January Week 1, 2005
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January Week 1, 2005
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Saturday January 1, 2005 A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets. Arthur C Clarke, science fiction writer (1917- ) Mike got in trouble with one of his friends tonight... I had to drive down to Newhall to pick up him and three of his friends at Carl's Jr. because his friend got mad and kicked them out of his car... there is probably a lot more to this story but I will probably never hear it. Sunday January 2, 2005 During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. George Orwell, writer (1903-1950) There wasn't a heck of a lot accomplished today, Calie cleaned the house she worked from about 2200 to 0300 in the morning. We told her that if she wanted her friend to come over she had to clean up her room... she cleaned the whole house, her room is still a bit of mess, much better than it was though. About 10:00 in the morning we got a call from the friend saying that she wouldn't be able to come over... I felt bad and took all the kids out to lunch. I did manage to watch the games, they were all good. Monday January 3, 2005 The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian (1906-1945) Rain The girls are back to school, the boys start back to school next Monday. I heard on the news that evangelists and fundamentalists of all religions are trying to blame the 'Boxing Day' Tsunami on God... they are saying that this is one of the preludes to the Apocalypse... It simply boggles my poor pathetic mind to try to understand why people fall for this pathetic gibberish... This is the worst earthquake/tidal wave disaster in about 100 years... but far from the worst ever. Natural disasters have been happening since the beginning of time [if there is such a thing]. Our prehistoric ancestors could not comprehend earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, forest fires or any of the natural phenomenon we just shrug our shoulders at. Thunder and lightening were the acts of God(s) so was childbirth, death and tooth decay. Why in this enlightened age do we still prefer to believe that God is responsible for all of our woes and not Mother Nature. Is it that some innate animal like response to things happening beyond our control somehow takes us beyond our willingness to reason. If we repent, it will stop, If we truly believe, it will stop, If we throw another virgin into the volcano, it will stop... what a shame. Are we so afraid of the unknown that we refuse to accept it? God has been the scapegoat for everything since man tried to explain the first bolt of lightening to his cave-mates. Like we still explain it to our children... The planet we call Earth will cease to exist some day, it's inevitable... it is the natural the way of all things. We will all be long gone before it happens, the Sun will dim, the climate will change, a meteor will blow us apart, an unwashed Slurpy machine will generate a new sort of plague that wipes out humanity... who knows, the only thing I am sure of is that Allah, God, nor the Easter Bunny will have nothing to do with it. Everything seems to be working on my new PC, I still need MS FrontPage 2003, when I get that installed I will be able to update my webpage... I even fixed Christy's Printer/Scanner/FAX ... a good day.
Tuesday January 4, 2005 Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. Lord Acton, historian (1834-1902) Christy and I have been busy with the house and I have spent most of my spare time messing with the new PC.... Wednesday January 5, 2005 All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot, writer and physician (1667-1735) Rain I finally got FrontPage (My webpage building program) up and working on the new PC... what a nightmare. Christy and I were folding clothes and heard the water tank alarm go off. The alarm was supposed to go off after it drops down about 2 feet, when I went out to look it was practically drained. Thursday January 6, 2005 The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. John Adams, 2nd US president (1735-1826) Rain We are waiting for Randy from American Waterwell... the water in the well is not getting to the tank... not good. Randy came about 1500, we checked the well, it's dry, it will only pump for a few seconds... Our options are to:
This is a lifestyle altering development. Showers, Laundry, Dishwashing, Bathroom Procedures... lots of changes. Another consideration is that wells don't go dry in the Winter. Several wells in the area have stopped producing, one of them is pumping air like there was a compressor in it. The logical conclusion is that there has been some sort of geological change. I recall reading that sudden changes in how much water a well produces can be an indication that there is an earthquake looming in our future. I received a speeding ticket a while back so I am going to go to Traffic School... online. Tedious affair, you have to stay at your desk because it randomly asks you questions, if you don't answer in 2 minutes it shuts off the program and you have to re-login... but you can do it at your own speed in 30 minute modules. Friday January 7, 2005 Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either. Gore Vidal (1925- Rain(Lots of it) The water truck was able to make it up during the rain so the tank is full... we will start water conservation... we won't be fanatical about it though... at least not yet. It took me a while but I finally recognized Dave, the driver of the Water Truck. He was one of the three Mr. Moms at Meadowlark School... I talked to him a few times, really a nice fella. I just had a hard time placing him Christy went to the Laundromat and did 17 loads... I went shopping with "B" because we needed a little more food in case the weather gets so bad we can't get out. It was about 19:40 I went out to check the tank and it was down about 10" so I went down to the well and turned it on, I checked the tank again in about 45 minutes and it was full... go figure... I don't know what's going on now, I need to talk to Randy again. Saturday, January 8, 2005 The code of the schoolyard, Marge! The rules that teach a boy to be a man. Let's see. Don't tattle. Always make fun of those different from you. Never say anything, unless you're sure everyone feels exactly the same way you do. Homer Simpson Christian's Fifteenth Birthday Rain The well is still working, two good football games the Rams and the Jets move on, and an excellent Motocross race from Anaheim. A good day. Christian got his Paintball Gun... so did Monica, her Birthday is on the 10th. so she got hers early.
Sunday January 9, 2005 The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith Lots of Rain Packers were awful, the Vikings were not... It's been raining all day, been going on for about a week. The roads are pretty much gone... I can get out but it's a tedious zigzag route ... At 1800 Mike whined till I told him I would take him down to Nick's. I had just come back from taking Christian down to Mc Donalds to meet his ride to Newbury Park. I took the High Road because I saw a couple trucks coming up. It was dark but I thought I could see OK, I got across one place that was usually washed out and thought I could make it through the other, the rut looked OK and I could see tire marks... I was wrong. I dropped the front wheel in up to the frame. A minute or two later a guy came up and offered to take me to a phone. I said no, I have a Cell phone, Mike said, where are you going, can you take me down to the gas station... I couldn't believe it. Mike took off with the guy and left me there. Two other cars came, stopped and turned around, One of my neighbors came by and asked if I wanted him to pull me out, I said yes, he said he had to drive back up to his house to get a chain, in the mean time two more people came up and didn't stop or offer to help... incredible. It was an interesting experience.. and I learned a lot about Mike.
Posted on Thu, Jan. 06, 2005
A liberal education
for conservative academic activists Conservative activists are on the march, determined to expose hotbeds of liberal influence wherever they find (or even suspect) them. Their latest target is higher education, one of the few corners of American life where liberal ideas still hold sway. Indeed, several recent studies have confirmed that Democrats greatly outnumber Republicans – by ratios as much as 7-to-1 – on many university faculties. This revelation has caused outrage in conservative quarters, where it is seen as evidence of liberal manipulation – and worse. Leading the charge is David Horowitz, a former student leftist who is now president of the right-leaning Center for the Study of Popular Culture. According to Horowitz, there has been a “successful and pervasive blacklist ... of conservatives on American college campuses” that can only be rectified by the intervention of state legislatures and boards of trustees. He has called for the enactment of an “Academic Bill of Rights” to protect the interests of conservative faculty and students. Other conservatives make similar claims. Thomas C. Reeves, of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, for example, has insisted that “conservatives are discriminated against routinely and deliberately” in faculty hiring, making some highly qualified candidates virtually “unemployable” on highly respected campuses. These are unexpected arguments to hear from conservatives, since they usually deny that disproportionate statistics can be taken as proof of discrimination. When it comes to employment discrimination or affirmative action, conservatives will blithely insist that the absence of minorities (in a work force or student body) simply means that there were too few “qualified applicants.” And don’t bother talking to them about a “glass