10 Fun Facts About Rutherford B. Hayes

Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th President of the United States

1. Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born in 1822 in Delaware, Ohio, near Columbus.  His father died several months before he was born, and he was therefore raised by a single mother who never remarried.  Hayes proved an excellent student, and earned a law degree from Harvard in the 1840's, before returning to Ohio to practice.

2. After transferring his practice to Cincinnati, Hayes married Lucy Webb in 1852.  Lucy would go on to become the first American First Lady with a college degree.

3. Hayes gained prominence as a defense attorney in Cincinnati, and was heavily involved in defending escaped slaves accused under the controversial Fugitive Slave Act.  As a staunch abolitionist and prominent lawyer, Hayes was noticed by the new abolitionist Republican party, and was offered an opportunity to run for a seat as a Republican judge.  He turned down the opportunity, however, and instead accepted an appointment as city attorney for Cincinnati.

4. Following the secession of southern states after Lincoln's election in 1860, Hayes joined the 23rd Ohio volunteers and was given the rank of major.  Also in his unit was future president William McKinley, who would later become a political protege under Hayes.

5. During the war, Hayes moved quickly up the ranks, attaining the position of Major General.  He sustained several injuries in battle, including a broken arm from a gunshot wound at the Battle of South Mountain.  While still serving in 1864, Hayes was nominated by the Republicans for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and although he did not campaign due to his military engagements, he won the seat over the incumbent Democrat.

6. Hayes served two terms as a Congressman from Ohio, then served two terms as Ohio's governor from 1868 to 1872.  During his time in both offices he championed black civil rights and was a staunch supporter of the impeachment of president Andrew Johnson.  After returning for several years to his law practice in Ohio, he was again elected Ohio's governor in 1875.  This third term as Ohio's governor made him a dark horse candidate in the 1876 presidential primary, and after the front-runner was unable to obtain enough votes from the Republican delegates, they instead agree upon Hayes as the Republican nominee for president.

7. The election of 1876 was perhaps the most closely contested in U.S. history.  Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote, and appeared to win the electoral vote too, but three southern states fell into dispute when both Democrats and Republicans claimed victory there and accused the opposition of fraud.  Congress was forced to create a special commission to decide the winner, and it took them until just a few days before the inauguration - early March of 1877 - before a decision was made and agreed on by both parties, with Hayes declared the winner by one electoral vote.

8. Largely due to the influence of his wife, Hayes prohibited alcohol in the White House during his tenure, which effectively brought the Prohibitionist cause into Republican party politics, where it would stay for the next 50 years.  He also began what would prove to be the very long process of reforming the corrupt U.S. civil service.  Though he fought stringently to protect black civil rights in the South, many of his efforts were blocked by southern Democrats, still stinging over what they viewed as a stolen election.

9. Hayes had vowed to only serve one term, and he followed through on that promise, choosing not to run for re-election in 1880.  Instead, he became a trustee of Ohio State University, and supported pet causes and interests, most notably federal student aid, civil rights, wealth disparity, and prison conditions.

10. Hayes died of a heart attack in January of 1893, four years after his wife.  In 1916, the Rutherford B. Hayes Center Library was opened in Fremont, Ohio, and thus became the first presidential library in existence.  Hayes and his wife, as well as Hayes' trusty Civil War horse, Old Whitey, are buried nearby.

Notes from the Cave

I must have writer's block.  I've been working intermittently on a short story, but otherwise I just have nothing when it comes to blogging.  I've even tried to do Google searches to find topics to blog about, but it hasn't worked.  I do have a 10 Fun Facts post almost complete, but I started it a week ago (I usually write those things in one sitting).

In any case, this edition of Notes is just going to be a random list of thoughts and blurbs, and will no doubt reflect the cynical and crusty mood I am in at the moment.

I'm using Netflix now, and I have to say there's not as much variety on there as I'd hoped.  But hey, at least my daughter can watch Bieber and trash my man cave.

How come Pat Robertson, or some other hypocritical douchebag evangelical, hasn't blamed right-wing sins for the hurricane that is now threatening the Republican National Convention?

There is a local politician in my little northern Kentucky town named Cathy Flaig.  She runs for minor offices of some type in every election but always loses.  Despite that, she is an active member of the Tea Party and the Republican Party in this region, and was even voted "Citizen of the Year" this year for our, evidently, conservative little town.  She's one of our delegates to the Republican National Convention (or an alternate, or something).  In any case, she has erected a homemade billboard on the side of the road here in town that is addressed to "Mr. Obama" and basically accuses him of crimes against capitalism or some ridiculous shit.  Anyway, my only point in saying all of this is to say that every time I drive past it, I lay on my horn and flip the bird.  Hate these Tea Party fuckers.

I watched Brokeback Mountain last night on Netflix.  I had wanted to see it ever since my sister gushed over it incessantly after it came out.  It was a good movie, very emotionally moving and well-acted, but I sure wish someone had been watching it with me to enjoy all my snide gay jokes.  Also, I had to read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia after it was over in order to understand the final series of scenes.  I didn't get the whole shirt thing at first.

I've been using my electronic cigarette for over a month now - it's been 6 weeks, actually.  I did smoke on one occasion a few weeks ago.  I was hanging out with my sister and both my e-cig batteries died, so I ended up bumming a few of her boyfriend's menthols.  But that has been the only slip-up, and would not have happened if not for bad planning on my part.

I went fishing with my brother-in-law last week and caught about ten fish.  We fished in a golf course pond at his private club.  It was nice to fish and actually catch something.  That hadn't happened in a long, long time.  Lake Cumberland, where I typically have done my past fishing, is an awful place to fish, in terms of actually catching anything.

Most people in my circle of friends and acquaintances seem to support Lance Armstrong, in light of his lifetime ban this week.  I think I'm the only person who thinks he's a cheater.  I mean, I really don't care one way or the other - professional cycling doesn't interest me in the least - but I've always tended to believe that he did it.  Maybe that's borne from my cynicism about doping in sports in general, but it is what it is.

McGwire and Sosa broke amazing records in baseball and everyone marveled at the progress modern athletes were making.  Then it came out that they were cheaters.  Them and everyone else in baseball.

Now Armstrong does basically the same thing: he wins race after race after race, and seems to be superhuman and unlike anyone ever in the sport before.  Then fifty gazillion people accuse him of doping, and even though he never fails a drug test, the number of eye witness reports against him is so overwhelming that it's hard  to believe they're ALL lying.  Former trainers, teammates, coaches, associates - all have testified under oath against him.

What motivation could all of these people have to create such an enormous web of deceit?  Professional jealousy can't be the explanation in all these cases, because not all the people who have accused him have been competitors.  This is simply a classic case of "where there's smoke, there's fire."  I think he did it, and furthermore, I think the only reason SO many people are on his side is because he's a cancer survivor and has a very well-respected and high-profile cancer foundation.  (By the way, steroids have long been linked to testicular cancer.  Just sayin'.)

Pretty bummed about Neil Armstrong dying.  Wouldn't have expected to feel that way, so it kind of came as a shock to me.  It was like a little piece of my childhood dying, I guess.  I wasn't alive when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, but Neil Armstrong was a national hero when I was growing up.  His name was always said with a certain sense of awe: after all, not many people can say they hold a unique place in all of human history.  But Armstrong did, and so I guess that's why I was shaken a bit by news of his death.  I even cried a little, after reading my sister's lovely tribute.  I feel very strongly that America, as a country, has lost its collective vision, and with Armstrong's death, the living symbol of one of America's greatest visions is now also gone.  It's a sad day.

Pretty sick of hearing about gun violence.  Sorry Second Amendment Whores, guns do kill people, and fuck you for spinning it otherwise.  I'm not saying all your precious guns should be banned, but if you are man enough to wield a gun, at least be man enough to own the fact that guns are responsible for a small town's worth of American deaths every single year - and that's not even counting gun-related injuries or suicides.  Own it, and stop hiding behind your twisted interpretation of the Second Amendment and your fancy little catch phrases and memes.

Saw a quote going around Facebook and Twitter this week, purported to be from Morgan Freeman (although that wasn't true), that said something to the effect of: "People who are against gay marriage aren't homophobic.  They aren't scared of gay people.  They're just assholes."  Couldn't agree more.

Okay, Bieber's documentary is ending on Netflix, and I can't think of anything else to say to piss people off, so peace, we outta here.

