jonah goldberg Opens His Trap About Science Jobs

I am not going to attempt to smack ol' Jonah Bologna down. Already been done a couple of times by folks who are better equipped to do it than I am.

This was my first visit to the Abstract Factory, but I think I will visit there again:

The Abstract Factory: In which Jonah Goldberg performs feats that bend the laws of space and time

In the comments section following this, some one wrote, "Maybe professors are liberal because teaching involves helping people." Nope, nice sentiment, but professors tend towards liberal because they are smart. jonah is a right-wing pundit for the opposite reason.

hysTERRIa: another fucking idiot opens his trap - powerline's hinderacker

This was commented on by Tbogg, more concisely and amusingly than I may manage, but caught my eye none the less:
��TBogg��: "I don't know how to account for it, unless one concludes that for some liberals, politics is about hate, period."

"... for some liberals, politics is about hate, period." ?!?!?!

WTF????

It gets under my skin when some holier than thou prick decides to suddenly play the nice voice of reason and restraint and pull some why-can't-we-all-get-along bull when the crazies in their constituency have taken over and turned the thing into a shameful freakshow. They call her husband a killer, pass special legislation interfering in a private life-and-death decision, parade a brain dead lady around for (attempted) political gain and WE are the hysterical fools for whom politics is all about hate? Don't you dare.

Take your fake piety and fake rationality and shove it. We will be lucky if someone doesn't end up shot in this whole ordeal and it ain't going to be the side I am standing on that pulls the trigger if it happens.

Like the lovely Ms. Dickenson I do not have time for hate, but I do keep a healthy reserve of rage around so perhaps from time to time I do need to be told to be little nicer and more positive. And there are many from whom I will happily take such a calling out, but I'm not taking fake-conciliatory finger pointing passive-aggressive bullshit from anybody.


(here is the crap in its original habitat: Power Line: March 2005 Archives)

Angry attack nerds invade moron town.

Who will stop the insanity? When is the reality-based community going to leave the lunatic idiots all to their lonesome and let them be dumb and annoying in peace?

"'We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture,' "

Really though, it appears from reading the article that it is the sane folks in town who are under attack by the loonies. The science teachers were already teaching SCIENCE in their classes, it is they who are being attacked by the space-cadet fringe who think they should also be teaching religion.

Really, I don't care too much if these folks wanted to just pull away form everything and leave science alone and not bother with it. I would kind of feel bad for the kids born into it, but hey, the sins of the father and all. If they really want nothing to do with evolution or science, fine. Give us back our technology and take your bible off to some commune and do things your own way. Leave your phones, your tv's, your modern pharmaceudicals, your modern crops, your plastic, you cars, and your airtravel at the door and don't let it hit your fat butt as you exit the 20th century. We are taking our biology/geology/physics/astronomy/meteorology and going home. We try to share, but you just want to break our toys and boss around so we are leaving and you can just play amongst yourselves.

Honestly, people. Can we start calling these lunatics out? Want to believe that God created the world in 7 days? I don't care; fine. Have any faith you like and teach it at church, but don't call it science and don't try to use it to attack something which couldn't have less concern with how you want to organize your mind. You have your faith and I'll have mine, but keep your faith or lack there of the hell off of our science.

Marriage schmarriage...

Having been told to leave the gay kids alone til 2006 when we can be paraded out in front of the bigots and all the ashamed parents with homo offspring can vote against our gayness, the republican bullies had to find someone new to pick on. Trying to beat up on social security is going about as well as trying to beat up a brick wall, so they needed something nice and soft to kick around. Having tired of hurting kittens (yeah, you mister frist) and knowing the nekkid emperor kind of has a thing for puppies, they decided to slap around a brain-dead lady.

Sure, we all know this is beyond the pale, but really, you shouldn't be suprised. All in all, I would kind of rather them stick to picking on the gays. We can at least fight back. Everybody loves our gay dollars and needs a decent haircut every now and then, so they kind of have to pull punches some of the time.

It is interesting to see what happens when their 'culture of life' bullshit runs smack into their 'sanctity of marriage' load of crap. Well, Mullah Delay is here to tell us which is more important: "The sanctity of life overshadows the sanctity of marriage."

Interesting how that goes.

Funny that the sanctity of marriage folks are trying remove this husband's right to try to carry out his wife's wishes after she became incapacitated. These are the same folks that said Hillary should have divorced Bill and actually fault them for working things out and staying together. They support marriage, but then don't want to let some people get married. Huh?

