Little girls are not allowed to grow up!
It's been a great day for Dad. A friend of mine asked me today if I know who Wally Szczerbiak is. From the context of the conversation I assumed he was a basketball player, but couldn't honestly answer yes, so he sent me some photos.
OK. So he's a hot basketball player. For Boston should any of my athletically challeged friends decide to find a sudden interest in the NBA.
My 14-year old daughter was looking over my shoulder when I pulled up the email to see who this Wally person is. An "OOooo!!" escaped her before she remembered it was her dad she was sitting next to.
Nice.
Fatherhood.
My youngest is turning 12 in about 6 weeks. She has decided she wants to take up gymnastics. I have mixed feelings about this.
We have known she likely has natural ability as a gymnast almost since the day she was born. She is small, wiry, strong and high energy. She earned the nickname "rigorbaby" long before she was even mobile because when you would place her belly on your palm, rather than draping over your hand like a wet blanket, she would go stiff as a board and balance on your palm. I have two sisters who have competed in gymnastics, both at the state level in Texas and one as a member of the gymnastics team at BYU. My family knows a little about gymnastics and everyone has commented on my daughter's apparent natural ability.
On the other hand, I have two sisters who have competed in gymnastics, both at the state level in Texas and one as a member of the gymnastics team at BYU. I also dated a gymnast for a little over a year. All three are busted and broken from their days as a gymnast. I called my sister who competed for BYU—the one who would come home from workout during high school in tears because she was in so much pain, the one who spent hours with her knees packed in ice, the one who had multiple surgeries during her college career to repair her busted this, and her blown that and her ruptured the other. I asked her what she thought now that she is a 30-something mother of four. "You know, looking back now I still have to say, 'Yep. It was worth it.'"
Great. I'll admit, I loved watching my sisters compete. I will love watching my daughter compete if she decides to take it that far, but my stomach will drop and my heart skip a beat every time she falls.
I figured as much.
Being one who has dealt with allergies my whole life, I have been really, really annoyed that I can buy no more than a 10 day supply of decongestant now that government officials have decided that restricting the sale of pseudo-ephedrine, the ingredient used for basement meth labs, is the answer to the drug problem. There is a new drug coming on the market called phenylephrine, but I'd have to buy two pills since none of the anti-histamines I use have moved to using phenylephrine. Who knows if they ever will.
So has restricting the sale of the drug worked? Sort of. There are, in fact, fewer basement meth labs, which do pose public health hazards beyond drug addiction: the by products of meth production are highly toxic and (obviously) never disposed of properly and meth labs have a tendency to blow up. Has drug consumption decreased? Nope. Now we're just importing more crystal meth, a more potent variety, from Mexico, and because the Mexican variety is more expensive, drug related crime is up.1
I just don't get it. Several months ago I read about the latest efforts at combating cocaine production in Columbia. Law enforcement officials, egged on by U.S. policies, had taken to spraying coca farms with defoliant. So what did the drug traffickers do? They moved their farms into national parks and wilderness areas where laws forbid the spraying of defoliants. Now, not only can the government not spray, but the drug traffickers are also burning acres of rain forest and poisoning the water with chemicals.2 How long before people pull their heads out of their asses and finally grasp the concept you cannot win the "War on Drugs" by trying to eliminate supply. These people are criminals. They don't give a frogs fat ass about anything but money: not the law, not the land, not the lives destroyed by drugs.
More and more I am losing patience with our drug policies dictated by religious mores. Drugs are a sin, so we cannot countenance drug use of any kind and to have the U.S. government involved in the drug trade is absolutely unconscionable and not open for discussion. And yet, if the U.S. government strictly controlled distribution of drugs at a price cheaper than the streets, not only would we not be destroying acres of rainforest, drug related crime would likely go down, and we would have direct access to the people who are the root of the problem and be able to offer counseling and assistance in kicking the habit altogether.
