"Treasures that moth and rust cannot destroy..."

He writes that they try not to be overly righteous. I found this to be a bit preachy and righteous, but I also feel that a lot of people need to hear this stuff. Over at the CrabCasa, they're always making me feel better that not everyone out there is oblivious to the non-material human needs. --blogbuoy

"Treasures that moth and rust cannot destroy...": "Now here are some good holiday, er, Christmas ideas...

Materialism and greed might ruin your Christmas
by David Batstone (from Sojourners Magazine)

Some Christians this season are boycotting retailers that choose not to use the phrase 'Merry Christmas' in advertising. I have been fired up for some time about Christmas commercialism. But the target of my concern is not how a clerk delivers holiday greetings at the check-out stand.

The spiritual foes that I resist this time of the year are materialism and greed. I note the corrosive impact of hypercommercialism on family life, and I don't like it one bit. You can order in wood or plastic the baby Jesus in a manger who had no place to lay his head. But can you find a place for this baby Jesus in your home this Christmas? It's hard to find time to deliver tidings of joy and peace on earth when we're stressed about getting our shopping done before Christmas Day.

My wife, Wendy, and I opted out of the American Christmas package the year our first child was born nearly 15 years ago. In the years ensuing, we brought three more children into our lives. The Christmas tradition we have developed instead is of course not the only proper way to celebrate. Perhaps, though, our effort may spark the imagination of other parents to craft "

Richard Pryor Gone

I always enjoyed Richard Pryor. He had a level of honesty and lack of bullshit that I loved. The stuff of his I remember the most from my childhood was him and Gene Wilder in a couple of movies. Those two were hilarious together! I didn't get to see much of his stand up stuff.

The Washington Post notes that he was the ". . .first person to receive the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American humor" in 1998.



This was kind of interesting from the Observer:

". . .combined the profanity of Lenny Bruce with the perfect timing of old Vaudeville."

The Observer | International | Richard Pryor, comic voice of black America, dies

BBC NEWS | Africa | South Africa to have gay weddings

BBC NEWS | Africa | South Africa to have gay weddings

Here's an interesting fact from today's article:

"South Africa's constitution - introduced in 1996 - was the first in the world specifically to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of sexual preference."

BBC NEWS | US, when lying, only tells the truth?

BBC NEWS | Middle East | US 'admits' Iraq propaganda drive. . .

So, when you lie, if the lie is based on facts, you're actually telling the truth? I LIKE that!

Maybe this logic will get me hired onto the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Cool Math - Math Forum - Ask Dr. Math

My sister recently wanted help figuring out the inside surface of a pool--in order to figure out how many square feet of concrete should be needed to cover the inside of a pool. It took me an embarassingly long time to remember that all I need to do is figure out the area of five surfaces--the bottom, the front-inside wall, the rear-inside wall, the left-inside wall and the right-inside wall. Adding up the areas for all of these sides would be pretty easy, but figuring out the area for any of these surfaces would be a little harder than length x width if the given surface is not a square or rectangle. This article simplified the whole triangle and parallelogram solution along with using visualization techniques for remembering the general rectangle and square areas:

Figuring Out Area without memorizing formulae - Math Forum - Ask Dr. Math

I still haven't figured out the pool thing because of the curved connections between the sides and the bottom and also because the bottom surface will have a curved slope.

Sigh. . .Geometry. Why didn't I do my high school homework!?

Former PBS chair [a republican plant] violated law - MSNBC.com

Is it just me, and Ralph Nader, or does it seem like the press uncovers stuff like this all the time and then nothing is done about it? You gotta love the weasels in congress on both sides of the aisle who won't take tangeable action on anything hardly!

Former PBS chair violated law

Mass release from Ethiopian jails

Mass release from Ethiopian jails

The Seattle Times: Business & technology: Dial-a-human shortcuts

The Seattle Times has published the results of a hacking/research project to find out how to get through to a live person in a bunch of customer service centers (I'm trying to get permission to publish the entire data set here for posterity):

The Seattle Times: Business & technology: Dial-a-human shortcuts

EU, Industries Want to End Animal Testing - Forbes.com

Let's hope this actually happens and starts a worldwide trend:

EU, Industries Want to End Animal Testing - Forbes.com

ABC News: Democrats Force Closed Meeting on Iraq

It's about fucking time!

ABC News: Democrats Force Closed Meeting on Iraq

Cuba accepts US hurricane offer

Wow. . .that's all I can say. . .Cuba accepts US hurricane offer

Lies Judith Miller Told Us -- In These Times

We're finally hearing some about this larger issue in the mainstream press, but here's an article on what I was wondering about all along with this Valerie Plame thing:

My favorite part of this article:

Out of prison, Miller promised that once she returned to work she would cover “the same thing I’ve always covered—threats to our country.”

