Campanastan

But for 9/11 She Would Have Been 58 Today

Today would have been my younger sister Ann's 58th birthday had not five Saudi Arabian murderers taken her life on 11 September 2001. 

Here are some pictures I took at the Pentagon just a few days after 9/11. One shows the damage done to the Pentagon by American Airlines Flight 77, and the other shows an impromptu memorial we and others set up on a knoll overlooking the Pentagon. The spot was just off Columbia Pike in Arlington, VA, and shows some of Ann's favorite things: Marlboro Lights, Diet Coke, M & M Peanuts.

Niece Becky Weaver and I thought about putting a bottle of Dewar's there but figured it would be gone as soon as we turned our backs.

Here is my post about visiting the Pentagon Memorial.

At the top of the post is her name carved on the rock slab at the memorial.

Ann's murder left a gaping hole in the lives of many - not just friends and family, but co-workers and strangers as well.

Her memorial service on 17 September 2001 was quite the event. I gave the eulogy.

The hardest part was seeing my mother, there to lay her youngest to rest.

Here is a picture of Ann (left) and my older sister Ellen. I think this was taken in the Spring of 2000 or so.

Happier times prevailed then. 

But even in death Annie's still having an impact through the Ann Campana Judge Foundation.

I miss you.

"Cowards die many times before their deaths;
the valiant never taste of death but once." -- William Shakespeare (from Julius Caesar)

If Air Travel Worked Like Health Care: Fasten Your Seat Belts!

David Brooks picked this essay by Jonathan Rauch as one of his favorites for 2009.

It's spot-on. Is it ever!

Brooks' description:

Rauch described what the airline industry would look like if it worked the way the health care industry works. The piece takes the form of a customer trying to book a flight with a customer service representative. The customer wants to fly from Washington, DC, to Oregon on Oct. 3, but the airline lady can squeeze him in only in January or February. He can call each of two dozen other airlines if he wants to check other availability.

When he finally gets on a flight, he finds that his airline will only take him to Chicago, since it’s an eastern-region specialist. He’ll have to find a western-region specialist to get to Eugene. In addition, he’ll have to fax in a 30-page travel history questionnaire, make arrangements with a separate luggage transport provider and see if he can find a fuelist who might be free to make fuel arrangements on that date. That is, if the airline is in his insurance company’s provider network, which it isn’t.

Fasten your seat belts - it's going to be a bumpy flight.

Give it a read.

"I'm sorry sir. We don't use email to transmit records and other personal or secure documents. We keep our records on paper." -- Cynthia, Airline Health Care representative, from the essay

An Audacious Australian Answering Machine Message

Listen to this voicemail announcement, supposedly from an Australian high school in Queensland whose staff had had its fill with lazy students and their whiny parents.

Ahh, those crafty Aussies came up with really nasty message!

Download Answering_machine

“AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island." -- Ambrose Bierce

"Stupidity is not a crime, so you're free to go." -- Unknown

Happy Holidays from Campanastan!

 

Supplied by Campanastan's Minister of Humor, Marty Ennis; her visit to Campanstan's remote mountain resort has been delayed for a few more months.

Campanastan's President-for-Life has a sense of humor - at times.  And here's an example of that - the Singing Sewermen!

You can sing along with them (tune: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen):

  This Christmas Think of Sewermen

This Christmas think of sewermen who tremble in dismay
When grease from goose and fatted fowl is idly poured away
It clogs the drains of London and it must be scraped away.

Put your fat in the rubbish in a bin, throw it all in
Put your fat in the rubbish in a bin

So when you’ve had your Christmas meal of turkey, wine and pud
Remember our poor sewermen and treat them as you should.
Don’t pour your hot fat down the drain ’cause it will do no good.

Put your fat in the rubbish in a bin, throw it all in
Put your fat in the rubbish in a bin
 

"The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C.  This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin."  ~ Jay Leno

Conquered by 'Invictus'

Last night Campanastan's President-for-Life and his wife descended into the masses to see Invictus, Clint Eastwood's film based on John Carlin's book, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation.

