Moral Standard

S.B. 373, the Oregon Legislature's proposed Renewable Energy Standard Act of 2007, is a start, at least.

And let's face it, that other thing is called "non-renewable" for a reason. As in, it won't be there forever?

I think we should take a staunchly conservative approach to energy, by which of course I mean relying on renewable energy before anything else.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Prudence, indeed dictates...."\\

Still True, Still A Good Idea

Still True: Free choice does indeed save lives.

Still True

Wal-Mart is still able to surprise me with its sleaziness.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Don't be so surprised."\\

I Feel Good Today

Largely because I did fairly well on a test this morning.

Not spectacularly well, but better than the last one (which was still adequate). If I can keep this up, I should finish this term's audit with a respectable grade and be re-admitted to the nursing program.

So far, so good. So far, so good. Just keep on pluggin' away. Don't worry about what you could've done better last week, and for God's sake don't worry about how you're going to pass the NCLEX. Just stick to what you're doing right now.

Elsewhere in the news,

The Boxer-Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007 looks very promising. It also makes me feel good. We're supposed to be wary of "feel-good legislation", but I can tell you I'm ready for a change from the feel-bad 109th Congress.

Signing MoveOn's petition to Congress to urge them to remind President* Bush whose job it is to declare war made me feel good, too.

Finding out that the Administration's intelligence findings on Iran's nuclear program were (ahem) flawed didn't make me feel good, exactly, but at least it's getting some publicity before the war, this time.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Seek serenity and clarity."\\

Things People Send Me

Kathe's son Jake sent me this, about unusual houses: http://www.2spare.com/item_72903.aspx

Wes Clark sent me a link to a petition to forestall the invasion of Iran: http://www.stopiranwar.com/

Kathe sent me the secret key to the universe: http://www.timecube.com/


Universe Today sent me their regular weekly space exploration newsletter: http://www.universetoday.com

MoveCongress sent me an update, too: http://www.movecongress.org

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids invited me to e-mail State Senator Frank Morse about kid tobacco freedom: http://tobaccofreekids.org

Kathe sent me a link to our favorite online comic strip, an episode based on my favorite quote from leonardo da Vinci: "Mathematics is the alphabet in which God has written the Universe."

I get all sorts of stuff in my e-mail. What's in yours?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Outlook hopeful."\\

Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday...Lye Soap Thursday?

This year, I notice something I didn't on the occasion of previous Mardi Gras(es): people wearing strings of beads, even though they were going about their regular lives (work, school, library) without any other hint of festivity.

It reminded me of 14 February 2006, when I noticed lots of people wearing red, as though they'd gotten their Saint Valentines mixed up with their Saint Patricks.

Oh, well. I suppose it's a sign of a vigorous culture, that new practices and observances are appearing.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Remember what I said the other day about priorities?"\\

Woman-Free Dollars

Okay, Susan B. Anthony, you've had your dollar. Sacagawea, same for you.

Now get out of the way, because it's time for men to be honored.

The U.S. Treasury will shortly begin issuing one-dollar coins in new designs, five different per year, to commemorate the 39 (and counting) dead Presidents.

Whether he was President for 31 days or twelve years, whether he saved the nation or nearly destroyed it, each former President will be honored (sometimes for the tenth or twentieth time).

Women who contributed to the nation's history will have to move to the back of the queue.

We will be honoring James Garfield ahead of Clara Barton.

William Howard Taft ahead of Harriett Tubman.

Gerald Ford ahead of Rachel Carson.

Oh, yes, and Richard Nixon will finally get his portrait on a piece of U.S. currency.

Richard Milhous Nixon.

Some time around 2015, innocent children will be paying for cartons of milk with coins bearing the portrait of Richard For God's Sake Nixon.

Instead of Amelia Earhart.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Consider your priorities carefully."\\

We Can End This War

Congress can end it, and we can make them do it.

They can cut off funding for the war, leaving President* Bush with only three choices:

Withdraw the troops (in which case, good).

Stage a banana-republic defiance of Congressional authority (in which case, also good: a nice clearcut case for impeachment).

Order the troops to stand and fight, without food or fuel or ammunition (in which case, also good: an absolutely imperative case for impeachment).

We need to do this. The madness has got to end.

We can't just let it go until 2009. We need to do this now.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Unequivocally yes."\\

Clean Living

After reading Peni R. Griffin's comment on my post from the other day, I feel a little like the nephew in the old joke:

"Uncle, you smoke, you drink, you stay out all night -- it's not healthy!"

"Let me tell you, nephew, one day my doctor is going to tell me, 'You have to quit drinking, you have to quit smoking, you have to quit staying out all night, or you're going to die,' and then I'll quit smoking and drinking and staying out all night, and live to be an old man. But you? What will you say when your doctor says to quit smoking and drinking and staying up late, or else you'll die?"

"Well, I'll say that I've never smoked, never drank, and I'm always in bed by ten."

"Yes, and your doctor will say, 'In that case, there's nothing I can do for you'."

