"A man that would expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic; but a man that thinks men can be turned into angels by an election is a reformer and remains at large."
Mr. Dooley (Finley Peter Dunne)
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Physical Changes
I saw my doctor last week for my annual physical. Everything was great. Only one piece of bad news: I'm an inch and a half shorter than I was when I was 21.
That's unfair.
The problem isn't that I want to tower over other people - it is that now I have to lose more weight. The weight charts are calibrated by height. As long as I thought I was taller, my weight didn't look that bad.
When you think about it, using overall height as the benchmark discriminates in another way. My legs are short. They should be a couple of inches longer. That wouldn't add much weight, but would make a difference on the weight chart.
Guess I just have to start eating less and exercising more.
That's unfair.
The problem isn't that I want to tower over other people - it is that now I have to lose more weight. The weight charts are calibrated by height. As long as I thought I was taller, my weight didn't look that bad.
When you think about it, using overall height as the benchmark discriminates in another way. My legs are short. They should be a couple of inches longer. That wouldn't add much weight, but would make a difference on the weight chart.
Guess I just have to start eating less and exercising more.
South Avenue Update
Pamlico County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Crow signed the final judgment granting ownership of the end of South Avenue to the Town of Oriental last February 5th.
Six months have passed, and the fence is still up. I am told that last Wednesday Lacy Henry agreed for the Town to remove the fence he put up in the Town's Right of Way about eighteen years ago.
Care to place bets on how long it will take for the fence to come down?
Six months have passed, and the fence is still up. I am told that last Wednesday Lacy Henry agreed for the Town to remove the fence he put up in the Town's Right of Way about eighteen years ago.
Care to place bets on how long it will take for the fence to come down?
Voting Rights
Forty-five years ago, August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, effectively ending the deal struck almost ninety years earlier that let southern states deprive a large number of their citizens of rights enjoyed by the white majority.
The Voting Rights Act is often seen as a measure primarily benefiting African Americans. I see it as a victory for all Americans. It took another four decades, but the events set in motion that long-ago August eventually led to the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act and countless court decisions establishing the right of every American to vote. No poll tax (that hindered all poor people from voting), no literacy test (first used in the Northeast to prevent Irish immigrants from voting), no competency test, easier procedures for servicemen and overseas Americans to vote, removal of administrative barriers.
The bottom line: now every citizen has the right to vote somewhere unless that right has been taken away by a court of law.
We can best honor the memory of the courageous Americans who gave their lives so this could happen by taking the time to register and vote.
The Voting Rights Act is often seen as a measure primarily benefiting African Americans. I see it as a victory for all Americans. It took another four decades, but the events set in motion that long-ago August eventually led to the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act and countless court decisions establishing the right of every American to vote. No poll tax (that hindered all poor people from voting), no literacy test (first used in the Northeast to prevent Irish immigrants from voting), no competency test, easier procedures for servicemen and overseas Americans to vote, removal of administrative barriers.
The bottom line: now every citizen has the right to vote somewhere unless that right has been taken away by a court of law.
We can best honor the memory of the courageous Americans who gave their lives so this could happen by taking the time to register and vote.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
County Audit
At last Monday's meeting (August 2) of the Pamlico County Commissioners, we learned that the County's auditors have completed their work except for one minor item: adding the revenue from the County's share of NC State sales tax, which will not be received until next month.
Good Job!
At Tuesday's meeting of Oriental's Town Commissioners, we heard nothing about the town's audit. I have since learned that the auditors plan to begin their work in a couple of weeks.
You may recall that the NC Local Government Commission sent a letter to the Town on March 1 requiring the Town to correct a dozen deficiencies from our last audit. The LGC went on to "urge the Board to develop a corrective action plan immediately and begin eliminating these serious internal control weaknesses."
Town Board minutes of April 6 report that Mr. Cahoon was to provide information and after consulting with the auditors, Mayor Sage would sign and send a letter in response to the LGC. I have been unable to find any record of action by the Board to develop or even adopt a corrective action plan.
Good Job!
At Tuesday's meeting of Oriental's Town Commissioners, we heard nothing about the town's audit. I have since learned that the auditors plan to begin their work in a couple of weeks.
You may recall that the NC Local Government Commission sent a letter to the Town on March 1 requiring the Town to correct a dozen deficiencies from our last audit. The LGC went on to "urge the Board to develop a corrective action plan immediately and begin eliminating these serious internal control weaknesses."
Town Board minutes of April 6 report that Mr. Cahoon was to provide information and after consulting with the auditors, Mayor Sage would sign and send a letter in response to the LGC. I have been unable to find any record of action by the Board to develop or even adopt a corrective action plan.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Tonkin Gulf 1964
Forty-six years ago today, August 4, 1964, I was aboard USS Higbee (DD-806), steaming at twenty-seven knots toward the Tonkin Gulf. The day before, our destroyer squadron commander, Captain Vincent Patrick Healey, rushed our departure from the naval base at Yokosuka, Japan, so we could get into the action following the North Vietnamese PT Boat attack Sunday, August 2 on USS Maddox.
The above photo, taken from Higbee's helicopter deck, shows USS Mason (DD-852), followed by USS Orleck (DD-886) in the distance. Not seen is the squadron flagship, USS Joseph B. Strauss (DDG-16), leading the way ahead of Higbee.
