Home Again

Did you miss me?

I spent the last four days on a business trip that took me to Ohio as the seeing-eye contractor supporting my customer's visit to some offices out there. Happily, it also provided me the opportunity to visit with my son and his family, who lived in the same town. During the day it was death by PowerPoint briefing...during the evenings it was grandchildren overload. I think that by the end of the coming weekend, the ringing in my ears will stop and the pain will go away (grandson Joe, age 4, greeted me every evening with a scream of GRANDPAAAAAAA!!!!!, and hit me like a runaway truck to hug my legs...the problem being that his hard little head is just at the right height to slam into my unprotected crotch).

Grandchildren are absolutely wonderful. I understand the old comment that says something like, "If I'd known grandchildren were so much fun, I'd have had them first!" Marcy, the happy chatterbox, Joe the perpetual motion machine, and Noah the cheerful little crawler made the evenings a joy. I'm still exhausted, but it was worth it!

Here are a few observations on business travel (actually, travel in general):

Don't wear shirt garters when flying. Before going through security, I carefully took everything out of my pockets, removed my shoes, took off my tie clasp and glasses...and still got pulled out for a full-body patdown and wanding because the metal detectors alerted on my shirt garters. AARRGGHH!

Bilbo's First Law of Airline Travel: If you change your flight with a later departure to a flight with an earlier one, the new flight will be delayed so that you arrive at the same time you would have had you taken the original flight. I was traveling with my boss, who changed his later flight to get onto my earlier one...which ended up with a delay that got us both home late. AARRGGHH!

Bilbo's Second Law of Airline Travel: On every flight some moron will try to cram an upright piano into the overhead bin. Or someone will interpret "One carry-on bag and one personal item," as meaning they can bring on board a rollaboard suitcase, a briefcase, a purse, and a large shopping bag, none of which can possibly fit in the overhead bin or under the seat in front of them without taking up your space, too. Sigh.

Okay, I'm done bragging about grandchildren and complaining about dumb travelers. This is a short post, but I've got to get back into the swing of things again now that I'm home. It's good to be back...at least, until I get to the office!

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Things that Make You go AARRGGHH!! - Switching from PC to Mac

I purchased my first desktop computer - a Cordata AT with a towering 20 MB hard drive - around 1988, and have been a PC-person (that's "personal computer," not "politically correct") ever since. I've been through DOS, Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, ME, and XP, gnashing my teeth at each new operating system's quirks and idiosyncracies. And now, just when XP and I have finally made peace and the number of mysterious crashes and blue screens of death has gone down to a tolerable level, XP is giving way to a new monster called Vista.

It's time for a change.

As I began experiencing more and more problems with my current PC, I finally yielded to the pressures of my friends and colleagues and stuck my toe into the Mac water by purchasing a spiffy new iMac. Phil, the nice young man at the Apple Store, answered all my questions and gently twisted my mental arm until I decided to take the plunge. And so, here I sit at my desk, with the PC on the right and the iMac on the left.

So far, I like the iMac, but it's really taking some getting used to. It appears to be much easier to operate, and the design is aesthetically pleasing, but I'm distressed that I now own gazillions of dollars worth of Windows-based software that I can now use for coasters and frisbees. I had my frustrations with Internet Explorer, but Safari is a perfectly yucky web browser (I'm trying Firefox). My beloved right-clicks to bring up menus don't work...well, okay, they work, but only if I push the "control" key as I click. I can't figure out where things are (where's my trusy "My Documents" folder??). I can't transfer all my music from my iPod to the iMac because the iPod is formated for Windows (but I'm told the Apple Store folks can move it all for me). In short, my current opinion is AARRGGHH!!

How's all this going to work out? Don't know yet. I'll let you know. For now, though, indications are cautiously positive. Which is a good thing, because I have just invested a lot of money in the new iMac, and Agnes will shoot me if I change my mind now.

Ah, life in the wired world!

Regular readers, don't despair - I will be traveling on business until Thursday, and probably won't be able to post to this blog again until - GASP!! - Friday the 13th. Don't give up on me...I'll be back.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming on Friday!

