ca_chick

Finally.

Brushing aside the government's arguments that the detainees were enemy combatants being held at a time of war outside the US, the court said they had "the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus".

Justice Anthony Kennedy said: "The laws and constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law."

Is he out of office yet?

"Surveillance efforts will not cease when the law lapses. Administration intelligence officials said agencies would be able to continue eavesdropping on targets that have already been approved for a year after the initial authorization. But they said any new targets would have to go through the more burdensome standards in place before last August, which would require that they establish probable cause that an international target is connected to a terrorist group."
— The New York Times, February 15, 2008

Maybe I don't understand because I'm not employed by a government security agency, but why would one choose a target to eavesdrop unless there was probable cause to listen to that particular person/group out of the billions of people/groups one could wiretap? Or do our agencies need a way around the "burdensome standards" of probable cause because they arbitrarily select targets? Hmm... I think I want to listen to Bob Jones today. Why not? Rather ineffective tactics, no? If this is about terrorists, and one had a suspicion, presumably somewhat realistically based, wouldn't a judge issue a warrant even on highly circumstantial evidence? What judge wants to be the one who let the next big terrorist group into the country/successfully attack? So how hard is it, with reasonable suspicion, to get a warrant? And why the living hell would anyone select a target without reason? Unless we're listening for other reasons... In which case, there are other government agencies that don't seem to be subject to judicial review, so why aren't they handling the government's special interests?

Bottom line, if there was probable cause, this law would be superfluous. If it's a slow bureaucracy issue, fix the system.

Alanis Morissette is God. Don't know how in ## years I missed that...

Cardinal Glick: Christ didn't come to Earth to give us the willies... He came to help us out.
***
Nun: You don't believe in God because of Alice in Wonderland?
Loki: No, "Through the Looking Glass". That poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter" that's an indictment of organized religion. The walrus, with his girth and his good nature, he obviously represents either Buddha, or... or with his tusk, the Hindu elephant god, Lord Ganesha. That takes care of your Eastern religions. Now the carpenter, which is an obvious reference to Jesus Christ, who was raised a carpenter's son, he represents the Western religions. Now in the poem, what do they do... what do they do? They... They dupe all these oysters into following them and then proceed to shuck and devour the helpless creatures en masse. I don't know what that says to you, but to me it says that following these faiths based on mythological figures ensure the destruction of one's inner-being. Organized religion destroys who we are by inhibiting our actions... by inhibiting our decisions, out of... out of fear of some... some intangible parent figure who... who shakes a finger at us from thousands of years ago and says... and says, "Do it — Do it and I'll fuckin' spank you."
***
Serendipity: I have issues with anyone who treats faith as a burden instead of a blessing. You people don't celebrate your faith; you mourn it.
***
Rufus: White folks only want to hear the good shit: life eternal, a place in God's Heaven. But as soon as they hear they're getting this good shit from a black Jesus, they freak. And that, my friends, is called hypocrisy. A black man can steal your stereo, but he can't be your Savior.
***
Metatron: This is who you are.
Bethany: Everything I am has been a lie.
Metatron: No... knowing what you now know doesn't mean you're not who you were. You are Bethany Sloane. Nobody can take that away from you, not even God. All this means is a new definition of that identity. The incorporation of this new data into who you are. Be who you've always been. Just...be this as well...from time to time.
Bethany: I guess this means never cheating on my taxes.
Metatron: To say the least.

A few gems from an uneventful evening spent with Bob, sparkling wine, and Dogma.

I don't know if every local government between Redding and Yreka is bored and hurting for money, but they sure have a ridiculous amount of CHP camping out in the medians with radar. I just want to know if they seriously don't have anything better to do than to slow down the flow of traffic.

In an effort to keep myself awake during my 12-hour drive after only 2 hours of sleep, I played a radio game that, among other things, involves quickly flipping through every FM radio station. I learned that in the vast wasteland from Bakersfield to Sacramento there are only 4 types of stations: country, "Christian," Spanish-language (most specifically those genres I have not fully warmed up to), and hip-hop/rap. I suppose there are 5 if you count the full 20% that are dedicated to ear-bludgeoning renditions of every poorly written Christmas/Holiday song. Speaking of both Christmas music and hip-hop, I discovered this gem at about 3 hours into the drive. Certainly not the worst cover created.

