Bush's Bulging Back

I've seen the photos and I am convinced:

Bush wasn't wearing a radio prompter, he was (and is) wearing a portable defibrillator.
Which means he is very severely ill, and has been hiding it from us for months.

Is that an impeachable offense? Ought to be.

Stingy?! Who, Us?

I am shocked and outraged that U.N. official Jan Egeland would have the gall to refer to the assistance offered to poor and stricken nations by certain unnamed countries as "stingy"!

After all, what nation gives the largest share of its GNP to foreign aid?

Norway? Oh.

Well, but what country gives the largest total amount of dollars?

Japan? Oh.

Okay, but where does the U.S. rank among industrial nations as a benefactor of the less fortunate?

Tied for seventh place? Oh.

Well, he still shouldn't have used the word "stingy". It's rude.

19th Century Fantasy, 21st Century Horror

I really like Jess Nevins' online encyclopedia of characters from the fantastic literature of the Victorian period. It pleases me no end that it will also soon be available through the good people of MonkeyBrain Books in good old-fashioned book form.

As news reports continue to paint a more vivid picture of the disaster in the Indian Ocean countries, I am increasingly disturbed and saddened. I can only hope that the nations of the world will move to help the survivors, and that they might take a lesson from the act: that humanity's courage and intelligence, the technology and the immense wealth we have created in modern times, can find better uses than warfare.

Click here to donate to tsunami relief.

The Christmas Letter

Here's the full text of our Christmas letter for this year:

CONTACT LIGHT
Winter 2004-5, a Blackberry House publication, by John M. Burt, 960 SW Jefferson Avenue, Corvallis, Oregon 97333 USA Telephone (541) 753 – 6094, cell (541) 602 – 6026, email john_m_burt@hotmail.com , blog http://www.john_m_burt.blogspot.com

Two cranes are currently being used in the construction project up at Reser Stadium (formerly named Parker after a football hero, now named Reser after a frozen burrito), a few blocks from Blackberry House. A couple of weeks ago, the arms of the cranes were wrapped in bright yellow lights, and the tops of the cranes’ towers were decorated with red lights in the form of Christmas trees.

The cranes look gorgeous from our lawn or our kitchen window, and we’re hoping that we can get a legible photograph of them before the lights come down. We’re holding out hope for the digital camera.
Last year at this time, there were a lot of things that I hoped would be different by now, and most of them have not changed, at least not in ways I would have hoped for. Oh, well, that’s life. And just think of all the things that could have gotten worse, or which could go wrong in the year to come . . . .

Um, err . . . I’ll try to focus on the things that I might finally be able to improve upon in 2005. That strikes me as a much better idea.

I have continued my plan of taking the prerequisite courses for the nursing program, building up points for admission. There’s just one left for me to take, and then I’ll be all out of classes. Possibly I can find some classes that cover the same material that’s contained in the R.N. program, or maybe I’ll just stay home in the evenings memorizing the Physician’s Desk Reference.

I’m also still working for that home-health organization, and at a daytime activity program for old people, and oh yes, doing massage. Pick up a little here and a little there, and maybe we’ll make a living.

Kathe’s health remains stable, but decidedly not satisfactory. Her replacement hips continue to function well, but she continues to suffer from a condition that causes spasms, weakness and severe pains in her legs, often denying her a proper night’s sleep.

Tesfaye at 18 and Waldy at 16 do their own things, for the most part. This was especially noticeable at Thanksgiving, when there were just the two of us for dinner. I’d been alone at Thanksgiving (when I was in the Navy), but I’d never had Thanksgiving dinner with just one other person. Oh, well, at least it was the right other person.

Waldy works with the local chapter of Food Not Bombs, which every Sunday gathers in our kitchen with donated food to prepare a meal which they serve in the park downtown.

We did get some things done this year, most notably the new section of roof. Jake came for an extended visit, during which, with a hired helper, he put long-lived shingles on the section of the roof which needed it most, the south-facing section above Tes’ apartment. They also replaced the 35-year-old skylights in that area, which had finally begun to leak. I had always admired the clever use of big panes of plexi, nailed on in place of an equal area of shingles – the storebought skylights don’t have anything like their charm. And it remains to be seen whether they will last as long as the plexi did.

A big project for next year has got to be the lawn. It’s all, you know, muddy. Probably has something to do with the Waldy People coming around all the time, walking on it. We have a couple of walkways on the lawn, made up of chunks of recycled sidewalk concrete, and we’re always talking about laying another one, but I think this year we may have to go for several.

So, by this time next year, I may be an enrolled nursing student, the lawn may be extensively amended with little gray slabs, and more of the roof may be leak-free.

Or not. Much is uncertain as we grope for answers in this post-11/2 world. Like, when did “My Favorite Things” become a Christmas song? Suddenly it’s on CD compilations and in heavy rotation on the radio – when did that happen? Does anybody remember it happening, or have we always been at war with Eurasia?
“Contact light” is the first phrase spoken from the surface of the Moon. This Contact Light is dedicated to the lights on the cranes. Please keep in contact, folks. And keep it light.

A Good Day

Normally, I wouldn't have counted a Christmas Eve which I spent largely in driving to Portland and back as a very good one, but actually, it was.

My son Tesfaye was planning to move in with his sister Biftu (also known as Asnakech, or Ash), and when she sounded so unwell on the phone, he felt an urgent desire to go to her and look after her right away. Mindful of the sad fate of people like Lester Bangs and Dori Seda, I tended to encourage rather than discourage that impulse.

So, we loaded up Tes' most essential items (pillows, comforter, CD player) and off we went, cleverly timing our trip to coincide with the early afternoon, when everyone who hadn't left for Grandma's house would be heading out of Portland, rather than in. Just before we left, Kathe checked road conditions with the Oregon DSepartment of Transportation's useful and charming Roadcams.

Biftu turned out to be much better by the time we got there, and I got to have a brief but pleasant visit with my younger daughter. On my way out of Portland, I stopped to check on my dear friend Bella, whose phone was disconnected and who had not answered a recent postcard. Turns out that she's just fine, also, and has just been licensed as a teacher of hairdressing. Good show, Bella -- and yes, next time I will stay long enough to let you give me a trim.

Best of all, I didn't have to work any hours at any of my various jobs -- I had a whole day off, and I'd gotten to sleep through the night alongside my sweetie. A way good day!

And now, since the sight of a suspiciously long and flexible aircraft flying over Corvallis reminds me that it's just barely still Christmas Eve and only getting later, I'll climb down from the lookout tower and get into bed next to my sweetie for a second night of blessed repose.

Good Festivus to All

This morning, I was trying to entertain some old people with mind-challenging exercises out of the helpfully-provided mental challenge book, only . . . it was so lame.

"Name things that begin with the letter M"

"Fill in the famous partners: Laurel and . . . Martin and . . . Bonnie and . . . " (I was tempted to amend it with "Leopold and . . . ").

Garbage like that.

So I asked them if December 23rd was any kind of special day, if they knew of any holidays that fell today, or historical events, or events in their own lives. Well, no luck there, although I got a few minutes out of the Corvallis Gazette-Times' "Today in History" column, especially by telling them about the dubious circumstances surrounding the attribution of "A Visit From Saint Nicholas" to the Snicketish Clement C. Moore.

Alas, if I had only read the Portland Oregonian earlier in the day, I could have told them about Festivus, a holiday I'd had no previous knowledge of, since I'd never watched Seinfeld.

So, I more or less immediately ran upstairs and told my son Tesfaye about the family in-joke that had been shared with the world with interesting results, and although no bare aluminum pole was handy, he was happy to take a minute to wrestle me to the floor.

It was fun. Improved my mood no end.

Happy Festivus to all.

Today is the Winter Solsitice

It's tyhe shortest day of the year. The Day the Sun Stood Still. The turning of the wheel. The real Christmas, the real New Year. The days will start getting longer now, and maybe other things will improve also. I can at least try to cultivate that feeling.

It's a new beginning. All things are made new. It's a new beginning, all things are made new . . . .

Unfortunately, some old business won't just go away because I'm thinking positive thoughts. I have an hour between a night shift at this guy's house, and a morning spent at an adult day center (don't worry, I'll be able to sleep in the afternoon), and I'm cutting into the time alotted for me to spoon with Kathe before she gets up by climbing the frosty steps to the lookout tower to post to my blog. Seems pretty silly, but I've really been pushed to my limit by the latest Iraq-related news:

At his latest press conference, Bush has finally admitted that his house of cards is collapsing and . . . he blames us.

Our faltering resolve.

He blames us.

In Order to Save Social Security . . .

To: James Lileks ( lileks@newhouse.com )
From: John M. Burt ( john_m_burt@hotmail.com )

In the Portland Oregonian for Sunday, 19 December 2004, you start out by indignating against those devious Democrats who would dare to suggest that the Republicans proposing to reform Social Security are really out to destroy it. You assure Granny that they intend nothing of the sort.

You then go on to say, "Everyone knows the system will explode in a shower of shredded promissory notes at some point." Um, has anyone ever mentioned to you that it's always a good idea to look twice at any statement that begins with "everyone knows"?

