I want to go to Maahs.

Hey, Mars is bright and beautiful in the Eastern sky tonight, despite the light pollution from Walmart and the searchlights from Applebee's. (Why searchlights? We can only guess it's to draw in the crowds heading for tonight's Pats-Bills game.)

Just for fun I went to Heavens-Above and printed out a sky map for our location: Now I'm going to run back outside and see what I can see. At least it's not snowing like it was yesterday.

By the way, Heavens-Above is a really cool free site with lots of astronomy data, particularly about a phenonemon called Iridium Flares. If you visit, use my link above, or make sure you include the hyphen in the URL. It's very important. Heavens Above without the hyphen used to take you to a site devoted to other heavenly bodies than the ones you'll find in the night sky. Right now it seems to return just a list of astrology sites. You can never be too careful though.

Tyranny of the minority

Yes, it does happen (of course it does). Political correctness strikes again. This article from the Boston Globe reports that the Underwood Elementary School in Newton has canceled their Halloween celebration. Why? Because a 'handful of parents' indicated they would keep their children from school that day, because the celebrations offended their religious beliefs.

Here are some choice quotes from principal David Castelline:

Not everyone is going to agree with the decision, and I really understand that, but I felt the goal was really important to make it a respectful and open and welcoming place for all members of our community.

When I hear that kids won't come to school because of what we're doing on Halloween, I have a problem with that.

So, being respectful now means caving in to any small concern, even from just a few individuals? Would the school disavow Thanksgiving at the objection of some Native American families? Or refuse to acknowledge Veteran's Day because some student is the grandchild of a Japanese war veteran?

What world does Castelline live in, where it is possible to please everybody and avoid stepping on anyone's beliefs? What's wrong with a few kids staying out of school one day? Would they have been harmed as much as the rest of the community was by this decision? The most charitable thing I can say about this is that Halloween is certainly not an essential part of a child's education, so it's not like a vital part of their school experience has been lost. However, the community has lost one more opportunity to share traditions that are simply part of America. If it's not your tradition, fine. Make it a teaching moment: explain to you child why you disapprove (and don't send them in dressed up as Harry Potter).

Castelline's comment that 'not everyone is going to agree' may be the understatement of the year. An unscientific poll by one local TV station placed the disapproval level at about 89 percent.

Interestingly, this situation appears to be the opposite of the one conjectured by Bruce Tinsley. Although I have no inside information, my guess is that the parents objected not because Halloween is Christian, but because it is not. I don't find the response of the principal as a liberal vs. conservative issue either. To me, it's just one more example of the breakdown of Common Sense in America.

Here's my bottom line: the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee 'the right to not be offended'.

Say it IS so

Who said the Sox couldn't sweep the Series two years in a row ;) Ok, so the color wasn't right this year. Congratulations to the 2005 MLB World Champions, the Chicago White Sox. Sweeping the Astros in an exciting 1-0 finale (anybody feel sad for Roger?), 88 years of waiting are over. The ghosts of the Black Sox can rest in peace.

As a Boston fan, it's always easy to root for the AL in the Series, even if Boston isn't there. Well, almost always. Obviously, we switch allegiances to the NL whenever the Yankees are going for the title. In this case it was a no brainer. The White Sox clearly deserved the victory with their incredible end-of-season and post-season run. All I can say is "Don't do it again."

About the only time I'd root for the NL against a non-Yankee AL team, is if the Chicago Cubs make the Series when Boston doesn't. It's about time for the Cubbies to get theirs. Can we exorcise another curse in 2006? Nah. My wife noted an interesting fact. Before last year, the last Red Sox championship was in 1918. The last White Sox championship was 1917. If we follow the pattern, the 1916 winner will take the Series next year. Which team is so destined to take it all in 2006? The Boston Red Sox!

2000 names, 2000 faces

The news is out today that the U.S. has lost 2000 men and women in Iraq. Such an awful milestone. I was listening to NPR's On Point on my commute home. Tom Ashbrook was interviewing a parent who lost a daughter in Iraq and has two others in the service. The man refused to let Ashbrook bait him into saying whether or not the war is justified. He emphasized the simple fact: we are there. If we simply abandon Iraq now the destruction will be horrific. Even if you believe we should get out, the process must be considered and deliberate.

