Texas Swagger Meets the Queen

Monday is the big day at the White House. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip will be in attendance at a state dinner in her honor. What? You say that you didn’t get “the hottest ticket in town”? Even Nancy Pelosi got a ticket and she accepted. Harry Reid declined.

Well, let’s hope that Dubya behaves himself this time. Perhaps the presence of the first lady and a little brushup on protocol will keep him in line. I can’t help but recall the incident with German Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and the impromptu neck and shoulder massage, so here are some tips I am offering Dubya in case he needs to have them repeated.

1. Don’t sneak up behind the Queen and give her a shoulder massage.
2. Don’t talk with your mouth full.
3. Don’t towel-snap the Queen’s buttocks
4. Don’t address the Queen as “Liz”.
5. Don’t address the Prince as “Phil”.
6. Don’t hug the Queen.
7. Don’t tell fart jokes during the state dinner.
8. Don’t stick out your hand and say “howdy” when you meet the Queen.
9. Don’t drink water from a bottle during the dinner.
10. Don’t let your father “do a Bush.” If your father is in attendance at the dinner, do not seat him near the Queen or Prince unless he carries his own barf bag. (On January 8, 1992, Bush, the former president, vomited in the lap of Prime Minister of Japan Kiichi Miyazawa during a state dinner. The Japanese coined a verb for this incident: "bushu-suru", meaning "to commit an instance of embarrassing public vomiting", or literally "to do [a] Bush").

Hope you enjoy the victuals, pardner.

Completing the Paperwork

A few days ago singer Sheryl Crow, in an apparent effort to counter the effects of global warming, suggested that individuals limit their use of toilet paper. This is the text of her message: “Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating. One of my favorites is in the area of forest conservation which we heavily rely on for oxygen. I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required.”

Teaming up with environmental activist Laurie David and traveling on a biodiesel-powered bus to raise awareness about climate change, Crow is making a tour of eleven university campuses to persuade students to help combat the world’s environmental problems.

The next morning after reading that account, I sat on my throne contemplating one square of toilet paper and trying to imagine how one could manage with it. I remembered one of my sons who used to clog up the toilet by using too much TP until I gave him some instruction in using what I call the “3-Square Twist.” The 3-Square Twist is performed by unrolling four squares of TP and grasping the first square between the fingers and the thumb of the right hand while holding the fourth square between the fingers and the thumb of the left hand. Then, with the right hand, twist the second square one-half turn in a clockwise direction, tear off the third square, and fold it back. Next, place the thumb of the right hand on the folded third square. Now all the fingers of the right hand should be covered by the TP. If you are left handed, you figure it out.

Then I remembered a joke that my brother-in-law had told me many years ago about how one could successfully use one square of toilet paper for the necessary paperwork to finish the bathroom job. I went on the web and finally found a version of the story, to which I have added some modifications.

So here goes the description of how to wipe with just one square of toilet paper:

* Take your square and fold it in half diagonally (one corner to the other).
* Now fold the resulting isosceles triangle in half and you should have a smaller isosceles triangle.
* Take the corner opposite the base (opposite the long end) and tear off a small piece.
* Save this piece.
* Unfold your square and you should have a hole in the center.
* Stick your finger through the hole so the TP rests against your knuckles as a shield.
* Wipe all the poo from your bottom with your finger and the knuckle shield.
* With your other hand, reach under the TP "shield" and pull it off your finger, being careful to squeegee all the poo off your finger as you do.
* Discard the shield.
* Remember that little piece you tore off at the beginning and were told to save?
* Use that little piece to scrape the poo out from under your fingernail.
*Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water, while slowly singing the “Happy Birthday” song twice.

For those of you who think this is a crappy idea, please don’t poo-poo it (pooh-pooh it?). You should turn the other cheek and realize that this is just one more way of wiping away an environmental problem.

Sheryl Crow seemed surprised that people took her suggestion seriously. Flushed with the success of her spoof, she let it be known that it was all part of a campaign to give publicity to the tour. Actually, it makes sense when one considers that Laurie David, the environmental activist with whom she is traveling, is the wife of Larry David, of Seinfeld fame, who wrote the famous episode in which Elaine discovers too late that there is no toilet paper in her stall. She then asks the woman in the bathroom stall next to hers for some spare TP. When the woman refuses, Elaine says, "Three squares? You can't spare three squares?" "No, I don't have a square to spare. I can't spare a square," the woman responds.