Besides, everyone doesn't know that. Any honest person knows that the system is, under present rules, solvent until sometime between 2045 and 2055, and can remain solvent indefinitely by slightly altering the parameters (increasing the retirement age, reducing growth in benefits or even -- shudder! -- by collecting Social Security taxes on unearned income).

So the only reason for you to say that Social Security is doomed! doomed! doomed!, is that you want to make us think Social Security is beyond hope, will die anyway -- so let's go ahead and kill it now.

Look, just level with us: if you think the world would be a better place without Social Security, simply explain to Granny how she will be better off without it. Surely that won't be difficult.

Trent Lott vs. Donald Rumsfeld

This just observed at the Weston Observer blog:

Sen. Lott Calls For Rumsfeld To Be Replaced
Mississippi Republican Senator and ex Sen. Majority Leader Trent Lott told the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce that "I am not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld" and said the secretary should be replaced sometime within the next year. Lott believes the US needs more troops in Iraq and a clear exit strategy, something he believes Donald Rumsfeld is not capable of. Lott's comments come only days after Sen. John McCain(R- AZ) said that he has no confidence in the Secretary of Defense. President Bush however is unwilling to let go of the man who devised the Iraq war plan. Rumsfeld has been criticized more frequently of late after his remarks to US troops overseas that "You go to war with the Army you have". Lott's words however may not carry much weight in the White House after he was marginalized in 2002. Lott was replaced as Senate Majority Leader by Bill Frist after praising Strom Thurmond's run for president in 1948 as a segregationist.



Well, either this is a very severe indictment (because Rumsfeld has offended even Lott's extremely low standards), or utterly irrelevant (because Lott's a complete whacko). What do you think? Either about Lott or REMFsfeld.

(BTW, thanks to Arthur D. Hlavaty for the very useful nickname "REMFsfeld". I'm sure all veterans will agree that it's a very appropriate one.

"Hoo Boy, What a Week!", Week Two

Please refer to the post for December 12th. Hoo boy . . . .

Poisoned with Dioxin?

What the hell is that, the traditional form of ritual murder among the corporati?

Elsewhere in the news: I'm finally writing my Christmas-card letter. Yes, it's late. Yes, the cards are going to be late. That's life. When the letter is finished, I will post it here.

The Secretary of Defense You Have

Donald Rumsfeld has been criticized very thoroughly for his glib, condescending replies (and non-replies) to serious questions with which soldiers in Kuwait stunned him the other day.

But not quite thoroughly enough.

There's an important point that must be made more than any other, so much so that I even have the nerve to spend time on my blog reiterating it:

Rumsfeld lied about the armor.

Armor Holdings, the Jacksonville, Florida, company that makes most of the Pentagon's armored Humvees, could easily double production, but REMFsfeld has never asked them to.

That's leaving aside the fact that General Motors could retool one Hummer production line, briefly reduce output for the civilian market, and have armored Humvees bumper to bumper from the Kuwait City docks all the way to Baghdad.

Rumsfeld lied.

He lied because he couldn't care less about something as unimportant as the lives and limbs of working-class scum who would actually go and join the Army.

Actually, maybe Rumsfeld and his friends do care about whether our troops have armored vehicles.

After all, the armor occasionally available has resulted in thousands of soldiers (repeat, thousands) being merely maimed instead of killed outright, and crippled veterans are troublesome to neocon dreams of glory.

Crippled veterans are a visible reminder, far less sanitary than mass-produced crosses in military cemeteries, of what their little adventures really cost. Sure, it's a simple thing to prevent embedded journalists from photographing or interviewing them. And only a little more trouble to exculde them from the victory parades. But once they're dumped on the street, they're harder to control. Someone might *notice* them.

Worse yet, crippled veterans who were sent to war with their ears full of lies and return home broken to be denied medical care and cheated out of their pensions might just possibly vote Democratic next time.

So, much neater and more orderly if they are simply killed.

Hoo Boy, What a Week!

A noon on Wednesday I took the final exam in my Anatomy & Physiology class, got a B on the final, clinching an A for the course.

From the Linn-Benton Community College campus I went directly to the home of a home-health-care client for a "night" shift that started in the middle of the afternoon. I saw him through to bedtime, into bed, kept watch over him while he slept, and then helped him in and out of his hot tub in the morning.

Back home for a little bit of sleep, a short shift at an adult day care center and then back to the old man's house for another 17-hour "night".

Another round at the adult day care, a massage client, a quiet evening at home and a decent night's sleep on Friday night. Hoo boy.

Condoms Break, But So Do Vows

At the request of Planned Parenthood, and under the direction of my conscience, I sent the following message to my representatives in Congress and Senator Bill Frist:

"Dear Senator Frist:

"The world is full of problems, and too many people try to treat all of them with placebos.

"Abstinence-only education has been shown to result in more teenagers engaging in unprotected sex, more teenage pregnancies and a faster spread of STDs.

"It simply doesn't work.

"And big fat lies about sterility, cancer, &c. are not going to help either. Haven't you ever had a conversation with a smart-aleck seventh-grader who thinks it's the coolest thing in the world to catch you in a small error of fact, and who refuses to believe anything else you say for the rest of the day? We know kids are like that, so why are we going out of our way to deliberately tell them lies, lies which they will be quick to unmask with a simple Internet search?

"Abstinence-only (anti-)sex education seems like a good idea at frist glance, but it's been years now, and it's high time for a second glance. Please support the call for investigation of this failed, fraudulent program."

Thank Heaven For Silly Quizzes

Or else I'd have to think of something to say today if I want to keep up my perfect attendance record:

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Party Time

A busy couple of days, of which, in a sense, the final was the least of it. Still, even at the puny wages paid to nurse's aides, I've made a bit of money in these couple of days, and we can use some of that.

I finally get a couple of hours of free time, and wouldn't you know it, Kathe's out doing necessary things. Oh, well -- gives me a chance to scamper up the lookout tower and make a post here.

I tried this gag on November 7th, but nobody bit. Maybe it will go over this time. I notice that the election is still in the news, and even if the suspicious circumstances in Ohio turn out to be just an amazing collection of bizarre coincidences (yeah, right), I suspect that elections will be on our minds for a good deal longer. Maybe even long enough for some useful reforms, that would be nice . . . .

Anyway, here's the recycled challenge:

You promised your grandmother on her deathbed that you would never allow your voter's registration to lapse. Going down to the courthouse to register at your new address, you find that a typographical error makes it impossible for you to register as a Democrat, Republican or independent. You must choose from one of the parties on the form; any form not completely filled out will be rejected. And this is the last day to register before the election.

So, what party do you choose?

Libertarian
Green
Constitution
Natural Law
Socialist Workers

If you need to refresh your memory, or if you would rather choose one of the other parties, click on the link above, or go to:

http://www.dcpoliticalreport.com/PartyLink.htm#V

Take This Easy Quiz!

There are a pair of cranes set up for the renovation of Reser Stadium (formerly named Parker, after a sports hero, now named in honor of the frozen burrito). Currently, they are strung with Christmas lights and are very pretty even from our kitchen window. From the lookout tower, they are spectacular, and I appreciate the spectacle right now, as rain pelts the windows and I alternate between studying for my anatomy & physiology final and refreshing my mind with other things, like blogging.

Faithful reader Peni Griffin says this in a comment attached to my post below, about the quiz which revealed that I am from the Sun:

Here's a research topic for someone with a need to write magazine articles - the history of pointless pop quizzes. Did they start in the 20s with the magazine explosion? Did they coincide with the spread of standardized IQ, aptitude, and psychological testing? Did the Victorians have a prototype, as they did of so many things?

Well, I knew from the start that the Victorians definitely did quiz their guests in all manner of ways. It was one of the standard parlor games, to ask each person present to answer allegedly revealing questions like, "What quality do you admire most in a woman?" and "What single word describes paradise for you?" (Karl Marx, who did most of his own revolutioning in middle-class English parlors, answered those two with "Weakness" and "Fighting").

For that matter, every new development in psychology, from phrenology to hypnosis to dream interpretation, was brought out as an amusement in the best parlors.

But I had a devilish time finding a web site I could link to for corroboration. I paged through all sorts of fun stuff, and learned about innumerable variations on charades and blind man's bluff, but couldn't find what I was looking for.

I did, however, find a most interesting article by a blind psychologist who is critical of the modern "parlor game" of being led around blindfolded in order to "experience" blindness:

http://www.barnard.edu/ods/simulation.html

And that will have to do, with Victorian profiling left for another time, because it is late, and I should either be studying for my final (ten hours away as I write), or else sleeping.

"God Is Still Speaking"

"Jesus never turned people away. Neither do we."

This message (as seen at http://www.stillspeaking.com/default.htm ) was considered too controversial for NBC and CBS (ABC has a long-standing policy against all religious spots, but the message was carried on ABC Family and other Disney-owned cable channels).

Jesus never turned people away. Leslie Moonves and Bob Wright did that.

If you want, you can tell them what you think about that:

http://www.kintera.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=juI1LcPZG&b=261471&sid=46034474&action=1483&template=x.ascx

Sad, Sad, Sad

On November 1st, I observed that there were eleven anti-marriage ballot measures in eleven states, and that it looked as though all of them were going to pass. I said that this prospect made me very, very sad.

