Fiat Lux

I made a few small tweaks to the templates for the blog today. Fiat Lux will be two years old in a couple of weeks, and I'm thinking a new look might be in order.

I can tweak CSS when I have to, but I'm not an expert, so creating a new look from scratch would be a lot more work that I'm willing to do. I did some quick Googling for Movable Type styles other than the default ones, and apparently there are at least a few out there. I'll see what I can find.

Not that you're going to care unless you're into yacht racing, but my father won his class in the 2005 Around Long Island race this year, Division 1. Go Dad!

We picked up our fourth round of kittens from the SPCA today. Two four week old boys, Aaron and Mason.

As they weigh less than one pound, we should have these guys for three weeks at least.

Tasha's back at the animal hospital & will be there overnight.

UPDATE (8:35 pm): Got a call from her doctor. They found a "mass" in her abdomen, which could be several different things. They're dong an ultrasound tomorrow and getting additional bloodwork done to try to hone in on a diagnosis. Some of the things it could be are Not Good, others are better, but overall we're not very happy around the homestead tonight.

UPDATE #2 (9:06 mm Friday): It's cancer. Meeting with the vet tomorrow.

I really can't bring myself to type out the full story, but Tasha never came home from the hospital. Her cancer was too advanced for us to do anything more than have her put out of her pain.

We got her in May 1996 from the North Shore Animal League. They did not know her exact age, but the estimate was between 9 and 18 months. So she left us somewhere between age 10 and 11. Too soon. Losing Tina was hard, but she was 17 and we'd had time to get used to the idea. It didn't happen that way for Tasha. She crashed hard and fast.

Tasha was extremely shy, so even close friends and family did not really get a chance to know her. The only people she felt comfortable around were Scott and I, and even then, she would not cuddle with us except in her "safe place" -- our bed. Above is a photo of her camped out between our pillows.

Rest easy, sweet girl. We miss you.

I'd almost think this was a joke if the lawsuit weren't real, and if there weren't a more sinister prospect on the horizon. These guys may be anti-choice wingnuts but they are not stupid.

National anti-choice organizations have been filing lawsuits against California's stem cell institute to prevent them from doing anything with donated blastocysts. The lawsuits are being consolidated to be heard by one judge in one county in order to expedite the process. The latest legal salvo is a federal lawsuit filed by the "National Association for the Advancement of Preborn Children" claiming the civil rights of blastocysts are violated by stem cell research.

Side note -- Emphasis added for the NAAPC. *shakes head in disbelief*. Nice F-U to the civil rights movement there.

Back on topic -- As much as this whole thing sounds absurd, I suspect that the ultimate goal here is not just to delay the CA stem cell institute, but also to keep on filing suits and appeals until they get to the Supreme Court. It's not at all unrealistic to expect that in a year or two SCOTUS will have two new conservative Justices in place and presumably ready to cast a more favorable eye on suits like this.

The lawsuit claims the embryo is a person who should be given equal protection under the Constitution, and her destruction violates her right to freedom from slavery.

In decisions that have upheld the right of women to receive abortions, the Supreme Court has ruled that a woman's right to control her body outweighs the early-stage fetus's rights.

In his appeal of the initial federal case, lawyer R. Martin Palmer argues that Roe v. Wade does not apply in this case because the embryo is in deep freeze and not a mother's womb.

Note the avoidance of Roe as precedent. These guys are clearly angling for an approach that will get around the issue of stare decisis with regard to Roe.

As the Bard said, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in it." (Hamlet)

My husband is of the opinion that everyone in the Middle East is nuts, and that the hot climate helps make them that way. I disagree with him on that point, but once in a while I come across something that makes me wonder whether he's not right after all:

A week ago, 20 men gathered in darkness around a grave in northern Israel to carry out the cabalist ritual pulsa denura, which in Aramaic means "lash of fire." The object of the curse was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who refuses to cancel his plan to evacuate 25 Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory.