Now we can all sit down and breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that we are not limited to one square of toilet tissue.

New Vistas Ahead

It has been three months now since Microsoft launched the much-heralded Vista operating system. Last year, while awaiting the arrival of the new Vista OS, I continued to use win98 SE even after Microsoft stopped supporting it. I switched from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox and have experienced very few problems, with a couple of crashes thrown in. I had planned to buy two new PC’s with Vista Home Premium the first week of February, one for my wife and one for myself. But after Vista came out, some friends and acquaintances persuaded me to wait for a few months until Microsoft worked some of the “bugs” out of the new system.

My wife is now growing impatient for her new computer. I would like to hear from some other bloggers on Blogstream who have purchased a new PC with Vista Home Premium, and request that they let me know what their experience has been up to this time with the new OS. Should we buy it now or should we continue to wait for another quarter before making the plunge?

10 Reasons to Buy Windows Vista:

1. UI built for the era of video and digital photography
It's not actually Microsoft's key selling point, but the thing that everyone will probably find the most useful about Vista is that photos, videos and music are not treated the same as Word documents any more. When you open a folder of photos, they come up as they'd appear in Google Picasa or Apple iPhoto. There's inbuilt basic photo editing. Music folders come up in columns of ID3 tags, a bit like iTunes. Finally, you don't have to rely so much on third party apps to work with your files.

2. Image-based install
PC enthusiasts spend a lot of time installing and reinstalling Windows for their own and other people's PCs. The Vista DVD is actually a pre-installed version of the OS in a compressed form, making it substantially quicker to install. It's also much easier to customize for unprompted installation with the correct defaults, and you can even install your own software automatically at the time Vista is installed - like slipstreaming service packs but on steroids.

3. Up-to-date driver base and better driver handling on installation
Enjoy the just-baked driver base while it lasts (19,500 drivers large). If you do need to use a special disk driver during installation in the future it won't have to be on floppy disk. Now you can use a USB memory key or CD. Also, Microsoft is now making much greater use of Windows Update for provision of drivers that aren't present in the Windows RTM driver base.

4. Desktop search and search folders built in
Yes, you could already get umpteen desktop search apps including Windows Desktop Search from Microsoft for XP, but you can't underestimate the importance of it being installed on every single Vista PC. Now when your mom rings saying she's lost a document she's been working on all day you can just direct her to the start menu. Also, desktop search folders are handy for finding stuff you haven't necessarily got stored in one folder but that is useful to gather together from time to time (e.g. documents with "tax, invoice or receipt" in them).

5. Sleep mode that actually works.
It's a small thing, but makes a big difference: Vista has finally caught up to operating systems that can sleep near instantly and wake up reliably, in a couple of seconds.

6. Rock-solid laptop encryption
The data on your laptop is worth a hell of a lot to an identity thief. Vista's "Bitlocker" encryption (only in Enterprise and Ultimate versions) does heavy-duty, full-drive encryption, so you can be certain that unless a thief has your password there's simply no way they're going to get in. Read more...

7. Better file navigation
Vista now has some time-saving features like favorite folders displayed in the left column of every Explorer window, as well as "bread-crumbed" folder lists allowing you to quickly jump backward and forward through a path. Sure, these should have been put into Windows years ago, but at least they're here now.

8. Inbuilt undelete
Or, depending on how you look at it, inbuilt rolling backup. Every time you make a change to a file or delete it, Windows keeps the previous version. As a result, the "oh !@#$ I just overwrote my entire PhD with Document1" feeling can be quickly assuaged.

9. DirectX10
OK, this isn't so much a benefit as your hand being forced: DirectX 10 will never be made for XP, and a raft of games have already been announced ‘exclusively' for 10. Admittedly it does take gaming graphics to the next level, but it's very much tied to Vista.

10. Face it, you have no choice
When Microsoft brings out a major renovation to Windows, you can choose to ignore it for a year or two, but then the device drivers start drying up for older versions of Windows, your friends start asking questions about their new PC that you can't answer, and even if you use Linux, you'll inevitably need familiarity with Microsoft's latest interoperability blockers.

After deciding to wait until spring to purchase the Vista OS, I also thought of considering the new Mac OS X Leopard; but now the latest information is that its introduction has been delayed until at least October of this year. Then a few months would be required to work the bugs out of it. Because my wife insists that she wants a computer to use soon, I don’t think I can wait that long. Since I have heard the new Microsoft Vista Home Premium OS described as Mac OS X Lite anyway, I think we'll stay with the decision to purchase Vista soon.

