Frogtails, Faces you remember
School Time FunOctober, 2004October 31, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Friday and Saturday the post office must have worked overtime to bring me all of the political flyers. Thanks, I really appreciate the effort. We are supposed to have a secret ballot in this country. Judging from the flyers that arrive, it appears to me that there may be a few leaks in the system. The voting preferences of each member of our family appear to be pretty well identified. This morning reading the Sunday newspapers, I’ll admit to a few moments of doubt about my choices. After all, this is real, and my vote may be the one that makes all the difference. It is so sad that we have to vote for either party but that is another story. How will it end? Searching Google for the answers seems a more precise method than any yet devised. We are not looking for whether a person is mentioned in a favorable light or not, just that they are mentioned. In other words name recognition. It is a new approach I’ll admit and of my own making so it is still unproven. What is a person to do? I gazed at the stars last night. No, not actually. But I suspect that some might have done so. After all, many of you will want to be buying or selling stocks on Monday (placing your bets if you will) and are willing to use some of the most arcane methods to obtain a slight edge. One of my favorite methods that appears to be as good as any is just checking the weather forecast. When I first heard that I thought it was a joke. Over the years, I’ve come to respect the wisdom of that method. Here is as best I can figure the reasoning behind it. Republicans are going to vote no matter what. There are not so many of them so that number is a constant. Democrats have been characterized (not by me) to be more of a fair weather voter. If things a pleasant outside, they may take a stroll out and vote. It so happens that if the weather is cold, wet, windy, or otherwise miserable, the Republicans win. If it is mild, sunny, warm and generally pleasant to be outdoors, then the Democrats win. There are more Democrats than Republicans so if they actually vote it makes a difference in the election. Simple enough? So, I checked with the weather underground this morning to see what to expect. I fully expected to see “Partly Cloudy” but it wasn’t so. In my zip code for Tuesday they predict: “Election Day The weather man has spoken. Bush will carry my zip code. What happens when you look at the nation as a whole? I looked at the maps for Tuesday. Here they are (with an explanation of each):
The first map on the left is the expected lows for the day. Clearly favors the Republicans. The second map in the middle is the expected highs for the day. That clearly favors the Democrats. The third map is a composite of the two. It appears to me to be about 50/50. Notice also how it lays out the country. Both coasts are warmer and thus Democratic. The heart land is colder and so would lean towards the Republicans. In general, this is not much different than most maps that I have seen showing which way the country will vote on Tuesday. The New England states being the obvious exception. Odd isn’t it? October 30, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Happy birthday Jwei-Hsing (today or tomorrow, no longer certain exactly which day). I hope you enjoy and comment on the story about Taiwan. It is a long travel adventure story by Patrick Martino. Give yourself a little time to read this as it is pretty lengthy. He provides both a short synopsis of his adventures and the full unabridged details. Everyone else who enjoys travel or has an interest in educations will also likely enjoy his account. Tonight is Halloween in Athens and the end of time as we know it. The weather is warm and dry, nearly perfect. October 28, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Good grief! Nick drove home tonight from Morehead, Kentucky to collect that nickel we wagered on the world series. He ate dinner with us and then headed back to campus. I recall money being tight back when I was in school but never like that. Maybe I should up his living expenses a tad. The “other Frogtails” (2005 beta) is starting to pick up a bit. If you are reading this, you really need to register so you can begin adding in your two cents. Here are a few items that I picked up in my mailbox about Boston today (and my well considered comments).
The Sox’s parade this Saturday is expected to be larger than the two parades held to honor the New England Patriots after the team’s Super Bowl wins. More than 5 million fans are expected to line the parade route to congratulate the team on its first championship since 1918.
Five million people to watch a parade? I would love to be there. My boss wants to go and take his children (he is from the area) but doesn’t feel that he can take time away from work. How sad. BTW, they are raising the championship banner and getting their rings on Opening Day 2005. Who will be watching from the third base dugout you ask? The New York Yankees. There is a God, and he is smiling. God works in mysterious ways. Today, I’ve even heard people talking about hell freezing over. Who would have thought that Boston winning the world series would make a believer out of anyone. :)October 27, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Update. The eight inning. Sox are winning, bases loaded, no outs. They manage to finish the inning… without scoring. I wouldn’t have thought it possible. Three outs and it is over and I will own Nick a nickel. In 1918 that would have been a buffalo head I suppose. It’s over. Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox! Not only did they make it a clean sweep but they did it with class. It may have been worth the wait. Yeah Sox! It looks like they finally have their day in the sun. St. Louis lost it on pitching in my opinion. You have to throw an occasional strike to be competitive in a world series. Have you ever wondered what is is like to ride a motorcycle cross country? The title of this story (A Case of the (Chapped) Ass) may give you a hint of what it feels like. How on earth did we lose track of 380 tons of high explosives? I have had truckloads of limestone hauled to my house before. A semi sized load can weigh upwards of 30 tons. It would require at least a dozen truckloads to haul off 380 tons of it assuming it weighs as much as limestone. I suspect it would weigh much less so it would require even more truckloads. October 26, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Old friends come out of the woodwork now and then. Today I received an Email from an old friend. I about fell off my chair as it has been years since we last talked. What a wonderful surprise that was for me. If you have an old friend that you haven’t talked with for a while, send them a note today. Go Sox! October 25, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Go Sox! I guess they won again last night, 6–2. I fell asleep on the couch. Everyone I know favors the Sox. Lifelong fan that I am, I WANT them to win, but… still favor St. Louis if I were to make a nickel wager (void where prohibited, deemed immoral, or otherwise frowned upon) with anyone. October 24, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Nick made a posting to my 2005 site. You can too. Just register and let me know you are interested. I’ll send you a note with the details (though it is REALLY easy). The site has been getting spam comments from the likes of online poker, online casino, texas holdem, etc. I’ve deleted the comments and think that I’ve made it more difficult for them to do so again. The comments were in the form of quotes. A couple were interesting. Examples: Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few. Our belief in any particular natural law cannot have a safer basis than our unsuccessful critical attempts to refute it. To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. Their idea of posting somewhat interesting quotes had the desired effect. They were not terribly offensive or obnoxious to me at first and so I allowed them to remain for a few days. Unfortunately for them, they persisted and that riled me into action. Had they been able to restrain themselves and make perhaps a single comment per posting, I doubt that I would have ever taken steps to keep them from writing on my site and would probably had enjoyed reading their quotes. When any given post starting getting eight such comments, with no end in sight, you are talking about stealing my disk space, my bandwidth, to advertise your business. Not on my site. I encourage independent thoughts and observations and your quotes certainly fit the bill. In my opinion, they just got greedy. On the good side, one of their quotes contained a rather unusual word that I added to my dictionary of peculiar words. October 23, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Boston (11) over St. Louis (9) at Fenway. Way to go Sox! But… don’t start the celebrations just yet. I still think the Cards will win. More on the proposed amendment. I had decided several days ago (seems like an eternity) to vote NO on this amendment but for different reasons. This passage that Joe found makes it perfectly clear to me that such an amendment is not required.
