Things that popped into my head today

I wish I was working again--whether or not I liked what I was doing, it occupied enough of my time so that I really appreciated, and perhaps more efficiently used, "down time." These days I have so much free time, and yet such a small radius of travel. Most everything I dreamed of doing in my retirement is a non-starter because it involved getting out more. So I don't seem to do much of anything. Instead, I find myself musing too much. I really don't like spending too much time in my head, inevitably I drift into the regrets category and where's the fun in that?

And yet, a little mind-wandering brings back the oddest things. Today, I thought of the following random things:

- Dominoes Pizza and Sizzler, Gainesville Florida circa 1975. The pizza cheese in those days was crazy thick, uber-gooey, absolutely delicious and probably heart-stoppingly deadly. Why else would they stop using it? As for Sizzler, when I had the cash I could get sirloin tips and a baked potato with all the trimmings for $1.29. Both establishments were on or near University Ave across from U of F campus.
- Bench-type car seats in the 60's and 70's. You really couldn't beat having your girlfriend squinched-up against you while you were driving. On a date, you knew she liked you when she slid over from leaning out the passenger window.
- Dial telephones. Even before we learned to be ridiculously impatient with electronics, dialing took a maddeningly long time, and if you goofed a number you really got angry at starting over.
- Embassy kids. I was friends with a number of kids whose dads worked in Embassies in D.C., including Thailand, U.K., Australia and New Zealand. Oddly, the Thai kid's family had both French and Thai surnames, depending on the occasion, I guess. The last time I saw the Aussie kid, his eyes were weird and he excitedly told me he had just taken some drug--we were in 9th grade for crying out loud.
- A fellow Junior High-School trombonist whose family gave me rides to school concerts. One time his older sister got tired of watching me fumble with a neck tie, and just came over and tied it without me asking. At that time in my life, it was a very personal and special gesture.

It may be a sign of aging that I reflect more on things from my past; but I'd really rather be engaged in creating more memories, here and now.

sob... " and she's not even my dog, she's my wife's..."

The internet never fails to surprise and entertain, for good or ill. I don't do as much on it as I used to, but I still check daily for e-mails from various friends, family and acquaintances. The point of most of these mailings is only vaguely to keep in touch--I think it's mostly about that age-old human foible of wanting to be the first one to tell/show your friends something spectacular, outrageous, or scandalous--it's that same trait that makes keeping a secret so very, very hard. Some of them are of the chain variety, beseeching you to send to seven other people for dubious reasons, including:

- proving your love for Jesus/saving your soul,
- saving the world,
- making you wealthy,
- giving someone a laugh,
- showing you have a truly macho set of cajones (be you male or female).

Each of us probably have friends who may appreciate forwarded e-mails, but even so I rarely forward.

Today, for example, I woke up to 4 e-mails that egged me on to forward, for some of the above reasons...but for other reasons, I deleted all and did not forward any.

Here you go:

1. Pix of cute toddlers doing outrageously funny things. I have people who would love some, but not all of these; I am too lazy to purge the ones that might offend.

2. Pix and narrative of an airplane badly damaged in a non-flying ground accident. This story amazed me and because of my background, really caught my interest. Unfortunately, the narrative was an unrepentant ethnic slam on the aircrew, who were 100% at fault and 100% all of the same background. I started to purge the narrative, then got lazy and deleted.

3. Pix of topless women commemorating "National Topless Women's Day." I didn't know we had such a holiday... and right on the heels of Columbus Day! But seriously folks, I don't solicit this stuff nor do I forward, but clearly I am a guy who knows guys who send it. I love a joke as much, maybe more than the next guy; I get lots of funny stuff and sometimes it runs on the ribald side. Though sorely tempted to forward a good joke, I don't promulgate this kind of stuff.

4. A quiz: NFL or NBA? "Which of these organizations is riddled with people guilty of the following outrageous, even illegal behavior? Answer: neither--it's your U.S. Congress!!! It's True!!!" Well, not exactly, as it turns out. There is a good lesson here. We all get e-mails that intend to startle us with some little-known but "indisputable" truth. It pays to check out rumor-ish types of e-mails at one of the debunking sites, like http://www.truthorfiction.com/ or http://www.snopes.com/ before forwarding. I once forwarded an alarming e-mail to many people about the toxic danger of re-using plastic bottles--I later found out it was an urban myth. I sheepishly sent out an apology e-mail to dozens of people. There is also a corollary lesson. I once e-mailed somebody back that "I checked your e-mail and it was a myth"--I was probably perceived as a snobbish boor--they never answered and I haven't heard from them since. Moral: I don't forward these, and neither do I correct them.

So, what, if anything, do I forward? Mostly simple things that strike me hard with some sort of truth. Here are links to two things I would forward:

1. Something that harkens back to a simpler time, when patriotism was about ideals, and not so much sullied by momentary political folly:

http://www.clown-ministry.com/red-skelton-videos/video/y_tBqrHMoTs

2. Something that amazes me, like tying the omniscient to the omnipresent:

http://www.andiesisle.com/GoD_and_DoG.html

That second one really got to me, hence the blog's title. Enjoy!

