I’m 60 pages through the “Omnivore’s Dilemma.” I’ll be busy with that for a while. Garden is going well. Spinach should be ready for eating in a week or two.
I’m exhausted with the political debates, particularly regarding abortion. I knew I would get flack for endorsing Obama. I’ll probably get more when I formally do so. It would be nice to have good options toward ending abortion and choosing a competent chief executive. I’m prepared to be pleasantly surprised with an Obama presidency. I am trying to remember the Don Morton rule though: just because you think things can’t get worse, doesn’t mean the won’t get worse. If we are out of Iraq 4 years hence, haven’t invaded Iran, and haven’t passed FOCA, I’ll consider his presidency a qualified success. If he can manage to take care of the ridiculous health care situation, balance the budget, formulate a decent transit policy, get behind unions again, or help the poor and middle class start doing better again, I’ll add a few more points.
The vitality of any movement can be measured by the willingness of its members to dispense with bad arguments rather than waiting for their opposition to do so.
Parking lots. They are one of the biggest wastes in the world.
Be it resolved:
(1) Any property with parking spaces in excess of 4 will be considered a “Parking Lot” for purposes of this ordinance.
(2) Parking Lots with unimpeded access enjoy a public charachter and their use shall be governed accordingly. Therefore:
(a) No space may have restricted use such as designation for patrons or employees except public designations such as time limits and handicap accessibility.
(b) Metering may be offered and accrues to the owner of the lot.
(c) Ownership or permission from said owner are not a defense against loitering.
(3) Parking Lots with impeded access are governed under (2) except that
(a) When gates or other impediments are open and unattended access is considered public.
(b) Signage must be posted where lot owner may be reached.
(c) A closed gate or impediment is sufficient for the Parking Lot to be considered impeded.
(d) Signage is sufficent notice to establish a semi-open lot. For example, “Gate closed between 10:00 PM and 8:00 AM” is sufficent notice to public users to vacate. Parking may be restricted by permit or other measures when parking lot is closed to public.
- We recently became secure in our debt for 15 years. Paying off the minivan has eliminated that 3-year note. We are looking at about August for when we will be debt free sans mortgage. Unfortunately it is probably a matter of when for more debt. We may possibly still get to the roof this year, but that will probably wait until next year. We have a boiler replacement and an upgrade of the windows to consider as well. I will also have to replace my commuting vehicle, but it looks like I kind find something decent between $3 and $5K.
- Work is busy and going to be busier. That is always good, but hopefully not too much of a “good” thing.
- There are some arguing that we should make heterosexual marriage like homosexual marriage in order to prevent homosexual marriage from becoming like heterosexual marriage. In its simpler form, it is called getting the government out of the marriage business. You can’t get the family out of society’s business. It is constitutive. Attempts to do so will devolve both the family and society.
- Over the past week I’ve engaged several people in the None of The Above school of political thought or some variation thereof; or they have engaged me. I probably won’t be revisiting these arguments anytime soon. In particular one gentleman is surprising me in his arguments, although one shouldn’t necessarily impute a person’s political views to his business practice. Given the level he has claimed in the corporate world - for which I have no doubt, I tend to take people at their words - he would be well familiar with the limitations but necessity of conciliar action. Most importantly he should recognize the worthlessness of unnecessary martyrdom. Much like corporate dooomsayers, he spends much time disparaging engagement in the political process, similar to how people talk about the worthlessness of meetings. (Oddly enough I would probably be much further in my own career if I would have worked more diligently on being agreeable rather than being right, having suffered from disregarding the wrong people.) Needless to it is easy to stand on principle when one sees no merit in the underlying action.
I don’t believe I’ve met any people so far in life who had the grace of Christ so endow their lives that I was with left with no doubt that they are with the graces of God. I don’t doubt the abundance of God’s graces, and I certainly don’t doubt that there is enough left unseen to me that graces could have been sought and provided prior to death. Despite being considered ‘judgemental’, I’m quite willing to leave plenty to the Lord’s providence and trust His good care. I’m quite willing to entrust someone’s soul to the Lord’s care without creating a fiction in my head that the Lord must have made accommodation. I offer my prayers, ironically, not my judgement.
