert (and mythic) liberal bias in the press."

It's interesting that he assumes that everyone knows his political views even though he reviews cars. Does he work in Iraq is a quagmire metaphors when talking about 4-wheel anti-lock braking systems? Every column? But isn't this an implicit criticism of other "un-biased" reporters? He is saying that it is ok for him to contribute because his political affiliations are known. But that means that if they weren't known, the contribution wouldn't be justified. So, if you are openly, transparently biased, then you can contribute. But then, after admitting that he is openly biased, he sais thaht liberal bias is a myth. My head is spinning.

This next one is grand:

(D) San Francisco Chronicle, William Pates, letters editor for the editorial page, $600 to John Kerry in three donations in March and April 2004. Pates, who selected which letters were published, was moved to the sports copy desk after the staff of a Web site at San Jose State University, Grade the News, asked about his contributions. The Newspaper Guild contested the transfer and Pates is now back as the letters editor. Pates did not return a message, but he told The Associated Press that he had not thought the paper's policy against political activity would apply to him, because he worked on the opinion pages.

Yeah, there's no conflict of interest if the guy choosing the letters to the editor is biased! None at all. I'm sure that he was just as likely to pick a letter critical of Kerry as critical of Bush, even though he gave Kerry $600, not chump-change on a SF editors budget. Why would the policy apply to him? He only CHOOSES THE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR!! That is the worst excuse ever. But after a slap on the wrist, he is back at his old job, unbiasedly choosing only the most reasonable letters, even if he disagrees with them, since when we disagree with something, it never enters our heads to think that it could be unreasonable. This one is similarly bad:

(D) The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, Calif., Mark Benoit, wire editor, $500 in October 2004 to MoveOn.org, which ran get-out-the-vote efforts to defeat President Bush. As a wire editor, Benoit is a copy editor who selects which state, national and international stories to publish.

"I'd rather not talk about it," Benoit said.

This is my favorite one (but not because I'm biased, she just happens to have the same idea I have):

"Dig deeper," she said. "I gave $2,000 to Kerry." Indeed, she did, in March 2004. "I'm not allowed to do this. I know it's against the rules," she said of giving to candidates. "I'll probably get fired. They're looking for any excuse to cut staff here."

She also slipped some anti-Bush material into a first-person column she wrote about her son, who won the Top Chef competition on the Bravo network. "In passing I mentioned that I was interested in finding people who hated Bush as much as I did. They took that out.

"My view is: You're still going to have an opinion whether you admit to it or not. If you don't admit to it, you're being dishonest. Let's be transparent."

And I have saved the worst for last. Is it any shock that it is (sigh) from the National Catholic Distorter Reporter? Not only was the act the most egrigious (an order of magnitude above most other reporters in giving, her position is the most influential in the paper, none was disclosed and finally she paid to have an anti-war ad publicized)) but the justification is dizzying. It basically comes down to "We aren't a real newspaper, we are a Catholic newspaper and are hardly worth reading because we are chocked full of bias." And the punishment also was non-existent.

(D) National Catholic Reporter, Margot Patterson, senior writer and arts/opinion editor, $2,100 to Claire McCaskill, Senate candidate, Democrat, in October 2006; a total of $800 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2004 and 2006; $1,000 to Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver in 2004; and $250 to Howard Dean, Democratic presidential candidate, in February 2004. Patterson has reported from the Middle East and written extensively about political topics, including cover articles on the Iraq war, for the independent national weekly in Kansas City. Both Rep. Cleaver and Sen. McCaskill oppose the war.

The reporter also signed a petition against the war and paid to have it published as the advertisement "KC Metro Citizens Oppose War On Iraq!"

None of this was disclosed to the readers of NCR, which bills itself as "the independent newsweekly."

Patterson said her policy is more honest than the "hypocrisy" of reporters who hold positions but don't back them up with donations.

"Most reporters I know have opinions, regardless of whether in their capacity as citizens they choose to give to a political candidate," she said in an e-mail. "I feel my responsibility as a journalist is to be fair to the people and issues involved and to be as accurate as possible. That responsibility is incumbent upon me regardless of whether I choose to vote — or not — or choose to contribute money to a political campaign — or not."

