disoriented

Halloween Decorations

When I was growing up I always looked forward to Halloween. Halloween started with treats and parties at school. In the evening we would dress up and go trick-or-treating. When we were little, mom would make us costumes and we would be driven to the homes of some family friends. Of course at each house, our friends would say that they didn't recognize us (even though our parents were standing there without costumes). Then there were the obligatory pictures. In those days we used something called film.

As we got older, we started to make our own costumes. I began trick-or-treating with my friends. Trick-or-treat became a race to get as much candy as possible. In those days people carved pumpkins. Occasionally they put a candle in the pumpkin. That was the extent of Halloween decorations.

Today Halloween is the second most expensive holiday, after Christmas.

According to American Greetings, Americans will spend $2 billion on candy and $1.5 billion on costumes. Americans will also spend almost $700,000 on Halloween decorations.

So when did Halloween begin to compete with Christmas? Fifteen years ago I moved to St. Louis and it was obvious that Christmas decorations were a big deal there. In our neighborhood, every house had lights. Not just lights but Santa on the roof, reindeer on the lawn, snowmen and jiant nutcrackers. People even tied wreaths to the grilles of their cars.

In the neighborhood we live in today, Christmas is also a big deal. On a warm November afternoon, you see nearly every kind of ladder ever made up and down our street. People are up on their roofs putting up lights and wreaths. Each house in our circle puts out a string of lights under translucent milk jugs. The milk jugs are layed out along the edge of the yards. When they get a coating of snow, they are especially beautiful.

There was a time when I was a Halloween concientious objector. The occult trimmings were an affront to my fundamentalist tendncies. But if I believe that Christmas is not really a Christian Holiday (there is no such thing a s a Christian Holiday) then it is only fair that I not accuse Halloween of being a Pagan Holiday (I do not know whether there actually are Pagan Holiday). These days I view it as a benign way to let my kids get some candy before their Fall dentist visit and tooth cleaning.

I like Halloween as much as the next person — but I will not be spending any part of that $700,000 on Halloween decorations. Besides, where would I put them? All the storage space is taken up with Christmas decorations.

Have Political Ads Gone Too Far?

Is it just me or have oolitical ads gone too far? Living in a battleground state I have finally become so inundated with ads — that I hardly notice them anymore.

There are certainly enough negative ads from the campaigns themselves. Those are the ads that end with, "I'm <insert your candidate here> and I approve this message." As if these were not bad enough there are all the ads from the so called 501's. This is soft money. These groups have few limits on fund-raising and are not directly related to the candidate. Because of this illusion of an arms length relationship, the 501s can and do say almost anything.

So we have the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth on the right and George Soros on the left. As much as I have been become immune to these ads, I finally saw one today that suprised me.

Apparently it was funded by a 501 called al-Qaeda.

This political ad features Osama bin Ladin in an orange robe and white headdress sitting behind a table speaking in Arabic. For a moment I thought it was a Kerry ad or a Michale Moore movie. bin Ladin says of Bush Sr.:

Then, what happened was that he was impressed by the monarchies and the military regimes, and he was jealous of them staying in power for tens of years, embezzling the public money without any accountability. And he moved the tyranny and suppression of freedom to his own country, and they called it the Patriot Act, under the disguise of fighting terrorism. And Bush, the father, found it good to install his children as governors and leaders. We agreed with the leader of the group, Mohammed Atta, to perform all attacks within 20 minutes before [President George W.] Bush and his administration were aware of what was going on. And we never knew that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would leave 50,000 of his people in the two towers to face those events by themselves when they were in the most urgent need of their leader. He was more interested in listening to the child's story about the goat rather than worry about what was happening to the towers. So, we had three times the time necessary to accomplish the events. Your security is not in the hands of [Democratic presidential nominee John] Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Any nation that does not attack us will not be attacked.

The only thing missing was, "I'm Osama bin Ladin and I approved this ad."

Campaign Finance Reform

I want to take a minute to thank Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. Thanks to the efforts of these two statesmen — the election of 2004 is proceeding without the corrupting influence of money. The two crafted the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill. Despite stiff opposition they managed to get the Bill passed and on March 27, 2002, President Bush signed it.

