Cat Farmer's blog

What a treat to encounter Butler Shaffer's latest article at LRC, Myths, Fables, Fairy Tales, and the Real World.
I'm not a big movie-goer, but I'd recently seen The Chronicles of Narnia in the theatre and found it disappointing. It seems to be a movie intended for children, rather than a movie for "children of all ages" -- including sappy adults like me who tend to prefer thoughtful content to "adult content," which usually means stuff thoughtful parents tend to avoid especially when taking the kids out to the theatre. I enjoy good movies, but I dislike being "entertained" -- where does this seemingly constant emphasis on adult VS children's entertainment come from? -- what happened to comedy and drama, or good old story-telling not because the audience requires entertainment but because the story needs telling?

Schools seem increasingly absent the "fun" factor that might make learning enjoyable, while entertainment seems to lack the "educational" element that might profit consumers as well as producers. I find Butler's observation interesting:

This is a principal reason that the entertainment industry seems to thrive during the decline of civilizations: individuals become content with moral, intellectual, and existential passivity, preferring to live their lives through projected extensions of themselves with whom they identify.

Well, sure ... civilizations ascend and decline on an individual basis, and therein lies the success and the failure of collectivism. An enterprise that fails to the extent that it succeeds, the moral of that story perhaps?

I don't want to spoil any endings, but IMO Butler nails the flaws in Narnia with his concluding paragraph. But what do I know ... I'm an adult, and everyone seems so intent on saving the children these days that perhaps adults deserve consideration as an endangered species.

Jacob Sullum on Prescriptions for Disaster or, The Omni-Incompetent State as linked to by LRC -- rendered below in brief by the feline that brung it to the blog ...

Some drugs are good,
Some drugs are bad.
Some users are happy :-),
Some users are sad :-( ...

Old folks' drugs are mostly still legal,
Young folks' drugs are mostly illegal.
So much high-minded legislation
Is meant to protect low-income children.

You're okay to say NO to some drugs;
The PTB will tell you which ones ...
If you dare say No to approved drugs,
The PTB may declare you insane.

Take drugs for the children's sake,
And for the same children's sake,
Lock 'em up and throw away the key
For using their minds independently.

While the elderly and incompetent make wishes,
The youthful and indiscreet make loaves and fishes.
While one generation may feed the next bullshit,
The next manages to gain sustenance from it.

... you know that you're over the hill
when your mind makes a promise your body can't fill ...

Hold off on that chip, says Thompson ... hat tip to STR.

... only about 60 living persons in the U.S. have agreed to be chipped. In addition to the voluntary recipients, the company's implants were injected into the deceased victims of hurricane Katrina, and there are plans to chip mentally disabled patients at a residential center in Chattanooga. VeriChip has also had talks with the Pentagon about chipping military personnel, though Procter said that "no formal agreements have been reached."

The VeriChip is a glass-encapsulated RFID device designed to be injected into human flesh for identification purposes and for use as a payment device.

So maybe a cranky and irreligious misfit infidel like me has read Revelations one too many times, as presumably many "military personnel" may also have and -- let me guess -- Tommy Thompson hasn't read it once? If that sort of thing isn't a "wrong way" sign for any so-called Christian administration, I don't know what is.

Strange days, indeed ... ;)

Just when it seems you've heard it all -- a black market in organic raw milk.

Greetings from the Twilight Zone, or wherever my "sent" email has been going lately. Apologies to those friends and correspondents I've *tried* to reply to via email -- it ain't happening, apparently. Even the hired technical hands seem stumped as to WHY; I remain stuck with a rather arduous procedure of replying via webmail to email that I have no problem downloading to my own PC; I can't SEND outgoing messages in response -- they disappear (as if sent) without warning -- took me a while to figure out what was going on.

I'm in the process of reconfiguring my email accounts, and will happily respond to email messages when I'm able to.
Sunni, I fervently hope that your move has gone more smoothly than mine WRT technical aspects. I think I can appreciate your frustration WRT difficulties with the human/emotional aspects... but I ought to go prepare dinner, where I wish I had a smidgen of your expertise. :-(

Love to all...