Peni said to eat fruit instead of refined sugar (and no artificial sweeteners, which only increase the appetite for carbohydrates), take the stairs instead of the elevator, bicycle and walk instead of driving.

Darn, I already do all of those.

I love fruit. I make sandwiches that are two slices of sandwich meat and six leaves of lettuce, and I don't like mayonnaise.

I used to drink soda pop, lots of it. And never diet, because artifical sweeteners all taste like poison to me. These days, I drink coffee. Lots of it. With sugar and milk.

Oops. Double darn, there goes the coffee.

Instead, I'm drinking cold black tea, unsweetened. It's bland and slightly bitter, but I find I like that better than just water. And it definitely doesn't have any refined sugar in it.

Oh, well. Kathe reminds me that the difference between slowly growing fatter and slowly growing leaner is only a few hundred calories a day. Maybe I can do this.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Signs point to yes."\\

Eggplant

I did an eggplant on my way to school today. Biking toward the bridge out of Corvallis, I skidded on a patch of frost and landed on my egg.

I don't know how much my helmet did for my brain, but it did wonders for my forehead, seeing as how I didn't need to wipe it off my chest after I limped home.

And I did limp home, rather than get back on my bike and stay the course. I also landed on my left knee and both hands.

Nope, I took the bus. And I didn't load my bike on the bus's rack so I could ride back, either.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Wimp [Just kidding.]"\\

Riding Halfway

Recognizing that my belly isn't going to get any smaller on its own, I've resolved to bike to school. So far I'm averaging an hour and twenty minutes, which isn't dazzling by any measure, but it gets me there.

To reduce the amount of time I spend biking, I'm riding the bus back to town in the afternoon. I now know how to work the pull-down bike rack, and am no longer a source of amusement to my fellow commuters.

I'd like to lose about thirty pounds. Or so I suppose -- I haven't actually weighed myself recently. The prospect is simply too depressing. Oh, well, I'm doing something about it, anyway. Now let's see if I'm doing anything effectively.

Unfortunately, the most noticable effect so far has been little twinges that hint at the return of my carpal tunnel syndrome, which hasn't bothered me in years.

Well, we'll see.

The only route to LBCC is, alas, alongside Highway 34. Not the safest route, especially where the road narrows going over the ominously named Owl Creek Bridge. But, so far, so good.

I really must take a broom with me sometime, to clear the rocks and brush trimmings from the margins of that bridge, since the rough terrain makes it harder to stay out from under the trucks going by.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "This is the post that will get all the comments after John gets squished."\\

[John says: Eight-Ball, you do know that you have the reputation of having the gift of prophecy, don't you?]

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "I'm not superstitious, myself."\\

So Far, Not So Good

Well, the first exam of my audit of Nursing 102 didn't go as well as I'd hoped. My initial score was 80 out of a possible 100, with 75 as the minimum passing grade. I'd been trying for at least 90. The next one.

Much worse news waited for me at home, but that's personal. Those of you who know me that well have probably already gotten an e-mail. Anyway, not the best day of the year.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Never think you've seen the worst of the year until it's over."\\

John McCain

It's strange how people can acquire a reputation, good or ill, that is entirely unmerited.

Not just a little bit of distortion, but the kind of reputation where millions of people believe the exact opposite of the truth on a significant matter.

Like Jimmy Carter, whose Presidency foundered on his obstinate insistence on sticking to his set policy (the Shah, the hostage crisis, the Olympics), being dismissed as "indecisive".

Or Ronald Reagan, whose cut-and-run behavior in Beirut convinced Osama bin Laden that Americans were all cowards, being remembered as a tough guy.

Or John McCain acquiring (not by accident, mind) a reputation as a maverick, an independent thinker, unafraid to stand up to orthodoxy, when he's really a complete and utter tool.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Skim milk masquerades as cream."\\

Advertising Makes it Happen

Lately on otr.net I've been alternating episodes of Jack Benny with The Inner Sanctum.

[So tell me: what sort of church is it where its Inner Sanctum doubles as a broadcast studio? I guess I can see it, but it does seem a bit weird.]

Last night I experienced something that is not very common in my experience: a hankering for some gelatin. I had located a couple of packages of Safeway generic, wondering when we'd bought gelatin at Safeway (and how we'd wound up with some sugar-free, which nobody at this house would want), when it occurred to me that I'd been influenced by Don Wilson's corny plugs for Jell-O on the Jack Benny show.

Seventy-year-old commercials, still working their spell.

Well, what the heck. The rest of the show is still good, so why shouldn't the commercials be, too?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "There is nothing to be concerned about. return to your regular activities."\\

She's In

And Hillary Clinton is not intending her run for President as a symbolic act, a protest or a bid for the Vice Presidential nomination. She actually plans to win.

She probably won't do any worse than her husband, which is to say she'd be better than Bush, Bush, Reagan or Nixon.

And speaking of Nixon: let's get over this "unelectable" business. After Nixon, ity should have been obvious that there's no such thing as unelectable.

That said, the prospect of another President Clinton reminds me of the "history lesson" in Harlan Ellison's "A Boy And His Dog", in which the succession of Presidents went "Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy...." I don't think a list that runs "Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton..." is any improvement. Especially since there are more Bushes than there are Clintons.

Obama will do, I reckon. I know I'd enjoy seeing him mop up the floor with Tom Tancredo.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Life goes on."\\

Worst Head of State Ever

Since last November's election, I've noticed more people calling Bush the "Worst. President. Ever." (One-word sentences for emphasis in original).

I can't imagine what took them so long. As far as I'm concerned, he was W.P.E. at least from the moment the troops entered Iraq, if not from when the budget surplus disappeared. These days, he's in the running for Worst Head of State in Recorded History.

So, I'm compiling a Top Ten List, and I'd like to ask all of you reading this to contribute. Who do you thing were the worst ever?

A lot of people would include leaders like Porfirio Diaz or James Buchanan who lost a great deal, maybe everything, but I'm trying to be fair about it. The song claims Louis XVI was "the worst since Louis the First", but it's hard to see how any executive could have done much to salvage the Ancien Regime. Louis XIV, on the other hand, too a prosperous country with a strong army and left it bankrupt and defeated in a series of wars that need not have been fought.

So, here's my first draft of a list:

1) Adolf Hitler. Any good he accomplished (the autobahnen, for instance) was swamped many times over by the harm he did to the world, and most especially to Germany. Millions dead, infrastructure destroyed, the country occupied by its ancient enemies, it's hard to see how he could have done worse by his people.

2) Caligula. If the Roman Empire had been any further past its peak when he came to power, he might have brought about the Fall of Rome all by himself.

3)Pol Pot. He killed 'em like nobody but Hitler and Stalin, and with so very little to show for it.

4) Artabaxas. Dude, the oracle said "If you invade Greece, a great empire will fall." Yes, it's ambiguous, but the threat is obvious, and you didn't have to take such a big chance.

5) Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. Eventually, even the U.S. government was unwilling to stand by the worst-ever dictator of first and worst of the classic banana republics.

6) Idi Amin Dada. When it comes to destroying your own country's infrastructure, expelling your entire professional class can't be beat.

7) Louis XIV. Besides losing all those wars, he also invented inflation. What a chump.

8) Josef Stalin. This was a hard call. His crimes were nearly as great as Hitler's, but on the other hand he accomplished a lot more that was positive, especially from the perspective of his own constituents. He defeated Hitler (let's face it, everyone else played a secondary role in that war), thereby saving civilization. He took the remnants of the Russian Empire and created a state that was capable of defeating Hitler, which was sort of like making Mexico capable of taking back California. Still, the price for his accomplishments was so terribly high. And most of what he built disintegrated in less than a generation after his death. So, he goes in the Top Ten.

9) Ivan the Terrible. Terrifying, but also just plain terrible.

10) George W. Bush. This is a tentative ranking, but I figure he belongs somewhere on the Top Ten. No, he's not "worse than Hitler".

//The magic Eight-Ball says, "Not yet, anyway."\\

School Tomorrow

I enrolled in the Linn-Benton Community College Nursing program in Fall of 2005, passed the Fall and Winter 2006 terms, failed the Spring 2006 term. Now, I'm going to audit the Winter 2007 term and, if I do well in it, will apply to re-enter the program for the Spring 2007 term.

So, with tuition support from my parents and a well-timed pep talk from Kathe, I'm plunging back in. Here goes.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Dare great things."\\

Mainstreet Moms and Others

Mainstreet Moms (aka the MMOB) sound like a promising bunch.

And they have friends:

20/20 Vision
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities
Center for International Policy (CIP)
Conference of Major Superiors of Men
Council for a Livable World
Families USA
Feminist Majority
Fourth Freedom Forum
Friends of the Earth
Global Exchange
Greenpeace
Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR)
MMOB (Mainstreet Moms Organize or Bust)
MoveOn
NAACP
National Council of Churches
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
National Organization for Women (NOW)
NETWORK A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Pax Christi USA
Peace Action
Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR)
Psychologists for Social Responsibility
Rainbow/Push Coalition
Shalom Center
Sierra Club
Sojourners
Soulforce
The Tikkun Community
TrueMajority
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
United Church of Christ
United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society
Us Foundation
USAction
War Resisters League
Veterans for Peace
Women's Action for New Directions (WAND)
Working Assets
Artists United to Win Without War
Musicians United to Win Without War

Maybe America is still too young to die.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Maybe".\\

Four Days, Plus Before Lunch on Friday

That's all one hundred hours lasts.

But the new, honestly-elected Congress could do a lot in one hundred hours.

Tell them they ought to: http://ga3.org/campaign/100Hours.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Couldn't hurt."\\

Walk For Peace, Wednesday and Thursday

Walk the halls of Congress, that is.

With Gold Star families, including Cindy Sheehan.

Sounds good to me. Especially now that veterans and their families no longer have to think of the Capitol as "enemy territory."

Wish I could be there.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "It would make you late for school, John."\\