Tell Me the Stories of Jesus I Love To Hear

Blog Contents
-Terry Schiavo
-Bible Study with Ben

There was an article in the nytimes about William "Nostrums" Cheshire, an educated man with an uneducated diagnosis. Once the quack made his statement, Senators and media pursued and devoured the bullshit bread like famished ducks swimming in a cesspit of turbid morality.

A Diagnosis With a Dose of Religion

Some time ago, I reread the book of Matthew. There is a lot of good material in the bible. Today, I want to focus on Matthew 25: 31-40.

Here is the text:
(at www.biblegateway.com)

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Now, you might be thinking, a man from Nebraska is telling me the parable of the sheep and the goats with the purpose of application to political party ideology, specifically, the miserly Republican party, which arduously advocates the denial of alms such as food, drink, clothing, and shelter to brothers and sisters.

Actually, my point is this: Jesus is crazy. I talk with Jesus about this. "Jesus, why are you so extreme?" I don’t have time to write about our conversations because I want to look up one more bible passage at BibleGateway.

Here we go:

1 Timothy 2: 8-15

"I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing. I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing - if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. "

Remember, this is the canonized word of God, the word spoken by God through His servants. You might be thinking Tim is crazy. But I’m thinking: Michele Bachman, what the hell are you doing in the Senate. How dare you tell me what to do. I command you to abdicate your seat. Either mother more children or get thee to a nunnery.

I think I should have typed that last part in caps, because I feel strongly about it. However, I can’t take credit for the idea to put Senator Bachman back in her place. Rev. Klinker, thank you for showing me the light.

Gays Responsible for Domestic Abuse

In the news...

Gays are at it again. And by it, I mean destroying society. According to a Nebraska man, gays are responsible for blocking the prosecution of people in unmarried heterosexual relationships who abuse their partners.

"I blame gays for domestic abuse, but people tell me the amendment to the Ohio Constitution to prevent gay marriage is culpable. That's bullshit."

Alf, nice personal ad on 365.

Anthropocentric Chimeraphobia

I was just alerted of something very important.

Go to THOMAS, Library of Congress legislative information.
Under "Search Bill Text 109th Congress (2005-2006)," type in s659.
Click in the circle next to "Enter bill number" to designate a search for the bill by number.
Click the Search button.

If you need to be enticed, here's the title of the bill: Human Chimera Prohibition Act of 2005.

This means no centaurs or thundercats.

May Goat and Terry Schiavo

Last night Klinker came over to my house with a twelve pack of Summit Maibock. Bock is a type of German beer named for the famous medieval German brewing town of Einbeck. Mai is German for the month of May. Bock is German for goat. So, we were drinking May Goat.

Summit brews four beers year-round: EPA, IPA, grand, and porter.

Here are Summit's seasonal beers:
Maibock - Spring
Hefe Weizen - Summer
Oktoberfest - Fall
Winter Ale - Winter

I should probably say a few words about the popular Terry Schiavo.

First, who is paying to keep her alive? Hopefully, I am not. I say keep her on medical assistance until her money runs out. Then let her parents pay for her. Then let those people who taped LIFE over their mouths pay for her. Or maybe Terry can rack up huge credit card debt paying for her medical assistance. Then she can file for bankruptcy. Or maybe we can end all the mania by pulling the tube when we need the money from her medical assistance costs to help balance the budget under a no new taxes pledge.

Fellow Americans, I believe you have a right to a shitty life. I believe you have unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I believe in your right to the vain pursuit of happiness. I will fight to bring you into this world. Leave no egg behind. But if you need anything from me before your imminent death, go fuck yourself. Fuck you and your inept, irresponsible existence. I believe in your right to suffer. But I’ll be there for you when your body tries to leave this world. To keep you alive, I will quench my fear of stem cell research, medical technology, pharmaceuticals, and all such things grotesquely unnatural. I will keep you alive by any means, except gay means.

Actually, what we really need is more prayer, then Terry Tinkerbell will emerge from her comatose state.

Hoops

Have you seen people in the NCAA tournament popping their jerseys? Remember the end of the Bucknell upset over Kansas. Hook your thumbs inside your jersey by your pecks and extend the jersey to showcase your school name. As a nytimes columnist put it, after you stretch the nylon, you have to pull the polyester. Personally, I prefer to pull my jersey across my pectoral muscle, exposing the slab of granite. Isaiah Rider copied me. It happens. I expect to have many more imitators now that I donned my new basketball shorts, one shorts leg is much shorter than the other. It's awesome. After I dunked on people, I used to pull up one shorts leg to show my leg muscles, and to show that I'm awesome. But then I thought, I'm strong and awesome all the time, and that's when I customized my shorts.

Student Kills 9 at Red Lake High School

Jeff Weise killed his grandparents, a security guard, a teacher, five students, and himself.

nytimes article

Fifteen people were killed at Columbine High School in 1999.

Two students were fatally shot at Ricori High School in Cold Spring, Minnesota, 18 months ago.

Technical Bla Bla

As I mentioned before, I can record using my iRiver and save the audio file as an mp3. There are sites such as FeedBurner that accept url feeds and provide post-processing service that allows publishers to enhance their feeds. By republishing their feeds through FeedBurner, publishers gain detailed feed statistics, maximum feed format compatibility, shockproofing to absorb bandwidth spikes, and more. However, I don't have a feed url.

My question:

After you save your audio file as an mp3, where do you host the file and how do you upload it onto blogspot? I can record my voice as an mp3 but I don't know how to post it on my blog. Any advice.

Answer courtesy of Devan of SayYum:

We have a separate hosting service we setup a while back where we host the mp3 file and then link to it from our Blogger post. The service we use costs about $8/month but has a bandwidth limit, which we're quickly approaching. I'd recommend using somewhere that has unlimited bandwidth, but limited storage.

A good one I've been thinking about moving to is http://www.libsyn.com. It starts around $5/month and doesn't require any long-term commitment. I think they not only handle hosting the mp3, but also the blog and RSS feed itself which will save you some headaches. But others are sprouting up rather quickly. Odeo.com, which is still in development by the original developers of Blogger, is supposed to have some level of free hosting service as well as tools to record your podcasts. But its anybody's guess when they'll actually launch.

I hope that helps. I'm happy to chat more about this if you like...Ireally dig this stuff. I'm trying not to overwhelm you with details in my first response. Short and simple...give libsyn a try for a month and see if it works for you.

Me: I'm looking for something gratis.

Directions to AudioBlogging

Nate,

1. Login to Blogger
2. Scroll down and under Blogger Help on the right-hand side click on Blogger Help
3. Under Article Search on the right-hand side type in Audio
4. Under Search Results click on the first search result, AudioBlogger
5. Click on http://audioblogger.com/
6. Click the orange button Start AudioBlogging Now
7. Follow the directions

Audio Ben

There has been a lot of talk about podcasting and I was trying to figure out how to podcast. I can record my voice on my iRiver and save as an mp3, but where do I host my mp3 before I feed it through to my blog? I don't know. I found an easy solution. I can now call a number, enter my phone number, enter my pin code, record a message, and post the message. If I can call the number, then I can post audio. Sweet.

In other and extraordinary news, I spent some quality time with Jude and Michelle this weekend. Jude apparently got disoriented at the airport and ended up in Minnesota for spring break instead of Cancun. To warm his heart we had a foam party and then watched a little March Madness on the fuzzy display of a 1972 television. Pete Dillon was in the house too. Dr. Dillon will be applying his knowledge of physical chemistry to atmospheric studies at Berkeley this coming year. Go Pete. Pete and I went for a nice run Sunday morning. We will be communing every Sunday morning to spin the wheels and feel the holy spirit. Tim Pavlish, we will meet around 9:30 or 10:00.

I found one of the tastiest beers: Summit Maibock. Mmmmm.

Alf, you have been the only one so far to call me on the color of my blog.

Delta on the Mississippi

So, I was thinking about the class of 2000 reunion, which is June 3-5. Brandon Guthrie and Kevin Shively will be in town. BLodge and Mr. Shively were runners at Macalester and each has an appreciation for urban development. I thought they would enjoy a tour of the cities because a lot has changed. That got me thinking about all the changes that have occurred since I came to Mac in the fall of 1997. Running high mileage gives a person a chance to escape the Macalester bubble and tour the city. Geographers also get a chance to learn more about the Twin Cities too.

First, there are the changes at Macalester: the razed Cultural House, the new Internaional Center, the new President’s House, the new Campus Center, the remodeled Kagin Commons, the renovated Wallace attic, the renovated and expanded Turck Hall, the median on Grand Avenue. Then there are the changes in the Macalester buffer zone. The Grand Café, where I bought my first illegal beer, is gone. Pad Thai is new. Red Fish Blue came and went. The Hungry Mind became the Ruminator, which choked while trying to masticate its debt. Coffee News is new. Eclipse Records came and went, RIP. Soul Flower now exists only on the ethereal internet. Domino’s moved closer to campus. The Old City Café was replaced by the Breadsmith and Jamba Juice replaced the Crazy Carrot. Spudza was replaced by Khyber Pass. Home Video burned down, much to the dismay of locals with prurient interests. Victoria Crossing welcomed Pottery Barn, Bound To Be Read, and J Crew. Chipotle moved in too. The Bonfire Grill replaced Ciati’s, which was the place where Marye and I went on our first date, Valentine’s Day. This is flowing. Let me break it off into St. Paul.

