tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-209095732024-03-23T14:06:06.487-04:00How ObservantHalves of hours of entertainment!Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.comBlogger283125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-41542857944148754582018-08-06T18:53:00.000-04:002018-08-06T18:58:34.851-04:00Manual Transmission<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of my high school friends -- really, only one, as far as I can recall -- drove a manual transmission car. It was a green Kia Rio. Kat loved that car. She love tapped my also green Jeep Cherokee once, and I was pissed about it. She’d probably have to be going 25 miles an hour to do any real damage to mine, but I loved my car, too. I made a trade with her that I would give her a copy of my Led Zeppelin cd collection if she’d teach me to drive it. It was the first and only time I have driven a standard, and I remember thinking that it was pretty easy, except for first gear. I really want to get a standard transmission in my next car, but I cannot say how much faith I have in my memory from 20 years ago in her Kia Rio, especially since first gear comes up a lot.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b id="m_945341506874204062gmail-docs-internal-guid-644684c7-1174-4cdb-6626-26b7c4aa358b" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She was a great sport about it. We were, among other things, music friends, as my offering suggests. I remember watching my Who concert dvd that day with her. We shared the bass solo in 5:15 melting our faces off. It gets me everytime; I am not sure how many times I watched it.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She was coming off her first real breakup around that time. We talked about that, how much she felt like it would be with her forever -- which is basically true of everyone’s first love. I had gotten George Harrison’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brainwashed</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for Christmas that year, and we listened to that, too. There’s a song on it called </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Never Get Over You</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I remember her saying, “That’s how I feel about Ryan.” She did, in fact, get over him.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I also remember her saying that she felt like would have a handful of very intense relationships like the one she had with him, but I would basically only have one, and that would be it. I would find Her -- and I would just know.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kat was one of my best friends, almost like extended family, but looking back, it is one of those things that still weirds me out to think that I project enough of whatever it is that I am for her to absorb it, synthesize it, analyze it, and return it to me in a way that I would not have sorted out on my own. I still cannot say how she did it.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had encounters with other girls before I met Her, of course, and sometimes I thought one of them might be Her. But once I actually met Her, I knew Kat was right. When we first met, it took some effort for me to get her to realize what I had already realized, but honestly, in the scheme of things, it was nothing. Not compared to what I got in return.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our first date I asked Her out for coffee, and She said, “How about ice cream instead?” Ice cream is</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> way</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> better than coffee! That is how my life has been since. We went to Dairy Queen and we sat outside. We talked about ourselves and football. We are fans of semi-rival teams, so there is a natural conflict all the time on the subject. We have been married for seven and a half years now and still talk about football and eat ice cream. The last time our teams met, they split the series. It was not fun for either of us. </span></span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It became clear that both of us were thinking the same thing around Christmas time when we watched </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Step Up 2: The Streets </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">at my place. The thing is, it would not have mattered what it was that we watched. You see, the gears just shifted right into place, like that is how they are supposed to fit. Even the first one.</span></span></div>
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Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-39168628212491817032018-07-04T07:32:00.000-04:002018-07-04T08:03:09.077-04:00Happy Fourth of JulyI made it to the White House and the United States Capitol for the first time earlier this year. I was traveling with my family for a long weekend to Washington, D.C. I must admit that I was pretty taken with the imagery and architecture of the seat of our republic.<br />
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I had been to the city once before, but not to those two buildings. I had seen and entered all of the memorials on the National Mall and stood in awe of the American Ebenezers to Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King, all under the watch of the Washington Monument, of course, and the reminder of what kind of men built this country -- and the missteps along the way to get here. <br />
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It was the right time for me, though, because I was consuming a lot of media about history, in particular the American and French Revolutions. When considering the historical context of what political theory was like in Europe in the 18th Century, the United States of America is a gigantic human leap forward. The mission statement captured in the Declaration of Independence set a goal for us all to strive for -- that all of us are equal and made that way by powers greater than any earthly institutions and any governments that interfere with those rights are illegitimate. It was, of course, also fraught with internal contradictions. Just like all of us still are.<br />
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Without that historical context, it is easy to overlook how significant the articulation of these ideas were. The American Revolution was revolutionary in many senses of the word, since the major powers on the European Continent were still ruled by monarchs invested by divine right (and so were those across the world in Asia, for that matter). The failures of the French Revolution that looked to ours and reached out for the same liberty we now enjoyed showed how fragile those ideas are and how lucky we were to have the men named on the Mall. The expression "the Revolution eats its children" comes from this period in France. The sins of America were different ones than the French, but our guiding principles at least identified a North Star for us (and those for whom the promise of the Declaration was cruelly and immorally excluded) to sail towards. There was no Reign of Terror to devour our own. At least, not in the same way. Our Reign of Terror was an issue of our ideals not being shared with all of our sons and daughters; France's was about which ideals should actually count.<br />
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There are two places on the National Mall that made me cry both times: the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam War Memorial. The Lincoln Memorial stands as a testament that this project, imperfect in execution as it was, is worth preserving, at the expense of blood. Engraved inside the classical temple are Lincoln's two greatest speeches -- among anyone's greatest speeches -- defending the virtue of republican self-government and advocating magnanimity to the enemy, our own countrymen, at the conclusion of the bloody surgery of exorcising part of America's fallen nature. The moral stain of slavery was not completely cleansed after the conclusion of the Civil War, but the sails of the ship of state tacked closer to Jefferson's North Star.<br />
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The Vietnam Memorial is different. While the Lincoln Memorial is theoretical and high minded, the Vietnam War Memorial is clinical in its groundedness. It is a relentless reminder of just what war costs as after each step the names just keep coming, the wall getting taller, and deeper. It is taller than you are before you reach the halfway point. It also serves the aching realization that there is no Second Inaugural Address, no end of slavery, no clear hard won prize purchased with the dearly spent lives. It is a reminder that "progress" does not necessarily trend in a one to one ratio with the axis of time, as much as our optimism (and etchings on our hero's monuments) wants it to, without effort. The arc of the moral universe is long, but there is no gravitational center without principled people bending it.<br />
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At the same time our states were warring against themselves, France had slipped into a Second -- <i>Second </i>-- Empire; their republican ideals did not stick. Let us not forget this Fourth of July what we have been bequeathed by our forefathers. It includes all of us, of every ethnicity, creed, and sex. All men, endowed by our Creator. It is our birthright. Those values are worth preserving. They are worth advancing. They are rare. And they are easy to lose.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-59246578989023944062018-03-15T21:16:00.000-04:002018-03-15T21:16:22.902-04:00She blinded me with logical fallaciesI know this may be hard to believe, but I once got into a silly and unnecessary argument with a former boss over the word "<a href="http://howobservant.blogspot.com/search?q=utilize">utilize</a>" in a presentation. I knew it was silly and unnecessary as it was happening, but I only have so much control over my pedantry. I am only a man. I ended up giving up, because he was my boss and kind of difficult to work for. Even though it was silly and unnecessary, I still feel bad about it because the meanings of words matter, and utilize is a frequently abused word. It shames me to this day.<br />
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Even though I caved in the face of middle-whelming opposition, I still feel strongly about use of <a href="http://howobservant.blogspot.com/search/label/Words">words</a>, as you can imagine. I even got into an internet argument in the comments section of The Atlantic once when I was "working from home" (different boss) about inappropriate use of the word socialism. I do care about that, too, but man, correcting randos on the internet about definitions of political philosophy is an uphill battle.<br />
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Another word that has been bugging me for quite some time now is how people say the word "science" but rarely seem to know what it actually means. This <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamSinger/status/972493304179773440">tweet</a> came across my feed recently and it filled me with that same urge to explain why everyone else is wrong all the time again. The word science has had a sort of quasi-political, semi-chic renaissance. I do not exactly know when or why it started, but its invocation is typically about smugness.<br />
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Science is a process by which an hypothesis is identified, an experiment defined and executed, then tested. It is important that the hypothesis is stated before the experiment is defined, to try to expose and prevent bias. The data from the outcome of the experiment is then compared to the hypothesis, and depending on the significance of the experiment, applied in some way, published or just filed away for posterity. The details of the experiment are also defined, so that it can be replicated to be sure that the information is valid. Science is not a body of knowledge. It is a technique to build knowledge. It is not a world view.<br />
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One of the places that exemplifies this smugness, besides <a href="https://twitter.com/neiltyson">Neil deGrasse Tyson's twitter feed</a>, is <a href="http://ifuckinglovescience.com/">ieffinglovescience</a>. I know that is not its name, but I do not like to use the f word. Looking at the website, it has science memes news, which is nice. Nowhere on the website does the explanation of the Scientific Method appear. The shop is pretty easy to find -- and it supports real science causes! Whatever that means.<br />
