This is a personal rebuttal to some websites I’ve seen from apostates recently that denigrated my religion with regard to raising children in Scientology. Here’s how I see this issue:

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My parents divorced when I was an infant, back in 1953. I grew up in a series of broken homes, attended 17 schools before graduating high school in 1970, and had 3 stepmoms and 7 step-dads at various times, as well as foster parents. I can remember living in 52 different houses in 6 states as a child. My parents were alcoholics, whose lives spun out of control in the 1960′s from abuse of booze and pills. Various religions were shoved down my throat–I rebelled against them.

What I learned from my parents’ examples was that I didn’t want to be like them in the way they lived, or in the way they had treated their kids. I left home at 16 after a fistfight with my latest drunken step-father. I became an emancipated minor, living on my own while I finished high school and went to college with little help from my family. I felt I couldn’t communicate with anyone and was terminally shy, not to mention depressed. In college I became addicted to street drugs and was spiraling downward when some friends pulled me into a Scientology church and signed me up for a $25 course that, over the next three months, taught me how to communicate. For me, it was hard, slogging work. But worth it, because having that skill in communication turned my life around. In 1974 I married a woman who was and is still a Scientologist.

By the early 1980′s, after my wife’s younger sister died of a heroin overdose at age 18, and my oldest sister became a drug dealer with drug addicts for children, my wife and I were very concerned over the outcome of our kids’ education and preparation for life as adults in this society. Our fears were justified; one of their cousins (not a Scientologist) later became a pornographer, one (also obviously not a Scientologist) became a crack addict. Other cousins have spent time in jail for theft, battery, domestic abuse, and the like.

Today I have two grown daughters (who now have kids of their own), who were raised as Scientologists during the 70′s and 80′s. They are great people and we are happy to have them and their children in our lives. They didn’t ever become drug addicts, they didn’t become criminals, instead they have made reasonably happy and productive lives for themselves.

What does that mean, being “raised as Scientologists”? Does it mean we were control freaks indoctrinating them in some weird religious rites, or that we abused them in some way or tried to stifle their self-determinism? No. My wife and I raised our kids so that they would think for themselves about whatever they were doing. It means they were given a common sense moral code (“The Way to Happiness” booklet) and that we helped them understand that moral code as kids and to figure out for themselves how to apply it to their own lives so they could grow up to become happy adults. We never shoved it down their throats.

Does being raised as a Scientologist mean they never had drugs in their lives? No. But they never (as far as I know, anyway) did any street drugs. If they needed antibiotics for an infection, they got them. If they had bad menstrual cramps, they would take Mydol. It means we didn’t push them toward drugs as the first solution to their problems, and it means we weren’t drug users.

Part of our moral code is “Set a good example”. Neither of our grown daughters has had a drug or alcohol problem at any point in their lives, and I like to think part of the reason for that is the example we set as their parents. We didn’t drink often or hard (a beer once in a great while, or a glass of wine at a party), and we didn’t ever condone marijuana or other drug usage by their cousins or friends. We explained to them that drug addiction is usually a solution to a problem of some kind; alienation, an inability to communicate, or to numb some kind of pain. We presented other solutions to those problems. Our moral code also says, “Be temperate” and we were, and we taught them to be temperate.

We taught them as best we could how to communicate, and encouraged them to talk to us, and didn’t evaluate for them or tell them what they should think about things. If we didn’t like something they were doing, we’d talk about it and express our disapproval, and then validate anything they were doing that we did like. I tried as hard as I could to get them to think for themselves. Our moral code says, “Be competent”, and we taught them to be competent at whatever they set out to do, and had a lot of fun in the process. My kids were happy kids.

