Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Top Gear

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Foreclosures Suspended in 23 States

It is worth noting that the three largest home mortgage companies in America, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, and GMAC have each suspended home foreclosures in 23 states. They had expedited the foreclosures so much that their paperwork was not being prepared accurately or honestly.

The reason they are only suspending foreclosures in 23 states, rather than nationwide, is because in those 23 states there are good state laws and regulations intended to protect the consumer from fraud.

And if you live in one of the other states? Tough luck Mr. Consumer. Big business wins, you lose.

The point to be made is that it is important for states to have strong laws in place trying to protect the consumer from fraud. Because you can be sure there are always plenty of really smart people doing their best to defraud people.

Deregulation is just theft from the poor to give to the rich.

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Rough Night

It has been a rather difficult night. I finally gave up on sleeping around 3:00 a.m. Prior to that there were a number of episodes when involuntarily, half asleep, I was making all sorts of rather loud verbal noises signaling great distress. Me sort of screaming out in pain like this really upsets my sweet little loving and empathic dog Inu.

Because of the leukemia the defective white blood cells have continued to grow to such an extent that they are now crowding out other blood components like red blood cells & hemoglobin. The hemoglobin level is now well below the normal recommended minimum. So even if the heart, blood vessels, and lungs were all in the tip top condition of a 20 year old, and my total weight was a little lower, it would still be difficult to supply enough oxygen to the the body's important tissues.

There is another element to add in to this chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) puzzle. The lymph nodes around my neck, in the groin area, and especially under the arms have grown very large and hard. The ones under the arms are the largest and are also the most troublesome. No doubt my spleen is very swollen also and maybe the liver. A little while ago I tried going back to bed, but found that almost immediately I was having problems breathing. I think that these swollen lymph nodes and other organs have actually gotten so large, and they are physically occupying so much space in the chest cavity, that they are making it difficult for the lungs (and maybe the heart) to operate properly. When I lay down in bed it seems to get worse.

I'm in my 60s. I don't think there is any question that sometime in the “near” future I will die from the combined adverse effects of this CLL. Maybe a heart attack or perhaps pneumonia. The question is, how do I know when it has all gotten so hopeless, and the suffering has reached the point where suicide is a better option than suffering? There are still lots of days where I am fairly happy and am enjoying life. Taking Inu on walks around the neighborhood, with me riding on the geezer mobility scooter. I'm reading a couple of books which I'm enjoying greatly. The days are not bad, it is the nights that are the big problem.

That poor 18 year old gay kid who jumped off the bridge because his roommate took videos of him having sex with another guy and sent them out over the internet. I guess that he felt so humiliated that he thought he had to end his own life. Stupid decision for an 18 year old. I feel bad for him and his family. A young person committing suicide is completely different than an old man who is suffering constantly from an incurable malignant cancer.

In a way I envy those ignorant religious fanatics who strap on a suicide vest and martyr themselves for Allah. Of course I guess plenty of these Muslims who do the suicide bomber routine are forced to do so. Perhaps even most of them don't do it because of some deeply held religious beliefs; who knows? I think all organized religions are a bunch of crap, so this won't work for me.

Some gutless bastards don't have the strength of character to commit suicide, so they threaten a cop with a gun. Maybe even shoot a cop. Knowing full well that the other police will then kill him. They call it SBC, suicide by cop. There is no excuse for them to take the life of another person (like a cop) just because they want to end their own life.

I have gradually fulfilled or gotten rid of almost all my duties, obligations, and responsibilities. I am no longer married; I owe no money to anyone. My child is in his mid 30s, and he is far beyond my owing him anything further. He will inherit a little bit from my estate, and money seems to be all he wants from me anyway. The only obligation I have left is to my dog Inu, but it is clear that my sister and brother in law will take good care of Inu if I die before he does.

In the last six months of her life my aunt Friede Garland talked a lot about how she was tired of living and just wanted it to end. I first learned about Do Not Ressucitate from her. I didn't understand at the time, but I am beginning to now as I get near the end.

