Well, gentle readers, my favorite mining spot, workingforchange, proves yet again that as long as howling liberals exist there will be errors in thinking to examine. Today we will be looking at an article by Joe Conason. Mr. Conason is a writer for the New York Observer and is, well, an offensive sort.

In this article, ‘A Gay Old Time for the GOP’, Mr. Conason talks about the politics of homosexuality. It isn’t his discussion of various Republican party members who are tolerant of homosexuals that is offensive. No is it his discussion of ‘closeted’ homosexuals within the Republican Party. No, it is his characterization of the majority of Americans.

Poll after poll indicates that the majority of Americans do not think that homosexual unions should be equivalent, equal to, whatever, of marriage. So how does Mr. Conason refer to such people? Well, he calls us “rubes”. See, he is certain that the ‘act’ put on by Republican leaders opposing homosexuals ‘basic rights’ is a con job to snow us ignoramuses in fly-over country. Now, I assumed that perhaps an elected official would subsume his own opinions to represent the desires of those who elected him, but what do I know? After all, I have been manipulated by my fear of homosexuals to the point that I am incapable of thinking for myself.

Will Durst (who can actually be funny) betrays a central conceit of liberals; that those who disagree with them are stupid. His article, a satire as subtle as a hammer, states flatly that stupid people like Bush, smart people like Kerry. Of course, smart people listen to classical music and stupid people listen to country music in this realm, so we get to combine a number of stereotypes favored by liberals.

Yes, I understand Mr. Durst is writing satire. But its only a satire if you agree with the basic concept. If you disagree, its just hateful and offensive. And Mr. Durst makes a big mistake – he equates I.Q. with education level. The two are not related; Albert Einstein never completed grammar school and George W. Bush (who Durst derodes as ‘sim’ elsewhere) has an Ivy League education, for example. Which just points out that Mr. Durst is probably not a Mensa keynote speaker, himself.

Let’s move on to Kiersten Stewart at Gadflyer. In her article, Ms. Stewart performs a trick I like to call ‘statistics equal truth’’; this is where someone hopes that a slew of statistics will make you accept dubious claims. Not likely. And in this case, Ms. Stewarts statistics are waaaaay off. She claims that “Homicide, usually at the hand of an intimate partner, is in fact the leading cause of death for pregnant and recently pregnant women.”

Hmmm. Sounds serious, doesn’t it? Actually, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health released a report that is often listed under the headline ‘Homicide Leading Cause of Death for Pregnant Women’, or some such, but it A) isn’t statistically significant, B) is limited geographically, and C) actually says that women who are currently pregnant or have given birth within the last six weeks are less likely to be victims of homicide. Only when the period of ‘pregnant’ is extended to a period of one year after giving birth do those numbers show homicide as a leading cause of death. By about 1% over medical complications. Amongst a primarily young urban poor demographic. Oh, and this only works at all if you discount ‘death by accident’ (i.e., car crashes, slip/fall injuries, etc.). So the NOW articles touting these same things coyly slip in ‘after accidents’, limit the ages to very specific ages, and keep on going.

Don’t get me wrong; women shouldn’t have to worry about homicide at all. And it is a tragedy that so many murders against them are by husbands or boyfriends. But here’s another exercise – go look up the leading cause of death for young men. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Surprised? You see, homicide is a plague on everyone in this country. The honeymoon period discovered in Massachusetts means young women are marginally safer if they are pregnant. See how I can make statistics say all young girls should get pregnant?

Ms. Stewart also uses statistics on the number of women on public assistance who cite domestic violence as a cause of divorce; the numbers are quite high. But those numbers include all women of all age groups. Why is this relevant? Well, Ms. Stewart argues that government incentives for marriage would ‘force’ women to stay in abusive relationships. In making her argument with these particular domestic violence statistics she neglects to mention that the ‘target audience’ would be young couples, both unmarried and newly-married, who have a domestic violence incidence of about 2% - quite low. The goal is to keep these relationships from fragmenting. Other statistics show that an unwed or divorced mother is more likely to be abused in relationships entered into after the termination of the relationship with the father.

In other words, women who marry and stay married to the father of their child are much less likely to ever be abused.

Ms. Stewart also glosses over other, very important, numbers. One-third of all single mothers and their children live in poverty. Here’s the scary part – that number is from 2001. That’s before the recession we’re currently in. If the gain in poverty among single mothers just went back to 1996 levels, its actually 40+% of single mothers and their children living in poverty today. Young couples (and their children) are less likely to be living in poverty.

Ms. Stewart, herself a mother and child of a single mother, admits that having two parents makes it easier. And she skips over the many studies that show that children of single mothers are more likely to fail school, use drugs, commit crimes, etc., etc. (and this is true of children of divorce and of women who never married, making domestic violence moot). This makes Ms. Stewart cross the line into offensive or stupid; either her resistance to marriage is borne out of a dislike of marriage itself or ignorance of the effects of single parent families on kids.

