Off To Meet the Mysterions

I'm intensely proud to note that my daughter has been accepted to Yale, and will enroll there in the fall. Tomorrow, she, her mother, and I will be heading to New Haven for Bulldog Days, a 3-day "preview" for admitted students and their families.

I have no doubt that my daughter will have a wonderful time at Yale, and I don't doubt for a second that she deserves to be there. There's another question, though, that hadn't occurred to me 'til just the last couple days: Is my little 'ol middle-class, middle-brow self up to the role of Yale Parent???

Guess I'll start finding out tomorrow; I'll let y'all know...

But Will They Know It's a Joke?

I just saw this posted on MyLeftNutmeg and couldn't stop laughing.

My only concern is that some folks might miss the irony and take the faux argument seriously!

I Write Letters

So I got a letter "printed" here, at Altercation, in response to Eric Alterman's comments about the Randi Rhodes/Air America Radio dustup.

The thing is, Altercation cut the letter for length, which I completely understand... but in doing so, they put more emphasis on my comments about Rhodes and less on my appreciation of Rachel Maddow, which was my main point in writing, and completely eliminated my shout-out to former Air America host and (FSM willing) future U.S. Senator Al Franken.

Happily, I never seem to throw away my own words, so here's the rest of the letter as originally posted:

When Rhodes moved to Air America, I tried to listen, but eventually just couldn't take her anymore. Dr. Maddow (she was, amusingly enough, a Rhodes Scholar) is the perfect antidote: No less passionate about liberal ideals, she's brilliant, and tireless in her studies of issues, and brings a focus and rationality to her commentary that's the polar opposite of Rhodes' messy rants.

Oh yeah, she's really funny, too.

IMHO, the best thing that could happen to Air America is something I can't root for: The return of Al Franken. His show was the highlight of my day, and I miss it constantly... but I fervently hope Al will be busy with a much more important job for some multiple of 6 years.

Never let it be said that I don't love to hear myself talk, eh?

And Soon No Drinking and No Talking

I thought Eddie Izzard was joking in his Dress to Kill show when he teased San Franciscans about smoking bans in bars. "No smoking in bars now, and soon," he said, "no drinking and no talking!" (see ~5:02)

As always, the real world turns out to be stranger than comedy, at least in St. Charles, MO, a St. Louis area town where a proposed bill would ban "indecent, profane or obscene language, songs, entertainment and literature" in bars. And table dancing and drinking contests!

I'm imagining taverns full of people eating air-popped popcorn and drinking distilled water, while listening to children's choirs sing hymns.

At least they apparently haven't banned darts. Say, how many points is that boy soprano over there worth?

New Year's Resolution

Aside from yet another promise to keep up with this lonely blog, there's at least one resolution that will be easy to keep: I really need to drink more!

Yet another new study touts the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption. This study found that people who drink 1 to 2 drinks a day (i.e., up to 14 drinks a week!) and put in moderate exercise can reduce their risk of heart disease by 30 to 49 percent compared to couch-bound tea-totalers... but even better, it found that drinking alone provides more risk reduction than exercising alone.

I knew I put that Mr. Boston Bartender's Guide on my holiday wishlist for a reason. I wonder if Bombay Sapphire is included on my drug insurance?

Cephalopoetics

Often enough I've used this space to discuss ideas and opinions I've encountered while reading the wonderful science blog Pharyngula. The founder of the Pharyngula feast, PZ Myers (don't spell it Meyers!), shares with many of his readers a fascination with cephalopods: Squids, octopi, and all things tentacly.

Well, recently an anonymous bard, using the nom-de-pixels "Cuttlefish," has taken to contributing his (or her?) comments in verse. At first it seemed just a novelty, but it's grown to a full-fledged poetry blog, touching on the themes found at Pharyngula and like-minded blogs: Promoting science, attacking anti-science, and always celebrating cephalopods. I'm adding the Digital Cuttlefish to my blogroll, and I encourage you to check it out on a regular basis. For starters, I particularly enjoyed this ditty, while my daughter (an aspiring poet herself) is partial to the double-dactyl at the end of this entry.

Enjoy!

Back Again Again

Well, the elections are over, and between that and some other changes in my personal schedule, I feel both ready to start blogging again and somewhat freer to post my own opinions about Vernon politics without fear of diluting the campaign's message.