I'm still thinking this through. I know that suicide is a very permanent solution; you certainly don't want to exercise that option lightly. I guess the answer is that if I am still questioning it, the time to shoot myself in the head has not yet arrived. Maybe it won't ever, and I'll get lucky and die quickly and naturally.

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Homosexual Rutgers Student Commits Suicide

It really is so terrible. Having someone secretly tape you and your partner having sex, and then having them broadcast it over the internet without your knowledge or permission. Inexcusable really.

What makes this especially hard to deal with is that the kid who killed himself was a gay man still in the closet. I guess that he killed himself because he was so ashamed about being outed as a homo.

I have known so many people over the years who try to pretend that they are something they are not. Rich or well educated or well traveled, when it fact it is mostly a bunch of hooey. This lying and deception ends up doing very bad things to them. I guess the guilt of pretending that you are normal when in fact you are gay must be among the worst.

What a pity that this kid had to die over it. Its all so silly really. So he was sexually attracted to other boys? Not really that big of a deal anymore.

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Definition of Recession

When it comes to racism or sexual harassment, regardless of how many letters or degrees you have following your name, if you choose to define the concept too narrowly you are simply wrong. This is the situation economists find themselves in regarding the word “recession.” Collectively they have chosen a definition which is far too narrow.

A “recession” is an economic downturn. Typically the stock market declines somewhat. Sales revenue and profits by businesses declines, so large numbers of workers are laid off. Some of the people who are newly out of work can no longer make the mortgage payments on their house, so foreclosures increase. This drives down the price of real estate. Marriages fall apart. Many of the unemployed people cannot afford to pay for private health insurance, so they lose access to the health care system. People feel worried and pessimistic.

The opposite of a recession is a “boom.” Stock prices are rising and so are home values. Unemployment is low, and people feel prosperous and optimistic.

An “economic depression” is a really extremely horrible recession.

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Diana Gabaldon

I just bested a lifetime record for patience and taking my time to slowly enjoy a wonderful pleasure. In 2005 I had been living in Europe for close to 20 years. I bought the Diana Gabaldon book “A Breath of Snow and Ashes” published in the English language from the wonderful and enormous German bookstore in downtown Aachen, Germany. Maybe 200 – 300 yards from Charlemagne's cathedral which he built in the year 800 a.d.

Shortly thereafter I moved back to America. As I gradually plugged my way through this wonderful book I read many other books. Sometimes it is a real treat treat to just drag it out. But I've never lasted anywhere near this long. As long as you have not actually finished a book, in your mind it is an ongoing story. So Jaime and Claire have been a part of my life for many years now.

Today I finished this wonderful book. I guess it must be the sixth in the Outlander series. I have the next book on hand just waiting, so tomorrow I'll start it. With this leukemia advancing much more rapidly now, I don't plan to drag this next book out. I'll just enjoy the pleasure of immersing myself in their lives.

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President Obama Lost In The Washington Mentality

AP - Admonishing his own party, President Barack Obama says it would be "inexcusable" and "irresponsible" for unenthusiastic Democratic voters to sit out the midterm elections, warning that the consequences could be a squandered agenda for years.
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Mr. President, it is true that the policies of the Blue Dog Democrats and their Republican buddies and fellow travelers are indeed somewhat worse than yours. But you are so weak, so afraid to get your hands dirty, and as much as I hate to say it outright dishonest, that you are the one who who has squandered the enthusiasm of the Democrats.

You had your surrogates call the core liberal-progressive wing of the Democratic party “retards.” Are you really this stupid and socially inept Mr. Obama? Did you think that these intelligent and well educated liberals would not be angry at this?

Your health care law is weak and poor at best. You never did understand how important single payer was or even the far weaker vigorous government option. Your health cost containment program is not even remotely close to universal health care. If things go really well, there will still be double digit millions of Americans who are excluded from the health care system.

You are turning out to be more of an anti-environment president than even Bush Jr. You endorsed off shore oil drilling in environmentally sensitive areas just before the BP fiasco. You have dedicated more money to nuclear energy than the Republicans you followed. You haven't closed down Guantanamo, and you don't seem to care. Your idea of ending the Iraq war involves leaving 50,000 troops there and probably an equal number of civilian contractors. Everyone except you can see that the Afghanistan war is a truly hopeless mess which we certainly will not win. Your spending on all this military adventurism may well bankrupt the country, but you don't seem to care.

