¶ I won't misunderestimate him again: It's not so much that George Bush is a moron as it is that he's a really bad president. A really bad president. An assessment of media war coverage and my pick for 2004.

Death is never an easy thing, but the rah-rah press coverage in Iraq has done its best to minimize any temporary discomfort viewers might feel when presented with the occasional stark realization that this is not a video game. Yes, we can surely be proud of our press corp. "Embedded" like puppets in a marionette show, our illustrious reporters have given us plenty of stirring combat photos, several good interviews with American soldiers, and all the impartiality of George Steinbrenner watching a Yankees-Red Sox game. If you feel badly at any point about people dying for your entertainment, they are sooo sorry....

Personally, I think it would be nice if they'd mention that despite all the death and destruction delivered by the US military (and at what? A cost of only $1 million per cruise missile? A bah-gain!) that we're actually losing plenty of other wars here at home. Smoking continues to kill at least a couple hundred thousand Americans a year. US Gun-related deaths were at 28,000 in 1999 (the last year I could find statistics). Hey, breast cancer killed 40,200 Americans in 2001. How about some coverage, you know?

I don't mean to be overly picky, but the extent to which the media—particularly TV—is being manipulated here is remarkable. For example, no commentator I heard found it contradictory that the Bush administration should complain about Iraq ignoring the Geneva Convention (by showing POWs and American dead on TV)—a case open to some dispute, by the way—when we've violated the same for months now by holding Afgan prisoners of war without trial, legal representation or charges. We're just presented with Iraqi government bad, US government good. No mention, at least that I heard, of the fact that you can't break the law on the one hand and then try to claim its protection on the other. Or at least that it's hypocritical to do so.

Well, I'm being a little circuitous in getting to what I really want to talk about, and that's the 2004 presidential election. As you may recall, I don't believe Bush won the 2000, but I sure as hellfire aim to stop him from getting another four years. My horse for the Democratic primaries is Howard Dean, MD, the ex-governor of Vermont. He's consistently anti-war, he's a fiscal conservative who believes in a balanced budget, and he's not afraid to say what he thinks. Especially about Bush. You'll be hearing a lot more about him (from me if nobody else) in the coming months.

You may have a different nominee who you like. I'm cool with that. Just because I think Dean is the best of the lot doesn't mean I won't work hard for your guy or gal if he or she gets the nomination. Anybody but Bush, my friends. We can't do worse than the unelected yahoo currently calling the shots from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Julie's in town, on vacation from her work and home in Hartford, Connecticut to visit family and friends. She stopped by yesterday and today so that we could catch up and get a web site going to support her belly dance endeavors. It is not finished or up yet, but when it is, you'll find it at www.Aazura.com.

Every so often we'd sneak up out of the office and catch some March Madness NCAA basketball and an update on the war, but for the most part it was nose to the grindstone, let's see what we can get accomplished. I think it's going to work out pretty well in end, but as I say, I've got some more work to do. Either way, it was great to see her.

¶ If you can't say something nice: Bowling for Columbine wins for best documentary, and the director goes off. Some would say the deep end.

I'm confident that Michael Moore, during his acceptance speech at the Oscars, said exactly what he meant to say. He intended to be incendiary, using his brief moment in the sun to inflame the emotions of the Academy members who put him there and of the viewing public. He wasn't wrong in what he said—Bush is president by virtue of a ficticious election, and the reasons behind the present war are ficticious as well—but the Oscar podium is a place for gratitude and humility. It's a place for thanking your forebearers, contemporaries, heroes, contributors, and so forth. It's a place for talking about what you learned in making your film. It is not a place for crass political speeches. (Though it is too bad the orchestra drowned out his line about the Dixie Chicks and the Pope.)

Done correctly Moore could have used the opportunity both to properly accept the award and to make a few political points. Since his movie was about the pervasive culture of fear under which we live, it would not have been difficult to fire a few broadsides in the direction of both the war and the president while doling out appropriate thanks. Lacking the proper sensibility in this regard, Moore sadly came off as a low class ingrate.

