Arcanus Maximus

http://anfi.homeunix.net/cyrus/
http://tomster.org/geek/freebsdcookbook/ar01s03.html

Posted by jtk at 03:41 PM | Permalink

From the BBC via things that piss me off:

A janitor at Tate Modern in London threw out a work of art because he thought it was just a bag of garbage; the artwork, entitled 'Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art,' was in fact a bag of garbage.

Posted by jtk at 03:13 PM | Permalink

A neat tool to give you a command line interface to Movable Type.

Posted by jtk at 03:05 PM | Permalink

I read an article in last Sunday's NY Times Magazine. It really floored me. This was a well thought out article. I haven't seen the state and future of the Republicans stated so well.

How to Reinvent the G.O.P.

August 29, 2004
By DAVID BROOKS

I. A Long Way From Philadelphia

I really wouldn't be surprised if you can't remember a
thing about the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia.
I was there, and I'm paid to pay close attention to these
things, and I have only the gauziest recollections.
According to my notes, it opened with a Hispanic girl
singing the national anthem. Then there was a video of a
black Baptist minister preaching from the pulpit of his
church, and there was a Mexican dancer with a big sombrero.
Chaka Khan sang a rousing finale. I remember joking that
with all the whites in the audience and all the minority
performers onstage, the whole thing looked like a Utah Jazz
basketball game.

This was a party trying to shake off the harsh aura of
Gingrichism. The daddy party was trying to show it had a
mommy side too. Laura Bush delivered her speech in front of
a bank of school desks, with charming, immobile kids
arrayed behind her, and announced that her husband would
strengthen Head Start. Colin Powell praised George W. Bush
for making education the centerpiece of his campaign. Bush
came on and saluted Mary Jo Copeland, whose ministry,
Sharing and Caring Hands, serves meals to the homeless.

In his acceptance speech, Bush noted that his father's
generation had been called upon to fight epic battles
against great foes. That, he said, was the ''generation of
Americans who stormed beaches, liberated concentration
camps and delivered us from evil.'' But we, he continued,
are living in a time of blessing. So instead of fighting
wars, we're called to perform ''small, unnumbered acts of
caring and courage and self-denial.'' The emphasis was on
the word ''small.'' This was a convention about intimate
connections, local associations, tender emotions and
domestic concerns. ''Sometimes, we are called to do great
things,'' Bush later said. ''But as a saint of our times
has said, every day we are called to do small things with
great love.''

The 2004 convention is taking place in New York, only 80
miles away from the last one, but in a different universe.
All Americans have been forced to pass through the portal
marked by Sept. 11. As you look out at the delegates to
this year's G.O.P. gathering, remember that these folks
have fallen down a chute, and they have no idea where it
lets out. When they nominated George Bush in 2000, they had
no idea that Mr. Small Acts of Compassion was going to be
transformed into Mr. Epic War Against Evil. They had no
idea they were nominating a guy who was going to embark on
a generational challenge to transform the Middle East. They
had no idea they were nominating a guy who would create a
huge new cabinet department for homeland security, who
would not try to cut even a single government agency, who
would be the first president in a generation to create a
new entitlement program, the prescription drug benefit,
projected to cost $534 billion over the next 10 years. They
had no idea that a Republican-led government would spend
federal dollars with an alacrity that Clinton never dreamed
of, would create large deficits, would significantly
increase the federal role in education, would increase farm
subsidies, would pass campaign-finance reform and would
temporarily impose tariffs on steel.

The Republicans who gather in New York this week love
George Bush. They admire the stalwart way he has fought the
war on terror. They understand why, post-Sept. 11, he has
governed the way he has. But they are a little shellshocked
by the unexpected transformation that has come over their
party, and they do not know how it is going to turn out.

Democrats may imagine that the G.O.P. is an amalgam of fat
cats and conservative ideologues, but things feel different
inside Republican circles. Inside there are, beneath the
cheering and the resolve, waves of anxiety, uncertainty and
disagreement. You hang around Republicans, and you begin to
hear all sorts of discordant things. Jesse Helms recently
remarked he wouldn't have voted for the tax cut if he'd
known how bad the deficit would become. Three of the senior
right-wing columnists -- George F. Will, Robert Novak and
William F. Buckley Jr. -- have come out, in their different
ways, against the war in Iraq. I had lunch recently with a
senior Republican official who said his party had
succumbed; it was ''defeatist'' about reducing the size of
government. As Will himself has observed, under President
Bush, American conservatism is undergoing an identity
crisis.

There used to be a spirit of solidarity binding all the
embattled members of the conservative movement. But with
conservatism ascendant, that spirit has eroded. Should Bush
lose, it will be like a pack of wolves that suddenly turns
on itself. The civil war over the future of the party will
be ruthless and bloody. The foreign-policy realists will
battle the democracy-promoting Reaganites. The
immigrant-bashing nativists will battle the free
marketeers. The tax-cutting growth wing will battle the
fiscally prudent deficit hawks. The social conservatives
will war with the social moderates, the biotech skeptics
with the biotech enthusiasts, the K Street corporatists
with the tariff-loving populists, the civil libertarians
with the security-minded Ashcroftians. In short, the
Republican Party is unstable.

Whether the Republicans win or lose in November, the party
of 2008 is not going to look like the party of 2004, any
more than the party of 2004 looks like the party of 2000.
Parties change radically, even while remaining true to some
essential nature. The Republican Party is in the midst of
that kind of change; the transition is nowhere near
complete.

II.The Death of Small-Government Conservatism

Two big forces are driving the change. The first,
obviously, is the war on Islamic extremism. As the
historian Bruce Catton once observed: ''A singular fact
about modern war is that it takes charge. Once begun it has
to be carried to its conclusion, and carrying it there sets
in motion events that may be beyond men's control. Doing
what has to be done to win, men perform acts that alter the
very soil in which society's roots are nourished.''

The second and more pervasive change is the death of
socialism. Everybody can see how the collapse of the
socialist dream has transformed left-wing parties like the
British Labor Party. But, as David Frum observes, the death
of socialism has transformed the Republican Party just as
much as it has transformed the parties of the left.

For most of the 20th century, the conservative movement and
the Republican Party were built to combat the inexorable
spread of big government. Faced with that great threat,
Republicans became Jeffersonian. If the left was going to
embrace larger welfare states, the Republicans were going
to become enthusiastic decentralizers, suspicious of
concentrated power, the foes of big government.
Anti-government sentiment was the glue that held the
different factions of the American right together. And in
that great cause the G.O.P. -- from Coolidge to Goldwater
to Reagan -- was successful. Conservatives and libertarians
defeated socialism, intellectually and then practically.

Socialism has stopped its march. Now almost every leading
politician accepts that government should not interfere
with the basic mechanisms of the market system. On the
other hand, almost every leading official acknowledges that
we should have as much of a welfare state as we can afford.
Now the debate over the role of the state takes place
within much narrower parameters.

The federal government has consumed roughly the same
proportion of national wealth for three decades. The
Clinton administration tried to increase significantly the
size of government with its health care plan and was thrown
back. Newt Gingrich tried to reduce significantly the size
of government, and he, too, was thrown back. We will still
argue about budgets, about new government programs and new
tax cuts, but the size-of-government debate will not be the
organizing conflict of the 21st century, the way it was for
the 20th. Just as socialism will no longer be the guiding
goal for the left, reducing the size of government cannot
be the governing philosophy for the next generation of
conservatives, as the Republican Party is only now
beginning to understand.

If you want to put a death date on the tombstone of
small-government Republicanism, it would be Nov. 14, 1995.
That was the day the new G.O.P. majority shut down the
government. Gingrich, Dick Armey and others came to power
with a list of hundreds of government programs and agencies
they wanted to eliminate, including the Departments of
Commerce, Energy and Education. They led what Grover
Norquist called the Leave Us Alone coalition, the alliance
of all those different Americans who wanted government to
get out of their lives. Gingrich vowed to show the world
''how to end programs, not just create them.'' Republicans
welcomed a showdown over the size of government because
they were convinced that the public would be on their side.
Faxes came over the machines vowing, ''No Compromise.''
Senator Phil Gramm celebrated the shutdown. ''Have you
really noticed a difference?'' he reportedly asked.

The public did notice, as it turned out, and they didn't
like it. Within a few years the Republicans were
backtracking so furiously they were proposing to spend more
money on the Department of Education than the Clinton
administration thought to ask for.

III. Muddling Toward a Governing Philosophy

So now we
have two sorts of Republicans. The first group is made up
of people who still mouth the words about reducing the size
of government but don't even pretend to live according to
their creed. These Republicans, mostly in Congress, go home
to their states and districts and rail against Washington
and big government. Then when they get back to Capitol Hill
they behave like members of any majority party. They try to
use their control over the federal purse to buy votes. They
embrace appropriations and champion pork with an enthusiasm
that makes your eyes pop.

For them, the old anti-statist governing philosophy exists
in the airy-fairy realm of ideals. When it actually comes
time to make some decisions about priorities and spending,
they have no governing philosophy and hence no discipline.
The money just splurges out. ''The current version of the
Republican Party is engaged in an outrageous spending
binge, and they're being steadied and encouraged by
Democrats,'' John McCain observed recently.

The money is appropriated in increments large and small --
a $180 billion corporate tax bill one week, a steady stream
of pork projects all the rest. In 1994, there were 4,126
''earmarks'' -- special spending provisions -- attached to
the 13 annual appropriations bills. In 2004, there were
around 14,000. Real federal spending on the Departments of
Education, Commerce and Health and Human Services has
roughly doubled since the Republicans took control of the
House in 1994. This is a governing majority without shape,
coherence or discipline.

The second group of Republicans is at least trying to come
up with a governing philosophy that applies to the times.
It understands the paradox that if you don't have a
positive vision of government, you won't be able to limit
the growth of government. If you can't offer people a
vision of what government should do, you won't be able to
persuade them about the things it shouldn't do. If the
Republican Party is going to evolve into a principled
majority party, members of this group are going to have to
build a governing philosophy based on this insight.

To his credit, George Bush falls into this latter category.
By the time he began his campaign for president in 1999,
Bush understood that the simple government-is-the-problem
philosophy of the older Republicans was obsolete. During
that campaign, Bush criticized what he called the
''destructive mind-set: the idea that if government would
only get out of our way, all our problems would be solved.
An approach with no higher goal, no nobler purpose, than
'Leave us alone.' '' Instead, Bush argued, ''government
must be carefully limited but strong and active.''

In another speech, Bush noted, ''Too often, my party has
confused the need for limited government with a disdain for
government itself.'' He continued: ''Our founders rejected
cynicism and cultivated a noble love of country. That love
is undermined by sprawling, arrogant, aimless government.
It is restored by focused and effective and energetic
government.''

Compassionate conservatism was his attempt to come up with
a new governing philosophy, a set of beliefs to guide
Republicans as they tried to figure out what to do with
power. Unfortunately, compassionate conservatism turned out
to be a pretty thin tissue, and it was incinerated by the
events of Sept. 11.

Since then, the Bush administration, while focusing on the
war on terror, has been muddling toward a more appropriate
governing philosophy. As Daniel Casse observed recently in
Commentary magazine, ''It is impossible to ignore the ways
in which the sometimes surprising and unorthodox politics
[Bush] has been advancing, albeit unevenly, have created a
new type of conservative agenda.''

On domestic policy, Casse writes, the Bush administration
has agreed to greater federal spending in exchange for the
seeds of market reform -- a big prescription drug benefit
in exchange for the hint of a new approach to Medicare that
emphasizes choice and accountability. This is not
traditional big government, nor is it small government. It
is strong government, Casse writes, which provides services
while giving individuals choice about how they want them
delivered.

This sort of conservatism measures its success not by how
big or small government is but by the habits it encourages
in its citizens. Does it encourage dependence or
self-reliance? Does it sap individual initiative or give it
new forums to exert itself? As Jonathan Rauch wrote in The
National Journal: ''Conservatives have been obsessed with
reducing the supply of government when instead they should
reduce the demand for it; and the way to do that is by
repudiating the Washington-knows-best legacy of the New
Deal. Republicans will empower people, and the people will
empower Republicans.''

Bush himself seems to agree. On July 21 he noted that while
''government should never try to control or dominate the
lives of our citizens,'' nonetheless, ''government can and
should help citizens gain the tools to make their own
choices.''

This is not yet a governing philosophy. It is not yet a new
identity for American conservatism. It is not yet an
updated conservative agenda. But it is a glimmer of these
things. It is the first glimpse of the sort of Republican
Party we could see when the convention rolls around again
in 2008.

