Stryder's Blog

God's Law

2010-07-15T09:48:00.001-07:00

In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, penned by a US resident, which was posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as informative:

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination ... End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I'm confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan,

James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus, Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education University of Virginia

(It would be a damn shame if we couldn't own a Canadian :)

Conservative Confusion

2010-07-10T08:56:00.000-07:00

As a liberal leaning American citizen, I'm confused by all of the contradictions in the conservative movement's platform. They claim to be pro-American, but from my viewpoint they seem to be more anti-American. Please inform me of anything that is not correct, or anything I left out. Flames will be filed in the circular file.

The conservative movement...

claims to be the one that holds the higher moral ground, yet they...

are more likely to support bombing countries, which always leads to civilian deaths, in order to keep themselves safe

are more likely to stay in a war that costs the lives of countless brave American soldiers in order to keep themselves safe

are more likely to support the erosion of the rights of American citizens in order to keep themselves safe, even though they're far less likely to live in a place that would be a target of terrorism (New York and DC, for example)

are less likely to want to help the poor with health care

are less likely to want to help feed the hungry

are more likely to be in favor of denying rights to their gay and lesbian fellow citizens

claims to be the one that supports small business owners and working Americans, yet...

are more likely to support tax breaks for mega corporations who ship American jobs overseas

are more likely to support tax breaks to corporations in general, to the point where there are so many loopholes that they pay almost no taxes at all

are more likely to deny working Americans any recourse against unfair treatment by corporations through unions

claims to be the one that most reflects the beliefs of the founding fathers of America, yet...

the first two American presidents (George Washington and John Adams) would both today be considered liberals, establishing the federal tax system, the national bank, and a standing army for the defense

claim to be against socialism, yet...

drive on public roads, including interstate highways

go to, and send their children to, public schools

use the public post office
counts on the FDA to insure that they're not being robbed or poisoned when making purchases

claim to be for a balanced budget, yet...

don't object to spending hundreds of billions (more than $830,000,000,000 as of 7/2010) on the Iraq war, which has made the world an even more dangerous place for Americans than it was prior to 9/11

are more likely to support giving extra tax breaks to the very richest Americans, leaving the bulk of the tax burden on the working class, and lessening the chance of ever balancing the budget

claim to be for religious freedom, yet...

are more likely to be distrustful of their fellow Americans who are Muslim, Buddhist, Jew, or atheist

support teachers leading classrooms full of children of diverse religious backgrounds in Christian prayer

Music, music, music!

2008-10-20T06:08:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I read a piece in the Onion about broken dreams. Discarded musical instruments played a large role in this. It made me think about the false starts I've had trying to learn to play a musical instrument. I also pondered my advanced age (53 at the time, 56 now) and had an epiphany that it was time to try again, this time for real. I got a mandolin and started learning.

I had to discard the idea that I'd be able to play an instrument quickly, and instead resigned to long weeks of hard practice with no sign of improvement. I'm good at math and enjoy repetition to an extent.

I'm happy to report that it's going well. First and foremost, I'm really enjoying playing every day. Looks like this one will go in the museum of realized dreams.

Bored of the Rings?

2006-08-14T09:17:00.000-07:00

In a word... no.

I read the JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings as a teenager. I remember liking it, but I'm not so sure I "got" it.

I did a stint in my life as a street hippie, and adopted the name Frodo for a while, then Stryder (spelled "Strider" in Tolkien's books).

Prior to the release of the movie The Fellowship Of The Ring, I reread the trilogy and really enjoyed it. But I still didn't really follow it nor was I prepared to delve any more deeply into the Middle Earth and it's geography and people. It wasn't until I saw all three movies twice and re-read the trilogy for the third time that I saw the real magic. I've been taking some of the tours on The One Ring and reading some of the exemplary materials on LOTR on Wikipedia. Wikipedia has articles not only on the books but on individual characters and geographical locations - wonderful stuff.

I have to ask myself, of course, whether this is a cop-out. Shouldn't I be studying up on contemporary politics, or at the very least the arts? The fact is I do that also. But the brain occasionally needs a little good old fashioned intellectually challenging fun. This is mine, at least for now.

My Morning

2005-11-10T06:01:00.000-08:00

I had a kind of a neat morning, but not the kind you'd talk to just anybody about. So I thought I'd come to you, my closest friend, and tell you about it. No big deal, just a series of events that seemed to convey a common message.

On the way in I heard a great song for the first time, Waltzing Along, by James. Kind of inspiring, and it made me feel good.

