Too clever by half: Riches for Ramblers

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by the Night Writer

If you were to apply the same thinking to “stimulate” the housing market that the administration is using in the “Cash for Clunkers” program you’d have the government giving you a discount on a high-density urban condo in exchange for your suburban rambler — and then burning down the rambler.  (I know, I know…don’t give them any ideas!)

What would that do the housing stock, both the availability and cost of older homes that people could buy and on the rental market?

There are similar inefficiencies and hidden costs in the car version of this boondoggle. Aside from the fact that this government giveaway has all the lasting effect of revving the economic engine by squirting alcohol into the carburetor (or trying to heat your house by burning dollar bills in the fireplace), the program destroys the traded-in cars, taking perfectly good and serviceable vehicles out of circulation.  The kind of cars that, say, young seminary students and others of modest means can afford. It also takes “after-after” market parts out of the economy as well.

Whenever you lower the supply of something you drive up the cost of what is available, meaning that people who need cheap and affordable autos in order to get to work or the next ACORN rally are either shut out or pay a “tax” in the form of higher prices for what they buy.  Yet, somehow, only the wealthy are going to have to pay more in this latest edition of voodoo economics.

Hope and (short) Change, I guess.

Additionally, if you were to carry the “Riches for Ramblers” analogy further you might surmise that people would be trading in their ramblers for condos in Tokyo or Osaka. Looking at the list of the top 10 cars purchased so far in the CfC program we see the following:

  1. Ford Focus
  2. Toyota Corolla
  3. Honda Civic
  4. Toyota Prius
  5. Toyota Camry
  6. Ford Escape
  7. Hyundai Elantra
  8. Dodge Caliber
  9. Honda Fit
  10. Chevy Cobalt

Nice to see Ford (the only U.S. automaker that didn’t take bail-out money) number one and with two cars in the top 10, while Japanese cars (and one Korean model) dominate the list save for a lone representative each for Government Motors and Chiseler, I mean, Chrysler.

The blog days of August

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by the Night Writer

As the summer and its distractions goes on it seems that blogging vacations are often on the schedule. I know many prominent bloggers take the month off completely, and I’ve observed that posting often gets lighter on many of my favorites. While there have been years when I’ve taken August off myself, that is not my plan for this year. I figure I had a kind of blogging vacation in July when traveling abroad slowed down my post-a-day objective, and with the site just relaunched with a new look I want to keep this looking “lived-in” (though Tiger Lilly seems to be doing a good job of that!)

Real life and my Day Writer job have been a bit of a challenge for me since we got back from Spain, however. I’ve been kind of wiped out the last couple of weeks and by the time I get home and have a late supper the thought of logging some more computer time isn’t that motivating. The thing is, I’ve got some deep thoughts on several topics that I’d like to get out, but I keep falling into deep sleep instead. That’s  either fatigue or perhaps those thoughts aren’t really that interesting; I’d try to figure that out but right now I’m too tired.

I will take this opportunity, however, to note that a couple of my favorite bloggers have, sadly, turned out the lights at their original sites but have, happily, surfaced in new homes. KingDavid, the ever-vigilant sentry against the depredations of the Animal Kingdom Jihad and chronicler of attacks ranging from squirrels to sharks (and the occasional moonbat) shuttered The Far Wright without warning last week after three years. The good news is that he took a few days off and then opened his new place, KingDavid(s).  No, Dave hasn’t been overcome by Tiger Lilly’s use of parentheses in Anorex[st]ics Inaneymous, or forgotten how to use a possessive apostrophe. In his words:

This is simply a journal of our royal family—sharing all that is going in our lives with family and friends around the country.

At the same time, I’m going to be studying and sharing things that I’m learning about the life and times of the more well known King David, as well as focusing on the psalms of David.  I plan to focus on things historical, archaeological, poetic, artistic, yada-yada-yada, as they pertain to KD the First.

For  friends who followed my previous blog the last three years, I will be keeping a separate page that will still highlight my God given, somewhat warped, sense of humor that I believe you all came to appreciate.  I’ll try to pay particular attention to those types of postings that Tiger Lilly will look forward to.

It should be fun.