Ohio revised code, title XXXI, chapter 3101, section 01. C.:
The vote is well underway. Nick, who will be away at college in Kentucky, has voted by absentee ballot according to his blog. Russell, from Denver, wrote a couple of entries yesterday on my 2005 beta site that he voted yesterday and also gives us a review of a faux documentary titled Confederate States of America. Russell states that he is feeling disenfranchised! He always manages to put a funny twist on anything he writes about. West Virginia now permits early voting and I know of at least one person that I work with who has already done so. Fortunately, I’m older and will patiently wait until election day to cast my ballot. It will likely all be over and decided well before then but I’ll do my civic duty and vote anyway. If they couldn’t count the ballots last time around when most people either a) didn’t vote to begin with or b) voted on election day, how on earth are they going to keep track of all the variations going on this time around. It will be interesting. Yesterday at the barber shop I asked what people were saying about the election. Barbers hear everything from all walks of life mind you. Any time you want to get the pulse on a topic, just ask your barber. Anyway, the barber replied that he had never heard such intense feelings, for both sides, on any election in the past. He has cut my hair for years and is usually not timid about giving an opinion. He thought it was just too close to call and mentioned the possibility of neither candidate getting the 270 electoral votes that is required to win. The House of Representatives would then decide who the next president would be. They could elect anyone they choose. It has been over a hundred years since we have seen that and I think it would be fun to see what happens. The ACLU filed a lawsuit (no surprise there) to require the government to respond to a freedom of information request about the Abu Ghraib prison abuse case. The government responded (mild surprise) by releasing the documents and the ACLU has posted the Records Released in Response to Torture FOIA Request (a lengthy list so it takes a minute to download over a dialup) on its website with comments besides each of the documents. Much of it has been redacted (no surprise there), a technical term for erased or dare I say “covered up”, but it is still pretty interesting to browse through. October 22, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. In the mailbag this morning (sent 36 minutes ago) I received a message that contains another point of view about the proposed amendment to the constitution of Ohio. I’ve scattered a few of my own comments throughout. NOTE: please do not misunderstand my comments as being critical. It is very easy for me to add my two cents to something already written. I appreciate the effort and thought that went into writing this to begin with and encourage you and others to continue writing even if I sometimes make sappy remarks. I placed them in cite tags so they will show as italics in most browsers. The email and my comments: The silent will speakWe have been talking about some political topics for the past few days. The most recent to come up was gay marriage. I remembered that you were writing about it, and that you might like yet another point of view. Then again, perhaps not… I’ll write the next section appropriately for posting, if it pleases you. I see the division between for and against gay marriage as a religious decision. To really understand your own feelings on the subject, you really need to ask yourself what “marriage” means to you. People have different reasons to get married than they used to. Undeniably, most religions define a union as between a man and a woman, but it is often misunderstood. Those unions were for procreation. Procreation is, of course, between the male and female of a species (for the most part). Populate the world with people like you who believe as you do, that sort of thing. We don’t need to worry about creating more life anymore–there are already plenty of people on this planet. If you believe that marriage is about love, then why deny that right
to anyone? You love whomever you wish. It's a basic human right - to
love. If you fell in love with your car, then you should be allowed to
show that love in one way or another. Just as public sex acts are not
permitted between a male and a female; they should not be permitted
between a person and their car (try not to picture that). Marriage
should be seen as a declaration of love. In this modern society, we have to remember why we came from this
country in the first place. Wasn't it to escape the persecution of the
church? Then why are we now allowing the church to make a decision
like this? Personally, I think that we should not vote for gay marriage or to ban gay marriage. I don’t think it's our choice to make–I think that it’s a personal decision that should not be decided by the government-church. (does the word separation ring any bells?) Of course, the pessimist’s view is that marriage is just another taxable entity (I paid a fee, did you?); therefore why not let others get taxed as well? It’s not an issue that the government should decide. Who put it on the ballot in the first place? I’m uncomfortable with the idea that we are voting about this–so my vote is for it. I respect the sanctity of my marriage, and I respect the right of others to get married–for love. If you’re getting married for money or to make babies or whatever your reason, I think you’re going about it wrong. No one can debate love or its motives. So, that’s my say–as scattered as usual. To post or not to post… is a question for you. I tried not to bash the bible in that part or rant too much–but that’s what it comes down to for me. The bible says that gays should not marry? Really? Yeah, I’ve read it,too. Let’s look at that bible, shall we? Translated from a translation from a translation et infinitum ad
nauseum… Who knows what it really said the first time? Originally
written by a man. A man. Each part written by one man. Not a bunch of
