Corrections and General Grouchiness

During our visit with Leya yesterday, I was gently wirebrushed by my daughter over one of my posts to this blog. Back on the 10th of December, in a post titled "The Footsteps of the Father," I wrote about the modern tendency of children not to follow their fathers into a family business or similar line of work. I discussed the career paths my two sons had taken and how they'd diverged from mine, but as Yasmin pointedly reminded me yesterday, I neglected to mention that she had, in fact, followed me - into international affairs and government service, if not the military (she works as an International Trade Compliance Analyst for the Department of Commerce).

I stand corrected. Sorry, Mausi. I'm proud of you!


On other fronts...

CNN is reporting that Saudi King Abdullah has pardoned the rape victim who had been sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison for the dual heinous crimes of being raped and of daring to challenge her sentence. Perhaps there is a slim chance that Saudi Arabia may yet be dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the seventh century and into the twenty-first. But we can't be too hasty, because the woman's lawyer still faces a disciplinary hearing for "insulting the Supreme Judicial Council and disobeying the rules and regulations" of the judiciary for taking on her case and speaking publicly about it. The CNN report notes that the hearing has been "postponed."

Congress is still in session, lurching clumsily toward its Christmas recess. Don't look for any sudden growth of spines in your senators and reprehensives, or unexpected awakening of concern for the welfare of actual taxpaying citizens. While we do have a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," it helps if you are one of the Oil People, the Agribusiness People, the Pharmaceuticals People, the Gun People, the Medical People, the Illegal Immigrant Advocacy People, or the Big Business People. If you're an average middle-class taxpayer like me, you're pretty much screwed. Merry Christmas.

Yes, I'm feeling grouchy and Grinchy again this morning. I can't help it. My holiday good cheer and basic optimistic outlook is bumping up against my anger at a government full of pontificating bozos more interested in kissing up to special interests than in taking care of real people. I'll have more to say about this tomorrow. For now, I'll just take a deep breath and calm down, or visit The Mistress of the Dark, who continues to post some great Christmas music at her blog. I think I'll go there and get myself centered again.

Time to walk the dog and get ready for work. Oh, joy!

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Sunday Odds and Ends

9:00 AM Sunday. Outside it's cold and raining; inside, Punky is sleeping in the hallway, Agnes is sewing downstairs in her workshop, and I'm recovering from last night's funk. I should never post when I'm in a bad mood...although in my defense, I can say I was that I was driven to it by a combination of worthless, contemptible politicians and lousy weather.

Things aren't all bad. I did get quite a bit done yesterday: three big loads of laundry done (if not yet folded and put away), all the gifts for our distant grandchildren wrapped, packed, and mailed, an hour of dance practice with Agnes after the lesson she taught yesterday afternoon, and a nice dinner. So I guess I shouldn't complain.

Except about the $#&! politicians.

But today is a new day, and I just have a few odds and ends to ponder.

This coming Friday is the annual Christmas Ball at the dance studio. I haven't yet checked to see if my post-Thanksgiving body still fits into my pre-Thanksgiving tux, so I guess I ought to do that today. The Christmas Ball is always good for my ego: I can have my picture taken dancing with lots of different, beautiful, well-dressed ladies, and Agnes lets me get away with it. Sometimes, she even takes the pictures. How much better than this does it get?

We're into the annual "slow" period at work ... things in the Pentagon tend to ratchet back a little bit during the weeks around Christmas and New Years, so we can catch up on things that we haven't had a chance to do all year (clean out old files, etc). With the wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, things are less "slow" than usual for this time of year, but everything helps. Last Friday we had our annual Holiday Hallway Party, which was very enjoyable. It's nice that we can have brief periods like this occasionally so that we don't mind being treated like Roman galley slaves the other 50 weeks of the year.

It's official: our local transit authority is going to hit us with the biggest rate hike in its history starting on January 6th. This is another example of the sort of political ass-clownery that makes life in the Nation's Capital both interesting and maddening. Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia all share in the funding of the Metro system, but none really dedicates a stable source of long-term funding to it, making it hard for the system managers to plan for things like, oh, repairing equipment and maintaining reliable schedules. Plus, Congress gets to help oversee it, which is guaranteed to ensure that the system is hopelessly screwed up. I ride the Metro every day, and am just thrilled beyond words that my fare will go up by a very large, but completely uncalculateable (?) amount (see if you can figure out the amount of my new fare by interpreting this helpful chart - just what is a "composite mile," anyhow?). I don't think we'll see the actual new fares until the morning of January 6th. Happy New Year. Nothing like new, record-high Metro fares AND the threat of the Alternative Minimum Tax to bring joy and cheer to my middle class life in 2008.

