Random Musings: October 2003 Archives

I love the special pictures Google puts up on the holidays. Here's their Halloween offering:

If you've ever read a checkout-line magazine, you already know all the dating tips in existence. There's only 5 or 6, then they start repeating themselves. Nevertheless, every one of us knows that as soon as the words "Dating Tips For ..." pass before our eyes, we're hooked. Like a train wreck, or a car crash, or a dozen midgets tied spread-eagle to the hubcaps of a tractor-trailer, you just can't turn away. Maybe this list will have a new secret that'll hook me up!

Maybe!

- Dating Tips for Men, by a man.
- Dating Tips for Women, by a man.
- Dating Tips for Women, by a woman.
- Someone send me dating tips for men, by a woman, and we'll be done.

In response to this post about adults getting more involved in Halloween, my friend Craig passes on a Time Magazine article titled "Boo, Humbug! Call me a Scrooge, but why can't adults leave Halloween to the kids?" by Michael Elliott. Mr. Elliott writes a lot I disagree with (and some I don't), and I don't think he gets Halloween, any more than he gets the reasons behind the current wave of Francophobia sweeping the America. But anyway, let's take a look at what he says.

Still, if companies want to sell even more masks, lanterns, witch hats and the like, good luck to them. It's the gullible consumers who fall for the pitch whom I detest — the employees who insist on decorating sensible cubicles with orange and black streamers and littering the office with bowls of candy, the folk who dress up and throw pumpkin parties at country clubs, the hundreds of thousands who will come to work next week in costume. Chris Riddle is the Halloween trend spotter at card-and-decorations giant American Greetings, which estimates that 25% of the American work force will observe Halloween in some fashion this year. "It's a release," Riddle says of the way people deck out their suburban yards, "a way to say, 'I can still act like a kid.'"

That's my problem. Halloween, for me, is the gaudiest example of the infantilization of American culture. It's up there with other classics like McDonald's Happy Meals or Hollywood's post — Star Wars decision to concentrate on making kids' films for grownups. These aren't just the mutterings of an old curmudgeon. I like parties as much as the next guy (so would you if you'd grown up in a house where the Messiah was considered light entertainment), though I've never quite seen why you needed a specific date on the calendar as an excuse to let your hair down. There's a larger point. In time, infantile societies become degraded, unable to meet the realities that face them.

However, in the article I linked to in my previous post, York University history professor Nick Rogers points out that, "The notion that Halloween is simply for kids is a misconception based on the centrality of trick-or-treating in the 1950s, when there was an attempt to take the mischief out of Halloween and 'infantilize' it." So perhaps Mr. Elliott should be rejoicing that adults are de-infantilizing the holiday? After all, if his main objection is that the holiday is too childish, then one of the best things he can hope for is that Halloween will return to its more historical role as a community-wide harvest festival. Of course, most communities don't actually harvest anything anymore, so it's only reasonable that the holiday take on a different focus. I hate to break it to him, but adults have worn masks and dressed up in costumes for thousands of years, all around the world and in every culture, and such behavior is not generally seen as uniquely childish. That perception appears to be the product of late 20th-century America, more than anything else.

Further, I fail to see the connection between Happy Meals, "Star Wars", and the infantilization of culture. Happy Meals provide parents a cheap and easy way to feed their kids, and give the kids a fun toy; the food may not be healthy, but that has nothing to do with infantilization. Would he rather that kids be forced to eat gruel from a burlap sack with a shard of glass for a spoon?

"Star Wars" is a great movie, and nearly everyone in my generation loves it (even Europeans I talked to while traveling) -- so what's his point? Does he object to "Star Wars" and similar films because he thinks they cause his so-called infantilization, or because they cater to it by entertaining people without *gasp* literature?

How did cultural infantilization creep up on us? In The Disappearance of Childhood, a wonderful little book first published in 1982, Neil Postman, a New York University professor who died this month, identified a shift from a culture based on literature — on reading — to one based on the image. In a preliterate world, there's no distinction between children and adults. Look at a Bruegel painting, and you see adults eating, drinking, groping, necking, together with their children. Literacy changed all that. Reading has to be learned; it separates the world of the child from that of the adult. But children can absorb images — from TV, say — just as easily as their elders. Postman worried that a postliterate culture would be one in which barriers that protected children from the perils and temptations of the outside world would be torn down.

