I Just Wanted To Say...

BEWARE!!!!!!

2006-01-10T15:52:00.000-04:00

I have officially become an addict.

World of Warcraft

All people, beware. Run, good citizens, from the Abomination as it travels the road into your life.

I will not provide a link. There is still a little control of my mind available to me. I still have enough of my soul left to broadcast this warning before I am finally consumed.

Farewell. (For now, or at least until I get bored.)

I want, I want....

2005-12-15T14:45:00.000-04:00

This book by author P.J. O'Rourke----

Peace Kills - America's Fun New Imperialism,

because of quotes like this:

When other countries demand a role in the exercise of global power, America can ask another fundamental American question:
You and what army?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. LOVE IT!!

File under-Too much information.

2005-12-06T14:50:00.000-04:00

When a jury is selected for any type of case, there are usually alternates selected in case one of the regular jurors has to be dismissed for any reason. Some judges don't use them however. The judge I work for at one time preferred not to use alternates, if the attorneys involved had no objections. He felt that it was hard on the alternate to sit through the trial and not get to participate in deliberations and it simply cost more to use alternates that not.

But something happened to change all that.

A civil trial had begun and since both the attorneys had agreed, there were no alternates and they would use a jury of six instead of the twelve that are standard on civil juries.

The case proceeded smoothly and around noon, the judge broke for lunch and told everyone to be back at 1:30 to start again.

Around 2:00, I heard the judge say that they would take a break. This was unusual, since they had only been back in session for half an hour.

The judge, deputy and court reporter came into the office and the court reporter looked at me and said, "She could go." I was a little confused and asked where.

It seems that one of the jurors was feeling unwell and had asked to go to the bathroom. So the judge asked me to check on her. I went into the bathroom and she was sitting on the little bench in there and it was obvious she was not well at all. Her face was gray, she was sweating profusely and she was breathing so rapidly I thought she would hyperventilate.

I was concerned that she was having a heart attack or stroke and asked her if she had felt unwell all day or had she suddenly started feeling sick. She said she was fine before lunch, but she and some of the other jurors had gone to lunch together and now she felt horribly sick. At this point, I figured she might have eaten something that disagreed with her and I asked her what she had eaten for lunch.

She was bent over, holding her stomach as she lifted her head to answer me. Instead of words, out of her mouth came a stream of vomit. I have heard of projectile vomiting, but have never before this point actually seen anyone do it. It must have gone a full six feet, because it went all the way to the wall on the opposite side of the bathroom. It splattered on the walls, the floor, the sink and unfortunately, all over my shoes.

Although I can handle the sight of blood and bone, of cuts and scraps, the sight and smell of vomitus usually causes an immediate sympathetic gag reflex. But not today.

Standing there in the bathroom with this very ill woman who had just vomited everywhere, all I could think of was, "You know, a verbal response to that question would have been sufficient."

I got her some wet paper towels, and I got me some wet paper towels. I cleaned her face and my shoes and went out to talk to the judge. He asked how she was and I looked him in the face and said, "She vomited on my shoes."

I will not ever forget the look on his face when I said it. He was completely and totally horrified.

She, of course, had to be removed from the jury and sent home, which left us with only five jurors and no alternates. The judge would have had to declare a mistrial if the attorneys had not agree to go with the remaining five.

And to this day, he has never again even mentioned not using alternates on juries. He sometimes tells the story to jurors who complain about being the alternate in order to help them understand the importance, the necessity and the purpose of having alternates on a jury.

And I have never forgotten what it was like to clean puke off my shoes.

2005-11-29T16:54:00.000-04:00

Some days, I just really feel short.

File under-How do they manage to survive on a day-to-day basis?

2005-11-28T15:50:00.000-04:00

I was taking calls for another judge's secretary this morning. I thought I had some odd folks calling our office, but her calls go far beyond odd.

I'm sure when she comes back and talks to some of these people, she will hear about how mean a person I am. But it got to where I couldn't stand it.

Two instances:
First, a woman called and was mumbling so badly that I told her she'd have to speak up and speak more clearly. She got all offended and said "What do you mean "I have to speak up. I don't have to do what anybody tells me to."
"You will if you want me to be able to understand you."

Second, a call from a male who was calling for a female on probation. He talked about how she was having so many problems that she was even talking about committing suicide and he really needed to talk to the judge about it. By this time, I was tired of these people and I told him that if she was talking about committing suicide, he needed to talk to a mental health professional more than he needed to talk to a judge.

That may seem harsh, but it was correct. Add to that the fact that about once every two weeks, we get calls similar to that one. There are those who don't understand that once they plead guilty or are found guilty of a crime, there are only two options. Jail or probation. If you can't handle probation, then jail time is the only other option. When informed of that, most people seem to have a change of heart about not being able to handle probation.

Cut off at the Knees

2005-11-19T00:37:00.000-04:00

After the House Republicans called Representative Murtha and the Democratic party's bluff on his proposed resolution for a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq by presenting their own "cut and run" bill calling for an immediate withdrawal; the House Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, tried to do what Democrats do best when faced with a fight. They tried to cut and run by blocking the motion so they could go home for the Thanksgiving holidays without having to vote on the Republican resolution.

Captain Ed at Captain's Quarters live-blogged the vote and at one point was concerned that the Democrats would succeed in blocking the motion and avoiding the vote. Every single Democrat voted to try and block the motion. But, ta-da, they didn't get away with it and were forced into a vote. The resolution for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq failed 403-3. (At least three Democrats had the courage of their convictions and voted what they truly believed. I can respect that even while I disagree with their opinion.)

The House Democrats are now crying "no fair, no fair" and accusing the Republicans of "politicizing the war". Either hypocrisy or stupidity on their part, but I am happy to hear them publicly voicing their complaints.

"Democrats said it was a political stunt and quickly decided to vote against it in an attempt to drain it of significance. "A disgrace," declared House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "The rankest of politics and the absence of any sense of shame," added Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat. "

"Rank politics and no shame?" Why, Rep. Hoyer, don't be so jealous. I'm sure, given a little time, your party can come up with something more rank and shameless than this.

The Republicans, as a body politic, have finally done something I can admire, because it is something I would do.

I have always enjoyed playing the game (whatever it might be) by the rules my opponent sets for himself. And then winning.

Diamonds everywhere.

2005-11-17T10:57:00.000-04:00

I got up about 5:00 this morning and went into the kitchen to get something to drink. I have a large bay window in my kitchen and the light coming through it was incredibly bright. I stepped over to look out .

Above the dark tree-line across the street, there was a full moon. It was very large and very bright against a perfectly clear, luminescent gray sky. That alone was spectacular to see.

But last night, we had our first frost of the season and the lawn and the bushes outside the window were covered with frost. The light from the moon was reflecting off each leaf and each blade of grass. And everywhere you looked, it seemed as if millions of diamonds had been scattered. I stood there for a while, focused completely on the intense and powerful beauty of it.

Even now, if I close my eyes, I can still see that breathtaking beauty of light, of moon, of diamonds made of frost.

Paying attention to this---

2005-11-15T17:31:00.000-04:00

Referencing the United Nations and the "International community's" desire to gain control over the internet-

TUNIS, Tunisia-UN Summit on the Information Society

"Since the latest round of talks began Sunday, the specific wording of the summit's draft declaration has evolved from "international management of the Internet," written by Pakistan, to far less specific language. "

"Washington set a course for confrontation when it declared in June that it will retain such oversight indefinitely, despite what many countries thought was a longstanding policy to one day completely turn the function over to ICANN."

I do not even want to think about what would happen if the UN and the "International Community" ever gained control of the Internet.

I have serious personal misgivings about their self-proclaimed concern over the differences between the haves and the have-nots. And the concept of certain foreign governments (China and Iran?) being given the ability to "police the Internet" would be completely ludicrous and almost unbelievable if it were not for the reality of Libya being given a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Commission and Robert Mugabe being invited to address the UN Summit on World Hunger because he knows what it is like to have a nation suffering from hunger (of course he knows, he and his thugs took land away from the white farmers and gave it to people who had no idea of how to manage and tend it.)

The countries leading the calls for control of the internet to be internationalised, under the aegis of the UN, are the same ones that have led the way in censoring their own citizens.
Remarkably, for a meeting called the World Summit on the Information Society, there will not be a single seminar or discussion panel held on freedom of expression. "The internet is not just a technical issue," Julian Bein, of the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, told The Independent yesterday. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article327341.ece

The fact that the world's largest and most corrupt bureauracracy, composed as it is of a number of oppressive regimes, wants control of the internet doesn't come as much of a surprise. I understand their motivation. They want to control the flow of information.

The fact that the United States is opposed to letting the internet pass into the control of the UN also doesn't surprise me. I understand their motivation. They don't want control to pass into the hands of countries who want to control the flow of information.

I admit to be somewhat surprised though, at the European Union's willingness not only to go along with the idea, but to actively work to make it happen.

The EU has been mediating between the United States and a group of countries including China and Iran that have sought to replace ICANN with a multi-country group under U.N. auspices.

Why? The most simplistic explanation is that the EU wants to replace the US as the dominant world power and feels that a step in accomplishing that goal is to remove control of the internet from the US. But are they so narrowly focused on that goal that they can't or won't see the potential negative consequences of having the UN controlling the internet? I'm not convinced.

Logic tells me that before a drastic step is taken, the process should be carefully thought out and the consequences seriously considered. Pros and cons weighed in the balance.

Personal experience tells me that I over-reach when I expect logical thought. There are few individuals and even fewer governments who use logic or even careful consideration of consequences. It seems to be all about political expediency. Or maybe it's financial expediency.

The untapped potential income to be generated from taxing the internet could be another incentive for the EU to take it away from the US.

Whatever their reasoning (if any), I can only hope that the United States holds to its intention to retain control for the foreseeable future.

Dog

2005-11-09T21:02:00.000-04:00

I must be losing it.
I am not fond of reality shows of any kind or type, but I have become interested in a show on A&E television called Dog, The Bounty Hunter. It's about a family of bounty hunters in Hawaii.

Dog(Duane Chapman) is the main man. He is one tough man. Long, blond hair, big tough body, tattoos and he wears black. Dog's wife and a couple of his sons are also part of the team. His wife, Beth, is impressive. She is blond, with big, big boobs(big) and a super-tough attitude and a sharp brain.
A blurb from A&E's website--

Considered the greatest bounty hunter in the world, Duane "Dog" Chapman has made over 6,000 captures in 27 years.

These people are walking stereotypes. But in spite of the black clothes, bad language, tough attitudes and job with a bad reputation, I like them.
They take their job seriously, but not themselves. They are tough because they have to be, but kind when they need to be. And there are no excuses. These are the type of people I admire.

Did they mean to be funny?

2005-11-08T15:41:00.000-04:00

One of the deputies came into the office today and asked to me to find out if there was a State Rock for Georgia. A quick search led me to a site called 50States.com. I was scrolling down the Georgia page when I noticed this.

Permanent Residents: Find A Grave

I laughed for a very long time.

Some days, I just can't stand it.

2005-11-08T10:43:00.000-04:00

We started a jury trial yesterday morning and had closing arguments and the jury charge yesterday about 5:00pm. The jurors reported back to begin their deliberations at 9:00am this morning.

At 9:40, the foreman handed the bailiff a piece of paper with a question on it for the judge.

"What is the difference between 5mm and 3 mm?"

That would be 2mm.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

The Zionist lobby in France?

2005-11-08T07:22:00.000-04:00

What?

Iran's Association of Muslim Journalists, a government-approved association, is condemning the violation of Muslims' civil rights in France and calling on the French government to cooperate with Tehran in establishing a fact-finding commission to investigate the conditions of French Muslims.
"We suppose that the French government has carried out the recent discriminatory and anti-human rights acts under the influence of the Zionist lobby in France to limit the social and personal freedoms of the Muslims residing in the country, which is quite unacceptable on the part of a country that claims to be democratic," said the statement carried by Iran's official Mehr news agency. It continued: "The rough treatment of black people whose countries were colonized by France for decades shows that colonialism is still dominant in the policies and the thoughts of the officials of France, who claim to uphold freedom and patience. The Association of Muslim Journalists wishes to express its protest about the organized suppression of poor Muslims residing in the suburbs of Paris, who have been living as second-class citizens and deprived of social and political rights for many years."
“Therefore, the Association of Muslim Journalists, as a non-governmental organization, seeks to establish a fact-finding commission to study the situation of Black Muslims in France and hopes that the French government will cooperate by granting them visas.”

Is that the Twilight Zone theme music I keep hearing?

Thanks. I think.

2005-11-07T21:26:00.000-04:00

While checking out sites with commentary on the Paris riots, I followed some links to this one . The commentary was interesting, but it was the dedication that really caught my attention.

This blog is dedicated to the world of bloggers, many of whom exhibit more than mild symptoms of various personality disorders.

Thinking it over, I have to agree with him. But hey, it's a great form of therapy and it's a lot cheaper than visiting a psychiatrist. I mean, it works for me.

What a picture says...

2005-11-07T12:39:00.000-04:00

Interesting picture posted at The Officer's Club of the Korean Peninsula at night. Take a look at communism and capitalism side by side.

Not a clue about what to do.

2005-11-07T10:37:00.000-04:00

After the eleventh day of rioting in France, and the apparent inability of the French government to form any effective response, all I can think of is a scene from the movie Robin Hood, Men in Tights.
Comedian Richard Lewis plays Prince John Lackland and in one certain scene, when faced with a crisis, he wrings his hands and rolls his eyes and laments in anguished tones, "What to do? What to do?".

Straight to the heart of the matter

2005-11-03T20:52:00.000-04:00

I have never before just linked to another blogger and not expanded on what was said. I will not do so with this one, because there is simply nothing I can say that will add to what she has written.

Dr. Sanity(click on the link above) has an post titled "The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Left". It is a long post, but one of the most well-written and thoughtful ones I have ever read. Anger and disillusionment are there, but those emotions are simply an undercurrent to an impassioned deconstruction of the left. The quote below sums it up well.

"The intellectuals who once promoted the IDEA of freedom, now are ensnared in an IDEOLOGY that depends for its very existence on the silencing of speech; the suppression of ideas; and the persecution of those who dare to refute its tenets. "

Incredible.

(Read the comments, too.)

Random thought for a fellow driver--

2005-11-03T18:25:00.000-04:00

Hey, trying to back your Ford F150 extended cab truck into your driveway at 5:15pm on a weekday on a hilly and heavily traveled road might not be the best idea you've ever had.

But it could very well have been your last if I'd been traveling much faster.

Idiot.

Gritting my teeth.

2005-10-27T15:33:00.000-04:00

Had to attend a mandatory HIPPA(Health Insurance and Portability Privacy Act) training class yesterday and I thought my eyeballs would explode out of my head before it was over.

The conference room was full of upper level police and fire department personnel, court staff, investigators, computer center staff and sundry supervisory personnel from all over the county. Mature and responsible adults.

This sweet young thing from personnel steps up to the podium and begins:

"Now my name is M--- and I am going to talk to you about HIPPA and how important it is and I really want you to pay attention to me, because nobody here wants to get into trouble, do they?" Giggle, giggle. She proceeds to inform us that while HIPPA guidelines are federal, the local county governing body has decided to "improve and refine" those guidelines. Which amounts to the typical, we're going to cover our asses scenario, so that almost anything becomes illegal if they determine it to be so. It was a long, downhill slide from that point on. Her presentation was an incredibly patronizing, condescending piece of tripe.

Care for a few gems?

"Gossip is a bad thing because it hurts people!" Giggle, giggle.

