Miscellaneous: March 2005 Archives

Congress has a legislative and moral duty to do what we can to protect her. Her life is being threatened, and we have it in our power to act on her behalf. Every human life deserves at least that much. - DeLay said on March 17, after the House passed a measure intended to prevent the withdrawal of Schiavo’s feeding tube.

I suppose I can understand how, being caught up in the moment, Rep. DeLay would think that. Congress seems to think that it is their duty to protect Terri Schiavo from the wishes of her spouse, her husband, who wants her to finally be at rest.

But what about all the other people out there who are in the same situation as Terri Schiavo? Will each of them have their own pieces of legislation to prevent someone from withdrawing life support from them as well?

And what about Rep. DeLay’s own father? Sixteen years ago, Rep. DeLay’s own father was injured in an accident at his home in Canyon Lake, Texas. Because of that injury, his father “suffered multiple injuries, including kidney failure”. His mother and his siblings made the decision to withhold kidney dialysis when it became clear that he would not recover.

Has Rep. DeLay had a change of heart? Would he do things differently now for his father? Or, is this just pure politics? We will probably never know the answer to that.

Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council said, “Two different situations. With Terri Schiavo, there was no plug pulled, there was no respirator taken away from her. She was simply by court order deprived of food and water.”

We are splitting very very fine hairs here. The end result is death. Terri Schiavo is being deprived of her feeding tube - something that is keeping her body functioning. Rep. DeLay’s father was deprived of kidney dialysis - something that was keeping his body functioning. Both functions were withdrawn. I see no difference what so ever, other than Terri Schiavo’s situation serving the purpose of Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council.

Rep. Tom DeLay, the House majority leader who led the congressional effort to spare Terri Schiavo’s life, was confronted more than 16 years ago with his own agonizing end-of-life dilemma and agreed to withdraw life support from the patient, his father, according to a report Sunday in the Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper reported that DeLay’s father, Charles Ray DeLay, 65, a drilling contractor, was severely injured in 1988 in an accident at his home in Canyon Lake, Texas. [...]

The account said DeLay had suffered multiple injuries, including kidney failure, and that his wife, Maxine, and their other children had made the initial decision to withhold kidney dialysis and other treatments when it became clear he could not recover.

DeLay, at the time in his third term in the House, did not object, the newspaper’s report said. (source)

During the election process they tried to convince voters that they were against abortion and gay marriage when the reality is they just used these issues to divide the nation and were not really concerned about either. Rather, their goal was to persuade voters to elect them to office so they could continue the campaign of bankrupting the nation while giving tax breaks to the wealthy and destroying the social, health, and environmental programs that decades of progressive Democrats and Republicans had set in place.

Now they are making political hay at the expense of a woman who is unable to defend herself. These politicians voted against the very Medicaid that supported Terri Schiavo through years of need. They also voted to restrict law suits against negligent corporations of the very kind that provided funds supporting the wishes of Terri Schiavo’s family to keep her alive. Now, solely for political gain they wanted to prolong the life of this individual whom the courts have determined wished not to be subjected to this kind of indignity they wanted to impose upon her. (source)

Sadly, it’s all true. During the last presidential race, it was the gay marriage issue that the Bush Administration used as their hot ticket to get the conservative base to go to the polls and put him in office for another four years.

Now, those same conservatives are mad as hell because the president hasn’t followed through on his promise to push for a constitutional amendment against marriage. Why should he? He got what he wanted. He’s in for four more years. Pushing for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage simply is a losing issue for him that brings him no gain. It has nothing to do with his real goals; keeping the war going in Iraq, “fighting terrorism” (at least his definition of it), killing Social Security, gutting the environment so that a few corporations can get even richer than they are. These are his goals. Gay marriage doesn’t even show up on his radar screen anymore. It has served his purpose. I suspect it won’t show it’s ugly head again until the next presidential race. But will it work again? Given how gullible the American People are, I suspect it will.

And to the conservatives out there who loyally marched to the voting booths to stop the gays from having marriage, you were used. Get over it. At least now you can see what you voted for.

A few days ago on my way home, I was listening to Sean Hannity. He was going on and on about Terri Schiavo and “activity judges”. I personally can’t stand Sean Hannity, but I listen to him to try to gain an understanding of what it is we are dealing with. He said (I’m paraphrasing) that, “I never thought I would see the day when judges would have such contempt for the will of Congress and the will of the people, that they would just completely ignore those wishes and rule however they wanted. What has America come too?”

I wanted to yell back to him, “You moron! The function of the court is not and never has been to appease the will of the people or to listen to the will of Congress! The function of the court is to interpret and carry out constitutional law. Sometimes that will happen to agree with the will of the people, but not always.”

