Want to see a remarkable gulf between how the left and right view the world?

Point: Aspiring to Mediocrity: With hard work and success to be punished by Obama administration, productive Americans scale back.

Counterpoint: Your Idiot Hero Of Your Idiot Book For Idiot People

I recommend reading all the comments too. It stuns me how these two groups of people have fundamental differences in worldview and in their definitions of human nature.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:28 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I spent the day with some of my favorite people: I watched the Conversations With History interviews of Mark Steyn, Christopher Hitchens, and Victor Davis Hanson.

And I totally snorted when I saw at the end of the video that the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of University of California, Berkeley. Heh. No joke.

Posted by: Sarah at 12:17 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 But...but...UC Berkeley is well known as a hot bed of conservatism!

Posted by: MaryIndiana at February 28, 2009 12:30 PM (bRTJt)

2 It is, cOmrade Mary! Real radicals go to Sovereign Kingdom University and learn from true revolutionaries like us! We are the true heirs of Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University (now conquered by capitalists - sob), not the campus once contaminated by the likes of Vince Sarich! Did you know Chomsky was just a military tool? [Chomskyan linguistic] advocates may have in fact abandoned even their supposed anti-establishment bias by regularly and routinely accepting funding from the Army, the Department of Defense, and elements of the US intelligence apparatus. As Peter T. Daniels recently observed on the USENET newsgroup "sci.lang" (in a message thread humorously entitled "Wither Linguistics?"): "Perhaps you need your hearing checked. For fifty years now, this professor has been funded almost entirely by the US Department of Defense. He looks on this as an amusing irony; I look on it as insufferable hypocrisy." Omericans don't know what real Leftism is, but Porkulus and pals will teach them! You're gonna miss Carter and Clinton when we're done with the USSA.

Posted by: kevin at February 28, 2009 01:50 PM (Wxe3L)

3 I'm so glad you pointed out the Steyn video to me. As you know, I am normally audiovisually averse (AVerse?) but I momentarily overcame that to listen to him. I'll have to listen to the others. And although I didn't tell you at the time, I was surprised by the Berkeley connection. I haven't seen the clock tower pictured at the beginning in 17 years! I left the Left, and never went back.

Posted by: Amritas at February 28, 2009 02:04 PM (Wxe3L)

4 One of your favorite people was NOT happy that I hung up with you prior to him being about to say, "hello." Hubs said to tell you he will miss you. I'm sorry I missed the programs you had a chance to see!! I'm sure I will be DVR-ing lots of stuff in the coming days for when I can't sleep.

Posted by: Guard Wife at February 28, 2009 06:10 PM (i0ZCx)

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Christopher Hitchens is one crazy sonofagun, but I was downright impressed when I read Michael Totten's account of their run-in in Syria.

“The SSNP,” I said, “is the last party you want to mess with in Lebanon. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you properly. This is partly my fault.”

“I appreciate that,” Christopher said. “But I would have done it anyway. One must take a stand. One simply must.”

Would you have had the guts to deface a Syrian Social Nationalist Party sign in Beirut? I think Hitchens is nuts, but I have to respect him for this.

I think a swastika poster is partly fair game and partly an obligation. You don't really have the right to leave one alone.

Wow.

He's probably lucky to be alive.

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When I saw this last night, I was floored. I completely recommend watching it:

Thank you, Glenn Beck, for doing this research and laying it out so succinctly.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:35 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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A link from my friend BigD:
Sales of “Atlas Shrugged” Soar in the Face of Economic Crisis

It's coincidental that she sent me this today, because my jaw hit the floor when I read this article this morning:

Tens of thousands of boxcars are sitting idle all over the country, parked indefinitely by railroads whose freight volumes have plummeted along with the economy.
[...]
The nation's five largest railroads have put more than 30% of their boxcars -- 206,000 in all -- into storage, according to the Association of American Railroads.

Now if that doesn't make you think life is imitating art, I don't know what will.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:33 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Yesterday I had to work at a demonstration of various science kits you can buy at the store. I was kinda dreading it because it was going to be a huge mess, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. Most kids just wanted to get their hands dirty and sticky. But one family made it totally worthwhile.

A mother and two sons showed up specifically for the science demonstration. I was just getting to the end of mixing "quicksand": cornstarch and water. I filled the pan and showed the older boy (probably 9 years old) how your hand sinks in and it's hard to pull out. The boy looked at me and said, "Well, that's neat, but what's the science behind it?" Awesome. So I pulled out the paperwork that came with the kit, and we had a discussion of non-Newtonian fluids and the Law of Viscosity. And then we demonstrated together how the viscosity could be changed by applying pressure. He learned some science, and heck, so did I!

When I start to despair for the world, I am going to remember that kid and how I am sure there are others like him out there, kids who will be the pillars of our society in the future.

I needed to meet that boy. I'm glad I did.

And I am also glad that I have a monkey's job where I get to learn about non-Newtonian fluids.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:37 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Tom Coburn was on fire this week:

We are going to spend $448 million to build the Department of Homeland Security a new building. We have $1.3 trillion worth of empty buildings right now, and because it has been blocked in Congress we can't sell them, we can't raze them, we can't do anything, but we are going to spend money on a new building here in Washington. We are going to spend another $248 million for new furniture for that building; a quarter of a billion dollars for new furniture. What about the furniture the Department of Homeland Security has now? These are tough times. Should we be buying new furniture? How about using what we have? That is what a family would do. They would use what they have. They wouldn't go out and spend $248 million on furniture.

