Thought of the Day

After the election on Tuesday, and the campaigns that preceded it, I would like to make a brief statement on political terminology. 

If you seek change - of any kind - you are not a conservative.  By definition, a conservative is someone who seeks to maintain the status quo. 

If you seek change to produce a future that is different, and in your mind better, than what has existed in the past, you are a liberal.

If you seek change to produce a future that is more like the past (because in your mind the past was better), or seek to reverse changes that have become well established, you are a reactionary.

For example, in the time of FDR, the New Deal was liberal, because it sought to produce positive change in society by trying something new.  However, today, seeking to maintain those programs is conservative, because they are well established programs.  Seeking to revoke those programs is reactionary, because it seeks to return to a way of life that existed prior to these programs being established.

Relaxing in the Sun

Yesterday, when I was outside hanging a quilt on the clothes line to photograph it, my cat Tiger decided to follow me out.  He was laying in the grass being so cute I had to take a picture of him.  I think cats are particularly cute when they lay on the tops of their heads like that.  Tiger has been sick lately with lung issues, so it was nice to see him looking so relaxed and comfortable.

What will become of Minecraft?

According to BBC News (and I'm sure many other sources) Microsoft has bought Mojang, the makers of Minecraft.  I find this information somewhat unsettling, especially since the article says that the three founding members will be leaving the company.  I hope this doesn't mean that we will now have to pay for new updates.  That is probably my biggest fear.  What direction will they take the game in?  And, I don't use mods (I'm a vanilla Minecraft girl) but what will it mean for all the people who make mods?  Will Microsoft get all proprietary on them?  Change can be a scary thing.

Thought on Doctor Who

I'm not sure what to think about the newest season of Doctor Who and the newest incarnation of said TARDIS driving Time Lord.  I'm just not finding Peter Capaldi quite believable as the Doctor.  I feel like he is just too confused to be the Doctor.  With the way that he keeps getting confused about things, and apparently thinking things to be their opposite (Clara is old, not wearing make-up when she is, that sort of thing) it makes him seem more like Strax than the Doctor.  It is fine for Strax to be that way, not so fine for the Doctor to be the way, in my opinion anyway.  I guess that is more the writing than Capaldi himself, but somehow he just doesn't seem to be selling it to me very well, either.

And also, I know that the Doctor doesn't know everything, but when it comes to history (past, present, and future), as a Time Lord, he is supposed to be "in the know" on most thing.  I found it odd that he did not know that Robin Hood was a real person.  At first I thought that his disbelief at there being a "real" Robin Hood was because the legend was actually built about the Doctor himself.  But that did not turn out to be the case.  It was just that the Doctor doesn't believe in heroes.  I wasn't real taken with that explanation, but at least I did find that episode amusing. 

And what was with last night's episode anyway?  Moffat takes an interesting idea - that there is really something under the bed - and then seems to leave it hanging.  The episode seemed to become more about foreshadowing Clara and Danny being together than about these being that have evolved to be the perfect hiders.  Was that really something alien or supernatural under the bed covers in Rupert/Danny's bedroom?  What did the Doctor see when he opened the door?  Are we going to find out?  And I wasn't especially taken with the scene of Clara talking to a scared little Doctor hiding in his bed in the barn either.  What exactly was that all about?  I feel like Moffat is trying to explore the darker side of the Doctor and look at some of his fears and weaknesses, but I just don't think he is doing a very good job of.

My Take on the HIMYM finale

I haven't read a lot of commentary on the How I Met Your Mother finale from Monday night, but I've a heard a little bit here and there.  A lot of people don't like that they killed off Mom and put Ted with Robin in the end.  I'm not really fond of the idea either, but that's not really my main complaint with the episode. 

To me, the problem was that it just wasn't funny.  HIMYM was a funny show.  The finale was sad, not funny.  There were so many comedic turns they could have taken to end the show on, but instead they go with the almost too obvious twist of putting Ted with Robin.  Yes, it makes sense, and, honestly, makes the majority of the series make more sense, but it makes the whole last season leading up to the finale make no sense at all.  Why spend this whole last season making us believe Barney has changed and Robin and Barney should be together, to then just have them get divorced?  Why make Tracy (Mom) be so perfect for Ted and then just kill her off?  And why have everyone's life be semi miserable after the wedding?  True, it may be more realistic to show that not everyone is happy in middle age, but since when was HIMYM based on realism? 

I'm all for twists and original endings, but for a comedy, the ending should be clever and, most of all, funny.  To me, this one just wasn't.  It was disappointing and sad. 

2013 Book List

Here is a list of the books I read in 2013:

Monday Mourning - Kathy Reichs
Cross Bones - Kathy Reichs
A Study in Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Sign of Four - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Heat Rises - Richard Castle
Player Piano - Kurt Vonnegut
Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
To Kill a Mockingbird  - Harper Lee (reread)
Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
To the Last Breath - Francis Slakey
Break No Bones - Kathy Reichs
Frozen Heat - Richard Castle
The Walk - Lee Goldberg
Deadly Heat - Richard Castle
Bones to Ashes - Kathy Reichs
Devil Bones - Kathy Reichs
The Quilt - Kimberlyn Owens
The Quilter's Apprentice - Jennifer Chiaverini
The Christmas Quilt - Jennifer Chiaverini

Well, still no actual book reviews this year, but 20 books in a year is probably a record for me.  The fact that I didn't teach in the spring probably contributed to the overall total.  Again, most were library books or Kindle downloads - again some free and some paid for.  The Walk  and The Quilt were both free from the Kindle library.  Thank goodness I didn't actually pay for The Quilt because it was awful - almost painful to read, in fact.  One book was borrowed from a friend (Gone Girl), it was okay, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.  And only one book, To the Last Breath, was read in order to teach it.  And I will say, it was better than last year's Common Reading Initiative book (The Ghost Map).

Looking through the list, it is obvious that I have authors that I go back to and I tend to gravitate towards series.  I am currently caught up on the Richard Castle Nikki Heat series.  I still have several more Kathy Reichs novels in the Tempie Brennen series that I could read, but I'm taking a break from them at the moment.  I can only take so much Kathy Reichs at a time.  There are still more Vonnegut novels I could read, but I got a little burned out on them, too.  I just started the Jennifer Chiaverini Elm Creek Quilts series, and I'm currently reading the book that is technically second in the series, thought the two I have read are in chronological order by story line.  Once I finish the one I am currently reading I may take a break from that series as well.  I'm not sure yet.  Hopefully this year will be as filled with reading as the last.

Thought of the day - from my husband

If the grocery store sells extra virgin olive oil, why don't they sell extra slutty olive oil?

Tiger in the Gazebo

My cat seems to be really enjoying the new addition to our yard.  I think this is his way of saying, "Thanks for buying me a new bed."  And, unfortunately, he also thinks it is his new scratching post.  Because, as every cat caregiver knows, every new purchase made is always for the cat.

