Random Musings

Aftermath in Tucson: amid good news, serious questions remain

2011-01-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

By now, the horrific events of Saturday, January 8, 2011 in Tucson, Arizona have been spread throughout the news media that they no longer need to be exhaustively rehashed. Now, it is time to move beyond the “what” to both the “why?” and the more important question: “how could this have been prevented?”

The good news is that wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is going to live. In their latest update, her surgeons at University Medical Center in Tucson report that she continues to respond to simple commands and is moving both arms. This latter is the best news yet because it shows that, at a minimum, the motor control region in her left hemisphere (the one that got hit) is in reasonably good condition. Because she is still on a breathing tube as a reasonable precaution she cannot talk. Until it is removed – as it will in time, since she is able to breathe on her own, another positive sign – her physicians will not know the extent to which her left hemisphere speech center has been damaged.

The gunman – Jared Laugher, 22, of Tucson – was subdued at the scene by a quartet of bystanders. On Monday, January 10, in Federal Court in Phoenix, he was arraigned on five federal felonies and ordered held without bail. The arraignment was moved from Tucson when the entire Southern District Court bench recused themselves out of necessity because Southern District Chief Judge John Rolle, a friend of the Congresswoman, died at the scene.

Now the finger pointing and rhetorical jousting has begun, with seemingly everyone pointing their finger at someone as responsible for triggering this event. This continuing negativity has got to stop. Indications are that the gunman was politically independent, so the vitriol from the Conservative Right probably would have had minimal effect on him. At this time, I have seen no indication that investigators have found any compelling links between the gunman and right wing talk shows and groups.

What is emerging, however, is a long-term pattern of unstable behavior in public. Last fall he was asked to leave one of Pima Community College’s campuses because of a pattern of disruptive outbursts in his classes that left his classmates feeling fearful. It is impossible for anyone to make a definitive diagnosis at a distance in a case like this, however, it is clear that he does have problems of some nature. I have a hunch that his motivation was completely non political, which lets right wing commentary off the hook – for now.

At the same time, this needs to be a wake up call to all Americans. Political conversations and commentary have grown way too caustic and fixated on tearing the other side down. The era of violence-suggestive political speech needs to come to an end now, before it encourages another unstable individual to act out the violence being spread by talk show hosts, and far too many politicians.

Net Neutrality May Soon Be a Thing of the Past

2010-12-21T10:59:00.002-07:00

Today is Tuesday, December 21, so today is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. In the wake of a historic vote by the Commissioners of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this morning, today likely will be seen in retrospect as the darkest day in the history of the Internet. Despite campaign promises, and repeated statements after his inauguration supporting unfettered Net Neutrality, today, the FCC is poised to adopt a sweeping new set of regulations that threaten the independence and open freedom Internet users now enjoy.

Since its emergence in the 1990's as a public spin off from a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) research project called ARPAnet, the Internet has been freely accessible by every interested computer user with a means of connecting to it. While all Internet service providers (ISPs) have always charged users for their connections, the content itself has always been available free of charge. That may be threatened in the future.

Once implemented as proposed, the new regulations will make it easier for mobile service providers such as A T &T and Verizon to restrict or block access to web sites or services they deem to be in competition with similar services they themselves provide. As an example, a provider with its own video on demand service would be free to either severely restrict or completely block its customers from accessing Netflix’s instant streaming movies and TV show episodes. Other streaming video sites could be similarly affected.

Some of what is allowed under the new rules is already happening with some Cable TV/broadband Internet providers. My broadband service is provided by Cable One, a regional carrier located primarily in the Midwest and parts of the West. They never explain why to their customers, however, they have completely blocked access to ESPN’s on-line live game broadcasting option now called ESPN3.com (previously it was ESPN360.com), Under the proposed rules, actions such as these could easily become commonplace.

Another big area of concern – especially for mobile Internet customers – is media access. Currently, independent sites such as Newser, Alternet, Treehugger.com and the Huffington Post are the best of the corporation independent news websites that help to keep the Internet democratic by providing all of the hard news and fact-based opinion that the corporate media tries to suppress. Under the new rules, an ISP that is ideologically strongly conservative would be allowed to restrict or deny access to “unacceptable” web sites like these.

In time, I can see this access filtering extending to the blogosphere as well. This is why US Senator Al Franken (D-MN) sees this issue as “the most important free speech issue of our time” in a well written critique published on the Huffington Post website yesterday.

One strength of the Internet lies in its diffuse, largely unregulated, fiercely independent nature. There never has been a “central headquarters” for the net, and one must never be created. Corporate America wants the FCC to give its blessing to their goal of transforming the worldwide Internet into yet one more profit center for them, and into yet one more avenue through which they control what every human being on the planet sees, hears and believes.

If and when the FCC completes its action on this matter and posts the new rules on its website, I will have more to say on this matter. For now, I add my blogger’s voice to those who oppose regulatory moves aimed at trying to regulate that which defies regulation – the Internet.

Fire in historic Provo, Utah Tabernacle Leaves City’s Cultural Heart Broken

2010-12-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

Sometime in the wee small hours of Friday, December 17, 2010, a fire broke out, apparently on the second floor, of the historic Provo Tabernacle in Utah. This building, owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, has been used for both community and church events.

Shortly before 2:45 am, the Provo Fire Department received word of the fire, and responded within moments, to find the second floor engulfed with fire. At first, hose crews were sent into the structure to attack the fire from the inside. However, in time, in the interests of safety, these crews were withdrawn while the suppression effort continued from the outside. At 5 am, the north part of the roof began to collapse, and take part of the north wall with it. By 6 am, virtually the entire roof had collapsed.

The big question, naturally, is whether the outer walls can be saved or not. The answer is far from certain at this time because the investigation into the cause has yet to begin. Only after that process is finished can structural engineers enter the structure to assess the condition of what is left. Preliminarily, the appearance of several visible cracks in the first floor outer walls before the fire was extinguished raises serious doubts.

One might wonder why a non-Mormon who has never even visited Provo would even care about this news event. I find I can’t explain it, however, there is something about this story that has touched me very deeply. For some reason, I feel a sense of loss, even at a distance of several hundred miles. Perhaps, in time, clarity on these issues will surface. Until then, may my compassion reach out and bring a feeling of comfort to the community of Provo.

I’m Back (Again)

2010-12-18T14:03:00.000-07:00

To paraphrase the heroic pilot who saved the world in the movie Independence Day, “Hello, world – I’m back.” With this post I bring this blog literally back from oblivion. I was under the impression that I had deleted it earlier this year. So when I logged on to Blogger.com today, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that this blog still exists AND that people are still occasionally visiting it. So, rather than start a new blog that no one could possibly know about, I will resume posting Random Musings on a variety of subjects.

Last month I took part in the National Novel Writing Month contest for the third year in a row, and in the process became a three time winner of the event. In its wake has come a new personal commitment to write at least 1,500 words a day of either fiction, non fiction, or both every day of the year. What better encouragement to write on a regular basis that to have a blog (or two) nagging at me?

President Barack Obama: Most Disappointing One-Term President in American History?

2010-02-25T11:41:00.001-07:00

In 2008, then Senator Barack Obama captured the attention of the American electorate by his campaign theme of “Change we can believe in.” This message took hold in the minds of many voters tired of the communicationally challenged Bush administration. So, in November, he was elected in a stunning landslide over the Republican ticket of McCain & Palin. Even in his Inaugural Address, this theme of change loomed large, renewing the hope everyone felt.

Almost from day one of his administration, President Obama seemingly has spent more time backpedaling from campaign promises and distancing himself from actions mentioned in the Inaugural address than he has pushing through actual progress.

The muddled mess called health care reform is but one shining example of this pattern. Early on, his administration emphasized the need for a Public Option in health care reform. Then when obstructionist forces in Congress – from both sides of the aisle – balked, instead of standing firm, he backtracked, and withdrew his support. As a result, meaningful health care reform likely is unattainable for the foreseeable future. Indeed, in the March 11 issue of The New York Review of Books, Elizabeth Drew asks “Is There Life in Health Care Reform?” While serious doubts exists about the future of the current House and Senate versions, there is still a slim chance that a decent bill will emerge.

More disturbing is the track record of waffling being established by the Obama administration in the foreign relations arena. In a brief review of this muddied record, Kenneth Ross, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch asks “Empty Promises? Obama’s Hesitant Embrace of Human Rights” in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs. This short article gives a well written look at this track record, and the places where his words and actions do not match up.

Perhaps no issue underscores this inconsistent track record more clearly than the status of Guantanamo Bay and the remaining inmates. In his Inaugural Address, Obama made it clear that the base would be closed within a year. Yet it is still open, still occupied, and the military tribunals created by the Bush administration still exist. Does a clear mandate for the closure of Gitmo still exist? It is beginning to appear like such a mandate no longer exists.

Domestically, his track record is equally dismal. Too many misguided Bush administration policies continue in full effect, apparently without being examined by his administration for their effectiveness, or even their constitutionality. Indeed, it appears like airport security is only growing more draconian, more irrational and more constitutionally questionable under his administration, not less. As a nation, are we safer today from terrorist attacks than we were even a year ago? I have my doubts.

During the campaign, and early in his Presidency, he at least made it sound like he was a firm supporter of expanding civil and legal rights for the entire GLBT community. Yet, over a year later, only the Matthew Shepherd Hate Crimes Act has been enacted into law. It is beginning to appear more and more that he has withdrawn support for passage of an Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA) that bans employment discrimination based on sexual identity or gender orientation. When that critically needed law will actually be voted on by either the full House or Senate is anybodies guess.

Despite the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff coming out strongly in support of repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, again his administration seemingly has backtracked and withdrawn its support for repeal. If the leadership of the military supports repeal, and if there is widespread support of the idea from the rank and file in the military, shouldn’t he at least be somewhat supportive of the repeal legislation languishing in Congress?

Throughout the campaign and the early days of his administration, President Obama kept promising greater transparency in how the administration conducted its business. Increasingly, those promises are not being kept.

One example of this re-emergence of Bush-era opaqueness affects me personally, and I am beyond not happy. In the waning days of the Bush administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Public and Indian Housing drafted a revision to tenant documentation requirements. Under this proposed rule, all tenants of Public Housing Authority units – regardless of length of tenancy – would be required to provide a birth certificate, or a US Passport as proof of legal citizenship status. Those who failed to provide the documentation in a timely manner would be declared to be illegal aliens, and evicted from their residence. What remains unanswered is whether HUD’s declaration of those in non-compliance as illegal would lead to their arrest and deportation by the Federal Government.

The Obama administration revisited this draft rule last fall in response to a number of concerns voiced by Public Housing Agencies near the US borders with Canada and Mexico about the rule’s impact on people born in other countries. Then, working in a completely opaque, behind closed doors environment, the draft rule took effect January 31, 2010.

Because I am disabled, I live in a local Housing Authority studio apartment. Thus, I have two major issues with this rule and how it was placed into effect.

First, at no time has the need, or benefit, of this rule ever been explained to Public Housing residents, despite the fact that it affects us personally. Not only that, but, based on Internet research I have done in recent months, no public hearings of any kind were ever held, and no public comment period ever existed. If this is what the Obama administration means by “transparency”, then my Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary needs serious updating.

Second, I take serious umbrage whenever anyone questions my citizenship status. I represent the eleventh generation of my patrilineal lineage to call this continent home. Indeed, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather brought my family tree to New London, Connecticut in 1666, then was chosen as New London’s Constable a year later. Thus, my family has lived on this continent for more than a third of a millennium, so I should not have to prove to anyone that I am a US Citizen. Yet that is precisely what I am being forced to do.

This ridiculous rule first saw light of day during the illegal immigration “crisis” that the Bush administration believed we had in the United States. It is one of many such rules that needed to be scuttled early on in his administration by President Obama. This rule does nothing about increasing US security, or about reversing the on-going financial malaise gripping the country. So, why is it necessary? The only reason I can see is that it gives control addicted, voyeuristic Federal bureaucrats yet one more tool to use to threaten and oppress the less well off, the disabled, the physically challenged and senior citizens without cause. This from a Nobel Peace Prize recipient?

Kenneth Ross, referring to the situation in Israel, quotes part of President Obama’s Nobel acceptance speech: “only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.” While these are nice words, again, the administration’s actions them. More disturbingly, with the dual wars in Afghanistan and Iraq still very much with us, these words apply as much to US citizens as those of any other country. Are all of his promises and rhetoric nothing more than empty words? Apparently.

My disappointment with the Obama administration continues to grow more profound with almost every passing day. I voted for him in 2008. I doubt that I will vote for him in 2012.

Baptist missionaries arrested in Haiti, giving the United States yet another international black eye

2010-02-05T22:54:00.002-07:00

On January 20 ten Baptist missionaries, most of whom reside in Idaho, were arrested in Haiti for trying to transport 33 children into the Dominican republic without proper documentation. In their initial court hearing they were charged with kidnaping and criminal association. Because the first charge involves children, Haitian law apparently prohibits release on bail while the case is pending.

This case has already been fairly widely covered in the US news media, with most media outlets getting the essential facts right. However, pertinent background facts about Laura Silsby, the group’s leader have been either ignored or glossed over far too often. In some of the media reports, this presents the group as being victimized by the Haitian government while possessing noble intentions. I contend this is far from the case.

In Idaho, Laura Silsby has frequently been in trouble of one kind or another with the law. She owns an online shopping business based in southwest Idaho. Between February, 2008 and July, 2009, fourteen lawsuits for nonpayment of wages. Nine were resolved in favor of the employees. Her business paid out in excess of $34,000 in back wages and Idaho Department of Labor penalties.

Currently, court records acquired by the Boise Idaho Statesman newspaper show that she is due in District Court next week for a hearing in a civil suit filed last October by her former marketing director. The trial in that suit is scheduled to begin later in February. In March, she is due in court to answer to yet another civil suit that has been filed against her.

An excellent brief summary of her civil woes assembled by the Statesman can be read here.

From her track record of deceit, and an apparent problem with keeping commitments, troubling questions abound about this entire group effort. Equally puzzling is the make-up of the detainees. Six of the ten are 34 years old or older, and include a part-time youth pastor at Bethel Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas and the pastor of the Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho. Why didn’t one of these other adults sense something was amiss, and speak up? For that matter, why
didn’t at least one of them take the time to research the relevant legal requirements for setting up the Haitian refugee orphanage they were allegedly building in the Dominican Republic?

Clearly there are many details about this incident that have not been made public yet. Until all of the facts are on the table and out in the open, many questions will remain. The group’s Haitian defense attorney claims that nine of the ten were unaware that they lacked the proper paperwork for moving the children across the border. I find that claim a bit hard to believe.

Once the Haitian judicial process is completed the world will know whether the collected evidence is sufficient to confirm their guilt or not. If they are adjudged to be guilty, then the question shifts to the appropriate sentence to be handed down. The kidnaping charge carries a possible maximum sentence of up to life in prison while the criminal association charge carries a lighter sentence. Their Haitian attorney seems to think that the most anyone would get is fifteen years. Would this be a just sentence? As I am not an attorney, this is a question I do not feel qualified to answer.

Still, this case raises troubling issues. Just how far should American aid providers be allowed to go in helping foreign victims of natural disasters? Is it appropriate for aid workers to seek to convince affected parents to hand them their children, as apparently happened in this case? How much effort should aid workers put into documenting whether a child is or is not an orphan? Finally, if a child has lost both parents, but has other, even distant, living relatives who are in a position to provide care and shelter, is the child still an orphan?

The down side to this unfortunate incident is the negative reputation and image it unavoidably lends to the Southern Baptist Convention and its relief efforts world wide. Even though all ten are members of SBC-affiliated churches, their questionable actions should not be seen as indicative of the way Baptist missionaries behave. (In the interest of full disclosure: I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of any Baptist church.)

As a native of Idaho I am disgusted by the actions of this group. The typical Idaho resident is a stable, law abiding citizen who would not consider stooping to seemingly stealing children in an earthquake ravaged country to satisfy personal needs. Sadly it appears like Laura Silsby does not fit this mold.

Tonight, as I write this post, my heart goes out to the Haitian people. On the heels of last month’s crippling earthquake, the survivors do not need events like this creating more problems.

President Obama Should Skip The Annual National Prayer Breakfast

2010-02-03T18:22:00.000-07:00

This year’s National Prayer Breakfast will occur tomorrow, Thursday, February 4, 2010 in Washington, DC. Every year it draws invited members of Congress, the Administration, influential business and religious leaders. It is billed as an ecumenical gathering that reaches out to a wide variety of faith traditions. As AlterNet found out when it requested media access, the event is private, by invitation only and excludes Muslims, Jews and, presumably, anyone else whose views differ from those of the sponsors.

This pointedly narrow-minded Christian gathering is closed to most religious faiths and denominations in the United States. Accompanying the breakfast is a week-long lobbying festival on Capitol Hill, during which Family members pointedly push their agenda as the only acceptable American positions and policies. Thus, it appears to me that, whenever members of Congress or the Administration attend the breakfast they are sending a silent message that the Separation of Church and State doctrine is empty and meaningless.

President Eisenhower attended for the first time in 1953, and the sitting president has attended every year since. In keeping with that tradition, President Obama is planning on attending. There are compelling reasons why he should skip the breakfast, thereby breaking the 57 year long tradition. Then he would be wise to use his absence to more forcefully speak out against the pending Ugandan law criminalizing homosexuality and the advocacy of gay rights. This law provides for imposition of the death penalty for some “offenses.” Reportedly this law was written, and promoted in the Ugandan Parliament by legislators who are affiliated with, if not actual members of, The Family.

I also must question the ethical propriety of any Administration or Congressional member to openly attend this private event. The organizers, usually known as The Family is hugely secretive, particularly when it comes to revealing the names of members, or any details about its finances. Also, in a statement released earlier this week, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) noted that the organization’s head, Doug Coe, has praised the organizing abilities of Hitler and Bin Ladin.

Given that The Family obviously does not believe in freedom of speech, of association, of the press, or of religion, is it ethical for those who swore to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” before taking office to attend anyway? Is it appropriate for Administration and Congressional officials to attend an event overseen by one who praises an avowed enemy of the United States?

I am back after another hiatus and a laptop change

2010-02-03T13:23:00.001-07:00

Two and a half months ago this blog, and my writing-oriented blog, From Both Sides of the Fence, went on what I thought at the time would be a permanent vacation. When this hiatus began, I was deep into participating in the 11th annual National Novel Writing Month contest (I won, as usual) and was struggling with an eight year old Sony laptop, and its arthritic keyboard.

