Welcome to 2008! This year, for sure*, someone other than George W Bush
will be elected President of the United States. And who knows, maybe that
someone will restore
civil liberties
*well, unless he pulls a (Pakistan President)
Musharraf and
declares a state of emergency and suspends the Constitution in the name of
National Security. Heck, if you can
abduct
people from a foreign country and lock them up on a
US Naval
Base in Cuba
without due process, and then
torture them.....
I supported:
I support:
Transcript of CNN interview of Barr
Yeah, I know, voting for Badnarik or Barr is "wasting my precious vote". But if voting was so important in USA presidential elections, Al Gore would have been elected President in 2000! (Al Gore got over 500,000 more of those "precious votes" than George W Bush did.)(Bush did get the only 5 votes that really counted, on the US Supreme Court.)(Ann Landers ran a column 11-4-96 urging everyone to vote because one vote can change history, and cited nine times that this has happened. They are all urban legends, however, see snopes.com 'One Vote' Fallacies.)
I have only voted ONCE in a governmental election since 11/72 , when I wrote in Dr. John Hospers for President/Tonie Nathan for VP . (They each got one electoral vote from a renegade Nixon elector.) The only time since then was when a friend was running for Kalamazoo City Commission in '83. There being virtually zero chance that my vote will effect the outcome of an election, I see no point in wasting my time.
Badnarik got about 390,000 votes and came in fourth after Nader, who got about 407,000 votes. (Results from the Washington Post).
My analysis of the 2004 election: I can usually predict election winners:
I didn't think GWB had a prayer! I thought he would be a one-termer like his
father was. I STILL cant believe that Kerry actually lost! The accepted
wisdom, that we are in a war and didn't want to change drivers, runs counter to
the 1968
experiance, when Lyndon Johnson faced serious opposition in his own party
primaries over the Vietnam War, and withdrew.
1. What actually happened in
1968: Sen. Eugene McCarthy was a strong 2nd place in the New Hampshire primary,
LBJ withdrew, Sen. Robert Kennedy defeated McCarthy in the CA primary and was
immediately assassinated, Vice President Hubert Humphrey was nominated amid the
violence outside of the Chicago Democratic National Convention, Nixon defeated
Humphrey in the election.....popular vote was Nixon 43.4%, Humphrey 42.7%,
George Wallace 13.5%
2. What-If: If Robert Kennedy had not been killed:
RFK probably would have been nominated and probably would have
defeated Nixon: Humphrey was damaged by the rising antiwar sentiment and was
seen as LBJ's man. With RFK as President, the Republican Party would have been
spared the Watergate disaster, the Democratic Party would have been spared the
1972 McGovern disaster, and RFK would have gotten us out of Vietnam with some
semblance of honor!
Also: from TurnOffYourTV.com: Bush won, and Kerry lost, because the Bush campaign KNEW how to use TV!
Yes, she doesn't want it, but I would have loved to have seen the Republican Party nominate Dr. Condoleezza Rice for President in 2008. (Rice's bio @ Wikipedia .) She would be the first authentic genius in the White House!
To skip all this trivia and go right to the OS/2 and Linux installation story, click here.
For a picture of the most wonderful woman I have EVER met, click
here.
Me in 1966
Me in 1997
at
Warpstock 2000 (clean-cut respectable
look was returning Aug of 1999, but I thought better of it!)
Me in 2006(This picture
appeared in the Las Vegas Sun 6/27/06, in an article about Mensa. I suspect
this is not the image Mensa wanted to project. A lot of pics were taken of more
"normal looking" members. I hadn't cut my beard since the death of my
housemate on 9/20/05. She would trim it when necessary.)
I was also at
,
but didn't get a photo!
Caution: my former brother-in-law, a journalism professor (with a PhD), says this page is "self-indulgent exhibitionism, which the Internet seems to inspire from certain personality types." I countered with the argument that most human behavior is a form of self-indulgence. Even "selfless" people are mostly doing what they like doing. Note: if you want to read a "serious" page, I've got one about HIV=not AIDS, another about censorware, one advocating the legalization of prostitution, and one about women! Further down, on this page, is my pro-choice for the pregnant woman, but pro-life for the child position on abortion, and a long section on religion, plus a new section on the assassination of President John Kennedy, and my take on the Scott Peterson murder trial. (Please note: I have always respected my ex-brother-in-law. He has a high level of intelligence; the two of us disagree on political idealogy; I'm a libertarian, he's a socialist. He is one of the few males in the world I wish I could call "friend".)
A Rational Response to 9/11/01
Why We Fight | An Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto, by open source guru Eric S Raymond. This is by far the most rational response I have ever read to the overall problem of terrorism. This thinker, known as ESR in the Linux/hacker/open source communities has lots of really interesting stuff to say! His collection of online writings, Eric's Random Writings, makes more sense to me than 99% of the stuff on the Web. My personal favorites: The Myth of Man the Killer, argues that most violent death results not from man's innate depravity, but from man's obediance to government; Why I Am An Anarchist is especially relavent given the decline of civil liberty since 9/11, and it was written before 9/11, and before the coronation of King George II. My favorite Internet Columnist, Rick Bayan, has an interesting look at 9/11.
Serious questions about 9/11: Reopen 9/11!
Another hypothesis about 9/11: According to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, God allowed 9/11 to happen, full story here. Falwell: "I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America...I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen."
Another way to deal with Arab Islamic terrorism: John Ross's America, Islam, and Those Prison Photos, relates, in part, the Islamic abhorance of pork, and relates an apocryphal story about the suppression of Islamic terrorism in the Phillipines by executing Islamic terrorists with pork coated bullets. (They cant go to Heaven then, they think.) John Ross also haslots of interesting stuff to say (pre-2007 archives); in particular he has advice for men about understanding women, about getting married, and planning for divorce, plus comments about the superiority of patriarchy over matriarchy. (And he DOES have advice for women about understanding men, and about when to have kids if you want both kids and a career.)
www.dontmarry.com;
this is must reading for young men contemplating marriage! (Us older guys who
have spent a lot of years divorced/single have been screwed over by women* often
enough we dont need to be warned.) Ross+ is right; see above link to "understanding
women"; there are significant differences in the way (most N. American) men
think and the way (most N. American) women think. No, its not genetic, its not
"hard-wired" in the brain: IMHO, its cultural (learned behavior.)(This article
argues that women are conditioned from an early age to think that their role is
housewife/mother, NOT engineers or scientists.)
+I found out about
dontmarry.com in Ross's
planning
for divorce page. Ross also mentioned nomarriage.com,
which he didn't like very much, but which I thought was hilarious. There is a
lot of content at nomarriage.com about having children, something I (thank
goodness!) never did. (Another good page about planning for divorce:
fireyourwife.com)
*Let me make
it VERY CLEAR here that my ex-wife did NOT screw me over financially in the
divorce! (I was very lucky not to be married in a state like
CA where
all assets are "joint property", and very lucky my ex was not the
vengeful type, plus I was very lucky to be divorced well before my prime earning
years.)
(Unless you count the $1,000 I "loaned" her after she left
me, but I blame myself for that: obviously, a woman who doesn't keep her
*solemn* wedding vows (promises) probably isnt going to keep a promise to repay
a "loan" from her ex.)(She also "borrowed" $500 from my
parents: didn't pay them back, either. Isnt divorce fun?)"We
can't just confess the sin of breaking a promise and think we can go our merry
way thinking that we no longer are accountable. As long as you are still able
to fulfill your word (even if it's uncomfortable and you don't want to) you need
to go to that person, repent of your sin and make amends by keeping your
promise. Can you really come into the presence of God knowing that you refuse
to keep your word? What kind of relationship can you have with the Lord if your
are able to keep your word and don't?"
I wish she hadn't
divorced me, but that's another matter. My mistake was in thinking that her
(perceived at the time) honesty and decency was TYPICAL of women I would meet in
the future. I was wrong.
Policeware
Here's a fun new idea: mandatory hardware installed in your computer to report anything you do with it not approved by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America); doing anything that might violate a copyright lands you in prison for up to five years. Remove the hardware, same penalty.
Text of the proposed "Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act".
A very personal rant-skip this if you find disease and death depressing
Alzheimer's Disease sucks! My mother had it, her only sister had it; their father had it. My ex-mother-in law had it, my ex-sister-in-law had it. Two of the most depressing things in my life were: seeing my aunt with it at my parents' 50th anniversary party in 1996, and seeing my mother with it in 1999. Today's (1-11-05) news brings word that a possible treatment/prevention MAY have been found at a hospital in India. It seems that in India lots of Curry sauce is eaten, and there is a low rate of Alzheimer's. UCLA researchers think that curcumin, the yellow pigment in curry spice, might be the "magic bullet"(also known as Turmeric). Story here.
SPAM
SPAM sucks! (Why SPAM sucks). I promise to never, EVER, buy anything as a result of receiving an Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE, better known as SPAM.) I fully support WPOISON, an effort to hopelessly pollute spammer's mailing lists by fooling their email harvesting bots into adding fictitious email addresses. (Unfortunately, WPOISON went offline after a DDOS attack.) I have taken the Boulder Pledge.
Here's another suggestion to solving the SPAM problem: Shine a Light on Spammers.
A revealing quote from a SPAM I just got: "If email advertising won't sell your product then nothing will." The spammer offers to email "from 250,000 to 55 million people" (On Special: $499 for 250,000 to $3,499 for 10 million)!
Spammers try to sell anything, even SPAM blockers and invitations to set
you up to send your own SPAM. I've got to wonder: if they were actually
selling a valuable product, wouldn't they just use regular advertising to show
off the product's merits instead of resorting to unwelcome mass e-mailings to
get a few buyers who will buy anything?