We didn’t have a television in the house when they were little because we didn’t like the way they acted after they would watch it; jumpy and not themselves. They did better without TV, so we got rid of it entirely despite our own feelings about it. For entertainment they learned musical instruments and would play for us; Joplin, Chopin, Beethoven, etc., and we talked and laughed a lot. We would go to movies as a family activity on the weekends, which seems very old-fashioned to me. Every year we took long vacations together driving around the country visiting relatives and seeing the sights. Despite my hectic schedule as a Scientology staff member and minister working as a member of Scientology’s Sea Organization during the 1970′s, I made time to see my kids every day, spent extra time on the weekends with them, and managed to take a three-week vacation every year. In 1981 I knew I wanted to spend even more time with my kids, so I left my Scientology staff position and focused on jobs that made good money, and on raising my kids. We moved to a little place in the country in Oregon and created something of an idyllic environment for young kids. Both of them still talk fondly of our place in the country.

We sent our girls to public schools some of the time, but the results of that were pretty poor in my estimation. For example, at the end of the 4th grade, in about 1980, we realized our oldest daughter was completely blocked on math and numbers, and not reading well at all either. She had known how to read before she started school, so this was a very real regression. What was most frightening was that she didn’t WANT to learn any more; she hated public school. Over the summer, we got her a tutor who used Scientology teaching methods (Study Technology), and she learned math and reading; a few months later she was happily reading above her grade level. We tried when school started again to put her back in public school, but after a few weeks noticed the same pattern–she was unwilling to study, wouldn’t do her homework, and hated school. When we found out exactly what she was being taught, we were appalled. In one class, the teacher had all the kids write their own epitaphs and pretend to be dead and laying in a coffin. What in God’s name does that have to do with educating a kid? So we took her out of what we considered to be an insane public school system and started home schooling her. I think this was the best thing we ever did for her–she blossomed and quickly learned anything and everything she set her mind to.

Both my daughters chose, during their teenage years, to become Scientology staff members. They did this on their own, without any coaching or advice from their parents on the subject, because they wanted to help. Conversely, they both later left staff–my oldest one got married and became pregnant and wanted to focus on raising her son, which she did. He’s a great kid, and now a teenager himself and looking to become a veterinarian when he grows up.

To put not too fine a point on it, my younger daughter was booted off staff, for various misbehavior. Obviously being a staff member wasn’t what she thought it would be when she joined up. She wasn’t up to the challenge (from my experience it is a very rewarding challenge) and so she came back to live with me. She got her life sorted out, grew up some more, got married, had twins and has focused on being a mom to them for the last ten years. She is now a Scientologist in good standing, and works with me in our own little business. She’s sane, good company, and an excellent mom. And she still plays the piano and teaches her own kids music; they don’t watch much TV either. Her kids are being raised as Scientologists–they’ve studied “The Way to Happiness” for themselves and adopted it as their own. Nobody shoved it down their throats.

Our moral code says, “Love and help children”. My wife and I did that with our kids when they were young, and continue to do that now that they are adults, loving and helping both our children and their children.

I have a third daughter I haven’t mentioned so far, much younger than the others, who is still a teenager and something of a wild child with purple hair, tattoos, piercings and plenty of attitude. That she hasn’t done drugs despite the pressure from her many non-Scientologist friends is a testament to her education and moral upbringing and her own common sense. I am keeping my fingers crossed that as she matures she will remain a Scientologist and pick up the tools it makes available to people and use them for herself as my older daughters have; such tools as the moral code I’ve mentioned and the communication skills that have been so helpful to me over the years. She’s still figuring it out for herself, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Certainly no one is forcing her to do anything.

I’m very glad to have had the many tools that Scientologists have, relating to communication and morals. I think that using these tools is the key to helping children achieve competent and happy adulthood without falling into the many pitfalls along the way (drug abuse, violence, and criminality to name but a few). So far, it has worked very well for us.

I wish to God that I had had the tools of Scientology when I was a teenager, or that my parents had had them when I was a child. I am absolutely certain life would have been much happier and less stressful for me and for them. They might still be alive, and I might have a higher opinion of them.

