“Marxism is the opium of the intellectuals.”

- Edmund Wilson

Heard Hugh Hewitt this evening describing Hurricane Katarina as potentially the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Katarina's body count may well turn out to be staggering, but there are a couple of large events sitting at or near the top of the charts. The Johnstown Flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania on May 31, 1839, for example, killed more than 2200.

Johnstown was a growing and thriving steel town built, unfortunately, on a flood plain, downstream from the derelict South Fork Dam. There was always talk about the dam giving way some day, but no one ever tried to do much about it. When the flood struck, survivors took to their attics and bodies were still being found months, and in some cases, years after the flood. It took five years for the town to be rebuilt.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), however, the biggest U.S. natural disaster was the Galveston hurricane on September 8, 1900 that killed a reported 8,000 people. You can find accounts and photos of the disaster here, here and here.

At the time, Galveston was the jewel of Southern commerce, an emerging economic power and the wealthiest city in Texas. It's deepwater channel made it the most important seaport in Texas through which 70% of the nation's cotton crop passed, and it was the first city in Texas to have electricity and telephones. It was also a popular tourist attraction for it's warm, shallow Gulf waters. In fact, it shallow waters had led some experts to predict that the city was hurricane-proof, and a seawall was thought to be unnecessary. Despite telegrams and warnings of severe weather passed on from Cuba and Florida, the inhabitants were unconcerned; hurricanes had always passed them by before.

On the morning of September 8 many people were even down on the beach marveling at the impressive waves that were breaking. At the height of the storm that night the entire island would be underwater; nearly a quarter of the islands population perished and every home destroyed. Modern reconstructions of the storm's fury calculate that it was a Class 4 hurricane with 130 mph winds and a storm surge more than 15 feet high. While the city was rebuilt (this time with a seawall) over the next decade and regained some of its prosperity, it became secondary to nearby Houston.

So let's see if we can piece this recipe together. Take a noticeable natural feature, such as a flood plain, a sea-level island or even a city 8 feet below sea-level; mix in human hubris; add water; stir. Well thank goodness we won't let something like this happen again.

What did you say - something about a San Andreas fault? Silly. It's George Bush's fault.

I once overheard part of a conversation where a young college man, fresh from his Comparative Religion class, was explaining to my wife and daughter that, according to his professor, Christianity is a Western religion. My ladies were politely having none of it since they’ve got a good understanding of both Christianity and geography.

I suppose that the professor could consider that the Middle Eastern religions – Christianity, Judiaism and Islam – are “western” in the sense that they are not from as far east as Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism, or that Christianity and Judiaism have had more influence in the West. Nevertheless, whether you consult Genesis or Rand-McNally, Christianity is an Eastern religion.

This is even more clear philosophically when you consider the religions of Greece and Rome, the root cultures of Western civilization. The Greeks and Romans shared the same cast of multiple gods only with different names. It should also be noted that this pantheon (look it up, homeschoolers) consisted of beings who were lustful, quick-tempered, deceitful, vain, petty and untrustworthy. Sounds like the cast for the next reality program, Survivor: Mount Olympus. In short, these were gods made in the image of humans. If you go further West into old Europe and Britain you find even more polytheistic paganism.

The Judeo-Christian and Islamic revelation of one God, perfect and all-powerful who requires not just worship but the pursuit of moral excellence (and provides the framework for doing so) is a radically different – and un-Western - spiritual proposition. In fact, it might be an interesting exercise for you and your children to imagine and discuss the effects on individual behavior and society of trying to serve arbitrary, unpredictable gods who were little more than immortal and more self-indulgent versions of yourself.

Another point to ponder is that polytheism hasn’t gone away. Today our worldly culture goes through incredible contortions to deny or ignore the first commandment. Science and law strive to claim there is no God while philosophy and the entertainment industry promote that there really are all kinds of gods and they all should be recognized the same in the name of diversity. Meanwhile law, science, philosophy, entertainment, politics and others all have their enthusiastic disciples eager to evangelize our children.

Sometimes it’s through head on confrontation, other times by a slow and steady erosion of relativity and rationalization aimed at sowing and watering doubt. Often it is the intellectual seduction of a respected teacher or professor saying, “Oh, surely you’re too smart to still hold those outmoded beliefs. Now let me show you how we turn gold into lead.”

At some point our children will face all of these and more. Their ultimate defense is not in simply knowing the Bible, but in knowing God. Others will try to turn God and Christ into mere concepts, and arguments about concepts are rarely productive and often dangerous. A young person who has sought a relationship with Christ, experienced a revelation from God, applied these to his or her life and achieved a noticeable result is young person who has a strong foundation to counter any argument or doubt.

Our children may feel strongly about something, but strong feelings are easy to come by, and are on every side of an argument. A personal testimony is virtually indisputible. If your child can say “God said this, I believed it, acted on it, and this happened in my life,” there is little anyone can say to refute it (especially if you have the x-rays to prove it!) Being able to recite scripture isn’t a bad thing; being able to apply scripture, however, will change the world.

I came across this quiz yesterday while on my way to somewhere else and almost passed over it. There was a time in my life - mainly my college days - when I read a lot of science fiction/fantasy books. I had more than a passing familiarity with masters such as Ellison, Zelazny, Herbert, Asimov and Howard. While there was certainly an element of the fantastical to their work, what drew me to them was the commentary and views of reality woven through their works. At the top of my list, however, was Robert Heinlein. Interestingly enough, here's the results of my "What Science Fiction Author Are You?" quiz:

I am: Robert A. Heinlein Beginning with technological action stories and progressing to epics with religious overtones, this take-no-prisoners writer racked up some huge sales numbers.

