clowns to the left of me, jokers to the write

Zoo Tune Concert Series 2011

2011-09-04T15:53:00.001-07:00

For my benefit, I want to record that I saw the following shows this summer:

BRANDI CARLILE WITH IVAN & ALYOSHA JULY 29 SOLD OUT!!

THE GO-GO'S LADIES GONE WILD TOUR WITH GIRL IN A COMA AUGUST 14 SOLD OUT!

I'll comment on the shows later.

A face to a name...

2010-10-27T18:52:00.000-07:00

Having discovered last year that my biological dad had died, a dormant curiosity started to grow into something I could no longer ignore.

When my wife found his on-line obituary, a number of significant details were revealed that helped in my quest to discover some of my hidden past; names, dates, locations, hobbies, vocations... It was all there.

With this information, I created a saved search in eBay to help locate a yearbook that might contain a picture of him as a young man. Last week, I got a hit. After all this time, would the information I used to create this search be accurate and produce the image I most wanted to see? Last night, as the auction came to a close, I put in a ridiculously high bid for the yearbook. The wife was looking over my shoulder and joked that I might be outbid. I fixed that by increasing the bid amount by another ludicrous amount, then increasing the amount once again. I felt fairly confident I would be the victor. I was. After looking at location of the sender, and realizing I didn't want to wait a week or more to see if the yearbook contained the picture of my deceased father, I contacted the seller and asked if he would be willing to meet me at a public location and complete a cash transaction. The seller was agreeable to my proposal.

Today, I went to pick up my treasure. I had an hour and 35 miles to think about what this yearbook might have in store for me. What would I hope to gain from seeing his picture? Would I see any of myself in him (or he in me)? I've always been told I look like my mother, so I didn't expect that to be the case. It certainly wouldn't change my life history to this point. Would it make a difference in my life, going forward? I questioned what it means to be a father. I hope I am the best father I can be to my own son (or any child I father); how did he feel about me and my existence? As my wife pointed out this morning, my mom may be in the yearbook. What other answers or questions may be posed when I look through this snapshot in time?

I pulled into the Safeway parking lot, searching for the Ford F150 I was told to look for. In Monroe, that's like telling someone on Rodeo Drive to look for someone wearing a Rolex. I saw plenty of Ford pick ups, and was busy looking for model numbers, when I happened to look out over the parking lot to find someone waving at me. I steered my trusty (rusty) vehicle toward the waver.

I got out of my car, to be greeted by the man who had the yearbook in question. We shook hands, and he asked if I wanted to look it over before purchasing. I told him I was buying the book, regardless of condition, which was quite good. I opened the book and quickly started flipping through the pages in an attempt to figure out the layout. Most yearbooks present the seniors class, then the rest of the classes fall out in descending order. Of course, to be difficult, this annual listed the sophomores first, so I had to flip through those kids, and the juniors to get to the senior class. In the lower corner of each picture was a label, whose purpose I initially couldn't determine. So many seemed to have the same name. I finally narrowed down my search to the page I fully expected him to appear, but I couldn't find him. Was he an absentee on picture day? By now I was making a few random utterances to the seller, but only so that I wasn't rudely ignoring him. I told him that my mom might be in the yearbook, but I certainly wasn't looking for her yet.

THERE! I finally saw the name, now I was able to track it back to a section on the page where my biological father was. He was not looking directly into the camera (no one was), but it was him. Mission accomplished, I was surprisingly overcome with emotion, and found myself unable to speak. The seller commented that this was an emotional time for me. I finally managed to utter that I was looking for a picture of my biological father, and that he'd died last year. I was struck mute for a few minutes and, try as I might, I couldn't keep a few tears from falling. What the hell was wrong with me?

I'm sure the guy probably felt a little uncomfortable so, I finally looked up at him, thanked him for his willingness to meet with me, and let him depart with his travelling companion.

I got back into my car, and flipped through the yearbook. Was my mom in it? She was, but as a junior, not a senior as I'd expected. Strange looking at your mom as a 16-year-old.

Any big surprises in the yearbook? One. A fellow senior classmate, would later become my bio-dad's second wife. I wonder how well they knew each other in high school. They certainly couldn't have known that they would marry in the not too distant future...

The Social Network (MRQE graphic)

2010-10-16T07:33:00.000-07:00

This is a test to see if copy/pasting the embed code will render the graphic as shown on the MRQE site.

Things to do when you move...

2010-02-10T17:32:00.001-08:00

So, you've moved into your new abode.

Life is great, right?

Not so fast...

You're not going to sit your best assets down on someone else's toilet seat, are you?

I should hope not.

No one else has a key to your front door, right?

Silly boy.

OK, I've just pointed out a couple areas that deserve your immediate attention. Whether or not you own or rent, there are a number of things you can do to make your place safer and, generally, more pleasant than if you'd just moved in and left things as they are. Let's run down the list and take a look-see...

Replace toilet seats. This really is a no-brainer. I'll admit to being a hypocrite on this one; we've lived in our house 8 years, and I just replaced our two weeks ago -- and the only reason I replaced them is that one cracked (I shudder thinking how much mileage that baby had on it). After replacing them, I wondered why the hell I didn't do that before we moved in. For $50, I replaced the seat/lid combos in both bathrooms (and these are the ones with the metal hinges. They look nicer, they are spotlessly clean, and I love 'em. Money well spent.
Replace door lock sets. If you rent, this may not be an option, but if you own, do it. How many of the neighbors have been given a key so that they could let in a serviceman, or some other emergency purpose? Point is: you don't know, so replacing them will give you some much-needed peace of mind.
Look through garage/storage areas for things you'd just as soon be rid of. When we moved into our house, we found a bottle of "Methyl Hydrate Poison" and a bottle of Chloroform. Who knows what's lurking in your new digs?
Replace furnace filter. You may not get around to doing it again for another 6 months, you may as well start your stay with some fresh, clean air.

While this list is by no means comprehensive, I've got to get back to my homework. I'll continue to add to this list as I think of new items and as time allows.

Food I Like

2009-12-28T00:23:00.001-08:00

Here are just a few of the food and/or beverage items I love:

Christmas 2009

2009-12-27T23:45:00.001-08:00

Our new family had a great Christmas this year; Christmas Eve with my family, Christmas Day with my sister-in-law's family on Bainbridge Island. Very relaxing both days, and ate like a fiend (both days).

Scored on the goodies, too; my first pair of honest-to-god jammies since, probably, 1973 or so. I truly am middle-aged.

We are very lucky, indeed.

Slacking...

2009-11-29T22:27:00.000-08:00

I've been a real slacking bastard these last few months unless, of course, you consider having a baby slacking. I've heard that sleep deprivation is a big factor to deal with, but they really don't tell you how big a deal it really is. If there's one thing I would stress, it would be that sleepless nights WILL determine how you function for at least the first two months after the baby arrives.

That said, we're managing to get by. The sleep issue is slowly starting to resolve itself, and we're starting to put our lives and our house back together (but very slowly).

The little guy was born 09/20/2009. Good numbers, no? Either way, we're thrilled to have him here. He's been great to have around the house, and we can't believe how lucky we feel to have him. It's going to be an interesting journey for all of us.

I have a real sickness…

2009-09-16T21:19:00.001-07:00

Just perusing eBay and dreaming, when I came across this.

I love this car!

I know it must have cost a small fortune to get it into this condition. I sure wish my Impala was this nice…

Prokudin-Gorskii’s Color Photos of Russia, 1907-1915

2009-09-07T10:56:00.001-07:00

Photos: Prokudin-Gorskii’s Color Photos of Russia, 1907-1915 | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com

I had no idea that color photography even existed over 100 years ago. I’m always surprised to see any color photos from as early as the late 1930s. The photos in the link above show a pre-Revolutionary Russia, and provide a fascinating glimpse into a time and place that has long since disappeared. I’m assuming the vast majority of the architecture still exists.

The photos are so much richer than I would have expected to see.

Beautiful.

Something Wicked this way comes…

2009-09-05T20:36:00.001-07:00

The wife and I caught the matinee showing of Wicked at The Paramount theater this afternoon.

In a word: Amazing

The only thing I knew about the show was that it had something to do with the Wicked Witch of the West from the movie, The Wizard of Oz, which I’ll admit to never having completely seen.

No matter, the show was fantastic; great stages, lighting, costumes, but the best part were the performances. The songs were very literate and melodic, and the leads had the most amazing voices. Individually they were great, but when they sang with each other, well… It’s really hard to convey in words how good they were. I’ve never heard performers more locked in to each than what I saw today.

Chandra Lee Schwartz played Glinda (The Good Witch from Oz) and Donna Vivino played Elphaba (The Wicked Witch). They are not to be missed.

If this show comes to your town, it’s a must see.

I Love The Dead

2009-09-01T20:59:00.001-07:00

Sorry to borrow a song title from Alice Cooper but, given the context of this post, I couldn't help myself.

For some reason, I've always been fascinated with history. Of course, history is generally what happened at a specific time to a place and its people, but it also includes how people died and where they were interred.

Because of this, I've always been fascinated with graveyards. I love walking through graveyards, viewing the grounds, reading the headstones or grave markers, trying to get a sense for what that person's history might have been like. It's impossible to encapsulate someone's history with a simple marker (surely more condensed that your standard 140-character Tweet), but sometimes you can find out a person's place in life based on the information provided there at the gravesite.

Mind you, I'm ALWAYS out of the cemeteries well before dark, but daytime viewing is not a problem.

Among the many cemeteries I've been to, some that stand out are those I've visited in Portovenere, Italy; Oxford and London, England; Marblehead, MA; and Vicksburg, MS, to name a few.

It's interesting to see the cultural and historical differences between the various cemeteries. Reading the headstones can indicate what might have been happening in that area during the time the person passed. War, disease, weather. It's all there.

The two most beautiful cemeteries I've been to are those in Marblehead, MA and Portovenere, Italy. Both overlooked the water, whose views have probably provided a calming influence to those visiting the grounds over the many centuries funeral services have been conducted there.

The cemetery in Marblehead contained the remains of numerous Revolutionary War dead (including a black soldier, which I thought VERY progressive for that time in history), and the remains of a woman who was born in 1620, the year the pilgrims landed. The headstones are carved in slate and have lost little, if any, of their original detail. They are as easy to read as they day they were carved. I've visited a cemetery in the mid-West in the early 90s, and I couldn't make out a single word on many of the headstones there. It's a shame that these folk's names, many including Civil War soldiers, are lost to time and weather.

This leads to the next link/article that details additional details of Michael Jackson's final resting place, Forest Lawn Glendale, in Southern California. I'll include the link, and will post the full article in the event the link is broken at some point in the future (nothing lasts forever).

I found the history of the creation of Forest Lawn particularly fascinating.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32648572/ns/entertainment-music/?gt1=43001

updated 2:54 p.m. PT, Tues., Sept . 1, 2009

GLENDALE, Calif. - Michael Jackson’s life played out on a world stage, headlines screaming his every move, frenzy following his footsteps.

His death, memorial and investigation amplified the delirium and prolonged the anguish of family and fans. On Thursday, he is scheduled to be interred at Forest Lawn Glendale in what will be a hidden monument in a mausoleum made of marble and mortar.

There will be only silence. No marquees, no spotlights, no paparazzi.

He will be enveloped by the grandeur of the grounds, the majesty of the buildings and the significance of history.

In the Great Mausoleum, he will join Hollywood legends of yesterday like Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, W.C. Fields and Red Skelton, as well as “The Last Supper Window,” a lifesize stained glass recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, and Moses, a reproduction of Michelangelo’s sculpture for the tomb of Pope Julius II in Rome.

On a hilltop nearby, in a building the size of a sports arena, hang two of the world’s largest paintings, “The Crucifixion” and “Resurrection.”

Like so many of the people in it, the park has also become fabled. Founded in 1906 by a group of businessmen on 55 hillside acres in the town of Tropico (later Glendale), there was no forest and no lawn, just a traditional dusty graveyard with granite tombstones and elaborate messages.

By the time Hubert Eaton arrived in 1912 at the age of 31, according to Forest Lawn literature, he had graduated from college in Missouri, punched cattle in Montana and lost a small fortune on a silver mine in Nevada. He took the job as sales manager at the cemetery so he could repay his mine backers.

He convinced people to buy plots before they died. After just a year, he had increased sales 250 percent. After three years, his sales had multiplied so much, he was able to buy a stake in the company and was named general manager.

Despite resistance from his board of directors, monument makers, the community and customers, Eaton eliminated tombstones so grass could be planted and lawns mowed; he renounced the name “cemetery,” changing it to “memorial park”; he started collecting world-class art or detailed reproductions; and he added mausoleums, acres, trees, florist, gift shop and chapels that are used for funerals and weddings.

In 1933, Eaton was the first to combine a mortuary with a cemetery, overcoming opposition from morticians, casket makers, and the state. Today, the Glendale park covers 300 acres and employs 150 people.

The park was divided into sections like Slumberland, Babyland, Graceland and Inspiration Slope. You can find places for immortality, affection, tranquility, mercy, harmony, fidelity and devotion.

A patriotic theme was incorporated in the early 1950s with the Court of Freedom, the Freedom Mausoleum and sections with names like liberty and victory.

For decades, Forest Lawn, like so many other cemeteries, had a whites-only policy, but park spokesman William Martin said he didn’t know what year that ended.

‘Elegance and good taste’
The number of Forest Lawn locations has grown to 10 — Hollywood Hills, Glendale and Covina Hills are the three largest.

“They have a reputation for excellence. They are highly respected in every regard. They take excellent care of their facilities. They handle a high volume of families. Most of their employees are long-term and dedicated to their work. Those things say a lot about a company,” said Ron Hast, executive editor and publisher of the Northern California-based Mortuary Management with Funeral Monitor, who was one of Marilyn Monroe’s pallbearers in services in 1962 at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Martin, who has been communications manager at Forest Lawn Glendale for nearly four years, dodges most questions, including names of famous inhabitants, how many people are interred there or how much room is left. He is even tighter lipped about Jackson.

When asked if there had been increased interest in Forest Lawn since the Jackson family announced its plans, he said, “The public interest has been raised. That’s putting it mildly.”

Hast operated a transportation backup service for Forest Lawn for 25 years. He doesn’t know exactly how many people are there, but it is “tens of thousands.” The celebrity list is long and includes George Burns, Gracie Allen, Walt Disney and Nat King Cole, he said.

Hast said the park is a good fit for Jackson, because they are experts at handling celebrity security “and they will do it with elegance and good taste.”

Scott Michaels, owner of Dearly Departed Tours in Los Angeles, believes Forest Lawn Glendale has a double standard when it comes to celebrities. “They protect their celebrities vehemently, but they brag about them,” he said.

“Not too long ago, they had an exhibit in their museum about celebrities buried in their cemetery,” Michaels said. “These people wanted to be famous when they were alive. Fame didn’t end with their deaths. We still watch their movies. It’s frustrating for some not to be able to pay their respects.”

Martin acknowledged there was a time when Forest Lawn boasted about its celebrity crowd, but no more.

“We don’t advertise, we don’t market it,” he said. “It is just inappropriate.”

Over 70,000 people have been married at Forest Lawn parks. Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman and Regis Philbin and his wife Joy were married at Wee Kirk o’ the Heather church at Glendale.

Privacy for the family
Cemetery Web sites and blogs have been buzzing since Jackson’s family announced the Forest Lawn plan. Hits to Lisa Burk’s blog at www.gravehunting.com have gone through the roof, she said. Interest in him “blows everything else out of the water because he was so internationally known.”

She said if the Jackson family wants privacy, they will get it at the mausoleum. “It’s impossible to get in there. It was before and it will be worse now.”

Even though visitors see a portion of the mausoleum when they go see the Last Supper show — a 10-minute presentation about the stained glass window, put on regularly 365 days a year — most of the multistory building is restricted. It is well monitored and some areas are only accessible with pass keys, Hast said.

Author Mark Masek went to Forest Lawn in mid-August to take photos of the mausoleum for his Web site on celebrity graves, www.cemeteryguide.com.

Two black vans blocked his exit from the grounds, Masek said, and a pair of security guards stood by while he deleted all the photos he had taken. “I fully cooperated and did everything they asked me to,” he said.

In his book “Hollywood Remains to be Seen,” a look at 14 area cemeteries, “I had pictures for every cemetery except the two Forest Lawns,” he said, “because they prohibit commercial photography.”

Finding celebrities and their markers or monuments at Forest Lawn Glendale has kept a lot of people busy over the years. Cybermaps abound with detailed lists, directions and photos. Dozens of books have been published guiding the starstruck to dead stars.

That won’t change. In fact, it would seem Jackson’s presence at Forest Lawn will provide new challenges for everyone involved.

Beer and Brats. What could be better?

2009-08-25T10:30:00.001-07:00

With more than a little time to kill, Miguel suggested we head out to Leavenworth for a brat and beer bacchanal. Sounds good to me.

I drove to Miguel's house last Friday, and we headed out at 9 am. First stop: Mickey D's for a little breakfast. I rarely, rarely, rarely go there (I think it's the one of the worst of the big fast food places, 2nd only to Dairy Queen), but I do like the occasional Egg McMufffin or Filet o' Fish. Bags of garbage delivered, we hit the road and ate as we drove.

I've only been on Highway 2 during a non-snow season 3 times before, and each time I head out there, I'm always amazed at how beautiful it is. River and mountain scenes, small towns barely clinging to existence, and depending on the time of year, leaves turning color before dropping to the ground.

We pulled into town and got parked at 11:30. Let's get this party started... Let's eat! The first place we found that could satisfy our beer/brat urges was a place called Munchen Haus. I ordered Helga's Giant Kelbassi (1/3 pound, Polish, Beef & Pork). It came with a small order of German Potato (What would Dan Quayle do here?) salad. I was given one of those funny little vibrating coasters and was told it would let me know when my order was ready. To order a beer, I was instructed to walk around the corner, into the patio, and order from the bartender there. Doing as I was instructed, I walked into the patio and ordered a fantastic beer from Hirschbrau. I don't remember what it was I ordered, but it was quite tasty.

When I was alerted to the fact that my dog was ready, I walked over and picked it up. It was huge, and looked grilled to perfection. The beauty part in all this was that they had the biggest selection of mustards I've ever seen. If you know anything about me, you know I love my condiments! They all sounded so good, but there are only so many condiments you can put on a dog before it overwhelms the link. I went with three different flavors, one one each side of the bun, and one stripe down the middle. I sprinkled some onions over the top of the entire dog, layered on some sweet relish, a quick squirt of ketchup, and a nice healthy layering of sauerkraut! Now THAT'S a dog! It was, in a word, fantastic. Through the various layers, I could taste the individual mustard flavors, and found them to be some of the best mustards I've had. The beer was equally good. I don't remember what we paid for this meal, but it was money well spent.

After stuffing ourselves, we walked around the town. Lots and lots of places to shop or eat, but not much else. I guess in a small town that has made itself into a bit of Bavaria, it's not surprising that most businesses are geared completely around tourism. We walked to the end of town and looked down into the valley were a small river flows past town. We could see people in the park down below us, and people wading in the river. With the mountains as a backdrop, the entire scene was idyllic.

OK, enough of that crap, let's get back to the eating and beer drinking. Where to go, where to go...

Ah, let's head on up to the Italian place for a beer. It seemed the entire building we found ourselves walking toward was geared mainly to the Italian side of things. We walked into a meat shop that closely resembled some of the shops we saw while we were in Italy in 2003. We left the meat shop and headed up the stairs to the Italian restaurant. Nobody there. Strange, but it was a little off the beaten path. Plus, who goes to eat Italian food in a German town? We got seated at the bar, and ordered a couple beers. Nothing out of the ordinary, but they were good and cold. Feeling a bit bloated, we passed on appetizers, and eventually got our bill, paid, and departed for parts unknown.

Back out into the 92 degree heat. It was definitely warm, but not miserably so, and the winds kept things comfortable. We walked to the main square (if you can call it that), where artists of various flavors displayed their work (mostly photography). We cruised through some of the stores that caught our interest, but nothing compelled either of us to buy anything. This went on for a while before we decided to get more beer and possibly a bite to eat, though neither of us was hungry.

Are next haunt was a restaurant that is located in the basement of one of the buildings on the main drag, Andreas Keller Restaurant. Upon entering, we stood and waited to be seated. And waited. And waited. And waited. We could see 3 other parties seated in a space that could hold quite a few folks. There were a LOT of empty tables. The waiter looked at us (the waitees), and indicated that he'd be with us shortly. Define "shortly". Finally, he gathered us and seated us in a booth, handed us a couple menus, and disappeared. We peeled the menus and were appalled at the prices. I can see slightly higher prices in a tourist town, but these prices were ridiculous. Given that we weren't all that hungry, it came down to ordering smallish portions, so as not to damage our innards or our wallets. I decided on the Red Cabbage, Miguel ordered the German Spatzle with mushroom sauce, with each of us selecting a beer worthy of our sophisticated palates. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, a staff member came by with some plates, forks, and a tub of what appeared to be stone-ground mustard. OK, that's all well and good, but what if we didn't order anything that required the mustard. Do they through it away, or do they take it back to the kitchen and scoop it back into the big mustard bucket? And then we waited some more. I told Mike we should leave, which he was willing to do, but I said let's give them 2 more minutes. 4 minutes later, we decided to beat feet and Mike stood up to go, when the waiter started heading in our direction. Damn! Now we were stuck. We should have just told him we were leaving, but we stayed. He took our order and, suprisingly, it wasn't too long before we had our beer and "food". My red cabbage was a pile of mush. I've had pleny of red cabbage in my day (and I love it), but it's never been mushy. This slop was barely a step above baby food in terms of its consistency. I didn't expect a huge portion (and in this I was not disappointed), but for $4, it was severely over priced (even if it had been properly cooked). Miquel's portion of spatzle was no larger than my red goo, and to charge $5 for noodles and an extra $2 for mushroom sauce, was beyond the pale. This is the kind of restaurant that can screw their customers over because they are likely first-time (and last-time) suckers. Tourists from far away places will likely never make it back to town, and any tourist that does make a return visit to Leavenworth, would likely never come back to this pathetic excuse for a restaurant. When the waiter finally returned with our bill, he circled our table 3 times within a 5-minute period, presumably to make sure we weren't skip out on paying the tab. It was this final treatment that fried my ham. Oh, and as it turned out, we didn't order anything that required the mustard they brought out to us. What do you think they did with it?