ceiling” or “mommy track” that impedes women’s careers. That’s not discrimination, they say, it’s “self-selection.” Conservatives abandon these arguments, however, when it comes to their own prospects in academe. Then the relative scarcity of Republican professors is widely asserted as proof of willful prejudice. Of course, there are other possible explanations. Perhaps fewer conservatives than liberals are willing to endure the many years of poverty-stricken graduate study necessary to qualify for a faculty position. Perhaps conservatives are smarter than liberals, and recognize that graduate school is a poor investment, given the scant job opportunities that await new Ph.D.s. Or perhaps studious conservatives are more attracted to the greater financial rewards of industry and commerce. Beyond the ivy walls, there are many professions that are dominated by Republicans. You will find very few Democrats (and still fewer outright liberals) among the ranks of corporate CEOs, military officers or professional football coaches. Yet no one complains about these imbalances, and conservatives will no doubt explain that the seeming disparities are merely the result of market forces. And they are probably right. It is completely reasonable for conservatives to flock to jobs that reward competition, aggression, self-interest and victory. So it should not be surprising that liberals gravitate to professions – such as academics, journalism, social work and the arts – that emphasize inquiry, objectivity and the free exchange of ideas. After all, teachers at all levels – from nursery school to graduate school – tend to be Democrats. Alas, there have been instances of political discrimination in academic hiring and promotion. And yes, conservatives have been snubbed or mistreated by their overwhelmingly liberal colleagues. More seriously, certain professors, and in some cases entire departments, have crossed the line from legitimate scholarship to overtly politicized advocacy, most frequently coming from the left. These problems should be vigorously addressed as individual cases, and remedied where necessary. But none of this is proof of systematic intimidation or blacklisting. The reality is that universities, by their nature, tend to be liberal institutions. Conservatives may bemoan the social forces behind this phenomenon, but there is nothing sinister about it. Nonetheless, liberals (like me) should admit that faculties face a resulting risk of intellectual conformity, which can be stultifying and confining even when it is unintentional. Most major universities would likely benefit from the presence of more conservative scholars, who would sharpen the dialogue and challenge many assumptions. I might even be convinced to support some form of recruiting outreach or affirmative action for Republicans – but surely my conservative colleagues would never stand for it.
Orwell's nominee for AG - Gonzales New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
In George Orwell's novel "1984," it was rats that were used to torture Winston Smith, not because rats could do real damage but because they were his "worst nightmare." He succumbed, denounced his beliefs and went back to wasting his days drinking gin. The term "Orwellian" is much abused and, back at the actual year 1984, I thought Orwell himself overrated. The essential novelist of the 20th century, I thought then, was Kafka, who realized that there is no more efficient murder weapon than what the critic George Steiner called "the lunatic logic of the bureaucracy." Orwell, however, was off by only 20 years. With immense satisfaction now, he would have noted the Bush administration's abuse of language, particularly wringing all meaning from the word "torture." Until a recent amendment, the word applied only to the pain like that of "organ failure, impairment of body function, or even death." Anything less, such as, say, shackling to a low chair for hours and hours so that one prisoner pulled out tufts of hair, is something else. We have no word for it, but it is - or was until recently - considered perfectly legal. The administration's original interpretation was promulgated by the Justice Department, under John Ashcroft, and the White House, under its counsel, Alberto Gonzales. The result has deeply embarrassed the U.S. Among other things, it produced the abuses of Abu Ghraib, which we were assured were an unaccountable exception. My God, if only higher authorities had known! Now we all know. The International Committee of the Red Cross has complained that some of what has been done at Guantanamo - Guantanamo, not Abu Ghraib - was "tantamount to torture." The Bush administration has raised itself above the law. It pronounced itself virtuous, but facing a threat so dire, so unique, that Gonzales found the Geneva Conventions themselves "obsolete." Such legal brilliance does not long go unrewarded. He has been nominated to become attorney