Which science fiction writer are you?

My first semester in college a friend told me I had to read Heinlein's Time Enough for Love, which had come out a few year earlier (1973) and was in paperback. Next to Wouk's The Winds of War I think TEFL was the fattest paperback I'd ever picked up. It was also a tremendous story, telling the tale of Lazarus Long, a man some 2000 years old (not to be confused with the Mel Brooks-Carl Reiner creation). It was thought-provoking, even startling, look at the nature of time and social and sexual mores. The sprawling tale itself featured several other stories within it that could have stood on their own as short stories or novellas. And as an extra treat there were two interludes - squeezed in like frosting between layers of a cake - that were described as excerpts from the notebooks of Lazarus Long: pithy nuggets of wisdom and observations of life. From the obvious and mundane — small change may often be found under seat cushions — to the outlandishly practical — Get a shot off fast. This upsets him long enough to let you make your second shot perfect — my friends and I would quote these back and forth to each other and most remain with me to this day.

One of the recurring theme's in Heinlein's work is that of the individual vs. the mind-numbing mass and his iconoclastic zeal for creativity and independence appealed to me. I can't say how much his views shaped my opinions, or if I liked his work because it agreed with my own outlook, but I know that all of us become who we are because of the people we meet and the books we read; at the least Heinlein helped articulate for me what I may already have sensed.

Eventually he and I "parted ways". His later writings - like those of Ayn Rand - ultimately exalted the individual to the point of nihilism, disregarding responsibility to others (at least in my opinion). His views of religion and the supernatural tickled my agnostic sensibilities for a time, but I ultimately came to see that what he viewed as unreal and intangible could be very real and tangible. Lazarus Long said, "What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what 'the stars foretell,' avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable 'verdict of history' — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!" I found there was truth in between every decimal place of his facts, and this portion of his "gospel" I rejected.

Reviewing the results of this quiz, however, brought back many of those Lazarus Long statements to my memory - along with a smile. Many still do a good job of summarizing some of my beliefs. Here are some I think you'll enjoy:

Can you imagine that, Harvey?

Jimmy Stewart
You scored 23% Tough, 9% Roguish, 61% Friendly, and 9% Charming!








Link: The Classic Leading Man Test written by gidgetgoes on OkCupid Free Online Dating

You are the fun and friendly boy next door, the classic nice guy who still manages to get the girl most of the time. You're every nice girl's dreamboat, open and kind, nutty and charming, even a little mischievous at times, but always a real stand up guy. You're dependable and forthright, and women are drawn to your reliability, even as they're dazzled by your sense of adventure and fun. You try to be tough when you need to be, and will gladly stand up for any damsel in distress, but you'd rather catch a girl with a little bit of flair. Your leading ladies include Jean Arthur and Donna Reed, those sweet girl-next-door types. Find out what kind of classic dame you'd make by taking the Classic Dames Test.

I like living indoors. That, and eating regularly, are two big reasons why I continue to work. Therefore I can understand on a certain level the desire of wild animals to move into my house. What I can't understand is the recent appeal. Last Sunday it was a gopher. Last night it was a bat.

Our bedroom is on the second floor and we have a large awning over the window. In the dark I'm sure the space under the awning seems very cavelike. It's also an old house and the top of the screen in the window doesn't always stay in its track. Rather than find a replacement for the screen, I use the Red Green approach of strategically applied duck tape. About 1:00 a.m. my wife and I heard a tell-tale skritch at the screen, followed moments later by the screen popping and the sound of leathery wings in the room. I turned the nightstand lamp on to reveal a rather large specimen of a brown bat with a wingspan a little bigger than my hand, circling the room with lots of sudden changes in altitude.

Suddenly in the middle of our own Wild Kingdom episode, my wife claims the role of Marlin Perkins: "I'll stay in the bed with the sheet pulled up to my eyes while John wrestles the beast into submission and counts its teeth."

The first order of business is for me to commando-crawl over to the window to raise the screen in the hopes the bat will go out the same way it came in. Yeah, I know the bat doesn't want to run into me anymore than I want to run into it, but it's hard to maintain good posture when a crazed creature is zooming around at the level of your adam's apple. Next, get on over to the small closet door and close it and the door to the master bath, and then into the walk-in closet to turn the light on. Past experience has shown us that if you give a bat a dark place filled with lots of clothes to hide in, that's where it will go. This time it is too easy, as after about a minute of doing laps around the room the bat finally got itself lined up properly with the open window and was long gone.

We get about one bat episode a summer and I suppose I should try a more effective approach with the window screen, but I have to admit that this is kind of fun and a good source of material. The first time we had a bat in the house it came in through my youngest daughter's window. She started crying about a bug in her room, which sent my wife in that direction, rather grumpily, wondering why a bug was such a big deal - until she opened the door and turned on the light. Stalemate. My wife wasn't going in, my daughter wasn't coming out, and the bat kept circling. I went in, scooped my daughter and my wife slammed the door as I came out and we left the situation for daylight.

The next day I went in with my leather work gloves, a broom and a dustpan and finally determined the bat must be hiding in the closet. I opened the windows and tried to make enough noise and commotion to flush the critter out, but it was hanging tough out of sight. My wife came in and started to go through the closet one hanger at a time, pulling out the clothing and shaking it while I stood ready to pounce on whatever moved. About a third of the way through the closet she shook a dress and the bat dropped out ... and slid down my wife's bare leg (she was wearing shorts) to the floor. I really wish I could have admired her bat dance in greater detail but I stayed focused on my mission and clapped the broom down on top of the creature. Once the secondary tremors had faded my wife grabbed an empty trash can and put it over the bat as I removed the broom; it was soon returned to the wild via the window.