Notes from the Cave

Another dry spell on the blog.  Sorry 'bout that.  I was on vacation in mid-July, then upon returning home I started working 2nd shift at the hospital.  The transition from first has been difficult.  I've essentially been staying up until 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning, then sleeping til noon, laying around for an hour, then going to work.  As a result, I've gotten a ton of late night reading (and Olympics-watching) done, but hardly anything else.  I'm trying now to get on some sort of normal routine so I can have time in the mornings, before work, to take care of the things that need my attention.

The Summer Olympics are over, and not a bit too soon.  That's not to say I don't enjoy the Olympics, but after a while, it gets a bit overwhelming.  Furthermore, the Summer Olympics isn't nearly as entertaining as the Winter Olympics.  I would guess I probably could care less about 75% of Summer Olympic sports, while I like virtually all of the Winter Olympic sports (with a few exceptions, of course).  Like everyone else I enjoy the gymnastics, but the swimming and diving get old after the 546th event, and the "I'm King of the World" attitude of the runners in Track and Field gets tedious after a while.  I did enjoy seeing a few of the more obscure sports, like archery and fencing, but you can only take so much of that before it's dull - sort of like reading Notes from the Cave, actually.

My parents are here this weekend from Texas, and we went yesterday to the tomb of William Henry Harrison, the 9th president of the United States.

He lived much of his life, and was buried, in North Bend, Ohio, which today is a suburb of Cincinnati right at the river (during Harrison's life, it would have been the boondocks outside of the Cincinnati).  It's in a geographic region where three states come together - Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, right at the northernmost bend of the Ohio River as it passes between Ohio and Kentucky (and thus the northernmost spot in Kentucky).  On the banks of the Kentucky side of the river at that spot, one is actually farther north, geographically, than downtown Cincinnati, which is a few miles to the east.

Buried in the tomb with Old Tippecanoe are a number of his family members, including his son, J.S. Harrison, a U.S. congressman and father of 23rd president Benjamin Harrison.

J.S. Harrison's body was stolen a few days after his burial in 1878, despite a guard at the tomb, and was later found at a medical school in Cincinnati, naked and hanging upside down in a drainage chute in the anatomy lab.

Other than that, we have just enjoyed the nice weather, eaten out a bunch of times, and gone to the bookstore.  M has been gone most of the weekend getting her room ready for school, which starts Wednesday.  Tonight is Open House, and they were not able to get into their rooms for the first time until late Friday night.  Three days, basically, to set up an entire elementary school classroom.  Utterly ridiculous.  It's a brand new building, which is the cause of the delay in gaining access.  M has been understandably stressed out and has probably put in 45 hours since Friday evening.  No joke.  Both Saturday and Sunday she was there from about 9 a.m. to 1 a.m.

Not much else to report other than sheer trivialities, but I will resist boring you with that stuff.  I am currently working on a new short story, set in the 14th century, which I had hoped would be done by the beginning of August, but which still needs a ton of work (as in, like, I've only written about 2 paragraphs of it).  Possibly going to be trying a new marketing strategy for my books in the coming weeks.  Reading a book right now on how to market yourself.  We'll see how that pans out.  

Chivalry is Dead....And Women Killed It

"Is chivalry dead?"

A rhetorical question posed countless times each day by women disappointed with the actions of some brutish man in their life.

Well, the answer is simple.

Of course it's dead.  And women killed it.

Chivalry is a notion that dates back to the Middle Ages.  Ironically enough, in the Middle Ages, chivalry wasn't just about men giving women special treatment.  Chivalry was a complete social code for the upper classes, and it dictated behavior in everything from correspondence to tournaments to wars to table manners.  It also, of course, dictated behavior in interpersonal relationships among both sexes.  The notion was born from the knighthood institution, and was based on concepts of honor and virtue, and the belief that honorable knights should be devoted to protecting the defenseless - which would have included not just women, but also children, the sick, and the elderly.

In this day and age, of course, when people talk about chivalry, they aren't talking about any of that happy crap; they're just talking about men treating women like princesses.

The whole idea of this special treatment for women goes back to a pre-modern time when women were essentially second-class citizens.  In the United States, women weren't even allowed to vote until 1920, much less hold political offices or any other prominent position of power.  Women belonged to their fathers until they got married, at which time they essentially became the property of their husbands.  Only if a woman became a widow was she ever likely to own land.  Generally speaking, women were expected to pop out babies, take care of the house, and cook meals.  Other than house work, it was extremely uncommon for a woman to have an actual job or profession.

So this is where modern notions of chivalry come from - the idea that men need to protect women, because men rule the world and women are weak, second-class citizens who basically belong to either their father or their husband.  It is the exact same notion that tells us parents are supposed to care for and protect their children.  Children are weak and defenseless and need tender care.  In the same way, a man's wife was like his child, and it was his responsibility to protect her and nurture her.

I don't need to give a detailed explanation about how that sort of social situation no longer exists in our modern country.  Today women have all the same rights, expectations, and privileges as men.  They own property, have careers, make decisions, manage people - all the things that used to be the exclusive purview of men.

And why do they have all those rights?  Quite obviously, because they insisted on it.  Women spent nearly a century fighting for equal rights with men, from the suffragettes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to Rosie the Riveter, to countless pieces of legislation guaranteeing equal treatment for women under the law.  While this was happening, women also began "liberating" themselves and becoming outspoken politically, socially, culturally, and sexually.

The result is that today, women and men have the same social and legal rights, privileges, and expectations.

And the other result, of course, is that chivalry is dead.

In fighting for, and gaining, equal rights with men, women killed chivalry.  Its death was collateral damage in the war for equal rights.  Equal rights between men and women, and chivalry, cannot coexist.  Chivalry existed because women didn't have equal rights with men.  Once they gained those rights, chivalry was forced into the grave of history.

Now I'm not saying that women shouldn't have equal rights.  I'm all about women's rights in every conceivable way.  What I am saying is that women need to STFU about chivalry, because unless they want to return to the days when they were second-class citizens, chivalry is well and truly dead.  Some women, it seems, want to have it both ways; they want to have their cake and eat it too.

Sorry, ladies.  Chivalry is dead.  You killed it.  And you can't have it back.

10 Interesting Facts

1. Cricket chirps are related to air temperature.  Count of the number of times a field cricket chirps in 15 seconds, add 40, and the result will give you the approximate temperature in Fahrenheit.

2. The U.S. penny is made mostly of zinc, with just a copper coating.  Copper accounts for only about 2% of the penny's total make-up.

3. It takes the earth about 365 days and 6 hours to make one full orbit around the sun.  For this reason, we add one extra day every four years to balance the calendar (6 hours x 4 = 24 hours every four years).  However, this is not precise because that additional time each year is really only about 5 hours and 49 minutes.  What this means is that over long periods of time, adding a full 24 hours every four years gives us too many extra hours.  To solve this, we skip a leap year on every century year.  Thus, 1900 was NOT a leap year.  However, even this doesn't fully solve the problem, and takes us too far back the other way.  Therefore, every 400 years, we do not skip the leap year.  This is why the year 2000 was a normal leap year.

4. Jesus's name was not Jesus.  Translated directly into English, his name was Joshua.  We get Jesus because "Joshua" is first translated into Greek, and then from Greek into English.

5. The longest Interstate in the U.S. is I-90, which goes from Boston to Seattle and spans more than 3,000 miles.  The Interstate system was developed during the Eisenhower administration in response to the Cold War, as a way to move military equipment and soldiers quickly, in case of invasion.  It was projected to cost $25 billion and take 12 years to complete.  In the end, it cost nearly $115 billion and took 35 years to complete.

6. During the War of 1812, the British attacked Washington, D.C., burned down the White House and the Congressional buildings, and forced president Madison and all his cabinet to flee the city.  Later, the final battle of the war - the Battle of New Orleans - took place more than two weeks after the peace treaty had been signed.

7.  Of the fifteen highest-paying professions in the United States, thirteen are in the medical industry, including the top eight.  The highest paid profession is anesthesiology, with the average anesthesiologist making about $235,000 per year.  The lowest-paying profession belongs to fast food cooks.

8. Due to continental drift, New York moves about one inch farther from London every year.

9. Oil companies make up six of the ten largest corporations on earth, including the top two.  The biggest retailer on earth is Walmart.  Among fast food chains, Subway is the largest, with McDonald's a close second.  Thanks to its Happy Meal, McDonald's is the largest distributor of toys in the world.

10. The most venomous animal on land is the Inland Taipan snake of Australia.  The most venomous in the sea is the Sea Wasp Box Jellyfish, also found near Australia.  The animal responsible for the most deaths worldwide is the mosquito.  In the U.S., the animal responsible for the most annual deaths is the deer.

