Since no such statement was made, the question is misleading. Therefore, the only correct answer is to not answer and to call-out the questioner’s motives for lying.

To my eyes, the question is intended to be divisive. If you answer “No,” you probably believe that Christianity is under attack in a culture war with Liberals and/or a spectrum of people who are, in a word, unChristian and you need to defend your faith — even if it means pushing the Church into the State. If you answer “Yes,” you probably believe that Conservative Christians are waging a culture war of intolerance against the broad spectrum of people of other faiths who have a right to either get equal representation in the public forum or to not have one religion’s culture dominate theirs — even if that means altering or removing traditions that Christians have had the luxury of enjoying in the public sphere by virtue of their historical majority in America.

Being an independent moderate, I’m going to analyze this and come to my own answer.

I tend to be a Literalist. If you are going to call it a Christmas Tree, it had better be a Christmas Tree and by Christmas, I mean concretely tied to Christ’s birth, or at least his life. Sounds Conservative of me, right? To that end:

1. Where is the Biblical support for the tradition?
2. What about the Christmas Tree makes it Christian?
3. What is on your Christmas Tree that you would use to defend calling it Christmas or Christian?

The Bible does not say there was a pine tree next to the manger — or even that the manger was made of pine lumber. At the Last Supper, Jesus didn’t say, “The bread is my body, the wine is my blood, and the pine tree is my birthday cake.” Instead, Jesus upholds the Old Testament commandment to not worship idols (Matthew 4:10, “Then Jesus saith to him: Begone, Satan: for it is written: The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve.”) Christmas Trees are merely rebranded pagan decorations and may not be consistent with some more fundamentalist Christian folks. Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Amish, and the United Church of God are all very devout Christian groups who do not have Christmas Trees and would probably either not care about a “Holiday Tree” or would, more conservatively, object to any tree at all.

Most of the time a “Christmas” Tree is a secular abstraction and a Literalist would be hard pressed to find much concretely Christian about it. At best, the star on top (if there is one) might be claimed to be the Star of Bethlehem. And some Conservative Christians might adorn it with ornaments that have Christian meaning. Nevertheless, the vast majority of people, including those who conservatively insist on calling it a Christmas Tree, have ladled this abstract icon with a mélange of secular, commercial, and even pagan ornaments.

Sometimes, the pagan ornaments find their way on there without the Christian even recognizing them as pagan in origin. Most Americans who would describe themselves a Christian also include Santa Claus in their Christmas celebrations and decorations. Yes, he did have a Christian origin in Saint Nicholas. However, he has become Santa Claus, the jolly old elf who has a factory full of elves. Elves? We’re back to pagan influences. Moreover, the modern Santa Claus is similarly questioned by the most conservative religious groups as being a secular tool of commercialism. Finally, he has many of the attributes of God (he watches you, he keeps a list of who is naughty or nice), which opens the question about whether he violates the first commandment.

I would ask that anyone who so publically defends calling it a Christmas Tree really stand back and take a long, hard look at their own tree this year. Are all of your ornaments religious? No Mickey and Minnie or other cartoon characters? No pagan fairies, pixies, elves? No golf clubs, sports team emblems, or other symbols of your favorite leisure activities? Nothing secular or commercial at all?

The logic of calling it a Christmas Tree is not supported by the Bible, the history of the tradition, or the way in which most people use it.

So I have, in an odd way, my own “conservative” side that would put me on the side of some of the most Conservative Christians — even more Conservative than most of those who insist it should be called a Christmas Tree. However, I am an independent moderate and see another side, as well. I will now lean toward a Liberal way of thinking…

People hold strongly to what they have known in their own lifetime, as if that is the way that it has always been. “Call it a Holiday Tree?!? Why, it’s always been a Christmas Tree and to change it would be unChristian!” However, it has only been a Christmas Tree since the 16th century — and even then started within a sub-culture of Christianity until it spread in the 19th century. Let’s also not ignore that its popularity coincided quite well with Commercialism and Consumerism, and the marketing of this tradition accounts more for its widespread use than any religious tradition.

By calling it a Holiday Tree, it allows a broader range of people to come together in peace and celebration — and isn’t that what Christianity is supposed to be about? I have open-minded Jewish friends who put up a Hanukkah Bush every year. I have open-minded pagan friends who put up a Winter Solstice Tree. I even have open-minded atheist friends who put up a decorated tree. None of this changes the core of their Judaism, paganism, or atheism, but it does allow all of us to celebrate together. And I have friends of all stripes who don’t put up any tree at all – and they are still fine people.

So do I call it a Christmas Tree or a Holiday Tree? Well, I call it a Christmas Tree when it is overtly Christian, devoid of anything secular or pagan, and is in a church or the home of someone who is a devout Christian, which is not very often. Or, sometimes, to at least show respect to gracious and polite hosts who insist on calling it a Christmas Tree within their home. Most of the time, however, calling it a Holiday Tree is more inclusive, expresses more love for my neighbor of any faith or lack thereof, and fosters peace on Earth (or at least here in America) and goodwill toward humanity — and to object to that would be unChristian.

Besides, would you rather there be no tree at all?

My first real telescope was from Montgomery Ward. I am sure even moderately experienced amateur astronomers would scoff at the quality of such an inexpensive, store bought scope. Nevertheless, from ages 12 to 22, it was certainly better than owning no scope at all and I always enjoyed using it. I have since seen better telescopes and would very much love to own one, but that in no way renders my cherished memories of my first telescope worthless. I often think of it this way: For whatever an astronomy purist might say to deride my first telescope or any department store telescope, it was certainly manufactured with better specifications and quality than Galileo’s handmade telescope that he used 400 years earlier to discover four of Jupiter’s moons.

It was a 60mm refractor, meaning it had a 60mm diameter lens at the front of the tube and the viewing lens at the other end of the tube. I don’t recall the tube focal length, but I think it was about 600mm. It came with a very heavy and stable tripod mounting — with the outer tube of the legs made from heavy steel and two inner extensions made with lighter aluminum. Everything moved smoothly and tightened down securely.

Unlike most beginner scopes today, which are actually better than what I had, it had a single viewing lens mounted in an extendable tube. With the viewing lens pushed all the way in, it offered a default 15X magnification. That was great for spotting objects and getting them centered in the scope. You could then slowly pull the viewing lens out to three additional positions that it would stop at with an audible click. Each click doubled the magnification. You could go from 15X to 30X to 60X to 120X. Of course, you would have to fine-tune the focus of the image each time, but the convenience of just incrementing through the stops was worth it. It saved time over swapping eyepieces and kept moisture and dust out of the tube. I haven’t seen a similar design in over 25 years.

My first telescope died when the focusing rack-and-pinion broke. The “rack” gear — the long, straight one — cracked one night in cold weather, about ten years after I got the scope. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fix it, nor could I replace it. I went as far as trying to find a replacement for the entire eyepiece assembly, but whoever made the Montgomery Ward telescopes in the 1970s had used parts that matched neither the metric nor the English sizes.