Cut loose onto the streets of Leavenworth once more, we continued to walk up and down the streets, occasionally stopping into any store that looked interesting. Once in a while we'd see a dog that would seem nice to meet, so we'd strike up a conversation with the owners and get to meet some cool pooches. As we walked past one store, I looked in to see custom pancacke griddles. One had snowflakes embossed in them (all the same design snowflake), so that wasn't too interesting. Right next to it, there was a pancake griddle that had the heads of 7 different zoo animals. Knowing that the wife likes pancakes, and we'd soon have a boy to make them for, I had to have it. For $32, I thought it might be a little more expensive than what I might pay if I were to order it directly from the manufacturer, but I wanted to bring it home with for the wife. (I did check the price when I got home, and I would have paid $35 for the pan, plus whatever shipping charges I might have incurred. Shockingly, I got a better deal in the tourist village).

If you've been to Leavenworth for more than 4 or 5 hours, things start to seem a bit repetitious. With the day winding down, we decided to grab one final beer before heading out.

We headed back to the place where we started our day. We skipped right past the hot dog spot, and walked up to the bartender. I asked the gal behind the counter if they had beer XYZ and she said she didn't think they did. One of the employees went to check to see if they had any kegs in the back, and when he returned, he reported that they had, in fact, run out. Oh, well. I ordered another beer (not nearly as tasty), and after consuming our pints, we got back on the road.

All-in-all, it was a great afternoon, with only the one unpleasant experience at the Andreas Keller Restaurant.

The traffic was light, and we got back to Miguel's house around 8:30. After saying our good-byes, I pointed the wagon in the direction of home and pulled up to the house at exactly 9 pm. It was a long day, and I was beat.

Oh, and the wife loved the pancake pan.

BECU Zoo Tunes: Susan Tedeschi

2009-08-25T10:28:00.001-07:00

The Woodland Park Zoo has a summer concert series each year. The name of the series is "BECU Zoo Tunes". Strangely, the concerts are presented by Carter Subaru. Why is that strange? Because BECU stands for Boeing Employees Credit Union. Why then aren't these shows being presented by Boeing? That would be like "McDonald's ZooTunes", presented by Burger King. Strange. Anyway, I've never really followed their concert schedule, largely because most bands who play there are bands I've never much cared for or, in some cases, never heard of. The few times I've heard whose playing there are bands that are likely (or frequently) played on The Mountain (which means "Blech" in Spanish).

Somehow the wife scored VIP passes to Susan Tedeschi's concert a few nights ago (August 19th). I'll admit to being something of a cave-dweller musically (in my opinion, the last "good" decade of music was the 70s), and I'm not a big fan of the blues, so I'm somewhat ashamed (OK, I lied, I don't really care) to say I'd never heard of the woman.

HOWEVER, when someone scores VIP passes, with the weather was as great as it was (mid-80s), and it might well be the last time I get to do something fun with the wife before Junior comes aboard, who am I to say "no"? What exactly do you get with VIP passes? Well, you get to sit in roped off section, enjoy nice, comfy adjustable beach chairs (if that's the right description), and get a pretty tasty box dinner, with extra pop and water as desired. I'm not sure what the passes cost, but it was nice to make use of them.

The opening band was JJ Grey and Mofro. Again, not a big fan of the blues, but they were pretty good. JJ Grey sorta reminded me of Billy Bob Thornton (I hope I'm not turning anyone off), but he had a damn good voice, and his band was decent.

Between sets, the wife and I got up to walk around and stretch the pegs a bit. On the way back to our seat, I say a woman who looked familiar, but I just couldn't quite place it, until if finally dawned on me that I was looking at a former classmate from high school. It's been 27 years since I'd last seen her, but I was finally able to dredge up a name. I've still got it. Still heading back to our seats, I saw the former Microsoft VP of Windows, Jim Allchin.

Susan Tedeschi's band was really good, and she's got a voice that belies her speaking voice. She speaks in a sort of high, girly voice, but when she sings, it's a loud, bluesy voice I never would have expected to slip from her mouth. She's a pretty good guitar player, too. That she's married to Derek Trucks, a guitarist with the Allman Brother's band, probably doesn't hurt. I liked the songs a lot more than I expected, even though the only one I recognized was a Beatles cover. Before I quit here, I have to say one thing: Her sax player ROCKS-THE-HOUSE!!! Unbelievable. He really knows how to make that sucker scream, and he got a rousing hand every time he cut loose.

The sound for both shows was mixed really well and was not overly loud. I suspect that volume has a lot to do with not wanting to disturb the animals at the zoo. Good thinking.

As we were leaving, I got a good chance to look at the venue, and found the place PACKED! I was surprised at how old the crowd was, but also surprised at how many little kids were there. It was nice to look out over the crowd and see friends and families peacefully enjoying a beautiful summer evening. Relaxing in that type of environment is probably one of the nicest ways to catch a show, and I think the zoo does a pretty damn good job of providing a space where people can spread a blanket, enjoy a picnic dinner (or to-go pizza), and listen to some nice music with friends and/or family.

Bravo, Woodland Park Zoo, bravo.

Older is better

2009-08-25T10:25:00.001-07:00

I don’t know why I do, but I love vintage stuff. I’ve been really jonesing lately for old Pioneer audio gear that has no practical purpose in today’s world of all things digital. Honestly, I really can’t stand digital music in the form of a single, downloadable file that you stick onto an iPod or some other such device. I don’t mind the CD, because with the CD, you get the artwork, liner notes, and a CD that you actually OWN. I can see the appeal in the convenience of having your music on a little player you can take with you on a walk, or plug into an adaptor in your car, or home stereo system. I get it, I just don’t like it. I have a single CD player in my car, and I’m totally fine with that.

Why then, do I have an irrational craving for a Pioneer reel to reel tape deck? They are huge, awkward to use, provide less musical fidelity, and are prone to needing to be adjusted for the vagaries of the whole tape format. Couple that with the fact that finding recording media requires a bit of a hunt to get it. Assuming I bought one and had 10” reels on the thing, how much music could I get on a single reel of tape? 5 hours? 6 hours? I have no idea, but if you get sick of what your listening to, to find a different recording on the tape requires fast or reverse forwarding until you find the desired spot on the tape. Think of it as looking for the beginning of a song on the old cassette tape. Fast Forward. Stop. Play. Is that what I was looking for? Nope. Do I need to FF or Rev to find the spot. Repeat ad nauseum until location is found. Does anyone want to go back to that? I love the > or < buttons on CD players. Finding the next track is EASY.

What happens if a tape breaks? Do I really want to put the reel onto a splicing machine? God, no, what a pain! Given that we’re taking about tape, you KNOW there’s going to be tape hiss. Is that what I want to listen to? Not really, but I can live with it, though not ideal. Why then do I want a reel to reel player? Because they look coooool!

Feast your peepers on this bad boy… Sadly, these units run into the many 100s of dollars, and I’m just not ready to shell out that kind of dough for what I suspect might be a passing fancy. Still…

I’ve also gotten hot and bothered about the old Pioneer turntables… Again, what’s with the old stuff? Now, there are many purists who say that a well-recorded, quality wax pressing sounds superior to CDs: they are warmer and richer sounding than CDs sound. I know a number of strides have been made in CD recording technology, so that may not be as true as it once was, but playing albums really is a visceral experience. You pull the sleeve from the 12” album cover, place the disc on the platter, give the disc a good cleaning, then carefully lower the needle down onto the wax, as you sit and examine ever square inch of the album art, reading every word of of the liner notes (including credits). Ahhh! Another afternoon, wonderfully spent.

Lay some ocular heaviness on this bad boy… I knew you could. And…? Yeah, you know you want one…

OK, stepping away from all things stereo, I was looking around the other night for a new fridge. Ours has a tendency to either run too cold, freezing all our produces in the fridge or… run not cold enough so that food goes south faster than we’d like. With a bebe on the way, we need something that regulates its temperature a lot better than what we’ve got going. I start poking around for fridges, and I don’t even know what got me side-tracked, but I found a website that sells restored antique kitchen appliances. OMG!! I want a fully restored 40” gas stove from the mid-50s. I saw some I absolutely loved, but fully restored, these bad boys run anywhere from 3 to 8 thousand dollars. That’s $3,000 - $8,000 for those of you keeping score at home. These stoves look so cool, and have so many configurations that today’s stoves simply do not have. Double ovens, double broilers, some other combination, they made ‘em then to last.

When they are fully restored, they look so good, and would neatly fill up the spot in our kitchen that doesn’t look completely filled by the 36” stove that currently resides there. With all the heavy metal and polished stainless steel, these babies are the Cadillacs of appliances.

I found several websites for companies that restore antique appliances, and one of them touted the benefits of the antique appliances, and I’m sold. Just need to pull together some serious scratch. OK, maybe when I’m back to working. Until then, I can dream, can’t I? Come dream along with me…

I am giddy at this one, because this is a 1954 O'Keefe & Merritt model, in light yellow. Given that our house was built in ‘54 and the kitchen is largely wall-to-wall yellow tile, I can’t think of another unit that would better complement our kitchen than this one. Look at how that baby is lit up. Some units even have salt and pepper shakers built in to the control head.

You can have these appliances restored in a multitude of colors, so whatever strikes your fancy, you can probably get a custom appliance to match (provided, of course, you can come up with the dough for one of these).

As a culture, I think we’ve allowed ourselves to be seduced by all things quick and convenient. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of quality and esthetics. 99 times out of 100, I will go with the older item, so long as the quality is there. Depending on the item, safety has to be taken into consideration, but I doubt playing a record will cause undue harm to my health.

Can’t wait for the day when I can listen to the reel-to-reel tapes I made from the albums I recorded on my vintage turntable, all while eating something tasty on my vintage, refurbished stove.

Ahh, the good life!

Automotive Obsession

2009-08-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

On June 27th the wife and I were heading home from the Greenwood Car Show, when I spied a B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L car up ahead. I could see that it was an older BMW, but couldn't make out what it was.

Before I go any further, I would like to state for the record that I am NOT a BMW fan, especially the current Flame Surface design they've been using these last few years...

I urged the wife to speed up to car so that I could make out on the trunk what model it was. As we approached, I was able to see the badging on the back, and write it down: BMW 3.0 CS. I'd seen them before and had admired them, but this was the first one I'd ever seen in motion, and it was a thing to behold. I was pretty sure, that it would be beyond my financial means, but one can dream, right?

When I got home, the first thing I did was look it up on eBay. As a matter of fact, there was one that was for sale, and it appeared to be in pretty good condition, but with the current bidding price at $24,000, it was well beyond my means.

6 weeks later, here I am pining for one. I just found a website devoted to the entire series of cars (late 60s 2000 C, 2800 CS, 3.0 CS/i/L), which seem to be collectively referred to as "E9".

Call it what you want, I want one!

Three Sheets

2009-07-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

Trying to stay cool in the basement, with as little movement possible, I surfed on over to Hulu to see what new and exciting show I might discover. What? What's this? A drinking show?

Three Sheets has a pretty basic premise: send a regular Joe around the world to discover the various alcohols and traditions that are used by various cultures around the world in the consumption of said alcohol. Not terribly complicated, but right up my alley. I just watched the first episode, which was filmed on the South Island of New Zealand (one of my top 5 destinations). It was all good, and I suspect I'll be watching a lot more of these.

What I wanna know is: Why didn't I know about this show before?

Gordon Ramsey's back in action!

2009-07-28T21:07:00.000-07:00

I love the GR shows, Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. The new season of HK started last week and based on what I've seen, it's going to be a pretty crazy season.

Put a fork in me, I'm done...

2009-07-28T20:27:00.000-07:00

Seattle is currently in the midst of a sweltering heat wave, unlike anything ever experienced before. As I type this, it is currently 8:30 pm and a blistering 95 degrees. I suspect that's pretty damn hot for just about anywhere in the country, but in the Pacific Northwest, it's unheard of.

I'm sitting in the basement, where the temperatures usually range at least 10 degrees cooler than upstairs (where the thermostat reads a balmy 88), but it seems nearly as hot down here.

There was an advantage to being down here the other night as the heat wave started to kick in, but after a couple days of baking, there's very little temperature difference between the two regions. I'm sweating like a pig.

Some forecasters are predicting Seattle may hit 101 tomorrow, higher in the interior regions.

Already looking forward to when it again reaches something manageable, like 85...

I'm Rich! I'm Rich!

2009-07-01T13:56:00.000-07:00

Just picked up the mail. One of the envelopes was from our local electric utility and stamped "UNCLAIMED PROPERTY". Well, that already sounds pretty good to me.

I rip open that bad boy and find that there's a balance on a previous account on the condo I sold last year.

How much is my windfall? $88.54.

More than I've made all year, and probably all that I'll make all year...

Finally!

2009-07-01T07:47:00.001-07:00

This morning was the first time I felt my son kick. The wife had made earlier attempts to get me to feel him, but each time I laid my hands on her stomach, he'd stop moving.

This morning she had me place my hands on her stomach and after a few seconds, I felt what I thought was a hiccup. It was the boy!

Second birthing class...

2009-06-29T22:03:00.000-07:00

Did a couple exercises, and watched a "film", in which they showed a woman delivering a baby and... the placenta. I just about fell over and died. I thought it would be clear and flat, but instead it's round and purple/reddish and attached to the umbilical cord. Blech!

I definitely will not be on the business end of things after the baby is delivered.

Am I old? Another great birthday...

2009-06-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

I celebrated my birthday yesterday. It was a great day, starting with opening my gifts, followed by heading out to a local pancake house the wife likes. I know, I know, it's my birthday, but I was happy to go along with that, knowing what she was going to sacrifice on my behalf...

After breakfast, we went to the Greenwood car show, which we go to every year. Love it! Took a lot of pictures, but because the wife is in a somewhat compromised state, I pushed through it much faster than I would normally. Lots of women there, most tortured to the same degree as the wife. I love old cars.

Afterward, we stopped off at the Fred Meyer to pick up a few bags of potting soil, before coming home to plant the Improved Meyer Lemon plant, which was one of my birthday gifts.

We later headed out to dinner at The Kingfish Cafe, one of my favorite places, and I ate myself into a near food coma. Why do I do that? No matter, the food was great and I enjoyed the best wings I've ever had!

Afterward, we came home to check on the dogs, and to take a little nap. Nap done, we headed out to catch a show of improv comedy. The idea is not exactly something I would have been drawn to, but it was much more enjoyable than I expected. At the intermission, the wife was getting her headache back, and given the long day, we were both exhausted, so we decided to leave and head home.

A great day, and I have the wife to thank for it. Thanks, babe.

Unbelievable: Michael Jackson dead at 50

2009-06-25T15:50:00.001-07:00

The wife and I just got back from our doctor appointments, and we talked and listened to a CD on the way home. I just sat down to the computer, fired up IE, and there on the MSN home page was the heading that Michael Jackson had died.

I'm completely blown away. I was not a big fan, but he was such a huge force in the entertainment industry (and relatively young), that I'd expected he'd live at least another 25-30 years.

This will be big, big news for the next few days.

This coming on the heels of Farrah Fawcett's death... A bad day in the world of entertainment.

First birthing class tonight...

2009-06-22T22:38:00.001-07:00

Tonight was the first of 8 birthing classes. Pain. The first six are 2 hours long, the last two are 3 hours long. I'm sure we'll get a lot out of them, (I learned a few things tonight and suspect I'll learn more with each session), but it's strange being in a room full of strangers talking about some fairly personal stuff. Not exactly something I enjoy doing.

I'm already a bit nervous about being in the delivery room as it is, I think I'll be terrified by the time we actually get down to show time.

Do salmon skin rolls count?

2009-06-22T22:37:00.001-07:00

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/skin-and-hair/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100240557&gt1=31036

Content provided by:

Can Salmon Save Your Skin?

Omega-3 fatty acids may boost your skin’s defenses against UV damage.

By Fiona Kenny, R.D. , EatingWell.com

If you spend your summer vacation soaking up the sun, your best defense (second to sunscreen, of course) may be what you order for dinner. Healthy omega-3 fatty acids in oily fish can boost your skin’s defenses against UV damage, explains epidemiologist Adèle Green, Ph.D.

In a study published in the April 2009 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers followed the eating habits of more than 1,100 Australian adults for approximately five years and found that those who ate a little more than 5 ounces of omega-3-rich fish—such as salmon and tuna—each week decreased the development of precancerous skin lesions by almost 30 percent.

The lesions, called actinic keratoses, are a common sign of chronic sun damage and can develop into skin cancer if left untreated.

Scientists think the omega-3s act as a shield, protecting cell walls from free-radical damage. So next time you head to the beach remember your sunscreen and hat, and make reservations at a restaurant that serves great seafood.

More promising findings on eating for healthy skin:

Researchers from Unilever linked consuming plenty of vitamin C-rich foods (such as oranges, tomatoes and strawberries) with youthful skin. Vitamin C’s youthful effects on skin may be due to its antioxidant properties, which help protect against ultraviolet rays, and its role in keeping skin firm via collagen synthesis.

A study of 177 men and women published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition found that people who consumed diets rich in olive oil, vegetables and legumes had the least skin wrinkling while those who ate lots of full-fat dairy and red meat had the most. "Eating foods rich in bioactive compounds (vitamins, phytochemicals) may minimize ultraviolet damage to the skin and improve its appearance," says Mark L. Wahlqvist, M.D., one of the study’s authors and director of the Asia Pacific Health and Nutrition Center at Monash University in Australia.

In one study, scientists in Germany showed that consuming tomato paste rich in the antioxidant lycopene (2 1/2 tablespoons daily for 10 weeks) reduced sunburn by 40 percent.

Research suggests that the nutrient beta carotene may help you stay young-looking by scavenging for free radicals that contribute to skin aging. Good sources of the nutrient include sweet potatoes, carrots, cantaloupe and leafy greens.

Salmon and tuna recipes on Delish:

Why? Why? Why?

2009-06-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

Or maybe the subject line should be Where? Where? Where?

I'm off for the week until classes start next Monday. I thought I'd be productive and get some much neglected yardwork done. The camelias are in desperate need of some pruning as they are about 9 feet high and need to come down about 2 feet or so, and trimmed up on the front and sides.

I shower, get dressed, and head into the garage looking to tool-up. First things first, I need the extension ladder. Hmmm... it's not here where I last left it. I check the Gorilla racks. I'm not sure how it might have gotten there but, knowing myself, I wouldn't have put it there. Maybe the wife put it there. No ladder.

I search everywhere in the garage and come up empty handed.

This leaves only one possibility: The wife loaned it to one of her friends and didn't bother to get it back. More accurately, the friends didn't bother to get it back to us.

I've gone looking for MY tools only to find them weren't there. Wife moved 'em, didn't bother to return them.

Went to wash the Impala a week ago, and wound up washing the wife's car. While I was about to start that, she headed over to the Impala with a dry rag, and was going run the rag across the hood to get it damp. Get away from that car... Thank god I was paying attention. I told her to NOT do that.

This, my friends, is why I don't allow the wife to touch ANY of my things. If it's not yours, you don't touch it...

Does that make me an ass? Maybe, but at least I know where my things are...

So, no ladder, no yardwork. I suppose I could do other things around the yard, but the buzzkill is complete. I'll work getting the indoors taken care of.

Human Rights in China

2009-06-22T11:24:00.001-07:00

I get the occasional hit on my Spaces blog coming in from China via their Baidu search engine. Not really sure how restrictive their scope is, but I know there's a big push to block all porn coming into China via Google (and, presumably, other search engines). If China deems all things porn as evil, and struggles to keep a lid on that, one wonders how restrictive they are with regard to accessing worldwide sites documenting China's human rights record.

Never having been to China, I don't know how pressing a desire the Chinese people have for expanded human rights, but suspect they aren't encouraged to express their dissatisfaction with the way things are.

That said, if someone from China happens across my blog and finds something that sparks a desire for something different (better?), than I am happy to do my part. I wonder how long it will be before the Chinese government adds my blog to their list of blocked sites.

From Wikipedia (which I suspect is blocked, so I will include their entire entire on "Human rights in the People's Republic of China" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China).

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the People's Republic of China. For Human Rights in China (HRIC), the non-governmental organization, see Human Rights in China (organization).

Since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the human rights issue of China has come to the forefront. Multiple sources, including the U.S. State Department's annual People's Republic of China human rights reports, as well as studies from other groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have documented the PRC's abuses of human rights in violation of internationally recognized norms.

The PRC government argues that the notion of human rights should include economic standards of living and measures of health and economic prosperity,^[1] and notes progress in that area.^[2]

Controversial human rights issues in China include policies such as capital punishment, the one-child policy, the policy of Han Chinese cultural integration towards Tibet, and lack of protections regarding freedom of press and religion.

A number of organizations work to create awareness and campaign for change with regard to human rights in China. These include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights in China, Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) and China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group (CHRWCG). For more details, see China Human Rights Organizations

[hide]

[edit] Legal system

The Chinese government recognizes that there are problems with the current legal system,^[3] such as:

A lack of laws in general, not just ones to protect civil rights.
A lack of due process.
Conflicts of law.^[4]

As judges are appointed by the State and the judiciary as a whole does not have its own budget,^[5] this has led to corruption and the abuse of administrative power.

[edit] Civil liberties

[edit] Freedom of speech

Main articles: Censorship in the People's Republic of China and Government control of the media in the People's Republic of China

Although the 1982 constitution guarantees freedom of speech,^[6] the Chinese government often uses the subversion of state power clause to imprison those who are critical of the government.^[7] Also, there is very heavy government involvement in the media, with most of the largest media organizations being run directly by the government. Chinese law forbids the advocacy of independence or self-determination for territories Beijing considers under its jurisdiction, as well as public challenge to the CCP's monopoly in ruling China. Thus references to democracy, the Free Tibet movement, Taiwan as an independent state, certain religious organizations and anything remotely questioning the legitimacy of the Communist Party of China are banned from use in publications and blocked on the Internet. PRC journalist He Qinglian in her 2004 book Media Control in China^[8] examined government controls on the Internet in China^[9] and on all media. Her book shows how PRC media controls rely on confidential guidance from the Communist Party propaganda department, intense monitoring, and punishment for violators rather than on pre-publication censorship.

