Nothing of significance

I've been trolling the internet this evening, but I can't seem to find anything important to post about. A few random reflections...

There's some speculation that Hillary may run in 2004. Can you believe it? (To me, it looks like a possible NY Senate race against Rudy Giuliani has her running scared).

Kobe, Kobe, Kobe. We were listening to the Score on our way up to Chicago Friday, and we definitely had our fill. The only person in this whole mess that I feel too much sympathy for is his daughter Natalia, who turned six months old on Saturday. I was inclined to feel sympathy for his wife before I stopped to listen to the press conference. While I found her statement brave, it somehow bothered me that she acted like the adultery was such a minor problem. Less than three weeks this occurs, here she is the deed was done, here she is at the press conference trumpeting what a great person her husband is, "I know Kobe better than anyone. The great person you see on the court and in the public is a far greater person off the court." Perhaps I'm being a bit too old-fashioned here, but in my opinion truly great people don't jeopardize their marriage and their career by cheating on their spouses.

I really liked that new Black-Eyed Peas song until I realized two things. #1 Justin Timberlake is featured within this tune #2 The following lyrics:

"Overseas, yeah, we try to stop terrorism, But we still got terrorists here livin’, In the USA, the big CIA, The Bloods and The Crips and the KKK"

I am sure that not-so-wonderful things happen within the CIA occasionally, but overall they are here to protect the American public. I find it offensive that hundreds of Americans who are working hard and (in some cases) risking their lives to ensure our security...that they can be compared to the KKK and gang-bangers by these few musicians who are doing zilch to serve and protect our great nation. How their blood must boil when they hear this song...

That's it for now. Hopefully there will be some more interesting news tomorrow.

Random notes

My husband thinks this is hilarious. If the glove doesn't fit, then you must induct Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame. (So asserts Johnnie Cochran in a mock trail against Alan Dershowitz at ESPN.com)

Lee Anne Millinger discusses an interesting article over at Boundless on watching your words and being a better listener. This is of particular interest to me, as I am one of the people mentioned in the article who will talk about anything to avoid an uncomfortable silence. I also have a tendency towards gossip and impatient interruption that I am working to mollify at present. The article is definitely worth a read though for Christians and anyone just pondering what it means to be a "better person".

That last sentence makes me think of How to Be Good. Nick Hornby anyone? It's a more philosophical book than High Fidelity or About a Boy, questioning some of society's PC mantra and chronicling one woman's attempts to make herself a "better person". I definitely found it worth a read...can't wait to see the move in a few years. :) Any guesses on who will be cast as the female equivalent of John Cusack/Hugh Grant?

Prayers and best wishes go out to Meredith over at Inner Monologues as she recovers from a scary-sounding fall down a flight of steps.

That's it for now. Leaving for another wedding tomorrow but I'm hoping to post sometime this weekend. Enjoy!

Illinigirl salutes a liberal...

Let it never be said that I won't give liberals credit when credit is due. Tony Blair's speech to Congress today was stirring and impressive. In one short speech, he managed to refocus the discourse on the war on terrorism where it belongs -- that this is all about fighting "the virus of terrorism" and to prevent terrorist organizations from "dividing the world in hate".

I do realize that Tony Blair is just about as socially liberal as they come. However, by no means do I think that he is a bad person. The past year has firmly convinced me that he is a man of principle. He stated his case for fighting this battles and has stood by his beliefs, despite taking a beating in the polls.

However when it comes to individuals like the Clintons and John Edwards, I just find it difficult to believe that they are in politics chiefly to make this world a better place. When I look at them, I see people who are in it for the power, the prestige, and the pocketbook. Everything they do seems calculated and manipulative, about putting themselves in a better situation politically.

This is not to say that the Bush administration is not guilty of some such behavior. I have been pretty disappointed as I watched the President back away from his promises on Title IX and create large federal entitlement programs like the recent prescription drug benefit package. I think these were moves that the adminstration felt they had to make, to maintain a certain degree of popularity and win favor by handing out "free ice-cream" (tm byron) to the moderates.

