Open Thread

moar funny pictures


Haloscan comment thread

Open Thread (with birds)

listener passed along some pictures of the pine grosbeak, along with some comments. You'll have to take my word that I really don't have the focus today to piece together a post involving someone else's words and pictures. But here are a couple of the photos she sent--maybe she'll have something to say about them in the comments.

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Thin Places

I just wanted to share this tonight...

Thin Places are ports in the storm of life, where the pilgrims can move closer to the God they seek, where one leaves that which is familiar and journeys into the Divine Presence. They are stopping places where men and women are given pause to wonder about what lies beyond the mundane rituals, the grief, trials and boredom of our day-to-day life. They probe to the core of the human heart and open the pathway that leads to satisfying the familiar hungers and yearnings common to all people on earth, the hunger to be connected, to be a part of something greater, to be loved, to find peace.

This sermon expands on the idea...

But thin places aren’t always literally places. The arts are sometimes thin places for some of us. Music. Poetry. People can be thin places. Marcus Borg believes one of the best ways of understanding Jesus is to think of him as a particularly thin place where the transcendent reality Jesus called the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of heaven shone through.

One of the emphases of the Celtic Christians about thin places is that they are porous and permeable. Marcus Borg says: “They are places where the boundary between the two levels becomes very soft, porous, permeable.”

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World AIDS Day

Click here for a listing of World AIDS Day events planned by members of the One campaign around the country.

From the UN Chronicle

World AIDS Day is an opportunity to raise awareness and fight prejudice about HIV/AIDS and express global solidarity with people living with the disease. Commemorated on 1 December every year since 1988, the Day provides an occasion to remind Governments and world leaders of their commitments to fight AIDS.

More here.

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Rehab-ing a Pine Grosbeak

Well, we've had QUITE the afternoon-evening!

A female Pine Grosbeak hit our upstairs window, leaving a few tiny feathers and a teeny red spot (I strongly suspect a hawk swooped through the yard, because ALL the birds dispersed.)
I went to the living room windows and spotted her under the (heated) birdbath, with one wing out a few inches more than the other.

I watched her from the window for a long time, while consulting Son*in*NC the wildlife biologist and Daughter-in-law*in*VT who graduated pre-vet.

After a really long time she hadn't expired; in fact she began to turn her head from side to side! But she didn't move around and the cold wind was blowing from behind her. So I set a box over her, cut open on one end so she could be free if desired.

About 40 minutes later she hopped out of the box! Then she proceeded to hop clear across the back yard, but, sadly, she could not fly. With the day dimming and a very cold night ahead, I set her into a box and brought her in.

I called the vet who had me call the VT Institute of Natural Science (VINS), who had me call a rehab-er, who had me call a different rehab-er, who had me call a third rehab-er who won't be home until this evening.

So we have Ms. Grosbeak all set up with seeds and cherries, and water. She is in the Guest Room and had enough warmth without being too warm (we want to keep her acclimated, if we can).

Hopefully she will wake up and be able to fly. If so, we'll watch for her mates to return to the cherry tree out back and release her to rejoin them. If she cannot fly she may need expertise and long-term care than we can provide.

I am encouraged that she was more alert when we moved her to the more spiffy box set-up. I had my thin leather gloves on and could feel her struggle a bit, and she felt stronger than earlier. Hope, hope!

Caring for Creation is a huge job! It's amazing how complex this world is.
Keep the hope coming! ♥ listener

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Special Election in IL-14: Is Everybody Confused?

by W.A. Thomasson

Dennis Hastert’s resignation from Congress, effective now, means there will be a special election to fill his unexpired term. The dates have not been officially announced, but it is anticipated that the special primary will be Feb. 5, to coincide with the regular primary, and the special general election will be sometime in April.

Although having the special and regular primaries on the same day will save money, it is also generating a good deal of confusion. Some things even the Illinois Board of Elections is unsure of. The special and regular primaries are technically separate elections. Does that mean voters will have to cast separate ballots? With duplicate sets of touch-screen and optical -scan counting machines at each polling place? What about election Judges? One set or two? And — OK, maybe this is a stretch. But since Illinois is an open-primary state, would it be legal for someone to take a Democratic ballot for the special primary and a Republican ballot for the regular primary?

One thing for sure, however, is that candidates will have to file new nominating petitions. The ones they filed earlier this month are only valid for the regular primary. That means they have three weeks to collect a minimum of 873 valid signatures from registered voters in the district. Since challenging nominating petitions is something of a tradition in Illinois, that means they really need 2000 signatures. Or maybe 3000 to be on the safe side. There is little doubt that all the current candidates will be able to do this, especially since Hastert’s resignation has been rumored for months and they have all had contingency plans. Still, it means that for the next three weeks they are going to have to focus on signature gathering rather than voter persuasion.

There are two Republican and four Democratic candidates. On the Republican side, archconservative State Sen. Chris Lauzen is p;ositioning himself as Hastert’s heir. Dairy magnate Jim Oberweis, who finished second in both the 2004 senatorial primary and the 2006 gubernatorial primary, is a flaming radical rightist. He and the state Republican leadership openly loathe each other. Oberweis was not named the senatorial candidate after the primary winner withdrew because he had campaigned explicitly against George Bush and his “soft-on-immigration” guest worker proposal. And after the gubernatorial primary, he described the winner as “another Hilary.” Oberweis won’t win this primary if the party leadership has anything to say about it. But given the current state of Illinois Republican politics, they may not.

There is a really excellent diary at Prairie State Blue that gives a lot of detail on the Democratic candidates as well as other aspects of the special election. I think there is a great deal to like about each of the candidates, although in different ways. John Laesch, the 2006 candidate against Hastert, is the most progressive on the issues. He’d probably agree that he’s basically in the Kuchinich mold. Jotham Stein has the most innovative ideas on the issues and is running a strong campaign. I have donated to him simply because he personally called me, even though I am dozens of miles outside the district. Those things matter. I like Bill Foster both because of his scientific background and because of his emphasis on fiscal responsibility, a la Howard Dean. Additionally, he is in a position to put a lot of his own money into the campaign and, even though a first-time candidate, has a lot of political savvy from the 10 months he spent as a volunteer staffer with Patrick Murphy’s campaign in Pennsylvania. Those sorts of things will matter in April and November. I don’t know much about Joe Pera, the 2004 candidate, because he got into this year’s race very late. That may make it hard for him to catch up to campaigns with established momentum.

