A new report from our conservative friends at the Heritage Foundation exposes the myth of poverty in America: shockingly, most poor people have refrigerators and microwaves! Not all of them, maybe, but lots of them also have X-boxes and air conditioning. Thus, I guess, we need to quit giving subsidies to the poor until they start acting poor by eating rancid food cooked on wood they gather from discarded pallets in those trash-filled yards of theirs.
They probably also have heaters and catchers’ mitts, but the survey didn’t ask those questions, nor did it ask if they can afford to run their air conditioners.
Oh, and you’re not homeless if you’re living in a homeless shelter, which might also suggest you’re not dead if you’re in a mortuary.
This is the latest reprise of the old Reagan myth of the welfare Cadillac, which he used to excellent effect to make substantial cuts on the anti-poverty programs of Johnson’s Great Society. But the big welfare cutter was that uber-liberal Bill Clinton, who succeeded in ending welfare as we know it by ending welfare as we know it.
Simply put, there are no poor if we give them food and housing and energy subsidies and they then spend some of their vast discretionary income on luxury items like toys for their kids. The survey, somehow, never asked questions as to whether the rich sometimes live beyond their means. I know the middle-class never does, which is why there have been so few foreclosures on McMansions.
What the study really shows is just how uncharitable the conservative movement is at heart. (Rich people have hearts, too!) In their minds, the fact that poverty programs—radically reduced in recent years and due to be cut even more in the debt-ceiling budgets of both Republicans and Democrats—have allowed some poor people to actually afford what most of us consider the necessities of life just shows that we need to cut back more on poverty programs.
I’ve always known this, but it’s refreshing to see a published report that makes it so abundantly clear: the poor don’t matter to conservatives. No more of this trickle-down bullshit. Let them eat cake!
Poverty in the United States is defined as an annual income of $22,000 for a family of four. I’d like to see the fellows of the Heritage Foundation live for a year on $22,000, even if they get food stamps and free health care, then come back and write a report on poverty in America. I’ll loan them a pencil.
More on this study here:
http://www.theshriverbrief.org/2011/07/articles/economic-justice/because-you-have-a-refrigerator-and-a-stove-you-are-not-poor/
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
A fine race
Australian Casey Stoner makes the pass that would give him the lead over reigning champion Jorge Lorenzo. It was a fine race, and two other races in the other classes were also exceptionally exciting.
Mary and I took a ride into the mountains in in our aging but still classy Mitsubishi Spyder convertible and had lunch on the deck of a good cafe. The weather was perfect. Then back home to enjoy a lazy Sunday around the house while I watched races and practiced Spanish at my leisure.
It was an entirely above-average day.
(Notice how I'm not writing about politics? I'm not even thinking about politics.
Politics? What politics??)
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Race time
Motorcycle Grand Prix racing isn’t particularly popular in the United States. Worldwide, MotoGP ranks second only to soccer in popularity, with huge crowds at the races and television viewers in the millions. In Europe, Asia and South America, small, fast bikes have always been the favorites of riders and racers, totally unlike the Harley culture that dominates here. Today's race at Laguna Seca in Monterey will draw about 80,000 spectators, and part of the thrill of being there is just riding in with tens of thousands of other riders and seeing the hills covered with parked motorcycles, probably ninety percent of them sport bikes of one stripe or another.
Even without much background in this kind of racing, though, a GP Championship race should be exciting to watch. These are the greatest riders of their generation on the fastest bikes in the world, multimillion dollar thoroughbreds with full factory support. Top speeds on most tracks exceed 200 miles per hour, but the real excitement is in the corners, where riders achieve seemingly impossible lean angles, hanging off the inside of the bikes and dragging their knees on the ground, riding at 99 percent for the whole race and all-too-frequently making the small mistake or misjudgment that sends them flying in spectacular crashes.
Most regular viewers will admit that part of the excitement is in the crashes, but we don’t have to feel too guilty about this. Track safety improvements over the years mean that there hasn’t been a GP fatality in my memory, and although broken bones and dislocations happen, most of the time the rider jumps up and tries to restart the fallen bike to get back in the race. Even when a rider is down and can’t remount, it’s rare to be out with injuries for more than one or two races.
These guys are tough. American rider Colin Edwards fractured his collar bone this season and was screwed back together with seventeen titanium pins. His doctor said he couldn’t ride again until he could do some push-ups, so Colin dropped to the ground and put out two. He said the pain almost knocked him out, but he was back for the next race and finished third in the rain, a wet track meaning you have to slow down a little and ride with more finesse and smoothness, which makes the race a little less physical.
The real thrill, though, is in watching the close racing for the lead and epic battles back in the pack for spots as low as tenth or even lower. The best riders turn in lap times only a few thousands of a second apart on tracks that are typically between two and three miles long, and they race with an amazing consistency. If a rider loses a full second in a lap it usually means he’s made an error and misjudged a corner or got stuck fighting it out for position with another rider, which can force taking a defensive line through a turn.
I watched qualifying last night, in which riders have a full hour to put in their fastest lap, then go back to the pits to make micro-adjustments in the bike’s setup, then back out onto the track. The true qualifying laps come in the last ten minutes, when setup is as close to perfect as they can get it, and riders put their heads down to turn in a 99.9-percent performance to determine their starting position on the grid.
Pole position at Laguna was taken by Jorge Lorenzo, the Spanish rider who won the championship last year. Second is Australian Casey Stoner, off the pace by only seven one-thousands of a second. In fact, the first seven riders are all within seven-tenths of a second of each other, typical of GP qualifying. It amazes me to think that rider skills and bike development are all so close that less than one second over a two-mile track can mean the difference between a world champion and a distant also-ran. At these speeds, a winner with a two or three second lead over the rest of the pack will have a huge lead in actual distance. More exciting is when two or three riders battle it out and finish within inches of each other, the winner often determined by a well-planned pass in the last turn.
The races are most exciting, of course, if you follow the whole season and know each of the riders and how the standings have evolved over the last nine races, with eight more to go after Laguna. For even a first-time watcher, though, there should be enough adrenaline flowing to get you through the rest of the afternoon.
This is the second year in a row that I won’t make it down to Laguna Seca for the race. Last year I was taking an intensive Spanish summer course at Southern Oregon University. Although classes ran from Monday to Thursday, there was no way I could be gone for two or three days without studying. This year I’m recently back from two weeks in Washington, DC and a two-day bike excursion to Reno where I met up with several friends and got lucky at the blackjack tables, coming home up about a hundred dollars after expenses. In the end, I decided it was time to stay home for a few days straight.
Prior to that, I had an attendance record that was mostly unbroken for a lot of years; I can’t really say how many. I remember at least once leaving the track late in the afternoon after the last race and riding home straight through with only gas breaks, getting home well after midnight and then teaching classes the next morning. Usually, I’d just miss classes and ride home Monday.
Watching on television is almost as good, though, and actually even better for seeing the up-close battles that go on the full length of the track.
Racing is covered on Speed Channel, today’s race starting at 5pm Eastern time, 2pm out here on the Best Coast. There’s still time to set up your DVR.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Deus ex machina
The people we count on to take reasonable care of us are letting us down. Like almost all Americans, I’m disgusted by our nation’s leaders’ handling of the debt ceiling crisis. The budget negotiations are where Congress fights out its taxing and spending plan for the next year. Raising the debt ceiling should be a routine procedural event that happens mostly out of public sight, a page 5 story at best. Instead, Republicans are using it as yet one more opportunity to pile on to President Obama just to make him look bad while they ignore our real problems, primarily crushing unemployment and millions of Americans living hand to mouth with little or no hope of improvement any time soon. Or ever.
And like almost all of us who voted for Obama, I’m disappointed in his performance. To give him credit, he’s trying to do what he said he would do when he came to Washington: create a new kind of politics that rises above party politics and special interests and instead engages in genuine problem solving. Still, it was at best an unrealistic hope from the beginning, and it was clear from even before his first day in office that Republicans weren’t playing by the same rules. Quite the contrary.
So now we have the Tea Party extremists holding enough votes in the house to defeat any compromise, even if it’s tilted heavily towards Republican goals. They hold such power because they’re crazy. Game theory points out that when one side appears completely irrational in its demands, the other side will always make major concessions. It also points out that when one side really is completely irrational, it will crash the system. You can only negotiate a hostage crisis if the bad guys haven’t already decided to get as much press as they can, then kill all the hostages anyway.
We’re the hostages.
All of this has been too depressing to write about again, so I’m glad to see in a poll published today that most Americans still give high approval ratings to at least one big player: God. A majority of fifty-two percent of Americans approve of God’s performance, though nine percent disapprove and forty percent are unsure. Only an even fifty percent approve of God’s handling of natural disasters, a surprising number since God causes natural disasters, but I guess half of the population thinks he does a good enough job cleaning up after Himself.
And a substantial majority of seventy-one percent approve of how God created the universe. I have to agree with them that the universe works very well indeed. I mean, look at string theory.
A majority of Americans still like Obama as a person, even though they disapprove of his performance. The poll didn’t ask if people still like God as a person, but apparently they do.
We sure need His help right now, some kind of "plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.” Deus ex machina.
What that could possibly be, God only knows.
And like almost all of us who voted for Obama, I’m disappointed in his performance. To give him credit, he’s trying to do what he said he would do when he came to Washington: create a new kind of politics that rises above party politics and special interests and instead engages in genuine problem solving. Still, it was at best an unrealistic hope from the beginning, and it was clear from even before his first day in office that Republicans weren’t playing by the same rules. Quite the contrary.
So now we have the Tea Party extremists holding enough votes in the house to defeat any compromise, even if it’s tilted heavily towards Republican goals. They hold such power because they’re crazy. Game theory points out that when one side appears completely irrational in its demands, the other side will always make major concessions. It also points out that when one side really is completely irrational, it will crash the system. You can only negotiate a hostage crisis if the bad guys haven’t already decided to get as much press as they can, then kill all the hostages anyway.
