Web Log Archive, August 6th to August 19th, 2006

Saturday, August 19th, 2006              Happy Birthday, Melissa!

"Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully...
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."  Abraham Lincoln, March 4th, 1865

Friday, August 18th, 2006

By the time someone is five years old, he or she has heard every possible joke about his or her name. But some names are harder to laugh off than others. Like, what if your name sounded like 'crap'? Would you change it? Or would you be known for your sense of humor?

Thursday, August 17th, 2006

Nobody asked, but I've been a regular coffee drinker since the age of twelve. [That's precisely as long as I've been a devout pantheist.] In the (all-boys Catholic) high school I attended, I was the only kid (at least as a Freshman) who regularly 'sweet-talked' the cafeteria staff into letting me have a cup at lunchtime. But I mean, it wasn't like anyone tried to keep the stuff away from the students. [The War on Drugs had not yet begun.] It was more like, in those days (dunno about now), it didn't seem to occur to the school's food providers that any of us pimply young men would want a cup (of the stuff that, in those days, passed for coffee). [The first Starbucks had not yet opened.] And now: some shockingly good news! I mean...who woulda thought?

On the one or two days in the past (nearly) half-century that I've tried to go a whole day without coffee...I failed. But I have managed to cut it down to only four cups a day (on most days). 

Wednesday, August 16th, 2006                Elvis Presley has been dead for twenty-nine years. 

Just finished reading "Dereliction of Duty", by H. R. McMaster. Now, I didn't quite pick it off the current Times Best-Seller List. (It's now almost ten years old.) After having, earlier this year, read Stanley Karnow's page-turner History of the Vietnam War (1983), I was expecting the same sort of Thrills & Chills (if you will) from McMaster's book.
But Dereliction of Duty fell out of my hands night-after-night as I drifted off to sleep! It was (mostly) a bore...a chore to read. Now...it's a book that has garnered a lot of attention (among people who debate history and politics). The author is (was?) an Army Major...a West Point graduate...and his military background informs his viewpoint.
And see...most egg-heady-historico-politicos still 'apologize' for the Vietnam War by putting it in a (the?) historical context. This Standard Analysis references the 'Cold War Mentality' of the 1960's, in which Communism was thought (by Americans, at least) to be monolithic. Today, it's not hard to see that nationalism, personal ambition and greed overrode any and all intellectual constructs by the likes of Marx and Lenin. But that's not to say that there wasn't plenty to be afraid of as the end of World War II witnessed the murderous regimes of Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung. The 'Domino Theory' was the notion that World Communism was on the march and that 'we had to stop 'them' over there so that 'they' wouldn't, someday, be over here!' [But Ho Chi Minh, for any of his excesses, never was a puppet of the Russians or the Chinese. We now know that he never entertained any ideological  notions of  global hegemony.] 
What McMaster adds to the debate is the colorless product of his meticulous (perhaps  merciless) research into a dysfunctional decision-making process that, with a doctrine of  'graduated pressure', ensnared the United States in an un-winnable war that cost the lives of nearly sixty thousand American soldiers. The chief villains in this tedious play are Robert McNamara (as a brainy sycophant) and Lyndon Johnson (as a career Texas politician...over his head in world affairs). The supporting cast includes all the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
While McMaster writes a story of the prevarication that enabled the incompetence that created the catastrophe, I read a story of an organization (the LBJ administration) which simply 'ran itself'. The larger the organization, the more likely that it is to be 'running itself' and the results are usually just a bit of what everyone wants...but not a bit of what anyone wants. 

Tuesday, August 15th, 2006

“I may be a ‘Bunny’, but I know cruelty to chickens when I see it,
 and what KFC does to these intelligent, gentle animals makes me sick.”
Lauren Anderson

"Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly."
from 'How To Win Friends and Influence People', ©1936 by Dale Carnegie 

"Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest.
Come not between the dragon and his wrath."    King Lear

Monday, August 14th, 2006                             Happy Birthday, Marilyn!

The main character in H. G. Wells' 1911 short story, The Country of The Blind, is a member of a mountain-climbing party in the Andes. With a single misstep, Nunez falls into a crevasse and is, thereafter, lost to his companions. He regains consciousness near an isolated village of people who, though sightless for generations, have fashioned a peaceful, self-sufficient society. His expectations are that his 'gift of sight' will be welcomed and worshipped and that he, himself, will be treated as royalty among them.
 "In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"!
But his expectations are not met; for, while treating him kindly, the villagers come to think that he is insane if not, perhaps, dangerous. They simply don't believe his descriptions of all that he 'sees'.

Enigmatic aspects of this fine-threaded tale include these:

 1) Nunez falls in love with a villager (Medina, who it is not quite clear really is blind) and
 2) as their romance develops, Nunez agrees to his lover's request (at the behest of her father) that he undergo an 'operation' to rid himself of the source of his 'delusions' and
 3) the ending, which unfolds on the morning of the day of the 'surgery'.

Sunday, August 13th, 2006

In a 1944 movie, Ingrid Bergman plays the role of Paula: a beautiful but fragile and incurious woman under the spell of her Lifetime-Movie-esque husband, Gregory, played by Charles Boyer. The palatial London dwelling within which the dreary plot unfolds is illuminated by lamps burning natural gas delivered, by manifold, from a source in the attic where, of course, Paula has never been. Several valves control the gas pressures available to the many house lamps. Gregory is, for reasons not here disclosed (you'll have to watch the movie), intent on driving his wife insane by repeatedly 'adjusting' the valves (thereby brightening and dimming the lights) and then pretending, himself, not to notice these frequent changes in illumination. 
It is from this movie that the term ' to gaslight someone' has entered our language. It is the act of repeatedly asking someone to disbelieve the evidence of their senses.

Saturday, August 12th, 2006

Ah!
 
                     The first ripe tomato of the season!


Friday, August 11th, 2006

"It is actually a good thing to be thought foolish and simple with regard to matters that don't concern you.
Don't be concerned with other people's impressions of you. Stick with your purpose. This alone will strengthen your will and give your life coherence. Refrain from trying to win other people's approval and admiration. Don't long for others to see you as sophisticated, unique, or wise. In fact, be suspicious if you appear to others as someone special. Be on your guard against a sense of self-importance.
Keeping your will in harmony with truth and concerning yourself with what is beyond your control are mutually exclusive.
While you are absorbed in one, you will neglect the other."
Epictetus (55-135)

"...the modesty of a God who walks among men!"    Fred

Thursday, August 10th, 2006

The term 'negative feedback' refers to a situation in which any change the system makes from its equilibrium position is met with a force that tends to return the system to that equilibrium position. A common, easily understood, example is a spring. If left to sit on a shelf, it will maintain its length indefinitely until a force is applied to either compress or stretch it. If it is compressed, a force appears to elongate it. If it is stretched, a force appears to shorten it. The 'restoring force' is always in a direction opposite from the applied force. Negative feedback is 'healthy' in the sense that it sustains a system.
The term 'positive feedback' refers to a system in which any change the system makes from its equilibrium position is met with a force that tends to drive the system even farther away from its equilibrium position. Positive feedback is 'unhealthy' in the sense that it always leads to the destruction of the system in which it is found. 

Wednesday, August 9th, 2006                 Thirty-two years ago today, facing almost certain removal, Nixon left office.

If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving is not for you.

"...what really appears to have happened was that Lieberman and his $12 million campaign hired a web consultant who then hosted the Lieberman campaign's website on a $15-a-month discount server which - not surprisingly during a high traffic time like an election - shit the bed and died under stress."  David Sirota

Tuesday, August 8th, 2006             It's Primary Election Day in Connecticut!

Courtesy of my buddy, Skip : 

There were four country churches in a small Texas town: 

the Presbyterian Church,

the Baptist Church,

the Methodist Church

and the Catholic Church.

Each church was overrun with pesky squirrels.

The Presbyterian Church, called a meeting to decide what to do about the squirrels. After much prayer and consideration they determined that the squirrels were predestined to be there and they shouldn't interfere with God's divine will.
 
In the Baptist Church, the squirrels had taken up habitation in the baptistery. So the deacons met and decided to put a cover on the baptistery and drown the squirrels in it. The squirrels escaped somehow and there were twice as many there the next week.
 
The Methodist Church got together and decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God's creation. So, they humanely trapped the squirrels and set them free a few miles outside of town. Three days later, the squirrels were back.
 
But the Catholic Church came up with the best and most effective solution: they baptized the squirrels and registered them as members of the church.

Now they only see them on Christmas and Easter. 

Monday, August 7th, 2006

From Ode, by Richard Barnfield, (1574-1627)

Every one that flatters thee
Is no friend in misery:
Words are easy, like the wind,
Faithful friends are hard to find;
Every man will be thy friend
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend,
But if store of crowns be scant,
No man will supply thy want.
If that one be prodigal,
Bountiful they will him call;
And with such-like flattering
Pity but he were a king.
If he be addict to vice,
Quickly him they will entice;
If to women he be bent,
They have at commandëment;
But if fortune once do frown,
Then farewell his great renown;
They that fawn'd on him before
Use his company no more.
He that is thy friend indeed
He will help thee in thy need:
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep;
Thus of every grief, in heart,
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flatt'ring foe.

Sunday, August 6th, 2006             Happy Birthday, Jim!

From 'The Joy of Cooking'  by Marion Rombauer Becker  © 1931    Mouth Watering!

Gray squirrels are the preferred ones; red squirrels are small and quite gamey in flavor. There are, proverbially, many ways to skin a squirrel, but some hunters claim the following one is the quickest and cleanest. It needs a sharp knife. To skin, cut the tail bone through from beneath, but take care not to cut through the skin of the tail. Hold the tail as shown on the left and then cut the skin the width of the back, as shown in the dotted lines. Turn the squirrel over on its back and step on the base of the tail. Hold the hind legs in one hand and pull steadily and slowly, as shown in the center sketch, until the skin has worked itself over the front legs and head. While holding the squirrel in the same position, pull the remaining skin from the hind legs. 
Proceed then as for Rabbit, page 452, cutting off the head and feet and removing the internal organs, plus two small glands found in the small of the back and under each foreleg between the ribs and the shoulders. Stuff and roast squirrels as for Pigeons, page 475, barding them, or use them in Brunswick Stew, page 470, or prepare as for Braised Chicken, page 467. Season the gravy with: Walnut catsup and serve with Polenta, page 177.

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