That is the function of the court - to interpret law. And if the Supreme Court had heard the Schiavo case, I suspect that they would have had some rather harsh words for the intrusion of Congress into this issue. This is called the Separation of Powers. Congress would do well to brush up on what is apparently a little known fact to them.

When something horrible happens like the shootings in Red Lake, Minnesota from 16 year old Jeff Weise, I get so tired of reading that the culprit must have been the antidepressant he was taking. In this case, it looks like they are going to blame the popular antidepressant Prozac as the culprit.

They claim that since his daily dosage was increased to 60mg per day, that must have caused it. I was on 80mg per day, along with other antidepressants to boost the effects of Prozac, and it didn’t make me want to go out and kill people. It had other effects on me that weren’t altogether pleasant, but I dealt with them.

If society wants this kind of thing to stop, they should start looking at the real cause of it, and stop trying to pawn the blame off on some chemical that can’t defend itself.

The real blame is our society. We embrace violence. It is in our movie theaters, it is on our streets, it is in just about every facet of our lives. And sometimes, it is in very innocuous things that we gloss over. A commercial comes to mind about Honey Nut Cheerios. This man is eating Honey Nut Cheerios. A group of cowboys are around him and one of them ask him what he’s eating. He replies, “Nut’N Honey”. They all draw their guns and point them to his head as if they are about to blow his brains out. And, that was funny?

That is part of the culture we have cultivated. You have a problem, you don’t deal with it and work your feelings out on it. You get even. That may mean playing a cruel trick on someone, or it may mean that you get a gun and really get even. Guns are everywhere. I don’t own a gun, but I’m sure if I put my mind to it, I could have one in my hands before the day was over.

And it’s not like we are doing anything about it. The right to bear arms after all, is a “right” of all Americans. So why then are we so confused when we hear about some student who was bullied or made fun of, all the sudden go off the deep end and seek revenge for the wrongs done to him?

It’s really no mystery to me. If you want to solve this problem, we have to stop looking at the smoking guns (the real guns and the Prozac’s that we blame) and really start looking at what is at the heart of all of this: OUR SICK SOCIETY THAT BREEDS HATRED AND VIOLENCE.

You want the killings to stop? Let’s start there because that is what really let this happen.

RED LAKE, MINN. -- Relatives of high school killer Jeff Weise, 16, believe the popular anti-depressant Prozac, may have played a role in the teen’s rampage. Friends and family members have said he had been taking Prozac since a suicide scare last summer.

Family members told the New York Times newspaper Weise’s dose was recently increased to 60 mg a day.

“I can’t help but think it was too much, that it must have set him off,” an aunt, Tammy Lussier, said. (source)

I found this on the Internet and, being a person who has suffered from depression in the past, I got a kick out of it.

This is an easy decision for me. I too believe that the war in Iraq is unjust. We have no business being there. And don’t go saying that I don’t support the troops by saying that. I do support our troops. I just don’t support our President for being a moron and dropping the ball on this.

If memory serves me, we went to Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Laden. We didn’t. We let him slip away from us. We got bogged down in Iraq “fighting terror” and now we are going to be there for a very long time. Our military resources are being depleted, fewer men are enlisting, morale in the military (and in our society) is extremely low, and our costs for this war are out of control.

Thank you very much Mr. President! You are an idiot.

I don’t blame this man one bit for not going to Iraq. I agree 100% with his assessment of this war. I’ve also talked with people at work concerning this war. A few have boys who are around the age of 15. They tell me what it is like for them, and what their fears are. Some become overwhelmed with emotion as they talk about the possibility of losing their son in this war.

I tell them, “It would be easy for me to decide what to do. I’d be looking at leaving this country with my son.” Don’t get me wrong. If we were being attacked or if we were really fighting an enemy that threatened our very existence, I’d be the first to take up arms. This is not the case with this war. It is 100% political with this President, and if you think he gives a rats ass about your son, I have an ocean front property to sell you in Arizona.

TORONTO -- An American war dodger who fled the U.S. military because he believed the invasion of Iraq was criminal has lost his bid for refugee status in Canada in a case closely watched on both sides of the border.

In a written ruling released Thursday, the Immigration and Refugee Board said Jeremy Hinzman had not made a convincing argument that he faced persecution or cruel and unusual punishment in the United States. [...]

During his three-day refugee hearing in December, he said any violent acts he would have committed had he gone to Iraq would have amounted to an atrocity because the war itself was illegal. [...]

His case was bolstered by a former United States marine, who said trigger-happy American soldiers in Iraq routinely killed unarmed women and children, and murdered other Iraqis, in violation of international law.

Adjudicator Brian Goodman had previously ruled that the soldier’s view of the legality of the war on Iraq could not be used to support his refugee claim.