In his post-acceptance remarks to reporters he spoke about the dutiful nobility of his actions; the love he feels toward cinema, freedom speech, and America; and the evils of the Bush administration. Two out of three ain't bad, but the idea that he somehow had a duty to launch into an anti-Bush screed during the Academy's airtime is absurd. It's not noble, it's rude. Sure, we have freedom of speech in America. We also try to have tact, because your political point of view gets marginalized when people think you're a jerk. (Something more than a few protesters up in Portland should learn.)

There's no question Moore is a very talented author and filmmaker. Now there's no question juvenile egotist as well, but that's no tragedy. In fact, it's probably part of what makes him as good as he is at what he does. I do, however, find myself wishing that vocal proponents of views similar to my own would come across in a more compelling fashion. There is a difference between the easy work of being heard and the difficult task of changing someone's mind. Anti-war types need to learn this and to get better at the latter.

¶ Joe and I finish the trim: Exterior window trim might not sound sexy to you, but, hey, it was a slow news day.

Joe and I tackled the biggest remaining exterior project from the nursery room remodel of a few weeks ago. Yesterday I'd purchased some good grade 1 x 4 cedar boards at Parr Lumber—the only place in town to buy lumber if you ask me—and today Joe sawed them into appropriately sized bits and we screwed them into place. It was about five hours of work all told with impressive results. I still need to caulk and paint out there, but the siding is all back in place and already lookin' good.

Erin's folks will be joining us over Spring Break, and we'll be tackling the rest of the nursery (and maybe some of the bathroom). If we can get those two rooms finished, we'll be done with our major house remodeling projects for the year. I will confess, however, that several other remodeling projects have caught my eye, and the temptation to continue remaking the house is very strong. Bathroom and nursery first though.

Big thanks to Joe!

¶ Operation Oily Residue begins: It's bombs away, but the stuff that's going to change your life is happening on the Portland city streets. As Mr. Burns might say, "Release the hounds."

I don't have anything against anti-war protests. I've been in a few myself , most recently a couple weeks ago. But there's a difference between civil disobedience and anarchy. If you want to protest Bush's unjust war, dubbed "Operation Oily Residue" by Michael Moore, I'm all for that. Peaceful protest, which can include getting arrested, can be a profound engine for promoting social awareness and change.

Shutting down major interstates without a permit, on the other hand, is not only dangerous, it's incredibly stupid. Nobody's mind will be changed by this sort of behavior. When the police inevitably show up, it won't be to nonchalantly ask people to tango. Protesters will be lucky if they don't kick'em in the gonads, and toss'em in the back of the paddy wagon (to the applause of the multitudes, I might add). Pissing people off will not induce them to adopt an alternate point of view. (Of course in all likelihood neither will issuing semi-humorous screeds on a personal web site.) Any driver stuck in the traffic jam protesters have created will sit and seethe, grinding his teeth, and think venomous thoughts. And those are the pro-peace ones.

As I've said before, the anarchists are ruining the First Amendment. If people are not willing to protest peacefully, well, hell, the police can hand me the billy club, and I'd be more than happy to take a few swings at crowd control. Our constitutional right is to peaceably assemble, not go wilding through Old Town. Unless the anarchists who seem to show up marches and rallies of every kind are stopped, peaceful assembly will becomes a quaint relic, something that people used to do before society became unsafe.

Other than violence, I don't know exactly what the anarchists are advocating, but aggression and destruction are not legitimate forms of self- or political expression. I'd be happy if we reinstituted exile as a possible legal sanction. Or maybe corporal punishment. (Any lawyers out there know if either of these are feasible?) I know, I know, you think I'm kidding. I'm not. Civil disobedience and peaceful protest only work in the context of a lawful structure. If anarchists want to overthrow the government, the economic system, or any other institution, they should try advocating change through the political process. If they want violent revolution, I'm on the side of the cops, and I say release the hounds.

¶ CDs for nothing and chicks for free: Man we could have some fun. What's it going to take to get you to sign up?