The episode is one of our favorite family stories, and we've since learned that my wife's bat dance is dramatically different from her spider dance. But that's a story for another day.

Update:

When it comes to animal control problems, what are a few bats and gophers around the house, anyway? At least I don't have to feed them. One man is going to great and hilarious lengths to keep his birdfeeder from becoming a squirrel's answer to Old Country Buffet, and you can read about it here.

Nice article and photos here:

Festus, MO Gives Hero's Welcome to a Wounded Iraq Vet

(HT: Michelle Malkin and the Gateway Pundit)

Last Sunday the StarTribune's OpEx section featured two photos side by side that the paper had downloaded from its news service. The photos had come one right after the other and though they were for unrelated stories the editors couldn't help but notice the juxtaposition: one photo was of a starving child from (I believe) Niger and the other was of competitors chowing down at a hamburger eating contest.

My copy of that section has long since wrapped fish, but my recollection of the text is that the Strib mainly pointed out the interesting coincidence of the order in which the photos arrived and let the contrast pretty much speak for itself. No doubt there may also have been an implied message of, "look how decadent - no wonder they hate us," but maybe I've just become sensitized and cynical. My own thought would be, "no wonder so many people want to come here."

I expected a flood of letters to the editor to appear declaiming American wantonness in the face of suffering and based on logic as thin as refugee camp gruel. Only a couple were printed, however, and they were not as mealy-mouthed as I would have expected.

The Sunday Op Ex pictures of a starving child in Africa vs. the American pig-outs at food-eating contests are stark! How often I'm reminded of our national feeding overindulgence when I see the leftovers at restaurants, especially at the "breakfast-special" restaurants or the "all-you-can-eat" buffets, with enough pancakes, toast, bacon, sausages and hash browns left behind to feed a Nigerian family for days.
- George Mayerchak, Long Prairie.

Yes, there is no doubt we Americans take our abundance for granted, are wasteful and even profligate. (At least in the Household of the Night we don't believe in throwing good food away. We wrap a leftover and put it in the refrigerator and wait until it becomes bad food, and then we throw it away.) The reason is because food is so cheap. Say what you will about our culture, but our economic system has mastered the growing, raising, harvesting, processing, shipping and buying of food to such a degree of efficiency that something so essential can essentially be dirt cheap, even though everyone involved at every step in the process takes their cut. Am I going to save that last ear of corn from dinner when I can go to Cub tomorrow and buy six fresh ones for a dollar? (You might be able to tell that I didn't grow up during the Depression.)

It was Kevin who tipped me off to the World Map feature on Site Meter. I'd never looked at that until this week, and it was amazing to me. In the course of this week I've had visitors from New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, the Ivory Coast, Iran, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Belgium, Spain, the UK and the distant and exotic land of Canada. (Does anyone know how you say, "Hey, y'all" in Farsi?)

Granted, just about all of these came to me as a result of Google searches, and may have stayed only long enough to say, "Vas ist das scheisse?" but it's still kind of cool that I have the potential to create an international incident any time I sit down at the computer.

To paraphrase Satchmo, "What a wonderful World(wide web)!"

I'm working on a longer post on another topic that I hope to finish tonight. In the meantime, a couple of interesting news stories (click the links to read the entire article):

"Camp Reality" sets up across from "Camp Casey"

Military families disturbed by a sea of crosses erected by anti-war protesters near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, have removed crosses bearing the names of their fallen children and transferred them to another site to show support for American troops in Iraq.

Anti-war protesters "never asked for my permission to put up a cross for my son for their cause," said Gary Qualls, whose son was killed in Iraq. "They are not respecting our sons and daughters."

... Also, starting today, about 500 yard signs that say "Support Our Troops" and "Bush Country" will be placed on property directly across from Camp Casey by a group called GrassFire.org.

"We will also unfurl a huge American flag" to fly at the site, which is being called "Camp Reality," said Steve Elliott, president of GrassFire.org. He said his group has collected 400,000 petitions supporting both Mr. Bush and U.S. troops.

Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rules 11-2 in favor of Nebraska town's Ten Commandments display.

PLATTSMOUTH, Neb. (BP)--In the first major Ten Commandments decision since the U.S. Supreme Court had its say, a federal appeals court Aug. 19 upheld the constitutionality of a large granite Decalogue monument that has stood in the city of Plattsmouth, Neb., for 40 years.

The 11-2 decision by the full Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals comes nearly two months after the Supreme Court issued a split decision in two separate cases, allowing a Texas Ten Commandments monument to stand but ordering the removal of a Kentucky Ten Commandments courtroom plaque. The ruling by the Eighth Circuit reversed an earlier 2-1 decision by one of the court's three-judge panels.

There's also this:
Anti-war protestors target wounded at Walter Reed

Washington (CNSNews.com) - The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the current home of hundreds of wounded veterans from the war in Iraq, has been the target of weekly anti-war demonstrations since March. The protesters hold signs that read "Maimed for Lies" and "Enlist here and die for Halliburton."

The anti-war demonstrators, who obtain their protest permits from the Washington, D.C., police department, position themselves directly in front of the main entrance to the Army Medical Center, which is located in northwest D.C., about five miles from the White House.

Among the props used by the protesters are mock caskets, lined up on the sidewalk to represent the death toll in Iraq.