As a deserter, Hinzman faces court martial if he returns to the United States and a potential five-year jail term. (source)

More on Jeremy Hinzman
Absent Without Regrets: A Soldier's Story
Jeremy Hinzman.net
Jeremy Hinzman: Military hero
Hinzman to appeal Refugee Board decision

President Bush’s job-approval rating has sunk to 45 percent, the worst of his presidency, amid public opposition at his intervention in the Terri Schiavo case and growing concern over gasoline prices.

The 45 percent rating is a far cry from his record 90 percent approval after the Sept. 11 attacks, but it’s still well above the low marks scored by most recent presidents. (source)

I guess that anything is up for grabs if you can profit from it, even sacrificing decency for it.

Videotape of Terri Schiavo blinking at her parents has inspired donations from people around the country to the foundation set up to help pay for the family’s legal battle. But many other groups are soliciting donations in her name as well, some for a much broader agenda.

“Help Save Terri Schiavo’s Life!” says the Web site of the Traditional Values Coalition, a Christian conservative group best known for its campaigns against gay rights. Next to a link to the Web site of her parents’ foundation is a pitch to “become an active supporter of the Traditional Values Coalition by pledging a monthly gift.”

“What this issue has done is it has galvanized people the way nothing could have done in an off-election year,” said Rev. Lou Sheldon, the founder of the group, acknowledging that the case of Ms. Schiavo, a severely brain-damaged Florida woman, had moved many to open up their checkbooks. “That is what I see as the blessing that dear Terri’s life is offering to the conservative Christian movement in America.” (source)

It was a busy day yesterday. I got a lot done at work and then went to the gym. I didn’t do so well last night. I was ok on the elliptical trainer for about thirty minutes (I try to do an hour), but after that I started feeling weak. I went home and was just exhausted. I probably did too much on the diet and at the same time overdid the exercise. I basically ran out of energy to do more. A lesson learned.

I got home, relaxed, and went on line to catch up on the daily news. I read this really nice opinion by Titania Kumeh, Staff Writer of the Courier Online. It’s worth a read.

I also came across an opinion from Alabama concerning the proposed ban on gay adoptions. I wrote on this yesterday. The opinion was entitled Don’t eliminate all gay adopters.

A bill pending in the Alabama Legislature to stop individual gay Alabamians from adopting children is wrongheaded, and it should be considered wrongheaded by both those who believe in gay rights and those who do not.

The sponsor of the legislation, Sen. Hank Erwin Jr., R-Montevallo, argues that it is needed as a matter of consistency.

“If we are going to say we are a family-friendly state with traditional family values, then we need to have traditional family adoption policies,” Erwin said. [...]

It’s also scary. If Erwin succeeds in making gays second-class citizens when it comes to adoptions, what is his next step in the name of consistency? Banning them from holding certain jobs? Will he let them continue to be loving uncles or aunts?

The sad fact is that Alabama, like most states, has hundreds more kids in need of adoption than it has people willing to adopt them. There just aren’t enough “traditional families” willing to adopt.

Gay couples cannot adopt in Alabama because the state does not recognize gay marriages. But gay individuals can if they meet the same standards as their non-gay counterparts.

Another bit of good news is that a bill outlawing discrimination again gays in things such as housing, public accommodations, insurance and employment has been introduced in Delaware. It defines sexual orientation as heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual.

A bill adding sexual orientation to Delaware’s anti-discrimination protections is again headed to the Senate after clearing the House in a close vote Thursday - just as it did in 2001 and 2003.

The so-called gay rights bill may fare better this year in the Senate, where it died in committee in 2002 and last year - if you believe the bill’s sponsor, Rep. William A. Oberle Jr., R-Beechers Lot.

The heavily amended version of House Bill 36 that passed the House 22-18 has deleted language the Senate previously found objectionable. Oberle hopes that’s enough to win it a vote in the upper chamber. [...]

Amendments deleted wording that the bill covered “real or perceived” discrimination, and added burdens of proof that are not applied to plaintiffs alleging discrimination based on sex, age, race or religion.

And this from Maryland...

The Maryland House passed legislation Thursday that would add sexuality and gender identity to the categories of people protected under the state’s hate crimes law.

The legislation now moves to the Senate.

While Maryland has had a hate crimes statute on the books since 1988, current law only covers crimes motivated by race, religion, and national origin.

And this from Washington State on how quickly we dismiss some in our society.

We Americans are quite prone to dismiss someone with whom we are uncomfortable by pointing only to the person’s offensive attributes: “He’s fat.” “She’s a smoker.”

I’ve observed people dismiss gay people in the same way: limp wrist, butch, campy or queen. The truth is that he might have a limp wrist, but he also might be a good father, a faithful companion or a volunteer at a homeless shelter.