Your economic advisors are mostly conservatives who fit right in at Republican cocktail parties. You lied and said that you wanted to end DADT, now when push comes to shove you are not a significant part of the fight. You have done very little to help minorities with their fight against racism.

You really have turned out to be quite a disappointment and almost an actual embarrassment Barack. We are not the ones who are squandering anything. You and your own personal weakness are at fault. Some of us liberal Democrats will bother to vote, even though your policies and your attitude disgust us; we will be doing so despite you and all the areas where you have turned your back on us and lied to us.

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Going Slow

With lot of people the type of leukemia that I have is very slow growing. In many cases it is kind of like prostate cancer...so slow growing that the patient will die of something age first. I have had this chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) for years. I was formally diagnosed eight years ago, and I'm sure that I had the disease for at least a year or two before that. I can remember very distinctly experiencing the symptoms – night sweats, etc.

It was little more than an annoyance for years. But about six months ago something changed. Everything has been going downhill quite rapidly since then. And it seems like this decline is continuing to get worse faster and faster.

I'm generally inclined towards letting nature take her course. Some days I really enjoy life. I'm reading a couple of fantastic books right now, “Chuck” on NBC was great tonight, and my best friend and I had a wonderful walk this morning. Even though he is getting a bit old himself, he is still a good athlete. I ride the geezer scooter and most of the time he walks along, sniffing and peeing. Occasionally he rides in my lap.

The nights have gotten very rather difficult though. Sleep is a real luxury that I don't get to enjoy much any more. I can barely walk, I am out of breath almost all the time, my blood platelets have declined to where the dentist won't work on me, I have no sense of smell at all, my digestion sucks, and I am more than partially deaf. There is no point in listing all the other things going wrong, but there are plenty more.

My brain seems to still be working OK, but my body is going downhill really fast now.

I know that it is not yet appropriate to put my .44 magnum to my head and pull the trigger. But in the middle of the night I sure have begun thinking about it – a lot. Every night. When terminal patients are given the tools to suicide, most choose to die naturally. Only a very small percentage do accelerate the process.

But there comes a point where the suffering is so bad, the disease really is incurable, some would think it entirely wise to go ahead and end the needless suffering. I guess we each have to find our own point on this.

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The Worst Teachers Must Go!

President Obama has called for a longer school year and has said that the worst teachers must go. This is great sounding rhetoric, but in real life actually judging the performance and teaching skill of a person is not at all easy. It sure isn't a science which one can quantify.

For example the teachers whose students get low test results may in fact be the very most effective person at reaching out to the worst of the bad asses, so she/he is consistently assigned the kids who need the most help. Or perhaps the teacher is just plain lazy and incompetent. It is often not easy to determine.

I don't remember many woefully incompetent teachers until I got to college, but I was young and lacked experience. I also was mostly interested in sex, drinking, and fast cars; not whether the teacher was doing a good job of educating me. It was just assumed that they were all competent.

I got my B.A. Degree, spent three years in the Army, and then returned to further my education. By now I was a little older, had seen a bit of the world, and actually learning something was important to me.

I found that at least one third of the teachers/instructors/professors were quite lazy and really didn't put much effort into teaching. Maybe one third were absolutely outstanding. And about a third were immigrants with very significant language difficulties. Perhaps they held a pHd degree, but they spoke in such heavily accented English that they were largely unintelligible. But I suppose they were cheap hires for the university.

I had sufficient life experience at this point where I could accurately judge whether these people were skillful at teaching. I was paying them, considered them to be my employees, and expected competence and hard work. I can remember that some of these bozos didn't particularly appreciate my attitude, so if they would not do their jobs properly I just went above them and complained to their boss.

I could weed out the bad teachers, but the university administrative staff had a far less accurate view of their skill level or dedication.

At the level of primary school or high school I can't imagine how one can accurately judge the competence of teachers. I was a manager and a supervisor in business for many years. There really are so many people whose primary skill is kissing the the ass of the boss and thus erroneously convincing him that they are doing a great job. I admit that I was fooled many times by lots of different people.