people writing the same things (as I would think it should have been– if it happened then why aren’t there more writings on it all?). Just one man’s interpretation of god. Is it the word of god? I won’t deny it’s power–but I don’t think god would have needed us to write it down. Think about it. The winner writes the history books, yes? If god wanted us to remember something (him), then why would he want us to write it down? He wouldn’t have made something so wordy and longueur. It would be simple and clear, like a string around a finger. Or in this case, the finger itself. Does this mean that god is simple? No. He’s complicated–too complicated for a man to understand. Certainly too complicated for words to describe. If you believe that a picture is worth a thousand words, then look out the window. How many different colors do you see? How many different things do you see? Take a mental picture of everything you can see (it’s impossible, by the way–just too much). Then sit down and do the math. A thousand words times each of those images. How many words did you get? (I’ll bet more than a few) Did you get more words than there are in the bible? Can you summarize your infinite number of words in a book that thick? My point is, how can some words written thousands of years ago literally describe what god is and wants? And how does that apply to this society now? Or does it? And how can just one person (per
section, I know) actually get it right? Point of view is not a new
idea. You of all people appreciate that. Oh my, what a mouthful for a Friday morning. I think I’m going for another cup of coffee. Have a good day, and don’t take what I write very seriously. After all, it’s just a point of view. October 21, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Seems like yesterday when I wrote the first posting of the day. Tonight I’m watching the St. Louis Cardinals go against Roger Clemens. I'm thinking it would be nice to have St. Louis win. Steve was born in St. Louis and lives in Boston. That would be an interesting series for him. Of course Clemens played for Boston the last time they were in a World Series so that would be interesing as well. Ordered a couple of books on Amazon while watching the game tonight. How do these sound?
Never heard of them? Well you probably have heard of the Tao when you think about it. It is a really old book from the East. Montale is a contemporary Italian poet. Satura is apparently one of his better novels. I’m not quite ready to try a book of poetry but am getting there. Laxness is also contemporary from Iceland and this is supposed to be a great story. I’ll keep you posted. What about the Da Vinci book? I’ll probably read it some day but right now it suits my purpose to get some perspectives from unlikely sources. Early A.M. posting 12:01 A.M. It's over! Way to go Sox! Good night. October 20, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. After 7, 8–3. We tuned in between the 1st and 2nd when it was 2–0. Jeanie changed the channel and we didn’t catch up until the 6th when it was 8–0 or 1. They took out the Derek Lowe after only 69 pitches and we saw a couple of dirty Yankee have their way with a pitcher who wasn’t fully warmed up. I’ve never understood why they take out pitchers when they are doing well. Mendoza did get hot before the inning was over but gave up a couple of runs first. Oh my! 9–3. The Sox just scored again. Now the dilemma. It is now 11:23 P.M.. I’m already past when I normally go to bed. Stay up and watch or get some sleep. 11:30. Three outs to go. Hmmm… Top of ninth, two on, nobody out. Go Sox! 10–3, two outs. OK. 11:47 and bottom of the ninth. Let it go quickly and I’ll stay up. UPDATE: writing to Steve “: OK, one out. Man on first. A quick double play and I can still be in bed before midnight. Popup. Two outs. 11:55. I'm excited.” Oh no! a walk and a new relief pitcher. It will be tomorrow before this is over. I’m going to bed. A.M. posting Go Sox! (yawn). As a lifelong fan of the Sox I’m thrilled once again to hear that it is late October, game seven between the pinhead Yankees and the beloved Sox. (yawn). This year it will be different and the Sox train ride home will no longer be in silence. Rather, it will be in well deserved jubilent celebration. Being the first team to ever come back from a three game deficit makes all thing appear possible so keep your finger crossed. Tonight, all sleepy eyes will be on the Bronx. P.S. If for whatever reason they choke again, I’d be willing to accept a one year contract to coach the Sox (say $4.7 million plus all the hotdogs I can eat) to break the curse of the Bambino once and for all. October 19, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Here is a thought for those who enjoy conspiracy theories. Who do you suppose will be getting a flue vaccine this year? Suppose there is a particularly nasty (1918 type) flu that goes around this year. You could thin out the ranks of the baby boomers considerably. One good year could conceivably save social security. Maybe you don't like such a sinister scenario. How about this one. Bush is just fulfilling a pledge to the drug companies to have a good year. Everyone gets the flu and goes out and spends $10-15 each for various symptom relievers. :) Cold and wet the last couple of days. I lit the woodburner for the first time last night. October 17, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Lovely weather today. The trees are near perfect. Here are a few topics in the news that caught my eye: Red Sox, genetics, Clark County, Ohio, and soldiers refusing orders in Iraq. What can be said about the Boston Red Sox? How can a team be good enough to make it to this level and be so intimidated by NY? The second news item about genetics is kind of interesting. In England they are about to approve a three parent child. They feel that they can take the egg from one person, remove some of the defective genetic material, replace it with OK stuff from another and then fertilize the egg and produce a child without the inherited genetic disorder that he/she would have otherwise. In theory this sounds pretty good to me. Why would we have any desire to continue inherited disease if we are able to get around it? I suppose we will do it as a matter of routine someday. In practice, I think we are probably a thousand years premature. The potential for error and abuse seem quite high to me and the repercussions of mistakes could be horrendous. Designer people are not something I think the world is ready for. The folks overseas are beginning to think that perhaps they should have some influence in U.S. elections. To that end they have determined to make their voices heard where it counts the most. Ohio is seen as a key battle ground state. In the last election, Clark county was determined by a mere 324 votes. The good people overseas seem to think that they may be able to influence these people and so have made