America's Language

Today, I saw a bumper sticker depicting a snarling, finger-pointing Uncle Sam, with the caption: "If you can't speak English, get the HELL out of America!"  Ironically enough, the vehicle this was plastered on was a Suzuki hatchback.

(RantOn)

There is no official language of the United States.  According to the most recent census data, nearly 20% of American citizens speak some language other than English as their primary language.  That's about 1 in 5, and that only refers to citizens of the U.S. - not immigrants.  No less than 20 different languages (including English) have at least 250,000 native speakers in the United States.  English never has been, and never will be, the only language spoken by Americans, no matter how badly ignorant xenophobes want it to be otherwise.

The fact is, in the United States today, there is virtually no one who doesn't have an ancestor somewhere in their family tree who didn't arrive in this country unable to speak English.  Even families like mine, who have mostly British Isles extraction, almost always have non-English speaking ancestry in some branch somewhere.  So rather than pointing your finger and lamenting about all the people who don't speak English, just thank your lucky stars that your family arrived here long enough before you were born that you never had to worry about learning a new language.

There's a reason that the U.S. Constitution doesn't include any wording about English, or any other language, being the official language of the United States - it's because the United States was founded on the principle of the melting pot, open to anyone who wants to come here and live and work and be a productive member of society.  Multi-lingualism has been part and parcel of the American way since before Day 1.  Martin Van Buren, our nation's eighth president, was not only the very first American president born a U.S. citizen (that is, born in America after the Revolutionary War), but he was also a native Dutch speaker who spoke English as a second language, and with a heavy Dutch accent, until the day he died.  And guess what?  Nobody gave a damn.

In the modern world, the only countries that legally name just one official language are island nations, military and Communist dictatorships, and Muslim theocracies.  Want to join that crowd, O patriotic Lover of Freedom?

On any given day, when you encounter people who don't speak English, or don't speak it well, in 9 out of 10 cases, you are encountering people who have probably not been in this country for very long.  The fact is, 96% of Americans, regardless of what their native language is, say they speak and understand English "well" or "very well."  Give newcomers a chance to learn the damn language before you go around getting your unwashed, skid-marked panties in a wad.

In numerous regional areas in the United States, English is a second language.  This includes huge swaths of places like Louisiana and Texas, among others.  If you're so concerned about what languages people are speaking, why don't you march your pretentious little ass down into the bayous of the Creole country, or the drug-smuggling cities of the Chicano regions, and preach about it to some of the passers-by.  I'm sure they'd LOVE to hear your opinions.

Numerous immigrants come to this country every year, and the vast majority of them are hardworking, diligent individuals whose industry is a enormous economic boon to the cities and counties and states they are working in.  Many of those people go on to become active citizens of the United States.  Others work for a few years and then return home.  In any case, scores of those same people work tirelessly to learn English, while also raising families and working, in many cases, 15 or 18 hours a day.

So instead of sitting there on your NASCAR-watching, fat American ass, too goddamn lazy to press "1" on your touch-tone phone, and criticizing people who make up a vital segment of this population, why don't you instead just give a simple thank-you to those folks who make your life a little bit better?  Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

(RantOff)

(Sorry, I segued into a line from A Few Good Men there at the end.  But it somehow seemed appropriate.)

Understanding Weight Loss

A strange topic for me to be writing about,  eh?  I've recently been trying to lose weight, having gained a considerable amount over the last 6 or 7 years, and so it's had me thinking about the dynamics of weight loss and why certain diets seem to work, but others don't.

I've always been a big carbohydrate eater.  Breads, sugary foods and drinks, cereals, pastas - these have always been the most significant parts of my diet.  I also have tended over the years to overeat on a magnificent scale.  I'm one of those people that can put others in awe of my eating prowess.  

So in order to lose weight, I decided to go on a low-carb diet for a few weeks to get the ball rolling on weight loss, then readjust later to a normal diet with a reduced overall caloric intake.  I haven't yet gotten to phase 2 - that will begin in a week.  I don't own a scale, so I can't say how much weight I've lost, but I can tell I have trimmed down.

In any case, I thought it might be helpful to share some of the things I am learning about the dynamics of weight loss.

To begin with, it might be instructive to provide some basics about human energy and nutrition.  When people talk about losing weight, the first thing they always mention is that dreaded word "calories."  It seems as though a lot of folks imagine calories to be these little particles in food that enter your body and determine whether you lose weight or gain weight.

A calorie is simply a unit of energy, in the same way that a centimeter is a unit of distance.  Quite literally, a nutritional calorie (also called a kilocalorie) is the amount of energy required to heat one liter of water by one degree Celsius.  Therefore, if you have one liter of water, with a temperature of 45 degrees Celsius, how much heat energy would be required to make it 46 degrees?  Answer: one calorie.

So a nutritional calorie is simply a unit of measurement that tells us how much energy we are consuming.  

The human body, of course, requires energy to stay alive.  Your muscles, bones, and organs all require energy in order to function.  We get that energy from the foods we eat, because our bodies convert those foods into calories - units of energy to fuel our bodies.  A car won't run without gasoline; it burns gasoline as energy.  Similarly, our bodies won't run without food because our bodies burn food as energy.  And we measure that energy in calories.

The human body is able to convert three types of food into energy - carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.  The number of calories (i.e., the amount of energy) the body can get from these sources depends on the amount of food eaten and the type of food.  Generally-speaking, one gram of fat will provide nine calories, while one gram of carbs or protein will equal about four calories.  Anything else you eat provides 0 calories - that is, no nutritional or metabolic benefit.  It just passes right on through.  

Most people understand what fat and protein are - fat is, well, fat, and protein is the stuff that builds muscle tissue and plays a role in numerous chemical processes in the body.  Carbohydrates are a little more confusing, because there are so many different kinds.  As a general rule, carbohydrates can essentially be thought of as sugars.  That doesn't mean, of course, that foods high in carbs will necessarily be sweet (see bread, pasta, and potatoes), but when you ingest carbs, they end up functioning like sugar in your body.

We've seen that the human body turns nutrients in food (carbs, fats, and proteins) into energy (calories) in order to keep itself alive and healthy.  So how many calories does your body actually use on a day-to-day basis?  This number is referred to as the "base metabolic rate," and it refers to how many calories your body uses each day simply keeping itself alive.  Imagine that you lay in bed from midnight to 11:59 p.m. - 24 hours - and do nothing but sleep or read or watch TV.  How many calories would your body burn in that 24-hour time period?  The answer is your base metabolic rate, and that will vary depending on your age, height, and weight, as well as several other factors.  There are common formulas you can use to figure out your own personal rate; mine is about 2300 calories per day.  So if I did nothing at all but lay in bed or sit on the couch for 24 hours, I would burn about 2300 calories.  That's how much energy my body would require to keep my heart beating, my lungs working, my neurons firing, etc.  Now, I am 6-foot, 3-inches tall, and weigh about 250 pounds.  Someone much smaller than me will, of course, have a much lower base metabolic rate. I have a big body, so it takes a lot more energy to keep me going.  

If I get up off the couch and engage myself in some kind of physical activity (washing the dishes, going up the stairs, blogging, running a mile, climbing a mountain), then I will burn even more calories, depending on how much activity I am actually engaging in.  This is why exercising is regarded as a way to "burn calories."  You use up more energy (more calories) if you actually get up and do something.  I've been able to determine that because of the physically-active nature of my job, I may burn as many as 3500-4000 calories per day (which would be the sum of my base metabolic rate plus my daily activities).  I should have no problem at all losing weight, but this just goes to show you how much I tend to overeat.  

The human body's preferred source of energy is carbohydrates.  (Some low-carb diet gurus dispute this, suggesting that because the earliest humans were hunter-gatherers, and thus had meat-based diets, the most "natural" form of human metabolism comes from fats and proteins.  Most nutritionists, however, don't buy that argument, but to explain why would involve a very long and boring discussion of human biochemistry and physiology, and I don't want to get into that here.  Suffice it to say, the prevailing belief is that carbohydrates are the body's preferred source of energy).

As a result of this, the human body will always burn carbohydrates for energy before touching fat or protein. Therefore, if you eat a diet high in carbohydrates, your body will tend to simply use those carbs for energy, and whatever fat you eat will, quite literally, go to your gut.  I can testify personally to this phenomenon.  This is one of the reasons why low-carb diets work so well for quick weight-loss.  If you cut out your body's preferred source of energy - carbs - you effectively force it to burn fat instead.  And since you probably won't consume enough fat on any given day for your body to meet its nutritional needs, you will end up burning fat stores (adipose tissue) from your body to get energy.  Thus, you trim down quickly, even without adding any new exercise routines.