She might be “mannish,” but she also might rescue discarded animals, visit nursing homes or take care of her elderly parents.

Over the years, I’ve noticed individuals who can dismiss entire classes of people with the wave of a hand react much differently when they know some individual from that class.

It might behoove us all to read deeper into the “books” that cross our paths each day. It seems it is true: “You can’t tell a book by its cover.”

“Don’t Californicate Idaho”. That used to be the saying in Idaho when I was growing up.

I remember when I was growing up in Emmett, Idaho, there were a lot of bad feelings about people from California moving into our valley. It did change our life somewhat and nobody wanted them to stay. You get very set in your ways when you are isolated from other cultures. I would have thought that after all these years, Idaho would have changed a bit, from others moving into the state. Is this not true of all states? People move all the time for jobs and lifestyle changes. I guess some things die hard.

Saying he saw what the influx of out-of-staters, especially Californians, did when he lived in Hayden, Jerry Higgs, now living in Bonners Ferry, has launched a one-man campaign to encourage Californians to stay away.

“When I left Hayden, I counted three native Idahoans on the block where I lived,” Higgs said. “Some were from Chicago, some were from Oregon. But most of them, at least nine families, were from California, and they all brought their own ideas of what was right for Idaho, even though they had no concept of our way of life.” [...]

“I’ve had Californians tell me they wanted to get away from the Asians, Mexicans and blacks. We are not racist here! Richard Butler, Reverend Bertollini and Randy Weaver … racists who gave Idaho a black eye … were all out-of-state carpetbaggers.

“We don’t want your gay business districts, same-sex marriage, body pierced, tattooed to the ankles, (c)rap music, lowrider, celebrating diversity-while-standing-for-nothing liberal nonsense here in Idaho.

“The last thing we need is a Californian a half car length behind us trying to do ten miles per hour over the speed limit on a cold January day while the roads are covered with black ice. Your people tell us we are stupid while trying to change Idaho into the very thing they were trying to escape.” (source)

In his own way, he has a point. People are moving to Idaho to find a new way of life - to escape overcrowding, pollution, and crime.

On my way to work this morning, I tuned into my favorite news stations, almost out of habit. It’s the same depressing news, and although I’m a news junky, I found myself switching to a music station. It was a jazz station, and thought to myself, “...it’s too early for jazz...”, so I switched to a classical station.

I was suddenly listening to Les Preludes by Franz Liszt (1811-1886). Admittedly, Liszt is not one of my favorite composers. In fact, I’ve never liked him and have not listened to him for years. But this morning, while sitting on my heated seat in my car and sipping on hot coffee, I decided to listen.

But then, I suddenly had a revelation. It was my baggage from college that made me hate Liszt. The chairman of my music department was a man named Dr. Richard Skyrm. He was actually quite a brilliant scholar. He was also the professor who was assigned to me for my thesis. My thesis centered around a musical analysis of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Dr. Skyrm and I would often disagree and would often have heated discussions concerning the work and our opinions on the work. I would constantly challenge and question his conclusions on the work - something he did not welcome. I told him once, “Just because you have a doctorate does not mean that I have to rubber stamp every opinion YOU have!” Yes, I was arrogant in those days. After all this time, I am still correct about the work, although I actually no longer listen to the work. And even though we disagreed right up to the time I turned in my thesis, he gave the paper an “A”, with a comment of “Good work”. Go figure.

Which brings us to Liszt and my dislike of him. In college, I also had a big discussion with Dr. Skyrm about Franz Liszt. Dr. Skyrm loved Liszt, I believe because of the wealth of music he produced for the piano (Dr. Skyrm was a pianist). I made some comment that Liszt was a lousy orchestrator. I don’t remember the context in which I said that. He didn’t like that at all. So, for all these years, I’ve hated Liszt because of that. Again, go figure.

So this morning as I was listening to Les Preludes of Franz Liszt, I was absolutely stunned and overwhelmed by the genius of Liszt. I’m trying to describe the layers upon layers of complexity that somehow magically works. The word that comes to mind to describe it is “chocolaty”. Layers upon layers of rich chocolate.

The work is about 15 minutes long (about the length of my commute - it finished as I entered the parking lot at work) and is in one movement. From the Nottingham Philharmonic Orchestra program notes:

However, Liszt then prefaced the score with a paragraph of his own, which has almost nothing to do with Lamartine’s poem. “What is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown song of which the fast solemn note is sounded by death? Love is the enchanted dawn of all existence; but who is lucky enough not to have his first delights of happiness interrupted by some storm, the mortal blast of which dissipates love’s illusions, ... ” and so on, in this rather opaque and difficult to read style.