>^v^<

A conversation with a friend (yep, that would be you, Andy!) earlier today reminded me that I'd wanted to devote a blog post to a favorite band. Delerium won my ear and my heart with Karma, Semantic Spaces, Poem, and most recently with Chimera.

Now, I love lots of other music and artists... Jeff Buckley, Mary Fahl (both solo work and October Project), VAST, Live, Mythos, Loreena McKennitt, Tori Amos, Kate Bush, Kaitell Keineg, REM, and older U2 before Bono took it into his head to save the world through politics. And lots more... Blue Oyster Cult, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Cat Stevens, Pink Floyd, Grant Lee Phillips...

Nothing beats Ani DiFranco's The Past Didn't Go Anywhere collaboration with Utah Phillips for pure political commentary put to music, IMO... but there's always room for improvement, and I've got an open ear. ;)

I don't think another CD has ever stayed so long in my CD player as Delerium's Chimera, with the possible exceptions of Shadow of the Moon by Blackmore's Night, Mythos by Mythos, or Grace by Jeff Buckley. VAST "Visual Audio Sensory Theatre" has had an awfully long stay in the CD tray lately.

Delerium seems to deserve a special mention, though... mainly because it takes a lot to leave me feeling good these days, and Delerium's music seems to do that best - even at work. Liquid bliss, without a bad track to be skipped: The best selection of female voices this side of heaven featured as guest vocalists - if the other side has a better set I can't wait to get there (I prefer not to think about the alternative of not getting there)... unless, of course, the music in hell is more to my liking. ;)

This morning during a quick scan of headlines at Rational Review News Daily, one article jumped out at me: Loving our Veterans, by Don Meinshausen. The essay says so many things that I'd tried to write a few years ago, in a piece that I finally gave up on in frustration; the subject felt too anguishing at the time because I found myself mired down in unhappy memories. I once fell in love with a Vietnam veteran... a long story I'll save for another time.

Don's article deserves to be read in its entirety; it seems like a shame to pull quotes from it, but then that's what persuaded me to read it - the opening quote is the one R. Lee Wights used for RRND:

Despite the holidays of Memorial Day and Veteran's Day there is little appreciation for veterans. Oh there may be a few generals and politicians pontificating and maybe a concert but that's usually seen as patriotic blather for the media and the public that believes it. Very few veterans show up.

Of course I am talking about the guys who really paid a big price in a war. The amputee, the horribly disfigured and those who will be in and out of hospitals for the rest of their lives. And then there are those who were so heavily traumatized that they cannot handle the crowds, the rhetoric and the fireworks will not be brought out or would come out for these events. It would be too upsetting for all concerned.

Skipping to the end, I'm going to include the closing quote as well, although again I'd encourage anyone to click the link above and read the entire essay... all that stuff in the middle is too good to miss.

There are many statues of generals and rulers who start and run wars in our parks and military cemeteries, yet few of GIs. There are fewer still of nurses who had their handful of traumatized, wounded men. There should be a statue or some recognition of the V-Girls and prostitutes who have taken care of wounded, traumatized and lonely soldiers and veterans for ages uncounted.

Let's legalize prostitution to help our soldiers and veterans. At least send some porn to your local VA hospital. You do care about veterans, don't you?

Amen...

Yesterday, I spent some time catching up on the recent posts at Real ID Rebellion, as well as several of the articles linked in those posts. Surprise - the following rant resulted... ;) I'm not going to chase down all the various links again to insert them here, as they're all available at the RID blog. Initially this rant was begun as a letter to HP - but then I got to thinking about other corporations undoubtedly hopping on the National ID gravy train, and about other investors finding themselves in similar situations - some of whom may decide to pursue the "shareholder activism" route. In this case, that doesn't feel like the most productive path of action for me - so for other investors who find themselves feeling guilty about reluctance to pursue it, I offer my own thoughts on the subject in hopes that someone might find them helpful...

