The thing I hate most

about getting a haircut is how every person I meet for three days has to comment on it.

I do not deny the holocaust.

You can tell it's going to be a weird post when I feel that I need to establish that right off the bat.

Earlier this week there was a conference of sorts in Tehran. Iran invited people from all over the world to share papers and research they had conducted regarding the holocaust, pretty much exclusively research that concludes that the holocaust was either faked or exaggerated. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that in many countries it is illegal to deny the holocaust happened (true, but instead of "many" I submit 3: France, Austria and Germany) and since Iran had nothing to do with WWII, it's aftermath or the holocaust, they can be a impartial place to allow academic discussion on the subject. I'll agree it's difficult to find neutrality on the subject in Europe, given the still very raw emotions associated with the war, but I reject the notion that Iran can be considered "impartial" on anything related to Jews, Judaism or Israel.

Reaction on the world stage was predictable: Basically every western government decried the conference as a sham and a distraction from Iran's plans to develop nuclear reactors, which it probably was, and Jews the world over were irate, as I suppose they should be.

Me, I'm OK with the conference. I do consider laws against denying the holocaust an unacceptable breach of freedom of speech. I completely disagree the position, but I think that people have a right to be willfully ignorant bigots if they so decide. Freedom of speech unfortunately means that people are free to spout what you consider to be patent nonsense.

As for world reaction, I really think it should have been minimal. I don't think anyone is concerned that President Bush or any member of congress is about to sides with anyone attending the conference, so there really is no need to get prove that you don't agree with them by trying to shout them down. And if the conference really was intended to be a distraction, we played directly into their wishes by spilling so much ink over a few dozen ignorant people gathering in a bellicose country and playing scholar for a few days. Let them have their conference and publish their papers. Let us ignore them and focus on more important things. By getting so up in arms over the whole affair, we kind of imply they might have a point and that we're afraid of it. We should rest assured that this conference is unlikely to sway anybodies opinion.

Real quick,

do a Google search for ZuneChannel.com. What you won't find is a result for ZuneChannel.com the website (that's here, if you're curious). What, or rather who, you will find is Gene From ZuneChannel.com. Gene's a busy man, it seems. Where ever on the web there is an article discussing the Zune, he's there. Relentlessly optimistic, fiercely protective and always polite to a fault, this man loves him some Zune, and isn't afraid to post a comment about it. Weather chiding iPod lovers for being too hard on the Zune and overlooking it's many fine features, or thanking some other journalist for spreading the Good Zune Word, Gene is out there in the digital trenches fighting the good fight.

Or, more probably, the paid fight.

Given that this man is everywhere and actually runs a site called Zunechannel.com leads me to question his impartiality. What we're most likely watching here is a thinly disguised attempt at astroturfing.

Simon Winder,

of the Sunday Herald, wrote a very interesting article on how James Bond is something of a constant in Britain, despite five decades of massive change. The full article is here but what I want to point out is his conclusion:

"It is part of the weird circularity of watching Casino Royale that here is the same character, far closer in many ways to Fleming’s intentions than even Connery (Craig looks like one of the muscular, brutal Bonds featured on the 1950s Pan paperback covers), following the same story, working for the same organisation. And yet everything else has changed. This makes Bond almost a religious figure – a sort of alcoholic, homicidal version of Jesus, a reassuring constant in a Britain that has been through so much. It is a sort of miracle that after so many books, so many movies, so many years, the same character can be rendered fresh and interesting."

That bit in the middle is pretty funny.

I'm a linguistics major,

but still a very junior one. One day, I hope to find this funnier than I already do:

Q: Two linguists were walking down the street. Which one was the specialist in contextually indicated deixis and anaphoric reference resolution strategies?

A: The other one.

I'm in no position to judge,

but I do anyway.

Well, this is interesting.... I'll have to play with it and see if it's cool....

I surf the net

.... a lot.

I just opened my browsing history, and was struck by how long it was. After a moment or two, I determined that today alone I have visited 181 seperate webpages on 48 different hosts.

I didn't quite expect the numbers to be that high. I haven't even done any really hard researching or anything today, just normal surfing.

An Economic Theroy of Immigration

Bearing in mind that I am not an economist, I came up with the following.

In economics there something known as transaction costs. These are all the costs involved with any kind of economic exchange, above and beyond the actual price of the item or transaction. For example, the transaction costs associated with buying a gallon milk is not only the price of the milk itself (pushing $3.00 a gallon here) but the time spent going to and from the store, the gas spent in the trip, the wear and tear on your vehicle and so on. It's not always easy to put a dollar amount on a transaction cost, and you can get into some really pointless minutiae (in this example, you could also include the mental energy spent deciding which brand to buy and the physical energy spent lugging the milk around the store) but keeping the concept in mind can help identify why people choose to spend their resources the way they do.

