What is less appealing, however, is the complete lack of visible evidence that any toilet paper was used.
Cute, isn't she?
Friday, May 11, 2007
sigh ....
I don't mind in the slightest, when I open the toilet to find the poop of our 4 year old sitting there.
What is less appealing, however, is the complete lack of visible evidence that any toilet paper was used.
Cute, isn't she?
What is less appealing, however, is the complete lack of visible evidence that any toilet paper was used.
Cute, isn't she?
America? Which America?
When I lived in
Growing up,
In theory,
So let’s jump back a few years to the moment these two great cultures had a defining episode, and one which might, had two people of great wisdom and commitment not put country above personal considerations, have been a disaster for us all. The episode is known as the *Cuban Missile Crisis*.
I am not going to rehearse the argument. That has been, and continues to be done by scholars, and others, much better and more completely than I have time for. Rather, I would like to look at the conventional wisdom in the West. I’d like to briefly look at the two main contenders, and see what they predict for us all, in our differing environments.
This is an unfortunate view. It is unfortunate that the tone of a nation can be set in this manner. I have little doubt that JFK had some very fine qualities. I equally wonder how much more just a society might this be had he been allowed to complete two full terms, then remain and still be influencing policy today. We’ll never know.
But how accurate is this *good guy*, *bad guy* scenario? Was Kruschev the evildoer? I suspect it’s not that simple. Nikita Kruschev was head of the Politburo and General Secretary of the Communist Party. Both positions required that he be elected by his immediate peers and colleagues. In the world of politics, both here and in
Once those missiles left
It really does take two to tango. Kruschev needed JFK to be strong, and he was. The world needed those two men to *step up*, and they did. I am minded, at this point, to pause for a moment and wonder how the current incumbent at
My point, if you are still with me, is that the emotional health of this great nation would benefit immensely from realizing that there are shades of grey. That Nikita Kruschev may indeed have been a bad guy, but on that day he played a full and active part in probably the greatest test of diplomacy the world has ever faced. It might allow some here to realize that military might is not, ultimately, the solution to anything other than the bottom lines of the military suppliers.
It might help Toby Keith refrain from such crass nonsense as this:
Now, this nation that I love has fallen under attack
A mighty sucker punch came flyin in from somewhere in the back
Soon as we could see clearly
Through our big black eye
Man, we lit up your world like the Fourth of July
Hey, Uncle Sam put your name at the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty started shakin her fist
And the eagle will fly
And there's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother Freedom start ringin her bell
And it'll feel like the whole wide world is rainin down on you
Hey, brought to you courtesy
Of the red, white, and blue.
Oh, justice will be served and the battle will rage
This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage
You'll be sorry that you messed with the
Cause, we'll put a boot in your ass
It's the American way
I adore many of your songs, Toby, but really … grow up!
Where was I ? Oh yeah …..
So my view of
I live in
The
Americans take themselves way too seriously ….. seriously! As a nation, but less so as people, they give the world the view that they are a violent, greedy and dangerous country to have in our midst. Americans do not see this at all, but it isn’t helped by the very bad habit politicians have of giving the dumbest names to legislation. The Patriot Act! Implied in the title is that to oppose it would be unpatriotic. Actually what the Patriot Act does is to overturn 200 years of the Bill of Rights, and is the most deeply unpatriotic legislation this country has, with the possible exception of the Who Needs Habeas Corpus Act (they called that one the Military Commissions Act). Quite frankly, the world needs a Patriot Act to protect itself from the current band of villains running the show here.
In
I’m gonna stop here, conscious though I am that this is incomplete. I am well aware that I started this entry to look at some of the reasons and causes of the divisions, and I haven’t moved on to the biggest. I will though, but it will be later today, or in the next few days.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Friday, March 02, 2007
Busted
Jodie has a lap-tray. Nothing unusual about that, you may think, and you would be right. Jodie’s lap-tray is special for two reasons. It is the second reason that earns it a place here.
Jodie went to college at age eighteen. As a parting gift, her sister Jennifer made her the tray in question. It’s kind of rectangular, with a cut-out so as to fit comfortably in the *lap* position. The tray is covered with pictures, newspaper clippings and magazine snippets that I guess were of interest to an eighteen year old Jodie.
Yesterday, Natalie told Jodie that there were pictures of both Mommy and Steve on her tray. This so patently isn’t true that Jodie asked Natalie to show her the pictures. Natalie pointed first to Jodie’s picture (which is on the tray), and then to a picture of a younger Patrick Swayze, of around Dirty Dancing vintage.
“There is Steve”, opined a clearly very intelligent girl.
“That’s not Steve”, was the rather unnecessary response from my dear wife.
“Steve says it is” ………..
Whether I did or not is kinda unimportant here. Any denials by me would be as believable as …. well …. A very unbelievable thing.
I still haven’t quit laughing though!
Sunday, February 04, 2007
$uper Bowl
Today was SuperBowl …. In fact, it just finished a few moments ago. Fittingly, for a fairly mediocre game, if finished as it started, in pouring rain more reminiscent of Manchester than Miami.
For the record, Indianapolis Colts beat the Chicago Bears by 29 to 17.
