October 13, 2011

A bus ride to Philosophy

A week ago I posted about our God and Suffering class at the St. Thomas U. Selim Center. This class with Dr. Joseph H. Hallman delves into the various aspects of the relationship of suffering (and other bad things) to God as interpreted by man through the words of philosophers and lesser men.

After signing up for the class and paying the tuition, a bargain at $70 per, the challenge was getting there when parking at the U. is at a premium and the surrounding streets are posted. The answer was the 87 bus on Cleveland. Doing this, though, was a new St. Paul experience for us. And, as we found it is an enjoyable addition to this learning episode. The buses are on time, the driver has become an acquaintance and each class session begins and ends with a pleasant experience. That says a lot for the Metro System.

Today’s session was a discussion on the views of René Girard, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas with a few Socrates and his student Plato moments. Someday, soon I hope, I will write a summary of what was covered today, but I need a bit of research first. “What’s that you say? …you can’t wait. Well…”

One interesting interjection by Dr. Hallman was that Socrates is noted for never (never) having contradicted himself. Also that he repeatedly chided Plato for his contradictions.

Enough for today,

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October 12, 2011

The day after a nice day

Dark, rainy, cold – all good words to describe this day. There is little atmosphere in which to find inspiration for this blog-a-day blog-post. 

Now, yesterday was different – sunshine, temps in the upper half of the 70s, just the lightest of a breeze. It was a perfect afternoon to spend at an outside table at Starbucks in Highland Village.  This Starbucks is a busy coffee shop on a busy corner, separated from the street traffic by the strip parking lot. On summer afternoons, when the tables are out of the sun, there are always groups of regulars and a constant flow of individuals and two-or-threes. It’s a stimulating place to spend a couple hours reading and writing and enjoying a couple cappuccinos.

I was there yesterday trying to map out a plot for NaNoWriMo . While I have a germ of an idea to start me on my way, I still need enough plot to carry me through 31 days of writing to the prize of at least 50,000 words. Coming from a technical background where words, sentences and paragraphs were slowly agonized over, writing with abandon as NaNoWriMo requires does not come easily. Even this post, quickly jotted down, doesn’t show the writing promise that will be needed. At this point I’ve put down 213 words. On a NaNoWriMo day I would still have 1454 more words to go to meet the average for the day.

Maybe these today’s feelings are unduly influenced by the “atmosphere.”  Yesterday, though, was good and I made quite a bit of headway with the plot.  And people were stimulating. And the cappuccino was great.  And tomorrow the return of the sun is in the forecast.

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October 11, 2011

Netflix to Qwikster – Delete those last two words.

In my Oct. 8 post about the movie, “The Girl from Paris,” I commented, actually dissed, Netflix’s announcement that “…the old Netfix DVD operation has been shuffled over to another company called… What is that name???…  Right, “Quikster.”  That doesn’t make much sense as that site has something to do with a pot smoking Elmo. Well, I’m sure they can straighten that out.”

So, yesterday they did straighten it out when an e-mail, DVDs will be staying at Netflix.com, showed up in my Inbox telling me that, “It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs. This means no change: one website, one account, one password…in other words, no Qwikster.”  They also mentioned that they value me as a customer.

What they didn’t say is that in their new pricing scheme I was automatically entered in their Unlimited streaming + 2 DVDs out-at-a-time plan even though I’ve never streamed. Their quick billing of $19.98 plus tax was my notification. While I corrected this to DVDs only at $11.99, they did make an extra $8 on me. That $8 multiplied by the number of other customers could add. Is this to compensate for the thousands of customers lost during the Netflix/Qwikster debacle?

After several weeks of stumbling forward with the “Qwikster,” finally backtracking and, above all, many sarcastic and harsh words of observation and advise by the blogging community, it looks like Netflix has a plan that their remaining customers can live with. My only hope is that the superb DVD service that made Netflix famous, continues to be superb.

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October 10, 2011

Voter ID laws and voter suppression – Post 2

(Previous post on this subject)

The lead editorial in today’s New York Times came down hard on the Republican Myth of Voter Fraud.

It begins with, “It has been a record year for new legislation designed to make it harder for Democrats to vote — 19 laws and two executive actions in 14 states dominated by Republicans… As a result, more than five million eligible voters will have a harder time participating in the 2012 election.

Republicans insist that laws requiring government identification cards to vote are only to protect the sanctity of the ballot from unscrupulous voters not to turn away from the polls people who are more likely to vote Democratic, particularly the young, the poor, the elderly and minorities. Cutting back on early voting, a necessity for many working people, is only to save money.