The Duluth Shipping News has a series of photos of an incident this afternoon where the Dutch ocean-going ship Vlieborg veered into the canal wall while approaching the Aerial Lift Bridge. The Vlieborg was departing Duluth with a load of beets. No injuries have been reported, though there were a number of tourists near the wall when the crash occurred.

For some time now I've enjoyed looking in on the Shipping News site periodically. The editor, Ken Newhams, keeps a running log of the ships in port along with folksy news of what's happening in the vicinity. The best part, however, is his excellent photography. He does an terrific job of capturing and communicating life in and around the harbor in all kinds of weather. The people, the ships, the storms, the tourists are all there and he has extensive archives you can browse. I find his slide shows from the November 2001 and 2003 storms especially fascinating.

Go check out the site, but keep your eyes peeled for runaway beet boats!

“Hello, this is ABC Cardiology. How may I help you?”

“Yeah, I'm looking to have a little work done, and I'm calling around to find out what it costs to see one of your doctors and have a couple of tests?”

“What kind of tests?”

"Oh, you know, EKG, stress test, enzyme test, whatever it is you folks do to figure out if something's wrong with the old ticker.”

“Um, I don't know what that costs. Let me transfer you.”

"Ok.”

"Hello, Coding Department.”

“Yeah, could you please tell me how much a visit with one of your cardiologists costs, and what kind of tests I might expect and how much they cost?”

“Well, I'm not sure I can tell you...”

“Look, it's like this. I'm thinking it might be a good idea to have someone take a look at me, but I have a high deductible health plan so that means I'm paying for most, if not all, of any visit out of my own pocket and I'm just calling around trying to get some prices for a comparison.”

“Well, let's see...a consultation is $334 to $432, depending on the amount of time spent.”

“Yow! Is there anyone in town who charges less?”

“No, that's pretty much the standard Usual, Customary and Reasonable cost accepted by the health plans.”

“So, uh, do you have any coupons or specials this week?”

The above is a composite of the discussions I've had recently as I try to follow up after my ultimately innocuous visit to the ER recently. I'm taking this approach for two reasons.

One time a gopher climbed into the outdoor vent for our dryer and wound up falling down the exhaust tube and meeting its end inside the works of the machine. The dryer had to be turned on its side and almost entirely disassembled before we could get to the source of the smell and by that time the little carcass was...well, it was pretty awful.

Today when my youngest daughter, Patience, and I came home from church she opened the door from the garage into the kitchen just in time to see our cat coming hard from the living room in high speed pursuit of a brown streak. Said streak made it to the dining area and underneath a free-standing jelly cabinet, whereupon the cat set up a seige. My daughter scooped the very annoyed kitty and closed him in the basement and came out to the garage where I was still getting things out of the car.

"Dad, Felix chased a chipmunk under the jelly cabinet!"

"Good," I said, "let him earn his keep by keeping the varmints under control."

"Daddy, we can't let Felix get him," she said in some distress, "and besides I've already locked him in the basement."

This was not good news. We don't see many chipmunks around our place, so I was thinking gopher. Which of course reminded me of the last time a gopher breached our perimeter. I had also been thinking a dead, rotting gopher in the dryer was about the worst thing we ever hoped to experience as homeowners, but now I started wondering if a live, excited gopher could be more destructive - and a lot harder to remove.

I went inside with Patience to scope out the situation. She announced she was going to try to trap the beast using a shoe box and some hazel nuts from the cupboard; an idea I thought would be spectacularly unsuccessful. Still, it was an idea, and since my thought of letting the cat retrieve the interloper (and then retrieving the neutralized rodent from the cat) was in disfavor I figured it was useless to suggest the Carl Spackler options of flooding, shooting with a high-powered rifle, or plastic explosives shaped like the gopher's "friends".

The situation seemed stable for the moment, so while Patience assembled the elements of her scheme I went outside to see if I could find a gopher-sized opening into the house; hopefully one that didn't already have a gopher-sized sign advertising "free high-speed internet." Minutes later Patience came bounding outside as well.

"I tried to force it out from the cabinet and toward the box with the food in it," she said, "but it ran into the kitchen and under the stove. And I think it's a gopher and not a chipmunk."

"Ah, Mr. Gopher, we meet again," I thought. I was not surprised that the trap hadn't worked because - in order to defeat my enemy - I was already thinking like my enemy and I sensed that a gopher on the run in strange surroundings would not be thinking, "I've got to get out of here - but first, a snack!"

I was thinking again of unleashing the cat, but my daughter was thinking strictly in terms of an exit strategy. "If only we could get him to run outside," she said. I was about to say, "Oh yes, perhaps if we asked him nicely..." when it started to dawn on me. The stove is opposite of a door that leads directly to our driveway. Both are located in a narrow neck of the kitchen that leads to the larger part of the room. If we could just establish a barricade to prevent any flight deeper into the house, and if we could hold the door to the outside wide open....why, yes, it could just work!

Quickly we laid chairs on their sides, perpindicular to the front of the stove. Next my daughter selected a broom, and I positioned myself in the threshold, holding the inside and outside doors open as widely as possible. Patience then started to probe gently under the stove with the broom. Almost instantly the gopher shot out from under the stove, crossed the narrow strip of floor between us and was out the door in front of me and launched itself off of the stoop. It landed in stride and crossed eight feet of pavement faster than you can say "great gobs of" and flung itself into a hedge with a last exultant leap. I choked up like at the end of "Free Willy".

