Of Bald Men and Bears

Bethany's train left for the Frankfurt airport at 3:15 AM this morning. (What all did we see and do in Europe? You'll just have to wait for that post.) I took a bit too long helping her get her bags on the train and was suddenly a captive passenger of ICE 5 headed toward Frankfurt. After explaining the situation to an understanding train conductor, who seemed to enjoy the opportunity to practice his English, I got off at the next stop around 4:45 and waited for the next train back to Göttingen.

During the wait I bought the latest copy of The Economist and holed up in an American-style diner reading it while enjoying a cup of hot chocolate. (I still don't drink coffee.) I haven't read The Economist since a brief period of addiction while leasing apartments last summer, when each week I'd eagerly await buying up the glossy-paged British periodical at Barnes and Noble and reading the articles between my apartment showings. As I was paging through the magazine, I was thinking how it is sort of my pack of cigarettes, my guilty pleasure that I treat myself to now and then. What's so great about it? Despite it's weight toward economic analyses of topics (accompanied by a strong free-trade bias), each issue has articles on a host of political, social, and (of course) economic issues, all areas in which my understanding is admittedly very weak. All of the articles are anonymously written by the editorial staff and each article presents an opinion in addition to presenting its analysis. It therefore doesn't fain a completely objective approach like most journalism, which is biased but pretends to not to be, and which has an opinion on the given subject but pretends not to. The Economist's articles are thorough, well-written, straight-forward, and often a little witty - like a thinking-man's Newsweek.

I've never been one for newspapers, feeling that most journalism lacks analysis and historical perspective that really allows people to understand the issues, but I also realize that there's a large void in my knowledge of what's going on in the contemporary world. Since I don't think I could ever commit the time to reading a daily newspaper, I hope that The Economist might help fill that void a bit.

Yes, I am a nerd.

Labels: Germany, Life, News, Politics, Travel

Posted by andrew at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments

The New York Times had a fascinating article on its front page today:

KINGSTON, R.I. — There is nothing much unusual about the 197-page dissertation Marcus R. Ross submitted in December to complete his doctoral degree in geosciences here at the University of Rhode Island.

His subject was the abundance and spread of mosasaurs, marine reptiles that, as he wrote, vanished at the end of the Cretaceous era about 65 million years ago. The work is “impeccable,” said David E. Fastovsky, a paleontologist and professor of geosciences at the university who was Dr. Ross’s dissertation adviser. “He was working within a strictly scientific framework, a conventional scientific framework.”

But Dr. Ross is hardly a conventional paleontologist. He is a “young earth creationist” — he believes that the Bible is a literally true account of the creation of the universe, and that the earth is at most 10,000 years old.

For him, Dr. Ross said, the methods and theories of paleontology are one “paradigm” for studying the past, and Scripture is another. In the paleontological paradigm, he said, the dates in his dissertation are entirely appropriate. The fact that as a young earth creationist he has a different view just means, he said, “that I am separating the different paradigms.”

He likened his situation to that of a socialist studying economics in a department with a supply-side bent. “People hold all sorts of opinions different from the department in which they graduate,” he said. “What’s that to anybody else?”
...
And, for some, his case raises thorny philosophical and practical questions. May a secular university deny otherwise qualified students a degree because of their religion? Can a student produce intellectually honest work that contradicts deeply held beliefs? Should it be obligatory (or forbidden) for universities to consider how students will use the degrees they earn?

Read the rest of the article here. It's a new wrinkle (or a wrinkle of which I have been unaware) in the creation vs. evolution debate.

Labels: Philosophy, Politics, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments

For those who were interested, I received the following e-mail today from Sen. Burling about what I had sent him concerning his bill to change the state song:

Dear Jacob,

Thank you for contacting me with your opinions on Legislative Bill 345 to change the Nebraska State Song. I introduced this legislation to provide a forum for the opponents and proponents to express their wishes on the subject.

Please never hesitate to contact me with your opinions and concerns in the future.

Senator Carroll Burling
District 33

That might be the least committed statement a human being could possibly make.

Seriously, though, from my time working as a page in the Legislature, I do know that they take very seriously these sorts of e-mails, phone calls, and letters. He was being very honest when he urged me contact him whenever I have opinions. In my experience, most of Nebraska's legislators similarly want to hear from their constituents.