A lot of people are looking to this special election as a barometer of how well Democrats will do next November. It’s maybe a biased barometer, since Bush carried the district 55-45 in 2004. But between declining GOP fortunes, shifting demographics, an open seat, and maybe even an Illinoisan at the top of the Democratic ticket, it could be winnable.

Haloscan comment thread

Heart Radio

A post by Subway Serenade/Astral Technician (who is celebrating his birthday today).

Imagine that you're driving in your car listening to your favorite music from your favorite radio station. If you live in a major city, thousands of people are listening to the same song you are and all of your hearts are beating to the rhythm of the music. Your brainwaves are also keeping time. As the songs change, so do your internal rhythms. I demonstrated this principle at the mini DeanFest in Vermont earlier this year.

Now, if you didn't have a radio, you wouldn't be able to hear the music. Songs of all sorts, from every station would be passing through you unnoticed, and your internal rhythms would be going their own merry way.

However, those who hear the music share a bond, a focal point that has all of the hearts dancing to the same tune, even though they don't realize it. I have found in practical terms that not only do the internal systems receive waves and react to them, but we also broadcast waves of our own to which others react. We are in fact, exchanging waves of various sorts all the time. Not only that, but we and everything around us are just a series of complex, but simply ordered waveforms.

Today I was thinking of how so much of the world seems to be listening to some radio station that plays nothing but Rush Limbaugh droning on and on. Yet we don't realize that a really beautiful music station is just a few stations up the dial. What if Peace on Earth were made possible simply by having enough connected hearts reaching up and changing the channel?

Haloscan comment thread

Howard was right, example 4597

From the comments...

Howard was right, as usual. We need to appeal to people with Confederate flags on the backs of their pickup trucks. But who would have thought an African-American would be the person to do it?

Story from last night's Obama for President/Democratic Party of Oak Park Meetup: Rob Baren, the local party's political director, has been visiting his father in the hospital in Dayton. He couldn't quite believe everybody telling him everyone they knew was voting for Obama. But driving back through rural Ohio, a guy in one of those big, fancy pickup trucks waved as he went past. And in the back window of the pickup were three signs:

Nitional Rifle Association

Confderate flag

Obama for President
Bill Thomasson | 11.27.07 - 11:15 am |

I am currently in the middle of end-of-the-quarter craziness, by the way, so I'm probably not going to be posting much. Remember, if you'd like to do a guest post, you can e-mail it to me at ohiorenee(at)gmail.com.

Haloscan comment thread

Changed comment settings

I just remembered that it was possible to choose "new posts have no comments" under the comment settings. This way, I can still have the traditional Blogger-integrated comments available for use when Haloscan is messed up--for a while there, Haloscan seemed to be messed up on a regular basis, if you'll recall. But with this change, people won't be coming to this site and commenting in the wrong place.

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Open Thread

Going to an early service tomorrow, so I thought I'd go ahead and post a new thread before turning in tonight.

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Finding the right fit

Originally posted at My Left Wing

For much of the past year I've been way too busy with work and family in one form or another to be able to write a proper essay about anything of substance. At least, I assumed that was the reason I wasn't writing. And, when I occasionally did have a bit more free time, well, I really needed that to actually be free time, you know? But it's actually way more complicated than being busy. I've been doing a lot of thinking, when I went on an overnight retreat at the beginning of last month, and every time I get a few minutes to myself. I think about all sorts of things, but those things revolve around the big picture question of "Where do I fit?"

Where do I fit in the political world?

Where does political involvement fit into my life?

What kind of political involvement?

How can I live more intentionally--acting rather than reacting, choosing where to invest my energies and talents? How can I find balance in all of this--remembering who I wanted to be and making choices that are in keeping with my core values?

While I've done a lot of thinking along these lines, I haven't come up with much that I can write about yet. But Maryscott remarks in the Daily Rant about this site "dying" moved me to try to put at least some of this into words.

I have been revisiting the reasons I started to frequent political blogs. In a nutshell, the emergency of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and later the 2004 election changed me from someone who tuned out most of politics and never watched the news to someone who had to get involved because the stakes were so high.

There's a book called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. I was telling my class about it not too long ago. Zebras don't tend to have chronic stressors. They have the sorts of stressors that end quickly, for better or worse. Either they are captured by the lion or they escape. The classic "fight or flight" situation. One of the reasons humans are prone to ulcers (among other things) is that we deal with more chronic stressors.

I'm sure someone reading this will find flaws with this analogy and want to point them out to me. Just this once, please don't. Whether or not my zebra comparison makes sense or seems appropriate to you, I'm telling you the truth as I see it. Which is this...it is not healthy or adaptive to be in "emergency response mode" for an extended period of time. I do believe that it is part of my "calling" (for lack of a better word) to be doing something toward healing the world. Even just a little part of it. My hunch is, that's something I have in common with a lot of people here, even if we express it differently.

Haloscan comment thread

Thanksgiving food for thought

Many people across the country today w,ill be having their Thanksgiving dinner at thousands of locations that serve meals to the poor and homeless. But this would be largely unnecessary if our priorities were a little different.

From the Washington Post:

Food banks are a dominant institution in this country, and they assert their power at the local and state levels by commanding the attention of people of good will who want to address hunger. Their ability to attract volunteers and to raise money approaches that of major hospitals and universities. While none of this is inherently wrong, it does distract the public and policymakers from the task of harnessing the political will needed to end hunger in the United States.

The risk is that the multibillion-dollar system of food banking has become such a pervasive force in the anti-hunger world, and so tied to its donors and its volunteers, that it cannot step back and ask if this is the best way to end hunger, food insecurity and their root cause, poverty.