But do you want to know what the best part of all this is? The cat still thinks the gopher is under the jelly cabinet, and is camped out. I plan on breaking the news to him in the next day or two.

The summer of '88 was a summer of heat and drought, which my pregnant wife and I weathered in an unairconditioned garden level apartment. Wednesday night August 17 was as steamy as the rest, made even more unpleasant for my wife because she was more than a week overdue with our first child. We went to Wednesday night service at our church that evening and our pastor had me, and the rest of the congregation, pray that the baby would come soon but not before service was over.

About midnight that night the heat wave broke and the temperature dropped by about 20 degrees in two hours time. My wife, and apparently nearly every other full-term pregnant woman in St. Paul, went into labor. When we arrived at our hospital early on the morning of August 18th every bed in the Labor and Delivery area was already full. It turned out to be a day of complications that kept our prayer chain busy as we waited for space in L&D to open up, waited for an anesthesiologist to show up and administer an epidural (which didn't take), waited an hour and a half for another anesthesiologist to come and try again while I tried to be as calm and comforting as I could be while my wife went through contraction after contraction. When she rested in between I would step out of her line of sight and lift whatever piece of furniture or heavy equipment I could get my hands on to vent my own frustration. I think the nurses were ready to call another anesthesiologist to bring a tranquilizer dart. At 4:33 p.m. it was all worth it.

This is the beginning of a much more in-depth education program, in which we tell our members why and what Wal-Mart does — not just to small towns, but to workers," said Louise Sundin, president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers. (Strib: Twin Cities teachers unions push Wal-Mart boycott)

Honest, Mom, I wasn't doing anything. I was sitting in my American History class and Ms. Wolverton was talking about the founding fathers, and when she got through telling us about the first president — Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, that is, so you know I was paying attention — she told us to take out our Diversity Journals and write about what it would feel like to be beat up by cops employed by fatcat capitalists and to not have health insurance besides.

So I was opening up my backpack when it slipped - honest! - and everything spilled out on the floor. Well, not everything, because I was able to catch my iPod, you know, and then the Wolf, I mean, Ms. Wolverton points at the floor next to me and says, really mean-like, "What's that?"

Well, I look down and I say, "Nothing Ms. Wolverton, that's just the condoms they gave us in third period today."

"No," she says, "What's that?"

Then I say, "You mean this flyer about what time Tuesday morning we're to catch the school bus to take us to the state capital to protest for higher education spending?"

"No!" she says, and now she's really mad. "That looks like one of the new Trapper Keepers that Wal-Mart is advertising in the newspaper! How dare you bring something like that to school?"

"Hey, it's not mine," I said. "Someone must have stuck that in there just to get me in trouble, probably during Conflict-Resolution class!" Really, Mom, that Billy Swedberg is sooo passive-aggressive.

So anyway, now Ms. Wolverton is all, "shopping at Wal-Mart is the first step to economic servitude, and how buying a Trapper Keeper seems innocent enough now but, like, the next thing you know I'll be listening to talk radio and voting Republican," you know? Then she says something like, "someday when you're working 70 hours a week for $1 you'll wish you'd paid more attention in class." Well, I didn't really know what to say to that, but she gave me the idea, so I said, "I'm sorry, my ADD is acting up - what was the question again?"

Well, that seemed to calm her down and I thought it was all going to blow over when she says, "I don't know what people are looking for when they go into a den of iniquity and social injustice like Wal-Mart."

OK, Mom, I knooow I should have kept my mouth shut, but I wasn't really thinking because I was still so nervous, so I said, "Good values?" And that's when she went ballistic and told me I knew I wasn't allowed to use that kind of language in school and that I had to go to the principal's office and they were going to call you to come and get me.

So, am I in trouble?

Update:

For more informative and serious insight, read this post from Bogus Gold. Be sure to follow the links in that story to Craig Westover and Swiftee.

I somehow missed this, which is strange because I rarely go a weekday without visiting his blog, but Varifrank's one year blogging anniversary was August 15. His post on the subject is an interesting story on why he started and the lessons he's learned (some fun and some not) in that time, as well as describing some exciting opportunities that have opened up for him as a result.

His is one of the most distinctive and informative voices in the blogosphere and if you're not clicking him regularly you really, really ought to.

Happy Blogiversary, Varifrank!

A co-worker pointed me toward a new Minnesota-based blog, Cedric's Blog-o-Rama.

Cedric is a young, soon-to-be-married, freelance illustrator and artist. His site is a breezy take on the fun and challenges of his job and the joys of his faith and being engaged. I'm not sure of his politics, but he is liberal in his use of illustrations on the site. His art is bright and cheery, and you may even recognize some of his work from displays at the Mall of America.

Here's a post he offered to comic book fans about Fanboy radio:

One of the great things about freelancing is that you get to work at home and be your own boss. One of the not so great things is that it can get quite lonely. You miss having other artists around to talk to, joke around with, and be inspired by. So I was really excited this morning when I stumbled upon Fanboy Radio. It's a two-hour radio program dedicated to discussing comics and interviewing people in the industry. Airings have included interviews with Mike Wieringo, John Byrne, and Stan Lee just to name a few. For only 75¢ each you can download episodes as podcasts. For me It's like a breath of fresh air to hear such accomplished artists discussing their work, sharing their ideas, or just kidding around. It's not the same as having a live person to talk to, but at least I get to hear the voices of other artists in my studio (even if it is through my computer speaker). And not just any artists, but accomplished professionals whose work challenges and inspires me. So if you love comics and you're looking for something fun to listen to, check out Fanboy Radio.

Check it out!