We’re the hostages.
All of this has been too depressing to write about again, so I’m glad to see in a poll published today that most Americans still give high approval ratings to at least one big player: God. A majority of fifty-two percent of Americans approve of God’s performance, though nine percent disapprove and forty percent are unsure. Only an even fifty percent approve of God’s handling of natural disasters, a surprising number since God causes natural disasters, but I guess half of the population thinks he does a good enough job cleaning up after Himself.
And a substantial majority of seventy-one percent approve of how God created the universe. I have to agree with them that the universe works very well indeed. I mean, look at string theory.
A majority of Americans still like Obama as a person, even though they disapprove of his performance. The poll didn’t ask if people still like God as a person, but apparently they do.
We sure need His help right now, some kind of "plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.” Deus ex machina.
What that could possibly be, God only knows.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Double-dog dare ya
Obama’s warning to Eric Cantor—“don’t call my bluff”—was a misstatement overlooked by everybody I’ve read. Granted, the prez issued the challenge in a moment of anger as he walked out of talks on raising the debt ceiling, but I doubt he meant to suggest he is bluffing. Nor is Cantor, for that matter. It’s clear he’s willing to let the US default on its credit obligations, no matter the economic consequences, and then let the blame fall on the president,despite Mitch McConnell’s warning that default would bring irreparable harm to the Republican “brand.”
So branding is what this is all about.
What Obama meant to say was “I’ll call your bluff and raise you a trillion.” He’s willing to play a deadly game of chicken with Republican fundamentalists because he knows he’s going to win this one.
In any case, Obama is right to hold out against a short-term resolution which would put us back in the middle of this absurd debate two more times before the next election. Once the debt ceiling gets raised and fixed in place until after November 2012, I doubt it will carry any weight as a campaign issue. Most people have no idea what the debt ceiling is anyway, and come November plus one, the issue will still be jobs, jobs, jobs.
Actually, I’ve had a great impulse to write about all of this, but two things have kept my keyboard quiet: one is that everybody else is writing about it to the degree that there’s not much else to read, and I see no compelling reason to endlessly repeat the litany of dire consequences to arrive if we fail to act by the August 2nd deadline. Second, I keep waiting to see what will happen the next day, but the next day is always exactly the same as yesterday, and I haven’t seen an opportune moment to jump in.
Meanwhile, important news stories barely get mentioned, including the arrest of a woman who cut off her husband’s penis and ran it down the garbage disposal: “Catherine Kieu Becker of Garden Grove reportedly prepared dinner for her husband and put a poisonous substance or drug in his food to make him drowsy. While the man was sleeping, Becker allegedly tied him to the bed. When he awakened, Becker cut his penis off with a knife and threw it into the garbage disposal, turning it on as she did so.”
Clearly, Kate learned a lesson from the perfectly named Lorena Bobbit, who after cutting off her husband’s penis, drove off in her car and threw it in a field, where it was somehow magically recovered and surgically reattached. Lorena’s husband John went on to a brief career as a porn star, proving I don’t know what exactly except that modern medicine certainly has come a long way.
The message to men is clear: put the toilet seat down after you pee.
In the end I believe Obama will use his executive authority under section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reads: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”
Suppressing the tea party insurrection and rebellion is what this is really all about, after all.
So branding is what this is all about.
What Obama meant to say was “I’ll call your bluff and raise you a trillion.” He’s willing to play a deadly game of chicken with Republican fundamentalists because he knows he’s going to win this one.
In any case, Obama is right to hold out against a short-term resolution which would put us back in the middle of this absurd debate two more times before the next election. Once the debt ceiling gets raised and fixed in place until after November 2012, I doubt it will carry any weight as a campaign issue. Most people have no idea what the debt ceiling is anyway, and come November plus one, the issue will still be jobs, jobs, jobs.
Actually, I’ve had a great impulse to write about all of this, but two things have kept my keyboard quiet: one is that everybody else is writing about it to the degree that there’s not much else to read, and I see no compelling reason to endlessly repeat the litany of dire consequences to arrive if we fail to act by the August 2nd deadline. Second, I keep waiting to see what will happen the next day, but the next day is always exactly the same as yesterday, and I haven’t seen an opportune moment to jump in.
Meanwhile, important news stories barely get mentioned, including the arrest of a woman who cut off her husband’s penis and ran it down the garbage disposal: “Catherine Kieu Becker of Garden Grove reportedly prepared dinner for her husband and put a poisonous substance or drug in his food to make him drowsy. While the man was sleeping, Becker allegedly tied him to the bed. When he awakened, Becker cut his penis off with a knife and threw it into the garbage disposal, turning it on as she did so.”
Clearly, Kate learned a lesson from the perfectly named Lorena Bobbit, who after cutting off her husband’s penis, drove off in her car and threw it in a field, where it was somehow magically recovered and surgically reattached. Lorena’s husband John went on to a brief career as a porn star, proving I don’t know what exactly except that modern medicine certainly has come a long way.
The message to men is clear: put the toilet seat down after you pee.
In the end I believe Obama will use his executive authority under section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reads: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”
Suppressing the tea party insurrection and rebellion is what this is really all about, after all.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Bright lights, big city
Recently back from my caregiver responsibilities with Broschat in Washington, DC. I never gave a second thought to making this trip. When I heard he was going in for prostate surgery, I knew immediately that I would be going out to join him.
I find it hard to put the right word to this decision. It wasn’t a favor. It wasn’t a responsibility or obligation. It was simply what I was going to do. Our almost fifty years of friendship was certainly a big part of the decision. Friends help out friends when they can. And I was the obvious guy for the job. I had the time, being retired and having no important plans for a few weeks in summer, like going to the beach. I’d been through the surgery myself and knew what recovery looked like. And since I knew Michael would never let me spend a dime of my own money while I was there, finances were never an issue.
Actually, I became quite uncomfortable with his unwavering insistence that he pay for everything, but you can’t out-stubborn some people on some issues, and I knew I would never win this one. “I’ll have the filet mignon, and have room service send up more ice.”
The visit itself was mostly an enjoyable vacation. My real caregiving responsibilities ended after the first few days when he got the hang of changing pee bags without ripping out his catheter. Still, since I’d been through it myself only two years ago, I knew the first few days would be difficult to manage alone when you’re still foggy from the effects of anesthetic and nervous about having a tube coming out of your Weiner. I actually liked having a catheter since it allowed me for the first time in my life to sit through a whole movie without getting up to go to the bathroom, but it definitely takes a little getting used to.
We faced only one minor crisis, which didn’t feel at all minor at the time. After his discharge from the hospital, it became clear—I’ll spare you the details—that the catheter wasn’t catheterizing, and I had to put in a call to one of his urologists. The good doctor handled it beautifully, telling us to come back into the hospital and directly up to the ward Michael had just left, avoiding the blunt-force trauma of going through the emergency room. A quick (but obviously painful) flush of the system with saline solution and everything was back to normal. We went back home and I made the patient some broth from a can of chicken noodle. I ate the chicken and noodles.
By the next day, we were on solid foods again and going out for short walks. Despite his admission on his own blog that he was scared shitless, (pissless, actually, but never mind), Michael never showed any outward signs of emotional stress. He seemed to take it all in stride, which made my modest duties easy.
Within a few days I was completely in vacation mode, and it was a great visit. Two days in Colonial Williamsburg, where we always ate with only the best people and stayed on site in a converted something—a mill or granary or privy, I wasn’t quite sure which. Williamsburg has been restored to its condition of roughly 1750, and its many homes and other buildings, concerts on period instruments, and historical reenactments create in even a jaded historical revisionist like myself a swell of patriotic fervor. Nor did they ignore some of the dark side of our revolution against the British: One reenactment of the mob trial of a loyalist whose only crime was his not very prudent political pronouncements caused, I hope, conflicted feelings in even the most ardent jingoist when they started to tar and feather the poor accused. He was saved only at the last minute by a forced “confession” and a promise to get out of town, which meant back to England.
My favorite event of the visit was an outdoor performance of slave music and dance, which we attended after dark. No actual whippings, but I found it inspirational to watch the human spirit rise up in song and dance under the harshest conditions possible.
Later in the visit, we went to a baseball game, which the Nationals won, if only on the strength of two monumental errors by the Cubs in the first inning. I don’t even follow baseball, and I had a great time.
Plus a few drives in the country in the new Miata, with the top down, of course.
Overall, I recommend a visit to Broschat next time he has major surgery. Two weeks together in his small apartment and we showed no sign of getting on each other's nerves. He’s a wonderful host and a gifted story teller, and he has a great collection of DVDs. We watched a different movie almost every night.
Even though I loved Washington and environs, it’s good to be home. Yesterday, Mary and I decided to go for a drive and a walk in the country, enjoying a high temperature of eighty degrees, our dry climate, and a cooling breeze. We drove with the top down in our aging but still-satisfying Eclipse Spyder for about twenty minutes to get out of town, then through some lovely and largely empty country roads to the trailhead, where we walked for an hour without seeing another person. A typical outing out this way. This in contrast to the drives in the Miata through the madness of DC surface-street traffic and congested freeways, and walks on “trails” which we shared with scores of other walkers, wild-hare bicyclists, and rushing traffic just a few feet away. Enjoyable enough, but still. . . .
Bright lights big city have their charms, but I guess I’m mostly a country boy at heart, though it’s taken me about twenty years to realize and accept it.
Male readers take note: if you haven’t had this surgery yet, you have a even chance of needing it sometime in the next ninety days, so get your PSA checked and a caregiver lined up.
Buy a sports car. Get tickets to a ball game.
I find it hard to put the right word to this decision. It wasn’t a favor. It wasn’t a responsibility or obligation. It was simply what I was going to do. Our almost fifty years of friendship was certainly a big part of the decision. Friends help out friends when they can. And I was the obvious guy for the job. I had the time, being retired and having no important plans for a few weeks in summer, like going to the beach. I’d been through the surgery myself and knew what recovery looked like. And since I knew Michael would never let me spend a dime of my own money while I was there, finances were never an issue.