During my tenure in Hartford, I often wondered what would happen if the collective energy that went into soliciting and distributing food were put into ending hunger and poverty instead. Surely it would have a sizable impact if 3,000 Hartford-area volunteers, led by some of Connecticut's most privileged and respected citizens, showed up one day at the state legislature, demanding enough resources to end hunger and poverty. Multiply those volunteers by three or four -- the number of volunteers in the state's other food banks and hundreds of emergency food sites -- and you would have enough people to dismantle the Connecticut state capitol brick by brick. Put all the emergency food volunteers and staff and board members from across the country on buses to Washington, to tell Congress to mandate a living wage, health care for all and adequate employment and child-care programs, and you would have a convoy that might stretch from New York City to our nation's capital.

But what we have done instead is to continue down a road that never comes to an end. Like transportation planners who add more lanes to already clogged highways, we add more space to our food banks in the futile hope of relieving the congestion.

We know hunger's cause -- poverty. We know its solution -- end poverty. Let this Thanksgiving remind us of that task.

Something to think about as we give thanks for the harvest.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Haloscan comment thread

Unbelievable this is not butter

Can't seem to fall asleep, so I decided to get out of bed for a bit rather than just lying there feeling frustrated.

Popped over to BBspot to see if today's Daily Links had been posted yet. They had, and I found this one rather amusing. Products whose names were variations on the "I can't believe it's not butter" theme. I thought I'd go ahead and post it now, because I might forget by the time I eventually fall asleep and eventually wake up again...


Now I'm going to go try that thing where I'm horizontal with my eyes closed again and see if it works this time.

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Short attention span theater

I am slooowly getting over a yucky cold, but it's been gray outside all day, so that's amplifying the usual virus-induced bleariness.

"Distractibility" has been the name of the game for me today, and I've been hopping around various sites on the interwebs, but not really accomplishing anything.

Found this article about the science of cooking interesting. As I was reading it to Demetrius, he said that Alton Brown of Good Eats had addressed some of the same issues. Turns out that Harold McGee, who I'd never heard of before today, was a major influence on Alton Brown. He's got his own web site, Curious Cook, which I will check out when I have a longer attention span.

But from there I moved on to this geography quiz, which I liked because you actually get points for being "close". So I ended up wasting a fair amount of time on that as well.

Eventually, I did manage to get myself out the door to run a couple of errands. While I was out, I thought of a blog essay I wanted to write, and had every intention of starting once I got home. So now that I'm home, I should get to work on that. Actually, I should work on lecture prep first. But...

Look! Some bouncy balls!

Bounce, bounce, bouncy, bouncy--will you look at that? All bouncy and yellow...like the sun that's hiding behind the clouds today. In that the sun is yellow, I mean, not that the sun bounces. At least, I don't think it does...

Now, what was it that I was going to do next? I'm sure it was important...

Haloscan comment thread

Colds suck

Just sayin'.

Cold virus image courtesy of Purdue News.


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Open Thread

A picture of Michael Jackson graces the cover of the current issue of Ebony magazine. I don't know about you, but I find that just a teensy bit ironic.

Thriller was 25 years ago...wow.



Haloscan comment thread

Happy birthday, Howard Dean!

(Photo from DemFest 2007)

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Open Thread

I hear there's a debate tonight.

Use this thread to discuss the debate, or anything else that's on your mind.

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"Unanswerables" from Snopes.com

On my way to bed, but thought I'd post something silly first, and share this page from Snopes. Some oddly funny stuff...

They say that if a person has a pet cat and dies, if the person's body is not found fairly soon after death, the cat, having not been fed, will become ravenously hungry and eat the dead person's face off - JUST the face!

Is this true? My cat often looks me in the face. I used to think he was just being friendly. Now I know he's just sizing me up, like a chef at a butcher shop, waiting for "the big day". Since hearing this rumor, every time my cat licks his chops it gives me the willies!

Made me think of this...

moar funny pictures

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Zimbardo on "nurturing the heroic imagination"

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo (photo courtesy of The Lucifer Effect web site) came to speak at a community college here in Columbus last month. I recorded the whole talk, which was an hour long. The whole thing was fascinating, but I set myself the modest goal of transcribing only the last eight minutes. Those last minutes of the lecture were the uplifting, hopeful part, and, I don't know about you, but I sure could use more of that in my daily life.

"The line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being", says Aleksander Solzhenitsyn. ... "It's a decision that you have to make every day in various ways."

So what I want to do, is I want to end on a positive note, because I know I've depressed you. When I was writing this book I was so depressed, going through all this horrible stuff, and being immersed in this "evil shit", if you will. (Laughter) But the positive note is, heroism as an antidote to evil, by promoting what I call "the heroic imagination" in every man, woman, and child in our nation.

What I mean by that is, here's Joe Darby. He's the guy who exposed the Abu Ghraib abuses. His friend gave him a CD with those pictures and more--he looked at them and said, "This is terrible! We're supposed to bring democracy to these people, and we're humiliating them!" He took that CD and brought it to the senior investigating officer. He was a private in the Army Reserves. That's a thing you never do. And he knew that his buddies were going to get in trouble. But he said "I had to do the right thing." They had to put him into protective custody along with his mother and his wife, because everybody wanted to kill them. ...He is the most ordinary person, G.I. Joe, and he did the right thing.

And there's also the guy in China, in Tiananmen Square, where students were having a peaceful demonstration to promote more freedom, and here was a line of tanks trying to crush them. He jumped in front and said, "We are all Chinese, we all want freedom! We want the same things--please don't do this!" And he turned around. And so here's a powerful physical hero. Darby was a whistleblowing hero. So I want to refocus away from evil to understanding heroes.

Hannah Arendt, in her analysis of the banality of evil said, you know what, evil monsters like Adolf Eichmann, who orchestrated the deaths of millions of Jews, before he went to Auschwitz, was normal. When we see him in this trial, he's normal. You put him in a situation, and give him power, and permission to kill, you know what? He does his job very well. And she said, the problem with evil is that the perpetrators of evil look like your next door neighbor. They don't look like the comic book monsters that we're led to be afraid of as kids. That's the danger--that they're terrifyingly normal.