Idiot spammers: I don't
want a bigger penis (OMG, the volume of "bigger penis spam" and "ED
pills spam" has greatly increased in 2008; there must be a LOT of insecure
guys out there)(also greatly increased is "camgirls spam"), I don't
want generic Viagr@(Sildenafil Citrate) or Cialis(Tadalafil) or Regalis(generic
Cialis) or Levitra or Vardenafil(generic Levitra) or IGF2 or Vildenafil XP or
Virility Patch RX or VPXL; Paracodin, HGH, Vicodin, Prozac, Valium, Meridia,
Soma, Xanax, Hydrocodone(generic Vicodin), Ambien, Paxil,
Vioxx, also weight loss stuff
Phentermine, Xenical, Hoodia, Anatrim, etc., etc., etc., I don't want to find a
hot woman who lives near me, I'm not interested in "camgirls"[that
includes "Julie", the megaspammer "high school senior" with
a "free" webcam (yeah, sure, but read the fine print BEFORE you give "Julie"
your credit card info!)("Julie" will ask for your credit card info to
prove you are over 18, but if you dont cancel after your "free" time
is up, "Julie" starts charging you)] or "cheating housewives",
I don't want a PhD based on my "life experiance", I don't want to
copy DVD's, I dont want an illegal device to watch "pay per view" TV
free, I dont want "cheap softwares" (spelling provided by non English
speaking spammers!)(opps, sorry, spammers just seem illiterate because they make
up fake words that will get past word-based SPAM blockers), I dont want the
so-called "underground CD" or "banned CD", I dont want a "genuine
replica" or "True Reproductions" or "Genuine Reproductions"
or "premium replica" or "real replications" or "Authentic
Reproductions" or "Royal Replica" or "Actual Replica"
or "Veritable Replications" or "Veritable Reproductions" or "famous
replicas" ROLEX \/\/atch, I dont want to buy "penny stocks"(penny
stocks are the new SPAM SCAM! The idea is for the scammer to buy a
bunch of nearly worthless stock at about 3 cents a share and send out a blizzard
of (SPAM) phony endorsements* of the nearly bankrupt company, hoping to increase
demand for the stock and raise its price, then dump the shares at 6 cents or so,
doubling the scammer's money. When the company files bankruptcy, all the new "investors"
lose everything they "invested". (The scammers use junk email to
convince people to buy junk stock. )
*sample quotes: "Watch the stock
go crazy! Get on board NOW! Its going to EXPLODE!"
"Stock is going
to explode in next 5 days - Watch it SOAR"
"Current Price: $0.06
Will it Continue Higher?
Watch This One Thursday as We Know Many of You
Like Momentum."
--------
They have an "unsubscribe"
address, but of course it (stox0012@yahoo.com) is fake, too. This whole scheme
is only borderline legal, it is a
Pump and Dump Scheme;
to avoid legal problems/jail time they stay as anonymous as possible. (SEC page
on Pump and Dump Schemes.)
--------
I dont want a new mortgage from some moron who tells me he has approved my
nonexistent application.* What I want is for your phony "unsubscribe"
links to actually work! (I never "subscribed" to receive all this
crap mail in the first place.)
*I can understand why spammers think they can sell CDs and medications,
but are there really people who are ignorant enough to get into a $300,000
mortgage from a spammer?? Is there really
"one born every day",
as PT Barnum said regarding "suckers"?
--------------
USA
Lenders Network
Box 40937
Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada, B4A 3Z2
-------------
The so-called "USA Lenders Network" is so phony they even use
other people's e-mail addresses as their "return address"; they used
one of MINE and I got their undeliverable SPAM returned to ME! (Watch Replica
spammers have done this, too.)
EVERY DAY I get new mortgage SPAM which says
"here are the
deals we have TODAY (hurry, these offers will expire TONIGHT)"
I also promise never to buy anything from a telemarketer, and support anti-SPAM legislation similar to that passed requiring telemarketers to pay to call you if you have asked not to be called.
!!! You can now add your phone number to the national telemarketing do-not-call list at www.donotcall.gov. (A similar do-not-spam list *should* be in the works!)(Here is a list of proposed but unpassed federal antispam laws). The organization hosting this site also offers a "National Opt-out Directory" for $9.95/year; they say they can get you off most spammer's mailing lists.
This image
supplied by the
Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email
(CAUCE).
Hurray! In 12/03 Congress passed, and the President signed, the CAN SPAM Act of 2003. It will result in the creation of a federal do-not-spam list, with monetary penalties for persistent spammers! The FTC is (slowly!) working on setting up a Do Not E-mail Registry. Unfortunately, the FTC reports here that such a registry would not be effective at this time; spammers would access the list and use it to send SPAM to!
Sigh! CAN-SPAM isn't working, as anyone with an emailbox can see; the volume of UCE has gone up since 12/03! CAUCE explains why.
The Direct Marketing Association has it's (suprisingly negative) attitude toward SPAM looked at here
SPAM FAQ from abuse.net
The Federal Trade Commission SPAM site.
The Federal Communications Commission telemarketing site.
An organization I support 99% of the time, the ACLU, argues here that honest UCE is constitutionally protected speech. CAUCE disagrees here, arguing that the right to speak freely does not compel an audience to listen. ISPs like AOL have the right to intercept SPAM before the sheer volume brings their mail servers down.
(On Oct 4, 2004, the US Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that the do not call list does not violate telemarketer's free speech rights. First telemarketers, hopefully spammers, too!)
My award for worst spammer: the people who send out porn info with a note saying that it is a "friendly bonus" from (some random female name). The "unsubscribe" email address is one of at least ten 100% fake addresses @online.com.ua (Ukraine), a former part of the former USSR.
Frankly, the old-fashioned porn spammers are not nearly as persistent and obnoxious as the new mortgage spammers, who simply will not take "unsubscribe" for an answer!
Remember when it used to be fun to get email? Now half your incoming email is from people with fake names at fake addresses trying to sell you stuff you don't want.
Speaking generally, of course, I find most product advertising to be silly. At best, advertising can convince you to buy something ONCE. Obvious exception: ads for addictive substances/activities. Cigarette ads do not exist to convince people to start smoking, but are targeted at already existing addicts to get them to try a different brand.
Yes, I will admit it, I utterly loathe junk advertising. Junk snail
mail(addressed to "resident", "to our friends at") goes
directly into the trashcan unread. Junk email is pretty easy to recognize and
is deleted unread. I did get one junk snail mail I did open. It was sent by
Saint
Matthew's Churches in Dallas, TX (mailing
address in Tulsa, OK), and was sent in accordance with instructions from "God's
Holy Spirit". They sent a (paper) "prayer handkerchief". All I
had to do was write my needs on the handkerchief, send it back, and they would
pray for my needs. Send money (a "biblical seed offering"), too, of
course.
Wow! Junk mail sent under instructions from God Himself!
Please
note: Although
Saint
Matthew's Churches denies that they are a mail fraud or a mail scam operation
, there is a whole page about them:
Rip Off
Report: Saint Matthew's Churches aka Prayer By Letters rip off scam con artists
in the name of God Tulsa Oklahoma
Note: I personally do not think this
is a mail fraud or mail scam: although they cite examples of people whose
prayers were answered, they do not promise that yours will be answered.
5-17-08:
Although I failed to return the prayer handkerchief and send money, they didnt
give up on me! They sent me a (paper) "Church prayer rug", which I am
supposed to kneel on to pray, and then return so they can send it to "another
dear friend of ours who also needs a blessing". And send a "seed gift
for God's work." They even sent a "business reply mail" envelope
so I wouldnt have to buy a stamp to send them money. Plus they now have a
website where I can read "testimonies of answered prayers". How
reassureing! I still dont think this really qualifies as a mail fraud or mail
scam: they are not really offering anything in return for the money
that they can deliver. (After all, its God who decides whether or not to answer
prayer, right?)
Mr. Advertiser: Has it ever occured to you that how you advertise
is as important as what you advertise? How many sales are you losing,
sometimes permanently, when you choose to advertise with annoying SPAM or pop-up
ads? (pop-up ads suck, too. When I get a pop-up in my face, that advertiser
goes into the "never do business with" category......classmates.com
has the most annoying ads that pop-under; I will NEVER again use
classmates.com!)(for a marketer to think he can sell something with a pop-up ad
is roughly equivilant to thinking he could sell something by spray painting an
ad on my car.)
(update: now, in 2008, the Internet Movie Database,
imdb.com, is plastering their site with pop-up ads for classmates.com UGH!
I am sick of classmates.com: there must be another movie site on the
net.)(imdb.com just lost a user.)
Internet Movie Database SUCKS! Big
time! Its nothing but a crappy advertising farm. YUCK. Take those stupid
ads for for that silly classmates.com and do something productive with your
lives.
IMDB popups can be eliminated by installing a browser with a popup
blocker. I just happened to install Netscape 7.2 on my laptop, and discovered
that it has a popup blocker, so now I can actually use the great content on
IMDB!
(adware sucks, too. Lots of seemingly useful "free"
software, like ICQ and AIM has degenerated into being basically adware, with
some actual functionality to con the user into downloading it. I used to use
ICQ a lot, but those incessant flashing ads, no, thanks. AIM is better: at
least the ads are (mostly) static; I wonder if the marketing gurus who design
these ads have researched the "flashing ad" question deeper than "does
it get the viewer's attention?"...... and if it does, "is the viewer
more or less inclined to buy what is being advertised?")
Silliest
product advertised endlessly online and on AIM: Callwave: you get to pay
them so that calls received while you are online (with a dial up connection) are
forwarded to their 800 # answering machine; you also have to pay the phone
company for call forwarding when busy. BUT, nowdays almost everyone has a cell
phone, just set up call forwarding when busy to forward to your cell phone. You
will never miss a call, and you wont have to pay Callwave for a useless "service"!
My former wife has indicated that "the hippy look completely turns me
off". Although I am still *very* fond of her, and still think it would
be wonderful to get her back, I remember her as a person able to look
beyond physical appearance to see the real person inside. In addition, in the
25+ years that have passed, she has become "very conservative", and
a serious (Protestant) Christian, which suggests "incompatible!" I
am a believer in the concept, "love conquers all", and I always have
been, however naive that might sound. My own observation is that people more
radically different than myself and my ex-wife have found happiness together.
Having long hair is not so much a personal preference with me as it is a
function of my inability to find a suitable barber. Having a beard is a
personal preference because I absolutely abhor shaving every morning!
Questions for my ex-wife, the serious Christian:
Didn't the Jesus you believe in say that if you divorced your faithful
spouse and remarried, that you commit adultery?
Jesus said, " And
if the wife shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she
committeth adultery" (Mark
10:12, KJV)
Jesus also said. "Whosoever putteth away his wife and
marrieth another, committeth adultery." (Luke 16:18, KJV)
Although
the accounts of Mark and Luke are pretty definate about divorce and remarriage
being adultery, Matthew records one exception:
Jesus said, "But I say
unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of
fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that
is divorced committeth adultery." (Matt 5:32 , KJV)
Jesus also said, "And I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his
wife, except if for her fornication. and shall marry another, commiteth
adultery, and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. (Matt 19:9, KJV)
(This
may not be an exception.....it is argued in
Marriage and
Divorce that adultery only allows the "innocent party" to divorce
the aldulterer/adulteress; the "innocent party" still cannot remarry
until the "guilty party" dies.)