Which means, we presume, she’ll be covering the White House.

There were NO fucking WMD's!!!

'Law Is Dead' -- In These Times

The current US administration is so bent against abortion rights, yet we suck up to China with it's murderous policies and practices:

Population Control in Chinese Provinces

See No Evil

More Songs to Make Love To

There's still plenty of love making going on, but no music experiments yet. I guess the list needs to be longer before I can test it out. Thanks to Mikostinko for suggestions in the original post. Once I have tried some of these out, I'll add a ranking column. . .won't that be fun?

Song	Artist	Album
New Songs:
Whole Lotta Love	Led Zeppelin	Led Zeppelin II
Elegia	New Order	Retro [Disc 2] I don't have any original New Order Albums. I just started getting into this stuff when a colleague loaned me the boxed set.
From the original post:
New Years Prayer	Jeff Buckley	Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk
Danger and Heartbreak Dead Ahead	The Marvelettes	Good Morning Vietnam Soundtrack
Face to Face	Siouxsie & The Banshees	Twice Upon a Time: The Singles

Iraqis Blogging

This came in from Tula (Crab Casa Mama) today:

Here are some (supposedly legit) blogs by real Iraqis
living in Iraq. Obviously written by people who are
somewhat educated because they have access to a
computer and know English.

Read them in your spare time (heh). Very interesting,
but also hard to take...

http://moslawi.blogspot.com/
http://secretsinbaghdad.blogspot.com/
http://aviraqi.blogspot.com/

Accepting the Slurs -- In These Times

On sports mascots--namely those depicting Native American charicatures:

"The reasoning that links the purpose of such mascots to their debilitating effects, likewise applies to the stereotypes deployed (and still utilized) to depict African Americans."

Accepting the Slurs -- In These Times

Battle of the giants: python bursts eating gator - Science - Specials

Thanks to Helen for finding the photo online that I saw in the paper yesterday which prompted yesterday's post on this. Don't miss this photo!!!:

Battle of the giants: python bursts eating gator - Science - Specials

In fight between python and gator, both lose - The Boston Globe

"The 13-foot-snake and 6-foot gator both wound up dead after apparently becoming locked in a gruesome struggle."

Hey, maybe this is a good thing. Hopefully these pythons will get REALLY GIANT and reclaim some of the underappreciated Everglades for mother nature!

Unconstitutional Prerequisite -- Judging Harriet Miers -- In These Times

Does anyone know if it's true that Bush had the unconstitutional prerequisite of faith in god for his two Supreme Court appointees? --

Judging Harriet Miers -- In These Times: "she passes Bush’s unconstitutional prerequisite that federal judges have a religious faith. Her former pastor told The New York Times, “Harriet has placed her faith in Jesus.” This type of religiosity has been required by Bush of all his appointees, though Article VI of the United States Constitution unambiguously provides that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”"

NPR : Podcast Directory

Finally, the NPR podcast is here! Go here to find your favorite NPR shows and never miss a beat because now, it's on your iPod:

NPR :: Podcast Directory

Songs to make love to

Hope this one doesn't freak people out too much. . .Actually, I don't mind if it does!

I've been thinking of sharing lists of music in certain categories that my iPod has me thinking about. I got the idea from Mikostinko
. She listed her top 25 song based on the most played on her iPod.

I'd be too embarrassed to admit some of the stuff getting play on my iPod, so I've been trying to think of what would be interesting, and not embarrassing, to share.

Well, I'm not embarrassed to admit that I love to make love. I have begun to think lately about how my lover and I don't tend to play any music while doing the nasty though. It's odd because we both love music and both can name songs we think are sexy songs.

When I first got the iPod, the first thing I wanted to do was get ALL of my CD collection onto the thing. The thing wouldn't hold all my music at the quality I preferred, so as I started using the thing, I started using the song, star rating system on the iPod to remind me of which songs to remove from the player when I was at home synching. I would use the 1 star rating for this.

Well, time has passed, the wife took the smaller iPod and I bought the largest one. ALL of my music is now on the thing. So, now I've decided to start rating songs, as I hear them. (I, like most everyone else, am a big fan of the shuffle feature. It's a 6003 song, personalized radio station on my belt!).

I have only rated 3 songs so far as 1 star, "Songs to Make Love To." Now, please don't misunderstand, these are not necessarily just sexy songs. For me, this is a to-do list of songs I want to try out while getting down and dirty.

Here is the short list so far. It's short because I want to hear the song, not just remember it, before I add it to the list:

Song	Artist	Album
New Years Prayer	Jeff Buckley	Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk
Danger and Heartbreak Dead Ahead	The Marvelettes	Good Morning Vietnam Soundtrack
Face to Face	Siouxsie & The Banshees	Twice Upon a Time: The Singles

There will definitely be more soon.

