Freedom IS Free

One of my biggest pet peeves is those mini-propaganda films by the National Guard that you get when you are waiting for your movie to start at the theater. They get some pop act to make a "music video", but in reality, they are thinly veiled advertisements pimping patriotism and armed service. Last year, it was 3 Doors Down with "Citizen Soldier". This year it is Kid Rock with "Warrior" . Now, I don't have anything against Kid. I've even liked some of his songs. He seems to have a sense of humor. Or I had thought that in the past. I'm sitting there in the theater tonight, waiting to watch Religulous (I'll review tomorrow), and "Warrior" comes on:

... So don't tell me who's wrong and right
When liberty starts slipping away
And if you ain't gonna fight
Get out of the way

'Cause freedom ain't so free
When you breathe red, white and blue
I'm giving all of myself
How 'bout you?

Holding back the urge to vomit in my mouth, I reflected on how big a hypocrite Kid Rock is. I saw an interview with him recently:

"I truly believe that people like myself, who are in a position of entertainers in the limelight, should keep their mouth shut on politics.Because at the end of the day, I'm good at writing songs and singing. What I'm not educated in is the field of political science. And so for me to be sharing my views and influencing people of who I think they should be voting for ... I think would be very irresponsible on my part.I think celebrity endorsements hurt politicians. As soon as somebody comes out for a politician, especially in Hollywood, when they all go, 'I'm voting for this guy!' – I go, 'That's not who I'm voting for!' "

So ... you won't endorse a political candidate but you will co-opt a political slogan from one ("freedom isn't free") and, in your songs, will criticize people ("don't tell me who's wrong and right") who don't just blindly follow.

I don't mean to belittle the military. I understand the value of service to one's country. I have a father and brother who both served. But criticizing people who don't serve, questioning their patriotism, and serving up a slice of propaganda that the Third Reich would be proud of, is not the answer.

And don't get me started on the "freedom isn't free" thing. I read a great article this week on that overused, contradictory, and meaningless slogan:

It's one of those Orwellian phrases that re-emerged out of 9/11 mania: "Freedom is not free." ... freedom itself, far from being costly, was cheapened to a slogan in whose name sacrifice at home was for fools and war abroad freedom's calling card.

The dogmatic negative at the heart of "freedom isn't free" should have been a clue. The phrase has been attributed to Dean Rusk, secretary of state under John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, though The New York Times used it in a small headline in 1945 to describe an American cemetery in Normandy. Gen. Matthew Ridgway, Army Chief of Staff in 1953, used it to define freedom as the difference between those who "torture their captives" and "those to whom the individual and his individual rights are sacred."

But the phrase really took off as a national verbal tick after 2001. George and Laura Bush and Dick Cheney have used the phrase at least nine times since 2001. For understandable reasons, they never defined it the way Gen. Ridgway did. They never defined it at all.

Ridgway's nuances aside, the phrase is fortune-cookie bunk anyway. Of course, freedom is free, and self-evidently so. Unless Thomas Jefferson had it wrong in the Declaration of Independence, freedom is one of the "unalienable rights." It's not a privilege. You're born with it. If you're in an unfree country, as most people are, you're owed it.

If you're in a free country, by all means, count your blessings, but you're entitled to your freedom. You shouldn't have to justify it, qualify it, tailor it to someone else's idea of it (unless you live in a homeowners association) let alone buy it, as countless slaves in this country had to.

Unless you infringe on somebody else's freedom, it's not even conditional. Those who make conditions are the chain-wielders who dangle freedom by the reins of its antonyms. They're those to whom "freedom is not free," by which they mean to say -- you're not.

Unquestionably, the way the phrase may have been intended -- the way Martin Luther King Jr. supposedly said it when he was hauled off to jail in Birmingham, the way it's inscribed on the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. -- is to point out that sometimes there's a price to pay to preserve what we cherish or to claim what we're owed.

Those soldiers in Normandy's sands died protecting civilization. King and countless civil rights activists died claiming the right they'd been denied for three centuries. A price was paid for freedom's sake, but never to diminish the value of freedom itself, let alone to use freedom to diminish that of others ...

"Balanced" is not necessarily "Fair"

"Don't take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side." -- Baltasar Gracian (Spanish Philosopher and Write, 1601 - 1658)

Campbell Brown from CNN, anchor of "Election Center", when singled out by some in the McCain campaign for what they perceive as criticism of their candidate:

“So when you have Candidate A saying the sky is blue, and Candidate B saying it’s a cloudy day, I look outside and I see, well, it’s a cloudy day,” she said. “I should be able to tell my viewers, ‘Candidate A is wrong, Candidate B is right.’ And not have to say, ‘Well, you decide.’ Then it would be like I’m an idiot. And I’d be treating the audience like idiots.”

Giving equal weight to two views that are not equal in validity is not "fairness".