He rants about all the stupid crap that's in the stimulus bill. Another little funny line:

We have $75 million for smoking cessation activities, which probably is a great idea, but we just passed a bill—the SCHIP bill—that we need to get 21 million more Americans smoking to be able to pay for that bill. That doesn't make sense.

Seriously, read the whole thing. And feel your head explode.

UPDATE:

See also 50 De-Stimulating Facts.

Posted by: Sarah at 07:32 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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The first blogger my husband read was Matt Welch, waaay back in the day. Today Matt has a good post up that's kinda related to what irritated me yesterday. Money quote:

The other factor at play here, which Democratic ears seem unable to detect, is that Obama is skillfully turning the meaning of the word "bipartisan" into "the coalition that agrees with my magnanimous self."

Yep, disagree with Obama and you are destroying America and ruining democracy.

Hat tip to my husband, who runs in different blog circles than I do and always manages to find interesting stuff that I wouldn't happen upon. Also he is hot.

Posted by: Sarah at 09:31 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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KDeRosa blogs about schoolwork that's not exactly brainwork:

The competition challenges middle school students to design a city of the future with a focus on water conservation, reuse, and renewable energy. The students use the game SimCity (Deluxe 4) to help them build their three-dimensional models to scale. They have a semester to dream up and then construct their miniature cities entirely out of recycled materials. Supposedly, this inspires them to consider engineering as a profession.

He belittles the project, saying:

This is not how engineer's turn an idea into reality. It doesn't seem to me that the students needed to know any actual engineering or any engineering constraints to construct their models. So, this is how a non-engineer turns ideas into reality. And, I'm not sure this exercise , in any way, generalizes to any real-world situation.

I suppose the kids did learn how to play SimCity. Videogames 101. That's what kids need -- more time playing videogames. I'm sure SimCity is a neat program, but it's not exactly a precursor to AutoCAD or other real-world construction/drafing programs.

And how does building a model out of recycled mterials generalize to building real stuff with recylced materials? Someone explain that to me.

Found via Amritas via Joanne Jacobs, where Joanne writes:

My husband, born to be an engineer, built a color TV set when he was in high school. It worked. His father, also an engineer, built model planes as a teenager. They flew.

My first husband, a math-physics guy, designed an atomic bomb in fifth grade for a school project. “It probably wouldn’t have worked,” he said. But he’d studied the science and the math. It wasn’t an art project.

My uncle built a working light show in his basement when he was a kid. He rigged up a Lite Brite to a Casio keyboard, so when he played certain notes, different lights lit up.

I wish I had developed more of an interest in these math and science projects when I was young.

To conclude with an awesome comment by hardlyb:

When I was in 3rd grade I made a sextant out of a protractor, a couple of pieces of wood, some string, nails, and thumbtacks. The trick, of course, was to calibrate it, and I can’t remember what I did, but when I tested it that night against the North Star, it was dead on. Anyway, I turned the thing in after doing a presentation to the class, and I got an A. Then Miss GrumpyFace, the teacher from the class next door, came in to judge our contest. She awarded first prize to a ‘diorama’ that had Native Americans and dinosaurs in it (the diorama was really a shoebox with plastic toys arranged in it), and she held up my entry as an example of something beneath contempt. She had absolutely no idea what it was, and hadn’t bothered to ask.

I didn’t really mind her reaction, because the realization that many of the teachers at my crappy rural East Texas public school were too ignorant and/or stupid to understand the work an 8-year-old was something that I, as an 8-year-old, found very interesting. It doesn’t appear that things have changed much, except now they give all the kids a shoebox and some plastic Native Americans and dinosaurs. So the teachers don’t ever have wonder “What the hell is that thing?”.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:49 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 "Using science"? More precisely, using the byproducts of science, but not science itself. "[W]ater conservation, reuse, and renewable energy ... recycled materials" - those are the real key words of this project. Environmentalist ideology, not science. Reinforcing beliefs, not promoting the knowledge that will lead to more "water conservation, reuse, and renewable energy" in the real world. Ken DeRosa asked, And how does building a model out of recycled mterials generalize to building real stuff with recycled materials? Someone explain that to me. It doesn't, but that's not the point. This is a symbolic ritual, a modern version of sticking pins into a voodoo doll. Not science. Such magical thinking makes its practitioners feel good now, but does nothing for the environment in the future. Sarah, That shoebox anecdote jumped out at me too. It's one of many on Joanne's site. Art as a substitute for other types of learning is a running theme there: "Troubled students make rap CD" "Spanish or shop?" "Arts and crafts forever" (the collage you showed me last year) You know I have nothing against arts and crafts. I love your work, and I never held your employment at Michaels against you. But you know that knitting DNA is no substitute for learning about DNA.

