Well-spoken!

Apologies in advance to the politically apathetic, but I feel compelled to post my reaction to yesterday's edition of Meet the Press.

Yesterday's show had a two-segment format. In the first segment, Bill Bennett squared off against Jesse Jackson, trading predictable Republican vs. Democrat barbs. In the second, moderator Tim Russert assembled a panel of candidates representing the Libertarian, Constitution, and Natural Law parties for a general "grilling."

While it was refreshing to hear Harry Browne speak his mind at such a well-known and apparently widely viewed forum, it was a little disconcerting to see the Libertarian Party share the stage with, for example, the Natural Law Party, which believes - among other things, I'm sure - that a group of 7,000-1000 practitioners of Transcendental Meditation could relieve societal stress to the point where the inflation and unemployment rates would improve. Then again, given the contemporary political mainstream, it may be that anyone who believes in smaller, less expensive, and less intrusive government belongs over there, with the nut cases. Ye gods.

I found two of Browne's comments in the segment particularly well-said. The first came as Russert attempted to distinguish the positions of the Libertarian and the Constitution Parties on immigration.

Shortly after Russert said the word "difference," Browne broke in and said, "You know where the big difference is? And it's a big difference with Mr. Hagelin and with Mr. Jackson, with Mr. Bennett, with Gore, Bush, Nader, Buchanan, all of them-is that I believe the most important question in politics today is: Do you want smaller government? We have a $1.8 trillion government. Government at all levels is taking nearly half the national income. It's meddling in your bank account. It's monitoring your e-mail. And the question people need to ask is: Do you want smaller government?"

I answer this question with a resounding "Yes!"

He continued, noting that despite the growth in government, efforts to reform our schools haven't worked, nor have reforms to the health-care system, nor have attempts to close the border, nor has the government's war on drugs, nor have efforts to stamp out poverty. Government is not the answer.

Browne again made a valuable comment near the end of the show, when Russert asked whether it made a difference to a Libertarian if either George Bush or Al Gore was elected President.

Browne replied in the negative, adding, "You know, I know, everybody watching this show knows that four years from today, whichever one of them is elected, government will be bigger, more expensive, more intrusive, and more oppressive. If you vote Republican or Democrat, you are giving up. You're saying 'I'm never going to be free. America will never be a free country again. I will never get smaller government, so I'm just going to vote for the one I think will take me to hell at the slowest possible rate.'"

Browne then observed that "if you vote Libertarian, you may not win this year, but since you're not going to win anyway, what difference does it make?" He concluded his remarks by noting that a vote for the Libertarian Party made more sense than a vote to answer the question of "'Who do I hate more, Al Gore or George Bush?"

I think Browne communicated very effectively in the segment. But then again, I am biased.

Cheers...

Working up the nerve...

Resolving to call the chairman of the language department at my old high school was easy.

Calling was hard.

There was a cold feeling in my stomach as I contemplated dialing the number. Was this idea of showing up to talk about making a living with foreign language any good to begin with? What was I getting myself into? What if the chairman told me he wasn't interested? What if the chairman wasn't there?

The only way to deal with that feeling was to work through it. I made the call.

I left a message with my phone. Within the hour, the chairman called back. He is thrilled with the idea. I gave him my e-mail address and he will write with a proposed schedule.

Now, it probably would make sense to prepare something, seeing as how I've opened my big mouth and made a commitment.

Cheers...

Refining the search capability...

A few minutes spent modifying my search script has resulted in the following changes:

1) Searches are now case insensitive. This broadens the scope of any query, hopefully, not to the point of uselessness.

2) Searches consisting of more than one string (e.g., "Langdon Smith") will output a list of matching posts for each string (in this case, one for "Langdon" and another for "Smith"). This will have to do until I revamp the code to do a proper Boolean "and" search. The prospect for doing so is complicated by my indexing scheme, which only considers strings that are four or more characters in length, or three-character strings consisting of capital letters (e.g., FBI, ISS).

Cheers...