They're at it again.  The boys down the block are doing what they call "ring and run".

Last night, my wife and I walked over to their house and had a chat with their parents (while the kids were playing in their backyard pool).  The parents are aware of the problem and were sympathetic to our concerns.  We'll see if the kids keep doing it.  Who am I kidding :-)  Of course they will.  Well, I hope some angry neighbor doesn't run after them and hurt them; they're nice kids, just bored.

"Ring" goes the doorbell.

"What?  Nobody's there.  How strange."

After the second time in as many days, I decided to "do some gardening" in the front yard.  Soon I noticed two boys from down the block (12 and 8 years old) ringing someone else's doorbell and running off.  Biding my time, they made their way around to block again.  I stopped one of them.

"Are you ringing doorbells?"

"No?" as he turns and yells to his brother "Don't press it yet!"

"Aren't you the boy from down the street," asks I.

"No, we're from up there," says he while pointing directly opposite from the direction of his house.

Anyway, it turns out they're bored.  Good grief.  There are still 2 more weeks before school's out.  What's going to happen when they've got even MORE time on their hands!

I gave them a nice chat about not ringing doorbells and mentioned the nearby public library has all sort of cool books and even DVD's to borrow.

"Can I leave now?" whined the kid.  At least he's honest about his feelings.

As a pro-action, I placed a big old chunk of shale next to their driveway.  This is "special" shale with small fossilized sharks teeth embedded in the rock: circa, 80 million years old.  Next day, the rock was in the process of being eroded away by boyish forces.

This past weekend, my wife and I took our annual Texas WildFlower trip to the Hill Country around Austin.  On a good year, the highways and byways are jam-packed with Blue Bonnets, Paint Brushes and any number of colorful wildflowers.  Alas, this was not a good year: drought and a warm winter.  For example, we drove the Willow Loop (just north of Fredricksburg) and spotted a few dozen Blue Bonnets; on a good year there would be millions of them!

But we always time out trip to be in Burnet on the Friday evening of their Blue Bonnet Festival.  That's when they have their Pet Parade.  We register our puppies by the bank and waited for the parade along with dozens of other people and their pets.  The pets are mostly dogs but we've seen all sorts of other animals.  This year was a chicken, a goat, and several rats.  (Past animals have included llamas, snakes, iguanas, and giant tortises).

Actually, the "waiting for the parade" was a lot of fun.  We got to meet all sorts of people and their animals.

Of course, many of the contestants dress up for the occasion (and to win the "best outfit" trophy).
> A little girl dressed up as Dorthy (Wizard of Oz) with an adorable 8-week-old yorkie puppy in a basket
> A giant Great Dane draped with a banner reading "Texas Chihuahua"
> A platoon of Shizus
> A Golden Retriever with a banner proclaiming "24 K Gold"
> Several Daushhounds dressed up as frankfurters
> A White-Crested Black Polish Chicken which was very tame.  Imagine if Ringo Starr were a chicken and had white hair... that's what it looked like.
> A rat in a leather Harley-Davison outfit with hat

After two local girls slaughtered the National Anthem and the winners of the Miss Blue-Bonnet contest were presented, we paraded around the town square and, at the end, the DJ announced the winners of various prizes.  We never try to win any prizes; at most, our dogs wear bandanas.

Then off to the Blue Bonnet Cafe (in Marble Falls) for dinner and their FAMOUS pies.  My wife had a slice of lemon meringue pie: 1 inche of pie topped with 4 inches of meringue!  I settled for apple pie a la mode.

So we had a lovely 3 day trip even if we didn't see many widflowers.  Fortunately, driving home along I35 (between Hillsboro and Waxahaxie) we spotted several large patchs of flowers and stopped at one of them for the perrenial "dogs in the flowers" picture.

I'll start off by stating that I think gay couples should be allowed to get married.  That said (and after much pondering)...

I think gays don't have the US Constitutional right to get married.  In the USofA, marriage has been around since our country's inception (200+ years) and marriage has always been considered as being between a man and a woman.  I'm no historical scholar but it seems likely the people who wrote up the constitution and other founding documents would have been confused at the notion of same-sex marriage. 

In brief, there is a long historical tradition of marriage being soley between a man and a woman.

Again, that said, times change... traditions change... attitudes change... society changes.  As long as something isn't barred by the US Constitution then society is perfectly within its rights to allow that "something".  In this case, something = "gay marriage".

I repeat, allowing gays to marry is well within society's ability to grant.  And, on a State by State basis, that's what has been happening.  As a dear friend recently pointed out, we live is a Republic of States.  If the good people of Massachusetts wish to allow gays to marry then that is their choice.  If the good (but stupid) people of California wish to deny gay marriage then that is their choice.  If the stupid (but good) people of Texas wish to deny gay marriage and gay civil unions then that is their mean-spirited choice.