Posted by: Amritas at January 29, 2009 02:09 PM (y3aIN)

2 GW - how on earth did those teacher grade those kids well KNOWING that crap was "borrowed" and not original work?!?! I called parents in more than once when their kids turned in things OBVIOUSLY beyond their capabilities. That does. not. fly. in my classroom. Or didn't anyway. Notice I'm not teaching anymore?

Posted by: airforcewife at January 30, 2009 09:26 AM (Fb2PC)

3 Well, of course the poetry was extra special and the teachers in our grade voted it #1. But, my homeroom teacher, who was young & energetic & smart, thought the poetry seemed familiar. She didn't want to straight out confront a 5th grader unless she knew for sure. This was LONG before Google or other helpful aids so she set about trying to find the poem on her own. She did and THEN confronted the girl. The girl denied it up & down, bawled, etc. so what to do? It wasn't straight up copied verbatim down the entire line, but it was similar enough that the teacher was able to locate the exact poem it reminded her of then. The teacher spoke with me about it and told me that although she suspected what was up, she did not have direct proof and because the other child chose not to come clean, I was being rooked from the prize. I think I still have that book somewhere. I illustrated it and everything.

Posted by: Guard Wife at January 30, 2009 10:13 AM (N3nNT)

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BigD sent me a link that was just genius. It was exactly what I was looking for when I wrote about the New Deal.

Why The New Deal Failed

Now before we get into the specifics of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, which was the name of his government program, I wanted to begin by announcing some of the results from a Fox News poll that was done over a year ago. The poll asked, "When the government spends money for programs, does it get the money from taxpayers, or does the government have an independent source of revenue?"

Let me start with the answer this way. Eleven percent weren't sure. They were undecided. Forty percent said government gets its money from taxpayers. Forty-nine percent said they have an independent source of revenue. So the answer to the poll was 49 percent said government has an independent source of revenue that it uses to spend money for programs; 40 percent said no, every time it spends a dollar on programs it has to get the dollar from taxpayers; and 11 percent were undecided.

Can you see why after this poll, when we have government programs that fail, it does not result in throwing those who perpetrated the program out of office? You have one group that gets a sizable vote-forty percent-that is mad about it. But there are others who say: "Hey, it's not my money. It's the government's money. At least they tried."

And it gets better from there...

Posted by: Sarah at 09:48 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I have been a fan of the singer Jude for about ten years now. I love his music, and when I went to his concert in Champaign, IL, it was the best concert I've ever attended. (And also the last, because I'm old.) I got to meet him after that concert, when he stood around and shook everyone's hand and signed autographs.

And now he's on Big Hollywood revealing that he's a conservative.

Be still my heart.

I'm gonna go order his two most recent albums. I balked at buying an album named Cuba because I was afraid of it being a communist paean, but now I don't think I have anything to worry about.

And if you've never heard Jude's music before, this is the song to start with.

Thanks to Amritas for finding this post...and being the kind of friend who knows that I like Jude.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:31 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I don't like many modern love stories, but I do like the old ones. I watched Sabrina tonight and took pause at this conversation between the Larabee brothers:

But you've got all the money in the world!

What's money got to do with it? If making money were all there was to business, it'd hardly be worthwhile going to the office. Money is a by-product.

Then what's the main objective? Power?

Bah, that's become a dirty word.

Well then, what's the urge? You're going into plastics now; what will that prove?

Prove? Nothing much. A new product has been found, something of use to the world, so a new industry moves into an undeveloped area, factories go up, machines are brought in, harbors are dug, and you're in business. It's purely coincidental, of course, that people who never saw a dime before suddenly have a dollar, and barefooted kids wear shoes and have their teeth fixed and their faces washed.

That's so Reardon-esque that it made me swoon.

And I wonder...does the 1995 remake have the same speech? I may have to watch someday to find out.

Why do I doubt it though...

Posted by: Sarah at 04:29 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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[Cross-posted at SpouseBUZZ]

AWTM has the distinction at SpouseBUZZ, like it or not, of being our resident go-to person on reintegration. And I personally always felt fine letting her have that title, because I didn't really grok her experience. I always assumed that her discomfort with reintegration came from the fact that she had babies while her husband was gone, so they went from being just a couple to being a family. Or I thought it was because her husband came back changed. Or that they were having a hard time getting back in sync as a family when he got home. Since I had not experienced any of those things, I never fully understood AWTM's trepidation about reintegration.

But I wrote before that deployments are like snowflakes. I was talking about my soldier in that case, but I am starting to see that deployments can feel very different from the homefront too.

My husband's first deployment was harder on him than this one has been: tougher mission, less amenities, more danger, longer deployment time. He was out in the thick of things and had some difficult experiences. During that deployment, my life was relatively straightforward. Nothing big happened to me that year, so our focus was on my husband and how he would react coming home.

This time around has been the reverse. My husband's job is easier -- safer, shorter, and relatively cushy -- but my life has been tumultuous. I have gone through some pretty heavy emotional growth in the past eight months. And all of a sudden, we're single digit midgets...and I am starting to think that this reintegration will play out differently.

AWTM called me the other day and asked me how I was doing. I didn't even fully realize that I was so apprehensive until she began to drag it out of me. And then she told me something that I know will be part of my vocabulary for the rest of my life. She told me about an interview with Mike Myers in which he talks about how hard it was to lose his father:

I've always felt I was given these emotional casino chips which had no value until I went home and told my dad about things. My father was like my spiritual cash window. I would tell him about stuff, just to hear his reaction.