This is also the reason why low-fat diets so frequently fail for people.  When you eat a low-fat diet, you are, by necessity, eating a lot of carbs (low fat foods tend to be high in carbohydrates, and vice versa).  Thus, your body burns those carbs for energy, and even though you aren't adding much new fat, your body never gets through all the carbs in order to get to the fat.  So you may diet for weeks and never lose much weight.  You have to dramatically increase your activity level in order to burn enough calories on any given day to burn through all the carbs and get down to the fat.  This is why exercise routines almost always accompany low-fat diets.  This is also why low-carb diets are so alluring.  You don't have to change your level of physical activity: you just burn fat - and lose weight - because you've taken away the carbohydrate source.  

While most nutritionists agree that low-carb diets can help a person lose weight quickly, they also warn against eating a low-carb diet for a long period of time.  There are several reasons for this.  First, the kinds of foods you eat on a low-carb diet tend to be foods that are not so good for your heart, brain, and other organs.  Secondly, when you force your body to burn fat instead of carbs, it releases fatty acids into your blood stream, and if this happens to a great enough degree, it can actually cause a very serious medical condition known as ketoacidosis.  This is where the pH balance of your blood gets off-kilter because of high acidity.  Now, it is unlikely that this condition would occur in a healthy person with a normally-functioning liver and pancreas, but it's not outside the realm of possibility, depending on just how "low-carb" you take your diet.  That's why many low-carb diet gurus suggest a carbohydrate intake of 60 grams or so per day (as opposed to the famous Atkins diet, which, in its first phase, limits the dieter to a mere 20 grams per day). 

I read about a study recently that took a group of dieters who were all roughly the same age, height, and weight, and who all had similar levels of daily physical activity, put them into three groups, and gave them different diets to try.  All groups were limited to 1500 calories per day.  The first group was put on a 1500 calorie low-carb diet.  The second, a 1500 calorie low-fat diet.  And the third was put on a 1500 calorie low-glycemic diet (this is a diet that primarily limits sugary food - a typical diabetic diet).  

After thirty days, they found that the low-carb dieters lost weight more quickly.  How could that be?  All had similar metabolic rates and daily levels of activity.  All were the same weight at the beginning of the study.  And all were limited to 1500 calories.  One would assume that they would all have lost about the same amount of weight.  And yet the low-carb group lost significantly more.  It would appear, for whatever reason, that the human body simply burns carbohydrate calories more efficiently.

Let me explain that.  The group eating a low-fat/high-carb diet lost weight more slowly than the group eating a low-carb/high-fat diet.  This must imply that when the human body is getting the majority of its calories from carbs (a low-fat diet) it does not require as many calories to do the same amount of work.  In other words, the human body doesn't use fat calories nearly as efficiently, and thus requires MORE calories to do the same amount of work, if those calories are coming primarily from fat.  It's sort of how Gasoline A might give your car 25 miles per gallon, but with Gasoline B, you get 30 miles to the gallon.  Your car burns Gasoline B more efficiently.  If you use Gasoline A, you need MORE gas to go the same distance.  Similarly, if you are burning mostly fat for calories (a low-carb diet), your body has to burn MORE of it to do the same amount of work.

Now, that's my own take on the study.  The people who performed the study actually said they weren't sure why the low-carb dieters lost more weight.  But it seems to me that perhaps a carb calorie is not equal to a fat calorie in practice, even though in theory it should be.

I have read some criticisms of low-carb diets that suggest that the real reason people lose weight is not because of the lower carbs, but because of a phenomenon known as "spontaneous reduction in food intake."  Put simply, when you go on a low-carb diet, you are more likely to dramatically lower your total caloric intake than when you go on a low-fat diet.  The reason why is simply because low-carb diets are far more restrictive on the types of foods you can eat than low-fat diets are.  On a low-fat diet, you can still eat a significant number of overall calories, and you are more likely to do so simply because you have removed high-fat foods that tend to be filling.  On a low-carb diet, however, you cut out a significant number of foods that dramatically limit what you can actually eat.  Furthermore, you tend to eat high-fat, high-protein foods that are very filling.  So in the end, you end up spontaneously eating far fewer calories, even though you aren't actually counting calories as part of your diet.  I can also personally attest to this.  While I have been eating low-carb, I haven't been counting calories.  But I know, based on my own past eating habits, that I am eating far fewer total daily calories, because the meat-based diet I am eating fills me up quicker, and I also skip all those high-carb snacks that I used to eat between meals.

Of course, there's still that study I read about recently that DID count calories, and yet still found that low-carb dieters lost weight faster than low-fat dieters.

In any case, I am convinced that a low-carb diet is a fantastic way to shed pounds quickly, if you are significantly overweight (I am just inside the "obese" category on the Body Mass Index scale).  It's also good if, like me, you have a tendency to binge on carbs.  But once you've lost that initial weight and have reached the point of maintaining a healthy weight, I am equally convinced that carefully watching your total caloric intake is the best way to go.  The body needs carbs, it needs fat, and it needs protein.  It works best, I believe, when it has a healthy combination of all three.  If you know what your base metabolic rate is (and it's easy to find out), then you can figure out very easily how much food you need to be eating on a day-to-day basis to maintain your weight.  In the long-term, the healthiest choice is simply to cut back on how much food you eat and stay active, but keep your diet varied and allow yourself to eat the foods you like, so that you can avoid feeling deprived.  Deprivation of your favorite foods is a sure road to binge-eating and weight gain.            

10 Fun Facts About Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd President of the United States

1. Benjamin Harrison was born near Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1833, to a prominent political dynasty with American roots stretching back to Jamestown in the 1630's.  Harrison's great-grandfather had been governor of Virginia and a member of the Continental Congress who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.  His grandfather was the war hero and eventual 9th president of the United States, William Henry Harrison.  His father was a member of the House of Representatives.

2. In the late 1840's, Harrison attended a small Presbyterian prep school in Cincinnati, where he began dating the president's daughter, Caroline Scott.  They married in 1853 and had two children, a son and a daughter.  Harrison also attended Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, and graduated in 1852.

3. Following his marriage, Harrison moved to Indianapolis to begin practicing law.  One of his first jobs there was as a "crier" for the federal courthouse, responsible for walking the streets of Indianapolis and announcing decisions passed by the judges.  He eventually opened his own law firm and also served as a public attorney and law reporter for the Indiana Supreme Court.

4. After the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Harrison offered his services to the governor of Indiana, and was asked to assist in recruiting a regiment of volunteers.  The regiment became known as the 70th Indiana Infantry, and despite turning down the offer initially, he was given command of the unit and commissioned a colonel.  His unit played a front-line role in the final push through the South in 1864 and 1865, and Harrison was eventually promoted to brigadier general.

5. Following the war, Harrison returned to his law practice, and also continued working for the Indiana Supreme Court.  Having joined the Republican Party at its inception in the 1850's, he began gaining prominence in the local party, but resisted calls to run for public office, preferring instead to campaign for others.  This changed in 1872, however, when Harrison made a failed run for governor of Indiana.  He ran again in 1876, and again lost.  In 1878, after one of Indiana's U.S. senators died, Harrison was nominated to replace him, but lost yet again.

6. Harrison's luck finally began to change in 1880, when, after chairing the Indiana delegation to the Republican National Convention, he was again nominated for the U.S. Senate, and finally managed to secure the seat (at this time, prior to the 1913 passage of the 17th Amendment, U.S. senators from each state were chosen by the state legislature, rather than popular vote).  Harrison was also offered a position in the cabinet of newly elected Republican president James Garfield, but opted to take his seat in the Senate instead.

7. Harrison served only one term in the Senate, before losing his re-election bid in 1886.  He returned briefly to his law practice, but announced his intention to run for president in 1888.  A dark-horse candidate, he ended up winning his party's nomination when the delegates to the Republican National Convention could not agree on the two front-runners.  The general election was very close, and was almost completely divided between North and South - Harrison won virtually every northern state, and Grover Cleveland, the incumbent president, won every southern state.  Cleveland actually won the popular vote, but Harrison won by a comfortable margin in electoral votes.

8. Harrison is the first president in U.S. history whose voice exists on an audio recording - a 36-second clip of Harrison reading from one of his speeches.  Harrison was also the first president to install electricity in the White House, though he and his wife were terrified to use the light switches.  

