This has been one of the best weeks ever for working in high tech amateur radio. I'm really looking forward to bringing all of it to the community over the next year! This is a golden age for SDR, cognitive, microwave, and advanced digital modes. Why was this week good? Here's why.
This year, I co-founded a research institute devoted to Open Source and Open Access in research and development. It's called Open Research Institute (ORI). Our site is here: https://openresearch.institute/
Most of what we do is for amateur radio satellite and terrestrial use. Why start a research institute? We wanted a formal structure for the work we all had been doing all along, and existing clubs were either unsupportive, unresponsive, full up with their own work, or not aligned with open source and open access. The last significant part of setting up ORI was getting the 501(c)(3) approval. That happened 6 March 2019.
ORI gets work done through projects. The list currently include Phase 4 Ground, Phase 4 Space, GRC Localization for Japanese and German, and Open Cars. There are several other projects in the initial investigation stages. There's room for plenty more! Phase 4 Ground and Space produces work that benefits all amateur radio space organizations. Libre Space, AMSAT-DL, JAMSAT, AMSAT-UK, TAPR, and more have been wonderful partners.
The Breakthrough Listen GNU Radio workshop coming up in mid-May is another big step forward. I got news I was accepted to it as a participant this past week. While not primarily an amateur radio event, the participant list has a lot of hams! It's quite thrilling to see how many really smart and amazing amateur operators there are in the GNU Radio community. There are SDR people coming to the event that I cannot wait to meet and work with. Things we talk about and work on at this workshop will be available to and will benefit advanced digital modes and their implementations in amateur radio.
I am the co-chair for GNU Radio Conference 2019 (Huntsville, AL) and have volunteered with the conference since 2016. It's an honor to be involved with and support event. Our ham exam session has been very successful, with 40-50 licenses or upgrades each year. Amateurs are a big part of GNU Radio. We decided to feature space communications as our conference theme for the Apollo landing anniversary year of 2019.
We tried repeatedly, starting in 2017, to get amateur radio conferences to co-locate and collaborate with GNU Radio Conference. The proposal was, they would each have their own space and track and keep all their identity and branding and whatnot, but share vendor space, food and meeting room costs, and get free proceedings, program publishing, schedule, shipping, and a variety of logistics support from us. The traditional organizations all flatly refused or ignored the proposal. One simply cut and pasted the city and venue to 2018 after perusing the proposal. I got confused phone calls from the venue we'd gotten quotes from for weeks. Two other bad experiences with other amateur organizations deliberately scheduling their conference on top of GNU Radio Conference have happened, despite a lot of effort to communicate, coordinate, and cross-promote.
On the surface, this isn't great news or a good experience. But digging deeper, we realized that getting doors slammed in our faces by leadership hostile to change opened up a series of much better opportunities for us. The right response to the initial disappointments is gratitude.
And now, there is cause for hope. Over the past couple of weeks, one of the organizations that responded with grumpy indifference has changed direction. In another two years, I expect a drastic improvement in collaboration and cooperation between the two communities. There is substantial overlap. It's silly not to work together.
Another silver lining has to do with sexism and bigotry. Sexist and racist crap happens in tech. There is not a lot of good news here. Amateur radio organizations are very homogenous. Much more than the ham population as a whole. In the US 15-20% of hams are women. In more traditional organizations and clubs, it's at or below 3%. In many cases, it's literally 0%. Traditional organizations are stacked with people that don't like working with women and will pull a lot of underhanded garbage to make sure women who show up and volunteer are made to feel lesser, smaller, and unwanted.
Speaking up and speaking out against bad experiences is difficult. If you speak up or speak out, you will be punished for it, every time. You can assiduously document, you can follow all the rules for complaining about it, you can simply work twice as hard and try to "lean in". None of this will work. If sexists have any power over you in any way, you are doomed.
These experiences aren't the biggest problem. Yes they suck. But, the much bigger problem is the almost complete failure of any bystander men to deliver any repercussion, at all, to the men who behave in sexist, demeaning, bigoted ways. When the behavior is documented, when complaints and testimonies given, when it is observed and reported, men in general do absolutely nothing about it. If you're lucky, they'll wring their hands in private and commiserate.
The most outspoken men, who argue technical details with energy and force and commitment and devotion, fall completely silent in the face of sexism or bigotry. Even when it's obscene or explicitly illegal, they will do nothing. Poke or prod a bit, and then they get irritated, annoyed, or angry. "What do you expect ME to do about it?!" Any inconvenience at all is just too much to ask. They're generally ok with women being shut down, shut out, ignored, or their work erased. Gaslighting is normal.
This stuff is a cultural disaster that will not get even slightly better without men stepping up and enforcing repercussions for acts of sexism and bigotry. Just enforcing repercussions is the first step. The fact that most amateur operators won't bother with taking even the first step is telling. It is a big reason why women show up for one meeting, one project conference call, one email thread, one tour of HF with their new privileges, and then they either leave or get eliminated by men who just can't stand women speaking.
When you are the butt of jokes or comments that assume you are non-technical, are not really a person, are preventing men from enjoying themselves, are "spending husband's money", are "nothing but trouble", don't belong, are equated with children, or will suffer violence for expressing an opinion, the community in general has failed you. This stuff is common on HF and repeaters. It goes almost completely unchallenged on the air.
This is a root cause of why many, if not most, women express a fear of operating an amateur radio in voice modes. But there's an even deeper issues here too. Women suffer an enormous amount of violence at the hands of men that personally know us. We are socialized from birth to not offend or upset men in any way. Speaking as equals is offensive to many men, because we are *supposed to be* only supportive and only agreeable and never ever "right", on our own. Embarrassing men in any way is just not allowed. Being right in even the friendliest and gentlest way about math or science or engineering or leadership or financial opportunities or fundraising doesn't matter. Asserting an opinion that isn't strictly agreeing with a man results, worst case, in violence. This violence is real and even in "polite" and "civil" hobbies like amateur radio, it profoundly shapes the casual communication patterns.
Women in amateur radio consistently explain a reluctance to get on the air with "I'm afraid I'll say the wrong thing". Pay attention at the YL forums and YouTube videos where we are asked about this. Read the essays. This is a permanent refrain. Fear.
Men hear this, and hear "mic fright". No, this is not mic fright. Being afraid of operating on the air is a rational and justified response to the violence delivered from men to women in our society. Women police themselves in ways men simply do not have to. This is observable in general amateur radio operating, let alone technical volunteering.
Women therefore, in general, are expected to cede the communications space to men. Amateur radio is so heavily dominated by men, that the fear and subservience effect is easily observable. Break the "rules" and enough men will be truly enraged, and they will exact revenge.
I've been very active in amateur radio for almost 20 years. I've volunteered in advanced digital communications for over 10. I've been very successful in a variety of projects. I'm not a bad volunteer or leader. Some amateur radio organizations are hopelessly broken in terms of sexism. I choose to speak up and speak out and assert technical opinions. I am not an asshole about it, but I'm not Wimpy Wanda, either. I choose to pay the sexism tax on my work. Sometimes that tax means that effort sadly goes into the red. I'm kept out or attacked while mediocre men get to stay or are rewarded. There is really no appeal that works when this happens.
But. Sometimes leaders and fellow volunteers negate that tax! This is how you know who to spend your time working with. And this week, spending more time with those types of people and a LOT less time with proven sexists and bigots has paid off enormously. I felt obligated for many years to conform, serve, and respond within organizations that treated me like garbage. The last little bit of that "good intentions, terrible results" type of thinking evaporated this week. I'm late to the party, but better late than never to get rid of unnecessary baggage.
This is where starting our own organization (ORI) has made the most difference. It's a night and day difference to work with people that are unafraid to enforce basic standards of fairness. I cannot understate how truly important it is to have people with privilege go to bat for you. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my fellow ORI co-founders, Bruce Perens and Ben Hilburn, for simply being equitable and fair.
Does your (amateur or other) organization have a code of conduct? Is it enforced? Does your favorite event make it clear, through written policies and clear procedures, that everyone is welcome?
Things like a Code of Conduct are the minimum standard. They are not really that hard to implement. There's lots of resources to get up to speed here as an organizer or leader. This isn't a new issue. There's a metric ton of electrons devoted to endless essays about sexism and bigotry, and the huge cost to homogenous organizations as a result.
Phase 4 Ground has made substantial technical progress in our test plan, application layer, link layer, radio architecture, and user interface definition. One of the most difficult aspects of Phase 4 Ground has always been recruiting enough people for the FPGA/HDL/ASIC work. People that understand radio, coding, and reconfigurable digital logic are rare and in great demand from industry. But, we've never been in a better place in terms of human resources than we are right now, and I got additional contacts this week.
For big ambitious open source interdisciplinary designs, recruiting continues throughout the entire life of the project. Phase 4 projects welcome anyone, regardless of how much time they can commit, and we meet people where they are technically. One of the goals of Phase 4 is to give people a friendly and supportive place to learn advanced digital techniques. That's one of the purposes of amateur radio in general, and there's a great need for anything past the "hello world" type of FPGA design.
This means that some volunteers will benefit from ORI more than ORI benefits from them. This is on purpose. It's paying it forward to the community.
ORI takes risks that other organizations do not. ORI deliberately chooses difficult work that has a higher degree of failure. This is on purpose. Someone has to say the things and take the risks.
So, this week, the practice of risk taking and generosity paid off. Some weeks it doesn't go as well! There are a lot of setbacks when you take risks and try things that are new or challenge the status quo. Defending friendly, inclusive, supportive, collaborative work styles in a world that rewards opaque, authoritarian, discriminatory work styles can feel no-win. Unfortunately amateur radio has a lot of opaque, authoritarian, and discriminatory aspects. ORI provides a deliberately different alternative, and this week it paid off in several ways. No, I can't list them all, but if even half of the steps forward that happened this week pan out, then the next few months we will have a lot of happy announcements.
-Michelle W5NYV
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Pie crust cookies "I Love Christmas Trees"
Pie crust mix prepared then rolled thin, then cut into hearts and tree shapes. Excess rolled into small balls. All of it cooked at 450 F for 12 minutes. Store-bought icing applied to hearts, then trees (sprinkled with allspice) placed on top of icing. Small balls placed on icing as well. Yum!
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Smithville
Happy Thanksgiving!
A pleasant restful day with relatives and great food. We worked on cub scout belt loops, watched the Space Shuttle/ISS pass, and I received some feedback on the Neon-test tutorial. I corrected the typos and republished the document.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Smithville – Amory
Day 4
The first order of business was to work out at the gym. The gym is across the parking lot from the hospital in Amory, which is about 7 miles away. I listened to POTUS, a satellite radio channel, in the rental car on the way. POTUS was launched to cover the 2008 presidential election, but remained on in lesser form as a political news channel. The degradation in quality, from my point of view, is the current domination of daytime programming by a dreadful talk-format program called Stand Up with Pete Dominic. It’s hours and hours of a tepidly presented and superficially informed blowhard-style call-in, with the host always “running out of time” on his way to talking about nothing in particular.
This racing to nowhere style talk radio (and TV) is the bane of my existence. I can’t stand it. I don’t like it. Have I mentioned that I find it irritating?
“Blah blah blah and in the 9 seconds remaining, can you recommend a solution for mid-east peace?”
“Well, host person, it’s a very complicated issue with great historical and cultural –“
“I’m sorry! We’ve run out of time! Up next, we’ll ask our next guest about Afghanistan!”
“Welcome back to our show!
“Blah blah blah, and in the 9 seconds remaining, should we sent more troops to Afghanistan?”
“Well, host person, it’s a very complicated issue with enormous political and economic consequ-“
“I’m sorry! We’ve run out of time!”
Rinse, repeat, all day long.
If it’s not patchwork crazy quilt pseudo conversations, it’s yell kings baiting guests to snap and bite at each other like clever children. This is why I watch about 3.7 hours of this stuff per year. Just to check and see if it’s still as bad as I remembered.
I know I sound like a total grouch. I’m not, really. I just prefer a real conversation, where you put your opponent and your comrade in the one and the same most positive light; where you direct your remarks to the most intelligent person in the audience, and not the most base or partisan.
Anyway, the gym was great. I covered three miles and had some good coffee there in the small café overlooking the pool. I’m updating the Livescribe smartpen (I highly recommend this tool) and have some work to do today in terms of packing up things in the storage room in downtown Smithville and in continuing the interview process for the writing project I’m here to start.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Smithville - Aberdeen - Smithville
Day 3
I got up after it turned light outside. The bed is really comfortable here, so it took a while. It was still pretty early. My son was still soundly asleep and wasn’t going to get up. I didn’t blame him – he played pretty hard yesterday, and probably still needed some beauty sleep. Upstairs seemed deserted. My relatives are true morning people. While I may be at my best in the morning, they have already had a good head start on being productive and such by the time I get around to thinking about getting dressed.
Eventually, they noticed I was up and Atom, and I got some coffee made for me (yum!), talked about global warming deniers and the latest news about Palin, had a small very tasty cheesy-egg breakfast, went to the gym, jogged 3 miles with a few huff-and-puff walking breaks on a treadmill while listening to the beginning of Ayn Rand’s “The Art of Nonfiction”, came back home, took a shower, had lunch, got a tip about a document I need to read, checked in on the NEON/FFTW Google wave, headed out to visit more relatives, went to storage site where I’m supposed to pack up a bunch of stuff for the movers to take back to San Diego, packed up a bunch of old hardback science fiction from decades ago that my grandfather had collected as a science fiction book club member, had cheese and merlot for dinner, then talked about all sorts of things before settling into the first big book interview.
The task ahead is to gather, gather, gather information and then try and define, define, define the story for this project. There isn’t any way to really summarize the complexity of the engineering project that I’m trying to talk about. The most important thing, to me, is to try and make it possible for people to feel what it was like to work on a particular, large, complicated engineering project during the cold war, and to provide some understanding of how the context and justification for the project shifted over time.
I got up after it turned light outside. The bed is really comfortable here, so it took a while. It was still pretty early. My son was still soundly asleep and wasn’t going to get up. I didn’t blame him – he played pretty hard yesterday, and probably still needed some beauty sleep. Upstairs seemed deserted. My relatives are true morning people. While I may be at my best in the morning, they have already had a good head start on being productive and such by the time I get around to thinking about getting dressed.
Eventually, they noticed I was up and Atom, and I got some coffee made for me (yum!), talked about global warming deniers and the latest news about Palin, had a small very tasty cheesy-egg breakfast, went to the gym, jogged 3 miles with a few huff-and-puff walking breaks on a treadmill while listening to the beginning of Ayn Rand’s “The Art of Nonfiction”, came back home, took a shower, had lunch, got a tip about a document I need to read, checked in on the NEON/FFTW Google wave, headed out to visit more relatives, went to storage site where I’m supposed to pack up a bunch of stuff for the movers to take back to San Diego, packed up a bunch of old hardback science fiction from decades ago that my grandfather had collected as a science fiction book club member, had cheese and merlot for dinner, then talked about all sorts of things before settling into the first big book interview.
The task ahead is to gather, gather, gather information and then try and define, define, define the story for this project. There isn’t any way to really summarize the complexity of the engineering project that I’m trying to talk about. The most important thing, to me, is to try and make it possible for people to feel what it was like to work on a particular, large, complicated engineering project during the cold war, and to provide some understanding of how the context and justification for the project shifted over time.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Olive Branch - Memphis - Smithville
Day 2 of travel
When the female lead on the show threatened another with a gun, I asked the party of four if they were watching it. None of the middle-aged and British-accented people admitted to being interested in the program. They had been trying to talk over the Shatneresque dialogue for a good minute or two, which is the classic sign of not really being into a show.
I walked over to the set, which was a nice new flatscreen mounted high on the wall, and failed to find a power switch. Waving my hand along the side, searching for any buttons, caused a staff person to magically appear.
“Do you want to change the channel?”
“Not exactly,” I said politely. “I want to turn it off.”
“Well!” she said, her eyebrows raised as high as they could go. “I don’t know if we should do that. I mean, these people might be watching it!” She seemed surprised at the very idea of shutting off the television.
“They said they were not. I would not do that without asking,” I said quietly. The foursome interrupted me to enthusiastically agree about shutting off the set. She retrieved a remote control from an Undisclosed Safe Location back in the kitchen and shut the TV off.
We resumed breakfast and it was a lot more pleasant. The atmosphere seemed to clear, volume-induced stress melted away, and violent acts weren’t looming in my peripheral vision. I talked with my son about all sorts of funny things, since I can finish my breakfast way faster than he can play with his. The other folks finished their post-breakfast conversation and cleared their table, ambling off down the hall. I made a cup of coffee, and was expounding on some fact or another to him when another staff person whizzed through the room, checked the coffee, the egg tray, the oil-soaked bacon, and the untouched grits and gravy, and asked if I wanted the television on.
“No thanks,” I answered, turning from my son to the staff person.
“But what about the news? Or cartoons for your boy?”
And interrupt a great conversation? Are you kidding? I said, “No thanks, we’re enjoying the quiet.”
You should have seen the look I got.
After breakfast we packed up and headed out for the Pink Palace Museum. I’d been lured there by talk of a fashion/sewing exhibition. The museum, overall, was great. The sewing exhibition was somewhat of a disappointment.
http://www.memphismuseums.org/mu-event_program-13252/
The clothing hinted at on the website was indeed there… with a big “Coming Soon” sign in front of all the clothing (on manikins), which were crowded onto a small dais in the center of a room dedicated to other stuff. There was limited placard verbiage. There was no interpretive elements, diagrams, explanations, definitions, or even the fabric content of the clothing. There literally was more content on the website teaser than there was actually in the exhibit.
Another minor annoyance was that one of the exhibits required an additional ticket. I must have missed the part at the ticket counter. They have an IMAX theater, and I didn’t get that ticket either (on purpose). However, when you sell an “exhibits” ticket, then I guess I sort of expect to be able to see all the exhibits.
Regardless, it was worth seeing – if only for the Indycar themed Christmas tree in the decorated Christmas tree exhibit hall. It was garlanded with slot car tracks! Photo set to follow.
There was a space science exhibit, minerals, natural history, and New Madrid Earthquake area. There were lots of fossils, plenty of really good regional history exhibits, and an animated hand-carved enormous circus model. It was larger than HO scale, but smaller than G, and was pretty incredible. One guy spent pretty much his whole hobby life working on it. His particular style reminded me of a ceramic monkey statue that Ken won for last place at a charity golf tournament at work. It had that pre-Mattel toy vibe, with a palette of colors from the 1930s, and wonderful hand-lettered signage. The track was unique - the horse-drawn carriages and traincars are actually drawn by the teams of hand-carved horses. Along one side of the room (the entire center was the circus animated model) was a case detailing the process the artist used. Quite the exhibit all on its own! And, there was more.
The Pink Palace is a mansion that was being built by the guy that came up with the idea of self-service grocery stores. Before, it was like oldschool libraries, where you were not allowed back in the stacks. You had to bring your list to a clerk. Grocery stores were like that too. The guy that founded Piggly Wiggly (the most awesomely named store ever) was named Clarence Saunders, I believe, and a full-sized model of the first self-service grocery store in was just down the hall from the giant animated circus.
After my son couldn’t stand it anymore – literally, his feet were aching – we got back in the car and headed for the Wal Mart supercenter. We got a gigantic lego set and clothes. This would be the first time that I’ve ever attempted to live off the land, as Ken puts it, as existential frontiersmen. Frontierspeople. Frontierspersons? Whatever.
Anyway, this was a travel experiment. Money saved by not checking baggage: $40. Money spent at Wal Mart (minus the legos) buying the same stuff I would have packed if I had checked the baggage: $200.
Ok, existential-frontier-travel-light-live-off-the-land-plan version 1.0… #fail.
And, this was shopping selectively – mainly from the sale and clearance racks. I got pants for $3. Running shoes for $20. Shirt for $8. Wal Mart is in-your-face cheap. It pulls no punches. There are no questions about where the decimal point is in these prices, and it’s almost always further to the right than you expect.
But, 5 days worth of clothes for two people, a workout set for me, and a jacket for the son adds up. Oh, I also bought bacon, two things of cheese, breakfast sausages, and cheddar wurst sausages. I probably wouldn't have packed that. But still, those things didn't cost the $160 difference between "would have spent" and "spent".
The checkout clerk complimented me on my savings, so I didn’t feel too bad. Let my experience be your guide. Go ahead. Pack heavy for the plane. Pay the fee. It’s really hard to buy a suitcase full of luggage for the fee they charge, unless you buy half-off fabric and have a sewing machine, time, and skill at your destination. Oh, and did I mention time? It took a good 1:45 to achieve shopping nirvana. The good news is I actually got some new clothes that I didn't sew myself. It was kind of fun. I might do it again someday. Not anytime soon, though, because I love sewing.
We arrived in Smithville after a leisurely drive, and visited all evening. We went out to Mel’s Diner and had a pleasant late dinner. My relatives know everyone there, and we wrapped up the evening in the lab, talking about the decline of newspapers everywhere, comparing and contrasting newscasts (San Diego Channel 10 and the local news received in Smithville), standardized testing in Mississippi and California and all the fallout thereof, political scandals, all the recent photography projects, and a bit of the philosophy concerning doing photography for free, which is pretty much what I do with a large fraction of my time.
Looking forward to the gym and packing up stuff to ship to San Diego, and research for a book project, all things I hope to do tomorrow.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
San Diego - Dallas - Memphis - Olive Branch
Today my son and I traveled from San Diego, California, through Dallas, Texas, to Memphis, Tennessee, to Olive Branch, Missisippi.
We were dropped off at the airport early in the morning. I was able to teach my little one about airports, security, carry on luggage, tickets, boarding passes, jetways, terminals, and concourses. We had a wonderful time watching all the parts of the wing move. I explained pitch, roll, and yaw, and we went over every square millimeter of the Boeing 757 emergency exit guide in the seatback pocket. We had our escape routes totally memorized.
The plane change in Dallas afforded two opportunities to take the tramway, since there was a gate change in between then time they announced it on the plane and the time we showed up at the gate. This gave me another opportunity to emphasize the importance of checking the monitors because "things change".
Michael bought his own Subway sandwich, and got a drink on the house for being a gentleman in line. He successfully negotiated a window seat with the gate agent for the flight from Dallas to Memphis.
We took the bus to Alamo rental cars and picked up a nice car. I used the new phone (Droid) to navigate, and experienced a few setbacks. The database didn't know about one-way entrances, and roads that were marked as "no left turn". This resulted in a detour through some really sad looking neighborhoods. Several boarded up houses and an entire apartment block boarded up and busted up, with "KEEP OUT" spray-painted ineffectually on the plywood. It looked pretty scary, and it was still daytime.
We got back on track on Union Avenue, and parked on Beale Street. Our destination was Hard Rock Cafe, Memphis, and we had stageside seats for our big dinner.
We bought t-shirts, we spent a lot of time looking at all the items displayed on the walls, we talked at length about Elvis, Beale Street, rock and roll, and playing the drums, since my son started playing the drums in the school band this year. In the gift shop, we were able to buy "Memphis" flame-decorated drumsticks!
While walking to the car, after a stroll around the somewhat-down-at-heel Beale Street Drag, I told him that his drum teacher would be quite impressed with his fancy new sticks. To this, he declared that he wanted to keep the drumsticks as a souvenir instead of using them! Alas, he takes after me. I might have to buy a second pair - one for keeping and one for using.
We're now in the hotel room. He's watching a football game and cheering for Chicago, and I'm working on various documents that have to do with understanding the NEON processor better, so that I can help add NEON support to a software package called FFTW. We're looking forward to more travel and adventure tomorrow.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Something Really Ought To Be Said
Something Really Ought To Be Said
30 October 2009
On the 28th of November, I took my 8-year-old Bear Cub to his Pack Meeting. It's held in a multi-purpose room at a nearby school. We arrived about the same time we always arrive - a few minutes late due to soccer practice getting out a scant 15 minutes before the start of the Pack meeting. Since I make him change into his scout uniform before going in to the meeting, we arrive just at the close of the opening activities and the beginning of the meeting itself.
This particular Pack meeting had a special guest. The email announcement said:
"This month's theme is Jungle Safari! We have exciting guests this night.
* Master So and So, 6th Degree Black Belt
* Boy Scout Troop ###
* Mrs. So and So to help prepare for Holiday Caroling"
Hey! Neat! A 6th degree black belt! This was going to be interesting. Maybe he would talk about martial arts, culture, and history. Maybe he would demonstrate a form, or break boards with his bare hands, and talk about the power of the individual to rise above limitations with hard work and diligent practice.
Mr. So and So and his able student assistant did indeed demonstrate martial arts techniques. And, he did speak about discipline. However, something unexpected happened. He linked discipline and martial arts training to material success and made fun of people living in Aguanga and El Cajon, which are two nearby towns here in California. The focus of the entire presentation was fighting back against "predators". This was, in essence, a paranoia-drenched safety seminar about what to do if you, the cub scout, are kidnapped by a pedophile.
But, first, let's analyze the message about materialism. The reasoning went something like this. People that live in Carmel Valley, San Diego (where the Pack is located) are successful. Not everyone can live in Carmel Valley. Discipline allows your parents, and therefore you, to be successful enough to live in Carmel Valley. Not like those people in Aguanga, or El Cajon. They aren't successful enough to live in Carmel Valley.
Aguanga was described by the martial arts speaker as having a population of 25. That's off by two orders of magnitude. As of 1990, it had a population of 2,309. It's an unincorporated small town in Riverside County.
Drawing the obvious conclusion, people in Aguanga and El Cajon don't have discipline. People in "those other places" are not successful. It's ok to make fun of people that are less-advantaged than you.
As of the 2000 census, there were 94,869 people, 34,199 households, and 23,152 families residing in the city of El Cajon. According to estimates by the San Diego Association of Governments, the median household income of El Cajon in 2005 was $47,885.
According to the San Diego County Assessor's Office's 2006 estimates, there were 42,047 people residing in Carmel Valley, which is an increase of 49.2% from 2000. The median household income was $120,886. 17.8% of the households made $200,000 or more and 12.3% made $30,000 or less.
While the median household incomes are different, with Carmel Valley being higher, this really should not be held up as proof that people living in Carmel Valley are "more disciplined" or even "more successful" than people living in El Cajon. At least, not without an awful lot of careful definitions of terms and a recognition that different people value different things.
Importantly, El Cajon isn't impoverished. The median household income for El Cajon is right about at the median household income for the entire state of California. Therefore, El Cajon is a very good representative of material success in the state of California. Poking fun of El Cajon, as if they were a bunch of backwards, lazy, hayseed, no-accounts, doesn't make much sense, since it's equivalent to making fun of the entire state of California.
Carmel Valley, by comparison, isn't even a city. El Cajon was incorporated in 1912. Carmel Valley, being a master-planned neighborhood, mooches off San Diego for services and other expensive things that El Cajon has the discipline and focus to provide the citizens that live there.
I wonder who Rancho Santa Fe cub scouts make fun of at their Pack meetings? Could they possibly be making fun of phony, high-maintenance, new-money Carmel Valley set?
Where does a scouting organization get off promoting the idea that the most important things in life are material success? Is this a core value of scouting? I wonder if the organizations that help fund scouting, say, United Way or other agencies, would be happy about scouts talking down to disadvantaged persons at their meetings?
Is this the only time this year that this sort of thing has happened? No, it is not.
Several months ago, when each scout at the Pack meeting had to stand up and answer the question "What do you want to be when you grow up," nearly every older cub scout, the two groups of Webelos, answered "I want to make a lot of money" or "I want to be rich". My own Bear Cub later admitted he felt kind of silly saying he wanted to be a Lego Designer, but first work at Souplantation (his favorite restaurant). This made me feel sad. Here we were, confronting the corrosion of a natural desire to grow up and do productive things that made him feel good about himself and others, and it happened at a Pack meeting - the sort of place where I'd hoped we could find the opposite environment. In the face of a series of smarmy "I wanna be RICH", the simple statement of serving food to others at his favorite restaurant became something to be emabarrassed of.
There is nothing inherently wrong with having money, earning money, or spending money. Much of the time, things worth doing are paid well enough to make a good living. If you are lucky, prepared, willing to sacrifice and work hard, then you might be paid more than the average. However, there are plenty of cases where wealth came from being in the right place at the right time, or from being the children of wealth, or from giving up happiness, or from stealing wealth from others, or from taking advantage of a loophole in the law or a fad or a shortage.
There is no guarantee that discipline and grace will make you wealthy. Ask any priest.
The lessons on how to handle a predator and the message of paranoia are controversial, and I have no good answer. An 8-year-old is no match for a full-grown adult. Putting the idea in their minds that they can resist or win a physical confrontation may or may not be a good idea.
The demonstrations consisted of the martial artist pretending to be a stranger kidnapping a boy from Toys R Us. The message that strangers are the real danger is categorically wrong. "There are a number of commonly held misconceptions regarding child sexual abuse in the United States. [such as] ...the perpetrator of the sexual abuse is always a stranger" ("Sexual Abuse of Children" Renee Z. Dominguez, Ph.D., Connie F. Nelke, Ph.D., Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D.)
Children are far more likely to be abused by a family member or someone already known to them. By emphasizing the danger of strangers, we both erode civil society and we also set up a false expectation of where the danger really lies.
Why do I care so much about the message of materialism?
About 20 years ago in Arkansas, I earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do from the exact same organization that the speaker represented. In no way, shape, or form, was the message presented back then that discipline would make me financially successful. It doesn't hurt, but it wasn't presented that way. Those that were less-advantaged were actively respected, especially if they made what was quite often a larger sacrifice to come to class and work hard on developing their skill, self-confidence, and poise. It was dishertening to see the difference that 20 years and living in a different part of the country can make in the presentation of the meaning of martial arts to youth.
30 October 2009
On the 28th of November, I took my 8-year-old Bear Cub to his Pack Meeting. It's held in a multi-purpose room at a nearby school. We arrived about the same time we always arrive - a few minutes late due to soccer practice getting out a scant 15 minutes before the start of the Pack meeting. Since I make him change into his scout uniform before going in to the meeting, we arrive just at the close of the opening activities and the beginning of the meeting itself.
This particular Pack meeting had a special guest. The email announcement said:
"This month's theme is Jungle Safari! We have exciting guests this night.
* Master So and So, 6th Degree Black Belt
* Boy Scout Troop ###
* Mrs. So and So to help prepare for Holiday Caroling"
Hey! Neat! A 6th degree black belt! This was going to be interesting. Maybe he would talk about martial arts, culture, and history. Maybe he would demonstrate a form, or break boards with his bare hands, and talk about the power of the individual to rise above limitations with hard work and diligent practice.
Mr. So and So and his able student assistant did indeed demonstrate martial arts techniques. And, he did speak about discipline. However, something unexpected happened. He linked discipline and martial arts training to material success and made fun of people living in Aguanga and El Cajon, which are two nearby towns here in California. The focus of the entire presentation was fighting back against "predators". This was, in essence, a paranoia-drenched safety seminar about what to do if you, the cub scout, are kidnapped by a pedophile.
But, first, let's analyze the message about materialism. The reasoning went something like this. People that live in Carmel Valley, San Diego (where the Pack is located) are successful. Not everyone can live in Carmel Valley. Discipline allows your parents, and therefore you, to be successful enough to live in Carmel Valley. Not like those people in Aguanga, or El Cajon. They aren't successful enough to live in Carmel Valley.
Aguanga was described by the martial arts speaker as having a population of 25. That's off by two orders of magnitude. As of 1990, it had a population of 2,309. It's an unincorporated small town in Riverside County.
Drawing the obvious conclusion, people in Aguanga and El Cajon don't have discipline. People in "those other places" are not successful. It's ok to make fun of people that are less-advantaged than you.
As of the 2000 census, there were 94,869 people, 34,199 households, and 23,152 families residing in the city of El Cajon. According to estimates by the San Diego Association of Governments, the median household income of El Cajon in 2005 was $47,885.
According to the San Diego County Assessor's Office's 2006 estimates, there were 42,047 people residing in Carmel Valley, which is an increase of 49.2% from 2000. The median household income was $120,886. 17.8% of the households made $200,000 or more and 12.3% made $30,000 or less.
While the median household incomes are different, with Carmel Valley being higher, this really should not be held up as proof that people living in Carmel Valley are "more disciplined" or even "more successful" than people living in El Cajon. At least, not without an awful lot of careful definitions of terms and a recognition that different people value different things.
Importantly, El Cajon isn't impoverished. The median household income for El Cajon is right about at the median household income for the entire state of California. Therefore, El Cajon is a very good representative of material success in the state of California. Poking fun of El Cajon, as if they were a bunch of backwards, lazy, hayseed, no-accounts, doesn't make much sense, since it's equivalent to making fun of the entire state of California.
Carmel Valley, by comparison, isn't even a city. El Cajon was incorporated in 1912. Carmel Valley, being a master-planned neighborhood, mooches off San Diego for services and other expensive things that El Cajon has the discipline and focus to provide the citizens that live there.
I wonder who Rancho Santa Fe cub scouts make fun of at their Pack meetings? Could they possibly be making fun of phony, high-maintenance, new-money Carmel Valley set?
Where does a scouting organization get off promoting the idea that the most important things in life are material success? Is this a core value of scouting? I wonder if the organizations that help fund scouting, say, United Way or other agencies, would be happy about scouts talking down to disadvantaged persons at their meetings?
Is this the only time this year that this sort of thing has happened? No, it is not.
Several months ago, when each scout at the Pack meeting had to stand up and answer the question "What do you want to be when you grow up," nearly every older cub scout, the two groups of Webelos, answered "I want to make a lot of money" or "I want to be rich". My own Bear Cub later admitted he felt kind of silly saying he wanted to be a Lego Designer, but first work at Souplantation (his favorite restaurant). This made me feel sad. Here we were, confronting the corrosion of a natural desire to grow up and do productive things that made him feel good about himself and others, and it happened at a Pack meeting - the sort of place where I'd hoped we could find the opposite environment. In the face of a series of smarmy "I wanna be RICH", the simple statement of serving food to others at his favorite restaurant became something to be emabarrassed of.
There is nothing inherently wrong with having money, earning money, or spending money. Much of the time, things worth doing are paid well enough to make a good living. If you are lucky, prepared, willing to sacrifice and work hard, then you might be paid more than the average. However, there are plenty of cases where wealth came from being in the right place at the right time, or from being the children of wealth, or from giving up happiness, or from stealing wealth from others, or from taking advantage of a loophole in the law or a fad or a shortage.
There is no guarantee that discipline and grace will make you wealthy. Ask any priest.
The lessons on how to handle a predator and the message of paranoia are controversial, and I have no good answer. An 8-year-old is no match for a full-grown adult. Putting the idea in their minds that they can resist or win a physical confrontation may or may not be a good idea.
The demonstrations consisted of the martial artist pretending to be a stranger kidnapping a boy from Toys R Us. The message that strangers are the real danger is categorically wrong. "There are a number of commonly held misconceptions regarding child sexual abuse in the United States. [such as] ...the perpetrator of the sexual abuse is always a stranger" ("Sexual Abuse of Children" Renee Z. Dominguez, Ph.D., Connie F. Nelke, Ph.D., Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D.)
Children are far more likely to be abused by a family member or someone already known to them. By emphasizing the danger of strangers, we both erode civil society and we also set up a false expectation of where the danger really lies.
Why do I care so much about the message of materialism?
About 20 years ago in Arkansas, I earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do from the exact same organization that the speaker represented. In no way, shape, or form, was the message presented back then that discipline would make me financially successful. It doesn't hurt, but it wasn't presented that way. Those that were less-advantaged were actively respected, especially if they made what was quite often a larger sacrifice to come to class and work hard on developing their skill, self-confidence, and poise. It was dishertening to see the difference that 20 years and living in a different part of the country can make in the presentation of the meaning of martial arts to youth.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Conclusions of MIssissippi Travel
The adventure to Mississippi that me and the three kids took concluded yesterday with a drive from Monroe County to Memphis in a rented minivan, a short shuttle bus ride to the airport, a four-hour plane ride to LAX, and a long ride home in our own minivan with a diversionary visit to grandparents and Giovanni's pizza in Fullerton.
Here is baby in her carseat on the airplane, about to land back home in San Diego.
The visit to Smithville was quite enjoyable, although the heat made for cabin fever. An editorial in the paper compared the situation, where one cannot go outdoors for more than a few minutes after the sun is up, and the evening cools down only slightly, to being snowed in. The comparison is quite apt. Keeping three small children entertained indoors without their own toys and away from all the Big People Stuff was very tiring. It was like some sort of parental boot camp.
I think I learned multiple new Mommy Skills on this trip, but so far I have not been able to form them from the murk of wrong-time-zone sleepiness. Maybe after a few days back here in the paradigm-schedule-shift of the new school year, the bones of the lessons will be revealed.
With this school year, the two oldest will be going to the same school, which is very nice, while the baby is still here at the house with me. I am very much looking forward to some increase in uninterrupted time. My resolution is to take full advantage of it while continuing to provide as much "homeschool style" interaction as possible with the children.
I'm happy the summer is over, and that feeling somewhat surprises me, since I did enjoy it. Being quite comfortable with ambiguity, I've been giving this sort of dichotomy a somewhat mistrustful look out of the corner of my mental eye.
Here is baby in her carseat on the airplane, about to land back home in San Diego.
The visit to Smithville was quite enjoyable, although the heat made for cabin fever. An editorial in the paper compared the situation, where one cannot go outdoors for more than a few minutes after the sun is up, and the evening cools down only slightly, to being snowed in. The comparison is quite apt. Keeping three small children entertained indoors without their own toys and away from all the Big People Stuff was very tiring. It was like some sort of parental boot camp.
I think I learned multiple new Mommy Skills on this trip, but so far I have not been able to form them from the murk of wrong-time-zone sleepiness. Maybe after a few days back here in the paradigm-schedule-shift of the new school year, the bones of the lessons will be revealed.
With this school year, the two oldest will be going to the same school, which is very nice, while the baby is still here at the house with me. I am very much looking forward to some increase in uninterrupted time. My resolution is to take full advantage of it while continuing to provide as much "homeschool style" interaction as possible with the children.
I'm happy the summer is over, and that feeling somewhat surprises me, since I did enjoy it. Being quite comfortable with ambiguity, I've been giving this sort of dichotomy a somewhat mistrustful look out of the corner of my mental eye.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Up with the Vertical, Out with the Dancing, Down with the Solar
I have a grid-tie solar system here at Silver Home, and the household had noticed an increase in our very small electrical bills and a decrease of the power being created by the solar panels on one of the two inverters. The inverter was suspected as source of the problem, but with a bit of assistance from someone that works with solar power all the time and a voltmeter, the problem was narrowed down to one of the four strings of daisy-chained solar panels.
There are 40 panels up on the roof. They're divided into 4 strings of 10. The bad string was removed at the inverter, so 30 are now in use. Unfortunately, none of my records easily show which 10 are connected to that particular pair of wires! The only way to find out is to go up on the roof.
Speaking of the roof, a ladder was climbed by a very helpful someone who assisted me in getting the 2m vertical installed on the solar panel side of the house. The antenna is as-yet-to-be tested, however, so I can't declare victory quite yet. In order to test it, I need to connect a radio up to it and give it a spin. That will happen today.
Finally, I went out dancing at Club Montage last night. I'm none the worse for wear, but I did experience an interesting effect which was due either to eating a whole bag of carrots the afternoon prior or my innards getting reverberated with the exact wrong frequency of bass from the speakers-taller-than-I. Regardless of the cause, a fun time was had by the both of us that went out dancing. San Diego Pride is going on this weekend, so the place was festive and gay and the energy quite enjoyable.
A highlight of the evening was an exotic dancer (male) who performed on a pair of long red diaphanous curtains suspended from the ceiling. It was quite acrobatic and dramatic.
There are 40 panels up on the roof. They're divided into 4 strings of 10. The bad string was removed at the inverter, so 30 are now in use. Unfortunately, none of my records easily show which 10 are connected to that particular pair of wires! The only way to find out is to go up on the roof.
Speaking of the roof, a ladder was climbed by a very helpful someone who assisted me in getting the 2m vertical installed on the solar panel side of the house. The antenna is as-yet-to-be tested, however, so I can't declare victory quite yet. In order to test it, I need to connect a radio up to it and give it a spin. That will happen today.
Finally, I went out dancing at Club Montage last night. I'm none the worse for wear, but I did experience an interesting effect which was due either to eating a whole bag of carrots the afternoon prior or my innards getting reverberated with the exact wrong frequency of bass from the speakers-taller-than-I. Regardless of the cause, a fun time was had by the both of us that went out dancing. San Diego Pride is going on this weekend, so the place was festive and gay and the energy quite enjoyable.
A highlight of the evening was an exotic dancer (male) who performed on a pair of long red diaphanous curtains suspended from the ceiling. It was quite acrobatic and dramatic.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Quote of the Day
"damn, I should have bought that hundredweight of unclaimed canary yellow cardstock."
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Mexican Primrose Watercolor
Getting back into painting. Paul & Paul inspired me. Here is today's study.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Hale Telescope Art Competition
QSL Card Design Competition
For the Hale Telescope Special Event Station June 2-3, 2007
The Palomar Amateur Radio Club invites you to participate in an Art Competition, organized on behalf of the amateur radio special event station celebrating the 59th anniversary of the dedication of the 200 inch Hale Telescope at Palomar Mountain.
Entries will be judged for their artistic appeal as well as which one is best suited for use as a QSL card.
A QSL card is confirmation of a communication between two amateur radio stations. A QSL card is the same size and made from the same material as a postcard (3.5 x 5.5 inches).
Artists may submit up to 5 works of art in the following mediums: Paintings and drawings (oil, watercolor, acrylic, pencil, charcoal, etc.), fine art prints (lithographs, etching, intaglio, wood cuts, etc.), giclees (Iris prints), photography, graphics, digitally generated art, sculpture, ceramics, glass, mosaics, textiles, crafts, functional art and other mixed media.
Winning three-dimensional entries will be photographed for the QSL card. Winning two-dimensional entries that are not of the correct proportions will be reproduced and then cropped for the QSL card.
The 200-inch (5.1 m) Hale Telescope (f/3.3) was one of the world's largest telescopes for 45 years (1948 - 1993). It is still an important scientific instrument and is used almost every night of the year in a wide variety of astronomical studies.
The entries that best capture the artist's feeling toward, or relationship with, the Hale Telescope, or best portray the history of or an aspect of the history of the Hale Telescope, will be enthusiastically accepted for judging as well as displayed on the weekend of the special event station operation.
Submitted artwork may be featured on the Palomar Amateur Radio Club website and newsletter and exhibited on
The Board of Directors of the Palomar Amateur Radio Club will judge the entries. Prizes will be awarded to the winner and two runners-up.
Submission address:
W6P QSL ART 2007
5379
For complete and updated rules on the design competition, please visit www.palomararc.org
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
Friday, February 09, 2007
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Voter Turnout? Cartograms
From an interesting article about the 2006 elections, I found a link to the last presidential election, normalized for population.
Here's a cartogram of the 2004 national presidential vote:
Here's a cartogram of the 2004 national presidential vote:
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Voter Turnout? Tuned Out?
Is voter turnout too low? Too high?
Can you have a too low or too high voter turnout?
Should people that vote be considered part of the constituency of elected politicians?
Is it accurate to say that the active members (voting members) of a community are the ones that set the agenda?
Are people that choose not to vote in essence voting for the status quo, and should be considered happy with the way things are going?
politics
Can you have a too low or too high voter turnout?
Should people that vote be considered part of the constituency of elected politicians?
Is it accurate to say that the active members (voting members) of a community are the ones that set the agenda?
Are people that choose not to vote in essence voting for the status quo, and should be considered happy with the way things are going?
politics
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Review of "God Hates Gay Evangelicals"
Here's my review of "God Hates Gay Evangelicals" by Mark Morford.
Like most commentaries, the article is non-neutral in language. Setting that aside, there is a dangerous oversimplification in the initial assumption, and an easily disproven generalization later on in the article.
The assumption that Haggard is homosexual (as opposed to bisexual or a member of the entirely different category of being a straight man who has sex with men) might be an overstatement.
Haggard is not "obviously gay", unless being gay reduces down to genital sex. Someone that objectifies other men for sex for pay may or may not be gay. This is similar to the case of a gay man who has heterosexual sex on the side with hookers. Would we then call him straight? Or, is he just a gay man who has sex with purchased women while his partner is at work or on travel? It's safer and widely considered to be more anonmymous than having a fling with someone that might know your primary partner.
What about lesbians who have sex with men? They are considered lesbians, yet have sex with men for any number of reasons, some of them entirely pragmatic.
The reason why the distinction is important is because the gay community has fought for decades to stake the claim that same-sex attraction is NOT just about the sex. Gay sex used to be deprecated because it was simply about sexual attraction, and companionate love was NOT considered to be attainable by same-sex couples.
The writer states: "There really is nothing at all wrong with feeling deep, sexual love for another man."
No, there isn't anything wrong with it, but I don't get the impression that Haggard "loved" his boy toy in any way, deeply or otherwise.
Sex is not all there is to being homosexual. The article trivializes an entire sexual orientation down to covert genital activity by someone that has some serious self-hatred issues.
Another thing about this particular article is the sweeping statement that:
"You will not see a single comment from a Christian or would-be Christian that says: Hey, you know what? Maybe this gay love thing we've all been railing about and making laws against and rending our flesh over for so long, well, maybe it isn't such a bad thing after all."
Some research here - five minutes tops - would have relegated this to the "cut" column of "cut and paste", since (for example) all you have to do is go to the Dignity home page to get the pro-gay Catholic point of view. Dignity is regularly included in bishops' meetings. One is going on this coming weekend, and some of my fellow Dignity members are attending. They will be presenting their position on having a holistic sexuality that fully includes all orientations become part of church teachings. This is an ongoing dialogue that has already made a big difference. Progress is slow, but progress is made, and there are many pro-gay catholics. I think I qualify as one, and have made many public comments on the issues.
As far as other faiths, there are many books written by prominent (mostly christian) leaders that take positions on both sides. There are a lot of lectures from various leaders available in text or video form that are pro-gay and advocate exactly what the writer here says doesn't happen at all.
In fact, the writer doesn't limit himself to leaders that are already christian. The writer goes so far as to include all christians as well as all "would-be" christians, as if the writer knows what all "would-be" christians think.
Maybe the writer isn't familiar with the Unitarians?
I am not sure what to make of such a sweeping statement that is so egregiously wrong, other than to think the writer just doesn't know many christians.
What does the writer get right?
The description of self-hatred is right on the money. The self-hatred is a sign of internalized homophobia. It's not 100% sure bet, but I'd put good money on Haggard suffering from self-hatred that is orientation-related. It might not have homosexuality as its source (he could be bisexual, or he could be acting out some other repressed ugliness) but it probably does.
Otherwise, why take the risk of having sex with men for money? Maybe he felt trapped as a leader in the same way that my pastor friend in Arkansas talks about. Always being the one that leads, takes care of, listens to others, officiating at baptisms, weddings, funerals, visits to the sick...
It can be very stressful providing comfort to others, and you have to take care of yourself. In catholicism, priests are required to have a spiritual advisor - someone that they can go to where they are not "on the clock". It's imperfect, but it provides a way to take a break, get a clue, vent. My pastor friend doesn't have this, since he's alone as a leader in his (small) religion. All he has is me, and I'm 1643 miles away, and I have limited time. I suspect that Haggard was isolated, and ended up self-destructing as a result.
Summary:
1) sexuality is more than sex acts
2) the sweeping generalization about "christians and would-be christians" fails
3) the article correctly and effectively describes self-hatred (probably internalized homophobia)
The article could actually be read as anti-gay if you are a strict gay-rights advocate. It misrepresents genital activity as healthy orientation, and presents a nonconsentual (wife didn't ok it), for-pay affair as a legitimate gay relationship. I'm not reading it that way, but I see people who are in the blogosphere. Since consentuality is very important to me, I think it's worth highlighting.
Ted Haggard
homosexuality
christian
religion
Like most commentaries, the article is non-neutral in language. Setting that aside, there is a dangerous oversimplification in the initial assumption, and an easily disproven generalization later on in the article.
The assumption that Haggard is homosexual (as opposed to bisexual or a member of the entirely different category of being a straight man who has sex with men) might be an overstatement.
Haggard is not "obviously gay", unless being gay reduces down to genital sex. Someone that objectifies other men for sex for pay may or may not be gay. This is similar to the case of a gay man who has heterosexual sex on the side with hookers. Would we then call him straight? Or, is he just a gay man who has sex with purchased women while his partner is at work or on travel? It's safer and widely considered to be more anonmymous than having a fling with someone that might know your primary partner.
What about lesbians who have sex with men? They are considered lesbians, yet have sex with men for any number of reasons, some of them entirely pragmatic.
The reason why the distinction is important is because the gay community has fought for decades to stake the claim that same-sex attraction is NOT just about the sex. Gay sex used to be deprecated because it was simply about sexual attraction, and companionate love was NOT considered to be attainable by same-sex couples.
The writer states: "There really is nothing at all wrong with feeling deep, sexual love for another man."
No, there isn't anything wrong with it, but I don't get the impression that Haggard "loved" his boy toy in any way, deeply or otherwise.
Sex is not all there is to being homosexual. The article trivializes an entire sexual orientation down to covert genital activity by someone that has some serious self-hatred issues.
Another thing about this particular article is the sweeping statement that:
"You will not see a single comment from a Christian or would-be Christian that says: Hey, you know what? Maybe this gay love thing we've all been railing about and making laws against and rending our flesh over for so long, well, maybe it isn't such a bad thing after all."
Some research here - five minutes tops - would have relegated this to the "cut" column of "cut and paste", since (for example) all you have to do is go to the Dignity home page to get the pro-gay Catholic point of view. Dignity is regularly included in bishops' meetings. One is going on this coming weekend, and some of my fellow Dignity members are attending. They will be presenting their position on having a holistic sexuality that fully includes all orientations become part of church teachings. This is an ongoing dialogue that has already made a big difference. Progress is slow, but progress is made, and there are many pro-gay catholics. I think I qualify as one, and have made many public comments on the issues.
As far as other faiths, there are many books written by prominent (mostly christian) leaders that take positions on both sides. There are a lot of lectures from various leaders available in text or video form that are pro-gay and advocate exactly what the writer here says doesn't happen at all.
In fact, the writer doesn't limit himself to leaders that are already christian. The writer goes so far as to include all christians as well as all "would-be" christians, as if the writer knows what all "would-be" christians think.
Maybe the writer isn't familiar with the Unitarians?
I am not sure what to make of such a sweeping statement that is so egregiously wrong, other than to think the writer just doesn't know many christians.
What does the writer get right?
The description of self-hatred is right on the money. The self-hatred is a sign of internalized homophobia. It's not 100% sure bet, but I'd put good money on Haggard suffering from self-hatred that is orientation-related. It might not have homosexuality as its source (he could be bisexual, or he could be acting out some other repressed ugliness) but it probably does.
Otherwise, why take the risk of having sex with men for money? Maybe he felt trapped as a leader in the same way that my pastor friend in Arkansas talks about. Always being the one that leads, takes care of, listens to others, officiating at baptisms, weddings, funerals, visits to the sick...
It can be very stressful providing comfort to others, and you have to take care of yourself. In catholicism, priests are required to have a spiritual advisor - someone that they can go to where they are not "on the clock". It's imperfect, but it provides a way to take a break, get a clue, vent. My pastor friend doesn't have this, since he's alone as a leader in his (small) religion. All he has is me, and I'm 1643 miles away, and I have limited time. I suspect that Haggard was isolated, and ended up self-destructing as a result.
Summary:
1) sexuality is more than sex acts
2) the sweeping generalization about "christians and would-be christians" fails
3) the article correctly and effectively describes self-hatred (probably internalized homophobia)
The article could actually be read as anti-gay if you are a strict gay-rights advocate. It misrepresents genital activity as healthy orientation, and presents a nonconsentual (wife didn't ok it), for-pay affair as a legitimate gay relationship. I'm not reading it that way, but I see people who are in the blogosphere. Since consentuality is very important to me, I think it's worth highlighting.
Ted Haggard
homosexuality
christian
religion
Monday, October 30, 2006
For my friend
The charge of child abuse is one that requires answer, regardless of the source, and regardless of the veracity of the charge. If someone defends themself vigorously against a charge, their defense should not be used against them as if that proves their guilt.
Richard Dawkins makes the charge that religious education of minors is tantamount to child abuse. There are people who seem to sort of agree with this charge. However, the equation of religious education of minors with child abuse is supported neither by tradition or by science.
Since Richard Dawkins is supposed to promote science (his day job, so to speak), it's important to highlight when he's on the wrong side of scientific research. Since religious practice - any practice - requires an introduction, an education, and exposure to some sort of community, a child raised in a religious tradition can more easily adopt whatever tradition he or she desires when he or she is an adult. This includes things like Ashtanga yoga, humanism, traditional mainline protestantism, catholicism, zen buddhism, paganism, and so on.
Since the value of religion in an individual's life can be categorically shown through scientific study, the failure to teach some sort of religion to a child is more abusive than teaching it.
Something that Richard Dawkins' reviewers point out, more competently than I could, are the places where he diverges from the evidence, and makes claims that simply can't be supported, or are contradicted by historical record.
When pushed for some evidence of the evil of religion, one often hears "crusades, 9/11, inquisition, galileo".
No one is claiming the crusades, or 9/11, or the spanish inquisition were entirely positive events. However, these events have powerful and complex historical contexts that cannot be simplified down to "thoroughly evil things that religion caused".
For a historical perspective on the crusades that states it better than I can:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_crusades
In regards to 9/11, suicide bombings have a necessary condition which is secular, not religious. Religion is not a necessary factor in the incidence of suicide bombings. The stated goal of Al Quaeda is to evict western occupation and undue influence in the middle east. The targets of 9/11 were political (pentagon, white house) and economic (trade towers). If the point of the attacks was religious, then the national cathedral, the main jewish temple in DC, or Vatican City itself would have been the better set of targets.
These targets are easier to hit than the Pentagon or the White House, which have FAA zones that trigger a military response. (In the case of 9/11, this was botched, as NORAD was still set up for invading Soviet jet fighters.)
The choice of targets by Al Quaeda in Spain was deliberately picked to effect political change. The blasts right before the election swung the state to the socialists, and the withdrawal of Spanish Troops happened just as Al Quaeda desired. Al Quaeda planned this in advance, and documents to that effect have been recovered and are available on the web. Religion is not the fulcrum of contention with Spain. Separating the US from her allies in the military occupation of the Middle East most definitely is. After Spain is peeled away, then other targets would be hit (the London bombings, which did not immediately result in the UK pulling out). After the US is separated from enough allies, then targets in the US mainland would be hit again, until the US left the Middle East.
The portrayal of the 9/11 hijackers as "crazed" or "fanatical" people acting out of religious extremism is convenient for the Bush Administration, and many people buy into this for any number of reasons. However, the hijackers were not crazed lunatics. They acted smartly and strategically out of (primarily) political motives, with religion being used to recruit and retain them in the organization. Depictions of suicide bombers in the US often emphasize a religious motive, however the large majority of suicide bombings are carried out for secular reasons, most often by secular groups. The necessary condition for a suicide bomb is not religious, but is rather the occupation of a land by an outside entity with a superior military force. If this sounds familiar, then good - it should. This fits to a T our presence in the Middle East. We should not have been surprised by 9/11, nor should it be blamed on religion.
Our policies in the Middle East - and the fact that Israel is considered to be an occupier with the US as it's main and often only ally - set us up for attacks such as 9/11.
Here is some scholarship in this area from a place you visit:
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_to_Win:_The_Strategic_Logic_of_Suicide_Terrorism
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_attack
Here's the view from some revolutionary socialist scholars.
See http://leninology.blogspot.com/2005/07/suicide-bombing-dossier.html
From the third link, the summary:
Would the absence of religion fix this?
From the 9/11 commission report:
1) Get out of the Middle East
2) Convert
3) Clean up your act
I think we can see what the foundational issue is here, and it's not the demand to convert. My feeling is that's thrown in to anger Americans, who don't like being told what to do, and therefore help Al Quaeda become the "arsonist rescuer" after America invades Iraq. By "arsonist rescuer" I mean the type of person that sets a fire to help quench it, and is therefore elected "town hero". This strategy is working pretty well so far, with US forces in Iraq regularly described as infidels, invaders, occupiers, and the source of Iraqi misery.
The historical context is of course of great value here. From the 9/11 commission report:
Since secular government corruption is named as the source of the Islamist angst in this as well as other studies, wouldn't it be at least as logical to assign the same amount of blame to secularism as to religion, when assigning blame for 9/11?
Galileo is a very interesting case. The simplistic story of "the church repressed science!" is inaccurate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei
To me, it boils down to two friends in a pissing contest, where one had more power and could threaten the other. Both men (Galileo and his former strong supporter, the pope) had huge egos, and both blew their chances to work things out and advance science.
The use of the inquisition here is of course deplorable.
In fact, it's as deplorable to the daily use in California (as well as all the other states) of threats of anal rape in jail when interrogating male suspects under arrest, in order to "gain cooperation". How is showing someone a rack, and implying that it will used, any different than the completely tolerated tactic of threatening men (and women) with the horrible things that "might happen to them" in jail? The brutality of a secular jail situation is no different from the brutality of the inquisition.
One of the interesting facts about the inquisition is that the most famous, the Spanish Inquisition, was operated under secular authority.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition#Spanish_Inquisition
The most important question in context of the assertion that everyone would be better off without religion is simple. In the absense of religion, are nation-states at peace? The answer, as far as it can be seen since you can't run an experiment where you delete religion from society and repeat human evolution, is either no or uknowable.
The absence of religion - the banishment, or repression, or replacement of it, does not prevent atrocity, warfare, or the failure of states. In fact, the absence of religion seems to create fertile ground for a lot of all three.
In the absense of religion, are individual people happier? The answer is no. With repeatable scientific evidence pointing to a strong positive correlation between individual health, happiness as measured on standard psych eval tests, increased lifespan, and increased marriage longevity, the benefits cloud the issue of the claim of religion as a net negative.
Since religions produce people that volunteer more, donate more money, and support secular causes to a degree significantly higher than secular people do, the absence of religion would probably result in fewer service organizations, and less good done in the world.
Religion thrives under and deserves critique, but as a product of human evolution, it's not inherentely evil, nor are we better off without it.
Assigning value to a product of evolution smacks of teleological thinking - sort of like assigning a value to white vs. black in the case of the Peppered Moth. If I did that, I'd be laughed right out of the lab, so to speak.
By the way, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution
I don't like it when stick figures of religion are hatefully portrayed by people that don't address historical context, or verifiable facts.
I expect that anyone would defend any of their beliefs, at any time they feel they are either mischaracterized, attacked, or subverted. This is true of politics, religion, and sex especially.
Which leads me back to the original point. Accusations of child abuse are serious, not funny, and have to be defended. If you told a Wiccan that you honestly believed her practice of Wicca, and her intent to teach her children about it, was tantamount to child abuse, I can imagine that she would not be amused in the slightest.
The tactic of:
Ann: "You're a poo-poo head!"
Bob: "No I'm not."
Ann: "Only a poo-poo head would disagree, so you are obviously a poo-poo head."
actually has a name in debate theory, although, I can't remember what it is. If it doesn't seem familiar, here's another more pertinant version:
Richard: "Religion is off limit for debate. Religion is so terrible, that we'd be better off without it. Idiots, child-abusers, etc."
Charlie: "I'm not a child abuser, and religion has positive social value. Here, let me show you."
Richard: "See? Your reaction means I'm right. Religion is evil!"
The only acceptable outcome to Richard is for religious people to roll over, repent, and become positivists. Repent or die, anyone? The acceptable outcome for Charlie is to be portrayed fairly, which includes warts and failures, but doesn't totalize religion as evil. The second one is more reasonable, and more healthy, no? The first one is quite judgemental, and flies in the face of human evolution, scientific evidence, and the historical record.
Finally, the evidence quandary. "Show me evidence for God!"
I'm not an adherent of fluffy white cloud theology, so I can't really defend it. I've said before, I can't speak to issues of faith the way other people might. I can give my take on it, which only seems to invite ridicule, so I generally don't offer it.
My god is the god of Epicurus, Occam, Descartes, and Einstein. She is not the white-haired guy on the roof of the sistine chapel. I posit a perfect being, and model my life accordingly. Why do I need to provide evidence for belief in an ideal being? This is a 2500 year old question that was solved by the Greeks. Epicurus, my hero, both posed and solved the "problem of evil" and provided a solid framework for me. With additions from Sartre, and some enlargements from physics, biology, and chemistry, I'm at ease being "a believer", despite being a "loose canon". Get it? Canon? Cannon?
I can't add any more to their writings (Epicurus, Occam, Descarte, Sarte, Einstein). Any further explanation that I could offer would only dilute theirs. I might be a decent writer, but they are masterful.
I develop values through a religiously-based intellectual activity, and have come up with six. I decide how to spend my time, and what actions to take, based on this chain of reasoning that is initiated and nurtured by consistent meditation upon my idea of god in the form of prayer and good works. Since I take Matthew chapter six seriously, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt%206:1-4
I don't discuss the "good works" that I do. Nor do I reveal the good works of others that I personally witness. I keep my mouth shut not because I think it will help with some sort of afterlife, since I don't believe in one, but because bragging about it ruins it for me. Since I see others following this philosophy, and since I can do math, it would take a colossal amount of evil - far more than exists in the historical record - to counterbalance the good done in the name of religion.
Until E.O. Wilson's vision of a replacement for religion happens, then I am a religious person (happily catholic, with six or seven other traditions seriously investigated), and I refuse to be unfairly characterized by Richard Dawkins.
If you think I throw a fit over religion, try accusing me of not "really" being bisexual, or bisexuality being "a myth". I save my best screeds for sex.
christian
religion
islam
terrorism
richard+dawkins
Richard Dawkins makes the charge that religious education of minors is tantamount to child abuse. There are people who seem to sort of agree with this charge. However, the equation of religious education of minors with child abuse is supported neither by tradition or by science.
Since Richard Dawkins is supposed to promote science (his day job, so to speak), it's important to highlight when he's on the wrong side of scientific research. Since religious practice - any practice - requires an introduction, an education, and exposure to some sort of community, a child raised in a religious tradition can more easily adopt whatever tradition he or she desires when he or she is an adult. This includes things like Ashtanga yoga, humanism, traditional mainline protestantism, catholicism, zen buddhism, paganism, and so on.
Since the value of religion in an individual's life can be categorically shown through scientific study, the failure to teach some sort of religion to a child is more abusive than teaching it.
Something that Richard Dawkins' reviewers point out, more competently than I could, are the places where he diverges from the evidence, and makes claims that simply can't be supported, or are contradicted by historical record.
When pushed for some evidence of the evil of religion, one often hears "crusades, 9/11, inquisition, galileo".
No one is claiming the crusades, or 9/11, or the spanish inquisition were entirely positive events. However, these events have powerful and complex historical contexts that cannot be simplified down to "thoroughly evil things that religion caused".
For a historical perspective on the crusades that states it better than I can:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_crusades
In regards to 9/11, suicide bombings have a necessary condition which is secular, not religious. Religion is not a necessary factor in the incidence of suicide bombings. The stated goal of Al Quaeda is to evict western occupation and undue influence in the middle east. The targets of 9/11 were political (pentagon, white house) and economic (trade towers). If the point of the attacks was religious, then the national cathedral, the main jewish temple in DC, or Vatican City itself would have been the better set of targets.
These targets are easier to hit than the Pentagon or the White House, which have FAA zones that trigger a military response. (In the case of 9/11, this was botched, as NORAD was still set up for invading Soviet jet fighters.)
The choice of targets by Al Quaeda in Spain was deliberately picked to effect political change. The blasts right before the election swung the state to the socialists, and the withdrawal of Spanish Troops happened just as Al Quaeda desired. Al Quaeda planned this in advance, and documents to that effect have been recovered and are available on the web. Religion is not the fulcrum of contention with Spain. Separating the US from her allies in the military occupation of the Middle East most definitely is. After Spain is peeled away, then other targets would be hit (the London bombings, which did not immediately result in the UK pulling out). After the US is separated from enough allies, then targets in the US mainland would be hit again, until the US left the Middle East.
The portrayal of the 9/11 hijackers as "crazed" or "fanatical" people acting out of religious extremism is convenient for the Bush Administration, and many people buy into this for any number of reasons. However, the hijackers were not crazed lunatics. They acted smartly and strategically out of (primarily) political motives, with religion being used to recruit and retain them in the organization. Depictions of suicide bombers in the US often emphasize a religious motive, however the large majority of suicide bombings are carried out for secular reasons, most often by secular groups. The necessary condition for a suicide bomb is not religious, but is rather the occupation of a land by an outside entity with a superior military force. If this sounds familiar, then good - it should. This fits to a T our presence in the Middle East. We should not have been surprised by 9/11, nor should it be blamed on religion.
Our policies in the Middle East - and the fact that Israel is considered to be an occupier with the US as it's main and often only ally - set us up for attacks such as 9/11.
Here is some scholarship in this area from a place you visit:
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_to_Win:_The_Strategic_Logic_of_Suicide_Terrorism
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_attack
Here's the view from some revolutionary socialist scholars.
See http://leninology.blogspot.com/2005/07/suicide-bombing-dossier.html
From the third link, the summary:
"Suicide bombing as a tactic is used by various groups in diverse circumstances, but usually as a highly efficient means of combatting a perceived transgressor in nationalist terms. Religion and other ideological apparati do help facilitate self-murder and the murder of others, but as a motivational cause they seem to be inadequate on their own. Similarly, organisations provide cash and opportunity for carrying out such attacks, but not the desire. The variety of motivating factors seem to be overdetermined in the case of the London bombings by a rejection not of what the West is, but what it does. If the West's actions were just, this would simply be a stark Manichean case of good versus evil. Instead, what we appear to have is injustice generating recruits for unjust actions."
Would the absence of religion fix this?
From the 9/11 commission report:
"Many Americans have wondered,“Why do ‘they’ hate us?” Some also ask, "What can we do to stop these attacks?” Bin Ladin and al Qaeda have given answers to both these questions.To the first, they say that America had attacked Islam; America is responsible for all conflicts involving Muslims. Thus Americans are blamed when Israelis fight with Palestinians, when Russians fight with Chechens, when Indians fight with Kashmiri Muslims, and when the Philippine government fights ethnic Muslims in its southern islands. America is also held responsible for the governments of Muslim countries, derided by al Qaeda as “your agents.”
Bin Ladin has stated flatly,“Our fight against these governments is not separate from our fight against you.” These charges found a ready audience among millions of Arabs and Muslims angry at the United States because of issues ranging from Iraq to Palestine to America’s support for their countries’ repressive rulers. Bin Ladin’s grievance with the United States may have started in reaction to specific U.S. policies but it quickly became far deeper. To the second question, what America could do, al Qaeda’s answer was that America should abandon the Middle East, convert to Islam, and end the immorality and godlessness of its society and culture: “It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind.” If the United States did not comply, it would be at war with the Islamic nation, a nation that al Qaeda’s leaders said “desires death more than you desire life.”
1) Get out of the Middle East
2) Convert
3) Clean up your act
I think we can see what the foundational issue is here, and it's not the demand to convert. My feeling is that's thrown in to anger Americans, who don't like being told what to do, and therefore help Al Quaeda become the "arsonist rescuer" after America invades Iraq. By "arsonist rescuer" I mean the type of person that sets a fire to help quench it, and is therefore elected "town hero". This strategy is working pretty well so far, with US forces in Iraq regularly described as infidels, invaders, occupiers, and the source of Iraqi misery.
The historical context is of course of great value here. From the 9/11 commission report:
"After gaining independence from Western powers following World War II, the Arab Middle East followed an arc from initial pride and optimism to today’s mix of indifference, cynicism, and despair. In several countries, a dynastic state already existed or was quickly established under a paramount tribal family.
Monarchies in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Jordan still survive today. Those in Egypt, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen were eventually overthrown by secular nationalist revolutionaries. The secular regimes promised a glowing future, often tied to sweeping ideologies (such as those promoted by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Arab Socialism or the Ba’ath Party of Syria and Iraq) that called for a single, secular Arab state. However, what emerged were almost invariably autocratic regimes that were usually unwilling to tolerate any opposition—even in countries, such as Egypt, that had a parliamentary tradition. Over time, their policies—repression, rewards, emigration, and the displacement of popular anger onto scapegoats (generally foreign)—were shaped by the desire to cling to power.
The bankruptcy of secular, autocratic nationalism was evident across the Muslim world by the late 1970s. At the same time, these regimes had closed off nearly all paths for peaceful opposition, forcing their critics to choose silence, exile, or violent opposition. Iran’s 1979 revolution swept a Shia theocracy into power. Its success encouraged Sunni fundamentalists elsewhere. In the 1980s, awash in sudden oil wealth, Saudi Arabia competed with Shia Iran to promote its Sunni fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, Wahhabism. The Saudi government,always conscious of its duties as the custodian of Islam’s holiest places, joined with wealthy Arabs from the Kingdom and other states bordering the Persian Gulf in donating money to build mosques and religious schools that could preach and teach their interpretation of Islamic doctrine. In this competition for legitimacy, secular regimes had no alternative to offer. Instead, in a number of cases their rulers sought to buy off local Islamist movements by ceding control of many social and educational issues. Emboldened rather than satisfied, the Islamists continued to push for power—a trend especially clear in Egypt. Confronted with a violent Islamist movement that killed President Anwar Sadat in 1981, the Egyptian government combined harsh repression of Islamic militants with harassment of moderate Islamic scholars and authors, driving many into exile. In Pakistan, a military regime sought to justify its seizure of power by a pious public stance and an embrace of unprecedented Islamist influence on education and society. These experiments in political Islam faltered during the 1990s: the Iranian revolution lost momentum, prestige, and public support, and Pakistan’s rulers found that most of its population had little enthusiasm for fundamentalist Islam. Islamist revival movements gained followers across the Muslim world, but failed to secure political power except in Iran and Sudan. In Algeria, where in 1991 Islamists seemed almost certain to win power through the ballot box, the military preempted their victory, triggering a brutal civil war that continues today. Opponents of today’s rulers have few, if any, ways to participate in the existing political system.They are thus a ready audience for calls to Muslims to purify their society, reject unwelcome modernization, and adhere strictly to the Sharia."
Since secular government corruption is named as the source of the Islamist angst in this as well as other studies, wouldn't it be at least as logical to assign the same amount of blame to secularism as to religion, when assigning blame for 9/11?
Galileo is a very interesting case. The simplistic story of "the church repressed science!" is inaccurate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei
To me, it boils down to two friends in a pissing contest, where one had more power and could threaten the other. Both men (Galileo and his former strong supporter, the pope) had huge egos, and both blew their chances to work things out and advance science.
The use of the inquisition here is of course deplorable.
In fact, it's as deplorable to the daily use in California (as well as all the other states) of threats of anal rape in jail when interrogating male suspects under arrest, in order to "gain cooperation". How is showing someone a rack, and implying that it will used, any different than the completely tolerated tactic of threatening men (and women) with the horrible things that "might happen to them" in jail? The brutality of a secular jail situation is no different from the brutality of the inquisition.
One of the interesting facts about the inquisition is that the most famous, the Spanish Inquisition, was operated under secular authority.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition#Spanish_Inquisition
The most important question in context of the assertion that everyone would be better off without religion is simple. In the absense of religion, are nation-states at peace? The answer, as far as it can be seen since you can't run an experiment where you delete religion from society and repeat human evolution, is either no or uknowable.
The absence of religion - the banishment, or repression, or replacement of it, does not prevent atrocity, warfare, or the failure of states. In fact, the absence of religion seems to create fertile ground for a lot of all three.
In the absense of religion, are individual people happier? The answer is no. With repeatable scientific evidence pointing to a strong positive correlation between individual health, happiness as measured on standard psych eval tests, increased lifespan, and increased marriage longevity, the benefits cloud the issue of the claim of religion as a net negative.
Since religions produce people that volunteer more, donate more money, and support secular causes to a degree significantly higher than secular people do, the absence of religion would probably result in fewer service organizations, and less good done in the world.
Religion thrives under and deserves critique, but as a product of human evolution, it's not inherentely evil, nor are we better off without it.
Assigning value to a product of evolution smacks of teleological thinking - sort of like assigning a value to white vs. black in the case of the Peppered Moth. If I did that, I'd be laughed right out of the lab, so to speak.
By the way, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution
I don't like it when stick figures of religion are hatefully portrayed by people that don't address historical context, or verifiable facts.
I expect that anyone would defend any of their beliefs, at any time they feel they are either mischaracterized, attacked, or subverted. This is true of politics, religion, and sex especially.
Which leads me back to the original point. Accusations of child abuse are serious, not funny, and have to be defended. If you told a Wiccan that you honestly believed her practice of Wicca, and her intent to teach her children about it, was tantamount to child abuse, I can imagine that she would not be amused in the slightest.
The tactic of:
Ann: "You're a poo-poo head!"
Bob: "No I'm not."
Ann: "Only a poo-poo head would disagree, so you are obviously a poo-poo head."
actually has a name in debate theory, although, I can't remember what it is. If it doesn't seem familiar, here's another more pertinant version:
Richard: "Religion is off limit for debate. Religion is so terrible, that we'd be better off without it. Idiots, child-abusers, etc."
Charlie: "I'm not a child abuser, and religion has positive social value. Here, let me show you."
Richard: "See? Your reaction means I'm right. Religion is evil!"
The only acceptable outcome to Richard is for religious people to roll over, repent, and become positivists. Repent or die, anyone? The acceptable outcome for Charlie is to be portrayed fairly, which includes warts and failures, but doesn't totalize religion as evil. The second one is more reasonable, and more healthy, no? The first one is quite judgemental, and flies in the face of human evolution, scientific evidence, and the historical record.
Finally, the evidence quandary. "Show me evidence for God!"
I'm not an adherent of fluffy white cloud theology, so I can't really defend it. I've said before, I can't speak to issues of faith the way other people might. I can give my take on it, which only seems to invite ridicule, so I generally don't offer it.
My god is the god of Epicurus, Occam, Descartes, and Einstein. She is not the white-haired guy on the roof of the sistine chapel. I posit a perfect being, and model my life accordingly. Why do I need to provide evidence for belief in an ideal being? This is a 2500 year old question that was solved by the Greeks. Epicurus, my hero, both posed and solved the "problem of evil" and provided a solid framework for me. With additions from Sartre, and some enlargements from physics, biology, and chemistry, I'm at ease being "a believer", despite being a "loose canon". Get it? Canon? Cannon?
I can't add any more to their writings (Epicurus, Occam, Descarte, Sarte, Einstein). Any further explanation that I could offer would only dilute theirs. I might be a decent writer, but they are masterful.
I develop values through a religiously-based intellectual activity, and have come up with six. I decide how to spend my time, and what actions to take, based on this chain of reasoning that is initiated and nurtured by consistent meditation upon my idea of god in the form of prayer and good works. Since I take Matthew chapter six seriously, http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt%206:1-4
I don't discuss the "good works" that I do. Nor do I reveal the good works of others that I personally witness. I keep my mouth shut not because I think it will help with some sort of afterlife, since I don't believe in one, but because bragging about it ruins it for me. Since I see others following this philosophy, and since I can do math, it would take a colossal amount of evil - far more than exists in the historical record - to counterbalance the good done in the name of religion.
Until E.O. Wilson's vision of a replacement for religion happens, then I am a religious person (happily catholic, with six or seven other traditions seriously investigated), and I refuse to be unfairly characterized by Richard Dawkins.
If you think I throw a fit over religion, try accusing me of not "really" being bisexual, or bisexuality being "a myth". I save my best screeds for sex.
christian
religion
islam
terrorism
richard+dawkins
Ham Radio CQWW Contest
This past weekend was the CQ DX Contest.
The objective of an amateur radio contest is for amateurs around the
world to contact other amateurs in as many zones and countries as possible. A zone is like a really big version of a zip code. It can be part of a country, or an area of several countries. It's part of the on-air exchange, and simply makes the contest a bit easier to work.
In the nomenclature of ham radio, you "work a contest", even though it's just for fun. The advantages of working contests are improvement of your communication skills as well as testing the quality of your equipment. If your station works well in a contest, it will probably work well in an emergency.
It's also a great chance to see exactly what your antenna coverage is like - whether or not you have a good antenna pattern, which directly affects how well you are received worldwide.
All bands, 1.8 through 28 MHz, are used for this particular contest.
I worked the contest only briefly throughout the weekend, but I logged stations in Hawaii, Canada, Japan, and South America during the times I was on the air. The experience of participating in a contest is completely worth the time and effort. You don't have to have your own station to participate, but you do need to be a licensed amateur radio operator. This is a very easy license to get.
I operated on the 20 meter band (14MHz). Tuning up and down the band I heard a ton of stations calling for contacts. The cadence and rhythm of the voices makes your heart quicken. It's like standing on the floor of the stock exchange, listening for someone to make or take a bid. When a rare station comes on the air and calls for contacts (calls "CQ") then many people answer. This is called a pile-up, because the voices pile up on top of each other. Again, this is similar to a hot stock being offered at a great price by a floor agent at an exchange. Everyone starts yellling.
The ability to pick out calls from the din, to process them quickly, and then move on to the next person, is something developed over time. It takes listening skills, cognitive skills, and stamina. The contest is long. It starts at 0000 hours GMT Saturday and ends 2400 hours GMT Sunday. So, all day Saturday and all day Sunday. This is 48 hours of operating, I reckon. I don't really know if there is a required break, like in some contests. I have to admit to not reading the rules beforehand.
When you contact another station in a contest, the point is to get an "exchange." This is a bit of information that may be your state, or your section, or zone, or grid square locator, or something like that. Some contests have silly/fun exchanges, and some have more serious, detailed exchanges. It varies quite a bit from contest to contest, but all contests require the correct exchange of some sort of information.
For the CQWW contest, you have to get the call sign of the person you're talking to correct, and you have to get their CQ zone. This is submitted to the contest sponsor in the form of a log. Each contact is worth some amount of points. There are ways to increase your score, called "multipliers", that vary from contest to contest. For example, if you contact every zone, or every state, or every province of a country, then you get a boost. This can make a big difference if you are competitive in the contests. There are strategies and tactics to contesting. It's considered a sport, and to be really good at it requires dedication and practice. However, it doesn't take much to turn a neophyte entry-level ham radio operator into a full-fledged participant.
One of the best ways to get involved is to participate in a multi-operator station. This is where several people man a station in shifts, or together, and make contacts. The more experienced people teach you the ropes and give advice, and you don't have to buy a bunch of equipment or put up a big antenna.
I didn't "call CQ" during the contest - which means finding and defending a frequency, where you transmit something like "CQ Contest CQ Contest Whiskey Five November Yankee Victor" over and over again, until people respond, whereupon you do your exchange. I used the "search and pounce" tactic, which means dialing around and answering people doing the hard work. Sleep in, still win.
In order to win, you really have to do both. And, you have to know when the various bands are open - not all frequencies are usable at all times - and you have to know when to take a break so you aren't drooling on your microphone at 3:12 am.
Here's a typical exchange for me:
They: "CQ contest CQ contest 4M5R"
Me: "W5NYV"
They: "W5NYV 59 33"
Me: "Roger, 59 03"
They: "QSL, QRZ?"
CQ means calling all stations.
QSL means "confirm contact"
QRZ means "who (else) is calling me?"
Sometimes you have to go back and forth to confirm an exchange, because there may be a lot of static or you may be a weak station. Then it goes something like this:
They: "CQ contest CQ contest 4M5R"
Me: "W5NYV"
They: "Whiskey Five, again?"
Me: "Whiskey Five November Yankee Victor"
They: "Whiskey Five November Yankee Delta?"
Me: "Whiskey Five November Yankee Victor"
They: "W5NYV 59 33"
Me: "Roger, 59 03"
They: "13?"
Me: "03, 03, 03"
They: "QSL, QRZ?"
The exchange is quick. When there is a pileup, or when band conditions are good, you make contacts as quick as you can talk or as quick as you can log. Making a contact is one thing, but successfully logging it is another.
There are a ton of software tools that help with contests. Actually talking into a microphone for hours and hours will kill your voice. It's acceptable to record the parts that you are going to say over and over again, and transmit those with a keypress of the software interfaced to your radio.
Logging programs help by allowing you to type things in. If you are a multi-operator station, a second person can be assigned the logging duties.
For the contest, I used pencil and paper to log, and a push-to-talk microphone. Since I didn't work very long at any one time, it worked out fine.
One of the things that I thought about over the weekend, while working the contest, was how much Amy would have liked watching this whole process. She wasn't really interested in ham radio, but she was interested in ham radio operators, and I know she would have been really impressed with the whole effort, and how much focus and concentration it took.
I remember when I let her hold my violin. She never really played any musical instruments, but she played a bard on EQ. One of the characters that she fictionalized played the violin, and I thought it might be fun for her to see how incredibly lightweight a violin is, and what it looks like in your hands. She was really taken with how fragile it seemed - something that could make such a sound should be heavy, like an electric guitar. Violins almost feel like they're made from balsa wood. I had her draw the bow to see what it felt like, and she laughed when it made the most horrible sound ever in the history of strings.
I think she would have been equally engaged at the antics of the contest. She would have loved eavesdropping on the "big gun" stations as they chewed through their pile-ups like communications juggernauts - spitting out the syllables in staccato.
Contests, like any competition, can be addictive. For some people, it's their main interest in ham radio. I'm just a dilletante. I will probably never rank very high in the standings, but the sheer fun of working people from around the world in a competitive atmosphere is totally worth the time. Hearing your callsign from a faraway station is such a thrill. I'm looking forward to the next contest, in November.
The objective of an amateur radio contest is for amateurs around the
world to contact other amateurs in as many zones and countries as possible. A zone is like a really big version of a zip code. It can be part of a country, or an area of several countries. It's part of the on-air exchange, and simply makes the contest a bit easier to work.
In the nomenclature of ham radio, you "work a contest", even though it's just for fun. The advantages of working contests are improvement of your communication skills as well as testing the quality of your equipment. If your station works well in a contest, it will probably work well in an emergency.
It's also a great chance to see exactly what your antenna coverage is like - whether or not you have a good antenna pattern, which directly affects how well you are received worldwide.
All bands, 1.8 through 28 MHz, are used for this particular contest.
I worked the contest only briefly throughout the weekend, but I logged stations in Hawaii, Canada, Japan, and South America during the times I was on the air. The experience of participating in a contest is completely worth the time and effort. You don't have to have your own station to participate, but you do need to be a licensed amateur radio operator. This is a very easy license to get.
I operated on the 20 meter band (14MHz). Tuning up and down the band I heard a ton of stations calling for contacts. The cadence and rhythm of the voices makes your heart quicken. It's like standing on the floor of the stock exchange, listening for someone to make or take a bid. When a rare station comes on the air and calls for contacts (calls "CQ") then many people answer. This is called a pile-up, because the voices pile up on top of each other. Again, this is similar to a hot stock being offered at a great price by a floor agent at an exchange. Everyone starts yellling.
The ability to pick out calls from the din, to process them quickly, and then move on to the next person, is something developed over time. It takes listening skills, cognitive skills, and stamina. The contest is long. It starts at 0000 hours GMT Saturday and ends 2400 hours GMT Sunday. So, all day Saturday and all day Sunday. This is 48 hours of operating, I reckon. I don't really know if there is a required break, like in some contests. I have to admit to not reading the rules beforehand.
When you contact another station in a contest, the point is to get an "exchange." This is a bit of information that may be your state, or your section, or zone, or grid square locator, or something like that. Some contests have silly/fun exchanges, and some have more serious, detailed exchanges. It varies quite a bit from contest to contest, but all contests require the correct exchange of some sort of information.
For the CQWW contest, you have to get the call sign of the person you're talking to correct, and you have to get their CQ zone. This is submitted to the contest sponsor in the form of a log. Each contact is worth some amount of points. There are ways to increase your score, called "multipliers", that vary from contest to contest. For example, if you contact every zone, or every state, or every province of a country, then you get a boost. This can make a big difference if you are competitive in the contests. There are strategies and tactics to contesting. It's considered a sport, and to be really good at it requires dedication and practice. However, it doesn't take much to turn a neophyte entry-level ham radio operator into a full-fledged participant.
One of the best ways to get involved is to participate in a multi-operator station. This is where several people man a station in shifts, or together, and make contacts. The more experienced people teach you the ropes and give advice, and you don't have to buy a bunch of equipment or put up a big antenna.
I didn't "call CQ" during the contest - which means finding and defending a frequency, where you transmit something like "CQ Contest CQ Contest Whiskey Five November Yankee Victor" over and over again, until people respond, whereupon you do your exchange. I used the "search and pounce" tactic, which means dialing around and answering people doing the hard work. Sleep in, still win.
In order to win, you really have to do both. And, you have to know when the various bands are open - not all frequencies are usable at all times - and you have to know when to take a break so you aren't drooling on your microphone at 3:12 am.
Here's a typical exchange for me:
They: "CQ contest CQ contest 4M5R"
Me: "W5NYV"
They: "W5NYV 59 33"
Me: "Roger, 59 03"
They: "QSL, QRZ?"
CQ means calling all stations.
QSL means "confirm contact"
QRZ means "who (else) is calling me?"
Sometimes you have to go back and forth to confirm an exchange, because there may be a lot of static or you may be a weak station. Then it goes something like this:
They: "CQ contest CQ contest 4M5R"
Me: "W5NYV"
They: "Whiskey Five, again?"
Me: "Whiskey Five November Yankee Victor"
They: "Whiskey Five November Yankee Delta?"
Me: "Whiskey Five November Yankee Victor"
They: "W5NYV 59 33"
Me: "Roger, 59 03"
They: "13?"
Me: "03, 03, 03"
They: "QSL, QRZ?"
The exchange is quick. When there is a pileup, or when band conditions are good, you make contacts as quick as you can talk or as quick as you can log. Making a contact is one thing, but successfully logging it is another.
There are a ton of software tools that help with contests. Actually talking into a microphone for hours and hours will kill your voice. It's acceptable to record the parts that you are going to say over and over again, and transmit those with a keypress of the software interfaced to your radio.
Logging programs help by allowing you to type things in. If you are a multi-operator station, a second person can be assigned the logging duties.
For the contest, I used pencil and paper to log, and a push-to-talk microphone. Since I didn't work very long at any one time, it worked out fine.
One of the things that I thought about over the weekend, while working the contest, was how much Amy would have liked watching this whole process. She wasn't really interested in ham radio, but she was interested in ham radio operators, and I know she would have been really impressed with the whole effort, and how much focus and concentration it took.
I remember when I let her hold my violin. She never really played any musical instruments, but she played a bard on EQ. One of the characters that she fictionalized played the violin, and I thought it might be fun for her to see how incredibly lightweight a violin is, and what it looks like in your hands. She was really taken with how fragile it seemed - something that could make such a sound should be heavy, like an electric guitar. Violins almost feel like they're made from balsa wood. I had her draw the bow to see what it felt like, and she laughed when it made the most horrible sound ever in the history of strings.
I think she would have been equally engaged at the antics of the contest. She would have loved eavesdropping on the "big gun" stations as they chewed through their pile-ups like communications juggernauts - spitting out the syllables in staccato.
Contests, like any competition, can be addictive. For some people, it's their main interest in ham radio. I'm just a dilletante. I will probably never rank very high in the standings, but the sheer fun of working people from around the world in a competitive atmosphere is totally worth the time. Hearing your callsign from a faraway station is such a thrill. I'm looking forward to the next contest, in November.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Monday, September 25, 2006
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Monday, August 14, 2006
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Friday, August 11, 2006
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Friday, July 21, 2006
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Friday, June 30, 2006
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Sunday, May 14, 2006
The Heavy Axe (poem)
Doesn't that axe get heavy?
The one you keep grinding every day?
The one that hangs upon you,
Draining your strength away?
To support it you must purchase
Stones aplenty, oh so many stones.
And don't forget the extra axeheads,
To replace the shattered ones.
You grasp it as a corpse would
A deathgrip upon the shaft
While all around you unencumbered
People blithely pass.
They see you fall behind them,
Lugging that burdensome thing.
Your hot hatefulness consumes
To ashes any chance of reasoning.
The Mariner killed the Albatross.
You took up the axe.
Coleridge teaches hope here.
But you have to choose to act.
Rigid inflexible thinking,
Hidebound by your generation,
Never letting opportunity escape
To clumsily hack and rend.
What at first engendered alarm,
Anxiety, and strife,
Quickly faded to pity,
For the paucity within your life.
The paths gleam before your blindness.
Those resplendant glittering roads
With innumerable people upon them,
A living river of the soul.
Loose your grip, the scales will fall;
The heart relents her vanity.
Loose your grip, the axe will drop;
Welcome back to your humanity.
poetry
poem
The one you keep grinding every day?
The one that hangs upon you,
Draining your strength away?
To support it you must purchase
Stones aplenty, oh so many stones.
And don't forget the extra axeheads,
To replace the shattered ones.
You grasp it as a corpse would
A deathgrip upon the shaft
While all around you unencumbered
People blithely pass.
They see you fall behind them,
Lugging that burdensome thing.
Your hot hatefulness consumes
To ashes any chance of reasoning.
The Mariner killed the Albatross.
You took up the axe.
Coleridge teaches hope here.
But you have to choose to act.
Rigid inflexible thinking,
Hidebound by your generation,
Never letting opportunity escape
To clumsily hack and rend.
What at first engendered alarm,
Anxiety, and strife,
Quickly faded to pity,
For the paucity within your life.
The paths gleam before your blindness.
Those resplendant glittering roads
With innumerable people upon them,
A living river of the soul.
Loose your grip, the scales will fall;
The heart relents her vanity.
Loose your grip, the axe will drop;
Welcome back to your humanity.
poetry
poem
Monday, May 08, 2006
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Michael as Flower at Zoo
Michael on a field trip to the San Diego Zoo. I took this photo at the Children's section of the zoo. 
Picture010.jpg
Originally uploaded by Abraxas3d.
Picture010.jpg
Originally uploaded by Abraxas3d.
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