Mary (the wife) has started a blog. Initially intended just for her reading group, like all good blogs it has now expanded to include anything she feels like writing about. She writes real good for a science teacher, I told her maybe even better than that guy Stephen J. Gould, or Stephen Hawking, or even Stephen Darwin or Stephen Einstein.
I'm now a follower and you could be, too, by pasting this address into your browser since I never have figured out why I can't post hot links anymore:
http://kf-biblioblog.blogspot.com/
Friday, June 18, 2010
Week one progress report
This is great: The Panamanian Drill Sergeant brooks no complaining: if you miss a day, you miss a week’s worth of material and your grade drops by one. One student asked if he could leave an hour early one day a week because of his job, and she said no. Just “no.” I used to get requests like this all the time, and I also said no, but I’d add a long explanation about how important class time is, and if I make an exception for one student. . . . I once had a young woman ask if she could finish the class two weeks early because she was joining the Marines and going to Officer Candidate School, which started before our class was over, and her recruiter told her if she didn’t make this OCS class, she might not have a shot at another one. I told her she should get a new recruiter.
And but anyway,
Class is four hours a day with a five-minute break at the hour: she doesn’t hesitate to switch to English occasionally to explain something (which was just not done when I took French at UCSC exactly one hundred years ago), but otherwise class is almost completely in Spanish. I can understand her quite well, though if I hear her talking in the hall to another Spanish teacher, I can’t understand a word they say.
I’m at just about the perfect level to start this course. It’s a challenge, but it’s the workload and not yet the material that is close to overwhelming. After class I spend three or four hours on campus using my laptop to access the Website which has all of our film and audio materials (my WIFI connection at the trailer park is slower than a constipated turd), then back to the trailer to study from the book and do other written homework. I go to bed feeling like I need at least one more hour of study to be ready for the next day, but I long ago made the vow that I would never miss sleep over work or a class. It’s worked for me.
The other students are all about twenty and seem to have formed circles of friends before I got there, so I’ve been a little isolated, but finally yesterday a young woman sat down and visited with me during the break. My kind of kid. She and her husband left Boise State where they were studying business and came to Ashland, known for it’s lefty orientation and whole foods ethic, to study international relations. Jobs? They’ll worry about after graduation, and I expect they’ll sooner or later find the kind of work they want to do.
The class has dropped from 25 to 15 in the first week. Now I’m home for the weekend, where I can relax a little and do some things other than study Spanish. Still, I have a lot of work to do to be a little ahead when we start week two on Monday.
You don’t finish an eight-week class like this fluent, or even generally conversational, in a foreign language, but at last I’m actually learning fast in a structured program, and if I take time to stand back and look at it, I’m really enjoying it. I have to find a way to also eat during the day, but that’s not so important yet; I’m thinking microwave burritos (“Little burros”; who knew? ).
And but anyway,
Class is four hours a day with a five-minute break at the hour: she doesn’t hesitate to switch to English occasionally to explain something (which was just not done when I took French at UCSC exactly one hundred years ago), but otherwise class is almost completely in Spanish. I can understand her quite well, though if I hear her talking in the hall to another Spanish teacher, I can’t understand a word they say.
I’m at just about the perfect level to start this course. It’s a challenge, but it’s the workload and not yet the material that is close to overwhelming. After class I spend three or four hours on campus using my laptop to access the Website which has all of our film and audio materials (my WIFI connection at the trailer park is slower than a constipated turd), then back to the trailer to study from the book and do other written homework. I go to bed feeling like I need at least one more hour of study to be ready for the next day, but I long ago made the vow that I would never miss sleep over work or a class. It’s worked for me.
The other students are all about twenty and seem to have formed circles of friends before I got there, so I’ve been a little isolated, but finally yesterday a young woman sat down and visited with me during the break. My kind of kid. She and her husband left Boise State where they were studying business and came to Ashland, known for it’s lefty orientation and whole foods ethic, to study international relations. Jobs? They’ll worry about after graduation, and I expect they’ll sooner or later find the kind of work they want to do.
The class has dropped from 25 to 15 in the first week. Now I’m home for the weekend, where I can relax a little and do some things other than study Spanish. Still, I have a lot of work to do to be a little ahead when we start week two on Monday.
You don’t finish an eight-week class like this fluent, or even generally conversational, in a foreign language, but at last I’m actually learning fast in a structured program, and if I take time to stand back and look at it, I’m really enjoying it. I have to find a way to also eat during the day, but that’s not so important yet; I’m thinking microwave burritos (“Little burros”; who knew? ).
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
What is the meaning of this?
I've always got a kick out of the question, "What is the meaning of this?" because it's like the worst essay question you ever saw on a test. Or your boss walks into your cubicle with a memo you just wrote and demands, "What is the meaning of this?" and you can only look baffled for a minute and then say, "What, so now I'm a philosopher?"
But it seems an appropriate title to the following excerpt from a wire service story
on the Web today:
MONROE, Ohio (AP) — Hundreds of sightseers drawn to the remains of a six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ that was struck by lightning and erupted into flames stopped Tuesday to snap pictures or gaze at the ruined structure.
The "King of Kings" statue, one of southwest Ohio's most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.
The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m. Monday, Monroe police dispatchers said.
The sculpture, about 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained Tuesday.
But it seems an appropriate title to the following excerpt from a wire service story
on the Web today:
MONROE, Ohio (AP) — Hundreds of sightseers drawn to the remains of a six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ that was struck by lightning and erupted into flames stopped Tuesday to snap pictures or gaze at the ruined structure.
The "King of Kings" statue, one of southwest Ohio's most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.
The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m. Monday, Monroe police dispatchers said.
The sculpture, about 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained Tuesday.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Primero dia
Off to a great start. My instructor is named Lady Vanderlip, which led me to expect some kind of Dutch Noblewoman, but in fact she’s from Panama and speaks Spanish like a native.
Class was just as I’d hoped. Most students are at or a little above my level. We had lots of practice in Spanish, often working with a partner. Tonight I have homework that would usually be due over the first week. Sacre Bleu!
Fortunately, I got the book and other materials last summer and am a few chapters ahead, so I think I’ll survive the first couple of weeks. After that, well, it’s all just from grins, right?
Unlike at OIT, all the students are twenty-somethings, which made me feel a little self-conscious for about two minutes until we got to work. The good news is no one pointed and laughed. The bad news is the little bastards have working memories I can only vaguely remember having.
Steel traps vs. the rusty bucket. Pero, recuerde la tortuga and el conejo ( but remember the tortoise and the hare).
Hasta la pistola.