"As I see it, I was born a citizen of the U.S. and I will die a citizen of the U.S. and my responsibilities to my country do not suddenly cease because I take a particular job. [I wonder if she feels the same way when a bishop speaks out against abortion? Or is that an example of the "church meddling in politics and the violation of separation"?] When I see my country embark on a course of action that I think disastrous to its future and fatal to its citizens [the war has killed less than 4000 citizens, all volunteers, abortion kills about that many, unvoluntarily, every, single, day], I think it my duty to do my utmost to stop it. That includes supporting candidates who will promote a less aggressive foreign policy and who will defend constitutional government and the rule of law. All of us have multiple roles and identities in life that we negotiate."

About signing the petition against the war, Patterson wrote in the e-mail, "I’m sure I had long since forgotten about that ad when writing the articles." In any case, she said, that's not "an ethical problem. For one thing, I wasn’t covering the same people I gave money to when I wrote the articles. For another, the newspaper I work for has been strongly and unequivocally opposed to the war from the outset and has made that abundantly clear in its editorials. NCR has always been anti-war and it is NCR policy not to accept a dime from the Department of Defense. I do not think NCR readers can be in any doubt as to where the paper stands when it comes to war. It’s against it. There is no attempt to be neutral or even-handed about this topic."

Her editor, Tom Roberts, said he was "less than a strict constructionist on the matter of what reporters should be allowed to do in the exercise of citizenship and conscience." He said that the paper's articles have in fact been neutral and even-handed, though its editorials have opposed the war. On campaign contributions, he allowed them unless they would be perceived as a conflict of interest.

"The contribution to the ad, on the other hand, is clearly another matter. Although the paper, editorially, has consistently and strongly opposed the war even before it started, a reporter signing a petition crosses the line to activism and we've spoken about it."

Oh, they've "spoken about it"!! That'll learn her! She seems pretty chastened to me, even though she directly contradicts her editor about the integrity of the paper's reporting as not even an attempt to be neutral. But "no attempt to be neutral or even-handed" isn't biased!! Oh no. Its, um, responsible. I am also sure that she would never consider FoxNews to be biased either. After all, journalists can separate their own personal beliefs from their reporting.

Currently Reading
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
By Michael Pollan
see related
I haven't garden-blogged in a while. That's because not much is happening.
The Good: My Early Girl tomatoe plant is true to her name and I have two little green tomatoes growing. I have one on another tomato plant.

Also, a single habanero is almost ripe for picking. And my flowerbed is growing well. My lime tree seems to have stopped dropping leaves, but I need to keep an eye on it and the bay tree because I just repotted them. The squash and pumpkins are doing quite well.

The Bad: My gingerroot is stubbornly not sprouting. It is probably rotting. My two strawberry baskets are not doing anything either. Insects are becoming more voracious. My peppers aren't doing much flowering, indicating that I have added too much nitrogen so they are well foliaged but under-fruited. I transplanted a bunch of plants the other day but then the next day was 97 degrees and then it rained hard. So about half of them didn't make it. So I transplanted the rest of my seedlings today.

I also have plans to grow a fall crop of lettuce and salad greens. I have a long growing season here, so it should be possible. We shall see.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Check out the Squirrel-a-pult http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/oh%2C-food%21-i.ll-just-_-wahhhhhh%21%21/squirrel-catapult-is-awful-yet-we-cant-look-away-270290.php

(graph from iSteve.com)

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

It's Not Enough to Be 'Wanted' Illegitimacy has risen despite--indeed, because of--legal abortion.

BY JOHN R. LOTT JR. Tuesday, June 19, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

The abortion debate usually centers on the morality of the act itself. But liberalizing abortion rules from 1969 to 1973 ignited vast social changes in America. With the perennial political debate over abortion again consuming the presidential campaign and the Supreme Court, it might be time to evaluate what Roe v. Wade has meant in practical terms.

One often misunderstood fact: Legal abortions just didn't start with Roe, or even with the five states that liberalized abortion laws in 1969 and 1970. Prior to Roe, women could have abortions when their lives or health were endangered. Doctors in some states, such as Kansas, had very liberal interpretations of what constituted danger to health. Nevertheless, Roe did substantially increase abortions, more than doubling the rate per live birth in the five years from 1972 to 1977. But many other changes occurred at the same time:

• A sharp increase in pre-marital sex.
• A sharp rise in out-of-wedlock births.
• A drop in the number of children placed for adoption.
• A decline in marriages that occur after the woman is pregnant.
Some of this might seem contradictory. Why would both the number of abortions and of out-of-wedlock births go up? If there were more illegitimate births, why were fewer children available for adoption?