The difference between political conservatives and political liberals does not have to be that great. In many cases, we want the same things for individuals in our country. We want them to be free, to have jobs, to put food on the table, to have access to health care. The difference is that I, the conservative, would like to see these changes accomplished through tough defense, a roaring free market, and private or religious charity. I just don't happen to believe that the federal government is the most effective and/or appropriate means of dealing with these problems. I'd like to see tolerance come about as a result of a natural change in our society, people valuing one another for who they are regardless of ethnicity or special-interest affiliation...not as the result of laws that magically grant some minority groups more privileges than others.

Bobby A-G and Kevin Holtsberry have recently written about the media's misuse of language regarding politics. "Soundbyte rhetoric" is in full effect lately, as each one of the nine presidential candidates has been spewing the most controversial, confrontational accusations in order to get his voice heard. (Or her voice heard -- can't forget Illinois's own shady Carol Mosely-Braun!)

I have not seen one candidate that has the courage to support the President on this war...even though several of them voted for it just months ago. (If this uranium evidence was so troubling, why didn't they look into it after the SOTU address? It's no more their job to do so than it is that of the president.)

How refreshing it was to turn on the news today and see a liberal politician with principles...even if it's too bad we had to cross the Atlantic Ocean to find one. Tonight, Illinigirl salutes Tony Blair.

Notes on uranium mania

Hello, mainstream media? Just for future reference, I do not care about the veracity of one English claim about Iraq buying uranium from Africa. The fact here is that intelligence agencies supplied this information to the president -- perhaps not as concrete fact but as a reasonable assertion. It's not the President's job to be a CIA agent as well. He (or his speechwriters) took the best information supplied and ran with it. Condi Rice has been quoted as saying, "The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety," Rice said. "If the CIA — the director of Central Intelligence — had said, 'Take this out of the speech,' it would have been gone...We wouldn't put anything knowingly in the speech that was false." I believe her.

Wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on a hearing to "prove" one line of an enormous speech? Ridiculous.

Hello, Democratic senators and presidential candidates? Your false bravado and predictions about exposing Bush as a liar are not going to win you votes with mainstream Americans. Extremely partisan Democrats might be impressed, but they are already in your corner.

Hello, Terry McAuliffe? "This may be the first time in recent history that a president knowingly misled the American people during the State of Union address" Do you understand how ironic that statement sounds? Not to mention just plain untruthful.

I have wasted far too much bandwidth discussing this already. Let's stop to consider a few facts we do know that point towards Iraq's involvement with biochemical and nuclear weapons:

* Weapons evidence against Iraq, circa 1998
* Iraq made life tough for weapons inspectors
* UN report on 22 pounds of uranium that may have been stolen from Iraq's largest nuclear research facility

* More to follow later as time/research allows.

Explanations? Excuses?
So much for posting soon. Let's just say that life has not been cooperating the past week or so. Mother Nature apparently did not want me to blog last week, as Central Illinois was suffering from hurricane-force windstorms and flash floods.

On Tuesday, the Best Buy store in Bloomington lost its big, neon twenty foot yellow tag to either excessive winds or a never-confirmed funnel cloud. Wednesday night, Champaign-Urbana reported torrential flash-floods, and Normal had rains of "hundred-year flood proportions" hit Normal -- 8 inches in 6 hours. An area creek over-flowed and left firefighters rescuing the employees of an area pizza place. (If you haven't ever had Monical's Pizza, you are missing out. It's one of the best kept secrets in the Midwest).

So two nights during the week that I could blog...we had no power. The weekend saw the husband and I leaving town as we were both standing up in the wedding of two close friends. Where did we head off to? Ronald Reagan's old stomping grounds in Dixon, affectionately referred to by my family as "the land that time forgot". It's one of the few places I have been in the Midwest where one could drive through downtown and forget what decade it really is. The wedding was lovely, but we arrived home Sunday exhausted.

All that being said, let me thank God that we (and our house) made it through the week intact and get down to posting. I can't promise much in the way of thoughtful, long-winded posts until life settles down in August, but I will be around.

My summer vacation...
Wunderbar! I'm back. Refreshed and somewhat renewed, but the trip was definitely not long enough. It did allow for me to spend the Fourth frolicking in the ocean and reading under a cabana though, so I cannot complain. Now as for my "all-day waterproof SPF 48" sunscreen that still allowed for me to turn lobster-red...well that's another story.

Rejuvenating. The week off was a relief for both the body and the soul -- allowing sometime for soul-searching, reading Mere Christianity, Bible study, and reflection. To quote a wise man for whom I have tremendous respect (my father), "You cannot control other people's actions, all you can control is your reaction to them."