Well, they all did pass, and I hadn't even guessed just how sad they would make me. And it wasn't even my marriage, my family, or my kids on the chopping block. But maybe it's because my own marriage has been for so long the light and the stay of my life that I feel so strongly that nobody should be turned away from the door.

Most of the people commenting on this post agreed with me, but not all of them. "kb" in particular had plenty to say. Here is his latest, replying to my latest:

John M. Burt wrote:
>Well, we can start with 1 Corinthians 7: 25-31, 36-40, when it comes
>to the early Church's attitude towards marriage.
>
>Or, if we really want to be gruesome about it, Matthew 19:12.
>
>The early fathers of the Church, of course, presumed that the world
>would end quite soon, and that there was no need to be concerned
>about providing a new generation, or even much reason to be
>concerned about earning a living.
>
>I'm not sure where you came up with a reference to "perversion",
>unless you are unclear on the definition of "concupiscence" . . . ?
>
>Getting back to the original subject, I have to say that the passage
>last month of all eleven anti-gay, anti-marriage, anti-family ballot
>measures leaves me very, very sad. Please excuse me for saying that
>I think no decent person should feel anything but sorrow at this
>turn of events.

to which kb replied:

Hi John,

Sorry for the delay -- I've been wanting to give this response the time it's due and I've been going absolutely nuts this past week.

First off, let's look at the Scripture you mention.

You are right that 1 Cor 7:25-31 and 36-40 *appear* to be taking a very discouraging look at marriage, but you're missing the point. The point comes in vv.32-35:

--8<--
I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs--how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world--how he can please his wife-- and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world--how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.
--8<--

The issue is not that marriage is bad, but that being unmarried allows a person to devote more of their time towards serving God. It is mentioned twice here "an unmarried... is concerned about the Lord's affairs." Throughout Scripture we see a jealous God, one who wants our complete devotion -- this is merely a continuation of that.

As for Matt 19:12, if you take it in context (as all things should be... more on this later) you'll note that in this situation, the Pharisees (Jewish religious leaders) were trying to "test him" (v.2). The Jewish law permitted a man to divorce a woman, however that seemed to create issues of adultery under Jesus' teachings... they were fishing for a contradiction.

I think you'll find yourself mistaken when you look a little deeper in the the early church with regards to the concerns about providing a new generation or earning a living. For instance, the Apostle Paul (who wrote a significant portion of the New Testament) continued earning a living while preaching the Gospel. He was a tentmaker.

While the early church (and, for that matter, the present-day church) has believed that "the world would end quite soon" we can see that it hasn't yet ended. Now, is it going to end tomorrow? I don't know. Nobody does. See 1 Thes 5:2; 2 Pet 3:10; Rev 3:3; Rev 16:15. Does that mean we should live lazily today because nothing will matter tomorrow? No! See 2 Pet 3:11-18.

I'm guessing your bringing up of concupiscence has something to do with a Catholic background. From a Protestant standpoint, this point is moot. As man is inherently sinful (since the Fall), we are able to look to one standard as right: God. He expresses himself in different ways, most tangible of which is by his Word (the Bible). And, incidentally, homosexuality has always been a "perversion" of the right expressed there.

A return to the issue of context. Take a look at Psalm 53:1. You'll note that taken out of context, a person could claim "the Bible says 'there is no God'!!!" When we see it in context, however we note that it doesn't say that at all. Yes, it has those four words in that order, but it does prepend it by saying "The fool says in his heart."

John, I'm sorry this all makes you sad. My sorrow, however doesn't change the fact that I strongly believe this to be a step in the right direction and I hope the Parliament of Canada passes similar legislation soon.

Just as I don't believe we should allow special concessions to those suffering from other mental illnesses such as deviant sociopathic murderers, I don't believe a homosexual should be allowed special rights. Homosexuality is a treatable deviant mental illness -- just because culture has embraced it doesn't make it right.

I have nothing against homosexuals, and nor do most good Christians, however we do have something against the sin of homosexuality. Just as we find lying unacceptable, homosexual behaviour is not appropriate.

All I can say to this: "please excuse me for saying that I think no decent person should feel anything but sorrow at this turn of events" is that it seems obvious that the majority of voters on this matter were not "decent" people. What that says about the voting demographic is up to your interpretation.

Cheers,

-kb
--
Kris Benson, CCP, I.S.P.
Natural Networks
http://www.naturalnetworks.ca/
+1(250)961-2533

And here is John's comment on that:

We're getting pretty far off my original point, but I've found a site which expresses it pretty well. You can follow the link above, or copy this one:

http://ks.essortment.com/historyofmarri_rimr.htm

You insist that you "have nothing against" homosexuals, but then you qualify that statement in such a way as to suggest that you have no more against them than you have against "sociopathic murderers". Well, how nice.

As for legislation, current and future: Kris, you and your comrades have something which you feel you must fight against, and you have so far fought hard and well. But the rest of us have something precious to stand up *FOR*, and that is why we will stand firm while you tire, and why ultimately we will prevail.

As for the voters of Oregon, and of the U.S. generally, I have never thought the majority of them were decent people. That's just one more thing we will have to rise above.

A Very Handsome Rat

From up here in the lookout tower, the people walking down Jefferson Avenue to my north, and Tenth Street to my west, look like scurrying rats. I'd call that an improvement, and I'm not trying to insult anybody by saying that. I like rats.

Last week, Kathe and I began to hear in our kitchen the unmistakable sounds of little teeth gnawing on something hard and woody. We checked for signs of intrusion in our foodstuffs and didn't find any, and hoped that it was merely a rat or squirrel chewing open nuts in the crawlspace under the house.

We wouldn't have minded that much. We'd eventually have had to go under and block up whatever access the critter had opened, but there was no rush, most likely, so long as the critter or critters didn't come into the kitchen itself.

Then we did find the bread bags torn open, and rat turds in the bottom of a drawer, and knew we had a problem to deal with. So, we dealt with it.

The bread and other food items in that section of the kitchen were all removed to other locations, and replaced by blocks of poisoned food.

We hated to do it. Rats are charming animals. Attractive to look at, intelligent, good parents, &c., but alas, they are too much like us to make good neighbors: they like the same kind of food, they find our houses comfortable, they carry the same diseases. So we gritted our teeth and put out the baits.

Today we found an especially large, especially handsome rat in the back yard, quite dead. He had a beautiful brown coat, a well-formed intelligent-looking head, absolutely the prettiest rat I'd seen in a long time.

We could never have befriended him, though. It takes generations of selection for gentleness and submissiveness before rats are domesticated enough to keep as pets. Still a shame to have to kill him.

Since he wasn't one of *our* rats, we buried him in the compost heap instead of the pet cemetary, but the incident has increased our resolve to build a new rat cage and buy at least a pair of rats. It's been too long since we had any rats of our own.

Good Old Forwarded E-Mail

I haven't gotten a forwarded message like this one in quite awhile:

"Good Morning!
"I am passing this on to you because it definitely worked for me and we
all could use more calm in our lives. By following the simple advice I
heard on a Dr. Phil show, I have finally found inner peace. Dr. Phil
proclaimed, "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things
you've started." So I looked around my house to see all the things I
started and hadn't finished, and before leaving the house this morning,
I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle
of Bailey's, a bottle of Kahlua, a package of Oreos, the remainder of
both Prozac and Valium prescriptions, the rest of the cheesecake, and a
box of chocolates. You have no idea how freaking good I feel. Please
pass this on to those you feel are in need of inner peace."

Not bad, as thses things go, and as I said, they seem to have tapered off. People don't seem to forward me goofy jokes and dire warnings much these days, even though I have never been one to rant and indignate against it.

I also haven't gotten many comments posted here, either. Did you all stop reading?

It makes me wonder if I should bother climbing the ladder to the lookout every day (whimper)(peek around to see if anyone is looking sympathetic).

Today is World AIDS Day

Please follow the link on the headline of this post, sign the petition, and do anything else you feel you have the energy to do. In particular, please contact the WHite House. I know, it seems like a futile thing to do, but there is always a chance that **something** will get through to those people. And we know for certain that doing nothing will onyl get us more of the same.

The current administration will go right on ignoring AIDS, or worse (what kind of human being would react to an epidemic by DISCOURAGING kids from using condoms?), unless something gets them to change their behavior.

So act like *you* are something.

Was it Hacked?

A brief but intense rain fell just now, while I was looking up "seam ripper" and "was it hacked" on Google. It pelted against the sides of the lookout for a few minutes, then stopped. Glad it didn't start until I had climbed up here -- it takes forever for my jacket to dry out if I hang it up wet in this tiny space.

Did you ever get the feeling that you were living in a work of fiction? That absurdly unlikely (or just absurd) things have happened that seem out of place anywhere but a cheap novel?

It gets particularly disturbing when the world seems to be acting out a work of fiction based on "real-world" events. For instance, the travails of the Uribe administration in Colombia seem like a roman a clef of Bill Clinton's Presidency, with everything exaggerated: instead of a slightly left of center Democrat, the President is a borderline socialist. Instead of a trumped-up impeachment, he faces a coup attempt.