Thanks entirely to a surprise offer from a relative in December, I have retired the Sony Vaio laptop, replacing it with a new Hewlett Packard Pavillion laptop. At the same time that I gained a larger screen and keyboard, this changeover also allowed me to upgrade from Windows XP (32 bit) to 64 bit Windows 7 Professional.

I have never been much of a Microsoft booster. Still, with Windows 7, I feel like Microsoft finally has developed a Windows version that really works. For the first time, I feel like Windows is working for me, rather than against me. For the first time, perhaps ever, the Internet is a joy to use because it is so colorful and fast.

For the first time since I launched these blogs, I can finally see them the way other visitors to them do. I am quite pleased at the colorful appearances of both, appearances I previously could only guess at due to limitations in the older laptop.

So Random Musings is back in production, this time much more likely to stay that way.

Maine Voters Fell for Outright Lies and I am Angry

2009-11-04T12:17:00.001-07:00

Maine was one of a handful of states that held state-wide election voting. New Jersey and Virginia elected new Governors while Washington state and Maine voted on state-wide referendums affecting the GLBT community. Other states, including Idaho, held local elections for City Council seats.

Earlier this year the Maine Legislature passed, and Maine’s governor signed, a new law granting marriage equality in the state. This opened marriage up to any two consenting adults without regard to gender or sexual orientation. So the Religious Right launched a ballot initiative to overturn that law.

By using many of the same tactics that successfully passed Prop 8 in California last year, and by using much of the same inaccurate, deceptive, dishonest and alarmist rhetoric, these same forces cowed Maine’s voters into overturning marriage equality in that state. This is a bitter defeat that the GLBT community throughout the United States needs to be concerned about, and unhappy with. Every successful denial of any part of GLBT civil rights strengthens the opposition and encourages them to be even bolder in future campaigns.

I am also angry with President Obama for staying silent in the weeks before this election. Indeed, he could have helped strengthen the supporters of marriage equality in Maine (and elsewhere) by using the power of the Executive Order to suspend the Federal Defense of Marriage Act while mandating its repeal by Congress. He could have spoken out and stressed that the Maine overturn effort was both unacceptable and wrong. But he did not.

As a result, people like Harry Knox, the Human Rights Campaign’s religions and faith program director wondering (among other things) “Am I human?” “Am I an American?” No American citizen, regardless of who or what they are should ever be forced to feel that way.

To hear the vitriol-infused opponents of GLBT civil rights protections put it, they are taking a stand to preserve the sanctity of marriage and to preserve America as a Christian nation. I don’t get it. The version of Christianity I grew up knowing is grounded deeply in truth, honesty in all dealings with your fellow man, and a non judgmental approach to life. In addition, even as a child I was taught that the Devil (by whatever name you choose to call him) is the father of all lies.

They claim that because the US is a Christian nation, and has been a Christian nation from its inception, they must support continuing discrimination and oppression based on factors they disapprove of. By taking this stand they negate a direct statement about the nature of the US found in the Treaty of Tripoli, ratified in 1797, and written by President George Washington’s administration. The preamble of this document asserts that "the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." Ergo, the United States has always been a secular nation open to all faith traditions and varieties of religious beliefs.

An excellent and comprehensive look at the question “is America a Christian nation?” can be found at the Freedom From Religion Foundation website. The more the religious right uses the Bible as a weapon against the GLBT community, the more strongly I feel like becoming a member of that organization.

The religious right claims that they are fighting to keep America solidly Christian. Yet, given their open embracing of all forms of dishonest rhetoric and behavior, frequently stooping to using outright lies to get their way, I am beginning to wonder. Given the New Testament’s description of the Devil as the “father of lies”, is the US becoming more securely Christian, or is it becoming more Satanic?

Halloween: ghoulish, yes, but what do we have to fear? Nothing

2009-10-31T21:43:00.002-06:00

The sun has now set on Halloween 2009. This means it is time to
be afraid . . .
Be VERY afraid!!!
Mwahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!

Yet, in reality, what do we have to be afraid of? In reality – absolutely nothing. How can this be?

Do we need to fear the past? Unless you are a casual criminal with a conscience that frets about past actions, it is illogical to fear the past. Why? That which is past continues to trouble your mind only if you allow it. Some years ago I developed an analogy that helped me begin recovering from my own past. Briefly, I visualized past memories as cups of colored water, which I then poured off the east side of the Golden Gate Bridge. As soon as they were dumped, I moved to the west side of the bridge, to spot them in the bay water flowing out into the pacific.

Guess what? By the time their water had merged with the greater stream of water flowing under the bridge, their color had disappeared so that the added water was indistinguishable from the main stream. In other words, they effectively no longer existed, so they no longer needed to bother me. To me, this adds meaning to the old saw about “water under the bridge.”

Do we need to fear the present? As long as Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now provides a guiding influence to one’s life, fear will not enter the picture because, in each now we only take on that which we can easily handle. Everything else is left for a future now when we will again have the tools, strength and insight we will need.

Carefully controlling exposure to mainstream media, whether print, electronic or Internet, helps control or eliminate fear. Sadly, mainstream media (and Fox News in particular) is increasingly political agenda and profit-driven. This is increasingly leaving them beholden to the needs and opinions of their corporate advertisers. As a result, news reports and opinions that might be seen as critical of their advertisers are suppressed.

As long as net neutrality exists, so that the Internet is openly accessible by everyone without governmentally-imposed restrictions, there will be a variety of alternative news sources on the net. The challenge becomes that of identifying the websites that feel “right” to you, then hanging on to them. I have found several, including The Huffington Post and Newser.com that I endorse.

At the same time, for me, the Buddha’s teaching “all is impermanent” significantly blocks fear of the present. Whenever something crops up that my mind is unsure whether it can handle it or not, this teaching defuses the inner tension by reminding me that the uncertainty will not last indefinitely. Since making this teaching an essential part of my being, quite a bit of fear and anxiety have been defused by recalling it to my conscious mind.

Do we need to fear the future? Humanly, not fearing the future is far from easy, because of this fear’s roots in the fear of the unknown. This primal fear may have developed in humankind at the time of the fall from the Garden of Eden. The challenge faced in rising above fearing the future is in developing the discernment needed to recognize future events that are worthy of fear and those that are not.

Once again, Eckhart Tolle’s teachings help with this discernment’s development. By focusing on living only in a segment of the Now that supplies manageable bits of life to be dealt with, the future largely takes care of itself. The fact is that virtually everything the human mind fears about the future either turns out to be far more trivial than the mind envisioned, or never comes to pass. As to the rest, living only in the Now guarantees that when those events (or things) arrive, they will be at least relatively easy to deal with.

The power of the Law of Attraction also is useful in dispelling fears of the future. Instead of focusing thought energy on what might go wrong in the future, focus it on what can go right. This increases the likelihood that future events will be much more positive than negative. As those who teach this law stress, “what you think about the most, manifests the most.” Focus on that which you fear, and that is what the future will present to you. Focus on that which you will be able to handle, and that is what you will encounter in future Nows.

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is finally law

2009-10-28T21:49:00.001-06:00

Earlier this afternoon, in a well attended White House ceremony, President Barack Obama signed the Defense Authorization bill into law. Included as an attachment to this bill is The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. With President Obama’s historic signature on the larger bill, the first Federal law to explicitly extend protections to all transsexuals is now law.

I agree with National Center for Transgender Equality Executive Director Mara Keisling’s observation that this is a powerful day as the United States government, for the first time, stands up and declares that violence against transgender people is wrong and will not be tolerated in our country," Many people who are unfamiliar with the transgender community and its social milieu cannot fully grasp the palpable fear too many community members must live with on a daily basis. This fear starts with the fear of becoming a violent crime victim because of who they are. It them extends to the all-too-real risk of extended periods of unemployment and forced homelessness, again because of who they are. This law will make adequate prosecution of violent criminal acts committed because of “how they pray, who they love or who they are” as President Obama observed before signing the bill into law.

One point cannot be stressed enough: this hate crimes law extension addresses violent criminal acts exclusively. It does not render illegal acts of hate speech. So the claims from the deluded right that this law erodes (or repeals) both freedom of speech and freedom of religion by restricting what can be said from the pulpit are flat out wrong.

I continue to struggle with understanding how those who identify themselves as Christians can condone deliberate acts of violence against their fellow man. I grew up in a Christian family, have embraced the Faith in the past, and have read the Bible many times. The impression I have always had is that Christianity is a faith deeply rooted in love and tolerance. This is best seen in Christ’s commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself.” In all of the years of meditatively reading the New Testament, I have never seen any list of allowable exemptions from this commandment. So where is all of this Christian Right hatred coming from?

As the NCTE e-mail announcing this law’s signing stresses, the new law adds sexual orientation, gender identity, gender and disability to existing law. With specific regard to the transsexuals, the new law:
will help educate law enforcement about the frequent hate violence against transgender people and the need to prevent and appropriately address it;
will help provide federal expertise and resources when they are needed to overcome a lack of resources or the willful inaction on the part of local and/or state law enforcement; and
will help educate the public that violence against anyone, including transgender people, is unacceptable and illegal.
All of these aspects of the law are positive steps forward for the transgender community, as well as the larger GLBT and disabled communities.

Joe Solomonese of the Human Rights Campaign also has issued an e-mail celebrating this historic milestone. He points out that this milestone has been reached only as a result of constant efforts over the last decade by literally countless concerned citizens. These efforts have been spearheaded by Matthew Shepard’s parents, who were able to attend the signing ceremony. In his opening remarks, President Obama recognized their efforts and stated that during an earlier meeting with them in the Oval Office he “promised them that this day would come.”

Now that Federal law finally protects the GLBT community instead of supporting various forms of discrimination, the real work needs to begin. Next up are the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which bars employment-related discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Bills that would bring this protection into begin have been introduced in the House of Representatives. Only through concerted grass-roots lobbying by those of us who support it will it have any chance of becoming law.

But ENDA isn’t the only pressing issue on Congress’ plate. Equally important are repeal of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (or DOMA) that may have made sense at one time, but increasingly has grown into an irritating relic of a less enlightened era. Likewise the Military’s ill-advised “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that effectively closes off military service to the entire GLBT community needs to be repealed sooner rather than later.

So, while tonight is a time for celebrating today’s historic accomplishment, in reality the work is just beginning.

The Unrecognized American Epidemic: Animal Cruelty, Part II -- Do domesticated animals have souls?

2009-10-23T22:18:00.000-06:00

Hovering in the background of any discussion of animal cruelty is the question about animals and eternal souls. Conventional Christian wisdom holds that they do not, that the presence of an in-dwelling eternal soul is what sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Perhaps, however, I am not entirely convinced about this. The innate ability of certain, but not all, animals – dogs and cats in particular – to become companions for humans, and to largely need humans for survival gives me pause.

If the possibility of some animals possessing an innate eternal soul did not exist, then how could specific species of animals become domesticated over a period of time? This question is particularly pertinent for canines and felines (i.e. dogs and cats). Wouldn’t all animals remain wild and inherently unsafe for humans to be around, like lions, hippopotamuses, etc are today? Yet through the years there have been many reports of family pet dogs, cats, horses, even other animals enriching or saving people’s lives in one way or another.

I have heard people opine that a dog who alerts family members to the presence of a fire in the family home thus getting everyone outside in time is merely seeking to be let out for itself. In other words that it is incapable of any form of altruistic thinking or behavior. I disagree. If dogs lack the capacity for altruistic thinking, then how are seeing eye and hearing ear dogs explained?

I have heard many people express the view that animals have no concept of death and are incapable of feeling emotion, hence have no feelings. Plus, since they cannot understand human language, it is perfectly ok to make snide, cutting remarks about them in their presence. Again, I disagree, and for the same reason. I have seen contradictory behavioral evidence with my own eyes.

When I was a child my family’s life was greatly enriched by Tiger, a purebred male seal point siamese cat that we acquired as a very young kitten. Because the breeder also had a couple of very friendly, outgoing dogs, Tiger lacked the typical feline inability to coexist with dogs. Our net door neighbors had both a poodle named Kukla and an older female siamese cat. It did not take very long for Tiger and Kukla to become very good friends. When Kukla passed away Tiger very clearly went through his own mourning process. It is true that cats lack tear glands so they really can’t shed tears the way humans can, but all other outward signs of being in mourning can be expressed by cats.

Another piece of evidence in favor of some animals having souls lies in their ability to both give and feel love. For people struggling to overcome some mental illnesses – depression, in particular – therapy cats frequently provide the companionship and affection (not to mention attention) the person needs. By providing the person with the same benefits yielded by psychoactive medications, a therapy cat is significantly healthier for the patient.

There are numerous reports over time of dogs or cats becoming separated from their families during long-distance moves. The families, naturally, assume that they will never again see their beloved pet (since pets, presumably, can’t read change of address cards), so they begin to mourn the loss. Then, after a variable period of time, the missing pet turns up at their new doorstep ready for a very long nap. If animals lack the capacity for an eternal soul, then how is this behavior explained? More pertinently, how do the animals find the correct address?

To shift gears slightly, for many years I have been skeptical of the contention that cats have no souls. For one thing, a middle ages Pope drew on his own feelings about cats (he clearly hated them) and denounced them as the spawn of the devil. While this seemingly was rooted in black cats being linked with witchcraft and with this claim that ancient Egyptians worshiped cats, his denunciation has never made sense to me. In particular, the long-running claim that ancient Egyptians worshiped cats, based only on the discovery of numerous pictographs of cats in Egyptian temples, has never been confirmed through other uncovered records, to the best of my knowledge.

For another thing, on many afternoons (or mornings) when sunlight is streaming through the windows I have observed many (mostly) younger cats contentedly (and intensely) watching something moving around in mid air, something only they can see. Whatever this entity is, its presence clearly is a source of great joy for them. If these occurrences aren’t spiritual in nature, what are they?

I am no theologian, and am largely estranged from Christianity, so I will leave the debate over what the Christian Bible says about animal souls to those more knowledgeable about such matters. In 2007 Gary Kurz wrote a brief, very informative and well-reasoned article on this issue titled The Souls of Animals. There may be some Christian Fundamentalists who disagree with his conclusions. However, his analysis does make a lot a sense to me.

Additional insightful points are made by Stacy Mantle in an essay posted at ask.com's Veterinary Medicine section entitled Do Animals Have Souls? Her points bear repeating: animals simply do not treat humans the way humans mistreat animals. I have never heard of a cat drenching a human with a flammable liquid, then striking a match. I have never read any accounts of dogs locking their human companions in their back yard without adequate food, water or shelter, then moving. Nor have I ever heard of a dog putting two humans in a ring where they are allowed to fight until one is too injured to continue, or is dead.

In reflecting on the importance of animals to humans, I find myself wondering. Would God create this ability to form loving bonds with animals if they did not possess souls? In light of this, shouldn’t abusive treatment of animals be seen as morally wrong as abusing either young children or vulnerable adults? If people can accept that murder of other humans is morally wrong, then why can’t they accept that the deliberate killing of ferrets, dogs, cats and other companionate animals is also morally wrong?

Finally, Congress Got it right: The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is headed for the President’s Desk

2009-10-23T21:47:00.001-06:00

Yesterday (October 22), the U S Senate passed The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Once it is signed by President Obama, it will become the first Federal law to explicitly include all GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered) individuals inside the protective umbrella of federal law. This represents a sharp reversal from earlier Federal legislation that explicitly excluded the transgendered from its provisions.

Specifically, in the 1990's, when Congress codified the military “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, it legitimized the practice of barring all GLBT individuals from military service. When Congress enacted the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act, the legislation explicitly excluded transsexuals from its protective provisions. None of the federal laws addressing either employment or housing discrimination provide protections based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The Federal Defense of Marriage Act (or DOMA, for short) excludes same-sex couples from federal protections and benefits. Many states use this law to justify legally declining to recognize same-sex marriages entered into in another state.

This new law adds sexual orientation, gender identity, gender and disability to Federal hate (or bias motivated) crimes protection. In addition, local authorities who are unable or unwilling to deal with hate crimes will now be allowed to seek federal assistance. On this point, this new law represents a valuable step forward because there are many law enforcement departments that simply lack either the resources or the expertise to properly deal with crimes of this nature. More troubling are the Prosecuting Attorneys who decline to add hate crime charges to crimes that meet the definition. Perhaps that situation will now improve.

One point needs to be emphasized. Unlike claims still being made by right wing authors and commentators, this new law does not address hate speech. Thus, it does not muzzle deeply conservative churches who have divorced themselves from bedrock Christianity. Its provisions apply only when an individual is physically attacked because of their real or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender or disability.

Thus, it will still be legal to write and talk about hate-driven topics, so right-wing radio and television talk shows are free to continue their spew of verbal diarrhea uninterrupted. However, it will now be legally not ok to physically act out on that warped rhetoric.

This is as it should be, and I applaud Congress for showing this rare use of statutory restraint. Some radical group likely will try to challenge this new law on First Amendment grounds. By explicitly excluding all forms of speech from its provisions, passing constitutional muster in the courts should be more easily achieved.

It will be interesting to observe the response to this law here in Idaho. Idaho law does recognize freedom from discrimination as a civil right. However, this recognition excludes discrimination based on age, gender, sexual orientation, disability or gender identity. I suspect its impact in this state will be minimal for quite a while.

The Unrecognized American Epidemic: Animal Cruelty, Part I: Why the ASPCA’s mission grows more urgent on a daily basis

2009-10-17T22:32:00.000-06:00

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we have moved from summer into fall, in preparation for winter’s inevitable onset. More and more prevalent in the media are stories about this year’s H1N1 swine flue season and its impact on various population components. This, however, is not about this potential epidemic. Rather, it is about a much longer-running American epidemic whose effects are more insidious, and in the long-run more deadly. This is the epidemic of acts of animal cruelty in all 50 states.

This issue came back into my attention this week via an e-mail from the valuable activism organization, Change.org. In this e-mail they told all I needed to know about the latest outrage that surfaced in the news this past Tuesday. The horror tale broke my heart, and has left me feeling sad ever since. In the e-mail, the lead drew on a news story that appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News about a six week old brown tabby kitten dubbed “Cuddles.”

In the Philadelphia suburb of Chester last week, a group of men attacked the kitten, first by stoning it, then by pouring lighter fluid on it, and igniting it. Cuddles’ screams of agony drew the attention of Animal Control officers, who tried to rescue her.