It's kinda ironic -- conservatives are the ones most against the Fairness Doctrine, yet they have the biggest problem when the media sources that they perceive as liberally-biased (CNN, NBC, New York Times) don't jump when they say jump.

Speaking of McCain - David Letterman in his monologue the other night gave one of the funniest lines about McCain that I've heard lately:

"John McCain loved Palin's debate performance. Matter of fact, he applauded so much, all the lights in his home kept on going on and off."

Letterman's increasing amount of jokes at McCain's expense is no coincidence. McCain spurned an appearance on Letterman during the bailout crisis, yet kept most of his other commitments.

Some more Letterman, Top Ten "Things Overheard At Palin Debate Camp":

10. "Let's practice your bewildered silence."

9. "Can you try saying 'yes' instead of 'you betcha'?"

8. "Hey, I can see Mexico from here!"

7. "Maybe we'll get lucky and there won't be any questions about Iraq, taxes or healthcare."

6. "We're screwed!"

5. "Can I just use that lipstick-pit bull thing again?"

4. "We have to wrap it up for the day -- McCain eats dinner at 4:30."

3. "Can we get Congress to bail us out of this debate?"

2. "John Edwards wants to know if you'd like some private tutoring in his van."

1. "Any way we can just get Tina Fey to do it?"

Homer Tries to Vote

This is pretty good.

Poking a Stick

I like wearing t-shirts that make people think a bit. Not offend, necessarily, but prod gently. This last weekend, I wore this one as we went shopping:


I was at Border's and a man came up to me and asked about the shirt. He seemed genuinely surprised that Lincoln would have ever said such a thing. He looked confused and seemed to shadow me around the store the whole time I was there. I wasn't sure if he wanted to roll me or was working up his courage to present a clever response. As we carried on shopping at other places, I got several more stares, but no additional comments.

Of all the shirts with provocative statements that I wear, it's odd that this is the one that I get the most looks and comments from. It seems one's religion is the thing that most people are most touchy about. And to intimate that our country's leaders and founders were anything but Christians is apparently heresy.

It may offend some, but why does it offend them? And if so, do they think about how "In God We Trust", "One Nation Under God", or "God Bless America" offend others?

Some people comfortably live in the illusion that this is a Christian nation and that it was founded upon Christian principles. When contradictory data comes up that disputes that, it shakes their foundation. An open-minded person might read further and maybe try to learn about other viewpoints. Others do the exact opposite. They build walls around their intellect and deny anything that disputes their own views - classic "cognitive dissonance".

I'm not trying to make people believe as I do. I'm merely trying to poke a stick at them in their heavenly lofts. They need to be given just a little taste of what it is like to be a non-Christian in a world that shoves God down our throats. When they get a little perspective, perhaps they will be more tolerant.

It doesn't bother me that people might stare or come up to me and engage me in a discussion about the shirt. That's why I wear it. I think if more people talked about these issues, we'd be better off.


For a bit more about religion in our society, check out Laura's interesting discussion on the tax-exempt status of Churches:

Tear down the wall ..."

"The supreme satisfaction is to be able to despise one's neighbor and this fact goes far to account for religious intolerance. It is evidently consoling to reflect that the people next door are headed for hell." -- Aleister Crowley quotes (English poet, author, philosopher, 1875-1947)

Friday Round-up

Whee!! My bank failed this week (Washington Mutual). I don't think it means much as I'm not in danger of eclipsing the FDIC $100,000 mark. I'm barely in danger of eclipsing the $100 mark. Looks like Chase scooped up WaMu anyway. It's still scary stuff, though. Largest bank failure in US history. Is the shine off of unregulated and untethered capitalism yet? I hope so, but I have my doubts.

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There's no point in even making jokes even more:

Sarah Palin Unplugged

Early on, she was like the car wreck that you craned your neck to gape at, out of curiosity. After you got a better look, you discovered how gruesome the sight was with dismembered bodies and blood everywhere and you had to turn away to avoid vomiting. Her answers to Couric reminded me of Miss Teen South Carolina.


courtesy of Steve Bension & Arizona Republic

Note: I just noticed that JA also posted this video. Check out his blog for more discussion: It's Like an SNL Skit, Only Real

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Get Your War On now has animated shorts. Check this one out (just maybe not at work). The Atlas Shrugged and Thomas Friedman lines are classic:

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." -- Winston Churchill

Nigerian ... err, I mean American e-mail scam

Now it all makes sense - as a country, we're just victims of an elaborate phishing scam (from Raw Story):

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully

Minister of Treasury Paulson

Friday Round-up

As always, Bill Maher is very astute ... and very funny. From an interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC Wednesday:

... comedian and political commentator Bill Maher took issue with the infamous George W. Bush assertion that terrorism is somehow caused by a hatred of Americans' freedom.