Tomorrow's Veterans Day, so tomorrow's the beginning of a 3 day weekend. Veterans Day is always important to me. It reminds me of the price that was paid for my freedom, and helps keep me from taking it all too much for granted.

Anyway, I figured I'd stop for coffee in Roslyn, VA, which is right across the Potomac River from Washington DC. As usual, parking was tricky and I ended up parking right in front of Freedom Park, a small elevated walkway set among the skyscrapers of Roslyn. As I got out of the car, I saw a woman walking her dog. She looked fairly happy and non-descript, except for the fact that she had no arms. No big deal, in and of itself.

I decided to take a stroll through Freedom Park. While there I...

Stopped in front of an actual section of the Berlin Wall and thought about it's history and the millions of lives effected.

Stood behind a bronze casting of the cell door where Martin Luther King was held in Birmingham, AL, and considered the price paid (and still being paid) by champions of human rights.

Took a stroll on the actual cobblestones of a pre-World War II Warsaw ghetto and thought of the millions of lives destroyed by Hitler's "final solution" and the incredible struggle that ensued to stop it.

Stood in front of a replica of the "Goddess of Democracy" statue from the ill fated demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Peking, and thought about the hundreds of millions of people who suffered and continue to suffer under communist China's iron rule.

Finally, I went and got my coffee. As I walked back to the car, I passed a man who, again, looked fairly happy and non-descript, except for the fact that he was in a wheelchair and had no legs.

I'm not trying to give a single message by this blog entry. Suffice to say that, as I walked the three blocks from my car to work, I felt a little prouder to be a human being than I normally do.

Maryland Renaissance Festival

2005-10-21T07:44:00.000-07:00

Recently my wife and I attended the Maryland Renaissance Festival. It was our third time.

The festival is a whole lot of fun. It's an excuse to drink and eat in excess, to dress in weird clothes and to oggle fellow festival goers.

The location of the festival is a small-town-sized complex with permanent buildings and lots and lots of beautiful shade trees. It's populated by a large number of actors and acrobats who stroll about in fantastic costumes (here is Jane Seymour and her lady-in-waiting being wooed by a pirate).

A lot of the attendees also dress up, most of them in period dress but a lot of the kids come in their goth attire, complete with black capes and multitudinous piercings. It's people watching at it's best. I got to wear my beautiful renaissance period Scottish fighting jacket and tucked my black jeans into my boots, and my wife wore a gown and a large cockroach pin, very lifelike.

Musicians wander about playing period music, and there's a schedule full of dramas, comedys, acrobatics and music on 3 different permanent stages.

The arts and crafts available here are serious including renaissance and medieval weapons of all kinds (only actors are allowed to carry these however), sumptuous clothing, and jewelry. I almost bought a sword, a replica of the one Strider/Aaragorn carried at the battle of Helms Deep.

We're looking forward to doing it again next year. What a great way to take a vacation, not just to another place, but to another time.

Alaska

2005-10-21T06:23:00.000-07:00

My wife and I are back from Alaska. We did lots of neat touristy stuff in Fairbanks, but the BIG deal was a trip to Bettles. Bettles is a town 35 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It was an hour small plane ride north from Fairbanks.

Being totally cut off from civilization in terms of electricity, phone service, radio and television, they've had to come up with ways to supply that themselves. It has an airstrip and as such functions as a gas station for planes and helicopters. It has a lodge which is where we stayed. Because Bettles isn't connected to Alaska's road system, you don't need a license to drive there. It's a genuine frontier town and the people that live there exude the independent spirit required to survive in such an environment.

Oh, yes, and the weather. In the winter it gets down to 160 below fahrenheit. Guess you'd need a windbreaker.

While up there we chartered a plane to take us flight trecking for an hour and a half into the Brooks Range. Above is a picture of what we saw. You can see the tip of the wing at the top of the photo. The plane was a little 5 person job, narrower than a car. It was a bit scary but we had confidence in our pilot. Most of all it was spectacular.

We saw the Northern Lights on 3 separate nights while we were there.

The trip to Bettles was something I'll never forget. It's one of the coolest things I've ever done.

Warn A Brother

2005-10-21T06:02:00.000-07:00

Nothing in particular to say. I just thought this was funny.

Bettles

2005-10-04T14:49:00.000-07:00

Back in Fairbanks from my trip to Bettles, AK. It was awesome in the true sense of the word. We chartered a small plane through the Brooks Range and saw some beautiful Northern Lights, both of us for the first time.