Another interesting example: the Ukrainian election, where blatant election fraud has resulted in angry charges and counter-charges, ineffectual attempts by elder statesmen to calm things down, the Supreme Court stepping in and sinking to its navel in the muck, threats of secession by the regions most displeased by the whole mess . . . .

But Ukraine is a real country, and so is the USA. And there really were two elections, and there are two controversies. Really and truly.

If you type "was it hacked" (including quotation marks) into Google, you will get links to several interesting items. The first link, to an article published earlier this month in the Orlando Weekly, is particularly good: informative, well-researched and only just as shrill as the occasion demands.

So, was the election hacked? I don't know. Nobody knows, unless it would be the hypothetical traitors themselves. Wouldn't it be good to find out?

Bikin' to Work

End of November, it's getting to be a chilly trip up here to the lookout tower on the roof. I'm starting to wish I'd set up a circuit that would allow me to turn on the heater up here before I make the long climb up the ladder. Boy, my fingers woulfd probably still be too stiff with cold to type, if the lookout tower weren't imaginary.

At present, much though I might wish it were otherwise, the majority of my income comes from my CNA license, rather than my LMT. Currently, I'm affiliated with a home-health agency, going to people who need a little assistance with this or with that: cooking, dressing changes, emptying catheter bags, whatever their particular needs require.

I prefer night shifts over days, and I prefer long shifts over innumerable short ones (there was a time when I was feeling exhausted, and suddenly realized that, where a normal person goes to work five times a week, I was going sixteen times a week -- itwas the act of going to work that was doing me in). But perhaps even more than these, I prefer bicycling to work.

It feels good to stretch these legs, get some chilly open air into my face and up my nose, get a glimpse of what the world looks like at odd hours. Once I've washed away the sweat and changed into my respectable caregiving clothes, I feel like a king. A king with a full treasury and a clean conscience. I feel great.

The smile alone can't help but be good for the clients.

Thanksgiving Memories

Well, I came up to the lookout to write a Thanksgiving message on my blog before dinner, but by the time I got up here, I'd forgotten what I was going to say. So, I wrote something else.

Kathe and I sat down to eat together, just the two of us. It's the first Thanksgiving in my memory where I sat at a table with just one other person (Tesfaye was in Portland with some Ethiopian relatives, Waldy was up in his room fast asleep). Way better than sitting alone, though.

I finally remembered the story I wanted to tell, and wrote on my palm, "TURKEY PIZZA". And here's why:

Many years ago, before I met her, Kathe made a pizza Thanksgiving feast, with three kinds of pizza including one with turkey meat.

Years later, one of the guests (who had been living with the family at the time) told Kathe that he had thought she had served pizza instead of a traidtional Thanksgiving meal because she didn't like him.

Kathe was astounded. Had he really thought she would base a holiday meal for her family on the hope that it would offend one of her housemates? That she would put her own family through all that for the chance to be rude to one guest? That she would go out of her way to cook ANYTHING for someone she actively disliked? Apparently he had. Wow.

This all comes to mind on account of Midge Decter's speech at Hillsdale College's "Marriage and the Family" seminar, as reprinted in the November issue of Hillsdale's magazine _Imprimis_, in which she asserted that all the (voluntary) sweat, (inevitable) tears and (thanks to certain elements of society) blood which gay men and lesbians had expended for the sake of the right to marry were all the result of a passionate desire to stick it to the straight people and make them squirm.

Wow.

Ukrainian Reign Has Plainly Gone Insane

Oops. Somebody noticed that teensy little provision in the 1,600-page appropriations bill, the one that would give (Republican) committee chairs authority to read the tax returns of any (Democrat) person, without oversight or limit:

http://chud.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73972

I would have sworn that the Senate Republican caucus stepping on its hubristic dick in this fashion would be the most hilarious news story of the week, but then there was that election in Ukraine.

The second-place candidate is crying electoral fraud (apparently with some reason), and George W. Bush (repeat, George Walker Bush, recently declared the winner of a second "interesting" U.S. Presidential election) is calling for a recount and an investigation.

George W. Bush.

Isn't he even a little afraid that there might be a Hell?

Xmas Wreaths

First thing I did today was to go over to the offices of the home health-care service that I work for as a nurse's aide to supplement my massage income. I rubbed the backs of the office staff and schmoozed, and came away with a few more hours.

My anatomy class had a midterm today -- I think I did all right, though I confess that those various electrolytes are still giving me trouble.

Back at home, I went out with Kathe and delivered wreaths. Lots of wreaths. The Willamette Valley Community School (the headline of this post is a link) made a bunch of money off wreath sales, just like last year. A disturbing sign, though, is how many people who'd bought three or four wreaths last year bought just one. I fear the economy is not warming up as promised.

I'm trying to lose weight at present, and hadn't had much to eat all day. By the time we got home after allthat wreathing, my blood sugar must have been in a deplorable state. I know I was in a deplorable mood. But, a little barley and turkey soup and some bread and I was ready to face a massage appointment.

It was my only appointment of the day -- which of course is why I have to do CNA work, also, and why I'm trying to get into nursing school.

So it was that I didn't manage to haul myself up here to the lookout until after 11PM, even though I'd really wanted to do some computer stuff earlier.

A long day, and a little bit trying, but I'll live. I'm tough. :-)

Big Rubber Bands

Yellow ones, pink ones, they seem to be the hot item these days.

I just signed up to wear a blue one:

http://www.neversurrender.org

I'm still tired, mind, but I'm used to working while tired.

Hanging Clicks in Ohio

When I heard that there was evidence of substantial vote fraud in Ohio, I didn't feel outraged. Or hopeful. Or eager to know more.

I felt tired.

It's All About the Oil

I sit at my computer in the imaginary lookout tower that rises from the roof of our house, the gray November morning rolling on around and below me, a small ceramic electric heater purring at my feet, and conclude that it's all about the oil.

Number two stove oil, that is.

Our antiquated oil stove has heated the house for many years. It handles the living room, downstairs sleeping area and kitchen where we spend most of our time. The upstairs bedrooms and the massage studio require ruinously expensive electric heaters. We hope to be able to replace all of this with proper central heating eventually, but for now we depend very much on the oil stove.

A few years ago, our oil supplier stopped carrying #2 oil. The closest substitute was diesel fuel (close enough that stove oil is dyed red to discourage people from using it as fuel to evade the road tax), but we soon found that in our stove diesel produced a lot of soot and clinker in our stove. Finally, we found a gas station in Albany which dispensed stove oil from a gas pump, but alas, they don't delivery to Corvallis.

So, every time I'm in Albany now (usually three times a week), I stop by that station and fill up our two five-gallon cans, and dump them in the oil tank when I get home. It's a hassle, and messy, and let's not forget tedious (I begin to understand why hauling water is the bane of a peasant's existence), but it keeps the stove lit.

And the bright red oil does look rather pretty as it pours into the tank in the dim light of an overcast winter afternoon.

Welcome to My Upper Sanctum

The computer here at Blackberry House sits at the top of the stairs, with my massage studio to my left and Waldy's bedroom directly behind me as I write, but I've been thinking for awhile about moving my writing location elsewhere.

Dick Geis used to write in a space which was simultaneously his cluttered basement and his own mind (also cluttered, and inhabited by his alter ego, adisembodied extraterrestrial named Alter). Other people write from a cave, or the Inner Sactum, or a secret office hidden in the *real* top floor of the Empire State Building.

I've decided to move my writing operations to a lookout tower like the ones Kathe and her first husband used to live / work in for the Forest Service. So there's now, unseen by the populace and unknown to the city authorities, a five-storey tower rising from the roof of 960 SW Jefferson Avenue, with a commanding view on all four sides of the rooftops and treetops of little old Corvallis. There, surrounded by sunlight or gray overcast or starry skies or wind-lashed rain as the case may be, I will write, sending my words down and outward from there.

I like it up here.

Secretary of State

What does it matter that the title "Secretary of State" will soon be formally conveyed from Colin Powell to Condoleezza Rice?

Powell did what Bush told him to do, even though he knew it was wrong, for the sake of loyalty.

Rice will do whatever Bush tells her to do, and seems to have no concept of right and wrong, only of loyalty.

*shrug* The Americans who will be doing the dying won't care much what the Secretary of State says or doesn't say while carrying it out Bush's next blunder.

Weight Loss

Call this whining if you will, but I feel justified in making this simple observation:

You can tweak diet and exercise, vitamins and drugs, all you like, but in the final analysis, the only way to lose weight is to eat less food than it takes to sustain life. A controlled form of starvation. And this is painful.

That's just how it is. It's unpleasant, especially if you have dicey blood sugar.

That's life.

A Tale of Two Brothers

Kathleen S. Burt, My Only Sunshine, sent me this e-mail today:

80% of all votes in America are counted by only two
companies: Diebold and ES&S.

There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or
oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer
and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio
deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

35% of ES&S is owned by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who
became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper
trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to
verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same
as what was legitimately put in by voters.

Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket
machines, all of which log each transaction and can
generate a paper trail.

Diebold is based in Ohio and supplies almost all the voting
machines there.

None of the international election observers were allowed
in the polls in Ohio.

30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable
touch screen voting machines.