None of these explanations are true, according to the editorial. In all cases, the Republicans are abusing the trust placed in them by twisting democracy’s machinery to partisan ends.
You can go to the New York Times to read the entire editorial.

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October 9, 2011

Holy Hot Dish! What’s going on at church dinners?

Headlines in the Twin Cities section of today’s Star Tribune: Holy Hot Dish! New food safety rules……hope churches wake up….they’re not above anything!

And we just had a pancake breakfast at our church this morning! It feels like we went to a speakeasy.

Let’s see what this is all about? It seems that unbeknown or at least little known to most of us, the Republican legislature passed a food safety law known as the “Church Lady Bill.” Basically, it exempts church groups from routine state health inspections where food is served to large groups. However, it requires at least one volunteer who prepares the food to take a food handling class and share what he or she has learned with the other church cooks.

It exempts church kitchens from state inspections. Is that a good move in this era of food borne illnesses. Most everyone remembers the time they got a “touch of stomach flue” at a church dinner or family picnic. The problem was that these inspectors made a “nuisance” of themselves. That sounds like over-regulation! Now that is something a Republican legislator can sink his teeth into.

And, that’s what Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, did. His argument, “You’ve got people out here who are volunteers, and we see government for a multitude of reasons overreaching … in its exercise of regulating people. And in this case, regulating people out of their volunteerism. Common sense was being violated.”  But, it wouldn’t look good if they just turned the churches loose to their own devices. Especially, at the next outbreak “stomach flu.” Making one person attend a lecture should shift the blame back to the church.

The first training lecture will be held on October 18. It will be a free videoconference called “Cooking Safely for a Crowd” that will be broadcast to 22 sites around the state. It will be put on by the University of Minnesota Extension and the Minnesota Department of Health (that’s a good move) and will cover the causes of foodborne illness, personal hygiene and hand-washing, and storing and preparing foods safely, among other things.

They expect about 600 “cooks” to attend. Will your next cook be one of them?

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October 8, 2011

Notes on “Occupy Wall Street – 21 days into it

“Occupy Wall Street” began on September 17 as a protest speaking out about corporate greed and inequality. It consisted of a few hundred people in Zucotti Park near Wall Street. They painted protest signs and talked about how to proceed. The press ignored them.

Now, three weeks later, the movement is followed by the press world-wide, helped by police white-shirts using pepper spray and a mass arrest of 700 marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge, all captured on iPhone cameras. Labor unions have joined in to swell already exponentially growing ranks of the protestors. ​Well-known Canadian journalist, Naomi Klein (famous for her anti-corporatist books No Logo and The Shock Doctrine) gave the protestors encouragement and advice.   The movement is quickly growing and spreading. Today, a demonstration like that in Zucotti Park will begin in Washington Square and in Washington, D.C.  Cities across America have held demonstrations over the past week.

Yesterday afternoon the protest came to the Twin Cities  with hundreds converging on Hennepin County Government Center plaza in downtown Minneapolis. Mayor Rybak, former Governor Jessie Ventura and U.S. Representative Keith Ellison visited with the protestors. The protest will continue today.

(Note: An early force behind the movement is AdBusters .)

 

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October 7, 2011

Afghanistan – a 10 yr war and counting

Today is the 10th anniversary of the Afghan War; America’s longest war. Ten years have passed with still no end in sight. The first of the two ill-begotten George Bush wars, it was ostensibly started to eliminate Al-Qaida and remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. Though Bin Laden was killed after nine years, Al-Qaida still flourishes and has spread throughout the world. The Taliban is still a strong fighting force and influence throughout the country. America put Hamid Karzai in power in 2002. He is still there only because the U.S. forces are still there. Most analysts believe that when (if) American troops leave, the Taliban will resume where they left off.

U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal, for a time one of the war generals, remarked yesterday that the United States had a “frighteningly simplistic” understanding of Afghanistan back in 2001 and even after a decade it still lacks the knowledge required to bring the conflict to a successful end.

The toll as of today would have been unimaginable when Bush declared war. 1779 Americans killed plus 956 coalition troops, many thousands of troops wounded in mind and body, an uncountable toll of service families, thousands of liberated civilian deaths, over $557 billion in costs to the U.S.

Then, in March 2003, Bush started the Iraq war on trumped-up evidence of weapons of mass destruction. It is America’s second longest war.  Winding down under President Obama? We still have to wait and see.

What effect will all this have on the American psyche and the country’s ultimate position in the emerging world? At this point, it seems bleak.

Anniversaries should be for celebration, this one is not.

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