Random Thoughts after a long Blog absence

Absence kind of sounds like absinthe, which you can by via mail order now-a-days.

I went to a wedding Saturday, well I was actually in it. Which is funny, because I have been married twice and this was the first time I had been in a wedding. Anyway, it was a pretty nice affair. The important thing is that the people who were supposed to be getting married, got married. It was nice reaquainting myself with a family that was a big part of my youth, especially the groom's older brother. I don't expect to be getting any invitations to the local pub for a pint of bitter or anything, but I enjoyed his company through the weekend. We had the rehearsal Friday night, followed by the rehearsal dinner. The bride works at a local restaurant in the town where they were to wed, so we loaded up and headed over. It was probably a mistake since half the staff of the restaurant was in the wedding party, and resulted in slow service. The food was ok, and I paid most that tab. I didn't have to, but the groom's mother is supposed to pay for that and I couldn't, in good conscience, let her carry that burden. If you knew the family you would know why. Still, it was a lovely time.

Saturday night we went to the fair. It did not turn out how it was supposed to and, for me anyway, was not a very good time. Still, I got to see the mule races or most of them, which is my favorite part of the fair. Especially the rescue races. This is where the mule and rider streak around the track and pick up the waiting person in need of "rescue". This is about the most impressively cowboy thing you can see around here. In the best ones, the mule never slows and the rescuee swoops onto the horse in a fashion to impress even Legolas. It is awesome to behold.

Of course my truck is oing on the fritz. I think she, yes all vehicles are she's, is jealous of the attention I have been paying to the older lady in the yard, my '67 Dart. She must think if she gets sick, I will not abandon her... sounds familiar.

During my reading for my English class, I read a letter the Jefferson wrote to Adams. Two things struck me. The first is that the art of letter writing has been lost. Eloquence has been replaced with concision. The second is how right Jefferson was. Forget Nostradamus, pay attention to Jefferson.

Here is the letter:



John Adams
Oct. 28, 1813
DEAR SIR:
According to the reservation between us, of taking up one of the subjects of our correspondence at a time, I turn to your letters of Aug. 16th and Sep. 2nd.
The passage you quote from Theognis, I think has an Ethical, rather than a political object. The whole piece is a moral "exhortation", {parainesis}, and this passage particularly seems to be a reproof to man, who, while with his domestic animals he is curious to improve the race by employing always the finest male, pays no attention to the improvement of his own race, but intermarries with the vicious, the ugly, or the old, for considerations of wealth or ambition. It is in conformity with the principle adopted afterwards by the Pythagoreans, and expressed by Ocellus in another form. {Peri de tes ek ton allelon anthropon geneseos} etc. — {oych edones eneka e} {mixis}. Which, as literally as intelligibility will admit, may be thus translated:
Concerning the interprocreation of men, how, and of whom it shall be, in a perfect manner, and according to the laws of modesty and sanctity, conjointly, this is what I think right. First to lay it down that we do not commix for the sake of pleasure, but of the procreation of children. For the powers, the organs and desires for coition have not been given by god to man for the sake of pleasure, but for the procreation of the race. For as it were incongruous for a mortal born to partake of divine life, the immortality of the race being taken away, god fulfilled the purpose by making the generations uninterrupted and continuous. This therefore we are especially to lay down as a principle, that coition is not for the sake of pleasure.
But Nature, not trusting to this moral and abstract motive, seems to have provided more securely for the perpetuation of the species by making it the effect of the oestrum implanted in the constitution of both sexes. And not only has the commerce of love been indulged on this unhallowed impulse, but made subservient also to wealth and ambition by marriages without regard to the beauty, the healthiness, the understanding, or virtue of the subject from which we are to breed. The selecting the best male for a Harem of well chosen females also, which Theognis seems to recommend from the example of our sheep and asses, would doubtless improve the human, as it does the brute animal, and produce a race of veritable {aristoi} ["aristocrats"]. For experience proves that the moral and physical qualities of man, whether good or evil, are transmissible in a certain degree from father to son. But I suspect that the equal rights of men will rise up against this privileged Solomon, and oblige us to continue acquiescence under the {'Amayrosis geneos aston} ["the degeneration of the race of men"] which Theognis complains of, and to content ourselves with the accidental aristoi produced by the fortuitous concourse of breeders. For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness and other accomplishments, has become but an auxiliary ground of distinction. There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent it's ascendancy. On the question, What is the best provision, you and I differ; but we differ as rational friends, using the free exercise of our own reason, and mutually indulging it's errors.
You think it best to put the Pseudo-aristoi into a separate chamber of legislation where they may be hindered from doing mischief by their coordinate branches, and where also they may be a protection to wealth against the Agrarian and plundering enterprises of the Majority of the people. I think that to give them power in order to prevent them from doing mischief, is arming them for it, and increasing instead of remedying the evil. For if the coordinate branches can arrest their action, so may they that of the coordinates. Mischief may be done negatively as well as positively.
Of this a cabal in the Senate of the U.S. has furnished many proofs.
Nor do I believe them necessary to protect the wealthy; because enough of these will find their way into every branch of the legislation to protect themselves. From 15 to 20 legislatures of our own, in action for 30 years past, have proved that no fears of an equalisation of property are to be apprehended from them.
I think the best remedy is exactly that provided by all our constitutions, to leave to the citizens the free election and separation of the aristoi from the pseudo-aristoi, of the wheat from the chaff. In general they will elect the real good and wise. In some instances, wealth may corrupt, and birth blind them; but not in sufficient degree to endanger the society.
It is probable that our difference of opinion may in some measure be produced by a difference of character in those among whom we live. From what I have seen of Massachusets and Connecticut myself, and still more from what I have heard, and the character given of the former by yourself, [vol. 1. pa. 111.] who know them so much better, there seems to be in those two states a traditionary reverence for certain families, which has rendered the offices of the government nearly hereditary in those families. I presume that from an early period of your history, members of these families happening to possess virtue and talents, have honestly exercised them for the good of the people, and by their services have endeared their names to them.
In coupling Connecticut with you, I mean it politically only, not morally. For having made the Bible the Common law of their land they seem to have modelled their morality on the story of Jacob and Laban. But although this hereditary succession to office with you may in some degree be founded in real family merit, yet in a much higher degree it has proceeded from your strict alliance of church and state. These families are canonised in the eyes of the people on the common principle `you tickle me, and I will tickle you.' In Virginia we have nothing of this. Our clergy, before the revolution, having been secured against rivalship by fixed salaries, did not give themselves the trouble of acquiring influence over the people. Of wealth, there were great accumulations in particular families, handed down from generation to generation under the English law of entails.
But the only object of ambition for the wealthy was a seat in the king's council. All their court then was paid to the crown and it's creatures; and they Philipised in all collisions between the king and people. Hence they were unpopular; and that unpopularity continues attached to their names. A Randolph, a Carter, or a Burwell must have great personal superiority over a common competitor to be elected by the people, even at this day.
At the first session of our legislature after the Declaration of Independence, we passed a law abolishing entails. And this was followed by one abolishing the privilege of Primogeniture, and dividing the lands of intestates equally among all their children, or other representatives. These laws, drawn by myself, laid the axe to the root of Pseudo-aristocracy. And had another which I prepared been adopted by the legislature, our work would have been complete.
It was a Bill for the more general diffusion of learning. This proposed to divide every county into wards of 5 or 6 miles square, like your townships; to establish in each ward a free school for reading, writing and common arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the best subjects from these schools who might recieve at the public expence a higher degree of education at a district school; and from these district schools to select a certain number of the most promising subjects to be completed at an University, where all the useful sciences should be taught. Worth and genius would thus have been sought out from every condition of life, and completly prepared by education for defeating the competition of wealth and birth for public trusts.
My proposition had for a further object to impart to these wards those portions of self-government for which they are best qualified, by confiding to them the care of their poor, their roads, police, elections, the nomination of jurors, administration of justice in small cases, elementary exercises of militia, in short, to have made them little republics, with a Warden at the head of each, for all those concerns which, being under their eye, they would better manage than the larger republics of the county or state. A general call of ward-meetings by their Wardens on the same day through the state would at any time produce the genuine sense of the people on any required point, and would enable the state to act in mass, as your people have so often done, and with so much effect, by their town meetings. The law for religious freedom, which made a part of this system, having put down the aristocracy of the clergy, and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind, and those of entails and descents nurturing an equality of condition among them, this on Education would have raised the mass of the people to the high ground of moral respectability necessary to their own safety, and to orderly government; and would have completed the great object of qualifying them to select the veritable aristoi, for the trusts of government, to the exclusion of the Pseudalists: and the same Theognis who has furnished the epigraphs of your two letters assures us that {`oydemian po Kyrn agathoi polin olesan andres} ["Curnis, good men have never harmed any city"]'. Although this law has not yet been acted on but in a small and inefficient degree, it is still considered as before the legislature, with other bills of the revised code, not yet taken up, and I have great hope that some patriotic spirit will, at a favorable moment, call it up, and make it the key-stone of the arch of our government.
With respect to Aristocracy, we should further consider that, before the establishment of the American states, nothing was known to History but the Man of the old world, crowded within limits either small or overcharged, and steeped in the vices which that situation generates. A government adapted to such men would be one thing; but a very different one that for the Man of these states. Here every one may have land to labor for himself if he chooses; or, preferring the exercise of any other industry, may exact for it such compensation as not only to afford a comfortable subsistence, but where-with to provide for a cessation from labor in old age. Every one, by his property, or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men maysafely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs, and a degree of freedom, which in the hands of the Canaille of the cities of Europe, would be instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of every thing public and private. The history of the last 25 years of France, and of the last 40. years in America, nay of it's last 200 years, proves the truth of both parts of this observation.
But even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of Man. Science had liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example had kindled feelings of right in the people. An insurrection has consequently begun, of science, talents and courage against rank and birth, which have fallen into contempt. It has failed in it's first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for it's accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will recover from the panic of this first catastrophe. Science is progressive, and talents and enterprize on the alert. Resort may be had to the people of the country, a more governable power from their principles and subordination; and rank, and birth, and tinsel-aristocracy will finally shrink into insignificance, even there. This however we have no right to meddle with. It suffices for us, if the moral and physical condition of our own citizens qualifies them to select the able and good for the direction of their government, with a recurrence of elections at such short periods as will enable them to displace an unfaithful servant before the mischief he meditates may be irremediable.
I have thus stated my opinion on a point on which we differ, not with a view to controversy, for we are both too old to change opinions which are the result of a long life of inquiry and reflection; but on the suggestion of a former letter of yours, that we ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.
We acted in perfect harmony through a long and perilous contest for our liberty and independence. A constitution has been acquired which, though neither of us think perfect, yet both consider as competent to render our fellow-citizens the happiest and the securest on whom the sun has ever shone. If we do not think exactly alike as to it's imperfections, it matters little to our country which, after devoting to it long lives of disinterested labor, we have delivered over to our successors in life, who will be able to take care of it, and of themselves.
Of the pamphlet on aristocracy which has been sent to you, or who may be it's author, I have heard nothing but through your letter. If the person you suspect it may be known from the quaint, mystical and hyperbolical ideas, involved in affected, new-fangled and pedantic terms, which stamp his writings. Whatever it be, I hope your quiet is not to be affected at this day by the rudeness of intemperance of scribblers; but that you may continue in tranquility to live and to rejoice in the prosperity of our country until it shall be your own wish to take your seat among the Aristoi who have gone before you.
Ever and affectionately yours,