As cynical as we might be about politics in general, I have a lot of respect for how the Legislature works.

Labels: Music, Nebraska, Politics

Posted by Jacob at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

I had heard in the news that Nebraska Legislative Senator Carroll Burling (my senator, representing the 33rd District) had introduced a bill (LB 345) that proposes to change the state song from "Beautiful Nebraska" to some country song performed by a woman in our district. I hadn't heard the song until today, when I read some commentary on this particular bill at another blog. I suppose this bill, in itself, might be an argument in favor of term limits.

At least with "Beautiful Nebraska"--which, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is cheesy--we can defend our state pride by pointing out that it was written a long time ago, when all songs were cheesy. I read that one of Burling's motivational factors was to provide a "contemporary sound" (or something like that) to our state song. Well, if this is contemporary, I want a time machine. "I Love Nebraska" is simply awful. It almost makes me want to stay in Alabama. (Almost, mind you.)

Listen to it for yourself:

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UPDATE (10:21 AM, 1/20/07): I wrote the following e-mail to Sen. Burling in opposition of LB 345. If you would like to contact your state senator, you can get their e-mail addresses here. This, of course, assumes that you know the district in which you live. If you don't, you can find your district number here.

Hon. Senator Burling--

I understand that you have introduced LB 345, which would change our state song from "Beautiful Nebraska" to a newer song called "I Love Nebraska." I appreciate your efforts to update our state song to something more contemporary, but, having heard the song and seen the music video (available on the internet), I must state my strong opinion that this particular song is NOT the right song to replace the old one. I stand in OPPOSITION to this bill.

From an artistic point of view, there are poorly written lyrics and forced rhymes. From an aesthetic point of view, there are many Nebraskans (including myself) who genuinely dislike country music as a genre, but I don't even think that this is particularly good country music.

Finally, I have a hard time imagining children learning this new song in schools. I myself learned "Beautiful Nebraska" while I was growing up in Nebraska public schools, and it was a song that is capable of being sung by choirs and even children. "I Love Nebraska," however, is a performance-oriented song, and its nature wouldn't really allow any but country music soloists to sing it. That hardly seems fitting for a state song.

So, I would request that you request to withdraw the bill or move that it be postponed indefinitely. Please do NOT continue to support this bill.

Thank you for all the hard work you are doing as my senator!

Jacob Gerber
Hastings, NE

Labels: Music, Nebraska, Politics

Posted by Jacob at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments

Unlike my friends, I was fortunate enough to spend Spring Break working at the Nebraska Legislature rather than doing something dull and frivolous like mountain climbing or skiing or something. Okay, so I was actually rather jealous of those friends who escaped the drudgery of everday life to do something fun. Still, there were enough interesting events to make things seem like they weren't too terribly bad. The following is a list of the week's highlights.

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Monday

In a committee hearing I was paging (I was responsible for making sure that senators had enough coffee and water to stay happy as well as passing out any handouts testifiers might have brought), the bill in question was one that involved elevator safety inspections. There were quite a few people who showed up to testify, but one man in particular had a great interest in the bill.

Testifier: I've spent a lot of time--a lot of years--working on this stuff. As a matter of fact, my wife is ready to leave me.
Senator on the Committee: (Nervously) We hope that isn't the case.
Chairman of the Committee: (At the end of the testifier's time) Well, thank you for coming today. I suggest that you buy some flowers and go home right now.

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Tuesday

Senator Ernie Chambers was railing against Christians (again), mocking their "...pontificating, religiosity, etc..." At this point, another senator smirked and remarked, "'Religiosity'? Now, I know that's not a word." He then looked at a group of pages that included me and asked, "It's not a word, is it?" I sort of grimaced and nodded to indicate that religiosity was, in fact a word. He looked away and didn't say anything else.

One of my fellow pages asked, "Did you just tell a senator that he was wrong?" Oh, crap.