Bush's Help America Vote Act of 2002 has as its goal to replace
all machines with the new electronic touch screen systems.

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel owns 35% of ES&S and was
caught lying about it.

ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S.
and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

Exit polls for the 2004 elections were accurate within 1%
or less in areas where ballot machines were used.

Major exit poll data discrepancies were noted in counties where
touch screen machines were used, especially in Ohio and Florida.

Source and details:
http://memes.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3667&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

"The unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy"
by Steven F. Freeman, Ph.D.,
University of Pennsylvania
November 10, 2004

http://www.ilcaonline.org/freeman.pdf

--
Two petitions for an investigation of the elections:
http://www.petitiononline.com/uselect/petition.htmlhttp://www.moveon.org/investigatethevote/
----

Alberto the Torturer

If you object to my referring to Alberto Gonzales as a "torturer", since he never applied the electrodes himself, I submit that "I was only giving orders" is not much of a defense.

Taking

In addition to everything else that happened on November 2nd, Oregon passed Measure 37, which requires the state, counties and towns to pay "compensation" to landowners if they can construe a government action as reducing the commercial or sale value of their estates.

Now communities are trying to develop procedures to carry out this law. I have one suggestion:

Let the checks be held by the secretary of the nearest elementary school, to be collected by the landowner in person.

What a Rotten Day

Went to donate blood. Had to wait an awfully long time. By the time I got to the table, it was obvious I was going to be late to class, but I lay down anyway.

The phlebotomist sat talking with a donor who was already finished while I waited for her to hook me up. When she did, she fretted over finding a vein, finally picked one, jammed the needle in and couldn't get blood flowing, asked someone else to do it for her.

It still wasn't a very good stick, the blood flowed too slowly. After twenty minutes, she pulled the plug and threw my donation away, 100cc short of a full unit.

So, I got to class late, missing the last lecture before a major quiz, when the instructor tried to cram in all the stuff she hadn't gotten to yet.

Back at home, the big freezer revealed that it had died, and all the food was half-thawed.

We had a refrigerator in the shed that we hadn't gotten around to hooking up, because the space that would hold it had no outlet. Kathe and I got a new outlet installed in under an hour -- the highpoint of the day, and I didn't fail to appreciate it.

We got the food crammed into the little freezer in the new refrigerator, the little frezer in the kitchen refrigerator, and the little freezer in the apartment. Incredibly, it all fit.

Now we're waiting to find out if the freezer in the new fridge actually freezes.

On the other hand, some folks are in Fallujah right now . . . .

Israelis and other Palestinians

I saw an article on a blog named Discarded Lies (I could only wish they would dsicard more lies), which compares Israeli occupation of neighboring Palestinian territories with the occupation and reconstruction of Germany after the Second World War.

The biggest problem I see with that analogy is that Israel has no interest in breaking the Palestinians down in order to build them up again as a successful democratic society as the Allies did to Germany. The Israelis want, let's face it, to break the Palestinians and keep them broken.

Not drive them out, not exterminate them. Just keep them nearby for a cheap labor force, while preventing them from ever developing a viable civil society, much less a sovereign nation.

The Second World War and the postwar reconstruction were conducted by leftists who held to liberal ideas of human rights and human dignity. Their goal was to overthrow fascism and build a successful democratic nation in Germany. They succeeded, in the greatest liberal victory since the Civil War.

There are two nation-states, and an incipient third one in the territory of Palestine. These nations will not know peace until they are all living by liberal principles.

Judicial Activism

President Bush came into office with a long list of people he wanted to appoint to Federal judgeships. That's not surprising, seeing as how Bill Clinton left office with so many seats vacant. Clinton had nominated 246 jurists, and 45 of them had been blocked by Congressional Republicans.

Bush is unhappy that ten of his 201 appointees have been rejected, and wants Democrats in Congress to stop what he calls an "unprecedented" level of opposition.

I do want everybody in Washington to learn how to get along, I really do. It seems to me that Democrats could have engaged in a partisan tit for tat, blocking Bush appointments wholesale the way the Republicans did to Clinton. Instead, they showed a dignified and manly restraint, while still following their consciences.

I hope that Democrats remain firm in holding the line against activist judges who have a radical social-engineering scheme they wish to ram down our throats.

God and/or Satan

In a previous post, I mentioned Satan at work in the world. I'd like to clarify that statement.

Satan is an embodiment of the perverse human desire for self-deception and ultimately self-destruction. This remains true regardless of whether such an entity exists or does not.

And after all, there is a sense, at least, in which Uncle Sam and Smokey Bear are real and alive. In a sense.

I prefer not to worry too much about categories, when it comes to such beings.

I once mentioned a ghost we used to have in our house to someone who said sternly, "DO you really believe in ghosts?" I replied, "I don't believe in ghosts, but I also don't go out of my way to ignore them."

Or as a woman said in Meeting yesterday, "I don't know if there is a God, but I like to feel His presence in this room."

My Own Conciliatory Gesture

I will no longer refer to Bush as the President*.

After all, he did actually win the election this time.

And I find that it does make a difference to me.

I may think those 51% of my neighbors are masochistic idiots, but they really did vote for him, and he really did win, so that's life. That's democracy.

Now, let's see about this "one nation" business, shall we?

Message to America

To Senator John Kerry: You sounded very Presidential this morning. It was refreshing to hear *somebody* sounding that way.

To George W. Bush: Now is your chance to show that there's some timy shred of sincerity behind all your "United We Stand" talk. I'm willing to give you one more chance to prove it. Go ahead, surprise me.

To U.S. citizens 18-25: This was supposed to be the Scooby Doo election: "I would have gotten away with it, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!" But you never showed up. I guess you're just a bunch of worthless slackers after all.

To all of you: I really do think that we could start acting like a united country again, even with this President and this Congress. And I think it would be a good idea. Really and truly.

In Praise of My Neighbors

I saw something that did my heart good: a joint Bush - Kerry rally, with campaign signs, American flags and a big signs that said, "United We Stand -- Stop the Hate".

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

In Defense of Marriage -- Everybody's Marriage

I hear tell that there are anti-gay (usually anti-marriage) initiatives and referenda on the ballot in eleven states.

I also hear that every one of them is currently expected to pass.

That makes me very, very sad.

In Praise of Osama bin Laden

Credit where credit is due, the murdering SOB did get off one good line in his new video:

"If I hate freedom, why didn't I attack Sweden?"

Your Vote Will Be Counted Here, At Least

At US-election.org, they have taken on the thankless task of listing all the candidates for President, not just those two guys (and not just those two guys and the other one).

The Green Party! The Constitution Party! The Libertarian Party! The Peace & Freedom Party! The Personal Choice Party (hey, Marilyn Chambers is their VP candidate -- how cool is that?)!

If only some sort of clerical error were to erase the Republicrats from the ballot, and we could choose between candidates who actually have something to say, and whose guiding principles include something besides "Power!"

In Praise of Dick Cheney

No, seriously.

The other day on the radio, I heard some people chewing over Dick and George, bitch-slapping them for everything from lying about John McCain's war record to lying about Bush's debate wire.

Well, that's all true, but I had to differ with them when one of them mentioned Cheney's calling up the Air Force on September 11th, 2001, ordering them to scramble fighter planes to shoot down the fourth hijacked plane (not yet aware that it had already crashed). This, the indignant person declared, was somethinghe had no authority to do.

Well, yes, I expect that's correct, but given the circumstances it was surely the right thing to do. And (again, given the circumstances) the Air Force officers and pilots who carried out that illegal order also did the right thing. I think it's very cheap and shabby to call Cheney a megalomaniac or a usurper for having taken such a decision upon himself in those confused hours.

Of course, the question of why those hours were so damned confused, and why nobody, civilian or military, seemed to have a clue what to do, is another matter.

Seems to me that the biggest lesson of September 11th is that the people at the top should be holding what the nuclear industry calls "unexpected event" drills.

I'm picturing a Secret Service detail driving onto an airbase, accompanied by a WHite House typist with a sticker scrawled "President" on his lapel. The bodyguards commandeer a plane and convey the pretend President to the Secure Undisclosed Location, while the NSA proves that they can stay in touch with the plane, transmitting updates on the simulated crisis, without giving away the President's location.

Matt Love's "Instant Karma"

To Matt Love, lovematt100@yahoo.com

Mr. Love:

In Sunday's _Oregonian_, you talk movingly of the pleasure you take in Oregon's public beaches, and your loathing for people who drive recklessly on them. In these sentiments, I completely concur.

But you don't seem to know your Oregon history when you praise the wise progressives of a previous generation and then say "Now it's legal to drive on the beach".

The beaches of the Oregon coast are publicly owned because some decades ago the state legislature declared the beaches to be a state highway. This was done partly to preserve the beaches as public land, but also because the packed sand of low tide really was the longest stretch of drivable surface in the state.

Seems to me that you can't have one (public beaches) without the other (the tradition of driving on the beach).

As for your (tempered) relish at the fate of the witless driver who buzzed you and then promptly got his brand-new Tahoe stuck in the sand with the tide coming in, again I concur.

-- John M. Burt

I Have Gone Over to the Dark Side

I have used a leaf blower.