Something New

We took out our above ground pool and replaced it with a gazebo, or more accurately a "teahouse".  It has a double swing inside.  We haven't finished the landscaping, obviously, but I think it is coming along nicely.  The plan is to plant spirea and butterfly bushes, along with some lantana and some annuals which are yet to be determined.  I've wanted a gazebo for a long time, and I'm so happy to finally have one.

2012 Book List

Here is a list of the books I read in 2012.

Galapagos - Kurt Vonnegut
Chariots of the Gods - Erich Von Daniken
The X President - Philip Baruth
Heat Wave - Richard Castle
The Island of Doctor Moreau - H.G. Wells
The Knowland Retribution - Richard Greener
Ubik - Philip K. Dick
The Ghost Map - Steven Johnson
Naked Heat - Richard Castle
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie

Eleven books in a year is pretty good for me.  Some were books my husband or kids already owned.  Others were library books.  Still others I downloaded to my new Kindle (some paid, some free).  One (Naked Heat) I actually bought a paper copy of in order to read it.  And only one was I forced to read (The Ghost Map) due to teaching obligations.  Not a bad year.  Maybe, at some point, I'll once again write some actual reviews of the books I read.  We'll see what next year holds.

Reelected!

As is obvious by the previous post, I'm happy to see that President Obama has won a second term.  Results from here in Alabama were about what I had expected; however, Judge Roy Moore's opponent, Bob Vance, gave a better showing than I had expected.

I am very happy to hear, too, that Jon Tester (D-Mont) has won reelection to his senate seat in Montana.  Obviously, here in Alabama I'm a long way from Montana, but I do love the state and I'm happy to see Tester pull it out in that tight race.  I've followed that race closer than some here at home.  Way to go Jon!

I voted!

I did my civic duty and voted.  I voted for Obama/Biden, but since I live in Alabama, I'm sure most of the few people I had the option of voting for will win.  It is AMAZING how many offices were not contested.  But at least I did have the opportunity to vote against Martha Roby, so I most certainly did.

I also had the option of voting on 11 Amendments to our ridiculous state constitution.  I did some research into the amendments, but found it rather confusing on many fronts.  I ultimately didn't vote on Amendment #9, because there were so many arguments about hidden agendas in the language of the amendment.  I figured I didn't want to accidentally vote for something I didn't really want.  I think the state legislature puts a lot of effort into misleading the voters of Alabama.  It is a shame that politicians won't just honestly represent what they want to accomplish and let the people decide without all the dishonest word games.

Music Midtown Festival

Wow, it's been a while since I posted anything here. But this definitely seemed worth posting about. I went to the Music Midtown Festival over the weekend. It was so much fun. I've never been to a music festival like this before. It was like a sea of people out there. We got pretty close to the stage for the shows we were interested in.

This was Garbage performing.

Here is a picture of me and my  husband, just to prove we were actually there.

This is a picture of the crowd behind us before the Florence + the Machine show.

This is the crowd in front of us while they were setting up for Florence + the Machine.

And then, the main event. . .Pearl Jam.  This was the only picture I got that wasn't just a blur of light.  We managed to get pretty close to the stage, but there were soooo many people it was still hard to see.  I held the camera up over my head to get this pic. 

It was so amazing to actually be there and be down so close to the stage where everyone is singing and packed together like sardines.  When you are that close you can feel the music in your chest.  I had a great time and I'm so glad we went.

I'm looking forward to going to see Eddie Vedder perform in Jacksonville, FL in November.  I know it will be a completely different kind of show there, but I'm also sure I'll have a better view of the stage and a place to sit down.  :)

Playing with Wordle

I decided that it might be interesting to make a word cloud of the words actually spoken by Jesus in the New Testament. I looked to see if I could find one and I couldn't. So I started making one. I only got through Matthew. Maybe I'll finish later. Here is what I got. For some reason the code from Wordle isn't working to show it here, but here is the link

I finally went digital

The question is, was it worth it? It certainly shouldn't have been as difficult a process as it turned out to be. But ultimately I did get to watch tonight's premiere of Doctor Who, so it all worked out okay. I do, however, find myself much less enamored with both TiVo and my cable company than I was when the process started.

We talked to the people at our cable company and told them what equipment we had, told them we want to upgrade to digital cable and asked what we needed to do. They insisted we needed a cable box. I set up an appointment to get the installation done the following Monday, this was last Thursday. The guy comes out, and after an hour fiddling with my cable wires and TiVo, realizes that I can't use a digital box with a TiVo DVR. He takes the box in to install a cable card only to realize that my Series 2 doesn't have a slot for a cable card. He brings it back to me and tells me that I will have to upgrade my TiVo or get one of their DVRs. Okay, partially my fault. I should have remembered that my TiVo was not digitial compatible.

Enter TiVo. I go online to the TiVo store to upgrade and get a new TiVo that will accept a cable card. I order a TiVo Premiere and transfer my service to the new box. It says that it will ship the same day and that I will have 60 days (I think) of service on my old box in order to get my new box set up. It even says I will be able to transfer my season passes to the new box. Great right? Wrong!

I'm supposed to get an email when the box ships, but I don't get one. 24 hours later I still have not received an email saying it has shipped. So I call customer service. They say that there was a technical problem with the previous days orders: they shipped, but the emails weren't sent out. Okay, great! Again, wrong! It didn't ship on Monday, it shipped late afternoon on Tuesday. Still no major problem, it should still get to me before the weekend. And, great (for real this time) it actually does. It get to me after 5 pm on Thursday. My cable company is going to be open on Good Friday, so I'm still in luck.

From what I can gather looking at the instruction a cable card is no big deal to install, so I ask if they will just give me a card to install myself. Well, of course not, they have to do it themselves. At a cost of either $50 or possibly $60, I was told two different amounts by two different people on two different days. I was also told two different amounts for how much the service would cost per month. I still don't know how much I'll be paying. . .

Finally, after the cable people had the TiVo for about 5 and a half hours, I got it back and could bring it home and set it up. I get it set up and there are no directions for how to hook the darn thing up with a DVD player. I contact TiVo again, and they tell me that it can only be hooked up to one output source at a time, which I take to mean that I would have to disconnect it from my TV to connect it to my DVD player.

I did finally get everything connected and working properly - the TiVo connects to the DVD player, which then connects to the TV. I try going online to transfer my season passes from the old box to the new, and you guessed it, I can't! The only box it shows for me is the new one. So I have to manually reset all of my season passes. Well, the ones that I can set, because, of course, not all shows that I have season passes for are going to be showing in the next two weeks. So now I will have to remember to reset them before the shows come back on in the summer or fall.

All is fine and good, and my Now Playing shows are transferred and my Season Passes are set. But it was WAY more expensive and WAY more of a headache than I ever anticipated when I set out on my quest to watch the season premiere of Doctor Who. All I've got to say now is that it better be a damn good season of Doctor Who!

Enjoying Number 11

I have finally gotten around to watching the newest series of Doctor Who with the eleventh Doctor. I wondered how I would feel about the new Doctor because I was so accustomed to David Tennant and I didn't know how the show would be with a new writer. I have been very pleasantly surprised. Matt Smith is great and the writing is really good, too. I love Steven Moffat's sense of humor and I find myself laughing out loud much more often that I remember doing with the most recent episodes written by Davies. In fact, I was beginning to grow a bit tired of the final episodes with Davies and Tennant.