More later, I've only got 10 minutes on this Vistor's Center computer.

Google Earth

2005-09-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen Google Earth you owe it to yourself to download and install it. It takes about a minute. I'll describe it briefly but words don't do it justice.

I'm not talking about maps.google.com - Google Earth is a separate program, not a web page. With it you can fly around a world made up of actual satellite photographs - yes, the entire earth. You can explore anywhere you like - the Andes, Washington DC, Damascus, the North Pole. Major metropolitan areas like New York and Beijing tend to have higher resolution. It includes the option of superimposing map and business information.

A lot of computer geeks have come to the conclusion that all great uses of the Internet, all super apps, have already been invented. Leave it to Google to prove them wrong.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, it's free.

Mobile Blogs

2005-09-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

Ralph is here

Too cool - I just set it up so I can blog by sending instant messages on my cell phone. My wife and I are getting ready to take a trip to Alaska, so I'll try and blog from there. God, I love vacation time.

I'm leaving in the cingular blurb. They're OK with me so far.

Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

A Good Day To Protest

2005-09-27T12:19:00.000-07:00

My wife and I joined the protest march on the White House against the war in Iraq this past Saturday. It was fantastic. 100,000 people attended, according to DC police chief Ramsey.

Sure the going was slow - we moved only 3 blocks in 3 hours. But the point wasn't so much to cover ground as to be heard.

Some of my favorite signs were...

Make Levees Not War

The Rapture Is Not An Exit Strategy

Who Would Jesus Bomb? (I carried this one)

These Colors Don't Run... The World

It reminded me of the old days a lot, except I saw no drugs. People weren't there to party - the atmosphere was much more serious.

Hopefully we'll see more of these, until the need for them goes away.

Velocity by Billy Collins

2005-09-26T07:24:00.000-07:00

From Nine Horses

Velocity

In the club car that morning I had my notebook
open on my lap and my pen uncapped,
looking every inch the writer
right down to the little writer’s frown on my face,
but there was nothing to write
about except life and death
and the low warning sound of the train whistle.
I did not want to write about the scenery
that was flashing past, cows spread over a pasture,
hay rolled up meticulously —
things you see once and will never see again.
But I kept my pen moving by drawing
over and over again
the face of a motorcyclist in profile —
for no reason I can think of —
a biker with sunglasses and a weak chin,
leaning forward, helmetless,
his long thin hair trailing behind him in the wind.
I also drew many lines to indicate speed,
to show the air becoming visible
as it broke over the biker’s face
the way it was breaking over the face
of the locomotive that was pulling me
toward Omaha and whatever lay beyond Omaha
for me and all the other stops to make
before the time would arrive to stop for good.
We must always look at things
from the point of view of eternity,
the college theologians used to insist,
from which, I imagine, we would all
appear to have speed lines trailing behind us
as we rush along the road of the world,
as we rush down the long tunnel of time —
the biker, of course, drunk on the wind,
but also the man reading by a fire,
speed lines coming off his shoulders and his book,
and the woman standing on a beach
studying the curve of horizon,
even the child asleep on a summer night,
speed lines flying from the posters of her bed,
from the white tips of the pillowcases,
and from the edges of her perfectly motionless body.

With Apologies to "The Way I See It"

2005-09-22T05:39:00.000-07:00

Chances are you are only fleetingly happy.
Chances are you know much less than you think you do.
Chances are you feel a little guilty.
Chances are you want people to lie to you.
Perhaps the answer lies in this blog entry.
You are lost.

With apologies to The Way I See It.

Even Better is Rejected Submissions for Starbuck's The Way I See It

Grey Gardens

2005-09-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of documentary films, especially ones that focus on real people's lives. Today I want to mention one that I saw last night called Grey Gardens. It was filmed by a guy named Albert Maysles, who also did the documentary Gimme Shelter about the Rolling Stones at Altamonte.

In a real way I hate to say this because the film was about real people, but this one gave me the creeps in a profound way. Both of the main subjects have since passed away, though, so hopefully I won't hurt anyone's feelings too badly.

The film was shot in 1975. The subjects are Edith Bouvier Beale, nearing 80, and her daughter Edie, aunt and cousin respectively to Jackie Bouvier/Kennedy/Onnasis. They reside in a huge 28 room house on Long Island, near the beach in an affluent neighborhood. For reasons that aren't explained but are easily guessed at, the two are shunned by their high society neighbors.

