Occam's Razor

Occam's Razor

I'm not taking a side in what follows; I'm just looking at the issue from both sides.

Today, in a senseless, fiery crash, seven foster children died when their car was hit by a semi driven by a man who "just wasn't paying attention." The youngest child was 21 months old. Children in the school bus also sustained injuries. When the deceased children's grandfather heard of the calamity, he dropped dead from a heart attack on the spot.

Which leads me to ask, given the principle of Occam's Razor, which explanation of the above events is simpler, more reasonable, and thus, more believable? Either:

1. The universe is a cold, indifferent place, where random events occur without regard to human suffering.


2. The universe is ruled by a single, almighty, omniscient Being, who personally cares for every inhabitant who's ever lived, and manipulates events according to an all-good, yet inscrutable plan that often appears evil to us.

It would seem that the only religion with an answer for this sort of dilemma is Buddhism, under the tenets of which "stuff (just) happens." Or there is the possibility of the ancient gods--the Elder Gods--from Baal to Zeus, who ruled capriciously and lustfully. Anger those gods, and they smash you to a pulp. Placate them, and they just might let you live another day. With those gods, there was no straining the brain trying to interpret every event as participating in some greater good, despite its outward appearance of evil.

LOST Sites Update

LOST Sites Update

In answer to the question posted by Anonymous, the Kingcross Web site is currently unavailable, as is the Snowman site. I assume these sites are renovating content, in anticipation of later developments on the TV show.

When Kingcross is up, you need to create a password and user ID to log on. To do this, just click on "Forgot my password" and enter your e-mail address into the form. Your password and user ID will then shortly arrive via e-mail.

Meanwhile, those of us signed up at the Oceanic World Air site received the following e-mail this week:

To all OWA MilesPlus Members:

Take a break this week. You need it. No secret codes to find in this newsletter, or any other kind of hidden messages.

Now that we are really getting to know the characters in LOST (or are we?), this weeks episode ("The Hunting Party") will make us think about Michael's behaviour, among others. Was Walt really talking to Michael, or is something happening to Michael that we don't want to consider?

Walt is nearby and will return, as will Desmond and Danielle.

Oceanic World Air wants to take you on a trip around the world on Flight 213. Flight 213 is a special B777 flight leaving LAX on Monday February 13th for destinations unknown. I can tell you that there will be 9 stops on the trip, and at each stop, there will be an opportunity for someone to discover a real clue to lead the flight onward to the next destination and closer to our ultimate destination and some real answers.

Reservations are limited - but not in the way you think. Anyone is welcome to board, but you will need to be close to the destination to find the real clues. Passengers that are not able to disembark at the stop can help those who can get off to find the clues. You may use a trusted friend or associate to find the clue for you. Everyone will be able to participate and help along the way. Hopefully there will not be any incidents on the way.

Our first goal is to answer the question - "Where is Alex?"  Our first stop will be somewhere in the U.S.A.

It's time to have a little fun. Rest your weary brains until Feb 13th and enjoy our in-flight show of the week - LOST - "The Hunting Party".

Regards,

Vincent D. Madison

Director of Corporate Communications
Oceanic World Airlines

http://oceanicworldairlines.com

Codex Alito Juridicum

Codex Alito Juridicum

It appears that Judge Samuel Alito will soon be appointed, or for the Religious Right, anointed, to the Supreme Court. Women, get your abortions now! Or get your coat hangers later....

Academically, Alito is qualified for the court. Princeton is no National University. And he has fifteen years of Federal judgeship behind him. Granting his intellectual qualifications, I would have preferred--and the country would have been better served--if the judge stood up for his beliefs before the Senate.

We all know he's against abortion and doesn't believe the constitution guarantees a right to it. He clearly stated this in his 1985 application to the Reagan Administration. Even his mother recently said so. So, why deny it now? Would Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and the Looney Toons of the American Family Association be so strident in his support if they did not believe he would turn the nation's civil rights clock back 100 years?

The Bush administration is one of the most incompetent, lying and corrupt administrations in the nation's history. So is Bush's Republican congress. With the conviction of Abramoff, there seems to be no end to the GOP's season of scandal. Even Pat Buchanan believes that the Elephants are on their way out of power, starting in 2006.  Yet, Roberts and Alito are 50 and 55 years of age, respectively. Long after Bush has slouched off toward well-deserved oblivion, the stink of his Supreme Court nominees will linger, like the stomach-turning stench of a clogged toilet in a gas-station men's room.

Critical Thinking Once More

Critical Thinking Once More

Last evening I attended the first session of the Critical Thinking for Technical Communicators course. The class takes place at UCSD Extension's La Jolla Campus and Bonni Graham is the instructor.

I think I will enjoy the class. Last night Bonni explained how an argument is not necessarily intended for persuasion, and how persuasion is not necessarily argumentation. Advertisements, for example, are persuasive yet do not make use of the claims, premises and conclusions of argumentation.

Her example, "Our president is a blithering idiot," illustrated how non-factual claims work. Facts are data about which two (or more) impartial observers agree.

Another point, also brought up in our eponymous textbook, was that although "all people are entitled to their opinions," not all opinions are equal. I think Bill Maher summed this up better on Real Time last year when he said "You don't have to present both sides of an argument if one of the sides is pure crap!" (That's a paraphrase, but you get the idea).

Cable News, as Bill Moyers has decried, consists mainly of talking heads who offer both sides of an issue, often falsely leading the viewer to the notion that both sides have equal merit. News degenerates into a kind of high school debate team formalism. Even worse, Bill O'Reilly frequently states that a guest, like Cindy Sheehan, is "entitled to her opinion," then cuts off her microphone and attacks her personally.

Disturbingly, I'm not even sure why a class like Critical Thinking is part of the curriculum at the University Extension level. As I looked around the crowded classroom last night, I noticed a range of people near my own age--a few in their twenties, many in their thirties and forties. They are of an age where they would have been in the Freshman composition classes I used to teach at the very same university. Have they forgotten what they once learned?

Or, more broadly, perhaps critical thinking should be required of anyone who wishes to exercise their right to vote in this country. The state of our political affairs would seem to warrant such an exigency.

Stereotypes Clichés, and Arrogance

Stereotypes, Clichés, and Arrogance

The other night, I watched a movie titled Rory O'Shea Was Here. The film is an Anglo-Irish production and centers around the lives of two disabled "lads" in Dublin who rent an apartment on their own. It's called "independent living," and is a goal of many programs in Europe and the US that help people with the disabilities lead more fulfilling lives.

I enjoyed the two characters in the film: Michael, a young man with cerebral palsy and Rory, a 21-year-old guy with Duchene MD. The characters were believable and enjoyable, up until the end, which I found rather disappointing. Rory, with an advanced case of DMD, dies during the film's final moments (sorry for the spoiler). While the scenes between the dying Rory and Michael are quite touching, I would have rather seen the movie take another course.

Yes, death is inevitable for DMD patients, but it's inevitable for us all. Our lives--the personal stories of which we each are the hero--are book-ended by two events over which most of us have little control and less knowledge: birth and death. It seems all movies about people with MD end in the inevitable sad death-and-grief scene. Why not, in the case of the Rorys of the world, concentrate more on the living that comes in between birth and death? The stories should be less maudlin and more down-to-earth. It's not that Rory's death didn't bring a tear to the eye, but the writers could have found another, less conventional way to end the film. Then again--maybe that's a task I should tackle.

Another good film is the old William Hurt movie, The Doctor. It's about an arrogant surgeon who discovers how the "other half" lives when he becomes a cancer patient. His self-assurance quickly dissipates in the face of the medical establishment's indifference to human suffering. Why so many doctors become arrogant is beyond my comprehension--after all, eventually they will themselves grow old and infirm and become patients. Medicine would seem to be a prime example of a field in which the Golden Rule should apply.

Finally, Steven Landsburg hasn't replied to my letter. Not too surprising. People like him cannot own up to their own mistakes. Humility and economists do not seem to go together well.

Do the Poor Deserve Life Support?

Do the Poor Deserve Life Support?

That is the question posed by economist Steven Landsburg in an article he posted in Slate Magazine. Below is the letter I wrote to Mr. Landsburg in reply:

Dear Mr. Landsburg,
As a ventilator user for over 23 years, I read with interest your article in Slate Magazine (http://www.slate.com/id/2133518/) regarding whether or not the “poor” have a right to use a ventilator. Not surprisingly, I take exception to your claim that ventilator use is a choice which society should treat like an economic commodity analogous to buying milk.

I am a Muscular Dystrophy patient with weakened chest muscles that require me to use a ventilator to assist my breathing nearly 24 hours a day. I began using a ventilator in 1982, while attending graduate school at the University of California. After becoming ventilator dependent, I continued my education and the university awarded me a Ph.D. in English and American Literature. Since that time, I have worked for 12 years in the software industry. I currently am self-employed as a freelance writer and editor. Without the ventilator, I would not have been capable of accomplishing anything.

The (wrongful) implication of your article is that everyone who uses mechanical ventilation is a cancer patient lingering on the edge of death. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many people like me lead productive, active lives in the community—lives which would be cut short if ventilators were not made available. Do not conflate end-of-life issues with quality-of-life issues. Your article vaguely recalls (in tone if not in substance) the Terri Schiavo controversy. Yet, I must point out to you that Mrs. Schiavo did not use a ventilator.

Many ventilator users require the financial assistance of Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California, where I reside). Ventilators are expensive pieces of equipment, which private medical insurance frequently does not cover. Since Medicaid is a means-tested program, nearly every ventilator user in the country is technically “poor.” As I write this letter, I am a “poor” person breathing with a ventilator supplied through Medi-Cal. I agree with you that few healthy people would voluntarily set aside some of their income for ventilator insurance, yet most of them would spend every dime they have while lying, gasping for breath, in some sterile hospital room.  

Is breathing a commodity? Is the very air we take into our bodies a commodity? Yes, taxpayers subsidize my ventilator use. I “ask someone else to come to the rescue” to the same extent you might if your house were on fire. Have you ever heard of John Locke? I assume you have.... All members of society engage in a social contract, else social Darwinism and an “all-against-all” mentality ensue.

You claim that, with the "house-on-fire" example, society should come to your rescue because it has an interest in protecting a whole class of people--those who live in your neighborhood whose house might catch the flame from yours. But, what if your house resides on 40 isolated acres in the desert? I assume you would still expect the fire department to attempt to extinguish the blaze, though no other class of individuals was in danger. Ventilators--you say--benefit only individuals and not a whole class of ill people. What of the whole class of quadriplegics who need mechanical assistance to breathe? By your logic, doctors shouldn't bother to treat anyone with cancer, since that disease is not contagious and no one else is threatened by it.

You state that “A policy of helping everyone who needs a ventilator is a policy of spending less to help the same class of people in other ways.” Life support is not a zero-sum game. Are you arguing that I should be left to suffocate so that little Tiny Tim can receive a new crutch? Please find me evidence—somewhere—that a hospital is denying service to some patient because I use a ventilator.  

Please, also make your best effort to avoid glittering generalities in your next Slate op-ed piece. Not all ventilator users are the same. We all do, however, have one thing in common—we want to take that next breath. In this respect, we are just like everyone else.
Best regards,
David E. Clements, Ph.D.

PS: For a lighter view on the subject, please refer to my article in the San Diego Union-Tribune of 2004: “A Little Humor Is a Breath of Fresh Air”.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

Today begins the year A.D. 2006. Enjoy it while you can! If the Earth has about 5 billion years left before the bloated sun envelops it within its flaming, crimson cloak, then there is one five billionth less of a lifetime for our home planet than there was 365 days ago.

Meanwhile, the weekend has been rainy. The Chargers self-destructed in a meaningless Mudbowl yesterday, losing not only a meaningless game but very possibly their starting quarterback for next year.

My parents came over last night and we watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I don't think they "got" it. The books were much funnier. English humor is a tricky thing to translate onto the big screen. I hope, if they do a sequel, that they hire someone who can pull it off, like Terry Gilliam.

The LOST Game

The LOST Game

It seems my intuition about LOST was correct. A few weeks ago, I speculated that LOST is a combination of computer game, like MYST, and a TV show, like Survivor. This idea has been borne out by a CNET article, which you can find here:

http://news.com.com/2100-1026-5918146.html?tag=tb

LOST is a cross-media event. A key feature is the "alternate reality" game, of which LOST is one example. As fans have revealed on many discussion boards, an expanding number of LOST faux Websites sponsored by ABC lead adventurers on a merry chase for clues. I placed a few of these sites below, not because the list isn't available elsewhere in one form or another, but because it's helpful to have them all on a single page. This is good for my own reference, if no one else's.

The LOST sites (official ABC) that I know of follow:

Oceanic Air: http://www.oceanic-air.com/
Oceanic Air was the original LOST site, which I am aware of. It purports to show flight schedules and other data for Oceanic Air, but is really loaded with Easter eggs. You can find a seating chart that shows the castaways' names and where they sat on the plane, a page from a "script" for the show, and some pages of survivors' diaries.

Oceanic World Air: http://oceanicworldair.com/
According to the storyline, the original Oceanic Air went bankrupt after the scandal of the disappearance of Flight 815. Some time later, the airline was revived with a new name: Oceanic World Air. If you sign up for the Miles Plus program, you can get weekly updates from a character named Vincent Madison. The updates contain clues. You can also add your own theories to the Miles Plus bulletin board and earn extra "miles."

The Hanso Foundation: http://www.thehansofoundation.org/index.html
According to the film Locke discovered in the "hatch," Norwegian industrial magnate Alvar Hanso runs a foundation dedicated to furthering human progress. The foundation has active projects, which are listed on this site. Dig a little further, and you can find a message from a mole and some hidden letters. A hidden link under "Active Projects" leads you to the original Dharma Swan film, hosted by Dr. Marvin Candle.

King Cross State Police: http://www.kingcrossstatepolice.com
Once you solve the riddle of the snowman, you gain access to this site, which is run by Dr. Candle (supposedly). There is quite a bit of back story here, and the determined detective can spend hours sorting through clues, Websites and hidden files.

The Snowman: http://www.th3sn0wman.com
Dr. Candle's agent, the Snowman, has his own Website now. You can follow his investigations and even receive text updates from him on your cell phone.

PB Sales: http://pb-sales.com/businesses.htm
The Oceanic World Air site links to PB Sales as its publicity agency. PB Sales also has other clients drawn from fiction, such as Yoyodyne Propulsion. One of the other clients is an company called Merrick Biotech, whose site has been hacked by an organization known as Clonewatch. The gist of all this seems to be that cloning is a key component of the LOST mystery. Another PB Sales client, Geocomtex, has a site with some interesting things on the FAQ page.

The Santa Rosa Institute: http://www.srigenetics.com/srcareers.html
You can find this link under Careers on the Oceanic World Air site. Evidently, Santa Rosa has developed two new, controversial drugs: Genuflex (a life-extension drug), and Envigor (a drug that's supposed to allow people to extend their waking hours throughout the night). Clues indicate that these drugs are derived from zombie and vampire DNA.

From the Santa Rosa site, you can find a link to the Federal Vampire and Zombie Museum. This again hints to the zombie and cloning factor.

Mr. Clucks: http://www.mrclucks.com/
Mr. Clucks Chicken Shack is where Hurley worked before he struck it big in the lottery. His boss, Randy, turned out also to be Locke's boss at the box factory (which Hurley bought after winning the lotto). Clues change frequently: look for the buffalo.

Marvin Candle: http://www.marvincandle.com/
This is a site linked from the King Cross site. There's some code here, which you can figure out.

Globespotter: http://www.globespotter.com/
Check out the map.

Arelai: http://aralai.com/
A satellite photo map (Google) with coordinates (the LOST numbers).

Messing with MySpace

Messing with MySpace


I've spent the last couple of hours scouring the nether corners of MySpace. My curiosity has been piqued, so I decided to see what was available. So far, I've managed to find an old high school friend, as well as search for others. Unfortunately, it seems most people of a certain age are not up with the MySpace scene yet.

I also used the Thomas's MySpace Editor to add some color to the site. This will never replace my own home page on RoadRunner, but it's fun to play around with. I may try duplicate posts between my Blogger blog and MySpace one, if there's enough of an audience here. Or, I could just keep two separate blogs!

A few notes about MySpace. It seems SLOW. Editing and saving changes lags, as does watching videos or listening to music. I tried to find a band whose music I could post there, but the available free songs were--to put it mildly, awful. The music videos give "trash" a bad name also. Bustah Rimes and the Notorious BIG can bite my a**!

If you'd like to see my MySpace profile, here's the URL:


http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=34007287

The Final Week

The Final Week

On the Monday after Christmas, I went to fare spese at the Barnes & Noble here in Mira Mesa. It was a lot of fun--post-Christmas specials abound, and in combination with my just-renewed membership, gained me as much as 60% off some items.

For my shopping agenda, I used the gift cards people had gotten me for my birthday and Christmas. I had wanted to purchase the latest Star Wars movie, so I picked that up, as well as the 2006 Simpsons calendar, the book Freakonomics, and a Chronicles of Narnia calendar for Harold's boys.

Yesterday, Harold and I drove up to the DMV in Poway to straighten out the mess created when they didn't record the results of my eye exam in November. I quickly finished that up by retaking the exam and we (Harold, his son James and I) left the DMV within a half-hour of arriving. We spent the rest of the afternoon having fun with the Atari Flashback. Harold's kids still live in the virtual 1950s, so the Flashback's 2600-vingage games seemed newfangled to them. It was funny to watch them try to steer their tanks in two-person Combat. They didn't know how to work a joystick, so they just spun their craft around in circles, whining, "Daddy! I caaaaan't make it stop!" You may rightly believe video games to be a worthless waste of time and money, but a little hand-eye coordination is not a bad thing.

Today has been really quiet. I'm just working on writing. Tomorrow, I'll register for SD State's Writers' Conference, which takes place at the end of January.

'Twas the Day after Christmas

'Twas the Day after Christmas

This weekend, we had a very pleasant Christmas holiday as a family. Saturday evening, I went to Mass with my parents, Dorene, Richard and the boys. We attended the 5:00 PM Mass in the general hall, since my parents volunteered to read for it. Not surprisingly, most lectors choose first to read in the main sanctuary, where all the elaborate decorations, the big crowds, and the full choir can be found.

After Mass, we drove to my parents' home and had dinner. The dinner was buffet style, with cold cuts of turkey, ham, cheese, rolls and salad. For dessert, we consumed Mrs. Smith's pies. My mother has decided, thankfully, that the stress of baking homemade apple pies is not worth the result.

Tien and Alicia and their four boys also came down to celebrate with us, and after dinner we retired to the living room to open presents 'round the tree. Most of the presents were for the children, with us adults giving each other a few items. My big haul included a gift certificate from my parents toward the purchase of PowerStructure, and a nicely framed photograph of them in formal attire from their recent New England cruise. Dorene made me her special banana bread and cookies, which I am slowly working on.

Monica gave me a fun gift--an "Atari Flashback" game console. It looks like a half-sized Atari 2600 video game machine (I think it used to be called the "Atari Video Computer System"). Last night I hooked the simple connectors up to my HDTV and had a nostalgic blast playing Pong, Asteroids and Centipede till midnight. At one time, I owned about 50 games for my 2600; the machine was a sanity-saver back in 1982, when I brought it into Sharp Hospital and Harold and I used to play games on it till the wee hours of the morning. Although the new video game consoles, like the Xbox 360, are infinitely more sophisticated, the old games are endowed with an irreplaceable, charming simplicity. I guess it's possible to feel nostalgia toward an old video game console the same way my grandparents waxed nostalgic over the pre-war days of radio.

Yesterday, Christmas Day, was very quiet. Dad and I drove down to Linda Vista to pick up my uncle, then we sat at my parents' table and enjoyed a dinner of turkey, ham, dressing with gravy, stuffing and rolls. This was topped off by Mrs. Smith's wares again. I brought cards for everyone, since that was about all I could handle financially this year.

In a while, Clarence will arrive and we'll head to Barnes & Noble to check out the post-Christmas specials. I still have a lot of gift cards to redeem from my birthday.

Its Almost Christmas!

It's Almost Christmas!

This is the day before Christmas Eve. I've completed pretty much everything I've set out to do, except fill out a few more cards (for my family and closest friends). I'm not giving the nurses cards or presents this year--it's just business.

Tomorrow evening I will head out to Christmas Mass with my family. Dorene and the boys will be down from Northern California and will be spending part of the week at my parents' house.

This yuletide has been a warm one. Today has only been hovering in the 60s, but earlier this week the thermometer hit around 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

One more week, and 2005 will be history. Certainly it hasn't been the horrible year 2004 was for me, but I'm anticipating better things to come in 2006!

You Big Ape!

You Big Ape!

I went to the opening of King Kong yesterday evening. Hollywood must be short of blockbusters this year. The movie was three butt-numbing hours of screaming blonde and rampaging gorilla. As the review in Le Monde asked, "why does it take Peter Jackson twice the time to tell the same story as the original did in 1933"? Basically, there are two reasons why: lethargic plotting and overblown special effects. The opening sequence in New York was overly long, and while I liked much of the Skull Island action, I felt that one scene of dinosaurs mashing people was enough. The giant bugs were cool, though.

Like The War of the Worlds that I watched on DVD last week, the main problem with Kong was simply that it's an old, tired and outdated story that has too many miles on its literary and cinematic odometer. Previews for films debuting next year looked bleak too: yet another Mission Impossible and a remake of the 70s disaster flick Poseidon Adventure (now shortened to merely Poseidon).

Hollywood is bereft of original ideas. Guys, you wonder where your slump originates? Check your scripts!

Another really annoying thing about the movies nowadays is the ads. Before the film even started, we were subjected to ads for Coke, TV shows, cars and movies just out on DVD that had appeared in the theater mere weeks ago. Does it not occur to the movie moguls that the audience is a wee bit peeved at paying $9.50 for a ticket and then being subjected to more commercials than appear in an hour of Lost? At least at home, I can fast-forward through the ads with my DVR.

Corporate greed is killing culture, just like it's killing the American worker with the Wal-Martization of industry. The blockbuster mentality kills books as well. Publishers will scoop mountains of cash into the next Harry Potter or Da Vinci Code clone, but starving young authors receive not even mere crumbs from the big guys' plates anymore.

Morituri

Morituri

Early this morning, Stanley "Tookie" Williams was put to death in San Quentin State Prison in California. Putting feelings about Williams's guilt aside, I would just like to note that this is another victory for the "pro-death" wing of the Republican Party.

I had a long discussion about this with Clarence, one of my home nurses, who is as black as Mr. Williams. "He deserved it; he killed a lot of people," Clarence said. Indeed, Williams was a bad man. Therefore, the argument goes, he did not merit clemency.

But, I must ask, when does clemency apply to "good men"? If you are not on Death Row for having committed murder, then why are you seeking a pardon from the governor? Schwarzenegger noted in his remarks denying clemency that Williams had not confessed to his crimes, and that without "repentance" there can be no "redemption." Using religious vocabulary, the Governator assumed the role of Pope.

Yet, what does the Pope say on this subject? The late John Paul spoke often of the dignity of each and every human being, and the "seamless garment of life." If you are pro-life, then you must be pro-life from the moment of conception to the moment of death. Nothing else will do.

They used the excuse of Williams's lack of repentance to carry on with the execution. But, when Governor Bush ruled Texas, he gleefully put Carla Fay Tucker to death, even though she had confessed, adopted Bush-style born-again Christianity and thrown herself on the mercy of the state. It's a no-win game, this death penalty. Russian roulette with all cylinders loaded. If the convict maintains innocence, then he or she must be without a conscience and therefore worthy of death. If the convict confesses all and repents, then the confession must not be "sincere."

Pro-lifers of the Republican ilk always proclaim their desire to protect the lives of the innocent. Yet, what of the 122 death-row inmates across the country who have either been exonerated or had their penalties re-evaluated due to corrupted evidence? In speaking of repentance and redemption, politicians like the governor invoke the mind of God. Who else but God can know the soul of a man? Yet, God said "My ways are not your ways." In Genesis, Abraham pleaded with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah if even one innocent man dwelled among a city of sinners. How, then, can our government set itself above God, and set about to slay the guilty alongside the innocent? Where is the justice in the American way of death?

Capital punishment is a game in this country--a vile, sordid and political game played out for the most cynical purposes. When the state takes the life of an "evildoer" (to borrow a phrase from Illustrious George) people like Clarence are fooled into believing justice has been fulfilled. Nothing can be further from the truth. In a land without justice, killing one man provides nothing but an empty, nihilistic sense of vengeful fulfillment.

What the Republicans, establishment Democrats and oligarchic theocrats want the public to do is shut up, go to work in their crummy, low-wage jobs without healthcare and continue to put themselves out of work by slouching through the aisles at Wal-Mart in a perpetual search for Chinese-manufactured, crappy products.

The death penalty is a platform for demagoguery--nothing more. Global warming? Forget about it: Tookie Williams has met the needle. 2140 soldiers dead and $300 billion blown in a futile Iraq war? Forget about it: Tookie Williams has met the needle. Hurricane Katrina? Forget about it; the world is OK because the State of California has put one man to death in cold blood.

A la recherche....

A la recherche....

Last Saturday, Harold and I drove down to USD for the annual Alumni Mass. This year's was special, in that I and the other Bishop Buddy Award winners received a medallion at the end of the mass. The medallion is quite attractively designed--I'll post a picture on my Web site as soon as USD forwards photos to me. After the mass, there was a reception in Founders Hall, near the French Parlor. I got to meet a few of the other winners, and some old alumni. The university's new president, Mary Lyons, greeted us all pleasantly and she appeared to really want to make the event worth remembering.

Since we arrived an hour before mass, Harold and I wandered around the old grounds a bit. Many changes have occurred in the last 28 years since I graduated. What was once the cafeteria is now a small arts building. Inside Camino Hall, we passed what used to be named "Camino Theater" and is now "Shiley Theater." Back behind the theater, down a side corridor, we slipped through an unmarked door into the music rooms. There is a narrow corridor with small rooms on either side, in which students can practice on upright pianos. Harold and I entered one and he sat at the bench and played Debussy's Arabesque and some Liszt. A student heard him playing, and dropped by to watch, fascinated. He told us that he too had been practicing Arabesque and wanted to demonstrate how he plays it. Although he missed a few notes, his technique showed promise.

USD has preserved its traditional, Spanish Renaissance architecture. The floors are still tiled in deep red. Tapestries still drape along the white-plaster walls, dark, heavy European furniture still sits in the foyers. The sounds, the way the light reflects, the smell of cleaning fluid, wood and dust, almost made it seem as though we had gone back in time 30 years. Has it really been that long? Tom Wolfe said "you can't go home again,"  but I believe if you keep a place and time close to your heart, you can always return for a visit.

On Tuesday evening, I attended my final Technical Communications 1 class for the quarter. Bonni devoted the final session to questions and answers, and the time passed swiftly and painlessly, considering it's December and everyone has his or her mind on Christmas shopping. The course was very well designed, Bonni is an animated, involved lecturer who makes able use of humor to keep things flowing. We awarded her a round of applause at the end, which she richly deserved. (All this commentary assuming I receive an A, of course!)

I'll be seeing Bonni and a few of my fellow students next quarter, when I take "Critical Thinking for Technical Communicators." One of the books for that course is Freakonomics, which I planned to read anyway.

Tonight, my parents are coming over for the first time in a few weeks. We will watch Spielberg's War of the Worlds. I hope it's good!

Flash This (Fiction)!

Flash This (Fiction)!

This week, I've embarked on an ambitious new project to write a flash story a day. So far, I've written two. Each one's between 800-1100 words long. I probably won't be able to keep this pace up, but I want to practice for next March, when I take Judy's Flash Fiction class.

Tonight, on to another story!

On another front, I was surfing Ralan.com yesterday and came across a sad announcement. Ellen Datlow's fine e-zine, SCIFICTION, is no more! The geniuses at the Sci Fi channel have discontinued it. What a shock! What a loss for both the SF reading community and the SF writing community. Though I never got to sell a story to SCIFICTION, I had hope up until now. It was the best-paying short fiction market in SF.

What brilliant folks, the Sci Fi Channel executives are? Have you seen the TRIPE they run on that network? Tonight they have something called Manticore, about a beast running around Iraq. Terrorists are behind raising it from the grave, of course! And the brave Americans must put it back in its place. Please!

On other SF fronts, LOST continues to do well. With the "tailies" and the "fusies" merging, the series seems more and more like a cross between Survivor and the computer game, MYST. Two tribes, mysterious "hatches" filled with buttons to press, films that hint at more information, and number puzzles. If this isn't MYST for TV, I can't think of what would be.

Invasion finally got its "sea legs" yesterday. We got to behold the glowing alien creatures in their golden glory. They remind me of a manta ray with tentacles. The part with the young, naïve deputy dismembering himself with a chainsaw (after the evil alien sheriff convinced him to do it) was chilling and priceless. "Dave" on the show remains its most memorable and entertaining character. I'm not just partial to him because my name happens to be Dave, either!

CBS just cancelled Threshold this week. I thought the show had promise. It was the fastest-paced, most accessible of the new SF programs this season. And the little person who played the linguist-hero was a riot! I hope he finds more roles, in longer-lasting venues. Maybe he can team up with Michael J. Anderson for a remake of The In-Laws.

Also, it seems Night Stalker has disappeared from the Thursday night lineup. Duh! It was up against CBS's strong Thursday lineup. All network execs are idiots, I have decided. The producers of Night Stalker screwed up too, when they substituted a young, angry Mulderesque character for the original, rumpled, Columbo-type guy. The show flattened out, sans the self-deprecating humor of the original 70s series. We already lived through seven years of The X Files, we didn't need a copy of it now.

Staying the Course!

Staying the Course!

Last night, I attended my next-to-last Technical Communications 1 class. We had a workshop, peer-review process, where the class broke down into small groups. My group had a scientist and a teacher, as well as me. Bonni rotated among the groups, sitting in on ours for the first and most difficult paper--the scientific one.

The problem with most science writing is that, if you're not an initiate into the domain, you really can't understand much of the work. The words are there, in English, but they signify little to the "layman." This signification problem is compounded by any flaws in the writer's technique, such as excessive density and poor formatting. One feels akin to a medieval monk, who can read the Latin words of Virgil but cannot grasp the imagery.

My own project is straightforward and relatively simple. I'm doing an FAQ for new ventilator patients. Since I'm not working with a high-tech company anymore, I saw little use in doing anything related to MT or computer science.

Next quarter, I'll be taking "Critical Thinking for Technical Communicators." I think I can handle that!

Reasons to Be Thankful

Reasons to Be Thankful

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I went to my parents' house for dinner. Before heading to my parents', my dad and I drove down to Linda Vista and picked up my uncle Dave. The four of us had a really pleasant evening, with turkey, stuffing, cole slaw, biscuits, Tuscan veggies, and two different kinds of pie--apple and pumpkin--for desert.

Earlier in the week (on Sunday evening), I went with my old high-school chum Phil and his wife to a concert at the Escondido Performing Arts Center. The concert was by a new-age banjo/jazz musician named Béla Fleck. The concert was good, if low key. If you look up "mellow" in your American Heritage, you'll probably see a picture of Béla Fleck. He had a bassist accompany him on a lot of the music, and the bassist also played the piano. If you like banjo Bach, then this concert would be for you.

I keep putting off finishing up work for my Tech Comm. Class. Got to get it done this weekend, and figure out which other class I'm going to take.

Meanwhile, my parents took off for Tucson today, where they will be vacationing this week for their anniversary. They will also be visiting friends and looking at retirement properties. I, for one, will never live in Arizona.

The Worst Legislation, Ever!

The Worst Legislation, Ever

Today I called my pharmacist to find out what Medicare drug plan he recommended. Exasperated, he told me that he's not even sure if he'll participate. The paperwork is tremendous, the reimbursement rate "almost zero." According to him, it's the "worst legislation in the history of the United States."

Way to go, Bushies! They are breaking the bank on a program the country doesn't need, while attempting today to reduce Medicaid and food stamps for the poor and disabled. We need a comprehensive solution to the healthcare crisis, not more corporate welfare! This was nothing but a sop thrown to Bush's supporters in Big Pharma, just like his energy bill was a favor for Big Oil and the Iraq War a quid pro quo for Halliburton.

People like me, who had comprehensive drug coverage through Medi-Cal, will see an erosion in service due to this legislation. There are 64 plans in the San Diego area alone! The elderly will be confused and many will not pick any plan because of it.

Government no longer serves the people. It serves a globalized corporate cabal that cares not one whit for workers, cultures, or freedom. At least the Neo-Fascist government of China is honest about the mingling of government and corporation; would that ours were so.

Fun with Movies

Fun with Movies

Last evening I caught the second half of the TV movie, Category 7: The End of the World. Whew! What a pre-Thanksgiving turkey! I can't believe the writers of that crap collect paychecks!

The movie was about a series of devastating hurricanes ravaging the world. Paris and Hong Kong got destroyed, but that did not qualify for "end-of-world" status. Rather, when Washington DC was threatened, truly that was the "end of days" in American fashion.

The film was full of forgettable, wooden characters and unbelievable dialog. The action stank too. The only redeemable part was when the evil Vice President, a look-alike of Dick Chaney, got sucked out the top of the White House in a whirling vortex. It shouldn't happen to a nicer guy....

Meanwhile, I went to Barnes & Noble on Saturday and purchased Kingdom of Heaven on DVD. It was a great Ridley Scott romp through history--excellent characters and action, great sets. Scott really makes the viewers feel present in the setting.

I really couldn't fathom the criticisms of the right-wingnuts about the movie's portrayal of Saladin. Scott showed Saladin as a real man and great leader of his people. Truthfully, no one would want to see a dramatic version of the First Crusade, when the Christians took Jerusalem and the streets ran knee deep in the blood of innocent men, women and children.

The moral of the story was that the "Kingdom of Heaven" is in the heart--it's not a place. Too bad more people can't remember that.

Whats the Half Life of Democracy?

What's the Half-Life of Democracy?

As usual, the candidate I voted for in Tuesday's election lost. Donna Frye was shellacked by Jerry Sanders's well-oiled pro-establishment campaign. Donna had the gall to admit that taxes might have to be raised to help bail the city out of its fiscal disaster, but the good Republican citizens of this town don't want to hear about any pain that might affect them!

Sanders sold the public on the usual snake oil: we can solve government problems through "cuts" and "efficiency." NO NEW TAXES!

In other words... "Bankruptcy, here we come!" But that's cool--Sanders can swallow the enchilada picante of financial ruin, while Frye looks on. With the new strong-mayor form of government in San Diego, the disaster will be all Sanders's. At least we have Mike Aguirre to stand up to Sanders and the big-business Tammany Hall that moves this city in the wrong direction.

Meanwhile, my Technical Communication course sails right along. It's mildly challenging, in that I have to overcome boredom in order to complete the work. I do want an "A," however!

Last night I went to the Winter Pops at Symphony Hall with my parents. It was the first time I'd been in the building since it was the old Fox Theater. The restoration work on the building was excellent, revealing the Art Deco and Spanish Baroque gem in all its glory.

The concert was entertaining, if not outstanding. Lou Rawls was the guest performer. He is a remnant of 70s make-out quasi-disco music. I think of him as a gravelly-voiced cross between Barry White and Barry Manilow. Unfortunately, his voice was extra gravelly last evening, as he was suffering from a cold. Singing while wiping one's nose with a handkerchief is not attractive. Still, he did a yeoman's job of sticking to it, and the overall evening's entertainment rated a B-.

David Turns Fifty

David Turns Fifty

Saturday evening, the party at my parents' home was a success. Monica and my parents did a great job of organizing it. I brought my Olympic torch over, along with the photo of Steve Garvey and myself from 1984.

We had Italian food--lasagna, spaghetti, Pat and Oscar's breadsticks, antipasto salad, and of course, chocolate cake. Among those attending were:

Brigitte
Monica
My parents
Jan
Marina and her daughter
Phil and Paula
Bill and Vicki
Bob and Cathy
The Marlins
Harold
Katie
Jacque
Some other people from my parents' Bible study class

Among those missing:
Donna
Thomas
Kathryn
Jim and Jill
Christine
Doug
Orly
Karen
Camelia

See you all at my 60th!

La Grande Journée

La Grande Journée

Tomorrow at 4:00, my parents will be hosting a party for my 50th birthday. It seems hard to believe, but I will turn 50 on Sunday! So far, 27 people have committed to attending; I'm looking forward to the festivities.

I'm very grateful to Monica and my parents for putting it together for me.

A Comparison of Two Political Websites

A Comparison of Two Political Websites:
A User-Oriented Perspective

The current state of the Worldwide Web supports a grand number of politics-oriented sites. Some are so-called "blogs," while others pretend to a professional, journalistic look. As an assignment for Technical Communications 1, I chose to look at two sites with contrasting political philosophies, examining what the style, organization and tone can tell interested readers about the owners' attitudes toward their audiences. The two sites I examined are The Huffington Post www.huffingtonpost.com and World Net Daily http://www.wnd.com/ .

The Huffington Post is a well-known "progressive" Web site, operated by liberal gadfly Arianna Huffington. It is organized along the blog format, made popular by the Drudge Report www.drudgereport.com. This format consists of a series of photographs, graphics and links, interspersed with small headlines and grabby text. The layout is in three-column mode, for easy scanning by Western readers. The headline at the top of the page marks the topic of the day, giving the reader an idea of what most of the articles are about. Snappy headers like "Just In" in bright orange lead the readers through the text. There are enough graphics and photographs to keep the text from morphing into inscrutable chunks of verbiage.

One thing to note about the Huffington site is that it relies heavily on celebrities and mainstream news writers for the op-ed pieces it features so often. If the reader believes that Alec Baldwin has an opinion worth reading, then the reader can discover some satisfaction there. Sensationalistic headlines like "Why Are Contemporary Republicans So Full of Shit?" seem designed to pull in what some Republicans might call "the angry Left." Leftists are apparently the kind of people who don't mind the word, "shit" in headlines. The Huffington Post, while aimed at the general public, is not a "go do something" type of site. Rather, it presents enough material to lead the politically aware reader into making his or her own choices. Literally and figuratively, Huffington's site aims itself at the pro-choice crowd.

In contrast, World Net Daily appeals to the troglodyte rightists who also find Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter worthy of personality-cult status. Its organization, unlike Huffington's, seems blocky and hard-to-scan. World Net forces its readers to scroll down the page through an infinite number of headlines. There are no graphics--no pictures. It's blocky and geometrically stodgy. One could speculate World Net's readers find unusually high comfort in regular, yet boring geometrical formulas. Like Huffington, the site screams sensationalism: "How homosexuals hoodwinked Supremes" and "Satanism flourishing in Russia." A reader would be hard-pressed to find the word, "shit" anywhere; rather the buzzwords "illegals," [sic] "Christians" and the ever-present "dead babies." Unlike Huffington, World Net knows what it wants its readers to think and isn't embarrassed to tell them what to think. World Net is "anti-choice."

The two sites have different advertising demographics, as one can see by looking at the sidebar advertisements on the pages. Huffington displays ads for banks (Wells Fargo) and health insurance (PacifiCare). Poor World Net, however, must make do with ads for political tracts and publications by like-thinkers (e.g., The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and Terry's Story). To those who fear the onrushing supremacy of the Christian Right, perhaps there is some comfort in World Net's evident inability to secure major corporate funding.
     

All Hallows Eve

All Hallows Eve

Tonight is Halloween--the ancient Celtic rituals subsumed in commercial form. Kids have been ringing my doorbell since about 6:00 PM, but I play the cranky old man and don't answer. I don't mind Halloween, but I do mind opening the door a thousand times a night.

The Toothless Old Hag, a.k.a. "Granny," has been answering the door to her apartment across the sidewalk from mine. She seems quite happy to see the children dressed up like ghouls and superheroes. After chatting up the little tykes and their parents, she tells them, "I'm sorry, but I'll have to take a rain check on that." Now it's pretty quiet. Perhaps Granny has an oven full of little Hansels and Gretels already. Gingerbread anyone?

Yesterday, Granny was dressed in a revealingly short, baby-blue sundress. Her bleached-blonde follicles were topped by a pointy witch's hat. This sight was rendered all the more enjoyable by the cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth in the kind of snarl worthy of Dead Elvis on the can.

Horror movies are the staple on cable for the week. Last night I watched Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses. I was surprised that I found it entertaining. The film was set in 1977, the era of classic slasher-dismemberer films like 10,000 Maniacs. What is it about country bumpkins, evil clowns, dark woods and bloody axes that enthralls the public so? "You think we country folk are just stupid, dontcha?" yells the crazed clown at the beginning of the movie.

Further evidence of the link between horror and the extreme right can be found in the following recent article:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article323450.ece

An interesting quotation:

Things started getting particularly gruesome, in a Hammer horror sort of way, in the abortion scene, when cold, heartless doctor characters used an outsize pair of tweezers to pull unidentified bloody animal parts out from between a teenage girl's legs. (This trick, incidentally, is straight out of Keenan Roberts' outreach kit.) Having extracted the foetus - "America's version of the Holocaust," the devil narrators tell us - the doctors then manage to let the girl die too, through inattention. They act like it's just another day at the office.

I believe it's Red State angst, the paranoia of the damned, that haunts these shows. The gothic, guilty, weeping heart of Reverend Dimmsdale still beats in the breast of every Pat Robertson and James Dobson. When you look at them practically foaming at the mouth on the daily cable news programs, you realize they are only one moment of enlightened insanity away from sodomizing Burt Reynolds and a boatful of kayakers in the back woods of Deliverance.

Tonight, the new version of Dawn of the Dead is on cable. Zombies, Rob or otherwise, are always a heap-big pile of undead fun-o-rama.

Horror for Christ

Horror for Christ

"The horror! The horror!" -- Colonel Kurtz

The other day on the Web I came across the following Newsweek story:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9785289/site/newsweek/

It seems Anne Rice has found--gasp--GOD! As she states in the article: "I promised that from now on I would write only for the Lord." Now, I'm all in favor of people pursuing and finding their own deity. If Ms. Rice is happy with her choice--great. But what's next? Stephen King the televangelist? Will the next conference of the Horror Writers Association have to open with a prayer breakfast?

Life is starting to seem like Night of the Living Dead, with Jesus Freaks as zombies. "They're coming to get you, Barbara!"

Remember the Simpsons?

Bart: "Dad, you shot the zombie Flanders!"
Homer: "He was a zombie?"

Some Thoughts on Writing

Some Thoughts on Writing

I attended the third class of the nine-week technical communications class on Tuesday night. I had a pretty good time with it. Bonni is an excellent lecturer. We discussed our VARK scores, and mine came out leaning towards read/write and visual. You can take the test yourself at www.vark-learn.com.

The lesson was on the writing process, and Bonni introduced us to the concept of personas. Personas are personalities the writer invents that, in the case of tech writing, should be representative of the target audience or users.

It's been fun to see the congruence between tech writing and fiction writing. The personas are a type of character. I won some points in the class by bringing up Judy's technique of "interviewing" your personas to get to know them. That's a novelist's technique, but it certainly can be used in the non-fiction realm.

Another characteristic of writing that Nancy used to bring up is that "People like to read about people." As Bonni says, "Everyone is the hero in his or her own story." Even some form as bland as technical writing still is about people--people act on things, not the other way around.

Tomorrow, I'm going to the zoo in the morning and then Jan will come visit in the afternoon. My parents will be visiting that night. Harold will be over, as usual.

By the way, I got my van back! It looks great--I just need to get it Teflon-coated before winter hits. We had a fair amount of rain this week, which I enjoyed immensely, but it does mess a car up!

A Conspiracy of Dunces

A Conspiracy of Dunces

It looks like I was not the only one to notice the correlation between terror alerts and crises within the administration. Just check out this article by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/ .

On Tuesday night I went to my second Technical Communications class. I had a good time, even though the topic--basic grammar--was a little (OK a lot!) beneath my educational level and disposition. I congratulated Bonni on making it interesting enough that I didn't walk out at the half. Now I need to force myself to do the homework and find a topic and genre for my final project.

Today the weather continues the Santa Ana season. It's 94 at Miramar right now. And the damn Air Show ("America's favorite waste of taxpayer money" according to the Simpsons) will rock the house this weekend.

My parents will not be over tonight; they are attending a play at the La Jolla Playhouse.

A Series of Unfortunate Coincidences

Doesn't it seem strange that, just about the time Karl Rove's fecal matter is about to splatter against rotating blades, there come a series of suspicious "terror attack" warnings? First, the New York subway scare, then the Washington Monument, and a Coke can in another city's subway station. Could the bomb threats be emanating from Rove's office, like the outing of Valerie Plame?

Rove's the master of dirty tricks in the most corrupt, secretive and paranoid administration in history. They are arguably the most incompetent as well, but that's another subject. If Rove could make up lies to assassinate the character of John McCain, it's not a great leap of the imagination to envision him stirring up trouble to keep his name off Page 1. Last night, for example, the Rove story had descended to third place in the CBS Evening News.

How convenient!

The Hatch, the Button and the Cage

This week's episode of LOST continued the plot developments of the first two weeks. The main premise seems to be the metaphysical connection to the outside world. Locke expects Jack to make a "leap of faith" and press the button. Desmond has been stuck on the island for years, afraid the whole thing is a mind game, but also afraid to abandon his post and not "save the world." Like all of us, the LOST characters must decide for themselves if the universe has reason--if our lives have reason--or if it's all a random sequence of numbers (or worse yet, the arbitrary machinations of a perverse and manipulative deity).

What is the island? Is it even an island? Again, the references to The Prisoner abound. The whole concept of subjecting people to mind games was a major theme of The Prisoner, in which Number 6 was tested on a weekly basis.

Many fans theorize the island could be a Dyson sphere. The geodesic dome also hints at that. However, if that's the case, how did the Black Rock come ashore? Plus, the guy in Australia, Toomey, along with the crazy patient in the asylum, had heard the numbers broadcast while they were at a Navy listening post in the South Pacific. It doesn't seem likely they were receiving radio waves from space.

About Last Night...

Last night I went to my first class for Technical Communication I. It's taught on Tuesday nights at UCSD Extension from 6:30-9:30. I must admit I attended the class with a degree of trepidation, as the previous course I took, Document Design, finished by being rather a washout.

To my pleasant surprise, the class was actually fun! Bonnie Graham, the instructor, is clearly a writer--she has an ironic sense of humor and talks a mile a minute. She doesn't waste time, and keeps things on track. In fact, she kept the beats of the session rolling so efficiently we wrapped up the night at 8:45. I didn't even have time to open my snack! (Coffee was still vital, however.)

Quite a bit of the class is available online, including quizzes. Assignments can also be turned in via the Internet. It seems UCSD is moving more in the direction of online learning, which makes sense especially for professional-development classes, which are frequently attended by folks who work during the day and don't have a lot of time to spare. Plus, with today's gas prices, who wants to spend more time in traffic?

The textbook, I have to say, is a yawner. It's pleasantly enough written, but why does this subject have to be rendered in lifeless hues? And I think the author put it at about 10th grade reading level, which might be great for engineers, but appears condescending to the literati among us.

It was good to see a few people from the document design course in the class, also. So, we shall all suffer, or succeed, together. And there were only 12 students in the class, which made it nice and congenial. The document design course, by contrast, was way overcrowded.

Even the Dead Shall Marry

Even the Dead Shall Marry

Last Saturday night I went to see Tim Burton's Corpse Bride at the local Regal Entertainment Theater. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, which was whimsical, satirical and fun. Not often can one place those adjectives in conjunction with the words "corpse" and "bride." I suspect those working in statistical NLP wouldn’t know what to do with such an unlikely set of n-grams.

Friday evening, I went to Dead Lobster with my friends, Donna, Marina and Thomas. We had a great time, ate lots of "shrimps" and I managed to get a buzz off of ½ a Long Island Iced Tea.

Monday night from 8:30 till about midnight I spent my time at the UCSD Library looking up references in the LA Times indexes for the 1970s for the so-called "Trash-Bag Murders." I did this work for a writer who lives in Oregon who is a friend of Nancy. The research will go into a Court TV episode. I normally don't care for the sensationalistic Court TV programming, but I will make an exception when that episode is aired. I hope to do more work for the same author on future projects. It feels good to make $20 an hour!

Friday cometh my hearing downtown. I have still gotten dunning notices from Dr. T. and Gentiva Scarecentrix, so I am sending them certified mail, return receipt requested, with my official notice (they should have already received notice from the court). If they persist in billing me, I can take THEM to court and recover attorney's fees and damages.

The Supremacy of the Banal

Last night my parents came over and we watched "The Pacifier," a formulaic Disney comedy starring Vin Diesel. It wasn't as bad as I might have expected--there's a certain warm, fuzzy comfort to mediocrity. Banality is what makes the world go 'round. Those who pop up too high get smashed; those who sink too low get run over. In the boring middle is where a person can be safe, at least for a while. Artistically, too.

Today, I got up late and didn't really accomplish anything, unless paying bills online is an accomplishment. Tomorrow evening I'll go to Mass with my parents, and maybe dinner. It'll be the last time I see them till they return from their Fall Foliage Cruise up the Eastern Seabord.

I saw Dr. Landers last Thursday. Nothing new in the visit, except he promised to look into some medications to help me retain what bone density I still have.

Working on my novel has its ups and downs. Earlier in the week, I wrote a really solid new first chapter, which starts off in medias res, yet gives a clear overview of what's at stake. Now, I need to get a-plottin'. I can no longer avoid the endless void into which my characters leap off around the end of Chapter 6. I'm at just under 20,000 words right now (around 85 pages)--my goal is to have some reasonable draft finished by the time the San Diego State Writing Conference starts in January.

I'm considering purchasing Power Structure to give me a boost in the productivity department. The $140 cost, however, giveth me pause.

Weatherwise, it's perfect these days. Autumn is in the air. It's crisper, and the nights are cooler and more comfortable than they were during the summer. Yay!

Shame on the Blame-Game Namers

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The End of Summer

This past weekend, I spent more than the usual amount of time with my parents. Friday evening, they came over and we watched an entertaining little comedy, "Good Company." It started Dennis Quaid as a middle-aged ad executive who gets a boss have his age when his company is acquired by a Rupert Murdoch-like media mogul. Entertaining--not profound--yet it kept me laughing.

Saturday evening we attended the 5:00 PM mass at Saint Gregory. This was the parish's 20th anniversary, so there was due attention paid to the saint himself. The deacon read an excerpt from a homily of the St. Gregory, which extolled the virtues of not being owned by the things we own. A point still relevant today.

Sunday night we attended the final concert of the Summer Pops. They moved the location from where it used to be: it's now down by the embarcadero park between the Convention Center and the bay. They used to hold the concerts at Navy Pier, which is now home to the Midway Museum.

The nice thing about the new venue is that it's all on the grass. Un concert sur l'herbe. And the view of downtown was spectacular, as the sun set and the skyscrapers lit up. Seeing that view truly reminded me of the blessings of living in this city. Yes, it's obscenely expensive to dwell here--but the finest things in life are expensive (one way or another, not necessarily monetarily) and well worth the price. I felt a tug of remorse, enjoying myself on the balmy September evening, listening to Tchaikovsky's "Variations on a Rococo Theme" while the citizens of New Orleans fled their ruined city.

Then I snapped out of it!

Not All Gloom and Doom!

Not All Gloom and Doom!

I just installed the new Blogger for Word toolbar and am trying it out. At last, an answer to my prayers for something less clunky than the Blogger interface! And, I hope, no more lost posts due to Internet connection problems.

On to my news. Went and saw Ray Schimmel yesterday and got my case rolling. The 5,000 fingers of Dr. T will no longer be able to reach out and grab me! Also Cigna, Gentiva Carecentrix, CIO Collections, Tia Marie Hollowood and a few others.

The weather here has cooled a bit. Ray's office is by the beach near Morena Blvd. Wonderful ocean breeze wafts through the open corridors and courtyards of his building.

OK, let's see if this thing's a-workin'!

Freedom is Untidy

Remember back when the US first liberated Iraq, and Donal Rumsfeld commented on the looting images flowing back from Baghdad? In case you don't remember, here is what Rummy said: "Freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."

Well, now New Orleans looks like something from a John Carpenter movie. Rioting, looting, "armed gangs patrolling the streets." But the right-wingers are not at all happy about these looters. Marshall law has been declared. But, does anyone else besides me wonder about the "looting guns from stores" aspect of this? Could it be that stockpiling lethal weapons and selling them like donuts at a bake sale isn't the wisest policy to pursue?

This country is falling apart. All the loose nuts and bolts are now rolling willy-nilly over the national floorboards. We have a president who is so bad even Pat Buchanan is calling for his impeachment. We have loony religious right leaders proclaiming Christian fatwas against foreign leaders. We have a raging counter-insurgency war roiling the Middle East and costing our national treasury upwards of $300 billion. Meanwhile, gasoline is headed to $4.00 a gallon and the airlines are going broke.

Face it, folks: The wheels have come off and our national Hummer is rolling on bare axels into the roadside ditch of history.

A Fine Day for a Visit

Today, Jan came over for lunch. We had Mimi's excellent food. I had the chicken pot pie, which tastes darn close to homemade.

Tomorrow, I head over to Ray Schimmel's office to get my bankruptcy case started again. No fun, but it's got to be done!

The Wrath of God

So, what is it about the Red States of the South, anyway? Fundamentalists are always warning us that God will bring down a horrible vengeance upon places where sin runs rampant. Pat Robertson warned Miami they might face hurricanes, floods or "possibly a meteor" if they held a gay rights parade in the city. Some warned that those lustful, hedonistic European tourists brought the tsunami on their own heads last year, or that the 911 attack was a punishment of the United States for its godless ways (you know, crack, aborted fetuses in dumpsters, gay marriage, that kind of stuff).

Yet... Why is it that God visits his wrath most often on the denizens of the red states? Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods--every year Ma and Pa Kettle get driven from their trailor by some weather event or another. If God were punishing sinners, why did He steer the hurricane away from New Orleans and its famous Burbon Street to the peaceful hamlets of Alabama? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me!

Maybe God just has a grudge against trucks on blocks in the front yard, or bad Kincade lighthouse paintings.

Afghanistan the Beautiful

Suppose Judge Roy Moore had been born in Afghanistan? No doubt he'd be decrying the moral collapse of the Califate! Taking a litle liberty with Moore's poem, I created the Afghan version.

Afghanistan the Beautiful

-- A Poem by Mullah Royolla Omoor

Afghanistan the Beautiful,

or so you used to be.

Land of the Taliban's pride;

I'm glad they'll never see.

Women dating men,

Un-burqua'd on demand,

Oh, sweet land of Terrorism;

your mosque is on the sand.

Our children wander aimlessly

flaunting Allah's rules for boys

poisoned by kite flying,

Choosing to play with toys.

In Hindu Kush and Kandahar,

From teaching love of camels

our Nation turns away,

Watching television with rebels.

We've knocked Buddha out of Banyan,

yet how indolent we've grown.

When Christians, Jews and infidels

smoke the opium we've sewn.

We've voted in a government

and appointed Godless Judges

who forget to forbid sundaes

and the eating of hot fudges!

Too soft to bury an adulterer

up to her neck in mud,

yet soft enough to buy a CD

of the Rolling Stones or Bee Gees.

You think that Allah's not angry,

that our land's a moral slum?

How much longer must we wait

before slicing off more thumbs?

How are we to face Osama,

whom Americans cannot find?

What then is left for us to do,

but flog an infidel's behind?

If we the chosen few,

can humbly return and spill

The blood of every foreigner

and make them cry most shrill

Then Osama will hear from Pakistan

and impose Sharia law.

One and all must face the lash

Except oilmen with sufficient cash

But, Afghanistan the Beautiful,

if you don't - then you will see,

A sad Mullah Omar

withdraw His scimitar from Thee.

Roy Moore's Inverse Beatitudes

Last week, my parents forwarded to me a "poem" by Judge Roy Moore. He is the Alabama judge who illegally posted a statue to the 10 Commandments at his courthouse. Then he whined when he was forced to remove the statue, and he eventually resigned over the issue.

I say, good for ex-judge Moore for engaging in civil disobedience. It's our right as Americans to disengage ourselves from public acts of conformity to a society with which we find ourselves morally disaffected. Having engaged in civil disobedience, however, does not negate an individual's obligation to suffer the consequences of his or her actions.

On the other hand... The poem itself is a vile, hate-filled diatribe by a man who evidently thinks being Christian stops with "Biblical" law. The problem with people who support the display of the 10 Commandments in buildings owned by the public is that they are implying a governmental endorsement of religion. Specifically, they prefer the fundamentalist Christianity embraced by a certain portion of the population in the more southerly latitudes of this country to the religious tenets of everyone else.

The 10-Commandmenteers rely upon two arguments to justify their positions. One is that the US government was founded upon Christianity. The 10 Commandments, they argue, are the "basis for our laws." Yet, the Constitution nowhere mentions God or the Christian religion. Ample evidence can be discovered in the writings of Adams, Jefferson and others that they deliberately framed the constitution to avoid a government-religion bond. The laws of the United States are based on two sources: Anglo-Saxon Common Law (dating back to the 4th-7th centuries, when the English were pagans) and Roman law (already well established before Constantine imposed official Christianity upon the Empire). To post the 10 Commandments in government buildings implies a connection between Christianity and law that does not, and has never, existed.

"The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion" states Article 11 of a late-1700s treaty between the US and the Barbary kingoms that was signed unanimously by Congress and the president of the time (a Founding Father). Jefferson wrote in reference to the Virginia Act of Religious Freedom that its protection covered "the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination." The writers of the Act specifically removed from it any reference to Jesus Christ. Quite a tolerant position to take, considering that people were still being tortured and killed in Europe for heresy in the 18th century.

Failing the test of the descent of law, the fundamentalists like Moore fall back upon the idea that having religious monuments is constitutional as a matter of religious freedom. Since Congress is prohibited from making ANY law establishing religion, all religions are welcome in the public space. But, imagine if this idea were carried out! What would Moore, Fallwell, Robertson, et al. say about a Moslem judge's posting of the Koran? Heaven forbid a Wiccan might plant a tree in her courtroom, or a Buddhist post the "Tenfold Path" before his bench! These people are not looking for freedom of religion. If this were truly the issue, then one would expect to see Moslems and Buddhists arguing for display of their sacred symbols in government buildings.

What kind of world does ex-judge Moore seek to bring about? What form of government? Do we need an American Taliban to tell us right from wrong? The issue most sacred to him, judging by its prominence in the "poem," is capital punishment. But, what about sincere Christians who believe capital punishment to be immoral? His Commandments monument clearly seeks to establish a religious sect (or sects) above others. In placing the monument in a courthouse,
he is giving tacit official endorsement to the notion that capital punishment is ethical, in contradiction to Christians and non-believers who may believe otherwise, and be able to quote chapter and verse in favor of their beliefs. Likewise with abortion and homosexuality. Many Christians believe abortion and homosexual acts are a sin. But clearly at this time abortion is the law of the land, and homosexuality is tolerated to one degree or another by people of all faiths. If an Anglican gay bishop had to appear in Moore's court, how impartially could he expect the judge to treat him, given that imposing granite monument in the courthouse? Why is ex-judge Moore's version of Christianity better than everyone else's?

"God's law is higher than man's law," Moore's poem goes to great pains to prove. This is the argument of all fundamelists and extremists from Eric Rudolph to Timothy McVeigh and Mohammed Atta. The United States is a country composed of people of a multitude of faiths,
or none at all. Its constitution and laws do not endorse any religion, or none, but rather leave the people free to choose their own paths to enlightenment. That always has been the way in this country, and it should continue to be so.

Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--

This past week has witnessed some positive events unfold in my life:

Last Wednesday evening I attended the last session of the document design course. My presentation on what I did to improve the bronchiectasis pamphlet was well-received by the class in general and Steve, the instructor, in particular. The class ran long--very long. We went non-stop from 6:30-10:00 without a break. People didn't manage their presentations well. It took an hour to get through the first four--out of a 20-person class! Some folks had done nice work, but didn't know a bloody thing about how to find files in Windows. Some had no clue about how to use PowerPoint; since knowledge of Windows was one of the prerequisites for the course, I found myself wondering how these students got in and how they managed to put their presentations together. It did occur to me to suspect some of the work as canned--perhaps things people brought from their companies.

Anyhow, I was fourth-from last in the presentations, meaning I started mine at precisely 9:25 (class was supposed to be over at 9:30). I was also the fourth student to have selected bronchiectasis as my project, putting me at a distinct disadvantage, since by the time it was my turn to speak, I was well aware that people had had their fill of the topic. There's only so much one can do with a lung-disease brochure!

Luckily, I came prepared. Two things I learned in my teaching days were to overprepare and to include humor intimately within my work. The plan worked flawlessly! I had 'em rolling in the aisles. Even Steve cracked a smile or two. The humor relieved the drudgery of the topic. I assume--though I have not yet received my grade, that I got an "A."

Friday, Harold came over at noon and we made a trip to Caliber, the body shop that had worked on my van last year. I had girded myself for battle--but was pleasantly surprised when the service writer said "No problem" to my demands. I am going to have a guy come and fix my steering column and emergency brake lever this week, and they are going to bill Farmers to purchase the 12-inch steering wheel I need to drive. Also, they will pay for the $121 I spent at City Chevrolet to fix the headlight ground wire on the driver's side.

Then, Harold and I went shoe shopping. I have not worn a fitting pair of shoes since the accident. My foot was too swollen and the arch too high to fit into my 7-year-old Nordstrom's Spanish leather dress shoes. I had been wearing--occasionally--these horrible, white size 10 nursing shoes that Joe had bought for me last Fall when I first started getting out of bed.

The thing is, I wear an odd-sized shoe--size 7 WIDE. Very wide indeed, since the bone-crushing accident last May. We happened to be at the old Mira Mesa Mall already, so we went into the Shoe Pavilion within the mall. I did find a pair of 6 1/2 wide Keds that fit, but they were a horrible chocolate brown color with a bright-orange stripe down the sides. YUCK!

So, then we drove to UTC to try all the shoe stores there (I think they have about 10). Nothing fit. A lot of the shoes--even the athletic ones--were too damn heavy. I felt like I had the mafia-style cement overshoes strapped to my feet. Finally, in desperation, I entered the plush halls of Nordstrom's, the place I had bought my last decent pair of shoes. At least their sales staff seems happy to see you, treats you courteously and tries hard to find something that works.

The salesman, Gabriel, was very friendly and helpful. I'm sure my type of customer--disabled with an obvious foot deformity, is not his favorite--but he never let it show in his dimeanor. He even talked me into a pair of Mephisto black-leather shoes worth $360. He convinced me that I could take them immediately, wear them for the weekend and then return them if dissatisfied. One of Nordstrom's great qualities is their no-questions-asked return policy.

Having taken the shoes home, I decided to keep them on all night, until retiring to bed. When I did remove them, Lo and behold! A miracle! My "fat foot" was thin! It seemed the Nordstrom's shoe had flattened my high arch and squeeze the excess fluid from the foot so that it looked almost normal!

"Let's try your old shoes," Harold said. I did, and they fit too! Only a modest amount of shoe-horn wrangling was necessary. Therefore, on Saturday we returned to N's and I got a refund on my $360 (plus tax). On my roommate's suggestion, we proceeded back to the Mira Mesa Mall and tried Marshall's. And....

Eureka! I found a very light pair of Chinese-slave-labor-made Nike knock-offs for $21.5o! They fit great, feel like nothing on my feet and are something I can wear comfortably all day long. I am therefore going to take my dress shoes into the cobbler's and get them polished up for those "Sunday go to meetin' days."

The greatest miracle is that a lot of the problems I was having with leaning from side to side, such as using the lift to get into my van, have been pretty much solved. I have not needed help getting into the van since putting shoes back on my feet.

In your face, evil Dr. T! You implied that balance wasn't important for me since I don't walk. WRONG!! Get your arrogant arse back to medical school and put your mind to use. People with muscle weakness like me are NOT the same as quadriplegics with no feeling in their legs. I DO use my legs and need them to help support my body--even in the wheelchair! Not to mention driving, and planting my well-clad foot up some MD's ample backside!

Whew, 'nuff journaling for today, me thinks. Off to church and dinner for my mom's b-day at 4:00.

Virgo, Gladiator et Imperator

I watched the final episode of Empire last night on ABC. Not a bad show at all. At least it was something different from the usual summer fluff.

A few things about the series caught my eye. Why is it that Romans always speak with British accents? And the nobler the patrician, the more upper-crust his dropping of R's? Second, the final battle between Octavius' and Antony's forces took place in the middle of a forest. Antony's forces did not get into formation and use their shields to protect themselves, in the testudo tactic. Instead, both sides charged pell mell into the fray. A soldier was seen shouting "Hold the line!" but there was no line to be held. I suspect two reasons for this undisicplined, un-Roman battle. First, this is a low-budget TV production, and the ubiquitous trees allowed some camera tricks to conceal the paltry amount of extras. Then, there is obvious homage to the forest-fighting scene at the opening of Riddly Scott's Gladiator. The same goes for the jerky, hand-held camera movements during fight scenese. These guys should send Riddly a check!

Other than that, the program had fairly well-developed characters and moved along smoothly. The ill-fated affair between Camane, the Vestal virgin, and Octavius, the future emperor, worked out as forshadowed. Neither character could shirk his or her duty, just as the ex-gladiator Tyrannus could not lay aside his final promise to the dying Ceasar.

In other happenings, tonight is the second-to-last Document Design class. I need to hit the course catalog and figure out what I want to enroll in next.

Finally, Donna Frye won the mayoral election yesterday! But, the evil Republican cabal that runs this town managed to dilute the race with enough of their own candidates that she did not win a 51% majority. So, we'll have a run-off election in November!

Go, Donna!

A Busy Few Weeks

The last few weeks have been busier than usual for me, mostly because the document design class is in high gear. The instructor demands a lot of reading, which is all right--some of it is truly interesting!

This past Wednesday, I got the results back on the exam that was meted out the week before. I scored 105 out of 100 (thanks to a bonus question). Nice to know my brain still works, after all I've put it through in the last year and a half!

This week I've been working on my final project, which will amount to 50% of the final grade. I've been at somewhat of a disadvantage in that I am currently not working for a company. So, I chose one of the suggested topics, which was to take and improve a handout on bronchiectasis that was written (very wordily) by a pulmonologist friend of the instructor. I decided to format the handout as a brochure via MS Publisher. Of course, everything reaches a certain unexpected level of complication.

First, I had to reinstall Publisher. Since Laurie still hasn't given me the Pub 2003 serial number back, I have had to make do with Publisher 2000. Then, I had to find a PostScript printer driver for HP (my InkJet is not a PS printer) and install it. Then I had to find and install Ghostgum and Ghostscript. After saving my .Pub files as PS files, I had trouble with the PS drivers and had to reinstall. The first ones I had were for LaserJet, but those are black and white only. So I had to find and install color LaserJet drivers.... Sheesh.

Anyway, now I've forwarded the brochure on to my friends, who will have to stand in as "users" for this round. I will also send the item to Sue Warner, the nurse for Dr. Landers, to get a real pulmonologist's opinion.

This has put a stall to my creative writing, but I should be able to get back to it tomorrow. Once I get people's feedback, I can finish this silly little project.

One other thing. I have been working with Sheila Johnson, my DR counselor, to get the shift-lever fixed on my van. She told me last week she would have to check with her supervisor about it, as "this is not really related to the repairs we did to your van." Like hell it isn't! I didn't hear from her after her meeting with her boss on Friday, so I will have to contact her on Monday.

A Wednesday in July

The previous weekend was hectic in an unexpected way. A friend of mine managed to crash my computer, necessitating a reinstallation of Windows along with a reformat of the hard drive. At first I was mildly annoyed by this, then was flabbergasted when I realized I had not backed up any of my short stories onto the backup CD! It seems when I dragged and dropped folders onto the CD drive, I missed the short story folder.

I e-mailed all my friends who might have a copy of a story lying around their hard drives, and after much prayer, recovered most of my work, though not in the latest form. So far, I have finished rewriting my "spider story," which I hope to send out soon. Luckily, my novel folder was backed up succesfully.

Also on Saturday, I went to see "The Fantastic Four," which was more or less a poor man's "X Men." The characters were pretty faithful to the original comic book, but the story was flat, with a dull villain who had similar powers to Magneto in X Men.

Tonight, I have another Information Design class, along with a test. Let's hope Clarence arrives on time!

Back to Class

Tonight I will head back to the document design class.

The 3 elements of document design (Carliner): Physical, Cognitive, Affective

Woo hoo! O.o

Less Verbosity, More Design

I have been reading the textbook for my document design course. To say it's interesting would be to exaggerate slightly. It's not that the subject matter is without appeal; but what really annoys me is the annoying American sense of Positivism that pervades the pages.

In the chapter I was reading, the author describes three types of document design approaches: 1) Classifying
2) Intuiting
3) Listening

Now, the astute reader can discern immediately which approach the author favors. "Listening," listed last, comes first in the author's mind. Classifiers do audience analysis based on statistics, intuitors frame the text around the "invoked reader," while listeners ASK the intended audience about their reactions to proposed document types. Seems clear enough. The remainder of the chapter then discusses a "user study" the author and her collaborators performed on teenagers who had to look at anti-drug brochures. Not surprisingly, the teens had trouble with the various brochures.

The textbook is riddled with side notes on every page, mostly explaining how "Johnson and Smith (1968) analyzed ...." Even when the author admits somewhat later in the book that many readers just look at the headlines and skim charts (exactly what I found myself doing), she proceeds ad nauseam to show how this or that study "proves" or "demonstrates" or "indicates" this or that fact.

Let me stipulate--All text is fiction. Studies do not make facts. Studies reinforce the authors' own Weltanshauung. When you repeatedly rely on some professor of technical communications to reinforce your point, you succeed only in reminding me that your "facts" are argument by authority. In other words, the educational and psychological establishment have overtaken the universe of "textual artifacts."

Those teens were more or less forced to give their reactions to the brochures. Their time was taken up by the authors for the latters' own career purposes. Did it not occur to anyone that the teens' reactions would be coerced and therefore suspect?

"If we just perform enough studies, we can think our way out of this problem," seems to be what the edu/psych establishment wants to accomplish. If we break a subject into its components and then observe them, we can discover the Truth. But it's all a contstruct; if you break matter down far enough, you discover not more matter, but empty space. If you rely too much on studies and reports, you will find yourself constructing a reality based on a web of pre-known and forced experience.

Holy Coma, Batman!

Last night I attended the first Document Design class at UCSD. One down, five more to go! I got there late, since Clarence didn't show up to drive me until almost 6, and the class starts at 6:30. If this keeps up, I am petitioning my Rehab counselor for a driver/personal assistant.

The class itself is full to the gills. Not an inch to spare, body to body in little rows of desks. I am hoping to learn from the course, what makes a compelling, attractive document. Last night was mostly about theory, which might be summed up as, "what is document design and why is it important?" The instructor seems like a knowledgable, decent guy. The tiny slides he kept pointing to were not highly visible from the back of the class, unfortunately.

I didn't really achieve the feeling I was amongst a collegial group of writers. For one thing, when I returned from our 10-minute break, only two people besides me brought coffee back with them! The rest had their bland little bottles of water poised neatly by their books. No coffee, no writer! Sayeth my hero, Honoré de Balzac!

At the Zoo

Yesterday morning, Joe and I took a drive downtown to the zoo in Balboa Park. We left my home in Mira Mesa about 10:30 and got to the zoo around 11:00. After a half hour of standing in line to renew my membership, we finally passed through the zoo's opening gates and strolled around. The first thing we did was head to the Treehouse restaurant and have lunch. We ate the chili, which was served in one of those sourdough breat bowls. Tasty enough, for restaurant-zoo food.

Lacking a lot of time after the lunch, we went part-way down the next hill, past the bear and lion enclosures, but did not make it as far as the new tiger exhibit. Passed the monkeys along the way, but did not stay to observe them. We got back home around 2:00 and Joe left.

My parents came over later in the evening and we had the Italian Feast meal from Taste of Italy, a local restaurant that has been here in Mira Mesa as long as we have (we moved here in 1977 from Clairmont, another San Diego neighborhood). For a movie, we watched the first "Spider Man," which my parents had not seen. Next week, we will watch the second Spider Man film on DVD.

This coming Wednesday, I will start my first technical communications class; the subject matter is document design. The book was already sold out of UCSD's bookstore, so I ordered it from Barnes & Noble and got it delivered by UPS within 4 days, free shipping. I e-mailed Sheila Johnson, my Rehab counselor, so I could get reimbursed for the book's $50.00 cost, but have not heard back from her yet. I hope she is not on leave again!

Father's Day Sunday

I went with my parents to Mass on Sunday and then we went to brunch at Callahan's, the "Irish" pub in Mira Mesa. We sat outside and ate our meals in the pleasant, sunny but not too warm weather. I had a frittata, which is sort of an open-faced omelette filled with cheese, potatoes and bacon. Very good!

L'aventure quotidienne

Today I took a trip over to Barnes & Noble in Mira Mesa with Joe. We arrived about 1:30 and had coffee at the Starbucks inside while Joe perused a Chilton's repair manual for the Ford Taurus. I ate a turkey wrap, which was quite good, drank a latte and enjoyed the time out.

Last night my parents came over and we watched the new DVD release, "Beyond the Sea," which is Kevins Spacey's bio pic of Bobby Darin. Kevin did a great job--he is an actor who can really sing! He also directed the film, as well as starred in it. The movie was a very touching tribute to the late singer, who died of a heart condition in 1973 at the age of 37. Usually those singers of "standards" make me queasy. Something about those violin-laden refrains, the perfectly timed trombones, etc. But Darin went beyond the stereotype. He had an indefinable edge, a heartfelt reality, that transcended the lounge music medium.

The weather today was beautiful. Low 70s, sunny with just a hint of clouds. I love June in San Diego! Last year I could only view it from a hospital window, which made this year even sweeter.

On Thursday I went and saw Dr. Landers at Sharp Memorial. He was pleased with my improvement and promised to speak to an endocrinologist about some kind of treatment that could make my bones denser. As usual, I am unconvinced that any therapy they could offer would be worth the cost, risk and potentential side effects. But, it's worth investigating!

My van is running well; Harold got the steering wheel on straight finally (the nimrods at the body shop had attached it one bolt off-center). The vehicle is filthy on the outside. I want to call my detailer, Clint and get him to scrub off the grime. It hasn't been cleaned since the body shop got done with it, and we had a hell of a winter this year (over 23 inches of rain during the El Nino).

Tomorrow is Father's Day! Go forth and celebrate with your family!

David