| Rayne Today Searching for dharma, in spite of the weather...
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo says it all for me quite nicely, but I’ll reiterate: Grover Norquist, key tax policy advisor to the Bush Administration, is one scary motherf*cker. Terrifying. Picture me, stressing out with anxiety, driving to my interview last week; I’m listening to Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air, hoping for some peaceful and calming enlightenment. It was not to be. I damned near put on the brakes to pull over and listen when she asked for a clarification. It was like listening to a train wreck about to happen; you’re unable to do anything to prevent it and unable to tear yourself away from witnessing the impending crash. This guy is chillingly scary. I recommend listening to him; it’s a choice example of the twisted thinking that we’ll be up against during the 2004 Presidential Elections. The other notably freaky part of this weird interview is Norquist’s insistence that WE are somehow separate from THEM – WE being the taxpayers and THEM being the government. He completely missed this in his Civics or American Government class in grade school and high school: this is a government of, by and for the people. WE are THEM if we vote for them and put them in office. THEY spoke for us when they took us to war – WE allowed it. And WE owe the billions of dollars incurred as the cost of war and any other government services WE ask THEM, our elected representatives, to enact on our behalf. This guy is whacked to the point of a psychotic break with reality (although it’s quite tempting to buy into the idea that the people in the White House are definitely not US…). I’m wondering whether I should record the interview and replay it on Halloween. It’s eerie listening; it'd probably terrify the poor trick-or-treaters to death.  comment []
Heh. I’m going to have to think of a calming snack, something with sedating qualities, like roast turkey or something soporific to take with me to this afternoon’s meeting. Monday was our first team meeting; I didn’t have a lot of expectations, just wanted the kids to get to know each other and start talking as a team. As a first step toward introducing the team to the research-design-build concepts we’ll need to tackle, I asked two of the five boys on the team to brief the rest of us on how last year’s competition went. Sheesh! I can understand why girls don’t want to participate! One of the two boys wouldn’t stop talking! Sure, girls are just as likely to be yakky, but really, I’ve not seen anything in all-girls teams like this. Usually there’s a subtle pressure in the group for the other girls to step up and chime in or to not overstep the other girls in the team. I’m going to have to institute some rules to ensure everyone participates and that no one gets squashed out. My daughter didn’t say a word the entire time; I could sense she was hanging back and watching. The boys pretty much ignored her. It almost looked competitive, as if there was a need for this particular boy to make sure the rest of the boys knew who was the alpha on the team. It wasn’t based on size, either; one of the boys is taller and heavier than me; he hung back and listened carefully. (Wow. Wonder what they’re feeding him at home? I better take a BIG snack.) We definitely have a spread of talents on the team; one or two are very much into building with LEGOS, another couple are definitely going to be better at researching and strategizing, and the remaining two will surely disclose their talents as we move forward. It’ll be interesting to see how they coalesce into a cohesive team; this might be the best exercise I’ve had in personnel management in quite a while. Today we’ll get out the challenge and check out the software; I’m afraid they’ll be whipped up into a foam with getting the mat out, let alone the LEGOS. Maybe I’d better hand out the snacks first. I also started a team blog. Since five out of the six kids have internet access at home, I hope to be able to use it as a collaborative tool for sharing work completed or questions about the project. Will it work? Sure hope so! comment []
My sincere condolences on the brain death of so many of your neighbors. I feel your pain. We all will, if this goofball's handlers don't fix the world's largest economy but tank it even further.
I do have one question in the wake of this farcical election: I don't understand why your now-brain dead neighbors didn't just hire Enron to run the entire state a couple years ago and save us all this wasted air time. Why not just give them -- the opportunists of the energy industry and their comrades in the Republican party -- the damned keys to the state? comment []
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