Super Bowl this year is memorable for rather more than the game itself. As I already mentioned, the actual football can hardly be described as a classis encounter. On the other hand, as often is the case with sporting finals, the result is rather more important than the game; so tonight the Colts are happy. Incidentally, we all will now be spared the plaintive wails about Peyton Manning never having been to Super Bowl.
Two things stand out, for me, about this year’s event.
The first is that, for the first time ever, a black coach has lead a Super Bowl team. In fact, both head coaches were black this year. This ought to be a cause for celebration. Indeed it is, but the celebration is marred somewhat by asking one simple question: Why the hell did it take so long?
The unappetizing answer is *Racism*. The facts are clear. Seventy percent of NFL players are black. Twenty five percent of NFL coaching staff is black. So, either black players aren’t intelligent or ambitious enough to become coaches, or someone is refusing advancement in favour of lesser-talented, but lighter coloured applicants.
My belief is that racism (or to give it its more palatable name *institutional racism*) is alive and well in the NFL. Let’s not get too carried away by the NFL either. In our kid’s school, seventy percent of the student role is black or Hispanic; substantially greater, in percentage terms, than the headcount of the teaching staff.
Now I don’t pretend for a moment that the Principal of our children’s school is racist, nor that the majority of senior staff at NFL teams is either. However, the procedures for training, recruitment, employment and promotion are all still conspiring to prevent the reasonable opportunities for many.
These issues run very deep here. Only this week, a senior politician (Joe Biden) voiced, in a manner Freud would have recognized, the belief that blacks really aren’t generally in a position to make important choices and decisions. When asked about Senator Barack Obama as a potential Presidential candidate he made remarks about …. At last, a decent, clean, mainstream black candidate. I paraphrase, but the patronizing mis-beliefs were obvious. He seems to have forgotten Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, and Rosa Parkes …. Oh yes ….. Colin Powell!!!
Incidents and events like this say much about how far we have come, but rather more about how far we still have to go.
The second, and equally remarkable incident describes just how far America has allowed *Corporate America* to set the standard. Corporate America is not very nice. It is greedy, grasping, swift to retribution and callous. If there is a dollar, or cent to be made, they simply have to have it in their own pockets, and there is no room at all for much in the way of human decency. There are notable exceptions to this. Gap, Body Shop and Dove all spring to mind. The NFL does not!.
The NFL this week threatened a Church with legal action if they went ahead with their planned screening of Super Bowl, in church, on their projector screen. This caused many churches, probably thousands, across America to cancel, or hastily revise the plans they had made for today. Apparently there is an NFL rule that prohibits the public screening of NFL matches on screens larger than 55”. Oh, except if you are a bar, then the sky’s the limit. My cynical mind wonders if this has anything to do with Budweiser being the largest sponsor of the NFL. The excuse offered by the NFL was that it was *common practice* for bars to show sporting events on larger screens. My response isn’t printable, but involves the extension of rather fewer than my full compliment of digits in their direction; but, more reasonably, to suggest to the NFL that Churches, when they display any events, do so on the screen they have and is, thus, *common practice*.
My brother-in-law told me that his church was having to move the projector closer to the screen to reduce the picture size. I suggested they should show what they wanted and say *so sue us*. He replied that that was the suggestion of his sensible fifteen-year-old daughter, but that the church couldn’t expose itself like that.
When will someone here cry *FOUL*? Yellow flags should be raining down on NFL headquarters from Churches and other concerned bodies across the land.
All week, on TV and radio, I have been hearing about the stature of Super Bowl here in The USA. Even Katie Couric said that the event was right at the heart of American culture. As such, it is an event of National significance, and not simply a cash-cow for the NFL. No one, least of all me, would deny the custodians of this spectacle a reasonable profit. This petty restriction was not reasonable, and now not tested in court, unfortunately. The NFL tries to restrict all images of their games to its own peculiar set of rules. Their demands and strictures even suggest that using small, relevant excerpts is a breach of their terms and conditions. As far as I can work out this flies directly in the face of *fair use* laws. While the NFL may indeed put themselves above God, they cannot impose terms that breach Federal laws.
My suggestion is two-fold. American advertisers (for it is all about advertising) should pull the ads. One major company doing so would send shockwaves through Corporate America that would reverberate for years. Ironically, it would also garner millions of dollars of free advertising for the sponsor concerned.
Failing that, America should simply switch off. Just once, one year, go out and do something more useful instead. Turn off the TV, don’t watch it, tell the greedy, the uncharitable and the unconcerned that this time they went too far. One Super Bowl, no audience, job done.
This year, you wouldn’t have missed much.
For the record, Indianapolis Colts beat the Chicago Bears by 29 to 17.
Super Bowl this year is memorable for rather more than the game itself. As I already mentioned, the actual football can hardly be described as a classis encounter. On the other hand, as often is the case with sporting finals, the result is rather more important than the game; so tonight the Colts are happy. Incidentally, we all will now be spared the plaintive wails about Peyton Manning never having been to Super Bowl.
Two things stand out, for me, about this year’s event.
The first is that, for the first time ever, a black coach has lead a Super Bowl team. In fact, both head coaches were black this year. This ought to be a cause for celebration. Indeed it is, but the celebration is marred somewhat by asking one simple question: Why the hell did it take so long?
The unappetizing answer is *Racism*. The facts are clear. Seventy percent of NFL players are black. Twenty five percent of NFL coaching staff is black. So, either black players aren’t intelligent or ambitious enough to become coaches, or someone is refusing advancement in favour of lesser-talented, but lighter coloured applicants.