"It's important for you to know your password in order to get onto your computer." Giggle, giggle.

"If an employee calls in sick and doesn't want to tell you what the sickness is, don't push it , because that information could be covered under the HIPPA act and you might not have a need to know." Giggle, giggle.
This was in response to a supervisor asking for a clarification of an item in the handout referring to an employee's right to privacy. When the supervisor protested and asked how was she supposed to determine if the employee was being factual, the reply was:
"If you have any questions about health privacy issues, you can contact the Deputy Privacy Director for guidance." Giggle, giggle

I found the training class irritating on a personal level, because of the way it was presented. But underneath that there was a level of disquiet that grew once I got over my irritation. First, because it is further proof to me that the idiots have indeed taken over the asylum and now exchanging information about a co-worker's health can cause you problems on your job. Second, because that term "Deputy Privacy Director" evokes in me shadowy images of communism and group-speak from Orwell's 1984. But last and the thing that worries me the most, is that in spite of her inane giggles and moronic presentation, she was completely serious about "improper exchanges of information" causing trouble. That and the fact that she and her bosses are the final determinant as to what constitutes an "improper exchange of information".
Gulags, anyone?

Which Historic General Are You?

2005-10-21T09:55:00.000-04:00

I found this test on okcupid and thought it would be fun to take it. To my surprise, based on my answers, I am most like Julius Caesar. I took four years of Latin and of course, studied Julius Caesar during those years. As a general, his leadership was exceptional. However, I consider his political leadership to be of the dangerous sort--a lust for power combined with a willingness to do whatever was politically expedient in order to gain that power. He very cleverly parlayed his popularity as a triumphant general with the general populace into a mandate to change whatever laws and rules that would aid him in consolidating his grip on political power. Even this test acknowledges that one of his greatest strengths was his tactical ability and he used that tactical genius in his political life as well as on the battlefield.

Julius Caesar

You scored 55 Wisdom, 81 Tactics, 56 Guts, and 41 Ruthlessness!

Roman military and political leader. He was instrumental in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. His conquest of Gallia Comata extended the Roman world all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, introducing Roman influence into what has become modern France, an accomplishment of which direct consequences are visible to this day. In 55 BC Caesar launched the first Roman invasion of Britain. Caesar fought and won a civil war which left him undisputed master of the Roman world, and began extensive reforms of Roman society and government. He was proclaimed dictator for life, and heavily centralized the already faltering government of the weak Republic. Caesar's friend Marcus Brutus conspired with others to assassinate Caesar in hopes of saving the Republic. The dramatic assassination on the Ides of March was the catalyst for a second set of civil wars, which marked the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire under Caesar's grand-nephew and adopted son Octavian, later known as Caesar Augustus. Caesar's military campaigns are known in detail from his own written Commentaries (Commentarii), and many details of his life are recorded by later historians such as Suetonius, Plutarch, and Cassius Dio.

I see a lot of parallels between Rome and America. The birth and rise of the Roman republic mirrors the birth and rise of the United States in a number of basic ways. One of the major foundations of the Roman republic was in allowing everyone who was qualified to vote on leadership and the establishment of governing bodies, because they feared giving one man too much power. The early Romans were a strong, simple, hard-working, religious, agrarian people. As the Republic developed and flourished, it became apparent they would need protection, so a strong military became an integral part of the Republic. I could go on, but the basic premise is established.

Julius Caesar was the last leader of the Roman Republic. The republic had changed; people from conquered countries had come to Rome, bringing their gods and their cultures. Julius Caesar granted many of these people citizenship in order to expand his base. Politicians became panderers, gaining votes by promising their constituents bread and circuses. Caesar established "land reforms" to take power away from the wealthy. Faith was openly mocked. Sports figures and courtesans were the heroes of the days. The concept of personal responsibility=personal freedom began to be overtaken by the desire to be taken care of by a strong and powerful government. [The first step towards governmental dictatorship(under whatever name) is the same first step an abuser takes in a domestic relationship- the destruction of a person's belief in themselves and their abilities. If a person or group of persons believes themselves to be weak and needy and incapable, then they will willingly, though perhaps not happily, accept whatever abuses may come as long as they believe they need someone more powerful to take care of them and provide for them, particularly if that belief has as it's foundation the idea that the abuser really "cares" about them.]

Shakespeare's portrayal of Julius Caesar is somewhat sympathetic and I guess I can understand that, because in some respects, Caesar does come across as a heroic figure. I can't help but consider Marcus Brutus, though. His name has become synonymous with the concept of a backstabbing friend. But he was Caesar friend. Brutus's father had been murdered by Pompey, who was Caesar's enemy. What would cause such a friend to put aside years of friendship and induce a willingness to commit not only murder, but a very public murder?

Perhaps Marcus Brutus, who knew Caesar, came to believe that his country deserved better than what it was getting. According to Plutarch, Brutus was a person who "acted upon motives of right reason and deliberate moral choice". Plutarch spoke of him as a man of education and manners, strong beliefs and an even stronger love of his country. He participated in the murder of Julius Caesar in a effort to save his republic from a man he thought was destroying it. Unfortunately, the death of Julius Caesar provoked another civil war, with the result that Rome became a pseudo-monarchy, though it was called an empire with Caesar Augustus as emperor. So the republic failed anyway.

A republic's survival depends on the people who make it up and if they no longer care to maintain it, then it will fail. Even the willingness of a good and rational man to commit murder will not sustain it.

The Hammer Falls Again

2005-10-19T08:49:00.000-04:00

I am no slouch in the intellect department, but Charles Krauthammer (aka The Hammer) rises above pretty much everyone else and never fails to inspire awe and perhaps a little jealousy. The link is to an article written by him and published recently in the WaPo. I am including some excerpts-- It was announced last week that U.S. scientists have just created a living, killing copy of the 1918 "Spanish" flu. This is big. Very big.

He talks about three separate elements. He first speaks highly of the scientific achievement, of the "enterprise, ingenuity, serendipity, hard work and brilliance" in finding tissue samples from victims of the Spanish influenza, then the resurrection of of a once dead and deadly pathogen.

The second element for him is sheer terror, because the Spanish influenza was the deadliest pandemic in recorded history. The Bubonic Plague killed 137 million people during three separate outbreaks in three different centuries. It works out to about 2 million people a year. The Spanish influenza killed more 25 million people in a single year. 28 % of the entire United States population was infected, with approximately 800,000 dying from it. One of most frightening things about that particular flu strain is that it breaks the usual virus protocol of attacking the old, the ill and the very young. For some reason, adolescents and young healthy adults were the most likely to become infected and the least likely to survive. The mortality rate for 15 to 34 years olds rose 20 times higher in 1918 than any year before. One physician reported that it was simply a struggle for one more breath of air until they suffocated. From a report by the Division of Molecular Pathology, Department of Cellular Pathology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, DC---The surface proteins of influenza viruses, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, play important roles in virulence, host specificity, and the human immune response. The virus was speculated to be of bird origin which recombined with swine flu which then recombined with human influenza to mutate and produce a whole new virus that targeted the least likely of victims, the young and healthy.

Krauthammer then goes on--Now that I have your attention, consider, with appropriate trepidation, the third element of this story: What to do with this knowledge? Not only has the virus been physically re-created, but its entire genome has also now been published for the whole world, good people and very bad, to see. The decision to publish was a very close call, terrifyingly close. On the one hand, we need the knowledge disseminated. We've learned from this research that the 1918 flu was bird flu, "the most bird-like of all mammalian flu viruses," says Jeffery Taubenberger, lead researcher in unraveling the genome. There is a bird flu epidemic right now in Asia that has infected 117 people and killed 60. It has already developed a few of the genomic changes that permit transmission to humans. Therefore, you want to put out the knowledge of the structure of the 1918 flu, which made the full jump from birds to humans, so that every researcher in the world can immediately start looking for ways to anticipate, monitor, prevent and counteract similar changes in today's bird flu.

But researchers aren't the only people who will be paying attention, reading, studying and planning.

My last excerpt from his article says everything that needs to be said and says it succinctly, particularly the third sentence -- Why try to steal loose nukes in Russia? A nuke can only destroy a city. The flu virus, properly evolved, is potentially a destroyer of civilizations.
We might have just given it to our enemies.
Have a nice day.

I think about the world and the way it was in 1918. World travel in 1918 wasn't common or easy. No airlines, just slow moving ships and trains. The majority of travel was done by the very wealthy or troops heading to and from the conflict in Europe. And yet the virus spread rapidly and easily over Europe, Asia, Africa, Brazil, the South Pacific, America.

I think about the world as it is now. The Atlanta airport alone handles about 7 million passengers a month. Even cutting that number in half to account for round trip flights, that is an incredible number of people who are coming and going to and from every part of the world. A deadly, untreatable pathogen exists once again in it's original lethal form and it isn't difficult to imagine how fast it would be able to spread if a human ever became infectious again.

Children, with their peculiar ability to adapt to horrific situations, used to jump-rope to this rhyme--

I had a little bird

It's name was Enza

I opened up the window

And in-flu-enza.

I will admit that in a small corner of my heart and mind, I am afraid.

Casual Curiosity

2005-10-17T11:17:00.000-04:00

the art of Pablo Picasso - There is bad art, that just about anyone can do. There is good art, that gives momentary pleasure and enjoyment to the viewer; then there is great art, that not only gives, but demands something from you in return, pulls something out of you. Picasso's art doesn't even rise to the level on good art for me.

Health insurance - a necessary evil, that I'm glad I have.

the year 1937 - the calm before the storm. The Spanish Civil War is on going. Hitler's power is on the rise and state-sponsored persecution of Jews has begun. Stalin's purges are also ongoing. Roosevelt signs the third U.S. Neutrality act. Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain. The Japanese begin their conquest of China. Mussolini rules Italy.

Ants - annoying but necessary.

Ballroom dancing - I've watched some of the competitive ballroom dancing competitions when I've come across them, but they're nothing I'd deliberately plan to watch.

One misses the dead

2005-10-15T15:35:00.000-04:00

Rupert Brooke spent the years between 1913 and 1914 wandering in North America and the South Seas, and depicted the impressions in his LETTERS FROM AMERICA (published posthumously 1916).

Brooke describes the wilderness of Canada, the beauty and majesty of it. And then he goes on with an impression—

A European can find nothing to satisfy the hunger of his heart. The air is too thin to breathe. He requires haunted woods, and the friendly presence of ghosts. The immaterial soil of England is heavy and fertile with the decaying stuff of past seasons and generations. Here is the floor of a new wood, yet uncumbered by one year’s autumn fall. We Europeans find the Orient stale and too luxuriantly fetid by reason of the multitude of bygone lives and thoughts, oppressive with the crowded presence of the dead, both men and gods. So, I imagine, a Canadian would feel our woods and fields heavy with the past and the invisible, and suffer claustrophobia in an English countryside beneath the dreadful pressure of immortals. For his own forests and wild places are windswept and empty. That is their charm, and their terror. You may lie awake all night and never feel the passing of evil presences, nor hear printless feet; neither do you lapse into slumber with the comfortable consciousness of those friendly watchers who sit invisibly by a lonely sleeper under an English sky. The maple and the birch conceal no dryads, and Pan has never been heard amongst these reed beds. Look as long as you like upon a cataract of the New World, you shall not see a white arm in the foam. A godless place. And the dead do not return. That is why there is nothing lurking in the heart of the shadows, and no human mystery in the colours, and neither the same joy nor the kind of peace in dawn and sunset that older lands know. It is, indeed, a new world. How far away seem those grassy, moonlit places in England that have been Roman camps or roads, where there is always serenity, and the spirit of a purpose at rest, and the sunlight flashes upon more than flint! Here one is perpetually a first_comer. The land is virginal, the wind cleaner than elsewhere, and every lake new_born, and each day is the first day. The flowers are less conscious than English flowers, the breezes have nothing to remember, and everything to promise. There walk, as yet,no ghosts of lovers in Canadian lanes. This is the essence of the grey freshness and brisk melancholy of this land. And for all the charm of those qualities, it is also the secret of a European’s discontent. For it is possible, at a pinch, to do without gods.
But one misses the dead.

As an American, I understand his description of the physical nature of the Americas. As an American, I might not have understood his more esoteric description of what the Americas lack if I had not spent time in Europe and Asia.

While we were stationed in Turkey, we took a number of trips to different areas. Ephesus was one of my favorite places. The city has multiple layers, one city built on the last. It has been excavated down to the city of the Roman era. You can sit in the ampitheatre and marvel at the acoustics, see what’s left of the shops, the public baths. Walk down the streets.

We visited there with a group of about thirty. There were few other tourists there that day, so we had the place pretty much to our selves. It was beautiful and fascinating. I've never been much of a group follower, so I wandered around on my own once we left the ampitheatre.

I walked down a marble street, not really going anywhere in particular. The street sloped slightly downward and to the left around a small hill. When I came around the corner, the road sloped down a little more toward what had been the harbor about a half mile away. I stopped there. The harbor was a semi-circle of dark blue. The sky was a pale blue. In front of me, the road was pale white through green.

It was so quiet.
Then suddenly, I was aware of other presences and other times. Not time travel, not ghosts or spirits. Just an awareness of the reality that something remained of times and people past. Remnants and residue of layer over layer, just like the physical city. It wasn't frightening or unsettling, but rather pleasant and peaceful and comfortable. Even if no other corporeal person were around, this wasn't a place you would feel lonely in. There was a sense of the normalcy of everyday life that goes on year after year. After years, I can still feel what I felt then. What Brooke describes as "the friendly presence of ghosts".

I felt something when we were in Rome at the Coliseum. I was standing by myself looking down into the areas underneath, where men and animals were kept until the time for them to enter the arena. Again came the awareness of presences from the past, but the feelings that came with that awareness were filled with anguish and hopelessness and resignation. Feelings that even the animals kept there smelled the blood and fear and their own death. We visited Rome a number of times after that, but I never again went into the Coliseum. On an ironic note, a tour of Vatican City didn't bring on feelings of piety and peace, but a heightened sense of intrigue and lust for power and a caution that made you want to look over your shoulder.

So many places in Europe are like that, whether in a city or on a country road. Brooke was right. Once you have experienced their presence in that rather peculiar way, you do miss the dead.

Can you wrap your imagination around this?

2005-10-14T13:08:00.000-04:00

There is a speaker in my office that lets me hear what is going on in the courtroom. I have learned to tune out most of it, at least to the level where it is just background noise. But occasionally, I will hear a comment that gets my full and immediate attention. This morning, it was from a defendant being charged with public drunkenness--

"Well, your Honor, it was Trivia night at Hooters."

My first thought? "Well, that must have been intellectually challenging."

