An Impressive Coincidence for Such a Small Town

The Main Story I stopped watching those ridiculous beauty pageants many years ago, but few, if any, other towns in the United States can make this claim (please ignore the very poorly written title after you click the link). What's more, the town that can now make this claim (population about 14,800) is just a few blocks north of my house.

OK, enough of the main story:

Self-Centered, Unrelated Footnote

If I was completely proud of the following, I wouldn't feel the need to explain things first.

The web site at the above link is a "canned" site, just like Blogger. You choose from a list of so-so and/or ugly templates and then begin posting stories. Unlike Blogger, this canned site costs money and caters only to educational institutions. Also unlike Blogger, each subscribing institution is responsible for customizing the structure of its site (i.e. navigation scheme, tabs, sub-tabs, buttons, etc.). Last year, the institution at the above link subscribed to that "canned" site and chose their favorite template. Then they hired me to customize the structure. I was also responsible for transferring massive amounts of information from their old server to their new server. In short, I created most of the main tabs (the ones that look like a fungal growth at the top of the page, thanks to the poor tastes of the administrators), the extremely nondescript sub-tabs on the left side of the page, and the somewhat garish (no-choice) buttons on the right side. I tried to keep the "fungal" tabs to a less unsightly and more practical minimum, but some know-it-all added an entire extra row after I left.

It took me three weeks to set it up as logically as that limited and imperfect template would allow (it would have taken me twice as long if I had had to use one of their Windows computers instead of my own PowerBook G4, and that's NOT simply because I am more familiar with a Mac). In some ways, organizing that structure was not unlike straightening out a Rubik's Cube.

Those of you who know my last name may type it into the Search box in the upper-right corner of the page, and you will get one hit.

P.S. I found the story at the above link via Google. If it had not been a local site, and if it had not had the briefest and most to-the-point story, I would not have used it, and, therefore, I would not have thought to include this self-centered footnote.

P.P.S. I've posted two entries in two days. Be sure not to miss the previous entry.

-ology Survey

It's time for some meaningless writing. I took this survey from Fermicat (and a couple of others in her big circle of blogging friends). It's quite long, as usual, but it's pretty shallow and frivolous in spots, so that should help.

MOUTHOLOGY

Q: What is your salad dressing of choice?

A: No favorites. I like most of them, although I'm not much of a salad eater. The best salad I ever made (and the first one I ever liked) was when I put almost everything on my lettuce that was on the salad bar (I mean all the stuff that is meant to go on lettuce, that is), including several different dressings. I blame my experimentation that night on the hard construction work I had just completed (I was starved) and the two or three strong beers I had just drank. I've never been able to duplicate that perfect salad since then, even though I have tried many times.

Q: What is your favorite fast food restaurant?

A: I don't have a particular favorite anymore (used to be Burger King and Arby's). Most of them (even the pathetic McDonald's) tend to hit the right spot at one time or another. But then on some days I regret having eaten fast food as soon as I'm finished. Oh, for the record, I can definitely say that I don't like KFC and Long John Silver's (especially the latter).

Q: What is your favorite sit down restaurant?

A: By that, I assume the surveyor means "relatively formal." I've been to very few formal restaurants in my life (not counting the relatively high-class one in which I worked for 18 months as a bartender/waiter), so my opinion is probably not the best informed. I ate at an Olive Garden in 1999 for the first time, and I was in awe of my seafood pasta plate, so much so that I dreamed all year long of going back again, and I did (when our school group went back to another technology conference). But Olive Garden is not a realistic option for me. There are only three of them in Nebraska, and all of them are at the opposite end of the state (the location of those conferences). Another one is in Rapid City, SD, four hours north. The closest two, according to Switchboard.com and Google Maps, are in two different towns in Colorado, both of which, coincidentally, are EXACTLY 149 miles away.

Q: On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant?

A: It varies, depending on the quality and friendliness of the service. Having once been a bartender/waiter myself who went to great lengths to be fast, courteous and sincerely friendly (in a restaurant that, I am proud to say, excelled at that sort of thing), I know first hand what I might reasonably expect of the people who wait on me. People shouldn't get tipped simply because they are wearing a waiter's or waitress's uniform. I don't care how little actual salary they make. They have to earn those tips. That's what tips were originally supposed to be all about.

Q: What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of?

A: French fries.

Q: What are your pizza toppings of choice?

A: I like all of them, except green peppers, which once gave me terrible indigestion for two days straight. They don't do that anymore, but I will never be able to forget the awful aftertaste I had for those two days.

Q: What do you like to put on your toast?

A: Butter, jelly, peanut butter, honey.

TECHNOLOGY

Q: What is your wallpaper on your computer?

A: Right now it is the default OS X Tiger background (various shades of blue with a few subtle curving lines). Until last week, it was plain blue. I used to love to set photos as my desktop pictures, but two or three years ago I decided that seeing the same pictures day after day diminished my feelings for them. I also don't like cluttered patterns or photos that have many contrasting parts because that tends to make reading icon titles difficult. They may also be subtly distracting when working with photos in Photoshop.

Q: How many televisions are in your house?

A: No fair. More than two, but only because they became mine by default, not because I wanted them. Except for a few Turner Classic Movies and repeats of "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Andy Griffith," "The Simpsons," "Stargate SG-1" and the most outstanding new series in over a decade, Pushing Daisies, I hardly watch TV anymore. [P.S. It's ironic that the writer's strike occurred at the same time that my favorite new show in over a decade premiered. -- P.P.S. If you haven't seen Pushing Daisies, you will be lost if you tune in now (assuming it comes back on this season). You need to watch all the episodes from the beginning, in order. However, that link above is still well worth a look.]

BIOLOGY

Q: Are you right-handed or left-handed?

A: I'm Left-handed, but I am also fairly ambidextrous because I broke my left arm in 6th and 8th grades and an important bone in my left hand when I was a college sophomore. The latter required me to wear a cast for about three months, believe it or not.

Q: Have you ever had anything removed from your body?

A: Yes.

Q: When was the last time you had a cavity?

A: My teeth are mostly healthy; nonetheless, for all I know, I probably have one or two cavities.

Q: What is the last heavy item you lifted?

A: A full-fledged, heavy living-room chair. I lifted it up onto a storage bench in the garage that is as high as my chest. It was the only practical place to store it so that it would be out of the way (aside from the city dump) while waiting for a family member to come and get it (which probably won't happen).

Q: Have you ever been knocked unconscious?

A: No, but in junior high school I made myself pass out on purpose by holding my breath in a certain way. My cousins taught me how to do it, and, regrettably, I was successful. That was a very stupid game. Not only did it make me lose part of my most recent memories when I woke up, but it also made me nauseous.