The film tells the story of Nelson Mandela's first years as South Africa's post-apartheid president and his delicate walk between his rapid supporters, many of  whom sought 'R 'n R' - Revenge and Retribution - quite different from Mandela's vision of 'R 'n R' - Reconciliation and Rebuilding - and the white South Africans, whose support he desperately needed.

He decides to use the Springboks, the national rugby team and a symbol of the Afrikaans culture, and their quest to win the World Cup of rugby in 1995 as a mechanism to unite the country. Despite skepticism from his advisers and the rugby team itself, the scheme works, due in large part to Francois Pienaar, the rugby team's captain, who soon realizes that he and his teammates are not just a sports team.

View a trailer.

The title is taken from the Latin word meaning 'unconquered', and the poem that Mandela often  referred to during his 27 years imprisoned on Robben Island.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
   ---Invictus, by William Ernest Henley

I memorized this poem in high school; I remember the last two lines.

An uplifting movie about two men -- one remembered by all, one forgotten by many - who rose to the occasion.

And why sports are often far more than what they seem.

"If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. " -- Nelson Mandela

Geography of Recession: USA Map Shows Monthly Unemployment Rates by County

You can also view this as a larger image. Either way, not a pretty sight.

"And so Fannie Mae produces very strong results for investors when interest rates are high and when interest rates are low, in recession and during booms." -- Franklin Raines, former chair of Fannie Mae

Campanastan Wants a REAL Knowledge Center, Too!

In early November 2009 my wife Mary Frances, a professional librarian and Campanastan's Minister of Information, and yours truly, President-for-Life, got an inside tour of the University of Nevada-Reno's Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center. Our tour guide was Carol Parkhurst, Senior Director, University Libraries.

Why post about a library?

Two reasons:

1) this is not about a library - it's about a model for the evolution of libraries; and
2) Campanastan needs superior access to knowledge and a place to house and distribute the knowledge our citizens discover and appropriate from others. 

[Disclosure notice: Carol Parkhurst and her husband, hydrogeologist extraordinaire Steve Wheatcraft,  have been very good friends of your President-for-Life for close to 30 years. I take partial (50%) credit for introducing them to each other; I was the best man at their wedding and Steve fulfilled the same role at ours.]

Since the Minister of Information is the expert I asked her to write about the UNR KC. She could not refuse such a request.

In November we toured the University of Nevada-Reno Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center.  The tour guide was the person responsible for this remarkable entity—Carol Parkhurst, Senior Director, University Libraries.  Both Carol and I have been in librarianship for a long time and have seen the naming fashions come and go.  Often these trendy names for libraries (e.g., information center, learning center and knowledge center) are just attempts to attract non-library users.  But the UNR KC has achieved something special in my mind—it is a true, physical and functioning knowledge center. 

Besides being gorgeous—all its appointments tasteful, functional and coordinated—it is designed to integrate all the various information accessing technologies available to us today.  Remember that books are a technology just as nettops are a technology—the key is to get the entire format product line to provide a whole, seamless experience in information access to the user.  UNR KC does that.  Books are very much in evidence, but they flow in the physical space to connect with computers and other media so that information may be discovered and extracted (or created).  A multiple-story edifice with almost 300,000 square feet of usable space, it contains expertly-organized computer areas, media production services, social interaction areas of various types, clearly-marked, well-lighted bookshelves and supports these products and services with state-of-the-art (and more) backend processes.

The whole exceeds the parts, which should be a goal of libraries.  Carol Parkhurst was able to bring prodigious attention to detail together with an overall vision to create this true knowledge center.  Congratulations!

You get the picture. This is an extraordinary resource. What's incredulous is that more attention (as of early November 2009) has not been paid to this feat. I suspect it will eventually; the KC has been open just a little over a year.

Your President-for-Life especially liked the multi-story publication 'warehouse' at the back of the KC, where about 660,000 little-used documents are housed and retrieved remotely - all in about 10-15 minutes after a request is made.

Here are some videos of the UNR KC. Take a look at the slide show of the KC's construction.

Campanastan wants one of these.

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it." -- Samuel Johnson

Language Laughs From Campanastan's Minister of Humor

Campanastan's Minister of Humor Marty Ennis has earned a stay of execution by supplying her Fearless Leader with this material, which is several years old.

The Washington Post's Style Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definiton.