I'm not all the way through this series yet and my next DVD won't come from Netflix until tomorrow, but we have been ripping through them just a quickly as we can get them. In fact, I'm so taken with it that I'm considering signing up for digital cable just so that I can get BBC America (only available on digital cable through my provider) and watch the next series without having to wait for it to come to DVD. But I do like British comedy in general so I'm sure I would watch more on BBC American than just Doctor Who.

Update to "My Map"

Today I was looking back at an old post to find a link to a site to make a colored map for use in my American National Government class. I ended up not using the site, because it was specifically for making a map of the US states you have visited, but it reminded me of how out of date my map is. So I decided to make a new one to show my updated travels since January 2007. It has been a lot of fun adding new states to my map. Someday, maybe I can color them all!

My little "lasagna garden"

Here are some pictures of the little garden I planted this year. I never got around to making one last year, because here at the new house it needs protection from the deer in the neighborhood. This year I built a really deep lasagna garden and put a 5 foot tall fence around it. Hopefully that will be a sufficient deterrent to the deer. Here are pictures of the garden itself and the veggies growing within.

Here is the whole garden

This is my "yummy pepper"

My Sweet 100 tomato

My Husky Cherry (with some tiny tomatoes on it)

My Talladega Tomato

My Big Beef (which isn't very big yet)

A row of cucumbers with a wire trellis for them to grow on.

One hill of the zucchini with three little seedling, just starting to sprout their first true leaves.

Song that move me

Today I was listening to a CD and a song came on that was just really moving. The sound of the singer voice was the most important part. In fact, most of the lyrics I can't even understand. The song was Reynardine by Fairport Convention, but there are some other songs that fit into that same category. The first one that came to mind was Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam. In these kinds of songs, it is not about the words in the song, it is about the sound of the singer's voice when he or she is singing it. It illustrates the power of the human voice as an instrument regardless of the words being sung.

Religion and Rock and Roll

As this Lenten season draws to close, I find myself going over two song in my head and contemplating their potential for religious insight. The two songs are Like a Stone by AudioSlave and Michael Jordan by Five for Fighting.

Near the beginning of Lent, I read through the Catechism in my Book of Common Prayer. When I got to the section on prayer it said:

Q. What is adoration?
A. Adoration is the lifting up of the heart and mind to God,
asking nothing but to enjoy God’s presence.
Q. Why do we praise God?
A. We praise God, not to obtain anything, but because
God’s Being draws praise from us.

This was the beginning of my musings on these two songs. First, there was Michael Jordan by Five for Fighting. (I actually hadn't heard the song in some time; it just came into my head.) In it John Ondrasik sings about his adoration for Michael Jordan and lists off the many seemingly outrageous things he would be willing to do in order to be Michael Jordan. At one point in the song he says "my god, my Jordan" and if you think about it, it is apparent that Michael Jordan really is his god, at least in the context of the song. And I thought about it in context of the previously quoted excerpt from the Catechism. It seems to me that this is the type of adoration that God wants us to have for him. Then I have to ask myself, do we? Do we just adore God and wish to do anything to simply be in his presence, or do we always want something in return.

That is what brings me to Like a Stone. In this song Chris Cornell sings:

on my deathbed i will pray
to the gods and the angels
like a pagan to anyone
who will take me to heaven

The truth in this song has struck me for a quite a while now. Do we really just pray to God because we believe that doing so will get us to heaven? To get to some great reward that is often even depicted in a material, worldly fashion (streets paved with gold, pearly gates, etc.)? Is it about the chance to be with God, or is it simply a chance to reunite with loved ones who we have lost?

How could an athlete or a singer or an actor, garner so much more adoration from so many people than we are honestly willing to give to the creator of our entire universe? And yet, if many of us were honest with ourselves we would find that we are willing to do more to see or be close to these types of people than we are to truly be close to God. How do we get past the immediate and the physical to adore someone who is eternal and yet not physically visible to us in a manifest form? Are we willing to do the things that God asks us to do on a daily basis? Would we be willing to do them if our favorite athlete, actor or singer asked us to do them? I wonder.

Now keep in mind that I am not leaving myself out of this equation, nor do I have a real answer to my own questions. These are simply some of the thoughts that have been swirling around in my head this Lenten season and I felt the need to share them with anyone who felt inclined to read them.

Political bumper sticker

Today when I was out finishing my Christmas shopping in Montgomery, I saw a bumper sticker on a car in the Target parking lot. The bumper sticker said "Pray for Obama, Psalm 109:8" I wrote the chapter and verse down so that I could look it up when I got home. When I looked it up it said, in the Contemporary English Version, "Cut his life short and let someone else have his job." And in the King James Version, "Let his days be few; and let another take his office."

If that is not the most un-Christian sentiment, posing as Christian, that I've ever seen I don't know what is. It is one thing to wish him out of office, if that is your politics, fine. But to wish his life cut short is a totally different story. And don't even bother saying that if it is in the Bible it can't be un-Christian, because there are plenty of un-Christian things in the Old Testament.

People like that who call themselves Christian with so much hatred in their hearts just sickens me.

A sad day

Today is a sad day for my family. My uncle, William Ray Strickland died this morning after an extended illness. He was only 44 years old, but has had health issues since 1996 when he contracted encephalitis during the outbreak in Atlanta.

Rest in Peace, Will. We will all miss you.

Musing on conspiracy theories & the 16th Amendment

At the suggestion/request of a student, I watched the Zeitgeist video yesterday. One of many of the conspiracy theories set forth in the video is that the Federal Income Tax is unconstitutional because the 16th Amendment was not properly ratified. So today I did a little looking on the internet to find out what the argument is supporting that position. I found this website that points to all the mistakes made by the states that ratified the amendment, but I don't really plan to research the validity of its claims at this point.

The thought that I do have on the subject and would like to voice is this, How would the other amendments to the constitution hold up to this same scrutiny? It would make a much stronger argument if they could show that it was somehow outside the norm that they behaved in the way they did. Even if they were not acting within the letter of the law, you can't prove conspiracy unless you can show they were acting in a way that was inconsistent with their own past behavior. How many amendments do we have to throw out using this method? How many states do we have to throw out as well? I've heard illegal/unconstitutional arguments thrown around concerning West Virginia and Hawaii, but I'm sure more could be found if you search hard enough.

If it is really illegal/unconstitutional, take a test case to the Supreme Court. If there is sufficient discontent with the federal income tax and sufficient states that don't agree with it, propose a new amendment to repeal it. And no, it does not require Congress to act, there are provision in the Constitution for states to both propose and ratify amendments to the Constitution, it has just never been actually used before (See Article V). There is a legally established process for this, people.