The Banned Book Meme

2005-10-12T10:19:00.000-04:00

Found this at The Everlasting Phelps

Bold what you've read completely. Italic for partial reads. Continue to ignore the rest
Asterisk those you enjoy and comment where you see fit.
*#1 The Bible--I have read it through numerous times. But I don't believe that I will ever read it enough to understand all of it. There is just too much.
*#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain --I like Twain. Not necessarily everything he wrote, but the majority.
*#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
*#5 Arabian Nights -escapist literature with something edgy.
*#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
*#7 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift --a lovely fantasy, but with an underlying morality tale
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer - annoying, but I slogged through certain stories
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne-- required reading
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman--pretentious
*#11 Prince by Niccollo Machiavelli --fascinating insight into the human mind and heart
#12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe --required reading
*#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank --read it as part of my fascination with World War II
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert --required reading
*#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens --have read almost all of Dickens
#16 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo -- found it a little tedious in parts
*#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker --loved it.
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
*#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding --one of my first forays into "risque" writings
*#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne --again, a fascinating insight into the past
*#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck --read a lot of Steinbeck, too. Some think this is his best, I disagree
*#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon --four years of Latin, I learned a great deal from this.
#23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy --required reading
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin --required reading
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce- another one that had to be slogged through
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio --interesting, but needs to be taken in small doses
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell --required reading
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell --required reading
#29 Candide by Voltaire --required reading
*#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee --oddly enough my favorite character is Boo Radley. But I always admire people who rise above their limitations when the need arises
*#31 Analects by Confucius -some of it is a little to esoteric or perhaps a little to oriental for my occidental mind to wrap around. But there are parts I admire--My associate must be the man who proceeds to action full of solicitude, who is fond of adjusting his plans, and then carries them into execution.
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce --tedious
*#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck --required reading and depressing
*#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway -required reading
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
*#36 Das Kapital by Karl Marx -tedious, short-sighted, socialist bullshit
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire --a truly wacked-out hedonist
*#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle --I love books I have to work at
#39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence --required reading
*#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley --required reading, one of the few I enjoyed
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser --required reading-interesting in a off-putting way
*#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell --I live in Georgia; you can bet this is required reading, but not necessarily for a curriculum.
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair --reference my comment upon Marx's Das Kapital
*#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque -I actually have a blog entry on the movie made from this book. My take on it's underlying theme is a little different from reading this as an anti-war book.
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx -- required reading -too simplistic, "capitalism is the source of all evil, the State will take care of you instead." Again, bullshit
*#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding --required reading and incredibly depressing, but it exposes human nature in a way that a great many people don't want to see.
*#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys --fascinating look into a different time
*#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway --required reading-okay, but too much machismo for me. When I hear about the running of the bulls, I root for the bulls
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy --required reading and too depressing
*#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury --required reading, but not because of a particular class. Any book lover needs to read this one.
*#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak --read it after seeing the movie with Omar Shariff and Julie Christie; oh, the romance and angst.
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant --extremely hard to keep up. A little too technical for real reading.
*#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey-Nurse Ratched has become a cliche, but what a great one.
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus --this is another one to be read in bits and pieces
*#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller --funny, sad and ironic, sometimes all at the same time.
*#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X --lots of bullshit in this one too.
*#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker --not too bad. Even when the characters irritate by their stupid choices, you can get caught up in them.
*#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger --bad words(gasp)
*#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke --some I agree with, some I don't and it can be tedious
#60 Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison
*#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe --not too bad
*#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn --a small pebble that helped begin the avalanche that overtook communism in the Soviet Union.
*#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck --my favorite Steinbeck. I was in love with both the brothers.
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison --a little too much "it's somebody else's fault"
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou --some of it is good, some is just tedious
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau --I disagree too much with his point of view to try to get through this. "People are good, but commerce and property corrupt them." More socialist bullshit.
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes --another slogger
#69 The Talmud- read parts as an adjunct to my Bible studies
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
*#71 Bridge to Terabinthia by Katherine Paterson --supposedly a children's novel, but I have re-read it a couple of times.
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence -- elevated writing with a soap-opera plot
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser --not too bad, but a little predictable
*#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler --in spite of all that came from it-this is interesting to read in hindsight. The seeds of his megalomania are there even at the beginning. A similarity I found in Mein Kampf and Das Kapital was the opinion that the "masses" are really stupid and need someone to take care of them. (Sound familiar, liberals?)
#75 A Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath --I think Plath was trying to evoke sympathy for poor, misunderstood females.
Didn't work with me.
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
*#80 Satyricon by Petronius -- read it for the shock value and the Roman background
*#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov -- not too bad, but not all that fascinating to me
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder --I read and re-read the series
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
*#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse --required reading
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood -disingenuous
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown -noble Indian, ignoble white man. Whatever.
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess- very, very strange
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines -reasonable
#102 Emile by Jean Jacques Rousseau -got irritated and bored
#103 Nana by Emile Zola -gets a little predictable
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin -also edges over into "it's somebody else's fault"
*#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn -fascinating
**#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein -one of my great loves
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck -strange, but sweet. I'm not that much into sweet though.
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes-a little on the emotional "aww, isn't this sweet" side

Looking back over the list at the ones I listed as required reading from advanced high school and college courses, most of them are depressing and full of unhappiness. Just what hormonally unstable, socially inept, emotionally immature geeks need to be reading. Stories that are truly uplifting.

Pictures from the Rehearsal Dinner

2005-10-08T21:07:00.000-04:00

The girls at the rehearsal dinner. September 30, 2005

They started a tradition of wearing the same outfit to the rehearsal dinner for each of their weddings when the oldest one married. Perhaps a bit of bias on my part, but they are so lovely, inside and out. And they have a good relationship with each other, even though there are three distinct personalities involved. They had such fun while I was taking these pictures. I took a whole role of them goofing around on this bench. I didn't pose any of these shots, I just let them play around and almost all of them turn out great.

Agie's wedding

2005-10-08T20:47:00.000-04:00

A beautiful day for a wedding. My youngest daughter. October 1, 2005.
This picture was taken by my aunt with a digital camera. If the professional pictures look anywhere near this good, they will be spectacular.

Castle Rock v. Gonzales

2005-10-08T09:10:00.000-04:00

Working in the court system, I come across things that the general public doesn't hear about. The following story and the link is an example.

Castle Rock v. Gonzales
The background- a woman has a protective order for herself and limited visitation order pertaining to her children against her estranged abusive husband. Husband abducts the three girls. She calls the police repeatedly and they do nothing, not believing the husband to be a threat to the girls. Even after he has violated the terms of his limited visitation, they still do nothing to try and recover the girls. The next morning, he drives to a police station and shoots repeatedly through the windows. Suicide by cop. After the police kill him, they find the three girls in his truck, murdered. Mother sues the police department for failing to protect her and the children.

Case goes to court, mother wins; there is an appeal by the department, mother wins in the appellate court; department appeals higher and mother loses.

Why? Because police have no constitutional obligation to protect individuals from private individuals.

Read the excerpt:
http://www.kscourts.org/ca10/cases/2002/10/01-1053a.htm
In rejecting the substantive due process argument, the Court pointed out that "nothing in the language of the Due Process Clause itself requires the State to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens against invasion by private actors." Id. at 195.
If the Due Process Clause does not require the State to provide its citizens with particular protective services, it follows that the State cannot be held liable under the Clause for injuries that could have been averted had it chosen to provide them. As a general matter, then, we conclude that a State's failure to protect an individual against private violence simply does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause.
The Court also pointed out that although the state may have been aware of the dangers faced by the plaintiff in DeShaney, "it played no part in their creation, nor did it do anything to render him any more vulnerable to them." Id. at 201.

This decision was not a fluke. There are a number cases dating as far back as 1856. That year, the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of South v. Maryland found that law enforcement officials have no affirmative duty to proactively protect an individual.

So the police are not obligated under the law to protect me against another individual. Which leads me around to the subject of gun-control. If the police are not obligated to protect me, then do I not have the obligation, the right, to protect myself and what is mine? Should I not be allowed the opportunity to protect myself?

I don't know if knowledge of the fact that the police have no obligation to protect you from a known threat would have any effect on the mind-set of people who advocate that no private citizens be allowed to have weapons, but it might be interesting to find out. Maybe I'll bring it up among people that I know are gun-control advocates and just see.

Autumnal Equinox

2005-10-07T13:19:00.000-04:00

We have had a long lovely summer in the South this year. One of the best in about a decade. No extremely high temperatures (for us that's over 100), enough rain to keep the weather people from whining about drought conditions, but not so much that you consider building an ark.

But for the last two days, there has been a low, gray cloud cover. The rain coming from it has varied from a soft mist to a moderately heavy downpour. Forecasters here are saying it is the remnants of Tropical Storm Tammy. But beyond that, I can feel a difference in the air, in the temperature. I think we have seen the last of summer here, even though the trees haven't really begun to change.

On one level, I find myself responding to it with some nostalgia. Hot apple cider, rich soups and stews, flannel lounging pajamas, breathing crisp air, not having to push myself to go out in the yard and work. There are a number of pleasures for the senses in the fall. Spring is my favorite season, but fall comes in a close second.

On another level, I find myself interested in the scientific aspect of the change of seasons. I was looking at different sites and found one that has a fascinating short movie that shows the tilt of the Earth as it goes through a year. I knew that the Earth tilting on it's axis was the cause of the seasons, but I did not realize how much of a tilt it was until I watched the movie on this site. If you're curious enough, (and patient enough) link to the site and click on Astronomy on the first page, click on Observational Astronomy on the second page, click on Seasons on the third page, then click on Autumnal Equinox on the fourth page. Go down that page and after the chart, there is a link for a QuickTime movie.

Gee, Guess What?

2005-10-07T10:56:00.000-04:00

It really is white and has been for about 20 years.

Your Hair Should Be White

Classy, stylish, and eloquent.
You've got a way about you that floors everyone you meet.

What's Your Funky Inner Hair Color?

Some Days--

2005-10-07T09:35:00.000-04:00

My five-year old granddaughter began kindergarten this year. When my daughter went to pick her up Wednesday, her teacher said she had a story to tell her.

The teacher and her aide had taken the class for a bathroom break. All the other kids had come out, so the teacher stuck her head in the bathroom and asked Livy if she was finished. Livy told her in a minute, so the teacher asked the aide to take the others back to the classroom and she would wait on Livy.
The principal and another teacher stopped to talk to Livy's teacher for a minute and Livy finally came out of the bathroom. Her teacher asked her if everything was okay and Livy said,

"Yes, some days it's just harder to wipe your butt.

Idiosyncrasies

2005-10-04T11:20:00.000-04:00

I realized yesterday while I was eating lunch that I use baked potatoes as a delivery system for butter and sour cream. Lots and lots of butter and sour cream. Lots.

The Ultimate Hot Dog (at least for me)

2005-09-28T21:04:00.000-04:00

Warm bun, put a bun-length hot dog in. Next, chopped onion on both sides. Then a line of mustard on both sides. Chili goes on next, top that with cole slaw(has to be cabbage and carrots). Grated cheddar cheese goes over that, then top with bacon pieces. Heat in microwave just to melt the cheese. Enjoy.

All too human?

2005-09-06T13:26:00.000-04:00

"To kill, to take a life, requires an understanding, an acceptance of violence. A dark side."

This is a line from a book I am currently reading. The character in question has hysterical amnesia, brought on when she kills a man who was trying to rape her. She prefers to believe herself unable to kill, prefers to believe that good people don't kill. To her, people who take the life of another human being are killers with something dark and unpleasant in them that she personally lacks.

It's an interesting plot line. But if what she wants to believe were true, would an inability to kill make her more human or would it make her less?

The question being asked:

2005-09-04T21:19:00.000-04:00

"What have you earned from God?"

The definition of "earn" being: 1 a : to receive as return for effort and especially for work done or services rendered.

The answer being: absolutely nothing.

The reality being instead that I have been given so much.

Your Brain's Pattern

2005-09-04T20:15:00.000-04:00

Your Brain's Pattern

You have a dreamy mind, full of fancy and fantasy.
You have the ability to stay forever entertained with your thoughts.
People may say you're hard to read, but that's because you're so internally focused.
But when you do share what you're thinking, people are impressed with your imagination.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

AD found another fun one.

I like my own mind. It usually is full of things I enjoy, both the practical and the fantastic.

I am hard to read. I prefer to be. That is, in part, a practical choice. Too many of the people I know, too many I have known, don't really enjoy encounters with people whose minds are different. They become uncomfortable and edgy with conversations that don't involve "normal things" like the weather, shopping, what they watched on television last night, what they did over the weekend, their children. There is nothing wrong with talking about those things, but it is uncomfortable for me to be limited to conversations about those normal things only. I get bored fairly quickly.

Your blog should be--

2005-09-02T21:14:00.000-04:00

Your Blog Should Be Purple

You're an expressive, offbeat blogger who tends to write about anything and everything.
You tend to set blogging trends, and you're the most likely to write your own meme or survey.
You are a bit distant though. Your blog is all about you - not what anyone else has to say.

What Color Should Your Blog or Journal Be?

Thanks to AD

Keesler Air Force Base

2005-09-01T18:14:00.000-04:00

There hasn't been a lot of mention of Keesler AFB at Biloxi. I am not really surprised about that for two reasons. The media probably just assumes the base will be safe (as if a hurricane is going to see a base and avoid damaging it out of a spirit of patriotism?). The second reason is that the people in charge of the base probably prefer it that way.

I checked the web site for Keesler to see how the base and the personnel did during the storm. I knew that non-essential personnel and all the family members would be evacuated, just as I knew that the command structure and recovery personnel would remain to ride out the storm, no matter what the danger to themselves.

This is the last official update from the command structure that remained, dated August 31, 2005:

Keesler Air Force base has survived a direct hit by Hurricane Katrina a Category 4 hurricane. Initial assessment hows extensive damage to our industrial and housing areas. We are deploying assessment crews and are in contact with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and with commanders of many military bases who have offered assistance. The damage is severe enough that we are unable to leave our shelters until Thursday at the earliest in order to assure our recovery teams have cleared debris and made it safe for us and our families to return home. Brigadier General Lord and your leadership promises to keep you apprised of the progress of our recovery teams and release you to go home and assess your own damage as soon as it is safe for your family to travel. All pets at the Keesler pet shelter are in good health and weathered this extremely dangerous storm safely. We are doing everything within our power to clear the way and provide the best immediate and long term assistance to help each one of us in order to recover from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Brigadier General Lord wants you to know we are not alone and will do everything we can to keep you safe and get you home as soon as possible. Please be patient. We all need to pull together and help us all make it through this difficult time safely.

There is a part of the communique that particularly touches my heart. The part letting personnel who had to leave their pets behind know that their animals were still safe. For all those people who think military personnel, particularly the upper ranks, are heartless, mindless myrmidons, I wish they could read this and think about it. Not only did they make arrangements before the hurricane to care for the animals that would have to be left behind, they also had enough compassion to know that people would be worried and made sure to include information in an official communique that let those people know their pets were safe.

Biloxi

2005-09-01T09:51:00.000-04:00

When I joined the Air Force, my basic training was done in San Antonio, Texas. Once I was finished there, I was sent to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi for my specialty training. I spent about six months there and it was a wonderful time in my life.
I was being trained for a challenging job. I was nineteen years old, single, fit and healthy, and stationed at a base close to a wonderful beach during the spring and summer of 1972. A base where the male population outnumbered the female by about 10 to 1.
I didn't make a lot of money, but I had no rent payments, free health care, the chow halls were free and the food was great. The only expenses I had were personal items.
Perhaps one of the most carefree periods I have ever known and I enjoyed it.

Most of the coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath has focused on New Orleans, which is in some way understandable. New Orleans isn't just a city, it is a symbol of the kind of life in which there is gaiety, parties and endless fun. Relaxed, with good food and drink, and beautiful things to see and pleasurable things to do. Fun days and fun nights. It is sometimes called a city without care-sans souci.

Which is perhaps why I have personally been focused on Biloxi. My memories of the area are almost uniformly wonderful.

Yesterday, I watched a twenty minute video shot on Tuesday by a chopper crew from a television station(WLBT), an NBC affiliate in the area. Twenty minutes of destruction. The chopper flew along the coastline from Long Beach to Gulfport to Biloxi. There is almost nothing left along that stretch of coast extending one-half to three-quarters of a mile inland except debris. Such a lovely place now destroyed.

