Girl Scouts Are Getting Dangerous

The Girl Scouts of America are not what they used to be.

The always-concerned Concerned Women for America are deeply concerned.

But, it's worse than they think.

Something must be done.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "What exactly did you have in mind?"\\

That's My Boy

[Recycled from 08:38, 1 August 2004]

"So, you're Tesfaye's foster father?"

"No, I'm his father. He was adopted ."

"But, like, he wasn't born here."

"Right. That's what adoption means."

If I'd had time, I would have gotten out the valuable "adoption glossary" we acquired awhile back:

Natural Child: A child who is not artificial.

Real Parents: Parents who are not imaginary.

Your Own Child: A child who is not someone else's.

Adopted Child: A natural child, with real parents, who is all mine.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Yes, he is."\\

Even Behaviorists Get Sigmoidoscopies

Turns out that the air-inflation hurts way more than the snake. Not much fun in any event.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Nobody avoids a full colonoscopy forever."\\

Word of God

[Recycled from 27 October 2004]

This is posted for Coral ( http://locococo.blogspot.com ).

The Word of God
Lyrics and melody © 1994 by Catherine Faber

From desert cliff and mountaintop we trace the wide design,
Strike-slip fault and overthrust and syn and anticline. . .
We gaze upon creation where erosion makes it known,
And count the countless aeons in the banding of the stone.
Odd, long-vanished creatures and their tracks & shells are found;
Where truth has left its sketches on the slate below the ground.
The patient stone can speak, if we but listen when it talks.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the rocks.

There are those who name the stars, who watch the sky by night,
Seeking out the darkest place, to better see the light.
Long ago, when torture broke the remnant of his will,
Galileo recanted, but the Earth is moving still.
High above the mountaintops, where only distance bars,
The truth has left its footprints in the dust between the stars.
We may watch and study or may shudder and deny,
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the sky.

By stem and root and branch we trace, by feather, fang and fur,
How the living things that are descend from things that were.
The moss, the kelp, the zebrafish, the very mice and flies,
These tiny, humble, wordless things---how shall they tell us lies?
We are kin to beasts; no other answer can we bring.
The truth has left its fingerprints on every living thing.
Remember, should you have to choose between them in the strife,
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote life.

And we who listen to the stars, or walk the dusty grade,
Or break the very atoms down to see how they are made,
Or study cells, or living things, seek truth with open hand.
The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand.
Deep in flower and in flesh, in star and soil and seed,
The truth has left its living word for anyone to read.
So turn and look where best you think the story is unfurled.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.


//The Magic 8-Ball says, "It is decidedly so."\\

Marketing For the 21st Century

Would you believe that I obtained the document quoted below from a whistle-blower within a major U.S. corporation?

Would you believe that I got it from the web site of a usually-unimpeachable source?

Would you believe it got it from my wife's son Jake's amusing e-mail service, Flotsam@botteronet.net?

Executive Summary:

Marketing to the traditional 'hot button' market bullets of efficiency and
ecological awareness is no longer effective in the marketplace. Recent
changes in marketplace mindset require an adjustment in marketing
philosophy that will allow for increased margins on traditional commodity
items. Initial trials of the new marketing concepts have proven very
effective, and an overall shift of marketing strategy is necessary for the
company to continue operations.

Problem:

Domestically produced commodity items are no longer cost competetive in
the marketplace. Increased competition from overseas manufacturing is
producing insurmountable pricing pressure on commodity items. Company is
approaching insolvency.

Solution:

Minor cosmetic changes to commodity product manufacturing process.
Re-write marketing material to reflect the change, emphasis on the
'terrorist' application. Increase sale price dramatically to reflect the
new 'terrorist' application.

Results:

Small increase in sales volume, substantial improvement of product
margins. Financial insolvency averted.

Conclusions:

Terrorist hysteria is an effective marketing tool. Properly exploited in
the marketing literature, the terrorist hysteria can breath new financial
life into any product that is no longer producing adaquate margins through
traditional channels.