Oh brother. So, Halloween is connected to Happy Meals and "Star Wars", which in turn keep people from reading, which leads to illiteracy, and the infantilization of the culture. Ok, got it.

Halloween shows that the process works in reverse. We now have to be worried not just about children acting like adults but about adults behaving like children. That doesn't mean adults have to be serious all the time. It does mean that they should recognize when it's time — and what it means — to grow up and let the kids run their own holiday.

Sorry, in my world the kids don't get to run their own anything, because they're kids. I think it's important to separate the roles of children and adults, and I think that adults should be in charge of everything -- and I'm surprised that Mr. Elliott thinks otherwise. Even if adults don't dress up, who do you think is buying all the costumes and candy? Who's going to build the haunted houses for the kids to creep through? Who's going to walk the little ones door-to-door collecting treats?

Do I really need to expound on the bizarrely out-of-context Bible quote at the end of his article?

When it comes to the infantilization of culture and adults acting like children, I think there are far better targets than Halloween. Mr. Elliott briefly mentions TV, but doesn't mention the vast quantity of nonsense that inhabits most of our airwaves -- of course, New York intellectuals have railed against TV for years, so maybe he wanted to try something new. Or maybe that position is just wearing thin, considering that there are some truly great shows on TV these days. Similarly, there are a lot of terrible movies, but there are also some great ones. Oh yeah, there are some pretty awful books too, and some are even considered "classics".

If one wants to discuss the infantilization of culture, why not mention professional sports? Why not mention the sensationalism that runs rampant through our news organizations? Why not mention the grocery workers who are striking because they think putting boxes on shelves entitles them to $40,000 a year and free health care? Why not take the whiny, self-righteous Bush-haters aside and explain to them that there's more at stake right now than the next Presidential election? Why not condemn the welfare state that exists solely to create a childish constituency who will vote in favor of its own expansion?

Mr. Elliott may just not like Halloween -- and that's fine -- but he shouldn't try dress up his personal opinion as high moral virtue built on care and concern for our collapsing civilization.

Here's a page with a nifty diagram explaining how forest fires spread.

Fire's spread looks fractal (no surprise).

Finally, here's a page with lots of forest fire information, and even some simulations! [Update: the simulations are lame!]

I haven't really seen anyone else discuss this (surprisingly), but if terrorists wanted to attack Southern California setting forest fires would be one of the easiest and most effective methods. Even if our current blazes were set purposefully, I doubt it was done by Islamic terrorists though, because no one has come forward to claim credit.

Furthermore, it just doesn't seem like such an attack would fit the "style" of Islamofascist death-cultists. A lot of damage has been done, and the fires are a major disruption to California's economy, but there have been fairly few deaths. As such, the threat of arson just doesn't create the type of "terror" that Bin Laden and his cronies go for. Setting forest fires isn't a direct attack on the economy or on symbols of the economic system, doesn't target democracy or democratic institutions, doesn't make people afraid to leave their homes; in general, fires don't have the sort of widespread emotional impact that the terrorists long to foment.

Nevertheless, these fires will still cause property damage on the same order-of-magnitude as the 9/11 attacks, though with far fewer deaths.

Donald Sensing has some interesting speculation on how the world might be different if Germany had one the Battle of the Marne in 1914.

All of these effects, reverberating to this very day, may be argued to have resulted from the allied victory at the Battle of the Marne. Had the allies lost that battle, I think one may make a good case that none of the following would have occurred:
- The rise fascism in Italy and of Nazism in Germany,
- The rise of a communist Soviet Union, although the Czar would likely have been deposed eventually (more likely, would have become a figurehead monarch along the lines of Britain’s)
- World War II in Europe, and probably not in Asia. Japan would still have had imperial ambitions, but they would not have brought the world into conflict, and perhaps not the US.
- Hence, no Cold War and none of its attendant ravages
- A much less powerful United States, but one still secure and free
- No communist China
- No Vietnam War
- No Korean War
- No free and democratic Japan
- No Holocaust
- Hence, no establishment of the state of Israel
- Hence, no history of war, conflict and terrorism in the Middle East
- No Iranian Islamic revolution,
- Hence, no rise of modern radical Islamism
- Hence no 9/11/01 attacks.