general. The elevation of Gonzales is supposed to be a singular American success story. This son of Mexican immigrants bootstrapped his way to Bush's inner circle. Then he told the President precisely what Bush wanted to hear. He came up with a brilliant definition of torture. Everyone was off the hook. Is it any wonder the Senate will probably soon confirm him? By next year, he will undoubtedly receive a cherished Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to those who successfully serve the President but dismally fail the nation. In the audience, unseen but nonetheless present, Orwell and Kafka look on. The revelations coming out of Guantanamo are hideous. The ordinary abuse, the incessant lying of the authorities, plus the mock interrogations staged for the press, in which detainees and their interrogators share milkshakes - all this soils us as a nation. It's as if the government is unaware of how Communists and fascists also strained language and ushered the world into torture chambers made pretty for the occasion. We now keep some pretty bad company. The Bush administration has fused Orwell with Kafka in the same way someone fused the cry of an infant with that of a cat from the Meow Mix television commercial. The upshot is Gonzales. He's Kafka's man, Orwell's boy and Bush's pussycat. Know him for his roar. Meow. January 7, 2005Worse Than Fiction
In my bad novel, a famous moralist who demanded national outrage over an affair and writes best-selling books about virtue will turn out to be hiding an expensive gambling habit. A talk radio host who advocates harsh penalties for drug violators will turn out to be hiding his own drug addiction. In my bad novel, crusaders for moral values will be driven by strange obsessions. One senator's diatribe against gay marriage will link it to "man on dog" sex. Another will rant about the dangers of lesbians in high school bathrooms. In my bad novel, the president will choose as head of homeland security a "good man" who turns out to have been the subject of an arrest warrant, who turned an apartment set aside for rescue workers into his personal love nest and who stalked at least one of his ex-lovers. In my bad novel, a TV personality who claims to stand up for regular Americans against the elite will pay a large settlement in a sexual harassment case, in which he used his position of power to - on second thought, that story is too embarrassing even for a bad novel. In my bad novel, apologists for the administration will charge foreign policy critics with anti-Semitism. But they will be silent when a prominent conservative declares that "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular." In my bad novel the administration will use the slogan "support the troops" to suppress criticism of its war policy. But it will ignore repeated complaints that the troops lack armor. The secretary of defense - another "good man," according to the president - won't even bother signing letters to the families of soldiers killed in action. Last but not least, in my bad novel the president, who portrays himself as the defender of good against evil, will preside over the widespread use of torture. How did we find ourselves living in a bad novel? It was not ever thus. Hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels have always been with us, on both sides of the aisle. But 9/11 created an environment some liberals summarize with the acronym Iokiyar: it's O.K. if you're a Republican. The public became unwilling to believe bad things about those who claim to be defending the nation against terrorism. And the hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels of the right, empowered by the public's credulity, have come out in unprecedented force. Apologists for the administration would like us to forget all about the Kerik affair, but Bernard Kerik perfectly symbolizes the times we live in. Like Rudolph Giuliani and, yes, President Bush, he wasn't a hero of 9/11, but he played one on TV. And like Mr. Giuliani, he was quick to cash in, literally, on his undeserved reputation. Once the New York newspapers began digging, it became clear that Mr. Kerik is, professionally and personally, a real piece of work. But that's not unusual these days among people who successfully pass themselves off as patriots and defenders of moral values. Mr. Kerik must still be wondering why he, unlike so many others, didn't get away with it. And Alberto Gonzales must be hoping that senators don't bring up the subject. The principal objection to making Mr. Gonzales attorney general is that doing so will tell the world that America thinks it's acceptable to torture people. But his confirmation will also be a statement about ethics. As White House counsel, Mr. Gonzales was charged with vetting Mr. Kerik. He must have realized what kind of man he was dealing with - yet he declared Mr. Kerik fit to oversee homeland security. Did Mr. Gonzales defer to the wishes of a president who wanted Mr. Kerik anyway, or did he decide that his boss wouldn't want to know? (The Nelson Report, a respected newsletter, reports that Mr. Bush has made it clear to his subordinates that he doesn't want to hear bad news about Iraq.) Either way, when the Senate confirms Mr. Gonzales, it will mean that Iokiyar remains in effect, that the basic rules of ethics don't apply to people aligned with the ruling party. And reality will continue to be worse than any fiction I could write.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