BULLCRAPOLOGY

Q: If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?

A: No way (although it would provide the necessary incentive to get ones affairs in order and to make sure some very spoiled cats wouldn't end up with the wrong people).

Q: If you could change your name, what would you change it to?

A: This is an alien concept to me. I cannot imagine having such a desire. I am, however, grateful to my parents for some of the names that they didn't name me.

Q: What color do you think looks best on you?

A: Possibly blue, since I have inadvertently accumulated tons of clothing that contains blue; but I honestly don't know the answer to that question for sure. That's an objective question, not a subjective one, at least as far as I'm concerned

Q: Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake?

A: Probably, but I guess I didn't consider such an event worthy of storage in my long-term memory, because I don't remember. This is all that comes to mind: I think I accidentally swallowed a loose tooth while eating when I was a kid, and I know I swallowed part of another tooth (an already weak tooth) when I was in my 30s because it broke while I was eating either some corn nuts or ice.

Q: Have you ever saved someone’s life?

A: I honestly don't remember for sure because I tend to forget scary memories on purpose. Some distant memory of such an event seems to be way back in there somewhere, but I may just be imagining it.

Q: Has someone ever saved yours?

A: I would have to say yes, but not in a dramatic way. A doctor simply stopped a minor thing from becoming a major thing.

DAREOLOGY

Q: Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?

A: Nope. I'm not "enlightened" enough to do that. But more power to anyone else who chooses to do it.

Q: Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?

A: No, I'm not that desperate. My dad accidentally cut off about a quarter inch of his little finger in shop class when he was in high school, and I seriously doubt he would ever have repeated the procedure for money if someone had asked him.

Q: Would you never blog again for $50,000?

A: Hey, I would even cancel my internet account for $50,000.

Q: Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?

A: You should have asked me that when I was in my 20s or early 30s. I almost certainly would have said no, but at least I would have been more open to considering it than I am now. Personally, I don't have a high regard for the artistic or aesthetic qualities of the male body (to put it mildly), not even my own when it was in peak condition.

Q: Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?

A: Yes, since there is no stipulation on how quickly one has to drink it.

Q: Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?

A: Not in 1,000,000 years (to the power of 20,000).

DUMBOLOGY

Q: What is in your left pocket?

A: There is nothing in either of my front pockets because I hate having things in them, especially keys and change. When I worked at the school, I had a master key because I needed to get into every room in the building to work on computers. I had to carry it everywhere with me. Most people seem to put their work keys on their keychain with their home keys. Not me. I didn't even put it on a key ring all by itself. I just kept it all by itself in one of my front pockets, just like Barney Fife keeps a single bullet in his shirt pocket. ;-) I kept my car and house keys in a drawer at work during warm weather and in my coat pocket during cold weather.

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?

A: A qualified, yet resounding, yes. This movie is really impossible to categorize. I came very close to hating it at times while I was watching it, yet I was so intrigued that I couldn't quit watching. It is nothing like I had expected when I had first learned about it. It is completely real and accurate in so many ways, yet so weird and unfairly insulting in others (especially of people who enjoy fantasizing about time travel ;-). Nonetheless, the insults, depending the recipient, are so right on target that you cannot help but laugh (even though you fear that you may be unfairly laughing -- just a teeny little bit -- at yourself). In a couple of places, I laughed a good old-fashioned hysterical laugh, the sort of laugh that continues for hours and days afterward, every time I remembered what it was that had first caused me to laugh. So, to sum up: I came close to hating the movie while I was watching it, in spite of how often and how hard I laughed. It was only in hindsight that I truly started to appreciate it. On the rare occasions that a short clip of the movie has been played on some TV program, I couldn't help but smile a smile of affection at A.) the characters, B.) the verisimilitude of the plot and C.) the memory of how hard I had laughed while watching it -- in spite of myself.

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?

A: Carpet.

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?

A: Unless you are a 7-foot-tall basketball player, what on earth would be the point of sitting in a shower? To me, that would be a hindrance, not a benefit, especially with the water hitting you right in the face. As for most infirm senior citizens, don't they usually take baths? Besides, I have an aging, bare-bones metal shower stall. It would be very unpleasant, completely impractical and somewhat humiliating to sit in it.

Q: Would you live with roommates?

A: Yes, depending on who they are. I had roommates, off and on, until I was 31.

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?

A: None, I hate that piece of leather or rubber that goes between your toes. The ones that do not attach at all, I hate even more. They are pointless and impractical for me. I find them to be more of a chore than a comfort, like eating with chop sticks. Related note: I accidentally uprooted my big toenail in college so that it was sticking straight up in the air from the very back end of the toenail (yes, it @#$%ing HURT!!!!!). This happened only a couple of hours after I had broken the aforementioned mentioned bone in my hand in a separate accident (yes, when it rains on MW, it pours on MW). The next day I went to the doctor's office (both accidents happened on Memorial Day, so sleeping that night had been quite an ordeal). He gave me a localized pain killer -- AT MY VERY VOCAL DEMAND -- before I allowed him to touch my toenail (because it hurt like crazy even when the wind from a fly's wings touched it). After getting it removed (and getting my arm put in a cast), I had to wear sandals for a few weeks. They were OK, but not enough to make me stick with them once my toe was back to normal.

Q: Last time you had a run-in with the cops?

A: What does "run-in" mean? Does that include traffic stops? The last time I remember getting a warning ticket for speeding (which was totally inadvertent on my part because I had sworn off speeding in the early 1980s) was in the fall of 1993 for going 63 in a 55 zone. My only other warning had come in April 1979, for going 61 in a 55 zone. As for actual "run-ins" with cops, I've only had two. The first time was in July 1976 (at age 15). My best friend and I were at the Fish Hatchery in Spearfish, SD. He was fishing legally on the neighboring creek, and I was in the hatchery trying to touch some of the fish with my hand (I don't like fishing). Without my knowing it, my friend threw his line into the hatchery from his spot by the creek (there was a semi-secluded opening into the hatchery from the creek). He thought he was being really sneaky (he had certainly fooled me), but the manager caught him and dragged both of us to his headquarters. He made us stand there while he called the police. I defended myself vigorously because I was innocent (I didn't even have a fishing pole!), but he didn't believe me. I also defended my friend vigorously because I still thought he was innocent. I was really angry at being treated that way and was very loud and irate and obnoxious. I had always been a very self-righteous, law-abiding kid, and I didn't appreciate being treated like a criminal. The manager thought I was nuts, and my friend, who naturally wasn't about to confess to the guy, told me several times to be quiet. I complained even as the cops put us in their car and took us straight to......... my friend's parents' Winnebago camper at the campground outside of town (that was before this country became a police state). Only then did my friend confess to me. He and his family had a good laugh at my expense. I must admit that I had gotten carried away, in part, because I had frequently fantasized about defending myself against an unjust accusation some day. The second "run-in" was a lot scarier. It took place in on a quiet Sunday in July 1983. That same friend and I and several others went swimming next to the Big Bend Dam on the Missouri River at Fort Thompson, SD. We were diving/jumping off of the spillway retaining walls (at the far end of the dam in the picture at the link) and sliding down the moss on the closed spillway slope (I still shudder at the thought of what would have happened if they had opened the spillway gates while we were on that slope). As we were returning to my car, a reservation cop was waiting for us (thankfully, he had not actually seen us swimming or sliding). He said, with a long pause for dramatic effect in the middle, "I'm going to have to arrest you boys................, if you don't leave right now." We didn't argue with him. We thanked him very kindly and left.