Finally, that said, the notion of a US Constitution Ammendment defining marriage as "between a man and a woman" is totally inappropriate.  Gay marriage is an issue that will be (and is being) decided on a State-by-State basis because that's what our great country is... a Republic of States.

Watchmen the movie is opening next weekend and I'm really hoping it's well made because...

Watchmen the comic book was the greatest comic book series of the 1980s.  I know because I eagerly awaited every monthly issue.  As the movie comes out you will probably read or hear all sorts of analyses like, the heroes are so un-stereotypical and such.  I feel compelled to write about my own experience with Watchmen.

I guess the best way to describe it is Watchmen was the "Lost" of its time.  Every issue was full of mysteries and questions about what the heck was going on.  The storyline and characters were tremendously complex.  Each issue brought a new set of clues scattered through its pages. 

The blossoming Internet (called DarpaNet) had a newsgroup for comics (rec.arts.comics) and, with each new issue, hundreds of people would minutely analyze every image and sentence.  We had a full year of excitement!  It was magical.

For example, in the issue where Rorschach is captured by police it is the first (only?) time his mask is assymetrical.  And, yet, the graphic structure of the comic book issue was symmetrical about the centerfold.

Or that in the first issue Rorschach pockets a handful of wrapped sugar cubes and throughout the entire series he is gradually eating them and leaving wrappings here and there.

Or the ongoing love/hate friendship between the newspaper seller and the annoying kid who buys comics from him.

Or wonderful appendices at the end of each issue giving readers a rich history of the Watchmen universe (sort of like those whooshing flash-backs in Lost).

I think back on that "Year of the Watchmen" and simply sigh "Wow!"  It was an incredible experience.

These final eloquent sentences from The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin:

“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.  There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Today is the 200^th birthday of Charles Darwin arguably the greatest biologist of all time. His 1859 publication of the theory of the origin of new species through a natural selection process was bold and provocative. Darwin didn’t know about genetics (the engine that powers evolution) which makes his accomplishment all the more amazing.

I’m always surprised that so many Americans ridicule the Theory of Evolution. Recently, I tried to catalog the various types of criticisms:

1) Evolution is just plain stupid (EGOCENTRIC)
         How can Humans (we’re so special) be just smart apes?

2) Life is too complex to have arisen by chance (AWESOME)
         How can a fish become an elephant?
         The Human eye is irreducibly complex and was clearing designed.

4) Evolution directly contradicts the literal teachings of the Bible (STUBBORN)
         God took only created the universe and everything in it.
         The Earth isn’t billions of years old; it’s 10,000 years old.
         Noah’s flood killed all the dinosaurs.

All of these criticisms are easily answered for people willing to consider the evidence.

 In my opinion, the greatest obstacle for these Americans is they believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. The Books of Genesis say “God created everything in 7 days” and that’s that! This is a stunning attitude for our modern society.

Consider this…

Several thousand years ago, when the Bible was created, people made no distinction between natural and super-natural: i.e., the physical world and the spiritual world. Ghosts, demons and fairies were as real as fire and water. To comprehend the Biblical Books of Genesis as factual truth is to literally see the world through ancient eyes. 

Of course, anyone is perfectly free to view reality with a primitive mindset but it is a poor foundation for living in our modern world. Generally speaking, modern people do not see ghosts. If the super-natural exists its interactions with the physical world are so fleeting (so innocuous) as to defy convincing observation. Our modern society neatly separates the physical and spirit worlds: they are studied by science and religion, respectively.

The process of evolution is irrefutable. Perhaps, in the future, science will find evidence of some grand designer or intelligent undercurrent driving evolution. The theologians will cry “We told you so!” The scientists will dip their heads and whisper “Yes, but we proved it.”   Until such time, though, non-scientific viewpoints such as Creationism should remain firmly rooted in the spiritual world… and in Church.

We're doing our part to stimulate the economy:
  a) Bought a new refrigerator (the old one was 30+ years old)
  b) Bought a freezer for the garage (yeah, more room for leftovers)
  c) Trying to keep the local restuarants in business

What can I do to help people, the community, or the country get over this economic down turn?

 

This month, Texas became another battleground in the ongoing war between teaching Creationism or the Theory of Evolution.

Every decade the Texas Board of Education sets standards for teaching everything that's taught in our classrooms: K thru 12.  During these events there is the inevitable battlecry against teaching the Theory Of Evolution in science classes.  This year, opponents of Evolution wanted to have teachers address both the "strengths and weaknesses" of Evolution.  It's a clever move because, afterall, scientists LOVE to test theories in hopes of coming with even better theories.