We all want the youth of America to receive good educations, but simply judging an experienced teacher on the standardized test results of her/his students doesn't seem like an effective method.

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Chinese Impose 105% Import Duties on American Products

The Chinese have imposed import duties of 105% on American chickens. I think the factory farming of chickens in America is horrible, but I also think this can be used to encourage our own government to develop a little backbone.

China has artificially manipulated its currency such that the cost of imports into America is unrealistically low. Of course this has helped eliminate many thousands of good American manufacturing jobs. This decision isn't difficult or extreme: America needs to impose import duties of 35% to 45% on everything imported from China. Not as a threat or a short term tactical move. But as long term policy. Good manufacturing jobs will gradually start reappearing here in America if we do.

Of course the Chinese will scream like crazy. Well they are. Crazy like foxes. It is time to stop being Mr. Nice Guy. Our federal government is here to defend the American people from foreign aggression and exploitation. Oh, and along the way, screw the WTO. Just for a few years.

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Rough Night

Last night was difficult; maybe the worst night so far.

In December of 2002 I had to go see the lung specialists at the hospital because of a bad infection in my lung. I had been sick for months, and by this time I was really sick. I was less than a month away from my 54th birthday at the time. With heavy doses of antibiotics they were eventually able to cure the lung infection, but sort of accidentally the various blood tests they did also happened to show that I had a chronic disease. Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL).

CLL is a form of malignant cancer. In simple terms what happens is that the white blood cells, which normally fight off disease and invaders, become cancerous. This means that they forget when to die; they keep on living, even though they are defective and are no longer able to fight off infections (immunodeficiency). The lymph nodes swell up, and so do the spleen and the liver.

It is often a slow progressing disease, and in my case it has been. It now has been almost eight years since I was first diagnosed with CLL. The defective white blood cells have continued their cancerous growth so much so that they have now started seriously crowding out the platelets, which help the blood clot or form scabs. The same with the red blood cells and their hemoglobin, which carries oxygen around to the various tissues in the body. At the moment this is the most serious problem.

The weakened immune system has made tooth decay much more of a challenge, and even with better than ever personal hygiene jock itch is now chronic.

The lack of red blood cells and hemoglobin mean that if I walk really really slowly I can go maybe 20 or 30 feet before I have to stop and rest. It is a constant battle to make sure that I don't do any exercise which will so reduce the amount of oxygen getting to other important organs (like the heart) that I develop major problems. To get out and walk the doggie I have bought one of those old geezer handicapped scooters. It is wonderful. I nod off a lot during the day, so driving a car safely is becoming challenging. I still do it, but I'm now driving much more slowly; like an old old man.

The lymph nodes have now swollen up quite large, especially under my arm pits, on my neck, and to a lesser degree in the groin area. The gigantic ones under my arms now are often really quite painful. They are a major impediment to sleep. I have grown a beard and have let my hair grow kind of long hoping to hide or at least camouflage all these bumps. A fellow CLL patient who is really smart and well informed says that these are lymphomas, but I couldn't guarantee this is the right word to use.

The CLL progressed slowly for many years, but now these various symptoms and problems have all begun getting worse rather fast. The process seems to be accelerating.

I am almost 62 now; it was roughly eight years ago when I was first diagnosed with leukemia. I feel like I am nearing the end stage of this fight with CLL. Lets rephrase that more openly and honestly. I'm pretty sure that I will die sometime in the near future because of this malignant cancer. Maybe an infection and pneumonia during the next year or so due to the immunodeficiency, or maybe tonight or next week from a heart attack.

Around midnight I began sleeping fitfully. This has become quite common. But tonight it was the worst so far. The low levels of hemoglobin mean that breathing slowly and deeply has become critical. What happened from midnight to about 3:00 a.m. is that every time I would start to fall back to sleep, my body would just stop breathing first. So I felt like I was suffocating as I fell into sleep. Only conscious waking thought would keep the lungs doing their job breathing in and out.

During this time I gave a lot of thought to how one dies peacefully and fearlessly. Suffocation is not a good way to die. I thought back over the various people I have known who got lucky and died quickly.