We've going to visit with our new granddaughter this afternoon, which is always a wonderful experience and should help lift me the rest of the way out of my funk. I just wish all of the grandchildren could be within hugging distance. Leya has a nice tan already from the large number of flash pictures we've taken of her. I like this one.


Everyone agrees that she's adorable. And that her good looks come from Agnes's side of the family. Humpf.

Well, enough of this disjointed rambling...I need to get my big, wide backside in gear and take a shower so that Leya won't recoil in horror from me. Of course, she may do that, anyhow, but at least I won't be able to blame my hygiene.

And in too-few years, she can learn to recoil in horror from politicians, just like her loving grandpa.

What a wonderful thought.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Season's Rantings

One branch of my father's side of the family lived in a small mining town called Twin Rocks in the mountains of central Pennsylvania, and when I was young, we used to travel there about once each summer to visit. It was not a trip we ever looked forward to - there wasn't much for us kids to do there, and the landscapes spoiled by coal mining were always depressing.

But now, I wish I still had contact with those relatives, because it's Christmas and I need a source of coal with which to fill the stockings of our elected representatives.

Yes, it's Bah, Humbug! time for Bilbo as I make my list, check it twice, and discover that there isn't a single Senator or Representative who deserves anything but coal or sawdust for Christmas. Consider just three critical things they have not accomplished during the current year:

An overhaul of our immigration laws.

Health care reform.

An adjustment to the Alternative Minimum Tax to keep millions of middle class taxpayers (like me) to keep from getting nailed this coming tax season.

There's not enough coal in the world to reward our fine representatives, who are too busy taking cheap political shots at each other and kissing the backsides of fat cat lobbyists to do anything for the people who elected them. I am one seriously pissed-off citizen.

I wish there were more of us.

I'd write more, but I'm tired, cranky, and depressed. And I still need to take the dog for a walk in the cold, miserable rain that's trying to turn into sleet and snow tonight.

I think I need a hug.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow when, hopefully, I'll be in a better mood.

Bilbo

The Sound of the Name

Maybe it's just one of those things that comes with having a background in Linguistics, but even before I had the sheepskin, I knew that I was fascinated by some places around the world just because of the way their names rolled sonorously off my tongue. There were places I knew I just had to see because the very sound of their names stirred my wanderlust. Long before Patricia Schultz wrote 1000 Places to See Before You Die, I had my list of places I had to see just because they sounded wonderful.

I got to thinking about this again a week or so ago when Amanda wrote about spending Christmas in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Kuala Lumpur. Koo-AH-lah Loom-POOR. It's one of those places that has such a great name. Others include:

Kathmandu, Nepal. KAT-man-DOO.

Mombasa, Kenya. mom-BAH-sah.

Amarillo, Texas. am-uh-RILL-oh. (or, ah-mah-REE-yoh, if you're a Spanish purist).

Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. FOND-doo-LAHK.

Of course, the reality doesn't always match the picture we paint in our minds. I'll probably never see Kuala Lumpur or Kathmandu or Mombasa, but in the spring of 1973 I did visit Amarillo, Texas. En route from my Air Force technical training in Denver, Colorado to my new assignment in Bossier City, Louisiana, we drove through Amarillo. I couldn't wait!

And we drove down Amarillo Boulevard, right through the middle of town, in the middle of a terrible windstorm that was blowing clouds of sand everywhere, reducing visibility to nearly zero. We drove along behind an empty 55-gallon drum that was bouncing and clanging down the middle of the street, driven by the howling wind.

I've never been back to Amarillo.

But imagination is like that. Reality seldom matches the wonderful images we can paint in our minds. I'm not the first person to realize this, of course. In his marvelous new novel Ghost, Alan Lightman's hero writes about reading, and how "...the sounds of the words calmed him, but their meanings stirred him and made him want to leave their small house and go to far places." And in the story Take Another Road (from his book Tales from Margaritaville), Jimmy Buffet writes about cowboy Tully Mars, who sets out to visit Hannibal, Missouri, home of his hero Mark Twain, but worries, "What if all the wonderful places that had filled his imagination back on the ranch all turned out to be theme-park images of things that didn't even exist anymore?"

