May 26 - Sorry about the downtime -- I had some trouble with the computer so took it into the shop, and it turned out "the" problem was actually a number of issues.

Oh well, they got fixed. I'm poorer, but I think the new video card in particular resolved a lot of other little problems. I hope.

On more relevant issues: I don't get Mexican President Vicente Fox. The boast that the United States (and Canada) get the best and brightest from other countries is not an idle one, and one would think, if he truly wants to see Mexico advance, that he would regard the steady outflow of ambitious, energetic people with dismay.

It doesn't matter, really, because the American people are no longer buying the "defer and delay" tactics of the past 20 years from our government. The reluctant urgency by the Senate to at least appear to resolve immigration issues has been sharply challenged by the nervous House of Representatives who are scrambling to give some semblence of leadership yet who are merely following We, the People, who are determined the laws be upheld and the borders be secured. We don't always get to set the agenda but this is one of those wonderful times when the wisdom of having fixed, two-year terms for House members proves sound.

Yes, they will continue to try to wriggle of the hook, so the pressure has to kept on.

As for the Senate, I did use the down time to some advantage. I began to re-read a book from my university days, The Federalist Era (1789-1801) by John C. Miller, and find it both aggravating and comforting that the Senate was as supercilious then as it is now.

Miller writes than when the "great experiment" was launched, the Senate appointed a special committee which recommended that the proper title for the President should be "His Highness the President of the United States and Protector of the Rights of the Same" and he should be properly addressed as "His Excellency" or "His Elective Majesty."

Bush-bashers will doubtless see the above as an opening and thus miss the point: at a time when the country desperately needed to establish institutions and precedents for the governance of the infant nation, the Senate was more concerned about pomp and ceremony.

We are so used to think of our Senate in modern terms that we forget that the body after which it was consciously modeled was composed of patricians and their primary concern was remain aloof from the common man even as they placated the citizens of Rome with bread and circuses.

This week, though, the circus moved back to the House of Representatives, the members of which seem to believe that they too are above the law. Although they have been appeased, Tuning Spork has an interesting theory about the real reason behind the evacuation of the Rayburn Building after a report of gunfire -- which is now being attributed to noises orginating from a construction crew? Hmm.

Day-um, the screen looks good. The problem had developed so gradually that I hadn't realize how the view had degraded. It just goes to show: you can't beat clarity.

More tomorrow, and a good albeit bittersweet Memorial Day weekend to everyone.

Never forget those who serve.

May 27 - 18:01 Ah, this explains everything. Members of Congress are not only tone-deaf but suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (or should that be we are suffering from their narcissism?)

Maybe we should try something different and elect adults to Congress come November.

Posted by: Debbye at 04:50 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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May 15 - I used to love books about Elizabeth I when I was a girl and have enjoyed the Helen Mirren two-part series now showing on TMN. There are always lessons from history, but the outcome of historical events should not blind us to the fact that, had those wars not been waged, the Western civilization we celebrate today may not have evolved.

In short, had either side surrendered without a struggle, would religious tolerance have triumphed?

I think it unlikely. I can understand why so many want to take a short cut, but much as we deplore war, war has come to us just as it came to the Protestants in those days and we have only two choices: fight on our feet now or die on our knees later. This Westerner's temperment is not suited for submission and, in the spirit of the ancient Greeks to whom we owe so much of our civilization, I do not prostrate in fear before my God but stand before Him freely filled with the awe of the love and compassion He has shown both those who have accepted Him and those who have not yet nonethless walk the path of righteousness.

Don't take that to mean I am a good Christian. I'm not. I suffer terribly from pride and I find it hard to forgive my enemies. It takes me a long time to build a grudge but once I have one it's difficult for me to let it go. I pay to Caesar that which is owed to Caesar but it's only money, after all, because my soul remains free.

I believe that the theory of evolution best fits the scientific knowledge we have accumulated but I'm always struck at questions that eventually circle around to what happened one second before the big bang and that too feels me with awe. For someone who really sucked in science I am nonethleless a most curious person who can delight in the little bits of plate techtonics and quest for the Theory of Everything that I can grasp. Indeed, the theory of evolution or the prospect of life on other planets doesn't dissuade me from belief in a benign deity but confirms it, and if there is anything I don't understand it is how discovery of life on other planets would destroy our faith in God.

If God created rational, creative life on one planet why wouldn't He do it on other planets? If we truly understand what it means to celebrate life then why wouldn't we expect to find life throughout the universe?

Such thoughts fill me on Mother's Day because, like many women, I worry that I have borne sons who are destined to fight a war that my generation failed to wage. But unlike the appeasers and defeatists, I know I didn't bring children into this world to be slaves but to be free men who would chart their own destinies and that is both a blessing and a curse.

Some books stay with you longer. I can't tell you why The Last Battle, the 6th books in C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, was my long-time favourite of the series, but the events of these past years have caused me to revisit this book and see it in a different light. Did C.S. Lewis foresee a potential danger clearer than us sophisticated, modern folk? This portion from Chapter III has haunted me:

The Ape jumped up and spat at the Lamb. .."Tash is only another name for Aslan. All that old idea of us being right and the Calmormenes wrong is silly. We know better now. The Calormenese use different words but we all mean the same thing. Tash and Aslan are only two different names for you know Who. That's why there can never be any quarrel between them. Get that into your heads, you stupid brutes. Tash is Aslan. Aslan is Tash."

[...]

"Excuse me," said the Cat very politely, "but this interests me. "Does your friend from Calormene say the same?"

"Assuredly,"" said the Calormene. "The enlightened Ape--Man, I mean--is in the right. Aslan means neither less nor more than Tash."

"Especially, Aslan means no more than Tash?" suggested the Cat.

"No more at all," said the Carormene, looking the Cat straight in the face.

[...]

... But now, as Tirian looked round on the miserable faces of the Narnians, and saw how they would believe that Aslan and Tash were one and the same, he could bear it no longer.

"Ape," he cried with a great voice, "you lie. You lie damnably. You lie like a Calormene. You lie like an Ape."

He meant to go on and ask how the terrible god Tash who fed on the blood of his people could possible be the same as the good Lion by whose blood all Narnian was saved. If he has been allowed to speak, the rule of the Ape might have ended that day; ...

My God asks that I expend my blood to save that of innocents. Their Allah demands that the blood of innocents be shed for his glory.

The martyrs of my religions gave their lives freely without taking life in affirmation of their belief in one true God. The martyrs of Mohammed's religion have become martyrs by taking the lives of others.

I wish there was an easier path. I wish it could be resolved with dialogue and no loss of blood. I wish that my wishes were not so futile.

Now read Sword Without Leniency by Bruce Thornton (via Newsbeat1) and remember that we already have been already converted to the "true faith" -- the one that gives life, not death, and the one which, through the gift of freedom, allows us to find God through affirmation, not submission, and that it is through our journeys by different paths that we affirm that the gift of free will is the path to righteousness.

On this day, the day after Mother's Day, I wish I could wish peace be upon us but I fear the best I can wish is that we raise our sons and daughters well and that we keep our faith with the mothers before us who grieved to know that their sons were needed to fight a war no one wanted but one that came to us nevertheless. It is our curse and our blessing, and although it is not of our choosing, we must take that which has given to us and know that future generations will not decry our lack of courage.

And that, in truth, is the one lesson history teaches us: that we accept the burdens bequeathed to us and bear them as have those before us.

Posted by: Debbye at 01:38 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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