So I extend her concept to the "banality of heroism". There are two kinds of heroes: there's Nelson Mandela, there's Gandhi, there's Mother Teresa--but these are the exceptional heroes. They built their whole lives around heroic deeds. They had a call, a mission, to serve humanity. They are the exception. Most heroes are like Joe Darby--ordinary guys, who only once in their lives do a heroic deed. And never again--almost every hero is a one-time hero. And so I'm going to argue that everyday heroes are ordinary people who do extraordinary deeds. There's nothing special about them. And I want to argue that the same exact situation that inflames the hostile imagination in some people, and makes them do bad things, that same situation inspires the heroic imagination in other people.

And for most other people, it renders them passive. I call that "the evil of inaction". Most people do what your mother said, "Mind your own business and don't get in trouble!" You have to say, "Mama, in this case, you're wrong, because humanity is my business."

And so, with the psychology of heroism, we want to encourage children, families, everyone, to develop the heroic imagination. To think about yourself as a "hero in waiting". And that, to be a hero, you don't have to be more religious, you don't have to be more compassionate. All you have to do is be ready to act when others are not, or when some people are doing bad things, and you have to be ready to act on behalf of other people. Being sociocentric...you have to stop thinking about yourself and what will it cost you or what will you gain. To be a hero you've got to act, and you've got to act on behalf of other people--that's all you need.

And so what we want to do is have curriculum--I'm working with people to develop curriculum, starting in the fifth grade, getting kids to think about what it means to be a hero, who are the heroes in your life, what have you done that's heroic. What skills do you need--because some kinds of things you really have to know something, like first aid skills. So when the time comes--and I tell you, it's only going to come once in your life!

So I want to end with this wonderful story that some of you know about. A guy named Wesley Autrey, who's the New York subway hero. He was in a train station with 75 other people. A white guy falls on the tracks. The train is coming, and it's going to cut him in half. He's (Wesley) got a reason not to get involved--he's got two little girls. He's got no personal connection. Instead, he jumps on the track to try to save the guy. The train was coming, it could wipe him out. So I'd like you to actually see this in action.

(He showed this video)

So one day, you will be in a new situation, and there's going to be three paths before you. Path 1: you join in and become a perpetrator of evil. Not Abu Ghraib evil, but teasing, bullying, spreading rumors, spreading gossip. Path 2 is you become guilty of passive inaction. You're home at Christmas, and Uncle Charlie starts telling a racist or sexist joke, and you don't say, "Uncle Charlie, please don't." Or you're in a cab in New York, where they do it all the time, and you say, "I find that insulting. Please stop." If you don't do that, you allow this person to think "Everybody likes it. Everybody thinks it's funny." You have to take action.

Path 3 is to go straight ahead and do the heroic thing. You challenge authority, you challenge the system. And so I hope we are all ready to take that path and celebrate being ordinary heroes--heroes in waiting. Waiting for the right situation to put our heroic imagination into action. We have to think it--by thinking it, it increases the probability of doing it. We know from psychology that if I convince you that everything we know about you means that you're really more generous than most people. Next week there's a blood drive--you know what? You're going to give more blood than him. Next week there's a charity drive--you know what--you're going to give more money than somebody else.

I think that promoting a heroic imagination in our schools--just thinking about it--because it's only going to happen once! Wesley Autrey never did it again, he never will--he's not going to be in that particular situation. Joe Darby, never did it before, and he's not going to be in that situation again. So the point is, you always want people to be primed--ready for the situation where things are going to happen, you're prepared, and you're going to be the one to take the action.

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Remember little Knut?

Some new pictures of Knut here.

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Gooses! Geeses!

Unlike the geese in the song from the original Willie Wonka movie, these geese weren't laying golden eggs. But they were definitely making their mark, so to speak. While I was changing clothes at the gym today, I overheard people complaining about the sheer quantity of the geese around the pond near the rec center. And the noise they made. And all that poop. Can't something be done about them?

Um, who is encroaching on whose territory with all this urban sprawl?

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What might this be?

In honor of Hermann Rorschach's birthday, "What might this be?"



It's also Julian of Norwich's birthday, by the way.

Haloscan comment thread

Orthodox Rabbi: Don't use Bible to judge others

This morning I noticed that Joseph at Plunderbund had posted the following:

Orthodox Rabbi: Don’t Use the Bible to Pass Judgement on Others

Living in a college town like Columbus, Ohio means people tend to be open to many different viewpoints. It also means they are less likely to judge viewpoints that are different from her own.

It’s one of the reasons I moved back here.

It’s also, I assume, one of the reasons Rabbi Steven Greenberg is in town.

Greenberg, “America’s first openly gay Orthodox rabbi”, was here to give a sermon and speak at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on the OSU campus.

I was actually there at St. Stephen's to hear Rabbi Greenberg's sermon--really a piece of luck, as I've missed church a lot lately to catch up on my sleep and I didn't know he was coming. He gave a fascinating sermon, and was back in the afternoon to talk about some of the issues he covered in his book, Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition.

I haven't had a chance to write anything yet about the sermon or the afternoon session, so I'm happy to at least be able to link to Joseph's post at Plunderbund.

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Open Thread

Brand new thread.

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Happy birthday, Grandma

November 6 is the birthday of my maternal grandmother--the one Daughter in Ohio was named for. It's a little amazing the consistency with which I am able to remember the date, without even trying to. Remembering birthdays has never really been my strong suit.

Maybe part of it is the fact that it comes just a few days after All Saints' Day. And then, we're getting into that whole holiday season, where it's pretty natural to think about traditions and continuity. Where you've been, and where you're going. The people who continue to touch our lives even though they are no longer with us.

I'm sure I could ramble more about all of this, but I need to get to bed. But this is where my heart is right now, and I really needed to say so "out loud".