Nobody knows who the nominee will be that year. It could be
Bill Frist, Chuck Hagel, Rudy Giuliani, Gov. Bill Owens of
Colorado or somebody else -- maybe even Arnold
Schwarzenegger. But if the party is going to offer a
positive, authoritative vision for the post-9/11 world,
which is a world of conflict and anxiety, then it is going
to have to develop a strong-government philosophy
consistent with Republican principles. It will have to
embrace a progressive conservative agenda more ambitious
and fully developed than anything the Bush administration
has so far articulated.

A candidate who does that would not need to launch an
insurgency campaign against the Republican establishment,
the way Goldwater did in 1964 or the way Reagan did in
1976. The fact is the Republican Party no longer has a
coherent establishment left to inveigh against. Instead, a
progressive conservative candidate would have to play a
more constructive role. He would have to lay out a vision
that would rebuild the bonds among free-market
conservatives, who dream of liberty; social conservatives,
who dream of decency; middle-class suburbanites, who dream
of opportunity; and foreign-policy hawks, who dream of
security and democracy. He would have to revive and update
the governing philosophy that did bind these groups, and
did offer such hope, in the early days of the G.O.P. Long
before it was the party of Tom DeLay, the G.O.P. was a
strong government/progressive conservative party. It was
the party of Lincoln, and thus of Hamilton. Today, in other
words, the Republican Party doesn't need another
revolution. It just needs a revival. It needs to learn from
the ideas that shaped the party when it was born.

IV. What Would Hamilton Do?

Today we have one political
tradition, now housed in the Democratic Party, which
believes in using government in the name of equality and
social justice. We have another tradition, recently housed
in the Republican Party, which believes, or says it
believes, in restricting the size of government in the name
of freedom and personal responsibility. But through much of
American history there has always been a third tradition,
now dormant, which believes in limited but energetic
government in the name of social mobility and national
union.

This third tradition was founded by Alexander Hamilton,
embraced by Henry Clay and the Whig Party, taken up by
Abraham Lincoln and the early Republican Party and brought
into the 20th century by Theodore Roosevelt. It withered
during the great 20th-century debate over the size of
government (its philosophy was confusedly crossways to this
debate), but it is this tradition the Republicans must
embrace if they are to become the majority party for the
next few decades.

This progressive conservative tradition is built on an
admiration for a certain sort of individual: the young,
ambitious striver, who works hard, makes something of
himself, creates opportunities for others and then goes on
to advance America's unique mission in the world. Alexander
Hamilton was the first embodiment and definer of this
creed. Hamilton came from nothing and spent his political
career trying to create a world in which as many people as
possible could replicate his amazing success.

Hamilton looked around after independence and saw a country
destined to become the greatest empire of the earth (as he
put it) but burdened with institutions that retarded social
mobility and stifled development. The American economy was
still mainly an agricultural economy, which trapped
talented young people on the farm, where they could not
cultivate the full range of their talents. Then there were
the aristocratic families like Thomas Jefferson's, which
exercised stranglehold control over the country's economic
life.

Hamilton sought to smash all that, to liberate and stir
Americans to exploit the full range of their capacities. As
he wrote in his ''Report on Manufactures,'' ''To cherish
and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by
multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the
least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth
of a nation may be promoted. . . . Every new scene, which
is opened to the busy nature of man to rouse and exert
itself, is the addition of a new energy to the general
stock of effort.'' Hamilton believed that people had inside
them vast wells of untapped resources, and that it was the
job of government to open up opportunities, to arouse,
stimulate and cultivate an energetic populace so citizens
could compete with one another.

First Hamilton had to break up the vested interests that
encrusted American life. He did this, in part, by
nationalizing the Revolutionary War debt. This, he said,
would fuse the many insular local economies into one
dynamic national economy. It would also lead to thriving
credit markets. It would shift power away from the local
landowners to commercial traders, who would move capital
around looking for investment opportunities. Hamilton also
created the Bank of the United States, to finance
investments. He organized what we would now call federal
scientific research.

He believed, in other words, in using government to enhance
market dynamism by fostering more equitable competition. He
believed government could usefully promote social
revolutions, in his case the move from an agricultural to a
commercial economy. In short, he rejected the formula,
assumed too often today, that you can be for government or
for the market, but not for both.

For his part, Hamilton saw entrepreneurial freedom, limited
but energetic federal power and national greatness as
qualities that were inextricably linked. It was always the
cause of America, or rather, the cause America represents
-- universal freedom -- that was uppermost in his mind.
Hamiltonianism was about spurring individual initiative,
but it was also about gathering the fruits of that energy
in the cause of national greatness.

After Hamilton's death, the Hamiltonian spirit was carried
on by the Whig Party. Self-conscious Hamiltonians like
Henry Clay and Daniel Webster sought to apply Hamiltonian
principles to their own day. Abraham Lincoln came of age in
the Whig Party, inherited Hamiltonian understandings of
economics and the nation and infused the Republican Party,
founded in the 1850's, with those ideas and causes.
Lincoln's program was based on a conception of man as
laborer and climber. As the historian Gabor S. Boritt has
written, ''Lincoln probably talked more about economics, to
use the term in a broad sense, than any other issue,
slavery included.'' Lincoln's first fully published speech
was about banking. His first political pamphlet was about
how to encourage national banks. His first address at a
national forum was on how to stimulate economic growth.
Even during the Civil War, Lincoln predicted, ''Finance
will rule the country for the next 50 years.''

That was not a dour warning. In true Hamiltonian fashion,
Lincoln embraced banking and finance capitalism because he
saw bank credit as a new source of energy for American
society. Around him, most of his countrymen opposed the
spread of banks as the symbols and gestation centers for
this new economic system, commercial-industrial capitalism,
which threatened to upend old pastoral ways of living. But
Lincoln spent much of his time as a state legislator
supporting an Illinois bank, a local version of Hamilton's
national bank.

Like Hamilton, Lincoln rose from obscurity to greatness;
like Hamilton, he dreaded the thudding repetition of farm
life; and like Hamilton he was obsessed with
self-transformation and social mobility. Lincoln embraced
the idea that each of us has a mission to work hard and get
ahead. ''I hold the value of life is to improve one's
condition,'' he declared in 1861.

His second great cause as a young politician was
canal-building. Like Hamilton, he was an ardent champion of
''internal improvements'' and lobbied vigorously for a
canal to be built to improve the navigability of the
Sangamon River, because he thought it would replace the
torpid, pastoral economy of his region with a humming,
churning new economy, which would lure immigrants and
create economic opportunity.

Like Hamilton, Lincoln was indifferent to his own wealth.
Rather, he wanted economic development because it meant
more fluidity, more competition, more opportunity. For him,
the market was admirable because it cultivated a certain
sort of upward-climbing individual.

This free-labor ideology was a contract. Individuals would
be held responsible for their own behavior. But government
would do what it could to open up opportunities, so that
people would have second and third and fourth chances to
succeed. During Lincoln's presidency, this government
philosophy produced a raft of legislation: the creation of
a single currency, the Homestead Act, the Morrill Land
Grant College Act, the railroad legislation and so on. All
of these initiatives were designed to stimulate, energize
and unify the nation. The Homestead Act placed land in the
hands of families. The Land Grant College Act promoted the
spread of practical knowledge. These Republicans were not
trying to care for the downtrodden or shelter them. They
were trying to open fields of enterprise.

They acted even though they were skeptical about federal
power. They knew about cultures of dependency and how they
could grow; they worried that public or private charity,
even for basic supplies like food, would corrode habits of
self-reliance. They were just as suspicious of government
bureaucracy as today's Republicans are. But still they
acted.

They acted because no social transformation is without its
dark side. Industrialism was wreaking havoc on some
communities, even as it improved others. It was dislocating
thousands. The early Republicans sought to open up new
lands and new opportunities so those on the losing end of
the Industrial Revolution would have new places to succeed.

The next great figure in this tradition was Theodore
Roosevelt. He, too, believed in the marriage of individual
economic opportunity with political and cultural union. He
believed in the character-building force of competition,
its ability to produce individuals who possessed the
vigorous virtues he lauded in his 1905 inaugural address:
''energy, self-reliance and individual initiative.''

Roosevelt, too, believed that government must sometimes
play an active role to give everybody a fair shot in the
race of life. ''The true function of the state, as it
interferes with social life,'' he wrote, ''should be to
make the chances of competition more even, not to abolish
them.'' In his day, corporate corruption was as big a
threat to free competition as socialist revolution, and
Roosevelt detested both. As he observed,''Every new social
relation begets a new type of wrongdoing -- of sin, to use
an old-fashioned word -- and many years always elapse
before society is able to turn this sin into a crime which
can be effectively punished by law.''

Roosevelt was an ardent champion of reform, believing that
a corrupt and ineffective government would breed cynicism
and despondency. He believed in aggressive policies to
preserve national cohesion; to strengthen the bonds
nourished by our culture and national environment. He
believed in America's unique mission in world history. As
he argued in his famous Strenuous Life speech at a Hamilton
Club in 1899, ''We cannot sit huddled within our borders
and avow ourselves merely an assemblage of well-to-do
hucksters who care nothing for what happens beyond.'' He
increased the number of American battleships from 9 to 25
and more than doubled the number of sailors, so the U.S.
could project power around the world. He was an ardent
nationalist.

Of course Hamilton, Lincoln and Roosevelt were complicated
individuals whose careers contained diverse and sometimes
conflicting strands. But they do belong in one tradition, a
tradition newly appropriate for life today.

V. A New Conservative Platform

If we turn to the future,
it's easy to see some of the tasks that strong-government
conservatism will champion.

The War on Islamic extremism. The first great agenda item
has been thrust upon us. This has been miscast as a war on
terror, but terror is just the means our enemies use. In
reality, we're fighting a war against a specific brand of
Islamic extremism, a loose federation of ideologues who
seek to dominate the Middle East and return it to the days
of the caliphate.

We are in the beginning of this war, where we were against
Bolshevism around 1905 or Fascism in the early 1930's, with
enemies that will continue to gain strength, thanks to the
demographic bulge in the Middle East producing tens of
millions of young men, politically and economically
stagnant societies ensuring these young men have nothing
positive to do and an indoctrination system designed to
turn them into soldiers for the cause. This fight will
organize our politics for a generation, as the Cold War
did.

The first task is to build a new set of strong federal and
multinational institutions to defeat this foe. Obviously
the intelligence community needs to be reorganized. The
military needs to be bulked up, and public diplomacy needs
to be rethought. Somebody has to develop a
counterideological message that is more than just: ''We're
Americans. We're really decent people. We're nice to
Muslims.''

We need to strengthen nation-states. The great menace of
the 20th century was overbearing and tyrannical
governments. The great menace of the 21st century will be
failed governments, because those are the places where our
enemies will be able to harbor and thrive, where violence
can nurture and grow, where life is nasty, brutish and
short.

We are going to have to construct a multilateral
nation-building apparatus so that each time a
nation-building moment comes along, we don't have to patch
one together ad hoc. In the 1990's we thought free markets
were the first things new nations needed to thrive and
grow. Now we know that law and order is the first thing
they need. We are going to have to construct new
institutions to help nations develop rule of law within
their boundaries, for if that is not accomplished, all the
economic development in the world will not help.

Entitlement reform. At home, the most obvious and daunting
problem is runaway entitlement spending. Right now,
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security consume 8 percent of
U.S. G.D.P. By 2040 these programs will consume 17 percent.
In other words, these programs will swallow a sixth of the
national wealth, requiring massive tax hikes to support
them. That's simply unsupportable if we are to maintain a
vibrant, growing economy.

Just as bad, entitlements will devour the federal budget.
It will become impossible to create new programs to deal
with new problems. The government will become a giant,
immobile entitlement machine. The U.S. will follow Europe
down the route of welfare-state stagnation, with growing
burdens, aging populations, limited growth and horrendous
choices.

The solution is clear: push back the retirement age, reduce
benefits for upper-income people, redesign the welfare
state so that individuals have control over their own
benefits packages. That means designing programs that allow
people to have their own health insurance, which they can
carry from job to job; to control their own unemployment
insurance and tailor their retraining efforts to suit their
own talents; to invest part of their own pension money and
benefit from higher returns, so they have greater
incentives to save on their own. It means reforming the
health care system so competition works as it does in every
other sphere -- to improve value, spur innovation and
reduce costs. Our current welfare state produces either no
competition or warped and ineffective competition.