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NdGT recently tweeted "<a href="https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/967454681034211330">a subject is scientifically controversial when actively debated by legions of scientists, not when actively debated by the public, the press or by politicians.</a>" That is kind of nonsense, because scientists are not priests. There's no magic cape you get to put on (or Van Allen Belt?) when you graduate with a science degree. While my degrees are in Mechanical Engineering instead of physics, I am not a scientist either. But I am at least as qualified as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye">Bill Nye</a>.<br />
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This particularly bothers me because it reflects poorly on my profession and associated professions when these people act like insufferable jerks using the logical fallacy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority">Appeal to Authority</a> to support a position they already believed. Which, is antithetical to what science is supposed to be.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-31073288345124686342016-06-06T20:40:00.001-04:002016-06-06T20:40:50.873-04:00Isn't it too early to be this jaded about politicsI did not vote for Mitt Romney last election. I did it out of the naive position that he was insufficiently principled; he seemed to be someone who wanted the presidency simply for its own sake. It was unclear what his specific policies would be, because like his fellow Bay Stater John Kerry, he had occupied a number of positions on his way to a national campaign. In short, he felt like the Republican Diet Coke of Hillary Clinton.<br />
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Looking back, that feels silly now. In part because I don't really fall neatly into either particular ideological space represented by the two major political parties. But also because now, when faced with the actual Hillary Clinton as a candidate, that the alternative is a sort of clownish villain. (I'm thinking more Dr. Evil than Joker...) It's hard to tell how dangerous he might actually be in practice, but that's a bit of a different question that the previous paragraph.<br />
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I don't really have a question about either Romney's or Clinton's competence, or their belief in the formulation of our economic and political system. My reservations were about the amount of freedom each would take from us, which has been kind of a moot point over the last 16 years as, like when Eisenhower opted not to dismantle the New Deal, Obama has chosen to maintain the surveillance state and pieces of the War on Terror that were largely elective in addition to his interventionist decisions that doubled down on Bush's during the economic crashes.<br />
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The idealistic part of the electorate seems to be moving away from what I believe, the pragmatic is lining up behind an obviously corrupt technocrat and the nationalistic is distilling that occasionally compelling spirit into a volatile rocket fuel rather than a sophisticated single malt. Volatile is the best word to describe it because there is a possible upside to a Trump presidency. There is floor, though, is more sever and more likely.<br />
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I guess it kind of depends on my faith in the resiliency of American institutions. I think that our institutions are mostly excellent, but if they continue to be populated by people who do not seem to believe in them -- or at least appear to elevate their partisan loyalties higher than the mores of the institutions to which they belong, notably the Senate -- then it may not matter how good those institutions are.<br />
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The crazy thing is, at this point, I think I'd pick almost literally anyone of the other serious choices than those who remain in the race. (Ok, probably not Cruz.) But man, does it look like Biden missed his moment. Or hell, Romney. This time, I think I would have been a little more willing to compromise and choke down the Diet Coke.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-36565598364705585022016-04-01T22:31:00.003-04:002016-04-01T22:31:46.353-04:00On the Racist FoodThis week, I became the <a href="http://imgur.com/gallery/91sn32Q">old man yelling at the cloud</a>. I wrote an email to a podcast complaining about its content. It was <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/shows/otm/">On the Media</a>'s episode <i>Is This Food Racist?</i> The podcast was a logrolling platform for another podcast that shares the WNYC distributor and had two main thrusts -- an interview with Rick Bayless, an Oklahoman who has dedicated his life to Mexican food (real deal stuff, not food truck tacos) and the response to a comment the guest made about Korean staple bibimbap about how to improvement. A key piece of information is that both <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Bayless">Bayless</a> and Dan Pashman, host of <i><a href="http://www.sporkful.com/">Sporkful</a>,</i> are white and not Latin or Korean. At least, that was key to Brooke Gladstone, host of OTM who interviewed Pashman.<br />
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I have gotten irritated by podcasts before -- mostly by stuff like how pretentious <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Plotz">David Plotz </a>can be on the <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/gabfest.html">Slate Political Gabfest</a> -- but never have I actually written an email to voice that. Food, though, has a powerful effect on me. There were a few moments that made this happen. <br />
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The first was when Pashman, while interviewing Bayless, confronted him about whether he had advantages in his career with Mexican food because he was white. He said that he never really thought about it, tried to figure out what they were asking him, and pretty much said Mexican food is good. Afterwards, Pashman and Gladstone could not believe the gall of him unwilling to concede his white privilege. At this point, the transmission in my brain ground its gears. For some reason, the idea that his whole food palate is built on him being an American interpreting Mexican food, so the idea of getting advantages in this context is kind of meaningless.<br />
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The next was when Pashman acknowledged that during a discussion on Korean food, he suggested an improvement to bibimbap and got an array of calls, some positive, others not where he and Gladstone wrung their hands over whether it was ok. The podcast played an interview with an offended Korean American discussing how as a child he was made fun of for his school lunches because there were noodles in them. He then talked about how it felt like a white guy suggesting an improvement to Korean food was like trying to tell his Korean grandmother how to be hotter. There are a couple of things about this: <i>everyone </i>gets made fun of for their school lunches. Another is that these sorts of adjustments are how immigrant foods become assimilated so that when the next generation of Korean kids bring their lunches to school, it looks normal. Finally, there is not definitive bibimbap, and if there were, this guy who called in would not own it. He's not Korean <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRhwNkYku5I">Arnold Palmer</a>.<br />
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The interview concluded with Gladstone asking Pashman if he would continue to experiment like that. He said, probably yes, but while being more thoughtful of others. It seems like a fine sentiment, but it also seems kind of crazy. The idea that making food a different way is imperialism seems like it requires a lessening of the original in a way that really does not happen. This is not the first time I have seen this <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/whats-leafy-and-green-and-eaten-by-blacks-and-whites/424554/">sort of complaint</a>, though. (In the interest of full disclosure: I eat collard greens. I cook them often, though never with peanuts.)<br />
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More importantly, though, is that this is what interaction is. Integration like this is part and parcel of what America is, <i>especially</i> with food. Pizza, General Tso's chicken, the California roll, the Cuban sandwich, everything that comes out of Louisiana, chili and the mission burrito are all results of cultures running into each other. <br />
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I also think that this is the kind of thinking that leads to people supporting people like Donald Trump. It's hard not to see this as an argument that white people can't make foods from non-white people. While the discussion is clearly more nuanced than that, the implication was clearly that this was somehow bad. When immigrants arrived here with their recipes and found different ingredients available, they improved without feeling enslaved to an idea of authenticity. I just can't see how the world isn't a richer place because of decisions like that, and if the offended Korean American's complaints cause others to be hesitant to experiment because they do not belong to the ethnicity, that's really a shame.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-62166225130511457562015-09-30T21:26:00.000-04:002015-09-30T21:26:48.471-04:00Queen of the DairyDr Sighted loves Blizzards. I like them too, but I am not very discriminatory in my dairy needs. Any high quality ice cream is perfectly fine by me. There was an old style Dairy Queen in my home town that I didn't realize was "old style" until I moved away and saw that there were others that serve hamburgers and what not. I also found out that ice cream places close in the winter time up north, which is very sad.<br />
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They have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HgLwxKMprs">a new commercial out</a> and I don't even know what they are trying to sell me, but I love it. While well placed Lionel Richie "Hello"s will never not be funny, I particularly like the guy who sings in front of the Corvette. When this commercial comes on, I move kind of slowly to the remote to fast forward past them. I also like how wooden the cheerleader's delivery is, and how unnecessary such an elaborate set piece is for two seconds of commercial.<br />
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This commercial is not special. It is not <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmiK7cIx-pU">Pie and Chips for Free</a>, which apparently was posted 9 years ago, which is a weird thing to make me feel old. I cannot imagine we will be talking about <i>I'm a Fan</i> a decade later. But it is strangely charming and there are a lot of small details that show this was a very thoughtfully crafted commercial and you should pay attention to the Lionel Richie fan's mug and shirt.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-59183247939928224332015-08-28T07:56:00.003-04:002015-08-28T07:56:59.211-04:00The cheese that goes...There is an apocryphal story of my youth that immediately after I had my tonsils removed, I asked for not ice cream, which is the standard request, but Cheetos, which are not soft nor smooth. I liked Cheetos as a kid more than I do now, but if I'm line for a catered sub lunch, I'll reach for the Cheetos probably more often than I'd reach for anything else since nobody seems to go for sour cream and onion anymore. I guess onion breath is more offensive than orange teeth.<br />
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A couple of years ago, Cheetos sort of rebooted Chester from a sort of loser who thinks he is the coolest cat on the block who spends the commercials trying (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zMnqWsffbw">unsuccessfully</a>) to get his paws on some delicious Cheetos into a weird kind of jerk who uses Cheetos not for food, really, but more as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K_y7G5Bl20">props primarily</a> to embarrass some of the people around the human characters (usually friends or family) in the commercial. (I tried to find more samples on YouTube, but searching for Cheetos is mostly crowded out by videos <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMfHdz98EcY">like this</a> about getting Irish people to try American things. I must admit, I was amused.)<br />
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As an example, two recent ones have a child firing Cheetos out of a catapult at her father (I think?) for stealing the remote or something. Another has a child making a Cheeto bikini for her sleeping father so that when he wakes up, he'll have bikini tan lines. In none of these are there anything about the Cheeto dust that gets on everything. It's not as bad as Dorito dust or glitter, but it's in the conversation.<br />