Several years ago I replaced an older dilapidated desktop computer with a newer HP Pavilion - I am a Hewlett Packard customer. One day in 2004, I noticed that the Hewlett Packard stock price had plummeted sharply in response to some bad news that I recall as seeming relatively minor, and as I had a favorable impression of the company at that time and some cash to invest, I purchased stock in the company - I am a Hewlett Packard investor. I now find it greatly disappointing to realize that as both an shareholder and customer of Hewlett Packard, I should feel indirectly complicit in HP's involvement in the creation and marketing to governments of technology to facilitate implementation of "National ID" systems in cahoots with Microsoft. Am I, as both a Hewlett Packard investor and customer, inadvertently participating in the evolution of a National ID? Ditto, as a Windows user?

Is it progress to subvert human judgment and responsibility to technology, or to delegate authority over human lives and liberties to unthinking data processing machines no matter how "intelligent" those machines may be? Is it good governance to tag and track people like cattle under the guise of protecting their liberties and ensuring their security, or an extemely bad and treacherous joke? When a government seeks to secure the well being of those in power to the detriment of citizens' well being and security, whose government is it - and why should thinking people trust government to safeguard any interests but its own?

Shall the hapless citizen awake one day soon to find his assets frozen on account of a "typo," or a small charitable contribution intended to feed hungry orphans in the wrong geo-political area? Shall an innocent citizen board a train one day, only to find herself detained as a "political dissident" and railroaded toward a government-run gulag instead of a peaceful journey to her intended destination? Shall a peace-loving citizen be labeled as a "terrorist" or "terrorist sympathizer" because he cared enough about his fellow human beings to protest when "his" government declares an unjust war of aggression, or wages one despite the absence of an official declaration of war by congress?

Sigh. I'm trying to enjoy the tail end of a chaotic spring vacation, and have no intention of spending precious time furiously making phone calls or writing emails for the sake of cookie-cutter responses to concerned or disgruntled HP customers and investors - it doesn't feel like a productive use of time to me at present to engage in forms of protest that appear ineffectual. If I was a significantly major shareholder, perhaps I might hope to influence corporate policies with a well placed phone call or email. If a distaste for the obligatory hamster wheel approach for small investors to "reach the top" with comments constitutes laziness on my part, so be it - I'd rather while away the hours reading Lin Yutang's "The Importance of Living," and contemplating the virtues of laziness. ;)

I guess that the lesson for me is to invest more prudently in the future, to look a little more carefully at a company before choosing to buy products or purchase shares. Perhaps, as a rule of thumb, I should adopt a strategy of investing primarily in smaller companies who find themselves adversely affected by the malignant growth of a homeland security state (which grows at the expense of the security of individual citizens) and avoid investing in any corporations who grow large at the federal trough, or appear likely to do so in the future.

A sensible course of action for me now may be to sell my HP shares, and hope that enough others do the same - eventually corporate headquarters might notice slack sales and a plummeting stock price, and rethink policies on that basis. Until that happens, I doubt my next computer will be an HP product - with any luck, by the time I'm ready to replace my current desktop PC it'll be easy to find a machine free of Windows and friendly enough for the non-geek user like me.

Rather than spend a day frantically complaining, I'm quite content to spend it thinking about other ways to invest my dollars for the rest of my life. Ploughing profits from HP shares into some other company - say, an upstart competitor for some of HP's business - sounds pretty tempting, or I may decide to appropriately allocate profits from the sale of HP shares toward a project dedicated toward exposing the treachery of a National ID system. Each idea has a certain appeal...

Strange times. I don't think I can recall a time when life ever felt darker, except for purely personal reasons that now seem like ancient history. Add a family crisis into the mix, the dreadful fear of possibly having lost a loved one without warning or an opportunity to say "I love you" one last time... a close call, perhaps, and one that shook me up a great deal. A stark reminder of the fact that life can profoundly change in an instant, quite unexpectedly... and that every moment is a precious opportunity. So many of them seem to be slipping me by unappreciated - I'm sure I'm hardly alone in that respect, and perhaps I needed a reminder from the universe that time is not a replenishable resource.