Q: Who is number 1 on your Top 8?

A: Which Top 8 are you talking about? I never mix my Top 8s together.

LASTOLOGY

Q: Last Friend you talked to?

A: Beth.

Q: Last person who called you?

A: Beth.

Q: Last person you hugged?

A: One of my aunts, I think, last June.

Q: Last person to stick their foot in your face?

A: I have no idea.

FAVORITOLOGY

Q: Number?

A: 13.

Q: Season?

A: Fall.

CURRENTOLOGY

Q: Missing someone?

A: Sometimes, but only when I get lazy and let my thoughts wander a little too freely.

Q: Mood?

A: I try to avoid them if I can help it (big "if").

Q: Listening to?

A: Nothing.

Q: Watching?

A: Nothing.

Q: Worrying about?

A: This dreadful temporary job I will be having for the next three months (in a financial/tax-return place, of all places, thanks to my friend Beth, who works there). I don't know how I got myself into this situation. The two of us just kept digging my hole deeper and deeper. She is thrilled. I'm not. There is still a remote chance that it might not happen, but it isn't looking good.

RANDOMOLOGY

Q: First place you went this morning?

A: Nowhere.

Q: What can you not wait to do?

A: Move away from here, but only when it is realistic and practical.

Q: What's the last movie you saw in a theater?

A: The newly re-mastered edition of Gone With the Wind in the fall of 1998 (yes, it was that long ago) at the Eagle Theater in Chadron, NE. My old professor friend talked me into going with him even though I didn't want to. I fell asleep about 60 times throughout the movie. No matter how hard I tried, I could not keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time (I was very uncomfortable, too). I remember almost none of the movie. Prior to that, I had not been in a theater in about five years or more. The last movie I may have seen in a theater was City Slickers while on a date with a girl I soon regretted knowing. I could be forgetting one movie in that span of five years, but it hasn't come to mind after years of trying to remember what it might have been.

Q: Do you smile often?

A: I used to smile almost all the time, and with the utmost sincerity. Now, not so much, unless I am with people I really like (a real rarity around here). I still laugh a lot, though (at humor on TV, at my cats and at my own sarcastic humor).

Q: Are you a friendly person?

A: Absolutely. I consider friendliness to be extremely important. Even so, in the last few years I have been finding it easier not to maintain my usual high level of friendliness. The only other time I had trouble being friendly to strangers was when my love of my life and I had to part ways through no desire of our own. Yet, at the same time, I became twice as friendly (sincerely) to all of my friends because I truly appreciated them for being there for me.

Stop Motion Drums & Piano

Someone introduced me to this video about a year ago. As you watch, keep in mind that the artist, Lasse Gjertsen, can play neither the drums nor the piano (which he freely admits). Instead, his musical talents lie in his mastery of the movie editor on his computer. It is hard to imagine how much work went into "composing" this song.

The Premiere of Star Wars (1977)

Yesterday (01-16-08) I watched Fog City Mavericks, a documentary that chronicles the careers of those top-tier directors who call San Francisco both home and headquarters. At one point, director George Lucas explains how some Hollywood executives were snickering and scoffing about the upcoming premiere of his movie, Star Wars. They were convinced that it would be a total flop. Not too much surprises me anymore, but that statement surprised the heck out of me. Two months before Star Wars' national premiere and almost four months before I saw it myself (when I was only 16 years old), even I was convinced that it was going to be a major hit; or, in hindsight, it would be no worse than the garbage Hollywood had been producing for decades. I also remembered the night of its premiere here in this small western Nebraska city and wondered just how clueless a person has to be to get into a position of authority in Hollywood (or in any hierarchy in the United States).

Details
I first read about the still top-secret movie, Star Wars, in Starlog Magazine on April 1, 1977 (give or take a few days). That was roughly two months before it premiered nationwide. The article is very brief and provides no plot outline of any sort. In fact, it gives only a couple of very trivial details and even manages to get one of them wrong.* The writer concludes by hinting that this movie will be a very unique and exciting experience. Only two preproduction paintings of scenes from the movie accompany the article because no photos were allowed off the movie set at that time (or so I remember). The secrecy surrounding Star Wars made it seem every bit as promising as Starlog was making it out to be. I had a feeling this wasn't just the usual hype and that it really was going to be quite impressive. I couldn't wait to see it. A full-featured article on Star Wars appeared in the next edition of Starlog, shortly after the movie opened nationwide but before I had yet seen it. It only confirmed my feelings and intensified my desire to see it.

Opening Night in Western Nebraska
Star Wars premiered nationally on May 25, 1977. It premiered locally on July 20, 1977. I was determined to go to the first show on the first night. My mom, who had worked in a movie theater as a teenager, thought that was a foolish idea because opening nights are usually really crowded. I knew she was right, but I didn't care. I wanted to see the local premiere just to say I had been there (for posterity). Besides, I had already waited long enough. I wasn't about to wait another day (nor even another two and a half hours).

To play it safe, I asked her to drive me to the theater really early because I wanted to be as close to the front of the line as possible. When the theater came into view, I could see that no one was in line yet. In fact, there wasn't a single soul on the sidewalk because the ticket window hadn't opened yet. I was thrilled. I had beaten the crowd.

However, my mom, as is true of most moms, had a completely different set of priorities. She wanted to find a parking spot before letting me out. She clearly didn't grasp the urgency of the situation. She thought I would be better off sitting in the car with her while waiting for the ticket window to open (even though she wasn't going to the movie). I strongly disagreed. I told her I wanted to stand right in front of the ticket window right now, so as not take any chances. I asked her to let me out right in the middle of Main Street so I could be first in line. She ignored me and turned at the next corner to go around the block. I pleaded with her to let me out before we got too much further away, but she continued driving. I was very frustrated and complained the whole way. Didn't she realize she was tempting fate? Bad timing had (has) always been one of my biggest curses.