Of course I expect that this short list is neither exhaustive nor non-debatable. This is a thought experiment, after all. Add that science and technology would have progressed in wildly different ways and pace, as well, so perhaps no space race or moon landings (yet) nor medical MRIs nor even perhaps any personal computers (again, yet).

Particularly with regard to Nazis, the Holocaust, and the existence of Israel I think Rev. Sensing is probably correct; and the specific wars he mentions (Vietnam and Korea) would not have happened without the USSR.

Rev. Sensing is far more knowledgable about history than I am, but European land wars had been going on for centuries; there's no reason to think that yet another wouldn't have followed WW1 if Germany had been victorious rather than France. Furthermore, without the peace enforced by the United States as a result WW2, it's virtually certain that in the 90 years since WW1 there would have been 2 or 3 more wars fought between the European powers.

Marxism and communism got a big boost from the USSR, but the memes were already out there just waiting to take root. If they hadn't found fertile ground in Russia, it would likely have been somewhere else. Would that have led to a similar Cold War? Who knows, maybe not, but it would still have led to opposition by the United States.

It's not likely that the nation of Israel would exist without the horrific events of the Holocaust, but even without their Jewish scape-goat the Arab/Muslim nations of the world would likely be terribly backwards. Yes, foreign rule and support for dictators has contributed to the condition of the Arab states, but it's not just the Arab Muslims who are having problems. The Muslim religion is much less malable and compatible with the advance of civilization than other major religions appear to be (as Donald himself has pointed out).

Finally, I doubt that America would be much less powerful than we are now. The details of our rise to world supremacy would be different, but our power is largely the result of two factors: our vast natural resources, and our attitude as a people. The exact circumstances that motivated our involvement with the world would likely be different, but the existence of the modern, military-industrial American powerhouse seems inevitable. Unless, of course, we were to lose some major war that occured in this alternate history.

FoxNews says that more adults are celebrating Halloween than in the recent past -- and being sexy about it.

Despite the anti-smoking laws that prevent Californians from smoking in almost any commercial establishment, Los Angeles is covered in smoke this afternoon. It's giving me a terrible headache, and making a lot of people sick. What's worse, however, is that hundreds of homes in the Greater Los Angeles Area have already burned to the ground, and the "firestorms" aren't under control yet. Worst of all (for Southern Californians) is that dozens of sections of freeway are closed, and much of the city has ground to a standstill. Even in West LA (which is a good 50 miles from the nearest fire) traffic is crawling and the air is thick with smoke.

The past few years have seen some of the worst brush fires that I can remember, largely due to a shortage of Fall rain, I think. I've heard rumors that environmentalists have been complaining about the controlled burns that are often used to keep the brush to acceptable levels, but I don't know if such claims can be substantiated.

Here are some pictures from FoxNews.

Although I'm sure this will come across as just more bias on my part, some comments made in response to a post by Bill Hobbs really seem on-point to me. Bill wonders why lefty-type bogs don't seem interested in supporting Operation Give (the non-political, blog-started toy drive for Iraqi children), and his commenters (from both sides) express a lot of opinions on the matter. What strikes me is just how incredibly bitter, angry, mean, rude, and spiteful some people on the left seem to be.

Plunge, the administrator for Chief Wiggles' site comments that:

A while ago, I invited bloggers from the left to read the Chief's blog and, if they liked, to post a link.

That was a big mistake. The Chief's blog is a journal and was never meant for heavy debate. While the bloggers themselves were extremely kind, even when sceptical, I can not say the same for their readership. I have never read such hateful comments towards our country, the soldiers, the Chief directly and his family. I quickly ended the invitation, thanked the bloggers that participated, and tried to forget the whole thing.

In response, a commenter named smilink writes of his experience trying to collect toys at his work, Hewlett-Packard.

I'm working at Hewlett-Packard. I put up some very nice posters about the toy drive, with permission, and they were *all* taken down down the very next day by anonymous a**holes.

I have gotten *zero* toys from this place, and that includes the 14+ people in my own department. On the other hand, my local bar has donated over 5 boxes worth of stuffed animals and school supplies. Even chronic drunks are more generous than liberals with an agenda.

People depress the crap out of me sometimes. And Plunge, your experience is not unique. For people with the 'moral high ground' the liberals I meet these days are some of the nastiest a**holes I've ever seen.