Social mobility. America remains a remarkably mobile
society, but at the bottom ends of the education and income
scales, we're seeing an ever-larger group of people unable
to rise and succeed. Over the past two decades there has
been a sharp rise in the number of people who define
themselves to pollsters as ''have-nots.'' Though poverty
has declined since 1988, the number of blacks who call
themselves ''have-nots'' has risen to 48 percent from 24
percent. The number of whites who use that phrase to
describe themselves has risen to 28 percent from 17
percent. These perceptions have been rising steadily over
the Bush, Clinton and Bush presidencies.

When people call themselves ''have-nots,'' they are not
only commenting on their current economic status. They are
also commenting on their prospects. They are saying that
they do not see any plausible way they are going to make it
and thrive in this society. This is poisonous. It is doubly
poisonous because African-Americans feel this way in such
high numbers. In other words, not only is there a perceived
lack of opportunity, but this perception also rubs raw at
the central wound that runs through our entire history:
racial inequality.

Worst of all, this is not just perception. People without
skills really do have limited prospects in the world. There
really is a huge achievement gap. By high-school
graduation, the average Hispanic or African-American
student is roughly four years behind the typical white or
Asian student, and this gap has been getting worse over the
past 15 years, despite $100 billion in Title I money spent
to reduce it. The results are obvious and horrific.
According to one study, 44 percent of urban
African-American men without a high-school degree are idle
all year round. Lacking jobs, they lack prospects. This is
an affront to our identity as the land of opportunity, a
menace to the Lincolnian vision of a hypermobile society
and ruinous to our social fabric.

Conservatives know that any solution begins with culture.
Successful families raise successful people. They raise
children who lead stimulated, rich and reinforced lives,
who are not plopped in front of the TV, who are not starved
of discipline and affection. They raise people instilled
with bourgeois values -- industry, responsibility, loyalty
and decency. They are more likely to understand that they
are responsible for their own choices, not victims of
social forces. Most of all, they are more likely to have
the sort of soft skills -- the ability to control your
emotions, to greet a new person and make a good impression,
to have confidence in your ability to succeed -- that are
absolutely essential in the marketplace.

Progressive conservatives understand that while culture
matters most, government can alter culture. It has done it
in bad ways, and it can do it in good ways. Government
agencies are now trying to design programs to encourage and
strengthen marriage. Early- childhood intervention programs
were not a conservative idea, but they work, and any decent
party will embrace them.

Wage subsidies, originally a Republican idea, would also
strengthen families. The welfare reform movement has lifted
people off welfare and into jobs, but it has not lifted
them out of poverty in sufficient numbers. If we're to
encourage work, then we must be sure that work is rewarded.
The earned income tax credit does that. Other wage- subsidy
ideas have been proposed, for example a simplified family
credit that would replace the E.I.T.C., the child tax
credit and other tax credits and exemptions to provide
working families with one, simple benefit.

Then there are the schools. For most of the 20th century,
Republicans reacted with horror at the thought of a
significant federal role in education. ''Local control''
was the mantra. That's over. More and more conservatives
understand that local control means local monopolies and
local mediocrity. Most Republicans, happily or not, have
embraced a significant federal role in education -- to
smash the education monopolies, enforce consequences for
schools that don't meet achievement standards and free
individual schools and principals to find the best ways to
succeed.

We've had wave after wave of education reforms over the
past two decades. Each one of them gets sucked into the bog
of the system. We have given principals faux responsibility
for their schools. We have laid down faux standards for
achievements. We have given a few parents faux choice. It's
time to shake up fundamentally the self-serving network of
bureaucracies and unions. Charter schools, in which school
leaders can actually control their own enterprises, can
still make a difference, despite the problems many are
having in getting started (and despite the premature
attacks that have recently been leveled against them).
There should be a federal Homestead Act for charters,
providing them with start-up capital for new buildings and
equipment. Vouchers can make a difference, especially in
areas where schools are demonstrably failing.

Certification rules need to be revamped so a wider variety
of Americans can teach. Compensation shouldn't be based
primarily on seniority but on performance. Innovators
should get bonuses, as in any other field. Principals
should not be drawn exclusively from the ranks of teachers
but also from the ranks of business, the military and other
fields. The federal government needs to insist, through
national tests like the current national assessment exams,
that all American students graduate with a basic knowledge
of American history and institutions, simply as a matter of
good citizenship.

Restore the integrity of our institutions. Not long ago,
there was a clear distinction between conservatives and
Republicans. Conservatives believed in principles;
Republicans sold out. Conservatives admired capitalism but
understood that businesspeople fundamentally did not like
competition and would much rather use their lobbying power
to induce government to protect them from competition, to
confer unfair advantages, to offer them subsidies and to
issue regulations that blocked future competitors.

Over the past few years the distinction between
conservative and Republican has eroded. Under Tom DeLay,
the conservative movement has fused with the K Street
brigades. There are now few ideological checks on the
corporate community's desire to use government to stifle
competition. Now it is conservatives who often embrace
special tax breaks, special subsidies, special regulatory
sinecures. This is a cancer on modern conservatism, and
most every conservative in his or her heart knows it.

People in the strong-government tradition do not believe in
active government for the sake of active government, but
for the sake of competition. Some future president needs to
go through the budget and rake out the tens of billions of
dollars of corporate subsidies. They can be reduced only
all at once, in a great sweep that overwhelms the parochial
lobbying campaigns that groups will mount on behalf of each
one. They can be reduced only as part of a larger
tax-reform effort that will simplify the code, flatten
rates and clean out the morass of credits, deductions,
phaseouts, differential taxation arrangements,
double-taxation provisions, alternative-minimum-tax
fiascoes and growth-inhibiting distortions.

Everybody understands that our budget and tax systems have
become dishonorable, favoring the well connected,
neglecting everybody else, breeding cynicism and sapping
national morale. These systems will never be pure and
pork-free. But every few years somebody has to come in and
clean out the encrustations that inevitably develop.

The energy revolution. Our current energy supplies are
economically unsustainable and politically dangerous. For
conservatives, the first task is to move the debate beyond
its politically ruinous confines. Republicans currently
stand for production, the cultivation of existing
technologies and a sometimes callous disregard for the
environment. Democrats stand for conservation, the
cultivation of environmentally sensitive but unrealistic
technologies and a sometimes callous disregard for economic
growth.

In halting and inconsistent ways, the Bush administration
is trying to crash through all this. It vows to pursue
''transformational technologies.'' The administration has
proposed spending $1.7 billion to develop hydrogen-powered
fuel cells. Dozens of other ideas are floating around:
reviving nuclear energy, fusion, new coal extraction
techniques and so on. But these proposals are too modest,
out of proportion to the problems that confront us. This is
a perfect sphere for limited but energetic government, for
a government that stimulates innovation but does not
succumb to the lure of industrial policy making, of picking
one technology over another and thus, for political
reasons, shutting off avenues of innovation.

National service. American society is now rife with forces
that encourage people to think about their own success, to
cultivate their own gardens, to segment themselves off into
their own cultural cliques. There should be at least one
moment in life when people are encouraged to serve a cause
larger than self-interest, fuse their own efforts with
those from other regions and other walks of life and
cultivate a spirit of citizenship.

For the sake of character development and national union,
national service should be a rite of passage for young
Americans. Senators Evan Bayh and John McCain have proposed
one plan. Young volunteers would go through a boot camp
experience, taking them out of the rhythms of their lives,
forcing them to endure a fiber-testing ordeal along with
people unlike themselves. They could either join an
expanded AmeriCorps or serve for 18 months in the military,
helping out with noncombat duties.

As William F. Buckley, Jr. once wrote: ''Materialistic
democracy beckons every man to make himself a king;
republican citizenship incites every man to be a knight.
National service, like gravity, is something we could
accustom ourselves to, and grow to love.''

By using government in limited but energetic ways,
conservatives could establish credibility that would enable
them to reduce the size of government where it is useless
or worse -- export subsidies, agricultural subsidies and
the like. Then they could use that credibility to reduce
the increases in entitlement spending -- the giant set of
programs that crowd out everything else.

More than that, conservatives have it in their power to
refashion the political landscape. American politics is now
polarized, evenly divided and stagnant. It has become like
World War I. Each party is down in its trench, lobbing the
same old arguments, relying on the same old coalitions.
Neither party is able to gain a lasting advantage. Neither
party is able to accomplish much that it is proud of.

Trench warfare finally ended because somebody invented the
tank. It is time for one party or another to invent the
tank, some new governing philosophy that will broaden its
coalition and transform the partisan divide. For
Republicans, the progressive conservative governing
philosophy is the tank. It is the approach to politics best
suited to the emerging suburban civilization, best suited
to life during a war on Islamic extremism. It is the way
Republicans can build a governing majority and leave a
positive mark on the nation and its destiny.

David Brooks is a Times columnist. His latest book is ''On
Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (and Always Have) in the
Future Tense.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/magazine/29REPUBLICANS.html?ex=1094958885&ei=1&en=85c904d8da3a14a2

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Posted by jtk at 09:44 AM | Permalink

I hadn't really looked at Open-Xchange before. I knew it case with SLES, but I hadn't paid it much attention. I saw a news article that stated that it released an open source version so I checked it out. Here is there description:

The Open-Xchange Collaboration and Integration Server Environment allows you to store appointments, contacts, tasks, emails, bookmarks, documents and many more elements and share them with other users. This environment can be accessed via any modern web browser and multiple fat clients like KDE Kontact, Ximian Evolution (announced), Konqueror, Mozilla Calendar and many more. Every 3rd party product can access this application over many different interfaces like the WebDAV interface (XML), LDAP, iCal and HTTP(S). This makes the Open-Xchange application to a powerful product which can be used in many of different business and private areas.

Posted by jtk at 09:40 AM | Permalink

USALug has a nice article on hdparm.

Tuning up your IDE hard disks using hdparm.

hdparm is a tool for altering various parameters associated with IDE
drives (Not SCSI). This involves things like the block prefetch, the DMA/PIO modes,
and a number of other things.

I'm writing this mini-how-to to help people get more from their system. People often
complain that Linux is a bit slow for them (which it can be) I haven't seen such
a post recently, but I know on TechIMO at least we always used to be talking
people through using hdparm.
As ever, you do all this at your own risk - nothing should go wrong, but it's your fault and not mine if it does.

hdparm can be used on a running system. It doesn't require filesystems on the disk to be unmounted in order to work, so you can play with it all you want. Some settings like -Y will require a hard reboot to get the disk back - use with caution.
All settings will be lost at reboot, so you can play around and find a config that suits you. Also, it can be useful to benchmark the drives using "hdparm -tT" which performs a buffer read and a disk read. For best results do it on a system with no other active processes (to remove external influence).
i.e.
Code:

nexus richard # hdparm -tT /dev/hde

/dev/hde:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 1584 MB in 2.00 seconds = 790.15 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 118 MB in 3.04 seconds = 38.77 MB/sec
nexus richard #

All the settings will be lost at reboot, but some distros have a configuration file you can edit to set the hdparm settings at boot. On Gentoo this is /etc/conf.d/hdparm.
Germ says that in Mandrake/RH (possibly other RH based systems) it is /etc/sysconfig/harddisks.
I don't use any other distros, but if people tell me where these files are, I'll add them Smile
Each may have a slightly different syntax, but your distribution's documentation should cover it.

You could also put all the commands in your rc.local file. If you do so, you
might want to look at the -q switch to suppress output from the

Most of the information here is available in the hdparm manpage, but I know it
can be quite intimidating for all levels of user. It's still worth a read. Smile

The syntax is quite simple, for example, to enable DMA on /dev/hda, you would do:
Code:

hdparm -d1 /dev/hda

The -d1 represents DMA enabled, -d0 would disable DMA.
Switches can be chained together on a single line, as you'll see shortly.

General performance improvements:

The first thing you would generally want to do is enable DMA and set the multicount and readahead to reasonable settings.

Code:

hdparm -d1 -m16 -A1 -a64 -u1 /dev/hda

Now, I'll take each of these in turn.

-d1 -- Enables DMA
-m16 -- Sets the number of sectors to use for IDE block mode (multicount)
-A1 -- Enables the auto-readahead feature of the drive
-a64 -- tells the drive how far to read ahead.
-u1 -- Enables unmasking of interrupts. Greatly improves performance.
Can cause problems with certain IDE chipsets on certain 2.0.x kernels.