Quite literally, it took her no longer than 45 seconds to drive around the block (thanks to having all right turns). Naturally, by the time we returned to front of the theater, my premonition had come true. The ticket window had opened, and a line had formed.

But this wasn't just any normal line. Nooo..., this line stretched all the way around the stinking block! The same stinking block around which we had just driven!**

And the line was still growing! Aaaaarrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!!

Where on earth had all those people come from so quickly? Every parked car within a block of the theater must have contained people waiting for the ticket window to open.

Of course, this was how my luck usually went, but I definitely hadn't imagined that such a long line would have -- or could have -- formed in less than 45 seconds! I'm sure I gave my mom a major earful as I hopped out of the car without waiting for her permission this time. I walked around the corner, feeling completely cheated, and took my place at the end of that long line.

My frustration had been unfounded. Much to my surprise and pleasure, the line moved very quickly, and I was inside the theater in no time.

Conclusion
As we all know, in the opening scene of Star Wars, an impossibly massive ship floats past the camera, followed by an even more impossibly massive ship. The entire audience roared along with me at the sheer scale of it all. In that instant, my four months of high expectations shrank to nothingness compared to what was actually taking place on the screen.

All of this is why yesterday (11,137 days after the local premiere of Star Wars), I asked, just how clueless does a person have to be to become a Hollywood executive?

-----

*The author of the Starlog article mentions that there is a planet-sized ship in the movie called the Death Star. He also mentions a mysterious element called "the Force," but he mistakenly calls it "the power."

**Stinking was one of my favorite words when I was 16.

Sleeping Pill(ow)

I still remember what it was like waking up during summer vacation when I was a teenager. Most of the time, it was wonderful. After having slept all night as soundly as a hibernating bear, consciousness didn’t simply barge in and cause me to become fully awake in an instant; nor did it approach steadily, without pause, like a muffler-free Harley-Davidson that is still 27 miles away when you first hear it. No, consciousness arrived in very tiny, mild, well spaced, palatable doses. My subconscious mind had time to analyze each dose, rate its quality and decide whether or not it was worth keeping. Most of the early doses were unacceptable, of course, so I would discard them and easily return to unconsciousness and wait for the next non-threatening dose of consciousness to arrive. This well spaced stream of tiny doses helped me to prepare for full-fledged consciousness when it finally arrived. As a result, my summer days frequently started with something approaching a sense of peace and contentment.

Of course, if you are a kid during school season, or if you are an adult, it is often necessary to be awakened by an alarm clock. As terrifying as that experience is, I still prefer to the following:

A few years ago, I was living in an apartment in a town that I did not like. I was working at a job that had long since become unacceptably repetitive and monotonous to my gypsy soul. I felt trapped in that job (and that town) by the perks (great coworkers who didn’t want me to leave and very decent pay). That isolated town in the middle of nowhere might not have been so bad at any other time in my life (or if I had not been single), but I was at that point in life where one feels ones remaining youth (and the opportunities that go with it) quickly slipping away. I wanted desperately to escape.

On top of that, I had to put up with a small, seemingly insignificant problem that had more of an impact than one might imagine: I had no control over the thermostat in my apartment. Every winter, all winter long, I felt as if I was living in a dry sauna. I am a very warm-blooded person. I get warm very easily in conditions that most people (especially women) find downright cool. I sleep very poorly when it is warm. Being overly warm when I am asleep causes me to have bad dreams. The greater the heat, the worse the dream. My only option to control the heat in that apartment was to open the living-room window a little at night and let in the stingingly cold sub-zero air (it had to be the livng-room window because the bedroom window was too close to the bed). That window was a very inefficient thermostat, and that cold air was much too icy even for me. Furthermore, that cold outside air did not blend well with the hot inside air. Instead, the cold air simply replaced most of the hot air in very short order. If I opened the window only a microscopic crack, then the apartment remained hot while a bitterly cold stream of air ran through the center of all that heat (in a manner of speaking).

To make matters worse, my bed (which came with the apartment) may have had serious ergonomic drawbacks that were not noticeable to the conscious mind.

In short, my (seemingly) bleak future, the excessive heat of my apartment and that unergonomic bed all combined to ruin my sleep -- almost every night for three and a half years -- in a way that I had never experienced before. It was very annoying, to put it mildly. The fact that it never happened when I spent my weekends here in this town proves to me it was related to one or all of those problems.

I should clarify that actually falling asleep was easy. In fact, it was as easy as ever (at least since college, when I had trained myself to let go of the stress of studying and fall asleep within a given period of time). For the first few hours, I slept normally; then, almost invariably, at around 4 AM, consciousness would flood my brain as quickly and as completely as a 400-watt incandescent light bulb floods a room when you flip on the power switch. I was simply 100 percent awake -- as if I had never been asleep. Every sound in the room was instantly audible. I knew immediately that there was no going back to sleep for at least an hour or two.

I cannot put into words how terrible it was to wake up that way. Even if I woke up that way a mere five minutes before the alarm went off (which was rare), I hated it. It just felt totally unnatural and wrong. On a few occasions (it's hard to remember how many), I would not awaken in an instant. Instead, I would slowly, unendingly become aware of the fact that I was waking up (like hearing that Harley-Davidson getting louder and louder and louder). I couldn't stop it from happening, and I certainly didn't want to speed it up, so I just had to let it happen. On those rare mornings that my alarm woke me up with its terrifying nuclear-alert siren, I almost cheered. I would much rather wake up feeling the pain and exhaustion that comes with an alarm than that "instant-on" feeling that I was getting without it. Sure, I still complained bitterly every time the alarm went off because it made me immediately aware that the previous two decades of Reality had not been a mere figment of my imagination. In fact, every time the alarm went off, I sincerely uttered, "Oh God! Not THIS again!"

But at least I had awakened "normally" on those occasions, and for that I was very grateful.

Nowadays, with that job and town long behind me, I almost never -- if ever -- wake up like that. But I don't wake up pleasantly very often either, the way I did when I was a kid. Yes, consciousness arrives in relatively manageable doses, but they aren't very pleasant doses. I seldom feel physically comfortable during the waking-up process. I also feel as if I have a headache that will only go away when I get up (but maybe the latter is simply because I need better pillows). Society has also trained me to feel irresponsible if I don't hop out of bed immediately. Did I say "trained me"? I meant "ruined me."