Haloscan comment thread

Comet 17P/Holmes

Look at Cassiopeia's W. Start at the center star of Cassiopeia and follow that (third) star to the lower left, to its second star. Stay on that trajectory for 5 times the length between the two stars and note a yellowish bright object in the constellation Perseus. Or, as Hubby likes to say it: set the W as the center of a clock and look for Holmes around 7 or 8 pm. Let us know if you see it! We're just waiting for the clouds to dissipate.


Very cool...an exploding comet! Visible to the naked eye, but even better with binoculars or telescope.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071103/ap_on_sc/brighter_comet

Photo credits = Mahon About Town Newsletter, Nantucket

- listener

Haloscan Comment Thread

Open Thread for the fresh, new week.

Play nicely. . . .

Haloscan comment thread

Fall back flashback

From an article in the New York Times, February 27, 1967...

...legislators are getting protests from farmers who object to doing chores in the morning darkness, from drive-in movie proprietors, from early-to-bed, early-to-rise communities, from the mothers of children who will not sleep until the sun goes down, and from indignant defenders of "God's time."

State Senator Bobby Rowan of Enigma, GA, rose recently in the Senate chamber and said:

"Not since Biblical times has there been a man who could change sunrise and sunset, but the bureaucrats are attempting to do it."

And Gov. Harold E. Hughes of Iowa, who has promised to veto any legislative action that would keep his state off daylight saving time, was criticized sharply by a rural delegation a short time back.

A spokesman for the group, Hugh A. Vail of Indianola, told the Governor that daylight saving time would weaken are resistance of Iowa's children to Communism.

"A child gets up in the morning under daylight time and cries because he has lost an hour of sleep," Mr. Vail asserted. "A parent has to whip him to get him to go to school. Maybe he has had breakfast and maybe not.

"He whines all day. When he comes home, his parents give him aspirin. We are living in a drug age. The schoolchildren are so busted that they have to have drugs. Then when Communism comes along, what are we going to do?"

(I don't have an actual picture of Mr. Vail, but this is how I imagine him.)

I can only assume that, were we having this debate today, somebody would claim that accepting Daylight Savings Time means the terrorists have already won.

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Autumn Open Thread

The image comes from Kalle Koskinen's Photo Gallery.

It's a gorgeous fall day here in Columbus too. Going to take the dogs out for some playtime.

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Goodbye, Cousin Washoe

Image from Friends of Washoe web site

Washoe the chimp has died. I hope she's somewhere cool.

Scientists have announced the death of the first animal to break the language barrier, a female chimpanzee called Washoe who could communicate 250 words in human sign language.

Washoe was not only the first animal to learn a human language, she also passed on what she had learnt to her adopted son before dying on Tuesday at the ripe old age - for a chimp - of 42.

Her death was announced by scientists at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute at Central Washington University, where she had lived in a research centre.

"Her name sign is formed with the fingers of a 'W' hand flicking the ear on the same side," read her biography on the Friends of Washoe website.

"Washoe is the first non-human animal to acquire a human language and her adopted son Loulis is the first to acquire a human language from another chimpanzee," it said.

Washoe, born in Africa in 1965, was the main subject of the 1997 book "Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Have Taught Me About Who We Are," written by the institute co-director Roger Fouts.

From a description of the language studies conducted with Washoe...

...Washoe was now also able to coin new words: the first time she saw a swan her trainer asked her 'What's that?' and she responded with 'water bird'. Washoe would often sign spontaneously, initiating sign language 'conversations' with her trainers. She also, quite spontaneously, developed 'swear words' - words which she added on to her other utterances to indicate displeasure. For example she would sign 'dirty' before someone's name if they had displeased her. The implications, then, is that she was using the words she had learned to fulfil communicative intentions: she was actually using language, rather than producing stimulus-response behaviour.

Washoe's Biography

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Who're You Gonna Call?

Happy Halloween, everybody!

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Open Thread

Took Brady (the collie) to the dog park yesterday. He had fun. I had fun watching him have fun. It's a good thing.

Another busy week ahead of me, but here's an open thread.

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Howard Dean: Right again

A post by Subway Serenade/Astral Technician

When Howard Dean spoke at DemocracyFest on of the things he spoke of at length about was how the Democratic National Committee was reaching out to find common ground among evangelical and other Christian groups. He made the point that these folks are moving away from the hard right positions of "God, Guns and Gays," and moving toward issues of the occupation of Iraq, poverty, social justice and environmental stewardship. Dean said that there is much common ground that can be explored in the next election cycle.

Last night I found this in the New York Times:

The extraordinary evangelical love affair with Bush has ended, for many, in heartbreak over the Iraq war and what they see as his meager domestic accomplishments. That disappointment, in turn, has sharpened latent divisions within the evangelical world — over the evangelical alliance with the Republican Party, among approaches to ministry and theology, and between the generations.

(Snip)

Meanwhile, a younger generation of evangelical pastors — including the widely emulated preachers Rick Warren and Bill Hybels — are pushing the movement and its theology in new directions. However conceived, though, the result is a new interest in public policies that address problems of peace, health and poverty — problems, unlike abortion and same-sex marriage, where left and right compete to present the best answers.

The backlash on the right against Bush and the war has emboldened some previously circumspect evangelical leaders to criticize the leadership of the Christian conservative political movement. “The quickness to arms, the quickness to invade, I think that caused a kind of desertion of what has been known as the Christian right,” Hybels, whose Willow Creek Association now includes 12,000 churches, told me over the summer. “People who might be called progressive evangelicals or centrist evangelicals are one stirring away from a real awakening.”

This ten page article in the Sunday Magazine offers much to consider as progressives try to find common ground with a constituency that was led astray by wolves in sheep's clothing (Fallwell, Dobson et al) that for far too long has held sway over the public presentation and perception of American Christianity.

“There was a time when evangelical churches were becoming largely and almost exclusively the Republican Party at prayer,” said Marvin Olasky, the editor of the evangelical magazine World and an informal adviser to George W. Bush when he was governor. “To some extent — we have to see how much — the Republicans have blown it. That opportunity to lock up that constituency has vanished. The ball now really is in the Democrats’ court.”