Class was just as I’d hoped. Most students are at or a little above my level. We had lots of practice in Spanish, often working with a partner. Tonight I have homework that would usually be due over the first week. Sacre Bleu!
Fortunately, I got the book and other materials last summer and am a few chapters ahead, so I think I’ll survive the first couple of weeks. After that, well, it’s all just from grins, right?
Unlike at OIT, all the students are twenty-somethings, which made me feel a little self-conscious for about two minutes until we got to work. The good news is no one pointed and laughed. The bad news is the little bastards have working memories I can only vaguely remember having.
Steel traps vs. the rusty bucket. Pero, recuerde la tortuga and el conejo ( but remember the tortoise and the hare).
Hasta la pistola.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Joe Hablo
“No estoy seguro si es posible aprender una lengua nueva a mi edad.”
Or,
“I’m not sure if it’s possible to learn a new language at my age.” Probably with a few errors illustrating my point. (Just edited to correct a few errors even I could see.)
This comment was part of a short speech of introduction I made the last time I was in a Spanish class, about two years ago. The class was one in the first-year sequence offered at Oregon Tech, my former employer. Since all of the students except me were majoring in either engineering or one of the health professions, everyone was there only to satisfy a requirement. There wasn’t a lot of involvement or preparation by anyone else, and the overall quality of the class was poor at best. It ended up being a class in which we spoke about Spanish in English, kind of a Spanish Appreciation course.
Since then, I’ve studied on my own and managed to make some progress, though you can only go so far without instruction and opportunities to speak and practice. Not very far at all, really.
Today, I’m moving our trailer over to a little RV park outside of Ashland, home of Southern Oregon University, a liberal arts and teaching college with a Spanish department that has a good reputation. Monday, I’ll be starting an intensive Spanish summer program, all of year two in eight weeks. I’m a bit nervous that either the course will be way over my head and go much too fast, or that it will be badly taught with yet more unmotivated students and will prove of little value. My hope, of course, is that the reality will be somewhere in the middle and I’ll be able to make more progress in the next eight weeks than I’ve made in the last two years. We’ll see.
It’s hard to say exactly how my interest in this all started. At first, living in a bilingual and bicultural community, I thought it would be the least I could do to learn a few phrases, be able to say “excuse me” when I reach past someone in the supermarket, or “what a cute baby you have.” (A dangerous comment in Spanish since “mono” can mean both cute and monkey. “What a baby monkey you have!”)
Beyond my vague initial interest, I began to feel more and more that as an Anglo-American, I’m missing out on something important if I don’t at least speak some of the language I hear all the time around me. I reflected on the often-heard comment, “If you’re going to live in this country, you should learn English.” The corollary being that if you’re going to live in any bilingual community, you should speak some of both languages.
But I continued studying not because of some sense of a social imperative but because I became once again fascinated by the structure and astounding complexity of language, a complexity mastered with no study or effort by any average three- or four-year-old. Maybe in another year or two, I'll be able to have a meaningful conversation with a Mexican four-year-old.
And it gives a retired person who doesn’t play golf and stopped drinking four years ago something to do. Otherwise, I risk taking up shuffleboard.
This is all so exciting. I’ll be living in our trailer four days a week, studying as close to full time as I can, riding my motorcycle to school, and coming home on weekends. A perfect way to spend the summer.
Or maybe not. What if I can’t find my room? What if they all make fun of me? What if I can’t find the bathroom and wet my pants?
What, (my greatest fear), if the class is a dud and we spend four hours a day speaking English about Spanish?
I’ll post the occasional update here on my blog.
Or,
“I’m not sure if it’s possible to learn a new language at my age.” Probably with a few errors illustrating my point. (Just edited to correct a few errors even I could see.)
This comment was part of a short speech of introduction I made the last time I was in a Spanish class, about two years ago. The class was one in the first-year sequence offered at Oregon Tech, my former employer. Since all of the students except me were majoring in either engineering or one of the health professions, everyone was there only to satisfy a requirement. There wasn’t a lot of involvement or preparation by anyone else, and the overall quality of the class was poor at best. It ended up being a class in which we spoke about Spanish in English, kind of a Spanish Appreciation course.
Since then, I’ve studied on my own and managed to make some progress, though you can only go so far without instruction and opportunities to speak and practice. Not very far at all, really.
Today, I’m moving our trailer over to a little RV park outside of Ashland, home of Southern Oregon University, a liberal arts and teaching college with a Spanish department that has a good reputation. Monday, I’ll be starting an intensive Spanish summer program, all of year two in eight weeks. I’m a bit nervous that either the course will be way over my head and go much too fast, or that it will be badly taught with yet more unmotivated students and will prove of little value. My hope, of course, is that the reality will be somewhere in the middle and I’ll be able to make more progress in the next eight weeks than I’ve made in the last two years. We’ll see.
It’s hard to say exactly how my interest in this all started. At first, living in a bilingual and bicultural community, I thought it would be the least I could do to learn a few phrases, be able to say “excuse me” when I reach past someone in the supermarket, or “what a cute baby you have.” (A dangerous comment in Spanish since “mono” can mean both cute and monkey. “What a baby monkey you have!”)
Beyond my vague initial interest, I began to feel more and more that as an Anglo-American, I’m missing out on something important if I don’t at least speak some of the language I hear all the time around me. I reflected on the often-heard comment, “If you’re going to live in this country, you should learn English.” The corollary being that if you’re going to live in any bilingual community, you should speak some of both languages.
But I continued studying not because of some sense of a social imperative but because I became once again fascinated by the structure and astounding complexity of language, a complexity mastered with no study or effort by any average three- or four-year-old. Maybe in another year or two, I'll be able to have a meaningful conversation with a Mexican four-year-old.
And it gives a retired person who doesn’t play golf and stopped drinking four years ago something to do. Otherwise, I risk taking up shuffleboard.
This is all so exciting. I’ll be living in our trailer four days a week, studying as close to full time as I can, riding my motorcycle to school, and coming home on weekends. A perfect way to spend the summer.
Or maybe not. What if I can’t find my room? What if they all make fun of me? What if I can’t find the bathroom and wet my pants?
What, (my greatest fear), if the class is a dud and we spend four hours a day speaking English about Spanish?
I’ll post the occasional update here on my blog.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Mea gulfa, mea gulpa, mea culpa
It’s taken Sarah Palin fifty days to figure out a way to blame me for the Gulf Oil Spill: we environmentalists did it. Because we blocked development of safer sources of domestic oil, such as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and from oil rigs closer to shore and in shallower water, we forced the oil companies into the more risky task of deep water drilling farther offshore. It was an accident waiting to happen.