Rethinking Race and Class - Radio Open Source

Open Source is a radio show on WNYC in NY. They are one of the first NPR type shows to offer up the full show as a free podcast. This is great because no station in my area is getting the show yet, but I get to listen the the show every day on my iPod.

Every Monday until further notice, starting this week, the show will be about Race and Class issues. I've listened to most of the first one already and hope that others will stay awake on this issue well into the future.

A friend of mine and I were recently corresponding about a couple of old, previous entries here on blobBuoy about some other correspondence from way back that I interpreted as Hate. My new friend had an interesting perspective on how some people, and not even minorities necessarily, believe and behave as though they are entitled to certain things--like jobs and shit like that--that these things should just be handed to them. This came up in the debate over whether new people coming to our country should expect the culture here to adapt to them.

The Open Source Podcast I reference below made me think of a couple more things in light of the whole "hand-out" question. They discussed how so many of us (non-minorities) take for granted, and possibly are unaware, that we have only gotten where we each are today because of so many things just given to us. Even those of us who struggled through college have taken loans, scholarships, etc. which would not have been possible without some sort of government subsidy. Those of us who have insurance via a major, national provider are also in this category.

They also mention that at some point after the Civil Rights Movements of the 60's, AmericaAmerican politicians restored the notion of the "rugged" human"myth of the rugged individual". That somehow, we forgot that everyone needs a little help to get somewhere. This reminded me of another friend who suggests that we shouldn't give too much to our children--that they will be better off "living the adventure" of struggle and survival. I thought this was an interesting perspective, but today I find myself feeling that that same perspective is the very reason we have so much poverty in this country.

The privileged in this country believe that they truly worked their way to where they are now, with no help from anybody and that everyone else should be expected to do the same. How easily we forget the advantages we have just for being white. It's like driving, I suppose. It's not a right to be white, it's a privilege.

On class and race and inequality:

Open Source Blog Archive Rethinking Race and Class: "This is not a Hobbesian leviathan brooding over an unruly mob, using force to keep order while making sure the everyone can pursue their lives with a decent degree of security but a mafia lying to one group (genuinely conservative, frightened white Christians) while abusing another (gays, blacks, enemies of one sort or another) all the while stealing everything." --Marcellus Andrews

I'm not the only "shell game" freak. . .Numb3rs episode continued. . .Monty Hall?

Here's some stuff I found supporting the whole Cup and Bean thing I've been debating with people lately:

I checked Wikipedia and there was nothing there on this specifically. I thought it might be an interesting topic to nurture on that site if I could come up with the time. Then I searched for "Monty Hall" on a whim and found there IS indeed something on this on Wikipedia.org. The best stuff yet comes from there in these Venn Diagrams.

Someone at USC did a Science Fair project on this just last April.

Another guy built a simple Java Applet (which is a lot nicer than my little CF app.) and says it's a great way for students to learn about "the ideas of repeated trials as a means for investigating a random phenomena."

Math Dept Home Page: "Let Ci denote the event that the car is at door i, and Hj the event that the host opens door j . Then

P(You win the car if you switch)

= P(H3 C2) + P(H2 C3) = P(C2)P(H3|C2) + P(C3)P(H2|C3) = (1/3)·1+ (1/3)·1 = 2/3

and in similar manner we find that

P(You win the car if you don't switch) = (1/3)·p + (1/3)·(1 - p) = 1/3

where p = P(H2|C1)."

CDC Warning: Gonorrhea Lectim

Thanks to our friend Gregg for sharing this one:

THE CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL has issued a no-nonsense, albeit delayed, warning about a new, highly virulent strain of sexually transmitted disease. This disease is contracted through dangerous and high risk behavior.

The disease is called Gonorrhea Lectim (pronounced "Gonna Re-elect him").

Many victims have contracted it after having been screwed for the past 4 years, in spite of having taken measures to protect themselves from this especially troublesome disease.

Cognitive sequellae of individuals infected with Gonorrhea Lectim include, but are not limited to, anti-social personality disorder traits; delusions of grandeur with a distinct messianic flavor; chronic mangling of the English language; extreme cognitive dissonance; inability to incorporate new information; pronounced xenophobia and homophobia; inability to accept responsibility for actions; exceptional cowardice masked by acts of misplaced bravado; uncontrolled facial smirking; total ignorance of geography and history; tendencies toward creating evangelical theocracies; and a strong propensity for categorical, all-or-nothing behavior.

The disease is sweeping Washington. Naturalists and epidemiologists are amazed and baffled that this malignant disease originated only a few years ago in a Texas bush. Please inform any of your friends and associates who have been acting unusual lately.