Moses said, speaking for God, "Thou
shalt not commit adultery." (Exodus 20:24, KJV)(This is
The Sixth
Commandment.)
The Apostle Paul said, "And unto the married I
command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her
husband: But if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her
husband: and let not the husband put away his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:10-11, KJV )
Paul
also said: "Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as
he lives. . . . Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with
another man while her husband is alive" (Rom. 7:23).
"To
refuse to take the Bible literally leaves every man with his own interpretation.
If the Bible does not mean what it says, who is to say what it means?" -David W Cloud
Thomas Aquinas, the
great (perhaps greatest) Christian philosopher, argued,
after divorce, they
(marriage partners) must remain unmarried(until their ex-spouse dies).
If
I were a good Christian, I would much prefer the Roman Catholic (Catholic Encyclopedia:
Divorce (In Moral Theology);
Catholic Answers:
Divorce and Remarriage) position to the modern liberal Protestant [anything
goes, morality is not established by God, forget what Jesus (God in human form)
or Paul (inspired by God) said] position.
The International Standard
Bible Encyclopedia has a long article about adultery, which concludes with "Jesus
tells us that divorce never received divine sanction, and that it is,
therefore, an evil. This lays upon adultery the weight of divine abhorrence
and displeasure."(ISBE, revised ©1979, G W Bromiley, ed., Volume 1, pg
59) See also ISBE online(original 1915 edition, J Orr, ed.):
Divorce
in the New Testament (In this article it says that Jesus's teachings on
adultery and divorce are "very simple" and are recorded at
Matt 19:3-12, see the
Geneva Study
Bible - Commentary on Matthew 19, or
John Darby's
Synopsis of Matthew 19.)
(This ISBE link is so good, and so important,
that in case it goes bad, "Divorce in the New Testament" can also be
found
here.)
The (United Methodist) minister at our wedding said, "What God
has joined together, let no man put asunder." (He was quoting Jesus at
Matt 19:6 and
Mark 10:9.) We made a
number of promises to each other, including the operative one here, "for
better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love
and to cherish, till death do us part."
Apparently,
1. promises
made in the presence of the God you believe in are for show, good only until
you want out.
2. The concept of love is highly conditional, it only lasts
if your loved one lives for you and meets your needs, or until someone else
comes along who meets your needs better.
3. Once your real Mr Right
appears, then you hire a lawyer and get a judge to undo what your God did.
Did you make the same promises the next time you got married?
The
United Methodist Church, at its
website, specifically
here, says,
"Where marriage partners, even after thoughtful consideration and
counsel, are estranged beyond reconciliation, we recognize divorce as
regrettable......". But we had no thoughtful consideration nor counsel,
nor were we estranged beyond reconciliation. (I didn't even know WHY she was
divorcing me until many years later, when a friend challenged the reason I had
been giving out for over 20 years; so I finally asked my ex; and then
was told the real reason. Obviously our pre-divorce communication was
negligible.)
The early Christians
did not agree with the modern United Methodists: "A husband may be an
adulterer or a sodomite, he may be stained with every crime and may have been
left by his wife because of his sins; yet he is still her husband, and, so long
as he lives, she may not marry another."
- Jerome,
Letter LV, Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers (Vol. 6, pg. 110).
"Just as a woman is an adulteress, even though she seems to be married
to a man, while a former husband yet lives, so also the man who seems to marry
her [and] who has been divorced does not marry her, but, according to the
declaration of our Savior, he commits adultery with her."
-Origen,
Commentaries on
Matthew 14:24 [A.D. 248]).
Finally! Here is a sermon by a United Methodist Pastor that gets at what the Holy Bible is all about regarding divorce: "The Bible and Divorce".
What the Bible Says about Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage
But nobody has to take my word for it: Nave's Topical Bible is now public domain and online; here is everything the Bible has to say about Divorce.
Please note: Although I obviously think that divorce sucks, it is certainly in order for people needing to escape from an abusive spouse; according to Divorce and Christianity such a divorce is Biblically Correct.
And finally, here is a remarkably thoughtful, biblically sound analysis:Christian Divorce and Remarriage, by a Pentecostal Pastor.
Organized religion:
The above is SO TYPICAL of those who participate in organized religion.
Many people really believe in a God, and in the words printed in a Holy Book,
but conviently put aside their "beliefs" when their beliefs interfere
with their desires. (Or they manipulate their belief system to make divorce
seem acceptable: How
do people justify divorce today?) (I read somewhere: don't remember
where*, or I would cite* it, that the
"fundamentalist"
Southern Baptist Convention has a higher divorce rate than the more liberal
United Methodist Church.) Organized religion is riddled with hypocrisy; I have
never been a willing participant. Sure, I went to church when my parents
required it, but upon leaving home for college I abandoned it. It was only when
it was not required that I read a lot about it.....the philosophy behind
religion is quite interesting!
*here's the cite:
US Divorce Rates,
shows the highest divorce rates among conservative and "born -again"
Christians; the lowest divorce rates among Roman Catholics, Lutherans,
agnostics, and atheists!
I'm really curious!
Is it possible to be all of these:
A. A Christian who believes the Holy
Bible is the
inspired,
inerrant,
Word of God.
B. A Christian who believes that one should live by the
precepts of the Holy Bible.
C. Married, then initiated a divorce of a
non-adulterer, non-abusive spouse.
D. Remarried.
E. A non-hypocrite.
The concept of the "second hander"
He is what Ayn Rand calls a "second-hander:" He surrenders his capacity for judgment to other people, and therefore, he focuses not on what he thinks, but on what others think. A "second hander" is a person who regards other people's opinions as automatically more worthwhile than one's own. The classic "second hander" will define herself as ugly or fat or stupid because other people say (or think)so, and will usually lower their own self concept accordingly. I was married to one of these once; I hope she has seen the logical flaw by now! (The logical flaw: traits like "ugly" and "stupid" are hopelessly subjective, as are their opposites; the individual is better placed than others to evaluate these attributes. Other traits like "fat", especially, also "short", are NOT inherently negative: two of the most brilliant people I have ever known were objectively "fat", but Id much rather know them than a beautiful moron.)
I was first exposed to this concept in the novel The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. This concept explains a depressingly large amount of human irrationality.
Memorandum to my ex-wife:
Note: this is no longer current
(1/08). There is a *highly* revised version; the URL is listed on my "Index
to my web writings" page.
On 9-26-04, I watched Sleepless
in Seattle. A few days prior I watched
When Harry Met Sally. Both of
these movies deal with the question of "the one"*, as in the
one right person. Prior to these movies, I had scoffed at the idea of "the
one". But now I am convinced that my ex was "the one" for
me. We met in college when your sorority and my fraternity held a "sex
forum". I noticed you the same way that the main characters notice each
other in "Sleepless". Even 25+ years of seperation have not
changed my view.
(I was not
"the
one" for you. I was not "Mr Right". I was "Mr. Right
Now": a temporary sperm donor that would enable you to fulfill your real
agenda......BAYBEES!(pwecious
widdle baybees!)(To your credit, as I say elsewhere on this page, at least
you didn't
oops me.)(To
be 100% honest here, I should add that she didnt
successfully oops
me. She did admit once that she flushed ONE birth control
pill; luckily for me she didnt know she would have needed to flush many in a row
to trigger ovulation. It still wasn't a nice thing to do, although if she had
been a real deceptive spouse type she would have read up on human reproduction
before implementing her scheme. I'd guess the flush was done in an angry
moment.)
So why didn't you divorce me earlier, and marry some guy who would
give you the baybees you wanted? Oh yeah, you needed some guy with a reliable
paycheck so you could stay home with your hypothetical brood, and you didn't
have spouse #2 lined up yet, right?
Hope to see you again someday,
but I
Won't
Get Fooled Again (That's how I feel after 30 years of single/divorced
status, but sometimes I still feel like
this.)(how I felt on my
wedding day 6-28-68)(how I felt when you
dumped me in 6/76(and told me you wanted to move out on July 4 to celebrate
Independence Day!)(How
I feel in 2007. In our generation, post WW2 Baby Boomers, wedding "vows"
do not mean what they meant to our parents.)
*Nora Ephron has "written by"
type credits for both movies, plus she directed "Sleepless". The
female lead in both movies is the same actress, but the characters are quite
different. Nora Ephron also wrote, and directed
You've Got Mail, which also
had the same female lead actress, and also dealt with "the one". I
saw this movie in 1/06, and loved it.
"It
must have been love, but it's over now,
It must have been good, but I
lost it somehow."
You once said:
"I, (wife), take thee, John,
to be my wedded
husband,
to have and to hold,
from this day forward,
for better, for
worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to
love and to cherish,
till death do us part,
according to God's holy
ordinance,
and thereto I pledge thee my faith."
"Or just realize that when your bride vows "'To love and to cherish 'til death do us part," she'll only honor the words until she decides not to. Don't be too surprised if that moment comes a lot sooner than you expected." -John Ross, in this article.
"Its life's illusions I recall,
I really don't know life,
at
all." -from "Both
Sides Now".
Followup: This year, 2006, it will be 30 years since you ditched me
for Mr. Wonderful. You say it would not be "appropriate" for me to
buy you a birthday present. See here, Mrs. Wonderful:
1. I havent the
slightest interest in causing problems between you and Mr. Wonderful. (I agree
with this: "When a man steals your wife there is no better revenge than
to let him keep her." -Sacha
Guitry) I have stated explicitely that if you divorce Mr. Wonderful, I
will have nothing to do with you.
2. Its been 30 years since I have even
seen you. Would Mr. Wonderful feel threatened if a long ago former spouse who
lives a very long way away buys you a $10 book about Christian Apologetics?
3.
Tonight, 1/28/06, I saw The Shop
Around the Corner, which You've Got Mail was a remake of. I really
am a hopeless romantic: I really believed all that beautiful stuff in our
wedding vows, and yes, I really do still love you even after 30 years.
4.
I'm a fan of "Somewhere in Time", both the
movie, and the
song by
Michael Crawford in EFX. A hopeless romantic, I even belong to
INSITE, the
International Network of Somewhere in Time Enthusiasts. The INSITE site refers
to this movie as "The Most Romantic Love Story Ever Filmed".
5. I
really like "love movies": I especially like two I have
recently(early 2006) been made aware of:
The Lake House, and
The Love Letter, both of which
have lovers seperated by Time, like in "Somewhere in Time".