When one of the Animal Control officers picked her up, and tried to hug him. In the midst of her unimaginable agony, she recognized a difference between the men who tormented her, and the heroes who tried to save her. All she wanted was a little love, a little friendly attention. For that she was tortured . . . and lost her life.

This is not the first incidence of animal cruelty in the Philadelphia area this year. Philadelphia is no worse (or no better) than any other part of the country. Nor is its urban nature necessarily making it more abusive toward animals. Rural parts of the country, on a per capita basis, are even more abusive toward animals, especially when the abusive practices of the livestock, poultry and swine industries are factored in.

A number of years ago the jack rabbit population in eastern Idaho mushroomed to problematical levers. During the winter the rabbits angered and frustrated ranchers by eating the winter forage their cattle herds partially depended on for food. Then, after stripping the land of forage, the rabbits literally moved into haystacks, further depleting winter food stocks intended for their livestock.

After considering a variety of responses, some rather expensive, the ranchers and state officials came up with a cheap solution, dubbed Rabbit Baseball. On a specified Saturday, everyone (teenagers and children as well) interested in participating gathered in a staging area and then set out across the desert to club to death as many rabbits as they could using whatever weapon at their disposal. Some participants actually did try to play rudimentary games of baseball, using (presumably) dazed, but still alive rabbits in place of baseballs. All of these actions occurred with the approval of the State of Idaho.

As a nation, why should we care about animal cruelty? After all, some would argue, animals aren’t human because they don’t have eternal souls. When they die, that’s it for them, unlike us. Not so fast.

One very pertinent reason for caring is the clear link between childhood animal cruelty for personal enjoyment and later homicidal behavior toward human beings. Indeed, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz and Jeffrey Dahmer all tortured or killed animals as children. Dahmer, as an example, moved from dismembering animals as a child to dismembering humans as an adult.

While it is true that many childhood animal abusers do not go on to become serials killers, still this behavior needs to be recognized as a warning of deeper psychological problems in the youth. In 2002 the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law reported that "A history of animal cruelty during childhood was significantly associated with APD [Antisocial Personality Disorder], antisocial personality traits, and polysubstance abuse. Mental retardation, psychotic disorders, and alcohol abuse showed no such association." (J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 30:257?65, 2002)

The United States is known worldwide for its extremely high violence levels in society. Including deaths from all causes, at least 30,000 people die from firearm wounds. Thus, in two years firearms kill more people in the US than died during the entire twelve year Vietnam War. This is simply unacceptable and should be seen as unsustainable if American civilization is to survive over the long term.

Mahatma Ghandi made the connection virtually every American ignores: "the greatness of a nation, and its moral progress is measured by the way its animals are treated." When viewed through this examining lens, it Is easy to see that the United States clearly is deficient in terms of its moral growth and maturation. All too often how adults treat animals mirrors how they treat children and vulnerable adults. Given that animals (especially dogs) are described as having the intelligence level of a very young child, this connection does make sense. Besides, just as young children are vulnerable, incapable of adult understanding and reasoning hence need the protection of adults, so too do domesticated animals.

With animal cruelty already at epidemic levels in the United States, and on the rise in terms of frequency of incidents occurring, should we be worried? Absolutely. There is no reliable way (that I am aware of) to determine the number of criminal acts against humans that are first practiced, and perfected, on animals. However, it is a slippery, rather steep slope between abusing an animal, abusing a child, and abusing other adults. Similarly, the slope is steep between believing it is ok to kill “dumb” animals because they aren’t behaving in the “right” way and believing it is ok to kill “dumb” humans because they aren’t conforming to the “right” expectations.

It is time for those Americans capable of caring about anything other than their own back account balance and forcing their code of morality on everyone else to step up, speak up and demand significant improvements in three things. First, state and local animal cruelty laws need to be strengthened through tougher penalties that carry real consequences. Second, the ability of local prosecutors to routinely reduce felony violations to essentially meaningless misdemeanors needs to be barred by new statutory stipulations. Third, in most areas of the country, local law enforcement needs to be encouraged to make animal cruelty investigations a priority, not a “when we catch up on other cases, then, maybe . . .” issue. These changes will happen only when the caring citizenry bands together and demand these changes.

At the same time, worthwhile groups need to be better supported (in terms of both membership and financial contributions) so they, too, can be more active in bringing about these changes. Chief among these worthwhile organizations is the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or the ASPCA. This organization, which I am embarrassed to admit I am not yet involved with (but will be – soon) works tirelessly for the protection and compassionate treatment of all animals.

In more enlightened parts of the country (New York City in particular), in conjunction with their local animal shelter operation, ASPCA investigators are sworn law enforcement officers as well, and are authorized to arrest animal abusers on their own. This empowerment needs to spread nationwide. Over time this empowerment can spread to other parts of the country, but only as states modernize their laws and more concerned citizens support both the idea and the organization behind it.

One concluding question to be pondered: is there any real difference between a group of teenagers clubbing an innocent, loving animal to death and a similar group beating Gwen Araujo to death (because “no one would be that stupid”)? Is there any real difference between a guy clubbing a sweet, loving cat to death in order to “prove his virility” and a guy beating his talented, beautiful transsexual girlfriend senseless, then leaving her to die alone in order to “save face with his buds” as happened to Angie Zapata in 2008?

In Part II of this post, I will examine this issue of animal cruelty from a different angle by addressing the question of whether some animals have inner spirits (or souls) or not.

Asexuality: What Is It?

2009-10-12T21:25:00.001-06:00

Nicole Prause and Cynthia Graham conducted a research project a few years ago seeking to develop a reliable means of classifying asexuality in humans. Their research methodology, results and conclusion appeared in their article Asexuality: Classification and Clarification, published in the journal Archives of Sexual Research (2007) 36:341-356. For readers interested in consulting this article but who lack access to a library that subscribes to it, it can be accessed through the ProQuest Central periodicals database as a PDF file. Your local Public Library should have information on accessing the ProQuest databases.

This article acknowledges a significant problem that needs to be addressed by academia: the extant published research literature on asexuality is scant. Prause and Graham accurately describe the situation in their conclusion, where they refer to the “paucity of research concerning asexuality.” As a result, reliably accurate information on asexuality is difficult to find. Why is this so?

Well, for openers, asexuals are invisible within the general society within which they live. One generally accepted estimate places the proportion of asexuals as about 1% of the total population. Social science research dollars rarely are spent on studies focusing on populations that are this small. Thus few people outside the asexual community know very much about it, which strikes me as unfortunate and sad.

At the outset, the question asked in this post’s title needs to be addressed. One problem with developing a description of asexuality is that there is no one commonly accepted definition of the term. To some, it describes a total lack of interest in, or desire for, sexual relations with another human being. To others, it describes a lack of pleasure in sex, or a lack of a feeling of enjoyment in sexual relations. This is where it becomes confusing and, frankly, murky.

Is asexuality the same as celibacy? No, because celibacy is a conscious decision to completely abstain from sex, often for religious reasons. Asexuality, on the other hand, is more a subconscious behavioral trait. Even that comparative description leaves a lot to be desired because of the wide variation in human beings.

So if asexuality is so difficult to define or wrap one’s mind around, what, exactly, does the term say about a person who so identifies? Some would say that the person is admitting that she is an abnormal freak, and undoubtedly using it to deny their underlying homosexuality. This view is simply wrong because there is no connection between the two orientations.

Others, perhaps most others, would respond along the lines of “huh? What?”

At this point I wish to move from taking a stab a developing a clinical-sounding description to embedding a personal essay in this post. Bear with me for the two are intimately connected. This topic is of definite interest to me for I, myself, am asexual. No, I am not embarrassed, or ashamed, to admit it.

For me, being asexual feels blissful because it takes all of the pressure off of my life that sexuals (i.e. non-asexuals) feel. When I am cruising around my local grocery store, for example, I notice that other shoppers – especially those younger than middle age – tend to focus primarily on the other shoppers while obsessing about buying the “right” foods. By not feeling that constant need to “score” I am free to stretch my food budget as far as possible by focusing on sales and other favorable priced alternatives. By not feeling pressured to focus on the other shoppers AND the shopping, like most shoppers, it looks to me like I experience grocery shopping as far less stressful than others.

At a more subtle level, asexuality is advantageous in another direction. To make a long autobiographical story short, my desire for bringing the next generation into the world has always been nonexistent. Running through the generations on both sides of my family tree are a number of hereditary conditions, some mild, others potentially life threatening. I developed the perspective years ago that the best legacy I could leave for future generations is to not have kids, thereby allowing my weak portion of the human genome to die out. By being asexual, this barrenness does not bother me at all. Instead, to me, it is a relief.

A valid question is: how far back in my life can my asexuality be traced? Surprisingly far. It is possible that my asexuality has been with me since puberty, or possibly a little after. In high school I noticed that the sexual innuendo and jokes quite commonly floating around the student body (not to mention the constant flirting) actually disgusted me. Did I feel driven to try to “score” at least once during high school? No, it simply never occurred to me.

In college, I lived in a co-ed dorm for the last five regular semesters of my stay. Good ‘ol Morrison Hall was built in the early 1950's. its residents were arranged in 8 person suites, with six of us living in single rooms. Around campus we had a reputation as “oh, that dorm. We’re not too sure about them.” Anyway, the entire time I lived there I never once felt the desire to “do it.” At the time I chalked this up to the problems from within my family I was perpetually wrestling with, but now, I wonder. Do I regret never sleeping with anyone in college? Not at all.

This raises the pertinent question of causation. What precipitated the genesis of my asexuality? I cannot point to any one event as its trigger. In the minimal amount of scholarly research I have been able to unearth on asexuality, one probable cause that turns up is religiosity. It is true that my childhood environment was steeped in bedrock Christianity of a rather rigid style. In addition, my dad’s entire life was adversely affected by traumatic events from his childhood. These traumas left him with a negative attitude toward sex, even within the bonds of marriage. In retrospect, occasionally I wonder if he was actually asexual but couldn’t express it.

Now just a minute, I can hear some of you saying. First you say that an asexual is someone who sees sex as “just not important”. Then you speculate about your own father. Which is it? The answer is complex because some asexuals actually do engage in sexual relations. However, those who do usually do so because it is seen as expected of them. Put another way: they do it because they feel they have to do it, not because they necessarily want to.

There is one complicating aspect to my asexuality that I am omitting from this discussion because it is its own extended discussion, and it complicates the picture. This is my parallel transsexuality, which I was, in fact, born with.

At the outset of this post, I mentioned the dearth of scholarly research on asexuality. This is a hole that needs to be filled in, provided the research is balanced and open minded. In particularly, there appears to be no existing research on root causes of asexuality. In particular, I see early childhood influences and family religious activity as very pertinant areas to explore. Likewise, whether it is a permanent aspect of the person’s being, or whether it can be temporary, appears to have not been examined by researchers.

There are three questions that inevitably will come up, so I will conclude by addressing them here. First, are asexuals gay? Not necessarily. The two states of being independently assort, as do heterosexuality and asexuality. This means that there are multiple possible orientation combinations. (Thus asexuality shares this characteristic with transsexuality.)

Second, are asexuals transgendered? No, because the two conditions are completely unrelated. Transgender is strictly connected to one’s gender identity and does not directly address sexuality, sex drives or related aspects of being human. Asexuality refers only to one’s disinclination toward maintaining a strong sexual urge, and does not address matters of gender at all.

Third, are asexuals mentally ill? NO!!! It is generally asserted that some condition qualifies as a mental illness only if it causes the person distress or hinders normal daily function in some way. Since asexuals generally do not feel distressed by the condition, and it does not interfere with the person’s ability to hold down employment, maintain an apartment, keep their bills paid, etc, clearly it does not qualify as a mental illness.

Finally, are there any reliable sources of information about asexuality on the Internet? Fortunately, there are. Easily the best source of more information on asexuality is AVEN, the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network. I am a registered member of this site, and I have found it to be very helpful and loaded with accurate, useful information. For anyone looking for accurate information on asexuality (or, especially, anyone who is wondering about themselves), this is the best place to turn to. For those warped individuals who might be looking for an opportunity to troll for people to criticize, harass or threaten: do us all a favor and go elsewhere. Yes, AVEN has a very active forum posting community. However, these forums are moderated, and trolls are NOT welcome.

2009-10-12T00:51:00.000-06:00

Lifetime’s Army Wives: Now that is how to conclude a season finale

I just finished watching the season finale of Army Wives on the Lifetime Television Network. Clearly there is going to be a fourth season, beginning next summer (presumably) to answer the questions posed by the finale’s hooks. What questions?

Did Lt. Col. Joan Burton survive an ambush on patrol in Iraq shortly after meeting with the local tribal sheik? (In her final scene, she is seen helping another soldier move a wounded member of her unit to safety. Then an insurgent fired a shoulder launched mortar round (I think – I’m no military munitions expert) at a nearby jeep, which explodes).

Did PFC Jeremy Sherwood (troubled son of Major Sherwood and his wife, Denise) commit suicide right when they returned home in the evening after attending Brig. General Holden’s promotion ceremony and following festivities?

Is Pamela’s marriage to Chase permanently over? (It’s clear that she does not understand the nature of Delta Force and its effect on its members. I don’t either, so I am clueless about the accuracy of this sub-lot.)

Will Roxy be able to keep the Hump Bar open now that it is in an off-base area that has been declared off limits to all soldiers for the next year. The reason? The night before a high-level staff meeting, Jeremy (who, at 19 was both drunk and under age) appeared to provoke a fight there, and broke the nose of the son of a local City Council woman. This while a three star general is visiting Fort Marshall.

Near the end of Season Three (this year), Fort Marshall’s commander, Brigadier General (and, at season’s end, Major General) learns that Fort Marshall is on the Pentagon’s short list for the next round of base closings within 18 months. Will Fort Marshall survive?

Season Three has been well populated with surprising plot twists and satisfying developments. Chief among the former was the single vehicle accident involving Denise and Claudia Joy (Claudia Joy was driving). Both were dinged up, but survived. During routine post accident blood work, the medical staff discovers that Claudia Joy is a type 2 diabetic. This is a valuable plot twist because it helps illustrate the all too often overlooked fact that it is possible to be in top physical condition, to be following a program of regular exercise and still be diabetic.

Perhaps the major satisfying development arose out of the almost completed divorce between Denise and Major Sherwood. Right at the last moment, he realizes that he is still deeply in love with her, and that they are about to make a terrible mistake. So he does not sign or file the final divorce papers, thereby saving their marriage. While home from Iraq to deal with this matter (and oversee a war game simulation at the base), General Holden seizes the opportunity and appoints him as the permanent replacement for Lt. Col. Burton, who is shipping out with her battalion to Iraq. Through the rest of Season Three, a softer, more well-rounded side to newly promoted Lt. Col. Sherwood emerges.

I’ll admit it – I have been hooked on Army Wives ever since I caught up to Season One on DVD courtesy of Netflix. Now begins my season of impatience – I can’t wait for next June to arrive, along with the premier of Season Four.

President Obama is scheduled to speak to the Human Rights Campaign dinner in Washington, DC; here is what I wish he would say

2009-10-10T12:55:00.001-06:00

Saturday evening, October 10, the largest GLBT advocacy organization, the Human Rights Campaign, holds its annual black tie see and be seen dinner in Washington, DC. President Obama is scheduled to speak to those in attendance while a peaceful demonstration occurs outside. This time, however, the HRC is not the target of the protest. Rather, it is the Obama Administration’s lack of progress on improving gay, lesbian and transgender rights in the US.

As the Huffington Post excellently documents this week, this speech is being widely billed as “Obama’s big gay speech.” Many groups and individuals will be watching it closely to see just what he does say. Several Huffington Post bloggers have posted brief suggestions of what they would like the President to say. All of them contain very excellent suggestions. However, as near as I can tell, none of them are making suggestions from the perspective of one who is a member of the GLBT community.

In this blog, I join this chorus of “armchair speech writers” for the President. Here I write from the perspective of what I likely would write if I were fortunate enough to be one of the President’s speech writers. In light of Friday’s stunning announcement that President Obama is the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, these hypothetical remarks have been revised to reflect that status change (from President to President AND Nobel Laureate).

I wish to be a bit blunt tonight. There is no denying it: economically and socially the United States is in bad shape. The two cannot be separated. Sustainable economic recovery will occur only after significant improvement occurs in this country’s social conditions. As long as one group of American citizens cannot enjoy true freedom because of prejudice, then all Americans are victims of the same prejudicial attitudes and laws.

What improvement am I talking about? For openers, America’s churches and religious groups need to return to their New Testament roots. They need to return to focusing on their congregations spiritual needs to the exclusion of political activism. America’s employers, and corporations in particular, need to recognize the critical importance of the family to community life by abandoning the idea that an employee’s job is more important than her family or her God.

But the traditional definition of family needs to be brought into the 21st century. Two key changes are urgently needed. First, the traditional definition of a family needs to change to make it socially acceptable for couples to remain childless. Second, the definition of a family must expand to include two men or two women who choose to live together as a couple. Regardless of what extremist groups are saying, gay civil unions and marriages do not threaten the institution of marriage in any way.

In accord with these views, next week I will sign three Executive Orders. The first will suspend the unjust Defense of Marriage Act, pending its complete repeal by Congress before I give my 2010 State of The Union Address next year. The second will eliminate the military’s “Don’s Ask, Don’t Tell” policy thereby opening up military service as an option for all American citizens. The third will immediately extend full benefits to the domestic partners of Federal employees.

At the same time, beginning next week I will begin pushing Congress to finally pass two long overdue pieces of legislation. The first is the Matthew Shephard Act, also known as the Federal hate crimes law. The second is ENDA, or the Employment Nondiscrimination Act that outlaws employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

This fall health care reform is very much in the news. Clearly, given the number of competing bills introduced in both houses of Congress, compromises will be needed to produce the final bill to emerge from Congress. I will not sign any health care reform bill that lacks a viable public option the states cannot opt out of, nor will I sign any bill that delays full implementation of its provisions beyond June 30, 2010. At the same time, I call on Congress to include provisions barring insurance carriers from denying benefits to any policy holder based on pre-existing conditions, sexual orientation or gender identity.

With these bills I have mentioned, much work remains to be done to secure their passage. As President, I can only do so much. The rest is up to you. Success never occurs in a vacuum. There is a lot of truth in the acronym formed from the word TEAM. It is true: together everyone achieves more. With the combined and coordinated talents at grassroots organizing represented by the Human Rights Campaign and other advocacy groups, we will achieve significant, lasting change that benefits everyone.