According to participants, Sharon will be struck down by the Angels of Destruction in less than a month, or else the 20 men themselves will die.

The ritual might have drawn little attention at a quieter moment in a country that has long been a showcase for extreme beliefs. But as the evacuations approach, Israeli society is transfixed by every detail of what Sharon calls disengagement, and images of the chanting men have been played repeatedly on Israeli television.

Sober assessments also appeared in Israeli newspapers Wednesday noting that a pulsa denura was invoked nearly a decade ago against Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin not long before he was killed by a Jewish extremist opposed to his support of the 1993 Oslo accords.

I'm trying to be openminded here and assume that for some people, this might actually be a way of taking the hell of 9/11 and trying to make a positive out of it. However, it makes me feel sick to my stomach.

The whole concept of 9/11 being "honored" by an overproduced parade and some cheesy country music is just so, so wrong. And of course since BushCo is involved, it's not even that. It's simply yet another pathetic attempt to milk 9/11 and boost support for their war machine. Just look at the title of the event: the "America Supports You Freedom Walk". Ugh. And it gets better:

The goal for next year's walk is to get each state to host its own Freedom Walk to provide an opportunity for as many citizens as possible to reflect on the importance of freedom.

Give me a freaking break! I can 'reflect on freedom' any time I want. I don't need to be reminded by the Pentagon to do it. And certainly not by some faux event like this.

dKos member AndyT came up with a good one today:

Hugo Black, the guy who used to run around in white robes and scare black people. Then he was appointed to the [Supreme] court and went around in black robes scaring white people.

It's the little things that make a city special. Here's one of the special things about New York:

On a steamy morning, traffic is backed up on West 89th Street near Central Park.

Moving vans and garbage trucks screech to a halt. Motorists fume. All they can do is honk their horns and watch as a line of eight horses and riders plods out of the Claremont Riding Academy up ahead, and enters the busy street.

"Look out for taxis!" shouts the leader to seven girls riding behind her. The horses walk serenely in front of the congestion. They clip-clop past a housing project and turn right at a pizza parlor. Minutes later, they disappear into the park.

The traffic begins to flow again.

Horses have been fixtures here since 1892, when a carriage depot was first constructed on the site. Today, the Claremont academy is the oldest continuously operated stable in the United States — and the last public stable left in Manhattan.

"We have a strong whiff of tradition," says Paul Novograd, whose family has owned the landmark structure for 62 years. "The idea of running a stable in the heart of New York may sound unusual, but this place is truly our home."

The beige-brick building, filled with hay and oats, sits on a street less than two blocks from Broadway, where elegant brownstones and condos sell for millions. On one side of the stable is a luxury apartment building, on the other is a multistory garage.

I have fond memories of the Claremont. As a kid, I was in and out of the place frequently. And why not? My grandfather owned it, and it was less than 10 blocks from our home. Grandpa's gone now, and my uncle Paul continues the tradition. Long may it last!

Self-portrait with Kittens.

... is that we're trying to preserve what the British put together in the 1920s with little thought to the actual people who lived there and their pre-existing tribal loyalties. That problem today is nicely encapsulated by Dexter Filkins:

When the Americans smashed Saddam Hussein's regime two and half years ago, what lay revealed was a country with no agreement on the most basic questions of national identity. The Sunnis, a minority in charge here for five centuries, have not, for the most part, accepted that they will no longer control the country. The Shiites, the long-suppressed majority, want to set up a theocracy. The Kurds don't want to be part of Iraq at all. There is only so much that language can do to paper over such differences.

Hat tip to Kevin (who appears to have either turned off or broken his trackbacks) for the link.