I appreciated Anthony's terrific piece, linked to in Sunni's previous post, and it reminded me of one that recently hit the nail on the head for me perhaps better than anyone had previously done... Justin Raimondo's Iraq Falls Apart, and in Washington the Center Cannot Hold. I'd meant to post a link to it at the time, but the opportunity slipped past (as so many seem to do). It made a profound impression on me because the same poem, Yeats' "Second Coming," had been haunting me for some time... and I'm sure it will continue to do so for some time:

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity." ...

Not my favorite poem, but it ranks amongst the most unforgettable... and seems so apropos to the times in its entirety.

Well, in a strangely synchronistic fashion, the words "Carpe Diem" (sieze the day) seem to be a recurring theme lately... so I'm off, hopefully to do just that!

Phew... after three rainy weekends in a row, it was high time today for the first Great Violet Massacre of the spring (more commonly referred to as "lawnmowing").

The sun finally came out when I'd almost finished massacring the front violets as luck would have it, and just when I was ready to take a breather before tackling the back - which is more like a second front yard than a proper back yard, a fact that I find more annoying each year. Repeated attempts to "naturalize" the back portion of my property have failed, although other parts of the lawn seem ready and willing to oblige. Plants don't take marching orders, and it takes a good deal of kindly persuasion to get them to grow where they don't want to - or a fair amount of unfriendly treatment to prevent them from growing where you don't want them to.

Lawnmowing time for me, like driving time, is often productive thinking time, and the subject line of this post popped into my head again. A while back, I'd thought it might be a good title for an essay which I haven't found time to write. Governments cause anarchy like spring rain and warmth cause flowers and grass to grow, by creating the necessary conditions. Naturally, I can't speak for other anarchists, but it seems reasonable to think that most individualist anarchists have embraced the anarchist philosophy more or less directly as a result of experiences with and observations of government at work.

Bureaucratic procedures are so obviously clumsy and inefficient compared with the spontaneous creativity of the free market, that it seems analogous to the relationship between my clunky old lawnmower and the forces of nature. Every year, I massacre the violets, dandelions and seedlings that spring up to compete with the grass, and with every passing year there are more violets (etc) and less grass. That's heartening, I think, because that's what the government is up against in the long run. Despite all government's pretensions toward omniscience and omnipotence, the bigger it gets the more effectively it seems to tie itself in knots. Like my clunky old lawnmower against the forces of nature, government simply can't kill off market competition - what government can and does do is legislate against free trade, and drive more and more market activity underground.

I detest this "Real ID" Act, and perhaps its passing does reflect a defining moment... I've personally felt so overwhelmed with immediate concerns recently that perhaps its importance hasn't borne in on me completely. On the other hand, while it's apparently a significant and ominous development I suspect that the cloud will have a silver lining. The way I look at it, in passing the Patriot Act, the Real ID Act, and other unpopular measures, government forces are absurdly attempting to control the irrepressible forces of nature. In the long run, I feel hopeful... after all, I have every faith in the forces of nature and very little in government. Like my old lawnmower, government will experience mechanical failures and eventually become obsolete... like nature, the free market will flourish in spite of governments. Not to say I'd want to stick my fingers under the lawnmower while its blades are turning any more than I'd welcome a SWAT team or an IRS audit... or a "Real ID." Those blades may not be sharp, but they can do a lot of damage nonetheless - much like bureaucratic or political thinking.

On the bright side, reckless government actions appear to be creating the right conditions for a whole new bumper crop of anarchists, and that means reinforcements may be on the way for freedom fighters on the front lines. Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic here, but I'm tired enough to hope for dawn to dispell the darkness when things appear to appear very dark indeed from a freedom loving perspective. For that matter, daylight is wasting - I'd better get back outside and attempt to subdue the forces of nature with my cranky old lawnmower for the umpteen-hundredth time, even if only for the first time this spring. Later on, I'll devote more time to catching up on Real ID, and overdue email responses for which I apologize to a number of people... it's just felt like "one of those weeks" for at least two weeks now. :(

This has just been one of those weeks! Aaarrgh! Two nights ago I learned, thanks to Freeman LC, that unbeknownst to me my domain name had expired and was up for grabs. The domain was initially gifted to me by a friend (who may prefer to remain anonymous?) and to whom I'm truly grateful - I don't know that I'd ever have tackled the project of maintaining a "vanity" website without his encouragement and his generous gift of the domain. I'm also grateful to the precious friend who taught me enough html basics to get started, and walked me through the website setup... the basics are about all I've mastered thus far, and I've been rather lackadaisical about regular updates. Both friends have long been linked from my "lynx" page, which is sorely in need of updating after the site is restored.