St. Paul

Remember the Stop Campus Sprawl signs? Well, they didn’t work. The University of St. Thomas is having thyroid problems and continues to grow up and out. Let’s run down Selby. You will see new housing, businesses, restaurants, and streetscape improvements. I would like to give a shout out to La Grolla, Solo Vino, and Box Office Video on the Cathedral Hill. Now we’re down by the Cathedral. By the way, what does the church ban from their premises? Hint: four letter word that begins with g and ends with s. Guns. When I arrived for mass wearing a sleeveless shirt, I found out they also don’t allow pipes. But I digress. Let’s go down Kellogg. Remember the enormous old brick house that stood prominently and absurdly in the middle of the parking lot facing the Xcel Center? It’s gone. Every man, woman, and child in St. Paul paid $4 to relocate the JM Armstrong House. Speaking of the Xcel Energy Center, it’s new. So are several bars that popped up to warm up the fans. So is the Holiday Inn and the Science Museum. The beautiful Central Library is reopened after renovations. A new Biomass Energy Cogeneration Plant generates power for most of downtown by burning wood waste. The Ramsey County Jail, which offers inmates a calming view of the Mississippi River, has failed to reduce recidivism and therefore will be moved to another location, leaving the riverfront property to circling developers. The Wacouta Commons development is new. Law enforcement has a new facility, the Public Safety Building. Lowertown has loft fever. There is a new library by Metropolitan State University. US Bank has a new home across the Robert Street bridge on the West Side. The Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center broke ground and will be the new home of the Neighborhood House, an organization where the cross country team volunteered during preseason my freshman year. Now, let’s run along the river high-bridge-right style. Harriet Island Park is finished and serves as the venue for fireworks and Irish Fair, among other activities. The most luxurious new development in St. Paul is the Upper Landing Urban Village on Shepard Road. The Xcel Energy power plant next to the Upper Landing will be converted from coal to gas. Further down the river we come to Island Station, home to an abandoned power plant - just north of the railroad bridge that crosses the river and just west of Pickerel Lake by Cherokee Regional Park. There are plans to renovate Island Station to housing units that provide sizeable contributions to property tax coffers. Schmidt brewery on Seventh Street has recently been zoned residential; Gopher State Ethanol has ceased operations in the structure and will auction off the property later this March. Ayd Mill Road was reopened in June 2002, increasing connectivity with the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood and triggering outcries of NIMBY. Ayd Mill currently terminates near Selby and Snelling. St. Paul Mayor “Really” Randy Kelly wants Ayd Mill to connect with 94. The Met Council bus garage at 94 and Snelling was torn down and petroleum-contaminated soil is being removed. The Midway said goodbye to Kmart and hello to Wal-Mart. There is talk of a Home Depot and a Best Buy in Midway too. That’s a long list. I was going to talk about Minneapolis but I’ll wait until another day.

Commuting

Usually I leave the house at 7:15.
* 5 minute walk to bus stop
* 3 minute wait for bus
* 8 minute bus ride
* 3 minute wait for LRT
* 13 minute LRT ride
* 7 minute walk to work
That's a 39 minute commute, from the kitchen to the seat in my cube.

Today I left the house in the car at 7:27.
I arrived in my cube at 7:51.
That's a 24 minute commute.

I guarantee I could bike to work in less than 24 minutes.
But then I would have to deal with something called ball sweat.

And if Ben left the house at 7:15 to travel on public transportation and anti-Ben left the house a pie at 7:15 and ran 5.5 miles to work, the two would collide and annihilate each other when they arrived at work at the same time.

Brick Shithouse

I toured the capitol and the state office building today. I have never been inside the capitol before, although I've ran up and down the stairs outside hundreds of times while punching the air. Marble is nice. I saw the portraits of past governors, so many women. Actually, none. At this time I would like to point out that when Kay Orr was elected governor of Nebraska in 1987, she was the first Republican woman to be elected governor in any state and the first woman to run against another woman for a gubernatorial post. Anyway, I met one of our lobbyists. I also saw the eminent Andrea Sternberg and her vault of an office. I picked up a trusty green book with information about every congressperson.

word of the day
clinker: 1) a brick that has been burned too much in the kiln 2) stony matter fused together: slag

used in a sentence
"Ben, you look like you've been working out. I dare say you're made out of clinker. You're built like a god damn brick shithouse."

Andy, do you remember the 1600 and 3200 record times of the Walter Johnson standout?

When I was a senior in 1997, I witnessed the breaking of the 400, 800, 1600, and 4x800 state records. Kearney had their distance studs step down into the 800 to put together a 7:45. The 400 record still stands at 47.25. After 1997, the 800 and 1600 records were broken by Brian Turner, who was a freshman when I was a senior. He still holds the 800 record at 1:50.82. The 3200 record was lowered to 9:06 by Dana Carne (Asada). Last year, Colby Wissel from Kearney ran a 4:10 and 8:55, setting state records in each event. I believe Kearney has won the state championship every year since I was a fifteen-year-old freshman.

In other news, I picked up The Jungle again. Jurgis is having a tough time.

Track

I checked out the MIAC Indoor Track and Field Championship results. Good job Mac Pack. Carleton's Bucy looks sharp. Hamline sophomore Tony Klappa broke Paul Mausling's meet record with a 4:18 mile.

In other news, things in Bolivia don't look good. President Carlos Mesa plans to resign. Evo Morales is inciting trouble.

Wireless Fidelity

I'm at Dunn Brothers right now. My computer is connected to the internet, sans wires. I'm free, I'm free. Unfortunately, free lunch was not available from the comfort of our home. Do certain wireless network adapters have better signal receiving capabilitites than others? How does wireless internet work?

Clean Water Legacy Act

My sundry job duties just expanded. I will now function partly as a lobbyist. I’m going to the capitol to follow the progress of the Clean Water Legacy Act.

The purpose of the Clean Water Legacy Act is to protect, restore, and preserve the quality of Minnesota's surface waters by providing authority, direction, and resources to achieve and maintain water quality standards for surface waters as required by section 303(d) of the federal Clean Water Act, United States Code, title 42, section 1313(d), and applicable federal regulations.

Being new to the game, I follow references in bills. I already had Clean Water Act bookmarked and the Code of Federal Regulations bookmarked but I was not aware of the United States Code, so I learned something new. I also learned USC, title 42, section 1313, referred to "Assistance for United States citizens returned from foreign countries". Interesting. Upon further investigation, it seems to me the bill reference should be to USC, title 33, section 1313. Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but maybe there is a huge error in the bill.

The concept of the bill is simple: generate revenue from fees and use the $$ to improve water quality. There are already many programs in place to improve water quality; thus, the importance of revenue generation. The bill levies an annual fee of $36 on every residential dwelling (it’s a user fee). For nonresidential establishment the fee is as follows: (i) if average effluent flow is less than 10,000 gallons per day, $120 per year; (ii) if average effluent flow is 10,000 gallons per day or greater, but less than 100,000 gallons per day, $300 per year; and (iii) if average effluent flow is 100,000 gallons per day or greater, $600 per year. The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce supports the bill; the fees on nonresidential establishments are paltry. I think the bill is being driven from a federal level. The feds might impose development restrictions on areas near impaired waters.

Some acronym argot:

Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL):

Calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant that may be introduced into a surface water and still ensure that applicable water quality standards for that water are achieved and maintained.

Sum of the pollutant load allocations for all sources of the pollutant.

Includes:
* wasteload allocation for point sources
* load allocation for nonpoint sources and natural background
* allocation for future growth of point and nonpoint sources
* margin of safety to account for uncertainty about the relationship between pollutant loads and the quality of the receiving surface water

Also:

Surface water that does not meet applicable water quality standards is known as "impaired water."

Great information research tool:
FindLaw

In other news:

I have completed a couple more phases in the transition to eBen. I have been ripping my CD collection to create an MP3 playlist. I am adding tags to the music files so that my iRiver will classify songs by artist, album, and genre. I bought a wireless USB network adapter at Office Max today. Will I finally be able to use the Internet at home? Will the Internet take me to a higher level of consciousness and pornoness?

mista mista

Here's what happened to me on the streets of downtown Minneapolis some time ago.

Sung by: Wyclef

Mista mista
Can I get five dollars
So I can get something to eat
HELL NO MOTHERFUCKA
You can't get no money from me
Cause everytime I give you a dollar
You go get shot up with more and more needles
And you tell me that you're drug free
Drug Free
Mista mista
I haven't ate anything for a week
Can I get a quarter?
HELL NO MOTHERFUCKA
What can a quarter get you?
Nothing motherfucka
You are just fucked up
Off them fucked up drugs
You know you need to leave alone
But you keep telling me that you're drug free
MOTHERFUCKA
You ain't drug free, you're a fiend
And everytime I try to help you
You pretend as if it's okay
Then later on in the week
You go back to shootin' needles, to sniffin'
Oh mf, but you told me you were DRUG FREE
DRUG FREE
You ain't drug free motherfucka
So you damn well, can't get no motherfuckin money from me

Here’s what really happened to me:

I was in Marshall Fields buying two Perry Ellis dress shirts and a bottle of Safari cologne. A man cloying of something other than cologne was harassing the woman employee behind the counter to give him samples of cologne. She gave him one sample, but he wanted more. She wouldn't budge. The man asked me to ask the lady for cologne samples. I said no, you smell of cigarettes and alcohol but not of body odor, you need a mint. Then I walked outside. I was walking down the street. A man asked me for money. He offered to sing to me for money so he could buy clean underwear. I said it never hurts to ask, but I'm turning you down.

Automobiles

I drove the Hennepin County Department of Environmental Services' Toyota Prius hybrid today.

Marye was driving our 1996 Ford Escort down by Blue Earth today when the serpentine belt broke and our car died. Since May of 2004 we have spent almost $3,000 on our car. The good times roll.

Caveat Emptor

People rave about the benefits of buying a house.