I was one of the skeptics. I felt that the there were Constitutional issues with the limitations on individual contributions and the limits on ads in the closing days of the campaign. Most importantly I felt that the issues in the campaign were a result of previous rounds of reforms. It seems that each time we pass reforms — all it does is create new loopholes.

Thanks to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 this must be the cleanest, most civil election in American History.

Nobody (including the disoriented author) actually believes that this is true. Most people in this country believe that money has been a more corrupting influence not less in this election. Living in a swing state, I have been bombarded with a series of last minute ads.

This campaign has bought us George Soros, Michael Moore and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. It is hard to believe but the fireworks may be just beginning. Due to loopholes in the law, both parties are raising funds (with no limits) for the legal battles that some are certain will follow this election.

After this election, there will be much discussion over how to change the current system. Some are pushing for public election financing. They believe that by taking private money out of the system, no one will be able to buy influence with the government.

Personally, I believe that the solution is to pull out the stops. Let people spend their money as they wish just account for it fully — full discolsure. How is this different from the current system? Under the current system only the candidates and parties operate under limits.

We may not like what we get under full disclosure but at least it would be honest.

The Secret Handshake of Motorcyclists

In New Hampshire there are two sure signs that Winter is past and Summer just around the corner; First, the LL Bean plaids and boots give way to cotton polo shirts and khakis. Second, the bikers return to Laconia.

Each year Laconiam, New Hampshire hosts the Laconia Motorcycle Week, Rally and Race. For one week Laconia is the center of the motorcycle universe.

This sumer as I was driving through Laconia after Bike Week, I was following a couple on a beautiful black Harley-Davidson. As they crested a hill, the woman on the back of the bike extended her left arm outward and down at a 45º angle. The single rider of the approaching bike did the same. Since then I have seen the Secret Handshake in cities and towns from coast to coast.

[Auithor's Note: Motorcyclists do not literally shake hands when they pass on the road. Such behavior would be dangerous and should not be attempted by readers. The author assumes no liability should readers attempt such a practice after reading this article.]

Some years ago I had a similar experience while visiting the Iowa State Fair with a friend from Cameroon. As we walked outside the Grand Stand — every black person (or group of black people) we passed acknowledged my friend Robert. Some nodded, others waved, some made almost imperceptible motions with their chins or eyebrows.

What I discovered is that there is a Secret Handshake of Black People!

As I spent more time with Robert I realized that anywhere he went black people waved or otherwise acknowledged him. At first I think it puzzled Robert as well. He found it amusing that African-Americans were beginning to to adopt African names and dress. While he was invited to some of the minority student organizations on campus, he felt more at home in the University community at large.

Because of his skin color Robert was in the club. Other friends and some of my relatives from other countries who were who were black had the same experience. Who was a University Professor raised in the British school system had students who thought that he shared a common culture with him. My father was old school whenever someone called him brother I think it puzzled him.

Clearly there are historical reasons for the strong identity of blacks within American society. If whites had gone through similar trials in our nations history — they would have reacted the same way. Unfortunately the strong sense of identity tends to breed a form of isolationism that is not healthy.

Given the fact that my father was half African and I grew up in the United States — most of the black people Robert and I encountered had more in common with me than with him.

Targets of Opportunity

I am a photographer. (You may view a gallery of my photos on my homepage) This fall I had a tremendous opportunity. I was in the Boston area on business for a week and I couldn't get a flight home until Friday morning. Instead I took a Friday afternoon flight home from Manchester, New Hampshire. I planned to spend Friday morning and early afternoon photographing the fall foliage in New Hampshire's White Mountains.

It was the Columbus Day weekend and the foliage was at its peak in the Mountains. For the last couple years, I have been shooting exclusively digital photographs. I have been known to shoot hundreds of photos at a time.

Here I was in the midst of one of the greatest photo opportuinities in the world and I only took 44 images and only two were really keepers.

The colors in New Hampshire were incredible. There was fog that morning and I timed my trip to take me to the mountains as the sunbegan to clear the fog. During the drive North, I could see glimpses of the colors through the fog. I drove by my frst target, a small lake. Unfortunately the fog was still too thick. On the way to another lake up in the mountains I stopped by a small stream and took a few photos. The colors were brilliant — the reds were the brightest I had ever seen. But the light was too harsh so I moved on. All day long I found myself looking for the perfect image. Stopping and then moving on quickly so I could return and catch my plane.