I
find "The Lake House" very compelling; definately my favorite.
"The
Love Letter" is based on this
short
story by Jack Finney, which includes the movie's most touching line, "I
never forgot".
Note: of these three movies mentioned, only one has a
(truely) happy ending. (Ok well, that is one out of three. Of myself, my
siblings, my ex-wife, and my ex-wife's siblings, only one person out of six
remained married to his/her original spouse. Divorce is a (terribly) sad
ending. I will not be getting divorced again.)
Note: this page's title, heading, and general concept were all swiped from AppleKay's Movie Cafe; she also made this graphic
in support of my favorite (now extinct) online service (see below).
I was a 52 year old(now 60) student at UNLV,
majoring in computer science. (The y2k problem example: lots of computers
only used two digits for year, and programed in '19' as the first two digits.
Even as recent a system as Windows95 had to be
patched
to make it work correctly on Jan. 1, 2000.)(Although the MS patch works to
fix Win95, I used Norton 2000 on my computer before 1-1-2000, which somehow
adjusted my BIOS so that I can reinstall Win95 or any other non-y2k compliant
software without patching! Using Norton Utilities, especially the "Rescue
Disk" part, has saved me more than once from Windoze unreliability. I had
also bought an "AMS scan ISA BIOS/CMOS Millennium Board", which would
have been as good, but as of 11/2003 I haven't even had to install it.)(I will,
there are still a few hardcoded y2k errors in old software that a hardware
solution might solve.)(Another plug for Norton: I have become an "expert"
at reinstalling Windows, something nobody should have to become an expert at!
My current Windows installation has lasted a LONG time for Windows; I attribute
this to Norton SystemWorks WinDoctor, part of which fixes errors in the Windows
registry.)
At UNLV, I failed to master C++ twice and thought it best to
move on. I plan to enroll in the
Liberty University School of LifeLong
Learning, and finish a degree I have already started in Biblical History.
Way back in 1970 I got a BBA in (ugh!) accounting at
Western Michigan University.
An interesting article
about the validity of the double entry system used by accountants today.
(I thought of switching majors, but my then-wife protested, "I thought
we had it all planned!"**)(No hard feelings there! See
bottom of this page; I still love her
and would take
her back in a heartbeat if she were not remarried.,
Divorce sucks; I would
never be the cause of one.) I worked for WMU for
24 years,
during which time my boss, now the VP for Business and Finance, computerized the
accounting department and exposed me to computers, which I found infinitely
preferable to accounting.
**So why do we all go to college, anyway?
Going to college was the default for my generation: post WW2 Baby Boomers.
We (males) went to college so we could get married and have a good job to
support the ensuing kids and the (all to frequently) non working wife. Females
went to college to meet marriagable men. Luckily, there are exceptions: the
most highly placed woman that I know in my field is an Assoc. VP for Finance,
but of course she still had a baybee on her way up the ladder. My ex-wife has a
Bachelors in Speech Pathology and Audiology, a Masters in Education, and was
invited to enter the Doctoral program in Education, but is working as an
*Accountant* after taking the Intro to Accounting class so that she would know
what I was doing while she was teaching! (What an underuse of such a fine
mind.)
(All she wanted in life was baybees and famblee.)
I copied this
quote from the comments on
this page: "for
as education moves its focus toward job preparation and away from the arts,
history, culture, philosophy and other areas that promote critical thinking,
society will be generating human robots, not thinkers."
- "Gail"
March 25th, 2007 11:40 am
NOTE: The above link is about the difference
between Sunni Muslims and Shia(Shiite) Muslims, who are currently (2007) keeping
the USA tied down in Iraq as referees to their civil war. Its well worth
reading if you want to know why they are killing each other.
If I had it to
do over, I would have majored in Philosophy (1st choice, but not sure how to
support myself as one), or History (2nd choice, also not sure how to support
myself; I do not have the temperment to be a teacher), or Chemistry, or Computer
Science.
(Background: In High School I needed a filler class once, and for
some reason took Bookkeeping, which I found to be very easy. When I
got to college and had to declare a Major, I went for Accounting, which was
indeed easy, although Accounting majors do have to take courses like Economics,
which are not easy, and business courses like Marketing, which are dull.
Also
in High School, I took Chemistry, and was utterly fascinated by the
PERIODIC CHART OF THE ELEMENTS.
I still am. (Here is a
better "Periodic Chart" ......all the elements are clickable,
revealing lots of info about the element.) My "Big Brother" in my
college fraternity was a Chemistry Major; I should have talked to him some more
instead of going the easy route. In the late 60s, when I was in college,
Computer Science was still Mainframe Computers and languages like Fortran....the
IBM PC was
still more than a decade away. I did take Intro to Computers and wrote Fortran
programs, but I didnt think I wanted to spend my working life doing that.
Although I live in Las Vegas, I regard gambling at a casino to be
highly irrational and don't. (The house is in business to make a
profit; ie. the house is NOT gambling: in order for there to be a few big
winners whose pictures are displayed at the casinos, there have to be a lot
of losers.) I know personally a few people who are compulsive gamblers, who
say "gambling is FUN", which I suppose it is if you think that losing
money is fun. I even used to
live
with one; help for them is available through
Gamblers
Anonymous in Southern Nevada; some compulsive gamblers deny the
possibility of treatment, see:Treatment. Those in
Treatment-Denial can find a National Council on Problem Gambling certified
counselor in their area by going
here. If you
are unsure as to whether you are a compulsive gambler, try reading GA's
20 questions!
If you are a compulsive gambler, here is GA's
12 step recovery
program. I personally am an advocate of reason, and find it very
frustrating that compulsive gamblers cannot be convinced to stop gambling
through logic. It is necessary to accept that compulsive gamblers are not
rational about gambling: they must come to accept that they are sick and seek
help or healing on their own.
Note: It is a LOT easier to understand
irrational behavior that results from a physical addiction like nicotene or
heroin. Psychological addictions (gambling, overeating, etc) are incredibly
frustrating; especially when the addict is highly intelligent and knows
he/she needs professional help.
(It does say
at the bottom of this page that
sugar and flour are addictive, which would explain some compulsive overeaters,
however this page
explains overeating as psychological addiction.)
(It says in
CONSCIOUS CONTACT: BRAIN,
MIND AND ADDICTION, that compulsive gambling has a neurobiological
explanation.)
More help? See the
Nevada Council on Problem Gambling.
If you are a California resident making an every-weekend trip to Las
Vegas to gamble, and think you might have a problem*, see the
California Council on Problem
Gambling.
*(If you drive to Las Vegas and spend your whole time in the
casino and dont even get a room at the hotel, you DO have a problem.)
Anyone with a problem should at least read
The Four Phases of
Compulsive Gambling!
For those living with a compulsive gambler, there is
Gam-anon: Living with a
compulsive gambler. (My personal advice: don't live with a compulsive
gambler unless you have an infinite supply of money AND patience.)
Casinos
in Las Vegas send out promotional material and freebies to past gamblers, some
of whom are addicted and ruining their lives. This is like whisky
manufacturers sending out free samples to alcoholics.
1-800-Bets-Off. A major problem gambling site with free help for problem gamblers.
Reading through the above links, one finds that there are
two distinct types of
compulsive gamblers :
1.
Action compulsive gamblers
typically play "skill" games like craps and blackjack. They see
themselves as smarter than average and tend to have a "system" to beat
the casino's odds.Day
Tradersare action gamblers who play at the world's largest casino, the New
York Stock Exchange. They have a "system", and do "research",
so they aren't really gambling. (Yeah, right; any compulsive gambler
with a system will say they are not gambling....their system makes it a "sure
thing".)
2.
Escape compulsive gamblers
typically play "luck" games like slot machines and video poker.
They accept that they will lose, but play for the
hypnotic,
almost narcotic effect of repetitious actions on their machines. It says
in
Gambling addiction Q&A"Q.
Is there one type of gambling that is more addictive than others? A. Video poker
and slot machines have been referred to as the "crack cocaine of gambling."
It says in this Problem Gambling FAQ that mental health professionals prefer the term "pathological gambling" to "compulsive gambling". I agree. I have seen firsthand how the uncontrollable urge to gamble can lead to criminal activity. I agree with one pathological gambler I know that "Its a sickness!"
Although the link between pathological gambling and criminal behavior cannot be established as strict cause and effect, it says in this bibliography that "approximately two-thirds of non-incarcerated.......pathological gamblers admit engaging in illegal behavior to finance their gambling activitites...."
Dictionary
definition of "pathological":
1. Of or relating to pathology.
2.
Relating to or caused by disease.
3. Of, relating to, or manifesting
behavior that is habitual, maladaptive, and compulsive: a pathological liar.
Diagnostic Criteria for Pathological Gambling(from DSM-IV; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - 4th edition).
Definition of "pathological gambling", from
Problem Gambling Terms:
Pathological
gambling: A chronic inability to resist the impulse to gamble. The term is
usually limited to cases where the gambling causes serious damage to a person's
social, vocational, or financial life. Often referred to as compulsive gambling
and less frequently as disordered gambling, it is considered by most to be an
impulse control disorder. It is not synonymous with problem gambling.
Pathological gambling is one of a set of Impulse Control Disorders, and is in the same class as kleptomania, pyromania, and tricotillomania(hair-pulling); all of which are characterized by self-defeating/self-destructive behavior.
My earlier statement, that gambling is highly irrational, was not directed at pathological gamblers, who are irrational by definition. Rather, its ordinary, otherwise rational people who believe that their inevitable losses will be recovered with a "big win", which just isnt going to happen. In Michigan, the State Lottery had a slogan, "Somebody's going to win, why not you?" But the odds of winning the Lottery are similar to the odds of getting a "big win" in Las Vegas; although someone will win, the probability approachs zero that it will be you.
Hope for pathological gamblers(medications)!
*BEST* site I have ever seen about compulsive gambling! (Signs, Symptoms, and Treatment)
I am an unreconstructed '60s hippie*, unmarried, and
*(To set the record
straight: I was a selective participant: very anti war in Vietnam, but
I did not support the drug use and communal living aspects.)
(My favorite
slogan from the late 60s: "Like Father, Like Son, Like Hell".