At one point the neighbors brought charges against the two forcing Jackie herself to come in and help them remove the cat and racoon droppings, overgrown weeds and just plain filth that overcame the house. This film is shot some time after that incident , but from the looks of things it won't be long before it happens again.

Despite their surroundings and their seeming obsession with regretting events in the past, the two don't seem all that unhappy. Edie dances and dresses in an extremely bizarre fashion (much of what she wears being hand-me-downs from here more famous cousin). Edith is too old to do much dancing (79) but definitely sings up a storm. Much of the dialog didn't make much sense to me - Edith and Edie seem to speak in their own language, a subdialect of Long Island-ese unique to themselves.

I suppose the feeling that I got from watching this film is that being born to a life of privilege, while envied by many, can be emotionally crippling.

It reminds me of the words to a Simon and Garfunkel song Richard Corey (which was itself based on a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson).

I'm not sure if I recommend this film. It's not for everyone. And I certainly wouldn't watch it purely for for entertainment - I found it a bit tedious and extremely odd. But I'm glad I saw it.

Non-geek notes on software patents

2005-09-16T04:54:00.000-07:00

Imagine if some huge corporation suddenly decided to patent the idea of dinnerware, then started charging you a fee every time you ate dinner.

Absurd, you exclaim, and rightly so. However, this is what is happening in the software world. And, because most people shy away from anything that looks even remotely "technical", companies are getting away with it.

A few cases in point.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, patented what he calls "1 click shopping." (U.S. Patent No. 5,960,411, "Method and System for Placing a Purchase Order via a Communications Network.") Because of this patent, web sites everywhere are forced to either unnecessarily complicate their on-line shopping carts, pay a fee to Bezos, or face litigation.

The company Catrack owns patent 4,197,590, which describes a particular way of writing graphics to a screen using something called XOR (exclusive or). The company has collected huge fees over the years for this, something that was already commonly known and widely used.

Rene K. Pardo and Remy Landau own a patent for recalculating numbers in a spreadsheet based on the formulas in the spreadsheet when a single value is changed (U.S. Patent 4398249: Process and apparatus for converting a source program into an object program) and have collected huge fees over the years.

These are all ideas that could be invented in a garage by a teenage geek. It's getting more and more difficult in the United States for anyone to develop any kind of software without having a team of lawyers at hand to examine all algorithms used and to be prepared to defend them against liability.

If such patents had been in place during the early days of computing, the computer/internet revolution would never have gotten off the ground. And the fact that they are in place today will likely force the US to become a technological backwater, as countries such as China, Japan, Germany, France, Sweden, etc. with less generous software patent policies become the centers of inovation.

There's a huge legal battle going on in Europe now that will determine the future of such patents there. Microsoft and other American corporations are spending millions trying to push for stronger European patent laws, but it's beginning to look like the European courts will be less easily bullied than their American counterparts.

Hopefully as the general public gets more technically savy, these coups will be more under public scrutiny and less likely to succeed. But by then it could well be too late.

Side note - I swiped both of the images in this story from the excellent news/discussion site Slashdot. I hope I don't get sued.

Internet Radio

2005-09-14T17:13:00.000-07:00

One by one the rock radio stations in this area not controlled by mega corporations have bitten the dust. For the most part DJs have no choice in what they play.

The Internet is changing all of this. Go to Shoutcast and you'll have your choice of hundreds of Internet radio stations to tune in to. Some of my favorites...

Radio Paradise - Eclectic intelligent rock. My current favorite source of new music. More on this later.

Sleepbot Environmental Broadcast - Great in the background for relaxing, but even better for working. I find it helps me concentrate without fading out.

Groove Salad - Something like sleepbot, but more intense. Great background sound.

Mostly Classical - A nice source of classical music. Great for a beginner, 'cause it tells you what's playing.

Never mind what I like though. Go to Shoutcast and explore.

Beware though - if you don't explicitly install to play your music player software, you'll have iTunes or Microsoft Media Player popping up trying to steer you in some cockamamie direction. I strongly recommend downloading Winamp, either the free or non-free version.

Happy listening.

Mandolin

2005-09-12T05:08:00.000-07:00

Early this year I decided to pick up the Mandolin. I bought one in January. I have some musical background and played a little bit of violin, but my bowing shoulder's been bothering me a little. Plus I wanted something I could play around with while kicked back in the La-Z Boy watching TV. Also I wanted to learn more about chords.