My wife Elizabeth and our two young sons had arrived in Japan from the states after nineteen hours in a four-engined propeller plane the evening of August 3, hours after our departure. I would not see them for two more months.
That night (August 4) I stood the mid watch (midnight to 0400). After my watch, I stopped by the radio shack to read the fox skeds (incoming messages broadcast to all the ships in the fleet, printed on yellow teletype paper). I soon came across a stack of messages sent at flash precedence from USS Maddox and the embarked destroyer squadron commander, Capt. Herrick. It read like a war novel.
Maddox and her companion ship USS Turner Joy reported being under attack by PT boats. The ships took evasive action to avoid torpedoes detected by sonarmen. The attacking boats, seen on radar, maneuvered at high speed. Lookouts reported flashes of gunfire and cockpit lights. Maddox and Turner Joy fired their five inch guns and reported destroying several boats.
After several messages of that kind, Commodore Herrick sent a message calling into question some of the earlier messages. His messages conveyed increasing doubt that the ships were under attack at all. Then I saw messages from the Pentagon asking probing questions and directing Herrick to keep all of the records, including tracks from the ship's dead reckoning tracer (DRT), radio logs, sonar records and so forth. Commodore Herrick recommended to the Pentagon to take no action until the records were reviewed.
Unknown to him, action was already underway, with a retaliatory strike planned for dawn.
Suddenly there were no more messages on the fleet broadcast about the event. I was certain the message traffic had been moved from general service communications channels to a "back channel" not shared with the operating forces.
Two months later, back in Yokosuka, we began hearing rumors that the two ships may have been firing at each other. I doubted that. But I never believed that the so called second attack, the night of 4-5 August 1964, that was used to justify the Tonkin Gulf Resolution actually happened.
Maddox and her companion ship USS Turner Joy reported being under attack by PT boats. The ships took evasive action to avoid torpedoes detected by sonarmen. The attacking boats, seen on radar, maneuvered at high speed. Lookouts reported flashes of gunfire and cockpit lights. Maddox and Turner Joy fired their five inch guns and reported destroying several boats.
After several messages of that kind, Commodore Herrick sent a message calling into question some of the earlier messages. His messages conveyed increasing doubt that the ships were under attack at all. Then I saw messages from the Pentagon asking probing questions and directing Herrick to keep all of the records, including tracks from the ship's dead reckoning tracer (DRT), radio logs, sonar records and so forth. Commodore Herrick recommended to the Pentagon to take no action until the records were reviewed.
Unknown to him, action was already underway, with a retaliatory strike planned for dawn.
Suddenly there were no more messages on the fleet broadcast about the event. I was certain the message traffic had been moved from general service communications channels to a "back channel" not shared with the operating forces.
Two months later, back in Yokosuka, we began hearing rumors that the two ships may have been firing at each other. I doubted that. But I never believed that the so called second attack, the night of 4-5 August 1964, that was used to justify the Tonkin Gulf Resolution actually happened.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Conservative Fears and Timidity
Conservatives are timid. Don't take my word for it - read the words of Glen Beck's favorite economist, Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek in his 1960 essay, "Why I am not a Conservative."
"As has often been acknowledged by conservative writers," Hayek writes, "one of the fundamental traits of the conservative attitude is a fear of change, a timid distrust of the new as such, while the liberal position is based on courage and confidence, on a preparedness to let change run its course even if we cannot predict where it will lead. There would not be much to object to if the conservatives merely disliked too rapid change in institutions and public policy; here the case for caution and slow process is indeed strong. But the conservatives are inclined to use the powers of government to prevent change or to limit its rate to whatever appeals to the more timid mind."
He goes on to elaborate:
"Let me return, however, to the main point, which is the characteristic complacency of the conservative toward the action of established authority and his prime concern that this authority be not weakened rather than that its power be kept within bounds. This is difficult to reconcile with the preservation of liberty. In general, it can probably be said that the conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. He believes that if government is in the hands of decent men, it ought not to be too much restricted by rigid rules. Since he is essentially opportunist and lacks principles, his main hope must be that the wise and the good will rule - not merely by example, as we all must wish, but by authority given to them and enforced by them. Like the socialist, he is less concerned with the problem of how the powers of government should be limited than with that of who wields them; and, like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the value he holds on other people."
Be not afraid.
"As has often been acknowledged by conservative writers," Hayek writes, "one of the fundamental traits of the conservative attitude is a fear of change, a timid distrust of the new as such, while the liberal position is based on courage and confidence, on a preparedness to let change run its course even if we cannot predict where it will lead. There would not be much to object to if the conservatives merely disliked too rapid change in institutions and public policy; here the case for caution and slow process is indeed strong. But the conservatives are inclined to use the powers of government to prevent change or to limit its rate to whatever appeals to the more timid mind."
He goes on to elaborate:
"Let me return, however, to the main point, which is the characteristic complacency of the conservative toward the action of established authority and his prime concern that this authority be not weakened rather than that its power be kept within bounds. This is difficult to reconcile with the preservation of liberty. In general, it can probably be said that the conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. He believes that if government is in the hands of decent men, it ought not to be too much restricted by rigid rules. Since he is essentially opportunist and lacks principles, his main hope must be that the wise and the good will rule - not merely by example, as we all must wish, but by authority given to them and enforced by them. Like the socialist, he is less concerned with the problem of how the powers of government should be limited than with that of who wields them; and, like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the value he holds on other people."
Be not afraid.
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