I'm Back, and Weighing-in on Roman Polanski

Ok, it's embarrassing to write a blog after a 3 month hiatus, which had me thinking maybe I should call it off for good even if I had my reasons. But in deciding whether I ever wanted to blog again I found I had written at least three of them in my head but was too lazy to type them. So, I'll give it another go, and first up is Roman Polanski.

Ah, where to start. First off, let me say what he did was heinous, no excuses, and no mitigation; but I'll come back to that later.

I think what really strikes me about the debate about what should happen next though, such as it is, is that some people on both sides are missing the most salient point at risk here. That point is about the will to pursue the rule of law, for no less a reason than to preserve the civilization we hold so dear.

Justice is not about revenge, punishment, retribution, any of that--not directly. At its root it is about how our society, perhaps even civilization, can survive, progress, and even prosper. Yourdictionary.com says it's the quality of being righteous or fair, and wikipedia appears to borrow the next concept from the same site saying it is "the proper ordering of people and things." Wow! It is a key element of the "thin veneer of civilization." We should work just as hard at enforcing the rule of law as we do security, sovereignty and taxes. Consider then, and appreciate, the cliche "justice delayed is justice denied." We must maintain the will to pursue it regardless of circumstances.

So what are the arguments for mitigation in Polanski's case?
1. His body of work. I dismiss this offhand as ridiculous. Chris Rock put it best: "Even Johnnie Cochran don't have the nerve to go, 'Well, did you see O.J. play against New England?' "
2. It was a different time. Yes, it was. Some people my age seem to think you have to look at it with that perspective. Well, I lived it too, and even then this was wrong wrong wrong. The law was in place and for the record, any illegal acts committed by people under any circumstance are still illegal. As for the times, there is a scene in a '60s movie made by counterculture hero/musician Arlo Guthrie based on his song "Alice's Restaurant," in which Arlo discovers that a groupie who wants to sleep with him is underage. Anti-establishment, dope-smokin', authority flauntin' Arlo does not hesitate to turn her down and immediately makes arrangements to return the waif to her parents. So much for entertainment-business permissiveness in those days.
3. It was statutory rape. Yup, and yet regardless what anyone thinks the age of consent should be, "no" means "no." I have not read the child's testimony but I hear she described every act Polanski performed and prefaced every one with the word "no." It was statutory rape but it was also, first and foremost, rape.
4. The judge was crooked. Supposedly justifies him fleeing. Well, Polanski's money, power and influence bought him a pretty scant deal in the first place. There is every reason to believe it would have gotten sorted out eventually. He could have had all this behind him.
5. The parents dumped her on him with the expectation of her getting the "hopeful starlet treatment." I'm sorry, and bad parenting justifies his behavior, exactly how?
6. It's been 30 years, and he's suffered enough. Well, a lot of anger has been vented on this, but I have no comment on whether he's suffered. It is for a judge to decide, and he needs to stand before the court, justice demands it.

What of the people who want to hide this under the carpet for any of the above reasons? They are deluded, and truly don't realize what's at stake, represented in this one instance. In truth, not all victims get justice, not all guilty are punished, and not all people in prison are guilty. But this is our system, we must see it through, you must "get your day in court." Anything less invites anarchy, chaos, and injustice into our civilization, destabilizing it, even one case at a time.

Apophenia Part 2--but I suggest you skip this one

Sorry for the delay in finishing this--I don't think it was worth it...
The reason I started this entry was simple--at the time I read an article complaining yet again about how our rights to privacy were being trampled in the name of national security. Certain decisions can reasonably be traced to likely outcomes, even of a peripheral nature. Specifically, I wanted to say IT IS STUPID TO COMPLAIN ABOUT STUFF WHEN ONE CAN SEE IT COMING, ESPECIALLY IF ONE TACITLY AGREED TO IT, AND EVEN DEMANDED IT.
Case in point: the problem that faced, and ultimately defined, the Presidency of George W. Bush; response to 9-11. True, over his tenure, I became less happy with his leadership, but he took a hit for one thing that he shouldn't have; and that is the assault on our constitutional right to privacy. That's why I opened with the comment about how Clinton ran his presidency by staying on the popular side of public opinion. (I used the "economic boom years" as an example; but there have been articles blaming the current mini-depression on Clinton's decisions to deregulate banking, and counter articles that it was the republican congress to blame for writing the legislation. It could be argued Bush could have done something in his 8 years to stop it, but who knows--certainly not me.)
What was popular opinion after 9-11? Revenge, and concurrently, prevention. It led to two invasions and ultimately, unilateral actions that alienated us from all but our staunchest allies. At the time, everybody here wanted blood, and at the same time, security (meaning no more 9-11s--battlefield homeland was unacceptable). Allowing some of our constitutional freedoms to be bent was, to some, an obvious outcome to the path we were taking, but many others expected complete security without loss of freedom. How naive! You can't have both ultimate security and ultimate freedom--they are not in the least connected.
I guess I'm saying don't shoot the president for something we all wanted. That said, I see it as a see-saw, and it's time to reaffirm our freedoms and accept that there is some risk attached.
Not profound, but hey like I said in the title, you could've skipped this one..