In conclusion, prejudice is like a cancer that eats away at the social fabric of any nation. This is why Jimmy Valvano’s immortal plea in his final public appearance echoes through my thoughts tonight. Indeed, it is the plea I have for those who favor freedom and civil dialogue over extremist rants: “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”

The Oslo Surprise: President Barack Obama wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-09T15:30:00.001-06:00

Early this morning, US time, an Oslo, Norway press conference announced President Barack Obama as this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient. One report noted that the announcement was met with an audible gasp from the assembled members of the fourth estate.

When CBS News contacted the White House Press Secretary about the announcement, his sole comment was “wow.” Now that is the perfect White House response to breaking developments: short and definitive.

World-wide, the response to the news has been widely varied and immediate. Reports are that the widely held opinion on Twitter is that he won for not being George Bush. Perhaps there is an element of truth to that.

One frequent response, both domestically and abroad, is that the award is being bestowed prematurely, that it might have been better to wait a year or two (or more) to better judge the long-term results of his efforts and words. I am somewhat inclined to agree, given that he has yet to finish his first year in office and Afghanistan remains an unresolved political and military mess. One question that several have raised asks if this is Europe’s way of asking him to not commit more forces to the Afghanistan conflict. Those who ask this do have a point: is escalating a war that appears to have no exit strategy an action a Nobel Peace Laureate would do?

In Washington, D.C., U.S. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele naturally was dismissive of the honor. This puts him on the same page as Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman and Zabihullah Majahid, spokesman for the Taliban, speaking from an undisclosed location in Afghanistan.

Former US Vice President Al Gore, the 2007 peace prize recipient, feels it will take some time for him to assemble all of the pieces of his foreign policy together. This is where the prematurity of this award becomes the most easily seen. In light of his U.N. speech calling for an end to nuclear weapons and his decision against deploying a missile shield system in Eastern Europe, the US itself needs to be seen to be following his lofty words. The world will not even begin to be nuke free until the US is nuke free. As long as this country possesses even one nuclear warhead, the rest of the world cannot be asked to complete their nuclear disarmaments.

I do agree with 1983 Nobel Peace Laureate and former Polish President Lech Walesa, whose response was "So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far. He is still at an early stage. He is only beginning to act."This is probably an encouragement for him to act. Let's see if he perseveres. Let's give him time to act."

Unlike the Afghani Taliban, the Iraqi government welcomed the award. In Bagdad, Saleh al-Mutlaq, a senior Sunni Muslim lawmaker, told Reuters: "Obama succeeded in making a real change in the policy of the United States -- a change from a policy that was exporting evil to the world to a policy exporting peace and stability to the world."

Similarly, Masdar Mas’udi, deputy head of Nahdatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization praised the award when he said "I think it's appropriate because he is the only American president who has reached out to us in peace. On the issues of race, religion, skin colour, he has an open attitude."

These positive Muslim reactions to the news are, in themselves, welcome signs. Clearly, more and more leaders are seeing a significant change in the face the United States is showing other countries. In this way, the Obama Administration is succeeding at its effort to distance itself from its predecessor. Indeed, I see Mr. Mas’udi’s remarks as a direct barb at former President Bush, whose attitude consistently seemed to be “if you’re Muslim, you’re a terrorist.”

Whether President Obama deserves this honor, and whether it is being awarded prematurely, are issues I do not feel qualified to definitively opine upon. Indeed, debate on this point will continue for possibly many months to come because the international situation will remain unsettled into 2010 and, most likely, beyond.

Undetermined at this point in time, but of definite concern to many, is the domestic fall out from this award. In all likelihood it will embolden the Conservative Republicans to resist his domestic agenda proposals with increased fervor. In particular, there is a chance that this honor could actually doom the public option in health care reform simply because the President favors it. I hope it doesn’t. However, American politics can be perverse in that way.

Newly released US Federal Trade Commission rule affecting bloggers and celebrities makes sense

2009-10-05T22:23:00.000-06:00

Earlier today the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a Press Release announcing new rules concerning advertising endorsements and testimonials. This new “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” updates the current version, last updated in 1980. Thus, when these Guides were last modernized, Cable TV was in its infancy, and the modern PC had not been invented yet. Thus, this update is badly overdue. This provides an interesting look at the ease with which American media spins virtually every story.

I first crossed paths with this story at a news aggregating and summarizing site called Newser.com that I am a definite fan of. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a registered member of the Newser community. At the same time, I receive no compensation of any kind from them.

This news report can easily be spun to make it sound like the new rules only target those who provide “reviews” of any product on blogs, Facebook or Twitter. Those who fail to disclose their lack of independence could face a fine of $11,000. Starting from this conclusion it is easy for commentators to digress into rants about the big, bad US Government picking on the little guy.

However, an examination of the pending Federal Register announcement shows that these new rules are entirely fair, reasonable and place new accountability expectations on advertisers as well. As the real-world examples included in the new rules show, advertisers are the major focus of these new rules. One provision makes it clear that advertisers are equally responsible for ensuring compliance with the rules, and are liable for any false or misleading statements made by either consumer or celebrity endorsers. This last provision is, in my opinion, very badly needed.

There will be those who will whine about the “unfair repressiveness” of these new rules, and how they are undermining the independence of the Internet and other new media. Such a response is inaccurate. From my perspective, the ethical approach to any product commentary starts with a revelation of the extent of any relationship between the spokesperson and the business supplying the product or service. If no financial or other relationship between the blogger and business exists, I feel the spokesperson needs to make this clear as well.

Why do I feel this way? Through the years, I have observed that voluntary product comments are far more accurate and reliable than those that are paid for. In the latter cases, there is a definite pressure to say only positive things about the product (or service) under discussion. As an example, say a nationwide network of weight loss clinics pays a reasonably well known musician to promote their services. Naturally the musician’s public comments will closely follow the sample text provided by the clinics. Further, if the “before and after” photos of the musician don’t exactly match the images desired by the clinics, well, hey, there’s always Photoshop (or some other photo manipulation software.)

Voluntarily provided comments by those who actually use – and genuinely like -- the products they are endorsing tend to be much better. As an example, consider the currently running “Mac vs PC” ad campaign on US television. To me these ads lack a sense of being genuine, of being heavily slanted either in the direction of the Mac or the PC. A far more effective approach would be for an ad agency to seek out unsolicited testimonials by actual Mac and PC users, in which they compare experiences they have actually had. This latter approach would provide more useful “food for thought” insights for potential purchasers to benefit from.

As a more concrete (and more personal) example, consider the following. Airing as I write these lines is yet one more ad for Lipitor, one of the newer Statin drugs for lowering cholesterol. In it is this supposedly older gentleman extolling its virtues and going on at some length about the positive difference it has made in his life. Crestor follows a similar theme, like all Statins.

I take issue with these claims because they aren’t always true. In 2003 my physician prescribed Crestor for me because he felt my cholesterol was slightly elevated. The PDR write-up on it acknowledges severe muscle pain as a common reaction/side effect. What the manufacturer-supplied information failed to disclose (and all Direct to Consumer advertising continues to fail to disclose) is that Crestor can cause serious heart problems, potentially leading to premature heart attacks.

I found it necessary to discontinue taking the drug after less than a week on it. As I later told my physician, before Crestor came along, when the weather was decent and I was in the mood, I thought nothing of walking from downtown to my favorite store a couple of miles away (one way) just to go shopping, and then walk another two miles (or so) back home. After less than three days on the Crestor, I could not walk more than two blocks without having to stop to regenerate enough stamina to traverse the next two blocks. This stark change happened factually over night, and its after effects lasted for several years.

Thus, were I to formally “review” Crestor, that review would be both negative and scathing in tone because I would delve in depth into my own experience, while stressing that my reaction must not be considered to be typical of everyone who takes it. Rather the represent a cautionary tale worth taking into account. Obviously such brutal honesty is possible only when no underlying financial (or other) relationship exists.

I applaud this very well written update (it is available as a PDF document in a link to the Press Release at the FTC’s website). Now, I really wish the FTC would do something about restoring sanity (and reality) to automobile advertising.

Once again it is banned Books Week in the U.S.

2009-10-02T22:40:00.000-06:00

For the 27th year, the American Library Association, in conjunction with the American Booksellers Association and others is sponsoring Banned Book Week activities and observances during the week of September 27 to October 3. The point to this week is to increase awareness of way too many attempts to either restrict the availability of books in libraries (or their inclusion in school curricula) or force their permanent removal from the shelves.

Many of these attempts are started by parents who are concerned about what reading materials their children have access to. On this point, the parents should not be criticized because part of successful parenting is instilling in the next generation the healthy values seemingly in short supply these days.

Activist parents, however, need to be faulted for their determination to impose their views on all of society. To me, this is where they shift from being good parents teaching healthy values and choices to their children to being bad parents in two ways. First, they are teaching their kids that it is ok to force their opinions down other people’s throats in order to bend society to their will. Instead of this, they should be using these opportunities to teach their kids how to engage in rational discourse with others. Instead of teaching civility, they are teaching the incivility we have too much of in society.

Second, instead of wasting time creating chaos with their attempts at restricting or banning books they don’t like, they could be investing the time appropriately by teaching their children how to recognize reading materials that are appropriate, and how to choose healthy, positive materials. Virtually all children are, by nature, inquisitive about the world around them. That is, after all, how they learn. So part of the role of parents is to shape this inquisitiveness while providing some direction to it.

In perusing the lists of books that have been challenged in past years, two impressions stand out to me. First, there are common themes used to justify banning/restricting activities. Invariably, the reasons given revolve around questionable language, inappropriate sexual actions or references, “anti-Christian” messages, or, increasingly, references to homosexuality, the homosexual lifestyle, or the occult. This leaves me wondering: just what kind of cocoon are parents trying to keep their children in?

Second, book challengers have not actually read the books they oppose. Rather, they have skimmed the books, looking for reasons to be offended by its text. This becomes obvious by the number of cited reasons that are taken completely out of context.

An excellent example of this “skimming to be offended” approach is provided by the American classic novel Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Frequently it is described as being too racist and coarse (because of the frequent use of the “n-word.” What is overlooked with regard to this novel is that it quite accurately portrays rural life in the states adjoining the Mississippi River in the years before the US Civil War. This all of its language needs to be placed in its historical context when deciding whether it is, or is not, a.cceptable. By extension, the various plot components need to be placed in their historical context as well. Only then can the degree of unacceptableness can be determined.

At the same time, there is one aspect of the entire book challenging process that those who mount the challenges seemingly overlook. By making a public issue of the suitability of a particular book for a given library, those who want it suppressed to one degree or another draw attention to it. This attention, in turn, can magnify public interest in the book, thereby putting the library in a difficult position.

Last year, for example the book The Joy of Sex was challenged by one of the appointed Public Library board members in a small city in southwest Idaho. His goal was to remove it from the circulating collection and place it behind the front check out counter so those who wished to check it out would have to ask for it in person. News of this effort naturally reached the general media, some of whom really pursued the story. As a result, the book’s popularity with patrons skyrocketed to the point that the book would stay checked out for many months. As news spread outside the area, the library began receiving Interlibrary Loan Requests from all over the state(and probably from neighboring states as well.) As a result, instead of the objectionable book quietly disappearing (the desired outcome), it rapidly became the most talked about book in town (an undesired outcome.)

While Banned Books Week focuses on books, I wonder when the list of movies challenged in various libraries will grow long enough to warrant a Banned Movies Week?

In Memoriam: Rev. Forrest Church (1948 - 2009)

2009-10-01T11:08:00.000-06:00

I learned of the passing away last week of the Rev. Forrest Church, senior minister to the All Souls congregation in New York City. He had faced the challenges of apparently inoperable esophageal cancer since 2006, when he was told he only had months to live. It appeared that he had undergone a successful operation for the cancer, however, the cancer returned two years later and spread to his liver and lungs. Finally, last week, cancer’s demon won and claimed him in his prime. He was 61.

One might wonder how a life-long Idaho resident could feel a sense of personal loss when a New York minister and author dies. However, when I read a very nice tribute piece on the Idaho Statesman website, the deeper into the story I read, the more freely the tears flowed. Even as I write this Blog Post, I feel myself trying to choke up.

There are some reasons for this visceral reaction. For one thing, in the 1970's I met Forrest on at least a couple of occasions while a campaign volunteer for his father, US Sen. Frank Church. He impressed me as very warm, caring and easy to converse with. Had I been living in the New York City area, I really feel I would have become a member of his congregation, in part because he was so down to earth, and in part the Unitarian Universalist Church is one whose values and beliefs I generally agree with.

But there is a more personal reason for feeling this loss. Like me, Forrest and his brother, Chase, are natives of Idaho’s capitol city, Boise. In the 1950's their pediatrician was my paternal grandfather.

The Idaho Statesman article cited a frequent comment of his that I feel really helps me, so it will live on within my life. “Do what you can, want what you have, and be who you are.” Simple. Eloquent. Empowering. Indeed, the embodiment of this perspective truly is universal.

My heart and compassion very definitely extend outward to his own family, his brother, Chase and his mother, Bethene. I also wish to extend my sincere condolences to the All Souls congregation as they seek to deal with their sense of loss.

Reducing Mental Health Care expenditures without cutting services: some personal observations

2009-09-27T23:30:00.001-06:00

It is simply unacceptable to me, and agreeably unfair to my readers that just over two months have flown by since my last entry in this blog. However, today I have made a firm commitment to resume regular blogging on current hot button topics of concern or interest to others.

Since my last entry I have learned a very valuable lesson worth sharing with others. But first, some necessary background.

For years I have struggled with episodic major depression and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress disorder). In 1996 Social Security examined the depression with respect to its impact on employability. Based on their conclusion that I would be extremely limited in the types of jobs I could be considered for. Because these limitations would make it very unlikely that I would find employment in the area where I live, they granted my application for disability benefits. As is standard, two years later my Medicare eligibility kicked in.

Because my disability benefits are on the small side, I have also qualified for SSI, or Supplemental Security Income as well. For the disabled, SSI kicks in whenever the disability benefits fall below the minimum income amount allowable in each state. In states, such as Idaho, that have joint State/Federal Medicaid programs, SSI eligibility automatically confers eligibility for that program as well.

Major depression counts as both a medical and a mental health diagnosis. Thus, for several years I have been seeing a variety of counselors in addition to receiving what is called Psycho-Social Rehabilitation. In theory it is designed to be a one-on-one working relationship between a (supposedly) trained mental health professional and the client designed to improve the client’s ability to function more or less normally in all areas of life.

For several years I was assigned to an older PSR Case Manager who, on the surface came across as a laid-back, very personable person to be around. That is how he laid the snares with which he entrapped everyone he interacted with, employees as well as clients. It is only in the last month, now that he has retired, that I am beginning to recognize two things. First, the guy actually is a sociopath whose game is getting other people to tear themselves down physically, intellectually, spiritually and psychologically. Second, there is no area of my life that has not been severely damaged by his subtle efforts at promoting personal sabotage.

Four of the five counselors I have seen at one time or another over the last decade have been approved, either by this guy directly, or by the agency that he nominally managed. The last three, in fact, were employees of his agency. This is where the cautionary tale comes in.

With hindsight, I am seeing the extent to which everyone who is seeing a counselor, or is working with any kind of mental health professional, needs to stay on guard by staying in close contact with your innermost feelings. With counselors, remember, you are the consumer, so you are in charge. If you feel (or can see) that you are not making satisfactory progress, or if you sense that the counseling process is leading you in a direction you are not comfortable with, drop the counselor after being open about what you are feeling that you don’t like.

I decided to end the weekly sessions with the last counselor in my chain at the end of June of this year. In the three months since, in several areas of my life I have actually made more progress than I had in the last three years of counseling. Why? All a counselor can actually do is make suggestions about things to try, and, perhaps, point you in a direction to follow. All of the actual work in a counseling relationship ultimately is done by the client, not the counselor.

These thoughts segue into the health care debate here in the US in a very direct way. Everyone, from President Obama on down, is openly talking about the need to eliminate waste (and fraud) from the US health care system. Mental Health is one area of health care where waste and fraud are notoriously rampant. Counseling sessions that continue for years without seemingly making progress are a drain on the health care system that need to be reigned in. Making it easier to weed out mental health practitioners who are professionally unqualified or who are ethically challenged is one very cost effective fist step in wringing the fraud and waste out of this area of health care.

Did I need to see a succession of counselors for the better part of the last eight years? At one time, I would have said I did. Now, however, I readily see that at least the last two years of counseling could have been eliminated, saving Medicaid a chunk of money while leaving me better off sooner rather than later. However, with the last three counselors I was under definite pressure to keep the counseling going from this guy I mentioned. Why? My PSR agency also employed the counselors I was seeing, so it was in the agency’s best interests that the counseling continue, whether it was doing me any good or not.

The Medicaid program itself is in serious need of reinventing from the ground up. Currently it is too easy to gain eligibility for benefits and then cruise on them for literally an indefinite period of time. In Idaho, Medicaid shows little to no interest in helping clients improve any area of their health. This is where a lot of the waste in American health care comes from: Medicaid and private insurance plans that openly block access to preventive health care procedures and screening tests that would head off more costly (and more serious conditions) later on.

One concluding thought: given this insurance industry opposition to cancer screening tests (until, in too many cases, it is too late for the patient), how many women have been either needlessly permanently disfigured, or have died prematurely from breast cancer that could have been prevented had it been detected early enough?

Idaho resident captured by Taliban in Afghanistan

2009-07-20T13:44:00.000-06:00

This much we do know: US Army PFC Bowe B. Bergdall became a captive of the Afghani Taliban on June 30. He was a member of an infantry regiment based at Ft. Richardson in Alaska and had joined the Army last fall. Before joining the military, he had been working as a barista in his hometown of Hailey, Idaho, where he was also active in ballet and fencing.

What is unclear and has not been officially clarified by the Defense Department is the circumstances surrounding his capture. His appearance on a Taliban video released two days ago confirmed his capture. Any comments about how he allowed himself to be captured must be considered to be conjecture at this point.

With this blog post I extend my thoughts and support to his family and friends. I join with them in begging the media (and other bloggers) to PLEASE respect their requests for total privacy during this difficult time. Now is not the time for the media to pressure family members for comments or interviews. Indeed, right now the best thing for the media to do is investigate whether it can help the Army secure his safe release and rescue in a reasonable time frame. In other words, for once, I would like to see the media working with, not against, the US military in the Islamic Middle East.

