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May 2004

 

May 24, 2004

It is no longer simply my opinion that anyone under the age of 18 should be considered differently than an adult in court proceedings. Recent scientific studies prove that the human brain develops such that the centers of reasoning and judgment develop last, usually between the ages of 18 and 21. The judicial system in this country must take note of these findings and stop prosecuting and condemning children as adults. This interesting column from the Baltimore Sun fully embodies my feelings on this matter.

Why They're Called Kids

It sounds at first like yet another example of researchers telling the world what anybody with any sense already knew. Or, at least in this case, what long-suffering parents of teenagers already knew: Different parts of the brain mature at different stages, and the part that governs complex functions such as reasoning and judgment matures last of all - usually between the ages of 18 and 21.

But the new study, conducted by researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health and announced this month, provides more than a "well, duh" moment for the moms, dads and teachers who needed no scientific proof that even a 6-foot-tall 17-year-old still has a lot of growing up to do.

It offers sound scientific reasoning for treating juveniles differently from adults in our courts and in our jails.

Society has long recognized that young people - generally those under the age of 18 - lack the experience, judgment and plain good sense of their elders. That is why they cannot legally buy alcohol or cigarettes, why they cannot see certain movies, why they cannot sign legally binding contracts. Because they're still kids.

Just over 100 years ago, the justice system recognized this fundamental difference between youngsters and adults with the founding of the first children's court, in Chicago. That became the model for a juvenile justice system that spread across the nation, grounded in the sensible and humane philosophy that children accused of crimes must be held to a lesser standard of accountability than adults, and that if found culpable, must be sentenced differently as well, with a goal of rehabilitation.

In the last 12 years or so, states increasingly have chipped away at the foundations of the juvenile justice system. The ages at which young people could be transferred to adult court were lowered, the categories of crimes for which youths were automatically transferred to adult courts were expanded, and the authority of judges in such transfers was significantly diminished in favor of prosecutorial discretion.

As a result, thousands more juveniles are tried in adult court today, and if found guilty they often are housed in adult prisons. The findings of the NIMH study illustrate well why that trend is deeply troubling.

Certainly, there are some teenagers so incorrigible, their crimes so heinous, that rehabilitation in a juvenile setting is not a sensible option. But many thousands of others deserve the special consideration and treatment offered by the juvenile system.

The state of Maryland's juvenile facilities is far from ideal, as this newspaper has reported. But the fate befalling kids who are incarcerated in adult facilities - an estimated 1,000 a year statewide - can be far worse. National studies have shown that juveniles in adult prisons are twice as likely to be physically assaulted, five times as likely to be sexually assaulted and at least eight times as likely to commit suicide as those in juvenile facilities.

In Maryland, anyone 16 or older who is charged with a violent offense, and anyone 14 or older charged with what would be a capital crime for an adult, is automatically transferred to the adult system. There may be cases where that is appropriate, but a judge should make that decision; it should not be up to the prosecutor, and it should not be "automatic."

It's time that the courts remember what parents know - and what scientific research shows: Teenagers literally don't have the brains to be grown-ups.

Posted at 10:53 PM

May 30, 2004

How is it that I can always give great advice to other people but never to myself?

Posted at 12:18 PM

 

May 29, 2004

I've been telling you all along that the Republican party in the United States is a repressionistic, bigoted group that can be easily compared with the early aspects of the German Nazi party prior to Hitler's takeover as complete dictator. Emperor Bush is well on his way to becoming the next Hitler unless people in this country wise up and overwhelmingly vote him the fuck out of office. Here's yet another example of the true colors of the Republican party.

GOP Drives More Gay Advocates From Party

(Washington) As the Republican Party continues its move to the far right the number of gays and their supporters who are leaving the party grows.

In Washington, D.C., Friday, Councilman David Catania quit the party after he was told he could not longer be a delegate at the national convention. Party chair Betsy Werronen says Catania lost the seat because he opposes President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

The openly gay Catania has publicly voiced his opposition to the proposed amendment.

Within hours of Catania's withdrawal from the party, the only other Republican on the 13-member District council resigned as a delegate to the convention in protest of Catania's dismissal.

In the state of Washington Republicans will be asked to endorse a new platform which includes a statement of support for President Bush's proposal to ban gay marriage.

As the Washington State Republican Party began its 2004 convention Friday, party chair Chris Vance said the platform reflects majority public opinion.

Convention-goers will vote on final approval of the platform on Saturday.

Earlier this week in Arizona, veteran state senator Carolyn Allen (R-Scottsdale) quit her post in the GOP leadership after Senate President Ken Bennett forced a vote on a bill supporting the federal ban on gay marriage. The roll call vote will help religious groups target the measure's foes in November.

Allen accused Bennett of trying to embarrass lawmakers who do not believe the federal constitution should be amended to define marriage as solely between one man and one woman.

Bennett admitted even before the 14-12 vote the measure did not have the backing of 16 senators necessary for approval. But he said Sen. Mark Anderson, R-Mesa, wanted a roll-call vote; Anderson, in turn, said groups which oppose gay marriage like the Catholic Church and the Center for Arizona Policy want lawmakers on record on this issue.

Earlier this month, North Carolina GOP told the Log Cabin Republicans the group could not participate in the state convention because the gay group opposed the federal amendment.

Posted at 11:25 PM

May 28, 2004

My grandmother drives me crazy sometimes. Rather than make things easy, it always has to be complicated. Why? Because she has these routines that she's grown used to over the years. That's why we can only follow three possible sets of roadways away from the house to anywhere in the universe, even if using certain other combinations of roads would get us there quicker or easier. Consequently, I have to drive these ponderously slow, winding routes to anywhere and everywhere when I drive her around, and at times it's outrageously frustrating. Going out of your way by five miles or more, just so that you can follow a certain familiar route, is insane. But ... because I try to keep her happy and accommodated, I drive those routes; I've given up suggesting other paths, even though she freaks out if we're late to get somewhere (which is inevitably because she is never ready to leave the house when I tell her), and we could have been there on time if we had taken a route I would have chosen (and I've proven this to her, getting her places much quicker, but she bemoans the route the whole way and bitches that we'll surely be late). So, like I said, I just have given up and waste who knows how much of my life in wasted driving time.

She also drives me crazy with wanting to take letters to the Post Office. It's not good enough to leave birthday or holiday cards at the mailbox at home for the carrier to pick up because she must have a week to be sure they arrive by or before the special day. Does she send the cards out earlier to account for that? No. In fact she refuses to do so when prompted. They have to go to the Post Office. Not just the collection boxes outside that are emptied three to four times daily - no, they have to go inside the Post Office. I have explained, since I worked for a while in the Post Office, that the letters inside and the letters in the boxes outside the Post Office get sent out in trucks at the same time, early in the morning and at the end of the day, but she doesn't believe me or doesn't care. They have to go inside.

Or how's this - she insists upon going to the downtown branch of the bank to do most of her business, even though her safe deposit box is at the location at the center of the city (close to most of the places we shop and such). It makes no sense since, not only do both of those (and other) branches of the bank have the same services, but the one in the center of the city if the branch that she worked in for thirty years before she retired - yet that's not where she wants to go.

I can put up with her failing memory or her periodic inability to pay any attention, and I can accept her complete lack of understanding of technology of even the simplest sorts - all of these things can prove to be annoying at times as well, but I can accept them - but the bull-headed adherence to certain routines and ideas just because they are familiar is very frustrating, particularly when I can show her (and get her to agree) that some other ways are quicker or better. It doesn't matter how much more efficient or practical something is, she just won't change. That sort of thing can drive me crazy.

Posted Written at 12:25 AM

May 27, 2004

The day started off on a crappy note when the guy from the glass company, who I had contracted weeks ago to do some work, showed up with a replacement glass encasement that was too small, meaning that they would have to reorder the piece and make me wait a few weeks more. It seemed like my luck was still running strong (and bad). True, it could just be believed that the glass company was incompetent, and there's every reason to believe that, but the fact that it falls on the heels of so many other crappy things seems to make it part of my luckless nightmare.

For the most part the rest of the day was without problems, but in all fairness I spent much of my time trying to do things that didn't involve any aspect of luck or action.

So I watched two movies today, videos that Christiana had loaned me. I started with Bowling for Columbine, the docudrama about gun possession, aggressiveness and violence in America, and school shootings in America such as the tragedy at Columbine. The movie was even more amusing and poignant than I had hoped (and I am consistently impressed with Michael Moore's work, yet this was better than I had hoped it would be). I followed up with the movie Almost Famous, the supposed story of a 15-year-old journalist for Rolling Stone magazine who follows an up-and-coming band throughout a U.S. tour, learning more about rock musicians and their scene along the way than he may have cared to. I had known I would like this movie, but once again I was really amazed at how much better it was than even what I had expected. It was funny yet intelligent, and it definitely captured the 70's rock scene. Both of these movies were a great way to relax and avoid doing anything.

Around watching those two movies and taking care of things around and out of the house for my grandma, I also read the first graphic novel collection of The Invisibles, a comic book Steve loaned me and highly recommended. It's interesting, and it's deep in it's philosophy, but I want to read the rest of the graphic novels in this series to get a more full idea of what it fully has to say. It's cool, but it doesn't move me, at least not this first collection from the series.

So all in all I had a decent day. I could have (and should have) accomplished a lot more, but it was relaxing to just enjoy myself and delve into pure entertainment. I could probably do that sort of thing all the time, but then I'd never get things done.

Posted at 11:24 PM

May 26, 2004

It would appear that I'm in one of those weeks where simply nothing can go right. The most positive thing to happen today was that I finished reading Gregory MacGuire's Lost (which was interesting, but not everything I had hoped it would be (but then again, I may be expecting too much considering it will be hard for him to ever top Wicked)). Other than that, everything has gone awry. In fact, the only reason I finished reading that book was because I didn't have it in me to do something else and see it burst into flames.

Some things were little, like cutting myself with my electric razor (a real trick, yes indeed) or getting soap in my eyes during my shower, but other things were somewhat bigger, like having a difficult-to-replace reusable filter from the furnace/air conditioner break as I was trying to clean it or having the Alfredo sauce explode completely in the microwave as I was heating it for the fettuccine for dinner. Even simple phone calls and e.mails had problems, and to top it all off, my grandma has been, while feeling healthy and energetic, phenomenally forgetful, unable to remember things even immediately after I've explained them four times in five minutes. It has truly been a bad day indeed.

Honestly, I don't know why I have days like this, and certainly I don't understand how I can have weeks like this where nothing can go right. There has certainly been enough crap in the past week to make it seem like it's a full-on run of bad luck, and I just can't stand it.

Hell, all I want is for things to work the way they should. I don't ask for fabulous luck (and I certainly don't expect it). I just don't want to be plagued by misfortune. Is that really so much to ask for?

Posted at 12:59 AM

May 25, 2004

After spending a few hours this afternoon sorting out my grandma's desk and some stacks of papers from piles on two tables (which was a task full of sorting, throwing away, reminiscences, and reorganization and filing), I had dinner again with my friend Valerie, this time with her husband Shawn and their two kids, Madison and Jackson.

We met at Taco Bell, largely because they had the biggest kids play area in town (with crawling tubes and stuff), and we ate and talked for the first ten or fifteen minutes. Shawn left after that with Jackson, the baby boy, so that they could visit Shawn's grandmother in the hospital, not too far away. Val and I stayed to chat more and watched as Madison, the young girl, had a great time climbing and playing around. Val and I talked a lot and I had a great time. I'd actually had a good time talking to Shawn while her was first there as well, and I was sad to see him go after such a short time, but I figure we'll probably have other times to talk in the future.

Among other things I talked to Val about my financial aid situation and what I'm trying to do to solve my dilemma, and it was good to have a sympathetic ear. Kristina was very supportive a couple days ago; Sarah has been helpful by e.mail recently; Val was sympathetic; and Christiana was very good about helping me work through ideas as well when I talked to her this evening. It's good to have solid friends like this, truly. It's making it much easier to face all of this financial aid stuff, even while it still freaks me out.

It's been nice to have Val turn up in Sandusky. I had thought that I would surely be quite on my own outside of my grandma's company in this little town, and I'm glad to be proven wrong. Val has made both of these get-togethers a great get-away for me, and that has helped my peace of mind greatly.

After I got back home, I called Christiana and talked for a half hour before 24's season finale and then after 24 for another two and a half hours before saying goodbye so that I could write this Journal entry. Christiana will be visiting the area in late June, so we made some plans to get together, and that should be fun. We talked about politics and school and my financial aid crisis and all sorts of things, and talking to her lifted my spirits quite a bit as well. Like I said earlier, having good, solid friends has really helped me out the last few days, and Christiana has been among the best. I'll be looking forward to her visit.

Posted at 1:17 AM

May 24, 2004

There is hope for America. The new generations, those people who are my age or younger (generally younger, because most people my age are still pretty backwards about social progress), those people, the up and coming workers and leaders of this country, have regularly been making clear that they have a clear vision of the country they want, and that country doesn't involve bigotry, inequality, or hatred (among many other things). Consider the graduation at Suffolk University where Gubernatorial-bigot Mitt Romney was the keynote speaker. Approximately one quarter of the graduates chose not to attend and went to a diversity celebration, approximately one third of those attending stood and turned their backs on Romney as he spoke, members of the audience booed his speech and protested, and the valedictorian commented, after the ceremony, that Romney never should have been invited in the first place. Good job folks. I applaud your stance against bigotry. This is the kind of America I want to see.

Romney Anti-Gay Marriage Stand Sparks Commencement Student Protest

(Boston, Massachusetts) The graduating class at Boston's Suffolk University showed its disdain for Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney Sunday with about a third of the class of 2004 standing and turning their backs on him.

Other students wore blue and yellow arm bands denouncing the Governor for his stand against same-sex marriage. Still others wore rainbow tassels from their mortar boards while other students refused to attend the commencement at all, opting instead to go to a diversity celebration.

At least two students at the graduation ceremony were escorted out when they heckled the governor.

Another student called Romney "one of the most biased politicians of the day."
The governor attempted and failed in a number of political and legal moves to block the Supreme Judicial Court's historic ruling that legalized gay marriage. Most recently he ordered towns to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples from outside the state, citing a 1913 law that prevents couples marrying in Massachusetts if those marriages would be illegal in their home states.

In his address Romney did not mention same-sex marriage. Nor did the issue come up in the speech by valedictorian Kashish Chopra.

The 20 year old lesbian who came out in the eighth grade later criticized the small university perched on Beacon Hill for inviting Romney in the first place.

Posted Written at 1:11 AM

May 23, 2004

Kristina stopped in town today with her friend Rachael. We had originally planned to visit in Bowling Green on Friday night as Kristina made her way to Detroit for the weekend, but I couldn't leave my grandma alone after her "procedure" and Kristina was tight on time, so we decided to catch each other today on her way back to Chardon. As it turns out I didn't even drive to meet her in Bowling Green as planned. She had gotten to BG earlier than planned, and she wanted to make her way toward home, so she decided to stop in Sandusky to see me, seeing as it is on the way.

We had dinner at Chili's and talked for about two and a half hours. We've been e.mailing on and off for a year, but this is the first I've seen her in almost a year, so it was great to get together. We spent a lot of time catching up on the doings of our old group (many of whom don't seem interested in returning any of our calls or e.mails (you know who you are, Heather and Laura)). But we also caught up on what we've been up to and what our coming plans are. I even told Kristina about my financial aid woes. Sadly she didn't have any suggestions for how to resolve this either, but it felt good to be able to tell that she cared. At thi9s point I'll take what I can get.

It was really good to see Kristina. I've been really, incredibly down for the last couple of days because of the financial aid news, and seeing her was a real lift. I'm looking forward to seeing her again this summer, probably on her turf next time.

There was one other thing that raised my spirits today - the news that Emperor Bush is as good at riding a bike as he is at being president or having a moral compass. Read it for yourself and be amused.

Bush Falls on Bike Ride

CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- President Bush fell off his bicycle Saturday while riding on his ranch, according to White House spokesman Trent Duffy.

Bush, who was accompanied on his bike ride by his doctor, Richard Tubb, a military agent and a member of the Secret Service, fell about 16 miles into a 17-mile ride.

Bush suffered minor abrasions to his chin, upper lip, nose, right hand and both knees, but was able to ride back home, Duffy said.

Tubb treated the president at the scene. Bush was wearing a helmet and a mouth guard when he fell, Duffy said.

Reporters were told not to be surprised if the president is bandaged next time he appears in public.

Bush is scheduled to deliver an "important speech" Monday night about the transfer of political power in Iraq. The speech will be televised at 8 p.m. from the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Last June in Kennebunkport, the president fell while riding a "Segway Human Transporter." First lady Laura Bush witnessed the spill; a picture of Bush falling forward was published on numerous Web sites. He was not injured.

In January 2002, Bush fainted for a brief time in the residence of the White House while eating a pretzel and watching a professional football game on television.

At the time, Tubb said the president blacked out and fell to the floor from a couch but appeared to have recovered quickly.

Following that incident, Bush had a bruise on his lower lip and a scrape on his left cheek bone about the size of a half-dollar. Bush believed his head either hit the floor or a table next to the couch and that his glasses cut his face.

Despite Saturday's fall, the president and first lady still planned to go to a graduation celebration in Austin for their daughter Jenna.

The White House confirmed that Jenna did not go to her University of Texas graduation ceremony Saturday to pick up her English degree.

Her parents had already decided not to attend, saying they did not want to disrupt the event by their presence and that of White House security.

Jenna's twin sister, Barbara, graduates Monday from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, with a degree in humanities.

Her parents gave the same reason for not attending her ceremony. Aides said they plan to have a private dinner later.

Posted at 11:20 PM

May 22, 2004

I'm screwed. It's that simple.