For nearly 20 years, I have longed to own another telescope. Now having two sons, I am eager to introduce them to the wonders they could see. I know what a high quality and expensive telescope would offer and it would be fantastic to own one. However, I keep reminding myself that they will likely be just as amazed as I was to look through any telescope and see mountains on the moon, moons orbiting Jupiter, rings around Saturn, the stunningly beautiful Pleiades, and the amazing colors in the Orion nebula.

I would love to find a great quality telescope at a cheap garage sale, but I am not averse to buying a “low” quality telescope at a department store. My advice to anyone thinking of getting their kids a telescope is this: Do not go overboard, just make sure it is from a known brand name (Celestron, Meade, Bushnell, or Tasco); even a modest one will give your kids a glimpse of the beauty and wonder of our universe. And that is certainly a great start from which they can grow.

My new home office is now at least complete enough to have assembled furniture, which means I can start using it. I began moving into it this weekend.

In boxes packed six years ago, I have found the following:

• Every computer book I unpack violates my rule of not having any computer books with copyrights more than five years old.
• Worthless software from the Windows 98 and ME era.
• My 15-year-old After Dark Disney screensaver collection. I doubt it will run on Vista.
• Scores of 3.5″ diskettes. One box was new, never used, and went straight into the garbage.
• A pair of analog “rabbit ears” TV antenna — very useful now that digital TV has finally become the standard.
• A bunch of remote controls for things I no longer own.
• A brand new Handspring Visor that cost $400+ as a gift for my wife. Now worth less than $50 on eBay.
• An all-too-silly “Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 Commemorative Edition” CD in a tri-fold mailer full of marketing hype. Commemorative? I wonder what that is selling for as an eBay collectible?
• Scraps of paper with reminders for things I was supposed to do six or more years ago.
• My original scissors, tape dispenser, letter trays, stapler, and a complete collection of other original desk accessories — all of which I bought replacements for two-and-a-half years ago when I started Thabit Lee Media and couldn’t find the box of original supplies.
• My 30-year-old index card file box, which I have long since replaced with Windows Contacts.
• Close to 100 audio cassettes, most of them containining personal stuff I will now need to digitize. I also found my audio cassette deck to aid in the transfer.
• Enough recyclable paper to fill a paper grocery bag. And enough shredable paper to fill a third of a grocery bag.
• My first LaCie external CD burner, which ran at an amazing 4X speed and connected via a SCSI cable and card.
• A 56k dial-up modem.
• Enough dried out pens and highlighters to build a nice scale model of a log cabin.

I wouldn’t mind all this quite so much if something among it had retained or increased in value. After all, the new office has cost me probably over $2000 and will continue to require more investment for a new router, a NAS, probably a new Mac and maybe even a new PC soon, among other expenses. I just hope in six years I am not picking through another round of boxes of junk.

I woke up Friday morning, anxious to check the weather because I had travel plans for the weekend. Within a few minutes, I clicked through every local and national news channel, only to find that every one of them was running continuous coverage of Michael Jackson’s death. Even the local cable channel that everyone calls “the ugly news” was finding ways to cover it. I had to sit through ten minutes of “Michael Jackson has been dead for more than twelve hours, and still is, but we are continuing to follow this developing story…” before they finally paused to give a few seconds’ sound bite for the weather, after which they went right back to breaking news about Michael Jackson.

Developing? Breaking? More than twelve hours later? I began to wonder whether Michael would arise from the dead and reveal that he is, after all, the Second Coming.

I burned out on Michael Jackson while he was still at the height of his career. I bought “Shake Your Body Down to the Ground” and “Beat It,” but I didn’t consider much else worth buying. The white glove thing seemed silly and pretentious to me. Moreover, after Thriller, he quickly went weird, getting surgery to look like Diana Ross, setting up the Neverland ranch as a creepy Peter Pan haven, and constantly grabbing his crotch. His songs became lame. If Annie were okay, he would not have to ask “Annie are you okay” forty-three times in a four minute song (“Smooth Criminal”.) I was relieved when Nirvana’s Nevermind bumped Jackson’s Dangerous off the charts.

When the pedophile charges came out and the court cases ensued and dragged on, I got thoroughly disgusted with the freak show – and the freak at the center of it. Yes, I know, he was not found guilty. But, c’mon, even if there were no lines crossed, what is a man doing hanging out with an entourage of pre-pubescent boys? Why would he have them at his house for sleepovers, regardless of who slept in what bed? He was either a totally naïve idiot or he was bordering on an unhealthy interest. The circumstances themselves should not have been arising and every other adult professional around him should have been bursting any naïve bubble he may have been in.

When it came time to replace my vinyl 45s with MP3s, I no longer considered any of Jackson’s songs worth getting. Even if I accepted (which I do not) the “it’s the artistry, not the artist” argument, I just don’t think Jackson’s songs have aged well enough to still be considered great songs. On an artistic level, he is not the Beatles, he is not the Rolling Stones, he is not Fleetwood Mac, nor the Police, or Led Zeppelin, or Billy Joel, or any of a long list of other great 60s, 70s, or 80s musicians. More than that, however, I also cannot separate the “man” from his music. I refuse to buy anything he’s ever made because I don’t think he, either artist or person, deserves my money.

So to have Franken Jackson’s face thrust before me on more than a score of television channels Friday morning was more than I could take. I quickly set my facebook status to notify the world that I was boycotting television, radio, and even the Internet all weekend, waiting for the hype to blow over. Even before I logged off, I had Like and Comment notices indicating others agreed with me.

I have to confess, on my evening drive up to Saratoga Springs, I reached Albany and my resolve to avoid all media was wavering. I was well within WEQX range. EQX is a great, independent radio station from Manchester, Vermont. They play a lot of Modern Rock and advertise themselves as the “real alternative.” They introduced me to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Blur, Oasis, Matthew Sweet, The Church, Joy Division, Arcade Fire, Fatboy Slim, Moby, Spoon, and Snow Patrol, among others. If I could count on any radio station to avoid getting caught-up in the media frenzy, it would be EQX. When I broke my resolution and turned on EQX, they were playing Wilco. I felt relieved.

However, as soon as Wilco ended, the DJ came on and started talking about Michael Jackson. He blathered on all too politely, regarding Jackson as an artist and musician, diplomatically dismissing any other considerations. What really pissed me off was when he said that every artist since the 80s would cite Michael Jackson as an influence and voice their respect for him as an artist. Excuse me? Why can I not imagine Noel Gallagher doing that? Nor, for that matter, very many other 90s Alternative Rock musicians who wanted to break the corporate produced mold that Jackson not only represented, but was their biggest, bestselling product.

I turned off EQX and remained in a media blackout until Sunday night. While I doubt the media will drop this story any time soon, I am hoping that voicing my distaste for the coverage will encourage others to do the same and we can finally get back to talking about far more important current events, such as the Iranian election, climate change, and the faltering global economy.

Late last week, a facebook friend posted a link to this article: “Another One Bites The Dust” among the odder funeral request songs – Huddersfield Examiner. Reading it, I thought about what songs I would want played at my funeral and realized I finally had a meme I could start and spread.