The area will be rebuilt. Ever kicked down an ant's nest? They scatter and scramble and run around like crazy. Then they start picking up pieces of dirt and toting them away and they rebuild their little mound and go on with their lives. That's what I think the people of Biloxi will do, too. That's what they say they'll do.

But even with all the talk of rebuilding, the Biloxi/Gulfport area I remember will never exist again and the thought brings on a certain bittersweet melancholy. Those memories are in my mind, but there will never again be the opportunity to go there and have my memory jogged by the visual reminders of what I had in those months, memories of both a place and a time in my life that was so sweet and rich, that held so much personal promise. But the knowledge of it's destruction only makes the memories I keep that much more precious.

(The link I put in the title has not been updated since the August 28, 2005, just before Katrina hit.)

Quilts

2005-08-30T21:38:00.000-04:00

One of my hobbies--

These two quilts are approximately 80" x 92". They will fit on a full-sized bed.
The one on the left was made from blocks won by my youngest daughter. We meet with a quilt group once a month and everyone who chooses to can make a previously chosen block with specified colors and then all the names are put into a hat and one person a month wins all the blocks. The pattern is call Hole in the Barn Door. This is another way to make a great quilt. Instead of only a couple of fabrics and a lot of different blocks (like the sampler), this type of quilt uses a lot of different fabrics with only one block. But it still makes a wonderfully varied and visually interesting quilt.
The one on the right is an extremely simple quilt make beautiful by choice of fabric. This was made in a class with about 10 other women. Each of us chose different fabrics and every quilt was completely unique, even though the pattern we used was the same. The lower picture shows the back of the quilt and the quilting can be seen.
I quilt some of my quilts by hand and others are done by machine. Both of these have been machine quilted by a friend who has a special machine for home quilting.

Quilts

2005-08-30T21:36:00.000-04:00

And a couple more quilts.

The quilt on the left is called "Piggy Banks" ( 48' x 60"). Another big favorite of my grandchildren. The eyes are embroidered and the tails are three-dimensional curliques that are appliqued onto the pig. The close-up shows a busted up bank with the coins falling out.
Frogs in a Pond (40" x 56") is the one on the right and was made for my grandson, who is still less than a year old. He is absolutely fascinated with the frogs and will try endlessly to pick them up.

More quilts

2005-08-30T21:34:00.000-04:00

A full view and a close-up of each

Quilts are no longer just a bunch of scraps thrown together. Fabric companies are increasingly manufacturing more and more specialty fabrics meant for quilters and less for sale to people who make clothing.
The quilt on the left is called a sampler quilt, because none of the blocks are the same. It is a good method for new quilters to learn a number of techniques, while still having a cohesive quilt when you are finished. It is about 48" x 60".

Mr. Snowy is the quilt on the left and is made from flannel. Of course it is a favorite of my grandchildren. It is 36" x 48".

2005-08-30T21:16:00.000-04:00

A Window Quilt 28" x 34"

I love making quilts. This particular one is called "Tropical Sunset."

1. The "view" is made by cutting three different fabrics-the sunset, the ocean and the stone beach, into rectangles, re-sewing them and then setting them into "window panes" using the gray fabric.

2. On the bottom sill, sea-shells cut out of another piece of fabric are appliqued.

3. This is a closer view of the center pane.

4. This view shows the quilting stitch pretty well. It is used to outline and emphasize certain areas of the quilt

Nerd?

2005-08-30T20:31:00.000-04:00

A lot of the INTJs on the list like to take tests. Usually doesn't matter much what kind. So I thought it really appropriate that one of them found this test--

The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test (The link is in the title)

These are my results--

Modern, Cool Nerd
95 % Nerd, 52% Geek, 39% Dork

For The Record:A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd. Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgeable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)! Congratulations!

By the way, the author misspelled the word "knowledgeable", which I felt compelled to correct. I am a Nerd.

Spider Bread

2005-08-26T23:32:00.000-04:00

Spider Bread-- this is a fried bread that everyone I have ever made it for just loves. It is addictive.

1 3/4 cups self-rising flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1/8 cup powdered cinnamon
Mix these dry ingredients and stir in 2/3 cup milk.
Let this mixture sit while you heat vegetable oil in a fairly deep saucepan. Do not fill the sauce pan more than half full of oil. To test the readiness of the oil, drop a dab of the mixture into the oil. If it falls to the bottom and then immediately bobs to the surface again, the oil is hot enough. I set the burner on medium high(7). Not too hot or you will burn the oil and the bread.
By the time the oil is hot, the flour mix should have attained a sticky, not runny, consistency. If it is too runny, add more flour, a spoonful at a time, until you have a sticky batter.

Take a small spoon and half fill with batter. Drop carefully into hot oil. If the dough is right, you will probably have to give the little dough ball a push to get it off the spoon. You may notice that when the batter hits the oil, some of them grow "legs". For some reason, the batter spreads outward in little strands. That is why we call it spider bread.
Don't put too many balls in the pot. I use an 8" diameter pot and only drop in about 8 dough balls at a time. They should sink to the bottom, then come back to the surface fairly quickly. They should also roll over when brown on one side. If they don't, take a slotted spoon and help turn them. When they are golden brown, remove them quickly from the oil and put onto paper towels to drain. Again, be careful that the oil is not too hot and that the drops of dough are not too large or they will not cook all the way through.

We like to sprinkle them with powdered sugar while they are still hot. They never last any longer than the day I make them. I can usually get about 20 to 25 pieces.

Heart of Darkness

2005-08-26T10:08:00.000-04:00

I started to title this "People suck..." but after typing it, I realized how childish it sounded, so I'm not going to use it. There is nothing childish about where I am now mentally and emotionally.

For the last three weeks, I have been in the grip of one of the darkest moods I have had in years. I know what triggered it, I know what has kept it aggravated, I know what has fed it. I am not completely over it yet, but I am beginning to come out of it. I want to come out of it, because I live in a world where it has no proper place, but there is also a part of me that wants to hold onto it.

It is a dark, ugly, cold, vicious, sadistic mood. It brings to mind things that wait in the shadows with fangs and claws for something unwary to come along and takes pleasure in ripping and tearing. There is nothing cheerful or positive or pleasant or happy about it. But for all of that, I find it seductive. I feel an insidious attraction to it. I like it, even while I hate it. I want to wallow in it and give in to it, even while I want it to go away.

I like it, because even in the depths of it's ugliness, it's honest and real. None of the thoughts I have had about others are false. On the contrary, they are what might well be called "The Painful Truth." There are no pretenses, no promises, no consideration of how it might cause pain or of how great the pain would be. There is nothing fake there. It simply is what it is. Truths no one wants to hear about themselves.

I like it, because unlike the more positive emotions that I have to put effort into, I don't have think or take any action to maintain the mood. It thrives on and feeds off of external forces.

I like it because it's powerful. Incredibly powerful. My mental acuity sharpens and above just about all else, I take real pleasure in the enhanced focus I am capable of, even though there is a knife-sharp edge to my thoughts. And while it feeds off external forces, there are no external forces that can control it. Only me. And even I can only control how much of it makes it's way into the world outside my mind.

Very few, if any, of the people I associate with on a regular basis have been aware of this mood. Over the years, I have become very accomplished at presenting an acceptable face to the world. I try to avoid as much human contact as possible. My daughter, whom I see every day, has noticed that I seem a bit shorter tempered than usual and that some comments I have made in reference to certain situations and people have been less than kind, but even she is not aware of the depths of the mood.

I have not read any of the blogs I read on a regular basis for a while. I don't want much human contact. I have missed reading Mexi and Laconis and the others, but I couldn't bear to involve myself with them. I feel obligated to be positive if I comment and that is something that has been beyond my abilities for a while.

I have not even wanted to write anything here, because this is a positive force in my life.

But the darkness is fading, and hopefully, with this post, I will once again begin to be able to express myself without concern that what I write will be so cold that even I won't want to read it.

Associations

2005-07-30T09:17:00.001-04:00

I have been limping for two days because of an slight injury to the joint of my left big toe. It aches constantly, but it really becomes painful when I walk and of course, I limp to keep my weight off it. I've noticed that the limp is different when the toe is injured, than if it were any other part of the foot. I tend to list inward and I have to work consciously to maintain balance. The oddness of my walk reminded me of something that I already knew and it kept working around in my mind until I was able to remember what was in there.

In the book of Judges in the Bible, there is a story of the defeat of a king of the Canaanites and the Perizzites by Judah and Simeon. The king's army was defeated and then verse 6 and 7 go like this--

But Adonibezek fled; and they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes.
And Adonibezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died. Judges 1:6-7

When I first read this years ago, I thought it was a peculiar punishment for an enemy and being me, I had to find out why they did it. As it turns out, it was a logical, if crude, way of keeping your enemies from being able to fight again.
These were days of spears and arrows, of knives and axes and without a thumb, a man couldn't effectively use any of these things. But what my mind had been trying to remember was the part about the toes. The big toes were cut off because without them, a human being can't run or even walk very fast. I am having to work to just keep my balance. So to cut off the thumbs and big toes off of your enemies was a way of being certain that they won't fight against you again. In Chp 26, Book II of Montaigne's Essays, he also makes mention that Athenians used the tactic of cutting off thumbs of other mariners so they couldn't sail or use oars. The Romans exempted men from fighting who didn't have thumbs because they couldn't use weapons.

So once I was able to remember this , the nagging in my mind stopped. The information itself is useless, unless I end up in a position of having to make sure my enemies can't run or use a spear anymore, but I was pleased that I could make the connection between my peculiar limp and the somewhat trivial information I learned years ago, that what I had put into memory was still there and accessible with only a moderate effort.

Stating the Obvious

2005-07-25T11:53:00.000-04:00

I was doing some research on "appropriate use of force", when I came upon this gem--

Do not remove a fly from your friend’s forehead with a hatchet-Chinese proverb

After I quit laughing, I thought about this quote-- "We have now sunk to the depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." - George Orwell

Since the proverb is an old Chinese one, seems that although George gets the credit for verbalizing the thought, he was still a little behind the curve on this one.

Rosemary Foccacia Bread

2005-07-24T21:54:00.000-04:00

A favorite of my family is Rosemary Foccacia Bread. We have it most often in the fall and winter when we eat a lot of stews and soups. It is also good with spaghetti. I'm fortunate in that a member of my church gave me a small rosemary plant about seven years ago and it has thrived so well that there are now 5 large bushes in my yard. It is evergreen year round, so I always have fresh rosemary available.

Rosemary Foccacia Bread
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pillsbury Pizza Crust (found in the same area as the refrigerated canned biscuits)
Olive oil
Salt
Fresh chopped rosemary or dried rosemary
Parmesan cheese

Coat a 9x13 pan with olive oil and drain excess well. Open the pizza crust, unroll, and with oiled hands, press the dough into the pan. With your fingertips, make indentations all over the dough. Lightly salt the entire piece of dough, sprinkle the chopped rosemary and Parmesan cheese over the dough and press down just firmly enough to anchor the rosemary into the dough.
Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes, checking the bottom at ten minutes. The bottom should be a crisp golden brown. Use a pizza cutter and cut into squares. Best served warm. The smell is incredible.

Another option is to use basil, tomatoes and mozzarella. Salt the dough, add chopped basil and sliced tomatoes, sprinkle the tomatoes with a little olive oil and cook for 10 minutes. Add grated mozzarella cheese and cook for another two minutes or until the mozzarella is melted and beginning to brown.

The way it is---

2005-07-24T20:36:00.000-04:00

Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is the absence of a threat, of danger.

As long as the threat or danger exists, there is no real peace. There is only the calm before the storm.

Mediocrity

2005-07-23T14:24:00.000-04:00

There have been administrative changes in certain offices around the courthouse in the last six months. Because of these changes, I have become aware of a facet of human nature I haven't given much thought to before. Though the same thing is going on in more than one office, I'm going to focus on one office in particular.

This particular office has five different positions and about 30 people working in those positions. Based on my past experience with them, the people who worked there had a higher level of competency than you would generally expect to find in a government office. Which, of course, makes it a real pleasure to do business with them.

The administrative change I refer to is a new boss, who started in the office about six months ago. I had to work with this particular person before they gained the position. On a scale of 1-10 for competency, I would, if I were inclined to be generous, give them a 5 or 5.5, but no more. This person has a tendency to be careless with paperwork, to be disinclined to listen to anything they don't want to hear, to be less than diligent about showing up on time, given to making excuses as to why they didn't accomplish what they should have, taking all the credit if something goes well and none of the responsibility if something goes wrong and worst of all, if something goes wrong, it is always someone else's fault and they have no problem publicly casting whatever blame there is on someone else. They have almost no organizational skills and no real concept of how this particular office operates or the operational needs involved in the efficient administration of the office.

Since taking charge of the office, thirteen people have found new jobs elsewhere or have been fired. Twelve of them were either exceptional or very good at their jobs. Of the remaining employees, there are perhaps six of them whom I would consider to be at that level. The rest are okay or barely competent. This person has filled eight of the empty positions with people whom I would consider barely competent to do the work, with one notable exception.

So from an office where two-thirds of the staff could be considered very good at their jobs, it has devolved into an office where less than one-quarter of the staff is capable of doing consistent quality work. Considering how inter-connected the court system is, if one office isn't functioning well, the negative effect spreads itself around, so of course, my job has become correspondingly difficult.

Seeing this develop over these months, I have become aware of this--
Mediocre people in positions of power don't seem to want quality, competent people working for them. They don't seem to be able to handle having anyone around them who rises above their own level of mediocrity. And they make concerted efforts to get rid of competent people one way or another and will only replace them with people who are as inefficient as themselves.

It is disheartening to see a well-run, efficient organization slowly grind down to an office that is barely functional. Which brings to mind this adage---
Cream rises to the top; but then, so does pond scum. And pond scum tends to choke out every good thing below it. I have no choice but to watch it happen and deal with the outcome as best I can.

Another look at it--

2005-07-20T22:01:00.000-04:00

The stories on the terrorist bombings in London are beginning to fade off the news . A great many of the stories have made mention of how staunchly the Brits are handling themselves in spite of the attempt to spread fear and panic. People still going about their business, taking the tube and generally living their lives in defiance of those who want to terrorize them. Reporters and newscasters speak with admiration of British insouciance.

I agree that their behaviour has been more admirable than some other nations. But without wanting to take anything away from them, I would admit that my admiration level is only modest at best. I am waiting to see how they thoroughly they deal with terrorism in the long term.

I see four basic ways to react to terrorism:

Complicity is the first. I find it horrendous that there are nations and people that actively support and cooperate with those who murder for the sake of spreading fear. But it doesn't surprise me. Nations that support terrorism feel that there is an advantage of some sort or other to be gained. That's reality.

The second is appeasement. Complicity may be horrible, but I have no trouble understanding that there are various reasons why nations do it. But I find appeasement completely disgusting. How cowardly and venal it is to try to buy off vicious killers in the hope that they will leave you alone and go kill your neighbors instead.

The third is stoic acceptance. The attitude of "perhaps you can kill some of us, but you won't destroy our way of life" really is admirable, because terrorists do want to disrupt lives and spread fear and uncertainty. But I really don't see people who are willing to murder being so overcome with awe and respect by that attitude that they see the errors of their way and repent of their evil doings.

The fourth way--retribution. Not punishment, not vengeance, not retaliation, but capital letter Retribution. Make them pay. Extract a cost that is greater than anything that they gain from terrorist acts. Let future terrorists realize that there will always be a price to pay. Just for clarity's sake, retribution is not revenge. Revenge can be defined as payment for a slight or an insult. Retribution is the meting out of punishment for a crime or a wrong and is justly deserved based on the action done. Retribution requires careful thought, sometimes personal sacrifice, great effort and real strength of purpose.