For my fellow bloggers and newspaper website story reader comment authors, I urge you to also respect the family’s request for privacy until they are ready to comment publically. In addition, please keep rumors, sarcastic and unfounded speculation and other negative comments to yourself. Such negativity only serves to increase their stress and pain, and the stress and pain felt in the Wood River Valley.

For those wanting to do something to help, well, if you are religious in some way, please include him in your prayers. One thing everyone can do is hope he is rescued sooner rather than later. To wax musical for a second, what else can be done? Well, "tie a yellow ribbon ‘round the old oak tree" is a healthy place to start.

Walter Cronkite, the last of a dying breed of news professionals in America, has passed away

2009-07-18T17:36:00.000-06:00

A consummate professional. A true gentleman, generous and slow to criticize, except when criticism was justified. An icon from America’s troubled twentieth century. A broadcasting professional once names “America’s most trusted man.” Walter Leland “Uncle Walter” Cronkite, Jr, a dentist’s son, was all of this, and more. Last night, July 17th, he passed away at his New York City home at the age of 92.

I read CNN’s very nice news report on his passing through tears for his news broadcasts formed a large part of my younger years. I still remember his straightforward and almost low-key coverage of the early US manned missions in space. He conveyed the sense of drama and history in the making without turning to sensationalism or spin like current news flacks seemingly can’t avoid.

Reflecting on his broadcasting career at CBS truly leaves me feeling old. When his nightly television news broadcasts began in the early 1960's, they lasted 15 minutes, were in black and white, and, on occasion, relied on day old news footage. On Labor Day, 1963, his broadcast expanded to 30 minutes, with an interview of President Kennedy as the broadcast centerpiece.

It was his coverage of JFK’s assassination three months later that likely did more than any other story that endeared him to the country. While seeking to remain professional in his tone and approach, still, his emotions crept in to his voice, and, while they weren’t copious, still, on camera, he did shed some tears while reporting the sad news. During that weekend, when Jack Ruby gunned down Oswald on national TV, again, his approach used an entirely appropriate tone devoid of editorializing, fluff or spin.
Indeed, his signature broadcast sign-off became part of the American vernacular while he was still on the air. I doubt that anyone who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s will fail to recognize his unique way of summing things up with “And that’s the way it is . . . this is Walter Cronkite, good night.”

So now Uncle Walter has signed off for the final time in this life. He was one of a kind, a newsman who took accuracy in reporting very seriously. Perhaps more importantly, he kept news reports and editorial comments clearly separate, the way they should be. At times he could be a difference maker without becoming the focus of the news, unlike current news hacks.

Indeed, in 1968, he traveled to Viet Nam, to report from there for a change. What he saw led him to editorially criticize the war as “mired in stalemate.” This criticism led then President Johnson to remark that “if I’ve lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” A few months later, President Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election as President. Johnson was savvy enough to realize that, without the support of Cronkite, re-election would be impossible to achieve. Such was the influence that he quietly amassed.

So yet one more high profile American has passed from the scene, joining Paul Harvey, Ed McMahon, Bea Arthur, John Updike, Michael Jackson, among others, who are now no longer with us. Each in his (or her) own way will be missed by those to whom they either were important or mattered.

As for me, well, “every man’s death diminishes me, for I am a part of all mankind. And send not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” (John Donne)

And that’s the way it is, Saturday, July 18, 2009. Good night, Walter Cronkite, good night.

Mea Culpa to my readers, but I’m back

2009-07-18T17:33:00.000-06:00

I have been away from this blog for way too long. For my absence, I do apologize.

Earlier this year, I encountered an interesting discovery, and learned some valuable new insights about the nature of my creativity in the process. Unfortunately, this blog, as well as my other two blogs, suffered as a result.

In March I participated in the NaNoWriMo follow-up called the National Novel Editing Month (EdMo for short). The goal here is to invest 50 hours of editing activities on one fiction manuscript during the month. I reached that threshold on March 22. Thus I needed fewer days to win EdMo than I did WriMo last November. Since I had some month left, I set my own advanced target: 100 hours for the month. I met that personal goal by logging a total of 101.5 hours of editing activities by the time March ended.

A lot of people wonder: is EdMo harder to win than WriMo? Yes, it is in the sense that any form of editing requires a higher level of intellectual effort than writing. With the latter activity, words can initially be slung onto the page (or screen) as they arise in the mind, without regard to correctness of grammar or spelling. Editing, on the other hand, requires close attention to the rules of spelling as well as the rules of grammar in order to render what has been written intelligible by others.

On the spur of the moment, I decided to give Script Mania a try in April (goal: 100 pages of either a properly formatted stage, radio, screen or television script in 30 days.) Big mistake. In April, I totally flopped at script writing. In fact, I never succeeded in even getting started. To me, this is a clear indication that script writing is a form of writing that my intellect is not suited for. Prose, most certainly. Poetry, quite possibly. Scripts? Nope. Am I bothered? Nope.

However, for some reason, this discovery, coming on the heels of the success of March triggered a fiendish, protracted bout of writer’s block that began in April and is only now beginning to ease off. That it is easing off definitely feels like a huge relief. Now I can get back to blogging on something approaching a regular basis.

Technology-driven Evolutionary Change and the Future of American Newspapers, Part II

2009-03-19T17:01:00.000-06:00

Yes, the progressive disappearance of the print newspaper feels like a distinct shock, like something important to life has been taken away. Yet, over the past century there have been other such disappearances arising out of evolutionary advancements in technology. Some industries have had to either adapt to the changes or risk going out of business.

Even in my own lifetime I have seen several such technology-driven disappearances. When I was young, coal (usually stoker -sized lumps) dominated the home heating fuel options. True, it was cheap and did keep the house warm during the winter. However, a coal furnace was an attention hog, since the mechanical device that kept the firebox supplied with fresh coal (on demand), called a stoker, had to be refilled with coal on a regular basis. Then, the burning of coal produced unending supplies of unburned chunks of inorganic matter called clinkers that had to be pulled out of the firebox with a long-handled grabber and parked in a metal container to cool off so they could be safely disposed of somewhere. Over the last 45 years or so coal has increasingly given way to cleaner and more convenient fuel sources, such as heating oil and natural gas or propane (for people living in the country). Now, more and more houses and apartments use electricity to stay warm in the winter. A big benefit from this change is that cities really are cleaner today than they were 50 years ago.

This Sony laptop this post is being composed on represents several evolutionary changes I have lived through. In high school I took a typing course. For the first three quarters of the school year we learned how to type exclusively on manual typewriters. Only in the last quarter of the year were we allowed to use electric (not electronic) typewriters. In that era, the typist was responsible for returning the platen to the left margin on the paper at the end of each line.

In the early 1970's, while enrolled full-time at the local junior college I took a semester-long course in the then state of the art Fortran IV programming language. This was a widely used means of telling a computer what the programmer wanted it to do. Each program line of code was to be fed into the computer on a separate Hollerith card that had a pattern of punched holes in the card that varied depending on the text I typed onto the top of the card. The first computer I successfully programmed was an NCR Century 50 that effectively filled a small room and had 16k of hard-wired ferrite core memory.

Fast forward to today. I am composing this post at home, kicked back in my easy chair, my almost eight year old laptop sitting on my stomach. Despite its age, its RAM is 16,000 times larger than the room-sized Century 50. As it is a computer it does have a keyboard, like a typewriter. However, it does not have a round platen that has to be fussed with. Instead, lines of type appear on the monitor as the characters are typed in. At the end of each line, Word Perfect takes care of returning the insertion point to the start of the next line. It also automatically capitalizes the first letter of each sentence.

At one time, Smith Corona produced one of the best typewriter lines on the market. Is Smith Corona still in business? I actually don’t know. Indeed, does any one know anyone who still owns a typewriter?

Even US Libraries have undergone a truly evolutionary change, even here in Idaho. For well over a century, libraries organized their collection according to the rules of either the Dewey Decimal or the Library of Congress Cataloging System. (Public Libraries generally use the former because it is easier to explain to patrons. Academic Libraries generally use the latter because it is much more precise. Personally, I much prefer the latter.) Then they provided large chests of file drawers full of catalog cards so the Patrons could find the books they were looking for.

More and more libraries are retiring the card catalogs. They have been replaced by computer terminals where a patron keyboards in to the software what it is they are looking for, and the software, in a sense, consults its own card catalog, then provides the information sought (or not.) Indeed, with a slowly growing number of libraries, it is now possible for Patrons to do their “card catalog” research from home. What foes this change portend for the manufacturers of blank catalogue cards? Well, given the seemingly sharp drop off in demand, they will find it necessary to find new products to manufacture, or go out of business.

Newspapers are in the same position. Old technologies and ways of doing things don’t work any more. If they want to survive, adapting to the changing way the world now communicates will have to become a way of life. Personally, I see the future newspaper existing only on line, with no print editions appearing anywhere. Is this a bad thing? Far from it.

Are Print Newspapers Breathing Their Last? (Technology-driven Evolutionary Change and the Future of American Newspapers, Part I)

2009-03-17T21:05:00.001-06:00

I have always enjoyed reading the newspaper in its traditional mode of delivery: printed on newsprint. Some of this comes from my innate curiosity about the world around me. Most of it, however, stems from the years that my late father worked as a combination photographer and journalist for several print newspapers.

Now it is beginning to look like the traditional print newspaper is moving toward extinction in the United States. Here in Idaho’s Magic Valley (a seven county, broad valley just north of Nevada) in the past year five County seats last their weekly newspaper and another lost its six day a week paper when they were merged into the region’s largest daily paper. Reason? Corporate cost cutting. Thus six communities lost a central part of their identity.

Nationally, already the owners of three of the nation’s largest daily papers – the Philadelphia Enquirer, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times have filed for bankruptcy protection. Off and on for months I have seen rumors floating around cyberspace that the New York Times is considering either sharply reducing the size of its print editions, or eliminating them completely.

Earlier this year the owner of the Denver Rocky Mountain News shut it down completely. Since the 19th Century, Denver residents had been kept informed of events by two competing newspapers. Now, only the Denver Post remains.

This week brings word that the Seattle Post-Intelligencier has dropped its print editions while keeping its Internet edition active. At the same time, the San Francisco Chronicle reportedly will be shut down within a month if a buyer cannot be found (it sounds like no rescuer is on the horizon.) This week brings still other news that I see as sad.

In 1881, the legendary, yet very real, shootout at the OK Corral occurred in the small frontier Arizona town called Tombstone. A newspaper from nearby Tucson, the Arizona Citizen reported on the event in beautiful prose. As all of southeast Arizona grew into the modern era, and as Tucson grew into a major metropolitan area, the paper grew with it even as it chronicled the growth. In 1976 the paper was sold to the Gannett Corporation, which renamed it the Tucson Citizen.

As has happened in other cities where Gannett owns local papers, over time, the paper’s quality declined, driving subscribers away. With any newspaper (or any other periodical, for that matter) when the number of subscribers falls, the rates the paper can charge advertisers decline as well. This downward spiral hit Tucson’s first newspaper as well. So, this Saturday, March 21, after surviving for 139 years, the paper will publish its final, farewell edition.

In Idaho’s Capitol city of Boise, the state’s largest newspaper, the Idaho Daily Statesman is also struggling with remaining profitable. On top of shrinking the physical page size of the print edition and outsourcing the printing of its editions to a newspaper in a nearby city, thereby eliminating 40 plus production jobs, today its website announced still more changes. On April 3, 25 additional employees will be laid off, cutting its total workforce by another 10%. For all remaining employees, pay cuts of 3% to 10% (determined by broad wage bracket) will go into effect.

This upheaval in the newspaper industry leads to one main question: what’s going on?

I see these changes as the first stirrings of a major evolutionary change in the overall news industry. In the past, newspapers survived the development of local radio news that offered the advantage of being able to cover important news events as they happened. Later they survived the development of television news that could both report on “breaking” news and show viewers what was happening.

Now, the Internet is emerging as an increasingly important news dissemination medium. With the Internet, it is possible for people worldwide (who are paying attention) to learn of major news events potentially within seconds of when they happen. Plus, the Internet offers the added advantage of being able to hyperlink related content together as it develops. I see this ease of rapid updating and ease of tying together related information as combining with the increasing availability of free WiFi zones to present traditional newspapers with a challenge they are structurally incapable of responding to.

In time – conceivably as little as ten years, certainly by the mid 21st Century – I see traditional print newspapers largely to completely fading into history, replaced by on-line papers and non-traditional news web sites. Many older adults will struggle with accepting this inevitable change, however, from an environmental perspective, this is a very positive change. How?

As the number of print newspapers drops, the demand for newsprint proportionally declines. Manufacturers, in response, reduce the amount they produce to keep their finished goods inventory value under control. As they reduce production, they reduce their emission of a variety of air and water pollutants, thus helping clean up the environment. Reduced production also reduces carbon oxide emissions into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to the reduction in the human impact on global warming. In addition, reducing paper production allows the trees being grown by the paper companies to remain planted in the ground possibly years longer, thereby increasing the volume of carbon dioxide the planet’s biosphere can absorb throughout the growing season.

A similar chain of reasoning is easily developed regarding the printing inks that are used to produce newspapers. Again, reducing the demand for web-offset printing inks reduces pollution and the industry’s carbon footprint, thereby benefitting the environment.

In Part II of this post, I will reflect on the technology advancement-driven changes I have witnessed with my own eyes.

In Remembrance: Paul Harvey, Broadcasting Legend

2009-03-02T10:32:00.001-07:00

Sometime on Saturday, February 28, 2009, American broadcasting legend Paul Harvey passed away at the age of 90, surrounded by family, in a hospital near Phoenix, Arizona. Cause of death has not been released.

In one respect, Paul Harvey’s daily news and commentary broadcasts formed the pulse of my life growing up. Everyone in my family avidly listened to him and it was easy to see why. He brought an easy-going approach to the text he was reading that inspired confidence (and loyalty.) Whether you agreed with his opinions or not did not matter; the manner in which he presented them always underscored the sense in his viewpoint.

I still remember his long-running program feature that honored the longest-lasting marriage that was celebrating an anniversary that day. Often these were couples who had been married for sixty to seventy years or more. Most of the time, these couples lived either on the family farm that had been in the family for generations, or in small farming towns.

At times, one got the impression that the state of Nebraska had a monopoly on very long-lasting marriages. So listeners began writing in to him, asking if this was the case, and if, so, could anyone explain it? Sure enough someone responded from Nebraska, and explained it in this manner. Thousands of people hold season tickets to University of Nebraska Cornhuskers Football games year after year. Some even indicate in their wills who is to receive the tickets after they pass on. Well, since the same people sit in the same seats every year, of course couples are going to stay married. After all, if they got a divorce, at the games, they would be stuck sitting next to each other, perhaps for a good many years.

That explanation may have some seeds of truth to it. However, I feel it is the strong presence of the family farm in the state that encourages long marriages. On the traditional family farm, when something broke, or quit working like it should, the family fixed it, got it working again, and moved on to the next task at hand. Thus, when a farm family marriage encountered a rough patch, the couple knew they were expected to fix it. So they did.

In the area of general news reporting and features presentation, I see radio as having only three true legends who deserved the tag of “great.” Lowell Thomas described far away, exotic places so accurately and vividly that it was easy to see each place come to life in one’s mind was the first. Edward R. Murrow, with his well-modulated bass voice reporting on World War II (or whatever) in the same calm, somewhat deadpan delivery, was the second. Paul Harvey was the third. Now all three have passed from the scene. Their kind will never be heard from again.

Mr. Harvey impressed me as a rare broadcaster, in the sense that, whether I agreed with the political stance he was taking or not, I always respected the position he was taking. On issues or positions he felt strongly about, he always spoke from the heart with immense sincerity. In 1974, during the depths of the Watergate scandal that took down President Nixon, I switched my party loyalty from the Republican to the Democratic party. Even after my switch, his unwavering support of, and friendship with, many Republican office holders never bothered me.

In 1976 he began his daily five minute (or so) “The Rest of the Story” features that brought to light some notable event or historical fact about some well-known person. In his trademark style, each program proceeded with a tightly written, chronological narrative that withheld the identity of the person to whom the piece was about until the end of the account. He always closed each installment with “And now you know . . . the rest of the story.”

With his passing, yet another major chunk of my past fades from the scene. Inside I do feel a bit of a hole right now for he was a link to my happiest memories. Indeed, upon reading of his death, first at cnn.com and then later at the Tucson Arizona Star website, I found the immortal words of English cleric and poet John Donne rising back into my awareness. “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. . . .any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Tonight, all who grew up hearing his broadcasts are at least a little bit diminished.

My thoughts go out to his family and friends. May they know the peace, comfort and support they need in their time of loss.

I Expected That: Follow-up to February 1 Post

2009-02-05T01:25:00.001-07:00

It has now been three business days since I sent the e-mail message included at the end of February 1's post. No response. I am not surprised because groups such as “Americans For Truth About Homosexuality” actually aren’t interested in either well-reasoned dialogue or open, unbiased truth about anything.

What concerns me the most is that the members of such groups are teaching their children that it is ok to hate without really knowing what you are hating. That is it ok to oppose whichever Bill of Rights Amendments or Amendment clauses get in the way of your personal ideology. Further, if relevant state or federal laws prove to be inconvenient hindrances to your personal goals, then they, too are to be ignored. Are these the values America can afford to have the next generation of leaders learn? I certainly hope not.

I am seeing the same sorts of twisted logic fueling bizarre remarks and positions being taken on an almost routine basis by Idaho Legislative members. Take the need for improved funding for local Highway Districts (Idaho has hundreds statewide). Out in the wide open countryside, the rural roads are old and increasingly falling apart because they weren’t designed to handle the weight of modern farm trucks or equipment. Last year, during the 2008 Session, one Legislator actually quipped “well, as long as we can still drive around the potholes, we don’t need to fix the roads.” Other comments are too far out there to waste the space to quote, or even paraphrase them.

If these are the values being taught the next generation of America’s business and political leaders, does the US of A still have a viable future?

Will the Christian Fundamentalist Right Ever Grow Up?

2009-02-01T15:17:00.001-07:00

Occasionally the Google Transsexual Blogs Search widget delivers a lulu. Today, the top blog listing quoted the title of an article on an over the top inflammatory website. The article title is “ACLU and Sexual Amputees Sue Illinois.” The website is attached to a reorganized group calling itself “Americans For Truth About Homosexuality.” From the tone and focus of this article it is clear that this group does not care about fair and balanced discussions, nor do they allow diversity of any kind.