My belief is that racism (or to give it its more palatable name *institutional racism*) is alive and well in the NFL. Let’s not get too carried away by the NFL either. In our kid’s school, seventy percent of the student role is black or Hispanic; substantially greater, in percentage terms, than the headcount of the teaching staff.
Now I don’t pretend for a moment that the Principal of our children’s school is racist, nor that the majority of senior staff at NFL teams is either. However, the procedures for training, recruitment, employment and promotion are all still conspiring to prevent the reasonable opportunities for many.
These issues run very deep here. Only this week, a senior politician (Joe Biden) voiced, in a manner Freud would have recognized, the belief that blacks really aren’t generally in a position to make important choices and decisions. When asked about Senator Barack Obama as a potential Presidential candidate he made remarks about …. At last, a decent, clean, mainstream black candidate. I paraphrase, but the patronizing mis-beliefs were obvious. He seems to have forgotten Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, and Rosa Parkes …. Oh yes ….. Colin Powell!!!
Incidents and events like this say much about how far we have come, but rather more about how far we still have to go.
The second, and equally remarkable incident describes just how far America has allowed *Corporate America* to set the standard. Corporate America is not very nice. It is greedy, grasping, swift to retribution and callous. If there is a dollar, or cent to be made, they simply have to have it in their own pockets, and there is no room at all for much in the way of human decency. There are notable exceptions to this. Gap, Body Shop and Dove all spring to mind. The NFL does not!.
The NFL this week threatened a Church with legal action if they went ahead with their planned screening of Super Bowl, in church, on their projector screen. This caused many churches, probably thousands, across America to cancel, or hastily revise the plans they had made for today. Apparently there is an NFL rule that prohibits the public screening of NFL matches on screens larger than 55”. Oh, except if you are a bar, then the sky’s the limit. My cynical mind wonders if this has anything to do with Budweiser being the largest sponsor of the NFL. The excuse offered by the NFL was that it was *common practice* for bars to show sporting events on larger screens. My response isn’t printable, but involves the extension of rather fewer than my full compliment of digits in their direction; but, more reasonably, to suggest to the NFL that Churches, when they display any events, do so on the screen they have and is, thus, *common practice*.
My brother-in-law told me that his church was having to move the projector closer to the screen to reduce the picture size. I suggested they should show what they wanted and say *so sue us*. He replied that that was the suggestion of his sensible fifteen-year-old daughter, but that the church couldn’t expose itself like that.
When will someone here cry *FOUL*? Yellow flags should be raining down on NFL headquarters from Churches and other concerned bodies across the land.
All week, on TV and radio, I have been hearing about the stature of Super Bowl here in The USA. Even Katie Couric said that the event was right at the heart of American culture. As such, it is an event of National significance, and not simply a cash-cow for the NFL. No one, least of all me, would deny the custodians of this spectacle a reasonable profit. This petty restriction was not reasonable, and now not tested in court, unfortunately. The NFL tries to restrict all images of their games to its own peculiar set of rules. Their demands and strictures even suggest that using small, relevant excerpts is a breach of their terms and conditions. As far as I can work out this flies directly in the face of *fair use* laws. While the NFL may indeed put themselves above God, they cannot impose terms that breach Federal laws.
My suggestion is two-fold. American advertisers (for it is all about advertising) should pull the ads. One major company doing so would send shockwaves through Corporate America that would reverberate for years. Ironically, it would also garner millions of dollars of free advertising for the sponsor concerned.
Failing that, America should simply switch off. Just once, one year, go out and do something more useful instead. Turn off the TV, don’t watch it, tell the greedy, the uncharitable and the unconcerned that this time they went too far. One Super Bowl, no audience, job done.
This year, you wouldn’t have missed much.
Rap? Techno?
As I drive around this State, I become increasingly convinced that the apparent disrepair, or visible damage to cars on the road, is directly proportional to the inane quality and outrageous volume of music rattling the air-bubble laden tinted windows of the vehicle.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
We should all have this problem
So I am watching ET …. That is the trashy TV program *Entertainment Tonight* and not the rather more interesting movie with the same initials. Quite why I am watching this junk momentarily escapes me, but it may have to do with the News having just finished, and my inability to immediately lay my hands on the remote.
Anyway, I am watching the aforementioned crap, when they begin to discuss Christy Brinkley’s divorce. Super-model divorces being something of a staple diet to US TV networks, y’understand.
Apparently there was a custody hearing today for the two minor children. Delightful though they appeared, quite why a responsible parent would want them pictured on national TV is a bit beyond me. My understanding of *good enough* parenting suggests that keeping them as far as possible from such exposure would be rather more appropriate, but I digress.
The Judge made all the usual recommendations of …. Don’t use the kids as messengers, be nice to each other, keep it out of court and never let them vote Republican ….. the sort of thing decent judges always recommend.
At this point, Ms Brinkley makes her only demand of the ex ….. that, should the National Terror Alert be raised to RED, he should only transport them via private jet.
I am dumbfounded!
Custody hearings are about who buys school shoes, which weekends they spend with Dad and which burned turkey they get to eat on Christmas and Thanksgiving. Not once during the messy custody battle we are currently involved in has a Private Jet been mentioned.
