Tyler's Turn Blog

We've recently had two incidents in our community that are reminders of why it's not good to feed predators.

First, there was the outbreak of rabies in the fox population on Boston Hill, our in-town open space. I talked to the Animal Control officer one day, and he said the outbreak was particularly bad because the fox population is so dense on Boston Hill. "The people who live around Boston have been feeding the foxes for years," he said. Luckily, only one person got bit, and none of the dogs who are walked on Boston regularly (including mine) had to be put down because of contact. The rabies did thin out the overpopulation.

The second incident was much worse: A local man, who lived on the edge of the Gila Wilderness, was killed by a mountain lion. The lion had to be hunted down and killed, along with another lioness who had become too familiar with humans. The reason for all this was that someone had been feeding the lions, so he could get good pictures of them. Needless to say, he's being charged with manslaughter for his negligent behavior. One man killed, one man in trouble with the law, and two mountain lions killed, because someone thought it would be a good idea to feed predators.

Update: I don't read the paper, and rely on my spouse to read it and tell me what's going on. He says no one has actually been charged with manslaughter, but the paper said that was a likely outcome.

George Will's latest essay in Newsweek gave me some small hope that there might be a candidate this libertarian (small l) can vote for in November, without having to hold my nose.

I've long felt that John McCain-Feingold was probably not going to be my choice, but I'm not sure I want a liberal Democrat in the Whitehouse either. My likely vote for Obama was really going to be a vote against the Republican Party and its abandonment of we libertarians in favor of theocrats and neocons -- neither of whom are conservative in any way shape or form.

However, George Will gives me hope. If he's right, and his reading of Obama makes sense when you think about things like Obama's healthcare plan (reviled by the left for giving people an opt-out option, and therefore not covering everyone), then I can put up with a candidate who wants to nudge We the People, as long as he leaves us ultimately free to make our own choices.

The view from The Kumquat.

So, I complain about the heat, and it starts to rain and hail. The temperature has dropped at least ten degrees in the last hour (maybe more), which means I can wear long pants in comfort.

Everyone in Silver City is happy when it rains -- even the homeless hippy in his sarong (but he's always happy).

At The Curious Kumquat, we have a dress code that doesn't allow shorts. I wrote the dress code, and I've been breaking it this week. It's just too hot for long pants.

What really burns me up, however, is all the women running around in summer dresses. When the dress code says "no short pants," a woman can put on a little cotton shift. She can look classy and comfortable all at once. She can even look over-dressed for Silver City, and stay cool as a cucumber.

There is one guy in town who wears sarongs year-round, but he's an intentionally-homeless hippy dude. Unfortunately, I don't think I could pull a skirt off as well as he does without a good dose of wacky tobaccy and a lack of personal hygiene -- neither of which are my style.

One of the reasons I can't wait until January 20, 2009 (Bush's last day, for those who don't know) is that, after that date, I will probably never receive the video of the kid pretending to be Bush in my Inbox again. You know the one -- the email is always titled This Kid Deserves an Oscar. I can't count the number of times that thing has shown up in my Inbox, and I didn't even finish watching it the first time.

I know they gave an Oscar to Al Gore for his Global Warming snore-fest, and I haven't really respected Oscar since Forrest Gump swept the 1994 Academy Awards, but they haven't sunk that low.

It was the middle of the lunch rush. The cafe was hoppin' and I had four people in line at the cash register, when the phone rang:

So, I asked the people standing in line. They thought it would take her about an hour. One person said, "But, tell her she's driving too slow." I didn't.

Pulling out onto the highway, waiting for a break in traffic, a truck pulled up across from me. The driver was clearly a true patriot who respected his flag so much that he had it proudly displayed on the front of his truck . . . to catch bugs.

Seriously.

I was taught that the flag should be honored. Don't let it touch the ground. Don't fly it in the rain. Burn or bury it if it gets tattered. I'm pretty sure using the flag as a fly swatter was not one of the ways I was taught to honor it. I just don't get this kind of patriotism -- but, then, I have been told I'm f***king conservative. Maybe I am.

A friend sent me this link to the transcript of a forum on fundamentalism and relativism. I haven't had time to read it all, but it looks like an interesting conversation.

After eight years of George W. Bush, I was feeling pretty nostalgic for the Clinton years. "Yes, he boinked a few women in the oval office, but at least he didn't destroy the Constitution and jump-start our movement toward Armageddon," I said.

However, with her shenanigans in Michigan and Florida, Hillary is reminding me why I never voted for a Clinton and never will. I don't like liars and cheats, and I despise slimy power-politics. The Clintons have always been good at cheating, lying, and playing hardball.