You're building equity. It's true, but building equity seems like filling up a five-gallon jug with water by wringing the moisture from rocks. We took out a loan of $164,000 at 5.5%. At the end of one year the principle balance will be $161,791, the cumulative amount paid toward interest will be equal to $8,965, and the cumulative amount paid toward principle will be equal to $2,209. Drip.

You might not want to read this next part because it is lucid like mud.

Your money spent paying mortgage interest is tax deductible. It's true. But have you ever itemized deductions on Schedule A instead of taking the standard deduction? Usually, I take the standard deduction, which is $9,700 for those married filing jointly. If I had itemized deductions* when I was a renter, my deductions would have equaled about $2,500, which means the federal government granted me a gift of $7,200 when I used the standard deduction. (Deductions are important because they reduce your taxable income.) I had about $12,000 in itemized deductions for 2004. I was excited; I thought ‘this is the first time I have deductions.’ I looked individually at that number and forgot about the standard deduction I always took in the past. So, instead of the additional savings I anticipated based on $12,000, my savings were based on $2,300, the difference between my itemized deductions and the standard deduction. Like the Alamo, remember the standard deduction.

* Itemized deductions you can claim: 1) Medical and dental expenses, but not those expenses reimbursed or paid by others - limiting; 2) Taxes you paid, such are state income tax and property tax; 3) Interest you paid, such as home mortgage interest and points; 4) Gifts to charity, if over $250; 5) Casualty and theft losses; 6) Job expenses and most other miscellaneous deductions - many limitations.

=====

Timothy and Paul came over to my house on Friday night. We drank beers and read the bible. It all started when I read Tim a passage from Timothy 1 about the importance of womanly submission. From that point on Tim was enthralled with the wisdom of the lord and could not put the holy writ down. Tim shared with us that rebellious youth should be stoned, that masturbating while laying siege to a city makes you unclean, and that when you capture a woman during war, you can take her home, but you must shave her head, and then you can have sex with her and make her clean and cook, but if she doesn't please you, cast her away. After all this excitement, Tim fell asleep before Jay Leno, leaving Paul and me to speculate on Tim’s future.

I've always said:

Don't Blame Wal-Mart

Also, I like our house.

The Michele Bachman Gay Red Herring

Reading the City Pages last night drove me into a fury beyond expression.

Minnesota Senator Michele Bachman is wont to launch into flatulent tirades against gays. Bachman has vowed to amend the Constitution, banning gay marriage. Most Americans become aroused and get behind Bachman, because, like Bachman, Americans love gays but hate love between gays. However, most Americans are tragically led astray by Bachman's gay red herring. The real issue is not gay marriage. Gay marriage is not even mentioned in the ten commandments. The real issue is people who don't believe in and worship God and His Son Jesus Christ. I cannot imagine a greater sin. I cannot imagine a greater pestilence endangering mankind. We must ammend the constitution to ban infidel marriage. Michele Bachman, you and your gay red herring disgust me.

briefs

The number one reason my doppelganger was against the war in Iraq was the cost.

Bush's 'priceless' war

This is funny, as in wtf funny:

Bush administration fights to block American POWs from suing Iraq

The Department of Justice is expected to file a brief this week urging the Supreme Court not to hear the appeal of 17 American pilots who were captured and abused by Iraqis during the 1991 Persian Gulf conflict. The POWs filed suit in federal court in 2002 under the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act that allowed citizens to sue foreign governments that supported terrorism. The Iraqi government ignored the suit, and there was no trial. In July 2003, however, a district judge awarded the POWs $959 million in compensatory and punitive damages, and lawyers sought to claim a portion of the $1.7 billion in Iraqi assets that were frozen by the US. Shortly afterwards, the Bush administration began to argue that the case should be vacated due to the then-current need to keep money in post-Saddam Iraq for rebuilding purposes. In June 2004, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the Bush administration, and vacated the earlier decision. The POWs have since appealed to the Supreme Court. The Court is expected to decide in the next two months whether to hear the case.

Here are a couple other things from my conversations with Kofi:

I had to brush up on my football knowledge.
Important competitions:
1. UEFA Champions League
2. UEFA Cup
3. Premiership (England's FA Premier League)
4. League Cup (Carling Cup)
Read more on Wikipedia.org.

It's always fun to talk about superhero superpowers. It was suggested that being fluent in every language, including slang, would be a great power. Does that include body language, the language of love, etc.? I don't know. Being American, I don't really care and I think being fluent in all languages is a stupid superpower because I already know English. I kid.

In other news:

I purchased the iRiver H320 on a website called newegg.com, which Simon referred me to. I'll talk more about it once I receive it.

News Flash

Randy Moss was traded to the Oakland Raiders for linebacker Napoleon Harris, a 7th pick, and a 7th round pick. It could be good for the Vikings, but it's bad for me. Now Minnesota is a mediocre team without an entertaining superstar.

Orgy

So, here are a few things from conversations I had with Kofi.

Kofi and Kate visited Rome a few weeks ago. The sites where spectacular, the icecream was magnifico, the weather was okay, and it was not tourist season. Anyway, Kofi told me about vomitoriums. What is a Vomitorium? The word orgy comes from the Roman practice of having enormous parties where dinners ranged anywhere from three to ten courses. Guests, reclining in couches, gorged themselves on delicacies. Once full, wealthy Romans would retreat to the vomitorium to induce vomiting and rejoin the party to continue eating. Seneca commented, "they vomit so that they may eat and eat so that they may vomit.'' Awesome.

Kofi recommended two books:

Race, Crime, and the Law by Randall Kennedy

Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich

Kofi also talked about advertising in the UK; he is still working on the Kelloggs account. People are complaining that advertising unfairly targets children by using cartoon characters and suggesting unhealthy cereals are healthy. It will be interesting to see if there is any legislative action prohibiting certain advertising practices in the case of sugar drugs.

Cut Cartoon Food Promotion Ploy

Who is Che Guevara?

Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna (May 14, 1928 - October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara, was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary and Cuban guerrilla leader. Guevara was a member of Fidel Castro's "26th of July Movement", which seized power in Cuba in 1959. After serving various important posts in the new government, Guevara left Cuba in 1966 with the hope of fomenting revolutions in other countries, first in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and later in Bolivia, where he was captured in a CIA-organized military operation. The CIA wanted to keep him alive for interrogation, but he was executed by the Bolivian army. After his death, Guevara became a hero of Third World socialist revolutionary movements, as a theorist and tactician of asymmetric warfare.

Youth

Guevara was born in Rosario, Argentina, the eldest of five children in a family of mixed Spanish and Irish descent. The date of birth recorded on his birth certificate was June 14, 1928, but his true date of birth was May 14, 1928. The birth certificate was deliberately falsified to help shield the family from scandal relating to his mother's having been three months pregnant when she was married.

Guevara's ancestor Patrick Lynch, founder of the Argentine branch of the Lynches, was born in Ireland in 1715. He left for Bilbao, Spain, and traveled from there to Argentina. Francisco Lynch (Guevara's great-grandfather) was born in 1817, and Ana Lynch (his grandmother) in 1861. Her son Ernesto Guevara Lynch (Guevara's father) was born in 1900. Lynch married Celia de la Serna and had five children.

In this upper-middle class family with significantly left-wing views, Guevara became known for his dynamic and radical perspective even as a boy. Though suffering from the crippling bouts of asthma that were to handicap him throughout his life, he excelled as an athlete. In 1948, he entered the University of Buenos Aires to study medicine. There he also excelled as a scholar; he completed his medical studies in March 1953.

He spent many of his holidays traveling around Latin America. In 1951, Guevara's older friend, Alberto Granado, a biochemist and a political radical, suggested that Guevara take a year off his medical studies to embark on a trip they had talked of doing for years, traversing South America on a Norton 500 cc motorcycle nicknamed La Poderosa ("The mighty one"), with the idea of spending a few weeks volunteering at a leper colony in Peru on the banks of the Amazon River during the trip. Guevara and the 29-year-old Alberto soon set off from their hometown of Alta Gracia. Guevara narrated this journey in The Motorcycle Diaries, translated in 1996 (and turned into a motion picture of the same name in 2004). Through his first-hand observations of the poverty and powerlessness of the masses, he decided that the only remedy for Latin America's social inequities lay in revolution. His travels also taught him to look upon Latin America not as a collection of separate nations but as a cultural and economic entity, the liberation of which would require an intercontinental strategy. Upon his return to Argentina, he completed his medical studies as quickly as he could, to enable him to continue his adventures traveling around South America.

Guatemala

Following his graduation from the University of Buenos Aires medical school in 1953, Guevara went to Guatemala, where President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán headed a populist left-wing government that, through various reforms, particularly land reform, was attempting to bring about a social revolution. Around this time, Guevara also acquired his famous nickname, "Che". (In Argentina, "Che" is used similarly to "mate" or "pal" in English; in other parts of Latin America, it is slang for someone from Argentina.)

The overthrow of the Arbenz government by a 1954 CIA-backed coup d'état was, in Guevara's view, proof that the United States would always oppose governments that attempted to address the socioeconomic inequality endemic to Latin America and other developing countries of the world. This helped strengthen his view that socialism was the only true way to remedy such problems. Following the coup, Guevara volunteered to fight, but Arbenz told his supporters to leave the country, and Guevara briefly took refuge in the Argentine consulate.

Cuba

Guevara met Fidel Castro and Fidel's brother Raúl in Mexico City where the two sought refuge after being exiled from Cuba. The Castro brothers were preparing to return to Cuba with an expeditionary force in an attempt to overthrow General Fulgencio Batista, who had assumed dictatorial powers following a coup d'état during the 1952 presidential elections. Guevara quickly joined what became known as the "26th of July Movement".