It's two a.m. and the beast slides in under the bedroom door while I'm sleeping, a darkness deeper than the dark. I feel his weight as he sits on my chest and the tingling sensation of the tips of his talons as he takes my head and turns it slightly to face him. "Let's talk," he hisses.

This implies conversation, but it is one-sided. Doom seems to be the theme, oppression the objective, but I'm not paying too much attention to specifics as I sort through and catalog the degrees of my awareness. The house is quiet and still. No strange lights from outside, no smell of smoke through the screened windows. My wife rests peacefully beside me. There is just this...thing, hunkering down, pressing on my thorax. My breathing seems shallow; does it have to be? I fill my lungs several times, deeply. Breathing is good, the weight remains. I experimentally try shifting my position.

"Ah-ah," says the beast, "does it hurt when I do this?"

Actually, no, nothing hurts. I easily move my arm and place my hand below my collarbone. The river courses deep and wide and steady beneath my fingertips in a familiar rhythm. My skin is cool and dry and yet I know the beast has found something, deep within. A tiny flame of fear, like a pilot light, and now he breathes on it and his very breath is combustible - the flame roars, seeking more fuel, wanting to consume me. In the light of day I hardly notice the steady but small flame; now in the dark every flicker seems to cast an ominous shadow. This is beyond reason, but reason I must: there is money in the bank, we are whole, the jobs are good, the basement will be dry again. I am fine and no weapon formed against us will prosper.

The beast is unimpressed, and answers each thought with a "But..." of his own, his own butt and haunches squeezing against my ribs. The debate goes on quietly for an hour. I should get up. I should get some water. I should change the scenery, but I feel trapped. "Yes...trapped," the beast says, "trapped, trapped, trapped." This is going nowhere. Reason is not sufficient, and argument is ineffective. If he won't listen to me, then I won't listen to him. I deliberately turn my mind to the old songs, the songs of deliverance and praise, I repeat them to myself, sometimes running verses together or in different order, simply using what comes to mind, from another pilot light, a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, replacing fear with power, strength and a sound mind.

The darkness in the room changes perceptibly. It's nowhere near dawn, but it seems lighter somehow. Peace returns, if sleep does not. At 4:00 a.m. I'm aware that my wife is awake, lying quietly in the dark. I speak softly, "Are you awake?"

"Yes. Why are you?"

I tell her what happened. She draws closer, hooks one of her legs over one of mine, her arm brushes the last traces of the beast from my chest.

"I'm feeling better," I say.

One of the most interesting parts of home educating my oldest daughter was when we worked on creative writing and composition. The textbook I used was Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams. It's a mind-bending book that imagines that Albert Einstein had a series of dreams leading up to the publishing of his theory of relativity, with each dream a view of a world where time operated in a different way, such as a world where the higher above sea level you went, the slower time moved; or a world where time moved like currents of water and where a person could be accidentally caught up and deposited in his or her past.

The way we approached it was for her to read a dream (they were generally only a few hundred words each) and then answer three or four essay questions I'd ask based on that dream, usually along the lines of how she'd cope with certain situations in that kind of a world. One of our favorites was the dream dated April 19 where a man tries to decide what he should do about pursuing a woman he has just met. Three possible futures are described, and the kicker is:

These three chains of events all indeed happen, simultaneously. For in this world, time has three dimensions, like space. Just as an object may move in three perpendicular directions, corresponding to horizontal, vertical and longitudinal, so an object may participate in three perpendicular futures. Each future moves in a different direction of time. Each future is real. At every point of decision, whether to visit a woman in Fribourg or to buy a new coat, the world splits into three worlds, each with the same people but with different fates for those people. In time, there is an infinity of worlds.

Some make light of decisions, arguing that all possible decisions will occur. In such a world, how could one be responsible for his actions? Others hold that each decision must be considered and committed to, that without commitment there is chaos. Such people are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.

Inspired by Lightman's imagination and my daughter's answers, I offered a composition of my own in the same style as the original essay. I reproduce it here as an example of the objectives and pay-offs of home educating. And because it was fun to let the horses run.

It is a cold morning in a Minnesota winter, and a man sits in his basement wearing a loud rugby shirt colored as if attitude alone can defy the chill. He is staring at the white eye of a computer monitor, at the blank page in the screen that is ready to receive his typing. He knows that the blankness is an illusion, that what he sees is only the smooth representation of a myriad series of complex miracles that harness electricity, electrons, protons and light waves and leave them ready to be directed by his fingertips. He is not sure exactly how it all works, he only knows that with the knowledge he has he can put words and thoughts on the page and generally make them do what he wants.

In a way, the whole thing reminds him of his daughter. Fresh and unlined on the surface while beneath miracles even more complex and astounding than those that went into the creation of the machine course through her; here combining, there splitting, following a program he barely has wit enough to understand, let alone predict. He is pondering a series of assignments for her in the hopes of adding a catalyst to the program that may somehow improve or tune the instrument she is becoming. Should he do it? Should he do it?

(Read on:)

He decides not to do it. It would require a lot of work for both of them, might not be welcomed, and may not even have an effect in her life. How is he to know the composition of the talents and interests at work in her and her destiny in the first place? Can he compete with God? He does not give her the assignments, asks nothing more of her, and they continue in love and affection in the time they have together as she gets older. She studies, she reads, she goes to University. He decreases in her life. She meets a good man, they marry, raise children, each special in their own right. She pursues many interests. She thinks of her father occasionally, sometimes tells her children stories about when she was young. One day, sometime after her father is gone, she sits at the table in her kitchen. She has the feeling that she has missed something, but she’s not sure what. On an impulse she makes coffee and for the first time in she can’t remember how long, she adds cream, chocolate and cinnamon.