Let us now go on to Ellen Goodman and her article ‘Religious Malpractice’. With the tag line “Catholic Health Plans Augur Frightening Declines in Care” I think the tenor of her article should be clear. She sees the introduction of ‘Catholic health plans’ as a dangerous trend where soon no one will be able to get health care unless the Pope signs off. No, really, the article is about that reactionary. She ignores that the appeal of these plans is that devout Catholics can rest assured that their health care premiums will not help fund an elective procedure they find morally repugnant. She does concede that health care professionals can opt out of providing options that they find morally repulsive, but denies that an institution such as a hospital can. She warns that religious practice will become medical malpractice since a bishop or some-such might determine what can and can’t be done.

Ms. Goodman ignores a few points; first of all, condoms and abortions are available, often free, from Planned Parenthood and government clinics virtually everywhere in this country. Despite her conceit that women won’t have access to these options if Catholic hospitals don’t provide them, she’s wrong. It might be a little inconvenient, but they can be had. And while admitting that Catholic-run hospitals are more than 10% of all hospitals in America, she almost certainly doesn’t know that one of the reasons they want to avoid offering abortions and such is not just the moral objections, but the fact that funding those procedures drains money away from such things as, oh, performing free work that is not optional, such as free surgery for the poor, or much less optional, like plastic surgery for poor kids with cleft palates.

And the final nail in Ms. Goodman’s coffin is her use of quotes from a lawyer who conjectures about Jewish hospitals that ‘circumcise every baby’. Puh-leeze. This is disingenuous to the extreme. As if there is a comparison between not offering abortions and forcing a religious practice on every child that passes through. And I’ll only mention in passing the use of quotes by cough ‘Catholics for a Free Choice’, i.e, Frances Kissling and her fund-raising intern.

Errors in Thinking

Today I was, as usual, perusing a number of news and political views web sites and it brought something into focus for me. Time for some wandering into Deep Thought.

People who know me are often puzzled as to my political views. While I support a number of ideas thought of as ‘liberal’ (support for the poor, involvement in international aid, etc.) I also support many ‘conservative’ ideas (pro-life, minimal government, etc.) I self-describe myself as a conservative. I tried using the term ‘progressive’, but it was (in my opinion) hijacked by the ultra-left. And I hoped the term neo-conservative would be available, but its now used for a certain flavor of militaristic right-wing thought.

The reason I choose ‘conservative’ over ‘liberal’ is this; while both sides make errors in thinking, I believe the liberal side to be guilty of more serious crimes against logic. Oh, don’t get me wrong, conservatives make serious errors (especially of the ‘capitalism good, therefore libertarian economics better’ variety). But where conservatives often make errors as they reach conclusions, liberals more often make errors in their premises.

The example for today is Geov Parrish in his article The Obsession at http://www.workingforchange.org/ (article here). Mr. Parrish is arguing that the use of 9/11 to generate fear is being used by the unscrupulous in politics for their own ends and we need to ‘come to grips’ with 9/11. OK concept within a flawed framework. By that I mean that Mr. Parrish states some things in his article that erode his credibility as a clear thinker.

The first is the following statement;

“The sensible course [to combat terrorism] would be to create fewer enemies, but our rulers in both parties show no inclination to do that, and our wealth and outsized resource consumption will always guarantee a certain level of conflict with the less fortunate. Terrorism is the 21st Century price we will pay for our affluence, our influence, and our meddling.”

Mr. Parrish presents as fact his assumptions. No crime in and of itself, but his assumptions (his premises) are wrong. Yes, wealth can generate envy, but not necessarily conflict. After all, America was arguably the wealthiest nation in the world in 1920 yet we faced no external terrorist or military threats. As he himself pointed out, foreign terrorism was almost non-existent in America until 9/11and the foreign wars we engaged in between 1950 until today have all been wars of our own choosing. During this time world-wide terrorism was born and engulfed a number of countries, something he points out in this very article. So his statement that being a wealthy nation generates conflict is obviously false. And we haven’t even discussed nations such as Japan, or Sweden.

And the off-hand comment about ‘outsized resource consumption’ is disingenuous. Americans do consume a great deal per-capita, and this is disproportionate to our population. It is not, however, quite so disproportionate to our productivity. In other words, while Americans use more power, wood, etc. per person than any other group of people, they also produce more goods, services, etc. per person. While it still doesn’t offset the disparity in consumption, it makes the cause-effect relationship between making and having much more clear.

More importantly, the only terrorists I know of that commit acts with the goal of ‘fighting America’s over-consumption’ are groups like Earth Now!, i.e., mainly American kids who wore Tommy Hilfiger while attending state college with federal student loans as they realized that Americans consume too much. [It should be obvious that I have little more than contempt for those who destroy the lives and livelihoods of others in the name of ‘trees’ or ‘anti-consumerism’. While environmental causes are important and protests, etc. are warranted, vandalism and terror are never warranted.]. So Mr. Parrish’s second little gem there is as hollow as his first.

Next is his contention that our ‘affluence, influence, and meddling’ must result in our being the target of terrorism. I’ve already discussed the mistaken idea that being affluent must result in being attacked. Let’s talk about influence.

First of all, ‘influence’ is a broad term. Let’s assume he means international political influence. Again, like ‘wealth’, above, I don’t think this holds water. Even during the Cold War, when America’s political influence was matched against the Soviet Union, Mr. Parrish states we had no terrorist attacks in America (other than domestic). We supported Israel more fully then, we influenced and ‘meddled’ in world affairs more often, more aggressively, and with more drastic results.

Don’t mistake me; I do believe that America was and will continue to be attacked because of her influence, politics, and actions in international politics. I just don’t think that it is the fact of being influential that makes America a target. It is the fact that America is opposed to Islamo-fascism.

An Islamic commentator recently stated (I paraphrase) ‘almost all Muslims are not terrorists. But almost all terrorists are Muslims’. I will state this clearly as my own opinion – Islamic culture stands in opposition to Western culture in general and American culture in particular. This is stated most explicitly by al-Qaeda, who use the work In the Shade of the Qu’ran as the basis for their ideology. In this work the Islamic theologian Sayed Qatb argues that the separation of church and state leads inexorably toward an immoral government/state that actively corrupts those that live within it. Therefore, those within this ungodly state are corrupt, as well. Qatb’s works (especially his Milestones) have been the ideological sources of terrorist groups almost since he wrote them in the ‘50’s.

Let me be more clear. Qatb regarded Western Civilization with revulsion. Our religions are seen as Ignorance, our customs as corrupt, and our political ideals as evil. Groups such as Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, etc., also view us the same way. If we were become completely isolationist and self-sufficient we would still be viewed as inherently corrupt, inherently evil, and by our very nature a threat to be destroyed. This is forgotten at great peril. We are not in a situation where if we just do the right thing, pass the right law, and appease the right people it ‘goes away’. To these groups this can only end with the destruction or serious decline of Western democracy.

So it isn’t that fact that we are influential or that we use that influence. It’s the fact that we are what we are that is causing terrorism to affect us.

Moving along, Mr. Parrish later says;

“The invasion of Iraq, and the Bush endorsement of Ariel Sharon's ongoing war on Palestinians, have done more between them than anything Al-Qaeda or its brethren could have done themselves to ensure a steady flow of new recruits for the jihad.”

I want to focus on the phrase “…Sharon’s ongoing war on Palestinians…”. I don’t know what rock Mr. Parrish has been living under since 1948, but he has a lot of company. There is an entire school of thought, more and more common on university campuses, that Israel is this terrible aggressor that is trying to eradicate the defenseless Palestinians. They speak of Israel’s ‘illegal occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank”, and the ‘atrocities’ Israeli military personnel commit.

The Palestinian councils, groups, and other leaders all admit that their goal is the destruction of Israel as a nation. The neighboring Arab states all hold that they desire or actively work for the destruction of Israel. Arab politicians have admitted for at least 40 years that the Palestinian refugees have been denied citizenship in their countries so that they may be used as a tool to destroy Israel. Arab nations push the UN resolution for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their original homes despite the fact that so such right has ever been granted to any other group of refugees in history, including under UN mandates – and Arab leaders speak openly that this right of return is to be used to destroy Israel.(By the way, when Israel tried to resettle refugees in Gaza (in other words, give them land and homes in Israel) they were forbidden to do so by the UN!). The UN defines a Palestinian refugee as anyone who lived in the region between 1946-1948 and left during the war, losing a place of residence, even if they had an apartment while the worked for the British government or Jewish businesses while a temporary worker. Even more amazingly, any descendent of a refugee is also a refugee. So the initial 914,000 refugees in 1950 is now more than 4 million people. And Arab nations will grant none of them citizenship because it would remove a weapon from their anti-Israel arsenal.*


The charter of the PLO calls specifically for the destruction of Israel. It also states that armed struggle is not a ‘tactical phase’, but the overall strategy of the destruction of Israel and that they plan to organize all education and business toward the destruction of Israel by ‘commando’ activities. Although it has been ‘amended’ to remove such language, PLO Headquarters and their official offices still proudly display the original document. All other Islamic terrorist organizations have similar charters or claims that their goal is the destruction of Israel (including al-Qaeda).
These groups, especially the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades, continue to conduct serious terror attacks on Israel. Their favored attacks are ambushes of soldiers and the use of suicide bombers to kill civilians. Suicide bombs have been detonated on buses, in markets, at hotels, and other places where civilians gather. Several Arab and Islamic organizations gift the mothers of suicide bombers with money and gifts. More than 200 Israeli civilians were killed by suicide bombers between July 2000 and May 2002 alone. Terror groups are eager to claim responsibility and speak openly of recruiting more suicide bombers (Al-Aqsa even sponsors a “Martyr’s Summer Camp” for children).

Pardon my long exposition, but doesn’t it sound like war had been declared on Israel long before Sharon was Prime Minister? Don’t get me wrong – Israel has screwed some things up and over-reacted. Palestinian civilians have been killed, including children. But the big difference is that the vast majority of Palestinian deaths caused by Israeli forces are of Palestinian combatants (about 90%) while Israelis killed by Palestinians are mainly civilians (over 80%)**. I think that the statement about “Sharon’s war on Palestinians” is disingenuous. Sharon is trying to prevent terrorists from setting off bombs in pizzerias, not carpet-bombing refugee camps. This is emotional rhetoric, not a serious attempt to explain why terrorists are killing civilians.


This leads me back to where I started; the differences in the sorts of errors made by conservatives and liberals. I think this is pretty stark in Mr. Parrish’s article. The solution to terror, it seems, lies not with terrorists, but with us. We ‘meddle’, we ‘consume too many resources’, we are ‘wealthy’. Israel’s attempts to protect itself from terrorist groups bent on destroying it is a ‘war on Palestinians’. This is pointing the finger at those being attacked by terrorists and saying ‘you are to blame’. This is akin to telling an abused woman ‘if you didn’t antagonize him, he wouldn’t hit you’.

Another telling phrase is way back in that first quote. Mr. Parrish says “The sensible course is to create fewer enemies…”. See, we created them – its our fault. There isn’t anything to do about the enemies we have, so we should try to make fewer of them in the future. Its all passive – don’t upset them, don’t have influence, don’t participate.

The bully beats you because he’s jealous. The rapist attacked you because you wore a tight sweater. Al-Qaeda killed all those Americans because we aren’t devout Muslims. Its all the same argument.










* Another interesting fact about the refugees; the total Arab population in Palestine in 1948 was about 1.2 million people. After the 1948 War of Independence about 180,000 stayed in Israel (and became Israeli citizens after the war, by the way) and about 600,000 were in areas not part of Israel. So either the refugees were composed of 200,000 couples who each had 2.5 children in 2 years, or the UN granted refugee status to a lot of non-refugees. More interestingly yet, the refugee population in 1990 was 2.4 million people. In 1995 it was listed as 3.2 million, an increase of about 6%. The birthrate at that time was only 3.2% growth. So even if we assume that no one died, left the camps, or otherwise moved beyond the status of Palestinian Refugee (meaning, living in a refugee camp), where the heck did the extra refugees come from?

** Per HonestReporting.com

Well, one of my favorite news sources these days is Fark.com, a wonderful collection of news items and unique headlines. I've been going there for about, oh, 4 years now. Since they are HUGE, you've probably heard of them. The only negative about them, in my book, are the numbers of close-minded secular humanists that frequent the message boards.
You read that right - close-minded secular humanists. An old pet peeve of mine from waaaay back, from even before I was religious.Here's the drill - there is a certain sub-set of secular humanists that are actively antagonistic toward religion and the religious. They tend to self-identify in one or more of the following ways; 1) they are aggressive in labelling themselves atheists (i.e., you don't need to ask); 2) they are adamant that they are not agnostic; 3) they are Objectivists with a capital 'O'; they identify themselves as anarcho-capitalists (a real oxymoron).
These sorts tend to have a train of thought that leads them to a certain level of blindness, a place where they are incapable of objective thought. Here's how it generally goes. A: there is no objective evidence for the existence of a supernatural deity. B: therefore, there is no logical way to believe in a god, gods, or any form of deity-related religion. So far, we're OK - its the next couple that get weird. C: therefore, anyone who believes in god, gods, or follows a deity-based religion is doing so for non-logical reasons. D: therefore, such people are incapable of thinking rationally. E: therefore, their ideas are inherently irrational and , thus, dangerous.
There aren't many people that follow this train full-blown (although more than you think). But there are a lot of people who go down this path quite some way before stopping. This path is more dangerous than you think because it means that the holders of such ideas use the rationale that they are more objective than others to reject ideas, concepts, and arguments without objectively examining them. In other words, their belief in their own inherent intellectual superiority traps them in to the logical fallacy of circular reasoning. Never good.
The place I run into this mental block most often is the debate over fetal stem cell research. Most 'rational, objective' atheists I run into have baldly told me 'you just think that because your superstitious beliefs prevent you from thinking for yourself' (a direct quote). They then do not address my key point; thus far adult stem cell treatments have been dramatically more successful than any fetal stem cell research. The results that fetal stem cell researchers hint may be years or decades away is already being acheived with so-called 'alternate' adult stem cell work.
In other words, my argument is that the use of fetal stem cells isn't warranted; most of the work with fetal stem cells have been a total failure, many of the 'successes' have been marginal improvements in treatments that still ultimately fail, and the moral issues are a quagmire. Why not focus on adult stem cell research, where the results continue to be amazing? (for more on this, start with http://rossolson.org/bioethics/stem_cell.html).
When I re-tried this argument, the result was, again, a rant against religion even though my statements were as utilitarian as his.
Go to any big forum online where such issues as abortion, stem-cells, politics, etc. are debated and you can see this same error in many degrees; "if you are religious, you cannot think". Watch for it. I have a friend from college who is firmly opposed to abortion. She is an atheist who feels that Aristotlean logic leads to the conclusion that abortion is immoral. She was booted out of her college Objectivist group because of her 'irrational adherence to religious concepts' before she could explain her logic. In her opinion, the others in the group assumed that if she agreed with the stance of religious people, her position could not be rational for any reason.
One of the people that I argued with about this is the person who calls himself Roman Piso. Google for this guy; he's hilarious. He insists that all ancient writings (up to, oh, about 1400) and a large number of modern works were forged by a single ruling group, all inter-related and, effectively, from one family. The Old Testament, the New Testament, the works of Pliny, Homer, Josephus, Tacitus, Julius Caesar - all faked. This family further totally dominates all religions and governments. The Caesars, the Holy Roman Emperors, the Popes, the Kings of Europe - all puppets to the secret masters, the Pisos. All source materials are faked, but he has learned to see through all the lies, all the obfuscations. By carefully understanding which words are true and which are fake, which are encoded and by whom and when, and by understanding how they worked, and (most importantly) by being one of the rare few who are smarter than some of the greatest minds that have ever trod the Earth, this man has revelaed the truth. Every other critic, historian, and archaeologist is a fool, a babbling moron beside Roman Piso. His proof? not one of these "experts" agrees with him.
His thinking is not so far removed from some Objectivists, I think.

Time to get back on the horse and discuss Deep Issues. Tally ho!


This time out - the recent statement by the Vatican on Feminism and its aftermath.
(I love the word 'aftermath' - implies something "went down", doesn't it?)

Cardinal Ratzinger (head of the Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith) said in this 37 page pamphlet that makes a number of points. One of the most critical is that governments should focus on helping working women so that they do not have to choose between families or careers. The document also criticizes attempts to create an adversarial relationship between men and women, discusses the importance of women within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, and decries the treatment of the work of women in the home as 'less important or less valuable than the work of women outside the home.

These points seem to be, if not well-received, 'under the radar'. The ones that cause real reaction are the statements on post-modern attempts to deconstruct gender. Cardinal Ratzinger challenges such attempts head-on as attempts to deny reality in the form of biology. Men and women are different in their essential nature and such ideas as 'male' and 'female' are not merely constructs of society and conditioning. Ratzinger argues that attempts by ideological feminists to state otherwise will have far reaching negative effects, some of which we are already seeing in assaults on the concept of family and marriage.

This document calso clearly condemns the subjugation of women and calls for a collaboration between men and women.

While I thought it was a very interesting work, where the core concepts of feminist thought (male and female equality; freedom for women to work; the valuation of women's work in the home; no sugjugation of women; etc.) are supported but the excesses of post-modern thought are discarded (as they should be). But here are some sample headlines concerning this document; 'Vatican letter denounces 'lethal effect' of feminism' (Washington Post); 'Vatian Fears Feminism Threatens Families' (ABCNews.com); 'Vatican Fears Effects of Feminism' (AJC). Many of these articles parrot one another as they mention the same things that i do; the core concepts of feminism are supported, but radical attempts to create adversarial relationships or to erase the biological differences between the sexes are condemned.

On NPR I heard a commentator state that (I paraphrase) "...women met the document with irritation or amusement...". But there seem to be quite a few who support it (check the forums at catholic.com, or any Baptist, Evangelical, etc. web site for the responses of women).As a matter of fact, some prominents Protestant speakers have thrown their support behind the document (although they shy away from 'that Mary stuff').

All in all, I think that we have two things going on in the media. First, they use misleading headlines. The Vatican doesn't 'fear' anything directly, they are concerned with the possible impact of certain ideologies on society. More importantly, the majority of the document supports equal rights for women. This reflects a long-standing dedication from John Paul II and the Magisterium to support and champion women. JP II has issued dozens of papers, encyclicals, and pamphlets support equal pay, equal treatment, and freedom from oppression for women. Most of the 'experts' quoted in the article either say that the document is no big deal or they point out the support to women that JP II has always given. The only real critical voice is Francis Kissling, and anti-Catolic media hound, and a professor that worries that it will be misused.

In short, a non-controversy blown up into one.

Well, it hasn't been that long, has it?

SEVEN MONTHS!?!

Well, time to get back to work.

Many things have changed; I now live in Atlanta. I no longer go to school. I now sell cars (Nissans, actually). I still struggle with money, but I just got promoted and things look really, really good for the first time since my brain melted. I haven't had a mood swing, headache, or fuzzy period in over 5 months!! I had my van repo'ed (voluntary turn-in), but get a car as part of my job (whew!). I like both where I work and whom I work for (both very nice changes).

Best of all, I like what I'm doing for a living.

Since I was about 16 years old people have been telling me I should be a salesman. And I did sell things; I'd by charm pops for 8 cents each in bulk from a wholesaler who knew me and resell them on the middle school and elementary school buses for 25 cents each. With about 100 per box, 24 boxes per case and selling a case every 2 weeks I was $432 in my poacket every month after I bought the next month's cases. That kept me fed and clothed my Senior year in high school. It also meant that I made, effectively, $20/hour. Not too bad.

But somehow I always felt like I wasn't quite ready to be a salesman. Looking back, I may have unconsciously known about the aneurysm, or at lest known that something wasn't quite right. I somehow knew that it would be a struggle.

Now, though, I love it. Meeting people, getting to know them, fulfilling their needs - its great! I enjoy every day at work.

Well, back to it!

OK, OK, its been far too long since I pulled something out of my psyche to write about.

I've been busy. 20 credit semester, 45+ hour work week, 4 kids under the age of 7, and an attempt at a burgeoning writing career.

I like to think that not blogging for a time is the least if my worries.

After months of debate about how to support myself as I turn pro writer (Back into computers? Sales? Consulting?) we've decided something radical.

We're going to try writing.

By that, I mean I have a 'good enogh' job now to get by. I'll start hitting agencies that specialize in placing writers with temp jobs, like manuals and sales copy, to pick up some extra cash and, hopefully, get me into a job where I write for a regular paycheck during the day and for the irregular royalty at home.

We'll see. In the meantime, tho', its good to be blogging.

I've been trying to write a post about an Army cadence for about 40 minutes, but accidents keep mappening and wiping my text, so I'll take the hint and cut straight to my point.

The U.S. Army is getting fucked over by George w. Bush.

Now, Bush's dad and Dick Cheney fucked the Army over before. I know, I was there. Multiple deployments, usually during the Winter Holidays, to real nasty places to fight wars that didn't really directly affect us (remember when we invaded a sovereign nation to arrest its president because we didn't like him?). Ronald Reagan had cut the pensions of military retirees and George sr. and Dick cut things like recreation centers (do you know what there is to do in the middle of the Mojave? Nothing), improvements to the housing of enlisted men, etc. Then, right after the first Gulf War, they cut the size of the army - mainly by changing the rules to force out soldiers before they could retire. This was mainly done by a) making it very difficult to get promotions and b) requiring those promotions before you could retire.

Then Cheney had the gall to tell the military 'help is on the way'! Ha! When Bush sr. and Cheney were in charge my raises didn't keep pace with inflation.

Now we've got the army in Iraq again. And the war was not fought as a 'flexible force', it was fought on the cheap. It costs more money to ship tanks, so ship fewer tanks seems to be the real philosophy behind the force structure. Why do you want tanks? Its harder to kill guys in tanks. If the forces in Iraq for Iraq 2: Electric Boogaloo had been a standard mix, casualties would have been lighter and the operations wouldn't have taken any longer (remember how forces had to 'maneuver into position' - that was CYA talk for 'mass enough force to fight'. Tanks would have been as fast).

Another idiot move made to save money was the whole 'shock and awe' idea. "We'll scare them into quitting!" said the 'experts'. I was an intelligence spook in a tactical spook unit for over 6 years - when I heard the 'shock and awe' concept years before GWII:EB, I laughed. A buddy of mine named Scotty said it best, "There's a name for big explosions in the air that don't damage targets, and that name is 'fireworks'." The idea that the leaders would surrender in the face of no damage was discounted by military officers from the beginning.

Until, of course, Rumsfeld and Wolf O' Wits decided it was cool. Rumsfeld, by the way, never served in the military (although he was a councilor to Nixon). Wolfowitz, another hawk, also never wore a uniform nor carried a rifle. Both are flat-out eager to send others to die, however.

These two men, with only academic knowledge of combat, predicted that grateful Iraqis would welcome us with open arms ans we strolled into a Baghdad filled with cowering leaders so overwhelmed by airbursts that they were too afraid to fight.

Ah, well. In the business world, they'd be fired. In the military world, they'd be removed from command. In Washington, they're "leaders".

So now our soldiers sit in Iraq. Suicide bombers detonate themselves in the midst of kids from Iowa. Guys from Maine and Kentucky and Arizona are shot in the head while buying a coke on a hot day. Men who married their high school sweethearts haven't seen their wives, or their children, for six, nine, sometimes twelve months. Women with young children haven't held them or kissed them for just as long. All are watching Iraqis and wondering which one is going to try to kill them.

Try to imagine that. You just fought your way into Iraq. You are far from home. And every day someone might kill you while you are eating, or sleeping, or taking a leak, or talking to your friend. Back home, when a reporter asks the president about the danger you are in, he replies 'Bring 'em on". He's 7 time zones away. No one is shooting at him. His best friend wasn't turned into a stain and a pair of dogtags by a suicide bomber yesterday. He sees his wife and his kids every day. He sleeps in a bed, and eats three hot meals, and takes a shower every day. He doesn't have to wait in line for three hours (wondering if he's going to get killed) to call his mother for 5 minutes on her birthday.

Some of these soldiers have no mission anymore - there is literally nothing for them to do except risk death. They aren't being brought home. Rumsfeld has said that the units there will stay there 'because they are experienced'. They are also tired and emotionally exhausted. They have been misled about when they are coming home so many times they don't trust their leaders anymore (of course, their leaders were lied to - excuse me, 'misled' - all the way up).

You know what I think the reason is that these soldiers aren't being rotated? It costs money to swap troops. By leaving these tired, drained soldiers in Iraq the DoD can save some cash. Of course, many of the soldiers (those that live) will change their minds and not re-enlist - the lies, fear, and separation will make sure of that. So new, inexperienced people will be needed. Good thing the economy is bad; in bad times its easier to replace troops since people gotta' eat.

Of course, there is another danger. Tired troops can make mistakes. Scared troops can make mistakes. Emotionally exhausted troops can make mistakes. As time goes on, they may start to hate the Iraqis, seeing them as both the source of their fear (death) and the reason they are far from home (the war). If we leave these same troops over there long enough in bad enough conditions with no end in sight, every day increases the chance that someone will overreact and commit an atrocity like firing on a crowd of civilians, or using a grenade to 'clear a room' full of kids. With the level of training, leadership, and just plain old quality of modern American soldiers this is very unlikely. But if it does happen, they'll be left out to dry and Runsfeld will have something grave and statesman-like to say about it.

"Help is on the way" indeed.

See, that's why I dislike personal comments of too much immediacy on a blog. A brief crisis of faith in the plan I have adopted, a bit of anxiety mixed with too little sleep and viola! A lousy post.

BTW, I'm fine and the job wasn't nearly the Big Deal I made it. I just wanted to work with some old friends I don't see nearly enough.

Man o' man. When I first conceived of Deep Thought I hoped to keep it impersonal for as long as possible. I mean, talking about yourself is neither deep nor profound unless you can illustrate the general human condition in reference to your own.

Of course, bloggers are always in it, ultimately, for themselves. As ,uch as some may rant that they are making "art" or that they are being "profound" (actually, the tendency of bloggers to take themselves far too seriously is where the name Deep Thought came from), in the end we are talking into the dark because we fear that no one wants to listen and yet hope that we are wrong....

Of course, I am dodging the issue. I started this blog for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is exorcising my own personal demons (and a big shout out to Sarah Hatter, Reverse Cowgirl, Blogdaddy, and, of course, Hjalmer).

My blog has so far covered a great many things that I really think and talk about; politics, economics, and (the big one) theology. But I have been omitting a great deal else, the fear, and the anger, and the confusion, and the joy, and love, and laughter; in other words, the human parts.

But it is harder for me to shout my emotions into the dark, because I am afraid the dark is listening. I was essentially mentally ill for a long, long time and I am afraid of what I feel to this day. It might be alien, it might be other, it might be not-me. Even knowing that the aneurysm that was short-circuiting my skull is gone, I know that my recovery is still going on. ad i fear that I might never be 'better'.

The scary part is, though - how do I tell if I'm crazy? If that gush of blood that oh-so-nearly crushed me damaged my brain permanently, how can I tell? If my emotional responses are off by 5 or 6 degrees, who can tell?

I hate this, I hate this, I hate this! Every question brings a pause as I wonder, every one of my answers is weighed and weighed again. My wife tells me that I sometimes don't answer the question that people ask me, I answer something else. I don't think so, I think that I understood it better than she did. But, what is she's right? What if the more certain I am, the more egregious the error? The Heisenberg Uncertainty Conversation.

Of course, it could be stress. A wife, four young children, no job, no home of my own, a full-time course load at college, trying to keep it together, and always wondering, wondering. Am I unemployed because the economy is bad, or because I can't get a job anymore? Or is it that people can sense the hesitancy, the not-like-me lack of confidence?

And that is the worst, isn't it? what if i am so busy wondering if I am really acting like me that I do not have time to act like me? What if i have made myself the new Sisyphus, always pushing the boulder of Self up the hill of Self-Doubt?

No time, no time. I must away and try to earn my bread.

Sweet heavens, I am wound tight. I have two tests today (one finished and one to go), but that's not it. No, I really, really want this job I applied for, and I don't think I'm going to get it. I applied Sunday night and the job posting was gone Monday afternoon. I am really qualified for the job, and I know people at the company, but I am just convinced that I won't get it. This is mainly because I have been trying to get hired into this same company for almost 4.5 years and its never worked out.

But I hope it does. Jen and I are down to about $850 and have no hope for more other than a job, and soon.

Enough about me, though.

I'll post more later, after my next test.

Well, even more evidence that Western civilization in general and American civilization in particular is corroding in an inexorable slide into collapse.

Over the Fourth of July weekend there was a "boat rage" incident on Lake Minnetonka. For those of you who don't live in the Twin Cities Metro Area, Lake Minnetonka is a rather large lake in the eastern suburbs famous (or infamous, as you prefer) for the price of the homes on its shores (some are worth tens of millions) and the hauteur of many of those who boat there. Lake Minnetonka has many coves and bays and this incident occured in one of them.

Well, this weekend a boat seems to have either bumped another boat or rocked it with 'excess wake', causing the man in the receiving boat to lose his temper. Shortly thereafter, the man in the boat that did the bumping threw the other fellow in the lake - and drove his boat (including outboard) over him. The man thrown in the water is probably dead.

I hear you now, "Probably, Deep Thought? Aren't you sure?" No, no one is sure he's dead, and that is a more terrifying story than the one about how he probably died. A much more terrifying story.

You see, within a few moment sherrif's boats with deputies arrived to clear the area and get divers in the water to search for the missing boater. Eventually there were 35 deputies in 9 boats screaming through bullhorns to clear the area so the divers could start looking. Here's the beginning of the scary part - no one moved their boat. Nobody. A man is probably dead in the water, but maybe injured and needing help, and no one moves their boat to allow the police to try to find him.

Here's the scarier part - they didn't want to move becaue they were afraid they'd lose their prime 'fireworks watching' spots in the cove. That's right, the motivating force behind all of these people ignoring the police as they perhaps left an injured man to drown (and at least left his dead body in the water) was a fear that they wouldn't have a prime view of the upcoming fireworks.

And the scary finish to this story is the added fact that the police had great difficulty in getting statements about what happened from the eyewitnesses. Now, were they afraid of the man who probably killed a fellow boater? No. Were they ashamed of their callous disregard of the welfare of another human being? No. You see, the police were taking their statments during the fireworks show and people didn't want to "ruin their fourth" by giving the police a statement about the murder they witnessed instead of watching the fireworks. Other witnesses left immediately after the fireworks show despite the pleas of police to make a statement. Despite this, enough evidence was gained that two people are in custody and the investigation continues.

Let's sum up - in Minnesota, a place that prides itself on being friendly, a man is hurled from a boat and probably killed and the many observers refuse to either make room for divers to either save the man or retrieve his body or make statements as to what they saw because they wanted a good view of the fireworks.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I bet a lot of the people there got a little misty-eyed when they heard the National Anthem on the 4th of July. I bet many more of them get teary when they saw Bruce Willis' speech in the movie Armageddon. And I bet a whole lot of 'em get upset about the Holocaust and wonder how Germans could just stand by while 12 million people were purposefully executed in gas chambers.

Newsflash! Many of those Germans didn't want to get arrested, too. And some didn't want to risk losing that really good job they finally had. Or the nice house, social connections, whatever. Essentially, they didn't want to risk losing their place for the really good show.

If you think I am being too harsh in drawing a comparison between the boaters who wouldn't move and complacent Germans under the Nazi regime, let me respond with this; The boaters are probably far worse than the majority of WWII-era average-joe Germans were. Most Germans were just careful not to connect the dots; they didn't turn and look full-on at the truth. These boaters knew the truth and turned their back on a man's life and probable death. They weighed a man's fate against a fireworks display and found compassion wanting. They compared letting another man's family know whether their husband and father were alive or dead with their own family's opportunity for a really good view of fireworks and decided in favor of the red starclusters.

One of my first posts was about the separation of compassion from the rest of our lives and how this is a sign of moral corrosion. My example then was how the Nazi high command could order the Final Solution one day and cry at the opera the next. I am afraid that this is a new example, a new indicator that many members of society are placing empathy for their fellow humans in a box that is only opened for movies and family reunions.

And in the end, what is civilization but formalized empathy for others?

I should be sleeping. But I'm not.