I am admittedly uncomfortable with the idea. Still, it seems a much smarter solution than anything else that has been tried. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results. The "War on Drugs" crossed that line a long time ago. Drugs still flow into this country pretty much unchecked. Drug consumption has not diminished in any significant way. All they have succeeded in doing is making it a pain for honest people to get the medication they need.
Brokeback Mountain, Take 2
Despite doomsday predictions1 by some conservative watchers and the "righteous" efforts of Larry H. Miller2, Brokeback Mountain is doing phenomenally at the box office. Obviously it can't compete with major studio releases on the weekend. This past weekend it came in at #9 with about $7M in box office receipts compared to Glory Road's $16.9M.3 What is surprising is yesterday Brokeback was #1 at the box office,4 this with Brokeback showing in 1,076 theaters5, compared to Glory Road's 2,222 theaters6, Narnia's 3,224 theaters7 or Kong's 2,814.8 Granted, it's mid-week, but since no one expected a gay love story to even register on the charts, I think it's pretty damn cool.
What does it mean? I don't know. Could it mean that despite ignorant rants like from the likes of Rip Rense,9 America is a lot more open to the idea of two men in love than conservatives would have us believe? We can always hope.
*Box Office Mojo links require registration
Ex-gay or Ex-reality?
Over at the Independant Gay Forum, Mark Pietrzyk pens an article about a few of the leaders and most public figures of ex-gay ministries. I think this is the crux of the article right here:
It is not unusual for people who lead irresponsible and uncontrolled lives to be deeply unhappy, and one can readily credit the ex-gays' tales of how unhappy they were in the "before" phase of their stories. But they go on to accuse the "gay lifestyle" of being inherently unrestrained and decadent. Such a claim amounts by implication to an evasion of personal responsibility, a way of blaming one's past on a handy scapegoat rather than on one's own personal folly. Some gay persons lead overindulgent, irresponsible, out-of-control lives. Countless other gay persons do not. Homosexual orientation is not a choice, but what one chooses to do with it is.
It is interesting to note that without exception these men seemed to have had little, if any, self control, most addicted to drugs or alcohol and several working as male prostitutes. And they were unhappy with their lives? What a shocker! Guess what folks. I've been out for five years now. Never been paid for sex even as a joke between lovers, much less worked as a prostitute. Not addicted to drugs. In fact, never done drugs, ever. Not even pot. I do enjoy a drink now and then, but I have the sense to avoid alcohol if I'm feeling depressed. So here, at least, is one homosexual who is not "remarkably deficient in self-control and restraint, prone to addictive behavior, and often lacking a moral center altogether. "
For me the most damning aspect of this article is how it details the changes in the conversion stories of these men. In some cases there are three different versions, sometimes differing in rather important details such as whether the gentleman was happy being gay or not, and whether there was a voice from Heaven or simply a prayer uttered. One has to wonder how any of these men have any credibility at all.
A couple of days ago I wrote about people who prefer to blame God, fate or chemistry for their problems rather than accept responsibility. It sounds to me like these guys needed to blame homosexuality for their pathetic behavior simply because it was easier than facing the fact they had serious personal deficits they were unable overcome on their own. It sounds like most of them had shitty childhoods and stood in need of assistance to get handle on life, overcome their past and be productive members of society. It's just unfortunate, in my opinion, that religious fanaticism filled that void for them. Still, if being ex-gay has afforded these men some semblance of control over their lives, bully for them. That's hardly proof of change in their sexual orientation, however. A more credible spokesperson would be someone who led a stable, productive life as a homosexual, decided to change and then told his story in a consistent and believable fashion.
Anyone?
Things that make you go hmmmmm…
Over at Deviant Art, one of the photographers I keep an eye on is a young guy not too far off of 20 who lives in Austria. His handle on D.A. is coxi. He's got an amazing eye and I am always impressed with his work. Several months ago he posted several pictures he had taken of his girlfriend and some she had taken of him. Comments and descriptions of the photos gave one to believe they were very important to each other.