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There are a number of baffling aspects of these commercials. First, none of the people seem to be fazed by the fact that there is a cartoon Cheetah telling them what to do, which, now that I think about it, is reasonably consistent with the commercial universe. But really, why not show case the snack as being desirable? The earlier incarnation was not Geico Cavemen or anything as far as commercial quality goes, but it was clear that the snacks were so good that Chester was willing to endure physical pain. In the new versions, I'm not really sure that the effects would be any different if they replaced the Cheetos with a bag of bread crusts cut off from little kids' sandwiches..<br />
<br />
They've made more of these commercials that Darrell Hammond got to make Colonel Sanders commercials, so there must be something to it. But to me, it makes me sad. I cannot imagine 3 year old me wanting to ask for Cheetos with a mascot like this after a tonsilectomy. I guess it really isn't easy being cheesy.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-83564958205195388622015-08-22T19:53:00.000-04:002015-08-22T19:53:53.131-04:00Pieces and CupsI just saw a commercial for Reese's version of Nutella, and I must say I'm intrigued. I have had good luck with Nutella, but, to be honest, I could do without its pretentiousness. It's all European and hazelnutty and what not. What is a hazelnut? I'm not convinced it's not an invented flavor by coffee shops like how wine tasters say that a Merlot tastes like chocolate and leather. Leather in my wine is neither probable nor desirable.<br />
<br />
Reese's has to potential to close that gap with the lovable peanut, which all of us can easily identify. There is a question, however, about Reese's that I really can't believe I hadn't already written about by now. What does Reese's rhyme with? I had a bevy of coworkers about a year and a half ago challenge me on this to the point of calling the question line phone number located on the wrapper of the cup. Unfortunately, they gave them bad information -- citing their famous slogan of "There's no wrong way to eat a Reese's" -- they said there's no wrong way to <i>say</i> Reese's, either. If I called it Rice's or Race's, that would be ludicrous, right?<br />
<br />
In short, I think that anyone who calls Reese's Pieces Reesey's Piecey's deserves at minimum a night in the drunk tank. I don't think they belong in the general prison population or anything, unless there are multiple offenses and lack of remorse. Saying Reesey Cups deserves a harsher sentence, because there's no cutesy but tempting gateway rhyme built in. It's going straight to the hard stuff. Reese rhymes with piece. Reese's rhymes with pieces. Piecey's isn't anything.<br />
<br />
I really like peanut butter desserts, and Reese's has got some fine products. I enjoy the cups in any context and the pieces especially on my ice cream. My favorite specialty variation is the eggs at Easter, giving us a delightful twist on the chocolate/peanut butter ratio. So I may grab some Reese's spread at the store, and with any justice, that will be the product that ends this Reesey madness, since their is no melody to Reesey's spread. Only the cacophonous nightmare that follows me everywhere there is a piecey.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-6550426380134950032015-07-19T20:50:00.000-04:002015-07-19T20:51:26.118-04:00Binge watchingI know it's a bit late, but Dr. Sighted and I just finished watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix and I cannot imagine how Ron Swanson isn't everyone's favorite everything. It's a strange sort of wistfulness when you complete a series, a termination of a universe (or, Indiana town on an Indiana night) for which there is nothing further. Like when you get to the the end of your fruit by the foot. That's what we watched when we are together. Well, I got a pass to watch them without her initially, but once I started enjoying them, she wanted in on the action too. It's really better, so that when I say, "This is *litrally* the best animal cracker I have ever eaten."<br />
<br />
She, though, is closing in on home plate on a show all her own -- Pretty Little Liars. I catch a few episodes here and there (maybe 30%?) and this show is <i>bonkers.</i> Every show has a little bit of the "if any single episode happened to somebody it would be the most intense year of your life" every week, but this is in Grey's Anatomy territory. <br />
<br />
Describing the plot is basically impossible. So, I guess I'll put a spoiler warning here, but honestly, I have no idea if these will count or not because the whole experience is like a soap opera taking place on a zany murder mystery inside of an after school special. There's the pretty one who is kind of dumb, the pretty one who is really smart, the pretty one who is making risky decisions with her future and the pretty lesbian. It's not called Ugly Little Liars, after all. Oh, and the lesbian one is multiracial.<br />
<br />
Four high school girls are being harassed by what amounts to basically a Bond villain. The bad guy knows everything about them, can be anywhere, has unlimited money and is super clever. The biggest thing difference is that while we know that Blofeld wants to hijack nuclear weapons to ransom the world for lots of dollars, the bad guy in this show has no discernible motive -- since there are like four different bad guys, I think -- or sense of proportion. <br />
<br />
The main characters begin likable and sympathetic, but as the story progresses, that stops being true. This conceit can't last forever. They are in high school, after all, and I'm pretty sure they were stressing over college at one point, and eventually they won't be pretty <i>little </i>liars anymore. Then the show will make even less sense. But Dr. Sighted will see it through to the end, and, consequently, so will I. This universe feels different than Pawnee, though, and not just because it is still going on. Pawnee was populated by likable people with credible motives. Rosewood feels like just an excuse to put pretty people on camera together looking vulnerable. Which, I guess, is the kind of thing that people like to binge watch.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-9211905256097232132015-07-11T18:10:00.000-04:002015-07-11T18:10:50.406-04:00LogisticsNot long ago I discovered a podcast called <a href="http://nerdist.com/podcasts/james-bonding-channel/">James Bonding</a> (which, when you search for it delightfully causes<a href="http://www.bailbondsal.com/"> this to come up</a> also [note: I do not endorse that service]) which has reawoken my interest in the movie franchise. So I am rewatching the ones with which I am not as familiar as I used to be and the ones I just like watching. I've mentioned my fandom of <a href="http://howobservant.blogspot.com/2011/07/harry-whatter.html">podcasts before</a>, but these are like listening to fans talk about things they like. I am convinced that every sports broadcast would be improved by simply having two well informed fans of one of the teams that have some chemistry call the game, because like 97% of the announcers are worse than having your county council replaced by an aggressive race of crab people that outlaws butter. (Brent Musburger, you're in that 3% you magnificent bastard.)<br />
<br />
Anyway, there are all kinds of comedians who talk about finding henchmen and talking about how incompetent they are in movies like this, and I have all those same questions. But mostly, as an engineer, the questions that keep coming up for me as a I watch an army of technicians sit quietly at their workstations helping Stromburg in The Spy Who Loved Me end humanity are more about procurement. There's a scene late in the movie where the henchmen are all wearing custom made Stromburg navy uniforms. Where'd they come from? Somebody had to <i>make </i>those.<br />
<br />
Also, the plot of this movie hinges on a lot of big machines -- an underwater lair, the largest cargo ship in the world, and all sorts of vehicles that are blown up -- that have to come from somewhere. And while they do establish early in the movie that he's one of the richest men in the world, helicopters are still expensive. Another one of the in jokes is that the Russians know a lot about what the English are doing, and vice versa, but the bad guy has a secret submarine swallowing and underwater mansion including underwater aquarium, which makes sense, I guess. I just can't believe that there isn't some chatty pipefitter who might mention at the local watering hole that he's working on a project that is just bananas.<br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong, though -- I <i>love </i>these movies. I own all of them (even <a href="http://howobservant.blogspot.com/2006/11/why-arent-there-thanksgiving-carols.html">Die Another Day</a>) and this sort of supervillainous silliness is part of what makes it great. I just wish I could be in the room when the writers were trying to explain to Cubby Broccoli just how they could fit two missiles plus 007's and XXX's luggage into a Lotus Esprit. But, to quote Larry Miller in <a href="http://nerdist.com/james-bonding-022-best-and-worst-of-bond-live/">episode 22</a>, "I don't know why Ursula Andress comes out with a knife. Who cares! It works."Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-50013870285127397252013-01-17T20:04:00.000-05:002013-01-17T20:04:45.683-05:00Discomfort, Indeed.As my wife likes to remind me, I am not really a Southerner; I am a Floridian. Even though the latitude of my birthplace is 3 degrees south of hers, I am still an outsider, a sort of mongrel, even though a sizable portion of my higher education and all of my professional life has been spent squarely in the South. I'm not sure I'll ever get to be a member of that club, in part because I don't drink sweet tea and sound like I was born closer to to the Iowa River than the Chattahoochee, where my wife was.<br />
<br />
I do feel like I understand this place somewhat, though, and certainly felt more at home in Clemson, South Carolina than I did in Terre Haute, Indiana. I was an outsider there, too, because the Midwesterners categorized me as one of those from the other side of the Line. College is a place where identity is both calcified and shattered, sometimes more than once. I never got the impression that there was all that much that identified an Midwesterner, really, or an "Hoosier" in particular. In fact, nobody even knew what a Hoosier is.<br />
<br />
The same could not be said in the Upstate of South Carolina. The people there had a distinct sound -- distinct from the other side of the state, distinct from the other Carolina and distinct from the other side of the Savannah River. I could not tell an Ohioan from an Illinoisan in nearly the same way I can pick out an Upstater from a Low Countryman from an Alabaman or a Tennesseean. The food is different in these places, the music, the dress (especially the colors -- Red is not welcome in the Upstate, and Orange is frowned upon in Athens, Georgia), the sense of place and the sense of story.<br />
<br />
I think the story telling comes from the Scots-Irish stock that populates the region; I am convinced there is something inherent in the Celtic blood that makes words pour out like honey -- whether it be from the mouth or the pen. Like any other people with a strong sense of identity, it's strange to have someone else try to tell your story for you, so I am not even sure I am qualified to write this now, but when I came across this <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2013/01/21/130121taco_talk_packer">New Yorker piece</a>, my reservations about my credentials receded lazily like the tide over the dark, cakey pluff mud of the Charleston marsh.<br />
<br />
After spending some half a dozen paragraphs talking about how Southerners are stubborn, xenophobic, backward, somewhat barbaric, greedy, racist, ignorant, out of touch while culturally dominant, football and Nascar obsessed, tribalist, and violent, he closes with a couple of throwaway sentences that make it seem he's really not judging (the phrase that's used down here is, of course, "Bless his heart"):<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But there is a largely forgotten Southern history, beyond the well-known
heroics of the civil-rights movement, of struggle against poverty and
injustice, led by writers, preachers, farmers, rabble-rousers, and even
politicians, speaking a rich language of indignation. The region is not
entirely defined by Jim DeMint, Sam Walton, and the Tide’s A J McCarron.