The past week has left me pretty depressed. Much of it has been the usual loneliness and depression, some has been frustration with my grandmother (whom has been incredibly distracted and forgetful due to her unwarranted fears about her first colonoscopy (which was Friday and went without a problem)), and some has been a strong malaise about the pointlessness of my life. Added in has been the pretty fucked up grades I had last semester, the worst semester I've ever had by far (except for the semester I had my breakdown). I can live with bad grades if I couldn't do the work, but I could do the work - I just didn't have the time around everything else last semester, and I got too far behind to ever catch up. Plus it's been raining practically every day. It's sort of refreshing, I guess, but it also has been somewhat gloomy and depressing.

Last night, though, after having gone through the ins and outs of outpatient hospital procedures for my grandma's colonoscopy and then getting her home and comfortable, I had two letters in the mail from BGSU, my university. It would appear that, based on my "poor grades" last semester, I am being dropped for financial aid next year. Keep in mind, I still have a GPA higher than most people at 3.48 cumulative, but that apparently doesn't matter and I'll be held accountable for one screwed up semester.

There's nothing I can figure out to fix this. With no financial aid, I no0t only don't have money to pay for tuition and fees for classes, but I don't have money to survive - no money for books, no money for insurance for the car or gasoline to get to and from Bowling Green, no money to eat when I'm there the whole day, no money to pay for my cell phone so my grandma can contact me if she needs me, and no money to cover the minimum amounts due on the credit cards that have been supplementing my inadequate financial aid for the past few years of college. That doesn't even consider money to cover an internet connection, the costs for my website, or anything else that might come up. If it came down to it, I could charge my bursar fees for this last year of classes to my credit cards, but I'd be maxed out by that and not even have enough credit left for books, let alone gas and other necessities.

This brings me to the catch-22 that I've faced all along: if I for some reason I lose financial aid, I can't afford classes. To afford classes, I'd have to work, not just part-time but full-time for long enough to have the money to go. If I work full-time, I can't juggle school, my grandma, and work, so I'd have to work long enough to get enough cash to pay for school and expenses for this last year. If I don't go to school for six months or more (which would be the case if I had to work), I would have to start paying back my $40,000+ of student loans. And if I had to start paying my student loans (in addition to my credit card debts and cost of living), I'd have to keep working to be able to pay them completely before I'd be able to go back to school, thus meaning that I'd essentially never be able get back to college and finishing classes to get my degree. Even worse, without the finished degrees, I'm not even as marketable as I was when I last worked since so much time has passed since I was at Kinko's and since I wouldn't have anything to show for the time that I haven't been working (i.e., a college degree). That means that I'd be stuck at the bottom of the heap, forced to work at some worthless minimum wage job and trying to claw my way up like I did in the past, only this time I'm quite sure I wouldn't have the patience or the drive to pull it off.

Honestly, I'll kill myself before I fall into that pitiful existence. As much as I don't like my life and wish I were dead, I'm not a suicidal person, but it would be a totally different situation I'd be dealing with. I don't think I'd hesitate.

That brings us to yet another complicating matter - my grandmother. If I could somehow manage to not kill myself and become a slave laborer for the rest of my life, with no hope of anything better, I'd still have to work 40+ hours a week, and I couldn't be around enough to take care of my grandma, the house, and the yard. If she were younger I could probably do all of that stuff, but with her turning 90 this year, and with her memory failing more and more and her energy levels diminishing over time, I need to be around to keep an eye on her and help her even with simple things like fixing meals, washing dishes, and paying bills. If I'm away too much, particularly for five full days a week, there's no telling what might happen.

So basically I'm fucked. I have no idea what to do. I'm going to appeal to the people at the financial aid office and explain my situation, hoping that they'll be understanding and helpful, but I can't say that I'm very optimistic about that. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. It all looks very bleak right now.

Posted Written at 2:12 AM

 

May 21, 2004

As if I haven't been feeling down enough lately, the proverbial rug was pulled out from under my feet today. Things look very bleak, and I don't know if I can turn things around. Tomorrow I'll try to write about this more in detail, but right now I'm just too freaked out to even write down words.

Posted Written at 12:32 AM

May 20, 2004

I almost didn't get out of bed this morning. It certainly didn't seem worth it.

Now, twelve hours later, it still doesn't seem like it was worth it. What a waste.

Posted at 10:57 PM

May 19, 2004

I hate days like this, where everything has to be such a huge struggle. Of course they're all like this, I guess. So I guess I hate every day. I suppose that's simpler.

Posted at 12:39 AM

May 18, 2004

Wow. What a great column I just read in the San Francisco Chronicle. It's good advice for us all.


The Patriot's Guide To The Revolution

"To preserve the peace of our fellow citizens, promote their prosperity and happiness, reunite opinion, cultivate a spirit of candor, moderation, charity and forbearance toward one another, are objects calling for the efforts and sacrifices of every good man and patriot."
-- Thomas Jefferson

Most Americans would universally agree with Jefferson's definition of a patriot. In addition, most actually think of themselves as patriotic, although, frequently, the form of action patriotism takes is quite different from one U.S. citizen to another.

With support for the occupation in Iraq at an all-time low, many Democrats are asking, "Why isn't John Kerry 20 points ahead of Bush in the polls, instead of in a dead heat?" The two-party system may not meaningfully express the wide range of political aspirations of the people. Disenchantment is widespread. There are as many conservatives disappointed by and angry about President Bush's policies on deficits, outsourcing of jobs and the huge expansion of the federal government as there are progressives annoyed by Kerry's support of the war in Iraq and his ambivalence about same-sex marriage.

Increasingly, voters are leaving both parties in droves to become independents. Others, in part out of desperation, are giving another look to the many underreported issues raised by presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who until recently was considered merely a spoiler for the Democrats.

Americans are increasingly feeling that politics is getting more remote. The big-money TV buys that dominate presidential campaigns are a far cry from the retail politics of a New Hampshire or an Iowa, where every coffee shop and bingo parlor in the state has been visited repeatedly by every presidential aspirant. But, to many, even those events are merely photo ops. The voters are often struck by the relentless feeling of disenfranchisement wrought by the onslaught of TV-sound-bite politics.

Even the alleged watchdog media apparently speaks in a unified voice. And why not, when six global corporations control more than half of all mass media -- newspapers, magazines, books, radio and television -- in our country? Gone are the days of independent investigative reporters. Now, the papers all read as though the articles are all from the same wire stories and corporate press releases.

How else can you explain the media's near-unanimous sense of moral outrage over America's prison-abuse excesses, demanding immediate courts-martial and the resignation of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld? Yet the same media wanted a go-slow approach and showed little or no outrage over Saddam's far more heinous war crimes and his notoriously brutal torture chambers. The major distinction missed by much of the media is that torture is for us not a state policy but an aberration, unlike as for much of the Middle East.

A Patriot's Guide to Political Activism

The din is deafening. How does a small group of individuals effectively gain a voice anymore that rises above the noise?

How is it possible that a million mothers can march on Washington and just a scant few of the political elite bother to take notice? It happened because they marched when Congress was out of session. There are ways, however, for a few patriots or even an individual to take up Jefferson's call and make a difference.

Get Involved with Your Local Political Party: Regardless of which party you belong to, it needs your assistance in registering new voters. It could use help with phone banking at election time, and it never has enough volunteers throughout the year. In California, local party leaders are elected. If your party isn't cutting the mustard, run for a seat on the County Central Committee, the local steering body of your party. Call your local county-elections officials to find out what it takes to run. The process is painless, and, in most communities, you can become an elected official without spending more than $100.

Put the "Party" back in the Party: Throwing a party or get-together at your house is a great way of connecting with people. Small house parties are a great way to meet and support local candidates and connect with like-minded community members.

Start an Issues-Oriented Committee: Start with only five friends, and you could form a powerful group. If, for example, your group is interested in preserving after-school sports programs, start networking with other parent groups, plus schoolteachers and counselors. Pretty soon, you'll need an auditorium to hold your meetings.

Check out Meetup.com: Meetup.com is the Web site that put Howard Dean on the map and got him rolling in the chips. He collected tens of millions of dollars a month in campaign funds, and it all started with a simple grassroots group facilitated by Meetup.com.

It was Will Rogers who famously said, "I don't belong to any organized party. I'm a Democrat." In fact, if group-membership figures on the Meetup.com Web site are any reasonable indication, the Democrats are far better organized than the Republicans. A liberal grassroots group called Democracy for America has 165,000 activist members on Meetup.com, compared to only 24,000 members of Townhall.com, a conservative organization. Similarly the Democratic Party has 52,000 Meetup.com members, compared to a measly 7,700 Republican members on the site.

There are already thousands of groups you can join online; most already meet in a community near you. If they don't, Meetup.com makes it easy for you to get a local group organized. Or, if you don't see an organization that interests you, it enables you to begin one. I just joined an East Bay conservative Meetup.com group, and I'm so happy now that I no longer have to just talk to the wall.

Triangulate: Once you've got your group going, it's a powerful political strategy to triangulate. Create three venues for activism that complement, reinforce and overlap each other. The basics: gatherings of people, media and the Internet.

Build a Media-Friendly Network: For example, if you know of a sympathetic talk-show host, columnist, editor or reporter who cares about your issues, keep him or her in the loop. Develop media contacts. Pretty soon, when you have a big event planned, you may get the publicity you seek. For example, major urban newspapers gave all the details of recent peace marches before they occurred.

Create a Web site: Once you've got your group meeting in a physical location, you'll need a place for them to gather between meetings. A Web site will fill that need and attract new members.

Know Your Enemy: If you just stick around with your own like-minded group, you'll grow stale. Understanding the opposition is basic to learning how to defeat it. To understand the thinking of your opponents is the most fundamental and ancient form of espionage. In this case, read their Web sites and their newspapers and listen to their speakers. If you're conservative, watch CNN, ABC, NBC or CBS for the liberal spin, or listen to NPR or the Pacifica radio stations; you may need a barf bag, but do it. If you're a liberal, watch the Fox News TV network, or, on radio, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. It may drive you insane -- if you weren't already before you began listening.

Don't Write to Your Congressional Representatives -- Visit Them: Most mail to members of Congress gets tossed straight into the recycling bin. If you're lucky, an aide might count your letter as one of thousands before it's discarded. But don't hold your breath about the possibility that your thoughtfully written letter will even become a statistic.

Members of Congress always say they want to hear from the little people, but they don't. Set up meetings to get in front of their faces. Find out when Congress or the Legislature has its recess. You can then often find your representative in his or her home office. Make an appointment, and then get your Meetup.com group or your issues group to go together. Make your group sound big and important. After all, to you, it is big and important.

Bypass the Media: The media loves to point figures and dish out criticism, but, believe me, they can't take it. The media folks have big egos and thin skins. If a column or news story is inaccurate, or if another major story is simply not getting covered, you can do several things. First, complain; if it's a big newspaper, it might have a reader's representative. Lay out your grievance to the rep clearly. If he or she finds merit in your argument, the rep will make sure your side gets heard. Or, if the paper has no reader rep, take your beef directly to the reporter or an editor.

Also, if you have a unique perspective -- for example, you're a retired colonel and the local military base in your community is closing -- consider writing a guest column. Editors are always looking for guest columnists, and, if you have any expertise or specialized knowledge, you're ahead of the game. Editors seek out intelligent writers, and your column will be prominently read on the opinion pages.

If you think the media is too liberal, you're not alone; check out and join Accuracy in Media or the Media Research Center. If you think it's too conservative, look up Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting or Common Dreams.

Phone Talk-Show Hosts: This is probably the most satisfying of all the instant-gratification media strategies. You get to say what you wish, immediately and unedited. It's exciting, and your viewpoint can reach tens of thousands of minds instantly.

Better yet, if you've got an issue, arrange an expert in the subject to appear on the program as a guest. Call the talk-show host's producer.

Run for Office: In many communities, some elected offices don't require much money for anyone to be a competitive candidate. There are races for school boards, water boards, transportation districts, community-college boards, sanitary districts and so on that control many millions of dollars and can be effective platforms to help you articulate your unique perspective. Check with your local elections official to find out what offices are being contested and what the qualifications are for candidacy.

Support Candidates Who Share Your Stands on Issues: If you don't have the guts, the will power, the interest or the time to run, support candidates who do. Write checks, compose letters to the editor, host coffees in your home and volunteer for campaigns.

Start Your Own Revolution: Several years ago, the City had to cut back the number of police officers in order to finance burgeoning social programs, including health care for the expanding indigent and immigrant population.

A friend of mine decided to do something about it: He single-handedly organized a petition drive to require a minimum number of officers in the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). Eventually, the proposition, known as the Full Force Initiative, got on the ballot and passed. Now, the SFPD has a minimum staffing level. It's amazing that, even in liberal San Francisco, an initiative like that could pass. Apparently, even liberals don't want their heads split open by a thief in the night.

Join and Support a Big, Established Organization: Joining a group that already is taking its fight to the streets is a big plus. If you're so angry that you don't want to sit there and take it anymore, don't. If you're for property rights, consider supporting groups such as the Pacific Legal Foundation, or, for taxpayers' rights, consider the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

If you're for protecting the legal rights of prisoners locked up at Guantánamo Bay, join the ACLU or if you're against the war in Iraq, check out Indymedia.org. If you want the conservative spin, log on to Lucianne.com or Freerepublic.

If you want to be politically successful, have a plan and carry it out. It can be as complex or as simple as you want; simplicity is sometimes better. It was inventor and genius Thomas Edison who once opined that success is "10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration." That may sound like a bit too much commitment and a lot of work for the novice getting involved in politics, but it was comedian Woody Allen who morphed Edison's timeless wisdom with the opinion that "90 percent of success is just showing up." They're both right.

Posted at 1:58 AM

May 17, 2004

Today marked the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education that struck down "separate but equal" segregation laws in American schools. This was a key element of the push for equal treatment for minorities, and the Civil Rights movement had one of its greatest victories on that day fifty years ago.

As would be expected, both Emperor Bush and presidential hopeful John Kerry made speeches today to praise that decision to end segregation. Neither of them mentioned that recent studies have shown school again tending toward segregation as whites move to private schools and leave public schools largely (over 70% in much of the South) attended by black students. Both candidates turn a blind eye to such problems in the face of a photo opportunity as they praise Brown vs. Board of Education. I don't suppose I should be surprised.

Emperor Bush is something of an enigma about race. He seems to support equal rights for racial minorities, having African-Americans in key government positions up to the highest ranks of the cabinet, but I have to wonder how much of those appointments are sincere and how much they might just be for show. Let's not forget that when Bush was in Texas he executed more people than had ever been executed before during his term in office, and over 80% of those people were black. Bush has also done incredibly little to help African-Americans with opportunities for college and he has tried to break down certain parts of Affirmative Action. He certainly looks like he's inclusive of other races, but I have great doubts that it is anything more than a way to get votes.

John Kerry, while much more liberal and socially conscious, is almost as much of an enigma, not because of the contrariness of appearances to actions like Bush, but because he just makes no solid expression about the struggle for racial equality. Yes, he said in today's speech that we still have a lot to do to bring true equality, but what does he plan to do to assure the sort of efforts that will make all people truly equal? Now more than ever,the struggle for racial equality is making little ground. Not only are African-Americans still facing inequality, but Hispanics people and other minorities are struggling as well. In fact, Americans of Middle-Eastern descent have had terrible hardships in the last few years, and nothing has been done to ensure their equal treatment under the law and under social standards. Praising Brown vs. Board of Education is great, but that was fifty years ago. Rather than take a photo op and try to score points with minorities, why don't you tell me what you're going to do now to improve the struggle for equal rights? Here's the article I mentioned. I'll continue this rant afterward.

Bush, Kerry Mark Brown Anniversary

TOPEKA, Kansas (CNN) -- President Bush and Sen. John Kerry marked the 50th anniversary of a landmark Supreme Court decision on school integration with separate speeches Monday that hailed progress in the fight for racial equality but said the battle was not won.

Their speeches played out against the backdrop of the upcoming presidential election, as Republicans try to break what has been a virtual lock by Democrats on the African-American vote when it comes to the White House.

Both Bush and Kerry -- his likely Democratic rival in November -- hailed the court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education. That decision struck down the "separate but equal" practice of segregating students by race.

Bush called the decision a "long time coming" and Kerry called the country "a better place because of Brown."

Their speeches were similar. Both men offered warm praise for those families and civil rights leaders who challenged the segregation laws of that time. Both men spoke of lingering racial disparities in opportunity and achievement within America's schools. And both men said the dream of a society were race does not matter had not yet been realized.

"Segregation is a living memory, and many still carry its scars," Bush said. "The habits of racism in America have not all been broken."

Kerry's speech never mentioned Bush by name, but the senator took a swipe at the administration's policies, particularly education.

"You cannot promise no child left behind and then pursue policies that leave millions of children behind," Kerry said, referring to a White House education measure that calls for more testing of both students and teachers and ties funding, in part, to success at individual schools.

Democrats have charged the administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have not provided states and schools with enough money to comply with some of the new requirements.

Kerry's campaign distributed a critical assessment of Bush's record on civil rights, citing his opposition to affirmative action programs and the Justice Department's handling of various civil rights cases.

"Today, more than ever, we need to renew our commitment to one America," Kerry said. "We should not delude ourselves into thinking that the work of Brown is done when there are those who still seek, in different ways, to see it undone. To rollback affirmative action -- to restrict equal rights --- to undermine the promise of our Constitution."

In his speech, Bush also steered clear of any mention of his opponent. And he also avoided any specific discussion of his policies.

He did, however, make a general reference to his education policy.

"While our schools are no longer segregated by law, they are still not equal in opportunity and excellence," Bush said. "Justice requires more than a place in a school. Justice requires that every school teach every child in America."

Bush has criticized schools for what he's called the "soft bigotry of low expectations," saying some schools move minority students through the system without making sure they've met basic academic standards.

Kerry spoke first at a commemoration ceremony on the steps of the Kansas state Capitol. Bush appeared in the afternoon at the former Monroe Elementary School, one of the schools at issue in the case and now a national historic site.

In 2000, Bush won roughly 9 percent of the African-American vote. While Bush has said he wants to win a great share of that vote, a recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that Kerry has the support of 87 percent of likely African-American voters.

Meanwhile, as Bush and Kerry stump for votes while praising Brown vs. Board of Education, gay men and lesbians were legally getting married in Massachussettes, the first gay marriages specifically allowed under the law. Even as Bush was praising the decision of Brown vs. Board of Education to end segregation, he sternly called again for a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, thereby condoning segregation. The even larger difference here is that Bush is not merely suggesting segregation, where gays would have a "separate but equal" form of union to marriage, he is disallowing any sort of union at all (because, as you may or may not know, the latest version of the Musgrave proposal for the Constitutional amendment, the one Bush supports, would disallow any form of same-sex union, even denying any legal rights to individual laws that emulate the benefits of marriage). Bush is a complete bigot regarding this issue, and unlike his stance regarding racial equality, he doesn't even try to disguise his bigotry with token appointments of gays (he has appointed some, but he ends up quietly firing all of them shortly after the photo ops). Bush is clearly an enemy of gay people everywhere because he seeks to make us all second-class citizens who do not merit equal treatment under the law. There's really no other way to look at it. In fact, there's an interesting quote made today regarding Bush:

"President Bush is putting himself in the company of segregationists who made the same attacks on judges who upheld the constitutional rights of African-American people exactly 50 years ago today, after Brown v. Board of Education. These are different issues and a different generation, but the same old smear tactic. It didn't work to circumvent our system of justice 50 years ago, and it won't work today."

- Kevin Cathcart, Executive Director of Lambda Legal on President George W. Bush's renewed call Monday for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Unfortunately, Kerry isn't much better. While Kerry is not so clearly anti-gay and hateful, he still will not support gay marriage. Whether that's because he is, in his own way, bigoted and favors only a "separate but equal" approach with civil unions or whether he is just a coward who won't stand up for what he believes, hoping to court conservative votes by not appearing too liberal, is hard to determine. Either way, however, doesn't make him the friend of gay people. He's either a bigot or a coward who won't stand up for our rights - either way, we're left once again in the position of being second-class citizens. Granted, Kerry is still the lesser of two evils in this (and many other) issues, but it is hard to have any desire to support his presidency when he has clearly no interest in supporting us.

Posted at 1:49 AM

May 16, 2004

So ... yeah, the depression's back - not as bad as it often is, but enough to make me tried and unhappy and empty-feeling. It's just no fun. I'm my own worst enemy when it gets like this - everything (and everyone) I see or hear about in some way manages to fuel my depression, and I just sink deeper and deeper. Most of the time I think I'd just be better off if I walled myself off in a cave when I start getting truly depressed, keeping myself from any contact with anyone at all, even from just seeing people. That doesn't really sound all too appealing either, but it certainly seems like the lesser of two evils.

Posted at 1:01 AM

May 15, 2004

What an incredibly appropriate quote for our times:

"[I]t is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about [the President's] acts... To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

- Teddy Roosevelt,
Kansas City Star, May 7, 1918.

Posted at 11:48 PM

May 14, 2004

As usual, former president Jimmy Carter speaks the words of wisdom, truth, and simplicity that everyone, the media particularly, should have long ago had the common sense to see for themselves. He's a better man than me, too, because I'm sure I could never be so reserved in castigating the Bush administration for their culpability in a wide range of human rights violations. Read the column Mr. Carter wrote for today's Washington Post and see what I mean.

The Seeds Of a Rights Scandal In Iraq
by Jimmy Carter

To ensure that additional human rights embarrassments will not befall the United States, we must examine well-known, high-level and broad-based U.S. policies that have lowered our nation's commitment to basic human rights.

Immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, many traumatized and fearful U.S. citizens accepted Washington's new approach with confidence that our leaders would continue to honor international agreements and human rights standards.
But in many nations, defenders of human rights were the first to feel the consequences of these changes, and international humanitarian organizations began expressing deep concern to each other and to high-level U.S. military and government officials about the adverse impact of the new American policies, and to promulgate reports of actual abuses.

Some of their recommendations were quite specific, calling for vigilant independent monitoring of U.S. detention facilities and strict enforcement of Geneva Convention guidelines. Others were more general, describing the impact of these policies on defenders of freedom and human rights around the world. These expressions of concern have been mostly ignored until recently, when photographs of prisoner abuse let Americans finally see some of the consequences of our government's policies in graphic, human terms.
Some prominent concerns were:

• Extended incarceration of arbitrarily detained men of Middle Eastern origin living in the United States -- deprived of access to lawyers or to their families, and never charged with a crime.

• Civilians and soldiers arbitrarily detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without access to legal counsel or being charged with any crime. The secretary of defense announced that they could be held indefinitely even if tried and found to be innocent.

• The secretary of defense's declaration, expressing official policy, that Geneva Convention restraints would not apply to interrogation of prisoners suspected of involvement in terrorist activities.

• Persistent complaints from the International Committee of the Red Cross about prisoner abuse in several U.S. prisons in foreign countries.

• Reports by respected news media outlets that some accused terrorists were being sent to Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia or other countries where torture was thought to be acceptable as a means of extracting information.

These American decisions had an immediate global impact. In response to urgent requests from human rights defenders from many countries, the late Sergio Vieira de Mello, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and I agreed that it would be helpful to hear directly from a representative group. After the high commissioner's tragic death in Iraq last August, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Bertrand Ramcharan to serve as my co-chair, and in November 2003 the Carter Center brought together leaders of human rights and democracy movements from 41 nations.

We learned from these nonviolent activists that U.S. policies are giving license to abusive governments and even established democracies to stamp out legitimate dissent and reverse decades of progress toward freedom, with many leaders retreating from previous human rights commitments. Lawyers, professors, doctors and journalists told of being labeled as terrorists, often for merely criticizing a government policy or carrying out their daily work. Equally disturbing are reports that in some countries the U.S. government has pushed regressive counterterrorism laws, based on the USA Patriot Act, that undermine democratic principles and the rule of law. Some American policies are being challenged by Congress and the federal courts, but the reversal of such troubling policies is unlikely in countries where legislative and judicial checks and balances are not well developed.

We decided to share the disturbing findings with the media and public officials. In addition to a one-hour roundtable discussion on CNN, participants from Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights), the Carter Center, and defenders from Egypt, Kenya and Liberia went to Washington and met with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz; the undersecretary of state for global affairs, Paula Dobriansky; and legislative leaders. The group also participated in a forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and met with editors of the New York Times and The Post.

In each case, the adverse impact of new U.S. policies on the protection of freedom and human rights was described with specific proof and human experiences. These officials listened attentively and promised to consider ways to alleviate the problem. As subsequent events have revealed, there were no significant reforms at the highest levels of our government.

In many countries, the leaders of human rights and democracy movements represent our best hope for a safer and more just world in which fewer people will succumb to extremism fueled by hatred and fear. These human rights defenders on the front lines of freedom are our real allies, and the United States must make long-term commitments to support -- not undermine -- them.

In the interests of security and freedom, basic reforms are needed in the United States and elsewhere, including restrictions on governments' excessive surveillance powers; reassertion of the public's right to information; judicial and legislative review of detentions and other executive functions; and strict compliance with international standards of law and justice.

The United States must regain its status as the champion of freedom and human rights.

Former president Carter is chairman of the Carter Center in Atlanta. The center's current report on human rights defenders is available at www.cartercenter.org.

Posted at 12:35 AM

May 13, 2004

You'd be amazed the sort of things my grandmother keeps stuffed into drawers, closets, and piles here and there. She is quite my opposite with anything involving organization, and she has receipts, old bank statements, paid bills, years of old insurance policies, and all sorts of other financial data - as well as photos, addresses scribbled on millions of scraps of paper, newspaper clippings of obituaries or recipes or something she thought was funny, old pens that she really liked but don't work any more, ... there's simply no way to catalog all of it - and all of these assorted goodies (along with saved rubber bands, plastic bags, twist-ties, scraps of cardboard, etc.) are mixed together in a million different places. It's a miracle she can find anything, and many times she can't. And if she can't find something, what luck will I have?

I don't know when it became like this. My grandma claims that she's always been like this, and maybe she has as far as keeping things randomly in drawers and closets, but it's only in the past ten years that she's had piles of papers and "stuff" here and there in the living room, on the chairs and in small piles on the floor in the dining room, and spread over the entire surface of the dining room table. I take a stab at things every once in a while, just to straighten them out a bit, but since there's no real place to put things away, I can't really file anything.

As a result of all of this, I started trying to get my grandma to use some file boxes and file folders not long after I moved here. It has been only moderately helpful, but I'm pushing her toward it and she's actually using the files more and seeing the benefits. Last week we bought boxes of file folders and hanging file folders to really get things organized. My thought is that if I can set up files for each type of bill, clearly labeled and alphabetized, she can at least put the old bills into those files after she pays them. She's sort of doing that now, since she started using the file boxes, but she's putting all of the statements from the month's bills in a file rather than separating them by company. Even so, we are making some progress.

Today I started what I intend to be a weekly endeavor for my grandma and me - going through the drawers and closets and piles and filing things, finding a place for them properly, or throwing them away. We started, innocently enough, with the bottom drawer of her desk. That task took us about three hours and wore her out, but we threw away (or shredded) old bills and statements from the '80s as well as old insurance policies and other now-useless stuff. When all was said and done, we had eliminated nearly 4/5 of what was originally there, and my grandma had no arguments about letting those things go. Had she been left to do it herself, she probably wouldn't have even started, but she also would have taken a few weeks because she would have read each single piece of paper thoroughly, a few times probably, reminisced and remembered about it, and then wondered if there would ever be some remote chance that she might possibly need it for something ... and therefore decide not to throw it away because she's rather not have to make a decision. Fortunately, I have none of those limitations, and while we did gop through some reminiscing, I quickly found what each document was about and we gave my suggestions on whether it was useful or not.

Doing this sort of thing each week may well get annoying, but it is absolutely necessary. Even my grandma likes the idea of getting it all organized, even though she dreads the thought of working through it all. Hopefully, though, we will spend a few hours each week and go through these things. By the end of the summer, I hope to have files that make sense to not only her but to me as well, and we'll probably have a lot of extra drawer and closet space as well. At least that's what I'm shooting for. Time will tell.

Posted at 12:14 AM

May 12, 2004

There's a great column in the Washington Post today, talking about kids and sports. It's important to me for two reasons. First, while the kid in this story is sure his dad will be okay with his choice to stop playing a sport, I remember clearly how hard it was to get out of baseball and football (even at the early ages that I did) because of my father's expectations. Even when I later was goalie on a team that won the league title two years in a row, and even when I was on the Varsity tennis team, I was nothing to my father because I wasn't playing "real" sports that "real" men played (by his definitions); those sports would have been baseball, football, or basketball, none of which held enough interest for me (and for which I had no aptitude) to like. It took very little time for my father to resent me and me to resent not only my father but also those sports, and I have never gained any appreciation for those games.

The other thing that I think is important to note in this article is how the kid in the story actually told the coach that all of the fun was being taken out of baseball for him. I think that this is a regular problem in America today because winning matters too much. To put so much pressure on kids for a game, something they are 99.9% sure to never make a career from, is ridiculous. It's a game for goodness sakes. It's supposed to just be fun - challenging, yes, and even something that you enjoy winning, but it should also be something where losing isn't a catastrophe. Too many coaches and too many parents put so much pressure on being the best, where winning is demanded at every instant, are the reason that kids lose something that was fun and get wrapped up in an impossible quest to never fail.

Let kids be kids, I say, and let them play. But more importantly, let them lose and let them see that they can survive that and do so with dignity. That sort of lesson will help them more in life than teaching them that they must always win and never stop. Anyhow, here's the column.

Teaching Zack the Game of Life

My son Zack quit baseball last month. He played second base for his high school team. For 14 years, since he was four, baseball was the thing he loved more than anything else. He told me it just wasn't fun anymore. Here's what he told his coach: "I loved playing baseball until I met you. Each year you taught me to enjoy it less. And if I continue to play for you, I risk not even liking the game at all."

Not playing baseball is a loss for Zack. I catch him lying on his bed listening to music with his mitt on. When he was 10 and got his first really good mitt, he never took it off. But this is different. He holds the mitt like an artifact, something left behind by death. He looks at it the way he once looked at a small piece of wood I showed him when he was 7 or 8. I explained that it was part of the wing of an airplane his great-grandfather flew into combat in World War I. When the war was over, my grandfather removed the piece from the plane and carved my grandmother's name into it. That wing holds a part of Zack's history; it's a piece of who he is. The mitt is, too.

For a lot of kids, especially boys, playing a game is the first thing that makes them feel alive. Football taught me that I could work at something and master it. Something that mattered in a way that school didn't. Football was the first thing I cared about enough to suffer for. Every day in the summer before I entered high school, I would throw 150 passes through a tire my father rigged in the entrance of the garage for me.

If football was my first love, baseball was Zack's. But first love is fickle. By the time I was 17, in the summer before my senior year of high school, I had grown tired of playing football. I was the starting quarterback, but I wanted to quit. There was a problem, though. I'd have to tell my father, the man who missed work to come to every game, who caught a million of my passes, who believed in me when the coach didn't. On the walls of our locker room, the axioms athletes live by were scrawled like graffiti. One of them haunted me as I figured out how to tell my father: "A quitter never wins and a winner never quits." While my father wasn't a macho jock type, I believed he'd be disappointed in me, that he'd remind me I was letting my teammates down.

When I told him, he smiled and said, "I'm proud of you. You've learned something it took me 40 years to learn, something most people never learn -- to follow your heart, not other people's expectations."

Thirty years later, I still get more satisfaction out of my father's words than I do out of anything I ever did on the field. Zack knows this story. And so I know he wasn't worried about telling me he was going to quit. Which leaves him free to deal with his own loss and to look for his next love. Whatever that is, I hope he brings to it the passion and joy he brought to fielding a baseball.

Posted at 11:48 PM

May 11, 2004

Note to self - buy earplugs to simulate your grandmother's lack of hearing when she doesn't put in her hearing aids (which is more often than not). This will save you from going going deaf from the TV volume she has to use.

Posted at 11:53 PM

May 10, 2004

A little over a week ago I got an e.mail from an old girlfriend of mine. She had decided to try to find me, and a search of the web revealed my website pretty easily. She was surprised to find that not only did she find me but that I live in the same city, not too far from each other.

Valerie and I have a fairly long history, having dated for a year during high school (my junior year mostly) and then dating for a year again later, about five years after I had graduated high school and just after I had gotten out of jail and moved to Akron, Ohio. Val and I could talk about all sorts of things, had a deep knowledge of each other, and just tended to get along really well. There were many times I thought we'd eventually get married, but various things kept that from happening (among them my acceptance that I was (and am) gay). The last time I saw Val was at my class reunion in '95, nine years ago. She was married to Shawn, a guy who graduated in my same class but whom I only really knew by name. We had talked briefly then, and that was the last I heard of her until just recently.

It took me a couple days to reply, being that I was pulling out my hair trying to finish my last class assignments, but once I responded, she sent regular e.mails, and we planned to meet and talk, tonight being the night we'd arranged.

We met a little coffee shop and had no trouble striking up conversation. I had wondered how weird the whole experience might be, all things considered, but we got along great, and it wasn't at all uncomfortable. The coffee shop closed within an hour of our getting together, so we decided to head to Chili's and get a bite to eat and talk some more. Val's husband had stayed at home with their two little girls, and Val called him before going to Chili's to make sure he knew that I wasn't taking her somewhere to murder her (I'm not making this up). It was amusing in its way, and I'll give Shawn credit for being so good-natured about letting his wife go out alone to have dinner with an old boyfriend. Granted, it's not like anything was going to happen (because I don't get involved with people in committed relationships, let alone the fact that I'm gay), but he had no reason to know or be sure of any of that.

Anyhow, we munched on some good food at Chili's and talked for nearly another three hours. We caught each other up on the various things going on with us and our families and family members, and we both we interested in how we'd each gotten to be where we are now (as well as where we're going). We found it so easy to talk that we didn't even talk about old friends or reminisce about the past - we had plenty to catch up on, having more than nine years of life events for each of us.

It was a good time, even better than I would have guessed - not that I expected it to be unpleasant or anything. It was just fun, and it felt comfortable. It's great to know somebody who's in Sandusky other than my grandma, believe me, and to have that person be somebody I can talk to is great. We plan to try to get together about once a month or so to keep in touch. It sounds like a good plan to me, and I'm looking forward to seeing Val's two daughters next time and also getting to know Shawn. I have concerns that it may feel a little weird, but I had those concerns this time as well, and it's very obvious now that I had nothing to worry about in the first place.

Posted at 2:57 AM

May 9, 2004

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were crazy busy days, jam-packed with doctors' appointments for my grandma, errands to be run, tasks to be done, cleaning stuff - you name it. I was running pretty much non-stop from early in the morning 'til late at night getting stuff done. I even got most of what I wanted to get done accomplished.

My plan had been to work hard and then play light - relaxing over the weekend and doing nothing but watch TV, play computer games, read a little bit, and be a lump. Unfortunately, it didn't work out quite that well. I still had a few things left over that I wanted to finish task-wise, some of which I did yesterday and some today, and I still had some stuff to do for my grandma (mostly driving her to and from a few places and fixing meals, but also setting up her new cordless phone, new coffee maker, and taking care of some plants), and that stuff was done a bit yesterday and a bit today.

Around all of the task-type-stuff, though, I did get some chances to relax and enjoy. Yesterday I got to read some great newly-released chapters of some of the better online stories I follow, and I also started reading all of the strips in the online comic megatokyo, a manga-like story that Steve made me aware of when I saw him on Thursday. I've been reading from the very first strips, and I really like the whole comic. Even after reading a lot yesterday and today, though, I've only read about 300 of over 550 strips, so I've still a ways to go to get up to where I'm reading them as they come out, like I do with the other online comics I read.

I also watched TV a bit yesterday and today, mostly doing other stuff while the TV droned on in the background, but paying closer attention to the Blues Brothers movie last night and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone tonight. They were both enjoyable.

The big thing, though, was that I went back to playing Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. I had played some of this fourth and final entry into the wonderful Baldur's Gate series early in the semester, but I put it away as things got busier. Partly I put it away because school was occupying my time, but also I stopped because I'd hit something of a wall, facing a dragon that just would not die, no matter how hard I tried. As I went back into the game this time, I went in full force, and I managed to kill that dragon and two even more dangerous and troublesome dragons afterward. Then I went past that and finished off the whole game. My main character was even offer3ed godhood but he turned it down, having seen that absolute power corrupts absolutely (I was quite pleased with myself).

I was pretty pissed off last night because I managed to lose the whole Journal entry I'd written to post here, and it had been fairly long. I was about to retype all of it, in my fury, and then I just decided "Fuck it" and wrote the bitchy line I did as yesterday's entry. Oh well. I don't often have problems where I somehow lose what I've written for this Journal, but it happens. I'll live. And most of what I had wanted to say is in this entry, even if it's condensed quite a bit from my exposition that I would have posted yesterday if it hadn't disappeared. So it's no big deal.

Tomorrow maybe I'll finish looking through megatokyo. I have other plans as well, but that will have to wait until tomorrow night's Journal entry.

Posted Written at 12:01 AM

May 8, 2004

Fuckin' piece of shit motherfucker!

Posted at 2:37 AM

May 7, 2004

Today was another crazy day, partly filled with more cleaning and organizing and scheduling of various maintenance people, but the larger part of the day was all about shopping: groceries, household supplies, hardware, and other things. Part of that involved getting folders and various office supplies for organizing all of my grandma's bills and records (which is a life's worth of organizing work, but something that has to be done), and part of our trip was just shopping for a new phone and answering machine combo for my grandma. Simple, right? No ... nothing is simple when my grandma and technology are put together.

My grandma uses technology alright after she's been taught how (although it may sometimes take a while), but she has no concept of how things interact (such as when she was convinced that you had changing your cable service meant you had to buy a new TV). Simply explaining that the two phones she has right now are in no way interdependent was a task all of its own (she was sure she had to get rid of or replace both if she was going to get rid of one, and I had to go over that situation repeatedly). Explaining the feature differences of one phone to another to her in the store, and then trying to get her to decide on a single choice, even though I helped wheedle it down to two choices and even made my final suggestions ... well, it still took us about 45 minutes to make a final choice. That's fine. I want to take as much time as necessary to make sure she is happy, but I also realize that that was just the beginning of a series of explanations I'll have to provide about how the phone works or how it needs a battery in the cordless headset even though the base is connected to the wall outlet. I'll have to explain the same things quite a few times until she gets it, and it will get tedious after a while, but any technology is completely alien to her, so it's always a challenge to make a change. The phone is bought, though, and that's the larger part of the battle.

Posted Written at 12:13 AM

May 6, 2004

Today was quite a day, full of accomplishments and full of visiting. I got up at the horribly early hour of 6 AM to get myself cleaned up and together and then made my way to Toledo. The drive up Ohio Route 2 was pretty with all of the fresh Spring greenery and the lake behind it all. If I hadn't still been a little tired it would have been great.

Part of my trip to Toledo was just checking out what's new as I drove around, and that started on the way into the city as I checked out work on the new I-280 bridge, the largest, most expensive project ever for the Ohio Board of Transportation. It's pretty fucking huge, and while work has slowed on some aspects since one of the pouring cranes collapsed, other parts of the bridge and highway are still rapidly progressing.

I also checked out the new Glass Museum that will be a new building across from the Toledo Museum of Art that houses all of the works in glass. Right now it's just a big pit as construction gets underway, but the design for the Glass Museum looks pretty cool, being a clear glass building from all sides.

There were also a bunch of new businesses all around Toledo and a bunch of redeveloped and reclaimed buildings and spaces, all of it making Toledo seem much more productive and financially healthy than Sandusky.

My first stop in Toledo was to get my electric razor fixed. I have a really great Braun shaver that has been very reliable, but the head assembly became loose and disjoint recently and it's been nearly impossible to shave (and probably a miracle that the razor still worked at all). I really dislike facial hair, and shaving every day is a must for me, so this was a priority. Toledo has a great little store called the Appliance and Shaver Shop, and they repair all sorts of stuff, particularly razors. I went in, they put in an entirely new assembly, and because I've only had my Braun shaver for just under two years, it was free under warranty. What a deal!

From the Shaver Shop I went to the Yark mega-auto dealership. I've been going here for years, and I've been holding onto a recall notice since late February for my car (a 1998 Oldsmobile Cutlass GLS), and I wanted to get this taken care of now that I have a little time. The dealership was, as always, very courteous and very fast, getting me out in about an hour, even after having found something else to repair. I spent a little time before I left to check out the Chrysler Crossfire, a new car that has really caught my eye. It's 80% built by Mercedes, and it's a sweet little car. Too bad I don't have an extra $30,000+ lying around.

I had talked to Steve earlier, while I was in the waiting room, but his line was busy each time I called back, so I went to Christiana's Mom's house to pick up an old, non-functioning PC she was giving to Steve to tinker with. Unfortunately, Christiana's step-dad wasn't home and he hadn't left the computer on the back porch as planned, so I ended up returning later, with Steve, and having a conversation with Christiana's mom and step-dad while making the pickup.

Between these two visits, I drove across town to pick Steve up at his place and then drive both of us to lunch at Olive Garden. We had a great meal (I was famished by then), and Steve paid! Again, another bargain!

After lunch and gathering up the computer, we headed to Mark's. I haven't seen Mark in a few years, and he's been married, had two kids, and moved to a different house and still a different house after that before I now have caught up with him. His wife already had two kids of her own, so the house is quite full with a 14-year-old girl, her boyfriend, a 10-year-old boy, a 4-year-old girl, and a 1+ year old girl (and a dog, as well as Mark and his wife). It is a big house with a sea of toys, but I'm happy for Mark. It's almost like a dream for me to see such a family. I ran Mark and Steve around to finish a couple of errands, and we stayed at Mark's and chatted for a while. By about 8 PM, though, I figured we should move along.

Steve and I headed to Thackeray's, a fantastic local bookstore in Toledo. We looked around a bit, but I was specifically looking for (and found) a book on PHP programming language so that I can learn it and then use it to make some significant upgrades to the website before the end of the summer. There's still a lot to do with that, but at least I now have the tools I need to do the job.

From there I took Steve home. We talked for a while more on his front steps, but by 10 PM I decided I should start heading back to Sandusky. I said my goodbyes, headed out, and made stops for gas, an evening snack, and some Sprite.

As I drove back, I talked to Christiana on my cell phone for a brief while, but her cordless phone ran out of power pretty quickly, and we didn't get much of a chance to say anything. I'll catch her in the next couple of days, I'm sure.

By the time I got back it was just after Midnight. My grandma was just making her way to bead and I said my goodnights and got everything cleaned up and put away before settling down to check my e.mail and surf a bit before collapsing. It's late, but it's been a good, full day. I had a good time. It was certainly a nice change of pace.

Posted at 12:57 AM

May 5, 2004

Today has been my domestic day - washing laundry, cleaning windows, polishing woodwork, cleaning glass tabletops, sweeping ... you get the picture. I had to run my grandmother to a couple of appointments as well, so that made juggling things a bit disjoint, but it's all done. Lots and lots of stuff done. It's a good thing. And hey, I even got caught up with my e.mails finally. Who'd have guessed?

So anyhow ... Clean = Good = Moderate Levels of Happiness for me. It's not that the dust and stuff bothers me while it's there; I just feel better about my surroundings when everything's sparkling and bright. I'm not a clean freak, as some people think; I'm a neat freak - everything has to be organized and in its place (for the most part). That leads people to see my place and see no laundry on the floor or glasses on the tables or whatever. They don't seem to notice the solid layers of dust or the soap scum and hairs in the shower. But pretty much I keep a neat house, so I clean more for me than for anybody else's interests (as a side note, I'm never really bothered by other people's houses or apartments that are cluttered or in disarray. It doesn't seem to bother me unless it's my stuff).

Wasn't that fascinating? I'm sure that's what you came here to read. Lucky you. I promise tomorrow's entry will be more interesting. I'm heading to Toledo for the whole day, and I have some practical things to do, but I also intend to see Steve and just shop a bit. It should be relaxing for the most part. and you'll be among the first to know, I assure you ...

Posted at 12:00 AM

May 4, 2004

I was particularly incensed to find out today that my grandma's optician actually schedules you with the expectation that you'll sit for a half hour or more before being seen. Her appointment was at 12:30 PM, and I was concerned because I had to wait for her appointment to be over, take her home, and still drive to Bowling Green and cross campus to turn in a paper by no later than 3:30. It was going to be tight timing under the best of circumstances, and I clearly remembered that the last time we had been to the eye doctor she uses that we had sat for over 45 minutes after our appointment time before they called my grandmother from the waiting room. I hoped that that had just been a fluke, but I was concerned. So we asked when we went in, if the doctor could see her right away. We were a few minutes early, but we just wanted to get in at our scheduled time. No such luck. We were courteously informed that neither of the doctors were available because they were both at lunch and would be for probably a half hour or more. Furthermore, she told us that we should expect to be at least an hour and a half after our appointment time before we were done. I was outraged. We had clearly been told, unapologetically, that were scheduled at a time the doctors weren't even in the office, intentionally scheduling us to sit for a half hour or more in the waiting room before we were seen. My grandmother has seen this optician for a while, and he is pretty much the only optician left in Sandusky, certainly the largest, and there are only one or two other practicing eye doctors in town. My opticians in Toledo always get me in right on time, and I'm generally done within a half hour to forty-five minutes and out the door.

My grandmother simply couldn't understand why I was so upset, so I put the situation in terms she could understand. I asked her if she would be upset if she had made dinner reservations at a restaurant and she was made to wait for a half hour or more before being seated, even though tables were clearly available in the restaurant. She admitted that she would but tried to make excuses for why it would be different for her doctor. I explained that I had never had to wait even five minutes for my eye exams, never in the thirty years I've been to an eye doctor, and she had no response. She was more than content to live with such rude treatment, and she is the person seeing the doctor, not me, but I am infuriated that such bad customer service is practiced so brazenly by anyone.

If you're in Sandusky, go anywhere you can other than Dr. Parschauer's Eye Clinic if you need to have your eyes checked. Who knows when you'd get in otherwise.

Posted Written at 11:49 PM

May 3, 2004

I've been rewriting Blood and Guts to submit as my final writing project for my Fiction Workshop, and it's definitely better than it was, but I'm just not really into it. There are other things I want to write, fun writing stuff, but I'm committed to Blood and Guts (renamed "The Damned"), and there's plenty of other stuff that I should be finishing up for school as well.

So I'm not even enjoying what should be the most enjoyable part of my final projects. I think I'm burning out a bit, and I need to get away from school stuff for a while. Soon, I keep telling myself. It'll all be over soon. Soon just doesn't seem fast enough.

Posted at 10:31 PM

May 2, 2004

If you've been reading this Journal for a while, you know very well that I am very concerned about children who suffer abuse and abandonment. What you may not know is that I have always wanted to take a more active role at helping. If I had the money (which only seems possible if I magically win the lottery), I would buy a campground and transform it into a shelter/home for abandoned and abused kids, particularly gay kids since they often suffer the most because the "child protection" systems don't understand or care about their very specific problems. As much as I'd like to be involved, though, anything short of winning the lottery pretty much leaves me high and dry. My being gay and being a felon makes it pretty much impossible for me because I am screened out of anything where I could be a volunteer. I suppose I agree with the underlying reasoning behind the felony part, considering some drug dealer or murderer could potentially be allowed access to troubled kids, but my crimes were nothing like that, and I am really no threat. Of course my opinion doesn't carry far in these situations.

All of this was sparked by a column I read today in the San Francisco Chronicle. I'm not really shocked by the statistics offered in this article, but I'm very saddened. The foster-care and adoption systems, and child protective services in general, are deplorable and need to be completely overhauled. Keep these thoughts in mind when you vote, when you write to your congressional representatives, and when you decide to charitably support a shelter or other facility or service.

Foster care is un-American

In our "child protection system," children are five times more likely to die from physical abuse and 11 times more likely to be sexually abused than in their own homes, Child Protective Services Watch tells us. The organization also reports that, on average, a foster child will spend at least three years in the system and live in three different homes during their stay in foster care.

It would be a comfort if we could at least say that there are not too many children in the system, but we would be wrong. There are presently over a half a million American children in foster care -- nearly enough children to replace the entire population of our nation's capitol. On any given day, more than 91,000 of those children are Californians (for purposes of comparison, that's roughly the population of Santa Barbara).

Californians should be especially embarrassed and outraged. This state has one of the worst systems for providing child welfare services in the entire country. The Sacramento Bee reported in January that just last summer police burst into a house to arrest suspected drug dealers and found seven children inside who depended on the State of California for their care. Last year when the federal government reviewed states' services for children and families, California failed. In fact, the legislative analyst's office reported that California is the only state that failed more than four of the seven standards for children's safety, well-being and placement in a permanent home.

These children often travel from house to house with their few personal belongings in a used paper grocery bag or thrown over their shoulder in a plastic garbage sack. More than 1 in 10 California foster children will pack their things and move to a home filled with strangers, go to sleep amidst unknown surroundings and often go to a new school five or more times for every 12 months that they have been entrusted to foster care.

The Little Hoover Commission, a California State government oversight organization reports that, despite perhaps good intentions, some experts estimate that nearly half of the children in California's foster system should never have been removed from their families and have been even more traumatized as a result. The children would have benefited most if their families had been given some basic support, treatment and parenting training.

To make matters worse, once children enter the system, the system can't even keep track of them. In any given month the state departments entrusted with tracking these children have no idea where hundreds of them are -- some may be runaways, some may have been kidnapped by relatives, and some are simply unaccounted for.

Our government is funding this system in our names and with our tax dollars. We say this system is un-American. Our system for handling abandoned, neglected and abused children is broken. Consider that a nationwide Casey Foundation Study found that we are spending nearly $100 billion dollars annually on direct and indirect costs associated with child maltreatment and we end up with a system that often appears worse than leaving children in the homes we considered unfit.

Part of the reason so many children end up in this broken system is due to the way that the federal government pays for child-welfare services at the state and county levels; these local governments earn more federal money by having more children in the system. Technically this is called a "perverse incentive." State and county governments receive open-ended funding from the federal government for children who are in the Child Welfare System, while they only get limited funds to provide services that might eliminate the need for some children to be in this system in the first place. Linda Wallace Pate, a veteran attorney in foster cases, justly states that "it's scandalous that the California foster care system has been reduced to a 'kids for cash' system. "

It's easy to start pointing fingers, and social workers -- who are the direct links to these children -- often get the worst rap. In most cases, however, these are compassionate, well-meaning and horrifyingly overworked individuals trying to operate within a broken system.

The real responsibility lies with legislators and voters. With a 2003- 2004 State budget of $1.7 billion ($447 million less than last year's), it is unclear how California will be able to improve its services for our needy children. Nonetheless, even in this period of severe budget cuts and competing priorities, legislators and voters should make these children a top priority.

Over the years there have been multiple attempts to fix the system, and currently the Department of Social Services is implementing a Child Welfare Redesign program. All of these efforts, however, do not go far enough because they do not offer a true redesign of the system - instead they offer only symptom management. Organizations, like the Little Hoover Commission, have provided multiple reports offering thorough descriptions of what needs to change, but unfortunately these are not the changes that are implemented. We must demand centralized oversight, communication, and organization of the state agencies that serve our most disadvantaged children. Moreover, we must take action on behalf of these children who do not have a voice in our political system. After all, these children can't vote.

Posted at 12:16 AM

May 1, 2004

If "April showers bring May flowers," then what do May showers bring?

Most people I've talked to seem quite ill-content with the weather lately. They can't believe it's in the 40's (Fahrenheit) one day and in the low 70's the next. They think Mother Nature has gone crazy. In fact, when it snowed in Cleveland and hailed her in north-central Ohio on Thursday, most people were quiet certain that Mother Nature needed to be committed to an institution. For many of the people I've talked to this is abnormal, but the truth is that this is the way Spring is supposed to work - it's not as cold as winter, plenty rainy, and everything turns green and comes back to life. It is also a clear fact, as I've experienced, that it will snow at least once in April as a dying breath from winter.

Most people seem to think that April means winter is over and temperatures will rise to the 70's and above, bringing clear blue skies and abundant growth. Truly, that was often the case over the last ten years. It was a part of the El Niño effect that we pretty much didn't have Spring - we just went straight from Winter to Summer, and the plants just had to grow as fast as they could to keep up. Now, with El Niño on the wane, Spring is back (both last year and this year), and people don't know how to react. Personally, I like seeing each of the four seasons. I loved California when I was there, but I think I'd really be disappointed if I lived there and never saw a real Spring, Fall, or Winter. Sure, the seasons change there, too, but moving from dry, Wildfire season to wet, Mudslide season isn't quite the same as the beautiful changes of the four full seasons. Don't get me wrong - California has what is pretty much my ideal weather, for temperature, condensation, and breeze - but I couldn't appreciate that weather as much of I couldn't see the good and bad effects of the other seasons as well. Constant summer would just be boring.

So anyhow, Spring is here, and it will still be here for a few more weeks. Summer will be here soon, and with it will come much higher temperatures and raging humidity. Right now, I like seeing Spring in action, even if it is rainy and slightly chilly. It's still really pretty, and it's a nice change from Winter. The April showers are continuing strong, though, so who knows what they'll bring up. I'll just have to wait and see.

Posted at 12:40 AM

 


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Journal, by Paul Cales, © May 2004