How does this apply to immigration?

Well, there are really only two ways into this country: the legal way and the illegal way. Consider some of the transaction costs involved with illegal immigration.

Aliens coming from Mexico (which seems to be the biggest area of concern just now) risk scaling razor wire topped fences, swimming the Rio Grande, wandering through deserts, getting attacked by animals (rattlesnakes, coyotes) getting picked up by border patrol and sent to jail or possibly getting shot at by one of the Minutemen. Some immigrants employ the services of a smuggler or "coyote," who's fees can be more than a thousand dollars per person.

In short, an illegal crossing from Mexico can be very dangerous and expensive, and there is more than a fair chance that you could be injured or killed in the attempt. Despite these risks, thousands of people still take life in hand make the attempt.

Why?

It seems to me that there is something about the legal method for gaining entry into this country that makes risking dying of dehydration in the Arizona desert an acceptable alternative, in other words, the transaction costs for legal entry into the US are so high as to make an illegal attempt 'cheaper' by comparison.

To be honest, I didn't know a whole lot about the process for naturalization (being native born and all) so I looked up U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and this bureaucracy at it's densest. The application for naturalization alone is 10 pages long and comes with a $330.00 filing fee, plus a potential $70.00 biometrics fee. However, you can only file this form (N-400 for the curious) after you've gotten your green card (which is another round of forms, interviews and fees) and established permanent residency. All in all, the process takes years and can run nearly one thousand dollars, all on a maybe. Remember, these are applications and can be rejected at any point for a variety of reasons. On top of all this, the process is complicated and confusing, even for someone who speaks English natively; I couldn't imagine what it's like for someone working through an interpreter or who only has limited English skills.

Of all the problems nations can have, illegal immigration is actually not that dire; it shows that you're doing something right and people are willing to risk a lot to share in what you have. The immigrants will continue to come as long as America remains a good country to live in, and as long as our legal process for immigration remains convoluted, expensive and time consuming, immigrants will continue to come illegally. Along with increased border control, and cracking down on corporations who hire illegal immigrants, we need to seriously look at revising our legal immigration policies. The more people we can encourage to enter the country legally, the fewer illegal immigrants we'll to capture and process through our courts, and it will be more likely that people entering America will unsavory intentions will be caught before they slip through the cracks.

Our new apartment

has proved to be fairly quiet, which is nice, but I fear that will come to an end at noon on Friday. You see, we live in student housing now, and while our building and the ones immediately around us are family apartments, the majority of the complex consists of quad style dorms. Currently, only one dorm building is open, but rest will open up at the end of the week for the fall semester, and I fear we will be overrun.

I think that

claiming God is on your side, as opposed to someone else's, is approaching the height of hubris. God is on His own side, if anything, and all we can do is our best to stay on it.

Ethnocentric Incident

Was watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and got to the point where the other Golden Ticket winners are introduced and found myself a little upset that Americans in the movie are portrayed so negatively. The kids are violent, disrespectful and a little amoral; their parents are either spineless and ineffectual or worse than their kids.

These thoughts were quickly followed by my wondering why I wasn't bothered by the fact that all the Germans in the movie are fat and gluttonous and most of the Britons are pricks.

I was a little ashamed.

A short lesson in internet etiquette

Open your preferred e-mail client, either on your computer (Outlook Express, Apple Mail) web-based (too many to list) and open up a blank email. At the top of the window, there should be three boxes: "To:" "Cc:" and "Bcc:" If there is no Bcc box, hunt around for the option to enable it; these boxes in general and that one in particular, will be our focus today.

"To:" is simple enough; the addresses you type there are the people you want to send the email to.

"Cc:" is well known as well. It stands for "carbon copy" and will send a duplicate message to any addresses entered there.

"Bcc:" is not so well known, and probably the most important box. It stands for "blind carbon copy" and functions like the To: or Cc: box but with one important difference: when several addresses are entered into the Bcc: box, all of the extra addresses are stripped from each recipients copy. The only email addresses they see are yours and their own.

The Bcc: box is important when sending one email to many different people, many of whom do not know each other, and most of whom would appreciate you not sharing their email address with several hundred of your closest strangers.