A list of some 300 of my CDs is now posted online, and those CDs are freely available for borrowing by Davison Online Club House members. You do not want to know how long the data entry took. Other members are encouraged to include their own collections in the online database so we can all share the music in a sort of legal, non-cyberspace Napster arrangement. Because the usage license travels with the physical CD media, we're unlikely to be threatened with shut down by the RIAA. Sharing CDs (not MP3s or unlicensed computer files) is, so far as I know, completely above board. After all, if it weren't, libraries couldn't offer CDs for check out.

My hope is that members will explore unfamiliar musical artists and genres. Who knows what music you might end up liking? Of course if your tastes suddenly swing to beer barrel polkas, we reserve the right kick you out. Kidding! Just kidding. I kid because I love. Look, I don't know if you'll like Enya, Metallica, or John Coltrane (or, like me, all three), but this could be a great chance to find out at low or no cost.

The reverse is also true. If you're looking to push a band on somebody, climb aboard the Davison Online Club House soul train, and scream about them to the masses. Presently the masses are comprised of me, Dave, and Kurt. Depending on how you want to look at it, you'll either not be reaching very many people, or, as I prefer to think of it, you'll have the opportunity to make a very directed sales pitch.

Joining the group will help in other ways. With some 300 CDs available, that's 100 CDs each if we're were to split it out among current group members. That's way too much music for someone to borrow all at once, and that assumes I'm borrowing from myself, something I'm disinclined to do since it's patently stupid. Help me out here. Throw a dog a bone. We need more members. Email me and request an invite for membership.

¶ Gulf War II: Worry a zero sum game: If war tells you anything, it's that you're even more inconsequential than you already thought you were. Trust me, I know.

Don't let stories like Bush clings to dubious accusations or Global powers rip US war plans ruin your supper. Sure, the case for war is fraught with half-truths, highly questionable assumptions, and outright lies. And yes, most of the rest of the world finds US actions here distasteful, threatening, or morally repugnant. What does the Pope know anyway?

But take solace! You are a pawn in an historic chess match. You, me, and 280 million other US comrades have no say in the matter. We're the blameless multitude, floating gently along in the river of time. So I say revel in your powerlessness. There is nothing you can do about it. Naught. Nil. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Empty set. Goose egg.

That being the case, why feel badly? Even a first year psychology student knows that there's no point in feeling lousy about things you can't control. Believe me, there are plenty of things within your circle of influence to feel lousy about without taking credit for George Bush's work. Gulf War II is so far out of the control of ordinary citizens that, well, does anyone else feel like we're in a car being piloted by Toonces the Driving Cat? So let's keep some perspective. Whatever happens here isn't your fault, and it's certainly not my fault. If anyone's going to feel guilty, it should be George Bush, but as we all know, for that to happen you have to have a conscience first.

Kidding! Just kidding! I kid because I love.

¶ Gulf War II: A tragicomedy bargain: No sense in getting bummed about people dying in a stupid war. Humans have been doing that for centuries. I advocate a cheerier viewpoint: Entertainment.

 All that's left to do is pop some popcorn, sit back, and enjoy Gulf War II. As I, and most of the world correctly apprehended, President Bush and his cronies never had the least intention of giving peace a chance. The tragedy here isn't that Saddam's a stand-up guy deserving of an even break—if there's a short list for people deserving a kick in the teeth, he's on it—it's that America is launching an illegal, immoral war and has wiped out with head-spinning speed all the goodwill and best wishes of the international community post-September 11.

Now that we're stuck with this war, all I can think to do is to observe it like one giant, hyper-realistic video game. Protests have proved fruitless, petitions to the UN meaningless, and intelligent media commentary irrelevant. We're going to kill a lot of folks, take casualties ourselves, and, gosh darn it, bring the price of petroleum back under $1.75 a gallon. I don't know what lens I can use to view this tragicomedy of world affairs other than entertainment. All other alternatives seem bleak and depressing.

So in the office pool I've got Baghdad falling to US forces in two weeks at a cost of only 10,000 men. When you figure that Iraq's capable of churning out 2 million barrels of crude per day, that's a real bargain. Any Texas oil man could tell you that. The only one that counts just did.