It would be better for America as well as for the South if Southerners
rediscovered their hidden past and took up the painful task of
refashioning an identity that no longer inspires their countrymen.</blockquote>
The implication is that the South we have now is an inferior facsimile of what the South should be that is popularly understood to be personified in a recalcitrant Senator, a dead business man, and a football star, after he describes the region in precisely those terms. I don't know what sort of inspiration Packer expects the natives of my adopted home state and our neighbors to provide when the the picture he paints of Southerners is so grim. None of the buildup to this terminus tells us how the positive qualities do indeed benefit society at large outside of a rather ambiguous listing of positive traits: "At the end of “The Mind of the South,” Cash has this description of “the
South at its best”: “proud, brave, honorable by its lights, courteous,
personally generous, loyal.” That sounds nice, until two sentences later, he extols vices to counter them. He is treating my neighbors as either terrorists or children who ought to be mollified.<br />
<br />
I am particularly sensitive to that sort of attitude because I chose to be among these people. I picked Clemson University for graduate work. I bought my first house in Augusta, Georgia. I married one of the Peach State's daughters. We decided together to move to Charleston. And, in the next place we live, I am certain we will be greeted with y'alls, elongated vowels and an extremely dedicated knowledge of college football. I like the polite conversation. I like the weather. I like the pace of life. I like the sense of culture. I like the emphasis on faith.<br />
<br />
The task of refashioning the identity has been going on here for over 200 years. Re-examinations of what it means to be born between Virginia Beach and El Paso came to a rather violent head in 1861, of course, and no one forgets it. The benefit of losing, though, is being forced to have that conversation; the winner is spared from that kind of existential introspection.<br />
<br />
So a magazine entitled the <i>New Yorker</i> is an odd place indeed to read about an explanation on what's going on inside of the cultural mind of the South, especially when, upon completing this story, I was offered a suggested reading link of <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/08/chick-fil-a-introduces-new-hate-sauce.html">this story</a>. <br />
<br />
Like I said, I'm not actually a Southerner and I don't know if Packer is either.. I don't know why it feels like politics are dramatically different now than just two election cycles ago. But I do know that Packer's infantile reduction of the region to the Republican Party, Wal-Mart and the SEC is not productive or accurate. I am skeptical that you couldn't go to a small town in Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Oregon and find similar evidence of the low-brow to which Packer objects. And so what? What exactly is he trying to argue?Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-11526313071317255052012-09-05T06:21:00.000-04:002012-09-05T06:21:50.409-04:00Conflicted, I guessAs many of my college friends could tell you, I had a bit of a creative infatuation with the work of Aaron Sorkin -- particularly Sports Night. I was at my most prolific as a writer then and at the time, it and the West Wing seemed like the epitome of pop writing and I never thought I had the talent to be F. Scott Fitzgerald, but I at least thought I could be an Engineer by day and a reasonably pop writer of some sort by night. I did that for a while with a weekly in the last place I lived, and sometimes I think I'd like to do it again.<br />
<br />
I am watching the season finale of The Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin's latest project on HBO, and the technique is similar, but the tone is decidedly less pop. The Newsroom features a main character, Will McAvoy, who is a disappointed Republican in the state of American politics. Aaron Sorkin, on the other hand, is not a Republican of any sort, so writing a disillusioned one requires a sort of confidence I just don't understand.<br />
<br />
I also don't understand how all of the positions are couched in such a way that the disillusioned Republican only targets the Tea Party and the failings of his own party, rather a more holistic criticism of the situation -- including failings of the administration.<br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong, I suppose I am somewhat of a disillusioned Republican myself and there are certainly things about the conduct of the party I dislike, although I don't really feel much loyalty to the "<a href="http://howobservant.blogspot.com/2012/02/loyalties.html">team</a>.". (I consider myself more of a classical liberal, where I feel that the role of national government is to do the things that the private sector cannot profitably, and not much more than that.) I don't like the win at all costs attitude of either party, I don't like how much of a dependence there is on the false moral equivalence (both sides have this problem -- and that I said "both" is tragic, because this should not be a binary problem) and I don't like the cowardice to go after lazy arguments rather than attacking the heart of the failings of American liberalism and progressivism.<br />
<br />
I think that the current administration is a critically flawed one. I think that, like 2004, there is a tremendous opportunity that is likely to be squandered by lining up behind the wrong guy because it is really hard to unseat an incumbent president. I want to describe what I think the biggest flaws are how I wish the Republican Party -- or anybody, really, -- were challenging them.<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Distaste for the law when it restricts executive power -- The two biggest examples are the GM and Chrysler bailouts and the intervention in Libya. Without regard to policy (which I strenuously disagree with), the bailouts was of questionably legality, if not outright illegal. In a guided bankruptcy, pensioners were given priority over bondholders, which is contrary to the way that bankruptcy proceedings go, because they were political allies. (Links are <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303768104577462650268680454.html">here</a> and <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-11-19/news/ct-edit-gm-20101118_1_gm-bondholders-gm-profits-toyota-and-other-rivals">here</a> discussing this.) During the NATO led intervention in Libya, which went from April 23 to October 31 (192 days) President Obama asserted that his administration was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16powers.html?pagewanted=all">not in violation</a> of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution">War Powers Act</a>, which requires Congressional approval for military action exceeding 90 days, because the Libyan intervention wasn't actually a military conflict, since the bad guys weren't able to return fire against our superior forces. That is, to put it nicely, an absurd explanation. Libya was an illegal war. There are other potential examples -- Fast and Furious, the way that the Bank of America president was treated -- but I don't have enough detail to document and defend it.</li>
<li>Lack of accountability for economic assertions -- During the preparations and sale of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to the American people, the Administration sold it as necessary to pass in order to keep the unemployment rate below 8%. That was a mistake, both <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/arra-and-unemployment">factually</a> and <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/114753-frank-obama-admin-dumb-to-predict-no-higher-than-8-unemployment">politically</a>. The explanation from the Vice President was that "<a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31355497/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/t/biden-sees-stimulus-working-not-quickly/#.UEceMKNH6d4">everybody guessed wrong.</a>" That is tantamount to admitting incompetence and not an endearing answer. The <a href="http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z1ebjpgk2654c1_&met_y=unemployment_rate&idim=country:US&fdim_y=seasonality:S&dl=en&hl=en&q=unemployment+rate#%21ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=unemployment_rate&fdim_y=seasonality:S&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:US&ifdim=country&tstart=1196830800000&tend=1341460800000&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false">current unemployment rate is 8.3%</a>, which is the lowest it's been in three years, and higher than promised by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. The ARRA was passed in early 2009, so the <a href="http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z1ebjpgk2654c1_&met_y=unemployment_rate&idim=country:US&fdim_y=seasonality:S&dl=en&hl=en&q=unemployment+rate#%21ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=labor_force&fdim_y=seasonality:S&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:US&ifdim=country&tstart=1196830800000&tend=1341460800000&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false">net increase is about 900,000 jobs</a> for a $787 billion package amounts to about $874,000 per job. Not exactly a measure of efficiency. (To be fair, that's an empirical rather than theoretical measure of efficiency -- let's say it saved 2 million jobs, as <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/feb/17/barack-obama/obama-says-stimulus-responsible-millions-jobs-save/">President Obama says</a>, that's still $393,500 per job, which is not exactly a bargain either.) Now, I do concede that Keynesian style stimulus can raise the GDP (since it's in the definition), I just don't think that there is sufficient discipline in the government to repay the debt when times are good, so I don't think it's effective policy. Another of questionable value is "<a href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/09/obama-unveils-3-trillion-plus-debt-cut-plan/1#.UEcifKNH6d4">we ask everyone to pay their fair share.</a>" What does that mean? How much is enough? Who decides what is fair? The president is also quoted in that interview with saying, "we can't cut our way out of this hole." Why not? And how do we know when we're out of the hole? Nobody has really said what victory looks like. (To be fair, this isn't strictly a criticism of the president.)</li>
<li>Insistence on government solutions over individual ones -- We've all heard "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_didn%27t_build_that">You didn't build that</a>" by now (the whole transcript can be read <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/13/remarks-president-campaign-event-roanoke-virginia">here</a>). The defense is that the president was not referring to business with "that" but rather the infrastructure he described prior -- but on full reading, I don't think it matters. The tone of the speech is definitely one that you shouldn't take credit for your work, because there were a lot more hands in it than you appreciate. The issue, though, is that every American has access to that same infrastructure and we're not all Michael Dell or Steve Jobs or Barack Obama. Individual effort is a pretty big deal, and "you didn't build that" isn't the way the president should be talking about it. Compare the tone of that speech to <a href="http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm">this one</a> and see if you can tell the difference. The heavy-handed paternalism celebrated in <a href="http://www.barackobama.com/life-of-julia/">The Life of Julia</a> is rather troubling. It implies that people in general and women in particular can't manage themselves without a government caretaker. My wife will make more than I do over the course of her career and it won't even close, regardless of who is president.</li>
</ol>
Like Will McAvoy, I wish the Republican candidate was stronger. I think the principles of liberty and economic responsibility and government closest to the people are all messages that can win. I don't think that the current Republican campaign is communicating that message, and they are playing to the bases elements of politics (both sides are, really, which makes the false equivalence rear its head). The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F4LtTlktm0">welfare ad</a> is only of questionable veracity, if that. Paul Ryan's <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/09/03/paul-ryans-marathon-time-not-so-fast/">weird marathon fib</a> doesn't help, and this<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3a7FC0Jkv8&feature=relmfu"> ad was deplorable</a>. At the end of the day, there are enough flaws with this president that opponents shouldn't need to resort to dishonest tactics to score points. I hope they go after the heart of the man and make this really about choices and not about trivia, but I won't hold my breath.<br />
<ol>
</ol>
Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-82527461671930856972012-08-01T06:12:00.000-04:002012-08-01T06:12:52.181-04:00Feigning outrage is outrageousI don't really have any leftovers for lunch today, but I know I won't be going to Chick-Fil-A, even though Mike Huckabee told me to. The reason is not because I am unsympathetic to the position taken (which isn't nearly as offensive as it seems to have been presented, see the quote below) or approve of the reaction that opponents have taken to Cathy's interview. I am not joining in Chick-Fil-A Appreciate Day because the whole dust up is stupid. This is the section of the interview that touched this off <a href="http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=38271">(linked here)</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Some have opposed the company's support of the traditional family.