Bilbo

The Language of Worship

This weekend, Catholics around the world are either celebrating or mourning the decision by Pope Benedict XVI to allow celebration of the Tridentine (or "Latin") Mass that was changed by the second Vatican Council under Pope John XXIII. Pope Benedict's reasons for allowing celebration of the Latin Mass are grounded in his desire to mend fences with ultratraditionalist Catholics who have always opposed the more "modern," vernacular Mass that came out of Vatican II, but nevertheless there are still those on both sides of the argument who have strong feelings about the language and structure of the Mass.

In its way, this illustrates the problem I have had for many years with all organized religions.

Let it be said up front that I believe in God. I'm not sure quite what that means, but I know it doesn't mean that I consider myself a Catholic, a Jew, a Muslim, or a Zoroastrianist, or anything else. I have doubted for many years that a God capable of creating the universe would be particularly worried about whether people chose to worship Him (Her?) in Latin, English, Arabic, or any other language, or about what form they chose to execute that worship. In my humble opinion (which grows ever more humble with the passing years), it's less important to worship God according to a specific book, ritual, or language than it is to acknowledge that He (She?) exists at all.

History shows that organized religion has been responsible for both good works and monstrous cruelty over the centuries. One needs only look at the chaos in the Middle East to see the hideous violence that an inflexible and supremely arrogant religion can generate in the name of a "merciful" God. While the Catholic Church was beyond doubt responsible for the Inquisition, one must remember that the horrors of the Inquisition ended and were repudiated long ago...while ghastly violence is perpetrated every day in the name of God as worshiped under Islam.

I personally like the Tridentine Mass. When I was in grade school, I served for several years as an altar boy (they're called "servers" today, and women are allowed, unlike during my childhood), and I loved the majestic and glorious Latin Mass. It just seemed more formal and ritualistic - and closer to God - than the current vernacular Mass (although I do have a fondness for the Folk Masses we used to celebrate when I was in college).

The message for this miserably hot Sunday: the label doesn't matter. Love your neighbor according to the Golden Rule, and God will be happy and the world will be a better place, Latin Mass or no.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Facts and Opinions

I recently ran across a clever quote attributed to a lady named Bethania McKenstry: "I'm not sure I want popular opinion on my side. I've noticed those with the most opinions often have the fewest facts."

As you, regular reader, might suspect, that's a quote that resonates with me.

Particularly nowadays, when so many seemingly intractable problems face us, it's more important than ever to be well-informed so that we form our opinions on critical issues on the basis of the best information available. Unfortunately, for many people "facts" are malleable things which can be adjusted to suit the requirements of political correctness, party orthodoxy, or rigid religious belief. Popular opinion tends to be warped by these insidious opponents of clear and unbiased thinking.

As I admit in my profile for this blog, I have an opinion on just about everything. And I certainly don't claim to be immune to the stresses placed on facts when forming those opinions. But I like to think that I think things through a little better than many others, and thus form somewhat more clear-headed opinions...even though these may be at odds with prevailing popular opinion.

The message: don't view facts as inconvenient things to be twisted or ignored when they don't fit your previously-conceived notions. Rather, view them as springboards to vigorous and independent thought that leads you to make the best-informed decisions you can on the issues that face us today.

I have three and 8/9 grandchildren whose futures depend on your ability to make intelligent and clear-headed choices about serious issues. Don't let them down.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Politics and the Price of Machetes

On July 2nd Reuters, citing a report from the News Agency of Nigeria, stated that the cost of machetes has dropped by half in parts of Nigeria since the end of general elections in April. The reason, according to the story (which you can read at http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL0246874220070702), is that the demand for machetes by political thugs has subsided now that the election season is over. European election monitors estimated, the story reported, that at least 200 people were killed in political violence in the run-up to the elections held in April of this year.

Let's think about that for a minute.

