Blog
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Learn the Words |
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Ok, this is getting a bit embarasing. There has been news coverage of the various memorials and gatherings since the attack (almost typed 'first attack', but I don't want to be prophetic in a negative way). Some of the coverage I've seen includes scenes of people singing songs. I must admit it's more than a little embarasing when they pan over the croud during our National Anthem and show people half-muttering with confused looks on their faces who obviously don't know the words. One of my early experiences was spending a year (spanning two school years) in the Arizona public school system. Every morning at Yavapai (forgive me if I spelled that wrong - it's been so long) elementary the day would start out with all students standing at attention in their classrooms for the singing of our National Anthem. The words were written on a large poster hanging on the wall. If you were late for class and caught in the halls during the anthem you were required to stand at attention and sing anyway. I hated it at the time, but now I feel a certain strength of character knowing the words. If you've never learned the anthem, now would be a good time. |
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{ mon, september 17, 2001 } { comments } |
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Stand and Fight We Do Consider |
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For some reason, the lyrics to "The Gates of Delirium" rang a bell last week. I first bought the Relayer album on a band trip to Canada. It was the Canadian printing on Vinyl. I noted with some humor that the liner notes said "Recorded August 1974". So, I'm listening to a downloaded .mp3 version of "The Gates..." the other day (from a 1976 live recording - I was 2) and the lyrics just seemed topical. Maybe I'm just nutty.
I hope we punish those responsible for last Tuesday, not innocent civilians. I consider no civilian loss on either side acceptable. Our losses don't justify theirs. We need to be careful. |
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{ mon, september 17, 2001 } { comments } |
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Some new coding |
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I'm annoyed that someone else beat me to the punch on "asp comments" for blogger. I would be interested to see their code. After the release of the "cgi comments" tool, I was working the asp version last night but didn't finish it. See the blogger home page for the links. I just wanted fame and hits for being linked from the blogger home page again. I'm so self centered. I get lots of joy out of my web page from the programming, but I have days where I feel like "on the other hand, what If I put up a web page, and no one visited?"
So, to handle my frustration, I've added a calendar tool to the archives page. Now you can sort through the archives with a little calendar to guide you. It needs some adjustments and I think I should add "previous month" and "next month" links. I'll get that tomorrow sometime. I was rather proud of my solution for making sure only days with content are links. My solution was based around the following:
select distinct
date_format(created,'%Y%m%d') as active_day
from wlc_content
where type = 'blog'
and status = 'a'
and refers_to is null
and created >= '$archive_cal_from_date'
and created <= '$archive_cal_to_date'
order by active_day
So, I did some coding, but I'm not famous for it. *Sigh*
Sorry to be off topic of the days news, but today I kind of took a much needed break from all that. I also watched a movie about a homosexual girl who's parents send her to a camp to be de-programmed. I have some thoughts and feelings about it which I might share when I can clarify them. |
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{ sat, september 15, 2001 } { comments } |
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Thursday Downpour |
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It's raining heavily out side and thundering very close to our location. I'm in the office at work. Two of the three owners are out of the office. The situation has deteriorated here a great deal to the point where I even emailed Karsten to ask how things are back at PAX. No luck.
Honestly though it's hard to work or think about web sites after the attack. I'm wishing they had given us the week off. I've tried to gather my thoughts enough to try and write something deep and meaningful about the events. Unfortunately my timing seems too little too late compared to the flood of essays and emails (see Macklin's) that people have written already. If you follow philsown.com you might have noticed I edited the original entry on the attack several times. I just didn't know what to say that had not been said already or sounded like I was trying to bleed hits from people with prick to the heart. I just can't write a patriotic "we will never forget" kind of piece. It's not in me.
Don't get me wrong, I'm affected by this deeply. I've been in shock and horror ever since. I'm disgusted at the racist attitudes of many people that have come out. I'm relieved that my aunt was in the towers on Monday instead of Tuesday. I'm greatful that my other aunt lives in Illinois as of a year or so now and not Manhattan where she used to live. Praise God for both!
My feelings: War is not needed. Something needs to be done to show people that this will not be tolerated in the U.S., but if a single civilian is killed by U.S. hands, our entire moral stance collapses. I feel weapons would be ineffective against the individuals who committed these acts. If we kill them, they become martyrs and more would-bes will rise up to take their place. If we go in with guns-a-blazing, we might find we have more people (regardless of race) who are sympathetic to the attackers in side our borders who carry out more attacks. I kind of feel like we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. It's a frustrating position to be in.
As for the people cheering: As disgusting as it is... um, something made them hate us so much. I have to confess ignorance of the issues and wonder why. But I don't want to sound like many I've heard demanding indignantly, "What have we ever done to them?" as if we're saints over here. The point has been made that our tax dollars support actions our government takes in forein countries. That frustrates me most of all. We're in a big country with such an abstracted government that decsions I "support" with my taxes are not ones I would support with my hearts if I were made aware of them. I need to be more informed about the issues. On the other side of the world is a person who is in a small country who's point of reference is direct involvement in the movement. So, when they see an American funded weapon leveled at them, the would assume that someone in America was as passionate enough about stopping their cause as they were in pursuing it. That is simply not the case.
These thoughts are rabling and could use at least one decent edit. Regardless, please feel free to comment with something sensible. I really need to find the right path to walk for myself and I'm in a fog of choices and feelings. |
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{ thu, september 13, 2001 } { comments } |
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Racism Sucks |
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Let's not forget Manzanar.
Judging an individual based on their appearance is called Racism and it's a Sin. |
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{ wed, september 12, 2001 } { comments } |
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Tradgedy |
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If you've not heard, each of the World Trade center buildings and the Pentagon have been crashed into by hi-jakced Passenger Jets. A fourth hi-jacked passenger jet crashed before reaching it's intended target in washington.
I stepped into the shower at about quater to nine this morning. When I got out Christin was watching CNN looking at the smoke pouring from the north tower. At that time we all thought it was an accident. We watched live as the second plane hit the south tower and the realization that this was no accident started to sink in horribly.
This whole attack is just terrible! I wish this day had never happened. I just can't believe what the people on those planes were going through as they headed towards the towers.
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{ tue, september 11, 2001 } { comments } |
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