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Bush and the Pig

Sometimes our president just really makes our whole country look ridiculous: Bush in Germany.

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Learning Polish

From my journal, ten years ago.

I’ve been working with my host mother on the basic Polish sounds and I have hit a real break through in [the] pronunciation of sz and rz. It’s great!

Earlier in the evening I was trying to pronounce one of the many “sh” sounds and after several failures I finally threw out a last attempt accompanied by a significant amount of spittle, and she cried “Tak!” with great delight.

Learning Polish was unlike learning Spanish and French for me because it occurred in Poland out of necessity. Survival even. And so the result is that I know much more Polish than I ever did French or Spanish, and I have an understanding of linguistic subtitlies that escpaced me in high school and university.

And I can finally say “chrząszcz” without drowning my conversational companions.

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"The New Polish Potatoes"

Ah, those Kaczynski boys, they’re a crazy pair:

[Prime Minister] Marcinkiewicz resigned just days after President Kaczynski, 57, canceled a “Weimar Triangle” summit meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Jacques Chirac of France.

These summit meetings were first started 15 years ago, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union to forge closer political, economic and security ties between the three largest countries in the European Union but also to break down decades of suspicions and tension between Warsaw and Berlin.

Kaczynski’s office canceled the meeting with very short notice, officially because Kaczysnki had become ill. But senior Polish diplomats and opposition politicians said the real reason was a satirical article published in the German daily Taz newspaper that described the Kaczynski twins as “the Polish new potatoes.”

Anna Fotyga, Poland’s foreign minister, publicly complained to the German Foreign Ministry and demanded a formal apology. After Berlin said it would not comment since it supported freedom of the press, Fogyta said the lack of response was “shocking” and compared the article to the language used in Der Stürmer, a propaganda weekly during the Nazi era. Former foreign ministers accused the government of damaging Poland’s national interests. (IHT)

I think if this had happened during recess, the Leck or Jarek would have just smacked the editor.

Maybe that would have been less damaging for Polish foreign relations.

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God in the Aisle

I sometimes go to mass with Kinga for companionship, and today, I was certainly glad I did. Before I get into the reason why, some theology.

Catholics of course believe in something they call the “Real Presence,” which is the belief that the bread and wine are the actual body and blood of Jesus. It’s based on an Aristotelian concept of accident and essence—what a thing looks like and what it really is. So the Catholic explanation of why it still looks suspiciously like bread and wine is that the outward appearance has remained, but the essential reality has changed.

This is why there’s all the genuflection in churches and especially before monstrances, because if that really is God in the flesh flour, then it only makes sense to bow.

This also goes a long way in explaining the controversy about how a parishioner can take the host: standing, kneeling, on the tongue, on the palm of the hand. I think the variety is strictly American. In Poland, the issue is vastly simplified: stand or kneel. There’s no way a priest will give it to your hand in Poland. (Kinga’s highly religious aunt is completely shocked and offended that anyone could think of taking the host standing…)

“Real Presence” also explains why some might be a little uneasy with the idea of anyone other than a priest handing out the host. In the States, members of the congregation hand out the blood and wine (though the priest has consecrated it and all that). Again, this is probably a completely American thing.

All this is to explain the significance of why I’ve always wondered what would happen if someone tripped and—whoosh—there’s God, all over the floor.

At this morning’s mass, my question was answered.

An elderly woman, serving as Eucharistic minister, was heading back up to the altar (and so her chalices were probably almost empty) when suddenly there was a stumble, shuffle, and crash. I saw the whole thing out of the corner of my eye, and I immediately directed all my attention there—as did everyone else in the basilica.

The priest kept right on going, but not many people were giving him their undivided attention. Everyone was looking at the aisle, watching the lady pick up the hosts as another Eucharistic minister helped her. Then a deacon came with a cloth that had been dampened, I’m assuming with holy water, and wiped the spot.

The woman was obviously quite shaken. She said some words to the priest, and he sympathetically comforted her. Returning to her seat, she muttered something to her husband, and that was that.

It highlights how atypical Catholicism is in modern culture, where all sense of the scared has disappeared. “And so much the better” many of us would add, but sacredness fosters a certain respect that I’m not sure you can get any other way. It’s simplistic to explain it, “Well of course it’s respect—born out of fear, a terror that some deity will toast you.” There’s certainly an element of truth in that.

Communism tried to foster some sense of the sacred—the working masses were the vessels for salvation. The working man is the communist messiah. Marches, songs, flag waving, speeches—all these things to foster a sense of the sacred in the people. Yet it didn’t work. My wife grew up in that culture, and it was all a joke for everyone. Why?

It lacked mystery.

Without mystery, without an element of the unknown and inexplicable, nothing can be sacred. Indeed, sacredness could be defined as a sense of mystery about something thought to be of divine origin. If you see the little old man putting together the wizard show, hanging the curtains, preparing the control panel, it is only through an act of supreme wishful thinking that you can put your faith in the Wizard.

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"Come on, just once!"

“Come on, Larry. Just once! Let’s just see if she’ll notice. I swear I won’t do anything with her.” How many twins have uttered something like that to their identical sibling, trying to convince the sibling to let him go on a date with his brother’s girlfriend?

What if the twins both held public office, only one was much higher in rank? Say Jeb and W were twins—wouldn’t you think that Jeb would try, just once, to convince his brother to let him make some kind of address as the president? “Come on, Georgie! We ain’t talkin’ about a State of the Union address. It’s just a little chat out in the Rose Garden. They’ll never notice!”

We’re fortunate that Jeb and W aren’t twins, because they seem just, well, lacking-in-seriousness enough to try it.

Such a situation is not inconceivable in the near future in Poland, though. Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz has resigned and the ruling party, PiS (Law and Order Justice—Prawo i Sprawiedliwość), has indicated that they want Jarosław Kaczynski to take the position.

“Kaczynski. That sounds familiar,” some might think.

That’s because the president of Poland is Lech Kaczynski, Jarosław’s twin brother.

Oh, he’s so adorable, let’s just call him “Jarek.”

It’s not clear whether Jarek is going to take the position. He turned it down earlier on the reasonable grounds that it might give some people the willies to have twin brothers in the two highest positions in the nation, but I think this time he’ll just suffer through those discomforting thoughts and take the post.

But it’s no big change. Jarek’s been running the country for month’s. Marcinkiewicz’s just been a puppet, people say.

That sounds awfully familiar.

At any rate, the BBC report seems strangely enough to confirm this: BBC did not use the Polish character “ł,” pronounced like the English “w,” so it’s not a typo.

Over recent weeks, there had been frequent reports of a rift between Mr Marcinkiewicz and Jaroslaw Kaczynski over economic policy.

Wait a minute? I know Jarek is the PiS party leader, but his brother is president, is he not? Wouldn’t it be tensions between the president and the PM that would cause the PM to resign, rather than tensions between the party boss and the PM? Unless, of course, the party boss is the boss.

The good thing in all this? At least Jarek will admit—sort of—that he’s in charge.

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A Modest Proposal

I prefer the English “football” to the American “soccer.” “American football” barely even makes use of the feet—fat seems critical there. Perhaps one reason Americans don’t like football is because of the whining, says Jake Novak in Newsday. The Week writes that “European soccer players seem to spend most of the game writing in fake agony.”

Indeed, diving in football—intentionally falling to make it appear one has been fouled—is a growing concern in European football.

Germany World Cup-winning captain and coach Franz Beckenbauer has asked for there to be a crackdown on divers and cheaters.

“The players are looking for an advantage and they attempt to exploit the situation,” said the head of Germany’s 2006 organising committee.

“At the beginning of the tournament, I felt the referees were showing yellow cards too early for trivial offences but the players make it much harder by simulating, and by staying lying on the ground to interrupt play,” he said.