Rev. Jere Matlock

Note: Here’s what my older daughter said on reading this post:

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Hi Dad,

That’s beautiful! Thanks for sharing this with me. I’ve been very lucky to have you as a father that’s for sure.

I love you!

K

—————

Here’s what my younger daughter said about Scientology and Children.

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I recently read a book called “The Great Influenza” which I picked up at Costco, I think. The author, John M. Barry, makes very human the doctors who tried to figure out what happened during the Great Influenza of 1918-1919. They didn’t figure it out at the time, of course, but they were trying. If it had been a bacterium, they probably would have figured it out. But it was a virus, the H1N1 virus strain. History has mostly forgotten the Great Influenza — I know we only read a paragraph or two about it when I was going to school in the 60′s. Now there are plenty of websites that have info and pictures about it.

Here on the ranch, we assembled a lot of information and a bunch of links to educate our family. I’ll share some of that here:

Introduction

This page is an introduction to the subject of Avian Flu (Bird Flu) and the history of such flus.

First and most importantly, in the immortal words of Douglas Adams in the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”:

Don’t Panic!

Our purpose in putting together this information about Avian Flu is not to cause alarm or spread panic, but to give you background information and facts you can use to stay healthy and protect yourself and your loved ones in case this particular flu becomes pandemic among humans, which it may or may not do.

Our prayers and postulates are that it absolutely does not ever become a problem for the great masses of people in the world, and especially for our family.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are making preparations for Avian Flu IF it becomes pandemic among humans. From a review of their public statements, they appear to be confronting the possibility of an Avian Flu pandemic scenario with utter seriousness. The WHO and CDC seem to consider it likely at this point, that it will start to spread quickly between humans, but they can’t predict the severity of it if it does.

Background & Summary:

What’s all the fuss? After all, we have flu going around all the time.

Avian Flu (also called “Bird Flu” or “H5N1″) is similar in effects to a flu pandemic that happened in 1918-1919, during the last years of World War I. At the time, it was called “The Great Influenza”, the “Spanish Influenza” and sometimes “The Grippe”. It was a strain of flu known as the “H1N1″ strain. [Recommended reading: "The Great Influenza" (2004) by John M. Barry.] Here’s some background from that book about The Great Influenza. It will give you an idea of the “Worst Case Scenario” for a flu pandemic.