Future Risk Analysis:

A fundamental shift in marketing strategy brings with it inherent market
risks. The major risk of this conceptual change is that the public mindset
will begin to discard the 'terrorist threat', rendering increased
marketing efforts in this area ineffective. This risk is deemed minimal at
this time, the majority of the expenditures required to maintain the
public mindset are being undertaken by the federal government, with a
virtually unlimited budget for this marketing effort. This paradigm shift
by our company is essentially parasite marketing where our relatively
small marketing budget is being used to leverage the expenditures of the
federal government. This strategy should remain effective for a minimum of
one election cycle, so we should see improvements in the bottom line for
at least the next 10 quarters. The primary risk moving forward is that the
federal government expenditures to promote terrorist hysteria are reduced,
with a resultant loss of marketplace mindset for this strategy. This is a
relatively small risk moving forward, and partially offset by hundreds of
companies such as our own, all focussed on re-working marketing strategies
to promote and extend the terrorist hysteria.

Recommendations: Marketing budget needs to be re-allocated. Television
advertising should only be purchased on networks whose news organizations
properly emphasize the terrorist threat. The same for print media
advertising. The marketing department needs to re-allocate human
resources, emphasis on 'product efficiency' needs to be lowered, with
appropriate staffing reductions. A new team needs to be established to
emphasize the 'security' aspect of the product. A 'threat analyst' should
be hired, and put in charge of this new team, who will be responsible for
producing white papers emphasizing the 'security' aspect of the product,
with particular detail on the 'terrorist' aspect.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Missed it by that much."\\

Worthy of Commemoration

[Recycled from 18:02, 26 November 2004]

The Moon is full tonight. It shines down on Corvallis, making the chilly trip up the ladder to the lookout worthwhile.

From time to time I do a Google search for my own name. Interesting things turn up sometimes, things I've forgotten. Like this post which I made at universetoday.com on 30 September 2003:

"The fifty commemorative quarters, one for each state. being issued by the U.S. Treasury are proving immensely popular. So much so that there is talk of a new series to replace them when the fiftieth coin is issued in 2008.

"I think the best choice for a new series would be NASA mission patches. The designs are attractive, historically important and most of them are more or less circular.

"Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, STS . . . . So few missions total, over forty-odd years. Let's honor the pioneers of space exploration on our currency."

Of course, I also honor the intelligence and courage of the crews of Vostok, Soyuz, Salyut, Shenzhuo, &c., to say nothing of the often-mocked provate space ventures, but since we're talking about U.S. currency here, a little nationalism is inevitable.

There Are Conservatives, and Then . . . .

I really enjoyed finding Canadi-Anna's blog, which reminds me that with all the appalling things neo-cons have done to this country in recent years, it's been a long time since I've encountered a genuine conservative.

Anna is a Canadian who is so conservative that, not only does she want to preserve the authority of the office of Governor-General, not only does she want to keep the ties to the British monarchy, but she even wants to discard the Maple Leaf flag in favor of the old Red Ensign. Now that's conservatism.

Compare with the USAn variety, who tend to be more like this.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one."\\

Eh? Did You Say "No Child's Left Buttock ". . . ?

Kathe sent me this link about schools (and states) which are demanding that the Feds either withdraw the so-called "No Child Left Behind" law, or else fund it. She adds:

The schools would have so much more of my sympathy if I had not discovered that they will try to declined to do *anything* for which they aren't getting federal money, including the stuff I thought they were getting state and local money to do. Like teach my kids to read.

/The Magic 8-Ball says, "Do the right thing and the money will follow."\\

Linda Loiaza

Pat Robertson is a suppurating pustule on the nation, but he's right about one thing:

Venezuela would be a better place without a certain person.

Robertson is just wrong about which one.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "What kind of question is that?"\\

Let's Face Facts

Conservatives are always going on about how there are absolute standards of right and wrong, rules that must never be broken, universal truths, eternal verities, &c.

Well, of course they're right.

But what they don't seem to understand is that the universal, eternal, absolute standards aren't theirs.

They're ours.

Crispen has a very insightful post at his excellent blog illustrating this simple truth. If only conservatives were able to get the point of what I have just been saying.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "There is a purpose in all things, even though it cannot always be seen immediately."\
[Postscript: The purpose of this, for instance, was to take part in Blog Like a Conservative Day. Nobody seems to have noticed, though.]

Lance and George Go For a Ride

Lance was given instructions before the ride with the C-Student Prince:
Do not pass the president.
Do not force the president.
Be kind.
No talking to the president.