Actually, I became quite uncomfortable with his unwavering insistence that he pay for everything, but you can’t out-stubborn some people on some issues, and I knew I would never win this one. “I’ll have the filet mignon, and have room service send up more ice.”
The visit itself was mostly an enjoyable vacation. My real caregiving responsibilities ended after the first few days when he got the hang of changing pee bags without ripping out his catheter. Still, since I’d been through it myself only two years ago, I knew the first few days would be difficult to manage alone when you’re still foggy from the effects of anesthetic and nervous about having a tube coming out of your Weiner. I actually liked having a catheter since it allowed me for the first time in my life to sit through a whole movie without getting up to go to the bathroom, but it definitely takes a little getting used to.
We faced only one minor crisis, which didn’t feel at all minor at the time. After his discharge from the hospital, it became clear—I’ll spare you the details—that the catheter wasn’t catheterizing, and I had to put in a call to one of his urologists. The good doctor handled it beautifully, telling us to come back into the hospital and directly up to the ward Michael had just left, avoiding the blunt-force trauma of going through the emergency room. A quick (but obviously painful) flush of the system with saline solution and everything was back to normal. We went back home and I made the patient some broth from a can of chicken noodle. I ate the chicken and noodles.
By the next day, we were on solid foods again and going out for short walks. Despite his admission on his own blog that he was scared shitless, (pissless, actually, but never mind), Michael never showed any outward signs of emotional stress. He seemed to take it all in stride, which made my modest duties easy.
Within a few days I was completely in vacation mode, and it was a great visit. Two days in Colonial Williamsburg, where we always ate with only the best people and stayed on site in a converted something—a mill or granary or privy, I wasn’t quite sure which. Williamsburg has been restored to its condition of roughly 1750, and its many homes and other buildings, concerts on period instruments, and historical reenactments create in even a jaded historical revisionist like myself a swell of patriotic fervor. Nor did they ignore some of the dark side of our revolution against the British: One reenactment of the mob trial of a loyalist whose only crime was his not very prudent political pronouncements caused, I hope, conflicted feelings in even the most ardent jingoist when they started to tar and feather the poor accused. He was saved only at the last minute by a forced “confession” and a promise to get out of town, which meant back to England.
My favorite event of the visit was an outdoor performance of slave music and dance, which we attended after dark. No actual whippings, but I found it inspirational to watch the human spirit rise up in song and dance under the harshest conditions possible.
Later in the visit, we went to a baseball game, which the Nationals won, if only on the strength of two monumental errors by the Cubs in the first inning. I don’t even follow baseball, and I had a great time.
Plus a few drives in the country in the new Miata, with the top down, of course.
Overall, I recommend a visit to Broschat next time he has major surgery. Two weeks together in his small apartment and we showed no sign of getting on each other's nerves. He’s a wonderful host and a gifted story teller, and he has a great collection of DVDs. We watched a different movie almost every night.
Even though I loved Washington and environs, it’s good to be home. Yesterday, Mary and I decided to go for a drive and a walk in the country, enjoying a high temperature of eighty degrees, our dry climate, and a cooling breeze. We drove with the top down in our aging but still-satisfying Eclipse Spyder for about twenty minutes to get out of town, then through some lovely and largely empty country roads to the trailhead, where we walked for an hour without seeing another person. A typical outing out this way. This in contrast to the drives in the Miata through the madness of DC surface-street traffic and congested freeways, and walks on “trails” which we shared with scores of other walkers, wild-hare bicyclists, and rushing traffic just a few feet away. Enjoyable enough, but still. . . .
Bright lights big city have their charms, but I guess I’m mostly a country boy at heart, though it’s taken me about twenty years to realize and accept it.
Male readers take note: if you haven’t had this surgery yet, you have a even chance of needing it sometime in the next ninety days, so get your PSA checked and a caregiver lined up.
Buy a sports car. Get tickets to a ball game.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Paddycake
Since I didn’t have a root canal scheduled for last night, I watched the Republican presidential candidates’ “debate” on CNN. I use debate in quotation marks because it actually felt more like a gang rape, with almost every question to every candidate turned into an attack on Obama. If anyone tuned in had turned the debate into a drinking game keyed to the word “Obamacare,” participants would have all died of alcohol poisoning in the first fifteen minutes.
The best question from the moderator all night concerned the Bush tax cuts and deregulation, both of which failed to produce any measurable upturn in the economy and surge in job creation. No one answered that question directly, choosing instead to repeat the Republic mantra that the only way to jumpstart the current economy is more tax cuts and deregulation.
Candidates also chose not to direct any attacks against their primary contenders, which is what they have to do if they want to distinguish themselves from each other and win over voters in the Republican primaries. Pawlenty even declined to defend his earlier statement that “Obamacare” would be better called “Obomneycare,” instead once again going after Obama rather than Romney.
All the candidates came across as capable non-debaters, able to turn every question into a recitation of current right-wing Republican orthodoxy aimed at the tea party base. Still, there were some real bombshells. Cain refused to retreat from an earlier statement that he would never appoint a Muslim to his cabinet. Amazingly, Gingrich came to his defense, pointing out that one naturalized American citizen and convicted terrorist had explained that he had simply lied when he took his oath of citizenship.
And then, even more amazingly, Gingrich went on to defend earlier purges of Nazis and Communists, arguing that history had proven them mostly right. I’m not aware of any particular efforts to purge government of Nazis, but this was the first defense of McCarthyism I’ve ever heard from anyone who wasn’t a card carrying member of the John Birch society. Still, since he didn’t actually mention McCarthy, he’ll probably get by with that one.
There were calls to turn Medicare into a voucher system and reform Social Security by making it a voluntary program with an option to contribute to private retirement accounts. This should amount to painting a target on your chest, since the collapse of the stock market has wiped out the retirement savings of millions of Americans, but on stage with a line of fellow Republican candidates, no one ever questioned a suggestion that will inevitably be greeted with hostility from many voters, especially older Americans who are the most likely to actually vote in any election.
In fact, the inevitable answer to every question was privatize, cut taxes, and deregulate, red meat for the exclusively Republican audience that won’t always play so well beyond the New Hampshire Republican primary.
Still, the debate highlights Obama’s challenge in the presidential election. After now three years of Obama’s presidency, we’re still in the grip of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Obama’s defense of his leadership so far has been a limp assertion that things would be worse if he hadn’t intervened forcefully in saving what was left of financial markets and manufacturing jobs such as the auto industry. Those of us who believe he needs to stop taking jabs and instead start throwing heavy body blows against his critics will feel even greater urgency in his taking an aggressive stand. Sadly, after three years, it may be that we’ve seen he’s more comfortable lecturing in an attentive classroom than he is in the kind of cage fighting he needs to do to win reelection.
Still, it’s early in the game, and we saw in Nevada and other states that given a choice between an unpopular incumbent and a whackadoo opponent, voters will reluctantly reelect the incumbent. Harry Reid, a particularly ineffective debater, eked out a victory against Sharon Angle. Obama, with his far superior debating skills and his proven track record in running an effective campaign, might still mount a spirited offensive instead of always playing an anemic defense. He needs to take off the gloves and start throwing those heavy punches.
Only a fool like me would dare to call the election this early in the campaign. I take it all back. The most anyone can say at this point is it’s going to be interesting.
And I’ll continue to watch the Republican debates since in the end I can’t help myself and I don’t see any root canals in the near future.
The best question from the moderator all night concerned the Bush tax cuts and deregulation, both of which failed to produce any measurable upturn in the economy and surge in job creation. No one answered that question directly, choosing instead to repeat the Republic mantra that the only way to jumpstart the current economy is more tax cuts and deregulation.
Candidates also chose not to direct any attacks against their primary contenders, which is what they have to do if they want to distinguish themselves from each other and win over voters in the Republican primaries. Pawlenty even declined to defend his earlier statement that “Obamacare” would be better called “Obomneycare,” instead once again going after Obama rather than Romney.
All the candidates came across as capable non-debaters, able to turn every question into a recitation of current right-wing Republican orthodoxy aimed at the tea party base. Still, there were some real bombshells. Cain refused to retreat from an earlier statement that he would never appoint a Muslim to his cabinet. Amazingly, Gingrich came to his defense, pointing out that one naturalized American citizen and convicted terrorist had explained that he had simply lied when he took his oath of citizenship.
And then, even more amazingly, Gingrich went on to defend earlier purges of Nazis and Communists, arguing that history had proven them mostly right. I’m not aware of any particular efforts to purge government of Nazis, but this was the first defense of McCarthyism I’ve ever heard from anyone who wasn’t a card carrying member of the John Birch society. Still, since he didn’t actually mention McCarthy, he’ll probably get by with that one.
There were calls to turn Medicare into a voucher system and reform Social Security by making it a voluntary program with an option to contribute to private retirement accounts. This should amount to painting a target on your chest, since the collapse of the stock market has wiped out the retirement savings of millions of Americans, but on stage with a line of fellow Republican candidates, no one ever questioned a suggestion that will inevitably be greeted with hostility from many voters, especially older Americans who are the most likely to actually vote in any election.
In fact, the inevitable answer to every question was privatize, cut taxes, and deregulate, red meat for the exclusively Republican audience that won’t always play so well beyond the New Hampshire Republican primary.
Still, the debate highlights Obama’s challenge in the presidential election. After now three years of Obama’s presidency, we’re still in the grip of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Obama’s defense of his leadership so far has been a limp assertion that things would be worse if he hadn’t intervened forcefully in saving what was left of financial markets and manufacturing jobs such as the auto industry. Those of us who believe he needs to stop taking jabs and instead start throwing heavy body blows against his critics will feel even greater urgency in his taking an aggressive stand. Sadly, after three years, it may be that we’ve seen he’s more comfortable lecturing in an attentive classroom than he is in the kind of cage fighting he needs to do to win reelection.