"They don't hate us for our freedom," said Maher with a laugh. "They hate us for our airstrikes. In Afghanistan, that seems to be the problem. It's that, we keep killing people with our airstrikes, and then those people tend to have a grudge against us, and they will join the Taliban, or be sympathetic to the Taliban."

Maher likened a plan to send two more combat brigades to Afghanistan as killing flies "with a fly swatter made of raw meat."

"I keep going back to this cynical view I have, and people jump down my throat, but the underlying problem we have in this country is that the people are too stupid to be governed."

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And this may be the least surprising research study finding ever (from University of Nebraska at Lincoln):

People who startle easily in response to threatening images or loud sounds seem to have a biological predisposition to adopt conservative political positions on many hot-button issues, according to unusual new research published yesterday.

The finding suggests that people who are particularly sensitive to signals of visual or auditory threats also tend to adopt a more defensive stance on political issues, such as immigration, gun control, defense spending and patriotism ...

Just as we always suspected, conservatives respond to bright, shiny objects and ignore nuance.

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All hail a fully deregulated free market!


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And this is for those tens of listeners to local progressive radio station KPHX on Sunday mornings -- they've made the huge mistake of again inviting me to be on-air this weekend. Hopefully, this time I'll actually open my mouth occasionally. To listen live on Sunday:



or find links to the podcast (usually posted the day after):

Reformers, My Ass

You ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

WASHINGTON - In one $85 billion (47 billion pound) fell swoop, the U.S. Federal Reserve may have wiped out what credibility it won resisting Lehman Brothers' rescue plea and opened its door to countless other companies to come calling for cash.

... By providing a massive loan to American International Group on Tuesday, just two days after refusing to use public funds to save Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy, the central bank also invited tough questions on how exactly it determined whether a company was too big to fail.

Between the $29 billion the Fed pledged to swing the Bear Stearns sale to JPMorgan in March, $100 billion apiece to rescue mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, up to $300 billion for the Federal Housing Authority, Tuesday's $85 billion loan to insurer AIG and various other rescue deals and loans, taxpayers are potentially on the hook for more than $900 billion ...

"We're essentially continuing a system where profits are privatized and...losses socialized," Roubini said, adding that auto makers, airlines and other struggling businesses would no doubt be asking for government help too.

The government was hard pressed to say no to AIG because of concerns that its collapse would harm thousands of companies around the world and cause chaos in the $62 trillion market for credit default swaps, where it is a big player ...

But Roubini said instead of handing out money to firms that made bad bets -- which could inadvertently encourage more risky behaviour if companies think they have a safety net -- the government should be buying up mortgages and rewriting the terms so that households are not buried in debt.

And guess why we have unregulated credit default swaps? Just ask McCain economic adviser, Phil Gramm.

Of course, Mr. "Maverick", John McCain, will come bounding into town and march out propaganda that the Third Reich would have been proud of ("Original Mavericks"):

"We will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. This is a failure."

And in a statement released by his campaign, McCain called for greater "transparency and accountability" on Wall Street.

If McCain wants to hold someone accountable for the failure in transparency and accountability that led to the current calamity, he should turn to his good friend and adviser, Phil Gramm.

... eight years ago, Gramm, then a Republican senator chairing the Senate banking committee, slipped a 262-page bill into a gargantuan, must-pass spending measure. Gramm's legislation, written with the help of financial industry lobbyists, essentially removed newfangled financial products called swaps from any regulation. Credit default swaps are basically insurance policies that cover the losses on investments, and they have been at the heart of the subprime meltdown because they have enabled large financial institutions to turn risky loans into risky securities that could be packaged and sold to other institutions.

... the Lehman fiasco--caused in part by the use of unregulated swaps--could lead to ruin elsewhere in the economy.

Gramm is responsible for the rise of the wild and woolly $62 trillion swaps market. And he was chairman of the McCain campaign and a top economic adviser for McCain--until he dismissed Americans worried about the economy as "whiners."

Not to be outdone with complete bullshit, hypocritical statements, Sarah Palin had to pipe in:

"John McCain and I will put an end to the abuses in Washington and Wall Street that have resulted in this financial crisis." She promised a McCain administration would "reform the way Wall Street does business."

... What neither she nor McCain has explained is how they plan to be able to reform Wall Street when they are being assisted by 177 lobbyists and the guy who greased the way to the current crisis with a backroom legislative maneuver.

... By the way, both McCain and Palin decried golden parachutes for CEOs. What might Carly Fiorina, a top McCain adviser and surrogate, think of that? She received a $21 million severance package when she was forced out as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, after her not-so-successful stint there--and the value of her golden parachute eventually reached $42 million.

People have different reasons for voting for someone. Social issues, patriotism, economics all come into play. And I'm generally reluctant to call into question someone's intelligence when analyzing why they've voted for a particular candidate. But, I just can't resist ... anybody that will vote for McCain/Palin for economic reasons (or any reason for that matter) is a complete moron and needs to have their head examined.

