A Stranger In A Strange Land

2003-03-03T08:19:00.000-06:00

Administrative Note

The switch is complete and the subdomain name is finally resolving to the right place. My blog is now placed at jeffrey.theutechs.com/blog. Please set your bookmarks and blogrolls accordingly.

I'm not planning on erasing this account, I'm just not going to post over here anymore. I hope to have my archives moved over to my MT blog by next week sometime.

2003-02-28T13:17:00.000-06:00

Friday Five

1. What is your favorite type of literature to read (magazine, newspaper, novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc.)? I don't really have a favorite media per se. We get a ton of magazines ranging from Playboy to National Review and pretty much everything in between. We also read newspapers on the weekend, and I read a ton online. As for what my favoriate genre of book is, I would have to say I really appreciate biographies and non-fiction. I like fiction, but I feel like I learn more and appreciate the material of non-fiction much more.

2. What is your favorite novel? Hm. That's a good question. I really liked The World According To Garp. That's probably my favorite.

3. Do you have a favorite poem? (Share it!) *ahem* There once was a man from nantucket...I mean...I don't have a favorite poem.

4. What is one thing you've always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read? My current book backlog is seven long. I have been tearing through books this year, but it's still a long backlog. Once I get through that there is a ton of stuff on Katie's book backlog that I want to read. Maybe then I can consider something new.

5. What are you currently reading? Take On The Street by former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt. Although I'm almost done with that. Once I am I'll probably crack open Parliament of Whores by P.J. O'Rourke, which was a happy Friday present from my wonderful wife. I have read a lot of O'Rourke's stuff, I think he's brilliant.

2003-02-28T08:52:00.000-06:00

Clinton To Speak At UI

I have a lot I want to say about the Iraqi agreement to destroy their medium-range missiles, but it's end of month here at the old workplace, which tends to bog me down with work. I will get to it if I have time, but in the meantime I have this thought:

Yesterday the University of Iowa made it official: Bill Clinton will speak at Carver Hawkeye Arena on March 26. He waived a large part of his usual $125,000 honorarium to deliver the speech on Global Security to UI students, faculty and members of the Eastern Iowa society at large. There are 11,000 tickets available, and Katie and I are hoping upon hope to secure two of them.

As regular readers know, I'm pretty conservative. That said, former presidents tend to be some of the most brilliant, well-read, intelligent and engaging people in the world, independent of their political views. Clinton is certainly no exception. His penchant for, er, marital tomfoolery notwithstanding, he is widely written about as having an immense curiosity. People close to him often said his greatest strength as president was his interest in learning about everything possible. He was, and is, an information sponge.

My feeling is that any time you have the opportunity to be in the same room with someone so intelligent and engaging, without an effort to do so, you are failing yourself. Hopefully our effort will bear fruit.

2003-02-27T14:58:00.000-06:00

Afghani Nation Building Cautiously Successful

I know I have been remiss in blogging over the last two days, just dropping in the occasional random thought or philosophical note. Katie and I have been dedicating some of our free time to learning how to use a webserver. Both of us are pretty technologically un-savvy, me more than she, but we're kind of muddling through the whole thing together. For the time being we have a basic splash page up at theutechs.com. It's nothing much and won't be updated for a while. Also, for the time being I have established a blog here. I will post on blogger and MT today and tomorrow, but starting Monday I think i'm going to move completely to my MT site. Please don't set your bookmarks just yet, I may still mess around with the directories before I make everything final. So if you can't find my blog, please check here first.

I recognize that most of what I've been putting up here has been lacking meat, so let me provide this thought:

Yesterday Afghani president Hamid Karzai spoke before the Senate Foreign Relations committee and, despite urging to the contrary, delivered a positive assessment of American nation-building efforts in his country. Specifically, he detailed the rapid improvements being made by the government in the areas of national security and human rights. Many are skeptical, quoting reports from NGOs stating that things are still bad. Mr. Karzai countered by saying that as bad as things may be, they're better than they were.

In today's meeting with President Bush, Mr. Karzai asked that America "do more for us in making the life of the Afghan people better, more stable, more peaceful." He said that things are better than Americans are reading in the papers, but that America can't forget about Afghanistan should it go to war in Iraq. If we do we would be repeating the tragedies of the past, hinting at when America fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 70's and 80's. When the Soviets withdrew the Americans did also, allowing the country to fall to Islamic fundamentalists. We all know what happened after that.

The point is that nation building works. When the Allied forces presided over post-war Germany and post-war Japan, rebuilding the factories and shops and streets destroyed by our bombs a few months earlier, Germany and Japan prospered in the long term, growing to the third and fourth largest economies in the world. Although it's a slow process, it's evidently working in Afghanistan, a nation short on social history and natural resources and long on problems.

Nation building can work in Iraq. Iraq is located in what used to be the "cradle of civilization", Mesopotamia. As such, they have cultural history that dates back thousands of years. Further, they have natural resources, and not just oil. They have water. In the Middle East, that's important. And they have a developed technology infrastructure. All of those things combined set up antebellum Iraq to look much the way that post-war Germany and Japan looked, war-torn but bright for the future. Liberated Iraq has the potential to thrive in the hands of an Allied-nurtured democratic government. So not only is an Iraqi regime change good for the world, it's good for Iraq also.

2003-02-26T12:10:00.000-06:00

Administrative Note

Last weekend Katie and I purchased space on a webserver and registered the name theutechs.com. We are currently working on transferring our blogs to a different URL that will run on MovableType in the hopes that by doing so we can have:

1.) cooler looking blogs
2.) no banner ads at the top of our blogs
3.) comments that aren't fickle, that is, they don't come and go

It looks like we have found all of those things in Movable Type. Anyway, just wanted to announce that we will be moving everything shortly and hope that you join us on our own page. We will provide the URL once the templates meet our personal satisfaction. Stay tuned.....

UPDATE: It looks like Monday is the likely launch date. It depends on just a couple server issues, and on whether or not I can find an acceptable stock template for my blog until I can build my own. But it looks like Monday is the day.

2003-02-26T09:40:00.000-06:00

From The "Vote Early, Vote Often" Department

Last night Richard M. Daley was elected to his fifth term as Mayor of the City of Chicago. Mayor Daley won 78.5% of the total vote, including 94% of the vote among dead people.

That joke just never gets old.

2003-02-26T09:12:00.000-06:00

Friendship Bridges The Gaps Of Disagreement

I got home from work last night and had not stepped twice in my house when my wife announced that "we had friends and those friends have plans for us tonight." Those plans were to watch last night's Iowa victory over Ohio State at Old Chicago with said friends. After the game was over we sat and chatted for a while. The conversation started with a debate over whether or not college athletes should be paid. We all agreed they should not. But in my ever-loving stupidity, I remembered some of the brief research I did for a post I made just last week, and brought up some of the rebutting arguments about the revenue that collegiate athletics generates, and how student-athletes aren't permitted to enjoy any of that.

We still agreed that student-athletes are getting reimbursed for their performance in the form of education that could be worth as much as $150,000 in cash value to the student-athlete, and far more than that in earned income for the student-athlete that doesn't end up going pro. The next topic at hand was parity in collegiate athletics, and whether coaching salaries should be capped to improve parity. That led to the purpose of collegiate athletics to academic institutions and whether the two should even be tied anyway (at my alma mater, they are not, they are run on separate budgets completely).

None of this is germane to the point of my post. It's just background. Regardless, the conversation got heated, I felt that I was being patronized, and feelings were hurt a little bit. My friend apologized for hurting my feelings without apologizing for his views. I can appreciate that, but he was really worried that I our relationship was damaged slightly. This leads me to the point of this post.

Relationships, to me, are independent of time and distance, independent of harsh words or of difficult times. There are a number of friends with whom I may go months and months without talking to, but when we get together nothing has changed. The reason is that the love that is fundamental in those friendships doesn't change. Similarly, there are old friends with whom things have gone sour. We don't talk anymore, we haven't in probably five years. But I don't harbor resentment or anger for those people. Even though I don't keep contact and don't plan to, I pray that there is peace, happiness and prosperity in their lives.

This is an obvious extension of my personal philosophy, much of which I have been posting on in recent weeks. But it's important that my friends, a number of whom read this, understand that even if I haven't seen them in months, or years, I still love them very much. And especially to that friend with whom I argued last night, we've been friends for ten years. Forty minutes of drunk, tired, meaningless arguing can't undermine that.

2003-02-25T09:40:00.000-06:00

Kill Death Anthrax Overthrow Revolution Iraq Osama

I know, I should be careful using all of those words together. Next thing you know, I could find my phone tapped. Like these people did.

There is currently a case being heard in US District Court in Portland over five American Islam converts who were arrested and accused of attempting to travel to Afghanistan to fight against American forces. The first thing which is interesting and noteworthy about the case is that the defendants never actually fought Americans, they never even made it to Afghanistan. They got as far as China and came back to America.

Second, the evidence obtained by the Justice Department includes recordings of phone conversations and other evidence gotten under the USA Patriot Act. The Act is a post-September 11 declaration giving the FBI greater latitude in securing secret warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on American citizens without probable cause. The case, which is expected to be appealed by the losing side as far as the Supreme Court, will ultimately determine the constitutionality of those warrants and the accompanying wire taps and intelligence gathering as viable tools in the war on terrorism.

As we've been forced to face, especially since September 11, there exists a balance that Americans must be willing to accept between sacrificed civil liberty and protection from domestic and foreign anti-American threats. It's why I have to open up my suitcases in the middle of O'Hare on a busy Monday morning and why Katie has her bra underwires confirmed by a TSA agent because they set off a metal detector. Some of the sacrifice is silly, some of it is necessary, and determining the difference is the burden we must bear these days. As Aaron Brown says, it's the "new normal".

My opinion: terrorism will happen regardless of precaution. People are still slipping bad stuff onto airplanes. Trucks still drive in front of important buildings (Empire State, Sears Tower, etc.). And if last week's fire on a South Korean subway was any indication, even non-terrorists can strike fear in a country through it's public transportation. So if we recognize the fact that the battle to protect ourselves is relatively futile, we should be certain to err on the side of the foundation of our country, on the side of freedom and repeal the USA Patriot Act.

2003-02-25T08:55:00.000-06:00

Bush Misunderestimated By Hussein

When I told a co-worker about the CBS report of Saddam Hussein wanting to challenge President Bush to a live international television and radio debate, she was waiting for the punchline. Evidently Dan Rather was too, since his response was to ask the Iraqi dictator-cum-president whether he was joking. Hussein's response was, get this:

This is something proposed in earnest, out of my respect for the people of the United States and my respect for the people of Iraq and the people of the world. I call for this because war is not a joke.

Would these be the same people of the United States that are both the "Great Satan" and "pig dogs"? The ones against whom Hussein was prepared to bring "the mother of all battles"? After years and years and years of defiance of the United Nations and outward animosity and hatred for America, the American President and the American people, now he wants to talk directly to us?

2003-02-24T09:48:00.000-06:00

Weekend In Review

I firmly stand by my belief that a really great Friday night will go a long way to making for a great week, even if the rest of the weekend is pretty mundane. That was the case this weekend. Saturday and Sunday we really didn't do much. We watched some basketball, talked to some old friends and some family, did a lot of reading. But it was Friday night that made this weekend a good one.

Friday night we had some friends over that we don't get a chance to see very often. One of them in particular only lives a few miles away but we still ~~avoided~~ haven't seen him since mid-January. We had dinner, then had a few drinks, all with a nice helping of political discussion. Some of it was local, some of it had to do with the State of the Union or hydrogen cars, but eventually our conversation settled on the topic on everyone's mind: the potential for war in Iraq. It even made it's way into last night's Grammy Awards, with Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst commenting onstage about the war ending soon. Sheryl "the best way to avoid war is not to have enemies" Crow managed to avoid overt anti-war sentiment onstage, giving only the backstage quote "I didn't want to pick that particular bone tonight onstage, but I think that we know it's on everyone's mind. No one wants to rush into a war. Peace is what's important."

This weekend detailed clearly that lines have already been drawn, camps already inhabited. The anti-war crowd has already created its arguments and drawn its stereotypical sketches of the pro-war crowd and vice-versa. There is likely to be very little movement from one to the other until the war begins, at which point a number of anti-war folks will support the military but will make a loud distinction between that stance, and a support of the Bush administration or the purpose of the war in general. We're at a political stalemate. Rehashing the reasons for or against war will accomplish little as no one is likely to change sides, so all that's left to do is wait. In the meantime I want to mention a couple other things that have gone unsaid:

First, people who oppose the war because the information the administration has given to the American people is false, aka the "Bush is lying to us" argument, just infuriate me. There is no real way to prove that, nor is there any way to rebut that short of a "no he's not, yes he is" childish exchange. Basing an anti-war argument on the premise that everything the Bush administration has provided us is a series of lies is pretty small-minded.

Second, people who oppose the war because the administration hasn't thought through what the battle will be like are similarly short-sighted. When we first joined our Secretary of State in the public eye, he was one of the more decorated Army officers in history, would rise to the position of Chief of Staff of the Army and later become Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In that position he oversaw myriad military crises, including Operation Desert Storm. In short, the administration has someone that has been thinking about it for the last twelve years. They have considered what the battle will be like.

Third, I was trying to avoid drinking Grey Goose this weekend because it's French. Mostly, the notion of boycotting French products is in jest, but my anger with France boils down to the distinction between being opposed to military intervention and refusing permission for anyone else to be for military intervention. France is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and as such hold a veto over any resolution that comes before the United Nations. They have made it clear that they will exercise their veto power on any resolution favoring military intervention on the part of any member state.

A UN Resolution does not imply that all member states must be involved in military action. It doesn't even imply that all member states support military action. All it implies is that more UN member states support military action than don't, which is the truth of the matter. France's veto keeps the world from recognizing that fact, perpetuating anti-war sentiment. If they would merely abstain and let the rest of the security council take up the matter, the world would find that the UN really is behind this military action and would support it themselves. But France won't just abstain and let the rest of the world handle it. That, my friends, is why we're making the ultimate sacrifice with the boycott of Grey Goose.

Let the rhetorical pause continue.

2003-02-21T11:11:00.000-06:00

Friday Morning Thought

This is a thought that surfaces from time to time, but maybe never when it should. I just wanted to share it with y'all. Please feel free to tell me I'm full of crap when I'm done, as I probably am.

Last weekend we were in Chicago. We had dinner at Haray Caray's (which is decent Italian, contrary to popular presupposition) and were planning to go to Howl At The Moon, a local piano bar. However, at about 10:30 a half-block long line had already formed out in front, so we stood at the end. Did I mention we were in Chicago? In February? Yeah, it was about twelve degrees out with the Windy City moniker being justly earned. It's probably a lot of the reason I tried cayenne pepper and water this week. Anyway, we abandoned Howl At The Moon and ended up in a pub at around State and Wacker.

On our walk down, we crossed the Chicago River using the State Street Bridge; it pretty much sits at the bottom of the Marina Towers, and down river from the Wrigley Building and other major Chicago landmarks. I looked upriver (towards the lake, since the river flows from Lake Michigan towards the Gulf of Mexico) at all the buildings in the night sky, shrugged and walked on.

Why do I bring this up? Because it's indicative of a tendency I notice in myself, specifically the tendency to be underwhelmed by places I've been and things I've seen. I should mention that I haven't seen or done much in my life. I haven't been to Washington, or to Philadelphia or San Francisco or Seattle. I haven't been to Graceland or New Orleans either. But I've done a few things in my life, and even those things I've built up in my mind to be fabulous and breathtaking, when they occur, just haven't been.

Times Square was really impressive, all bright and flashy, but I wasn't stunned like I thought I'd be. Same thing with the Vegas Strip. Or the Atlantic Ocean or the Intercoastal in Miami. Impressive, but not breathtaking. Even Rocky Mountain National Park, from my childhood, was really beautiful, but not so amazing that I was stupified [in the "I was made momentarily senseless and numb by the beauty of the moment" way, not in the "I was rendered mentally inferior" way. The latter is available for debate --ed.]

In the happiest, most beautiful moment of my life, my wedding, I shed a single tear of joy. When my grandmother died, I was the only grandchild at the funeral that didn't cry. I wonder if sometimes I allow the gravity of specific places, moments and experiences to pass me by. Hm. Just a thought....

UPDATE: Upon further thought I remembered I was driving to work this morning, listening to Yo-Yo Ma, thinking about the fact that I would likely see some very close friends this weekend. That thought made me think about other close friends and family and how many people there are in my life that I am surrounded by that make me feel loved, and important, and valid. My heart swelled and I filled with happiness.

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that true happiness and emotion in life derives not from single experiences, not from sights or sounds, nor births nor deaths, but rather from perpetual relationships and the way in which you fill your heart with them. It's not found at the Grand Canyon, or at a baptism, but rather when you hold your spouse's hand while sitting in traffic on the Ike or hug your brother when you see him for the first time in months. Hm.

Sorry, was that too deep for this early in the morning?

2003-02-21T08:17:00.000-06:00

Friday Five

1. What is your most prized material possession? I don't really have one. I really treasure my relationships with my friends and family, as for material possessions, I don't think there is anything I own that is absolutely irreplaceable. Maybe pictures?

2. What item, that you currently own, have you had the longest? Good question. I don't really know. I don't think there is anything that I use daily that I have had since childhood. I do have a "memory box" in our storage area that has a lot of little memory things from childhood, that's probably it.

3. Are you a packrat? Not really. Katie is more than I am.

4. Do you prefer a spic-and-span clean house? Or is some clutter necessary to avoid the appearance of a museum? I like our house to be clean and free of clutter. It rarely is, however, because regardless of how much time we spend cleaning, we spend more time uncleaning.