Still, it’s early in the game, and we saw in Nevada and other states that given a choice between an unpopular incumbent and a whackadoo opponent, voters will reluctantly reelect the incumbent. Harry Reid, a particularly ineffective debater, eked out a victory against Sharon Angle. Obama, with his far superior debating skills and his proven track record in running an effective campaign, might still mount a spirited offensive instead of always playing an anemic defense. He needs to take off the gloves and start throwing those heavy punches.
Only a fool like me would dare to call the election this early in the campaign. I take it all back. The most anyone can say at this point is it’s going to be interesting.
And I’ll continue to watch the Republican debates since in the end I can’t help myself and I don’t see any root canals in the near future.
Monday, June 13, 2011
A little perspective
Is it just me, or is the idea of a Broadway musical that satirizes Mormons more than a little offensive? I surfed by the Tony Awards last night, and though I’d vaguely heard something about The Book of Mormon, it hadn’t really caught my attention. Then I watched one big production number from the show and I wondered why there hasn’t been a surge of outrage about this. Imagine—it makes me shudder to think about it—a Broadway satire of Muslims called The Koran. We’d have Hillary Clinton flying in to New York in an NY minute to plead with the producers to call off the show.
Just the fact that somebody was pursuing such an idea would cause massive riots throughout the Arab world. Granted, Muslims could loosen up a little and stop killing each other because some cracker preacher in Florida decides to burn their book, but this isn’t just a one-man stunt for a little publicity. It’s Broadway.
The Book of Mormon was written by the creators of South Park, which has no notion of “going too far.” Then again, the opening number for the Tonys was “Broadway: It’s not just for gays anymore.” Was it before? I’ve never been.
Maybe musical comedy based on religion isn’t such a bad idea. As a born-again-and-again agnostic, I certainly take as much pleasure as the next guy making fun of religions. Nunsense makes fun of nuns, who have their own issues with underwear, I suppose. And I mean, Scientology? Come on.
Of course, Jews come in for plenty of satire, but mostly by Jews. For them, it’s a business, but when they get a musical, it’s Fiddler on the Roof.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: I was raised Baptist, sort of, who prohibit standing intercourse lest someone think they’re dancing. I still can’t dance. Other than that, there’s nothing funny about Baptists.
Has anyone done Anglicans? Gay bishops? A laugh a minute.
Jesus Christ Superstar offended a lot of people, but it wasn’t a comedy. It was actually quite a moving testimony, if you like Jesus, and it had some great songs.
Maybe we need a musical that satirizes all religions, Anabaptists to Zoroasters: God: The Joke’s On You.
Funnier to me is Republicans. Nixon has an opera, but I don't think it's a comedy.
Just the fact that somebody was pursuing such an idea would cause massive riots throughout the Arab world. Granted, Muslims could loosen up a little and stop killing each other because some cracker preacher in Florida decides to burn their book, but this isn’t just a one-man stunt for a little publicity. It’s Broadway.
The Book of Mormon was written by the creators of South Park, which has no notion of “going too far.” Then again, the opening number for the Tonys was “Broadway: It’s not just for gays anymore.” Was it before? I’ve never been.
Maybe musical comedy based on religion isn’t such a bad idea. As a born-again-and-again agnostic, I certainly take as much pleasure as the next guy making fun of religions. Nunsense makes fun of nuns, who have their own issues with underwear, I suppose. And I mean, Scientology? Come on.
Of course, Jews come in for plenty of satire, but mostly by Jews. For them, it’s a business, but when they get a musical, it’s Fiddler on the Roof.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: I was raised Baptist, sort of, who prohibit standing intercourse lest someone think they’re dancing. I still can’t dance. Other than that, there’s nothing funny about Baptists.
Has anyone done Anglicans? Gay bishops? A laugh a minute.
Jesus Christ Superstar offended a lot of people, but it wasn’t a comedy. It was actually quite a moving testimony, if you like Jesus, and it had some great songs.
Maybe we need a musical that satirizes all religions, Anabaptists to Zoroasters: God: The Joke’s On You.
Funnier to me is Republicans. Nixon has an opera, but I don't think it's a comedy.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Don't call me Ishmael
I’ve been thinking about this for some time, but the recent revelations about Congressman Anthony Weiner have led me to take the last step: I’m renouncing my gender. From now on, I will identify as “independent” on all official documents such as driver’s license and passport. I’ll leave blank any boxes I’m required to check for either “male” or “female” unless there’s an “other,” and then only if I can write in “independent.”
I will use neither men’s nor women’s restrooms. Unless there’s a unisex bathroom, I’ll hold it until I get home. This means I'll be spending a lot more time at home.
Not all men are assholes, but there are so many asshole men out there that I’m tired of being associated with them only on the basis of certain equipment we share in common. I’ve long resented that I can’t be overly friendly with the neighbors’ kids for fear of being thought a pedophile. Actually being in the house with a kid when the parents aren’t there is a clear invitation to being officially charged. And taking a neighbor kid camping is just asking for a lengthy prison sentence. Really, I don’t even like kids.
It’s not any safer with women of any age. When I was teaching, I never closed my office door. Never.
On a rare occasion, I’d have a woman student walk in and close the door behind her so we could “talk.” I always recognized this for the set-up it was and reopened the door immediately, then walked out into the hallway with my hands in the air. I kept the door equally open with male students, colleagues of all ages and genders, and even when I was alone for fear that someone might suspect I wasn’t alone.
I left it open when I wasn’t there. If the need ever arose, I wanted a whole slew of witnesses from my building who would swear that they had never seen my door closed.
Never.
Today’s Daily Beast online lists a rogue’s gallery of political sex offenders, concluding that Republicans hold a slim lead over Democrats. The article briefly profiles a discouraging sixty-three offenders, some old, some new, many I’d never heard of. I well remember Bob Packwood since he was an Oregon Senator when he resigned in 1993, but I’d already forgotten John Ensign (Nevada, 2009). I hadn’t heard of congressman Tim Mahoney (2008), a Democrat who campaigned on a very Republican sounding slogan of “Faith and family: Where I stand.” Actually, he apparently spent considerable time lying down with his mistress, whom he then paid $121,000 to keep quiet. She didn’t.
Mahoney replaced Republican Mark Foley (2008), who resigned after ABC released a string of salacious email he sent to male congressional pages. I remember that one. I love it when family-values, gay-bashing Republicans turn out to be gay sexual predators. This happens approximately weekly.
Of course, there are plenty of non-political offenders: Tiger Woods, PeeWee Herman, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. These are not three guys you would otherwise name in the same sentence. And don’t get me started on fundamentalist preachers and mega-churches: Gay sex, prostitutes, meth. And this was just one guy.
I’m not ready to be charged as a sex offender (I’m not), or a philanderer (I’m not), or even just a salacious texter (I’m not).
So I renounce my gender. Call me Stacy, not Ross. Stacy happens to be my middle name, and although I hate it, it is gender-neutral and therefore acceptable. Call me Doctor Carroll or Professor Carroll. I don’t stand on ceremony, but Mister is no longer acceptable.
And finally, I did not have sex with that woman, and I will not resign.
I will use neither men’s nor women’s restrooms. Unless there’s a unisex bathroom, I’ll hold it until I get home. This means I'll be spending a lot more time at home.
Not all men are assholes, but there are so many asshole men out there that I’m tired of being associated with them only on the basis of certain equipment we share in common. I’ve long resented that I can’t be overly friendly with the neighbors’ kids for fear of being thought a pedophile. Actually being in the house with a kid when the parents aren’t there is a clear invitation to being officially charged. And taking a neighbor kid camping is just asking for a lengthy prison sentence. Really, I don’t even like kids.
It’s not any safer with women of any age. When I was teaching, I never closed my office door. Never.
On a rare occasion, I’d have a woman student walk in and close the door behind her so we could “talk.” I always recognized this for the set-up it was and reopened the door immediately, then walked out into the hallway with my hands in the air. I kept the door equally open with male students, colleagues of all ages and genders, and even when I was alone for fear that someone might suspect I wasn’t alone.
I left it open when I wasn’t there. If the need ever arose, I wanted a whole slew of witnesses from my building who would swear that they had never seen my door closed.
Never.
Today’s Daily Beast online lists a rogue’s gallery of political sex offenders, concluding that Republicans hold a slim lead over Democrats. The article briefly profiles a discouraging sixty-three offenders, some old, some new, many I’d never heard of. I well remember Bob Packwood since he was an Oregon Senator when he resigned in 1993, but I’d already forgotten John Ensign (Nevada, 2009). I hadn’t heard of congressman Tim Mahoney (2008), a Democrat who campaigned on a very Republican sounding slogan of “Faith and family: Where I stand.” Actually, he apparently spent considerable time lying down with his mistress, whom he then paid $121,000 to keep quiet. She didn’t.
Mahoney replaced Republican Mark Foley (2008), who resigned after ABC released a string of salacious email he sent to male congressional pages. I remember that one. I love it when family-values, gay-bashing Republicans turn out to be gay sexual predators. This happens approximately weekly.
Of course, there are plenty of non-political offenders: Tiger Woods, PeeWee Herman, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. These are not three guys you would otherwise name in the same sentence. And don’t get me started on fundamentalist preachers and mega-churches: Gay sex, prostitutes, meth. And this was just one guy.
I’m not ready to be charged as a sex offender (I’m not), or a philanderer (I’m not), or even just a salacious texter (I’m not).
So I renounce my gender. Call me Stacy, not Ross. Stacy happens to be my middle name, and although I hate it, it is gender-neutral and therefore acceptable. Call me Doctor Carroll or Professor Carroll. I don’t stand on ceremony, but Mister is no longer acceptable.