What a bunch of mooseshit.
Let’s be clear about one thing: The Deepwater Horizon exploded, killing eleven men and unleashing the greatest environmental disaster in American history, for one reason and one reason only: BP malfeasance. Dozens of current and former BP employees have testified that BP cut corners, rushed deadlines and ignored warnings in their zeal to bring the well into production on schedule, which is to say as fast as possible. BP proceeded with insufficient data about safety issues and solid evidence that failsafe systems had failed tests. Workers on the rig have testified that they saw the accident coming and feared for their lives. As the evidence mounts, independent engineers, including distinguished faculty from the best engineering programs in the country, shake their heads in wonder.
One of the few pieces of good news that has been missed by the media is the slow rate at which the massive body of oil has approached the Gulf coast. Despite the horrific images—fouled beaches; dead and dying birds, fish, and endangered turtles; thick oil and tar invading fragile marshlands—the diagrams of the growing leak have demonstrated an amazing concentration offshore that has yet to make anywhere near its full impact on coastal communities. This is meager comfort given the disaster at hand, but it has at least given authorities and BP itself time to respond as best they could to contain and minimize impacts.
If even a smaller leak had occurred in one of the shallow-water operations close to shore, it’s easy to imagine that the result would have been far worse far sooner.
Blame the environmentalists and blame Obama; the loonies try every tactic to shift blame to their targets of opportunity, however specious their arguments.
I expect no less of Sarah. I’m just surprised it took her so long.
Drill baby.
What a bunch of mooseshit.
Let’s be clear about one thing: The Deepwater Horizon exploded, killing eleven men and unleashing the greatest environmental disaster in American history, for one reason and one reason only: BP malfeasance. Dozens of current and former BP employees have testified that BP cut corners, rushed deadlines and ignored warnings in their zeal to bring the well into production on schedule, which is to say as fast as possible. BP proceeded with insufficient data about safety issues and solid evidence that failsafe systems had failed tests. Workers on the rig have testified that they saw the accident coming and feared for their lives. As the evidence mounts, independent engineers, including distinguished faculty from the best engineering programs in the country, shake their heads in wonder.
One of the few pieces of good news that has been missed by the media is the slow rate at which the massive body of oil has approached the Gulf coast. Despite the horrific images—fouled beaches; dead and dying birds, fish, and endangered turtles; thick oil and tar invading fragile marshlands—the diagrams of the growing leak have demonstrated an amazing concentration offshore that has yet to make anywhere near its full impact on coastal communities. This is meager comfort given the disaster at hand, but it has at least given authorities and BP itself time to respond as best they could to contain and minimize impacts.
If even a smaller leak had occurred in one of the shallow-water operations close to shore, it’s easy to imagine that the result would have been far worse far sooner.
Blame the environmentalists and blame Obama; the loonies try every tactic to shift blame to their targets of opportunity, however specious their arguments.
I expect no less of Sarah. I’m just surprised it took her so long.
Drill baby.
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Friday, June 04, 2010
Little enough
I've just made a donation to the National Wildlife Federation towards their ongoing efforts to save and protect wildlife affected by the gulf oil spill. The people of Louisiana need our help, too. I hope you will join me by contributing in whatever way you can.
Thanks,
ross
Thanks,
ross
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Good news at last!
This just in from the Washington Post:
"A cap is in place over the Gulf of Mexico gusher, live video footage provided by the company showed Thursday night, but the spewing oil made it very difficult to tell if the cap was fitting well."
BP also stated "Spewing oil is pretty much the only reason we're not sure if we've
stopped the spewing oil."
As soon as the oil stops spewing so much, BP promises to issue an optomistic press release and BP President Tony Hayward can take a well-deserved week off.
"A cap is in place over the Gulf of Mexico gusher, live video footage provided by the company showed Thursday night, but the spewing oil made it very difficult to tell if the cap was fitting well."
BP also stated "Spewing oil is pretty much the only reason we're not sure if we've
stopped the spewing oil."
As soon as the oil stops spewing so much, BP promises to issue an optomistic press release and BP President Tony Hayward can take a well-deserved week off.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Fingers crossed
Lest I be thought alarmist, (me?), NBC Nightly News last night cited two experts, geophysicists or some such, who said that if BP can’t successfully cap its leak, oil will flow unimpeded into the Gulf of Mexico for our lifetimes and longer. BP’s top kill effort, today maybe, is given a sixty to seventy percent chance of success by its own engineers, and you have to worry that they’re putting a good face on it.
I’m not given to prayer unless there’s a direct and immediate benefit to me, but I’ll say a little prayer on this one. What’s to lose? I’ll also cross my fingers.
NBC also had a guest, the former president of Shell Oil, who said leaks like this are actually rather common. This one gets press because it’s here and already destroying vast wetlands and a fishing and tourism industry. The Shell guy said a comparable leak in the Gulf of Arabia a couple of years ago was treated by a fleet of supertankers which siphoned the leaking oil from the surface, separated it from the sea water, and headed for port and the refineries. He thinks we should be lining up tankers now.
I take it the Arabian leak was finally plugged, though it’s also the depth and cold that make our blowout particularly hard to stop.
Side bar: In his press conferences on this and other subjects, I notice that Obama’s hair is already turning gray, and not just a little. His has to be the toughest job in the world. Sadly, too many Americans expect him to fix every national problem in a matter of weeks, including a massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
He's missing a photo-op: he should be standing on a shrimp boat wearing a mask and snorkle with a Mission Accomplished sign in the background.
I’m not given to prayer unless there’s a direct and immediate benefit to me, but I’ll say a little prayer on this one. What’s to lose? I’ll also cross my fingers.
NBC also had a guest, the former president of Shell Oil, who said leaks like this are actually rather common. This one gets press because it’s here and already destroying vast wetlands and a fishing and tourism industry. The Shell guy said a comparable leak in the Gulf of Arabia a couple of years ago was treated by a fleet of supertankers which siphoned the leaking oil from the surface, separated it from the sea water, and headed for port and the refineries. He thinks we should be lining up tankers now.
I take it the Arabian leak was finally plugged, though it’s also the depth and cold that make our blowout particularly hard to stop.
Side bar: In his press conferences on this and other subjects, I notice that Obama’s hair is already turning gray, and not just a little. His has to be the toughest job in the world. Sadly, too many Americans expect him to fix every national problem in a matter of weeks, including a massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
He's missing a photo-op: he should be standing on a shrimp boat wearing a mask and snorkle with a Mission Accomplished sign in the background.