But I guess that is what you expect for folks who scream about a culture of life, but support the death penalty and creamed over going to war with a nation which didn't present a real threat to us and who want less restrictions on gun-ownership and who have destroyed sex ed in this nation and with that are actively working to help HIV infection and unwanted pregnancies increase.

They don't care about life, they don't care about marriage. They want to control you, they want to control me. If we have something they want, they are all friendly and nice. If not, they will push you in the gutter and kick you every which a way they can.

Gay folks are learning to kick back. That is why they are going after invalids now. Shameless bastards.

frozen in time

the posting below was not one for this blog but in advertantly ended up here and now refuses to go away. I deleted it after putting it in it's proper place, and yet it remains on this blog. my blogger, my blogger, why have you forsaken me? I appreciate the service, but glitches like this will drive a person batty.

UPDATE: so now said post is gone and all is right in the world again. Thank you.

I want Lizz back. Now.

Lizz Winstead is unfortunately no longer on Unfiltered, the moring radio show she hosted with Rachel Maddow and Chuck D on Air America. Right from the start, Unfiltered was my favorite show on the station. I used to listen to it every morning (my responsibilities have changed at my job keeping me away from my desk more often or I would still be a regular listener), and always walked away informed and entertained. I like Al's show and Randi's too, but really Unfiltered has always been my favorite.

During the republican convention, the Unfiltered crew came down and did their broadcast from a restarant, inviting us to come join them and standing with us at the front lines. They helped keep me sane while trying to find my brother who had been swept up in one of the mass arrests and kept incommunicado and without arraignment for several days. When he finally did get free, he met me at their show and they took one look at him and put him on the air to tell his story.

Now Lizz is gone and the show itself faces an uncertain future. Why? I have my thoughts, but the people directly involved seem to be keeping mum on the subject, so I will defer to their judgement on the matter.

But I will point to Gawker's nice words on Lizz and her mystery disappearance:

Gawker : Archive for Media: Commentary

Lizz, we miss you. (PS-thank you for the Chrismas tree stand. It is still safe and sound and I will get B to return it soon)

Cunning realism: social security and the stock market

A new blog that I found through Josh Marshall:

-THE CUNNING REALIST-: SOME OPENING COMMENTS AND A BIT ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM: "With an even greater public focus and reliance on the stock market, the political pressure to take extraordinary, unconventional measures to boost stock prices--pressure that already exists--will be overwhelming."

This is just his first post, but wow. Will be one to watch.

Don't like being called Nazis?

Then stop acting like them:

My Way News: "WASHINGTON (AP) - A pair of Jewish groups accused Sen. Robert Byrd on Wednesday of making an outrageous and reprehensible comparison between Adolf Hitler's Nazis and a Senate GOP plan to block Democrats from filibustering. A GOP senator called for Byrd to retract his remarks.
Byrd spokesman Tom Gavin denied that Byrd, D-W.Va., had compared Republicans to Hitler. He said that instead, the reference to Nazis in a Senate speech on Tuesday was meant to underscore that the past should not be ignored.
'Terrible chapters of history ought never be repeated,' Gavin said. 'All one needs to do is to look at history to see how dangerous it is to curb the rights of the minority.'
Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the Senate's No. 3 Republican, called for Byrd to retract his comments, saying they 'lessen the credibility of the senator and the decorum of the Senate.'
Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, called the remarks 'poisonous rhetoric' that are 'reprehensible and beyond the pale.'
Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said Byrd's remarks showed 'a profound lack of understanding as to who Hitler was' and that the senator should apologize to the American people.
'It is hideous, outrageous and offensive for Senator Byrd to suggest that the Republican Party's tactics could in any way resemble those of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party,' Foxman said.
In his comments Tuesday, Byrd defended the right senators have to use filibusters - procedural delays that can kill an item unless 60 of the 100 senators vote to move ahead.
Byrd cited Hitler's 1930s rise to power by, in part, pushing legislation through the German parliament that seemed to legitimize his ascension.
'We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men," Byrd said. "But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends."

Byrd then quoted historian Alan Bullock, saying Hitler "turned the law inside out and made illegality legal."

Byrd added, "That is what the nuclear option seeks to do." "

Divide and conquer.

I recently had coffee with a friend who I am just getting to know, and the conversation forced me to try to articulate some thoughts on some issues that have been rolling around in my head lately, mainly about race and sexuality.