Thomas Jefferson
P. S. Can you assist my memory on the enquiries of my letter of Aug. 22nd?

Bureaucracy isn't dead... It on Bob's desk to look into.

All over the news you see report after report about how companies are streamlining their processes in order to have a lean work force and be more profitable. Obviously, the people who report to the reports have a Bob of their own.

It is my opinion that as long as people have an ass to cover, there always be a Bob. I can't do my job because Bob isn't done with his. We are waiting on Bob. Bob was supposed to look into that.

Frankly, it disgusts me. Strong words?? Yes, but no less accurate though.

Somehow, it became easier, and more acceptable, to pawn the onus off on someone else than to take care of it yourself. This practice particularly pisses me off because the department I manage is at the bottom at the hill that shit rolls down.

Again, I must affirm my desire to at some point be a the owner of a sole-proprietary. I look around me and we have people that have no real value to the company yet somehow have been deemed invaluable. People that have interjected themselves or been interjected into processes of which they make cumbersome and unproductive. You want to save some money, cleanout the cupboard. Make my life and the life of those who actually are productive an easier one.

So, the next time you go to do something and have to pass through three levels of pointless approvals to finally get to the person who makes the decision walk up to that person and introduce yourself... Hi, I'm Bob.

Quick point of Irony

Vasco deGama set off in search of the fountain of youth. He was convinced that it was in Florida, so he set his sails and months later, he laid eyes on the Everglads and the shores of Florida.

Needless to say, he didn't find the fountain... or did he. Isn't is strange that more retirees relocate to Florida than any other place. More even than Arizona.

Maybe he did find it after all...

Volunteering and the American Way

It may be that I have a skewed perspective since I live in a small rural community, but what I witnessed Friday night was nothing short of amazing.

If ever you need to reaffirm your faith in the country, go to a small town football game on rivalry week. That is what I did on Friday. It was the 79th annual Coffee Pot game, which pitted the cross county rivals Tullahoma and Coffee County Central High School.

People that live within 15 miles of each other and have common state pride have such loyalty to their own city that this rivalry is truly a gem.

I sat on the home side, CCHS, with my sister-in-law who attends the school. It was here first coffee pot game, and I would venture a guess that is was one of a hand full of games she has been to period. That being said, I am not sure she noticed many of the nuances that made it special.