I am ready to go, no, I am ready to die. I accept that this malignant cancer has just about won the battle. But I also like living. For the most part I am still enjoying life. So I am in no hurry to end it either.

Around 3:00 a.m. I got up. I went to my bookshelves and found “On Death and Dying” by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D.- Also “The Peaceful Pill Handbook” published by Exit International US. My goal is to do a little reading and research to see if there are tricks or tools that the dying person can use. I am not afraid of being dead; I am a bit afraid of the process of getting from here to there. Especially if it involves suffocation, and extreme fear and anxiety at the very end.

When I moved back to America (I had lived in Europe for many years) I immediately became both uninsured and uninsurable. This isn't as big a problem as it sounds like, because CLL is incurable. Even for the insured or for rich people.

I decided that the one insurance policy I could buy would be a powerful hand gun. So I got my license to carry a concealed handgun, and I bought various pistols which were powerful enough to blow one's brains out. A .44 magnum, a .40 caliber semi automatic, and a .38 special + P. With this much firepower to the brain, death would likely be very rapid indeed. These and almost all of my other handguns including a .380 Ruger LCP have laser sights on them just in case I should need them for self protection rather than self destruction. The only handgun I own which does not have laser sights is my .38 special/.32 magnum derringer.

In the last few months I have made sure that the dog's dry food bowl always remains full with a several day supply of food. And I now have two water bowls; one is a high capacity. I even have begun leaving the sliding glass door to the patio unlocked when I am inside the house. My thought process is that surely within about two or three days my sister would notice that I am no longer posting to Facebook, Flickr, my blog, or Twitter. Hopefully she would become concerned, and try to call me. Next my guess is that she would get her husband, my brother in law, to drive over and check on me. They have agreed to take my wonderful and loving dog if “something should happen to me.”

Lying there in bed earlier tonight, trying not to suffocate, I couldn't help thinking about the loaded .44 magnum sitting in the bedstead a couple of feet away. Since my relatives will inherit this house (it is fully paid for), I don't want to make a big smelly mess of blood, bits of skull, and splattered brain all over the bedroom. If I do eventually take this route out, I certainly will need to be out in the backyard when I blow my brains out. If I could find a way, perhaps in the nearby desert.

But back to the subject at hand. Are there things that a terminally ill person can do to die gracefully? I think the word happily is wrong, but I'll bet you see what I am thinking. If it is inevitable, then as good a death as possible.

Both my Mother and my maternal Grandmother were hospitalized when they died. In the days before the final end both ladies realized that they didn't want any part of dying in an authoritarian hospital environment with all sorts of tubes hooked up to them. They tried to pull their various IV tubes out, so the medical staff tied their arms and legs to the metal hospital bed to keep them from escaping! This is barbaric in the worst way. What a terrible way to die – tied down and imprisoned. These are not good examples of the right way to die.

It is now 5:55 a.m., and I am exhausted from lack of sleep. The two books I have address other parts of the dying process, so I will keep searching. Maybe on the internet. Peaceful death. I don't know the phrases I will start out with on the search engines.

If you were completely deluded and believed in talking snakes and burning bushes you could use your Christian religious upbringing to help comfort you when dying. But I am not stupid, and I am not delusional. This is one sick and harmful religion. So we will see if I can find anything at all which will help provide comfort during the dying process.

In the meantime, from 3:00 a.m. to 6:11 a.m. I have been quite gassy. Fortunately one of the results of my bad health is that I have totally, completely lost all sense of smell. I have also taken three very sizable bowel movements. Perhaps my abdomen was just so full that there was inadequate room for the lungs and heart to do their jobs properly. I don't believe it, but it is one theory.

It is Saturday morning now, and after I make the bed, brush my teeth, shower, etc. I plan to take the dog and go down to the flea market in Socorro, Texas.


LATER THE FOLLOWING DAY:

If you Google “dying with dignity” you get all sorts of hits talking mostly about revising legislation to let physicians help terminally ill patients with the suicide process. Medscape says “Most aging adults will become physically dependent on others before they die, but does this mean they are destined to die without dignity?” So a way for the docs to develop more paying business, but not necessarily what the patient wants or what I am searching for.