Revision continues on the front page. It validates OK for me against HTML 4.01, but if anybody has problems, LMK. I'm adding an external Cascading Style Sheet so I don't have to keep switching fonts and sizes and stuff. It'll make for a (slightly) smaller sized page too.

This week's discussion thread at the Davison Online Club House: Weird loners and how to meet 30-something women. If you're not a member and would like an invite, email me.

Yes, I've revised the front page again. I was really not completely satisfied with the last incarnation, and the more I thought about AOL's AIM buttons not working (yet) in Mac OS X, the less I liked them. I might put them back once iChat or AIM URLs work, but not until then.

The layout grid I'm using is 768 pixels wide. This should make it wonderfully viewable of a 17" monitor which is pretty much the standard nowadays. Actually as long as you can get to at least 800 x 600 on your monitor's resolution, any size screen will work. Anybody who's still running at 640 x 480 is hosed, and, yeah, I'm kinda sorry about that. Still, it might be time to upgrade your Mac IIci, ya know?

I've had nobody ask me about the Yahoo! Groups Davison Clubhouse. Seems a darn shame given all the features that are offered there, but I can only lead a horse to water. Some 10 or so of you are already members, having joined back in 1998 when the whole sha-bang got started. If you remember your Yahoo! ID, you can enter the Clubhouse immediately. Otherwise you'll need a new Yahoo! ID and an invite from your truly. If you'd like the latter, LMK. It's not like I need to be stingy with them.

¶ Saturday Night's Alright for Partying: We party very hearty on a Saturday night. My sister looks cute in her braces and boots. It's seven o'clock and I want to rock. I'm a juvenile product of the working class.

We joined Dennis, Maria, Joe and Carol for a party at Matt and Ginger's last night. We enjoyed a very good dinner, though I can't say all of who brought what. Matt cooked up the tacos, and I had a couple of those, so I know where the proper kudos go in that case. Otherwise, the salad, the pasta salad, and so forth...I dunno. Good stuff, and not my doing. (We brought Coke and ice cream.) Thanks to the appropriate folks, though.

The group held interesting discussions and played several rounds of guys v. gals Catch Phrase. Team Testosterone did very will except for one unfortunate game where we couldn't come up with the word "minister." Painful loss, that. At least this time I didn't suffer my usual ignominy of getting caught repeatedly holding the potato. I've been the goat way too many times. I deserved some good luck and last night was happy to get it.

Thanks to everybody for the great time.

Footloose is the spring musical at Sprague, and along with my parents we took in a showing last night. I thought it was a mixed bag thanks mostly to the questionable decision to cast adults in some of the lead roles. This isn't community theatre, it's a high school production, and as such my contention is that it should highlight student talent. If there's a need for an adult in a role, that's one thing, but that was not the case here. Students in make-up could've performed all these parts, and I dare say they would've done a better job. In some respects, then, this was the tale of two plays.

For the students, the music and singing are exceptional. Sprague's choir and music programs are among the best in the state (if not the nation—we won a Grammy, you know), and it showed here. The sound levels weren't well mixed, but otherwise, it was a professional-quality presentation. Absolutely outstanding. On this account alone, the production is worth seeing. For the adults, the music was obviously just as good, but the singing was sub-par. Not painfully so usually, perhaps, but obviously deficient by inevitable comparison.

Unfortunately, the acting was similarly hit-or-miss. The student supporting cast was excellent, but it was downhill from there. The student leads were fair actors, cast maybe more for their considerable vocal talent than their acting chops. It didn't help that the play's writing had some clunky dialogue. On the adult side, the leads were never able to maintain the suspension of disbelief necessary to pull things off. It always felt like we were watching someone acting. Coupled with a vocal talent that didn't measure up, the question is really why there weren't more kids cast. Ironically, this choice runs against one of the work's themes: Faith in kids.