Thanks to Mama Liberty, my site should be accessible again sometime in the near future once we get the technical bugs worked out with some help from friends. My sincere thank you's to all concerned, and a special thanks to Sunni for her extra warmth and ongoing moral support through life's technical and emotional glitches... ;)


On a separate but related note, a dear friend has suggested that I experiment with a "private" blog of my own. I've long resisted the idea of maintaining a blog; the last thing it seems I need is another time sink and I'm content to occasionally contribute my two cents as a co-conspirator here at Sunni's.

However, obviously I need to cultivate better habits with respect to website maintenance, and perhaps keeping an online journal of some sort makes sense. I'm decidedly not up to the technical challenges of setting up a regular blog, and I'm a (notoriously?) private person... these days, it feels impossible to keep up with all my friends and fellow conspirators online. It seems as though I can hardly keep abreast of friends' blogs without attempting to maintain one of my own, but... then again...

Perhaps the private blog concept is a workable solution to keeping in touch with friends who may not have time or inclination for personal correspondence that can often feel overwhelming (as I know!). So I'm toying with the idea and would welcome friendly feedback or suggestions either in the form of comments here or email to cat_at_catfarmer.com. Catfarmer.com may be temporarily unavailable, but thankfully email to the above address still reaches me and I try to be conscientious about replying within a day or two... under the circumstances it may take me a little longer than it normally would; when in doubt please try again if I seem unresponsive! Cyberspace has a way of interfering with most-wanted messages while faithfully delivering spam and bulk mail - except when it's *important* bulk mail - sort of like the US postal service does with snail mail. Aaargh.

This has just been one of those weeks! Aaarrgh! Two nights ago I learned, thanks to Freeman LC, that unbeknownst to me my domain name had expired and was up for grabs. The domain was initially gifted to me by a friend (who may prefer to remain anonymous?) and to whom I'm truly grateful - I don't know that I'd ever have tackled the project of maintaining a "vanity" website without his encouragement and his generous gift of the domain. I'm also grateful to the precious friend who taught me enough html basics to get started, and walked me through the website setup... the basics are about all I've mastered thus far, and I've been rather lackadaisical about regular updates. Both friends have long been linked from my "lynx" page, which is sorely in need of updating after the site is restored.

Thanks to Mama Liberty, my site should be accessible again sometime in the near future once we get the technical bugs worked out with some help from friends. My sincere thank you's to all concerned, and a special thanks to Sunni for her extra warmth and ongoing moral support through life's technical and emotional glitches...


On a separate but related note, a dear friend has suggested that I experiment with a "private" blog of my own. I've long resisted the idea of maintaining a blog; the last thing it seems I need is another time sink and I'm content to occasionally contribute my two cents as a co-conspirator here at Sunni's.

However, obviously I need to cultivate better habits with respect to website maintenance, and perhaps keeping an online journal of some sort makes sense. I'm decidedly not up to the technical challenges of setting up a regular blog, and I'm a (notoriously?) private person... these days, it feels impossible to keep up with all my friends and fellow conspirators online. It seems as though I can hardly keep abreast of friends' blogs without attempting to maintain one of my own, but... then again...

Perhaps the private blog concept is a workable solution to keeping in touch with friends who may not have time or inclination for personal correspondence that can often feel overwhelming (as I know!). So I'm toying with the idea and would welcome friendly feedback or suggestions either in the form of comments here or email to cat_at_catfarmer.com. Catfarmer.com may be temporarily unavailable, but thankfully email to the above address still reaches me and I try to be conscientious about replying within a day or two... under the circumstances it may take me a little longer than it normally would; when in doubt please try again if I seem unresponsive! Cyberspace has a way of interfering with most-wanted messages while faithfully delivering spam and bulk mail - except when it's *important* bulk mail - sort of like the US postal service does with snail mail. Aaargh.