I perceive in this situation, a slightly greater understanding of the dichotomies in this country. Not just the inequalities between the *haves* (her), and the *have nots* (us), but an apparently wealthy, educated and thoughtful woman who actually believes the Terror Alert system really means something.
And we still have the *State of the Union* address to come ….
Anyway, I am watching the aforementioned crap, when they begin to discuss Christy Brinkley’s divorce. Super-model divorces being something of a staple diet to US TV networks, y’understand.
Apparently there was a custody hearing today for the two minor children. Delightful though they appeared, quite why a responsible parent would want them pictured on national TV is a bit beyond me. My understanding of *good enough* parenting suggests that keeping them as far as possible from such exposure would be rather more appropriate, but I digress.
The Judge made all the usual recommendations of …. Don’t use the kids as messengers, be nice to each other, keep it out of court and never let them vote Republican ….. the sort of thing decent judges always recommend.
At this point, Ms Brinkley makes her only demand of the ex ….. that, should the National Terror Alert be raised to RED, he should only transport them via private jet.
I am dumbfounded!
Custody hearings are about who buys school shoes, which weekends they spend with Dad and which burned turkey they get to eat on Christmas and Thanksgiving. Not once during the messy custody battle we are currently involved in has a Private Jet been mentioned.
I perceive in this situation, a slightly greater understanding of the dichotomies in this country. Not just the inequalities between the *haves* (her), and the *have nots* (us), but an apparently wealthy, educated and thoughtful woman who actually believes the Terror Alert system really means something.
And we still have the *State of the Union* address to come ….
Monday, December 11, 2006
Oklahoma Air National Guard
George is from New Jersey. I referred to him once before in this journal … the *Karaoke Hell Yeah* post. Nothing remarkable about George, other than him being a thoroughly nice guy who has made settling into life here easier than it may otherwise have been; except to mention that he is a Karaoke KJ.
Of late, George (The Jersey Devil) and I (Steve the Limey) have been running private parties together. Last night we entertained the Oklahoma Air National Guard at their Christmas Party. The party was held in the Mess Hall on the airbase, just north of here.
These guys … and girls, work hard, and party hard. From the Colonel in the afro wig and flares, to Tammy, the sergeant who organized the bash, all had a great time. And well they should. These young people, some barely out of High School have served tours of duty in Iraq recently, and many are soon to return there.
Quite regardless of the rights and wrongs of the situation in the Middle East, the young airmen and women cheerfully pack up and fly 8000 miles to endure who knows what. Most return home intact. Some don’t. None of them knows when they leave what the future holds, and for a few it will be dire. I guess all of them miss their Moms.
Whatever, they go, they do our dirty work, and they come home again and party … at least on the outside.
I found myself looking around at all the very young, smiling faces, and wondered how many wouldn’t be alive to sing at next year’s party. I hope they all will, but hope doesn’t provide body armour. Hope doesn’t stop the shooting. Hope will not bring these people back to their families. But hope is all I have.
Hope that sense returns.
Hope that sanity prevails.
Hope that the bullets miss … on both sides.
Hope that those who send these troops to fight are wise, and caring.
Very little hope on that last point.
As I looked around the hall, and felt close to the soldiers who just do their jobs as best they can, I didn’t feel any less British; but I did feel just a little more American.
Come back safe, and see you guys next year.
Of late, George (The Jersey Devil) and I (Steve the Limey) have been running private parties together. Last night we entertained the Oklahoma Air National Guard at their Christmas Party. The party was held in the Mess Hall on the airbase, just north of here.
These guys … and girls, work hard, and party hard. From the Colonel in the afro wig and flares, to Tammy, the sergeant who organized the bash, all had a great time. And well they should. These young people, some barely out of High School have served tours of duty in Iraq recently, and many are soon to return there.
Quite regardless of the rights and wrongs of the situation in the Middle East, the young airmen and women cheerfully pack up and fly 8000 miles to endure who knows what. Most return home intact. Some don’t. None of them knows when they leave what the future holds, and for a few it will be dire. I guess all of them miss their Moms.
Whatever, they go, they do our dirty work, and they come home again and party … at least on the outside.
I found myself looking around at all the very young, smiling faces, and wondered how many wouldn’t be alive to sing at next year’s party. I hope they all will, but hope doesn’t provide body armour. Hope doesn’t stop the shooting. Hope will not bring these people back to their families. But hope is all I have.
Hope that sense returns.
Hope that sanity prevails.
Hope that the bullets miss … on both sides.
Hope that those who send these troops to fight are wise, and caring.
Very little hope on that last point.
As I looked around the hall, and felt close to the soldiers who just do their jobs as best they can, I didn’t feel any less British; but I did feel just a little more American.
Come back safe, and see you guys next year.
Friday, November 24, 2006
Black Friday revisited
It’s that time of year again ….
Once more, I ventured out into the event known as Black Friday.
Today, I can officially announce the adoption of a new time-zone, WST. This is Walmart Standard Time, and it is precisely two minutes in advance of Central Standard Time.
Happy shopping !
Once more, I ventured out into the event known as Black Friday.
Today, I can officially announce the adoption of a new time-zone, WST. This is Walmart Standard Time, and it is precisely two minutes in advance of Central Standard Time.
Happy shopping !
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Email to amazon.com
Dear Sirs,
Your X-Box promotion was little short of appalling.