Author Barry Glassner tries to make the case in The Culture of Fear that Americans are afraid of the wrong things. Although I don't think he hits all his points square on, he's far more right than wrong. For the most part, Glassner correctly blames media hype for the alarmist reports we read on everything from air travel to killer kids. He has a lot of good and important things to say, and I highly recommend the book as a starting point for an examination of American society.

It's not a book without faults. Glassner, a sociology professor at USC, uses dubious examples at times, at one point comparing the treatment of women in the film True Lies unfavorably with their treatment in the world of gangsta rap. His argument that the Black rap group 2 Live Crew was castigated for misogyny while comedian Andrew Dice Clay was not is absurd. And if he's something of an apologist for gangsta rap, he misses the boat entirely in condemning white artists like Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Jr., Neil Young and The Beatles for their occasional song that crosses his politically correct line. Songs aren't necessarily advocacy; they can just as easily be an imagined universe, in the same way that actors fill a role. There are other problems, but nothing which a reader with a critical eye can't discern.

Finally, despite a subtitle that begins "Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things," the book inadequately answers this question in my opinion. Media hype is only the mechanism through which the alarms are sounded, not the prime mover. Behind the veil you'll find those with a political agenda of increasing their own power and wealth. Though there are numerous people and groups who would fall into this category, the most prominent example these days would be the Bush administration. Still, The Culture of Fear is well-worth reading.

So I awoke this morning to read how the single worst professor I had the University of Portland thinks the coming war with Iraq is morally justified. The Oregonian even slapped a photo of him on the front page. One can just hear the excitement in the newsroom: "Hurray! We have a Catholic face for a just war!"

Never mind that Pope John Paul II says war must be a last resort and that it must be with UN sanction. Never mind that the US Catholic Bishops statement says "...war would not meet the strict conditions in Catholic teaching for the use of military force." Never mind that it was Jesus himself who taught that "blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God" (Matt 5:9). Thanks now to a UP philosophy professor of dubious intellect and talent, some of the Catholic laity will be persuaded that, "Gosh, maybe this war for oil" is OK afterall." I really couldn't be much more appalled. Maybe Jesus should have included another line in the Sermon on the Mount: "Cursed are the war mongers, for they shall be called jackasses." One wouldn't think it would've been needed, but it might have helped.

I am amazed the the Bush doctrine of preemptive first strikes being justified as self-defense is being accorded any seriousness whatsoever as an argument for a "just war." It utterly contravenes the Just War Theory as understood by, well, everybody, but some administration flacks and "deep" thinkers are trying to make the case. It's occurred to more than me that the Bush doctrine applied universally results in World War III. Indeed, one could even argue that it legitimizes the terrorist attacks of September 11. You didn't think I was kidding when I said Bush was an idiot, did you?

Pick any Democrat in the field—yes, even Rev. Al Sharpton who I detest—and if he or she gets the Democratic nomination, they've got my vote in the 2004 presidential. We would be extraordinarily hard-pressed to do worse than who we've got.

One could make the argument that I really ought to be a whole lot more knowledgable about home improvement than I am before starting on a project like remodeling a bedroom (or bathroom, for that matter). I visited Lowe's yesterday to explore exterior window trim options. I came away even more confounded than when I went into the store. I came home and read up on window installation and replacement in two different fix-it books. They did not help.

Just one email exchange and phone conversation with Joe, though, and the clouds have parted. He patiently explained every last detail of the process to me—twice, admittedly, because I'm not exactly quick on the uptake in this area—and at the end of it all I finally understood how this thing is going to work. Man, what a relief! Ignorance may be bliss for some folks but for not me. I'd rather be in a state of full awareness as I mess stuff up.

One of the things that dawned on me—and why it's taken this long I have no idea—is that home improvement is a game wherein you take certain pieces like piping, wires, and wood and work through the puzzle of putting them together so that they look good. God willing, they'll also work. That'd be nice. It's an interesting conceptual framework for understanding the use of a hammer, saw, pipe wrench and so forth, and one which I'm eager to try out. Surely, it can't be any worse than blindly groping about. I've been trying that, and if I had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being "works perfectly for me; sets me in a transcendant state of total consciousness" and 1 being "feels like total renal failure," trust me when I say it's a lot closer to 1 than 10.