"Well, guilty as charged," said Cathy when asked about the company's
position.<br /><br />"We are very much supportive of the family -- the
biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a
family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God
thanks for that.<br /><br />"We operate as a family business ... our
restaurants are typically led by families; some are single. We want to
do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much
committed to that," Cathy emphasized.</blockquote>
<br />
I say this is stupid not because of the content of the arguments of the two sides, but because of the non-event that revealed the content. Chick-Fil-A's ownership is famously and unabashedly outspoken about their Christian positions and Dan Cathy was giving an interview to <i>The Baptist Press</i> for crying out loud about maintaining those Christian positions even in the face of business success. If this was a surprise to you, then I can only imagine that episodes of Law and Order are shocking and surprising each time, too. (Hint: if they arrest the guy in the first 10 minutes, it's not him; the moderately famous B-level guest start did it; they're going to get a conviction; and the DA is going to say something somewhat pithy or ironic to close the show. Dun dun.)<br />
<br />
The reactions to the interview -- most famously by Rahm Emanuel (mayor of Chicago) and Thomas Menino (mayor of Boston) -- are terrible and deserve to be ridiculed. For any government representative to say that a business in unwelcome because of the opinions of that business's owner is outrageous. Buying from Chick-Fil-A today will do nothing to punish those mayors.<br />
<br />
For the people who want to boycott or protest, however, that's their prerogative. Except the timing is lazy; according to the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/huckabee-is-almost-right-on-chick-fil-a-protests/2012/07/31/gJQAJHG0MX_blog.html">Washington PostPartisan blog</a>, Chick-Fil-A has been giving money to "anti-gay" charities for like 9 years and obvious about its desire to be seen as a Christian friendly company since its inception -- they did not just start closing on Sundays, you know. <br />
<br />
So, my question is, why did this reaction only happen to the interview a week and half ago? Why today?Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-49035261055230229982012-07-30T06:18:00.000-04:002012-07-30T06:18:41.391-04:00A Reminder of ConsistencyThis morning, I my phone told me to read 1 Samuel 12:1-25. On Saturday, it ruined the Lochte-Phelps 400 IM race, so it knew I was angry with it. I think it redeemed itself. I get impression that folks look at Genesis and Leviticus and see discrepancy in the nature of God between the Old and New Testaments. My personal opinion is that any sort of legal document is going to be a complicated view of a people. That's really what Leviticus is, after all. <br />
<br />
The Law was written to show us that God is Holy and we are not. The rest of the Bible is written, basically, to tell us that the Law is not to be our God. 1 Samuel 12:20-22 illustrates this:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="text 1Sam-12-20" id="en-NIV-7481"><sup class="versenum"> </sup>“Do not be afraid,” Samuel replied. “You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the <span class="small-caps" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span>, but serve the <span class="small-caps" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span> with all your heart.</span> <span class="text 1Sam-12-21" id="en-NIV-7482"><sup class="versenum">21 </sup>Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless.</span> <span class="text 1Sam-12-22" id="en-NIV-7483"><sup class="versenum">22 </sup>For the sake of his great name the <span class="small-caps" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span> will not reject his people, because the <span class="small-caps" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span> was pleased to make you his own."</span></blockquote>
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Even at this point in God's story, He is telling a story of forgiveness. ("All this evil" follows a catalogue of the history of defying God from the Exodus forward, culminating in the request for a king.) Two other places in the Old Testament, in the Minor Prophets (they are minor because they are short and responding to a specific problem, not like the Mediocre Presidents from the Simpsons' musical) we get a little more on the theme: <span class="text Mic-6-8" id="en-NIV-22657"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="text Mic-6-8" id="en-NIV-22657"> </span><span class="text Mic-6-8" id="en-NIV-22657">He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.</span><br /><span class="indent-1"><span class="indent-1-breaks"> </span><span class="text Mic-6-8">And what does the <span class="small-caps" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span> require of you?</span></span><br /><span class="text Mic-6-8">To act justly and to love mercy</span><br /><span class="indent-1"><span class="indent-1-breaks"> </span><span class="text Mic-6-8">and to walk humbly<sup class="footnote" value="[<a href="#fen-NIV-22657a" title="See footnote a">a</a>]">[<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Micah+6%3A8&version=NIV#fen-NIV-22657a" title="See footnote a">a</a>]</sup> with your God. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="indent-1"><span class="text Mic-6-8">Micah 6:8</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="indent-1"><span class="text Mic-6-8">and </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="indent-1"><span class="text Mic-6-8">Hosea 6:6</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="indent-1"><span class="text Mic-6-8"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="indent-1"><span class="text Mic-6-8">The Hosea verse was even quoted by Jesus at the conclusion of Matthew 9:9-13, a story criticizing the aloofness and exclusion practiced by the Pharisees. Most importantly, it's a reminder that a relationship with God is accessible; there is no sin that puts us so far out of God's reach that we are lost. This is the message that starts in the Garden and continues through the Resurrection. We get to be a part of that story, no matter what our history. So, thanks phone, for that reminder.</span></span></div>Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-34265847375150476082012-07-13T06:18:00.002-04:002012-07-13T06:18:59.461-04:00Headlines are fun sometimesEarlier this week, Mitt Romney spoke to the NAACP. (He's running for president, by the way.) I read a few articles about the event because this time of year is slow for news. I don't mean to minimize the relevance of the NAACP, but I have read this story before. Well, that's not entirely true; I have never read one where the sitting President of the United States was a member of the class for which the NAACP was founded to help.<br />
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Now, when I read this headline on Townhall.com, I was surprised: <a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/07/11/romney_receives_standing_ovation_for_straight_talk_at_naacp_convention">Romney Receives Standing Ovation for Straight Talk at NAACP Convention.</a> Townhall is, admittedly a conservative website trying to spin a conservative angle. Now, compare to a Slate.com headline: <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/trending/2012/07/11/romney_booed_at_naacp_appearance_for_promising_obamacare_repeal.html">Romney Booed at NAACP Appearance for Promising Obamacare Repeal</a> and Huffpo.com:<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_192926231"> </a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_192926233"><span id="goog_192926228"></span></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_192926233">Mitt Romney Booed At NAACP Convention For Saying He'd Repeal Obamacare<span id="goog_192926229"></span></a><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/11/mitt-romney-booed_n_1664900.html">.</a> Neither of those sites are particularly sympathetic to Romney.<br />
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The contents of each piece are a bit different, too, with Townhall going into the most detail and making it sound like he's going to peel away a third of black voters, even though polling suggests he has 6 percent of support among that group (according to the Slate article).<br />
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This is an interesting case, because Slate and Huffpo are really "Dog Bites Man" stories, so they're not really that newsy in the first place. Townhall comes off as that weird place where emphasizing facts in a particular way comes off as bias -- kind of like moving what should be an A6 story to the front page. Townhall was the only one to mention standing ovation at the end (and buried it, so it was probably a zealous editor writing that headline) and Huffpo did mention the politeness of the crowd. The Slate story only talks about the boos surrounding Obamacare.<br />
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Each outlet did publish other stories, but these were the first to come up after the event, the sort of first impressions. I found it quite interesting that each chased the angle they wanted in the first run by the editorial staffs.<br />
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What does this mean? I think that the headline, the newsy part is that Romney spoke before the NAACP, because that is not <a href="http://newsbusters.org/node/6508">always something Republicans do</a>. The fact that he would be facing a hostile crowd is not hard-hitting journalism and trying to paint as rosy a picture as Townhall does is really nothing short of spinning for your guy. Both really strike me as sorts of hackery.<br />
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I think that if you read all three, you can come away with a reasonable picture of the story -- the NAACP was a polite but partisan crowd hearing a speech from a presidential candidate maybe 2% of the attendees would vote for. And quite frankly, the more interesting story coming out of the NAACP Convention is that Obama did not speak at the convention this week, the summer before his re-election to president when he needs to have the NAACP's constituency as energized as possible to win. (<a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katehicks/2012/07/12/snubbed_obama_admonished_for_skipping_naacp_convention">Here is a Townhall.com link about it</a> and a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/obama-naacp-2012_n_1669065.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2012">Huffpo.com link about it</a> -- oddly enough, I could not find a Slate.com one telling that same story.)<br />
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I guess the moral of the story is to take your news with some skepticism, even for benign, trivial stories, and seek out sources from different perspectives. The aggregate of these small stories matter in shaping the political and social narrative by reinforcing expectations (Huffpo and Slate) or really making the outlook seem rosier than it might actually be for Romney (Townhall).Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-34557368436811826202012-07-03T06:14:00.001-04:002012-07-03T06:14:55.916-04:00Goo goo gachoo Mr RobertsI, like everyone else, was surprised by the outcome of the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act. I did kind of anticipate that it would be struck down, like most of the <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CE0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Finvestmentwatchblog.com%2Fodds-are-obamacare-will-be-struck-down-today%2F&ei=r77yT4CxAoKk9ASXrrjNCQ&usg=AFQjCNEOxQkFRKeiM74u2JADS4ywJN9QiQ">smart money seemed to as well</a>. My personal impressions of the law are not especially positive, because, like the Obama Administration's characterization of the Constitutionality mechanism, is a bit of a bait and switch. <br />
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As I hear about Roberts' explanation about defending ACA as a tax, I am pretty ok with his reasoning. The powers granted to Congress for taxing are pretty broad and behavior changing taxes (particularly tariffs) have a long history; just because I think Congress can pass a tax, though, does not mean I think it's a good idea. It is not called a tax in the body of the legislation, which to me is immaterial; if they called a future tax whiskey, it would not actually be whiskey and should not get special considerations simply because it is not actually called a tax. <br />