As we gear up for the 2008 presidential elections in the United States, it's useful to remember that the biggest threats we face in our political system are hot-air scalding, death by boredom, and traffic accidents on the way to the polls. We may not have a perfect system, and our political parties may be inane and tone-deaf to the issues that matter to real people, but we don't have to worry about being hacked to death by Republican or Democratic thugs as we exercise our right to vote. When you think about it this way, our endless hand-wringing over the security of electronic voting machines and penchant for litigation when the election results don't go our way don't seem so important.

Of course, if you're a seller of machetes in Nigeria, this is not a good situation. A trader quoted in the Reuters report said, "Before the conduct of the general elections, I was selling a minimum of seven machetes daily but can hardly sell one a day now."

I for one am glad that people in this country are more likely to buy ear plugs than machetes during election season.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Pity for Madmen

Dr Samuel Johnson (1707-1784) is one of the most quoted men in history. Like me, he was interested in a wide range of things, and had opinions on almost all of them. This morning, my "Daily Curmudgeon" e-mail contained a Johnson quote I'd not heard before, that bears repeating:

"If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards."

It seems to me that this quote is very appropriate for our times.

Liberals would see the madman in the room and steadfastly defend his right to beat us up with the stick, wiewing any infringement of his right to do so as an unconscionable limit on his freedom of social and political expression.

Conservatives would angrily reject any limits on the madman's right to own a stick, regardless of whether or not they ran the risk of his use of the stick to beat them.

If the madman were a Muslim, the Islamic community would blame the madman's actions on Israel and the United States, claiming that he was driven to his actions by all the grievances he'd amassed over the terrible things everyone else had done.

You can snicker at these generalizations, but I think you'll find that they are pretty close to current reality. I don't like generic political labels, but in this case, I believe they serve to illustrate my point. In the case of the madman in the room, "liberals" would worry about the madman's rights and their perceived guilt for his situation; "conservatives" would worry about the implications of limitations on the madman's right to possess his weapon; and Muslims would angrily blame everyone but themselves for the madman's mental state.

More than 200 years ago, Dr Samuel Johnson recognized that the most important thing was to protect oneself from the madman, and that there would be plenty of time later to pity his condition. Today, sadly, it seems we're more inclined to worry about our responsibility for the madman's condition than about our own safety.

Does anyone but me see something wrong with this picture?

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

July 4th, 2007

To all my American readers, happy Fourth of July! To all my international readers, good morning!

The Fourth of July is the quintessentially American holiday, the day we celebrate the initial publication of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. As dates for such a celebration go, it's a little arbitrary, because there were lots of events surrounding our independence from Great Britain that might have been selected, but if you've got to pick a single date, July 4th is a good one. It's in the middle of summer, the weather is usually good, and it's a great chance for a break from routine during that long stretch between Memorial Day at the end of May and Labor Day at the beginning of September - the traditional beginning and end of the summer season here in the U.S

But what does the Fourth of July mean, other than an excuse for picnics, massive fireworks shows, and patriotically-themed sales at every store?

For one thing, it offers a good opportunity to reflect on this country and on what it means to be an American.

Our image as a nation has taken somewhat of a beating in the world since the end of World War II. Most recently, we've lost much of our standing as the result of the ham-handed and inept actions of the current administration, although it's always been fashionable in other nations to blame the United States for every problem of the world as a convenient way of deflecting responsibility at home. But ask yourself: if we're so terrible, why do millions of people each year try - both legally and illegally - to come here? Why aren't Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, and Venezuela (to name a few) having bitterly divisive national arguments about controlling waves of illegal immigration to their countries?

Can it be because the United States - the Great Satan - offers them something no other nation on earth can? Is it because they can come here and speak their minds, enjoy economic and political opportunities limited only by their own willingness to work, worship God as they choose without fear of a brutal and repressive religious police, or live in a place where the rule of law protects them from fear of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment?

It's fashionable to blame the United States for everything bad. If it weren't for us, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela would be just another crackpot idiot everyone ignores, and the Islamists would have to find someone else to blame for their centuries of moral, ethical, and economic stagnation. But the tides of people voting with their feet ought to tell you something - no matter what our failings as a nation, we're still the destination of choice for people wanting a better life.