Monday, May 24, 2010
In the light of day
I forgot last night—it was late—that BP is also drilling a new well that it hopes will relieve pressure from the leak and perhaps slow or eliminate the flow. Maybe that will work.
It’s hard, though, to take seriously anything BP says, since it’s consistently understated the size of the leak and withheld information from Congress and the public, including video that showed multiple leaks gushing oil and gas at rates impossible to measure. Now, according to BP President Tony Hayward, “Everything we can see suggests that the overall environmental impacts of this will be very, very modest.”
This is more than spin control. It’s lying.
Tony—and let’s add Rush Limbaugh, who bloviated that environmentalists are overreacting and the ocean is self-cleaning—needs to get some detergent and rags and start cleaning pelicans, or paddle up into a saltwater marsh and tell us how he’s going to clean oil out of reed beds.
One thing we do know: when it’s over, if it’s ever over, we’ll have lots of tar and feathers.
It’s hard, though, to take seriously anything BP says, since it’s consistently understated the size of the leak and withheld information from Congress and the public, including video that showed multiple leaks gushing oil and gas at rates impossible to measure. Now, according to BP President Tony Hayward, “Everything we can see suggests that the overall environmental impacts of this will be very, very modest.”
This is more than spin control. It’s lying.
Tony—and let’s add Rush Limbaugh, who bloviated that environmentalists are overreacting and the ocean is self-cleaning—needs to get some detergent and rags and start cleaning pelicans, or paddle up into a saltwater marsh and tell us how he’s going to clean oil out of reed beds.
One thing we do know: when it’s over, if it’s ever over, we’ll have lots of tar and feathers.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
What then?
The news of the massive oil leak in the Gulf just keeps getting worse. A month ago, it was 2,000 barrels a day, and BP was going to put a dome over it. At the time, news stories focused on how much worse the Exxon Valdez spill had been.
I don’t even know what the current estimates of barrels per day are, but I’m beginning to believe we’re looking at the largest environmental disaster in American history. It breaks my heart.
Now, as BP prepares to pump tons of mud, cement, and golf balls into the breach in hopes of clogging the flow, I’ve yet to hear anyone speculate that perhaps this leak simply can’t be stopped. But note that certainly BP hasn’t expressed any confidence, and I've heard not a word about yet another plan if this one, too, shall fail.
Suppose, like the volcano in Iceland, this is now a force of nature beyond the control of man.
What then?
I don’t even know what the current estimates of barrels per day are, but I’m beginning to believe we’re looking at the largest environmental disaster in American history. It breaks my heart.
Now, as BP prepares to pump tons of mud, cement, and golf balls into the breach in hopes of clogging the flow, I’ve yet to hear anyone speculate that perhaps this leak simply can’t be stopped. But note that certainly BP hasn’t expressed any confidence, and I've heard not a word about yet another plan if this one, too, shall fail.
Suppose, like the volcano in Iceland, this is now a force of nature beyond the control of man.
What then?
Another year of bliss
Once again I'm proud to announce that Mary and I are enjoying our wedding anniversary today, our 35th, which I'm sure everyone knows is the Treasury Bills Anniversary. T-Bills make the perfect anniversary gift and come in a wide variety of denominations, one to fit every budget. You can have them gift wrapped and enclose a nice card.
It's not too late even if they don't arrive for a few days because I forgot, too, and Mary had to remind me. Now I have our anniversay and Mary's birthday on my Google calendar, which will send me reminders a few days in advance forever.
Thank you all in advance for the lovely T-Bills!
It's not too late even if they don't arrive for a few days because I forgot, too, and Mary had to remind me. Now I have our anniversay and Mary's birthday on my Google calendar, which will send me reminders a few days in advance forever.
Thank you all in advance for the lovely T-Bills!
Friday, May 21, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
A modest proposal
Here’s a simple suggestion to help Arizona remedy problems with its new law 1070: require everybody to carry and show proof of citizenship upon demand. Police would be required to check everyone’s citizenship papers during arrests or minor traffic stops, or when someone stops to ask them directions. Everyone who can’t produce proper papers is treated the same, probably held in detention until someone can come up with the proper documentation or deportated if they can’t.
This is the only fair way to ensure equal protection under the law, and it would also keep out unwelcome Norwegians and other Northern Europeans who take advantage of their fair complexions.
It would be interesting to see how long the law would stay on the books if white people faced the same scrutiny as brown people.
This is the only fair way to ensure equal protection under the law, and it would also keep out unwelcome Norwegians and other Northern Europeans who take advantage of their fair complexions.
It would be interesting to see how long the law would stay on the books if white people faced the same scrutiny as brown people.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Gary Johnson for President
Colbert was particularly funny in his show this Monday, May 10. You can watch the full episode here:
http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/mon-may-10-2010-gary-johnson.
Particularly interesting, though, was his interview with former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, a two-term Republican who says he’s not running for president in 2012, a clear indication he’s running for president in 2012. Here’s what his Website says about Johnson’s stand on drugs:
“More Effective Drug Policy
Gary has been a leader of the movement toward a new, more effective drug policy that is more in line with conservative principles of fiscal discipline, limited government, and personal responsibility. Gary advocates an end to the failed prohibition of the past seventy years, and an honest discussion about the drug issue with America's youth. Specifically, he advocates the legalization of marijuana and the decriminalization of other drugs. While Gary himself abstains from all drugs, including nicotine and alcohol, he recognizes that the billions of dollars wasted on a big-government anti-drug policy have not been responsibly invested.”
Is there hope that we might be moving toward a realistic discussion of the failed prohibition policy known as The War on Drugs, first named by Richard Nixon and so far delivering only what I call “The Three Cs” : Corruption, Cartels, and Chaos on the Border? (Help me out here: I’m looking for a better third C. P is also an open letter, but I’d have to start over.)
Is it possible I could one day vote for a Republican for president?
In fact, Johnson is a GOP libertarian from the Ron Paul school of Ayn Rand, but if I had to be a conservative, I’d definitely want to take it to the extreme like they do. Ending drug prohibition, though, isn’t an extreme position at all (insert all the relevant arguments here), and I would be thrilled to see at least a few mainstream politicians begin to consider it under the rubric of reforming America’s drug laws.
Maybe this guy Johnson can help jump start the conversation. He’s one of the few guests who can keep up with Colbert’s machine gun interviewing style, so he should be able to hold his own on a stage with a few merely mortal candidates for President.
http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/mon-may-10-2010-gary-johnson.