“Perhaps everyone – players, referees and administrators can get around a table after this to come up with a solution to put an end to this kind of unfortunate incidents. (BBC News)

Often, you see a player gnashing his teeth in pain, clutching a shin video replay shows to have been hardly tapped by an opponent’s leg. The paramedics and team physical trainer all come running out with a medical case and stretcher, only to find that—hey!—he can walk after all! In fact, after a few limps, he’s jogging, then running!

Miracle of miracles.

Aside from being immoral, this behavior simply slows a game of otherwise constant motion.

“How do we deal with it?” everyone moans.

And so I present my simple, three step process.

First, introduce the use of video replay into the game. Too often the ref is too far from the “foul” that takes place very quickly. To make a judgment that this was indeed a case of diving is difficult, at best.

Second, provide refs with a small, wireless video monitor. Simple. When a ref thinks there’s been a case of diving, he simply reviews the play on the monitor.

Third, implement a graduated penalty system for diving:

• The penalty for the first offense of the season: a fine of 1% of the player’s annual contract income.
• Second offense: 5%.
• Third offense: 10%.
• Fourth offense: suspension for the rest of the season, plus an additional 10% of the player’s annual contract income.

The proceeds of this go to a charity designed to provide football facilities in developing nations.

Diving would disappear very quickly.

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Myopic America: Thoughts on the Fourth of July

Kinga and I have now been back in the States a little over a year. That, combined with the date, makes it appropriate to share some of the thoughts I’ve been having about America lately.

If you were to ask Kinga, after a year here, “What do you think of America?” she’d answer unhesitatingly and unflinchingly, “I hate it.” No, this is not going to turn into an America-bashing diatribe, but I have to admit that, on some level, I do too. Not the people, or the culture, or the government, or even the geography.

I hate the paradox of America.

America in so many ways is an amazing nation. We have freedoms unimagined in other countries. Think of the David Irving conviction for Holocaust denial in Austria and the trial of Oriana Fallaci in Italy for insulting Islam. Such nonsense doesn’t happen here, and the fact that I grew up here explains why I call it “nonsense.” Freedom of speech is so engrained in my thinking that I hate to imagine the purgatorial existence life without it would constitute. Freedom of religion, freedom from religion, protection against unwarranted police action (though this could of late be qualified with “some degree of “), access to legal remediation of wrongs done to us — the list could continue for a few more lines. Additionally, we have attained a standard of living in one short year in America that we would not have in three years in Poland. The economy there is simply shot.

The wealth of this country is unbelievable as well, at least on the surface. The majority of us have a standard of living here that few in the world enjoy. We have a highway system on a scale that beats anything I’ve ever seen. Anything and everything is literally available at any time of day.

And yet…

That wealth is illusory. Who owns our houses, our cars, our computers and furniture — most anything that costs more than we’re able to pay in cash? Banks. We “common” folk have a medium income of roughly $42,000. The average CEO makes $11 million, more in one day than the average American makes in a year. So there is wealth, it’s just not evenly distributed.

The freedoms I speak of are, more often than not, abused. Lawsuits increase, insurance goes up, and in the end, it’s the same story — a few (the winning plaintiffs) getting rich off the toil of the many.

The amazing freedom of speech we have results in what? Thoughtful public debate about issues? Certainly not — talk shows!

America was once a leader in technology and development. We were the first to fly, the first to land on the moon (oops — not the first in space…), the first this, the first that. Americans used to dominate the world of computer programming. And now?

The most amazing thing about this country is also, at the moment, the most ridiculous: our government. We’re bogged down in Iraq; “democratic Afghanistan” is a joke, as the Taliban slowly reasserts itself and Christians almost get executed for being just that; our reliance of fossil fuels is beginning to cause real problems; we’ve lost world respect with the shameful holding facility at Guantanamo Bay; New Orleans has still not fully recovered from the trilateral fiasco of local, state, and national “leadership”; the Bush administration is taking unparalleled liberties with our liberties — and what does Congress do about it? Why, debate the pressing issues of gay marriage and flag burning, of course.

The paradox of America is that it is shortsighted. It’s a young country and it acts the part, especially of late — the blustering machismo of a sixteen-year-old. As a nation, as a populous, we don’t look beyond our own noses. The average American, I would wager, has no idea why gas prices have doubled before our eyes. The fact that SUV sales in the first quarter of 2006 were on par with 2005 growth expectations despite rocketing fuel costs shows the American mindset perfectly. It’s all about short-term material pleasure. In American Axle & Manufacturing’s first quarter fiscal report for 2006, we read, “We are encouraged by the initial market acceptance of GM’s new full-size SUVs and look forward to supporting the launch of GM’s new full-size pick-ups later this year.” (Source) Yes — be encouraged by this recklessly myopic market phenomenon! You’ll make money from it!

American Axle & Manufacturing’s good news is indeed good from a certain perspective: it will provide, in theory, jobs. But to Americans? I doubt it. Perhaps the most striking examples of myopic America are the education and health care systems. America lags so far behind the rest of the western world in providing education and universal health care for its citizens that it would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic.

Not only do many citizens have to scrounge to afford a university education, but the education provided to the public for free (i.e., primary and secondary schools) is so far academically behind the rest of the world that we’re literally laughed at. Some months ago, when I told Kinga what I was working on with eleventh and twelfth graders in general math while substitute teaching, she laughed, “We did that in fourth and fifth grade.”

Yet nothing compares to the chasm between American and European health care. When Polish friends moved to Belgium, the total hospital cost for delivering their second baby was around two hundred euros. Two hundred euros. I doubt you can get much more than an aspirin in an American hospital for that.

Are any of these situations improving? If so, I’ve yet to see evidence of it. Yet, hope and cliches spring eternal…

What I feel most often on the Fourth of July now is mild sadness. I don’t expect America to fall in some spectacular way, but rather to dim slowly, like a candle in an oxygen-starved room. It will burn, but it won’t provide any light to speak of.

The Fourth of July, I’m afraid, will eventually not be a day of pride. It won’t be filled with fireworks and patriotic speeches about sacrifice and a noble cause. It will be a day of remembrance, a day to recall how powerful this nation used to be. A day to recall how we traded our independence for SUVs and iPods.

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Making Us Proud

Our local minor league team, the Asheville Tourists (?!?), made national news. Rather, the manager did. Check out this clip.

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Exceptions

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Blasphemous Rumors

I’m supposing we all know who Oriana Fallaci is:

The trial of Oriana Fallaci, a journalist and author accused of defaming Islam in a book, was opened and adjourned yesterday in an Italian court.

What is it with Europe and free speech? First of all there was David Irving’s trial in Austria for Holocaust denial. That makes a little sense (a very little sense) because Austria and Germany are still understandably, say, sensitive about the Holocaust. Very good—they should be. But putting people in jail for what they say is not the way to deal with it.

The Fallaci trial is even more ridiculous:

The charge stems from a recent book, The Strength of Reason, one of a trilogy she has published since the September 11 attacks on the US. In the book, Fallaci, 77, is alleged to have made 18 blasphemous statements, including referring to Islam as “a pool that never purifies”. (Guardian Unlimited)

What gets me is the choice of words: blasphemous. Since when is Italy under sharia law? Since when is it okay to insult Christianity (as some claim the Da Vinci Code does) but no other religion?

I’m an equal-opportunity offender. If a religion—or anything—does or promotes something harmful or stupid, I’ll comment on it, usually in the negative. If you’re offended by that, walk away. Don’t listen. Ignore me.

And it’s such an amazing juxtaposition with the whole Danish cartoon controversy. The swinging pendulum of European justice…

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Seven Months

Seven months’ work with seven autistic children came to an end last Friday, the last day of school. “I feel I’m a better person for the experience,” I said to a colleague. So many daily lessons — as Elie Wiesel often says of his students, I learned far more than I taught.