Castro, Guevara, and 80 other guerrillas departed from Tuxpan, Veracruz, aboard the cabin cruiser Granma in November 1956. (The name was most likely a tribute to the grandmother of the previous owner, an American.) Guevara was the only non-Cuban aboard.

Shortly after disembarking in a swampy area near Niquero in the southeast, the expeditionary unit was attacked by Batista's forces. Only 12 rebels survived. Guevara, the group's physician, laid down his knapsack containing medical supplies in order to pick up a box of ammunition dropped by a fleeing comrade, a moment which he later recalled as marking his transition from doctor to combatant. [1] (http://www.patriagrande.net/cuba/
ernesto.che.guevara/pasajes.de.la.guerra.revolucionaria.htm)

The rebels slowly grew in strength, seizing weapons and winning support and recruits from the local peasants in rural areas and intellectuals and workers in urban areas. Guevara exhibited great courage, skill in combat, and ruthlessness and soon became one of Castro's ablest and most trusted aides. Guevara took responsibility for the execution of informers, insubordinates, deserters and spies in the revolutionary army. He personally executed Eutimio Guerra, a suspected Batista informant, with a single shot from his .32 caliber (7.65 mm, likely a Soviet-made Makarov) pistol.

Within months, Guevara rose to the highest rank, Comandante (Major), in the revolutionary army. His march on Santa Clara in late 1958, where his column derailed an armored train filled with Batista's troops and took over the city, was the final straw that forced Batista to flee the country. Guevara recorded the two years spent in overthrowing Batista's regime in a detailed account entitled Pasajes de la Guerra Revolucionaria (English translation, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War, 1968), first published in 1963.

Revolutionary government

After Castro's troops entered the capital of Havana on January 2, 1959, a new socialist government was established. Shortly thereafter, Guevara became a Cuban citizen and divorced his Peruvian wife, Hilda Gedea, with whom he had one daughter. Later, he married a member of Castro's army, Aleida March. The couple would have four children together.

Che Guevara became as prominent in the new government as he had been in the revolutionary army. After serving as the military commander of the La Cabana fort, Guevara became an official at the National Institute of Agrarian Reform, president of the National Bank of Cuba, and Minister of Industries. In this capacity, Guevara faced the challenge of adapting Cuba's capitalist agrarian economy into a socialist industrial economy. After negotiating a trade agreement with the Soviet Union in 1960, Guevara represented Cuba on many commercial missions and delegations to Soviet-aligned nations in Africa and Asia after the United States imposed an embargo on the nation.

In 1959, Guevara was appointed commander of the La Cabana Fortress prison. During his term as commander of the fortress from 1959-1963, he oversaw the executions of hundreds of political prisoners and regime opponents (estimates range from 500 to 1700). Many individuals imprisoned at La Cabana, such as poet and human rights activist Armando Valladares, allege that Guevara took particular and personal interest in the interrogation, torture, and execution of some prisoners.

Guevara helped guide the Castro regime on its leftward and pro-Communist path. An active participant in the economic and social reforms brought about by Castro's government, he became known in the West for his outspoken opposition to all forms of imperialism and neocolonialism and for his fiery attacks on U.S. foreign policy in Africa, Asia, and especially Latin America.

During this period, he defined Cuba's policies and his own views in many speeches, articles, letters, and essays, the most important of which are two books on guerrilla warfare. El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba (1965; Man and Socialism in Cuba (http://marxists.org/archive/guevara/1965/03/man-socialism.htm), 1967) is an examination of Cuba's new brand of socialism and Communist ideology. His highly influential manual on guerrilla strategy and tactics (English translation, Guerrilla Warfare, 1961) advocated peasant-based revolutionary movements in the developing countries.

Prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis, Guevara was part of a Cuban delegation to Moscow in early 1962 with Raúl Castro where he endorsed the planned placement of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Guevara believed that the placement of Soviet missiles would protect Cuba from any direct military action against it from the United States. Jon Lee Anderson reports that after the crisis Guevara told Sam Russell, a British correspondent for the socialist newspaper Daily Worker, that if the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have fired them off.

Guevara's book, Guerrilla Warfare, was seen for a time as the definitive philosophy for fighting irregular wars. Guevara believed that a small group (foco) of guerrillas, by violently targeting the government, could actively foment revolutionary feelings among the general populace, so that it was not necessary to build broad organizations and advance the revolutionary struggle in measured steps before launching armed insurrection. However, the failure of his "Cuban Style" revolution in Bolivia was thought to have been due to his lack of grassroots support there, and hence this strategy is now thought by some to be ineffective.

Congo

He persuaded Castro to back him in the first, covert Cuban involvement in Africa. Guevara desired to first work with the pro-Lumumba, Marxist Simba movement in the former Belgian Congo (later Zaire and currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

In 1964, Guevara was assisted for a time in the former Belgian Congo by guerrilla leader Laurent Kabila, who helped Lumumba supporters lead a revolt that was eventually suppressed in 1965 by the Congolese army as well as the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Guevara dismissed Kabila as insignificant. "Nothing leads me to believe he is the man of the hour," Guevara wrote. [2] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1121068.stm)

Guevara was only 35 at that time and had never had any formal military training. His asthma prevented him from going in to military service in Argentina, a fact of which he was proud, given his opposition to the government. He had the experiences of the Cuban revolution, including his successful march on Santa Clara, Cuba, in late 1958, which was central to Batista finally being overthrown by Castro's forces. However, as Guevara was to discover, working under the direction of a gifted revolutionary leader does not make oneself a gifted revolutionary leader.

U.S. Army Special Forces advisors working with the Congolese army were able to monitor Guevara's communications, arrange to ambush the rebels and the Cubans whenever they attempted to attack, and interdict Guevara's supply lines. Guevara proved unable to supplant the native Simba leadership, and in fact was forced to place his troops under Simba command. Late that same year, ill, humiliated and with only a few survivors of the force he had brought into the country, Guevara left the Congo.

Disappearance from Cuba

After April 1965 Guevara dropped out of public life and then vanished altogether. Guevara was not seen in public after his return to Havana on March 14 from a three-month tour of the People's Republic of China, the United Arab Republic (Egypt), Algeria, Ghana, and Congo-Brazzaville. Guevara's whereabouts were the great mystery of 1965 in Cuba, as he was regarded as second in power to Castro himself.

His disappearance was variously attributed to the relative failure of the industrialization scheme he had advocated while minister of industry, to pressure exerted on Castro by Soviet officials disapproving of Guevara's pro-Chinese Communist outlook as the Sino-Soviet split grew more pronounced, and to serious differences between Guevara and the Cuban leadership regarding Cuba's economic development and ideological line.

Guevara's pro-Chinese orientation was increasingly problematic for Cuba as the Cuban economy became more and more dependent on the Soviet Union. Since the early days of the Cuban revolution Guevara had been considered an advocate of Maoist strategy in Latin America and the originator of a plan for swift industrialization of Cuba. According to Western observers of the Cuban situation, the fact that Guevara was opposed to Soviet recommendations that Castro seemed obliged to agree to might have been the reason for his disappearance.

Indeed, by this point Guevara had grown more skeptical of the Soviet Union. He saw the Northern Hemisphere, led by the U.S. in the West and the Soviets in the East, as the exploiter of the Southern Hemisphere. But he strongly supported the Communist side in the Vietnam War, despite North Vietnam's pro-Soviet position, and urged his comrades in South America to create "many Vietnams".

Pressed by international speculations on Guevara's fate, Castro said on June 16 that the people would be informed about Guevara when Guevara himself wished to let them know. Numerous rumors about his disappearance spread both inside and outside Cuba.

On October 3 of that year, Castro revealed an undated letter purportedly written to him by Guevara some months earlier in which Guevara reaffirmed his enduring solidarity with the Cuban Revolution but stated his intention to leave Cuba to fight abroad for the cause of the revolution. He explained that "other nations are calling for the help of my modest efforts" and that, having "always identified with the world outcome of our Revolution", he had decided to go and fight as a guerrilla in different parts of the world. In the letter Guevara announced his resignation from all his positions in the government, in the party, and in the Army, and renounced his Cuban citizenship, which had been granted to him in 1959 in recognition of his efforts on behalf of the revolution.

During an interview with four foreign correspondents on November 1, Castro remarked that he knew where Guevara was but that he would not disclose the place, and added, denying reports that his former comrade-in-arms was dead, that "he is in the best of health". Despite Castro's assurances the fate of Guevara remained a mystery at the end of 1965. Guevara's movements and whereabouts remained a secret for the next two years.

Bolivia

Speculation continued during the year as to the whereabouts of the former Minister of Industry and Director of the National Bank. In a speech at the May Day rally in Havana, the Acting Minister of the armed forces, Maj. Juan Almeida, announced that Guevara was "serving the revolution somewhere in Latin America". The persistent reports that he was assisting the guerrillas in Bolivia were ultimately proven true.

A parcel of jungle land in Nancahazu was purchased by native Bolivian Communists and turned over to him for use as a training area. The evidence suggests that this training was more hazardous than combat to Guevara and the Cubans accompanying him. Little was accomplished in the way of building a guerrilla army. On learning of his presence in Bolivia, President René Barrientos is alleged to have expressed the desire to see Guevara's head displayed on a pike in downtown La Paz. He ordered the Bolivian Army to hunt Guevara and his followers down.

Guevara's guerrillas, numbering about 120, were well equipped and scored a number of early successes in difficult terrain in the mountainous Camiri region of the country against Bolivian regulars. In September, however, the Army managed to eliminate two guerrilla groups, reportedly killing one of the leaders.