Foreign internet search engines including Microsoft Live Search, Yahoo!, Google Search China^[10] have come under criticism for aiding in these practices, including banning the word "Democracy" from its chat rooms in China. Yahoo! in particular, stated that it will not protect the privacy and confidentiality of its Chinese customers from the authorities,^[11] and was criticised by Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders of having "taken on the role of censor."^[12] In October 2008, Citizen Lab revealed that TOM Online's Chinese-language Skype software filtered sensitive words and then logged these messages to a file on non-secure computer servers. Skype president Josh Silverman said it was "common knowledge" that TOM had "established procedures to... block instant messages containing certain words deemed offensive by the Chinese authorities."^[13]

[edit] Impact of the Olympics

Main article: Concerns over the 2008 Summer Olympics

In anticipation of the 2008 Summer Olympics, China faced international criticism regarding its human rights record. China has acknowledged "the need to keep advancing human rights,"^[14] and resumed a human rights dialog with the United States.^[15] A number of foreign protesters were deported from China during the Games.^[16] Others were detained until the closing ceremony and then deported.^[17]^[18] An unauthorised protest by seven activists protesting about China's involvement in Tibet at the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park, blocking its entrance, was cleared away by the authorities.^[19]

The Chinese government had promised to issue permits allowing people to protest in so-called 'protest parks' during the Games,^[20] but on 18 August it was reported that of 77 applications, 74 were withdrawn, two suspended and one vetoed.^[21]^[22] Two elderly Chinese women were reported to have been sentenced to "re-education through labour" for having applied for a permit.^[23] The Chinese authorities stated they had no record of the sentences.^[23] Their sentence was suspended subject to proper behaviour, and to restrictions on movement.^[24] Furthermore, many human rights lawyers and political dissidents were rounded up; the armies of migrant workers who built the Olympic stadiums have been encouraged to leave town, lest their dishevelled appearances detract from the image of a clean, modern nation.^[25]

A Chinese lawyer explained, "For Chinese petitioners, if their protest applications were approved, it would lead to a chain reaction of others seeking to voice their problems as well" and an academic observed that: "When you have guests coming over for dinner, you clean up the house and tell the children not to argue."^[25]

Critics also argue that the Chinese authorities failed to live up to their promises on press freedom. ITV News reporter John Ray was arrested while covering a pro-Tibet protest.^[19]^[26] Foreign journalists also reported that their access to certain websites, including those of human rights organisations, was restricted.^[27]^[28] International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge stated at the end of the Games that "The regulations might not be perfect but they are a sea-change compared to the situation before. We hope that they will continue".^[29] The Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) issued a statement that "despite welcome progress in terms of accessibility and the number of press conferences within the Olympic facilities, the FCCC has been alarmed at the use of violence, intimidation and harassment outside. The club has confirmed more than 30 cases of reporting interference since the formal opening of the Olympic media centre on 25 July, and is checking at least 20 other reported incidents".^[30]

[edit] Freedom of movement

For more details on this topic, see Hukou system.

The Communist Party came to power in the late 1940s and instigated a command economy. In 1958, Mao set up a residency permit system defining where people could work, and classified an individual as a "rural" or "urban" worker.^[31] A worker seeking to move from the country to an urban area to take up non-agricultural work would have to apply through the relevant bureaucracies. The number of workers allowed to make such moves was tightly controlled. People who worked outside their authorized domain or geographical area would not qualify for grain rations, employer-provided housing, or health care.^[32] There were controls over education, employment, marriage and so on.^[31] One reason for instituting this system was to prevent the possible chaos caused by the predictable large-scale urbanization. As a part of the one country, two systems policy initiated by Deng Xiaopeng, Chinese citizens must gain permission from the government to travel to the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao.

Urban dwellers enjoy a range of social, economic and cultural benefits while peasants, the majority of the Chinese population, are treated as second-class citizens, according to an academic at the University of Alberta.^[33] The Washington Times reported in 2000 that although migrant labourers play an important part in spreading wealth in Chinese villages, they are treated "like second-class citizens by a system so discriminatory that it has been likened to apartheid."^[34] Anita Chan also posits that China's household registration and temporary residence permit system has created a situation analogous to the passbook system in South Africa which was designed to regulate the supply of cheap labor.^[35] The Centre for Human Rights and Democracy has alleged that people of Han descent in Tibet have a far easier time acquiring the necessary permits to live in urban areas than ethnic Tibetans do.^[36]

Abolition of this policy was proposed in 11 provinces, mainly along the developed eastern coast. The law has already been changed such that migrant workers no longer face summary arrest, after a widely publicised incident in 2003, when a university-educated migrant died in Guangdong province. The Beijing law lecturer who exposed the incident said it spelt the end of the hukou system: in most smaller cities, the system has been abandoned; it has "almost lost its function" in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai.^[33]

[edit] Treatment of rural workers

In November 2005 Jiang Wenran, acting director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, said this system was one of the most strictly enforced 'apartheid' structures in modern world history.^[37] He stated "Urban dwellers enjoy a range of social, economic and cultural benefits while peasants, the majority of the Chinese population, are treated as second-class citizens".^[37]

The discrimination enforced by the hukou system became particularly onerous in the 1980s after hundreds of millions of migrant laborers were forced out of state corporations and co-operatives.^[38] The system classifies workers as "urban" or "rural",^[32]^[39] and attempts by workers classified as "rural" to move to urban centers were tightly controlled by the Chinese bureaucracy, which enforced its control by denying access to essential goods and services such as grain rations, housing, and health care,^[32] and by regularly closing down migrant workers' private schools.^[38] The hukou system also enforced pass laws similar to those in South Africa,^[35]^[40] with "rural" workers requiring six passes to work in provinces other than their own,^[38] and periodic police raids which rounded up those without permits, placed them in detention centers, and deported them.^[40] As in South Africa, the restrictions placed on the mobility of migrant workers were pervasive,^[38] and transient workers were forced to live a precarious existence in company dormitories or shanty towns, and suffering abusive consequences.^[35] Anita Chan furthers that China's household registration and temporary residence permit system has created a situation analogous to the passbook system in apartheid South Africa, which were designed to regulate the supply of cheap labor.^[31]^[32]^[35]^[39]^[41]^[42]

David Whitehouse divides what he describes as "Chinese apartheid" into three distinct phases: The first phase occurred during the state capitalist phase of China's economy, from around 1953 to the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. The second "neoliberal" phase lasted from 1978 to 2001, and the third lasted from 2001 to the present. During the first phase, the exploitation of rural labor, the passbook system, and in particular the non-portable rights associated with one's status, created what Whitehouse calls "an apartheid system". As with South Africa, the ruling party made some concessions to rural workers to make life in rural areas "survivable... if not easy or pleasant". During the second phase, as China transitioned from state capitalism to market capitalism, export-processing zones were created in city suburbs, where mostly female migrants worked under oppressive sweatshop conditions. The third phase was characterized by the weakening of the hukou controls; by 2004 the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture counted over 100 million people registered as "rural" working in cities.^[43]

Au Loong-yu, Nan Shan, and Zhang Ping of the Committee for Asian Women argue this system oppresses women more severely than men,^[44] and see seven distinct elements giving rise to what they describe as "the regime of spatial and social apartheid" which keeps rural Chinese in their subordinate status:

The repressive regime at the factory level;
the paramilitary forces at local level;
the ‘local protectionism’ of local governments;
the fiercely pro-business and pro-government attitude of the local press;
the fiercely pro-business and pro-government attitude of the branches of ACFTU;
pro-government local courts; and
the discriminatory hukou system.^[45]

They agree that the gradual relaxation of some of the more repressive aspects of the hukou system since the mid-1990s has largely eliminated the spatial aspect of the apartheid; for example, workers can now buy one year permits to reside in cities, and since 2003 the police no longer jail and deport people who lack local hukou passes. However, they point out the still-hereditary nature of the hukou system, and state that the "substance of the social apartheid in general and the hukou system in particular remains intact." Migrant workers are permanently marked as outsiders and remain second-class citizens, and are denied access to good jobs or upward mobility, thus forcing their eventual return to their place of origin.^[46]

Whitehouse sees the analogy to South Africa's apartheid system breaking down in two areas: First, under a system called xia xiang, or "sending down", individuals or even entire factories of urban workers were sometimes re-classified as rural workers and sent to live in the countryside (at lower wages and benefits). By contrast, white workers in South Africa were never sent to work in Bantustans. Second, the ideology driving China's apartheid system was Maoism, not racism, as is South African apartheid.^[43] Anita Chan agrees with Whitehouse on this point, noting that while the hukou system shares many of the characteristics of the South African apartheid system, including its underlying economic logic, the racial element is not present.^[35]

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security justified these practices on the grounds that they assisted the police in tracking down criminals and maintaining public order, and provided demographic data for government planning and programs.^[47]

"Rural" workers are required to have six passes to work in provinces other than their own.^[38] Those without permits are rounded up by police, placed in detention centers, and deported.^[40] Restrictions placed on the mobility of migrant workers were pervasive,^[38] and some transient workers were forced to live a precarious existence in company dormitories or shanty towns, and suffering abusive consequences.^[35] The system, which has targeted China's 800 million rural peasants for decades, has been described by journalists Peter Alexander and Anita Chan as "China's apartheid".^[39]^[48]

According to Peter Alexander and Anita Chan, China's export-oriented growth has been based on the labor of poorly paid and treated migrant workers, using a pass system similar to the one used in South Africa's apartheid, in which massive abuses of human rights have been observed.^[49]

An article in The Washington Times, reported in 2000 that although migrant laborers play an important part in spreading wealth in Chinese villages, they are treated "like second-class citizens by a system so discriminatory that it has been likened to apartheid."^[34]

The Chinese embassy in South Africa posted a letter to the editor of The Star dated 22 February 2007 , under the title Article on China presents racism rumours as fact, in which a reader stated that "It's pure incitement to proclaim 'Chinese apartheid' in reference to migrant labour being kept out of the cities."^[50]

[edit] Religious freedom

Main article: Freedom of religion in the People's Republic of China

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), particularly the Destruction of Four Olds campaign, religious affairs of all types were persecuted and discouraged by the Communists with many religious buildings looted and destroyed. Since then, there have been efforts to repair, reconstruct and protect historical and cultural religious sites.^[51] The US department of state criticizes in its human rights report 2005 that not enough has been done to repair or restore damaged and destroyed sites.^[52]

The 1982 Constitution technically guarantees its citizens the right to believe in any religion.^[53] However this freedom differs from the general concept of "freedom of religion" as recognised in the West, and is subject to restrictions.

Members of the Communist Party are officially required to be atheists.^[54] While many party members privately violate this rule,^[55] being openly religious can limit their economic prospects. All religious groups must be registered with the government. In addition, the government continually tries to maintain control over not only religious content, but also leadership choices.

[edit] Christianity

The government tries to maintain tight control over all religions, so the only legal Christian groups (Three-Self Patriotic Movement and Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association) are those under the Communist Party control. It has been claimed by many that the teachings in the state-approved Churches are at least monitored and sometimes modified by the Party.^{[citation needed]}

The "official Catholic" metropolitan bishop appointed in China in 2007 to replace the deceased Fu Tieshan was not made by the Pope as is customary.^[56] The Catholic Church in particular is viewed as a foreign power in a situation somewhat analogous to that in Post-Reformation England, and so the official church in China is state-controlled; accordingly this overground Chinese church is considered a schismatic group by the wider Church; there exists also an illegal and underground "real-Catholic" community still loyal to the Pope and the wider Church.^[57] According to the Voice of the Martyrs, the growth of organised religious groups in China is tempered by state controls and regulations which prevent the rise of groups or sources of authority outside the control of the Government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It stated that "Unregistered religious groups [in China] ... experience varying degrees of official interference, harassment, and repression." Its crackdown on Falun Gong is cited as the group being a perceived threat to the regime.^[58]

Because house churches operate outside government regulations and restrictions, and consequently are more numerous than the official or underground-Catholic church (as the latter is explicitly illegal), their members and leaders are sometimes harassed by local government officials. This persecution may take the form of a prison sentence or, more commonly, reeducation through labour. Heavy fines also are not uncommon, with personal effects being confiscated in lieu of payment if this is refused or unavailable. House churches have not officially been outlawed, and since the 1990s, there has been increasing official tolerance of house churches. Most observers believe that the harassment of house churches by government officials arises less from an ideological opposition to religion and support of atheism than out of fears of a center of popular mobilization outside the control of the Communist Party of China.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Tibetan Buddhism

The government now has the power to ensure that no new living Buddha can be identified: the State Administration for Religious Affairs issued a 14-part regulation to limit the influence of the Dalai Lama. It declared that after 1 September 2007, "[no] living Buddha [may be reincarnated] without government approval, since Qing dynasty, when the live Budda system was established.".^[59] When the Dalai Lama announced in May 1995 that a search inside Tibet had identified the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama who died in 1989, Beijing was enraged and reinitiated the search under the supervision of a senior Politburo member. The boy chosen by the Dalai Lama, and the abbot who helped with the choice have both vanished.^[59] The child is believed to have spent the years since he was named under house arrest; all calls for visitation or for his release have been ignored. The Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama is branded a fake by loyalists. ^[60] Examples of the political controls exercised are:^[61]

quotas on the number of monks to reduce the spiritual population
forced denunciation of the Dalai Lama as a spiritual leader
unapproved monks' expulsion from monasteries
forced recitation of patriotic scripts supporting China
Restriction of religious study before age 18.

Monks celebrating the reception of the US Congressional Gold Medal by the Dalai Lama have been detained;^[62] Drepung, once a large temple for over 10,000 monks, is now home to only 600; Beijing now restricts total membership in any monastery to 700.^[61]

[edit] Falun Gong

Groups practicing Falun Gong in China before the ban in July 1999

Main articles: Persecution of Falun Gong and Reports of organ harvesting from Falun Gong in China

On 20 July 1999, the government banned Falun Gong, and began a nationwide crackdown of the practice^[63] following seven years of widespread popularity and rapid growth of the practice.^[64]^[65] A series of appeals and petitions made by practitioners to the authorities in 1999, in particular the 10,000 person gathering at Zhongnanhai on 25 April, eventually led to the decision to outlaw and persecute Falun Gong.^[66]

According to Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Ian Johnson, the Communist Party mobilized every aspect of society to become involved in the persecution, including the media apparatus, police force, army, education system, families and workplaces.^[67] An extra-constitutional body, the "6-10 Office" was created to do what Forbes describes as "[overseeing] the terror campaign."^[68] The campaign was driven by large-scale propaganda through television, newspaper, radio and internet.^[69] Human Rights Watch noted that families and workplaces were urged to cooperate with the government, while practitioners themselves were subject to various coercive measures to have them recant their beliefs.^[70] Amnesty International raised particular concerns over reports of torture, illegal imprisonment including forced labour, psychiatric abuses.^[71]^[72]

Protests in Beijing were frequent for the first few years following the 1999 edict, though these protests have largely been eradicated.^[67] Practitioners have occasionally hacked into state television channels to broadcast pro-Falun Gong materials. Outside of mainland China, practitioners are active in appealing to the governments, media, and people of their respective countries about the situation in China.

Falun Gong and The Epoch Times have also alleged that the Chinese government and its agencies, including the People's Liberation Army, were conducting "widespread and systematic organ harvesting of living practitioners" specifically at the Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital in Shenyang. In March 2006, two apparent eye-witness alleged that practitioners detained in the hospital's basement were being tissue-typed, their information stored on computer databases, and then matched with organ recipients and killed to order when an organ was required.^[73] In July 2006, David Kilgour and David Matas published a report entitled "Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China" which they say supported the allegations that large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners were victims of systematic organ harvesting whilst still alive, throughout China.^[74] The Christian Science Monitor says the report’s evidence is "circumstantial, but persuasive".^[75]

The Chinese government categorically denied any mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners, and rejected the report in its entirety. "No one will believe the absurd lies concocted by the Falun Gong cult followers", said a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.^[76] Dissident Harry Wu, commenting on Sujiatun but not the Kilgour-Matas report, said the two witnesses were "not reliable and most probably they had fabricated the story", and he rejected the totality of the allegations after sending in investigators.^[77] A Congressional Research Service said that there was "insufficient evidence to support this specific allegation," without elaboration.^[78]

U.N. special rapporteur Manfred Nowak, in December 2007 said "The chain of evidence they [Kilgour and Matas] are documenting shows a coherent picture that causes concern."^[79] In November 2008, the United Nations Committee Against Torture made a strong statement on the matter, citing Nowak's note that an increase in organ transplant operations coincides with “the beginning of the persecution of [Falun Gong practitioners]” and who asked for "a full explanation of the source of organ transplants." The Committee stated that it is concerned with the information that Falun Gong practitioners "have been extensively subjected to torture and ill-treatment in prisons and that some of them have been used for organ transplants." They called for the state to immediately conduct or commission an independent investigation of the claims of organ harvesting, and take measures to ensure that those responsible for such abuses are prosecuted and punished.^[80]

[edit] Political freedom

The PRC is known for its intolerance of organized dissent towards the government. Dissident groups are routinely arrested and imprisoned, often for long periods of time and without trial. Incidents of torture, forced confessions and forced labour are widely reported. Freedom of assembly and association is extremely limited. The most recent mass movement for political freedom was crushed in the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the estimated death toll of which ranges from about 200 to 10,000 depending on sources.^[81]^[82]

One of the most famous dissidents is Zhang Zhixin, who is known for standing up against the ultra-left.^[83] In October 2008, the government denounced the European Parliament's decision to award the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Hu Jia, on grounds that it was "gross interference in China's domestic affairs" to give such an award to a "jailed criminal.. in disregard of our repeated representations."^[84]

[edit] Legislation

[edit] One-child policy

Government sign stating: "For a prosperous, powerful nation and a happy family, please use birth planning."

China's birth control policy, known widely as the one-child policy, was implemented in 1979 by the Chinese government to alleviate the overpopulation problem. Having more than one child is illegal and punishable by fines and jail time. Voice of America cites critics who argue that it contributes to forced abortions, human rights violations, female infanticide, abandonment and sex-selective abortions, believed to be relatively commonplace in some areas of the country.^[85] This is thought to have been a significant contribution to the gender imbalance in mainland China, where there is a 118 to 100 ratio of male to female children reported.^[86]^[87]^[88] Forced abortions and sterilizations have also been reported.^[89]^[90]

It is also argued that the one-child policy is not effective enough to justify its costs, and that the dramatic decrease in Chinese fertility started before the program began in 1979 for unrelated factors. The policy seems to have had little impact on rural areas (home to about 80% of the population), where birth rates never dropped below 2.5 children per female.^[91] Nevertheless, the Chinese government and others estimate that at least 250 million births have been prevented by the policy.^[92]

In 2002, the laws related to the One-child policy were amended to allow ethnic minorities and Chinese living in rural areas to have more than one child. The policy was generally not enforced in those areas of the country even before this. The policy has been relaxed in urban areas to allow people who were single children to have two children.^[93]

[edit] Capital punishment

PRC troops execute prisoners, according to the Laogai Research Foundation.^[94]^{[dead link]} China is thought to execute more people each year than the rest of the world combined.^{[citation needed]}

Main article: Capital punishment in the People's Republic of China

According to the United Nations Secretary-General, between 1994 and 1999 China was ranked seventh in executions per capita, behind Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Sierra Leone, Kyrgyzstan, and Jordan.^[95] Amnesty International claims that official figures are much smaller than the real number, stating that in China the statistics are considered State secrets. Amnesty stated that according to various reports, in 2005 3,400 people were executed. In March of that year, a senior member of the National People's Congress announced that China executes around 10,000 people per year.^[96]

A total of 68 crimes are punishable by death; capital offenses include non-violent, white-collar crimes such as embezzlement and tax fraud. The inconsistent and sometimes corrupt nature of the legal system in mainland China bring into question the fair application of capital punishment there.^[97]

Amnesty International reports state that, in recent years, China has had the highest number of executions of any country. In 2005, it topped the list with 1,770 people executed.^[98]. Figures from 2006 and 2007 are reported to have been 1,010 and 470 executions, respectively.^[99]^[100]^[101] In January 2007, China's state media announced that all death penalty cases will be reviewed by the Supreme People's Court. Since 1983, China's highest court did not review all cases. This marks a return to China's pre-1983 policy.^[102] In light of these changes, figures from 2007 display a substantial reduction in executions with only 470 reported executions compared with figures from previous years. However, Amnesty International analysts argue that this drop is only temporary since the figure includes only confirmed executions.^[103]

[edit] Discrimination

[edit] Ethnic minorities

See also: Racism in the People's Republic of China

There are 55 recognized ethnic minorities in China. Article 4 of the Chinese constitution states "All nationalities in the People's Republic of China are equal", and the government argues that it has made efforts to improve ethnic education and increased ethnic representation in local government.

Some policies cause reverse racism, where Han Chinese or even ethnic minorities from other regions are treated as second-class citizens in the ethnic region.^[104]^[105]

There are also wide-ranging preferential policies (i.e. affirmative actions) in place to promote social and economic developments for ethnic minorities, including preferential employments, political appointments, and business loans.^[106] Universities typically have quota reserved for ethnic minorities despite having lower admission test scores.^[107] Ethnic minorities are also exempt from the one-child policy which is aimed toward Han Chinese.

However, the government is harsh toward those that argue for independence or political autonomy, mainly Tibetans and Uyghurs in rural provinces in the west of China. Some groups have used terrorism to push their agenda.^[108]

Five Chinese Uyghur detainees from the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp, which was itself known for human rights abuses, were released in June, 2007, but the U.S. refused to return them to China citing the People's Republic of China's "past treatment of the Uigur minority".^[109] Critics of the Chinese government claim that it engages in cultural and political suppression of various ethnic minorities, such as Tibetans, and encourages Han Chinese to migrate to areas such as Xinjiang and Tibet to increase those regions' loyalty to Beijing, which results in the indigenous population losing jobs to the new arrivals.