I learned how to separate the behavior from the child. The child and the behavior — and I’m talking of crises: spitting, hitting, screaming, kicking, crawling under a table, self-destructive behavior, etc. — are not equivalent. Indeed, it is very seldom the child actually behaving that way, but rather the condition taking over and running things for a few moments, or minutes. You can see it in the eyes, and hear it in the voice.

I learned that there are far more difficult things to deal with as a teacher than a belligerent teenager. Countless times during the last seven months I was at a complete loss as to what to do, what to say, how to behave. This was partially a function of my lack of education in the EC field. When a child is in crisis, it’s a natural reaction to try to discuss it, to try to “talk him down.” In the world of autism, that seldom works. I learned to do so many things in exact opposition to my every instinct.

I learned what true student progress can entail. A couple of the students finished the year as completely different children than when they started. Gains in reading ability, social interaction, verbal expression, math skills, and general life skills left me simply astounded, and understandably proud that I had something to do with it.

I learned that even many regular education teachers feel they wouldn’t be able to work with such “difficult” children. “You guys are the saints of the school,” someone once told me, and a couple of others expressed an inexplicable admiration of “what we do.” What we did was not very different from regular education: try to teach children and minimize the behavior issues that impede learning. It’s just in special ed, the behaviors can be more concentrated. It’s sometimes a triple espresso to regular education’s thin, pale diner coffee.

As something of a correlate of the previous two points, I learned how to recognize true appreciation in the eyes and voice of parents. When I began working there as a substitute teacher, I was told that most subs last one day and refuse ever to come back. Full-time aides must be relatively difficult to find as well. Almost to a parent, everyone told me, “We really hope you’ll be back next year, though given the pay, we’d all understand if you didn’t.”

Finally, I learned that I have a patience I never knew I had, and it also has its bounds.

I leave with a greater understanding of autism, a greater respect for the parents of autistic children who live with autism every day.

Most of all, I leave with greater sympathy and respect for children with autism. They are the ones caught in a trap with varying degrees of understanding what that trap is, let alone how to get out. And yet they so often show those of us working with them things we never would have noticed because of the unique perspective from which they see every little thing.

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Corpus Christi

From my journal ten years ago today—my first experience with Corpus Christi, though I had no idea what it was.

I am waiting for the bus, sitting in front of a church. I went in for a moment, but decided I should probably leave — I didn’t cross myself with holy water (It appears to be stagnant water with a greasy film.) and I was getting a few looks (though there were several others who did not cross themselves either).

Suddenly the bells began ringing and eventually I caught sight of a procession coming around from behind the church. Choir boys were dinging small bells and behind them was a procession of relics. A little behind that was the priest, walking under a canopy supported by six men, preceded by a young priest waving an incense burner. The head priest was holding a staff with a gold sun in front of his face — he was led by the arms, for he certainly couldn’t see where he was going. Behind the priest was a group of loosely organized lay-persons, singing a capella. The woman beside me knelt as the group went by. A strange thing, this Christianity.

Ten years ago. Ten years. Ten years…

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Lunch Rules

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Zep Kittens

Something mildly amusing one of our students found while looking for pictures of kittens on the internet.

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On Target

Brainshrub gets right to the heart of the matter: Ban gay married illegal Mexican immigrant flag burning.

I think I sense a conservative platform for the mid-term elections…

Let’s just hope that none of the Republican candidates made art films. (Via Susie Bright.)

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New Car, New Savings, New Pictures

We recently bought a Jetta turbo diesel, with the eventual aim of going bio-diesel. Until we get the filtration system set up, we’re just using regular diesel.

On our trip to the Outer Banks (pics coming soon), we averaged 41.09 MPG, with a high of 47.48 MPG. In other words, to travel 248.8 miles, we consumed 5.24 gallons of gas. At the price we paid (2.89, if memory serves), that’s $0.06 per mile!

Okay—I’m getting nerdy with all the numbers.

We filled up before leaving the Outer Banks and still have a quarter of a tank left…

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Traveling Not-So-Light

There was a time when Kinga and I regularly packed all the belongings we thought we’d need for an entire week or more into bike panniers and still be convinced we’d taken too much. For the trip to Budapest (picture at right—more here) we even took (I’m embarrassed to admit it) three cameras. Oh, and a tripod.

For this weekend’s trip to the Outer Banks, we’ve almost filled our new car’s trunk—Jetta turbo diesel (40 mpg average!)—and we haven’t even finished packing yet!

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Pressing Flesh For Effect

This Monday I participated in an education flesh fair: an education career fair. Hundreds of us unemployed teachers (or at least not employed teaching in one’s subject area) were queuing in front of tables where representatives from various school districts sat, taking resumes and asking assorted questions.

I’d checked all the websites of districts I knew to be participating and found very few jobs listed there. “Perhaps they’re just not listing them on the site, opting instead to wait until after the career fair to see what jobs remain open.” Wrong.

There were very few school systems looking for English teachers, and a couple of them that had posted vacancies just about two weeks ago had already filled the positions. That’s fast — two weeks to get resumes, conduct interviews, make the first selection, call back those who made the cut, interview a second time, make a decision, make an offer, and have the offer accepted. At some point in that process one would think that the district would update its vacancy page to reflect the filled position, but that’s a bit naïve I guess. Two of them are still there.

At any rate, I went from table to table (county to county essentially), flashed a smile, answered questions, and generally schmoozed. The outcome: one interview set for mid-June, with two more schools expressing interest. “We’ll call you,” they said.

I’d interviewed at this same school near the beginning of the school year when an unanticipated vacancy appeared literally days before the school year began. My first interview in years. It obviously didn’t go so well. It also didn’t go so badly, it seems, for the director of personnel remembered me and was willing — interested, might I even say? — in having me “come by to talk again.” The downside: the school is forty miles away.

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Not So Loose Change

Loose Change has been steadily moving up Google Video’s Ranking. It’s up to the number one position, after sitting at two for a couple of days.

Well, at least part of it appears to be proven wrong.

Flight 77 not a hoax .

Of course, they still haven’t released the video from the service station or the hotel, so Dylan and the boys still have part of their film intact.

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Are we so uneducated?!

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Higher Standards?

What do you make of a bank that offers auto loans only through an automated online process? What do you make of a bank that provides no customer support regarding auto loans? What do you make of a bank that denies you a loan of less than what you currently have in a savings account of that very bank when you have a credit rating in the top 10 percentile?

My answer: not much—at least, not much that’s not heavily laced with profanity.

The bank in question is Bank of America, which is currently the institution that provides us with our banking “services.” After yesterday’s experience, we will have absolutely nothing to do with Bank of America and their “higher standards”

The story: Kinga and I have decided to go bio-diesel, and the first step in that process is, obviously enough, buying a diesel car. We found a 2000 Jetta diesel sedan for a good price and made an accepted offer.

I called my local branch office of BOA to ask what documents I would need to bring to apply for an auto loan. The young man who answered the phone politely asked me to hold on while he checked with a banker. He returned to the line and told me that I would need two forms if ID—exactly what I’d suspected. I arrived at the location to be told that actually to apply for the loan I would have to use Bank of America’s online services. Essentially I’d driven all the way there to be told not that I could do it at home, but that I must do it at home. Why I wasn’t told this over the phone is a complete mystery that can only be explained as incompetence.

I returned home, filled in the necessary online forms, and almost immediate was told,

We are unable to approve your auto loan application at this time. […] You’ll receive a letter in the mail within 30 days. This letter will include more information about your decision.

Given the balance in our bank account and my credit rating, what could be the cause? Simple: I do not make enough money as a teacher’s aid to get such a loan on my own (which says as much about the nation’s education system as it does about the bank), and Kinga, as a Pole, has no credit history.

