Nielsen's ra(n)tings

Politics, guns, homeschooling for the gifted, scuba, hunting, farming and somewhat coherent occasional ranting from your average Buckeye State journalist/dad/farmer/actor.

Friday, March 31, 2006

Extra deer hunting weekend up for vote


Above, The Rantmeister with an Ohio buck

Ohio's deer kill was down about three percent during the 2005-06 hunting season, compared to the kill total for the previous year. Ohio's hunters killed 209,513 whitetails during the last hunting season, as opposed to 216,443 for the previous year.

The kill in the counties I hunt, Ashtabula and Lake counties, was down three percent and 21 percent, respectively, from the previous year. I've got to say I didn't notice any decline in the deer herd; if anything I saw more deer than in previous years - probably numbering into the hundreds.

Last year's kill was less than biologists wished, and so a proposal to add an additional weekend of deer gun season will come before the Ohio Wildlife Council for a vote April 5. This will be a welcome addition for many hunters, who lack opportunity during Ohio's abbreviated weeklong season. The additional weekend would be Dec. 16-17, two weeks after the regular Nov. 27 - Dec. 3 season. Archery season for deer will run Oct. 7 - Feb. 3. Muzzleloader season will be Dec. 27-30.

Mexican magazine: 'Los Angeles is ours'

I'm writing a lot about this the last few days, so please excuse me, but there's another news item I just came across that demands examination.

Via Rossputin.com, I learned of an editorial in a Mexicana Airlines magazine entitled "With All Due Respect, Los Angeles is Ours." The article says the United States is so addicted to cheap Mexican labor that it can't afford to shut the borders - pointing to increasing need for service workers. It notes the Mexican people here have already begun their "reconquest" of major cities like Los Angeles, Portland, Washington, New York and Denver.

Here's a little tip: Illegal aliens have no status and little power. You're criminals. Any power you imagine accrues to you through the whim of the citizenry. It's ephemeral. You think you have control of Los Angeles because you have millions of illegal aliens squatting throughout the metropolis, seeded everywhere from street gangs to the wait staff at Casa de Taco? They're here at our indulgence. Our rights as citizens, our power, is enshrined in a little document called the Constitution...and guess what? Citizens of other countries aren't included. This is an American-citizens-only club, and if you didn't put in the time and effort to legally emigrate here, then you're not invited.

You're nothing, illegal immigrants. Is that plain enough? Reconquista? Don't make me laugh.

Pols in tough spot

It appears our elected officials are between a rock and a hard place.

They’re faced with an issue now on which a bipartisan majority of Americans want action: Stopping illegal immigration. That means closing the border to illegal immigration. If the Republicans do nothing, preferring to salvage what they can of the Hispanic vote, they risk alienating their base and ensuring consequences at the polls. If the Democrats do nothing or obstruct GOP efforts, they probably gain some Hispanic votes, but peel off even more of the moderates they so desperately court.

This should be an easy choice, right? Just follow the will of the people.

Except…

There are a LOT of businesses in this country which like the idea of hiring cheap, illegal immigrant, labor to pick their crops/build their houses/wash their dishes. These businesses have deep pockets when it comes to donating to the political campaigns of their favorite legislation-friendly politician. Shutting the door on illegal immigration could mean shutting the door on all those campaign dollars flowing from the businesses getting rich by exploiting the cheap labor.

The line about Mexicans doing the jobs that Americans won’t do is a load of horse crap too…though it IS true most American’s won’t do the job for the wages paid to illegal workers. As a matter of fact, competition from cheap Mexican workers has been blamed for shutting many blue-collar American workers out of a job. At a minimum, Americans in many blue collar jobs have had to reduce their wage demands to remain competitive with people who are here illegally. And guess what? Many of those blue collar workers vote Democrat.

As Rasmussen says:

“Attitudes towards immigration do not fall neatly along typical partisan, demographic, or ideological lines. For this reason, among others, the immigration issue ultimately has the potential to shake up the current partisan alignment in the nation.”

So our elected officials are faced with the dilemma of pissing off their constituents, who are truly hyped up about this issue, or pissing off their benefactors. The heightened emotions on the part of the electorate have also made it highly unlikely that legislators will be able to pull off some kind of weasely compromise which promises much and delivers little.

There is a passage in Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor which comes to mind. I can’t find the book now to quote exactly, so I’ll paraphrase: White House Chief of Staff Arnie Van Damm tells President Jack Ryan that in the face of outrage by the citizens, the President’s job sometimes is not to lead, but just to get out of the way and let the will of the people be done.

I think this is one of those times.

We’ll see whether our elected representatives are more interested in heeding the will of the American people or fawning at the feet of their checkbook-wielding benefactors. My advice: do your job, Mr. Senator, the job which I elected you to do – represent the will of your constituents. We gave you power and we can take it away, and no amount of dollars forthcoming from your influence-buying business cronies will change that.

Busy summer

We've gotten the final word back on auditions for this summer

After everything shook out, and much wrangling over rehearsal schedules, it looks like members of the Rantmeister's clan will be appearing during June in "Born Yesterday" at Rabbit Run Community Theater, "Enchanted April" in July at Rabbit Run and "Camelot" during August at the Ashtabula Arts Center. We've also got to try to shoehorn a vacation, making hay, everyday chores, briefly hosting our exchange student's family and, of course, the Great Lakes Medieval Faire into the mix.

Potty breaks are optional.

Don't they get it?


A nice cartoon from Michael Ramirez...hat tip: Allahpundit, who's sitting in for Michelle Malkin.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Mushroom cloud expected over Vegas

To which Middle Eastern country do you think very-public testing of this mushroom-cloud producing bad boy is intended as a message? Hint: This country is pursuing nuclear weapons in the face of international disapproval. Hint #2 It's located between Iraq and Afghanistan. Hint for the Really Dense: It begins with "I' and ends in "N"...

This sounds like just the tool for those pesky household chores - cleaning baked-on dirt, removing shower scum, blowing the crap out of secret underground uranium enrichment facilities. Now, assuming a successful test, they've just got to find a plane big enough to haul it.

"Honest talk" and other deceptions

San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Ruben Navarre has a column today on the IndyStar website purporting to provide “honest talk” on immigration. Navarre says it’s time for Americans to be honest about the conflict:

Much of it really is about clashing cultures and a concern that immigrants aren't assimilating. When someone complains that San Diego is "becoming like Tijuana," or when someone else says -- as an Idaho woman recently told the Los Angeles Times -- that her neighborhood has become a Spanish-speaking "shanty town," it's a dead giveaway that, for many Americans, the problem is not with people coming into the country illegally, but with the effect they have on their surroundings once here.

This week's student walkouts, in protest of efforts to control illegal immigration, brought this sentiment to light. When more than 25,000 students in Los Angeles, and thousands of young people in other cities, took to the streets, what enraged many observers -- judging from talk radio and television shows -- was the fact that the protesters waved Mexican flags.

His statement may be somewhat true; some people are undoubtedly upset with the changing cultural climate of some areas of the United States. However, the premise of Mr. Navarre’s op-ed is a flawed by dishonesty and deception at its root.