I certainly do not intend to get to the point where I am dependent upon others before I die. If my physical or mental state deteriorates to where I can no longer live alone in my own home with my loving doggie, then that would be a good indicator that the time has come to go ahead and do the “dying with dignity” routine.

Maybe there is no such thing as what I am searching for. Looking back over human history we know a little about the death and burial rituals of the Americans who were living here 1,000 to 2,000 years ago (i.e., American Indians). Same with the Romans 2,000 years ago and the Egyptians 5,000 years ago. Stonehenge, the pyramids at Giza, the Jews many thousands of years ago, the death rituals of the Aztecs, the Celtic bog people, etc. Most of these groups had strong rituals and taboos regarding death. Many involved big send offs to help the dead guy arrive successfully at the next place.

For the most part these are all the kinds of myths that may have worked well for illiterate and uneducated people. But these sorts of spiritualistic rituals involving power hungry religious leaders, shamans, and/or doctors is not at all what I am hunting for.

I guess I am trying to find some sort of a tool that one old and pretty worn out, but well educated, man can use to assist him in battling anxiety and fear when the critical time comes. When you are lying there struggling for breath, it is pretty clear that death is today's specialty on the menu, and your hand is solidly on the hospice opiate button or on the .44 magnum trigger.

Just the process of writing all this down and trying to define what I am looking for gives me the answer. There is no magic answer.

Strength of character, humility, and a thankful attitude for having been fortunate enough to have lived a great and amazing life... These are the things that will get one through the crunch with as much grace and dignity as is possible.

Perhaps there is some sort of life after death. Probably not, but who knows? Either way the answer is not far away now so there isn't much point in worrying about it.

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Bones – How NOT To Be A Team Leader

Dr. Camille Saroyan is a great person to learn from if you want to grow, learn, and become a supervisor or leader. She does just about everything wrong; no wonder she is so talented at running off competent staff.

She constantly humiliates, belittles, and puts down her staff. She expresses her ideas that their professional expertise and specialties (like bugs on corpses) are way far less than uninteresting. All the while she is constantly puffing herself up, reminding everyone in earshot that she is the all powerful, omnipotent boss who must be obeyed.

And she chose to have a sexual affair with one of her team members.

This lady is not a leader or a supervisor; she is one not very bright loser.

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The Recession Is Not Over

NPR reports today that new home sales in August were the second worst ever. Unemployment remains painfully high. Homes are still “underwater” and getting foreclosed on at record rates. The number of people who do not have health insurance and are excluded from the nation's health care system continues to rise. American manufacturing jobs keep getting outsourced overseas.

By any reasonable definition of the word the American economy is still in recession.

Economists who say that the recession is over need to have their heads examined.

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American Wars Kill More Contractors Than Soldiers

There are several reports in the news today saying that more “contractors” are getting killed than soldiers. I use the word “mercenaries” to describe these folks, not the more sanitized and politically correct word “contractors.” This is the clear result of Republican outsourcing, privatization, and deregulation.

The implication is unambiguous: Take the death toll rates of any of these useless wars that the Republicans have gotten us into (and that Obama does not have the strength of character to get us out of) and then double the death numbers. This is the America death toll. Long term totally screwed up young Americans is many times larger, and heaven only knows how many innocent, poorly educated, dark skinned foreigners are dying.

We need to totally, completely remove all soldiers and contractors from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. Before the end of the year. This is not hyperbole, honest, just do it. Next we must cut the military and intelligence budgets by at least 50%.

Not only will this help solve the deficit, it will save many many lives.

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Heinlein Quotes

Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naïve, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how “pure” their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.

NOTE: I would add to this Heinlein list the concept “respect.”



There is no conclusive evidence of life after death. But there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know. So why fret about it?



History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.



One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.



When the need arises – and it does – you must be able to shoot your own dog. Don't farm it out – that doesn't make it nicer, it makes it worse.



Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.



A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dreamworld.

Computers are a Tool, not a Solution

I saw that statement in the N.Y. Times this morning. Computers are a tool, not a solution. It got me to thinking.