Digby offers the following, very fascinating, suggestion:

I've been thinking for a while that we might be seeing the beginning of a new trend in American politics --- the anti-military right. Rush is calling marines "pukes," veterans are being called cowards and fakers, disabled vets are mocked for not having the right wounds or getting them in the right way, GOP hags are wearing cute little "purple heart" bandaids on their cheeks. People are selling busts of the president using his lack of combat experience as a selling point saying outright that physical courage is no longer particularly worthy of conservative approbation. Being a veteran buys you no credibility and no respect in today's Real Murika.

This is how they transform Chickenhawkery into a badge of courage.

I suspect that what we are hearing (aside from the self-loathing fidgeting of those who loudly beat wardrums yet are too selfish to serve) is the distant rumblings of a massive rightwing frustration with the military's inability to just "win" this damned thing so we can move on to our next country. It was supposed to be a cakewalk.

UPDATE: Thinking some more about it this morning, I wonder whether a "we got stabbed in the back by our own military" right-wing meme couldn't emerge out of this line of thinking. Sadly, they'll probably find some way to blame this on Bill Clinton or at least "the liberals" instead.

Seen in the SF Chronicle today:

Interest-only loans were the dominant home finance instrument before the Depression. Sharply declining property values, coupled with the fact that the principle was never paid down, contributed to widespread foreclosures in the 1930s. That led to the introduction of the amortizing loan, in which the principle is paid off during the life of the loan.

Interesting. And if you want more details on other things that happened to the mortgage industry in the 20th century, here's a useful link.

Michael at AmericaBlog asks two related and very difficult questions:

What do you do if a people want to live in your society but don't embrace the values that society stands for?

and

If you don't want to live in a free society that respects the rights of women and infidels and other religions, why did you move to the UK/France/Holland/etc in the first place?

As a member of a minority culture, I'm all for retaining one's unique religious and/or ethnic identity. But if you're going to live in a country dominated by a culture other than your own, you need to face up to reality and make your peace with it. If you can't find a way to navigate the differences, that's where the problems happen.

America's history with regard to immigration issues is far from pristine. But overall I think we've managed fairly well. Our country's relative youth and large geographic size has helped. Europe doesn't have those advantages. On the plus side, though, the creation of the EU and the Euro currency unification have given them some object lessons in how to play nicely with their neighbors. We'll see how it all plays out.

Sometimes, when I have a blogging lull, it's because there's not much that I want to talk about. Recently, the opposite has been true. There's a number of things going on that I want to talk about, but I'm not sure what exactly I want to say about them. So rather than sound insipid or downright wrong, I've been keeping my mouth shut.

Here's an example. 11,000 people applied for the 400 jobs at a soon-to-open Wal-Mart in Oakland. It was front-page news in the SF Chronicle yesterday.

I had to run some errands around town last night, so I got to listen to two different KGO talk radio hosts opine on the subject. And since this is the Bay Area, it was pretty easy to predict what people were going to say about the whole thing: "Our economy sucks! Wal-Mart is evil! This is terrible!". All of which happened as expected. Although it was funny listening to one host try to defend the concept that any time you have a willing buyer and a willing seller, the result is a "good job" no matter how crappy the wages and benefits are. I was tempted to call in and ask if that extended to things like murder for hire, but I figured that might not get past the screener.

So here's some of what I think. On the one hand, although those job numbers sound bad at first, when you break it down, that's about 27 applicants per position. Competitive, but from where I sit, not horribly so. Not after hearing stories of hiring managers getting flooded with hundreds of resumes for one job posting on Craigslist. Now, not being a tech hiring manager myself, I don't know if those stories are still true, or if that was only in the immediate post-bust timeframe. Maybe I'm wrong and these days, getting 27 applicants per job is really bad. Or maybe it's not that bad after all. Bottom line is, I don't really know, and therefore have a hard time taking a firm stand either way.

Something else I thought about, but have been hesitate to talk about, is the intersection of race and class and hiring here -- note this photograph of the new Wal-Mart employees. But frankly, as relatively privileged member of society, I don't feel comfortable making a lot of points about race and class and employment. It's not my area of expertise, and I run the risk of sounding clichéd, banal or clueless, or (god forbid) a combination of all three.