The heated battle underway nationwide is about illegal immigration, not immigration itself, though some would have you believe otherwise. Proponents of amnesty and open borders uniformly keep from mentioning that fact. They likewise refrain from using the term illegal, preferring instead to use the term “undocumented,” as though the border-crossers must have left the wallet containing all their proper immigration papers in their other pants.

Michelle Malkin has more on that fallacy.

Navarre says “most Republicans in Congress insist they're not anti-immigrant. If that's the case, the time has come to prove it by allowing higher levels of legal immigration.”

Oh, okay. It’s all so clear now. The way to stem the tide of people illegally crossing the border from Mexico is to allow more people to cross legally? I somehow doubt the people fording the rivers/climbing the fences/using the smuggler paths/hiding in trucks are people who have been patiently waiting in line for their chance to come into this country legally. They are people who have, with their country’s blessing, decided that the laws of the United States do not apply to them – they’re rarely enforced, so why worry? Why bother jumping through legal hoops when the border’s right there?

And Navarre thinks more immigration is the answer? Now, would that increased immigration quota be divided among all countries or just be set aside for our neighbor to the south?

That honesty thing’s a bitch, isn’t it?

The truth is the U.S. is a sovereign nation with its own rules and policies. This country has the right and the responsibility to regulate who comes here, and lamenting the plight of the poor, scorned immigrant is not going to change that. We have a generous system in place whereby people from other countries, including Mexico, can immigrate here.

You want some honesty? Millions of Mexican citizens have chosen to flout our laws and our sovereignty and come here illegally. They are criminals and should be treated as such. Any further discourse about legal immigration must wait until the illegal flood through the border has been staunched.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Washington Times: Representatives ignoring voters

Wow. The Washington Times has an absolutely scathing opinion piece about Beltway politics in the face of voter outrage over illegal immigration.

An excerpt:

The Senate is attempting to legislate into the teeth of the will of the American public. The Senate Judiciary Committeemen — and probably a majority of the Senate — are convinced that they know that the American people don't know what is best for them.

And I predict this is just the start of the shitstorm our elected representatives have stumbled into. Read the rest of the editorial...it's well worth it.

Hillary: Minion of the Dark Side?

So Sharon Stone says Hillary Clinton has too much sexual power right now to successfully run for President?

I guess we should listen to her…the star of “Basic Instinct” certainly must know a thing or two about sexual power, right? Not to mention her performance as a duplicitous hottie with a gun in “Total Recall”…whee doggie!

Maybe I’ve been approaching this whole latest bleat of celebrity idiocy from the wrong direction. I guess I should consider that repulsion is a force – a power if you will - in physics. Now as far as I’m concerned, Hillary is approaching the pinnacle of sexual repulsiveness. If you consider power in absolute terms, removing the labels of positive and negative, then I guess Hillary really is one of the big dogs in terms of sexual power.

If the pulsar is a spinning neutron star of great attraction (gravity) in the universe, Hillary has got to be its as-yet-undiscovered opposite, the“Repulsar.”

Of course, Stone killed that hypothesis when she opined that Clinton should run in a few years when her allure has diminished. At this point, I’ve got to say “Sharon, honey, that leg-crossing thing in ‘Basic Instinct’ was great, but you’ve got to realize the kind of anti-sexual power Hillary Clinton embodies doesn’t fade with time…it just distills into something more potent.”

Fortunately, Clinton still has a way to go before she reaches the height of sexual “power” wielded by Dark Side of the Sexual Force Master and Sith-sister Helen Thomas. Maybe Clinton can become Thomas’s protégé…Darth Hillary has kind of a ring to it.

If a picture paints a thousand words...


Via Michelle Malkin:

Whittier
(CA) area students from Pioneer, California and Whittier high schools walked out of classes to protest the proposed federal immigration bill March 27, 2006. The protestors put up the Mexican flag over the American flag flying upside down at Montebello High. (Leo Jarzomb/Staff photo)

Malkin predicts, and I think accurately, that this image will harden feelings on the issue:

I predict this stunt will be the nail in the coffin of any guest-worker/amnesty plan on the table in Washington. The image of the American flag subsumed to another and turned upside down on American soil is already spreading on Internet forums and via e-mail.

The battle for borders and immigration laws that actually mean something, however, hasn't even begun.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

"Stand Your Ground" in Ohio?

The Ohioans for Concealed Carry website has a roundup on the "Stand Your Ground" legislation intoduced in the Ohio House by Rep. Steve Buehrer.
The bill, HB541, is modeled after legislation recently passed in Florida and under consideration in several other states. From the website:
"The law simply ensures that you have a right to defend yourself if you are the victim of a violent attack. After Florida’s law was proven to work, South Dakota and Indiana passed similar laws. A myriad of other states, now joined by Ohio, are also considering similar protections for the victims of criminal assaults."
In essence, the bill states that it is the intent of the legislature to remove the duty to retreat and nullify future use of existing case law rulings that people do have a duty to retreat when confronted. The text of the bill is explored in the OFCC article.

The law looks like a decent attempt to codify common sense. This is important as judges often have lapses of common sense when considering gun-related crimes. Who may be justified in standing their ground?
  • Victims of an attack likely to cause serious injury or death
  • People whom criminals attempt to forcefully remove from their homes
  • People whose home has been forcefully entered
What is excluded under this law??
  • You can't use lethal force against a guardian attempting to retrieve a child
  • You can't defend yourself if you're in the process of committing a crime
  • You can't use force to defend yourself against a cop acting in accordance with the law
  • You can't use deadly force to defend property, except in the case of a home invasion
  • Criminals can't use the law to justify their actions
The new law also notes that people who use deadly force in accordance with the law to defend themselves are not susceptible to civil suits for harming or killing their attacker. If a criminal's family does file a lawsuit and loses, they pay costs.

See the OFCC website for the complete roundup.

Young stallion


The above headline is a flagrant bid to increase Google hits. Our young stallion, Zippos Fancy Sombrero (Tony), second from left, gets some turnout time with other members of the herd. They include, left to right, grade paint mare Bonnie, Tony, dun filly Sunny (for sale), thoroughbred Oswald's Bubba Bean (free to good home) and paint filly Petey (also for sale.)

This year's breeding season will belong to our other paint stallion, Talako Dreamin' Gold...Tony will get his chance next year (perhaps the very end of this year, depending on Talako's success.)

Listen for the silent majority, Mr. DeWine

I just dashed off a letter to Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine, member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which decided to grant concessions and remove the teeth from immigration legislation coming before the Senate. The NY Times story says there is a broad divide among Republicans, but I think the wider gap is between the desires of the voters and the response of the representatives in failing take tough action against this problem.


I think our representatives will hear from the "silent majority" they've ignored on this issue.

The letter:

To the Hon. Sen. DeWine:

Please don't take this the wrong way, but is every elected representative in Washington, D.C. out of his/her mind?

For months, even years, American citizens (note that I did not say residents) have been clamoring for action to stop illegal immigration. The voices have been most strident among your own party, the Republicans. So what do we get from the Senate Judiciary Committee when legislation finally moves? More of the same-old, same-old designed not to offend anyone.