Guevara's hope of fomenting revolution in Bolivia appears to have been predicated upon a number of misconceptions. He had expected to deal only with the country's military government. However, there was a U.S. presence in Bolivia. After the U.S. government learned of his location, CIA operatives were sent into Bolivia to aid the anti-insurrection effort. He had expected to deal with a poorly trained and equipped national army. Instead, the Bolivian Army was being trained by U.S. Army Special Forces advisors, including a recently organized elite battalion of Rangers trained in jungle warfare. Guevara had also not received the expected assistance and cooperation from the local dissidents when he undertook his journey. Moreover, Bolivia's Moscow-oriented Communist Party did not aid him in the insurrection.

Guevara and his associates found themselves hamstrung in Bolivia by the American aid and military trainers to the Bolivian government and a lack of assistance from his allies. In addition, the CIA also helped anti-Castro Cuban exiles set up interrogation houses for those Bolivians thought to be assisting Guevara and/or his guerrillas. Some were tortured for information.

The Bolivians were notified of the location of Guevara's guerrilla encampment by a deserter. On October 8, the encampment was encircled and Guevara was captured while leading a patrol in the vicinity of La Higuera. His surrender was offered after being wounded in the legs and having his rifle destroyed by a bullet. According to soldiers present at the capture, during the skirmish as soldiers approached Guevara he allegedly shouted, "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead". Barrientos ordered his execution immediately upon being informed of Guevara's capture. Guevara was executed; he was taken to an old schoolhouse and bound by his hands to a board. Che Guevara did have some last words before his death; he allegedly said to his executioner, "I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man". He was shot in the heart.

A CIA agent and veteran of the U.S. invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, Felix Rodriguez headed the hunt for Guevara in Bolivia. After hearing of Guevara's capture Rodriguez relayed the information to CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia via CIA stations in various South American nations. Although Rodriguez despised Guevara for his involvement in the execution of several of his own family members, he noted how bravely Guevara accepted his fate after his initial cowardice. After the execution, Rodriguez took Guevara's Rolex watch, often proudly showing it to reporters during the ensuing years. Rodriguez had removed Guevara's hands to send to different parts of the world to verify his identity.

A side issue connected with the guerrillas was the arrest and trial of Régis Debray. In April 1967 government forces captured Debray, a young French Marxist theoretician and writer, and accused him of collaborating with the guerrillas. Debray claimed that he had merely been acting as a reporter, and that Che, who had mysteriously disappeared several years earlier, was leading the guerrillas.

As Debray's trial-which had become an international cause celebre-was beginning in early October, Bolivian authorities on October 11 reported that Guevara had been shot and killed in an engagement with government forces on October 9. The former Cuban leader's body was publicly displayed and photographed, and fingerprints were offered as proof of identification.

On October 15 Castro admitted that the death had occurred and proclaimed three days of public mourning throughout Cuba. The death of Guevara was regarded as a severe blow to the socialist revolutionary movements throughout Latin America.

In 1997, the skeletal remains of Guevara's body were exhumed, positively identified by DNA matching and returned to Cuba, where he is revered as a heroic revolutionary leader. On the 12 July 1997 Guevara's remains were buried with full military honours in the city of Santa Clara, in the province of Las Villas, where Guevara won the decisive battle of the Cuban Revolution.

The Bolivian Diary

Also removed was Guevara's diary, which outlined the guerrilla war being fought in Bolivia. It tells of the group being forced to begin operations due to discovery by the Bolivian Army, the eventual split of the group, and the general failure of the guerrillas. It shows the split between Guevara and the Bolivian Communist Party that resulted in Guevara having significantly fewer soldiers than originally anticipated. It shows that Guevara had a great deal of difficulty recruiting from the local populace, due mainly to the fact that the guerrilla group had learned Quechua and not the local language. As the campaign drew to an unexpected close, Guevara became increasingly ill. He suffered from asthma, and most of his last offensives were carried out to obtain medicine.

The Bolivian Diary was quickly and crudely translated by Ramparts magazine and circulated around the world. Fidel Castro has denied involvement with this.

Hero cult

While pictures of Guevara's dead body were being circulated and the circumstances of his death were being debated, Guevara's legend began to spread. Demonstrations in protest against his assassination occurred throughout the world, and articles, tributes, and poems were written about his life and death.

Even liberal elements that felt little sympathy with Guevara's Communist ideals during his lifetime expressed admiration for his spirit of self-sacrifice. He is singled out from other revolutionaries by many young people in the West because he rejected a comfortable background to fight for global revolution. And when he gained power in Cuba, he gave up all the trappings of privilege and power in Cuba in order to return to the revolutionary battlefield and ultimately, to die.

In the late 1960s, he became a popular icon for revolution and youthful political ideals in Western culture. A dramatic photograph of Guevara taken by photographer Alberto Korda [3] (http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Month/korda.htm) in 1961 (see Che Guevara (photo)) soon became one of the century's most recognizable images, and the portrait was simplified and reproduced on a vast array of merchandise, such as T-shirts, posters, and baseball caps. Guevara's reputation even extended into theatre, where he is depicted as the narrator in the musical Evita. This portrays Guevara as becoming disillusioned with Eva Perón and her dictator husband, Juan Domingo Perón because of Peron's increasing corruption and tyranny. It was written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. The narrator role involves creative license, because Guevara's only interaction with Eva Perón was to write her a facetious letter in his youth, asking for a jeep. Called "the most complete human being of our age" by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, Guevara's supporters believe he may yet prove to be the most important thinker and activist in Latin America since Simón Bolívar, leader of the South American independence movement and hero to subsequent generations of nationalists throughout Latin America.

Diarios de motocicleta
Starring Gael Garcia Bernal

The Motorcycle Diaries is also a 2004 film, based on Guevara's book, as well as Granado's Con el Che por America Latina. The film debuted in Sundance Film Festival 2004 and was later screened in Cannes as a film in competition, and it won three awards: François Chalais Award, a Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and a Technical Grand Prize. It was also nominated for two Academy Awards in 2005 for Best Original Song and Best Adapted Screenplay.

berserk

I’m back on the grid in Minneapolis, Minnesota after a weekend in Amsterdam. Marye and I departed from MN on Friday and arrived Saturday morning at Schipol where soon thereafter we met Kate and Kofi. We stayed at a bed and breakfast near Leidseplein, a plaza surrounded by many bars and restaurants. We traversed nearly the entire center city on foot, stopping at cafes/bars to rest our dogs and sample the local food: oliebollen, broodje kroket, bitterballen, frites, gevulde koeken, and bier (although the best beer I had was an opaque Irish stout at Dan Murphy’s Irish Pub). We walked by Vondelpark, the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank House, outdoor markets, the red light district, and a Ghanaian coffee shop. We also took a canal tour and watched a show about butt augmentation. Kofi had to work on Monday, so we said our goodbyes after we walked with him to the tram stop at 6am. Marye is staying the rest of this week.

Last week I spent Wednesday and Thursday at the 2005 Minnesota Air, Waste, Water Conference. It was great. I attended seven sessions.

Keynote Address, Ron Nargang, Minnesota Director of The Nature Conservancy
1. Dry Cleaner's Separator Waste, Parts Washers, Solvent Recycling
2. Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) and Problem Materials
3. Agricultural Non-Point Water Quality Issues
4. Brownfields
5. How Should We Deal with Pharmaceutical Wastes?
6. State Policy for Managing Waste Electronics
7. Meth Issues: How Clean is Clean, Waste Management

More on those later.

In the news:

Dimitri and Kara Drekonja are the proud parents of Andreas Maximilian Drekonja, born 2/13/05, weighing in at 7 pounds 11 ounces.

The Mac distance squad has unleashed a few good times on the short track. Good job fellas. Also, Metzdorff from Hamline is running like an ancient Scandinavian warrior frenzied in battle.

I almost forgot. Check out the blog of Aaron Ritz. There's an Alf spotting, and it's hilarious.

* I had to come back and add this to the post: Carl Eller sat next to me on the light rail last night.

the inexorable force of human nature

I added permanent links to two new blogs. One is Nate's blog. Nate works with Marye at Senator Dayton's office. Nate's blog kicks ass. It is hilarious and informative. The other addition is Chris Mitchell's blog. Chris graduated from Macalester in 2001. He is what Klinker calls a "dirty hippy."

Books: Check Them Out At Your Local Library

While in transit to work, I have been reading The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. JC has rich diction and syntax. Here's a passage about an anarchist, the professor, walking through the city, dismayed by his inability to effect change:

"He was in a long, straight street, peopled by a mere fraction of an immense multitude; but all round him, on and on, even to the limits of the horizon hidden by the enormous piles of bricks, he felt the mass of mankind mighty in its numbers. They swarmed numerous like locusts, industrious like ants, thoughtless like a natural force, pushing on blind and orderly and absorbed, impervious to sentiment, to logic, to terror, too, perhaps."

I am also reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. I have always wanted to read this book, but I didn't actually pick it up until I was inspired to do so by Aaron Ritz. It's a great book.

In other news, I took a hit to my manliness when I found out my neck is not twenty inches.

Minnesota Sports Update

Flip Saunders was fired by Kevin McHale, who has taken over as head coach of the Timberwolves. Remember the Joe Smith debacle. Thanks McHale.

Red McCombs accepted a purchase offer from Reggie Fowler to buy the Vikings, pending approval.

Mark Dayton

I need to keep peeps up to date on Minnesota news. U.S. Senator Mark Dayton announced earlier this week he would not seek reelection. Dayton was concerned about his ability to raise funds and, I think, his odds of winning the seat for Democrats.

