Archive for January 13th, 2008

I haven’t moved but I’m now living in ’60s USSR….

Posted in Politics, Rants on January 13th, 2008

Constitution of the United States of AmericaI’ve noted over the last few years that the United States seems to be taking some very unexpected turns. But with the article in CNN on New Rules on Licenses, I’ve realized that without changing my abode, I’ve ended up living in 1960s USSR.

When I was growing up the Cold War was very hot. People were afraid most of the time: of rock and roll; of hippies; of Cuba; of communists; of nuclear war; and of fear being afraid. I remember hearing in talks among adults, seeing in movies and books, the evils of communism. The biggest one talked about was how citizens couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without (and this last was usually mentioned in a whisper as if it was a dirty word) papers. Guess what. Soon Americans are going to need papers (disguised as a RealID) to travel within their own country. American’s use to pride themselves on not having a National ID, of being able to travel where they wanted, when they wanted, without having people track their every move, library book, and purchase. Personal anonymity use to be a hallmark of our society. We only gave up what we absolutely had to, and only when there was an overriding imperative, because we believed we had the right to be left alone. Those days seem to have passed.

What happened to move us in this direction? Fear. People today are afraid: of terrorists; of strangers; of each other; of immigrants; and, worst of all, of fear itself. Once people are filled with fear, they want to do things that will make them feel safer. Polls show that a whopping (that’s a technical term) percentage of Americans are willing to give up most, if not all, of the rights guaranteed to them in the Bill of Rights to be safe.

“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” Benjamin Franklin.

Whenever you give up your freedoms to be safe, you’ve started on a downward slope that will rob you of your freedom and make you even more vulnerable than you were before you gave away your rights. In listening to people, I hear them say over and over that all this security is making us safer. How? That they can’t answer, because they don’t feel safer. Studies show that with all the extra security at the airport, we’re no safer now than we were before 9/11. Most of the security that’s been implemented here in the US is more for show than for safety. Most American feel that if they get horribly inconvenienced then they must be safer. Well, they’re not.

The problem is 9/11 can’t happen again or at least not the way it did. The paradigm used won’t work anymore. In fact, due to communications technology it didn’t work on the third plane. Once people realized that the “hijacking” wasn’t in fact a hijacking, they fought back and kept that third target from being hit.

Are we safer today than the day after 9/11? No, we’re not. In fact, in some distressing ways, the terrorists have won. The United States of America, Home of the Free and the Brave, the country I grew up in no longer exists. Our Constitution is in shreds under attack by our executive, congressional, and judicial branches. Our Bill of Rights is being eroded away by the courts and people who are afraid to have too much freedom because someone might do something someday that they might get hurt by. So, the US is gone, it’s now becoming the USSR of the 1960s; a land of scared people, constantly under watch by their government. Its kind of ironic that the USSR has been broken up and is working on becoming a democracy.

I miss my country and I want it back. I want to once again be able to be proud of my country and its accomplishments. I want to live in a country where human rights are for everyone, torture is abhorred and not sanctioned by the government or its president, and with a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that apply to everyone, not just a select few. I didn’t want to move, I want to live in America, too bad it moved out from under me.

Chaos breeds contentment…really

Posted in Hearth and Home on January 13th, 2008

Mandelbrot set...OK, so maybe for most people chaos does NOT breed contentment. Well, probably it doesn’t work for all people. I like a bit of chaos in my life. If everything runs too smoothly, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and badness to happen.

So, I guess I’d have to say that this weekend (so far) I must be really happy. On normal weekends we run errands, clean house, shop, and otherwise do all the stuff that doesn’t get done during the week. This weekend we hosted the e357 (SFRevu, Gumshoe Review, TechRevu) staff meeting at our house. Not a problem, except we still had our Christmas tree in the living room (as of Friday) and all the other Christmas decorations up. AND, we still hadn’t made the bed in the guest room (seen from the main room if anyone needed the bathroom). Not to mention that we’d moved all our files out of various places and bought a new file cabinet and…well…hadn’t actually gotten around to putting them all in the new cabinet and getting them out of the temporary boxes and bins and the old file cabinet. “Not so bad”, you say. Well it wouldn’t be except we bought the new file cabinet last summer. And did I mention that this is the time of year to plant spring bulbs and we’d stored those in the basement right near the door — our most used and convenient door.

So, a whirlwind cleaning event occurred. By 1AM last night (hence no blog post) we had the tree and all the Christmas decoration down, packed, and ready to go to storage. A bit of sleep and another marathon whirlwind of work found: cleared floor space, setting for eight people, all unsightly-ness hidden from public view, and snack tray set out and pizza in-process just as the guest arrived.

As a side benefit, I’ve got a clean house with clean floors and bathrooms, all the Christmas decorations packed and stored for next year, the guest room all set and ready to go for another guest, I found several WIPS (works in process), and my desk is cleaned. I could just sit here and revel in the joy of a clean house — aaaahhhh! Unfortunately, another side benefit was a new task list as well as the realization that the spring bulbs need to be planted (after all the moles, voles, and whatnot might be hungry). And I still need to clear up the file cabinet and now it’s all easily reached to do it.