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The ACA does not really seem to be a <i>health care </i>reform, it's more of a <i>health insurance</i> reform. It is kind of weird that the discussion always seems to center on the fact that the problem with our medical care is insufficient insurance (which, typically, isn't insurance at all; it's usually a payment plan for medical services) rather than addressing alternative means of access. What I mean is that when I go into the doctor for anything from antibiotics for strep throat or a broken arm, I have no idea what it is going to cost nor what it should cost. (Bear in mind, my wife is also a doctor.) Why has there been no mention of a move towards transparency in costs? By adding more people to insurance, that only gets more muddled, because somebody else is paying for a large share of it. If we knew how much it cost, really, to examine, x-ray, set and follow up on a broken arm, then we could evaluate whether or not something like a 401k model for health expenses would be better, or what it would take to put that kind of control in our hands rather than some corporate accountant.<br />
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It also seems weird how excited Democrats are for that control to be given to insurance and pharmaceutical corporations. On Meet the Press, Nancy Pelosi, of course, said the opposite, also while denying it was a tax (even though she conceded that it was clearly granted under the taxing power and would be collected by the IRS). That's kind of a joke. I don't have any particular aversion to corporations playing a role in our society, but it is really intimidating to think that I don't have any idea what to expect to pay for anything. I am going to get my wisdom teeth taken out and I could owe anywhere from $0 to a few thousand, and until they tel me, I won't have any idea how to plan for that.<br />
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I was quite glad to see that the majority did say that this is clearly outside the scope of either the commerce or necessary and proper clauses. I am no attorney, but that seemed ludicrous on its face. While it really does nothing to say that Congress could not just frame whatever they wanted to do in terms of a behavior influencing tax, that is much harder politically to implement -- hence this very discussion. <br />
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Normally, taxes like this are presented as credits rather than penalties (like home interest deduction or incentives for buying energy efficient windows -- I lose money that would otherwise be on the table for not buying those products), but that distinction is pretty insignificant. Any vote against a tax cut is an effective tax increase, and I think that should work in reverse, as well. <br />
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I also do not really get how such a body really does fall down partisan lines <i>every time</i>. Why is there that much latitude, really? The Constitution is not <u>Ulysses</u>. It is largely written in pretty plain language and that there can be such violent disagreement entirely rooted in a partisan manifestation is weird. People have disagreements about interpretations of automotive specifications sometimes, but it is not like there is a pro-four door/anti-four door delineation of reading them. It does make the court seem petty, and I tend to sympathize with the conservative wing on issues like this because the spirit of the document was to limit the powers of the Federal Government, and reading into it otherwise seems like using the Bible to justify child pornography. Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-1957394836252070162012-06-03T15:01:00.000-04:002012-06-03T15:01:27.085-04:00I beg to differI know that language is evolutionary and usage tends to trump history. That discourages me for the future, given the pervasiveness of stupid shortening of words induced by email and texting and what not (a friend of mine told me he was "totes jel" over the weekend [totally jealous, I think]; while he was being tongue in cheek, the fact that that is a joke to be made makes me feel like a cranky old man yelling for you to stay off my lawn). The one that seems to get me at a disproportionately high level compared to everyone else I know is begging the question.<br />
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It does not, traditionally, mean the same thing as raising the question. It is a logical fallacy where an unstated question of dubious validity is assumed to be true as part of the initial premise. For example, to say that Justin Bieber is better than John Lee Hooker because he has sold more records begs the question that selling records is a valid measure of musical goodness. And yes, I said records.<br />
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One that came up while listening to the Slate Political Gabfest (motto: 50 minutes of pretension every week!) was about "fixing" the constitution in response to a <a href="http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/our-imbecilic-constitution/">Texas Law Professor's blog at the New York Times</a>. The basic assertion is that our government isn't very effective and the Constitution of a big part of why, so let's fix the Constitution so that the government can solve our problems; insisting that making ours more like a Parliamentary system would be preferable.<br />
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Now, this begs the question that effective government is a positive outcome. The solutions that we have gotten (especially recently) are not really evidence in favor of this. The complaint that the Constitution is difficult to amend is regarded as a weakness, and I think it is a strength, particularly given the animosity we see right now. This is essentially saying, "Because you disagree with the actions I want to take and the rules let you, we need to fix the rules because I'm smarter than you." It is ironic, too, that we call the people who believe this "liberals" these days.<br />
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Political moments like these are <i>precisely </i>the reason that the Constitution should be hard to amend. What would the fixes look like? If it's hard to pass as legislation, why should we want that to be institutionalized more permanently? Remember prohibition? It was stupid. <br />
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A <a href="http://hive.slate.com/hive/how-can-we-fix-constitution/fix-the-unrepresenatative-senate">lot of the discussion centers on the Senate</a>, which is unrepresentative, by design. This is the only body I think that does need to be reformed. My fix: repeal the 17th Amendment. The direct election of senators has supplanted its whole purpose, which, of course, was to <i>make legislation harder to pass</i>. Everything that government does takes rights or powers away from somebody else. The Senate was supposed to serve as a backstop for the State Governments against the Federal Government, and now it doesn't. Now it's just a weird distortion of the House of Representatives, but with a bigger district. Also, the House districts are too big. The initial district size was 1 representative for every 30,000 people. At current population, there would be 10,000 representatives. Granted, that seems impractical, but at 435, that's way too small.<br />
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The biggest thing that irks me, though, is that those who want to strengthen government are driving the discussion so much better than those who are skeptical. The fact that publications can ask, "How do we 'fix' the Constitution" when it is function as intended without being utterly laughable is confounding. That we are discussing the fact that government might not be a never-ending source of benefits is, too. <br />
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The position asserted by Slate and Levinson requires a fundamental and dramatic reorganization of what "America" means and I'm just not sure that there's compelling evidence that's necessary, or even preferable if it were. In that same podcast, Emily Bazelon in particular has claimed that both parties are getting more extreme, but especially the Republicans. I don't think I can keep your attention any longer and argue with that, but I'll just say that that assertion, like the larger one about the Constitution earlier, requires using a target for the "center" as moving much faster than the public at large has and try to come back to that in a future post.<br />
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So, when we are becoming more divided, legislation is getting harder to pass, and politics is as rancorous as we can remember seems like an odd argument to make it easier to make sweeping changes, rather than harder. I mean, after all, these people bought more Justin Bieber records than John Lee Hooker records. <br />And progressives are suggesting we trust them to rewrite our Constitution? I beg to differ.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-39586364448323179092012-05-20T22:19:00.000-04:002012-05-20T22:19:37.310-04:00Stop Children, what's that sound?After watching How I Met Your Mother reruns tonight on WGN, the Chicago news came up, covering the ongoing protests of the NATO summit there. The reporter asked the protestors what message they were trying to send and she had to go three deep before anybody had anything meaningful to say: complaining about the Afghanistan War, which was part of the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/21/us-nato-summit-idUSBRE84J02C20120521">summit's mission anyway</a>. (The first said she was there to hang out because the leaders were having dinner and "we weren't invited" the second guy literally said nothing.)<br />
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I don't really sympathize with protestors now, so when I look back at the protestors 50 years ago, like the Freedom Riders and civil rights leaders, I kind of wonder if I'd have been on the right side then. I hope I would have. Looking now, though, I find it hard to believe that history isn't going to look at these people as jokes, if it remembers them at all.<br />
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It feels like a disappointment that these people are getting this kind of news, thinking they're changing the world, yet they don't know what they're changing from or to. My generation is awesome.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-13601193197083980662012-05-13T00:35:00.001-04:002012-05-18T05:54:32.067-04:00From the lion's mouthI like going to weddings now. It's a party with food and music and drinks and sometimes friends you know and other times friend you know. It's especially good having a built in date, because stressing over whether or not you're serious enough to invite a girl to a wedding, especially if it's far a way, is some jive I just don't need. It just stinks when Dr. Sighted can't make it, because while you can dance to <i>My Humps</i> in a group, <i>Can't Help Falling In Love</i> doesn't really work the same way.<br />
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The reception isn't all that's nice about it, though. The weddings themselves are part of what makes them good, too. The ceremony serves as a reminder of the seriousness and sanctity of my own marriage, and how nice it is that Dr. Sighted will be Dr. Sighted forever. (Answer: pretty darn nice.)<br />
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We traveled to, of all places, North Carolina for a wedding this weekend (man and woman, of course) and with all the talk that's been going on about the amendment and the Dan Savage video flying around facebook and what not, thinking about my own marriage is not the only heady topic that came up this time.<br />
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On the drive up here, Dr. Sighted asked me, "Why do people who aren't [religious] even want to get married anyway?" Hers is a more cynical view that if you are not asking for God's blessing on a permanent union, then what difference does it make anyway, aside from tax and medical conveniences. It really amounts to, I think, that when religious people say the word "marriage" they mean something different than when the non-religious do.<br />