it possible to enter an email address and obtain the name of a registered voter there. The voter lists are public record and so there is nothing really bad going on. It would just seem a might unusual to me to have someone from the UK writing me and giving me their opinion of how I should vote. Here is the URL for anyone interested: http://guardian.assets.digivault.co.uk/clark_county/. A few soldiers in Iraq have disobeyed orders. That is not a good sign. The story I’ve heard so far is that 19 troops were ordered to take some tainted helicopter fuel some 450 miles through unprotected areas. They claimed that the fuel would cause helicopter crashes (two unexplained ones in the news yesterday by the way) at best and at worst would be a suicide mission. If true, imagine your son or daughter being a) the hapless helicopter pilots/crew/passengers who crashed because they had received tainted fuel, or b) one of the nineteen who were supposed to head through 450 miles of Iraq unprotected and were killed, captured, or wounded. I would be outraged that anyone in command would give such orders and feel that they should be court-marshalled for reckless dereliction of duty. If false, the military has another very black eye for discipline. The prison scandal by “just a few” and now this? Either way, things appear to me to be out of control in Iraq. The signs are not encouraging. October 16, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. It is cold, wet, grey, and dreary today and the last couple of days. Perfect weather for writing, reading, research, and other indoor projects that I tend to put off when the weather is nice. I (along with three quarters of this country) should start exercising again. Received this message from Norton Internet Security. 8:29 a.m. TCP (inbound) 211.179.104.38: 1286 attempt to connect to local computer using the NetBus Trojan horse detected. Visual tracking by Symantec reports that someone at the Network KRNIC-KR location Korea (Korea Network Information Center) is attempting to access my machine. Lovely! That is going on while I’m sitting here reading the news and trying to gather my thoughts for today with my morning coffee. OK. You have my attention. Lets think about what is going on here. My first thought was of some ne’er-do-well trying to hack into my machine. Of course that agitated me for a moment. Then I thought perhaps it was just a South Korean student working on his masters thesis and I wasn’t so alarmed (until I thought that he/she will probably be wanting to be the recipient of my outsourced job some day). Then the reality hit me. It is likely none of the above. Many of us are technically aware and are able to pay Symantec and others to protect us from such troubles. I can imagine someone with a little less wealth or sophistication who was just set up with Internet access and had their machine promptly hacked. Now, they are acting as a zombie going through random IP addresses trying to deploy mischief around the globe. The owner of the machine would likely be totally unaware that they just tried to hack my machine. Multiply that scenario by thousands or millions around the world and you can see that your machine isn’t sitting safe on the networks for more than a few minutes without someone trying to get in and turn you over to the dark side and have you become a zombie and attack other innocent ones. That makes me feel a little better when I realize that whoever is trying to harm me is probably unaware, but then the larger questions loom. Who wrote the original and for what purpose? While writing this, eating my breakfast, and trying to figure out who and why (apparently a “joke” trojan that the author, Carl-Fredrik Neikter, released to play tricks on his friends) the phone rings. I answer with a cheerful hello and the computer voice on the other end responds with: "Hello, John Kerry says that he is a liberal and proud of it…”. Now I understand why political messages were permitted even if you have your number on the national do not call list. October 15, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Happy 75th birthday to my father-in-law. He is probably working today. One can only hope to have the good health and energy to still be working when reaching his age. I admire him and could never thank him enough for all that he has done for me and my family. A friend pointed out to me today that GMail now has an add on program that you can download that will notifiy you when you have new email in your Gmail account. Just go to the new features and you will see it. Automatic notification is so much better. Thanks for the tip! This morning I had a few minutes to poke around the National Archives. I like the site and find it interesting. They have a whole section on the electoral college (http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/). I thought that the historical information (lower left) was the best. If you poke around through this, read the notes for various elections. Here is one from the 1824 election. “John Q. Adams received fewer electoral votes and fewer popular votes than Andrew Jackson, but won the election in the House of Representatives, with 13 state delegations voting for John Q. Adams, 7 voting for Jackson and 3 voting for Crawford.” Wouldn’t that be fun today. I also checked to see how Ohio votes. Whichever way Ohio has gone has been the ultimate winner of the past 10 elections. Ten out of ten. In the last election the popular vote in Ohio was 2,350,363 (r) to 2,183,628 (d). That is pretty close. Perhaps it will be my vote that decides it all this time. October 14, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. I have to give the debate last night to Kerry again. Afterwards on NBC Tim Russert made a sketch of the states and how they are likely to vote. Florida (27), Pennsylvania (21), and Ohio (20) are three split states with lots of electoral votes (in parenthesis). There are also several smaller states that are in play but it keeps coming back to these three. Mr. Russet claims that whoever wins two of these three states will win the election. OK, I’m willing to concede Florida (Jeb should ensure that it is not so close this time around). Even though George has visited Pennsylvania 39 times so far, Heinz is from the Keystone state so I think it will go to Kerry. That leaves only Ohio to determine it all. If it is as close as the poles indicate, my vote could be the one that decides. Suppose it comes to that, a single vote… my vote. Who will I choose?