Southern. I love the Southeast. I'm not sure why. It may be the architecture or the leisurely pace of life or the food or the history. Every time I vacation near Charleston (SC), Savannah, or New Orleans, I leave town convinced that I was born in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Harrowing. Want to know the definition of the word? Navigating through Hartsfield International Airport the Sunday night after the Fourth of July.

Enjoyable. Finally saw a few good movies. I cannot say enough great things about Bend It Like Beckham. It the first movie I have seen in ages that left me feeling happy and inspired. Well worth my $8.50 and I am one cheap little lady!

That's it for now. Catching up on household tasks and others' blogs, but I hope to have a few good offerings tomorrow.

administrative notes

Just a quick note -- I apologize for the long unanticipated absence. I have been dealing with a great deal of turmoil in my personal life over the last week, and I've also been working 10-11 hour days for my most recent project. Put it all together and I've been in no shape to blog.

The reason I have time to blog today? I am on v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n! The hubby and I are taking off early tomorrow morning for five days on the beach in South Carolina. We haven't had a nice trip (unrelated to a wedding) in ages, and we are both really looking forward to this one. I ended up off the past two days to prepare, yet getting hardly anything done. Yesterday was spent recovering from yet another sinus virus and the severe sunburn I acquired Saturday. Today was spent packing and running errands, as we are embarking on a can't-put-if-off-any-longer bathroom renovation project and needed to finish alterations for weddings later in July.

Started a couple posts today, but none of them got finished and made the cut. Sadly, I must report that I will be spending the next five days sans computer on the South Carolina shore. If the resort has a terminal or I find an internet cafe, I will be certain to check in here. Otherwise enjoy the links on the right and have a wonderful Independence Day!

Remembering a legend

I was driving to work on Thursday morning at about 7:15 am. I flipped on WLS, expecting to hear the morning hosts Don and Roma talking about the United Nations or President Bush or boycotting French fries, or some other current event of temporary importance. Instead, I quickly deduced that Mr. Rogers was gone. Basically, it felt like I had been hit by a truck. One of my childhood friends was gone.

If you think about it, my generation has had very few well-known figures pass on. We were nothing more than (perhaps) a gleam in our parents' eyes when JRK or RFK or MLK were assassinated. While some entertainment figures have passed on in my lifetime -- Walter Matthau, John Candy, Kurt Cobain, Michael Landon, and River Phoenix come to mind. With the possible exception of Michael Landon on Little House, none of these men served as a role model for people of our generation. In today's world, animated vegetables are the only role models trying to teach children moral lessons on television. Technically, they aren't even on television -- you have to rent them at the video store!

Mr. Rogers though -- he pulled it off. He never was preachy like the adults on Sesame Street or elsewhere. He was your friend, so you wanted to listen to what he had to say. In lots of ways, you wanted to be like him -- kind, caring, and seemingly well-adjusted. He invited you into his home on a regular basis. You could depend on him to always do certain things. He'd come inside, change into slippers and a cardigan, feed his fish. Even as a child from a relatively stable, two-parent home, I appreciated the calm and stability that Mr. Rogers exuded. No matter where my life took me, I knew that Mr. Rogers would be on PBS, sending his trolley back into the make-believe world and providing well-reasoned explanations about the way the world works to confused children everywhere.

He was just an ordinary man who wanted to make the world a better place for children. While he may not have found a cure for cancer or negotiated a peace treaty, he influenced the lives of those who will. As many have remarked this week, the neighborhood seems much less beautiful now that he's gone.

ps. Lots of people have offered their two cents on Mr. Roger's passing, but this piece over at ejshea.com perhaps captures it best. Be sure to read his 2002 Dartmouth commencement speech as well. What a wonderful man.

pps. Realize this post may be a day late and a dollar short. Internet has been down, and the weather is still not helping my cold. Fiddling with a few other posts at the moment - hope to get them up soon.

Turkey notes

Had a lovely first Thanksgiving with my in-laws, for anyone who might be interested. I come from a relatively small and isolated family -- we usually just headed out to eat after the parades on Thanksgiving Day. It was quite a change to spend the day with my husband's family, in a house packed full of cousins and munchkins. I even made mashed potatoes from scratch for the first time, which was kind of fun. (Note to anyone interested: I am actually a pretty decent cook -- just inexperienced and lacking time to practice. My husband can vouch for that. And to anyone wondering, after being married for almost five weeks, it is still really weird to say/type that. I have a husband -- it makes me feel so old! Anyways...wonderful but weird).