UPDATE: After spending close to an hour looking over the Texas Constitution online, I can find no evidence that it prohibits "the legislatures from empowering the federal government with any additional taxing authority." If it is there, I missed it or it has since been removed through the amendment process (it's no Alabama Constitution, but it has been amended 456 times).

It does, however, require that a bill be read on 3 separate days before voting (as the linked page suggests) but that rule can be suspended, in cases of emergency, by vote of the legislators. I'm not sure why a vote on a Constitutional amendment would be deemed an emergency, but if they held the requisite vote to suspend the rule then that legal argument would be moot.

American National Government & Monty Python

This morning I am working on constructing a quiz for my American National Government classes. To date, the classes have not done exceptionally well on these quizzes, which consist of questions solely from the reading material combined with questions from the power point presentations. Consistently half the students or more have made either D's or F's.

Jokingly, I had suggested to my family over the weekend that I should have three of the questions be as follows: 1. What is your name? 2. What is your quest? 3. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? So this morning, as I was making out the test and therefore looking for a way to avoid working on it, I decided to Google "what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?" My quest ultimately led me to this site where someone had actually done some research and worked it out, all with a Monty Python theme.

So if you ever find yourself on the Bridge of Death, just remember, the answer is 11 meters per second, or 24 miles an hour. Hum, too bad it was 24 and not 42, then we might have found the question to the ultimate answer, but that's an entirely different story.

Tree ID

Does anyone have any idea what kind of tree this is? It is yet another thing that I have in my yard that I have no idea what it is. It makes a cool looking berry.


This is a close up picture of the fruit, or berry or whatever you call it, that it produces.


Does anyone know? If so, I'd really appreciate a response.

Trip Pictures

I've uploaded most of our trip pictures from our trip to New England and Niagara Falls to Webshots. There is a permanent link to my albums over in the side bar, but here is a link to the new album. Here are just a few to get you started. Enjoy.

American Falls at Niagara

Nubble Lighthouse

Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse

On an Academic Note

I got a paper proposal accepted!!

The paper is called "Carrying the Fire": Political Liberalism and Realism in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It will be presented at the Western Literature Association Conference in Spearfish, South Dakota this fall.

You might be asking yourself, "Western Lit? I thought you taught political science?" Well, yes, yes I do teach poli sci, but I'm doing a political look at a piece of modern literature and this is a conference that welcomes and encourages scholars from other disciplines to present at their conference. Plus, my husband is presenting a paper there as well, so I was going anyway, so why not see if I could present too, right?

What the heck was that? - Bones edition

I don't know what last night's season finale of Bones was supposed to be, but I was very disappointed with it. Oh, it was funny and all, but certainly not what I had hoped for in a season finale. The only thing I can figure is that the writers wanted to find a way to give the die-hard fans some of the things they have been longing for (Booth and Bones in bed together, Zack back on the show) and they couldn't think of a normal way to do it. I don't know.

I do wonder if there was supposed to be any significance to anything that played out in the show. Plus, there is the question of whether that was all Booth's dream or was it Brennen's story that she deleted, or what.

I sure hope they get there act together by next season. If they don't, you can forget jumping the shark, they will just fall into the shark tank and be devoured.

We live in a drug culture

You've probably seen this commercial for Abilify before, but I'll post it for those who haven't.



When I heard this commercial it just struck me how reliant on drugs we really are. Basically what this commercial is saying is that if you take drugs and they don't seem to be helping, or helping enough, the answer is to simply take more drugs. Drugs are not always the answer, and usually they just aren't the answer at all. We tell out kids, "Don't take drugs", "Say NO to drugs", etc. but then we are bombarded by commercial after commercial that says if you want to feel better, perform better, etc., the answer is in this drug or that drug.

Now a lot of people try to make the argument that there is a difference between prescription medication and "drugs" and on some level that is true, but on another level it just simply isn't true. Most of the street drugs today started out as drugs recommended by doctors. Yes, even cocaine and heroine. They were psychiatric drugs. We didn't know about their long term effects, side-effects and all that back then like we do now, so they are generally not prescribed anymore. But the flip side to that is that the drugs we have today are rushed to market without enough research and/or the doctors who prescribe them don't really pay attention to what they are doing or why they are doing it. (And I say this from experience.) The drug company tells them, "try this" and they do.

Some times medication is necessary. I'm not saying it isn't. But we rely on them too much. As a culture, we seem to have this notion that everything can be fixed with a little round pill taken once a day (or 30 minutes before sexual activity) and I think that is wrong-minded. We look for the easy way out and sometimes there just isn't one.

New York City flyby ill advised, to say the least

Via CNN.com, Official who OK'd N.Y. flyby accused of 'felony stupidity'

After a YouTube video showed panicked New Yorkers scrambling as a Boeing 747 flew frighteningly close to the lower Manhattan skyline, a former Homeland Security adviser questioned whether the man who approved the flyby should remain in his White House office.

Fran Townsend, who advised President George W. Bush for more than three years, called the move "crass insensitivity" in the wake of 9/11.

"I'd call this felony stupidity. This is probably not the right job for Mr. Caldera to be in if he didn't understand the likely reaction of New Yorkers, of the mayor," Townsend said Tuesday on CNN's "American Morning."

Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, quickly apologized for Monday's incident after the planes prompted workers and residents to evacuate buildings in New York and New Jersey.

I have to say that I agree, felony stupidity is an appropriate descriptor here. If it is not stupidity on the part of the person authorizing it, then it is sadistic. Let's hope for stupidity.

Quote of the Day

Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
-- Leonardo da Vinci

As a college instructor that teaches only general studies classes, I can vouch for the truth of this statement. When people are disinterested in a subject, they are not likely to learn much or retain what little they did learn.

I wish that as a culture we actually valued education and knowledge. Instead, what we value is the piece of paper that we get after paying for 4 years of college and the job that we get because of it.

Speaking of Jumping the Shark...

Apparently JumptheShark.com has jumped the shark. What was once a great site full of user comments and feedback on tv shows, etc. is now just another page on tvguide.com. It is nothing like the old site. The good news is, there is a new website out there is picking up where jumptheshark.com left off. It is called Bone the Fish. It is just starting up, so go check it out, sign up and starting adding content to make this a great site like the old Jump the Shark used to be.

The Joys of a New Landscape

Last fall we moved into a new home, but the house is not actually new and the yard has a good bit in the way of established landscaping. I'm trying to figure what all I have and what I want to plant and where. It is an interesting discovery experience. Currently I have a small shrub (or I suppose it could be a small tree) blooming in one of my beds that I have no idea what it is. The blooms look a lot like honeysuckle, but it is definitely not a honeysuckle vine. If anyone knows what this is, I would really appreciate the info. Here are some pictures of the shrub and close-ups on the blooms.

Bones Jumping the Shark?

Some say that Bones jumped the shark by making Zach the Gormogon's apprentice, but I could deal with that because I had just started watching the show at that time and Zach was already seeming creepy at that point. But if any of what is in this article is true, the shark tank is filled and the ramps are in place.

P.S. If Booth keeps hallucinating somebody needs to make him pee in cup.