Well guess what? Your committee failed miserably. I'm offended that you've made it your intention to reward flagrant disregard for my country's laws with guest worker concessions and in-country paths to citizenship. I'm offended that the vociferous protests by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ILLEGAL immigrants has apparently intimidated the people representing LEGAL CITIZENS into granting concessions.

You're telling our young people it's okay to intentionally break the rules if you can protest loud enough to escape punishment. That's not a message I want to send to my children, Mr. DeWine, and I'm pretty sure most of the people who voted for you would likewise abjure such a message.

For an immigration policy to work, it must have teeth. There must be penalties for people who ignore our sovereignty and flout our laws...and the fact that the lawbreakers may be our friends and neighbors should have nothing to do with it. Illegal is illegal, Mr. DeWine...perhaps if you left the Beltway more often that principle would again become apparent.

I'm not sure how you can PRETEND to represent the people of Ohio when the concept of illegal versus legal apparently eludes you.

The Rantmeister
(redacted, of course)

In Spring, the young man's thoughts turn to...scuba?

The weather has turned nice – well, at least somewhat spring like - this week, and I’ve been looking at my poor, lonely wetsuit hanging disconsolate in the closet.

I looked up the weather for Mt. Storm, WV, yesterday and things look good for an early spring dive trip. A high-altitude (elev. 3,244 ft.) power plant lake, the water in Mt. Storm never gets much below 65 degrees. The limiting factor there is the outside temperature, and it can sure get chilly up there on top of that mountain – we have driven past the lake many times when the mercury was dipping into blue-ass cold territory.

So I think it’s time to get the tanks filled and other gear dusted off. The kids’ spring break is coming and I think a quick scuba trip is in order.

And I’m sure those Mt. Storm catfish are hungry!

Monday, March 27, 2006

Cyborg, Version 1.0

Wow...sci-fi meets the real world as Italian scientists have been able to fuse brain cells with a silicon computer chip. Can anyone say cyborg?

From the story in LiveScience:

They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip," said study team member Stefano Vassanelli from the University of Padua in Italy.

So they've got the rude beginning of a potentially useable biochemical link between brain cells and computers. It's still a big leap to go from this point to creating a computer interface with a functioning brain, but this is a huge story to a total science geek like the Rantmeister. It seems lately as though science is making gigantic progress in our understanding of our cellular and chemical selves, a sort of Renaissance at the molecular level. Next stop: Johnny Mnemonic and The Matrix.

Governor hopefuls boost gun rights

In a bit of good news for Buckeye State gun owners, Democratic candidate for Governor Ted Strickland has come out in favor of gun rights legislation. Hat tip to the Buckeye Firearms Association.

In a March 15 interview in The Other Paper:

Q: The Ohio House has passed a bill that would nullify the assault-weapons ban approved by Columbus City Council last year. Would you sign it?

A:Yes, I would sign that because I believe that there is a constitutional issue here. I believe that law-abiding people have a right that is granted to them under the constitution.

And on a more practical level, I believe uniformity in a state’s laws regulating the ownership and use of firearms is much desirable over a patchwork of laws that could occur throughout a state as big and as diverse as Ohio.

And in a Toledo Blade interview, Strickland acknowledged a weak gun rights message hurt Sen. John Kerry in his 2004 Presidential run:

Q: Democrats often ask you about your support of gun rights. Is the party wrong on gun control?

A: I don’t know that the Democratic Party has a particular position on gun control. If it is different than mine, I would say I disagree with them.

Q: Do you think John Kerry lost Ohio in 2004 because of the gun issue?

A: I think that was one of the major factors, yes.… I don’t think he had a consistent message. I think he had a ‘theme of the week.’ I also think John Kerry didn’t know how to fight back.

It looks like a win-win situation for Buckeye gun owners. With Strickland and Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell on record as being strongly in favor of gun rights, there's a real chance for improvement in Ohio's Second Amendment picture. Attorney General Jim Petro's gun rights position has been somewhat foggy: he has applied the concealed carry statute as written, but has not been a vocal proponent.

Either Strickland or Blackwell, and Petro, for that matter, would be an improvement over the current governor, Republican scum-weasel Bob Taft.

Immigrants: Legal versus illegal

I just don’t get it.

What part of illegal immigration is unclear? First, there’s legal immigration where people follow the rules, fill out their forms and paperwork, and wait patiently for the United States to grant them legal immigrant status. Then there’s illegal immigration, where people wade through the river, stowaway in trucks or use some well-established route into this country, all the while cognizant of the fact that what they’re doing is illegal.

You see, one of those strategies is legal…a word we Americans admire because it means following the rules. My ancestors came here legally. Then there’s the illegal strategy employed by the line-cutters coming here in contempt of our rules and national sovereignty…and we Americans don’t care much for line-cutters. We care even less for people from other countries who demand that our established policies be reshaped to their liking.

So now there are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of illegal immigrants taking to the streets nationwide to protest legislation attempting to curb the problem by upgrading the charges for illegally entering this country to a felony. “Don’t Criminalize Us,” they say. “Illegal immigration is not a problem.”

Did Wal-Mart just have a sale on stupid pills? It has to be the height of irony for an illegal immigrant to carry a sign saying “Don’t Criminalize Us.” Uh, sorry, you did that yourself when you waded the river. The irony meter pegged itself when hordes of illegal aliens clogged the streets to downplay illegal immigration as a trivial matter.

Much of the blame for this straw poised over the camel’s back can be laid at the feet of businesses, which like the cheap labor provided by the illegal immigrant workers. Produce growers in California, New Mexico, Texas and Arizona have worked hard for non-enforcement of immigration rules. Heck, undocumented (nice euphemism for illegal) Mexican workers have even pushed out the Puerto Rican laborers who used to do the grunt work for the plant nurseries in my locale. Some grape farmers have also turned to cash-at-the-end of the day Mexican workers to do the mindless task of trimming the grape vines for the coming season.

The lure of saving the almighty dollar is a powerful temptation for business owners. The perception that “everyone’s doing it” without penalty is a strong inducement for businessmen to abandon principle in favor of profit.

Saying this doesn’t make me a racist, as some members of the ironic hordes maintain. As a matter of fact, I love the Mexican people and culture. We even – legally – hosted a Mexican exchange student for a year.

I simply maintain that our immigration laws are there for a reason – they funnel people into our society at such a rate they can be absorbed. Our quotas make sure the new legal immigrants are on the grid so they contribute taxes and thus do not overburden our socials services, including public education, Social Security and healthcare. Our legal immigration process also removes the riffraff, including convicted criminals and drug runners, from those who seek to reside here.

So I think we need to pay more than lip service to controlling immigration. Absent strong cooperation from the Mexican government, a hard border fence is a necessity. And I think elevating illegal immigration to felony status, enforced by deportation, will do wonders to encourage respect for our national sovereignty. We can not have competing governmental agencies which both facilitate illegal immigration and condemn it.