We ended up driving around Central Illinois all weekend, as we had dinner with my parents on Saturday evening. During this meal, I made mention of the fact that I didn't want to see James Bond's new movie because of Halle Berry. Once again, I was forced to defend my boycott of liberal Hollywood's movies. My dad's exact comments were "So are you going to do that for everything? You don't know that the chef who cooked your pasta wasn't a liberal -- maybe you should send that back!" Maybe you had to be there. He has a point, but I still stand by my principle. I don't need my hard-earned money going to fund their agendas! Regardless, that will have to be a story for another day. Goodnight!

Where do you draw the line?

Decisions like today's split on Michigan's affirmative action policies are exactly the reason that I personally will never be able to support Sandra Day O'Connor for chief justice. Once again she has proven that she is not a true conservative in principle. While it's all fine and dandy to say that diversity is a wonderful thing, it is not the government's place to decide that one person's ethnicity makes them "worth more" than another. While I am happy the quotas were struck down, I am extremely disappointed that we are still influencing our assessment of people's capabilities based on something as trivial as the color of their skin.

Sorry if I sound grouchy. Chalk it up to me having a bad day and a rough week and this didn't perk me up one bit... The only pleasant, unexpected thing that happened today was I gained some respect for Stephen Breyer. What a strange week so far...

AMENDED: Mark Byron has up the best blogglet that I have seen on the topic so far...a snippet that I particularly liked follows.

"This case starts to look like the racial gerrymandering cases of the last decade, where Sandra and friends tried to figure out how funky a districting map could get before it was unconstitutional, leaving them in the old obscenity definition of knowing it when you see it. Where the heck is the line, Sandy?"

Friday Fives

I'm really exhausted and encountering a mental block as to positng topics -- so here goes nothing.

Friday Five for June 20th

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short?
Pretty straight. Usually cycles between long and chin-length.

2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime?
It's gone from an honest strawberry-blonde to strawberry-golden-brown.

3. How do your normally wear your hair?
On my head? I don't know. I still rely on scrunchies & barrettes too much for a 25 year-old, but I just don't have the patience for styling.

4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like?
It would have more body and perhaps be curly.

5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened?
I let the two neighbor boys across the street cut it when we were four and five respectively. BAD idea.

Friday Five for June 13th

1. What's one thing you've always wanted to do, but never have?
Be on Jeopardy. I almost made it at 16, but my knowledge of useless trivia has decreased markedly since then.

2. When someone asks your opinion about a new haircut/outfit/etc, are you always honest?
I think I'm honest but gentle. I give good feedback with bad...that sort of thing.

3. Have you ever found out something about a friend and then wished you hadn't? What happened?
I have found out things about friends that I wished weren't true. I am not sure that I mind knowing the truth about people. We all make mistakes. When I find out an unpleasant truth about someone, it just gives me a better idea of the person they are, how they respond to adversity, whether they make amends...that sort of thing. I have never had to deal with such an unpleasant truth that I couldn't forgive a person. Although in the worst cases, our trust in one another was destroyed and never regained to the same level.

4. If you could live in any fictional world (from a book/movie/game/etc.) which would it be and why?
Tough call. I'd say Gone With the Wind, but the Civil War frightens me a bit. Anne of Green Gables? The Cosby Show?

5. What's one talent/skill you don't have but always wanted?
I would have loved to have exceptional musical talent, but I am not sure I have the right disposition and willingness to practice hours on end.

Questioning academic freedom on campus? Look in the mirror

Josh Claybourn writes on how he recently contributed to an article written by collegiate Daniel P Denvir in the latest issue of Academe (magazine of the American Assocation of University Professors) last month. In this article, Mr. Denvir argues that most conservatives would like to squelch academic freedom on campus. Consider this ill-supported, fallicy-laden excerpt from Denvir's piece. (Josh cites this passage as well, but I have a somewhat different point to make).

"The right's target is not the violation of student freedom of thought but, rather, the fact that certain thoughts and questions are being raised at all. The right would seem to prefer that issues like race, class, and nationhood be kept simple and static."