Read the rest here.

Related: Record number of abortions in Britain. Response? More contraception! And the universal assumption, even among pro-choicers is that lots of abortions are bad. But why? Isn't it just another medical procedure? Isn' t it a woman's right to choose? Why is it then bad that there are more? And of course a healthy percentage of abortions are actually eliminating evidence of criminal acts as they are performed on those under 16, that is those below the age of consent, thus they are evidence of rape. Also interesting, you have to wait months to see the dentist or schedule a surgery at the National Health Service, but they "guarantee" an abortion within three weeks. Priorities.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Another great Corner post We Crush Puny Animals.... [Jonah Goldberg]

develop the wheel, frickn' lasers, rising crust pizza, Tivo, crop rotation, the cotton gin, animal husbandry and — one day soon — airborne-laser volcano-lancing technology — all because we got our grill on 1.9 million years ago.

Did Primordial Chefs Feed Our Giant Brains? A Harvard primatologist thinks that the invention of barbecue occurred 1.9 million years ago, fueling the expansion of the early hominid brain.

Around 1.9 million years ago, something extraordinary happened to the chimp-like hominids called Homo erectus. Their brains began to enlarge, becoming double the size of those of chimpanzees. Several theories are beginning to coalesce about why this happened. One is that early people began to eat more and better meat around this time, which allowed more calories to be consumed faster. This led to a shrinking of gastrointestinal organs and an increase in brain size that essentially traded guts for gray matter.

Our big brains need this extra energy. Modern humans eat about the same number of calories as other primates that approximate their weight, but we suck up an average of 25 percent of our body's energy expenditure, compared with the 8 percent sucked up by apes. Human babies use 60 percent of their energy to feed their heads.

Anthropologists have assumed that H. erectus ate their burgers and steaks raw, since most early fire pits discovered so far date back about 500,000 years, with the oldest, in Israel, dating back 790,000 years. Charred stones and tools associated with human sites have been discovered that date back as much as 1.5 million years, but these might have been naturally occurring fires.

Now Harvard University's Richard Wrangham has provided some evidence that the very distant ancestors of America's top chefs indeed may have learned to cook their antelope and rabbit. Cooking makes both plants and meat softer and easier to chew, providing more calories with less effort. What's more, human teeth got smaller and duller at around this time, which is the opposite of what would have happened if people had had to rip and chew lots of raw meat.

06/19 10:00 AM

Torture and the OT Under Mosaic law, certain crimes were to be punished by stoning:

You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. You shall stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery.

—Deuteronomy(13:9-10)
So, either God didn't really say what he is reported to have said in scripture (the Israelites were confused) or God tells them to do evil (torture) or stoning is not torture. The first two are extremely problematic. The third explanation however has some serious implications. Torture can either be the primary intention of an act or a secondary intention. It can also be either juridical or informational. So we have 4 main types of torture (as divided by intention): direct juridical, indirect juridical, direct informational, indirect informational. In the first category would fall such things as torture itself as punishment (whippings, the rack, isolation, etc) or in order to extract a confession, that is as part of a legal procedure, either before or after conviction. The second would be unintended but foreseen parts of punishment: isolation, exposure to rape or violence by fellow inmates, the indignity of public showers, toilets, etc, isolation from friends and family, etc. The last two categories are difficult to distinguish. All interrogation techniques would fall in these categories.

In fact, there may be only two categories of any importance: the first is where causing pain itself is the goal, the second where it merely a tool and the torturer would prefer to avoid it. An example of the former category would be torture as punishment or for sadistic pleasure, as in revenge. The latter would be interrogation. Another useful way to divide up torture is this scale:

1. The deliberate infliction of extreme pain solely for the sake of causing pain.
2. The deliberate infliction of extreme pain in order to coerce the subject to do something immoral.
3. The deliberate infliction of extreme pain in order to coerce the subject to do something against his/her will but not immoral.
The first two are clearly intrinsically evil and should be universally condemned. The third one is the tough one. If the victim asks "What can I do to stop the pain?" and the reply is "nothing" or "sin" then that is clearly wrong. However, if the answer is "Help us save the lives of people in danger" or "Tell the truth" then the morality is much murkier. I actually don't think it is possible for this act to be intrinsically immoral, and therefore it cannot be considered torture. This is because it is impossible to formulate a principle without taking into account specific circumstances or degrees. One can always adjust the degree of pain and there is no bright line.