The rules:

• Tag some people who you would like to see participate.
• List 10 to 20 songs that you would want played at your funeral.
• Try to be both genuine and original. I.e., don’t list “Stairway to Heaven” or “Another One Bites the Dust” just to be cute here, unless you would really want it played at your funeral.
• List them in the order you want them played — 1 is the first song to open your service
• The last song you list would be played at graveside or cremation.
• Have fun! Make a statement. It’s your funeral.

Here is my list (I had a hard time limiting to 20!):

1. Mahna Mahna by Mahna Mahna & The Two Snowths (Muppets)
2. Tomorrow Never Knows (Anthology 2 version) by The Beatles
3. Imagine by John Lennon
4. Joy by Apollo 100
5. Cat’s In The Cradle by Harry Chapin
6. I Believe in Father Christmas by Greg Lake
7. Mr. Blue Sky by ELO
8. Elephant Stone (Mint Royale remix) by The Stone Roses
9. One Love (full-length version) by The Stone Roses
10. No Man’s Land by Billy Joel
11. Dear God by XTC
12. Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve
13. Lilah by Don Henley
14. My Love by Paul McCartney & Wings
15. I Will Follow You Into the Dark by Deathcab for Cutie
16. The Scientist by Coldplay
17. Mad World by Gary Jules
18. Choose Life by PF Project
19. Shut Your Eyes by Snow Patrol
20. There’s a New Sound by Scooter (Muppets)

I have just posted the above list to facebook and tagged ten of my friends. I am eager to see whether it takes on a life of its own — or faces its own funeral in silence.

As a bonus to readers of my blog, I am going to include a list of some of the songs that did not make it into the list above:

• Paperback Writer by The Beatles
• All You Need is Love by The Beatles
• Golden Slumbers by The Beatles
• Live and Let Die by Paul McCartney
• Last Resort by Eagles
• Songbird by Fleetwood Mac
• Life in a Northern Town by The Dream Academy
• She Bangs the Drums by The Stone Roses
• Here’s Where the Story Ends by The Sundays
• Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now) by Cracker
• Live Forever by Oasis
• I’m a Little Snowflake by Laurie Berkner

1. Landline phones: The highly unlikely scenario leaves me to wonder… but what happens when you dial 911 and can’t speak? Unless your cell can provide your location, going without a landline seems somehow riskier. Moreover, you will always have to keep your cell charged — and remember where you left the damnably small thing.
2. Floppy disks: I migrated off these almost a decade ago, burning every one of them to CD-Rs. I’ve been trying to migrate off of CD-Rs and onto a large external hard drive, with backup to DVD-Rs. All that said, I still have every e-mail, every Word doc, PDF, spreadsheet, photo, mp3, video, or any other files I’ve generated going all the way back to 1991. In addition, I have archives of most of the Web sites I’ve worked on.
3. Wristwatches:: I miss my Casio G-Shock. A glance at my wrist is still faster than fumbling for my cell phone in its holster. Moreover, my G-Shock had a 7-year battery life, while my cell has only 3 days in stand-by mode. I do still own a wind-up watch in an emergency bag, in case the eschatologists are right.
4. VHS tape and VCRs: Ah, fond memories of trekking down to South Broadway, in the snow, to rent a VCR and some tapes and then trek back, in the snow. I have fond memories of discovering unusual tapes to rent — and not so fond memories of 6 weeks working at a horrible video store. Arduous memories of having to buy scores of DVDs to replace the scores of VHS tapes I bought. Now I am left with a small pile of aging VHS tapes I need to digitize at some point.
5. Beepers: The prelude of the obnoxious cell phone era. A minister in Saratoga had one and seemed like the most pompous ass I had ever met when he had to cut short visiting my grandmother when it beeped right when he arrived at her hospital bedside. Maybe it was God?
6. Film cameras: While I am blown away by the thought of someday replacing my Nikon n8008 with a Nikon D700 or D3, I find this loss the second-most-painful. To really learn and internalize photographic principles, you had to keep track of how you took each photo, so that you could remember when you saw the developed result hours or days later. Moreover, I am still awed by the color, clarity, and tone of Kodachrome. Paul Simon will never sing a song about SD memory cards or ink jet printers. In addition, I loved the smell of the chemicals and the feel of the developing prints as they moved from tray to tray. Digital is so much cleaner, easier, and reliable, but film was magic.
7. Typewriters: This is the first-most-painful loss from this list. No, I do not lament the painful fingers I got from learning to type on a manual typewriter. However, I do miss the hum and warmth of my two Smith-Coronas. As with film photography, you had to know how to spell and had to know your grammar to get it right the first time on a typewriter. Moreover, seeing the pages of my first novel stack up on my desk was a better visceral measure of my progress than Microsoft Word’s status bar reporting some number of pages. Moreover, the freaking Internet wasn’t an omnipresent distraction from my writing. I had to budget my research time for library trips. Now, I go to look up one thing and find myself drawn into grazing through links into tangential topics.
8. The Walkman, Discman and MiniDisc player: I owned a knock-off called a Kasuga, from DAK Industries’ mail order catalog. It had AM/FM and cassette — and could record! It lasted until just a few days off warranty. I still prefer CDs to MP3s — because CDs do offer uncompressed sound quality and we’ve forgotten all about the quality of our music listening in our hectic, ever portable lives. I’d rather sit still in front of an audiophile component stereo system, really think about the lyrics, and feel the emotional contour of the melody, thank you.
9. Dial-up Internet access: Another thing I left behind almost a decade ago — and with no regrets. Well, broadband does offer that distraction of being “always on,” so you can always be sucked into the Web, instead of doing other things. Come to think of it, dial-up made you think about whether and when you went on and how long you stayed — or sometimes it forced you off, which might have been what you needed.
10. DVDs: See VHS tapes, above. Now that I have bought the entire James Bond library on VHS and then on DVD, I will now have to buy it yet again on Blu-ray — and in another 10 years, it will probably be available in Hi-Def via online streaming, anytime, anywhere, for a dollar or two per play.

To the list above, I would add:

• CRT displays, whether tube televisions or computer monitors
• Incandescent lighting
• Newspapers
• PDAs – as standalone devices without an integrated cell phone
• Paper checks
• Audio cassettes
• Snail mail, especially letters and greeting cards
• And quite probably Humans someday — maybe soon, if we don’t get our act together

I just hope books are never obsolete.

Mind you, before I saw 24 Hour Party People, the only Joy Division song I had heard was “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” I liked the song, but didn’t know enough of their oeuvre to prompt me to buy a CD or otherwise seek out more. The movie, changed that. I was so impressed with “Transmission,” “Atmosphere,” “Digital,” and “She’s Lost Control” that I added a couple of Joy Division CDs to my wish list.

Tonight I had to return some DVDs to my local library, a couple of miles from my house. While I was there, I remembered they have a CD collection, so I decided to look for some Joy Division there. I found their second, posthumous album, Closer, and checked it out just before the library closed at 9:00 p.m.