It's been raining cats and dogs (sadly, not snakes and tigers and wolves!) all day... good day for a rant.

Last night after work I stopped at a discount retailer to shop for spring clothes - not as though I desperately need new clothes, since I haven't "grown out" of old clothing that fit thirty years ago. Fashions change, and wardrobe favorites wear out - my tastes change with time, and in middle age I find it more difficult than ever to match appropriate styles to my size while shopping out of necessity in the juniors department. The trend in junior clothing seldom seems to be my friend, and many of the junior tops this year bear an astonishing resemblance to lingerie... cute, but entirely unsuitable for the office. AAARGH! I made a mental note to return in the fall when the stores will carry more sedate back-to-college and career clothing in junior sizes.

The expedition wasn't unsuccessful - I did purchase half a dozen items to replenish my spring/fall wardrobe. Half of those say "Made in USA" on the label. Of the others, one was made in Indonesia, one was made in the Phillipines, and the third item says "Knitted in Taiwan, Finished in China." Still, the nature of modern international commerce might mean that the "Made in USA" garments used imported materials from India or Japan, or outsourced various forms of labor to other countries, although the final product was assembled in the USA. Garments assembled in the Phillipines might require sewing machines made in China, or dyes made in Egypt, and factory workers might punch a timeclock made in Germany or depend on contracts from American or European importers for a steady paycheck...


Prices on a number of items I liked seemed high to me because I tend to be a frugal shopper and a bargain hunter. The costlier items seemed expensive on account of "designer labels," or having come from pricier retail chains rather than a noticable difference in quality. My gorgeous "Knitted in Taiwan, Finished in China" sweater, which lacks a designer label, was reduced to a paltry ten dollar clearance price - the sales clerk admired it too, as he rang it up... I can't imagine why nobody snapped it up before me but I was delighted with the find.

I also browsed the store's giftware department. Several stained glass items caught my eye, at prices that saddened me somewhat - I once worked at stained glass restoration and enjoyed glass work as a hobby that led to the work in restoration, so I know how much work goes into assembling an intricate lampshade or panel. The creative work I once enjoyed became uneconomic for me years ago because workers outside the USA can produce similar work more economically, so my sadness seems to have a double edged sting to it.

On one hand, I feel sympathy for workers whose time commands so little value that the fruits of their labors can be resold so cheaply - in looking at such a seemingly underpriced item, and knowing it may have traveled halfway across the globe, then taking a retailer's markup into account on top of that, it's vaguely frightening to think about the worker's wages. On the other hand, I feel a little sorry for myself too - it seems my time is so valuable that I can ill afford to spend much of it doing the things I love to do, like stained glass work or writing - practically, I do better to outsource my time and labor than pursue creative lines of work I might enjoy more for want of "business sense" or marketing instincts.

I guess this issue reflects my weird individual background and character development as well as any other. Confronted with the paradoxical and perplexing nature of such observations as I've described above, it seems almost reflexive for people to assume that government should solve labor and trade disputes. Traditional thinking seems to involve solutions of pitting one arm of government against another...for example, government should subsidize art on the one hand and protect the American worker's interests - and on the other hand, it should fight sweatshops both at home and abroad, and prevent or punish discrimination by employers. I don't believe in a government that can be all things to all people without believing that all people will eventually have equal reason to detest it much as I do, although obviously things have to get worse before the playing field gets nearly even in that respect.

People who object to globalization may offer valid objections to the forms of globalization they observe but they almost inevitably seem to embrace disastrous solutions by lobbying government as the one solution to solve all problems and disparaging free market concepts. People who object to immigration might cultivate a deeper appreciation for the reasons why foreigners may still want to immigrate to the USA, and reflect a bit more thoughtfully about life in a society so hostile to outsiders that it becomes unattractive to immigrants - tourism and commerce seem likely to follow the freedom-seeking entrepreneurial spirit that once "built" America and made it great. It's the socially stagnating forces that benefit from quelching freedom and innovation I distrust; and it takes a government to raise or reward those. Right, Hilary?

