Conservatism

I was never very interested in politics until...well, really until Bush Jr. got into office. I always figured that things sort of evened themselves out over time. Also, I wasn't a US citizen, so I couldn't really do anything about it anyway. I got my US citizenship in 2000 - just in time to vote in that election. Lotta good that did. I've slowly gotten more and more active - enough that I actually went in and volunteered to work on Charlie Brown's campaign for Congress against that lying, carpetbagging, scumbag Tom McClintock (did I just say that out loud?) because I felt so strongly about it (McClintock won - barely).

My son seems to have grown up with a highly developed sense of fairness. Being raised by me and two dads, he's been a gay rights activist from a fairly young age. He also refused to join a fraternity because they required a declaration that there might be some sort of higher being, and he felt that that discriminated against me (I think the "frat" part of that would probably have excluded me, anyway).

He's taking a Problems in American Politics class this semester. I keep getting calls immediately after he gets out of class that go something like this:

Me: Hi William. How much money do you need?

William: CONSERVATIVES ARE SO %@#$ing STUPID!

Me: Uh...yes, but...

William: ALL THEY %@#%ing WANT IS TO MAKE THE RICH RICHER AND THE POOR POORER!!!

Me: Um...Yeah, I think that's pretty much a given. Some of them don't feel....

William: My professor is trying to give a balanced viewpoint and let us draw our own conclusions.

Me: And your conclusion is...

William: Conservatives are MORONS!!

Me: *hysterical laughter*

William: We're learning about the healthcare debate this week. Oh, and I need to use PhotoShop for a class. Could I please have $60 dollars for 2 gigs of RAM so I can run it on my computer?

Me: *sigh* Try asking your dads first.

I was telling my mother about this conversation, and she completely agreed with William. I got almost the same response from her, without quite so many vulgarities. At least I didn't end up sending her money.

Exactly how long can I hold a grudge?

I wouldn't say I was mechanically inclined overall, but I do enjoy DIY projects. For instance, I decided to extend the patio with paving stones several years ago, and did most of it myself while Bill looked on (slightly bewilderedly, I think - especially when I started digging an enormous hole in his backyard). I love putting things together from kits. This may have started when my brother and I got build-it-yourself crystal radio sets for Christmas one year. Only one station came in clearly, but I would lie awake at night listening to Houston Aeros Hockey (Go Gordie Howe! (Oh, wait. Does that date it?)), and the CBS Radio Mystery Theater with E. G. Marshall (Until next time,....Pleasant....dreams?). I wasn't allowed to have my light on to read (which I would have done all night if allowed), but I could listen to my radio without my parents knowing.

I also like messing around with cars. I once replaced the brakes and brake rotors on my Saturn (with minor help from my brother) and then spent the next eight years mildly surprised that the wheels hadn't fallen off yet.

Soon after he got his driver's license, my son got a 1988 Jeep Wrangler and he and I spent hours tinkering with the engine, trying to keep it running, during which time I think we taught each other some new swear words and spent way more money on parts than I could really afford. We actually managed to replace the head gasket on it at one point. After a few months, we gave up and got him a Honda Civic instead.

Just before William was born, David and I started having trouble with our Dodge Colt. It turned out to be a fusible link, and all we needed to do was twist the wires back together to keep it working for another couple of weeks, until it would burn through again (probably not the safest thing to do). When William was about a month old, it finally got so short the wires barely reached, so I went to Kragen Auto Parts, parked the car, unclipped the fusible link, carried it in, and told the guy I wanted a new one (I'm sure I said please, actually. I used to be extremely polite). He had absolutely no idea what it was.

While I was looking around to see if I could find one myself, William suddenly spat up - all over the floor. Fairly embarrassed, I bent down and started to wipe it up with William's blanket, and the guy suddenly loomed over me and said, "Does your husband know you're messing around with the car?"