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I'm not sure whether marriage was first a religious or civil institution, but the modern Western conception of marriage is clearly so colored by its religious character that it's hard to say it's not a religious one now. Religious marriage is a joining of a man and woman before God that is severable only by death or, in bad cases, "sexual immorality," as per Matthew 19:1-11 (which also is a part where Jesus expounds on what marriage means). For Kim Kardashian, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, marriage means something else. And shame on us for letting people like that abuse the institution without calling them out on it.<br />
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There is, though, in addition to this religious ceremony a package of civil benefits that goes along with that because it was in the state's interest to encourage this sort of association. That package of benefits got called marriage too because most everyone who got them also did the religious thing, too, so there wasn't really any trouble. I think that we as religious people may have done a disservice to the institution of marriage by allowing the package of associational benefits to be conflated (in name, certainly) with the promise to spouse and God.<br />
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The discussion this week has been not just about preventing gay "marriage" but also the package of associational benefits as well in the state I am in right now. I don't think there is really any Biblical basis for a Christian religious marriage between two people of the same sex. I don't really see why there shouldn't be a contractual means for creating a package of benefits for, really, any pair of people for inheritance, medical and some other benefits.<br />
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The rest of it -- the dancing, the music, the drinks -- is a celebration mostly for show. Just ask Kim Kardashian. And there has been nothing stopping anybody from throwing a party for any reason they want.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-5280880372359588512012-04-19T05:10:00.000-04:002012-04-19T06:30:57.208-04:00Publilius Syrus was right<br />
On Tuesday, the President of the United States said something that implies one of two things: he doesn't know what a speculator is or he thinks we don't know what a speculator is. Frankly, I don't care which it is, because neither is a good quality in a president. Remember when Bush couldn't say nuclear? How much comfort did <i>that </i>instill? <br />
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"We can't afford a situation where speculators artificially manipulate markets by buying up oil, creating the perception
of a shortage and driving prices higher, only to flip the oil for a quick profit." -President Barack Obama<br />
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Speculators are people who think that something is priced too low. If you find a $10 lamp at a yard sale that you turn around and sell for $25 at an antique store, you're a speculator. If you bought into a hot stock tip, you're a speculator. If you bought a lottery ticket, you're actually a gambler, and a poor one at that. <br />
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All of those things, though, are voluntary, and require two parties. The guy who sold you that $10 leg lamp would have preferred to sell it for $25, I'm sure, but either getting rid of it quickly was worth something to him or he didn't know its actual value. But, after this transaction, both the seller of the lamp and the buyer of the lamp are happier than they were before, otherwise the lamp would not have been sold. So, in every case of speculation (even on oil), in order for a speculation "bet" to be made, somebody else must take that bet. Somebody on the other end of the speculation thinks that the price they are being offered is, at the very least, fair, if not good. Unless you make all your own stuff, everything you've ever bought you because you thought it was worth the money on the price tag (or somebody else did).<br />
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Speculators have been demonized as predatory or parasitic, because they don't make things. However, price correcting does have value and is not without risk. Other people selling lamps are happy to know what they are worth (have you ever looked at what similar items are selling for when you post on Craigs List?). Sometimes the price is not predictable and goes down instead of up or vice-versa, making those various bets go bad. Like Beanie Babies. <br />
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The price of oil might be undervalued, too. People are complaining about the price at the pump, but the concept of price is really just a means to distribute resources. Money is valuable because it serves as a store of value and is easy to carry. Food is valuable to me, as are books and candy. How valuable? We measure that in its monetary value. If you remember your supply and demand curves from economics, as the price of transportation goes up, people will still pay (inelastic good), but some will find other alternatives (Biking, carpooling, public transportation, moving closer to work, getting a smaller car, etc.) or suppliers will increase production to take advantage of the higher prices. If that's the case, then it stinks, but your lifestyle will have to change. During the Carter Administration, gas was rationed and price was not the means that the resources were distributed, and instead it was (among other things) wait time. Would waiting in line be less aggravating?<br />
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It may not seem fair to the poorer if this happens, but it's not any less fair that the poor don't have Gulfstreams, that the busy may not have time to wait in line for gas, or that interesting people get attractive spouses, either. That's how resources work, really. In fact, there are <a href="http://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/06/08/gm-ceo-we-ought-to-just-slap-a-dollar-tax-on-a-gallon-of-gas/">a lot of people who think extra taxes on gasoline</a> would be a good thing in the long run, implying that there is definitely room in the market for speculation.<br />
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There is also the awkwardness of the word "artificially." What does he mean by that? Is he saying that some participants in the market are illegitimate? How is that determined? If I buy a used car for $1500 with the intent on keeping it, but later see on Craigslist someone willing to pay $2000 for it, would that be an artificial transaction? How long would I have to keep it before it's not speculation anymore? Or what if I hire a travel agent? Or buy stock from a stock broker instead of an IPO? Or buy tickets to a Clemson game on Stub Hub? Or just a guy selling tickets outside the stadium? Are they equally artificial? What is a natural price increase? What about the extra costs incurred by taxes? The president could push to lower gas prices by introducing a bill to Congress to suspend gasoline taxes, since they are price effects that are not even made by market participants; at least the speculators have skin in the game.<br />
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Now, does that mean Obama doesn't understand high school economics? Possible, but personally, I think it's more that he doesn't like the answer. Like people who complain about their lottery tickets not winning.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-445717348732915472012-04-16T17:52:00.000-04:002012-04-17T04:59:32.940-04:00Quid est in nomine?"Does he know the Lord?" my pastor asked about a prayer request. He didn't ask "Is he a Christian?" That's significant, because labels are important. Words are significant, especially names of things. That labeling is kind of loaded, especially for people who do not "know the Lord," (just look at thegreatkatsby's comment <a href="http://howobservant.blogspot.com/2012/01/help-help-im-being-repressed.html">here)</a>. I didn't really think about it until this weekend and this Sunday School lesson.<br />
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I can call myself anything I want. Think about political labels. The original meaning of conservative was that the only check on state power (i.e., the monarchy) should be the church, while liberals felt that power should be distributed among people and decentralized. That is not the way they are used today, of course -- similarities remain, like holding of traditional values in the conservative camp and democratization of access to social institutions in the liberal, but conservatives are talking more about the individual and liberals are talking more about centralization than ever before. So what do either of them mean? If I call myself a conservative, a liberal, a libertarian, a moderate, I can fit anywhere I want on the spectrum depending on which standards I use. I like to call myself a moderate, because it makes me sound the least crazy.<br />
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Likewise, Christian has a lot rolled into it, depending on what you know about the faith. The initial terminology used to differentiate disciples of Christ from ordinary Jews was to call them followers of "The Way." Nobody knew what to call them to capture the entirety of the change of philosophy. And make no mistake, this was a pretty radical change in philosophy -- our access to God is nodat contingent on our ability to be good.<br />
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The discussion of that departure this Sunday morning pivoted on Galatians 2:16-20. This emphasizes that what separated those original followers of "The Way" from followers of The Law is knowing Christ ("I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." Gal 2:20). A particular point of emphasis was that there isn't a checklist of dos and don'ts, it's the realization of the gravity of Gal 2:20<br />
What we see in pop-culture, though, is kind of that sort of checklist mentality, and that it is to our detriment. It's hard not to think of the Ten Commandments in a discussion like this -- a clear symbol of the Judeo-Christian ethic <i>and </i>an actual checklist of dos and don'ts/ But when asked which commandment is the greatest, the answer is not one of those ten: " 'The most important one,' answered Jesus, 'is this: ,,Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'' The second is this: ,,Love your neighbor as yourself.'' There is no commandment greater than these.' " Mark 12:29-31. (That was a lot of nested quotes...)<br />
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You cannot be a Christian if those two commands are not true for you. Whatever other baggage is associated with the word "Christian," that is inescapable. The words "Conservative" or "Evangelical" frequently get attached to "Christian" and that politicizes it to mean something different -- something added beyond its initial intent -- when evangelical just means to telling story to those who haven't heard. (Conservative has already been discussed.)<br />
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So we how do we overcome the negative connotations that have been applied to our names? The only way I know how is to tell our story. Why do I want to overcome those negative connotations? Because by "knowing the Lord," I am far better than I would be otherwise. That differential in who I am and who I would be is great enough that I want to share the cause. No, that is understating it; I am <i>compelled</i> to share the cause. Whatever you call it, it stems from the fact that I know Christ.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-8356532922921205192012-04-08T08:30:00.000-04:002012-04-08T08:30:34.509-04:00It is finishedThere are seven Biblical phrases that Jesus said while on the cross and, of course, "It is finished" is one of them. It was a declaration that His earthly mission was complete, He had accepted our sin and served as sacrifice on <a href="http://howobservant.blogspot.com/2012/04/whats-good.html">Good Friday</a>. This would be a marvelous story of self-sacrifice and an example how to treat each other if the story ended there. But it's not where the story ended.<br />
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Three days later, on a Sunday like today, Christ rose. He predicted this (Mark 8:31-37, Luke 18:31-35). He told His disciples what was necessary and what would happen -- like the Scripture has told us what is necessary and what will happen -- and they did not understand. I can't say I blame them; we still have trouble understanding now.<br />