5. Do the rooms in your house have a theme? Or is it a mixture of knick-knacks here and there? I think the only rooms that are without a theme are the kitchen and our upstairs bathroom. For anyone who knows my wife they're not surprised by the fact that our entire downstairs is an American theme. Our family room, bathroom and guest room all feature little red, white and blue knick-knacks, pictures, posters, and The Big Red Wall (tm). Upstairs our living room/dining room has a nautical theme in pale blue and yellow, our bedroom has kind of an ivy/earth tones theme, and our office is our Iowa Hawkeyes room.

2003-02-20T12:18:00.000-06:00

Why I Love The Internet - Part I

Pictures. I love going through blogs that I read regularly, then taking the opportunity given when the blogger posts pics. Unfortunately, I am both too cheap and too technologically deficient to post pics here. However, some pictures can be found at Sara and Jerry's site. The link is specifically to pictures from the Iowa/Iowa State game and the tailgate beforehand. Seneca Wallace refers to the pig we roasted that day, not his Iowa State quarterback namesake. Also, for reference, any time you see the name "Jeff", that is me. "Wendy" is Wendy DeCora of mysteryriddleparadoxenigma fame. Jerry is Jerry, Sara is Sara, both of Jerry and Sara fame. Alas, there are no pics of my beautiful bride, nor my punk-ass brother (just kidding, G), but if Katie and I ever pony up the cash to host our own site, there will be. Anyway, just sharing.

2003-02-20T08:31:00.000-06:00

Buy Californian!

The US Government announced this morning that the US trade deficit jumped in Decemberto 10.6% or $44.2 billion, a one-month record. That included a record deficit with Germany of $4.1 billion, due in large part to over $6.3 billion in imports. Also, the announced included sobering data that the US experienced deficits in agricultural products, usually a strength of the US economy.

I guess that means that all the people that are boycotting France and Germany for their handling of the potential war in Iraq, should stop picking up Concha y Toro and Pilsner Urquell and instead pick up a nice Rancho Zabaco Zin or some Anchor Steam. They're pretty much just as good, they're less expensive and, hey, they're American. If you consider California "America", that is.

2003-02-19T17:02:00.000-06:00

The Chicago Blame Game

Americans seem too well-versed in tragedy these days. The heartbreak, mourning and agony so many have borne in the last two years has been particularly astounding. We probably haven't seen anything like it since Vietnam. Sociological study has found a common series of phases of grief. Initially, we feel shock at the news headline or the television clip. Then denial. Others include bargaining, anger and depression, some or all of which occur before the survivors resign themselves to the truth of the matter. However, lately Americans have been slipping in another step that has become unfortunately too common in our tragedies: finger-pointing.

Sunday night at a South Side club in Chicago a stampede occurred when a security guard sprayed pepper spray to try and subdue two patrons who had gotten into a fight. There was only one available exit and in the ensuing melee, 21 people died. It turns out that the club was in violation of a court order requiring that the second floor of the club not be used for any purpose. The club owner is expected to be brought up on charges of contempt of court for ignoring the court order, and law suits are being broughtagainst the club, the club owners, the event promoter and the building owner. Further, the club's licenses are likely to be permanently revoked.

Oh, and the City of Chicago is being sued too.

A number of influential city leaders, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, his son US Congressman Jesse Jackson III, and fellow US Congressman Danny Davis, have rushed to defend the owners of the club as upstanding young professionals and leaders in the community. The prevailing feeling was that if Chicago had done a better job of enforcing its own court orders, none of this would have happened. It's another case of the big, mean government aligning against the little guy.

Now I'm no apologist for Chicago city government. It's a corrupt, unethical and inefficient group that bends too quickly to special interests. But in this case, Chicago is not at fault. They passed the court order banning events from occurring at E2. Rather than asking whether it was the responsibility of the Cook County Sheriff's department, the Chicago Police or Fire Inspectors that were responsible for enforcing the order, perhaps Chicago would do well to place the blame where it belongs: on the club owners.

Ultimately the burden of enforcement of the order falls on the two gentlemen who were ordered to not use the second floor and did anyway. Anything else is window dressing. What will be interesting to see is how this spins to show that Chicago was negligent, further evidence that the difference between the North Side and the South Side in Chicago isn't that substantial. Plain and simple, it's all in who you know.

2003-02-19T14:54:00.000-06:00

Wednesday Poll Question

Last weekend we saw Chicago. Having seen the stage production, I had something of a preconceived notion as, just like most books are better than the movies based on them, most stage shows are too. I have a lot to say about the production, but it really boils down to one word:

Wow.

However, while most of the performances were outstanding, Richard Gere was merely good. We left thinking of some of the more polished stage actors we knew that could have delivered a performance on par with the rest. I came up with Eric McCormack, Will from Will & Grace, who earned his acting legs on the stage at the Ryerson Theater School in Toronto. A friend came up with Val Kilmer, who I was admittedly unaware developed his own chops on stage at Juilliard. So today's poll is for those that have seen Chicago. Any other thoughts on who would have made a good "Billy"?

2003-02-19T08:59:00.000-06:00

Nebraska To "Officially" Get Paid To Play

Yesterday the Business and Labor Committee of the Nebraska legislature voted unanimously to move a measure before the general assembly that would permit Nebraska football players to be paid a stipend if three other states with Big XII schools pass similar measures. Larry Eustachy, head basketball coach at Iowa State, another Big XII school, came out in favor of paying college athletes, and said he would contribute some of his own salary to do so. NCAA spokesman Wally Renfro countered, saying that paying college athletes would "take first-rate college programs and turn them into third-rate professional programs.''

The typical argument for paying college athletes is simple: universities, television networks, radio stations, apparel manufacturers, they all make a combined billions of dollars on college athletics. CBS's eleven-year contract for broadcasting rights on the NCAA men's basketball tournament was secured for $6 billion alone, or about $545 million per year. ABC paid $525 million for a seven-year broadcasing rights contract for the Bowl Championship Series of college football. Networks don't pay this kind of money out of the goodness of their hearts, they expect to make substantial profits, and they make them on the backs of unpaid collegiate athletes.

On the other side of the argument is scholarship money. At THE Ohio State University, this year's national champion in football, an in-state athlete gets an education, including books and fees, that the University estimates at about $15,825/year. That means that a football player from Akron who doesn't redshirt and plays all four years on scholarship gets an education worth about $66,300. For out-of-state athletes, the cost jumps, and they recieve an education that would cost most students almost $101,000. And THE Ohio State University is a state school!

In addition, the NCAA has a policy which permits student-athletes to hold a job, a change from years past. If the student needs additional money, he or she may work for it, earning it the way any other student might. Granted, student-athletes tend to have workouts year-round, and in season the practice schedule tends to be so grueling that it is difficult to keep up with studies and hold down a full-time job. But currently NCAA rules also permit student-athletes to apply for additional stipends on their scholarship for every day living expenses, so even in season when they're too busy to hold down a part-time job, they can still manage to eat or buy clothes.

Student-athletes are like any other student. They come into school with some money, but live for four or five (or six or seven) years in relative poverty, only to graduate, get good jobs and reverse the process. Their scholarships are based on athletic performance, not academic capability. Student-athletes are already being given for free that which others have to pay for with minimal emphasis being placed on their in-classroom capability. Scholarships were traditionally established for those that contribute positively to the academic prowess at the university. While some athletes do, they weren't brought to the university for that capability.

The athletic scholarship has already perverted the meaning of the academic one. To further do so by paying those students above and beyond their scholarships is virtually a slap in the face of every parent paying the tuition, room and board and fees solely for the purpose of academic achievement [while the student learns such real-world skills as how to shotgun a beer and how to figure out which pizza places are open at 3 a.m. --ed]. Stipends shouldn't be permitted for student athletes at any amount. Nebraska's legislature should strike down the bill, and no other states should consider it.

2003-02-18T12:19:00.000-06:00

Tuesday Poll Question

What is the most vile thing you've ever drank on purpose? I'm not talking about accidents here, like the Prairie Fire shot that became a T-Sax tradition, or the Rusty Nail that people who really don't like me tend to buy me at bars. I'm talking drinks that you mix yourself. I'll give you an example: in college one summer we drank sloe gin and cherry flavor-ice. It wasn't horrible, but let me tell you, it wasn't very good either. Oh, and Point Lager or Grain Belt counts.

2003-02-17T22:44:00.000-06:00

Libertarianism, Political Thought For A New Generation

Two personal anecdotes:

First, a conservative individual whose intellect I really respect, posted a comment a few months ago that he didn't understand why I was a third-party activist and not a conservative, given some of my posts on economic issues. Second, I was having breakfast this weekend with my wife, her sister and their parents. We were having a brief conversation about politics, inspired by former Illinois Senator Carol Mosely-Braun's announcement that she would run for the Democratic nomination for President. My mother-in-law asked what I thought would happen if all the people in the United States voted. Meg answered, wisely, that she believed it would quickly inspire the rise of a third party.

Her reasoning, and I'm paraphrasing somewhat, was that young people tend towards third parties, in no small part because they tend to view the current two-party system with contempt. They tend to look at the system as corrupt, with statehouses and Washington both packed with career politicians looking out for their own interests rather than the interests of their constituency. As such, they are looking for third-parties not as much because the parties philosophical beliefs align with their own, but more because it's an alternative. I would argue that's true in part, but surely the draw of libertarianism (the third party of which I am a particular advocate) for young people is greater than that.

The common view of libertarianism is one of two: either as marijuana legalization activists, or as further right than even the Republicans. Third party wack-jobs, essentially. Last week Susan Lee published an essay in the Opinion Journal that addressed such notions, adequately describing some of the fundamentals of libertarian thought.

Libertarianism is simplicity itself. It proceeds from a single, quite beautiful, concept of the primacy of individual liberty that, in turn, infuses notions of free markets, limited government and the importance of property rights. In terms of public policy, these notions translate into free trade, free immigration, voluntary military service and user fees instead of taxes.

Because of a strong belief in free market theory and the dedication to the private sector, libertarian economic view tends to closely mirror that of the conservative. Both look for smaller government as a product of lower taxes and less government spending, particularly in the form of reducing welfare programs, industry subsidies, social security, unemployment insurance and the like. This is the reason why my aforementioned colleague thought I should be conservative. Where the two schools of thought tend to diferentiate themselves is in social policy.

Conservatives tend to believe in moral absolutes, that law designed to improve society as a whole springs from morals with a faith basis. Libertarians, on the other hand, believe that the only constraints on society are the borders of another's personal liberty. The example Ms. Lee uses is that of gay marriage. In conservative thought the belief is that because Christianity designates homosexuality as a moral wrong, and as such gay marriage is a social impossibility. Libertarians, on the other hand, take note of the fact that a gay couple is no different than a heterosexual couple in the fact that their marriage is unlikely to impede any other American's right to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness, and as such should be permissable.

America is evidently going through a social change. Young people are leading that change, as alternative lifestyles become mainstream, especially among twentysomethings. Mixed race couples, gays and lesbians, they're all mroe likely to be accepted than ever before. It is through the provision of such social change combined with a haven for conservative economic thought and a frustration with the existing system that libertarianism could actually be the political party of a new generation.

2003-02-17T16:31:00.000-06:00

A Cure For Sniffles?

Back in the days when I used to play music, John Rapson, the head of Jazz Studies at Iowa recommended a cure for feeling the way I feel today. [Background: I feel kind of achy with a sore throat and a runny nose, basically I just have a cold that makes me feel roundly yucky.] His recommendation was to take a teaspoon of pure cayenne powder, drop it on the back of the tongue, and wash it down with a pint of water. He said that'll take care of it. I remember that advice, although I have never tried it. But I may give it a shot this evening.

UPDATE: It worked reasonably well. My nose isn't running as much, my throat feels a little better, and perhaps most surprising, my head didn't explode.

2003-02-17T08:56:00.000-06:00

A War Blogger's Analogy

I don't know if I'm necessarily a warblogger. I don't think that I advocate war in general, and I think there is much more to life in America than travelling the world over and picking fights. However, on Friday (when I was home sick) I received two e-mails about a circulating anti-war petition. The specific text talks about the war as pre-emptive, unilateral, lacking justification based on clear evidence and lacking justification based on UN precedence. Basically, the petition is asking people to copy the petition and forward it on, and once the petition has 500 signatures to forward it to either the United States delegation at the UN or the President's general e-mail address at the White House.

Further, multiple anti-war protests occurred around the United States and the world over the weekend, including prominent ones in San Francisco and New York. Last week a lawsuit was filed in federal court in Boston by some of the families of US servicemen, claiming that without a congressional declaration of war President Bush's action against Iraq runs contrary to the powers given him in the Constitution. All of this sentiment got me thinking about an analogy that may help people understand the justification for war. I think that this holds up to logic, but if not, please use the comments section to dice up this analogy appropriately.

Imagine that you have a child. For some that may not be difficult, for others (like me) that may be much harder. Regardless, you have a child. Shortly after the birth of your child, Congress passes a law called the "Take Your Children To Disney World Act". In this act, for certain households determined to have children that could present a significant threat to society if not properly inundated in Disney Magic (tm), Congress would require those parents to take their children to Disney World at the parents' own expense.

One of the first children found to be such a risk is your own little pride and joy. Congress tells you that you have until the child's second birthday to take the little one down to Orlando. Upon the child's second birthday, federal agents will drop by your house and want to see proof that you have, in fact, followed the Congressional mandate and exposed your child to pixie dust. You agree, lest the IRS audit your tax returns every year for the rest of your existence. Time goes by and the rugrat turns two. As if you didn't have enough to deal with, you have a snarky little two year-old running around and federal agents drop by your house to make sure you've taken him/her to Disney World.

You put them off. They leave. For the next ten years you continue to put them off, saying that you have taken your little one to Orlando, as mandated, but you just don't have time to dedicate to the FBI to sit down and flip through pictures or show them receipts, park tickets or whatnot. Eventually Congress, after passing resolution after resolution requiring you to take time to show proof to the FBI, passes one final resolution asking the FBI to show up at your door in the middle of the night, march into your living room and not leave until you have shown them that you and your child have walked down Main Street and through Cinderella's Castle.

Is the burden of proof upon the FBI to show that you haven't taken your child to Disney World in accordance with the act? Or is the onus upon you to show that you have? If you can't or don't provide proof in accordance with the law, shouldn't the FBI have the right to take you into custody?

This is the basic parallel, as I see it, to war in Iraq. For twelve years we have asked Saddam Hussein to show us evidence that he has disarmed, taken apart his WMD program. The time has come that UN Inspectors are going to sit in his living room until he does. I struggle to see how this is preemptive, unilateral or lacking evidence or precedence. If Iraq doesn't have WMD, the burden of proof is upon them to demonstrate such. If they can't or won't, the time has come to take him into custody.

Please slice, dice and julienne away at my analogy.

2003-02-14T14:49:00.000-06:00

Friday Five

Ever wonder why it is that I got started in this silly little thing back in August? No? Well, that's pretty much what Friday Five deals with, and so you're going to learn. How much fun, huh?

1. Explain why you started to journal/blog. I read about the idea of it in Fortune Magazine. It sounded kind of strange at first, the idea of just keeping an online journal. But I decided to go to blogger.com and see what this whole thing was about. Fortunately they linked to some recommended blogs to help people get an idea of just what blogs really were. So I popped over to the Beltway Bloggers webring, and suddenly the idea seemed fascinating. So I got started.

2. Do people you interact with day to day or family members know about your journal/blog? Why or why not? Family members? Yes. People I interact with day-to-day, not as much. The only person that I do interact with everyday that I know reads my blog is Katie, everyone else that I'm certain reads my blog are friends or family members that live elsewhere. As an aside, if you do read my blog, you do know me and I don't know it, please drop me an e-mail so that I can know.

3. Do you have a theme for your journal/blog? Originally, Stranger In A Strange Land was going to be a theme blog about all the weird ideosyncratic differences between living in Iowa and growing up in a big city. However, it ended up being a host for everything that ran through my head, a way to sort out my thoughts, and I found that few of those thoughts actually had much to do with complaining about Iowa and more to do with what was going on in the world.

4. What direction would you like to have your journal/blog go in over the next year? I kind of like the way that my blog has been going. The only thing I'd really like to do is increase my readership, although I want to earn my readers either because they know me, or because someone with a wide readership discovers the quality of my content as opposed to e-mailing other bloggers and asking them to bring readers to me.

5. Pimp five of your favorite journals/blogs. This is tough, because there are a lot out there that I enjoy reading every day. No offense to those that don't make the list, but the blogs that I enjoy the most are, in order:
1.) James Lilek's Bleat
2.) Asymmetrical Information
3.) Walking Under Chandeliers
4.) Vodka Pundit
5.) Beltway Bloggers

2003-02-13T15:36:00.000-06:00

Random Thursday Thought

The leasing company I work with does a lot of business with various Indian organizations. It leads me to this thought: if I were an Indian, I think my tribal name would probably be "Jeff Grumbles Before Coffee".

2003-02-13T14:55:00.000-06:00

Weekend Update

I think I figured out what I want to do this weekend. Not even a dirty bomb could keep me away.

2003-02-13T12:50:00.000-06:00

No More News Night Before Bedtime

After Iowa's collapse at The Barn last night, Katie went upstairs and I was left in the living room watching television. I started reading and flipped on CNN for background noise. News Night with Aaron Brown was on. Aaron Brown was hosting the show from Kuwait City and was talking with correspondents in New York and Washington. Quickly, Mr. Brown's show went from being in the background to the forefront of my mind.

Last night's big topics were, of course, the run on supplies in case of an attack by WMD and the revelation by George Tenet that the west coast of America is within reach of North Korea's ballistic missiles, including some that could carry a nuclear payload. In the course of reviewing the day's events, Brown continued to make use of his own personal meme, that the tightening feeling in the chest of America is the "new normal", something we've felt collectively since September 11. Further, he remarked that he never thought it possible, but he actually felt safer in Kuwait than he would have in New York or Atlanta.