9. In 1892, with the U.S. economy faltering, Harrison ran for re-election, pitted again with former president Grover Cleveland.  This time, Cleveland won by a comfortable margin in both popular and electoral votes.  Just a few weeks before the election, Harrison's wife died of tuberculosis, and his daughter took over the official responsibilities of the First Lady for the remainder of his term - the last time a non-spouse served as U.S. First Lady.

10. In 1896, Harrison married again, to a woman who was not only 25 years younger than him, but who was actually his own niece by marriage.  Mary Dimmick was the daughter of his deceased wife's sister, meaning she was not a blood relation to Harrison, but was a first cousin to Harrison's children.  His children refused to attend the wedding, and the union caused an estrangement between Harrison and his daughter and they never spoke again.  Harrison contracted pneumonia and died in March, 1901.  

15 Facts About the Fourth of July

1) Despite being “unofficially” celebrated almost since the beginning, the 4th of July was not officially made America’s national holiday until the 1940’s.

2) Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Harrison was the father and great-grandfather of presidents William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison.

3) Although “Uncle Sam” came to be associated with the U.S. government, and specifically the 4th of July, as early as the 1810’s, Uncle Sam did not become America’s national symbol until the 1960’s.

4) There is no legitimate evidence to suggest that Betsy Ross actually sewed the first American flag.

5) “America the Beautiful” was composed on the 4th of July in 1895 by a college professor named Katharine Lee.

6) July 2, 1776, was actually the day that independence was declared from Great Britain, as part of a resolution passed by Congress on that day. On that day, John Adams declared that July 2nd would go down in history as America’s day of independence.

7) Only John Hancock, who was President of the Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The others did not sign until the following month.

8) 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence, representing leaders from all 13 colonies. Pennsylvania had the most representatives with 10; Rhode Island had the fewest, with only 2.

9) Six men named William signed the Declaration of Independence; there were also six Johns, six Thomases, and six Georges. Other first names of signers included Lyman, Button, and Caesar.

10) “The Star Spangled Banner” is set to a tune that was originally a British drinking song, sung in pubs throughout England.

11) A committee selected the eagle as the national bird of the United States. Benjamin Franklin served on this committee (along with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson) and is notable because he argued fiercely for the national bird to be the turkey.

12) On July 4, 1054 – some 700 years before the Declaration of Independence – Chinese and Arab astronomers recorded the explosion of a bright supernova in the sky, which continued to be visible for several months.

13) The United States Military Academy at West Point opened its doors on July 4, 1802.

14) Folk writer Stephen Foster, famous for his songs of Americana, was born on the Fourth of July, 1826.

15) Two signers of the Declaration of Independence later became president: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Strangely enough, both these statesmen died on July 4, 1826, within hours of each other (this was the same day Stephen Foster was born). 1826 was also the 50th anniversary of the document’s adoption, and thus a major historical milestone. A third president, James Monroe (who was not a signer of the Declaration of Independence) also died on July 4th, in 1831.

10 Fun Facts About Gerald Ford

Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States

1. Gerald Ford was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., in Nebraska in 1913, in the home of his wealthy grandfather, who was a prominent Omaha businessman.  His parents separated just a few weeks after his birth, however, due to his father's alcoholism and abusiveness.  Taken to Michigan, his mother gained full custody of her child and remarried in 1916 to salesman Gerald Rudolff Ford.  Though he was never adopted by his step-father, the couple almost immediately began calling their child Gerald Rudolff Ford, Jr.  His name was not officially changed, however, until 1935, at which time he altered the spelling of the middle name to "Rudolph."

2. A Boy Scout and later captain of his high school football team, Ford attended the University of Michigan, where he became a star defensive lineman and won two national championships in the 1930's.  He would later specifically request the Michigan fight song to be played at his funeral.  After graduating with a degree in Economics, he attended Yale Law School before setting up a law practice in Michigan.

3. Ford served in the Navy on an aircraft carrier during World War II, before returning home to his law practice in 1946.  Shortly thereafter, he married Elizabeth Warren, a former model and dancer who had already been married and divorced once.  By this time, Ford had decided to run for Congress, and the couple decided to put off their marriage until just before the election, fearing that marrying a divorced ex-dancer during the campaign would hurt his chances of winning a seat.  The marriage happened in October, 1948, and Ford was elected to his first congressional term a few weeks later.

4. Gerald Ford served 13 consecutive terms in the House of Representatives, and became known as a moderate and mediator.  Significantly, he never authored any major legislation during his time in Congress, choosing instead to work behind the scenes.

5. Ford was a member of the Warren Commission, which was slated by Lyndon Johnson to investigate the Kennedy assassination.  A strong believer in the single-gunman theory, it was later discovered that Ford had worked secretly with the FBI to keep them informed of the commission's investigations, sometimes even reporting on other commissioners who were skeptical of the FBI's single-gunman theory.

6. During the mid-1960's, Ford was elected House Minority Leader for the Republicans, a position which he continued to hold after Richard Nixon was elected.  Johnson and Ford frequently butted heads on issues of policy, with Johnson once quipping that Ford had played "too much football without a helmet."

7. In October of 1973, Spiro Agnew, vice-president under Nixon, resigned amid a bribery and tax evasion scandal.  In such a situation, the 25th Amendment gives the president the authority to nominate a new vice-president, but the nominee must be approved by both houses of Congress.  Nixon nominated Ford, and Ford was overwhelmingly approved by Congress.  Ford took his oath of office on December 6, 1973.

8. Ford served as vice-president for only eight months.  In early August of the following year, new evidence came out in what was by then the 2-year investigation of the Watergate scandal, and Nixon abruptly resigned.  Ford was sworn in as president on August 9, 1974, the only person in U.S. history to assume the presidency without being elected to either the presidency or the vice-presidency.

9. Ford's 2-year presidency has generally gone down in history as unfavorable, aided largely by the fact that he unconditionally pardoned Richard Nixon about a month after entering office.  Ford believed it was the best thing to do for the country's political state of affairs; most Americans saw it as unjust political cronyism at its worst, and Ford was even accused of making a backroom bargain with Nixon, promising a pardon if Nixon would resign.  During the 1976 presidential campaign, Ford barely survived a run from Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination, then went on to lose narrowly to Jimmy Carter.

10. Gerald Ford lived another 30 years after leaving the White House, and continued to be active in the public eye up until his death in 2006.  He lived long enough to become the longest living president in U.S. history, surpassing Ronald Reagan.  A moderate to the end, in his later years, Ford spoke in favor of both abortion and gay rights, and criticized the Bush administration for the war in Iraq.  

10 Fun Facts About John Adams

John Adams, Jr., the 2nd President of the United States

1. John Adams was born in 1735 in Massachusetts, to a Puritan family that was already an old American family at the time of his birth.  His ancestors had arrived on the unsettled shores of the New World on the Mayflower, and had thus been among the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Adams' great-grandfather through his mother's side was John Alden, said to have literally been the first person to step off the Mayflower onto New World soil - a sort of Neil Armstrong of the 1620's.

2. Adams attended Harvard in the 1750's, earning both Bachelor's and Master's degrees there.  He began practicing law in the 1760's, and married his third cousin, Abigail Smith.  Together they had seven children, five of which lived to adulthood, including John Quincy Adams, who would become the sixth president of the United States.

3. As a lawyer, Adams first rose to prominence in 1765 during the colonial opposition to the British Stamp Act, which levied taxes for many paper products used in the colonies.  Since the British Parliament had enacted this tax without the approval of any colonial representatives, many colonists believed it was invalid, and John Adams was one of the biggest leaders of the opposition in Massachusetts.  Many of his perspectives were copied and disseminated throughout the colonies, and his name became well known.

4. A few years later, Adams again found himself in the spotlight when he agreed to represent the British soldiers accused of murdering colonial civilians in the infamous Boston Massacre.  Despite his growing disdain for British rule over the colonies, he famously stated that facts, while sometimes inconvenient, are "stubborn things," and must overrule other passions or political inclinations.  All but two of the soldiers were acquitted, and the two convicted were convicted on lesser charges.

5. Around the same time of the Boston Massacre trial, Adams was elected to the colonial Massachusetts legislature, where he became a forceful opponent of British rule.  Following the British blockade of the port of Boston as a result of the 1773 Boston Tea Party, the first Continental Congress was called, and Adams was elected as a representative.  His nomination for commander-in-chief of the new American armies was George Washington - a nomination which was heartily approved.