Illegals sent packing to their country of origin? Too bad. Not fair? Don’t make me laugh. They chose that consequence when they decided to circumvent our legal immigration process in favor of line-cutting.

Coming out of the (reading) closet

I read Stephen Coonts’ Saucer The Conquest yesterday morning.

My conclusion: light fare that’s somewhat entertaining. A lot in the novel is unexplained, left to the imagination of the reader. The story revolves around evil French guys who build an antigravity weapon and locate it on the moon, with the intention of turning the world into a big, happy place with one government…governed, of course, by the evil French guys with the big gun. See, they’re going to shoot buildings with the antigrav gun, laugh in their silly French accents when the buildings suddenly jump into the air and then crash, and wait for the world to capitulate.

Our heroes, Rip, Charlie (the female pilot) and Egg (from the Suspense All-Name allstar team) use a flying saucer (yes, you read that correctly) to foil the nefarious scheme.

The thing that really ticked me off about reading this novel is that I had to wear reading glasses. Yes, my 45-year-old eyes have betrayed me…these eyes that have been 20/10 or better my entire life now have trouble picking out small print at anything closer than arms length. So last month, I bought a pair of +1.25 reading glasses at Wal-Mart. Those same glasses were perched at the end of my nose for the entire two-hour reading session, completing my transition from invincible SuperDad to somewhat-less-than-invincible NerdDad.

Of course, the entire embarrassing session was conducted in the privacy of my bedroom, safe from the prying eyes of any evil-intentioned and ridicule-flinging family members. I know I’ll have to come out of the closet (or bedroom) eventually, but I’m going to delay the inevitable as long as possible.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

On hosting exchange students

I think I’ve mentioned before on this blog that we host exchange students. We’ve had at least one exchange student per year since 1999, when we hosted our first student, German boy Till Baumgardt.

Fabian, the German boy here now, is the 12th student we’ve hosted. In addition to Germany, we've hosted students from Brazil, Russia, Venezuela, Hong Kong, Mexico and Spain

The way it evolved was this: my wife came home from work in West Virginia one day and said one of the receptionists at work had a mother who was looking for people to host exchange students. She asked if we knew anyone who was interested. Hmmm…my wife had been somewhat interested in hosting at some point, as she spent a summer in Germany while she was in high school. However, we were involved in the process of changing houses at the time and thought the upheaval would be too much. In addition, our kids were 6 and 4 years of age, too young we thought to function as host siblings.

Nevertheless, we filled out some basic paperwork the next day. We got a call that night in a German accent – I passed the phone to Melissa because I thought it was one of her German host family members. Wrong! It was Till, and he would be at the Clarksburg, WV airport in two days.

Now calling the Clarksburg landing field an airport is being very charitable. I’ve seen Burger Kings that are bigger than the terminal. Get there an hour ahead? Yeah, right, five minutes is plenty of time since there’s only one gate and the planes coming in and out only seat about 20 people. So, long –story-short, we had an exchange student plus a complete household, kids, horses and dogs to move to our new house.

I think it was a big help to have so much work to do with our new family member. Out of necessity, he was immediately treated as a member of the family: toting moving boxes and painting rooms with the rest of us, experiencing the chaos and frenetic pace that often characterizes our lifestyle. We’ve tried to carry that family feeling over to subsequent exchange students.

We’ve learned a lot though hosting students…things which will hopefully help us as our own children are reaching the teenage years. I think it’s helped our children, too, giving them a wider view of world events by discussions held with the students, typically among the best and brightest from their countries.

They’ve learned to treasure the time spent with others, too, because at the end of the exchange year, the students must go home. Sometimes they come back to visit, and we often chat with ex-students over the internet, but the heartache is always there when we take them to the airport for their ride home. And we always ask ourselves on the way home from the airport why we put ourselves through this yearly anguish.

In a nutshell, I think we do it because we have been fortunate in our lives and want to share our good fortune with others, because we really learn about other people and cultures and because we are fortunate enough to have in our lives, for a school year anyway, some of the most amazing young people in the world. The absence of a student would also leave a glaring void in our family makeup.

So we’ll cry when Fabian leaves for the airport this summer. Another cherished family member will have left the nest. And we’ll ask why we do this to ourselves, yet again. The answer of course, evident since Till first stepped off that plane in Clarksburg, is because we couldn’t imagine it any other way.

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Shameless puppy plugging - The sequel


More shameless puppy plugging (sounds like something Cruella DeVille could be accused of.) Here are some of the collie puppies delivered yesterday by one of my sister's dogs. Proprietor of Mandalay Collies, my sister actually has two high-quality litters that were whelped yesterday - and most are of the smooth-coated variety. There were seven puppies in each litter - I'm not sure how many are already spoken for. Contact her through her website for more information or if you're on the hunt for a special puppy.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Queen of collies whelps again


Oooh! That sounds painful.

Actually my sister, she of Mandalay Collies fame, just sent me an email announcing two new litters on the ground at her home in Sunman, IN. She writes:

When it rains, it pours!! Shimmer and Faith (who are littermates) both whelped today!!

The count so far is...Faith: 4 girls, 3 boys, mix of sable & sable merle, all probably smooth. Shimmer: 4 girls, 3 boys all sable except for 1 tri girl, looks like all smooth. I'm not sure if Shimmer is done yet :)

Moms & babies are doing well, and I'll send pics soon!!

Contact her through the Mandalay Collies website for more information or if you're in the market for a top-quality collie puppy.

How to win my vote:

A laundry list to gain the political affections (and vote) of the Rantmeister. Maybe I’ll make T-shirts!

I could be a liberal Democrat if:

  1. They’d leave my guns alone.
  2. They’d quit trying to solve all of society’s ills through legislation.
  3. They’d abandon their income-redistribution-through-social-programs and recognize that some peoples’ contributions to society are worth more compensation than others.
  4. They’d quit bashing America.
  5. They’d quit parading wacky hippy chicks down the streets with giant papier mache heads while expecting us to take them seriously.
  6. They’d pay attention to the Constitution.
  7. They’d read history, get over the 60s and realize application of military force in a timely manner can avert greater conflict later on.
  8. They quit allying themselves with anarchists, communists and socialists.
  9. They stick a cork in Howard Dean’s mouth.
  10. Ditto Harry Reid, Jimmah Carter, Babs Streisand and Janeane Garofalo.
  11. They’d cut the puppet strings the labor unions (particularly teachers) use to control them.
  12. They’d drop the Bush is Hitler meme.
  13. They use whatever means is necessary to protect Americans.
  14. They’d stand for something other than tolerance, which is the absence of a stance.
  15. They’d abandon quotas in favor of actually treating everyone equally.

