(Originally posted to Home at EraBlog on Fri, 25 Jul 2003 06:50:20 GMT)

As I mentioned in my Toastmasters' speech about naturalization, I decided on September 11th, 2002 to become a U.S. citizen.

This morning, I had my interview with the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS, formerly known as the INS).

This afternoon, I was sworn in as a U.S. citizen at the Seattle INS Office. Eighty-three other new citizens were sworn in at the same time. Many were Filipino, Vietnamese, Mexican, or Eastern European. Only three others, all Brits, were from Western Europe. We were gathered into a stuffy room with an overflow crowd of relatives and friends. It was not a deeply moving ceremony, but it was clear that most of us were sincerely glad to become Americans. If my interview had come a month sooner, I would have chosen to participate in the massive July 4th ceremony at the Seattle Center.

Woohoo! Now I get a vote for the first time since 1986. As my youngest brother Mark, who became a citizen last year, just told me, I now have an opportunity to get the Bush kleptocracy out of office.

(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Wed, 23 Jul 2003 06:25:56 GMT)

[Found in my email. Original author unknown.]

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ('AP', played by John Cleese) walks down the street carrying THE IRAQI INVASION (played by an empty parrot cage). He walks into THE WHITE HOUSE (played by a cheesy storefront) and addresses COLIN POWELL ('CP', played by Michael Palin).

AP: Excuse me... boy!

CP: (turns around and stands up) What d'you mean, 'boy?'

AP: I'm sorry; I have contact lenses. At any rate, I wish to register a complaint!

CP: Sorry, squire, I can't talk to you now. It's Code Orange! (he hastily starts to put up a sign)

AP: Never mind that now, my fine fellow. I wish to register a complain about this military action, which you sold me just a couple of months ago.

CP: Oh yes, the Iraqi invasion. Lovely little war, that was. What... uh, what seems to be wrong with it?

AP: I'll tell you what's wrong with it. It's empty, that's what's wrong with it.

CP: Oh, no, no, no. It's not empty at all. It's served its purpose, it has. Freed the oppressed people of Iraq, fed the homeless, brought everlasting fame and glory to our bulging leader.

AP: But when I purchased this dreary little police action from you, you assured me that the whole and entire purpose was to disarm Saddam Hussein and take away, quote, his vast stockpiles of ready-to-use weapons of mass destruction, end quote.

CP: Oh, there's some mistake. We went in to liberate the poor oppressed people of...

AP: Listen, mate. I took the liberty of recording your voice when you sold me that thing, and here's what it says. (produces tape recorder)

Tape: (CP's voice): "We know just where they are. We know just what they've got. They're buried in these bunkers right here, which our surveillance satellites have photographed not more than twenty minutes ago. They could not possibly be used for any purpose other than the storage of hideous, slime-dripping nuclear anthrax chemical weapons of mass destruction. Say, are you recording me?"

AP: Right. And when we "liberated" those poor bastards, the bunker was found to contain little more than a twenty-year collection of Penthouse and Hustler magazines, plus a dozen lava lamps and a mini-bar.

CP: Well...

AP: Well?

CP: Well, of course they'd cleaned it out before they left. Sold it all to their chums in the Taliban, they did.

AP: I happen to know that their 'chums,' as you so colorfully put it, hate their guts and have referred to them repeatedly as "scabrous lackeys of the internationalist secular state," end quotation.

CP: Well, they have to say that, don't they? I mean, it's all part of the grand scheme. Lovely little war, wa'nit? Liberated all them poor...

AP: Stoppit! All you've done is make their lives worse than before. That's why they keep killing our soldiers.

CP: Oh no, squire. They're grateful. That's why they pulled down that statue.

AP: I've seen the footage of the event, and the only Iraqis in the picture appear to have had their feet nailed there.

CP: Well, of course they were nailed there. If we hadn't nailed them, they'd've been crushed by the falling statue, wouldn't they? It was for their own safety. That's why we liberated the...

AP: Shut up. Did you or did you not allege on several different occasions that we had found the weapons of mass destruction and that therefore the entire ill-advised escapade was a rousing success?

CP: What, them trailers? Well, of course they was weapons of mass destruction. They could've used them for germs, or chemicals, or...

AP: In fact, they were used for hydrogen, and precious little of that. They didn't even have walls, for pity's sake.