And yes, Wal-Mart has some terrible business practices. But that's not exactly news if you've been paying attention.

Perhaps after two years of blogging, I'm coming to a place where I feel less like just venting off my emotions and opinions, and instead trying to have some solid ground under my feet when I post. Perhaps I'm being overly cautious -- it's not like I've got a horde of trolls ready to attack me if I say something wrong; I'm lucky to get any comments at all here. Or maybe I'm just being lazy. *grin*

Next, I'll consider whether or not to say anything about Gaza.

There's a classic Jewish story that goes something like this:

Avram and Shlomo have a dispute, so they go to their Rabbi to have him settle it. He and his wife welcome them into their parlor and settle down to hear them out.

Avram speaks first and tells his side of the story to the rabbi. He is articulate, emotional, and logical. He makes a great case for himself. And the Rabbi said, "Avram, you are right." Next Shlomo stands up. He speaks with such passion and persuasion about his side of the dispute that the Rabbi says to him, "You, too, are right, Shlomo."

The Rabbi's wife is upset by this and says to her husband, "How can you say that both of them are right? If one is right, the other must be wrong."

The Rabbi thinks long and hard and finally says to his wife, "You know, you're also right."

When it comes to the issue of Gaza and the West Bank, this story is particularly apt. After 30+ years of anger, misunderstanding, and bloodshed, nobody's hands are clean, and nobody wants to admit that they might have been wrong about some things. And through all the hatred, lies, and pig-headedness, somehow, a way needs to be found for everyone to co-exist. (I didn't say like each other, that might be asking for too much.)

Personally, I do not hold with those who say that all of Israel was given to the Jews, and that giving back Gaza is a sin against God. I don't think God sits there with a map drawing lines as to what is or is not Israel. Israel existed in the heart of every Jew during our long Diaspora. Israel will continue to exist, with or without Gaza. And the wounds the occupation have given us, the spiritual coarsening we have fallen into in a vain attempt to hold onto that land is bad enough. For the sake our our collective soul, we need to let go in order to heal.

But even if giving up Gaza is a good thing, it's still a hard thing to do, and a sad one. Seeing the photographs of weeping settlers holding onto IDF soldiers who were also weeping, was hard. The settlement policy was a deeply misguided one, but the settlers themselves are not puppets, they're people. They are not all gun-toting Arab haters, and now they have lost their homes. Perhaps this is the karmic payback we have to go through in order to make amends for past wrongs. If so, then perhaps some good will come of it.

And I do wonder whether giving back Gaza will allow Hamas and their ilk to claim victory, or even worse, give them a reason to keep on sending out suicide bombers and spilling innocent blood. Giving up land for peace is one thing. Giving up land and not getting peace in return would be intolerable.

(Crossposted at the All Spin Zone)

Aaron the little piggie edition!

He loooooooooves the grownup dry food. It's adult weight control formula, so I try to keep him from eating too much of it.

Initially, when I read this, I was a bit annoyed. "He's only getting coverage for criticizing the war because he is a Republican," I though. But upon further reflection, I'm glad it's in the news. If even mainstream Republicans are ready to openly criticize our involvement in Iraq, that's a net positive.

No sooner do I put up a faintly hopeful post about things today than Atrios pointed me to something else that turned my mood right back around.

I think it's important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States, it was a democracy then. In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we'd all be thrilled. I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy.

WTF?!?!

[rant mode = on]
I hope Reuel Marc Gerecht never, ever gets laid again for his insane supposition that it's OK to disenfranchise Iraqi women at the cost of some 1,800 American lives and god knows how many more wounded. What kind of a delusional sexist jerkoff thinks that's a good thing? What an egregious overprivileged f*cktard!

AARRGGHH! It makes me want to knock heads together.
[end rant]

For more substance and less ranting, go read what Digby has to say about this. I'm too annoyed.