But many scientists believe this effort is a "back door" attempt to teach Texas kids that Evolution is wrong; which would be a dumb thing to teach because Evolution is a tremendously successful scientific theory.  Indeed, that are no other scientific theories that explain the diversity of life-forms on our planet.

What are the alternatives to teaching the Theory Of Evolution in a science class?

You can't teach Creationism because it isn't a science; it's an untestable belief.

You can't teach Intelligent Design because, right now, it's just an idea: a hypothesis without any solid evidence.

Thankfully, the board of education dismissed the "strengths and weaknesses" idea by an 8 to 7 margin.

Personally, I don't mind if our kids are taught Creationism as long as it isn't taught in the science classroom.  I'll leave it to others to hash out which of the worlds myriad creation stories to teach.  <Hint: teach them all.>

But I’m not a soldier so I did a Google search to find some answers. Here are some results:

---

From answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081024113449AAFPS34
"Once again people outside the Army can not grasp how it is to be in the Army. Have a gay person of your sex move into your home, shower with you, sleep within a couple feet of you, and change your cloths in front of them. That is what you are asking people to do."

 

From www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/25/opinion/main4632720.shtml
Last month, retired Air Force General Merrill McPeak, one of Barack Obama's highest-ranking military supporters during the campaign, reiterated his opposition to openly gay service. When McPeak participated in the debates over lifting the ban in 1993, he was Secretary of the Air Force. Like most military members who shared his position then, McPeak couched his sentiments in terms of military effectiveness, saying that homosexuality was "incompatible with military service" and would "work against unit cohesion."

From www.army.com/blog/item/4580
The military is not a microcosm of society at large it is a society unto its own. Why can't gay and lesbian service members just serve and keep their sexuality where it belongs, in the privacy of their own bedrooms?

---

I can understand these agreements for banning openly gay service. I really can!

But I can also easily (quite easily) squash these arguments to dust.

 

These arguments seem to boil down to 3 areas: Intimacy, Immorality, and Prejudice.

INTIMACY
Again, I’m not a soldier but can easily believe soldiers achieve a high level of plutonic intimacy. You train with these guys and eat with these guys and face harrowing experiences with these guys. You trust these guys with your very life! Put a man and woman through these experiences and they’re bound to become sexually attracted. 

But there are some assumptions when shifting this line of reasoning to a squad of soldiers which contains a gay guy.

Assumption #1 = gay men fantasize about their heterosexual squad members

Assumption #2 = gay men will pursue heterosexual men

Hey! If this were true I'd be plenty worried about "unit cohesion". But this assumption is just plain stupid.  It is ridiculous to believe a gay man is going to "hit on" a straight man. I think we can all agree that gay men pursue other gay men.

That said, I think it is "possible" for a gay man to pursue a straight man but this gay man would, in my opinion, be a stupid person and ought to be drummed out of the military.

So, in a nutshell, this whole notion of straight soldiers worried about being "lustfully pursued" by gay soldiers is plain silly. And if a gay soldier ogles you in the shower room tell him to stop it.

IMMORAL BEHAVIOR
Plenty of people believe homosexuality is immoral behavior. 
Why should these people have to work along side gays?
…or along side an adulterer… or a Wiccan… or a whatever.

I’m lead to believe the whole notion of boot camp is to throw you together with a bunch of other people, your individuality is pretty much stripped away, and you are trained to be a soldier. But we don’t live is a Star Wars movie where every imperial storm trooper is a clone.   There are bound to be people in a squad who’ve got weird traits. 
My advice is “Get over it”. 
If it ain’t directly affecting you then why is it a problem for you?

BIGOTRY and LEARNED PREJUDICE
I suppose one can argue that prejudice against gays is a part of our society and the military is not a social experiment. Better to keep gays out of the military than to deal with the problem. I call this the nuclear option: i.e., kick all gays out of the military and the problem is avoided.

Basically, that’s the current stance and, in my opinion, it’s stupid. It’s the same arguments that lead to a racially segregated military. 

Prejudice is stupid. Again, the problem lies within the hetero-soldier. The military has dealt with this sort of thing in the past (racial desegregation); they can deal with it again.

• Simply let gays serve and move up through the ranks. Train soldiers to overcome their prejudices… the military are all about training, right?
• Limit squads to only 1 gay soldier. That way there won’t be any worries about intra-squad hanky-panky.
• Limit gays to non-combat jobs so squads don’t have to be worried about distractions in the foxhole. That’s what’s done with women in the military and that’s a WHOLE lot bigger problem than gays.