Out in the car, I put in the disc and turned it up. About a quarter of a mile from the library, I felt a frisson ripple through me. The first track, “Atrocity Exhibition,” is about an insane asylum as entertainment and that then as metaphor for the human condition. It has a prominent drum and bass line, as well as injections of rattling, scratching noises. The rhythm is relentless, the imagery disturbing, and there is a constant invitation, “This is the way, step inside…”

My shudder of creepy piloerection, however, came from more than the song. It was the collusion of the song and the drive. My home is a left and a right and a left and a right and a left and a right expedition ending at a tree-circled cul-de-sac. Under heavy cloud cover, there was no moonlight. My headlights were the only light on winding, hilly, and heavily wooded suburban streets. Strong, gusty wind was ripping leaves from the trees, showering them down in shifting jerks and often driving them laterally across the road in front of me, as if they were running from some force approaching from the west. The car swayed with the road and with the wind. Then, in dark homage to American Beauty, I saw a plastic bag swirling and rolling in fits around a front lawn, like some trash-embodied ghost come early for Samhainn. And all the while, Ian Curtis invited me. “This is the way, step inside…”

This year, I am fighting a much harder to stop adversary. Specifically, it is “Iowa” 319-447-5488, which I have traced back to a survey company.

On Wednesday 9/17, I received yet another call from these jerks. Finally, there was an actual person on the other end of the line. I immediately told her we are on the Do Not Call list. Her response was an equally immediate “We are a survey organization; we’re exempt from the Do Not Call list.” Nevertheless, I hung up and then submitted the complaint online.

Then I decided to dig deeper into the FTC.gov site and discovered this:

“Because of limitations in the jurisdiction of the FTC and FCC, calls from or on behalf of political organizations, charities, and telephone surveyors would still be permitted,”
(http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt107.shtm)

She was right. Despite my asking them to take me off their list because I do not want to receive calls from them, the Do Not Call list lacks the tooth to stop them. The best I could hope for is that if they ignore my request to stop calling me, I could maybe file harassment charges. Of course, that would likely mean sending them a letter from a lawyer to document my original request – and who has the time or money to deal with that?

My phone number is unlisted, but random auto-dialers still get through. I am on the Do Not Call list, but it has exceptions to its jurisdiction. The system has to change.

First, we need to kill this notion that free speech for political candidates, survey organizations, or anyone else I don’t want to call me extends to my private phone number. Look, if I post a notice at the front of my property that says “no commercial, religious, political, or other soliciting” or maybe post a sign that says, more generally, “no trespassing,” then I am legally within my rights to file trespassing charges against anyone who walks past that sign to knock on my front door and interrupt my day. The same should extend to my phone. If I what I really want by being on the Do Not Call list is to limit my incoming phone calls to just friends, family, and *real* business relationships I have (i.e. my bank calling me not to offer me some new service, but to advise me of something quirky with my account), then I should have the right to do that and to prosecute anyone, anywhere who does not honor it.

Based on that, the second thing we need is a Do Not Call list with more options. Maybe some people like phone surveys. Let them opt in. I will opt out. Or maybe there are people who don’t mind receiving calls to support their political candidate. Fine, let them specify such. For me, I will actively seek out the politician I want to support.

Third, we need a rebuilt Caller ID system that cannot be spoofed to show just “Iowa” or “California” or other ambiguous Caller IDs. Really, Iowa is calling me? The entire state of Iowa is calling me? I didn’t know that many people could share one party line. No, it’s just useless information that makes a mockery of “caller identification.” And it ought to be criminalized as fraudulent representation.

Finally, we need a more technologically robust phone system supported by price-competitive phone companies. My phone service is through Verizon. Yes, they do offer a call-blocking service. However, it is limited to only a finite set of numbers and the price hardly seems worth it. Just like my Norton software lets me subscribe to an ever-growing list of blocked spammers, so too I want my phone company to offer a blocking service that takes the known phone numbers of solicitors who have been communally agreed-upon as offensive. Solicitors who auto-dial and hang-up. Solicitors who won’t take “no” as a deterring answer. And I want an easy to use phone method or Web interface to flag or enter-in numbers of callers I want blocked.

Can we get to work on this now? Before my phone rings again?

Original post:

As of last night, May 20, around 11:00 p.m., some asshole spammer out there has been sending out e-mails that have my domain in the from: line. These spam e-mails are not from me. Whoever is doing this is “e-mail spoofing” the from: line with a bogus address at my domain.

If I ever find out who they are, which I realize is a futile hope, I will file a libel/slander lawsuit against them, since sending spam spoofed with my domain is as damaging to me and my reputation as libel or slander would be.

I have asked my Web host to investigate, but I am not confident that anything will come of it. What the entire Internet really needs are much more strict requirements for how e-mail works and is validated.

Update:

During the last 36 hours, I have received over 250 e-mails that have bounced back into my Inbox. All of them have come back from automated systems — either from anti-spam programs or from undeliverable e-mails to expired accounts. I’ve weathered the storm by setting up my own automated rules to Trash the messages — and I hope I’m not inadvertently trashing any legitimate e-mails.

My Web host has been extremely helpful in making some changes to my mail server and they have recommended I check out the Sender Policy Framework (http://www.openspf.org/). They have also offered some reassurance that spammers typically use a spoofed domain for only a cycle or two of spamming and then move on.

When I shared my predicament with a friend, his response was the amusing “look on the bright side” suggestion that it might generate more traffic to my humble little site. I’m not a fan of the “even bad publicity is publicity” mindset. I want a bigger audience, but not this way.

Since I considered myself different from a Republican Conservative Yuppie, I decided to try to bridge my inner and outer images. I don’t look good in T-shirts, so I decided to bring a hippie tie-dye aesthetic to what was already in my closet. I found a white Ralph Lauren Polo shirt as my canvas.

I thought this would be very cool and individual. Moreover, I thought it would win me points with her because it was not just cool and individual, but that it would put an ironic hippie twist to an icon of yuppie affluence. I thought she would see it as defacing the Ralph Lauren Polo. I thought she would be so into the idea, in fact, that I asked for her help. It was supposed to be a bonding experience for us to do together. In addition to thinking of the shirt as an expression of myself, I also thought of it as a merger of us.

I was both surprised and disappointed when her reaction was that she wanted nothing to do with it. Worse still, she showed a thorough lack of a sense of humor in not only not seeing it as defacing a Polo shirt, but that she saw the Polo shirt as an insult to tie-dye. As the creative originator and artistic executor of the idea, I lost points as if I had committed a felony.

Nevertheless, independent of her, I did love the idea and was determined to pursue it, with or without her. Once she realized that, she did soften, but only just a very little. Since she knew more about tie-dye than I did, she agreed to go with me to buy the dyes and we did work together on some test T-shirts so that I could learn. She didn’t know how to do the swirl I wanted, but showed me some other patterns, including what I called a “bulls-eye.” When it came to doing the work on the Ralph Lauren Polo, however, she said she would not touch it – and, in fact, she spent most of that time out of the room.