Amen.

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Pneumatic Anatomica

Click the image for a larger view.

New shared items here.

Make your own lolcat picture here.

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NBC Wants to Give Gravel the Boot

I was dismayed to learn that Political Director Chuck Todd, speaking for NBC, has arbitrrarily set criteria that prevent former Alaska senator Mike Gravel from participating in Democratic candidate debates sponsored by NBC. These criteria are:

• Sen. Gravel has not campaigned in Iowa and/or New Hampshire at least fourteen times in the past year;


• Sen. Gravel is not polling at 5%;


• Sen. Gravel has not raised one million dollars.

In his blog at democrats.org, the senator disputes the first two claims, asserting for instance that he is level with Dennis Kucinich, Chris Dod and Joe Biden in CNN polling. I wonder if Mr. Todd has also disqualified Rep Kucinich and Sens Dod and Biden on the basis of their poor showings in the polls.

While I do not agree with all his positions and views, nonetheless Mike Gravel speaks for this voter with his opposition to the current war in Iraq and to a projected war against Iran. He speaks for me on other issues as well and is, frankly, a breath of fresh air in the fetted atmosphere which is politics as usual in the United States. However, whatever one may think of his platform, it is vitally important that all Democrats, especially other candidates, pull together to support Sen. Gravel now in the face of the NBC ban. The corporate media, including NBC, has no business shutting him out of public discourse and thereby effectively silencing him.

Please join me in calling for a reversal of NBC's dicision to exclude Sen. Gravel from the Drexel University debate on October 30.

P.S.
I have e-mailed Chris Matthews (hardball@msnbc.com) and Kieth Oberman (countdown@msnbc.com) on this matter. Suggestions on who else to contact would be welcome.

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NASCARGOT

Heh. Look--the word NASCAR in some sort of unholy union with the words "escargot". That amuses me, so I shall post it before I fall down go night-night.

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We "fall back" on November 4

I've heard a number of people today say that this weekend is when we set our clocks back, so as a public service announcement, I thought I'd pass along this reminder:

On August 8, 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This Act changed the time change dates for Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. Beginning in 2007, DST will begin on the second Sunday in March and end the first Sunday in November. The Secretary of Energy will report the impact of this change to Congress. Congress retains the right to resume the 2005 Daylight Saving Time schedule once the Department of Energy study is complete.

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Open Thread

It's still totally dark outside and it's pouring rain. I still need to leave for work in half an hour, so I'd better get moving. But here's a fresh thread.

Oops--quickly updating to add this picture...



20 October 2007, Blogger Bash in Montpelier, Vermont
back: Denise, Anne*from*VT
front: sunlight, listener
wearing "I support the National Nurse" buttons.

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A day at the end of the week to wonder and rejoice

Last weekend, I attended a retreat at Proctor Camp and Conference Center. The theme was Celtic spirituality. One thing our leader said was important to the Celts was a sense of time and seasons--and celebrating these things. While I was at the retreat, I was thinking about how much I need to establish a more sane, more purposeful, and maybe even more reverent relationship with time. But then the retreat ended, I drove home, and an entire week sped by without my even managing to write down some reflections on all of this. So far, not so good.

Actually, though, during the hectic work week, getting adequate sleep is a perfectly valid use of my time. Now that another weekend has arrived, though, I will try to remember and reflect a bit on the retreat.

One of them women who attended said that she knew she needed a retreat precisely because she felt like she didn't have time for it. I can certainly relate to that. But, because I knew I needed a retreat, I started making plans as soon as I found out it was happening. I last attended the women's retreat (with the same leader) three years ago, but that time it was held at a convent near Cincinnati. My car had died on the way there--certainly a less-than-serene way to begin a retreat weekend. So, this time, even though the retreat location was much closer, I decided to take the precaution of renting a car. Initially, my plan was to pick up the car Friday morning, work a full day, and leave for the retreat center straight from work.

As the day approached, I realized that plan was insane. On both Wednesday and Thursday I work a full day, and then teach in the evening. When, exactly, was I going to pack? I decided that, even though I was already splurging on a rental car, I probably did need to take Friday afternoon off, even though it meant missing out on some income.

So, when Friday morning arrived, I told myself that I'd done a reasonably good job of getting my ducks in a row. No, I hadn't packed anything. And I hadn't figured out what I was going to bring as a dish to share at Friday night's potluck. But I was taking off the whole afternoon, for heaven's sake!

The air was thick with free-floating anxiety.

As planned, I left work at lunchtime, stopping at the store to get pet food and to pick up a few sundries I needed for the weekend. Then I spent some time stuck in traffic due to construction. Once I finally arrived home, Demetrius and I needed to head right back out to pick up the rental car. On the way there, we passed a church with a marquis sign that read, "Are you ready to meet your God?" Given that whole free-floating anxiety thing, I was less amused by these words than I might have been at some other time.

Why do you ask that NOW, church sign people, as I prepare to drive out of town alone in an unfamiliar car? Do you know something I don't?

And there's a difference between being prepared, in the sense of having a clean conscience, and being ready. Am I ready? Not so much. I've been looking forward to retreat for some time, thank you.

Oh, and one more thing--while I think I'm cool with my God, I'd just as soon not meet yours. Ever. 'Cause apparently he's the sort of guy who encourages you to put up scary messages in front of your church, and that's not very nice.

When we got to the rental place, we had to wait a good half hour, even though we'd called ahead, so I arrived back home just as Son in Ohio was getting home from school. Somehow this afternoon I had taken off to allow myself plenty of time to get ready was more than half over. I certainly didn't have enough time to go to the grocery store and find something to bring for that night's potluck. I printed out the directions to the conference center and started packing my overnight bag, planning to stop at a grocery store on my way out of town. Which I should be able to do, if traffic wasn't bad.

Um, yeah. Given the way the rest of the day had gone, how likely was that? I stopped anyway, because I really didn't want to show up empty-handed. As I left the store and tried to make my way out of Columbus in Friday rush hour traffic, it was pretty clear that I would be arriving late. So I decided I would just focus on arriving there in one piece, and in a reasonably calm state of mind. I put in a CD and sang along.