The numbers beside the -a and -m can be changed, mess about if you like, but
I've found these to work quite well. The -d, -A, and -u are all boolean.

IMPORTANT
The manpage mentions being careful with the multicount flag, claiming that some controller/disk combinations can lead to filesystem corruption. More info is in the man page.
You can run "hdparm -i" on a hard disk to get the modes supported, and the maximum multicount setting.
Here's an example:
Code:

nexus richard # hdparm -i /dev/hde

/dev/hde:

Model=WDC WD400JB-00ETA0, FwRev=77.07W77, SerialNo=WD-WCAHL5369247
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=57600, SectSize=600, ECCbytes=74
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=8192kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=78165360
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: device does not report version:

* signifies the current active mode

nexus richard #

The "MaxMultiSect" is the number you should use for the multicount setting, It also lists the DMA modes you can use.

Here's the big one: UDMA modes.

I'm assuming that everyone has at least some sort of ATA hard disk, I can find
the codes for the other modes if you need them, just post here or PM me Smile

To enable UDMA, you use -Xxx where xx is the transfer mode.
Here's how it stacks up:
-X64 : UDMA 0 (ATA 16)
-X65 : UDMA 1 (ATA 25)
-X66 : UDMA 2 (ATA 33)
-X67 : UDMA 3 (ATA 44)
-X68 : UDMA 4 (ATA 66)
-X69 : UDMA 5 (ATA 100)
-X70 : UDMA 6 (ATA 133)

Just add that to the hdparm command line, and you'll probably see the difference
straight away if you have one of the faster modes.
Remember that ATA66 and above require an 80-wire IDE cable (the extra 40 wires
are earthed to give some shielding)
Needless to say, specifying a mode faster than the drive/controller/cable can
handle will either just not work, or could wipe out the data on it.

Acoustic Management
You also use hdparm to set the speed of the disks (using -M). If you slow them down, they
are quieter and use less power, but also run slower. If you run them at full
speed, they're fast and use the normal amount of power.
The speed is represented by a single integer from 0 to 254, but the lowest one
you can have is 128.
Not all drives take notice of this, and the feature is still experimental. (in
hdparm 5.4 which I use at least)
So, to slow a drive right down, do:
Code:
hdparm -M128 /dev/hda

and for full speed:
Code:
hdparm -M254 /dev/hda

Power Management
To set the drives to spin down after, say 10 minutes of inactivity, use the -S
switch. This takes a number as it's option. The numbering is a little peculiar,
so I'll quote the manpage which will explain it better than I could.

The hdparm team wrote:

The encoding of the timeout value is somewhat
peculiar. A value of zero means "timeouts are disabled": the
device will not automatically enter standby mode. Values from 1
to 240 specify multiples of 5 seconds, yielding timeouts from 5
seconds to 20 minutes. Values from 241 to 251 specify from 1 to
11 units of 30 minutes, yielding timeouts from 30 minutes to 5.5
hours. A value of 252 signifies a timeout of 21 minutes. A
value of 253 sets a vendor-defined timeout period between 8 and
12 hours, and the value 254 is reserved. 255 is interpreted as
21 minutes plus 15 seconds. Note that some older drives may
have very different interpretations of these values.

On my system, I have it set to 180 (15 Min's) and it looks like this:
Code:
hdparm -S180 /dev/hda

(remember that it's multiples of 5 seconds instead of just seconds or
minutes)

ANOTHER WARNING
Mmmna tells me there's a possibility that if the disk spins down, then restarts
before it's fully shut down, it could lead to an overload in some of the power
circuitry:
mmmna wrote:

Restarting a hot drive (one that has not been cooling for very long, say 2 seconds) may cause a startup situation to be allowed when the power circuits are still 'hot'. That startup scenario assumes the platters have stopped rotating. Thus, when the command to spin up is given, and the platters are stopped, and the power control circuitry has not cooled enough, then the surge currents are pushed through hot circuits and that is a possible overstress condition that I, as an engineering technician, had to be watchful for, when I was qualifying new new prototypes.

I can't seem to find a way to keep a drive shut down for a defined amount of time using hdparm. If you have any ideas, PM me or post. Smile

Here's the setup on my system:
Code:
hdparm -d1 -A1 -m16 -u1 -a64 -X69 -S180 /dev/hda

I run that on hda and hdg. hdg doesn't support ATA100, so I run it with X68 Smile
It's worth enabling DMA for CDROMs as well.

You may redistribute and modify this as you please. It would be nice if I was given credit, or if someone linked back to www.usalug.org, but I'm not too bothered Smile

Nukes
nukes at usalug dot org

Posted by jtk at 09:31 AM | Permalink

http://www.nongnu.org/dvdrtools/
http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/
http://qdvdauthor.sourceforge.net/
http://dvd-create.sourceforge.net/
http://www.dvdshrink.org/what.html
http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/tkdvd/
http://lwn.net/Articles/98487/
http://crashrecovery.org/oss-dvd.html
http://crashrecovery.org/oss-dvd/HOWTO-ossdvd.html

Posted by jtk at 10:52 AM | Permalink

pdftk

If PDF is electronic paper, then pdftk is an electronic staple-remover, hole-punch, binder, secret-decoder-ring, and X-Ray-glasses. Pdftk is a simple tool for doing everyday things with PDF documents. Keep one in the top drawer of your desktop and use it to:

* Merge PDF Documents
* Split PDF Pages into a New Document
* Decrypt Input as Necessary (Password Required)
* Encrypt Output as Desired
* [new!] Fill PDF Forms with FDF Data and/or Flatten Forms
* [new!] Apply a Background Watermark
* Report on PDF Metrics, including Metadata and Bookmarks
* [new!] Update PDF Metadata
* [new!] Attach Files to PDF Pages or the PDF Document
* [new!] Unpack PDF Attachments
* Burst a PDF Document into Single Pages
* Uncompress and Re-Compress Page Streams
* Repair Corrupted PDF (Where Possible)

Pdftk is also an example of how to use a library of Java classes in a stand-alone C++ program. Specifically, it demonstrates how GCJ and CNI allow C++ code to use iText's (itext-paulo) Java classes.

Posted by jtk at 08:51 AM | Permalink

I was thinking this morning.....

I wish you could set it to load or not load images in emails on a per folder basis.

Posted by jtk at 08:46 AM | Permalink

Volunteers Needed for Tinnitus Drug Study
Millions of people with severe tinnitus currently have little hope for quick relief from the unrelenting ringing or buzzing noises the disorder produces. But scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suspect a drug already approved for seizure disorders and chronic nerve pain also can help silence the noises that plague tinnitus patients. The team is recruiting volunteers for the first large study of the potential treatment. ''All other medications currently used for this condition just work on the negative effects of tinnitus, like sleep disturbance and anxiety. But if this trial is successful, it could lead to a new type of treatment option.''

Unused back muscles switch themselves off

Slumping in front of the television or computer could deactivate muscles that support and protect your spine, triggering many otherwise inexplicable cases of lower back pain.

A European Space Agency study in Berlin, Germany, in which young men spent eight weeks in bed, showed that an absence of load on spinal support muscles can sometimes be just as debilitating as a physical injury.

Posted by jtk at 08:18 AM | Permalink

From Reuters

Got Grapefruit? It May Help You Lose Weight

Fri Aug 27, 4:56 PM ET

By Alison McCook

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Eating half of a grapefruit three times per day before meals appears to help people shed unwanted pounds, according to new study findings reported this week.

Moreover, regular grapefruit-eaters experienced a decrease in insulin, which in excess can increase the risk of weight gain and cardiovascular problems.

These findings suggest that adding grapefruit to your diet may be a good idea, a study author told Reuters Health.

"There's something inert about fresh grapefruit that does help you with weight loss," said Dr. Ken Fujioka of the Scripps Clinic in San Diego, California. "All in all, I would recommend it."

In an interview, Fujioka explained that people have been espousing the "grapefruit diet" ever since the 1930s, and the concept has resurfaced from time to time over the years.

To investigate grapefruit's effect on weight loss, Fujioka and his colleagues asked 100 obese people who were not trying to lose weight to eat grapefruit in various forms, and recorded how their weight changed over 12 weeks.

Three times per day before each meal, each group of patients either ate one-half of a grapefruit, or drank a glass of grapefruit juice, or took a pill containing grapefruit extracts, or drank apple juice. Participants were told not to vary their eating habits from before the study.

By the end of the study period, people who ate fresh grapefruit had lost 3-1/2 pounds "without doing anything," Fujioka said. Moreover, these patients also experienced a decrease in insulin, a "surprising" finding, the researcher said.

He noted that grapefruit juice and pills of grapefruit extract were less helpful in shedding pounds. However, both fresh grapefruit and the juice appeared to encourage weight loss in people with metabolic syndrome -- which includes several disorders such as abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar and unhealthy cholesterol levels that set the stage for type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Fujioka explained that previous research has shown that grapefruit does not ramp up metabolism, suggesting that the fruit may encourage weight loss by lowering insulin levels.

He added that fans of the low-carbohydrate diet might want to consider making an exception for grapefruit. "It doesn't act like a 'bad carbohydrate,' so to speak," Fujioka said.

He and his colleagues presented their findings during the 228th national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia.

Posted by jtk at 08:12 AM | Permalink

Blueberry Compound Fights Cholesterol, Study Finds

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A compound used by blueberries and grapes to fight off fungal infections could help lower cholesterol, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

The compound, called pterostilbene, also helps regulate blood sugar and might help fight type-2 diabetes, the researchers told a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia.

Posted by jtk at 03:12 PM | Permalink

15 ills fuel rocketing health bill

COSTLY CONDITIONS

The 15 most expensive medical conditions, in descending order, according to a new Emory University study:

• Heart disease
• Trauma
• Cancer
• Pulmonary conditions
• Mental disorders
• Hypertension
• Diabetes
• Arthritis
• Back problems
• Cerebrovascular disease such as stroke
• Pneumonia
• Skin disorders
• Endocrine disorders
• Infectious disease
• Kidney disease

Posted by jtk at 03:10 PM | Permalink

The New York Times has a great article from DANIEL AKST. The gist of it is that neither party is being honest about energy policy. It is going to take sacrifice and real work to wean ourselves from non-renewable energy. It is nice to hear someone come out and challenge the "generally accepted views".

August 22, 2004

ON THE CONTRARY

Energy Answers, Left Unspoken

F you're worried about the nation's energy future, you can take heart in the positions of both major parties' presidential candidates. A tweak here, an incentive there, they contend, and everything will be fine.

The candidates espouse such views because they know that the electorate wants cheap gas, clean air, unspoiled wilderness and world peace - all at the same time. In other words, we want to drive our Ford Explorers to No Nukes concerts without coming across any ugly refineries that spoil the scenery.

But imagine if, at the first debate, someone slipped truth serum into the water glasses in front of each candidate. President Bush would have to acknowledge that his own policies - basically, more of the same - are hopeless. And Senator John Kerry would have to say that his prescriptions - feel-good nostrums, mostly - would accomplish little more.

"My fellow Americans, the truth is that we've been in the grip of an energy crisis for 30 years," either of these candidates would say. (Both, after all, drank the serum.) "Again and again, we've seen that we depend for our lifeblood on a volatile part of the world whose tyrannical rulers are supported by our hard-earned dollars. By now we also know that our love of fossil fuels is altering the earth's climate, with consequences far beyond the deaths caused each year by air pollution and auto accidents."

Emboldened by another sip, the candidate continues: "The truth, my fellow Americans, is that a few windmill experiments and biomass demonstrations won't cut it. O.K.? Drilling a thousand new wells, covering the landscape with new refineries, seeking oil in more far-flung locales: none of this will solve our problem, which is that all this oil is killing us. Let's face it, we're addicts. And, I say, no more enabling from the White House."

By now you can hear a pin drop in the auditorium. Even the television commentators are too stunned to speak.

"What I have to say will displease conservatives and liberals alike, but I've got to give it to you straight," the candidate continues. "First, we'll need to allocate the true costs of all this oil guzzling to the guzzlers. To do this, we'll impose hefty new taxes on energy; that's the only way to get our addiction under control. We'll use the money for a crash program of energy research and transition planning to get us off of fossil fuels, period. That's right, cold turkey. Trust me, it's the only way to lick something like this."

An uneasy murmur arises from the audience, but the candidate just takes another sip.

