in but not of the bubble

My kid lives in a bubble. Not that she doesn't see things in the world around her and not that she doesn't know things I'd rather she didn't know just yet, but she still believes that her parents will eventually figure out what's wrong and fix it and that if the world isn't fair and things don't work out there's something wrong.

I'm an unlikely person to be making a bubble for anyone. if I ever lived in one, I don't remember it. Things didn't work out the way my folks wanted them to and they wanted us to have fewer illusions. I've always been suspicious of anything that looks as if it could turn out to be an illusion, because illusions are the easy way out, and I don't trust the easy way out.

Even if I do take the easy way out, I find a way to make it hard on myself, just to maintain the proprieties.

I was sitting on my daughter's bed earlier this evening, and she was working herself up into a state to get what she wanted, an adult to sleep with, and I'm afraid I wasn't terribly sympathetic, and then she started talking about how her tummy hurt, and I was all ready to dismiss that (because she is sometimes stricken with aches and pains at bedtime after bounding around like a gazelle up to the moment before) and I looked at her and she genuinely didn't look well.

Maybe she was just upset. In any case, if she wasn't sick before, she was working up to it. I got hurt, I had surgery, a kid who has a crush on her punched her in the stomach in the cafeteria last week, she's having a rough couple of weeks. She needs the pressure to go away for a little while.

So she's staying home tomorrow. I thought about how it's a bad precedent and how I don't want her to think she can just get out of things, but then I thought - it's not a precedent, it's not a judgment, it's not the rumblings of things to come, it isn't symbolic of shit. It's a second grader with a tummy ache. Let her read comics and eat ice cream and take a long nap and maybe play Snood and get sparkles and colored sand all over the living room. Whatever she needs out of being the only one who matters for a day, let her have it.

I can't think myself inside the bubble, but I'm starting to learn that it's important for it to be there.

I'm not sure what the point is of all this except that I'm seeing a lot of folks getting weary of the nasty tone political discussion has taken in these parlous times, and I think anyone who wants a day out looking at leaves or thumping pumpkins or scooting around a mall parking lot on the back of a shopping cart should immediately go do that very thing (well, wait til the sun comes up). Try and laugh a few times. Breathe until your lungs expand all the way for once.

I'm mostly doing this journal thing to get my say. I don't think I have a huge impact. This is far too micro a level for the politics of personal destruction to get involved, and if it does, it's a sign of something terribly wrong with the person who introduces it.

Not too much after people started reading this, I was visited by the proprietor of a politics-oriented blog, who tried his damndest to start a pissing match in my comments. Didn't get anywhere. Wrote something nasty in his blog. I sent an email asking why. He sent one back saying that he figured being rude and provocative would make me respond.

Spent a while feeling like I stepped barefoot on a slug.

Which I think is maybe the point after all - this is all tactical. This is a rhetorical technique. Rush Limbaugh is probably the sweetest talking guy you'd ever want to meet face to face, and Ann Coulter didn't get all the way through law school without learning to be civil (at least to authority figures). Hell, Michael Moore does it too. The point of the nastiness is to make people on the other side too disgusted to engage or too angry to engage calmly. Never get in a pissing match with someone who's not toilet trained, right?

So, nu, don't engage. Take a walk. Make something fancy for breakfast. Volunteer to drive people to the polls. Put a bumpersticker that says something rude about Our Fearless Leader on your garbage can. Delete any email that has a mis-spelled subject line and don't click on thatotherprick.blogjournaltopiaspot.com for a few days.

Entropy is only a problem in a closed system.

jmo, ymmv, :)

Keeping government out of our lives

Making government work for the people

President Bush has harnessed the broad resources of the federal government to promote Republicans in next month's elections. From housing grants in South Dakota and research contracts in Florida to Air Force One rides and photos in the White House driveway, Bush has made Republican success on Nov. 5 a government-wide project.

More than 330 administration appointees, some of whom were told by White House officials that they needed to show their Republican credentials, have taken vacation time and are being flown by the party to House and Senate campaigns in states where control of Congress will be decided. [Emphasis, of course, mine] The appointees will organize volunteers, work the phones and go door to door.

...

A recent e-mail to the 6,100 full-time headquarters employees of the Environmental Protection Agency reminded them of the provisions of the Hatch Act, which was designed to protect federal employees from political pressure. But some employees said they were surprised by its emphasis on participating in, not abstaining from, campaign activities. The memo said they "are permitted to take an active part in partisan political management and campaigns," subject to limitations, and reminded them they are free to "express support for the president and his program" when they are off-duty.

...

But longtime activists in both parties said this administration was setting a new standard. NASA has traditionally stayed out of campaigns because of the need for bipartisan support for its multibillion-dollar projects. But the space agency's administrator, Sean O'Keefe, has plunged into home-stretch Republican politics. He toured a technology center this week with Bob Riley, the GOP challenger for Alabama governor, and is heading to Florida to hold a town meeting on Monday with a Republican House candidate.

O'Keefe is taking the day off for that visit, but many of Bush's Cabinet members have been appearing with Republican candidates in their official capacities. Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans presented an "Export Achievement Award" in Iowa yesterday at a food-processing plant, where he was introduced by Rep. Greg Ganske, a Republican challenging Sen. Tom Harkin (D). Ganske said the message was Bush's trade agenda, not Republican politics.

"No mention was made of my opponent," Ganske said. "This was not campaigning." Evans will make a similar appearance today at a trash-compactor manufacturing plant with Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.), who is in a tough reelection race.

Nearly every Cabinet department has played a part in the campaign. Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige held a government-sponsored "No Child Left Behind" rally with Rep. C. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), who then promoted the event on the Web site of his Senate campaign. Chambliss is challenging Sen. Max Cleland (D).

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta and Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony J. Principi have been traveling the country to announce millions of dollars in grants, program expansions and construction plans with GOP candidates at their sides. And the first regional White House Event on Increasing Minority Homeownership will be held today in the district of embattled Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), who will appear with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel R. Martinez.

things that make you go hmmm

all emphasis mine, as usual

on the sniper suspect

In fact, Muhammad's second wife, Mildred, got a restraining order against him in March 2000, after he'd repeatedly threatened her and their children. When she moved to the Washington, D.C., area from Tacoma, Wash., in May 2001, she went to court to instate the order against him locally. That should have prohibited him from owning a gun -- once the order was imposed, if he owned guns, he should have turned them over, and if he didn't, he should have been prevented from buying any. But he apparently got weapons nonetheless. It may well turn out that the nation's sorry failure to enforce domestic-violence and gun laws is far more relevant than our failure to root out Muslim terrorists, if it turns out Muhammad is guilty of this murderous spree. But as of midday Thursday, nobody was talking about that on cable news.

...

In fact the Seattle Times story has far more interesting and disturbing reporting about the suspect's messed-up personal life and his track record of threats and abuse. He converted to Islam, the paper reports, after an angry divorce, and tried to make his ex-wife Carol Williams conform to the religion's strict dietary rules when feeding their son. (She said no.) He's had custody battles with both wives: He refused to let Williams' son return to his mother after one visit, and she had to go to court and get him back.

His second wife got a restraining order against him. Mildred Muhammad petitioned for it Feb. 11, 2000, and the court record is vivid: On Feb. 8, 2000, she reported, "John came over at 7 a.m. to inform me he had tapped the phone lines. He had information that would destroy me. He started threatening me and I became very unsafe." He came back the next day, she reported, and forced his way into the house. When she called the police, they said they could do nothing without a restraining order. The very next day, he came back again. "John came over and told me he would not allow me to raise our children."

But that petition was dismissed when she missed a court date. She quickly filed again, and the restraining order was granted in March. In May, she told authorities he kidnapped their three kids and threatened to kill her. During a hospital stay that month, authorities placed Mildred Muhammad under protection and moved her to another room after John Muhammad told his wife's mother that he planned to kill her. The hospital also informed the Tacoma Police Department about the threats. (The Smoking Gun has posted a variety of Muhammad documents on its Web site. )

Months later, in January 2001, Muhammad still had the three children, and his ex-wife went to court to get permission to move the children, when she recovered them, and not tell Williams their whereabouts. The court granted the order, but it's not clear when and how she got the kids back. And there is no record that John Muhammad was ever arrested or charged in connection with the kidnapping charge or the restraining order violations.

on background checks in the DC area

Maryland, a state with some of the toughest gun laws in America, went nearly six months this year without providing the FBI with criminal records of potential gun buyers - the essential component in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) said Maryland was the only state refusing to provide those records, the collection of which is mandated by Congress as part of the Brady Act.

"This refusal by Maryland, the only state to do so, meant the gun background check system run by the FBI did not have the valuable information necessary to prevent criminals from obtaining guns, thereby putting public safety needlessly at risk," Sensenbrenner said in a statement.

"Maryland's failure affects every state because a Maryland felon might, for example, try to illegally buy a gun in Virginia. If the Maryland State Archives refuses to search its criminal history records, Maryland felons can purchase guns that they are otherwise prohibited from purchasing," he said.

The Maryland State Archives in March informed the federal government that it would no longer be able to participate in the background check system unless it was reimbursed for the work, according to Sensenbrenner. Then, earlier this month, archives officials began furnishing the information again, but warned that they needed more money from the NICS program in order to continue, he said.

...

Townsend's gubernatorial opponent, Republican Robert Ehrlich, was quick to criticize the administration in Annapolis.

"The Glendening-Townsend administration and its chief crime fighter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, have failed to meet their most basic obligation: to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. I share the frustration that Maryland's law enforcement community must feel. Their job got a lot more difficult because Lieutenant Governor Townsend failed to do hers," said Ehrlich on Wednesday.

Rep. Ehrlich's staunch support for the law enforcement community and the Brady Act

Issues 2002

Strongly Favors
Absolute right to gun ownership

Strongly Favors: YES on decreasing gun waiting period from 3 days to 1

The Brady Campaign

The ad highlights Mr. Ehrlich’s record on guns as a state legislator and as the U.S. Representative for Maryland’s second district. In his four terms in the House of Representatives, Mr. Ehrlich has always voted with the extremist gun lobby and against gun violence prevention. Mr. Ehrlich voted to repeal the Federal Assault Weapons Law, the prohibition on semi-automatic weapons that is strongly supported by law enforcement groups across the nation.

Mr. Ehrlich also voted against meaningful legislation to close the gun show loophole, voting instead for an NRA alternative that would have weakened existing law. He opposed an amendment that would have helped law enforcement investigations by requiring the Department of Justice to keep National Instant Background Check (NICS) records on gun purchases for at least 90 days, favoring instead the destruction of NICS records after just one day. He supported the NRA’s effort to kill campaign finance reform by voting for an amendment that would have exempted the gun lobby from certain campaign finance restrictions. On September 25th, he voted for an NRA-backed bill to immunize the gun industry from civil liability, a protection no other industry enjoys.

Also Mr. Ehrlich recently stated he wants to review some of Maryland’s lifesaving gun laws with “an eye toward getting rid of them.” He is considering cutting the funding for the Ballistic fingerprinting law, and for the panel that helps implement Maryland’s life-saving Saturday Night Special Ban. The Washington Post said these statements “point toward retrogression.”

more

Robert Ehrlich's poor record on gun violence prevention is not restricted to his years in Congress. As a Maryland state legislator, he voted against Maryland's landmark ban on Saturday Night Specials in 1988. Furthermore, Ehrlich supported the National Rifle Association's attempt to repeal the Saturday Night Special law later that year via a citizen referendum. Robert Ehrlich led the fight against Maryland's ban on assault weapons, voting against this lifesaving legislation in 1994. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, Ehrlich spoke out against the bill and tried to corral votes in committee to defeat it.

"Bob Ehrlich has always voted against common-sense gun legislation, why would he stop now?" said Ginni Wolf, Executive Director of Marylanders Against Handgun Abuse. "He has an established record for placating the needs of the gun lobby while in the Maryland House of Delegates, and there is no indication he will change this behavior. The NRA and gun lobby know they have a friend in Ehrlich."

Ehrlich also voted against Maryland's 1992 Child Access Prevention Law, which makes it a crime for parents to let children have access to loaded firearms. When Maryland passed its law, it was the 10th state to do so. Today, 18 states have such a law.

You just wonder why he'd even want to go there, don't you?

Take a look at this

Those who do not remember history are condemned to run the executive branch

This site appears to run stories by academic historians and Caleb Carr.

Interesting. Take a look.

disgusted, thanks, yourself?

CNN with Vulfie had a muslim on to comment on the sniper suspect. No, not an expert in something who happened to be a muslim. A muslim. An expert muslim. Someone who was called upon to explain to the CNN audience how the muslim audience responded to being implicated in all this.

(Parenthetically I was watching this in a halal afghani restaurant).

Someone remind me - when they caught Timothy McVeigh, did they interview Pat Robertson or Billy Graham or Jerry Falwell to find out how the Christian Right felt about being implicated in bombing a daycare center?

Hell, did they even get Ann Coulter on the phone?