AWTM said that she and I and people like us need a "spiritual cash window." We need someone to vent to, to rehash every detail of our day with, to take note of every ebb and flow of our emotional cycle. We need someone to cash our chips in to. And for both of us, that person is our husband. So when our husbands are gone, we stockpile our emotional casino chips.

I seem to have a lot of emotional chips from this deployment.

I have started to realize this past week that I am afraid of overwhelming my husband when he gets home. I am afraid that when he walks in that door, I am going to unload on him like a firehose. I'm afraid I won't be able to pace myself...because I have over seven months of chips in my hands that I am going to dump on him at once.

And I've realized that I am also sad that he hasn't been here for me to cash my chips in to on a daily basis. He hasn't seen me grow moment by moment. He is going to get the insane recap version at the end, where I have to explain every detail of everything that has happened to me lately.

And how do you do that? How do you explain what you were feeling six months ago and still make it relevant? How do you tell someone that, while you are no longer feeling stressed about X, Y, or Z, you used to feel stressed about it and therefore would still like to cash it in?

Poor husband.

My husband does not have emotional casino chips. The last time he was gone, the majority of the fighting and danger he faced happened at the beginning of his deployment. By the time he got home eight months later, that was old news to him. That was over and done with. He didn't need to cash it in. And I remember feeling a tad hurt that he didn't need to do this, like what did he need me for if I wasn't his spiritual cash window? I didn't understand how he could've had these enormous life experiences -- to include watching a man die -- and not need to cash it in.

I just never knew how to put that feeling into words.

I have always known I am this kind of person, but it took AWTM acknowledging it and giving it a name for me to realize how important it is to me and how hesitant I feel about our reintegration this time around.

Because, boy, do I have chips that need cashing.

And all of a sudden, I understood what AWTM has been talking about for years. It clicked for me, and I realized that it wasn't just having her husband underfoot in the house, or that he had a daughter he had never met, or that he might be jumpy or less patient. It was that she held these chips too and didn't know how to cash them in.

I didn't realize that she was this type of person too, and I think we both felt some relief talking about it on the phone and realizing that we're not the only one who holds these emotional chips.

Heck, Mike Myers does too. Maybe he should read SpouseBUZZ...

Posted by: Sarah at 02:25 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Wow.
What Girls Want: A series of vampire novels illuminates the complexities of female adolescent desire

This almost makes me want to read Twilight. Almost.
It also makes me realize why I can't: I am no longer thirteen.

I have been thinking about being thirteen a lot lately.

I have been thinking about sitting on the sofa with a boy watching Pink Floyd's The Wall and thinking that after the movie was over, I would tell him I love him. And I did. And he smiled.

Three years later, he was dead. And I replay that night in my head, the delicious memory of feeling so grown-up and alive.

And that love, that love I felt for those illustrious three, it is nothing like the love I have for my husband. It was impetuous and consuming. It spawned poetry and diary entries. That was love with my heart. I am glad I experienced it; I am also glad I don't experience it any longer. It is an exhausting love.

But I have been thinking about it a lot lately and feeling nostalgic. That article gave me some insight into why.

And now I understand the Twilight craze.

Posted by: Sarah at 10:32 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 I read all four Twilight books and saw the movie. You've met my #2 kid - I'm sure you can figure out why there was an interest in those in my house! I pretend the series stopped at book 3, and the movie is over 2 hours of horrific teen angst I'll never get back. Edward's (the main vampire character) eyebrows are truly so horrific and distracting that I couldn't so much as eat popcorn. Anyway, with all honesty I can say that lately teen fiction has been more interesting and refreshing than adult fiction has been. I have to read the stuff before my kids do (yes, I have set some books off limits until they are older) - and although the words in some of the books are smaller and don't use as many words from the SAT list, the plots are truly entertaining and unique on some of them. SOME of them. Sarah, I can seriously say you'd probably really like the Lemony Snicket books. Even AFG - reader of nothing but books about war and weapons and fighting of some sort - liked the Lemony Snicket books.

Posted by: airforcewife at December 04, 2008 03:58 PM (Fb2PC)

2 I dunno - I might prefer the pre-teen angst to the overdone s-e-x in the adult vampire stories (think Anita Blake novels). And reading to determine if a book was appropriate for my nephew led me to absorb the whole Harry Potter series with relish. However, I have no desire to ever read another bodice-ripping Harlequin type romance. Is that weird?

Posted by: Barb at December 04, 2008 04:32 PM (p+dnl)

3 You don't have to be thirteen to read Twilight. I agree with the above comment though- I also pretend that book 3 is the end of the series, lol.

Posted by: Kasey at December 12, 2008 08:25 AM (tttDj)

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Nothing to do but cut and run, huh? What else? What about the old American social custom of self-defense? If the police don't defend us, maybe we ought to do it ourselves.
We're not pioneers anymore, Dad.
What are we, Jack?
What do you mean?
I mean, if we're not pioneers, what have we become? What do you call people who, when they're faced with a condition of fear, do nothing about it, they just run and hide?
Civilized?
No.