I'm sure right now, you have at least one message in your inbox with addresses of 10 or 15 relative strangers included at the top. If the originator of the message had used the Bcc: box, you would not see any of those addresses. If you decide to forward that email, all those addresses will be forwarded too, and likely to people who are complete unknowns to address owner. This is how email addresses eventually end up in the hands of spammers. It also greatly increases the size of the email, which can be a problem for congested networks and people still stuck on dial up. I once received a 20 word email with more than 700 addresses pasted onto the top. It was from a department chair letting every single education major in the university know about a class that was added for the next semester.

Unless it is absolutely vital that each person you send something to know who else has received it, use the Bcc: field; you'll make a lot of people (or at least me) very happy.

I never figured

I'd ever be at a place in my life where I have a strong preference on my measuring cups and spoons, but here I am. The size of the cup or spoon must be stamped, engraved or printed in raised letters, not merely painted or printed on. The printing wears off after a few washings, and before long you have no clue if you're holding a 1 or 1/2 teaspoon utensil.

Getting older does strange things to you, sometimes.

We (Nomi and I) often talk about

what we're going to do with our "dream house," that is the house we build once we win the lottery (almost certain to never happen because we don't play the lotto) and after moving into our new apartment I've decided that our dream house will have a stupid number electrical outlets. I'm talking a pair of outlets every four feet in every room, hallway, garage, shed and even outside (Probably not the bathroom.). When placing furniture, the last consideration should be "Am I blocking the only useful outlet in the room?" You should be able to place a computer desk at any point in any room without worrying about the availability of plugs. As for outside, I want to run a minimal amount of extension cords when hanging Christmas Lights.

A question for Mayor Bieter

In high school, did your friends call you Egg?

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

[The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated]

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

I came across

an interesting theory regarding homosexuality, and how people truly opposed to homosexuality should actually be in favor of gay marriage. The argument goes something like this: It is generally argued, at least by thoes who are themselves gay, that being gay is not a "choice;" I certainly have never heard someone say, "Well, I could have been straight, but I just prefer to be gay." This implies that homosexuality is genetic, that certain people are predisposed to homosexuality the same way I am predisposed to being left-handed. If homosexuality is indeed genetic, then it is an inheritable trait that can be passed from from parents to children. If being homosexual is demonized, and thoes who harbor these impulses are critcized and ostracized for their behavior, then many of these people will seek to hide or suppress their natural inclinations in a heterosexual partnership or marriage. If this occurs, children will almost certainly result, therefore passing a predisposition to homosexuality on to a new generation. If homosexuality was not considered a problem, and gays and lesbians were allowed to live their lives as they chose, the result would be fewer births among thoes who consider themselves homosexual, and in a few generations, the problem would "breed itself out."

While I appretiate this line of thinking for encouraging rights and tolerance for homosexuals, it does so for the wrong reasons, and intent is as important as results. This line of reasoning is nothing more than eugenics, and a truly horrible thing to encourage under the guise of helping other attain an equal standing in society.

This

makes me happy.

Guantanamo Bay has never reallly sat well with me, and has sort of become a symbol of the ever-expanding power of the executive branch. Of course, this does not mean that "Gitmo" (in military parlance) will be shut down; merely that the president's preferred method of bringing the suspects held there to trial is illegal, and he will either have to persue conventional means of administering justice, or ask congress for permission to do it another way (which is what he should have done in the first place; I don't buy this idea that a state of war, as quasi-exists now, gives the President a blank check to do as he pleases in defense of the counrty.)

For me, the ethical/moral quandry here is more important than the legal one. Just because these people are alleged to have taken up arms against the U.S. and are not necessarily members of a standing army (in the modern sense) does not give us the right to toss out the rule book when dealing with them. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a vigorous defense of our sovereignty and long to see thoes who have worked to cause us harm brought to justice, but if we do so in a way that violates very deeply held beliefs about the rights of an individual or limits on the powers of the government, what good are we? We cannot, in good faith, state that our offenses against this or that individual are excused because they are lesser than the individuals' offenses against us. President Bush denounces these prisoners as enemies of freedom and democracy; are we not much the same if we deny democratic processes to those that need it most? Certainly, anyone who is convinced of U.S. treachery in and disdain of Arabs and the Middle East need look no further than how readily we abandon our much vaunted principles of being equal before the law and having acess to due process.

If nothing else, this will help ensure that the detainees (ever notice that the Bush aministration never says 'prisoners?') will have better access to an impartial court to hear their case, and hopefully show President Bush that he cannot act with impunity.

I'm having trouble

understanding how self-described conservatives can still support the Republican party. From what I'm told being conservative (broadly) means you support smaller, less intrusive government and a conservative social agenda. As near as I can tell, this is not was the GOP is about anymore. During the past six years, Republicans have contolled the white house, enjoyed a majority in the House and at least a near-majority in the Senate (it's gone back and forth a little). In essence, Congress and the President have repeatedly been faced with two questions: "Do we expand federal power or reign it in? Do we increase spending or limit it?" They have repeatedly chosen to increase authority and spending, and I fail to see how that falls in line with a conservative political agenda.