In contrast to this parent, capable of such thoughtful words even in his grief, are people who say we must stay in Iraq to honor the sacrifice of those who have died. To me, that very statement is an insult to the men and women who made those sacrifices. It is exactly the worst reason to continue the fight. Such logic offers no chance to ever reconsider or retreat. When we've lost 3000, wouldn't the need to stay the course be even stronger? What about 5000, 10000, or 100000?

I find this way of thinking reminiscent of the blind rage that causes ethnic conflicts to last for generations without cease. They've killed ours, so we must fight back. Of course, they are thinking exactly the same thing. I am not saying this is what we are doing in Iraq. I am saying that the trap we may fall into is just as disastrous.

In memoriam

If my father were still alive he'd celebrating his 91st birthday today. By the start of the Great Depression he was already well into his teenage years. This year I'm reminded of just how different his experience growing up, in a very large, and not particularly wealthy family, must have been from mine. We weren't rich either, but at least I got the advantages of late 20th century living conditions, and I wasn't expected to abandon schooling for work, to bring in some more money for the family, as I suspect he was. What would he have done if he had my opportunities?

Shut the duck up!

First, a disclaimer: I'm a liberal democrat (gee, one of those in Massachusetts, what a surprise!) That doesn't mean I blindly accept every position of the Democratic party, and it doesn't mean I reflexively oppose every Republican or conservative policy. The polarized state of U.S. politics is incredibly frustrating and counter-productive (although, anything that prevents Congress from inflicting more damage on the rest of us may be a good thing).

Nevertheless, even if I were a conservative, I think I'd still be ticked off by the pointless waste of comics-page space known as Mallard Fillmore, by Bruce Tinsley. It's apparently supposed to be a political comic strip, but I find it neither political nor funny. For quite a long time now, all it seems to be is a series of ad-hominem attacks on liberals. According to Bruce/Mallard, liberals are stupid, hypocritical, indecisive, coddling, unthinking, and so on and so on.

Well, isn't that special? Why doesn't he use this platform to tell us what's right about the conservative agenda, or to explain what he finds objectionable about the liberal agenda? Just how useful is basically repeating "hey you're an idiot" week after week?

That said, Tinsley inadvertently gave me quite a chuckle with today's strip, commenting on political correctness and Halloween. As of this writing you can find it here. In case it's gone, here's the inspired text:

It's that time of year again... when public schools across the USA have Halloween dress-up days, but ban politically incorrect costumes...
Of course, if most school administrators knew that Halloween began as a Christian holy day, they wouldn't be celebrating it in the first place.

I'm quite surprised that Tinsley doesn't know that Halloween's origins actually come from an ancient Celtic festival. It was known as Samhain, it existed before the time of Christ, and it was later co-opted by Roman conquerors to include their own harvest rituals. There are plenty of online resources to learn more about this, including this article at AmericanCatholic.org. The idea that Halloween 'originated' as a Christian holy day is incredibly outdated. In any case, the whole argument of the strip is foolish, considering that public school systems across the country manage to acknowledge Christmas without imploding in a swirl of politically correct angst.

The tiki made me do it.

Welcome to my block. I mean blog. After messing that up three times in a row I figured there was a reason, so I left it that way.

I'm damn new to the blogosphere, and officially way too old to be cool. Fortunately my kids are too young for me to embarrass them yet. I'd like to say I'm wading into this because of my love of all things tech and the excitement of life in the 21st century, but that would be a load of carp. My inspiration was the vlog phenonenon of the moment known as Tiki Bar TV and the video goddess fondly known as Lala. Hey, let somebody else have noble intentions.

Hopefully, I won't spend much time pontificating. Now that approximately 6,154,674,010 human beings are spewing forth on the 'Net thanks to blogging, the typical opinion out there is worth far less than 2 cents.

I have a web site (please visit): http://www.roverdaddy.com. It's supposed to be a news parody web site ala The Borowitz Report, and a minor source of income if I can con anybody into buying a bumper sticker, T-shirt, etc. Unfortunately, I manage to come up with a clever idea about as often as George Bush admits a mistake, so the site is a lot more barren than I'd like. This blog will give me a chance to inflict my ideas on the world even when I can't come up with the next brainstorm for the site.

Well, enough with the intro. If I knew where this is going to take me, I'd probably stop now. So on with it then...