Consider the four choices honestly, then decide which one will be truly effective. Retribution is the only one of the four choices that has any real possibility of stopping terrorism. It is the only functional choice. It is a willingness and an unshakeable determination to exact retribution that I personally find admirable. And I think it is the only thing that terrorists both understand and fear.

Out of the Past

2005-07-20T09:09:00.000-04:00

[This was painful and difficult to write and as painful and difficult to post. But the weight of it on my heart is heavy and I need to put it into words.]

When I arrived for work Monday morning, I saw that there was a fax that had come in over the weekend. It was a conflict letter from an attorney listing the courts he had to appear in that day. As usual, I did a quick skim for the Judge's name to be sure it had been sent to the correct office. My judge's name wasn't on the conflict letter, so I looked more thoroughly to see which judge should have received it. But when I looked closer, I saw the name of one of the people he was representing. It was a name from the past. A name I would have preferred not to ever see again.

My father worked with this man at one time. He was actually my age, but he and my father were friends. My parents often went to dinner with him and his wife. They had two little girls.

My father came home from work one day about twenty years ago and told us that this man had been arrested. A little later, we found out the details. He had raped his five-year old daughter. This wasn't a situation where a disgruntled spouse made false accusations or was just trying to cause problems or gain an advantage. I know this, because there were pictures. Taken by his wife. She took pictures while her husband raped their five year old daughter.

As a parent, as a female, as a human being, I cannot begin to accept or understand. You're five and the two people you depend on the most, the people who are the very foundation of your existence, do something that destroys your innocence, your faith, your trust and your life. Unless someone has lived through it, can anyone know how frightening, how painful, how terrifying, how hopeless it must have been for her.

Think about what it would have been like for her right after it was over. How much physical pain was she in from having a grown man force entry into her body. Did her throat hurt from screaming? Were her eyes and face swollen from the tears she had to have cried? Did he hold her down and bruise her arms, her legs? And when they left her there after he finished, how could she sleep with that much pain? Did they do anything to comfort her, to ease her? Would she even have wanted them to come near her or would she have cowered away? Did they even care? What was is like for her going to bed at night after that? Did she lie there in fear and wonder if it was going to happen again? Did it happen again? For how long before they were stopped?

Would you ask why they did it? Husband and wife were both cocaine users. That was the reason/excuse they used. They were under the influence of cocaine and "didn't know what they were doing." My, my, weren't they poor, pitiful things?

I have heard all the reasons for "legalizing" drugs. But having had my entire life affected because I grew up in a home where a "legal" mind-altering substance was abused, having listened to story after story from others who came from the same situation, and the fact that after twenty years, all it took to bring back the memory of this little girl and what she must have suffered, was the sight of a name on a piece of paper, I have the the only reason I need for opposing the legalization of any other such substance.

The reality of what she went through, what I went through, what other children have gone through and are still going through. That's reason enough for me.

Do I detect a pattern?

2005-07-19T15:43:00.000-04:00

True story.
I rode down on the public elevator Monday at lunch time with a female, a male and three children. The female was complaining that the Judge had "yelled" at her for being just a few minutes late. I didn't pay a lot of attention to her until I talked to someone who had been in that courtroom.

She had been involved in a convoluted incident where group of about six men and women went to the house of some people they had a prior history with (interchangeable boyfriends and girlfriends), robbed them and beat the man and woman up. She had been charged with robbery and battery and her trial was to begin Monday morning in Superior Court. She was fifteen minutes late for court and the Judge chastised her strongly for being late for her jury trial.

This morning (Tuesday), I heard that she still hadn't shown up by 9:15 and the Judge was furious. Everyone, including the jurors, were just sitting there waiting for her. She finally showed up at 9:30 and was full of apologies. She promised the Judge it wouldn't happen again and he said she was damn right, because he was revoking her bond and she would stay in custody for the duration of the trial.

Well, after some consultation with her attorney and the Assistant District Attorney, she decided to accept the plea recommendation and plead guilty. As is standard procedure, the Judge offered her an opportunity to make a statement before sentencing. According to a person who was in the courtroom, this is what she said--

"Your Honor, I admit that I did help beat up that girl, but I
really didn't have anything to do with the robbery. You see, I got there late......"

The ADA dismissed the robbery charge.

Big Thrill (well, it is for me)

2005-07-13T20:53:00.000-04:00

When I came home for lunch today, there was a package waiting for me.
I ordered some books last week and when I saw the package, I knew what was in it.
My heart gave a thump and I felt a smile grow on my face. I put everything down and reached out for the package. I was so happy. I didn't open it right away, but just held it for a minute to prolong the anticipation.

Then it occurred to me. I reacted to a new book the way some women respond to a lover. I laughed at myself, but it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the moment at all.

I've already finished the book and have re-read a part of it. I will probably have finished the second reading either tonight or tomorrow.

And then, I'll wait for the next arrival.

They all look the same-

2005-07-10T21:39:00.000-04:00

Some members of our church went on a mission trip to help build a camp for Romanian gypsies. They made some contacts there and the result was that a Romanian pastor came to visit and speak at our church.
He was quite a man. Early thirties, not very tall and with an appealing shyness that he worked hard to put aside. He began by apologizing for his English, which wasn't bad, but wasn't great either. His "not so good English" gave him one of his best lines. He talked about his conversion to Christianity in his early twenties and about how he thought he should stop cussing. He said, "I lost half my dictionary then."
But there was one part of his story in particular that made a deep impression on me. He had been straightforward about his life in the military. He drank, smoked, paid women for sex, beat people for the fun of it. But after four years of it, he was unhappy. He knew that he was missing something in his life, but he wasn't sure what it was.
He spoke of a visitor who came to see him one day and talk to him about his lifestyle. He said he knew her as a drug addict who roamed the streets asking for money to feed her habit. She had approached him more than once when he was out carousing with his buddies, wanting money. He said, "You know the kind of person I'm talking about. You've seen them. I saw them when I was in your downtown Atlanta. I recognized them, because they are the same people. They all look the same."
I didn't hear the next few minutes of what he was saying, because the truth of his statement got to me.

"They all look the same".

For some reason, that one phrase, delivered in his broken English, seemed to capture the misery and pain of drug addiction. Maybe it was the truth of it that suddenly made me so sad. That made me feel an emotion that I don't often feel-sympathy.

He was very unkind to this young woman, telling her he knew what kind of person she was, and that she had a lot of nerve coming to his house and acting like something was wrong with him. She went on to tell him that she had changed and was different now and that she wanted him to come and meet the people who had helped her. He ended up going with her, of course, and these same people that helped her helped him see that what he was missing was a relationship with God.

Although his story was about his conversion, I think now about that girl, about the generosity of heart and humbleness of spirit that it took for that nameless girl to go to him, knowing what he was like at that time, knowing he would be unkind and insulting, knowing that he would bring up her past and throw it at her like a weapon to hurt and humiliate her. But she went anyway. While I felt sympathy for her at first, I consider what she was willing to do and I think of her now with honor and respect and admiration. I wish her well.

Goat beards

2005-07-10T21:13:00.000-04:00

Just a thought going through my head. My youngest daughter began calling goatees goat-beards when she was about 6. That was about the time they began to gain popularity. Over the years of course, they have become more and more popular and more common. I have asked men I know why they liked having them, but for the most part, I get a shrug and an "I don't know, I just do".

Then I read an interesting article in a psychology magazine. Their conclusion was that since women were moving into more and more traditional male arenas, more and more men were choosing to grow facial hair, since that was one area a woman couldn't encroach on and probably wouldn't want to , even if she could.
And for some reason, it made me feel sad and a little sorry for men. Males seem to need to openly display their manhood in order to affirm it to themselves, to other men and to women. There was a time when it was easy for them, because so many things were for "men only". Smoking, drinking, certain hobbies, certain tasks, certain jobs.

Is the innate ability to grow facial hair the only thing we've left for them to have for themselves as men? Why does that bother me? Is it because we have been so greedy to have more for ourselves that we have taken pretty much everything from them? If it is, then something is wrong with what we're doing. Or maybe the something that's wrong is the lack of consideration in the way we're doing it.

Saturday Night

2005-07-09T20:54:00.000-04:00

We had good old-fashioned home-made hamburgers cooked on the grill tonight, with french fries and baked beans.
I bought enough ground chuck to make the burgers and a meatloaf. This is the best meatloaf I have ever had. Which is why we keep on making it. Even people who don't like meatloaf like this.
Good Meatloaf serves 6
1 1/2 lbs. ground chuck
1/2 cup finely chopped yellow onion
1/2 cup finely chopped green bell pepper
2 cloves finely chopped garlic
1 tsp salt, pepper to taste
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper(optional)
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup mustard
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 egg
1 cup quick-cook oats
Additional 1/4 cup ketchup, 1 tbsp mustard, 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Mix together ground chuck, onions, bell pepper and garlic.
Add salt, pepper and cayenne. Mix well
Add ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce. Mix well.
Add egg. Mix well.
Add oatmeal. Mix well.

Lightly grease a loaf pan. Turn the meat mixture into the loaf pan. If you choose, at this point, you can cover the meatloaf with wrap and freeze it until you want to cook it. If you freeze it, let it thaw in the fridge for 24 hours.
When you are ready to cook the loaf, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cook the loaf for thirty minutes. Check the loaf at this point and if there is a lot of grease, very carefully pour it off and discard. Have the additional ketchup, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce mixed and spread it over the top of the loaf. It bakes into a wonderful crisp crust. Bake for an additional twenty to thirty minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes before slicing.
We serve this with mashed potatoes and peas, the standard accompaniments for meat loaf. Also a green salad and rolls.

Things I haven't noticed in a while

2005-07-09T20:17:00.000-04:00

I took my mother to the grocery store today. I only had to pick up a few things, so I got them and went outside to wait for her. Instead of getting in the car after I unloaded my groceries, I decided to just sit on the bumper and look around.
This is Georgia in July. High summer. I had bought a very cold coke and while I drank it, I noticed some things I haven't taken the time to see in quite a while.
There is an endless variety of green in the South in the summer. So many shades and tints and hues and shadows of green across the skyline. So much richness.
I watched the flight of a brilliant red cardinal and saw the distinctive flight pattern of lift and dip, lift and dip. I know that it is a survival tactic to throw off predators, but it is also beautiful to watch. Particularly when that red is highlighted against the greenness of the trees.
There were afternoon clouds building. Soft, cotton candy white against a delicate baby blue. Big, fluffy cotton ball shapes, shifting and floating slowly across the sky.
Someone nearby was cutting their grass. I could hear the buzz of the mower and smell the special fragrance of cut grass.
I could feel the heaviness of the humidity in the air and when I breathed in, it was almost like breathing water and the heat of the day was intense, but not uncomfortable. At least not to me.
I sat there and allowed myself just to enjoy for a few minutes this indulgence of the senses. Taste, smell, sight, texture, sound. And for those few moments, I was at peace.

Down the Toilet it Goes

2005-07-08T10:56:00.000-04:00

Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist-Edmund Burke
Neither can $50 billion dollars .

Relaxation

2005-07-06T22:27:00.000-04:00

I made fresh bread Monday. I used to make it more frequently than I do now, but time is a real consideration when making bread and I have little to spare . It's about a three and a half hour project. Of course, 2 hours of that is for proofing the bread and 35 minutes for cooking, so you can do other things, but you have to be around.
Bread making, other than being time-consuming, really isn't as difficult as you might think. The majority of the ingredients are commonplace-flour, sugar, salt, milk or water, shortening. The only other ingredient is yeast. The only specialty equipment that's good to have is a thermometer, used to check the temperature of the water the yeast is put into. Other than that, a big bowl, measuring cups and measuring spoons are it.
One of the things I enjoy about the process is the smell once you add the yeast to the mixture. It is a basic, primal, comforting fragrance.
Once everything is mixed together, you let the bread sit under an overturned bowl for ten minutes to rest. Then comes the best part other than actually eating. The kneading.
Properly done, bread requires 6 to 8 minutes of firm, continuous kneading. And it is one of the most relaxing things I have ever done. It is one of the few times my mind actually seems to take a rest and just focuses on the rhythm and movement of the process. Push with the flat of the hands, fold over and do a quarter-turn. Press, fold, and turn. Again and again for a minimum of six minutes. The combination of primal fragrance, soft texture and monotonous rhythm is almost a form of self-hypnosis for me. I don't really even have to think about what I'm doing. Even better, I don't need to think. I am so relaxed that I feel like I'm just drifting.
I can tell when the bread has been kneaded enough. Instead of a semi-loose sticky mass, it becomes as soft and round as a baby's butt. It is placed in a greased bowl, covered and left to rise until doubled in size. Then the dough is knocked down, separated into halves, shaped into loaves and put in pans and left to rise again for about an hour. Then it is cooked for approximately 30-35 minutes. The smell of fresh bread baking is incredible. It will fill a house.
Once the bread is done, you are supposed to let the bread sit until cooled. I have never been able to do it. Usually after about 5 minutes, I have to cut an end piece off and butter it and eat it right away. Fresh, hot buttered bread is so good. It melts in the mouth.
Bread is the most basic of prepared foods. Historically, it is found in almost all cultures and the ingredients don't vary much. Honey in the place of sugar, various liquids, but the basic formula remains the same.
If anyone has ever thought about it or wondered about making bread on their own, I would encourage them to do it at least once. Find a good, simple, instructional recipe and try it. You may be surprised at what you can do.

They just don't know what they are missing.

2005-07-04T22:35:00.000-04:00

The concept of patriotism has taken a real beating. Perhaps because people who don't like the concept have managed to equate patriotism with jingoism. They are not the same thing.
Patriotism is an awareness, love and appreciation of where and what you can from, in its entirety, both the good and bad. We have more here than anywhere in the world, both in the tangible things and the intangible. Nowhere else in the world offers the opportunity to be so much, not just for those born here, but for those who come here looking for more and who are willing to try and work for it. This is a good place.
Perhaps no one understands how good or how dear it is until you have left it for a while and then returned. However lovely or interesting or fascinating other places may be, they simply lack what can be found here.
Military personnel who have to spend time overseas miss their country. Not just their families and the comforts they have known, but they miss what America is, the way it feels. I know, because I spent six years living in other countries and coming home, even that first moment when you can see land from the plane, is a special moment. You feel like you've been holding your breath the whole time you have been away and at last you can breathe again.
I feel both annoyance and a profound sense of pity for those people who can't or won't try to understand the beauty and poignancy of patriotism. Who can't or won't understand that when you have been given so much it is right and honorable to be willing to give something back. Because they don't know what they are missing.
So, here is a a little help from people who do understand, better than most, what it is to give and what it is to love what America is and what America can and should be.

Callaway Gardens

2005-07-03T07:48:00.000-04:00

Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia, June 2005

When you visit the Day Butterfly Conservatory, one of the big surprises is that sometimes the butterflies will land on you. I took the picture of one on my mother's head. Liz wasn't thrilled at all with the idea and used the butterfly identification sheet to protect herself. Liv, who is the bolder of the two thought Liz was funny. The temperature and humidity in the conservatory is tropical-that is, hot and sticky. Butterflies love it, the girls were a little less happy with it. Fortunately, in the center of the conservatory, there is a large machine that produces a constant mist to keep the humidity high. We let them stand in the mist when they got too hot and they loved it.