Photography in New Hampshire is dangerous. There are tour buses everywhere and when you drive down the road you have to be careful. Every few hundred yards cars just stop in the middle of the road so people can take pictures. Photogaphers seem to be standing on every shoulder not watching the traffic.

By the end of the day I time I had to head for the airport I realized that I had spent a lot of time driving and very little taking pictures. I would have been better off had I packed a lunch and spent the wholc day in one spot — any spot.

The colors were beautiful and so overwhelming that I literally did not see the forest for the trees.

John Edwards and the Flu Vaccine

A conservative Republican friend sent me a forwarded e-mail. The subject was Can't get flu shot?. The e-mail said:

Why the shortage: ... In the late 80's a man from North Carolina who had received the vaccine got the flu. The strain he caught was one of the strains in that year's vaccine made by a US company. What did he do? He sued and he won. He was awarded almost $5 million! After that case was appealed and lost, most US pharmaceutical companies stopped making the vaccine. The liability out weighed the profit margin. Since UK and Canadian laws prohibit such frivolous law suits, UK and Canadian companies began selling the vaccine in the US. By the way...the lawyer that represented the man in the flu shot lawsuit was a young ambulance chaser by the name of John Edwards.

I am no fan of John Edwards — he scares me even more than John Kerry — the problem is that it is simply not true.

The information in the e-mail is false. There is no reliable record of John Edwards ever litigating such a suit. What makes it plausible is that Edwards and his fellow trial lawyers have contributed to the litigious nature of our society to everyone's detriment.

The real issue is one of epistemology. According to dictionary.com:

e·pis·te·mol·o·gy noun The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity.

In this age we are inundated with information . It is therefore even more critical that we consider the nature, extent and validity of the information we process. The Web is a tremendous resource but there is also a great deal of noise. Bogus e-mails and other forms of spam, opiniated websites posing as factual (like this one ;-)) all require extra diligence.

Interestingly whenever I want to verify one of these bogus e-mails, I look on the web for validation. It reminds me of a project I did in mathematics. I was supposed to use series approxinations to verify that my scientific calculator was producing correct results. Of course in order to check my results I had to use my calculator.

There are enough reasons to oppose the Kerry-Edwards ticket — we don't need to nake up any more.

The Secret Service: The Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency, Philip H. Melanson, Peter F. Stevens

In The Secret Service, Melanson and Stevens give an account of the history of the Agency. From its Civil War roots as a spy agency to the modern roles of counterfeit prevention and protection. This is a very readable book and almost all readers will learn a great deal about the agency.

The authors describe the ongoing struggles faced by the agency. The agency is consistently under-funded and under-manned. Congress has always been leery of establishing a Presidental Regiment loyal only to the executive. The book describes primarily the protective mission of the agency.

A chapter of the book is given to describing the Kennedy Assasination. The authors place much of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Secret Service. Even if there was a conspiracy — the authors contend that the agency did not do enough to prepare for the Dallas trip. This is especially damning (albeit not a new revealation) in light of the fact that UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson had been mobbed by angry crowds just days before the president's visit.

Whether the assasination could have been prevented is debatable — that the Secret Service could have done a better job is not.

On September 11, 2001 life for the Secret Service changed forever. The nature of the threats to the president now had to realistically include terrorism, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. After 9/11 the list of protectees also grew. Adding the Secretaries of State and Defense and the National Security Advisor among others.

The Service has also been called upon to protect major events like the Olympics and Super Bowl. All of these have strained the resources of an already taxed agency. In many cases the agency borrows other federal law enforcement personnel to assist in their protective missions. While these ATF, Customs, Park Police, etc. Agents are all trained professionals, clearly most have not received specialized training in protective procedures.

The Authors also point to the burnout rate among agents and suggest that increased workloads since 9/11 will contribute to more agency attrition precisely when the agency needs more not less personnel.

This is an interesting book that was enjoyable to read. On the negative side the author's political leanings come through from time to time and color his commentary.

The Secret Service gets 3 of 5 dis-oriented smileys

Purchase The Secret Service from Amazon.com.