• The “Great Influenza” flu pandemic of 1918-1919 killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide. Estimates of the numbers were poor at the time because most basic social structures broke down. Often there was no one officially counting or reporting those being buried, so the numbers are fuzzy. Morgues and funeral services were inundated with corpses. Photos from the day show them “stacked like cordwood”.
• It appeared to have first crossed over from birds to pigs and then to people. The pandemic was first recorded in Kansas, and it was then spread through human contact to a nearby army base. From there, it spread to crowded troop ships and army barracks and the hellish front line trenches (during World War I). Overcrowding helped to create higher casualty rates and spread the disease. The Army kept the best statistics. According to their recrods, 1 of every 67 Americans in uniform worldwide died of this disease.
• The masks everyone wore in public (you’ll observe the masks in most photographs from the period) were completely ineffective at stopping the spread of the disease.
• It could strike very quickly, often killing an otherwise healthy person within 12 hours of the first noticeable symptoms.
• It selected out as victims healthy young adults as well as infants and the elderly. Being vitally healthy in the prime of life with a perfect immune system only made it more likely you would get this flu.
• The Great Influenza flu virus killed in two ways: 1) directly and quickly, or 2) if the person survived the direct assault, their immune systems were so damaged that they frequently died of secondary illnesses like pneumonia. It was confusing. Deaths were often attributed to “pneumonia” as the cause of death, even though it was the flu that started the process.
• People panicked. Many people that could have been saved weren’t because they didn’t get any care (food, water, or heat) afterward, even though they survived the flu itself. They died in their homes because neighbors were afraid to help them, bring them food or water or stoke their fires, for fear of catching it themselves.
• The US Government was ineffective in helping, mostly because it was distracted by WW I. President Wilson was leading America in “total war”; bluntly, the war effort came first. Factual information about the disease was hard to come by, and the truth was often suppressed because publishing the news in American papers would have been good for German morale. Rumors were rife. A huge military parade in Philadelphia (the Liberty Loan parade meant to raise millions in funds for the war) that should have been cancelled was held anyway. Thousands caught the Great Influenza and died as a result of attending the parade.
• Hospitals were mobbed and utterly overwhelmed with a hundred times their normal traffic; doctors, nurses and police died by the thousands. Skilled physicians and nurses were in terribly short supply; those who survived were overworked, exhausted and helpless to do much about it.
• At various times all public gatherings were banned including weddings, funerals and meetings of all kinds. (It was done too late, and it doesn’t seem to have helped any.)
• Shops were closed, schools empty and silent (except where they were being used as temporary hospitals) and many basic services went unstaffed. In the cities, food became scarce and police and firemen failed to answer when called, as often as not. Fires were left to burn themselves out. Looting was widespread.
• In America, city and state officials often resorted to mass graves to clear the piles of bodies. Wagons went from home to home collecting the dead for mass burial.
• By most estimates, the Great Influenza killed about half of one percent of the entire population of humans on the globe. Put another way, one out of every 200 people alive at the time died from the flu.
• It went everywhere on Earth in waves and killed uncounted millions in Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, North America, Australia and New Zealand, and the islands of the Pacific. No place was safe, and no one knew where it might strike next.
• Estimates in the US alone were of about 600,000 dead, out of about 103 million US citizens at that time. From 1917 to 1918 the US population dropped for the only time in the 20th century; a product of the Great Influenza and WW I.
• It killed entire Eskimo villages, leaving no one alive, and decimated the populations of many tropical islands.
• In 1918-1919, there were no vaccines that would work to prevent it or lessen its effects. Nothing effective could be done to help those who got it except holding them while they either lived or died (and nursing them back to health if they survived), and nothing was effective in preventing it from spreading — excepting only quarantine. They didn’t even know that the Great Influenza was actually a virus until years later. Many thought it a mysterious invisible bacterium.
• The only defense against the Great Influenza was utter and complete quarantine. Two towns in Colorado did this, and had no casualties. They called it a “shotgun” quarantine because that’s how it was enforced.
• It went around the world in three waves. Australia (the island nation) quarantined itself through the first two waves with complete success, then was devastated when the third wave hit and their quarantine failed.
• Like the Holocaust it is a part of human history that people prefer to downplay rather than dwell upon; it gets short mention in most history books despite the profound influence it had on those who lived through it.
• People who did live through it didn’t like to talk about it. An old man was interviewed in 1993 as part of a family history project. He was born in 1900, and in 1918 was enrolled in college while serving in the Army. (That was common at the time, while the Army figured out how to utilize all the young volunteers.) He was called up to work on active duty in an overcrowded hospital. During the interview he still wept at the memory of having held so many friends while they died, helpless to prevent it.

How is Avian Flu similar to The Great Influenza?

• The Avian Flu is similar to the Great Influenza in its virulence: if someone does get it, it is a toss-up whether they will live or die. If they do live, they’ll still be really sick for a week or two.
• The big difference between the two is that Avian Flu does not NOT pass easily from one human to another at this time, although some human-to-human Bird Flu infections have already been reported by the WHO.
• If and when it ever begins to easily pass from one human to another, we could have a pandemic — it could show up everywhere very quickly, spreading similar to the way the Great Influenza spread. Would it be as lethal then as the Great Influenza was? Nobody can say, but that possibility is certainly very worrisome to every informed public health official.
• With faster modern global transportation, rapid transit systems in our cities, and our terrific highway system, it might spread even more rapidly than the Great Influenza did.
• Avian Flu is currently being spread by migratory birds. It is passing from those birds to domestic birds and to other species, including humans and big cats (over 100 tigers have died from this disease in the last 3 years).

