News and Rants

What is it with W? The man can't speak English to save his file. In a recent speech, he described the war on terror as "a struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world." Y'know, a single "And" would have saved his whole attempt.

I adore living in a century where people write sentences like this one: "New memories are fragile and persist only if they undergo consolidation, a strengthening regimen involving protein synthesis." When remembering might mean forgetting.

Did you know that, in high school at least, Love is a spanning-tree network with no 4-cycles? Neither did I.

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Yesterday, on some talk radio station, I was listening to some airhead liberal host (and I mean the airhead part) whining at some caller about "the libertarians." He spun some weird theory about how a fast food restaurant-- oh, let's call it Tainted Meat In A Bun-- could sell tainted meat, and get away with it for a while, and sure the stock market would punish TMIABco. "eventually," but in the meantime people would get tainted meat and die, and TMIABco. would be able to pull in profits in the meantime. That, he said, was why libertarianism was "dumb" and that goverment regulation was always necessary in all facets of our daily life. And then he cut the caller off.

The host was simply wrong. The punishment for selling tainted meat is swift and sure and immediate; Jack in the Box went through a hellish year and has not yet recovered from their hepatitis incident; other chains have had similar difficulties. The attention of regulators and the attention of the public are both simply business risks, and you run the negative consequences of those risks as part of doing business if you take unwise chances. TMIABco. runs that risk just as surely as other businesses did, and if they did so purposely, they'll pay for it swiftly enough.

It's also quite clear that regulation did not help the existent victims. It did not preempt the cases we know about. So what good has it accomplished, that the massed attention of the press and the people has not?

Earliest memories of family

It must be Friday. I'm feeling fried. Brain filled to the brim with a big mix of emotions and no place to put them all, but with that odd sensation that they'd all fit in a nice box if I could only find a box with all the right-shaped holes in it.

At a suggestion from jatg, I'm going to try this.

Mom: A party. At the Big House, the one Dad couldn't really afford but wanted anyway to show that he was moving up in the world. Some massive real estate deal, I recall. Mom looking elegant in a white gown, moving through a crowd of people who were all too important to be bothered with the details of life. A blatant attempt to move up in the world. I dropped something on my foot and severed my little toe, left foot. Wandered out onto the white shag carpet, bleeding. Suddenly she was Mom again.

Dad: The day he and Mom separated. I was twelve. Him in the car. I chose to go with him, although that didn't work out soon thereafter. He looked grim. It was raining. The day was dark gray, night was coming. It was one of the few times I got to ride in his car, rather than Mom's. I hate the smell of leather car seats.

Sandra: In the bedroom we shared. We were both about five. Bouncing on the bed. Probably my favorite memory; one of the few times I remember feeling like a kid. The wallpaper was bright with floral prints, the clothesdresser was likewise white. It was late in the afternoon because I remember the sun coming in through raised-shuttered windows that looked out over the backyard.

Steven: I don't remember my brother. My parents sent me to a boarding school when he was seven and I was thirteen. I never formed a firm image of him in my mind, and there are no memories attached to his name. I've tried to change that. I get the impression he doesn't want to.

Richard: Mom's father's brother. Lived with us until he was 96. I remember seeing the crudely etched numbers tatooed on his left arm and wondering if I'd ever have to get something like that. I played a lot of Go Fish! with the man, and rarely won despite the prodigious amounts of Busch beer he drank. We were sitting on the back porch, around one of those ubiquitous cement tables with the canvas umbrella, playing cards like we did every Saturday.