butchbailey.com

This is one of those posts I wish I were more eloquent. One of my heroes has died.

Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90. He made it to 2001 and beyond. This post’s title is his own epitaph.

I’ve heard people morn about “The day the music died” for them when one of their musical heroes passes. Yesterday was one of my “Days the music died.”

Among his 100 novels I think I’d have to say Childhood’s End, 2001 (with 2010 the other sequels) and The Fountains of Paradise as my favorites. All his short stories are great.

He recorded this message on his 90^th birthday this past December. He mentions that although he has worked as a scientist (helped invent Radar during WWII, invented geostationary weather satellites, etc), a popularizer of science, and many other fields, he wanted to be remembered as a writer. Someone who’s words inspired and entertained. Mission accomplished Sir Clarke.

The last of the three Grandmaster’s of Sci-fi is gone. The world is less intelligent, less hopeful, and less inventive than it was yesterday. I think I’ll spend some time looking at the stars tonight, as I did last night.

Butch

Happy St. Paddy’s Day.

Butch

As a follow up to my post about the young man in south Mississippi who took a stand for the separation of church and state, his mother says he’s starting to get a lot of harassment, threats, etc. She contacted me by email after I kind of stuck up for the kid in the newspaper forums. She requested that I send his email around and see if people who support him could drop him a line and tell him that he does have a lot of support and that there are people who believe in what he did. She mentioned that he “really needs it.” I work in that county and I can imagine what he’s having to face right now.

His email is wesleycrawford@tds.net. Any help you could give to lend some support to this young man would be much appreciated. As you are probably aware, he’s got pretty much the entire community against him.

No matter your religious affiliation, I hope you’ll agree at least that what he did was stand up for what he thought was right in the face of what he knew was going to be overwhelming public backlash. I hope everyone of good will who is reading this will take a second to send him a short email expressing your support and encouragement.

Thanks.

Butch

“When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.”

- Abraham Lincoln

And I guess he was a pretty okay president.

Butch

For more than 20 years, Democrats have had to endure the legacy of Jimmy Carter’s presidency.  Now, George W. Bush will force Republicans to confront the same kind of embarrassment.

by jerenash over at the Clarion Ledger’s Red/Blue blog

Butch

From a letter to the editor in the Hattiesburg American:

I am a freshman at Greene County High School, and I am writing to express my concerns on several assemblies that we have had this year.

It is understood that we live in a region of the country called the “Bible Belt,” and in this region Christianity does play a significant role in the lives and the views of many people. I not only understand this, but I also respect it.

This school year we have had three assemblies where the speaker was a religious figure. The first person was a local preacher. During this assembly he preached to us on the importance of making the right choices and accepting Jesus as our savior.

The next person was a biker-turned-preacher from the Gulf Coast. His program was focused on making the right choices. He didn’t preach to us, but he did mention that turning to Christianity helped him turn his life around.

The other speaker was a preacher from Louisiana. He preached on the importance of living in a Christ-like manner.

These assemblies were all concluded in prayer. We were never given the option to not attend.

I respect all of these people and their commitment to the Christian religion just as much as I respect the Constitution and rights given to us by this document. This time, however, the two are at odds with each other.

The Establishment Clause of the Constitution has been interpreted in many court cases as a wall of separation between church and state.

Moreover, it states clearly in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 that no school official shall mandate or organize religious ceremonies.

I have no problem with the assemblies themselves, but public schools are not the place to preach a religion. The Constitution is the reason that this country hasn’t crumbled into a chaotic state.

Now is not the time to overlook this important document. These assemblies, no matter how good of a message they bear, are still technically illegal.

Wesley Crawford
Neely

First of all the young man is highly articulate and has a bright future in front of him. Not only because he is such an obviously bright kid, but because he has already demonstrated the kind of courage and all-out ballsyness that most people never develop in a lifetime.

These assemblies really are an outrage. But I work in Greene County quite a bit and I would be shocked if anything comes of this other than ostracism of the young man who wrote the letter. The Friendly Atheist picked it up (due to an email from yours truly) and makes the salient point:

One of the comments on the story comes from Wesley’s mother:

I am Wesley’s mother. He is a very intelligent, articulate, fourteen year old, freshman at GCHS. He is not an athiest, nor does he want all religious assemblies to be removed from schools. If the students want to organize an optional religious assembly, he would not have any problem with it. His main concern is that these assemblies have been organized by the school officials and mandatory. Neither he nor any other student had the option to opt-out.

When he came home and told me about all of this, I encouraged him to write letters and let his voice be heard. He also sent his letter to the Mississippi Department of Education, but so far there has been no response.

I just wanted all of you to know that he is not a punk, nor is he a trouble maker. He is simply a very smart young man who saw a problem and wanted to do something about it.

Let me repeat: Not an atheist. Just a smart kid who wants to protect the separation of church and state.

This was inexcusable and an abuse of the school’s authority. It was blatantly illegal and unconstitutional. I hope the young man and his family suffer no repercussions, but judging form past cases like this, that may be too much to hope for.

Butch

As the Democratic campaign for presidential nomination reaches Mississippi let’s not forget Hillary’s opinion of our state:

“I was shocked when I learned Iowa and Mississippi have never elected a woman governor, senator or member of Congress.  There has got to be something at work here.  How can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi?  That’s not the quality. That’s not the communitarianism, that’s not the openness I see in Iowa.”

Butch

I just wanted to throw that number out there because yesterday I transferred the barleywine style ale that my brother and I made back in January from the primary to the secondary fermentor and got a gravity reading from it.  That beast dropped from an original gravity of 1.14 to a specific gravity yesterday of 1.028.  After adjusting for temp it seems this beast is sitting at 14.82% ABV right now.

Wow.

I had no idea we’d be that successful with our first barleywine.  To be honest I was concerned with just how efficient our little yeast friends were going to be because we didn’t even use a proper starter.  Just rehydrated and dumped them into the wort.  But work they have.  I’m really surprised they were able to stay viable as long as they did and eat up that much sugar.

So now it sits in the secondary for a few more months, I’m thinking at least through the summer.  I have some concerns about how much air, and thus Oxygen, is sitting on top of the beer inside the 5 gallon carboy.  We only made about 4 gallons of beer so there is a significant amount in there with it and with almost no fermentation currently happening the O₂ isn’t going to be pushed out.   Six months or more is a long time for that much O₂ to sit on that beer, plenty of time for staling.  Unless I happen upon one of those wine-saver Argon dispensers soon I guess we’ll have to take our chances.

But I want to leave you with one more phrase:

14.82% ABV.

Butch

Although a lot has passed my way in the time since I issued my self-imposed moratorium, none have been both provoking enough to make me want to post and within the Realm Of Safe.

WFB passing meets both.  I love politics, most pointedly I love intelligent commentary on politics from intelligent people able to frame ideas without an agenda other than the truth.  WFB was a master.  I can’t say it better than Radley, so I’ll shamelessly quote him here:

The guy got some things wrong, but he got a lot right (in both senses of the word).

Conservatism would do well to return to turn away from the ugly populism that currently has the movement by the throat, and move toward Buckley’s more elitist-tinged skepticism of power. Buckley was intellectually honest, engaged his opponents fairly, and was willing to admit when he’d been wrong (see his change of position on the drug prohibition and the war in Iraq, respectively). More importantly, he was no party hack. He was beholden to ideas.

Buckley leaves an enormous legacy, but to the detriment everyone, the right left Buckley years ago. Where Buckley stood athwart the tide of history and beat it back with wit, sophistication, and argument, we today get best-selling Regnery screeds from lowest-common-denominator clowns like Ann Coulter, Dinesh D’Souza, and Glenn Beck. Where Buckley mistrusted government and aimed to slow the world down, he’s been usurped on the right by the likes of William Kristol and David Brooks, men who want to use government to remake the world in their own image. Where Buckley flourished in cosmopolitan Manhattan and took delight in life’s finer things, modern conservatism has grown disdainful of the marketplace of culture, commerce, and ideas abundant in urban areas (witness the last election, where many on the right weirdly smeared John Kerry as a “latte-sipper”–real Americans apparently drink Maxwell House). In fact, today’s Bush/neocon-right is often contemptuous of commerce itself, sometimes calling the voluntary, unchecked exchange of goods, labor, and services–a pure free market–”ugly” and “crude.”

The 15-year GOP assent to power from 1980 to 1994 gave rise to rightist thinkers more inclined toward activist government, just one that was active promoting conservativism. With Republicans at the helm of the federal government, limiting government’s scope and reach no longer seemed like such a good idea. So old right thinkers like Buckley lost influence in favor of big government neocons like Kristol, who gave quarter to grand dreams like an imperial presidency, using the federal government to promote conservative values through intervention in areas like health care and the public schools, remapping the Middle East, and other ideas that require too great a belief in the competence and benevolence of bureaucrats and politicians for sensible rightists like Buckley.

I didn’t agree with Buckley on everything, of course. But he represents a time when conservatives and libertarians shared quite a bit of common ground–indeed when both philosophies largely sprang from the same well of ideas and influences. I don’t think that’s the case anymore.

Rest in peace.

Butch

Yup.  I’m making a strategic decision to change the overall focus of this blog.  The result being that you’ll probably see fewer overall posts in the future.  No more religion posts, or at least no more of me really opening up and going great guns on it, although my position hasn’t changed.  For the remaining time left in this blog’s life you’ll probably see a few on science and evolution that some find controversial, and certainly plenty on beer, but nothing really offensive.  I’ll still be speaking my mind elsewhere on the innernets, but eventually this website will morph into something else.

In fact the recent decrease in post frequency was part of this very conscious decision.  I’ve been trying, as hard as I can, to just shut up more often and for the most part it’s been tolerable.  The Wife thinks this guy is basically me, but I’m working on it.

I’ve enjoyed it and learned a tremendous amount, but it’s time I got serious about some things in this life and this blog has become a hindrance.  To the few folks who read this blog, thanks and don’t stop.  I’ll more than likely still say something you find stimulating or crazy sooner or later, and I’d love for you to drop me a line.

Butch