Living in Opposite World

You hear about this over and over again. Someone in the administration talks about how important something is, how everything is hinging on it -- say alternative fuel sources, math and science education, etc. -- and then you look at the budget and there are cuts in that very thing, relatively deep, disproportionate cuts, no less.

Here's one example, from today's House Budget Committee's hearing on the long-term economic outlook:

FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN BEN BERNANKE: So again, I'm not an education expert, and I'm afraid I can't give you a long list of detailed recommendations, but I think, broadly speaking, what the issue is, is helping those who have been left behind to acquire the skills they need to compete and to earn good wages in what is becoming a more and more technologically sophisticated economy.

REP. DARLENE HOOLEY (D-OR): Well, as I see our economy changing, I see the need for more training and retraining of our workers, as time goes on. And yet, I look at the budget that was given to us, and it has billion-dollar cuts in employment and training programs.

Alanis Morrisette, take note.

Jesus Tomb Update

Apparently, many archaeologists are dismissive of the claims made in the upcoming Discovery Channel film, and are calling it a publicity stunt.
I don't know enough about archaeology to be convinced by this Washington Post article, one way or the other, that it's a fraud. The director's connection with the James Ossuary is a particular red flag. I'll definitely be viewing the film with a skeptical eye. Still curious, though :)

Quote du Jour: Leahy on Supporting the Troops

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT): Now, Secretary [of Defense] Gates, we've heard time and again... that, if we disagree with the administration's policy in Iraq, we don't support the troops.

We hear it from the vice president. We heard it in the midterm elections. I've never heard it from you, sir. But I suspect, when we debate this supplemental, those of us who will question the administration's policy in Iraq will hear it again.

As the father of a former Marine, I'm tired of it. I think it's beneath a country that's always cherished the right to disagree. It's one of the things we fight for in this country.

We ought to talk about what's right for the troops. In that regard, to say, are we supporting the troops, we have asked -- senators on both sides of the aisle have asked for proper armor for them, for proper training for them. They didn't get either before they were sent into Iraq. Many are still not getting proper armor.

And it wasn't right to subject them to substandard conditions at Walter Reed hospital, and to a bureaucratic nightmare that's reminiscent of a Kafka novel.

I appreciate the way you've responded to the Walter Reed scandal. I told you that before we went in there. I wanted to make sure people understand. I was glad to see you speak out. I was glad to see General Cody speak out of the bureaucratic mumble-jumble about how great those conditions were.

Neither you nor I would want a member of our family to have to be put in such a situation. And we would hope that never would a member of our family be so badly damaged.

Our soldiers are returning with serious mental illnesses; they're not getting the help they need; serious physical illnesses, not getting the help they need. We have alarming rates of domestic abuse, of divorce. We have families destroyed by it.

They're not getting the help.

The vice president doesn't mention this when he says we're winning in Iraq. He says we're winning because Saddam Hussein is dead and Iraq has a new constitution. He says nothing about the catastrophe we've unleashed on the Iraqi people.

And nobody wants to talk about the fact that, when the Congress said -- united, Democratic members and Republican members -- "Go get Osama bin Laden," this administration dropped the ball.

I don't think that the fighting bears any resemblance to the war that Congress authorized or our soldiers were trained for. Whether you voted for going into Iraq or not, I don't think it's another $80 billion to keep our troops bogged down in Iraq.

If -- if -- we're going to have a pro-American democratic government there, how long? How long will it take? How much money? How many more of these open-ended supplementals?

And I look at this one, where half of it doesn't say what it's going for. How long are we going to have to do that?

Recommended Viewing: Tomb of Jesus Likely Found

This is fascinating -- in a sense, one of the biggest news stories in the past two millennia.

I'll definitely be watching. (Discovery Channel, March 4 at 9 pm Eastern Time)

More Perks of Sleep

From New Scientist:

While you sleep, your brain puts the world in order.

Bush Quote du Jour

"You've got to dream big in order to be able to get 'er done."

-- from a panel discussion on cellulosic ethanol in Franklinton, North Carolina yesterday.

And if you're elected president of the United States under our electoral college system, you just might be...

Vilsack's Swan Song

From his early concession speech today:

I think we have to have a real debate about public financing and the ability to enable the primary and the caucus process to be about ideas, about moving and challenging the nation and challenging the people of this country, not simply about a money primary.

That's the game that's being played today, and it's a game that, obviously, I was unable to play as successfully as I wanted to. That's one piece of advice.

