jp.jpg (13389 bytes)

THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR

View 131 December 11 - 17, 2000

read book now

HOME

VIEW

MAIL

Columns

BOOK Reviews

For Current Mail click here.

Last Week's View                    Next Week's View

emailblimp.gif (23130 bytes)

This is a day book. It's not all that well edited. I try to keep this up daily, but sometimes I can't. I'll keep trying. See also the monthly COMPUTING AT CHAOS MANOR column, 4,000 - 7,000 words, depending.  (Older columns here.) For more on what this place is about, please go to the VIEW PAGE.

If you are not paying for this place, click here...

Day-by-day...
Monday -- Tuesday -- Wednesday -- Thursday -- Friday -- Saturday -- Sunday

For Previous Weeks of the View, SEE VIEW HOME PAGE

Search: type in string and press return.

 

For an index of previous pages of view, see VIEWDEX.
See also the New Order page, which tries to make order of chaos. These will be useful.
For the rest, see What is this place? for some details on where you have got to.

Boiler Plate:

If you want to PAY FOR THIS there are problems, but I keep the latest HERE. I'm trying. MY THANKS to all of you who sent money.  Some of you went to a lot of trouble to send money from overseas. Thank you! There are also some new payment methods. I am preparing a special (electronic) mailing to all those who paid: there will be a couple of these. I am also toying with the notion of a subscriber section of the page. LET ME KNOW your thoughts.
.

If you subscribed:

atom.gif (1053 bytes) CLICK HERE for a Special Request.

If you didn't and haven't, why not?

If this seems a lot about paying think of it as the Subscription Drive Nag. You'll see more.

For the BYTE story, click here.

 

For Current Mail click here.

Highlights this week:

 

The atomz Search returns:

Search: type in string and press return.

 The freefind search remains:

 

   Search this site or the web        powered by FreeFind
 
  Site search Web search

 

 

 

line6.gif (917 bytes)

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Monday December 11, 2000 

The day was devoured by locusts.

 

 

 

 

TOP

 

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Tuesday, December 12, 2000

Roberta's programmer was over. And another day devoured by locusts, and this hagging head cold. I am ready to try snake oil.

 

 

TOP

 

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Wednesday, December 13, 2000

I am trying to get another appointment with a physician. It's not that I feel all that bad, as that I just can't seem to feel very good, and I gots no energy. A couple of years ago I had this problem and a subscriber -- I blush to say I do not recall who -- sent me a package of six vials of something Chinese which proclaimed that it was made "from the freshest of snake biles." It sounded horrible, but it didn't seem to be actually poisonous -- and whether it worked or my long standing headaches and sinus problems decided to give up and leave me alone just as I began using the stuff, by the time I had finished the course of snake oil, I felt wondrously better.

But I don't remember who sent it or what the ultimate source was. We have a big Chinese community in Los Angeles but I think I would seem an idiot going there and asking for "snake biles" so I don't think that route would work. But I admit I am ready to try snake oil again.

 

The Supreme Court has, sort of, spoken. I agree with the dissent by Mr. Stevens: the Constitution, and most of the laws, say pretty clearly that if there is any real question of who is President, it is to be decided by Congress. It is a political, not a judicial, question, and I believe the Court ought to have thrown the whole matter out on the grounds that it IS a political question; let the Florida Legislature decide what it will do, and if Florida sends two sets of electoral votes, then the Congress decides which set is valid. That is of course a political act, but then the whole matter is political, not judicial.

I believe the Florida Supreme Court acted also in a political matter when it should not have, but it is less important: no one expects judicial restraint from Southern state judges. One can hope for it, but it is not to be expected. Had the US Supreme Court stayed out of the picture, the Florida court would have muddied the waters to complete confusion, the Florida legislature would have stepped in and named electors, the Democrats might or might not have sent their own electoral votes to Washington, and the matter would have been decided where it ought to be decided, in the Congress. That is clearly what the Framers intended: that the Congress is the "controlling legal authority" when there is mess of this type. Let the Courts stand above the matter.