"We'll also need to be like the French," he says, "and start a national nuclear power program!" At this point, stunned by his own words, the candidate looks suspiciously into his glass, then pours himself a refill. "France gets three-quarters of its electricity from nukes, thanks to standardized construction, strong centralized oversight and - are you ready for this? - American technology. It works great."

By now there is an ominous hubbub in the room.

"Oh, grow up!" the candidate says. "Global energy demand is insatiable. It's tied to the growth that is hauling China and India out of poverty. Fossil fuels kill more people in about five minutes from coal-mining accidents, air pollution, wars and whatnot than have ever died from nuclear power. Nobody in their right mind would build a plant like Chernobyl today, so don't worry about that. We'll even recycle spent fuel.

"There'll be other changes, of course. Zoning laws, building codes, automobile registration fees - we'll change all of it to encourage patterns of development and behavior that save energy."

THE coup de grâce comes just as the audience is about to rush the stage.

"And you know what? You'll love it - every last bit of it. Because our air will be cleaner, and our land won't be covered with sprawl. Some of your very own loved ones will be alive because we'll drive less, sparing some of the 40,000 Americans killed annually in auto accidents. You'll even lose weight, because you'll walk more. And just think what fun it will be to thumb our noses at OPEC."

"Time's up," the moderator says, turning to the other candidate - who only shrugs.

"Vote for him," the second candidate says. "The truth is, he'd make a better president."

Posted by jtk at 11:29 PM | Permalink

Amy is in the UK and comments on the kneejerk Eurofantile need to hate america. She references an article in The Guardian that sums it all up.

Posted by jtk at 08:58 AM | Permalink

An older post I ran across. It is interesting to see how last years blackout effected Amy's kit, and makes me think about reviewing my own. There is also an update here

And Now the Floods ...
So this really intense rain started about an hour ago. And now - I'm not making this up -- stuff is bubbling up in our kitchen sink.

posted by Amy 8/17/2003 07:04:28 PM
. . .
Comment (0)

Rethinking the Emergency Kit
One way to view the Thursday blackout is that it was a great trial run for whatever’s next. So here’s my list of what I’m putting in the emergency kit before it goes back in the closet:

Dollar bills. I think I had about $50 in ones. This was a huge, huge relief when the power was out. The merchants who were open were only taking cash and the ATMs were down.

I think it’s impossible to have too many batteries. Especially the D size.

Small water bottles. I happened to have one in my purse (half-full) when the subway stopped. Although our water was working at the apartment, it was key to have a small bottle rather than the jugs, which would be too heavy to carry while outside.

Little radio with batteries.

I really want a battery-powered TV. My husband had these at work and he said they worked great. They want more. … Plus, since cable was out until Friday night, I still couldn’t see TV once the lights were on. (I probably could have unhooked the cable but it was far too much for me to figure out at the time.)

Better food. Luckily my kitchen happened to be well stocked and food was being sold in the neighborhood. However, I did try a bite of the six-month old energy bar in my emergency kit. Very happy BBQ ribs were for sale a few blocks away.

Penlight for my key chain. I can’t tell you how badly I wanted one of these at 5 p.m. on Thursday when our subway car momentarily was plunged into total blackness. Passengers were actually planning on using the tiny lights from our cell phones to lead us all out the tunnels if help never arrived. One guy had a penlight on his backpack and he had lots of friends very quickly.

Posted by jtk at 08:49 AM | Permalink

Subaltern:

sub al tern Audio pronunciation of "subaltern" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sb-ôltrn, sbl-tûrn)
adj.

1. Lower in position or rank; secondary.
2. Chiefly British. Holding a military rank just below that of captain.
3. Logic. In the relation of a particular proposition to a universal with the same subject, predicate, and quality.

Posted by jtk at 08:43 AM | Permalink

I have always been a fan of Dick Van Dyke. The story of his involvment in computer animation just enahances that. So many seasoned citizens are afraid of technology. It is great to see the wonderful results when someone with Mr. Van Dyke's experience embraces a new medium.

Posted by jtk at 08:41 AM | Permalink

The AP reports that an inhaler that delivers alcohol is coming on the market. I can't think of any possible reason for this. Nothing good will come of it.

Posted by jtk at 02:15 PM | Permalink

1. Sow early, in a heated propagator, but don't plant out too early (wait til the frost risk is completely over)

2. Add lots of comfrey water as they grow

3. Remove any shoots that appear between the main stem and leaves emerging from it (I'll add a pic eventually to show you what I mean). Why? These cause the plants to divide their fruiting energy between two stems, weakening the plant and stopping it from producing fruit.

4. As the fruit appears and the lower leaves start to crinkle, cut them away (for the same reasons as for no 3), until you're eventually left with a stem bare of leaves.

5. Water as often as possible, particularly if they are being grown in a growbag or container.

6. Tie the growing stem into a sturdy stick to stop it toppling over, adding new ties as it grows.

7. Pick the ripe tomatoes regularly

8. Take the time to rub the leaves between your fingers and suck in the delicious tomato plant smell. It's one of an allotmenteer's great pleasures (also applies to blackcurrant bushes).

Posted by jtk at 02:18 PM | Permalink

NPR is running a series named "The Middle East and the West". Itis an examination of western involvement in the Middle East. I am curious to listen in. This was recomended by a friend.

Posted by jtk at 02:10 PM | Permalink

A Gardener's Notebook has a post about free coffee grounds from Starbucks. I have availed myself of these many times. I need to get another load in the compost bin to get back in balance.

Posted by jtk at 10:09 AM | Permalink

things that piss me off has a hilarious post. I think that finding new varieties of fruits and veg is a good thing, but just because something is heirloom doesn't make it good. It also doesn't make it worth ten times the cost.

Posted by jtk at 10:06 AM | Permalink

The Ignite/UX FAQ is available at http://www.software.hp.com/products/IUX/faq.html This is handy for answering all those Ignite related questions.

Posted by jtk at 08:44 AM | Permalink

The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger.
Mathew 23:2-4

Posted by jtk at 07:17 AM | Permalink

Home Truth

Posted by jtk at 11:55 AM | Permalink

Unix like tools for windows at http://www.sysinternals.com/

Posted by jtk at 10:59 AM | Permalink

From the Guardian

Patients' lives are being put at risk because letters from hospital doctors are being sent to secretaries in India to be typed and returned to GPs with mistakes, it was claimed today.

In one example, the drug Lansoprazole, used to treat stomach ulcers, was transcribed as the popular holiday resort Lanzarote, in another case, a "below knee amputation" became "baloney amputation".

This is bad in so many ways.....

Posted by jtk at 10:28 AM | Permalink

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

--Rudyard Kipling

Posted by jtk at 11:14 PM | Permalink

I know successful weight loss is hard, but you have to try. You also (IMHO) have to make small permanent changes. "The Weight" By Michael Leahy is a testament to the antipathy that most people view DIEts. The first step to losing weight is accepting that you have to change how you eat.

An excerpt:

He tells himself that he needs to get into better shape, lay off the munchies and drop some pounds. "But it's a hard thing, man," he tells people. Hard when the TV is always telling you about some great new fried chicken deal down the street or a cheeseburger to rival the Double Whopper -- hard when you've gone through your whole life tasting what Deke calls the "tasty taste" and not knowing or wanting any other taste but the tasty taste. It's a hush-yer-mouth world, he thinks. People just want the food, and don't want to be nagged about it. "It's powerful, it's like a narcotic, man," he says. "It's gotta be a tasty narcotic to get a man like this. Look at this."

It angers me that there is an implicit assumption that things that are good for you can't be "tasty"

Sunday, July 18, 2004; Page W14

Like millions of Americans, Deke Baskin's love affair with food has come at a severe cost. At nearly 300 pounds, he is diabetic, needs an oxygen mask and a motorized scooter. His daughter weighs even more. What will it take for them -- for us -- to break free of our overeating obsession?

This is the cost of it, David Baskin figures. He sits, not moving, in a broken-down motorized shopping cart in a Wal-Mart in Oxford, Miss., waiting for store employees to bring him one that works. He sits with his green oxygen tank alongside him in the cart and translucent tubes running into his nose. He is ambulatory, but not fit to walk more than a few steps. Can't walk 50 feet without panting so hard that he thinks he'll keel over. It scares him. At 52, he is an ill man who views his plight as a consequence in no small part of all his good eating over the years.

"Hush yer mouth," he says to a companion.

It is what the man known as Deke sometimes says in happier moments, particularly at a dinner table when somebody has just complimented him on a tasty meal he's fixed, tasty in no small part because the food is laden with fat -- Boston butt roasts and slabs of pork ribs and green beans cooked in ham fat. Damn, those beans are good, man, he reminds guests in his fast-talking way, just to make sure they don't miss out. Hush yer mouth means, among other things, that no praise is necessary; that the food is so superb that compliments are gratuitous; that it should just be eaten.

He once owned and managed a renowned barbecue joint in Oxford. But his ill health means he can't work full time any longer, and he closed the restaurant earlier this year so he could try to get well. He doesn't pity himself. Instead he regales guests with stories about his best days: "I had the best barbecue place around, and I still got the best sauces and dry seasoning. I'm barbecue in Oxford and the whole South. The others think they can do Deke, but only Deke can do Deke. Haaaaaaaa."

With the speed of his patter and that smart-alecky, rollicking laugh, he is a force of nature, blessed with a charisma that made him a man around town when he wrote a book about his recipes -- Deke's BBQ: Hush Yer Mouth -- and had a plate of ribs for whoever needed one. Now he limits himself to catering barbecue parties, selling his sauces and watching his favorite soap opera, "The Young and the Restless," each morning. He tells himself that he needs to get into better shape, lay off the munchies and drop some pounds. "But it's a hard thing, man," he tells people. Hard when the TV is always telling you about some great new fried chicken deal down the street or a cheeseburger to rival the Double Whopper -- hard when you've gone through your whole life tasting what Deke calls the "tasty taste" and not knowing or wanting any other taste but the tasty taste. It's a hush-yer-mouth world, he thinks. People just want the food, and don't want to be nagged about it. "It's powerful, it's like a narcotic, man," he says. "It's gotta be a tasty narcotic to get a man like this. Look at this."

This means all of this -- that oxygen tank, those tubes, but especially his girth. At 5 feet 9 and 296 pounds, Deke Baskin is "morbidly obese," a term reserved by health agencies for the most overweight adults, as defined by a subject's "body mass index" -- a term meant to indicate body fat, and a figure derived by using a formula that essentially divides weight by height. Deke Baskin's BMI is 43.7, on a scale where 25 to 29.9 is simply overweight for adults, 30 is obese and 40 morbidly obese. In what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention characterizes as an epidemic, obesity has risen in all areas of the country over the past decade, but nowhere else is the problem as great as it is in Mississippi, where slightly more than one in four people are obese, according to CDC statistics.

Deke has had diabetes for 10 years, largely a consequence of his weight. He suffers from lupus and gout. He has a heart problem that landed him in the hospital a few months ago, when, he recalls, his doctors suggested to him that he couldn't expect to live many years longer unless he shed weight.

He has lost a few pounds since. Still he grants himself what he calls an occasional "cheat day" to indulge. "Maybe once a week or every 10 days; I'd go crazy if I didn't get some of my food," he admits. Just the same, he is trying to eat wisely, including staying away from fried foods, and earlier today sought to set an example for his overweight daughter, Marie Pomerlee, at a local restaurant. He eschewed his customary order of several slices of high-caloric, high-fat fried catfish in favor of a single broiled piece of catfish.

But, having eaten properly so far all day, he now feels a familiar pang. Comfortable at last in a functioning motorized cart, Deke cruises down Wal-Mart's aisles, staring up at food for the taking, limitless food. "Look at all this," he says, audibly humming, pointing at packages, marveling at their size.

Ahead of him, his wife, Stella, is picking up items for a big weekend dinner, with an emphasis on healthy items -- lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, bell peppers, cabbage and red cabbage. In the meat department, Deke passes a container with several packages labeled "Pork Shoulder Boston Butt Roast." He points and grins. "That's what we're having tomorrow. Delicious."

The butt roast has 250 calories per serving, with 180 calories from fat, which amounts to 20 grams. It has been one of Deke's staples for three decades of adulthood, after a poor childhood in which he commonly devoured cheap neck bones high in fat and biscuits soaked in a gravy fattier still -- the residue of bacon and ham fat. He cruises down the sugar aisle, where he thinks of the baked beans he wants to serve with the weekend barbecue feast. His cart comes to a sudden halt, and he reaches up to grab a two-pound bag of Domino dark brown sugar. "You cannot possibly put too much brown sugar in baked beans," he says.