Recharge

Sorry for the gap in posts. We were out of town this weekend camping with the folks at Cataract Lake near Williams, AZ. Had a great time and am now refreshed and ready to take on the free world.

Mark Twain on Religion

"Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven....The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste." -- The Lowest Animal

"In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing." -- Autobiography of Mark Twain

"I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's." - Eruption

"The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive...but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born." -- Mark Twain, a Biography

"A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows." -- quoted from Barbara Schmidt, ed., Mark Twain Quotations

Smart guy, that Mark Twain. Apparently not a lot has changed in the last 100 years.

Mr. Cheery

You know ... it's not all doom and gloom with me. Politics is only one of my interests, albeit a depressing one sometimes. But there are many things that inspire me:

Good music - I just watched the fantastic concert movie, Pearl Jam: Immagine in Cornice, tonight. It was shot at several dates in Italy in 2006. Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder continue to impress me by not selling out, by having something to say, and, above all, for making great music for over 15 years.

Friends - Those across town (E & J) who we don't see as often as we should because we are old, boring and busy. But when we do see them, it's as though no time has passed.
- And those across the planet who, with your blogs, make me think, make me laugh, and have helped me to find a voice. (Laura, CK, JA, Wunelle, SP, and yes, even you, Scott)

And above all else, family - Seeing life unfold through the prism of a 7 year old is a joy and a learning experience for me. Everything I do, work or personal, must ultimately pass the test of whether it makes my wife and son proud of me. Today was a great day for family. It was a busy, fun, Saturday. It started with a museum, continued with some good food and ended with a college football game. Check out some pics here or by clicking the picture:

Rage Against the Machine/RNC

... Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes
Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal
I walk tha corner to tha rubble that used to be a library
Line up to tha mind cemetary now ...

Bulls on Parade -- Rage Against the Machine

A standoff between rock fans and police led to 102 arrests Wednesday night when fired-up concertgoers took to the streets after a Rage Against the Machine show.

Several hundred fans of the band, whose songs include “Take the Power Back,” and “Bullet in the Head,” marched through downtown Minneapolis after the band finished its set at the Target Center arena.

The show ended at roughly the same time as the third night of the Republican convention across the Mississippi River in St. Paul. Fans of the politically radical band mixed with exuberant Republicans headed to exclusive parties where they toasted vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s speech.

As police in riot gear faced shirtless rock fans in the streets, Republicans looked on from the rooftop deck of the exclusive R. Norman’s steakhouse, where bigwigs like Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman pressed the flesh.

Many of those at the party were not impressed with the spectacle.

“They’ll claim police brutality, then sue and win and make enough money to come to the next convention,” one partygoer said.

“They can sit there all night because they don’t have jobs,” said another.

The protesters didn’t sit there all night, in fact. Police arrested 102 after they occupied an intersection and refused to leave, said Bill Palmer of the Joint Information Center.

Most were ticketed for presence at an unlawful assembly, but two were booked on assault and obstruction of legal process, Palmer said.

Notice their palpable disdain of the unwashed masses as they eat from a menu most normal people couldn't even sniff:


You don't really need any better indication of what today's Republican party really represents than their own statements:

"“They’ll claim police brutality" -- In their world, police brutality doesn't exist. Police and the military are never wrong.

"... sue and win and make enough money ..." -- They're always bitching about tort reform. Their precious polluting and worker abusing corporations cannot be slowed down by "frivolous" lawsuits.

"They can sit there all night because they don’t have jobs" -- Apparently, people who listen to Rage Against the Machine (liberals) don't have jobs. Somebody needs to tell these silver-spoon-in-your-mouth frat boys that living off your trust fund isn't considered "working".

Classic. They've managed to hit every single cliched conservative touchpoint. Republicans, the party of the "common man". Right.

I'm not saying that these protesters weren't raising some hell. If someone assaulted someone, they deserve to be arrested. My comment is more on the oh-so-typical response. And always assuming that police are in the right is a dangerous path, especially when they've, in effect, been given a free pass to bust some heads:

Organizers of the Republican convention were required by St. Paul, city officials to purchase a $10 million insurance policy to protect local police from false arrest and brutality lawsuits ...

... Traditionally, cities self-insure for claims, meaning they set aside a portion of the budget every year to pay for damages caused by lawsuits they lose or settle, he said.

But critics have questioned whether the insurance policies encourage police to be more aggressive in the knowledge that any damages collected through a potential misconduct lawsuit would be covered by insurance.

"It's an extraordinary agreement," Michelle Gross, who leads Communities United Against Police Brutality in Minneapolis, told the Associated Press. "Now the police have nothing to hold them back from egregious behavior."