The article, written by Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute, responds to a news article in the January 28, 2009 editions of the Chicago Tribune reporting on a lawsuit brought against the State of Illinois by two male to female transsexuals. The suit seeks to force the State to change the gender designator on their Birth Certificates from male to female. Doing so will bring this designator in line with that on their current driver’s licenses, passports and Social Security records.

Ms Higgins’ article transcends derogatory commentary and crosses the line separating civil dialogue and hate speech. As a sister transsexual there is much in her article that is offensive. In the second paragraph she harshly criticizes the Tribune for referring to them using female pronouns and describing them as women. Instead this article describes them as “terribly confused men.”

That assertion is unconscionable for they are NOT men, they are women in their minds and their hearts, if not their souls. They pursued Sexual Reassignment Surgery (SRS) in order to bring their physical bodies into congruence with their minds. Thus, regardless of the aesthetic outcome of their procedures, from a soft tissue anatomical perspective, they are women. They will remain women until the day they die. They can not be seen as ever having been men because their minds and brains have never been masculine. What will it take to get these organizations to finally understand this?

The article then tries to link the MtF desire for female external genitalia with Body Integrity Identity Disorder(BIID) sufferers. (Those with this disorder feel an intense desire to amputate a healthy limb.) She then quotes Dr. Annie Lawrence who said “. . . some researchers propose that it may be a disorder similar to Gender Identity Disorder (GID), or transsexualism.” This is a perfect example of quote cherry picking combined with total misunderstanding of what is being quoted.

She clearly sees this abstracted quote as proving her warped point, but it doesn’t. By including “propose” and “may be” in the same sentence, Dr Lawrence shows she is not issuing a definitive conclusion. Rather this is a preliminary comment. Further, “some” qualifying “researchers” indicates the presence of a division of opinion among relevant researchers on this proposed linkage. The author also is unaware of the extent to which Dr. Lawrence has been discredited within the transsexual community.

Her idea that the desire for reassignment surgery equals the desire for amputating a healthy limb makes no sense at all. For one thing, in medicine the term limb refers to arms and legs only. Hence a penis does not meet this standard definition of a limb. True, it is an appendage extending out from the lower torso. However, the head is likewise an appendage extending upward from the upper torso (with the neck connecting the two.) No one ever refers to someone’s head as a limb, so how can the penis be called one? It strains credulity and is illogical.

For another, say a guy develops BIID and obsesses about only having one leg, and convinces a surgeon to remove it. Whenever he goes shopping, such as at Wal Mart, everyone can see, especially at a distance, that he is missing a leg since he will either be on crutches or in a wheelchair. Yet a post-op male to female transsexual can enter the store behind him, shop extensively to her heart’s content, and no one will be able to tell that she ever had surgery of any kind. Perhaps this is the key point. BIID-related surgery produces visible results that cannot be hidden and that limit mobility. GID-related surgery produces invisible results that do not affect mobility at all. Hence, the two are not equivalent.

Let’s look at this from a different perspective. The human body is designed to walk on two legs and use two arms in its daily activities. Lose the use of one of these limbs, either through paralysis or amputation, and the guy is impaired in everything he tries to do. Lose his penis and ordinary daily activities continue unimpaired. So describing a post-op mtf transsexual woman as a “sexual amputee” is inaccurate, illogical, derogatory and insulting to transsexuals and limb amputees alike. This is why her comment “. . . it is difficult to see how amputating a healthy arm or leg is substantively different for amputating a healthy penis or breasts” merely underscores her ignorance.

Near the end of the article she further describes the two transwomen as deluded men who are seeking to include all of society in their delusion. She concludes from this that they are asking the state to commit fraud by correcting their birth certificates. I’m not an attorney, however, I am not sold on this idea. To me, they are seeking the right to correct a mistake on an official form made by the attending doctor at the time of their births.

The depth of visceral hatred evident in this article, to me, is worrisome. It is one thing to opine that the Tribune erred by using female pronouns in its story, and to civilly point out why she felt this way. This response reads more like an intentional attack on all transsexuals while case building for retention of GID and transsexuality in DSM-V when it is released in 2012. According to the article, BIID is not listed in DSM-IVR. Thus, by erroneously linking it with GID (already there) the author is trying to coat tail this new disorder into the DSM. Is it appropriate for lay religious organizations to be attempting to influence the DSM editorial process?

Late today (1/30/09) I went ahead and submitted the following website response to the organization.
After reading Laurie Higgins' article about the Illinois lawsuit posted on 1/30, I am confused and deeply troubled. Why do you hate transsexuals to the depth you do? Transsexual identities are very real, and all of the steps involved in transitioning are entirely valid. For male to female transsexuals, reassignment surgery does not create a new form of amputees. Rather, it allows the individual to finally have congruence between their physical bodies and their neurological selves. Why is that wrong?
It will be interesting to see what, if any response I receive, and when.

Inauguration Day Impressions

2009-01-22T01:04:00.000-07:00

The Inauguration of President Barack Obama occurred under sunny yet cold skies. I cannot recall a time when I saw that many people filling Washington, DC. (One estimate put the total at 2.5 million, and that number is plausible.) Despite the cold, the enthusiasm level among the attendees was truly impressive, likely topping even that found at a Super Bowl. Certainly the enthusiasm far exceeded the enthusiasm that greeted then new President George Walker Bush in 2001. The spontaneous, boisterous chant of “O Ba Ma! O Ba Ma!” that greeted him as he stepped up to the podium felt very genuine and spontaneous.

I really enjoyed the chamber music composition “Air and Simple Things” by John Williams and played by a truly world class quartet. To me, this affirming composition suggests that the Obama Administration will be a much kinder, gentler, more humane Administration than the one that ended yesterday. At Greg Laden’s Blog (scienceblogs.com), several commentators suggested that Aaron Copeland’s “Fanfare For the Common Man” would have been more appropriate. While they do have a point, I disagree. While this is also a timeless American masterpiece that I never get tired of hearing, it sets the wrong tone for this new Administration. The “Fanfare” conveys a bit of a militaristic tone. Conversely, the Williams composition is affirming and healing.

The decision to include this composition in the Inauguration is a master stroke from another angle. Within the composition, the “Simple Things” part comes from an old Quaker hymn. Including this in the Inauguration, particularly immediately before Obama’s Oath of Office, can be seen as affirming Obama’s independence from any background Muslim influences. Whether it will quiet his critics or not remains to be seen.

The Oath itself nearly turned into an embarrasing event. Right at its start, Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to fumble the Oath script he was reading from. There were several tense seconds while he got squared away and left Obama unsure of how to proceed. Once squared away, the Oath did proceed smoothly until the closing affirmation,

The Presidential Oath traditionally ends with the affirmation “so help me God.” The Chief Justice is expected to read this as the statement it is. Then when the President elect echoes it back, the swearing in is officially concluded and the Chief Justice confirms the successful conclusion by saying “Congratulations, Mr. President” as he shakes the new President’s hand.

Chief Justice Roberts, however, departed from this standard script. Instead of reading the expected text for Obama to repeat, Roberts quite pointedly restated it as “So help you God?” Obama looked a little surprised at this, so he repeated the expected text any way. My lingering impression is that, instead of going on and saying “Congratulations, Mr President” the Chief Justice again pointedly asked Obama the same question. Although gracious, frankly, President Obama looked irked the second time through.

I don’t know exactly how to interpret this unusual Oath administration. First, was the initial fumble due to unfamiliarity of the process by the Chief Justice? Possibly, although he had plenty of time to practice the text and process. Could this have been a subtle way of showing his intent to use the Supreme Court to thwart the Obama administration whenever possible? Only time will answer this question, but it does seem possible.

Second, what motivated his startling departure from the Oath’s wrap up? Suspicion about the new President’s loyalty to the US is one somewhat plausible answer. Suspicion about his loyalty to Christianity is another plausible answer. Either way, I feel his actions merit close investigation by the new Administration. The question that needs to be answered is whether his actions violated the clause prohibiting religious tests or affirmations as a condition of qualifying for elected office. Personally, I saw his latter action as sufficiently suspicious to warrant consideration for a possible impeachment action by the US House.

In 2009, What Should the US Government Focus On? One Citizen’s Opinion, Part 2

2009-01-09T20:49:00.001-07:00

This post wraps up my personal “Top 10" suggestions for the incoming Obama Administration. Domestically, what should be the new administration’s domestic focus?

First, restore the broadcasting fairness doctrine This doctrine, abolished by President Reagan, mandated equal air time (on radio and television) for opposing viewpoints. In its absence, right wing conservative talk radio has run amok since the Clinton era. If the incoming Administration hopes to accomplish any meaningful goals over the next four years, this doctrine must be fully restored, accompanied by FCC enforcement clout to ensure compliance. Otherwise, Republican-backed talk radio hosts (and a few television hosts as well) will stymie the Administration by egging on the remaining conservatives in Congress to disrupt Democratic proposals.

Second, enact a transgender inclusive ENDA This was attempted last year, and failed due to Bush Administration opposition and less than honest efforts by the leadership of the Human Rights Campaign. This year, with a new Administration in Washington, this long-overdue legal patch needs to be passed early in the current Congressional session. The era of legalized discrimination against the GLBT community in the United States must end sooner rather than later. ENDA is an ideal place to start humanizing the US.

Third, sharply reduce the administrative overhead in the Medicare and Medicaid programs Both programs are administratively top heavy and need to be placed on Administrative diets. For starters, the number of required medical procedure prior approvals needs to be massively reduced. This should make a noticeable dent in both budgets while reducing the paper work burden placed on health care professionals while improving the overall quality of US health care.

Fourth, eliminate all unfunded mandates placed on the states Mandates are Federal requirements that states must comply with. Unfunded mandates mean just that: requirements placed on the states with the expectation that full compliance expenses will be covered by the states. This practice transforms the Federal government into a political bully. A very good example is the ill-designed Real ID requirement dreamed up by the Bush administration. This is a bad idea that needs to be scrapped because it will not provide the level of protection against terrorism that its proponents claim. I have read the Final Rule (twice) in its entirety, and, in my opinion, it contains too many holes that can (and will) be exploited by terrorist organizations. Providing the states with a palette of approved license designs to choose from will make it easier for counterfeiters to develop passable forgeries. Further, I came away from both readings with the distinct impression that the rule does not extend to state issued ID cards. To me, that represents a fatal flaw in the entire idea. But there are many other such mandates that need to be suspended or scrapped in order to help the states cope more effectively with the current economic downturn.

Fifth, repeal the recently enacted federal health care conscience rules These rules, enacted late in 2008 by President Bush, protect health care workers from repercussions when they refuse to provide medical care to any patient on the grounds of the care violating personal ethical, moral or religious beliefs. Further the rules effectively use the threat of federal funding termination to coerce health care organizations into enforcing the rule. While this rule supposedly is aimed only at women seeking birth control information or products, it has implications that are ominously broader. A recent case out of Great Britain gives a look at what could start happening in this country if these rules are not repealed. A 59 year old disabled man called paramedics because he was experiencing chest pains. When they arrived, they decided that, in light of his age, the fact that was disabled, and that his house was unkempt and filthy (in their eyes) he wasn’t worth their efforts, so they stood by and let him die. Clearly these rules must be repealed early in this Congressional session.

Sixth, allow all of the Bush tax cuts to expire Now I know that economists will scream that allowing the tax cuts to expire will further damage the economy, but I disagree. Given that the dominant majority of these tax cuts only benefit the ultra rich elite, it is time for the spoiled brat rich to begin paying their fair share of taxes. Once the economy does show definite signs of stable, sustainable recovery, then it would make sense for the Administration to reinvent the income tax structure so that the middle and lower classes benefit the most from future tax cuts. One change that I do champion is a deep cut in the federal corporate tax rates coupled with significant new tax credits for meaningful investments in alternative energy research and design. The tax credits ought to encourage corporations to significantly ease the need for federal funding of this badly needed research.

Seventh, end federal funds availability to religious organizations that are exclusionary in nature Exclusionary rules exist to selectively exclude individual Americans from organizational activities or services based on one criterion or another. In this way, discrimination and covert bigotry continue to spread throughout the country. In my blunt opinion, any clinic, thrift store, soup kitchen, homeless shelter or church-run social services program that refuses to help those in need because of their history, their current life situation, or who they are plants a black eye on the face of Christianity. By providing federal tax dollars to such organizations the Federal government is promoting the kinds of discrimination that were outlawed in the 1960's. At the same time, by either fully or partially funding such organizations, it gives the impression that the First Amendment separation of church and state doctrine no longer exists in the US. If this is the case, then I don’t see how the American Muslim community can feel any sense of security, given that the government is openly supporting a variety of organizations who openly shun Muslims on religious grounds. A much fairer approach would be to provide a set baseline funding level for religious organizations, and then extend significant bonuses to those organizations that can document an open door policy that screen no one out, not even transsexuals.

Eighth, end the Federal stem cell research ban This policy did more to damage the biomedical sciences in the US than any other policy by encouraging a researcher brain drain to other countries where such research is legal. Further, it has set back chronic disease research for potentially many years, which, in turn, will set back the development of effective treatments even longer. For perhaps most Americans, this debate had no real meaning because the science behind it is rather complex. For others, myself included, this outrage is personal. One disease that research suggests stem cells as a viable curative treatment is Parkinson’s Disease. This presently incurable, degenerative disease saps the patient’s quality of life by making normal movements problematical, then impossible. I know first hand the devastating effect this disease can have on the patient and those trying to provide proper care: in the 199's my own dad died from the disease, and I seriously damaged my own health trying to take care of him at home. Diabetics are another group who quite possibly could be cured through stem sell research derived treatments. How can it be moral for a government to force these human beings to needlessly suffer, and die far younger than they otherwise would have, just so some twisted, failed form of Christianity can be adhered to?

Ninth, make non petroleum-derived transportation fuel development a national priority Simply put, the US needs to begin weaning itself off of foreign oil imports in the very near future. Petroleum is a non-renewable resource. When the world’s supply of crude oil and recoverable shale oil, it is gone. So it is imperative that the federal government begin now to encourage the development of petroleum-free yet viable fuels that can be produced within the US borders. What form these fuels might take in the future isn’t clearly known currently. Personally I champion hydrogen as a gasoline and diesel replacement because of its abundant presence in water and because its combustion, by itself, adds no new pollutants into the atmosphere.

Tenth, restore governmental transparency to pre-Reagan levels For some reason I have yet to figure out completely, Republicans give the appearance of almost worshiping secrecy. President Bush was especially notorious with this, frequently ordering documents already in storage at the National Archives pulled and declared to be secret on accounts of “national security”. The curious thing is that possibly a majority of these documents had no connection at all to national security issues, yet they still were declared to be off limits to the country. This practice has got to end in order to restore accountability to the Federal government, its departments and agencies. Indeed, complete honesty about just how far into debt the Federal government actually is will be both a very good, and a very necessary place to start.

There. This private citizen’s armchair observations on what I see as the necessary top priorities for the new Administration is now complete.

In 2009, What Should the US Government Focus On? One Citizen’s Opinion, Part 1

2009-01-08T20:17:00.001-07:00

Around the end of one year and the beginning of the next, the practice of drawing up various lists is slowly becoming a cottage industry. Earlier this week I skimmed several lists of “Ten Products I can’t live without” on some of the tech blogs at Gizmodo and Tech Crunch and a list of ten suggestions for the incoming Administration published on line at Front Page Magazine. That latter list ed on Homeland Security exclusively. As I read it, the sense emerged that it was too narrowly focused and overlooked several pressing issues confronting the new Administration.

The twin lists below (and in Part 2) are my personal opinions, thus they are not based on professional training in Federal policy making. The first list merges homeland security with foreign policy because, to me, the two are inextricably linked. Another way to express this is “if I was the President, what would my Administration focus on this year?

First, finish the job in Iraq. This is critical to the standing of the US in the eyes of the world community of nations. To be taken seriously as the sole free world super power, the Federal government simply must develop a track record of completing foreign projects that we start. Among older adults, the specter of Viet Nam still looms large. If we cut and run from Iraq with the reconstruction unfinished, the damage to America’s reputation will be immense. More critically, it will empower Islamic (and possibly Palestinian) extremist groups to more aggressively attack US interests around the globe.

Second, end the war in Afghanistan This invasion served no practical purpose from the beginning. Contrary to initial claims by the Bush Administration, it is now clear that capturing Osama Bin Laden was not the objective from the get go. There is a commonly held belief here in the US that we invaded Afghanistan and toppled the ruling Taliban government to serve US petroleum industry interests. Thus, this corporate military action needs to be brought to a close.

Third, locate and eradicate all Al Qaeda hideouts in Pakistan This is necessary for continuing security of US interests globally. As a side benefit, it should help increase the domestic security of US allies as well.

Fourth, defer any changes to Homeland Security until after 2010 With any new administration, there is always the temptation to revise or eliminate creations left by the previous Administration. Even though the current set up of DHS is far from perfect (as FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina showed). However, the Administration would be wise to leave this protective apparatus alone until it has cleaned out the last Al Qaeda hideout and stronghold. Once that task has been accomplished, then it will be appropriate to give DHS a badly needed reinvention so it fulfills its mission far more efficiently.

Fifth, make bolstering cybersecurity a priority As computers grow progressively smaller and more sophisticated, the number of misguided individuals who can access the raw computing power needed to hack into, and damage, critical computer systems increases. With the global nature of the world wide web it is possible for cyber terrorists to hide almost anywhere and attack critical energy, financial, law enforcement, and transportation computer systems in this country. For this reason it is imperative that the Administration develop innovative techniques for hardening computers against outside attacks.

Sixth, appropriately harden US borders The focus needs to be on stopping smugglers more than terrorists while making it easier for legitimate cross border traffic to both enter and leave the US. Perhaps the best approach would be to seek regional collaboration with Canada and Mexico on entry requirements. At air ports, the mandatary scanning of every traveler’s shoes needs to come to an end.
Also, it seems to me, for airports to be truly secure, the security checkpoints belong just inside the front doors so everyone entering the terminal must pass the screening process, not just those traveling.

Seventh, sign the UN International Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity That the Bush administration refused to do this shows how out of touch that bunch truly is. It should be a point of national embarrassment that Canada, Mexico, Cuba and Nicaragua all signed it, along with 62 other countries. To me, this confirms the Bush administration as the most deeply bigoted and cruel administration in American history. Given that France took the lead in presenting this proposed declaration to the UN General Assembly, I can’t help wondering if this refusal to sign could also be Washington’s payback for France refusing to join the US led Iraqi coalition in 2002.