Family Stuff

This morning, I got in the Tercel with Kathe and Waldy and drove to Milwaukie for a Slayton family gathering. Many Slaytons were in attendance, as was a facsimile of the famous Slayton family history of 1898. Kathe's distant cousin Deke Slayton was not there, being deceased, but you can't have everything. I did enjoy meeting several persons who knew the correct way to spell Lucile.

We arrived home to find a message from my cousin Mike, informing me that his mother, my aunt Dorothy Westphal, sister to my father, had died. I reached my brother Tom, my brother David and my parents at the family event they were holding in Roseburg, a joint outing for David and Tom's small children (Kathe and I don't have any more small ones, having started earlier).

Meanwhile, in less wholesome parts of the world, right-wing harpies are trying to wedge open any cracks they can find between Cindy Sheehan and her family, and right-wing necromancers are trying to turn her dead son against her.

Fortunately, my family isn't famous.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Be careful what you wish for."\\

Opening the Virtual Raincoat

From supergee, who got it from kightp and wordweaverlynn:

"Chances are people you don't even know are being introduced to your journal every day, either randomly or through someone else. In addition to recent entries, people can get to know you better by what you posted in the past. With that in mind post a link to your entries on this day exactly three months ago, six months ago, nine months ago, and a year ago. If there was no entry on that day, link the closest date."

Three months ago I was writing in praise of multiculturalist Rudyard Kilpling.

Six months ago, I was observing (as I did again yesterday) on just what a first-rate scoundrel John Negroponte is.

A year ago, I speculated that I had slipped into the world of a cheesy roman a clef in which the Republican attempts to bring down Bill Clinton were being parodied and exaggerated as right-wing efforts to overthrow Veneszuela's Hugo Chaves.

Gee.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Don't look so surprised."\\

News Updates

* I begin nursing school in late September

* George W. Bush still has no answers to give to Cindy Sheehan

* There are a lot of spiders in and around the house this summer

* The question of who "outed" Valerie Wilson is still open, and whoever did it is still a traitor

* My son Walden is back from his road trip. It's comforting to hear his radio running in his room, behind me. It does seem to be a radio just now, and not his computer playing downloads.

* We still don't know who gave Republican man-date James Guckert a WHite House press pass.

* I'm no longer working 60+ hours a week, but I'm still up there around 50, but I'll have to cut out a lot of that when I start nursing school.

* John Negroponte still works for the White House, and he remains guilty of supporting and encouraging terrorist death squads in Central America in the 1980s.

* The totem poles Kathe and I made for da Vinci Days are apparently going to be displayed at a downtown business to promote the Willamette Valley Community School.

* The election of 1876 was stolen from Samuel Tilden by Rutherford B. Hayes and his supporters. . . .

I Am a Christian Republican Patriot

I am a Christian Republican patriot.

I mock and deride the grief of a gold star mother.

I spit upon the memory of a soldier killed in combat.

I vandalize war memorials.

I knock down crosses.

I literally grind the names of our war dead into the dirt.

In case you had any doubts, now you know for certain what I really am.

I am a Christian Republican patriot.

[Please note: if you are a Christian, a Republican or a patriot who feels this statement does not accurately describe you, then it is up to you to show a different face to the world than your brethren do.]

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "You already know the answer to this question."\\

Just Fill the Prescription, Jerk!

"I'm sorry, my conscience simply won't allow me to fill the prescription, or even give it back to you to be filled elsewhere. It's against my beliefs to allow you to --

-- take a drug which might cause abortion, never mind that your doctor says it does nothing of the sort."

-- practice birth control."

-- escape the consequences of your sin by treating your syphilis."

-- relieve the pain following your vasectomy."

-- use insulin when you should be praying for healing from God."

-- save the life of a mixed-race child."

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Not everything makes sense."\\

Hero

Emily Lyons is alive.

And kicking.

Kick 'em hard, girlfriend.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Take what you can get."\\

WMD Found in Iraq!

So, Saddam Hussein really did have a huge stockpile of weapons of mass destruction program-related activities, ready to turn them over to terrorists?

Um, no.

In fact, the only reason that somebody was apparently able to begin setting up a chemical-weapons factory to supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction, is the chaos caused by George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq.

Much as Bush's attack, allegedly intended as a blow against al Qaeda, has resulted in major al Qaeda activity in Iraq.

