The Web is a library that never closes...

... and it is so easy to get lost in it. Just like in a physical library, you look up one thing and you find at least three more of interest. Since it never closes and most likely you are already home, you just keep looking up one thing after another, winding up far from where one started.

And serendipity is more prevalent on the Web because there are far more items that cross your gaze. Here are some examples that I might not have seen in the daily papers.

"Monkeys recognize "bad grammar", BBC News, 2009-07-08

"Whales Watching Us", Charles Siebert, New York Times Magazine, 2009-07-08

"Dozens of Dazed, Huge Squid Wash Up on San Diego Beach after Earthquake", Huffington Post, 2009-07-13

A new third party coming?

Here is another forgotten thought. I am sure I saw an article two or three days ago headlined something like "Palin to start new party". I'm not sure if it was in the Huffington Post, the New York Times, or the Washington Post. Wherever it was, I can't find it in the first several dozen hits.

Now that is the good news! I get many, many hits on "new party", whether it is the hard-nosed conservatives leaving the Republican party or moderates leaving the Republican party.

Whichever way it goes, it can only be a plus for our country. If the hard-nosed conservatives leave the Republican Party, then more moderates will join it, even from the Democrats, and we may gain a truly pragmatic party. If the moderates leave to form a new party we may get the same result.

That result is that we may get a party that balances what needs to be done, what can be done, and what is consistent with our history and Constitution.

Here we go again, exaggerated threats

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned in May that Iran was building a mega-embassy in Nicaragua. The Washington Post can't find any evidence of any building site ("Iran's Rumored Nicaraguan 'Mega-Embassy' Set Off Alarms in U.S.", Washington Post, 2009-07-13) Some right-wing think tanks are perpetuating this myth.

The problem is that not only does the mega-embassy not exist or is even planned, but all the big talk of aid and investment from President Ahmadinejad has not resulted in any major projects.

What really gets me is the double-standard American politicians of any stripe use. Why is it OK for the U.S. to build a mega-embassy in Iraq, a few hours drive from Tehran, but it is not OK for a country the U.S. government doesn't like to extend its interest, like in Managua, a "48-hour drive from Brownsville TX" (Ronald Reagan).

Why so little news about Iran?

The news out of Iran has all but dried up. The last posting in Nico Pitman's blog http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/10/iran-uprising-blogging-fr_n_229344.html was at 10:47 ET on Friday. Granted, Huffington Post was moving or rearranging its offices, but New York Times, Tehran Bureau, and BBC had no or little recent coverage.

The only two items I found were "Iran Prepares Plan for Talks with the West", dated July 11 and "Mehdi Karroubi warns of 'unimaginable consequences'", also dated today. The latter was published in Karroubi's newspaper. All other news about Iran since July 10 concerns events outside Iran.

Is the opposition resting after Thursday's demonstrations? Have security forces locked down Iran, including all means of communication?

A lost joke

This afternoon at our cabin my wife and I engaged in a bit of répartée. It wasn't a "he said, she said" exchange, but more a "A said, B said". I got in the last word with a joke on myself, and we both laughed. I said that I should post a blog about our exchange.

OK, now it is blog writing time, and I can't remember what we said. Neither can my wife.

Maybe one of us will remember in the middle of the night. If so and it still seems funny, I'll post it the next day. That is, if we don't forget it again.

Soda pop beer

When I sang at the Grandma's Marathon, we got drink tickets for the entertainment tent at the finish line. One of the choices was Summer Shandy. I first encountered shandy in Taunton, England in the 1970s. It was made with ale and lemon soda. I don't remember if I tried it then or not. I know I later would sometimes mix beer and 7-Up, but it had been years since I did that.

Anyhow, I passed the chance to have Summer Shandy; see "Standing still at Grandma's Marathon" for why.

On a visit to our local liquor store, I saw that Summer Shandy was on special in 12-packs. OK, why not give it a try?

Well, now I've worked through all but two bottles and I doubt I'll buy it again. It's OK, but it's way too sweet for my taste. In fact, I dubbed it soda pop beer. I get more the taste of lemon-lime soda than I do of beer. Worse yet, nothing on the bottle describes what's inside. Too much space is taken up with all the required warnings. I hope I remember to look at the carton before I throw it away.