Night of 10,000 Lawyers

The Democratic party has a team of 10,000 lawyers ready to go to the polls to ensure that voters are not disenfranchised. There are already lawsuits in several battleground states. Is is amazing that the very party that complained about the Supreme Court getting involved in the last presidential election is going to court as this election gets started.

One of the key issues is the Provisional Ballots authorized by the 2002 Help America Vote Act. Provisional ballots are given to voters who show up at a polling place and are not on the official voting rolls. Another issue is electronic voting machines that do not leave a paper trail. Without a paper record, there is no way to recount the votes.

The Republicans are not far behind, they are also gathering a crack team for election night.

We are in the middle of a close election battle, perhaps the closest in history. The rhetoric is at a fever pitch. Democrats are telling blacks across the country that President Bush and the Republicans are tying to disenfranchise them and steal the election. Already in Florida, the state that decided the presidency by less than 500 votes, there are thousands cases of suspected fraud

There have been numerous cases of Republican campaign offices being broken into and vandalized. These cases have not gotten much attention in the traditional media.

Both candidates are raising money for the court fight after the election. Interestingly these post-election efforts slipped by the campaign finance laws. Both parties are raising money as quickly as possible so as not to be caught unawares.

If you think the election was brutal — wait until the court fight.

George W. Bush's January Surprise

John Kerry has been warning voters on the stump that if George W. Bush is re-elected, there will be a January Surprise. Kerry says that Bush will rush to privatize Social Security. Kerry of course is repeating the Democrat theme that heartless Republicans want to take away your grandmother's Social Security check.

Of course this strategy is designed to scare Senior citizens into voting Democrat. Senior citizens are an important voting bloc in this election. They are important because they vote in high percentages and they are influential in the critical swing state of Florida.

President Bush of course denies that any such surprise is in the works.

Too bad — Social Security should have been privatized years ago.

What President Bush really said is that he wants to allow younger workers to put some of the money that would normally have gone into Social Security into private tax-free retirement accounts. The key word here is some. The President and the Republican Party agree that we have a commitment to continue providing benefits to current retirees and to provide benefits to new retirees.

With the Baby Boomers on the brink of retirement — the strain on the Social Security system is growing. Adding to the problem is the demographic truth that as the population ages there are less workers in the workforce paying into Social Security. Most young people believe that they will never see any money from Social Security.

Despite all assurances to the contrary, both Democrats and Republicans have consistently spent Social Security money as if it were just another part of the general fund. As a result, Social Security has become a Ponzi scheme.

They call Social Security the third rail of American Politics — because any politician who dares to touch it gets fried. But the system is broken and it will only get worse as the number of retirees grows. The system needs reform and it needs to happen soon.

Today recipients receive benefits regardless of their income. To remain solvent Social Security should be paid out on a graduated basis to those who will be retiring soon. Second since Congress and the President (Republicans and Democrats alike) have shown that they cannot keep their hands off the money — we need to allow workers to control their own money.

Does President Bush have a January Surprise planned? I hope so.

Real Jobs

In yet another election flap Theresa Heinz-Kerry, wife of presidential candidate John Kerry, said:

"Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real job -- I mean, since she's been grown up. So her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things."

Today, Heinz-Kerry apologized, she had her facts wrong. Laura Bush holds a Bachelor's in Education and a Master's in Library Science. She has nearly nine years of experience working as a teacher and a librarian.

Once again the debate sinks to new lows.

First Heinz-Kerry has insulted all of the women in this country who have made the difficult decision to stay at home and raise their children. Being a stay-at-home mom is a real job. There was a time when a family with Dad wokring outside the home and Mom staying home with the kids was the norm. Even the tax code discourages moms from staying home (see my article on the stay-at-home mom penalty). The traditional family is under attack. This is just one more reason not to support John Kerry.

Well, Laura Bush has held a real job, by Heinz-Kerry's standards. How about Heinz-Kerry herself? After her millionaire husband, Senator Jon Heinz of Ketchup fame, died — she joined the workforce. What job did she take? Heinz Kerry became the president of her late husband's foundation. She has been especially involved as a philanthropist in environmental causes.

One may argue that Heinz-Kerry has had a real job — running a billion dollar foundation — just like the rest of us.