Back to the initial categories. As a society we have rightly condemned direct torture as punishment or torture to obtain confessions. The latter because it yields false confessions and the former because it deemed an unnecessary violation of human dignity (as is all torture). But indirect torture (being held in a cold, brightly lit cell for 48 hours, being sleep deprived for 48 hours, skipping a meal or two, being handcuffed for 12 hours, etc is still deemed ok as is interrogation which borders on torture. But I would argue that intentions matter more than the actual act. If I saw off your legs without anesthetic, I am torturing you if there is no reason do so except cause you pain but I am saving you if I do it to prevent gangrene on a battlefield.

Back to the initial scenario, I submit that stoning wasn't immoral because the pain was an indirect intention, the direct intention was execution. There are only so many ways that a community can execute a criminal in the desert. No gas chambers, electric chairs, guns, gallows, etc. In contrast to pressing, drawing and quartering, premature burial, immurment, sawing (particularly grusome), slow slicing, etc.

Of course, in a post-modern world, making distinctions based on the morality of the intention is unworkable because then one person's torture is another persons interrogation and vice versa. However, such is not the case since morality is objective. The application of force should be proportional to the gravity of the offense and its timeliness. The ticking timebomb is a perfect example. It is often used to show that torture is not intrinsically immoral, but it really reveals the distinction between true torture (the first two categories) and extreme interrogation (the third category).

Now, of course, just because something is not intrinsically immoral doesn't mean it should be done. There are many strong prudential reasons against it, such as it yields false information, psychologically harms the interrogator, cheapens human life, sets bad precedents, etc.

For a fascinating look at how simple techniques in combination can break the strongest person see: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/07/sensory_deprivation/

It actually makes me want to try it. How is it possible that being removed from your senses for even three hours would break you? I sleep for 24 hours at a time. Couldn't I just sleep through my torture? Can they really stop me from singing to myself? Or reciting poetry or scripture? Could experienced monks or hermits last longer?

Monday, June 18, 2007

No Comment Interfaith outreach [Mark Steyn]
It's never wise to satirize the Episcopal Church. Four years ago, after the appointment of the "openly gay" Bishop of New Hampshire, Scrappleface offered the following headline:

Episcopal Church Appoints First Openly-Muslim Bishop

Today The Seattle Times brings us this story:

Shortly after noon on Fridays, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding ties on a black headscarf, preparing to pray with her Muslim group on First Hill.

On Sunday mornings, Redding puts on the white collar of an Episcopal priest.

She does both, she says, because she's Christian and Muslim.

Redding, who until recently was director of faith formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, has been a priest for more than 20 years. Now she's ready to tell people that, for the last 15 months, she's also been a Muslim — drawn to the faith after an introduction to Islamic prayers left her profoundly moved.

Her announcement has provoked surprise and bewilderment in many, raising an obvious question: How can someone be both a Christian and a Muslim..?

She says she felt an inexplicable call to become Muslim, and to surrender to God — the meaning of the word "Islam."

"It wasn't about intellect," she said. "All I know is the calling of my heart to Islam was very much something about my identity and who I am supposed to be.

"I could not not be a Muslim..."

Redding's bishop, the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, says he accepts Redding as an Episcopal priest and a Muslim, and that he finds the interfaith possibilities exciting. With the benefit of hindsight, it should have been obvious that the first female imam would be an Episcopalian...
06/17 08:34 PM From the Corner

Saturday, June 16, 2007

For Dismas: Hitler Cats I'm sure he's seen these before, but this is just so he knows that I haven't forgotten about him and his cat-hating ways, even though he is busy with CPE. I now present to you, "Cats that look like Hitler":

Cats That Look Like Hitler

Thursday, June 14, 2007
Greatest living philosophers

The Corner is having an interesting discussion on the greatest living philosopher, sparked by the death of Richard Rorty. If they mean "most influential" in the contemporary scene, then I would say:

1. Saul Kripke
2. Hilary Putnam
3. John Searle
4. Daniel Dennett
5. Peter Singer
6. Jurgen Habermas
7. Thomas Nagel
8. Alasdair MacIntyre
9. Peter van Inwagen
10. Ralph McInerny / Luce Irigaray

The list is clearly dominated by the Anglo-American analytic tradition, indicating, to me, that there has been the most "movement" in this area in the past 30 or 40 years. It was a very different story only a few decades ago when the list would have been dominated by deconstructionists, existentialists and other post-moderns: Derrida, Levinas, Ricoeur, Foucault, Kuhn, Deleuze and people like Gadamer, Popper, etc. Of course there have been some great analytics to go in the past few years such as Davidson, Strawson, Anscombe, Quine, Rawls, Nozick, etc.

I think this recent domination by the analytics reflects two things: first the real dominance in contemporary philosophy (per se) by the analytic tradition, especially in attracting the most brilliant young thinkers and secondly because it is easier to stand out in the field since, even though it is competitive, there are clear rules of success and failure. There are probably many more people involved in continental philosophy, especially if you include literary theorists, sociologists, etc but their path is a dead end of post-post-structuralism and post-deconstructionalism, etc. You can only destroy and obfuscate so much before it gets boring. Analytic philosophy is exciting because they have held on to the idea of progress and increase of knowledge.

Still, as exciting as the analytic field is, it is too much like science, especially in its anti-metaphysical attitude. And the rest is too much like mysticism or navel-gazing. A revived Thomistic/Scholastic tradition that combines analytic rigor with metaphysics is the surest pathway to truth.

It will be interesting to see how many on the list will be more than a footnote in philosophy. Of the 11, I would say McIntyre has the best shot at enduring influence. the analytics are too narrow in scope, especially Kripke, which is part of what makes them so good. But synthesizers endure in the long run. McIntyre has changed his views substantially and has has a good prose style. I could see his work being assigned in grad school 100 years from now.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

How to perpetuate class war Lenin could have learned a think or two from the Dems.

Step 1: Complain about income inequality, two Americas, etc. Tax the rich and give benefits to the poor.
Step 2: When the playing field is level, call for the entry of millions of poor, unskilled workers, thus creating a wide gulf between the haves and have nots.

Repeat. It reminds me of the libertarian truism that you can have a welfare state or open immigration, but not both. It is hard for me to understand how some cannot accept this fact. If we say anyone who wants to be an American can AND all Americans are guaranteed a certain standard of living, including universal health care, free education, etc then eventually everyone poorer than Americans will come if able. Clearly, something's gotta give. Either slash benefits, curb immigration or watch it all collapse in less than a generation. But some seem opposed in principle to cutting benefits or cutting immigration.

Someone observed (I think it was Thomas Sowell) that California and Texas have similar percentages of immigrants from Latin America but immigrants are more integrated and there is little anti-immigrant sentiment in Texas, which seems strange when you consider that Californians are supposed to be laid back, tolerant liberals and Texans are supposed to be intolerant fascist republicans. But the difference is that Texas has lower taxes and fewer entitlements. So, native Texans don't feel like they are competing with immigrants for the public pie. Instead, they are glad to have more hard workers. Californians, on the other hand, are fighting one another for the maximum in benefits and patronage, Asian-American groups fight African-American groups who fight Hispanic groups, etc, etc.

EDIT: It also reminds me that when people complain and say that America has so many more poor people than Sweden or Germany or Norway, I gently remind them that none of them have a 2000 mile long border with a developing country and millions of desparately poor people entering every year. I would hazard to guess that if you discounted all immigrants from the census, the per capita income would increase greatly.

Three rules to avoid poverty:
1. Finish high school.
2. Get and stay married.
3. Avoid prison.
There are very, very few married, high school graduates who have never been to prison in poverty past the age of 30. The vast majority of the poor in the US are single mothers and children. I guess I could add rules 4 and 5 as "Don't drink too much" and "Don't gamble" just to round it out.

Monday, June 11, 2007

SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH AFRICAN ECONOMICS EXPERT

"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!" The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...

Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?

Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

SPIEGEL: Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them.

Shikwati: But it has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there's a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program -- which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It's only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it's not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa ...

