ronlawhouston's Xanga

Funny Video

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:01:44 GMT

My voting record has been all over the map. I voted for Reagan, Bush #1, Clinton, Gore, and abstained in the Kerry/Bush#2 race because frankly I never liked Kerry. I've always wished that we didn't have such entrenched political parties and really hope someday we'll see viable third or forth parties. I toyed with voting for Ross Perot, but in the end just felt he was too much of a flake.

After 8 years of Dick Cheney and his puppet Bush, I couldn't be more anti-Republican. However, I can't say I'm a die hard Democrat because even though I voted for him, I'm no big fan of Bill Clinton. I'm glad that Barak Obama has diminished the influence of the Clintons in the Democratic Party.

I'm posting this video mainly because I found it funny.

Enjoy

More on Energy

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:47:26 GMT

Buddhists have a particular type of meditation called Tonglen. The idea behind it is to help people by taking into yourself a dark, heavy, negative energy while at the same time breathing out a soft, kind, light energy. I've often wondered about this. I think clearly when we are close to one another there is something (perhaps something biological or some subconscious perceptions) that can create a sense of energy in a room, or place.

However, that sort of begs the question. So, I'll put it out to you. First, is there really a literal energy that we put out? If so, then can we affect it with out actions? My rationalist side wants to say that's silly and akin to a belief in ghosts. However, my experience seems to speak against my rationalist side. So, what do you think?

Negative Energy

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:00:54 GMT

I'm beginning to wonder if negative energy can be transmitted over the internet and come flowing out of my monitor.

Gosh, there are a lot of ugly mean spirited people out there in the world.

Wafergate

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:22:51 GMT

I believe in treating people with dignity. I'm guilty of not doing that on occasions, but I do repent and try to make amends. I think part of having dignity for people is respecting their beliefs no matter how much I may disagree.

The problem with religion and for that matter irreligion is that the respect for others often goes out the window. I've watched some Protestant/Catholic debates that made me understand how the situation in Northern Ireland came about. I've seen atheists treat people of faith like they are stupid simple minded fools. Here's a classic example:

Webster F. Cook is Catholic. He goes into the Catholic mass at the University of Central Florida Catholic center and goes up to communion. Now Catholics belief that the communion wafer actually becomes the body of Christ once consecrated by the priest. They have loads of rules and rituals regarding the handling of consecrated communion wafers. Webster goes up and gets communion and is supposed to immediately eat the wafer. He doesn't do that. Why he doesn't is unclear. Onc version has him wanting to show the wafer to a non-Catholic friend. (Non-catholics aren't allowed to take communion in a Catholic church.) Another version has him protesting the use of student funds for the on campus Catholic group.

However, the people conducting the ceremony want Webster to follow the rules. So, the grab him trying to get him to consume his wafer. He eventually puts it into his mouth but then takes it out and takes it home and puts it into a plastic bag.

So, Webster is guilty of the first act of indignity. If you're going to go into a Catholic church and take communion, then you should follow their rules. That's just a fundamental respect issue. I don't want anyone coming being invited into my house and then spitting in my face. However, the Catholic church then gets highly undignified. They assaulted Webster and then Webster gets death threats. Suddenly Webster is under some unofficial Catholic fatwa. They view it as Webster kidnapping the body of Christ.

Webster disabuses Catholic communion and they threaten to kill him. How very nice.

Now we need to cue the atheists. PZ Meyers is a noted atheist and professor at the University of Minnesota. He understandably doesn't understand what the big deal is about a cracker. However instead of just calling out the bad behavior of both sides in this mess, he puts out a request for a consecrated communion wafer so he can perform ritual abuse on it. Now, of course, this offends the Catholics again and they issue more death threats this time against PZ Meyers.

I understand why Webster would be upset with being assaulted. I understand why the Catholics would be upset over the communion wafer. I also understand why PZ Meyer would see it as an absurd mess. Now if everyone would just try to understand the other person, then perhaps wafergate won't get somebody killed.