I know it's largely anectdotal. But it's hard to argue that this scene does not show what the Republican party has come to represent. And it's difficult to see John McCain understanding the plight of the working man with his 7 houses and Cindy McCain with her huge inheritance and $300,000 outfits.

... As the polls close like a casket
On truth devoured
A Silent play in the shadow of power
A spectacle monopolized
The camera's eyes on choice disguised
Was it cast for the mass who burn and toil?
Or for the vultures who thirst for blood and oil?
Yes a spectacle monopolized
They hold the reins and stole your eyes
Or the fistagons
The bullets and bombs
Who stuff the banks
Who staff the party ranks ..

Guerilla Radio -- Rage Against the Machine

Palin

I told myself, "You are not going to talk about her. She's just a VP candidate. She's over her skis and doesn't know what she's gotten herself into. She's just a small state governor, an outsider who was put on the ticket to help McCain pick up some disenchanted Clinton supporters. She seems nice enough and her family certainly doesn't deserve the scrutiny it has received."

I might have kept that opinion but then Sarah Palin took on the role of Darth Vader last night in her convention speech and and threw out every right-wing, conservative generalization in the book in order to please the crowd and the "base". Mission accomplished, but in the process, she may have went a long way towards alienating any middle-of-the-road appeal the ticket may have had. The role of a VP is usually to help the presidential candidate appeal to some constituency that he/she may not have had. McCain's candidacy had already moved to the right of Bush/Cheney. All bringing up "God and guns" did was to preach to the converted. And any free pass she may have been given by some Democrats is out the window with her patent lies and attacks and willingness to play the heavy.

Sarah Palin says that Obama will raise taxes on everyone ... a lie. She says Obama wants to forfeit in Iraq ... a lie. She says Obama wants to meet with terrorist states without preconditions ... a lie.

She criticizes community organizers (which Obama was), a conduit for those disenfranchised by a corrupt political system. She does not bring up how McCain will help people with healthcare, their homes, or jobs. She says she was against the "bridge to Nowhere", the brainchild of Ted Stevens, from the get-go while she advocated the project as governor.


Her views on sex education and abortions will lose her allies even within her own party. She proudly talks about her own special-needs child and parades out her teenage pregnant daughter (out-of-wedlock) as a model of evangelical and wholesome living while cutting programs for special-needs children and teenage mothers while governor.

I could go on and on, bring up her views on creationism, her hypocrisy on lobbying and pork-barrel spending, etc.

She could have played it cool, been window-dressing on McCain's ticket, possibly helping him to pick up some moderates who admired her ability to raise a family and run a state. But with last night's speech, she showed her ass and her true colors. I do not feel sorry for any scrutiny she will get from now on. Sarah Palin, welcome to the world of politics. It's on.

Some more thoughts on Palin from some of my blog buddies:

An Angry Celebration of Ignorance and Tyranny at Journal Wunelle

For My Conservative Blog Friends Still Defending Palin at Jewish Atheist

Palin Once Member of Alaska Secessionist Party at Genius of Insanity

Patriotism or Pablum?

Got this in my e-mail inbox yesterday:

In September of 2005, a social studies schoolteacher from Arkansas did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with permission of the school superintendent, the principal, and the building supervisor, she took all of the desks out of the classroom. The kids came into first period, they walked in; there were no desks. They obviously looked around and said, "Where's our desks?"

The teacher said, "You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn them."

They thought, "Well, maybe it's our grades."

"No," she said.

"Maybe it's our behavior."

And she told them, "No, it's not even your behavior."

And so they came and went in the first period, still no desks in the classroom. Second period, same thing. Third period. By early afternoon television news crews had gathered in the class to find out about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of the classroom. The last period of the day, the instructor gathered her class.

They were at this time sitting on the floor around the sides of the room. She said, "Throughout the day no one has really understood how you earn the desks that sit in this classroom ordinarily. Now I'm going to tell you."

She went over to the door of her classroom and opened it, and as she did 27 U.S. veterans, wearing their uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. And they placed those school desks in rows, and then they stood along the wall. By the time they had finished placing the desks, those kids for the first time I think perhaps in their lives understood how they earned those desks.

Their teacher said, "You don't have to earn those desks. These guys did it for you. They put them out there for you, but it's up to you to sit here responsibly, to learn, to be good students and good citizens, because they paid a price for you to have that desk, and don't ever forget it."

Snopes even says it's a true story. It's almost worse that the event actually happened. That means it's not just some constructed e-mail intended to influence people. Someone actually took the time to try and inculcate kids with an inaccurate worldview. If a teacher of my child tried to pull that kind of crap, I'd pull him out in a New York minute. You can teach and you can honor without scaring kids with tricks like this that don't even make any sense. By this teacher's logic, you could reason that anything we do on a daily basis is only "because they paid a price for you to have that ____". In what way is a soldier fighting in Iraq making it easier for my child to learn here? I'd suggest that it is exactly the opposite. With the amount of money spent on an unjustified and unneeded war, less kids are able to get the best education they could. There have been no wars in my lifetime that helped preserve any rights we hold here.