    Here are the winners:

Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops
bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone unfortunately, shows
little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the
subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness.

Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

Karmageddon (n): It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day
consuming only things that are good for you.

Glibido (v): All talk and no action.

Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem
smarter when they come very quickly.

Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after
you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into
your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

Foreploy (v): Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

And the pick of the literature:

 Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

BCS Brouhaha: Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) Penalized for Unnecessary Stupidity

If you are a sports fan you have no doubt heard of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), a 1998 creation of the major college football schools so that they can keep more of the lucrative post-season bowl revenue and claim to crown the national champion using a more logical system.  Since its inception, the BCS has generated more controversy than before, as some decry the use of 'computers' to crown the putative national champ.

I sometimes think that the BCS was created simply to give sportswriters something to bitch about, as they rail against 'computers'. Of course, what these morons forget is that it was the humans who devised the algorithms the computers 'use' to select the top teams. Opponents of the BCS system contend that the only fair way to establish the champion is to institute a playoff system the way it's done in the lesser-known college football divisions.

But I'm not here to rail against sportswriters and I frankly don't care much about the arguments for or against the BCS system. It is simply a means to have the rich get richer and keep the 'have-nots' on the outside. A playoff system would simply make college football more like the NFL, except that it uses slave labor.

But is this so important that it merits the attention of Congress? Apparently, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), thinks so. Barton, a conservative Republican and Texas A&M Aggie who decries excessive government interference/regulation, introduced the College Football Playoff Act of 2009, which shall make it unlawful to "promote, market, or advertise" a postseason Division I football game as a national championship game unless it is "the final game of a single-elimination post-season playoff system" for which all Division I teams are, at the beginning of the season, equally eligible.   

Barton invokes Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce as the basis for his bill. And, like all good conservative Republicans, he equated the BCS system to communism (see George Will's column).

Here's a tongue-in-cheek interview with Barton on HHR.

As far as I'm concerned, Congress has more important things on its plate.

From now on, when I see 'BCS', I will think 'Barton Conjures Stupidity.'

Thanks to George F. Will.

"Consumers, whether the millions who watched the game on TV or the lucky few who saw it in person, were being bamboozled." -- Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX)

"Sports journalism is to journalism as military intelligence is to intelligence." -- Shirley Povich, former sportswriter for the Washingon Post.

What's Up With Mormons? Latter Day Saints = Love Domesticated Sex!

So what's up with the Mormons these days? Sister Leticia Farr getting a rise out of her muffins wearing outfits that would raise the dead? Joseph Smith would not tolerate this (though he might take her as a bride).

But at least Sister Farr is in the kitchen like a good Mormon girl, if in fact she really is.

And here are Epsiode 2: Prepare Your Muffins for Latter-Day Disasters; Episode 3: Righteously Theme Your Muffins; and Episode 4: Resurrect Your Muffins.

Here's the lowdown on how the Mormons are getting down and dirty. And see more (or less) at www.mormonsexposed.com.

What's next? Southern Baptist Babes?

"I'd like to warm Sister Farr's buns anytime!." -- B. Young
 

Tom Friedman: Dick Cheney, Global Warming, 100-Year Floods, and the One Percent Doctrine

In the 8 December 2009 New York Times Tom Friedman presents a very good application of Dick Cheney's "one percent doctrine" to global warming.

You recall the one percent doctrine, right? Friedman gives a refresher:

In 2006, Ron Suskind published “The One Percent Doctrine,” a book about the U.S. war on terrorists after 9/11. The title was drawn from an assessment by then-Vice President Dick Cheney, who, in the face of concerns that a Pakistani scientist was offering nuclear-weapons expertise to Al Qaeda, reportedly declared: “If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping Al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.” Cheney contended that the U.S. had to confront a very new type of threat: a “low-probability, high-impact event.”

As Friedman indicates, this is really the 'precautionary principle.' Reasonable, right?

But what I really like like about this article are the final three paragraphs:

When I see a problem that has even a 1 percent probability of occurring and is “irreversible” and potentially “catastrophic,” I buy insurance. That is what taking climate change seriously is all about.