Ah, home... before my parents left to run an errand and after I'd already had a glass, my mother made sure to explain to me exactly where the wine and champagne are located (surely, the way my mother was acting, one would think I'd never been to their house before nor spent any amount of time without them to care for me). Don't get me wrong, I like alcoholic beverages as much as the next, but they're only going to be gone a couple of hours.

Child's Mother: "I'm hoping that when Child goes to visit my parents, Child will learn some manners."

As a parent, isn't that your job? Certainly, other input is vital in reinforcing lessons and behavioral patterns taught in the home. But putting the onus on the grandparents? I think not, especially when the child sees them infrequently. Maybe I say all of this because I'm not a parent...

 

Mini Review (halfway through the book): The Sins of Scripture, John Shelby Spong

1) Too few citations. I imagine that a lot of his claims have been assimilated into his common knowledge during his years at seminary and through his studies thereafter, but these aren't common knowledge to everyone, and some scholars would disagree. I'd like to know who his sources are.

2) Inflammatory rhetoric. If an idea is ridiculous, its ridiculousness should be evident to all once you're done with your counter arguments. Telling me time and again — with exclamation points — how absurd someone's position is only makes yours more suspect.

3) Stop repeating yourself. Reiterating your conclusion instead of providing evidence for it makes everything you say seem less credible.

4) I think he falls into the same trap as so many others: throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I am in full support of questioning, critiquing, and deconstructing our presuppositions, assumptions, conclusions, symbols, metaphors, evidence, traditions, methodology, hermeneutics, etc. Question everything. But if you find something to be ‘problematic,' re-imagine and reconstruct before you dismiss it entirely because it doesn't fall within your world-view or favored epistemology. Just because some have used the Eucharist to reinforce guilt and thereby maintain power doesn't mean that this beautiful, symbolic tradition can't also be used to bring life and a deeper understanding of community. Ridding ourselves of traditions that have been misused doesn't solve the problem of their abuse, and, in many cases, makes us poorer for having lost rich spiritual metaphors. We should examine oppressive doctrines, but do we have to essentially throw out Genesis 1–2 because it's been (mis)used against women for centuries? Instead, couldn't we question the androcentrism of the passage (in both the reading and the writing)?

I (currently) believe that "the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments...contain all things necessary to salvation," so I'm quite comfortable with calling some of Paul's assessments of women, slaves, and nonheteronormative individuals ignorant and wrong. I'm not, however, comfortable with saying that the Pauline corpus should be dismissed (which he has not yet suggested, but a position some academics have taken).

5) Despite all of this, he does have some valid conclusions.

 

...and now back to work...

Finland moves to tighten gun laws

I don't disagree with their proposed legislation. Why should a 15-year old be allowed to purchase and license her or his own gun? But if only 14% of all homicide is gun related, and they have the 3rd highest per capita gun ownership in the world (according to a BBC stat, 56 guns per 100 people), they must be doing something right.

Really, my question is about their logic. If the student was 18, how does preventing minors from owning guns solve the problem? Even retroactively, he would have had legal opportunity to purchase and use the weaponry. I'm not familiar with Finish crime rates, but because they don't mention a large incidence of 16-year olds shooting people, I imagine that population isn't a particular problem unless otherwise severely provoked. Why not deal with bullying?

 

EU far-right bloc faces collapse

I suppose it's my own prejudice that isn't surprised that Mussolini's grand-daughter is being accused of xenophobic remarks. I'm more saddened however by the Romanians' apparent shortsightedness. They are upset that they were compared to the despised Roma (gypsies), which is almost exactly like calling a male a "fag" or "girl" (or calling a Latino an "illegal alien"). And instead of questioning why being nonheteronormative or being female is something horrible, we question the comparison. How dare you compare me to them! But isn't that just furthering the problem? If you allow for anyone to be put down based on social categorization, you're not dealing with the root issue (yes, males and females are biologically different, but why one would respond in disgust to being called the other isn't based in biology but in society). Why do we value idealized masculinity? Why is anyone better than a Roma?

"The Greater Romania party has itself campaigned on a fiercely nationalistic, anti-Roma platform."

Why expect the Italians to behave any differently? If you encourage xenophobia, there's not much room to complain when the system turns against you. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (MLKJ).* When society changes the ideal, and inevitably it will, you may be the next target. If nothing else, protecting the least in society is prescient self-preservation.

 

*Have you ever noticed that MLKJ backwards is alphabetical?

"In the book of Isaiah the bible tells us to defend the cause of the fatherless. We are committed to doing just that every summer."

You only defend the fatherless during the summer? I suppose that's more than a lot of people.

(I know the source, and he probably has no idea what he really said. But still...

You've got to be kidding me: "The August expedition planted the Russian flag on the seabed below the North Pole." Countries still do this? Seriously?

Starin' down the stars
Jealous of the moon
You wish you could fly
But you're stayin' where you are
There's nothin' you can do
If you're too scared to try

“Jealous of the Moon,” Why Should the Fire Die?, Nickel Creek

I should listen to the lyrics of the music I own more often.

 

I think my pizza-making skills are improving. My dough was the best it’s been by far. Now if I can just figure out a way to evenly spread the spices, I should be golden.

Her question caught me off-guard. It shouldn’t.

I’m not sure I want to be salaried. At least with hourly you’re paid for every hour you work. If you’re exempt, it really sucks to be you.

New diet proposal: dislocate or misalign your mandible; wait a few weeks; get your mandible relocated/realigned. The pain caused from the acclimating muscles and ligaments will not only encourage fewer, smaller bites of softer, uninspired food, but as the muscles continue to spasm, the quarter-portion of one's meal thus far consumed will be deemed enough to make one's grumbling stomach quiet, if not nearly full. It works! Whenever one considers quelling the hypothalamus' complaints, the most powerful muscles in the human body begin to spasm in contempt, and the thalamus argues successfully that hunger pangs, however maddening, are the better exchange.

Why are there ashtrays in airplane restrooms if it is against federal law to smoke aboard airplanes and to disable the smoke detectors therein?

It will be weird attending without her there. The comfortably-known other is a continent away for another few weeks, and I don't know her plans thereafter. I want to know who was at that meeting. At the "celebration," she discussed things as if I were perfectly normal.

In a conversation that I am sure we will repeat many more times before — if ever — we reach a conclusion, I said that I was good at hiding. Hiding isn't a problem. Being is.

Everyone is moving away. Charlotte, Gander, Ojitas... I suppose three isn't quite representative of 'everyone,' but they're three that matter to me. So here comes growing up and learning to communicate.

It's weird not going into an office. I miss my coworkers; I almost want to take a break at 9 and 3:30 just to honor them. At the same time, there is freedom here. I anticipate overall improvement in my mental health.

It occurred to me that I live — quite arbitrarily — with a miniature living creature that has affectionately been named Bob. I suppose it needed a name. Humans like to name things, and 'once-little, tan mammal that makes a nuisance of itself' is far less emotionally satisfying, not to mention verbally inefficient. The four-legged one was wandering around the kitchen and dining room table meowing at me. It looked at me blankly and kept wandering in circles making plaintive noises. I continued to sit there watching it, and — eventually — quite the curious thing happened: it forgot I was there.

Here I must interject a significant anecdote if you are to fully understand this retelling of my morning. When I was working in an office, I would frequently come home to find the bottom kitchen drawer completely emptied of its contents (kitchen towels, hot pads, things you don't want touching your never-been-mopped kitchen floor). Occasionally, the cabinet under the kitchen sink would be open or the previous residents of the linen closet would be in diaspora. Once, I even walked into pots and pans strewn across the kitchen floor. Apparently, soft materials lost their appeal.

Back to the present story... As I watched, the whiskered fiend started sniffing the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen. It became especially interested in the third drawer, the one housing Ziploc bags. Because the contentedly overweight quadruped was not focusing its attentions on the fourth, kitchen-linen-containing drawer, I held back from throwing a well-aimed, blue, ballpoint Papermate pen at its fuzzy head. Instead I waited (with pen in hand). It managed to open the drawer and tried to dig out the Ziplocs. I debated about letting it have free reign to claw holes in my sandwich and freezer bags, but I was entranced by the problem-solving process, which included much time on its hind legs, of this little living creature.

I am not sure what was so interesting about static-wrapped plastic...

I should be packing. I think a year and a half is the longest I’ve lived in one location in the last 6 years.