I understand the sacrifice that our men in uniform have made and do make. But do incessant, trite anecdotes like these honor them in any way? I think it trivializes them. It makes service into a Hallmark greeting or a punchline. Real soldiers wouldn't seek or value this kind of recognition.

When I get an e-mail that begins, "You have to read this", or "Please forward this to everyone you know", or that says that someone is trying to take away the flag, Christmas, guns, etc. [fill in the Right Wing topic of the day] -- I can't delete that e-mail fast enough. Sometimes I wonder what type of people are influenced by this type of manipulation. But it's obvious what type of people are influenced by this. There are 60 million of them. They all voted for Bush. Hopefully in the last 8 years, enough of them have grown a brain and won't make the same mistake. I just quoted this last week, but it deserves repeating: "The wise understand by themselves; fools follow the reports of others".

So, who was this easily-duped reader who sent me this e-mail? Who was this person, despite having known me for a long time, that actually thought that this was something that I'd find poignant or inspiring? I'll tell you. It was a veteran of the first Gulf War. A veteran, to this day, still suffering from PTSD. A person in the middle of an ugly divorce, unable to see his daughters, out of work, and relying on the largess of strangers. Someone who has found it hard to cope in the non-military world, yet harbors no ill will towards those who would put him in harm's way for no reason. Quite the contrary, he finds meaning and comfort in the banal. Who is he? My one and only sibling, my brother. I didn't have the heart to shatter his illusions.

Pug

We're back among the world of pet owners. It took awhile for us to get over the loss of Duchess about a year and a half ago. But a great local pug rescue organization, the Arizona Pug Adoption and Rescue Network, was recommended to us from one of my clients who owns two pugs.

We visited the pug we ended up adopting at her foster home on Wednesday, thought it over and called the same night to confirm that we wanted her. I picked her up this morning. She's 5 years old, very affectionate, and has more than a passing resemblance to Duchess. But, she's a good dog and it feels good to give her a home. So, here she is, Sadie (with apologies to our dear blog friend Sadie Lou, the original Sadie in our books). It's not our fault ... she was named when we adopted her and it'd be tough to get her used to another name.

Sunshine

First of all, Sunshine had something going for it by having Danny Boyle as the director. Admittedly not the first person you'd think of to direct a sci-fi movie, but he does a nice job. He directed one of my all-time favorites, Trainspotting, and has other good movies on his resume, Shallow Grave, 28 Days Later, etc. Anyway, I'd heard about the movie when it was in theaters but never got around to seeing it. I was at Blockbuster this week and bought several used DVD's including this one, Once, and American Gangster (I'll try and watch and review those two later this week).

The premise: "50 years into the future, the Sun begins to die, and Earth is dying as a result. A team of astronauts are sent to revive the Sun - but the mission fails. Seven years later, a new team are sent to finish the mission as they are Earth's last hope.(IMDb)

It looks good, has a nice cast of foreign actors playing American (Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh) and does what all good sci-fi movies (and books) should do - ask questions not just about science, but about the human condition. Namely:

- What role should man take in controlling nature?
- Is our existence pre-ordained?
- Is the wonder of nature and our universe the "face of god" or just something else for us to study and understand?
- What effects do isolation have on the mind and our ability to deal with others?

As they near the sun, it comes to represent not just a physical entity that they must deal with but, to some of the crew members, a spiritual one. The sun is really the source of life on our planet and as such comes to represent a "maker" of sorts. There are some moments of suspense and action, but it's the moments of psychological tension that really propel the movie.

Like a lot of science fiction movies that involve a long mission, closed quarters, a computer and a small crew, there are undeniable similarities to 2001. That says more about how seminal 2001 was than that Sunshine is copying it.

Now, I've said before that I like all sci-fi movies, even bad ones, because they all, by the very nature of sci-fi, aspire to be more. But I like Sunshine not just because it is sci-fi, but because it is genuinely a good movie. Grade: B

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." -- Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

Imagine No Religion

When I think of freedom of religion and freedom from religion, I, unfortunately, don't usually think of my hometown. Post-9/11 there were numerous episodes of violence against Muslims in Phoenix and surrounding areas. As for atheists and agnostics, you don't even hear them acknowledged. But, evidently, someone thinks it's a good place to test out the following billboards:

'Imagine No Religion' signs to go up around town
by Astrid Galvan, the Arizona Republic

A national organization that promotes freedom from religion and separation of church and state is hoping to get Phoenix commuters talking with five controversial billboard ads that will go up this week.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., paid advertising company CBS Outdoor to put up five signs that read "Imagine No Religion."