J is an African-American fellow who grew up in predominantly black communities in Chicago and Minneapolis. I am a European-American chap who grew up in rural and small town Mississippi and Alabama, in predominantly white neighborhoods but in close proximity to black people in the larger community. Both of us are 27, homosexual, college educated, and have lived in NYC for slightly more than 2 years.

As we talked about family and how we interact with our families, he said positions race, religion, and homosexuality caused some tension with his mother (and family/community at large, but it sounded as if she was where general family attitudes collided with his so I will use her as the representative voice of that community as I understood it). They come from the south side in Chicago, and she viewed white people with suspicion and seemed almost hostile to the mixing of the races (this is meant as much culturally and community wise as it is meant in the 'mixed baby' sense). I got the feeling that she would not have been happy that her son was spending his evening in New York talking to this white kid. It didn't sound like it was so much animosity towards white people in general, but just wanting to keep things segregated. Black (and conversely, white) people were better off sticking with their own kind. Mixing things up just introduced troublesome things.

Like homosexuality. It seemed that she viewed homosexuality as a mainly white perversion or like some affliction which the black community is dragged into by the white folk. That her son sometimes hung out with white folks and was gay seemed intimately connected in some way.

I can't say that I ever got the impression from my parents that my having black friends and being a homo are connected in their minds. If you are uncomfortable with basic social interaction between people of different races, our corner of Alabama/Mississippi probably isn't a place you should live, so perhaps it this is partially because of a more casual regard for racial interaction from a less effectively segregated community at large (or one which was more aggresively integrated in the previous generation), but more importantly, there is little reason for my parents to associate homosexuality with black people, while there are, unfortunately, many reasons for a black person to associate gay culture with white culture.

Much to all of our detriment, the major gay organizations turn a blind and negligent eye to gay people of color and only really represent the wealthy and fairly secure middle/upper middle class white homosexuals. The battles they pick are the battles for those who have already made it to have it just a little better. Partner benefits, gay marriage, cheaper and better HIV meds. Yes, I am perhaps being unfair; all of these are important issues, but you have to have a certain amount of security and safety to really enjoy any of these. The poor, the rural, the inner city (of any color), and (most) people of color aren't really seen as part of the 'gay community'. The 'gay community' is Will and Grace or Queer as Folk (I have never seen the L Word, so I hesitate to include it in my example; not trying to exclude the lezzies on purpose). Black people aren't seen as part of the 'gay community' unless they are somewhat assimilated into this 'white' world. The rest act on their sexuality in more of a 'down low' fashion and that is more of a black community issue than a gay issue, right? Sounds ridiculous, but you would be suprised how prevalent these attitudes are amongst some in the gay community.

Instead of partnering with black community leaders on issues of HIV and discrimination, the big gay powers that be have somewhat pitted them against us and aligned themselves with the corporate and political elite (isn't that whose feet we are supposed to be holding to the fire?). And the black community as noticed.

And so have many of us in the gay community who no longer feel represented by the HRC or Lambda or the Advocate, etc. I have been discussing similar things with friends who are working with the new gay group Queer Fist. They don't quite fully have their direction yet, but they have the anger and they are getting organized.

For me personally, this divide between the black community and the gay community is particularly painful and bewildering. As I was telling J tonight, for me, issues of racism and homophobia have never seemed very different. Dealing with one helped me deal with the other. In fact, the underly basic issue is inseperable in my mind: it is all about bigotry and assumptions about some 'other'. About 'Them'. When first beginning to come to terms personally with being gay, with this meaning something in my life other than dirty secrets and hidden shame, with it being a part of my identity/personality/worldview, it was Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin who led me safely through to the otherside (the 'otherside' not meaning 'gay' instead of 'straight', but rather acceptance and comfort instead of shame and discomfort). Their lessons weren't just for the black reader, but for any black sheep, any outsider, any disadvantaged.

_Invisible Man_ is easily the single most important book to my mental/emotional development. It wasn't just the external racism which Ellison was dealing with, but also how a person deals with their own internalized bigotries and how a person can be limited and damaged by their own misunderstandings of themselves and how they relate to society. It was about learning how others see (or don't see) you. It was a personal journey, not just a lament or indictment.

