What an Interesting Day in Politics
Wow, what a day. Most notably, in politics, what do you suppose happened with Missouri's Gov. Blunt? A young, promising politician (whom I assumed had a presidential bid in the future), with a strong poltical family (his dad is Congress's minority whip) and a huge campaign war chest suddenly drops plans to run for a second term in an election year? Something smells rotten in Denmark.
And then there is Fred Thompson. Who will he endorse? Will anyone care? Can anything stop McCain?
And who will Rush Limbaugh vote for if McCain gets the nod? He's said in such a case he may not vote Republican this year. Surely he won't vote for the Dems, will he?
What a day…
Hungry...
I am not sure why, but I am terribly hungry for steak fries. The problem is that I cannot think of any place in the area that serves steak fries! I'll have to get some next time I'm in St. Louis County, I guess.
Why an I telling you this? I'm not sure!
Just So I Can Say I Did
I do not think I've ever tried posting to my blog from my iPhone before. Now, I have. Wow, the possibilities are endless! But the night is not… So, good night.
Thinking Different for Almost Five Years
Wow, time flies. Some friends of mine had an iMac DV (Graphite) that died, and in the process of getting the hard disk out to transfer their data, I removed the AirPort (802.11b) card. They gave me the card, and I popped it into my Ruby iMac DV, which had not been connected to a network in two and a half years (it had been up and running, just not on the internet). The system needed an update for the card to work, but my friends were also disposing of an ethernet cable, so I had an extra one right at hand and I plugged my iMac in that way. After the update, now my poor old Ruby is connected to my network two ways.
What about time flying? Well, you see, the Ruby was my first real taste of the Mac world back when I won it in an eBay auction in June 2003. I wrote about it in this post that happened to be bookmarked on the system. I went all Mac just less than a year later when my GNU/Linux box was giving me trouble during final projects for college in May 2004. Amazing. When I got the Ruby, I intended to write a series on Open for Business talking about how good the Linux desktop was compared to the Mac. Now I'm one of “those” that goes around and preaches about Mac goodness.
The Ruby still runs nicely, which is pretty impressive for a system that was built nearly eight years ago (October 2000). I think I may upgrade the RAM to 1GB (if I can find a good deal) and move it up to Tiger sometime soon.
Primary Colors
From Five on Friday.
1. When is the presidential primary in your area?
Super Tuesday, February 5, 2008.
2. Do you plan to participate? Have you participated in the past?
Yes and yes. And, yes, I'll admit it right here: I voted Dubya last time around.
3. Do you identify with a single party or do you consider yourself independent? Has that changed over the years?
It has changed. I came to my senses awhile back and became Republican. Seriously, I prefer the GOP because of its traditional stands concerning abortion, cloning, taxes, government size, immigration and so on. Sadly, the Grand Old Party is in a state of flux just now and seems to be fragmented into three parts none of which fully cover the ideals of the Republican Platform; even more sadly, President Bush hasn't helped lead our party very well in staying true to our platform.
4. In your opinion, what are the major issues this year's presidential candidates must address? Which is most important to your vote?
The normal social issues come first. Then, I'm interested in things like immigration reform (I favor improving and expediting legal immigration but absolutely oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants — I don't see why legal immigrants shouldn't be given priority over those who are already breaking our laws), Iran policy (please don't attack it), civil liberties in light of the PATRIOT Act, net neutrality, and a whole bunch of others. Huckabee pleases me on many of these, but not so much on some of the others. A true descendant of Reagan could cover them all.
All the same, vote Huckabee!
5. How do you get your information about candidates at this time of year? What media and messaging impacts your opinion of the candidates the most?
Matt Drudge keeps me apprised of things much of the time. I also keep up on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, its political news and its (often disagreeable) op-eds on the politicians. CNN is the official channel of choice on election night, with its careful calling of elections and relatively even keeled commentary. What media impacts me most? Print or electronic text — cold hard facts and such.
Consumed by Flame
One of my projects last semester was to do historical research on a period of Presbyterian history and present it in some form, be it a research paper, a time line, or something else. Starving for some literary time, I decided the obvious choice was to again dabble in the realm of drama. The result was Consumed by Flame. I've mentioned it a bit before, but here are the gory details.