And to those who remain in this race, you know, you're going to come to Iowa. And here's my hope and my prayer: that you understand that it isn't just about large crowds. It isn't just about the cameras. It's about ordinary folks in living rooms and kitchens and church basements, who genuinely care about this country, who need to be listened to, and who need to have an opportunity to interact with candidates.

I'm genuinely disappointed. I liked this guy. Felt the same about Evan Bayh, to a lesser extent. As much as I'm rooting for the "superstars" of this marathon campaign, there's something wrong with a system where guys like these don't even have a chance.

The Furry Demographic

Well, Tom Vilsack already won my heart (if not my primary vote) with the "Aflac" gag on The Daily Show, but this (almost) clinches it.

I'm not kidding. He gets points for this (with me.)

Thanks to Wonkette

Acronym du Jour: GWOT (Global War on Terrorism)

I realize I'm behind the times and this has been in the lexicon for a while, but I just encountered it the other day, and it made me laugh out loud.
Since it's pronounced "G-Watt," or "G-Wot," rather than "Gwaht," my first thought was a gangsta rapper with an affinity for electric light bulbs, but maybe it could just be Tony Blair's pet name for his mate, the prez, based on George's habit of speaking with his mouth full.

The Wit & Wisdom of Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)

But you know, I'm a little puzzled when you said... your report says "production below potential," "rising to potential."

But then you say, well, you think it might be more than you think. I mean, if you think it might be more than you think, why don't you think it?

I mean, it does seem to me a little odd for you to say, here's what I think, but I also think it might be worse than I think. That is literally "doublethink."

*

I express my concern that procedure and substance may intermix here, and that the argument for greater certainty can become -- and you say we have the two objectives, stable prices and employment, but one of those might -- I mean, I appreciate the fact that you have two children and you love them both, but I'm afraid that one of them might get a little bit more for Hanukkah than the other, if we're not careful.

-- from today's House Financial Services Committee hearing on the economy, the labor market and monetary policy with Fed chairman Ben Bernanke

Official plug...

... for my new "side" blog, appropriately named Writing on the Side, launched secretly into the blogosphere this weekend. It's not going to be as prolific as this one, but I'll update it from time to time.
It's my little valentine to the world.

Mood lifters for the winter blues

Depression may have been an evolutionary adaptation, and "paleolithic therapies" (coinage mine) may be the new "paleolithic diets," according to evolutionary psychopathologists.

And here are eight enviable brain diseases, according to one blogger.

Quote du Jour: Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY)

All 435 reps will get a chance to talk for 5 minutes on the Iraq resolution, but here's one snippet:

The president has had generals tell him that this war should end and an escalation is not the answer. But when he gets advice he doesn't like, he simply fires the generals.

He has had a commission of experts advise him that a diplomatic political effort with all of Iraq's neighbors would be the most effective way to enable the U.S. to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly. However, the president does not like that advice, so he has chosen to simply ignore it.

When the president needed Congress to approve military action against Iraq, he cared about the perspective of the Congress then.

As Congress begins to conduct oversight of the combat operation, the president wants to ignore the voices of dissent that come from this very body.

The cameras of history are rolling. And I hope and pray that, at the end of this debate, history can record that this body, starting with this resolution as a first step, has taken the appropriate action to end a morally wrong war that threatens to irreversibly stain the fabric of Congress if we do not exercise our constitutional authority and our patriotic responsibility to balance the president's power.

Siestas, in moderation...

... can help fight heart disease, according to this study.

Bee in my bonnet

Something's been bugging me with regard to the expectations for this presidential season's groundbreaking candidates. Way too much is being expected of them. Obama has pretty much been unofficially canonized (he's already been all but knighted by Oprah, so an official canonization is probably not far off) and Hillary is bearing on her shoulders well over two centuries of American women's once only wistful hopes. Talk about baggage.
It's not surprising that it was (white) women writers and activists, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, who set the moral bar for black men as higher than their white oppressors, because women have been saddled with that role from time immemorial, up to and including the American feminist past rooted in the Temperance movement.
The novelist Angela Carter, most famous for her updated fairy tales and lauded as "the high-priestess of postgraduate porn," was attacked by fellow feminists for her assertion in The Sadeian Woman that women cannot be genuinely equal until they can be equally reprehensible. Understandably perhaps, Utopian feminists were not wanting to hear that. But time has somewhat vindicated Ms. Carter.
Or has it? Maybe politics is the last-conquered realm of any social trend, but until we can have a black or female candidate who is seen as just another candidate with a big question mark over his or her head, instead of the weight of the world, who is permitted flaws and skeletons and even a bad hair/tie day, we still have a ways to go, baby.

If you're in the market for a psychologist...

... in a few years, please beware.

Ted "Completely Heterosexual" Haggard and his wife are so impressed with his three-week "psychological intensive" that they're seeking online master's degrees in psychology themselves.

This somehow annoys me on so many levels, I won't even begin to enumerate them.

(I know that to be "fair and balanced," I should comment on the Gavin Newsom story as well, but it depresses me beyond the point of remark. However, that's not to say the two are equivalent. Lefties just don't have quite the sense of mind-blowing irony that the Right does when it comes to their scandals.)

Tantra, tightropes and cinnamon lattes: caffeinated musings

First, an announcement to those who may care that I plan to start a new blog (in addition to this one) within the next week or two on my other vocation/avocation, the more creative sort of writing. I think it's going to be called "Writing on the Side." It's meant to take the place of my Live Journal blog, which I will still keep but only for photos and that sort of thing.
It will be another "Eudaimonia" production, which brings me to the point that I doubt I have more than an elementary understanding of Aristotle's idea of that term, but something just occurred to me today as I was sipping the most delicious cinnamon latte ever while driving home from work (after a busy day, we were let out early.)
From a rational standpoint (obviously not a physiological one, in the case of the latter) pleasure and pain are easy to navigate. In the first case, what you want is more, right, ad infinitum? And in the second, less. Very simple. If it was diagrammed, I guess it would just look like an arrow pointing in one direction, as far as one's goals were concerned.
But anyone who's had a hangover (or drank one too many delicious lattes in a row) knows that ad infinitum is untenable.
Bearing just a little pleasure isn't pain, but it's not exactly pleasure, either. In fact, it's a rather odd state of mind for which no particular word comes to mind (I'm sure yogis and Tantrists know some, but let's stick with the cinnamon latte illustration for a moment :) Actually, it makes me curious about the less sensational aspects of Tantric philosophy, but that's another blog.
In any case, while semi-blissed out on cinnamon and the tempered joy of being released from work knowing it just meant coming in earlier tomorrow, I had a glimmer of why moderation, or my reading of it, is so prized: it's even more of a psychic tightrope than it's cracked up to be! On the other hand, maybe it's a lot sexier than it's given credit for as well ;)

Viva moderation...
(On that note, here's an article on "golden girls" living the moderately good life in a particularly long-lived region of France)

Quote du Jour: Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY)

"For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are against terrorists. They're very brave with the terrorists. And if the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they'd get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad."

-- to Secretary Rice in a House hearing today, as prelude to a suggestion that the State Dept. consider hiring Arab and Farsi linguists fired by Defense (due to "don't ask; don't tell") to cover their shortage of such specialists.

J.K. Rowling: Apparently the last and only hope that kids will continue to read books.

At least according to this article in the New York Times Books section:

And the end of the Harry Potter series is not the most pressing problem facing publishers of books for children and young adults; competition from other forms of entertainment is the real threat. “When you look now at an 8- or 10-year-old, they are truly online, they are IM-ing their friends, they are text-messaging, they have an iPod where they are watching and listening to music,” said Susan Miller, president of Mixed Media Group, which develops books, television shows and movies for children. “They have a lot of other ways to spend their time, media-wise, and if you like to consume stories you can be watching something on the television. There are a lot of places for them to be entertained.”

Still, there’s always this possibility: Ms. Rowling could just write another series. “At some point she’ll come out of retirement and pull a Michael Jordan,” said Mr. Searby of J. P. Morgan.

Non-dystopian Quote du Jour

Robert Frost, when asked near the end of his life,
“Do you have hope for the future?” after a pause, said,
“Yes, and even for the past.”

Best Dystopian Film...

... I've ever seen:

Children of Men

Chillingly realistic, and just plain chilling.

Has my vote (if I had one) for the few Oscars it's up for, especially Adapted Screenplay.

Quote du Jour: Al Sharpton

“I told him I take a bath every day.”

-- in response to a telephone apology from Joe Biden re: his ill-considered description of Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

Between this and his comments on Fox News boasting about the fact that Delaware was once a "slave state" that would have gotten on board with the South except that "there were a couple of states in the way," I have to wonder about Biden. Sure, he doesn't know when to shut up (lucky Foreign Relations Committee, of which he's now the chairman, i.e., can speak as long as he likes, and indeed he does) but these -- and there are others -- are some disturbing "slips."

If anything, contrary to Sharpton's concern, I think the most lasting effect of this incident is to endear Obama to black voters who may have otherwise, as pundits have been musing, leaned toward Clinton out of loyalty to her husband.

Biden has some good ideas on Iraq, but '08 going to be a whole different kettle of fish than '06.