Then one day, it all disappeared. He cleaned out his entire gallery and started over. We discovered they had broken up, he was moving back in with is family and working on starting a new phase of his life. A bit of a shock considering the devotion he had expressed for this very lovely woman, but shit does happen. Well, yesterday we found out why they broke up. "yes i'm gay.. maybe you know why lia and i broke up"
So apparently even in "morally bankrupt" Europe where homosexuality is widely accepted and the insidious march of gay marriage is well on its way to "destroying the fabric of society" young men still make an effort at playing it straight. Why is that do you think? Maybe because no one grows up wanting to be gay? Maybe because we all grow up expecting to live out our lives with a wife and children? Maybe because that is still what many of us want, but end up being forced to admit that's the not best course for our life?
If people think the "homosexual agenda" is in high gear now, just wait until this new generation of young men comes of age, knowing that marriage to a woman is only going to cause heartache and pain in the long run, but do not see why they should have to give up on their dreams of family life.
Ya canna change the laws of physics!
I think there should be at least one class period dedicated to physics in driver's ed.
Today, boys and girls, we are going to talk about inertia. Can you say inertia? The principle of inertia states that an object tends to want to maintain its current state. In other words, an object at rest wants to stay at rest and an object in motion wants to stay in motion, and not just in motion, but moving in the same trajectory it is currently on, in other words a straight line.
Now there are all kinds of things that can affect inertia. The most common force acting against inertia when we are on the road is friction. Someone at some point decided that rubber tires in contact with asphalt was the most cost effective way of creating friction to counter inertia. We use friction to exert a force counter to inertia to turn our vehicles. We use the same friction to exert a force to stop our vehicles.
What happens, boys and girls, when there is packed snow, slush and/or ice on the road? Our tires lose their ability to create friction. Without friction inertia will control the movement of our car. What did we say inertia wants to do? It wants to keep our cars in motion, moving in a straight line.
What about our breaks? They are exerting friction aren't they? Yes, they are, but they are exerting friction on the brake disc, which is attached to our tires. Using our brakes is merely an effort to increase the amount of friction our tires are exerting on the road. If our tires have lost their ability to exert friction on the road, your brakes don't mean shit.
The faster you are going, the more inertia you have which increases either the amount of friction or the amount of time required to counter that inertia. A little bit of friction for a long time will eventually counter inertia and bring and object to rest. The more friction you apply, the less time will be required to counter inertia. We have all seen skid marks on the freeway. That is a sign that not enough friction was present to counter the amount of inertia a vehicle had in the time required. If you are limited in your ability to exert friction, you should limit the amount of inertia you create.
On a side note, it is called four-wheel drive, not four-wheel stop. Having four-wheel drive increases the chance that one tire might be able to create enough friction to put your car in motion, and to a lesser degree control the trajectory of your vehicle. However, a four-wheel drive vehicle on a patch of ice will still succumb to inertia.
Attention All Audiophiles
If you haven't heard of Pandora, check it out. Presented by the Music Genome Project, Pandora is a streaming radio that tailors itself to your music tastes.
Basically you give it the name of a song or a band and it creates a music station with music that is representative of your choice. You can give songs a thumbs up or a thumbs down to refine the music that is played for you. It goes by individual songs, so even if you give the thumbs down to one song by a particular artist other songs by the same artist could still come up in the play list. You can define up to 100 different stations.
In order to see how good a job it does, I put in Nickleback. Rhapsody classifies Nickleback as post-grunge. I'll take their word for it. I am extremely picky about music in this genre. It has problems with being musically interesting: boring melody lines, elementary chord progression, lame lyrics, etc. There's also the problem that a lot of it just sounds like some damn fool screaming. It also seems this particular genre attracts singers with a quality to their singing that I can only describe as whiny, in other words extremely irritating.