I watched Death Wish tonight. This scene reminded me of something I read yesterday about Mumbai:

But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."

If being civilized means that we let barbarians destroy everything we hold sacred, then count me out.

The last time I wrote about vigilantism, Amritas left this comment:

Is there a correlation between vigilante fantasy entertainment and an increasingly criminal-coddling society? (The rise of the Death Wish movies after the 60s might indicate that the answer is yes.) I don't think there was anything 'cool' about frontier justice 'back in the day'; it was a harsh fact of life. But nowadays such justice has turned into escapism and the reality is that people want to deny responsibility.

How much easier things would be if a Batman would come along and take care of the War on Terror for us. If someone else could take care of the barbarians at the gates. If someone else could go and fight the dragons.

If we could sit and watch from the sidelines while someone else polices the world.

But thank heavens there are some people in this world who are not sidelines people. From the imdb page on Death Wish:

After finishing The Stone Killer (1973), Charles Bronson and Michael Winner wanted to make another film together, and were discussing further projects. "What do we do next?" asked Bronson. "The best script I've got is 'Death Wish'. It's about a man whose wife and daughter are mugged and he goes out and shoots muggers," said Winner. "I'd like to do that," Bronson said. "The film?" asked Winner. Bronson replied, "No . . . shoot muggers."

Posted by: Sarah at 03:30 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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1 Call me shallow, silly, and uncouth, but I admit to being terribly disappointed that the "world police" link didn't take me to a video clip from Team America, preferably one in which part of France explodes. However, there were lots of good thoughts here (with links to more), so I will get over it. Sig

Posted by: Sig at December 01, 2008 06:47 PM (ikRCN)

2 "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." but more importantly, "an armed society is a polite society." Would an attack like this be possible in the United States? In every large metro area, handguns are almost universally outlawed. Even as a holder of a CCW permit in PA, I cannot Carry in Philadelphia. So the answer, could it happen here, is "Hell, I'm surprised it hasn't... yet."

Posted by: Chuck Z at December 01, 2008 07:07 PM (q4psF)

3 The title makes me wonder if the West has a death wish. Certainly not all of it does. Sarah and her readers are on the side of life. But I'm not so sure about a lot of others ... Chuck Z, I'm surprised Mumbai-type attacks haven't happened here either. Even if Philadelphians and other big city dwellers were armed, our doors are still wide open. And I wonder if guns really deter jihadis who are willing to die. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for civilians shooting jihadis. I think guns do deter cowardly criminals. And I'm not afraid of CCW permit holders. As Toren wrote, ... statistics from the Department of Justice and the FBI show that concealed carry permit holders nationwide are almost 50% less likely to kill someone. Sarah wrote: If being civilized means that we let barbarians destroy everything we hold sacred, then count me out. This reminds me of something I just read yesterday: Is the moral purpose of those who are good, self-immolation for the sake of those who are evil? - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged Why do leftists defend reactionary jihadis who oppose feminism and gay rights - who should be "evil" in their eyes? Is it because they believe in the "anti-morality" that Rand described? Thanks to Sarah for quoting me. The hunger for vigilante fantasies persists, judging from the recent Punisher: War Zone movie ads on TV. The Punisher was a minor comic book character in 1973 who became a Marvel superstar a decade later, in the age of Bernhard Goetz: a modernized, gun-toting, maskless Batman. It occurred to me tonight that many Batman fans are probably - and ironically pro-gun control and left-wing. They dream of a vigilante but they prefer the State in real life. Professional comics writer James Hudnall pointed out that "a lot of people in comics" are leftists. In my experience, that includes a lot of creators as well as fans. Will they miss Bruce Wayne after he "dies"? (Pointless "killings" followed by predictable resurrections are commonplace in modern antiheroic American comic books.)

Posted by: Amritas at December 01, 2008 09:19 PM (zc9j7)

4 And, of course, the guns that are being railed against in the gun control lobby as causing crime and mayhem are generally illegally gotten to start with. So, like, further laws are going to affect them, right? Sheesh. And it's not just guns, either. If a criminal breaks into your house and your dog bites the ever-lovin' crap out of them. Even damages them severely for their illegal foray into your house... You lose your dog. They will put your dog to sleep for protecting your house against a criminal. I have to check into the rules everywhere we go because Ike is banned and subject to special penalties for being "vicious." But the penalties are truly ridiculous for all dogs. And that is for them defending their home. Somewhere along the way, society got the idea that life is supposed to be "safe" when life has never been "safe". So those who follow the rules get victimized by those who would never follow the rules to begin with.

Posted by: airforcewife at December 02, 2008 04:30 AM (Fb2PC)

5 What WOULD we do? We have guns in our house, most are locked tightly in a safe, but the air pellet gun to scare the squirrels and wild hogs that come through are at hand. Would they scare an intruder? I don't know. Would we have time to get the 22, again I don't know. As for vigilantes, is does seem necessary sometimes, but there is a fine line between vigilantism and anarchy. It is a definable line, but thin. I do not feel as unsafe as I did last week. We went to Mexico for the holiday weekend. My son and his wife are cavers, they go there all the time. They go in through a safe little town, stay on the back roads mainly and stay in small, extremely friendly towns and villages. We saw NO violence, no unfriendly gangs of teenage boys, or otherwise indications of any anger directed towards us or anyone else. We did visit the larger city of Saltillo, it is very crowded and we went through some parts that looked very different, but everyone was friendly. And then I come home and read of massacres in Tiajuana. If you stay away from the druglord parts of the border it seems safe. One reason I feel safer is we missed what surely must have been the round the clock coverage of Mumbai, it was on the Mexican news but we watched that only briefly. And if makes me wonder if round the clock coverage doesn't feed violence.

