Right As Usual

I returned to work this morning, a little shaky, but able to work a full day. My stomach took a beating, between the steroids for the asthma, and the antibiotics for the bronchitis. I'm gobbling down antiacids, and it seems to help. The news about the election just keeps getting better and better. Despite the overwhelming proponderance of Kerry/Edwards signs in the West Park/Lakewood neighborhoods, the polls indicate that Bush is considerably up, and seems likely to win. Boy, won't that fry the neighbors! Actually, since I'm outnumbered in my house by the Kerry supporters, I have a Kerry/Edwards sign on my lawn. The funny thing is, if you counted registered voters, the split would be 50-50. I've several times gotten voter registration forms, but the kids haven't sent them in. Knuckleheads! I can't take the privilege of voting lightly. I grew up with friends from countries where the franchise was either restricted, or the selection was limited to...

I have a daughter who loves ER. She will watch the re-runs on cable whenever she can. I've watched with her several times, but the show just doesn't interest me. For her, it's a diversion. For me, ER is where I have spent WAY TOO MUCH time over the last decade. This last trip, this weekend, left me in the CDU (Critical Decision Unit). That's like an extended tour of ER, basically 24 hours of intervention and observation, designed to see whether you will respond to agressive treatment, or whether you will have to be admitted. I haven't had to spend time in CDU for several years, but my asthma condition was completed by bronchitis late last week, and I was breathless most of Saturday. In the afternoon, I finally gave in, and made the trip. I packed work to do, and, when it became clear that I would be in overnight, called my daughter to bring the laptop. The laptop wasn't totally useful - I recently installed a new hard drive, and my grading files we...

I can't believe that this year's anniversary snuck up on me. Oh, I had excuses. The kitchen sink was inoperable for over 4 days (thank God for a handy husband, or it would still be non-functional). I sprained my ankle, and am hobbling around on crutches. And I had Open House this week, and didn't get home until 9:30 pm on Thursday. But that's no excuse. Around the blogosphere, memorials will be everywhere. On the blogs I frequent, some pay the price through their military service. And, although my daughter is still in the National Guard, she will be discharged in January, just a few months before the birth of her second child. My son is no longer serving, and my dear son-in-law is discharged for over 2 years (for an injury sustained during his service). I respect the work that the American military do. They keep the barbarians from wrecking their dreadful havoc on American civilians. And they do it without the gratitude of the American population, at...

I was aimlessly cruising the blogs, when I reached the Ann Althouse site. Never been there before, and don't quite know how I missed it. She was writing about Zell Miller's speech. I read what she had to say, and the thought popped into my head, "My Dad would have loved Zell." My Dad was an old-fashioned hillbilly from West Virginia. He left home as a teenager, and never really returned, except for visits to the family. Politically, he was a renegade. He registered to vote for the first time to support George Wallace, a man who resonated with the Populist, working class. He mostly voted Democratic after that, although he was thoroughly disgusted with the social positions of the Democrats. Zell is a throwback to the FDR Democrats. I don't think you have to reach all the way back to Andrew Jackson to get to his roots.

I found this sermon, and thought it worth linking to. An excerpt: When asked what kind of government we had been given, Benjamin Franklin said, "A republic, if you can keep it." He meant virtue. There is no freedom without order and no order without virtue. Mockery of virtue has become an art form and the anti-hero is called a hero. G.K. Chesterton saw this already in the early twentieth century, for he said: "The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms." In classical Corinthian halls and great Gothic halls and bombed out halls of Parliament in the Battle of Britain, across the ages that divided them and in languages peculiar to each, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and Winston Churchill said this: "Courage is the first of virtues because it makes all others possible." Courage is the ability to react to the threat of harm rationally. Because it is rational it requires caution but caution, says Aquinas, is t...

I've been watching as much of the convention as the ruling party in my house will let me. I missed part of Zell Miller's speech, but, fortunately, it is available on the web. The part that I thought particularly pointed: John Kerry, who says he doesn’t like outsourcing, wants to outsource our national security. That’s the most dangerous outsourcing of all. This politician wants to be leader of the free world. Free for how long? 3:19 am, 9/3/2004 I'm watching my grand-daughter watch Sponge Bob on DVD. She swallowed an anti-arthritis cream yesterday, and spent most of the day in the hospital. Then, she went to bed early. Now, she wants to socialize. I also went to bed early. It wasn't my intention. I went straight up after dinner, planning to watch convention coverage on the TV, since most of the house perferred Anything-But-Politics-From-Republicans. But as soon as I lay back on my fluffy pillows, pulled the sheet snug around my neck, and set...