No one minds not being one of the 1000 lucky customers. We didn't even expect to win one.
What is unforgivable is your technical inability to even serve the appropriate pages. You should have anticipated the demand, and provided the bandwidth to accommodate the requests.
We are not only unimpressed by this outrageous failure to meet a demand you created, but are reluctant to spend any more of our very hard-earned dollars for any items offered by you.
I am dismayed that it has come to this, after years of happy trading, but we will not be treated in this manner.
Yours
Steve Bracken
Your X-Box promotion was little short of appalling.
No one minds not being one of the 1000 lucky customers. We didn't even expect to win one.
What is unforgivable is your technical inability to even serve the appropriate pages. You should have anticipated the demand, and provided the bandwidth to accommodate the requests.
We are not only unimpressed by this outrageous failure to meet a demand you created, but are reluctant to spend any more of our very hard-earned dollars for any items offered by you.
I am dismayed that it has come to this, after years of happy trading, but we will not be treated in this manner.
Yours
Steve Bracken
Monday, November 06, 2006
The Spirit of our Marriage
The Spirit of our Marriage,
Lies not in the Horse and Carriage,
The top-hat and the veil,
Are not the symbols that prevail,
The vows of faith and eternity,
Are not the things that make it work for me,
Children, home and pets,
Make not the bedrock where it sets.
If I plight my troth to thee,
That's the way I choose to be,
The day we wed I had my say,
It was forever, and a day,
The symbols we rely on,
Even the bed we daily lie on,
Make mischief if we feel,
They represent what's true and real,
When we grow old, and days are short,
The vows we took will count for naught,
What matters most is what's inside,
The private parts we seek to hide,
Therein the Spirit of our Marriage lies,
Within our hearts, where it defies
Attempts, thoughts and actions that misconstrue,
It lies in me, and it lies in you.
Steve, 2006
Lies not in the Horse and Carriage,
The top-hat and the veil,
Are not the symbols that prevail,
The vows of faith and eternity,
Are not the things that make it work for me,
Children, home and pets,
Make not the bedrock where it sets.
If I plight my troth to thee,
That's the way I choose to be,
The day we wed I had my say,
It was forever, and a day,
The symbols we rely on,
Even the bed we daily lie on,
Make mischief if we feel,
They represent what's true and real,
When we grow old, and days are short,
The vows we took will count for naught,
What matters most is what's inside,
The private parts we seek to hide,
Therein the Spirit of our Marriage lies,
Within our hearts, where it defies
Attempts, thoughts and actions that misconstrue,
It lies in me, and it lies in you.
Steve, 2006
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Boogers and Vomit
We get to spend quite a bit of time in the car. We go to Okmulgee a lot. Less now that Jodie works in Broken Arrow, but all the family are down there, and we visit.
To get to Okmulgee is about a 50 minute car ride. Now car rides are generally ok, air-conditioning, decent stereo and cruise control takes care of that. The highway requires little in the way of steering input, and it’s an altogether easy enough experience.
The one significant fly in and otherwise unsullied ointment, is that we generally have three small children occupying the rear seat, much in the manner that you might expect three large and untrained tigers to manage.
They are, in descending order, Mackenzie (7), Michael (5) and Natalie (3). Natalie appears to have crammed about 30 years worth of learning how to be cute and disgusting at the same time, into 3 years.
So, parents out there, and children old enough to read will understand that car rides are a cross between episodes of frightening rage and threats of child abuse, and periods of serenity. The former when they are awake, and the latter when they are asleep.
Just every now and again you have a journey that is FUN. We had one yesterday.
We had spent about 30 minutes taming the tigers with the aforementioned threats of torture (or *questioning*, if your are reading this and happen to be the US President), when Mackenzie suddenly made *vomiting* noises, and announced that Natalie was eating boogers (bogies, to the English).
This was an interesting turn of events, thought Steve. Gotta be some comic value here. Well …. Nat eating boogers was funny enough, but Mackenzie being disgusted was even better.
“Are they crusty and small, or green and slimy”, I asked, innocently.
“Ugh! I’m going to vomit”, said Mackenzie, following this with “and she still has them, under her tongue!”.
“How many do you have Nat?”, I inquired. The answer came back with a lifting of the offending tongue to show everybody “TWO”.
“I’m feeling really, really sick now”, complained child number one.
“Yeah Steve, and if she is then YOU are cleaning the car!” was the comment Jodie felt obliged, rather unnecessarily, I thought, to make.
“Ten green boogers, hanging on the wall,
Ten green boogers, hanging on the wall,
And if one green booger, should accidentally be eaten,
There’d be nine green boogers, hanging on the wall”.
“Good song Steve”, yelled Michael, who is a boy, so *booger* songs by adults rate pretty highly with him.
“Mom, make him stop. I’m really gonna vomit!”, squeaked the seven year old.
“Ten cups of vomit, standing on the wall” ……………….
Well you know the rest (
Fifteen minutes of rolling around laughing, while trying to drive and avoid the usual crowd of cell phone using, mascara applying and donut eating drivers so often bent on running you off the road, made the journey FUN !!!
No, she never did vomit …….. phew.
To get to Okmulgee is about a 50 minute car ride. Now car rides are generally ok, air-conditioning, decent stereo and cruise control takes care of that. The highway requires little in the way of steering input, and it’s an altogether easy enough experience.