If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels. We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs;[emboldening mine] our trade deficit would improve; the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner. In short, as a country, we would be stronger, more innovative and more energy independent.[emboldening mine]

But if we don’t prepare, and climate change turns out to be real, life on this planet could become a living hell. And that’s why I’m for doing the Cheney-thing on climate — preparing for 1 percent.

We take this same approach in floodplain zoning. A 100-year flood has a one percent chance of occurring in any given year, yet we restrict or proscribe building in the 100-year floodplain unless you purchase flood insurance. The 100-year flood is a low-probability, high-impact event.

I would like to see more people espouse this approach: mitigating global warming is ultimately good for the country, irrespective of the degree of certainty or magnitude of the warming phenomenon.

Heck, it's something Dick Cheney would do!

“According to the Precautionary Principle, it is appropriate to respond aggressively to low-probability, high-impact events — such as climate change." -- Cass Sunstein, quoted in the article

'Tis the Season To Be....Anti-Gay? Uganda Forges Ahead

How I love the holiday season! Despite the garish display of conspicuous consumption here in the USA, there are invariably numerous examples of people reaching out to help those less fortunate than themselves. Revives my faith in humanity.

So it was with great joy that I read a story in this morning's The Oregonian. Seems that Uganda is considering a very harsh anti-gay ordinance, one that would go beyond merely declaring homosexuality a crime, which it already is.

Even more interesting is the morsel that a former Oregonian, Scott Lively, had a hand in this legislative debacle. Lively addressed the Uganda parliament last March:

And remember that homosexuality is literally illegal in this country [Uganda]. Imagine how bad things would be if the criminal law were abandoned. By the way, the false accusation against me, now circulating in the US, is that I called on the Ugandan government to force homosexuals into therapy. What I actually said is that the law against homosexuality should be liberalized to give arrestees the choice of therapy instead of imprisonment, similar to the therapy option I chose after being arrested for drunk driving in 1985 (during which time I accepted the Lord and was healed and transformed into a Christian activist).

Sure love those Christians!

Here are the bill's major provisions:

• Anyone convicted of a homosexual act faces life imprisonment
• Active homosexual living with HIV and same-sex rapists would be executed
• Anyone who "aids, abets, counsels, or procures another to engage in acts of homosexuality" faces seven years in prison if convicted.
• Landlords who rent rooms or homes to homosexuals face seven years in prison
• Anyone with 'religious, political, economic or social authority" who fails to report anyone violating the act faces three years.

Here's a detailed AP story from the Fall River (MA) Herald News

Glad Uganda has its priorities straight. Having homosexuals running around the country is far worse than beating your wife or hacking your neighbor to death with a machete.

"Men will love each other as long as one is richer than the other." --- Ugandan proverb

'Going Rogue' Got It Right: Basketball Coach John Wooden, Native American Warrior

Sarah Palin's Going Rogue has gotten more than a few things wrong. But one of the more unfair allegations is that the book incorrectly attributed this quote to UCLA basketball coaching legend John Wooden:

Our land is everything to us... I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember our grandfathers paid for it--with their lives.

Geoffrey Dunn at The Huffington Post (who provided the picture), along with others, claims that the original quote was made by Native American activist John Wooden Legs.

Dunn gives the entire quote:

Our land is everything to us. It is the only place in the world where Cheyennes talk the Cheyenne language to each other. It is the only place where Cheyennes remember the same things together. I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember our grandfathers paid for it--with their life. My people and the Sioux defeated General Custer at the Little Big Horn.

But is this really the egregious mistake some imply? Of course not!

Actually, Palin's not too far off the mark. Wooden hails from Indiana, which, of course, contains the word 'Indian'. He was also married in Indianapolis, which means 'City of Indians'. He coached high-school basketball in Kentucky, which is derived from an Indian word meaning 'he who throws many air balls.' Wooden also liked Indian motorcycles and, as an adolescent, chewed Red Man tobacco. His mother is one-quarter Indian, from the Wherethefugowee Nation. And don't  forget the iconic stature of  the wooden cigar-store Indian in American lore.

It's easy to see how Palin could have believed that Wooden was an Indian. Just an honest mistake, right? But not really - in fact, the evidence I've cited really corroborates Wooden's Indian heritage. So Going Rogue got it right!