In a second world, the man in the loud rugby shirt decides to offer the assignments. It will take a lot of work, may not be welcome, and he’s not sure if it will have any effect in her life whatsoever. Nevertheless, he feels compelled to try. Out of a sense of duty, or perhaps vanity, or both, he cannot resist doing what he sees as working with God. He gives his daughter things to read, and then asks her to write about it. He asks questions, they discuss, he praises and pokes. Is there more to every question? Is there more to every answer? Is the first thought the best one, or merely a step in the right direction?

Sometimes she is pleased, sometimes she is provoked, sometimes they both wonder why they’re doing this, but she is always stimulated. Through this exercise she finds herself looking at things in different ways, examining her assumptions. Words and imagination take on a new significance in her life. Somewhere in the process a gear within her shifts position, a door opens and she sees something in a new, more focused way such as when an image appears from within a magic eye picture. Better yet, she finds the lever that allows the door to open, and she uses it often, allowing her to see the same truth in newer, richer ways. At the same time, she is opening windows that let her father see glimpses into the way she thinks. He is amazed and riveted by both her practicality and inspiration and humbled by what has been set in motion.

In the third world, the man also decides to offer the assignments. It takes work, isn’t necessarily welcome, and it’s hard to tell if it’s making any difference. His daughter takes the assignments and responds dutifully, as if checking off items on a list of chores. She responds quickly, sometimes merely writing out the answers that she thinks he wants to hear. Like a playful dolphin she tail-dances across the surface, impressing many while waiting for someone to throw her a fish, even though she’s quite capable of diving longer and deeper and getting her own fish. When she’s older she looks back at this time as being something akin to the period when she had to wear braces; a time when she had to put up with, and out-live, an inconvenience while taking for granted any long-term effects. The man, meanwhile, returns to his basement and has the feeling that he has missed something, but he is not sure what and stares at the white eye of the computer monitor.

These three chains of events all indeed can happen, or portions of each can combine in unforeseen ways to create complete new events, because in the real world all futures are possible, while all pasts are immutable, though both the future and the past can be negated by decisions in the present.

(hide)

Rainy days and blog days always get me down.

Well, not really. I'm starting to get a rhythm to this blog thing, or at least a tempo I feel I can maintain while eating up the miles. But somedays my mental blogging jog somehow leaves the paths of scenic opportunity and insight and I find I'm in a dead-end alley with nothing to look at but trash and recycling. As the day drags on without something piquant and pithy to post the alley seems to get darker and narrower.

Ah, but then a timely glimmer of light such as this funny pamphlet, What Everyone Should Know About Blog Depression (HT: Sandy at The MAWB Squad). It's a parody, I think, but as often happens, the parody reveals the truth. And the truth will make you free. I read it and realized that while I want to post every day, I don't have to! It's my blog! So I'm not going to post today! Hey, nonny, nonny!

Oh, I guess I already have. Oh well, I'm taking the next 7 or 8 hours off anyway, and I already feel refreshed!

Please don't be disappointed, dear reader. For today's amusement I heartily encourage you to read the very entertaining and provocative Gettysburg ghost-stories and commentary here and here. (HT: Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog). Just the thing for a gloomy day!

See you tomorrow.

Today's StarTribune features a commentary by David Brooks that highlights many positive societal changes since the early 90s that suggest America is becoming more virtuous. For example, family violence, violent crime, violence by teens, drunk driving fatalities, hard liquour consumption, teen pregnancy, abortions, the number of children living in poverty, divorce rates and teen suicide are all declining. It's strange that I haven't seen the front page headlines about these trends, but if the Strib let this story run then it must be true.

But wait, out of their commitment to providing fair and balanced perspective, the Strib's editorial staff had to weigh in as well with an editorial entitled "Moral revival: Not with both eyes open". After first calling our attention to Brooks' column "on the opposite page" (um, oh yeah, the right hand page) they note, "With one eye open, he runs through a litany of good news." This is followed by a flying "but"-monkey bigger than anything in the Wizard of Oz: "These are indeed wonderful trends to celebrate. And, as Brooks suggests, they are part of an improved climate of private virtue. But Brooks sees only half the picture. If he opened his other eye — his eye on public virtue — his claims of a clear moral revival would quickly blur."

The editorial then launches into a series of rhetorical questions, which means they weren't really expecting responses (easy to do when you're a one-way medium). Well, in my best Samuel L. Jackson voice, "Allow me to retort."

Update:

Doug at Bogus Gold has more commentary on this editorial.

For those holding their breath right along with the crew of Russian submariners trapped 600 feet below the surface, last Sunday's rescue was a welcome relief. Similarly, today's safe return of the space shuttle Discovery after unprecedented in-flight repairs brought more good news to the headlines. Somewhere between these hard-won triumphs in the depths of the ocean and the reaches of space there is room for perspective.

Men and women today are so accustomed to the technology and inspiration behind our modern miracles such as cell phones and iPods that we're almost blind to the wonder of it all. Then when extreme scenarios present themselves we again stand in awe of the capabilities available to us. Such awe would easily lead to arrogance when it appears that there is nothing we can't do, but for the memories of other subs and other shuttles that did not return. Our human ingenuity seems barely able at times to stay ahead of our human ignorance. We can conceive of things in a way that borders on the Divine, while the Devil remains in the details.