The one significant fly in and otherwise unsullied ointment, is that we generally have three small children occupying the rear seat, much in the manner that you might expect three large and untrained tigers to manage.
They are, in descending order, Mackenzie (7), Michael (5) and Natalie (3). Natalie appears to have crammed about 30 years worth of learning how to be cute and disgusting at the same time, into 3 years.
So, parents out there, and children old enough to read will understand that car rides are a cross between episodes of frightening rage and threats of child abuse, and periods of serenity. The former when they are awake, and the latter when they are asleep.
Just every now and again you have a journey that is FUN. We had one yesterday.
We had spent about 30 minutes taming the tigers with the aforementioned threats of torture (or *questioning*, if your are reading this and happen to be the US President), when Mackenzie suddenly made *vomiting* noises, and announced that Natalie was eating boogers (bogies, to the English).
This was an interesting turn of events, thought Steve. Gotta be some comic value here. Well …. Nat eating boogers was funny enough, but Mackenzie being disgusted was even better.
“Are they crusty and small, or green and slimy”, I asked, innocently.
“Ugh! I’m going to vomit”, said Mackenzie, following this with “and she still has them, under her tongue!”.
“How many do you have Nat?”, I inquired. The answer came back with a lifting of the offending tongue to show everybody “TWO”.
“I’m feeling really, really sick now”, complained child number one.
“Yeah Steve, and if she is then YOU are cleaning the car!” was the comment Jodie felt obliged, rather unnecessarily, I thought, to make.
“Ten green boogers, hanging on the wall,
Ten green boogers, hanging on the wall,
And if one green booger, should accidentally be eaten,
There’d be nine green boogers, hanging on the wall”.
“Good song Steve”, yelled Michael, who is a boy, so *booger* songs by adults rate pretty highly with him.
“Mom, make him stop. I’m really gonna vomit!”, squeaked the seven year old.
“Ten cups of vomit, standing on the wall” ……………….
Well you know the rest (
Fifteen minutes of rolling around laughing, while trying to drive and avoid the usual crowd of cell phone using, mascara applying and donut eating drivers so often bent on running you off the road, made the journey FUN !!!
No, she never did vomit …….. phew.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
So, you think you have nothing to hide?
This is going to ramble a bit. It’s also to be published in a few places, and hopefully the ensuing discussion will help me understand the issues raised that strike a chord with folk, and those that don’t.
I just don’t understand many Americans. On the one hand, they claim to be a society of cherished freedoms. Yet, at the same time, appear willing to sacrifice those freedoms at the drop of a hat, anytime someone with even the teensiest amount of positional authority tells them it is necessary.
Some Americans hold the ACLU, for example, in utter disdain yet, in the next breath will describe how they cherish the Constitution and *people fought and died to bring us freedoms, doncha know?*. The irony of this position is lost, and it baffles me.
Currently, the 4th Amendment is under attack. The 4th, for those that don’t know works like this:
The American people effectively have a privacy bill. The Brits don’t, and many want one. It says, paraphrased, that a person shall be free from intrusion into their private affairs, unless a Government agency can show *probable cause*, and that any other searches are *unreasonable* and, therefore, unconstitutional.
Now to most Americans the Constitution is absolute (this can vary a bit depending on Supreme Court decisions), and it the very bedrock upon which this nation is built. Part of my problem is simply that it is a unique document, and I have only 2 year’s experience of it. But absolute it is and, with respect to the 4th, you can’t argue that the Founding Fathers didn’t know what they were doing when they included it, without accepting that if that is the case, they may not have known what they were doing when they wrote the rest of it.
So the 4th can only be interpreted by the Supreme Court, it is, after all, their reason for being.
Why then, are so many prepared to accept so many commonplace *unlawful searches*, that many aren’t even a cause for comment. A particularly good example of this would be Field Sobriety Tests. They are, by any estimation intrusive, and entirely subjective. The only purpose of a FST is to provide a Police Officer with evidence to convict you, and, as such, also breaches the 5th Amendment. You know, the one that gives you an absolute right not to provide evidence that will incriminate you. If the Police wish to determine your blood alcohol levels, then there are entirely OBJECTIVE ways to do this, none of which involves the performing of humiliating circus stunts at the side of the road ….. yet, everyday, thousands of Americans think they have to comply with this ridiculous request, for no better reason, it appears, than they were told they had to! Beside which I never could rub my tummy and pat my head at the same time as walking in a straight line all the while balancing a small child on my nose …. I don’t think that last bit is part of the test but hey! Why not?
I hear the justification for this acceptance of authoritarianism time and again …..
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about !!!!
This argument is about as fatally flawed as you can get, on oh so many levels.
The authors of the Constitution knew a thing or two. They knew, for example, that although a system of government is *pure*, the people who run it are not. They knew that they had to provide a guaranteed set of checks on government so one thing they did was to include the 1st Amendment. This enshrines the freedom of the press; surely a group who could be relied upon to expose duplicity and guard the freedoms of the nation ….. Hmmmm …. Well I suspect the intention was good, but in any event, the point remains.
