Lisa and the little boys are in Galveston. They went to visit our friends Duke and Donna. Duke is there for his job and Donna their children went to meet him for the weekend. They invited Lisa and the boys to join them as well.

Morgan was in Texas today also. She and several friends went to an Astros game. I assume Christian is at work right now.

I too am at work. I am working the “board job.” For the past four years I’ve been pumped up to top operator on my shift, and I’ve not worked the board in that time. I’ve been on a crash course to learn how to run the board on our new unit, it is just a little over a year old and I have never worked it before until I was bounced back.

I much prefer to work in my current position. The Top Operator position is a lot more responsibility for very little extra compensation. Patrick was on special assignment for the past four years and I had been moved up to fill his spot. At the end of last year our supervisor (area manager) decided to bounce Patrick back for a little while. He then offered to return him to the set up position, but Patrick decided that he liked our current 5-4 version of the 12 hour shift and so he elected to stay as top and not move back to set up job.

I can not express how happy I am that Patrick elected to stay on as top. Its good for him and me, but I heard our area manager was both disappointed and a bit upset at Patrick. I don’t know if that is true, but I do know Patrick did a very good job in the position he was in.

The latest book that I’ve read is What the Bible Teaches about Guidance by Peter Bloomfield. A co-worker asked me if I would read it so we could discuss its contents. I had never heard of the book or the author before and I have a full plate already when it comes to reading, but I said ok.

It is a great book and very practical. I recommend it very highly. Bloomfield is a Presbyterian minister in Australia. He writes well and his examples and illustrations are superb.

On the listening front, I should finish A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson very soon. This is a good work. Bryson is witty and informative, but he does seem to have a healthy bit of Yankee disdain for both Southern people and culture. Still, it is enjoyable even with that and the several secular sermons that he gives during the book. Bryson's book should get a PG-13 rating for its language.

I went to the parish library Saturday. While there I bought a (used) book on Irish folklore and I also picked up a couple more audio books. I chose Ann Coulter’s book Godless: The Church of Liberalism and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson.

I did listen to the first of the CD’s of Coulter’s book. What I’ve heard so far is interesting. Coulter has no problem calling a spade and spade. She has no problem going beyond that and referring to a spade as a damned shovel either. The book is witty and very irreverent. I wouldn't recommend it to someone interested in facts. It is written more like "pep rally literature." It seems obvious to me that her intent is to fire up the home team and infuriate the opposition. I think she has accomplished both those goals.

I laughed a lot. Her irreverence is funny and she does make some valid points, but this is not for the serious reader who wants greater understanding. Still it is not a long book and so I will continue listening. I am certain that I will enjoy the jabs that she’s throwing at the liberal elites who are in the media, Hollywood, and the Democratic party, even though her defence of the Republican Party may make me green around the gills from time to time.

Coulter does (so far) confuse true conservatism with the Republican Party. This is a gross distortion of reality. The Republican party is the party of neocons at best and this is not (IMHO) true conservatism. True conservatism is much closer to the libertarians than the modern Republican Party is today.

Her attacks on liberalism, while often overly simplistic and hyperbolic, do ring true at the core. However her equating conservatism with Republican Party is not accurate. Yes, the Republicans are more conservative than Democrates, and some of them are truely conservative, but this does not make the party conservative.

I have, at one time or another, belonged to each party. Today I belong to neither. When I was first able to vote, being a Louisiana conservative, I joined the Democratic Party, which was a conservative party long ago. In the 1980's I worked with a guy who had been a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, which nominated Jimmy Carter to be president. He had a copy of the Democratic Presidential Platform from that event. This excited me and I asked to borrow it. I read the Presidential Platform, returned it to its owner and then immediatly went the courthouse and changed my party affiliation to Republican.

I officially left the Republican Party two and a half years ago, disgusted by much of what the Republicans were doing, now that they had gained power in both houses of congress and the White House.

Bonjour,
Kenith