Making matters worse are the cold winters and four spoiled-rotten cats, three of whom invariably need to sleep right up against me like doorstops -- on top of the covers. As you might guess, this not only makes things even hotter, but it also prevents me from being able to roll over or move in either direction to the reach cooler parts of the sheets. But even if they weren't sleeping right next to me, the cooler sheets are usually too cold to touch, so I don't move around much anyway. Then there is the matter of the extra blankets that I need when I first go to sleep but which are too hot by about 2 or 3 AM. That's usually when the excessive heat and the unpleasant dreams wake me up. Since I am hot, I need to change positions somehow and throw off the extra blankets, but I don't want to move too much and disturb the cats (yes, I'm a pushover). I do what I can and then try to go back to sleep, but it isn't easy. I lie there, trying to retain some sort of grasp on my sleepiness through the power of suggestion. If I lie there too long with my ears wide open, full consciousness may strike, and it will be a struggle to fall asleep again (for some reason, hearing seems to play a huge role in thinking too much).

But there is a solution.

In the early 1980s, the only way for me to drown out the noise of a chirping cricket (one of the most grating sounds on earth to my brain) was to turn my head to one side so that my bottom ear was buried in the pillow. I also had my shoulder under the pillow pressed up against my ear. Then I grabbed another pillow and put it over my head and pressed it down on my other ear. If the cricket wasn't too close, that worked. If it was too close, I would have to get up and spray about 15 square yards of territory with Raid (I wasn't very skilled at locating them yet in those days ;-) in an effort to put it out of my misery. Eventually, the pillows frequently became ineffective because I couldn't help but imagine that I was hearing the cricket anyway (I also couldn't relax knowing that a rude and inconsiderate cricket might go "unpunished" ;-). So I just got used to getting up and spraying them and getting it over with. For some reason, in the late 1980s and 1990s, I generally had an easy time falling asleep again almost immediately. Therefore, the pillow tactic fell by the wayside.

Then I landed in that bad bed, in that sauna-like apartment, in that miserable town. I was forced to try the pillow tactic again. It didn't work very often there because there were too many problems to overcome. Lately, I've started using the sleeping pill(ow) tactic again after I wake up smothered by hot blankets and spoiled cats (that sleep nearly as deeply as hibernating bears at night). With those pillows blocking out most of the world, not only do I fall asleep again almost right away, I sleep as soundly as I did when I was a kid, and I wake up almost as peacefully and contentedly as I did when I was a kid..., until I remember I am not a kid. Then I think, "Oh, no! Not this middle-aged crap again!"

Anyway, the pillow tactic allowed me to wake up yesterday morning more relaxed and comfortable and at (TEMPORARY) peace than has been the case in a long time. For a while, even Reality and the remembrance of this annoying aging process couldn't spoil my peaceful frame of mind. Today was OK, but the phone rang a single time at 7 AM and woke me up. The fact that I remained relatively relaxed and somewhat at peace after it rang is a testament to the sleeping pill(ow).

If the Rest of America Votes the Way Iowa & New Hampshire Did...

...in both the republican and democratic primaries... Ummm...

Well, these four simple sentences sum up my feelings very nicely.

And those intentionally hackable voting machines (10-minute video) will only continue to make matters worse. Here is an eloquently written, incredibly powerful and very revealing commentary by Ms. Devvy Kidd, just published today (1/10/08). Ignore the title. The commentary is much more general than the title suggests. I strongly urge (nay, beg) you to read it. If you don't have time to read both her commentary and mine, then skip mine and read hers.

As for the promised "answer" to my Square-Peg-in-a-Round-Hole Survey entry, it can be found among this group of (ultra-liberal?) San Francisco Democrats.

[Note 1: Just so my two regular readers know, none of the criticisms in this entry (most of which I wrote on January 9) are aimed at them. That would certainly be a foolish move on my part. My criticisms are aimed at the majority of Americans in general. If my two regular readers tend to feel criticized at any point, I can assure them that it is only as a result of "collateral damage" and not intentional targeting. Ha.]

[Note 2: I guess I had a lot to say because this entry grew really long, and I have failed to find very much deletable material. I hate it when I cannot stop writing, because I know most people don't like reading long entries of this sort. Even if they try to read all of it, their brains start to tune out after a few paragraphs. The same is true of me. Nonetheless...]

Political Versus Non-Political
I shall try to return to writing only non-political entries in this non-political blog, but I may fail. Why? Because in writing non-political entries, I cannot help but feel like a resident on one of the many lesser Philippine Islands just after the start of World War II. My island has not yet been invaded by the enemy, but that is only because there are so many islands to invade, and the enemy cannot invade them all at once. In the meantime, and in spite of the overwhelming evidence, most of my neighbors are living in denial, refusing to believe that our island will be invaded. They refuse to listen to my "doom-and-gloom" warnings. "So," I ask myself, "Should I listen to them? Should I try to relax and enjoy myself and pretend that our little island paradise is not going to be taken over by evil people in the not-too-distant future?"

I've always been really terrible at living in denial. I've also always been really terrible at NOT being eternally vigilant ("The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." -- Thomas Jefferson; "This isn't just another ho-hum, rah-rah election, and we cannot treat it as such." -- Devvy Kidd).

Abrupt Change of Analogies
I don't mean to imply that Americans will soon be living in a nightmare reality straight out of a science-fiction movie. I get tired of people always assuming that's the sort of scenario we "doom-and-gloomers" (aka "realists") are predicting (although this science-fiction masterpiece is truly an allegory for our times). Tyranny is seldom as omnipresent as it is in the movies (Hollywood has really warped our perceptions of reality). Billions of people have lived perfectly quiet, peaceful, productive, and even happy lives in such totalitarian regimes as China, Vietnam, Laos, the former Yugoslavia, the former communist Poland, Uganda, Iraq (prior to 2003), Argentina, Chile, etc., etc. That means that many, if not most, Americans could easily live pleasant, and even happy, lives under those same governmental conditions. I mean, if all we really care about is work and sports and buying imported junk at Wal-Mart and watching TV and partying, then...? Who gives a flying [expletive] if a few extra Americans are spied on and arrested for crimes that shouldn't be crimes? Who cares if the United States will become part of the North American Union without public or congressional approval? Who gives a flying [expletive] if we are all required to carry National ID Cards to PROVE our innocence whenever we are randomly challenged by high-school educated, control-freak law-enforcement officers? [Just today, 1/10/08, a disgustingly ignorant (i.e. dumbass) neo-con editor in the local daily rag strongly endorsed the National ID Card and told us to grow up and accept it.] Get this straight: I don't want to live the type of quiet, peaceful life that people live in totalitarian countries, even if it is a Norman Rockwell-ized and/or Hustler-ized American version

Stop Dreaming
And please don't delude yourselves into thinking that a democratic president is going to restore our lost rights if she (or maybe he) is "elected" later this year, because that isn't going to happen. They are just as bought-and-paid for as the republicans (except one). Sure, it took semi-civilized republican thugs in the Bush Administration to grab unconstitutional powers in a series of brazenly hostile moves, but in January 2009, the much too civilized democrats will gladly (quietly) hang onto those unwarranted powers once they get hold of them. And the troops will definitely remain PERMANENTLY in Iraq on those fourteen PERMANENT U.S. bases.