Who's impaling Palin?

Many are complaining that "The Media" are out to get Sarah Palin. My own take is that they are only reporting what she says and does. The more that gets reported, the more she goes on the defensive. When a politician goes on the defensive, a good reporter looks for what else may be going on.

When partisans of whatever stripe feel one of their own is being attacked, they too often gather in a circle and blame outsiders. Too rarely do they ask themselves what may be true about the reporting.

One partisan who did look more deeply into the Palin story, Peggy Noonan, wrote an opinion piece for a partisan media, The Wall Street Journal. See "A Farewell to Harms", Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal Online, 2009-07-10.

Confusing definitions of conservative and government

Democrat appointees to appellate courts are supposedly 13 percent more "liberal" than Republican appointees. Liberal is ruling in favor of the defendant; conservative in favor of the prosecution. If conservatives are for personal freedom and limited government and liberals are for big government, shouldn't it be the other way around? Again, it surprises me that people who think government can't do anything right think that government prosecutors, another variety of bureaucrat, are almost always right.

See "Uncommon Detail Marks Rulings by Sotomayor", Jerry Markon, Washington Post, 2009-07-09

The one-fingered victory sign

At 2:45 into this YouTube video is Iran's version of Tiananmen Square. Granted that the young woman is not facing tanks, but her gesture is definitely more defiant. I can't say whether this particular picture is made up or not. Even if it is made up, it expresses somebody's feelings "eloquently".

Al Qaeda and Slaughterhouse Five

I have long had Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" on my reading list. I borrowed it from the library recently and finished it yesterday afternoon.

I did know that Vonnegut was a survivor of the Dresden fire bombing. I had thought that Slaughterhouse Five was about five survivors who were in a meat locker. Actually it was the address of where they were bunked as prisoners of war assigned to work in Dresden: Schlacthof fünf. There were about 100 prisoners guarded by four old or teen-age German conscripts.

They were about the only survivors of the firebombing. When they emerged from their shelter, they saw no standing buildings. Even then, they were strafed by planes attacking anything moving.

One character, a retired Air Force officer justifies the bombing because of what "the Germans" did. He also states that more people died in Dresden than in either the firebombing of Tokyo or the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. He also justifies the latter two because of all the things "the Japanese" did to other people.

Amazing the different attitudes of people in the air or far away and of the people actually on the ground.

The imposition of collective guilt is always wrong. Jewish children of the twentieth century had nothing to do with the crucifixion of Jesus. German children of the 1940s had nothing to do with the Holocaust or the bombing of England. Japanese children of the 1940s had nothing to do with the attack on Pearl Harbor or the Rape of Nanking. Yet all these children are worth killing because of the actions of some of their elders. The god Maloch still lives and we still sacrifice children to his fires.

Is it any wonder that Al Qaeda thinks it appropriate to kill Americans anywhere anytime because they don't like the actions of a few Americans?

Obama's reaching out to people around the world is not going to quench the fires of Maloch soon, but let's hope it is a start.

Did you remember...?

I wanted to saw up some birch stumps in our back yard. They were just about flush with the ground, but I still had to be careful mowing around them.

So, this weekend I put the chain saw from our cabin in the back of the truck along with 50:1 gas mix and bar oil.

I decided I didn't want to make noise on Sunday afternoon and so I delayed to Monday. But, before I even got out of bed, I didn't think I brought work gloves home. And then, the stopper to the work, I had no safety topper. I had left my hard hat at our cabin.

Oh, well, I managed to cut around the stumps one more time.

One trillion dollars for health care sounds like a bargain

One trillion dollars over ten years for some health care proposals is claimed as an excessive cost by critics of those proposals. These same critics generally look on government spending as expenses without any return.

Consider that the U.S. spends over two trillion dollars each year and the rate is rising at over six percent per year. See "Health Care in the United States", Wikipedia. If a universal health care system costs one trillion over ten years, that sounds like quite an improvement of over twenty million for the same span of time.

Diplomacy can "kill them" with kindness

One of the best arguments that I have read about keeping diplomatic channels open to Iran is "Iran will never be the same again", Huffington Post, Meir Javendanfar and Dex Torricke-Barton, 2009-07-07.