Once I was finally on an open stretch of I-71 outside of Columbus, the church sign people accosted my eyes again. Two signs, one right after the other. The first read "If you died tonight, where would you spend eternity?" and the second warned, "HELL IS REAL." Once again, I just had to answer back...

It's not that I'm worried about where I'd end up. It's just that, contrary to what the Klingons have been known to say, today is not a good day to die. Mmm-kay?

I sang along with my Paul Simon CD, "...everybody gets a tongue to speak, And everyone hears an inner voice. A day at the end of the week to wonder and rejoice."

I thought about those words. Things certainly do seem out of balance if I don't take that time to "wonder and rejoice". And just to , and spend time in nature.

And, I ended up doing all of those things during that little retreat that lasted less than 24 hours. But I need to do a better job of weaving them into the fabric of my everyday life.

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Shall we dance

Upon reading that Deborah Kerr has died, I felt the urge to post this video before turning in.



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Open Thread

Here's a new thread.

TGIF

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Colbert announces presidential pursuit

Okay, it's old news at this point, but I thought I'd front page it anyway...

Colbert announces presidential pursuit (Yahoo News)

OF COLBERT AND FAVORITE SONS AND DAUGHTERS... (article in The Nation)

Stephen Colbert announces presidential bid, but is it the truth or truthiness? (CNET)

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Has Burmas' Junta Gone too Far?

At the time of this writing, pro-democracy groups from Burma estimate the number of Buddhist monks killed by regime violence in the past two weeks to be as low as 200 and possibly many more. Those numbers make the regime's official estimates of a dozen or so monks killed absurdly low, and they highlight a serious error in strategy by the junta - one that is likely to be their final undoing.

Although the regime wants news of their ongoing and brutal repression to spread far and wide within the country (so as to terrorize its citizens out of continuing to protest), they are simultaneously attempting to cover up the extent of the repression against the monks themselves. By sequestering the monks away and focusing the most recent rounds of open violence on student leadership, the generals assume they are killing two birds with one stone - both quashing dissent (including amongst the monks themselves) and giving the appearance of stability rather than blatant cruelty. But they are failing on both counts.

The resistance continues, even amongst the monks, in a number of forms. Many monks have been engaged in a hunger strike for up to two weeks now. Others have been instrumental in protests of other types, including prayer vigils in honor of their fallen brethren. By violently striking out against that specific part of society - the revered, symbolic soul of Burma - the regime may have applied the final straw necessary to galvanize many who have thus far only stood on the sidelines. A common regime tactic in striking out against a nonviolent mass movement considered threatening to their power is to accuse the group of being "terrorists" or "enemies of the people." But in this case, the generals are in quite a dilemma because they know no one will believe that sort of fiction about peaceful, much-beloved monks. So, their answer is to hide away the monks and continue to terrorize the people.

However, yesterday's arrests (and reported torture) of three suspected movement leaders, including one of the alleged 8888 generation leaders, is evidence not of control by the regime, but a lack of it, especially because the movement has committed itself to the use of nonviolent methods in its resistance. ...

Read the full article

We very much hope this analysis is correct, and that the generals' days are numbered. However, the BBC's reporting is not optimistic.

Japan's balancing act on Burma
Defian Burma will not Change
Japan Adds to Pressure on Burma
UN Envoy Condemns Burma Arrests

Note:Look in the righthand sidebar on any of the above linked items for related stories, background, Q&A etc.

Light a virtual candle for the people of Burma

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Gizmo is for lovers

My wife, Jackie is in a lot of pain most of the time, so although I've been experimenting with Gizmo since about mid April, the time was never quite right for her to play the Butterfly Game with me until about two weeks ago, and again this past Thursday. Each session lasted about a half an hour because it's hard for her to stay in one position for longer than that.

In the first session, we started during the second half of 'our' favorite movie, "The Quiet Man." The second half hour, last week, we listened to selections from Rod Stewart's "Great American Song Book." I have to say that the results of those two sessions were astounding.

I have often talked about the moments when Lovers feel like two halves of the same person. Jackie and I have felt that way quite often over the years, but while playing Gizmo, we were taken to a whole new level. As the butterflies grew closer together, and finally touched, a tangible electrical field enveloped us. The intensity of this gentle electrical field grew as our hearts maintained and sustained identical frequencies, and was most intense at .6HZ, the frequency most associated with Oneness and Empathy.

Jackie knows almost nothing about computers, and even less about the theory behind how Gizmo works, but as we were surrounded by this electricity, tears of Love were streaming down our faces. We are looking forward to our next sessions, but Jackie has become busy taking care of the new kittens, and they have become a distraction for her. So it may be another week or so before we can try it again.

My instinct tells me that there is great potential for healing in that electrical field. In nearly 24 years together, I don't think we've ever experienced anything like it. Just imagine the difference between a flashlight and a laser and you'll begin to understand what happened.

We were totally amazed.

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Denise's Al Gore event report

From Renee: Denise posted this in the comments late Thursday night. On Friday morning, it occurred to me that it really should be frontpaged, but I was running late. I created this guest blogger thread, complete with comment link first thing Friday morning, but the day was so crazy I never got around to telling anyone I'd done that. But I had a lovely retreat when all was said and done. Without further ado, Denise's report...

I flew through the hotel with my business colleague in tow behind my conference manager, who was SO COOL to do this for me. Plug for the Westin St. Francis - great place for a real SF experience.

We're in the back of the house and opens up the curtain and seats me three rows behind Barbara, Bonnie and Jackson - as well as Barbara's family. I don't know who is who, but if she has a son, he was very nice. I had a chat with him in the elevator earlier but had no idea who he was at the time. I'm not sure if the grandbaby was his daughter. There were two other young women around who could have been her daughters.