In order to successfully accomplish tasks, tools can often be helpful. An 18-wheeler truck is a tool which provides immense help in transportation; the same with a forklift truck, a farm tractor, or a backhoe. A pipe wrench makes the job much easier when one is working on threaded pipe. A volt-ohm-meter can be a $9.95 tool or they can cost several hundred dollars. The cheap one is just as good as the big, heavy expensive digital one for almost all electrical tasks.

There are so many tools in our lives nowadays. Brooms speed up cleaning the floor, vacuum cleaners the carpeting, and sewing machines do a much better job than hand sewing and are quicker too. Flashlights are wonderful, and flashlights which shine red don't interfere with your night vision. Televisions allow one to watch movies from the comfort of one's own home, rather than having to go out to a movie theater. Microscopes and telescopes help people see and understand things which normally are not visible. Telephones improve communication by order of magnitude, and the twenty first century version, the cell phone, helps even more. Cell phones also do useful things like keep track of your shopping list, run your diary-calendar, take photographs and movies, and send and receive text messages. They can be a useful tool. If you text while you drive a car, they can also be deadly. If self protection or hunting are important to you, then a firearm is an extremely powerful tool.

Some think that an automobile is mostly a status symbol or a way to lure in hot chicks, but mostly they are just tools to get you from here to there. If they are quiet, comfortable, have decent air conditioning, and get good fuel economy they have achieved most of their purpose as a very useful tool. They don't need to go boom-boom-boom from a 1,000 watt stereo, and chrome wheels only are an impediment which just need to be cleaned more often.

Less than 1% of computers are used for hard core number crunching by scientists. In the context of kids and high school or college, computers are mostly used to communicate with one's friends, to watch videos, or play video games. Kids who use computers for writing actually seem to be less skilled when it comes to capitalization, basic sentence structure, and spelling.

Computers in the classroom are not an end in themselves, but are simply a tool. The important issues are: Can the kid solve simple algebra equations to help them get the correct answer to problems? Have they learned the most important lessons from history? Do they know how to research a problem, and can they recognize a real answer or solution as opposed to one presented by a con artist simply trying to take their money? Have these kids learned how to manage their money, balancing cash outflow with cash inflow, or do they get themselves horribly, deeply in debt after purchasing too much consumer trash as soon as they have the opportunity? Can they recognize and see through dishonest fanaticism, or are they taken in simply due to their own ignorance and lack of experience?

Tools can make one's life more productive. But they can also get in the way and actually be an impediment. Most of us know people who seem to actually be addicted to constant use of their cell phone for texting and their computers to check out Facebook or Twitter. These people are like prescription drug addicts or alcoholics – their lives become dominated by assuring their regular fixes. Going without their drugs becomes a massive problem. The video game addicts may be the worst.

Useful tools can become horribly dysfunctional. It is all a matter of balance and keeping things in perspective. The losers get sucked in, the survivors don't allow these tools to dominate their lives; they understand they tools are only a means to an end, not an end in themselves.

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Stephen Fry On The Catholic Church

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Escapism

I am so tired of hearing and thinking about the corrupt, lying America politicians. It is nice to enjoy a little escapism without resorting to drugs or alcohol.

Next week are the season premiers of House on Monday, and on Thursday the premiers of Bones and Fringe.

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Red Shoes

I'm not a Catholic, so I have vast areas of ignorance about their faith.

Question: Is it traditional for the Pope to wear red shoes, or is this little pleasure unique to Joseph Ratzinger?

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Mexico Celebrates 200th Birthday

This should be a really special day. The two hundredth birthday of the country of Mexico. There should be wild celebrations going on all over Mexico.

But the narco violence, the governmental corruption, and the almost complete ineffectiveness of the police, military, and courts is what is being talked about. Celebrations have been officially canceled in many locations due to the violence and the inability of the government to protect the law abiding people.

Mexico has always had a problem with the caste system. The super-rich at the top did not have to obey almost any laws, and they blatantly ignored the suffering of the majority of Mexicans. In fact they even lied to themselves, convincing themselves that Mexico was an up and coming modern democracy. Ha! Right.

The country of Mexico has had revolutions before, and it may well be that another one is coming.

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