Bad Boys "...don't criticize my children... or you're dead." - Barbara Bush, Larry King Live, CNN, Oct. 20, 2003 There are few things more bewildering than the possessive - sometimes frightening - love that mothers display for their sons. It appears to be unconditional. To a mother, there's no such thing as a bad boy, especially if that boy is hers. It must be true. In 1976, when cold-blooded murderer Gary Gilmore marched defiantly toward a firing squad, his grief-stricken mother, Bessie, sobbed, "He were a good boy. He were always a good boy..." And former first lady Barbara Bush told CNN's Larry King on Oct. 20 when discussing her president-son George, "...mothers are allowed to be proud of their sons." Always one to speak her mind, "Bar" then sneered at the current crop of Democrats hoping to unseat Dubya, calling them a "sorry lot" for daring to criticize him. She even threatened the lives of those who might be tempted to criticize any member of her family. To her, the Democrats are booing and hissing at nothing more important than Dubya's embarrassing performance in his grade-school play after he bullied his way into the lead and then muffed his lines. Bar was indignant as she told an unchallenging Larry King that the Democrats "are running around the country knocking my precious, courageous, brilliant son." They're not running or knocking nearly hard and fast enough for some of us, and there are millions - not just Democrats and not just in America - who look at the performance of Bar's spawn on the world stage and see siblings whose parents have ensured they face no consequences for their actions; they never owe anybody an apology, and they are not only above - but outside - the law. Bush watchers, however, see nothing precious, courageous or brilliant about undisciplined, over-indulged serial liars who keep making mess after ghastly mess and then waltz breezily away, leaving devastation in their wake for others to clean up. They see bad boys. Very, very bad boys. Which is what made the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) gang - a cabal of criminally insane neoconservative interventionists - look closely at the Bush boys when they decided the time was ripe to "rebuild America's defenses" and establish the global empire they had been planning for almost a decade. In 2000, the final blueprint for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq was good to go. This plan, written long before 9-11, targeted Saddam Hussein for impeding "the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East." It recommended military intervention to bring about "regime change," not only in Iraq, but in Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and Syria. In the run-up to the 2000 presidential campaign, corporate behemoths had already made major strides in disenfranchising the rabble. The courtier press had earned a place at the right-wing table with a relentless eight-year campaign to bring down a constitutionally elected president, and easily could be embedded with the new regime. Poppy Bush and Britain's former prime minister, John Major, had long ago slid invisibly into the inner sanctum of the Carlyle Group and were poised to reap the monetary benefits that worldwide destruction and reconstruction would bring. PNAC, mostly a crusty, flinty-hearted gaggle of Iran-Contra perps such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Richard Perle, Bill Kristol and Lewis Libby, knew they would likely get but one shot at achieving world domination. The only thing lacking was a candidate who was impervious to human pain and suffering, and who viewed most constitutional laws and regulations as ploys of the vulnerable to set road blocks to progress. They needed a candidate whose lust for power and thirst for blood matched their own. When they looked around for an accomplice or, better yet, a puppet, to start the empirical ball rolling, it was only natural to consider the Brothers Bush. Jeb was plenty bad. As the smartest of the four Bush boys, as well as a co-author of the new world order, Jeb would have been a formidable accomplice. He was Poppy's choice for president, but he had too much Cuban blood, too much Contra blood, on his hands. Besides - not that one would ever be needed in Florida, of course - Jeb had the expertise to orchestrate a coup. Marvin was too busy handling security systems