Where did all the adverbs go?

I realize that diagramming is probably not taught in schools very often these days, but I remember dissecting sentences for 45 minutes a day with Mrs. Pankratz back in the late 70s.

borrowed from http://georgenewall.com/imagesshr/lolly_shelves.jpg

For some reason, most people these days don't seem to understand that an ADVERB is a word that modifies the very in your sentence and generally ends in an "LY".  See that word GENERALLY in the last sentence?  That was the adverb, boys and girls!

Sportscasters and athletes seem especially bad at properly using the english language when it comes to adverbs.

Maybe they did not enjoy Schoolhouse Rock as much as I did.....

Granted, some of them are much younger than I am, but that is no excuse for not practicing good grammar.  They understand the basic concept, as they usually choose the correct adjective that could be easily converted into the matching adverb, but close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades, right?

Nasty and brutish, but DEFINITELY not short!

I do some of my best thinking in the shower, and this morning I was struck at how our electioneering system (and to a certain extent lately, our political system as a whole) is more like the "state of nature"  that I studied OH SO MANY years ago in college.  Those who are not political junkies, or who did not spend most of their time in college reading political philosophy tomes, might think that a natural state doesn't sound too bad, perhaps.  But the "state of nature" described by Hobbes and other writers of his time was characterized as "nasty, brutish and short".  They believed that mankind had elevated itself by progressing out of this natural state, where every person had to fight and scrabble for existence, and into one where political institutions would provide a better quality of life.

[Just in case there is any doubt about who I am supporting!!!]

But since we have not moved in the direction of public financing of election campaigns at the national level, we instead have a system where an anonymous private donor can give $5M in one lump sum to a super PAC who will cover the airwaves with negative advertisements about the "other guy".

We had a meeting at work yesterday where several people (including myself) brought up the concept that we should treat each other as if we believed in the good intentions of the other person.  I personally have eight teams of people out in the field that report directly to me, and it is honestly hard to serve them all equally well all of the time.  Sometimes we get into adversarial relationships, and I have to remind myself that we all wear the same uniform, we all took the same oath to protect and defend the Constitution, and that we are trying to get to the same goal, we just have different strategies for how to get there.......

Our basically two party political system here in the US has created an extremely competitive environment which is going back to the "state of nature" rather than resulting in civil and productive discussions.  Our elected senators and congresspeople cannot even get their act together and fix our budget crisis, because they are all engaging in black and white thinking, and seem to believe that if the cede ANY ground on ANY topic, that is unacceptable!

And since the election process seems to take about two years from start to finish (for the president, anyway) we have nearly 10 months before we are out of this miserable state.

Chicken Bones and Cigarette Stubs: Neither Are Garbage?

Lots of folks doing last minute shopping this afternoon* before all the stores close on Christmas Eve.  Traffic was very slow all over the 5 mile radius of our house where I ventured today.

[*I got caught up with cooking and did not manage to post this blog the same day the incident occurred, but wanted to leave it in present tense.]

borrowed from http://www.chiropractic-help.com/images/chicken-bones.jpg

I followed one older small sedan for a few miles, and I noticed them throwing small items out of the driver's side window periodically.  The first thing that flew out, I assumed was a cigarette butt, as people don't often consider them garbage (one of those great mysteries I don't understand...  maybe it has something to do with not being a smoker).

It seemed rather larger than your normal cigarette butt, and it did not have the nice glowing ember aspect they normally have.  A few blocks later, something else flew out the window, which I thought might be a crumpled up dollar bill (and yes, I thought about pulling over, but there were several cars behind me, and as Michiganders tend to tail gate relentlessly, that did not seem like the best idea.)

At the next stop light, I was now close enough to see what the projectile thrown out of the window actually was:  a chicken bone.

This person was driving around, by themselves, eating chicken and throwing the bones out into the street.  This is wrong on SO MANY levels.

First of all, chicken is something to be shared, not eaten all alone.  [our cats will attest to that truism]

Secondly, we have too many smushed squirrels and pigeons in the street already, we don't need to encourage small hungry critters to dash into the road for a chicken tidbit.

And finally, even though my husband says I should not be everyone's moral policewoman, I will continue to do it anyway!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Chebache: the rule of threes

A good friend of my husband created a board game called Chebache.  Though it is a two player game, it has a lot of threes in it.