Callaway Gardens

2005-07-03T00:11:00.000-04:00

Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia, June 2005

Callaway Gardens has a butterfly habitat called the Cecil B. Day Butterfly Conservtory. There are thousands of butterflies and they are literally everywhere you turn. Click on the link in the title and see a picture of the inside of the conservatory.

Callaway Gardens

2005-07-03T00:06:00.000-04:00

Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia, June 2005

Liz and Livy in front of a fountain in the greenhouse.
My mother and the girls on a walkway over the water next to the Discovery Center. There are vending machines you can get food for the animals out of and feed the ducks and turtles that hang around the bridge It was fun watching the ducks scramble around and the fish still flash up and grab the food before the ducks could get it.
The view across the lake.
The ducks were very used to humans and weren't bothered by the girls at all.

Callaway Gardens

2005-07-02T23:59:00.000-04:00

Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia, June 2005

The plants growing out of the wall are succelents. The size is amazing.
The purple flower is called a Maypop here in Georgia.
The girls are sitting under a grape vine that has been shaped and trimmed into a shady place to sit.
The hollyhocks are beautiful.

Saturday Supper

2005-07-02T22:59:00.000-04:00

Tonight we had barbecue pork ribs, a broccoli, cabbage and carrot slaw with garlic/balsamic vinegar dressing and fresh fruit salad.
Since I know that my daughters and their families will be here tomorrow, I decided to marinate a beef roast overnight. The marinade I like to use is this:
Beef Roast Marinade
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup lemon juice
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 yellow onions, sliced into strips
2 tbsp peppercorns(I use mixed black, white and pink), crushed
1 tsp salt
Mix all the liquid ingredients well, add the garlic and onions to the liquid, then add the crushed peppercorns and salt. I place the roast in a ziploc freezer bag and then pour the marinade over it and close the bag. I marinate it overnight, turning it as often as I remember it.
The roast can also be frozen in the bag with the marinade and thawed later. The acid in the vinegar and lemon juice really tenderize the meat, and the peppercorns give the outside of the meat a real bite. When I prepare the roast for baking, I sear it on all sides, put it in aluminum foil and pour the marinade over it and close the foil. I bake it it 300 degrees for approximately 3 hours.
I serve it with parslied red potatoes, fresh corn, rolls and a green salad.

Lord Darcy

2005-07-02T21:46:00.000-04:00

I really love this book. It is actually a compilation of 8 short stories and a novella that revolve around the central character of Lord Darcy.
The author is Randall Garrett, who wrote a number of science fiction novels in the fifties. Lord Darcy is not what I would consider science fiction. Nor is it quite what I would call fantasy. It is definitely different though.
The book in set in England and France in the 1960's. Lord Darcy is an investigator for His Royal Highness, the Duke of Normandy. The character is reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes in the way he solves crimes. He has a sidekick named Sean O Lochlainn who helps him with the technical aspects of the crime.
What really sets this book apart is a change in history. In Richard Garrett's world, Richard the Lion-Hearted, King of England, did not die in 1199. He survived the wound he suffered at the siege of Chaluz and returned home to England to become a great King. John Lackland never became one of the worst kings of England. The Magna Carta was never written. And history took a different turn. England and Europe were united under an English King of the Plantagenet line. There was no French revolution. The continents of the Americas were still discovered, but there was never a American revolutionary war.
And in the 1960's, a large portion of the free world is ruled by "Our Most Serene Lord, John IV, by the grace of God King and Emperor of England, France, Scotland, Ireland, New England and New France, Defender of the Faith.
Catholicism is the religion of the monarchy, since there was no Henry VIII to start the Church of England. And there was no Martin Luther to begin Protestant movement that split the church.
And one more major difference-magic. In Garrett's world, St. Hilary Robert worked out the laws of magic in the fourteenth century. Lord Darcy's sidekick, Sean O Lochlainn, is a master sorcerer. Magic is the science of Garrett's world.
In the story The Eyes Have It, Master Sorcerer Sean has to perform a spell to see if the bullet that killed the victim came from a certain gun. He explains to those watching about "the Law of Contagion"-that being any two objects which have ever been in contact with each other have an affinity for each other which is directly proportional to the product of the degree of relevancy of the contact and the length of time they were in contact and inversely proportional to the length of time since they have ceased to be in contact. Magic as a forensic tool.
The stories are consistently good mysteries, written with humor and surprising twists. I enjoyed.

No time for vampire spiders

2005-07-02T00:26:00.000-04:00

I dream in color and I can usually remember at least two of the dreams I have during the night unless I am completely exhausted. Then I remember nothing.
I had a dream that both annoyed and amused me. Particularly since it was so very much me.
Imagine your typical B-horror movie small town. Perfect little place with a nasty secret. I'm not sure why I was there, but I know I had a lot to do. I was walking down Main Street early in the morning at my usual clip and out of one of the little shops steps a woman. She has a hairy, seven-inch long, black and tan striped spider hanging from the side of her neck with his fangs sunk into her artery and she leaps at me with another vampire spider in her hand aimed at my throat.
Do I scream? Do I flee in panic and fear? No, I shove her backwards and yell at her. "I don't know what your problem is, but I have things to do and I don't have time for you." For the rest of my dream day, it happens over and over. The mayor, the sheriff, the banker, the school teacher, maybe the entire town have vampire spiders hanging off their necks and keep jumping out at me. And every time my response is annoyed impatience, because I'm really moving through my day and I just have too much to do to take the time to let them fasten one of those spiders on me. Focus, focus, focus on getting everything done.
The dream amused me because of the outrageous nature of the dream and my even more outrageous response. I had a really good laugh at myself and the silliness of the dream.
When I told my youngest daughter about it, she didn't laugh at all. I asked her if she didn't think it was funny and she said not really, because that was probably the way I really would act.
After I thought about it, I realized she was right. When I decide to get something done, very little distracts me or gets in my way. So the dream ended up annoying me, because it almost seems as if I was nagging at myself to slow down the drive. But why would I want to slow down for vampire spiders? And just what did the spiders represent? And do I really want to know?

Should have seen it coming--

2005-06-26T22:45:00.000-04:00

I suppose everyone has a compulsion, a love, a pleasure that they really spend too much time and money on. Mine is books. I have four bookshelves in the living room and there are books on the shelf under a side table, one full and a partial shelf in the sewing room, a shelf in the hallway, a shelf in the kitchen, probably 100 books stacked in the extra bedroom, 40 or more books in stacks on the floor next to my bed, five or six books in my bathroom and at least a dozen and a half boxes full of books packed away. There are always books scattered around my house. I order regularly off Amazon, and my family carefully steers me away from bookstores if we are in a hurry, because they know time ceases to exist for me when I am around books.
I am usually actively reading two, if not three, books at a time. When I am working around my house, I carry a book with me, just in case I have a spare minute. I read when I fold clothes; even when I cook, I have a book open. My family teases me relentlessly about it.

My second daughter and my youngest daughter were sitting at the table in the kitchen today after lunch. I walked in and started looking around. My youngest daughter asked me what I was looking for and I told her that I had misplaced one of my books.
I saw the eye contact and the grins between the two of them and my second daughter put on her innocent face and said "Gee mom, how can you tell?"
I guess I should have seen it coming.

All Quiet on The Western Front

2005-06-26T17:08:00.000-04:00

I watched the 1979 made-for-TV version of this movie a few weeks ago. The book was required reading my junior year of high school and I saw the 1930 version on one of the movie channels quite a while ago. I decided to watch the movie again because of a description I read on a site that called it the "definitive anti-war movie". I was surprised by the description, because that wasn't how I remembered the story.
Perhaps Remarque intended it to be anti-war. I can't say. But I remembered it to be a story about disillusionment. About false expectations that don't last when forced up against harsh reality. The war was the catalyst for Paul's disillusionment, so to me, the setting was secondary to the changing human dynamic. He began as an idealistic student who is exhorted to join the Army in loyalty to the Kaiser. The process of disillusionment begins even before he gets into the field, in basic training, when he was faced with a drill instructor who was a petty little man who enjoyed mis-using the authority he had over the recruits. Years of trench warfare, where hundreds of lives were lost to gain a few feet, continued the process. Watching friends die, watching enemies die and eventually seeing no difference between the two, completed it.

This quote is almost the end of the last chapter--
"Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. " Paul dies shortly after this.
Knowing the truth, knowing reality not only made Paul unhappy, it made him hopeless.
This is the last line of the book--
"Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come."

There was a recent post on the INTJ list that asked this question- Is it better to be ignorant and content, or to have knowledge and be discontented? I didn't join the discussion because the question was one-sided. Neither of those options worked for me. For the character of Paul, knowledge of the truth was so painful in contrast to what he originally believed, that only death brought him peace. If he had been given a choice, I think he would have chosen to be ignorant and content. While I can understand Paul's situation intellectually, I can't agree with it because it isn't right for me. Because for me, there is another question that goes along with the first one. What if you are aware of your ignorance and discontent in that state? What if you gain knowledge and are more content with knowing the truth, even so painful a truth as the one he had to face? Turn the first question around to the second and see which choice of the four is really preferable. If your spouse was cheating on you, would you rather live in ignorance? If you had cancer, would you prefer not knowing?
Maybe the answer has to be considered in light of this-Paul lost hope. He couldn't or wouldn't let himself see a future past his day to day existence. But what if you could face a painful truth, and still believe in and work toward a hopeful future? What if you lost everything you once thought important, but you still believed in yourself? What if you didn't lose hope? Wouldn't knowing the truth, even a painful truth, then be the best choice as long as you realized there was still so much left to be gained?

Saturday Night Menu

2005-06-25T19:21:00.000-04:00

For supper tonight---
Shrimp Scampi with bow tie pasta, garlic bread, romaine salad with carrots and cherry tomatoes and a lemon/olive oil dressing.
Fruit salad with honey/lime dressing for dessert.
The fruit salad is something I like to have a lot in the summer when fresh fruit is readily available. It is another recipe that can be altered a lot of ways to suit individual tastes.
Fresh Fruit Salad with honey/lime dressing. Serves 4
1 apple, peeled, cored and chopped into bite-sized pieces. (Pear or any other firm fruit can be substituted or added.
2 kiwi fruit, peeled and cut into chunks. (Again, other tropical fruits can be substituted or added.
4 peaches, nectarines or plums in any combination you like, chopped. I used 2 peaches and 2 black plums tonight. Any soft fruit will do.
1 cup of summer berries. I used blueberries and chopped strawberries tonight. Raspberries, blackberries, cherries will do fine.
To make the dressing you need 1/4 cup of lime juice, 2 tablespoon of honey, 2 tablespoons of water. Add all of these to a small saucepan, bring to a boil, watching carefully. After about a minute, cool a spoonful and try it. It should taste tangy, but a little sweet. If the fruit is a little tart or if you prefer a sweeter taste over the tang of the lime, add more honey or even some brown sugar when you are cooking the dressing. Pour over the fruit and mix. Best to let it sit for at least 30 minutes to let the fruit and dressing blend.
It is possible to prepare this the night before, just don't add the berries until you are ready to serve the salad. They'll turn to mush overnight.

Disappointed in myself.

2005-06-25T16:43:00.000-04:00

The incident happened more than a month ago. But I am still replaying it at odd times and can't seem to put it to rest. Since starting this, I have found that writing down something that is bothering me helps me deal better with it. As if putting a problem here takes it off the little wheel inside my head that keeps going around and around.
A female prosecutor and a male defense attorney were in my office for a conference with the judge about a defendant who had been found not competent. Judge was on the phone and I knew that he would be on it for more than a few minutes, so I told them to go ahead and have a seat. But instead, the female prosecutor started obviously flirting with the male attorney. She was rubbing her hands on his lapels and telling him how nice he always looked. He started backing up. But she kept rubbing his chest. She ended up backing him into the copy machine. He finally got around her and suddenly remembered he had to talk to another judge for a few minutes and said he would be back shortly. He looked very uncomfortable and unhappy.

This post is not going to be a critique of her behaviour, but of mine.

My first reaction was irritability that she had brought her behaviour into my office. This type of behaviour was not unusual for her. It was pretty commonplace, as a matter of fact, even in the courtroom, as long as the judge was off the bench. I was just relieved when she left. The staff attorney came out of her office and told me that she had seen some of it through her door. We talked for a few minutes about how unprofessional the prosecutor was, etc. I mentioned how uncomfortable the man had looked and suddenly I had another thought. If the roles had been reversed, if the man had been the aggressor and the woman had been the one made uncomfortable, would I have been so cavalier about tolerating it in my office. No, not ever. I would not have hesitated to put a stop to it.
Acknowledging that is personally embarrassing. There are no excuses for ignoring what should have been plain to see. More than just unprofessional, her behaviour was classic sexual harassment. It very easily could have become a quid pro quo situation. At the very least, the man was embarrassed not only by her behaviour, but by the fact that I was sitting in the same room observing it. And all I was concerned about at the time was my personal dislike of her acting that way in my office.
After stewing on it for a while, I decided to do what I could to make amends. While I have no authority over the prosecutor, I did quietly tell her that I didn't like what she did in my office and I didn't want it repeated. She was a little flippant about it, but at least I made my point. I did not see the attorney again for almost a week. When he did come in, I took the opportunity to talk to him privately and I told him that I knew the incident had made him uncomfortable and I apologized for my inaction. He was a little sheepish about it, but he admitted she had made him very uncomfortable, particularly since the judge could have walked out and seen it. I told the judge about the incident. I also talked to the staff attorney about feeling like I should not have ignored it and while she was good enough not to say anything to make me feel worse, she also didn't try to make any excuses to make me feel better and I appreciated it.
Open confession of a personal failure is considered to be a prerequisite for forgiveness. So maybe this mea culpa will help me be a little more forgiving of myself. Because I am really disappointed in myself.

Odd how your brain works-

2005-06-25T00:02:00.000-04:00

I am working on the computer. It is about midnight. Emeril Live just came on. I love watching his show and have watched it regularly for about 2 years.
I just happened to turn my head toward the TV as the theme music started and Emeril walked out. For the first time in two years, I noticed something.
OMG, Emeril wears white socks and black loafers! White socks!

I raised a member of the Fashion Police. (I had nothing to do with her acceptance on the FP force, she has an inborn skill.) While I am not the expert she is, she has trained me well and my obsessive-compulsive nature does the rest. I will never be able to watch Emeril again without obsessing over the white socks.
Just damn.

Looking at the Numbers

2005-06-24T16:16:00.000-04:00

The current U.S. population as of now according to this site- http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html is 296,449,069.
Approximately 60 million are under the age of 18, that leaves around 237,000,000 adults
According to MBTI statistics-
NTs make up about 12% of the general adult population 28,000,000
INTJs are about 2% of the general adult population-4,740,000
Male INTJs account for about two-thirds of that number-3,128,400
and females one third-1,621,600.
Working with these numbers, female INTJ's make up less than one percent of the adult US population. Seven-tenths percent to narrow it a little further.
No wonder I have always felt so different and out of place.

Did you know....?

2005-06-21T21:02:00.000-04:00

Etymology is the study of language origins. I enjoy discovering how and where a word originated. There are sometimes interesting things to be learned.
The word "toad" is an example. It was first noted in Old English, but it is something of a mystery word. There are no known words in any other Indo-European language that is related to the word "toad". And since English is almost completely derivative, it's seems a little odd to me that it can't be traced back further to another source.
The word "toady", meaning synchophant, derived from the word toad. How the word came about is fascinating. It's short for "toad-eater". Itinerant quack doctors sometimes had a assistant or servant who pretended to eat a toad(which were thought poisonous) so that the doctor could administer his miracle potion and keep the assistant from dying. Thus, toady came to indicate a servile dependency.
Toadstools were named that because of their shape and the association between their poisons and the supposedly poisonous toads.