All right, it wasn't a real leaf blower, just the vacuum cleaner with the hose connected to the exhaust, and I didn't try to clear the whole yard, just blow the leaves off my rock garden (a space no bigger than a queen-size bed), but even so, it made me feel . . . creepy.

Sunday, the 31st

The newspapers have dutifully reported the fact that some folks are alarmed at the idea of Halloween falling on a Sunday.

More than one person is quoted to the effect that this is "giving the Lord's Day to the Devil".

I'm disappointed that nobody was quoted as pointing out that All Saints' Eve is the night before the day when Christians honor their brethren who have preceded them into Heaven.

". . . and, declaring an emergency . . ."

Kathe-my-sweetie (that's how I usually refer to her when I'm in a situation where there might be some confusion about which Kathe I mean) used to attend Portland City Council meetings, and she was amused by one of their little rituals:

A member of the council would read the text of a proposed resolution:
"Blah blah blah . . . and, declaring an emergency, move that this go into effect immediately."

Over and over, an emergency was declared. Portland was a flash point of crisis, with all the emergencies being declared.

For all I know, they're still at it.

This comes to mind in the context of the current Oregon elections, in which various ballot measures propose not just state laws, but amendments to the state constitution. In one case, an amendment is proposed to declare that double-wide manunfactured houses don't have to have license plates. This is a constitutional amendment because the constitution already dictates various rules about vehicle licensing.

I have never read the Oregon constitution. I kind of think I don't want to.

This is Unworthy

but I'm going to post it anyway.

Today I drove past the Corvallis Republican headquarters and saw a sign asking for volunteers to distribute "liturature".

I told Kathe's friend Eli about it. He expressed surprise that Bush didn't delegate the job of signmaking.

They took the sign down later that afternoon, but by then I'd already photographed it and delivered prints to Democratic headquarters.

I Knew They Were Up to Something

The other day, walking across the central courtyard of Linn-Benton Community College, I was approached by a smiling young man with a clipboard, inviting me to "sign a petition to help crack down on child molestors".

I relied, "With a come-on as wholesome and all-American as that, you're obviously working a scam, but I don't have time to figure out what."

He answered with an embarrassed smile and I walked on.

Now I learn that their scam was worse than I'd supposed: they weren't just after money, they were trying to trick people into changing their voter registration to Republican.

I'm not exactly sure who they thought this would benefit. If they were trying to prevent people from voting in the primaries, that would make a certain amount of sense. Or if (as other Republicans have done) they pretended to be registering people to vote but shredding all the non-Republican ones, that would be logical (though loathsome). But I don't see the advantage they gain by this particular scam.

News From Crawford (Sorry)

Randall Hugh Crawford had this to say in an e-mail to me today:

http://tampatrib.com/News/MGBU3UEHF0E.html

The traditionally conservative newspaper the Tampa Tribune, which has
endorsed the Republican presidential candiate in every election in the
post WWII era (except for 1964, when they endorsed neither Goldwater or
Johnson), has arrived at and announced the decision to endorse neither
candidate in the 2004 race.

They devote a great amount of column space to Bush's mishandling of the
Iraq war, his deficit and the other major issues of the race. They wrap
up in the matter of a paragraph or two the fact that they have certain
reservations about Kerry as well.

First Bush's Crawford county hometown paper choses not to back him, now
a major conservative paper in Brother Jeb's state (which help shoehorn
Dubya into office in '00 ) has nothing good to say abut the President*.

Somehow pollsters keep finding groups of people in which nearly equal
numbers of voters support the Shrub and his opponent. I don't know where
they keep finding these people, who seem to still be wrapped up in the
post 9/11 patriotic fervor that allows them to support anything our
former President's son says or does. But clearly the people who think
for a living, and now including the ones that do not support Kerry,
clearly do not support Bush Junior.

-- Randall Hugh Crawford

To which I add that this is indeed a strange election. Millions hate Bush, millions more strongly distrust him, nobody cares about Kerry. This ought to be a perfect opportunity for Badnarik, Peroutka or Cobb, but alas, you probably can't even assign those three guys to the correct political parties (I could only name all three because I Googled them).

With ballot access difficult for alternative parties and our ballots themselves imperilled, our electoral system is broken, and it needs a major fix. That was obvious in 2000 and we did nothing. I fear it's going to become PAINFULLY obvious next month. Will we do anything about it?

Has Blogger Messed With Your Comments?

Several people have complained to me that they tried to post comments here and were unable to -- the "post anonymously" option was not offered, or the "Publish" button didn't appear, things like that.

If you have had any trobule of that kind, please p/o/s/t/a/c/o/m/m/e/n/t/ e-mail me:

john_m_burt@hotmail.com

The Stolen Honor of Sinclair Broadcasting

This morning, I visited

http://www.freepress.net/sinclair/dn.php?zip=&h=t

in order to confront Sinclair Broadcasting about their decision to pre-empt normal programming in order to show the film "Stolen Honor", a product of the group called "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth".

This is the same outfit that blocked a special episode of _Nightline_ this spring, on the grounds that honoring the war dead was "too political". Apparently giving 45 minutes of air time to the Swiftettes, commercial-free and at no charge, is just good journalism, no politics involved.

Porn Filters

The Corvallis - Benton County Public Library is trying out filtering software, inspired by a Federal blunt instrument. Results so far:

sites blocked: 113

actual porn sites blocked: 16

Library users who tried to access porn online: 0.004% (I'd like to know what that is in absolute numbers: Two? Four?)

Library users in the children's section who tried to access porn: none

The Library Board have decided to try a different software package. Hmph.

Something tells me that my brother David, who works for a filtering software company, isn't going to like this news item. But, he's had plenty of time to get used to results like these.

Are You Sure You're Registered?

I knew this was going to happen.

All those people with their clipboards and their voter registration forms, eagerly signing people up.

Only some of them were taking those filled-out forms and throwing them away.

Apparently, somebody thought it was in their interest to prevent people from registering to vote.

I wonder who that could be . . . .

In my e-mail inbox

> > Subject: Bush Camp Conclusions ---

> > Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor
> > 1) given documents he thought were true
> > 2) failed to thoroughly investigate the facts
> > 3) reported documents to the American people as true to make his case
> > 4) when challenged, launched an investigation, quickly apologized
> > 5) substance of the bogus documents appears to have been true anyway
> > 6) cost to the world in lives and money: zero
> > 7) Bush camp conclusion: should be fired as CBS News Anchor

> > George W. Bush, President of the United States
> > 1) given documents he thought were true
> > 2) failed to thoroughly investigate the facts
> > 3) reported documents to the American people as true to make his case
> > 4) when challenged, stonewalled an investigation, never apologized
> > 5) substance of the bogus documents appears to have been . . . bogus
> > 6) cost to the world in lives and money: incalculable
> > 7) Bush camp conclusion: four more years!

Christopher Reeve

I was surprised. I really did think he was going to walk again. He was so insistent.

Then I found out he died of heart failure, due to an infection, caused by a pressure sore, and I was really surprised.

A BEDSORE!?

He had a loving wife. He had a close family. He had money, which ought to have ensured that he received nursing care from competent people. How could he possibly have gotten a bedsore?
I have worked in nursing homes. I have provided home health care. I have worked on the crowded, understaffed wards of military hospitals. NO PERSON UNDER MY CARE EVER DEVELOPED A BEDSORE.

But Christopher Reeve got a bedsore. And it killed him.

Biftu Is Legal

Kathe and I have adopted four children together. Three of them were the surviving members of an Ethiopian family who came to us together, ten years ago. Tesfaye (also called Abdi), now 18, is now a U.S. citizen. Mestowet (also called Michu), now 24, renewed her green card awhile back. Asnakech (also called Biftu), now 22, didn't renew until just yesterday, leading to a certain amount of nail-biting on our part.

The matter was complicated by the fact that Ash now lives in Portland, which is good because the nearest office for La Migra is in Portland, but bad because we still live some 83 miles away in Corvallis. Having come to the U.S. at a fairly advanced age, Ash's English is imperfect, especially her writing, so she was having trouble navigating the bureaucracy.

Kathe's daughter Sarah (from her first crop of kids) also lives in Portland, however, and when the situation grew dire she threw herself into the breach, spending a day in the Federal offices straightening things out.

Thank you, Sarah. That's another one we owe you.

President* Bush Says

that the real, honest, no kidding this time, reason for invading Iraq was . . . Saddm Hussein was abusing the U.N. Oil for Food program.

This must be Bush's biggest flipflop ever.

Sloganator

I'm sorry, I'm sure everybody else has already seen this, but I only just found out about it:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bushcheneysloganator

Tee hee.

First Rain

Unnaturally enough for the Willamette Valley, we have only tonight had our first rain of the season.

Usually, there are plenty of clear days in September and October, but not a total absense of rain. It was getting downright eerie.

The new section of roof is working just fine, no leaks showing so far. And I like the new skylights. There was something charming about having two sheets of plastic layered in with the shingles, serving as windows in the attic, but the charm wore off after they began to leak. The storebought blister-skylights Jake installed don't have as much character, but they look all right, and boy do they just sit there and not leak.

SpaceShip Which?