Particularly interesting, though, was his interview with former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, a two-term Republican who says he’s not running for president in 2012, a clear indication he’s running for president in 2012. Here’s what his Website says about Johnson’s stand on drugs:
“More Effective Drug Policy
Gary has been a leader of the movement toward a new, more effective drug policy that is more in line with conservative principles of fiscal discipline, limited government, and personal responsibility. Gary advocates an end to the failed prohibition of the past seventy years, and an honest discussion about the drug issue with America's youth. Specifically, he advocates the legalization of marijuana and the decriminalization of other drugs. While Gary himself abstains from all drugs, including nicotine and alcohol, he recognizes that the billions of dollars wasted on a big-government anti-drug policy have not been responsibly invested.”
Is there hope that we might be moving toward a realistic discussion of the failed prohibition policy known as The War on Drugs, first named by Richard Nixon and so far delivering only what I call “The Three Cs” : Corruption, Cartels, and Chaos on the Border? (Help me out here: I’m looking for a better third C. P is also an open letter, but I’d have to start over.)
Is it possible I could one day vote for a Republican for president?
In fact, Johnson is a GOP libertarian from the Ron Paul school of Ayn Rand, but if I had to be a conservative, I’d definitely want to take it to the extreme like they do. Ending drug prohibition, though, isn’t an extreme position at all (insert all the relevant arguments here), and I would be thrilled to see at least a few mainstream politicians begin to consider it under the rubric of reforming America’s drug laws.
Maybe this guy Johnson can help jump start the conversation. He’s one of the few guests who can keep up with Colbert’s machine gun interviewing style, so he should be able to hold his own on a stage with a few merely mortal candidates for President.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
A post in search of a title. . . .
Here are a few loosely connected items floating around my cerebrum this morning: In the Washington Post, Philip Caputo reviews Sebastian Junger’s new book War, based on Junger’s extended experience embedded with an Airborn platoon in Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008. Caputo gives War an excellent review, particularly for its insights into the psychology of men in combat.
I’ll probably pass. I don’t read a lot of war journalism or novels or see a lot of war movies because, What’s new to say about that? The last war novel I read was James Jones’ The Thin Red Line, recommended by Broschat as (I quote from memory), “far and away the best war novel I’ve ever read.” I heartily agree. Jones writes about the army’s bloody capture of Guadalcanal, and though it’s a novel, Jones was there himself as a combat soldier. What distinguishes The Thin Red Line is its riveting psychological portrayal of very different men in combat. There’s heroism in Jones’ novel, but mostly there’s fear, brutality, and pure dumb luck, good or bad.
I watched the film version of the book just a few days ago and found it to be sadly lacking, sadly. I doubt any film could capture the omniscient narrator’s insights into the minds of soldiers in combat, but this film seems to fall particularly short because it takes its name from such a powerful novel. It could have changed the title and few would have noticed any cinemagraphic plagiarism.
Loosely connected item number one: Junger also wrote The Perfect Storm, which I happened to be reading shortly after its release while teaching summer school for two months aboard the California Maritime Academy’s training ship The Golden Bear as we cruised the South Pacific and visited mostly undiscovered or uninhabited islands.
And yes, I got paid for it. Hate me if you must.
The Perfect Storm, published in 1997, is also a creative nonfiction book based on a massive storm that battered New England and cost lives on ships at sea. Chances are good you’ve seen the movie if you didn’t read the book.
Interestingly, the ship’s officers on the Golden Bear were unanimously scornful of The Perfect Storm. In their view, Junger didn’t know squat about ships or storms, and mess hall conversation in no small part consisted of ridiculing particular points of the book.
I wasn’t qualified to say, of course. My only ongoing criticism is that the phrase “the perfect storm” should have been retired from the language no later than about Y2K, as it is now used to describe everything from an oil rig explosion and massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the release of the iPad to a city council meeting gone bad.
As a career writing teacher and sometime writer myself, I admonished students to avoid clichés like the plague. Enough with the perfect storm.
So I have my doubts about Junger’s verisimilitude, or “truthiness,” as Colbert would call it, in his new book. Not to say it might not be a book worth reading. Maybe it is.
Better, I’ll bet, is Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory, the story of NFL star player Pat Tilman, who gave up his successful football career to join the army and become a Ranger after 9/11, only to be killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. (This is loosely connected item number two, as I recently finished the book.)
The military and the Bush administration not only did their best to cover up how he died, they tried with initial success to use his story to promote public opinion in support of the war, as things by now were going very badly in Iraq. Krakauer’s book brings back all the powerful emotions of disgust I had for the Bush administration and its most vocal spokespersons, (Henny Penny Rumsfeld engenders particular disdain once again.) And while I initially saw Tilman as just another jock-bully-blindly patriotic-and-overpaid-sports popstar, I quickly began to develop the highest regard for him. It's a book well worth reading.
Loosely connected item the third is that reviewer Philip Caputo (back to Junger here) has just published a well-reviewed novel about life on the border entitled Crossers. My brief time this winter along the California and Arizona borders with Mexico, combined with my continuing efforts to learn a bit of Spanish, have left me thinking a lot about border and immigration issues lately. With a nod to the Arizona legislature and governor for keeping the kettle boiling, time will tell whether the current situation in Arizona will ultimately help move the cause of immigration reform forward or whether it will only serve to make real reforms politically more difficult.
I vote the latter and doubt, for that matter, that we’ll see much in the way of reform in coming years. I believe even more strongly lately that legalizing marijuana is the only effective way to dramatically reduce drug smuggling and deal a serious blow to the cartels, but don’t hold your breath. Don’t even inhale.
I’ve ordered Crossers onto my Kindle.
And since I’m coupling loosely this morning, I watched the film Frida last night. It could have been better, but I thought it was quite good overall, if a little lacking in gritty, and I learned a lot about Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Who knew that they hosted Trotsky in Mexico, where he was murdered by Stalin’s hit men? A quick Web seach this morning tells me not to make too much of this as history, but still. . . .
Also, Selma Hayek naked. Both she and Alfred Molina as Rivera turn in fine performances.
The fight against terrorism, the border with Mexico, The Taliban, and the drug cartels: not so loosely coupled, maybe.
The movie I just happened to watch last night. Mexico is such a beautiful country and so rich in cultural history. It's sad to see it fall into such turmoil, and not just along the border. I'd love to visit to continue my language study, but there are few areas left that aren't on the State Department's caution list. Better, maybe, to go someplace safe, like Cuba, for example.