Obviously not all leftists are like that, but I am constantly amazed by the bitterness and wretchedness that seem to consume many of the hard-core left.

Dean Esmay is fightin' some girls, and links to a rather insightful interview with with Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out. Ms. Simmons describes some characteristics of the "hidden culture of [passive-] aggression in girls", and although I'm not a girl myself, I have worked with a great many girls of all ages at church and have witnessed many of the bullying tactics she mentions.

Girls feel that in order to be "nice"- something most parents and teachers expect from girls-they cannot be in open conflict with others. They must be "friends," at least externally, with everyone. As a result, girls often repress their anger or allow it to emerge in indirect or covert ways. ...

Because females are expected to be caretakers in our society, the challenge of negotiating the impulse to anger and the obligation to sacrifice one's needs for others is significant. In my interviews, girls told me that expressing anger would result in the loss of their relationships with others. The prospect of solitude terrified them, and it was, moreover, a major violation of their caretaking roles. "Nice" girls, they told me, have lots of friends. They don't get in fights. As a result, much of girls' aggressive behavior goes underground. The fear of confrontation makes anger a circular issue that increases the scope of the conflict and causes girls to use relationships with each other as weapons against each other. Although the weak will more often be preyed upon, relational aggression targeting has less to do with an external characteristic than with a conflict that has not been addressed directly and openly.

I don't agree with all her conclusions, but I think she's on the right track in examining this sociological phenomenon. I've seen boys get into fist-fights and go home laughing together, and I've seen girls quit coming to church because they've been ostracized and closed out socially by their peers. Nothing is universal, of course, but this sort of passive-aggressive behavior seems more common among girls and women than among boys and men.

Perhaps this dynamic can help partially explain why adults relate the way we do. It seems to me that there are lots of male-only groups and activities, but not many female-only. When groups of friends form, it seems like the men form the core, and the women join peripherally -- either as girlfriends/wives, or as single women who latch on to a group of guys. I have a lot of girl friends who seem to spend most of their time hanging out with men in groups (not in dating scenarios), but I'm not aware of large groups of women that hang around together (of course, I'm not a woman, so I may not have much visibility). Two or three women may be "best friends", but are there groups of 5-10 women who do everything together? Such groups of men are very common.

There are clearly other factors as well -- it's always important to consider the influence of mate-selection when discussing social patterns, for instance -- but is it possible that large groups of women simply aren't socially stable? Please give me your opinions, especially you women who may think this is all a bunch of nonsense.

Want to learn about craps? May as well learn from Fat Tony! The site's pretty good -- Fat Tony explains all the bets and gives you the odds, so it's pretty easy to tell where the smart money is. He's even got a craps session flowchart!

When I was in Vegas last weekend, craps was by far the most fun game I played. The table looks pretty intimidating at first, but it offers some of the best bets in the casino and is really a lot of fun. You've probably passed by before and wondered why everyone was yelling and jumping around, but it's because there's just nothing better than when it's your turn to roll dem bones!

Mike just said I'm biased, but I don't think I am. It's just that, in most major ideological matters, I've already analyzed the evidence and made up my mind. If being "unbiased" means being unsure and constantly wavering, then I'm not unbiased I guess. But to me, once the information has been gathered and considered, and a decision has been made, it's not "bias" for me to be confident that my position is the correct one.

I am generally open to new evidence and willing to consider other positions if the situation warrants it. For example, I used to be totally against the War on Drugs and took a very libertarian position, but I've since reconsidered and I'm not really sure what the best policy would be, even though I know the status quo is incredibly harmful. Likewise on other issues, such as using public money for space exploration.

So yes, I'm generally pretty confident in what I believe, and I think that I've got a good amount of logic and evidence to support my positions. I also like to think that I'm open to new ideas and to changing old ones, but I'm not going to jump on every bandwagon or concede that every contrary position is rational and worthy of real consideration.

However, Mike assures me that this wasn't the meaning of "biased" he intended, and that he really does think I have "a preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment".

I love maps, and I love drawing maps; one of my favorite passtimes as a kid was designing floorplans for my future dream home. Here's a site called House Plan Guys that has a searchable database of really neat house plans. One of my favorites so far is "Spanish style house plan 61-199".

Update:
This Spanish style plan is pretty cool too. I love the covered balcony off the second floor study -- very Scarface-esque.