Yes, sometimes imagination is better. I'm probably better off with the mental pictures of Kuala Lumpur and Mombasa than with the experience of actually visiting. I know that's the case with Kathmandu, because I've read the letters from my friend Tom who actually lives there, and I've read Pico Iyer's wonderful little travelogue, Video Night in Kathmandu.

But somehow, every time I hear the names, I still want to go.

Maybe someday.

Have a good day. Exercise your imagination.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Just the Facts, Ma'am

Stephen Colbert is one of those people I can either take or leave...sometimes, he's really funny; other times, I just want to unplug my TV and toss it out the window when he comes on. But I really enjoyed this Colbert quote, cited in my "Daily Curmudgeon" compilation a few weeks ago:

"In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant ... One motto on the show is, 'Keep your facts, I'm going with the truth.'"

If you think about it, that's a pretty good summary of how all too many people think nowadays. Facts can be very inconvenient when they fly in the face of the things we absolutely know are true, and it's often easier to just ignore or minimize them when they get in the way. They are even malleable - they can change over time to accommodate shifts in the political wind (the constant rewriting of "history" in many countries is the prime example).

So what is a "fact," then? My trusty Webster's dictionary defines a fact as "an actual occurrence or event; a piece of information presented as having objective reality." Nowadays, the emphasis seems to be more on the second part of the definition than the first. A "fact" is something we just know is true, whether it is or not. It's something that conforms to our own version of "objective reality." If you're on one side of the argument, global warming is a fact; if you're on the other side, it isn't.

I offer a link on my blog to the Annenberg Political Fact Check website, which I encourage you to visit often for a clear and nonpartisan look at the "facts" (such as they are) presented by our presidential candidates. And as I've often said in this space, don't let anyone else do your thinking for you. If someone tries to convince you with facts, check them out yourself before you take them on faith. You'll be surprised what you might find when you turn those factual rocks over.

Have a good day, and remember the famous (if, perhaps, apocryphal) quote from Sergeant Joe Friday on the classic police show Dragnet: "just give us the facts, ma'am."

But be sure to check them out, first.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Things We Hope We Don't Need

One of the things you learn quickly as you surf the web is that everyone wants to sell you something. Our e-mail is choked with spam advertising cut-rate Viagra and other drugs, and each website and blog you visit seems to be festooned with ads for all sorts of things to buy, try, do, or experience.

What's interesting is that many of these ads are "scientifically" targeted to the perceived interests of the people who are visiting specific sites or reading specific articles. You'd be amazed what people will try to sell you.

Like the Everybody Coffin (TM).

I was reading an online article on disaster preparedness yesterday, and the article included the usual array of ads and links to related products, one of which was for the Everybody Coffin, available in two sizes (large and small) for only $195 from DQE, a company which offers "...practical products and services for emergency preparedness and response." The Everybody Coffin features "...patented, all natural wood design, allow(ing) for flat storage, assembly without tools and efficient stacking."

Whoa!

Ever since the tragic events of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, I've thought a good deal about what to do in case of an emergency...especially since I live in the Washington, DC, area, which is high on the list of potential targets for angry, yet merciful and compassionate morons. I try to have a supply of bottled water and canned goods on hand, and to always have a plan for where to go and how to get there in case of a serious natural or man-made disaster. But I just have to plan for Agnes and I...there are professionals who have to plan for disasters which affect tens of thousands or millions of souls. They're the people who have to worry about things like collapsible coffins.

On the whole, I'd rather live in a time when the targeted advertisements were for mundane things like lawn care, big-screen TVs, Viagra, and the latest movie. It's sad to think that we need ads for companies that manufacture things like collapsible coffins, body bags, and other supplies for dealing with "mass casualty events." I wish my biggest worries were whether or not I can master particular dance steps or open the zip file containing the Mistress of the Dark's latest music mix. Unfortunately, we can't pick our times and places, and we have to play the hand we've been dealt.

Life's like that.

So anyhow, be advised that the Everybody Coffin is not on my Christmas wish list. Peace on earth and goodwill toward men are.

But I guess I'm not likely to get that, either.

Too bad.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Products I Don't Really Need

There are lots of things out there contending for my money. I'm a gadget freak, especially for kitchen gadgets, and if it's within my limited means, I'll usually buy it for myself. My study is littered with odd gadgets, some of which I've come to love, others of which (like the 3x5-inch digital picture frame and my early-model iPaq PDA) have gone to that great digital junkyard in the sky. But there's a fancy new digital product out there now that I don't think will be appearing in my home or property any time soon.