Eighth, continue to be wary about Iran and North Korea Both countries are regional bullies with strong dislikes for the US. Both may be near to developing viable nuclear weapons (or not), which makes them doubly dangerous. Iran also has the potential for uniting a wide swath of the Muslim world in its hatred of US interests regionally and globally. At the same time, all diplomatic channels of international dispute resolution must be exhausted before any military action is initially considered for two reasons. First, the US cannot budgetarily afford another war any time soon. Second, military action against either one could draw China into the conflict, and that is something best avoided.

Ninth, enhance DODs high tech superiority The US military simply must remain ahead of what the rest of the world defines as cutting edge military technologies and techniques. The era of massive infantry and artillery formations shooting at each other from foxholes dug into the landscape, a la WW I and II is over. More and more it seems that military actions are more urbanized, localized and conducted by sophisticated small units now than ever before. Also, the more US forces are able to conduct operations using remote controlled robotic drones, the fewer American lives will be lost .

Tenth, back away from the hard line mind set of the present administration Since 2001 the Bush administration has maintained an illogical mind set when it comes to foreign affairs. His “either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists” remarks reflect an inappropriate mind set for the leader of a super power. At the same time, Washington’s staunch anti abortion (and anti contraceptives) stance with regard to foreign aid must stop. The US is not the world’s morality guardian. In my opinion, no nation possesses the right to impose its moral code on any other nation. Softening these hard headed attitudes should help improve America’s reputation abroad.

In Part 2 of this blog, to be posted tomorrow, I will focus on the domestic scene. Obviously, the shaky economic situation impacts this list far more significantly than the foreign agenda.

MY NEW YEAR’S DREAM OF A BETTER WORLD

2009-01-02T10:56:00.002-07:00

New Year’s Day is a day of boundless hope tempered this year by searing reality. The years in development credit crunch continues with no clear end in sight. As a result, new employment creation is at a virtual standstill as businesses small and large no longer have easy access to the fresh capital needed to expand. Further tempering this is the on-going run of small business and corporate bankruptcies and failures. So there is plenty of economic material available to justify wallowing in gloom and doom.

To combat this temptation I choose to take a longer term look at things. This current recession will resolve itself in time and the credit markets will loosen up. Employment will begin growing again, and consumer confidence will once again turn from negative to positive. Only time can tell whether Wall Street investors will be able to regain the $7 trillion in paper asset value the markets lost in 2008.

From a long term perspective, this is but a hiccough in life’s path. So rather than wallow in abject misery driven by fear and worry, my mind is focusing on the world that will still exist when this nightmare is over. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in 1963, I dream of a better world.

Lying within the human mind is an ability to produce great works when inspired. Fortunately, many of these are very positive. Great works of literature, art, architecture and music are examples, as are the major breakthroughs in science and technology that make modern life possible. Sadly, others are works of great evil, as seen in a recurring pattern throughout history. For the gender variant, my mind envisions a world free from evil’s predations. With a new Administration set to assume the mantle of power in Washington, D.C., I feel it is once again safe to dream of a bright, positive future.

I dream of a world where all mankind is safe and free to move about the planet as whims or opportunities arise. In this world, effective laws provide protection from hate, and other violent, crimes by removing truly dangerous criminals from society. In this world the transgender community is finally free to boldly move forth free from fear of becoming a crime statistic, and free from the fear of arrest for using the public restroom that matches their inner identity, rather than the one flagged as appropriate by some piece of paper (like a birth certificate).

The Preamble of the US Constitution asserts that mankind is granted certain rights by his creator, including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” In the modern world, pursuing these bedrock rights requires access to money, which means holding a job. Too long have racial minorities, the disabled and handicapped, older workers, women, and members of the GLBT community suffered from various forms of the same discrimination and persecution visited upon African Americans for the better part of a century following America’s Civil War. Consider the parallel: for decades throughout the South, drinking fountains and restrooms were routinely labeled “Whites Only.” today, fully dressed male to female transsexuals risk arrest and incarceration just for using women’s restrooms. Apparently law enforcement would rather they enter a men’s restroom while outfitted in a skirt, blouse, pantyhose and heels. This rank discrimination must end.

Along this line, it is now all too clear that the soon to be departing Bush administration is by far the most blatantly transphobic Administration in history. In the name of the “war on terror” one regulation is explicitly anti-transsexual. Employers are now required to cross check employment application information with Social Security records, and any applicant (or current employee) whose application form gender indicator does not match SS records must be rejected. A regulation like that does not belong in a free, democratic society. Likewise, pre-op and no op transsexuals must submit to being identified by their birth identification on US Passports while post op transsexuals can list their real gender without opposition. Finally, recently implemented changes in Federal health care policies may make it impossible for transsexuals to receive any medical care at all.

As a case in point: a few years ago, a pre op transsexual woman was injured in a Washington, DC traffic accident. Even though her injuries would not have been fatal with proper medical attention. However, when the responding EMTs discovered her transsexuality, they laughed and allowed her to die unattended at the scene. Under these new regulations, by claiming transsexuals violate either their personal values or their religious beliefs, they would get away with murder. In the world I dream of, such regulations do not exist.

In this world of which I speak, comprehensive health care is available to every citizen without regard to ability to pay, sexual orientation, gender identity, or citizenship status. This would be true universal health care that covers all aspects of cradle to grave medical needs, and would cover all costs attendant to the transsexual journey, including feminizing plastic surgery and reassignment surgery. In time, all chronic diseases would be cured through a combination of stem cell and gene therapy. Indeed, in this world, physicians would be able to practice medicine free from the burden of bureaucratic red tape and record keeping mandates that have nothing to do with sound medical decision making.

Changes in Federal employment law would guarantee a true living wage for all employees, along with time and a half for all employees, without regard to job title or employer’s economic sector. The practice, reportedly widely practiced in the retail sector, of requiring employees to work for free, or “off the clock,” would be rendered illegal by new laws that would require full back pay for all such hours. Likewise, employees would be meaningfully protected from sexual harassment on the job, and would be protected from termination for any reason other than job performance.

In this world, the family would be strengthened by the churches being restored to what they were in earlier eras: institutions that focused solely on the spiritual needs of their congregations and on helping the less fortunate members of society. Separation of church and state would be strengthened in the Constitution and become a two-way barrier: government would be prevented from regulating or controlling religion in any way, and the churches would be blocked from controlling government. At the same time, gay marriage would be converted into a non issue by a simple change in terminology. Unions entered into in a religious ceremony would be called marriages, in accordance with custom, while those entered into in a secular ceremony presided over by a public official would be called civil unions. Both options would be open to everyone without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity.

This world of which I dream would finally bring to fruition the dream that Dr. King so eloquently expressed in August, 1963. I have kept that dream alive within myself since his murder in 1968. Within my being that dream is of a time when people are judged on what they can do, not who or what they are. When mankind reaches that point we truly will be “free at last.”

is the world portrayed above merely a pipe dream, or can it be achieved in our lifetimes? I truly believe the world portrayed above is attainable in time IF the transgender and LGB communities can come together and form a united front consistently pulling in the same direction and sharing the same message. In 2009 I truly hope this united front does emerge and begin speaking with one voice.

Happy 40th, Computer Mouse

2008-12-13T15:10:00.001-07:00

This week the iconic computer mouse turned 40. On December 9, 1996, the first prototype was unveiled. This ancestor of the modern mouse had only one button on top of a notably non-ergonomically shaped, yet still not bad looking, wood case. Motion of the mouse was detected by two rolling wheels on the bottom set at right angles to each other. Since that early design idea, the mouse has developed additional buttons, a rolling track ball in place of the two wheels, a scrolling wheel (on some models) and the option of a cable-free mouse.

Clearly the mouse’s emergence has empowered the emergence of graphical user interfaces, like Windows, and productivity software that can offer functionality far beyond that of the DOS era. Indeed, one can only speculate about whether the personal computer would have developed its immense popularity had the mouse not become a standard part of all systems. For that matter, had the mouse not have been invented by a British group of outside the box thinkers in the 1960's, then Microsoft might have found it necessary to invent one themselves. Given their track record with Windows, I shudder at that idea. Let’s see, had that happened, would we have progressed through MS Mouse 3.1, MS Mouse 95, MS Mouse 98, etc up through MS Mouse Vista? Ugh.

Let’s take a step back for a moment and, as a thought experiment, envision a world in which the keyboard is the only means of interfacing with a computer. In this world, all commands would be entered only through keyboard shortcut keystroke combinations. In this world, could monitor color choices have progressed beyond 16 colors, given that each available color would need its own keystroke combination?

I will admit I qualify as a technology old timer, if not outright dinosaur, despite only being in my early to mid 50's. When I started my college career as a chemistry major, the highest tech calculating device I used was a pocket slide rule. A year later, when I took a FORTRAN IV programming class, a keypunch was used to record program instructions and test data on 80 column Hollerith punch cards. These, in turn, were entered into the school’s NCR Century 50 small mainframe computer (which filled most of a small room) with a main memory (the term RAM didn’t exist in those days) of 16k of hard-wired ferrite core memory. The impact printer sat on the floor, and generated black capital letters, numbers and a few standard typographical symbols a line at a time on the very wide, green and white striped paper commonly seen in those days. Color printing with multiple fonts and special symbols? Only in science fiction. The university I attended later on used an IBM 370 mainframe, and its 8 platter, 12" wide removable disks held (at that time) an impressive 600 megabytes.

Contrast that with today: instead of discussing main memory in terms of thousands of bytes of true physical memory, now memory is contained in sets of small chips capable of holding billions of bytes of information. Just a few years ago, the debate about the ideal amount of RAM centered on 256 MB vs 512 MB. Now, with the release of Windows Vista the debate over how much RAM is needed has shifted to “which works better: 3 gigabytes or 4?” (Or is that question actually: What is the largest amount of RAM that Vista can still crash?”)

In the late 1990's, typical hard drive capacities topped out in the hundreds of megabytes, and a one gigabyte drive was still in development. Now, hard drive capacities in the hundreds of gigabytes are commonplace and a one trillion byte capacity hard drive is on the market. When the emergent solid state memory technology achieves commercial viability, over time, even one terabyte mechanical hard drives will become obsolete, replaced by solid state drives (SSDs) that will offer storage capacities far beyond mechanical hard drive technology capabilities. By being moving part free, this emergent technology will also be able to provide significantly faster response times. This, in turn, will either challenge engineers to significantly increase front side bus speeds, or develop an entirely new internal data transfer technology capable of keeping up with the SSDs.
My mind feels boggled at times whenever I pause to reflect on the extent to which computer technology has developed and grown since I studied FORTRAN IV. That first computer I successfully programmed lacked the ability to print in color, did not have a monitor, used disk packs the size of a large pizza, and filled a small room. This blog is being revised and finished on a Sony Vaio laptop with a back lit TFT color monitor. Instead of having to go to the computer, I am parked in my easy chair, with this computer parked on my abdomen.

So the question remains: how much of this computer technological growth would have happened in the absence of the mouse?

Nativity Scenes on Public Property: Conflict Begins Anew in Olympia, Washington

2008-12-07T20:37:00.001-07:00

This is December, which means it is time for rampant consumerism (normally), office parties, Christmas seasonal music old & new, and Christian Nativity scenes on public property. Every year, somewhere in the United States these public nativity scenes evoke challenges and protests of one kind or another. This year is going to be no exception.

This past week a Nativity scene has been set up in Washington State’s Legislative Building in Olympia. Early Friday morning the Freedom From Religion Foundation posted a rather heavy metal sign near the display. Its top sentence, to me, makes a lot of sense: “At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE [caps are in the original] may reason prevail.” In the spirit of fairness, where Christian displays are allowed, other faiths, other viewpoints possess an equal right of access to space for equally tasteful displays.

Still, groups such as the Christian Coalition ceaselessly fight against this access fairness by arguing that such displays, no matter how tasteful, attack religion. Even though the Olympia sign concludes by describing religion as “myth and superstition that hardens the heart and enslaves the mind”, in my opinion, it does not attack religion. Rather, it expresses an opinion, a viewpoint. Under the US Constitution’s First Amendment, public expression of this type of opinion is, or at least should be, Constitutionally protected speech.

What the Christian Coalition and similar groups fail to recognize is that, by maintaining what strikes me as an exclusionary expressive right of public sphere access, they are increasingly proving observations such as the one that concludes the Olympia sign right. The near universal blindness of the more radical Fundamentalist groups never ceases to amaze me. What concerns me is the increasing extent to which many of these groups are diverging from the teachings of the Judao-Christian Scriptures in general, and the Christian New Testament in particular.

I grew up in a strict Christian faith so from childhood on I read the King James version of The Bible on my own. Thus, through the years, I have read, and thought about, the entire text of both Testaments several times. The positions on a number of positions they maintain do not mesh with my readings of Scripture.

On this Olympia flap, I find it amused that one or more local Christians became so incensed over the Freedom From Religion sign that they felt justified in breaking one of the Ten Commandments (Thou Shalt Not Steal). The sign installation was completed by 6:30 am; an hour later it disappeared. A few hours later someone spotted it in a ditch outside town, and dropped it off at a local radio station.

This situation in Olympia strikes me as an extension of the disputes over displays of the Ten Commandments in public places. generally such displays are challenged on the grounds that they promote Christianity to the exclusion of all other faiths and beliefs. Nothing could be further from the truth. For one thing, the Ten Commandments descended to Christianity from Judaism, thus they predate the birth of Christianity. For another thing, similar expressions are found in many, if not all, wisdom traditions both east and west. I don’t have access to a Qu’ran, however I suspect that a similar set of commandments appears there as well. Similar guidelines for how to live also appear in Buddhism, the Tao, and probably Hinduism as well. Thus the Ten Commandments need to be seen as universal in nature, which means they promote no specific religion.

Personally I don’t have a problem with tastefully designed displays of the Ten Commandments and Nativity scenes on public property as long as the displays minimize the name of the sponsoring Church (or Churches). Equally, as long as such displays are set up so that viewing is voluntary by all passers by, then I fail to see how they differ from monuments honoring veterans or pioneers mounted on public property.

Perhaps, too, these disagreements during the holiday season underscore the extent to which Christmas has digressed from what it technically is about: the virgin birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Is it time for US society to reevaluate the meaning of the entire holiday season?

NaNoWriMo Update: I Did It!

2008-12-01T01:29:00.002-07:00

The subtitle of this post says it all: in less than thirty days I wrote slightly more than 50,000 words toward my first novel. This is a notable accomplishment, given that I reached that level in 23 days of actual writing. Now that I have ascended to the top of Mount NaNoWriMo, my mind feels lost since I no longer have the deadline driving me forward. Even so, this accomplishment feels really, really nice.

Now comes the challenging intellectual weight lifting: editing and polishing this initial draft into a publishable manuscript before the end of next August so I can have a clear desk come September 1st when I will launch a personal challenge: write at least 50,000 nonfiction words on Transgender Civil Rights within the month of September. That will give my mind one month to sketch out what fiction manuscript (or manuscripts) I will tackle when NaNoWriMo 2009 kicks off next November.

So, some in the reading audience may be rightfully wondering, how hard can it be to edit and polish a work of fiction?

The answer: with this project’s challenging goals yet to be addressed, very. I visualize this novel’s overall structure as a woven tapestry made from warp and woof fibers that meet at right angles throughout the cloth. The novel’s background is a fictionalized transsexual autobiography, with flashbacks to earlier generations as appropriate, that forms the warp fibers. The woof fibers will be composed of insights and information from transgender studies research already completed and additional research as needed to fill in the holes. Where appropriate, the autobiographical elements will illustrate the research supported points contained in the woof threads, thereby adhering to the “show, don’t tell” rule of thumb that, when properly applied, produces readable, gripping fiction that is a joy to read.

Now that I have joined the winner’s circle in my initial NaNoWriMo challenge, what new personal challenges exist for next year? It’s true, I could once again shoot for the 50,000 word goal, or, now that I have shown that I can do it, I can up the degree of expectation I place upon my fingers. There are some writers this year who go well beyond the general 50,000 word mark, and a thread on the NaNoWriMo Shoutouts forum provides a place for word counts above 80,000 words to compare notes and encourage each other. Joining that determined group is my target next year.

I’ll admit that the idea of spinning out that many words in one month on one (or two) manuscripts sounds impossible, yet I can see that it is easily attainable. Consider: an average pace of 2,000 words per day produces 60,000 words in one month. This year I found that writing 3,500 words in an evening is an easy pace. Sustained over 30 days, that pace yields 105,000 words. Thus, by limbering up my creative juices next fall, 75,000 to 80,000 words or more will be easily attainable.

10th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance

2008-11-19T17:14:00.002-07:00

November 20 (tomorrow), the annual, solemn, unfortunately necessary Transgender Day of Remembrance marks its tenth anniversary. While some local observances occur on other dates in November for one reason or another, still the 20th is the primary date. This annual observance began in 1999 in San Francisco as a means of memorializing a transsexual who was murdered in November, 1998. The groups that maintain the sobering Remembering our Dead web page and the Transgender Day of Remembrance website track the sickening statistics.

In a downloadable Excel spreadsheet (it also opens in Quattro Pro X3), found at the latter website, names (where known), place, date and what is known about each death are all listed. The main table, listing all known homicides worldwide from 1970 to 2008 lists 419 names. In the United States, eight senseless and needless transgender deaths occurred in 2007, including one due to denial of medical treatment at several medical centers in Texas, and one in California that is sickening. An alleged undocumented alien needed an antibiotic to help recover from an HIV-connected illness. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials denied her access to the antibiotic, so she died in US Federal custody. Yet one more example of the extent to which the current Administration showers contempt on basic human decency and morality.

Through November 18, there have been sixteen such homicides in 2008, including one in Syracuse, NY last Friday, November 14. In this latest case, the transsexual and her brother were sitting in a car when they were shot. As of Monday’s update, the brother was still alive. One more sobering estimate exists. As reported last year, while people generally face a less than 0.0055% chance of becoming a homicide victim, transsexuals face about a 10% chance. This shows that a transsexual’s risk of becoming a murder statistic is over 1800 times higher than the people around her. Add to that the estimate I have seen that 60% of all transsexuals have been assaulted, and it can be seen that life truly is uncertain for transsexuals.