Be careful how you kid around in Israel

Via MSNBC - Rabbis rule joking teens legally married

It all began as a lark, in a schoolyard where a 17-year-old boy recently declared the girl his wife, reciting a Jewish ritual vow in front of witnesses, and she accepted his ring.

That, and what a spokeswoman for Israel's Rabbinical Courts said was the consummation of their marriage, was enough to make them man and wife in the Jewish state.

I came across this headline in a google search while working on writing my ANG midterm exam questions. Of course, I had to click on the story. Once I read it, I had to share.

The sniping and in-fighting begins

Via the Canadian Press: Knives come out for Sarah Palin; McCain aides tell tales of an ill-informed diva it would seem that the honeymoon was over rather quickly between the McCain campaign and Sarah Palin. Plus, they seem ready to expose her obvious intellectual shortcomings.

If the anonymous McCain insiders are to be believed, Palin, a 44-year-old mother of five, was unaware that Africa was a continent, arguing that South Africa was simply a region of the larger country of Africa.

She also didn't know the three countries that are in the North American Free Trade Agreement, namely Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Let us just take this moment to once again thank goodness that this woman will not be a heartbeat away from the presidency and hope against hope that the Republican have better sense than to run her as their candidate in 2012.

A Great Moment in American History

Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. What an amazing day. It is wonderful to see him win and it is wonderful to see so many people taking part in the political process. God Bless America and God Bless our new president-elect. He has a long road ahead.

Go Vote!

Remember, every vote counts even if it does only count within your state.

When my husband and I voted this morning, around 9:30 Central Time, we were the 428th and 429th voters to put our ballots in the optic scanner at our polling station. There was no line, but there were several people at the tables voting. I'm hopeful about the outcome, but unlike my sister, I don't plan to glue myself to the television for non-stop election returns coverage.

I find this funny

Over 100 newspapers around the country have endorsed Senator Barack Obama for President, so one more newspaper doing the same is hardly news. But I do find this particular endorsement rather funny, because of its source. A couple of days ago, the Anchorage Daily News endorsed Obama in their editorial column: Obama for President. Now the piece itself probably focuses more on McCain's shortcoming than it does on Obama's strengths, but to have the largest newspaper in Alaska shun their native daughter for Obama/Biden just strikes me as so funny. I liked this assessment:

Yet despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.

It is certainly a risk I'm not willing to take.

Just for fun

I love this song, but I also love misheard lyrics. This is a wonderful song even though I can't understand more than a handful of the words he says. His voice is just so moving he could actually be saying what this video suggests and it would still sound great. But in the spirit of fun, here are the misheard lyrics of Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam

I have to wonder

After watching Obama's "Joe the Plumber" encounter on a YouTube clip, I have to wonder exactly what Joe's real story is. It seems to change from encounter to encounter. In fact, just listening to him talk, it sounded to me like he was making the whole thing up. That he was really proposing a hypothetical situation, not really describing his current situation.

UPDATE: As it turns out, I was right.

When he first begins to speak to Obama, he says that he is thinking about buying the plumbing business that he works for, or something to that effect, but it was clear that he did not yet own the company. Then later, when he was talking to FOX news, he seemed to give the impression that he already owned a plumbing company. In fact, I was reading this article this morning in the Washington Post: 'Joe the Plumber' Becomes a Fixture that said:

There has been a big media market for the plumber in recent days. On Tuesday, just a day after his Obama handshake, Wurzelbacher told Fox News host Neil Cavuto that he lives in a "simple middle-class home" and doesn't want to upgrade because he'd rather put his money into his business.

"I don't want to keep up with the Joneses, and two, I just couldn't really afford a bigger house. I'm going to have to work harder to make that company go. I want to put more trucks on the road, and his tax increases kind of hurts that aspect," he said.

I could be wrong, but saying "he'd rather put his money into his business" seems to indicate that he currently owns one. However, at the end of the article it states:

The Washington Post was unable to reach Wurzelbacher and was unable to verify whether he is a licensed plumber through a search of the database of the Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board.

I hope that there will be continued fact checking on Joe the Plumber's story.

I think I've had all I can take

After tonight's episode of Heroes I think I'm done with it. Ever since the new season started I've had the feeling that Heroes was more like a Soap Opera than anything else. In fact, I've been calling it "Days of Our Lives with super powers." At least tonight they did explain why Linderman was able to still be alive (illusion created by Daddy Parkman), but when they had Hiro kill Ando that was more than I could take. Even if they explain it away as an illusion or some other lame excuse, it is just not something that I want to watch. It is just not enjoyable anymore. It seemed like something new and interesting when it started. It went downhill some last season, but was still interesting. This time around it is just stupid. They are suggesting things that just don't follow from previous episodes. And the fact that they are turning the good-guys into bad-guys, and vise-vera, is also very soap-opera-esque. I didn't like it on Days of our Lives and I don't like it on Heroes.

This article over at MSN.com ("How to Heal 'Heroes'") has some interesting ideas of how to fix it, but I just don't think I can stomach the trip there even if they decided to try. I particularly liked this comment from the article

If someone were to try hard enough, you could "fanwank" an explanation for these and the various other elements of bizarre behavior on the show. But the point is that you shouldn't have to fanwank anything.

To that I can only say, "Amen, brother"

My current predictions for the electoral outcomes

I was playing around at the NYT website and decided to make a map for the electoral outcomes. These are my meager predictions. Take them for what they are worth, which isn't much. I end up with an Obama win at 293 and McCain with 245. It was tough to decide on most of the toss-up states. I feel like Colorado will go for Obama, but if he only takes Colorado (of the states the NYT deems as toss-ups) then it will end in a tie. That would not be good.

I couldn't agree more

I just finished reading Richard Cohen's op-ed column in today's WaPo online, This Debate's Biggest Loser, and I think he makes an excellent point. After enumerating Palin's lies and shortcomings in the VP debate, he concludes with this observation:

Ah, but the scorn, approbation and ridicule that would have descended on Clinton -- I can just imagine the Journal editorial -- have been withheld from Palin. Much of the mainstream media, grading on a curve suitable for a parrot -- "greed and corruption, greed and corruption, greed and corruption" -- gave her a passing grade or better. I agree with Palin. It's the mainstream media that flunked.

It seems as if simply because Palin did such a horrendously terrible job with her interviews with Katie Couric, the fact that she kept her head up and didn't wet herself during the debate was grounds to say she did an okay job. She passed the test. I don't think anyone is saying she passed with flying colors, but she passed. It is ridiculous.

And as an adjunct college professor, I particularly appreciated this statement Cohen made in his column:

[. . .] repeated mentions of "greed and corruption on Wall Street" (Who? Be specific. Give examples. Didn't anyone here go to school?) [. . .]

Heck, about half of my ANG students couldn't write a proper essay with actual examples on their last exam. But you know what, they didn't pass either.

McCain's history in financial crises

Quote of the Day

Today's quote on rationality is from Oscar Wilde:

One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

That sounds about right to me. Human beings like to think themselves rational and others irrational, but close scrutiny would certainly show otherwise.