So Barbara, in her very chic red suit, gets up on her literal soapbox (more like a veggie crate) to reach the mic. After her welcome talk, which was really very short, she introduced Bonnie and Jackson, as well as two other singers who were excellent. They harmonized really well on "World in Motion", the song I was listening to them rehearse earlier in the day. That was kind of fun, too. Bonnie spied me in the hallway, smiled and I asked her if they wanted privacy as the hallway was filling up. She said yes, so I shut the doors. Just can't leave the job behind...sigh.

The next song they did was "I'm a Patriot", composed by Steven van Zandt. You can see him performing it here.

Then Bonnnie did my most favorite song, the John Prine tune "Angel from Montgomery." I'm a huge Prine fan, and her version always makes me tear up. She dedicated it to the women around the world that are "still having a tough time of it." Darn she has pretty hair! I took a few pix on my cell phone. She was playing with the kids sitting around her as Barbara took the stage again to introduce Al.

He took the stage in a really smart charcoal suit, looking really, really good. My business colleague was freaking out. I was just enjoying the moment. I won't go into what he spoke about in detail, as we all know what he cares about most these days. And he told some stories about the so called scientists who write to him to basically tell him he's full of it. (My words, not his). He talked about Darfur and how we could have prevented it, and still could, if we had our priorities straight. He didn't mention Burma, but he only spoke about 10 minutes. Ice caps, healthcare, a few jabs at the Bushies, but not by any particular name. Class act all the way.

Barbara came back on stage and related the story about when Gore was in front of the Senate and the whole thing with Inhofe. It was sweet how she motioned with the mic as if it was the gavel when she said "elections have consequences." And then the guy I think was her son ran on stage and gave her a campaign pin (Boxer 2010) with those words on it. I was able to snag a couple for me and one of my friends. I'm wearing it now.
...
Oh yeah almost forgot....the whole room erupted in a long chant of Run Al Run. Boxer didn't try to stop it :)

One more story to share - sorry it's hard to remember it all in detail. He talked about the cities in Italy that have walls around them because they used to be at war, like Florence and Siena. And how absurd that seems to s now. Or how weird it is to think that, at one time, Germany invaded France - and he gave a nod to the Senior Citizens in the audience and thanked them for their perserverance during WWII. He took a moment then to give a shout out for our troops. Then he said that we can prevent another world disaster if we just band together and take the step to make things better - TOGETHER.

Coverage of the event from tonight's Chronicle

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Open Thread

Here's a new thread, since the old one has gotten pretty long.

Update: Something new I learned on retreat this weekend:

In Celtic and other folklore the otter is often characterised as a friendly and helpful creature, and is given the name 'water dog', alluding to these qualities. In the Irish story The Voyage of Maelduin, otters on the Island of Otter bring the sailors salmon to eat, and the Voyage of Brendan tells of how an otter performed this service for a hermit, even collecting firewood for him! St. Cuthbert is the patron saint of otters, and after standing waist-deep in the North Sea during his nightly prayer vigils, two otters would come and warm his feet with their breath and dry them with their fur.

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Gore, U.N. body win Nobel Peace Prize

Via Yahoo News:

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and lay the foundations for counteracting it.

"I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize," Gore said. "We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."

More here.

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Hillary doesn't like being questioned

Found this via skippy...

in a rare departure from her tightly scripted remarks, the former first lady lashed out at an audience member steamed at her senate vote to declare iran's revolutionary guard a terrorist organization.

randall rolph, of nashua, iowa, compared the vote to the one clinton cast for the iraq war resolution, asking, "why should i support your candidacy . . . if it appears you haven't learned from your past mistakes?"

clinton hit back hard, saying, "the premise of the question is wrong, and i'll be happy to explain that to you."

then she suggested rolph was a plant, saying his question was based on something "somebody obviously sent you."

she soon backed down, telling him, "i apologize. it's just that i've been asked the very same question in three other places."

Well, Hills, it's an obvious question. Given that you feel that you can't admit your Iraq vote was a mistake, all we can hope for is some evidence that you've learned from that experience. And, yeah, we're going to find it a tad disheartening if you can't even give us that.

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Open Thread

I've added a few new shared items here.


Found the Harvest Moon pic via Stumbleupon.

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Bless all creatures here below

Daughter sang with the children's choir today, and, since this is the Sunday closest to the Feast of St. Francis, the hymns centered around that. The opening hymn was one I'd never heard before, and it was *adorable*.

Today we celebrate a feast,
A holiday for man and beast.
We think of every friend who speaks,
barks and purrs and roars and squeaks.
As we sing we keep in mind
beings of a different kind.

Bless all creatures here below,
Lord, from whom all blessings flow.

We think of squirrels in the park
at play from morning light 'til dark,
and birds that sing on leafy boughs
in green fields with the sheep and cows
Dear that in the forest leap,
whales that swim the ocean deep.

Bless all creatures here below,
Lord, from whom all blessings flow.

Together with our pets we meet
friends with whiskers, tails that greet.
Muzzles wet beside our cheek
show us love they cannot speak.
Hold them tight so they will know
where we are they too will go.

Bless all creatures here below,
Lord, from whom all blessings flow.

There were three more verses. The last line, though, is what made me well up:

When at last we come to you, let our creatures be there too

Our creatures have just got to be there. If they're not, how could it be heaven?

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Ads that suck

This afternoon I went out to run an errand, and the car's engine died on me. As I mentioned in the comments earlier, at least I was in town, and wouldn't have to wait too long for Demetrius to come rescue me. But I still had a good half hour of waiting by the side of the road, which was more than enough time to contemplate one of my un-favorite billboards, seeing as it was staring me right in the face.

The ad is for a radio station. It features a closeup of a busty young Caucasian female, wearing a t-shirt. I can't say "blonde" or "redhead" or whatever, because they don't show her face. She's not a person, after all, but an object. The billboard instructs the viewer to listen to The Blitz 99.7 and "Pray for rain".

Ohhh! I get it! I mean, it's a little subtle, but I *think* this is what they were going for...

Yaaaaay! Clap, clap, clap! If it rain, we see lady's nipples!

Also, crops not die.

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