It took the FBI 5 weeks to find some box cutters that a man hid aboard two Southwest Airlines jets (link removed), despite an email he sent to federal authorities alerting them to his actions. Aside from the obvious security concerns, this brings to my mind the really nifty concept of attractors and strange attractors, and is an excellent example of an attractor in real life. What's an attractor?

The basic idea behind an attractor is that a dynamic system will tend toward certain states as time goes on. The simplest form of an attractor is the point attractor. Consider a normal pendulum, it doesn't matter where you release it from, it will always come to rest in the same position, perpindicular to the ground. This state is the attractor for the system.

From another story, it appears that the box cutters were simply hidden in a compartment in the airplane bathrooms. We've all seen the compartments, I imagine; there are several panels in those bathrooms that all look removable. But we've never opened them, and have probably not even wondered what they're for. The man told the authorities exactly which planes to search, but it still took them 5 weeks to find the knives because they were hidden outside the areas the searchers were attracted to, for whatever reason.

Strange attractors are like normal attractors, except that they're chaotic. Chaotic systems never revisit a point they've been to previously, so you may wonder how such a system could have an attractor at all -- well, it can't, but it can have a strange attractor. A chaotic system may never return to an exact previous position, but it can go to a position that's similar to a previous position (and much depends on how you define "similar", which in turn depends on the system in question).

Human behavior is (arguably) chaotic -- it's immensely dependent on initial conditions, and tiny changes in our inputs can yield drastically different outputs. If I happen to get a piece of dust in my eye, I may twitch, stub my toe, decide not to walk to lunch, and avoid getting hit by a car. Nevertheless, humans often behave in ways that are very similar to their past behavior, and we are often quite predictable. Our patterns, movements, thoughts, and life can be seen together as a giant strange attractor that represents the most likely state of our being and that describes our operational progression through time.

Consider your movement patterns through your house. There are probably several areas where you spend the vast majority of your time -- such as the bed, the couch, the bathroom, the computer -- and the rest of your house may be rather sparsely visited. How often do you peer into the crawlspace under the floor, or go up into the attic? How often does the crevice behind the fridge see the light of day? How often do you open that cabinet over the oven? Maybe once a year, or maybe less than that.

If you were to draw a map of your house and trace your movements over the course of a month, you'd probably see that 75% of the floorspace was completely untouched, and that 95% of the volume enclosed by your house did not ever contain a human being. We look at the corners of our rooms from time to time, but we never go up into them. You see the ceiling every day, but when was the last time you touched it? Even when we lose something and we say we've looked everywhere, we know that's just a turn of phrase. We haven't looked under the carpet, or behind the shelves, or inside the TV. But we shouldn't have to, because our car keys are not going to be inside the TV -- that location isn't a high-frequency part of the strange attractor that represents the movement of our keys.

Similarly, thousands of people rode the Southwest jets over the 5 weeks the box cutters were hidden in the bathrooms, but no one found them because no one ever opens those compartments. They're 6 inches from your head when you wash your hands, but a million miles away conceptually.

Similar strange attractors can be found in almost everything, if you want to search them out. Consider the various ideologies that divide humanity, and that 90% of people believe in one of maybe a half-dozen religious systems. There are all sorts of reasons, but the system is so complicated and chaotic that it's impossible to fully describe. In all likelihood, no two people hold exactly identical religious beliefs, but the vast majority are similar enough that they can be easily clustered into just a few buckets.

Strange attractors are everywhere, and by recognizing and studying the attractors that describe our own behavior we can get a better understanding of how we are, and why we are.

Quick question. A girl at work asked me yesterday how guys can tell if a girl is interested. Signals, etc. I told her they write their phone number down and tape it to my face. I wasn't much help. So now i'm curious - what are these signals? I'm pretty sure men are completely oblivious to anything, but I'd like to hear what people say on both sides.

I hate dating. Now, obviously, if you read my Monogomy post, you'll realize i'm currently a special case, but I've always hated dating. I luckily never really had to ask a girl out for the first 23 years of my life (please, no death threats), but the actual post-phone number process is almost as bad as trying to get it in the first place. Michael's plane-chick notwithstanding, once you've sifted through the piles of fake phone numbers or women who gave you your phone number for no apparent reason cause you'd never call them in a million years unless you opened your own seaworld, you have to actually go on a date. But you won't be dating a real person, you're dating an actor. They may not get paid, and they may not even know they're an actor, but thats what they're doing nonetheless. And as much as I think I'm always just myself, there is no way it is true because sometimes, girls actually want to go on second dates.