The cart resumes moving. "I've been real good today," he says. He passes the cookie and cracker section, and the candy section, where, out of his sight, Marie has picked up a few Hershey bars.

"I've been real good today," he repeats, selling himself on the idea.

He slowly cruises alongside a rack of Frito-Lay snacks, which has been set off from the long shelves and aisles to call greater attention to it. The cart slows to a stop. Stella is walking ahead of him, inspecting shelves. Deke looks up at a bag of Cheetos Crunchy, a cheese-flavored snack of bite-size munchies. It is a regular-size bag, which is to say a big bag, and relatively cheap, as most snack food is, making it affordable to virtually any consumer -- $2.49 for a bag that is larger than half a pound and yields 10 servings. One serving alone -- which consists of 21 pieces -- has 10 grams of fat in it, and 90 fat calories. Devour half a bag at a sitting, which is not unusual for Deke, and you have consumed 50 grams of fat and 450 fat calories. "Dangerously cheesy," the label boasts.

Deke looks around, slightly lifting himself from the cart. His right hand shoots out, grabs.

"Had to have that," he says softly.

EVEN IF YOU HAD JUST AWAKENED from a 40-year sleep in America and never saw a page of a dietitian's study, never heard a single statistic, you would sense the truth the moment you looked outside and saw a passing throng. You wouldn't need to go to Mississippi for that. Just a glance at Americans anywhere would tell you that something has gone awry, that too many bodies put on substantial weight in those intervening years. There is more of a waddle to our walks. There are more people profusely sweating and breathing hard, while carrying double-fisted sugary drinks from convenience marts. Big Gulpers, indeed.

This crisis sneaked up on us. Three decades of hoopla about the fitness craze in America obscured the reality that health clubs are generally frequented by an elite minority. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight, with about 30 percent obese, according to the CDC. Although the weight problem is greatest in the South, no region or group of people is exempt. While Mississippi's obesity rate is 26 percent, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, all three at around 20 percent, are plagued by the problem, too. And national health officials believe that many state figures are underreported, suggesting that obesity rates everywhere are higher.

We are a conflicted people in a contradictory land. We are enthralled with the Atkins and South Beach diets, only to be enchanted like children when television offers the latest wizardry, such as a Taco Bell ad in which a taco-munching man is catapulted off his lawn mower and the voice-over promises viewers: "You'll be floored by flavor." We are alternately shamed into sweating and seduced into slurping and munching.

During hours outside prime time, when TV audiences are small, we receive advertising tips from aging celebrities, such as Christie Brinkley and Chuck Norris, on how best to use machines to do crunches and tighten backsides. Encouragement for those with fantasies of a luminous body and life is never in short supply. When Deke Baskin sits down to watch "The Young and the Restless," the weight-loss ads make him fleetingly ponder the possibilities, but then the chain restaurants' images of their latest dishes evoke his lust.

"There is this chain place called Church's Chicken down here that just makes me gotta have their fried chicken," Deke says. "The world's hard, you know, man? Stressful. And then somebody says, 'This food is gonna make you feel good, and it tastes so good, and everybody's tryin' it. Why aren't you tryin' it? Gotta try it.' And you can try it, you know? You can't do that with some things. It costs a lot, too much, to get some things, you know, like a new house, new car, vacations. But you can get food. You can get all the Church's fried chicken you want."

However, he adds, "not many people are gonna work it off."

In fact, national data makes clear that fewer young children are playing sports or even frolicking outside, and fewer adults are strolling to the corner market or anywhere else.

Meanwhile, the demands of jobs and fewer free hours are enticing the weary to skip the preparation of meals in favor of picking up fast-food or dining out at places where big servings are the norm. It is a ritual now to be greeted this way: "What may I get you for starters?" The emphasis on and expansion of appetizers -- and desserts -- mean that the multi-course experience is no longer regarded as a feast worthy of a bacchanal; it's just an ordinary night out. Go to virtually any chain eatery, and it's hard not to marvel at the huge food portions and jumbo soft drinks.

Even so, Americans' collective affluence means that we eat for less than we once did, actually. You don't become an obese nation unless food is a relative bargain. Meals consume about 10 percent of the average American family's income, about half of what food cost (adjusted for inflation) in the 1950s, according to public and private researchers. At the Wal-Mart where Deke Baskin shops, customers regularly come across a sign reading, "100 Piece Fried Chicken -- 25 Breasts, 25 thighs, 25 legs, 25 wings -- $54.83."

Limitless food and sedentary lives coupled to produce obesity's explosion. From 1960 to 2000, according to the National Institutes of Health, the percentage of obese American adults under age 75 more than doubled, jumping about 8 percent in the 1990s alone. About 15 percent of children from 6-year-olds through teens are overweight, up from 5 percent two decades ago, while the risk that such children will become overweight adults is a dispiriting 80 percent.

In March, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that poor diet and inactivity will likely surpass tobacco as the leading cause of preventable death by mid-decade. Diabetes has risen about 50 percent in 20 years to afflict 4.2 percent of the population, according to the CDC, and researchers see ties between excess fat and high blood sugar levels. Surges in weight have led to heightened risk for stroke, heart disease, hypertension, several cancers, infertility and osteoarthritis.

Not surprisingly, the poor are most vulnerable, particularly impoverished African Americans, according to studies conducted by the Center on Hunger and Poverty. But there are limits to how closely class or race can be associated with obesity. Poverty and plenty each invite risks. William Dietz, the CDC's leading authority on the subject, says that, while a report from the National Center for Health Statistics shows that African American women have the highest rate of obesity at about 50 percent, another highly susceptible group is white men. A larger percentage of white males than African American males are classified as "overweight," but a lesser percentage of white men are categorized as "obese."

Unquestionably, experts agree, the role of food in a regional or ethnic culture plays a major role in obesity's reach.

Deke Baskin knows the subject like the barbecue master knows his sauces. And his candor echoes the assessments of academicians studying diet and American culture. "Down here, in the South, we grew up around cheap and fat food and, if you were lucky, sometimes barbecue," he says. "Didn't matter if you were black or white. We grew up around a lot of that stuff if we had money, and we grew up around a lot of that stuff if we didn't. And it went places with you -- to friend's homes, to churches. You know, it was soul food, besides everything else. And it didn't matter if we were gonna get our hands on some money someday. We weren't gonna give up the food -- not when it tastes that good and there was that much of it."

The consequence of that ravenous appetite ripples across Mississippi, where the diabetes rate is more than double the national average, at 9 percent, according to a state study. "If you want to know about obesity, you got to eat the food in Mississippi," Deke says. "It's powerful stuff. And it's gonna be no easier to get the young off it than the old, because good is good. It's hush-yer-mouth stuff. Throw in our fast-food places, and you got a problem."

DEKE WORRIES ABOUT HIS 35-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER, Marie Pomerlee, who stands 5 feet 5 but weighs more than 300 pounds. She teaches pre-kindergarten at Bramlett Elementary School in Oxford. On a warm May afternoon, after her students have gone home for the day, she slowly escorts a visitor about 150 feet down a hallway to her classroom, softly panting halfway there, out of breath by the time she reaches her desk. She fans herself with index cards.

Her parents split up when she was a little girl. She didn't grow up with Deke, but Marie is, in every way, her father's daughter. She has his entertainer's charm. Has the same robust laugh that makes a listener feel he's in on an intimate joke. Has the same rat-a-tat-tat speech pattern, the words coming so fast a listener has to lean forward to catch them. She does not hang her head or dodge truths; she realizes she has a problem. "I just feel stuck by my urge for it," she says. "It's the most powerful thing there is, food is. I want to lose weight, and I start, but something always comes along, and then I want these foods -- hamburgers, fried catfish. The tasty taste. So I go along with it. I get depressed about it sometimes, I pray about it sometimes, but there's no way to get away from it here, so I go back to eating and work things out for myself and move on. I know how to do it. I know how to live, how to get things for myself so I look presentable. Like this."

She fingers her skirt. It is long and gray and on the elegant side, with a little mesh. "Big, huh?" she casually says. She is a size "24-plus," as she puts it. Her blouse is black and hangs loosely, in a kind of muumuu. She has plans to wear a resplendent pink blouse and pants tomorrow, when she'll lunch with her father and other family members at a favorite Oxford restaurant. "The world sells to the overweight more all the time," she says, "because there're more and more people in the same situation. Maybe it'd be different if I couldn't find clothes, but I can."

Another thing Marie can find easily enough is snacks. She has a little blue Wal-Mart sack in her bedroom closet that she keeps stocked with candy. Hershey almond bars. Peanut M&M's. Mr. Goodbars. Reese's cups. Snickers bars. She developed a taste for sweets early, because sweets were cheap, she says. She weighed 170 pounds before she got out of high school.

When she looks out the back of her house, she can see the Kroger store, no more than a minute away, and she knows the store is loaded with goodies. On evenings when her husband, Gerry, heads there to shop and asks if he can bring her home a treat, she typically answers, "Yeah, get me two of those," those meaning candy bars, whatever he sees; he knows what she likes and how to fill that small sack.

Gerry dotes on her. He is a mechanic and part-time minister who is lean, fit and has loved his wife through all her expansions, during which she has put on about 100 pounds, she imagines. "He doesn't pressure me about anything, and he always tries to make me happy," Marie explains, shrugging. "Gets me presents. He got me a treadmill. No pressure with it. Just got it if I wanted to use it."

She hasn't used the treadmill much. She lost 30 pounds once in high school, around the same time doctors diagnosed her high blood pressure. And, a couple of years ago, she lost a little by walking in a local park for three months. But her knees hurt so much that she became discouraged, and the weight came back with a vengeance after she stopped.

The demands of her four children -- 2-year-old triplets and a 9-year-old son, Kenny -- generally leave her exhausted and sometimes stressed by the end of a workday that begins at about 7 a.m., when she arrives at school to prepare for her class. "Sometimes I think, 'I should go . . . and buy something really healthy for my babies, and fix it,' " she says. "But you would need to park, and somehow get all the kids in the store, and keep them together and keep them from screaming, and you're tired and breathing hard and getting more tired. I know I shouldn't say it, but it's easier sometimes to just give them a broken-off bit of Butterfingers. Or some cakes, chips, a lollypop, a cheap fruit juice."

Sometimes she'll look out her back window, past the Kroger store, and realize that McDonald's, Burger King and Taco Bell are right there on the horizon, only two minutes away. "And McDonald's is a lot easier than anything," she says. "You get it, you're done. And it's tasty; it's got that tasty taste. You have stress in life, and food is the one thing they can't take from you."

She has spasms of guilt about her diet. One night, she and Gerry were sitting in one of her favorite restaurants in town, the Huddle House, and she was trying to be so good, vowing to start anew on a diet. She told Gerry that she was going to order only a salad, maybe with some chicken in it. She heard her own words as they left her mouth, heard her tone, which sounded grudging and mournful.

I need your encouragement, she said to her husband.

Gerry nodded.

She already felt herself weakening, looking over the menu again, scanning its fried section.

What do you want, baby? Gerry asked her.

I think I should have the salad.

What do you really want, baby?

And she thought to herself, He knows what I want.

What do you want, baby?

I want the country-fried chicken. And I want the fried okra, mashed potatoes with brown gravy, and field peas.

Then that's what we're going to get you, baby.

And, if she wanted, they'd go somewhere afterward to get a dessert, maybe a tasty cobbler -- blueberry, apple or peach -- whatever she wanted, with vanilla ice cream on top.

She vacillates between gratitude for Gerry's deference and irritation that he won't protect her from her urges. But he knows the truth. He realizes that when she wants something, she's going to get it somehow. She figures he's just trying to make her life easier.

Recently, Deke has told her what a doctor essentially told him: that he had to lose a lot of weight or his heart was going to fail him again; that either the pounds had to go or he would die sooner rather than later. She tells Gerry that she's afraid the fat is going to cover her own heart someday and kill her.

Gerry says he'll do whatever she wants him to do. And she knows that -- which is the problem.

When one of the school's bus drivers tells her about a great new big fried chicken sandwich at Burger King that's to die for, she responds excitedly that she'll be down there that week to try it. "When he said tasty, that was good to hear," she says. "And I liked hearing it was big. That means it will fill me up."