Excuse me??? Today, I would probably tell him exactly what I thought of him, but at the time, I was only 24, and still had a lot of trouble talking to strangers (even after working with the general public for years). I couldn't think of anything to say to that. I didn't want to tell him that I knew WAY more about cars than my husband, because that would have been insulting to David. I mumbled something, finished wiping the floor, stood up, and carried William out. And refused to go back to Kragen Auto - any Kragen Auto - for about 16 years. I plugged the fusible link back into the engine and drove down the street to Grand Auto where they actually knew what it was and were able to help me.

Pet peeves

This is a completely gratuitous post on: Things that irritate me or How to piss me off.

• Fundamentalist religionuts and any pseudoscientific garbage, but those are just a given.


• Mispronunciations. Especially people who mispronounce nuclear as nuke-yoo-lar (our favorite former commander-in-chief, for instance), realtor REE-lit-or (I've know actual realtors who can't pronounce this word) and mispronunciation mis-pro-noun-see-ay-shun. Bill is completely unable to pronounce labyrinth and pronounces it lab-er-nith, but that's just cute.*


• People who say irregardless. The word is either regardless or irrespective, people! Pick one, but don't combine them. From my 1974 edition of Webster’s New World Dictionary, irregardless is defined as a substandard or humorous redundancy for REGARDLESS.


• Snowboarders, with the exception of Kia, with whom I've never skied, and my son. He irritates me for other reasons. Snowboarders don't seem to have the brain capacity to understand that most skiers go back and forth across the slope, not straight down, and seem to be constantly surprised when skiers turn and go the other way right into their path such that they scream by at 50 mph barely missing and frightening the skier (me, anyway) half to death. In addition, skis make a pleasant shush, shushing sound - snowboards literally roar as they go by. I'm constantly swearing at snowboarders and calling them fracking moron idiots under my breath. Redundant, I know, but it makes me feel better. Ok, I don't always say fracking. Frelling? Smegging? (30 points if you can name all three Sci Fi shows - without a search engine). One ran into me earlier this year on a completely wide open slope with just the two of us on it, and then was bent out of shape when I yelled, "moron" at him (more out of fear and surprise than malice. Ok, maybe there was a little malice).


• Led vs. Lead.
  
  Lead (lěd) - a heavy, comparatively soft, malleable, bluish-gray metal, sometimes found in its natural state but usually combined as a sulfide, esp. in galena. Symbol: Pb; atomic weight: 207.19; atomic number: 82; specific gravity: 11.34 at 20°C.
  
  Lead (lēd) - to go before or with to show the way; conduct or escort
  
  Led (lěd) - the past tense of lead.
  
  LED - light emitting diode


• Fracking big SUVs, perhaps just when they're driven by idiots. UPDATE: Andrew reminded me that it's a general rule that fracking big SUVs are always driven by idiots.


• People who say Safety Deposit Box. It is SAFE Deposit Box, people! We just watched an episode of Fringe where ALL the characters said safety deposit box over and over and over. I, of course, had to yell, "SAFE! The word is SAFE!" every time. Yeah, okay. I was probably more annoying than they were. Probably. Same thing happened recently with an episode of Alias.


• Bigotry of any sort against anybody for any reason. Except snowboarders. Bigotry against snowboarders is fine.


• Cruelty to animals. Humans included.


• Having the television on just as noise in the background. I'm constantly coming into the living room and turning it off because NO ONE IS WATCHING IT! Unless I'm watching something in particular, I don't like it on at all. I have happily gone without TV for years at a time (I did use it to watch movies occasionally).

When I asked Bill to list things that irritate me, he said, "People who make slight grammatical errors and misproNOUNciations" (I already had that on the list). "And people who don't change lanes soon enough for you." No, Bill. That's just YOU.

*NOTE: Bill says he's not cute, he's ruggedly handsome.

(Note to self - figure out why there are no bullet points. Barry, help???)
UPDATE: Ok, now I have the funky flowers, but I guess they're better than nothing

Wild what chase?