I’ll probably pass. I don’t read a lot of war journalism or novels or see a lot of war movies because, What’s new to say about that? The last war novel I read was James Jones’ The Thin Red Line, recommended by Broschat as (I quote from memory), “far and away the best war novel I’ve ever read.” I heartily agree. Jones writes about the army’s bloody capture of Guadalcanal, and though it’s a novel, Jones was there himself as a combat soldier. What distinguishes The Thin Red Line is its riveting psychological portrayal of very different men in combat. There’s heroism in Jones’ novel, but mostly there’s fear, brutality, and pure dumb luck, good or bad.
I watched the film version of the book just a few days ago and found it to be sadly lacking, sadly. I doubt any film could capture the omniscient narrator’s insights into the minds of soldiers in combat, but this film seems to fall particularly short because it takes its name from such a powerful novel. It could have changed the title and few would have noticed any cinemagraphic plagiarism.
Loosely connected item number one: Junger also wrote The Perfect Storm, which I happened to be reading shortly after its release while teaching summer school for two months aboard the California Maritime Academy’s training ship The Golden Bear as we cruised the South Pacific and visited mostly undiscovered or uninhabited islands.
And yes, I got paid for it. Hate me if you must.
The Perfect Storm, published in 1997, is also a creative nonfiction book based on a massive storm that battered New England and cost lives on ships at sea. Chances are good you’ve seen the movie if you didn’t read the book.
Interestingly, the ship’s officers on the Golden Bear were unanimously scornful of The Perfect Storm. In their view, Junger didn’t know squat about ships or storms, and mess hall conversation in no small part consisted of ridiculing particular points of the book.
I wasn’t qualified to say, of course. My only ongoing criticism is that the phrase “the perfect storm” should have been retired from the language no later than about Y2K, as it is now used to describe everything from an oil rig explosion and massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the release of the iPad to a city council meeting gone bad.
As a career writing teacher and sometime writer myself, I admonished students to avoid clichés like the plague. Enough with the perfect storm.
So I have my doubts about Junger’s verisimilitude, or “truthiness,” as Colbert would call it, in his new book. Not to say it might not be a book worth reading. Maybe it is.
Better, I’ll bet, is Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory, the story of NFL star player Pat Tilman, who gave up his successful football career to join the army and become a Ranger after 9/11, only to be killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. (This is loosely connected item number two, as I recently finished the book.)
The military and the Bush administration not only did their best to cover up how he died, they tried with initial success to use his story to promote public opinion in support of the war, as things by now were going very badly in Iraq. Krakauer’s book brings back all the powerful emotions of disgust I had for the Bush administration and its most vocal spokespersons, (Henny Penny Rumsfeld engenders particular disdain once again.) And while I initially saw Tilman as just another jock-bully-blindly patriotic-and-overpaid-sports popstar, I quickly began to develop the highest regard for him. It's a book well worth reading.
Loosely connected item the third is that reviewer Philip Caputo (back to Junger here) has just published a well-reviewed novel about life on the border entitled Crossers. My brief time this winter along the California and Arizona borders with Mexico, combined with my continuing efforts to learn a bit of Spanish, have left me thinking a lot about border and immigration issues lately. With a nod to the Arizona legislature and governor for keeping the kettle boiling, time will tell whether the current situation in Arizona will ultimately help move the cause of immigration reform forward or whether it will only serve to make real reforms politically more difficult.
I vote the latter and doubt, for that matter, that we’ll see much in the way of reform in coming years. I believe even more strongly lately that legalizing marijuana is the only effective way to dramatically reduce drug smuggling and deal a serious blow to the cartels, but don’t hold your breath. Don’t even inhale.
I’ve ordered Crossers onto my Kindle.
And since I’m coupling loosely this morning, I watched the film Frida last night. It could have been better, but I thought it was quite good overall, if a little lacking in gritty, and I learned a lot about Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Who knew that they hosted Trotsky in Mexico, where he was murdered by Stalin’s hit men? A quick Web seach this morning tells me not to make too much of this as history, but still. . . .
Also, Selma Hayek naked. Both she and Alfred Molina as Rivera turn in fine performances.
The fight against terrorism, the border with Mexico, The Taliban, and the drug cartels: not so loosely coupled, maybe.
The movie I just happened to watch last night. Mexico is such a beautiful country and so rich in cultural history. It's sad to see it fall into such turmoil, and not just along the border. I'd love to visit to continue my language study, but there are few areas left that aren't on the State Department's caution list. Better, maybe, to go someplace safe, like Cuba, for example.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
One voice of reason
In a column in today’s Washington Post, Norman J. Ornstein addresses some of the wildly off-the-mark nonsense being bandied about concerning President Obama’s policy initiatives. These gobsmacking commentaries come not just from the usual radio crock-jocks but from the reputed leaders of the Republican Party:
“The most extravagant rhetoric has come out of the gathering of Southern Republicans in New Orleans, led by former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who called Obama ‘the most radical president in American history’ and urged his partisan audience to stop Obama's ‘secular, socialist machine.’
At the same conference, Liz Cheney, the former vice president's daughter who is often mentioned as a possible Senate candidate from Virginia, fiercely attacked Obama's foreign policy as ‘apologize for America, abandon our allies and appease our enemies.’ And last week the ubiquitous Sarah Palin said of the arms-control treaty Obama signed with Russia, ‘No administration in America's history would, I think, ever have considered such a step,’ likening it to a kid telling others in a playground fight, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face and I'm not going to retaliate.’”
Orenstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, begs to differ:
“Looking at the range of Obama domestic and foreign policies, and his agency and diplomatic appointments, my conclusion is clear: This president is a mainstream, pragmatic moderate, operating in the center of American politics; center-left, perhaps, but not left of center. The most radical president in American history?”
He concludes with a paraphrase of a conservative Southern Senator’s question about Strom Thurmond’s defense of segregation some fifty years ago: “Does Newt Gingrich, a PhD in history, really believe that [expletive]?”
The expletive here being, let me guess, “shit.”
It’s good to hear a few conservative voices begin to call out their brethren on the ridiculous spew that passes for political discourse these days. Here’s just one more example; he quotes from “Mark Levin, who manages to make Limbaugh and Beck sound like calm voices of reason:
[Speaking of Oklahoma’s conservative Republican Senator Tom Coburn, who dared to call Nancy Pelosi “nice”] ‘We don't need you hack, detestable politicians telling us a damn thing. Most of you are a bunch of pathetic, unethical morons. And so, no, Mr. Coburn, we won't be told to sit down and be quiet. We won't be told by you to watch CNN to balance off Fox. You got that, pal? Who the hell do you think you are? You sound like a jerk, to be perfectly honest about it. You, the jerk, who backed John McCain.’”