On this Fourth of July, many things are wrong in America. We're mired in an unnecessary and costly war that has squandered much of the good will we enjoyed after the brutal attacks of 9/11. An administration tone-deaf to common sense and slavishly devoted to conservative ideologies of questionable merit chips steadily away at our rights in the name of "national security." Hordes of immigrants unwilling to obey the law, aided by those driven by economic interests or misguided ideas of social responsibility, flood our borders and change the very nature of our society. But in spite of all that, it's worth remembering that almost any other country in the world would probably have collapsed under pressures like these - but America is still here, still strong, and still the last, best hope for those around the world whose hope is dim.

Happy Fourth of July. Think about what it means to be an American, and what your duties and repsonsibilities as a citizen of this great nation are. Vote. Get involved. Obey the law. Do your part to keep the United States of America, with all its faults, the greatest nation on earth.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Medical Care Crisis

Yesterday marked the premiere of Michael Moore's new film "Sicko," which presented his look at the crisis in health care in America. I haven't seen the film, nor do I intend to, but I appreciate the continued attention it is bringing to one of the most important issues in America today.

Few would deny there's a terrible crisis in health care. As a society, we spend more on health care than almost any other country, but the level and quality of care we receive in exchange is uneven at best, and very poor at worst. From the politically conservative viewpoint, there's not necessarily anything wrong with this: the marketplace governs the cost of health care like it governs the cost of everything else, and the law of supply and demand dictates that better care will be available to those willing and able to pay more. Liberals, on the other hand, decry a system that reduces an individual's health to a question of dollars and cents, profit and loss.

Who's right?

I wrote about this issue last year, following a lengthy discussion with my sister-in-law Brenda, who is a Physician's Assistant and who offered the medical professional's side of the debate (which doesn't often come through in the overall noise level). It's time to revisit the health care issue...as with immigration reform, I have my own thoughts on what's right and wrong with health care.

The preamble to the United States Constitution (battered and ignored by the current administration though it is) states that the government is formed to "establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The word "welfare" has some unfortunate connotations, but it's important in the sense the founders used it: the government has a responsibility (and, indeed, an enlightened self-interest) to look out for the general welfare of its citizens. With that in mind, I offer a few initial thoughts on health care reform.

The cost of health care is out of sight. The reasons are many, but here are three thoughts on reducing them:

- Reduce the cost of a medical education. The average doctor graduates from medical school as much as a quarter of a million dollars in debt. He or she needs to repay all those loans, and so - quite naturally - passes the costs on to the patient. The cost of medical school for qualified students should be centrally funded by the government. Yes, you'll argue, someone still has to pay the cost of that education, but I maintain that the money is there and much of it can easily be made available by controlling useless and stupid pork-barrel projects.

- Get rid of insurance companies and their pass-through costs and profit orientation by centrally funding health care through a national tax. This would allow doctors to concentrate more on caring for patients and less on the burden of complying with the administrative requirements of many different insurance plans.

- If the previous suggestion is too much to take, make all medical expenses (for doctor's visits, hospital care, ambulance service, and prescription drugs) tax deductable. Yes, I know I've complained often in this blog about the bastardization of our tax system, but I think this is a legitimate move - after all, a sick or dead taxpayer doesn't pay much in taxes.

Okay, that's my initial foray into the debate. I think all these suggestions are workable and affordable, and are a perfectly legitimate role for the government to take on.

What do you think? If you've got a better plan, let's hear it.

Have a good day. Stay healthy. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

If I Had a Billion...

In the 1932 movie "If I Had a Million," a dying bank president gives a million dollars to each of eight people he picks from the phone book, and the film then follows each of the eight and how they spend the money. My favorite was the character played by the great, curmudgeonly W. C. Fields. Fields' character was always enraged by the behavior of other drivers, and so he bought a fleet of old cars, hired a crew of drivers to operate them, then took several along in convoy with him whenever he went out on the road. Whenever another driver did something that irritated him, he would point out that person, and one of his drivers would pull out of line and ram the offending car.