What this tells us is that the music is an expression of various states of emotion, of a passionate and extreme nature - a fact fully in accord with Liszt’s own flamboyant personality! The music is in one movement of about 15 minutes, and begins with a slow introduction to the first and principal theme of the work. This is followed by a contrasting “love” theme, after which the “storms of life” set in with a vengeance. A calmer section follows, before the energy is whipped up again to a martial and triumphant conclusion. (source)

So, with this triumphant conclusion, I got out of my car, and marched into work.

We’ve been hearing a lot this past year about activist judges. At first I was puzzled by the term. I first heard it applied to the judges on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court after they ruled that denying gay couples access to marriage went against the state constitution.

Shortly after that, I heard the Republicans in Congress along with President Bush, call the judges “activist judges”. Now, with the ruling by federal district judge James Whittemore to not re-insert the feeding tube for Terri Schiavo, I suppose Judge Whittemore will also be labeled an “activist judge”. I’ve come to conclude that an “activist judge” is a judge who doesn’t rule in favor of the majority of legislators, in this case, conservative legislators.

Perhaps it is time for a new term. Let’s call it “congressional activism” as Slate writer Dahlia Lithwick has done.

Whether Terri Schiavo will live or die in the coming days has come down to this: Can federal district judge James Whittemore set aside virtually every bedrock constitutional principle on which this nation was founded, just so members of the United States Congress may constitutionalize the nowhere-to-be-found legal principle that a “culture of life” is a good thing?

This morning’s decision by Congress and President Bush—to authorize new federal legislation that will obliterate years of state court litigation, and justify re-inserting a feeding tube into Terri Schiavo, based on new and illusory federal constitutional claims—is not about law. It is congressional activism, plain and simple; legislative overreaching and hubris taken to absurd extremes.

Let’s be clear: The piece of legislation passed late last night, the so-called “Palm Sunday Compromise,” has nothing whatever to do with the rule of law. The rule of law in this country holds that this is a federalist system—in which private domestic matters are litigated in state, not federal courts.

Until now.

One thing that seems difficult for people to understand is that Terri, by all medical accounts, has not been conscious for a very long time. Brain scans indicate that the entire area of the brain responsible for cognitive thinking has been destroyed. If you view a healthy brain and compare it to Terri’s brain, you will actually see a huge black mass in the center of her brain that used to be healthy brain tissue. It is now dead. The experts agree that she has no knowledge of her existence at this time. That isn’t life and it’s no way to live an existence.

I can understand the heart wrenching ordeal her family is going through, but there is a time to think of Terri and her wishes. There is a time to let go.

I would choose to remember Terri in the light of this photo of her, a photo of a vivacious woman, full of life. She deserves better than political pandering. She is more than an opportunity for politicians to push their political agenda to try to show people just how much they value life.

My message to them is this. If you value life so much, then you must pass legislation to abolish the death penalty. If you value the life of a one week old fetus, then surely a man on death row qualifies as life. After all, I can talk to him. He can think. He is self aware. Is a fetus? They will never be able to understand this argument. Instead, this is what we have in this country at this time - this is the environment:

Frist, who has asserted special credibility “as a physician,” claimed that “neurologists who have examined her insist today that she is not in a persistent vegetative state”—neglecting to mention that neurologists who testified in court concluded the opposite. On the Senate floor, Frist claimed to have “been in a situation such as this many, many times,” when in fact he had never made such an evaluation. On the basis of the family videos, he challenged the assessment made by doctors who had examined Schiavo in person.

When it’s your turn to face an end-of-life decision, here’s the kind of scrutiny you’ll get. Two neurologists and a judge won’t be enough, according to Frist: Congress will “go and collect more information, have neurologists come in.” A second judge will be empowered to “make new findings of fact.” DeLay wants to deprive judges of discretion because “when you affirmatively give the judge the discretion not to put the tube back in, they won’t.” Everyone has to be involved. “For one person in one state court to make this decision is too heavy,” says DeLay. “It does take all of us to think this through.”

And here’s the culture you’ll get. Schiavo’s parents have filed a motion to divorce her from her husband. Protesters at the hospice have suggested that the husband should be starved and the judge should be beaten. On the Senate floor, Frist has challenged the husband’s right to make the decision because he has “a girlfriend.” What about the judge’s confidence in the husband’s account of Schiavo’s stated wishes? Unless Schiavo “had specifically written instructions in her hand and with her signature,” scoffs DeLay, “I don’t care what her husband says.” This from an out-of-state congressman who got his legal training in campaign-finance creativity and his medical training in pest control. (source)

At what point do our civil liberties get acknowledged? If the federal government can intrude into extremely private family matters such as this, do legal documents or even the power of marriage mean anything anymore? If I have a power or attorney, or a living will, what’s to say at this point that they can’t be overturned? There are many families out there who are going through these issues. I would hate to think that I would have to be kept alive, no matter what the quality of my life was, just because some legislators took that decision away from me and told me, “You WILL live, no matter what.”

This legislation, the “Palm Sunday Compromise”, creates a dangerous precedent for all of us who want to live free lives without government intrusion. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will rule it unconstitutional.

Yesterday, Judge Whittemore refused to order the reinsertion of Terri’s feeding tube. The decision is being appealed. There’s no happy ending here, for anyone.

David Gibbs III, the parents’ attorney, argued at a Monday hearing in front of Judge Whittemore that forcing Terri Schiavo to starve would be “a mortal sin” under her Roman Catholic beliefs and urged quick action: “Terri may die as I speak.”

But George Felos, an attorney for Michael Schiavo, argued that keeping the woman alive also violated her rights and noted that the case has been aired thoroughly in state courts.

“Yes, life is sacred,” Mr. Felos said, contending that restarting artificial feedings would be against Schiavo’s wishes. “So is liberty, particularly in this country.”

Michael Schiavo said he was outraged that lawmakers and the president intervened in a private matter. “When Terri’s wishes are carried out, it will be her wish. She will be at peace. She will be with the Lord,” he said on CNN’s “Larry King Live” late Monday. (source)

Study: Obesity to cut 2 to 5 years off live span

CHICAGO - New and disputed research adds a twist to the Social Security dilemma, suggesting that a nation gorging itself on bacon double-cheeseburgers will one day dramatically shorten the average U.S. life span.

Obesity - especially its alarming rise among children - is the culprit, fueling a startling reversal in life expectancy, which likely will drop by two to five years or more within 50 years, according to a report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army, stung by recruiting shortfalls caused by the Iraq war, has raised the maximum age for new recruits for the part-time Army Reserve and National Guard by five years to 39, officials said on Monday.

The Army said the move, a three-year experiment, will add about 22 million people to the pool of those eligible to serve, from about 60 million now. Physical standards will not be relaxed for older recruits, who the Army said were valued for their maturity and patriotism.

The Pentagon has relied heavily on part-time Army Reserve and Army National Guard soldiers summoned from civilian life to maintain troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan. Roughly 45 percent of U.S. troops currently deployed for those wars are reservists.

At home, the all-volunteer Army has labored to coax potential recruits to volunteer for the Guard and Reserve as well as for active-duty, and to persuade current soldiers to re-enlist when their volunteer commitment ends. (source)

Now, I ask you... Why would anyone volunteer to serve in the service now when we’ve all heard or know of people who are going back to Iraq for the second or third time, risking their lives for a government who doesn’t care about them?

Sound harsh? How about this... We ask these people to go to Iraq to try to clean up the mess we’ve made. Because of the huge drain on our economy, we decrease the wages and benefits of military personnel, tell them to go back for a second or third tour of duty, and on top of that, tell them that they can’t get out because of a stop-loss order put in place by the President. In other words, we have violated the terms of their contract for military service.

Stop loss gives the President that authority in times of war and when there is grave danger to our country. This doesn’t exist at this time. What does exist is a country that we invaded and gutted. We are there now to keep a worse hell from emerging. People can see this for what it is. We aren’t there to spread democracy. We are there to put our fingers in the cracks of the dam to keep it from completely falling apart.

I actually heard this on my way in to work this morning, and it made a lot of sense to me. We all have positive and negative things working in our lives every day. How we respond to that is really up to us. The speaker on the radio said that one way to channel positive energy is to exercise, but when you are doing the exercise, give thanks to all the things you have. His examples were that you can give thanks to your health, to your legs that are enabling you to walk and run, among other things. It all sounds somewhat ZEN to me, but I think he has a point.

I guess that is what I was getting at in my entry last night about shifting my focus on how I look at life.

You know, I have so much to be thankful for. Life to me is unbelievable right now. So much is going so well. Kent and I are so happy. We both have jobs, we both have our health. That’s huge!

It is part of my makeup to hate inequalities in life. Right now, my inability to make my life totally complete hinges around being able to fully participate in society. I don’t think I can do that without access to marriage. But, that’s one thing, and it doesn’t have to spoil the pot, so to speak. I also think it’s important to recognize in myself that I do have this big issue with inequality. To me, it’s a big thing; to others, they don’t care.

So, I’m going to focus on what is right in my life. And it comes to mind that the wireless head phones I bought yesterday (to watch TV silently while Kent is sleeping), ROCK! Now, I can listen to my TV while standing in the middle of my yard! How cool is that??!

I’ve written for a long time about my life. Sometimes, when life in this society of ours gets too tough to deal with, you find yourself up against a few options.

You can just keep getting more and more depressed until you have to talk yourself into simply getting out of bed in the morning. I’ve been there. You get to a point when you read in the news day after day after day how little you are valued in society, that you finally get pissed and decide to do something about it.

So, you pull yourself together and go to the Legislative Office Building where they are having hearings on marriage rights for gay couples. You think it will help make you feel better inside because you are able to lend your support to something you care deeply about. You get there, and you hear one person after another talk about how these “perverts” are trying to “steal marriage” and “pervert” it into something that is “unhealthy”, “unnatural”, “against the will of God”, and will be the “downfall of mankind”. It was a mistake for me to go there. For the next three weeks, I had little energy and really didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning.

I think I’m just tired of it all. I’m tired of being reminded day after day what I don’t and can’t have. It’s demoralizing. So, I have put my energies into myself. I’ve decided to go back to the gym that I’ve belonged to for the last ten years. I haven’t gone for a long time, but I never stopped my membership. Instead of taking Prozac, I give my depression to my workout and channel all of that negative energy into myself.

And I guess it’s working. I’m gaining muscle, and so far, I’ve lost 21 pounds. I still don’t feel good about what is happening in the news with the President renewing his wishes to pass a federal constitutional amendment against allowing gay couples the ability to marry, but I can’t control that. What will happen, will happen.

But for now, I have my health and I even had some dude at the gym checking out my butt a week ago - a sure sign of progress!

I've been busy trying to get a new blog set up. I'm keeping this blog for writing, but I'm setting up a photo blog. I've been using this blog as a photo blog as well, but I think they will work better if I separate the two, and have links referencing each other.

But beyond all of that, there are a few things in the news that are so ironic, I just have to write about it. I'm constantly amazed at the hypocrisy of our government. With the Republicans in power, I have seen the national deficit grow out of control, our environmental needs set aside for the fast buck, and government growing faster than it ever has. The irony is that all of these things, with the possible exception of what they are doing to the environment, are things that the Republican Party has always said they were against.

They say they are against big government, yet the government has grown more in the last four years than it has in the last two decades. They say they are against governmental spending, yet we have a President who has yet to veto one spending bill. And, they say that they are for a less intrusive government. Unless of course you are a gay American where it's just fine to dictate that we are not allowed to marry our partner, or Terri Schiavo.

I feel for what her family must be going through. I'm not going to get in the middle and take one side or the other, with regards to whether her parents or her former husband is making the right decision. But I am absolutely certain that our federal government has absolutely no business being in the middle of this decision. They are interfering with something that should be decided in the family, and for what? For political gain. They love having their pictures in the paper and being so "moral". They are trying to show their conservative constituents that they do indeed value life, and they are willing to back that claim up with new legislation to value all life, even if that means trampling all over individual freedoms.

Is anyone else concerned about this?

Different worlds. Jesus.

Those where the last words I said to myself tonight before I went to sleep last night.

We went to Boston to meet a friend who was flying in from Oklahoma. We hadn’t seen her in a year or so, and she is coming to Boston for a conference.

We stayed downtown and the Park Plaza Hotel. It’s a nice place. Well, it’s nicer than nice actually. It’s a five star hotel by many people’s standards. It is nice.

We all met at our hotel, and had cocktails in one of the bars in the place (you could live in this place without ever going outside). Afterwards, we went to Davio’s Restaurant (Boston location) where we had reservations at 6:45pm.

It was a great dining experience. Ellen had the Penne, Applewood Smoked Chicken, Sundried Tomatoes, Toasted Walnuts, with Cream Sauce. I wanted to try that but couldn’t decide whether to have that or what Kent had, which was the Sweet Potato Sage Ravioli, Marsala, Apple Braised Pork, Frizzled Leeks. So, they brought me half of each!! How’s that for service?

The plan was to go up the street to Finale for dessert, but we didn’t have room. So, we left to go back to our hotel, which was just across the street from the restaurant.

While we were on the street corner, this guy approached us. He said that he was a recovering drug addict (I believe he said he was a crack addict) but was in recovery. He needed $16 to get back to his shelter and if he didn’t make it, he would have violated his parole and it would be a three year sentence. The really weird thing is, even though Kent was standing on my left, and Ellen was standing on my right, he never acknowledged them. He talked directly to me alone. Do I attract these people?

I gave him a bit of money, not knowing if his story was a lie or not. But, I felt sorry for him. It was so bitterly cold out. He left after getting the money, and we crossed the street into our hotel. I suggested to Kent and Ellen that they have a drink together to catch up on old times. I was tired and the thought of a hot shower and bed appealed to me. They went to have their drink.

I returned to the safety of my room. I looked down on the street from my ninth floor room and was reminded that even in an upscale neighborhood such as this, that there really isn’t much safey. And while I was in the shower with all three shower heads covering my body with very warm water, I just closed my eyes and tried to lose myself to the harshness that some have in our society.

I dried off, got into bed, turned the lights off, and thought about how my world compared to that drug addict. I just said to myself, “Different worlds. Jesus.”

I closed my eyes, and went to sleep.

Today was one of those days. On my way to work, I was almost wiped out by a truck that cut a corner. I was stopped at a stop light. He cut the corner, almost hit me broadside, and just kept going. As he passed by, he looked over my way with a look on his face that said, “damn, I almost killed that guy”. As he passed, I saw him struggling to turn the corner to merge onto the freeway and keep control of his truck, all the while talking to his cell phone.

I think cell phone usage is ok while you drive as long as you are on a totally hands free system. Take mine for instance. It’s a Blue Tooth wireless ear piece. Totally hands free. If I get a call, it automatically takes the call, and all I have to do is talk. At the end of the call, it hangs up. I’ve touched nothing. People who have to hold the cell phone while driving should not be driving.

Work was ok. It was an intense day. I’m a bit down today. I got to work early so I left work at 3:30 and went to the health club for a workout. I didn’t check any news. Why bother myself with depressing news? I know, that’s an awful thing for a news junkie to say, but sometimes you have to listen to your little voice inside.

There is the world outside that we can’t control. To a large extent, our lives in this country are controlled by the laws that are put into place and the actions of legislators. Many of them have only contempt for families like mine. That I can’t control. But, I can control who gets through the door of my home. And, I can control what news, or the lack thereof, that enters my home.

Tonight, my “news” is the works of JS Bach and JC Bach. It occurs to me that life was so different when they were alive. The didn’t have a lot of the pressures we have today. But, they also didn’t have a long life expectancy. Many didn’t live past their childhoods. Today, people live into their 80’s and beyond, as a norm. It’s easy to understand why Social Security needs revamping.

The Equal Rights Coalition will play host to America’s most notable homophobe in Fort Wayne on Sunday. The Rev. Fred Phelps, who runs the God Hates fags website and whose followers regularly demonstrate against LGBT rights has agreed to take part in a forum on gay rights. [...]

“We’ll accommodate it if it’s anywhere near reasonable,” Phelps said. “It’s just a wonderful way to show the contrast between the truth of God and the abomination of sin.” (source)

Now we are asking the bastard to a forum our community is hosting? I don’t even know what to say to that.

I guess I do have some good news. James Maestas, the 21-year-old Santa Fe man who was beaten, has been released from the hospital today. I hope he does ok. It sounds like he’s still very sick.

(Santa Fe, New Mexico) A 21-year-old Santa Fe man beaten to unconsciousness was released from hospital Tuesday, more than a week after he was attacked by five men.

But, the future for James Maestas remains uncertain. He was taken off a respirator at St. Vincent Hospital on Monday and is breathing on his own, but he is still very sick a family spokesperson said.

Maestas has pneumonia. His lungs were damaged in the attack, and there is the risk of further infection, the spokesperson for his parents said. (source)

Gay pop star Boy George has slammed Madonna for embracing the Kabbalah, the mystical offshoot of Judaism which preaches homosexuality is a disease. (source)

Do we care what either of these two people think about anything?

They say everything in life is connected.

Martha Stewart got released from prison today.

Today, UPS tracking says that my spring wild flower seeds (ok... I got inspired by Martha) will arrive, you got it, TODAY!

What does this mean?

There are few things worse in life than the stomach flu. It’s only redeeming feature is that usually only last for 24 hours. Kent brought this home from the university. We were fine until Sunday morning. We were getting ready to go out to breakfast and I suddenly just lost my energy and felt achy all over. Not long after that, Kent started to feel bad was well. It was downhill from there.

Sunday was a mixed back of high fever, dilutions brought about by the fever, throwing up, and more fever. We both spend the day in bed. I was so drained of energy that when I would sit up in bed to go to the bathroom, I wasn’t sure if I had the energy to get there.

Come Monday, Kent is feeling better. He had two meetings that day, one in the morning, and one at 4:00pm. He also had a dinner to go to with a prospective student that he was going to cancel. During the day, he recovered, and called to say that he would be going to the dinner meeting after all.

I still felt lousy all day yesterday. The fever persisted and i was sick once again. I slept most of the day. This morning, I woke up early, I think because all I’ve been doing is sleeping. The fever is gone, along with the nausea, but the body aches are very much there. So, I’m staying home one more day to recuperate.

I suppose the upside of this is that I won’t have to deal with the winter storm we had last night. Our state got 8-15 inches of snow (our area was in the 15 inch range on the map). Kent is outside now blowing the snow off the driveway.

Back to bed for me.