Earlier today I saw a pickup truck driving down the road covered equally in American and Confederate flags. This confused me. Does he love the Union? Will he fight to the death for a secession? Where does his allegiance lie??
I actually see this kind of thing rather often, especially as I drive through Indiana or away from heavily populated areas throughout the midwest. I suppose it could be intended as a nice gesture proclaiming a desire for all people, North or South, to live together in harmony. But that's probably way off.
March 2005 Archives
You know, I'm not sure why I didn't post something about this earlier. But anyway, Susan and I got a dog! His name is Murphy, he's a five month old Penlan Miniature Schnauzer (Penlan being the name of the breeder's kennel...we found out after our visit there that they've produced some of the best dogs in the country!). Murphy was originally slated to be a show dog, but his teeth ended up coming in a little off from the breed standard, so they kept him around as a house dog. But thankfully they were willing to let him go to us. He's the most well-behaved puppy that I have ever encountered. Within a day, he was already getting into good routines here.
Do you want to see a few pictures of him? Click here! I haven't made a formal webpage yet, but you can still click directly on the links there. Oh, and before you make fun of me for the last few pictures, he's wearing a sweater because it's been really cold outside the last few days, and he shakes like a leaf if he goes out there in all his uncovered buzz-cut glory. We gotta keep him warm!
:)
Some of you might remember that back in August I had a car accident which totaled my less-than-a-year-old Honda Civic. I came out fine, and I ended up getting a new car out of the deal, but the whole situation kind of pissed me off.
The fellow who hit me did so by running a red light. Actually, if I were going just a wee bit faster, he would have struck the cabin of the car instead of the engine, and who knows what would have happened to me then.
But there's no sense in thinking about tragic "what ifs." The reason I'm bringing this whole subject up again is that I stumbled across a part of the McLean County website tonight which allows you to search the criminal records of everyone in the county. So just to see what had come of this guy who can't tell red from green, I searched for his name. I was happy to see that he had to go to court and pay some money, but I was really interested to see something related to another record under his name. You see, earlier in the summer, he (as the very intelligent individual he must be) committed burglary, followed by some obstruction of justice (or resisting arrest...they kind of lump those two things together). Amusing to an observer such as myself, yes. But here's the kicker...
Where was he in such a hurry to get to a little before 9:00am on August 3, 2004? Why, a court hearing of course! Finally the mystery of "The Frat Boy in a Suit Speeding Down a Side Street Early One Tuesday Morning" is solved. Case closed. Sounds like Adam had a pretty crummy summer, huh?
I just got an e-mail tonight telling me to "Call out Gouranga be happy!!!" Apparently it's a spam thing that hits lots of people. From what I've read, there's no motive in it other than to get people to be happy! It didn't work for me, though...I actually became a little less happy. But now that I'm writing this down I feel better. Oh, and it looks like the e-mail is almost invariably sent from the address nitaigouranga@aol.com, which is in fact fake. Oh well!
If anyone's interested, "Gouranga" is mainly used by the Hare Krishna folks. There's a good explanatory page on the web about it here.
So there's been some talk recently about domestic terrorists and their connection to the murders involving Judge Joan Lefkow's husband and mother. There are websites out there run by white supremacists heavily lauding the killings, and at the same time, Matthew Hale (the guy who has had a major grudge against Lefkow for quite a while now, and is currently in jail) called the murders "heinous" and has said that anyone who thinks that he is somehow involved with them is "an idiot." Well of course he didn't murder them himself, but I think it's pretty obvious that he could easily have an indirect connection to the crime. Does he expect us to believe that while all of his followers are giving high-fives, he's standing in front of them saying "Come on guys, stop it. Two people got murdered for goodness sake!" I doubt it.
But anyway, I enjoy the irony of the fact that most of these guys consider themselves to be at the pinnacle of patriotism, yet they're functionally the same as any foreign terrorist who would give his life to destroy this country.
When I was shopping around for a new cell phone recently, I was somewhat intrigued by the Samsung PM-A740 (also known as the SPH-A740 in places for some reason). I couldn't find a lot of objective talk about it, but what I did see was pretty positive. I also especially like that it was a newly-released phone, which leads me to assume that it has some of the latest technology in it. I ended up purchasing it and have overall been really pleased. But anyway, my reason for writing this is that I think I'll put a review of the phone here some time soon. Hopefully people will run across it during their searches throughout the web!
Out of curiosity this evening, I browsed a couple online sites relating to eating disorders. Specifically, these sites were gathering places for people with eating disorders to support each other. Here is a snippet from one conversation that I found particularly disturbing, but probably quite representative:
im 5'8" and 97lbs currently, my lowest is 89 those were the good old days, i wanna be nothing but skin and bones also, i think bones are so beautiful, and thats what i want to be, beautiful.
In treating eating disorders, a big goal is to realign irrational views of body image. But this girl's perception does not seem to be that she's fat per se, but that "skin and bones" is the ultimate in beauty. Can perception of beauty ever be considered irrational? A reflex answer would be "of course," but how is the appreciation of beauty different from the appreciation of art? So the question one should ultimately ask then is whether these abnormal perceptions of beauty can be justified through the "eye of the beholder" or whether they are actually a result of some sort of cognitive dissonance where the perceiver has effectively tricked herself into seeing beauty in a distorted and dangerous way. Regardless, we have here one of the most difficult roadblocks to psychological treatment. You're trying to change a person who does not want to be changed; you're trying to help someone who whole-heartedly believes that nothing is wrong. There are some parallels here to helping someone who is attempting suicide. But at least that person actually knows that she's trying to kill herself.