I'm not sure when this whole everyone-is-fake-and-stupid thing actually started, but I feel it's reached epidemic proportions. It's reflex. It's probably universal, and could probably go back to "three amoebas were sitting in a bar, and damnit, the amoeba chick went home with the jerk amoeba, what the heck is wrong with the world". No mention of the jerk amoebas huge pecs and chisled chin, of course. He was probably gay anyway.

My question is, I guess, is this really universal? Does everyone think everyone is fake? Does everyone think everyone but they are fake? Or that just the opposite sex is fake? I've stated my belief - everyone is fake by reflex. Not maybe as fake as the hot-ass Britney Spears guy, but fake.

No one is free while others are oppressed. A bumper sticker I saw on the way back from dinner just now. A nice sentiment, pretty innocuous on its own - but it was followed by three other stickers:

Peace is Patriotic

War is not Theater

No attack on iraq

Individually, I have no problem with any of these stickers. I supported the attack on Iraq, but there were plenty of compelling reasons not to go, or not to do it the way we did. Peace can perfectly well be Patriotic, and War really isn't theater, as much as CNN and FOX might hope it would be. I'm confused, however, at how the person driving this car ever expects to be free, if freeing the people of Iraq is not to be accomplished through warfare. Praying real hard? Ninjas? Maybe if everyone had smallpox there'd be no more hate. I don't know. But I do know that there are plenty of oppressed people out there, and while they may have peaceful methods of freeing themselves, we don't have many tools at our disposal other than warfare to free foreign peoples.

Maybe they thought these people were already free, and that now we're oppressing them, but I hope they aren't that dumb. Maybe they don't want to be free, so oppression is quality stuff to them. I don't know. But I find it entertaining nonetheless.

FoxNews reports the results of an intriguing poll of Americans' views on the supernatural. What's really fascinating are the demographic belief gaps -- they reveal a lot about how some different groups think.

The national poll, conducted by Opinion Dynamics Corporation (search), shows that about a third of Americans believe in ghosts (34 percent) and an equal number in UFOs (34 percent), and about a quarter accept things like astrology (search) (29 percent), reincarnation (search) (25 percent) and witches (24 percent).

There is a gender gap on many of these subjects. Women are more likely than men to believe in almost all topics asked about in the poll, including 12 percentage points more likely to believe in miracles and eight points more likely to trust there is a heaven. The one significant exception is UFOs, with 39 percent of men compared to 30 percent of women saying they accept the existence of unidentified flying objects.

Is this cultural, or biological?

The generation gaps are even more interesting:

Young people are much more likely than older Americans to believe in both hell and the devil. An 86 percent majority of adults between the ages of 18 to 34 believe in hell, but that drops to 68 percent for those over age 70. Similarly, 79 percent of young people believe in the devil compared to 67 percent of the over-70 age group.

I suppose if I were that close to finding out the truth, I might prefer to hold certain beliefs over others. Will these young adults change their minds as they get older, or does this difference represent a significant sea-change that could have a profound effect on our nation over the coming decades?

Now then, how about an ideological gap?

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say they believe in God (by eight percentage points), in heaven (by 10 points), in hell (by 15 points), and considerably more likely to believe in the devil (by 17 points). Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say they believe in reincarnation (by 14 percentage points), in astrology (by 14 points), in ghosts (by eight points) and UFOs (by five points).

Each side can snicker at the gullibility of the other.

The report has more information and some more questions, so you might be interested in reading the whole thing.

Work Hobbies: noun -- what you do at work when you're not actually working. May include talking, complaining, and gossiping about fellow workers and supervisors; surfing the internet, checking email, and blogging; playing minesweeper, solitaire, or other easily concealed games; talking on the phone; or walking around aimlessly while holding something in your hand that looks important.

Dean Esmay asks a question that prompts me to wonder: is it more important that strangers praise your accomplishments, or that your intimates love and respect you?

Every day, everyone finds things that they consider ridiculous (Michael, I'd say, finds more than the average person; I probably do too). Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of the things that are deemed ridiculous are very strongly believed in by someone else.

