Saturday, April 15, 2006

Email: The just-really prayer [AS]

I've had decades of experience with the people who all (no matter where you find them) pray, "O Lord, we just really ask you just really bless us, just really give us a sense of peace that you are truly with us. We just really ask you this, Lord, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

Friday, April 14, 2006

Email: Change control [AS]

If it's costing you money to work somewhere, then something is wrong and it's time to go. Working for a company that can't even pay expenses in a timely fashion (within 45 days) [means] pay[ing] credit card fees while covering work-related expenses. Try that for airfare and travel meals a few times. It gets old fast.

Change can always be an improvement, if one tries to make sound decisions. Change is not to be avoided, but embraced; change control is the only variable that should concern us.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Names: Jawaharlal, Wladowice, DVD

There are names I enjoy and practice pronouncing like a native speaker, even rehearsing them occasionally in my mind. Imagine someone from New Delhi saying Jawaharlal, Pope John Paul II saying Wladowice, and John Cleese saying DVD. This is also part of how I practice any language or dialect that appeals to me.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Words: reeve, rove, rove beetle

Main Entry: rove
past and past participle of REEVE

Main Entry: reeve
Pronunciation: 'rEv
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English reve, from Old English gerEfa, from ge- (associative prefix) + -rEfa (akin to Old English -rOf number, Old High German ruova) -- more at CO-
1 : a local administrative agent of an Anglo-Saxon king
2 : a medieval English manor officer responsible chiefly for overseeing the discharge of feudal obligations
3 a : the council president in some Canadian municipalities b : a local official charged with enforcement of specific regulations "deer reeve"

Main Entry: rove beetle
Function: noun
Etymology: perhaps from rove
: any of a family (Staphylinidae) of often predatory active beetles having a long body and very short wing covers beneath which the wings are folded transversely -- called also staphylinid

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Neologisms: knitties

I once wrote down "knit ties" but my mother read "'Knitties'? What are those?" So ever since then I have called knit ties "knitties."

Typos: qualitities (qualities)

Now that has me wondering about qualititties...

Sports: Delete steroid users indeed

Richard Justice, writing yesterday in the Houston Chronicle (Wipe users of steroids from the books), has it right. It will take nothing less than banishing steroid offenders from the record books to keep cheaters out of the game, and to preserve the honor, the accomplishments, and the memory of the great ballplayers of yesteryear. God bless Harmon Killebrew!

Politics: W in the shadow of GHW

Mike Luckovich drew a political cartoon in the March 30 edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that shows a diminutive and irate George W. Bush standing in the shadow of his father George H.W. Bush. A bystander says, "I'm watching the total eclipse of the son..." and GHW is holding a sheet of paper that says, "Didn't occupy Iraq because I knew what would happen."

I have been trying from the start to discern what is W's real reason for invading Iraq. No reason he has given yet is the real one, I believe. My tacit suspicion all along has been that he feels the need to somehow differentiate himself as a greater man and president than his daddy.

W has excelled at one thing: wresting and arrogating almost dictator-like powers unto himself and his political party. Undoing his legacy of just six years may require decades. Our sole salvation is that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely; his hegemony may melt down from its own arrogance. (Fare thee well, Tom DeLay; hie thee to hell, Karl Rove.)

It also hurts the neocons that pragmatism, not ideology, is the proper tool of government. Believing oneself to be the divinely appointed savior of the free world (and Iraq) is no substitute for effectively planning and waging an invasion that has been often bungled from the start. Ideology also confuses criticism with antagonism; however, W's and Rumsfeld's greatest detractors are not saying pull out of Iraq, but allocate more resources to accomplish the job (in other words: finish the job, but more competently).

A greater man listens, and does not preselect his "advisors" to be only those who slavishly agree with him. A greater president leads a democracy, not an oligarchy.

Facing the chinks in his armor and the cracks in his administration's approval ratings, George Bush still has time to save his soul, and his legacy: to listen, and to truly lead, instead of merely pretending to do so.

Politics: Toward justice in immigration

We don't need to build a wall along the southern border, because we don't have the PLO as our neighbor or Hamas ruling Mexico. We just need (more) border guards doing their job.

We don't need to restrict immigration out of fear (for any reason) -- as if it could get any stingier. We need to remember that opening doors to legitimate immigration is what made (and makes) this country great.

We don't need to criminalize "illegal" immigrants (or those who "help" them or simply fail to turn them in), nor should we offer some namby-pamby, cart-blanche amnesty; we need to establish a fast-track program to naturalize migrants who work and pay taxes. We want to make citizens in fact of those who are already citizens in action.

Human rights aside, I don't understand why we are providing taxpayer-paid public education, welfare, and health services to undocumented persons who are not citizens and don't pay taxes.

Border-running and "illegal" migration should diminish once the government stops being so draconian about its immigration policies. We're talking about a managed or restricted flow -- but a flow nonetheless, and a greater one, that is far less restricted than the trickles and blockages that have characterized recent administrations. We want an open and transparent government, not an anal-retentive one.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Email: Sirach 4:23-27 [M]

Your favorite scripture (Sirach 4:23-27) says to me: Cooperate with God's purposes; submit to the truth (where it is lacking in you) and stand up for it (where it is lacking in the world).

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Email: Internet personals [J]

I caution you not to put your children’s pictures on the Internet, because so many nefarious things can be done with the information.

Long-distance relationships can work for a while, but transglobal is another thing.