In reflection upon his announcement, I am saddened by several things:

1. The amount of money it takes to win an election, regardless of your
affiliation. Mark estimated he needed $15 million, while it is
estimated that $40 million will flow in for the Republican candidate.
So, you either have to be personally wealthy, sell your self to
special interest, tap into party funds at a state and national level,
or perform a miracle of outreach to the indifferent masses. Many
average people resent Mark for his personal wealth and ivy league
education, ignoring the fact that he has dedicated his life to civil
service and selflessly invested his time and money to improve the
lives of those who have less. To me, that seems honorable, not
despicable.

2. Debased ad hominem attacks and shitty media coverage. Mudslinging
is always effective. People are ignorant and eager to grasp onto
incendiary dollops of hearsay. The masses love tabloid headline news
about putative personal idiosyncrasies, which they consider more
important and more representative of a person's character than
politically germane ideas and actions directly affecting lives. The
masses will remember Mark's solo action of evacuating his Capitol Hill
office in October in response to a possible terrorist threat. People
will remember Mark calling Condi Rice a liar. Most of all, people will
draw from their vague memories a sense that Mark was a strange fellow,
uncomfortable in the spotlight, awkward around people, maladroit when
speaking.

3. Unctuous style always defeats dry substance. Ahem, Norm Coleman.

big government pussy republicans

Republicans have small balls. Seriously, cut some programs and cut spending. A big deficit is big government. Are you forgetting who pays for the debt.

Where are my tax dollars going?

2004 federal budget estimates

24.2% health and human services
23.8% social security
17.5% national debt
16.0% defense

Those four total 81.5% of the budget.

Hey small balls, are you looking for a scapegoat.

"Republicans have a stronger level of control over both houses of Congress. They have a re-elected and confident president. They have run out of excuses as to why they haven't controlled spending. The budget ratchet is their problem. If they don't cut spending, it will not be because they can't. It will be because they don't want to."

Name the source of that quote.

Granted, Republicans are making nominal program cuts, cuts that affect thousands of poor people. However, the distinction between a Republican and a Democrat seems blurry, discounting the issues of abortion and gay marriage. Republicans prefer deficit spending. Democrats prefer spending the money of wealthy people.

One distinction may be that Republicans tax me more to fund their United States of America World Police Department. Maybe I think there is a better way to defend the United States. Maybe I think this because I don't lie in bed next to my night-light whimpering and slobbering and on the verge of pissing myself because I'm so fucking scared.

Motorcycle Diaries

Marye and I watched a picture show called Motorcycle Diaries at the Riverview Theater. We didn't know what the movie was about, and we certainly didn't know the dialogue was to be in en Espanol, with English subtitles. The movie is about a young Che Guevara, born Ernesto Guevara, nicknamed Fuser. Ernesto, a medical school student, and his friend Alberto, a biochemist, left Argentina on an old motor bike called The Mighty One. The two of them planned to travel eight thousand kilometers across South America in an exploration of land and humanity, a journey of the self in a search for meaning and direction. Their path took them north out of Buenos Aires, across Argentina, into Chile, through the Andes, into Peru, down the Amazon, and eventually to Venezuela. As one can expect from two young men on the road, there are a lot of swears and the pursuit of women. And it's humorous. Swears and testosterone aside, the focus of the movie is injustice. Ernesto has a deep desire to help people. Ernesto sees peeps persecuted for their political beliefs, and by peeps I mean communists. Ernesto sees indigenous peeps forced off their land, driven away from their way of life in the name of progress by means of capitalism. The South American landscape was beautiful. The images and the stories of the people were powerful. The audience was moved. After the movie was over, the audience went home to repose and security, but remained deeply moved.

I went home and thought:
Who is Che Guevara?
What is injustice?

baltimore homicide and sagging in virginia

Baltimore Streets Meaner, but Message Is Mixed: Baltimore’s homicide rate is going up, but you’re safe if you are not a drug dealer or criminal.

Fines for 'droopy drawers' backed: Virginia votes to fine those who sag their pants so low you can see their underwear.

super bowl

klinker, kris, paul, eliot, tim, laura, and chanda joined us for a super party on sunday. we watched the super bowl and feasted on sloppy joes.

my favorite commercial was the fedex/kinkos commercial.

a successful commercial must have ten things:
1. celebrity
2. animal
3. dancing animal
4. talking animal
5. cute kid
6. groin kick
7. attractive females
8. classic song
9. product message
10. funny ending

i was also offended by many of the things i saw on tv while watching the super bowl.

things i was most offended by:
4. the erectile dysfunction commercials
3. the prominent pneumatic busts and cleavage of the cheerleaders
2. the patriots allowed a player with the last name of gay to play
1. fox did not censor the player with the last name of gay, thus pushing the gay agenda

what am i supposed to tell my kids.

home improvement

a while ago my dad visited our house to lead the way in a home improvement project. we wanted to replace the cabinet in our main level bathroom. the short, wide, rust-speckled cabinet housed the bathroom’s only electrical outlet and two fluorescent bulbs, one of which was not working (bad ballast). we found a tall, narrow, tri-fold mirror cabinet at home despot. we also purchased a brushed-nickel light fixture with three bell-shaped lights to mount above the mirror. first, we used a multimeter to test outlet voltage and figure out circuit destinations. the old lady who previously labeled the circuits wasn't keen on universal detail, for example, labels read something like “outlet by the blue chair” or “vacuum outlet.” next, we formulated our plan. most of the wiring in our house has no ground wire and we wanted the bathroom wiring to be grounded. we planned to replace the old bathroom wiring and switch it over onto another circuit. we found one circuit that ran from our circuit breaker up to an electrical outlet on the east end upstairs; that one outlet was the only thing on the circuit. after consulting with area expert eric klinker, we decided to buy 3/8 inch flexible EMT (electrical metallic tubing) with 12 gauge black, white, and green wires prepackaged within. we bought extra ground wire to fish from the circuit breaker through a conduit to the junction box of interest in the basement. from the site of this junction box we ran flexible EMT up to the crawl space in the attic. since we were replacing the wiring, this was accomplished by taping one end of the new wire to the end of the old wire and then pulling the wire up. we also ran two sets of wire (for light switch and electrical outlet) up from the bathroom light switch to the attic and one from the bathroom light to the attic. so, now we had a lot of loose ends everywhere. we made pigtails, used wire nuts, and successfully completed the circuit. we used a rotozip to cut out a bigger hole in the wall to accommodate the height of the new cabinet. we smoothed the sides using a rasp. then we filled in the excess width with 2x4 pieces. we leveled the bottom, using lath as shims under an oak board we found in the attic. we put up a little drywall to tidy up the hole in the wall. then we placed the cabinet in the hole and anchored it with some wood screws and molly bolts. the finishing touches involved applying a few tiles and caulking around the cabinet. voila. thanks dad.

brief

an advertisement i saw:

cavemen
no escalators
no cars
no love handles

acronym defined by klinker:
peta
people enjoying tasty animals

nice.

Who is the Matrix?

Marye and I went to a Timberwolves versus Phoenix Suns game last night. As you may know, Phoenix is a very exciting team to watch. Marion, Nash, Stoudemire, Richardson, Johnson, Jackson. The Wolves got throttled. Each team reached 60 points. Unfortunately, the Suns' total score at halftime was 60 and the Wolves total score at the end of the third quarter was 60. At one point during the third quarter the score was 95-55. That's right. Throttled. Steve Nash is a great point guard. Great assists and skanky running fifteen footers off one leg. Phoenix is flash lighting. There were a lot of dunks and a lot of threes. I don't quite know what to say about the Wolves. They were completely enervated.

shu

So I went to Shu on Grand Avenue to buy a new pair of shoes because my feet are growing. Seriously, my shoes don’t fit any more. The young woman asked me what size shoe I wear. I said I usually wear a 10.5 or 11.0 but I needed something longer. I tried on a comfortable pair of black Ecco dress shoes. Nice. Let the feet be happy. I told her the shoes felt good, and it was crazy my feet were growing, maybe it’s because I’ve gained a lot of weight and my feet are spreading out. “Well, you don’t look like you’ve gained weight.” At this point, Marye started laughing uncontrollably, perhaps because of the irony, since I do weigh the most I’ve ever weighed in my life. Prompted by Marye’s laughter and my look of bewilderment (picture furrowed brow and lips shaped as if to whistle), the young woman offered an apology, and said it’s not a bad thing. I'm exotic.

Electronic Waste

This year in Minnesota the legislature might pass a law requiring a $10 surcharge on all TVs and computers. All retailers must collect the fee; therefore, the entire fee is passed on to the consumer. Retailers keep 5% of the collected fees to administer the recycling program and the remainder is remitted to the state.

Cradle to grave, beeatch.

In 2003, Minnesotans bought 703,000 PCs, 266,000 laptops, and 608,000 TVs. Hennepin County collected 2000 tons of electronic waste.

When I was at the Merriam Park library reading magazines as part of the fulfillment of my New Year's resolutions, I read about the Basel Convention, members of which prevent the exporting of e-waste to other countries. For example, a country prohibits the export of trashed computers to a dump in china frequented nightly by one alf hickey scavenging for copper by smashing cathode ray tubes.

sophistry

if this is true, it's hot. bush is promoting social security reform to african americans by claiming blacks don't receive as much benefit from social security as whites or hispanics because of lower african american life expectancy. a little specious? yes. a lie? yes. low life expectation is not a good indicator of return from social security benefits. i didn't pay a lot of FICA tax until i was twenty two.

krugman article

i want to take a survey.

will the elimination of social security will help poor people.
yes, no, or comment.

if i created a think tank with egregiously poor research methodology and analysis, would you work for me.

yes, no, or comment.