And just to be fair:

I could be a staunch conservative if:

  1. They'd drop God from policy consideration and public discourse.
  2. They'd act like, well, conservatives when it comes to budgeting.
  3. They'd be less beholden to business upon their ascension to office.
  4. They'd pay more than lip service to environmental concerns (not to be confused with the Kyoto Accords, an environmentally ineffective income redistribution scheme.)
  5. Conservative politicians would drop some of the arrogance which comes from having power and do their job, which means representing their districts.
  6. They would protect American domestic business from unfair foreign competition (especially China.)
  7. They'd admit that abortion is an unfortunate, but necessary, option.
  8. They'd bury creationism and intelligent design in the dustbin of history.
  9. They'd make alternative energy a priority.
  10. They'd eschew censorship in all forms, including material they don't like.
  11. They'd realize flag-burning is free speech.
  12. They'd come up with a fair, equitable and comprehensible taxation plan not rife with breaks for their benefactors.
  13. They'd stick a cork in the mouth of Tom Delay.
  14. They'd quit sidestepping the Social Security issue.
  15. They'd remove the roadblocks from stem cell research.

'Red America' man have forked tongue

The harsh light of exposure and a million fact-checkers have claimed a fresh scalp – this time that of Ben Domenech, late conservative blogging firebrand added to the Washington Post this week in a spirit of ideological affirmative action. Domenech resigned his post today, before the Post had completed its investigation, according to Executive Editor Jim Brady. He had written a blog called Red America.

It seems Domenech had been recycling…now isn’t that something of incredible appeal to the liberal crowd thumbing through the pages of the Post? He was re-using society’s detritus; saving Mother Earth…Gaia ought to be down with that. Trouble is, he was recycling other people’s writing, changing a couple words, and then passing that off as his own work. On the job at the Post for a couple days, Domenech’s skeletons came leaping out of the closet.

Some examples are posted here, in The American Thinker.

I’ve been bothered by plagiarism plenty in my time. Students in high school copied papers I’d written, I saw college classmates plagiarize their way to high marks and I’ve even had letters submitted to the editor (me) which plagiarized stories or editorials which I had penned.

That’s why I’m completely fierce on the issue of plagiarism. My kids know my position: I’d rather have them get a lower grade submitting their own thoughts than get a higher grade stealing someone else’s. I’ve had a couple run-ins with exchange students we’ve hosted who plagiarized material routinely for school assignments in their home countries. They were incredulous that the United States works under a system where writers always clearly identify their citations or try to stick to original thought.

A plagiarist is not a writer or a thinker in my view, he/she is simply an accumulator and arranger.

And the sad part is that Domenech had to have seen this coming…it’s too easy these days to check the originality of phrase and thought through the internet; and being a child of the digital age, he was surely conversant with Google. It appears he was willing to trade his 15 minutes of fame for lingering disdain.

His choice. I'd rather be an unread original than a wildly popular literary leech.

And kudos to the (mainly liberal) crowd with pitchforks and torches who brought this to light; though in it for somewhat partisan purposes, they changed the quality of discourse on the internet for the better.

Why America sucks

Greg Gutfeld has a funny entry, Greg Gutfeld’s 29 Amazing Reasons Why America Sucks!, up at the Huffington Post.

Some of my favorites:

21. Our army shows up early to everything, which is awkward.
25. Unending series of medical and pharmaceutical breakthroughs by private research undermines population control.
27. We will probably solve global warming before anybody else, then use the solution to make more money.
28. Native Americans getting rich off casinos instead of staying dirt-poor does nothing to prove how bad colonialism was.
29. Democracy still an untested theory! 230 years not nearly long enough trial period to truly know if it's safe for general use.

Read the whole thing…it’s well worth it.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

The yin-yang of ferretly cuteness!


It's the yin-yang of ferretly cuteness! Here are Riki-tiki and Mr. Squirmles, pets of my son and daughter, respectively.

Fish in a barrel

I’m sorry, but this story made me blink.

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is sending undercover officers into bars to look for drunk people…if they find ‘em, a $500 fine and a few hours in jail could be the price. The most recent sting was March 10, when agents infiltrated more than 30 bars in the Dallas suburb of Irving, arresting or citing dozens of people.

What’s wrong? Did they run out of barrels full of fish to shoot?

Mind you, these people were not driving, they were not walking the streets causing a commotion, they were not sitting in the park drinking Jack Daniels and screeching at the top of their lungs…they were sitting in a bar drinking alcohol which, coincidentally, is what distinguishes a bar from the local diner. Bars serve alcohol…shocking, I know, but true. And people in bars sometimes…gasp…drink alcohol. Sometimes a little too much.

But since when did a bar become the “public” part in public intoxication? And since when is it important to give the field sobriety test, the “Drunk Driving Test,” to people who may have no intention of driving?

Of course, Mothers Against Drunk Driving is breathless with delight:

B.J. Hassell, manager of victims services with MADD Texas State, which serves central Texas, said her organization supports the crackdown.

"Can you imagine if TABC had not stopped those people from leaving the bar, how many more drunk drivers we might have had on the road?" Hassell said.

That’s not the point, of course. The point is people should be arrested for crimes they have committed, not ones which they had the potential to commit. If you want to stop drunk drivers, set up a roadblock just beyond the parking lot outside the bars. We’re not operating under the mantle of Prohibition anymore. This is a personal invasion by an overly-zealous governmental body and should be reviled as such.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Something stinks in this video game

I just had a good laugh.

The Mace-inator was just playing his birthday present - a new XBox to replace the one he burned out - rediscovering one of the games he hasn't been able to play for quite a while, called Fable. Anyway, while going through the "social interface" training on the game (whatever that is) the Mace-inator lost track of what controls he was supposed to be using and instead used some random commands. These commands were intended to keep his enemies at bay.

The result: His screen character farted. This strategy was accompanied by much hysterical glee from the Mace-inator and our exchange student.

When they told me, I almost fell out of my chair. I'd say the game strategy probably worked.

Happy birthday to The Mace-inator!


Son and heir The Mace-inator turned 13 today...hard to believe. He's already 5-9 and is wearing my shoes (size 12.) It just doesn't seem so long ago that the nurses had to bring the newborn to his mother because he was screaming so loudly he kept the other babies awake...we could hear him through three sets of closed doors.

Silver lining in TGN1412 cloud

I can’t imagine the anguish endured and the lasting effects caused by testing of TGN1412 on those men in England.

From NewScientist.com:

Reports from friends and relatives describe the nightmarish symptoms suffered by the men. One man’s head was said to have swollen massively and his limbs turned purple. Another was said to resemble the deformed “Elephant Man”.

TGN1412 was being tested as a treatment for a range of illnesses, including autoimmune diseases, but it had been awarded special status as a possible treatment for a type of leukemia called B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL).

The drug is a type of monoclonal antibody. Antibodies are produced by the immune system in response to a foreign invader like a bacterium. It recognizes the particular invader, or antigen, and neutralizes it as well as kick-starting a wider immune response. A monoclonal antibody is one manufactured to be specific for one antigen only. These have been used safely in treatments for a variety of diseases, including lymphoma, experts stress.

The treatment instead set off a “biostorm” of immune response when, in effect, it turned off the governor in our immune system. Unfortunately, the body began attacking itself.

Am I the only one who sees the potential platinum lining to this horrible cloud?

Think of the applications if this revved up immune response can be marshaled and directed per our demand! It could mean an end to most infectious diseases (including AIDS), an end to systemic and other cancers (assuming we can positively identify cancer cells to the marauding T-cells) and possibly even anti-aging benefits as we use the rampaging T-cells to cleanse the body of malfunctioning cells or even plaque in the arteries. Antibiotics? Who needs them. Anti-virals? We’ll take care of those little viral problems in house from now on.