Do you see the little add for Nick’s blog (top right)? I’m thinking that it could be replaced by a paid political advertisement for the next couple of weeks. Wouldn’t that be a telling story. One day a donkey, the next an elephant. I’d just sell it to the highest bidder each day. Cash being King, I can see how the media can have a favorite and yet run ads from both parties.
DISCLAIMER: just joking about selling paid advertisement. This site is not for hire.
Google does it again. I love Google. Now they have a desktop version of their search engine that you can download. It is free. It works like magic. If you have EVER searched for a file on your machine with the search that Microsoft provides you know that you are in for a long wait. The couple of searches I've done with Google have found the results in 0.01 seconds. Put another way, long before I can blink, I'm looking at results. Oh, but it gets better. If you use it to search the web, it sends a request out over the web and another to the desktop. The results from both requests are merged nicely so you have everything on your hard disk plus everything out on the web at your fingertips, nearly instantly. I absolutely love Google! Picassa is nice if you work with graphics, Froogle is interesting if you shop, GMail (provided it can be kept free and our privacy protected) is wonderful. The Google Desktop Search, is essential. You may get it here: http://desktop.google.com… and thank me later. October 13, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. I’ve given my thoughts on the amendment (below) and so am ready to move on to other topics. That is, unless someone still has something more to say about it. I received a note the other day from a young person who is going through the heartache of a breakup. It is a touching story that many will be able to relate with. It is simply titled, “Heartbreak”. I felt compelled to reply to the author with a few of my thoughts. She said it helped a little just hearing from me and knowing that others cared. If you want to pass along your words of wisdom to her, just send them my way and I’ll see that they are delivered. Nick wrote a nice piece on superman in his blog today. The proposed amendmentThe overnighter brought this to my attention:
He challenged you to cite a passage in the Bible that says being gay is wrong. I don't know what bible you read as a child or whether you can or not, but I can cite a passage in the bible I read. Leviticus 18:22 “Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman—it is an abhorrance”.
Now mind you it never says that a woman lying with a woman in such a way is wrong. It does however say (Deuteronomy 22:20) that a woman lying about her viriginity is punishable by stoning to death. Death is also demanded for insulting one's parents. Actually, death is prescribed quite often. My favorite answer to this however is found at:
How to vote? My thoughts have all been pretty well exhausted. I keep coming back to the key issue as to whether or not the government should be involved to begin with. I don’t see where they improve anything about a marriage. The only thing that concerns me if the amendment fails is that some judge may decide to make a fool decision. Of course the will of the people is also a fickle thing and times do change. I’m leaning against it at the moment but figure that it will pass easily. October 12, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. After work update. I received two interesting notes in the mail while I was at work today. In no particular order, readers have written:
I thought I would put forth some thoughts for you in helping you to make your decision on the amendment that, well let’s face it, is really a wedge issue. I think the first thing to consider when voting on a law is “how will this affect me if it passes” and “how will it affect me if it does not pass”. If it does not pass your life won’t be remotely affected. Generally speaking, if it does pass your life won’t be much affected. But let’s suppose that in a few years a grandson comes home from school one day and says “Grandpa, I fell in love with this great guy. I think about him all the time, he makes me happy…“ If this amendment passes your grandson would not be allowed to marry this gentleman and live in his home state of Ohio. His lover would not be able to make decisions of health care or monetary decisions in the, God forbid, untimely demise of your grandchild. In other words if it does pass, you could be affected by it in a negative way. Of course, your grandson probably won’t come home and say that but you never know. I think Bill Mahrer came up with a wonderful compromise on this issue. Gay marriages should be legal but gay mortgages should be banned! Hey its at least as sensible as counting a person of African descent as 2/3 a person…
As far as not caring about the amendment, do you realize that the Ohio
Constitution only has three amendments. In the last 153 years, only 3
things have been important enough to change the Constitution, none of
which were put into place to specifically target and discriminate
against a group of people.