And finally, I did not have sex with that woman, and I will not resign.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Don't know much about history
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."
Longfellow goes on for fourteen stanzas, concluding
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
Sarah Palin
"He who warned uh, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh by ringing those bells, and um, makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed."
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."
Longfellow goes on for fourteen stanzas, concluding
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
Sarah Palin
"He who warned uh, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh by ringing those bells, and um, makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed."
Monday, May 23, 2011
Five myths
As part of the Washington Post’s “Five Myths” series, Paul Farhi today offers us “Five Myths about America’s Schools.” It’s not likely to change much in the American discussion about school improvement, but I’d guess that about ninety-five percent of all teachers, kindergarten through university, would agree with his assessment.
Among the myths: 1) Our schools are failing; 2) Unions defend bad teachers; 3) Billionaires know best; 4) Charter schools are the answer; and 5) More effective teachers are the answer.
My take on all this is that, contrary to everyone’s good intentions, there are few if any solutions to our education problems outside of the schools themselves. Certain kinds of assessment, in mathematics for example, are both valid and reliable and can tell us a lot about student performance, though not always so much about teacher performance. In my field, though, writing instruction, despite decades of trying, there simply isn’t any valid, externally verifiable way to assess student writing and improvement. This makes people outside of the profession crazy, but it’s something that we writing teachers tend to accept as a given. The same is true in most disciplines.
Think, for example, of the arts. Critics and the public might largely agree that a certain film is excellent and another is terrible: Say, Citizen Kane and Conan the Barbarian. Still, not everyone will agree. Mexican writer and critic Jorge Luis Borges thought Citizen Kane sucked, and so did I. Others thought Conan was a pop-culture classic. I didn’t, but there you go.
For all the films that fall somewhere in the middle, it becomes virtually impossible to make a purely objective assessment. Does good acting trump a mediocre plot, or do great special effects make an otherwise mundane plot in some way measurably better? Is My Dog Skip a better film because it features a Jack Russell Terrier than if it featured a cocker spaniel? (Of course it is.)
Likewise, it gets much harder when we try to assess competence in the roughly eighty percent of students who fall somewhere in the middle. Does a particular student write noticeably better at the end of a ten-week class than at the beginning? As an instructor, I believe I can assess that, but another instructor might read samples of that student’s writing and reach a completely different conclusion.
Is a particular excellent student more excellent after my able instruction? Is a terrible writer a little less terrible? Yes, but don't ask me to prove it.
Good writing instruction results from a vast network of intangible features of a particular school’s culture, including a good president or principal, a good department chair, a balance of shared expectations among the faculty and a lot of room for originality, a mix of students who are motivated and at least moderately competent to learn (which can vary greatly even from one class to the next), and the luck of the draw in the abilities of individual department members. There are many other factors, not the least of which are a student’s home environment and upbringing.
My answer then, which will never be accepted by politicians or the general public, is to give us some money and get out of the way. Teachers have been teaching with mixed results but generally reasonable success since at least Socrates, without benefit of standardized testing, merit pay, or charter schools.
And remember that Jesus was a great teacher, but he didn’t publish.
Departments tend to seek excellence, even if from the outside they look largely dysfunctional (my former department being perhaps the best example of this since the invention of the pencil). Bad teachers tend to get pushed into other jobs more suited to their abilities, such as parking enforcement. Good teachers tend to get a few pats on the back from both colleagues and students, which is mostly what motivates us to continue teaching and even improve if we can.
We're not perfect, but neither are truck drivers.
So my suggestion for genuine school improvement is benign neglect: Trust us; we know what we’re doing. Show a little respect. Quit blaming us for all the social problems you can’t solve.
You can read the Farhi five myths by copying and pasting this link into your browser. I could easily add five more, but this is a good start.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-americas-schools/2011/05/09/AFunW27G_story.html
Among the myths: 1) Our schools are failing; 2) Unions defend bad teachers; 3) Billionaires know best; 4) Charter schools are the answer; and 5) More effective teachers are the answer.
My take on all this is that, contrary to everyone’s good intentions, there are few if any solutions to our education problems outside of the schools themselves. Certain kinds of assessment, in mathematics for example, are both valid and reliable and can tell us a lot about student performance, though not always so much about teacher performance. In my field, though, writing instruction, despite decades of trying, there simply isn’t any valid, externally verifiable way to assess student writing and improvement. This makes people outside of the profession crazy, but it’s something that we writing teachers tend to accept as a given. The same is true in most disciplines.
Think, for example, of the arts. Critics and the public might largely agree that a certain film is excellent and another is terrible: Say, Citizen Kane and Conan the Barbarian. Still, not everyone will agree. Mexican writer and critic Jorge Luis Borges thought Citizen Kane sucked, and so did I. Others thought Conan was a pop-culture classic. I didn’t, but there you go.
For all the films that fall somewhere in the middle, it becomes virtually impossible to make a purely objective assessment. Does good acting trump a mediocre plot, or do great special effects make an otherwise mundane plot in some way measurably better? Is My Dog Skip a better film because it features a Jack Russell Terrier than if it featured a cocker spaniel? (Of course it is.)
Likewise, it gets much harder when we try to assess competence in the roughly eighty percent of students who fall somewhere in the middle. Does a particular student write noticeably better at the end of a ten-week class than at the beginning? As an instructor, I believe I can assess that, but another instructor might read samples of that student’s writing and reach a completely different conclusion.
Is a particular excellent student more excellent after my able instruction? Is a terrible writer a little less terrible? Yes, but don't ask me to prove it.
Good writing instruction results from a vast network of intangible features of a particular school’s culture, including a good president or principal, a good department chair, a balance of shared expectations among the faculty and a lot of room for originality, a mix of students who are motivated and at least moderately competent to learn (which can vary greatly even from one class to the next), and the luck of the draw in the abilities of individual department members. There are many other factors, not the least of which are a student’s home environment and upbringing.
My answer then, which will never be accepted by politicians or the general public, is to give us some money and get out of the way. Teachers have been teaching with mixed results but generally reasonable success since at least Socrates, without benefit of standardized testing, merit pay, or charter schools.
And remember that Jesus was a great teacher, but he didn’t publish.
Departments tend to seek excellence, even if from the outside they look largely dysfunctional (my former department being perhaps the best example of this since the invention of the pencil). Bad teachers tend to get pushed into other jobs more suited to their abilities, such as parking enforcement. Good teachers tend to get a few pats on the back from both colleagues and students, which is mostly what motivates us to continue teaching and even improve if we can.
We're not perfect, but neither are truck drivers.
So my suggestion for genuine school improvement is benign neglect: Trust us; we know what we’re doing. Show a little respect. Quit blaming us for all the social problems you can’t solve.
You can read the Farhi five myths by copying and pasting this link into your browser. I could easily add five more, but this is a good start.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-americas-schools/2011/05/09/AFunW27G_story.html
Instant dick
I’ve been using an updated version of Internet Explorer the last few days, and I’ve just noted a new feature that I love. When I place the curser over a word, no matter what Web site I might happen to be on, I get a pop-up definition of that word. My Kindle does this and it’s a welcome shortcut from actually getting out a dictionary to look up unfamiliar words, which as often as not I don’t bother to do.
Who cares if George Will knows five words per column I’ve never encountered in my entire life? I've always suspected George makes liberal use of a thesaurus,anyway, (George Will and liberal rarely appearing in the same sentence together).
Now my computer unpacks George automatically. He seems to be saying exactly the same thing whether or not I can define a few unfamiliar words, but now I can be sure he's not putting one over on me. The scabrous jackanapes.
What I just discovered minutes ago is that this dictionary function also works in Spanish. I was on a Spanish-language news site, stumbling along as usual like a low-performing second grader, when I let my mouse hand drift the curser over the text, and up popped a definition, in English. Presunto violador means alleged rapist. Guess who that article was about? (Hint: Mike Tyson is old news.)
Actually, I could have puzzled out the meaning of that one since Spanish is so rich in English cognates, and after awhile one gets a knack for recognizing them, even if they are rather oblique. Still, I might have guessed wrongly that “desalentador” has something to do with desalination, rather than “discouraging,” which is what it really means. Although what desalination has to do with a presunto violador would have troubled me. Something that might come up in the penalty phase, maybe.
I love these new features of my digital life. My Kindle has always had this instant definition feature. Although I get by just fine without a smart phone or an iPad, meaning I have absolutely no apps in my life, these other developments are more than just gadgets. They change how I read. In a small way, they make reading a richer experience.
Now, why doesn’t Microsoft Word have this same feature? You’d think it would be a basic component of such an advanced word processor.
Maybe it is and I just haven’t discovered it yet.
Who cares if George Will knows five words per column I’ve never encountered in my entire life? I've always suspected George makes liberal use of a thesaurus,anyway, (George Will and liberal rarely appearing in the same sentence together).
Now my computer unpacks George automatically. He seems to be saying exactly the same thing whether or not I can define a few unfamiliar words, but now I can be sure he's not putting one over on me. The scabrous jackanapes.
What I just discovered minutes ago is that this dictionary function also works in Spanish. I was on a Spanish-language news site, stumbling along as usual like a low-performing second grader, when I let my mouse hand drift the curser over the text, and up popped a definition, in English. Presunto violador means alleged rapist. Guess who that article was about? (Hint: Mike Tyson is old news.)
Actually, I could have puzzled out the meaning of that one since Spanish is so rich in English cognates, and after awhile one gets a knack for recognizing them, even if they are rather oblique. Still, I might have guessed wrongly that “desalentador” has something to do with desalination, rather than “discouraging,” which is what it really means. Although what desalination has to do with a presunto violador would have troubled me. Something that might come up in the penalty phase, maybe.
I love these new features of my digital life. My Kindle has always had this instant definition feature. Although I get by just fine without a smart phone or an iPad, meaning I have absolutely no apps in my life, these other developments are more than just gadgets. They change how I read. In a small way, they make reading a richer experience.