Now, I could understand this if we were applying at another bank, but at my own bank? An institution that has immediate access to my account and can confirm a steady, consistent stream of deposits and a large savings account?

To top it all off, I was not even asked for how much the loan would be. It would have been, in fact, around 70% of what we’ve already deposited in savings!

Needless to say, I was more than furious. I was even more enraged to learn that there is actually no human being I can talk to about a car loan from Bank of America. Everything refers me to BOA’s online “services.” This means that my loan application was processed entirely and rejected by a computer.

On the recommendation of a friend, I called the local SunTrust branch, talked to a human being, and was still receiving phone calls and help from her after business hours at seven in the evening! As an aside, the kind woman at SunTrust told me that I was the third person that day to contact her looking for a better banking experience than what they’d received at Bank of America.

SunTrust has won our trust and business, whereas Bank of America has lost it permanently.

What is most infuriating is the fact that my credit rating is now lower because of BOA’s unwillingness to pay people to talk to those of us wanting a small loan. The online bio of the president of BOA, Kenneth Lewis, web site bio brags that he runs “one of the world’s largest financial institutions, the fifth most profitable company in the world and the ninth most highly valued company in the world by market capitalization.” Reuter’s reports that BOA “posted a $4.99 billion profit last quarter” (Reuters), so they’re pretty good making money, not fairly dismal at helping people.

But there are more compelling reasons for changing institutions. According to Reuter’s,

In February 2005, Bank of America said it lost track of computer tapes containing account data for about 1.2 million federal government employees, including some U.S. senators.

Three months later, New Jersey authorities charged several people over the compromising of accounts at several banks, including some 60,000 Bank of America accounts.

Bank of America was also one of many credit card issuers affected by a breach affecting some 40 million cards and traced to CardSystems Solutions Inc., a third-party processor. (Reuter’s)

So they’re have significant security vulnerabilities and they’re worried only about their bottom line.

Cosa Loro

Really the only difference between a bank and a mafia loan shark is the amortization frequency and the penalty for default.

Both the mafia and the banking industry make it even more difficult for you to get a reasonable loan (i.e., one that you can repay in your lifetime) by putting unreasonable stipulations on the loan. If you’re a risk to a bank—in other words, if you have a bad credit rating—the bank offers you a loan at a higher interest rate, thereby making it more difficult to repay it.

“We don’t think you’ll be able to pay this back,” bankers say, “So we’re going to make it more difficult for you to pay it back.”

Where’s the logic in that? It doesn’t even make sense from a banker’s point of view. If a bank has to foreclose on a house financed with a high-interest loan, they’ll up auctioning it off for a substantial loss.

Still, they get their money no matter what. It’s a good gig, this money-lending scheme the banks have…

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Exodus

From The Observer:

So many young Poles are leaving to find jobs and a better life in Britain that bosses back home are desperate for them to return to keep the wheels of Polish industry turning, writes Daniel McLaughlin in Wroclaw. [...]

More than half a million Poles have moved to Britain to find jobs since Poland joined the European Union two years ago. They have fled a country with 18 per cent unemployment, the highest figure in the 25-nation bloc. But now the drain of talent has speeded up to such an extent that Poland is complaining of a drastically reduced population and the lack of a suitable workforce to help the country develop. (Source)

But why would an educated twenty-something want to return to this:

Poland is still anchored in its anti-Semitic past, says Gabriele Lasser in Berlin’s die tageszietung Consider the output of Radio Maryja, one of Poland’s main radio stations and virtual house organ of the governing Law and Justice Party. (Between the hymns and prayers, ministers use it to announce policy.) This Catholic station, which spews out right-wing propaganda for the benefit of its 3 million listeners, surpassed itself last month with an anti-Semitic diatribe from the pundit Stanislaw Michalkiewicz. Polish “kikes,” he bellowed, have manufactured a “Holocaust industry,” in order to “extort” compensation from the taxpayer for property expropriated during World War II. Poland’s telecom watchdog, which recently imposed a heavy fine on another radio station for satirizing Radio Maryja and “damaging the journalistic ethic,” didn’t utter a peep of protest. But the comments incensed Pope Benedict, and the Vatican fired off a furious letter to Poland’s bishops, demanding they stop turning a blind eye to this extremist claptrap. Benedict is due on an official visit next month. If the bishops want to avoid a spanking from the pope in person, they had better do something, and soon, about Radio’s Maryja’s hateful programming. (From The Week news magazine).

And now Andrzej Lepper is Agriculture Minister and Roman Giertych is Education Minister. There’s already talk about “cleaning” homosexuals out of the education field…

“It could be worse,” Kinga and I said when PiS (Law and Justice Party) got elected in Poland last year.

It is worse…

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Sign Language

I find it interesting that so many of the signs in yesterday’s anti-immigration-reform protest explicitly gave “proof” of the validity of the opposition’s argument. In other words, the cries, “They don’t assimilate! They don’t even learn the language!” were born out in so many of the signs that protesters carried.

Now, I’m not an advocate of creating legislation that makes English the official language of America, but one would think that this time, of all times, would be when immigrants use English. And I’m not even suggesting that it should be even close to correct English.

And that’s why I love the sign at right so much.

(Pictures swiped from NYT. Click on them for larger versions.)

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Joy

Recently found an Asian food market…and the sweating began!

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Effective R&D

Excerpts from an article from Bloomberg.com:

• crude supplies will stay tight through the end of the decade.
• The situation will persist until 2010.
• Oil prices have climbed 23 percent to more than $75 a barrel this year
• Persian Gulf states that don’t allow international companies to develop their oil reserves, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, should invest more to expand output themselves,
• The International Energy Agency’s Mandil told reporters today in Doha that OPEC would “just about’’ meet the expected 25 percent growth in global demand over the next three years. (Source)

The most amazing quote is the third:

Persian Gulf states that don’t allow international companies to develop their oil reserves, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, should invest more to expand output themselves

They’re making billions at these prices. Why the hell should they increase output? Eat up their resources for decreased revenue? There’s absolutely no incentive for them to do so.

Oh, this is all just cruel justice for America, which has grown fat and lazy on its cheap gas. Think about it — gas is just now getting to be more expensive than milk! We’ve brought it on ourselves with our short-sightedness. We’ve had almost thirty years to prepare for this oil crisis that is revving up, but what did we do instead?

Invent the SUV.

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Tyranny and Giggles

The funny thing about conspiracy theories is that their existence disproves them. World governments, fluoridated water, governmental control of drug trafficking, Illuminati plans for world domination—all are simply and easily disproved with one simple question: “How would I get this information?”

Take Alex Jones’ New World Order conspiracy: the global elite (which he calls the Illuminati, the Bilderberg group, the Bohemian Grove, and any number of other terms depending on who knows what) have been out since the turn of the century to take over the world. Highlights of the theory:

• Communism was a creation of international bankers at the turn of the 20th century to submit people to a police state.
• Hitler was simply playing his small role in the grand scheme of world domination.
• The Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 were planned and executed by the U.S. government in order to justify a gradual implementation of a police state.
• The U.S. government has been systematically poisoning its citizens through chem trails, fluoridation of water, vaccinations, and other methods.
• Cartoons are systematically conditioning children to chip implementation and complete police-state control of citizens’ every move.

Look at that—everyone’s involved, even sworn enemies. Communists and Fascists are on the same team. Clinton and Bush are two sides of the same evil. Conspirators and secret police are everywhere, watching our every move and…

And clamping down on anyone who exposes them? Well, that would make sense. If someone has untangled the whole ugly scheme and presented it to the world, he should be shut up immediately, right? One word and it’s silence. After all, if the federal government can engineer 9/11 and coordinate it all in real time from World Trade Center 7 (as Jones asserts), then they can easily take out a radio host and make it look like a natural death.