Yes, the nightmare endured by those men is horrible, but the knowledge gained could prove to be invaluable. We’ve known for a long time that the body has the ability to repair itself and defend against disease…how much better to be able to turn our workmanlike immune system into Superman when needed?

Engineered immune response holds huge potential for the human race. I’m just sorry those men in England inadvertently paid the price for progress.

Newspapers = dodo bird

The demise of the newspaper is widely predicted on the internet and, as I have written before, seems to be inevitable.

Good call, Clay, Degree in journalism…hmmm, maybe I’ll go back to school and train in care and feeding of the passenger pigeon…just to continue a theme.

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame has a column up with some advice to newspapers on how to meet the challenges and survive in this digital Renaissance. He advocates increasing resources dedicated to reporting, multi-tasking reporters as writers and photographers/videographers and relying on the public for expertise and commentary.

This is all well and good, but does not address some of the underlying problems being experienced by newspapers – they are dominated by an old guard of lockstep liberal elitists whose view of the world is skewed from that of its readers. They cling to their belief they are the sole reliable source for news and are loathe to admit mistakes. These are not endearing features on the internet, where liars and data manipulators are pounced on with cheetah speed by armies of fact checkers who have easy access to nearly every word ever written.

In the end, your only draws on the web as a news source are your reputation and the resources you devote to gathering and disseminating information. Up to this point, newspaper resources devoted to reporting have been strangled by old-school publishers with no real interest in content but a very real interest in the profit/loss picture. It would require an act of faith by these publishers that huge increases in resources devoted to reporting would result in profits for the media firm.

I don’t see them “casting bread upon the water” in hopes that it will be returned to them.

And therein lays the biggest obstacle. Newspapers have not yet come up with a viable way to generate their accustomed huge profits through an internet portal. Subscriptions are nice, but they don’t begin to pay the bills. There is nowhere to place the sheer volume of ads that comprises the bulk of a newspaper. There are no in-house advertising printing jobs in the digital age, either, to boost the profits.

If a media enterprise was smart, it would start bringing some of the most popular bloggers into its subscription-only stable, which would also feature extensive resources devoted to original reporting. In this way, the media outlet could gather market share and then charge a commensurate rate for advertisers…they must shift thinking from sheer ad volume to providing the most desirable exposure for advertisers. In that way, the profit thinking must shift from the old paper and ink model to one more closely approximating television.

Sans guaranteed huge profits and market share, I don’t see the established media outlets making the full jump to the internet. And by the time they recognize the inevitability of the change, it will be too late.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Crypt Keeper: Mom's off her meds again

The crone reared her ugly head again today at the 10 a.m. Bush press conference…and it’s captured in all its video glory by Expose The Left…ahhh! My eyes…

The crone, of course, is former-journalist-turned-liberal-media-poster-girl and rumored mother of the Crypt Keeper, Helen Thomas. I want to know when the reporter became more important than the story…I want to know when civility and decorum toward a sitting President went out the window…and I want to know when that shrunken-apple-headed blight on humanity is going to retire to Ft. Lauderdale and answer her real calling, which is to harangue the newspaper delivery boy for walking on her lawn.

In my day the reporter wasn’t important: the story was important. Reporters asked tough questions in a respectful manner – they did not interrupt the President while he was answering. If a reporter’s behavior reached the boorishness of Ms. Thomas, he could be assured of having attended his last Presidential press conference.

I’m not sure why Bush keeps her around. I hope it’s because every time she opens her mouth it’s a cold slap in the face to people who, in a moment of insanity, question whether the media really has a liberal agenda.

There’s your liberal agenda, Bubba. Turn your other cheek and I’ll whack you again with some of the proselytizing-posing-as-a-question coming from that self-important harpy.

Monday, March 20, 2006

I knew it!

My mother-in-law is a big Oprah fan, often calling us to quote the megastar's take on various subjects. Of course, our discussions have never touched on the whole Million Little Pieces debaucle.

And it comes as no surprise to me that a researcher at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York has now found a connection between daytime television and depressed mental acuity scores.

An excerpt:

A study of 289 older women without dementia found that those who rated talk shows and soaps as their favorite programs performed more poorly on tests of memory, attention and mental quickness than their peers who cited other types of shows.

I don't want to gloat or anything, but...I toldja so! Toldja, toldja, toldja so! Wow, that felt good!

No news

No word yet on auditions for Ashtabula Strawhat Theater.

If they don't let us know something quickly, I'm afraid Doc-wife is going to explode. Even though auditions just wound up yesterday afternoon, she has already asked me a half-dozen times whether we've gotten any emails or calls yet from the Ashtabula Arts Center or its summer directors.

Hopefully, we'll know something tonight.

Blast from the past


I found some pictures on the internet the other day of the Nielsen clan in "Dark of the Moon" at the Geauga Lyric Theater Guild in October. PIctured above is me in all my Preacher Haggler hillbilly finery and (unfortunately naturally) gray beard performing a wedding ceremony for Barbara Allen and Witchboy John.

Tough call for France

France certainly has its share of problems these days.

First it was Muslim youths rioting over the accidental electrocution of two Muslim boys running from the police. Now it’s youths of all stripes, rioting over a proposal to allow employers to fire, without explaining their rationale, employees younger than 26 who have been on the job less than two years. France’s labor unions are threatening a strike if the proposed law is not withdrawn.

The French government is desperate to find a way to curtail the country’s growing unemployment problem – now sitting at 9.6% (roughly twice the US rate.) Unemployment among French youth is 23%...rising to 50% in some of the poorer neighborhoods.

The French are seeing their social welfare chickens coming home to roost.

French workers feel entitled to job security; youths feel entitled to a secure job. Industrial employers wonder how in the world they’re supposed to compete in the world market with a workforce structured more for the lifestyle of the employees than for the competitiveness of the company. Is it any wonder a collision has occurred? France must have a strong, vibrant economy to stay among the world leaders…to cave in to the leisure-loving anti-capitalists/anti-industrialists is to put France on the fast track to global irrelevance.

To compete in the world, a business must be able to provide a good or service which has advantages over its competition. The advantages may be in the areas of innovation, cost, availability or quality, but it must give the world a reason to choose its product – it’s a big world out there with a lot of alternate choices. The French workforce, by clinging to high salaries, very limited work weeks and ironclad job security, are crippling their businesses. An inability to sell enough goods or services translates into an inability to provide enough jobs. High salaries and immediate tenure makes hiring new workers a big risk even for those businesses in need of additional help.

I can see the reasoning behind the First Job Contract Law, even if it is only a Band-Aid measure…it encourages businesses to hire by removing obstacles to dismissing younger employees. It still does nothing to address the base unemployment problem. I can also see the potential for abuse by companies, which could burn out and discard scores of youths like the sweatshops of old.