And most Americans either don't see it or don't believe it, or else they don't care, which leads me to write about...

Some Very Intellectual "Hippies" of the Eighteenth-Century
Our Founding Fathers started an incredibly unique experiment on the North American continent 221 years ago (although at least one of them had a feeling that apathetic, unappreciative and easily misled Americans would eventually neglect that "experiment," or find it impractical or contrary to their needs, and thus abandon or lose it; and he was right). The Founding Fathers were idealistic dreamers, the kind who, if they were alive today, would be scoffed at by the American public and demonized by the corporate media. These Founding Fathers were somehow presented with a one-in-a-billion opportunity to set up a government unlike any the world had ever seen before. The odds that such a rare bunch of theoreticians would find one another in this vast world, much less get the chance to conspire together like a bunch of naively idealistic college students, is, well... That's the sort of story that should rightfully be considered science fiction, because the odds against it happening were astronomical. Even the vast majority of average Americans in the 18th century would probably have set up a theocratic government if they had gotten their way. Thank God those few idealistic (Deistic) dreamers got their way instead, against all odds.

The Constitution: Death by a Thousand Cuts
The problem is that there were a lot of powerful, greedy Americans (and even British) in the 18th century who had no intention of rolling over and dying just because those few dreamers had gotten their way (this is a fact that contradicts the simplistic, patriotic crap we all learned in school). Powerful, greedy people were just as much the norm then as they are today. The idealistic dreamers were the aberrations (literally). The powerful people didn't see the newly adopted Constitution as some sort of sacred document. To them, it was nothing more than an impetuous, even blasphemous, limitation on the powers they had "rightfully" enjoyed for millennia. They and their idealogical descendants have been trying to dismantle it bit by bit ever since, and they have been wildly successful, especially since 1913.

What Woke Me Up?
I used to be a staunch "Mainstreamer." In other words, I usually argued with those eternally angry, cynical Americans who were always trying to warn me that there isn't a whit of difference between the democrats and the republicans. I also scoffed (usually silently, since I'm a polite sort) at the "kooks and nuts" who were telling me that there are certain sinister elements within our government and corporate power centers and that they have "agendas." That isn't to say that I scoffed at every conspiracy theory the way far too many people do (I have common sense and a degree in history, after all). I've always believed there was an organized government plot to kill John F. Kennedy. I've also long believed there are some very bad elements within the CIA, but for a long time I didn't think the organized corruption extended much beyond that agency.

So, when did my resistance to the idea of taking a peek at those "kooky" claims first begin to weaken ever so slightly? That's easy. The George W. Bush presidential campaign and its accomplices on the Supreme Court stole the presidency in 2001. I saw that theft VERY CLEARLY with my own eyes while it was happening, so I didn't have to be awakened to it afterwards; nonetheless, I eventually learned the intricate mechanics behind that brazen theft (thus ended my lifelong admiration for the Supreme Court, to put it VERY mildly). What was equally as shocking to me was the fact that the mainstream media stood by and pretended the theft had not taken place! In fact, that [expletive] loser Tim Russert actually had the nerve to tell us all to accept it and move on.

After that theft, I watched as the blatantly obvious lies and the corresponding loss of our constitutional freedoms accelerated at a rapid pace.

Furthermore, I knew -- with every ounce of my intellect and common sense -- that the Bush Administration and the mainstream media were blatantly lying about Iraq long before we invaded Iraq. I screamed all of my common-sense refutations against those lies at my TV screen for many months before and after the invasion. Much to my... what? -- "Pleasure"? "Displeasure"? "Sadness"? -- every claim I had made about Iraq and our reasons for going in -- AND NEVER LEAVING* -- turned out to be 100 percent accurate.

Throughout all of it, I was aghast that even the most reputable journalists, whom I had once admired, were suddenly lying so blatantly and so obviously that even I could see it without doing any official fact checking whatsoever (as of 2003, it still hadn't occurred to me that I could do political fact checking on the internet; can you believe it? I didn't know that many honest journalists and truth-seeking citizens had fled to the freedom of the internet). It was obvious that something very unhealthy was afoot in our nation, so when I finally found myself with lots of time to do the research, I jumped in. It wasn't long before I discovered the real value of the internet.

The Irreplaceable Internet
After living most of my adult life with a "mainstreamer" attitude and a corresponding disdain for those conspiracy theories that sounded too unrealistic or too paranoid to be true (yes, there are a few of them), I had a weak moment about two or three years ago. As I sat there in front of my computer, steaming mad about yet another treasonous Bush/Cheney crime and subsequent media denial of that crime, I thought to myself, "Aw, what's the harm? I'll just take a peak at one of the more intriguing kooky claims on the internet and see what all the fuss is about." I told myself I would take a shower as soon as I was done in order to wash off any potentially communicable mental diseases.

Imagine my shock when I discovered that their evidence and proof is incredibly solid, and the vast majority of them are anything but kooks and nuts. "Wow!" I thought. "If our government and the media are lying about that, then what else are they lying about?" So I clicked on the links and took a peak at a few other closely related theories and saw even more highly reputable people making equally reputable claims.

At that point, for me, there was no longer any possibility of unlearning what I had learned. I've always been a radical supporter of the Constitution, even as a kid (in fact, I wrote a "Declaration of Independent Kids of America" when I was in fifth grade), and so I wasn't about to remain silent in the face of all that information. I just didn't realize how stubbornly close-minded most Americans, even my closest friends, would be when I approached them with this sort of information. So I slowed down a little. I thought, "If I approach them carefully and rationally and explain that I was once just like they are, then maybe they will be more willing to listen."

Nope. Not true.

The corporate media has done too good a job of lumping legitimate theories (that would send powerful people to prison if pursued) in with crazy theories.

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* Long before the invasion began, I knew with all my heart that we had no intention of leaving, no matter what they were telling us.

Ron Paul in New Hampshire (2008); Hand Count vs. Diebold

Even though I was expecting the following results, I still don't feel better for having seen them. In fact, it makes me feel worse because I know that contesting them is just as productive as contesting a referee's horribly wrong call (with replay video to prove it) that steals the legitimate victory from one team and gives it to the undeserving team. The crime will be recorded as reality for all eternity. Period. End of Story.

From what I've seen, the following information is just the tip of the iceberg. I've been too worked up to look at the rest right now because I know no one will do anything about it, and, even if they were to try, the criminals own the government and the courts and the media, so nothing would come of it.