As I've mentioned in a previous post, since they retired, my parents have become licensed wild animal rehabilitators. What this means for the rest of us (that would be me and my brother), is that we can only visit at certain times of the year - when there are no baby animals. Otherwise, my mother is too busy feeding babies and doctoring injured adults to even speak coherently. She wears herself to the bone, and my father is just as busy going out on calls to pick up injured adults or more baby animals and taking many of them to one of several (wonderful) vets in the area that will administer to wild animals for free. My parents still end up spending A LOT of their own money on medical supplies, housing and food.

Other implications: They always need food for the carnivores. My father actually drives to a nearby state to pick up dead rats from a research facility. Once I was with my father and we passed a recently dead squirrel. My father slammed on the brakes, reached under the seat, pulled out a plastic bag, and handed it to me. I didn't even have to ask. I just jumped out, ran back and picked up the squirrel (first making sure it was really dead and not just stunned-I didn't really want to be bitten by an angry squirrel), got back in the car, and we sped off. At least my parents draw the line at dead skunks. I think.

A few years ago, my father picked me up at the airport, and we were dragging my luggage into the house. My mother met us at the door, gave me a hug (we only hug now that we live in different states and don't see each other more than about once a year - we're still British, you know), and said to my father, "We got a bird call while you were gone. You've got to go and pick up a Turkey Vulture." My father looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I said, "Sure, I'll go! Sounds like fun!" My father threw a large dog crate and a couple of big nets into the back of his Chevy S10.

I've had some experience with vultures before, actually. I volunteered for a short while at the Raptor Center at UC Davis, and the Turkey Vultures were everyone's favorites. They are highly intelligent, and when we went in to feed or clean out their cages (talk about stinky), some of them were tame enough that they'd come over and untie our shoelaces. They may be lumped into the raptor (birds of prey) designation due to superficial resemblances, but there is genetic evidence that vultures aren't really raptors, but are far more closely related to storks. This also makes sense if you look at their feet. They don't have the grasping talons of hawks and owls, and so can't pick up their dinner and carry it away, or even catch it in the first place.

This particular fairly young vulture had been hiding out in a culvert near a harvested corn field during the day. In the afternoon, he would cross the road and go up to this family's porch where they were leaving out hot dogs and steak for him. He then spent the nights on their porch, fairly safe from predators. After a few days, they finally realized that he couldn't or wouldn't fly for some reason and wasn't going to go away, so they got in touch with my mother. My parents do not recommend feeding your friendly neighborhood vulture hot dogs, by the way. They're about as good for the vulture as they are for humans. However, hot dogs can fill in in a pinch if you don't happen to regularly collect roadkill like SOME people.

My father and I arrived, and the woman told us that he was probably across the road in the culvert where he had been spending his days, so we grabbed our nets and marched over. As soon as he saw us, the vulture took off running, with me and my father in hot pursuit. At the time, my father was still playing soccer regularly (he played until he was 66 or 67 and his knees finally gave out on him), so he was in pretty good shape. This vulture obviously couldn't fly for some reason, but he sure could run, especially when he used his wings to give him a boost. The recently harvested corn field was mucky and uneven, and the vulture just ran circles around us. At one point my father almost had him, but tripped and fell (actually injuring his knee). I would try to cut the vulture off, but he just veered off in another direction and stayed well ahead of me.

Finally, he got tired of running and decided to make a beeline for the house across the road, where there was more cover, and he had been safe on the porch. He was far ahead of both of us, and I was freaking out in case he got hit by a car as he crossed the relatively busy county road. He ran up to the road stopped and looked both ways and ran across. Yes. I couldn't believe my eyes. I yelled to my father, "Did he really just look both ways?" My father saw it, too. This Turkey Vulture was smarter than most 10 year old humans. In his many trips across the road, he had obviously had a close call or two and learned from them.