The Peacemakers

“Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men” -- a common refrain around Christmastime.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God" (Matthew 5:9).

“Give Peace a Chance” --John Lennon

Whatever Happened To Peace On Earth

There's so many things going on in the world
Babies dying
Mothers crying
How much oil is one human life worth?
And whatever happened to peace on earth?

We believe everything that they tell us
They're gonna’ kill us
So we gotta’ kill them first
But I remember a commandment
Thou shall not kill
How much is that soldier’s life worth?
And whatever happened to peace on earth?

And the bewildered herd is still believing
Everything we’ve been told from our birth
Hell they won’t lie to me
Not on my own damn TV
But how much is a liar’s word worth?
And whatever happened to peace on earth?

So I guess it’s just
Do unto others before they do it to you
Let’s just kill em’ all and let God sort em’ out
Is this what God wants us to do?

-- Excerpt from a Willie Nelson protest song

As Americans, we live in a culture today in which the majority of our citizens are seeking to end our involvement in the occupation of Iraq, but our government ignores the popular will and ruthlessly pursues the insurgents while capitalizing on public disbelief or indifference.

Now an idea that was first proposed in George Washington’s administration is being revived: the creation of a cabinet-level post in the executive department for the purpose of augmenting our current problem-solving options, and providing practical, nonviolent solutions to the problems of domestic and international conflict. Domestically, the Department of Peace would “develop policies and allocate resources to effectively reduce the levels of domestic and gang violence, child abuse, and various other forms of societal discord. Internationally, the Department would advise the President and Congress on the more sophisticated ideas and techniques regarding peace-creation among nations.”

The Department of Peace (HR808) would be charged with the mission of holding peace as an organizing principle while attempting to promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights. It also would develop policies that “promote national and international conflict prevention, nonviolent intervention, mediation, peaceful resolution of conflict, and structured mediation of conflict.” It has been proposed that 2% of the defense budget should be allocated for the creation and operation of this new Department of Peace. It is doubtful that a new department would be created under the Bush administration, but a new president might entertain the idea.

Do you favor the creation of a Department of Peace in the Executive Branch of our Federal Government? Why or why not?

Something There Is About A Wall

Excerpt from “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost:

“Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall”

The U.S. military is building a three-mile long, 12-foot -high concrete wall in a Sunni stronghold that has been the target of mortar and rocket attacks by Shiite militiamen. Both the Shiites and the Sunnis have protested the plan.

It seems that since the Americans can’t export democracy to Iraq, they are going to export another popular American development: gated communities. Some estimates have over 11% of residents in Southern California already living in gated enclaves.

About 70 miles east of Los Angeles is a private community developed in 1968, with 9500 people living along a lakeshore. It is protected 24-7 by a gated access control and patrolled by a private police force. It even has its own layer of municipal government. These gated communities are growing rapidly in our area of Southern California. We have three of them in our immediate area. They have now become an important trend for both the real-estate industry and the prospective homebuyer.

The question that is raised in the minds of some people not living in gated communities is what are the residents really trying to escape from behind their fences. What kind of a community are they trying to build? Some sociologists have labeled the trend as an urban pathology. Because security systems and around-the-clock gates prevent public access, gated communities represent a form of urbanism where public space is privatized. They differ from condominiums and secured apartment complexes because they include public infrastructures and spaces behind the gates, which can otherwise be used by everyone, such as streets, parks, sidewalks and beaches. Those enclaves are now mainly suburban neighborhoods emphasizing a "community lifestyle" and security features. The promotion of these real-estate industry standardized commodities often focuses on exclusiveness, protection of families in a secluded environment, and leisure facilities and amenities, such as golf courses, private beaches, private parks and horse-riding trails.

Gated neighborhoods have greatly developed since the 1970s, thus becoming one of the symbols of the metropolitan fragmentation and of the increase of social segregation . Because they are managed as private corporations, and push for political autonomy and an implicit selection of residents, the outcome is increased segregation. This urban and mostly suburban pattern -- though now quite common -- is nevertheless perceived as deleterious for the social fabric. The film titled “The Truman Show” in 1998 was inspired by gated communities, thus developing the argument of a social paranoia due to the security-oriented lifestyle.

Do you live in a gated community? What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of gated communities? If you move, do you plan to move to another gated community? Why?