One year ago today we brought Gimi home from the SPCA.

Gimi when we brought him home:

Gimi now:

What can I say? He's a great big goofy cat. He loves people and other animals. I sleep better when he's cuddled up next to me; his big old purr is very soothing. He's not much of a lap cat, but I suspect in a couple more years he will be. In short, I'm so glad we brought him home.

Oh, and next Monday, my fall semester starts. It's been a long and overall not very thrilling summer, I'll be glad to get back to school.

Israeli paper cups in a Saudi hospital! Cue the outrage - It must be a Mossad plot!

Riyadh, 22 August (AKI) - Paper cups made in Israel have caused a storm of protest in a Saudi hospital, the Saudi newspaper Arab News reports. Officials at the King Khaled National Guard Hospital says they are investigating after the catering subcontractors for the coffee shops in the hospital ran out and began using Israeli paper cups with Hebrew writing on them, sparking outrage among the customers.

What's sad is that someone, somewhere, probably does think that my opening joke is for real.

Last semester, I had to drop close to $600 on textbooks, which seemed a bit excessive. Imagine my surprise when checking the required books for my courses this semester: I found only 2 books on the list. Buying both used on Amazon cut my textbook bill to less than $200. I was so sure that was a mistake that I went over to the campus bookstore yesterday to see if perhaps the online list was wrong. But no, only two textbooks.

One professor has not submitted a book list to the store, so he may hit us with a big list the first day of class. Even so, it's nice to not have to drop that much cash on books this semester.

I've sent in all my paperwork, written a tuition check, and gotten a nice new notebook for classes. I even bought a cute new shirt yesterday. And the weather here seems to be changing over towards September-in-San Francisco - our eternal summer fogbank seems to be lightening up.

Summer is winding down. I'm ready.

Mason hit 2 pounds today. We took him back to the SPCA to be neutered and adopted out. Since he is a gorgeous fluffy tabby, he should be out of there in just a few days. Aaron is still with us; he's not big enough to go back yet.

Pat Robertson seems to have hurt nobody but his own evangelical bretheren by his recent call for the asassination of President Chavez:

Venezuela's government has temporarily suspended permits for foreign missionaries after a U.S. televangelist said Washington should assassinate President Hugo Chavez.

The policy announcement came four days after conservative evangelist Pat Robertson said Washington should execute Chavez, a former soldier who often accuses the United States of plotting to kill him.

The chief of the Justice Ministry's religious affairs unit, Carlos Gonzalez, said Friday authorization of permits for missionaries would be curbed while the government tightened regulations on preachers inside Venezuela.

The permits "are suspended for a short time ... while we organize a system to see what additional data we need for people coming into the country to preach," Gonzalez told Reuters.

"We were already working on this, but these declarations have made us speed things up," he said.

Heh.

Hat tip: AmericaBlog

New foster kitty, Marcus. He is a very undersocialized mix-breed, about 5 or 6 weeks old.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, "study of the week" science is sometimes suspect, but this is news I like to hear:

Coffee not only helps clear the mind and perk up the energy, it also provides more healthful antioxidants than any other food or beverage in the American diet, according to a study released Sunday.

... is a town I'm quite fond of. I hope it dodges the Katrina bullet.

Update: By way of The Sideshow, I came across this New Orleans webcam site. As of the time I typed this, the cam is still working.

This is our other new foster, Arizona. She likes my laptop; probably because it's warm!

The bad news out of New Orleans continues, the news out of Iraq is bad too. And from NY, I got an email that my old rabbi has died (UPDATE: here is an obituary).

About the only thing I can do from here is make a donation to the Red Cross.

If Katrina had hit a few weeks ago I could have taken the Red Cross training and gone there to help, but the semester has now started and I'm tied to SF for the next several months.

Bleh.

Local gas prices are up about 20 cents a gallon in the last 48 hours.