Other than Ellison, no single author has made such an impact on my worldview except perhaps James Baldwin. I will admit freely to having read few of his works of fiction, but his essays and interviews I have pored over. And it was this voice, which railed against the injustices of American bigotry and fear with unmatched anger and passion, which warned that it isn't only those on the receiving end of oppression who suffer. Being the oppressor is also debilitating (even if more comfortable). When given the choice of being hammer or nail, demand more choices.

I still have to believe that for most of us, bigotry is a singular vice. Fighting it on one front furthers the fight on the others. Perhaps this is why gays are the new popular target; they aren't targeting just us. It is easier to go on TV and talk about how the gay people are ruining our country and our culture and our marriages and our children, but notice which communities had fewer voting booths this year and increased challenges and more contested votes. They used us to embolden people's bigotry and biases, and they stole your black vote. And it isn't benign or 'just politics': they want my gay ass just as dead as they want your black ass.

Hyperbole? Maybe, but the effect of their abstinance only education isn't reduced unwanted pregnacy or lower STD rates, it is a rise in HIV/syphilis/etc. in our communities. It is gay kids and black kids (and poor kids of any race) dying. And they know that, the politicians pushing it, and that is why they support it. The gay marriage amendment? It ain't about keeping gay people apart, it is about saying that we matter less to the law. It is an implicit threat: get in your place, boy or the law may not pay too much attention when somebody puts you back there. This is what the HRC should be screaming bloody murder about, not just whatever individual benefits we can get, not just what AIDS drugs cost. The rhetoric of the right is that we, in what we, gay people, are an abomination and are destroying the country. They aren't calling us a national threat because they like us and want to be friends.
The HRC doesn't care because even if you belong to a marginal group, with enough money or influence, you can buy a pass. They have enough money now, so they don't care.

Because really it isn't just about black or gay: the powerful elite care nothing of the fact that we are gay or black or polka-dotted; it is just about power. They look to bully whoever is weak and if any group of traditionally down-trodden or marginal people is gaining ground, they focus on them. Gay, black, brown, female, poor, whatever. It is all the same as long as someone stays stuck at the bottom for them to feed off of. Back to hammer or nail. I refuse to be either. I still want more choices.

happy birthday!

It is Atrios' birthday, so I will stop being lazy and add a link to him on my page. Don't have that much traffic here, so it may not be noticed, but I read Eschaton damn near daily so it only makes sense.

So, Happy birthday Atrios!

Eschaton

The War On Not-War

Pandagon used the phrase 'the War on Not-War' and I thought it was worth spreading. I'll be using it from here on out.

Pandagon: Five Years, Same As Debt: "the War on Not-War"

Hit it til it breaks!!!!

Every year at our family farm down in the epicenter of the Deep South, we have a huge multi-day New Year's party. We've been doing it for years, originally just a gathering of my siblings with our similarly aged cousins and an excuse for us to run around like fools shooting bottle-rockets at one another and burn/blow things up. More fun than you might imagine if you have never tried it, but this post isn't specifically about the joys of redneck amusements and the fine art of entertaining yourself in life-endangering ways in rural regions, but rather what has come out of this annual gathering and how it can guide us in the year to come.

This gathering has been perhaps the single most stable recurring event in my life to date, and I think it is treated similarly by many of those who attend (which now numbers far beyond the bounds of blood kinship). There are several people who I only ever see at this party, but I see them there every year. There is something comforting in having a little bit of regularity in a chaotic world and we have some solid traditions that have become a part of the ritual.

The Burning Caldron of Death is probably the oldest and the most important and car chase is a favorite when we can get the old cars running and my mom's marinated sandwiches are the most beloved edible tradition. But the one that sets the tone for the year is the motto.

The motto is decided by a fairly undemocratic process of taking silly and misunderstood statements that come across as unintentionally profound and after little discussion, declaring one of the statements the motto for the year, our guiding light to help get everyone back safely to the next New Year's.

I can't remember them all, should have been writing them down all these years but I can remember a few.

See with your feet. (can't remember the origin)

There may be no point in sitting either. (statement made by my drunk brother to our youngest brother who had just implored him to sit down because 'there is no point in standing'.)

Last year's motto was two fold:

Don't hurt beautiful things/Don't be hurt by beautiful things. (don't remember the origin clearly enough to recount, but I managed to fail on both counts, although I did make it safely through to a new year and reflected on the motto continuously the whole long way.)