Think about this, in the 1960’s many people did not care about the treatment of African Americans because it really did not affect them, they knew some and liked them, but it was not something that affected them, so they did not give a hoot about their civil rights. Before you decide how to vote, you have to ask yourself 3 questions; Am I willing to allow the State of Ohio, to the point of making it a part of the Constitution, the very document that is supposed to protect the rights of citizens, to discriminate against a group of people? Am I willing to allow the mix of church and state to the point of including church doctrine in the Constitution, the very document that calls for the separation of the two? And finally, you have to ask yourself, would I feel differently if it were my son or daughter who wanted to get married? P.S. Show me one passage in the Bible you read as a child that says gay marriage, or being gay is wrong. I bet you cannot do it. I would first like to thank both readers for sharing their opinions with me. It is obvious that the subject matter (or my handling of it) has created intense feelings. When people get excited about a subject, I find it useful to suspend my judgment, listen to what is being said, and think things through on my own. At this moment I am still undecided and want to continue thinking at my own leisurely pace and reading closely what has been suggested to me. There will be more on this topic in the morning. A.M. posting I finished Cat and Mouse by Günter Grass last night. Not bad. I didn’t get the ending. My notion of writing is much different than some of the authors I’ve read. I think you should leave the reader improved in some fashion. Perhaps you just have knowledge to pass on as in some of the technical writing I’ve done over the years. My naive view of a novel is a story with the basic plot of overcoming some obstacle or at least offering hope for something better. Today I’d like to cover the reasons why I would NOT consider voting for the proposed constitutional amendment. My number one reason for thinking that I would vote against this issue is the thought that the government shouldn’t be involved in marriage in the first place. I recall buying a license in order to get married. Think about that for a few seconds and if it doesn’t make you angry, go read something else. Why on earth is that? Could they have denied me a license? What possible motive do they have to license such an event? Raise money? Invade my privacy? Create a sense of power for themselves? Give me a legitimate reason. I can think of none. People have managed this aspect of their lives since before time without the aid or assistance of government. What value does the government add by getting involved? If they do not add some kind of value to society, they should not be doing it to begin with. All that said, I went ahead and did it just to keep the peace and suggest to others that it is probably not a fight worth fighting by resisting. If you have nothing better to do with your life and want to fight it, get elected and change the laws (good luck). #2, money. Diverse people create wealth. Right or wrong, I believe it to be fact. San Francisco has long been known to be tolerant of alternative life styles (think hippies, think gays). San Francisco and the Silicone Valley has also been responsible for the creation of more wealth in the last decade than any other locale on the planet. Hair brained ideas don’t fly so well in Ohio. I know that from experience. Ohio was a bully of a state a hundred years ago when it was near the frontier. Home of the presidents, the Wright brothers, Standard Oil, P&G, NCR. Today, it is conservative to a fault. Wendy’s, Bob Evans, and those thousands of minimum wage jobs are the only things I can associate with Ohio in recent times. #3, I doubt that it will change much in this state regardless of whether it passes or fails so it really doesn’t matter much to me one way or the other. It should not have any bearing on me or anyone I know. I don’t know that I would want to be the person who keeps others from doing as they please. Suppose it came to that, a single vote… your vote. How would you choose? That’s it! I don’t suppose that I really give a hoot about the rights of gays even though I have known several and have no particular complaints. I may well have gays who are personal friends and am unaware of it. I’ve been married long enough that I don’t check to see if a person is wearing a ring or not. It no longer matters to me. Likewise, a persons sexual preference. Who cares? October 11, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. From the overnight mailbag a reader writes:
The Supreme Court of Massachusetts did not redefine the term marriage.
They did not say “this is what marriage is.” They only said that any
law that prevented a marriage to take place based on any factor was in
violation of the Constitution of the Commonwealth.
I think the whole question comes down to whether or not you are
willing to let the government allow the systematic discrimination of a
group of people.
If you feel that all people should be afforded the same protections and freedoms under the law, then you cannot, regardless of your personal beliefs about the morality of the subject, even consider any law allowing those freedoms and protections to be abridged. A “yes” vote for any amendment or law that bans same sex marriage is a “yes” vote for allowing the systematic discrimination of a group of people by the government. There is no grey area when it comes to this issue, you either support equality for all citizens, or you do not. And remember, your grandchildren will be watching.Today I want to discuss why I would consider voting for the constitutional amendment mentioned yesterday. Tomorrow, I’ll give reasons why I would consider voting against it. Fair enough?WARNING: the following material may well be offensive to some. My mom and dad were married and raised me back in the 50’s and sent me to parochial schools where Sodom and Gomorrah was given as an example of what God thought of homosexuals. Only a fool would discount the influence that my early years would have on my opinions today. It was not fashionable to be homosexual back in the 50’s. In my circles, it would have been considered a sin. I thought of it then about the same as I would have a drunk (long before the term alcoholic came into fashion), a prostitute, a thief, liar, or murderer. NOTE: unfortunately, I must confess to few of these activities myself as well as a few others that were pretty vile. I assume the writer of last nights letter would have some difficulty thinking of some of those as a wholesome activities. Even if 40 years from now one or more of them became stylish, I doubt the writer would find it easy to have an open mind on the subject. My thoughts have changed somewhat over the years on various topics but the early influences are still present. When I consider the direction that this country is headed in (think for a moment of those activities I mentioned above being practiced routinely by our politicians and business leaders before scowling at me), I often think that we can do better as a society. Just like the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, God may tire of the path we are taking. Laugh… but check your history of countless civilizations that have come and gone throughout time. It may not be the hand of God that strikes us down. Rather it may be the inherent weakness of a flawed national character that permits nations and civilization to fail. Either way, it is of concern to me. Another thought comes to my mind and I’ll admit that it is pretty selfish. An expanded definition of marriage implies additional government taxpayer and insurance dollars going to support such unions. Why on earth should my tax or insurance dollars go towards the support an unconventional marriage? What line on my 1040 do I check to obtain a deduction if I want to claim my goldfish as a spouse? Three or more in a marriage would likely be complicated in practice but in the abstract, I don’t know. I don’t recall it ever being discussed in a religious class but suspect that God (at least his representatives as nuns and priests) would frown on it. :) October 10, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Nick spent the weekend here and it was a lot of fun having him here. I know he felt a little odd visiting home. Joe and Angie stopped in yesterday with his friend Josh to celebrate his birthday. In all, it was a real pleasant weekend. He introduced us to a TV show called The Family Guy. Update from this morning: a reader wrote in:
“The Massachusetts Supreme Court did not redefine marriage, it just simply stated that the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts does not prevent ANY marriage from taking place; same sex or opposite sex.”
hmmmmm.... time for a fact check. I looked up the word marriage in the dictionary. Actually, I used several. Hope I don’t violate any copyright laws by quoting. According to Oxford:
mar•riage /{mćr{I}d{Z}/ noun
1 [C] the legal relationship between a husband and wife:
a good / happy marriage All of her children's marriages
ended in divorce. an arranged marriage (= one in which
the parents choose a husband or wife for their child)
She has two children by a previous marriage. This is his
second marriage.—see also mixed
2 [U] the state of being married: They don't believe in
marriage. My parents are celebrating 30 years of marriage.