The show continued with story after story intimating an attack of some form on American soil as a palpable possibility. The number of enemies lining up against our country is mounting, with the number of strong supporters flagging a touch. Such facts shouldn't limit the strength with which we pursue our convictions, or the vigilance with which we pursue Iraq or terrorism. It should, however, give America pause, time to consider that our freedom, which went unchecked for over two centuries, now comes with it the responsibility of self-preservation.

Katie and I are going to Chicago this weekend. Katie and Sheila (of the aforementioned "Dave and Sheila") and others are going bridal dress shopping for Sheila. Needless to say, Dave and I are not going, but I am thinking of what else to do. The Chicago Auto Show is this weekend. Visiting the Art Institute crossed my mind. Ultimately those are just things to kill time until Iowa hosts Penn State from Carver, and Sedgwick's, an Iowa bar in Lincoln Park shows it all. Hey, they have Goose Island on tap and the Hawkeyes on television, that's a great combination.

I didn't sleep very well last night, though. The idea of being in the Art Institute or at McCormack Place was a little unnerving. My dreams were plagued with feelings of fear, fear of standing by the new Chevy's when a dirty bomb blew up, or to visit the Monets only to return home and three weeks later come down with a brutal case of smallpox. I tossed and turned most of the night (as Katie can attest to) and today I am at work, going about my business with the dull nag of fear and anxiety in the back of my head. Could be nothing. Could be something. Either way, it represents the first terror-based sleep interruption I've experienced since my the nights after September 11.

Last night Kelli Arena reported on News Night a quote from a senior FBI agent. "[H]e's been on this job for 30 years and he has never been more concerned about a possible attack as he is today." To borrow from Professor Reynolds, "Indeed".

UPDATE: It just occurred to me what Jerry and Sara being in Washington could really mean. There are also a lot of people that I've never met whose blogs I read every day and I'm sure I'd be friends with if we ever met, a number of whom are in DC or New York. Say a prayer for the safety of all of them.

2003-02-13T08:57:00.000-06:00

Defamation Suit Filed Against Sean Penn For Bad Acting

Okay, maybe not. But perhaps movie producer Steven Bing could file it against Sean Penn on the grounds that Penn's poor acting and whiny voice made his studio look foolish for considering to hire him for a film. Sound ludicrous? Well, it's no more ludicrous than the suit that Penn is filing against Bing for electing to dump the actor from a future film project because of his anti-war views. Penn, as we all know, travelled to Iraq to see just how bad things weren't, and voceferiously reported such upon his return. Bing and his company asked Penn to cut it out repeatedly, less he hurt the film's chances to make money. Penn didn't, and Bing fired him.

The problem is that Bing is allowed to fire Penn if he wants to. Anyway, Jane Galt has a good summary of all of the reasons Penn is stupid in this suit. Check it out.

2003-02-12T15:42:00.000-06:00

The Complete History Of The French Military

In continuity of yesterday's brief France-bashing, Aaron e-mailed this to me today:

* Gallic Wars - Lost. In a war whose ending foreshadows the next 2000 years of French history, France is conquered by of all things, an Italian.

* Hundred Years War - Mostly lost, saved at last by female schizophrenic who inadvertently creates The First Rule of French Warfare; "France's armies are victorious only when not led by a Frenchman."

* Italian Wars - Lost. France becomes the first and only country to ever lose two wars when fighting Italians.

* Wars of Religion - France goes 0-5-4 against the Huguenots

* Thirty Years War - France is technically not a participant, but manages to get invaded anyway. Claims a tie on the basis that eventually the other participants started ignoring her.

* War of Devolution - Tied. Frenchmen take to wearing red flowerpots as chapeaux.

* The Dutch War - Tied

* War of the Augsburg League/King William's War/French and Indian War Lost, but claimed as a tie. Three ties in a row induces deluded Frogophiles the world over to label the period as the height of French military power.

* War of the Spanish Succession - Lost. The War also gave the French their first taste of a Marlborough, which they have loved every since.

* American Revolution - In a move that will become quite familiar to future Americans, France claims a win even though the English colonists saw far more action. This is later known as "de Gaulle Syndrome", and leads to the Second Rule of French Warfare; "France only wins when America does most of the fighting."

* French Revolution - Won, primarily due the fact that the opponent was also French.

* The Napoleonic Wars - Lost. Temporary victories (remember the First Rule!) due to leadership of a Corsican, who ended up being no match for a British footwear designer.

* The Franco-Prussian War - Lost. Germany first plays the role of drunk Frat boy to France's ugly girl home alone on a Saturday night.

* World War I - Tied and on the way to losing, France is saved by the United States. Thousands of French women find out what it's like to not only sleep with a winner, but one who doesn't call her "Fraulein." Sadly, Widespread use of condoms by American forces forestalls any improvement in the French bloodline.

* World War II - Lost. Conquered French liberated by the United States and Britain just as they finish learning the Horst Wessel Song.

* War in Indochina - Lost. French forces plead sickness, take to bed with the Dien Bien Flu.

* Algerian Rebellion - Lost. Loss marks the first defeat of a western army by a Non-Turkic Muslim force since the Crusades, and produces the First Rule of Muslim Warfare; "We can always beat the French." This rule is identical to the First Rules of the Italians, Russians, Germans, English, Dutch, Spanish, Vietnamese and squimaux.

* War on Terrorism - France, keeping in mind its recent history, surrenders to Germans and Muslims just to be safe. Attempts to surrender to Vietnamese ambassador fail after he takes refuge in a McDonald's.

The question for any country silly enough to count on the French should not be "Can we count on the French?", but rather "How long until France collapses?"

From an American's point of view, the French are always there when they need us!

Jokes at the expense of the French. Ahhhh, always amusing.

2003-02-12T09:45:00.000-06:00

Hunker Down, We're Getting Our War On!

Yesterday federal officials urged that Americans prepare their homes in case of chemical, biological or radiological attack. Doing so included purchasing three or four days worth of food, as well as buying plastic sheeting and duct tape to seal doors windows and vents from outside air. This morning the Washington Post reported numerous DC area hardware stores were doing a brisk business on the selling of wartime supplies. Last night's Eastern Iowa evening news said same. [don't ask. Iowans seem to think that because we have a nuclear power plant and some corn that terrorists are going to strike here. --ed.]

I would like to point out that these people are missing the boat. Sure, plastic wrap and duct tape are important. In the case of a biological/chemical attack, you'll probably be inside for more than just four days. Regardless, if we're going to be sealed inside for that long we need to focus on the important supplies. Like vodka. Video games. Or bananas. I mean, what if you get a leg cramp halfway through your quarrantine, where are you going to get your potassium?

Did you see newspaper reporters or your local ABC affiliate broadcasting from the liquor store? No. It's just a further sign that our Homeland Security department is failing us.

Fortunately we still have our Y2K shelter buried under the house.....

2003-02-12T08:07:00.000-06:00

Wednesday Morning's Random Thought

I love it when it snows big, thick, white flakes with no wind. When it does, if you're driving through it at night you can turn your brights on and feel like you're travelling at light speed.

2003-02-11T16:12:00.000-06:00

More Gen-X Stuff

In my trials to try and discover the origins of the term Gen X, I happened on some interesting stuff. But first things first. Generation X was a British novel published back in the 1960's that dealt largely with sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Generation X was also a British rock band that featured, among others, Billy Idol and Tony James. In 1991, as Aaron mentioned, Douglas Coupland was the first to use the term in reference to the group of people born between 1965 and 1980. Coupland has largely tried to distance himself from the title saying, among other things, "I didn't come up with the name for a generation. I just came up with a title for a novel". (This information comes via Vann Wesson, as quoted here.) So, the most direct link between the thirteenth truly American generation and the title "X" really is through Coupland, and that's about it.

As for it truly being the thirteenth generation, an organizational table of generations since the colonization of America is available here. It's a little counterintuitive unless you recognize that the first American generation was born 45 years before the genesis of a new society. Consider that Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, author of the Declaration of Independence and patron saint of the Libertarian Party, was born in 1743, smack in the middle of the Liberty Generation which became the first truly American generation.

Another interesting thing to note is that presidents tend to skip a generation. The Boomers have had two presidents: Bill Clinton and George Bush (43). The previous generation, known as the Silent Generation, never elected one of their own to the office. The seven presidents prior to Clinton (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush (41)) all came instead from the GI Generation. The trend looks to continueas four of the six Democratic Presidential candidates (Kerry, Dean, Edwards and Sharpton) are solidly boomers, defined as being born before 1943. The other two, Lieberman and Gephardt, were born in 1942 and 1941 respectively, making them borderline. I'm still talking about their assignment to a generation, by the way.

Sociologically, generations are grouped by fours into eras, and within those eras each generation plays a role according to its generational type. The first one are the idealists. Idealists challenge the establishment, promote change and provide guidance to younger generations throughout the era. Idealists are born and grow in the aftermath of a major social occurrence. In America, those have been wars. The idealists have followed the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and in the modern era, World War II. Boomers are the idealist generational type for our era.

Following them are reactives, which in the modern era are our own esteemed Generation X. Historically reactives are raised in relative solitude, bearing the criticism for the mistakes made by the previous generation and raging against that criticism, ultimately maturing into lonely elders. Traditionally, reactive generations have provided the muscle by which society has progressed, but rarely is given due credit. Sound familiar? If history proves true, Gen X will be another forgotten generation, destined to live its life in relative shade of the preceeding and following generations.

2003-02-11T08:52:00.000-06:00

Old Europe

New occurrances in Old Europe. Yesterday Germany and France expressed opposition to American placement of defensive military equipment in Turkey. The two nations, along with Belgium, believe the equipment, including AWACS aircraft and Patriot missiles, would signify that diplomatic options have been exhausted and war is imminent. Separately, French President Jaques Chirac read a joint declaration on behalf of his nation as well as Russia and Germany, calling for continued weapons inspections in Iraq, in the hopes of delaying or completely avoiding war.

America's powers that be showed continued frustration on the foot-dragging. President Bush said that he "doesn't understand [the] decision. It affects the alliance in a negative way ... when you are not able to make a statement of mutual defense." More American people are evidently also somewhat confused, as a recent CNN/USA Today Gallup Poll showed that 63 percent of Americans favor an invasion in Iraq, up from 58 percent in last week's poll. While America's support of the invasion and confusion over the opposition isn't interesting, the response to European opposition is.

France is France. Their role in war is that of a six year-old who doesn't want to go to bed, that is, they fall slack and make the rest of the world carry them. Further, in this war, France appears less interested in the moral or pragmatic reasons for war and more interested in being correct. If we never invade, or if we do and are somehow unsuccessful they will be quick with an "I told you so". Ultimately, eventually, they are expected to fall in line without providing real support, and in doing so can reap the spoils of victory because of their indirect support. In short, France is spineless and hedging. History shows we shouldn't expect anything less.

The surprise from the American point of view is the resistance on the part of the Germans and the Russians. History in the United States has painted both countries as bloodthirsty, cruel and heartless. Repeatedly it comes up that it's surprising that the Germans, on the wrong side of two World Wars, conquerers of most of Europe back in the 40's, home of Nazis and Marxists, could ever be pacifists. Similarly for the Russians, who we opposed for fifty years during the cold war, who we met indirectly on the battlefields of Afghanistan, Vietnam and Korea, who seemed willing to plunge the world into nuclear war in 1962, to ever be against armed conflict is shocking.

We live in a new world, however. To ignore the possibility of change in Russia or Germany is short-sighted. Consider some of our own country's transgressions throughout history. We, a nation of equality and opportunity, used to buy and sell human beings as property. We killed legions of indigenous Americans so that we could found Denver and Des Moines. [having been to Des Moines, I'm not sure it was worth it. --ed.] Countries change. The United States did. So too have Germany and Russia.

That's not to say there aren't other, underlying motives (read: oil) behind their opposition. It's just to say that there is a quiet revolution occurring in Europe, it's been happening for about fifteen years, and it may be time for us to change our views accordingly.

2003-02-10T17:15:00.000-06:00

Doggonit, Do People Like Me?

The previous post was because of a personal development that occurred over the weekend. Well, it wasn't a personal development, more of a suggestion for personal improvement. My loving wife, who is in my own little "gang of ten" (the one that doesn't include Italy), suggested this weekend that I consider taking some of my thoughts that I put out here for free, and researching them, polishing them and submitting them for publishing. Specifically, she suggested that I submit last week's thoughts on Gen X to Newsweek's My Turn column.

At first I was aghast---the notion that I might actually have to flesh out my thoughts using something other than conjecture and 101-ism (to shamelessly steal another Coupland neologism) was abhorrent! I like being intentionally vague and flippantly justifying my thoughts with a petty, quick "it's how I feel, so it can't be wrong." But more importantly, the notion of actually being published seemed next to impossible because of what being published actually means.

Being published, either via an electronic or a dead-tree medium seems to be for people who are so evidently smarter than I am. (For examples, see here, here and here.) Now, I don't mean to purport that I am nearly as intelligent as the three gentlemen I referenced. I know that if I ever had the opportunity to meet any of the three of them in person, they would quickly displace some of the folks in my Top Ten. But upon further review, I realized that I'm not a dummy (dissenters, please hold your collective tongues on that statement). In fact, there are some people who are getting published who are actually less intelligent than I am.

So that leads me to my current state of thoughts. Note, I'm not trawling for compliments, or for insults. So please hold both. However, what I am interested in is a group of people that would be willing to read essays of mine and provide objective critique, both for strength of content, and grammatical correctness. Please e-mail me if you would be interested and think you're equal to the task. And maybe some day I can get linked by some other snot-nosed punk kid as an example of a smart someone regularly published.

Or maybe at least I'll make their blog as a cautionary tale. Either way, it's worth a crack, right?

2003-02-10T15:28:00.000-06:00

Random Thought For A Monday Afternoon

Who is the smartest person you know?

I'm not talking about Albert Einstein or Will Hunting. I'm talking about the person with whom you've shared air with, maybe shared a drink with. Someone that you know socially. I think about this occasionally. In fact, in my mind I keep a pantheon of the ten smartest people I know. I don't really rank them much. They're more of a ten-person group. But it's an interesting thing to keep in mind. The reason I mention it, of course, is because it will lead into my next post in pretty short order. Stay tuned.

BTW, if you're wondering if you made the list, you didn't. :)

2003-02-09T23:31:00.000-06:00

The Politics Of Correctness

I read once that one of the ideosyncracies of the human condition surrounds the need to predict the future, that without the ability to know what is going to happen next, human beings would largely go insane. That's the reason why the weather takes ten minutes of a thirty-five minute news broadcast. It's also the reason there are so many pundit blogs out there. People not only have a need to know what is going to happen next, but to predict it themselves, and bask in the accompanying feeling of being correct.

Sometimes politics ends up dishing up an unfortunate byproduct of correctness, however. A great example of that came on Meet The Press this weekend. Tim Russert's guests included General Norman Schwartzkopf and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright. Secretary Albright served under President Clinton, and was on the show largely to offer a cabinet level view on the crises involving Iraq and North Korea.

Repeatedly, Secretary Albright talked about the irrational exuberance the Bush administration was showing towards the impending war in Iraq. Repeatedly she said she believed Iraq was frightening and worth addressing, but that rooting out Al Qaeda and addressing the threat posed by North Korea with their nuclear weapons capability was more important. She mentioned that there is constant intelligence saying that the terrorist threat is greater than ever, North Korea is posturing towards a pre-emptive strike on American troops on the Korean peninsula and still the Bush administration talks about how the Iraqi situation is at the end of it's cycle while North Korea and the war on terrorism is just beginning.

Mr. Russert was quick to point out some comments made by President Clinton on February 17, 1998:

Now, let’s imagine the future. What if he fails to comply and we fail to act or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And someday, some way, I guarantee you, he will use the arsenal.

He then followed it up by comments from Secretary Albright two days afterward:

I can honestly tell you that I don’t think that the world has seen, except maybe since Hitler, someone who is quite as evil as Saddam Hussein. ...If you don’t stop a horrific dictator before he gets started too far— that he can do untold damage. ...If the world had been firmer with Hitler earlier, then chances are that we might not have needed to send Americans to Europe during the Second World War. So, my lesson out of all of this is deal with the problem at the time that you can and don’t step away from it thinking that it’ll go away

Amazingly, Secretary Albright continued with the threat Iraq poses, but North Korea and terrorism represent the more immediate problems and should be dealt with first. This, after comparing Hussein to Hitler. This, after intimating that eliminating Hussein five years ago could save future American casualties, as well as saving the lives of Iraqi civilians. Five years ago Mme. Albright was on board. So what happened?

Simply, she is a Democrat and a Republican President is in office.

Somehow our political process has begun a slow evolution from idealism to contrarianism. It's indicative of the relative collapse of the Democratic party that has been so widely publicized, especially in the wake of the midterm elections. Democrats seem to be less interested in preserving the historical foundation of their party, that is, perpetuating society through strong central government. Instead, they, like Madame Albright, seem more interested in being in opposition of the Republican party and specifically President Bush. It's why the war that so many Democrats supported in 1998 they no longer support.

Ultimately, what politics have started to boil down to is no longer two parties proposing legislation consistent with their philosophical groundings. Instead, you have a power in party (the party with their guy in the White House) proposing a series of ideas, proposals, budgets, etc, and an opposing party shouting it down through political spin and smearing of the President. It isn't just a Democratic phenomenon, as evidenced by the eight year probe into the Whitewater scandal during the Clinton administration that ultimately cost taxpayers millions of dollars only to turn up exactly nothing. It's the basis for the "vast right wing conspiracy" and the "liberal media bias". And most importantly, it's the reason why Americans don't trust politicians or care about what's going on in our nation's capital.

Ultimately the solution is the elimination of contrarian politics, and for both parties to go back to making policy based on believs. Until that happens politicians will continue to lose the public's trust and interest, and America will continue to merely tread water, instead of becoming the great we could, and deserve to be.