I am also the last to report that one of the most singular talents in the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers (MOB), Doug Williams of Bogus Gold (an anagram of “Doug’s Blog”), has given up the single life to join a now triumphant triumvirate over at Shot in the Dark. In his good-bye at Bogus Gold he offered the following prophecy:

It looks to me like the era of the small personality driven “boutique” blog, covering all the topics that may interest an individual blogger of no particular celebrity, is coming to an end.

I had to smile at the “boutique” reference: I’d used that word a little while back in a comment on his blog when he was considering either shutting down completely or joining a group blog. I’d urged him to keep going solo because I prefer reading personal blogs with a distinctive voice such as his to the clamor of group blogs, comparing it to preferring to go to a boutique store rather than the big-box retailer. Not that there’s anything wrong with Home Depot or group blogs; you can be pretty certain you’re going to find what your looking for there, but there’s nothing like walking into the corner hardware store with it’s more intimate aisles and the occasional quirky eccentricity that would never have gotten past a focus group. Still, Doug’s in with a good group that’s well-matched and not too large. He, and they, will do fine I’m sure.

So what of this little “boutique” blog right here? Well, whether personality-driven or simply driven by sleep-deprivation, I’m going to continue, albeit with the help of a few extra voices such as the ever-more-emerging Tiger Lilly (who may soon find this place too small for the two of us), the elusive Mall Diva and ol’ what’s-his-name that married her and has her too distracted to write. There has also been a promise from the Reverend Mother to post more things here, but she seems to be as easily distracted as her daughter.

Oh well, we’re all here even if we may go a day or two between posts occasionally. Feel free to drop by anytime.

UPDATE:

Like sands through the hour-glass, so go the blogs of our lives. Apparently more consolidation is afoot as Mr. D has already changed the name of his blog to Mr. Dilettante’s Neightborhood in preparation for a couple of MOB transfers: Brad Carlson and … my son-in-law and serial blogger (Uncle Ben at Hammerswing; W.B. Picklesworth at Where Poetry Goes to Die;  Son@Night here). Ben hasn’t given me 30-days notice so I don’t know what his plans are — or if he’s cleared them with his wife.

After the fall

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by the Night Writer

Two years ago today the 35W bridge collapsed, drawing attention not only from across the state of Minnesota but also across the country and even the world. When I was in Spain a couple of weeks ago I was talking to an engineer from Madrid and when he found out I was from the Minneapolis area the first thing he wanted to talk about was the bridge collapse. Since the collapse a new bridge has risen, bigger and stronger than the original, the marks of the disaster now largely out of sight underneath the waters of the Mississippi River, just as the scars in the lives of those who survived — or in the lives of the loved ones of those who didn’t — are largely lost to our sight now.

At the time I suggested here (see below) that in the fall of concrete and metal something better and purer might arise, not made by the hands of man, but in the way those hands reached out. Today a new bridge stands, better than ever, where the old one fell. Two years later my question to you is, “Can we say the same thing?”

The bridges of Minneapolis and San Luis Rey, and the Tower of Siloam
Who, what, when, where? Those are the first things we want to know when a disaster makes the news. Close on their heels comes the question hardest to answer: Why?

That question breaks into two parts, the physical and the metaphysical. Why did the bridge fail structurally, and why were these particular people apportioned to survive, die or be injured? The first question will eventually be known to the millimeter; the second will remain fuzzy. Implicit in the second one, however, is the fear that everything is random, that there is no justice, or that justice is applied on a scale so grand that we can’t calculate it; either way we are left with uncertainty as to just what measure is due us personally. The thing is, we want there to be a reason and order to things, and optimistically assume (or hope) that our own accounts will balance to the “good”; promising or justifying our own deliverance from calamity.

We easily extend our version of grace to others (as long as they’re victims and not members of the opposition party), generously judging them good or innocent by the most general of categories: he was a “nice guy”, she was a young mother. “Why do bad things happen to good people?” we cry. Other people, or other times, might view calamity as judgment or karmic justice.

Similarly, was it chance or God’s plan that resulted in the deaths in the collapse of the 35W bridge in Minneapolis? Was it God’s indifference that lead to the fall, or God’s providence that the calamity was not more catastrophic? If there is such a “goodness” scale, by what measure can the survivors claim deliverance and what comfort can be given to the families of those who didn’t? How can a former missionary go missing while a child abuser survives?