SPIEGEL: ... corn that predominantly comes from highly-subsidized European and American farmers ...

Shikwati: ... and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unsrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN's World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It's a simple but fatal cycle.

SPIEGEL: If the World Food Program didn't do anything, the people would starve.

Shikwati: I don't think so. In such a case, the Kenyans, for a change, would be forced to initiate trade relations with Uganda or Tanzania, and buy their food there. This type of trade is vital for Africa. It would force us to improve our own infrastructure, while making national borders -- drawn by the Europeans by the way -- more permeable. It would also force us to establish laws favoring market economy.

SPIEGEL: Would Africa actually be able to solve these problems on its own?

Shikwati: Of course. Hunger should not be a problem in most of the countries south of the Sahara. In addition, there are vast natural resources: oil, gold, diamonds. Africa is always only portrayed as a continent of suffering, but most figures are vastly exaggerated. In the industrial nations, there's a sense that Africa would go under without development aid. But believe me, Africa existed before you Europeans came along. And we didn't do all that poorly either.

SPIEGEL: But AIDS didn't exist at that time.

Shikwati: If one were to believe all the horrorifying reports, then all Kenyans should actually be dead by now. But now, tests are being carried out everywhere, and it turns out that the figures were vastly exaggerated. It's not three million Kenyans that are infected. All of the sudden, it's only about one million. Malaria is just as much of a problem, but people rarely talk about that.

SPIEGEL: And why's that?

Shikwati: AIDS is big business, maybe Africa's biggest business. There's nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.

SPIEGEL: The Americans and Europeans have frozen funds previously pledged to Kenya. The country is too corrupt, they say.

Shikwati: I am afraid, though, that the money will still be transfered before long. After all, it has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, the Europeans' devastating urge to do good can no longer be countered with reason. It makes no sense whatsoever that directly after the new Kenyan government was elected -- a leadership change that ended the dictatorship of Daniel arap Mois -- the faucets were suddenly opened and streams of money poured into the country.

SPIEGEL: Such aid is usually earmarked for a specific objective, though.

Shikwati: That doesn't change anything. Millions of dollars earmarked for the fight against AIDS are still stashed away in Kenyan bank accounts and have not been spent. Our politicians were overwhelmed with money, and they try to siphon off as much as possible. The late tyrant of the Central African Republic, Jean Bedel Bokassa, cynically summed it up by saying: "The French government pays for everything in our country. We ask the French for money. We get it, and then we waste it."

SPIEGEL: In the West, there are many compassionate citizens wanting to help Africa. Each year, they donate money and pack their old clothes into collection bags ...

Shikwati: ... and they flood our markets with that stuff. We can buy these donated clothes cheaply at our so-called Mitumba markets. There are Germans who spend a few dollars to get used Bayern Munich or Werder Bremen jerseys, in other words, clothes that that some German kids sent to Africa for a good cause. After buying these jerseys, they auction them off at Ebay and send them back to Germany -- for three times the price. That's insanity ...

SPIEGEL: ... and hopefully an exception.

Shikwati: Why do we get these mountains of clothes? No one is freezing here. Instead, our tailors lose their livlihoods. They're in the same position as our farmers. No one in the low-wage world of Africa can be cost-efficient enough to keep pace with donated products. In 1997, 137,000 workers were employed in Nigeria's textile industry. By 2003, the figure had dropped to 57,000. The results are the same in all other areas where overwhelming helpfulness and fragile African markets collide.

SPIEGEL: Following World War II, Germany only managed to get back on its feet because the Americans poured money into the country through the Marshall Plan. Wouldn't that qualify as successful development aid?

Shikwati: In Germany's case, only the destroyed infrastructure had to be repaired. Despite the economic crisis of the Weimar Republic, Germany was a highly- industrialized country before the war. The damages created by the tsunami in Thailand can also be fixed with a little money and some reconstruction aid. Africa, however, must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars. These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims. On the other hand, no one can really picture an African as a businessman. In order to change the current situation, it would be helpful if the aid organizations were to pull out.

SPIEGEL: If they did that, many jobs would be immediately lost ...