I'll let you know how it goes.

I looked back on my notes about the site after Matt sent me an email on the subject, and I noticed that I forgot to mention which browsers are presently supported. So for the record, here they are. For the Mac, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x, Netscape 6, Netscape 7, and Apple Safari. Unsupported browsers on the Mac include: Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and 4.5 (both have horizontal scroll problems), iCab (a beta product with an unfinished CSS implementation), and Netscape Navigator/Communicater 4.x. On the PC, Netscape 6 and 7 are fine. Internet Explorer 5.5 and 6 have a problem with the drop cap getting cut off, but otherwise seem to be OK.

Finally the front page redesign I've been threatening has come to pass. It's not really in a final state, but it's closer than what was there before, and if allows me to highlight stories here and there without too much trouble. I don't think all that much has been lost, but if has, well, too late now. Heck if I'm gonna start over from the ground up.

One quick note about the AIM bar across the top. No, it pretty much won't work if you're running Mac OS X. At least not with Safari or Explorer. AIM has a series of aim: HTML commands which, if your browser and/or platform support them, will let you launch an instant message application and chat right from a web site.

As I say, this doesn't work yet under Mac OS X. If you type ichat in the Safari command line, it will launch iChat but I can't get it to pass any useful commands. I've read that you can get it to launch a window to a contact from the Address Book, but like that's useful. Hopefully by the time Safari goes final, this will be working. That's why I've the graphics in place. A little tweaking when it's ready, and a surfer should be able to contact me via IM straight from the main page. In the meantime, I guess you can send me email. Oh well.

LMK what you think of the changes. Especially if you like them.

I spent a lot of yesterday reassembling my music studio and finishing the sheet rocking of the nursery. The music studio was disassembled back in October because we needed to open up the ceiling above it to deal with bathroom plumbing issues. It's taken me a long time to get it back together (and truth be told I'm not done yet), but it feels great to be back on the road to recording.

The sheet rock took longer than I anticipated. I'm still not very good at measuring it or cutting it, but gosh I can screw it in with the best of them. Anyway, it's done and ready for tape and putty. We're still unsure about how we're going to handle the outside, but present thinking is that trim would be the best way to go. Otherwise I'm ordering a whole lot of expensive cedar siding. Either way, it's good to be heading in the right direction.

This week's childbirth class was good. We talked a lot about the first couple stages of labor and had a chance to see videos on the same. Erin and I feel more confident now, though we're not discussing the transitional stage until next week, and that's where it gets particularly rough. I appreciate knowing about the process anyway, and I'm sure we'll be able to sit down at the end of this and plot out a general birth plan which probably won't bear any semblance to the reality of the event but which we'll feel better having going in.

Erin is amazingly large. We've not measured around her recently, but her tummy is big. I can't believe that we've still got weeks to go. She's bearing the weight quite well, though it's getting harder. Tougher to sleep through the night for one thing. Little aches and pains too. She's not one to complain, and truth be told most of the time she simply emanates that pregnant woman radiance that everyone talks about. All things considered, Erin and baby are doing remarkably well.

Thank you so much to Dave, Dennis, Maria, Joe and Carol for helping us with our preparations for Baby Davison. With Joe leading the way, the guys removed the old guest room windows, took off house siding so we could reframe the opening, sized up and created the new opening, installed the new window (it's sweet), insulated the exterior wall of the room, started putting the siding back on, and got most of the sheet rocking done before we ran out of time. The gals took on the tasks for cleaning all the baby toys and equipment we've been given (a huge job), reorganizing our basement, and going through boxes we'd not opened in years (and some cases, ever).

Thanks also to my dad who stopped by just to see if we needed a hand, and to Ken and Dee Van Driesche for letting us borrow their Subaru Outback to haul sheet rock.

We are very grateful to have friends help us prepare for Baby Davison's arrival. (Those interested can see pictures of the day's events.)

