You, sir, are a wuss.

Coming out of teh Wal-Mart this evening, we were confronted with a gigantic SUV parked on the sidewalk.

I had expected that someone would be sitting in it, dropping off or picking up a passenger, but no. It was just simply parked there. My mother said that there's just no excuse for parking on the sidewalk like that. (Y'all know Wal-Mart. You know every single store has a parking lot bigger than it is.)

Comes this voice from behind us. "Yes, there is. I'm buying a pool."

Erh? Turned around, and this dude--who, by the way, was in full possession of all his body parts--was grabbing one of these:

A plastic kiddie pool. Which he was apparently incapable of carrying to his vehicle should he park it in, you know a parking space. (Mind you, these pools are off to the side of the Wal-Mart where of course there's that little bit of the lot that almost no one parks in. It's not as if he'd even have had to trek across the driveway with it.) Granted, these things are bulky. But requiring of an able-bodied individual to park on the sidewalk so as to minimize the carrying time? Ah, no. Those things weigh less than the cat food bags my disabled mother managed to put single-handedly into the back of my station wagon a week or so ago. Hell, in all probability they weigh less than the driver's side door on his giganto SUV.

I don't think he much appreciated the immediate laughter and mocking. But at least it amused me all the way home.

(For the record, when I bought a slightly smaller version of this pool at HEB last year, I managed to carry it & my youngest daughter halfway down an aisle to my car.)

Motorcycle Safety from Cracked.com

Cracked Topics: Motorcycle Safety

I'm tempted to pull the pic & put it here, but it's probably all over the internet already, so you'll see it soon enough. Worth the click, though.

From the article:

Just The Facts

1. A motorbike is the bare minimum number of parts required for an engine to reach lethal velocities.
2. As opposed to regular vehicles, motorbikes use the rider to protect themselves.
3. Donorcycles were invented by an aging industrialist to ensure a constant supply of replacement organs. He got all he'd ever need within a year and continues to sell them simply because it's funny.

My favorite part? The helmet is labeled: "Identifying feature preservation device (saves valuable paramedic time)."

Esther Dances

I don't know where she got this from. The other two don't dance like this. It's cute, though, and the kid has great taste in music.




That's Duane Jarvis's "Drive Back to You," by the way.

Another:




This is Waylon's version of "Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line."

Like I said, good taste in music. She got it from me, of course. You might notice (or might not) that she ends both videos by coming in for a kiss. That is how sweet that child is. I am so glad I had her last. If I'd had the sweet, easygoing, easy-nursing baby who would fall asleep on her own after I laid her down slightly awake first and the colicky nipple biter or the suck-all-day-long multi-puker after, I would not have survived. I'd have been completely unprepared.

Why Obama is not a Socialist, and why what he is is much more dangerous.

First of all, let me be very clear here. When I speak of Socialists, I mean Marxists. Karl Marx of course was the progenitor of Socialism as a school of philosophy. The modern political movement that likes to call itself Socialism (or sometimes Communism) is a discrete entity from real Socialism. The Russian Revolution came during Marx's twilight years, and he thought they were idiots.

And so:

It is common to call President Obama a Socialist. He is not.

Why is Obama not a Socialist? To put it simply: Socialism is the takeover of the government by the workers. What Obama is doing with our country is a takeover of the workers by the government. Far from being the apple of Karl Marx's eye, he's doing exactly what Marx accused Captialism of doing--he is using the power of the state to take advantage of the proletariat.

Karl Marx's ultimate vision was one of a simple, direct democracy. Communism would be an outgrowth of Socialism. A true Socialist uprising could not and would not take place until Capitalism had run its course, creating enough wealth. Marx realized that Socialism would never be a revenue-generator like Capitalism. It was not intended to be. Socialism would be where the workers turned their efforts toward leveling the playing field for others of their own class. (My opinion that this philosophy shows a basic lack of understanding of human nature has not changed with gaining a greater understanding of Marx and his teachings.)

Surely you have heard "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." That's Marxist Socialism there. It's a damn good way to live life, not that far from what Jesus preached (thus the common, erroneous, liberal claim that Jesus was surely a Socialist). What those trying to force a bastardized version of Socialism upon this country fail to realize is that, in both Marx's view and in Jesus's view, this arrangement must be entered into voluntarily in order for it to work. Indeed, we can see that on a small scale it can sometimes work. There are a very few communes in existence today wherein people live out the Socialist ideal. Again, though, they are doing it voluntarily and are freely committed to the ideal. Socialism can never work as something that is thrust upon people. Thus the ultimate downfall of the USSR.

I do realize that Obama has Socialst connections. I do not think these people have a good understanding of Marxist Socialism, even if they proclaim themselves Marxists. That said, you can see Marx's poor view of religion being brought to light in Obama's pragmatic use of God. He is definitely using it as a tool for his own ends, much as Marx considered religion to be merely a way to reinforce social roles. Again, however, this isn't really Marxism but rather a propagation of what, in Marx's view, was one of the worst aspects of Capitalism. Perhaps this whole administration is Obama's way of attempting to pave the way for a true workers' revolt and overthrow of Capitalism.

Frankly, I don't think he's that smart.

So, if Obama is not a Socialist, what is he? He is a Utilitarian.

Utilitarianism is a political philosophy (which has, unfortunately, infected the medical field as well) explained most simply as advocating "the greatest good for the largest number of people."

Dr Cox, my philosophy professor, said people tend to like Utilitarianism because of this stated goal. It sure does sound warm and fuzzy, doesn't it?

Being that most of my readers are, as I myself am, conservative/libertarian, you will all undoubtedly see the obvious problem. The greatest good for the largest number of people has inherent an expectation of stomping the hell out of the rights of minority groups. All together now boys and girls: What's the smallest minority? That's right, the individual.

Utilitarianism is a sort of collectivism. What's sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander. And the duck and the drake and the pullet and the rooster and the squirrel, rabbit, deer, etc etc.

Like Marxism, it had at its heart the elevation of the quality of life for the lower classes. Unlike Marxism, at its heart it is an hedonistic philosophy. What is right? What is good. It is a consequentialist philosophy (the ends justify the means).

Now, I could explain this in my own words, but I'm going to be momentarily lazy and quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Bentham's view was surprising to many at the time at least in part because he viewed the moral quality of an action to be determined instrumentally. It isn't so much that there is a particular kind of action that is intrinsically wrong; actions that are wrong are wrong simply in virtue of their effects, thus, instrumentally wrong. This cut against the view that there are some actions that by their very nature are just wrong, regardless of their effects. Some may be wrong because they are ‘unnatural’ — and, again, Bentham would dismiss this as a legitimate criterion. Some may be wrong because they violate liberty, or autonomy. Again, Bentham would view liberty and autonomy as good — but good instrumentally, not intrinsically. Thus, any action deemed wrong due to a violation of autonomy is derivatively wrong on instrumental grounds as well. This is interesting in moral philosophy — as it is far removed from the Kantian approach to moral evaluation as well as from natural law approaches. It is also interesting in terms of political philosophy and social policy. On Bentham's view the law is not monolithic and immutable. Since effects of a given policy may change, the moral quality of the policy may change as well. Nancy Rosenblum noted that for Bentham one doesn't simply decide on good laws and leave it at that: “Lawmaking must be recognized as a continual process in response to diverse and changing desires that require adjustment.” (Rosenblum, 9). A law that is good at one point in time may be a bad law at some other point in time. Thus, lawmakers have to be sensitive to changing social circumstances. To be fair to Bentham's critics, of course, they are free to agree with him that this is the case in many situations, just not all — and that there is still a subset of laws that reflect the fact that some actions just are intrinsically wrong regardless of consequences. Bentham is in the much more difficult position of arguing that effects are all there are to moral evaluation of action and policy.

(From The History of Utilitarianism, an all-around good read.)

Jeremy Bentham, by the by, is the father of Utilitarianism as a political philosophy.

If you pay close attention, you will see that much of modern Progressivism/Liberalism is in fact Utilitarianism. Thus the concept of the Constitution as a "living document" that must needs change with time. Note Bentham's belief that liberty and autonomy aren't inherent virtues. Basically, they are good but only to the extent that they produce good outcomes.

Sound familiar? I thought so.

Moving beyond Bentham, we come to John Stuart Mill. He was a student of Bentham's and a fan of the philosophy of Utilitarianism, but sought to make it more, well, utilitarian (in the "able to be utilized" sense of the word). He also felt Bentham was too egalitarian in his appreciation of pleasure. Mill, in other words, sought to rank pleasures according to their worth. Of course, we all tend to do this. I consider the pleasure of a good book to rank ahead of just anything. Of course, in Mill's view of Utilitarianism, I don't get to make that choice. None of us do. No, there must be others, who have experienced a wide variety of pleasures, to rank them for us and tell us what pleasure is more worthwhile than what other pleasure.

Again, sound familiar?

Moreover, Mill had a similar view of rights as did Bentham and as do most modern liberals (quoting from the same article as before):

Like Bentham, Mill sought to use utilitarianism to inform law and social policy. The aim of increasing happiness underlies his arguments for women's suffrage and free speech. We can be said to have certain rights, then — but those rights are underwritten by utility. If one can show that a purported right or duty is harmful, then one has shown that it is not genuine.

In truth, I will admit that there is some good to be had of this philosophy. The same paragraph from which I have just quoted goes on to discuss Mill's support of women's suffrage and belief in the education of women, certainly an unusual stance in his time.

However, the problems with Utilitarianism as a political philosophy are manifest. I will go into this another time. My biggest issue with Utilitarianism can be illustrated with what Dr Cox called the lifeboat problem: you are in a lifeboat that is at capacity. You see a person in the water. Do you rescue him, thus running the risk of endangering those already in the lifeboat, or do you ignore his pleas for help on the justification that it is of more benefit to those in the lifeboat, and he might well die anyway?

Or, from a more topical standpoint: is it right to deny healthcare to an elderly person because for the same amount you could provide X number of vaccinations to younger people? (Some day soon, I promise you I will do an entry on the ethical implications of public healthcare. It won't be pretty.)

So you see that, far from being a Socialist wishing to give power to the people, as it were, Obama is rather a Utilitarian. This is evident in his assertion during the campaign that although he recognized that lower tax rates on the "upper class" actually increase overall tax revenue, he would nevertheless seek to reform the system in the opposite direction in order to increase its fairness. Fairness is a concept beloved of Utilitarians, Liberals, and three-year-olds.

However, it is not his Utilitarian leanings that give me the most concern. Though I do not believe it is his necessarily his overarching philosophy, Obama puts me strongly in mind of Thomas Hobbes. I tend to call Hobbes a Statist, though I am not confident that's the most correct term I could use. However, allow me to explain:

In Hobbes's view, the natural state of human beings is no different than that of animals. On our own we are completely amoral (notice I do not say immoral) and will conduct war against one another. We would rape and pillage and take advantage of those weaker than we, making any sort of civilization impossible. In order to prevent this, we must voluntarily subject ourselves to government. The only government which does not run the risk of dissolution in civil war is one with absolute power. (Again, history has proven this to be false, but reality never gets in the way of a good philosophy.) Make no mistake, Hobbes sees personal liberty as a bad thing, and even as a possible assailant to civilization itself.

Again, I'll get lazy for a moment and quote the SEP:

When people mutually covenant each to the others to obey a common authority, they have established what Hobbes calls “sovereignty by institution”. When, threatened by a conqueror, they covenant for protection by promising obedience, they have established “sovereignty by acquisition”. These are equally legitimate ways of establishing sovereignty, according to Hobbes, and their underlying motivation is the same—namely fear—whether of one's fellows or of a conqueror. The social covenant involves both the renunciation or transfer of right and the authorization of the sovereign power. Political legitimacy depends not on how a government came to power, but only on whether it can effectively protect those who have consented to obey it; political obligation ends when protection ceases.

It must be said that Hobbes' view that a regime's legitimacy depends only upon its ability to impart stability to the people under it is hardly unheard of these days. (I'm thinking of my Pysch prof in my first semester who said that we should have left Saddam Hussein alone, because sure he was horrible to his people, but at least it was peaceful horror.) Indeed, much of the "Why should I care about Iran?" crowd undoubtedly is a fan of this theory!

Moreover, in Hobbes's mind, there should be no limits to the power of the government to govern its people. (Really, you should read the article on Hobbes. It's scary shit. And familiar.) This is necessary to prevent a descent into anarchy, where every man will look out for himself. You get the feeling he and Ayn Rand would not get along, eh? Basically, Hobbes advocates totalitarianism. To wit: "Similarly, to impose limitation on the authority of the government is to invite irresoluble disputes over whether it has overstepped those limits."

The scariest part of this all is that, according to Hobbes, the government reserves the right to define a word. That is the apex of its power. Insisting that a certain functional definition be applied to words is another beloved pet of the Left. Remember how, during the primaries, some fussed over whether Obama was "black enough"? And of course Clarence Thomas isn't truly black. Feminism is also defined very stringently by some. Hope and change are words co-opted by the current administration. Racism now equals being against Obama. (To be perfectly fair, the attempt to define words strictly in order to suit oneself is pretty near universal amongst politicians.)

Mind you, I am not a philosophical egoist. I don't fetishize Ayn Rand (or even consider her a philosopher, frankly). I am quite firmly Kantian in my beliefs. A desire to protect the rights of the individual is, I believe, inherent in Kant's philosophy, as it demands we never treat others merely as the means to an end. (Which, frankly, Utilitarianism does pretty much constantly.)

Obama does not, from what I have seen of his actions and heard of his speeches, have any concern for the individual. He will of course claim to be for the little guy...but anyone with one eye and half a brain can see the fallacy of that.

Just for the record

I really don't give a rat's ass that Michael Jackson is dead. I think it goes without saying that I didn't know him personally. I didn't like his music (I'm listening to the Charlie Daniels Band right now, if that gives you a clue). Even back when his biggest scandal was repeatedly grabbing his crotch, I found him incredibly distasteful.

So the fact that it's all over Facebook right now, and the message boards I belong to, and StumbleUpon just further erodes my scant remaining faith in humanity.

We're so easily distracted from what actually matters in the world, aren't we?

Old San Antonio

A post about Retro photos/advertisements at Mama Drama prompted me to look for vintage photos of San Antonio on the 'Net. I found a few to share:

This is a Rambler dealership on San Pedro, photo from the 1960s.

The website I found it on says the site is now a Valero gas station.

Of course, if you know San Antonio, you know the words "Valero gas station" and "San Pedro Avenue" don't exactly narrow things down much. San Pedro is one of those streets that runs from downtown all the way to near the airport.

Most of the dealerships these days are on the far north part of San Pedro. For some reason I want to place this closer to downtown. Probably because it reminds me very strongly of a few buildings near downtown on both Broadway and McCullough (McCullough runs parallel to San Pedro for pretty much its whole length; only Main Ave. separates them).

This is the Alamo Travelodge on Broadway. A postcard of it from the 1970s, to be exact.

It's not too far from my church (St Mark's).

The building is now a sort of pea green, and though there's technically still a restaurant there (at least, I think it's still in business), it's not one I'd want to set foot in. The entire thing is rather downmarket now; I believe they rent rooms by the week and basically attract a lot of vagrants. There was a fire there a year or so ago.


This one comes with its own caption, which is partially cut off. The year is 1971. So you have the Tower of the Americas that is so iconic of the city these days. But other than that, the skyline looks pretty empty. What surprises me is the Marriott Riverwalk (the white building just to the left of the Tower). I didn't realize it was that old. My mother said she thinks it was built for Hemisfair '68.

That's my thing. If I could go back in time for anything, I'd want to see Hemisfair '68. It changed the face of San Antonio as we know it. Hemisfair Plaza is still there, of course, but you can't go into most of the buildings.

This is the Greyhound bus station on St. Mary's. Looks to be '50s vintage. This is also right by St. Mark's. That big building is the Gunter Hotel (used to be the Günther; guess they gave up getting people to pronounce it correctly!).

I can't read that sign to the far right of the photo. But there's a parking lot and a Bill Miller's there now.

There's also another high rise very close to the Gunter, including a parking garage. (In fact, the Gunter's own parking garage was apparently added after this.) This photo fascinates me because it looks so clean.

Joske's from the 1950s. I don't remember Joske's very well. I'm pretty sure they closed before I was old enough to possibly remember them. This is them getting ready for Christmas, obviously. They're legendary for their window displays.

This building is like a who's who of failed department stores. First there was Joske's. Then Foley's. Then Dillard's. (The latter two only used two of the floors; it's something like a 5-storey building.) Now it's awaiting its rebirth as a multi-use facility. Which means, basically, that it's going to be subdivided even further.

Foley's resurrected the old Joske's Christmas displays for a while when I was a kid, and I remember those letters even though it was closed. They auctioned them off in like '89 or so to benefit the local public television station. They brought a pretty penny, as I recall.

This is the oldest photo here. Alamo Plaza from 1926. It's hard for me to get my bearings, because it looks radically different from what I'm used to. That circular island...I'm lost.

There's also no Rivercenter Mall in that photo.

There is the Emily Morgan hotel, though. I think that's the Emily Morgan. There are two hotels right near the Alamo, and I'm a horrible person because I always get them confused.

If I remember my local history correctly, this was before the Daughters of the Republic of Texas cobbled together money to buy the Alamo. It was just sort of sitting there, empty & presumably moldering, for quite some time.

I saved this one for last because it is just so out there compared to what's there now. This is just north of Loop 1604 during the 1950s. Near Retama Park (the racetrack). There was nothing in that area for a very long time, even after the track was built.

We called 1604 the "death loop" because it is so winding, the lighting is poor, the speed limit is high, and it was pretty remote. Honestly, it's still pretty dangerous, but you've got a lot of white people who moved to San Antonio from God knows where and have a deathly fear of the South Side because brown people live there (I grew up on the southeast side o' town) and so this whole area is now ridiculously overbuilt by people who think it's just groovy to spend more than an hour commuting a very short distance.

My favorite part? They built a HUGE new Circuit City store that opened maybe six months before they went bankrupt & liquidated everything. Hilarious.

I love my city, and I am fascinated by its history. It's an incredibly dynamic place; it changed so much in the seven years I was following my sailor around that I really suffered from cognitive dissonance when I returned.

This is why I cannot stand the President.

20 June, Iran:



21 June, United States:



I cannot have respect for a man who has no problem with a daughter dying in her father's arms in the streets of Tehran because they want their votes to have actual meaning.

Make no mistake, I want Malia and Sasha to remain ignorant of the bloodiness that is this fight. There is no place in it for small children. Neda was a grown woman. She made a choice to take to the streets and risk her life to protest injustice and to demand a sort of democracy.

But here we have the leader of the free world, the DEMOCRATICALLY CHOSEN President of the country that has its whole existence stood for freedom, for individual liberty, for personal choice, and for the willingness to die for these things...And he will not even raise his voice.

I'm not asking us to send troops to Iran. I don't think it would accomplish anything. I just want him to open his mouth and say something of worth.

Like:

"The extent of the fraud is proportional to the violent reaction...It is a tragedy, but it is not negative to have a real opinion movement that tries to break its chains."

or

"It is for Iran now to show the world that the elections have been fair . . . that the repression and the brutality that we have seen in these last few days is not something that is going to be repeated."

or

"Human rights and citizens' rights are inseparable... I, therefore, demand that Iran's leaders allow peaceful demonstrations, allow free reporting of events, stop the use of violence against demonstrators and free imprisoned people."

But I guess we have to rely on Sarkozy, Brown, and Merkel to do that for us. Obama's mouth seems to be full.

Just a quickie.

Over in my left sidebar is this:

<a href="http://iran.whyweprotest.net/"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/266065878/iran_bigger_bigger_normal_bigger.jpeg_bigger.jpg" border="0" /><br />

Complete with the little thing to grab code.

It's from Anonymous Iran. Lots of good information over there both on the continuing protests and things we can do over here to show support.

Obama & gay rights.

I've made reference to this magazine cover before, but I had to look it up online to prove to myself I hadn't completely lost it.

The text, in case it is hard for you to read: "Pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation. Overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, a bill passed in 1996 by President Bill Clinton that says two things: First, that no state need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state, and second that the federal government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states. Sign the Matthew Shepart Act, which was named to honor Shepard and would expand the 1969 federal hate-crimes law to include crimes motivated by a victim's gender identity, or disability. Overturn "don't ask, don't tell," the federal law that prohibits any gay or bisexual person from speaking about any same-sex relationships, including marriages or other familial attributes, while serving in the United States armed forces. Sign the Uniting American Families Act, a bill that would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate discrimination in immigration laws by permitting same-sex partners of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to obtain lawful permanent resident status." (And then it starts over again.)

Of course, the clear text is: What will he do for you first?

The answer, of course? Not much of anything.

In fact, here's your Moment of Zen for the day:



The caption: "Gay rights activists protest last month outside a fundraiser in Beverly Hills attended by President Obama."

I mean, really, how can you NOT love that photo, however you feel about gay rights? What right-winger do you suppose they borrowed them from?

Now, those of you who know me know that I support darn near everything on the cover of that magazine. But I have a question for homosexuals:

Did y'all really believe him? REALLY? You thought this guy was going to put GLBT issues at the forefront of his presidency? That a man who said, OFTEN, that he was against gay marriage was going to work to repeal DoMA?

All you're going to get is excuses. And talk.

Really, given that this is a man who is apparently a-OK with the pathetic excuse for an election in Iran, homosexuals have no reason to hope. When the dude's OK with people being beaten, the foreign press being confined to their hotels, etc etc etc, what's a little discrimination between friends, eh?

Enjoy that sick leave. It's all you're getting.

Gone Green.

Nope, I'm not turning into an eco-nutcase on y'all. I've turned the blog green for the time being because green is the color of the opposition in Iran.

Not only do I have no respect left for the President, I have no hope of ever respecting him again. It would cost NOTHING to say "We have grave concerns about the legitimacy of the election in Iran and urge a full, transparent, and honest recount in the presence of international election monitors."

Yeah, we all know any recount is likely to be bogus, and that no less stellar a personage than Jimmy Carter has already signed off on the fairness of at least one questionable election. But it would be something.

Something other than, you know, pretending that a country where women are arrested for fingernail polish and men are beaten for "Western" hair cuts has fair and honest elections and freedom of speech.

But then, what do we expect from the man who ignored the anniversary of the Tiannamen Square protests?

Wordless Wednesday: A Picture from back in February

Why

I was reading NurseK's blog late last night and she linked to this post by Midwest Woman (whose blog, quite honestly, I have never read before) which contained this choice quote:

Read a comment yesterday...treat and street, admit and forget. Move the meat, move the product.

This was Nurse K's comment. Midwest Woman went on to (sorta) jump NurseK's shit, or bitch about ER nurses, or whine about her job, or something:

The meat is tainted and the product defective.
12 hours of trying not to let their life stories burrow under your skin. 12 hours of enduring families acting out all their dysfunctions on you. 12 hours of knowing that after all your effort, there will be a part of them broken that we can't fix. 12 hours away with memories of some of these people painfully tattoed on your heart hidden away.
Admit and forget....what a concept.

Honestly, I'm still not sure exactly what her point was; my reading comprehension skills drop off a cliff when there are no paragraphs.

I commented there, but I want to make a post here because what I said then plays a lot into where I am in my life right now. And that, just to be clear for everyone is: I'm a pre-nursing student at San Antonio College. Which means that I intend to be an RN, but I'm still slogging through my prerequisites. I have to take two more BIO courses to even be able to apply to nursing school. But I'm working my way there slowly. I really have no dog in this particular fight, though (ER nurses vs. floor nurses).

This is only my experience.

I've alluded before to the military medicine system and the shortcomings inherent therein. It's about the worst of what ER nurses have to deal with. Although in theory you can get an urgent appointment within 48 hours, in practice it was more like three weeks. So if you had anything that needed treatment within the next month or so, you went to the ER even if it wasn't anything close to an emergency.

For me, this was things like being in pain for burst cysts (the sort of thing they told me I had to come in for, but wouldn't actually do anything about once I was there), food poisoning that was really morning sickness (I've got a good excuse for that one, I swear), back pain when I couldn't stand up straight anymore, the occasional intestinal virus, etc. For my ex-husband, it was pneumonia, bronchitis, asthmatic bronchitis. For our kids it was fevers I couldn't get to come down.

Nurses are the foot soldiers of the ER. Hell, of the entire hospital. We're probably all familiar with the arguments. When you're in the hospital, you will see a doctor for a few minutes once or twice. You will see nurses far more often. They do the bulk of the actual care.

There was a corpsman at the hospital in Virginia...I don't remember his name, and I wish I did. He was a sweetheart. I met him when my oldest daughter was a wee babe. He told me about how his wife had been sure to breast-feed their kids for six whole weeks, because they knew how important it was.

He was also the only corpsman who could reliably get a needle in my arm. Once or twice they had to call him in, which produced one of my favorite lines ever: "Oh, her? I've stuck her plenty of times!"

He always cheered me up. Once when Bobbie was about 10 months old, Rob and I both got knocked down by the stomach bug and went to the ER. We were feverish, puking, dehydrated, etc. (Yeah, now I see I should've stayed home, but meh.) He was put in one bed, I was put in another. This corpsman heard Bobbie fussing, stuck his head in the curtain to say hi, and then took her and walked the floor of the ER with her, showing her off and getting me a couple minutes' rest.

I've been blessed to not have to deal with the ER or hospital much at all here in San Antonio.

I did go to the ER two days in a row when I was losing my baby. I blogged about this some when it happened. It was an ER nurse who was the only one to show any recognition of my humanity Friday night. As usual, I have no name (and here is where I really wish I did, because I'd love to write a letter to her boss and tell him how great she was). I don't think she gave one, and I wasn't wearing my glasses by then, because I didn't want to see. She helped me to go to the bathroom, and when she realized I was covered in blood from the waist down, she went and got hot, wet towels, warm, dry ones, a hospital gown, and a blanket. She got me cleaned up and feeling somewhat human again. She was with me maybe 10 minutes. Maybe. But she did more for me in that ten minutes than anyone else in that hospital did the whole time I was there.

The most recent one: Esther's face swelled up suddenly and abruptly on one side. I took her in to the same ER where I'd gone when I was miscarrying. The triage nurse reassured me I had done the right thing in bringing her in (which was fully appreciated). The nurse we saw when we were put in a room brought her a popsicle to help bring down her fever. Now, think about this a second. Here's a three-year-old girl. Her head hurts. She's hot. She's sick. And then somebody comes in and gives her ice cream! He could've accomplished the same end with ice water, but instead he chose a grape popsicle.

Now, all of those ER nurses dealt with me for a very short amount of time. And all of them did great things for my (and my daughter's) spiritual health as well as our physical health. You don't have to spend 12 hours with someone to do great things for them. You don't have to remember them after they leave you ER to do great things for them. You don't even have to save their lives to do great things for them (though I realize that's the best way to know you've done it).

The good nurses I've dealt with--not just in the ER, though for purposes of this post they're the ones I've talked about--have done much to influence my desire to be a nurse. I've also dealt with some shitty ones, who treated me as defective product (mostly floor nurses, frankly, but by no means all). They influenced me too. I'm going in to nursing as much to help someone else avoid a shitty nurse as to carry on the good work of the wonderful nurses.

It's not the whole story of why I'm going into nursing, but it's part of it.

Rectal Foreign Bodies

This seems to be a favorite subject of the medical blogs I read.

I remember coming across a webpage a couple of years ago that was devoted to the subject, but I failed to bookmark it (or else it was lost in one of the crashes of my bookmarks Firefox used to be prone to).

So I had no way to prove the concrete impaction story I got from there. Until today (God bless you, StumbleUpon):

A 20-year-old man presented to the emergency room complaining of rectal pain. A well-nourished, well-developed man without signs of intoxication was admitted in no apparent distress. Digital examination of the rectum revealed a stony hard mass. Abdominal plain films showed a vertically oriented, low-lying radiopaque object in the rectum. A spherical radiolucency was noted in the upper pole of the mass. A blood alcohol level was negative. No other drug testing was performed.

Upon further questioning, the patient said that approximately 4 hrs earlier he and his boyfriend had been "fooling around." After stirring a batch of concrete mix, the patient laid on his back with his feet against the wall at a 45-degree angle while his boyfriend poured the mixture through a funnel into his rectum. After the concrete mass hardened, it became so painful that he sought medical care.

Under general anesthesia, the anus was dilated and two Foley catheters were inserted alongside the rectal mass to relieve suction. A concrete case of the rectum was delivered without incident. The rectal mucosa was intact with a hyperemic and edematous appearance.

The patient was kept overnight and discharged uneventfully the following morning. The attending physician recommended a psychiatric consultation, but the patient declined.

The linked story has photographs, just in case you've ever decided to know what a concrete cast of an asshole would look like.

The concrete story is the wildest, but there are some funny ones there, including one headlined "Artillery Shell Substantiated" (by, from the looks of it, KevinMD--probably the only blogger whose real name I regularly come across outside of the blogging world, mainly thanks to his occasional columns for USA Today).

Anyway, I am very easily amused at nearly midnight on a Saturday night. I was so happy to find that page again I just had to share it with anyone who might not have seen it yet.

I'm all for kinky sex, but nothing that might land me in the hospital. Thanks to the internet age, I now have a paranoia of becoming blog fodder (er, well, more so than usual).

Radio Silence

Private William Long was killed Monday, by a homegrown terrorist who apparently said he (Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammed) was mad at the US military and that his religion disagreed with our military's actions. (Note that the worldwide Anglican communion is also officially against the war in Iraq, but we're not going around capping people.)

Give Arkansas credit, Muhammed is not just facing murder charges, but also 16 counts of committing a terrorist act.

So there seems little doubt that he's a terrorist. An Islamic extremist, one might say.

The blogosphere has been awash in discussion of this. Talk radio, not so much.

Now, I expect the MSM to ignore this story in favor of the Scott Roeder/George Tiller drama. Nothing quite warms the cockles of the Left's collective heart than a Christian whacking a baby-killer abortionist women's health doctor. (And I do hope Roeder gets nailed to the wall, as he well deserves.) They'll ignore a Muslim committing acts of terror all day long when they have what they consider a juicier story.

But I haven't heard anything from talk radio. I hesitate to say that it hasn't been talked about. But if it has, it's not much. (And if you've heard about it, please drop a comment & let me know!) I expected this to be all Rush and Sean and Glenn are talking about. Hell, I listened to Joe Pags today--ALL of his show--just to see if he'd mention it, and he didn't. And I don't like Pags.

What the hell? Am I not listening to the right people? Or is talk radio letting this story be buried? And if they are, then why the hell are we supporting them?

Cheney & Obama on Gay Marriage: It's not what you've been led to think.

So, Dick Cheney seems to support gay marriage. Or, at least,the handling of the issue on a state level. This can also be interpreted as opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, which was signed into law by Bill Clinton.

This is a rather marked difference from Obama's position on gay marriage:

Obama Reiterates Position on Gay Marriage, Opposition to Prop 8 - Watch more Politics Videos at Vodpod.

Wait, which party is the intolerant one again?

Oh, what a waste of time.

This is Bobbie's last week of school.

Today was a movie and popcorn (we actually picked her up early, so she missed out on the movie).

Tomorrow is Afternoon Field Day, which sounds as if it will be a far cry from the two-day PE fest that was Field Day when I was in school. It involves, apparently, a Moon Bounce, "water activities", and pizza.

Wednesday is another movie, this time with ice cream.

Thursday is Morning Field Day, with more water activities, but to my knowledge no Moon Bounce or Pizza. It is also End of Year Party day.

Friday is the most useless of all: an 11:45 a.m. dismissal.

The funny part? I got one of those groovy little letters from the principal earlier this month that included the line "Please join us while we continue to teach through the end of the school year." Um, yeah. Groovy, dude. I totally believe that. I'm sure Bobbie learned a whole bunch from all those Disney films y'all were showing her.

Frustration.

We went to Grady's for dinner tonight. Took I-35. As I was slowing for my exit, I noticed a twin-size mattress blocking the left lane entirely & part of the middle lane as well. Asked my mother to call someone.

She called the city twice, never got an answer. (It's one of those 3-digit helplines that supposedly connect you to a variety of services.) Finally called the SAPD nonemergency number. Apologized to the person who answered and said she tried calling the city but didn't get an answer, so she called SAPD because they were the ones who'd have to deal with any wrecks resulting from it. He thanked her for calling and said he'd get someone out there.

We were in the restaurant 40 minutes or so. Came out and looked over at the freeway...sure enough, the mattress was still there, and a car had wrecked because of it.

Dammit. We called because we were hoping to avoid something like that.

I imagine the dispatcher at the PD had to call Public Works or someone of the sort. I would have thought they'd make debris in the traffic lanes on the freeway a priority. Guess not. The police were arriving to deal with the wreck just as we were getting in the car.

I'm not angry, of course. Just frustrated, and disappointed. Hard when you do the right thing and then exactly what you were hoping to head off happens anyway. Some dolt didn't tie down their mattress well enough, and now a car is wrecked (hopefully not badly) and the police have to block off at least two lanes of a 3-lane freeway to deal with it. Of course there's the question of why the car didn't avoid it. Oddly enough, the mattress was kinda hard to see. The road there is light gray, the mattress was light blue. I'm pretty observant & I didn't see it until we were almost even with it, and I was slowed down to get off the freeway. It's one of those things were someone coming through at 60 probably wouldn't notice it until too late. (And that's if they were even doing the speed limit--most of the traffic tonight was speeding, which actually is not the norm on that stretch of road.)

Post-Memorial Day Thoughts

A New Significance.

I didn't know Matthew Mendoza. But having grown up here, I can probably tell you a few things about him.

When his high school football team went up against Brackenridge (my alma mater), he probably cheered a little harder. Old rivalry there.

He probably owned at least one Spurs t-shirt. Probably spent most of his childhood saying "This is our year, man!"

He ate tacos for breakfast. Quite possibly for lunch and dinner too (but not the same tacos--you have soft tacos at breakfast and probably puffy tacos for lunch), and never thought he was doing anything "ethnic".

He had a baby with his high school girlfriend. He didn't marry her, but he stood by her enough to give the boy his name, which sometimes is more important. He didn't walk away and leave her on her own.

He almost certainly went to the carnival at Fiesta every year, and quite likely woke up real early (or camped out overnight, when he was older) to watch the Battle of Flowers parade, and probably caught at least one other parade every year. He may well have skipped school to go to the Cowboy Breakfast.

He went to the Alamo, Mission San Jose, Butterkrust bakery, the Institute of Texan Cultures, & SeaWorld on field trips as a child. Probably rode the little train by the zoo.

He probably loved accordions and polka music without the slightest hint of irony. Probably could sing Selena songs by heart and danced to "Techno Cumbia" at his prom. (He might even have been able to tell you exactly where he was and what he was doing when he heard Selena died.

He probably cruised Military Drive on Sunday nights when he was a teenager. Probably went to Mission Drive-In theater. Picnicked in Brackenridge or San Pedro park on Easter Sunday. Sat at his grandfather's grave in San Jose cemetary eating and drinking and talking about the old man on Dia de los Muertos.

He definitely grew up into a young man with a sense of purpose, of duty to his country.

He probably considered no future other than the Marines, because around here that's still a laudable career goal.

I don't know any of this for certain, of course. But if I bet money on each of these paragraphs I'd only lose a dollar or two. I grew up here too. There are certain things that unite those of us who grow up in this city (thus the joke: "You're so San Antonio if you think pro-choice means corn or flour tortillas"), things that make us puro San Antonio.

And what struck me yesterday as I was typing out the list of men who have died for us this year is that there is someone out there who can say much the same for each man or woman on that list that I can say for Sgt. Mendoza. You may not have known that person. You may not have known anyone on that list. But there's a good chance at least one person on there (or on the full list of thousands of people who have died) grew up where you did, or close to it, and you can say things that are more likely than not accurate, even without knowing them, because you've been there and experienced the same things. I know that Sgt. Mendoza was proud to be from Texas and from the south side of San Antonio because I am proud to be from Texas and the south side of San Antonio. Because pretty much everyone who grew up where we did is proud of being from Texas and the south side.

It is very, very hard for even the most solemn, well-meaning person to be fully mindful of the individual humanity of each and every person who has been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The numbers are hard to comprehend. This isn't a dig on anyone, it's just how our minds function (and I most certainly include myself in this, mind you).

So: break it down. Think of the humanity of one person, and grieve for that person even if you didn't know him, and you will grieve for them all, and begin to understand, a little bit, something that is almost beyond the comprehension of those of us who are civilians.

.

I've struggled with what to write today. I spend the day thinking about the women and children who are now living without husbands and fathers. Of the parents who have outlived their children.

The sub fleet, at least, refers to those who die on duty as being on Eternal Patrol. When I went to the Sub Ball in 2000, they had an empty table set with a place to act as a memorial for those men who could not be there.

I would like to honor everyone here, but that has been done better elsewhere. Instead I will list the men most recently entered on eternal patrol in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Cpl. Ryan C. McGhee, US Army; Fredericksburg, VA

Maj. Matthew P. Houseal, US Army; Amarillo, TX

Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, US Army; Paterson, NJ

Spc. Jacob O. Barton, US Army; Lenox, MO

Pfc. Michael E. Yates, Jr, US Army; Federalsburg, MD

Cdr. Charles K. Springle, US Navy; Wilmington, NC

Spc. Lukasz D. Saczek, US Army; Lake in the Hills, IL

Maj. Steven Hutchison, US Army; Scottsdale, AZ

Spc. Omar M. Albrak, US Army; Chicago, IL

SSgt. Randy S. Agno, US Army; Pearl City, HI

Pvt. Justin P. Hartford, US Army; Elmira, NY

Spec. Shawn D. Sykes, US Army; Portsmouth, VA

Spec. Jeremiah P. McCleery, US Army; Portola, CA

Spec. Jake R. Velloza, US Army; Inverness, CA

Sgt. James D. Pirtle, US Army; Colorado Springs, CO

Spc. Ryan C. King, US Army; Dallas, GA

SSgt. William D. Vile, US Army; Philadelphia, PA

Sgt. James R. McIlvaine, US Marine Corps; Olney, MD

Staff Sgt. Mark A. Wojciechowski, US Marine Corps; Cincinnati, OH

SSgt. Leroy O. Webster, US Army; Sioux Falls, SD

CSM Benjamin Moore, Jr., US Army; Waycross, GA

Cpl. William C. Comstock, US Marine Corps; Van Buren, AR

Cpl. Brad A. Davis, US Army; Garfield Heights, OH

PO2 Tyler J. Trahan, US Navy; East Freetown, MA

LCpl. Ray A. Spencer II, US Marine Corps; Ridgecrest, CA

PFC Richard A. Dewater, US Army; Topeka, KS

Cpl. Francisco X. Aguila, US Army; Bayamon, Puerto Rico

Sgt Raul Moncada, US Army; Madera, CA

Spc Michael J Anaya, US Army; Crestview, FL

SSgt Gary L. Woods Jr, US Army, Lebanon Junction, KY

Amn1 Jacob I. Ramsey, US Air Force, Hesperia, CA

Sfc. Bryan E. Hall, US Army, Elk Grove, CA

Sgt Edward W. Forrest, Jr, US Army; St Louis, MO

Cpl. Jason G. Pautsch, US Army; Davenport, IA

Pfc. Bryce E. Gautier, US Army; Cypress, CA

Sgt. Christopher D. Loza, US Army; Abilene, TX

LCpl. Blaise A. Oleski, US Marine Corps; Holland Patent, NY

Spc. Adam M. Kuligowski, US Army; Derry, NH

Spc. Isreal Candelaria-Mejias, US Army; San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico

Tech Sgt. Phillip A. Myers, US Air Force; Hopewell, VA

Sgt. Daniel J. Beard, US Army; Buffalo, NY

LCpl. Stephen F. Dearmon, US Marine Corps; Crossville, TN

LCpl. Nelson M. Lantigua, US Marine Corps; Miami, FL

Sgt. Devin C. Poche, US Army; Jacksonville, NC

Lt. Florence B. Choe, US Navy; El Cajon, CA

LtJG Francis L. Toner IV, US Navy; Narragansett, RI

Ssgt. Raphael A. Futrell, US Army; Anderson, SC

Pfc. Adam J. Hardt, US Army; Avondale, AZ

Cpl. Anthony L. Williams, US Marine Corps; Oxford, PA

Cpl. Michael W. Ouellette, US Marine Corps; Manchester, NH

LCpl. Daniel J. Geary, US Marine Corps; Rome, NY

Sgt. Jose R. Escobedo, US Army; Albuquerque, NM

Spc. Gary L. Moore, US Army; Del City, OK

Ssgt. Timothy L. Bowles, US Air Force; Tucson, AZ

Sgt. Christopher P. Abeyta, US Army; Midlothian, IL

Sgt. Robert M. Weinger, US Army; Round Lake Beach, IL

Spc. Norman L. Cain, III, US Army; Oregon, IL

Ssgt. Archie A. Taylor, US Marine Corps; Tomball, TX

Lcpl. Patrick A. Malone, US Marine Corps; Ocala, FL

Pfc. Patrick A. Devoe, II, US Army; Auburn, NY

1st Lt. Daniel B. Hyde, US Army; Modesto, CA

Pfc Jessica Y. Sarandrea, US Army; Miami, FL

Sgt. Jeffrey A. Reed, US Army; Chesterfield, VA

Spc. Simone A. Robinson, US Army; Dixmoor, IL

Cpl. Donte J. Whitworth, US Marine Corps; Noblesville, IN

Spc. Brian M. Connelly, US Army; Union Beach, NJ

1st Lt. William E. Emmert, US Army; Lincoln, TN

Capt. Brian M. Buntin, US Army; Potomac, MD

Sgt. Schuyler B. Patch, US Army; Owasso, OK

Sgt. Scott B. Stream, US Army; Mattoon, IL

Sgt. Daniel J. Thompson, US Army; Madison, WI

Cpl. Michael L. Mayne, US Army; Burlington Flats, NY

Cpl. Michael B. Alleman, US Army; Logan, UT

Pfc. Zachary R. Nordmeyer, US Army; Indiannapolis, IN

Ssgt. Mark C. Baum, US Army; Telford, PA

Ssgt. Timothy P. Davis, US Air Force; Aberdeen, WA

Ssgt. Jeremy E. Bessa, US Army; Woodridge, IL

MSgt. David L. Hurt, US Army; Tucson, AZ

Pfc. Cwislyn K. Walter, US Army; Honolulu, HI

Sfc. Raymond J. Munden, US Army; Mesquite, TX

Ssgt. Sean D. Diamond, US Army; Dublin, CA

Cpl. Stephen S. Thompson, US Army; Tulsa, OK

Ssgt. Daniel L. Hansen, US Marine Corps; Tracy, CA

Ssgt. Marc J. Small, US Army; Collegeville, PA

Cpl. Peter J. Courcy, US Army; Frisco, TX

Pfc. Jason R. Watson, US Army; Many, LA

LTC Garnet R. Derby, US Army; Missoula, MT

Sgt. Joshua A. Ward, US Army; Needville, TX

Pfc Albert R. Jex, US Army; Phoenix, AZ

Pfc Jonathan R. Roberge, US Army; Leominster, MA

Ssgt. Jason E. Burkholder, US Army; Elida, OH

1st Lt. Jared W. Southworth, US Army; Oakland, IL

Sgt. James M. Dorsey, US Army; Beardstown, IL

LCpl. Keven T. Preach, US Marine Corps; Bridgewater, MA

Spc. Christopher P. Sweet, US Army; Kahului, HI

PO1 Theophilus K. Ansong, US Navy; Bristow, VA

Spc. Darrell L. Fernandez, US Army; Truth or Consequences, NM

CW4 Milton E. Suggs, US Army; Lockport, LA

Sgt. David W. Wallace III, US Marine Corps; Sharpesville, PA

Sgt. Trevor J. Johnson, US Marine Corps; Forsyth, MT

CWO Philip E. Windorski, JR., US Army; Bovey, MN

CWO Matthew G. Kelley, US Army; Cameron, MO

CWO Joshua M. Tillery, US Army; Beaverton, OR

CWO Benjamin H. Todd, US Army; Collville, WA

Sgt. Kyle J. Harrington, US Army; Swansea, MA

LCpl. Julian T. Brennan, US Marine Corps; Brooklyn, NY

Pvt. Grant A. Cotting, US Army; Corona, CA

Pfc. Matthew M. Pollini, US Army; Rockland, MA

Ssgt. Roberto J. Andrade, Jr, US Army; Chicago, IL

Ssgt. Carlo M. Robinson, US Army; Lawton, OK

Spc. Ezra Dawson, US Army; Las Vegas, NV

SrA. Omar J. McKnight, US Air Force; Marrero, LA

Pfc. Ricky L. Turner, US Army; Athens, AL

Ssgt. Joshua R. Townsend, US Army; Solvang, CA

LCpl. Daniel R. Bennett, US Marine Corps; Clifton, VA

Pvt. Sean P. McCune, US Army; Euless, TX

Sgt Marquis R. Porter, US Marine Corps; Brighton, MA

Ssgt. Justin L. Bauer, US Army; Loveland, CO

Maj. Brian M. Mescall, US Army; Hopkinton, MA

Spc. Joseph M. Hernandez, US Army; Hammon, IN

Spc. Jason R. Parsons, US Army; Lenoir, NC

Sgt. Joshua L. Rath, US Army; Decatur, AL

Spc. Keith E. Essary, US Army; Dyersburg, TN

Ssgt. Anthony D. Davis, US Army; Daytona Beach, FL

Lcpl. Jessie A. Cassada, US Marine Corps; Hendersonville, NC

Lcpl. Chadwick A. Gilliam, US Marine Corps; Mayking, US

Lcpl. Alberto Francesconi, US Marine Corps; Bronx, NY


Information was culled from the Washington Post's Faces of the Fallen.

Texas's war dead from Afghanistand and Iraq are memorialized on the Dallas Morning News's website Our Own.

Again...

The part I left out of the last post on my computer is that I was on my second power cord. Note the past tense there. This one crapped out on me earlier today. I am starting to seriously hate electronics. Too bad it's the only way I can get on the internet...I've got 38 minutes of battery power left...

Update...if I wiggle it around & hold it a certain way, it works. Sigh.

LOLcats explain why my marriage failed.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures











Yeah, I am feeling kinda mean tonight.

Damn computer.

I have a Toshiba Satellite M305D-S4830. I bought it this past August, so it's not even a year old. I bought it from Best Buy. It was the only one they had left, so I had to pay for them "optimizing" it--in theory, removing all the trial programs. Which was something they didn't do.

I knew there was a reason I hate Best Buy.

Anyway, it's been one problem after another with this damned thing. To begin with, the DVD player works only intermittently. I actually called tech support about that less than 8 hours after bringing it home. No shit. The drive will drop off the face of the planet completely at random. There's nothing that causes it. Sometimes tech support's fix works, sometimes it doesn't. The last time it came back, it did so completely on its own, and it's worked for the last several months. Well, I suppose it does; I actually don't use it very often.

The latest thing is this: when I am in the middle of doing something, the computer will die. Just cut itself off. Poof. Try to turn it back on...nothing. It's not that the battery is dead. It's that the computer just. stops. working. Let it sit about half an hour or so, then turn it back on and startup repair will work its magic and the computer will be back up.

This happened the first time a couple of months ago. Then about a month ago. Then yesterday. Then today. The first time I tried repairing it, it went to a Blue Screen of Death and said I had a fatal error. And when it finally did work, it came back VERY slowly.

I know it's still under warranty. I know I could fight Toshiba/Best Buy over this. But you know what? I don't have the energy for that. I seriously don't. Toshiba's tech support isn't in America. Toshiba's tech support speaks with a very heavy accent that I can't understand. It's almost enough to make me take a self-study course in Hindi, call them, and insist on speaking in their native language, so they get a taste of their own medicine. Think about it. Hindi with a very thick Texas accent. (My accent isn't really thick. Unless I want it to be.) Best Buy is, well, Best Buy.

Fuck that. Fuck Toshiba. Fuck Best Buy. I will replace this at the beginning of next semester, out of my student loan, and Dave Ramsey will cry.

Til then, I will limp along as best I can. If y'all don't see or hear anything out of me for a couple of weeks, assume the computer finally died irrevocably, and I'll check in at the library whenever I can.

And yes, I'm backing my photos up as I speak. (There are no documents on here that I particularly care about.)

Guns, Zombies, and Cursing

So, when we were in Del Rio, I saw this church. I didn't get any closer to it than this. I undoubtedly could have, but I had three small children with me at the time, and I was afraid I'd get in trouble for sticking my head in through one of the broken windows to look inside.

I did take a couple of pictures, because it was the neatest thing.

The whole trip was really fun, and I came back knowing I had to get it into a short story. So I laid aside the novel I've been writing. (Yes, I'm writing a novel. Yes, I know damn near everybody who blogs is also writing a novel.) And I wrote a short story, using the same main character, because I am lazy like that.

This is the story. It's still in fairly rough draft. I am posting a link to it in two places, and this is one of them. I'm not posting it on the message board where I spend most of my time because, although I do welcome constructive criticism, I'm not in the mood to have harpies rip my story apart, and I'm confident at least one of the members there would do so. This makes it a little harder to find, but I know at least three people from that site whose opinions I really respect read here too.

I dunno if any of my regular readers will find it to be there thing. There are undoubtedly tactical/procedural/linguistic errors, and there may be one case where my slang is completely wrong. That's why it's still in rough draft.

I did check out my guns, though. I hit Glock's website to check out my main character's carry pistol, only to find it later on on JayG's blog. Which is also where I found the information on most of the other guns mentioned in the story. I really had to restrain myself not to load the end of the story down, in fact. My character isn't nearly as knowledgeable about boomsticks, so I had to go with what she'd know.

The title of this post, by the way, is what I used to warn people with at MotheringDotCommune. Buncha hippies.

So, if you are kind enough to read it, please let me know what you think, and point out any glaring errors. Especially if you speak colloquial Spanish or German. (A decade + out, my German sucks.)

And if you happen to really, really like Del Rio, please accept my apologies.

3.96

'Tis my GPA this semester. Overall it's 3.98.

I managed to get a B in SDEV this time (God was that course a waste of time--and whose brilliant idea was it to make orientation a graded course?). I did just enough work to not get a C. Had I done the personality tests for the umpteenth time in my life, and researched careers (hello, I'm in the pre-nursing program, what career do you think I am after?) I'd have gotten an A.

That's OK though. I got an A in everything else. Even Algebra, which is the bane of my existence. This means I got at least an 87 on my final. The teacher, being clever and evil, gave us a formula the last week of class so we could figure out what grade we'd need on the final to get the letter grade we wanted.

The others were gimmies, to be honest. Freshman Comp II? To borrow a line from Limbaugh, I could ace that class with half my brain tied behind my back. Lifespan Psychology? Been there, studied that in high school. (I <3 Erikson's stages of development). Computer Lit? Why did I even have to take that? (I'm glad I did; I'm now one of few people at the college who can actually use Word 2007. This is relevant since it's the version on all the computers there.)

Next semester: Chemistry I, Creative Writing, First Aid, and Liberal Arts Mathematics. First Aid is actually a 3-hour course. In the gym. And God bless the person who conceived of Liberal Arts Mathematics.

I mentioned to Mark my GPA (which is better than I'd hoped/expected) and my fear of a long waiting list at the nursing school and he squealed like a little girl and told me I should apply at the University of the Incarnate Word. He's of the opinion that they will give me a fat scholarship (it has to be fat; their tuition is 30K a year). I had not intended to go for a BSN straight out of the chute as it were, but since it's going to take me 2 years to get all my prerequisites out of the way (my poor math skills did me in; I can't take A&P yet), I may as well. If I can get in.

Huh. Funny concept. I'd only just come to terms with the idea of an Associate's Degree; I might be going on for a Bachelor's. A BS, no less, which means I will giggle madly most of the time I am in Uni. If I go. Much depends on whether I can get into the nursing school at SAC.

Oh, please don't.

New Mayor to Tackle Economy.

Many congratulations to Julián, of course. I've heard tell he's shaving now, and that he has Joaquín substitute for him only rarely these days. And really, with Hardberger's legacy including gems like the Main Plaza fiasco, he's got a good chance of ending up at least as beloved as his old nemesis. (Who do we blame PGA village on, by the way? I was out of state when that went down.)

But he wants to tackle the economy? Granted, that's the EN's word, not his, but still it gives me pause. When you tackle something, in sports vernacular, you knock it to the ground & stop forward movement. (To be fair, the verb can also mean to address a problem, but let's be real here: the connotations aren't positive, in general.) Methinks that's the wrong tactic to take with our economy.

Do we have problems? Yes. But far fewer than the rest of the country. We lose jobs, but we're gaining them as well. In fact, just yesterday the newspaper announced that 1400 new jobs are coming to San Antonio, courtesy of MedTronic. The national unemployment rate is 8.9%. The local? 5.9% (This may well be a decline in the local rate, if I'm reading other charts correctly.) The housing market is ranked as the 4th-strongest in the nation by Builder magazine. We're not exactly having a rip-roaring good time, but we are "one of the least weak metro areas in the US." (watch out, that source is a PDF) Is there room for improvement? Maybe, but in this economy it's hard to tell. I'm not sure that being among the "least weak" in the country is a bad thing when everyone is weak.

So please, Mr Castro, don't mess with it too much. And if it's not asking too much, could you dye Joaquín's right hand blue, that way we can be sure which of you is at City Hall?

Just a quickie...

Erin of ThingsMomsLike has a contest on her blog right now wherein she's giving away a set of KnitPicks Harmony needles and some organic cotton yarn. Go, enter. Knit cozies for your assault rifles.

From the morning news.

According to WOAI this morning, a seven-year-old girl in remission for a brain tumor had an unusual request for the Make a Wish Foundation. She wanted to go hunting with Ted Nugent. So she was flown to his property in Crawford to go hunting.

In a completely unrelated story, Cindy Sheehan was invited back to Crawford to go camping.











(The only news story I can find.)

Who stole my baby?

Seriously, y'all. Someone took this:


And replaced it with this:



Which is not, of course to say that there is anything wrong with the new version of Esther. Nope, she is still the same amazingly sweet, good-to-hug baby she's always been. It's just...

She's not a baby. Not anymore. She is a big toddler now: 3 years, 6 months, 5 days old. She's suddenly gained a couple of inches I think, and has somehow managed to lose the last of her babyness as far as her looks go.

I'm a little sad, can't lie. She's my youngest and no matter how badly I might want another baby or three, she's going to stay my youngest for a good long while, if not forever. So there is a bittersweet taste in the air when I sit down with her and realize how big she's getting.

Part of it is that she seemed to cling to babyhood much longer than the other two. A large part of this, of course, is that there's no follow-up baby behind her. Another large part is that it's easy to lose sight of the little changes that happen gradually; it's like time suddenly skipped & sped up and she grew six months overnight.

I'm so happy she's my girl.

The jokes, they write themselves.

Yesterday my mother saw a very large rat downtown. Running toward City Council chambers.

Just one more week.

One more week of classes: that is, three days. Then one week for finals, which thus far looks like two days but might also balloon out to three. Then I am off for the summer.

From school, anyway. I'm trying to find a summer job. I am somewhat constricted, as I can't really stand long amounts of time. But I have done clerical and customer service work before, so I am trying to find a temp job. Of course, none of the local temp agencies seem to have actual jobs available. I've already e-mailed the last guys I worked for. I really should call them, but they weren't very professional, so I don't see much point in killing myself to get on with them again. Seriously, there was one week that they simply forgot to pay folks. So I don't have much hope that they've got any work, despite their website having positions listed as available. (It hasn't changed. At all. Since 2007.) The folks I worked with before them aren't much better in the payroll department, or in the professionalism department, and even a check of their website provided nothing at all.

I have put in applications with two or three other local temp agencies. I'll be going through the want ads today & next week, but I really can't do much 'til I am done with finals, and most of these things are "start tomorrow"--actually, with the staffing agency before last, I started that night.

For all that SA's employment rate is much better than the national average, that doesn't mean jobs aren't evaporating here too. Just that fewer people are getting laid off.

Oh well. At least I don't have to worry about not qualifying for the full Pell Grant next year.

Things to make men happy

This is the BA-K-47. According to the source, it is "a 1:1 scale AK-47 made out of bacon. It took a total of eight hours to create, a lot of bacon, and a blowtorch... oh yeah, and our good friend beer helped too."

Please note I have no idea what might be lurking on the rest of that site; I credit this to WarKitty, which has the world's best tagline ("Thermometer Goes Where?" beats out "Even Yankees Taste Good Deep Fried" from Motherhood Uncensored, though barely.)

For the record..

When chatting with males much younger than yourself, even if the topic is closing wounds, don't mention the time you got staples.

Because then you will have to admit that no, it wasn't your head. It was from the c-section(s). And that will kill the conversation dead.

It's not like I offered to show them the scar. And really, it's just on my abdomen.

Could have been worse, I could've told them about the time I got stitches.

I only ever get injured during childbirth.

SA Tea Party

I didn't get home til fairly late last night & I was exhausted, so I actually went right to bed. So no pix before now.

First off: We didn't stay much past 6pm, which was the actual start time. Know what's STUPID? Not having the tea party start for an hour after Glenn Beck's show ended. There's pretty much no excuse for that, and it's why we couldn't stay for very much of the actual tea party. We had to take the girls into consideration. They were whining pretty much the entire time about being thirsty. (For the record, we had lunch shortly before going over there and they had plenty to drink then & after; still it was stupid on my part not to bring a lot to drink. Even if we'd have then had to leave to find a potty. Sigh.)

Rob and I planned to go together with my mom and the girls. I should have told him to try to find us there when he first called and said he was going to be late, but I am an idiot when it comes to being nice, and since I could have parked in the church lot for free, I told him I'd pick him up from his parents' house. Which is way the hell gone on the southwest side of the city. So, I had planned on getting there at 3pm and wound up not getting there til maybe 4:45. Because, of course, by the time I picked his sorry butt up and drove back downtown, the church lot was full. We wound up parking by the library and I made him pay for the parking.

That paragraph means: I didn't get to see Glenn Beck. Or Ted Nugent. Or the stage. Or, pretty much, anything other than a whole bunch o' people.

But that whole bunch o' people was the real reason for the party. And so, on to the pictures!

This is walking up toward the tea party on Houston Street. I really feel sorry for the trolley drivers and bus drivers who were rerouted (no busses go up E. Houston anymore, but the Red Route trolley travels it, & the Blue Route trolley & number 7 bus also go in front of the Alamo). I'm not sure what all streets were closed, but it seems to have mirrored the New Year's Eve closings.

Mind you, a lot of people were leaving when we were arriving. And a lot of people were arriving when we were leaving. There was a huge amount of churn. The SA Tea Party website reported more than 9,000 RSVPs before they shut down the system when it got overwhelmed.

According to the SA Tea Party's website, 16,000 people attended. Check out the link; they've got a great aerial photo. This is a bit more than a tenth Bexar County's population (using the 2007 figure which is the most recent I can find). Not bad for a county that went blue in the last national election.


This was one of the funnier signs. There was a pretty good mix of ideologies at our party. There were a few FairTax stickers, some folks passing out InfoWars fliers, even one fellow with a Ron Paul for President sign, the '08 covered with stickers to change it to '12. Hope never dies.

I don't have a real clue how this is being covered in the local mainstream media. I've been on MySA and they have a pretty even-handed article. The comments aren't so even-handed, but I've grown to expect that. One early responder said he'd like to see how many arrests for disorderly conduct/open containers there were. Most likely answer? None. The only beverages were water and tea.

On that, I'd like to note one thing. Bill Miller BBQ, a local chain as noted for their ice tea as their barbeque, was giving out free tea. I had figured the plethora of small Bill Miller's cups to be expected from this city, but my mother wandered off & came back with some tea. I was suitably grateful. I'm not sure if this was a corporate effort, or just kindness on the part of one of the downtown Bill Miller's restaurants, but I must note that the commissary for the chain is downtown.

One of the arguments I knew I'd hear is that we're all simply a bunch of racist white folks. Well. The crowd was pretty pale, as far as I could see. But this is San Antonio, y'all. It's never wall-to-wall white. This little boy wandered over from the end of the bleachers to play with Esther. I took this picture about three seconds before she gave him the first bear hug. She's getting better at not knocking over small children when she hugs them.

This lady (with the Right Wing Extremist sign) actually had a two-sided sign. I don't remember what the other side said. It was pretty wordy. I'll freely admit that part of the reason I took a picture of her is 'cause she's black. She was far from the only black person there, but the others I saw weren't holding signs.

There was one young fellow with a sign saying something along the lines of "Property is Murder." Bit odd, but lets you know the anarchist contingent was also there.

One of the other common claims is that the crowd wasn't just white but old. Well then. Nope. I'm 29; Robert is 35. I'd say at least half the crowd was youngish like we are. There's a picture of a UTSA student in the slideshow up at MySA.com. I know from experience that there's actually a good number of conservative/conservative-leaning college students here. At least at SAC. (For the record, I didn't link to that slideshow earlier because some of the pictures are from out of state.)

Here's my crew. The girls, Rob, & my mom. You'll note that the kids don't look too happy. This is the big reason I hate that there was an hour's worth of down time between Beck's show and the party. It was BORING!

We were all dressed in red, white, & blue. Managed to find some on-sale stuff at a thrift store. Ro has a Texas flag shirt. Rob's in one from his Navy days & what looks like a brand new ballcap his dad probably bought him on Lackland. (This is a ballcap typically not worn unless you have no other choice, by the way.)



There were a few of these flags there. There was at least one of every one of the flags from the Texas revolution. This being San Antonio, no few signs were calling for secession. The yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flag was also much in evidence, perhaps more than anything else due to the fact that at least one enterprising couple had set up with a great deal of small ones to sell. God bless capitalism. (That's actually what I remarked upon seeing them.) Alas, I had no cash.

There were also a couple of flags I did not recognize.
The one on the bottom. That's actually the best picture I was able to get of it. (And for the record, none of that graffiti is from a right-wing extremist). There was some design I couldn't really make out in the center of the cog. The other flag I didn't recognize was a red arm & sword that was dripping blood. IIRC, that was also on a yellow field.




Couple of generic crowd shots. I never did get over to Hemisfair Plaza to see the overflow crowd there. I think at least as many people had cameras as had signs. I wish I had thought to make signs ahead of time, but I couldn't really think of anything to put one one that wasn't crass. So it's probably better for all involved that I didn't.

There was one elderly lady who had a sign saying something about stealing her grandkids' money, complete with pictures of said grandkids. Including one ultrasound photo.

Obligatory Alamo photo:


This was as close as I could get. I'm rather annoyed by how close some of the people got. I was under the impression that no one was to get on Alamo grounds with signs at all, and yet you can clearly see that there's a humongous sign being held against one of the walls to the side there. Maybe they have a different definition of Alamo grounds than I do--although you can't tell from the photo, there was a large empty space directly in front of the Alamo itself. Folks filled up that little street there between the plaza & the Alamo proper, but didn't get directly in front of the Alamo.

The MySA.com article says that the founder of the Alamo Society was upset at Alamo Plaza being used as a "prop for a cause". He is further quoted as saying "I’m hopeful that the city of San Antonio will restrict Alamo Plaza to things strictly related to the Alamo of 1836". I'm thinking Mr Chemerka has been sadly absent from this city. He must not have noticed the blue lights bathing the Alamo last year as recognition of diabetes. Or the red lights bathing it this year as part of World AIDS Day. Or the Christmas tree--surely not related to the Battle of the Alamo--there every year. Or the annual Fiesta events. Or the portion of Miss Congeniality that was filmed on the Plaza. Or, in short, the huge variety of things completely unconnected to the Alamo of 1836 that take place on Alamo Plaza every single day. (I'm also guessing he's never looked across the street at Ripley's Haunted Adventure or Louis Toussaud's Wax Museum or the plethora of t-shirt shops.)

I shall leave you with this picture of sublime Texas humor:

I am, apparently, a Right-Wing Extremist

From the Homeland Security Administration's report on Rightwing Extremism:

* (U) Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or
rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

It would seem that my opposition to abortion and devotion to the Tenth Amendment place me squarely in that category.

So is JayG:

(U//FOUO) Proposed imposition of firearms restrictions and weapons bans
likely would attract new members into the ranks of rightwing extremist groups,
as well as potentially spur some of them to begin planning and training for
violence against the government. The high volume of purchases and
stockpiling of weapons and ammunition by rightwing extremists in anticipation
of restrictions and bans in some parts of the country continue to be a primary
concern to law enforcement.

And Murphy, SpeakerTweaker, et al. (Even Johnny Law, perhaps, being that he's a veteran.):

(U//FOUO) Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are
attractive to rightwing extremists. DHS/I&A is concerned that rightwing
extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to
boost their violent capabilities.

Looking over my blogroll, I've got only a handful of people who can't fit in one of these classifications. Of the people who ever directly address politics in their blogs, I've got two (Nurse Ratched & Mightygodking).

Then there is this:

(U//LES) Rightwing extremists are harnessing this historical election as a recruitment tool. Many rightwing extremists are antagonistic toward the new presidential administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms ownership and use. Rightwing extremists are increasingly galvanized by these concerns and leverage them as drivers for recruitment. From the 2008 election timeframe to the present, rightwing extremists have capitalized on related racial and political prejudices in expanded propaganda campaigns, thereby reaching out to a wider audience of potential sympathizers.

This conceivably lumps the 48% of Americans who voted for McCain into this group.

Granted, I am being a bit overblown here. None of us whom I've mentioned in this post are violent, or at all prone to violence. It should be clear that we're not barking moonbats like the fellow who murdered three Philadelphia police officers (who is singled out in the report as an example). And yet, as Strings has pointed out, there's already a grassroots movement to "monitor and report all anti-obama activities taking place on the world wide web". (Lack of capitalization theirs, by the way.) There are those out there who will construe simply being against Obama and his policies as tantamount to being white supremacists.

And the gun nuts I read on a regular basis are going to be the first targets.

(U//FOUO) Many rightwing extremist groups perceive recent gun control legislation as a threat to their right to bear arms and in response have increased weapons and ammunition stockpiling, as well as renewed participation in paramilitary training exercises. Such activity, combined with a heightened level of extremist paranoia, has the potential to facilitate criminal activity and violence.

Of course, the actual reason for the build-up is listed in the report as well, though as a cause of extremism, not as a reasonable explanation:

(U//FOUO) On the current front, legislation has been proposed this year
requiring mandatory registration of all firearms in the United States. Similar
legislation was introduced in 2008 in several states proposing mandatory tagging
and registration of ammunition. It is unclear if either bill will be passed into law;
nonetheless, a correlation may exist between the potential passage of gun control
legislation and increased hoarding of ammunition, weapons stockpiling, and
paramilitary training activities among rightwing extremists.

In fact, if you want to try on your tinfoil hat, you might want to take note of the recent blogmeets that centered around gunshoots. The most recent one, of course, was hosted by a suspiciously-bald white man. (That said, I'm sure AD is actually our extremist mastermind here, as he's been involved in at least two of the blogmeets and briefly considered attending the local one here in SA.)

Again, I'm being hyperbolic a bit. But just a couple of paragraphs later, there is this:

(U//FOUO) Open source reporting of wartime ammunition shortages has likely spurred rightwing extremists—as well as law-abiding Americans—to make bulk purchases of ammunition. These shortages have increased the cost of ammunition, further exacerbating rightwing extremist paranoia and leading to further stockpiling activity. Both rightwing extremists and law-abiding citizens share a belief that rising crime rates attributed to a slumping economy make the purchase of legitimate firearms a wise move at this time.

So, which one are we? And who gets to make the determination?

Further distressing to me is this:

— (U) After Operation Desert Shield/Storm in 1990-1991, some returning military veterans—including Timothy McVeigh—joined or associated with rightwing
extremist groups.

— (U) A prominent civil rights organization reported in 2006 that “large numbers
of potentially violent neo-Nazis, skinheads, and other white supremacists are now
learning the art of warfare in the [U.S.] armed forces.”

— (U//LES) The FBI noted in a 2008 report on the white supremacist movement
that some returning military veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have
joined extremist groups.

I'm not a veteran. I am the ex-wife of a veteran, the daughter of veterans, the sister of a veteran. Not a veteran myself, though.

Note that although they only name one returning Desert Storm vet as a bona fide extremist, it doesn't stop some generalizations. Note too that they cannot name the "prominent civil rights organization" that the military is riddled with white supremacists. I'll leave it to the actual veterans to refute that one. If they feel like stooping that low. Next thing you know, a high & tight's going to be pointed to as a sign of having neo-Nazi sympathies.

I will leave you to draw conclusions after you've read the paper. Here's a link to Michelle Malkin's verification of the report. And a quote:

Well, the press office got back to me and verified that the document is indeed for real.


They were very defensive — preemptively so — in asserting that it was not a politicized document and that DHS had done reports on “leftwing extremism” in the past. I have covered DHS for many years and am quite familiar with past assessments they and the FBI have done on animal rights terrorists and environmental terrorists. But those past reports have always been very specific in identifying the exact groups, causes, and targets of domestic terrorism, i.e., the ALF, ELF, and Stop Huntingdon wackos who have engaged in physical harassment, arson, vandalism, and worse against pharmaceutical companies, farms, labs, and university researchers.

This should be worrisome to all of us who are outside of the mainstream. Not just gun nuts, but people who choose not to vaccinate their kids, Freebirth supporters, home schoolers, lay midwives, everyone. If they are successful in going after one group, they will sharpen their swords for others. Personal freedom is a vital issue for all Americans, no matter your particular concern.

I am online friends with a very fine woman (who will be unnamed here for obvious reasons) on the other end of the political spectrum. She's a hippie on a higher level. She lives on a commune (of sorts; it's an artists' enclave). She's supported herself in the recent past by selling some of the finest tie-dye in existence (seriously, she cured me of my hatred for tie-dye). She's also a self-professed socialist. More to the point of this post, she has had two children, at home, unassisted. She doesn't vaccinate. She does things, in other words, that are decidedly unmainstream.

And she is endangered by this report. Why? Because, to put it simply, it can be hard for those in charge to tell right-wing extremists from left-wing extremists. I and my children wear some of her work. I planned for my last birth to be unassisted. My children are selectively vaccinated. I homeschooled until the divorce agreement prevented that, and I am working on my ex-husband in hopes of getting him to remove that restriction (and am trying hard to get the girls into an online school and out of the current environment). We get along quite well. We actually agree on a lot of things. We're not really that different. Do you trust the government to be able to tell us apart? I don't.

That's not a miracle, that's the US Navy.

Just sayin.'

I'm going to be a link whore on this issue, 'cause it's already been said better than I could hope to:

Blackfive: How the Rescue Happened

The AP is reporting that President Obama gave the order to use military force to rescue the hostage, that is misleading.

WASHINGTON (AP)—Administration officials say President Barack Obama approved the military operation that rescued a U.S. captain held hostage by Somali pirates.

The officials say Obama ordered the Defense Department to use military resources to rescue Richard Phillips from a lifeboat off the Somali coast.

He did affirm the military's authorization to use force if the captain's life was in danger, but they already would have had that authorization as part of their standard rules of engagement. If there are innocents about to be slaughtered the same reasoning that authorizes self defense also covers an imminent execution unless the ROE specifically forbid it.The AP is making it sound like there was an active rescue ordered by the President. It was not, there was an imminent threat and the local commander gave the order to fire. Good on Obama for ensuring their authorization was clear, but let's also be clear that he did not authorize or order an active rescue attempt.

I've noticed that the AP story that was on MySA.com last night has been rewritten to erase most of the fawning over the President. Which is a good thing.

Can we fawn over the right guys for a while?

And might I suggest that our response to these pirates be modeled on our country's response to the last huge African Muslim pirate problem we had? I pray the President's reading his Thomas Jefferson right now, but somehow I doubt it. The fact that we're treating the surviving pirate as a common criminal instead of as, well, a pirate makes me doubt there.