Anyway, enough of years past, this year keeping the homemade, woodburning hottub running required chopping a lot of damn firewood and most of it was being chopped out of this huge hickory that had fallen. The cross-sections of the tree were near three feet in diameter, and the wood split easily once you made that first break, but getting that first split took a hell of a lot of hitting. In coaching my brother to get the first crack in a particularly stubborn piece, our friend Mike cheered him on with "Just hit it til it breaks!" Looking forward to an uncertain year and coming off of one in which we had all been frustrated out of our minds and begun to question our generally positive view of folks in general, my brother and I almost instantly looked at one another and knew this had the potential for being our new motto. And as it became clear that no one was going to utter anything close to as appropriate, the official motto it became. No more kinder gentler crap. This is a tough year and it calls for tough action. No more playing nice and expecting others to. This year, if something gets in your way, hit it til it breaks. Faced with inane stupidity? Apathy? Misinformation? HIT IT TIL IT BREAKS!!!!

I don't know the identity of the Rude Pundit, so he may have been at my New Year's shindig (although I doubt it), but he seems to be on the same page, as does Digby:

The Rude Pundit: "this story should be hammered on until something cracks."

Hullabaloo (Read Digby's post and tell me he isn't ready to hit it til it breaks, too)

No more chickenshit politeness while assholes and hypocrites direct the public dialogue through bullying and lies.

I have personally adopted my whole family (ok, anyone whose email I could find on the forward lists that various family members included me on) and am forwarding them obsessively from progressing sources. Yes, they can delete some of the stuff and they can ignore it all, but most of these folks that don't really read the newspaper or digest it very well seem to read most anything you put in their in box (which, judging from the sampling I have seen of what they are sending around, may be part of why this country is in such a funk currently) and actually most folks are responding pretty positively so far, even if they are disagreeing with lots of it. So all of you Awareniks out there (both of you), I am calling on all liberals to adopt the whitesheep idiots in their redstate bloodlines and start bombarding them with progressive lefty infuriating stuff. I am going to start a sister blog archiving everything (and what I get back!), so if folks want to just forward the same things they can. Remember, we are the current underdogs and them on top is dangerous. Don't be afraid of ruffling feathers or pissing off relatives; that is the point. Hit it til it breaks!

Keyes Family Values

from
DC Media Girl: "Maya Marcel-Keyes, self-described 'queer activist' and daughter of right-wing lunatic Alan Keyes, has outed herself. In a hearwarming demonstration of family values, Keyes has reportedly booted Maya out of the house."

Thankfully, I come from a better class of Christian than that. Compassion and love, folks, if that ain't what your god calls on you to show towards your fellow man, he ain't Jesus. Keyes is fun to watch on tv, but as a real person kicking his daughter out because he's too self-righteous and bigoted, he is disgusting.

Like that mean, nasty woman on WifeSwap last night who accused the other wife of being a pedophilic sexual predator who would try to molest her daughter. Because she was a lesbian. And lesbians can't be trusted around children because they might...what, what the fuck goes through some idiot's mind to make them say something like that? Her defense was that she was just being protective of her daughter. Bullshit, she was just being a bigot. If protection of her children was her concern, then why would she think it was any safer to put a straight woman in her house with her sons? More pedophiles are straight than gay and the gay pedophiles tend to be the ones who aren't out of the closet so where does the assertion that she needed to worry about her daughter being around married lesbian who was raising a daughter with a life-partner come from? Her own personal bigotries. What if someone had said that she shouldn't be trusted around the lesbians' daughter because she was black? She told the woman she stayed with that discriminating against gay people wasn't like discriminating against black people, because gay people can pretend to be straight and if they just kept their mouths shut and acted straight then they wouldn' have any problem. It's our fault. Yeah, lady, and you won't consider it discrimination when some one tells you you should act more 'white'. That is bullshit. People should be treated with tolerance and respect regardless of how close they manage to mimic some dumb idea of what is normal.

Informed Smackdown

Holy crap!!! Like manna from heaven, this is awsome!

The Alterman-jarvis match lately has been kind of fun, but Dr. Alterman is always fighting with someone and this is way better anyway.

jonah goldberg steps to the defense of bush's nation of retards against the reality based community and gets bitch-slapped (like he should be every time he opens his mouth). The always charming and informative Juan Cole spoke too bluntly about the stupidity of the sing-songy, we-done-right-pat-ourselves-on-the-back bullshit the chickenhawks were crowing about after the Iraqi election and poor jonah just couldn't take it this lying down. So he opened his fat mouth and spewed a little bile . . . and Dr. Cole made him choke on his own foot.