So I got one, a nice Fender FM52E. While this may sound impressive, it's really a pretty low end instrument. But I love it.

Picking up the rudiments of the mandolin was relatively straightforward for me, since the layout of the strings on the fiddle and the mandolin is the same - G, D, A and E. One of the big advantages (for a beginner anyway) the mandolin has over the violin is that it has frets, so it's hard to play out of tune.

The first thing I learned on the mandolin was some fiddle tunes, then picked up a few chords from charts on the internet. I've been working pretty hard at it. I played in front of a couple of dozen people recently, in a strictly informal back porch setting. That was scary but fun.

But now it's time to get a little more serious, so I've arranged to get some lessons from Orrin Star. I'm priviledged to be able to learn from him - he's extremely accomplished, plays in a variety of styles, and seems like a nice guy. Not to mention the fact that he's local.

More on this as I (hopefully) progress.

Urinetown

2005-09-11T06:53:00.000-07:00

We have an incredible cultural resource (one of many here actually) here in Arlington, Virginia that I'd like to introduce you to. It's Signature Theatre.

My wife and I have purchased Signature season tickets for a number of years. We've seen some incredible shows. I mean really terrific, stuff that touched and moved us deeply, lifted our spirits, stimulated our thoughts, broke our hearts, cracked us up, and, occasionally, caused us to leap to our feet in a standing ovation at the end of the show.

Recently we saw what may have been our favorite so far. It's a show called Urinetown. You heard me right. Urinetown.

Urinetown is a musical set in a stylistically post-apocalyptic punk culture. It's a story about a society where the gulf between rich and poor is huge and where the rich fleece the poor through a money making scheme in which people are forced to pay a fee every time they pee, ostensibly to correct problems with the water table. If they are caught urinating outside the law (so to speak) they are sent to a mythical place called Urinetown.

The basic plot for the play came to the playwright Greg Klotis when he was broke in Paris, needed to pee and couldn't afford the pay toilets.

One of the opening numbers takes place Public Amenity #9, a filthy pay-to-pee urinal where people wait in line in agony for the privilege to relieve themselves. The song and dance is done with the performers bent over pressing their knees together in an attempt to hold back the flood inside them. It's hilarious.

After some time the people get angry at this injustice, and, led by handsome Bobby Strong, revolt against the Urine Good Company, it's CEO Caldwell P. Gladwell and his army of suits and bribed politicians.

Slight spoiler follows...

Early in the show I assumed that the moral of this hilarious story would be one a left leaning person like myself would appreciate - the people would rise up, overthrow the tyrants, and live happily ever after. But like life itself, Urinetown's eventual lesson is complex and somewhat ambiguous. The only solid lesson is that the folly of human nature will be keeping us in hot water (no pun intended) for the forseeable future.

This sounds like a rather serious and somber lesson. But the music (played by Signature's great live band), costumes, set design, lighting, dancing and the (as always) absolutely fantastic acting ensemble that is Signature Theatre's strongest asset, make Urinetown a wonderful, boisterous night out.

In short, I recommend it highly.

Note - the attached photo is from the Broadway production of Urinetown.

Catch Up

2005-09-06T05:31:00.000-07:00

Hello folks.

Someone close to me has started an excellent blog and it's encouraged me to get back to it.

It's almost embarrassing how long it's been since I posted, and I know my millions of fans are really POed. This'll just be a short post to bring some of the more important issues up to date.

I'll be elaborating on a few of these items in the near future. A few doodads...

I've completed my interferon treatments for Hep C. Once the treatment is done, NIH does three more blood tests 2 months apart to determine if the virus is gone or not. The first two month test was done a month ago and I'm clear. Talk about good fortune!

I've finished reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. It was a wonderful read. And, rare for a book of such magnitude, I found the ending to be entirely satisfying. I actually finished it some time ago but still smile thinking about it.

My wife and I are taking a trip to Bettles, Alaska for her 50th birthday, primarily to try and get a glimpse of the northern lights. We're psyched.

That's all for now. Love and kisses. I'd better get back to work.

Excellent Xmas...

2004-12-29T13:48:00.000-08:00

Just got a minute but wanted to say what a great Xmas I had. Full of people I either like or love or at least enjoy being around. Lots of good food, relaxation, minimum vexation.

Coming to realize how much it pays off for a rolling stone to stop rolling and gather some moss.

System of the World

2004-12-20T06:14:00.000-08:00

I'm currently reading the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. I'm about two thirds of the way through the third volume, System of the World. It's a large work, about 2500 pages altogether, easily the largest single work of literature I've ever read.