I, personally, believe in a lot of ridiculous things. I think anarchy could actually be a viable form of government; I think that the government of this country doesn't really represent the people; I think that the people are, often times, not worth representing. I believe baseball is actually a great sport, and not boring in the least; I believe that people should be accountable for their actions; I believe that property is theft, property is liberty, and property is impossible, all at the same time.

These thoughts or stances don't amount to much - I'm sure I could list every thought I've ever had and they'd be ridiculous to somebody. But to me, when someone feels a thought is ridiculous, it means they would never ever consider it, or think about it for more than a second. They may argue about it, discuss it for hours or days or years or a lifetime, but that is very different from actually considering it, or believing for a second it could be true.

I'm at work, and was just referred to as "king hater" by someone here. It's a nice little nickname I've picked up. I'm told I disagree with everything. Not true (or possible), but I don't often see the point in talking and discussing with people about things I agree with them about. It's really just an exercise in considering. I have my mind made up about very few things, and I lack conviction in most of those anyway; It's not one of my strengths.

Hmm, another entry with no conclusion. You can take from this a homework exercise - find someone to argue a point, and take the side you wouldn't normally take. Actually research it, actually try to convince not only your opponent but yourself. Almost no issues are black and white. Try to find the grey.

GeekPress links to an article about "urban tribes". What are they?

These aren't just friends--they're superfriends. Whether it's a leaky faucet, a broken-down car, a cross-country move, or just lunch, Trautman's group is there, blurring the line between friendship and kinship with gestures large and small. The core group--seven men and women all in their early 30s, including a doctor, a few teachers, and a scientist--volunteer together for political candidates, share gourmet meals, and even vacation as a gang every August. "We've become sort of an urban family," says Trautman.

Groups like Trautman's--less social circles than quasi-familial clans, with their own customs and rituals--are increasingly common, says San Francisco journalist Ethan Watters. They've grown out of well-documented societal change: Where once people got married after high school or college and began building families in their early 20s, men and women today are as likely to stay single for years. According to the 2002 census, the median age at first marriage has risen to 25.3 for women, the highest ever, and 26.9 for men.

In his new book, Urban Tribes: A Generation Redefines Friendship, Family, and Commitment, Watters writes that men and women are now structuring the long stretch of single years by gathering in tight-knit clusters--the "urban tribes" of his title. More than casual groups of friends, these are entities that form over time, eventually taking on a life of their own. Often there are rituals, like weekly dinners, yearly group trips, and elaborate theme parties. Many members say there are enough events on the group calendar to fill seven nights a week.

It's an interesting phenomenon, but nowhere is it mentioned that churches have historically played a similar role in people's lives, and these "urban tribes" are not an entirely new development. I recommend reading the entire article, because you'll probably realize that you yourself are a part of such a tribe.

Rather than a new social construct, I think that the formalization of the term really just serves to recognize something that's been happening since urbanization really took off after the undustrial revolution. Real extended families are no longer as likely to live together (or even near each other); humans crave society and company, and so these quasi-families have cropped up to fill that traditional role.

Is anyone else having problems with the Opinion Journal website? It's causing Internet Explorer to come to a screeching halt and crash on my computer. I've emailed their support address with the information, but I don't know if it's just me.

Megan reminds us that this October 3rd was Jonathan Edwards' 300th birthday. The name is probably familiar to everyone, but if you can't quite place him, maybe this will help:

Scholars say most Americans know just one thing about Edwards: he once preached the terrifyingly famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Yet at this tercentennial, many are discovering the instrumental role he played in shaping the institutions and culture they take for granted. ...

Born on Oct. 3, 1703, Edwards came of age in New England as a Puritan theocracy was giving way to a revolutionary democracy. Through this titanic shift, Edwards' writing and preaching bridged two worlds of thought: one of Calvinist trust in a sovereign God, the other of burgeoning Enlightenment trust in the powers of science and sheer reason.

With help from itinerant preacher George Whitefield and others, Edwards revived a waning Calvinism with a vengeance by rigorously defending orthodox doctrines and leading his sometimes resistant flock to tearful conversions in the 1730s. But it was Edwards' ability to understand and incorporate the cutting-edge of science and philosophy that made him a formidable intellect on the international stage and ensured him a spot among the standouts of Christian history.

