Unite the County with a Moderate!

I don't intend to comment on politics too much (though those commentaries can make lots of money!) but with the new vacancy for the Supreme Court, some Dem said "It's time for the President to pick a candidate to unite the Country, not divide it." I laughed out loud. There is no such person. It would be nice, but won't happen.

I am a moderate living in a world of extremists.

States and Countries I have visited

I've been pretty busy lately, and will be for another week, but thought I'd throw this in real quick.

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

Class on blogging?

This is a post from a class. This is our teacher.

Conservative Librarians

The Loneliness of a Conservative Librarian is an interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. For those who don't know, the Chronicle is the New York Times of the academic world. It's true that librarians are overreacting to lots of what's going on in the country. But I think that can be said about most any group right now.

The clearest way to take care of the polarization is to kill half the Baby Boomers. The most extreme right and left. Seeing as how that isn't practical (and I wouldn't want to be the one to decide who is to be taken out), we'll just have to wait it out.

In other (related) news: Respected scholar and sociologist Alan Wolfe has gone off his nut. In this weeks Chronicle (not free, sorry) he continues his anti-conservative rants that the Chronicle editors keep publishing. Oh, you're suprised?

He seems quite convinced that to be conservative is to be mentally unbalanced. See his 4/2/2004 article "A Fascist Philosopher Helps Us Understand Contemporary Politics." In that article he states

To understand what is distinctive about today's Republican Party, you first need to know about an obscure and very conservative German political philosopher.

I believe he is, or was, a moderate type person, and it grieves me to see him go down this road.

Are Consumers Anxious or are Analysts Psychologists?

The slow down in retail sales is credited to "Anxiety" by some mind-reading analyst types. Could it be that our gas budget has more than doubled and Christmas is coming? I don't feel anxious.

Speaking of Christmas someone had a boycott Christmas idea. I'll find it and link to it soon.

Putting on another's shoes

Marylaine Block has written a well thought out article on getting out of our tunnel-vision. I don't agree with everything she says, but as she states, "The object of these imaginative exercises is not achieving agreement. We don't need to agree with each other." But we do need to respect each other.

Bob Dylan

This last week PBS had a show on Bob Dylan. Now there is one interesting cat. The show stops at 1966, the year I was born. Martin Scorsese, the director, said that he would like to do the rest, as there is so much more, including religious issues. There is lots of speculation on that topic. I have a friend who believes that Dylan is still a Christian, just that he is quiet about it. He is not the only one.