Things You Can Find On A Bike Ride

Kathy and I went for a recreational ride today which included a tour of the Morgan Acres area. We stumbled across a Little Free Library. The guy who made it was working in his yard and he was wearing one of the Bike to Work Week t-shirts that came out in 2008. 

We rode up and chatted with him. He said the library helped them get to know their neighbors better. Many of them thought there was a time limit for checking out a book. So he's been busy explaining the rules of the Little Free Library. I've been thinking about doing one of these for a year now. Maybe I should finally do more than think about it.

We also found this. If you're looking for a sign from God and haven't seen one yet, maybe a sign from Dave will do.

The Science Of Fear

I almost forgot to get back to this. I highly recommend it. (And if you want to borrow it, my copy is available.) Once you're familiar with the different rules involved, it's a snap to recognize the behaviors in people, even yourself.

Here's a quote from the book I'm partial to:

In reality, the fact that a politician may have something to gain by promoting a threat does not mean he or she does not believe the threat is real. This goes for the pharmaceutical industry, security companies, and all the others who promote and profit from fear. In fact, I'm quite sure that in most cases those promoting fear and sincere, for the simple reason that humans are compulsive rationalizers. People like to see themselves as being basically good, and so admitting that they are promoting fear in others in order to advance their interests set up a nasty form of cognitive dissonance: I know I'm basically a nice person; what I'm doing is awful and wrong.

There's no end to the examples I could bring up.

And You're Writing This Because...

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently put forth some advice concerning appointments to four empty seats on the Fourth Circuit.

Overall, I found it confusing. He describes how judges realize and understand their role yet hints that the judges that will be nominated by the Democratic party will somehow not fit in.

With four vacancies on our 15-member court, the 4th Circuit may be the best game in town. With the new numbers in the Senate, the temptation is there to go for an ideological makeover.

Yet the tempting course would prove a misguided one.

What is "the tempting course"? He doesn't exactly say other than ideology should not be the main factor for selecting judges.

"I don't understand how someone so nice and so smart can be so wrong," I have told my wife. Her reply? "And did you stop to think, Jay, that they could be saying the same -- or worse -- about you?"

It seems to me that a judge, someone I would expect to be introspective, wouldn't need someone to ask that question.

The 4th Circuit has never prided itself on ideology but on the collegiality that takes minds out of concrete and prevents personal animosities from clouding and distorting the essential act of judgment.

As does any court. Is he implying that the minds of Democratic-appointed judges are mired in concrete and they're unable to keep their personal animosities in check?

Today, the misadventures of the third branch can, like the miscalculations of elected bodies, place tens or hundreds of thousands at risk or, conversely, hasten the loss of our priceless heritage of personal liberty.

Be afraid! Yes, fear has worked wonders for us over the years. Many could be placed at risk--or even die. And then there's our priceless heritage of personal liberty he's apparently very concerned about. This from the judge who wrote the majority opinion upholding the right of the United States government to detain Yaser Esam Hamdi indefinitely without access to counsel or a court. Hamdi was a U.S. citizen captured during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The decision was overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Our country faces deep and endemic difficulties, and the need for a successful presidency has seldom been so great.

I can't argue with that. For someone who supposed to be politically neutral he sure is living on the edge.

But I still have to ask, "What's your point, Your Honor?"

The Worst Lies

Mitch Albom has a great column about lies over on The Detroit Free Press.

There is news every day of how banks that received money from the Troubled Assets Relief Program are failing to lend it, or never should have gotten it in the first place. We were told that without it, the banks would fail and credit would never loosen. But with it, credit has not loosened, and some banks have used the money to simply enrich themselves and purchase more assets.

A business lie.

...

Now, I'm not saying we never get upset at such things. But we get much angrier over a football coach not getting fired or a New York governor hiring a prostitute. We will argue that stuff on the airwaves, over watercoolers. We'll scream until we're blue.