The Baroque Cycle is an adventure story that takes place in the 17th and 18th centuries and includes such characters as Isaac Newton, Louis XIV (the Sun King), Gottfried Leibniz, William of Orange, James I of England, and many other real folks, plus an extensive cast of wonderful fictional characters, people you feel you come to know and care about (or despise, if they are villains). There's also a companion web site, a wiki called the Metaweb that is really useful in keeping track of who's who.

From reading Stephenson's work, I've gained a much greater feeling for the massive scope of history and the incredible machinations that formed western society as it is today. Not just individual facts, although there are plenty of those, but also an overall sense that many of the things I take for granted in the society I live in (United States, middle class), things like science, money, the concept of individual freedoms, aren't necessarily givens. Real people living real lives and all that that entails caused these things, either deliberately or otherwise, to come into being. And it very easily could have been otherwise.

Some of you may not be familiar with Neal's work. His novels tend to be great adventures, real page turners, with the rare addition that he's also an excellent writer. It's the kind of stuff where you want to read paragraphs aloud from time to time. I'll actually give out an occasional audible yelp when encountering a particularly unexpected turn of plot.

Stephenson made a huge splash in the science fiction world with works such as The Diamond Age and Snow Crash. He also wrote an excellent essay on computers, society and everything called "In the Beginning was the Command Line." If nothing else, you should at least check this out.

Home Computer

2004-11-24T10:02:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving

2004-11-24T09:42:00.000-08:00

Find something to be thankful for and focus on it, at least for a while, today.

Arlington Cemetery

2004-11-23T07:22:00.000-08:00

I live within walking distance of Arlington Cemetery, which is on Ft. Meyer in Arlington, Virginia, and I go there quite often. I thought it would be appropriate here to state how I feel about the place and the men and women who are buried there.

My dept of gratitude for these war dead is beyond words. Everything I have and everything I am I owe to them. And while I don't always agree on the reasons for going to war, it doesn't take one iota from the deep appreciation I feel for the sacrifice these men and women have made. There are no words strong enough to express that emotion.

So when you read my blog and you see statements that run counter to the present administration's stance on political issues, please keep this in mind.

Also keep this in mind the next time feel compelled to call someone unpatriotic because their political views differ from yours. The vast, vast majority of citizens of the United States of America, regardless of their political affiliation, feel the dept of gratitude I expressed above.

Thanks for reading this.

Right Wing Hypocrisy regarding a woman's right to choose.

2004-11-23T07:07:00.000-08:00

Anti-choice conservatives in the US are claiming that they think abortion should be banned, yet they don't blink an eye when US soldiers, funded by their own tax money, go to Iraq based on blatant exagerations, twisted truth and out and out lies and end up killing 100s of pregnant women. This is just an estimate, there's no real count, but I'm basing in on the undisputed fact that between 3700 and 10000 innocent Iraque citizens have been killed in the conflict so far. Yet to say anything about this fact is somehow considered unpatriotic. Well, their viewpoint is worse than unpatriotic, worse than just immoral. It's evil.

Cicada Porn

2004-11-22T10:18:00.000-08:00

I actually took this shot at the end of May at a place called Wolf Trap Farm outside of Washington DC.

Nothing More Than Feelings

2004-11-20T06:48:00.000-08:00

Haven't posted in a while. It's Saturday morning and I took my interferon shot last night, so I'm feeling a little brought down. I take it for Hepatitis C, which I've had for at least 23 years. I've been taking it for 19 weeks and will for a total of 48. It's working well. My liver functions are back to normal and my viral load is extremely low. Yes!

Anyway for entertainment value (and because there are no pictures yet in this blog) here's a picture I took in Georgetown in Washington DC USA.

Aw crap. I just took a look at the results of this post in Mozilla Firefox and the formatting is all screwy, while it looks right in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

For those of you who don't know, Firefox is a great new free web browser. It's all over the news as a threat to Microsoft Internet Explorer.

This may be a good time to mention that I am a proponent of Free/Open Source software, and have strong feelings about it that transcend the technical. It scares me to death that proprietary software, i.e. software whose inner workings are kept secret by their creators, like Microsoft and Diebold for example, are used in the Pentagon, the CIA and in voting machines. This software could be doing absolutely anything and we wouldn't know. And as everyone probably knows, if abuse is possible, it will happen eventually.

Anyway, this additional text will hopefully push the image low enough so it won't display over my profile. What a kludge. Sigh.