Seventy-one percent of New Hampshire precincts voted on hackable Diebold voting machines. The good news is that that leaves a bunch of hand-counted precincts to use as standards by which to gauge the accuracy of the computer votes.

According to hackable Diebold voting machines, Ron Paul received only eight percent of the NH vote. I found that very suspicious since he had polled at 14 percent just the day before. Hillary, whom I've grown to despise, was behind by ten or more percent in the most recent polls, yet she won the primaries? Those were the only two discrepancies, and they were the two I had been expecting. I, therefore, immediately knew something was fishy last night. Today I fully expected to see the information that I have posted below.

Overall, at least thirty New Hampshire precincts counted the votes by hand, not by computer. Here are the results for Ron Paul in the hand-counted precincts:

What the Hand Count Shows
Not a single hand-count township showed less than 10%.
Supposedly, Ron Paul got 8%. This does not make sense.

Richmond is hand count 34% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Lyman is hand count 28.7% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Orange is hand count 25% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Harts location is hand count 25% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Wentworth is hand count 24% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Goshen is hand count 17.68% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Marlow is hand count 16.6% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Cornish is hand count 14.8% for dr. Paul…100% reporting
Rumney is hand count 14.5% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Croydon is hand count 14 % for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Dorchester is hand count 13.89% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Effingham is hand count 13% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Albany is hand count 12.9% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Antrim is hand count 12% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
South hampton is hand count 12% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Sullivan is hand count 12.61% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Troy is hand count 12.21% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Mason is hand count 11.88% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Newport is hand count 11.45% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Charlstown is hand count 11.3% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Allenstown is hand count 11.16% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Bristol is hand count 11% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Warren is hand count 11% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Strafford is hand count 11% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Washington is hand count 11.02% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Lancaster is hand count 10.9% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Springfield is hand count 10.6% for Dr.Paul…100% reporting
Wilton is hand count 10.37% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Northfield is hand count 10.3% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Mont Vernon is hand count 10.25% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting

Source

For the record, the 30 precincts above combined give Ron Paul of 14.8 percent of the vote.

Obama actually won by four percentage points over Clinton in those same 30 precincts.

Final Note
One precinct, Sutton, actually reported zero votes for Ron Paul, but upon being caught in the lie, were forced to admit that he had actually received 31 votes. There are other precincts that may have dishonestly reported zero, too, especially on machines that cannot be double checked.

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Is the corporate mainstream media going to report this unnatural discrepency? No way on earth!

The Square-Peg-in-a-Round-Hole Survey

Greetings

Yes, shock of shocks. I am back amongst you, at least for now. You are probably wondering what compelled me to come out of "hiding," especially when I said I wasn't going to write here again for the foreseeable future. I'll explain my reemergence in my next entry. In the meantime, I shall start setting you up for that entry by writing this one.

My two or three regular readers (whom I’ll probably have to round up as long-lost strays since they probably think I have long since abandoned them), may not consider this entry to be their usual cup of tea. Nonetheless, I hope they will read all of it anyway, without skipping or skimming. I don’t have millions of regular readers, or even five, so I am basically writing it only for them (besides, who but they would bother to slog through this long, slightly off-topic intro?).

Cryptic Warning

I shall not be entirely forthcoming in this entry (actually, as the title states, it’s a survey). If I were to be forthcoming, I would ruin my reason for writing it. I shall also present it as a "what-if" scenario, even though "what-if" is not exactly appropriate in this particular case. I am doing so simply because, in spite of racking my brains, I cannot think of a "trickier" way to present the information

The Run Up to This Entry

A while back, I was poking around on the internet and found a few interesting (some might say "radical") quotes by a character who would probably be run out of most modern "conservative" communities (which means he and I would get along swimmingly ;-). In many ways, this character (who shall remain nameless in this entry) reminds me of one of my greatest heroes, Mahatma Gandhi (you may agree with me when you read the first four quotes below). In many other ways, he reminds me of myself. Some of his more -- seemingly -- "unrealistic" beliefs are identical to my own, down to the very words he uses to explain those beliefs. I thought I was one of the few people left in the United States who still adheres to such beliefs. I certainly didn't imagine that someone who has climbed the ladder of (relative) success -- as this man has done -- could have done so while continually making his "unrealistic" beliefs abundantly clear to the many conservative people around him. Yet that is what he did, and I think he even convinced many of them to agree with him. I, on the other hand, have been shouted down and ridiculed most of my life by most of my conservative friends whenever I stated these same supposedly "unrealistic" ideas.

But What If...

Trust me. There is a lot more substance to this "what-if" than you might imagine. It is definitely not a pointless, time-wasting "what-if," even though, by its very "what-if" premise, it may seem so. It is well worth your time to read on.

As I was reading this man's quotes, a "what-if" scenario suddenly occurred to me: What if he were to run for president of the United States? Would he stand a chance? Would he be able to attract even a small number of Americans to his supposedly "unrealistic" beliefs? Robert F. Kennedy (in 1968) is probably the last person to have run for office who might be similar to this man, at least in some ways. He is, without a doubt, totally unlike ALL of the bought-and-paid-for "top-tier" candidates who are presently running for president IN EITHER PARTY. He is totally unlike most of the minor candidates, too. In fact, if he had been born in a different generation and under different circumstances, I think he might have been perfectly at home in the hippie culture of the late 1960s (see if you agree with me when you read his quotes, especially the last one, which is something I’ve said with great enthusiasm and conviction since I was a kid).

"If" he were to run, how would the corporate media treat him? Would they ignore him and/or ridicule him, or blatantly lie about him, as they have so infamously done to so many non-traditional presidential candidates in the past? If this man were to run for president, and if his beliefs were reported IN CONTEXT and IN THEIR ENTIRETY (something the agenda-driven, corporate "mainstream" media is usually loathe to do, especially if they don't like a particular candidate, which is a crime, since they don’t own the public airwaves), how would the American public receive him? Would he appeal more to liberals and independents or more to independents and conservatives? Or to elements of all three? That may seem like a dumb question in light of what I've already written, but he simply doesn't fit very well into the ridiculously fictional left-right divide that most Americans have been thoroughly fooled into thinking exists.

Instructions

Please answer the following questions with a simple "Yes" or "No" or "Agree" or "Disagree" (or "Don't Know"). You are welcome to answer them in your head or on paper or however you may prefer. There is no need and no way for the computer to tally your answers. These questions and your answers are for your own benefit, not mine -- although I would enjoy knowing how you answered in an overall manner (mostly with "Yes" and "Agree," or a mix, or mostly with "No" and "Disagree"?).

I especially want you to decide if the man appears to be: A.) more of a mainstream liberal, B.) more of a radical liberal, C.) mostly independent, or D.) something else entirely.

 Even if you figure out my little "game" right away, I hope you will keep reading anyway.

Disclaimer

I do not claim to be a good "survey" writer, at least not when I have a particular goal in mind. While the man’s quotations are nearly perfectly worded, the questions that I wrote in my own words are very simplistic (in the truest sense of that word); however, they weren't devised to win any contests for complexity or professionalism. Obviously, the statements in quotation marks are his.

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The Survey

1.) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence."

2.) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "All initiation of force is a violation of someone else's rights, whether initiated by an individual or the state..., even if it's supposed to be for the benefit of another individual or group of individuals."

3.) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "Legitimate use of violence can only be that which is required in self-defense."

4.) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "Legal issues aside, the American people and government should never abide the use of torture by our military or intelligence agencies. A decent society never accepts or justifies torture. It dehumanizes both torturer and victim yet seldom produces reliable intelligence."

5.) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "I believe our troops should be brought back to the United States without delay." He goes on to say that he means the process of returning home should begin without further delay, but it should then proceed at a safe and realistic rate of speed.

6.) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "I have never met anyone who did not support our troops. Sometimes, however, we hear accusations that someone or some group does not support the men and women serving in our Armed Forces. But this is pure demagoguery, and it is intellectually dishonest... Cliches about supporting the troops are designed to distract from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war, anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon."

7.) Do you agree that the U.S. government should stop threatening such tiny countries as Iran, Pakistan and Syria, countries that could not possibly threaten our freedoms or national security, even if they tried as a combined force?

8.) Ideally speaking, would you be in favor of withdrawing American military forces from all countries around the world, thus saving billions or even trillions of dollars a year and earning the immediate respect of the other nations of the world?

9.) Do you believe that continual U.S. military aggression (and mere presence) around the world makes us less secure because it invites hostility toward us?

10.) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "When one person [the president] can initiate war, by its definition, a republic no longer exists."

11.) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "Military force is justified only in self-defense; naked aggression is the province of dictators and rogue states. This is the danger of a new 'preemptive first-strike' doctrine."

12.) Do you agree or disagree with the following answer to the following question? -- Question: "What is the most pressing moral issue in the United States right now?" -- Answer: "I think it is the acceptance just recently that we now promote preemptive war. I do not believe that's part of the American tradition. We in the past have always declared war in the defense of our liberties or to aid somebody, but now we have accepted the principle of preemptive war. We have rejected the 'just war' theory of Christianity. And now, tonight, we hear that we're not even willing to remove from the table a preemptive nuclear strike against a country that has done no harm to us directly and is no threat to our national security. I mean, we have to come to our senses about this issue of war and preemption and go back to traditions and our constitution and defend our liberties and defend our rights, but not to think that we can change the world by force of arms and to start wars....

13.) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "The argument has been reduced to this: If we leave now, Iraq will be left in a mess, implying the implausible, that if we stay it won't be a mess. Since it could go badly when we leave, that blame must be placed on those who took us there, not on those of us who now insist that Americans no longer need be killed or maimed, and that Americans no longer need to kill any more Iraqis. We've had enough of both."

14.) Are you opposed to the United States becoming a police state, even in the name of "protecting the citizens"?

15.) Are you in favor of a president who would nominate judges for the Supreme Court who would promote and protect citizen's constitutional rights instead of further empowering an ever more dictatorial executive branch?

16.) Do you favor the return of habeas corpus (the right to know why you have been arrested and the right to an attorney, among other things)?

17.) Do you believe in repealing the Patriot Act, which abolishes a number of our constitutional freedoms?

18.) Do you believe in repealing the Military Commissions Act, which allows the president and other law-enforcement figures, at their whim, to declare U.S. citizens as enemy combatants, thus depriving them of all of their constitutional rights?

19.) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "America was founded by men who understood that the threat of domestic [government] tyranny is as great as any threat from abroad. If we want to be worthy of their legacy, we must resist the rush toward ever-increasing state control of our society. Otherwise, our own government will become a greater threat to our freedoms than any foreign terrorist."

20.) Do you believe in protecting the rights / civil rights of every individual, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, ethnicity, etc.?

21.) Are you in favor of putting an end to "corporate welfare" and other policies promoted by corporate lobbyists and enacted by congress and the president, "welfare" that enriches the wealthy at the expense of the middle and lower classes?

22.) Are you in favor of reigning in or eliminating federal agencies (and even private agencies masquerading as federal agencies) that abuse their positions of authority and infringe upon our individual rights?

23.) Are you in favor of severely limiting the unchecked power of the CIA in order to put an end to the evil deeds they have been committing around the world (and possibly in our own country) for the past sixty years?

24.) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "I am absolutely opposed to a national ID card. This is a total contradiction of what a free society is all about. The purpose of government is to protect the secrecy and the privacy of all individuals, not the secrecy of government. We don't need a national ID card."

25.) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "Monitoring the transactions of every American in order to catch those few who are involved in some sort of illegal activity turns one of the great bulwarks of our liberty, the presumption of innocence, on its head. The federal government has no right to treat all Americans as criminals by spying on their relationship with their doctors, employers, or bankers."

26.) Are you in favor of decriminalizing medical marijuana?

27.) Are you in favor of decriminalizing marijuana altogether?

28.) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "You wanna get rid of drug crime in this country? Fine, let's just get rid of all the drug laws."

29.) Are you in favor of a president who says the following? -- "I no longer believe in the death penalty. I believe it has been issued unjustly. If you're rich, you get away with it. If you're poor, and you're from the inner city, you're more likely to be prosecuted and convicted; and today with the DNA evidence [we've seen that] there's been too many mistakes [made], so I am now opposed to the federal death penalty."

30.) Do you agree with any elected official who would vote against a federal law banning same-sex marriage?

31.) Do you agree with any elected official who would vote against a federal law banning abortion?

32.) Theoretically speaking, do you agree or disagree with the following statement? -- "Justifying conscription [military draft] to promote the cause of liberty is one of the most bizarre notions ever conceived by man! Forced servitude, with the risk of death and serious injury as a price to live free, makes no sense. What right does anyone have to sacrifice the lives of others for some cause of questionable value? Even if well motivated it can’t justify using force on uninterested persons. It’s said that the 18-year-old owes it to his country. Hogwash! It just as easily could be argued that a 50-year-old chickenhawk, who promotes war and places the danger on innocent young people, owes a heck of a lot more to the country than the 18-year-old being denied his liberty for a cause that has no justification."

In Conclusion, I Repeat...

Does this man appear to be: A.) more of a mainstream liberal, B.) more of a radical liberal, C.) mostly independent, or D.) something else entirely.

P.S.

If you've guessed the identity of this person, please, for the sake of anyone else who "takes" this survey, don't reveal his name in your comments.