3 [C] the ceremony in which two people become husband and
wife: Their marriage took place in a local church.
but... the online Merriam Webster has:
1 a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the
opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and
contractual relationship recognized by law
(2) : the state of being united to a person of the
same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage
<same-sex marriage>
b : the mutual relation of married persons : WEDLOCK
c : the institution whereby
individuals are joined in a marriage
2 : an act of marrying or the rite by which the married
status is effected; especially : the wedding ceremony
and attendant festivities or formalities
3 : an intimate or close union
dictionary.com has:
1. a. The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife. b. The state of being married; wedlock. c. A common-law marriage. e. A union between two persons having the customary but usually not the legal force of marriage: a same-sex marriage. 2. A wedding. 3. A close union: “the most successful marriage of beauty and blood in mainstream comics” (Lloyd Rose). 4. Games. The combination of the king and queen of the same suit, as in pinochle.I finally dug out the American Heritage Dictionary, second college edition, copyright 1985 that sits on our bookshelf at home. Here goes: 1. a. The state of being married; wedlock b. The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife. 2. The act of marrying or the ceremony of being married; wedding 3. A close union 4. The combination of the king and queen of the same suit, as in pinochle.Those are the definitions found in the dictionary. The American Heritage is nearly 20 years old and is quite clear that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. The online Oxford, generally considered the final word in such matters, also defines marriage as between a husband and wife. The online edition of Merriam Webster also has that but has added the same sex definition. It would be most curious to see when that was added or if that was always there in that edition. Dictionary.com has about the same definition as Merriam Webster but does sit on the fence a little by saying that a same sex marriage is without legal force. I suspect that both have “redefined” the the definition in order to be politically correct. If so, then it seems to me that one would have to agree that the Massachussetts Supreme Court is indeed redefining the definition of marriage. Right or wrong, it is a redefinition. This morning I read in the newspaper the text of a proposed constitutional aamendment for the state of Ohio. Here is the text of the amendment that I'll be voting on in a couple of weeks. I’ll admit to being an undecided voter on this issue and plan to write about my thought process in making a decision on this. It will likely span a couple of days or perhaps weeks but will not drag on past election day.
Be it Resolved by the People of the State of Ohio:
That the Constitution of the State of Ohio be amended by adopting a section to be designated as Section 11 of Article XV thereof, to read as follow: Article XV My first impression was that I can vote “Yes” for this. It doesn’t sound crazy at all and only puts into our constitution what is already common practice. I suspect that many people will read the issue for the first time when they enter the polling booth and come to the same conclusion that I did and it will be easily adopted. After all, it should not have any effect on the vast majority of people in Ohio whatsoever. November 2 will likely be the first and last time that most will think of it. However… I’ve come to question the motives of those in power. Too often I think that people are easily manipulated. I have to ask the question, why should the government even be interested in this issue. Who placed this choice before me and why? So, I read the pros and cons that accompanied the amendment in the newspaper. The pros basically say this it keeps with the historic definition of marriage, excludes homosexual relationships and relationships of three or more persons, restricts government from spending tax dollars on such relationships, and prohibits judges to redefine marriage such as the recent events in the Massachussetts Supreme Court. The cons basically say that it hurts families (seniors living together, unmarried couples seeking to jointly own property, those who receive health benefits from domestic partner plans, etc.), it hurts the economy (“…would cost the state thousands of jobs…”–Cleveland Plain Dealer), and is vaguely worded. Both the pros and the cons hit some fairly strong chords within me and I realized that I would have to think this issue through a little further. That is when I became “undecided” and realized that it may be useful to my dear readers to follow my thoughts on this topic through to my conclusion. Note: at this point I’ve only provided you with info that was in the paper today and my opinion of general distrust for those in power. Tomorrow, I’ll start with my thoughts on the subject. I know a few readers will have fairly strong feelings on this topic so feel free to try to persuade me. I promise that I will vote one way or the other and at the moment have suspended my judgement and am undecided.