Coffee County is home to roughly 40,000 people. At least a quarter of which were at the game. I am not making this up. Each set of grand stands holds roughly 4,000 people and the entire field was lined 3 and four people deep; almost completely around the perimeter. Not to mention the 3 or 4 hundred kids standing in the area around the concession stand. It was literally 1/4 of the county. Amazing in its own right, but it was the spirit that brought them there that amazed me. Good natured competition.

Sure, some of the kids fought, but no adults. After the game, both teams met on the fifty for a moment of prayer to give thanks that there was no serious injury and that the game had been a good one. No armed escorts to the team buses and no serious incidents at all.

That is how it is supposed to be. I went unarmed to this event and never felt in any way in need of armorment. It was a great time, even if I did have to sit among the enemy. And that is the beauty of it. The American way lives on despite the tumultuous world around us. And in Manchester Tennessee, a small county of country folks managed to, at the same time, despise each other and respect each other, while crammed into about 5 acres of property. Simply wonderful...

Tullahoma won naturally.

Still, there was something else. From my perch crammed behind a fat woman in a stadium seat and a buffoon with very sharp knees, I noticed that several of the men I saw were wearing emergency pagers. The mark of a volunteer fireman. I thought it odd, so I started counting. In the 15 rows between us and the concourse I counted 35 pagers. Each row had a breadth of 30 people or so I found 35 pagers among roughly 450 people. Another amazing stat.

In the wake of 9/11's anniversary I think it is important to remember the 343 paid fireman who lost their lives in the line of duty. It is also important to remember the men who are willing to be called out of their beds, in the middle of the night, to drive across the county to enter raging house fires in homes of people they don't know.... for free. They hold down regular jobs, the have families and, much to my enjoyment, were at the home town football game on Friday night. These men do not get paid for their time, they do not get reimbursed for the purchase of the equipment they must obtain to do this job, nor do they get the gas money to fly across the countryside to aid a comrade. It is totally volunteer; their time, money, life...

So while we observe the tragedy that has recently befallen our country and remember those that have passed, let us not focus on the apparent degradation of our proud nation, but on the selfless heroism and community spirit that is still alive and well today. Maybe just not in the media.

Oh... happy b-day MOM.

Simple Smart Ass Pleasures

Sometimes the simplest remarks can give the most satisfaction. Witty dialogue has always attracted me, which is probably why I enjoyed Boston Legal so much (whose new season starts the 27th.)

Still, the spontaneous witty remark has a certain luster to it. For example, in my Finite Math class, our teacher has encouraged us to name our graphic calculators. Apparently, we will be using them so much, she feels we need to foster a first name relationship with them.

During the first class, she wandered the class room examining our gear, telling us that the TI-83 and TI-84 were the preferred models... then she came upon mine... "Oh, dear. I am not sure that one will do. There will be some things that we will be doing that THAT just won't do!" I looked down at my TI-81 and defiantly said "I think me and Grandpa will be ok."

I took great pleasure in this... simple, sleek, rebellious.

Its the finer things in life that make it worth living!

Stangely Enough

I figured when Kelly came back, the blogging would stop.. I was wrong, so I re-commit myself to pecking out this useless tripe.

Today, I am to go get fitted for a tux. I am going to be in a childhood friend's wedding. Funny thing, I have been married twice and this will be my first time in a wedding ceremony.

Well, the race is on. Dad and I have challenged each other to lose 30 pounds. The prize; an all expenses paid trip to a sporting event of the victors choice. There are some rules, but I intend to win, though hopefully it will be a close race.

I mowed my grass this weekend. I have a mower with a 50" cut and it takes me roughly 90 minutes just to do the mowing. If I weedeat it takes another 30. 2 hours at least once a week. It sounds like a hastle but I find it quite theraputic. I don't give my yard the attention I should, or haven't for the last 6 weeks or so, but I stay on top of the mowing anyway. It looks like a Wyoming pasture when it's mowed, green and slightly rolling. Beautiful.

This weekend was splendid. It was blue skies and crisp in the mornings. The afternoons brought a little too much heat, as my poor neck will attest, but the cool breezes that floated through the yard were a tease for the fresh coolness of the upcoming and long over due fall.

I learned something important this weekend, when estimating a home project always be conservative while budgeting time... then double it. This is an especially important lesson as I have quite a few projects coming up. I am pretty comfortable with the swing set and renovating the garage, as I have done things like these before. Building the shop will be a bit more of a nail biter.

Shit really does roll down hill. My Dad was on the board of director at a local interactive science museum http://www.hosc.org/main.html... he pawned that post off to a friend and co-worker... who just pawned it off on me. I say this not because I don't want to be on the board, if I show up once I will have matched the appearences of my predecesors combined, but because it proves that gifts are sent up and burdens are pushed down. I will enjpy my post, as attendance is obviously optional and I am already working, admittedly slowly, to repair exhibits.

Well, enough for today, I am off to get taped.