This sounds like a top-down problem so it’ll be important for generals and such to get some freaking sensitivity training! Or just get the f*ck out of the way. It’s my understanding that loads of qualified people hit a rank ceiling and leave. I say clear out the high-ranking dross and bring in some new prejudice-free officers. 

Stop pandering to stupid prejudices and focus on getting top-notch soldiers into our military.

Why do lots of people hate gays?

I wonder if other people have this problem.  Take this simple quiz and let me know.

Interpretation
You may have a Projection Issue if your answers are
    1) No  2) Yes  3) No  4) Male
or
    1) No  2) No  3) Yes  4) Female

Obama is the Anti-Christ

This was the subject of a short discussion at a recent holiday dinner.  My hosts/friends are fundementalist Christians and they were seriously discussing this possibility with another couple.

My occasional listens to conservative Talk Radio inform me that speculation is rampant about Obama being "La Nino" and I find at all quite funny ('cause I ain't Christian).  Afterall, wasn't Prince Charles of England supposed to be the anti-Christ?

 

Isn't the anti-Christ suppose to come to power after the Rapture?  So...

1) If Obama is the anti-Christ then the Rapture will arrive in our lifetime.  Christian can raise their voices in joyous praise that Obama is the anti-Christ.  "Wow!  I actually going to experience the Rapture first hand!"

2) During Obama's terrible reign, all good Christians will have already have been taken into Heaven.  They'll be sitting on their cozy little clouds eating Heavenly bonbons whilst the rest of us non-believers scream "Holy Sh#t!".

I suppose my Christian friends might be upset that I'll be left behind and condemned to wander Limbo for eternity.  Yeah, that would probably suck.  Perhaps I'll be able to wander with my fellow Limbocians like Gandi or Albert Einstein or King Tut.  I bet Ogg has some great Wooly Mammoth stories.

The other weekend I encountered a legless grackle.

She was sitting on the sidewalk outside a restaurant.  "She looks quite comfortable and happy", I thought walking up to her.  She glanced it me, took flight and settled back down a few yards away.  That's when I noticed her smooth under-belly.

It was a bit of a shock to notice she was legless.  We stared at each other.  Me, trying hard not to project myself into an imaginary world where I was a legless person.  She, gauging whether I might drop some tasty morsel.  After a few moments,  I wished her well and went on my way.

I'll just say that "Fearing God" is so old-school (old Testiment).

subtitle - "Conservative Talk Radio is stupid"

Over the past couple of weeks, my Public Radio station has been running its Fall pledge drive.  That means every 20 minutes or so the regular National Public Radio programs are interrupted by the local announcers asking for money.  Yes, I pledge.

It's an extremely annoying time.  Whenever the local people would came on, I'd switch over to our local Conservative Talk Radio station (we used to have the Liberal Talk Radio station but it left our area).

Mind you, I'm a liberal person but try to listen to the Conservative Talk Radio and get a flavor of what their hosts are interested in.  And sometimes to just get a laugh at their expense.

But during the past couple of weeks, I'd switch over the Conservative Talk Radio and hear a constant (really constant) stream of negative stuff about Barack Obama.  You'd think Obama were the anti-Christ!  Literally, there were people calling to say he was the anti-Christ!

One talk show host was replaying Obama's speachs and then mocking him.  But I would listen to Obama's words and "Hmm, what's so unreasonable about what Obama's saying?"

Basically, the Conservative Talk Radio chatter was plain stupid.  Eventually, I was turning back to the Public Radio station preferring to tolerate the pledge drive until the NPR articles came back on.

What am I saying?

1) National Public Radio has really wonderful programs.
2) Conservative Talk Radio is stupid, cynical, and hateful whining.

The Setup
On Tuesday, Sept 9th, Obama was at a townhall-like meeting in  rural Lebanon, Va. and said (with a straight face)

Let's just list this for a second. John McCain says he's about change, too. Except -- and so I guess his whole angle is, "Watch out, George Bush, except for economic policy, health-care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics. We're really gonna shake things up in Washington." That's not change. That's just calling some -- the same thing, something different.

But you know, you can -- you know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig.

 

But now...
1) The media is focused back on Obama.
2) The McCain campaign looks foolish for taking Obama's remark out of context and giving it a super-stupid interpretation.  (If you don't believe me, just reread the transcript.)

I think Obama's "lipstick" remark was very carefully planned and executed.  He put it out there... a juicy piece of bait and the McCain campaign snapped it up.

Brilliant, Senator Obama.  Just Brilliant!