Marie isn't Deke's only concern. He also worries about the pull of all that fast food and candy on his grandchildren as well. Recently, Kenny celebrated his ninth birthday at Deke's house, on an evening when Deke and Stella asked their grandson what kind of dinner he wanted and who should make it. Deke was in fine form, regaling his grandson with reminders of his barbecue prowess, finally posing a loaded question: "Kenny, who should cook? Should Grandma do it, or are you going to let Papa fix you a fantastic dinner? What do you want?"

"Burger King," the child answered.

The moment served as confirmation for Deke that there already have been too many Burger King nights in Kenny's life, and in Marie's. It was one more reason, he thought, to change his own behavior, to show her a way to get off the path.

One Friday, Deke and Marie were eating lunch at a restaurant. He nibbled at his broiled catfish, avoiding anything fried, trying to set the right example, talking about his weight-loss goals. "See what I got here," he said to Marie. "Doing it right today."

Oblivious to the message, Marie was eating fried catfish and hush puppies.

"You gotta step up to the plate and be a man, Gerry," Deke told his son-in-law later. "You gotta get her off that stuff. It's no good for her. You gotta stop it."

"C'mon, man, you know your daughter," Gerry said. "You two are just like each other. She wants something, and that's the way it is."

Deke fell momentarily silent. He knows Gerry is right. "It gets hard, and then it gets too hard for some people," Deke says. "It's all a hard thing."

HARD BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE, Hollis Green keeps telling himself. Just two years ago, at more than 400 pounds and in the shadow of 40, Green considered the real possibility that he might be morbidly obese for the rest of his life and, therefore, he told himself, undesirable to the opposite sex, a bachelor for his remaining days.

He dealt with his size the best he could, by preserving friendships, helping out a few people and finding the most flattering clothes he could -- plenty of baggy pants and loose-fitting polo shirts. He was generally too big to sit in a booth in a restaurant without feeling painfully pinched. It was easier not to go anywhere, if possible. When he arrived home from his job as a sales manager for a company that franchises home inspection systems, his weight -- and its toll on his heart, lungs and the rest of his body -- left him exhausted. There were nights when he could not bring himself to rise from the couch. It was all he could do to recline there, watching TV, sating himself with, say, a bag of Doritos or a large pizza.

Hollis grew up in Booneville, Miss., in the state's northeast corner, where his paternal grandparents raised hogs and cattle, among other things. His father owned a plumbing business, and his mother worked in a shirt factory. Nobody in the family became rich, but meat and other food were plentiful. Neither Hollis nor his younger sister, Myra, went off to school before their petite mother, Jelena, fed them sausage, eggs, biscuits and gravy. "Fat and good ol' lard was a way of life," Hollis remembers. "You'd go to the store and buy tubs of lard -- one- or two-gallon size . . . And I grew up with my mother's foods -- lots of fats, lots of sugar -- like a lot of people in this state. She did the best with what she knew, and she cooked what had been taught to her. I knew I was putting it on. I felt obese by the time I was a fourth grader or so, and then you never stop feeling that way. Always on guard."

His father died when he was 12, and thereafter the central event of his life was a Sunday afternoon dinner each week at the home of his paternal grandfather. A widower who, as Hollis recalls, "kind of lived to please us with food," his grandfather involved the women of the family in the preparation of feasts that became standard fare in Hollis's childhood -- platters of fried chicken, fried pork chops, pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, plus green beans and lima beans cooked in bacon fat, oil and sugar. A typical summer weekday at his grandfather's would likely include pork chops, steak, bologna sandwiches with mayonnaise, and more mashed potatoes and gravy made with the fat juices from sausages cooked at breakfast. "We ate until we were miserable," he says. "That's what you called it here: eating till you were miserable. Ate until you hurt. You thought that was a good thing. It was pleasure, satisfaction, a full stomach."

He weighed 275 in high school, climbing toward 300. Before graduating from the University of Mississippi in Oxford, he had worked at a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise for four years, the last two as a manager -- taking almost all his meals there, six days a week, and gaining more than 50 pounds. "Maybe I kind of gave up for a while," he says. "You focus on trying to spare yourself embarrassment. It becomes the most important task in your life."

But, as hard as he tried, some indignities couldn't be avoided. "The most humiliating experience always has been going on a plane and struggling to get in a seat belt," he says. "After a while, I knew I couldn't do it anymore. One day a flight attendant brought me what they call an extender -- a seat extender -- and after that, anytime I got on a flight, the first thing I did was get that extender. I'd get it and think, 'One less possibly humiliating thing to worry about.' You're so grateful. But the possibility of the next embarrassment is never far from your mind."

Pasty-looking, feeling a troubling numbness in his left arm, suffering at once from sleep apnea, high blood pressure and soaring blood sugar levels that had left him diabetic, he went to the doctor in the fall of 2002. "I told him that he couldn't continue to eat and drink as he did and expect to stay alive, that the strain on his heart couldn't handle it," recalls Tom Glasgow, Hollis's physician. "If he was going to live, he was going to have to change. It really was a life-or-death issue for him."

Talk of death got Hollis's attention like nothing else ever had. His sister Myra, with whom he had bought a house, encouraged him to attend a gym run by the local Baptist Memorial Hospital and to accept a radical change in his diet, to turn over the preparation of all meals to her, then strictly adhere to whatever she fixed for the next six months. For 90 days, Hollis's breakfasts consisted of nothing but oatmeal with a dab of sweetener. Fried foods were history. He had small low-cal sandwiches for lunch. For dinner, Myra served baked chicken, baked pork chops, baked salmon or baked tilapia. "I did everything she told me I had to do, and she never let up," he says. "I got tired of the word 'baked' sometimes. But I ate it. I could still hear my doctor's words."

At the gym, he started by walking on a treadmill for 15 minutes. Within months, he had graduated to long walks on the treadmill and then joined his sister in hour-long "spin" classes on a stationary bicycle. Four days a week, he awoke at 4:30 a.m. for a combination of spin and step-aerobic classes, part of a 10-workouts-a-week schedule that has included weight sessions with a personal trainer. "Hollis realized that there were no shortcuts," says Melinda Valliant, who oversees his conditioning at Baptist Memorial. "You have some people who think they'll do it with one kind of change -- like dietary. They hear things on TV, and they think they see shortcuts. Everything is about shortcuts and convenience, right? But you need lifestyle changes, you need dietary changes, you need a devotion to exercise. Nothing radical, just healthy and sensible. It's a message that doesn't go out much, but Hollis got it."

What startled Hollis was just how quickly the weight came off. By early last year, aboard a plane with Myra, headed for a vacation in New York, he dared to try what had been the unthinkable only a few months earlier. "I decided to do without the seat extender and just try to buckle the seat belt," he remembers. "It was snug, but it buckled. Pretty easily. It was the happiest moment I'd had in a long time. I just looked at my sister and said, 'Just us two skinny people flying to New York.' "

He has lost 116 pounds since getting the ultimatum from his doctor a year and a half ago. Still, he is unsatisfied. "If you look at my [body mass index], I'm still obese," he says. That frustration sometimes raises red flags for those who care about him. "I don't want him to get discouraged," Valliant says. "Because if you get discouraged, that's when you're most vulnerable to the temptations out there. And there're a lot of temptations."

Hollis couldn't agree more. He mutes his television during commercials so he can't hear the tempting voices. "I don't need hearing about Boston Market or Mrs. Smith's pies, you know?" he says. "I'd love to go down the street and get a Big Mac, but I know I can't, and I don't need some voice getting into my head. The place is heaven, but it's hell, and those salads of theirs wouldn't do a thing for me but get me thinkin' about what else I could have there."

TO LOOK AT DERRICK DENNIS is to wonder if he might be a future Hollis Green. Derrick has a mass body index of more than 50, which, as one pained doctor put it, "is off-the-charts bad." Encouraged by doctors to lose 10 pounds earlier this year, Derrick gained 10 instead. His cholesterol shot up. His blood sugar rose, making him a superb candidate to acquire Type 2 diabetes. Meanwhile, his diet has not changed. He likes, among other things, fried catfish, pepperoni pizza, tater tots with cheese, mashed potatoes with cheese, dessert before entrees, french fries before meat, root beer before milk, any kind of ice cream, large cheeseburgers, and fried "popcorn chicken" from Sonic fast-food restaurant. He often complains of feeling tired. He stands about 4 feet 4 and weighs roughly 193 pounds. He is 8 years old.

He draws pictures of his friends in his writing journal, where he sometimes portrays himself as having a larger head than his playmates do, this perception of his bigness already beginning to solidify. On many days, he is fatigued even before noon.

Generally when his teacher asks, during class discussion about current events, whether anyone wishes to "share" -- this an invitation for any student to tell the class about something he finds interesting -- Derrick resists; for part of sharing involves having to stand, a task that Derrick can manage only with extra time and strain. During recess soccer games, he generally stands immobile in the center of the field while children whirl around him.

Earlier this year, seated in a classroom desk designed for a child who weighs at least 100 pounds less and with legs, tummy and chest half of Derrick's size, his body looked as if it were snared in a vice. He tried to find relief by hooking his feet behind the back legs of the desk. He might have sat that way the entire school year had not his teacher, Maggie Mistilis, discerned his discomfort and had his desk raised, giving his legs and stomach more room.

One Saturday afternoon in spring, he sits in his family's two-bedroom trailer on the edge of Oxford, watching cartoons while his mother is shelling and frying shrimp. After the cartoons end, he'll turn to his video games, he says, and maybe play a little Rally-X. He seldom plays outside. He feels trapped inside sometimes, not an unusual feeling for an increasing number of American kids. The Dennises' neighborhood is rough, says Derrick's mother, Sandra. There are a few drug dealers believed to inhabit the streets, and neighbors have pit bulls and Rottweilers roaming freely. Derrick often stays indoors because Sandra can't be sure it is safe out there.

By the start of summer, Sandra wants to begin taking him on walks, to shed some of his weight and maybe take off a few pounds of her own, adding that size runs in the family. "We kind of like eating the same things," she says one day in a restaurant, as Derrick devours fries and a discus-size cheeseburger, downing it all with a root beer. "And high sugar is on both sides of our family. Derrick's uncle had diabetes, real bad sugar, and had to have a leg amputated. So I got real concerned back around the last doctor's appointment. But somebody in the family then gave Derrick a whole bunch of candy around Easter, and that weight and sugar went way up again."

She winces, her frustration palpable, and quells a yawn, saying it's been a long last few weeks. She works hard, cleaning houses in the morning, so she can be there for Derrick and her 15-year-old stepdaughter when they arrive home after school. Her days can be tough, but she always tries to have a good-size meal waiting. Determined to avoid the fast-food route, she generally prepares meals, her menu inevitably similar to what she ate herself as a child, her favorite foods now Derrrick's.

"I'm just hoping it will be cool soon, so we can walk," Sandra says after Derrick finishes his cheeseburger. "I know he doesn't get much exercise anywhere."

Derrick's teacher, Maggie Mistilis, has become involved, taking him on walks. "We don't have to say too much about it," Mistilis says of approaching Sandra about Derrick. "It's a hard subject, and you want to be kind and sensitive, of course. But Sandra and I are also friends, and she knows that I just want to help Derrick."

And Derrick knows the truth. "I'm heavy," he says.

He soaks a last fry in his ketchup, eats it and then rises, panting during a short walk to the car, where he turns and hugs an adult companion hard around the waist -- he is forever putting his arms around someone for a hug. He then advises his companion to roll up his windows and lock his car. He grins when the man says they can go to lunch again sometime. "Cheeseburgers," Derrick says excitedly.

ANY CRISIS NEEDS A LOCAL CRUSADER, and, in the Oxford schools, Amy Murphy plays that role. At 30, she has been the director of child nutrition for two years, recently attracting attention for helping to land Oxford Elementary School a $40,000 grant from the CDC for a fruit and vegetable pilot program being administered by the Department of Agriculture. The program's hope is that escalating obesity rates in the state might be slowed, even reversed, if kids like Derrick Dennis can be sold on the idea that eating fruits in lieu of high-caloric, fatty foods is a smart thing.

"Five a day the Oxford way," Murphy says.

It's one of her favorite lines now. Five servings of fruits or vegetables a day for each student. Teachers now regularly talk to the youngest children about what to eat and how often. In a first-grade class at Bramlett Elementary, Vondelle Fairbanks drilled her students on nutrition factoids, instructing them to tell their mothers and fathers about the benefits of melons, kiwis and avocadoes. "What are you going to tell your parents?" she asked.

"Oh, my mother won't listen to that," said one child.