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Wednesday

Senator Ernie Chambers has a way of using stories and metaphors that are only incidentally (extremely incidentally) related to the subject at hand to make his point. On this occasion, Chambers was trying to make a point that people were trying to garner his support for a bill by providing a few good things among several bad things, and that, moreover, the "good" things were not actually very good. So, he says, "These people are holding out this bill to me saying, 'Look at the candy in it,' even though the candy is submerged in a foul substance that I refuse to eat. And even the candy is not good candy, but--and you young people won't know what this is--the candy is horehound. When we were kids on Halloween, if we got horehound, we knew that that house was going to get a trick."

At the end of the day, I went up to Senator Chambers and said, "Senator, I love horehound. I buy it wherever I can find it." He said, "Is that right? I always thought that it was terrible. Well, if I ever find it, I'll buy it and give it to you. Of course, if I do, Health and Human Services will write me up for child abuse."

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Thursday

Thursday was St. Patrick's Day. To celebrate the occassion, men played bagpipes in kilts outside the capitol. Also, some lobbyist or something brought green-dyed corned beef and rye sandwiches which were pretty good. Okay, I'll admit--Thursday was straight-up boring. Nothing much at all really happened.

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Friday

Well, Friday was actually a recess day, so the legislature wasn't in session. I didn't work but had actually come home the day before. Still, Ben and I watched a great documentary called Ernie Chambers: Still Militant After All These Years. There was some great stuff in it, like footage of when Senator Chambers had corn rows. Also, it includes a twenty or twenty-five-year-old clip of when Senator Beutler (still a senator as well) said that Chambers was lying about something--Chambers pushes Beutler away from his microphone and says, "Mr. President, that is uncalled for. If he wants to call me a liar, let him call me a liar outside." What was really amazing was that, in this documentary produced ten years ago, Chambers wore the same shirts that he still wears to this day.

I would recommend watching this clip of the video (which includes the Beutler-Chambers footage)--it gives a good picture of what Chambers is like that goes above and beyond what you'll read about him in the news.

Labels: Life, Politics

Posted by Jacob at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments

The guys on the bus from one of the neighborhood group homes were discussing politics today. Here's what I overheard:

Guy 1: We should never have gone to war.

Guy 2: Yeah. You know what we should do...I think we should throw Sadaam in jail. Probably for almost ten years.

Guy 1: More like for life. Lock him up for life.

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Guy 1: Gas is $2.04. I should have voted for Kerry. I should have voted for John Kerry. Instead I voted for Bush. Ever since he got elected for five more years, gas prices have gone up.

Labels: Life, Politics

Posted by andrew at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments

Doug Wead, a former aide to President George H.W. Bush, taped a few private conversations he had with Governor George W. Bush as early as 1998. He is now writing a book about the President, and he has released his tapes to the New York Times. The article the Times wrote up was pretty interesting--this isn't really politics as usual, but more of the inner workings behind the man who would become a two-term President.

Probably the most revealing part of the article (revealing of Bush's character and of the NY Times perception of the President) was this statement: "The private Mr. Bush sounds remarkably similar in many ways to the public President Bush." You can read the article here.

Labels: Politics

Posted by Jacob at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments

Today, Governor Heinemann gave his state of the state address. I sat up by the new Lieutenant Governor (Rick Sheehy, my now-former mayor) as he presided over the legislature. Splashing tomorrow's Omaha World-Herald is this picture. In the picture, I am the page (we wear white shirts and ties with black vests) directly behind Governor Heinemann. I'll have to talk to my press agent to make sure they get my face next time.

I would also note, for those of you who attend Zion Presbyterian, that you would probably recognize the page closest to Gov. Heinemann in this picture (in case you can't recognize him, his name is John).

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Also, on a completely unrelated note, I pose to you a conundrum; a riddle, if you will:
Question: What UNL student activity has Nathaniel the RUF Intern done that virtually no actual UNL students have done?
Answer: I will post the answer soon; I'm interested if anyone knows the answer. Ben--once again, you are not allowed to play.

Labels: Life, Politics

Posted by Jacob at 8:37 PM | Permalink | Comments

Although I haven't written much on this blog, my mind has been churning out lots of possible posts. I have toyed around a little with a few, but none of them seemed to amount to much on their own (except a book review, but I don't have time for that right now). So, here's a smattering of my thoughts over the past week.