Like a lot of kids who grew up in the 50s, I had no use for parental
expectations.)(My father actually went into HIS father's business!)
childfree. I did
get married when I was just 20, which means I decided to in my teens, when the
hormones were raging and I was young enough to believe that "til death do
us part" worked the same for us as it did for our parents, both sets of
which did indeed stay married until death parted them, even though both sets
ended in the "for worse" stage with Alzheimer's Disease. I was
divorced after only 8 years. My favorite marriage quote: "If variety is
the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam." -public
domain, this quote was included on an actual Spam e-mail I got; the spammers put
in lots of trivial sentences to fool antispam programs.
If you were alive in the '60s, you may remember an antidraft song called "Alice's
Restaurant". You may even remember that there was a long version that got
infrequent air play on student run radio stations at big universities. I loved
it! Somebody has posted the entire
long version of
Alice's Restaurant!
You may also remember my favorite antiwar song,
Country Joe McDonald's I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die
Rag!
New version of these lyrics for Iraq:
Joe McDonald says
on his site that the lyrics can be adjusted for new wars. The following version
appeared on the Libertarian_Only Yahoo list:
Well come on all you big strong
men.
I hear the man needs your help again.
Got himself in a terrible
jam,
Way down in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So put down your books and pick up a
gun,
we're gonna' have a whole lotta fun.
.
Well it's 1,2,3, what
are we fighting for,
Don't ask me I don't give a damn.
Next stop
gonna' be Iran,
Well it's 5,6,7, open up the Pearly Gates.
Well there
ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopie we're all gonna die.
.
Now
come on city boy don't be slow,
Why this wars a go-go-go.
There's
plenty of money to be made,
Supplying the army with the tools of the trade.
Just hope and pray if they drop the bomb,
They are gonna drop it on the
Taliban.
.
Well it's 1,2,3, what are we fighting for,
Don't ask me I don't give a damn.
Next stop gonna' be Iran,
Well it's 5,6,7, open up the Pearly Gates.
Well there ain't no time to
wonder why,
Whoopie we're all gonna die.
.
Now come on Generals,
lets move fast,
Your big chance is here at last.
Now you can go and spy on us all,
'cause we're all guilty in the 'eye'
of your law.
You know that peace can only be won
when we blow them all
to kingdom come.
.
Well it's 1,2,3, what are we fighting for,
Don't ask me I don't give a
damn.
Next stop gonna' be Iran,
Well it's 5,6,7, open up the Pearly Gates.
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopie we're all gonna die.
.
Now come on all you mothers throughout the land.
Send your sons out to the
rich oil land.
Come on Fathers don't hesitate,
Send your Daughter
before it's too late.
Be the first one on the block,
to have your girl
come home in a box.
.
Well it's 1,2,3, what are we fighting for,
Don't ask me I don't give a damn.
Next stop is Afghanistan,
Well it's 5,6,7, open up the Pearly Gates.
Well it ain't no time to
wonder why,
Whoopie we're all gonna die.
.
Well it's 1,2,3, what are we fighting for,
Don't ask me I don't give
a damn.
Next stop gonna' be Iran,
Well it's 5,6,7, open up the Pearly
Gates.
Well it ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopie we're all gonna
die.
(Country Joe has posted a bunch of different versions of
lyrics for Iraq on his
site.)
A Moment that changed my outlook on life:
When I was in about sixth grade, the Jewish girl my age two houses down told me about her grandparents' death in the Holocaust. My family moved to another city a few years later. At the time I lived on Manhattan in Oak Park, Michigan; I was then too young to really comprehend the enormity of the evil I had been told about......I do now. If I should ever see that woman, I would have the emotional release I was too young for.
Another moment:
Sometime after 1976 I saw the TV movie Escape from Sobibor, about a mass escape from a Nazi extermination camp, a true story.
Yet Another moment:
On 2-22-04, I saw Chasing
Freedom, about an Afghan woman fleeing from the Taliban regime seeking
asylum in the USA. The Taliban
attitude toward women is a LOT like the Nazi attitude toward Jews: that
they are subhuman (in German it was "Untermenschen") .
(A detailed list of atrocities against
women under the Taliban .)
Yet Another moment:
Some years ago I read about the 1914 (WW1) Christmas Truce. On 12-18-07, I finally read the above link carefully. War was not always so brutal....."The Christmas Truce has often been characterized as the last "twitch" of the nineteenth century: the last moment when, in war, two sides would meet each other in proper and mutual respect." WW2 put an end to that.
Political philosophy:
Libertarian
Like
many libertarians my age, I was originally a Republican who turned to the
Right after the 1964 nomination of
Barry Goldwater
for President. Further reading revealed that conservatives tend to root their
system in a belief in God, which led me, at least, toward the libertarian
view. I am now a Life Member of the Libertarian
Party.
Platform of the Libertarian Party.......like most Libertarians, I don't agree with 100% of this document. The only "litmus test" amongst Libertarians is the "nonagression principle"; that is, we agree that the initiation of the use of force is always unacceptable.
My favorite libertarian quotes: "Even though we've all stood in line
at the DMV, hope springs eternal that some government programs actually work as
intended."
"It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have
been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by
men intent on doing evil." -- Fredrich von Hayek, Nobel Laureate in
Economics, from "The Constitution of Liberty"
- both from
http://www.downsizedc.com(DownsizeDC).
The Planetary Bill of Rights project
Actual text of the proposed Planetary Bill of Rights(which I support).
Most libertarians want to shrink the government. The trial lawyers are one of society's best allies against government over-regulation. Read John Ross's The Virtues of an Aggressive Plaintiff's Bar: "bad" people or corporations face lawsuits if they are "bad", this does more to promote "good" behavior than an army of government regulators.
For all you folks who are afraid that Mrs Clinton will be the next
President, remember that when she was First Lady, her HillaryCare plan went
nowhere even though her party controlled Congress. After two years of Mrs
Clinton, the voters ejected the Democrats from control. That was how Newt
Gingrich got to be Speaker of the House, and eventually made possible the
impeachment
trial of her husband.
(I dont get it. Mrs Clinton has been hanging
around Washington, DC since 1992; hence her claim to "experiance".
But if we need "change", it stands to reason that the more DC
experiance a person has, the more likely that person caused the
conditions that need changing. Mrs Clinton is part of the problem, not part of
the solution.)
[Dont get me wrong. I think that the election of Mrs Clinton would be bad
for the USA. I know at least one person who would leave the country, or would
want to, if Mrs Clinton becomes President. I would want to, also, but where to
go? The most civilized countries in the world are former UK colonies (civilized
with the exception of Singapore, where caning (beating with a stick) is still an
acceptable form of criminal punishment.) that have followed the Mother Country
into socialism.]
[Sure, several EU countries are civilized, but I dont want
to take the time to become fluent in French or German or Italian or Spanish just
to get away from Big Sister.]
[Dont get me wrong, part 2: I dont think the
current President is a bargain, either. He's just not bad enough to leave the
country over.]
[Dont get me wrong, part 3: If Obama is the Democrat nominee
and wins, I could live with that. Sen Obama is an honest politician,
which would be a welcome change after 16 years of Clinton* and Bush. If Obama
gets more votes and delegates, but is not the Democrat nominee because Mrs
Clinton gets the votes of the "Super Delegates", how is that different
from the 2000 election, where the man who got the most votes lost. Consider how
different the USA would be if Al Gore had been elected: no wars in the Middle
East, all the soldiers killed in those wars would still be alive, the US
Treasury would be somewhat more solvent.]
*It is not widely known that:
"On
Clinton's last full day as president, Jan. 19, 2001, he agreed to a five-year
(law) license suspension. The agreement came on the condition that Whitewater
prosecutors would not pursue criminal charges against him after he lied under
oath about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky."
-seen here
"She
(HRC) would be a horrible President" -former Bill Clinton insider
Dick Morris, 1-08-08
Note: On
Wed, 2-20-08, after Mrs Clinton's 11th straight defeat, I predicted that Sen
Obama would get the Democrat nomination and would go on to defeat Sen McCain in
the November election. (It will be nice to have two honest politicians as the
major party candidates.) I personally will support the Libertarian Party
nominee, to be selected at their convention
in May(And the nominee is: Former US
Congressman Bob Barr-Barr's
Wikipedia entry.
BUMMER! I thought
Obama was on his way to
the White House until all those quotes from his Pastor in Chicago came out! I
dont disagree with everything that Rev Jeremiah Wright said: in particular I
agree that what the USA did to the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945(120,000 killed in the blasts,
more later from radiation sickness) was worse than what was done to the USA on
9/11/01, however a lot of what Rev Wright said could doom Obama in the November
election. I think Obama still has a good chance to get the Democrat
nomination;(6-3-08: and he did!) I don't know if he will be swift-boated
successfully or not. (In his case, a new word might be coined: "Rev
Wrighted".)
Note: Does anyone seriously believe that if her name was
still Hillary Rodham, she would be in the US Senate, and running for President?
She would never have become Senator Clinton if she hadnt become Mrs Clinton
first. I used to think Mrs Clinton was smart, until she made up that ridiculous
story about being under sniper fire in Bosnia. She may have a high IQ, but if
she had common sense she would not make up stories about public events where
photographers were present. (The story is almost unbelievably ridiculous. Her
Secret Service escort would never have allowed the First Lady to enter an area
where she was going to be shot at.)
Note #2: I seriously thought it would
be Rudy vs Hillary in November. I never thought that a guy clever enough to be
(twice) elected Mayor of the largest city in the world would choose such an
inept primary strategy. I certainly didnt think that a woman with access to
Bill Clinton's political connections would be defeated by a virtually unknown
1st term Senator, who has even less administrative experiance than Mrs
Clinton(who has none: yes, she had to make *important* decisions about what
color stationary to order for the First Lady's Office.)
"The people need wholesome fear; they want to fear something. They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive." - Ernst Röhm, leader of the Nazi SA Brownshirts. I think Röhm was onto something. Most people want Something bigger than themselves to determine their life and free them from the responsibility of thinking. It can be God or the Church, it can be the Party or State, it can be a Leader ("Führer" in German, "Duce" in Italian), it can be the Family. Sartre called this "bad faith".
Human freedom did not have a good 1900's. With the rise of fascism,
communism, and religious intolerence in most of the world, I really am,
"Proud to be an
American, where at least I know I'm free"
However, I am
not a "patriot".
I do notbelieve in "my
country, right or wrong".
There is a big difference between loving my
country and loving my government.
The 20th century also featured war and its
associated
genocide,
starting with the Armenian
Genocide(Turkey, 1915).
I also support the legalization of the use of marijuana; most conservatives don't. One exception is Wm F Buckley, Jr., who sailed his yacht outside the twelve mile limit, tried it, and endorsed legalization in his magazine National Review.
And for those who got here from my
HIV-AIDS page
and might be wondering, I'm HIV negative. And for those who think that anyone
who writes about HIV must be in one of the AIDS risk groups, I'm not. What I am
is someone who believed then Surgeon General Koop when he said that everyone is
at risk for HIV, and therefore at risk for AIDS. He was wrong. (Actually, HIV
is a very difficult virus to catch; the only sure ways are to engage in
unprotected receptive anal intercourse with an HIV+ man, and sharing needles
among IV drug users, where at least one of the sharers is HIV+.)(More to the
point, there is no solid scientific evidence that HIV causes AIDS.)(John Ross
does think that HIV causes AIDS, but argues that
its
almost impossible to catch HIV (unless, of course, you are an IV drug user
sharing needles or engage in really risky sexual behavior.)
NOTE: I
am not an "HIV
denialist". I don't have HIV, I don't know anyone who did or does have
HIV, I don't know anyone who has or had AIDS, I don't even know (AFAIK) any gay
men or IV Drug users or hemophiliacs or pre-early '80s blood transfusion
recipients or Africans. I have no personal reason to want HIV to not cause
AIDS. I'm not a homophobe who wants gay men to get AIDS. Nor do I want anyone
else to get AIDS.
PLUS: If I am an "HIV denialist", then so are
Dr. Robert Gallo and Dr. Luc Montagnier, the co-discoverers of HIV. Both Gallo
and Montagnier have (seperately) concluded that HIV, by itself, is not
sufficient to cause AIDS. Co-facters must be present. (Gallo favors HTLV-1 or
HHV-6 , Montagnier
favors mycoplasma .)
"If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific
documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least
with a high probability. There is no such document."
Kary
Mullis, Biochemist, 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry
(This quote was
shamelessly copied and pasted from
http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/index.htm.)
Rehab center to AVOID:
In 1/2001, I took a little fall down the stairs. Not serious enough for hospitalization, I was stuck in IHS of Las Vegas, a big disappointment. I had expected something similar to the rehab center in Vicksburg, Michigan , which took excellent care of a really serious problem, a broken hip.
Things I love:
Brilliant* women, computers, cats, books, philosophy, history
*very
important note: getting a high score on an IQ test is not the same thing as
being brilliant. Its a great first step, but a personality afflicted with
compulsive irrational behavior*, and/or unable to deal with abstract concepts,
and/or unable to control
her temper does NOT qualify as "brilliant".
*I classify
drug addiction as a "compulsive
irrational behavior". Addicts in withdrawl are certainly NOT "brilliant";
"pathetically irrational" would be descriptive. BTW, nicotene is an
addictive drug. I have seen cigarette junkies run out of their drug of choice
and go into withdrawl: if they really were highly intelligent, they would admit
(at least to themselves) that self destruction is not rational behavior.
·<There
are, of course, lots of other self destructive addictions which remove a woman
from the "brilliant" catagory.
Compulsive
overeaters with the resulting heart straining obesity I have met. (Jean
Nidetch, the founder of Weight Watchers, said that overeaters should begin
by accepting, "I'm fat because I eat too much.") I have only heard
about
anorexic
(compulsive undereaters) and
bulimic (binging and
purging) women.
·<There are, of course, lots of irrational thought
patterns that remove a woman from the "brilliant" catagory (for me,
anyway). Since I am a libertarian both philosophically and psychologically,
control freaks are anathema to me. (I have disliked Authority Figures
for as long as I can remember.)
The type of woman I like the most is I,R,I
(Intelligent, Rational, and Independent)(That's independent both
psychologically and financially)(One type of woman I especially don't like is
the philosophically libertarian/psychologically fascist control freak
hypocrite.)
My ex-wife never or very rarely wore makeup, and I always
accepted this as "normal". I don't see the purpose of makeup. (I
especially don't see the purpose of lipstick. Who wants to kiss a woman wearing
lipstick? Maybe that is why they wear it!!)(Personally, I find few
feminine habits grosser than wearing red lipstick.)(Ladies, weading red lipstick
makes you look older, which you might want if you are 12!) This quote
was posted by TBill to the Childfree Ms Yahoo group:
***Ladies, leave your
eyebrows alone. Here's how much men care about your eyebrows: do you have two
of them? Okay, we're done.***
NOTE: I do not have, never have had, any
interest in A. Women 20 years younger than me. B. Women with large fake
breasts, or even large real breasts. C. Women who think beauty or sexuality
are a substitute for intelligence.
"Dear Abby" said:
Intelligent people talk about ideas
Average people talk about things
Small people talk about other people
Those in the second two
catagories do NOT qualify as "brilliant".
My favorite place in the world (so far)
Rondeau Provincial Park,
in Ontario, Canada. Both of my parent's families had summertime vacation
cottages there, and I spent part of my honeymoon there. If I ever get married
again, I hope it will be at Rondeau.
I also loved a beautiful little city
near Rondeau named
Ridgetown!
If I can get everything in order, I would love to live there during the summer,
and return to Las Vegas for the winter. (Plus I think it would be fun to drive
to and from.....there is a lot of the USA you will never see if you just fly
over it!)
Cost of the War in Iraq(Hint: its over 404 Billion Dollars on 3/3/07.)
lies.com(the Iraq war, the missing WMD's, etc.)
Warmonger explains Iraq War to Peacenik
SEYMOUR HERSH on torture in Iraq and earlier, in Vietnam
"but also there is nothing as stupid as a 20 or 22-year-old kid with a weapon in a war zone." -Seymour Hersh
"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to do the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."- Reichmarshall Hermann Göring, Nuremberg, 1945.(snopes.com verification of this quote)(this quote was originally recorded by Dr Gustave Gilbert in his book Nuremberg Diary.)
13 MYTHS ABOUT THE CASE FOR WAR IN IRAQ
Iraq civilian body count (How many Iraqi civilians have died so that they could be free of the oppressive Saddam Hussain regime?)
""I like to remind people that if we leave Iraq before the job is done, the enemy will follow us here. And if our job is to protect this country, it's important we get it right in Iraq." -George W. Bush, speaking to the National Governor's Association 3/07. (Remember, how if we withdrew from Vietnam, the Domino Effect would result in Communism spreading to Australia and the Phillippines?)
Rough timetable:
US
Congress authorizes invasion of Iraq10-10-02(House), 10-11-02(Senate)
USA invades
Iraq: 3-2-03
Saddam Hussein removed
from power: 4-9-03
"End of major
combat operations"(aka "Mission Accomplished") announcement:
5-1-03
Cindy
Sheehan arrested by Capitol Police for wearing a t-shirt with writing, "2,245
Dead. How many more?" to the State of the Union address: 1-31-06
Saddam
Hussein executed: 12-30-06
War continues with no end in sight: 2007
"..this
war is lost" - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, 4-19-07
The 2007
movie
Redacted is released, a
fictionalized account of an actual occurance in Iraq. Bill O'Reilly is
outraged. I wasn't so surprised: I remember the 1968
MyLai
Massacre, where US servicemen killed 500 unarmed Vietnamese. I realize that
most of the soldiers fighting in Iraq were not even alive in 1968, but their
superiors were: the phrase "Support Our Troops" is should not be
unconditional.
(The two men usually associated with MyLai,
Lieutenant
Calley and
Captain
Medina, did not kill those 500 Vietnamese all by themselves.)
"My first act as President would be to order the immediate withdrawal of every single U.S. troop and all U.S. government personnel from Iraq." -Christine Smith, Libertarian Candidate for President, 2008.
"The America I
was born into. . . .no longer exists". I came across this blog entry
after searching for the phrase "Facing a dying nation", which appeared
in the song
The
Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In) at the climax of the movie version of "Hair",
as George Berger is marching into a plane to be flown to Vietnam, where he is
KIA. (This a very dramatic climax. After the plane flys away, the scene cuts
immediately to Arlington National Cemetary and a tombstone marked GEORGE BERGER
and VIETNAM.)(In the play "Hair", it is Claude who is killed.
(Synopsis
of the play). In the movie, Berger has taken Claudes' place in Boot Camp,
Claude returns to camp after visiting his girlfriend just as the order is given
to march to the plane.
And yes, the America I was born into no longer
exists. I was born in 1948, when the USA held the moral high ground after
defeating the Nazis.
In the same year I was born, the UN General Assembly
adopted, "without dissent",
The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, which states, in part, "Article 5 No one shall be
subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
Now, we have secret prisons, suspension of
Habeus
Corpus,
extraordinary
rendition, indefinate imprisonment without trial at Guantánamo Bay,
where we apparently treat some of the "detainees" in a manner that
would make a Gestapo agent proud. (Its not torture, its "Enhanced
interrogation".) (Does anyone believe that
Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed actually did all the things he confessed to doing?) (More:
True
Confessions? The Amazing Tale of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed)
Outsourcing
Torture, from the New Yorker, tells the story of US agents using
"rendition"
to put suspected terrorists in countries where they could be interrogated by
torture, and notes that torture is known as an unreliable way of obtaining
factual information.
"Torture is a crime against civilization.
Torturers are perverts. People who fail to condemn torture are unfit for public
office." -George Phillies, candidate
for the 2008 Libertarian Party nomination for President
(Phillies on
torture.)
When I was a student at WMU in the late '60s, there was a house at the
bottom of the hill that East Campus is on. In a window, on the back of a window
shade, the occupants had inscribed, "Is there intelligent life on Earth?
Get out of Vietnam Now!" Its time for one that ends "Get out of
Iraq now!"
(Note: I like the idea of one of the LP Presidential
candidates (sorry, dont remember which one), that the Iraq government should
hold a vote of Iraq citizens on the question, "Do you want the USA to
continue to occupy Iraq?". If the vote is No, we can leave!)
Harry Browne's essay: Was George Bush Right?(Argues that after 100,000 dead Iraqis, we are not any safer from terrorism, nor are we or any country in the Middle East any freer; in fact, the USA is less free.)
I have two serious questions: If it was a crime under International Law for Germany to invade Poland in 1939 (waging an aggressive war), why is it not a crime for the USA to invade Iraq, a country that posed no threat to the USA? And if the rationale for the invasion was Iraq's supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction, shouldn't the USA apologize to Iraq and withdraw our troops?
Guantánamo Bay
In 10/01, well before the Iraq war, the USA
invaded
a sovereign country, Afghanistan, supposedly to find the person/people
behind 9/11. We didnt find Osama bin Laden, but we did scoop up hundreds of
Taliban and al-Qaeda sympathizers, designated them "unlawful combatants",
and shipped them off to the US Naval Base at Quantánamo Bay, Cuba, where
most of them rot to this day. The US government says they are not POWs entitled
to the protection of the
Geneva Convention. (Human Rights Watch
disagrees.) These people are essentially stateless and rightless. They
have not been charged with any crime under US, International, or Afghan law, yet
they are imprisoned indefinately..(if they are suspected of being terrorists,
they will be tried before a
"military tribunal").
I *think* the ACLU is trying to get them access to US courts; good luck! (in
6/04, the US Supreme Court did rule that
detainees
and "enemy combatants" held by the United States are entitled to
challenge their detention in court.)(Unfortunately, the outgoing Congress
reversed the Supreme Court, with the
Military
Commissions Act of 2006 claiming that the detainees are dangerous terrorists
and the courts should not interfere with the President's authority as
Commander-in-Chief. More on this story
here.)
Thankfully,
there as been introduced in both houses of Congress the
Restoring
the Constitution Act of 2007, which would undo a lot of the damage done to
civil liberties since 9-11-01.
(Amensty
International on Guantánamo Bay)US: Mark Five
Years of Guantánamo by Closing It
(Why not close Guantánamo?
Could it be that the former prisoners, after being deported back to their home
countries, might tell how they were treated?)
Statement
of the ACLU on the military tribunals.
Badnarik on civil liberties and the rights of the detainees.
An Island I loved:
There is an island, near to and part of Honduras, called
Roatan. I visited there in Oct. 2000.
This island has it all: unspoiled beauty and civilization. If it were
practical, I would move there tomorrow!
SIGH! Since Roatan is not
practical, I am considering a move to Hawaii.
Things I like:
These computer languages-Fortran,
EasyTrieve,
C++; the Internet; IRC;
Ayn Rand's
philosophy and
writings, esp.
Atlas Shrugged(semi-official site)(Please note: I am
not a "true believer" Rand devotee: see former Rand insider Murry
Rothbard's The
Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult); Richard Adam's novel
Watership Down; the
1973 movie Breezy;
the 1995 movie The American
President(yes, I really like movies with unlikely partners); the 1972
movie
The Man; the 1987 TV Movie
Escape From Sobibor; the 1980
movie Somewhere in Time(and
Michael Crawford's rendition of the song
Somewhere
in Time in the Las Vegas extravaganza EFX; practically anything by The
Who, including, among others,
Won't
Get Fooled Again,
The
Kids Are Alright, and especially
Pinball
Wizard,(and even more especially, its rendition by Elton John in the
movie version of the rock opera Tommy)(All
the lyrics from Tommy are here);
Richie Sambora's
Ballad of Youth
(Ballad of Youth is a great song for the newly divorced: "Cause when
tomorrow comes, its all just yesterday's news "), the Cure's
Charlotte
Sometimes, Bonnie Tyler's
Total Eclipse of
the Heart, Bad Company's
Bad Company, the
Bangles' version of
Hazy Shade
of Winter, Paul Simon's
My
Little Town(reminds me of my ex-wife's hometown), the Association's
Don't
Blame it on me(reminds me of my ex-wife!),[(and another reminder of my ex,
Gale Garnett's We'll
Sing in the Sunshine(the ending we both remember: "We sang in the
sunshine, We laughed every day, We sang in the sunshine, then you went away.")],
Barbara Lewis's
Hello,
Stranger(reminds me of my ex, who I last saw in 1976, SO long ago, but it
still feels like yesterday), Bob Dylan's version of
Don't think twice,
its all right(reminds me of most of the women I have met post-divorce,
especially the line "you just kinda wasted my precious time"),
Roxette's
Listen
To Your Heart, Led Zepplin's
Stairway to Heaven,
Genesis's
Land of
Confusion, the video of which is my all time favorite, another fantastic
Genesis song/video
Jesus He
Knows Me, the Las Vegas show
EFX(closed
12-30-02; the EFX Theatre has since been dismantled. How sad.)(EFX opened
3-23-95 in conjunction with the opening of the
MGM Grand Hotel and Casino.)(I must
admit, I really liked the original version of
EFX,
starring Michael Crawford(who starred in 610 consecutive performances,
until 8-11-96); the original cast soundtrack is still available from
CD Universe, or from
CDnow); fans of EFX can find the lyrics
to the songs in Michael Crawford's "EFX"
here.)(yes,
I did see subsequent EFX stars David Cassidy(NOTE: EFX, starring David Cassidy,
with a cast of 70, was said,
here,
to be the world's largest stage production) and Tommy Tune(twice!), plus I saw
Cassidy's brother, Patrick, guest starring, but I missed the final star Rick
Springfield after breaking my leg); the
Shaft series of movies starring Richard
Roundtree; (as a younger person I was a fan on the Disney series
Zorro, and I see a similarity
between Shaft and Zorro; both are anti-establishment individuals who fight
injustice!)(Zorro was created in 1919 by Johnston McCulley, Shaft was created
c. 1970 by Ernest Tidyman.)(my personal philosophy towards violence: it a LOT
easier to shoot someone, like Shaft does, than to commit a very personal act
like running someone through with a sword, like Zorro does sometimes); the
miniseries
V, and its conclusion
V, The Final Battle, which are
a parallel to the Nazi novement in Germany(Note: this was the intention of the
creator of V,
Kenneth Johnson, who wrote and
directed the first miniseries, but Johnson disliked the script for the second
miniseries, and was not involved with it; Johnson is currently working on a
third miniseries V: The Second
Generation, which will
ignore the events of
the second miniseries and the events of the short lived follow-up TV series.);
a truely remarkable "Like", the Sci-fi horror movie
Event Horizon, which is very
bloody but still intellectually challenging flic: the term "Event Horizon"
is used as the name of a spaceship in this movie, but it is a scientific term,
see
here;
discussing the things I love or like.
A movie everyone should see once:
Idiocracy: Shows the eventual effect of smart people delaying/avoiding altogether having children, while less intelligent people breed like rabbits. (This is sometimes called Dysgenics.)
A movie I haven't seen, but wish I had:
Twist of Fate: A member of the SS participates in the failed attempt to kill Hitler, then disguises himself as a Jew to escape punishment, lands in a concentration camp, and ends up fighting for Israel. This movie was based on the novel Pursuit, by Robert L. Fish, which is still available through Amazon.com's network of used booksellers, and I got the book. Thanks, Amazon.com!
My favorite song of all time:
It used to be Pinball Wizard. Then it was EFX. In 2000, I
got the video to an old movie I like,
R.P.M., and its opening song,
Melanie's Stop! I
don't want to hear it anymore, has reached the (probably temporary)**
position of my favorite song! Unfortunately, it was released as a RECORD, you
know, those black things you play on a "record player", but has never
been released on a CD. (The album wasn't. I am told that the song was released
on Melanie compilation CDs, which may be out of production by now.) I wonder
how much pre-CD music is now lost forever, except at MP3 sites? Even the
lyrics to old songs are hard to find, especially since the US music industry
was successful in effectively squashing
www.lyrics.ch, "The International
Lyrics Server". Luckily, there is another huge lyrics archive still
running:
Gunther Anderson's Lyric
Pages!
2nd favorite:
Superstar.....hauntingly
beautiful; unfortunately singer Karen Carpenter died after struggling with
anorexia.
3rd favorite:
The
Entertainer, by Billy Joel. (Extra verse that BJ
used in live shows.)
4th favorite:They Don't Know
(about us), Kirsty MacColl's love song. Its not the explicit lyrics of this
song, its the brilliant arrangement and the singer's style.
5th
favorite: Suite:
Judy Blue Eyes, by Stephen Stills. Another song where its not the explicit
lyrics, but the brilliant arrangement and the singer's style!
6th
favorite: Edge of Seventeen
aka "Just like the white winged dove", by Stevie Nicks. Yet another
song where its not the explicit lyrics, but........
**yes, it was temporary. The song
White Rabbit,
written by Grace Slick and performed by
Jefferson Airplane with Grace
Slick doing the singing, was played during and at the end of the movie
The Game, is my new favorite !
I remember this song from the late 60's, but I only came to appreciate it in
2007.
Note: "The Game" is a very "Nowhere Man" ish movie,
except that the protagonist of "The Game" knows who They are, and has
been to the office of Them (of course, when he goes back to the office, it isn't
there anymore, and nobody remembers it ever being there.)(There is a lot of
breaking glass in "The Game", too.)
The greatest entertainer living (In My Humble Opinion):
Tom
Lehrer, no question. Best known for his album, "That Was the Year That
Was", he was an academic first, an entertainer second; and yes, he is still
alive. All of his lyrics are
here, just scroll down
to "Tom Lehrer" once you get there.
And the best group effort:
Rush, best known for their album
Hemispheres. Rush
was influenced by novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand ( her influence is notable in
their song Limelight),
and produced hard rock music with philosophical lyrics. I am forever indebted
to former co-worker Marianne Petty, who introduced me to the music of Rush.
Paris Hilton:
Other than her biological relatives and paparazzi who make money taking
pictures of her, who cares about the antics of the Heirhead? She is as
interesting as the never ending saga of Anna Nichole Smith.
Update: I did
watch Larry King's interview with Paris after she got out of jail. When
actually asked a question and thinking about the answer, she does not seem so
much of an airhead after all. I wonder if her airhead personna is just an act
for the public?
(After seeing the video she made about the 2008 presidential
election, I am convinced that the airhead personna is indeed an act. Paris
Hilton reminds me of Hillary Clinton: smart, but not exactly overendowed with
common sense.)
My favorite movie:
It used to be Breezy. Then I saw
The Long Kiss Goodnight. It has
a strong female lead and a fascinating story about an ex-CIA agent (with
amnesia) turned conventional Mom whose past comes back to get her.
And THEN
I saw The Odessa File! This
movie begins on 11-22-63, as a German man driving home pulls his car over to the
side of the road to listen to the news about the assassination of John F.
Kennedy. What he sees then will bring him into contact with the
ODESSA, the organization of
former members of the SS. I had read the novel this movie is based on, but had
forgotten the very big surprise ending. Best movie I have ever seen.
2nd
favorite: Pretty Woman,
another "unlikely partners who fall in love" movie.
I must admit that the original Shaft,
starring Richard Roundtree, is my co-favorite movie.
The movie I have
actually watched the most over the years is
Point Break, about a group of
surfers who rob banks (as "the ex-presidents") to finance the endless
summer, and the FBI agents trying to stop them.
New favorite(2008): I
greatly enjoy the 2001 remake of Ocean's
Eleven. Its not that I am a fan of crime, but these criminals are
brilliant. Its a "brilliant criminals vs. arrogant, ruthless, and extremely
rich casino owner" movie.
Lamest movie of all time
Micki + Maude: not only does the male lead marry two women (secretly), he gets them both pregnant at the same time, they have the same OB-GYN, they deliver at the same time and have adjoining rooms in the same hospital. A monument to human stupidity!
Most pronatalist-mythological movie so far
Baby Boom, features what I
call Pronatalist
Myth #1: If you have a baby, you will LOVE everything about the experiance. I
knew I would HATE the experiance, primarily the loss of personal freedom, which
I think is the real reason I am divorced today. My ex was a passionate
Mommiewannabe, I had no interest: I was history. My foolish ex had gotten her
tubes tied when she was still interested in being married to me, then proceeded
to replace me with a guy 20 yrs older than her, so she couldnt even adopt.
(Today's
(9-4-07) CompuServe news reports that to today's incoming college freshman
anyone born before 1989 is OLD! Then what is someone born before the 1929 Stock
Market Crash?)
In this movie the lead female is a successful businesswoman
who "inherited" a baby when a relative died leaving the baby to her
care. Her first impulse, to put the baby up for adoption, fails when she hears
the baby cry as she walks away. No sacrifice is too much for the sake of the
baby: Stepmom loses her job, and her boyfriend, so she packs up and moves to
Vermont, where she meets Mr Right, who of course loves the child, and they live
happily ever after.
Scariest Horror Movie ever
Yours, Mine, and Ours: A widower with 10 children marries a widow with 8 children, and they have another(Ours). Based loosely on a real couple! (Frank and Helen Beardsley)
A movie I thought would suck, but was great
Legally Blonde: I just
happened to watch this on TV, thinking it would be a "dumb blonde makes a
fool of herself" movie, but she turns out to be a brilliant person; even
she wasn't impressed by her high LSAT scores and her admission to
Harvard Law School. The (stated) moral of the story is "first impressions
are not always correct." This movie includes (at the start, where she
really does behave like a blonde airhead, and at the end, when she graduates
from Harvard) the song
Perfect Day.
In the movie, the protagonist ("Elle Woods") has graduated from
(undergraduate)college in California and attends Law School.
The movie was
(loosely) based on the novel Legally Blonde, by
Amanda Brown.
There is now a series of prequel novels, by
Natalie Standiford, which start
when the protagonist was a sophomore at Beverly Hills High School.
Although
the publisher of these prequel books is "Hyperion Paperbacks for Children",
these are NOT children's books, if "children" means "pre-teens".
(I think there is a good chance that Amanda and Natalie are two pen names for
the same person. Their writing styles are quite similar. "Natalie"
claims to be 85 years old and plays
in a rock band (!), so "Natalie" is definately a fake name, or at
least a real name with hopelessly fake info.)
At least two (unsuccessful)
attempts have been made to produce a TV series, but the play
Legally Blonde is
set to open on Broadway 4-29-07.
Funniest movie I have ever seen
Liar Liar, starring Jim Carrey, not to be confused with "Liar, Liar".
Wild in the Streets (1968)
The movie Wild in the Streets, and its theme song The Shape of Things to Come, have been on my mind since the late 60s. The plot is explained at this popup laden Geocities site and at this excellant site. This is a story of power corrupting, with the newly powerful turning into what they had crusaded against: fascists, and not just the relatively benign Mussolini type of fascism, but the more malignent and brutal Hitler style. I dont think its an accident that the guards at the camps (where the "older people" are incarcerated) wear all black, just like the German SS "blackshirts", although it is true that the SS wore grey field uniforms while actually on (dusty) duty. Their black uniforms were for more "dressy" occasions.
The movie/book that made me think
Fatherland, based on the
novel Fatherland,
by Robert Harris. WHAT IF: Germany does not commit to "total war"
against the USA after Pearl Harbor. The USA uses the atomic bomb to defeat
Japan, Germany uses its superior conventional forces to defeat the French and
British. The ensuing "cold war" is between the USA and Germany,
after the Normandy landings are defeated, and Germany has had time to also
develop the atomic bomb.
The Soviet Union retreats from Stalingrad; the
Soviet government relocates east to the other side of the Ural Mountains and
never overruns the death camps in Poland; so the Germans suppress all
knowledge of the Holocaust; including arranging accidents that kill all the
participants at the
Wannsee
Conference, where the "Final Solution" was formalized. In the
1960s a German homicide investigator uncovers the truth, and has it revealed to
the US President.*
*The Rehabilitation of the reputation of SS member Arthur Nebe
SS Brigadeführer Arthur Nebe was the head of the Kriminalpolizei (Criminal Police; non-political crimes) both in real life and in the above movie. During the war he served for a time as head of Einsatzgruppe B in the Soviet Union, and as such is commonly regarded as being a war criminal. He also took part in the famous unsuccessful attempt to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944. Nebe eluded the Gestapo until Jan 16, 1945, after which he was turned over to the People's Court, which convicted him. He was hung by the Nazis on Apr 3, 1945. See: Arthur Nebe - War Criminal or Infiltrator?
My favorite book of any kind
Primary Philosophy, by Michael Scriven, copyright 1966. This was my textbook when I took Introduction to Philosophy in the late '60s. Scriven was my first exposure to a systematic examination of the arguments for and against the existence of God. A work of genius, now a lifelong companion.
The book that had the most influence on me
The Baby Trap, by Ellen Peck, copyright 1971. This book shaped a lot of my childfree thinking. The back cover states: "STOP Before you even think of having a baby, you must read this book. It could keep you from making the biggest mistake of your life!" Peck was a founder of the National Organization for Non-Parents, which I was long a member of. Peck later co-edited "Pronatalism: The Myth of Mom and Apple Pie", another fine book.
My favorite novel
The Fifth Horseman, by Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre, copyright 1980, has terrorists in New York City armed with an atomic bomb, long before Osama bin Laden brought down the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, killing almost 3,000 people. (But then, they weren't really people, right? They were not Islamic Arabs. Kind of like the Nazi view that Jews were sub-human.)
There have been at least three other novels titled, "The Fifth
Horseman"; the one by Richard Sherbaniuk, in 2001, is closest to the theme
of the one above, his plot has the fifth horseman being biological;
Genetically Modified Organisms that are turned into weapons of mass
destruction.
The others are by Jose Antonio, concerning the Mexican
Revolution, and Gregg Gonzalaz, an extension of the "Headless Horseman
of Sleepy Hollow" legend. Another: "The Fifth Horseman is Riding"
subtitled "A celebration of the American countryside and a documentary
of what we are doing to destroy it" by Larry Van Goethem. (I would LOVE
to live in the countryside!)
Best book on AIDS I have ever read
Wrongful Death: The AIDS Trial, by Stephen Thomas (Author's promo page). This is a fictional account of a class action lawsuit brought against: 1. Dr. Robert Gallo, the man who announced in 1984 that he had found the cause of AIDS, a retrovirus he called HTLV-3 (now HIV); 2. the drug company that made and sold AZT(GlaxoSmithKline, formerly Burroughs Wellcome); 3. the Food and Drug Administration, which approved AZT for use as an AIDS treatment.)
2nd Best book on AIDS I have ever read
Are you positive?, also by Stephen Thomas(Author's promo page). This is a fictional account of the prosecution of an HIV+ man for murder; having unprotected sex with a woman who later died from AIDS, showing how unreliable the "HIV tests" are and how damaging the antiretrovirals prescribed to treat AIDS are.
Most compelling novel I have read
The Body, by Richard Ben Sapir....by "compelling", I mean, I couldn't put it down. I HAD to find out what would happen next.
Most intriging book I have read
Unintended Consequences, by John Ross
(publisher's
introduction)(author's
Unintended Consequences FAQ) I bought this book in 2004 after reading a
review of it in the Feb/Mar 1996 issue of Freedom Network News, an
ISIL newsletter, for no better reason than
knowing that the plot touched on the 1943
Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising(Jan 18-21, Apr 19-May 16) . The book turned out to be over
800 pages long! The author is a brilliant writer; the novel sucked me right in.
It is about the "gun culture", and I dont even LIKE guns. But on a
deeper level, its about the suppression of the gun culture, and consequently the
suppression of freedom. (Minor quibble: Ross states in his UC FAQ regarding
resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: "it is generally
believed that all of them were killed." However, the Wiesenthal Center
page about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (the immediately preceding link) says that
"several dozen fighters were saved by escaping through the sewers".
Perhaps the highest level escapee was
Marek Edelman, 2nd in
command of the ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization). (A
longish bio of
Edelman, who was still alive in 2006.) Edelman was, by design, not at the
ZOB HQ bunker at 18 Mila St. when it was overrun by the Waffen-SS. Edelman
escaped from the ghetto and lived to fight in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.
There
exists on the Web,
right
here, if it is authentic, what would be a history of the Warsaw Ghetto from
its inception to its destruction, by Marek Edelman, described as "one of
the leaders of the Jewish Uprising".
Confession: I used to read books a LOT! From 4/2000 until 3/2004 I
was hooked on the Web* and didn't read ANY. Unintended Consequences was
so good, and so interesting, I started reading books again! I just (5/05)
finished I'm Okay you're a brat, by
Susan Jeffers, PhD, perhaps one of
the best books I have ever read. Jeffers argues that there are so many
variables in a child's life that it doesn't follow from "Child A is a bad
person", therefore the parent(s) of Child A were bad parent(s). You can
substitute "good" for "bad" in the previous sentence;
parents cannot take credit for good children, and need not take the blame (as
they do) for bad children. There are many determining factors in a child's life
over which parents have no control whatsoever.
*Confession, part 2:
I can't blame the Web entirely. I was married to a woman who (consistently!)
turned on the TV as soon as she came home; it was usually on. I was informed
that I would not be married much longer during
The Jacksons! After she was
gone I did watch TV some, but the set broke and MONTHS passed before I bothered
to replace it, with a cheap Black and White portable; I didn't think I was
missing anything.... it was then I started to realize that TV was not an
inherently integral part of life. But it took living with a woman whose taste
in TV was "usually on to almost anti-intellectual (mindless) programming"
to turn me against TV, except for special events: the