People didn’t start asking these questions just when President Bush took office, either. In his 1927 novel, “The Bridge at San Luis Rey,” Thornton Wilder tackles similar questions and circumstances in the person of Brother Juniper who tries to ascertain the central failing in the lives of five people who perish when the titular bridge falls into a chasm. (He could come to no conclusion). Going back a bit further, in John 9:2, Jesus was asked about a blind man, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” Whereupon he made mud and put it in the blind man’s eyes and then sent him to wash in the pool of Siloam, healing his blindness. Interestingly, Siloam is mentioned again in Luke 13 when people suggest to Jesus that calamity overcame certain people as a judgment. His response: “… those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Or, (excuse my jump in character but not in context), in the words of Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, “We’ve all got it coming.” The point being made was that no one is innocent, but each may come to the revelation of salvation by grace; by the work of God, not man.

I’m not trying to be dark. In fact, I believe that there is an order and justice in the universe even if we can’t see it all at once. I believe that because, in fact, we are able to see beauty and justice from time to time. If it weren’t so, all would be chaos and despair. Instead, in the midst of the refining fire of a disaster there are gleaming streaks of gold rising through all the impurities; the acts of courage, altruism and goodness in the survivors and rescuers (perhaps even unplumbed in their lives up until that point), and of a community pulling together in empathy and faith.

Bridges are aspirational; tangibly they are an example of our ability to overcome an obstacle to achieve what we want. The failure of one is not just a challenge to getting what we want, it is a repudiation of our ability to even conceive of it; the cutting of the tightrope woven of our doctrines that we walk to find our own salvation. In Mark Helprin’s book “Winter’s Tale” the allegorical and eternal Jackson Mead, an engineer representing either Lucifer or man (I go back and forth on this), strives to bend steel, nature and his will into casting a tremendous bridge of light to Heaven that — like our human understanding — touches the far shore for a moment and falls. Yet one of the messages of the book is that the balances are exact; and one thing cannot fall without something else rising and even more gloriously.

The 35W bridge fell in a crush of broken steel, concrete and bodies — and though the dust sought to obscure it, we could suddenly see something clearly: we are the bridges, standing in or reaching across the gap for and to one another.

Standing, always.

Frog Legs Anyone?

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by Son@Night

One of the grand features this summer here at the blog has been the plethora (Three Amigos anyone?) of European travel photos. We’ve certainly got supply. I’m not sure what demand is looking like, but I’m going to flood the market with a few more because NW seems pretty busy and I wonder how much time he’ll have for writin’.

Paris is a nice city. It’s in France. It’s got nice architecture.

I hurried us away from Notre Dame after this picture because I saw some guy up on the ramparts paying too much attention to Faith. Stupid hunchback had better mind his own business!

I hurried us away from Notre Dame after this picture because I saw some guy up on the ramparts paying too much attention to Faith. Stupid hunchback had better mind his own business!

A little lunch starts to look like haute cuisine 'round these parts. Faith was people watching. I was enjoying not shopping.

A little lunch starts to look like haute cuisine 'round these parts. Faith was people watching. I was enjoying not shopping.

We were strolling one night and found a towery thing. We flicked the light switch and...Woah Nellie!!

We were strolling one night and found a towery thing. We flicked the light switch and...Woah Nellie!!

Faith is big on accessorizing.

Faith is big on accessorizing.

We took a riverboat cruise. Very romantic except for the four guys who mooned us.

We took a riverboat cruise. Very romantic except for the four guys who mooned us.

Notre Dame's spire stretches towards the sky, pulls hamstring.

Notre Dame's spire stretches towards the sky, pulls hamstring.

Sliding home

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by the Night Writer
Here are all the slide shows from our trip to Spain, consolidated in one post (including the new slideshows of Cazorla and Madrid). Some of the photos will be familiar from posts I put up while we were over there, pre-slideshow. All the Cazorla slides, however, came from our friends who went through the Pueblo Ingles program with us and kindly put their photos into a common PhotoBucket file. Great job, guys!