After the dye had a day or two to soak into the fabric, she watched as I unwrapped it. I have to emphasize right now that the original result was stunning. The colors were rich, vibrant, saturated, and deep. Where they overlapped, the primary colors had blended perfectly to produce rings of green and orange. No browns, no grays, nothing but a beautiful rainbow spectrum. Unfortunately, however, I missed something in the process of rinsing out the excess dye – and I accidentally washed out too much dye before it could be fixed. The shirt dropped to pastel hues that made it look like it was already aged and faded. Still, it was mine. It was me.

Even when she saw it on me, she still didn’t like it. She still maintained it was offensive. I maintained it was me and that it had my sense of irony, dichotomous duality, and humor. I realized that, if she couldn’t appreciate that, then so be it.

I wore the shirt through my senior year. I got a lot of compliments and questions about it. Some people wanted to know where I bought it. Others recognized that I made it. If they thought it, no one else said it was offensive either way. I did, however, get many people who understood the intent behind it and who, regardless of their politics, smiled at seeing it. After college, I think I may have worn it once or twice on “Casual Fridays” at my corporate job during the dot-boom. Yes, I know it pushes beyond the bounds of “business casual,” but testing that boundary is part of who I am, too.

Before 2000, the shirt went into long-term storage. Last week, I was going through some old clothes and found my beloved tie-dyed Ralph Lauren Polo shirt. Realizing it may not last forever, even in sealed storage, I decided to photograph it. When I saw the result, I felt sad that I could not wear the shirt more often. Then I realized I could use it as my profile picture on facebook, MSN Messenger, AIM, and other social networking applications. The photo of the shirt has taken the place of my face as my avatar to the world. I am my tie-dyed Ralph Lauren Polo shirt.

I bought a new white Ralph Lauren Polo and some dye. I also have instructions for a tri-color spiral. I hope to get the rinsing process right this time and have the spectacularly vibrant shirt I first saw all those years ago.

In the meantime, the original shirt is back in storage. I have told family and friends to get it out for my funeral when the time comes – no ties for me! My original tie-dyed Ralph Lauren Polo shirt, a pair of Levi’s jeans, and my Teva sandals will be my eternal suit.

Christian Stuart Lee - Tie-Dyed Ralph Lauren Polo Shirt

I kept thinking that there had to be a long list of amazing, bizarre, horrifying, beautiful, or otherwise history-making news stories going on at the same time, but that were not receiving any coverage. We are at war in Iraq. Iran is rattling the nuclear saber. Mexico is probably still recovering from two recent hurricanes. Indonesia is probably still recovering from several strong earthquakes. Osama Bin Laden is still hiding out in Afganistan or Pakistan. Pakistan is grappling with winds of political change surrounding Pervez Musharrif and the possible return of Benazir Bhutto. Someone far more important than Britney or O.J., somewhere far more interesting than Hollywood or Las Vegas, is likely lost in a desert or on a mountain or escaping from a sexual predator or maybe finding a cure for some horrible disease.

All I saw, however, were screwed-up celebrities and the media frenzy that surrounds them. We must be fully recovered from 9/11, I guess, if this is what passes for the most important news of the day. Maybe al Qaeda is so weak that we no longer need to stop them. And maybe the Israelis and Palestinians are getting along well enough that we need not fear their sparking World War III. At the very least, the weather must be perfect everywhere around the entire planet, since they weren’t breaking away from Britney or O.J. to tell us about any tornados or typhoons. Who knows, maybe the polar ice caps are refreezing, as well, and global warming is behind us.

Of course, to the people starving around the world – and to the people fighting (literally, as in the terrorists) for “higher” moral values – Americans must seem damnably shallow if coverage of some drunk trashy pop star and some short-tempered, potentially homicidal ex-jock pulls enough viewer ratings to become the exclusive news story of the day. Forget all the people being killed by a war that our government (regardless of whether it was right or wrong) sanctioned – we’d rather watch a melodramatic reality soap opera.

As a parent of toddlers, I can confirm that the theory is verified that sometimes children will seek whatever attention they can get – positive or negative, good or bad. Sometimes, children will do something bad, knowing they will be punished, but knowing that it will get their parents’ attention. One of our sons had a run earlier this year with waking up in the middle of the night and crying for us. No amount of positive, gentle incentive to get him back to sleep, nor negative, punitive disincentive to coerce him back to sleep worked. Ultimately, we just had to let him “cry it out.” And after a mere three nights, the witching hours ended.

I think it is time that we ignore our celebrities’ crying, deprive them of the attention, and, further, let them sleep in the silence of their burned-out careers. Let’s pull the cameras out of the courtroom. Let’s stop buying the tabloids full of intrusive paparazzi-stolen images. Let’s stop buying the movie tickets, CDs, books, and other memorabilia by and about the celebrities. It is time for zero tolerance for celebrity screw-ups. Accused of pedophilia? Throw everything he ever recorded into the dumpster – and change stations when it comes on the radio! Wrapped her car around a fire hydrant? Don’t buy her DVD – and change channels when she comes on TV! Had dogs killing each other – or he himself might have killed someone?!? For crying out loud, burn his sports cards, don’t buy them; it’s blood money!

Yes, I realize what I am saying are prejudicial over-reactions that might hurt celebrities who get into “minor” problems or who, for whatever reason, are falsely accused. But I think such an approach would either force these people to stay in line like the rest of us – or would quickly shake out the wheat from the chaff. Either way, we as a nation would better spend our time on examining the social, political, religious, military, and legal crisis that truly matter – rather than be distracted from them by the celebrity circus.

Osama Bin Laden released a new video. Someone in the marketing department must have turned him on to the American ideal of  10 Years Younger, since he seems to have discovered both Just for Men and possibly a Braun beard trimmer. The folks in the marketing department need to study American advertising a bit closer, however, since the sales pitch missed the mark on all three appeals: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. Killing innocent civilians at the World Trade Center – and threatening more violence against us – is hardly the way to persuade us to convert to Islam. (Hint, Osama: The reason why Jesus is so popular in the West is that he’s a gentle, forgiving, and nurturing figure – well, until you read the Gospel of John, but 3 out of 4 make him seem like a kind, nice guy to emulate.)

Frances Townsend, homeland security advisor to George Bush, has called Osama “impotent.” Yup, that’s right; our Executive branch has been reduced to merely insulting Bin Laden’s cock. Meanwhile, Bush has been inserting his Dick Cheney into clap-traps like Iraq and is growing ever more tumescent for Iran. But at least the feelings seem to be mutual, since Iran is on the way to having a long hard shooter for U.S.

Meanwhile, George himself has kept a notably low profile on the anniversary. If I were the President who was in office on September 11, 2001, I would not miss a single anniversary to attend memorial services in Manhattan, Shanksville, or at least at the Pentagon (you know, that building that was attacked and houses many of the same folks who are now trying to coordinate the War on Terror?) These days, though, I am inclined to think any of us – me, you, Giuliani, Hillary, or even fictional 24 Presidential actor Dennis Haysbert could do a better job as President.