I swear, I’ve heard kids having a supermarket tantrum scream more cogently than Newt, Rush, and Sarah. The difference is that, at the least, you would expect a harried parent to look embarrassed and take the kid out of the store.
“The most extravagant rhetoric has come out of the gathering of Southern Republicans in New Orleans, led by former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who called Obama ‘the most radical president in American history’ and urged his partisan audience to stop Obama's ‘secular, socialist machine.’
At the same conference, Liz Cheney, the former vice president's daughter who is often mentioned as a possible Senate candidate from Virginia, fiercely attacked Obama's foreign policy as ‘apologize for America, abandon our allies and appease our enemies.’ And last week the ubiquitous Sarah Palin said of the arms-control treaty Obama signed with Russia, ‘No administration in America's history would, I think, ever have considered such a step,’ likening it to a kid telling others in a playground fight, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face and I'm not going to retaliate.’”
Orenstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, begs to differ:
“Looking at the range of Obama domestic and foreign policies, and his agency and diplomatic appointments, my conclusion is clear: This president is a mainstream, pragmatic moderate, operating in the center of American politics; center-left, perhaps, but not left of center. The most radical president in American history?”
He concludes with a paraphrase of a conservative Southern Senator’s question about Strom Thurmond’s defense of segregation some fifty years ago: “Does Newt Gingrich, a PhD in history, really believe that [expletive]?”
The expletive here being, let me guess, “shit.”
It’s good to hear a few conservative voices begin to call out their brethren on the ridiculous spew that passes for political discourse these days. Here’s just one more example; he quotes from “Mark Levin, who manages to make Limbaugh and Beck sound like calm voices of reason:
[Speaking of Oklahoma’s conservative Republican Senator Tom Coburn, who dared to call Nancy Pelosi “nice”] ‘We don't need you hack, detestable politicians telling us a damn thing. Most of you are a bunch of pathetic, unethical morons. And so, no, Mr. Coburn, we won't be told to sit down and be quiet. We won't be told by you to watch CNN to balance off Fox. You got that, pal? Who the hell do you think you are? You sound like a jerk, to be perfectly honest about it. You, the jerk, who backed John McCain.’”
I swear, I’ve heard kids having a supermarket tantrum scream more cogently than Newt, Rush, and Sarah. The difference is that, at the least, you would expect a harried parent to look embarrassed and take the kid out of the store.
Friday, April 09, 2010
Home again
We’ve been back for about ten days now, and I have to say I enjoyed our three-month trip enormously. I don’t like to think of it as a vacation because for now it’s just what we do in the winter: we go south. Still, it was a vacation in many ways.
For me, I can’t recall when I felt more at ease and in the moment for an extended period of time. In the moment almost never describes me, but while on the road, I could read a book all afternoon, practice Spanish or not as my motivation determined, go for an easy walk around the campground or a more vigorous hike up into a desert wash.
With my new Kindle, I could download newspapers for less that a dollar, and since we spent most of our time in Arizona, I usually read the Arizona Republic. If we felt like it, we would go into a nearby town and find an internet café and have coffee and maybe a sandwich while we caught up on our email and paid bills online.
I never felt bored. Never anxious. Never depressed. I never felt like I should be doing something else.
Our biggest concern during the first half of the trip was money, as many national, state and local campgrounds have substantially raised their fees if they haven’t actually closed down. But during the second half of the trip, we began to find free or very low-cost campsites. Organ Pipe National Monument charges ten dollars a night, and since I’m now officially a senior (sixty-two), fees are half price. Five bucks a night to stay in our favorite park.
You can stay three weeks at Organ Pipe, then move a few miles north of the park and stay for free on BLM land for another two weeks: five weeks of camping for $105. We were paying that for three nights before we found out better.
We also scouted some of the BLM Long-Term Visitor Areas, which charge $80 per year for camping within a certain area, usually very expansive. The biggest of these is near Quartzite, Arizona where hundreds of thousands of snow birds come for the winter and spread out across the desert, either tightly packed for those who enjoy the company, or widely spaced for those who don’t. We didn’t stay in Quartzite and probably never will, but there are other areas run in the same way that are much more appealing, and we can easily see ourselves staying for a month or so in a few different locations.
We also found Wal-Mart parking lots to be commodious and convenient for overnight stays while traveling to new locations. Wal-Mart doesn't mind, and with our GPS, I’ve found you’re never more than ten miles from a Wal-Mart. I forgive Wal-Mart for killing Chinese babies for pet food. I even shopped in a few, call me what you will.
For me, this kind of life is so enjoyable and inviting I’d love to sell out up here in Klamath Falls and go full-time, which some millions of Americans do. As small as our trailer is, we were very comfortable in it for three months, and there are middle-sized trailers that come close to the feel of a small apartment. It would be a simple matter to retain a legal address in Klamath Falls through a mail-forwarding service.
I envision staying here between three to six months a year and traveling the rest of the time. I could see us doing that for another ten years or so. Although we’d take a beating if we sold the house now, I’ve been thinking a lot lately in terms of how many good years I have left, and good years have come to mean a lot more to me than money.
Especially since we have the money. It’s actually a lot cheaper to live on the road than in a house, and when the time comes, it’s easy enough to settle down again in a nice rental or old persons’ home. I’d like to find one that accepts only liberals. The Hubert Humphrey Cozy Home for Aging Leftists or some such.
Mary is less thrilled than I am with the idea, though she’s not completely opposed to it. She loved the mobile life as much as I did, but she also feels more connection to our home here than I do.
Whatever we decide, we’re both happy with the way things are for now or could be in the immediate future. The best of it is that with both of us retired, we have choices now that we never had before. We’re also cognizant of our great good fortune to have a modest but secure income in this time of such a serious and painful recession, but we more than earned what we have. I don’t spend a lot of time feeling guilty that things have gone our way in the last quarter or so of our lives. It’s not like I was a bank president or something.
The Spanish word for “retired” is “jubilado.”
So, back home to a cold and sometimes snowy spring, but it definitely is spring and I can wait it out until the weather improves. I’ve enrolled for this summer in an eight-week, intensive Spanish program at Southern Oregon University, across the mountains in Ashland. I’m both excited and intimidated by it. I’ve been studying Spanish, mostly on my own, for about three years now, and despite making progress, it can only be slow progress without good instruction and a chance to practice speaking every day.
Classes start mid-June, and I’m trying to cram on my own so I’ll be as ready to start as I can be. I’ll be staying somewhere near Ashland in the trailer four days a week, then back home on the weekends. The trailer is a good place to study since it’s about the size of a jail cell but nicer, and there aren’t any distractions built in.