We stumble and trip, then breakthrough and soar, going from saying, "What were they thinking?" to "Imagine that!"

I've seen some interesting information on other blogs and web sites about the distant and mysterious land that my wife and daughter recently visited. This news verifies much of what they witnessed.

Go here to see signs of the times and the writing on the wall and other places.

Here's something that might make you wonder what this country might do with 33 million unmarried, surplus males between the ages of 15 and 34.

The seeds of an answer to that question may be found at this post from Apprehension.

(Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Scene 2)
CART MASTER: Bring out your dead!
CUSTOMER: Here's one.
CART MASTER: Ninepence.
DEAD PERSON: I'm not dead!
CART MASTER: What?
CUSTOMER: Nothing. Here's your ninepence.
DEAD PERSON: I'm not dead!

Terminally Ill Can Be Starved to Death, UK Court Rules
By Nicola Brent, CNSNews.com Correspondent, August 02, 2005(CNSNews.com) - An appeal court has denied a terminally ill British man the assurance that his wish not to be starved to death once he becomes incapacitated will be respected to the end.

Former mailman Leslie Burke, 45, has a progressively degenerative disease that although leaving him fully conscious, will eventually rob him of the ability to swallow and communicate.

He petitioned the High Court last year to ensure that he would not be denied food and water once he was no longer able to articulate his wishes.

CART MASTER: 'Ere. He says he's not dead!
CUSTOMER: Yes, he is.
DEAD PERSON: I'm not!
CART MASTER: He isn't?
CUSTOMER: Well, he will be soon. He's very ill.
DEAD PERSON: I'm getting better!
CUSTOMER: No, you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment.

Burke won that right when judge James Munby ruled that if a patient was mentally competent — or if incapacitated, had made an advance request for treatment — then doctors were bound to provide artificial nutrition or hydration (ANH).

But last May, the General Medical Council (GMC) — the medical licensing authority — took the case to the Appeal Court, arguing that doctors had been placed "in an impossibly difficult position."

The appeal judges have now agreed, overturning the High Court judgment and upholding GMC guidelines on how to treat incapacitated patients.

CART MASTER: Oh, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
DEAD PERSON: I don't want to go on the cart!
CUSTOMER: Oh, don't be such a baby.
CART MASTER: I can't take him.
DEAD PERSON: I feel fine!

Those guidelines give doctors the final say in whether a patient should be given life-sustaining "treatment," a term legally defined to include artificial feeding or hydration.

The latest ruling obliges doctors to provide life-prolonging treatment if a terminally ill and mentally competent patient asks for it.

However, once a patient is no longer able to express his or her wishes or is mentally incapacitated, doctors can withdraw treatment, including ANH, if they consider it to be causing suffering or "overly burdensome."

Ultimately, the court said, a patient cannot demand treatment the doctor considers to be "adverse to the patient's clinical needs."

CUSTOMER: Well, do us a favour.
CART MASTER: I can't.
CUSTOMER: Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
CART MASTER: No, I've got to go to the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
CUSTOMER: Well, when's your next round?
CART MASTER: Thursday.
DEAD PERSON: I think I'll go for a walk.

Anti-euthanasia campaigner and author Wesley Smith told Cybercast News Service it was important Burke had taken the case to court because "it is now clear that a patient who can communicate desires cannot have food and water withdrawn.

"That is a line in the sand that is helpful."

However, he added, the judgment had "cast aside" those who were mentally incompetent or unable to communicate their wishes — "those who bioethicists call non-persons because of incompetence or incommunicability.

"I believe that the judgment clearly implies that the lives of the competent are worth more than the lives of the incompetent since doctors can decide to end life-sustaining medical care, including ANH," said Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and author of Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America.

Burke was quoted as saying in reaction to the ruling that it held "no good news at all" for people who shared his concerns.

In the light of public health service cuts and underfunding, Burke said he was worried about "the decisions that will have to be made" by doctors in the future.

"I have come to realize that there are quite a few people who feel the same way I do," the Yorkshire Post quoted him as saying. "Not everyone wants to be put down. Not everyone wants their life to be ended prematurely."

CUSTOMER: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Look. Isn't there something you can do?
DEAD PERSON: [singing] I feel happy. I feel happy.
[Cart Master hits him in the head.]

Responding to the court's ruling, the GMC said it should reassure patients.

The council's guidelines made it clear "that patients should never be discriminated against on the grounds of disability," said GMC President Prof. Graeme Catto in a statement.

"We have always said that causing patients to die from starvation and dehydration is absolutely unacceptable practice and unlawful."

A professor of palliative medicine at Cardiff University, Baroness Ilora Finlay, supported the court ruling. "Stopping futile interventions allows natural death to occur peacefully," she argued in a British daily newspaper. "This is not euthanasia by the back door."

But the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) took a different view.

The commission was one of several campaigners, including right-to-life activists and patients' groups, which had strongly supported Munby's earlier ruling.

DRC Chairman Bert Massie expressed the group's dismay at the Appeal Court decision, saying it did nothing to dispel the fears of many disabled people that "some doctors make negative, stereotypical assumptions about their quality of life."

It had also "totally ignored" the rights of those who were unable to express their wishes, he added.

CUSTOMER: Ah, thanks very much.
CART MASTER: Not at all. See you on Thursday.

The Night Writer's vote for the funniest line: "Ultimately, the court said, a patient cannot demand treatment the doctor considers to be 'adverse to the patient's clinical needs.'" You mean, such as, "Please don't starve me to death?"

See also Suing to Stay on Life Support.

(Monty Python and the Holy Grail excerpt available here.)