October 08, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. I only saw the last five minutes of the debate. Unlike so many in power today, I will not presume to give an opinion about something of which I know nothing. A topic which has a re-occurring theme in my email correspondence is the notion of privacy and the Internet. This is a subject that I am fairly well versed in and so will offer my you my thoughts. A prudent person should probably go on the assumption that everything that one writes while connected to a computer is recorded. Every site you connect to is also likely recorded. That is not to say you are being monitored, just recorded. I am fairly certain that people have flown over (either in aircraft or spacecraft) and taken photos of where I live on a regular schedule. Not because they are looking for anything that I am doing, just because I currently live on earth. That is a recording process. Few (if any) would ever actually look at those records. The same is true of countless security cameras, telephone calls, credit card purchases, etc. We are being continuously recorded in all aspects of our life but seldom monitored. Does that mean that we should not be at all concerned about it? Or perhaps we should be really concerned about the recordings and choose life in a cave, say in Afghanistan? I say no to both extremes. We just have to be aware of our surroundings and act somewhat sensibly given the circumstances. A rule of thumb I go on is the assumption that my grandchildren will have a research project in the fourth grade to find out all they can about their grandparents. A Google search (or whatever is fashionable by then) will instantly reveal all. I don’t want the words writen today to come back and surprise and embarass me many years from now. The sites I choose to frequent today may be the subject of questions of inquiring young minds years from now and again, I’d rather feel free to discuss them rather than try to dodge or hide what I’ve done. The dovetails nicely into another area I’ve been meaning to talk about. Anyone who has added priviledge also assumes added responsibility. Many people would think of being priviledged as being extremely wealthy or powerful. In fact, each of us will have elevated priviledges at various times in our life. Let me offer a few examples. When you bring a child into the world, guess who the extremely powerful one is. Just because you as the grownup has holds the power does not mean that you are free to use it. If anything, your very power makes you accountable for the well being of the child. You assume responsibility due to your priviledge. Another example? OK. How about a janitor at a home for the blind. The janitor would have plenty of opportunity to misbehave but the fact is, he/she will be even more responsible to keep spills, clutter, and other hazards from harming those without sight. Once you think about it for a moment, it should be obvious that people with priviledge will always have additional responsibilites. I hope that you can make the leap and realize that businesses, organizations, and even countries also assume responsibilities in proportion to their priviledge. In my opinion, our leaders today are widely off the mark in many instances. Enron quickly comes to mind. The affairs of the United states in the world quickly come to mind. I wonder how much we spent last year to improve the world and how much we spent attempting to maintain and improve our position in the world? A truly great society would behave so? October 06, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Russell, a friend now living in the Denver area, has written a couple of posts (most recently an election prediction full of sarcasm) on my “new” new automated site. Please visit (click on the Russell link) and leave a comment to encourage him. Once you get him going, he has an outlook on things that is a little uncommon that I find interesting. If you want to write, please join us (just register on the new site). Yesterday the House voted 402-2 against the draft. That is far too much denial for me. If someone I knew began a strong denial of something I never suspected them of to begin with, I’d be worried that it is either true or they have some carnal knowledge of it. October 05, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Do you want to know who is going to win the election? I have a formula that anyone can easily follow. I suspect this may be the best poll on earth. Open a new tab on your browser and go to your favorite search engine. I like Google and will show the results I found tonight from it. In quotes, type in the names of each of the candidates, do the search, and in the results page just look at the top for the number of hits. I predict that the votes cast and counted will tally to these exact percentages in the general election come November. This is what I found.
Presidential Candidates
Vice-Presidential Candidates
UPDATE: it seems that the statistics can be made to lie. I just did a google search on George W. Bush and came up with 5,210,000 hits. Using that number instead, I'm getting a totally different score (the second set of numbers). Computers can only crunch the numbers, not make sense of them. We are still required to do that. I asked Google the wrong question. If you add both the George Bush and George W. Bush results, it looks dismal for Kerry. You might just want to keep this exercise in mind the next time you see some eye popping statistic. For whatever it may be worth, here are my personal scores (a totally human exercise) on the VP Debate.
My overall impression of Mr. Cheney is much improved. I had no preconceived notions of Edwards before this debate. I wasn’t impressed with him. October 04, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. Congratulations to Steve on his first day working at Forrester! Congratulations also to Burt Rutan, designer of SpaceShipOne, Paul Allen who funded the venture, Mike Melvill, pilot of the first craft, Brian Binnie, pilot of the second craft and all of the others who worked to win the Ansari X prize. Beam me up! Finished reading The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende a couple of days ago. It was a good story but the South American authors are more raunchy than they need be. I started reading Cat and Mouse this morning and find his style much more comfortable to me. Grass, tells a great story without being offensive. Another book that I read long ago that made a big impression on me (at the time) was the Third Wave by Alvin Toffler. I recommend it. October 03, 2004 — Cincinnati, Ohio. Dad, Nick, and I went to breakfast and spent the day just enjoying each others company. Picked up Cat and Mouse by Günter Grass at Borders on the way home and an old CD by the Kingston Trio. The weather was really nice again and the ride home fun with my new music. In all, it was a very pleasant weekend for me. October 02, 2004 — Alfred, Ohio. It turned out better than I expected. Dennis was there with Dad when I arrived. Nick stopped in and spent the night with us and Pat came over to visit. We had quite a party on my Dad’s front porch this evening. Headed for Cincinnati to visit with my Dad today. Nick is in Hebron, Kentucky and is also planning on stopping by this evening. Dennis will likely stop by sometime as well. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone. In-laws
Chaos versus hope in Iraq: this is an opinion article that was published on aljazeera.net This news outlet is the one that typically releases the tapes and awful images that the U.S. would prefer not be seen or heard. The site pops up now and then on google.news and so I’ve added it to my reading list. It is useful to read news from various points of view. Of course I read what is produced in this country, I also enjoy reading the news from other sources to obtain a wordly perspective. For anyone interested, here is a list of my favorites.
I NEVER ready anything that requires me to register. There have been a couple that only ask a zip code which I will happily provide. I’ll even go so far as to offer my age and sex if you like. More than about three demographic questions and I’m out of there not to return. I also avoid MSNBC like the plague but only because I am on a dialup and they are usually trying to give me an “experience”. Hell, I just want to read the story. Everything in my list above is completely free and anonymous as I write this.
This morning I ”flipped” my web site’s homepage to a new month. Each month I pick out the highlights of the previous month so that I can find articles of interest quickly at some later date. My summary appears in the archives (see tab above). It doesn't always strike me when I’m writing what exactly is going on until later when I try to pick out the essence of the month. It so happened this morning. I noticed that several times I commented on how lovely the weather was this month. Of course this month we also had two hurricanes slam into Florida. In Hawaii they have a saying for this phenomenon, “No rain, no rainbows”. |
Happy 51st anniversary to my inlaws. What do you do on the 51st anniversary? Their 