[edit] Tibet

In 1951, the People's Liberation Army entered the region of Tibet. After the failed uprising of 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India. In 1991 the Dalai Lama alleged that Chinese settlers in Tibet were creating "Chinese Apartheid":

The new Chinese settlers have created an alternate society: a Chinese apartheid which, denying Tibetans equal social and economic status in our own land, threatens to finally overwhelm and absorb us.^[110]^[111]

In a selection of speeches by the Dalai Lama published in India in 1998, he referred again to a "Chinese apartheid", which he argued denied Tibetans equal social and economic status, and furthered the viewpoint that human rights were violated by discrimination against Tibetans under a policy which the Chinese called "segregation and assimilation".^[112]^[113] According to the Heritage Foundation:

If the matter of Tibet's sovereignty is murky, the question about the PRC's treatment of Tibetans is all too clear. After invading Tibet in 1950, the Chinese communists killed over one million Tibetans, destroyed over 6,000 monasteries, and turned Tibet's northeastern province, Amdo, into a gulag housing, by one estimate, up to ten million people. A quarter of a million Chinese troops remain stationed in Tibet. In addition, some 7.5 million Chinese have responded to Beijing's incentives to relocate to Tibet; they now outnumber the 6 million Tibetans. Through what has been termed Chinese apartheid, ethnic Tibetans now have a lower life expectancy, literacy rate, and per capita income than Chinese inhabitants of Tibet.^[114]

In 2001 representatives of Tibet exile groups succeeded in gaining accreditation at a United Nations-sponsored meeting of non-governmental organizations. On 29 August Jampal Chosang, the head of the Tibetan coalition, stated that China had introduced "a new form of apartheid" in Tibet because "Tibetan culture, religion, and national identity are considered a threat" to China.^[115] The Tibet Society of the UK has called on the British government to "condemn the apartheid regime in Tibet that treats Tibetans as a minority in their own land and which discriminates against them in the use of their language, in education, in the practice of their religion, and in employment opportunities."^[116]

[edit] Other human rights issues

Worker's rights and privacy are other contentious human rights issues in China. There have been several reports of core International Labor Organization conventions being denied to workers. One such report was released by the International Labor Rights Fund in October 2006 documenting minimum wage violations, long work hours, and inappropriate actions towards workers by management.^[117] Workers cannot form their own unions in the workplace, only being able to join State-sanctioned ones. The extent to which these organizations can fight for the rights of Chinese workers is disputed.^[118]

Although the Chinese government does not interfere with Chinese people's privacy as much as it used to,^[119] it still deems it necessary to keep tabs on what people say in public. Internet forums are strictly monitored, as is international postal mail (this is sometimes inexplicably "delayed" or simply "disappears") and e-mail.^[118]

The issue of refugees from North Korea is a recurring one. It is official policy to repatriate them to North Korea, but the policy is not evenly enforced and a considerable number of them stay in the People's Republic (some move on to other countries). Though it is in contravention of international law to deport political refugees, as illegal immigrants their situation is precarious. Their rights are not always protected.^[120] Some of them are tricked into marriage or prostitution.^[121]

African students in China have complained about their treatment in China, that was largely ignored until 1988-9, when "students rose up in protest against what they called 'Chinese apartheid'".^[122] African officials took notice of the issue, and the Organization of African Unity issued an official protest. The organization's chairman, Mali's president Moussa Traoré, went on a fact-finding mission to China.^[122] According to a Guardian 1989 Third World Report titled "Chinese apartheid" threatens links with Africa, these practices could threaten Peking's entire relationship with the continent."^[123]

In 2005 Manfred Nowak visited China as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture. After spending two weeks there, he observed that it was "on the decline, but still widespread." He also complained of Chinese officials interfering with his research, including intimidating people he sought to interview.^[124]

[edit] International

[edit] Darfur

Human rights organizations have criticized China for its supportive relationship with the government of Sudan, which is committing mass killings in Darfur.^[125]^[126] China is Sudan's largest economic partner, with a 40% share in their oil,^[127] and also sells small arms to Sudan.^[128] China has threatened to veto UN Security Council actions to combat the Darfur crisis.^[129]

China has responded to these criticisms by arguing that, "As the Darfur issue is not an internal affair of China, nor was it caused by China, to link the two together is utterly unreasonable, irresponsible and unfair."^[130]

In July 2008, the BBC reported that China is training fighter pilots for and selling army lorries to Sudan, in violation of the 2006 arms embargo.^[131]

[edit] Counterarguments

China's counterarguments come primarily from the idea of "Asian values"^[132] and the need to create a "harmonious society",^[133] where the welfare of the collective should always be put ahead of the rights of any individual whenever conflicts between these arise. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that this is achieved and in some cases, even persuade or force individuals to make sacrifices for society. A strong and stable authority would be required in order to regulate the potentially conflicting interests of the public and enforce a compromise. Governments with curtailed authority would fail to take on such a responsibility.

China (along with a few Asian countries) often point towards the rapid social deterioration, the increasing geographic, religious and racial segregation, the alarmingly rising crime rates, family breakdown, number of industrial actions, vandalism and political extremism in Western societies, which they believe to be a direct result of an excess of individual freedom – “Too much freedom is dangerous.”^[134] These issues they argue are all violations of human rights and should be taken into account when assessing a country's human right records. Furthermore, the government criticizes the United States, which publishes human rights reports annually, by insisting that the United States has also caused human rights abuses such as the invasion of Iraq.^[135]

The PRC government also argues that the notion of human rights should include economic standards of living and measures of health and economic prosperity.^[1] On cultural grounds they argue that as the economic, cultural and political situations differ substantially between countries, a universal 'one-size-fits-all' definition of human rights should not apply internationally.

[edit] Reform

In March 2003, an amendment was made to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, stating "The State respects and preserves human rights."^[136] In addition, China was dropped from a list of top 10 human rights violators in the annual human rights report released by the U.S. State Department in 2008, while the report indicated that there were still widespread problems in China.^[137]

Since 1988, the Chinese government began direct village elections to help maintain social and political order whilst facing rapid economic change. Elections now occur in "about 650,000 villages across China, reaching 75% of the nation's 1.3 billion people," according to the Carter Center.^[138] In 2008, Shenzhen –which enjoys the highest per capita GDP in China– was selected for experimentation, and over 70% of the government officials on the district level are to be directly elected.^[139] However, in keeping with Communist Party philosophy, candidates must be selected from a pre-approved list, most of whom are Communist party officials. ^[140]

[edit] Further reading

Cheng, Lucie, Rossett, Arthur and Woo, Lucie, East Asian Law: Universal Norms and Local Cultures, RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, ISBN 0-415-29735-4
Edwards, Catherine, China's Abuses Ignored for Profit, Insight on the News, Vol. 15, 20 December 1999.
Foot, Rosemary, Rights beyond Borders: The Global Community and the Struggle over Human Rights in China, Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-198-29776-9
Jones, Carol A.G., Capitalism, Globalization and Rule of Law: An Alternative Trajectory of Legal Change in China, Social and Legal Studies, vol. 3 (1994) pp. 195–220
Klotz, Audie, Norms in International Relations: The Struggle against Apartheid, Cornell University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-801-43106-9
Knight, J. and Song, L., The Rural-Urban Divide: Economic Disparities and Interactions in China, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-198-29330-5
Martin III, Matthew D., "The Dysfunctional Progeny of Eugenics: Autonomy Gone AWOL", Cardozo Journal of International Law, Vol. 15, No. 2, Fall 2007, pp. 371–421, ISSN 1069-3181
Seymour, James, Human Rights in Chinese Foreign Relations, in , Kim, Samuel S., China and the World: Chinese Foreign Policy Faces the New Millennium Westview Press, 1984. ISBN 0-813-33414-4
Sitaraman, Srini, Explaining China's Continued Resistance Towards Human Rights Norms: A Historical Legal Analysis, ACDIS Occasional Paper, Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, University of Illinois, June 2008.
Svensson, Marina, The Chinese Debate on Asian Values and Human Rights: Some Reflections on Relativism, Nationalism and Orientalism, in Brun, Ole. Human Rights and Asian Values: Contesting National Identities and Cultural Representations in Asia, Ole Bruun, Michael Jacobsen; Curzon, 2000, ISBN 0-700-71212-7
Wang, Fei-Ling, Organizing through Division and Exclusion: China's Hukou System, Stanford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-804-75039-4
Zweig, David, Freeing China's Farmers: Rural Restructuring in the Reform Era, M. E. Sharpe, 1997, ISBN 1-563-24838-7
The silent majority; China. (Life in a Chinese village), The Economist, April, 2005

[edit] Notes

^ ^a ^b "Human rights can be manifested differently". China Daily. 12 December 2005. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-12/12/content_3908887.htm.
^ "Progress in China's Human Rights Cause in 1996". March 1997. http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/prhumanrights1996/index.htm.
^ "Belkin, Ira" (Fall, 2000). "China's Criminal Justice System: A Work in Progress" (PDF). Washington Journal of Modern China 6 (2). http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Chinas_Criminal_Justice_System.pdf.
^ "Varieties of Conflict of Laws in China". 25 November 2002. http://www.humanrights.uio.no/forskning/publikasjoner/wp/2002/02/working_paper-Varietie.html. Retrieved on 2009-02-06.
^ Yardley, Jim (28 November 2005). "A young judge tests China's legal system". http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/28/news/judge.php. Retrieved on 2006-08-23.
^ "Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration." [1]
^ "China jails rights activist outspoken on Tibet". http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSPEK10194620080403.
^ [2] Media Control in China published in Chinese in 2004 by Human Rights in China, New York. Revised edition 2006 published by Liming Cultural Enterprises of Taiwan. Accessed 4 February 2007.
^ [3] "The Hijacked Potential of China's Internet", English translation of a chapter in the 2006 revised edition of Media Control in China published in Chinese by Liming Enterprises of Taiwan in 2006. Accessed 4 February 2007
^ "Sanity check: How Microsoft beat Linux in China and what it means for freedom, justice, and the price of software". http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=525.
^ Gunther, Marc. Tech execs get grilled over mainland China business: Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Cisco, facing attack in Congress, say they're doing more good than harm in China." CNN. 16 February 2006.
^ "China: Internet Companies Aid Censorship". http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/08/09/china13940.htm. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
^ China 'spying on Skype messages', BBC News (3 October 2008)
^ China devoted to improving human rights - minister
^ China Set to Resume Human Rights Dialogue - washingtonpost.com
^ "Olympics protester returns to UK". BBC News. 15 August 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7562264.stm. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
^ "UK Tibet protester deported home". BBC News. 25 August 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7580718.stm. Retrieved on 2008-08-26.
^ "China deports US Tibet protesters". BBC News. 2008-08-25. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7580381.stm. Retrieved on 2008-08-26.
^ ^a ^b Audra Ang, Associated Press (13 August 2008). "8 Tibet activists detained after protest near Olympic venue, British journalist seized". http://news.uk.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=9208254. Retrieved on 2008-08-19.
^ "China 'to allow Olympic protests'". BBC News. 23 July 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7521321.stm. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
^ Bristow, Michael (2008-08-18). "China 'yet to approve protests'". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7567703.stm. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
^ Audra Ang (18 August 2008). "China has not approved Olympic protest requests". Associated Press. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OLY_CHINA_PROTESTS?SITE=SCCOL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT. Retrieved on 2008-08-19.
^ ^a ^b "Chinese women 'face labour camp'". BBC News. 20 August 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7572033.stm. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
^ Peter Simpson (21 August 2008). "Elderly pair punished for wanting to protest". South China Morning Post. pp. A5.
^ ^a ^b Andrew Jacobs (20 August 2008). "Too Old and Frail to Re-educate? Not in China". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/sports/olympics/21protest.html. Retrieved on 2009-05-09.
^ "Activists held over Games protest". BBC News. 2008-08-13. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7557771.stm. Retrieved on 2008-08-26.
^ "Web curbs for Olympic journalists". BBC News. 30 July 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7532338.stm. Retrieved on 2008-08-26.
^ "Hundreds of websites still censored at Beijing Olympics". Los Angeles Times. 2008-08-05. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/webscout/2008/08/hundreds-of-web.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-26.
^ "Rogge urges China to keep foreign media freedoms". AFP. 24 August 2008. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iXmzlCbGH43nO0lzYAWpSHGiqBhg. Retrieved on 2008-08-26.
^ Callick, Rowan (26 August 2008). "Games fell short of standards". The Australian. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24240947-2722,00.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-26.
^ ^a ^b ^c Macleod, Calum. "China reviews `apartheid' for 900 m peasants", The Independent, 10 June 2001.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d David Pines, Efraim Sadka, Itzhak Zilcha, Topics in Public Economics: Theoretical and Applied Analysis, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 334.
^ ^a ^b Luard, Tim. "China rethinks peasant 'apartheid'", BBC News, 10 November 2005.
^ ^a ^b Macleod, Calum and Macleod, Lijia China's migrants bear brunt of bias, The Washington Times, 14 July 2000.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Chan, Anita, China's Workers under Assault: The Exploitation of Labor in a Globalizing Economy, Introduction chapter, M.E. Sharpe. 2001, ISBN 0-765-60358-6
^ "Racial Discrimination in Tibet (2000)". Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. http://www.tchrd.org/publications/topical_reports/racial_discrimination-2000/housing/06_restrictions.html.
^ ^a ^b Luard, Tim (10 November 2005). "China rethinks peasant 'apartheid'". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4424944.stm. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f "Chinese apartheid: Migrant labourers, numbering in hundreds of millions, who have been ejected from state concerns and co-operatives since the 1980s as China instituted "socialist capitalism", have to have six passes before they are allowed to work in provinces other than their own. In many cities, private schools for migrant labourers are routinely closed down to discourage migration." "From politics to health policies: why they're in trouble", The Star, 6 February 2007.
^ ^a ^b ^c "China's apartheid-like household registration system, introduced in the 1950s, still divides the population into two distinct groups, urban and rural." Chan, Anita & Senser, Robert A. "China's Troubled Workers", Foreign Affairs, March / April 1997.
^ ^a ^b ^c "The application of these regulations is reminiscent of apartheid South Africa's hated pass laws. Police carry out raids periodically to round up those tho do not possess a temporary residence permit. Those without papers are placed in detention centres and then removed from cities." Waddington, Jeremy. Globalization and Patterns of Labour Resistance, Routledge, 1999, p. 82.
^ "HIGHLIGHT: Discrimination against rural migrants is China's apartheid: Certainly, the discrimination against the country-born is China's form of apartheid. It is an offence against human rights on a much bigger scale than the treatment of the tiny handful of dissidents dogged enough to speak up against the state." "Country Cousins", The Economist, 8 April 2000.
^ "...China's apartheid-like system of residency permits." Yao, Shunli. "China's WTO Revolution", Project Syndicate, June, 2002.
^ ^a ^b Whitehouse, David. "Chinese workers and peasants in three phases of accumulation"PDF (73.5 KiB), Paper delivered at the Colloquium on Economy, Society and Nature, sponsored by the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2 March 2006. Retrieved 1 August 2007.
^ "We further identify seven elements of the repressive regime at the national, municipal and local levels, and argue that the combined results of these elements have given rise to a kind of spatial and social apartheid which systematically discriminates against the rural population, with women being the most oppressed." Au Loong-yu, Nan Shan, Zhang Ping. Women Migrant Workers under the Chinese Social Apartheid PDF (2.01 MiB), Committee for Asian Women, May 2007, p. 1.
^ Au Loong-yu, Nan Shan, Zhang Ping. Women Migrant Workers under the Chinese Social Apartheid PDF (2.01 MiB), Committee for Asian Women, May 2007, p. 20.
^ "Since the middle of 1990’s the hukou system has been gradually relaxed. First, rural residents were permitted to buy a temporary (usually one year) urban residential card, which allowed them to work legally. The fees for such permits gradually decreased to a fairly affordable level. Beginning from 1998, parents have been able to pass down their hukou either through the father’s or the mother’s line, hence the triple discrimination against rural women has been alleviated. In 2003, after the uproar surrounding the death of Sun Zhigang alarmed the authorities, the laws on jailing and repatriating ‘undocumented’ people (those failing to produce local hukou) were abolished. Thus the spatial aspect of the apartheid has now largely been eliminated. However, the substance of the social apartheid in general and the hukou system in particular remains intact. The permanent mark of being an outsider and second class citizen remains, and prevents migrant workers from achieving significant upward mobility in cities. Most decent jobs are still reserved for people who possess local hukou. Migrants can only get badly paid jobs. They still have no future in the cities, and may only work there for some years and then return to their home village." Au Loong-yu, Nan Shan, Zhang Ping. Women Migrant Workers under the Chinese Social Apartheid PDF (2.01 MiB), Committee for Asian Women, May 2007, p. 11.
^ "The hukou system has been criticized in some quarters and has been called 'the equivalent of and apartheid system between rural and urban residents' (China Labor Bulletin, 25 February 2002). However, the Ministry of Public Security has continued to justify the hukou system as an instrument for keeping public order (the ministry said it allowed the police to track down criminals more easily) and for providing demographic data for planning and program formulation." Laquian, Aprodicio A. Beyond Metropolis: The Planning and Governance of Asia's Mega-Urban Regions, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005, pp. 320-321.
^ "Country Cousins", The Economist, 6 April 2000.
^ Alexander, Peter, & Chan, Anita Does China Have an Apartheid Pass System?, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 30.4 (2004)
China's household registration system (HRS) maintains a rigid distinction between China's rural population, that is people who have a rural hukou (household registration), and urban residents, who have an urban hukou. Movement of rural people into the cities is restricted, and they require a permit to stay and work temporarily in any urban area. If caught without these permits, people with a rural hukou could be placed in a detention centre, fined, and deported back to their home village or home town (that is, 'endorsed out', to borrow a South African expression). Those with a rural hukou who obtain a temporary employment permit to work in an urban area are not entitled to the pensions, schooling, unemployment benefits, etc. enjoyed by those who have an urban hukou. There are, in short, some obvious and significant similarities between the two countries, but a closer examination is required before we can consider equating China's pass system with what operated in apartheid South Africa." ..." The combination of these four factors may explain why China has developed a quasi-apartheid pass system. The fact that it has such a system underlines the reality that China's export-oriented economic growth has been built, in large measure, on the labour of poorly paid and appallingly treated migrant workers. In China today, as in apartheid South Africa, the pass system is associated with massive abuses of human rights, and its retention should be opposed."
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^ United States Congressional Serial Set, United States Government Printing Office, 1993, p. 110.
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^ "Most Tibet Views Based On Perception, Not Fact" http://www.emorywheel.com/detail.php?n=25294
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[edit] References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (April 2008)

"Country Cousins", The Economist, 8 April 2000.
"Dalai Lama honours Tintin and Tutu", BBC News, 2 June 2006.
"From politics to health policies: why they're in trouble", The Star, 6 February 2007.
"Online encyclopedia Wikipedia founder raps firms aiding China censorship" , Associated Press Financial Wire, 8 March 2007.
"Profile: The Dalai Lama", BBC News, 25 April 2006.
"Tutu calls on China to 'do the right thing' in Tibet", International Campaign for Tibet, 1 June 2006.
United States Congressional Serial Set, United States Government Printing Office, 1993.
"What do we expect the United Kingdom to do?", Tibet Vigil UK, June 2002. Accessed 25 June 2006.
Au Loong-yu, Nan Shan, Zhang Ping. Women Migrant Workers under the Chinese Social Apartheid PDF (2.01 MiB), Committee for Asian Women, May 2007.
Chan, Anita. China's Workers Under Assault: The Exploitation of Labor in a Globalizing Economy, M.E. Sharpe, 2001. ISBN 0765603578
Chan, Anita & Senser, Robert A. "China's Troubled Workers", Foreign Affairs, March / April 1997.
Ching, Frank. China: The Truth About Its Human Rights Record, Rider Books, 2008. ISBN 9781846041389
Elliott, Mark C. The Manchu Way: The 8 Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China, Stanford University Press, 2001. ISBN 0804736065
Goble, Paul. "China: Analysis From Washington -- A Breakthrough For Tibet", World Tibet Network News, Canada Tibet Committee, 31 August 2001.
Laquian, Aprodicio A. Beyond Metropolis: The Planning and Governance of Asia's Mega-Urban Regions, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. ISBN 0801881765
Lasater, Martin L. & Conboy, Kenneth J. "Why the World Is Watching Beijing's Treatment of Tibet", Heritage Foundation, 9 October 1987.
Luard, Tim. "China rethinks peasant 'apartheid'", BBC News, 10 November 2005.
Macleod, Calum. "China reviews `apartheid' for 900 m peasants", The Independent, 10 June 2001.
Neville-Hadley, Peter. Frommer's China, Frommers.com, 2003. ISBN 0764567551
Robinson, Thomas W. & Shambaugh, David L. Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198290160
Rosenthal, A.M. "China's 'Apartheid' Taiwan Policy." The New York Times, 4 December 1995.
Snow, Phillip. "Third World Report: 'Chinese apartheid' threatens links with Africa", The Guardian, 20 January 1989.
von Senger, Harro. "Chinese culture and human rights]" (online available: pdf). In: Wolfgang Schmale (Hrsg.): "Human rights and cultural diversity: Europe, Arabic-Islamic world, Africa, China". Goldbach: Keip, 1993, pp. 281–333
Waddington, Jeremy. Globalization and Patterns of Labour Resistance, Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0720123690
Whitehouse, David. "Chinese workers and peasants in three phases of accumulation"PDF (73.5 KiB), Paper delivered at the Colloquium on Economy, Society and Nature, sponsored by the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2 March 2006. Retrieved 1 August 2007.
Wildasin, David E. "Factor mobility, risk, inequality, and redistribution" in David Pines, Efraim Sadka, Itzhak Zilcha, Topics in Public Economics: Theoretical and Applied Analysis, Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN 0521561361
Yao, Shunli. "China's WTO Revolution", Project Syndicate, June, 2002

[edit] See also

Human rights portal

People's Republic of China portal

[edit] External links

Review of China by the United Nations Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review, February 7, 2009
MacLeod, Calum, China reviews 'apartheid' for 900 m peasants, Jun 10, 2001, The Independent, London
Human Rights in China by China Internet Information Center, under the administration of the China State Council Information Office.
Human rights can be manifested differently by XinhuaNet
UN Human Development Report 2003 on China by the United Nations Development Programme
2004 Human Rights Report on China by the United States Department of State
JURIST China - Chinese law, legal research, human rights
Olympic Watch: Human Rights in China and Beijing 2008 - Campaign for human rights improvements in China before the 2008 Olympic Games
Human Rights In China - International NGO based in New York and Hong Kong
Human Rights Watch: China and Tibet
International Federation for Justice in China
International Freedom of Expression eXchange - monitors freedom of expression in China
The China Support Network
Support Democracy in China
Status of Chinese People
China Human Rights
Wei Jingshen Foundation
Who shows more respect for human rights? - Editorial published by the People's Daily

Leen meen keen macheen

2009-06-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

A local business was having another Keen sale today, along with some Arcteryx, NAU, and Horny Toad things. We went last fall and picked up some shoes and bags for amazing prices. This year I went alone as the wife had already headed out for the airport to pick up some friends.

These are samples, but unworn, and sold for a fraction of their retail prices. I picked up 2 pairs of nice leather shoes (regular retail $100/pair) and a pair of cycling shoes (regular retail $115/pair) for $100 total.