• there are 3 colors in its scheme:  red, black & white
• its name is a combination of checkers, backgammon & chess
• it is now available as a physical board game, an iPad application & on-line

The iPad version is really cool, but the board game itself is nice as well.  Since the hubby has spend MANY hours traveling around the globe helping its creator extoll the virtues of this game, we have several copies of the physical version in the house.  He has also helped in the development of the iPad version (thanks to yours truly buying him the iPad2 as a combined Valentine's day & birthday gift earlier this year).  

So if you are looking for a good strategy game to put under your Christmas tree, your Hanukkah bush or your Festivus pole, (or on your iTunes account) please check out any of the links above.

To frak or not to frack?

I will have to think about whether I post this blog on Facebook, as it may offend some people.  It would be interesting to see how many people are offended by the fake expletive used in the title, and how many are given pause by my opinion about accessing energy currently hidden in shale under many parts of the US.

borrowed from http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/files/2011/08/fracking.preview.JPG

I was a casual fan of the original Battlestar Galactica (BG), but the remake was much better.  I did not remember that the first show also used the fake expletive, and according the Wikipedia  they spelled it with a "c" similar to the current practice of pumping water and chemicals into the earth to try and get some gas back out.

This compilation of all the FRAKs from season one of the newer BG series was just too good to pass up:
Click on Frak clips to be taken to the YouTube site to watch these.

I realize that we like to accrue lots of energy to support the needs and wants of our citizens, but I believe that there are safe ways to get that energy, and quicker easier ways to get it.  Bad things often happen when we take the easy way out, as I can attest to from personal experience.  I think that some of that is happening in this particular extraction method of hydraulic fracturing.

The New York Times has two recent articles which relate to this issue.  The first discusses the results of fracking itself, and the second has to do with a horrible accident at sea as the Russians rush to step up oil production in the Arctic and other offshore regions, since the returns from their land based rigs are starting to decrease.

I don't want to only bring up the downsides of fracking, so if you want to do some research on the energy industry's perspective on the safety of this process, a good place to start is here.

I will now leave you to do some research on your own to weigh this Shakespeare inspired question (a shout out goes to Heritage Coffee in Juneau and their support of the Theatre in the Rough coffee series which inspired this blog).

Proper word usage (or lack thereof)

For whatever reason, I am obsessed with people using the right names for things.  I try to apply this to myself as well, but I am human (though my husband thinks I might actually be a martian), so I sometimes make mistakes.

Being a student of political science, I understand the difference between public discourse and private discussions, and how powerful certain words are in our society.  I like to call a spade a spade, but you cannot be polite and do that (in all circumstances).

In my current sleep deprived state, and as the 2012 presidential election hubbub is churning pretty well this weekend, I recalled an interesting discussion I had with a young Mormon on a plane a few years ago.

I lived in Utah for about 18 months, and it was a beautiful place, but the pervasive nature of the Mormon religion got to me after a while.  I never got proselytized by anyone while I lived there, but the fact that my professors' kids could not joint certain scout troops because they were not a  Mormon really bothered me.

I went to Catholic schools most of my young life, and there were always a handful of non-Catholic students who were fully accepted members of the student body.  Maybe they did not take communion during the service, but they were not ostracized for being of a different religious persuasion.  There are many things I don't like about the Catholic church, but in my experience the parochial education facilities were fairly inclusive.  Some might say they were exclusive since you had to pay for them (though most also had scholarship programs), but my high school in particular was on the fringes of a major metropolitan area, and it had at least a 35% minority student body.  As the costs have risen over the years that percentage may have fallen, but I think my world view was shaped by that experience of diversity.

Okay, back on track now......

So I was sharing Utah memories with this young man, who wore a name tag on his pristine white dress shirt that read Elder Johnson (or some such generic last name).  He was a nice young man, who allowed me to get out some of my beefs about his religion.  I don't normally engage in conversations while flying, but this discussion was actually quite pleasurable.  He offered me a Book of Mormon at the end of the flight.  The lady on the other side of him asked for one as well, as her sister had recently married a Mormon, but he had given me his last spare.  [I gave it to her as we walked to baggage claim, since I only accepted it to be polite.]

I think to be a missionary you have to have a little used car salesman in you, and this kid had just the right combination of being able to draw out your curiosity, listening politely to your silly questions, and getting his point across.  He asked me for some feedback on his approach at the end of our discussion.

My only constructive criticism was that I, being old enough to be his mom, was slightly offended by the fact that he introduced himself as ELDER Johnson.  The name tag was not as offensive, being just a piece of plastic.  I explained that I understood this was a religious title assigned to him, but if you are trying to convince people of your credibility, how you introduce yourself is important.

I have a few titles, but I rarely use them.  I am always amused at military courses or meetings where you are asked to introduce yourself to a room of your colleagues, and people use their rank before their name.  We can see your uniform, so we know what your rank is, doofus!  It is even more ridiculous when they don't use their first name, so afterwards you are forced to call them Commander Smith, even though you are all the same general rank.

As I explained to Elder Johnson, in my most patient and nice voice, it just makes me want to giggle when someone who has been on this earth less than half the time that I have been uses a title meant to suggest otherwise.

Caribbean Lobsters have dreadlocks

My brother and sister-in-law were visiting over the turkey day holiday, and while watching the Harbaugh Bowl (third game on Thanksgiving proper), Dan and I were discussing marine creatures.  If you have read many of my blogs, you will know that creatures that live in water are my favorites (other than our cats or the spouse, of course).  Dan mentioned that "Caribbean lobsters have dreadlocks", which started me thinking about one of my favorite creatures and dinner items.

borrowed from http://www.underwaterplanet.com/Belize3Lobster.jpg

When they bend their two huge antennae back towards their carapace, they kind of do look like two big dreadlocks.  Dan did not realize that the Caribbean Spiny Lobster was structurally that much different from their colder water cousins, but now he does!

borrowed from http://www.lobsterfrommaine.com/authentic-maine-lobster.aspx

As a kid, my brother and I spent too much time in the local creek harvesting crawfish to sell to the bait shops.  At that point, I didn't understand about sustainable fishing practices.  I am little smarter about that stuff now......

Saving Squid (for potential consumption later.......)

Sometimes it takes a plan a few years to come to fruition.  I am not the most patient of humans, but I wanted to share this story of a stateless vessel flouting the high seas driftnet ban which was recently apprehended by the USCG and its partners.

The vessel's name is the Bangun Perkassa, and you can find numerous stories on line about its capture if you google those two words.

borrowed from http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/10/06/2011-10-06_coast_guard_seizes_pirate_fishing_boat_loaded_with_rats_and_rotting_squid_off_al.html

The international treaties that created a coalition of Canadian, US, Japanese & Chinese forces (ships and aircraft) WAY out there in the pacific were actually geared towards protecting anadromous species like salmon, but we have known for the last 5 years that most of the really bad guys have been targeting squid and other less valuable resources.

In my personal non-ichthylogical opinion, squid are much smarter than salmon, but they still aren't smart enough to avoid the giant walls of death that the driftnets really are.

Spousal unit would not eat squid for a few years after we were diving in Massachusetts and saw them breeding and attaching their eggs to some rocks in about 8 feet of water several years ago, but he later relented when some yummy calimari were provided.  He is also quite fond of the curried squid available at our local dim sum joint.

States rights and tea parties

whimsical tea set graphic borrowed from http://www.yankodesign.com/images/design_news/2008/08/18/avestruz.jpg

September has started off as political blog month, and it might stay that way for a while.  Being a political science major and given that I am considering going to law school once I quit my day job (projected for May 2013), my mind has been whirling with all the current kerfuffle over the appropriate size of government for our country.  This has been exacerbated by the entry into the next presidential race of a person who has made numerous statements about how his state should consider seceding from the Union.

My grandparents retired at an early age to a beautiful island off the coast of New England.  Every few years or so some of the locals would talk about how they should just secede from the Union so they could be left alone.  I always thought that was pretty funny as a kid growing up, and my grandfather loved a good story, so he would go on about it for a while, before moving on to a more kid centric activity like fishing, swimming, clamming, playing cards, or entertaining us by pounding out crazy songs on his electric piano.  Funny thing is, I don't remember what side of the issue he was on, just that his voice got louder and some gesticulations were involved.  He was always a funny guy!

The thing that burns me up about Gov. Perry is that he made those pronouncements in years past about the uselessness of Washington, DC, but now he wants to go there and try and run it himself?  I cannot decide if he is just a hypocrite, or if he really thinks that he can do a better job than the current president.  I think the real answer is that he has surveyed the competition and realizes that he might be able to get the nomination this time around, whereas next time he might have to deal with the Palin juggernaut.

I guess what really started me thinking about this was all the talk about shrinking the size of the federal government, but not harvesting the complete funds savings because you still want those functions to be performed, just by the state rather than the feds.

Having been a federal employee for over 21 years, that just doesn't make sense to me.  Why have all the FEMA expertise split up into 50+ separate pieces?  Some projects are big and fluid enough to require regionalization, from my way of thinking.  And when there is a national structure, you have a greater chance of the program being administered the same in all areas (i.e. more fairly).

It is all a big power struggle.  We don't think FEMA is necessary at the federal level, but we still want all the disaster funding to go to communities that are most in need.  We don't need the EPA to spend all its time making things more expensive for big oil/coal/etc.  Next thing you know we won't need the FDA to make sure that food supplies are safe.  Heck, while you are at it, why don't we get rid of the CDC, FAA, TSA and a few more in the alphabet soup acronym list!!!!

I have worked inside and outside the beltway, and I am offended at the suggestion that federal employees are living off the fat of the land, and really aren't contributing to the country as a whole.  I know that there are some people who will milk the system, but that happens in any organization to some extent.

I think I need to dig up my copy of The Federalist Papers and send it to Gov. Perry.  I would venture to guess he has not read it.  Good old father of the Coast Guard Alexander Hamilton wrote or co-authored most of them, along with James Madison and John Jay.  They were trying to decide how to move forward with this new Union.  How would the needs of the individual states be balanced with this new federal government?

I have included the first two paragraphs of the introduction to get you in the mood for rational political discourse.

"To the people of the state of New York

AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.

This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those of patriotism, to heighten the solicitude which all considerate and good men must feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected. The plan offered to our deliberations affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth."

I am struck by the fact that the focus is on "the public good" and that he exhorts his readers not to let their passions get in the way of "the discovery of truth".   Hamilton believed in a strong central government, and that the implied powers of the Constitution would give this government the ability to fund programs through assuming a national debt; have to agree with him on both those issues.

This Tea Party fixation on the evil of the national debt just puzzles me.  Maybe they are so rich that they can buy their homes and automobiles and other expensive items with cash, but most Americans are not so lucky.  If you can believe Wikipedia statistics (and that is not a given since anyone can go in and alter things to reflect their own view of reality), only 69% of Americans own their own home.  That number is from 2002, so I imagine it could have altered a few points in one direction or other in the last nine years.  Of that roughly 2/3 of the US population, I would imagine that around 80% of those people had to finance that purchase.

Enough insomnia inspired ramblings on this topic.  Gotta go look for my Federalist Papers, and see if highlighter lasts for more than two decades!

Animals and Fear

I listen to a lot of satellite radio; mostly the old time radio of the 1930s-50s.  Unlike most of the music channels, since this station is not one of the big money earners, it actually has a bunch of commercials.  Most of them are extremely annoying, but I do learn things from them now and again.

One thing I have learned recently validates something I heard on public radio this week = there is always a need for long haul truck drivers.  From the number of trucks I see on the roadways, you would not think that this would be the case, but apparently it is.  Probably 1/3 of the commercials on XM/Sirius channel 82 have something to do with the trucking industry.

Another 1/3 of the advertisements involve people trying to sell you gold.  There are all sorts of thinly veiled apocolyptic  warnings about how the financial system is about to collapse.  My favorite one is a slam against Quantitative Easing which includes a phrase something like, "You can print more money but you cannot create more gold!"  That statement bothers me on SO MANY levels.  First of all, you can mine for more gold, but I realize that the supply is finite on this planet.  Secondly, you can also buy something that is more valuable than gold; why are we all so fixated on the shiny gold stuff?  I much prefer platinum or silver.  Thirdly, and most of all, they are playing on people's fears to get them to convert their IRA into gold, buy some gold that they otherwise might put into some other investment, etc.

I understand fear.  I see a great example of it every day when I go down into the basement.

borrowed from http://www.virginiaherpetologicalsociety.com/reptiles/turtles/yellow-bellied-slider/yellow-bellied_slider.htm

We have two yellow bellied slider cousins of this wild fellow shown above, who warm themselves under the heat lamps during the day.  The male turtle, Nacho, tends to clamber off the sunning platform very quickly and dive into the water when he first hears someone come down the stairs into the basement.  He swims at full speed for about 5 seconds until he smashes his nose into the end of the aquarium.

I am pretty sure that he thinks we are a predator, and wants to get as far away as possible, post haste.  His female companion Libre is not quite as smart, but much more food/heat motivated.  She won't get off the nice warm/dry platform until she is pretty sure it is feeding time.

I realize that a certain amount of fear is necessary to keep one safe and dry and fed, but I object to the type of advertising that appeals to that very base emotion.  It can be very negative and misleading, and while I feel bad about getting poor Nacho's heart rate up every morning/evening that I venture down to the basement, I still  need to get the laundry done!