Posted by: Ruth H at December 02, 2008 04:56 AM (4eLhB)

6 airforcewife, And, of course, the guns that are being railed against in the gun control lobby as causing crime and mayhem are generally illegally gotten to start with. So, like, further laws are going to affect them, right? I don't think that's the real purpose of gun control laws. Our society is concerned with appearances. Get (not "earn") that A, even if you have to cheat. Promote peace through disarming the law-abiding. The only consequence that "matters" is looking like a saint ... but by whose standard? Other consequences don't matter to the anointed who live in gated communities. They claim to be egalitarian but they think "lesser" people who can't afford their sheltered existence "deserve" what happens to them. Dogs die for defending their homes? Madness! I thought I've heard about something similar in the UK, but I couldn't quickly Google any examples. So those who follow the rules get victimized by those who would never follow the rules to begin with. That sadly sums up our situation.

Posted by: kevin at December 02, 2008 07:50 AM (+nV09)

7 Mu.nu hates me. Amritas' comment reminded me of another vigilante-style film that came out recently, and one that I particularly liked: Iron Man. Kevin is right about the purpose of gun control laws. It's all about politicians seeming to be doing something about gun violence, even if the proposed ban would likely increase the chance of law-abiding citizens to be injured or killed due to their inability to protect themselves from those who carry guns illegally. Seattle had an incident this last spring where a gun discharged in its ankle holster during a scuffle at a music festival. The owner had a permit, but should not have (previous history of mental instability and drug addiction), and now the mayor is using the incident, as well as a couple of more recent gang shootings, to try and pass a gun "rule" about banning all guns (even with a CC permit) on city property. The proposed rule has been declared illegal because it would preempt state law regarding gun regulation, but the mayor is trying to push it through anyway. The hearing is being held this month. Oddly enough, it's the LA Times that has the best and most thorough story, rather than any of the local papers.

Posted by: Leofwende at December 02, 2008 09:05 AM (jAos7)

8 Amritas -- This is the same philosophy that made Obama say that he supported raising the capital gains tax despite the evidence that shows that the government will take in less revenue because it's an issue of "fairness." It's about looking like he's being fair, at to detriment of everyone.

Posted by: Sarah at December 02, 2008 09:32 AM (TWet1)

9 RuthH, I don't think 24 hour news coverage feeds violence, it just makes us feel less safe. And the less safe we feel, the more we demand that "Someone must do something!" And usually that something is more laws that criminals won't follow anyway but that keep law abiding citizens from protecting themselves. There is a thin line between vigilantism and anarchy, sure. But why is protecting yourself vigilantism? Vigilantism is pro-active. Protecting yourself is defensive. I've had tough looking guys cross the street when I'm out walking my dog (you know, the dog that Sarah's Charlie physically maimed during a visit?) because he LOOKS mean. And I do know for a fact that he can be mean. But he won't attack unless someone is threatening me or our home. That is not vigilantism, that is defense.

Posted by: airforcewife at December 02, 2008 11:15 AM (Fb2PC)

10 Leofwende, mu.nu hates me too. Join the club. It seems kevin has gone sane for once. Thanks for the Seattle anecdote. One benefit of the Internet is the ability to learn about what's going on beyond the local and national level through the MSM filter. the mayor is trying to push it through anyway What a moral man, putting principle before the law. The criminals who will remain armed will be so grateful. airforcewife, Thanks for explaining how media hysteria fuels the expansion of state power. It doesn't help that misfortune is profitable. I confess, I ignored TV news for years until 9/11 had me glued for a week. This principle also applies on a less epic scale. A single murder can be dragged out seemingly ad infinitum while other more important news is ignored. Is such coverage really a public service, or is it sensationalism? Is relentless negativity driving the public away from the MSM, or is the rise of the Internet more relevant than televised content? Vigilantism is pro-active. Protecting yourself is defensive. I.e., reactive. I won't confuse your dog with a lynch mob. you know, the dog that Sarah's Charlie physically maimed during a visit? Now you've got me scared of Charlie!

Posted by: Amritas at December 02, 2008 03:31 PM (zc9j7)

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I just heard about the attacks in India. It is horrifying.

Something caught my eye in the MSNBC article:

Alex Chamberlain, a British restaurant-goer at the Oberoi, told Sky News television that the attackers singled out Britons and Americans. He said a gunman, who appeared to be in his early 20s, ushered 30 or 40 people from the restaurant into a stairway and ordered everyone to put up their hands.

"They were talking about British and Americans specifically. There was an Italian guy, who, you know, they said: 'Where are you from?' And he said he's from Italy and they said 'fine' and they left him alone. And I thought: 'Fine, they're going to shoot me if they ask me anything — and thank God they didn't," he said.