Meanwhile, I hear the 4 horsemen of the apocolypse have entered an appearence in California.

Well Crap

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:38:56 GMT

I had this really weird case some time back. I was representing a 16 year old kid caught in a custody battle. The kid had lived with Dad every since the divorce and it appeared that Dad was doing a good job. However, Dad was going through an extremely messy divorce from wife #2 (not the mother of the child).

The same lawyer represented both wife #2 and the mother of my client, which admittedly was odd. The timing of the two cases also appeared highly suspect to me. The issue of the custody case was that Dad was perhaps too permissive of drug (marijuana) and alcohol use. However, I had a sixteen year old client who did not want to move in his last years of high school to another state. I also had to wonder because every since the divorce there had never been any problem with Dad up until his messy divorce. I made it pretty clear to the lawyer for Mom and wife #2 that my impression was that wife #2 was "stirring the pot" and I wasn't very inclined to support moving a 16 year old against their will to another state.

My 16 year old client took a drug test and (as I recall) it was negative. There was nothing to indicate that the kid had a major drug problem. The kid had a pretty good school record and other than the allegations made primarily by wife #2, there didn't appear to be any problem at the home.

The mother of my client eventually decided to dismiss her case. I have no real idea why although I suspect money was an issue. Mom was in Arizona and had to fly out for court. I don't know how much my position on the case influenced the decision by Mom to dismiss.

Well, I see the lawyer for Mom and wife #2 today in court. I don't care for her too much because she just appears manipulative. It turns out my client died of a drug overdose. All I could think was "well, crap." "Did I screw that one up?" "Maybe switching to Mom may have prevented this." Dad supposedly is suicidal. I knew that he loved and was very bonded to his son.

It's tough making decisions that affect people's lives. I'm always mindful that there is a high chance that any decision could lead to harm to the people involved. My general rule is to try very hard to do no harm. The irony is that sometime doing nothing ends up doing harm.

It's possible that forcing a 16 year old to move would not have changed the outcome. It's just the possibility that it could have that is troubling.

Wow, It's Been a Long Time

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:20:01 GMT

Gosh, I haven't posted on this thing for some time now. For some reason, I lost my motivation to blog.

I'm really on a biochemistry and behavior kick lately. I really wonder just how much we are controlled by our biochemistry. Classic example a case I saw in court the other day.

Woman files for divorce. This is not surprising except for the fact that the group that files divorce most often is menopausal women. This woman was clearly middle aged. It's hard to say if she was having an affair but one thing that was alleged about her was that he husband called her a "cougar." I had to look it up at the urban dictionary but a "cougar" is a middle-aged woman who tends to try to pick up younger men.

So you have a middle aged woman dissatisfied with their spouse of 18 years who files for divorce. What about the husband? Research shows that during romantic love the dopamine circuits in the brain go crazy. You actually can go from being a relatively normal person to someone who is almost obsessive compulsive. I know I've had this happen a couple of times in my life. Now the interesting thing is that this same type of reaction also occurs when your partner is leaving you. This poor guy (he didn't want the divorce - still loved his wife) was in full blown dopamine induced divorce OCD. He called and texted her compulsively. I think he'd sometimes do like 20-30 calls or text messages per day.

It was interesting because it was a classic textbook case of the biochemistry of divorce. Middle aged woman divorces long time husband. Husband goes crazy and can't control himself. Two people in midlife having a pure existential meltdown.

So, have you ever had the crazy love induced obsessiveness?

Hopeless Case

Tue, 20 May 2008 13:16:11 GMT

There's a really nice website called Productivity501. It has a lot of really need tips about organizing and getting things done. Well, I'm chronically disorganized and a horrible procrastinator. So, I signed up for the email course on procrastination prevention. It's an email a day that you're supposed to practice. Well, as you can guess I've only opened the first email and I'm on day 7.

What's that about the road to hell being paved with?

Freudian Slip of the Day

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:05:03 GMT

Those pesky spell checkers. You use a word that is clearly wrong but in the dictionary and the spell checker doesn't flag it.

Perhaps that's what happened to Grace Won at Aving USA. Then again, perhaps she had other things on her mind.

Police State

Fri, 16 May 2008 10:50:07 GMT

I'm not a native Texan. I have lived in the State of Texas for over 35 years. There's a lot good to be said about Texas. It's an interesting state filled with interesting people.

However, Texas is often way too right wing for me. My county, Harris County is the death row capital of Texas. If it were a state, it would rank third in the number of people on death row behind only Texas and Virginia. We've put so many people into jail that we're now having to outsource our jailing to Louisiana. I suppose I shouldn't expect too much from the state that gave the country its worst president ever, George W. Bush.

I'm hoping things are beginning to change because Texas and Harris County are suffering from some real black eyes to their images. Harris County's black eye started with a SWAT style drug bust at a house. The two neighbors across the street caught up by all the commotion, decide to film the bust from their front yard. Now this didn't set too well with the deputies conducting this bust. They went over to the neighbors house, seized their camera, and had them arrested on trumped up charges. Harris County ended up paying them 1.7 million dollars as a settlement, but the county administration has failed to admit they did anything wrong. (Huh, come on guys, if you did nothing wrong then why in the hell did you pay out 1.7 million dollars of the taxpayers money?)

However, to add insult to injury, it has now been revealed that after filing the lawsuit, the Harris County Sheriff's department conducted surveillance on the neighbors. Let's see, we had you falsely arrested, you're not charged with any crimes or suspected of any criminal activity, yet we're going to put you under surveillance? I just have one word. Scary. Well, maybe two words, very scary.

Fortunately for the survival of our society down here in Texas, your average Texan isn't as much of a jack booted thug as the people we having running the place. When a press reporter was photographing an arrest at Mardi Gras, he was arrested for interference with the arrest, and had photographs deleted from his camera. Fortunately for him, The Galveston Daily News "lawyered up" and hired him a top notch defense counsel who had a jury find him not guilty.

I'm curious about what will happen this election cycle. Maybe the times are changing.

Evangelism

Thu, 15 May 2008 22:18:49 GMT

Now I'm fascinated by people who are different than me. I appreciate that I have only been exposed to a very narrow slice of life. So, when I come across people who have very different world view than me, I'm always eager to talk to them and find out what they believe.

I remember a number of years back that there was a couple (husband and wife) of Jehovah's witnesses who would come by my house. I found them to be a really nice couple and in many ways admired that they held beliefs so strongly that they'd be willing to go door to door and possibly suffer the hatred that I'm certain must have often come their way. I was also fascinated to find out exactly what these people believed and why they felt so strongly the need to try to "reach" me.

In the end I suppose they realized that no, I wasn't coming to the Kingdom hall and no, I wasn't at all interested in becoming a Jehovah's witness and decided that their evangelism time was probably best spent elsewhere. I'm still fascinated by the differences in people and still have a Book of Mormon given to me by an LDS person who I spent a lot of time time asking about their faith.

However, I've also begun to see the "dark side" of evangelism. In a way there's not much difference between the door to door evangelist and the medieval lord telling people to convert or be put to the sword other than the door to door guy having to worry about the secular authorities if they try to smite you. Both view you as defective, flawed, and unacceptable in your present state. Both believe that you need to be fixed. Both feel that God has endowed them with the power to try to "fix" you. Both feel that they are only trying to help you. It's just that one feels that since you're going to hell, they may has well hasten the process.

Even though I see the dark side of evangelism, I'm still not mean to the evangelist. I don't curse them or slam the door in their faces. I do try to make them understand that unless they can conclusively prove that he doesn't exist, I'm going to keep praying to Zeus and nothing they can say will make me worship their lesser God.

However, I'm very curious - how to you handle evangelists?