6. Adams was one of the most radical leaders of the Continental Congress, and helped lead the charge to encourage the colonies to form new governments and declare independence from Great Britain.  The name most commonly associated with the Declaration of Independence is Thomas Jefferson's; Adams, however, contributed significantly to its actual contents, and Jefferson later admitted that the document itself was essentially the brainchild of John Adams.  

7. In that same year, 1776, Adams published an influential pamphlet called Thoughts on Government.  In this document he argued for a legislature of two houses (bicameral legislature), a separation of executive, judicial, and legislative powers, and a federal government limited to only those powers expressly granted to it.  These ideas would go on to form the basis of most state constitutions, as well as the eventual U.S. Constitution.  

8. In 1789, following the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, Adams was elected to be vice-president under George Washington, and again in 1792.  Despite his lofty status, he was largely unhappy with his role, which he saw as essentially symbolic, with little to no real power or influence.  His negative impression of the vice-presidency as a largely powerless role has been echoed by vice-presidents ever since.  During his tenure under Washington, Adams became known by the nickname "His Rotundity," a reference to his weight and to the fact that he had argued (and failed) for loftier titles for the president of the United States (one such title was "His High Mightiness").

9. After Washington's retirement in 1796, Adams was elected president in what was, for all intents and purposes, the first true presidential election (Washington ran unopposed and won both his elections unanimously).  Adams defeated his opponent, Thomas Jefferson, by a mere three electoral votes, and Jefferson (according to the rules of the time) became his vice-president.  Their time in office was a stormy one, and Jefferson ran against Adams again in 1800, marking the only time in U.S. history that a sitting vice-president has run for election against a sitting president.  The election was again narrow - Jefferson won by eight electoral votes, and Adams was, effectively, sent into retirement.

10. Near the end of his term, Adams became the first president to live in the newly built Executive Mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.  He became the first of twenty-three (and counting) former lawyers to become president of the United States.  He also became the first (and counting) of seven Harvard graduates to occupy the presidency.  Finally, he became the longest living president in U.S. history until Ronald Reagan (Reagan was outdone a few years ago by Gerald Ford).  Adams died on the 4th of July, 1826, in the middle of his son's presidency, and on the same day as his old friend, colleague, nemesis, and later friend again, Thomas Jefferson.  Adams and Jefferson were the only two men who signed the Declaration of Independence who went on to become president, and they both died on its 50th anniversary.

10 Fun Facts About Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States

1. Teddy Roosevelt was born in 1858 in New York City, to a wealthy family of Dutch ancestry.  His niece, daughter of his brother Elliot, was future First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.  Eleanor's husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a distant cousin to Eleanor and Teddy and shared their last name.

2. A sickly child who probably suffered from asthma, Roosevelt devoted himself from an early age to intellectual pursuits, particularly zoology and biology, and later took up sports, competing in boxing and rowing after enrolling at Harvard in 1876.  After graduating near the top of his class and entering the New York State Assembly, Roosevelt published a scholarly historical account of the U.S. Navy in the War of 1812, which he began writing in college.  It is still in print today and is considered one of the "standards" in the scholarly study of that war.

3. Roosevelt had married a woman named Alice Lee in 1880, having announced their engagement on Valentine's Day earlier that year.  Four years later, Alice was pregnant and due around Valentine's Day 1884.  The baby arrived on February 12th, while Roosevelt was still away at the capital.  He returned home late on the 13th to find both his widowed mother - who lived at the family home - and his post-partum wife gravely ill.  In the early morning hours of February 14th, his mother died, apparently of typhoid, and just a few hours after that, his wife died as well, from complications with the birth.

Roosevelt's diary entry from February 14, 1884

4. Over the next 15 years, Roosevelt spent time as a rancher, writer, a commissioner of the U.S. Civil Service, the Superintendent of the New York City Police Department, and also made a failed run for mayor of New York City.  In 1897, he was named Assistant Secretary of the Navy by president William McKinley, but resigned the position after just a few months in order to serve in the Spanish-American War.

5. Roosevelt attained the rank of Colonel in the war, leading a regiment of cavalry that came to be known as the Rough Riders.  They were heavily involved in the charge of San Juan Hill, one of the war's bloodiest and most pivotal battles.  Roosevelt earned great fame and notoriety for his achievements, and was nominated for a Congressional Medal of Honor, but it was not bestowed on him until 2001 - making him the only U.S. president to ever win the award.

6. After returning to civilian life later in 1898, Roosevelt was elected governor of New York.  Like his other jobs in the 1890's, he would serve in this capacity for only a brief time, before being added to the re-election ticket of president William McKinley in 1900.  When McKinley was assassinated just a few months after taking office, Roosevelt was sworn in as president on September 14, 1901.  At 42, he remains to this day the youngest person to ever hold the office of the presidency.  

7. A major reformer as president, Roosevelt devoted significant time developing governmental oversight and regulation of big corporations, and fighting for the rights of workers.  He was also instrumental in the completion of the Panama Canal.  In 1906, following his efforts to negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese War, he was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize.  Together with his Congressional Medal of Honor in 2001, he is the only person in history to receive both his country's highest military award, and the world's highest peace award.  After keeping the White House in 1904, he declined to run again in 1908, instead supporting the eventual winner, William Howard Taft.

8. During the ensuing Taft administration, Roosevelt began to regret his decision, and became one of Taft's biggest critics.  Roosevelt ended up running for president again in 1912 on a third party ticket - the so-called Bull Moose Party, which effectively split the Republican vote and allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win easily.  Roosevelt, however, became the only third party candidate in U.S. history to win more votes than a major party candidate.  During the campaign, Roosevelt was shot by an assassin in the chest, but the bullet did not penetrate his lungs, lodging instead in the tissue of his chest, and it remained there for the rest of his life.  Certain that the bullet had not done mortal damage, Roosevelt went ahead and gave the campaign speech he had been about to give, opening by casually telling his audience that he had just been shot.  

9. Following his failed third party run, Roosevelt devoted the remainder of his life to supporting Progressive Republican politics, making expeditions into remote areas of the world, and campaigning against American neutrality in World War I. Roosevelt died in 1919, from a heart attack while he slept.  He was only 60 years old, but his travels into the jungles of South America had ruined his health, a boxing accident during his presidency had rendered him blind in one eye, and he had developed inflammatory arthritis.  He was buried near his home in New York.

10. Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, joined the budding U.S. Air Service during World War I, and was shot down and killed over France in 1918.  During World War II, Roosevelt's oldest son, Teddy Jr., was a brigadier general who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions on D-Day.  Like his father many years later, he would also win his award posthumously - he died of a heart attack just a few weeks after the landing.  Roosevelt's oldest child - Alice - from his first marriage, outlived all her younger half-siblings, dying at the age of 96 in 1980.  She was a controversial figure who married a prominent politician, mothered a child through an affair with another politician, and, at the age of 90 in 1974, famously proclaimed on 60 Minutes that she was a "hedonist."

Notes from the Cave

My poetry collection is free right now at Amazon, if you have a Kindle reader.  It will be free today and tomorrow (that's June 11 and 12).  There are, I believe, 52 poems in the collection, most of which were written between 2004 and 2006.

My short story Widow's Walk is also free today and tomorrow.

I've noticed recently that my blog hits are in a slow decline, and that is obviously due to my basic lack of blogging in the last few months.  I only had about 1,200 hits last week, which is the lowest its been in a long, long time.  I gotta get writing again, and I gotta do more than just these stupid updates.

Work has been not fun.  The new software implementation is in full swing, and I think most people are comfortable using it now, but it has had everyone's nerves on edge and has generally made everyone extra stressed out.  (Hint: "everyone" probably just means "Scott.")

I've also had a lot going on with my second job as a language and writing instructor with a company that serves the Japanese market.  It's been too much really.  I am absolutely certain that I don't handle stress and workloads as well as others, but I can only hold myself to my own standards, and by my standards, I have been busy to the point of generally wanting to run away.

I went with my wife and kids this weekend to Target to buy fat clothes.  I have been wearing shirts and shorts and pants for months now that are way too tight, telling myself all along that I will lose weight and fit into them again.  But I have finally given in and bought new clothes.  I haven't exactly replaced my wardrobe or anything, but if I DO manage to lose weight in the next few months/years/decades/eons, I am going to have a bunch of shirts and shorts that are too big.