Perhaps he just meant that they would recognize his accent, but the way I read it was that he would tell them the truth. If that's the right reading, he is very brave.

What would you do? Would you say that you're an American or would you lie and say you're Canadian or fake a French accent?

I think I would tell the truth. I hope I would.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:22 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I keep having these conversations with people, and then a few days later I read something in Atlas Shrugged and think, "Aw nuts, that's how I should've answered."

Right now I am at the part where Cherryl Taggart realizes that Jim isn't who she thought he was.

"Jim, what is it that you want to be loved for?"
"What a cheap shopkeeper's attitude!"
She did not speak; she looked at him, her eyes stretched by a silent question."
"To be loved for!" he said, his voice grating with mockery and righteousness. "So you think that love is a matter of mathematics, of exchange, of weighing and measuring, like a pound of butter on a grocery counter? I don't want to be loved for anything. I want to be loved for myself -- not for anything I do or have or say or think. For myself -- not for my body or mind or words or works or actions."
"But then...what is yourself?"
"If you loved me, you wouldn't ask it."

Last week, I met a neighbor, one of those people who likes to psychoanalyze everyone. I made a joke in the group about how my husband has never been described as "nice," which is true: my husband has many wonderful qualities, but "nice" doesn't really suit him. The neighbor asked me what quality first drew me to my husband. I sat for a moment, deciding between his intellect and his integrity. As I thought on, I realized I ought to indicate his intellect, since his integrity is something that I have grown to see over the years and not necessarily something I knew right from the beginning.

The neighbor interrupted my thoughts, saying that I was taking too long, that a real answer would come from the gut and not require so much deliberation.

I said, "His intellect." The neighbor looked at me like that was a cheap thing to be loved for.

What I wish I'd answered, what I thought of later that night, is that my love for my husband doesn't come from my gut; it comes from my brain. I love him with my mind, not with my heart. A quick response to that question would be false, because the response has to come from my thought process.

My husband and I were in the same friend group for about six months before we began dating. I remember vividly at one point telling a mutual friend that I could see myself marrying someone like Mr. Grok. I was reminded of that today when I saw who Cherryl thought she was marrying. And I realized that the love that developed for my husband was similar to what Dagny feels for John Galt: she loved him even before she knew he existed. I loved my husband's qualities before I ever had any inkling he would become my husband. In fact, he had declined my suggestion that we date. Weeks later, he came to me with his mind and said that he had made a mistake and we should be together. We figuratively shook on it, and that was that.

Effectively, our love was transacted like a pound of butter on a grocery counter.

My husband earned my love. I too had to earn it from him, and it took him two weeks longer than I to weigh the merits of it. And the moments when I feel the most love for my husband, the moments when it feels like my heart is swelling, it is really my brain swelling. It happens when he has excelled at a task, when he has become frustrated with himself because he didn't live up to his potential, or when he has displayed his sharp wit or keen intellect.

I don't think my neighbor would've understood that.

But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:47 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 I totally get what you are saying here: I could have married my husband after knowing him for 2 days. I wasn't "in love" yet...but I knew that he was someone I could grow to love and get attached to. I already loved his character, because that was the character I was looking for in a man...now I just had to get attached to this person.

Posted by: CaliValleyGirl at November 26, 2008 05:08 AM (irIko)

2 I decided to marry Deltasierra in 3rd grade. She was a) nice to me and b) pretty. She smiled a lot. Over time, I came up with some other good reasons, but I have never had cause to doubt the initial reaction. =) Sig

Posted by: Sig at November 26, 2008 07:36 AM (exefa)

3 "Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties." Jules Renard

Posted by: tim at November 26, 2008 10:01 AM (nno0f)

4 There seems to be a whole lot of Atlas Shrugged reading going on lately.

Posted by: Tom at November 26, 2008 10:18 AM (lgq5k)

5 I knew I would marry DH when I was 15, I even made the pronouncement... funny, smart, handsome, and unique perspective, that always made me see something different.. We were friends, but did not date romantically, until I was 19. I have asked him what his trepidation was, all of that time alone we spent, me WAITING for a kiss, or some indication of "boy lurves girl"... he answered..."I cared about you too much, I really respected you." Huh....??? Who knew 17 year old boys had sooo much restraint?

Posted by: AWTM at November 26, 2008 12:07 PM (3Q/t2)

6 I had a list of traits and qualities I wantted in a husband. I even told my mom I wouldn'y get married unless 'he' fit the bill. Then 'he' just happened to be in the same platoon during basic training. We met in March, started dating in July, engaged by October, married in January. He was just what I had knew I wanted.