Hovland, Minnesota

So. Back to Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. If you read Tim’s blog, you’ll read a better account of the happenings. Marye and I arrived at the cabin Friday night just before midnight. The wind was roaring and causing a stir I’ve never witnessed on Lake Superior. Even inside we heard the noise of large waves crashing on shore and the gusts of wind through the pine trees. We scheduled the trip up to the north shore before we knew the weather forecast; otherwise, we may not have been brave enough to vacation in such numbing cold. The low Sunday night was -36 degrees Fahrenheit, the coldest temperature I have ever experienced sans wind chill. As some of you may know, this is the kind of weather that drives me to type in “Yakutsk, Russia” on weather.com and escape the depression of my location by reveling in relativity. The ten-day forecast in Yakutsk looks something like this every day: high of -32F and low of -57F. I’ve never been to Yakutsk, but I’ve never heard of legendary northerners living under a protective dome. To where to Yakutskans look for winter solace. So. Back to Hovland. The cabin was great, but the septic system was weak. The rule for the weekend was “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” The water was not potable, so we had to partake in the drinking of spirits, many spirits. The sauna was a disgrace, especially to Finns. I was reading a book called The Sauna by Rob Roy, and he said Finnish saunas sometimes approach 220 degrees. This sauna approached 110 degrees near the ceiling while the floor kept your drink on ice. No need to jump in a lake, just go down a tier or two in the sauna. The lake was not frozen over and the surface was steaming like my hot body after a run. The shore was fantastic. Water bathed, froze, and coated the rocks along the shore. The water then smoothly and roundly cut shapes in the ice leaving bigger rocks with mushroom ice cap hats and dripping lustrous dreadlocks. So many fascinating shapes. I could stare for hours. This experience solidifies the ranking of water near the top of my list of life’s most spectacular gifts. Tim, Marye, and I had a most excellent hike on Sunday afternoon. Tim cross country skied and Marye and I hiked a twelve kilometer loop near Grand Portage. We hiked up to an old fire lookout tower. We were so high we could see the extreme curvature of the earth. Circular, bitches. As for fauna, we roused a grouse while walking along the trail. We also saw fox tracks and fresh moose droppings. I tried to give a moose call I had learned from one of the interesting books stored on the shelves back in the cabin. To our great dismay, a bull moose emerged from the woods looking for some action. Poor Tim. Anyway, Marye and I brought the weekend to closure by dining at Sven and Olie’s before returning to the metropolis.

read up

In the news:

SBC said to be in talks to buy AT&T
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/business/27deal.html?hp&ex=1106888400&en=cd978a9d7502bc8f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Chile's retirees find shortfall in private plan
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/business/worldbusiness/27pension.html?hp&ex=1106888400&en=82af08c4c479186f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Series: Freeing Sex Slaves
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/19/opinion/19kristof-cambodia.html?ex=1106974800&en=d56d7e7b0bb0f067&ei=5070

bridging India's digital divide with Linux
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GA28Df06.html

Also, safin defeated federer in the australian open.

miscellaneous

new year's resolutions.

one of my resolutions was to read more magazines. another was to buy more music. i bought an antibalas cd last weekend. it's funky, but not as funky as fela. antibalas is an afrobeat group from brooklyn. one magazine in particular i want to read more is the economist.

time to go out on hazardous waste inspections. maybe i will mutate into the hulk. please don't make me angry.

first day

work will be very busy and very awesome.
i will no longer post every weekday.
i would like to guarantee every other day.
actually, i could still post every weekday, but it would be worse than usual.
i still need to write about the weekend up north and the home improvement project.
later.

LogIn, Inc.

On August 27, 2001 I began work at my first real job for LogIn, Inc., a company which has provided information to local governments since 1981. IACP Net was created in 1991 as a spinoff of LOGIN when LOGIN partnered with the International Association of Chiefs of Police. IACP Net generates most of LOGIN's revenue and is now an online research tool for almost two thousand law enforcement agencies. Early in 2001 LOGIN debuted Planapolis, WorksTogether, Parks Pavilion, and HealtheCommunity, websites for municipal planners, public works, parks and recreation, and health organizations, respectively. Each website has a similar design, but obviously the information differs by product. I will walk you through the most successful product, IACP Net.

There are three main sections on the site: databases, networking, and current affairs.

The databases section includes:

Core Database
The Core Database contains documents of innovations, programs, policies, solutions, and ordinances pertaining to law enforcement. FAST Search facilitates access to commonly requested searches.

Select Site
This portal filters the Internet for law enforcement websites and allows you to perform a search of these selected sites through keyword searching.

LEPAS
Law Enforcement Products and Services allows you to view specifications, testimonials, pricing, manufacturer contacts as well as vendor/distributor information for police products and services.

Policies
The Policies Database contains standard operating procedures from policy manuals. This database is extremely popular.

LEMAS
Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics contains reports and department profiles that can be used as a comparative tool in all areas of law enforcement management and administration.

Archive
The Archive Database houses older documents that were entered prior to 1996.

The networking section includes:

Quest-Response
The Quest-Response Service is where members exchange information with other members. If you have a problem or issue, and you would like feedback from your peers, post it as a Quest. Members showcase innovations and help others by responding to Quests. This is an extremely popular feature of the website.

Roundtable
Roundtables provide a unique forum for discussing issues and hot topics in law enforcement. Members use Roundtables to learn what others are thinking and to share opinions.

Survey
Periodically, IACP Net posts survey questions requesting feedback. Members participate by answering the survey, then see live survey results.

User Directory
The user directory provides a white pages of all IACP Net members. Telephone numbers and e-mail address are listed if supplied by the member.

Links
IACP Net reviews web sites for content and lists valuable information sites in the Links service.

The current affairs section includes:

News
Members stay informed on the latest news and announcements from IACP, federal agencies and sources around the country.

Publications
Publications include articles and issues from various different magazines: The Police Chief, Sheriff, Community Links or the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, etc.

Funding
Funding is updated regularly and provides sources of grants and funding available to law enforcement agencies. Sources of grant solicitations include mostly federal grants and private. The information editor reads the lengthy, tiresome grant announcement and summarizes the important information: program description, funding amount, eligibility, deadline, contact information.

Briefing Papers
Find white papers and reports on hot topics and current issues. New briefing papers are added monthly.

Legislation
This section lists relevant legislative bills and tracks the progress of the bills through Congress.

Traffic Tech Notes
Traffic Tech Notes is a publication of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Calendar
Members stay current on training, conferences and other events by reviewing calendar items.

at this point you might be wondering what my job was. my job title was information editor. i was responsible for posting all the content on our websites. i would scour the internet for germane information. of course, many times information was copyrighted and i had to call and request permission to reproduce. i would also receive information from our members. i also had ongoing partnerships with various organizations and they would mail hard or electronic copies of information not found online. basically, i got information from everywhere. in an age when excess information creates difficulty in locating exact information, LOGIN provides ease of access through consolidation and focused searching. ready to fax in your service order.

before i posted information on the site, i had to edit it to a specified format. i would scan printed documents and optical character recognition software would convert the document to electronic text. editing takes a surprising amount of time.

then i would index the document; that is, i would read the document and record keywords from the document with the purpose of representing document content and ensuring the search engine would recall the document if our customer's search matched the keywords associated with the document. it's different than google. google searches the actual text of web pages. when a customer performs a search on LOGIN, the search references only the list of keywords i provided in each document and displays a list of documents with the specified keywords.

when i added a document to the website, i filled in a number of fields and then clicked submit. do i know a lot about computers. no. if i'm having a conversation with a stranger and heshe asked me about my job but didn't really care. yes, i'm a computer genius.

now you know what i did for the past three years and five months of my life from eight to five monday through friday forty seven weeks of the year.

the law of deminishing resolve

tomorrow is my last day at work. tomorrow i post about my job.

jose, little by little i will reveal the conversations we had.

jose was talking about his creative desire to be at the vanguard of novel research. he talked about telomeres.

"Inside the nucleus of virtually all of our cells are chromosomes, 46 in all. At the tips of these chromosomes are telomeres, repeating sequences of genetic material that shorten each time a cell divides. Cell division is important because many cells in our body (e.g., those that line our digestive tract) must be replaced over time. When a cell's telomeres reach a critically short length, however, that cell can no longer replicate. Its structure and function begin to fail as it enters this state of growth arrest, called replicative senescence. Some have likened the process of telomere shortening to a genetic biological clock that winds down over time. Today, researchers continue to probe the telomeric "timepiece," hoping to better understand the aging process and fight diseases, particularly cancer."

jude is pursuing a phd in psychology at the university of southern mississippi in hattiesburg, mississippi. jude plans to research the nature of religiosity among individuals/groups. why are people religious.

intrinsic - religion as an end
extrinsic - religion as a means
quest - religion as a search

i've always had a tough time wrapping my mind around the meaning/expression of intrinsic.

psychology of religion

einar is pursuing a degree at the university of california at irvine. he has a web site about his research interests. also, i looked up snekker and it appears to be a cabinetmaker, carpenter, or builder. what.

article about wal-mart
down and out in discount america

wyoming's two-edged welfare experiment

maureen dowd writes about men who are afraid of powerful women. i am married to an intelligent, beautiful, powerful woman. it doesn't bother me. but that's probably because i'm ridiculously masculine.

here are some sites that i look at every day

great source of planning news: planetizen

smart communities network: creating energy smart communities

juveniles in corrections

check out this pdf
juveniles in corrections
1999 statistics on juveniles in custody
good stats by state

highlights:

minority youth accounted for 7 in 10 juveniles held in custody for a violent offense in 1999.

black youth accounted for 55% of juveniles held for robbery and 65% of those held for drug trafficking.