We chased him around the farmyard, and eventually managed to trap him up against a fence. My father grabbed him, and turned around and handed him to me so he could talk to the woman. I put my arm around this very large bird, pinning his wings, while my father told me, "Keep his head up! Keep his head up or he'll vomit on you!" Thanks Dad. NOW YOU TELL ME. I quickly grabbed the vulture's neck and lifted as he tried to lean down to retch - mouth open, tongue out. I carefully kept his body pinned against mine and gently, but firmly held his head up, while he panted at me and looked in my eye - promising to vomit if I allowed him the slightest opportunity. Great. He was also more than a little smelly.

We eventually stuffed him into the dog crate and drove home. This was a while ago, and my parents get so many animals each year that they don't remember what happened to this particular vulture. He was possibly released. If not, all their unreleasable vultures have ended up in either zoos or nature centers.

This is Dexter, one of their more recent Turkey Vultures. Aptly named, but I'm pretty sure my parents don't watch the (really good, but more than somewhat gory) Showtime series. My father said he got the name because his left wing is injured.

It is illegal for most people to do what my parents do. My mother has federal and state licenses and is fairly strictly regulated. If you do find a sick, injured, or baby wild animal, call your state Department of Fish and Game/ Department of Natural Resources. You could also try a veterinarian or web search to find the number for a local wildlife rehabber.

Why was I reminded of this particular xkcd.com? Oh, right. I was listening to The Carpenters today in the car...

PZ Myers!

Well, I actually cut band rehearsal on Thursday night. This is almost unheard of for me. The only times I've ever missed rehearsal, I was either ill or in England. I did have what I consider a really good reason, though. PZ Myers was speaking just down the road at Sierra College!!!

Author of the blog Pharyngula, PZ Myers is one of the top science bloggers AND one of the top two atheist bloggers (the other being the much "friendlier" Hemant Mehta). The Sierra College stop wrapped up a whirlwind eight day speaking tour of mostly Northern California for him that included UC Davis, UC Berkeley, and Stanford. I'm not sure how Sierra College managed to rate a stop, but I'd like to thank the Freethinkers of Sierra College for hosting.

His blog may be strident and snarky, particularly about religious insanity, but in person he really is very soft-spoken and polite. He gave a very interesting talk about creationist's sometimes seemingly deliberate misunderstanding of evolution and the differences in the ways creationists (including intelligent design advocates) and scientists get their points across to the general public.

During the question and answer period after the talk, a creationist in the audience actually identified himself and asked questions. I felt kind of sorry for him. His hands and voice were shaking. It must have been awful feeling as though he were the only theist (he wasn't, actually) completely surrounded by a sea of atheists. Oh, wait. I know exactly how that feels, as I'm sure did all of the other atheists in the audience.

Part of the exchange between PZ and the creationist went something like this:
Theist: Blah, blah, blah, ontological argument, blah, blah (Ok, so now maybe I'm being a little snarky. Oops)
PZ: [reasoned and rational explanation of the ontological argument and why it is based on circular, fallacious arguments]
Theist: No it's not!
PZ: [reasoned and rational explanation...need actual evidence]
Theist: No it doesn't!

PZ is well known for going out for drinks after he gives a talk, and Thursday was no exception. About 30 people met afterwards at a local brew pub (including the theist, surprisingly!), and guess who somehow managed to snag a seat right next to PZ! I'm not quite sure how that happened... Unfortunately, all I had was my phone, which doesn't take the best photos.


Thanks to Brett for taking the picture!

I got the opportunity to tell PZ that, when I first started an "atheist" blog, as I said in this post, my mother was very concerned that religious nutcases would shoot me or burn crosses in our front yard. I told her that there were other far more prominent atheists out there (meaning PZ, among others. Especially PZ) and I would be way down on the list. He's of the opinion that you just can't live your life in fear, and the vast majority of theists of any religion are decent people. It's only a very small percentage of the most radical theists who are actually dangerous.

The famous Crocoduck tie. There were two made, and the other belongs to Richard Dawkins (there are now knock-offs you can find on the internet). I really wish I'd remembered my camera...