Say hello to the digital tombstone.

Yes, for a mere $2000, you can own the so-called "serenity panel" system as an add-on to your ordinary, tacky granite tombstone. Visitors to your eternal condo can view a slideshow of your life, watch videos of your earthly highlights, or hear your voice offering recorded greetings from the Great Beyond.

Oh, for Pete's sake...

Years ago, Bill Cosby did a little routine about funeral cliches, envisioning himself lying in his coffin with a cassette player greeting mourners with things like, "Hi! Here I am! Don't I look natural? Don't I look like myself?" I suppose it had to come to pass sooner or later.

So...

For all of you out there who are scratching your heads over what to get me for Christmas, don't bother ordering the Serenity System. Once I'm gone, I won't care.

And you probably wouldn't want to know where the tech support center is located.

Have a good day. E-mail me for a copy of my Christmas gift list. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Footsteps of the Father

There was an interesting, if short, article in yesterday's issue of Parade Magazine (the one that comes with the Sunday paper). Called "The Battle Over Political Dynasties," it began with the observation that politicians, more so than people in other professions, are likely to follow a parent into the "family business." I think this is an interesting observation.

In general, Americans don't seem to follow in their fathers' footsteps any more. There are probably a lot of reasons for this: the mobility of modern American society, and the level of training required for many highly-technical modern trades, and simple rebellion are a few possibilities. And then there are the wishes of the parent and the child: my father was an advertising illustrator (and a very good one) - an art school graduate, he built his photography business on a reputation for technical excellence and a willingness to take on the very difficult shoots many other photographers wouldn't touch (this was, of course, long before the days when digital imaging and PhotoShop made it easy to do complex photographic effects for which he was justly famous). Dad never wanted any of us to go into his business - he thought it was too much headache and labor for too little return. And so it turned out...two of us went into military careers, my youngest brother is an EMT, and my sister is a Loss Prevention Specialist for a big insurance company. My older son initially went to school and graduated as a civil engineer, not wanting to follow me into a military career. But he found that the civilian world didn't offer him the level of challenge and responsibility he sought, and ended up in the military anyhow - where he got all the responsibility he ever wanted. My other son went to college and majored in Archaeology and Anthropology; he now works at a museum in Los Angeles. Looking beyond the family, I don't know many people who have gone into a family business.

Politics is (are?) different. Unlike many countries where political leadership is handed down from father to child, or within a family - think any monarchy, or Syria (Hafez Asad handed off rule to his son Bashar), or Egypt (where Hosni Mubarak is grooming his son to rule), the United States depends on democratic elections to select new rulers. This, of course, doesn't prevent political dynasties from coming up, although they tend not to be long-lasting ruling dynasties. Our second President, John Adams, was the father of the sixth President, John Quincy Adams; and George H. W. Bush begat George W. Bush (of whom the less said, the better). We now stand before the real possibility that Hillary Rodham Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton, will be the next President. The Kennedy Family is a powerhouse in American politics. And so on.

The point of the Parade article was the question of whether we need a constitutional amendment such as the one proposed by Republican activist Grover Norquist to ban "political dynasties." My strongly-held opinion is "no." As long as we have a political system which relies on free and fair elections, there's no need to specifically forbid someone from following in the family business, even if that business is politics. If the voters don't like your policies, they won't vote for you no matter who your family is. There's no need to add yet another law to the tens of thousands we now have that aren't enforced, anyhow.

What do you think?

I'd write more, but I have a job I need to get to...and my son isn't waiting in the wings to take it over for me.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Christmas Approaches!

Yesterday I ranted because I'd had enough on the topic du jour. Today, because the universe must be kept in proper balance, I feel the need to set a bit more lighthearted tone, and help pave the way for the arrival of the Jolly Fat Man.

No, not Bill Clinton.

Yes, I'm talking about the impending visit of Santa Claus, whose arrival began to be heralded in stores soon after the Fourth of July, right about the time that swim suits disappeared from the stores to be replaced by mukluks and padded coats (fashion note: be careful of those down-filled, quilted vests...I used to have one and, in the words of a classic "Shoe" cartoon, it made me look like an aging hand grenade). I've been hearing Christmas music since at least September, and I'm tired of seeing the Norelco shaver commercial with Santa riding the floating heads over the snow-covered hills. Some days I think Ebeneezer Scrooge and I would have understood each other well.