Over the last decade a few trans community murders have been turned into movies. Three that I have seen include A Girl Like Me: the Gwen Araujo Story, about a California high school aged male to female transsexual who was tortured, killed and buried by a quartet of male classmates, Boys Don’t Cry, a telling of the short life of Brandon Teena, a female to male transsexual brutally murdered in a small town in Nebraska solely because of his difference, and Soldier’s Girl, about US Army Private Brandon Winchell, beaten to death with a baseball bat by mentally unstable members of his unit because he was dating a male to female nightclub singer/entertainer at a bar near their Kentucky base. Even though he wasn’t transsexual, I feel it is appropriate to include his name on the list since his acceptance of a transsexual as normal directly led to his death.

When will this senseless killing stop? It would be a definite benefit to the transgender community if this astronomical homicide rate could be brought back down to a level comparable to the rest of society in a year or two. That, however, is sadly unrealistic. For that to happen, human societies worldwide will need to become more accepting of human diversity in all of its complexities, and will need to learn greater tolerance of individual differences.

Having said that, I choose to be optimistic that humanity will, in time, reach that level of healthiness. In 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr (a childhood hero in my eyes) spoke eloquently of a time when people would be judged on the content of their character, not their skin color. Within me, his eloquent dream lives on, and will live on as long as I live. Building on his dream, I dream of a time when people outgrow the need to judge their fellow human beings.

Scattered across the globe, various appropriate ceremonies will be held to remember the fallen. Not surprisingly, no announced ceremonies or observances are planned in Idaho, where I live. In light of the wide-spread bigotry and resistance to change in this state, it will be quite a while before any events like this can be planned.

NaNoWriMo Update: 50,000 words are in sight

2008-11-16T22:06:00.003-07:00

November moved into its second half this weekend. This means that the 125,000 or so participants in this year’s National Novel Writing Month project need to be very close to the 25,000 word mark in their manuscripts to have a realistic chance of hitting the 50,000 word target by the close of November.

I am in good shape in this respect. As of this evening, my word count has topped 31,700 words, so in my mind the countdown is on. I am reaching the home stretch, and my personal goal of reaching the 50,000 word mark by Thanksgiving eve (a week from this Wednesday) is in sight. To pull that off, I need to add about 18,300 words (or more). Given that there are ten days left in which to reach this target, I would need to average about 1,830 words a day. Given that I have been averaging a little over 2,000 words a day since I started on November 2, this is eminently doable.

So now it becomes pertinant to reflect on what I have learned or discovered during the course of this year’s project. Actually, plenty. First, I have confirmed for myself that I am, in fact, a writer. Even NaNoWriMo veterans make that observation. If a participant finds the challenge to be fun, and, perhaps, not that hard, then odds are that participant is a writer. To me, once I hit my stride last week, I found the pace to be rather easy. For example, to write 50,000 words in exactly 30 days, a pace of 1,700 words (or a little less) a day is needed. Last week, on successive evenings I wrote about 7,100 words combined, and did not feel stressed by that pace.

One question that came up on one of the website’s forum boards concerns the use (or non use) of outlines. I noticed that virtually all of the participants who added relies don’t use outlines, for one reason or another. I approached this manuscript much like I have launched term papers in school: when it came to the actual writing, I simply jumped in and started writing. I find written outlines to be a distraction so I disdain their use. With this manuscript, writing without an outline has given the writing the flexibility to unfold as it chooses. While this might sound like a chaotic situation (and a couple of times it felt that way), actually out of that essentially free-form writing style I have gained a number of fresh perspectives and insights that will be immensely useful for me.

This year’s manuscript is a fictionalized transsexual autobiography with a wrinkle. When finished, my current intention is to use the autobiography as a backdrop for an investigation into possible biological and social antecedents of transsexual identity formation, with an examination of the "absent father figure" as a contributing factor. In parallel with this, I am planning on exploring the interplay between family emotional dysfunctionality and transsexual identity formation. I am getting a sense that inter-generational transmission of emotional memories (parent to child, possibly even grandparent to grandchild) is emerging as an issue to be examined.

In other words, once the 50,000 word mark has been surpassed, and has been confirmed by the website servers, which will add my name to the list of this year’s winners, a fairly significant amount of additional research will need to be done as well as the editing (and additional writing) process. Yes, this does sound like a mountain of work still to be done before this manuscript will reach the point of publish ability. So the question is: have I set a target deadline for completion of this project? Yes: October 31, 2009, so I can step back, take a breath, load up on caffeine, and, a few seconds into November 2009, begin writing next year’s NaNoWriMo winning manuscript.

National Novel Writing Month: 50,000 words in 30 Days

2008-11-09T19:33:00.002-07:00

November of every year is when this open competition takes place. The ground rules all participants must adhere to are simple: write 50,000 (or more) words of a new novel, provided that the only words that can be included in the official word count must be written between November 1 and November 30. The sponsors stress that in November the focus is on quantity not quality; December is for editing.

This is my first year of participation, having just learned of its existence while browsing the deeply engrossing blogs hosted by scienceblogs.org on November 1. After thinking about it for a bit, I signed on shortly before midnight, then begain writing in the wee small hours of November 2. In the first seven days of writing, my word count has gone from 0 to 14,000 plus, so, yeah, I am quite confident I will hit the target on time, and will join the thousands of other winners.

During November, if long gaps of time develop between posts on this blog, it's because I am up to my hair follicles chipping away toward the 50,000 word target one word at a time. Still, I find the fiction writing process to be quite enjoyable (so far), and, since this first manuscript is intended to use my trans autobiography as a backdrop for exploring the interplay between family dysfunctionality and trans identity development as well as the question about the nature and nurture aspects of transgendered identity formation. Suffice to say, this first 50,000 words is just that -- the first 50,000.

Finally, the Elections Are Over, And Hope Has a Chance

2008-11-04T23:08:00.002-07:00

The American elections reached their Election Day conclusion today. Several hours earlier than I expected, the Presidential race ended when Republican John McCain called Democrat Barack Obama to congratulate him, then publically conceded the election. This means that the 44th US President will be its first African-American occupant of the Oval Office. In the final days of the campaign the current economic mess trumped all other campaign issues.

So now the transition, and the healing can begin. I feel that, with the Obama victory, hope has a chance. We saw that during the dust up between Russia and Georgia earlier this year. When McCain was asked how he would respond to the situation if he was President, his response was predictably militaristic, and involved sending US troops into Georgia, to side with the Georgians. Barack Obama’s response to the same question centered on seeking a peaceful resolution through diplomatic means.

While exit polls appear to indicate that economic concerns formed the top issue in voters minds, still I wonder about the subconscious impact candidate health had on the outcome. The fact that John McCain is 72, and has had four malignant melanoma skin cancer surgeries had to be a background concern, at least in the minds of some voters. The extent of its influence on the more medically aware voters will never be known.

Still, tonight, the United States faces a better future because enough responsible citizens saw through the last minute mud slinging from the Republican side and cast a decisive vote for the candidate of change. Now let the international healing begin.

Finally, tonight, there is even better news: in 77 days the Bush nightmare finally will end. More importantly he has only 15 days left in which his administration can make "economically significant" policy and Federal rule changes. After November 20, any such changes become draft proposals for the next President to act on.

Two Days To Go Before the Counting (And Recounts, Challenges, etc) Begins

2008-11-02T16:24:00.006-07:00

Two days from today it will be Election Day in the United States. The general sentiment among state election officials is that this years turnout will be significantly heavier than in many recent elections. Whether this is an accurate assessment can only be known once all of the votes have been counted and the actual per cent age of registered voters who voted is determined.

At this point, two things are certain. First, in each contested race there will be one winner and at least one looser. In the race for President either Barack Obama will win, which means John McCain will lose, or vice versa. Second, I feel the Presidential outcome will not be known with any certainty until the states of Oregon, Washington and California declare their respective states’ winner. If this is the case, given that the polls on the west coast don’t close until 11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, on the east coast (where big media is concentrated), it could easily be two or three am before the outcome is known.

However, as we have seen with recent Presidential elections, even then the outcome might remain up in the air. Should John McCain appear to win, I look for Democratic challenges to the outcome in possibly several states, alleging tampering with electronic voting machines. Already, I am seeing multiple references to videos circulating on the Internet showing touch screen units changing votes cast for Obama to votes for McCain. So 2008 might end up being a replay of 2000, with the Courts deciding who will be the next US President.

My embracing of the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism has been on-going for some time. For me, it is far healthier and down to earth than Christianity, the faith of my youth. I am surviving this pivotal national election cycle with far less psychological distress than in recent years because the core Buddhist teaching "all is impermanent" helps me keep things in perspective. Whoever occupies the Oval Office next will do so only for a short period of time, then fade into history.
I’ve subscribed to Tricycle: the Buddhist Review for several years now. On their excellent website, they offer a free series of e-mails called the Tricycle Daily Dharma, which is a series of short passages presenting various aspects of overall Dharma. The November 1 Daily Dharma provides an interesting additional way of looking at this year’s election outcomes.

Joseph Goldstein, author of the book Insight Meditation, where this passage first appeared, illustrated the difference between perception and mindfulness. Briefly, when perception outweighs mindfulness, the mind recognizes various appearance-guided artificial concepts. To build on his main example, in the Northern Hemisphere nighttime sky, on a clear night it is relatively easy to identify a constellation called the Big Dipper. It takes its name form the shape a particular set of stars forms in the sky. While this artificial concept helps identify this set of stars, allowing one to become attached to this concept causes these stars to stand out and become separated from the rest of the stars. This, in turn, causes the observer to lose sight of the oneness and the wholeness of the universe.

These thoughts are helping me see the US elections in a different, and far less stressful, light. In the Presidential race between Obama and McCain, supporters of each carry perceptions that their candidate is right and the other candidate is wrong. The same can be said about the policies each side is promoting. These positions arise out of perceptions, not mindfulness. When the final winner is determined, supporters of the victor will see the outcome as a victory for all Americans, while the loser’s supporters will see only gloom and doom ahead.

So what future does exist for the United States? I am not a psychic, so I don’t know. What I do know comes from US history, particularly over the last 40 years or so. Every newly elected US President has entered office will a specific set of goals and plans to accomplish while in office. Under the US system, all such ideas must gain the approval of Congress before taking effect. More often than not, that is the black hole where Presidential ideas get lost in petty partisanship. Thus, it really doesn’t matter who wins, the new President will still have the US Congress to deal with. To the winner: good luck.

Sarah Silverman and "white" comedy: reactions

2008-10-26T20:34:00.004-06:00

Last Thursday I reflected on this site about the Netflix entry on the quirky Stuff White People Like blog. At the time I also mentioned another entry on the list about Sarah Silverman as an example of white people's taste in humor.

With its new season now airing on Comedy Central, I have begun watching her The Sarah Silverman Program. While her character strikes me as quirky, free-spirited and light hearted, I do not get most of her humor. Perhaps it is a generational thing, perhaps it is a background cultural thing. Her program is set in suburban California (near as I can tell), while I grew up almost entirely in small town/rural Idaho. In general, my observation for some time is that the things Californians see as comedic/hilarious Idahoans don't, and vice versa.

Then there is the generational factor. I was born during the 1950's. Thus I was a young, impressionable youth during American comedy's golden era, when comedy actually was funny and quotable without bleeps, or a lingo translations list. Where Gen X and Gen Y relate to contemporary comics and comedy programs exclusively, I still recall the classic work of such grand masters as Abbott & Costello, Jack Benny, Bergin & McCarthy, Burns & Abbott, and Fibber McGee & Molly. I must admit that much of contemporary stand-up comedy leaves me going "huh?"

As a result I am not certain about how I classify Sarah Silverman's current program. There is an undercurrent of drama woven into the comedy. Thus, to me, it is not a pure comedy, and it is not a pure drama either. Even so, I still enjoy it and plan to keep watching.

Still, to return to the premise of the entry: can types of comedy people enjoy be accurately categorized racially? Granted, there are comics that draw predominantly African-American audiences. In my eyes, that is a good thing for every racial group and every nationality needs its stress relief outlets. However, there are cross-over comedians and comedic actors who appeal to a far broader, mixed racial audience. Eddy Murphy comes to mind in this regard. I am white, and still Eddy Murphy's movies always crack me up because of his knack for perfect timing of comments, etc. For that matter, I question whether it even makes sense to try to categorize comedy as "white comedy", "African-American comdey", etc.

Along this same line, two final examples that may help disprove the validity of comedy/humor classification along racial (or any other) lines come from American TV programs. One now regarded as a classic comedy is the sit-com Sanford & Son, which revolved around Fred Sanford, an African-American junk dealer and his long-suffering son. This is one of the best comedies ever produced because it addressed a braod variety of stereotypes, both positive and negative, in a light hearted manner. I have enjoyed it throughly since it first aired decades ago. Personally, I feel it would have been far less funny had all of the characters been white, even though most of the stereotypes would have been the same.

The other counter example (in my mind) is the new program Chocolate News on Comedy Central. This is a deliberately tongue-in-cheek African American spoof of network news magazine programs. Its deft weaving of factual information into the background of rather outrageous claims strikes me as hilarious and definitely worth watching. The fact that it is African-American themes and produced, in my opinion, adds to its enjoyable charm.

"White People Like Netflix?" Say Wha???

2008-10-23T17:06:00.003-06:00

A little while ago I stumbled onto a satirical blog primarily composed of Stuff White People Like (stuffwhitepeoplelike.com). Its author has compiled a list of 110 plus things that supposedly are liked by all white people, suggesting that other raced don't. Whether this is completely true or not probably cannot be definitively proved, nor should it be.

To me, this delightfully weird -- and very popular -- blog is a spoof of all of the "Top 10" lists floating around. While claiming to be scientific, the entries have a very definite toungue-in-cheek nature to them. All of the items on the list have attracted lengthy strings of reader comments, many of which attract comments on their own.

While I cannot attest to the rightness or wrongness of every item on the list, two I see as worthy of a response.

#39 on the list is Netflix, the DVD rental by mail business in the US. This item has attracted over 300 comments since its appearance in January of this year, including some posted today. Obviously, there are people who love Netflix (I fall in that category), those who don't, and some who basically are saying "What's the big deal, anyway?"

I have been a Netflix member since December 2006. Since then, I have rented over 200 DVDs from them. Almost without exception, the replacement disks arrive in my mailbox exactly two days after the disks I am returning go in the mail.

Some of the comments I read came from people who experienced delivery problems, etc. I wonder how many of those people actually read their e-mail? (In order to sign on as a Netflix customer, an active e-mail address is required.) This is a Netflix strength that they don't promote enough: Netflix does not leave its members in the dark about things we need to know.

The way it works is this: say I send a disk back on Monday. It normally arrives at the nearest distribution center early on Tuesday morning. As soon as it has been processed by Netflix Receiving, an automated e-mail message is sent to my in box confirming its receipt. Then, later that same day, when its replacement disk is ready to go into the mail, a second e-mail message is automatically sent, announcing which DVD is coming, and when they expect it to arrive. On occasion, the next disk isn't immediately available locally. Rather than make me wait for it to show up locally, Netflix forwards the shipment order on to whichever distribution center has it in stock. Then, they send an e-mail apprising me of this fact, including where it will be coming from, and their estimate of when it should arrive. I have had this happen a few times, and, regardless of the extra distance it has to travel, every time, the disk has arrived on the day they estimated.

Still, this tongue-in-cheek, all-in-good-fun look at Netflix leaves me with one question: how do other races feel about Netflix?

As to the other item on the list that I can comment on (#52, Sarah Silverman) I will blog about after the latest installment of her show later tonight on Comedy Central.)

Verbal Predators: Nuisance or Threat?

2008-10-11T20:29:00.002-06:00

This personally reflective post arises out of a chain of comments posted at A. E. Brain, an excellent blog out of Australia. Its author is a sister male to female TS. This past week an anonymous commenter has been posting a series of virteolic comments that can be seen as verbal attacks on the entire TS community.

This series of comments -- and the first one in particular -- got me to reflecting on the point at which being argumentative crosses a line and becomes verbal predatory behavior. To the best of my knowledge, the psych and legal communities have yet to recognize such behavior as a separate issue. Still, in the sense I am discussing it here, a verbal predator is one who uses written or spoken comments to repeatedly attack another person (or a group of people sharing a common characteristic) for the sole purpose of tearing them down in some way.

In my younger years, I have been around more than a few such individuals. One common characteristic I noticed is that such people cannot be reasoned with or engaged in rational discourse. Such people, in my observation-based opinion, feel small, unappreciated, powerless and maligned in some way by society. These people give the impression that they see tearing down the haves in some way as the only way they can feel good about themselves. So they attack with their words. An out of control ego, which causes the individual to see himself as more important and powerful than he actually is, also fuels such behavior.

Such misguided individuals appear to be completely oblivious to the chaos their verbal jousting causes. For some, unfortunately, they are aware of their effect on others, and simply do not care.

It appears to me that these people specialize in leading the unrelenting attacks on the entire GLBT coommunity by extremist Christian Fundamentalists, particularly in the US. (Come to think about it, these are the same people still railing againt abortion as well.) When these individuals' excess verbiage is stripped away, it becomes clear that they are arguing on subjects about which they understand very little and know even less.

Such prople are potential threats to progress in the securing of civil and legal rights for transsexuals world wide. Through being excessively vocal, they provide a rallying point for others who oppose the extension of these rights. Unfortunately, American politicians paradoxically tend to give their unsupported rants far more credence than the well-researched and presented, factually accurate information we can provide.

While this blog is set to allow unmoderated comments from anyone, even prople signing themselves "Anonymous," I do hope that comment posters will identify themselves by a first name (at least.)

Every Blog Needs an Icebreaker

2008-10-08T20:41:00.000-06:00

Hello, blog-reading world!

This post is my personal introduction to the blogosphere from the perspective of a blog host. My blog's title is meant to indicate that this blog will, over time, explore a wide ranging varitey of topics drawn from current affairs, social sciences, science, the humanities broadly defined and whatever else tweaks my interest.

I encourage others to respond to these posts as you feel inspired. All comments are welcome as long as flaming is kept to a minimum. There is value in negative feedback alongside positive for in their juxtaposition arises well-reasoned discourse. Indeed, as time goes by, I will do everything in my power to respond to any questions submitted to me in a timely manner, with only one exception. Any question that contains either questionable or vulgar language, or can be seen as a hate-derived attack will be ignored.

This exception will be enforced by me in part to preserve the integrity-rooted value of this blog and in part to ensure absolute adherence to this site's content policies. I have read their complete statement and, in my opinion, are brilliant in their clarity and fairness.