I'm a happy dude...

The 10 Best Movies to Show Off Your Home Theater

2009-06-17T12:29:00.001-07:00

I'm not the most qualified person to comment on this MSN story. Hell, I'm using Harman/Kardon components from the mid-80s, thank you very much, which don't have remotes and relatively few connections in back. These are very, very antiquated by today's standards. I've been in a few homes that have home theater set-ups and, by and large, have not been overwhelmed. Maybe it's the discs that have been show.

In reading the article below, I have to wonder... "Are these really the movies that showcase a home theater system better than most?" Based on title alone, I'm surprised there aren't other movies that show off the benefits of a nice HDTV and sound system. I'm not a big fan of the movie, but I'm under the impression that Blad Runner was a great disc for showing off what a great system can do.

What do you think?

http://tech.msn.com/products/slideshowspecialsav.aspx?cp-documentid=19911797&gt1=53586

HDTV, Check. Great Sound System, Check. Prepare to Show Off!
After you're lucky enough to pull together the moola to buy the components of a great home theater, you know you'll want to demonstrate its finer points to your buddies.
And let's face it -- “Goodfellas” may be a great film, but it won't have people oohing and aahing about the fantastic picture and booming surround sound.

I've put together 10 titles with spectacular scenery, great action and aggressive, subwoofer-heavy surround sound -- the perfect movies for showing off your HDTV, sound system and (if you have one) new Blu-ray player. I've also recommended one or two scenes in each film that will really wow the audience.

The first three -- "Baraka," "2001: A Space Odyssey” and "The Dark Knight" -- are all shot at least in part in large film formats and vividly show what Blu-ray can do. Consider these strictly Blu-ray-only demos.

The next four -- "Casino Royale" (2006 version), "Live Free, Die Hard," "The Fifth Element” and "Wall-E" -- will impress your friends even on DVD, although the Blu-ray versions will impress them considerably more.

The last three titles -- "Chicken Run," "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” and "Richard III" (1995 version) aren't yet out in Blu-ray, but they show what a DVD can do on a widescreen TV and a good sound system.

Of course, you don't want to buy a disc for one great scene, so I've stuck to good movies -- ones that have enjoyed either popular success or rave reviews. Several recent blockbusters are here, but also a cult favorite, a classic, a documentary and even some Shakespeare. So after you've wowed them with a great scene, you can entertain them with the whole flick.
-- By Lincoln Spector, PC World

Bell Bottom Blues

2009-06-14T20:59:00.000-07:00

Bell bottom blues, you made me cry.
I don't want to lose this feeling.
And if I could choose a place to die,
It would be in your arms.

(Chorus)
Do you want to see me crawl across the floor to you?
Do you want to hear me beg you to take me back?
I'd gladly do it because
I don't want to fade away.
Give me one more day, please.
I don't want to fade away.
In your heart I want to stay.

It's all wrong, but it's all right,
The way that you treat me, baby. Mmm...
Once I was strong, but I lost the fight.
You won't find a better loser.

Chorus

Chorus

Bell bottom blues, don't say goodbye,
We're surely gonna meet again.
And if we do, don't you be surprised
If you find me with another lover.

Chorus
I don't want to fade away.
Give me one more day please.
I don't want to fade away.
In your heart I long to stay.

-eric clapton (1970)

Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) 2009: Secret Film Festival #4

2009-06-14T19:35:00.001-07:00

Today's movie was about two hours long.

Can't say much more than that, but I hope you liked my review.

Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) 2009: Every Little Step

2009-06-14T01:02:00.000-07:00

The wife and I went to see Every Little Step tonight. It's a documentary about the Broadway revival of the famous musical, A Chorus Line. Interspersed with footage of the tryouts for the 2006 revival are interviews and archival footage and audio recordings of the show's original producers and performers.

We get to see the 3000+ dancers show up for first rehearsals, winnowed down to the last handful of aspirants who eventually get the call. It gives great insight into how much effort each of these hopefuls put into their auditions, and you realize how talented these folks are. Don't fool yourself; people don't just decide, as adults, to become dancers. Professional dancers have been at their craft their entire lives and have sacrificed much to get where they are.

I thought it was a great movie, and it was great to see some of the hopefuls get presented with their job offers - pretty emotional stuff.

Before the show, Adam Del Deo, one of the co-directors, made an appearance to introduce the movie; he also did a Q&A after the show.

4 new KUAY (Grizzly) yearbooks!

2009-06-09T12:29:00.000-07:00

I won an auction today for 4 yearbooks for Queen Anne High School in Seattle. After winning the auction, I drove north to pick them up. The woman came out from the back of the store with a bag and pulled out the yearbooks ('48-'51). They were in great shape. Then she said... "I didn't know if you'd want these, but..."

Whatever it is, lady, I want it.

She pulled out a couple booklets from the 50-year reunions from the classes of 1929 and 1930. They really weren't much more than a directory for those in attendance, those who could not be located, and those who had passed. Awesome!!! Within one of the booklets were a couple newspaper clippings that contained articles about the first principal's retirement. At 28, he was the first school's first principal when it opened in 1909, and was the only principal until his retirement in 1951. Now THAT'S dedication! Very cool.

The wife still doesn't get it, but I love collecting these yearbooks.

Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) 2009: Secret Film Festival #3

2009-06-07T14:04:00.001-07:00

Today's movie was quirky, but I enjoyed it.

Can't say much more than that, but I hope you liked my review.

Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) 2009: Tonight's movie was...

2009-06-05T23:18:00.001-07:00

The Missing Person

The only thing that was missing was some much needed sleep, so I rectified that situation as soon as I could get cozy. What a snooze-fest.

Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) 2009

2009-06-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

So, the wife ponied up and picked up a 20-pack, somethingorother, which gave us 10 movies to choose from. We also signed up for the Secret Festival, which I'd like to tell you about, but then I'd have to kill you. I think it's best we just leave that alone.

Anyway... the "regular" movies we've seen so far:

I'm No Dummy (I felt like a dummy sitting through it. It wasn't terrible, but it's not a topic I have any interest in. I guess that's what happens when you don't chime in with a list of movies you want to see... Included a Q&A with three of the ventriloquists highlighted in the movie)
The Hurt Locker (Very good)
Aussie vs. Kiwi (6 shorts from the Southern Hemisphere, definitely a mixed bag.)
Inju, The Beast in the Shadow (getting mixed reviews, but I really liked it. The Director came out and introduced the movie.)
Krabat (slept through about half. What I saw was very strange.)

We're seeing another movie tonight, and I believe we have still a few more movies to pick out. When I say "we", I mean "the wife needs to finish picking out the movies we're going to see."

ColorWare: Too cool

2009-05-16T08:46:00.001-07:00

I stumbled across a company that takes your electronic devices and applies new colors, for the ultimate in customization. If you have a burning desire to stand out from the rest of the crowd, here's your chance.

http://www.colorwarepc.com/default.aspx

Some of the products you can have customized include:

Phones (iPhone, Blackberry)
Music devices and peripherals (iPod: Classic, Touch, Nano, bases, earphones)
Gaming Devices (Wii, xBox, Playstation)
Kindle
Keyboards
Computer cases

The range of colors is pretty impressive, but bring your plastic, as it's not an inexpensive process.

All about dogs.

2009-05-16T08:13:00.000-07:00

There's a link on MSN that poses the question: Which are the best dog breeds for kids?

We have two Scotties, which we love dearly, and they are great with kids. Imagine my suprise when I found a list that shows the American Pit Bull as being much better with kids than our dogs. On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being the best, the APB recieved a #1 rating, the Scotties received a #4.

Anyway, here's a site that lists a boatlaod of dog breeds. http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/

I didn't know there are so many. Fascinating.

The New Black: Burakumin

2009-05-03T09:06:00.001-07:00

I've always felt the Japanese were a little odd. This confirms my suspicions...

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25422301-663,00.html

While America's record was, and remains, far from perfect, this sort of ancestral privilege stuff is complete nonsense. The fact that they cop to it, is quite astounding.

The Indians still practice caste-based discrimination, and I suspect other cultures do as well. Come on, people, it's 2009, let's get with the program.

Elvis CD $3

2009-05-02T12:24:00.001-07:00

Nothing but outtakes from various 1957 recording sessions. For the curious only.

2 shirts/$4

2009-05-02T11:44:00.001-07:00

I was asking for $5/each, but I want to get rid of this (stuff)...

It's now raining...

2009-05-02T11:20:00.001-07:00

It had lightly sprinkled before, but now it's flat-out raining.

Any hopes that I might sell more of my (stuff), have gone right out the window. I am forced to sit here until the bitter end, slightly chilled and bored. Oh, the joy!

8 CDs/$20

2009-05-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

I don't even know which ones left (I did see a Gladys Knight and the Pips and my wife's Counting Crows). Keep on buying!

Strangely (or not), no one has shown any interest in my circa 1976 Kirby vacuum, with attachments. I suspect I'll have to lug that POS back into the house at the end of the day.

7 CDs, $15 bucks

2009-05-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

I know the math doesn't work out, but they offered $15. Didn't want to lose the sale (I really want to unload this stuff), so I took it.

4 CDs, $10

2009-05-02T09:49:00.000-07:00

Sold 4 to the next door neighbor.

3 CDs 2 DVD, $17

2009-05-02T09:19:00.001-07:00

Just sold some more (stuff). A few DVDs (Ray, Altered States, Mickey Mouse Club, $3/each) and 3 CDs (Roger Daltry's Greatest Hits, Leon Russell, and a classical guitar disc, $3 each; 2/$5).
Not gonna make a million bucks, but it's less crap I have in the house, a little pocket money, and hopefully someone will get to enjoy the new purchases.

My shit's worth $3

2009-05-02T09:04:00.000-07:00

We're having a neighborhood garage sale today. I've dragged what little I have to sell (the wife didn't cull through any of her crap and she's out of town this weekend), and propped it up on the porch (to stay out of any sprinkles that are forecast).

It's somewhat humiliating to have someone come half way down the walk, look at my stuff, then turn heel and head for another house.

That said, I've already made my first sale (Meatloaf's autobiography) and am $3 richer for my efforts...

I don't expect to make a lot of money today, but we'll see.

Swine Flu "Pandemic": Much ado about nothing

2009-04-27T22:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not a doctor.

I don't even play one on TV.

That said, the news media is whipping up the populace into a foaming frenzy about the possibility of a pandemic swine flu outbreak. Last I heard, some 80+ Mexican citizens have died from it, surprisingly from what is usually the most robust segment of the population (not young/not old). This leads medical experts to believe that they expect to see a wave of deaths take out the young and elderly in the not too distant future. I do not want you to think I am trivializing their deaths or the misery that afflicts those suffering from this illness. I am not. For the families of those who have died, the cause of death is an incidental factoid

There have been some outbreaks in the US and a few small outbreaks in Canada and New Zealand, with no reported fatalities in these countries. I suspect it's due to the advance awareness these countries have regarding the sickness, and their ability to isolate the sick from the healthy. This is all good news.

That said, if this really was going to go global on a massive scale, the numbers of afflicted would be a lot bigger, and the number of deaths would be much greater. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimate that 9 THOUSAND people die every year as a result of food poisoning.

While it's important to take precautions (we all know that flowing from both ends is no fun), the media is trying to make a news story bigger than it is in the interest of garnering big ratings.

Sad, really.

Areas for Improvement

2009-04-26T18:19:00.001-07:00

I’m not sure if having a computer at the ready is all that conducive to good studying habits. Granted, the ability to research topics at will is an awesome thing to have, but it’s also just as easy to get distracted by some other topic and, before you know it, 3 hours have gone by the wayside. Hopefully some of these pointers will help.

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/Features/Columns/?article=ConcentrationIsKey&gt1=27004

Concentration Is the Key

By Tamim Ansary

These days, many people take pride in the ability to multitask, but me? I'd just like to master mono-tasking.

I realize that everything I've done well in my life I've done in a state of intense concentration -- a state of such focus on one task that no other information or concern can break in. My only question has been, and remains, how to get into that zone.

R.N. Whitehead, director of a Canadian tutoring program called Oxford Learning Centres, speculates that concentration is an ability like any other. People are born with a propensity for it but the skill must then be developed, and the process begins in childhood.

Until recent decades, Whitehead says, people learned to read from books that had relatively few pictures and were written in "natural language," which presented readers with lots of vocabulary they didn't necessarily know. Reading those books demanded -- but also built -- concentration.

Today, books for beginning readers tend to have lots of pictures and only a few words, and those words are carefully selected to be reading-level appropriate so that children rarely encounter words they must puzzle out from context. If the material is well sequenced, children emerge into reading naturally without palpable effort, almost without noticing: That's the theory.

The theory works. Kids do learn to read from carefully calibrated materials such as these, but building up the power of concentration? That's a different issue.

Many elements of modern life may actually erode concentration by involving children in short bursts of interaction that return quick rewards. Take video games, for example. What they have to give, you can get in five seconds -- bang! pow! hey, that felt good! -- and if you play for 10 seconds, you get the same thing twice (and for 30 seconds, six times).

Playing a video game for hours on end (not uncommon -- been there/done that) resembles concentration but is actually, in my opinion, the exact opposite; it is to concentration as antimatter is to matter.

By contrast, reading or telling stories to very young children may help build concentration by involving them in a narrative that takes shape over time and offers a payoff only if they've stayed with the story throughout.

Concentration -- why bother?

Concentration is worth building because it is a foundational skill; it supports almost everything else one might do. In that way it's like intelligence. In fact, definitions of intelligence often include concentration as a component. Anecdotes about famous achievers of history suggest that one thing they shared was a phenomenal ability to get fully immersed in … something.

Michelangelo spent two years on his back, two feet from the ceiling, painting the Sistine Chapel. I myself would have spent most of that time idly wondering whether to have pizza that night or soup.

In fact, according to the stories, only the pope could break the great artist's concentration. He kept coming in to ask, "How's it going?" Finally Michelangelo "accidentally" dropped a hammer that landed too close for comfort, and the pope stayed away after that.

Most of the advice aimed at students about how to concentrate amounts to Michelangelo's hammer: eliminate distractions, they say. For example, turn off the TV (duh), turn off the stereo (duh) and power down the iPod (you think?). It's all true, but it's purely external advice. It addresses the place where you concentrate, not the "you" who concentrates.

Advice about the inner you mostly boils down to health tips masquerading as concentration tips:

• You can't concentrate when you're drowsy, so get enough sleep.
• You can't concentrate when you're groggy, so don't sleep too much.
• You can't concentrate when you're starving, so eat right.
• You can't concentrate when you're bloated, so don't overeat.
• And get some exercise, for heaven's sake! You can't concentrate if --

I'll stop there. It's worthy advice, but generic. The same tips apply to almost anything you might want to do better. Want to ace a test? Memorize the "Iliad"? Learn juggling tricks? Eat right, exercise well, get enough sleep. Yes, Mom.

There's got to be more. People with phenomenal powers of concentration reveal it most dramatically when the context doesn't favor them. I'm thinking of a chef I knew years ago when I worked in a gourmet restaurant as a waiter. The dining room at that place was always whisper quiet, the kitchen always a madhouse. One night, I stepped into that chaos -- the ice machine had broken, a fight had erupted between two sous-chefs, someone was waving a knife -- and there was June, calmly stirring a sauce. Suddenly a pot of something caught fire. Pandemonium ensued; everybody rushed to douse the flames, but June never took her eyes off her sauce -- it wasn't her pot on fire. Later I asked if she had noticed the fire. She had. How then could she just ignore it? "I was making hollandaise," she said. "You have to watch it or it breaks."

That, my friends, is concentration on the hoof: It's not the ability to focus in the absence of distraction, but the ability to focus in spite of distraction.

Attention surplus condition

Our society has put little effort into devising techniques for building attentiveness. We get interested in concentration mostly when its absence rises to the level of a clinical syndrome. A whole industry has developed, for example, around the disability known as attention deficit disorder, or ADD.

I don't doubt that ADD exists, nor that it merits clinical consideration, nor that suitable treatments may help restore people who suffer from this disability to a normal state. I only wonder if "normal" is as good as it gets. How about moving from normal to extraordinary?

According to psychologist Richard Davidson, "Attention can be trained, and in a way that is not fundamentally different [from] how physical exercise changes the body." He zeroes in specifically on meditation, that body of techniques perfected in East Asia for achieving attentive calm. Research by Davidson and his associates at the University of Wisconsin seems to prove that meditation can, in fact, improve one's ability to shut out distraction.

The proof

In one experiment, people were taught certain basic meditation techniques and then asked to meditate while hooked up to machines that scanned what their brains were doing. In people who attained a deep, meditative state, it turned out, the area of the brain known to be associated with attention became active while other areas -- those associated with emotion, for example, or with processing external stimuli -- went dormant.

Researchers then hooked brain-scanning equipment to two groups of test subjects: seasoned meditators with thousands of hours of experience and novices. With each group, when the meditators seemed to be fully immersed, the researchers set off various distractions nearby -- a blaring TV, a crying baby, a gunshot, stuff like that.

In the novices, each event triggered brain waves that spread to other parts of their brains and did not die away for a long time. In the experienced meditators, each event set off a brief burst of brain activity in one limited area and then the brain went back to its former state: In short, the input was noticed, registered and set aside.

That looks like dead-bang proof that meditation enhances a person's underlying ability to concentrate. Of course it's also true that meditation classically aims to detach meditators from the world and get them concentrating essentially on nothing. I, personally, would rather concentrate on something. I don't want to detach from the world, I want to stay in it and get something done. I don't know of any definitive proof that the power of concentration developed by meditation can be applied, for example, to flying a plane through a thunderstorm.

But the broader point seems indisputable: Concentration is a skill. If it isn't used, it can atrophy; if it isn't trained, it fails to develop past a certain point. But by the same token, with the proper training and practice, it can be developed to a level of fearsome intensity.

Preferably, this begins in childhood (which is where parents and other elders come in) but it's never too late. Adults with normal powers of concentration can strengthen those powers with simple exercises such as the following:

• Count backward from 100 slowly and steadily.
• Count backward from 100 by threes.
• Simply look at an object for a set period -- say, 15 minutes.
• Building on the previous exercise, remove the object and picture it for that same period.

And if the buzz of distracting thoughts grows intolerable, stop what you're doing, make a list of everything on your mind at that moment, choose one thing to focus on, and then schedule a time to deal with all the rest. Giving your anxieties appointments, I find, tends to make them stop petitioning for attention now.

In short, I stand with those Zen masters who, when asked how they achieved enlightenment, answered, "When I walk, I just walk. When I eat, I just eat."

Yankees Blown Out In First Game of New Season

2009-04-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

Not what they'd have wished for, obviously, but they were schooled by the Cleveland Indians 10-2. After 85 years in the house that Ruth built, they played their first game in the new stadium today and got annihilated.

I love it!

Hopefully, there's a lot more of that in store for their future.

In looking to see what Yankee tickets cost, I am absolutely astounded to see that the most expensive ticket costs $2625. No, I didn't forget to include a decimal point. That's two thousand six-hundred twenty-five dollars for a single ticket. Unbelievable. And I used to think the Mariners top ticket price of $70 was ridiculous. Well, I still do, but it seems reasonable, in comparison.

Money lost... and found! Again!

2009-04-13T21:43:00.000-07:00

So, not so much money found, but money not spent. With the sale of my condo last year to get me through college these next few years, I expected to pay about 30 large for capital gains tax. I picked up my taxes from the accounting firm today and in looking at the return, I noticed that our liability was only $9k. Wow!

I signed the return, paid the receptionist, and left. I called the wife from downstairs to tell her the good news and she said I should go back and find out from the receptionist why this huge disparity.

She told me that when I had a renter in the condo, the wife and I were making a more money than we could write off on the condo for depreciation, but now that we're down to a single-income family, we can now take the depreciation on the condo, offsetting the capital gains taxes.

Happy Day!!!

A slightly improved outlook on class

2009-04-10T13:13:00.000-07:00

I was feeling really bad about the math class earlier today.

For some reason, things seemed a little better in class. There seemed to be a little more unity among some of the students, and the teacher spent a little time going over some of the homework problems.

Combine that with the fact I was able to find out how to solve the last problem that was really puzzling. It all made sense once I saw how to solve it.

I have absolutely no illusions that this class is going to be easy. I suspect it will be the hardest thing I've done, but I plan on getting through it.

If I can just manage the boredom of the Humanities class...

Money lost... and found!

2009-04-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

I was going through a shitload of old mail last weekend. In an envelope, I found a check from our Insurances company that was issued over a year ago and had long since expired. $867... Hmmmm. Nice.

I called up the insurance company and had them reissue a new check. It came yesterday.

5 years ago I bought a computer, had to send it back three times, and finally asked them to refund the money. I sat on that bugger a little too long, and when I went to deposit it, found that it had expired two days earlier. I didn't get around to asking them to reissue me a new check in all those years, even though I knew I had that money coming to me. The insurance check money lit the fire under my ass to call them and get them to cut a new check (unemployment has a way of doing that, too).

I've got $287 coming from the computer folks. What am I gonna do with all that money?

I'm gonna buy a new computer (which I desparately need), and I've been toying with the idea of getting an iPod Touch. Not sure I'll get one, but they sure are cool.

On Death and Dying

2009-04-10T12:57:00.001-07:00

So, I was with the wife last weekend, when she asked me to hold my head steady and look off in a different direction. Doing as I'm told to do, she told me that I had some broken blood vessels in my eye. We all know how that looks and I was somewhat upset that I'd look like some freak out in public.

How could this have happened without my knowing about it. I'd just looked at myself in the mirror while brushing my teeth before leavingk, so I couldn't see how I missed it.

What caused it to happen? I have no idea. You'd think if I'd suffered a traumatic enough injury to cause that kind of damage, I would have know about it and remembered it.

Nothing. Zip. Nada.

That got me to thinking: If something like that can happen without my knowledge, what other things can happen without my knowing about it? Sure, we've all bumped into things, felt the pain, only to forget how that bruise got there a day or two later. But this? A bloody eye? Come on. I wonder if it happened while I was asleep? That's the only thing I can think to explain the complete lack of awareness. Hell, I didn't even notice it while I was awake.

I wonder if this is what it's like when people "die in their sleep". Who really knows what that's like. Do they really go peacefully, or do they sit up in bed, gasping for breath, clutching at the pain in their chest before the finally fall back into the mattress that one last time?

Could I have hemorraged to death from this eye thingie? Doubt it, but I guess I'm a little more aware of the thin sliver that separates those on this side of the ground from those on the other side.