CAZORLA

MADRID

SEGOVIA

BARCELONA

Adventures in Eating, Part 3: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly…

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by Tiger Lilly

…well, this is the good, anyway. For the bad and the ugly, see my previous Adventures In Dining post.

When in Rome Madrid (or Barcelona), eat what the Madridians (or Barcelonians) eat.

Don't be fooled by the supposed onion rings. They are actually (dramatic pause) CALAMARI!!! Doom.

Don't be fooled by the supposed onion rings. They are actually (dramatic pause) CALAMARI!!! Doom.

This was a delicious pizza. I ate most of it. I was trying to cut it into slices, but then I thought, “You know, this is my pizza, no one else is going to eat it (except Mom. She’ll steal some bites), so I might as well just pick it up and take a bite out of it.”

As you can see, that is exactly what I did. I highly recommend doing that. It’s a liberating experience.

No, it's not my sombreror, it's my pizza!

No, it's not my sombrero, it's my pizza!

Oof, yeah… We walked thirteen miles that day (I think), so I felt completely justified. It was only a nine inch pizza, anyway.

Ahh, pizza...and now for my siesta!

Ahh, pizza...and now for my siesta!

And, one of the best parts of Madrid:

Whenever I'm in Madrid, I always get a Suiza from Chocolat Cafe, Bar & Chocolateria.

Whenever I'm in Madrid, I always get a Suiza from Chocolat Cafe, Bar & Chocolateria. Oh my gooseness, this drink was one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted.

That drink was mostly dark chocolate. I think it was melted, then added to heavy whipping cream. Of course, it was topped with whip’cream and had a wafer straw stuck into it. It was pure heaven.
Oh yeah, and, I’m wearing my new Spanish fedora in that picture.

And now for something completely different:

Isn't it beautiful? I saw this while searching for Dodge trucks (research for my book), and fell in love. Daddy, I want!

Isn't it beautiful? I saw this while searching for Dodge trucks (research for my book), and fell in love. Daddy, I want!

I’m not sure if that’s a Tomahawk or a Viper, the website seemed to not be able to make up its mind about it.

Basking in the glory of food and sweet motorcycle-cars, TL out.
Ciao for now!

I don’t want to go on the cart

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by the Night Writer

There is a Monty Python-esque air to the current healthcare debate as I picture anyone actually reading the particulars of Obama-care striking themselves regularly in the forehead with the bill, ala the hooded monks in the opening of Scene 2 in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  Of course, the rest of that scene bears an uncanny resemblence to the proposed care as well, as I noted back in 2005 in a post entitled “21st Century British Healthcare.” Things really haven’t changed much since 2005, or since 1100 for that matter:

(Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Scene 2)
CART MASTER: Bring out your dead!
CUSTOMER: Here’s one.
CART MASTER: Ninepence.
DEAD PERSON: I’m not dead!
CART MASTER: What?
CUSTOMER: Nothing. Here’s your ninepence.
DEAD PERSON: I’m not dead!

Terminally Ill Can Be Starved to Death, UK Court Rules
By Nicola Brent, CNSNews.com Correspondent, August 02, 2005(CNSNews.com) – An appeal court has denied a terminally ill British man the assurance that his wish not to be starved to death once he becomes incapacitated will be respected to the end.

Former mailman Leslie Burke, 45, has a progressively degenerative disease that although leaving him fully conscious, will eventually rob him of the ability to swallow and communicate.

He petitioned the High Court last year to ensure that he would not be denied food and water once he was no longer able to articulate his wishes.

CART MASTER: ‘Ere. He says he’s not dead!
CUSTOMER: Yes, he is.
DEAD PERSON: I’m not!
CART MASTER: He isn’t?
CUSTOMER: Well, he will be soon. He’s very ill.
DEAD PERSON: I’m getting better!
CUSTOMER: No, you’re not. You’ll be stone dead in a moment.

Burke won that right when judge James Munby ruled that if a patient was mentally competent — or if incapacitated, had made an advance request for treatment — then doctors were bound to provide artificial nutrition or hydration (ANH).

But last May, the General Medical Council (GMC) — the medical licensing authority — took the case to the Appeal Court, arguing that doctors had been placed “in an impossibly difficult position.”

The appeal judges have now agreed, overturning the High Court judgment and upholding GMC guidelines on how to treat incapacitated patients.