The message on the billboards will start to go up Monday and will remain there for a month, said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation ...

Phoenix will be the first city to have as many as five signs.

But getting the billboards up did not come without hurdles.

The five sites chosen by the organization were changed after CBS Outdoor said they had to be 1,000 feet from any schools or churches ...

The organization, comprised of 12,000 atheist or agnostic members, aims to promote free thought and separation of church and state ...

A billboard reading "Keep Religion OUT of Politics" is currently displayed in Denver and will remain there throughout the Democratic National Convention.

So far, Gaylor said, there has been little opposition to the billboards, and she doesn't anticipate any issues in Phoenix.

"The free thought movement has never been stronger in this country," she said.

Bob Mitchell, senior pastor at Central United Methodist Church, on Central Avenue near McDowell Road, said he's also noticed an increase in atheist activism.

"I don't have a problem with people expressing their points of view in public," Mitchell, whose congregation has around 420 members, said.

Mitchell said he hoped there would be no backlash against the billboards but wouldn't be surprised if there was.

"I would prefer that there was serious tolerant dialogue that might emerge from this publicity campaign because it is much needed," he said.

But state Sen. Linda Gray, who represents the Northwest Valley, was more critical of the organization and its billboard ads.

Gray, a Republican, thinks the signs will be offensive to those who believe in God.

"The FFRF fails to acknowledge history which recognized the strong Christian commitment of those who attended the Constitutional Convention," she wrote in an e-mail.

For Harold Saferstein, of Scottsdale, the billboards are a step forward in making the idea of freedom from religion more public.

Saferstein, who is part of the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix, an organization that promotes humanism, donated money for the billboards.

He said several members of his organization also donated.

"I think (the billboards) are going to alert people to the fact that there are organizations that support lack of believe in a supernatural being," Saferstein said.

State Senator Linda Gray can always be relied on to push the rote Republican/Christian line, "The FFRF fails to acknowledge history which recognized the strong Christian commitment of those who attended the Constitutional Convention". Equating patriotism and our Founding Fathers with Christianity always makes me smile. It's a rhetorical device that puts those who may not be Christians on the defensive. If you don't believe in a Christian God, then you must be against America. Give me a break. If your faith is as strong as you profess, what do you have to be afraid of? Thankfully, all Christians don't think like her.

"Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today ..."

Imagine - John Lennon

Science Fiction?

Science close to unveiling invisible man
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

Invisibility devices, long the realm of science fiction and fantasy, have moved closer after scientists engineered a material that can bend visible light around objects.

The breakthrough could lead to systems for rendering anything from people to large objects, such as tanks and ships, invisible to the eye – although this is still years off.

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, whose work is funded by the American military, have engineered materials that can control light’s direction of travel. The world’s two leading scientific journals, Science and Nature, are expected to report the results this week.

It follows earlier work at Imperial College London that achieved similar results with microwaves. Like light, these are a form of electromagnetic radiation but their longer wave-length makes them far easier to manipulate. Achieving the same effect with visible light is a big advance.

Underlying the work is the idea that bending visible light around an object will hide it.

Xiang Zhang, the leader of the researchers, said: “In the case of invisibility cloaks or shields, the material would need to curve light waves completely around the object like a river flowing around a rock.” An observer looking at the cloaked object would then see light from behind it – making it seem to disappear.

Substances capable of achieving such feats are known as “meta-materials” and have the power to “grab” electromagnetic radiation and deflect it smoothly. No such material occurs naturally and it is only in the past few years that nano-scale engineering, manipulating matter at the level of atoms and molecules, has advanced sufficiently to give scientists the chance to create them.

The tiny scale at which such researchers must operate is astonishing in itself. Zhang’s researchers had to construct a material whose elements were engineered to within about 0.00000066 of a metre.

The military funding that Zhang has won for his research shows what kind of applications it might be used for, ushering in a new age of stealth technology.

I really dig when the science reality of now approaches the science fiction of my youth. An amazing amount of stuff many thought of as far-fetched then seem eerily prescient. The next 50 to 100 years should be exciting as long as we don't destroy ourselves or our planet.

It is sad that some of the most exciting advances come about because of a perceived military need.

"O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands." -- Sun Tzu

Going Green Update - Clothes

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi

I'm not a clothes-hound. Anybody that's met me can attest to that. But occasionally, I need to get some new clothes (or at least new to me). Recently, we've decided that, as much as we are able, any new clothes purchases we make should be organic, comprised of recycled materials, or used.

Trying to disregard the fact that a mall is an ugly symbol of consumerism, we decided to go to our closest one because several major retailers are starting to carry some organic lines. Bought a few t-shirts at Macy's and a woven organic shirt at JCPenny's for work. We even found a few cute shirts for Alex:


Being a little activist already at age 7, they were fitting.