But celebrity lies or sports lies don't affect our lives. Business lies do. They affect many aspects of it. And yet we seem to shrug and sigh, "Ah, what are you gonna do?"

Somebody Didn't Clean Up After Themselves

There was a story in the New Scientist today about some early weapons-grade plutonium found in a safe in a waste pit at Hanford in the Tri-Cities area.

Two things popped into my mind when I read this. This irreverant song from the Cold War era by one of the best song writers you've probably never heard of, Steve Goodman.

Watching Joey Glow

Down here in the shelter, we've got everything we need.
Mom put up her peach preserves, Pa's got a book to read.
Sister knits some bandages, and we turn the lights down low
And play some Scrabble, watching Joey glow.

At breakfast Mom hands Joe the bread, and he turns it into toast.
Last night he hugged a leg of lamb, and soon we had a roast.
You should see him heat the coffee up when he stirs it with his toe.
We all get hungry, watching Joey glow.

(BREAK:)

You have to wear dark glasses if you look at him a while,
Or he'll fry your little eyes out with his incandescent smile.

At Christmastime, it sure felt strange, but it was great to see
The way we decorated Joe as if he was our tree,
And his star was shining brightly underneath the mistletoe,
So we blew him kisses, watching Joey glow.

(BREAK:)

I hope the world's not over, for my sake and for his.
I'd love for everyone to know how brilliant Joey is.

We've been down here for six months now, and we're proud to be alive.
We owe it to America to sit here and survive.
So we listen to the static on the short wave radio
And count the shock waves, watching Joey glow.

And on a more serious note, I was reminded of Atomic Farmgirl: Growing Up Right In The Wrong Place, an excellent story about growing up in eastern Washington downwind of Hanford. It's a touching story about rural and small town life and how it was affected by radioactive poisons released by the Hanford site.

It's It's Explained

I received an email with a sig that contained this:

It's is not its, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.

It's it's usage made clear.

Too Late For Couch Time

I finally got around to reading A Man Without A Country by the late Kurt Vonnegut and what a fun read it is. He makes a compelling observation about Bush, the people in his administration, and the people who have led corporations to their doom while enriching themselves.

He refers to them as psychopathic personalities, i.e., smart, personable people who have no consciences. They know the suffering their actions cause, but they do not care--because they're nuts.

Fortune Smiles

Last Friday afternoon I was lucky enough to sit in on a writer's workshop by Lee Gutkind. He started the first creative nonfiction program at the University of Pittsburgh about 15 years ago. The circumstances that led to this are interesting. My sister is in the Master of Fine Arts program at Boise State University. She happened to stumble across a notice that the Inland Northwest Center for Writers, an extension of Eastern Washington University, was bringing Lee Gutkind in to do a workshop at the center followed by a reading at Auntie's. She called and received permission to attend and told me I should do the same. To make a long story short, last Friday this humble computer geek blogger sat in a room with about 15 graduate students and listened to Mr Gutkind for almost two hours. Then the group--I sat back and soaked it all up--workshopped two essays written by two of the students in the group. It was an amazing experience for me and it gave me a whole new perspective on writing as well as analyzing what I'm reading.

Be Careful What You Ask For

Today is the day of The Pulpit Initiative.

As part of the effort, pastors participating in Pulpit Freedom Sunday on Sunday, September 28, 2008, will deliver to their congregations sermons of their own that apply Scripture to the subject of candidates for government office. The sermons are intended to restore a pastor’s right to speak freely from his pulpit without fearing censorship or punishment by the government. By standing together and speaking with one voice, it is our hope to recapture the rightful place of pastors and churches in American life.

The Alliance Defense Fund is trying to create court cases where they can challenge the law that says churches keep their tax exempt status as long as they don't directly or indirectly participate in any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate.

There is an easy solution to this. Remove tax exempt status from all religious organizations. They get the freedom of speech they seek and they contribute to the societal structures that provide services and protect our freedoms.

Cool Technical Fiction Story

I ran across this story today. It's very technical and very creative and very good.