President Bush ponderously addressed the nation last night then spent 30 minutes or so dodging legitimate questions from the press corp. Many newspapers are reporting today that his speech "prepared America for war," a specious claim if ever there was one. Clearly it'd take a lot more intelligence than is wrapped up in the Oval Office before any sort of communiqué would prove persuasive to America or the world. I came away disgusted.

Among the questions the president ignored: Why is it that China, France, Russia, and Germany look at the same military data we have and reach a conclusion that war is not immediately necessary? Why are we willing to attack a country without a nuclear program and let alone North Korea, who is definitely ramping up nuclear material production? If Iraq's neighbors aren't clammering about the need for immediate attack against Iraq, why are we so threatened?

I strongly object to the president's linking of Iraq to the September 11 attacks. A case for war with Iraq can be made (though not well) without resorting to intellectually dishonest pretexts for war. He is a heinous despot, but Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with September 11. And we seem to be scooping up al Qaeda members just fine without an Iraqi war.

Another very troubling rationale being pushed by the administration is human rights. There is no question that Saddam has violated the rights of Iraqi citizens. The same claim however can be made against countries throughout the world including, I am very sorry to say, the United States. The Afganistan military operation which could have been regarded as something of a success is increasingly looking like it's bogging down into a Vietnam-style moral quagmire. The US military is torturing and killing suspects in custody in Afganistan. "Detainees" held in Guantánamo Bay and Afganistan have been denied basic human rights since capture. The very least that can be said is that it's making it hard to be a shining beacon of hope and freedom.

Sign an online petition against the war at MoveOn.org. It will be delivered to the UN on March 10.

The new Power Mac 7600, Zephyr, is up and running. I've moved over all the PCI cards, got it logged onto the wireless LAN, and confirmed that Internet access and printing both work. I updated Erin's grades last night. You'd never know we're were using a different machine unless you saw the internals (or looked closely at the nameplate that says "7600/132").

Zeke's internals were always a little messed up. The Catalyst motherboard has 8 RAM slots. On Zeke at least 3 or 4 of these were bad. The metal shielding never fit well on Zeke. The case's CD button was broken, necessitating the use of a paper clip to open the drive. Zephyr has none of these problems.

A zephyr is a gentle breeze. The word is derived from the Greek god Zephyr, or Zephyrus, god of the west wind.

Zeke bit the dust in the middle of last week, and I had go to PowerMax in Lake Oswego yesterday to pick up an as-yet-unnamed Power Mac 7600 replacement. I'm not quite clear what went wrong with Zeke, a Power Mac 7500. All the PCI cards tested OK, the video RAM checked out, and the PowerLogix G3/300 accelerator is OK. I strongly suspect it's motherboard RAM gone bad or a logic board issue, but Zeke RAM slots are somewhat messed up, so it made it difficult to troubleshoot. Either way, Zeke is now a parts machine to keep the new 7600 in service.

Our plan continues to be to kick the 7600 upstairs to Erin's office when I get a new PowerMac. I'm hopeful that will happen this fall, but much depends on the costs of parenthood.

Erin and I attended our first childbirth class last night. We met six other couples and came away feeling even better about our relationship, our pregnancy, and our odds for a good birth experience. I am sorry to report that some of the "men"—I'm using the term loosely—in the class are fairly unsupportive. For a couple, it's a somewhat understandable male awkwardness about feelings of fatherhood. We're not an articulate lot as a gender, so it's hard not to feel some compassion for the poor shmoe who's stumbling through talking about his emotions. Hopefully his wife understands and appreciates the effort, even if I'm unimpressed.

On the other hand, in one case there's an immaturity that makes you want to slap the guy. I'm not sure that after viewing a childbirth film the most tactful question is, "What the hell was that crap coming out?" which is a verbatim quote from Mr. Loser. His young wife is already super-freakin' over the pain of childbirth, so it's not hard to see that this doofus ain't makin' it better. I suppose if there's a plus side, it's that despite my faults and inadequacies, this guy makes me look like a superstar. It'd take a lot of brain damage before I'd ever approach being that big of a jerk.