I knew a 37-year-old woman who died in her sleep, about 20 years ago. I'm beyond 37 by a fair bit, so I guess this could happen to me. Is this my last post?

As it should be…

2009-04-08T12:04:00.001-07:00

A Newsweek article, to be published next week, discusses the decline of Christianity in America. Ironically, when I got out of class today, I heard one of the local talk jocks interviewing R. Albert Mohler, Jr. He sounds as much like a jackass as any of the other right-wing religious cranks. He certainly had his anti-gay rights hat on, and it’s the same ol’, same ol’.

But, you already knew that, didn’t you?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583/page/1

Charles Gullung / Photonica-Getty Images

RELIGION

The End of Christian America

The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become.

By Jon Meacham | NEWSWEEK

Published Apr 4, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Apr 13, 2009

It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earth—read over the document after its release in March, he was struck by a single sentence. For a believer like Mohler—a starched, unflinchingly conservative Christian, steeped in the theology of his particular province of the faith, devoted to producing ministers who will preach the inerrancy of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only means to eternal life—the central news of the survey was troubling enough: the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent. Then came the point he could not get out of his mind: while the unaffiliated have historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report said, "this pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified." As Mohler saw it, the historic foundation of America's religious culture was cracking.

"That really hit me hard," he told me last week. "The Northwest was never as religious, never as congregationalized, as the Northeast, which was the foundation, the home base, of American religion. To lose New England struck me as momentous." Turning the report over in his mind, Mohler posted a despairing online column on the eve of Holy Week lamenting the decline—and, by implication, the imminent fall—of an America shaped and suffused by Christianity. "A remarkable culture-shift has taken place around us," Mohler wrote. "The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture." When Mohler and I spoke in the days after he wrote this, he had grown even gloomier. "Clearly, there is a new narrative, a post-Christian narrative, that is animating large portions of this society," he said from his office on campus in Louisville, Ky.

There it was, an old term with new urgency: post-Christian. This is not to say that the Christian God is dead, but that he is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory. To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population.

According to the American Religious Identification Survey that got Mohler's attention, the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent. The Jewish population is 1.2 percent; the Muslim, 0.6 percent. A separate Pew Forum poll echoed the ARIS finding, reporting that the percentage of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith has doubled in recent years, to 16 percent; in terms of voting, this group grew from 5 percent in 1988 to 12 percent in 2008—roughly the same percentage of the electorate as African-Americans. (Seventy-five percent of unaffiliated voters chose Barack Obama, a Christian.) Meanwhile, the number of people willing to describe themselves as atheist or agnostic has increased about fourfold from 1990 to 2009, from 1 million to about 3.6 million. (That is about double the number of, say, Episcopalians in the United States.)

While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing—good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance. It is good for Christianity, too, in that many Christians are rediscovering the virtues of a separation of church and state that protects what Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious dissenters, called "the garden of the church" from "the wilderness of the world." As crucial as religion has been and is to the life of the nation, America's unifying force has never been a specific faith, but a commitment to freedom—not least freedom of conscience. At our best, we single religion out for neither particular help nor particular harm; we have historically treated faith-based arguments as one element among many in the republican sphere of debate and decision. The decline and fall of the modern religious right's notion of a Christian America creates a calmer political environment and, for many believers, may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life.

Let's be clear: while the percentage of Christians may be shrinking, rumors of the death of Christianity are greatly exaggerated. Being less Christian does not necessarily mean that America is post-Christian. A third of Americans say they are born again; this figure, along with the decline of politically moderate-to liberal mainline Protestants, led the ARIS authors to note that "these trends … suggest a movement towards more conservative beliefs and particularly to a more 'evangelical' outlook among Christians." With rising numbers of Hispanic immigrants bolstering the Roman Catholic Church in America, and given the popularity of Pentecostalism, a rapidly growing Christian milieu in the United States and globally, there is no doubt that the nation remains vibrantly religious—far more so, for instance, than Europe.

Still, in the new NEWSWEEK Poll, fewer people now think of the United States as a "Christian nation" than did so when George W. Bush was president (62 percent in 2009 versus 69 percent in 2008). Two thirds of the public (68 percent) now say religion is "losing influence" in American society, while just 19 percent say religion's influence is on the rise. The proportion of Americans who think religion "can answer all or most of today's problems" is now at a historic low of 48 percent. During the Bush 43 and Clinton years, that figure never dropped below 58 percent.

Many conservative Christians believe they have lost the battles over issues such as abortion, school prayer and even same-sex marriage, and that the country has now entered a post-Christian phase. Christopher Hitchens —a friend and possibly the most charming provocateur you will ever meet—wrote a hugely popular atheist tract a few years ago, "God Is Not Great." As an observant (if deeply flawed) Episcopalian, I disagree with many of Hitchens's arguments—I do not think it is productive to dismiss religious belief as superstitious and wrong—but he is a man of rigorous intellectual honesty who, on a recent journey to Texas, reported hearing evangelical mutterings about the advent of a "post-Christian" America.

To be post-Christian has meant different things at different times. In 1886, The Atlantic Monthly described George Eliot as "post-Christian," using the term as a synonym for atheist or agnostic. The broader—and, for our purposes, most relevant—definition is that "post-Christian" characterizes a period of time that follows the decline of the importance of Christianity in a region or society. This use of the phrase first appeared in the 1929 book "America Set Free" by the German philosopher Hermann Keyserling.

The term was popularized during what scholars call the "death of God" movement of the mid-1960s—a movement that is, in its way, still in motion. Drawing from Nietzsche's 19th-century declaration that "God is dead," a group of Protestant theologians held that, essentially, Christianity would have to survive without an orthodox understanding of God. Tom Altizer, a religion professor at Emory University, was a key member of the Godless Christianity movement, and he traces its intellectual roots first to Kierkegaard and then to Nietzsche. For Altizer, a post-Christian era is one in which "both Christianity and religion itself are unshackled from their previous historical grounds." In 1992 the critic Harold Bloom published a book titled "The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation." In it he cites William James's definition of religion in "The Varieties of Religious Experience": "Religion … shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they consider the divine."

Which is precisely what most troubles Mohler. "The post-Christian narrative is radically different; it offers spirituality, however defined, without binding authority," he told me. "It is based on an understanding of history that presumes a less tolerant past and a more tolerant future, with the present as an important transitional step." The present, in this sense, is less about the death of God and more about the birth of many gods. The rising numbers of religiously unaffiliated Americans are people more apt to call themselves "spiritual" rather than "religious." (In the new NEWSWEEK Poll, 30 percent describe themselves this way, up from 24 percent in 2005.)

Roughly put, the Christian narrative is the story of humankind as chronicled in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament—the drama of creation, fall and redemption. The orthodox tend to try to live their lives in accordance with the general behavioral principles of the Bible (or at least the principles they find there of which they approve) and anticipate the ultimate judgment of God—a judgment that could well determine whether they spend eternity in heaven or in hell.

What, then, does it mean to talk of "Christian America"? Evangelical Christians have long believed that the United States should be a nation whose political life is based upon and governed by their interpretation of biblical and theological principles. If the church believes drinking to be a sin, for instance, then the laws of the state should ban the consumption of alcohol. If the church believes the theory of evolution conflicts with a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, then the public schools should tailor their lessons accordingly. If the church believes abortion should be outlawed, then the legislatures and courts of the land should follow suit. The intensity of feeling about how Christian the nation should be has ebbed and flowed since Jamestown; there is, as the Bible says, no thing new under the sun. For more than 40 years, the debate that began with the Supreme Court's decision to end mandatory school prayer in 1962 (and accelerated with the Roe v. Wade ruling 11 years later) may not have been novel, but it has been ferocious. Fearing the coming of a Europe-like secular state, the right longed to engineer a return to what it believed was a Christian America of yore.

But that project has failed, at least for now. In Texas, authorities have decided to side with science, not theology, in a dispute over the teaching of evolution. The terrible economic times have not led to an increase in church attendance. In Iowa last Friday, the state Supreme Court ruled against a ban on same-sex marriage, a defeat for religious conservatives. Such evidence is what has believers fretting about the possibility of an age dominated by a newly muscular secularism. "The moral teachings of Christianity have exerted an incalculable influence on Western civilization," Mohler says. "As those moral teachings fade into cultural memory, a secularized morality takes their place. Once Christianity is abandoned by a significant portion of the population, the moral landscape necessarily changes. For the better part of the 20th century, the nations of Western Europe led the way in the abandonment of Christian commitments. Christian moral reflexes and moral principles gave way to the loosening grip of a Christian memory. Now even that Christian memory is absent from the lives of millions."

Religious doubt and diversity have, however, always been quintessentially American. Alexis de Tocqueville said that "the religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing that struck me on arrival in the United States," but he also discovered a "great depth of doubt and indifference" to faith. Jefferson had earlier captured the essence of the American spirit about religion when he observed that his statute for religious freedom in Virginia was "meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination"—and those of no faith whatever. The American culture of religious liberty helped create a busy free market of faith: by disestablishing churches, the nation made religion more popular, not less.

America, then, is not a post-religious society—and cannot be as long as there are people in it, for faith is an intrinsic human impulse. The belief in an order or a reality beyond time and space is ancient and enduring. "All men," said Homer, "need the gods." The essential political and cultural question is to what extent those gods—or, more accurately, a particular generation's understanding of those gods—should determine the nature of life in a given time and place.

If we apply an Augustinian test of nationhood to ourselves, we find that liberty, not religion, is what holds us together. In "The City of God," Augustine —converted sinner and bishop of Hippo—said that a nation should be defined as "a multitude of rational beings in common agreement as to the objects of their love." What we value most highly—what we collectively love most—is thus the central test of the social contract.

Judging from the broad shape of American life in the first decade of the 21st century, we value individual freedom and free (or largely free) enterprise, and tend to lean toward libertarianism on issues of personal morality. The foundational documents are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, not the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament (though there are undeniable connections between them). This way of life is far different from what many overtly conservative Christians would like. But that is the power of the republican system engineered by James Madison at the end of the 18th century: that America would survive in direct relation to its ability to check extremism and preserve maximum personal liberty. Religious believers should welcome this; freedom for one sect means freedom for all sects. As John F. Kennedy said in his address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960: "For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew—or a Quaker—or a Unitarian—or a Baptist … Today I may be the victim—but tomorrow it may be you—until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped."

Religion has been a factor in American life and politics from the beginning. Anglican observance was compulsory at Jamestown, and the Puritans of New England were explicitly hoping to found a New Jerusalem. But coerced belief is no belief at all; it is tyranny. "I commend that man, whether Jew, or Turk, or Papist, or whoever, that steers no otherwise than his conscience dares," said Roger Williams.

By the time of the American founding, men like Jefferson and Madison saw the virtue in guaranteeing liberty of conscience, and one of the young republic's signal achievements was to create a context in which religion and politics mixed but church and state did not. The Founders' insight was that one might as well try to build a wall between economics and politics as between religion and politics, since both are about what people feel and how they see the world. Let the religious take their stand in the arena of politics and ideas on their own, and fight for their views on equal footing with all other interests. American public life is neither wholly secular nor wholly religious but an ever-fluid mix of the two. History suggests that trouble tends to come when one of these forces grows too powerful in proportion to the other.

Political victories are therefore intrinsically transitory. In the middle of the 19th century, the evangelist Charles Grandison Finney argued that "the great business of the church is to reform the world—to put away every kind of sin"; Christians, he said, are "bound to exert their influence to secure a legislation that is in accordance with the law of God."

Worldly success tends to mark the beginning of the end for the overtly religious in politics. Prohibition was initially seen as a great moral victory, but its failure and ultimate repeal show that a movement should always be careful what it wishes for: in America, the will of the broad whole tends to win out over even the most devoted of narrower interests.

As the 20th century wore on, Christians found themselves in the relatively uncontroversial position of opposing "godless communism," and the fervor of the Prohibition and Scopes-trial era seemed to fade a bit. Issues of personal morality, not international politics, would lay the foundations for the campaign for Christian America that we know as the rise of the religious right. The phenomenon of divorce in the 1960s and the Roe decision in 1973 were critical, and Jimmy Carter's born-again faith brought evangelical Christianity to the mainstream in 1976.

Growing up in Atlanta in the '60s and '70s, Joe Scarborough, the commentator and former Republican congressman, felt the fears of his evangelical parents and their friends—fears that helped build support for the politically conservative Christian America movement. "The great anxiety in Middle America was that we were under siege—my parents would see kids walking down the street who were Boy Scouts three years earlier suddenly looking like hippies, and they were scared," Scarborough says. "Culturally, it was October 2001 for a decade. For a decade. And once our parents realized we weren't going to disappear into dope and radicalism, the pressure came off. That's the world we're in now—parents of boomers who would not drink a glass of wine 30 years ago are now kicking back with vodka. In a way, they've been liberated."

And they have learned that politics does not hold all the answers—a lesson that, along with a certain relief from the anxieties of the cultural upheavals of the '60s and '70s, has tended to curb religiously inspired political zeal. "The worst fault of evangelicals in terms of politics over the last 30 years has been an incredible naiveté about politics and politicians and parties," says Mohler. "They invested far too much hope in a political solution to what are trans-political issues and problems. If we were in a situation that were more European, where the parties differed mostly on traditional political issues rather than moral ones, or if there were more parties, then we would probably have a very different picture. But when abortion and a moral understanding of the human good became associated with one party, Christians had few options politically."

When that party failed to deliver—and it did fail—some in the movement responded by retreating into radicalism, convinced of the wickedness and venality of the political universe that dealt them defeat after defeat. (The same thing happened to many liberals after 1968: infuriated by the conservative mood of the country, the left reacted angrily and moved ever leftward.)

The columnist Cal Thomas was an early figure in the Moral Majority who came to see the Christian American movement as fatally flawed in theological terms. "No country can be truly 'Christian'," Thomas says. "Only people can. God is above all nations, and, in fact, Isaiah says that 'All nations are to him a drop in the bucket and less than nothing'." Thinking back across the decades, Thomas recalls the hope—and the failure. "We were going through organizing like-minded people to 'return' America to a time of greater morality. Of course, this was to be done through politicians who had a difficult time imposing morality on themselves!"

Experience shows that religious authorities can themselves be corrupted by proximity to political power. A quarter century ago, three scholars who are also evangelical Christians—Mark A. Noll, Nathan O. Hatch and George M. Marsden—published an important but too-little-known book, "The Search for Christian America." In it they argued that Christianity's claims transcend any political order. Christians, they wrote, "should not have illusions about the nature of human governments. Ultimately they belong to what Augustine calls 'the city of the world,' in which self-interest rules … all governments can be brutal killers."

Their view tracks with that of the Psalmist, who said, "Put not thy trust in princes," and there is much New Testament evidence to support a vision of faith and politics in which the church is truest to its core mission when it is the farthest from the entanglements of power. The Jesus of the Gospels resolutely refuses to use the means of this world—either the clash of arms or the passions of politics—to further his ends. After the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the dazzled throng thought they had found their earthly messiah. "When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone." When one of his followers slices off the ear of one of the arresting party in Gethsemane, Jesus says, "Put up thy sword." Later, before Pilate, he says, "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight." The preponderance of lessons from the Gospels and from the rest of the New Testament suggests that earthly power is transitory and corrupting, and that the followers of Jesus should be more attentive to matters spiritual than political.

As always with the Bible, however, there are passages that complicate the picture. The author of Hebrews says believers are "strangers and exiles on the earth" and that "For here we have no lasting city, but seek the city which is to come." In Romans the apostle Paul advises: "Do not be conformed to this world." The Second Vatican Council cited these words of Pius XII: the Catholic Church's "divine Founder, Jesus Christ, has not given it any mandate or fixed any end of the cultural order. The goal which Christ assigns to it is strictly religious … The Church can never lose sight of the strictly religious, supernatural goal."

As an archbishop of Canterbury once said, though, it is a mistake to think that God is chiefly or even largely concerned with religion. "I hate the sound of your solemn assemblies," the Lord says in Amos. Religion is not only about worshipping your God but about doing godly things, and a central message of the Gospels is the duty of the Christian to transform, as best one can, reality through works of love. "Being in the world and not of it remains our charge," says Mohler. "The church is an eternal presence in a fallen, temporal world—but we are to have influence. The Sermon on the Mount is about what we are to do—but it does not come with a political handbook."

How to balance concern for the garden of the church with the moral imperatives to make gentle the life of the world is one of the most perplexing questions facing the church. "We have important obligations to do whatever we can, including through the use of political means, to help our neighbors—promoting just laws, good order, peace, education and opportunity," wrote Noll, Hatch and Marsden. "Nonetheless we should recognize that as we work for the relatively better in 'the city of the world,' our successes will be just that—relative. In the last analysis the church declares that the solutions offered by the nations of the world are always transitory solutions, themselves in need of reform."

Back in Louisville, preparing for Easter, Al Mohler keeps vigil over the culture. Last week he posted a column titled "Does Your Pastor Believe in God?," one on abortion and assisted suicide and another on the coming wave of pastors. "Jesus Christ promised that the very gates of Hell would not prevail against his church," Mohler wrote. "This new generation of young pastors intends to push back against hell in bold and visionary ministry. Expect to see the sparks fly." On the telephone with me, he added: "What we are seeing now is the evidence of a pattern that began a very long time ago of intellectual and cultural and political changes in thought and mind. The conditions have changed. Hard to pinpoint where, but whatever came after the Enlightenment was going to be very different than what came before." And what comes next here, with the ranks of professing Christians in decline, is going to be different, too.

Read more about NEWSWEEK's poll on religion in America here .

With Eliza Gray

Seawall Development Company

2009-04-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

Now this is a nice story...
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/30089037#30073797

The Manekin father and son development team refurbished a derelict factory building and converted them into teacher housing. The could have made a ridiculous profit by coverting this building into yuppie lofts, but instead chose to give back to those who have made teaching their life's work. We all know teachers don't make much, so it's nice to see someone looking out for those who make the world a better place.

Both father (Donald) and son (Thibauilt) sound like genuinely nice people.

2009 MLB Season begins today

2009-04-05T18:03:00.000-07:00

I'm not a big sports fan.

That said, I do like baseball and love going to games. I suspect we'll hit a couple this season, under the warm sun & blue skyl dog in one hand, beer in the other. It will be fun to see Griffey and Ichiro on the field together and hope the Mariners have a successful season this year.

It couldn't possibly get worse than last year, right?

24 Hours of Movies; gone after 12 hours

2009-04-05T14:58:00.001-07:00

A friend, in parallel with a local effort to raise funds for charity, hosted a 24-hour movie marathon, beginning at 5 pm last night. Knowing how quickly I fall asleep in movies, I had no illusions that I'd manage to make it all the way through, and given that I've been getting little sleep lately, wasn't going to torture myself to try to stay away for the entire event. Besides, I knew going into it that I wasn't going to be able to participate for the entire event anyway.

The wife and I missed most of the the first movie, but made it for the sandwich buffet and the start of the 2nd movie. After the movie was over, the wife went home (as per our original plan). I watched the next movie, but from that point forward (midnight), I alternated between watching through half-closed eyelids and flat out snoozing. The wife texted me at 6:30 this morning to see if I wanted her to come get me. As it turned out, I did.

So, physically, I was there from 6:45 pm to 6:45 am - 12 hours. Not bad (for me anyway). There were three other people in attendance (apart from the host and hostess) who committed to the entire 24-hour movie orgy. As I left this morning, they had managed to stay away for the entire 12 hours (thus far), and were planning on seeing it through to the bitter end.

Here's how the movies rolled out:

White Heat - Caught the last 15 cheesy minutes. Not disappointed to have missed this one.
The Cowboys - Not a big John Wayne fan, and not a fan of Westerns, but this was pretty good. Robert Carradine's movie debut and a fairly significant role for A Martinez.
Jaws - Great movie, but I've seen this plenty. A little dated, but great performances. Continuity issues plague this movie in ways I'd never noticed before.
Coming to America - Lame when it first came out. It hasn't aged well. Eddie Murphy's ego run amok.
Club Dread - One of the worst things I've seen in ages. Avoid at all costs.
The Muppet Movie - Awake for the opening and closing numbers; asleep through the rest. I think that was probably the right call.
The Princess Bride - The wife forced me to watch this once. I just don't "get" it, and I'm OK with that. I had the wife come and rescue me while this was being shown.
The Fighting Sullivans
Disney's Robin Hood
Weird Science
Oklahoma

To keep the suspense going, the host wouldn't even tell us what we were about to watch. We just had to wait for the credits to roll, so I have no idea what the remaining movies were.

I don't intend for my critique of the movies selected to come across as critical. The host has movies he likes, and chose them in the hope the rest of us would like them as well (or at least expose us to movies we'd never seen before. I'm hard to please and the host knows that. I appreciate the effort he and his wife put into this event, providing more than enough food and munchies, and opening up their home to everyone. They are always very gracious and generous. Thank you guys for putting on a really cool event.

HTH: How'd That Happen?

2009-04-05T14:44:00.000-07:00

The wife and I were in the local drugstore last night. She asked me to hold my head still and look to my right. I compiled and was rewarded with a report that I had a broken blood vessel in my eye.

We've all seen it and find it a repulsive thing to have to look at. Thankfully, most of the visible damage was out of the obvious field of view, but when I look away, the damage can be seen.

Well, this morning, the damage had moved into the main portion of the white of my eye and it's quite obvious. I don't like it.

Now the question is: How did that happen? A stifled sneeze? Two much early morning grunting? I have no idea and I can't recall a specific poke to the eye. I hope it clears up quickly because it's a bit disturbing to have to look at.

Al Pacino: Movies that Suck

2009-03-23T18:22:00.000-07:00

I recently watched an Al Pacino movie streamed over Netflix. The movie I had the misfortune of watching was "88 Minutes". Before I started watching, I didn't realize that the movie is set in Seattle. I remember when the movie came out, it got terrible reviews. Having seen the movie, I can now say that those reviews were well earned. What a steaming crap fest. I'm not even sure where to begin, so I won't, but I'll say this: Avoid at all costs.

Now, putting aside the lousy plot, pathetic acting, and the city stands in for Seattle (I suspect it was filmed in Vancouver, BC), the one thing that really cracked me up was a scene that was shot on a university "campus" where Pacino's character teaches. In the scene, it's raining (or supposed to be), a fact that's made clear by the fact that just about EVERY single person in the shot is carrying an umbrella. For the record, most Seattleites do NOT carry umbrellas. I'm not sure if we think it's effeminate to carry one, or that we're made of sterner stuff, but if you see 10 umbrellas on a rainy day, that's saying something. We've got hooded rain jackets, we've get ball caps, we don't care if we get our hair wet. Umbrellas? Nyet!

My resistance is wearing down...

2009-03-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

I just may have to break down and get an iPod Touch. What I'd really like, to be honest, is the iPhone, but I refuse to be held hostage by being forced to buy a data plan. Not for you, not for anyone. Period.

But the iPod Touch offers just about everything the phone does, minus the phone and a camera. I have a cell, the camera I can do without. That makes the iPod Touch a lot more compelling.

This article has just about pushed me over the edge...

http://www.komonews.com/news/tech/41456877.html

Review: How an iPod can be a poor man's iPhone

In this Sept. 11, 2008 file photo, a shopper looks at two new second generation Apple iPod Touches at an Apple store in Palo Alto, Calif.

Story Published: Mar 18, 2009 at 2:56 PM PDT
Story Updated: Mar 18, 2009 at 2:56 PM PDT

By ANDREW VANACORE AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - I try to keep a stiff upper lip about not having an iPhone. Just couldn't afford it - not with the $75 a month or so AT&T charges for service on top of the $199 upfront cost for the device.

I could, however, afford the $229 iPod Touch - and got it as a gift, as it happened. It has most of the same goodies: a Web browser, e-mail, YouTube. And it stores way more music than the iPhone. (Ha!)

Plus, the other day I used it to call China.

Yup, a call around the world - on a device that doesn't have a phone. A handful of applications on Apple Inc.'s iTunes store will let you do this, as long as you're in a Wi-Fi hot spot.

My iPhone complex hasn't disappeared, but at least now I have a device that looks just like it, has no monthly service fees, and lets me make free or cheap phone calls.

The best part of these applications - which require the second-generation iPod Touch that came out last year - is that they are free to download, and calls to other people using the same app won't cost you anything.

Two of the services I've tried, Truphone and Fring, will also let you make free calls to Google Talk users and type instant messages to friends online. Both automatically queue up a list of buddies from different services you might have, including Gmail chat, AIM and MSN Messenger, once you log in.

But it's Truphone's pay feature that puts it ahead of the others. TruPhone charges you to make calls to landlines or regular cell phones, but generally at better rates than most wireless carriers. And it's upfront about what you pay.

Your balance - which you can add to with a credit card, either on the device or on your computer browser - pops up with the dial screen. Calls in the U.S. are all 5 cents per minute (2 cents if you sign up to pay a $4 monthly fee).

Rates outside the U.S. vary wildly but you can check in the application before you dial. To call cell phones in China, for instance, is only 5 cents per minute, while France is 25 cents. Antarctica? A whopping $2.25.

You can make regular calls with Fring using a Skype account, but that's another layer to deal with.

The calls on these services sound pretty good, a little tinny but clearer than my regular cell phone connection. IPod Touch users will need Apple's $29 ear buds that have a tiny microphone on the back of the volume control along the cord.

The most serious drawback is the most obvious: While the iPhone uses AT&T's wireless network to provide Internet access anywhere, on the iPod Touch you'll need to stick to Wi-Fi hot spots. For rural or suburban dwellers who don't encounter lots of free Wi-Fi zones, that may very well mean limiting yourself to your house, or other places where there's a computer with the same Internet phone call capabilities anyway.

That means these apps probably won't replace your cell phone. But they can moderate your iPhone envy.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer 1863-2009

2009-03-17T09:12:00.001-07:00

It's all over but the shouting.

After 146 years of continuously publishing a Seattle newspaper, the Seattle P-I ceased print operations today, laying off nearly 180 employees in the process. The "paper" will continue as an on-line venture with 20 employees that have been retained from the print version, but I don't see that being terribly successful (though I truly wish them great success).

The sad thing is that papers are dying. Even the Seattle Times has stopped printing on the traditional large-sized paper stock, and are printing on something that more resembles tabloid-sized paper.

Now that Seattle is down to one city paper, a right-wing rag at that, the idea of having to pay for a Times when I want a print paper is depressing. With the "liberal" voices silenced, I can't stomach the idea of having to get my news skewed through the eyes of an editorial board to which I am philosophically opposed.

Dave Ross, local radio talk-show host was prognosticating last week when the final headline would read. His guess, and it was a great one: PI RIP The actual final headline read simply: P-I Presses Fall Silent

I've always been a collector of papers when historical events occur: 9/11, 2001 Seattle earthquake, Obama election (and swearing in), etc. I went out early this morning to pick up my copy, and I'm glad I did. There were only three papers left, and the checker who spotted me as I came in said I'd better hurry as they were going fast. I grabbed two.

Take it all...

2009-03-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

So the Feds are trying to track down where all that filthy money Bernie Madoff stole has disappeared. Of course, the scumbag, has claimed that as much as $70 million in assets is in his wife's name and should be protected from seizure by the Feds. Some of the assets the Feds are looking to reclaim are their $7 million New York penthouse, as well as another $62 million dollars that aren't detailed. We'll let's look at this:

She worked as a bookkeeper for Madoff''s "company"
I presume she wasn't making enough money to buy the penthouse, or squirrel away and additional $62 million. If she was, certainly even she would have to wonder how her bookkeeping skills would warrant that kind of pay.
As the bookkeeper, she would have visibility into what was coming in/going out.
If she was kept in the dark about the transactions (shenanigans) her husband was pulling, again, she would visibility into the books and known something was seriously amiss.
While New York is not a community property state (it's an Equitable Distribution state), basically assets are split as fairly as possible, depending on a number of set criteria. They have not filed for divorce, so this isn't applicable in this case. If Madoff has "gifted" his wife this amount of money (I can't see any other way for her to acquire this much), then she's the beneficiary of ill-gotten gains and should have no legal claim to these assets. Lawyers be damned, I don't see how she's going to be able to keep any of it.

Look, she's known all along that something is fishy in the Madoff world of big finance.

In the interest of restoring all of the people who'd been fleeced by this scumbag (Bernie) and any others who may have been party to it, ALL assets of those involved should be seized, sold, and used to repay the victims in this case, particularly the elderly who have been left with absolutely nothing. Find those who helped perpetrate this fraud, squeezing them into confessing, get them to rat out all those associated with this scam, and seize ALL their assets. Oh, yeah, I forget. When all that's done, send them to a cell right next to Bernie's. Let's call this "Lifetime at Bernie's"

I find it incredible that we (the American public and the Federal Government) are expected to believe that Madoff pulled off the biggest financial scam in American history, all by himself. With the thousands of clients that he had, he certainly wasn't creating fake statements, dealing with questions, collecting/depositing "services" fees by himself. It is physically impossible for him to have handled all those details for all those years. I heard a former employee state that toward the end, Madoff was largely out of the office for months at a time. Can't be pulling the strings if you're not in the office.

I want downer cows...

2009-03-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

out of my food supply.

President (you'll note the capital P, I couldn't bring myself to use that during the previous administration), Obama today banned downer cows from being slaughtered . If you don't know, a "downer" cow is one that's too weak or ill to stand on its own.

This was all done in the interest of minimizing the chances that Mad Cow disease might enter into our food supply. That aside, if a cow is too sick to walk, there's definitely something wrong with it, why would anyone consider that animal safe enough to eat? You don't want to sit next to someone with the flu, would you want to eat a cow that has some bovine flu strain (or worse)? I should think not.

I've seen video take and slaughter yards of these downer cows, and they'll tie a rope around a leg and drag it up to be killed. I've always felt very bad for the cows under these conditions.

What I want to know is: Why has it taken so long any one of a number of past presidents from taking this step?

It's not clear to me what they will do with these cows, but at least it won't wind up in my next bit of Wendy's perfection. This really seems like a no-brainer and should have been done a long, long time ago.

Last week of the quarter coming up

2009-03-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

One more week of school, then we slide into finals. I feel like I'm getting pulled over the finish line for my math class. I'm rocking my other two classes.

I'm really, really, really looking forward to the Spring Break. 'Tis a shame I'm not 18 and heading to some warm, sunny destination.

Instead, for fun, I've planned a week for myself working in the front yard...

Joy.

Don’t be an idiot

2009-03-11T16:20:00.001-07:00

I’ve been seeing a lot of these ads lately advertising making all sorts of ridiculous health claims; laying the key to physical health at the foot of the lowly acai berry. Look, it may be a tropical fruit with lots of health benefits, but it I will NOT turn you in to a ripped stud, no matter how much you consume. If you want to look like the decapitated body on the right, Alex Rodriguez can probably introduce you to someone…

That said, let’s look at this add. Our new buddy, “Jason” is touting the health benefits of acai (I’m assuming it’s juice because he mentions that you drink it). He claims that if you use this product, you won’t have to work out “too much”. Define “too much”. It also states in the ad that he went from flab to fab (the pictures you see at the bottom of the screenshot) in one month. YGBFK! Uh, yeah, sure, Jason.

Now, if Jason is so proud of his new physique, why did he crop the heads off both the before and after picture? Wouldn’t you want to prove that it was really you in the photos? I know I would.

Our new buddy also mentions that he submitted this story to GetMeASixPack.com, but the URL shows that we’re looking at "areyouagenius.org”. If the answer is based solely on my response to the add, then I’m a freakin’ genius because they aren’t getting a dime from me.

I’ve recently been seeing ads geared toward women in which one woman claimed to lose 43 pounds in 2 weeks. Now, come on… Please. Does ANYONE believe this crap?

To illustrate my point, I made a screenshot of an add a few months ago because it was so ludicrous, I couldn’t believe it. In fact, this revolutionary product is so amazing that it can turn you from a massively obese black woman into a merely overweight woman. Don’t believe me? Look for yourself.

See? I told you. On top of this, even if it was the same woman (not that I’m conceding this point, mind you), the picture on the left would have represented a much greater weight loss than 12 pounds. I realize they haven’t made the claim that these pictures of the “same” woman were taken two weeks apart, but that’s the implication.

Do yourself a favor. Put the fork down, go outside, and take a nice walk around the neighborhood. Meet your neighbors, walk the dog, get active. There are no shortcuts, so just be reasonable and set your expectations appropriately. You’ll get there.

This is not us, I promise (but you'd never know)

2009-03-07T11:57:00.001-08:00

This article hits so close to home, you'd think we had a camera in our house, and they simply changed the names. I guess we're not all the unique in this area.

From MSN.com: http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/articlerb.aspx?cp-documentid=18187582&page=0

"We're Constantly at War Over Chores"

He's a neat freak; she's, well, not. And for Sally Cumberland and Paul Schmidt, arguing over housework has become a chore in itself.

By Lambeth Hochwald

Although Sally Cumberland and Paul Schmidt aren't exactly Oscar and Felix from The Odd Couple, they come close. Sally, 40, a stay-at-home mom and part-time college student, considers housework to be a necessary evil, while Paul, also 40, a budget analyst for the Air Force, is a self-proclaimed stickler when it comes to all domestic tasks.
Throughout the Dayton, OH, couple's decade-long marriage, the art of Swiffering has been a subject of many discussions — and plenty of fights. And with two rowdy sons, Cameron, 8, and Griffin, 3, keeping the house tidy proves to be a challenge.
"I do all the heavier cleaning, including the dusting, the bathrooms, and floors, but Paul is forever in an agitated state about something I'm not doing correctly," says Sally. "If my nightly water glass remains on the bedside table until 9 a.m. the next morning, he'll think I'm taking him for granted and that I expect him to move it. To Paul, it's an act of disrespect. To me, it's just that I haven't noticed it was there." Paul agrees that he tends to take household disorder personally. "I can't tell you how many times I'll reach into a cookie box only to find an empty box with no more cookies left," he says. "I interpret this as not being thoughtful to the other people in the house."
"Sally and Paul are never going to change their fundamental philosophies about housekeeping, but they definitely need to rethink how they talk to each other about chores," says Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D., a REDBOOK Love Network expert and the author of Money, Sex, and Kids. "Every fight they have says, 'We can't work together' and 'I want to be right more than I want to love you.' Learning to work together — and appreciate their differences — will give them the happy marriage and family life they want."
Hot Button: "We have completely opposite approaches to housework."
Sally: "I really dread cleaning. When Paul is away on business, the house gets messy pretty quickly. And when he isn't out of town, I'm known for doing a quick pickup of the day's mess at 4:45 p.m., right before he gets home. If I find a cleaning shortcut, such as using the Swiffer WetJet or that thing you hang in your shower that shoots out cleaner, Paul attacks it and compares me to his mother, who, at 80, still pulls the oven out from the wall as part of her cleaning routine."

Paul: "I admit I like to do things in a complete way. For example, when I run the dishwasher, I'm inclined to wash the dishes with soap before loading them. Sally will put dirty plates in without rinsing them. We have an ongoing debate over whether the dishwasher actually cleans plates that aren't rinsed."

Sally: "Paul nags me for hanging coats on chairs, putting my purse on the kitchen counter, keeping wet socks lying on the floor by the front door — and we still can't talk about a peach pit that was once left on the coffee table without arguing."

Paul: "I try to be as efficient as possible with my time. I like things to be organized, and I put things, like keys, wallets, and cell phones, in the same place so I don't have to spend time looking for them. I create staging areas where I can go to grab something quickly and be on my way."

Expert Advice: Sally and Paul talk a lot about their housekeeping conflicts, but they've stopped listening to each other about their expectations when it comes to chores. To suss out what's truly bothering each other, they have to get specific, Tessina says. "Sally and Paul should sort out what's really upsetting them and what things aren't so terrible." For example, Paul needs to stop being explosive and dramatic and simply say, "Let's put the kids' toys in this part of the den but leave the living room looking really good so we know there's one room that's tidy."

Approaching housework as co-executives running a company will also help end the bickering. "Sally and Paul have to sit down after the kids are put to bed and talk about what needs to get done," Tessina explains. "For example, Paul should say, 'Let's create a solution about the pileup of newspapers in the front hall,' and Sally needs to add, 'I need you to appreciate all the things I did while you were at work instead of needling me for the things I didn't do.' This will ultimately take the criticism and accusations away and replace on-the-spot reactive fighting with a calm conversation."
Hot Button: "Neither one of us feels appreciated."
Sally: "When I do a chore, Paul is usually negative about how I do it. In the time Paul would take to select the proper cleanser and sponge assortment for one job — which would eventually be done perfectly, to his credit — I can make the entire house look great, so I often avoid asking for his help. When I wash the floors, I don't usually wash the baseboards or even move the chairs to get under them. If Paul washed the floor, he'd get rags out and wash the baseboards every week. I don't want a simple task to turn into a production. I want him to stay out of it and appreciate what I do, and that's it."

Paul: "I want to feel appreciated for all I do to keep the house orderly. All the things I do are pretty invisible unless they're not being done. Case in point: I harp on Sally about hanging up coats and not hanging them on chairs. She doesn't notice when I'm hanging them up, but then one day a coat and purse were left hanging on a chair, which made it tippy and easy for our 3-year-old to pull the chair over. Nothing happened, but it did get everyone's attention, and the stuff was promptly put away."

Sally: "Well, I hate that I get this constant sense of disappointment from Paul, like I'm a big failure. There's a lot that I'm doing right!"

Paul: "It's not that Sally's doing everything wrong. Everyone knows that it's not life or death if the toilet paper roll isn't changed, but when she doesn't do it, I feel like she doesn't acknowledge my presence."
Expert Advice: "Sally isn't necessarily upset that Paul has definite views of how he wants the house to be kept," Tessina says. "Rather, it's the way he speaks to her about it. Sally thinks Paul is going to yell at her, and Paul thinks that if he doesn't tell her what needs to be done, it won't get done." To fix this, they need to find the things that are great in what the other did. "Thanking each other for the things they do is the WD-40 of any relationship," says Tessina. "It will make things run much more smoothly."

For example, Paul can say, 'The kitchen looks wonderful'; Sally can say a thank-you and mention that she plans to get to the bedroom the next day. Once they begin to acknowledge each other's contributions, the couple can delve into the deeper message behind the mess. "A small thing like not changing the toilet paper is symbolic," says Tessina. "For Paul, it feels drastic; it feels like Sally doesn't care about him. For Sally, as long as there's toilet paper, it doesn't matter. They need to accept each other's point of view, even in areas where they'll never exactly agree."

Hot Button: "The problem gets blown out of proportion."
Sally: "When the house is messy, Paul will raise his voice or act defeated. He'll suggest that we have a terrible marriage because we don't connect on these matters. Then I respond to him by being sarcastic or snide, which makes things get worse."

Paul: "Sometimes I just blurt out a criticism without thinking it through. I tend to overplay things and act disappointed or think we're really not in sync. I worry that Sally and I are so far apart on how we run the house that we're actually incompatible. I know saying things like that isn't helpful when we're in the heat of an argument."

Sally: "It's the blanket statements that come out when he's upset that truly bother me. That's when I can't even hear what he's talking about."

Paul: "Sometimes it's really hard balancing being friends, taking care of a home, and reconciling the two."
Expert Advice: "Fighting about little things — and chores are ultimately 'little things' — is stealing the energy that Sally and Paul could be using for having fun times together," Tessina says. "You can be good friends and have a good time and still get the work done." Tessina points out that Paul's explosiveness and exaggeration are what makes Sally feel that she's being taken for granted; she might have made all the meals, cleaned the floors, and played with the kids, but none of it counts except for some household chore she didn't do.

So the next time Paul comments that a household task didn't get done as expected, Sally can get playful and say something like, "The laundry fairy wasn't able to make it today." "That small, light statement can do wonders to cut the tension — so long as she isn't sarcastic when she says it," says Tessina. Doing all this will decrease the conflict between them and put the emphasis back on acting loving toward each other. Sally and Paul will never quite see eye-to-eye about housework, but if they can learn to respect each other's perspective, their marriage — and their house — will keep running smoothly for years to come.

The Couple's Reaction:
Sally: "I feel relieved. We've always been too busy to talk to an expert, but it's nice to hear a third party tell us that our issues aren't so unusual. The one thing I want to start doing right away is to skip the sarcasm. I usually shut Paul out when it's chore time, but I need to invite him to help without getting annoyed at how intense he is about housekeeping. I'm used to getting defensive, and I snap into that mode far too quickly."
Paul: "I think I get down in the dumps too easily thinking that Sally and I aren't a good team. But by talking through this and stepping back, I can see we really are a good team. It's important for me to remember that she may not focus on housekeeping, but she's such an involved, engaged mother, and that's so much more important. I needed to be reminded that opposites do attract and that we're a much better team than I gave us credit for."

The Update: "Since we talked to Tina, we are proud to report that we're trying to incorporate humor and respect into how we talk to each other about household duty differences. I can't even recall a recent argument concerning chore wars. We're working from Tina's suggestion list, which is posted on our refrigerator. We have even held a couple of brief "meetings" to talk out some business of the marriage, as Tina suggested.
"We're each making changes the other can see. For instance, I am trying to be aware of how words come out of my mouth. What I say always feels lighthearted, but I'm realizing that it might not be taken that way all the time by Paul. Cutting down on the sarcasm has only helped our communication. On the flip side, I noticed something Paul did the other day that would be a good example of turning Tina's advice into practice. He saw an odd-shaped article I had put in the dishwasher and doubted that it could emerge clean from the cycle.

"Usually, Paul would yank the item and hand wash it while scolding me for putting it in there in the first place. This would create tension, guilt, and bad feelings on my part. This time he bit his tongue, and instead bet me $10 on whether it would come out clean. Instead of just shooting me down, he validated my decision to put it in there. He was even a little bit funny and I appreciated his efforts.
"While I don't know if we'll ever joke about cleaning 'fairies' as was Tina's own personal example, we were able to take things from her suggestions and make them our own. We will keep working at it and keep trying to remember that if we embrace our differences instead of butting up against them, we can get so much more out of our marriage."

Does your marriage need a makeover? Write us at redbook@hearst.com and put "Marriage Makeover" in the subject line. You could appear in REDBOOK!

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.

Another One Bites The Dust (almost)

2009-03-01T13:02:00.001-08:00

The wife had some friends stay the night last night. They came down from Vancouver, BC, and we went to dinner last night. After we got back, they played Scrabble (is there a more boring game out there?), and I got busy with my homework.

While we were out at dinner, we got a call from the woman with whom we agist our alpacas. One of our little ones is sick, and she didn't think he'd make it through the night and wanted to know how we wanted to handle it. We decided not to call in a vet, but to ride it out to see if he'd pull through. One of the sad facts of raising animals is that you have to decide how to spend your money. Vets can be pretty damn expensive, and the treatments even more so. Do we spend a small fortune on an animal you won't recoup your costs? In the end, we chose not to call in a vet. We got a call this morning from our agister; he was still alive, and we decided to take a wait and see approach.

I just got another call. He's still alive, but not doing well. He was up walking around earlier, but he was talking short steps and walking in circles. His breathing is shallow and the agister is certain he's gone blind (hence the walking in circles). She's had other animals who have not been in as bad a shape as he's in and none have survived. Based on that, she's certain he won't recover, so we've decided to euthanize him at 3 pm (if he hasn't passed by then). They will then perform a necropsy, and send the samples to a lab that can do a more detailed analysis of the cause of the death.

Not much fun for anyone involved, least of all the poor cria.

Back in the Saddle

2009-02-28T00:55:00.000-08:00

After last year's emotionally devastating death of our son (he was stillborn), my wife is expecting again. How could that be, and so soon after we were told we could start again? To have her inform me earlier this month on the basis of a cheap-y home pregnancy kit... it just didn't seem possible. I was a little skeptical, but hoped that it was true. I'd expected it to take a couple more months (at least), but within a week or two, it happened. (I've still got it!)

We had our first doctor visit today (well, yesterday if you want to be picky about it), which included an ultrasound. They've installed new color monitors at the hospital since we were there for the last ultrasound, and you can see the heartbeat in vivid red and blues, which helped us visualize what we were seeing. We are only 8 weeks along, so we have a LONG way to go, but we've got our fingers crossed and are hoping for a better outcome this time around.

Wish us luck.

The Big O

2009-02-24T18:33:00.000-08:00

Sitting here watching Obama's address to Congress. I had been listening on NPR, but it just wasn't the same without the visuals.

Man, he sure seems popular. One standing O after another; I've never seen anything like it. The transparency this government needs is something that he's acknowledged, and it doesn't seem to be lip service. He is a communicator in every sense of the word, and it's such a refreshing change from the puppet we just lost.

I was talking with a friend the other day, and it's obvious that there is going to be some pain associated with getting this country back on track but, more than any other politician I've ever seen before, he seems to be the best one to get us moving in the right direction.

Back to the show...

This Is Your Life: Stephen Fowler

2009-02-22T12:26:00.000-08:00

It's probably pretty easy to jump on the anti-Stephen Fowler bandwagon these days. Hell, I didn't even know a controversy was brewing until last night, when I ran across a MSN story on the dust up. Following up with some of the information contained in the story, I came across a few other links and did a little watching. Wow! What an ass; not because he's British, but because he's a boorishly rude host.

I don't think there's a single family participating in Wife Swap that doesn't have a good idea how the format works: The wives of families of differing backgrounds/viewpoints, trade places for two weeks. During the first week, the guest-wife must abide by their host family's rules; the following week, the guest-wives institute rules their host family must follow. At the end of the two weeks, spouses are reunited, and the heads of both families sit down to discuss their experiences. Results are filmed and juxtaposed; hilarity ensues.

We all know that if the two swapping families had more in common with each other, there'd be no conflict, and therefore, no reason to watch the show. I get that, I suspect the participating families get that. That said, to have an opinion about a country, its culture, or its people is one thing, but to be so blatantly rude to a guest in your own home, is simply unforgiveable. Actually, put into the proper context, this is not so much a clash of UK vs. US cultures, but more a clash of socio-economic cultures. The British moron could just as easily have been American, looking down his "superior" nose at anyone else from the US whom he considered to be his intellectual inferior. When all else fails, follow The Golden Rule.

Sure, now that the story is out and he's been exposed for the cad he really is, Mr. Fowler has offered up an apology on his wife's website. No, he didn't have to apologize, but he did, though it's probably a day late and a dollar short. Like all things Internet, once it's out there, it's out there for good, and there's nothing that can be done to "take it back". Sadly, the chickens have come home to roost in ways I don't think he could have envisioned. Unfortunately, despite his claims of intellectual superiority, his wife and kids have to pay a price for his stupidity. Judge not, lest ye be judged...

MSN Story:
http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=353458&affid=100055

Fairly self-explanatory
http://blog.stephenfowlersucks.com/

ABC's Wife Swap site:
http://abc.go.com/primetime/wifeswap/index?pn=recap#t=129325

YouTube presentation of Wife Swap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGvngvON_qQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTstsEzi3Sk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZr5G_Od3h0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1haNu0uFLs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16dunc0Hvyg

ABC News Report:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhykAAg86bs

Now, as much of a condescending prick as Mr. Fowler was, the folks from the Midwest really were pretty ignorant, and seemed rather proud of the fact; or at least not bothered by it. It was painful watching the mother read the welcome letter at the opening of the show. There wasn't a single word in it that should have given her trouble, yet she struggled to get through it. Sad.

Shock the Monkey

2009-02-19T14:28:00.001-08:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29279834

A recent story came out about a pet chimpanzee that attacked a friend of the woman who owned the monkey. I didn’t think too much about it, I mean, how much damage can a chimp inflict? If a chimp thought he could take me, he’d have a serious ass-whooping coming to him.

My smugness quickly evaporated when I read the story above. Not only does the chimp weigh 200 pounds, but I understand they can be quite strong, especially when enraged. Maybe I wouldn’t fare as well as I initially thought.

I kept reading and in doing so, I came across a description of the woman’s injuries: “The woman lost both eyes, her nose and part of her jawbone in the attack.”

Holy shit. It was so bad that when the cops arrived, one of them thought the victim was a man. Who could blame him?

“After police arrived, one officer radioed back: ‘There's a man down. He doesn't look good,’ he says, referring to the disfigured Nash. ‘We've got to get this guy out of here. He's got no face.’”

OK, this story is all I need to know that I don’t want to be around any monkey, period.

New World Record: 72 non-stop hours of TV watching

2009-02-08T19:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.komonews.com/news/offbeat/39286977.html

By Associated Press STOCKHOLM (AP) — Suresh Joachim has broken his own Guinness world record for nonstop broadcast-television watching, clocking 72 hours in the Swedish capital."I feel fine, I drank between 25 and 30 cups of coffee," Joachim said Sunday.His previous record was 69 hours, 48 minutes, set in 2005.Joachim, a Sri Lanka native who lives in Toronto, watched three seasons of the drama series "24" featuring Kiefer Sutherland, said Swedish TV4 spokeswoman Janina Witkowski.
_______________________________________________

Wow! I have a new hero. Not only for accomplishing such a magnificent feat, but for doing so in an event I can actually compete. Not only compete, but dominate. 72 hours? Man, I'm just getting warmed up at that mark. Well, OK, not really, but attempting to break that record sounds like a lot of fun. I've always wanted to stay awake for as long as it took to start hallucinating; might as well do it while watching TV. Talk about combining the best of both worlds. Life is good...

Places to Visit

2009-02-06T07:48:00.001-08:00

The latest The Territory Ahead catalog came in the other day. On the cover, bathed in a warm, yellow light, is the most amazing picture of the Acropolis I've seen.

I Google'd to find some more pictures and to get more information about the Acropolis and, according to one caption, the cover photo shows some of the Caryatid statues at Erechteion.

There is another picture within the catalog that shows some of the most ornately carved columns, and I love looking at pictures of ancient architecture. I'm always amazed at how advanced the "ancient" cultures were.

Anyway, that got me to thinking of all the places I want to visit before my toes are found pointing up that final time.

Let's make a list and knock off as many of them as possible, shall we? This list is in no particular order, and will be appended to as time permits and as I discover potential points of interest.

New Zealand
Greece
Spain
Thailand
Australia
Cambodia (Ankor Wat)
Mexico (Yucatan)

Queen Anne High School

2009-02-02T14:00:00.000-08:00

This beautiful school, located atop Queen Anne, in Seattle, Washington, opened in September 1909, and closed at the end of 1981 school year. It was converted into condos in the late 1990s.

So, long story short, I started collecting Queen Anne High School yearbooks (KUAY). Of the 72 available editions, I own the following:
1914
1921
1922
1923
1924
1928
1929
1931
1932
1934 (25th Anniversary)
1937 (Hank Ketcham, Class of '37)
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944 (two, because on(c)e is never enough)
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1954
1955
1957
1959 (50th Anniversary)
1960
1962
1963
1964
1965
1968
1969
1970
1971
1974 (Kathi Goertzen, Class of '76)

Why do I love this school so much? Hard to say, really, considering I didn't go there. I have no feelings toward my own high school, so the appeal of this one is hard to explain. I love the architecture of the building itself. It's absolutely stunning, and sits atop Queen Anne hill, overlooking the city and Elliott Bay.

Given our proximity to the school, there are a number of alumni living in the area I can talk with, and I have been allowed to look through some of the yearbooks our neighbors own. My hope is to someday have a complete collection, but I think that will be a pretty tough goal to accomplish. Well, I have the rest of my life to try.

I can only think of one more high school in Washington state that has a better building and view: Stadium High School, in Tacoma, Washington. The school was the site of the movie, 10 Things I Hate About You and, in my opinion, looks like an ivy-league college. They truly don't make them like that anymore.

Diligence, speed will help secure 2009 college aid

2009-01-27T07:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.komonews.com/news/consumer/38334099.html

By Associated Press

Here are eight basics that parents of college-bound students who may not be doing all their financial aid homework should know as a 2009 aid season fraught with economic concerns begins:

1. Apply ASAP: Parents with high school seniors or returning college students should fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid now to have the best chance of receiving aid. This 102-question document is used to determine eligibility for federal aid, state aid and scholarships, and this year there are likely to be more applicants vying for less grant money.

"It's always a good idea to apply for aid early, but especially this year," said Lynn O'Shaughnessy, a personal finance journalist and author of "The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price." "The feed trough's going to be a lot more crowded, and schools may run out of money sooner."

Don't wait until your 2008 tax return to file; you can submit an online FAFSA at www.fafsa.ed.gov using estimated tax information to speed the process.

2. Don't rule out pricey schools: A high sticker price doesn't necessarily mean a higher out-of-pocket cost, especially at schools where significant merit aid might be available.

"Don't just apply to the local community college because you think it's all you can afford," said Lauren Asher of the Institute for College Access and Success.

3. Don't forget the profile: Remember to also fill out the CSS/Financial Aid Profile, used by many private colleges and universities to determine aid eligibility. The form and more information are at the Web site of the College Board, www.collegeboard.com.

4. Look at less selective schools: While you're shooting high, make sure you are applying to less selective schools than you might have otherwise to add to your margin of financial safety. Your student might qualify for a merit scholarship or get a good need-based package. Or it may just make more financial sense.

"In a boom economy we allowed our children to apply wherever they wanted and we said, 'If you get in, we'll make it happen,"' said Rod Bugarin, financial aid adviser for college consulting firm IvyWise and a former financial aid officer at Brown University and Columbia University. "Now families are saying 'Maybe you should think about other schools, other opportunities."'

5. Loss of home equity value won't help: Newcomers to the aid process may assume or hope that a big decrease in their home value will put them in line for more financial aid. That's not likely. Household income counts by far the most in the aid equation that also considers non-retirement assets, number of family members in the household, number of kids in college, and taxes.

6. Look for scholarships online: Private scholarships offered regionally and locally may help you fill the financing gap even if your student isn't brilliant. Some of the best-known scholarship search sites include Fast Web, Scholarships.com and the College Board's Scholarship Search (http://apps.collegeboard.com/cbsearch-ss/welcome.jsp). Also check with your high school guidance office.

7. Call aid offices: Don't hesitate to call the financial aid offices of schools your student is considering, for information on available aid or for assistance. A better financial aid offer from a similar school could also be valuable fodder to take back to the first-choice school this spring.

8. Be wary of taking on too much debt: Federal loan limits have been increased, and parents may be able to find money to finance their child's dream college even in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades. But think carefully about the consequences of over-borrowing before taking on a huge debt burden just because you can.

Seattle: YES to Viaduct! NO to Tunnel!

2009-01-24T12:04:00.001-08:00

http://www.yesviaduct.com/

Washington's governor, King County's executive, and Seattle's mayor recently announced they were in favor of replacing the viaduct, a 6-lane, elevated roadway, used by 100,000+ daily commuters, with a 4-lane tunnel with a capacity of 80,000 daily commuters.

On the face of it, it sounds like a crappy deal, and worse still, when you consider that it completely eliminates access to the areas north of Seattle (e.g., Queen Anne, Magnolia, Ballard).

Thankfully, someone has taken up the challenge and has filed an anti-tunnel initiative with a petition to block the construction of the tunnel.

While I'm not in favor of the petitioner's choice of viaduct replacement (a bridge spanning Elliot Bay), it is preferable to the idea of reduced capacity, reduced access, and the possibility of being stuck in a dangerous tunnel with no views.

The website: http://www.yesviaduct.com/

30 Rock: It just gets better

2009-01-24T10:39:00.000-08:00

I recently watch the first two seasons on Netflix. Great writing, great performances, just an all-around great show.

I popped on to MSN.com this morning and they were advertising for a new episode (I'm assuming as much as we don't have TV service), so I clicked the link. I was treated to what is probably the best episode of the show yet. http://beta.video.msn.com/play/?g=f787aece-a7b2-4847-84fb-c064b964aad8&gt1=42003

Enjoy!

Obama: Kicking Ass, Taking Names

2009-01-22T13:36:00.000-08:00

So the new man in charge has been in office all of two days. What has he done so far?

Frozen wages for those making more than 100 large
Signed orders demanding the closures of secret prisons and Gitmo.

He's done more in 2 days than Shrub did in all of 2008.

This is a man possessed and he will be one to contend with.

If he's as good as many hope, he will certainly set the bar for the next President (2016). The American public will accept nothing less than the best, going forward.

Seattle, Paramount Theater, Obama Inauguration: SRO

2009-01-20T10:08:00.001-08:00

The Paramount Theater was open for the inauguration this morning. They opened at 7. Sadly, I dilly-dallied around the house a little longer than normal, and on the way there, we dropped off the dogs at day care. There were some folks obviously streaming to the theater, but not nearly as many as I expected. This was a good sign.

I headed into the theater and as I did, someone handed me a couple commemorative cards. I grabbed them, thanked the lady, and headed inside. A big line in front of the bar. People, people, people -- get control of yourselves...

I bypassed those folks and headed straight for the door on the first floor. I heard the usher tell the folks in front of me there were only a few single seats available, but that there may be some seats on the 3rd floor balcony. As they turned to leave, I approached the usher and told her I was looking for a single. She said there might be one or two near the front of the stage. Cool. I headed down the aisle, toward the front of the theater, scanning for a possible empty seat as I made my way down. Nothing. The place was packed. I even made it to the front of the theater. Zilch. Zippo. Nada.

I turned and beat a hasty retreat to the lobby. The crowd was buzzing and every time a shot of the soon-to-be first family (or Biden and spouse) appeared, the place went wild. Wow, what the hell have I gotten myself into?

Also worth noting: when bush or cheney appeared on screen, they got a nice healthy booing. How appropriate that DICK was in a wheel chair. The story is that he hurt his back while packing some boxes. I don't believe this story for a second. The last couple of days, I've seen several stories talking about the fact that the outgoing president and incoming president have teams devoted to unpacking EVERYTHING, putting it all into their respective spaces, and having all the boxes, wrapping, etc. gone by the time the family gets to the new home. Why would it be any different for the V.P.s? I suspect DICK couldn't bring himself to stand for the new president. What a poor sport, but given who I'm talking about, not surprising.

I scooted my way up to the 2nd balcony (why sit on 3, when you can have it on 2?). When I got there, and looked up, all I saw were people in seats. Not a single empty (non-reserved) seat to be found. I walked up the side aisle, scanning desperately for that one lone seat, but there was nothing. I eventually found myself on the 3rd floor balcony, and started making my way up. Whoa, I spotted what appeared to be an empty seat. I asked the gal sitting next to it if it was empty and she said yes! Woohoo! I made my way to it and just as I was about to sit down, the gals sitting in the row in front of this seat said, No, that seat's not empty. I looked at the chick how said it was and she said she was wrong and that it was reserved. Thanks for nothing...

I left the aisle and found myself working my way up to the last rows of seats. Nothing free to be found anywhere. I finally found myself at the very back of the theater, in an aisle behind all the seats. I was truly in SRO-land... This kinda sucked. I looked around, and found an open spot next to a wall. I quickly scooted over to get my place, set my briefcase down, and started peeling down. I had dressed for the eventual walk to school, and the bus ride home. It was in the low 30s this morning, so I was pretty bundled up, and now I was a steamy, sweaty mess...

Tops off, I dug into the camera bag, as I intended to document this historic occasion. I dug out the camera, and started trying to take some pictures. They were a complete disaster, and I didn't take a single one that is worth showing. I hate that camera. I guess I was going to have to record this event in my mind. I'll be lucky if I remember tomorrow that I'd even gone.

The screen they set up for the audience was pretty damn big, and the picture was nice and clear. I was amazed when they show the Washington Mall. A truly astounding number of people gathered there to witness one of the most significant events in American history.

In short order, here's how the event played out (order may be off a little).

Aretha Franklin came out and sang America The Beautiful. She looks like a house on legs, but the voice is still pretty good.
Biden was sworn in. Lots of cheering in the theater.
Warren came in and gave a prayer. A fair amount of booing from the theater audience.
A musical performance was given by... Hmmm, the only ones I recognized where Itzhak Perlman and Yo Yo Ma. The piece was a new composition by John Williams and was very forgettable.
Obama was then sworn in. Lots of cheering! Bush is out, we have a new president.
Obama gave his acceptance speech. Very inspirational.
A woman came out to give a poem.

Time for me to fly.

I suited back up, headed out of the theater, and up the hill to school.

I'm once again a sweaty mess, but am so glad I made it out to witness this event.

Tonight, there will be beer!

A day off is not a day of doing nothing

2009-01-19T14:04:00.001-08:00

Today is MLK day, a national holiday that is not observed by many companies. Of course, the Feds will take any excuse for a day off, hence no mail, no banking, no trading. All other working stiffs get the pleasure of taking the day off by burning a floating holiday, or getting their backsides nestled firmly into their workstation.

Being a student, I had no choice but to take the day off. I wanted to go to class today, but the teachers are slackin', so I have to take the day off, too.

Sigh...

Well, I can get some things done around the house, so I've spent the better part of the day cleaning the house, organizing, and doing general house maintenance. I think the wife will appreciate the effort.

One more day...

2009-01-18T21:32:00.000-08:00

and the King of Nothing* will be gone. Rational intelligence will take its rightful place in the White House and common sense will be restored... After 8 years of corruption, ineptitude, and indifference, it will take a while to set things straight, but it will happen. Polls are showing that 65% of Repulicans are hopeful for what is about to occur across the American landscape. Time will tell, but it will have to be 1000x better than what we've suffered.

I will be watching on TV at school, I suspect along with a bunch of other students. We are to witness a significant milestone in American history and I'm damn glad to say I had my hand in it.

*Kudos to Seals & Crofts

I can see clearly now...

2009-01-18T16:57:00.000-08:00

The wife just got home. I went downstairs to help her bring up some groceries she'd picked up, and set them on the kitchen counter. I looked out the kitchen window and... what the hell is that? Oh! My! God! It's Mt. Rainier!

We had a completely unobstructed view of Mt. Rainier when we moved into the house in 2002. Sadly, over the last few years, the view slowly disappeared as the trees in one of our neighbor's yards grew up and completely obstructed our view. I couldn't tell whose yard the trees were in (and am still not entirely sure), but someone bought the house below our next door neighbor and he has been doing LOTS of clearing of the lot. I heard some more cutting yesterday, but I just noticed the restored view. It's not completely cleared, but we can see about 80% of the mountain. I'm hoping that who ever is doing the cutting still has some more work to do and continues removing the remaining trees that obstruct the view.

For now, I'm going to enjoy the view while it lasts!

Ricardo Montalban (Mr. Roarke) is dead

2009-01-14T13:54:00.001-08:00

I'm pissed. Maybe disappointed is a better word. I just found out on MSN.com that Ricardo Montalban died today. No, I'm not a Montalban-o-phile in that I don't have any memorabilia or DVDs of his work, and I certainly never considered Fantasy Island high art.

Why then am I disappointed? Because back in the early- to mid-80s he appeared on Late Night with David Letterman. He would have been in his late 60s/early 70s, but he was sharp as a tack, and traded jokes quite liberally with David Letterman over his Fantasy Island image, as well as his turn as a spokesman for Chrysler. Letterman couldn't resist bringing up the phrase "... rich, Corinthian leather..." which was always one of the highlights of the car ads of the time. There was absolutely no ego associated with Montalban that I could tell and he seemed quite comformtable with his legacy as an entertainer. Based on this one appearance, I envisioned that he would be a great person to have as a neighbor.

I always wanted to write a letter to him to let him know I thought his appearance on the show was great, and to wish him well in his retirement. Of course, I never did (I'm sure it would have seemed a little silly to him), but who knows, he may have written a short thank you in reply. I'm not star struck by anyone, but if I were to write anyone in Hollywood, it would have been him and Barbara Eden (who was also very gracious in an interview conducted by the biggest c-u-n-t in the news business, Connie Chung).

Will I ever write Barbara Eden? Probably not, and I'm sure I'll feel a twinge of regret when she passes, too.

Dinner and a Movie

2009-01-11T07:38:00.000-08:00

Friday we (that would be the wife and I) got together with our friend for a movie, Slumdog Millionaire. Great movie, if you haven't already seen it. In the end, you know they boy and the girl get together, it's the weaving of the threads that make it interesting.

After the show, we decided to get a bite. Where to? Made our way to Broadway and encountered a Greek restaurant, The Byzantion. I like all things Mediterranean, so I was game. It was cold outside; nice, warm and fragrant inside. Got seated, got a beer, and perused the menu. It's a big one, with lots of options, so you'll probably need some time to check things over. I got the roast 1/2 chicken. This was no scrawny birdy, but a monster that took up half the very large plate with enough room for the salad that came with it. It was a bit steep at $15, but very, very tasty. I would definitely go back.

All in all, a great end to a hectic, first week back at school.

Anthropology prof is terrible: Buh-bye

2009-01-07T17:25:00.001-08:00

After 3 hellish days of the worst instruction imagineable, I've decided to cut my losses and drop my Anthro class.

Yesterday we sat through a "lecture" that was on of the most disjointed things I've had the pain of sitting through. Today was worse.

She started by telling us that she was going to participate in a Mexican/Indian dance this weekend at UW and that if we showed up we'd get extra credit. For what!? Just showing up? How does that warrant any extra credit.

We then sat through a 40-minute rehash of yesterday's presentation, including a bunch of "new" info, some of which consisted of her telling us the most recent Anthro book she read, with a summary of said book. This all done via PowerPoint, mind you. The next few slides consisted of photos of her current professors at the U, along with quotes pertaining to the work they've done. How the hell is this relevant to what we're doing?!

The slide deck she used today was rife with typos, misspellings, and even an incomplete thought. The material is obviously not been prepared with the care that it needs.

She also wanted to thank the student who yesterday asked her to explain what Anthropology was. She explained that she usually teaches to grad students and had forgotten who she was speaking to.

If you want to attend a class where the students have the deer-in-the-headlights look on their faces, this is the class to visit.

Oh, BTW, the prof said today that's she's 25. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but I'd wished for a better instructor. At this rate, I can't imagine enjoying a single minute of her class, so I'm out of there...

Salma Hayek teaches my Anthro class

2009-01-06T08:04:00.000-08:00

Ok, not really, but my new teacher is the next best thing.

Yesterday was the first day of the new quarter. I got there early for my first class and waited for the students from the previous class to file out before finding a spot. There in the front of the class was a student standing, for what I couldn't tell. Finally, the teacher about to vacate the room introduced the "student" as the teacher of my class. Hubba Hubba.

Turns out she's Mexican/Indian mix and what a nice combo the two make. It turns out she is a student, just not at the school I'm attending. She's a post-grad student at UW, and I'm taking the second class she's taught. If I were to guess her age, I'd say she's somewhere along the lines of 27ish. She still seems a little nervous and the curriculum seems a bit vague, but I'm sure it's not easy putting all this stuff together. Still, I wish it was a little better defined.

She dressed more like a student than a teacher. She wore a mid-thigh skirt, boots, and a white sweater over a low-cut yellow top that showed more cleavage than you'd expect to see at a plumbers convention.

This could be an interesting quarter.