And there’s the rub: the fact that people like Jones can carry on continually like he does shows the conspiracy doesn’t exist. Jones has made many “documentaries” and written books about the coming New World Order tyranny, detailing their plans and warning people about it, and yet this supposed world group, which has conspired to kill millions, hasn’t shut him up?

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Cold, Colder, Getting Colder

Noes from my journal after watching a little of TBN’s “Praise-A-Thon” (View online, if you dare.) before heading off to bed. If you throw enough vagueness out, some of it is going to stick. Those who claim to speak with the dead rely on this. It’s called a cold reading. Most people are worried about love, health, and money. Stick to those topics and say that something—the ghost of a loved one, the Holy Ghost, or anything really—is providing you with insights about a given individual’s love life or heart condition, and there’ll surely be someone listening who’s now convinced you’re talking to him.

Cold reading involves asking questions then repeating back the answers in a way that makes a subject think the reader—a psychic or faith healer—got that information from some third party—God, Uncle Marvin, whomever.

James Randi provides the following example:

Reader: Did your husband linger on in the hospital, or did he pass quickly?
Subject: Oh, he died almost immediately!
Reader: Yes, because he’s saying to me, “I didn’t suffer. I was spared any pain.” (Source)

Later, the subject will be convinced that the reader “knew” her husband passed quickly and without pain. Randi explains that readers’ success stems from their manipulation of your perception:

So, you see, it’s your perception of what’s actually being done, rather that the reality of the procedure, and your ignorance of other subtle clues and methods, that misleads you in your observations of these “psychics. (ibid)

Of course what on-air televangelists do is significantly different, because they’re just getting “the word” from “the Lord” as they’re preaching. They don’t get immediate feedback, so they stick to the ultra vague. “A heart condition has just been corrected,” a televangelist might say, and anyone with a diagnosed heart condition sitting at home will be convinced he’s talking about her. And all she has to do is show a little faith and that healing will come to fruition. And how is that faith shown?

Once the money is offered and the healing doesn’t come to pass, why not call back and ask for your money back? Simple—it’s your fault you weren’t healed because you really didn’t believe. Or your still living for the devil. Any number of clever explanations.

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Happy Easter

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Easter Eggs

Friends and family got together Friday evening and created these small masterpieces.
(View large version”)

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Babka

Kinga’s first babka. (Large version)

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New Yorker on Iran

In the newest New Yorker, there’s an article on the threat of Iran that’s well worth reading.

There is no way this will end with any positive resolution.

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Protection

Bird flu is coming! It’s just around the corner of the globe and soon we’ll be dropping like cliches.

Fortunately, you can protect yourself.

That kind of thinking is certainly already motivating marketing execs.

While looking for respirators for painting and staining, I found this.

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NPR Thoughts

A couple of thoughts for which NPR was a catalyst today:

We are financing both sides of the war on terror. Of course through our taxes we’re paying for the United States’ military operations. But through our consumption of oil, we’re financing the terrorists. We’re providing funds that eventually make their way back to terrorist organizations every time we fill up our gas-guzzling SUVs.

Is Iraq a country that can only be ruled by a strong-armed leader? In other words, is Iraq as it is today because Iraqis have various emotional and political scars due to almost decades of dictatorial rule, or has Iraq been ruled dictatorially for so long because of the national temperament? I’m not suggesting that Iraqis are somehow genetically prone to violence. Rather, think of how Iraq was formed—cobbled together by imperialist powers without regard for ethnic and religious differences. These differences—Sunni versus Shi’a, Arab versus Kurd—are now pushing the country toward civil war.

With both points, we have an almost appropriately ironic situation: the West creates its own problems.

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Confirmation about Babs

Babs is the Worst person in the world. Really. MS-NBC says so!

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Stepping Up to the Plate

I recently wrote about the disappearance of Federal funding for autism support programs.

To its credit, the Asheville city school system refused to let Bush’s tax cuts harm students under its care. They have hired several of the individuals who provided one-on-one support for more severely autistic children so that their education is not disrupted by Bush’s idiocy.

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How to Sell a Car

Welcome to the MTS Online, Interactive Automotive Sales Super Results course. By merely following the steps outlined below, you will increase your sales, raise your profit margin, sell more cars, and generally make more money at the very minimal expense of your customers.

Showroom Salesman

The first thing you must remember is never to allow the most fundamental truth of the situation enter into the minds of your prospective customers. Certainly, tell them you’re not into pressure sales; tell them you’re only interested in them getting the best car that for their needs; say all this with a smile — but never forget you’re there to sell them a car. Bottom line. Your boss’ bottom line, and therefore your bottom line. The customers’ bottom line is someone else’s problem.

Next, it’s good to try to give the customers a feeling that you actually have more power over the car’s price than you actually do. Never use “we,” as in, “We could take good bit more off the price.” That encourages the obvious question: “If the whole sales staff is in agreement about this, why not just lower the price in the window to begin with?” (The last thing you want is a cheeky customer, so choose your words carefully.) If, however, you say, “I can lower this price,” then it sounds like you’re more than just a cog in someone else’s economic machine, that you and you alone add the personal touches of chatting about your kid and asking about customers’ future family plans. Added all together, this will give the customer the feeling that you’re on his side and that you indeed have the power to looking for the little guy in the Big Bad Car Business.

Third, because we’re selling a large time, we can’t put it in the customer’s hand like a TV salesman can do with a remote, but we want to accomplish the same effect: the thought that this very TV (rather, in our case, ha, ha, ha, a car) could be his! To that end, it is essential that you herd your customers into a “test drive” as soon as possible. But don’t use the term “test drive.” Just tell them you’re going to back the car out for a little better view, then when you get back in the car, tell, sort of off-handedly, as if you’ve just thought of it, “Come on — we’ll go for a quick ride.” Viola — you’ve got them in the car, and they’ll start thinking, “Imagine this is our car!” Drive to some place you can turn around, then jump out and ask, “Who’s driving back?” And there’s your test drive, without even using the words.

The next step is a tricky one, and it’s something that separates the men from the clichés in our business. You have to get them in to see a finance officer who’s also skilled at subtle, sales-encouraging chit-chat. This gets them teetering on the legal brink of actually buying the car, and from here, your job is finished. But the real trick here is to get them into that office without ever asking them if they want to buy the car. Let the customers assume what they will, but if you can implant in their mind that you’re just taking them to get some fiscal ideas, to get some notion of how the payments might fit into their budget, then you never have to ask them if they actually want to buy a car. Why, they’re talking to a finance guy — it’s obvious they want to buy it!

Finance Officer

When the salesman delivers customers into your hands, it is a critical transition. It is imperative that you do or say something that will immediately take the customers’ minds from the fact that they’re now dealing with a different person (and more importantly, the significance of that). For this reason, it is absolutely critical that customers not wait in your office alone. They can sit at the showroom salesman’s desk all day long, but any time alone in your office will lead them to thinking thoughts you don’t want them to have.

It is also important to say something personal and reassuring to the customers that also distances yourself from the cruel realities of the automotive sales industry. An example might be:

Before we get started, I just want to make sure you folks understand what motivates me. Do you know why I got out of bed to come to work this morning, every morning? To make people happy by providing them with the perfect car to meet all their needs.

Improvise from there.

The importance of this fact arises from the simple reality that, when the salesman delivers customers into your hands, he may or may not have gotten a verbal agreement to buy. Never mind! Your role is the same, regardless.

If the customer is indeed going to buy the car, your set. Occasionally, though, you might get to this point and hear something like this:

We’re not actually going to buy this car. We didn’t even come here with the intention of buying a car. Rather, we’re just orienting ourselves to the market, because it’s been such a long time since either of us has looked at a car. We were interested in talking to you about the potential cost.