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The importance of the Resurrection is a demonstration of both His power over death (symbolically important for us, since we no longer have to fear death) and His faithfulness (more immediately important to us because He fulfills promises). He promises us the Spirit, the counselor, in John 14:15-21. In Matthew 28:20, He states, "And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." (The preacher at my church in Clemson used to end his sermons with that, and it gave me goosebumps every time.)<br />
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The Bible is a series of promises that God lays out and fulfills. His track record is pretty hard to beat. This, though, is the realization of the most important one. Today is the anniversary of the Resurrection of Christ, the Son of God, the fulfillment of the promise that in addition to all the things laid on for Good Friday, that He is with us. That He is trustworthy. That He is more powerful than death. I can get behind that. Happy Easter!Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-4928650645560763952012-04-06T17:12:00.000-04:002012-04-06T17:12:42.855-04:00What's good?I'm pretty sure that every kid at one point asks their parents "Why
is it called 'Good' Friday if that's the day Jesus died?" (getting off
of school, notwithstanding). The answer I remember hearing is something
like, "He died for our sins on that day," which, of course, is true,
but sin is awfully abstract for a kid. <a href="http://howobservant.blogspot.com/2012/01/help-help-im-being-repressed.html">Sin's bad</a> (and a condemnation to death), we know that, but when you're, say, ten, what could be so bad to need somebody to die for them?<br />
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Even if you can wrap your head around that, it still seems a
little irrational, if not rather nice. This fellow was selfless enough
to let himself endure an excruciating (the root of this word <i>ex</i>- Latin for "out of" and <i>crux</i>
Latin for "cross" literally means "out of [or from] the cross", a
descriptor that describes the pain associated with crucifixion)
experience just because other people are bad. <br />
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Sin serves as a barrier to communication between people and God (Isaiah 59:2), like when I leave my shoes out in the bedroom with my wife. (She doesn't like that.) Communication is critical to a functioning relationship and any kind of separation like that causes dysfunction. Unfortunately, no one can escape this separation (Romans 3:23), either with God or any other relationship, really. Granted, shoes are small potatoes (I hope), but if I leave them despite her protestations, it's disregard for her wishes, and that's not respectful and being disrespectful of my wife is violating our marriage covenant.<br />
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God and the tribes of Israel had their own special covenant -- one of prosperity in exchange for obedience -- and His people didn't always hold up their end of the deal. He warned them with prophets and geopolitics (Habakkuk 3), but people didn't always buy in. They did, however, get legalistic and focus on the details rather than the message, and the prophets tried to steer them back (Hosea 6:6, Micah 8:6). They, or rather, we, didn't always listen.<br />
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What have you done to remove the barriers in your relationships with friends, spouses, or children? Moved schedules, bought dinners, given up free time to help, right? Well, God feels the same way. The book of Hosea is really a love letter to His people and tries to do those things to win us back that you would do to your husband or wife: "Therefore, I am going to allure her [His people]; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. (Hosea 2:14)" and "I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord. (Hosea 2:19-20)" <br />
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So He did. He hated that barriers to communication between us so much that He sent us Christ, to eliminate them forever ("For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)"). Because He <i>so loved</i> the world. He sent us Christ, His son, to suffer on the cross and accept our sin, to be our sacrifice, to give us a path to escape death. Simply to make Himself more accessible to us. <br />
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Christ even tells us how big a deal this is in John 15:13: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." That's exactly what He did. For you. For me. For everyone. Today, we celebrate that we can escape sin because He laid down His life for us. That's why we call this Good Friday. Really, kids should be asking, "Why isn't it called <i>Best Friday</i>, instead of just Good?"Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-42566237576003037622012-03-24T18:20:00.000-04:002012-03-25T14:22:06.086-04:00On a mssionNicholas Kristof, columnist for the NY Times who is famous for being an all around good guy and doing stuff like personally buying a freeing sex slaves, wrote a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/opinion/kristof-politics-odors-and-soap.html">column on Wednesday</a> about how in addition to not agreeing with conservative values, liberals don't really understand them, either. The column is pretty interesting, but I'm always leery when people start asserting that we are hardwired towards philosophical attitudes like he does towards the end though. What is more serious, though, (as usual) is the commentary from the blokes on the internet.<br />
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Aside from the clear demonstration of the fluid definitions of "liberal' and "conservative" and the repeated assertions from each camp that you must be brain dead in order to belong to the other, the thing that jumped out to me most is the attitude repeated by more than one poster that giving money to churches isn't <i>really </i>charity because churches don't really care for the poor. This is troubling for a couple of reasons: there is a fundamental misunderstanding of people out there of what churches and other religious communities missions' actually are or those communities are not fulfilling them.<br />
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Make no mistake: caring for the poor is absolutely and unmistakably a mission of the Christian church. It is also a mission of just about every other religious community as well, but the tenor of the commentary of the article is largely American and largely focused at Christians, so I will focus on that from here on out. Helping the poor, though, is intrinsically wrapped up in Christian identity, starting with the Old Testament. (Leviticus 19:10, 23:22, Deuteronomy 15:7, 15:11, 24:14-15, 24:17-18, Matthew 6:1-3, Luke 4:18-21, 14:7-14. I could go on...) One specific example, though, is the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46) which is an excellent summary of the position and the inspiration for a fun Cake song.<br />
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In the parable, Jesus, after His return, will separate people into two categories -- sheep and goats. The sheep will be blessed and given the inheritance of the Kingdom of God because "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink..." there are a few other needs that the sheep satisfied, but ultimately, it comes down to the fact that they took care of the earthly needs of those who were needy. The goats, on the other hand, are cursed and rejected from the inheritance because they did not do those things. "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."<br />
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Now, if the churches are not doing those things, then we are failing at one of our missions. If people don't know that this is part of what Christians are charged to do, then we are also failing on another mission -- one so important that it is known as the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) -- to teach "all nations" what Christ taught. I hope it's the second one, because that's easier to fix.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20909573.post-88811714550379072042012-02-15T19:03:00.001-05:002012-02-15T19:03:53.179-05:00LoyaltiesAs you can tell by my icon, I follow the Clemson Tigers. (Woo! Big wins over Wake and UVa this week!) I am emotionally invested in their performance (for better or for worse...) for a couple of reasons: I attended the institution, so their performance academically and athletically reflect on me, whether that's fair or not, and my performance reflects on them as well; awareness and support is good for the school; it is fun. I get something out of it, and when I give/spend money on their stuff, so does Clemson. It also lets us talk about stuff other than work at work.<br />
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That relationship gets further away when you look at professional sports, because I didn't attend anything to do with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; I was simply born near where they play. A lot of people at work have brand loyalties to their cars like sports teams, and that's kind of fun, too, because cars are so oddly personal while the corporations themselves are still quite distant. If you dislike a design decision with Ford or a racing team hire they make, it is not easy to voice that opinion to someone who cares. So the give and take is a little further removed from university teams (which is one of the reasons I prefer college to professional, and why I think it's ok to use "we" in reference to college but less so for professional teams).<br />
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One brand loyalty that makes even less sense to me is the political party. I understand why candidates and elected officials show loyalty: the parties give them money. But why should I, as a voter, give money to a party rather than a candidate? What about either the Republican or Democratic Party is constant enough to foster such a relationship? Aside from getting their people in power, what vision do they serve?<br />
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I think they are obsolete, and the evidence to support this really started in 2004 when <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5FzCeV0ZFc">Howard Dean</a> revolutionized the way that political candidates raised money. Ron Paul and Barack Obama pursued that tack as well, and other movements, notably the Tea Party, has also shown that a group of people can focus their political interests without the structure of existing political parties. There will be future ad hoc coalitions like the Tea Party, and I think they are a more appropriate representation of popular will than something entrenched, precisely because they are not entrenched. If they lose the pulse of the interested participants, it fades away. There is clearly a large minority (or possibly plurality) of disaffected voters for whom the mainline Republican and Democratic platform is not adequate. Part of the problem is the arbitrary restriction of the growth of the size of the House of Representatives to an insufficient 435 members. Making the seats more accessible (which was the Constitutional intent) would allow for those coalitions to be able to participate.<br />
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Even still, there are those people who will refuse to vote for another party because they are in the other party, much like people who refuse to buy Ford because Dale Earnhardt drove a Chevy, even when the candidate of the other party could (conceivably) represent his or her (let's be honest, probably his) values better. Ever heard of a yellow dog Democrat? Why should that concept even exist?<br />
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So stop. Forget them. Pick the guy you like best. Start locally, because they aren't partisan. Defy the arbitrary strictures of platforms. Why are pro-labor, secularism and pro-abortion lumped together? Why are free trade, conservative social values and strong defense? Any of those could be separated from any other, but they are not because the political parties and their platforms require them to be, due to the binary nature of partisan politics. That's silliness.<br />
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I need to go change into my orange shirt and make fun of a Tarheel. It's a big game this Saturday.Engineer Sightedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11514601273278328881noreply@blogger.com1