The fact that my side lost matters to me, not mainly because of competitive pride or partisanship, but because I genuinely think Democratic government would've been better for the town. Ellen Marmer has accomplished wonderful things here, despite dealing with a majority Republican town council and a determined anti-budget (which is to say, anti-government) advocacy group. At a time in her life when she really didn't have to, Ellen put herself squarely in the path of a whole lot of tsuris, solely because she cared about making Vernon a better place to live.

Community First was Ellen's motto, and it's instructive that new mayor Jason McCoy's first act was reportedly to remove a sign in Town Hall proclaiming that noble sentiment. As a political matter, it would be easy to hope McCoy and his new council would fail miserably, so we could beat them in the next election... but I can't indulge myself in hoping for that, because I believe in Community First, too, and I can't hope for anything that would harm my community.

I'll have more to say about my hopes (and fears) for our town's future in the coming days and weeks; in the meantime, I urge any Vernonites (or Rockvillians) reading this to keep a weather eye on the new administration: If they can keep their "free lunch" promises, so be it... but let's not let them get away with mortgaging the town's future to do so!

Wicked Awesome Bread Upon the Waters

I've been helping out a friend I met through town politics, who occasionally needs rides and other favors because he's disabled and has recently lost his longstanding support network. I'm not always able to help, but it's been a privilege to do so whenever possible.

Today I was rewarded for this very modest casting of bread upon the waters in a way I can only describe as wicked awesome:

That's right: I got to attend ALCS Game 6 in Fenway Park! I just got home and I'm fried and wired and tired, but the short version of the story is... Sox Win!

I took a bunch of pictures, which I'll post when I get a chance, but now I'm going to bed. If the Sox win tomorrow, and if the World Series goes at least six games, I'll have an even more ecstatic post in a week and a half... because the same friend has tickets reserved for Game 6!

Long, Long Ago...

...well, a couple weeks ago, actually. I wasn't going to post the X-wing rocket video, because everyone else in the blue-eyed world had. But then I found out [PaulHarvey]the rest... of the story[/PaulHarvey]:

What Might Have Been...

h/t to Maura @ MyLeftNutmeg:

Daily Chuckle

In another context on another blog, my online acquaintance (I would say "friend" if I weren't afraid it would be presumptuous) Saramerica asserted that nothing informative rhymes with Harvard. Ironic if true, eh? But I had Tom Lehrer's The Elements to offer as refutation. When I went looking for a suitable YouTube version to post, I found this, which made me smile:

Why the President Wants Children To Sicken and Die

I've been more or less sputtering incoherently at the president's veto of the bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program. It's one thing to send criminals to the death house by the carload, but I would've thought, despite his veto threats, that even this craven, heartless man couldn't really look the country in the eye and condemn large numbers of innocent children to sickness and death.

Even large numbers of Republicans (though, sadly, apparently not quite enough to override the veto) saw the human necessity of this measure, and in any case, I wouldn't have thought the lives of our children (actual children, that is, as opposed to the just-barely-not-children we're sending to die in Iraq) would be beyond political posturing. But Eric Alterman saw the issue more clearly than I did. He understands that "Bush's argument is explicitly ideological. He wants children to get sick and die in order to prevent what he believes will be a slide toward what he calls 'socialized medicine.'" At some level, I know the right is all about ideology, but it's hard for me to hold in my head just how important ideological purity is to them. It's because I'm a liberal, I suppose, and somewhere in my heart is the ineradicable notion that my counterparts on the other side are more or less like me, and have merely somehow (innocently, no doubt) ended up believing differently than I about public policy. I think I fall into this trap &mdash and other liberals and progressives do, too &mdash because, as Alterman points out, liberalism itself is not "self-consciously ideological" in the way conservatism is:

Liberals are often understood to be "pro-government" or even "pro-taxation" but this reflects a fundamental confusion between ends and means. Liberals believe in "government" only insofar as it is necessary to achieve necessary goals, including public welfare, investment, redistribution, defense etc. Conservatives, on the other hand, argue against government as a matter of principle: the less government involved, the better, period.

Even, it seems, when less government translates directly into less health care for children who need it.