After only giving a handful of thumbs-up and thumbs-downs it's doing a remarkable job of presenting music I like and filtering that which I would call crap. Since I doubt "whiny" is one of the criteria Pandora uses, it still occasionally plays a song that I'm not crazy about, but it's stopped playing music that would have me reaching for the station buttons in the car.
They have partnered with iTunes if you want to buy a digital track and with Amazon if you're more interested in the CD. It's a free service if you don't mind advertising. Advertising is minimal right now. I actually haven't heard a single ad so far, but they promise to ramp that up as they get rolling. Even at $36/year if you want to listen without advertising it's a pretty good deal.
What’s so great about love?
That question was posed to me in a somewhat confrontational manner the other night at a party, perhaps because it had been noted earlier in the evening that I am obviously in love with D. Whatever his reason for singling me out, I am not the kind of person on whom you can drop a loaded question like that and expect an on the spot answer. It ain't gonna happen.
Some seem to think that I write well. If I write well, it is because writing gives me time to think. I do not think on my feet. My thought processes are slow and methodical. If you ask me a question and I don't respond right away, I'm not ignoring you. I'm thinking. In the past I have said, "I am a semi, not a Porsche." Truth is I'm more like an aircraft carrier.
So having had over a week to ponder the question, I still don't really have an answer. I can tell you what I enjoy about being in love (it feels good, security, companionship), but that may not necessarily be what others get out of love. Besides, I don't think that really answers the question. What I really would have liked to have done was turn the question back to my interrogator, who was obviously disenchanted with love, and ask, "What's so wrong with love?" He is, after all, in the minority opinion.
People like to say, "God is love." I don't have too many issues with that, but then it should come as no surprise that there are as many opinions and theories about the nature of love as there are opinions and theories about the nature of God. Love, it seems, is among those great mysteries of the universe that humanity is probably incapable of comprehending fully and so we muddle along, trying to understand love, all the while viewing it through our own, variously distorted, personal prisms.
Obviously there are "love atheists" out there, those disenchanted and/or embittered by their experience with love. Chemistry is often tossed about as a pejorative in such contexts, as if the fact that chemical processes are involved somehow refutes if not the reality then at least the mystery of love. I don't get that, but let's move on. If you have had a negative experience with love, that is unfortunate, but you are hardly alone. I respectfully suggest that such experiences are not a problem with love as much as they are a problem with our limited understanding of love or unrealistic expectations placed on love. Love is hardly a panacea for what ails you. It seems to me that blaming love for failed relationships and heartache makes about as much sense as blaming God for war.
Whatever the universal constants, there are always two independent actors involved, each free to make his or her own choices. Well, I guess that's just my opinion as well. Many there are who prefer to believe that it is fate or destiny that determines all outcomes. I suppose it is easier to blame God, love or chemistry for everything and not have to admit that you screwed up. It also happens to be my opinion there is nothing wrong with screwing up as long as we learn from our mistakes. We aren't perfect. We don't know everything there is to know. We make mistakes. That's how we learn: by doing. If you make a really big boo-boo, clean up the mess the best you can and move on. Try again.
I guess I have my answer now. What's so great about love? You always get another chance.
Oxymoron: Government efficiency
The bungling of the Medicare Prescription Plan continues.
With tens of thousands of people unable to get medicines promised by Medicare, the Bush administration has told insurers that they must provide a 30-day supply of any drug that a beneficiary was previously taking, and it said that poor people must not be charged more than $5 for a covered drug.1
One of the major criticisms of the plan in the first place was its cost and the lack of any provision in the budget to actually pay for it. Well, it seems the Republicans have figured that out after all: bungle the implementation so bad that others have to pick up the slack and the tab.
I still don't understand how people can discuss national health care with a straight face. I don't pretend to know what the answer to the medical insurance problem is, but I'm pretty sure it's not putting the federal government in charge.