Au contraire Mr. Denvir! In my experience, conservatives are the ones who are upset that certain thoughts and questions are NOT being raised at all. At this point in academia, certain issues that are still debated in regular society are now accepted as fact. For example, the question of whether paying so much attention to race, class, and nationhood is a good thing for the overall cohesiveness of our society. While I truly appreciate diversity in my friends and colleagues, I do not think that schools and workplaces should be trying to instill this in us as a moral and constantly throwing support at separatist affinity groups.

While I agree that one should practice tolerance of people with different sexualities, religions, or cultures, I feel that this means we should treat everyone with the same basic courtesy that we expect as people. I don't think that we have to celebrate viewpoints that a substantial number of people believe are morally wrong and/or destructive to harmony within our society. In academia though, multiculturalism is something that most college campuses want to celebrate at all costs. Meanwhile extracurriculars like athletics that promote understanding and teamwork between people of different races, ethnicities, and backgrounds are being cut left and right, while schools continue to shell out big bucks for diversity speakers and programs.

In my experience, it is the conservative who struggles to get his ideas heard in the classroom. It's the conservative who worries that he will be embarassed or punished if he voices his opinion. On college campuses today, fighting the establishment means standing up against the politically-correct mantra that is now seemingly accepted as gospel truth. I agree that there is a place for extremely liberal professors within academia, but I will happily help expel professors who knowingly and illegally contribute to terrorist organizations. (It's not free thought, it's the law). I will also argue that such extremist professors should not be allowed to wield the significant amounts of power that some currently hold on campus. Finally, students should not be mandated to participate in such "diversity" classes (as several local private liberal arts schools are currently proposing). If nothing else, it could be hostile to some students' academic careers. If I were to take a class like "How to Be Gay", given my viewpoints on the subject I would probably flunk it.

Let me close with a personal anecdote here. When I was a senior in college, I was lucky enough to have the pleasure of meeting Dinesh D'Souza. He was invited to my college through an endowment as our speaker that year. Even before his visit, the more liberal students and professors on campus started to complain. They weren't just complaining that D'Souza was a poor choice of speaker. It was not as if our college never had liberal speakers...we'd had Angela Davis that same year for crying out loud. They were objecting to the fact that he was being allowed to come our campus and say such hurtful, hateful things. (Their words, not mine)

Their protests fell on deaf ears, and the evening went off quite well. The auditorium was packed, and Mr. D'Souza gave an intelligent, interesting speech on assimilation into American culture and his personal experience. A few people in the audience became quite agitated and angrily asked questions. He answered them in his usual calm, thoughtful demeanor. Some people booed his answers, but he responded quite graciously. I saw no hate, just his viewpoints. I was thrilled to meet him afterwards.

That evening sent liberal campus groups into a tizzy. There were fliers all over campus asking students to skip class on Friday and volunteer at multi-cultural and socioeconomically-correct charities in the community to show they objected to Mr. D'Souza's "hate-filled comments". About a third of the students skipped (some professors as well), and soon the school had called an all-campus forum to discuss his speech. Six professors took the stage, only one of them remotely supportive of Mr. D'Souza's right to be heard. Instead the panel talked for a couple hours about how his viewpoints were harmful to the campus "community". When an acquaintance opined that they might be misinterpreting D'Souza's speech, he was told that he couldn't understand because he wasn't black. (That forum was actually a turning point for that friend and his family. They have since abandoned the liberal ways of their youth, left academia, and became conservatives. So thank you Mr. D'Souza for giving the speech that prompted my friends' conversion to the conservative cause...changing lives when you didn't even know it).

One of my biggest regrets about my college experience is that I did not stand up and more obviously object to the firestorm or controversy that followed D'Souza's speech. I was fully immersed in my senior honors thesis at the time, and I was preoccupied with graduating with honors and Phi Beta Kappa. I wasn't certain that the school's PBK committee would still invite me to join if I had voice my disagreement. I abandoned my rebuttal column for the student newspaper on how "I would be in class that Friday afternoon because I believed the freedom of expression and intellectual inquiry", and I posted it anonymously on a college internet board instead. A moment of cowardice of which I am not proud...but I was very attached to such pretentious academic honors at that point my life.

So in response to Mr. Denvir's assertion that conservatives are the ones attempting to suppress intellectual freedom on campus, I must disagree. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.