Posted by: Jen at November 26, 2008 08:29 PM (59GjO)

7 I had two lists. The list of "must-haves" (honesty and integrity, intelligence, shared values, sense of humor, etc.), and the list of "deal-breakers" (smoking or other serious addictions, complacency/lack of ambition, anger management issues, dishonesty; those kinds of things). I met my husband online, and so I got to know his personality before I ever met him in person. By the time we met IRL, I knew that (as long as he hadn't lied to me) he had all the qualities I was looking for, as well as a few that I considered to be bonuses, and none of the problems that I had hoped to avoid. I knew before I met him that he was someone who (as long as he was honest) I could at least be great friends with, even if we had no chemistry. When I met him in person after talking to him for a month online, I was pleased to find out that he was exactly the same person I had gotten to know; he wasn't some "internet weirdo" who pretended to be someone else to pick up chicks. I had been pretty sure that he was for real, but it takes meeting a person face to face before you really know. I also found out that first date that I was definitely attracted to him, so more than friends was definitely an option. The things I love most about my husband: his intelligence, his eagerness to learn, his sense of humor, his cuddliness, his integrity, and his determination. He exemplifies these qualities daily in everything he does and thinks and says and believes.

Posted by: Leofwende at December 01, 2008 10:25 AM (jAos7)

8 Doesn't matter what you love him for, all that matters is you love him.

Posted by: bx19 at February 15, 2010 05:56 PM (bWGnc)

9 I sometimes wonder if I think too much, when it comes to love, not that I've had too many opportunies to give falling in love a try.  "Letting go" of the brain doesn't seem to be an option for me.  Does that make me a "pound of butter" kind of person?

Posted by: Miss Ladybug at February 15, 2010 10:44 PM (vqKnu)

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I was just getting ready to leave for work when this email from CaliValleyGirl popped up:

Just wanted to make sure that you didn't slip in the shower or anything...no long email needed, just a sign of life!

Heh.

I am here, just busy. Worked all day Saturday. Stayed up until 3 AM online with Amritas. Babysat yesterday. Eek. I came home from the experience thinking that there's no way I can be a mother, that I will do a horrible job, that I don't have the patience.

And then I caught my favorite episode of Scrubs ever, and realized that I probably will find the courage.

I got in bed last night and grabbed my Atlas Shrugged. And I remembered something that I hadn't thought of until last night: the men of Galt's Gulch only lived there one month of the year. They weren't allowed to wall themselves off from the reality of life; they had to keep jobs and live amongst the looters. But they returned to the gulch once a year to be with likeminded individuals.

So really, we have this gulch. The gulch is any time we get together, at the Milblogs Conference, at a SpouseBUZZ, at a house in Ohio, or even just typing on the internet until 3 AM.

Seems like we've had our gulch all along.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:40 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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The best part about living in Germany was that sending mail to Iraq was free. No stamp necessary. And I milked that for all it was worth, sending articles and photos and many letters. 215 of them, to be exact.

This time around, I sent 45. Granted, we had more regular contact via internet, so there was less to say in letters. And he was deployed for half as long. But still...

I think I am proof that people abuse privileges they don't have to pay for.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:47 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 I would contend that you are proof that *some* people abuse the privileges they don't pay for.

Posted by: Sis B at November 22, 2008 04:57 AM (0ScrO)

2 I abused the hell out of the "free mail" privilege from Afghanistan. I didn't keep count, but it wasn't uncommon for me to write 4 or 5 letters in a slow day. I would go a week or two without, and then write another batch. Most were to my wife, some to Mom (who didn't get a SINGLE letter from my little brother in Iraq the year before), and a lot to random people I knew only from the Intarweb. One female I knew from a forum I was on was a school teacher, and she read some of my letters (or parts of them, at least) talking about the people and the landscape and the climate and whatnot to her students while they were learning about that part of the world. So some good came from it, I guess. There is nothing better than getting a letter from home when you're in the middle of nowhere. They couldn't always get us water, food, or ammunition, but when they did come through, they brought the mail, too. Sig

Posted by: Sig at November 22, 2008 07:24 AM (/W1Z3)

3 Uh yeah...I remember the sending 12-packs of Diet Mountain Dew...and feeling bad that the packages were so heavy. I abused it too, all of the time! I can't imagine how much it would cost to send those packages from the US. Ouch.

Posted by: Nicole at November 22, 2008 09:30 AM (xPxyx)

4 So Sis, you're saying that if it were free to send packages and mail to your husband, you wouldn't do it more often than you do now? And I thought I was good at self-discipline...

Posted by: Sarah at November 22, 2008 10:51 AM (TWet1)

5 Um, OK. Well, I don't abuse all free privileges either: I don't take free meds from the health clinic, for example. I have always been a nazi about heating and cooling, even when we lived on post and didn't pay energy bills. But I still stand by my generalization that we don't treat resources the same way when they're free as we do when we have to pay for them. Next time you use an anecdote to make a point, I'll try to remember to point it out to you as "not proof of a theory." You know, not every girl's brain is like spaghetti. Only *some* of them. Yeesh, nitpick much?

Posted by: Sarah at November 22, 2008 07:46 PM (TWet1)

6 Aw, I didn't mean to nitpick. I don't think you abused your mail privileges, either, but that's just me. And I totally expected flak over the girl brain spaghetti thing and didn't get it! I knew you were out there lurking with that thought.

Posted by: Sis B at November 23, 2008 09:32 AM (0ScrO)

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Yesterday I happened upon a private reading We The Living. I got this indescribable excitement and wanted to grab him and talk his ear off. Of course I didn't. I stared holes into the top of his head, but I couldn't even get him to make eye contact. Still, it kinda made my day.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:38 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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