So I've got that going for me, which is nice....

I wrote last month about our increased efforts to buy organic foods. Erin and I have thought about it more, I've done additional research, and we've reached these conclusions.

First, we're finished with non-organic fruits and vegetables except for those which don't carry much of a pesticide load. Otherwise, we're going wholly organic on the produce. It's better for you and, except for the bizarre case of oranges, better tasting. Second, we're moving to organic dairy products. We long been drinking only nonfat milk, the only difference now is that it will only be from dairy cows given organic feed instead of the hormone-laced crap they feed most bovines. We'll be moving to organic cheese soon too. Third, we've switched to eggs from free range hens who are raised on hormone-free feed.

Finally, we've decided that despite all the benefits of vegetarianism (and there are several), our objections in that regard lie not in the eating of animals, but in the treatment of animals and safety of the meat being sold. If you remember my rants against the US beef industry from last April, I've lost none of my contempt for what they're foisting on the unsuspecting general public. I'm convinced that most of the meat they're serving is, minimally, profoundly bad for people.

Given some time, I've come to better understand my opposition. I oppose hormone-laced animals in the food chain. I oppose the prevailing capitalism philosophy that says it is OK to poison animals and ultimately people in order to make a buck. I oppose treating animals with anything less than the respect that they deserve.

I want to expound a bit on this last point. As I've said, I have no issue with eating meat per se. I think it can be done in such a way that honors the dignity of the creature to be eaten. If that sounds somewhat contradictory to the average American, I dare say that it wouldn't to the average Native American. The tribes who hunted the lands of North America understand the symbiosis I'm hinting at. We've gotten away from that with our mechanized factory farms, and it's to the detriment of us all that we no longer appreciate the sacrifices of the animals, the natural cycle of which we are inherently a part, or the dangers of the path upon which we've embarked.

When I talked about the US beef industry last year what raised my hackles was that some 76 million people a year get food poisoning in the United States. The more I research food, the more I think that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg with even greater long-term danger laying hidden in the additives, pesticides, hormones, and preservatives we inject into the food chain.

For example, early puberty is a condition that, according to a ground-breaking study published April 1997 in Pediatrics, now afflicts nearly 50 percent of all black girls and 15 percent of white girls in the United States. It's the onset of puberty well before the historical norm. Nowadays the pubescent "norm" is 8 or 9 years old for black girls and 10 years old for white girls. The early causal speculation centered on "insecticides, growth hormones in meat and milk, estrogen-like substances in dental sealants used on children, and the plastic wrap used on sandwiches for kids' lunches" (Premature Puberty: Is Early Sexual Development the Price of Pollution?).

By 1999, it looked like cow's milk was a definite factor. From Coming of Age (Much Too Soon):

Cow's milk has high fat content, high levels of biologically available hormones and growth factors, and other chemical contaminants from highly medicated cows fed environmental trash (chicken feces and diseased carcasses, for instance). These are all linked to early puberty and proliferation of cancer cells in human reproductive organs. Moreover, immune reactions to large bovine proteins are associated with gastrointestinal disease and cancer. When consumption of cow's milk starts in infancy (via baby formulas), the consequences seem to be the most dire.

Other factors like child obesity and genetics have also been linked to early puberty, but I can't fathom how drinking lots of growth hormone couldn't play a role. (Got milk?)

The effect of pesticides in the food chain may be similarly terrifying from a health care perspective. Pesticides increase the risk of breast cancer, may increase the risk of Parkinson's Disease, are linked to stillbirths, and may be implicated in male infertility. For a book on the subject, see Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival? (I've not read it yet, but I've got it on hold at the Salem Library.)

If all this plays as a perverse testament to the adaptability of man, it probably should. God knows most of the populace adapted to use the kludge that is Windows. What's so hard about downing a burger and fries in blissful ignorance? But the more I read about it, the more I'm convinced that the safety of the food we eat cannot be taken for granted. Like any great strength, adaptability is also a weakness. Here, perhaps with catastrophic consequences.