When you hear these words, savor them, because they represent the hardest challenge in your industry: the ten minute turn-around sale. Sure, these people are saying they’re not buying a car, but you can make it seem like there should be a battle raging in their minds as to whether or not to buy it. Some tips:

1. Make sure you boil it down for the customers to the real issue: money. Establish that the car they looked at meets their needs. In a perfect situation, you might be able to get them to admit that it’s almost perfect. Then it’s just a matter of highlighting the lower pricing options and you’re home free.
2. Once you get them to admit that the car would fit in their lives very well, make it sound like the difficulty is on your side of the table, that perhaps you don’t understand something. After all, you’ve established that they like the car, that it meets their needs, and you’ve shown, by highlighting the lower pricing options, that it fits into their budget (Don’t worry whether it actually does or doesn’t.). Once you’ve established all this, you might ask at this point, “What then is holding you back?”
3. Shame and embarrassment are always a good sales technique, and this point in the process it might be worthwhile to try to introduce a bit of both. Tell them that you were working under the assumption that they’d decided to buy, with an infection that makes it seem like you could have been doing more important things, like helping other people fulfill their automotive dreams. Make it seem like the earlier salesman could get in a bit of trouble for handing off someone who wasn’t really ready to buy. The shame can be torqued a little by very indirectly suggesting that it was a miscommunication on the customers’ part.

If you’re still meeting resistance at this point, it’s time to bring in the head man himself. He’s the only one than can save the sale now. When you head out the door, make sure you tell the customers something designed to make them think you’re handing the sale off to someone more knowledgeable. Since you’ll never be coming back into the room while these particular customers are there, it’s good to add in a pre-excuse at this point. Here’s an excellent opportunity to use the shame technique again by concluding with something like, “I’m going to go out to the shop and make sure they don’t have the car in detail.”

At this point, you’re likely to be furious. Go ahead — have a cigarette. You’ve just been through a very stressful experience. You deserve it!

Showroom Manager

When your financial officer comes in to get you, the hope of a sale is diminishing rapidly. It is important to remember this, and not press too hard, lest you cast a hue of desperation on your co-workers’ previous efforts.

Also realize that if you’ve been called in, it means that all possible excuses have been covered except one: the customers were never intending on buying a car that day to begin with. When you realize this, relax. It means your salesman and financial officer have done their jobs and either the customers realized the whole time they were being swindled and simply went with it out of curiosity, or the customers are slow and it just took them a little while to catch on. We know this, because if the customer had been an idiot, you’d already have a car sold.

Addendum: Final Contact

At this point, the customers are probably standing alone in the finance officer’s office, waiting for him or the showroom manager to come back. You of course know that both have exited the drama permanently, but there is still a small ray of hope. Make the most of it. Approach the customers in the office and accompany them to the door. Small chit-chat here constitutes your final chance to make a future sale.

If, however, your clients have half a brain, they will not be back again.

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The Blue Chair Crisis

Children, it seems, sometimes like to have things just so. Everything in its place—as they deem it—and everything arranged just so. Perhaps that’s why Rudyard Kipling named his book of children’s stories Just-So Stories.

What happens when things are not just so? If the child has autism, she might have difficulty explaining how things are not just so, and once that’s explained, might have further difficulties accepting the fact that things must remain as they are, just so or not.

Imagine a child—we’ll call him Samuel—is sitting in a blue chair at a table, working on an art project in his free time. Another child—we’ll call her Jen—is getting ready to do her math work with me. She starts heading over to the table where all the materials are laid out: the worksheet for answers, the manipulatives (in this case, plastic blocks) to help with counting, and a few horses because, well, Jen just likes horses.

But her blue chair is not there. Who knew she had a blue chair? I didn’t. When did she get an attachment to this particular chair? No idea.

Still, she needs her blue chair. The one Samuel is sitting in.

Who knew Samuel could so quickly develop an attachment to that very same chair? I didn’t know, but would have suspected it’s possible.

Who knew this would all to amount to crisis for Jen? Once I saw where things were heading, I did.

The thoughts running through my mind then: Whom do I upset? If I leave the chair under Samuel’s bottom, Jen is not going to do any work and will in fact only scream at me for trying to work out a compromise with her. If I try to get Samuel to relinquish the chair, he’ll go ballistic because he’s having a go-ballistic-at-everything day. Besides, it really isn’t fair. He was sitting in the chair long before Jen decided she had to have it. And it will be more difficult to work while he is in crisis than it will be to try to get Jen to compromise, so I left the chair there, got Jen to go to the quiet area for calming down, and waited.

“I’ll give you two minutes to calm down,” I said, then walked away, set the timer, and waited.

“Are you ready for some math, Jen?” I asked when the timer’s bell finished ringing.

“No!” came a shriek. “I hate math! Stupid math! I want blue chair!”

“The time is not ripe,” I thought.

Eventually, Samuel finished with his project and moved on to another part of the room to do more work. I grabbed the blue chair while I had the chance, put it at the table where I’d set everything up, and walked quickly over to the quiet area. Tapping Jen on the shoulder, I said quietly, “Look what I have for you over at the table.” She hopped up, virtually bounced to the table, sat down, and we had a truly delightful time working together on math.

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Protesting Protesters

Here in Asheville Saturday we had what one blogger called a “Hatefest.” It was, in short, a rally to support family values—in other words, condemn homosexuality.

With his Bible tucked under his arm like so many others around him, Jim Ballard stood in the middle of Pack Square to stand “for what the word of God stands for… not against anyone, but against sin.”

Ballard joined a crowed of more than 200 assembled downtown on Saturday to support Wolf Laurel Ski Resort and other businesses that defend their right to choose not to employ homosexuals.

Wolf Laurel fired a lesbian couple after they placed a wedding announcement in the local paper upon returning from Massachusetts. Apparently the proprietors of the resort a “good Christians” and fired the wretched, evil lesbians. Sparking a protest. Which in turn sparked a protest.

“They are trying to make a statement so we as Christians are trying to make a statement,” said Wendell Runion, president of International Baptist Outreach Missions Inc. and organizer of the event.

Runion, who also spoke at U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor’s prayer breakfast earlier the same day, said the rally was not meant to debate the issue of homosexuality and same-sex marriage, but to make a declaration solidly against it.

Taylor, R-Brevard, said he was supportive of “Christian businessmen trying to be Christian in their work lives as well as in their personal lives” when asked about the rally. Taylor did not attend the rally. (_Citizen Times_)

That sort of talk—“We’re not here to debate it, but to oppose it!”—makes me think of, say, the Taliban.

Doubt that?

Combine it with the dominion theology of Rod Parsley and others, and it’s clear to see that a theocracy is their ultimate goal.

As the cliche goes, “God, save us from your followers.”

See Citizen Times article and BlogAsheville for more info.

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Exceptions

Susie Bright links to a video piece on South Dakota’s recent anti-abortion legistlation. In it, State Senator Bill Napoli makes the argument that there is an exception built in for rape. The interviewer asks him to give a possible scenario. It goes like this:

• The girl is a virgin.
• She was religious.
• She was planning on saving herself until marriage.
• She’s not just raped, but “brutally” and “savagely” raped.
• She’s sodomized.

He concludes by saying, “That girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.”

But the girl he’s described would come from a conservative family that would probably not allow the abortion. The girl herself might choose, on pressure from her family, to take the chance.

Or is it that Napoli’s saying it would actually be so traumatic that it turned her into a raving psychotic? Then, depending on the education level of her family, the poor girl risks being “misdiagnosed” as demon possessed!

In any situation, the girl described is a property of men, as it was of old. The thing the rapist took that’s so offensive to Napoli is the girl’s virginity. It wasn’t his. It belonged to the girls future husband, and was entrusted in her father’s care until then.

“What do you do with a man like this?” Susie asks.

Hope he doesn’t have kids of his own?

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Autism

Here’s a story about an autistic teen—worth the read, and make sure you watch the embedded video to the right.