minority youth accounted for 34% of the u.s. juvenile population and 62% of juveniles in custody.

for every 100,000 black juveniles living in the u.s., 1,004 were in a residential placement facility on october 27, 1999; the rate was 485 for hispanics and 212 for whites.

custody rate per 100,000 of black juvenile population
top five:
south dakota (big winner)
wyoming
connecticut
wisconsin
iowa

custody rate per 100,000 of hispanic juvenile population
top five:
mississippi (winner by a multiple of three)
connecticut
michigan
south dakota
pennsylvania

greek mythology and economist articles

last weekend jose and i were talking about prometheus. greek mythology is awesome. i had never heard of the greeks or of mythology until i left nebraska for macalester. inspired by jose, i've been reading a little about greek mythology.

here’s my summary on prometheus:

prometheus gave many gifts to humanity. most importantly, he stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. the gift of fire helped man to flourish, as it was the impetus for many other discoveries. zeus was furious (anger management problems) and chained prometheus to a mountain high in the caucuses. each day an eagle came and tore at prometheus and tore until the liver of prometheus was torn out. prometheus, a titan, would heal over night and the next day the eagle came back to exact the same painful, interminable punishment. in addition, to reverse the benefit to mankind of all the gifts bequeathed by prometheus, zeus commissioned the gods to create pandora. in pandora's box was pestilence, vice, war, and many other sorrows to destroy man. however, in a moment of compassion, the gods included hope; unreasonable, groundless hope, which turns the curse of life into a blessing.

i'm glad i read about prometheus yesterday because i learned there is a play called prometheus bound, and last night i was reading the economist and a title of an article i read was: prometheus unbound, a bit. the article was about freedom of the press in different countries. i have incredible access to information. i have the wealth to surf the internet, watch tv, buy a newspaper subscription, listen to a radio powered by electricity. the good news for other countries is technology is improving and technology costs are decreasing. the radio medium is a great way to reach people. hand crank radios provide a great opportunity to access information, no batteries required.

although, people have an insatiable appetite for shitty news, tabloid news. why are we so fascinated with aberrant behavior, crime, grisly misfortune, and celebrity peccadilloes. why do we like violent movies and violent video games. do these obsessions reinforce right and wrong, stigmatize wrongs, prevent wrongs, and create a more perfect society. how many people watch the lehrer news hour. not me. it's boring. i want to see news about a local boy who got a bath toy stuck in his ass, or a police pursuit of two women who stole an ice auger from wal-mart.

i read an article in the economist about bhutan. bhutan is located east of nepal, north of bangladesh, and surrounded by the giants of china and india. bhutan is a country which exists presently in the past; it is an anachronism. if i were to visit bhutan, i would sit in the himalayas and write poetry about what a simple and idyllic life the noble bhutanese live. anyway, bhutan is wrestling with globalization. most people survive by subsistence agriculture. the government wants to protect forested mountainsides. the government has mandated the wearing of traditional garb. and, of most interest to me, the government uses the measure of gross national happiness. for real.

there are two more greek mythology figures i want to talk about. sisyphus was a thief and a murderer. as punishment, he was forced to roll a big stone up a steep hill, but before it reached the top of the hill, the stone rolled down to the bottom of the hill and sisyphus began over again. sisyphean. tantalus stole nectar and ambrosia from zeus' table. as punishment, tantalus was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. when tantalus reached for fruit, the branches raised, and when he bent for drink, the water receded. tantalizing. dante's inferno has some good punishments too.

no fun league

randy
1. having a coarse manner
2. lustful, lecherous

After scoring a touchdown against the Packers on Sunday, Randy Moss strode to the endzone goalpost, directed his ass toward the crowd, and pantomimed mooning the crowd and rubbing his ass on the goalpost.

I was outraged. The public was outraged. at long last sir, have you no sense of decency. have you no shame.

speaking of impropriety

I’m drawing inspiration from Nate’s blog. He had a very good post about Randy Moss and decency. Anyway, Nate reminded me of a commercial I saw a few weeks ago. The commercial features frozen packaged dinner rolls from Pillsbury and a very thinly veiled reference to kinky sex: wife tells curious husband, "I don't know how much more of this experimentation I can take....in the kitchen, that is." then the music started and the doughboy appeared on the scene clad in buttless chaps.*

i was shocked, mostly because i didn't expect an overt reference to kneeling pretzel sex in a wholesome biscuit commercial featuring two pedestrian forty-year-olds. unfortunately, i believe the biscuit industry suffered a tragic loss of innocence.

in other news

Marye and I are flying to Amsterdam in February. Kofi and Kate will be meeting us there for the weekend.

So I was doing a little reading about Amsterdam. Amsterdam has a homomonument, which is a pink triangle with three dimensions: warning from the past, confrontation with the present, and inspiration for the future. I found the Amsterdam city flag interesting too. The three stars stand for valor, resolution, and mercy. Nice.

*didn't happen, but it's a slippery slope

journalism scandal

jose was in the twin cities looking at the u of m medical school over the weekend. jose interviewed with dr. steven miles, 2004 minnesotan of the year. it was great to talk with jose. on saturday night we had a little reunion of sorts, including jose, ziyad, and el klinker. significant others were there as well, i don't want to slight anybody.

anyway, jose recommended a book to me:
understanding health policy: a clinical approach
by thomas s. bodenheimer and kevin grumbach

while i was looking for the author of the book i found a pdf with a primer on state health care spending.

the time is nearing for the winter trip up north to the hovland hideaway.
here's the forecast for hovland, minnesota (highs and lows):
friday -7/-20
saturday -5/-15
sunday 4/-4
monday 8/0

in other news, william safire of the new york times is obviously reading my blog. on friday i wrote about how my child had asked me about why god let the tsunami happen. why do bad things happen to good people. i alluded to the philosophy of dr. pangloss in voltaire's candide, which challenged the existence of god after a huge earthquake in 1755 devastated lisbon. the earthquake killed over 100,000 people and was followed by a tsunami and fire, resulting in near total destruction.

let me digress. there is a poem by oliver wendell holmes called the deacon's masterpiece or the wonderful one-hoss shay. it refers to the lisbon earthquake. it is also a humorous poem about the weakest link, or lack thereof. a shay is a horse-drawn carriage.

back to my point. today, monday january 10, william safire of the new york times wrote his editorial about why god let the tsunami happen. he wrote about voltaire's candide. he also wrote about the book of job, which is a good book but based on a rather ridiculous premise.

god: job is a good man.

satan: job is a good man but he will betray you if fortune frowns on him. god, you are not all-powerful and cannot see into the future of men. so let us make a bet on what will happen to job if he is tested by you, the somewhat-powerful.

god: good idea satan. i have no idea what will happen in the future. i am not outside of time. i fly by the seat of my pants from day to day. sometimes i feel like i'm sitting in the back seat of a speeding car. anyway, i’ll take your bet satan.

angel: god, you are so gambling.

god: shut up.

i can’t focus. my point is william safire uses my blog to get ideas for his editorials.

dirty sanchez

Kofi sent out an email today. it was hilarious. here is some of it:

quote

After coming back from mass at St. Paul's Cathedral on Christmas Eve, I was nervously flipping channels while waiting for kick-off of the Vikes-Pack game when I noticed something on the TV guide on MTV titled "Dirty Sanchez"... you gotta watch anything with a title like that. So I flipped to it and was shortly thereafter rewarded with the most disgusting thing I've ever seen on TV. Turns out this was a warped British variation of "Jackass", and here's the stunt I happened to catch:

They put a beer bong up a guy's ass, filled his ass with beer while holding him upside down, took out the bong, shook him around for a few minutes (while still upside-down), and then flipped him over, at which point the beer - now murky & brown - started coming out of his anus... one guy caught a fair quantity of this "newly brewed stout" (that's what they called it!) in a bowl, and the three of them passed it around and drank it!

Anyway, at this point, I went into a mini-seizure and began to realize that this was an experience I would never recover from... of course the Vikes soon lost afterwards, putting me into a state of catatonic shock for Christmas Even and most of Christmas day... not a bright start to the season of good cheer!

end quote

However, the new year was off to an auspicious start when Kofi won $1700 in his NFL pool.

In other news, I saw that the tsunami was so powerful that it swept around the world over the next 36 hours, with its last residual waves perceptibly jostling tide gauges from Russia's remote northeastern Pacific waters to the North Atlantic.

incidentally, my child was asking me some questions about the tsunami the other night.

dad, why did god let the tsunami happen.

child, everything happens for a reason.

dad, for what reason did the tsunami happen.

child, it's not because god is angry at the democratic muslim nation of indonesia.

no, i wouldn't think so dad. but why didn't god stop the tsunami. does god not care enough to intervene.

egad child, what are you, a deist. we are all sinners. besides, it's all part of god's plan. all is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds.

whatever pangloss.

what. who. go to your room child.

lacuna

it has been a long time. but now it's time to reacquaint myself with the blog. the hiatus in my posting can be blamed partially on attorney general gonzales, who has been censoring my site and arduously limiting my ability to access the internet. i have also been very busy at work. my last day at my job is friday january 14, at which point my week-long vacation commences with a trip north, way north, to hovland. speaking of north, yarrow's brother is named north. also, there was a man in my hometown of hastings who was known only as northpark. he had straight hair down to his shoulders. he wore sunglasses and practiced karate on trees. he was tough, and mysterious. anyway, i will soon be writing about login, inc., my place of employment for over three years. i will then post about all the previous jobs i have ever worked for money. i don't know if i will be able to post at my new job. i could access my neighbors' wireless internet from our house and post that way. what's the vote on that unethical practice.