Thanks for the reminder.

Yesterday, I received my passport in the mail, just one-and-a-half weeks after I applied for it. This is a big deal for two reasons: First, it didn't take six to nine months, as I was warned it might. Second, I changed my name without a court order, marriage license, or divorce decree, and they gave me the passport in my new name.

When my spouse and I got married, we decided to merge our names (he was Pauley and I was Connor). However, when we found out that we were going to have to pay $800 for a court order to get the same name-changing benefit that any heterosexual couple can get for fifty bucks and a marriage license, we were furious. We refused, and instead decided to simply start using our new names.

The passport was the last piece of identification I had yet to get in my new name. It took a lot of documentation -- sworn affidavits from my mother and sister, and five years worth of financial records -- but one-and-a-half weeks later, I can now hop across to Mexico for cheap tequila whenever I want.

It feels like that moment when the captain turns off the seat belt sign, and the flight attendant says, "You are now free to to move about the cabin." It doesn't matter that I don't need to get up and use the facilities, it just feels good to know I can.

Listen to commentators, particularly liberal commentators, and you'll hear people stumbling over their words as they talk about the . . . um . . . . Clinton campaign. What you're hearing in that "um" is a mind racing as it thinks, "Don't say Hillary. Don't say Hillary." Because, as any good feminist knows, it's bad form to call a woman by her first name when one is using surnames to talk about her male counterparts. One says, "Obama, Clinton, and McCain" not "Obama, Hillary, and McCain."

The problem is that Hillary has spent millions of dollars drilling her first name into everyone's minds. She has good reason to do this: First, she wants people to know that she's running and not Bill (although she's happy to say "we" when taking credit for any good things Bill did while in office). Second, her advisers have told her she has a problem with seeming aloof and harsh, and they think using her fist name in advertising softens her image.

Admittedly, it's not an important observation, but it's something that keeps me entertained while the pundits drone on. Listen for the "um." It's always there.

Whatever happens for the rest of this election, the primary season so far has renewed my optimism for our country. In both parties, the candidate most willing to compromise with the other party has a good chance of winning the nomination. And, in both parties, the hardliners are screaming mad.

I had a conversation with a Republican friend the other day, and her big beef against McCain is that he was part of the Gang of Fourteen. That was the bipartisan group of Senators who kept the 109th Congress from getting rid of the filibuster. I explained that the 110th Republicans have used the filibuster 72 times, so McCain's compromise was actually good for his party, but she wouldn't hear of it. Rush, et al, have convinced her that compromise is evil, even if being hardnosed means "going nuclear" and killing everyone.

I hear the same kind of rhetoric from people opposed to Obama. They want someone who knows how to scrap with the Republicans -- mostly because eight years of Rovian politics, preceded by four years of the Gingrich Revolution, has convinced them that nothing else is possible -- and Clinton is nothing if not a scrapper. They also like Clinton's hardliner rhetoric on things like healthcare reform.

I, on the other hand, am tired of the Red State/Blue State divide, and I think talking to my opponents is a good thing. As a registered Independent, living in a decidedly Purple State, I'd love to see some compromise among our political classes, and I think this primary is showing that there are a lot of Americans like me out there.

We Independents are tired of one-plank partisans yanking the parties around by their noses. We'll even vote for someone who disagrees with us on some issues (no one stands for everything I want), as long as the candidate is willing to turn off the tap on the bile that has poisoned our country for too long.

Now that I'm back in school, I'm spending a lot more time around utilizers. You know, those people who use "utilize" when they really mean "use."

Theological and philosophical authors are terrible utilizers, but so are most of my classmates. I'm afraid our colleges and universities — not to mention our seminaries and graduate schools — are training a generation of utilizers.

Although a case can be made for using utilize in certain situations*, it's really just a ten cent word that makes people feel smart.

You're already smart enough. Be a user.

*According to The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English, utilize should be used when one is speaking of practical or effective use.

This is the busiest day of the year at The Curious Kumquat. We only have one cash register, and this morning I had a huge line of people standing in line waiting to pay. But, rather than being grumpy about waiting, every customer who made it up to the cash register said, "I'm so glad to see you're busy! I hope you're having a great season and making lots of money."

On the list of things you don't want to do on a Wednesday morning before going to work, reseating a toilet that leaked during the night is probably pretty high up there.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of performing this delightful task, it involves taking a long hot shower when you're finished. Not necessarily because you're dirty, but because you wonder if you'll ever feel clean again.

So, the other day, some friends and I were sitting around talking about how much we hate the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Dry turkey baked for hours in the oven. Green Bean Casserole. Gelled cranberry in a can. Sugared Sweet-Potato Bake. Pink Stuff made from cherry Jell-O, cottage cheese, and pineapple. (Okay, I confess, I love that last one.)

Someone said, "But, Thanksgiving dinner is the quintessential American event."

I thought about this, and said, "Well, quintessential Baby Boomer, anyway."

Think about it. All the things we associate with Thanksgiving weren't even possible until the 1950s. A turkey for every table came with the advent of factory farming, and cooking that bird was much easier in a modern electric oven. Green Bean Casserole requires Campbell's soup in a can and Funyuns, and what could more 1950s than those old standbys? Gelled cranberry -- nuff said about that. Where would sweet-potato Bake be without mass-produced mini-marshmallows? And, of course, all the Jell-O salads, including my favorite Pink Stuff, come right out of Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook, first published in 1950.

I think it's a sign of the waning influence of the Baby Boomer Donna Reed Fantasy that people are beginning to question these "traditional" Thanksgiving trappings. The thing to do these days is to re-imagine the Thanksgiving table. Deep-fry the turkey, or drizzle it with truffle oil. Toss lightly-steamed green beans with balsamic vinegar, good olive oil, and dried cranberries. Then forget the cranberry dressing altogether. Top the sweet potatoes with nuts, and cut back on the sugar. And, whatever you do, don't serve anything with Jell-O in it.

I called my mom yesterday, and they'd just finished a dinner with friends and family. They grilled steaks and served them with a savory casserole of Yukon Gold, sweet potatoes, and Parmesan cheese. Green beans and salad rounded out the plate. Nothing pink or gelled came anywhere near the table.

In 1999, I took the State Department's Foreign Service Exam, because I thought I might enjoy working in an embassy overseas. I also thought I'd be really good at it. I failed the exam by one point, and had the unusual opportunity of looking into an alternate universe.

That vision is what prompted me to go to seminary, where I met my spouse who eventually brought me to Silver City. But, every once in a while, I wonder what that Alternate Tyler is doing in his alternate universe these days.

Alternate Tyler correctly answered the question about the shape of the European map between the World Wars, ended up being interviewed by the State Department, was hired, and was working at an embassy on September 11, 2001. He's also been a victim of the demoralizing and diminishing of State Department personnel carried out by the Bush Administration ever since 9/11. If you think the real Tyler has hard feelings toward George W. Bush, you can't imagine how angry Alternate Tyler is.

Today, I wonder if Alternate Tyler is one of the 250 State Department employees told they're being assigned to Iraq and not allowed to volunteer. If he hasn't resigned yet, I'll bet he has his resignation letter written. I wonder where he'll be going from here?

The more I hear about the two front-runners' foreign policy platforms and their views on the War on Terror, the more I think the next election will give us a choice between Bush-in-a-Pantsuit or Cheney-in-a-Dress. Ugh!

Note: Here's a link for those who aren't sure which is which.

When they tell us the nursery story about Jack Sprat and his dear Wifey, they never mention all the troubles caused by their different approaches to food. They don't tell you about the days when she would go to the grocery store and come back with mounds of fat and no lean. They don't mention the time she came home from a long days work, and he was so proud of the beautiful bison roast he'd spent the whole day slow-cooking for dinner.

And then there was the time Jack and Wifey were looking for a restaurant in Enchanted Village. Jack thought MacMann's Lean Machine looked good, and Wifey loved the idea of Arbuckle's Bacon Shack. After driving around for what seemed like hours, they ended up settling for a quick bite at Veggies-R-Us, which neither of them really liked.

Yesterday, someone said to me, "Well, at least we made it through September 11th without another attack." He'd been worried about the possibility of Al Qaeda performing an anniversary celebration of terror.

This is certainly a worry the media and the Bush Administration like to foster, but when has Al Qaeda ever struck on the anniversary of an earlier attack? That's not their style. Releasing an anniversary video from Osama bin Laden, yes. However, Al Qaeda terror strikes are shrewdly random.

The terrorists who do seem to like anniversaries are our homegrown angry young men. I don't worry about September, but I've started holding my breath during April.

First there was the Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City, perpetrated on the anniversary of the Branch Davidian debacle in Waco, April 19th. Then, the Columbine killers appear to have timed their massacre to coincide with the anniversary of the Murrah Bombing (they were a day late, because of technical difficulties). Now, this year, we have the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16th. And, closer to my heart, the young man who set a bonfire on the Earlham College campus also chose April 16th.

Shrewd terrorists know that attacks must be unexpected to be effective. Unhinged young men, on the other hand, attach themselves to anniversaries. So I'd say, rest easy on September 11th, but step up security on school campuses during the month of April.