Apophenia, sounds like a Who concert only it isn't

Presidents can sure let you down. I mean, they can be truly great in some ways, yet so terribly flawed in others. Nixon was like that, and to various extents, Kennedy, Carter, Bush, and probably all the rest. No surprise I wasn't a big Bill Clinton fan, along with most of the US military. I felt fully vindicated about those feelings after the whole Lewinsky business; it just seemed like the highest office deserved better than the way he handled that. That said, I had to admire Clinton's record as an administrator, because it seemed to be the best boom in the economy since post WW II; and a budget surplus? Unheard of.

What was his secret? Some say he fanatically used focus groups to stay on the sunnyside. But one aide, I don't recall his name, admired most that Clinton had an uncanny knack for "seeing the connectedness of things." That statement really resonated with me. I've always admired people who could hear about an event, or take some sort of action, and somehow, immediately and accurately know how it would affect, say, the price of carrots. It is particularly impressive if these connections have significant impact on the domestic or world stage.

In my old job, which was largely logistics, the ability to predict the various impacts of a "disturbance in the force" was highly prized and often, the only key to success. Certainly, the golden rule in the military is you must often make significant decisions on courses of action even without adequate information. You can see how recognizing true connectedness would be a godsend. I can't say I was a master at it, but sometimes I saw some angles nobody else did--instant gratification there. A truly great talent would be seeing the patterns in certain activities so as to allow one to predict the future. If I could master that, I'd live in Las Vegas, and quite nicely.

There's a whole realm of math that I don't understand that chases specific outcomes of events (deterministic prediction) and random outcomes (stochastic prediction, an array of outcomes, some more likely than others). But then, there's also apophenia: the spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness of unrelated phenomena, or the propensity to find meaning, patterns, and significance where there is none. Maybe that's the line between genius and pure paranoia. But who then is to say that a purported pattern is real or not? In the end, it doesn't matter; if knowing the answer does not result in useful information to optimize things, it just doesn't matter.

Next blog, I'll tell you where I'm going with this...

My best defense for saving "Marriage"

My best defense for saving the "traditional" meaning of the word "marriage" is the story of the word "gay." I'm still pissed about that one. So I guess what I'm saying is I'm really arguing over a stupid word.
I truly believe people of the same sex who proclaim their love for each other should be able to enter a union with the exact same benefits as marriage. I say call it a "civil union," or somesuch, make it legally the same as "marriage" and let them have at it. I guess you could further define the situation as "traditional marriage" and "gay marriage," but the vitriol will still exist in our society, and it will inevitably get shortened to marriage anyway. How about we create a new word, like we did with "Ms." How about "murriage?" It could be for all unions, be they straight or homosexual. You could still use the words "husbands" or "wives" and you haven't re-written anything.
But quit changing the meanings of extant words already! Maybe one can argue that the word "marriage" was never specifically defined as between opposite sexes, but it was assuredly implied as such for millenia. You know, some words have a certain untranslatable meaning for their particular society. The word gay was not the exact same as any other single word, so when our culture changed its meaning, we lost something. Gay used to mean sort of lighthearted-happy-carefree but also carried a hint of the fleetingness or fragility of that state. Well, that one is gone for sure. Let us not sacrifice the meaning of another word to the alter of pop culture. Our language is pretty rich, surely we can expand it a tad further?
Love free speech!

A Comment on Mom's Day

It occurred to me there are two kinds of mothers; those who tried to have kids, and those who (for whatever reason) didn't. The interesting thing about this is that the beginning has no reflection whatsoever on the result. I mean, there are "good" and "bad" mothers regardless of the planning factor. Of course, good and bad are kind of relative terms, but who would argue that there aren't a few real monsters out there. I would argue the vast majority aren't monsters, just regular people with a unique relationship to you. People can love you, hate you, surprise you, empower you, forgive you, hurt you, the whole gamut--most come and go. But mom can do all these things and when the sun goes down, she's still mom.
I miss my mom. For all her love, her faults, her strengths, there were always good times mixed with some lows. The good times give me a warm feeling, and the lows don't sting so much anymore. What gives me pause is that with passing time, I understand more about the way things were for her, about the decisions she had to make, because in addition to being a mom, she was a regular person too. I believe the fact that she was my mother does not give me special power to judge her as a person. What I know for certain is she sacrificed a lot for me and my sister, more than any one else I could name.
So, I'm glad there is a Mother's Day. Though I can't do anything special for her now that she's gone, I can reflect on her love, sacrifice, and inevitable human frailty. She was a person, and she was my mom.