Happy Birthday Xander

I have one really cool friend in New York who is turning seven (is it seven?) years old today. I've known his dad since his dad was eight years old, and it was strange to watch his dad become an adult. His mom is one of the three most important and influential women in my life, not counting my wife and my own mom. Xander has my undying love, being the first person I ever needed to take care of, to protect, to teach; and being such an incredible little boy.

I want you to know Xander that spending time exploring New York City with you will be one of the richest memories of my life. I can't think of Times Square or the East Village or Union Square or Ganas or a museum or a library without also thinking of you on my shoulders or holding my hand or running ahead of me as I yell for you to "stop" and "go" at some comfortable distance ahead of me. When I see a toy or read a book out loud or taste some food, I often think about how I would enjoy sharing that experience with you. I really enjoy sharing things with you, hearing what you think about them. I like inventing stories with you. I like listening to you talk.

Janella and I sent you some chocolate for your birthday. It's a special hot chocolate. It's not a powder. It comes in a chocolate bar. It's a Mexican hot chocolate, with a little bit of cinnamon. Of course you can just take a bite of the chocolate all by itself, but it's best melted. You just break a bar into a cup of really hot water (or milk) and whisk it up until it's nice and frothy. It's the best hot chocolate I've had and I wanted to share it with you, because anytime I drink a cup of hot chocolate or try a bite of something sweet I wish I could share it with you. It should arrive on Friday.

The next time you're in Ann Arbor I want to taste honeys with you. I've discovered so many different types of honey (dozens), and they all taste so wildly different from each other. I want to hear you talk about them after you taste them, and learn what you think about their tastes.

You rock, Xanman. You so totally rock.

I love you.

Closer look at my view of institutions

I realize that in quoting so much below, I may have covered up what I think is the most important sentence people should read and think about. So let me emphasize it.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I further submit this is because institutions select for individuals who do not analyze institutions.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Facts checked of Bush and Cheney

A nice round-up of the lies being told to us that isn't overly long or rabid and foaming at the mouth (honestly, I'd rather listen to someone lie to me than wipe spittle from my face from rabid diatribes, however truthful).

KR Washington Bureau | 11/16/2005 | In challenging war's critics, administration tinkers with truth:
But Bush, Cheney, and other senior officials have added several other arguments in recent days that distort the factual record. Below, Knight Ridder addresses the administration's main assertions:

Hillary Clinton and Wal-Mart

Is this a widely known fact? Why isn't it always brought up in conversations about her and her policy beliefs (especially regarding labor)?

Political Friendster Connection - Hillary Clinton connected to Wal-Mart: "Hillary Clinton was on the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart from 1985 to 1992."

On media as an institutional force

One of the refreshing things about the blogosphere, to use the clumsy term which is currently around, is that it is not yet an institutional force whose purpose is to make money. So, discussions exist on it which address how for-profit media isn't meant to be honest, probing, or critical in regard to large "how the system works" issues.

In a way that I agree with, A Tiny Revolution commented on Maureen Dowd's assertion that "In American history all of our great traumas -- Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-contra, Iraq, Harriet Miers -- came from presidents' personal foibles..."

A Tiny Revolution: Maureen Dowd And The Tao Of Stupidity; Also, A Joke:
Let's take one of her examples, Vietnam. Our involvement there covered the terms of six presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford. And our policy through each of them was largely the same.

So...did each of these six presidents have the same personal foibles? OF COURSE NOT. Yet Dowd can say this without understanding how weirdly dumb it is, and Howard Kurtz can record it without understanding it himself.

I submit it is no accident Dowd and Kurtz have risen to the heights of their respective institutions. I further submit this is because institutions select for individuals who do not analyze institutions. This makes them, even the ones with some native intelligence, appear peculiarly stupid.

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