Despite the growing "green" movement, organic clothes are still pretty hard to find. And when you ask the help at any of these places, responses will range from:

• "What's organic?"


to


• Rolling of eyes and the implied, "Here we go, some freaky liberals trying to save the planet."


to


• "Yes, we do have organics. We can't keep them in stock because so many people are asking for them."

As time goes on, hopefully the last response will be more common. Even end of days religious freaks and "slash and burn" conservatives see dollar signs. If enough people express a desire to buy something, retailers will ignore that fact at their own peril.

I've really been researching shoe brands trying to find ones that use recycled materials. We saw these at the Birkenstock store (big shocker) but I'm not quite ready to fork over $120 for shoes yet. I've seen a few online that I think I'd like for half that price, but I'm a bit reluctant to buy something that I wear without having seen it.

Honestly, no big company (or anybody else, for that matter) really cares what the hell I wear or where I shop. The world doesn't stop spinning because dbackdad in the big AZ decides to not shop somewhere. But it matters to me. By the choices we make each day, we are approving or disapproving of the practices of those companies. When you shop at Wal-Mart, you are saying that it's OK to treat your employees like crap and to tell them who to vote for.

But we live somewhere that we can choose an alternative. Some don't always have the luxury of choice. My folks live in a smaller town and shop Wal-Mart regularly. They have a fixed income and Wal-Mart is one of their only low-cost alternatives. I tell them we don't shop there but I don't try to preach to them that they can't.

And not all big companies are the same. You can choose the lesser of evils (Wal-Mart vs. Costco).

It's not about cutting yourself off from civilization, eating nuts and berries, and selling all your earthly possessions. It's just about thinking about what you are buying. What went into making what you buy? How far did it have to travel to get to you? Is there a local or organic alternative? If you can afford to, choose that alternative. Recycle and buy recycled items.

"Your descendants shall gather your fruits." -- Virgil

Know-Nothing Politics

"The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity." -- Voltaire

My favorite economist and all-around smart guy, Paul Krugman, has a pretty good take on the politics of stupidity:

So the G.O.P. has found its issue for the 2008 election. For the next three months the party plans to keep chanting: “Drill here! Drill now! Drill here! Drill now! Four legs good, two legs bad!” O.K., I added that last part.

And the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.

Now, I don’t mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don’t mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.

What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump. In fact, earlier this week Republicans in Congress actually claimed credit for the recent fall in oil prices: “The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking,” said Representative John Shadegg.

What about the experts at the Department of Energy who say that it would take years before offshore drilling would yield any oil at all, and that even then the effect on prices at the pump would be “insignificant”? Presumably they’re just a bunch of wimps, probably Democrats. And the Democrats, as Representative Michele Bachmann assures us, “want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, take light rail to their government jobs.”

Is this political pitch too dumb to succeed? Don’t count on it.

Remember how the Iraq war was sold. The stuff about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds was just window dressing. The main political argument was, “They attacked us, and we’re going to strike back” — and anyone who tried to point out that Saddam and Osama weren’t the same person was an effete snob who hated America, and probably looked French.

... What’s more, the politics of stupidity didn’t just appeal to the poorly informed. Bear in mind that members of the political and media elites were more pro-war than the public at large in the fall of 2002, even though the flimsiness of the case for invading Iraq should have been even more obvious to those paying close attention to the issue than it was to the average voter.

Why were the elite so hawkish? Well, I heard a number of people express privately the argument that some influential commentators made publicly — that the war was a good idea, not because Iraq posed a real threat, but because beating up someone in the Middle East, never mind who, would show Muslims that we mean business. In other words, even alleged wise men bought into the idea of macho posturing as policy.

All this is in the past. But the state of the energy debate shows that Republicans, despite Mr. Bush’s plunge into record unpopularity and their defeat in 2006, still think that know-nothing politics works. And they may be right.

Sad to say, the current drill-and-burn campaign is getting some political traction. According to one recent poll, 69 percent of Americans now favor expanded offshore drilling — and 51 percent of them believe that removing restrictions on drilling would reduce gas prices within a year.

The headway Republicans are making on this issue won’t prevent Democrats from expanding their majority in Congress, but it might limit their gains — and could conceivably swing the presidential election, where the polls show a much closer race.

In any case, remember this the next time someone calls for an end to partisanship, for working together to solve the country’s problems. It’s not going to happen — not as long as one of America’s two great parties believes that when it comes to politics, stupidity is the best policy.

Vote for whoever you want. I'm not going to try and tell you who to vote for. Just don't vote for someone for the wrong reasons. Educate yourself. Don't make a bad decision because you were misinformed. Don't rely on anyone, especially a politician, to give you the whole truth. Most of them assume you are stupid. Don't prove them right again.

"The wise understand by themselves; fools follow the reports of others" -- Tibetan proverb