Now, why doesn’t Microsoft Word have this same feature? You’d think it would be a basic component of such an advanced word processor.
Maybe it is and I just haven’t discovered it yet.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Lucky shot
President Obama was wonderful in his interview with 60 Minutes last night: calm and resolute; neither humble nor arrogant; just, well, presidential. And then, the next morning, he signed the legislation ending “don’t ask, don’t tell,” another campaign promise he made.
Just another day at the office for this extraordinary president.
If you missed the interview, I highly recommend a viewing. A story and the full interview are available here (copy and paste into your browser):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/no-evidence-pakistan-knew-of-bin-ladens-hideout-top-security-official-says/2011/05/08/AFxXpNSG_story.html
So now Obama enjoys what I predict will be a growing bump in his approval ratings as a result of killing bin Laden. Gas prices are dropping and are predicted to be down by fifty cents a gallon by summer; job creation in the private sector continues to rise. Maybe killing Osama isn’t the end of al-Qaeda, and some encouraging economic news isn’t the end of the recession for most Americans, but things certainly look a lot brighter today than they did a week ago.
It’s still over a year to the 2012 election, but I have to believe that Republicans are growing increasingly nervous. The best they can come up with for now is a little sniping from the sidelines. First, they criticize Obama for making too many references to himself in announcing the death of Osama. Eight in nine minutes by my count, including some real whoppers such as, “Tonight, I can report. . . .” which could have been better phrased in the passive, “Tonight, it can be reported”; or “Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation,” which might have be phrased as, “Today, that tall black guy in the White House launched a targeted operation. . . .”
But I don’t think this kind of petty denigration is going to play well anywhere but on the Rush Limbaugh show. Even worse for the Ree-Pubs, senior Bush administration officials are stepping out of the shadows to take at least partial credit for the kill and criticize Obama for stopping “enhanced interrogation techniques,” also referred to as torture except in the Bush administration. Rummy Rumsfeld said that early tips obtained through waterboarding led to Osama’s bloody end. "Trigger" Dick Cheney said the same and suggested that Obama has put the United States at risk by reaffirming our commitment to national and international law regarding torture.
And Cheney wanted to take the head shot since he has the experience, but that's another matter.
All this from the administration that, after the initial invasion of Afghanistan, got absolutely everything else wrong for the next seven years. I won’t go on about it here. For a partial list of absolutely everything else the Bush administration got wrong for the next seven years, email me privately.
Actually, I’m surprised that no one I’m aware of is making the argument that Obama acted recklessly, despite his fortunate outcome. He gambled his presidency and to a large degree the standing of the United States in the world on intelligence that he described as circumstantial and on an operation that had what he described as a 55/45 chance of success. He said he worried that the Navy SEALs would find only a “prince from Dubai” instead of the terrorist leader responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: “I mean, we could not say definitively that bin Laden was there. Had he not been there, then there would have been some significant consequences.”
No shit. So it’s no wonder White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan described the decision rather ungrammatically as “what I believe was one of the most gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory." The outcome, one way or the other, fairly or unfairly, would largely define how history would see Obama the man and probably his entire presidency.
The tall black guy in the White House rolled the dice and won. I’m betting that not the least important thing he won is his reelection.
Lucky shot.
Just another day at the office for this extraordinary president.
If you missed the interview, I highly recommend a viewing. A story and the full interview are available here (copy and paste into your browser):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/no-evidence-pakistan-knew-of-bin-ladens-hideout-top-security-official-says/2011/05/08/AFxXpNSG_story.html
So now Obama enjoys what I predict will be a growing bump in his approval ratings as a result of killing bin Laden. Gas prices are dropping and are predicted to be down by fifty cents a gallon by summer; job creation in the private sector continues to rise. Maybe killing Osama isn’t the end of al-Qaeda, and some encouraging economic news isn’t the end of the recession for most Americans, but things certainly look a lot brighter today than they did a week ago.
It’s still over a year to the 2012 election, but I have to believe that Republicans are growing increasingly nervous. The best they can come up with for now is a little sniping from the sidelines. First, they criticize Obama for making too many references to himself in announcing the death of Osama. Eight in nine minutes by my count, including some real whoppers such as, “Tonight, I can report. . . .” which could have been better phrased in the passive, “Tonight, it can be reported”; or “Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation,” which might have be phrased as, “Today, that tall black guy in the White House launched a targeted operation. . . .”
But I don’t think this kind of petty denigration is going to play well anywhere but on the Rush Limbaugh show. Even worse for the Ree-Pubs, senior Bush administration officials are stepping out of the shadows to take at least partial credit for the kill and criticize Obama for stopping “enhanced interrogation techniques,” also referred to as torture except in the Bush administration. Rummy Rumsfeld said that early tips obtained through waterboarding led to Osama’s bloody end. "Trigger" Dick Cheney said the same and suggested that Obama has put the United States at risk by reaffirming our commitment to national and international law regarding torture.
And Cheney wanted to take the head shot since he has the experience, but that's another matter.
All this from the administration that, after the initial invasion of Afghanistan, got absolutely everything else wrong for the next seven years. I won’t go on about it here. For a partial list of absolutely everything else the Bush administration got wrong for the next seven years, email me privately.
Actually, I’m surprised that no one I’m aware of is making the argument that Obama acted recklessly, despite his fortunate outcome. He gambled his presidency and to a large degree the standing of the United States in the world on intelligence that he described as circumstantial and on an operation that had what he described as a 55/45 chance of success. He said he worried that the Navy SEALs would find only a “prince from Dubai” instead of the terrorist leader responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: “I mean, we could not say definitively that bin Laden was there. Had he not been there, then there would have been some significant consequences.”
No shit. So it’s no wonder White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan described the decision rather ungrammatically as “what I believe was one of the most gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory." The outcome, one way or the other, fairly or unfairly, would largely define how history would see Obama the man and probably his entire presidency.
The tall black guy in the White House rolled the dice and won. I’m betting that not the least important thing he won is his reelection.
Lucky shot.
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Laughter, the best medicine
I wondered how John Stewart and Stephen Colbert would cover the death of Osama bin-Laden because there’s certainly nothing funny about any of this.
Except there is. I should have had more faith. Colbert especially managed to pull off possibly his most hilarious bit ever.
It’s a good thing to gloat; it’s even better to laugh about it. Colbert’s schoolboy glee was pitch perfect.
If you missed the episode, go to Colbert Nation Online and navigate to the May 2nd episode. And then you might as well watch May 3rd too, but I came up with the piñata idea first.
Final respects
Some Muslim clerics have objected to bin Laden’s burial at sea, declaring that it did not meet Muslim standards for a proper burial and was an insult to the faith. Actually, a variety of options were considered, and burial at sea was finally considered to be the most appropriate under the circumstances.
I have obtained a secret partial list of other choices that were ultimately rejected. Personally, I think burial at sea was about the nicest thing we could have done with his corpse considering his storied career.
Here then, the top ten possible options to “lug the guts into the neighbour room,” as happened to poor Polonius in Hamlet:
1. Burial at sea.
2. Strap him into a suicide bomber’s vest and blow him up in Times Square.
3. Chipper/shredder ala Fargo.
4. Cut off his head and throw his body by the side of the road. (An al-Qaeda favorite.)
5. Sell him on eBay.
6. Bury him somewhere in Afghanistan, then release a cryptic treasure map. (Pun intended.)
7. Strap him to a cruise missile and shoot him at Qaddafi.
8. Tie him to the back of a truck and drag him around Lower Manhattan.
9. Osama piñata!
and the last appropriately respectful way to lug the guts out,
10. Bury his ass at ground zero.
Of course, all of this would have been more fun if we'd taken him alive, but still: Good times.
I have obtained a secret partial list of other choices that were ultimately rejected. Personally, I think burial at sea was about the nicest thing we could have done with his corpse considering his storied career.
Here then, the top ten possible options to “lug the guts into the neighbour room,” as happened to poor Polonius in Hamlet:
1. Burial at sea.
2. Strap him into a suicide bomber’s vest and blow him up in Times Square.
3. Chipper/shredder ala Fargo.
4. Cut off his head and throw his body by the side of the road. (An al-Qaeda favorite.)
5. Sell him on eBay.
6. Bury him somewhere in Afghanistan, then release a cryptic treasure map. (Pun intended.)
7. Strap him to a cruise missile and shoot him at Qaddafi.
8. Tie him to the back of a truck and drag him around Lower Manhattan.
9. Osama piñata!
and the last appropriately respectful way to lug the guts out,
10. Bury his ass at ground zero.
Of course, all of this would have been more fun if we'd taken him alive, but still: Good times.
Monday, April 04, 2011
Friday, April 01, 2011
RIP Opal
Real life continues to happen even though we’re on the road. A few weeks ago, Mary got phone calls from various family members telling her that her step mother, Opal, was in the hospital with cancer and had been given only two or three months to live. Opal lived in Phoenix and we weren’t too far away at the time. When we called her step brother Jim, he told us that he thought Opal was failing and might have only a few days.
We dropped all our previous plans and traveled to Phoenix so Mary could be with Opal while she was still alive.
This was always an extremely difficult relationship for Mary; I’ll just say here that Mary experienced many years of verbal and emotional abuse from Opal, continuing even after she left home and after we were married. For many years, Mary has tried to maintain as much distance as possible while still trying to keep at least a cordial relationship, almost entirely for the sake of her father and to keep peace in the family with her brothers and step-brothers and sisters.
All of this made a final goodbye all the more difficult, but by the time we got to the hospital, Opal was no longer conscious, and it was clear that she had at best only a week or so left. Jim wanted us to stay around for the funeral that was to come soon, but we felt that things were too uncertain just to stay in Phoenix, which we don’t like, and wait for a death that would come in its own good time and not before. We ended up traveling to Santa Fe with the idea we could return quickly when it was time.