2003-02-07T09:09:00.000-06:00

Friday Five

Today's posting will probably be pretty light, both in terms of volume and content. Fridays just aren't good days for me to think with any sort of depth on a subject. [some may say depth of thought tends to be the exception rather than the rule for me, however --ed. ] Regardless, I am just a few hits on my site meter away from my next milestone. So tell your family, tell your friends, come one come all. Anyway, I'm pretty excited about today's Friday Five because it's about one of my favorite subjects: food!

1. What did you have for breakfast this morning? If you didn't have breakfast, why not? I had a Quaker Trail Mix granola bar. It was granola, almonds, dried cranberries, raisins, etc. Good stuff. Not great, just good.

2. What's your favorite cereal? Cheerios. With beer. Okay, not really. I'm not big into sugary cereals though. I really like oatmeal. Does that count?

3. How often do you eat out? Do you want that to change? We usually eat out most of the weekend. It is virtually a dead certainty that we will eat out on Friday night, and more often than not we eat one meal on Saturday and Sunday out, although sometimes that's a sandwich from Subway, if that counts. During the week, however, we usually plan our meals in advance and cook every night. The only exception is if we either both get home late from work, or happen to not have anything planned on a given night. So, usually we eat between two and four meals a week out. It would be nice to save the money, but it's also nice to have the convenience of having someone else prepare the food and do the dishes, so I'm really pretty good with it.

4. What do you plan on having for dinner tonight? Got a recipe for that? No real plans. We'll probably eat out, which usually involves Old Chicago, but that's less for the food and more for the beer. One recipe that I can mention, however, that I was thinking about making this weekend was for Ancho Bourbon marinated steak. It's a Bobby Flay recipe that goes with a nice gooseberry (although we use cranberries instead) relish. This was the recipe that won us the top Iron Meat prize at the most recent Red Meat Fest.

5. What's your favorite restaurant? Why? Locally, I'm a big Old Chicago fan, for the beer. For the food, I like Mondo's or Micky's. My favorite restaurant in the world? I really liked Citrico's, which was a Disney restaurant we ate at on our honeymoon. For dinner I also like Morton's, One-Twenty Ocean (a seafood restaurant in Wheaton) and Wildfire.

For drinks, I really enjoy Jake Melnick's Corner Tap in Chicago. It's a new place that Levy Restaurants put in place of Blackhawk Lodge, which had really great food in its own right. Specifically have garlic parmesan fries, which are simple but tremendous. They take a basket of french fries, dump grated parmesan and fresh minced garlic on them and serve them. Friday nights you can wash that down with a $2 pint of Jake's Brew (made by Goose Island). So you're talking really good, cheap beer, and garlic on fried food? That's a little slice of heaven for me.

There are also a bunch of restaurants I'd like to eat at someday. I'd like to hit the really famous ones: Charlie Trotter's in Chicago, Gramercy Tavern in New York, French Laundry in Napa, etc. Beyond that, I would really like to eat at Everest, Frontera Grill and Spiaggia in Chicago. I'm sure there are more, but that's what pops into my head.

2003-02-07T08:07:00.000-06:00

Weather Update

My good friend Patty dressed me down for my report on how cold it gets in the midwest. Of course, she's in Alaska where they're having a "heat wave" which evidently means that they have the opportunity to talk with surprise about temps ABOVE zero. They also haven't seen the sun there since the 70's. Okay, that's not true.

As for Iowa this morning, I announced the temperature to my lovely bride while she readied for work this morning. "Kate, this morning the temperature on the thermometer is seven." She shivered a little. I added the punchline. "Below." She just shook her head.

As an added bonus there's a nice ten MPH wind blowing through Cedar Rapids that is carrying with it whatever funk is protruding from the cereal mill. It's chilly here. But as Patty pointed out, it could always be worse.

2003-02-06T15:05:00.000-06:00

The Trivial Generation?

The borders that distinguish one generation from another are kind of squishy and amorphous. Estimates say that the first post-boom generation, or Generation X (named such as they are the thirteenth truly American generation) started somewhere between 1962 and 1965 and gave way to Generation Y (alternatively, the "Me" Generation) sometime between 1975 and 1978. Me? As a centennial baby, I lie in the gap between the estimates, along with my wife and all of our siblings. However, within most of our social groups, Katie and I are the babies, and most of our friends are solidly at the tail end of Generation X, so I figure we, by association, fit in there too.

It seems a bit unfair to try and provide blanket statements for people born over a thirteen year span. The front edge of the generation is as old as 41, the trailing edge as young as 24. What I feel relatively comfortable stating, though, are some observations of people from 24 to 30. Currently the United States is in the midst of the tightest job market since that group has entered the workforce. Still, there are a great number of young people that are voluntarily leaving their jobs in search of something better. Astounding. The cynic in me attributes this to two things: if people wait long enough they'll be rewarded, and the notion that work must be fun.

A number of people in this age group subscribe to the notion that patience is the largest factor in determining success. That is, if we can just ride out our current job situation, things will get better as we get older. People my age sit around and talk about what we want to do with our lives, an advanced version of "what I want to be when I grow up." We sit and make plans and dream grand dreams, thinking that as long as we can manage to be alive when that amorphous moment arrives that we are officially "old enough", everything will be delivered on a silver platter. Never mind that a full third of our lives have expired already. Nor that the generation before us worked long and hard to have great things come their way. As long as we can maintain their vitals, good things will happen.

Further, we believe that work must always be fun. If it's not, we won't have to do it. We have the good fortune that our mothers and fathers will bail us out, subsidize our living expenses or our travel or our fun. It's not expressly what allows us to go skiing, go to Europe or hang out on the couch, watching SportsCenter, playing PlayStation and drinking microbrews, but it's our safety net. Worst case, I mean absolute worst case we could always move back in with our parents for a while.

I use the term "we" because I subscribe to these as much as any. At least from time to time. It's because of these things, however, that we will be quickly skipped over as a generation, as the power gets handed over from the generation before to the generation beyond. As our grandparents were known as The Greatest Generation for fighting nazism, facism, communism and winning all the battles, we will be the opposite, the generation ignored. We will be a generation grown up enjoying modern conveniences without ever having fully mastered any of them, without a need for deep knowledge or intellectual pursuit, without knowing hard work or basking in the satisfaction thereof. In short, we will be the Trivial Generation to our grandparents' Greatest.

PS---none of this is based on scientific study. It's just my own observation.

2003-02-06T08:44:00.000-06:00

A Semantic Disconnect

I was listening to the rebroadcast of Secretary Powell's speech to the United Nations on C-Span last night. Yes, that makes me a geek, but you knew that. Besides, Iowa/Penn State and Duke/Carolina were both over by that point, and the local news is so boring. We could have watched SportsCenter, but we had already seen the games that we would have wanted to see summaries of, since they broke into Duke/Carolina with the end of the Texas Tech/Nebraska game. And they weren't going to show any of the Big Ten highlights anyway, which is kind of crappy. Except that when your conference leader is #25 in the country I don't know if you deserve much airtime.

*sips coffee*

Where was I? Oh yeah, Powell. C-Span. Geekiness. So we watched Powell. It occurred to me though, that much of the gap between the pro-war and anti-war crowds are based on the semantics of a couple words, specifically "disarm" and variations thereof, and "inspect" and variatons thereof. Those two words tend to be the difference, both domestically and internationally.

Inspection is not inspection of the weapons themselves, but inspection of the evidence that the weapons have been destroyed. President Bush's assertions that WMD exist in Iraq are not lies (as some have said) or conjecture. They're not based on tea leaves or visits to Miss Cleo. In 1998 and 1999 UN weapons inspectors found WMD in Iraq. They existed, we know this as an iron-clad (yet rarely publicized) fact.

As such, inspections are not a matter of finding those weapons, we know they were there. It's a matter of Iraq demonstrating that they are no longer there. Disarmament is not about Iraq getting rid of weapons they no longer have, it's about providing proof that the weapons they used to have they no longer do. That's "disarmament" and "inspection" as the Bush administration defines it. Let it be a sticking point no more.

2003-02-06T08:05:00.000-06:00

Malpractice Insurance Reform, Redux

This morning on WGN (that's right, I live in Iowa but I listen to Chicago radio) they had a physician from mid-Illinois. He is organizing a statewide physician slowdown scheduled for February 27, much like the ones that occurred in New Jersey, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Just like the other ones he is doing it because of the skyrocketing cost of malpractice insurance. To put it in perspective the host of the program asked him how much his malpractice insurance had gone up. You know, let's put a number on it.

He said that the malpractice insurance at the clinic he practices at in Danville, Illinois (which is about halfway down on the eastern edge of the state) had malpractice premiums of $20,000 in 2002. As of January 1 the premiums jumped. To $75,000. That's a 375% increase. And worst of all, they can't even pass those costs on to the consumer because medicare and medicaid as well as private third-party insurers pay a fixed amount. So the people who really feel it are the people that really can't afford to: the uninsured people who are self-funding their medical care.

2003-02-05T12:16:00.000-06:00

One Other Thought On The Resumption Of The Space Program

I was reminded yesterday evening of the words of President Kennedy from a speech at Rice University in 1962:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

We should return to the moon and establish a space station there. We should travel on to Mars. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard. And because through doing hard things successfully we grow as intellectuals, as people and as a society.

2003-02-05T10:25:00.000-06:00

Malpractice Reform And Why It Matters

Katie has been writing a lot of great stuff recently about malpractice reform (see here, here and here) and the need for it. She's certainly not the only one, and it's evident that the GOP has been listening. Yesterday a group of Republican Senators started a push to reform medical malpractice law, an issue that forced itself to the top of the agenda due to physician walkouts in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The federal legislation seeks to mirror a California law that caps pain and suffering awards for malpractice plaintiffs at $250,000. The idea is that by limiting the awards, the amount that malpractice insurance companies have to pay is limited and in turn the premiums that physicians pay into the companies is limited. To the uneducated the reason for walkouts and new legislation is hard to understand for two reasons: first, there is the notion that malpractice insurance premiums are rising for a reason: because doctors are doing more shoddy work. Second there is the notion that even if malpractice insurance premiums are rising it's okay because doctors can afford to pay them. After all, doctors are rich! They drive BMW's and summer in the Hamptons.

Malpractice payouts are rising for the same reason that any tort payouts are rising: because our judicial system has placed an emphasis away from personal responsibility, towards placing blame on others and towards astronomical payouts for those found to be at blame. Consider that it wasn't until twenty years ago that you had to worry about the possibility of losing your house if someone fell down your front steps. The reason is because once you get beyond the actual medical bills there is the amorphous "pain and suffering" awards.

Same thing in malpractice legislation. Look, if you're the victim of true, honest malpractice you'll be taken care of. You'll get all of the necessary medical bills paid for. You'll be reimbursed for lost income. You'll probably even get punitive damages to a degree. Pain and suffering is just the icing on the cake, a way for people whose doctors haven't truly performed egregious and horrible acts of negligence to make a few (or a few million) extra dollars. Capping that will allow the people that are actual victims of malpractice to be taken care of, and for the others to go away. It's what is best for the system.

As for the doctors being rich, that's actually the biggest reason for this legislation, because it's just not true anymore. Margins are squeezing. Patients are paying a smaller percentage of their copays and coinsures because they just don't have the money, and simultanously health insurance companies are reducing their payments because of a slowing economy. At the same time, overhead is rising in the form of increased insurance payments. The reason the physicians walked out was not because they couldn't afford the BMW payments. It's because they couldn't afford to be doctors anymore.

Something has to change. While I'd love to see the change occur at the state level, anything is better that the current system. Hopefully this bill, which has already passed the House, will get jumpstarted again in the Senate (it already stalled in committee once) and can get our healthcare system feeling better again.

2003-02-04T17:04:00.000-06:00

Cold

I grew up in Denver, Colorado. The Mile High City. I remember when my youngest brother Doug (the one that doesn't blog) was in the hospital when he was five years old. Renal failure. That means his kidneys stopped functioning almost completely. Absolutely terrifying. Imagine my brother Greg and I. We're six and seven, respectively, and we spend about two or three hours a week in the hospital waiting room at Children's Hospital because they won't let kids back on the ICU. The couple times we get to see Doug he's behind a double pane of glass in an oxygen tent, and everyone around him dressed in surgical gowns and masks. I was freaked out that Doug wouldn't come home. Thank God he did.

When Doug was in the hospital my maternal Grandmother came to stay with us. She was with us for about six weeks, by my recollection, and after about three or four she went through what most people do when they move to Denver: the headache. My understanding is that people that move to Denver from sea level (or there and abouts) tend to get a crushing headache after a few weeks. Whether it's a function of the dryness, the altitude, the proximity to the mountains, the feng shui of the area, or whatever, no one really knows. I definitely wouldn't since it tends to happen more to adults than to kids, as most things do. Regardless, it happens.

You know what else happens because of the weird factors that exist in Denver? There is sun 300 days a year. Six inches of snow fall on a Thursday morning and they just make things a little "squishy" for weekend tee times. Highs in January are about 45, in August about 90. Humidity is oppressive when it reaches 40 percent. In short, the weather is gorgeous all the time.

The reason I mention that is because I live in North Liberty, Iowa now. Right in the heart of the heartland, the center of the northern plains. Everyone I met when I started college thought I would know what cold really meant. I thought so too. After all, I was from Denver, right by the mountains, in altitude, where it snows all the time and gets really, really cold. Except, as previously mentioned, it doesn't.

A sign of this: this morning I was on my way to work and heard the weather report. It was seven. That's degrees Fahrenheit. A single digit. Seven. Then there's the windchill. Knock off another TWENTY-ONE degrees so that when the wind gusts it feels like fourteen below zero. It's COLD here in ways that they don't know in other parts of the country. Of course, the upside is that while we're bundled up in the house we can take solace in the fact that we're not missing anything. Silver linings, baby. I'm all about silver linings.

2003-02-04T15:13:00.000-06:00

It's The Picture ID That Will Be The Hard Part

Southwest Airlines is considering resuming a joint promotion with Sea World where Southwest flies penguins to destinations that have direct flights to San Antonio, San Diego or Orlando, where the three Sea World parks are located. The problem? Security. A spokesman for the TSA was quoted as saying "[t]he trick is being able to do this and not compromise security."

These are freaking birds! This, from the same group that is worried about toenail clippers on airplanes.

2003-02-04T09:08:00.000-06:00

More Thoughts on STS-107

I've disengaged the "haiku lock" on my computer. The downside is that it means that I'm forced to take another crack at producing meaningful prose. We'll see if it works better this time.

America continues attempts to scandalize the Columbia tragedy, as it's wont to do. At some point the media and the American people both started digging for a conspiratorial angle to every major national event. We've all heard the story (and seen the movie) of the supposed conspiracy about the JFK assassination and whether it was the Secret Service, the CIA or the Republican party that actually killed Kennedy and just sacrificed Oswald to cast suspicion elsewhere. There is a certain faction of Americans that really believe the theory that the government no longer has the best interest of anyone in mind, and that it's really a group of bald men sitting at a long black table stroking white cats.

The fervor by which the mainstream media has pursued this conspiracy angle has gotten worse as of late. We all scoffed at the French book published that claimed that the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center were remote guided by the government, and that it was a missile, not an airplane, that crashed into the Pentagon. But the story was hot when it came to the possibility of an FBI agent warning the White House about certain risks to American security that eventually led to September 11. It's a reasonably widely held belief that September 11 was caused as much by a negligent approach on the part of the White House to terrorist groups, as by a group of fanatic anti-American Islamic Arab fundamentalists.

Now it's being applied to the Columbia disaster. MSNBC ran a story this morning with the headline "Safety an issue since the 1990's". Yahoo has a report on how "NASA removed advisers who warned on safety." Ultimately, NASA had a choice to either pursue private funding or cut back on expenses, including launching shuttles less frequently. They opted to cut back on launches, but not on safety. There was a group that felt that more money needed to be poured into safety, but there's a group that thinks more money should be poured into steel and farm subsidies. Regardless, the whole thing wasn't as scandalous as the headlines sound, but it sure makes for good press.

When we elected to pursue the stars, there was a certain risk we bore with that. We knew it and pushed on anyway. By strapping seven brave men and women to 1.1 million pounds of explosives and shooting them off into space, there is risk inherent. By bringing them back through the atmosphere and bear temperatures upwards of 3000 degrees, there is risk inherent. When those astronauts left earth there it must have run through their minds that they may never come back. Surely their families thought the same. Through the best efforts of NASA we tried to bring them back, but sometimes the risk involved turns into tragedy. There is little you can do but accept it.

As for the scandalizers of this event, it's easy to find people that said beforehand that we should have known, that we should have spent more money. We could always spend more money, but money won't necessarily prevent something like this. The best that NASA can do is use previous experience to guide future exploration. Sometimes that won't be enough. NASA will use this experience to expand what they know about space launch and vehicle return and make the process safer for future missions, ensuring that the Columbia, while tragic, was not in vain. There's a difference. America must recognize the difference.

One other thing I wanted to counter: I read this post yesterday, posted on February 1. The upshot is that throughout the coverage and even in President Bush's address there was a widespread failure to mention that Dr. Kalpana Chawla was a native of India. The post essentially said that India was waiting for Dr. Chawla's return as much as Israel was waiting for Col. Ramon's return, but while we were quick to mention that Col. Ramon was Israeli, no mention was made of Dr. Chawla's heritage.

Dr. Chawla was born in India. But she was AMERICAN. Americans have this amazing need to be distinctive from the general populace, a notion which is most easily borne out in one's race or cultural heritage. People aren't Americans, they're African-Americans or Indian-Americans or Caucasian-Americans and they want to be recognized as such. The need to recognize the fact that Dr. Chawla, an American, was born in India is as important as mentioning that Laurel Clark was from Ames, Iowa. Surely there were people in Ames that mourned the loss of Ms. Clark, just as there were people in India that mourned Dr. Chawla's passing. But they were both American and as such, one's heritage is no more important than another's.

2003-02-03T10:56:00.000-06:00

Weekend Sports In Haiku

Writing in haiku
May be most geeky thing done
But enjoyable.