As far as the social side of conservativism, I see little action on that front either. Where are the debates on abortion, or prayer in schools? How about some concern for the divorce rate, or displaying the 10 Commandments in court houses? Any discussion of teen pregnancy/promiscuity/abstinence or family issues? None that I can see. Drug abuse & alcoholism? Not on the national agenda. About all that has happened is President Bush has appointed some right-leaning judges and had that faith-based initiatives thing early in his tenure. Congress has broached the subject of banning gay marriage twice, but that issue is so incredibly divisive that it has almost no chance of passing (it lost two votes in the senate the second time around despite the GOP gaining some seats) and, more recently, has been trying to ban flag burning and desecration, a move calculated, I think, to pander to their conservative base. There has been lots discussion about immigration reform, but thus far no action, and given the complexity of the issue it will be while before anything happens. But at least their talking about it.

So what am I missing? Can anyone reading this explain why a conservative would continue to vote republican, (at least on the federal level; I'm sure there are State and local officials who are Republican and still conservative)? Is it merely that some people can't bring themselves to vote Democrat, or is perhaps the recent expansion of federal powers acceptable because of the war on terror? I really would like to know; this isn't me just dumping on the GOP. For the record, I don't understand why people still vote Democrat either; they have almost utterly failed to offer an actual alternative to Republicans. It seems their national platform is "Hey, at least we're not the GOP!"

We sold our TV

and it was the greatest $15 we ever made, and now ranks 3rd on my personal list Greatest Things Ever (#1 is marrying Nomi, #2 is Sydney). If I had known that not having a TV is the great, I would have given it away. If there were no takers, I would shot the damn thing. It's really hard to see how much time was wasted on that stupid thing until you get rid of it. I propose a challenge to (all) my reader(s): Get rid of the TV for week. Don't just turn it off; you'll forget and turn it back on. Don't just unplug it; you'll be reminded constantly of what you're not watching. Get it out of the house. Put it in the shed, put in the garage, stuff it in a closet, loan it to your cousin.

You won't miss it, I promise, after the first day or so.

You may ask, ok, I got rid of the TV, now what?

Whatever you want. Have dinner, at an actual dinner table with your family. Read a book (may I reccommend Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis? I just started it and it's blowing my mind). Go for a walk. Attend a city council meeting. Take a nap. Almost any activity conceivable is better than watching TV, and anything you might have done before while watching TV will be done better without the damned thing in the house. I had no idea what could be accomplished in the space of a single "Friends" rerun.

Trust me. Try it. You might not want it back.

A fad I can't wait to see end:

The melding of famous couples first names. First we had "Bennifer," now witness, "Brangelina."

Ugh.

Sign of the times

You can tell the bands that people really like because they go to the trouble of actually paying for the music.

Lies, damned lies, and ...

I just saw a Trojan condom commercial that stated "50,000 people a day in America get an STD." If you follow that logic to it's conclusion, in just over 16 years every single person in America will have an STD.

Ave Maria, FL

This is really fascinating. First off, let me serve up the relevant websites. You can find many articles on the web or you can visit the official web site but I recommend this article. It's almost a year old, but it's the most in depth article I've come across and it's where I draw most of my information.

Now, on to a summary and my thoughts.

Thomas Monaghan, founder and former owner of Domino's Pizza is a devout and very conservative Catholic, and has spent hundreds of millions of his own dollars advancing that philosophy. His latest endeavor is the the town and university of Ave Maria to be built on 5,000 privately held acres in Florida. Ave Maria University is the first major Catholic University to be built in about 40 years and the surrounding town will be a planned community built on Catholic values. According to speeches given by Mr. Monaghan, contraceptives will not be available in Ave Maria, along with pornography and the cable networks will not carry adult programming. Small chapels will be within walking distance of every home. A large cathedral will be the town's centerpiece and mass will be said every hour, seven days a week, starting at six AM. Homeowners will own their land outright, but all commercial real estate will owned by Mr. Monaghan and Barron Collier Companies, a large development company, and will be leased to business owners. This way Mr. Monaghan can include clauses in the lease like "thou shalt not sell rubbers."

There is some discussion among the planners about how "Catholic" Ave Maria will be. When asked about it, a spokesman for Barron Collier Companies said, "It's an ongoing debate between our company and Tom." And the Reverend Joseph Fessio, SJ, the ranking priest at Ave Maria University is a little more low key as well.