As matters stand now, the Supreme Court has weakened public respect for it; perhaps no bad thing given the imbecile judicial activism since the Warren Court. Half the Justices now act like legislators, deciding on an outcome and then going back to adjust their reasoning to fit; a perfectly proper thing for legislators to do, but not for a Court. As for instance the silly notion that the Constitution demands that State Senates represent one-critter-one-vote when for more than 200 years after the adoption of the Constitution they did not, nor does the Senate of the United States do so today. (And if the 14th Amendment demanded "reform" of 47 State Senates, it is odd that it was one hundred years before the US Supreme Court found the wisdom to realize it.) That is one of the more egregious cases of a Court deciding on a desirable result, then reasoning its way to it, rather than applying accepted standards of legal reasoning.

Another, just to make more people mad at me, is the drug laws. The Court held the Volstead Act, forbidding the making or possession of alcohol, unconstitutional, on the grounds that the Constitution grants no power to the Federal Government to prohibit alcohol; it says nothing; and without a grant of power there is no power. Therefore to make it constitutional required the XVIIIth Article of Amendment. That was done, and the experiment of Prohibition was tried. That proved both unpopular and disastrous, and was repealed. So, which Article of Amendment grants the Federal Government power to make possession of marijuana, or cocaine, or opium, a crime? The Feds have the authority to prohibit import. They have the authority to forbid its shipment across state lines. But how in the world do they have the authority to seize property because it was used to grow marijuana? This is judicial activism: here is a desired result, let us find ways to justify it.

But the Constitution leaves political matters to the political bodies, and for a very long time the US Supreme Court understood that, and refused to rule on political questions. They should have done so this time.

The odd part is that the Justices who usually vote for judicial restraint were the majority in this decision, while those who are usually for activism, and interference, suddenly found a new love for state's rights. But then politics often produces such inconsistencies; and inconsistency is precisely what the Rule of Law cannot tolerate; which is to say, again, that political matters ought to be left to political bodies. And that's the end of my rant on this sticky matter.


Roland was having so much fun with Microsoft's Crimson Skies that I thought I'd try it. I found a Logitech Wingman Extreme Digital 3D joystick in the back room; it's only a few months old, maybe a bit older, but it has a USB connector. So I tried installing it. First on the new Pentium IV machine which has Windows 2000. It said it had installed, but when I installed the game, there was no joystick. OK, install on the Athlon which has Windows 98.

Heh. The joystick installation locked up the machine. Completely. Reboot and it was still locked up. Press f8, get to Safe Mode, uninstall Logitech's software, and that more or less did the job of putting me back where I was before I started.  Time for bed.

This morning before breakfast I went to Logitech's site and downloaded the 8 megabyte software for the joystick. After breakfast try to install. Can't. Have to go to the Microsoft site and download installer software. Now the Wingman software installs and I have a working joystick, so I presume I will be able to play Crimson Skies, only of course I don't have time to do that just now. I will also try the new software on the Pentium IV, which, with a GeForce nVIDIA board ought to just scream....

And there is a LOT of mail to be put up, some amusing, some important. No rest for the wicked...

The new installation software downloaded worked, the Logitech Wingman Extreme now works on both Windows 98 and Windows 2000, and Crimson Skies lives...

 

 

 

TOP

 

 

 

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

read book now

TOP

Thursday, December 14, 2000

Christmas shopping in Beverly Hills. Lunch at Nieman Marcus, which is a bit expensive but a nice experience for a novelist.

Physician called about blood tests. It seems I have high blood sugar. Not enough to require pills or shots, but enough that I should lose weight, get more exercise, and eat less of everything. which is hardly surprising, and given that this stupid series of colds -- that's what it seems to have been, one cold after another -- has kept me from exercising, I suppose not too surprising. It's a kind of deadly spiral I suppose. You don't feel good so you don't hike, and when you don't hike or otherwise exercise you don' feel good, and so on. 

Aristotle tells us that one becomes courageous by acting brave, and most other virtues are acquired this way. If you act brave long enough you will be courageous. If you act generously long enough you will be charitable. We do have considerable control over our feelings in that we can choose the right course of action and do it even if we don't feel inclined that way; and Lo! after a while we begin to feel comfortable with doing the right thing.

(It can work the other way, too. Sir Francis Galton once put up a figurine of Punch on a high bookshelf and bowed to it in reverence, made as if worshipping it, and reports that he began to have reverent feelings toward it. It is not a surprising result, although it may be a dismaying one.)