Later gators.

Ta da. A new day dawns.

Some Blogs I'm Enjoying

2004-11-15T13:31:00.000-08:00

The Accidental Blogist

Lawn Greengrass Rides Again

Holy Crapolla

Chick Lit

The Lucky Spinster

What Is Advertising

2004-11-14T07:14:00.000-08:00

What is advertising?

Advertising is huge corporations lying to you to get your money and crush their competition. I understand that the word "lying" is strong and that technically they're merely exagerating, spinning, misrepresenting, or whatever. But what it boils down to is that they're trying their best to give a false impression about the superiority of their particular product, and that is a lie, whatever their lawyers may claim.

Helping children formulate a critical eye with which to observe advertising should be a basic aim in public school education, along with the more traditional subjects. Otherwise we will (have?) become a population of mindless drones manipulated through our appetities by mega corporations.

Gay Marriage

2004-10-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

I went to a gay wedding yesterday here in Virginia. In reality the two were recently married in Ontaria, but they restated their vows here because this is where all of their friends are.

While there were a few other straight people there, we were definitely in the minority, so I felt honored to be there.

During the actual ceremony, I had an interesting thought - sort of a secular epiphany if you will. It occurred to me (interesting term for an epiphany, no?) that a gay wedding was in a sense much more spiritual than a straight wedding. That's because a straight wedding could be said to be grounded in the physical world, designed as an instrument to further propogate the race. A gay wedding, on the other hand, is all about love and commitment, two of the highest ideals I can possibly imagine.

My wife and I married in 1997. If I had been more aware of the issues facing our society at that time, I would have opted for civil union instead as a protest against the anti-love policies in the United States.

Why does it matter that I'm an atheist?

2004-09-26T06:19:00.000-07:00

I just took a look at the Arlington Cemetery site and a list of their authorized religious emblems for gravestones.

I was delighted to notice that there's an emblem for atheists. While I'm an atheist, I'm not a veteran. But my father, also an atheist, saw hard fighting in World War II, so seeing this made me feel good.

Still it's not quite right. The symbol seems to suggest that an atheist is someone who beieves in science. But you could be a totally far out pyramid and crystal freak and not believe in God (sic), and therefore be an atheist. So this assumption is incorrect.

How significant is the fact that I'm an atheist, and who is it significant to? First let's try to define the word.

The fourth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary defines atheist as...

One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.

Notice that it doesn't say "A God," it says "God." This of course presupposes the existent of said omnipotent, omiscient, omibenevolent, omnipresent being. Atheists are defined here from the point of view of a theist. Since God is capitalized, this probably refers to the Christian god named "God."

This helps to demonstrate that someone being an atheist is primarily important in a society where belief in God (sic) is the norm. Consequently, if I lived in a society that believed not in a god or gods but in werewolves, the fact that I'm an awerewolfist would be significant, and my lack of belief in an onmipotent being wouldn't matter at all. Note that I'm also an ashivaist, an awaterspiritsist, an aallahist and an apanist, but this isn't important in a theist society, only that I'm an atheist.

I don't care that I'm an atheist. This is not important to me, only to others who are believers. And I don't want to define myself by what others think of me, but how I view myself. That is why I made a conscious decision some time ago to try and define myself not by who I am not (a theist) but who I am.

This is of course a little harder and requires some introspection and work. It also forces me to drop some of the ego trip that comes of being an unbeliever surrounded by believers, and makes me (or allows me, or both) to see the rest of the human race as my equals.

The closest existing term that describes me seems to be humanist. I believe that the good in people outweighs the bad, that there are moral laws inherent in being a human being, and that a society left alone will eventually come to the natural healthy conclusion that doing certain things (the most obvious being theft, rape, murder) is wrong and that someone who breaks these moral laws should be punished and denied the company of others.

And the best way to find out what these humanist laws are, is to take a large population and allow them to vote for and against laws.

Such a moral system, unlike one based on a particular belief system, is all inclusive. It doesn't eliminate someone because they do or don't believe a certain way. It does, however, punish those who break the law agreed upon by the majority. And it keeps a minority in check who seeks to force their beliefs on others.

I think the democratic government of the United States of America as it is today is based to a large degree on humanism. And to the extent that it is, all it's citizens are treated with respect and are afforded basic rights and protections.

Christian Religious Fanatics Eroding American Democracy

2004-09-24T06:03:00.000-07:00

There have been a number of moves on the part of Christian religious fanatics that are part of a concerted and fierce effort to erode and eventually destroy freedom and democracy in the United States of America.