If someone calls you a Great Satan, the best thing you can do is to appear as a Good Angel. If you show calm in front of a tirade, who will come off looking better. Despite Iran being a sham democracy, the Iranian government still has to deal with the people. Remember, the Iranian people have already put their government on shaky ground. Diplomacy is a good opportunity to win the hearts and minds of a people.

Iran - A turn for the worse, or better?

The mask of democracy has been removed in Iran. The Iranian Republican Guard has effectively taken control, Los Angeles Times, 2009-07-06.

But now that the mask has been removed, will the Iranian people be more imaginative in their resistance to an election they consider stolen. Supposedly a strike has been called during Istafan, a three-day holiday in remembrance of martyrs during which people can take off work without excuse or penalty. At the same time a large sandstorm is moving eastward from Iraq. The Tehran pollution committee has declared the city should be shut down for two days.

Will enough clerics stand up against events or will the Republican Guard start arresting clerics?

I have lost track of all that I have read today. One story leads to another. Two articles at Tehran Bureau are notable. "Eye of the storm - 18th Tir" is a reflection on how the ideals of the 1989 revolution may work against the Republican Guard. "The Death of the Republic" is a look at how this situation has been developing over the years.

Roger Cohen's "A Journalist's 'Actual Responsibility'", New York Times, 2009-07-05, is a good look about how important journalism is to helping people get word of their struggles to the rest of the world.

In "What can we do about Iran?" I wrote that we could "donate to humans rights organizations that are following the situation." Another donation we can make, which I did, is to the Tehran Bureau. http://tehranbureau.com It is one-woman collector of Iranian news that many people in and out of Iran depend on.

On a lighter note, you could learn or listen to "Ey Iran", a very popular patriotic song. The best version I found was at http://www.saeedgilani.com/EyIran.mp3 but you can find several more at http://www.meuzer.com and search for "Ey Iran". Your search will yield several You Tube videos, some duplicates, of people playing or singing "Ey Iran". Note also that many feature waving flags.

Marriage is one man, one woman?

Many who oppose "gay marriage" claim the Bible says God defined marriage as one man and one woman. However, the Bible says that Jacob married both Leah and Rachel, that David had many wives, and that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. All three of these men were supposedly favored by God.

Solomon was almost a marriage machine. He ruled about 40 years or about 14,000 days. We can probably assume that he didn't marry much near the end of his reign and probably married some of his wives before he became king. If his marrying days were still about 40 years, that would mean he would be marrying a woman every 20 days or marrying a woman or taking a concubine every two weeks. That sounds like Solomon's life was one continuous honeymoon!

Why does being an American have to be special?

The newspapers are filled with testimonials on why people are proud to be American. They give many reasons including a list of freedoms. But underlying many of these is a notion that being an American is preferable to being anything else. Nowhere else in the world could be as good as living in America.

I have lived in and visited other countries and people there are quite happy to stay there. Sure it may be nice to visit or live in America, but they would just as soon live in their native land. In fact, I have many friends who lived in the U.S. for several years and chose to return to their home countries.

Being proud of one's country is a good thing, but it becomes a bad thing when one thinks one's country is superior to anything else.

I find this very strange. After all, my house is not necessarily the best house, but it is my house. My city is not necessarily the best city, but it is my city. My state is not necessarily the best state, but it is my state. Why do we have to have the best country, not just our country. See "I live in the best house in the world".

As the song says, "This is my home, the country where my heart is; here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine". Hymn 159, "This is My Song", Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association

Bear attack!

When we got to the cabin I noticed an orange container 15 feet to my right. It was a pump bottle of Fast Orange hand cleaner. It was supposed to be on the picnic table 15 feet to my left. The wind could not have been strong enough to move it since our last visit.

I saw that it was oozing a bit of white cleaner from a nice round hole. When I got closer I noticed that there were a couple of other round holes. We assumed that a bear thought the orange smell meant food and probably got a rude surprise when he tasted the detergents.

This was supposed to be an opening to another episode of "The Adventures of Superwoodsman", but I never got around to writing it. Since then I've forgotten all the various adventures and misadventures of that weekend, except one.