CART MASTER: Oh, I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations.
DEAD PERSON: I don’t want to go on the cart!
CUSTOMER: Oh, don’t be such a baby.
CART MASTER: I can’t take him.
DEAD PERSON: I feel fine!

Those guidelines give doctors the final say in whether a patient should be given life-sustaining “treatment,” a term legally defined to include artificial feeding or hydration.

The latest ruling obliges doctors to provide life-prolonging treatment if a terminally ill and mentally competent patient asks for it.

However, once a patient is no longer able to express his or her wishes or is mentally incapacitated, doctors can withdraw treatment, including ANH, if they consider it to be causing suffering or “overly burdensome.”

Ultimately, the court said, a patient cannot demand treatment the doctor considers to be “adverse to the patient’s clinical needs.”

CUSTOMER: Well, do us a favour.
CART MASTER: I can’t.
CUSTOMER: Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won’t be long.
CART MASTER: No, I’ve got to go to the Robinsons’. They’ve lost nine today.
CUSTOMER: Well, when’s your next round?
CART MASTER: Thursday.
DEAD PERSON: I think I’ll go for a walk.

Anti-euthanasia campaigner and author Wesley Smith told Cybercast News Service it was important Burke had taken the case to court because “it is now clear that a patient who can communicate desires cannot have food and water withdrawn.

“That is a line in the sand that is helpful.”

However, he added, the judgment had “cast aside” those who were mentally incompetent or unable to communicate their wishes — “those who bioethicists call non-persons because of incompetence or incommunicability.

“I believe that the judgment clearly implies that the lives of the competent are worth more than the lives of the incompetent since doctors can decide to end life-sustaining medical care, including ANH,” said Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and author of Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America.

Burke was quoted as saying in reaction to the ruling that it held “no good news at all” for people who shared his concerns.

In the light of public health service cuts and underfunding, Burke said he was worried about “the decisions that will have to be made” by doctors in the future.

“I have come to realize that there are quite a few people who feel the same way I do,” the Yorkshire Post quoted him as saying. “Not everyone wants to be put down. Not everyone wants their life to be ended prematurely.”

CUSTOMER: You’re not fooling anyone, you know. Look. Isn’t there something you can do?
DEAD PERSON: [singing] I feel happy. I feel happy.
[Cart Master hits him in the head.]

Responding to the court’s ruling, the GMC said it should reassure patients.

The council’s guidelines made it clear “that patients should never be discriminated against on the grounds of disability,” said GMC President Prof. Graeme Catto in a statement.

“We have always said that causing patients to die from starvation and dehydration is absolutely unacceptable practice and unlawful.”

A professor of palliative medicine at Cardiff University, Baroness Ilora Finlay, supported the court ruling. “Stopping futile interventions allows natural death to occur peacefully,” she argued in a British daily newspaper. “This is not euthanasia by the back door.”

But the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) took a different view.

The commission was one of several campaigners, including right-to-life activists and patients’ groups, which had strongly supported Munby’s earlier ruling.

DRC Chairman Bert Massie expressed the group’s dismay at the Appeal Court decision, saying it did nothing to dispel the fears of many disabled people that “some doctors make negative, stereotypical assumptions about their quality of life.”

It had also “totally ignored” the rights of those who were unable to express their wishes, he added.

CUSTOMER: Ah, thanks very much.
CART MASTER: Not at all. See you on Thursday.

The Night Writer’s vote for the funniest line: “Ultimately, the court said, a patient cannot demand treatment the doctor considers to be ‘adverse to the patient’s clinical needs.'” You mean, such as, “Please don’t starve me to death?”

See also Suing to Stay on Life Support.

(Monty Python and the Holy Grail excerpt available here.)

Anorex[st]ics Inaneymous 041: Queso.

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by Tiger Lilly

The Anorex[st]ics … they live!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, please excuse the shoddy speech bubbles, I’m still trying to adapt to the restrictions of the new site, so I had to do some quick cutting and squeezing. If you notice that the stick figures are a bit thinner than usual, that would be why.

Anorex[st]ics Inaneymous 041

Quote for the week: Be my palsy-walsy or I’ll break your armsy-warmsy.

Ending on that uplifting note, ciao for now.