Ah, the joys of a new computer — plus some Olympics talkl
I got my filing finished today, which ate up the morning, but I have a little — a very little — time now to doodle around before I have 15 kids swarm my backyard for a party. The problem is that, as always, one seems to lose as much as one gains when switching to a new computer. Right now, I’ve lost Adobe (not the reader, but actual Adobe); I’ve lost access to my Outlook, because I can’t get the Vista Outlook to read my old WP personal folders data; and (which is the killer for blogging) I’ve lost all my beloved bookmarks. Even though I copied my Firefox profile off my old computer and replaced it on this new one — no bookmarks. It’s going to take me a little while to reassemble all of my regular reads, so please bear with me on this.
As it is, I don’t know if I actually have anything to say anyway. When I last looked at a newspaper before bedtime, nothing struck me particularly.
I do have an interesting observation from home, though. Ours is not a house in which patriotism is stressed on a day to day basis, although my kids do get talks about the difference between Communist/Socialist societies and free societies. And I do mention the rights we have in this country. And basically, without any “stand in front of the classroom” lectures, I do try to get across to them that we are uniquely blessed here. But I don’t think that has anything to do with what I’m seeing what we watch the Olympics. They instantly morphed into rabidly pro-American fans. The other teams don’t rate. It’s “America this” and “America that” and, most often, “I want the Americans to win.” Tribalism lives.
On the subject of Communism, though, I did use the women’s gymnastics as the opportunity to give my daughter a little lesson on the difference between living in a state-focused society, such as China, versus an individual-focused society, such as the US. NBC has been doing a good job of showing the way in which the Chinese scour the country for talented 3 year olds, remove them from their families, and then proceed to abuse those little bodies for 13 years so that they can do incredible feats at the Olympics. My daughter now understands that, if the State is the central focus, there is nothing to stop a government from systematically abusing thousands of children in the hope of creating one gold medalist. In American, people do gymnastics because they want to. The State has no coercive power here, and wouldn’t dream of dragging children from their homes simply to keep face at the Olympics.