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In my Top 5 Page Post, I somehow left out the main reason I decided to write the post. This had me laughing all morning. Since "Top 6" doesn't sound very cool, we'll just sort of insert a new number, with the reasons still totaling five:

Threeve: Being on a first name basis with senators. In fact, just the other day, a senator came around the corner in a hallway and said, "Well, hello again Josh!" In fact, he quickly learned that my name was Josh when I worked two years ago as a page, and he is still able to call me Josh, whether or not my name tag is in full, complete view!

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I had a moral dilemma the other day: I was sitting in a Tuesday-Thursday class (meaning that classes last 1 hour, 15 minutes, and either end on 15 minutes after the hour, or 45 minutes after the hour--this one was supposed to end at 12:45), and the professor said (at 12:15), "Well, it looks like our time for today is up." I knew what time it was, and I knew what time we were supposed to get out. Should I have gently informed the kindly professor that he had mixed up his time schedule, or should I have bolted quickly out the door of that uber-boring class as quickly as possible, before he realized his mistake? Let me know if I need to repent of something: I chose the latter.

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Grrrrr. If any of you have a spam filter for your e-mail that you don't ever check to see if legitimate messages got trapped, you might want to start. I received a rather terse (yet somewhat diplomatically controlled) voice mail the other night from a lady whom I had promised to help with a project, but who thought I had systematically ignored her e-mails when she gave me things to do to help. I rummaged through about a month's worth of spam (around 1500 messages), and I found about ten legitimate e-mails that my spam filter had caught. I had been dumping my bulk mail folder without ever checking it for as long as Yahoo! has had a spam filter, but now I will no longer be able to do that.

I suppose that's a good thing, though. Otherwise I might miss all the advertisements on how I can refinance my home or a bunch of other things I really, truly need.

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Finally: goodbye, Johnny Carson! He did so much for this state (especially his hometown of Norfolk) and for the University I attend. I never really watched his late night television show, but from what I hear, no one ever equalled what he did.

Labels: Fun, Life, Politics

Posted by Jacob at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments

5) Working in the most beautiful building in Nebraska every single day. Today, I visited the State Law Library--so cool. (By the way, if anyone is interested in a tour of the capitol, I could show you a bunch of great places. Just let me know.)

4) Learning valuable life skills. So far, I've learned to run the mail room (including the fax machine and copy machine!), and people said my coffee tasted really good today. Furthermore, a senator asked me today to edit an official letter he was sending. After I edited it, the senator told me, "It's nice to know you can make something out of yourself whether you are something or not." He was just joking...I think.

3) Getting to see actual bomb dogs sniffing around senators' desks. 'Nuff said.

2) Having an ID Card that doubles as a magnetic key card that can get me almost anywhere in the capitol.

1) A paycheck.

Labels: Fun, Life, Politics

Posted by Jacob at 7:19 PM | Permalink | Comments

Some interesting facts about the Nebraska Legislature and the Nebraska State Capitol:

• Yesterday, Senator Chambers (District 11) presided over the legislature for the first time in his lengthy career (he was first elected in 1971). There is an interesting article on the subject here. What is more interesting about this article is that I am the unidentified male page in the background of the picture (the one farthest away from Sen. Chambers).
• The capitol flies a special Nebraska state flag only when the Legislature is in session. I, along with a fellow page, climbed out a window on the third floor of the capitol, scaled two ladders on the roof, navigated the sheet of ice laminating the roof, and braved the wind whipping through us to raise that flag. For our heroism in the line of duty, there was a small writing of us in an article printed in the Lincoln Journal-Star (it's the very last section of the article). I was not available for comment at the time the journalist was interviewing Kitty and A.J., so I had no fun quotes; I was probably off doing something else to save the world.
• Take out a dollar bill (yes, I'm serious). If you look on the back, you will see the design with an eagle who, with his sharp talons, is grasping both an olive branch and a set of arrows. The olive branch represents peace and the arrows represent war. If you notice, the eagle is facing the olive branch, because the United states prefers peace, but we will go to war if necessary (the reason the eagle has arrows at all). In the chambers of the Nebraska Legislature, at the very front on the ceiling, there are a row of these eagles painted across a beam on the ceiling. In all of the paintings, the eagle is facing the arrows. I don't particularly know what this means, except that it may explain why each governor gives away so many admiralships in the Nebraska Navy. Perhaps one day, each of those admirals will be called to active duty and we will go to war.
• The Nebraska capitol furnishes the best-smelling hand soap ever made in each of its bathrooms. Seriously, the capitol is worth a visit if only to wash your hands.
• The Nebraska capitol has both its heat and air conditioning pumped underground through pipes from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Given this fact and the size of many of the rooms in the capitol, its heating bills must be incredibly large. That is why I, the heroic page, am contributing my body heat at this time of the year by being present for 10 hour work-days.