He lied to me

2005-06-20T11:01:00.000-04:00

Working in a court system exposes you to a large number of people. It also exposes you to their character and their values.
I have referenced a young lady called Colleen in a previous post (4/26/05). When she came to work with us, she was optimistic, cheerful and completely naive.
She took a phone call from a young man one day in reference to a civil lawsuit that had apparently been filed against the young man's mother. The court date was coming up and the young man was very distressed because his mother had died a couple of months ago and the family just didn't know what to do. Colleen's heart was touched by his dilemma. She put him on hold and told the rest of us the sad story and asked how we could help him.
I told her the first thing to do was pull the file and check to see if the suit had been served by the Sheriff's department. I went to the files and pulled the suit myself.
Now, there are two acceptable types of service of complaint against individuals. One is called personal service and that means the deputy actually put the documents in the hands of the person named in the suit. The other is called MNPA or most notorious place of abode, meaning it was given to another person at the place where the person being sued lived. If neither of those services is possible, then the deputy writes "non est" on the service sheet, meaning it wasn't possible to serve the lawsuit.
I opened the file and looked for the service sheet. It was there. I looked at Colleen and said, "The deputy went above and beyond the call of duty to serve this one." She asked me why and I told her.

"This is the first instant of personal service on a dead person I have ever seen."

The suit had been personally served on the woman only four weeks before.
Colleen looked at me and her eyes grew wider.

"Personal service? His mother was personally served? He lied to me? You mean he lied to me? He lied about his momma dying?"

We had to laugh at her. Poor kid was so shocked that another one of the clerks took the call and just told the man that if his mother had died, he needed to provide the clerk's office with a death certificate. And we had a talk with her afterwards and explained the reality of the people we had to work with and the lengths they will go to in order to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. Colleen had her eyes opened that day. She was still friendly, cheerful and optimistic. But she stopped being naive.
I have laughed with others about how much a person changes when they work in the courts. One of the female bailiffs I enjoy talking to said to me one day, "I used to be such a nice person."
I don't think I have ever really fit the general concept of "nice person." But even I have become more cynical and more wary of people simply because of what I have seen and heard at work. I have become more realistic as well.
We're all human. And everyone at some time or other acts out of purely selfish motives, myself included. It comes down to choice. I will never live my life perfectly. But I choose to try to do better and be better every day. I choose to recognize my failures and my flaws and admit them to myself.
One of the mom'isms I used frequently on my children was this:

"You can't solve a problem until you can admit what the problem really is."

And for me, admitting that I'm the problem is what makes the difference.

Spoon River

2005-06-19T22:13:00.000-04:00

I first read Spoon River Anthology when I was fifteen. I have re-read it numerous times since then and I have found that the older I get, the more Masters' words touch something inside me.
This is not a standard novel, but a collection of characters who are dead and who speak their own personal epitaphs from the grave. Spoon River is an actual area in Illinois where Masters grew up.
The book was considered somewhat scandalous when it was published in 1915, because the ghosts are frank and blunt in a way they could not have been during their lives. Just about every nuance of human dynamics is covered, good and bad. Some of the characters lives interlock and it is interesting reading through the vignettes to see a name and realize that you have already heard the same story from another vantage point.
I have begun rereading it again, and one epitaph in particular has gained new meaning because of the soldiers who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq.

JACOB GOODPASTURE
When Fort Sumter fell and the war came
I cried out in bitterness of soul:
"O glorious republic now no more!"

When they buried my soldier son
To the call of trumpets and the sound of drums
My heart broke beneath the weight
Of eighty years and I cried:
"Oh, son who died in a cause unjust!
In the strife of Freedom slain!"
And I crept here under the grass.

And now from the battlements of time, behold:
Thrice thirty million souls being bound together
In the love of a larger truth,
Rapt in the expectation of the birth
Of a new Beauty,
Sprung from Brotherhood and Wisdom.

I with eyes of spirit see the Transfiguration
Before you see it.
But ye infinite brood of golden eagles nesting ever higher,
Wheeling ever higher the sun-light wooing
Of lofty places of Thought,
Forgive the blindness of the departed owl.

So to the newest brood of golden eagles, my deepest respect and gratitude.

Summer Saturday Night Meal

2005-06-18T22:55:00.000-04:00

I truly enjoy cooking. My mother usually prepares our weekday meals, but I cook on the weekend. I decided to make beef quesadillas for Saturday night. To complement the quesadillas, I decided on homemade salsa and fresh fruit salad with honey-lime dressing.
Here is the recipe for the salsa:
I make this often during the summer when tomatoes are plentiful. I tried to duplicate a salsa served at a small Mexican restaurant in a local strip mall. This is a recipe that can be modified in different ways to suit individual tastes.
Makes approximately 3 quarts.

3 lbs. Roma tomatoes, chopped (I like to chop them to about the size of half the tip of my little finger, not quite half an inch)
1 medium Spanish onion, chopped (I finely chop the onion, because I don't enjoy biting into large pieces.)
5 green onions, chopped (I just rough chop these onion, including the green stem.)
3 fresh jalapenos (Again, finely chopped. Jarred jalapenos can be substituted if fresh aren't available; use about a quarter cup, chopped)
5 to 6 cloves garlic, finely chopped (add more or less as you prefer)
Fresh cilantro and parsley to taste, finely chopped (if fresh isn't available, use dried. Cilantro is strong, so be sure to use judiciously)
1 1/2 tablespoon cumin
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper (these last three can also be adjusted to taste)
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
10 oz tomato juice
1/4 cup fresh lime juice (this may need to be adjusted. I like a strong lime flavor)
1 4oz can chopped green chilies(use another can if you like)
1 10 oz can Rotel tomatoes and chilies(I only use half the can. I like a mild burn. If you use a full can, the burn is stronger. )
Remember that you can always add, but you can't take away, so add your ingredients with this in mind. It is easy to increase the flavors you prefer once you have tasted the salsa.
While this is good as soon as it is made, it only gets better as it sits. An hour is good, overnight is great.
If I am in a hurry, I will use bagged chips. If I have the time, I will buy the smaller flour tortillas, cut them into wedges and deep fry them so that I have fresh chips to eat with this great salsa

Favorite Authors-Classics-Lewis Carroll

2005-06-15T15:14:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Disney, it seems that most people think of Lewis Carroll only as being an author of children's books. I first read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass when I was about ten years old. I rediscovered them when I had children and found in him a wonderful sense of the ridiculous that an adult with an appreciation for subtlety can find enjoyment in.

This is my personal favorite:
"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that."
And there is this:
"If everybody minded their own business," the Duchess said in a hoarse growl, "the world would go round a deal faster than it does."
And this:
"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? was his response. I don't know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn't matter. "

Get serious

2005-06-15T10:17:00.000-04:00

Uhh, excuse me, excuse me, Amnesty International! She could've used some help here!

The Blame Game--

2005-06-12T14:14:00.000-04:00

When I first began working at the Courthouse, I worked in one of the Clerk's offices. The management style there was unexpected. The office I first worked in had four people. It stayed open during lunch, so someone always had to be there. There was not a lot of business done during lunch, so it was usually a good time to catch up if you were behind in your paperwork.
Once during my week to take the lunch shift, I had finished all of my own work, so I went to the front desk and picked up the two day backlog of docketing from it, thinking that I would help get it caught up. As I was sorting through the papers, I saw a time-sensitive document that had been filed in the day before that should have been turned over to a supervisor for immediate action. I called the supervisor on duty and let her know what I had and that time was running out. I waited for her to give me some instruction as to what she wanted me to do in order to get this document properly taken care, but this is what she said,

"Who is responsible for this mistake?"

What? What? Here is a document that needs to be handled immediately and her first concern is exacting retribution?
I told her that I didn't know who had filed it in, but I did need to know what to do with it and I needed to know now.
She finally came down and took care of it herself, but I thought for a long time about her response and I have never forgotten the incident.
I came to learn that her attitude was not unusual in the office. But I have never understood it. All I could see was that the document needed to be handled and that should have been the priority. All she could see was that someone had to be blamed. Totally illogical. And useless.

Random thought for a fellow driver #2--

2005-06-12T13:00:00.000-04:00

On the way home from church today--

"Hey lady, I think I'm entitled to half the road!"

Yes, you are. And as soon as you figure out which half you want, let me know and you can have it. Just so long as it isn't the half down the middle.
Jerk.

Give it a good bashing

2005-06-12T09:21:00.000-04:00

I got up early this morning and decided to spend some time on the computer before church.
I looked at a few things on the internet and then tried to open my e-mail.
When I tried to put in my password, I got an error message. I tried again. Same thing. I went very slowly and noticed that one of the keys wasn't printing. It wasn't sticking, but there was no keystroke showing when I hit the key. I opened Word and tried the key. It just wouldn't print. I tried all the keys and found that half of one row wasn't working. So I rebooted. Twice. I opened the control panel and checked the keyboard. I checked the system. I rebooted in safe mode. I ran a disk clean-up. I ran my spyware. Nothing worked. I was so frustrated.
I had already made my plans for today and now I was going to have to go to the computer store and buy a new keyboard.
I have always felt that if something is broken, my messing with it isn't going to make it any less useable than it already is. So I picked up the keyboard and banged it against the side of the desk three times. I rather enjoyed it.
And it worked. I put the keyboard on the shelf and tried it and all the keys printed. So I decided to write this.
There is a scene in the movie "The Longest Day", where the beachmaster is trying to move the troops inland and a vehicle stalls. The troops try to start it up again, but the engine had sea water in it and didn't want to start. The beachmaster, a dignified British gentleman, walked over, whacked the engine with his stick a couple of times and it started. He said, "My old grandmother always said things work better if you give them a good bashing."

Amen, brother.

Always so focused

2005-06-11T15:19:00.000-04:00

I went to the grocery store today. A normal weekend activity. But something happened that I think I need to write down here.
I was making my way through the store and I heard a voice say my name. I stopped and saw one of the bailiffs who works in our courtroom occasionally. He's in his 70's and a fine gentleman. I smiled at him and said hello. He said he'd seen me a couple of times moving up and down the aisles, but that he hadn't spoken because I seemed to be very intent on what I was doing. I laughed and said I did have a tendency to be focused. He said,

"I know. I've never seen you do anything where you weren't focused. "

We spoke for a few more minutes about some courthouse business and I went on and finished my shopping.
But I couldn't get what he said out of my mind. I know that I have a tendency to put my full attention on what I consider to be an important task. My family sometimes teases me about being obsessive-compulsive. But before Mr. C said that to me, I hadn't realized that my behaviour was that obvious to someone outside my family or that I was doing it even while I was grocery shopping
My first reaction after I got over the surprise was an automatic concern that if my intensity was obvious to someone I didn't see that often, then it was an out-of-control flaw that needed to be corrected. My second reaction, which followed quickly after the first, was irritation at myself for falling into a trap that I have been trying to get out of and then irritation at the world in general for setting standards of acceptable behaviour that don't work for me.
Why shouldn't I do everything with intensity if it suits me? Even the books dealing with personality typing say that one of the flaws of an INTJ is an inability to relax and enjoy themselves. Well, I do a great many things that bring me enjoyment. And I do them with intensity. I do things I don't enjoy with intensity. What is wrong with that? Who set the rule that in order to "enjoy" yourself, you have to be relaxed? It wasn't an INTJ.
If watching me do things with focused intensity exhausts you or causes you mental or emotional distress, then don't watch. Go somewhere else. Go to sleep. Go away.

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

2005-06-11T10:10:00.000-04:00

Your IQ Is 140

Your Logical Intelligence is Genius
Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius
Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius
Your General Knowledge is Genius

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

But I love it. I really, really love it.

The Office of the Presidency

2005-06-10T15:11:00.000-04:00

I posted this today on the INTJ list and felt that it was something that I put some passion into. In consideration of my post on Sunday last, I wanted to post it here also. I felt and even now, feel more passion about the topic than I was able to put into the posting.

Another list member wrote this in response to a thread about presidents and lying

Clinton was also stupid to lie about the BJ. It was a pointless lie and Hilary should have know better than to let him do it. However, I also believe what he lied about was something that was between him, Hilary and Monica and was not of National Security. It was blown way out of porportion and was distracting from important issues----

This was my response----

I would agree with what you said about it being his business(and the others) but for a few things-
I am not a party-affiliated person and I'm willing to accept whomever is elected and give them a chance to see how they do the job. When the business with ML came out, I really didn't care about what he was doing as much as where he did it. Having a tawdry little affair means nothing to me personally. Bringing that tawdry little affair into the Oval Office meant a great deal.
Having an intern give you a blow job in the same office where John Kennedy's children played, where Franklin Roosevelt worked, where Abraham Lincoln mourned the death of his son was incredibly offensive to me. It showed an unbelievable lack of respect for history and for the men who had been there before him. It also showed either unfounded arrogance or crass stupidity. Perhaps I expected too much, but I would never have expected a man who had come as far in politics as he had to be lacking in the art of calculating political risks. He was either too stupid to figure out what a risk he was taking, too arrogant to believe it would do him any harm, or too glandularly challenged to think at all. I have little to no respect for powerful people who can't keep their own stupidity, arrogance or glandular problems sufficiently under control. A study of effective tyrants will show people who were able to do just that. When they fail to do it, they fall.
I love history. I am intrigued by the people who make their mark on it and how they do it. And even when I don't agree with someone's ideology, I can admire how well they use what comes their way to achieve their goals.
Ruthless effectiveness used to reach a desired goal has a beauty of it's own even if the goal achieved is a distasteful one from my personal perspective.
One last thing that bears on this-

"The presidency is not merely an administrative office. That's the least of it...It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership."--Franklin Roosevelt

If you know the history of American presidents-and putting all other facets of their presidency aside-figure out for yourself how many of them grasped this and how many didn't. Even as ineffective a politician as Jimmy Carter understood that the presidency was more than the man occupying it and tried to comport himself appropriately. Bill Clinton either lost sight of that or never understood it and marred his own legacy by not being able to keep his pants zipped

Another bomb threat today.

2005-06-08T15:30:00.000-04:00

1:40 pm-"Don't you know you are supposed to be evacuating the building? "
"Sure I know. That's why I'm just sitting here."

So we all go down the hall again, down the emergency stairwell and out the door into the judge's parking lot, out the gate and across the road.
Thankfully there are trees to provide shade. It's pretty hot. The deputy assigned to our courtroom makes a point to move us away from the area we stood in before. He is more concerned about the potential for something happening once we are outside than he is about someone being able to smuggle something dangerous inside to use. I had a book in my pocketbook, so I had something to occupy my time.
Emergency vehicles showed up and the access roads were blocked properly. But still it took almost two hours for the building to be searched and secured.
I think this is going to become a common occurrence. Whoever is doing this isn't doing it for a prank. Whoever is doing this isn't doing it for the power rush. And I don't think the person/persons doing it really intend to do any harm. I think there is another purpose altogether. We shall see.
The U.S. Marshals were here last week, asking questions about security in the offices. They have been asked to come and assess our security. The ones I have dealt with have been very professional and very courteous. Let's see if any of their suggestions for improvement are taken.

Blog readability

2005-06-07T14:15:00.000-04:00

I found this site link on another blog I read on a regular basis-
http://juicystudio.com/services/readability.php
You can plug in your url and it will analyze the readability of your blog.

