Give me a chill pill

** Anxiety attack alert! ** Anxiety attack alert! **

This weekend it hit home to me that I am only 9 weeks away from finals week. I have three classes in which I have to do some major research and projects. I have a MAJOR project for my metaphysics class (we're talking 20 pages). I just finished a paper for Phil of Law, leaving me with two more papers and two oral presentations for that class. (But the oral presentations are no big deal, just talking about the papers.) Also I have to do some research and a presentation for my communications class - the topic being "Is democracy in a foreign country worth fighting for?" .... What kind of question is that? How the he__ am I supposed to answer that?

I wouldn't be stressing except for the metaphysics project. Final paper topics are due today. Yesterday I went to the library and ALL the books on ALL the suggested topics were checked out. I realize I shouldn't have procrastinated, but it's frustrating because I did make a bona fide attempt to do the work and the materials just weren't there. I'll talk to Korcz and he'll probably work with me but I may lose points just the same.

Add to the mix everything else - graduation coming, time to update the resume and start looking for a job, (really should have done that a couple of months ago) ... there's just no time to do anything with my schedule.

Well, after writing it out it doesn't seem quite so bad. Looking forward to having more of a social life after graduation and getting settled.

Very proud of this. Years of studying critical thinking enabled me to do this on the first try. 

beauty shop

me: Okay, what are we going to play?
Havilah: How about you be the customer.
me: Sounds good. What services do you offer?
Hav: Makeover.
me: Anything else?
Hav: Um ... takeover.
me: I'll have the makeover. How much?
Hav: Sixty dollars.
me: SIXTY DOLLARS????
Hav: I mean one dollar. Have a seat. After we're done you can give me one penny.
me: I seem to have forgotten my wallet.
Hav [hand extended with imaginary money]: That's okay. See, I have change. Oh, wait.
[She goes and gets a small pile of coins, some real, some plastic. She gives me the pile.]
Hav: You can pay me after. Now, what would you like?
me: I'd like to have my hair colored.
Hav: That will be another dollar. Anything else?
me: Yes. I want my nails polished. Do you do that?
Hav: Yes. And. That. Will. Be. Another. Dollar. What color do you want your hair first?
me: Blue.
[Some time passes. I get my hair colored blue, yellow, and white. Havilah gets frustrated because I keep giving Simcha "car rides" on my lap while she's doing it. I suggest that Simcha be the "assistant" so that she doesn't feel left out. It gets quite noisy because Simcha and I are laughing our heads off. When it's time to polish my nails Havilah uses a shiny penny. Then the "assistant" runs off with the money and we have a chase. Finally she gives them back.]
Hav: *whew* Okay, it's time to pay.
me: How much was that?
Hav: Three.
me: [I get three coins, a nickel and two pennies.] Here's seven. Keep the change.
Hav: [puzzled] This is three. [Moving on swiftly because daddy obviously doesn't know the difference between three and seven and it's probably not a good idea to dwell on it] Now after the next then you can give me the rest and I'll give the three back so you can pay some more after and then when you pay I can give you change we can keep on going like that do you want some new clothes?
me: I think it's time for bed.

my battle with Calypso

Last night I fixed the kitchen faucet. Yes, that's right. I did it.

It's not like I haven't fixed things around the house before. I've even made plumbing repairs before this. To understand the particular pride I take in this particular repair, I have to tell you what it was like to live with this dysfunctional kitchen faucet for so many dreadful years.

It all started back in '99 when we moved into this house. Ah, we were so young, so naive. 'Naif' as they would say in French. The house seemed so warm, so welcoming. The first few hours were joyous indeed. The kitchen faucet even worked deceptively well. It was when we first used the sprayer that we got a hint of something wrong. There was a thunk and vibration, and the sprayer emmitted a pitifully small stream. It took quite a while to rinse off the larger cookware, like the cookie sheets, but we were so happy with the house and with each other it hardly seemed to matter. Little did we know that it was just the beginning.

Incrementally, with an insidious and steady slowness the sprayer's trickle dwindled. Thinking hard water deposits were the culprit, I changed out the spray head. Then the tubing. All to no avail. One day the trickle dwindled to nothing. The brand-new sprayer head sat in the sink receptacle to the right of the faucet, mysteriously defunct. Its quiet presence reminded us of something disturbingly awry - something unguessed at, unknown. We went about our daily dishwashing and food preparation as if everything were normal, but deep down we knew. For years we continued in this state.

Then the unthinkable happened. One day my wife turned the faucet water on - a hideous, strained shriek of ear-splitting aqua-demon fury was unleashed on us. The faucet yielded little life-giving water while the shriek persisted. "Turn it off, turn it off," I cried desperately to my poor wife. She, with her hands to her ears, stood before the sink looking down with horror, too shocked to react. Finally I stepped quickly behind her, reached forward and pushed the cam faucet's single handle down and off, and the shrieking stopped. We looked at each other - helpless, dumfounded. "You've got to fix that thing or we've got to get a new faucet," she said. I nodded in solemn agreement.

Through careful experimentation we discovered that we could still use the faucet as long as we didn't turn it on too quickly or too far. Nevertheless it continued to worsen. It got to the point that we could hardly use it at all.

Finally I remembered to pick up the faucet parts at the hardware store yesterday. The problem was what is called a 'spray diverter' that is located below the ball mechanism. Now the parts are all changed, even the sprayer works again! Hooray for me!

SQUEEEEEEEEEZE!

I'm trying so hard not to be funny! Ouch!

I'm suddenly feeling funnily unfettered and failing to keep from curbing the kablooie of jocular junk. If I contain this uproarious eruption will my riot turn to rancor?

Let it not be so. I'll upchuck chuckle.

a little law philosophy

I have not written for the blog in nearly two weeks because I have been so busy with school. Also my wife 'Tzipi' has needed me to take care of our daughters while she teaches in the evenings and last weekend she was working as a labor doula.

I was up till 2am last night working on my first paper of the semester - for phil of law. It was an argumentative essay, meaning I had to criticise the work of a published law philosopher. My own fault I had to stay up late - I didn't start writing until around 4pm, even though I took the day off from work to do it. Also the daughters continually interrupted. :-) The 4-year-old can use the potty all by herself, but *sometimes* needs help wiping. The 3-year-old doesn't like to have help wiping (which is okay because she does a decent enough job) but she's keen to graduate to the BIG potty, and her little legs are not long enough to get her all the way up there. This is especially funny because for the longest time she refused to use anything but the daiper. We would put her in panties during the day to start her off, and she'd hold everything in until bedtime when we'd put the daiper on her. Aside from potty issues, they get "hungry" every five minutes when Mommy and Daddy are both busy. Ah, well. I remember how it was for me at that age, so I stay calm and do the best I can. Sometimes they don't like it.

So anyway, my paper dealt with the issue of entrapment. What it is, why it is an issue, when it can be applied, etc. I will touch on the issue very briefly here.

Entrapment is a defense to a criminal charge. The defense is that the defendant would not have committed the crime charged if the law enforcement agents had not employed the investigative methods they did.

The methods talked about are proactive methods. Let me explain. Traditionally, law enforcement has been reactive - the police wait around until a crime is reported, and then they take action against the offenders. But there are some kinds of crimes which never or seldom get reported. They might not get reported because everyone affected by the crime is a willing participant, such as in drug deals or briberies. Or, it could be the case that the victim of the crime is unaware of the crime, as when corporations engage in price-fixing. Or the victim may be unwilling or unable to report the crime, as in rape or extortion. Proactive enforcement methods target these crimes.

One of the advantages of proactive enforcement is that the investigators get to be the reporters as well. The idea is to set up a situation in which crime is likely to happen and in which it can be observed by the investigators. Sting operations, decoy operations, honeypot operations, and some others I can't think of right now are all proactive techniques.

The problem of entrapment comes about when the investigators step over the line and begin actually encouraging crime rather than merely setting up an opportunity for it to occur.

There's a lot more interesting stuff to go into but I'll write it later.

Ciao!

I ain't nothin' but a houn' dog

I read a lot of political stuff in the news. I have been more or less following national and international politics for five years. I still don't know what to make of it. Sometimes I want to give up trying to figure out what's really going on.

I want everyone to know that although I may express strong opinions on ethics and morals and such, I understand that these things have little to do with politics. Therefore, try not to take my political writing too seriously.

But please don't discount it either. In my conversations with co-workers, family, and friends, I have noticed that too many people have too much confidence in their own understanding and too much confidence in government. I know, I know, everyone professes to be very cynical about government these days, but let's face it. We say we don't trust our government, but we trust them with everything.

Time and time again I have had conversations in which I point out inconsistencies and hypocracy perpetrated by our own government, and the stock response I receive is, "Well, yes, that's true. But out government officials know more than we do. We don't know everything that goes on."

Why don't we know everything that goes on? Aren't we-- who live in the greatest representative republic in history-- aren't we supposed to know what is going on? Every nation has to have secrets - I'm not talking about things related to our national security or cloak-and-dagger stuff. I'm talking about what our own public officials are doing and their reasons for doing it, and how they are spending our money.

For example: when I point out to people that every rationale we have had for going to war with Iraq has been either 1) mistaken, or 2) a lie, hence the administration is either incompetent or untrustworthy, the reply I get is always something like, "That's not true - there's more going on than we know about. I'm sure there are actually good reasons for everything that happened."

I'm sure there are other reasons for the war. I just get the sense that if we good American subjects were aware of the reasons, we wouldn't like them. And that's why we have not been told what the real reasons are.

retraction: FOX did not buy Al Jazeera

It was a satirical article. If I had seen it firsthand, it would have been obvious. But hearing about it second- or third-hand and having presented to me as factual I was almost taken in.

Iran, N.Korea, and nukes

Today North Korea announced that it has nuclear weapons. The U.S. is pursuing diplomatic relations with North Korea, even though we know they despise us to the core. This is because we know that as long as we keep paying Kim Jong Il, he will not nuke anyone.

Today the president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, in a fiery speech to the Iranian people announced that for any invaders Iran would become a 'burning hell'. Iran has been cooperative and open up until this point, voluntarily suspending its uranium enrichment program. Iran needs the uranium for nuclear power, which is necessary for Iran's growing population. They have promised not to use the enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. Until now they have seemed open to diplomacy and cooperation. The U.S. administration has been making sounds of war though, and it seems the Iranians' patience is wearing thin. I can't say as I blame them.

We saw that the weapons inspections were actually working in Saddam's Iraq (even though Saddam had reason for wanting the world to think the inspections weren't working). How much better would they work in Iran? I don't know the anwer to this question, but my gut tells me they could work.

Why would we continue diplomatic relations with North Korea and not with Iran? North Korea has always been threatening and belligerent in its posturing, while Iran has been open to dialogue. We are rewarding the war-mongerers and punishing the cooperators. The only conclusion I can reach is that our administration is looking for any excuse to invade yet another middle eastern country in the name of 'spreading freedom and tolerance'.

'Spreading freedom and tolerance' = 'You do it our way or else'. This is truly Orwellian.

Where's my inner artist?

I was checking out some other random blogs today. A lot of people just write about their feelings. They get so passionate about things. I'm passionate about things, too ... but I notice that I don't seem to express my feelings anymore. That is, I don't do it very much or very often. I don't seem to dwell so much on my feelings as do a lot of other people out there. Some of these folks seem to me to do a lot of feeling and not much thinking.

I'm very cautious about my feelings. I try not to react emotionally to things. I mean, I'm aware that I have feelings, but i try not to make decisions based solely on feelings. Maybe that's one reason I've studied philosophy ... I realized that I was making bad decisions based on whatever I happened to be feeling at the time. I figured there had to be a better way to go about leading this life.

Still, my feelings are very important to me. A certain amount of objectivity is important in decision-making, but it has never been my goal to become a robot. Our passions are what make life interesting. I'm going to work on expressing my feelings more. I should get a hobby that provides that kind of outlet. (Or is that why I started this blog?) Anyway, I'm going to work on it.

The days when this would be really hilarious are past, but I found this recently and thought it was still good for a chuckle. 

I'm having a bad hair day. 

I count you count

Here's an interesting perspective I learned today. There are four possible attitudes we can have in our interactions with others:

1. I count, you don't count. This is an aggressive stance in which "I" am the decision-maker. I have respect for myself and I do not desire your input on the matter. If you know what's good for you, you better listen to me.
2. I count, you count. This is the attitude that fosters dialogue. I have my own opinion, but I am willing to work with you. Let's compare notes and really listen to each other to reach a satisfactory conclusion. This attitude takes work.
3. I don't count, you count. This posture is submissive. I am a martyr. I sacrifice my own wishes and desires for yours. I resent you because you don't appreciate me. You won't "let" me do what I want. I am trapped and stifled.
4. I don't count, you don't count. Nothing really matters. I am apathetic. I am fidgety - I work, I'm constantly moving, I smoke, I may turn to mind-altering substances - anything to occupy my mind so I don't think about my hopelessness. I become objectified in my own thoughts: "It should be different," "It's hopeless," "It's not working," "It's not how I thought it would be". What these things really mean is I should be different, I am hopeless, etc.

This made a lot of sense to me. I'd be interested in hearing any comments.

retraction re: absolutism/relativism

David (of the relativism v. absolutism about truth controversy) let me know yesterday that he does not have a problem with absolutism after all. The confusstion arose from the misunderstanding of what it is that distinguishes absolutist theories from relativist theories of truth. A theory of truth is absolutist just in case it characterizes truth as being mind-independant. A relativist theory is one in which truth is characterized as being dependant on some point of view-- and for a point-of-view to exist, it must be in a mind. So relativist theories are mind-dependant. David explained that once he understood this distinction, he accepted absolutism.

I made up a new word, "confusstion" ... a synonyn for "confusion" but with a connotation of fussiness or argumentativeness ... I think it fits

fun to shoot 'em

I heard a rumor today that FOX purchased Al Jazeera. My first reaction was to laugh, but it is not a joke. That is to say, it was not told to me as a joke. Whether it is true is another matter. I don't know what to make of it if it is true.

In other news (got this from Reuters):

U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who led troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, made the [following] comments at a conference Tuesday in San Diego. "Actually it's quite fun to fight 'em, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling," said Mattis. "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said during a panel discussion. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

Well, Mr. Mattis, this is a relief. So many women in abusive relationships will be thrilled to be informed of your ethical insights. I suppose now any good red-blooded blue-clad inner city cop is perfectly justified in walking down the street and shooting down anyone who looks like they might just possibly be a wife-beater. It will be easier for the police, of course, if the recipients of the bullets are different-looking, or immigrants from a foreign culture.

okaaaaaaay ...

Every day I take breaks from the work on my desk and I check out the latest news through my Yahoo! home page. Not often, but once in a while I check out the usually frivolous/inane/pointless/annoying comments that users post to the articles. The following post is no exception:

Although nothing prevents you from dreaming at least on papar with the hopes that as the result of your contemplation of something potentially different than what is commonly accepted you may arrive at an equally innovative solution... Mind you that depite all the physical limitations which have been theoretically summarised, nothing prevents nature from acting differently in consideration of the fact that our physical laws are descriptive of phenomena which occur with startling causality with a level of prediction which is first and foremost based on accumulated observation which gave purpose for the edification of specific pĥysical laws which only exist because of the relation to observe between theory and observation such observations being deemed as being faithfully representative of reality...

If this guy wanted to say that science is inductive, why didn't he just say so? Geeez! I SO want to reply to this, but I know it would be pointless. He seems to be saying that anything at all can happen, because science is "only" based on what we have observed to happen. He does have a point of sorts. With the very great wealth of carefully gathered scientific evidence we have gathered over the past few hundred years however, there are physical principles that in all probability will never be overturned. (That's not to say we have everything figured out, but that it is far more likely that physical laws will be refined rather than falsified.)

I'm so glad I studied philosophy of science. The popular conception of science is so far removed from the actual practice of it. I shudder to remember that I too once suffered from a similar kind of ignorance.

What do you think, am I being arrogant?

Being a parent is the best thing

Once in a while I think about what my life would be like without my family. I think about all the time I would have ... all the things I could get done ... the impact I could have on the world if I set my mind on something great. You know what? The impact I can have on the world pales in comparison to the impact I can have on the people close to me, especially my kids. Being a parent - and a husband - is the best thing. It is also the most satisfying.

Most of my energy is spent doing things I must do rather than things I want to do. When I get home, it is hard to remember that these people I share a house with are the reason for which I do all those other things. Over the years I have developed the practice of trying to notice, every day, something that is different about each of my two children. I rarely fail to find something, whether it is physical or mental. It could be that they have grown taller, or that they have developed some skill, or used a word they never used before. Lately I have tried to apply this to my other relationships as well, particularly my marriage. It's more difficult when it comes to adults, but it's not impossible, especially if I dig by having conversation with the person.

Being a husband and a parent is a lot of work. Being a parent means missing out on things i want to do for the sake of things I wouldn't have done if I had a choice but which sometimes (ironically) turn out to be the happiest moments of my life. I never know when they are going to say or do something that makes me smile. It could be while I am changing a diaper, or cleaning up after spilled food, or when I am yelling at them. (That last sounds worse than it is.)

Change and the unexpected. These are the things to be feared before they happen, and embraced after. Hey, that's pretty good - you can quote me on that!