Bottom line? People must work and have money for a society to run smoothly. When you curtail the work, the productivity suffers, which increases the cost of the product and may force consumers to choose an alternative product produced at a lower price. When you can’t sell your product, you have no money to pay your workers, much less hire additional employees.

It’s a hard decision facing the French, who are fond of their social welfare system. Entitlements or a healthy economy; leisure now or long-term prosperity? Raging unemployment or somewhat improved employment “on the bubble?”

These are questions better decided through frank discussion than frenzied protests.

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Ultraviolet: Nonsense...but Milla's cute

We went to the theater last night to see Ultraviolet.

My initial thoughts: seeing Milla Jovovich kick butt is always worth my $6.50. I don’t think the film will win any awards for thoughtful content, though. One of the recent spate of comic-book based films, Ultraviolet was a disjointed excuse for a lot of really cool special effects.

Hey Hollywood? If you want people to come back to the theaters in droves, try offering some fare that actually marries superior special effects with superior writing. Drop the causes du jour, fire the marketing guys who think that dazzling visuals are all that’s needed to please audiences, and remember the fact that all good theater starts with a good script.

A comic book may not be the best place to look for literary quality…just a thought.

Oh yeah…and put Milla in more films.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Chick's eye view


A nice picture taken by our exchange student of a very curious chick - I need to read my camera's owner's manual again for the macro info.

Picking up chicks...at the post office?


Our chicks arrived at the post office today (resulting in a 5:30 a.m. telephone call...oy!). They're now busily chirping away in their basement nursery. We ordered the chicks from McMurray Hatchery, as we've been pleased with their selection and the health of the chicks on arrival. We ordered a 25 chick "rarest of the rare" assortment, 10 Aruacana pullets and 2 Red-laced Cornish chicks for a total of 37. We were also promised one free rare chick. We got all these plus 14 White Rock chicks to fill out the shipping box - grand total = 52 chicks (plus one white chick died in transit.)

Where's Baghdad Bob?

Another gloom-and-doom missive is circulating on the Islamic websites.

This time, the Global Islamic Media Front (story via WorldNet Daily) has posted a "last warning" warning by Rakan Ben Williams, who describes himself as an "al-Qaeda undercover soldier" in the U.S., threatening two major operations designed to bring (Americans) "to your knees."

It goes on to say that “"there will be no one to analyze and investigate, because the mind and the heart will be unable to comprehend it. ... This will not be a single operation, but two; one bigger than the other, but we will begin with the big one and postpone the bigger one, in order to see [how] diligent the American people is [in preserving] its life. If it chooses life, [it must] carry out the demands of the Muslims, and if it chooses death, then we are its best perpetrators."

Sounds like the “Mother of All Battles” rhetoric again doesn’t it? Does anybody know where “Baghdad Bob’s” hanging his hat these days?

You want to scare us? Tell us where you’re going to attack and when, then carry through on your threat. Eerily threatening some kind of nebulous attack somewhere at some point in the future? Give us a break…you’re a cockroach screaming for the world to accede to your god-given authority. Scream too loud and we’ll step on you; bite us and it’s time to call the exterminator.

They love us...they really love us

I think we may be in trouble.

We auditioned for eight or nine shows Saturday, and I think we’re going to get calls from most or even all of them. We actually got a call yesterday morning from the director of Enchanted April seeking to cast both Doc-wife and I as leads…and the director still had a full day of auditions remaining. The director of The Cemetery Club and Ragtime also showed strong interest in us.

See, we had intended to just try out for shows at the Ashtabula Arts Center. We did that (a relatively short and painless process) then stopped by the Rabbit Run Theater auditions later that afternoon to see some friends. We were browbeaten, guilt-tripped and duped into auditioning for the summer shows there, too (we have been very involved in this high quality theater since our return to Ohio three years ago.)

It’s nice to be wanted, but I’m just not very good at telling people “no.”

Another complication is the fact that the Ashtabula theater is running two weekends of auditions…so we’ll have to wait a week to begin weighing our decision. My daughter also tried out for Seussical the Musical at Ashtabula, and seemed to impress the powers that be.

So it looks like it will be a summer of driving to rehearsals, then the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd.

It could be worse.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Auditions

This weekend will be very busy with auditions for the whole family.

We’ll be descending en masse on the Ashtabula Arts Center Saturday for its auditions for the Strawhat Theater summer productions. Productions scheduled for this summer include Seussical the Musical, Urinetown, Streakin, Romeo and Juliet and Camelot. My children (and a couple others tagging along to auditions) are interested in Seussical, and Doc-wife is most interested in playing the nurse in Romeo and Juliet (a demotion for her?) I have heard good things about Urinetown (there’s a sentence I never expected to write) and also like Camelot.

Problem: I haven’t auditioned for a musical in more than 20 years. Well, actually, to be completely truthful it’s been over 25 years. My only recent public singing consists of the couple times my daughter has dragged me onstage for karaoke.

It’s not that I can’t sing; I have sung on stage many times…it was just a while ago. The last musical I actually tried out for was 1776, performed in 1979, at the Ashtabula Arts Center, and I landed a good part. I sang for nearly all my public school years in the arts center repertory choir. I also got drafted into musicals (Pippin, Oliver) by directors who knew me.

I’m just a little…rusty. We’re talking ironclad-battleship-sunk-in-warm-brackish-water-100-years-ago-rusty. I think I’ll either sing The Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha or They Call the Wind Maria from Paint Your Wagon. There’s still plenty of time to decide..I’ve got 26 hours remaining.

Note to self: Don’t even THINK about the dance part of the audition!

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Do it yourself schooling

I just had an epiphany.

In the shower. Or maybe it was a Zen satori. Knock it off, already, with the sniggers, okay?

I think I know how to improve a whole batch of my son’s schooling and personal woes. Some background: my seventh grade son has a very high IQ, but a lot of behaviors which make him borderline Asperger’s Syndrome. He writes in some kind of Sanskrit/near gibberish which even he cannot read, misspells nearly every word, sometimes using several variations in the same sentence, and cannot begin to translate his spoken eloquence onto paper. This writing handicap translates, as you can imagine, to every other subject. He has very little ability to note norms in interpersonal interaction, leading to his isolation from his peers.

I think he needs to pen some several paragraph observations about the everyday world and the actions of the people in it, about everyday objects and about various other aspects of society. He needs to do this on a daily basis, with each paragraph written winning him computer game time, and he needs to execute these essays in an unusual manner – he needs to write the essay on the computer first, then translate it to the written page.

I think this approach covers a whole range of areas in need of improvement. By focusing on everyday objects and the actions of people around him, he is forced to extend his awareness to things previously seen but not really seen. By doing it daily it becomes habit; using it to earn computer time (10 minutes per paragraph?) makes it imperative. Using the computer to write the rough draft gives him some assistance with spelling and removes the actual letter-forming drudgery from the creative process…translating the product to paper as his finished product makes him focus, separately, on the need to be legible.

Some thoughts for beginning (non research-requiring) essays:

  • Describe a hammer
  • Why do people cry?
  • How does cold feel?
  • Why are video games important?
  • Describe Van Gogh’s Sunflowers
  • Describe lunch today
  • How do your classmates dress?
  • Why is freedom important?
  • What would Hitler and Napoleon talk about if they came to tea?
  • Why was Mr. Ed funny?
  • Why is work important?
  • How does dust feel when it’s vacuumed?