9/11 And The Sport of God - another quote

9/11 And The Sport of God

Another quote from Moyers' article. The quote is from Reinhold Niebuhr:

"'When we talk about love we have to become mature or we will become sentimental. Basically love means...being responsible, responsibility to our family, toward our civilization, and now by the pressures of history, toward the universe of humankind.'"

9/11 And The Sport of God

I love Bill Moyers. I'm an atheist, but his interviews of Joseph Campbell on PBS really give me a solid appreciation for most religions. . .that is when they are not causing people to be violent and intolerant. Thanks to Tula at the Crab Casa for sending this article:

9/11 And The Sport of God: "What are the stakes? In his last book, the late Marvin Harris, a prominent anthropologist of the time, wrote that 'the attack against reason and objectivity is fast reaching the proportions of a crusade.' To save the American Dream, 'we desperately need to reaffirm the principle that it is possible to carry out an analysis of social life which rational human beings will recognize as being true, regardless of whether they happen to be women or men, whites or black, straights or gays, employers or employees, Jews or born-again Christians. The alternative is to stand by helplessly as special interest groups tear the United States apart in the name of their 'separate realities' or to wait until one of them grows strong enough to force its irrational and subjective brand of reality on all the rest.'

That was written 25 years ago, just as the radical Christian right was setting out on their long march to political supremacy. The forces he warned against have gained strength ever since and now control much of the United States government and are on the verge of having it all."

A Game of Second Chance

OK, so, I watch this TV show called Numbers and I learned this math thing while watching last week. Check out this demonstration first, then read the following and PLEASE share you comments:

Cup and Bean Game

I wrote the game in ColdFusion hoping to prove to my wife and other non-believers that the math I learned is correct. Here is how it goes. . .

The game master hides the bean under one of three cups.

You choose one of the cups where you think the bean is.

The game master reveals that the bean is NOT under one of the OTHER TWO cups that you did not choose.

The game master now tells you that, if you want, you can change your choice of where you think the bean is.

You change or reaffirm your choice.

The game master reveals where the bean is.

That's the game.

Here's the math, in lay man's terms--the only terms I know for it. . .

At the start of the game, you don't know where the bean is, you have a 2 out of 3 chance of getting it wrong.

When the game master reveals one of the cups you did NOT choose, you have an opportunity to change your choice. The math says you should change your choice.

See, in the first choice, you were more likely to have chosen the wrong cup. Now, at the opportunity to change your choice, you should know very well the odds are that the previous choice was wrong.

Sure, there is a 1 in 3 chance that you were right--but odds are odds, and 2 in 3 wrong still beats 1 in 3 right.

The game is not over, you know that there is a greater chance that you first choice was wrong than it was right. When faced with the new, seemingly 50/50, choice you should abandon the likely wrong first choice.

If I were a math wiz, I'd explain all this in those terms, but that would probably make even less sense to many of us. So, just play the stupid game as many times as you want and see for yourself. If you don't trust my code, download it here or just play the game with a friend over and over again with real playing cards (where's the ace?) or any other analogy. I've played the game many times and have never won less than 7 out of ten games when consistently changing my choice on the second chance. My wife tried it out and she maintained her choice every time and never won more than 3 games out of 10.

But no one believes me!! That second choice really throws people off.

If anyone has a more eloquent way of explaining this--or better yet, has a transcript of what the guy on Numbers said--please share it here in a comment.

Also, any other code monkeys out there are welcome to chime in on my code--especially if there is a flaw.

Thanks

Vanita Gupta - Human Rights Advocate Honored

A colleague at work thought my wife would be interested in the following, I'm gonna try to get out of bed on Saturday to go see this:

An event called "New Frontiers in Leadership" - this is a yearly event organized by Ekal DC Chapter in which they honor a young Indian American achiever. Last year they had honored "Sonal Shah" - founder of Indicorps. This year they have invited "Vanita Gupta" - a lawyer by profession who has earned a name for hershelf in the field of Human Rights at a very young age.

The event is on September 18, 2005, 11 A.M. at the Marvin Center, George Washington University, 800 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052

Ekal DC invites you to come and be a part of this inspiring interaction with Vanita.

About Vanita Gupta

• A lawyer by profession. Currently works as Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Her work involves civil rights litigation to promote systemic reform of the criminal justice system
• Won the release of 46 wrongly-accused African Americans in Tulia, Texas
• Recipient of the Soros Justice Fellowship
• Recipient of the India Abroad Special Award for Outstanding Achievement
• Recipient of 2004 Reebok Human Rights Award
• Recipient of Upakar Foundation Community Ambassador award
• Recipient of American Red Cross "Rising Star" award
• Appeared on the NBC Today Show, CBS Evening News, CNN, PBS Lehrer News Hour, Court TV, MSNBC and National Public Radio