Too Funny

See more Adam "Ghost Panther" McKay videos at Funny or Die

Note to McCain, don't insult your rich and powerful campaign contributers

Paris Hilton responds to McCain ad that mentions her.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Now that is fast!

My 17 year old son is really into art. He recently found some videos of people doing spray paint art. I think this is completely amazing. Check it out.


39 Second Painting - For more funny movies, click here

Now he wants me to buy him the supplies so he can try it out for himself. Who knows, I might try my hand at it as well.

Full Circle and Beyond

Well, I've finally come full circle in my exposure to Dr. Who and gone a few episodes beyond. I had heard about Dr. Who, of course, and was vaguely familiar with the character from the first incarnation of show, but had never watched it, neither the original series or the new series. Then one day I watched this clip on a scifi blog:

I thought that David Tennant was pretty funny in the clip and decided that I would give the show a try. A colleague told me that the SciFi channel was going to be running a marathon of the first season of the new incarnation of Who and that I should start there so I gave it a try.

I actually quite liked Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor and thought that there was a good dynamic between him and Billy Piper as Rose. My favorite Eccleston episode is the two parter, "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances".

When Tennant took over at the beginning of season 2 it was a little difficult getting accustomed to the new Doctor. If nothing else, Tennant is just a little harder to understand at times than Eccleston was. But also, I never really liked the dynamic between the 10th Doctor and Rose. It just didn't seem to play as well it had with Eccleston. And in fact, I like Martha better than Rose in general, I think. But I will say, that my favorite Tennant episode so far is "The Girl in the Fireplace", but that was because I thought he played exceptionally well with his then-girlfriend, Sophia Miles.

I hated that they had Martha leave at the end of season 3, but I'm glad that they wrote in her leaving in the way that they did. It preserved the strength that I felt they had given the character to that point, and it makes it possible for her to have guest appearances in the future without the creepiness that went along with Rose's reappearance at the end of "Partners in Crime".

So anyway, I've made it full circle. I started with "Timecrash" and have finally made it back around to "Timecrash" in sequence after the last episode of season 3. I've watched a little into season 4 (I've seen through "The Planet of the Ood") and I'm not sure yet how I'm going to feel about Donna. She's a little annoying, but I'm reserving judgment at this point.

On lying

Recently I've been thinking a lot about lying and why people seem so inclined to do it. Now, of course, I've lied, everybody has, but I just seem to be surrounded lately by instances where people want to lie and or hide the truth from people close to them. In some cases I've understood the motive, and in other cases, not so much. Plus, I have been lied to so incredibly much in my life that I have learned to greatly despise the practice and have a very low tolerance for being knowingly lied to by the people I voluntarily associate with.

So this morning I decided to do a Google search on why people lie. I found an article that I thought was interesting and somewhat helpful called "Why We Lie" from LiveScience.com. Apparently one of the main reasons that people lie is because of self-esteem issues. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. I did find this statement in the article particularly interesting:

Men lie no more than women, but they tend to lie to make themselves look better, while women are more likely to lie to make the other person feel better.

And there was also this statement, which to some degree I already knew:

humans are wired to deceive both themselves and others, researchers say. People are so engaged in managing how others perceive them that they are often unable to separate truth from fiction in their own minds

Very interesting. But then again, as a social scientist, I've always been very interested in what people do and why they do it. I've always been a people watcher, that is what drew me to the social sciences in the first place. I'm not really good at interacting with people, but I love to watch and study them.

So anyway, my minimal amount of research has led me to the conclusion that I will probably never obtain the truth that I so desperately wish to know. The person in question is probably incapable of being honest enough with himself to give me an honest answer to my questions if I ever got the chance to ask them. I guess I am just left to form my own conclusion and go on with my life, but I hate having unanswered questions floating around in my mind. Anyone who truly knows me knows the truth in that statement.

Dealing with what we own

One of today's quotes on my iGoogle homepage really struck home with me this morning. It is particularly appropriate considering how I have been spending most of my summer vacation so far. The quote is from John Ruskin and it says:

Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.

For the past month and a half I've been trying to cull through all the accumulated junk in our shed and in the children's rooms to try to make room for my eldest son to return home after a year of dorm life. It is amazing to me how much stuff a family of 5 can accumulate and hold onto over time. As I look through the piles and piles of old toys (many never really played with beyond the opening at Christmas and some never even opened!) I begin to realize the opportunity cost associated with so much stuff. And I being to look at possession in something of a different light. Do you say to yourself "I might as well keep it," or "It's a good price, I might as well buy it" or should you say, "What am I ever going to do with this?" or "Where am I going to put this?" I find myself realizing that we do become wearied and weighed down by our possessions. Sometimes I think it is true that less is more.

A letter (or email) of endorsement for Cheryl Sabel

Kris Kallies, Cheryl Sabel's campaign manager, emailed me recently with a copy of an endorsement email sent out by Randall Williams of New South Books, Inc. I thought I would share it with everyone.

If you live in Congressional District 2, I urge you to vote June 3 for Cheryl Sabel for the Democratic nomination for Congress. As she says in her television ad*, she is pro-choice, pro-worker and anti-war. Those six words alone distinguish her among Tuesday's field (and, sadly, from everyone who has held that Congressional seat in the last century).



But there are even more reasons to vote for Cheryl. She is one of the most decent, most principled, most intelligent people I've ever known. She comes from a working-class Alabama family and has educated herself and learned leadership skills and put them into practice. She has an open, collaborative style that is precisely what is needed in a congresswoman. She speaks plainly but eloquently, and she grasps the significant issues—not the sham patriotism and moralism that passes for political standards among so many of Alabama's elected officials—that confront us.



From the war in Iraq to foreign trade, education, immigration, transportation, economics, energy, taxation, to any other issue I can think of, Cheryl's views are consistently progressive, commonsense, and, if I dare say so, American and small-d democratic to the core. Further, you can count on her to vote according to those principles.



With respect,

Randall Williams

Cheryl has also been endorsed by Alabama New South Coalition, Bullock County Voters League, Democracy for America, Montgomery Chapter, and National Organization for Women PAC

And remember, June 3rd is just around the corner! Vote for Cheryl Sabel in the Democratic Primary!!!

I feel so smart

Click Here To Take The Test!

Quote of the day & I love it

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
-- Bertrand Russell

I haven't been able to find any yet either. And I'm more convinced than ever that even those who consider themselves the most rational are in fact just as irrational as the rest of us.

Quote of the day

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” - Dr. Seuss

And yes, that is directly related to my previous post. I try to remind myself of that fact often these days. It seems to help quite a bit. :)

Thank Heaven!!!

Well, it is finally over, the worst semester in history. I had some bad semesters when I was a student, but this semester, as a professor, was even worse. But at least I found out some very important things about myself and others.

First, I've determined that I never want to teach two Tuesday-Thursday classes back to back ever again. And in fact, I'd rather not teach them at all if possible. I never liked being a student in a Tuesday-Thursday class and I equally despise being the professor of one. I don't have the attention span to listen to someone lecture for 75 minutes and I don't have the stamina to do it myself. Also, I found it very difficult to learn the names of my students in the T-Th classes because I only saw them twice a week. And I hate not knowing my students' names.