I love an angry academic. If you are going to pick a fight with someone on whatever subject, don't pick a top expert in the field if you are not a top expert in said field. Being on tv does not mean you are smart and having been allowed by a producer to talk about something publicly doesn't mean you know anything about which that of which you speak.

Oh, Jonah . . . please, please debate Juan in a public forum. Please, this would be fun. Of course, Juan, be sure if you do debate him, remember to do what Al Fraken did when he backhanded the whiney o'reilly around on book tv: do it LIVE. If you don't, Punditopia's editing rooms are not kind to intelligent interlopers. Your ideas will be soundbitten to death.

but for now, Juan is in good company with who is weighing in on his behalf. I've read bits on the cage match on Kos, Escaton, and James Wolcott's blog. Mr. Wolcott does a particularly lovely and thorough job of play by play of the event. Perhaps it isn't over yet. A boy can dream...

anyway, the original smackdown:

Informed Comment

James Wolcott weighs in:

James Wolcott: Prof Harpoons Maroon

jonah stepped again, so Juan knocks his sorry ass back to the damn mat:

Informed Comment

Awareness Is A Furniture Porn Movie!

really the name says it all.

A Furniture Porn Movie!

Bloggers against gonzales...

Kos has a petition/pledge/roll call for bloggers against gonzales as attorny general. It is hard not to endorse damn near anything which is against that creep.

"Unprecedented times call for unprecedented actions. In this case, we, the undersigned bloggers, have decided to speak as one and collectively author a document of opposition. We oppose the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to the position of Attorney General of the United States, and we urge every United States Senator to vote against him."

Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.

religious 'leaders' call a spade a spade (and then call a sponge a fag): "Hood-rat, hood-rat, hoochie-mama..."

finally the religious assholes that annoy the rest of us and love the chimp in chief are starting to pay a little closer attention and annoying their beloved leader for a while.

Tbogg points out that they are sending him letters calling his daughters...um, 'classy' is not the word they would have chosen.
jenna and notjenna bimbos of babylon

something to smile about on this dark day.

In other religious nutcase news, Dobson (or as James Wolcott says, SpongeDob Stickypants) is turning on Sponge Bob. Guess what dvd's my nieces are getting for their birthday? It beats the hell out of that veggietale crap that I was forced to watch over the break.

Maybe the president is right for once: of the young and our trust for the government

Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo does a great job of countering the nekkid emperor's continuing assertions that social security is falling apart and will die a swift and inglorious death unless he swoops down and saves us from ourselves (like he did in Iraq). He quotes the president on the youth perspective on the whole mess:

> Today the president said: "Most younger people in America think they'll >never see a dime [from Social Security]. Probably an exaggeration to a certain >extent. But a lot of people who are young, who understand how Social >Security works, really do wonder whether they'll see anything."

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: January 09, 2005 - January 15, 2005 Archives

Josh explains quite well why the president is wrong, and I agree with his points, but in a different way the president is right (although it doesn't support his assertions): most young people don't expect social security to be there for us.

But not because we think the system itself is flawed, but rather because we know there are folks like the president in the government whittling away at anything that is good and precisely for that reason we do not trust the government. Period. I believe that there are any number of programs that work amazingly well and should be expanded, but if I go away and come back later I don't trust that things will still be where I left it. After Nixon and Reagan (and in certain ways Clinton; the first bush just really didn't seem organized enough to change a table setting) and Vietnam and the Iran-Contra crap, faith in our government isn't exactly soaring and this isn't an attitude that we acquired; we have been raised with it. Our default expectation for the government is failure.

We have to be heartily convinced that any program that we have not had personal, direct interaction with is good and no twenty-something knows anything of social security personally except that some of our money goes there from every check. We are not a generation that believes in institutions or public figures.

But we love the things we feel we can trust (institutionwise, I personally only really allow myself the indulgence of trusting National Geographic, which may seem silly or trivial, but you have to hang on to something and I think I have picked well) and don't have an aversion to stability. We just expect otherwise.

Just look at how we approach employment. I do not expect to hold a single job for the rest of my life. I do not expect to stay at a single company or organization. I have already work at more varied things than can be counted on one's hand, and I think the same is true for most of my peers. How many different jobs did our parents have by 27?

