Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: I’m back . . . .
12-19-09
I’m back. Back from the brink, back from almost being an ex-human, at best a Zombie and at worst some nameless corpse lying in St James Infirmary.
Having read my daughters less-than-respectful announcement concerning my recent run of bad luck, I wish to set the record straight.
I was in fact kidnapped, and whisked to the Planet Zorg where I was tortured by mean Zorgians who ride T-Rex’s bare-back—that’s how mean they are.
The Zorgians, having coalesced into doctors, nurses and relatives, will be getting theirs. That’s all I have to say about that.
A quick update will have to suffice for the moment since being conscious for more than a 5 minute stretch brings on bouts of coughing violent enough to have created the word “lunger.”
It was the worst and best experience I have ever had. The worst because I almost died, and the best because I didn’t.
I am learning about muscles I didn’t know I had, all of which I apparently abused during my enforced incarceration. I am learning what “weak as a kitten” means. Our kitten, Frankie, routinely beats me not only at fly-batting now, but chess and Monopoly as well.
I believe I am learning the things this experience is meant to be teaching me. This is good and bad news for some of you. Good in that I am still teachable, bad in that I will be coming to some of your houses to pass along messages from the other side.
I am going to keep a journal for the next 6 months or so, and then maybe write a book, which I will call The Heart Attack. So keep those coupons if you prayed for me; they can be redeemed for a free copy.
One quick anecdote. (I was in a coma for about five days, so this comes from my daughter, Jessica.)
At some point—which she counts as blessed because it was the first time I looked up and recognized anyone—I asked her if she had any idea how many people were praying for me. She told me no, how many?
“About a hundred million,” I apparently answered. I laughed with everyone else when she told us the story, but now that I’ve had time to think about it, I believe my estimate was correct. I felt them. All my ancestors were helping, and all the people on this side as well.
There is a wonderful funeral scene in The Thirteenth Warrior where a woman is chanting her husband’s death.
“Lo, there do I see my Father,” she intones as she is raised above the waiting bier.
“Lo, there do I see my Mother.”
“Lo, there do I see my brothers and my sisters and the line of my people back to the beginning. They call to me, and bid me join them in Valhalla.”
That’s what it felt like to have the powers of Heaven called down and my spirit told to stay, it was not my time. Like it was all of them.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
IGM Nobel Prize
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Nobel Prize
10-09-09
Which do we suppose was more inevitable? That the President would win the Nobel Peace Prize, or that I would comment on it? (Actually, I don’t think there are levels of inevitability—a thing either is or isn’t.) The Nobel committee is an autonomous organization and is free to choose anyone they want for any prize they want to award. As unbelievable as it is, they do not consult with me on these matters. Obama is the third President to be so honored, but the others had managed to do something first. Even the President’s supporters are stumped as to the choice, stumbling over themselves to let us know that it is the great hope and promise for a better, more peaceful world for which the President was selected. Jimmy Carter, another winner, came out first thing this morning to assure us all that it is the hope Obama engenders that makes him such a good candidate. Lech Walesa, another winner (for being instrumental in freeing Poland and the Eastern Bloc—an actual achievement) made a statement this morning saying that the prize for Obama was premature.
It would be possible, without a great deal of effort, to be critical of this choice. I would never do such a thing, but others are piling it on with gusto. But if I had known that all you had to do was talk about doing great things, make promises about doing great things, I would have been vying for the Prize years ago. Watch: “I hereby promise to do everything in my power and spend every waking minute (unless I’m playing basketball or vacationing or pitching Chicago for the Olympics or campaigning for re-election, etc.,) to make the world a better, more peaceful place . . . oh, and do away with all nuclear weapons.” There, now can I have my $250,000? C’mon, I promised! What more do you want?
This sounds a lot like some of my students who want to know why they are failing.
“Because you have an F on all your assignments,” I tell them.
“But I did them all! I should be passing!” Or; “because you haven’t done any assignments.” “but I come to class every day!”
This is the new idea of awarding potential rather than actual work in order to protect the sacrosanct concept of “self-esteem”. I guess Norway has jumped onboard.
Remember the good old days when merit was based on achievement? Boy, I miss all that.
If the Nobel Committee wanted to award a Peace Prize to someone, they should pick a person with a lifetime of commitment, effort, success, and achievement. I nominate Joan Baez. She has been consistently speaking out for peace and non-violence for fifty years, giving hundred of concerts as fund raisers, visiting the oppressed—sometimes at great personal risk—and enduring the ire of her fellow activists when she goes off-reservation in order to remain consistent with her principles. She is far more eligible than the President.
Obama has been President for nine months. So far he has managed to build an international cult of personality, and spend a gazillion virtual dollars. He talks a good game. And he has made a lot of grandiose promises about hope and change. But so far, he hasn’t actually accomplished anything noteworthy. (Unless you count that cool photo op with Air Force One over New York City or losing the bid for the Olympics.) I hope he accomplishes great things for this country, I really do. But I agree with Lech; this award is premature.
BTW---The deadline for nominations was last February, which means Obama had been President for less than a month when he was nominated. Go figure.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Nobel Prize
10-09-09
Which do we suppose was more inevitable? That the President would win the Nobel Peace Prize, or that I would comment on it? (Actually, I don’t think there are levels of inevitability—a thing either is or isn’t.) The Nobel committee is an autonomous organization and is free to choose anyone they want for any prize they want to award. As unbelievable as it is, they do not consult with me on these matters. Obama is the third President to be so honored, but the others had managed to do something first. Even the President’s supporters are stumped as to the choice, stumbling over themselves to let us know that it is the great hope and promise for a better, more peaceful world for which the President was selected. Jimmy Carter, another winner, came out first thing this morning to assure us all that it is the hope Obama engenders that makes him such a good candidate. Lech Walesa, another winner (for being instrumental in freeing Poland and the Eastern Bloc—an actual achievement) made a statement this morning saying that the prize for Obama was premature.
It would be possible, without a great deal of effort, to be critical of this choice. I would never do such a thing, but others are piling it on with gusto. But if I had known that all you had to do was talk about doing great things, make promises about doing great things, I would have been vying for the Prize years ago. Watch: “I hereby promise to do everything in my power and spend every waking minute (unless I’m playing basketball or vacationing or pitching Chicago for the Olympics or campaigning for re-election, etc.,) to make the world a better, more peaceful place . . . oh, and do away with all nuclear weapons.” There, now can I have my $250,000? C’mon, I promised! What more do you want?
This sounds a lot like some of my students who want to know why they are failing.
“Because you have an F on all your assignments,” I tell them.
“But I did them all! I should be passing!” Or; “because you haven’t done any assignments.” “but I come to class every day!”
This is the new idea of awarding potential rather than actual work in order to protect the sacrosanct concept of “self-esteem”. I guess Norway has jumped onboard.
Remember the good old days when merit was based on achievement? Boy, I miss all that.
If the Nobel Committee wanted to award a Peace Prize to someone, they should pick a person with a lifetime of commitment, effort, success, and achievement. I nominate Joan Baez. She has been consistently speaking out for peace and non-violence for fifty years, giving hundred of concerts as fund raisers, visiting the oppressed—sometimes at great personal risk—and enduring the ire of her fellow activists when she goes off-reservation in order to remain consistent with her principles. She is far more eligible than the President.
Obama has been President for nine months. So far he has managed to build an international cult of personality, and spend a gazillion virtual dollars. He talks a good game. And he has made a lot of grandiose promises about hope and change. But so far, he hasn’t actually accomplished anything noteworthy. (Unless you count that cool photo op with Air Force One over New York City or losing the bid for the Olympics.) I hope he accomplishes great things for this country, I really do. But I agree with Lech; this award is premature.
BTW---The deadline for nominations was last February, which means Obama had been President for less than a month when he was nominated. Go figure.
IGM: Brilliant Idea
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Brilliant Plan
10-09-09
I was having a conversation with a colleague (who will remain nameless in order to avoid prosecution) the other day. She (or he!) mentioned something a friend’s teacher-father told her/him years ago. The teacher thought if all the teachers at a school could choose five students and “take them out” at the beginning of the year, he thought he might be able to endure an entire career of facing adolescents.
Hmmmmmm . . . I think there might be some merit to this tongue-in-cheek fantasy. Let us reason together:
Let’s say we waited until the official count in September and then had a day during which every teacher could submit five names of problem children to be removed. Three weeks would be plenty of time to ascertain existing and potential problems. We could all have a two or three-tiered list of five kids each. If two or more teachers submitted the same name, that kid would be snatched and we would be allowed to submit another student from the next tier. Say we had 80 teachers. That would be 400 students; ostensibly the worst discipline problems in the building. Class sizes would be reduced and leveling would be simpler. Time and money spent on discipline and all its attendant challenges would plummet. The consumption of anti-depressants, anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic drugs would be drastically reduced, turn over would go down . . . there’s no down-side! Think of the money we’d save.
I suppose we don’t have to actually shoot them. We could expel them for the year and let them try again next year. Oh, and this might be effective; anyone sent home during the “Teacher day of Deliverance” would be expected to pay tuition from then on, having abrogated their right to a free education due to inappropriate and unacceptable behavioral issues. Whatever the Community College is charging should suffice. Now, all you teachers out there sit back and relax, close your eyes for a moment and think about that handful of students who are causing you such pain and misery. Imagine them gone, the class quiet and reasonably well behaved, learning taking place. Would not, in this one case, the end justify the means?
Okay, open your eyes again. Welcome back to reality.
This message was brought to you by Prozac—the “teachers choice.”
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Brilliant Plan
10-09-09
I was having a conversation with a colleague (who will remain nameless in order to avoid prosecution) the other day. She (or he!) mentioned something a friend’s teacher-father told her/him years ago. The teacher thought if all the teachers at a school could choose five students and “take them out” at the beginning of the year, he thought he might be able to endure an entire career of facing adolescents.
Hmmmmmm . . . I think there might be some merit to this tongue-in-cheek fantasy. Let us reason together:
Let’s say we waited until the official count in September and then had a day during which every teacher could submit five names of problem children to be removed. Three weeks would be plenty of time to ascertain existing and potential problems. We could all have a two or three-tiered list of five kids each. If two or more teachers submitted the same name, that kid would be snatched and we would be allowed to submit another student from the next tier. Say we had 80 teachers. That would be 400 students; ostensibly the worst discipline problems in the building. Class sizes would be reduced and leveling would be simpler. Time and money spent on discipline and all its attendant challenges would plummet. The consumption of anti-depressants, anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic drugs would be drastically reduced, turn over would go down . . . there’s no down-side! Think of the money we’d save.
I suppose we don’t have to actually shoot them. We could expel them for the year and let them try again next year. Oh, and this might be effective; anyone sent home during the “Teacher day of Deliverance” would be expected to pay tuition from then on, having abrogated their right to a free education due to inappropriate and unacceptable behavioral issues. Whatever the Community College is charging should suffice. Now, all you teachers out there sit back and relax, close your eyes for a moment and think about that handful of students who are causing you such pain and misery. Imagine them gone, the class quiet and reasonably well behaved, learning taking place. Would not, in this one case, the end justify the means?
Okay, open your eyes again. Welcome back to reality.
This message was brought to you by Prozac—the “teachers choice.”
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Igm Bid for the Olympics
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: The bid for the Olympics
10-06-09
Well, President Obama did his best. He flew Air Force One (along with the two Air Force heavy-lifters, a dozen automobiles, a few helicopters and about a hundred people) over to Denmark in order to show the IOC how serious we all were about getting Chicago into the games. That’s what we all wanted, right? Actually, I didn’t even know Chicago was in the running so I may not have been as enthusiastic as the President might have hoped.
There has been some talk—criticism even, if you can believe it—about whether or not stumping for an Olympic bid is worthy of his time and attention. Nonsense. What else has he got to do? Health Care is tanking, he’s ignoring Afghanistan, and Michelle apparently has all the clothes and hamburgers she needs. So by all means, why not make a bid for a City—not the country mind you, just one of its cities.
But here’s the unbelievable part; he didn’t get it. The leader of the free world flies his (admittedly impressive) entourage all the way to Copenhagen, talks to hundreds of people, wines and dines them, explains why he should get things his way, and after all that, he loses.
Here’s what I think happened, and I assumed it would pan out this way the moment I heard what he was doing. The President goes out of his way to curry favor with the IOC, lending the prestige of his office and his personal cache to the effort. This had to be seen as a blatant attempt to pressure the committee into doing his bidding, and would inevitably become a pissing contest. The IOC had to save face, show the world in no uncertain terms that it was not the toady of the United States. The moment Obama paid any attention to the selection process, Chicago was doomed. It was the worst thing he could have done for the effort, and I’m surprised no one mentioned this at the time. It was poorly conceived and poorly executed. At this point a lesser person would make some kind of cheap shot about this kind of thing becoming a trend with this administration, but not me. It’s a tough job requiring high levels of skill, intelligence, wisdom and experience. I’m sure the President will develop these traits eventually.
Still, I can see how it would be tempting to go to bat for one’s home town, or even adopted hometown. There is a certain amount of pride involved, and I have to ask myself the question; if I were President would I do the same for Las Vegas, which is where I was born? And I have to be honest. The answer is no, absolutely not. Such a stunt would be unseemly and distracting, especially in the midst of war, severe economic challenges and domestic debates of national importance.
To: All personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: The bid for the Olympics
10-06-09
Well, President Obama did his best. He flew Air Force One (along with the two Air Force heavy-lifters, a dozen automobiles, a few helicopters and about a hundred people) over to Denmark in order to show the IOC how serious we all were about getting Chicago into the games. That’s what we all wanted, right? Actually, I didn’t even know Chicago was in the running so I may not have been as enthusiastic as the President might have hoped.
There has been some talk—criticism even, if you can believe it—about whether or not stumping for an Olympic bid is worthy of his time and attention. Nonsense. What else has he got to do? Health Care is tanking, he’s ignoring Afghanistan, and Michelle apparently has all the clothes and hamburgers she needs. So by all means, why not make a bid for a City—not the country mind you, just one of its cities.
But here’s the unbelievable part; he didn’t get it. The leader of the free world flies his (admittedly impressive) entourage all the way to Copenhagen, talks to hundreds of people, wines and dines them, explains why he should get things his way, and after all that, he loses.
Here’s what I think happened, and I assumed it would pan out this way the moment I heard what he was doing. The President goes out of his way to curry favor with the IOC, lending the prestige of his office and his personal cache to the effort. This had to be seen as a blatant attempt to pressure the committee into doing his bidding, and would inevitably become a pissing contest. The IOC had to save face, show the world in no uncertain terms that it was not the toady of the United States. The moment Obama paid any attention to the selection process, Chicago was doomed. It was the worst thing he could have done for the effort, and I’m surprised no one mentioned this at the time. It was poorly conceived and poorly executed. At this point a lesser person would make some kind of cheap shot about this kind of thing becoming a trend with this administration, but not me. It’s a tough job requiring high levels of skill, intelligence, wisdom and experience. I’m sure the President will develop these traits eventually.
Still, I can see how it would be tempting to go to bat for one’s home town, or even adopted hometown. There is a certain amount of pride involved, and I have to ask myself the question; if I were President would I do the same for Las Vegas, which is where I was born? And I have to be honest. The answer is no, absolutely not. Such a stunt would be unseemly and distracting, especially in the midst of war, severe economic challenges and domestic debates of national importance.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
IGM Carbon Credits
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Carbon Credits
9-22-09
Something a friend said to me the other day has me thinking. He had his tongue planted firmly in his cheek, but came up with the germ of a brilliant idea having to do with carbon credits and the Cap and Trade plan which is coming down on us like a vengeful but “ultimately helpful” super-volcanic eruption.
He mentioned that he drives motorcycles mostly. A nice BMW touring bike and an ancient, restored Russian Military bike with a sidecar, also a BMW, I think. He gets, compared to most of us, really, really good mileage. In fact he told me the Russian bike is so old and underpowered, it doesn’t have a speedometer, it has a day-planner. (Ba-da-bing) He wanted to know why he couldn’t trade or sell his carbon credits. Good question. Why can’t he?
Folks, this is a ground-floor opportunity. Right now, there are no laws, guidelines or regulations concerning Cap and Trade and-or carbon credits. A lot of people probably have them and don’t realize it. Nita and I are big recyclers, and aggressive energy-efficiency czars in our own home. (I know, what a shock to learn that the conservative fascist recycles and conserves. Surprise.)
In the last few years we have doubled the insulation in our ceiling, put whirly-gig vents in the roof, replaced all the windows with high-efficiency, double-paned, gas-filled ones, replaced the leaky sliding glass door with nice insulated, double-paned, gas-filled French doors, have a new, energy efficient air-conditioner, and several other things. We only flush the toilet when someone does a dookie. “If it’s yellow it’s mellow . . . if it’s brown flush it down.” That’s our motto.
And we recycle everything. Twice a week we take all our garbage, organic, plastic, paper, glass, metal, wood, all of it, and put it in special containers. A private company comes around in big trucks and picks it up for us and takes it to a special place called a “land fill” where we pay them to dump it, store it, and cover it up. This is a communal operation because we believe in community, people helping people. When we all run out of everything, we can go out there and dig it up and voila! There it is, waiting to be recycled and re-used. (Unless it was biodegradable, in which case it’ll make great compost for our survival gardens.)
We drive fairly new vehicles, which, according to our annual “Smog tests,” are very efficient and burn very cleanly, especially compared to 30 or 40 years ago. I’ve been thinking about riding roller-blades to work, but I’d have to have them on my hands and feet, and knees and elbows and hips and who-knows-where-else, which would be cost-prohibitive. Or a bike, but the only ones that would hold me up would weigh more than the Bismarck, which sort of defeats the purpose.
Anyway, I’m sure we have scads of carbon credits. Probably most people do because we’re not huge, corrupt, money-hungry corporations out to destroy the planet. But probably lots of people don’t have any as well. Some people could use a few carbon credits. Remember, under the Cap and Trade philosophy, it doesn’t matter what the total amount of carbon being produced is, it only matters that the debit-credit balance sheet comes out even. Because, c’mon, everyone knows it’s a delusional scam, right?
So we should set up some kind of bank thingie, and start trading, beat the government and the global community at their own game. And by game, I mean disingenuous, star-chamber-conspiracy, global shell-game. That kind of game.
We could trade on Craig’s List and EBay. They could start up whole new sections for us. “The People’s Community Carbon Exchange.” And since no one has a clue what a carbon credit is, or looks like, or how much it weighs or what it’s worth, we can sort of make all that stuff up. Half of us will get rich and the other half will have the satisfaction of being able to pretend they did something meaningful for the planet. It’s win-win people. (Win-Win. That reminds me of a tattoo business I made up in one of my books. The great granddaughter of Steve Wynn, Who’s name is Wynn Kerkorian, owns the shop, but the tattoos—which are printed with a retrofitted Cat Scan machine and a commercial printing head with several hundred needles in it—all computer-controlled of course—are really inimical printed circuits which destroy the world. Metallic salts . . . look it up. Anyway the name of the parlor is Wynn-Wynn Tattoos.)
The advantage of this operation should be obvious. No pesky definitions, no regulations, no permission. It’s like LSD in the sixties before they made it illegal. Or the opposite of America, circa today.
So if you need to buy or sell some carbon credits, send me an email and I will set you up. I know people. (I plan to be a broker for the fledgling empire; they get money from both ends. And, unlike the government, I can be trusted to fleece you within reason and no more.)
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Carbon Credits
9-22-09
Something a friend said to me the other day has me thinking. He had his tongue planted firmly in his cheek, but came up with the germ of a brilliant idea having to do with carbon credits and the Cap and Trade plan which is coming down on us like a vengeful but “ultimately helpful” super-volcanic eruption.
He mentioned that he drives motorcycles mostly. A nice BMW touring bike and an ancient, restored Russian Military bike with a sidecar, also a BMW, I think. He gets, compared to most of us, really, really good mileage. In fact he told me the Russian bike is so old and underpowered, it doesn’t have a speedometer, it has a day-planner. (Ba-da-bing) He wanted to know why he couldn’t trade or sell his carbon credits. Good question. Why can’t he?
Folks, this is a ground-floor opportunity. Right now, there are no laws, guidelines or regulations concerning Cap and Trade and-or carbon credits. A lot of people probably have them and don’t realize it. Nita and I are big recyclers, and aggressive energy-efficiency czars in our own home. (I know, what a shock to learn that the conservative fascist recycles and conserves. Surprise.)
In the last few years we have doubled the insulation in our ceiling, put whirly-gig vents in the roof, replaced all the windows with high-efficiency, double-paned, gas-filled ones, replaced the leaky sliding glass door with nice insulated, double-paned, gas-filled French doors, have a new, energy efficient air-conditioner, and several other things. We only flush the toilet when someone does a dookie. “If it’s yellow it’s mellow . . . if it’s brown flush it down.” That’s our motto.
And we recycle everything. Twice a week we take all our garbage, organic, plastic, paper, glass, metal, wood, all of it, and put it in special containers. A private company comes around in big trucks and picks it up for us and takes it to a special place called a “land fill” where we pay them to dump it, store it, and cover it up. This is a communal operation because we believe in community, people helping people. When we all run out of everything, we can go out there and dig it up and voila! There it is, waiting to be recycled and re-used. (Unless it was biodegradable, in which case it’ll make great compost for our survival gardens.)
We drive fairly new vehicles, which, according to our annual “Smog tests,” are very efficient and burn very cleanly, especially compared to 30 or 40 years ago. I’ve been thinking about riding roller-blades to work, but I’d have to have them on my hands and feet, and knees and elbows and hips and who-knows-where-else, which would be cost-prohibitive. Or a bike, but the only ones that would hold me up would weigh more than the Bismarck, which sort of defeats the purpose.
Anyway, I’m sure we have scads of carbon credits. Probably most people do because we’re not huge, corrupt, money-hungry corporations out to destroy the planet. But probably lots of people don’t have any as well. Some people could use a few carbon credits. Remember, under the Cap and Trade philosophy, it doesn’t matter what the total amount of carbon being produced is, it only matters that the debit-credit balance sheet comes out even. Because, c’mon, everyone knows it’s a delusional scam, right?
So we should set up some kind of bank thingie, and start trading, beat the government and the global community at their own game. And by game, I mean disingenuous, star-chamber-conspiracy, global shell-game. That kind of game.
We could trade on Craig’s List and EBay. They could start up whole new sections for us. “The People’s Community Carbon Exchange.” And since no one has a clue what a carbon credit is, or looks like, or how much it weighs or what it’s worth, we can sort of make all that stuff up. Half of us will get rich and the other half will have the satisfaction of being able to pretend they did something meaningful for the planet. It’s win-win people. (Win-Win. That reminds me of a tattoo business I made up in one of my books. The great granddaughter of Steve Wynn, Who’s name is Wynn Kerkorian, owns the shop, but the tattoos—which are printed with a retrofitted Cat Scan machine and a commercial printing head with several hundred needles in it—all computer-controlled of course—are really inimical printed circuits which destroy the world. Metallic salts . . . look it up. Anyway the name of the parlor is Wynn-Wynn Tattoos.)
The advantage of this operation should be obvious. No pesky definitions, no regulations, no permission. It’s like LSD in the sixties before they made it illegal. Or the opposite of America, circa today.
So if you need to buy or sell some carbon credits, send me an email and I will set you up. I know people. (I plan to be a broker for the fledgling empire; they get money from both ends. And, unlike the government, I can be trusted to fleece you within reason and no more.)
Sunday, September 20, 2009
IGM Interesting Quote
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Interesting Quote
9-20-09
It is Sunday afternoon and my brain just exploded because I was watching George Steponallofus interview President Obama. It was an accident—I was channel surfing. They were talking about race in politics and the President artfully side-stepped the issue, rightfully deciding that most Americans didn’t care about his race. But then it turned to Health Care Reform. George wanted to know why the President was having so much trouble with the reform
Obama seemed a little nonplussed as he answered. I can’t quote him because the transcripts won’t be out until tomorrow morning, but it went something like this:
“I’m not sure George. I think I’m making a modest proposal. I’m not suggesting any radical new programs or changes.” That’s when my brain exploded. (Don’t worry . . . I found most of the pieces and put it back together with a mixture of flour and water—I’m organic all the way. The glue will eventually disappear to be replaced by calcium carbonate, so there will be a little rigidity slipping into my thought processes, but they’re so rigid already you probably won’t notice.)
But he wasn’t done. Then he claimed that his reform wasn’t designed to add much in the way of expenditures.
Here’s the thing. I was paying attention, watching his body language. He was absolutely sincere. He really believes these proposals are “modest”, and that there is nothing radical going on at all. I believe that his sincerity is troubling. He doesn’t see it. His world view, his political and philosophical foundations, are so out of touch with mainstream America, (And when I say Mainstream America, I mean me) that he actually believes most of us are jake with the wholesale deconstruction of the culture and social landscape of this country.
Now, I know a lot of us like this guy. I have nothing against him, at least not like a did with Clinton or Carter, or Bush senior. I know a lot us are concerned about the welfare of the uninsured. So am I. I absolutely agree that change is needed.
But it is worrisome when the President refers to these draconian proposals as “modest”, insists nothing radical is going (when his friends and appointments are all self-confessed radicals of one sort or another) and then strongly implies that it won’t cost much. How is 2-3 trillion dollars “not much?” He blithely admitted that this new health-care was going to cost about thirteen percent of the income earned by someone making about $66,000 a year. 13 percent! And George said, “And that doesn’t include co-payments or prescriptions,” and they both smiled. Then; “you can see how people might view this as a big tax increase.” (I didn’t hear the answer because by then I was bending over and picking up pieces of brain and it was making me light-headed. Get it?) How is going from private-sector health care based on a hybrid capitalist-Federal oversight system to—let’s call it what it is—socialized, government-controlled, rationed health-care, a “modest proposal?”
Even the people over at Moveon.org should be able to see that he seriously misspoke. (But they won’t admit it because it goes against their official dogma).
Wouldn’t it have made more sense, and wouldn’t his supporters (as well as detractors) have felt better about his remarks, if he’d said something like; “you know George, it’s a huge mess. And it’s going to take a huge fix. We have to make major changes. It’ll take a lot of time and a lot of money, and when we come out the other side, yes, things will look different. But I was elected with a mandate. My job is to secure major changes and improvements in health care in this country and that’s what I’m going to do.”
That’s what I would have said. And I don’t even own a teleprompter.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Interesting Quote
9-20-09
It is Sunday afternoon and my brain just exploded because I was watching George Steponallofus interview President Obama. It was an accident—I was channel surfing. They were talking about race in politics and the President artfully side-stepped the issue, rightfully deciding that most Americans didn’t care about his race. But then it turned to Health Care Reform. George wanted to know why the President was having so much trouble with the reform
Obama seemed a little nonplussed as he answered. I can’t quote him because the transcripts won’t be out until tomorrow morning, but it went something like this:
“I’m not sure George. I think I’m making a modest proposal. I’m not suggesting any radical new programs or changes.” That’s when my brain exploded. (Don’t worry . . . I found most of the pieces and put it back together with a mixture of flour and water—I’m organic all the way. The glue will eventually disappear to be replaced by calcium carbonate, so there will be a little rigidity slipping into my thought processes, but they’re so rigid already you probably won’t notice.)
But he wasn’t done. Then he claimed that his reform wasn’t designed to add much in the way of expenditures.
Here’s the thing. I was paying attention, watching his body language. He was absolutely sincere. He really believes these proposals are “modest”, and that there is nothing radical going on at all. I believe that his sincerity is troubling. He doesn’t see it. His world view, his political and philosophical foundations, are so out of touch with mainstream America, (And when I say Mainstream America, I mean me) that he actually believes most of us are jake with the wholesale deconstruction of the culture and social landscape of this country.
Now, I know a lot of us like this guy. I have nothing against him, at least not like a did with Clinton or Carter, or Bush senior. I know a lot us are concerned about the welfare of the uninsured. So am I. I absolutely agree that change is needed.
But it is worrisome when the President refers to these draconian proposals as “modest”, insists nothing radical is going (when his friends and appointments are all self-confessed radicals of one sort or another) and then strongly implies that it won’t cost much. How is 2-3 trillion dollars “not much?” He blithely admitted that this new health-care was going to cost about thirteen percent of the income earned by someone making about $66,000 a year. 13 percent! And George said, “And that doesn’t include co-payments or prescriptions,” and they both smiled. Then; “you can see how people might view this as a big tax increase.” (I didn’t hear the answer because by then I was bending over and picking up pieces of brain and it was making me light-headed. Get it?) How is going from private-sector health care based on a hybrid capitalist-Federal oversight system to—let’s call it what it is—socialized, government-controlled, rationed health-care, a “modest proposal?”
Even the people over at Moveon.org should be able to see that he seriously misspoke. (But they won’t admit it because it goes against their official dogma).
Wouldn’t it have made more sense, and wouldn’t his supporters (as well as detractors) have felt better about his remarks, if he’d said something like; “you know George, it’s a huge mess. And it’s going to take a huge fix. We have to make major changes. It’ll take a lot of time and a lot of money, and when we come out the other side, yes, things will look different. But I was elected with a mandate. My job is to secure major changes and improvements in health care in this country and that’s what I’m going to do.”
That’s what I would have said. And I don’t even own a teleprompter.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
IGM: Mary Travers
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Mary Travers
9-17-09
It is with a profound sense of loss and a quiet sense of personal satisfaction that I announce the death of Mary Travers. After a long and painful struggle with leukemia, she has finally won the battle at age 72. Loss because I will miss having her in the world, and satisfaction because of a life well-lived and one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given. The gift of music.
Many of you will not be familiar with Mary. She was the full-throated blonde in the folk trio, Peter Paul and Mary. They hit it big in the early sixties singing traditional folk songs, and then expanded their repertoire to include protest music, and uplifting songs about peace and love and stuff like that. They won five Grammys and maintained an active career well into the eighties, and accidently got rich. I have no idea how many albums they sold, but I have one or two of all of them. (And by album, I mean vinyl.)
I was probably fourteen or so when I first heard them, and they changed my life forever. Peter Paul and Mary remain the single biggest musical influence in my life. By the time I was in high school in the late sixties I was playing guitar and singing their songs, then jointly formed a trio (two guys and a girl) of my (our) own and we became PP&M clones. We eventually branched out a little and did Dylan (so did PP&M . . . so did everybody) and Donovan and other, less well know stuff—like the Sons of the Pioneers—including some of our own. We played the coffee house circuit between Baltimore and D.C. In some ways, that was the “best time of my life”, to quote Bryan Adams. It is difficult to describe the extent to which their music touched me, moved me, and still does today. Those beat-up, scratchy records are still the ones that get played the most, despite the size and breadth of my collection. My kids were all raised on folk music and classic rock and roll, but if you asked them, I think they would tell you the folk was their favorite when they were growing up. (Their kids have all been raised listening to Donovan’s “For Little Ones”, among others.) Their arrangements and harmonies, their passion and technical superiority affected me immensely, and informed my own brief career in the music business.
PP&M were socially conscious. They stood for principles. Not always shared by me, but they were sincere and consistent. They donated huge sums of money to causes and did nearly as many benefits as paying concerts. They were one of several acts who performed on the Mall in DC when MLK gave his famous “I have a dream” speech. It is one of the main disappointments of my life I never got to see them live, but in his later years Nita and I went to see Peter Yarrow at a small venue in Albuquerque. He was just out of prison for cavorting with under-aged groupies (he says they lied to him) but it was a great show. Now I never will.
Mary will be missed. Her oddly put-together face, the way she snapped her head and made her hair flop around when she wanted to emphasize something. Those bangs. That throaty, hard-driving voice of hers and her sense of humor. Late in their careers they made an album called Peter Paul and Mommy, a collection of tunes for children, which is an absolute gem. At one time I knew most of the songs on that album and wore out my guitar singing them to our kids and their friends.(“Daddy’s taking us to zoo tomorrow . . .”) In fact, doing some of those songs for my wife’s little nieces (Nita and I had just met) at dinner one night, was instrumental in her deciding to marry me.
Mary will never stop singing. One of the best things about technology is our being able to save—and savor—music and art into the eternities. Peter and Paul (Noel) will eventually die as well, sooner, later, who knows? And So will I. But until I do, I will be listening to their music, and, in that sense, keeping them alive forever.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Mary Travers
9-17-09
It is with a profound sense of loss and a quiet sense of personal satisfaction that I announce the death of Mary Travers. After a long and painful struggle with leukemia, she has finally won the battle at age 72. Loss because I will miss having her in the world, and satisfaction because of a life well-lived and one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given. The gift of music.
Many of you will not be familiar with Mary. She was the full-throated blonde in the folk trio, Peter Paul and Mary. They hit it big in the early sixties singing traditional folk songs, and then expanded their repertoire to include protest music, and uplifting songs about peace and love and stuff like that. They won five Grammys and maintained an active career well into the eighties, and accidently got rich. I have no idea how many albums they sold, but I have one or two of all of them. (And by album, I mean vinyl.)
I was probably fourteen or so when I first heard them, and they changed my life forever. Peter Paul and Mary remain the single biggest musical influence in my life. By the time I was in high school in the late sixties I was playing guitar and singing their songs, then jointly formed a trio (two guys and a girl) of my (our) own and we became PP&M clones. We eventually branched out a little and did Dylan (so did PP&M . . . so did everybody) and Donovan and other, less well know stuff—like the Sons of the Pioneers—including some of our own. We played the coffee house circuit between Baltimore and D.C. In some ways, that was the “best time of my life”, to quote Bryan Adams. It is difficult to describe the extent to which their music touched me, moved me, and still does today. Those beat-up, scratchy records are still the ones that get played the most, despite the size and breadth of my collection. My kids were all raised on folk music and classic rock and roll, but if you asked them, I think they would tell you the folk was their favorite when they were growing up. (Their kids have all been raised listening to Donovan’s “For Little Ones”, among others.) Their arrangements and harmonies, their passion and technical superiority affected me immensely, and informed my own brief career in the music business.
PP&M were socially conscious. They stood for principles. Not always shared by me, but they were sincere and consistent. They donated huge sums of money to causes and did nearly as many benefits as paying concerts. They were one of several acts who performed on the Mall in DC when MLK gave his famous “I have a dream” speech. It is one of the main disappointments of my life I never got to see them live, but in his later years Nita and I went to see Peter Yarrow at a small venue in Albuquerque. He was just out of prison for cavorting with under-aged groupies (he says they lied to him) but it was a great show. Now I never will.
Mary will be missed. Her oddly put-together face, the way she snapped her head and made her hair flop around when she wanted to emphasize something. Those bangs. That throaty, hard-driving voice of hers and her sense of humor. Late in their careers they made an album called Peter Paul and Mommy, a collection of tunes for children, which is an absolute gem. At one time I knew most of the songs on that album and wore out my guitar singing them to our kids and their friends.(“Daddy’s taking us to zoo tomorrow . . .”) In fact, doing some of those songs for my wife’s little nieces (Nita and I had just met) at dinner one night, was instrumental in her deciding to marry me.
Mary will never stop singing. One of the best things about technology is our being able to save—and savor—music and art into the eternities. Peter and Paul (Noel) will eventually die as well, sooner, later, who knows? And So will I. But until I do, I will be listening to their music, and, in that sense, keeping them alive forever.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
IGM Dissent
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Dissent
I’m going to steal a subject from Jay Nordlinger who wrote a nice piece in the current National Review. It has to do with the place of dissent in America, both today and throughout history. We should all be able to recall with hardly any drugs at all, the many, many references to dissent in one form or another during the former reign of George W. Bush. People with moderate to liberal leanings were fond of claiming that dissent was “the highest form of patriotism.” They were saying this mostly because they were doing a lot of dissenting, albeit, disguised as whining.
I’m not sure that the spirit of that now-trite phrase is true. Certainly we have a tradition of dissent in this country, from all sides and ideologies. But it could be argued that most of it stems from sour grapes rather than any passionately felt principle. (I would cite Joan Baez as an exception to that rule. While she was very critical of our involvement in the Vietnam war, she turned right around after the North Vietnamese took over and slammed the new regime for human rights abuses, which engendered a good deal of abuse aimed at her from the anti-war movement here at home. I’m sure there are other examples. I’m sure you’re one of them.)
So, do you think “dissent is the highest form of patriotism?” I have my doubts. As always, one has to weigh the validity of a given position both in its context and historically, which takes a little time. At the time of the Colony’s trouble with England, a good forty percent or more of the fledgling country disagreed with the dissenters who signed the Declaration of Independence. Time has shown them ( the signatories) to have been on the right side of the issue and most of us today applaud what they did.
In a more timely example, many people today are protesting (another word for dissent) what they believe to be outdated and punitive copyright laws, especially where “intellectual property” is concerned. In this case, I belong to the status quo, believing that an artist’s right to his or her property and whatever monetary remuneration might be theirs, to be sacrosanct. My son and his generation dissent from this view, believing that the new world of universal access demands new values, laws, and new ways to benefit. It is difficult to predict who might be right, and I do not claim to have any prescient insight into the debate. I just think we should be paid for our work, and that government should protect it. My son’s beliefs, which include open-sourced sharing of everything electronic, might turn out to be valid and workable. I await histories verdict.
But when it comes to politics and ideologies, dissent becomes another matter. One cannot help but notice a trend on Capitol Hill. We see people from both sides of the aisle stridently criticizing this or that policy, bill, decision or haircut, and then refuse to say a word about the same offenses when someone on “their side” is caught with fingers in the same cookie jar. Odd how it was the “height of patriotism” to bash President Bush (of whom I am no particular fan), but now that the shoe is on the other foot, dissent has become the “strident cacophony of rabble-rousing fringe elements from the far right of gun-toting, religious zealots.” (That’s not a quote from anyone, I just made it up, but things often have a heightened sense of importance when we wrap them in quotation marks.) It was “patriotic” to protest our involvement in Iraq, to protest just about every word out of the mouths of Carl Rove and Dick Cheney, but now that Van Jones and Tim Geithner and their ilk are in play, anyone who dares question their motives or qualifications or professional histories, is considered mentally defective and instantly branded a malcontent, a fringer, or, even worse, an “angry white man.” But the dissent going on now is valid. There are serious questions being asked about policy and the wholesale re-direction of America. Questions about how large and intrusive a government should be, about intrusions into the private sector, and decisions that have traditionally been up to individuals or the various states. The gathering surge of middle America is far from organized, (at least in the sense of the professional organizing that has been the hallmark of the Democrat party for decades) but it is gaining. It is a valid reaction of fear and suspicion to a less than forth-coming administration. One hopes that reason and rectitude and civility will be maintained, and so far, for the most part, it has. We recall with fondness the many instances where these laudable traits were thrown to the wind by those of a more “progressive” bent. Political memory is so selective.
Now, I am neither angry nor, technically, white. (As an Entity of Extra-Terrestrial Origin, or EETO, I cannot be considered genetically Caucasian, or any other earthly racial type.) But I do share some of the indignation felt by the more conservative among us. Happily, I do so with a smile and an intact sense of humor. How else does one approach the Janeane Garofalo’s and Howard Dean’s of the world?
When Albert Einstein wrote his famous letter to the president, it was out of a sense that America could be trusted to vouchsafe the new energy source, while other countries could not. It was patriotism. When he protested the development of the H-bomb, and the rapid escalation of nuclear arms, (despite their inevitability, of which he was well aware) I believe he was being patriotic as well. When Sergeant York and Audie Murphy won their medals, I believe their sense of patriotism rose above that of any dissent. When my father won two Distinguished Flying Crosses for mercilessly bombing Japan (despite his personal feelings) and helping to defeat an implacable enemy and shorten a world war, I believe his patriotism rose above those who protested the violence and death, while ignoring the ruthless, inhumane and brutal atrocities perpetrated by our enemies. But that’s just me. There are other positions in that debate. As always, only history will tell.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Dissent
I’m going to steal a subject from Jay Nordlinger who wrote a nice piece in the current National Review. It has to do with the place of dissent in America, both today and throughout history. We should all be able to recall with hardly any drugs at all, the many, many references to dissent in one form or another during the former reign of George W. Bush. People with moderate to liberal leanings were fond of claiming that dissent was “the highest form of patriotism.” They were saying this mostly because they were doing a lot of dissenting, albeit, disguised as whining.
I’m not sure that the spirit of that now-trite phrase is true. Certainly we have a tradition of dissent in this country, from all sides and ideologies. But it could be argued that most of it stems from sour grapes rather than any passionately felt principle. (I would cite Joan Baez as an exception to that rule. While she was very critical of our involvement in the Vietnam war, she turned right around after the North Vietnamese took over and slammed the new regime for human rights abuses, which engendered a good deal of abuse aimed at her from the anti-war movement here at home. I’m sure there are other examples. I’m sure you’re one of them.)
So, do you think “dissent is the highest form of patriotism?” I have my doubts. As always, one has to weigh the validity of a given position both in its context and historically, which takes a little time. At the time of the Colony’s trouble with England, a good forty percent or more of the fledgling country disagreed with the dissenters who signed the Declaration of Independence. Time has shown them ( the signatories) to have been on the right side of the issue and most of us today applaud what they did.
In a more timely example, many people today are protesting (another word for dissent) what they believe to be outdated and punitive copyright laws, especially where “intellectual property” is concerned. In this case, I belong to the status quo, believing that an artist’s right to his or her property and whatever monetary remuneration might be theirs, to be sacrosanct. My son and his generation dissent from this view, believing that the new world of universal access demands new values, laws, and new ways to benefit. It is difficult to predict who might be right, and I do not claim to have any prescient insight into the debate. I just think we should be paid for our work, and that government should protect it. My son’s beliefs, which include open-sourced sharing of everything electronic, might turn out to be valid and workable. I await histories verdict.
But when it comes to politics and ideologies, dissent becomes another matter. One cannot help but notice a trend on Capitol Hill. We see people from both sides of the aisle stridently criticizing this or that policy, bill, decision or haircut, and then refuse to say a word about the same offenses when someone on “their side” is caught with fingers in the same cookie jar. Odd how it was the “height of patriotism” to bash President Bush (of whom I am no particular fan), but now that the shoe is on the other foot, dissent has become the “strident cacophony of rabble-rousing fringe elements from the far right of gun-toting, religious zealots.” (That’s not a quote from anyone, I just made it up, but things often have a heightened sense of importance when we wrap them in quotation marks.) It was “patriotic” to protest our involvement in Iraq, to protest just about every word out of the mouths of Carl Rove and Dick Cheney, but now that Van Jones and Tim Geithner and their ilk are in play, anyone who dares question their motives or qualifications or professional histories, is considered mentally defective and instantly branded a malcontent, a fringer, or, even worse, an “angry white man.” But the dissent going on now is valid. There are serious questions being asked about policy and the wholesale re-direction of America. Questions about how large and intrusive a government should be, about intrusions into the private sector, and decisions that have traditionally been up to individuals or the various states. The gathering surge of middle America is far from organized, (at least in the sense of the professional organizing that has been the hallmark of the Democrat party for decades) but it is gaining. It is a valid reaction of fear and suspicion to a less than forth-coming administration. One hopes that reason and rectitude and civility will be maintained, and so far, for the most part, it has. We recall with fondness the many instances where these laudable traits were thrown to the wind by those of a more “progressive” bent. Political memory is so selective.
Now, I am neither angry nor, technically, white. (As an Entity of Extra-Terrestrial Origin, or EETO, I cannot be considered genetically Caucasian, or any other earthly racial type.) But I do share some of the indignation felt by the more conservative among us. Happily, I do so with a smile and an intact sense of humor. How else does one approach the Janeane Garofalo’s and Howard Dean’s of the world?
When Albert Einstein wrote his famous letter to the president, it was out of a sense that America could be trusted to vouchsafe the new energy source, while other countries could not. It was patriotism. When he protested the development of the H-bomb, and the rapid escalation of nuclear arms, (despite their inevitability, of which he was well aware) I believe he was being patriotic as well. When Sergeant York and Audie Murphy won their medals, I believe their sense of patriotism rose above that of any dissent. When my father won two Distinguished Flying Crosses for mercilessly bombing Japan (despite his personal feelings) and helping to defeat an implacable enemy and shorten a world war, I believe his patriotism rose above those who protested the violence and death, while ignoring the ruthless, inhumane and brutal atrocities perpetrated by our enemies. But that’s just me. There are other positions in that debate. As always, only history will tell.
IGM Carbon Emissions
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Carbon emissions
9-14-09
Here’s a provocative headline: (Physorg.com)
Australia overtakes US as biggest polluter
Wow. That’s big news. We have cities with more people than Australia, but they’re a bigger polluter. It turns out to be misleading. (Didn’t see that coming, did you?).
The article goes on to say that Australia’s per capita production of carbon dioxide has surpassed our own. Which means that at 20.58 tons of CO2 per year, per person, they are at the top of the list of 185 countries. Of course, we still produce more CO2 than Australia. (And China produces five times as much as we do, but only at a rate of 5.4 tons per person. They just have lots of persons.)
I was curious what my personal contribution was so I looked it up. According to the list I found, we are at about 19 tons per person as of 2006. We were at 19 tons in 1990 as well, so we are doing an excellent job of holding the line. This is in contrast with say, Qatar, which went from 25.2 to 56.2 tons in the same time period. This can be seen as a mark of progress as well, but I doubt anyone would have the bad taste to say as much.
So . . . what’s the point? I mean, who cares? I’m responsible for 19 tons of carbon dioxide. Of course, I didn’t personally put that much out (that would be a lot of exhaling, and I would have had to drive about eight million miles) but someone thinks this is a useful statistic. I don’t. 19 tons times 300,000,000 people comes to 5,700,000,000 tons, or 5.7 billion for the US. Sounds like a lot doesn’t it? However, the total percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is .02. Humans contribute around 3% of that. Yet somehow, it is our (humanities) .006% that is destroying the planet. Yeah, I know, it’s all about tipping points. I looked at several other lists from various sources. They differ by as much as 100%. Which kinda makes me suspicious of the accuracy and precision of any of them. They were probably all generated by highly sophisticated computer models. Like the one that predicted the rain forests would be gone by 1990. Here’s a thought: Our heart rate and breathing go way up when we exercise. If we all stopped exercising, or otherwise exerting ourselves, we could reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 20% (by my calculations, which means I made it up). But that would mean no more sex . . . . hey, it’s all about sacrifice, right?
Anyway, I just wanted to apologize for my 19 tons. I will try and do better.
(Dave, I kept it to one and a half pages . . . just for you.)
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Carbon emissions
9-14-09
Here’s a provocative headline: (Physorg.com)
Australia overtakes US as biggest polluter
Wow. That’s big news. We have cities with more people than Australia, but they’re a bigger polluter. It turns out to be misleading. (Didn’t see that coming, did you?).
The article goes on to say that Australia’s per capita production of carbon dioxide has surpassed our own. Which means that at 20.58 tons of CO2 per year, per person, they are at the top of the list of 185 countries. Of course, we still produce more CO2 than Australia. (And China produces five times as much as we do, but only at a rate of 5.4 tons per person. They just have lots of persons.)
I was curious what my personal contribution was so I looked it up. According to the list I found, we are at about 19 tons per person as of 2006. We were at 19 tons in 1990 as well, so we are doing an excellent job of holding the line. This is in contrast with say, Qatar, which went from 25.2 to 56.2 tons in the same time period. This can be seen as a mark of progress as well, but I doubt anyone would have the bad taste to say as much.
So . . . what’s the point? I mean, who cares? I’m responsible for 19 tons of carbon dioxide. Of course, I didn’t personally put that much out (that would be a lot of exhaling, and I would have had to drive about eight million miles) but someone thinks this is a useful statistic. I don’t. 19 tons times 300,000,000 people comes to 5,700,000,000 tons, or 5.7 billion for the US. Sounds like a lot doesn’t it? However, the total percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is .02. Humans contribute around 3% of that. Yet somehow, it is our (humanities) .006% that is destroying the planet. Yeah, I know, it’s all about tipping points. I looked at several other lists from various sources. They differ by as much as 100%. Which kinda makes me suspicious of the accuracy and precision of any of them. They were probably all generated by highly sophisticated computer models. Like the one that predicted the rain forests would be gone by 1990. Here’s a thought: Our heart rate and breathing go way up when we exercise. If we all stopped exercising, or otherwise exerting ourselves, we could reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 20% (by my calculations, which means I made it up). But that would mean no more sex . . . . hey, it’s all about sacrifice, right?
Anyway, I just wanted to apologize for my 19 tons. I will try and do better.
(Dave, I kept it to one and a half pages . . . just for you.)
IGM ALIS
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: A.L.I.S.
9-04-09
Interesting article in Physorg. today.
The right honourable computer, barrister-at-law (that spelling is British and it correct over there.)
Here’s the opening grabber:
European researchers have created a legal analysis query engine that combines artificial intelligence, game theory and semantics to offer advice, conflict prevention and dispute settlement for European law, and it even supports policy.
It’s fairly interesting, although I didn’t understand a lot of it. But there are a few troubling items I thought we should look into. Essentially, this is a “sophisticated”, experimental computer program designed to take some of the work load off the shoulders of those stalwarts in the legal system. I don’t know about you, but I have doubts about letting a computer program make decisions on legal matters. The only situation I can think of that would be worse would be letting human beings make those decisions. Yikes.
Okay, first objection. “Game Theory.” Do we really want people who write the admittedly hugely complex algorithms for games taking over the legal system? Thankfully, this experiment is being perpetrated over in Europe right now, so we have time to form an underground resistance, come up with passwords and handshakes, and divvy ourselves up into sleeper cells. Viva la revolucion!
Second: Artificial Intelligence? Really? Are we there already? I don’t think so. I’ve written a few novels that involve AI’s, and I can tell you they are evil. All of them. (Except Mike, but he’s beyond AI; he’s a FABEC, or: Full-Awareness Bionetic Entanglement Computer.) Did we learn nothing from The Forbin Project? On second thought, AI’s might be just what lawyers are looking for. Two of a kind, as it were. Here’s an example of how they would help:
Game theory looks at how strategic interactions between rational people lead to outcomes reflecting real player preferences. In the Ultimatum game, for example, two players decide how a sum is to be divided. The proposer suggests what the split should be, the responder either can accept or reject this offer. But if the responder rejects the split, both players get nothing.
What kind of negotiating is that? We have to be rational all of a sudden? Here’s a big surprise; the Responder almost always accepts the initial proposal. I would too if the only other choice was nothing. To be fair, the Proposer suggests 50-50 most of the time, even though the Responder might have accepted a lower bid. Still, with a system like that, traditional factors like intimidation, coercion, under-the-table-favors and proposals and the ever-popular sex-for-acquittal, go out the window. Where’s the fun in that?
I think we can all agree that further inquiry is needed before we get on board with this. But I’ve saved the best objection for last: The acronym for this system is ALIS. Advanced-Level Information System. (Mine is cooler don’t you think?) This acronym is pronounced Alice. A few of you will instantly see the significance of this. ALICE is the name of the AI that runs the Umbrella Corporation in Raccoon City. She (ALICE) is responsible for letting all the Zombies loose in the city and causing three (soon to be four) movies worth of mayhem. I’m referring of course to the Resident Evil franchise. If it weren’t for Mila Javovich we’d all be brain-eating dead things by now.
In conclusion, I think I speak for all of us when I say that letting a computer program named ALIS run anything is a big mistake. Legal decisions should be left to the humans. At least they can be bribed.
To: All personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: A.L.I.S.
9-04-09
Interesting article in Physorg. today.
The right honourable computer, barrister-at-law (that spelling is British and it correct over there.)
Here’s the opening grabber:
European researchers have created a legal analysis query engine that combines artificial intelligence, game theory and semantics to offer advice, conflict prevention and dispute settlement for European law, and it even supports policy.
It’s fairly interesting, although I didn’t understand a lot of it. But there are a few troubling items I thought we should look into. Essentially, this is a “sophisticated”, experimental computer program designed to take some of the work load off the shoulders of those stalwarts in the legal system. I don’t know about you, but I have doubts about letting a computer program make decisions on legal matters. The only situation I can think of that would be worse would be letting human beings make those decisions. Yikes.
Okay, first objection. “Game Theory.” Do we really want people who write the admittedly hugely complex algorithms for games taking over the legal system? Thankfully, this experiment is being perpetrated over in Europe right now, so we have time to form an underground resistance, come up with passwords and handshakes, and divvy ourselves up into sleeper cells. Viva la revolucion!
Second: Artificial Intelligence? Really? Are we there already? I don’t think so. I’ve written a few novels that involve AI’s, and I can tell you they are evil. All of them. (Except Mike, but he’s beyond AI; he’s a FABEC, or: Full-Awareness Bionetic Entanglement Computer.) Did we learn nothing from The Forbin Project? On second thought, AI’s might be just what lawyers are looking for. Two of a kind, as it were. Here’s an example of how they would help:
Game theory looks at how strategic interactions between rational people lead to outcomes reflecting real player preferences. In the Ultimatum game, for example, two players decide how a sum is to be divided. The proposer suggests what the split should be, the responder either can accept or reject this offer. But if the responder rejects the split, both players get nothing.
What kind of negotiating is that? We have to be rational all of a sudden? Here’s a big surprise; the Responder almost always accepts the initial proposal. I would too if the only other choice was nothing. To be fair, the Proposer suggests 50-50 most of the time, even though the Responder might have accepted a lower bid. Still, with a system like that, traditional factors like intimidation, coercion, under-the-table-favors and proposals and the ever-popular sex-for-acquittal, go out the window. Where’s the fun in that?
I think we can all agree that further inquiry is needed before we get on board with this. But I’ve saved the best objection for last: The acronym for this system is ALIS. Advanced-Level Information System. (Mine is cooler don’t you think?) This acronym is pronounced Alice. A few of you will instantly see the significance of this. ALICE is the name of the AI that runs the Umbrella Corporation in Raccoon City. She (ALICE) is responsible for letting all the Zombies loose in the city and causing three (soon to be four) movies worth of mayhem. I’m referring of course to the Resident Evil franchise. If it weren’t for Mila Javovich we’d all be brain-eating dead things by now.
In conclusion, I think I speak for all of us when I say that letting a computer program named ALIS run anything is a big mistake. Legal decisions should be left to the humans. At least they can be bribed.
IGM Solar Roadways
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt, Crypto-Futurist
Re: Solar Roadways
There is an article in Physorg.com today entitled:
Solar Roadways Awarded DOT Contract to Pave Roads with Solar Cells
The US DOT has awarded a $100,000 grant to Solar Roadways to finance a prototype of a “solar road panel”. The 12x12 foot panels ($7000 apiece) would be embedded into roadways to collect solar energy and convert it into electricity at a rate of about 7.6 kilowatts per panel, per shiny day.
When pumped into the Grid, a section of four-lane highway one mile long would be able to power approximately 500 homes. That’s a lot of homes. The company estimates that covering the entire nations main roads would take 5 billion panels and cost approximately a bazillion dollars. But, it would produce three times more energy than we have ever used as a nation; which, embarrassing enough, would be almost enough to power the rest of the world.
There are a few other features the start-up company envisions, which include:
The Solar Road Panels also contain embedded LED lights that "paint" the road lines from beneath to provide safer nighttime driving. The LEDs could also be programmed to alert drivers of detours or road construction ahead, and can even sense wildlife on the road and warn drivers to slow down. The roads could also contain embedded heating elements in the surface to prevent snow and ice from building up on the road. Further, in the future, fully electric vehicles could recharge along the roadway and in parking lots, making electric cars practical for long trips.
Nice, right? And we wouldn’t have to clutter the planet with huge fields of ugly collector farms. We would use land already covered with ugly roads. And as photo-voltaic advances came on-line, we could replace the panels with better, more efficient ones, increasing our electrical output forever. This would reduce the need for fossil fuels, in case anyone hadn’t thought of that yet.
This is another in a continuing line of examples of doing more with less and of using technology within appropriate constraints. I will mention R.B. Fuller each time I cite one of these examples, because he is the father of “Doing More with Less” and of the concept that Homo Sapiens are designed, by nature, to do just that: create ever-increasing order, organization, and design-sophistication while using fewer and fewer resources to do it. Sort of the opposite of the “Green Movement” and its strident litany of doomsday scenarios.
Solar Roadways may or may not succeed. But someone will. Another company I’ve been following just announced the opening of their new plant dedicated to the manufacture of cheap, efficient solar collectors made in a process similar to printing presses making newspapers. They have been making these collectors (printing the circuitry onto rolls of thin metal) for industrial and civic entities for a few years. This new plant is for commercial and residential use. With their proprietary process, it is possible to cover an entire roof with thin panels of this stuff, cut from rolls, tie them together, and start making electricity. No heavy, bulky, costly glass-covered panels any more. Just thin sheets of printed aluminum.
The point is this. When certain organizations and or individuals start foaming at the mouth about imminent disaster, minutes away, the responsible, civilized thing to do is throw a pie in their face. Given time, we can and will solve every challenge and problem we encounter—if we are able to generate the political will and keep our senses. The most serious impediment to this is the “Doomsday Club”. Everyone who predicts imminent disaster and catastrophe based on spurious information, dubious data and—dare we say it—Computer Models—belongs to this club. (Unless they’re predicting a Zombie attack, in which case walk and hide.)
As the Boss says,
“Have a little faith/ there’s magic in the night.” (I belong to that club.)
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt, Crypto-Futurist
Re: Solar Roadways
There is an article in Physorg.com today entitled:
Solar Roadways Awarded DOT Contract to Pave Roads with Solar Cells
The US DOT has awarded a $100,000 grant to Solar Roadways to finance a prototype of a “solar road panel”. The 12x12 foot panels ($7000 apiece) would be embedded into roadways to collect solar energy and convert it into electricity at a rate of about 7.6 kilowatts per panel, per shiny day.
When pumped into the Grid, a section of four-lane highway one mile long would be able to power approximately 500 homes. That’s a lot of homes. The company estimates that covering the entire nations main roads would take 5 billion panels and cost approximately a bazillion dollars. But, it would produce three times more energy than we have ever used as a nation; which, embarrassing enough, would be almost enough to power the rest of the world.
There are a few other features the start-up company envisions, which include:
The Solar Road Panels also contain embedded LED lights that "paint" the road lines from beneath to provide safer nighttime driving. The LEDs could also be programmed to alert drivers of detours or road construction ahead, and can even sense wildlife on the road and warn drivers to slow down. The roads could also contain embedded heating elements in the surface to prevent snow and ice from building up on the road. Further, in the future, fully electric vehicles could recharge along the roadway and in parking lots, making electric cars practical for long trips.
Nice, right? And we wouldn’t have to clutter the planet with huge fields of ugly collector farms. We would use land already covered with ugly roads. And as photo-voltaic advances came on-line, we could replace the panels with better, more efficient ones, increasing our electrical output forever. This would reduce the need for fossil fuels, in case anyone hadn’t thought of that yet.
This is another in a continuing line of examples of doing more with less and of using technology within appropriate constraints. I will mention R.B. Fuller each time I cite one of these examples, because he is the father of “Doing More with Less” and of the concept that Homo Sapiens are designed, by nature, to do just that: create ever-increasing order, organization, and design-sophistication while using fewer and fewer resources to do it. Sort of the opposite of the “Green Movement” and its strident litany of doomsday scenarios.
Solar Roadways may or may not succeed. But someone will. Another company I’ve been following just announced the opening of their new plant dedicated to the manufacture of cheap, efficient solar collectors made in a process similar to printing presses making newspapers. They have been making these collectors (printing the circuitry onto rolls of thin metal) for industrial and civic entities for a few years. This new plant is for commercial and residential use. With their proprietary process, it is possible to cover an entire roof with thin panels of this stuff, cut from rolls, tie them together, and start making electricity. No heavy, bulky, costly glass-covered panels any more. Just thin sheets of printed aluminum.
The point is this. When certain organizations and or individuals start foaming at the mouth about imminent disaster, minutes away, the responsible, civilized thing to do is throw a pie in their face. Given time, we can and will solve every challenge and problem we encounter—if we are able to generate the political will and keep our senses. The most serious impediment to this is the “Doomsday Club”. Everyone who predicts imminent disaster and catastrophe based on spurious information, dubious data and—dare we say it—Computer Models—belongs to this club. (Unless they’re predicting a Zombie attack, in which case walk and hide.)
As the Boss says,
“Have a little faith/ there’s magic in the night.” (I belong to that club.)
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
IGM Mikey
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Mikey
9-7-09
Well, here he comes again. The Hetman of Hypocrisy, the Ayatollah of lie-a-lolla, the Demigod of Duplicitous, the Sheik of Shabby, the Dictator of Disingenuous, the Lord of Ludicrous, the Sultan of Sleaze, Michael Moore is back in town. This time he has chosen none other than Capitalism itself to set between the myopic, unfocused lenses of his foggy vision and his dog-pound level IQ.
Moore will be premiering his latest flick, Capitalism: A Love Story at the Venice film festival Sunday. I assume we are all waiting with baited breath to be bored out of our minds again with his vapid, sophomoric attempts at logic and his famous reliance on editing-slash-lying, rather than reason, to get his ever-so-nebulous points across. (I will graciously admit that now and then Michael has moments of clarity and makes sense. But they are isolated and no doubt accidental.)
Do I sound bitter? Not at all! Is it gauche to write a review before the premier of a documentary? Well, usually, I admit, but in this case we hardly need to wait to know what Mike has up his sleeve.
Let’s see what gems he has in store for us this time, shall we?
"Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil," the two-hour movie concludes.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that Moore will be picking on the banking industry, investment firms, insurance companies . . . big business in general, claiming that everything they do is evil, anti-American and bad for business. My guess is that Michael (like all of us) was hit pretty hard by the recent recession and the loss of investments. Except—and correct me if I’m wrong here—most of that stuff was due to Criminal activity, and improper, unnecessary governmental meddling.
Calling Capitalism evil, and blaming everything bad that happens on it is beyond silly. Once again Mr. Moore will be showcasing his less than stellar intellect and tenuous grasp on reality.
I guess we could use his logic on lots of things couldn’t we? Let’s see . . . Marxist Communism is responsible for the deaths of what? 200 million people in the last hundred years? Massive poverty, institutionalized pollution? I guess Communism is evil. There have been a few million deaths in the name of various religions, so all religion must be evil, right? Apparently carbon dioxide will be (inadvertently) killing millions of people any day now, so CO2 must be evil. TNT has killed a lot of people so never mind the miracles of engineering it has engendered—it’s evil. What about machines? Killed a lot of people over the years. The Industrial Revolution is evil along with all machines. Food? Kills people every day. Evil. Doctors? Evil. I could go on . . . and on and on.
Too many people take this moron seriously and its time we woke up and stopped paying the man any attention. Once again he will be blaming the criminal activity of a few people—highly placed to be sure—on an entire industry. Any precocious 5th grader can tell you that Capitalism, like any other ism, is neither good nor evil. People who embrace the isms are capable of good and evil, but not the ideas themselves. Mr. Moore remains a tragically confused individual. The fact is that Capitalism (which has never actually been allowed to be tried) has not only produced the single-most successful economy and nation in the history of the world, it has done so by managing to absorb far more abuse than other systems. Like some of those wonderfully tough WWII era fighter planes, it took hit after hit and kept on flying. This while trying to do its job with one hand tied behind it’s back. No other economic system has ever been shown to be even a fraction as successful under a fraction as much duress. When Mike looks at the thousands of millionaires Microsoft created almost overnight, I can see how he might rant about the rampant poverty that created. I think most of this whining is about jealously more than anything—everyone wanting theirs regardless of merit. Capitalism works. But Mike doesn’t care. He wants his fortune back. That’s what this is really about. Remember, he has made millions by participating in the capitalistic system. And criminals—criminals—who purposefully abused the system managed to do a lot of damage recently—to my wife and I as well as poor little Michael and everyone else—you too I’m sure. Now Michael will make a plea to the American public that our money needs to be protected. Well gosh, everyone wants that, right? Wrong. Guarantees destroy profits. Lack of profit destroys growth. Lack of growth destroys all dynamic systems. Look it up. Profits are no more evil than Asparagus. (I hate asparagus.) Profits gained through criminal activity will always be at the expense of other people and that is evil. But risk is the heart of the American Ideal. If we don’t understand that, if that notion frightens us to the point we are willing to do away with all risk, we really need to move to some country where risk has already been done away with. (Go ahead, name one . . . .) Guarantees are an illusion people, get used to it.
Are there problems? My, yes. Do some people take advantage of others? Constantly. Just thinking about Bernie Madoff makes blood shoot out of my eyes. But if I’m not mistaken that happens under any and every other economic system out there as well. Some people will always play the angles. We catch them and put them away and start over. The Soviet Union was designed to be abused from the git-go. It was a power-grab, not a revolution, and anyone who doesn’t know that by now . . . well, doesn’t know that by now. Why would we want to switch to that kind of protectionist racket? We are experiencing a power grab now as well. Two of them actually. One by certain factions of the banking and investment and real estate industries, in collusion with certain factions of government (left and right), which didn’t work out so well, and another by the far-left, socialist wing of the Democrat party which is undermining the very fabric of our society. I won’t mention any names, but party affiliation is not an issue here. And I do not for a moment think that this faction has the hearts and minds of the rank and file Americans of either party. (right now the far-right, fascist wing of the Republican party is pretty much out of gas).
Someone once said that “America is great because its people are great.” I guess we really do get what we deserve, and right now, we have Michael Moore and Al Gore, And their ilk. Think about it.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Mikey
9-7-09
Well, here he comes again. The Hetman of Hypocrisy, the Ayatollah of lie-a-lolla, the Demigod of Duplicitous, the Sheik of Shabby, the Dictator of Disingenuous, the Lord of Ludicrous, the Sultan of Sleaze, Michael Moore is back in town. This time he has chosen none other than Capitalism itself to set between the myopic, unfocused lenses of his foggy vision and his dog-pound level IQ.
Moore will be premiering his latest flick, Capitalism: A Love Story at the Venice film festival Sunday. I assume we are all waiting with baited breath to be bored out of our minds again with his vapid, sophomoric attempts at logic and his famous reliance on editing-slash-lying, rather than reason, to get his ever-so-nebulous points across. (I will graciously admit that now and then Michael has moments of clarity and makes sense. But they are isolated and no doubt accidental.)
Do I sound bitter? Not at all! Is it gauche to write a review before the premier of a documentary? Well, usually, I admit, but in this case we hardly need to wait to know what Mike has up his sleeve.
Let’s see what gems he has in store for us this time, shall we?
"Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil," the two-hour movie concludes.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that Moore will be picking on the banking industry, investment firms, insurance companies . . . big business in general, claiming that everything they do is evil, anti-American and bad for business. My guess is that Michael (like all of us) was hit pretty hard by the recent recession and the loss of investments. Except—and correct me if I’m wrong here—most of that stuff was due to Criminal activity, and improper, unnecessary governmental meddling.
Calling Capitalism evil, and blaming everything bad that happens on it is beyond silly. Once again Mr. Moore will be showcasing his less than stellar intellect and tenuous grasp on reality.
I guess we could use his logic on lots of things couldn’t we? Let’s see . . . Marxist Communism is responsible for the deaths of what? 200 million people in the last hundred years? Massive poverty, institutionalized pollution? I guess Communism is evil. There have been a few million deaths in the name of various religions, so all religion must be evil, right? Apparently carbon dioxide will be (inadvertently) killing millions of people any day now, so CO2 must be evil. TNT has killed a lot of people so never mind the miracles of engineering it has engendered—it’s evil. What about machines? Killed a lot of people over the years. The Industrial Revolution is evil along with all machines. Food? Kills people every day. Evil. Doctors? Evil. I could go on . . . and on and on.
Too many people take this moron seriously and its time we woke up and stopped paying the man any attention. Once again he will be blaming the criminal activity of a few people—highly placed to be sure—on an entire industry. Any precocious 5th grader can tell you that Capitalism, like any other ism, is neither good nor evil. People who embrace the isms are capable of good and evil, but not the ideas themselves. Mr. Moore remains a tragically confused individual. The fact is that Capitalism (which has never actually been allowed to be tried) has not only produced the single-most successful economy and nation in the history of the world, it has done so by managing to absorb far more abuse than other systems. Like some of those wonderfully tough WWII era fighter planes, it took hit after hit and kept on flying. This while trying to do its job with one hand tied behind it’s back. No other economic system has ever been shown to be even a fraction as successful under a fraction as much duress. When Mike looks at the thousands of millionaires Microsoft created almost overnight, I can see how he might rant about the rampant poverty that created. I think most of this whining is about jealously more than anything—everyone wanting theirs regardless of merit. Capitalism works. But Mike doesn’t care. He wants his fortune back. That’s what this is really about. Remember, he has made millions by participating in the capitalistic system. And criminals—criminals—who purposefully abused the system managed to do a lot of damage recently—to my wife and I as well as poor little Michael and everyone else—you too I’m sure. Now Michael will make a plea to the American public that our money needs to be protected. Well gosh, everyone wants that, right? Wrong. Guarantees destroy profits. Lack of profit destroys growth. Lack of growth destroys all dynamic systems. Look it up. Profits are no more evil than Asparagus. (I hate asparagus.) Profits gained through criminal activity will always be at the expense of other people and that is evil. But risk is the heart of the American Ideal. If we don’t understand that, if that notion frightens us to the point we are willing to do away with all risk, we really need to move to some country where risk has already been done away with. (Go ahead, name one . . . .) Guarantees are an illusion people, get used to it.
Are there problems? My, yes. Do some people take advantage of others? Constantly. Just thinking about Bernie Madoff makes blood shoot out of my eyes. But if I’m not mistaken that happens under any and every other economic system out there as well. Some people will always play the angles. We catch them and put them away and start over. The Soviet Union was designed to be abused from the git-go. It was a power-grab, not a revolution, and anyone who doesn’t know that by now . . . well, doesn’t know that by now. Why would we want to switch to that kind of protectionist racket? We are experiencing a power grab now as well. Two of them actually. One by certain factions of the banking and investment and real estate industries, in collusion with certain factions of government (left and right), which didn’t work out so well, and another by the far-left, socialist wing of the Democrat party which is undermining the very fabric of our society. I won’t mention any names, but party affiliation is not an issue here. And I do not for a moment think that this faction has the hearts and minds of the rank and file Americans of either party. (right now the far-right, fascist wing of the Republican party is pretty much out of gas).
Someone once said that “America is great because its people are great.” I guess we really do get what we deserve, and right now, we have Michael Moore and Al Gore, And their ilk. Think about it.
IGM Global warming strategy
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. “I did my bit” Leavitt
Re: Global Warming Strategy
9-09-09 (Hey . . . that’s pretty cool!)
I ran across an interesting article at Telegraph.co.uk this evening. The London School of Economics has crunched the numbers, not to mention sanity as we know it, and concluded the following:
Every £4 spent on family planning over the next four decades would reduce global CO2 emissions by more than a ton, whereas a minimum of £19 would have to be spent on low-carbon technologies to achieve the same result, the research says.
In other words, having fewer kids will reduce emissions more efficiently than . . . well . . . reducing emissions other ways. This makes perfect sense to me. The logic is irrefutable; reduce the population and we will reduce the insidious, harmful, toxic greenhouse gasses, for which only humans are responsible. Oh wait, did I say toxic? I meant inert. Did I say harmful? I meant the gas all animals exhale as part of the natural cycle of life, and all plants inhale as part of that same process. And did I say insidious? I meant necessary, life-sustaining percentage of the atmosphere. (I realize this is a grossly oversimplified generalization. I’m taking a page from the environmental movement’s playbook.) But I’m sure we can work the kinks out of this simple, brilliant, straightforward plan. Besides, it’s even endorsed by the UN! Look here:
The report, Fewer Emitter, Lower Emissions, Less Cost, concludes that family planning should be seen as one of the primary methods of emissions reduction. The UN estimates that 40 per cent of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended.
That sounds like an endorsement, right? And since they brought it up, let’s talk about unintended consequences. Right now, according to every report I’ve seen in the last ten years, including the UN’s, approximately all of the First World is failing to have enough children to maintain its various cultures. This includes France, Germany, England, Spain, Italy, all of Scandinavia, and most other European countries, including the former Eastern Bloc. We aren’t even replacing our work force. The US is only holding things together because of our several million illegal but hard working, family-oriented aliens. The math is pretty simple. (And it really has to be for me to say that.) two parents need to have two children in order to replace the two parents when they die. And that only keeps things even. Accidents, disease, and Zombies still make the overall population drop. That’s why the magic number is 2.6 children. Lower than that and a culture cannot be maintained. It will be replaced by whomever is having 3 or more. Which has long been a secret plan of us Mormons, even before we started converting Central and South America, but now the Muslims have beaten us at our own game. They are averaging an astounding 8 kids per family worldwide. See? The math really is simple.
So, yeah, reducing the population by 40% will undoubtedly reduce greenhouse emissions, but it will destroy civilization as we know it as an “unintended consequence”, kind of like all those unintended pregnancies are responsible for global warming. Who knew?
Certain factions of amazingly gullible and irresponsible people, who seem to share a compulsion to join groups based on irrational ideas, have been trying to reduce the world’s population for several hundred years, all the way back to Thomas Malthus. They were wrong then, and they’re wrong now. It is not and has never been about over-population. It is about over-crowding, which mimics over-population.
I hardly need to mention that by now it’s pretty well established that global warming can neither be predicted, purposefully caused nor controlled, right? Which means that drastic reductions in population are not only stupid, but unnecessary and cultural suicide as well.
But hey, as long as we First Worlders are able to maintain our shallow, self-absorbed life styles, and get ours, it’s all good.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. “I did my bit” Leavitt
Re: Global Warming Strategy
9-09-09 (Hey . . . that’s pretty cool!)
I ran across an interesting article at Telegraph.co.uk this evening. The London School of Economics has crunched the numbers, not to mention sanity as we know it, and concluded the following:
Every £4 spent on family planning over the next four decades would reduce global CO2 emissions by more than a ton, whereas a minimum of £19 would have to be spent on low-carbon technologies to achieve the same result, the research says.
In other words, having fewer kids will reduce emissions more efficiently than . . . well . . . reducing emissions other ways. This makes perfect sense to me. The logic is irrefutable; reduce the population and we will reduce the insidious, harmful, toxic greenhouse gasses, for which only humans are responsible. Oh wait, did I say toxic? I meant inert. Did I say harmful? I meant the gas all animals exhale as part of the natural cycle of life, and all plants inhale as part of that same process. And did I say insidious? I meant necessary, life-sustaining percentage of the atmosphere. (I realize this is a grossly oversimplified generalization. I’m taking a page from the environmental movement’s playbook.) But I’m sure we can work the kinks out of this simple, brilliant, straightforward plan. Besides, it’s even endorsed by the UN! Look here:
The report, Fewer Emitter, Lower Emissions, Less Cost, concludes that family planning should be seen as one of the primary methods of emissions reduction. The UN estimates that 40 per cent of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended.
That sounds like an endorsement, right? And since they brought it up, let’s talk about unintended consequences. Right now, according to every report I’ve seen in the last ten years, including the UN’s, approximately all of the First World is failing to have enough children to maintain its various cultures. This includes France, Germany, England, Spain, Italy, all of Scandinavia, and most other European countries, including the former Eastern Bloc. We aren’t even replacing our work force. The US is only holding things together because of our several million illegal but hard working, family-oriented aliens. The math is pretty simple. (And it really has to be for me to say that.) two parents need to have two children in order to replace the two parents when they die. And that only keeps things even. Accidents, disease, and Zombies still make the overall population drop. That’s why the magic number is 2.6 children. Lower than that and a culture cannot be maintained. It will be replaced by whomever is having 3 or more. Which has long been a secret plan of us Mormons, even before we started converting Central and South America, but now the Muslims have beaten us at our own game. They are averaging an astounding 8 kids per family worldwide. See? The math really is simple.
So, yeah, reducing the population by 40% will undoubtedly reduce greenhouse emissions, but it will destroy civilization as we know it as an “unintended consequence”, kind of like all those unintended pregnancies are responsible for global warming. Who knew?
Certain factions of amazingly gullible and irresponsible people, who seem to share a compulsion to join groups based on irrational ideas, have been trying to reduce the world’s population for several hundred years, all the way back to Thomas Malthus. They were wrong then, and they’re wrong now. It is not and has never been about over-population. It is about over-crowding, which mimics over-population.
I hardly need to mention that by now it’s pretty well established that global warming can neither be predicted, purposefully caused nor controlled, right? Which means that drastic reductions in population are not only stupid, but unnecessary and cultural suicide as well.
But hey, as long as we First Worlders are able to maintain our shallow, self-absorbed life styles, and get ours, it’s all good.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
IGM Pithy quotes at the Expense of Religion
Inter-Galactic-Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Pithy quotes at the expense of religion
August 22, 2009
Here is a quote I found on my Google homepage this morning. It is from Stephen Weinberg, arguably one of the most brilliant Physicists this country has ever produced. I have been reading his stuff or reading about him for thirty years. He was one of the three people who unified the Weak Force and the electromagnetic force, (a “really big deal”) and many other things. The quote:
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
- Steven Weinberg
Well, it’s pithy. And I’m sure he has genuine feelings about the subject, but it is always surprising when ostensibly intelligent people say patently ridiculous things. This statement is so obviously and purposefully a raging oversimplification, falsehood and deception that one staggers at its ignorance—especially in the light of an IQ hovering in the stratosphere. It is duplicitous and inaccurate.
Let’s turn it around, shall we?
With or without science, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes science.
How do ya like me now, Stevie?
I can name just as many egregious abuses in the name of “science” and research (especially if one includes alchemy) as he can religion. And who would even argue that good people do bad things? Or that bad people occasionally do good things? That should be so obvious that a pithy aphorism hardly seems necessary. But Steve felt strongly enough about this that he offered an inaccurate, provocative statement I’m sure he knew to be misleading. No doubt, like approximately everyone who feels this way, he had one or more negative experiences with religion. Well who hasn’t you sheep-dip swilling, emotional pauper?
This memo is not the place to list the intentional and accidental abuses of science over the centuries. But they exist. Why? Because people are Human. For those religionists out there, we call that Mortal, or Fallen. For Weinberg to suggest that there is some kind of division—a quantifiable demarcation—by which we can determine who is good and who is evil, is monstrous.
“Everybody who goes to church, stand over here. Okay, you guys are the only ones who ever do evil things.”
To suggest that only through the religious experience can evil be perpetrated on the world is really beyond the pale. If I were the Science Czar (and under Obama there is one) I would give Steve a long Time-Out. Bad boy! I would send him to a re-education camp like that modified drive-in in Red Dawn where Charlie Sheen fails to rise to the level of acting again. In fact, now that I think of it, let’s mention some of those real re-education camps, concentration camps, etc., of the last century. Hitler comes to mind, and his cadre of Third Reich scientists who came up with the Final Solution. How about Mao, and Pol Pot, Stalin and the Gulags? The North Korean regime? The North Vietnamese? The list goes on. All good little atheists, doing their things not only without the benefit of religion, but as various attempts to eradicate it. But hey, they only murdered 300 million people between them, give or take, so what’s the big deal? (That’s the population of the US, by the way.)
And yes, I can mention Jim Jones as well, and the Spanish Inquisition (which no one ever expects) and the Salem witch trials and Ireland, and on and on. So what?
The problem is this. Weinberg says something mildly humorous, stating what sounds like some kind of revealed truth, and doesn’t have the guts, or character, to think about the consequences. What if some redneck from Alabama read that? Lacking the IQ of most Opossums, he might feel as if he’d had an epiphany and abandon his snake-charming church forever. (You see what I did there? It’s so easy.)
Lots of people hate religion, and/or want nothing to do with it. That’s fine. Who cares? We can’t all be perfect. Besides, without them there wouldn’t be a Law of Opposition. But it gets really old when self-appointed arbiters of reality don’t even come close to their chosen goals. Weinberg is a physicist. His life-long pursuit has been to discover and describe “reality”, truth. And he says something like this? It kind of puts him in the same camp as Rowland and Molina, the “Hole in the Ozone” scamps. (Two more scientists who managed to do evil). Weinberg has been one of my heroes for years, but now I’m going to have to relegate him to “really-smart moron” status. It’s almost like scientists didn’t like Believers, or felt superior to them. But that couldn’t be right. Right?
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Pithy quotes at the expense of religion
August 22, 2009
Here is a quote I found on my Google homepage this morning. It is from Stephen Weinberg, arguably one of the most brilliant Physicists this country has ever produced. I have been reading his stuff or reading about him for thirty years. He was one of the three people who unified the Weak Force and the electromagnetic force, (a “really big deal”) and many other things. The quote:
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
- Steven Weinberg
Well, it’s pithy. And I’m sure he has genuine feelings about the subject, but it is always surprising when ostensibly intelligent people say patently ridiculous things. This statement is so obviously and purposefully a raging oversimplification, falsehood and deception that one staggers at its ignorance—especially in the light of an IQ hovering in the stratosphere. It is duplicitous and inaccurate.
Let’s turn it around, shall we?
With or without science, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes science.
How do ya like me now, Stevie?
I can name just as many egregious abuses in the name of “science” and research (especially if one includes alchemy) as he can religion. And who would even argue that good people do bad things? Or that bad people occasionally do good things? That should be so obvious that a pithy aphorism hardly seems necessary. But Steve felt strongly enough about this that he offered an inaccurate, provocative statement I’m sure he knew to be misleading. No doubt, like approximately everyone who feels this way, he had one or more negative experiences with religion. Well who hasn’t you sheep-dip swilling, emotional pauper?
This memo is not the place to list the intentional and accidental abuses of science over the centuries. But they exist. Why? Because people are Human. For those religionists out there, we call that Mortal, or Fallen. For Weinberg to suggest that there is some kind of division—a quantifiable demarcation—by which we can determine who is good and who is evil, is monstrous.
“Everybody who goes to church, stand over here. Okay, you guys are the only ones who ever do evil things.”
To suggest that only through the religious experience can evil be perpetrated on the world is really beyond the pale. If I were the Science Czar (and under Obama there is one) I would give Steve a long Time-Out. Bad boy! I would send him to a re-education camp like that modified drive-in in Red Dawn where Charlie Sheen fails to rise to the level of acting again. In fact, now that I think of it, let’s mention some of those real re-education camps, concentration camps, etc., of the last century. Hitler comes to mind, and his cadre of Third Reich scientists who came up with the Final Solution. How about Mao, and Pol Pot, Stalin and the Gulags? The North Korean regime? The North Vietnamese? The list goes on. All good little atheists, doing their things not only without the benefit of religion, but as various attempts to eradicate it. But hey, they only murdered 300 million people between them, give or take, so what’s the big deal? (That’s the population of the US, by the way.)
And yes, I can mention Jim Jones as well, and the Spanish Inquisition (which no one ever expects) and the Salem witch trials and Ireland, and on and on. So what?
The problem is this. Weinberg says something mildly humorous, stating what sounds like some kind of revealed truth, and doesn’t have the guts, or character, to think about the consequences. What if some redneck from Alabama read that? Lacking the IQ of most Opossums, he might feel as if he’d had an epiphany and abandon his snake-charming church forever. (You see what I did there? It’s so easy.)
Lots of people hate religion, and/or want nothing to do with it. That’s fine. Who cares? We can’t all be perfect. Besides, without them there wouldn’t be a Law of Opposition. But it gets really old when self-appointed arbiters of reality don’t even come close to their chosen goals. Weinberg is a physicist. His life-long pursuit has been to discover and describe “reality”, truth. And he says something like this? It kind of puts him in the same camp as Rowland and Molina, the “Hole in the Ozone” scamps. (Two more scientists who managed to do evil). Weinberg has been one of my heroes for years, but now I’m going to have to relegate him to “really-smart moron” status. It’s almost like scientists didn’t like Believers, or felt superior to them. But that couldn’t be right. Right?
Sunday, August 16, 2009
IGM Death
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt, former semi-guitar player
Re: A death
August 13, 2009
It is with profound sadness that I am announcing the death of the true father of Rock and Roll, and electric music in general. Earlier today, Les Paul died. Les invented the solid body electric guitar and in so doing changed everything. Not only did he invent it, he perfected it. I have played a few electric guitars, although I’ve never own one. Most of them are adequate. And despite my awe and appreciation for the two Fender icons; the Stratocaster and the Telecaster, the Les Paul Custom, by Gibson, was is and will always be, the best production electric guitar in the world. Just watch concert footage from the last fifty years and you’ll see what I mean. I sort of accidently got to see Led Zeppelin in concert in 1967 or 8, I think. Jimmy Page was playing a Les Paul. He used a violin bow a lot that night. And he was so loaded on heroine he could barely stand. But he made that guitar sing. It was incredible. A once in a lifetime thing. Maxine probably remembers.
Here is a story that is tangentially connected to this memo:
Once, many years ago, a young man and his wife, both sporting straight, long, blonde hair and prescription John Lennon glasses, were working in the food service industry in NYC, having run away together from the Dakotas. They were hippies, I guess . . . or close enough that it didn’t matter. Dan and Mary decided—who knows why or even how—to start a rock and roll band, despite neither of them knowing anything about music. They were living in poverty—a cold-water flat with little or no furniture—but they were young and in love and recently married . . . and truth be told not overly bright. They saved every dime they made except for rent and food and in two years took their loot to a pawn shop in Harlem, and bought everything anyone might need to start a genuine rock and roll band. Bass, guitars, trap set, PA with a mixer, microphones and stands, cables, amps—everything, picked up an old, beat up step-van, loaded it with their booty and headed west.
It is one of those mysteries of the universe how they ended up in Hobbs, New Mexico. I think they might have been heading for LA and ran out of gas. I met them when I came home from school one afternoon to find the van in our driveway and one of my roommates showing the hapless couple around.
(For a full account of this episode in my life, read Westbury: Chronicles of a Suburban Commune, by yours truly.) They were already moved in and the living room full of gear. For me, it was like ten Christmases all at once.
Obviously, one of the guitars was a 1956 Les Paul Custom with a gold-flake finish. Since I was the only person in the “House” (Which we referred to simply as Westbury—the name of the street) who knew anything about music, or guitars or amps or anything else, I got to play it at will for the better part of two years. It was an experience I will never forget. It was so easy to play all you had to do was look at it and it would make chords. It never went out of tune, and even back then (69-70), the electronics could make it sound like anything. That guitar doubled the quality of my playing just by being in my hands. I can’t explain it.
Even then I knew about Les Paul. He was a famous guitar player, producer, record exec. He played with everybody. Every electric guitar ever made traces its ancestry straight back to that first one Les made in his garage. Look what he started. Think of the legacy this man has. Think about all the (contemporary) music you’ve loved and listened to all these years and what it would sound like without those awesome guitar riffs and relentless rhythms, those screaming, crying, mischievous leads and breaks and effects. Les crossed all boundaries, infected all genre.
We will be hearing from the Rock greats for a few days, as their sound bites invade the story-hungry media, the internet, blogs, “entertainment shows”, etc. Clapton, Page, Satriani, Malmsteen, Vai, Chesney, Paisley, Stills, Young, Gill, Methany, Skaggs, Frey, Walsh, Wilson, Lee, Messina, Rhodes, Vanhalen, Robertson, Townsend, those guys from Dragonforce . . . . I could name pickers for pages. But none of them will feel a debt, or gratitude or loss any more than I do. John, you know what I mean.
Not many people get to say they changed the whole world. But Les Paul did.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt, former semi-guitar player
Re: A death
August 13, 2009
It is with profound sadness that I am announcing the death of the true father of Rock and Roll, and electric music in general. Earlier today, Les Paul died. Les invented the solid body electric guitar and in so doing changed everything. Not only did he invent it, he perfected it. I have played a few electric guitars, although I’ve never own one. Most of them are adequate. And despite my awe and appreciation for the two Fender icons; the Stratocaster and the Telecaster, the Les Paul Custom, by Gibson, was is and will always be, the best production electric guitar in the world. Just watch concert footage from the last fifty years and you’ll see what I mean. I sort of accidently got to see Led Zeppelin in concert in 1967 or 8, I think. Jimmy Page was playing a Les Paul. He used a violin bow a lot that night. And he was so loaded on heroine he could barely stand. But he made that guitar sing. It was incredible. A once in a lifetime thing. Maxine probably remembers.
Here is a story that is tangentially connected to this memo:
Once, many years ago, a young man and his wife, both sporting straight, long, blonde hair and prescription John Lennon glasses, were working in the food service industry in NYC, having run away together from the Dakotas. They were hippies, I guess . . . or close enough that it didn’t matter. Dan and Mary decided—who knows why or even how—to start a rock and roll band, despite neither of them knowing anything about music. They were living in poverty—a cold-water flat with little or no furniture—but they were young and in love and recently married . . . and truth be told not overly bright. They saved every dime they made except for rent and food and in two years took their loot to a pawn shop in Harlem, and bought everything anyone might need to start a genuine rock and roll band. Bass, guitars, trap set, PA with a mixer, microphones and stands, cables, amps—everything, picked up an old, beat up step-van, loaded it with their booty and headed west.
It is one of those mysteries of the universe how they ended up in Hobbs, New Mexico. I think they might have been heading for LA and ran out of gas. I met them when I came home from school one afternoon to find the van in our driveway and one of my roommates showing the hapless couple around.
(For a full account of this episode in my life, read Westbury: Chronicles of a Suburban Commune, by yours truly.) They were already moved in and the living room full of gear. For me, it was like ten Christmases all at once.
Obviously, one of the guitars was a 1956 Les Paul Custom with a gold-flake finish. Since I was the only person in the “House” (Which we referred to simply as Westbury—the name of the street) who knew anything about music, or guitars or amps or anything else, I got to play it at will for the better part of two years. It was an experience I will never forget. It was so easy to play all you had to do was look at it and it would make chords. It never went out of tune, and even back then (69-70), the electronics could make it sound like anything. That guitar doubled the quality of my playing just by being in my hands. I can’t explain it.
Even then I knew about Les Paul. He was a famous guitar player, producer, record exec. He played with everybody. Every electric guitar ever made traces its ancestry straight back to that first one Les made in his garage. Look what he started. Think of the legacy this man has. Think about all the (contemporary) music you’ve loved and listened to all these years and what it would sound like without those awesome guitar riffs and relentless rhythms, those screaming, crying, mischievous leads and breaks and effects. Les crossed all boundaries, infected all genre.
We will be hearing from the Rock greats for a few days, as their sound bites invade the story-hungry media, the internet, blogs, “entertainment shows”, etc. Clapton, Page, Satriani, Malmsteen, Vai, Chesney, Paisley, Stills, Young, Gill, Methany, Skaggs, Frey, Walsh, Wilson, Lee, Messina, Rhodes, Vanhalen, Robertson, Townsend, those guys from Dragonforce . . . . I could name pickers for pages. But none of them will feel a debt, or gratitude or loss any more than I do. John, you know what I mean.
Not many people get to say they changed the whole world. But Les Paul did.
Alaska Vacation
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt Veteran Tourist
Re: Our vacation
07-03-09
As some of you know (fine, a good many of you were there actually . . .) Nita and I went on a vacation recently. For the last ten days to be precise. Since almost no one wants to hear anything about it, I will now give a detailed account of our travels.
First let me say that two of our nieces, Leah and Lanissa, made all of the arrangements, beginning months ago, perhaps more than a year ago, and through an unending and daunting process of negotiations, phone calls, emails, web-surfing, and bargain-hunting, booked flights, arranged transportation, booked passage aboard the Diamond Princess (a cruise ship bigger than Rhode Island), found and booked day trips including trains, fishing charters, glacier-hopping, National park visiting, motels, cabins, and on and on, down to the very last detail, and then, in a feat not equaled since Queen Elizabeth took off all her make-up, remembered it all, kept track of all of us, and managed not to kill anyone. All this for 26 people. All arriving at different times, from different directions, and for various reasons. Nobel Prize? Academy Award? Is there a lifetime achievement award for free-lance travel agents?
The first bit was Herculean in nature. We left Las Vegas (and heat venturing playfully into “Inferno” range) about 5:30 PM and flew to Denver, where we met several others of our party, mostly relatives plus a few friends, boarded another plane and headed for Anchorage, where we arrived at about 1:30 AM, their time. The first little glitch arrived with us. Nita’s suitcase went to some regional airfield in Fargo instead of Alaska. I was incensed, she shrugged and borrowed things for two days.
The Goddess Twins got us all into three rented vehicles at that ungodly hour (it had just gotten dark) and we drove nearly 6 hours through rain and forest and bogs and a Moose-sighting, on a two-lane hiway, all the way to Denali National Park, where we checked into our cabins, took a short nap, and then went sightseeing. And did we ever see some sights. By then we had had 2 hours of sleep in the last 30. Piece of cake.
A word about the cabins at Denali. The place was called The Crows Nest. Each cabin rested on a unique but interesting angle, varying from about 6 to maybe 15 degrees, and all in different directions. They were “Quaint” according to Leah, one of the Goddesses, whose world-view differs somewhat from my own. The cabin experience came perilously close to “camping”, a pastime of which I was once a devote, but am now long-since recovered.
Despite being sleep-deprived and having seen darkness for only 3 hours, we drove into the park, did a turn around the visitors center, then drove out to Savage River and took a long hike down and back through one of God’s best ideas. It was beautiful. Everything about Alaska is different than down here in the lower forty-eight. The Flora and Fauna, the mountains, the rocks—everything. It is unique.
The food was excellent wherever we ate in the little village. Our breakfast was in a café, on a wooden floor older than the last ice-age, and it slanted even more than the cabins. I sat on the down-hill side which made it easier to drink my milk. We did another half-day of sightseeing, which included three huge Caribou quite close to us, and some bears far away on a river—according to the less than reliable single men in our group—then headed back to Anchorage. We stopped for Pizza at Angela’s Haven, the address of which—and I am not making this up—is mile marker 117, Park Hiway, Alaska.
On a side note, we almost tossed my brother-in-law, James, out on his ear several times for various misdemeanors, mostly having to do with inappropriate puns and spontaneous conversations with random Alaskans, but cooler heads prevailed.
Back in Anchorage, we got to our motel—where Nita’s luggage was waiting for us—which allowed me to stop working on my hit list—and met the other half of our party, including Maxine (my little sister) and her husband Steve, his parents, two of their daughters and various hangers-on. (You know who you are). We spent a riotous night reading and sleeping in endless daylight, got up the next morning and boarded the cruise ship Diamond Princess. Everyone immediately purchased no-limit soft drink cards then went to find the food trough. Turns out the entire ship is a food trough.
We all got settled, went to eat again, did the safety muster, then went to eat again. This became a recurring theme throughout the voyage. Go do something, preferably for no more than an hour, then go eat again.
Then, disaster struck. The Coke mix at the buffet was unacceptably weak and flat. Now, I can put up with a lot. I am willing to sacrifice and compromise when necessary. But no one messes with my cola. Everyone agreed—it was bad. I filled out one of those suggestion-slash-info cards with a strongly worded protest. Nothing happened. Every spigot in the place was pouring brown water for the entire trip! I will be letting the Coca Cola corporation know about this travesty.
The ship headed for Skagway. The weather was chilly, misty, foggy, rainy, overcast and drab. Coming from Las Vegas, I loved every minute of it. I saw some dolphins or Orca’s at the far-reach of visibility, while standing on the promenade deck, enjoying the overcast and misty evening, but just their curving backs shrouded in fog. After such an exciting moment, I instantly headed up to find more food, then began looking for friends and family in order to regale them with my intrepid sea-stories.
The trip to Skagway was a two-day venture in the open ocean. Pacific ocean. Very large body of water. Many people were sick. The boat rocked back and forth like an autistic polar bear. Neither Nita nor I were bothered in the slightest. It was fun. We took advantage of so many people staying in their rooms to find and consume even more food.
We woke on the second morning to find Skagway like a gleaming gem, a bright present on Christmas Morning. Our first foray off-ship took us on a historic train-ride following the route about a million gold-stampeders took to the Yukon. A word here about the train ride. The scenery was breath-taking. High, steep mountains, the gray-green rivers full of glacial silt, tracks going over high trestles and along precipitous ledges. Really quite the thing for a morning outing. Except the train was very slow—it took over two hours to go twenty miles (and 3,000 vertical feet) and then, at the top of an isolated, deserted, long-abandoned mountain pass, we stopped, the engine slid onto a siding and went to the back of the train which then became the front, we all reversed our seat-backs, and we went back down as slowly as we had gone up. The point of this mild rebuke is, of course, there were no snacks. Not a vending machine in sight. We didn’t even get off the car. Why would someone take a train all the way up a mountain and then just go back down again? Imagine the missed opportunities for profit-making ventures! No gift shop, no quaint benches shaped like dogsleds, no coin-driven telescopes with which to see the remains of the thousands of horses and mules killed by the recalcitrant wanna-be miners when the animals could not carry their obscenely heavy loads any further. Nothing but a hiway in the distance with buses and RV’s heading for Whitehorse and parts east and south. (Nita and I have almost been to Whitehorse, but that’s another story). I managed to assuage my disappointment at the lack of even a small casino atop the mountain by purchasing a commemorative ball cap from the White Pass railroad, with the year emblazoned on the side (2009) which is the 50th anniversary of Alaska’s statehood. They can only be purchased on the train and only this year, so I have quite a prize. The downside of course is that I can’t eat it.
We arrived back in Skagway, walked through the town (a ten minute foray along one board-walked street) and then I skulked back to the ship, feeling somehow cheated, and drowned my sorrows in a fine meal at the buffet followed by more food that evening at the swank International Room.
From Skagway, we kept to the Inside Passage, which offers much calmer waters, until we arrived at Glacier Bay National Park. The Princess steamed up the fiords as we oohed and ahed (very sincerely) at glaciers everywhere, coming at us from all sides of the ship. It is difficult to describe not just the wild beauty, but the grandeur and majesty of natures ice-cube trays. (That’s an inside joke for my siblings—think Thule). The trip up the fiords took a while, but every inch of it was breathtaking.
Finally we arrived at the head of a bay where two tide-water glaciers meet the ocean. The Marjorie Glacier, and the Pacific International, both wandering for miles back into the mountains , both more than a mile across at their faces, one white and eerily blue, the other camouflaged in black dirt and rocks. The ship stayed for two hours, as close as it could get, while we watched ice calve from the face, otters play, icebergs wander, and a massive river of silt and water boil from beneath the Marjorie into the bay. It was magnificent.
We steamed back out, which looked much like the trip in, but reverse, and headed for Juneau and more food. The next morning we arrived in Juneau and walked around the town for a while, sampling fudge and ice cream, talking to the locals, and taking in the atmosphere, which was wonderful. Then we got on a small shuttle bus and drove out to the Mendenhall Glacier, which is only a few miles from town. Wow. That’s really all one can say. While there, we all got to star at a mamma brown bear and her two tree-hugging cubs. A ranger told us she likes to hang around there at the park.
After that, back to town where we got on a boat with fifty other people and headed out into the bay for whale-watching. After half an hour of wake-producing speed we slowed where several other similar boats were loitering and the Captain told us Killer Whales had been spotted in the vicinity earlier. This was a rare event—normally the tours don’t even look for them. And then, just a few dozen yards away . . . there they were, an entire Pod, at least six or seven, maybe an eighth-mile away, rising, blowing their sprays into the air, the adult male arching like a bow, its six foot dorsal shining black and wet and glorious, the others around it and behind it, again and again, coming up, blowing, doing a few loopy moves on the surface, then diving and coming up somewhere else. Very, very cool.
We left and sped to another part of the bay to yet another gaggle of boats, waited, saw plumes of air and water appear, and then the huge, arching, Quasimodo-backs with their odd shape and huge blow-holes—Humpback Whales hunting, feeding on herring. Unsurpassed for coolness. They were too soon gone, and it was back to the ship and another night of merry-making, endless card games, shows, comedians, music . . . and food. Glorious food. And for me, television. I’m not much of a party goer.
The boat traveled as we slept and we arrived in Ketchikan around 11 AM the next morning. Some of us went into town to shop while five intrepid American males and one guy from Scotland braved the open waters for the thrill of salmon fishing. Six brave men against the unrelenting dangers and the terrible deeps of the Inside Passage. (Okay, according to the depth finder we never got into water deeper than 200 feet, but that’s still pretty scary.) With four lines in the water at all times, we rotated by prearranged numbers. When one line began to shiver, the next guy in the rotation would grab the pole and begin the terrible, magnificent, puissant struggle with the wild fish. Naturally, while we all caught our limits (6) I caught the most fish by tonnage, plus everyone caught Pinks but me. I caught two enormous Coho’s, three or four times the size of the Pinks. (Oh, and Steve caught a nice Coho, but that’s hardly worth mentioning in the light of my own spectacular success. You can see how unimportant it is by the parentheses.) We split the fish 3 ways (William, from Scotland, couldn’t take his home) and are having them processed and shipped home. It will be the most expensive fish we will ever eat. We never understood a word William said, so thick was his brogue, but we kept him talking all afternoon because we all loved to listen to him. (Actually, he was a wonderful gentleman. He was the veteran of the group, having done the salmon thing before, as well as halibut.)
We arrived back at the ship, had seven or eight quick slices of pizza, and then we compared notes with the women, at which time we determined by unanimous proclamation to have won the day, and all went down and aft for a wonderful dinner.
At some point my wife did laundry while I watched television. The next two days were spent on the open seas, making the long, last leg of our journey, heading to Vancouver, British Columbia. (I did a report on British Columbia in the 6th grade. My research indicated, among other things, that enough lumber had been harvested from the province to make a road four inches thick and 28 feet wide that would loop around the equator 27 times. That would have been circa 1962-ish). This was our second time in British Columbia, but that is another story as well. I spent most of the two days working on a book I’m writing.
That night several of our group went to the karaoke bar and made complete fools of themselves while I continued to work on my novel. We all met in the International Room for one last gourmet meal. I ordered two entrées, a steak and a nice piece of Barramundi, which was the best thing I ate the entire cruise. The staff brought out huge platters of Baked Alaska and formed a conga line, dancing their way around the room—I’m not sure why. We tried to eat the dessert but there was just too much of it, so we ordered apple pie and sorbet as well. Oh, and somewhere in there we all sang happy birthday to Rob, one of our dangerously unmarried men, which was a completely humiliating experience. I don’t think Rob liked it much either.
One last breakfast and they shoved down ramps and into chutes like cattle into a stockyard and we were of f the boat and in Canada. Some of us caught a shuttle to the airport and others to a motel— again, all neatly arranged by the Travel Goddesses. We took a little walk—about a million miles—to find a post office that was “just around the corner” in order to exchange our (real) money for some Canadian fun money, but it was Saturday and they were closed. No one wanted to walk all the way back, so, for fun, and because of Leah’s lamentable emotional problems, we took the bus-ride from hell into downtown Vancouver to tour a “classical Chinese Garden”. I suppose it was very nice, but at that point I would have been more impressed with the comforting embrace of the Grim Reaper. The ride back was better. We spent our last night in International Land, had a fine breakfast at the motel café, and a few of us at a time took the shuttle to the airport to meet various flights. Our shuttle was the last one and our driver was a fine Persian man named Essi, who is an accomplished musician. (I know—I Googled his website). We were not allowed to eat on the trip to the airport. Fortunately it only lasted seven minutes. The flight back was pretty cool, if you enjoy being stuffed into aluminum cans the size of . . . well, aluminum cans. But We had great views of Mt. Rainer, and Mt. Hood, then Mt. St. Helens. I could see where the eruption tore the mountain apart and where the lahars flooded down into the valleys below like the fates own judge. California was on fire, but it’s August and California is always on fire then.
When we arrived in Vegas, our luggage had taken a vacation of its own, no doubt to Hawaii. (We got it back the next day.)
All things considered, it was a smashing success and everyone had a good deal of fun and collected—I’m sure—several priceless memories. I know I did. I just can’t remember what they are . . . Which reminds me of that great Groucho Marks line; “I’ve had a wonderful evening . . . but this wasn’t it.”
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt Veteran Tourist
Re: Our vacation
07-03-09
As some of you know (fine, a good many of you were there actually . . .) Nita and I went on a vacation recently. For the last ten days to be precise. Since almost no one wants to hear anything about it, I will now give a detailed account of our travels.
First let me say that two of our nieces, Leah and Lanissa, made all of the arrangements, beginning months ago, perhaps more than a year ago, and through an unending and daunting process of negotiations, phone calls, emails, web-surfing, and bargain-hunting, booked flights, arranged transportation, booked passage aboard the Diamond Princess (a cruise ship bigger than Rhode Island), found and booked day trips including trains, fishing charters, glacier-hopping, National park visiting, motels, cabins, and on and on, down to the very last detail, and then, in a feat not equaled since Queen Elizabeth took off all her make-up, remembered it all, kept track of all of us, and managed not to kill anyone. All this for 26 people. All arriving at different times, from different directions, and for various reasons. Nobel Prize? Academy Award? Is there a lifetime achievement award for free-lance travel agents?
The first bit was Herculean in nature. We left Las Vegas (and heat venturing playfully into “Inferno” range) about 5:30 PM and flew to Denver, where we met several others of our party, mostly relatives plus a few friends, boarded another plane and headed for Anchorage, where we arrived at about 1:30 AM, their time. The first little glitch arrived with us. Nita’s suitcase went to some regional airfield in Fargo instead of Alaska. I was incensed, she shrugged and borrowed things for two days.
The Goddess Twins got us all into three rented vehicles at that ungodly hour (it had just gotten dark) and we drove nearly 6 hours through rain and forest and bogs and a Moose-sighting, on a two-lane hiway, all the way to Denali National Park, where we checked into our cabins, took a short nap, and then went sightseeing. And did we ever see some sights. By then we had had 2 hours of sleep in the last 30. Piece of cake.
A word about the cabins at Denali. The place was called The Crows Nest. Each cabin rested on a unique but interesting angle, varying from about 6 to maybe 15 degrees, and all in different directions. They were “Quaint” according to Leah, one of the Goddesses, whose world-view differs somewhat from my own. The cabin experience came perilously close to “camping”, a pastime of which I was once a devote, but am now long-since recovered.
Despite being sleep-deprived and having seen darkness for only 3 hours, we drove into the park, did a turn around the visitors center, then drove out to Savage River and took a long hike down and back through one of God’s best ideas. It was beautiful. Everything about Alaska is different than down here in the lower forty-eight. The Flora and Fauna, the mountains, the rocks—everything. It is unique.
The food was excellent wherever we ate in the little village. Our breakfast was in a café, on a wooden floor older than the last ice-age, and it slanted even more than the cabins. I sat on the down-hill side which made it easier to drink my milk. We did another half-day of sightseeing, which included three huge Caribou quite close to us, and some bears far away on a river—according to the less than reliable single men in our group—then headed back to Anchorage. We stopped for Pizza at Angela’s Haven, the address of which—and I am not making this up—is mile marker 117, Park Hiway, Alaska.
On a side note, we almost tossed my brother-in-law, James, out on his ear several times for various misdemeanors, mostly having to do with inappropriate puns and spontaneous conversations with random Alaskans, but cooler heads prevailed.
Back in Anchorage, we got to our motel—where Nita’s luggage was waiting for us—which allowed me to stop working on my hit list—and met the other half of our party, including Maxine (my little sister) and her husband Steve, his parents, two of their daughters and various hangers-on. (You know who you are). We spent a riotous night reading and sleeping in endless daylight, got up the next morning and boarded the cruise ship Diamond Princess. Everyone immediately purchased no-limit soft drink cards then went to find the food trough. Turns out the entire ship is a food trough.
We all got settled, went to eat again, did the safety muster, then went to eat again. This became a recurring theme throughout the voyage. Go do something, preferably for no more than an hour, then go eat again.
Then, disaster struck. The Coke mix at the buffet was unacceptably weak and flat. Now, I can put up with a lot. I am willing to sacrifice and compromise when necessary. But no one messes with my cola. Everyone agreed—it was bad. I filled out one of those suggestion-slash-info cards with a strongly worded protest. Nothing happened. Every spigot in the place was pouring brown water for the entire trip! I will be letting the Coca Cola corporation know about this travesty.
The ship headed for Skagway. The weather was chilly, misty, foggy, rainy, overcast and drab. Coming from Las Vegas, I loved every minute of it. I saw some dolphins or Orca’s at the far-reach of visibility, while standing on the promenade deck, enjoying the overcast and misty evening, but just their curving backs shrouded in fog. After such an exciting moment, I instantly headed up to find more food, then began looking for friends and family in order to regale them with my intrepid sea-stories.
The trip to Skagway was a two-day venture in the open ocean. Pacific ocean. Very large body of water. Many people were sick. The boat rocked back and forth like an autistic polar bear. Neither Nita nor I were bothered in the slightest. It was fun. We took advantage of so many people staying in their rooms to find and consume even more food.
We woke on the second morning to find Skagway like a gleaming gem, a bright present on Christmas Morning. Our first foray off-ship took us on a historic train-ride following the route about a million gold-stampeders took to the Yukon. A word here about the train ride. The scenery was breath-taking. High, steep mountains, the gray-green rivers full of glacial silt, tracks going over high trestles and along precipitous ledges. Really quite the thing for a morning outing. Except the train was very slow—it took over two hours to go twenty miles (and 3,000 vertical feet) and then, at the top of an isolated, deserted, long-abandoned mountain pass, we stopped, the engine slid onto a siding and went to the back of the train which then became the front, we all reversed our seat-backs, and we went back down as slowly as we had gone up. The point of this mild rebuke is, of course, there were no snacks. Not a vending machine in sight. We didn’t even get off the car. Why would someone take a train all the way up a mountain and then just go back down again? Imagine the missed opportunities for profit-making ventures! No gift shop, no quaint benches shaped like dogsleds, no coin-driven telescopes with which to see the remains of the thousands of horses and mules killed by the recalcitrant wanna-be miners when the animals could not carry their obscenely heavy loads any further. Nothing but a hiway in the distance with buses and RV’s heading for Whitehorse and parts east and south. (Nita and I have almost been to Whitehorse, but that’s another story). I managed to assuage my disappointment at the lack of even a small casino atop the mountain by purchasing a commemorative ball cap from the White Pass railroad, with the year emblazoned on the side (2009) which is the 50th anniversary of Alaska’s statehood. They can only be purchased on the train and only this year, so I have quite a prize. The downside of course is that I can’t eat it.
We arrived back in Skagway, walked through the town (a ten minute foray along one board-walked street) and then I skulked back to the ship, feeling somehow cheated, and drowned my sorrows in a fine meal at the buffet followed by more food that evening at the swank International Room.
From Skagway, we kept to the Inside Passage, which offers much calmer waters, until we arrived at Glacier Bay National Park. The Princess steamed up the fiords as we oohed and ahed (very sincerely) at glaciers everywhere, coming at us from all sides of the ship. It is difficult to describe not just the wild beauty, but the grandeur and majesty of natures ice-cube trays. (That’s an inside joke for my siblings—think Thule). The trip up the fiords took a while, but every inch of it was breathtaking.
Finally we arrived at the head of a bay where two tide-water glaciers meet the ocean. The Marjorie Glacier, and the Pacific International, both wandering for miles back into the mountains , both more than a mile across at their faces, one white and eerily blue, the other camouflaged in black dirt and rocks. The ship stayed for two hours, as close as it could get, while we watched ice calve from the face, otters play, icebergs wander, and a massive river of silt and water boil from beneath the Marjorie into the bay. It was magnificent.
We steamed back out, which looked much like the trip in, but reverse, and headed for Juneau and more food. The next morning we arrived in Juneau and walked around the town for a while, sampling fudge and ice cream, talking to the locals, and taking in the atmosphere, which was wonderful. Then we got on a small shuttle bus and drove out to the Mendenhall Glacier, which is only a few miles from town. Wow. That’s really all one can say. While there, we all got to star at a mamma brown bear and her two tree-hugging cubs. A ranger told us she likes to hang around there at the park.
After that, back to town where we got on a boat with fifty other people and headed out into the bay for whale-watching. After half an hour of wake-producing speed we slowed where several other similar boats were loitering and the Captain told us Killer Whales had been spotted in the vicinity earlier. This was a rare event—normally the tours don’t even look for them. And then, just a few dozen yards away . . . there they were, an entire Pod, at least six or seven, maybe an eighth-mile away, rising, blowing their sprays into the air, the adult male arching like a bow, its six foot dorsal shining black and wet and glorious, the others around it and behind it, again and again, coming up, blowing, doing a few loopy moves on the surface, then diving and coming up somewhere else. Very, very cool.
We left and sped to another part of the bay to yet another gaggle of boats, waited, saw plumes of air and water appear, and then the huge, arching, Quasimodo-backs with their odd shape and huge blow-holes—Humpback Whales hunting, feeding on herring. Unsurpassed for coolness. They were too soon gone, and it was back to the ship and another night of merry-making, endless card games, shows, comedians, music . . . and food. Glorious food. And for me, television. I’m not much of a party goer.
The boat traveled as we slept and we arrived in Ketchikan around 11 AM the next morning. Some of us went into town to shop while five intrepid American males and one guy from Scotland braved the open waters for the thrill of salmon fishing. Six brave men against the unrelenting dangers and the terrible deeps of the Inside Passage. (Okay, according to the depth finder we never got into water deeper than 200 feet, but that’s still pretty scary.) With four lines in the water at all times, we rotated by prearranged numbers. When one line began to shiver, the next guy in the rotation would grab the pole and begin the terrible, magnificent, puissant struggle with the wild fish. Naturally, while we all caught our limits (6) I caught the most fish by tonnage, plus everyone caught Pinks but me. I caught two enormous Coho’s, three or four times the size of the Pinks. (Oh, and Steve caught a nice Coho, but that’s hardly worth mentioning in the light of my own spectacular success. You can see how unimportant it is by the parentheses.) We split the fish 3 ways (William, from Scotland, couldn’t take his home) and are having them processed and shipped home. It will be the most expensive fish we will ever eat. We never understood a word William said, so thick was his brogue, but we kept him talking all afternoon because we all loved to listen to him. (Actually, he was a wonderful gentleman. He was the veteran of the group, having done the salmon thing before, as well as halibut.)
We arrived back at the ship, had seven or eight quick slices of pizza, and then we compared notes with the women, at which time we determined by unanimous proclamation to have won the day, and all went down and aft for a wonderful dinner.
At some point my wife did laundry while I watched television. The next two days were spent on the open seas, making the long, last leg of our journey, heading to Vancouver, British Columbia. (I did a report on British Columbia in the 6th grade. My research indicated, among other things, that enough lumber had been harvested from the province to make a road four inches thick and 28 feet wide that would loop around the equator 27 times. That would have been circa 1962-ish). This was our second time in British Columbia, but that is another story as well. I spent most of the two days working on a book I’m writing.
That night several of our group went to the karaoke bar and made complete fools of themselves while I continued to work on my novel. We all met in the International Room for one last gourmet meal. I ordered two entrées, a steak and a nice piece of Barramundi, which was the best thing I ate the entire cruise. The staff brought out huge platters of Baked Alaska and formed a conga line, dancing their way around the room—I’m not sure why. We tried to eat the dessert but there was just too much of it, so we ordered apple pie and sorbet as well. Oh, and somewhere in there we all sang happy birthday to Rob, one of our dangerously unmarried men, which was a completely humiliating experience. I don’t think Rob liked it much either.
One last breakfast and they shoved down ramps and into chutes like cattle into a stockyard and we were of f the boat and in Canada. Some of us caught a shuttle to the airport and others to a motel— again, all neatly arranged by the Travel Goddesses. We took a little walk—about a million miles—to find a post office that was “just around the corner” in order to exchange our (real) money for some Canadian fun money, but it was Saturday and they were closed. No one wanted to walk all the way back, so, for fun, and because of Leah’s lamentable emotional problems, we took the bus-ride from hell into downtown Vancouver to tour a “classical Chinese Garden”. I suppose it was very nice, but at that point I would have been more impressed with the comforting embrace of the Grim Reaper. The ride back was better. We spent our last night in International Land, had a fine breakfast at the motel café, and a few of us at a time took the shuttle to the airport to meet various flights. Our shuttle was the last one and our driver was a fine Persian man named Essi, who is an accomplished musician. (I know—I Googled his website). We were not allowed to eat on the trip to the airport. Fortunately it only lasted seven minutes. The flight back was pretty cool, if you enjoy being stuffed into aluminum cans the size of . . . well, aluminum cans. But We had great views of Mt. Rainer, and Mt. Hood, then Mt. St. Helens. I could see where the eruption tore the mountain apart and where the lahars flooded down into the valleys below like the fates own judge. California was on fire, but it’s August and California is always on fire then.
When we arrived in Vegas, our luggage had taken a vacation of its own, no doubt to Hawaii. (We got it back the next day.)
All things considered, it was a smashing success and everyone had a good deal of fun and collected—I’m sure—several priceless memories. I know I did. I just can’t remember what they are . . . Which reminds me of that great Groucho Marks line; “I’ve had a wonderful evening . . . but this wasn’t it.”
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt Veteran Tourist
Re: Our vacation
07-03-09
As some of you know (fine, a good many of you were there actually . . .) Nita and I went on a vacation recently. For the last ten days to be precise. Since almost no one wants to hear anything about it, I will now give a detailed account of our travels.
First let me say that two of our nieces, Leah and Lanissa, made all of the arrangements, beginning months ago, perhaps more than a year ago, and through an unending and daunting process of negotiations, phone calls, emails, web-surfing, and bargain-hunting, booked flights, arranged transportation, booked passage aboard the Diamond Princess (a cruise ship bigger than Rhode Island), found and booked day trips including trains, fishing charters, glacier-hopping, National park visiting, motels, cabins, and on and on, down to the very last detail, and then, in a feat not equaled since Queen Elizabeth took off all her make-up, remembered it all, kept track of all of us, and managed not to kill anyone. All this for 26 people. All arriving at different times, from different directions, and for various reasons. Nobel Prize? Academy Award? Is there a lifetime achievement award for free-lance travel agents?
The first bit was Herculean in nature. We left Las Vegas (and heat venturing playfully into “Inferno” range) about 5:30 PM and flew to Denver, where we met several others of our party, mostly relatives plus a few friends, boarded another plane and headed for Anchorage, where we arrived at about 1:30 AM, their time. The first little glitch arrived with us. Nita’s suitcase went to some regional airfield in Fargo instead of Alaska. I was incensed, she shrugged and borrowed things for two days.
The Goddess Twins got us all into three rented vehicles at that ungodly hour (it had just gotten dark) and we drove nearly 6 hours through rain and forest and bogs and a Moose-sighting, on a two-lane hiway, all the way to Denali National Park, where we checked into our cabins, took a short nap, and then went sightseeing. And did we ever see some sights. By then we had had 2 hours of sleep in the last 30. Piece of cake.
A word about the cabins at Denali. The place was called The Crows Nest. Each cabin rested on a unique but interesting angle, varying from about 6 to maybe 15 degrees, and all in different directions. They were “Quaint” according to Leah, one of the Goddesses, whose world-view differs somewhat from my own. The cabin experience came perilously close to “camping”, a pastime of which I was once a devote, but am now long-since recovered.
Despite being sleep-deprived and having seen darkness for only 3 hours, we drove into the park, did a turn around the visitors center, then drove out to Savage River and took a long hike down and back through one of God’s best ideas. It was beautiful. Everything about Alaska is different than down here in the lower forty-eight. The Flora and Fauna, the mountains, the rocks—everything. It is unique.
The food was excellent wherever we ate in the little village. Our breakfast was in a café, on a wooden floor older than the last ice-age, and it slanted even more than the cabins. I sat on the down-hill side which made it easier to drink my milk. We did another half-day of sightseeing, which included three huge Caribou quite close to us, and some bears far away on a river—according to the less than reliable single men in our group—then headed back to Anchorage. We stopped for Pizza at Angela’s Haven, the address of which—and I am not making this up—is mile marker 117, Park Hiway, Alaska.
On a side note, we almost tossed my brother-in-law, James, out on his ear several times for various misdemeanors, mostly having to do with inappropriate puns and spontaneous conversations with random Alaskans, but cooler heads prevailed.
Back in Anchorage, we got to our motel—where Nita’s luggage was waiting for us—which allowed me to stop working on my hit list—and met the other half of our party, including Maxine (my little sister) and her husband Steve, his parents, two of their daughters and various hangers-on. (You know who you are). We spent a riotous night reading and sleeping in endless daylight, got up the next morning and boarded the cruise ship Diamond Princess. Everyone immediately purchased no-limit soft drink cards then went to find the food trough. Turns out the entire ship is a food trough.
We all got settled, went to eat again, did the safety muster, then went to eat again. This became a recurring theme throughout the voyage. Go do something, preferably for no more than an hour, then go eat again.
Then, disaster struck. The Coke mix at the buffet was unacceptably weak and flat. Now, I can put up with a lot. I am willing to sacrifice and compromise when necessary. But no one messes with my cola. Everyone agreed—it was bad. I filled out one of those suggestion-slash-info cards with a strongly worded protest. Nothing happened. Every spigot in the place was pouring brown water for the entire trip! I will be letting the Coca Cola corporation know about this travesty.
The ship headed for Skagway. The weather was chilly, misty, foggy, rainy, overcast and drab. Coming from Las Vegas, I loved every minute of it. I saw some dolphins or Orca’s at the far-reach of visibility, while standing on the promenade deck, enjoying the overcast and misty evening, but just their curving backs shrouded in fog. After such an exciting moment, I instantly headed up to find more food, then began looking for friends and family in order to regale them with my intrepid sea-stories.
The trip to Skagway was a two-day venture in the open ocean. Pacific ocean. Very large body of water. Many people were sick. The boat rocked back and forth like an autistic polar bear. Neither Nita nor I were bothered in the slightest. It was fun. We took advantage of so many people staying in their rooms to find and consume even more food.
We woke on the second morning to find Skagway like a gleaming gem, a bright present on Christmas Morning. Our first foray off-ship took us on a historic train-ride following the route about a million gold-stampeders took to the Yukon. A word here about the train ride. The scenery was breath-taking. High, steep mountains, the gray-green rivers full of glacial silt, tracks going over high trestles and along precipitous ledges. Really quite the thing for a morning outing. Except the train was very slow—it took over two hours to go twenty miles (and 3,000 vertical feet) and then, at the top of an isolated, deserted, long-abandoned mountain pass, we stopped, the engine slid onto a siding and went to the back of the train which then became the front, we all reversed our seat-backs, and we went back down as slowly as we had gone up. The point of this mild rebuke is, of course, there were no snacks. Not a vending machine in sight. We didn’t even get off the car. Why would someone take a train all the way up a mountain and then just go back down again? Imagine the missed opportunities for profit-making ventures! No gift shop, no quaint benches shaped like dogsleds, no coin-driven telescopes with which to see the remains of the thousands of horses and mules killed by the recalcitrant wanna-be miners when the animals could not carry their obscenely heavy loads any further. Nothing but a hiway in the distance with buses and RV’s heading for Whitehorse and parts east and south. (Nita and I have almost been to Whitehorse, but that’s another story). I managed to assuage my disappointment at the lack of even a small casino atop the mountain by purchasing a commemorative ball cap from the White Pass railroad, with the year emblazoned on the side (2009) which is the 50th anniversary of Alaska’s statehood. They can only be purchased on the train and only this year, so I have quite a prize. The downside of course is that I can’t eat it.
We arrived back in Skagway, walked through the town (a ten minute foray along one board-walked street) and then I skulked back to the ship, feeling somehow cheated, and drowned my sorrows in a fine meal at the buffet followed by more food that evening at the swank International Room.
From Skagway, we kept to the Inside Passage, which offers much calmer waters, until we arrived at Glacier Bay National Park. The Princess steamed up the fiords as we oohed and ahed (very sincerely) at glaciers everywhere, coming at us from all sides of the ship. It is difficult to describe not just the wild beauty, but the grandeur and majesty of natures ice-cube trays. (That’s an inside joke for my siblings—think Thule). The trip up the fiords took a while, but every inch of it was breathtaking.
Finally we arrived at the head of a bay where two tide-water glaciers meet the ocean. The Marjorie Glacier, and the Pacific International, both wandering for miles back into the mountains , both more than a mile across at their faces, one white and eerily blue, the other camouflaged in black dirt and rocks. The ship stayed for two hours, as close as it could get, while we watched ice calve from the face, otters play, icebergs wander, and a massive river of silt and water boil from beneath the Marjorie into the bay. It was magnificent.
We steamed back out, which looked much like the trip in, but reverse, and headed for Juneau and more food. The next morning we arrived in Juneau and walked around the town for a while, sampling fudge and ice cream, talking to the locals, and taking in the atmosphere, which was wonderful. Then we got on a small shuttle bus and drove out to the Mendenhall Glacier, which is only a few miles from town. Wow. That’s really all one can say. While there, we all got to star at a mamma brown bear and her two tree-hugging cubs. A ranger told us she likes to hang around there at the park.
After that, back to town where we got on a boat with fifty other people and headed out into the bay for whale-watching. After half an hour of wake-producing speed we slowed where several other similar boats were loitering and the Captain told us Killer Whales had been spotted in the vicinity earlier. This was a rare event—normally the tours don’t even look for them. And then, just a few dozen yards away . . . there they were, an entire Pod, at least six or seven, maybe an eighth-mile away, rising, blowing their sprays into the air, the adult male arching like a bow, its six foot dorsal shining black and wet and glorious, the others around it and behind it, again and again, coming up, blowing, doing a few loopy moves on the surface, then diving and coming up somewhere else. Very, very cool.
We left and sped to another part of the bay to yet another gaggle of boats, waited, saw plumes of air and water appear, and then the huge, arching, Quasimodo-backs with their odd shape and huge blow-holes—Humpback Whales hunting, feeding on herring. Unsurpassed for coolness. They were too soon gone, and it was back to the ship and another night of merry-making, endless card games, shows, comedians, music . . . and food. Glorious food. And for me, television. I’m not much of a party goer.
The boat traveled as we slept and we arrived in Ketchikan around 11 AM the next morning. Some of us went into town to shop while five intrepid American males and one guy from Scotland braved the open waters for the thrill of salmon fishing. Six brave men against the unrelenting dangers and the terrible deeps of the Inside Passage. (Okay, according to the depth finder we never got into water deeper than 200 feet, but that’s still pretty scary.) With four lines in the water at all times, we rotated by prearranged numbers. When one line began to shiver, the next guy in the rotation would grab the pole and begin the terrible, magnificent, puissant struggle with the wild fish. Naturally, while we all caught our limits (6) I caught the most fish by tonnage, plus everyone caught Pinks but me. I caught two enormous Coho’s, three or four times the size of the Pinks. (Oh, and Steve caught a nice Coho, but that’s hardly worth mentioning in the light of my own spectacular success. You can see how unimportant it is by the parentheses.) We split the fish 3 ways (William, from Scotland, couldn’t take his home) and are having them processed and shipped home. It will be the most expensive fish we will ever eat. We never understood a word William said, so thick was his brogue, but we kept him talking all afternoon because we all loved to listen to him. (Actually, he was a wonderful gentleman. He was the veteran of the group, having done the salmon thing before, as well as halibut.)
We arrived back at the ship, had seven or eight quick slices of pizza, and then we compared notes with the women, at which time we determined by unanimous proclamation to have won the day, and all went down and aft for a wonderful dinner.
At some point my wife did laundry while I watched television. The next two days were spent on the open seas, making the long, last leg of our journey, heading to Vancouver, British Columbia. (I did a report on British Columbia in the 6th grade. My research indicated, among other things, that enough lumber had been harvested from the province to make a road four inches thick and 28 feet wide that would loop around the equator 27 times. That would have been circa 1962-ish). This was our second time in British Columbia, but that is another story as well. I spent most of the two days working on a book I’m writing.
That night several of our group went to the karaoke bar and made complete fools of themselves while I continued to work on my novel. We all met in the International Room for one last gourmet meal. I ordered two entrées, a steak and a nice piece of Barramundi, which was the best thing I ate the entire cruise. The staff brought out huge platters of Baked Alaska and formed a conga line, dancing their way around the room—I’m not sure why. We tried to eat the dessert but there was just too much of it, so we ordered apple pie and sorbet as well. Oh, and somewhere in there we all sang happy birthday to Rob, one of our dangerously unmarried men, which was a completely humiliating experience. I don’t think Rob liked it much either.
One last breakfast and they shoved down ramps and into chutes like cattle into a stockyard and we were of f the boat and in Canada. Some of us caught a shuttle to the airport and others to a motel— again, all neatly arranged by the Travel Goddesses. We took a little walk—about a million miles—to find a post office that was “just around the corner” in order to exchange our (real) money for some Canadian fun money, but it was Saturday and they were closed. No one wanted to walk all the way back, so, for fun, and because of Leah’s lamentable emotional problems, we took the bus-ride from hell into downtown Vancouver to tour a “classical Chinese Garden”. I suppose it was very nice, but at that point I would have been more impressed with the comforting embrace of the Grim Reaper. The ride back was better. We spent our last night in International Land, had a fine breakfast at the motel café, and a few of us at a time took the shuttle to the airport to meet various flights. Our shuttle was the last one and our driver was a fine Persian man named Essi, who is an accomplished musician. (I know—I Googled his website). We were not allowed to eat on the trip to the airport. Fortunately it only lasted seven minutes. The flight back was pretty cool, if you enjoy being stuffed into aluminum cans the size of . . . well, aluminum cans. But We had great views of Mt. Rainer, and Mt. Hood, then Mt. St. Helens. I could see where the eruption tore the mountain apart and where the lahars flooded down into the valleys below like the fates own judge. California was on fire, but it’s August and California is always on fire then.
When we arrived in Vegas, our luggage had taken a vacation of its own, no doubt to Hawaii. (We got it back the next day.)
All things considered, it was a smashing success and everyone had a good deal of fun and collected—I’m sure—several priceless memories. I know I did. I just can’t remember what they are . . . Which reminds me of that great Groucho Marks line; “I’ve had a wonderful evening . . . but this wasn’t it.”
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt Veteran Tourist
Re: Our vacation
07-03-09
As some of you know (fine, a good many of you were there actually . . .) Nita and I went on a vacation recently. For the last ten days to be precise. Since almost no one wants to hear anything about it, I will now give a detailed account of our travels.
First let me say that two of our nieces, Leah and Lanissa, made all of the arrangements, beginning months ago, perhaps more than a year ago, and through an unending and daunting process of negotiations, phone calls, emails, web-surfing, and bargain-hunting, booked flights, arranged transportation, booked passage aboard the Diamond Princess (a cruise ship bigger than Rhode Island), found and booked day trips including trains, fishing charters, glacier-hopping, National park visiting, motels, cabins, and on and on, down to the very last detail, and then, in a feat not equaled since Queen Elizabeth took off all her make-up, remembered it all, kept track of all of us, and managed not to kill anyone. All this for 26 people. All arriving at different times, from different directions, and for various reasons. Nobel Prize? Academy Award? Is there a lifetime achievement award for free-lance travel agents?
The first bit was Herculean in nature. We left Las Vegas (and heat venturing playfully into “Inferno” range) about 5:30 PM and flew to Denver, where we met several others of our party, mostly relatives plus a few friends, boarded another plane and headed for Anchorage, where we arrived at about 1:30 AM, their time. The first little glitch arrived with us. Nita’s suitcase went to some regional airfield in Fargo instead of Alaska. I was incensed, she shrugged and borrowed things for two days.
The Goddess Twins got us all into three rented vehicles at that ungodly hour (it had just gotten dark) and we drove nearly 6 hours through rain and forest and bogs and a Moose-sighting, on a two-lane hiway, all the way to Denali National Park, where we checked into our cabins, took a short nap, and then went sightseeing. And did we ever see some sights. By then we had had 2 hours of sleep in the last 30. Piece of cake.
A word about the cabins at Denali. The place was called The Crows Nest. Each cabin rested on a unique but interesting angle, varying from about 6 to maybe 15 degrees, and all in different directions. They were “Quaint” according to Leah, one of the Goddesses, whose world-view differs somewhat from my own. The cabin experience came perilously close to “camping”, a pastime of which I was once a devote, but am now long-since recovered.
Despite being sleep-deprived and having seen darkness for only 3 hours, we drove into the park, did a turn around the visitors center, then drove out to Savage River and took a long hike down and back through one of God’s best ideas. It was beautiful. Everything about Alaska is different than down here in the lower forty-eight. The Flora and Fauna, the mountains, the rocks—everything. It is unique.
The food was excellent wherever we ate in the little village. Our breakfast was in a café, on a wooden floor older than the last ice-age, and it slanted even more than the cabins. I sat on the down-hill side which made it easier to drink my milk. We did another half-day of sightseeing, which included three huge Caribou quite close to us, and some bears far away on a river—according to the less than reliable single men in our group—then headed back to Anchorage. We stopped for Pizza at Angela’s Haven, the address of which—and I am not making this up—is mile marker 117, Park Hiway, Alaska.
On a side note, we almost tossed my brother-in-law, James, out on his ear several times for various misdemeanors, mostly having to do with inappropriate puns and spontaneous conversations with random Alaskans, but cooler heads prevailed.
Back in Anchorage, we got to our motel—where Nita’s luggage was waiting for us—which allowed me to stop working on my hit list—and met the other half of our party, including Maxine (my little sister) and her husband Steve, his parents, two of their daughters and various hangers-on. (You know who you are). We spent a riotous night reading and sleeping in endless daylight, got up the next morning and boarded the cruise ship Diamond Princess. Everyone immediately purchased no-limit soft drink cards then went to find the food trough. Turns out the entire ship is a food trough.
We all got settled, went to eat again, did the safety muster, then went to eat again. This became a recurring theme throughout the voyage. Go do something, preferably for no more than an hour, then go eat again.
Then, disaster struck. The Coke mix at the buffet was unacceptably weak and flat. Now, I can put up with a lot. I am willing to sacrifice and compromise when necessary. But no one messes with my cola. Everyone agreed—it was bad. I filled out one of those suggestion-slash-info cards with a strongly worded protest. Nothing happened. Every spigot in the place was pouring brown water for the entire trip! I will be letting the Coca Cola corporation know about this travesty.
The ship headed for Skagway. The weather was chilly, misty, foggy, rainy, overcast and drab. Coming from Las Vegas, I loved every minute of it. I saw some dolphins or Orca’s at the far-reach of visibility, while standing on the promenade deck, enjoying the overcast and misty evening, but just their curving backs shrouded in fog. After such an exciting moment, I instantly headed up to find more food, then began looking for friends and family in order to regale them with my intrepid sea-stories.
The trip to Skagway was a two-day venture in the open ocean. Pacific ocean. Very large body of water. Many people were sick. The boat rocked back and forth like an autistic polar bear. Neither Nita nor I were bothered in the slightest. It was fun. We took advantage of so many people staying in their rooms to find and consume even more food.
We woke on the second morning to find Skagway like a gleaming gem, a bright present on Christmas Morning. Our first foray off-ship took us on a historic train-ride following the route about a million gold-stampeders took to the Yukon. A word here about the train ride. The scenery was breath-taking. High, steep mountains, the gray-green rivers full of glacial silt, tracks going over high trestles and along precipitous ledges. Really quite the thing for a morning outing. Except the train was very slow—it took over two hours to go twenty miles (and 3,000 vertical feet) and then, at the top of an isolated, deserted, long-abandoned mountain pass, we stopped, the engine slid onto a siding and went to the back of the train which then became the front, we all reversed our seat-backs, and we went back down as slowly as we had gone up. The point of this mild rebuke is, of course, there were no snacks. Not a vending machine in sight. We didn’t even get off the car. Why would someone take a train all the way up a mountain and then just go back down again? Imagine the missed opportunities for profit-making ventures! No gift shop, no quaint benches shaped like dogsleds, no coin-driven telescopes with which to see the remains of the thousands of horses and mules killed by the recalcitrant wanna-be miners when the animals could not carry their obscenely heavy loads any further. Nothing but a hiway in the distance with buses and RV’s heading for Whitehorse and parts east and south. (Nita and I have almost been to Whitehorse, but that’s another story). I managed to assuage my disappointment at the lack of even a small casino atop the mountain by purchasing a commemorative ball cap from the White Pass railroad, with the year emblazoned on the side (2009) which is the 50th anniversary of Alaska’s statehood. They can only be purchased on the train and only this year, so I have quite a prize. The downside of course is that I can’t eat it.
We arrived back in Skagway, walked through the town (a ten minute foray along one board-walked street) and then I skulked back to the ship, feeling somehow cheated, and drowned my sorrows in a fine meal at the buffet followed by more food that evening at the swank International Room.
From Skagway, we kept to the Inside Passage, which offers much calmer waters, until we arrived at Glacier Bay National Park. The Princess steamed up the fiords as we oohed and ahed (very sincerely) at glaciers everywhere, coming at us from all sides of the ship. It is difficult to describe not just the wild beauty, but the grandeur and majesty of natures ice-cube trays. (That’s an inside joke for my siblings—think Thule). The trip up the fiords took a while, but every inch of it was breathtaking.
Finally we arrived at the head of a bay where two tide-water glaciers meet the ocean. The Marjorie Glacier, and the Pacific International, both wandering for miles back into the mountains , both more than a mile across at their faces, one white and eerily blue, the other camouflaged in black dirt and rocks. The ship stayed for two hours, as close as it could get, while we watched ice calve from the face, otters play, icebergs wander, and a massive river of silt and water boil from beneath the Marjorie into the bay. It was magnificent.
We steamed back out, which looked much like the trip in, but reverse, and headed for Juneau and more food. The next morning we arrived in Juneau and walked around the town for a while, sampling fudge and ice cream, talking to the locals, and taking in the atmosphere, which was wonderful. Then we got on a small shuttle bus and drove out to the Mendenhall Glacier, which is only a few miles from town. Wow. That’s really all one can say. While there, we all got to star at a mamma brown bear and her two tree-hugging cubs. A ranger told us she likes to hang around there at the park.
After that, back to town where we got on a boat with fifty other people and headed out into the bay for whale-watching. After half an hour of wake-producing speed we slowed where several other similar boats were loitering and the Captain told us Killer Whales had been spotted in the vicinity earlier. This was a rare event—normally the tours don’t even look for them. And then, just a few dozen yards away . . . there they were, an entire Pod, at least six or seven, maybe an eighth-mile away, rising, blowing their sprays into the air, the adult male arching like a bow, its six foot dorsal shining black and wet and glorious, the others around it and behind it, again and again, coming up, blowing, doing a few loopy moves on the surface, then diving and coming up somewhere else. Very, very cool.
We left and sped to another part of the bay to yet another gaggle of boats, waited, saw plumes of air and water appear, and then the huge, arching, Quasimodo-backs with their odd shape and huge blow-holes—Humpback Whales hunting, feeding on herring. Unsurpassed for coolness. They were too soon gone, and it was back to the ship and another night of merry-making, endless card games, shows, comedians, music . . . and food. Glorious food. And for me, television. I’m not much of a party goer.
The boat traveled as we slept and we arrived in Ketchikan around 11 AM the next morning. Some of us went into town to shop while five intrepid American males and one guy from Scotland braved the open waters for the thrill of salmon fishing. Six brave men against the unrelenting dangers and the terrible deeps of the Inside Passage. (Okay, according to the depth finder we never got into water deeper than 200 feet, but that’s still pretty scary.) With four lines in the water at all times, we rotated by prearranged numbers. When one line began to shiver, the next guy in the rotation would grab the pole and begin the terrible, magnificent, puissant struggle with the wild fish. Naturally, while we all caught our limits (6) I caught the most fish by tonnage, plus everyone caught Pinks but me. I caught two enormous Coho’s, three or four times the size of the Pinks. (Oh, and Steve caught a nice Coho, but that’s hardly worth mentioning in the light of my own spectacular success. You can see how unimportant it is by the parentheses.) We split the fish 3 ways (William, from Scotland, couldn’t take his home) and are having them processed and shipped home. It will be the most expensive fish we will ever eat. We never understood a word William said, so thick was his brogue, but we kept him talking all afternoon because we all loved to listen to him. (Actually, he was a wonderful gentleman. He was the veteran of the group, having done the salmon thing before, as well as halibut.)
We arrived back at the ship, had seven or eight quick slices of pizza, and then we compared notes with the women, at which time we determined by unanimous proclamation to have won the day, and all went down and aft for a wonderful dinner.
At some point my wife did laundry while I watched television. The next two days were spent on the open seas, making the long, last leg of our journey, heading to Vancouver, British Columbia. (I did a report on British Columbia in the 6th grade. My research indicated, among other things, that enough lumber had been harvested from the province to make a road four inches thick and 28 feet wide that would loop around the equator 27 times. That would have been circa 1962-ish). This was our second time in British Columbia, but that is another story as well. I spent most of the two days working on a book I’m writing.
That night several of our group went to the karaoke bar and made complete fools of themselves while I continued to work on my novel. We all met in the International Room for one last gourmet meal. I ordered two entrées, a steak and a nice piece of Barramundi, which was the best thing I ate the entire cruise. The staff brought out huge platters of Baked Alaska and formed a conga line, dancing their way around the room—I’m not sure why. We tried to eat the dessert but there was just too much of it, so we ordered apple pie and sorbet as well. Oh, and somewhere in there we all sang happy birthday to Rob, one of our dangerously unmarried men, which was a completely humiliating experience. I don’t think Rob liked it much either.
One last breakfast and they shoved down ramps and into chutes like cattle into a stockyard and we were of f the boat and in Canada. Some of us caught a shuttle to the airport and others to a motel— again, all neatly arranged by the Travel Goddesses. We took a little walk—about a million miles—to find a post office that was “just around the corner” in order to exchange our (real) money for some Canadian fun money, but it was Saturday and they were closed. No one wanted to walk all the way back, so, for fun, and because of Leah’s lamentable emotional problems, we took the bus-ride from hell into downtown Vancouver to tour a “classical Chinese Garden”. I suppose it was very nice, but at that point I would have been more impressed with the comforting embrace of the Grim Reaper. The ride back was better. We spent our last night in International Land, had a fine breakfast at the motel café, and a few of us at a time took the shuttle to the airport to meet various flights. Our shuttle was the last one and our driver was a fine Persian man named Essi, who is an accomplished musician. (I know—I Googled his website). We were not allowed to eat on the trip to the airport. Fortunately it only lasted seven minutes. The flight back was pretty cool, if you enjoy being stuffed into aluminum cans the size of . . . well, aluminum cans. But We had great views of Mt. Rainer, and Mt. Hood, then Mt. St. Helens. I could see where the eruption tore the mountain apart and where the lahars flooded down into the valleys below like the fates own judge. California was on fire, but it’s August and California is always on fire then.
When we arrived in Vegas, our luggage had taken a vacation of its own, no doubt to Hawaii. (We got it back the next day.)
All things considered, it was a smashing success and everyone had a good deal of fun and collected—I’m sure—several priceless memories. I know I did. I just can’t remember what they are . . . Which reminds me of that great Groucho Marks line; “I’ve had a wonderful evening . . . but this wasn’t it.”
Thursday, June 25, 2009
IGM New Stupidity Record
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: New Stupidity Record
This one will be short.
In an unprecedented display of willful ignorance, stupidity, ideologically-Dadaist-dialectic, and self-character assassin, the Honorable Representative Barney Frank (D, MA), just sent a letter to Fanny Mae and Freddie Mack, asking them to loosen lending regulations. Current regs, according to the official Bizzaro-World poster boy, may be “too onerous” and he (and some attorney) are asking the lending institutions to “make appropriate adjustments.” (For those of you who’ve been in a coma for a few years, he and his cohorts did this once already, several years ago, which brought on the real estate/housing bubble, it’s consequent bursting, and helped fuel the currently raging recession.)
How soon we forget, eh?
In a related story, US citizens from around the country are saying that if Frank is re-elected yet again by the brain-dead state of Massachusetts, plans to put the state up for sale will be implemented. (Dubai is making back-channel inquiries).
Personally, I say we give the thing away. It’s not worth anything as is, and it is substantially smaller than the county I live in. We won’t miss the real estate. Besides, who’s gonna pay money for a state that keeps electing Frank and Kennedy?
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: New Stupidity Record
This one will be short.
In an unprecedented display of willful ignorance, stupidity, ideologically-Dadaist-dialectic, and self-character assassin, the Honorable Representative Barney Frank (D, MA), just sent a letter to Fanny Mae and Freddie Mack, asking them to loosen lending regulations. Current regs, according to the official Bizzaro-World poster boy, may be “too onerous” and he (and some attorney) are asking the lending institutions to “make appropriate adjustments.” (For those of you who’ve been in a coma for a few years, he and his cohorts did this once already, several years ago, which brought on the real estate/housing bubble, it’s consequent bursting, and helped fuel the currently raging recession.)
How soon we forget, eh?
In a related story, US citizens from around the country are saying that if Frank is re-elected yet again by the brain-dead state of Massachusetts, plans to put the state up for sale will be implemented. (Dubai is making back-channel inquiries).
Personally, I say we give the thing away. It’s not worth anything as is, and it is substantially smaller than the county I live in. We won’t miss the real estate. Besides, who’s gonna pay money for a state that keeps electing Frank and Kennedy?
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
IGM Judicial Racism
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel (especially wise Latina women)
Fr: W. Leavitt, white male
Re: Judicial Racism
6-26-09
While pursuing the Drudge Report this evening and watching a Scrubs rerun, I came across a particularly disturbing quote from an ostensibly intelligent woman. Here’s the quote:
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male.
And who belongs to this vapid, vaporous, valueless vitriol? No, not Jennifer Lopez, nor Jessica Alba, nor Cameron Diaz, and it wasn’t Harry Reid ( who is neither a woman nor Latina, but he is the king of saying stupid things) and it isn’t even Carla, that fun-loving heart-of-gold nurse on Scrubs who is Dominican, thank you very much, not Puerto Rican.
It was Obama’s nominee for Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotamayor.
I know knowing else about her, nor, at this point, do I care to. How is it that people of a certain, shall we say . . . persuasion? Can get away with this kind of crap? For that matter, how is it that someone who has espoused this sentiment—in public no less—is even nominated for a position more responsible than Federal Emergency Response Nose-Picker?
Which characteristic are we to believe will give her the superior life experiences apparently genetically withheld from “white males?” Or would it be both “woman” and “Latina?” And how does one make such a comparison? Her life experiences versus, mine, or yours or anyone else’s? How do we judge relative merit for such a tenuous, internal, subjective evaluation? Whew! Good thing we’ll have someone on the bench with just those skills. Because according to Sotamayor her future colleagues ain’t got it. Except maybe Thomas—she wasn’t clear on the status of black males.
At this point we hardly need to mention that other quote she gave us when talking about the court;
“this is where policy is made.”
Really? The courts? And here I thought that was what congress was for. I can’t wait for the Supreme Court to set more policy. It has worked out so well in the past, don’t you think?
In a civilized society, where politically correct extremism was not the order of the day, she would get her face slapped for such an outlandish, offensive, and utterly racial statement. Sure, the same goes for me too, but when do I ever say anything outlandish or offensive?
Now, someone might be upset over my evaluation of Miz Sotamayor’s foolishness, claiming I’m over-reacting, or not playing nice. Please. I’m not cutting her one ounce of slack. She said it, she deserves to be hammered for it. No one cuts me any slack. You people are ruthless! You don’t see all the replies I get. (It’s okay though. I can take it. In fact I love it.)
And let’s not make the mistake of believing that only certain, very rare people have what it takes to sit on that bench. I publicly challenge Sonia right now to a duel. Give me a nice office, a six-figure salary and a couple of law clerks from BYU (just to make it fair), and my best buddy Dever, and I will write opinions on all the cases the court sees while she is sitting on it. We’ll let the audience of “American Idol” decide who writes the better opinion. No contest. And mine would be funny too.
But seriously, someone—preferably a white male—should hire an attorney (Female and Latina) and sue this woman for defamation, slander and racial profiling, not to mention a possible hate-crime. Obviously I won’t because, you know, I just don’t care, and I wouldn’t be believable. But someone with a good reputation, someone involved and passionate, sincere and caring. I’m thinking Mr. Blood. You go big guy. Git ‘er!
To: All Personnel (especially wise Latina women)
Fr: W. Leavitt, white male
Re: Judicial Racism
6-26-09
While pursuing the Drudge Report this evening and watching a Scrubs rerun, I came across a particularly disturbing quote from an ostensibly intelligent woman. Here’s the quote:
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male.
And who belongs to this vapid, vaporous, valueless vitriol? No, not Jennifer Lopez, nor Jessica Alba, nor Cameron Diaz, and it wasn’t Harry Reid ( who is neither a woman nor Latina, but he is the king of saying stupid things) and it isn’t even Carla, that fun-loving heart-of-gold nurse on Scrubs who is Dominican, thank you very much, not Puerto Rican.
It was Obama’s nominee for Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotamayor.
I know knowing else about her, nor, at this point, do I care to. How is it that people of a certain, shall we say . . . persuasion? Can get away with this kind of crap? For that matter, how is it that someone who has espoused this sentiment—in public no less—is even nominated for a position more responsible than Federal Emergency Response Nose-Picker?
Which characteristic are we to believe will give her the superior life experiences apparently genetically withheld from “white males?” Or would it be both “woman” and “Latina?” And how does one make such a comparison? Her life experiences versus, mine, or yours or anyone else’s? How do we judge relative merit for such a tenuous, internal, subjective evaluation? Whew! Good thing we’ll have someone on the bench with just those skills. Because according to Sotamayor her future colleagues ain’t got it. Except maybe Thomas—she wasn’t clear on the status of black males.
At this point we hardly need to mention that other quote she gave us when talking about the court;
“this is where policy is made.”
Really? The courts? And here I thought that was what congress was for. I can’t wait for the Supreme Court to set more policy. It has worked out so well in the past, don’t you think?
In a civilized society, where politically correct extremism was not the order of the day, she would get her face slapped for such an outlandish, offensive, and utterly racial statement. Sure, the same goes for me too, but when do I ever say anything outlandish or offensive?
Now, someone might be upset over my evaluation of Miz Sotamayor’s foolishness, claiming I’m over-reacting, or not playing nice. Please. I’m not cutting her one ounce of slack. She said it, she deserves to be hammered for it. No one cuts me any slack. You people are ruthless! You don’t see all the replies I get. (It’s okay though. I can take it. In fact I love it.)
And let’s not make the mistake of believing that only certain, very rare people have what it takes to sit on that bench. I publicly challenge Sonia right now to a duel. Give me a nice office, a six-figure salary and a couple of law clerks from BYU (just to make it fair), and my best buddy Dever, and I will write opinions on all the cases the court sees while she is sitting on it. We’ll let the audience of “American Idol” decide who writes the better opinion. No contest. And mine would be funny too.
But seriously, someone—preferably a white male—should hire an attorney (Female and Latina) and sue this woman for defamation, slander and racial profiling, not to mention a possible hate-crime. Obviously I won’t because, you know, I just don’t care, and I wouldn’t be believable. But someone with a good reputation, someone involved and passionate, sincere and caring. I’m thinking Mr. Blood. You go big guy. Git ‘er!
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