Also, I found out that medication for depression and anxiety is not a cure all. And that sometimes following the advice of medical professionals is not the best course of action if it doesn't feel right to you. And as a corollary to that discovery I will add this. Don't let your "friends" convince you to start taking drugs. I know you always hear that in regard to illegal drugs, but it applies also to prescription drugs. They may be helpful in some circumstances, but don't let anyone convince you that they are really the answer, because most likely, they aren't. Plus, there is a good chance that the same friends that convinced you to take them in the first place won't be willing to be there for you when you still have problems in spite of the fact (or possibly because of the fact) that you are taking said medication.

This leads me to the other unpleasant discovery of the semester. That is that two people that I thought were my friends, were indeed, not my friends at all. It is my opinion that friends don't give friends the absolute boot and subsequent cold shoulder without any chance to clear up misunderstandings or even state your case in the matter. If they just make assumptions about your motives and feeling without even addressing the issue with you until they were ready to call it completely quites, that is not a friend. Plus, I have to say that to lie to a person about your feeling when you know that person has social anxiety is just cruel. Cruel. Period. Exclamation point! There is no other explanation for it. I guess the good thing is that I know now and I feel much better knowing where I stand. And in fact it makes me feel a little better about my judgment knowing that the discomfort I was detecting was real and not just a figment of my imagination as I was wrongly being led to believe.

The semester was not all bad, however. I did find that I can make at least a small difference in lives of my students. Teaching can be very demanding, but it can be fulfilling as well. I'm getting much more comfortable in the classroom and much more comfortable with the idea that it is my classroom and that I should focus on what I feel is most important regardless of how the textbook is designed.

So, anyway, I'll say again, thank heaven that it is finally over. I'm looking forward to a much more relaxing and enjoyable summer.

No easy answers

As the semester comes to an end, my students are handing in papers where they had to analyze a presidential candidate (history and political platform) and determine, based on the real powers of the office, whether this candidate is making empty promises or suggesting real solutions to the nations problems.

As the students presented their papers to the class yesterday, it was obvious that at least some of them had come to realize just how complicated politics really is. Some of them were coming to the conclusion that party labels and party stereotypes aren't as cut and dried as they had always assumed (or been led to believe) that they were. Others were realizing that the president will need major cooperation from Congress to achieve many of their goals and campaign promises. And some were even coming to the conclusion that their are no easy answers to the problems that face our country. I actually felt good about being a teacher yesterday.

This morning I read an article in WaPo (Running on Sweet Nothings) that is lamenting the emptiness of campaign promises and asks why the candidates continue to lie to us and act like there are easy answers to all of our many problems. I think the answer is fairly simple. The average American believes that there are easy answers to be had and so they expect to be told that those easy answers exist and what the answers are. When someone tries to explain to them that it is a complex process, like Kerry tried to do to some extent last election cycle, they get ridiculed by their opponents for supposedly saying stupid things, like Bush did to Kerry when he tried to explain why he would vote for a bill and then against a bill in the Senate.

In short, Americans tend to be drawn to the KISS approach to most things: Keep It Simple Stupid. Keeping it simple is the best, and possibly only, way to get votes. My hope is that which ever candidate makes it to office this go-around he or she will actually realize that simple answers don't really exist, unlike the one we have in office now. I think the problem with Bush is that he actually believed (and possibly still believes) that those simple answers are out there.

I must be a rare person

I came across a quote today, from Dick Cavett of all people, that really struck a chord with me.

It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear.

If Dick is right in his assessment, then I guess I am a truly rare person. And I say that because I almost always want to hear what people assume I don't want to hear. Partially it has something to do with my masochistic tendencies, but mostly it is just because I hate not knowing the truth.

Cheryl Sabel for Congress - AL District 2

On Monday I attended the candidate forum here at Troy University. Before attending, I didn't even know who was actually seeking to replace our retiring Congressman. It was a long and painful process to listen to a group of politicians all answering the same questions and most all of them giving the exact same answer.

But one candidate really stood out to me. Her name is Cheryl Sabel and she is running for the Democratic nomination for the 2nd Congressional District here in Alabama. If you are interested in voting for a true progressive Democrat on June 3rd, your only choice is Cheryl Sabel. Check out Cheryl Sabel's website at Cheryl Sabel for Congress

I was amazed at how much Bobby Bright did not sound like a Democrat at all. In my opinion, he is at best an Independent in Democrats' clothing. He basically said that if elected he did not intend to caucus with the Democrats. I believe his exact words were "Nancy Pelosi will not tell me what to do." I can understand that congressional representatives sometimes have to vote against their party to do what is in the best interest of the their district and all that, but a comment like that sounds like it should be coming from a Republican not a Democrat.

Life Lessons - The Golden Rule

Everyone is familiar with the Golden Rule - Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or in more modern terms, treat people the way that you want to be treated. My recent realization is that one shouldn't take the Golden Rule too literally. From some recent experiences I have determined that people don't want to be treated the same way that you may want to be treated. In fact, most people have a certain perception of how they want to be treated and it has nothing what so ever to do with how you might personally want to be treated. And it may, in fact, not even have any direct correlation to how they say they want to be treated.

And in addition to that, I've recently determined that people often don't like to be treated the way that they treat other people, and I'm not even referring to the way they treat people when they are being rude or unkind. It has often been my observation that people with certain personality types can't stand other people that have their exact same personality type. But I've recently decided that there are people who act very friendly and inviting, but then don't appreciate it (and in fact resent it) when you act the same way in return.

So my take on all of this is that the Golden Rule should probably just be interpreted to mean that you shouldn't do things to other people that you wouldn't want done to you, or put more simply, don't be mean. But you must always remember that most people don't really live by the Golden Rule.

I wonder

Goethe once said "As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live." I have to wonder if that will ever happen to me.

Some Higher-Ed News

From Inside Higher Ed we get some info on the size of the full-time professional employee population in Higher Ed and what jobs they are mostly performing.

Every other year, data released by the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics provide a snapshot of the growth of part-time positions in the professoriate. This year — an off-year for that data — the federal statistics provide evidence for another shift, in which the majority of full-time professional employees in higher education are in administrative rather than faculty jobs.

Very interesting, or at least I think so.

A comment on capitalism

I really enjoyed this op-ed column over at the Washington Post. It begins like this:

Never do I want to hear again from my conservative friends about how brilliant capitalists are, how much they deserve their seven-figure salaries and how government should keep its hands off the private economy.

The Wall Street titans have turned into a bunch of welfare clients. They are desperate to be bailed out by government from their own incompetence, and from the deregulatory regime for which they lobbied so hard.

I definitely think it is worth the time to read the whole article.