So maybe lil' bush is right for once; we do not expect social security to be there when we get old. We expect him or someone like him to manage to destroy it long before then.

Project Concern International: Helping children and families around the world

A friend who I haven't seen in years but live vicariously through their infrequent but lengthy updates just sent a personal request about tsunami relief. She spends most of her year on the water and spent much of this last year in areas hit by the tsunami. She wrote a personal message and forwarded on a message from a friend currently working in the region delivering aid. If you are interested in giving, please consider giving here (their letters follow):

Project Concern International: Helping children and families around the world

>From: heather t----- <*snip*>
>To: *snip*
>Subject: Here's how to HELP!
>Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 17:07:53 -0800 (PST)
>
>Hello all, Just when you think the lion is sleeping,
>she bites back with ferocity. Amazing how a tragedy in
>one part of the world can effect those miles and miles
>away. I am grateful that myself and my two great
>loves, John and Dancyn, weren't anywhere near the
>tsunamis. Unfortunately, many cruisers like to spend
>the winter season in Phuket and I am sure there are
>many that weren't so lucky. I recently heard on the
>radio that more people die from the lack of clean
>water and good medicine a year in those regions that
>we disdainfully refer to as the third world than all
>of the tsunami victims to date, but now we have a
>chance to really reach out and help those that we
>don't know, will never know, but are fellow citizens
>of the planet. A fellow cruiser friend, Chris, is
>currently in Bandi Aceh on Sumatra heading up relief
>work with Project Concern International, a grassroots
>organization based out of San Diego. His partner,
>Dana, will be joining him shortly. We met them in the
>Galapagos, were best friends at their wedding in the
>Marquesas (since we knew them the longest-2 months),
>and have had the joy of reuniting with them in Hawaii
>after they sailed up from Tahiti 2 months ago.
>According to Chris, there is a lot of money, a lot of
>help pouring into the affected areas, but
>unfortunately, it has remained concentrated in only a
>few places. Chris was sent to Sumatra and came up with
>the brillant idea to charter a ship (once a sailor,
>always a sailor) and deliver supplies to the thousands
>of people in outlying areas that still remain without
>water, food, and medical help. If you donating funds
>to relief efforts, consider giving directly to Project
>Concern International (see below) because you know for
>certain your money will be used to its fullest.
>I know that in today's world if we only put as much
>zest into making peace as we do fighting wars and
>creating capital, such events would have less impact
>on everyone.
>Health and peace to all, Heather
>
>
>Dear family and friends,
>
>As you all know, we are in the midst of a tragedy that
>is beyond our
>collective capacity to put accurately into words. It
>is being called the
>worst natural disaster of the last 100 years. Veteran
>relief workers,
>foreign journalists and military personnel are
>consistent in their response
>– they have never seen anything that compares to the
>destruction that this
>has caused. Hiroshima has been the best point of
>reference to describe
>what
>has happened. But in the end, the tsunami is just
>another destructive
>force
>that has sapped the life and livelihood out of those
>who had little to
>start
>with. It will take years to rebuild and many will
>never recover from the
>physical and emotional trauma this event has caused.
>This past week,
>Project Concern International (the organization I
>worked for prior to going
>sailing) asked me to go to Indonesia to lead our
>disaster response. I
>am
>currently in Jakarta but will leave for Ache, ground
>zero for the
>earthquake/tsunami destruction, today. It is likely
>that Dana will also
>come out to help with me within the coming months.
>Our initial priority
>and
>focus will be to get to areas currently out of reach
>from the massive amount
>of supplies flooding into the region. Ironically,
>just when I thought
>I was
>retiring from sailing, I will soon find myself back on
>a boat. PCI is
>in
>the process of chartering an 800 ton capacity steel
>schooner to bring
>supplies and medical assistance to those who have thus
>far been inaccessible
>by modern craft and land transport.
>
>I have never asked family or friends to support my
>causes but I am asking
>now. We need your help. I need your help. You can
>directly link to
>www.projectconcern.org and find out how
>to
>donate or call 858 279-9690. I will be out of touch
>for awhile but thank
>you
>in advance for any support you can provide.
>
>Chris Bessenecker
>
>

Why does everything have to have a friggin' scapegoat? Just feel some damn sympathy for the victims, you freakin' monsters!!!

Why does everything have to have a friggin' scapegoat? Just feel some damn sympathy for the victims, you freakin' monsters!!!