These are the results for this site:
Reading Level Results
Summary Value
Total sentences 367
Total words 4501
Average words per Sentence 12.26
Words with 1 Syllable 3133
Words with 2 Syllables 900
Words with 3 Syllables 335
Words with 4 or more
Syllables 133
Percentage of word with three or more syllables 10.40%
Average Syllables per Word 1.44

Gunning Fog Index 9.06
Flesch Reading Ease 72.78
Flesch-Kincaid Grade 6.16

The Gunning-Fog index
is a rough measure of how many years of schooling it would take someone to
understand the content. The lower the number, the more understandable the
content will be to your visitors. Results over seventeen are reported as
seventeen, where seventeen is considered post-graduate level.

Typical
Fog Index Scores
Fog Index Resources
TV guides, The Bible, Mark Twain 6
Reader's Digest 8
Most popular novels 8-10
Time, Newsweek 10
Wall Street Journal 11
The Times, The
Guardian 14
Academic papers 15-20
Over 20-Only government sites can get
away with this, because you can't ignore them.
Over 30-The government is
covering something up

Flesch Reading Ease is an index number that rates
the text on a 100-point scale. The higher the score, the easier it is to
understand the document. Authors are encouraged to aim for a score of
approximately 60 to 70.

The Flesch-Kincaid grade level. Like the
Gunning-Fog index, it is a rough measure of how many years of schooling it would
take someone to understand the content. Negative results are reported as zero,
and numbers over twelve are reported as twelve.

I am very happy with the results.
That makes me laugh at myself.
How many people would get a thrill over this?

Logic vs. Emotion

2005-06-05T18:24:00.000-04:00

I have long considered the concept that a good artist has to "suffer" for his art to be somewhat silly. Skill, talent, ability are not dependent on emotion.
I am still not completely convinced that strong emotions enable an actor to act better, a writer to write better, an musician to play better, an artist to paint better. What I am discovering by blogging is that emotions do factor into the quality of what I write here, both in a positive and negative way.
The posts I have written without a strong emotional impetus do not have the same visceral impact as do the ones where my feelings were strongly involved. On the other hand, the ones with more emotional content require more correction as to grammar, syntax, and organization. I have also noticed that if I write about an emotional incident after some time has passed, it tends to lose some of the emotional impact, but it requires less correction.
Since blogging, for me, is first about self-expression and secondly about communication, I am having to reconsider my ideas about writing from an emotional standpoint.
Strong emotions interfere with my clarity of expression, but push me to write with speed and impact. But having a serious tendency to be obsessive-compulsive, I can't stand poor grammar, spelling, syntax. If I let myself, I would go back and re-read and re-write ad infinitum.
But overall, I think perhaps I ought to go ahead and write when I am under the influence of my emotions, just not post it. Correction can come after the words and feelings are down. I think I have learned that emotions are as important a tool as good grammar, spelling and punctuation. And I have always enjoyed learning something new. So good for me.

Take a look-

2005-06-05T16:38:00.000-04:00

Save a horse, ride a cowboy.
I have a certain fondness for people who won't let themselves be forced into molds--
Like this -- Cowboy Troy
and this -- Big and Rich.
Listen to the music and check out the videos.

Myrtle Beach, Memorial Day Weekend 2005

2005-06-04T23:03:00.000-04:00

A few more of the pictures we took.

The pool was heated, which was wonderful.
The obligatory sand castle. Perhaps not architecturally sound, but fun to just dig in the sand.
The two lower pictures were taken during an early morning walk . The tide was out and the beach looked completely different. The man fishing was a hundred feet or more from the regular tide line. He was out beyond the tide pools.
I took the last picture at the edge of one of the tide pools. It was beautiful with the early sun reflected off that thin layer of water.

Early morning

2005-06-04T22:48:00.000-04:00

Scenes from Myrtle Beach-Memorial Day weekend 2005

The upper pictures were taken from the balcony early on Saturday and Sunday morning.
The two lower ones were taken while we were walking the beach.

Memorial Day Weekend Pictures

2005-06-04T22:39:00.000-04:00

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Memorial Day Weekend 2005

We had a wonderful weekend. Liz and Livy loved the beach.

Random thought for a fellow driver--

2005-06-01T13:18:00.000-04:00

Have you ever considered that out of the 2,365,200,000 seconds that comprise an average life, you could spare 10 of them to let a pedestrian in a driving rain cross the street in front of you while you sit in your nice, dry car? Jerk.

They are not victims.

2005-05-31T16:04:00.000-04:00

I posted this reply on Mexi's blog about leadership on May 24, 2005 (http://www.donotremove.net/mexigogue/archives/2005_05.html)
in response to some comments made about Bush's leadership and the body count resulting from the Iraq war. I was in an irritable mood and looking for a target, but all things considered, I was not as harsh as I might have been.
With Memorial Day and it's purpose in mind, I am going to expand on my original post, which was:

As to people whining and moaning about "the body count"--death is not a rare occurrence. It is the normal end for us all. Very few people get to choose the timing and method of their own end, so whether someone dies after suffering for months with cancer or has their body parts separated by a mortar round, dead is still dead. And I have serious reservations about the motives of the people who are doing the whining. Is it the thought of people in general dying that breaks their hearts and causes such anguish for them? Or is it only the ones dying because of the invasion of Iraq that they are concerned about? Or do they really not give a shit about those who have died? Are they just using the statistics to posture and pretend and play the blame game? People who join the military services ought to know that soldiers, airmen, sailors, Marines, etc. actually might have to take part in a war. Shouldn't come as much of a damn surprise. There are no conscripts, no forced entry into the services. As for their families, the decision to join rests with the individual, as does the responsibility for the decision. If the families have a problem with the facts, they need to take it up with the person before they join. The potential for dying because someone in charge makes a bad decision is a real one. But it needs to be faced before anyone signs their name, not whined about afterward. When you sign, you are making a commitment to your country. And it goes to the point Mexi and Phelps made. It is our responsibility to elect people who will do what is for the greater good, not someone who makes you the best promises.

The post was the result of my frustration with individuals who use the dead in order to complain about the president and his execution of the war. They try to turn servicemen and women into "victims to be pitied, poor souls done to death by the evil Bush and his evil plans". I resent people who use the military dead to take shots at a man they hate. I particularly resent that they do it under the pretense of caring about the troops. If they cared about the troops, they would understand that these people aren't victims at all and most of them would resent being considered victims.
My family on both my father and mother's side have a history of military service dating back to the American Revolution. My father served, my mother's brothers served, I myself joined the Air Force during the Vietnam war and my husband was on active duty for ten years and in the reserve for another ten. So I know.
Servicemen and women are trained to do a job. The majority of them take pride in their service and the service takes pride in them. They are not victims, they are strong, proud, well-trained citizens serving their country and to portray them as victims is a betrayal of all that they are and believe in. So for all of you so concerned that American men and women are dying in the service of their country, how about you just let it go? Don't use the deaths of people who deserve honor and respect for their sacrifice to justify your hatred of a man because his political and/or religious beliefs are different from yours. Just don't.

The Mexi Man

2005-05-27T14:43:00.000-04:00

One of the members of the INTJ list calls himself Mexigogue. He has his own blog (see the blog list on the sidebar). He and another member of the list called laconis (see sidebar again) are the reason I finally decided to begin blogging myself.

He is an interesting person. I can't claim that I know him very well, but I think I have learned enough about him and his interests to form at least an adequate understanding of the person he is.
He makes me think of the term "Renaissance man". He blogs about pool and beer drinking, Dostoevsky, the homeless, Jesse Jackson, welfare and personal responsibility, guilt and altruism, murder and taxes and dumb girlfriends. All in a few weeks time. Sometimes insightful, sometimes serious, sometimes angry, sometimes hilarious. He does not fit any standard mold and his takes on some subjects makes me think he is observing from entirely different angle-say like on his head or around a corner or under a chair.
If a judgment can be made about a man by observing his friends, then I would say he inspires loyalty from an pretty eclectic bunch. Both in his posts referencing his friends and in the comments posted by his friends, there is an obvious camaraderie that includes laughing at each other, poking at each other, insulting each other, yet still remaining friends. The real thing.
He has an outrageous sense of humor that almost never fails to make me laugh.
He cares about his children and what they will become. He believes in taking care of his own.
He is male, Hispanic, Muslim, semi-northern(not born there), divorced (at least once), he was raised in a single parent household.
I am female, white, Christian, southern, married for 30 years, had both parents until last year.
There are other differences, but I think these will be enough to lead to the point.
I agree with his point of view and his opinions frequently. Having read all his archives and reading his blog every day, I have found a similarity of outlook that surprises me. Because by the standard of conventional wisdom that culture influences our beliefs and based on our cultural differences, we shouldn't agree on much of anything. Even having the same personality profile isn't a sufficient explanation for me as to why I find myself in agreement with him so much. There are other INTJs who don't think the same way at all. How is it that two people so culturally different could have similar opinions and ideas?

Gun training.

2005-05-26T14:31:00.000-04:00

A gun training class has been set up by the local PD for the judges and whatever members of their staff want to take the opportunity to receive the training.
There are two 2-hour classroom sessions and four hours of actual range training involved.
The first class covered firearm safety and possible civil and criminal liabilities involved in the use of a firearm. Also the use of justifiable force according to the statutes of the Georgia State Code.
The second four hour class for our gun training was yesterday. It was very interesting.
L. covered proper gun maintenance first. Then he went into how to actually use the gun effectively. He discussed the fundamentals of accurate shooting, how to sight the weapon, how to maintain trigger control and the actual mechanics of taking a shot. They brought in a hard rubber facsimile of a Glock and were showing proper grip and stance using it.
The classes are being held in the extra courtroom and there are glass windows in the doors so that you can look in and see what is happening in the courtroom without actually opening the doors. L's assistant was standing in front of the courtroom showing us proper grip and stance. At that moment, I thought to myself, "What if someone just happens to come by and look into the courtroom?"
Here's the picture. 15 women, sitting quiet and still in the middle row of benches, all facing forward. Big ex-marine in civilian clothes standing in front of the room in the proper firing stance with a realistic looking Glock aimed at the back of the courtroom and a fierce expression on his face. If someone had come by and seen it, they could have thought it to be a hostage situation. My imagination sees chaos and disaster ensuing. Deputy sheriffs appearing from all directions, the SWAT team slithering through the pipes in the crawl spaces. Our illustrious sheriff notifying the press that he's about to put on his Robin outfit and save us all. And then having his posse of bodyguards burst through the door first. Whereupon, all of us would have jumped up and beaten them about the head and face with our notes for scaring us half to death.
I doubt many people would have found it amusing, but I did. Just my weird sense of humor.
I have learned to keep it to myself for the most part. Only occasionally will I let it out.
The deputy assigned to our courtroom sometimes looks at me when I do and shakes his head and says, "You're just not right."

I don't use vulgar language.

2005-05-24T11:34:00.000-04:00

There are a number of reasons I am not given to the use of vulgar language.
My background as Southern, white female born in the fifties means I was taught that ladies who wanted to be respected didn't use bad language. Even though that particular way of life exists no longer, that carefully inculcated attitude still has it's place in my mind.
I work with the public in a government-related job and the use of bad language is considered inappropriate for someone connected to the judicial system when dealing with the public.
I am a Christian and of course we are never supposed to use those kinds of words. After all, what would people think? (Please make the effort to recognize sarcasm, however mild.) My language usage does not determine the reality of my faith or any lack thereof.
I do not use vulgar language around children. Children can't usually grasp the concept that there is a proper place, time and context for the use of bad language.
I don't like to use vulgar language as I have an extensive vocabulary and a great deal of appreciation and respect for the proper use of it. Among the purists of language, it is agreed that vulgarities have their proper place and usage, but the over-use of vulgarities is seen as a weakening of both the individual term and of the language as a whole. One of the prime values of a curse is it's usefulness in garnering attention because of the shock factor.

There are times when I do regret the restraints, both internal and external, that prevent me from verbally expressing the thoughts inside my head when dealing with someone who just doesn't want to hear what I am trying to tell them.

Perhaps if I could just bring myself to say to certain people, "You are such a f**king idiot!", the shock might cause enough of a jolt to their brain to make them think , "Oh gee, maybe I am!"

Because after all, I don't use vulgar language.

Did I miss the memo?

2005-05-23T14:35:00.000-04:00

I am in quite a mood today.
I will admit that I have days when I am not people-friendly for no particular reason. I recognize that particular mood well and when it is on me, I voluntarily limit my contact with others for their own good.
But today has been the type of day that makes me feel a memo was sent to my family, co-workers, and the general population agreeing that everyone would go out of their way to be stupid, dense, vague, helpless and generally incompetent so as to use up every ounce of tolerance and patience I have at my disposal.

Was I the only person that brought my brain to work with me today?
Have I mistakenly entered a parallel universe where the highest IQ is 70?
Was there a drug party this weekend that everyone in the metro area was invited to but me?
Is my tinfoil hat working so much better than everyone else's at keeping out the alien brain rays that suck all sense out of human beings.
What is going on with these people?

I have had 24 calls so far today. And not one, not one of them has been rational. The secretary from the solicitor's office has called four times today asking me questions that she either already had an answer to or that she properly should have asked the solicitor. The files brought up by the clerk's office have all had senseless paperwork errors, the judge's calendar wasn't properly marked, so I had to wait until I could talk to him to get the information I needed to finish my work. The jail staff, known for their linear thought processes, refused to follow a specific order issued by the judge on a case because there was an outstanding warrant on the case that the order specifically dealt with. I just asked the judge to let me do what I call, "The words of one syllable order" to make them happy. There have been docketing errors which I discovered only after I called a firm and asked them why someone from their office did not appear at a hearing last Friday. The reason was the docketing errors. Everyone here seems to be walking (floating?) around like refugees from La-La Land. All I get are blank stares and sheepish grins when I ask a question or bring up something that was supposed to be have been done that hasn't been done.
I hate it when days like this happen. I feel isolated from people because I seem to be the only one able to function. I would say it was my imagination, but if it is, why is everyone coming to me to solve their problems and correct their mistakes?
Helping people is not a problem. It is a part of my job. I am not inclined, however, to do someone else's work for them unless there is a pressing reason. But even more, I really dislike having to spend time correcting other people's mistakes and fixing other people's errors when I have work of my own that I need to finish.

I am frustrated, irritated, aggravated and annoyed. I just want to make it through the rest of this day without snarling at or chewing on someone. With my luck, it will probably be the wrong person and I'll then be able to add "guilty" to the list of how I feel today.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

2005-05-17T14:34:00.000-04:00

I think most English-speaking people have heard the idiom, "Let sleeping dogs lie".
I never took the time to really analyze it; I just assumed it meant that some things were best left undisturbed.

Like this:
Big old dog is lying on his side on the porch in the shade, sleeping deep.
The kid picks up a stick and pokes at the dog. The dog grunts a little, but doesn't wake.
The kid pokes a little harder. The dog opens his eyes and barely lifts his head, then lies down and goes back to sleep.
The kid jabs at the dog. The dog lifts his head and looks at the kid. Then lies down again and goes back to sleep.
The kid raps the dog lightly on the rear. The dog rolls onto his stomach and stares hard at the kid. Then puts his head down on his paws and closes his eyes.
The kid whacks the dog on the head. The dog leaps up, chases the kid around the yard and takes a bite out of his butt.
Kid has the nerve to look surprised!

Some lessons to be learned according to Mom:

For the dog-If you had bothered to get up and chase him off the second or even the third time he bothered you, both of you would have been better off. Ignoring a bully does not work. It only emboldens him.

For the kid-People who look for trouble usually find it. And then wish they hadn't.