How is Avian Flu different than the Great Influenza?

• The Avian Flu is not easily passed between humans at this time. Note well: That may change–the WHO and CDC seem to be expecting that factor to change as the disease mutates over time.
• The Avian Flu has only infected 115 people worldwide so far, that the World Health Organization (WHO) knows about. About half of the infected people have died. It seems likely there have been more casualties that the WHO does not know about.
• The humans who are getting infected with Avian Flu now mostly are working with birds and livestock (such as veterinary workers and poultry farmers) and those in close contact with them. (The Great Influenza spread like wildfire amongst all walks of life through simple human contact.)
• The WHO is actively trying to stay on top of the Avian Flu, with many people constantly monitoring birds and other livestock and veterinary services around the world. They are on high alert for Avian Flu and reporting every possible instance; quarantining humans and destroying animals that have caught it. This kind of coordinated international activity was missing and basically impossible during the Great Influenza, in part because of WWI but mostly because the disease moved faster than it could be tracked or predicted or reported back then. International communication was much slower then, limited to telegrams and letters. International communication now is basically instantaneous and does not have to go through official channels.
• So far, about 200 million birds have either died from this flu, or been destroyed to slow the spread of it. That kind of “preventative destruction” campaign was not done back in 1918 and 1919, although rumors that dogs and cats were spreading it caused many people to kill their family pets in 1918-1919. (That didn’t help either.)
• Vaccines exist today and are being rushed into production that MAY help the first-line workers (doctors, nurses, EMTs, police) survive the first wave of Avian Flu, if it hits. There’s no guarantee that these vaccines will be effective; there’s just no way to tell in advance. No such vaccines were available during the Great Influenza. Although innoculations and wacky treatments of various kinds were done out of desperation, they were utterly ineffective back then.
• Basic Hygiene: although it is impossible to quantify, common sense would tell you that Americans especially are much more clean and hygienic now than they were in 1918. Soap, showers, and clean water are much more prevalent now.
• Many of the secondary illnesses (pneumonia, etc., that killed so many of the victims of the Great Influenza flu) are now treatable and curable with vaccines and antibiotics.
• Latex gloves are widely available now, as are masks.
• Doctors and hospital staff are much more informed about how to prevent the spread of diseases like this than they were then, and less likely to make the spread of this flu worse, as they did then. In 1918, at first they had no inkling that such a flu existed, and didn’t readily quarantine people, which let it spread widely and get a stronghold everywhere. We know better now.

Our Advice

If a truly virulent human-to-human version of the Avian Flu pandemic starts to spread across the world, we believe that only active, utter quarantine will guarantee surviving it. That means no physical contact with the outside, period.

If a flu pandemic starts, hunker down (quarantine yourself) as best you can. Wear latex gloves and a mask when going outdoors, avoid skin contact with door knobs, handrails, shopping carts, etc. Don’t go to public places or use busses or subways if you can avoid it. Avoid all crowds.

It won’t hurt to stock up now on some extra food staples: tuna, soup, pasta, peanut butter, canned veggies and the like. And get yourself a box of latex gloves (from the drug store) and masks (from the hardware store). You can always eat the food later and laugh about the scare we all had. Hopefully that’s all it will come to, some laughter over our own foolishness. Hey, I still have some rice left over from Y2K!

Following are some more resources you should read now, if you have the interest. The more you know ahead of time, the better prepared you will be if it occurs.

The Pandemic Influenza Threat

Quoted from the US Dept Health Human Services – Pandemic Flu Plan:

Influenza A viruses have infected many different animals including ducks, chickens, pigs, whales, horses, and seals. Influenza A viruses normally seen in one species can sometimes cross over and cause illness in another species. This creates the possibility that a new virus will develop, either through mutation or mixing of individual viruses, in turn creating the possibility for new viral strains that can be highly infective, readily transmissible, and highly lethal in humans.