My car is in the shop now getting (thankfully) only 250 dollars worth of work.  I went out to start it yesterday and the engine sounded very funny...sort of rattling and shaking.  I drove up the street and it didn't really get better, and the check engine light came on.  So off to the car shop we went, and of course by the time we got there, the car seemed normal, and they weren't able to reproduce the problem.  They think it is related to spark plugs and gaskets and other car shit that I don't really understand, so they are going to tune it up for me.  Hopefully it won't break down and strand me in the ghetto where I work - or on the Interstate in East Bufu later this summer when we drive it to Georgia.

East Boofoo?  No, I think I prefer Bufu.  Although that sort of looks Egyptian or Babylonian or something.

Okay, fine, I'll use an old euphemism that a co-worker of mine used to use all the time:

"Or on the Interstate in East Jesus, Nebraska, later this summer when we drive it to Georgia."

Hmm, that doesn't really work either, for geographically obvious reasons.

Well anyway.  A friendly word of advice to Twitter users: don't follow Obama or Romney on Twitter.  They are TOTAL spammers.  Sheesh.  STFU a'ready.  All I know is this: Romney wants to fire teachers, police officers, and firefighters, and Obama hates Hispanics.

Notes from the Cave

This is yet another Dining Room edition of Notes from the Cave, as the Cave has been overrun with school supplies.  M has been hired on at a new school opening in the district this fall, so she had to clean out her classroom last week when the school year ended.  Both the girls will be going with her to the new school, as well as our nephews.  Her old school was only about half a mile from the house.  The new one might be one whole mile.  It's hard to believe, but H will be in 5th grade, and S will be in 1st.  It's a definite irony of life that the older you get, the faster the time flies by.  Seems like it should be the other way around.  

Today was a big day at the hospital; it was the "go live" day for our new computer system, called Epic, which is a fully-integrated online medical record system.  Previously, we'd only had a digital medical record system in the ER.  Now, the whole hospital is completely virtual - no more patient charts in binders with carbon copies and pre-printed order sets.  In the Radiology department, where I work, we already used computers to do most of our work; that's simply the nature of modern radiology.  So the change hasn't been quite as dramatic for us as it has been for nurses and doctors on the floor who are used to charting on paper.  Even so, we are completely changing how we enter, receive, and complete our radiology orders, so it takes a lot of getting used to.  

In a nutshell, I hate change.  I told someone today that I wished I could hibernate for the next two weeks, and then come back to work and have all the implementation headaches solved and everyone fully trained, and could thus just skip it all myself.  As it is, I am dreading the next couple of weeks. 

I have also recently accepted a position on 2nd shift.  This was a huge decision for me, and I had actually initially turned the offer down, only to reconsider several weeks later.  In the end, the additional money that I will make on 2nd shift, together with some other personnel changes that are occurring, sealed the deal for me.  I am really bummed about having to leave a lot of good friends on 1st shift - it's like a big family there - but I keep reminding myself that it's not like I'm leaving and will never see or work with these people again.  My shifts will overlap with 1st shift for several hours every day.  The additional pay is also pretty significant, at least for a family at our economic level.

Still, I think this permanent shift change (which starts July 1), coupled with the new software implementation, is just a bit too much all at once.  I've been feeling down a lot lately, and have even had a few minor panic attacks.  I've been moody at home and work, and I think my wife and kids, as well as many of my co-workers, are ready to kill me.

My reading list this year is suffering in new and dramatic ways.  As of June 1, I have completed just three - yes three - books.  And all three of them were fairly short.  I have not completed any non-fiction, and, in fact, haven't even been reading any non-fiction books.  I have been reading a very, very long novel for the last several months, and although I absolutely love the book, it's taking me forever to get it done.  

Now, in my defense, part of the reason for this dearth of finished books is because I have been focusing a lot of reading time on documents from American history.  Specifically, I have been reading through all the presidential inaugural addresses and State of the Union addresses, going all the way back to Washington, as well as numerous papers and documents from various presidential terms.  I'm not exactly sure what my goal is with all of this; a big part of it is simply that I find it interesting.  Of course, it is also related to the blog posts I have been making this year on presidential facts and the history of political parties.  I don't know if anything worthwhile will come from this endeavor, aside from expanding my own knowledge, but there might be a little book or historical narrative or something hiding out in the back of my brain.  We'll see.  

Of course, another big reason for the lack of reading in general has been my addiction to watching the entire series of Lost from start to finish.  I think I started it sometime in late January, and finally finished it a few weeks ago.  Now that I am done with it, I hope to get back on track with my reading.

I've sat here for about five minutes trying to think of something else to write about, and I just don't have anything.

Christian Opposition to Gay Marriage: A Theological Argument

Read Part I - Christian Opposition to Gay Marriage: A Constitutional Argument

In this first part of this two-part series, we looked at how religious opposition to gay marriage goes against the principles of liberty and secular government, outlined in the Constitution.  It's not that religious people don't have a right to voice their opinion or to be opposed to something they view as sinful; but when religious opinions dictate legislation (as with recent gay marriage laws), the Constitution and civil liberties are thrown out the window.

In that first part, we saw how some modern political groups - most notably the Tea Party - claim to uphold the Constitution and to be rigorous defenders of Constitutional rights, but many of those same Tea Party groups are vocally opposed to gay marriage rights on religious grounds.  I stated that this is but one way in which many gay  marriage opponents are hypocritical.

The other way, of course, is within Christianity itself.  

Most people seem to think the question of gay marriage in general, and homosexuality in particular, is a "no-brainer" as far as the Bible is concerned.  The Bible explicitly condemns homosexuality and homosexual relationships, so any self-respecting Christian should be opposed to it.  In this regard, a Christian friend of mine, who is a minister, stated: "Scripture is clear.  Homosexuality is wrong.  There is no gray area."  In another place, he stated: "I can't just accept the parts about God's love and mercy and forgiveness, and skip over the parts about His holiness and judgement."  In other words, he can't just pick the nice parts, and ignore the difficult parts.  For this reason, he says, "I can't justify [a homosexual lifestyle] with a holy God who calls it a sin."

This "Pick and Choose" argument, as I call it, is one of the most common arguments that Christians use when discussing hot-button topics facing modern society.  I have heard it used in discussions on everything from gay marriage and homosexuality, to abortion, gender roles, and whether or not Jesus is the only viable means of salvation.  Indeed, this argument may be the most commonly used weapon evangelicals wield against "moderate" and "liberal" Christians who they see as watering down the Holy Word.

The problem with this argument, of course, is that there is no such thing as a Christian who does not pick and choose what they like from the Bible and discard or ignore the rest.  Even the most stringent Bible literalist doesn't actually believe everything the Bible says, and doesn't actually follow all of the Bible's teachings.  More on this in a bit.

First, I want to briefly discuss what the Bible does actually say about homosexuality.  I have written extensively on this topic in the past, so if any reader wants more information, they can find it here: Homosexuality and the New Testament.

To put it simply, the Bible has very little to say on homosexuality - but it seems like it says a lot more.  The Torah codifies homosexuality as a sin punishable by death (Leviticus 20:13).  Other passages in the Torah also condemn homosexuality as detestable to God.  In still other parts of the Old Testament, homosexuals are either put to death or expelled from the Jewish kingdom (for instance, 1 Kings 15:12).

There is a two-fold problem here, however.  First of all, anytime critics of Christianity point out all the absurd, and sometimes even downright horrific, rules of the Old Testament, Christians will defend themselves by pointing out that the Old Testament was replaced by the New Testament, and so the rules and regulations of the Old Testament are no longer valid.  Jesus did away with them.  If that's true, of course, it also applies to the Old Testament rules and regulations about homosexuality.  After all, many modern Christians may think homosexuality is a sin, but they don't advocate the death penalty for it.  So for Christians, using Old Testament passages to condemn homosexuality is theologically inconsistent.  Those rules aren't in place anymore, having been "fulfilled" by Jesus.

Secondly, and most importantly, the Old Testament doesn't actually say nearly as much about homosexuality as it appears.  In fact, outside of those outdated Torah rules about putting gay people to death, the Old Testament doesn't ever refer to homosexuality.  In all the many passages that have long been understood as referring to homosexuality, the Hebrew word used there doesn't mean "homosexual" at all, but instead refers explicitly to a temple prostitute.  In the ancient world, fertility cults were extremely common, and part of the way these cults worshipped included ritual sex acts, involving both men and women.  In the Old Testament, when kings are shown expelling "homosexuals" or "sodomites" from their kingdom, the text is actually referring to pagan fertility cults being disbanded.  This is so widely recognized today that even the widely-read NIV and the New King James Version have translated the word as "male temple prostitutes" instead of the traditional King James word "sodomites."