In any event this is entirely against the spirit of the age. We are to indulge our "inner feelings", gratify them, have high self esteem even in the absence of one iota of estimable activity. One presumes that this kind of self indulgence will lead to a lot of fat, lazy people with no discernible virtues. Certainly Aristotle would have predicted that...

In any event, I will be on the hill tomorrow. And from now on. As to diet, I have already lost weight from what I was carrying when I had the blood tests. It's a simple diet: have a glass of Metamucil not long before dinner, then eat whatever the heck you feel like, but be a Russian in manners: Leave considerable on your plate to demonstrate to the hostess that you got enough to eat. It's a custom born I presume of Thorstein Veblen's 'conspicuous consumption' as a demonstration of wealthiness, but in a nation whose major health concern is overweight it is presumably a custom we can afford. Certainly I can. Of course growing up in The Great Depression I was, as were all children of that time, admonished to clean my plate, and it's a hard habit to get out of. And then there was the War, same thing, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without," "Millions of starving Chinese would love to have that broccoli," and the answer "Then send it to them," wasn't acceptable. 

But that is the resolve. Leave something on your plate. Leave a LOT on your plate. And get on the hill ever doggone day like it or not.

 

TOP

 

 

 

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Friday, December 15, 2000

Headed for the hill in a few minutes. Dinner last night was Metamucil and soup. After the lunch in Beverly Hills (which was before the call from my physician) soup was more than enough...

One thing is certain: Bush got more votes than Clinton ever did. So if Clinton had any legitimacy, how can Bush have less? Not that the press seems to have noticed. So what can the parties together accomplish?

Well, both want Strategic Defenses. Only Clinton has really opposed that. And the fact that some of our so-called allies hate the notion makes it even more attractive. I think we will get a deployed if limited strategic defense system. 

Both should want a strong Navy. A maritime power has little choice but to have the means to keep the sea lanes open, and a Navy is nothing like the invitation to imperial adventure that a big standing army is. Certainly we need a standing army, but it need not be enormous.

A larger role for the National Guard as opposed to the Regular Army; certainly more appropriate to a Republic. And in diametric opposition to Bush Senior's view of a New World Order. It is not known, at least not to me, just what young Bush thinks of his father's only discernible 'vision thing' which sounded to me like an Imperial dream at the time.

"Make Head Start a reading program." Maybe, just maybe, that one can be got past the teacher unions, and give kids a real head start. Maybe if the inner city kids learn to read at age 5 it will shame those monsters who have put the US into the second tier of nations in literacy enough that they will let go and let the ordinary public school kids learn to read. As it is we have a system under which the upper middle class can afford literacy, the lower middle class can do home schooling perhaps and thus have literate children, and the rest are doomed to look-say and other imbecilities that guarantee that kids will never be able to read a word they have never seen before even if they have been speaking that word all their lives. No novelist could have invented the situation we have got ourselves into with literacy rates below those of Iraq in these United States of America. It took hard work to get us into this situation. Congratulations. But perhaps, just perhaps, with a President who owes nothing but short shrift to the teacher unions, and a Congress under considerable pressure from people who shout "My taxes are too high and my kids can't read!" something, something, will be done?

It was in 1983 that the National Commission on Education began its report by saying that "If a foreign power had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war." Things have changed since then: they have got worse, much worse, since Nobel laureate Glenn T. Seaborg wrote those words. Perhaps, just perhaps, things will change now? The feds don't have to DO much: just get the hell out of the way and stop imposing teacher union standards on the rest of the nation. Teacher unions represent teachers, not children, and don't you forget it; and they have the best lobbies in the world, in every state as well as in Washington. And we wonder why those who can home school their kids? A terrible solution to the problem by the way. A good public school system is a very good thing for a Republic; but it must teach the virtues of a republic, and the skills of a republic, and be effective in doing that. Teaching self esteem to those who deserve none is not precisely what taxes ought to be collected for.

Do I exaggerate? Of course. By how much?

Those at least are things that  can be done. Will they?

 

 

 

TOP

 

 

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Saturday, December 16, 2000

We have a dumpster. I am filling it.

 

 

TOP

 

 

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

read book now

TOP

Sunday, December 17, 2000

Continuing to Fill The Dumpster. Of course the instant something is thrown away, it will be needed. I wonder what it will be this time?

 

 

  TOP

      Current View                                                         Current Mail

 

birdline.gif (1428 bytes)