When a pandemic virus strain emerges, 25% to 35% of the population could develop clinical disease, and a substantial fraction of these individuals could die. The direct and indirect health costs alone (not including disruptions in trade and other costs to business and industry) have been estimated to approach $181 billion for a moderate pandemic (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) with no interventions. Faced with such a threat, the U.S. and its international partners will need to respond quickly and forcefully to reduce the scope and magnitude of the potentially catastrophic consequences.

Such a threat currently exists in the form of the H5N1 virus, which is spreading widely and rapidly in domestic and migratory fowl across Asia and Europe. As of October 2005, this strain has infected more than 115 humans, killing approximately 50% of those known to be infected.  The virus is now endemic in many bird species so that elimination of the virus is not feasible. 

If this virus mutates in such a way that it becomes capable of spreading efficiently from person to person, the feared pandemic could become a reality.

General Information

• Ten Things You Need to Know About Pandemic Influenza – from World Health Organization
• General Information – from PandemicFlu.com
• Pandemic Influenza Background – from Appendix B of the US Health & Human Services Pandemic Influenza Plan
• Pandemic Influenza: Key Facts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Avian Influenza Fact Sheet – from World Health Organization
• Avian Influenza Frequently Asked Questions – from World Health Organization
• Flu Treatment – from Healthinschools.org. They recommend Tylenol for children, aspirin for adults. They warn not to give aspirin to children or teenagers who have the flu.

Statistics and Documentation

• Timeline of H5N1 Avian Influenza as of March 24, 2006 – from World Health Organization. Read the right-hand column on “humans”. It goes back to 1996.
• Avian Influenza: Latest Information Links – from World Health Organization
• Confirmed Cases – regularly updated links from World Health Organization
• H5N1 Maps – from World Health Organization

History

• Influenza 1918 – from PBS, The American Experience. This one has maps, stories and pictures.
• Pandemics & Pandemic Threats since 1900 – PandemicFlu.gov

Planning & Preparedness

• Planning for Individuals & Families – from PandemicFlu.gov
• Family Preparedness Guide – from PandemicFlu.gov

Government Plans

US Dept Health Human Services –
Pandemic Flu Plan

National Strategy for Pandemic
Influenza

Oregon Pandemic Influenza Plan

WHO pandemic influenza draft protocol for rapid response and containment (17 March 2006)

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Been a long time – a reader scolded me today for not posting more often, so I’m going to give it a go. Had some major computer problems in January that put me way behind. Basically I bought a new computer from pieces and had it assembled – it then proceeded to crash for the next month until we discovered the memory had been placed into the wrong slots and we had to slow down the bus speed a hair. It’s a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 – really nice and fast now that it is working properly.

And Google seems to have repaired most of the problems caused by the November Florida update I was complaining about in my last blog posting.

I have found and am using some new tools for optimizing websites. This one, the Internet Business Promotion Tool — is a gem. It helps one analyze the top 10 pages (the search results) for any search phrase at Google (or any other search engine) against a page that you are optimizing for the same phrase. It has helped me get a couple of sites that slipped during the Florida update back on track at Google. At $300 it is was a bargain. It’s not completely foolproof – and it takes an experienced person to know which of the thousands of recommendations it can make are worth following. But I can use it to divine what is needed on a particular page to get it from page 2 to page 1.