There will, of course, be more ideas to come. I’m also thinking about encouraging him to begin his own weblog (good for those non-game computer skills.) The key, of course, is consistency and demanding quality work which pushes his effort.

Stay tuned: We’ll see how this works out…I think I’ll start this weekend.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

I'll take one in XL


I saw the ad for this shirt on Powerline and, being me, just had to have one. It's only $1.99 (plus 5.95 shipping) from Metrospy. Go there and read the Muslim hate comments...they're grrrrreattt (in my best Tony the Tiger voice!!)

Friday, March 03, 2006

Durka, durka, durka....jihad!


Here are some more reasons for cartoon Jihad, collected from editorial pages by Henryk Broder. I truly wish I had some artistic talent and could produce cartoons of my own. Alas, my talent is limited to drawing stick figures, some of which still look pretty peculiar.

Without remorse

I’m generally a pretty easy-tempered guy, despite the picture on my blog. It takes a lot to get me riled up.

Reading the reports that a dozen Muslim males went to the school of one of the daughters of the Danish cartoonists, looking for her, makes my blood boil. Fortunately, she was not there at the time.

You see, I have a daughter. I am of Danish descent. I have also been threatened over things I wrote in the newspaper. That brings this story close to home for me. My rule is simple: you endanger my family and you should not hope for any mercy in my response. Read Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse to get some idea of what I’m talking about.

I take very seriously my duty to protect my family. And I have no doubts about my ability and willingness to kill someone threatening them. I’ve killed a lot of things in my time, from small game to ailing family pets and farm animals to big game animals…thug threatening my daughter? Just stop me from gutting him out when I’m done…just reflex, you know.

That stuff probably plays big in the barbaric land of your origin, Mohammed, and might even be excused for a time in an emasculated Europe. The tipping point is coming, though, and you shouldn’t confuse reticence at killing with inability to do so. Picking on children has a way of removing the genocidal fail-safes from even the most multicultural among us.

Threaten the children and you die? I think I can live with that.

Update: This is apparently a "post office type" story that grew with each retelling. See Agora's post in the comments for more.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Speaker for the Dead

Life, living and loving came into sharp focus for me this week.

You see, my mother died Friday night. She died while I was onstage in Blithe Spirit 30 miles away. She died to bring to an end a steep five-day decline in her health. She died shortly after my sister arrived in town and shortly after she was visited by her youngest grandchild. She died hours after being moved to the ICU. She died peacefully and with no pain.

She died from heart failure precipitated by the diffuse scleroderma, or systemic sclerosis, which had afflicted her.

She died.

It’s still hard to grasp. She seemed such a force of nature…a towering wall of impermeable granite…unyielding, unchanging, unstoppable. But, of course, she was vulnerable in the end, as we all are, prey to her own body which erred and began attacking itself.

My mother infected me with her insatiable need to read, I think. She read to my sister, my cousin and I for hours on end when we were children, regaling us with the tales of Baba Yaga and her hut on chicken legs, the Little Sister of the Sun and Harald of Trondheim battling the evil three-headed troll Askadalen in the halls of the king. “Now troll, now we shall see who shall win!” her voiced thundered when reading Harald of Trondheim. Later, she introduced me to science fiction, her greatest love, and eventually to Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card.

She liked the idea, postulated by Card, of someone who presents clearly and accurately the portrait of the deceased following their death, without glossing over their shortcomings. In that way, you remember the person and not some idealized rendering which supplants the real memories.

Here, then, is my testimonial for my mother; my attempt to be her Speaker for the Dead. Her obituary is here.

My mother was a difficult woman.

She was fiercely independent and resented authority of any kind. She had a very sharp tongue and often lashed out in reaction to conflict with others, including family members, only later taking time to reflect on the cause/resolution to the conflict.

But she loved and was devoted to her children and her nephew, and defended them with the ferocity of a lioness. She was an endless source of fascination and frustration for my father. As I’ve heard said many times by well-wishers in the last few days (and I think accurately), “there will never be another one like her…she was truly unique.”

She was extremely intelligent and, in her day, beautiful. She was very athletic, packing an inordinate amount of strength and coordination into her trim 5-feet-4-inch body. A tomboy and farm girl in her youth, she believed asking others for help was showing weakness and was steadfast in her refusal to accept aid. She had some social anxiety and was awkward and ill-at-ease in crowds of people. She often became somewhat tongue-tied or said inappropriate things. She had very strong ideas about what was right and wrong, but had trouble admitting when she erred.

She was a steely pioneer woman in an era devoid of a frontier.

Mom was possessed of a curious nature which rewarded her with encyclopedic knowledge on a variety of subjects. Her first love was plants, particularly obscure, hard-to-grow, flowering alpine plants and primroses. She worked tirelessly with wheelbarrow and shovel to create vast gardens approximating alpine growing conditions. For years, she sold cut flowers from her gardens at a roadside self-service stand…collecting large jars full of change from her enterprise, her “flower money,” to be used for purchase of the following year’s seeds.

She also loved reading science fiction and thinking about astronomy and quantum theory…one of her earliest science fiction recommendations to me was to read Larry Niven’s Neutron Star. It was immensely frustrating to her that she could understand the theory, but not fully the mathematics behind quantum mechanics. Recently she had developed a taste for the works of Dean Koontz and Tom Clancy, and was a longtime devotee of Ayn Rand.

She loved to debate family members on subjects ranging from politics to the Cleveland Browns. She refused to her dying day to admit publicly that quarterback Brian Sipe of the Cardiac Kids teams was fit to play football…Otto Graham was the only Browns quarterback worth talking about. She was resistant to change, doggedly hanging onto her black and white televisions until replacements could no longer be found. She did laundry with a wringer washer in the basement and hung the clothes on a clothesline behind the house.

She loved art and dearly wished she possessed some artistic talent. She also loved music and was on the progressive edge during the 1960s and 70s; while other parents were listening to the Beachboys, Mom had Jefferson Airplane and The Moody Blues cranked up to 10 on the stereo.

Mom also loved the performing arts, encouraging my sister and me in the areas of dance, music and theater. She was the 60s/ 70s version of the Soccer Mom, spending half her time driving my sister and me back and forth to the local arts center. She was instructed in music by her mother, a piano and school teacher, through most of her early years and played piano in a band during her late teen years.

My mother smoked too much and, for much of her life, drank too much. In that way, she was selfish; refusing repeated family requests to quit. She was, however, the backbone of the family as my father was often away at work…sometimes a considerable distance from home. My father came in for more than his share of her tongue lashings, particularly in the 1970s, but she was careful to reserve her world-class vituperation for his words; she continued to praise his integrity and intelligence after cooling down.

Her housecleaning was haphazard and her cooking, at times, dangerous (whoever heard of sauerkraut brownies!?!)

Despite her faults, I loved her with all my heart. And the world is a grayer place for her loss, for she was one of a kind.