In 1954, Congress passed a law injecting the phrase "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance, which is recited an average of tens of millions of times a day by school children across the US. This forces people to either lie or break the law.

Shortly after his election, George W. Bush started funneling federal funds into religious organizations, what he calls "Faith Based Initiatives." To date nearly all of this so called federal money, which is actually money that has come out of the pockets of Jews, Moslems, humanists, Buddhists and adherents to numerous other diverse belief systems, has gone to specifically Christian organizations.

George W. declared that his King James Bible is a "higher law" than the constitution of the United States. And yet in becoming the President of the US, Bush pledged to uphold the constitution. His declaration that the Bible is a higher law demonstrates that he can't be trusted to uphold his pledge.

The House of Representatives approved a measure Thursday that would bar federal courts from ruling on the "under God" text of the Pledge. While this measure will probably not stand, and many consider this to be an election year ploy to divert the American people's attention from more serious issues, it is still a move on the part of American religious fanatics to push their religion on others.

These are all part of a concerted and fierce attack by Christian religious fanatics to turn the United States into a land not of freedom and democracy but of religious repression and theocracy. The US, called the Great Experiment and the Light of the World, is threatened and may be destroyed in the not too distant future. To me, a patriot, a true American, this is an attack on all I hold most precious and dear.

Eternal vigilance is the price of democracy. It is easy for people to slip into a sense of complacency and apathy and to allow the reality of it here in the US to be destroyed by enemies from within. We are all guilty of this to an extent, and understandably so.

But the situation is becoming more serious every day. It's time to take action. Call your representatives. Express your feelings on the matter to your friends. Demonstrate. Vote. Blog.

Unfortunately, it's going to take a lot of action. No politician ever raises this issue publicly, and they all pay lip service to being religious. It is the real third rail of politics.

Thoughts On Freedom

2004-09-24T04:10:00.000-07:00

What is the greatest threat to the United States of America? To answer this question we first have to define what we mean by the US.

There's the geographical entity of course. But there's not much chance of anyone stealing that.

There's the stars and stripes. But this isn't anything really but a pattern of colors. Any meaning could be assigned to it. And the government of the US could possibly be usurped at any time by radicals with extreme ideologies that change its very nature, at which time Old Glory would stand for something completely different.

The working definition that I will use here then will be that represented by freedom, democracy and responsibility. And the aspect of the US I will be addressing here will be freedom. The f word.

What does freedom mean?

First of all we must clarify that freedom ends where it begins to encroach on the freedom of others. Thus we are not free to steal, rape or murder.

Related to the above, freedom also does not mean you're allowed to not meet your responsibilities (assuming you have the phyiscal and mental capacity to meet them). These responsibilities include but are not unique to the following.

You shouldn't commit crimes against your co citizens.

Don't steal.
Don't rape.
Don't coerce

If you are going to use the public roads you should pay your share (pay your taxes).
If you're going to attend public meetings indoors you should use proper hygeine.
If you live in an apartment building with thin walls you shouldn't play industrial music at high decibel levels at 3 AM.
If you are going to complain abould the government you should vote.

So far I've only covered the aspects of freedom that limit what you are able to do. Next I'll talk about what I think you should be free from.

Having to pay more than your share of taxes.
Having to be a certain religion (or any religion at all, including belief in general).
Having to dress a certain way (this freedom ends the minute you arrive at a work place, however, where you've agreed to behave a certain way in return for your livelihood).

So in answer to the initial question of this post, the greatest threat to the United States comes not from the outside as is popularly supposed, but from inside forces determined to undermine the rights of other citizens by forcing their moral values on them.

All citizens of the United States have a huge stake in maintaining their freedom. The above described points, I believe, can help preserve that freedom through time.

Rollout

2004-09-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

This is my initial blog. I'm a 52 year old MWM living near Washington, DC in the US. I've been on this planet a while and been through a lot. I've learned a lot in a variety of areas and look forward to sharing some of that here. On the other hand, I know I've got a lot to learn and hope to increase my knowledge here also.

I'm a techie and hope to post some stuff here that's useful to others, and will also serve as a record for my own use.

I also have strong feelings about the issues in my country (the US) and the world and I will definitely giving my opinions on these. People who know me won't be surprised.

Other than that, I have no idea what I'm going to use this for.

Should be interesting. For me at least, and hopefully for you.