Occasionally Opinionated...

3.26.2003

The war in Iraq occupies a lot of my thoughts these days. And a lot of other people's as well, obviously. People with much more background than I, and much greater insight into things political. I am only minimally a political being, though I do try to get out and vote. Anyway, here are some thought provoking pieces I've come across recently. Michael Kinsley, Slate's founding editor, talks about Bush being "the closest thing in a long time to dictator of the world." Kevin Lowe, a Canadian expatriate living in Amsterdam writes about how the rest of the world views Bush. As a friend said, "read it and weep." Next up we have William Rivers Pitt, a conspiracy theorist if ever there was one, talks about a very interesting group called the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC. He goes into the background of some of Bush's closest advisors. As he puts it, "wacky think tanks are a cottage industry in Washington, DC" so why is PNAC any different? Read his article to find out. Be afraid. And if you can't trust Jimmy Carter, who can you trust? He presents, very persuasively I think, why this war shouldn't be happening. I, too, fear for the future of our country. It's saddening to think how quickly one man can throw away 200 years of built up good will. And I enjoyed this Buzzflash reader commentary showing how the protests are useful even if they didn't prevent the war. Finally, for some keen, unbiased insight, I tend to turn to Stratfor. They like to make money from their information, so a lot of the site isn't free, but they do have an AvantGo channel that has a reasonable amount of content, free.

posted by Tom Stewart on 2:08 PM |

9.3.2002

I've been spending a lot of time with my (relatively) new PocketPC recently. It's a slightly older iPaq (3670) -- sure to be a collectible any day now, with the Compaq name on it. My favorite use for it has been reading e-books, and I have two e-book reader applications on it, the Microsoft Reader which came with it, and Mobireader, from Mobipocket. The MS Reader comes out on top for readability, with its ClearType technology, but the Mobireader comes out on top for offering an optional, integrated PocketOED. Ever wish you had a dictionary next to you while reading? How about having one a single click away! To be fair, the MS Reader offers a freely downloadable dictionary, but even I know most of the words in it. And its definitions tend to be terse. But as they say, content is king. And to that end, my favorite site has been Blackmask which has many (thousands?) of freely available titles, in many reader formats. I'm currently enjoying The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer, but I have Pygmalion and The Wizard of Oz at the ready.

I am also awaiting the arrival of a particular cable, the iPAQ12VGPSE to connect my iPaq to my eTrex. Stir in a little software and I'll surely never get lost again. I'd often thought about doing this with my laptop, but the laptop was always too big to carry around all the time. I can't wait to see how this marriage will work out. And finally, though I haven't bought it yet, another compelling application I've been evaluating is software that turns the PPC into a universal remote control. This application largely emulates a hardware product, the Philips Pronto Pro, that has a multitude of followers. This means that much of the important work of teaching the remote has been done by other people.

posted by Tom Stewart on 1:34 PM |

5.13.2002

The weekend flew by, though I can't say that's unusual. We went out for Mother's Day Breakfast, which made the morning even more hectic, but was still fun. We barely got Emma to Sunday School in time. The sermon revolved around the mother(parent)-child relationship, using Mark 3:19b-35 (the "Who are my mother and my brothers?" story) as the vehicle. Rev. John discussed this from Mary's point of view, speaking to her certain pain on hearing these words. The importance of family in that era was not to be taken lightly, and for Jesus to "dismiss" his earthly family like that must have hurt. Yet, Mary and Jesus certainly continued to work on their relationship, as evidenced by her presence at the crucifixion.

One of the key points of the sermon was a quote from Maya Angelou, who in an interview with the Boston Parents' Paper stated that it was important to love your children, but not to be in love with them. While I'm not sure I agree with the terminology, the distinction being made was that it is important to give children their space; to let them live their own lives and not live through them; to not be needful of them.

Coincidentally, (or not), the previous afternoon we had a get together for families at church. Along with some other parents, we discussed a chapter of the book, Parenting with Love and Logic. I must say that it is always a joy to get together with parents who are interested enough in their children to come together and discuss child rearing issues. The theme of the chapter was the importance of letting children make their own (age appropriate) decisions, as it is the only way they will learn responsibility. There were some interesting anecdotes as well. One of the authors related how his son wanted to borrow the car to go to a party, but both family cars were not available, so he decided not to go (and it was the party of the season). When asked why he didn't hitch a ride with his best buddy, he finally admitted that his best buddy had been drinking at parties, so he didn't want to take the risk. Turns out this buddy ended up driving himself and four (I think) other kids off a cliff that night. How can you best ensure that your child will be the one to make the right decision? Anyway, I thought that this discussion led nicely into Sunday's sermon.

posted by Tom Stewart on 2:37 PM |

4.23.2002

OK, here we go. We've really arrived on the web now.

posted by Tom Stewart on 10:13 PM |