Of course, even a cursory look at the Bush (or Reagan or Bush 41) budgets will instantly reveals that the right doesn't really want less government; they just want less of the parts of government that actually help people. That stuff is socialism, don't you know? But when government spends untold billions in support of policies that kill people or rape the environment, that's just good old-fashioned American capitalism.

Please, if you're reading this and you're represented by a Republican member of the House, call them and ask them to vote to override the president's veto. Surely some of them still have some shame.

Rocket Geek Stuff

OK, I promised I'd post about my return to model rocketry, in a contest held a week ago Sunday at my local rocket club, CATO. Well, I was waiting for the contest results to become official, but they still haven't been posted, so I'll go ahead and report what I think the results were. I competed in four competition events sanctioned by the National Association of Rocketry (NAR): Open Spot Landing, in which you try to land your rocket as close as possible to a predetermined spot in the field; 1/4A Parachute Duration, in which you try for the longest timed flight with a rocket launched on a 1/4A power motor and recovered using a parachute; 1/2A Streamer Duration, in which you try for the longest timed flight with a rocket launched on a 1/2A power motor and recovered using a streamer; and A Rocket Glider, in which you try for the longest timed flight with a rocket launched on an A power motor and recovered intact by gliding.

I competed representing my NAR team, The Tappet Brothers (yes, named after the Car Talk guys!), which consists of me and my buddy Andy Jackson, who runs his own small rocket kit company, Aerospace Speciality Products... but since we were the only team represented, we were (which is to say I was) combined into the division for individual adult competitors. Here's what I think our results were:

• Open Spot Landing: Last I checked, I was in second place... but there were other flights after that point, so who knows. Interestingly, the target spot was marked by a life-size cutout of Austin Powers, which randomly blurted out digitized Powers-isms like "Do I make you horny, baby?" Too cool!
• 1/4A Parachute Duration: These models are very small, and the trick is to get the parachute to open after having been jammed into such a tight space. I didn't master that trick: Both flight attempts came down with partially wadded up 'chutes. Even so, I think my total time was good enough for second place, or at least third.
• 1/2A Streamer Duration: I had two solid flights here, and I'm pretty sure I won this event.
• A Rocket Glider: The trick here is that what makes a rocket stable during boost is not the same as what makes a glider fly well... so the model has to change inflight to transition from stable rocket boost to good gliding flight. I used a model called the Xebec IIIA, designed by long-time competitor George Gassaway, in which an elevator tab pops up after the rocket motor burns out. I had one good flight (little over a minute) with this model, and needed only the shortest possible qualified flight on my second attempt to win the event. The second flight was great -- it disappeared out of sight after flying for over 5 minutes, and it was still up in a thermal (rising warm air), not coming down. But there was a problem: Because the second flight behaved differently in flight than the first, observers on the ground thought the motor might have been ejected from the model, which is grounds to disqualify the flight. In such cases, procedure is that contest officials request the model be returned to the judges for inspection. Since my model flew away (otherwise perfectly legal), I couldn't return it for inspection, and the flight was disqualified. I had to settle for second place.

All in all a great day. There's something really satisfying about returning to a cherished hobby after a long absence. I can't wait to go flying again!

Oh, Nooooo!!!

Say it ain't so! Today comes a Newsweek article (via MSNBC.com) about Democratic presidential candidates sucking up to evangelical Christian leaders. The very notion &mdash embodied in the accompanying photo of Barack Obama chatting with Rick Warren &mdash chills my blood.

I understand the tactical politics involved: Evangelicals are quite correctly disenchanted with the Republican frontrunners such as Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mit Romney, none of whom truly embodies evangelical values. Even the folksy Fred Thompson has a racy history, and is none to reliable (from the evangelical point of view) on abortion. So perhaps, with the right approach, Democrats can, if not win over evangelicals outright, at least persuade them to stay home in November. I get it.

But at what price is this tactical advantage gained? The alliance forged between evangelical Christians and secular conservatives since the Reagan administration is arguably what got us into the mess we're in... the mess some of us hope to at least begin reversing by sending a Democrat to the White House. However disaffected they may be with their erstwhile secular partners, it seems unlikely that evangelicals will suddenly align themselves with the public policies favored by most Democrats. Almost as an inherent consequence of their beliefs, it seems to me that evangelicals lean toward authoritarianism and away from personal liberty.