What do the droids really do? Yes, yes, C3P0 is a “human cyborg relations” android. However, if the other droids had been built better, to speak in intelligible language, rather than bleeps and tweets, C3P0 would not be needed. Worse still, R2D2, while cute, seems to have few clearly defined functions. In episode 4, his primary role is to be a messenger for Princess Leia. However, in a galaxy where interstellar travel is commonplace, it seems archaic to send a message via a physical object, as opposed to sending it via some encrypted energy transmission. Okay, so maybe Obi-Won doesn’t have a phone. Even if I buy into that, R2D2 is hardly the most mobile, let alone agile, of the droids. In subsequent episodes, R2D2 hangs on as an X-wing fighter co-pilot, because in a galaxy with interstellar travel and droids, no one has thought to build into the fighter the logic that the droid possesses.

The only droids I can understand, that do have a justification for their existence, are the battle droids. It makes sense that an advance society would use robots to wage war, rather than risk actual living, sentient members of their own society, even more likely than risking clones. That is, of course, assuming that an “advanced” society would wage war at all.

The Death Star required an enormous expense of labor, materials, and energy to build and operate and expends an enormous amount of energy to obliterate an entire planet. Why? Even if it does make star systems cower before Emperor Palpatine, there is absolutely no return on the investment. If anything, it wastes perfectly habitable planets full of valuable resources, such as labor, food, raw materials, and the commercial infrastructure to make use of it all. Wouldn’t it be better to kill off just your opponents on the targeted planet and then take over use of whatever is left? The Empire’s approach would be like the Nazis completely wiping all of Poland, France, or England off the map, rather than merely beating the people into submission and then making use of them and their resources. Yes, I know, I know, the Death Star is supposed to be like the atomic bomb obliterating entire cities. Nevertheless, the parallel breaks down when you look at what it takes to build, move, and operate a Death Star compared to what it takes to build and deliver an atomic warhead.

The least useful Star Wars detail is the one it is best known for: the light saber. While the Imperial Storm Troopers and most of the Rebels are running around with blasters that can shoot an energy beam clear across the field of battle, the Jedi are walking around with weapons that have a limited range of what seems to be about three or four feet. Moreover, it requires a high amount of choreographed running, lunging, leaping, and swinging to use. A blaster is simple point-and-shoot. Call me lazy, but I’d rather kill my enemies at a distance and with as little strenuous effort as possible. The blaster is the logical weapon of choice.

The first thing that struck me, however, was how abrupt the movie is. It just starts. No pre-title sequence. Hell, no title sequence at all. Michael Mann must’ve figured that you saw the teasers, trailers, Colin Farrell on Leno, the marquee on your way in, asked for the ticket by name, and you know what you are coming to see. Or perhaps Mann wanted to just get the audience right into the characters and plot without interruption, so as to avoid giving the audience time during the title sequence to judge the film based on an opening teaser or based on comparing the classic Miami Vice television title sequence to the film, which would be a superficial way of judging it. Either way, the film doesn’t announce itself, it just starts.

The abruptness of the film, however, merely begins there. We meet Crockett, Tubbs, and Trudy many minutes before their names are ever used. We see Zito probably 90 minutes before he is ever referenced by name. There is a guy who is apparently Switek, but I don’t recall them using his name at all. The dialogue of the secondary characters is also terse. Trudy, Gina, Switek, and Zito speak rarely and only a sentence or two at a time. The result is that we learn very little about them.

Overall, the characters, including Crockett and Tubbs, are all very stripped-down-to-the-core and seriously professional compared to the original television characters. You won’t see Tubbs dancing and singing along to a song while watching a stripper gyrate. Nor will Crockett smile charmingly as he calls some girl “darlin’” or make a sarcastic comment while pushing an informant to fess-up. Imagine if you took all of the original characters, washed away everything you knew about their childhoods or their failed marriages and everything you remember them doing during the five years that the series aired. Then start with their must fundamental internal struggles – Tubbs’ temptation to cross the line of due-process when the situation becomes personal and consider revenge, and Crockett’s identity crisis when it comes to keeping work and love separate. Then add the kind of serious, cold, brutally professional edge that we see in 24’s Jack Bauer. It’s this refinement that pushes the film Miami Vice closer to Michael Mann’s Heat or Collateral. This is film. This is cinema. This is not the television Miami Vice. Nor is this a mere movie spun-off of the television Miami Vice. Major props to Mann for not delivery another insipid Charlie’s Angels or Starsky and Hutch.

Similar to Heat and Collateral, Mann’s cinematography here shows his skill with using unfiltered existing light – or at least the appearance of it being unaltered. While you won’t see any of the television series’ beautiful pastel palette, the beauty of the lighting, especially at night, still gives the film a distinctive look. Gone, too, however, are many of the MTV-inspired music-video-like effects. The original series would sometimes use slow motion, time-lapse, or other trendy music video effects. I only recall the film using slow motion once. Much of the rest of the film gets its look from the existing light, the composition of the frame, and from some quick cuts. A character early in the film makes a decision in traffic that will remind you of some of the abrupt and startling endings from the original series (similar to the episode that featured Bruce Willis – you may recall that one ended very abruptly.)

The Tubbs-and-Trudy sub-plot (and despite being central for a few minutes of the film, it is, indeed a very brief sub-plot) is the barest outline. It’s established to already exist with a brief life-at-home scene. By the way, Michael Mann must think sex in the shower is the sexiest sex there is. I don’t disagree, but he seems to dwell on it at least twice. The film does have an R rating, but I attribute that more to violence and language. The sex here is very brief and the nudity is not full-frontal – it’s all intertwined curves of skin, relatively tame compared to many other R-rated movies.

The vast majority of the screen time is given to Crockett — his straddling the undercover line, his romance with the villain’s accountant. Tubbs is really just along for the ride — the partner so dedicated to his partner that he only rarely voices concern over how deep they are getting. This is the one point where I felt something had been wrongly lost from the TV series. The interplay, tensions, arguments, and independent-thinking of the original Crockett and Tubbs had more depth — or at least a few more lines of dialogue. Here, Tubbs seems a bit too much like a tag-along sidekick.

My only other gripe is that, at night, Miami is always experiencing a thunderstorm. Alright, alright, I get it — the macrocosm and microcosm — a storm is brewing, etc., etc. I might tolerate such a move, if subtly handled, toward the end of a film, but it recurs here too often. It becomes less moody and more distracting, to the point that it seems a touch amateur.

Plot-wise, those who remember details of the original series will recognize some situations taken from it and given new twists. A television episode featured Trudy tied to a chair in a trailer. Several television episodes ended with nighttime shoot-outs at the docks. One episode had Crockett delivering a line about doing an abstract expressionist painting using his gun as a brush and a villain’s brains as the paint. All of those and several more echo here.

If you loved the original Miami Vice for its pastel colors, witty banter, and characters like Izzy or Noogie, you may not appreciate this film. If, however, you loved the original Miami Vice for the themes of undercover identity-confusion and the characters’ inner struggles, as well as being a fan of Heat’s pacing and action, you will walk away with a deeper appreciation for those core elements.