The drama takes place in 1540s Scotland, at the beginning of the Scottish Reformation. The particular inciting incident is the arrest of George Wishart, the Protestant Reformer, by his adversary, David Cardinal Beaton. It is a very interesting piece of history not just for the showdown between them, but for its lasting and serious aftershocks. To what extent did these events bring about the good of the Reformation and to what extent the bad? To what extent did it shape the negative events of later Scottish religious history? The play tries to engage with some of these questions at their root.
From a formal standpoint, the play follows the classic five act structure favored by Shakespeare. It is almost entirely a prose play, however, unlike many of Shakespeare's works. Besides the Bard, the style of the play was influenced primarily by Aeschylus and Marlowe. Of course, I do not claim to emulate any of these greats well, I merely note where I got the inspiration. Weighing in somewhere between Kit Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice in length, I estimate a performance time of approximately two hours, if it were put on stage. I like playing with darkness and light, and, weaving a story that peers into the psyche, and this play follows on those themes, though not as much, perhaps, as Deafening Silence did.
Well, if this has piqued your interested at all, and you would like to take a gander at the script, please let me know. I am looking for some comments on what works and what does not in the play. If nothing else, you'll get all of the footnotes and the works cited page, which will give you some nice material to go on, should you desire to do some historical research.
Late Night Project
Well, at 12:20 a.m. this morning, myself, along with a fellow techie at church, were able to finish deploying two new wireless routers and reconfiguring some others so that all of the church building is covered by at least a weak wireless signal. I wish we would have finished a bit earlier in the evening, but it feels good to have the church blanketed in Wi-Fi after talking about such an endeavor for years. Now, we need a good authentication server. Anyone have experience with RADIUS? Any recommendations?
Late Night Haiku XXVI
LXXIII. How a moment past
Once simple seemed, transformed now
To something precious.
LXXIV. Time's cruel wings beat on,
A steady drone unceasing,
As I glance backward.
LXXV. Speak, dear friend, a word,
Ambrosia is a voice heard,
After too long a pause.
Concerning Stevenote 2008, Part 1
It’s that time of year again. If you are at all interested in the trends of technology in the next year, January is the time to learn what is coming up. And not at the CES mind you – these years, the future shows up at MacWorld. Last year it was the iPhone, which managed to shake an industry that had never faced Apple before and start a major shift in the way cell phone development is done. What will this year bring? Tim puts his money on more devices coming out of the Apple-AT&T partnership, for one thing. Read what I think that thing will be over at OFB.
Making the Choice
Early on, I became fascinated with Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) since he is a libertarian Republican, one of our best bets of seeing libertarian philosophy on the national stage. That his campaign has some traction (unlike, say, Kucinich's on the Dem side) is an added bonus. But, while I'd like to give him the thumbs up, I cannot. First and foremost, is the Ron Paul newsletter controversy. It seems he allowed a newsletter to be published with his name on it for decades that spewed racist garbage. That's putting it kindly. Now, he claims he was unaware of what was being published, but accepts “moral responsibility” for that wrong. That's nice, but assuming the claim is true, what does that say about his attentiveness as a presidential hopeful? If it is a lie, then that is even worse: he is lying and is apparently a white supremacist. Sadly, I cannot see a route to deal with this issue that doesn't make me feel obliged to reject Paul as a candidate, much as I wish it were otherwise.
Three other candidate fit in my overall political spectrum: Thompson, Romney and Huckabee. Thompson I'm not really considering, because he seems to be lacking in the enthusiasm to win and the polls echo that. Romney and Huckabee are so close to me on issues that they make suitable options, but also confusing options because neither is vastly better on issues. I like that Romney was able to be elected in a Democratic state, and I think religion could actually work to his advantage as a member of a “minority.” However, I'm dubious either can be elected. Particularly Huckabee, though, as an ordained pastor. That said, I feel that given his more reliable stance on social issues and his down-to-earth, midwestern character, Huckabee is the best choice for the job. As I review his policies, I like many of them, such as the FairTax plan. What does give me pause is his positions on Homeland Security and foreign wars, but Ron Paul is the only one talking the talk I want to hear on that, and I've already explained why I can't vote for him. And, I do disagree with Paul on the idea of an immediate withdrawal from Iraq — that's irresponsible.
So, Huckabee is not someone I can pick without some reservations, but overall I feel good about him as a candidate. I like most of his position statements quite a bit. I'd like to see him get the nomination and I'd like to see him in the White House. Barring that, I'll take Romney. If a Democrat wins, who do I want? Well, I'll leave that for another day.