Murphy has tried to improve the quality of school meals by adding fruits, vegetables and low-fat meats to the menu. She supplements standard school meals that have items from all food groups, known as "trays," with tastier, more popular, generally fattier "extras," allowing kids to buy the extras only if they first purchase a tray. One day the extra is a personal Red Baron pepperoni pizza. Many kids purchase the tray merely to get a chance to devour the pizza, concluding their meal by trashing most of the tray's contents.

Murphy is undaunted, convinced that culture will yield in time to enlightenment, but only if the kids are exposed repeatedly to foods relatively new to many of them. "We're going to have to do whatever it takes," she says. "If it's not changed, obesity means there's going to be a diminished return on education -- more kids getting sick, diabetes, heart problems when they get older . . . Culture has something to do with it, but we've always had these foods in Mississippi. People didn't have this problem a long time ago. Why, suddenly, are obesity rates so high? Something happened."

What has happened, believes New York University nutrition professor Marion Nestle (no relation to the chocolate maker), is that the voice of the food industry, particularly the sector selling chips and colas, long ago became overwhelmingly loud and persuasive. "The budgets between the good-food messages and the food industry's messages don't compare," she says, referring to studies that indicate explosive growth in food advertising to children in particular. "Kids get hit with 10,000 ads every year on TV -- ads for everything they don't need: sugared cereals, the potato chips, tortilla chips, candy, the cheeseburgers, every kind of fast food you can think of, the colas. The food industry spends more than $30 billion a year on promotion; the [federal] government spends no more than a few million on good-food messages."

Nestle's is a moderate voice, in many respects. She applauds McDonald's for incorporating salads into its menu and is pleased to see Ruby Tuesday listing the fat content of its dishes. But these efforts pale against the aggregate impact and power of the food industry, Nestle says.

And government benefits make many high-fat, high-caloric products cheaper still. Many crops -- whose uses range from entrees to junk-food sweeteners -- benefit from federal subsidies that make the goods that much more affordable for consumers and, in turn, encourage more consumption. "What subsidies do is simply lower the cost of the ingredients that go into processed foods, making it possible both for people to buy them in large quantities and for companies to sell cheap and maintain large profits," Nestle says. "The problem derives from there."

No crop is subsidized more heavily than corn, a major use of which these days is as a sweetener -- to be found in candy, snacks and colas, where it takes the form of high-fructose corn syrup. "The food companies have gotten a free ride," says Nestle, who contends that generous agricultural subsidies are a direct function of the food industry's political clout. "Until the federal government addresses the subsidy problem, not much will change."

"We don't think [the subsidy question] is the real issue," says Richard Martin of the Grocery Manufacturers of America, a group that opposes any government proposals to curb food-industry advertising to children or to tax high-fat foods. "We don't force people to buy products. We are driven entirely by consumer demand, and people don't want restrictions. What really matters is how many calories people consume. Unless people are able and willing to expend enough energy in relation to calories, they'll gain weight. I don't really like the phrase 'personal responsibility,' but to a large degree it is an individual's responsibility. There are no simple answers."

The ultimate problem, contends Agriculture Undersecretary Eric Bost, is inertia. Bost would like to see local school boards eliminate vending machines in elementary schools (some states, including Mississippi, already bar vending machines in public schools, while others, including Virginia and Maryland, permit them) and include healthier fare in high school machines. He favors the restoration and enhancement of physical education programs in school systems.

In Oxford one May afternoon, high school football coach Eric Robertson looks out on a gym floor filled with kids in jeans and khakis playing a pickup basketball game. It is a gym class, though the students look as if they are dressed for a party. At Oxford High, there is no locker room or shower facility for regular PE; those niceties are reserved for team athletes. With PE not being mandatory there or at any other public high school in Mississippi, and with most students in the school declining to take the class, Robertson and other coaches need to sell the kids on the fun of fitness. This means listening when they generally say they don't want to run or do pushups. The kids, they keep getting bigger all the time, Robertson says.

It is what those involved in the obesity issue all over the state say, from Oxford to the impoverished towns along the Mississippi Delta, where the obesity problem is believed to be most acute. "In any place, but particularly in a poor area, parents often express their love for their children through food," says Kathleen Yadrick, an official with the Delta Nutrition Intervention Research Initiative. " 'Mama fed me a lot': You hear that often. The attitude can be: 'The more I feed you, the more I love you. And you won't get hungry. I might not have the big house on the hill, but I can give you all the food you want, and make it delicious, too.' "

Yadrick sat in a convenience mart in Hollandale, a small Delta town that has lost many of its businesses to outsourcing and whose city budget was too small to afford a fitness path at a local park. But Mayor Robert Buford and residents raised the money anyway, and now a modest one-eighth-mile walking track rings the children's playground. "Don't know how many people are going to use it when it gets real hot," Burford says. "But it's there when they want to. And we know we got a challenge we gotta do something about."

IN THE END, Deke Baskin thinks, maybe it comes down to this. Maybe truth is meant to be a hard, cold-sounding, redemptive thing. Maybe saying no is saying yes. A few hours after he has watched his daughter consume another large plate of fried catfish and hush puppies, a few hours after he has told his son-in-law yet again that he needs to rein in his wife's appetite, Deke sits down with his daughter at his house and says what he has been trying to work up the nerve to say for a while.

"Marie, you need to stop eating so much," he begins.

"I'm gonna try," she says, "but it's hard. I need some of this stuff."

It is what she always has said, more or less.

He thinks a second before letting loose with it: "Marie, I love you. But you need to lose weight for your children. Papa is not going to be here, and you aren't, either, if we don't lose weight and stop eating some of these things."

A shocked Marie says nothing for a long moment. Then she begins to cry. Deke cries, too.

"We have to do this together," Deke says. "Have to get on the treadmill together. Gotta think of your babies."

"You're right, I know you're right," Marie says. "It's just so hard." And they cry some more, before a new ache takes over in her. She can see herself staring out her back window, can see the Kroger store, can see clear through to the horizon, can picture McDonald's and Burger King. Can taste the Hershey almond bar and that new fried chicken sandwich. "It's powerful," she says.

"I know, I know," he whispers, ready to weep some more. He wants to give her solace, wants to fall back on words that provide comfort. And so he says it. He's making barbecue tomorrow. Hush yer mouth.

Michael Leahy is a Magazine staff writer. He will be fielding questions and comments about this article Tuesday at 1 p.m. on www.washingtonpost.com/liveonline.

I don't think I have posted this before. I have been uploading my pictures to morguefile.com. Please look at them an comment if you see anything you like.

Posted by jtk at 10:48 PM | Permalink

your tivo is empty. I am not a TV junkie but I do like to sit down in the evening after the kids are in bed and watch a show and have a cuppa. I went prowling for movies to tape and found one I hadn't seen before, but have always wanted to watch. The Onion Field. I have heard good things about it. We shall see....

Posted by jtk at 10:43 PM | Permalink

A moving article on stem cell research by Charles Krauthammer. He discusses his own paralysis and how it impacts his views on SCR.

When I was 22 and a first-year medical student, I suffered a spinal-cord injury. I have not walked in 32 years. I would be delighted to do so again. But not at any price. I think it is more important to bequeath to my son a world that retains a moral compass, a world that when unleashing the most powerful human discovery since Alamogordo — something as protean, elemental, powerful and potentially dangerous as the manipulation and re-formation of the human embryo — recognizes that lines must be drawn and fences erected.

I think stem cell therapies might be a great thing IF they pan out. We shouldn't throw our morals out the window to pursue it at all costs.

Posted by jtk at 10:28 PM | Permalink

Two neat knoppix hacks from O'Reillynet.

Posted by jtk at 10:23 PM | Permalink

I needed to find where MAXBSIZEwas defined. I searched a bit and found it easily via FreeBSD/Linux Kernel Cross Reference.

Posted by jtk at 11:47 AM | Permalink

So delicious ice cream flavors. My favorite is Basashi.

Posted by jtk at 08:32 AM | Permalink

If hpasm is running then run:

hplog -v

It should return errors when there are things like disk, fan, etc. failures.

Posted by jtk at 08:41 PM | Permalink

There are two conflicting stories out about Tivo. The first referenced on Lost Remote is from Businessweek and talks about "A Murkier Picture for TiVo". The second is from Business2.0 via pvrblog. It paints a rosier picture of how the Strangeberry acquisition will fortify tivo's leadership position. I hope it is true. I love my tivo.

Posted by jtk at 08:28 PM | Permalink

I have set up several google news alerts. I added one yesterday for "t. r. reid" and it came back today with a story he did on Japanese Celebrate Month of Fireworks.

I didn't know npr was included as a source. This is just too handy. I also watch for news on Neil Boortz and Alton Brown.

Posted by jtk at 08:11 PM | Permalink

tar cvzf /pub/fullbackup.`date +%m_%d_%y`.tar.gz -X /etc/fullbackup.exclude --exclude pub/fullbackup.`date +%m_%d_%y`.tar.gz .

# cat /etc/fullbackup.exclude
proc
usb
tmp
pub/iso
pub/movies
pub/mp3

Posted by jtk at 08:08 PM | Permalink

An example:
host -t MX rose.foo.com

Posted by jtk at 08:03 PM | Permalink

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6782
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#GNU%2fLinux
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Multiboot-with-GRUB-2.html#ss2.3
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Booting

Posted by jtk at 08:02 PM | Permalink

Carry no debt and gain more control

"Sleeving" ATM scam on the rise

Housing bubble or finance bubble?

Posted by jtk at 08:01 PM | Permalink

Sui Generis

sui generis \soo-eye-JEN-ur-us; soo-ee-\, adjective:
Being the only example of its kind; constituting a class of its own; unique.

Sui generis is from Latin, literally meaning "of its own kind": sui, "of its own" + generis, genitive form of genus, "kind."

Posted by jtk at 08:00 PM | Permalink

I have been hearing great things about "The Life of PI"

From "A common reader":

The narrative of a young man's 227-day voyage across the Pacific in a lifeboat (shared with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and, most importantly, a 450-pound Bengal tiger), Life of Pi encompasses a great deal of human experience — from theology to zoology, desperation to wonder — in its drifting current of story. This book is marvelous, in the exact sense of the word.

Posted by jtk at 07:58 PM | Permalink

Los Angeles Times: A Crash Course on Irate Calls

The Times has an interesting story on how Indian workers doing telephone customer service for American countries are having to not only assimilate our lingual nuances but the cultural. I wonder if it is possible to gain more than a superficial understanding of us from Friends?

Posted by jtk at 07:23 PM | Permalink

The Tweezer's Edge v3: Michigan overturns landmark eminent domain decision I have been following the eeminent domain cases with interest. Neil Boortz has been a very vocal opponent of it being used to take land from owners to build shopping centers or malls. I tend to agree. It should be a choice of last resort, and not something to push small land owners out. Usually they are just holding out to get a well paid for their land.

Posted by jtk at 07:19 PM | Permalink

A quote from ESV Bible Online: Passage: 1 John 3:2

2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears [1] we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

Christianity has always struck me as a journey. Where are you going? Where am I going? Are we on the right path?

Posted by jtk at 08:43 AM | Permalink

cri de coeur

n. 'cry of heart'; deeply-felt, passionate request or complaint.

I heard this used for the first time yesterday. It was on the television show "As time goes by." Lionel was trying to figure out why his ex-wife had contacted him to meet for drinks.

Posted by jtk at 07:30 AM | Permalink

I suffer from Tinnitus. I am not sure if it is from the constant sinus infections I had for years or the loud music as a teenager. Science Blog has a good round up of the current state of research. The treatment options are limited today.

I have developed strategies to cope. I try to always have noise around me. During the day I usually keep the television or radio on. At night I run a fan or noise machine. I wish I could make it go away, but there are people who are much worse off. At least my hearing is still good. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I went deaf. I couldn't imagine.

I hope it doesn't get worse as I age.

Posted by jtk at 10:30 PM | Permalink

Lost remote is reporting that Steve Jobs is being treated for Pancreatic cancer. I hope he has a complete recovery.

Update: More on news.com.com

Posted by jtk at 10:15 PM | Permalink

I have been adding to my list of books to read lately. It is probably longer than I will have reading time.

• Linux and the Unix Philosophy by Gancarz , Mike
• Any book by William Langewiesche
• My Years with General Motors by Alfred Sloan
• Sin killer by Larry Mcmurtry
• Rashomon Gate by I. J. Parker
• O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

Posted by jtk at 09:50 PM | Permalink