Labels: Life, Politics

Posted by Jacob at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments

Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies. Unbelievable the inhumanities humanists will commit.

Labels: Politics

Posted by Jacob at 5:05 PM | Permalink | Comments

A while ago, Andrew posted about a web site called You Have Bad Taste In Music. I must confess that I didn't even check out this site until Andrew forced me to do so today. So, I poked around through some of them and found them interesting.

But, after a second look under the tutelage of my keen ears (and eyes), I think I found something quite interesting. On the site's video documentation of a trip to a Justin Timberlake/Christina Aguilera concert, at the very end of the clip, there is a lady who says, "Turn on Rush Limbaugh." Obviously, this in itself isn't very interesting at all, but I strongly believe that the lady is Ann Coulter, an extremely prominant conservative pundit. If so, this is a breakthrough in the world of politickery--this means that Ann Coulter in fact has bad taste in music! I wonder if the guy who runs this site knows who she is.

You can see a list of images of Ann Coulter here. Anyone think I'm correct on this?

Labels: Politics

Posted by Jacob at 7:53 PM | Permalink | Comments

Apparently, some Scottish computer gaming company called Traffic Games is coming out with an assassin simulation called "JFK Reloaded." In it, gamers reenact JFK's assassination, trying to shoot in the exact same way Oswald did it 41 years ago (today, actually). They get points based on how accurate their shots were to the historical bullets fired, and they lose points for mistakes like hitting 1st Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

This is one of the few times I've agreed with Sen. Ted Kennedy: "It is despicable." Although I was a big fan of Goldeneye 007 when that came out (that actually might be an understatement--I played it enough to beat all the levels and get all the cheat codes, and I've never met another person to have done that, although I am indebted to all those on the internet who have, and who have posted tips on doing so), this just seems too morbid. I don't think that I would have felt comfortable shooting people who were actually shot in real life. At what point are violent video games not that bad? At what point do they step over the line? Where does this one fall?

Labels: Politics

Posted by Jacob at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments

I'm not really sure what to think of this. I don't really know whether to laugh at the unbelievable insanity of these people (both those who are giving and seeking help for trauma after Kerry lost the election), or whether I should tell Rush to tone it down a little bit. You can read the transcript of what Rush actually said on his program here.

I suppose, though, that this is the sort of thing that really ticks me off about the state of politics in America. There are actually people who are "absolutely terrified of what Bush will do" (a quote from the article). I am utterly shocked by this reaction. Bush is not Hitler. Clinton was not Stalin. No American president has acted in a way anywhere nearly similar to fascists, communists, or any other similar type of tyrant.

At the same time, Rush does have a tendency to be a bit caustic. He has appealed to me over the years because I have understood his sense of humor, but I can understand it if people do not like him. Since I am in a post-political-fast period of my life, I try not to listen to him too much--I can become quite cynical quite quickly if I spend too much time with Mr. Limbaugh. I about died laughing, though, when I listened to this fake public service announcement Rush aired on his program.

I believe that I am the only Rush Limbaugh fan (and only a tepid fan at most right now), so I would like to know what those of you who naturally lean to a more moderate position feel about this situation.

Labels: Politics

Posted by Jacob at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments

The Daily Nebraskan published a very thoughtful editorial today. I found it very interesting (even amidst my still-jaundiced view of politics in general), and I was interested in what you all thought. Would these ideas cause anyone to change parties, or is this still too far away from our generally conservative Christian readership? (Read the article by Nick Willis here.)

Labels: Politics

Posted by Jacob at 7:57 AM | Permalink | Comments