Please comment on any
Geekier undertakings.
Comment in haiku.

This weekend in sports
Was exceptional for most.
All-star games abound.

Didn't watch hockey
All-stars take to the ice rink
Miami played host?

Sixty-five minutes
No winner, went to free shots
Baseball could learn here?

Football all-stars played
Junior circuit whupped up big time.
Lost the big game, though.

Zona, Pitt, Kansas
All lose games during the week
Beware of being first.

Florida next up
To carry number one rank
Football school no more?

Must get back to work
Stop acting like a moron
Please chastise at will.

UPDATE: one problem
These aren't exactly haiku
They have no titles.

UPDATE TWO: still not.
Haiku should technically be
All about nature.

2003-02-03T09:01:00.000-06:00

Some Thoughts On STS-107

Irony sure played a part in the events on Saturday morning. Seventeen years to the week after the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in the Florida skies, the Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart in a clear, blue Texas morning sky. Another seven astronauts were killed, including the first Israeli astronaut to travel into the great beyond aboard an American vehicle. Another shuttle was destroyed, leaving the administration with three vehicles, just as there were three remaining in 1986. Further, we are left asking many of the same questions: should manned space travel continue? Can it be done safely? How important is space travel for the advancement of science?

For me, Katie and I were getting ready to run errands on Saturday morning. We had gotten dressed and Katie backed the car out of the garage while I put on my coat and gathered up what I was going to need (a wallet, a watch, etc.). I heard the rumble of the car through the walls of the house, then I heard it no more. I hoped it wasn't that Katie was frustrated with me taking too long to get out the door. I was half-expecting her to come in the door, exasperated at my tardiness. In fact, it was much, much worse. She said that something happened, that on NPR they said they have lowered the flag to half-staff and removed the Columbia mission flag out at Cape Canaveral. The extent of my knowledge of the procedural and symbolic inner workings of NASA is pretty much exactly nil, but even I knew what that meant.

We turned on the television and watched for 45 minutes or so. However, in the interest of avoiding 9/11 syndrome, when we watched television pretty much for 48 consecutive hours, we got up and left and ran our errands. We were in Wal-Mart when they broadcast President Bush's memorial address on the closed circuit television system. Good speech. Meaningful. The biblical reference was appropriate. My understanding is that after the address he retired to the residence for a few hours to be by himself. I appreciate that President Bush understands the gravity of his job, that is, those things that are emotional and difficult for a president to deal with are obviously emotional and difficult for President Bush to deal with.

We got back from running errands at about 1:45, the NASA press briefing was supposed to start at 2:00. We decided we would watch the briefing then shut it off again. The briefing actually didn't get started until about 2:45, we watched about 45 minutes and turned it off, filled with more questions than we had beforehand.

I wonder how many cycles a space shuttle is really capable of? I mean, I have read that aircraft can only do so many "normal" cycles (that is, without incident) before the steel or carbon fiber naturally develops hairline cracks. A lot of that is what caused the crash in Rockaway, Queens in November of 1999. And that occurs without having to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. Surely there is such a number for the shuttle after which they have to retire it and build anew.

Why do all of the pundits and talking heads think they know more than NASA engineers? I admit that all of the occurrances on the left wing are suspect, but a number of news shows are reporting that as what happened. Iron clad fact. Further, because the news briefing revealed they had similar problems in STS-113, just a few missions previous, a number of them are pointing to negligence on the part of NASA. Sally Ride was on ABC This Week yesterday morning, said that when she was a part of the Challenger investigation all of their initial assumptions were proven wrong. She expects that to be the case in this investigation as well. But somehow Brian Williams reports something as fact that Sally Ride, who has dedicated her life to science, is not willing to.

Why is this so tragic? Not to sound callous, but earlier this month a commuter plane crashed in Charlotte, killing almost three times as many people, and it was first on some daily news cycles, third or fourth the next day and slipped off the radar completely after a couple more days. When the space shuttle breaks up over Texas it's a national tragedy. I don't discount the loss of life, but the novelty of seven men and women dying in the volunteer and peaceful pursuit of knowledge seems to be the delineation between below-the-fold story and national tragedy.

How long will it be before conspiracy theorists think this is to draw attention away from the war in Iraq? How long until they think that there was an Israeli national on board to rally support for Israel's cause against Palestine? Probably already happened. That's disappointing. But it's just the dark side of the greatness of the First Amendment.

As for how I feel, the destruction and death are horrible. I mourn and pray for the families of the victims. But I hope that the missions continue because the advancement of science and knowledge is what sets us apart as a species and as an American society.

2003-01-31T17:06:00.000-06:00

Random Thoughts For The Weekend

It is Friday afternoon on the last day of the month. I work at a finance company, which means that today usually takes on one of two tones. First, it's really hectic as we scramble to pound through volume and bring in last-minute payments to make our volume and delinquency goals. Second, we have become certain that we will make or have already made our goals (or have resigned to the fact that we won't) and we sit back and relax. Break out the beer. So as I sit here with a can of St. Louis Swill Light (I drink it in the absence of anything better) I have a bunch of random thoughts in my head. Here they are for your weekend enjoyment:

---From my brother: what would happen if Christie Brinkley married Doug Christie? Would she be Christie Christie? In reality, he'd probably be Doug Brinkley. But still.....

---George W. Bush ignoring the UN because Kofi Annan is black is like me not wanting to shovel snow because no two flakes look the same.

---I am SO looking forward to having a really great beer tonight. We have some Leinie's Creamy Dark in the fridge, which is okay. But I'm talking really great. Like "Anchor Steam" great.

---I really want to have something to rant about. Something I'm really pissed about. But it's Friday, I'm having a beer and I'm leaving for the weekend in eight minutes. How can I really be pissed?

---Here's one that I've been meaning to get at this week: I don't swear in my blog. Not even when I'm really angry about something. The reason is because I believe that in prose, swear words detract more from the power of a statement than they can possibly add. Consider these two statements, the first of which was considered by historian Stephen Ambrose as the greatest sentence in history, the second of which I created to sound like a lot of silly ranting blogs I read:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...

All this shit makes sense: all motherfuckers are equal, all the fucking assholes that try and take their Rights from them just can't, that those Rights include Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...

---And one last Haiku for the weekend:

Hail! To old Purdue
Where ugly people go to learn
And lose to Hawkeyes.

2003-01-31T13:05:00.000-06:00

Next Up, The Pope Webcam!

Via cellphone, Italians can click on a daily thought by His Holy Father Pope John Paul II. The thoughts are taken from various sermons and speeches and are boiled down to bite-sized messages. The story isn't exceptionally interesting, but it makes for an amusing headline.

2003-01-31T08:56:00.000-06:00

Friday Five

1. As a child, who was your favorite superhero/heroine? Why? I really liked Iceman. I always thought it was pretty cool that he could go anywhere without really walking. And he was smooth. I also liked Captain Caveman because he had anything he needed in his fur. I do feel compelled to also mention that Inspector Gadget annoyed the hell out of me.

2. What was one thing you always wanted as a child but never got? World Peace. And Cheryl Tiegs.

3. What's the furthest from home you've been? Juarez? New York? Miami? I've never been out of the country save for the HMB trips across the border from El Paso to Juarez, Mexico, but I'm not sure whether that's further from here or whether Miami is.

4. What's one thing you've always wanted to learn but haven't yet? How to admit I'm wrong.

5. What are your plans for the weekend? Tomorrow night is my company Christmas party, which we're attending in lieu of watching the Iowa/Purdue tilt. Hopefully that'll bring the Hawks luck. Sunday will probably be our usual, we'll go to mass, run some errands and watch Alias. Tonight is up in the air, we don't have any concrete plans. A lot of it will depend on the weather, probably.

Anyone want to do anything tonight?

2003-01-30T15:40:00.000-06:00

Now For A Word From Our Sponsors

Pardon me for this commercial plug, but I feel compelled. Unfortunately I am not being paid for this spot, but oh well.

Katie and I joined the Old Chicago World Beer Tour. Has anyone else done this? For those that like beer, and I don't mean that thin watered-down crap they make in St. Louis or Milwaukee, this is the place. It has a number of the standards as well as some really great lesser-found beers on tap: Guinness, Leinenkugels Honey Weiss, Anchor Steam, Newcastle, Goose Island Honkers Ale, and the like. It is also one of the only places in the midwest that I've found that serves Breckenridge Avalanche Ale on tap.

As if that weren't enough, they also serve beers from Poland, Japan, China and Brazil as well as standard havens for beer Germany, England and Ireland. If there is an Old Chicago nearby, I highly recommend joining the tour. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming already in progress.

2003-01-30T12:57:00.000-06:00

Good News For People That Actually Save Money

President Bush was full of surprises in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. Yesterday he slipped one more in to the investing community. The Bush adminstration is proposing changes to regulations on traditional and Roth IRA accounts. Traditional IRA account contributions are tax-deductable (which makes them pre-tax dollars) but withdrawls are subject to income tax. Roth IRAs are investment accounts that investors can place post-tax dollars in with the knowledge that they can withdraw their contributions tax-free. Previously, no one could contribute any more than $3,000 annually to a Roth IRA. This policy change would raise the cap to $7,500.

Perhaps more importantly, the policy change would eliminate income limits to these accounts, permitting upper-income wage earners to contribute to these types of accounts. Previously with Roth accounts, any individual making over $110,000 or a couple making over $160,000 was ineligible. That won't be a big deal to me for quite some time, but it could matter to some. More importantly, traditional accounts had a limit of $50,000 for individuals and $70,000 for couples. An educated guess tells me that most of the couples that I know will exceed that number in the next five years, meaning that by the time we're thirtysomethings and actually start considering retirement we would previously have been ineligible for a traditionally self-funded retirement account.

Another interesting twist I heard on Marketplace on PRI last night was that the Bush Administration is considering Roth 401(k) accounts, that is you can put in pre-tax money, your company can match that pre-tax money up to 8% or $11,000, and you won't pay taxes on withdrawls as long as you withdraw after age 62. Interesting stuff. Or maybe it's just interesting to me. Did I mention I'm a geek?

2003-01-30T10:41:00.000-06:00

Idiotarians In Economics

I have heard a lot about the term "Idiotarian" while cruising the blogosphere but never fully understood it's meaning. Until now. This article gives interesting insight on the idiotarian perspective in general, and the idiotarian approach to economics in particular.

Link via Asymmetrical Information.

2003-01-30T09:04:00.000-06:00

Metra Wants To Draw Federal Money for Western Loop

Metra is proposing a $1.1 billion commuter rail line in the Chicago suburbs that would start in Joliet and run through the Western Suburbs up to Hoffman Estates, then head west through Schaumburg (stopping at Woodfield, for one) and then on to O'Hare. The line would run high speed trains capable of speeds up to 79 miles-per-hour, and would run as many as four trains an hour. The Western section of the line would run through the median of the Northwest Tollway (I-90) to O'Hare, cutting drive time from Schaumburg to the airport to 20 minutes, down from 45 or more by car.

The problem is the cost. Metra is unwilling to foot the cost themselves, and are looking for federal, rather than state funding for the project. The project is competing for funds with other projects including CTA's proposed Circle Line that would link CTA and Metra trains at a cost of around $1 billion.

For anyone who has tried to drive from the western suburbs to the northwest suburbs (read: my sister-in-law, Megan), you know what this loop could mean. The drive from Naperville to Woodfield takes as much as 45 minutes to an hour or more by car. The train would cut the trip down to 25 minutes. However, you also know that the only people this is really benefitting are Chicago suburbanites.

This project goes through nearly 100 communities in three counties, according to Metra's press release. According to the Trib, the project is scheduled to take 10 to 12 years to complete. Surely those communities, the state of Illinois and Metra itself can fund this project without employing the help of the federal government. Let's just hope that if (and hopefully when) the federal government says no, they're prepared to do so.

2003-01-29T12:39:00.000-06:00

Big Ten Basketball Review

Since we last joined our brave conference, Iowa has lost its last two games at Wisconsin and at home against Ohio State, after leading both games at halftime. Additionally, the Hawkeyes' faithful starting center, Jared Reiner, sprained his MCL in the last minute of last Saturday's game against the Buckeyes, putting him on the shelf for at least three weeks, during which they play host to Purdue and Penn State and travel to Michigan, Minnesota and Penn State. Last week Iowa made Joe Lunardi's Bracketology prediction. This week, no such luck. According to Lunardi, if the season ended today the Big Ten would be represented by Wisconsin, Purdue, Indiana and Illinois.

Speaking of the University of Illinois, a number of newspapers this week bowed to pressure to drop the word "Fighting" from "Fighting Illini" whenever covering the team from Chambana. One such paper includes the Minnesota Star-Tribune, hometown paper for conference compatriot Minnesota. In basketball related news, Illinois looks to have gotten back on track after it's brief two-game losing streak against Iowa and Indiana, beating Purdue and Penn State consecutively last week. However, they will be severely tested tonight as they play host to conference-leading UFM, who remains the only unbeaten team in Big Ten play, and in possession of a thirteen-game winning streak.

One other note, last night's Super Tuesday game between Michigan State and Indiana was a barnburner. There were seven lead changes and six ties in the first half. The game looked like it was pretty close to over when the Spartans' 6'11" center Adam Ballanger drained a three with 1:12 to play, but the game wasn't permanently in hand until Alan Anderson knocked down two free throws in the final seconds to put it away. Anderson's free throws helped my wife sleep last night, as her hobby horse in college basketball is free throw shooting. Her actual quote: "anyone on a basketball scholarship at a D-I school should be able to make AT LEAST two out of three free throws. Anything else is inexcusable." Fortunately we didn't have to worry about that, as Indiana shot 80% from the stripe and was bettered by MSU's 84.6%.

2003-01-29T10:42:00.000-06:00

Post State Review

All-in-all last night's speech was good, but not great. Watching Bush deliver a speech has always been a little odd to me. His delivery lacks real sizzle, which is probably further evident since his president backs up to the Clinton years. Clinton was an especially engaging speaker, his State of the Union addresses tended to me more entertaining than Bush's, which seem to be primarily educational.

As for summaries, there are plenty of good ones to read. I like CNN's summary, if only because they publish a complete transcript of the speech as well as transcripts of the Democratic response and the break down the transcript into pieces according to the issue the President focused on. As for my own summary, I don't know that there is much that I can contribute that others haven't already said. But there were a few things that caught my interest:

First, the Democratic response was given by the Governor of the state of Washington. I guess that the Democratic party didn't want to have to choose a potential Presidential candidate, lest they handicap a favorite so early in the race. But Tom Daschle already said he wasn't going to run. Why not him? Or Nancy Pelosi? That would have at least been...more interesting?

Also, something came up last night that has always bothered me about Bush's economic policy. He talked extensively about tax cuts. I'm all for them. Any time that I get the opportunity to avoid throwing money out the window, I take it. And while the tax cuts don't benefit Katie and I as extensively as they may benefit some, we will still see some pretty substantial relief from last night's proposal. It also appears we'll see it pretty soon, as it looks like the President wants to accelerate both his most recently proposed tax cuts, and the tax cuts that passed in 2001. That's not what bothers me.

What bothers me is the fact that we're accelerating spending while cutting back taxes. Let me take some parts from the Bush speech:

Jobs are created when the economy grows; the economy grows when Americans have more money to spend and invest; and the best and fairest way to make sure Americans have that money is not to tax it away in the first place...[l]ower taxes and greater investment will help this economy expand. More jobs mean more taxpayers and higher revenues to our government.

I understand that. He believes that by running a deficit for a short time, America will create jobs and ultimately put enough people out there paying money back into the government to balance the budget. Fine. But why extend welfare and unemployment benefits? If we're creating jobs AND increasing unemployment it seems like we're hedging our bets. Let's not do that. Let's cut taxes and cut back on unemployment and welfare over time at the same rate at which we're expecting jobs to be created.

Other things from the speech:

I will send you a budget that increases discretionary spending by 4 percent next year...My budget will commit an additional $400 billion over the next decade to reform and strengthen Medicare...[t]onight I'm proposing $1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles...I propose a $450 million initiative to bring mentors to more than a million disadvantaged junior high students and children of prisoners...I propose a new $600 million program to help an additional 300,000 Americans receive [drug rehab] treatment over the next three years...I ask the Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years, including nearly $10 billion in new money, to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean.

All of those are fine, but ultimately in a time of relative economic stagnation it would be nice to see us spend LESS money, not more. As for the justification that spending is only growing by 4%, well that's still about three times greater than inflation and four times greater than the economy is currently growing. Ultimately it would have been nice to have seen no new money spent, or if it had to be, that he had similar ideas on programs whose time has passed and would be cut out of the budget.

Like I said, the speech was good, but not great.

2003-01-28T14:26:00.000-06:00

Looking For A Long, Lost Friend

If you're viewing this page from bp.com and your first name is Patricia, e-mail me. I haven't heard from you in about eighteen months, and I'd love to catch up.

2003-01-28T12:09:00.000-06:00

Weather Update

The positive: it's snowing here. Big, thick flakes, a nice beautiful snow. It's the first such snow we've seen here in almost two years.

The negative: for some reason the air conditioning is on in my office. My fingers are going numb.

2003-01-28T09:00:00.000-06:00

Healthcare Not Feeling So Well

Katie wrote some great things on the downfall of the current state of healthcare. As the billing coordinator for a large pediatric practice, she should know. It's an interesting read on how the legal profession is causing the way medicine is practiced to be changed completely, and all of that is being handed over to the end user, the general consumer.

I have two thoughts on this:

First, Americans need to make a greater effort towards personal responsibility. I know, "duh". But in the case of healthcare, there needs to be a greater emphasis on preventative medicine and Americans need to commit to that. If Americans were getting their annual check-ups, getting their mammograms and their gynecological exams, even getting their teeth cleaned, rather than only waiting until something hurts or there is a strange rattle in their chest. Perhaps if insurance companies provided 100% coverage for the insured and reduced provider write-offs on preventative care, and lessened their coverage and increased their write-offs on non-preventative care and explained what that meant to the insured and the provider, that would help get part of the way to achieving that goal.

