How to lose your mond in 30 hours or less...

Recently, my wife and I moved from Texas to the New York City area. I drove; my wife and daughter flew. I left on the tenth and arrived on the telfth. My wife and daughter flew out and arrived on the thirteenth.

Highlights (or lowlights) from the trip:

1) Some where in North East Texas (while trying to reach Route 20) I ran over a turtle. I thought it was a leaf on the road. As I loked at it, I drifted a bit, realized it was a turtle but it was too late at that point. Sadly, my wife also killed one on a trip to Houston early in the week.

2) I do not know how I arrived to NYC. On the trip I noticed that my tires were low and needed air. Yesterday, one tire was almost completely flat. That tire contianed a nail and I needed to get a new one. Another tire has a gash in it (maybe from the turtle) and I need to get a new one tomorrow.

3) Surprisingly, I did not listen to my Ipod for the entire trip. Instead, I listened to AM radio only. (Though, for about two hours, I listened to an old tape made from songs that aired on WBER in Rochester, NY. The songs were from the late nineties, early oughts. The highlights from trip:
(a) Somehere around Birmingham, Alabama (which doesn't surprise me), a Christian Radio station allowed a women to discuss why true Christians should not read Harry Potter. Roughly, the argument is that the books are bad (because it features witches and wizzards whom are alays bad and pagan and good Christians cannot read anything that invovles Pagan images because it takes away from the message). it seems that those against Harry potter are not familiar with inoculation theory and would rather have people avoid it than try to understand it or deal with it. In terms of argumentation, it seems that these people would use inventional techniques from the bible and evangelical cultures and, beacuse of this, ould fail to persaude the larger culture. Rhetorically, it seems incest for arguments.

(b) I agreed with some Bill O'Reilly said. Luckily, I forgot what it was. Also, he attacked the San Diego Padres for hosting two promotions at one time: one was for gays and lesbians and another gave little kids hats. He said it was inappropriate for the Padres to do both at the same time. Though he is not anti-gay, it seems he just does not want them to have a public life. One caller challenged him on the fact that gays and lesbians are people too and what difference does it make. He said "Do you your children to see it... Do you ant to explain it to your kid." So it is okay to be gay but not in public.

On a side note. When the HSBC arena in Buffalo opened years ago, I went to a game against the Flyers. Throughout the night, the jumbotron showed to very attractive girls sitting next to one another. From the looks of it, they drank heavily throughout the game. The first time the camera man got them on the jumbotron, they waved, suggestively. The second time, they hugged. The third time: they stood up and they kissed. The cameraman dwelled on it for a few seconds and then turned to something else. The crowd applauded while the women kissed.

c) I listened to Hugh Hewitt for the first time. His ploy was to play out of context clips of the Senate discussion over Iraq and then asked soldiers how they felt over the comments. One thing I have always wondered: If the US has the finest fighting force in the world, then would discussions of how poor the Iraq war is going affect the troop morale? Either the first or second part is not true. Somehow, I would suggust it is the second.

d) Hannity seems to be the least intellectually honest of those that I heard. For example, on today's show, a caller stated that he taught college debate from a consertvative point of view and because of this they did well in tournatments. Now, I have taight debate many times and never realized it was possible to teach it from either a conservative or liberal point of view. The purpose of teaching debate is to teach invention, arrangement, style, delivery, and memory and not which ideological standpoint is True. But, Hannity seemed pleased that a professor "Hannitized" a student (one of the prof's students was liberal but learned to love big brother, er, I mean hannity.

Now, the intellectual dishonesty comes in over the point of education. Hannity hates "liberal indoctrination" of students but this example shows that conservative indoctrination is fine and even encouraged. Demonize one form of "indoctrination" but accept the other,

e) The fairness doctrine: I am against it as a form of legislation. However, they way in which Conservative radio hosts address the issue seems shallow at best. For example, hannity states that liberal would use it to censor conservative talk-show hosts. But, that would not be the case. It would only suggest that if a station gives time to one candidate it should for another. Even if it suggested that a radio or tv show should allow time for one liberal program for one conservative show, you still cannot reach the conclusion that liberals want to censor conservatives.

I am not expecting deep and naunced thought but maybe a little fairness.

f) Mark levin may tie Hannity for the worst radio host ever. On Thursday, Levin began his show with comments from the Democratic Representative that represents Ground Zero. While discussion what legal protections criminal and terrorist suspects should have, the reprsentative in question suggested that on September 10th, 2001 the government would not have been able to detain Mohammed Atta, one of the chief hijackers in September 11th. Levin could not believe this to be the case and decided that the democratic representative is not worhty to serve as a representative, the democrats are bad for the country, or whatever else you can think of.

Logically, Levin's comments present a challenge. Levin wants to detain (maybe torture, who knows these days), people before they commit crimes. What then becomes the determining factor in decieding who to detain: race? religion? color of the eyes? Whether or not the person possesses an Iphone?.

4) While I drove for 30 hours, I spent 1/10 of the trip stuck in traffic within Brooklyn and Queens. I left Staten Island at 4pm and did not reach my hotel in Suffolk county until 7:30.

Welcome to New York.