All appropriate congratulations to the builders and pilot of "SpaceShip One", and I sincerely hope this is the start of big things, but really, folks, the first spaceship orbited on April 12th, 1961.

And again I say, this could be the start of something big. In spite of many years of disappointments, I still cling to be belief that one day we will look around, startled, and say, "Hey, when did the sky crack open like that? People are spilling out in all directions!"

Lawn Signs

We're only hosting one lawn sign this year, opposing Oregon Ballot Measure 36 (see several posts below).

So far our sign has been:

stolen -- once (replaced with a home-made one)

kicked down -- twice

pissed on -- once

I'd be writing to our local paper with this story, but I suspect it might encourage more energetic political action upon our house and grounds.

It Makes Me Wanna . . . .

The Olsen twins are doing Happy Meal commercials on French TV.

Mary-Kate Olsen, in recovery for an eating disorder, is selling over-salted, over-sugared, fat-drenched food.

Question: Who is being more shameless and irresponsible, the girls or McDonald's?

Traditional Marriage

"To the Editor, Portland Oregonian:

"The definition of marriage changes with each generation.
"In 1857, when Oregon adopted its Constitution, a married woman could not own property, could not enter into a contract without her husband's permission, and could lawfully be beaten by her husband. Divorce was illegal in most states, and was only granted on grounds of adultery in others. A hot topic of debate at the time was whether a widow could lawfully marry her late husband's brother -- quite a change from Biblical times, when such a marriage was required.
"In 1857, not all marriages in Oregon were between one man and one woman. There were already quite a few Mormon settlers in the southeastern counties."

U.N. Takeover Plot!

Good Heavens, I hear tell that John Kerry wants the U.S. government to abide by the United Nations charter, as though it were some sort of solemn treaty obligation!

That would mean having to go to the U.N. for permission to defend our nation against foreign attackers!

Oh, it wouldn't? Article 51 of the Charter specifically enshrines the right of self-defense? Well, never mind.

Diversion

Was the invasion of Iraq a diversion away from the campaign to shut down al-Qaeda?

The thousands of intelligence operatives, Special Forces and other people who were urgently needed in Afghanistan (obvious at the time, and all the more obvious given the current state of the country), and who were pulled out and set to work on the invasion, certainly think so.

But what do they know?

Debatable

There is a well-known and carefully-refined format for debate. Presidential candidates never use it.

The world would be a better place if they did, though.

Just as Congress would do a better job if they passed bills according to Robert's Rules of Order.

Osama in Iraq!

In the _Wall Street Journal_ for 29 September, 9/11 widow Debra Burlingame defends President* Bush's invasion of Iraq, declaring that Saddam Hussein did so have ties to Osama bin Laden. She offers as evidence:

"Saddam . . . was not responsive to a 1996 request by bin Laden for safe haven in Iraq".

"[I]n 1998 . . . Richard Clarke worried that bin Laden would 'boogie to Baghdad'" if driven from Sudan by Clinton's campaign against him there.

Well. Osama asked for help and Saddam ignored him. And somebody speculated that Osama might ask again. Yeah, pretty devastating evidence.

People have a hard time sorting things out because they think of Saddam and Osama as being "on the same side", apparently because they come from sort of the same culture, or race, or something (they don't really have religion in common -- Saddam is about as much a Muslim as Ronald Reagan was a Christian).

Much in the way that people often puzzle over why neo-Nazis and the Klan rarely have anything to say to one another. They fail to see that a secular racist group that wants an all-powerful national government busy conquering the world has little in common with a Christian racist group that wants a feeble national confederacy that shuts the world out.

Playing SAIF

A hot election topic in Oregon is a ballot measure calling for the dissolution of the State Accident Insurance Fund. There are all sorts of reasons given why this would be ever-so-good an idea, but the actual motivation is pretty straightforward: Liberty Northwest (an insurance company actually based in Boston) wants to eliminate its chief competitor.

There's a delightful campaign ad, showing the Liberty board talking about the best way to gain control over the market in "Ore-a-gone". They say "Ore-a-gone" a couple of times, to make sure the point gets across.

It says "A Dramatization" across the bottom of the screen in big letters, but the funniest part is that, like Dan Rather's memos, the video is a false record of a real thing.

Another amusing campaign ad ends with a candidate preparing to bungee jump, saying, "I'm David WU, and I approve this message, and I do my own stunts!"

Back to School

Class begins today in Biology 233, Anatomy & Physiology III.

This is the last prerequisite I have left for getting into the nursing program, which of course is no guarantee that I will get in. Not sure what I'll do if I don't.

But in any event, I must get back into student-ly mode now, and make ready for school.

Fall Festival

The Corvallis Fall Festival is always a pleasure: craft booths, food booths, music, political booths -- all the usual furniture of a small-town fair.

It's nothing special, but it's definitely something to look forward to.

Especially the elephant ears.

New Roof, Coming Right Up

So far my own contributions have consisted largely of housework and hauling bundles of shingles up through the house, but Kathe's son Jake and a friend of one of the younger kids have been burning through the roof at an impressive clip.

Old shingles come off, new tarpaper and shingles go on, soon it will be time for that tricky section that requires all that custom-made flashing.

I made the mistake of reading the label on one of those bundles of shingles -- they weigh *eighty pounds* each? I don't know if I can carry any more, now that I know how much they weigh.

Carrying isn't so bad, but that vertical lifting is a killer.

He Should Have Kept the Passport that said "Cat Stevens"

When the defenders of the F/a/t/h/e/r/Homeland learned that someone named "Yusuf Islam" was aboard Flight 919, they diverted the plane to Maine, one of the expendable states.

Republican Catsup

There are two different brands of catsup offering a Republican alternative to Heinz. Wow.

I'm sitting here trying to imagine "Conservative" or "Republican" catsup. Let's see . . . .

Conservative catsup uses organically-grown, pesticide-free tomatoes (just to err on the side of caution), grown on an American family farm, lightly cooked and seasoned with just two or three other ingredients.

Republican catsup is burnt to death and loaded with high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colors and flavors.

Happy Anniversary, Kathe

Twenty years, as of today.

I love you, sweetie.

Stainless steel hip joints and all.

Geek Girly Speaks

Geek Girly, also known as AmberCrystal (http://www.ambercrystal.blogspot.com ), had this to say today:

Geek Girly has a serious bone to pick with the world at large, and although she will try to be articulate and eloquent about this matter, please note - she is good and thoroughly pissed.

Some background: GG has a friend who has a 20something daughter who lives with her and her second husband. The Daughter is married, pregnant, and does not work. (GG points this out because all three descriptions and situations were the Daughter's choice.) GG's friend, a rather passionate, somewhat dramatically emotional redhead, feels guilty that she was a teenaged, unwed mother from one of the states where inbreeding is considered a legitimate lifestyle choice, so allows the Daughter too much freedom for her situation. The Daughter, who only moved in with GG's friend on the stipulation that her then-boyfriend/occasional lover be allowed to move in with her, recently became pregnant. At her wedding, oblivious to the financial difficulties of her mother and stepfather, the Daughter actually had the nerve to whine, because her belly showed through the A-line gown she had been purchased and, because... Mommmm!!! I wanted tulips, not lilieeeessss.... (To say that the Daughter is a disappointing reminder to GG that life is NOT as lovely as it is in her head, and that people are NOT always the kind, wondrous creatures she tends to view them as is... well, a given.)

On to the soapbox moment....

This past weekend, GG and a group of her (very cool, amazingly generous) co-workers traveled not so great distances into Downtown, to help serve at a local soup kitchen. It was an amazing experience! The people were kind, the service warmly received, and GG and two or three new friends have already made plans to return on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

According to a volunteer at the shelter, they will serve over 1500 people on Thanksgiving Day alone... Seeing the impressive, tangible need, GG was deeply, passionately touched... Knowing that there was only enough food for the day to feed roughly 70 people and 100 showed up seems fundamentally wrong. The fact that it's avoidable and could be changed if those with more would give more, or learn to live with less, infuriates this Geek past the point of articulation. So... there is GG and intrepid team, getting so much more back than they had given, and grateful for the opportunity to do so.

Meanwhile.... across Town....there is a baby shower going on, welcoming this new life growing inside the Daughter. Gifts upon gifts upon gifts are being opened... food is splayed, drinks flowing like lies from a politician's tongue.... there is much joy and merriment, and it was, GG is sure, a lovely little get-together... except that there are so many gifts.... and they keep coming.... for 15 minutes... then 30... an hour... then 2.... and more... All have to be opened and adored..... proper homage to be paid before the next is received, cooed over... presented....

What lessens the merriment of this experience for GG is.... this joy is not for the child - it is for things made of dust and earth, not lasting as long as a thought. They will used, yes, of course, but will they be truly appreciated? What will the child gain from this overabundance? Will she understand that things are just... things, but that souls, people are divine? Will she get that there is more to life than the newest, latest, greatest? Or will this materialistic existance jade her eyes, numb her soul, so that she thinks happiness is ownership, and those who have not... are worth naught?

This... this is why GG prays.