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Knockin' on Heaven's [Car Door Window]

Last night at two, Kinga and I were awoken by extremely loud music coming from the parking lot behind our building. Unable to go back to sleep, I went out to the car to ask them to turn the music down. I knocked on the driver’s window. No response, and no wonder — he had his tongue down his date’s throat. I checked the license plate and headed back in.

In the meantime, the music became not-quite-so-loud — don’t know what happened — and I decided not to make an issue of it.

I got back into the apartment, slid back into bed, and suddenly the volume jumped up again.

Putting my sweatpants back on, I mumbled a curse and picked up my cell phone. If this guy causes problems, I think, I’ll just call the police while I’m standing there.

I go back out to the car, and knock on the driver’s window. This time, it’s a girl in the driver’s seat. Facing the rear of the car. With her head pressed against the roof.

Wonder what was going on.

She looks over at me, and slides off the guy to the passenger seat as he powers down the window.

“We’re done,” he says softly.

“Doesn’t appear that way, but whatever you say,” I think, but instead, simply point out the time and the proximity of our bedroom window.

“We’re all done,” he repeats, with an embarrassed grin.

“Why are you telling me this?” I think.

I turn to go and he calls out an apology.

The music ceased, but I never heard a car engine start in the half hour or so it took me to fall back asleep.

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Un-spinnable Proof

Now that there exists video proof that W knew before Katrina that there was a serious risk to the levees, how is he going to try to spin his way out of this?

“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”

That outright lie should make any thinking person sick.

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Daily Dose

We have a particular friend here in Asheville—a Polish friend we’ll call Franek—who can get caught in the such pessimistic moods about the nature of “the system,” about his own inability change that system, about the amount of suffering in the world—in short, about the “human condition”—that it’s made me say, “Damn, Franek! I thought I was a pessimist!”

And I did, and indeed I was. I was a half-glass-of-bile-a-day guy for a little while, though my episodes usually only lasted, say, the duration of a visit to a museum. In the National Gallery in Berlin, I felt sick to my stomach thinking of the money I’d paid to see idyllic paintings of Tahitians (Yes, it was a Gauguin exhibition.) when the majority of the people in the world had to scrounge for survival.

But I bounced out of it, probably because of my profession. Teaching is, at it’s core, simply the act of helping people understand and practice something—math, a foreign language, cosmetology—better. Right now, working with autistic primary school children, the skills I’m trying to help students master are much more basic than a second language or expository writing. As such, I see daily progress, and I often get my daily dose of hope many times over.

Talking to Franek, I said that I see miracles every day. I’d never thought of teaching like that, but that’s precisely what I mean by getting a daily dose of hope, corny as that sounds. In individual students I’ve seen enough improvements in behavior and impulse regulation, communication, social skills, and a host of other challenges unique to autistic children, that I can easily say to myself, “I have made a difference.” It has certainly been a team effort, and my part might have in fact been minimal. But minimal is better than nothing.

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The Alternative?

The battle lines are drawn again. South Dakota’s legislature has voted to make abortion illegal in all circumstances. No exceptions.

A direct attack on Roe v. Wade is coming from the South Dakota legislature. The new bill, which outlaws abortion, makes no exceptions, not for a pregnancy caused by incest or rape. It would only be legal—the only exception if it would save the pregnant woman’s life.

Doctors who perform abortions could face up to five years in prison. The bill passed the State Senate 23-12. It’s expected to pass the House again and then go to Governor Mike Rounds’ desk. The bill’s sponsor says he thinks the antiabortion movement has momentum on its side and a—quote—“change in national policy on abortion is going to come in the not-too-distant future.” (MSNBC)

With Alito and Roberts now on the Supreme Court, the intention couldn’t be any clearer: a full-scale assault on Roe v. Wade. There’s a good piece in the Village Voice about South Dakota’s strategy.

Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, just after I was born. As an adoptee, I have wondered many times about what would have happened had Roe been a year earlier. Knowing next to nothing about my birth mother, it’s a question that will never have an answer. If I had the opportunity to ask my birth mother, it might still go unanswered. Thirty-three years of introspection would produce a very different response, I’m sure.

This fact alone serves as the foundation for my very mixed feelings about legalized abortion. On the one hand, I walk lock-step with other bleeding-hearts in saying that a woman’s body is just that—not mine, but hers. And yet, thinking about the possible abortion of what became my body, I think, “Hey, wait—I have something to say in this too.”

“What became my body?” What was it before? Abortion opponents have a point that if the fetus is human, there is very little to talk about, and very few instances when abortion can be ethically defensible. Is it human? I don’t know. And the purpose of this post is not to ruminate over the slippery slope of when a fetus becomes a human.

All that being said, I remain pro-choice, but with a lump in my throat. I remain nervously pro-choice. Like many, I would like to live in a world in which abortion is a woman’s legal right, but never, ever necessary. A utopia, in other words.

Anti-abortion activists should be working to make that utopia a reality, but I don’t see much happening in that way. Indeed, this is what bothers me most about the various camps that make up the anti-abortion movement: their unwillingness to help provide a viable alternative, namely adoption. How many children has the average women’s health clinic picketer adopted? How many protest by example? It seems to me that if these individuals feel so strongly about the issue, they would literally put their money where their angry, raised voices are and adopt, adopt, adopt.

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Restrained Freedom Part II

I’m not sure what to make of this, except to say that, combined with the David Irving conviction earlier this week, freedom of speech in Europe is not all that it’s made out to be:

German court convicts man for insulting Islam

I wonder if he’d have been convicted—or even prosecuted—if he’d simply stated on a web site that he had made toilet paper with the word “Koran” printed on it, but in fact actually hadn’t.

But can you imagine what would have happened if he hadn’t been convicted?

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That's Our Boy

According to the Washington Post, emphasis added:

Faced with an unprecedented Republican revolt over national security, the White House disclosed yesterday that President Bush was unaware of a Middle Eastern company’s planned takeover of operations at six U.S. seaports until recent days and promised to brief members of Congress more fully on the pending deal.

Damn, it’s good to know W’s on top of things like that.

Here’s a good summary at Kos.

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Fun on the Phone

I’m looking for a second job to get a little extra money in the bank. We want to buy a house, and every little bit helps.

I was looking through the classifieds at Mountain Xpress when I found the perfect job scam. The nature of the company was pretty obvious from the advertisement:

Companies desperately need employees to assemble products at home. No selling; any hours. $500 weekly potential. Information: 1-985-646-1700, Department NC-6529. (Source)

Up to 2k a month, and you don’t even have to leave your house? Sounds too good to be true, so of course it is. But I like playing the sucker from time to time, so I called.

“Are you calling about the ad in the paper?” a woman asked when I called. No greeting, no pleasantries – straight to the chase.

“Yes,” I reply.

“Is this the first time you’ve called?” my inquisitor asks. If red flags hadn’t been up when I first read the ad, they would be up now.

“Yes,” I respond.

“Are you calling for yourself or for someone else?” Now comes a bit of a puzzle. If this weren’t such an obvious scam, I might in addition to myself be calling for my wife. Two people can put together twice as much cheap plastic crap as one person.

Thinking all this, I hesitate, the reply, “I’m not sure.” I was going to ask for clarification, but the pleasant lady didn’t give me a chance.

“Well, you call back when you are sure.” Click.

Being rude to me on the phone is not a good idea. I like to call back. And so I do. Unfortunately, another woman answers the phone.

I decide to go through the whole spiel.

It turns out there are simply dozens of companies out there who just need my help. “What will you be doing?” the operator asks rhetorically and almost breathlessly. I can put together wooden CD shelves, jewelry boxes, and so on. This fine company will put me in contact with all these other companies who need my help. All for just a small fee of forty-three dollars. “And you don’t even need to worry about that, because we have a money back guarantee, written—on page three of our brochure.” It’s just too bad I don’t have one of these sitting in front of me. Still talking reading on the same breath as she started the conversation monologue with, the kind lady tells me that I can put this small, insignificant fee on a credit card, or I can send a check—why, I can even do it C.O.D.