PZ was recently interviewed by reddit.com, so you can see how soft-spoken he really is:

I wish I were still that naive

I'm thinking about learning to scuba dive, and for some reason this has triggered some memories from when I was a lifeguard at a swim club for four summers in high school. Well, I was only actually a lifeguard for three summers, because after they hired me, we all found out that, even though I was completely certified, since I was only 15 I was too young the first summer.  So they put me to work as the Gatekeeper (no Keymaster jokes!) keeping out the hoi polloi (of which, if I remember correctly, my family was part, because we didn't live in the right part of Benicia and couldn't join). One of my jobs was to answer the phone, which happened to be a pay phone in the clubhouse. Most of the time it was questions such as, "When do you open?" and "How do we join?," but one day:

Me: Southampton Swim Club, may I help you?

Him: I'd like to [redacted] and [redacted]

Me: (thinking) I must not have heard that correctly
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. Could you repeat that?

Him: (louder) I'd like to [redacted] and [redacted]

Me: I can't have heard that right. It doesn't make sense.
I'm sorry, but it's really loud in here. I still couldn't hear you.

Him: I'D LIKE TO [REDACTED] AND [REDACTED]

Me: Ok, that's what I thought he said.
(long pause)......Um...we don't have a pool table here.

Him: OH, FORGET IT! (click)

As I turned away from the phone and started walking back through the clubhouse,  I bumped into the chairwoman of the board who had recently hired me. I must have looked confused, because she asked me what happened.  I relayed the conversation to her, and was startled when she burst out laughing so hard that she actually couldn't speak for a minute or two.  By this time I was REALLY confused.  When she finally was able to get control of herself, she wiped away tears, put her arm around my shoulders, and said, "Honey, you just had an obscene phone call!"  Then she told me to stay innocent for as long as possible.

Non-Believers Giving Aid

The Richard Dawkins Foundation has set up a site for non-believers to donate money for Hatian relief. One hundred percent of the money donated will go to Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross.

According to a tweet by Michael Shermer, the site raised over $50,000 in less than 24 hours (of course, being a skeptic myself, I'd like to see where he got the information).  
Update: Over $124,000 in 24 hours. 
Update again: According to PZ Myers, over $150,000 in 24 hours. Currently at over $180,000.

I don't care where you donate, but please donate. The situation in Haiti is critical.

Update: Poodles reminds us not to forget about the non-human animals caught up in the devastation...

Ceilidh

My parents got a new dog last week. My mother is completely enamoured. Their 17 year old Australian cattle dog, Butch, died several months ago, and my parents wanted a companion for their 12 year old and still very active border collie, Duffy. They have had Border Collies most of their married life (close to 50 years), and my mother started searching through the Border Collie rescue sites. Duffy is getting older, and has always been at the bottom of the pecking order, so she wanted to make sure he wouldn't be picked on by any new dog. One that caught her eye was a little female who had been hit by a car and had spent weeks at the vet's and months recuperating. She's only got three usable legs, and she's really still recuperating. She's possibly been a little stunted by the accident, because she's half the size of Duffy, but apparently he's being a perfect gentleman to her. My mother named her Céilidh (Caylee), which, as I said in my last post, is a Gaelic dance.
One of the first things my parents did when they got married was to get a Border Collie. Gammon was three when I was born. He was more like an older brother to me, and being a Border Collie, of course looked out for me. One day when I was a toddler, my mother looked out in the front garden, saw that I had somehow managed to open the front gate and that Gammon and I were gone. She rushed out, looked down the street, and way off in the distance there we were. Gammon was slowly walking next to me, leaning into me and herding me out of the street. Most other dogs would have bolted for freedom, but he stayed right with me. He, of course, could have stopped me from leaving at all, but he was always up for a walk.

Another time (when I was even younger), we were camping, and I crawled into an adjacent field full of cows. Cows are fairly curious, and so they all started crowding around me to have a look. Since we were in a campground, Gammon had to be chained up, but he actually became frantic, broke his chain, and flew into the middle of the cow herd, scattering cows in all directions and protecting me until my parents could get there a few seconds later (my parents really weren't nearly as careless with me as this all sounds. Really...).