This idea is fascinating to me, and it raises a huge number of questions. The administration of Ave Maria will be an interesting mixture of private enterprise, government and religion. It goes without saying that litigation is inevitable. Already, the ACLU is raising objections, but, if I may, that also goes without saying.

I don't think the legale obstacles are as great as some make them out to be. Because it is all private land, Monaghan is free to require busisnessmen to eschew contraceptives and porn; there aresimilarr zoning laws restricting access to a wide variety of productss and services in nearly every city in the nation. As for abortions, women may have a constitutional right to seek one, but I do not believe anyone has a constitutional obligation to provide one. The leaders of Ave Maria would not be able have a religious requirement for prospective business or home owners, so a Jewish family could buy a home there if they wanted to, though there will certainly be a tremendous amount of self-selection. Also, Ave Maria could not require residents to attend mass, nor could they criminalize the practice of a person's religion of choice. The only issue, off hand, that I think may prove troublesome is if, say, a Baptist or the LDS Church wanted to buy land to build a church of their own. Mr. Monaghan, at least, would not want other denominations in Ave Maria, but I don't think they could deny them the right to build their church.

However, just because something is legal doesn't mean it's a good idea. This town, for most intents and purposes, will have a "Catholics Only" sign at the gate, and I'm not sure this is what the Church wants or needs. Also, because a church is being built and priests are involved, it has the implicit approval of the Vatican; priestly assignments and authority flows from the Vatican, through the Church hierarchy to the individual priest. Indeed, the Vatican may yet interceded; it is my understanding that parishes must get annual permission to have more than one mass on Sunday, and, regardless of how many masses they are allowed, an individual priest may not say more than three masses each day, which makes it difficult to hold 12 or more masses each day, especially when you consider the shortage of Catholic priests. I'm also not certain that a withdrawal (of sorts) from the world is the best route for salvaging a lost spirituality or combating what evils you perceive rampant in the land.

A question my sister raised: There is a constant debate on weather or not teaching children about contraceptives contributes to teenage promiscuity and pregnancy; it will be interesting so see (if everything goes well) what Ave Maria's teen pregnancy rate is in a few years.

The first homes in Ave Maria will for sale sometime next year, and AMU's enrollment (they're currently operating out of a temporary location in Naples) is approaching 400. Developers predict a population of twenty to thirty thousand in ten years or so and say they've had more than 8,000 inquiries on their web site and that AMU is already developing a reputation as a high-quality institution.

Whatever happens, this will be an interesting experiment and I will be following it closely. I invite you to post any thoughts you might have.

How is it

that hasbrowns are a breakfast food, but tater tots, which are exactly hasbrowns but with a different morphology, are not?

So, I showed my sister

Yatta, both the original and the Irrational Exuberance version (neiter of which makes much sense but this translation of the lyrics takes the edge off) and all she had to say was "Monstera deliciosa! Thoes aren't fig leaves! They're split-leaf philodendrons, they are!" She went on to explain that they really aren't philodendrons.

"That can't be all the beer, can it?"

He sounded really worried that the two endcaps, featuring mostly Bud, Coors and Keystone, was all the beer in the store.

"The rest is on aisle 8."

"Aisle 8," he repeated with a sigh. "Excellent."

And off he went.

Was surfing

some random blogs, something I haven't done a while, and was upset to find 4 spam blogs in the 20 or so that I visited. I flaged them, and hopefully Google will have the good sense to remove them.

This is kinda fun....

The UPC Database online. Plug in a UPC and see what it belongs to. You can also add UPCs that are not in the database. It knew what my copy of H&R Block TaxCut was, but I had to add the Brita filters we just bought (though it did know that it was form the Brita company). There is also and interesting (to the geekish type anyway) explaination of what the numbers in a UPC mean.

In the news

Google just launched Chinese version of it's search engine. In a major concession to Chinese government, it is self-censoring. For a company who's unofficial motto is "Don't be evil," the fact that they bent over in the name almighty dollar raises some interesting moral/ethical questions. By the way, I checked it out and tried some very risque image searches and it was like the internet was scrubbed clean. Check it out yourself

Genealogy

I have long wanted to buy some genealogy software and begin tracing my roots. Recently, I came across some info on my great-great uncle, Rev. William Ferree, S.M., Ph.D. (1905-1985), that clinched it for me. It turns out, in addition to being a Catholic Priest, he was a professor of philosophy and greatly interested in social justice. here is a short bio of the man, and here (.pdf)is something he wrote in 1948.

I'll be posting more as I come across it, I think.