I'm just grateful that Bush never claimed that invading Iraq would prevent an attack by ten thousand Saturnian flying saucers, or we'd be wrapped in slimy purple tentacles right now.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "The answer is the same as the last time you asked."\\

Never Mind

In a previous post, I spoke of my brother Tom getting divorced. This is the way it was told to me at the time, but it turns out that the situation is actually a good deal more complicated than that and, well, let's just leave it at that, okay?

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Mind your own business."\\

"Overhauling America"?

Is the article "The Overhauling of Straight America", allegedly written by Marshall K. Kirk and Erastes Pill, genuine, or a forgery after the fashion of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion?

I have my suspicions, and they are definitely piqued by one source citing no less an authority on veracity and sincerity than Jonathan Swift.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Why ever would you even ask such a question?"\\

Good News From Iraq

According to an article brought to my attention by Vision Circle, it sounds as though some Iraqi really are pulling together with their neighbors to end the chaos and destruction -- in spite rather than because of the U.S. invasion.

Now, Bush says that withdrawing from Iraq now would result in a terrible civil war and the end of Iraq as a nation. Of course, Bush also said that Saddam Hussein was a good buddy of Osama bin Laden and owner of an arsenal of WMDs.

A Funny Way of Showing It

I'm not entirely sure that Operation Yellow Elephant is really proper. Is it fair or honorable to question the patriotism and/or courage of Republicans who claim to support the war, yet decline to take part theirown selves? I'm not sure.

But I am more than sure that the so-called patriots who mock and deride Cindy Sheehan are utterly despicable.

Peter Who?

I just heard George W. Bush on the radio, saying "Laura and I were saddened to hear of the death of Peter Degen -- er, Jennings".

Oops. Almost let slip a little private nickname, did we?

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Duh, what did you expect?"\\

Homophobia is wrong

"I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I
wish they could adopt me.

I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didn’t have to always deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love."

repost this if you belive homophobia is wrong.

Supergee did, and so did curlygrrl, and naked wrat and max bialystock and the Harechan and Ralesk and Schneelocke and other brave souls too numerous to mention.

Be one.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Outlook not promising."\\

Life Goes On

I haven't been writing about personal stuff, mainly because I've felt pressed for time. It's a lot easier to toss off my reaction to the most outrageous bits of political or cultural humbuggery than it is to talk about things that are happening in my life.

Also, the most noteworthy things have not been very pleasant to relate.

My brother and his wife are getting divorced, and the situation that creates for their two small children is the biggest but not the only bad thing about that.

My aunt Dorothy (Burt) Westphal (not to be confused with my mother, Dorothy [Cook] Burt) is very sick, and her children are gathering at her side in Oakdale, California.

I should have mentioned earlier the good news of the wedding of my cousin Michael Westphal, but I note that I didn't. Oh, well.

Our son Tesfaye (age 19) has moved out of the house and our one remaining kid in residence, Walden (age 16), is currently on a road trip with some older friends, leaving just the two of us. A sneak preview, I suppose. I guess we can live with it.

I go up into the attic to move boxes of comics and other stored things, and I really miss the breezy attic we had while Jake had the roof torn off. Definitely have to get some windows -- openable windows -- up there.

Life is actually relatively unhurried this summer. I wonder if I will blog at all once nursing school starts in September.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Sleep on it."\\

John Roberts is Not Boring

I had been hoping that John Roberts would turn out to be as bland and boring as his name.

Nope.

We're just going to have to take over the country, aren't we?

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Go have some milk and cookies and consider the options."\\

Disturbing Products

Disturbing, but funny.

Well, mostly funny.

The headless pregnant torso is really just disturbing.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "I'd rather not talk about it just now."\\

No Right to Privacy?

Does the Constitution contain a right to privacy?

Well, how would you define the word "privacy"?

It seems to me that being secure in your person, papers and possessions against unreasonable search and seizure is a pretty good definition.

So there's your right to privacy: in the 4th Amendment.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "You already know the answer to this question."\\

Using the Freeways For Your Blog

Not that I would ever advocate doing anything illegal.

But as it says at http://www.freewayblogger.com, it's not actually clear that it is illegal, at least in some jurisdictions.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Ignorance fo the law is no excuse."\\