Besides, I see myself spending a lot of time on campus. There’s even an Hispanic Students Union. If I study hard, maybe I can pass for a Mexican.
My only souvenir from the trip is a rattlesnake-skin belt, but that’s a story for another day. He was a big mother.
For me, I can’t recall when I felt more at ease and in the moment for an extended period of time. In the moment almost never describes me, but while on the road, I could read a book all afternoon, practice Spanish or not as my motivation determined, go for an easy walk around the campground or a more vigorous hike up into a desert wash.
With my new Kindle, I could download newspapers for less that a dollar, and since we spent most of our time in Arizona, I usually read the Arizona Republic. If we felt like it, we would go into a nearby town and find an internet café and have coffee and maybe a sandwich while we caught up on our email and paid bills online.
I never felt bored. Never anxious. Never depressed. I never felt like I should be doing something else.
Our biggest concern during the first half of the trip was money, as many national, state and local campgrounds have substantially raised their fees if they haven’t actually closed down. But during the second half of the trip, we began to find free or very low-cost campsites. Organ Pipe National Monument charges ten dollars a night, and since I’m now officially a senior (sixty-two), fees are half price. Five bucks a night to stay in our favorite park.
You can stay three weeks at Organ Pipe, then move a few miles north of the park and stay for free on BLM land for another two weeks: five weeks of camping for $105. We were paying that for three nights before we found out better.
We also scouted some of the BLM Long-Term Visitor Areas, which charge $80 per year for camping within a certain area, usually very expansive. The biggest of these is near Quartzite, Arizona where hundreds of thousands of snow birds come for the winter and spread out across the desert, either tightly packed for those who enjoy the company, or widely spaced for those who don’t. We didn’t stay in Quartzite and probably never will, but there are other areas run in the same way that are much more appealing, and we can easily see ourselves staying for a month or so in a few different locations.
We also found Wal-Mart parking lots to be commodious and convenient for overnight stays while traveling to new locations. Wal-Mart doesn't mind, and with our GPS, I’ve found you’re never more than ten miles from a Wal-Mart. I forgive Wal-Mart for killing Chinese babies for pet food. I even shopped in a few, call me what you will.
For me, this kind of life is so enjoyable and inviting I’d love to sell out up here in Klamath Falls and go full-time, which some millions of Americans do. As small as our trailer is, we were very comfortable in it for three months, and there are middle-sized trailers that come close to the feel of a small apartment. It would be a simple matter to retain a legal address in Klamath Falls through a mail-forwarding service.
I envision staying here between three to six months a year and traveling the rest of the time. I could see us doing that for another ten years or so. Although we’d take a beating if we sold the house now, I’ve been thinking a lot lately in terms of how many good years I have left, and good years have come to mean a lot more to me than money.
Especially since we have the money. It’s actually a lot cheaper to live on the road than in a house, and when the time comes, it’s easy enough to settle down again in a nice rental or old persons’ home. I’d like to find one that accepts only liberals. The Hubert Humphrey Cozy Home for Aging Leftists or some such.
Mary is less thrilled than I am with the idea, though she’s not completely opposed to it. She loved the mobile life as much as I did, but she also feels more connection to our home here than I do.
Whatever we decide, we’re both happy with the way things are for now or could be in the immediate future. The best of it is that with both of us retired, we have choices now that we never had before. We’re also cognizant of our great good fortune to have a modest but secure income in this time of such a serious and painful recession, but we more than earned what we have. I don’t spend a lot of time feeling guilty that things have gone our way in the last quarter or so of our lives. It’s not like I was a bank president or something.
The Spanish word for “retired” is “jubilado.”
So, back home to a cold and sometimes snowy spring, but it definitely is spring and I can wait it out until the weather improves. I’ve enrolled for this summer in an eight-week, intensive Spanish program at Southern Oregon University, across the mountains in Ashland. I’m both excited and intimidated by it. I’ve been studying Spanish, mostly on my own, for about three years now, and despite making progress, it can only be slow progress without good instruction and a chance to practice speaking every day.
Classes start mid-June, and I’m trying to cram on my own so I’ll be as ready to start as I can be. I’ll be staying somewhere near Ashland in the trailer four days a week, then back home on the weekends. The trailer is a good place to study since it’s about the size of a jail cell but nicer, and there aren’t any distractions built in.
Besides, I see myself spending a lot of time on campus. There’s even an Hispanic Students Union. If I study hard, maybe I can pass for a Mexican.
My only souvenir from the trip is a rattlesnake-skin belt, but that’s a story for another day. He was a big mother.
The Cubs win the pennant
But enough about me. How ‘bout that Obama!?
Like most of his supporters, I’d completely given up on passing any kind of health care reform and had come to believe he represented an enormous and completely unexpected sign of great social change in our country, as well as being both a charming and inspirational figure as president. Sadly, though, in the end it seemed he didn’t quite have what it takes to overcome The Great Republican Wall of No, No, a Thousand Times No. He proved us wrong, with Nancy Pelosi deserving as much or more of the credit for the final outcome. Next, he signed the most comprehensive arms control treaty with Russia in the last two decades. Then he rested and shot a few hoops.
Nothing but net.
It may not be perfect, it may not even be great, but we progressives have done the near-impossible in passing this health care bill, and I’m hopeful we can survive the November elections and continue to build modestly on recent successes.
In the meantime, there’s a grand array of buffoons and jesters to entertain us, and granted, there are a lot of scary people out there; still, there’s much to enjoy in the antics of the Tea Baggers and their leadership.
I mean, Sarah Palin: what’s not to laugh?
Like most of his supporters, I’d completely given up on passing any kind of health care reform and had come to believe he represented an enormous and completely unexpected sign of great social change in our country, as well as being both a charming and inspirational figure as president. Sadly, though, in the end it seemed he didn’t quite have what it takes to overcome The Great Republican Wall of No, No, a Thousand Times No. He proved us wrong, with Nancy Pelosi deserving as much or more of the credit for the final outcome. Next, he signed the most comprehensive arms control treaty with Russia in the last two decades. Then he rested and shot a few hoops.
Nothing but net.
It may not be perfect, it may not even be great, but we progressives have done the near-impossible in passing this health care bill, and I’m hopeful we can survive the November elections and continue to build modestly on recent successes.
In the meantime, there’s a grand array of buffoons and jesters to entertain us, and granted, there are a lot of scary people out there; still, there’s much to enjoy in the antics of the Tea Baggers and their leadership.
I mean, Sarah Palin: what’s not to laugh?
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