I understand that America is a religious country; I'm not suggesting it's possible (even if it were desirable) to run a completely secular political campaign. But if we must appeal to people of faith, let's appeal to those whose doctrines emphasize charity and social justice &mdash values that harmonize with those of liberals and progressives &mdash rather than people whose religious beliefs deemphasize "good works" in favor of biblical inerrancy, divine authority, and enforcement of Old Testament mores.

Noted Without Further Comment...

...because this speaks (or sings) for itself:



Update: Someone who read this post asked me if the singer was me. Would t'were I was that talented! No, that's Roy Zimmerman, whose work I've posted here before, and who I learned of through Pharyngula. I should've included a hat-tip in when I first posted this.

Rainy Day Thoughts

Well, the rocket contest I mentioned in Wednesday's post, which was scheduled for today, has been postponed due to iffy weather. With luck, it will happen tomorrow instead, and I'll surely post about it... but in the meantime I'm stuck at my computer desk, with a dreary view out the window.

I guess since I'm referencing Wednesday's posting, this is probably a good time to make a bit of a disclaimer: I mentioned that I'm involved in the ongoing municipal election campaign in Vernon. Well, I want to make it clear that this is my personal blog, and is in no way connected to the campaign. I'm going to generally avoid talking about the Vernon elections here directly, but in any case I want to make it clear that whatever I do say here is strictly my own thoughts and words. You won't find campaign announcements here, or press releases, and I will never use this space to speak for the campaign or the Democratic Town Committee. (I will, however, add some links to the DTC website, Mayor Marmer's site, and any candidates' blogs to my blogroll, or the convenience of any readers who might be interested.)

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'm going to get ready for tomorrow's rocket contest!

Watch This Space

A couple days ago I got notification that someone had actually posted a comment to this months-dormant blog, and it remind me that I've been meaning to restart my postings here. Or re-restart, I should say: This isn't the first time my online wordfield has lain fallow.

I'm going to have some things to write about: After laying off model rockets for a year or two, I plan to make my return next week at a contest being held my old club, CATO. This is in preparation for going to NARAM-50 next year, the national competition that marks the half-century anniversary of model rocketry as an organized hobby.

In addition, I've gotten involved in local politics in my hometown of Vernon, CT, trying to re-elect our excellent mayor and elect a Democratic Town Council and Board of Education... which should provide me with one or two things to say.

That's all for tonight... this time 'round I'm going to try again to master the art of the frequent short posting, as opposed to waiting until I have the time (and inspiration) to write long essays.

What I Did Over the Weekend

Connecticut Opposes the War Rally, Saturday, 17 March 2007.
Old State House, Hartford, CT:

Part 1...


...and Part 2:


It was, in a word, cool:


More pix here.

FlyingTubes

Way back when I started this blog, I mentioned (and stated in my profile) that I was into model rocketry. Well, I've been on a bit of a break from rocketry, but one of my goals for this year is to get back into the hobby. Soooo... I'll likely be adding some rocketry sites to my blogroll, and posting on rocketry topics, including my projects.

As an icebreaker, here's my "music video" iMovie from the 2004 National Finals of the Team America Rocketry Challenge:



Cosponsored by the Aerospace Industry Association (AIA) and the National Association of Rocketry (NAR), TARC is an annual contest intended to get students excited about careers in aerospace. It's also a heck of a lot of fun. I volunteered for the range crew in 2004 and 2005 (I couldn't make it last year), and I'm going back in May of this year. Maybe I'll bring back another movie.

And Now for Something Completely... Irrational

Pi Day... or should I say π Day?... is almost over. What's that? You've never heard of π Day? Neither had I until I read Alan Boyle's MSNBC.com CosmicLog science blog for today.

Strictly speaking, you should celebrate π Day at exactly 1 minute before 2:00 (am or pm will do, unless you're on a 24-hour clock).

3/14 1:59

Get it?

Do check out the link to CosmicLog; in addition to linking the official Pi Day site, there are a plethora of interesting π-related links to dig through. One I found especially interesting was this one (though linking it from a π Day post rather gives away the puzzle).

Anyone want to help me organize a π-mile run next year (see #5 here)?