If you want to read the sermon for which he is famous, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", I highly recommend it. It's renowned for a great many reasons, and no matter what your beliefs are it is an amazing piece of work and history.

If you play with fire, eventually you're going to get burned.

A lot of people accuse America of being imperialistic in some form, and while I think it's clear that the US isn't out to conquer territory, we are certainly determined to spread our culture of democracy and freedom, and to engage the world economically. Call it "cultural imperialism" if you will, or even "economic imperialism", but just because it's easy to slap on the label doesn't mean our agenda for the world isn't in everyone's best interests.

It's not an easy topic to open and close in a blog post, but let me just point to Japan, Germany, and the Philippines. They're all generally liberal democracies, they're all on their feet economically (the Philippines more than Japan, and Japan more than Germany), and they were all essentially conquered by America. The wars were different, and for different causes, but all three nations turned out rather well, in the end.

I'm hoping Mike will write a bit and compare American imperialism to that of some ancient empires, such as the Greeks and Romans. If you're interested in some of the tactics Rome used to control its subjects, take a look through the "Outlines of Roman History". Here's an excerpt about the destruction of Carthage, after the city had already given in to Roman demands to disarmed itself and give up hostages to ensure the peace:

Siege and Destruction of Carthage (B.C. 146).—Never was there a more heroic defense than that made by Carthage in this, her last struggle. She was without arms, without war ships, without allies. To make new weapons, the temples were turned into workshops; and it is said that the women cut off their long hair to be twisted into bowstrings. Supplies were collected for a long siege; the city became a camp. For three long years the brave Carthaginians resisted every attempt to take the city. They repelled the assault upon their walls. They were then cut off from all communication with the outside world by land—and they sought an egress by the sea. Their communication by water was then cut off by a great mole, or breakwater, built by the Romans—and they cut a new outlet to the sea. They then secretly built fifty war ships, and attacked the Roman fleet. But all these heroic efforts simply put off the day of doom. At last, under Scipio Aemilianus, the Romans forced their way through the wall, and the city was taken street by street, and house by house. Carthage became the prey of the Roman soldiers. Its temples were plundered; its inhabitants were carried away as captives; and by the command of the senate, the city itself was consigned to flames. The destruction of Carthage took place in the same year (B.C. 146) in which Corinth was destroyed. The terrible punishment inflicted upon these two cities in Greece and Africa was an evidence of Rome’s grim policy to be absolutely supreme everywhere.

Now that's what I call imperialism! Kill the men, haul the women and children back home as slaves, plunder everything in sight, and tear down every building so that no two bricks lie atop each other. Ah, the good old days! The only weapons we have now are Britney Spears, Coke, McDonald's, democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and capitalism.

In D&D, moral alignment is described along two axes: the first includes "lawful", "neutral", and "chaotic"; the second is "good", "neutral", "evil". A person or organization has an alignment with two components, one from each set, and there are 9 possible combinations.

Here are brief descriptions of how people from all nine alignments will tend to behave.

Lawful good -- You like law and order, and you try to obey the law at all times while working for good causes. Stereotype: the good, honest judge; Superman.

Lawful neutral -- Whether the consequences are good or bad, all that matters to you is that the laws are obeyed. Stereotype: the obsessive-compulsive district attorney; Robocop.

Lawful evil -- You work within the law to accomplish your own evil ends. You may be honorable, in the sense that you keep your word, but you are solely concerned with looking out for yourself. Stereotype: evil corporate lawyer.

Neutral good -- You don't really care whether the law is obeyed or not; you're mostly concerned that the results are good. Stereotype: Batman.

True neutral -- You don't care what happens, as long as balance is maintained and no one bothers you. Stereotype: no such people exist; stoners.

Neutral evil -- You don't care what aeffect your actions have on others or how you fit into society, as long as you get what you want. Stereotype: most criminals.

Chaotic good -- You dislike law and society, but still try to do good. Stereotype: Robin Hood.

Chaotic neutral -- You try to sow disorder and chaos wherever you go, without any regard for good or evil. Stereotype: sociopaths, psychotics.

Chaotic evil -- You try to undermine society and order, while working to bring about your own evil agenda. Stereotype: just about every supervillain.

[This post is mainly for use as a reference, in case I want to refer to D&D alignments later.]