65 hours a week is a bit much. Another week of it doesn’t excite me. And here’s to not being absolutely sure – about anything. It’s hard when some want me to stay. I like them; it’s the system that’s hellacious. A person is worth more than the amount of capital you think they can produce. Again, I was asked what my passion is. Learning living exploring being relating discovering analyzing loving. You cannot feed a family, let alone one person, pursuing any of my passions without corrupting their purity (my personal experience). I don’t want to analyze so your budget can expand. I don’t want to explore all of the different ways of dehumanizing employees/consumers. I don’t want my relating to be defined by your politics. I am tired.

I am becoming a Modest Mouse fan.

If you have a high-speed internet connection (and Quicktime – I think it’s free), check this out: More.


Can’t do it, not even if sober;
Can’t get that engine turned over.*

In a quiet desperation of the emptiness he says
There's gotta be something more than what I’m living for**

And I have no plans
I’m a plane in the sunset
With no where to land
And all I see
It could never make me happy
And all my sandcastles
Spend their time collapsing***

*Modest Mouse, The Lonesome Crowded West, Cowboy Dan
**Switchfoot, New Way to be Human, Something More (Augustine’s Confession)
***Switchfoot, New Way to be Human, Let That be Enough

I have come back to a different world.

The world moves on without you. It does not stop because you do. "Make good choices." Nurse R, how do i measure "good"? There are so many choices now. (Were there ever any fewer?) Where will [we] live in a month? Where will i work? How will i pay my bills if i can't find a second part-time job? How quickly will i learn the language(s)? Is this a "good" choice? And the ever-present question: where am i going from here?

Whenever I come back, i always wonder about an MSW. What am i doing with my life? I don't play nicely with others; i like to learn and to analyze. But is there fulfillment in learning but not teaching, in analyzing but not providing reports? How can i give without burning out? She said that i am more drained by such interactions than even she is. 3.5 hours a day without children. Only the 20-minute showers provided relief from the adults. 20 minutes to think and to breathe and to be. 1.4% of the day. I hate that i come back with more questions than answers. I hate that i process so much differently than the societal standard. I wonder if she looked down on me for not crying. The ones i love - the cool ones - don't. The cool ones don't hold the power; maybe that's why they are cool.

I hate politics.

The USA. We designated India as a Tier 2 country because Rice didn’t want to alienate the Indian government. What? If India’s human trafficking is so bad that the committee/coalition in charge of such measurements wanted it on the Tier 3 list of countries, why should we change its status? What good is this report if we modify the findings every time they’re inconvenient? And Bush can veto any resultant sanctions that aren’t in the US’s “best interest”? Why bother? So we can pat ourselves on the back? Don’t we do that anyway?

My office. I just want to work. Please stop dragging me into your bullshit. And you’ll all tell me that it’s like this everywhere. I contend that some organizations are worse than others.

“You know we need oxygen to breathe…”* Please don’t suffocate me with your absurdities, inconsistencies, and logical fallacies. When I can’t any longer hide my defeat, it’s time to move on. You aren’t important enough to break over.



I prefer the PC version of Office: more features, better UI. Oh, and I despise that little computer helper dude. Who thought up that nuisance?



*(Cowboy Dan, The Lonesome Crowded West, Modest Mouse)

Por fin!  An arm of the judiciary branch has done/said something.

"To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the president calls them 'enemy combatants', would have disastrous consequences for the constitution - and the country," the court opinion said.

This does not mean Mr Marri must be set free though, the judges stated, saying he could face civilian criminal charges or be deported.

"Like others accused of terrorist activity in this country, from the Oklahoma City bombers to the surviving conspirator of the September 11 attacks, al-Marri can be returned to civilian prosecutors, tried on criminal charges, and, if convicted, punished severely," the court ruled.

"But the government cannot subject al-Marri to indefinite military detention."

I don’t know why, but that line struck me. That was the first time I had ever heard the legend (that I remember). I wonder if we won’t all have to wear Jester’s suits.

I’ve recently become a huge fan of Tool and A Perfect Circle.

He misses her. So do I.

I don’t know what’s wrong with my mind. More frequently than I would like (as if any more often than never is likeable), I fall prey to weird quasi-visualizations of either someone or some creature about to murder/torture/attack me. These usually occur when I’m showering (during the afternoon or evening when I’m alone; almost never in the morning), when I’m getting ready for bed, or when I climb into bed. When I’m showering it’s always this feeling like I’ll look up or open my eyes and – almost before one could think s***! – there is an attacker. It could be a barracuda (like the one in Finding Nemo…seriously, that specific caricature has been haunting my thoughts for over a day now), a shark, a giant tarantula, or a funnel-web spider (aggressive, nasty villains). I don’t like octopi, either… If it’s not some sort of heinous monster outside of the homo genus (we’re the only ones in this genus, yes?), it’s Bates, it’s the guy in the Pelican Brief who slowly opens the mirrored closet doors before shooting Gavin Vereek, it’s one of the perpetrators from CSI, it’s my schema for all of the serial killers I have read about, it’s the girl from The Ring, it’s the hitchhiker from a direct-to-DVD horror flick (of which I’ve only seen the previews), it’s an alien from Signs or the red-loving beast from The Village, it’s my schema from all of the slumber-party scary murder stories, it’s the costumed rabbit from Donny Darko… I know it sounds ridiculous.

I ask myself why there would be a giant cartoon barracuda about to devour me as soon as I finish rinsing the shampoo from my hair. To date, I haven’t found a reasonable reply. Does this stop my heart from racing? No. Does the knowledge that I couldn’t do anything about it anyway help me? No. I mean, if there really were a tarantula about the size of Boggs’ car in striking position right outside of the shower door, would keeping my eyes shut make it go away? Oh, maybe it will get so bored of watching its prey that it loses its appetite. Right. And tell me again why anyone would wait until after his or her victim paid attention to deal the discapacitating blow? Isn’t the greatest chance of overall success when one catches another unawares? Unless terror is the goal… But here, again, what would I do lying down in bed? Nothing but hope I die quickly.

I would just like it all to go away. I don’t like seeing, even for a split second, terrifying, logic-defying sights. And I don’t like feeling crazy.

My mind is now as fuzzy as mold. I’m going to bed.

Into the Woods is an incredible musical.

“Congrats on opening yourself to questions...” Well, now the questions are coming.

I was surprised at receiving a text two mornings in a row. When I read it, my first thought was “Did she die?” I must have said as much aloud, because then my coworker queried me on the discontinuity of my emotional response to the question. A few minutes later he understood that I wasn’t laughing at the prospect of her death but at my not knowing what I felt or should be feeling at that moment. For what else could that text mean than that something serious had happened? And knowing provides no more emotional clarity than the text.

Relationships are messy. And I mean really messy. Not even my room – at any time in my life – compares. I have a few metaphors to choose from, but I think, perhaps, chocolate chip cookies are the most pleasant and illustrative of the bunch. (It wouldn’t do to compare relationships and love to out-of-code chicken parts or crab innards.) Think of freshly baked C.C. cookies, when the dough is still a little soft, and the chocolate is gooey. When you pick them up from the cooling rack, because there is no way in hell you’re waiting until they’re “ready,” not only do you burn yourself, but you get chocolate all over your mouth, your fingers, and under your nails. Now, and this could just be my obsession with clean hands, begins hide and seek with the chocolate, which definitely was fully melted before it ever had a chance to reach your mouth. You find one patch of chocolate and clean that off (whether you’re licking your fingers or using a napkin is up to you). But wait! Why are there dark smears on your white shirt? Alas! It seems that you missed a dab stealthily crouching between your ring and middle fingers. Then your friend laughs at you because you still have some chocolate on your face, and while you’re trying to remove that little bit, you discover chocolate on your other hand, too. Ad infinitum on the chocolate hunt. I swear I have to use my meat-worker hand brush when I’ve eaten C.C. cookies. The chocolate runs into my nails to avoid detection. Relationships are like the freshly melted chocolate. You think you’ve only gotten chocolate on your fingers, and all you’ve got to do is wash the one and be done with the mess. But no! In the time it took you to isolate the one smudge on your pinky, the chocolate has spread to other locations, rendering them messy, as well. And in the meantime, these chocolate splotches are staining clothing and marking coffee tables. The one cookie succeeded in getting your face, hands, elbows/forearms, clothing, and furniture messy.

Hmm…okay, well maybe a rock dropped in a pond would have worked as well, but thinking of a chocolate chip cookie was just yummy. It also stretched my narrative and descriptive skills.

Last week's song. This week's song.