GG would humbly request that you donate food, time, clothing, anything you can spare as often as possible to the most worthy causes listed below. It doesn't matter who you are or where you live, you can be of benefit to someone, somewhere... and perhaps someday... we can all live free.

www.salvationarmy.org
www.habitat.org
www.worldvision.org
www.shoesfororphansouls.com
www.redcross.org
www.amnesty.org

To which I replied:

This is always a difficult thing for me: How do you criticize someone who receives your charity? But how can you not?

It's not really charity if it comes with strings attached, is it? You're not really asking the person you're giving to to simper and grovel, are you?

But if you set no conditions, and no limits, those who benefit from your generosity will abuse it, or become obnoxious on account of feeling guilty for "owing" you so much.

I saw a little of that this summer, when my teenaged son's friends were hanging out at our place for days on end. They were delighted to have a place they could sit around and talk, make out and get silly, and not have to fear being rousted by the management or the police. But when it got so we never had the place to ourselves, and so few of our guests made any effort to clean up the mess they created, the novelty of all that company faded.

And then came the night one of them asked me to cook him something to eat. Oy.

It's made more difficult for me, because I don't take the conventional Christian approach, that charity is entirely an "extra", which you may feel free to withhold for no reason and incur no penalty. I incline more to the Jewish doctrine that charity is an obligation that cannot lightly be shirked.

So yes, GG's friend's daughter is a boor and a parasite, but I really don't know what, if anything, GG can honorably do, or even say, about the subject.

Jake's Here

Kathe's son Jake, one of what I tend to call "the first crop" (the four biological children she had with her first husband, later followed by four adopted and one "informally adopted"), has come to stay with us. It's good to have him here.

Originally, he was coming to help with reshingling the roof (a daunting task with a roof as steep as ours). With Kathe still settling in with her new hip, it's even better to have him here.

It's Simple Economics

If you don't supply people with something they are demanding (say, records of what you did or didn't do during most of 1972-3), then someone else will.

Kathe has a New Hip (Again)

She fell and fractured her remaining natural hip, and had to have emergency surgery. It seems to have gone well, with her new joint functioning adequately. If all goes well, she'll be coming home today.

My Wife is In Surgery

I'lle let you know more when I know more.

Memos: Fake Contents: ?

If the memos are fraudulent, then why was the Bush campaign silent on the matter for so long? Can it be because Bush wasn't sure if they were fake or not?

The secretary of the alleged author of the memos says that they reflect what he was saying around the office (probably with language a good deal more colorful) about the spoiled rich boys in the Champagne Squadron generally and young George specifically.

The idea of fake documents with geniune contents is a bit head-spinning, but hey.

Meanwhile, the more important question of whether the little weasel deserves your vote remains open. At least, for some people it's still open.

In It For the Long Haul

The Sunday Corvallis Gazette-Times says that the daily 5:00 PM peace vigil in front of hte Benton County Courthouse is the longest-running in the country, dating back to October 7th, 2001 (the dfay the U.S. invaded Afghanistan).

I have only been present for the event a few times. Usually, I rub people's shoulders as they stand there, rather than hold up a sign myself.

But in any event, I wouldn't have been there back in 2001, because I didn't agree with them about Afghanistan.

Remember, please, it was a whole different war from Iraq. That was a government that really was collaborating closely with al Qaeda. And it didn't help matters that it was a government that made Saddam Hussein's regime look like a bastion of human rights.

Invading Afghanistan was the closest thing we'd had to a just cause for war since Pearl Harbor. I didn't go running around in a "Nuke Kabul" T-shirt, but I also didn't protest the invasion. I stood silent and prayed it would be over quickly.

The first part was blessedly quick. And the rest of the story (ending the small-scale fighting around the country, rebuilding what had been destroyed and building what they had never gotten around to) should have been quick and successful.

Unfortunately, the Administration had other priorities.

Afghanistan was unfinished business, and I might well have supported the overthrow of the Taliban some time in the 1990s (Bill Clinton might have done it, if he hadn't been busy with attacks on him from another corner).

Saddam Hussein, supported and sustained in power for many years by Ronald Reagan and Bush the Elected, was also unfinished business, and I might even have supported some well-constructed scheme to overthrow him and assist the people of Iraq in quickly rebuilding their country. But by 2002, we had other matters that should have been attended to first: rebuilding Afghanistan (you broke it, you bought it), capturing Osama bin Laden, shutting down al Qaeda cells around the world. Instead, Bush sent the military and the CIA haring off into Iraq, and we all know how well that worked out.

I was among those who opposed Mr. Bush's adventure in Iraq, and history has proven us correct. I continue to hope that the consequences of this immense blunder can be dealt with, that a Kerry Administration can clean up the mess Bush is leaving behind, and that some good can be salvaged from it.

Andrea Came By

My friend Andrea was in town the other day. I'm so glad.

She was a massage client for years, and became a good friend. It was a bummer when she moved to New Jersey. And then she moved to Germany, and got married . . . !

But recently, her husband came into a small inheritance, and they made a trip to the U.S. She got to see family and friends in various places around the country, she got to show off her husband and baby to everybody, and her husband got to see places he hadn't been before.

We met for lunch, Andrea and Bjorn and little Dominick and John and Kathe. Nearly Normal's is a swell organix restaurant, loaded with hippie charm. Definitely one of the best restaurants in Corvallis.

Afterward, Andrea got a massage. She told me that in Germany she couldn't find the kind of massage common over here, a full hour from head to toe. A physicla therapist will give you fifteen minutes on your legs while working on a particular problem, but that wasn't what she wanted. Well, at least she got one more treatment from me.

And maybe we can set up another one in another three or four years. Who knows . . . .

A Day to Remember

The day I want to remember is September 11th, 1994, the day that Tesfaye, Asnakech and Mestowet Desta got off that plane at Portland International Airport, to join their new family. By a happy coincidence, September 11th was also the Ethiopian New Year.

Less happy coincidence eventually followed, of course.

Three years ago, I called the girls, Asnakech and Mestowet, at their apartment in Portland and told them that they should not let anybody take away *their* day.

And I still say, we should of course observe the anniversary in appropriate fashion, but we should keep it in perspective in both directions:

1) Don't let the bastards take even one day of the year away from us, to be used solely to remember what they did -- they'd like that too much.

2) Don't leave remembrance and thoughtful action for just one day -- continue to be vigilant against all the wreckers (the terrorists, and the people who would use the fear of terror as an excuse to implement the terrorists' own agenda).

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Love is stronger than hate."\\

Fair and Balanced

The terribly liberal media have given five times as much coverage (4199 stories vs. 808) to the Swift Boat Republicans as they have to the controversy over Bush's military records.

This in spite of the fact that the boat boys were debunked almost immediately, while serious questions about Bush's activities are still going unanswered.

Yep, that liberal media bias is just terrible.

I Heard Al Franken on the Radio This Morning

He wasn't being funny.

He said bluntly, "This administration has blood on its hands."

Basically, what I've been saying all along: that no matter how richly Saddam Hussein deserved to be deposed, invading Iraq while Afghanistan was still in chaos was criminally negligent.

Criminally negligent homicide.

If you are a U.S. citizen, please register to vote and vote for John Kerry.

BECAUSE HE ISN'T BUSH.

Infertility Bites

I have just discovered a blog, In the Barren Season ( http://www.inthebarrenseason.blogspot.com ), in which a Jewish woman using the name Persephone records her thoughts about her ongoing treatment for infertility. I find its content very interesting.

I have always found the operations of the human reproductive system fascinating, both at the biological end and also the human end. At the end of this month, I embark on the third of three anatomy and physiology courses which are prerequisites to an application to nursing school, and it will be part 3 which will include the reproductive system. I'm looking forward to it.

My wife and I did ourselves endure infertility, which has now responded to treatment, once by PA and three times by TN/TRA (private adoption and transnational/transracial adoption).

Adoption is not 100% effective, and the failures can be every bit as painful as miscarriage or abortion, but it has a better success rate than any other treatment I know of, fewer side effects and (usually) lower costs.

www.us-election.org

I had a swell time voting at www.us-election.org, probably more than I'm going to have in the real election.

us-election.org allows people who are not US citizens to vote in the next American Presidential election and is filled with information about all of the candidates -- and they really do mean ALL the candidates, not just those two Republicrats.

I was going to vote for the one woman running for President, but her platform was just too creepy, a right-wing nightmare. Same for the black guy, who's an orthodox Stalinist. I thought about voting for the Hispanic guy (Socialist Workers Party), but in the end voted for one of the Anglo dudes (Personal Choice Party) out of a nostalgic fondness for his running mate, Marilyn Chambers Taylor.

I know that you may wonder why you should vote in the US election, since your vote will not affect the results. That is true, but it may nevertheless be useful for Americans to understand how we feel about their choices. The choices Americans make affect us all, so even if we have no legal right to participate in their election, they should know how we feel.

The results can be viewed immediately on the site and right up to the election day of November 2. They can be viewed country-by-country as well as region-by-region. All you have to do is go to

http://www.us-election.org

and register your vote. It's easy.

Then, once you have voted, pass the word on to as many of your friends as might be interested. Really, voting with a full slate of candidates is fun, and will make you wish that all of these goofballs were on your ballot, even if that would make the ballot look like a voter's pamphlet, and the voters' pamphlet look like a phone book.