Fruther, Americans need to make an effort to take better care of themselves. Putting down the Twinkie and picking up an apple, actually going to the gym occasionally, quitting smoking, all of those would help the healthcare system at large, and help the health of individual Americans. Once a real emergency has happened, there's only so much the healthcare system can do. Neglecting your health is not the fault of a doctor or a hospital. Sometimes a doctor neglects to run a test on you that would have prevented your heartattack, but eating the occasional vegetable and laying off the Super Sized French Fries would have gone a long way to prevention too.

Second, the individual states need to make an effort to legislate some of this problem away. I don't believe the problem is a federal one. Rather, the individual states should to pass legislation to designate exactly what should constitute malpractice. Sometimes mistakes happen. If those mistakes happen as a result of a reasonable professional opinion, however, that's not malpractice. It's only when an obvious and unreasonable error in professional judgement occurs that a malpractice case should be brought. And even then, the states should legislate a cap on pain and suffering awards.

The state of medical care is suffering. But it doesn't have to continue that way.

2003-01-27T16:37:00.000-06:00

Who Are You Cosmically Linked To?

I love Google. One of my co-workers knew she shared a birthday with OJ Simpson. So I went out on the web to look for sites that had famous birthdays listed. Turns out that I am cosmically linked to such luminaries as Priscilla Presley, Patti LaBelle, Bob Dylan and Tommy Chong (May 24). Anyone interested in knowing who shares their birthday, check it out here. And if you're so inclined drop the interesting ones into the comments section.

2003-01-27T14:08:00.000-06:00

More From The Warblogger

Something of a debate brewed out of my post last Friday on the war in Iraq. After writing the post and rereading it and my comments that accompanied, I figured it's important to write about them. I'm not for war, per se. I would love to see inspections work. I would love to see Iraq finally agree to account for the discrepancies in its weapons declaration, take responsibility for lying on the declaration, and then actually destroy its weapons. I would love to see Iraq release its POWs and start treating its citizens humanely. I would love to see them cease their support of terror organizations.

People think that sort of reversal is impossible, except that it's happened before. It's how South Africa joined the world community. Granted, human rights aren't what they should be in South Africa, but they're far better than what existed previously and what exists in every other African nation.

Unfortunately, in the absence of that sort of reversal, I think war is imminent. Here is my argument: more than any other country in the world, Iraq is a combination of human rights abuses, torture, rape, murder, support of terror organizations, possession of weapons of mass destruction and ignorance of UN resolutions and sanctions and international law. That isn't debatable. It's fact. There are countries that are worse in one regard. Some are worse in two. But no country has shown numerous and horrible examples of ALL of them in the way Iraq has.

What the war boils down to is whether or not that is sufficient for the United States to invade Iraq, should the time come. I believe it is. Others believe it's not. That seems to be the debate at hand, rather than whether or not Iraq is worse than all the other countries in the world.

2003-01-27T10:28:00.000-06:00

A Couple More Sunday Night TV Questions

Jimmy Kimmel Live premiered last night. It started at like 11:30 CST. I watched him introduce his actual guests, and was asleep before Coldplay came on. I was pretty tired while I was watching, but it seemed to me like it was just four guys hanging out. The group was kind of eclectic (Jimmy, George Clooney, Warren Sapp and sidekick-du-jour Snoop Dogg) but was mildly entertaining. All-in-all the show seemed largely unpolished, but it was the first show. Hopefully it'll improve, because I really like Jimmy Kimmel. But it'll need to improve, lest it end up as one more late night afterthought, a la Chevy Chase or Magic Johnson.

Second, I have never watched The Practice, but the ad they ran last night spoofing the controversial Miller Lite ad makes me consider taping it on Monday nights just to see what it's all about. For those that are unaware, the Miller Lite ad features two voluptous young ladies getting into a fist fight over whether the beer in question is "less filling" or "tastes great". They're ripping each other's clothes off and wrestling in the water, before eventually taking their brawl to the mud. We cut from the ladies to two men in a bar espousing what a great ad idea that would be, and their two lady friends shooting daggers from their eyes.

The spoof features two guys sitting pretty much at the same table. They talk about whether The Practice is moving to a better time or a better day, and the same fight ensues with the two strapping men ripping each other's shirts off. We cut from the water to the offices of the law firm where The Practice is shot, and the entire female cast watching the commercial. One cast member says "I love when men fight over me" and a short discussion of who they're fighting over occurs. Then one cast member says "men fight because they're all pigs," a statement all the women can truly get behind. They raise their glasses. The announcer talks about The Practice on a new date and time. I love that commercial.

UPDATE: Page2's Eric Neel discusses the social statement made by ads like the Miller Lite one.

UPDATE 2: I forgot to mention this: there is comedy, there is high comedy, then there is Yao Ming. The two spots with him yesterday (one for the Visa Check card, one for the new Macintosh laptop computers) were outstanding. And the really great part: China's GDP jumped 25% when Yao got his paychecks for those spots. Okay, I made that up too.

2003-01-27T08:40:00.000-06:00

One Super Bowl Question

I watched it. The game was okay, nothing to really rave about. Some of the commercials were kind of cute, although the one with the jerky and the Ram Truck providing the heimlich pretty much ensured that I will never buy a Dodge Truck. But ultimately the whole thing only inspired one question:

If you're a Raiders fan and you're in mourning, what color do you wear?

2003-01-27T08:08:00.000-06:00

One Monday Morning Administrative Note

Ladies and Gentlemen, please help me welcome Wendy Dawn DeCora to the blogosphere. A few notes about Wendy, as I know them: she is 24 years old, from Bussey, Iowa (which is a small town in south central Iowa). She works as a webmistress for ACT (the organization that administers the tests for high school seniors) and is HUGE into the Dallas Cowboys and Chicago Bulls, the Iowa Hawkeyes and Harry Connick, Jr. In fact, I believe that Wendy recently had the greatest honor possible for a Harry fan bestowed upon her: she was served with a restraining order. Okay, I made that last part up.

Wendy and I met in college, as members of the Iowa Hawkeye Marching Band. We both marched tenor saxophone and were on Undergraduate Staff at the same time. Wendy eventually took my spot as Tenor Saxophone Section Leader once such a spot existed (read: under the new director Mr. Kevin Kastens). Anyway, go check out her stuff. If you didn't understand that the above was a link to her site, there is another one here. And on my blogroll too. Welcome, Wendy! Your company's productivity just plummeted!

2003-01-24T14:43:00.000-06:00

More On Iraq

France, Germany and Russia have all indicated that they will oppose sanctioning any military activity against Iraq on the part of the United States, Great Britain and others. Russian Premier Putin and German Chancellor Schroeder today stressed that they believe that a diplomatic solution is possible. This call comes on the heels of yesterday's announcement that France and Germany stand together against American military action. This has prompted some outrage on the part of the United States, including Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld dismissing them as "Old Europe" and numerous fellow bloggers calling them the "Axis of Weasel".

What hasn't occurred in a while is a discussion of why we're so angry at "old Europe" for not supporting us. At the end of the Gulf War in 1991 part of the treaty that ended the conflict included the "Food for Oil" program (check out the old-school CNN graphics). What that detailed is that Iraq would sell oil to foreign companies and countries, and in exchange the money they reaped from the program they would use to ensure their people had food. The United States largely declined to participate, but three of the larger participants in the program were, you guessed it, France, Germany and Russia.

On September 12 of last year President Bush spoke before the United Nations, at which point he detailed exactly what became of that "Food for Oil" program. Old Europe got their oil. Iraq got their money. But no Iraqi citizen got food. Because Iraq, in turn, used the money to perpetuate a program of chemical and biological weapons, including the empty chemical warheads that were found in Iraq earlier this month. In the past Iraq has withheld oil deliveries because of such things as war between Israel and Palestine. They certainly would not think to withdraw their oil supplies completely if any of the Old European countries supported a war against them.

So when Americans cry out against war, saying that Europe doesn't support this war because we're only fighting it for oil, realize this: the reason that Europe doesn't support us is for the same oil we're supposedly fighting for.

2003-01-24T09:44:00.000-06:00

Quick Question

Can someone explain to me the point of drinking decaf coffee in the morning? There are two pots of coffee in my office, one is regular, one is decaf. And there are some people that skip the regular completely and go straight to the decaf. Please, someone, help me understand.

2003-01-24T09:21:00.000-06:00

Friday Five

This week has flown by. I can't believe it's already Friday. So be it. From Friday Five:

1. What is one thing you don't like about your body? My stomach. I have a little bit of a belly. I'm working on it though.

2. What are two things you love about your body? My shoulders and my hair.

3. What are three things you want to change about your home? I want a bigger kitchen, more storage and another bedroom. (also why we're thinking about moving)

4. What are four books you want to read this year? I got twelve books for Christmas. I have read one, I'm halfway through another, so I'll list four of the remaining ten: Personal History by Katharine Graham, The CEO Of The Sofa by PJ O'Rourke, Portrait In Sepia by Isabel Allende, All Families Are Psychotic by Douglas Coupland.

5. What are five promises you have kept to yourself? I don't really make promises to myself, so I don't think I can really answer this question.

2003-01-24T08:47:00.000-06:00

In My Name

This week the quasi-communist group ANSWER staged a rally in Washington. For those of you that haven't been trolling the blogosphere this week, a number of bloggers were pretty honked off about the hypocrisy of the whole thing. You can read about that here, here and here. There is more, these are just the really good ones. Anyway, a number of people showed up at last week's ANSWER rally waving banners stating that the war in Iraq would not be waged in their names. Well, it will be waged in my name. The real debate in my house is whether or not I will leave my job and enlist in the military if the time comes. Katie is kind of against that. *shrug*

A number of anti-war sentiments seem a little flimsy, or even flat out weak. Some say we shouldn't go to war because we haven't established a tie between Iraq and Al Qaeda or the September 11 attacks. Some say we haven't found a nuke, therefore we shouldn't attack. Still others say that we shouldn't go to war just to pad the pockets of some fat cats at the top of major oil companies. To those people all I can offer is: pick up a freakin newspaper already!

I understand that some people are against the war for principled reasons. One of the reasons that I have heard is that there must be a clear and present danger to enough American lives to offset the ones that we would undoubtedly lose in a war against Iraq. Also, a single, overreaching reason to go to war is necessary in order to galvanize support both at home and in the international community, again, to minimize the loss of American lives. Further, they say that this war would perpetuate anti-Americanism around the world because of our need to play "big brother" and intervene in situations that don't directly affect us. I can respect these arguments. Anyone looking to stave off American losses has a reasonable argument. I just don't agree with it.

The problem with the American people is that their thoughts are generally pretty myopic. That's why the premises of television shows are so simple. That's why the Gruden v. The Raiders storyline is being hyped like it has been. That's politics are generally publicized as the Republicans being for the rich and Democrats being for the poor and minorities. The general American populace doesn't really have much room in their collective heads for more than a single storyline. And that's why the Bush administration is having such a hard time gathering support for this war.

You see, this war isn't the kind of war that will have people tying yellow ribbons on trees. It's not the kind of war that boils down to a single slogan. It's complex. We're going to war because Iraq has been ignoring UN Resolutions for twelve years. We're going to war because Iraq has committed myriad human rights atrocities against its own people and against foreign POWs (including an American soldier from the 1991 Gulf War) including rape, torture and murder of political dissidents and their families. We're going to war because Iraq has had one last chance, and they've been lied, deceived and been belligerently uncooperative with the world community. We're going to war because Iraq has supported terror in Israel and around the world. We're going to war because Iraq has not been a horror to the world in one way extensively, but because they have been a horror to the world in all ways moderately.

There is no overreaching reason to go to war. But the additive properties of all of the reasons combined is the reason we're going to war, and it's the reason we're doing it in my name.

2003-01-23T15:49:00.000-06:00

The Key To Relationships Is All In Your Head

Dawn Olsen discusses one of the world's most important relationship questions.

2003-01-23T15:06:00.000-06:00

Names "R" Us

The Census Department only really works about once every ten years. Need evidence? How about this page that ranks the statistical distribution for last names, men's first names, and women's first names. Jeffrey ranks 30th. Kathleen (my wife's name) is 36th. Her sister, Megan, ranks 151st. Gregory and Douglas, my brothers, are 37th and 45th, respectively. Had my bride kept her maiden name, Patterson, it would have ranked 87th most common. Instead, Utecht, which is the more common etymological variant of my last name, ranks 12,295 in last names. Bummer for her.

Link via Volokh Conspiracy.

2003-01-23T09:36:00.000-06:00

Are We Overtaxed?

Most people would say yes. Especially right now when they're preparing their tax forms and getting ready to write a hefty check to the government. Although at the same time, America is talking about the Bush Economic Stimulus Plan and whether or not its tax cuts unfairly benefit the wealthy, both wealthy private individuals and wealthy small business owners. However, I have two thoughts to contribute to the debate:

First, via Instapundit (like he needs more traffic) and Zonitics comes this poll, done by FOX News, in regards to tax cuts. They asked exactly the same question to 900 registered voters nationwide and polled their reponses. The question: "What is the maximum percentage of a person's income that should go to taxes -- that's all taxes, state, federal and local? Out of every dollar, what's the highest percentage anybody should have to pay?"

The answer: over half of the country thinks that no American should have to pay any more than 20% of their total income in taxes. Over 75% of the country---that's three in four, folks---think that no American should pay more than 30%. For those of you playing along at home, the top Federal income tax rate is 37%, then add in state and local taxes and you're almost always well over 40%. So over 75% of Americans think that taxes are too high, but in the same poll, 42% of Americans think Bush's proposed tax cuts are unfair.

Also, and this is just conjecture to this point, but I'll do some research at some point and figure out truth to this, but I read a comment on Cornfield Commentary that said that income taxes make up half the federal revenues, and that even if we were to eliminate every penny of income taxes, we would still have eight times the revenue available to the Bush administration than was available to the Kennedy administration. Of course, inflation makes up some of that number, actually a pretty substantial amount of that number. But if the government has eight dollars today for every one they had in 1960, inflation only makes up about $3.75 of those eight dollars. I'll do some more research on that though, like I said, it's only conjecture to this point.

Update: I checked the IRS website. I couldn't find tax statistics that dated back to the Kennedy administration, but I did find ones that dated back to the beginning of the Nixon administration and compared them against tax revenue numbers from 2001. In 2001 the IRS collected $2.1 trillion in total taxes, $1.2 trillion of which came from personal income tax. If you took those taxes out of the equation, the IRS would still have taken in $900 billion last year. Compare that against the $188 billion they took in in total taxes in 1969, and it means that even if you eliminated all personal taxes, the government took in four and a half times what they took in back in 1969.

Adjusted for inflation (assuming an inflation rate of 3%) that $188 billion is $490 billion in today's dollars. We'd still have twice the tax revenue even if we eliminated the personal income tax completely. Of course, all this really proves is that we're spending an inordinate amount of money on governmental programs these days, but it also means that perhaps we could cut some of that money out and give it back to the people. Maybe those tax cuts aren't such a bad idea.

2003-01-22T12:06:00.000-06:00

Personal Responsibility Rules Again

Judge Robert Sweet of the US District Court, Southern District of New York dismissed a lawsuit brought by two New Yorkers against McDonalds. The judge's own opinion discussed what I mentioned yesterday about smoking, specifically, "[t]he issue of determining the breadth of personal responsibility underlies much of the law: where should the line be drawn between an individual's own responsibility to take care of herself, and society's responsibility to ensure that others shield her?" Further, it was the judge's opinion that the only way that the court could find in favor of the fat people would be if "McDonalds' products involve a danger that is not within the common knowledge of consumers."

They didn't. It got thrown out, now fat people the world 'round are forced to recognize that all McDonalds did was make the bad food, it was the fat people that ate it.

One aside, I particularly appreciate the judge's alliteration when he said that consumers can't blame McDonalds if they choose to "satiate their appetite with a surfeit of supersized McDonalds products." That's kind of fun to say.

2003-01-22T10:07:00.000-06:00

Roe v. Wade Continued

Ok, I have calmed myself slightly. Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade, a case which challenged the right of law to criminalize abortion. The debate has raged ever since.

Before I get going on my opinions on the whole thing, because the debate is such a hot-button issue for most of America, I should offer a disclaimer. I subscribe to the "love the sinner, not the sin" school of thought. I know people who have had abortions, and people who have encouraged them to do so. The thought had even crossed my very own mind, if one of the women I dated in high school and college had gotten pregnant. I recognize that I am fortunate to not have had to deal with the problem. But for those that have had to deal with it and have chosen the option of abortion, I love them as much as I would have if they had chosen a different route.

Okay, now that's out of the way. Most laws, fundamentally, are created to preserve the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as proscribed for us in the Declaration of Independence. By choosing a side in the abortion debate, you are choosing which rights are appropriate to be preserved. The "pro-choice" side elects to preserve the mother's rights to liberty, thus the saying "keep your hands off my uterus", et al. The "pro-life" side elects to preserve the child's right to life. Ultimately that's one of the two issues that the debate boils down to.

The debate is clouded by the pro-choice folks saying that life doesn't really begin until later in the pregnancy, which should permit abortion before that time occurs because then there is only one set of rights, the mother's. The pro-life folks, generally, believe that life begins at conception and to end the life prematurely is akin to ending any life prematurely, that is, there is no difference between the mother who has an abortion and a mother who dumps their newborn in a porta-potty and the mother who drowns her eight year-old in a bathtub. And that's the debate in a nutshell, folks.

As for what I believe, I side with the Catholic Church. I believe that at conception that zygote is filled with the Holy Spirit and a human soul is created. Even if that zygote cum fetus can't live outside the mother, it is still a child and its right to life deserves to be preserved. And as such, abortion is murder of a human child.