I've often wished I could do that.

I thought about this movie as I read a little bottom-of-the-page article in the Parade Magazine that came with yesterday's newspaper. Titled "Better Ways to Spend $1 Billion," the article reported that the current group of presidential candidates (19 at the moment) will spend at least $1 billion in their election campaigns.

Yes, that's billion, with a b.

The article goes on to ask how we might better spend that one billion dollars, and offers this list of what that amount of money would buy:
- Treatment and prevention for more than 150 million cases of Malaria in Africa;
- Basic health insurance for 250,000 Americans;
- Over 415 million school lunches for needy children in the U.S.;
- About 6,700 new, fully-armored Humvees for U.S. troops in Iraq; or
- Hurricane relief for the Gulf Coast (foreign nations offered nearly $1 billion in aid in the wake of hurricane Katrina).

Now, I don't know who came up with these figures, or how accurate they are. But they underscore a distressing point: that our democratic system of government is, quite literally, up for sale. Candidates for office spend vast amounts of time raising vast amounts of money from donors large and small...many of whom will expect some future favor or consideration in exchange for their generosity. Effective campaign finance reform is little more than wishful thinking, because the very people who would have to vote on it are the ones who have the greatest interest in maintaining the status quo.

In my humble and generally-ignored opinion, the only really effective campaign finance reform will involve these elements:
- Public financing of campaigns to a firm upper limit; and,
- A ban on private donations to political candidates.

Unfortunately, this will never happen. Any attempt to limit private political contributions will be shot down as an infringement of the right to free political speech and expression (particularly by the current ultra-conservative Supreme Court), and in any case, there is just too much money out there to be ignored.

All you can do is make yourself a well-informed citizen. That billion dollars is buying a lot of air time and print inches, most of which is policed little if at all for honesty and accuracy. That's why my recommended link list at the left includes a link to FactCheck.org, a completely bipartisan watchdog which helps you evaluate the truth of political advertising. I encourage you to read it frequently as we approach the 2008 campaign season, because you owe it to yourself to be as well-informed as possible.

Because we have the best government money can buy. And if you don't have enough money to buy your own judge or congressman, you can at least arm yourself with information.

And dream about all the good things we could do with a billion dollars.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Sex (Got Your Attention, Didn't I?)

I very much enjoy reading the blog "It Is a Numeric Life," which always has some fascinating statistic or another to get you thinking about the world around us. The latest post, titled "Few comply with abstinence and monogamy," offers some interesting numbers concerning the overall rate of virginity on the 21st birthday (a measly 4%), and how many sexual partners we have: a woman's median number of sex partners is said to be 3.7, while a man's equivalent number is 6.8.

I guess this means there's some woman from my past out there thinking fondly of me as the 0.7 guy of her median number.

But, all kidding aside, these are some very thought-provoking numbers. Consider that the average man has (or claims to have) twice as many sex partners as the average woman. In a way, this makes sense: in any sexual encounter, the woman runs the greater risk of unintended consequences (i.e., pregnancy), and so one would think she is more likely to be selective of her partners, and to have fewer of them. A man, on the other hand, without the need to cope with the results of an unintended pregnancy, can afford to be more indiscriminate in his selection of partners.

This discussion also hearkens back to the subject of my April 16th post of this year ("Nice Guys"), which was in turn inspired by another "Numeric Life" post on the subject of how and why women choose nice guys ("dads") or bums ("cads") as sex partners - "dads" being those partners chosen for their perceived reliability as long-term partners in raising and caring for a family, and "cads" being those who may be less reliable for the long term, but are "more fun in bed."

The whole topic of sex is a fascinating one, and since it's sex that drives so much of our culture, from advertising to art to relationships, it's worth discussing and thinking seriously about. Doing is actually more fun, but at age 56, I guess I'll just settle for the discussing and thinking seriously part. And as actor and comedian Woody Allen once said, "Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best."

And when you're not thinking about sex, visit "It Is a Numeric Life" by clicking on the link in my recommended links list, and prepare to be presented with something thought-provoking each day.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo