Bonnie and I attended the 75th annual Highland Gathering at the Pomona fairgrounds today. What a thrill that was! I guess I can claim 1/4 Scottish heritage; my maternal grandfather was a Graham.
We spent most of our time watching the pipe and drum competition. I think I heard enough bagpipes to last me for a few weeks, at least. It was a very colorful day, as the pipers and many of the attendees wore kilts.
They had several stages with different groups performing folk songs and such. And, of course, there were vendors selling all kinds of Scottish things.
We will probably go again next year and check out stage performances as well as the dancing competition and the athletic events.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Books and Libraries
I've been having a great time filling my bookshelf on shelfari.com, but I've got a long way to go if my virtual bookshelf is going to match my actual one.
In the process, though, I found a great web site for someone who does not necessarily want to buy a book, but would like to borrow it from a lending library for just one reading. It lets you locate a book in a library near you. You type in the name of the book and your zip code, and it gives you the names of nearby libraries that hold a copy. The libraries must first have registered with the site, of course. I tried it, and it seems to work pretty well. The site address is: http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/. I will add it to my side bar as well.
Happy hunting.
In the process, though, I found a great web site for someone who does not necessarily want to buy a book, but would like to borrow it from a lending library for just one reading. It lets you locate a book in a library near you. You type in the name of the book and your zip code, and it gives you the names of nearby libraries that hold a copy. The libraries must first have registered with the site, of course. I tried it, and it seems to work pretty well. The site address is: http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/. I will add it to my side bar as well.
Happy hunting.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Reading Books and Sharing
I just registered on a site called Shelfari. Contributors create virtual bookshelves that display icons of their favorite books, then share their opinions and comments with other contributors and in discussion groups. It even has links that enable you to buy a book that you would like to read. I figure I will try to add a book a day. The site is still in beta, and has some glitches to work out, but I hope it catches on. Here is a link to my bookshelf: http://www.shelfari.com/TradeWinds/shelf. I have also placed a link in my sidebar for future use.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Rob Needs
I stumbled across another blogger who had Googled "(his name) needs." He published the results and suggested his readers might enjoy doing the same. So I gave it a try. The Google search produced 4,710,000 results. I only checked out the first 16. My favorites are No. 1, 6, 13, and 15.
2. A Hero
3. Therapy (You will too, after you spend a few minutes here--http://aotsrobneedstherapy.ytmnd.com/)
4. A Job
5. A Professional Profile
6. To shut his gob
7. A copy editor
8. Credit for stepping up and fighting the biggest guy on the show!
9. A Net Clued Lawyer, urgently.
10. To move his legs and he prefers to do such with a lady dance
11. Replacement
12. Medicine
13. Your support and donations
14. To ask "What permits are required for this site to operate?
15. To have a party in his honor
16. Help again
So, if I can get the above, along with the other 4,709, 984 things I need, I should be in pretty good shape. How about you?
ROB NEEDS:
1. Rob's Hard Hat--found at The Rob Store
2. A Hero
3. Therapy (You will too, after you spend a few minutes here--http://aotsrobneedstherapy.ytmnd.com/)
4. A Job
5. A Professional Profile
6. To shut his gob
7. A copy editor
8. Credit for stepping up and fighting the biggest guy on the show!
9. A Net Clued Lawyer, urgently.
10. To move his legs and he prefers to do such with a lady dance
11. Replacement
12. Medicine
13. Your support and donations
14. To ask "What permits are required for this site to operate?
15. To have a party in his honor
16. Help again
So, if I can get the above, along with the other 4,709, 984 things I need, I should be in pretty good shape. How about you?
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
A Different Kind of War
I frequently complain that President Bush has failed to mobilize opinion and support for the war against terrorism on the home front as Franklin Roosevelt did in WWII; instead, he has let us fall into a frenzy of anger over each setback, and a continuous and morbid count of each and every soldier that dies. It’s been pointed out that there is virtually no parallel between the war on terrorism and WWII--after all, Hitler's army marched in the streets of Paris and Japan occupied dozens of Pacific islands. Al-qaida had neither invaded nor occupied Iraq. There are no nations or territories to win back from enemy occupation. The war we should be fighting is against terrorists, not against Iraqis.
I accept that there was little or no Al-qaida influence in Iraq when we invaded in 2002. In effect, the invasion of Iraq diverted our war on terrorism to a war on Iraq's sectarian insurgents. But that can't be undone; we are there now, and so is Al-qaida. To stem the violence in Iraq will not only strengthen the Al-Maliki government; it will defeat an arm of Al-qaida. We do need to get out of Iraq and back onto the main targets as quickly as we can, but not at the expense of turning Iraq into another Pakistan. A key step in that process is to disarm the sectarian militias. That we and the Iraqi government have failed to do so in over 4 years is disgraceful.
We have made several tactical and strategic blunders in Iraq. But we and our allies made lots of blunders in WWII, and the resulting losses were orders of magnitude larger. What are disheartening are the attitudes of citizens and politicians at home who dwell on the mistakes instead of pressing us onward for the noble cause. It's partly because President Bush is incapable of communicating with us and motivating us to forge ahead the way President Roosevelt did. It's also because most people do not seem to understand how and why the war on terrorism is so different from WWII.
WWII was typical of the classic, or traditional, wars between nations. The Axis Nations sent large armies into the sovereign lands of the Allied Forces. Our enemy was tightly organized under central control, and they wore uniforms. Their weapons were thousands of tanks, squadrons of aircraft, and fleets of ships that were concentrated to gain physical possession of specific territories. The strongest guys won, and the losing nations signed peace treaties. In the war on terrorism, however, the enemy is not a specific nation. There is no large, uniformed, well-equipped army massing at the border of our nation with the intent to occupy. In fact, the enemies will not defeat us with military force and make us sign a treaty of surrender. Guns, bullets, and explosives are ancillary weapons; the real weapon is the psychology of fear. Soldiers without uniforms sneak into a country not to possess the land, but rather to gain possession of the minds and souls of the people, or else to kill them. Their strike is not merely against the country’s armed forces, but against all non-believers. They sacrifice their own lives in the attack, so there is no force to counter-attack. Eventually, they believe, the people of our nation will be so horrified, so confused, so dejected, so afraid, that they will embrace the true faith. Their government will fall and be replaced by a government of people who embrace the faith. The terrorists do not want our land, they want our allegiance, or our death. Victory belongs not to a man or to a nation, but to a belief.
Traditional military forces and tactics are not very effective to defeat this kind of enemy. New techniques must be tried, and some of those will fail. The public must be patient, accept some failures, but continue the struggle. To try to get the enemy after a strike is too late; the soldiers are dead. Fighting him at the time of the strike is extremely difficult; the attack is designed to be a complete surprise. While the terrorists are setting up the attack is a difficult time to capture them too, since the participants are scattered and secretive. What is left is to attack the places where they train their soldiers—in the countries that harbor and support the training camps. We can also disrupt their finances and their communications. We can attempt to identify terrorists in our midst and jail or deport them. The terrorists view our constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom from unlawful searches, and protection of prisoners from cruelty as weaknesses that they can exploit. But the terrorists have renounced our constitution--they are not playing by the rules of our game. Because of that, they should not receive the full benefits of constitutional protection. We can show them that we will not be defeated psychologically, nor by deceit; that we will take all actions necessary to foil their attempts to kill us.
I accept that there was little or no Al-qaida influence in Iraq when we invaded in 2002. In effect, the invasion of Iraq diverted our war on terrorism to a war on Iraq's sectarian insurgents. But that can't be undone; we are there now, and so is Al-qaida. To stem the violence in Iraq will not only strengthen the Al-Maliki government; it will defeat an arm of Al-qaida. We do need to get out of Iraq and back onto the main targets as quickly as we can, but not at the expense of turning Iraq into another Pakistan. A key step in that process is to disarm the sectarian militias. That we and the Iraqi government have failed to do so in over 4 years is disgraceful.
We have made several tactical and strategic blunders in Iraq. But we and our allies made lots of blunders in WWII, and the resulting losses were orders of magnitude larger. What are disheartening are the attitudes of citizens and politicians at home who dwell on the mistakes instead of pressing us onward for the noble cause. It's partly because President Bush is incapable of communicating with us and motivating us to forge ahead the way President Roosevelt did. It's also because most people do not seem to understand how and why the war on terrorism is so different from WWII.
WWII was typical of the classic, or traditional, wars between nations. The Axis Nations sent large armies into the sovereign lands of the Allied Forces. Our enemy was tightly organized under central control, and they wore uniforms. Their weapons were thousands of tanks, squadrons of aircraft, and fleets of ships that were concentrated to gain physical possession of specific territories. The strongest guys won, and the losing nations signed peace treaties. In the war on terrorism, however, the enemy is not a specific nation. There is no large, uniformed, well-equipped army massing at the border of our nation with the intent to occupy. In fact, the enemies will not defeat us with military force and make us sign a treaty of surrender. Guns, bullets, and explosives are ancillary weapons; the real weapon is the psychology of fear. Soldiers without uniforms sneak into a country not to possess the land, but rather to gain possession of the minds and souls of the people, or else to kill them. Their strike is not merely against the country’s armed forces, but against all non-believers. They sacrifice their own lives in the attack, so there is no force to counter-attack. Eventually, they believe, the people of our nation will be so horrified, so confused, so dejected, so afraid, that they will embrace the true faith. Their government will fall and be replaced by a government of people who embrace the faith. The terrorists do not want our land, they want our allegiance, or our death. Victory belongs not to a man or to a nation, but to a belief.
Traditional military forces and tactics are not very effective to defeat this kind of enemy. New techniques must be tried, and some of those will fail. The public must be patient, accept some failures, but continue the struggle. To try to get the enemy after a strike is too late; the soldiers are dead. Fighting him at the time of the strike is extremely difficult; the attack is designed to be a complete surprise. While the terrorists are setting up the attack is a difficult time to capture them too, since the participants are scattered and secretive. What is left is to attack the places where they train their soldiers—in the countries that harbor and support the training camps. We can also disrupt their finances and their communications. We can attempt to identify terrorists in our midst and jail or deport them. The terrorists view our constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom from unlawful searches, and protection of prisoners from cruelty as weaknesses that they can exploit. But the terrorists have renounced our constitution--they are not playing by the rules of our game. Because of that, they should not receive the full benefits of constitutional protection. We can show them that we will not be defeated psychologically, nor by deceit; that we will take all actions necessary to foil their attempts to kill us.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
A Government of Fools
In a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times, a voter from Encino offers his description of the electoral process in the United States. Here I have paraphrased it:
- All of us have voted for a candidate's concrete plan, only to have the candidate do something completely different once in office.
- A modern campaign candidate must be cautious and speak in generalities, so that he will not be skewered by his opponents, or accused of making a faux pas.
- Any of the Democratic candidates would provide an enormous improvement over the current administration.
Virtually everyone I know takes one or more of those positions. Many people vote strictly along party lines. They refuse to listen to a candidate from the opposition party, assuming that nobody in the other party could ever have a better idea. Many believe that most politicians will say virtually anything to get elected and, once in office, will renige on their promises. I guess they just can't tell when a candidate is passionate about a principle. Most important, people don't want to be bothered with facts and detailed plans. They would much rather vote for someone who is charming and who promises us "a wonderful life," whatever that is. To me, this false and lazy attitude among the voting public is the main reason that we have so many incompetent clowns running for and serving in public offices.
When we limit our judgements to how likeable a candidate is, and to general platitudes like "We need to get out of Iraq soon," or "We must have immigration reform," we elect candidates without knowing how they will resolve the problems. When they implement their disastrous agendas, we feel betrayed, but we deserve what we get.
Obviously, to offer too much detail about a plan for dealing with one of those issues would make a candidate seem inflexible, boring, and even unappealing to one or more segments of the voting public. But a candidate who is both passionate and intelligent should be able to define and outline a middle ground between the empty generality and the crippling details. He should be able to propose a few objectives or purposes that he believes are essential elements or characteristics of the resolution of an issue. Then, he should be able to prioritize those elements and define the possible alternative approaches to implementing each. This technique is extremely difficult for a candidate. It requires that he be able to parse a problem, and to define solutions that will be attractive to the majority of voters and, at the same time, to offer acceptable compromises to the minorities. Then, he must present his plans in a manner that is clear, succinct, sincere, and (yes) likeable as well.
It's tougher for us voters, too. We need to eschew those candidates who constantly attack their opponents, and utterly fail to offer alternative plans with substance. We can't rely on rhetoric and flashy slogans. We have to gather a lot of facts about complex issues. We must analyze each part of a problem from two or more perspectives. To do that, we may have to discuss the problem with people who do not share our view of it. We must realize that the optimum approach to a problem includes the best solutions for the most critical parts accompanied by compromises on some of the less important parts.
If voters and the candidates are unable or unwilling to step up to these difficult tasks, we will have to be content with a government of the fools, by the fools and for the fools.
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