There are a number of side arguments, but ultimately it's time that human beings take responsibility for their actions. People having premarital, unprotected sex are taking more risks than ever, one of which is pregnancy. Those people must bear the burden of responsibility when they undertake that risk. Protection from that risk should be incumbent upon those people through contraception (which is a whole different debate, but it's a better option than abortion) or abstention. Even if those don't work, that doesn't mean that parents have to raise the child. They could give it up for adoption. I know more than a few parents that have tried and tried to adopt, with minimal success, because there just aren't kids to be adopted. In short, there are options for parents that have made a mistake. Just don't kill the kids.

I pray for a time of personal responsibility and the recognition of a child's right to life, and a time where we can reconsider Roe v. Wade and recriminalize abortion.

2003-01-22T08:58:00.000-06:00

Big Ten Basketball Review

So conference play continues to be a surprise. It's still early, but the three teams that were predicted to finish at the bottom of the conference are on top, and not through beating any slouch teams, either. 4-0 UFM had to go to Columbus and beat Ohio State. 3-0 Purdue beat Michigan State. 3-0 Iowa did them one better, beating Michigan State and Illinois on its home floor. Tonight will prove to be a challenge to those undefeated records, however, as Purdue travels to Assembly Hall in Champaign to try and preserve its undefeated conference record against the Fighting Illini. Iowa faces a tough test in its own right, travelling to Madison to take on the Badgers in their first conference road test. Michigan plays host to a struggling, yet talented Minnesota team. Just a few notes from around the conference:

Last night Ohio State and Indiana fought it out in Bloomington. Literally. Jeff Newton picked up a technical and Nick Sherman was ejected for stepping between Brent Darby and Tom Coverdale in one of many skirmishes between the two. Coverdale ended up playing with a bandage on his chin that covered a cut that later required six stitches. Indiana ended up pulling the game out 69-51, showing that the Hoosiers, at 4-1 in the conference, may have lost Jared Jeffries, but they're still the team to beat in the conference this year.

The home team's dominance took a week off last week. Big Ten teams went 2-3 on their home floor last year, although the three losing teams were conference doormats Northwestern and Penn State and surprise disappointment Ohio State.

Ohio State, thought by many to be in contention for the conference crown this year, is currently 1-4 in conference play, although their losses came at Michigan State and at Indiana, and at home against Michigan and Wisconsin. Their only conference win was at home against the Hoosiers. Things are likely to improve for the Buckeyes as they still play Northwestern twice and Penn State once.

With the conference as tough as it has been, it will be interesting to see if Northwestern ends the season with a conference win. Right now it doesn't look like they will, but with their slowdown play (thanks Bill Carmody!) they always seem to surprise at least one conference contender at Welsh-Ryan Arena (the biggest high school gym in the Midwest). Who that contender is, could play largely into conference tournament seeding as well as who ends up with the regular season crown.

Tonight, Iowa will continue building confidence at Wisconsin in a close one. Write it down.

2003-01-22T08:34:00.000-06:00

30 Years Of Roe v. Wade

I heard a statistic on NPR last night on my way home. Last year, 1.3 million abortions were performed, making it by far the most widely performed surgial procedure in the United States. The only overall procedure that can compare in terms of volume is tooth extractions. Pardon me while I go vomit all over myself. More later.

2003-01-21T12:54:00.000-06:00

Sharpton Declares His Presidential Candidacy

Last week Ted Barlow spent his entire week blogging a list of lightbulb jokes. One of them was about Al Sharpton. I point you here for the exact joke. The humor in the series of jokes was, of course, that they were at least a little bit true. In the case of the Al Sharpton joke, the insinuation was that Mr. Sharpton is pretty myopic in his political view. All he sees is black issues and black oppression and ways that the federal government can remedy it.

Today Mr. Sharpton declared his candidacy for president. At his announcement today, Mr. Sharpton said "the Democratic Party cannot win unless it expands its base and get those who have been disaffected." His goal is to unify groups that are oft-forgotten in politics, specifically racial minorities and young people, and band them together to elect a Democratic president, specifically, well, him. He said he is the only candidate that is willing to go on record as being firmly "anti-war, anti-death penalty, anti-tax cuts across the board, not voting one way on the Hill and speaking another way on the trail." Of course, because voting one way on the Hill would require him to have been elected for something.

Racial minorities, women and young people make up a pretty substantial amount of the American populace. The problem that seems to be ignored by Mr. Sharpton is that once he has set his agenda of racial equality through higher taxes for the rich and expanded governmental handouts for the poor, he has to be concerned with issues that are important to the complete body politic. Simply rolling back tax cuts and increasing governmental spending isn't going to jump start the economy. Simply being "against war" isn't going to prevent nuclear proliferation by North Korea or constant malevolence towards the international community on the part of Iraq.

The job of President requires opinions on a wide range of issues that are important to all Americans, not just the disadvantaged. The President must have opinions on national defense, on the skyrocketing cost of healthcare vs. the unbearable cost of malpractice insurance to physicians, on the condition of the economy and how to fix it. The President must be as quick to have answers for why we're not going to war as why we are. President Bush has not performed this job as well as some who have held his office, but he aspires to make the country better for all Americans, not just the poor ones.

The road to the White House is a year under the hottest spotlight an individual can be subjected to. It requires the best of candidates with the best of ideas and the best of intentions. It is under this spotlight that Mr. Sharpton is sure to wilt and return to his role in America as a one-subject talking head.

2003-01-21T10:51:00.000-06:00

Personal Responsibility v. Corporate Malfeasance: Smoking Is Back In The Limelight

On one side is a group portrayed as having lied to the American people for three centuries in order to line their pockets and become rich on others misfortunes. On the other side is a group who complains that the the people they represent made choices that they should no longer be personally responsible for because they were using information that later turned out to be inaccurate to form those decisions. Yes, Congress is back in session, but this struggle cuts more to the quick of some of the real problems that have chronically plagued America. This is a class-action lawsuit before the Louisiana Supreme Court to determine whether tobacco manufacturers must fund programs to help smokers quit.

Recall that in 1998 a settlement was reached between the tobacco industry and US attorneys general for $246 billion to be paid to the states, with the understanding that the states would use the funds to address public health issues arising from tobacco use. The basis for the settlement was really threefold: one, that the industry knew about the hazards of tobacco and at the very least kept that information from the public, if not lied about the risks outright. Two, the industry increased the addictive properties of tobacco in order to hook users on a product they knew caused myriad health problems. Three, the industry marketed tobacco to children in the interest of creating a young and loyal customer base-cum-long term revenue stream.

The settlement gave rise to a number of individual and class-action lawsuits challenging that the tobacco industry do more to keep users from becoming addicted, or even trying their product in the first place. In West Virginia, for example, a class-action lawsuit was brought which would have required the tobacco industry to provide medical monitoring. The tobacco industry prevailed in that case, under the notion that those users affected could have just quit when they found out the product was bad for them, and would have been able to save themselves from a lot of the medical problems from which they suffered.

Look, I understand that the settlement was necessary. A number of Americans were flat out lied to and manipulated for the purpose of profit. Any time malevolent negligence on that scale is perpetuated on Americans someone should be punished, and in the case of businesses that punishment should hit them where it hurts worst, in the checkbook. But that settlement was reached back in 1998. All Americans will benefit from the fact that the funds that came from the case will be used for public education, public awareness and the resolution of public health issues.

But at some point, personal responsibility needs to enter into the equation. There is only one person who screwed that first smoke into the lips of a smoker, only one person who dropped that first plug of chew between their lip and gum. These days people know the potential consequences of their actions but they're not being forced to bear the burden of them. Instead, we're asking one industry to do everything in its power to keep from selling its product, to run counter to the capitalist, free-market system that is woven deeply in the fiber of the American being.

It's time that American tobacco users be forced to accept responsibility for their actions. It's time they realize that while starting is easy and quitting is very, very hard, the dangers of starting have been actually been printed directly onto all advertisements for the product and even onto the product itself for at least 15 years. The risks have been widely publicized for far longer than that. For Americans to plead ignorance at this point is impossible, and it's time for them to recognize that self-destructive behavior like smoking or chewing is only one person's fault.

Their own.

2003-01-21T08:38:00.000-06:00

Spoiler-less Movie Review

Every Friday Katie and I make some rough plans on all the things we want to do over the course of a weekend. Lately those plans have included a lot of cleaning, as every day we're even more seriously considering selling our house and "trading up". So last weekend's plans included a lot of cleaning. Saturday's plans also included seeing Jerry and Sara for dinner, Sunday's were largely built around Katie going with her friend Sheila to a bridal show. The bridal show took longer than expected, at dinner we got deeply engrossed in conversation with the Steeles, and while we got a lot done at home, our weekend took a familiar turn, squeezing out the one thing we plan for every weekend but never do: go see a movie.

Because those plans got worked out of our weekend plans, we decided to work them into our Monday night plans instead. Last night's pick was Catch Me If You Can. The movie was entertaining, based on a true story of a 17 year old named Frank Abagnale, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who manages to secure employment as a doctor, a lawyer and a co-pilot for a major airline, forging and passing fake checks as he went. Tom Hanks plays the agent in charge of the FBI's bank fraud division who uncovers the forgerys and, as they say, the chase is on.

The premise of the movie is creative, and the fact that it's at least partially true helps the suspension of disbelief. Hanks is very good as the crusty old FBI agent, something which comes as no surprise. DiCaprio's performance was good, if not stunning. Christopher Walken is very good in a bit role as Abagnale's father and Martin Sheen and Alias's Jennifer Garner (who is very talented....and easy on the eyes to boot) both play cameos in the movie as well. All in all, the screenplay was well performed and well shot, if not completely well-contrived.

The largest hole in the movie comes with the writing and casting of the lead character. DiCaprio plays the part well, but the audience is supposed to believe that he's a prodigious seventeen years old. 28 year-old DiCaprio, who plays the part with a combination of developing panache and slight naivete that is typical of young men in their late 20's (trust me, I know), is sometimes difficult to believe. Further, the precocity of his character is pretty pivotal to believing that a 17 year-old is capable of playing the ER medical chief, and it is merely hinted at and not developed as well as might be necessary to complete the character.

The movie is good, a nice departure from reality, especially for a Monday night. But for all the complaining about it's omission from Oscar consideration, after having seen the picture it's understandable why it's missing.

2003-01-20T17:07:00.000-06:00

Iraq To Undergo Self-Inspections

Iraq announced today that they will be more forthcoming with UN Inspectors as they search for WMD within Iraqi borders. They will also form teams of inspectors made up of Iraqi personnel to search for banned weapons. Message to Iraq: be careful, if you inspect yourself too much, you'll go blind or get hairy palms or something.

2003-01-20T16:05:00.000-06:00

Bracketology Released, Iowa In

Joe Lunardi released his latest edition of Bracketology from ESPN.com this morning. Bracketology is essentially what he projects the NCAA committee would do if the season ended today. Last week he had four Big Ten teams in the dance. This week there are five with Purdue getting in and the Iowa Hawkeyes just barely displacing the Michigan State Spartans for the 65th and final spot. Right now our first round game would be against Oregon from Tampa, FL. We're not in the AP Rankings yet, but more importantly, we'd be in the dance. Good stuff.

2003-01-20T15:00:00.000-06:00

Search Engine Results

Evidently I am the #1 response for the following search on Google: "applying for male stripper job in augusta". Interesting.....

2003-01-20T08:50:00.000-06:00

Let Us Turn Our Thoughts Today To Martin Luther King

A brief statement this morning. We'll see if I have time to write more this afternoon. If it's like the last few days last week, I should, especially given the fact that today is Martin Luther King Day and all public sector offices and some private sector offices have the day off today. Mine is not one of them, but I'm not bitter. I figure that some people have to work on Christmas, I have to work on MLK Day.

In 1963 Dr. King delivered his famous "I Have A Dream" speech which better summarized the struggles and goals for all Americans, than perhaps any speech short of the Gettysburg Address that has ever been delivered in American politics. We have come a long way towards Dr. King's dream since 1963, but we still have a long way to go. The way America addresses some of its hottest racial issues right now will determine the length of strides we take towards the dream. Currently we face Affirmative Action, racial quotas, cross burning and the legality of hate, all of which must be stared down and dealt with, and it is how we do that which will show how far we have come and just how much further we have to go.

You see, Dr. King's message was about racial equality, but it can be applied to the way we treat everyone:

"I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'...

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'"

Give someone a hug today that you don't normally hug. Tell someone that you love that you love them, or if you don't feel comfortable with that, tell them that you feel fortunate to know them. God bless you all, have a great day, and celebrate the message of Dr. King.

2003-01-17T11:48:00.000-06:00

At The Risk Of Sleeping With The Fishes...

I'd better be careful how I work this, lest I find myself in a more peaceful place. In today's Chicago Tribune online edition, there are two stories that perpetuate the stereotype of Chicago-area politics that encouraged some to believe that the Illinois state quarter should really feature someone passing an envelope under the table. First, a minority-owned firm was granted preliminary approval to be one of the lead subcontractors in the renovations on Soldier Field. Then, as a Trib editorial details, a French firm was granted a contract to provide advertising in the bus shelters being installed on Michigan Avenue. When asked why the terms were far more favorable for the French firm than for other firms they were considering, Mayor Daley offered the following explanation, "I don't know."

What is the connection? Mayor Daley, of course. In the case of the subcontractor, SMG Management, the chair of that company was formerly a crony of Mr. Daley's, appointed to head the Chicago Plan Commission which is partially responsible for overseeing the Soldier Field project. As for the French advertising agency, JCDecaux, they first hired the law firm of a former Chicago Board of Education president. Eventually they switched law firms, albeit not for ethical reasons. The firm they hired employed Daley's former chief lobbyist.

That's just two representative stories in today's Chicago Tribune. So why aren't Chicagoan's outraged? Because cronyism and borderline corruption of this ilk has been going on for over 50 years. It's as much as part of Chicago as the Watertower, Vienna Beef or Da Bears.

I wonder if it's too late to stop production on the quarter?

2003-01-17T11:10:00.000-06:00

GE To Abandon "Life" In Favor Of "Work"

GE has elected to abandon the slogan "we bring good things to life" after 23 years of representing the Connecticut-based conglomerate. The new slogan "GE: Imagination At Work" will replace it as the company's tagline. Sadly, my idea of "GE: We Own You" appears to have not been considered.

2003-01-17T09:06:00.000-06:00

Poor Dave

Dave Tepper is struggling with his blog right now. I have considered taking my blog and using Movable Type and placing it on a separate server with a domain name of my choosing. But Dave seems to be much smarter than me (I've never actually met him, but that's my impression) and if he's struggling with it, that's a pretty good indication that I should put the MT down and back slowly away.

2003-01-17T08:38:00.000-06:00

Friday Five

Well, it's Friday again. I'm going to take full advantage of every opportunity I get to participate in Friday Five since it was gone for a while. So here we go:

1. Where do you currently work? a third-party, small ticket lease finance company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2. How many other jobs have you had and where? This is actually my first "real world" job. I have been here for about 3 1/2 years.

3. What do you like best about your job? The company treats it's employees really well without being condescending. There are a number of companies that try and provide incentives for positive performance and try and be the employer of choice, and they just come across as insulting. WorldCom and APAC spring to mind. My company pays well, has a great bonus program and a very good benefits package. But beyond that, the company maintains an air of professionality and can be generous without pandering.

4. What do you like least about your job? I can think of two things: one, the work is clerical. Essentially it's somewhere between quality control and internal audit, I just ensure the accuracy of our lease documentation. As such it doesn't really challenge me intellectually, since it's so repetitive. However, and this is the second thing, it's very detail-oriented, and sometimes that's hard for me to focus on.

5. What is your dream job? My dream job would be "independently wealthy billionaire philanthropist" and subsequently "amateur golf hack." Or "international man of mystery".

If those aren't available, though, there are a few things in the business/law arena that really interest me. First, I am really fascinated with the way that companies securitze both debt and equity. So in that regard underwriting of some sort would probably be pretty interesting to me. I am also interested in valuations, that is, how much a company's debt or equities are worth. So working for a rating agency like Fitch or Moody's would probably be interesting, or a securities analysis firm like Sanford Bernstein, or the analysis portion of an I-bank would be interesting. I am also interested in M & A, which probably brings all of that stuff together. How companies determine how much to buy each other for based on valuations, and if they have to leverage themselves to buyout, how they securitize that is all really interesting. So anything in those three fields would probably be ideal for me.

2003-01-16T13:04:00.000-06:00

UFM Relieved To Be In National Eye For Something Other Than Athletic Scandal

A case currently before the United States Supreme Court involves racial quotas as they apply to collegiate admissions. The Sixth District Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a decision that race-based admissions standards at the University of Michigan (must...resist...using...alternate...name) violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The precedent cited in the initial decision in the case was a 1978 Supreme Court decision in University of California Regents v. Bakke which permitted universities to take race into account when making admissions decisions.

The issue is hot enough. Yesterday, the issue got even hotter. The Bush administration filed a legal brief in support of the Supreme Court upholding the Appellate Court's decision and essentially banning race-based admissions standards at public universities. President Bush called the system "fundamentally flawed".

Affirmative action and race-based quotas don't only only stifle achievement by majority students, but for minority students as well. Admitting students in the interest of ensuring a certain racial balance means that students will be held to different standards according to the color of their skin. I was a high school student once, and I know that it was a rare instance when I did more than I thought necessary to get an "A" or to get into college. I know a number of people (I wasn't one of these) that were involved in activities for the purpose of polishing their resume to help them get into a certain university. I know this happens, and I'm certain it's a phenomenon that crosses all racial and socio-economic lines. And when those standards are lower, and students know they're lower, they are less likely to achieve.

Further, as I've mentioned, humans are predisposed to dividing into groups. "Us" and "Them" America will get its race problems figured out when the lines between the two stop being drawn on racial lines and are drawn instead according to where and individual lives, or their philosophical or ideological beliefs. In the words of Dr. King, "not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Culturally speaking, quota systems keep America from developing into one large, color-blind majority by drawing attention to those racial differences. Banishment of race-based quotas will ultimately help America towards her ultimate goal: true racial equality. That starts with this Supreme Court decision, and with the leadership of our president, I hope it can begin soon.