At this point, you might be asking, "But what about the New Testament?"

Like the Old Testament, the New Testament only seems to say a lot about homosexuality.  Famous passages in both 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy use a Greek word that has been translated as "homosexual" or "homosexual offenders" (or the classic King James phrase "abusers of themselves with mankind"), but linguists and scholars today understand that this word's meaning is basically unknown.  It is never attested in any Greek text prior to Paul's usage of it in 1 Corinthians, and it simply isn't clear what he was referring to - it has even been suggested that Paul coined the word himself.  There were, in fact, several widely-used words in ancient Greek that referred to homosexuality - "pedophilia," which referred to men having sex with boys, and "kinaidos," which basically referred to the size of one's rectum.  Whatever Paul's word meant, there simply isn't any reason to assume it meant "gay men."  In my own study of the issue, I think the most appropriate translation of the word is "pimp" - that is, someone who benefits monetarily from sex.  The link I provided above goes into a lot more detail about this issue.

In any case, we are left, in the New Testament, with just one passage that definitely talks about homosexuality, and that is a text found in Romans 1, where Paul laments men and women who give up natural relations in order to have sex with people of the same gender.  But here, as in the Old Testament passages, this reference to homosexuality is related to ritual sex in pagan temples.  The context of the passage makes that crystal clear, and Paul almost certainly had an eye on the Old Testament passages we saw above that talk about ancient Jewish kings expelling fertility cults from the land.  And remember, Paul was writing to the Christians in Rome, where fertility cults were commonplace.  He was encouraging them not to be led astray by these false gods, which were "man-made things" made to look like birds and reptiles (think of the animal gods of ancient Egypt).

With all these issues in mind, is it actually true that the Bible is crystal clear on the issue of homosexuality, as asserted by my minister friend?  Or are the waters much, much murkier?  In fact, I think the waters are unquestionably murky.  About the only thing we can say with confidence is that the Bible clearly condemns pagan fertility cults and those who take part in them.  Just about everything else is debatable.

As such, should Christians be attempting to legislate morality on an issue that is not even particularly clear in the Bible?  Shouldn't Christians be more concerned with issues that are, in fact, clear in the Bible, like feeding the poor, helping the sick, and living a lifestyle of unrestrained love and mercy?

Of course, I think the answer to that first question is no, and to the second question yes, but my theological argument goes even farther than that. I want to turn now to the "Pick and Choose" phenomenon I mentioned above.

As I explained, one of the first arguments sophisticated Christians make when confronted with social issues is that a Christian can't just pick and choose what they want to believe.  You have to accept the whole deal; you can't just follow some things, and reject the others.  This is sometimes referred to as "buffet-style Christianity," taking what you want and ignoring the rest.

And this is where the real hypocrisy comes into play in regards to Christians who are opposed to gay marriage on Biblical grounds.  Let's agree for a moment that the Bible actually is crystal clear on the issue of homosexuality.  Let's agree that homosexuality is an unquestionable sin and should be condemned.

Of all the sins and unrighteous ways of living outlined in the Bible, why is this one so important?  Not just so important that Christians need to voice their opinion about the sinfulness of the gay lifestyle, but so important that they actually need to amend their state constitutions - and maybe even the U.S. constitution - in order to deny gay people the right to get married?  Why this sin, and not something else?

In 1 Corinthians, there is a passage that is very frequently referred to by people arguing against gay marriage.  This is one of the passages I noted above where the meaning of the word used is unclear and probably did not refer to homosexuality.  But, as above, let's agree for a moment that it does refer to homosexuals.  In that passage, Paul is imploring his audience to live righteous lives and to flee from immorality.  He lists several sins which will keep believers from "inheriting the kingdom of God."  Among these are sexual immorality, drunkenness, greed, idolatry, adultery, and homosexuality.  Why is homosexuality the most important thing in that list?  Why not focus on greed, or drunkenness?  Why not re-enact the 18th Amendment and put Prohibition back in place?  Why not amend the constitution to outlaw sex outside of marriage?

The fact is, there is no legitimate justification for putting homosexuality above the others.  There is no Biblical justification for denying gays the same rights as everyone else, even if you think it's a sin.  You may think sex outside of marriage is a sin too, but you sure aren't trying to keep those who have had premarital sex from being able to get married!

And the biggest one here, of course, is adultery.  If you judge a sin's importance by how often it is referred to or condemned in the Bible, adultery is probably the Number One Biblical Sin.

And just what is adultery, by the Bible's definition?  Quite simply, adultery is when a married person has sex with someone other than their spouse, or when a non-married person has sex with someone who is married to someone else.  At its core, adultery is about infidelity and unfaithfulness.  This is why, throughout the Bible, "adultery" is used as a metaphor for unfaithfulness to God.

In the Gospels, Jesus speaks about adultery on several occasions.  In fact, Jesus uses the word "adultery" no less than fourteen times.  One of his teachings, which is repeated in Mark, Matthew, and Luke, dealt with adultery and divorce.  Here, Jesus states that even looking lustfully at someone who is not your spouse is the same as adultery.  He goes on to say that Moses was wrong in allowing people to get divorced for any reason.  In fact, he argues, if you get divorced for any reason other than infidelity, and then get remarried, you are committing adultery.

This passage, of course, has been the basis for many rules and regulations within modern churches about divorced people.  I grew up being taught that getting divorced for any reason other than unfaithfulness was a sin, and so was remarriage after such a divorce.  I also grew up in a church that did not allow divorced people to have leadership roles like minister or deacon; many modern churches still have rules like that.  If a divorced person wants to remarry, some churches won't allow them to have the ceremony in their church, and some ministers won't marry anyone who has been divorced.      

So with this in mind, and considering that adultery is essentially the biggest sin in the Bible, why aren't Christians fighting to ban divorced people from getting remarried?  Why aren't they arguing that such marriages harm the sanctity of marriage, as ordained by God?  Why aren't they pointing out that divorced people who get remarried are living a sinful lifestyle of adultery?

Scripture is clear.  Remarriage after divorce is wrong.  There is no gray area.

I hope you get my point here.  Christian opposition to gay marriage is inconsistent with the way Christians react to other teachings in the Bible.  I don't know any Christians who are fighting to amend a state constitution to ban divorced people from getting remarried.  I don't know any Christians who would disallow a divorced-and-remarried person to  be an active and accepted member of their church community.  I don't know any Christians who are "hung up" on people getting divorced and remarried.

And yet there are millions of Christians out there trying to ban gay marriage, ostracizing unrepentant gay people from their churches, trying "cure" gay people of their sins, and who are, in general, definitely "hung up" on gay rights.

And these same people, of course, will turn around and accuse a gay rights Christian of "picking and choosing" what they believe, while ignoring the fact that virtually no Christian believes it's a sin for a woman to have short hair, or a man to have long hair (1 Corinthians 11), virtually no Christian believes a woman should not be permitted to have authority over a man (1 Timothy 2), and virtually no Christian believes that slaves should be content in their way of life and faithfully obey their masters (1 Corinthians 7; Ephesians 6).

The Pick and Choose argument, in the end, is just a lot of hypocritical smoke and mirrors to justify prejudice against gay people, and legislating discrimination based on that prejudice.  It is an inconsistent argument that makes false assumptions about what the Bible actually says about homosexuality, and presupposes that "good" Christians follow everything the Bible teaches, even though that is demonstrably not true.

In the end, opposition to gay marriage is not about religion at all.  It's about the fact that many people are simply uncomfortable with gay people, afraid of gay lifestyles, and generally find the whole issue of homosexuality distasteful.  Many of those people then simply open their Bibles to find ways to justify their prejudice.  It's a method of operation that has been going on in Christian society for many hundreds of years.  700 years ago, Christians used the Bible to persecute Jews and other non-Christians.  500 years ago, Christians used the Bible to condemn Galileo.  200 years ago, Christians used the Bible to support and condone the institution of slavery.  100 years ago, Christians used the Bible to deny equal rights for women.  And today, they are using the Bible to justify discrimination against gay people.

Fortunately, history shows that they will lose this argument as they have lost all the others.  Fifty years from now, no one will have a problem with gay marriage, except for a few nutty people on the fringes of mainstream religion.  Gay people are going to win their rights to get married, and it will eventually happen in every state.  Christians today who are opposed to gay marriage will either die out or will reluctantly give in to the changing times and the irresistible force of progress, just as they did with slavery and women's rights.  In the future, the fact that there was so much opposition to gay marriage will be an embarrassment to self-respecting Americans.            

That, at least, gives me some hope.