When I went to the well to pump some water, I saw my primer jug on the ground with a big dent. I'm not sure if a bear took a swipe at it or the wind blew it off the bench. It was almost full, and so I doubt the latter.

Today when we went to our cabin, the Fast Orange container was again on my right with a few more holes in it. Either the first bear didn't learn or another bear liked the smell but not the taste. From now on we'll keep the Fast Orange inside the cabin.

The bears have been busy in the area. I used the weed whip to clear the grass along one of our paths today. Every so often I would see big chunks of sod pulled back. A bear had been looking for grubs or other delicacies under the grass. I hope it was satisfied. I wouldn't want a really, really hungry bear prowling around.

We've had many other encounters with bears. You can read some of them in "Bear Stories", my first article for the Reader Weekly of Duluth, then called the Northland Reader. We do know enough not to deliberately feed them. See also "Misguided freedom" and "That bear's so cute..."

You might be surprised who wants improved Iranian-American relations

Roger Cohen wrote a very interesting and surprising commentary on who wants to see an improvement in Iranian-American relations. See "Let the Usurpers Writhe", New York Times 2009-07-01. Apparently, those currently in government need an improvement in relations, but they don't want to see the opposition get credit for the improvement.

Cohen would very much like to see an improvement, but he believes that best way to bring down Ahmadinejad is for Obama to keep his distance.

My own view is that those who call for Obama to be more forceful are overly optimistic about U.S. power, military or diplomatic. Somehow they think when the so-called leader of the free world speaks, the whole world will jump. They neglect the long history of the U.S. telling some country to do this or that, and the U.S. gets just the opposite. The rulers, legitimate or otherwise, become more popular by their resistance to U.S. pressure.

Reflections on waking up slowly

At reveille I revel in my reverie.

Reconstructing family history

Genealogy once upon a time seemed to be a search for illustrious ancestors. As it became more and more popular for people just to connect back to Europe, people came just as interested in the stories of their ancestors as in the connections of one generation to another. Besides, the stories often gave clues on how to find the connections.

I've been interested in the origins of the name Magree for years, but really didn't make much progress until the 1970s when I stumbled on a whole bunch in Australia. From some of them I found that they could trace their ancestors to Kilkenny, Ireland.

My own personal search stopped with my greatgrandfather, John J.R. Magree who was born in Brooklyn in 1851. I've gathered a few stories about him and his descendants, but I gave up on searching documents to go back further.

Meanwhile, I do a Google search on Magrees and turn up a few I never heard of before. I generally don't follow up because the letter exchange or telephone calls would just eat up time from all the other activities I want to do.

Every so often my curiosity gets the better of me and I attempt to contact someone. I did this recently through classmates.com and got a reply. She gave me some information about her ex-husband. I made the connection to one of my uncles, replied to her, and haven't heard from her since. I probably exhausted her interest in the subject.

However, this led me to reflect on some decades-old issues. My family is not very good on keeping connections up, possibly because of many divorces. I had not seen my paternal grandmother since I was about 7 or 9, but I sent her Christmas cards and maybe birthday cards for a long, long time.

The year after I was married, we drove through Chicago on our way home to Cleveland. I stopped at a phone booth, looked my grandmother up, called her, and she invited us to stop by.

She was living upstairs in a duplex where her youngest son, his wife, and children lived downstairs. My wife and I remember her bitterly complaining about her daughter-in-law.

A couple of nights ago, during a sleepless period, several weeks after I received the message through classmates.com, two explanations about the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflict popped into my head.

Both were born in Germany.

My grandmother had come to the U.S. when she was about six, but as an adult she spoke probably only English. Her children would ask for German words but she had a harder and harder time remembering any.

My aunt was the widow of a German soldier and the mother of a young son. She met my uncle, a G.I., after the war and came to the U.S. with her son.

I wonder if there was friction between the two women because 1) my grandmother could no longer speak fluent German and was frustrated, or 2) my grandmother had antipathy towards Germans in general because of the two World Wars.

I may never know. All the principals are dead now except possibly my aunt's first son. I may never get sufficient curiosity to follow up with people who may be reluctant to get involved with distant relatives.

And this is how so many interesting stories get lost or garbled.