2003-01-16T08:32:00.000-06:00

More From Augusta, And From Cinnamon

Okay, after checking in on my aforementioned "stripper" debate over on Cinnamon's blog, the conversation has taken a different turn. We have moved from talking about strippers and their right to a safe workplace to Augusta National and the debate over forced gender integration there. That is particularly interesting as I was reading National Review this morning, and I came upon an article by Jay Nordlinger (there is an abstract here, about halfway down the page) on the Augusta National debate. I thought that debate had essentially gone dormant, but that is evidently not the case. So I will take this one step further and talk about men v. women in our society.

In 1896 the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson declaring that black children and white children could be segregated for the purpose of schooling as long as the facilities were "separate but equal". That decision was later overturned in 1954 when Brown v. Board of Education went before the SCOTUS. The court determined that even if the facilities are exactly the same, the separation deprives minority students of group educational opportunities. In short, it was the belief of the court in striking down the "separate but equal" notion that racial diversity is a positive experience in a student's learning.

A number of feminist groups have started applying similar themes in integrating Augusta National, saying that racism and sexism are equally deplorable and should be treated equally in the eyes of the law. There are two major flaws in this reasoning, however. First, Augusta National is not a publicly funded institution the way that Topeka Public Schools were. As such, the federal government can not and should not press law on Augusta National, so long as they are not overtly violating another person's rights. That, by the way, is the reason why the Ku Klux Klan is allowed to exist. They are a private organization that admits only whites, and is not publicly funded.

Second, I think we can all recognize that a black man and a white man are fundamentally the same. The likelihood of a black man being smarter or less intelligent than me, a white man, is the same as the likelihood of a white man being the same. The only real difference between them is the amount of melanin in their skin. Americans are starting to recognize this fact, and I believe it will be the first step towards racial equality. However, the big reason that the racism argument does not apply to the integration of Augusta National is that racism and sexism are not equal. Why do I say that? Simple:

Men and women are not the same.

In cases of race, the majority needs to recognize that the minority is the same, biologically. In cases of gender, that is not possible because, biologically, men and women are not the same. They do not have the same physical makeup, they don't have the same chemical makeup, many would argue they don't even have the same emotional makeup. As such, the integration of men and women, even in the public world, is not required by law, nor should it be forced, because men and women are not the same. Once we recognize that and use that to redefine the equality of women according to those lines perhaps the feminist struggle can become achievable. And maybe then Augusta will decide, of its own volition, to permit women members.

Not that any woman I know could get in. But that's another debate.

2003-01-15T14:26:00.000-06:00

Speaking Of Employment...

Steve Mariucci was fired today as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers. Mariucci finishes his career in San Francisco with a 57-39 record and four trips to the playoffs. And this is the sort of job security that Coach Ferentz is interested in?

2003-01-15T14:14:00.000-06:00

Dallas Does The NFL

*sigh* The anticipation is finally, and unfortunately, over.

2003-01-15T13:03:00.000-06:00

Sonny Bono, Mickey And Other Absurd Characters

I am not a copyright attorney. I'm not even an attorney of any specialty. I don't even play one on television. So my understanding of copyright law is limited to that which I have gathered through my readings. However, I know enough to know that it's noteworthy that today the Supreme Court upheld the Sonny Bono Act in a 7-2 ruling. The ruling will permit another 20 year extension for copyrights on an enormous amount of material that otherwise would have been released into the public domain. Included in that material were such movies as "Casablanca" and the "Wizard of Oz" and such pop culture icons as Mickey Mouse.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution delineates the power of the Congress, and among those powers is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". The opinion of the court was that the "CTEA's (the aforementioned "Sonny Bono Act" is formally the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 or CTEA) terms, though longer than the 1976 Act's terms, are still limited and not perpetual and therefore fit into Congress' discretion." It appears that the SCOTUS agreed with the Bush administration recommendation, that the justices look only at the constitutionality of Congress' passage of the act, and not allow their personal feelings on the act to temper their decision.

Copyright law was initially written into the Constitution in the interest of providing a balance. Progress occurs when creative individuals are permitted to build upon the ideas of other creative individuals. However, there also needs to be incentive to create with the understanding that the creator would have the right to sole financial gain on that creation for a short time before it becomes permissable for anyone in the public domain to expound upon it. The Constitution, as I see it, intended to strike a balance that between progress and capitalism through the appropriate application of copyright law. Permitting copyright law as it exists now, post CTEA, is skewed too far towards capitalism, and too far away from progress by permitting copyright to extend for as long as 95 years beyond the creator's death.

In short, the law may be Constitutional, but it is not fair, and it is my hope that we may find a way to repeal CTEA legislatively, since judicial avenues have been exhausted.

For more informed opinions on the decision, I would recommend Volokh Conspiracy, How Appealing, or SCOTUSblog. Happy reading.

2003-01-15T11:48:00.000-06:00

Personal Freedom v. Personal Responsibility---A Study Of Adult Entertainment

I was looking around the web for blogs in Chicago, and I found a webring which took me to the website of a Chicagoan woman who goes by Cinnamon. I have paid a visit to her blog on occasion, but this last time inspired me to mention a few things on my own blog. Cinnamon had an entry that linked to the blog of another woman named Joanne, then Cinnamon hosted a conversation on her blog about Joanne's content. You see, Joanne is a stripper....well, that's not all she is. She is also a web designer/project coordinator and an intelligent, well-written and heavily-opinioned woman. Anyway, Joanne keeps the above blog that includes some eye-opening accounts of life as a stripper including how she is often underpaid by the club owner (and when I say "underpaid" I don't mean she isn't being paid what she's worth, I mean she performs a certain number of shows and only gets paid for, say, 20% of them) and regularly sexually assaulted by the patrons of the club.

Anyway, the point that I made in the comments section of Cinnamon's blog was that stripping is a risky profession. Obviously (or obviously to me, at least) a good deal of the clientele at a strip club is made up of some of the less savory characters within our society. Those unsavory characters come to the strip club with the following implanted firm in their heads: "If this woman is willing to take off her top (or her bottoms) for money, what else would she be willing to do for money?" They have a few drinks, which further exacerbates these thoughts, and the next thing you know a woman is being forced (literally, held and forced) to endure him sticking his fingers where they shouldn't be.

It's a horrible thing to think about, being violated like that. But my point is that women who are getting into that profession should recognize that such a risk exists, and should be willing to bear the burden of that risk. It's a matter of taking personal responsibility for the consequences of one's choices. And when one chooses to work as a stripper, one must recognize that it is risky and that the alternative is to work at Subway, where the work isn't as lucrative, but the potential for sexual assault is far lower.

You see, people in the private sector are paid according to two things: the desirability of the work they do and the skills the individual must possess to do the work. Desirability and wage have an inverse relationship, that is, when the desirability of a given job decreases, the worker makes more money. That's the reason why you have garbage collectors that make $80,000/yr. It's work very few people are willing to do, so you have to pay well in order to get anyone to do it. The possession of skills and wage have a positive relationship, that is, the more exclusive the set of people that can do a specific job, the more a worker makes. That is the reason why Jack Welch, who is often considered to be the greatest Chief Executive in business history, was so well paid. It's also the reason why professional athletes are so well paid.

Strippers are in a rare situation where both apply: a number of people just couldn't be strippers because they don't have the body that men would pay to see without clothing. Further, it is a job that few of those people who do have the physical attributes that would permit them to do the work would want to do because of the personal embarrassment of the work, or because of the risks, or both. So those that do the work should be well paid. And if they're not, one has to wonder why they wouldn't do a different job?

2003-01-15T10:21:00.000-06:00

Big Ten Basketball Notes

For those who are long-time readers of this blog (which is difficult to be, since it's only been operational since September) you'll recall me saying that I am actually a bigger fan of men's college basketball than I am of college football, as hard as that may be to believe. I don't know if I'll be as vigilant about writing about college hoops, but I'll try and write a summary of the week that was in Big Ten men's basketball on every Wednesday. So we'll begin.

The Big Ten's men's basketball programs are proving that there is only a nominal departure from football season to basketball season. The Big Ten is widely known for tough, physical, scrapping play, both on the football field and the basketball court. That has played itself out this year so far. But this year there is one more parallel that is making itself apparent: it is very tough to win on the road. At the beginning of the season Michigan State was favored to win the conference, but last night lost to Purdue in West Lafayette, 72-60. The loss is Michigan State's second straight and leaves it 1-2 in the conference after a difficult stretch in which they played three games in six days. Those two losses came at Iowa and at Purdue, setting up what looks like will be a tough road schedule for any team this year.

With their win last night, Purdue pulled into a four-way tie for first place at the top of the conference. Illinois, Iowa and Michigan join the Boilermakers at 2-0 in the conference. Tonight, however, that will change to a three-way tie as Illinois comes to Iowa City to take on the Hawkeyes. The Hawks have some confidence built up after Saturday's win against Michigan State, and are playing tough at home, but with their seven-man rotation are likely to be outmatched by the deeper, faster and more talented Illini. Sadly, I look for this to be at least a ten point win for Illinois, although the token Illinois alum in my office predicts it'll be much closer.

Bracketologist Joe Lunardi projects that, if the season ended today, only four Big Ten teams would make the dance. Illinois, Indiana, Michigan State and Purdue are the only teams that he projects having tournament-worthy credentials to this point, although Wisconsin is one of the four on the bubble and out. Currently, neither Iowa nor Michigan are mentioned. However, with the Hawkeyes having ten wins and the Wolverines having nine, and with both at 2-0 in the conference it will be interesting to see if one or both manage to work their way into tournament talk if they happen to manage eleven or twelve conference wins.

2003-01-14T14:38:00.000-06:00

Quick Questions For The Sartorially-Inclined

I am wearing corduroy pants today. They are pleated, as are every other pair of corduroy pants I own. So my first question is what the point could possibly be for pleats on a pair of corduroy pants, where the pleats just blend into the wales on the corduroy?

Also, I remember picking up somewhere (either via text or something I heard) is that everything on the male business suit is functional except for the necktie. I would add to that the pleats on the pants. My second questions is: does anyone know if there is any functionality to pleats on pants, or are they purely decorative?

2003-01-14T10:17:00.000-06:00

Could March In Iraq Go Out Like A Lamb?

Hans Blix said yesterdan that it's possible. Mr. Blix is due to report to the United Nations Security Council on January 27 with an update on the first 60 days of weapons inspections within Iraq. However, it is Mr. Blix's opinion that the report will mark "the beginning of the inspection and monitoring process, not the end of it." He indicated that he expected inspections to continue for at least another 60 days, if not longer.

In a related story, the Bush administration continued the buildup of forces in the region in preparation for war. Two groups of ships left for the Gulf region carrying as many as 14,000 Marines, and as many as six aircraft carriers could be moved within striking distance of Iraqi soil shortly. The current force in the region numbers about 60,000 troops, with the number reportedly to escalate to upwards of 250,000 once all the forces are in place.

Mr. Blix hinted at the buildup of American forces in the region in his statement yesterday, saying that Iraqi officials need only recognize what is going on in the region to recognize the seriousness of the situation. I believe this could directly answer the question that most Americans are asking right now: if Saddam is cooperating, why are we so hell-bent on war in Iraq?

The answer is simple: Iraq only responds to force or the threat thereof. For the last twelve years they have disobeyed and ignored over fifteen UN resolutions condemning their actions both within their country and within the international community. It happened during Bush (41)'s administration, it happened again during Clinton's. Now Bush (43) takes office and adopts a cowboy posture towards Iraq, saying that he knows for certain that Hussein possesses WMD and he can either surrender them and resign as Grand Poobah for Life, or we will take them and force "regime change". To reinforce his point, he starts the wheels in motion towards amassing an enormous force in the Middle East.

The only way that Iraq can avoid a war that it is certain to lose is to submit to unconditional inspections. Any thoughts they entertain about throwing out the inspectors is squelched when they find out that the Americans are sending even more troops into the region. The Bush administraion is showing that they're not afraid of going to war with Iraq and in the process they get the leverage that will permit the inspections to go through effectively and peacefully. In short, the situation in Iraq is a poker game, and Bush is bluffing. But like with any good bluff, he's showing that he's not afraid to have it called, and like any good bluff, that's what will make it effective.

2003-01-14T09:09:00.000-06:00

Complicated? Not So Much

Julian does a Note From The Lounge on my favorite teeny-bopper and yours, Ms. Avril Levigne. Of course, given that he is wildly more intelligent than I, his observances are absolutely worth checking out. As an aside, I would like to reiterate that the hooks to "Sk8ter Boi" require an exorcism to get out of my head. Every morning I leave the house hoping to not hear any of Ms. Levigne's "music" during the course of my day. It's got to be easier to go through my day without having to devote undo brain power to recounting any teeny-bopper music.

2003-01-14T08:37:00.000-06:00

Figuring Out The Williams Sisters

Let's see, Venus is the older sister, the one that is a little taller and has the blonde hair, right? And Serena is the younger sister, still has the braids and beads, and is the one that always wins the head-to-head matchups. I think that's right.

I'm not an enormous tennis fan, but my interest is always piqued a little bit when it comes time for the four grand slam events. This week the Australian Open kicked off, and the seeding in the women's tournament was headed by three young American ladies, the first two of which share the same last name. But short of knowing that their names are Serena and Venus and that they have pretty much dominated women's tennis over the last two years, I know very little about them individually.

This much I have divined: their father, Richard, has done a pretty good job of controlling them as people, sculpting their personal images and making them out to be fine, upstanding young women with little interest in anything other than winning tennis matches. A far cry from, say, Anna Kournikova who, while proving to be a mediocre tennis player at best, has managed to stir up enough controversy to keep herself in the news, albeit for seeming a little trashy. The problem is that the Williams sisters have developed a collective image in the American awareness. They have managed to rid themselves of individual ideosyncracies, becoming more like a team than individual players.

The women's final at the last three Grand Slam events have featured the Serena-Venus matchup, and with no distinction to make one like or dislike one sister over the other, it almost takes on the appearance of a scrimmage, rather than a major sporting event. Any compelling storyline is extinguished: it's not an international battle or a face-off between two smack-talking hated rivals. It's not the matchup between the powerful juggernaut and the struggling underdog, since both are clearly only in the same category as each other. The best you can do is to think of this as an opportunity to see two of the most talented female athletes in history, but even that starts to get boring.

The best that can happen for tennis is for Richard Williams to release the reins on his daughters, allow them to become a little brash, show a little swagger and develop individual storylines. Fans will have the opportunity to identify with only one or the other sister, and with that, they can help return some of the interest to tennis.

2003-01-13T10:11:00.000-06:00

We Don't Want The Funk, Give Up The Funk

I lived with a couple people in college that need to make sure that they avoid riding the bus in Bend, Oregon.

2003-01-13T09:05:00.000-06:00

One Nation Under God....Under God....UNDER GOD!

In a speech delivered yesterday at Religious Freedom Day in Fredricksburg, VA, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that he believes that the American judicial system has been overly aggressive in ensuring the separation of church and state within the American governmental system. Justice Scalia said that he believes that it is not the responsibility of the judiciary to determine the degree to which religion can be integrated within government, that it is the job of the legislative branch instead. "The sign back here which says 'Get religion out of government,' can be imposed on the whole country," Justice Scalia further explained, "I have no problem with that philosophy being adopted democratically. If the gentleman holding the sign would persuade all of you of that, then we could eliminate 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance. That could be democratically done."

People say that the Bill of Rights specifies the separation of Church and State, but specifically it states that Congress shall make no law promoting or prohibiting the free exercise of a religion. Some who take a more liberal approach to this amendment say that printing "In God We Trust" on our currency or having the words "Under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance or singing "God Bless America" at party conventions are specific endorsements of theism, if not monotheism or Christianity. However, the original reason for the First Amendment was to outlaw that which was commonplace in Europe at the time, specifically the forced practice of a state religion. The purpose was not to remove religion completely from government, but simply to ensure that all Americans would be free to practice religion as they see fit.

"In God We Trust" is not an overt coercion into theism, much less Christianity. It is simply the indirect pronouncement of the prevailing opinion of the government and makes no statement as to whether it is a Jewish God, a Christian God, a Muslim God, or one God of a polytheist religion. Just as candidates and elected officials often finish their speeches with "God bless you, God bless America," as a wish of divine ordainment, so "In God We Trust" or "One Nation Under God" are similar hopes. It is not the responsibility of the judiciary to overturn those indirect statements, it is up to the legislative branch to amend the first amendment to completely banish religion from our governmental system, something we can only hope will never happen.

2003-01-10T14:15:00.000-06:00

Ferentz Back To NFL?

Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz interviewed for the head coaching job with the Jacksonville Jaguars this week, and with Dennis Green dropping out of the running he is now the lone candidate to have interviewed to this point. Fortunately the selection of head coaches is not a democratic process for two reasons:

1.) Surely the fans in North Florida would pick Ferentz.
2.) My co-workers said they would nominate me to replace him at the helm in Iowa City. Eep.

2003-01-10T11:36:00.000-06:00

Friday Five

From fridayfive.org:

1. Where are you right now? At work.

2. What time is it? 11:30 AM.

3. What are you wearing? A sexy black thong with matching lace baby doll, er, I mean, jeans with a brown belt, a tan button down shirt, tan socks and brown shoes.

4. Any people or animals around you? Describe them. Yes. There are people in my office working with dedication. Currently I am not one of them. They are too numerous to describe them all.

5. What are your plans for the weekend? Cleaning. We got home from Miami/Chicago last weekend, and we haven't really even unpacked. So we will unpack, take down our Christmas stuff and clean our house. Probably watch Iowa's dismantling at the hands of Michigan State Saturday. That's about it.