I may miss doing stained glass work, but I'm not so shallow as to resent foreigners the opportunity to better themselves and feed their children by producing work more inexpensively than I can even if it's just a job to the foreign worker to do the work I once delighted in. I'm grateful to live in a country that seems attractive to immigrants; that's the most persuasive evidence for the often-heard argument that America is better place to live than other countries. I can't help but wish Americans might retain more openness to aspiring immigrants in search of freedom, and less acceptance of the petty tyrants who'd turn America into the kind of place many immigrants might seek an escape from. I can't help but wish Americans might see the benefits of globalization without expecting some form of globalized government to solve labor problems or trade conflicts that arise. To heck with all the pointless disputes about what sort of government we should have - how about a government that doesn't have the power to butt in to every nook and cranny of people's lives, instead of ceaseless disputes about whose nooks and crannies it should butt into?

I can't help but hope that the day I decide I don't belong here I may feel free to leave, but I'm afraid that until the day comes when I can't leave America it'll feel like home - and if the day ever arrives when America feels totally unlike home, I won't be able to leave. I can't help but sympathize with immigrants in search of a better life - surely it's a poor reflection on any country when people in search of a better life find emigration the best way to pursue it.

If immigrants come to America seeking a life of government handouts instead of "a land of opportunity," I don't see the logic of ousting or restricting immigrants. A government that actually worked to preserve and protect liberty would invite immigrants seeking freedom, not government handouts. All things considered as far as globalization goes, I'd hope the last thing America ever willingly exports to the world is its government, and any signs that the American people object to a government that aspires to be our primary export seem encouraging. Whatever else, let us not globalize government - small local ones are bad enough to deal with!!!

Well, I've got new clothes to wear to work and I didn't have to make them... I guess I'd look strange at the office if I went to work clothed in anarchist writings or a stained glass outfit anyway. #@&%!

Okay, I _know_ I'm revealing my age with this post. With Sunni under the weather and Sunni-shine gone astray today, though, this old Jonathan Edwards tune keeps running through my mind... perhaps because of the chorus lyrics:

"Sunshine come on back another day
I promise you I'll be singing
This old world, she's gonna turn around
Brand new bells'll be ringing"

Get some rest, Sis... the world will seem brighter when you're feeling better. :)

Sometimes it astonishes me how casually people throw attitudes around seemingly without sparing a thought for other perspectives or "ways of being." No doubt I do it too, although I try to catch myself at it. Aggressive attitudes may not result in physical violence, but generally when violence occurs the underlying cause is a conflict between aggressive attitudes. I suspect much of the strife in society springs from unexamined assumptions, and people being willing to spring into action reflexively on the basis of those assumptions. Such is politics.

Many people who seemingly ought to know better tend to look down their noses at "high school dropouts," yet on the other hand sound equally contemptuous of "public school" graduates. Most kids don't have much choice in the matter of school, and the younger children are the less choice they tend to have. Perhaps many private schools are better than public schools - many people seem increasingly aware of the problems created by a shortage of available educational options, thus the push for vouchers, charter schools, etc.

I appreciated Sunni's So Who's the Real Smarty? post back in November, as well as Lobo's delightful comment, "I think of such people as having 'risen above' school, instead of 'dropping out.'"

So what's wrong with opting out? Life is educational, and in many ways school stands out in my memory as being less educational than any job I've had or hobby I've enjoyed. I'm sorry I wasn't able to opt out many years earlier to pursue independent interests; not because I don't wish to learn from other people but because the ability to choose one's teachers might make education more pleasant and the experience more rewarding. School environments seem to stifle interest in learning and thinking by design, to the point where a large number of children apparently now require mind numbing medications to sit still through the school day. So I'd still like to know, what's wrong with that picture - and what's wrong with opting out of it?