In fact, Opal lasted about a week longer without ever regaining consciousness, and with a few days’ notice about the funeral, we headed back to Phoenix for Mary’s one last great effort at keeping her other family relationships alive and healthy.
Difficult as it all was, we actually ended up enjoying the reunion, and surprisingly, the funeral itself turned out to be, for me at least, almost fun. Opal, who never believed it was possible to be too lavish, had planned an open-coffin ceremony in a casket that looked a lot like a Lincoln Town Car, not a bad ride to carry her into the afterlife. The pastor from her church turned out to be quite an elderly fellow himself and seemed to mostly lose track of where he was in the eulogy. At one point, he rather fell into an internal theological dispute about whether Opal was greeted in heaven by an angel or by Jesus himself.
First he said it was an angel, but then he said sometimes in a few special cases, Jesus himself actually greeted the Loved One in heaven, though he didn’t seem quite clear on what conditions would trigger the deluxe reception. It wasn’t something you could arrange with the funeral director, but probably you had a better chance on week days when things were otherwise kind of slow in Paradise.
In the end he came down on the side of Jesus. He managed to piece together a few Bible verses suggesting that death was only a passage from this life to the next, though he didn’t always seem sure exactly what his point was.
At least the whole service was blessedly short. After a drive out to the cemetery, the men among the mourners were informed we were going to be the pall bearers, which alarmed me because I’d never born a pall before and I was convinced the mostly old and feeble men in attendance wouldn’t be able to lift the Lincoln and Opal’s earthly remains and make it over to the grave site without tripping.
In the end, though, we were successful, with only a few alarming stumbles, and after a few appropriate words from Pastor, Opal was lowered into the earth for her eternal rest. This final moment made me decidedly claustrophobic, but otherwise, the service had been mostly enjoyable and sometimes amusing.
I doubt Mary saw it all in quite the same way.
We continued on to a fine Italian restaurant where step-brother Jim hosted an excellent buffet, and we all enjoyed spending some light-hearted time together. When we got back to our trailer, Mary was emotionally exhausted but content in having done the right thing and hopeful she could move on with her life now, free of some of the emotional burdens she’s carried all these years.
I wish her the best with that, but we both know that all of us carry stuff for as long as we live, and the best we can do is to try to live well with our stuff. Mary works harder and with more success at that than just about anybody I know, and it’s one of the things I most love and respect about her. Thus, some good comes from bad, and our stuff becomes in part the clay from which we mold our lives, we hope with some success.
Today we stay over one more day in Phoenix to handle the mundane chores of doing laundry, cleaning the trailer, and stocking up on food and supplies. We leave tomorrow for the canyon lands of Southern Utah and point our compass more or less in the direction of Klamath Falls. We might still stay out the final two weeks we had originally planned, or we might make a more deliberate drive straight through to get back to the comforts of life at home.
In any case, there’s a sense that this year’s winter travels are coming to a close. I’m looking forward to getting back on my motorcycle, among other things, and Mary is missing her horse and other good friends.
And weather reports from Klamath Falls suggest it might not be too soon to return. Spring is on its way. Rebirth and all of that.
We dropped all our previous plans and traveled to Phoenix so Mary could be with Opal while she was still alive.
This was always an extremely difficult relationship for Mary; I’ll just say here that Mary experienced many years of verbal and emotional abuse from Opal, continuing even after she left home and after we were married. For many years, Mary has tried to maintain as much distance as possible while still trying to keep at least a cordial relationship, almost entirely for the sake of her father and to keep peace in the family with her brothers and step-brothers and sisters.
All of this made a final goodbye all the more difficult, but by the time we got to the hospital, Opal was no longer conscious, and it was clear that she had at best only a week or so left. Jim wanted us to stay around for the funeral that was to come soon, but we felt that things were too uncertain just to stay in Phoenix, which we don’t like, and wait for a death that would come in its own good time and not before. We ended up traveling to Santa Fe with the idea we could return quickly when it was time.
In fact, Opal lasted about a week longer without ever regaining consciousness, and with a few days’ notice about the funeral, we headed back to Phoenix for Mary’s one last great effort at keeping her other family relationships alive and healthy.
Difficult as it all was, we actually ended up enjoying the reunion, and surprisingly, the funeral itself turned out to be, for me at least, almost fun. Opal, who never believed it was possible to be too lavish, had planned an open-coffin ceremony in a casket that looked a lot like a Lincoln Town Car, not a bad ride to carry her into the afterlife. The pastor from her church turned out to be quite an elderly fellow himself and seemed to mostly lose track of where he was in the eulogy. At one point, he rather fell into an internal theological dispute about whether Opal was greeted in heaven by an angel or by Jesus himself.
First he said it was an angel, but then he said sometimes in a few special cases, Jesus himself actually greeted the Loved One in heaven, though he didn’t seem quite clear on what conditions would trigger the deluxe reception. It wasn’t something you could arrange with the funeral director, but probably you had a better chance on week days when things were otherwise kind of slow in Paradise.
In the end he came down on the side of Jesus. He managed to piece together a few Bible verses suggesting that death was only a passage from this life to the next, though he didn’t always seem sure exactly what his point was.
At least the whole service was blessedly short. After a drive out to the cemetery, the men among the mourners were informed we were going to be the pall bearers, which alarmed me because I’d never born a pall before and I was convinced the mostly old and feeble men in attendance wouldn’t be able to lift the Lincoln and Opal’s earthly remains and make it over to the grave site without tripping.
In the end, though, we were successful, with only a few alarming stumbles, and after a few appropriate words from Pastor, Opal was lowered into the earth for her eternal rest. This final moment made me decidedly claustrophobic, but otherwise, the service had been mostly enjoyable and sometimes amusing.
I doubt Mary saw it all in quite the same way.
We continued on to a fine Italian restaurant where step-brother Jim hosted an excellent buffet, and we all enjoyed spending some light-hearted time together. When we got back to our trailer, Mary was emotionally exhausted but content in having done the right thing and hopeful she could move on with her life now, free of some of the emotional burdens she’s carried all these years.
I wish her the best with that, but we both know that all of us carry stuff for as long as we live, and the best we can do is to try to live well with our stuff. Mary works harder and with more success at that than just about anybody I know, and it’s one of the things I most love and respect about her. Thus, some good comes from bad, and our stuff becomes in part the clay from which we mold our lives, we hope with some success.
Today we stay over one more day in Phoenix to handle the mundane chores of doing laundry, cleaning the trailer, and stocking up on food and supplies. We leave tomorrow for the canyon lands of Southern Utah and point our compass more or less in the direction of Klamath Falls. We might still stay out the final two weeks we had originally planned, or we might make a more deliberate drive straight through to get back to the comforts of life at home.
In any case, there’s a sense that this year’s winter travels are coming to a close. I’m looking forward to getting back on my motorcycle, among other things, and Mary is missing her horse and other good friends.
And weather reports from Klamath Falls suggest it might not be too soon to return. Spring is on its way. Rebirth and all of that.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Bisbee
Bisbee, Arizona is a former mining town turned tourist destination and artists’ colony. As these things go, Bisbee is worth the trip from Tucson for a stay of three or four days.
The town is notable for several things: sitting in a steep valley at about 5,000 feet, it’s especially picturesque. Depending on where we were standing, the small, colorful houses rising up both sides of the canyon reminded us of either Santa Cruz, Ashland, or the town in the Popeye movie.
As a tourist destination, it seems to offer a higher quality of everything normally found in places like this. The restaurants are excellent, galleries offer art of a much higher quality (and price) than usually found in your typical tourist trap, and among the usual antique and curio shops, there are the occasional specialty stores you would expect to find in a large city. I went into Optimo Milliners, for example, to see if I could get my felt fedora cleaned and blocked. The guy was nice about it, but my hat is a piece of crap and I could buy two for what it would cost to have him do triage on it. And there’s a four-month waiting list. So I thought, well maybe I’ll just buy one of his fancy-ass hats, but that would be an even longer wait, during which I could work part time to come up with a down payment. He seems to have a worldwide reputation, and for all I know he makes the Pope's hats, though he specializes in Panamas.
But come to Bisbee for the mine tour, an absolutely fascinating hour and a half underground in a miners’ train. We went down 1,770 feet in a mine that went down8,000 feet underground and has an amazing 2,000 miles of tunnels. Or so the guide said, a former miner with a terrific dry sense of humor and a bucketful of facts, some of which I took with a grain of salt, even though The Copper Queen was not a salt mine.
The day shift reports for work
By about 1955, they figured out it was cheaper and easier just to eat the mountain and sort out the rocks later, so there’s one spectacular hole in the ground. When the mine reached the edge of the next town over, it just kept going. Don’t follow your GPS to any addresses in Warren.
This was a little bit of a pilgrimage for Mary since her father was born and raised here. He graduated from Bisbee high in about 1935 when it really was a rough and tumble mining town. We went to the museum and looked through some old records. Mary had thought her grandfather was a mining engineer, but turns out he was “Chief Clerk” for Phelps Dodge. We don’t know quite what that means but it sounds important.
Still, Mary doesn’t appear to be the rightful heir to anything here in Bisbee, so we’re moving on tomorrow, despite the many interesting things to see we never got to.
Maybe next year.
The town is notable for several things: sitting in a steep valley at about 5,000 feet, it’s especially picturesque. Depending on where we were standing, the small, colorful houses rising up both sides of the canyon reminded us of either Santa Cruz, Ashland, or the town in the Popeye movie.
As a tourist destination, it seems to offer a higher quality of everything normally found in places like this. The restaurants are excellent, galleries offer art of a much higher quality (and price) than usually found in your typical tourist trap, and among the usual antique and curio shops, there are the occasional specialty stores you would expect to find in a large city. I went into Optimo Milliners, for example, to see if I could get my felt fedora cleaned and blocked. The guy was nice about it, but my hat is a piece of crap and I could buy two for what it would cost to have him do triage on it. And there’s a four-month waiting list. So I thought, well maybe I’ll just buy one of his fancy-ass hats, but that would be an even longer wait, during which I could work part time to come up with a down payment. He seems to have a worldwide reputation, and for all I know he makes the Pope's hats, though he specializes in Panamas.