at the World Trade Center and at D.C.'s Dulles International Airport, United Airlines and Kuwait's KuwAm to worry about being president. You have to have someone you can trust in charge of security in case a bunch of swarthy evildoers come up with the idea of hijacking some airplanes and ramming them into tall buildings in the homeland. Neil, the weakest link, was likely never even considered. Voters were still paying off the $1.3 billion Neil cost them with his boyish foray into the savings and loan business, and screwing their way to empire didn't appeal to PNAC's warmongering chickenhawks. Who knew in what direction Neil's indiscriminate hormones would compel him to lurch? For those intent on controlling the most powerful man in the world, selecting one who humps anyone in the country who bangs on his door would present a problem. Especially if that country is China where there are so many doors... so little time. That left George, or Dubya, who was vacuous and disconnected from reality, but clearly the most dangerous of the Bush boys. Crude and brutish, Dubya ruled Texas politics with a mean-spirited, politically-driven crusade for retributive justice. Although Texas governor for only five years and eight months, Dubya revved up "Old Sparky," the Texas death machine, where 144 evil, cold-blooded killers were brought to justice under his merciless eye. It has been widely reported that he took no more than 15 minutes on a case before denying pleas for mercy. Texas justice, under Dubya, was little more than an extension of his favorite childhood game - frogs and firecrackers. Dubya was the perfect PNAC presidential puppet. A self-admitted former drunk who wasted the first 40 years of his life in an alcoholic stupor, Dubya traded one addiction for another when he was suddenly "born again" and catapulted full-blown atop Mount Hubris and onto a throne at the right hand of God. An added benefit was that he is completely devoid of intellectual curiosity; therefore, easily influenced and manipulated. They played upon the only sense Dubya appeared to have - an overblown sense of his own worth. This was especially important after 9-11, wherein it was a simple matter to convince him that he was chosen by the Almighty, as he said himself, "To answer these attacks and rid the world of evil." Through Dubya, PNAC's goal of world dominion merged seamlessly with the goal of "dominionism" cherished by millions of religious fundamentalists who pant for the Second Coming and beckon to Dubya from their ringside seats at Armageddon. Convinced that 9-11 was an opportunity to be "seized to achieve great things," Dubya told the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of this great nation..." Author Michael Ortiz Hill quotes S.R. Shearer of Antipas Ministries, who explains Bush's messianic leadership, "Dominionism pictures the seizure of earthly (temporal) power by the 'people of God' as the only means through which the world can be rescued...It is the eschatology that Bush has imbibed...through which he has gradually (and easily) come to see himself as an agent of God who has been called by Him to 'restore the earth to God's control,' a 'chosen vessel,' so to speak, to bring in the Restoration of All Things." Such delusions might perhaps explain the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive killing, the mountain of lies and deceit that created the bloody atrocity in the Gulf, his complete disregard for the destruction of innocent life, his lack of an exit strategy in Iraq, his continuing threats against Iran, North Korea and Syria in spite of growing insurgency throughout the region. As PNAC's bad boys and attendant media gear up for yet another Bush election, it is the deja vu of Good versus Evil, all over again. They tell us Dubya is a wise and courageous leader whose only fault is that he reads too much John Locke and Adam Smith. Dubya is Good, they say, and they have the photos to prove it. Only terrorist supporters and evildoers would suggest otherwise. However, those of us who read too much Aristotle recognize wisdom and courage when we see it, and have a passing acquaintance with virtue and what comprises a "just" society. Those of us attempting to pull back from the brink of apocolypse know that Dubya is a tyrant who indiscriminately uses coercive measures such as fear, threats, violence and propaganda in an effort to force an entire nation to fall silent and accept its own demise. A leader is neither wise nor courageous when he demands that his people support murder - even genocide. I hate to be critical, but Barbara Bush's boy is not a good boy. He's bad. Bad to the bone.
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've
been thinking of writing a political novel. It will be a bad novel because there
won't be any nuance: the villains won't just espouse an ideology I disagree with
- they'll be hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels.