why have reason followed by policy when you can do whatever you want

From a longer, and also interesting dissection of Bush's Iraq policy versus his immigration proposals:

Bush speechwriter David Frum has written of his first Oval Office meeting with Bush, a few weeks into his presidency, at which the president explained his "determination to dig Saddam Hussein out of power in Iraq."

First few weeks of his presidency... before Sept. 11th, before WMD...

hmmmmm...

well, that was unexpected...

I just typed my address into Comcast's website to look up the channel listings... and when hit 'go', the next page was in Spanish. Assumption based on the fact that live up at 23rd & Hoover? Saved settings from the previous tenants being a Latino frat? Uhhh? [edit:] I put in the address for Troy Apartments, and it also switched to Spanish.

The page is titled "Transitional Redirect", says "Nice to Meet You" in English (its a graphic), and then proceeds to tell me about Time Warner's products in Spanish.

Odd.

Actually Listening

We did an interesting exercise at a retreat I was at this past weekend, and if you could possibly attempt to replicate the idea of it, I would encourage you to give it a go.

You need someone else to do this with you. Each person gets x amount of time, we used two minutes, to talk on a given topic, and the other person is not allowed to comment at all. Then you switch who talks and who listens, but you have to talk about a different topic. As a listener, you're supposed to focus on what the other person is saying, rather than just thinking about what you can respond to, what your take on it is, or listening for the highlights that you can talk about next.

The speaker also goes through a unique experience. We are often used to have the person we talk to respond, comment, continue the story. The time period given has to be long enough to make the speaker elaborate past what she or he would ordinarily say. When we did this exercise, typically all the speakers would give a sentence or three answer about their childhood home, or the time they had to be their strongest, or what makes them laugh, and then you could hear a collective pause. This pause seemed to be at the moment when it is usually socially acceptable to stop talking and let someone else go. With another minute and a half to fill, the speakers would often recall more to the story, or tell of another incident, or somehow let the listener into a deeper part of their thinking.

At first it was very disorienting to talk to someone and not have them talk back. Most likely we look for a person's response as security that we know they were listening, instead of trusting that they are listening. You picked up more on small murmurs and body language. Then you realized more of your own stories that don't have as frequent an opportunity to come up in conversation. It reminded me of trying to talk to an elderly relative and then somehow hitting the right topic and finding this great story they had never told you.

This isn't a productive way to collaboratively expand on idea, unless I suppose you modified the game to let the listener keep notes, but didn't talk about those notes until much later. It is, however, an opportunity to communicate with someone in a way that we don't usually allow ourselves to do so. I might follow up on these thoughts later, but for now I'll just leave you with some food for thought on how we usually talk with each other.

SOTU thoughts

my preliminary commentary...

First, we must balance the federal budget.

Whats this 'we' shit, kimosabe? I believe the budget was in great shape when it was handed over to you.

Five years ago, we rose above partisan differences to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, preserving local control, raising standards, and holding those schools accountable for results. And because we acted, students are performing better in reading and math, and minority students are closing the achievement gap... The No Child Left Behind Act has worked for America's children -- and I ask Congress to reauthorize this good law.

Sometimes, I get worried. Does he really think No Child Left Behind was good legislation? The completely backlash from people that, uh, work in schools doesn't mean anything?

We can lift student achievement even higher by giving local leaders flexibility to turn around failing schools, and by giving families with children stuck in failing schools the right to choose someplace better.

Pelosi didnt clap... good for her. While vouchers and magnets aren't the worse idea in the world, they don't make schools any better, and if you rely on them, you fail your schools.

And we can make sure our children are prepared for the jobs of the future and our country is more competitive by strengthening math and science skills.

Maybe we should become competitive by having flexible work weeks that keep employees in their jobs for longer times, with less turn over, and since they'd be happier, they'd be harder workers.

When it comes to health care, government has an obligation to care for the elderly, the disabled, and poor children. And we will meet those responsibilities. For all other Americans, private health insurance is the best way to meet their needs... States that make basic private health insurance available to all their citizens should receive federal funds to help them provide this coverage to the poor and the sick... In all we do, we must remember that the best health care decisions are made not by government and insurance companies, but by patients and their doctors.

First of all, if you provide health care for everyone, and/or especially all children, regardless of their health, then you reduce health costs in the future by stopping easily solved health problems from escalating into bigger problems. It's that simple. It's not brain surgery, it makes sense that if you let someone go to the doctor when they have a cold and that prevents them from getting pneumonia and having to go to the hospital... probably a good idea to just give everyone healthcare. There is a ton of evidence proving this.

Yes, health care decisions should be made between doctors and patients and not governments or insurance companies, but I don't see him preventing the government or insurance companies from getting involved. First, if you have crappy insurance, that will dictate what decisions you make. Secondly, did Dubya just say that the government should not be involved in patients & doctors decisions? Is he being sarcastic? Shiavo? Abortion? Stem cells? Plan B? Guardasil?

We need to resolve the status of the illegal immigrants who are already in our country without animosity and without amnesty. Convictions run deep in this Capitol when it comes to immigration. Let us have a serious, civil, and conclusive debate, so that you can pass, and I can sign, comprehensive immigration reform into law.

Wow! Could we, could we pleeeease have actual discussion on something as complex as immigration instead of just writing competing legislation!? Yay! I'm interested as to what "without animosity and without amnesty" will look like.

As President, I have a duty to nominate qualified men and women to vacancies on the federal bench. And the United States Senate has a duty, as well, to give those nominees a fair hearing, and a prompt up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

I don't think that's going be a problem, since it was the Democrats that were pissy with you, and now I'm pretty sure they'd be able to pass or fail whomever they want.

Take almost any principle of civilization, and their goal is the opposite. They preach with threats, instruct with bullets and bombs, and promise paradise for the murder of the innocent.

Because we obviously don't instruct with bullets and bombs, but with multilateralism, peace talks, openness to Study Group suggestions, etc.

Listen to this warning from the late terrorist Zarqawi: "We will sacrifice our blood and bodies to put an end to your dreams, and what is coming is even worse."

Don't we say the exact same things, same phrasing, about our soldiers?

Thanks, George. For basically taking 50 minutes to say nothing. At least it was better written than usual.

Drug Scheduling is Ridiculous

yes, we know that but, furthermore...

Why are cigarettes not Schedule I, at least, according to the legal definition (as best I can find it, correct me if I'm wrong, because I was finding the DEA site to be fairly tricky)?

I understand that the 'reason' they are mostly legal is because of the money that the tobacco industry has, and therefore would not let that completely be changed overnight, but if we are going to have any semblance of legal system with reason, wouldn't it be a nice notion if carried that reason across the board?

As best I could find, the three criteria for a drug to be classified as Schedule I (the highest category, meaning the worst drugs, meaning most restrictions, basically completely illegal) are:

1. The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
   
2. The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
3. There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

I don't think anyone will argue that cigarettes, by containing nicotine are physically addicting (1), and have no accepted medical use that I know of (2). I am not completely clear on what (3) means. I think it refers to whether or not a drug that may be addicting and not have medical use, while under medical supervision it could be used safely? That sentence doesn't even seem to be written properly or logically, because it refers to "or other substance" and I'm not really sure why.

I don't necessarily believe we should take away "smoker's rights," thought I do disagree with that term. "Smoker's" don't have rights at an entity, they have human libertarian rights to do with their bodies whatever they want as long as that does not interfere with what someone else wants to do with her or his body. I am not writing this to take a hard stance on the current status of cigarette legislation or taxes. Cigarettes, which I believe have only been argued from a libretarian point of view, and never claiming a medical benefit in modern times, are legal, in ones own home, as long as it does not harm anyone else, while marijuana and MDMA, just as two examples, are Schedule I when the medical argument has not only been made, but in many cases proven.
I am just continually perplexed by the drug laws in this country, and what is deemed legal and illegal, and how we pretend to write legal code that goes along with the policies that are enacted.

"The Rape" of Mr. Smith

by Anonymous
found in "Readings for Diversity and Social Justice" Adams, et. al.

"Mr. Smith, you were held up at gunpoint on the corner of 16th and Locust?"
"Yes."
"Did you struggle with the robber?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"He was armed."
"Then you made a conscious decision to comply with his demands rather than to resist?"
"Yes."
"Did you scream? Cry out?"
"No. I was afraid."
"I see. Have you ever been held up before?"
"No."
"Have you ever given money away?"
"Yes, of course -- "
"And did you do so willingly?"
"What are you getting at?"
"Well, let's put it like this, Mr. Smith. You've given away money in the past -- in fact, you have quite a reputation for philanthropy. How can we be sure that you weren't contriving to have your money taken away from you by force?"
"Listen, if I wanted --"
"Never mind. What time did this holdup take place, Mr. Smith?"
"About 11 pm."
"You were out on the streets at 11 pm? Doing what?"
"Just walking."
"Just walking? You know that it's dangerous being out on the street that late at night. Weren't you aware that you could have been held up?"
"I hadn't thought about it."
"What were you wearing at the time, Mr. Smith?"
"Let's see. A suit. Yes, a suit."
"An expensive suit?"
"Well-- yes."
"In other words, Mr. Smith, you were walking around the streets late at night in a suit that practically advertised the fact that you might be a good target for some easy money, isn't that so? I mean, if we didn't know better, Mr. Smith, we might even think you were asking for this to happen, mightn't we?"
"Look, can't we talk about the past history of the guy who did this to me?"
"I'm afraid not, Mr. Smith. I don't think you would want to violate his rights, now would you?"


Now, this isn't perfect. Actually, some of the questions of what he was wearing are the same sort of recommendations one would tell someone to avoid when walking around late at night, which can really bring up interesting parallels of itself. While in the case of robbery, people would not typically say one was "asking for it," they still might question someone's judgment to be out late at night and possibly not paying attention to their surroundings.
I find the greater point being that this line of questioning would never happen after a crime happened, as it might in the case of rape (though the part about the person's past is now inadmissible) .

Better Obama Vid than his actual most recent one

Slate has a great video and comment feature that they added recently, and they showed a video that Obama made in December, which is quite hilarious, in my opinion, cuz who doesn't like a politician with a sense of humor?