But come to Bisbee for the mine tour, an absolutely fascinating hour and a half underground in a miners’ train. We went down 1,770 feet in a mine that went down8,000 feet underground and has an amazing 2,000 miles of tunnels. Or so the guide said, a former miner with a terrific dry sense of humor and a bucketful of facts, some of which I took with a grain of salt, even though The Copper Queen was not a salt mine.
The day shift reports for work
By about 1955, they figured out it was cheaper and easier just to eat the mountain and sort out the rocks later, so there’s one spectacular hole in the ground. When the mine reached the edge of the next town over, it just kept going. Don’t follow your GPS to any addresses in Warren.
This was a little bit of a pilgrimage for Mary since her father was born and raised here. He graduated from Bisbee high in about 1935 when it really was a rough and tumble mining town. We went to the museum and looked through some old records. Mary had thought her grandfather was a mining engineer, but turns out he was “Chief Clerk” for Phelps Dodge. We don’t know quite what that means but it sounds important.
Still, Mary doesn’t appear to be the rightful heir to anything here in Bisbee, so we’re moving on tomorrow, despite the many interesting things to see we never got to.
Maybe next year.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Scared north
We’re camping again at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, one of our favorite Southwest destinations. At six bucks a night and a three-week limit, it’s also a real bargain and a good way to save money compared to the $35 or $40 fees at state parks and private campgrounds. There are a lot of loyal visitors. The people across from us—possibly the nicest old couple you’ll ever meet—have been coming here for seventeen years.
Still, last year the campground was only half full, about eighty campers and tents on any given day. This year, the number is half that. What’s going on?
Certainly part of the blame has to rest with Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona legislature, which have driven away millions of measurable dollars in convention business and probably even more in winter tourism. Not only have they alienated Hispanics, they’ve outraged lots of just-folks who have a low tolerance for intolerance.
But even more than any moral backlash, there must have been considerable harm done by just the rhetoric, highly exaggerated, about how dangerous the border region is. Organ Pipe borders Mexico, and the campground is a scant four miles north of the crossing at Sonoyta. The Fence is clearly visible during the daytime, and the lights of the small town are clear at night.
Brewer has repeatedly fixed on the murder of one borderline cattleman, even though it hasn’t been proven he was killed by illegals. But let’s give her that one. She also stated, though later amended, that there are thousands of headless corpses out in the desert.
Those headless corpses are in Mexico! What’s to worry!
Still, I can see how visitors who thought this might be a nice place to stay for two or three weeks might feel a little uncomfortable and decide to move on. The NatGeo program called Border Wars doesn’t exaggerate by much.
Here’s a sample:
The Border Patrol station in Ajo, about thirty miles north, has grown by a factor of ten in the last few years. They’re currently constructing an even-larger facility that looks about the size of a small prison, and I’m sure that’s partly what it will be.
Border Patrol SUVs are ubiquitous on the highways, sometimes feeling like about one in every three or four vehicles. Many of them pull trailers carrying quads for patrolling out in the desert.
There’s a Border Patrol checkpoint about ten miles north of the park. We pass through with just a few standard questions, but other vehicles get a careful search. It’s common to see vehicles parked on the shoulder before and after the checkpoint, and certainly some of them are picking up and dropping off immigrants and smugglers as they get around the checkpoint on foot.
It’s also common to see Border Patrol SUVs right in the campground, the agents parked and looking out over the desert to the south, slowly patrolling, or driving through fast. This is especially common at night when they also shine spotlights into the desert. Some of them carry tracker dogs.
Helicopters are routine, and a few nights ago one of them worked the desert no more than a mile from camp for over an hour, flying back and forth with dual spot lights playing over the ground. I could also see lights from SUVs out there.
Most eerie, just north of the park I watched one night last year as planes dropped parachute flares which cast a bright yellow-orange light creating an unnatural daylight. And not just one plane, but at least three. I watched almost hypnotized for the whole evening, one flare after another so that there were usually three or four in the sky at one time. This brought back a strong memory from Viet Nam—not to be confused with a flashback—because it was routine there, too, for planes to drop flares outside of the base where I was stationed, especially during the occasional rocket or mortar attack, the biggest difference being the lack here of .50 caliber machine guns firing tracers at the ground. It made a sound not like gunfire but more like the steady staccato buzz of an arc welder, and we called it pissing fire.
At least the runners don’t have that to worry about.
With the help of all the electronic devices which include conventional radar, noise and motion detectors, regular and infrared cameras and probably some secret technologies we don’t even know about, it’s common for agents to arrest groups as large as fifty, though smaller numbers are more common.
And still they estimate four to six get through for every one who is caught. Where they get this number I have no idea. The park superintendent estimates an amazing 1,200 runners cross the park every night. Again, I have no idea how they arrive at such numbers, but eighty percent of the park is closed to the public and even to park employees. Only the campground and a few close-in trails are open.
Still, we love it here and feel completely comfortable and safe. There are some magnificent hikes and drives still open, and just walking the dogs around the campground and looking at the desert and mountains is a pleasure. Actually, I’d rather like to see some runners, which is common, just like I like to see coyotes or javelina.
We didn’t bring passports because we have no plans to cross into Mexico itself, although we’ve talked to plenty of people who have and who say that other than the border towns, Mexico is still safe for tourists. Maybe so, maybe not, but tomorrow begins spring break for Arizona college students, and despite the alarmist pronouncements from their elected officials, tens of thousands will cross the border here and drive down to Puerto Penasco.
Out here in the middle of the Sonora Desert, the Pacific Ocean is only seventy miles away. Maybe next year.
Still, last year the campground was only half full, about eighty campers and tents on any given day. This year, the number is half that. What’s going on?
Certainly part of the blame has to rest with Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona legislature, which have driven away millions of measurable dollars in convention business and probably even more in winter tourism. Not only have they alienated Hispanics, they’ve outraged lots of just-folks who have a low tolerance for intolerance.
But even more than any moral backlash, there must have been considerable harm done by just the rhetoric, highly exaggerated, about how dangerous the border region is. Organ Pipe borders Mexico, and the campground is a scant four miles north of the crossing at Sonoyta. The Fence is clearly visible during the daytime, and the lights of the small town are clear at night.
Brewer has repeatedly fixed on the murder of one borderline cattleman, even though it hasn’t been proven he was killed by illegals. But let’s give her that one. She also stated, though later amended, that there are thousands of headless corpses out in the desert.
Those headless corpses are in Mexico! What’s to worry!
Still, I can see how visitors who thought this might be a nice place to stay for two or three weeks might feel a little uncomfortable and decide to move on. The NatGeo program called Border Wars doesn’t exaggerate by much.
Here’s a sample:
The Border Patrol station in Ajo, about thirty miles north, has grown by a factor of ten in the last few years. They’re currently constructing an even-larger facility that looks about the size of a small prison, and I’m sure that’s partly what it will be.
Border Patrol SUVs are ubiquitous on the highways, sometimes feeling like about one in every three or four vehicles. Many of them pull trailers carrying quads for patrolling out in the desert.
There’s a Border Patrol checkpoint about ten miles north of the park. We pass through with just a few standard questions, but other vehicles get a careful search. It’s common to see vehicles parked on the shoulder before and after the checkpoint, and certainly some of them are picking up and dropping off immigrants and smugglers as they get around the checkpoint on foot.
It’s also common to see Border Patrol SUVs right in the campground, the agents parked and looking out over the desert to the south, slowly patrolling, or driving through fast. This is especially common at night when they also shine spotlights into the desert. Some of them carry tracker dogs.
Helicopters are routine, and a few nights ago one of them worked the desert no more than a mile from camp for over an hour, flying back and forth with dual spot lights playing over the ground. I could also see lights from SUVs out there.
Most eerie, just north of the park I watched one night last year as planes dropped parachute flares which cast a bright yellow-orange light creating an unnatural daylight. And not just one plane, but at least three. I watched almost hypnotized for the whole evening, one flare after another so that there were usually three or four in the sky at one time. This brought back a strong memory from Viet Nam—not to be confused with a flashback—because it was routine there, too, for planes to drop flares outside of the base where I was stationed, especially during the occasional rocket or mortar attack, the biggest difference being the lack here of .50 caliber machine guns firing tracers at the ground. It made a sound not like gunfire but more like the steady staccato buzz of an arc welder, and we called it pissing fire.
At least the runners don’t have that to worry about.
With the help of all the electronic devices which include conventional radar, noise and motion detectors, regular and infrared cameras and probably some secret technologies we don’t even know about, it’s common for agents to arrest groups as large as fifty, though smaller numbers are more common.
And still they estimate four to six get through for every one who is caught. Where they get this number I have no idea. The park superintendent estimates an amazing 1,200 runners cross the park every night. Again, I have no idea how they arrive at such numbers, but eighty percent of the park is closed to the public and even to park employees. Only the campground and a few close-in trails are open.
Still, we love it here and feel completely comfortable and safe. There are some magnificent hikes and drives still open, and just walking the dogs around the campground and looking at the desert and mountains is a pleasure. Actually, I’d rather like to see some runners, which is common, just like I like to see coyotes or javelina.
We didn’t bring passports because we have no plans to cross into Mexico itself, although we’ve talked to plenty of people who have and who say that other than the border towns, Mexico is still safe for tourists. Maybe so, maybe not, but tomorrow begins spring break for Arizona college students, and despite the alarmist pronouncements from their elected officials, tens of thousands will cross the border here and drive down to Puerto Penasco.
Out here in the middle of the Sonora Desert, the Pacific Ocean is only seventy miles away. Maybe next year.
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