Systems are honest, systems have no ulterior motives, no hidden agendas. The people running them, however, have both, and often are shown to be dishonest too. There is a great deal of power in information … any information no matter how trivial or *non-incriminating* you might think it is. For example. Suppose your grocery bills were generally available for scrutiny. Let’s futher suppose that you went to Walmart and bought nicotine patches, and speculate that Walmart sold that information to the Insurance companies. It’s gonna be tough to prove you weren’t smoking (in contravention to the clauses in your life insurance policy), when you are dead, and they are trying to reduce or deny the payout to your widow.
Another ….. Suppose you suddenly found youself asked to resign from the PTA, or the School Board, and didn’t understand why. Maybe you made some lifestyle choice that, while perfectly legal and unrelated to education, someone used information held by a government agency to force you out. The point here is simple ….. the government shouldn’t have that information unless it specifically addresses an issue that gives *probable cause* in a crime. They one absolutely guaranteed implication of widespread data gathering is that there will be calls for the said data to be shared. The arguments will be couched in terms of *law enforcement*, *war on terrorism* …. Fill in the blanks, there are hundreds. The point of all that is that however *sensible* it appears, indeed if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, it’s a direct breach of two, count ‘em, amendments to the Constitution.
What if the only thing you have to hide is the fact that, despite years of misery and struggle, your wife or husband is unable to quit smoking. Then your employer fires you, because her/his health records came to light unlawfully or otherwise, and he wished to reduce his company’s health care bill by firing all employees who smoked, or whose family members smoked. It’s quite possible you and your spouse had shared that information with dozens of agencies, some governmental, some not in an attempt to be honest, and get support. Just bit you in the ass, didn’t it?
We are entitled to privacy not because we have anything to hide, but because the Constitution says so, and because the information is ours, not owned by others whose motives and ambitions may be dishonest, manipulative, or simply different to our own.
Why has it suddenly because somehow suspicious, to exercise Constitutional rights? You may think you have nothing to hide, but there is an underlying statement when you make the point to others. Effectively, you are arguing that the illegal intrusions you are prepared to accept because *you have nothing to hide*, somehow comments adversely on those who are rather less willing to share. Often it is even couched the other way around: *Well …. If you have nothing to hide ….*
It’s insidious …. And it should be resisted.
I dunno, maybe I just see it wrong!
I just don’t understand many Americans. On the one hand, they claim to be a society of cherished freedoms. Yet, at the same time, appear willing to sacrifice those freedoms at the drop of a hat, anytime someone with even the teensiest amount of positional authority tells them it is necessary.
Some Americans hold the ACLU, for example, in utter disdain yet, in the next breath will describe how they cherish the Constitution and *people fought and died to bring us freedoms, doncha know?*. The irony of this position is lost, and it baffles me.
Currently, the 4th Amendment is under attack. The 4th, for those that don’t know works like this:
The American people effectively have a privacy bill. The Brits don’t, and many want one. It says, paraphrased, that a person shall be free from intrusion into their private affairs, unless a Government agency can show *probable cause*, and that any other searches are *unreasonable* and, therefore, unconstitutional.
Now to most Americans the Constitution is absolute (this can vary a bit depending on Supreme Court decisions), and it the very bedrock upon which this nation is built. Part of my problem is simply that it is a unique document, and I have only 2 year’s experience of it. But absolute it is and, with respect to the 4th, you can’t argue that the Founding Fathers didn’t know what they were doing when they included it, without accepting that if that is the case, they may not have known what they were doing when they wrote the rest of it.
So the 4th can only be interpreted by the Supreme Court, it is, after all, their reason for being.
Why then, are so many prepared to accept so many commonplace *unlawful searches*, that many aren’t even a cause for comment. A particularly good example of this would be Field Sobriety Tests. They are, by any estimation intrusive, and entirely subjective. The only purpose of a FST is to provide a Police Officer with evidence to convict you, and, as such, also breaches the 5th Amendment. You know, the one that gives you an absolute right not to provide evidence that will incriminate you. If the Police wish to determine your blood alcohol levels, then there are entirely OBJECTIVE ways to do this, none of which involves the performing of humiliating circus stunts at the side of the road ….. yet, everyday, thousands of Americans think they have to comply with this ridiculous request, for no better reason, it appears, than they were told they had to! Beside which I never could rub my tummy and pat my head at the same time as walking in a straight line all the while balancing a small child on my nose …. I don’t think that last bit is part of the test but hey! Why not?
I hear the justification for this acceptance of authoritarianism time and again …..
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about !!!!
This argument is about as fatally flawed as you can get, on oh so many levels.
The authors of the Constitution knew a thing or two. They knew, for example, that although a system of government is *pure*, the people who run it are not. They knew that they had to provide a guaranteed set of checks on government so one thing they did was to include the 1st Amendment. This enshrines the freedom of the press; surely a group who could be relied upon to expose duplicity and guard the freedoms of the nation ….. Hmmmm …. Well I suspect the intention was good, but in any event, the point remains.
Systems are honest, systems have no ulterior motives, no hidden agendas. The people running them, however, have both, and often are shown to be dishonest too. There is a great deal of power in information … any information no matter how trivial or *non-incriminating* you might think it is. For example. Suppose your grocery bills were generally available for scrutiny. Let’s futher suppose that you went to Walmart and bought nicotine patches, and speculate that Walmart sold that information to the Insurance companies. It’s gonna be tough to prove you weren’t smoking (in contravention to the clauses in your life insurance policy), when you are dead, and they are trying to reduce or deny the payout to your widow.