If you don’t know Thomas, he is a train with a gray face on the front. When my nephew first took an interest in him many years ago, I couldn’t fathom how this was not in some way frightening. Here’s a face on the front of a machine. No arms, no legs, just a face. Beyond the eerie visage, I was also puzzled that they were somehow able to milk such a situation for plots. It’s not like the trains can pick things up; they have no hands. Nor can they freely roam; they are limited to only where the track can go. Nevertheless, with a few human figures around, they’ve managed to produce what seem to be hundreds of stories in books and videos — all of which make for a large world that the kids can buy into, quite literally. Once the kids are hooked by the book$ and video$, which feature $core$ of train$, they will likely want to buy the complete collection of toy$, clothe$, bed $heet$,curtain$, and other decoration$ and knick knack$.

Alright, yeah, I bought tons of Disney over the years — Disney pioneered this character merchandising. However, I find Thomas’s world depressingly familiar. It reminds me of corporate life. Much is made of Thomas being a “Really Useful Engine.” Every story is about work and getting the job done, with the constant fear of things going wrong or falling behind schedule. With that in mind, On the Track, There and Back is the most prototypical Thomas story, since it follows him from waking up to going to sleep.

There is an immediate sense of urgency in the story, since on the first page Thomas says “I’m on my way. I have so much to do today.” And it never stops until he gets back to his shed for sleep. Along the way, we follow him on his morning commute to the station, “a route I know well.” He hauls some passenger coaches then heads for the quarry, saying “NO time yet for fun!” Of course, there is never time for fun.

The only book in which I have ever read about Thomas going off and having some fun is one titled Thomas Breaks a Promise (originally published as Thomas Tells a Lie, but just as there could never be a Revenge of the Jedi, I guess Thomas is above ever telling a lie.) In that book, the temptation to go to a carnival gets the better of Thomas in the middle of a branch line signal-checking assignment — and results in a near-disaster. Sir Topham Hatt punishes Thomas by making him check the signals on the entire railway system. While Thomas did deserve to be disciplined, at no point does Sir Topham Hatt express wonder at why Thomas might have felt the need to take a freaking break.

But back to On the Track… At the quarry, Thomas helps two other engines. And then comes the most redundant sentence ever written: “The Troublesome Trucks give us all lots of trouble.” Maybe by this point, Thomas’ brain has gone onto auto-pilot? Does he get a much-needed break yet? No, having already hauled passengers and rocks, he now has to go make a freight run from high up in the mountains all the way down to the harbor. Those three tasks have consumed his entire day and all he gets at the end is a washing and put back in his shed — all the while smiling as though he has either sat through one too many corporate motivational presentations or swallowed a goodly dose of Prozac.

There were nights when I wanted to scream into the book: “Take a break, Thomas! Tell Sir Topham Hatt you’re sick of being his obedient little minion. Go play Frisbee, read a fun book, write a letter to a long-missed friend, take some photos of deer, find a girlfriend, or at least sit and enjoy watching the world go by somewhere! Stopping being so damned f***ing useful for everyone else!”

The best I could do was, on a few nights, persuade my older son to skip the Thomas book in favor of more fun-filled books like:

• Autumn Walk by Ann Burg, illustrated by Kelly Asbury
• When I Go To The Park by Jill Harker, illustrated by Jane Swift
• Micawber, by John Lithgow, illustrated by C. F. Payne
• Curious George Goes Fishing by H. A. Rey
• But Not the Hippopotamus by Sandra Boynton
• Dad Mine! and Mom Mine! by Dawn Apperley, Jane Kemp, and Clare Walters
• Scuffy the Tugboat by Gertrude Crampton (a Little Golden Book Classic)

Don’t get me wrong; I do want my kids to have a work ethic, but I don’t want them to become mindless corporate drones. I want them to know that family matters more than career — despite anything the corporate world may otherwise try to subtly enforce upon them. Even where a corporation does not encourage a workaholic mentality directly or even attempts to actively prevent it, the meritocracy structure of performance reviews and bonuses often compels managers to put their own career performance and advancement ahead of their employees’ familial and even physical health by driving their employees into overworked burnout. The employees who fall prey to this the most readily are the ones who have been indoctrinated with an excessively strong work ethic that is out of scale with any other ethos they may have. That’s where, I fear, too much Thomas (as with too much of anything), may be a bad influence.

Hey, boys, if you ever read this, spend time with your family and go have some fun.

Love,
Dad

To argue that the patterns we see when we look at the cosmos, the natural world, and our biological selves are reflective of an intelligent design is predicated on our own intelligence. So, in other words, this is a circular argument. The conclusion is drawn from itself. The most crucial feature of the argument to highlight is the word intelligent. The people who believe in intelligent design are capable of rational thought, faulted, but still rational.

Humans seek out pattern, even in places where there most likely would not be a logical, intentional pattern. Just because I can look at a cloud up in the sky and say that it looks to me like it is shaped like a cat face, does not mean that any intelligence made it that way. Nor does pointing at stars in the sky and saying, “those there look like a bear and that one looks like a fish.”

The classic example of human pattern seeking where there is no intelligence or intention is the inkblot test. Take a bottle of ink, splash some on a sheet of paper. Then ask someone to look at it and tell you what it looks like. People try to make sense of inkblots, comparing their shape, no matter how random and amorphous, to other objects.

Some might think to counter that even an inkblot has some intelligent design behind it, given that an intelligent human being is “designing” the inkblot by the process of splashing it. If you repeat the process, however, you will see that there are innumerable random variables that make it extremely difficult to make two inkblots that look alike. Others may reach beyond the appearance of the inkblot and argue that the fact that inks and papers are synthetic and evidence of intelligent design. So repeat the process with some mud thrown onto the surface of a rock. Just because someone can perceive a pattern, that doesn’t mean the pattern was intelligent or designed.

The folks who believe in intelligent design are looking at an inkblot and thinking that they are seeing a mirror. They project their own intelligence onto the cosmos and then congratulate themselves on finding “God.” Intelligent design is nothing more than egocentric human self-aggrandizement.

If I were to apply my intelligence to the cosmos I live in, I could actually think of ways of improving it – don’t include items in the design that would cause sentient beings to suffer. Don’t include genetic abnormalities that cause cancer or heart disease. What would be the point of including them when they are counter to the purpose of the organism that contains them – they take life away, rather than contribute to it. To my eyes, while the cosmos does have some laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, they come nowhere near reflecting an intelligent design. Anything but.

Maybe you’ve seen or have heard that a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean has killed at least 100,000 of our fellow humans. More than a million survivors are suffering, at risk, and struggling. Men, women, children, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Asians, Indians, Europeans, Africans, Americans, poor people, rich people, militants, pacifists, people like me, and, yes, people like you.

You’ve proven you can organize people. You’re a wealthy man who’s proven he can raise money. You’ve proven you can get the job done. Ah, but there’s the rub; you’re only good at destroying things, no better than the tsunami itself, although your “accomplishments” pale in comparison. Tell me, Osama, and tell the world, or better still, show us: What are you going to do for those who’ve died and those who are now struggling to survive? What about their jihad, their struggle* – not against Westerners, Christians, or other “infidels,” but their jihad to bury the dead, to eat, to heal, to rebuild? Where is your base, now, with its army of the supposedly righteous? Can you not mobilize them to do something good for these people?