I really don’t understand the need for these coronations for people quite frankly must of us don’t know. It isn’t even just an American phenomena. I still remember the ridiculousness of the mourning over the death of Princess Diana. The furor to declare John Paul II, Mother Teresa, and most any contemporary person of any level of celebrity a Saint. For starters, such a small minority of saints are declared that there really shouldn’t be the expectation that a saint will be declared contemporaneously.
I received a little criticism not too long ago for noting upon a public commentator’s death that he struggled with certain teachings. Some considered it in poor taste, as if his family or loved ones would have become aware of my statement that was not even a condemnation of him to hell. Quite frankly it wasn’t a commentary on the after life but rather just reflection of his writings and their particular impact upon Catholic culture. Now with another Catholic celebrity death. This gentleman’s views on some areas were down right scandalous. To avoid similar condemnation, I’m making my comments here rather than elsewhere. Yes, from all reports he seemed like a nice guy. To what degree one’s opinions will affect their place in the after life is one I’m willing to discount pretty significantly. The opinions are however known and scandalous, and there is really no good reason to add “good Catholic” onto his online remembrances. Good broadcaster, father, and son would seem to be fitting tributes and not require affirming that which really should not be affirmed.
Some of you may have seen pictures of a few homes falling into Lake Delton/Wisconsin River. I’m quite a few miles from there. Where I live, we have quite a bit of sand in our soil, such is life a couple blocks from the beach. About an hour west of us (if you could drive over Lake Winnebago) Oshkosh flooded pretty badly. On the news they were saying that over half the streets were impassable. We didn’t quite get as much rain as them, but we had enough to get 2 inches of standing water in our garden. Given our soil, it drained about an hour after the storm. I’m still shocked that it stayed up that long. So far our spinach, carrots, cucumbers, and pumkins are about an inch high. The corn is doing great. It is already two inches. We planted on Memorial Day weekend and places near us had a ground freeze not too long after that. We have had a very late planting season here. To make a long story short, Lake Michigan acts as a giant heat sink. It tends to moderate the temperature overall. It also means it’s cool here well into May and warm into December. Back to the garden, the plants look a little water stressed right now. We are scheduled for another big storm tomorrow night. We could use a little bit of dry weather so the plants can catch up.
An interesting backgrounder on McCain’s marriages. I didn’t know for example that his first wife had been previously married or that she had suffered from a terrible car accident. Interesting reading overall. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html
Our friends (that corporate we I slide into on occasion) at the Distributist Review were discussing transportation policy. I’ve been mulling in my head for awhile a poll tax on vehicles to fund roads. What would it amount to? I was curious, so I tracked some Wisconsin numbers.
Wisconsin has 5.3MM vehicles registered.
Wisconsin is proposing $5.9B or $5,900MM over the next years in spending. That comes to $2,950MM per year.
If we got rid of the gas tax and funded transit through vehicle registrations, it would come to $556 per vehicle. This would make any vehicle worth under $5000 a candidate an expensive proposition. Yes, we would call that regressive taxation.
Some of this of course could be reduced by converting the I-system to tolls. Makes sense to me. However, there seems to be a local cost to transit that should be born by local users or their beneficiaries. It would seem that a direct allocation of registration fees should go to the city the car is registered. Let’s set the amount at $200/registered vehicle. For my city, and its approximately 10,000 registerred vehicles, that would mean $2MM extra dollars, money that could reduce my property taxes.
We purchased a digital to analog converter box. The jury is still out. Yes, it is nice that whatever picture you get will be crystal clear. What isn’t nice is that the tolerance isn’t all that high, so rather than having muddled dialogue, you get no dialogue when there are reception difficulties. It looks like “evil government that can’t do anything right” is going to win on this one. We now get 5 PBS channels. The Green Bay ABC affiliate is using two sub-channels. They created a weather channel, and they are broadcasting a syndicated classic TV channel. I was able to watch Airwolf last night. Oh the memories. I had debated getting a HDTV to accomodate the change, but I won’t now.
