So who will post first?

Ambulance Driver? Or Murphy? I'd say they've both gone to the Scalpel School of Almost-Never Actually Posting, but he's blogged since they have. Five freaking times. Maybe six. And that's just since AD last posted. Seven times since Murphy did.

C'mon, guys, we're waiting!

Nerd Pron #1

Mill has made as naive and artless a sense of the naturalistic fallacy as anybody could desire. 'Good,' he tells us, means 'desirable,' and you can only find out what is desirable by seeking to find out what is actually desired. This is, of course, only one step towards the proof of Hedonism; for it may be, as Mill goes on to say, that other things beside pleasure are desired. Whether or not pleasure is the only thing desired is, as Mill himself admits (p. 58), a psychological question, to which we shall presently proceed. The important step for Ethics is this one just taken, the step which pretends to prove that 'good' means 'desired.'

Well, the fallacy in this step is so obvious, that it is quite wonderful how Mill failed to see it. The fact is that 'desirable' does not mean 'able to be desired' as 'visible' means 'able to be seen.' The desirable means simply what ought to be desired or deserves to be desired; just as the detestable means not what can be but what ought to be detested and the damnable what deserves to be damned. Mill has, then, smuggled in, under cover of the word 'desirable,' the very notion about which he ought to be quite clear. 'Desirable' does indeed mean 'what it is good to desire'; but when this is understood, it is no longer plausible to say that our only test of that, is what is actually desired. Is it merely a tautology when the Prayer Book talks of good desires? Are not bad desires also possible? Nay, we find Mill himself talking of a 'better and nobler object of desire' (p. 10), as if, after all, what is desired were not ipso facto good, and good in proportion to the amount it is desired. Moreover, if the desired is ipso facto the good; then the good is ipso facto the motive of our actions, and there can be no question of finding motives for doing it, as Mill is at such pains to do. If Mill's explanation of 'desirable' be true, then his statement (p. 26) that the rule of action may be confounded with the motive of it is untrue: for the motive of action will then be according to him ipso facto its rule; there can be no distinction between the two, and therefore no confusion, and thus he has contradicted himself flatly. These are specimens of the contradictions, which, as I have tried to shew, must always follow from the use of the naturalistic fallacy; and I hop I need now say no more about the matter.

G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica

It is probably evidence of just how much of a nerd I am that I am vastly amused by one philosopher handing another his ass. Quite obviously, I am in total agreement with Moore on this issue. The hedonistic principle that good=pleasure is self-evidently problematic. For one, it does not truly take into consideration the rights and feelings of others. In this, it violates one of Kant's categorical imperatives, that people have inherent moral worth. Of course, no Hedonist worth his salt is going to give Kant's theories any weight; however I think most people will immediately intuit the value of Kant's teachings in this regard at least.

I enjoy Moore, though I find his insistence on saying that good is ineffable and therefore we can only know something is good if we know it is good to be circular reasoning at best (honestly, it's vapid). I can absolutely get on board with his smack-down of Utilitarianism.

Note: Much of what in politics and American society we instinctively think of as Socialism is in reality Utilitarianism. The governing principle of this philosophy is the greatest good for the greatest number of people. This is, on its surface, an admirable philosophy when it comes to public policy, and indeed Beckham conceived of it as a sort of macroethics, one which was intended to be put into use by governments in governing.

Of course, your average conservative--myself included--is going to look at that statement and say "Um, what about those of us for whom the greater good isn't good at all?" Beckham was a progressive in his time, and he'd be absolutely at home in our re-branded liberal party. I'm certain Obama is a fan of Beckham's, or would be if he's had any ethical training (which frankly his policies cast into doubt). It is, in fact, this principle of utilitarianism which has led to certain (in my opinion) deep moral errors in medical ethics, wherein a right to death has turned into a duty to die.

By contrast, I think Rawls and his theories on Justice, specifically the principle of greatest equal liberty (which is that we should all have the greatest amount of freedom possible that does not infringe upon anyone else's rights) and his Original Position, which speaks toward the proper thought-processes for developing public policy, probably will resonate more fully with your average conservative.

These, by the way, are the assumptions of the Original Position:

1) People are mutually self-interested. This is to say, they will not, as a general principle, harm themselves so as to benefit another.
2) That people are rational, which entails the following:
a. that they know their own interests
b. they realize that some of their interests and goals will conflict with other of their own goals, and that therefore they will have to give up or relinquish certain goals to accomplish others;
c. they are able to understand the consequences of their actions;
d. they can stay with a plan of action once it is decided upon;
e. they can evaluate and weigh long term vs. short term gains and losses;
f. they are free from pure envy
3) Everyone has similar interests and needs.
4) The veil of ignorance. This is that policymakers should act, when making policy, as if they have no concept of their own positions in society. (This is so that they will make just policies, rather than just ones that benefit themselves.)

{This simplificaton of the theory is credited to my professor, Dr Cox.}

Granted, this is rather an idealistic outlook. For one, I know that many of my fellow conservatives don't honestly believe their fellow men are rational; however this is actually a very minimal definition of rational that Rawls is using here.

Dear God, I just lapped myself in nerdiness, didn't I?

Another one from Pundit Kitchen

I don't know who that is. I don't want to know who that is. I'm reminded forcibly of my ex-husband coming home from a short underway and telling me about his division singing Stand by Me in the torpedo room.

About that gun in purse thing...

I shall now take a break from the bowels of the .PDF version of TEXAS CONCEALED HANDGUN LAWS AND SELECTED STATUTES, which I am researching for my English paper, to address the issue it reminded me of, which is this: Carrying your gun in your purse.

Now, I am no expert on guns. Not by a long chalk. As a chick (despite what certain other internet pages might think), I am well-acquainted with purses.

I first encountered, in person, this quaint and baffling idea at the Bass Pro Shops here in town, when I walked up to the handgun counter to pick the brain of the person behind it, and he assumed I'd be wanting a gun to put in my purse. Rather nonplussed, I simply looked at him for a minute. "If I did that, I might as well just hit him with my purse."

'Cause let's be real here. That's about what it would come down to. Now, there are purses out there with built-in holsters. But when people talk about putting a gun in your purse, there's a near-overwhelming chance they're talking about your purse. As in, the one you carry every day. And that's just a bad idea.

This is my purse. It has six pockets, counting the small ones in the front, but not counting the tiny ones on the sides. This is actually fairly typical for a woman's purse; in fact I made an effort to buy a smallish purse without a dizzying array of pockets. (Smallish without being too small for my wallet & my book.)

There are three pockets which could conceivably conceal a handgun. Two of those pockets are closed with snaps. The third is zippered shut. It's my main pocket, where I keep stuff that I don't want to fall out of my purse. (I am certain you can see how a gun falling out of a purse is a bad idea.)

This is that pocket:

Therein you see my wallet, a paperback book, a Happy Meal toy, a baggie of candy, and assorted receipts and paper.

Yeah, I need to clean out my purse. But so does damn near every woman on Earth, mmkay?

Don't get me wrong. A smallish handgun would fit in here. And then it would worm its way to the bottom, like every other heavy object does.

And where does that leave you in a situation in which you need it? "Oh excuse me, could you put off your carjacking for just a minute? I'm digging for my gun."

Might as well just hit him with it.

Now, an intelligent woman's priorities change when she starts to carry. At least, I hope so. Were I married to the idea of carrying a gun in my purse, I'd spend the $150 or so on a holster purse. Most women won't, though. They would most likely do the bare minimum of cleaning all the excess shit out of their purse and, I hope, making the gun readily accessible. Yeah, you'd lose a few seconds getting the zipper open, still, but any concealment means essentially the same thing. I'm still not convinced it'd be as fast as the typical forms of carry that men tend towards, but I'll readily admit I don't know enough about it to make a definitive statement there.

I'm just saying, in general this is a bad idea, but it's being promoted to women by men who probably should know better. Men who are married, or have a steady girlfriend, that is. Maybe the man said "You want a gun to put in your purse?" because he knows women shove everything in their purses. Well, that's exactly what should have stopped the suggestion.

But I had a second thought when I was last contemplating this. What of the purse snatchers? I'm not really going to lose sleep over this, because I don't know of anyone who's honestly had her purse stolen from her shoulder. But it is always a possibility, and what's the result of that? You've armed a criminal. Either the dude who just stole your purse, or whoever he sells it to.

Now, in Virginia there was a rash of purses being stolen from shopping carts. Again, you'd hope women with a gun in their purse wouldn't leave their purse in a shopping cart and walk away. And women with a concealed carry permit probably wouldn't. But really, wouldn't you hope that any woman would not leave her purse in a cart and walk off?

The third aspect of it is this: Sometimes women forget their purses. Now, I have done this once in my life. When I was nine. But some women lose their purses on a semi-regular basis. Which means that, once again, you'd have a gun out there loose of its rightful owner, and God knows the outcome of that.

So...Gun in purse-bad idea. For most women. Tamara could do it. But most women aren't Tamara.

I'm a dude!

At least, according to The Gender Genie I am.

It was a near one, though. Only 4 out of 7 posts mark me as a man to this, if I'm keeping track right. (I used the longer ones on the front page.) So if I'm wrong about one of them, I'm an hermaphrodite.

Actually, I confuse online gender tests all the time. The BBC can't figure out what the hell I am. SparkLife thinks I'm a guy. So does HackerFactor, which goes so far as to say I am a weak male, and therefore possibly European. Which is just fucking hilarious, on more than one level. Mike on Ads gets it right, and the fact that I've just done several of these means I should probably be going to bed now.

I'm actually a bit bemused by the concept of gender-specific keywords. Why, for instance, is "around" a masculine word? "Above"? And why are "not," "should", & "was" feminine?

Now, just to prove that I really have way too much time on my hands, I'll gender-test some of my fellow bloggers. Hmm. AD is a man, Matt G is a woman (and that was based off this post, which is about guns, for chrissake). So's JayG. Murphy is a guy, as are Scalpel & LawDog.

Apparently, talking about yourself a wee it too much is a good way to get pegged as a woman. ("We", "me", & "myself" are all feminine keywords.) Sexist, eh?

Initially, I'd intended to go in a totally different direction with this blog post, referencing not only my boobs but my ex-husband's lack of cojones. And then I went all silly. I should not post a blog this time of night, apparently.

Oh well, at least it took my mind off financial aid worries for a while.

Typing Test

75 words

Typingtest

Silly little thing, but fun. This differs from most typing tests in that it just lists random words; there's not a text that you're copying. Words disappear when you hit the space bar, so if you take it be careful when the screen switches to a new set of words; it's easy to accidentally skip a word by hitting the space bar at the beginning.

I've finally updated my crochet blog.

There's a new post over at Sabra Crochets. First one in over two months. I suck at updating that blog. I just have next to no time to crochet these days. I'm making a promise to myself that I'll update it weekly from now on.

My problem is that, for a craft blog, I feel the need to have a lot of pictures, and I just don't always have something to photograph! That, and I feel guilty when I don't come up with patterns on a somewhat regular basis, then I feel guilty for not updating, and it's just a vicious cycle.

I managed to get up not only a post with several pictures of a finished object, I created a new blog to house my patterns from here on out, and I put up another pattern. I'm posting this here since I know a few people read both blogs.

Thank you.

(This is the Vietnam War memorial here in town.)

I want to avoid the platitudes for Veterans' Day. But I have to remember to say thank you.

I grew up in a military family. Both parents were in the Army. My brother was in the Air Force. So of course I wandered off and married a sailor who was the son of an Army/Air Force career man. (One tour Army; finished up AF.)

I remember driving down to SA from Norfolk in 2004 so we could get the kids baptized at St Mark's (which is just in front of this monument). I was 24 at the time, had just had my second daughter less than six months before.

Now, you have to understand here. I grew up in Military City. Lots of cities claim that, but San Antonio can make a good case. We've got Lackland AFB, where basic training is conducted, and Randolph AFB (if Linda had been a boy, she'd have been named Randolph), and Fort Sam Houston which is, well, Fort Sam Houston. And that's us after we lost two Air Force bases. Bexar County is typically the tops in the country for recruiting; the top 5 if not number 1. So I grew up around the military, and then when I was 19 I married a guy in the Navy and moved to Groton, which would be basically nothing were it not for the sub fleet. Then we went to Norfolk, which is basically a giant Navy base and surrounding strib clubs.

So I grew up near the military, and married a guy in the military, and went and hung around the military. Back in '01, the last time I saw my friend John Brysch, we spent most of the night talking about his experiences with the USMC in Okinawa & what I'd dealt with as a Navy wife, what I knew of Rob's experiences, even though we'd known each other since 9th grade.

Anyway. There we were in 2004, driving along I-40 through Tennessee. We stopped at a rest area just outside of Knoxville, went in to use the bathroom. As I was coming out, carrying Linda, a group of guys was going back in the other direction, all college guys, horsing around. They were pretty obviously around my age, but all I could think was "My God, how young they all are." That's something I've thought again and again around civilian men. How young they all are.

Funny thing is, a lot of the military guys I knew were younger. Hell, Rob was 24 when I met him, and a lot of the guys he was buddies with were younger than he. And of course your average sailor can cut up twice as good as any civilian you pull in off the street. (And Murphy's & Skippy's blogs provide ample evidence that it's an across-the-military phenomenon.)

And yet there is still a difference. These men and women know there is something bigger than they are, maybe more important, but definitely worth being a part of. And it makes a difference in a person.

So: thank you. Thanks to all the vets on my blog roll. You're a great bunch of guys.

You can't blame this one on us.

Proposition 8, that is.

Now, I've made no secret of my feelings on gay marriage. Misery loves company...They can't possibly screw it up any more than we have...Pick your platitude.

And, as someone has already said, What the hell makes us think we get to vote on someone else's civil rights? Scary thought.

Alas, Proposition 8 passed in California on election night, or at least seems to have (52% to 47%, with ballots left to be counted that no one thinks will change the result).

This is what the maps look like (this is from the election results page maintained by CA's Secretary of State):

Presidential Result:






Proposition 8 Result:






Now, I am not going to be so disingenuous as to say that I don't realize a whole lot of the yellow McCain counties turn into green Yes on Prop 8 counties. But let's be real here. Lots of the Obama counties stay green.

And Obama beat McCain by a 23.7% margin. Sixty-one percent of California voters went for Obama. Only 47.7% voted "no" on Prop 8. That means there were a lot of Democrats out there voting to take away marriage rights.

I thought we were the intolerant ones?

Rebuild the Party

Rebuild the Party: A Plan for the Future

I bring it as I get it. Lots of good ideas on that site for a return to our grassroots. There's also a very cogent explanation of why we should be the internet party. (Which I'm certain my readers know, 'cause here y'all are.)

Here's a taste of their online strategy:

Recruit 5 million new Republican online activists. Even a compelling message won't go anywhere if we have no one to communicate it to. The next Chairman must undertake a crash program to grow the RNC's email file organically -- no spam and no "e-pending" from voter files. This will likely require a two-pronged strategy -- 1) engaging grassroots Republicans directly in the fight against the Obama agenda, with creative grassroots actions that make Republicans want to stand together with members of their party, and 2) integrating e-mail signups into everything we do at the grassroots level, ensuring that everyone who goes to an event and or is contacted by a volunteer is given the opportunity to join our network.

This goal seems daunting, but it forces us to think creatively about creating the sharpest, most compelling messages that will make people want to join us by the millions. If Newt Gingrich and T. Boone Pickens could each build an army of 1.4 million activists around energy, and Barack Obama could recruit 3 million to receive his VP selection by text message, then we know this is possible. If anything, given where the Internet will be in 2 or 4 years, we are low-balling the potential to create a new Republican online army.

There is more to it than that, of course, but this is not by any means a complete platform. And we need to get moving on that minor detail, like, yesterday.

Sumdood Sighting?

Background here, here, here, and here, amongst others. My encounter is closer to Murphy's, naturally.

I live in a trailer park, hence the name o' this blog. I live in a mostly-unlit trailer park in front of a neighborhood which the fine men at the Bexar County Sheriff's Office have advised me to stay out of after dark.

My daughter goes to school on the other side of town. (It's a charter school, not great, but a much better option than the neighborhood elementary school.) We leave the house about 5 til 6 in order to get to the first of our bus stops in time (it takes 3 busses to get to her school).

Last week I was rather nonplussed by the actions of a deputy sheriff. He was parked up at the front of the trailer park. When we passed, he drove past us about a block down and stopped in the turn lane. When we got even with him, he drove up about another block, block & a half & waited again. When we got even with him, he drove up, turned onto a side street, hung a u-turn, and came back in the other direction. Passed us, drove off.

All this is merely background for this morning:

Bobbie and I are walking to the bus stop. I'm trying to maintain situational awareness. I note when we're even with the furthest-front trailer in the park that there's a person walking past along the actual street. He's some distance ahead of us; maybe half a block.

We get to the bridge that runs over the drainage ditch by the park, and a BCSO patrol car passes us by, hauling ass in the other direction, no lights or sirens but moving fast.

That's when the dude in front of us took off running. Cop went past, dude ran. Looked over his shoulder a couple of times, ran a little faster.

I dunno if my six-year-old and I scared the crap out of him or what, but where I come from (the southern part of the eastern side of this fine city, as opposed to the northern part of the eastern side, where I now live) it's a bad, bad sign that somebody starts running the second they see the law. Especially when the cop is going in the direction the dude just came from.

What's a girl to do under these circumstances? Seriously. I took note of the direction he went, and kept aware of my surroundings as always. Couldn't think of anything else, but when the ambulance went by in the same direction, quite soon after the deputy did, I really had to wonder.

Well, hell, anyone wanna join me at the gay bar?

I am so, so tempted to skip school and drink away my sorrows.

I knew Obama was going to win, of course. Any time we've had 8 years of one party, it's more likely than not that the other party will win the next go 'round. Save for when we reelected FDR a couple more times than was probably sane, I do not think we have ever had 12 years in a row of the same political party. At least, not in the 20th century.

So. Here we are. We've "made history" by electing the nation's first Black President. If I have to give a momentary nod to the race issue, I'll do it this way: I think it is at least as historically significant that we've elected the first-ever bi-racial President. (I've never, ever understood why mixed-race folks are expected to pick one race. Sheesh, I'm 88% white, and I generally don't ignore the other 12%.) Isn't the "one drop" rule racist? Wasn't it once used to hold down people with any amount of African ancestry in them?

I will also say unequivocally that we have not "moved beyond race," as has been claimed. Not when every single headline has some version of AMERICA ELECTS FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT. 'Cause, y'all, when you put BLACK in front of PRESIDENT, guess which you're giving more heft? Does Barack Obama not stand on his own merits?

This is the "no toss-ups" results map from Real Clear Politics.com. I am forced to note that it looks pretty evenly balanced between red & blue. And, while Obama kicked ass in a few states, it seems that at least half of the ones he won, he won by a margin of only 1% or 2%. Of course, this doesn't mean much of anything in the real world; it's more of an intellectual exercise to note it.

I don't think this is the end of the world, or even of the Union. I pray that President Bush will work closely with Senator Obama during the transition period, and hopefully bring home to him some of the realities of terrorism. That, or, if there is a "testing" of Obama by the rest of the world, I pray that it will pull his head down out of the clouds.

This is as much a Republican failure as a Democratic victory. We all know McCain barely even tried. We need to retrench, regroup, and go back to what made us a force to be reckoned with in the first place, which was not worrying about whether Jim Bob and Billy Bob wanted to get married! Chances are no one will agree with me on this one, but if we gave over on the gay marriage issue, we could revitalize this party (and really, encouraging the stability that gay marriage would bring to the gay community is a conservative value). There are a lot of gay conservatives, y'all. I talk to them every damn time I go to the bar. They're just as afraid of the federal government taking over their lives as thee and me, but they're more afraid of being forcibly shoved back in the closet by John Hagee and his ilk.

That aside, we have to win from the bottom up. We need to rethink not just who DOES support us, but who CAN support us. We need to quit ignoring groups of people we think we cannot reach. Make a damn case to college students about how lower taxes will benefit them. Tone down the anti-"entitlement" rhetoric a bit, and quit assuming that every person who gets TANF or food stamps is looking to game the system. Get our asses out there and talk to the black folks and the single moms and make a case for the fact that continued government nannying does not help them.

And if nothing else, we all need to listen to our Uncle Matt, mmkay? Let there be no repeat of the sniveling the Left proffered apres the last two elections.

Dia de los Muertos & All Souls' Day

I remember:

Paul House. Paul and I went to elementary, junior, & high schools together. We started out as enemies, and then one day 7th grade history class he stopped by my desk and dropped a bunch of photos from a wrestling card on my desk and said, "I heard you like wrestling. Thought you might want these." We were friends from then on.

Paul used to borrow money from me, five or ten or twenty-five cents at a time. Never paid any of it back. Once while giving a presentation in a class in high school, I told him if he wasn't quiet I was going to go down the hall and tell his mother (she was the counselors' secretary) about all the money he owed me. He shut up.

He went punk in high school. Spiked/dyed hair, dog collars, chains, etc. Used to stand around downtown and scare the crap out of the tourists. I used to tease him about panhandling, because they would sort of throw money at him and then run in terror. (Mind you, he did nothing to prompt this.)

We had Marine Biology & Ecology together in 11th grade. He was class clown, always. He'd wait til the teacher's back was turned & then put on a skirt and dance around at his desk. He once got into an argument with one of the vice principals over wearing a dress to school. VP said it was against the dress code; Paul defied him to point it out (because, of course, it wasn't). This was his way of standing up for our friend Mark, who was being harassed for being gay.

He played baseball until he blew out his knee junior year.

I had no classes with him senior year. We ran into each other at the vending machines. He was on crutches again. I asked why. "Poodles. Really big poodles." He'd tripped over his dog rollerblading & broke his leg.

In late September, he, his girlfriend, his best friend, & his best friend's girlfriend were out celebrating his 18th birthday. His mother hadn't let him get a driver's license because she knew he'd be a dangerous driver. She was right. He was driving Melissa's car. Hit a light pole going 60mph (on a road with a 30mph speed limit).

I was at my father's listening to the news. Heard his name. Looked up, saw the remains of the car. Said to myself, surely there is another Paul House in this city. Then they named the sole survivor. There is not another Hilario Cisneros in this city. I called Mark to ask him if it was true. He said it was. My father found me huddled on the closet floor screaming.

I had thought Paul and I would always be friends. I had expected our kids to go to school together like we did. I did not realize how big a part of my life and expectations for the future he was, until he was gone.

This was when I discovered that pain from a death does not end. It only lessens with the years, and sometimes it will jump up out of nowhere and whack you over the head. Each new baby brought sadness that Paul will not have kids. I think of him every time I hear the Kenny Chesney song Who You'd be Today. "I wonder, what would you name your babies?"

If I ever have a son, his middle name will be Paul.

Micaela Rose Drysdale: My brother got married in 2000, about a year and a half after I did. He married a young woman in Indiana.

In 2003, they had a little girl. They named her Micaela Rose, the name Peter had always wanted to give his daughter. He sent me a photograph of her next to a 1-liter soda bottle; she was roughly that length. (If memory serves, his wife was induced about 3 weeks early due to preeclampsia.) She was a sweet little baby.

She started walking at nine months. When she was a little over a year old, he and I started discussing potty training, because she was going in to the bathroom every time he did and wanting to use the potty.

One day when she was 18 months old, he called me. Shaken. Scared. Micaela had suddenly started walking into walls, she couldn't stand. They took her to the emergency room. That hospital transferred them to another, one with a pediatric neurosurgeon. The answer was fast. She had a tumor on her brain. Cancerous.

And so Pete slipped into every parent's nightmare. She was transferred to Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis. Her tumor was reduced to the size of a pea. She'd probably be okay like that, the doctors said, but they wanted to do one more round of chemotherapy, an experimental type, to make sure.

She turned two on 13th August, hooked up to life support because the new treatment had sent her into liver failure. Fluid built up. Drugs to address this were not given in time.

She died the day before my birthday, not even a week after turning two. I never got to meet her, never got to hold her. My brother had his world yanked away. He was a wonderful dad (is a wonderful step-dad now, to his new wife's two kids). Some things are incomprehensible.

Douglas David Drysdale: My uncle. My Dad, really. He put that much effort into raising me when I was a kid. He's the one for whom words fail me. He died 36 hours before Micaela did, complications from Type 1 Diabetes. I have never really been able to grieve for him. I miss him more than I can truly explain. Only Bobbie got to meet him, and she was 4 months old. But they will all have to grow up without him. There's the gigantic, gaping hole thing again. When I was pregnant this last time, Rob & I discussed naming the baby, should it be a boy, Connor. (Bobbie would have been Douglas had she been a boy.) David couldn't have kids, because of the diabetes, but he said if he had a son, he would have named him Connor. He was a nerd before such things were cool. I'm smart because of him; he taught me how to think and to question everything.