“Come to me baby! Come to me C.O.D.” I think. She probably wouldn’t get the allusion. (Do you? Quick, quick—name the song and artist. And no Googling!) Besides, I couldn’t get a word in even if I greased it up really well, so I just smile to myself and continue listening.

Finally, I sense the spiel is winding down, and I get ready to say, “I’m not really interested.” Here it comes… “And so do you have any questions, sir?”

“No, but I don’t think I’m interested.”

“Something-unintelligible-about-four-syllables-long” comes the staccato reply, then click!

I bemoan my poor memory: “Why, oh why can’t I remember this woman’s name?” I have to call back. There’s just no choice.

It’s a moral imperative. (Quick—what movie?)

I get to the “Is this the first time you’ve called” point, and say, “No—actually it’s the third time.”

“Oh?”

“I’m just calling to suggest you hire some operators with better people skills,” I continue.

“I know,” she sympathizes. She confesses that they’ve been getting a lot of complaints. I think, “Sounds like you should be monitoring your calls, with the little announcement at the beginning of the phone call that we’re all so used to hearing now.”

We chat for a couple of minutes. There’s no way for anyone to track down who it was that took my two calls, she explains. All the lines are directed to the one phone number, and there’s just a room full of people answering these phones.

“Well, then I suggest you get better telephone hardware, because tracking who answered a call like that is a pretty basic thing,” I explain. Whoosh—over her head.

Should I ask for a supervisor? She probably wouldn’t know what one is. “We just clock in, start answering the phones—we don’t even know who we’re working for.”

After I hung up, I thought about calling back again, but what for? These jerks have to deal with enough jerks like me, I’m sure.

They’re just tryin’ to make a buck…

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No Non-Autistic Child Left Behind

One thing that can cause massive amounts of problems for autistic children is lack of consistency. Our classroom is strewn with visual reminders of one sort or another to help the children stay calm by giving them a pattern to their day. At the basic level, it consists of schedules given to each student—rather, placed in “his/her” area—that outline what we’ll be doing the whole day.

Unexpected changes can send more profoundly autistic children into spirals of panic, which manifest themselves usually in a meltdown of screaming and other “typical” autistic behaviors.

Even with this, some children have trouble navigating through the day without having someone assist them exclusively throughout the day. These services are supplied by the Autism Society, which receives a great deal of federal funding.

Well, the Federal funding has been cut, and that means that all services in our area end 17 March. No tapering off; no warning—just BOOM!

“Sorry Joey, but your one-on-one had to leave. You won’t see him again. The entire structure of your school day will now be instantly and violently disrupted. Have fun!”

Thanks, W. Really—No Child (who isn’t autistic, and whose parents are middle or upper class and contribute to my campaign) will be Left Behind.

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In Denial

With all this talk of freedom of speech regarding the Muhammad cartoons, David Irving’s trial in Austria certainly adds a bit of irony to it.

Simply put, it is illegal in Austria to deny the Holocaust. I’m no supporter of such ludicrous, anti-Semitic speech, but I’m a little disturbed by the fact that one can be jailed for being a “falsifier of history.”

A couple of useful places to keep up with the developments:

• Google News (What else?)
• Deborah Lipstadt’s blog

Lipstadt is “Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University” and author of Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory

Denying deals with those who attempt to put an academic face on Holocaust denial. The main thrust of the book is that, while everyone is entitled to his or her own view, a view that goes against established historical facts does not constitute “the other side of the story.”

An allegory as explanation: those who try to mount a scientific defense that the tooth fairy exists are not engaging in an effort to uncover “the other side of the story.” One is entitled to believe that said fairy exists, but the evidence strongly suggests (for lack of a better term) otherwise.

The one problem I have with the book is the attention Lipstadt draws to Noam Chomsky’s assertion that, from a political point of view, it is possible for Holocaust figures to have been exaggerated to serve the end of establishing a secure Israeli state. His summary of this possibility is that to deny otherwise is to suggest that the Israeli state is the first state in history not to have lied to promote its own aims. I believe the fact that most states deceive and lie at some point in their history was the more important point for Chomsky, and not the possibility of inflated Holocaust figures.

That aside, the book is a good overview of revisionist history and the solid facts that show Holocaust denial to be a racist fantasy.

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Peter Piper Left a Peck of Peppers

What would you do if you were walking into your apartment building and dropped a jar of hot peppers on the sidewalk? You’d probably come back and clean it up. Most people would.

What would you do if someone at your apartment building did it late Sunday morning and it was still there Sunday evening? (Apparently “most people” don’t live in our building.)

In my “fury,” I made a sign…
Click on pics for more legible views

Immature? Sure, a little. “I’d have just cleaned it up,” a co-worker laughed. That’s sort of the point, though…

Oh well—it was amusing at the time.

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The Neighbors

Kinga and I are looking to buy a house—sort of. Kinga and I begun something we expected to start only after a year and a half in the States: we’re looking for a house. Our thinking was based on our likelihood of getting a loan, our lack of any kind of down payment, and initially, our lack of a job or any sense of security. But we’ve been pre-approved at a couple of different places; we have decent jobs, with the promise of it only getting better; and we’re sick and tired of paying several hundred dollars a month for nothing.

Granted, the rent is shockingly low compared to what I was paying in Boston. In 1999, I was paying $850 for a one bedroom with barely enough room to turn around in. That place is certainly over a grand a month now. We don’t even pay seven hundred for a two bedroom place. In the summer, when we were looking at the place, I laughed when told that the apartment is spacious but the rent “is a little high.”

The real estate market here is simply going through the roof. It’s tough to find anything under $150,000 that doesn’t need massive renovation. It’s easy to find massive homes:

Two decades ago, million-dollar homes were a rarity in these hills but not anymore. In 2002, Buncombe County had 38 homes with an assessed tax value of $1 million or more. In this year’s revaluation, the number will jump to 484. […]

“It’s just boomed,” Roberts said. “What we’ve noticed is there’s a lot of new construction of those type of homes, with those type of high-end materials: slate roofs, unique woods, specialty tile. The other side of that is that people will take some of the older homes and greatly remodel the entire home or add a whole new wing, and that pushes it over $1 million.”

The luxury housing boom is not news to Ron Olin and his wife, who moved here 12 years ago from Texas. According to the new revaluations, the Olins own the highest-assessed home in Buncombe County, a new, 15,449-square-foot French chateau style house in Biltmore Forest valued at just over $6 million.

Olin, a money manager who loves the Asheville area for its scenic beauty, climate and amenities, has no problem paying his fair share of property taxes to support local government. But one point sticks in his craw.

“Once we’re in the house, maybe it’s worth that much, but we haven’t even moved in yet,” Olin said. “They did an interim assessment in 2005, and we know they raised it a lot.”

The assessed value last year was about $4.6 million, but as the home nears completion it becomes more valuable. With amenities including an indoor swimming pool, an elevator, a hot tub, sauna and seven fireplaces, the price tag keeps rising. (Citizen-Times)

It’s because of people like the Olins that this area is soon going to become so expensive that no one can afford to live here unless they’ve got a six-figure income. Maybe not that bad, but it is fairly ridiculous.

And so instead of looking at actual single-family homes, we considered a townhouse or condo. What do you actually own in that? If it’s a townhouse, you might own the land directly under your portion of the building, but nothing else. With condos, you jointly own the land, along with everyone else in the same building. At least it was something like that. I can’t quite recall how our realtor explained it. I’m not really interested in the land, I guess, so I didn’t pay much attention. In the end, we decided that all we’d be doing is changing landlords. A