Another ….. Suppose you suddenly found youself asked to resign from the PTA, or the School Board, and didn’t understand why. Maybe you made some lifestyle choice that, while perfectly legal and unrelated to education, someone used information held by a government agency to force you out. The point here is simple ….. the government shouldn’t have that information unless it specifically addresses an issue that gives *probable cause* in a crime. They one absolutely guaranteed implication of widespread data gathering is that there will be calls for the said data to be shared. The arguments will be couched in terms of *law enforcement*, *war on terrorism* …. Fill in the blanks, there are hundreds. The point of all that is that however *sensible* it appears, indeed if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, it’s a direct breach of two, count ‘em, amendments to the Constitution.
What if the only thing you have to hide is the fact that, despite years of misery and struggle, your wife or husband is unable to quit smoking. Then your employer fires you, because her/his health records came to light unlawfully or otherwise, and he wished to reduce his company’s health care bill by firing all employees who smoked, or whose family members smoked. It’s quite possible you and your spouse had shared that information with dozens of agencies, some governmental, some not in an attempt to be honest, and get support. Just bit you in the ass, didn’t it?
We are entitled to privacy not because we have anything to hide, but because the Constitution says so, and because the information is ours, not owned by others whose motives and ambitions may be dishonest, manipulative, or simply different to our own.
Why has it suddenly because somehow suspicious, to exercise Constitutional rights? You may think you have nothing to hide, but there is an underlying statement when you make the point to others. Effectively, you are arguing that the illegal intrusions you are prepared to accept because *you have nothing to hide*, somehow comments adversely on those who are rather less willing to share. Often it is even couched the other way around: *Well …. If you have nothing to hide ….*
It’s insidious …. And it should be resisted.
I dunno, maybe I just see it wrong!
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Never a Dull Moment
Mackenzie (to Natalie): *Stop making me do that"
Steve (from bedroom): Mackenzie, I don't think Nat made you do anything"
Mackenzie: "She did! She made me bleed!"
Steve: "Natalie. Quit making your sister bleed"
Natalie: "Ok"
Steve (from bedroom): Mackenzie, I don't think Nat made you do anything"
Mackenzie: "She did! She made me bleed!"
Steve: "Natalie. Quit making your sister bleed"
Natalie: "Ok"
Monday, April 10, 2006
Maximal Stress Test
What a great sounding term!
Unfortunately, the implications are dire, and involve subjecting yourself to wheezing, gasping, aches and muscles that you didn't even know you had shrieking "Enough is enough! Dammit!"
A *Maximal Stress Test* is merely a way to determine the fastest rate your heart can beat. Getting it there is the tricky bit. It's an easy enough process to describe ...... slowly wind your treadmill up to around 5 mph, over about 10 mins, then increase the gradient by 2% every three minutes. At some point (often quite quickly) there will be a pounding in your ears as individual red blood cells remind you that they have given all they can, and are now off on a long vacation .... so quit already.
Hopefully, when this happens, your Heart Rate Monitor will have recorded a figure that computes with those living, and in reasonable shape.
There are a bunch of ways to estimate what your heart should be able to manage. In my case, a 46 year old male, it is in the range 174 to 178, decreasing by about 1 bpm per year. This can be out by up to 15% and as the training zones are 10 to 20% wide, can make quite a difference to the value of the exercise. Running is time-consuming, so ya might as well get the most from each mile.
Long story short ......... 189!
Yup, the Limey has heart :)
Jodie was *officiating* during the test. It was apparant, even to me who was dying out there, that she seemed to be rather more amused than she should have been every time she hit the gradient button.
Course, she still has to do hers, and I have control .....
ps. We went to Dallas to collect the treadmill we bought. This involved crossing the Red River, and that leads me nicely onto a cute little anecdote from my childhood .... coming next.
Unfortunately, the implications are dire, and involve subjecting yourself to wheezing, gasping, aches and muscles that you didn't even know you had shrieking "Enough is enough! Dammit!"
A *Maximal Stress Test* is merely a way to determine the fastest rate your heart can beat. Getting it there is the tricky bit. It's an easy enough process to describe ...... slowly wind your treadmill up to around 5 mph, over about 10 mins, then increase the gradient by 2% every three minutes. At some point (often quite quickly) there will be a pounding in your ears as individual red blood cells remind you that they have given all they can, and are now off on a long vacation .... so quit already.
Hopefully, when this happens, your Heart Rate Monitor will have recorded a figure that computes with those living, and in reasonable shape.
There are a bunch of ways to estimate what your heart should be able to manage. In my case, a 46 year old male, it is in the range 174 to 178, decreasing by about 1 bpm per year. This can be out by up to 15% and as the training zones are 10 to 20% wide, can make quite a difference to the value of the exercise. Running is time-consuming, so ya might as well get the most from each mile.
Long story short ......... 189!
Yup, the Limey has heart :)
Jodie was *officiating* during the test. It was apparant, even to me who was dying out there, that she seemed to be rather more amused than she should have been every time she hit the gradient button.
Course, she still has to do hers, and I have control .....
ps. We went to Dallas to collect the treadmill we bought. This involved crossing the Red River, and that leads me nicely onto a cute little anecdote from my childhood .... coming next.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