Another instance of the mainstream media persecuting Sarah Palin!

"Never mistake activity for achievement." -- John Wooden (quoted in Dunn's article)

Jared Diamond's NYT Op-Ed: Will Big Business Save the Earth?

Jared Diamond, author of the excellent Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse argues in today's New York Times that big buiness may save Earth (which, of course, does not need saving - life as we know it on Earth needs saving).

He begins:

There is a widespread view, particularly among environmentalists and liberals, that big businesses are environmentally destructive, greedy, evil and driven by short-term profits. I know — because I used to share that view.

But today I have more nuanced feelings. Over the years I’ve joined the boards of two environmental groups, the World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International, serving alongside many business executives.

As part of my board work, I have been asked to assess the environments in oil fields, and have had frank discussions with oil company employees at all levels. I’ve also worked with executives of mining, retail, logging and financial services companies. I’ve discovered that while some businesses are indeed as destructive as many suspect, others are among the world’s strongest positive forces for environmental sustainability.

He focuses on three companies we all love to hate (as he says): Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart and Chevron..

Diamond makes some good arguments. I certainly don't think of him as an apologist for big business.

He concludes:

My friends in the business world keep telling me that Washington can help on two fronts: by investing in green research, offering tax incentives and passing cap-and-trade legislation; and by setting and enforcing tough standards to ensure that companies with cheap, dirty standards don’t have a competitive advantage over those businesses protecting the environment. As for the rest of us, we should get over the misimpression that American business cares only about immediate profits, and we should reward companies that work to keep the planet healthy.

Give it a read.

"All human societies go through fads in which they temporarily either adopt practices of little use or else abandon practices of considerable use." -- Jared Diamond

Opposed to KSM's Trial in New York? Read This

Leonard Pitts, Jr., syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald, recently penned a column titled, We can still afford to act like America.

In it, he supports Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of 9/11, in a civilian courtroom in New York City. It's a decision that has elicted concerns about acquittal, increased risk of terrorist attacks, and increased martyrdom for KSM among his followers.

Pitts begins his column with Jon Stewart's quote (see below), then says: 

And seriously now, who doesn't agree?

You'd have to be defective in your humanity not to. Mohammed plotted the greatest act of mass murder in American history. Who among us wouldn't like a piece of this guy?

Americans have always been ambivalent about the ability of our justice system to give bad people what they've got coming. That's why the action movie almost always ends with the bad guy shot, impaled or fed into a wood chipper: seeing him led away in handcuffs simply doesn't impart the same visceral sense of just deserts.

But you have to wonder: Are our emotional needs the most important consideration here?

It's worth remembering that even the architects of the greatest barbarism in history had their day in court. After burning away 11 million lives, the leaders of the Nazi regime found themselves facing not summary execution, but a trial before a military tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.

The analogy with Nuremberg is imperfect; it was a military court and held on foreign soil in a country we defeated. There was no risk of a retaliatory terrorist attack on the USA. Our security was not an issue.

But Attorney General Eric Holder' decision is the correct one. Sure, KSM and his cronies are thugs and responsible for the death of 3,000 people, one of whom was my younger sister. I think they're scum. A military court would almost certainly guarantee guilty verdicts.

Pitts concludes:

Periodically, we have shed the burden of bravery, reason, civilization, laws. Always, it happens in moments of national stress, moments of overwhelming confusion, anger or fear, moments that make us prey to demons of expedience and moral compromise. Moments when we wonder if we can still afford to act like America.

But we face a band of bloodthirsty hoodlums whose dearest wish is to make us just like them. So maybe the better question is this:

Can we afford not to?

No, we cannot afford not to.

Otherwise, we're just like Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his despicable comrades.

"We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose." -- Bishop Desmond Tutu

"We [should] wrap him in bacon and deep fry him at a state fair while Lee Greenwood stabs him in the face.'' -- Jon Stewart of The Daily Show on confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed

Funny Feline Fotos - Part 3

Great way to start December, with some additional funny kitty photos (see Part 1 and Part 2).

 

 

 
 

"Women and cats do as they dammed well please, and men and dogs had best learn to live with it." - Robert Heinlein