It reminds me of something I was thinking about recently. I was thinking just the other day about the economic stimulus checks that are scheduled to be sent out this summer and mentally comparing it to FDR's programs. At least with many, if not most, of those programs the people who benefited from them had to work to gain the benefit. Programs like the CCC and others involved public works programs that employed people who couldn't find work elsewhere. The current plan just gives people money to go out and spend. How is that so much more conservative than the programs FDR initiated that conservatives seem to hate so much and have worked so hard to get rid of? Just wondering.

WOW!!

And no, it's not a post about World of Warcraft. Check out these awesome pencil carvings. All I can say is: WOW!

Who said what to whom?

My sister told me this evening that she had heard some new info on the story about the Canadian leak that an Obama aide had supposedly told Canadian diplomats not to take his stance on NAFTA seriously. She had heard that it was actually a Clinton aide that had made the statement originally. I decided to see what I could find about it on the internet and I came across this article from Canada.com: Canada's NAFTA leak is regrettable: U.S. envoy. From what I can tell, this would seem to back up that position, if I'm reading it correctly.

Canadian media reports said on Thursday that the furor was triggered by private remarks that Ian Brodie, Harper's chief of staff, made to the CTV Television network last week about Clinton's criticism of NAFTA.

They said Brodie revealed someone from the Clinton campaign was "telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt." CTV investigated the remarks and then ran a story focusing on Obama, saying his adviser had privately told Canadian diplomats that a promise to reopen NAFTA was solely aimed at winning votes in the Ohio primary.

I'm not sure if that is saying that both campaigns have supposedly said the same thing or that it was actually an act by the Clinton campaign that got attributed to the Obama campaign. If it is true that the real story is the reverse of what voters were told, I would think that any momentum Hillary gained from Tuesday's primaries would instantly evaporate.

How clean is too clean?

I found this article in today's WaPo very interesting: Immune Systems Increasingly On Attack. The article seems to indicate that we may be keeping our immediate environments too clean for our own good, or particularly our kids' own good. It would seem that sterilizing everything isn't such a good idea after all. Of course nothing is known for certain at this point, but the article is interesting nonetheless.

Blood and Soil

After a couple of days of discussing the McCain issue via blog comments, emails and telephone, I've decided that it is time to finally blog about it myself. So here goes. I have always felt that being a natural born citizen simply meant that you were a citizen at birth, whether by blood or by soil. And I still feel that that is what it should mean. That being said, I'd like to weigh in with my take on all the arguments that are being made about the McCain issue at the moment.

First, I don't think that anyone is arguing that McCain is not legally a citizen, as it is obvious beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is and has been from the time of his birth. If that is all it takes to be a natural born citizen then he is one, end of argument. However, the argument does not end there. Some assert that in order to be considered a natural born citizen you must be a citizen by soil.

Therefore a new question arises. Is McCain a citizen by both blood and soil or simply a citizen by blood? In a recent article from the AP, McCain states his position on the issue:

McCain himself insists the issue was put to rest when fellow Arizonan, Barry Goldwater, ran for president in 1964.

"Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona when it was a territory, Arizona was a territory, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court," McCain told reporters Thursday on his campaign plane. "And there's no doubt about that. And it was researched again in 2000."

The Panama Canal Zone was a U.S. territory when McCain was born on Aug. 29, 1936.

Again, this new information would seem to put the issue to rest, but again, it does not. Yet another question arises, was the Panama Canal Zone truly a US territory? I personally am not convinced that it was. Let us check the law on the issue.

On the issue of citizenship, US Code Title 8, Chapter 12, Subsection III, Part I, §1401 states:

The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;

This makes no distinction about the parentage of the individual, and in fact, even the children of illegal aliens born within the boundaries of the United States are indeed legal US Citizens. And given the US Supreme Court's ruling an Goldwater (which I would reference if I could find, but try as I might, I can't find it), it would seem to include territories of the US as well.

So, if the Panama Canal Zone was a US territory in 1936 as McCain and the above quoted article indicate, why does §1403 of the same US Code state the following?

(a) Any person born in the Canal Zone on or after February 26, 1904, and whether before or after the effective date of this chapter, whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such person was or is a citizen of the United States, is declared to be a citizen of the United States.

Why does there need to be special instructions on the canal zone and why does at least one of the parents of a child born in the canal zone have to be a US citizen for that child to acquire citizenship at birth if it is indeed US soil? This would seem to me to indicate that individuals born here do not acquire citizenship by right of soil.

And then there is the text of the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty itself which states:

ARTICLE III

The Republic of Panama grants to the United States all the rights, power and authority within the zone mentioned and described in Article II of this agreement and within the limits of all auxiliary lands and waters mentioned and described in said Article II which the United States would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory within which said lands and waters are located to the entire exclusion of the exercise by the Republic of Panama of any such sovereign rights, power or authority. [emphasis mine]

So that leads to the question of what exactly counts as a US territory? This treaty does not give the US actual sovereignty over the canal zone, but the same rights it would have if it had sovereignty.

In addition to that, the land was leased with annual lease payments due to Panama from the United States.

As the price or compensation for the rights, powers and privileges granted in this convention by the Republic of Panama to the United States, the Government of the United States agrees to pay to the Republic of Panama the sum of ten million dollars ($10,000,000) in gold coin of the United States on the exchange of the ratification of this convention and also an annual payment during the life of this convention of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) in like gold coin, beginning nine years after the date aforesaid.

Is this not the same type of arrangement the US has about Guantanamo? And does the administration not argue that Guantanamo is NOT US territory? It seems to me that you can't have it both ways. Either leased areas are territory or they are not. How can the Canal Zone be and Guantanamo not be?

For those who would point to the fact that he was born on a military base as proof that he was in fact born on US soil, we must take a brief look at the Foreign Affairs Manual which states in 7 FAM 1116.1-4:

c. Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad and U.S.
diplomatic or consular facilities are not part of the United States within the meaning of the
14th Amendment. A child born on the premises of such a facility is not subject to the
jurisdiction of the United States and does not acquire U.S. citizenship by reason of birth.

Now of course this is irrelevant to McCain's citizenship, as it undoubtedly is referring to the children of non-US citizens born in such locations, but it does address whether such citizenship is acquired by right of soil, which it obviously is not.

So in conclusion I will reiterate. I think that McCain should be eligible for the office of president because I believe that either right of blood or right of soil should suffice for meeting the "natural born" requirement spelled out in Article II of the Constitution. However, if it is determined that right of soil is necessary, then I don't believe he is eligible under the current law as is stands.

I think that if the case were brought before the Supreme Court they would probably find in McCain's favor, but I think that a very reasonable argument could be brought against such a ruling. I think that if, on the off chance, they did find that he did not qualify, there would be an immediate uproar for a Constitutional Amendment to either define "natural born" as including right of blood in addition to right of soil or to remove the "natural born" requirement altogether. I would be fine with removing it altogether, personally. But if it were removed, I think that the time requirement should be extended beyond a mere 14 years.

Anyway, that's my opinion and my argument given the information I currently have at my disposal. If someone has some other pertinent info that I'm missing I'd be happy to consider it. And I would really appreciate a link to the Supreme Court case involving Goldwater if anyone has it. Until then, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.