Maybe, Osama, this tragedy to all humanity will get the attention of the people who follow you. Maybe they will stop looking at their fellow humans through your veil of religious zealotry. Maybe they will see the common suffering of all peoples of all walks of life in the areas hit by the tsunami. Maybe they will see governments and corporations and people of all religions, of all economic classes, and of all political beliefs contributing and volunteering to the relief effort. Maybe they will see that by working together as humans we can do far more good than the petty little acts of violence and destruction you’ve wrought.

Over the last seven days since the tsunami first struck, you’ve been notably quiet. Consider this: Even Yassar Arafat, a man who many consider to be more a terrorist in your vein than a “freedom fighter,” immediately spoke out against the tragedy, injustice, and amorality of September 11. Even Saddam Hussein at least had something to say immediately after September 11, though he didn’t condemn the act nor express sympathy for the victims. Your silence and inaction are speaking louder than anything you’ve ever said or done. It’s telling the world you are not interested in helping those who are truly suffering. You really don’t care.

Meanwhile, the entire rest of the world is pulling together to help the victims of this disaster.

What are you going to do, Osama? Go back and crawl under your rock and stay there.

It is true that I do not say a prayer to a theoretical God at Thanksgiving, but that doesn’t mean that the day is just about eating a gluttonous meal for me. I am very thankful for an uncountable long list of people, places, things, events, and other good fortunes (both given by others, accomplished by myself and my family, and the result of random chance) in my life. Rather than thank God, however, I thank the people in my life directly and, for the things, events, and other good fortunes, state my thanks for them publicly before celebrating.

For example, this year, I am thankful to my family for their traveling for many, many hours to spend the holiday with my wife, my son, and myself. Moreover, I am thankful that they also made the trip here when my son was born.

I am thankful to the doctor and nurses that my son arrived safe and healthy. I am also thankful that he is proving to be an adorable, sweet baby.

I am thankful to my closest co-worker for all the work she did while I was out on six weeks leave after my son was born.

Even the very fact that I can enjoy a large feast at Thanksgiving is something for which I am grateful. I am thankful to myself and my family for all that we have done to make sure we can earn enough to afford such a feast. I am thankful to my employer for hiring me and paying me so well. I am thankful to my family for their contributions in preparing the meal. And I am grateful that I am part of this family, this prosperous place and time, and have not suffered any ill-fortune to deprive me of it. I can be grateful, even without religion, because I know that I have so much and, sadly, know that many others do not. For all that I have, I am also humbled by both the fact that others are not so fortunate and the knowledge that my fortunes could quickly change.

If others feel the need to express their thanks to their God, that is fine for them. However, my lack of faith in no way diminishes my gratitude both to those around me and for all that I have in this world.

It’s been tough keeping this a secret for the last few months. We initially heeded the cautious advice of doctors and baby-book experts by not sharing the news openly. We limited it to only our closest family. The advice is, of course, a precaution just in case the pregnancy is
lost, which often happens in the early months.

It got harder to keep it a secret when my wife developed placenta previa and was ordered to bed-rest for three months. I live close enough to work that I was able to scoot home for lunch each day to help her, but I’m sure my co-workers noticed my unusual new daily ritual of rushing out
the door promptly at noon and at 5:00.

Lila and Fetus Lee are doing well enough now that we can share the news openly. However, I must say that I’m both confused and annoyed by some of the responses we get. Yes, we’ve had many congratulations, but that’s often followed a few minutes later by another response. It’s along the lines of “Your life is over now” or “Once the baby comes, you’ll never get a full night of sleep again” or “Children are a lot of work.” Here I was looking forward to this and feeling happy and proud from the congratulations, and then the conversation plummets into the negative.

I’m sure these people don’t mean to be so negative, but they just can’t seem to help themselves. They seem to think that in some collegial, conspiratorial way they are sharing something with me. Nevertheless, it is annoying.

Look, it’s not that I don’t want to know what reality is. I know children will provide hours of fun and hours of stress. I know babies cry, sometimes for no identifiable reason. I also know they sometimes smile and even giggle. I know diapers are stinky. However, I also know it can be very soothing to hold a baby and give it a bottle. I know children will, at some point, whine and cry over not getting something they want. I also know, however, that they sometimes say things in funny ways that make you laugh. Moreover, I already know all these negative things that people feel compelled to tell me, but I am happy that I am going to be a father and I would appreciate it if people would let me enjoy that.

That said, I am eager to get on to the next bit of news for this blog…

I am informally suspending the “rants and chants” theme of this blog for the next few months. Instead, I want to do some writing whose primary audience will be my children.[1] I will post it here, however, for the value it may have to others. Moreover, since I believe the Web to be a more universal and hopefully enduring place
than my hard drive, I also hope that posting it here will ensure that my children will be more likely to have a chance to read it someday. If anything should happen to me before they are old enough to know me, at least there will be some chance that they might someday find and read this.

Beginning next week, I will be posting some essays about the lessons I think my children should learn in their lives. They will need all the help they can get to survive and thrive in this crazy world.

The Challenger Disaster was such a shock to many of my generation because we had become so accustomed to the seeming reliability and safety of space travel. So many other shuttle launches had happened that they seemed commonplace and no longer newsworthy. Indeed, the most noteworthy aspect of the Challenger launch at the start of the news day had seemed to be the presence of the “first teacher in space.” Space travel had reached that point that we were no longer talking about the first man, first woman, first African-American, or the long list of other firsts that had happened. At least for the first woman and the first African-American, cultural barriers had to be crossed before the space barrier could be crossed. While a first teacher in space is culturally significant, it did send the message that space travel was now common enough that even someone as familiar as a school teacher could go there. Many felt that it was more a public-relations gesture, to renew public interest in space flight because it had become so commonplace as to no longer warrant attention without devising yet another human-interest first.

After the Challenger Disaster, however, we all had been shocked enough at seeing it explode that, even with safety improvements, you couldn’t watch another shuttle launch or any shuttle news without thinking that something could go wrong again someday. In that light, the breakup of Columbia on re-entry seems less surprising and more expected — overdue, in fact. Indeed, given that the Challenger accident happened on lift-off, the break-up of Columbia on re-entry seems to complete part of some strange equation. It seems like an extended Murphy’s Law: Not only will something go wrong if it can go wrong, but the universe must generate tangible examples of each possible thing that can go wrong.

Sadly, the Columbia Disaster also does not seem to fit our post-9/11 expanded definitions of disaster and tragedy. We have seen thousands of humans die who did not know that they were taking any risk by boarding a plane or going to work. In that light, the deaths of seven people who knew that space flight was risky but were brave enough to pursue it seems existentially more understandable. Sad, but not a large-scale disaster.

That said, I am dedicating this week’s writing to the seven men and women who died aboard Columbia.