When I was older, I would try and order Gammon around and I swear he would just raise one eyebrow and look at me. I could actually see him thinking, "Hmph. Like I have to do anything you say." Gammon owned, to borrow a phrase from 101 Dalmatians (the book NOT any of the lame movies), one of the keenest brains in Dogdom. He died when I was nine, and I'm not sure my parents have ever completely gotten over it. He was their first child.

After Gammon, we got a half St. Bernard half Weimeraner. She was the size of a Great Dane, and looked a lot like a giant Rhodesian Ridgeback (especially when she had her hackles up). Poor Shandy was probably very intelligent in her own way, but she could never live up to Gammon. She lived in his shadow for 15 years.

Other Border Collies they've had:
Whisky — who was found near a rest area (I think) by a friend of the family who knew of my parent's fondness for Border Collies. They thought she may have fallen out of a truck. I think my parents had her for 13 or 14 years.

Heidi — She was the sole survivor of a head on collision. Again, my parents got her because someone heard (through me, actually) that they were fond of Border Collies. She was about 11 when they got her, but she lived another 4 or so years.

Vixen — wasn't really a Border Collie, but she was a collie mix. She looked like a giant fox. She came from the Humane Society and had been kept in a basement for the first nine months of her life.

They often seem to name their dogs after food. Duffy is Plum Duff, Gammon is a cut of bacon (their cat was named Streaky - another cut of bacon), Shandygaff is a beer flavoured with ginger beer (can I just interject? - blech! I don't like beer OR ginger beer), and Whisky was Black and White Scotch.
I think they're lucky to have Ceilidh, but she's also very lucky to have them. Note - That is her tail and a chew toy, not her bad leg...

Scenes from Scotland: Edinburgh or More Photos of my Brother

Scotland is very welcomingUnless that part in Gaelic actually means Now Go Home.

We only had about three days in Scotland, so we spent most of our time in Edinburgh on and around the Royal Mile, which runs between Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse (Holyrood Abbey, to be more specific). Holyroodhouse is the Queen's official residence in Scotland.

Of course we first had to find the statue of Greyfriars Bobby. We almost tripped over it, actually. I think every bus we took went past it. It's entirely possible we might have been breaking the law if we hadn't found it AND taken a photo.

View from Greyfriars Kirkyard.

St. Giles Cathedral. St. Giles is the patron saint of cripples (just doesn't sound PC anymore) disabled people, lepers and Edinburgh. And horses, breast feeding, mental illness, rams, forests, sterility...He was apparently a very popular saint.

St. Giles front door, the very impressive stonework of which I believe dates to a restoration done in the late 1800s. Phil managed to get in the way, of course.

Holyroodhouse gate. And Phil.

A lion, the symbol of England, holding St. George's Cross.

A unicorn, the symbol of Scotland, holding St. Andrew's Cross. And if you superimpose the crosses and add St. Patrick's Cross (British readers please bear with me for a moment — this isn't generally taught over here), you get the Union Jack (Poor old Wales is just lumped under the Cross of St. Andrew). Image snagged from Ward's Book of Days

Meanwhile, at the other end of the Royal Mile:
Edinburgh Castle

Phil and Bill. I prefer not to stand under a portcullis, myself.

The medieval seigegun, Mons Meg. And Bill. And Phil.

Do I have to even say?

The Lion and Unicorn fighting for the crown.

A view of Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth (a fjord) from the castle.

And just so Lesley doesn't feel gypped:
Me eating haggis (you probably don't even want to know. But it was good) at the Royal McGregor pub on the Royal Mile, which is a tourist trap according to Mr Farty. He prefers the Worlds End pub down the street where he can get a really good Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. Also check out the photos on Mr Farty's sidebar at Better Oot Than In for better views of the entire area.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I remarked that I was posting some photos of Scotland, so my mother wants me to mention that they got another border collie yesterday (they have two now) and named her Céilidh (pronounced Cay-lee) which is a traditional Gaelic dance. She promised to send me photos.

So Bob, did it work?