Shikwati: ... jobs that were created artificially in the first place and that distort reality. Jobs with foreign aid organizations are, of course, quite popular, and they can be very selective in choosing the best people. When an aid organization needs a driver, dozens apply for the job. And because it's unacceptable that the aid worker's chauffeur only speaks his own tribal language, an applicant is needed who also speaks English fluently -- and, ideally, one who is also well mannered. So you end up with some African biochemist driving an aid worker around, distributing European food, and forcing local farmers out of their jobs. That's just crazy! SPIEGEL: The German government takes pride in precisely monitoring the recipients of its funds.

Shikwati: And what's the result? A disaster. The German government threw money right at Rwanda's president Paul Kagame. This is a man who has the deaths of a million people on his conscience -- people that his army killed in the neighboring country of Congo.

SPIEGEL: What are the Germans supposed to do?

Shikwati: If they really want to fight poverty, they should completely halt development aid and give Africa the opportunity to ensure its own survival. Currently, Africa is like a child that immediately cries for its babysitter when something goes wrong. Africa should stand on its own two feet.

Interview conducted by Thilo Thielke

Translated from the German by Patrick Kessler

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Currently Reading From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 STOPS to Restoring America's Greatness By Mike Huckabee

Huckabee for Prez!

I am officially announcing my endorsement of Governor Mike Huckabee for President in 2008.

None of the "top tier" candidates are very satisfying to me. I worked on the McCain campaign in 1999 (in 1995 I was overseas, but voted for Dole at the Polish consulate in Krakow, in 2003, Bush was the candidated and I was a Dominican so barred from directly endorsing a political candidate). But since then McCain is 8 years older (he will be 72 if inaugurated, and 80 at the end of his second term), with some health risks. He also is the author of the unconstitutional McCain-Feingold Act, that curbs free political speech and is not an ideological conservative, but rather a pragmatic one, which makes him a good senator but not a good president. He is a good senator, a good man and a war hero, but there are better choices. As for Romney, his Mormonism is not a deal-breaker but forces me to take a closer look. He just seems too manufactured to me. And he hasn't taken the risks I'd like to see a candidate take.

Fred Thompson has the potential to excite me. His charisma is off the charts. Still, he doesn't seem to be a "movement" conservative, though his views on many issues are good. Plus, the criticism by Dobson, though blunt, is I think, essentially accurate. I don't get the sense that he is at all guided by his faith or by God in his decisions.

But one can't get excited by other's short-comings, but by your candidate's virtues. He has the best sense, by far, of the proper relationship between church and state (I bet he is a subscriber to First Things). He is a great speaker (as befits a Southern Baptist preacher) with a knack for relating to his audience (as did another resident of Hope, Arkansas). He is the only candidate to flat-out say on his official campaign site that he seeks to overturn Roe v. Wade. He also seeks comprehensive tax reform (not to lower the overall revenue, but to greatly simplify the process, thus giving the American people billions of hours back). Read more about FairTax here. He of course supports traditional marriage.

He is the most Catholic candidate, even including Brownback, but he is much more telegenic than Brownback and a more viable candidate. He has distinguished himself well in each of the last three debates.

Friday, June 08, 2007

I learned that Epsom salts are a secret weapon of gardeners. And my "dead" tomato plant is rooting!! Also, a flowerbed is now in our front yard. And my little bay and lime trees arrived. As did my lemon grass. Lots of lemony goodness in my backyard.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

I spent four hours in the blazing sun yesterday planting watermelons and pumpkins. I also transplanted 4 tomatoes and 6 herbs as I mentioned yesterday. I am getting a bit of a late start and it shows. I like starting from seeds but it really means I should have started around March 1 instead of May 1. I could be eating an Early Girl tomato if that were the case. I am going to prepare the beds in the front yard for the wildflowers and the goldsturm perennials. I think I will also plant some sunflowers out there because they look pretty impressive. But I will plant the majority in the back.

My ginger and strawberries are the only ones I see no signs of progress with, but that is what is supposed to happen. Still, it shows my lack of patience and lack of confidence in my garden skill that I am so concerned. Finally, I think gardening in part reflects my confidence in my reading comprehension. I just feel that I can pick up a cookbook and follow the directions properly to get a delicious meal and that I can follow the directions on the back of a pack of seeds and get delicious herbs and veggies. It took me a while to realize that most people don't do this. But I guess I have always been good at following directions since elementary school. Or rather, understanding directions, not necessarily following them.