The site I optimized for Phil Mount of Christian Single Web is doing really well at Yahoo for all his search terms such as “Christian dating” – first page placement for most of them. Mostly second page placement at Google, but I am counting on further revisions of their algorithm to get back on the first page. Rather than chasing the algorithm, I am trying to be patient. Phil sent me a terrific success story, which I posted here: http://www.wordsinarow.com/references.html

I’m piloting a new service – for $100 I am spending a couple of hours doing an analysis of any page for a certain key word phrase, and sending a detailed, step by step program to my client of exactly what needs to be done to the site to make it onto the first page of results at Google/Yahoo, etc. So far I’ve had a few takers from among my old client base – will see whether this is something to offer to the general public. After mentioning this in a couple of proposals to new clients, I haven’t had any new public take me up on it. I’m thinking it may be a bit steep for an introductory offer. I may have to keep giving this service away to new clients as part of my proposal to them. We’ll see.

That service, when implemented, took the Gloves in a Bottle site back to first page placement at Google for “dry skin lotion” – it’s #3 there today for that phrase.

Another good (free!) tool is this one, which shows you what your site looks like to the search engine spiders. It’s a basic text viewer named Lynx, which is what you might use to surf if you were visually handicapped and used a reader to read you the content of web pages, or if you had very limited bandwidth. Say you were out in the bush and using a satellite phone, you could use this to surf the internet. What it shows you is the same “text-only” information that the search engines see when they crawl through your site:

http://www.seotoolkit.co.uk/spider_viewer.asp

Have also been busy learning how to do HTML formatted emails. My own newsletter, Design Coolness, will be coming out shortly in the new format.

New clients: In the last three months I have pulled in a half a dozen big new clients – which explains why there haven’t been any entries for a few months. I’ve been working a lot! Will try to post again this week. Wish me luck!

Oh – and I should mention Maximus Impedimentus, the wonder dog – our new puppy. The picture is from when he was about 8 weeks old and he wasn’t quite with the whole dog bed program yet… He is a boxer-mastiff mix, weighing in at about 40 pounds right now that he is 15 weeks old (born on Thanksgiving Day 2003) – and already completely housebroken. I believe he will easily reach 120 pounds at the rate he is gaining weight.

He seems quite bright for a puppy – so far he has learned five tricks: sit, up, lie down, shake, and roll over. Of course he sometimes gets them confused, especially when there is some kind of meat treat involved and he wants to shorten the process. Sometimes he just does all his tricks in the sequence he learned them, figuring that when he gets to the one you want, he will get his treat. (Not so!) Or he throws a tantrum and just barks and growls at the hand with the treat, or he will jump up and try to knock it out of your hand. He has proved to me that, at least in dogs, intelligence and patience do not always come in the same brown wrapper. We plan to teach him many other tricks, such as “oh, no!” (paws over head), “die” (fall down when “shot” with your finger) and to speak, sing and dance on command. We’ll see if he’s up to it.

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Impatiently awaiting the release of “Matrix Reloaded” tomorrow. It irks me that I won’t be able to see it until the weekend. Was it really necessary to spend $300 Million on making these two sequel movies? The original “The Matrix” movie raised the bar on special effects, but will the 2nd and 3rd do the same? We’ll see…

Found some new quotes I like in the latest issue of “The Federalist”, a conservative newsletter that comes out two or three times a week and has clips, explanations, and commentary worth reading. I learned that WMD have been found in Iraq, in the form of a functional mobile WMD lab. Exactly what you’d expect, despite Sean Penn’s comments from Baghdad.

Recently finished reading P.J. O’Rourke’s book, “Give War a Chance”. Ten years out of date (the book is about the first Gulf War) yet it was completely timely. What sticks with me is his description of a gun-toting teen-aged wannabe terrorist who in one sentence called America “the great Satan who should be destroyed” and in his next breath said he would to move to Detroit and learn to be a dentist if he could get the money together.

Arrived home today after a week in Florida for my daughter’s wedding on the beach in Clearwater. She was beautiful – a mini Pamela Anderson Lee, tan and blonde and made up to the nines.

I don’t want to fly anywhere, ever again, despite the experience.

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I have reserved tickets to my daughter’s wedding in Florida. Should be fun, although taking a week off in May will be tough with my current workload. Feels good to have posted four stories today.

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