On the upside, yesterday I mailed off all the Christmas cards that didn't have The Letter inside (see here if you don't recognize the reference); those that get The Letter, and those who live overseas, will have to wait until I can get their cards weighed at the post office and sell enough blood to be able to afford the postage. The tree is up and decorated (thanks to the children's work crew that did the job over Thanksgiving...you read about that here). The outside decorations are up, too. Today, I plan (ha, ha) to start wrapping the gifts for our distant grandchildren so that I can get them in the mail and have them arrive in time for Christmas. One of our time-honored family traditions is the ritual Mailing of the Packages Too Late, Even Though the Gifts Themselves Have Been Purchased for Months (that sounds more eloquent than just admitting I'm a world-class procrastinator).

Still to do: order the ham for Christmas Eve (I so love standing in Disney-quality lines with a million of my very best friends at the Honeybaked Ham store), order the specially-sliced meat for the Rouladen for Christmas Day, and update the Christmas music music selection on my iPod (I'm waiting anxiously for the sort-of-promised Christmas Mix from The Mistress of the Dark, who has been posting great new (and old) Christmas music on her blog for the last week or so). Also need to call the Weather Channel and put in the order for the White Christmas (oops...can't do that...might inadvertently offend anyone who isn't white, and I don't need the lawsuit. Sigh.).

Well, okay, I've spent about 45 minutes rambling my way through this post. Time to recharge my cup of coffee and read the Sunday paper before Agnes gets up and thinks of all the things "we" need to do today (I refer, of course, to the linguistic phenomenon known as "Feminine Pronoun Mutation," in which the inclusive pronoun "we" is understood to mean "you," as in "you need to get off your big, wide backside and do this today").

I didn't spend four years getting that degree in Linguistics for nothing!

Have a good day. Sixteen days until Christmas. Copies of my gift wish list available on request.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

I Don't Care!

As I search (fruitlessly, so far) to find a candidate for president I can support in the 2008 election, I’m struck by the flood of empty words that pander to carefully-selected audiences and take the place of thoughtful ideas. Everything has to be thought through and packaged just the right way, as directed by the handlers, to keep from offending anyone and to make sure just the right note is struck at all times.

I think the worst of it is the emphasis being placed this season on the candidates’ religious beliefs. Here’s a note on that topic to everyone running for president:

I don’t care.

- I don’t care if you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and you have accepted him as your personal Savior.

- I don’t care if you believe the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ.

- I don’t care if you believe there is no god but God, and that Mohammed is His prophet.

- I don’t care if you believe you will be reincarnated repeatedly until you reach Nirvana.

- I don’t care if you think it’s better to suffer and die than to accept medical treatment.

- I don’t care whether you call yourself a Christian, Jew, Mormon, Muslim, Baptist, Buddhist, Zoroastrianist, Animist, Christian Scientist, Shinto, Anabaptist, Calvinist, Lutheran, Sunni, Presbyterian, Shiite, Seventh Day Adventist, Anglican, Wiccan, or anything else.

- I don’t care if you worship in a church, temple, mosque, or synagogue, or in a circle of stones on a hilltop. I care about what you believe in your heart, and what kind of leader it makes you. If you need Scriptural or Koranic or Talmudic verses to tell you how to be a decent and caring person, you don’t deserve to be president.

All of this is between you and God, and the two of you will sort it out on Judgment Day.

On the other hand, there are some things about which I care very much:

- Do you live The Golden Rule?

- How do you live your beliefs in your daily life? Do they make you someone who cares about the welfare of your neighbors, the nation, and the rest of the world, or do they make you rigidly certain that those who don’t agree with you will be damned for all eternity?

- Do you believe that your religion gives you the right and the duty to force me to worship the same way you do, and to kill or enslave me if I refuse?

- Do you favor one set of believers over another?

- Do you need to follow strict and intricate rules to live a simple and godly life?

If you want me to care enough to vote for you, you need to show me that your beliefs are a foundation for wisdom and compassion, rather than hatred and intolerance. You need to show me that you can live your beliefs, rather than just spouting them at the right place in interviews and stump speeches.

My grandchildren will grow up in a world you will play a major role in shaping.

And I care about them a lot more than I care about you.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo