This week's news was full of astounding news tidbits.

A climber in Utah cut off his own arm with a pocketknife to escape being pinned down by a huge boulder.

New Hampshire's famous Old Man of the Mountain rock formation collapsed.

Willy Nelson turned 70.

A report revealed former "drug czar" and famous moralizer William Bennett has a major gambling problem (he insisted it's not a problem — I swear I didn't make this up).

Most astounding of all, despite all evidence to the contrary, Bush promised we'd find WMD in Iraq. Which leads me to believe one of two things must be true: 1) Bush believes his own BS; or 2) WMD have been, or are going to be, planted. I hate to buy into conspiracy theory, but it seems so obvious. Finding those alleged Ws is absolutely crucial to W's presidency. This administration has already shown a willingness to bend rules, to pursue their "noble" ends with questionable means. I don't know for a fact that they have planted, or will plant, WMD in Iraq, but I can't deny that they would. The decision to exclude UN weapons inspectors will make any "find" extremely hard to believe, regardless.

Posted by Me at 23:39 link

This will be brief as I'm exhausted, having completed two tests and two projects today. Not bad apparently, for a boy.

I'd heard high school graduation rates for men had fallen recently, so I did some research. I found this opinionated conservative piece, with which I was less than impressed. It referenced this article from the Washington Post, which was better. This article on Dr. Koop's page was interesting, but not quite on topic.

Looks like American university life would be a lot of fun today - "two girls for every boy".

But during the process of researching, I ran across an article on Norwegian graduation. Chef is right (as always): there's a time and a place for everything — and it's called college. Maybe that's how we could save the males. Convince them that if they study hard and get good grades, that they'll be able to party like Norwegians. Nah — no one else can party like that!

(Gosh, I'm mellowing. Just a few years ago, the verb "to party" turned my stomach a little.)

Yes, I need some sleep. G'night.

Posted by Me at 23:58 link

It'll be interesting to see how this time period gets written up in the history books. Will this be remembered as the beginning of a grand and glorious epoch, the dawning of a Pax Americana — or will it be remembered as the start of a dark and dangerous time, when international law was discarded in favor of expediency, when the shadow of violence crept across our once-bright-seeming future? It's impossible to get a clear picture right now, but someday a picture will emerge, maybe even the true picture.

I remember having a conversation in 2000 with an executive who worked for a major corporation. Their stock had just broken the $100 per share mark; he was convinced that the fundamental realities of the market had changed forever. He said "it's all up from here; there may be corrections now and again, but this new economy is so strong, so well-protected, that it can never again go anywhere but up." To which I replied, "So you're saying, essentially, that God himself couldn't sink this ship?"

Our ship's still afloat but the smooth sailing seems to be over for the forseeable future. The company's stock is currently selling for $5.44.

What worries me is that people are saying the same sorts of "the-world-has-changed-forever" stuff about the "post-Iraq" global dynamic, as if beating up a military 1/300^th our size had proven some brave new point. Seems to me we've just proven the law of the jungle again, or at least we appear to have proven it. But isn't the real fact that the law of the jungle only works when everyone's a beast? Isn't it true that when civilization meets the jungle, civilization wins?

I hope I'm wrong, but these feel like dark days to me, the days shortly after we sailed, full steam ahead, into the iceberg-laden sea.

Posted by Me at 23:50 link

More and more lately, I've been feeling like we're in a political rip current, but what does "swim parallel to the current to escape" represent in the political context? On further reflection, the situation is a lot more destructive, and harder to overcome.

We can draw inspiration from the way natural life responds to destructive forces. When a spider finds her web destroyed, she immediately starts rebuilding it. Ants, birds and beavers all do the same thing when their hard work is senselessly destroyed. They all set to work immediately, putting the structures of their lives back together. What does this teach us? That the important question is always "what now?" That the ultimate success secret is to be more stubborn — more patiently relentless — than the forces that oppose us.

In that spirit, here are a few things we can do to start rebuilding our anthill.

• First of all, we can get rid of the guy who kicked it over in the first place. We need someone with constructive vision, though, not just someone who is not Bush.
• Those of us with a little money to spare can give to organizations like the International Rescue Committee (IRC), who are stepping up to perform a critical role in supplying safe, potable water, emergency medical supplies, food, shelter, and support to Iraqi families, or to the International Fund for Animal Welfare who are helping the poor zoo animals of Baghdad.
• Any of us in North America can sign petitions, like this one in favor of clean air, or this one demanding smart security policies (Note: the petitions will expire in a short time).
• Some of us, like this brave man, can pursue legal action in support of what's right.
• Any of us in democratic countries can vote, and can encourage others to vote. As with other rights, voting carries responsibility: we need to take the time to educate ourselves about the issues and candidates that will determine our futures. Education takes time, but it's important enough to miss Survivor for.
• Any of us, anywhere, who are brave enough can speak out, and encourage others to speak out, about the issues that concern us. As with voting, the right of free speech carries responsibility — in this case to learn and speak up for truth and justice.
• We can all make the effort to learn about our world, about what affects us, and about what is within our power to change. We can seek to understand all sides of issues and to decide for ourselves what is true and just — not based on automatic knee-jerk emotional reactions, but rather on well-informed, reasoned reflection.

May we all be stubborn — patiently relentless — in our education.

Educated and active, we will prevail.

Posted by Me at 23:13 link

Some of my behind-the-wheel "revelations" turned out to be kind of weak, others perhaps less so. Here's a brief summary of the weak ones: Does Bush's faith and general small-mindedness make him a pawn of his advisors and supporters? I decided it probably does. Does Bush really believe what he says? I decided he probably does, but again, he seems small-minded and trusting and probably he believes what he is told to believe. How could we have put the keys to the most powerful military in world history into the hands of a man whose favorite movie is Austin Powers?

These thoughts were mostly a bunch of Bush-bashing, of which I've grown weary. Not that he doesn't deserve it, but too much negativity can't be good.

I did have a couple of other, weightier thoughts. The seed for the first was sown a couple of weeks ago when I ran across a link to a thinking test called "Battleground God" (thanks for this to Hector). This test consists of a series of questions about one's beliefs; contradicting oneself causes "direct hits". I took such a hit because I answered that, absent proof of the nonexistence of a Higher Power, atheism is a matter of faith. Earlier I had answered a similar question, about the Loch Ness monster, differently.

I do believe atheism is faith- rather than logic-based. Consider the beginning of the universe. The Big Bang Theory is supported by a great weight of science, but it leaves questions. The theory holds that the universe was created "from a cosmic explosion that hurled matter and in all directions". Okay — where did the matter come from? Absent an answer to that question, it seems to me that any theory of the origin of the universe is a matter of faith. Likewise, the question of the existence or nonexistence of God breaks down, because there are no observable answers available to us. God, by definition is beyond human comprehension and cannot be disproved. So every position is a matter of faith. I do have to admit, as with the Loch Ness monster, that the absence of evidence for would seem to be evidence against. Still, intuitively, I believe in God. Life makes more sense with a Higher Power. Otherwise isn't it all just "We're here because we're here"?

This led to my other weighty thought. Why, I reflected, would God have created us? I speculated that perhaps God had everything except perspective and so created us in His (forgive me if I stick to the Christian Bible terminology here) image in order to understand Himself better. We are God's art.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Posted by Me at 21:47 link

A tip of the old blogging cap to Ian, for posting every day for a whole year. Seven days a week, as regular as a compulsive prune eater. :-)

I didn't publish the last three days because I was busy being lazy in Maryland. My very dear friend from the NYC area made the trip down to meet me halfway just below the Mason-Dixon line. Really — the other side of the road from where we stayed was Pennsylvania.

Saturday we went for a short walk in Catoctin Mountain Park; Sunday we did a few miles of the Appalachian Trail. Neither one of us got the impression we'd ever want to live in Hagerstown, but we were impressed with the colonial architecture, which has been beautifully preserved downtown. Plus, they have restaurants representing all the major food groups: Mexican, Chinese and pizza. Not to mention Waffle House, probably the finest distillation of American culinary culture.

And beautiful woods close by.

The drive itself was beautiful, very different each way. I-77 / I-81 through Virginia is one of the East's most scenic routes, even if it does happen to be the fastest way. For 271 miles, from the North Carolina line up to the West Virginia line, you're never really out of the sight of mountains. Usually the mountains are visible on both sides of the road.

The Unakas (called the Great Smokies further south, and the Alleghenies further north) are on your left as you drive north; the Blue Ridge is on your right. In between is a dreamy valley, or rather a series of valleys, including the New River Valley and the Shenandoah Valley. Some of the oldest hills on earth, once upon a time the Southern Appalachians were taller than the Rockies are today. Too far south ever to have been glaciated, their peaks are generally rounded and graceful.

The drive up varied among cloudy, foggy, misty and rainy, adding a dreamlike air to the surrounding land; the drive home was not-a-cloud-in-the-sky sunny, with long vistas.

I did have the usual important-seeming revelations that generally come when you drive 12 hours over a weekend, but I'm still sorting through them to make sure they're truly brilliant.

Posted by Me at 12:47 link