CP: Well, hydrogen's pretty dangerous, isn't it, Squire? It could power tanks or jets or... and what about that Hindenberry thing? Let's see you stand in a room full of liquid hydrogen with nothing but a ripe boysenberry to defend yourself with, and you'll soon see mass destructive. Wouldn't want to be in your shoes then! And anyway, we liberated the...

AP: Liberation don't enter into it, mate. It was a bleeding sham.

CP: No, it was liberation!

AP: Sham, sham, sham! And you didn't find any weapons of mass destruction!

CP: Well, of course we didn't, Squire. They was... they was looted.

AP: Looted? LOOTED?

CP: Yeah. When our boys was busy not looking at the museum, they looted all them weapons out from under their noses. And anyway, we liberated...

AP: You're saying that starving peasants with no resources of their own simply looted vast stores of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons? With What??

CP: They carried them off on their bicycles.

AP: But a missile weighs several tons, and a bicycle can only carry, at most, a couple of hundred pounds.

CP: They used two bicycles, with a bungee cord between 'em. They're a nasty lot, Squire. Not like the ones that sang songs to us when we liberated...

AP: Will you shut up? Since when is it liberation to leave a people destitute, without food, water, electricity, or law enforcement?

CP: Those things was all shackles on them. We freed 'em, I tell you! They're grateful to us. They're singin' songs...

AP: Those aren't songs, you parsimonious prevaricator, they're protesting in the streets, and shooting at our soldiers.

CP: They're just exuberant. Like to fire off their guns a lot, now they're free and all. They don't mean nuffin' by it. They're just so happy to be liberated, with Hussein gone. You mark my words; he was the real weapon of mass destruction his own self, why, he...

AP: That's another thing. You didn't even get him, did you?

CP: Well...

AP: You don't even know where he is, do you?

CP: We got a tip...

AP: You've been blowing up caravans and bombing cities and striking about blindly, because your yahoo cowboy boss refused to listen to any intelligence that contradicted his beliefs. Which, when you come down to it, precluded the use of any intelligence whatsoever.

CP: I see. Quite. (pause) Well, then, we'd better replace it, hadn't we?

AP: With what?

CP: Well, them Iranis are gettin' pretty swaggery, ain't they?

AP: I thought you were encouraging them to rise up against their religious leaders, now that they aren't accepting any more cakes from your lot.

CP: Fair enough. How about something in a nice little Afghanistan?

AP: You've already done that one. Worse than Iraq, if I recall.

CP: How about... coming up to my place and re-electing my boss?

AP: Why in the world would I want to do that? Why wouldn't I just vote for the Democrats and chase you idiots out of office, once for all?

AP: Oh, no, Squire! No, no, no, no! You wouldn't want to do that, trust me on this one.

AP: And why not, if I may be so brash as to query?

CP: Well, they're a bunch of psychopathic liars, they are, always Whitewaterin', 'aving sex in the Oval Office, taking' expensive haircuts on Air Force One, trashing the White House, murderin' poor ol' Vince Foster, and claiming they invented the Internet.

AP: Point taken! Well, then, I'll have a North Korea to go, please.

CP: You won't regret it, Squire! I'll just wrap it up. (tears an American flag off of a roll and clumsily wraps up the same cage the AP carried in.) Come again!

(Originally posted to Humor at EraBlog on Thu, 10 Jul 2003 05:12:39 GMT)

Nippon TV made a very funny Matrix-style parody of two people playing table tennis.

(Originally posted to Home at EraBlog on Mon, 07 Jul 2003 15:34:22 GMT)

I gave the following speech to Toastmasters on June 25th, 2003, as Speech #4, "Show What You Mean". Clearly, I've reused some material from my earlier post about Bloomsday. I'm also finding that I take longer to deliver a speech to an audience than I do when rehearsing, so I cut some of the material on the day to fit the seven-minute limit.

I've uploaded some photos of the reading to one of my other websites.

BLOOMSDAY

"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather..."

So begins James Joyce's Ulysses, one of the most famous, and famously difficult, novels of the Twentieth Century. The book is by turns funny, obscure, insightful, and irritating.

The whole book takes place in Dublin on June 16th, 1904 and tells of the wanderings of Leopold Bloom, a middle-aged Irish Jew, and of Stephen Dedalus, a young writer who is Joyce's alter ego.

Nowadays, there is a thriving Joycean industry in Ireland, that re-enacts portions of the book on Bloomsday, June 16th, the anniversary of Ulysses.

Next year is the centenary and you can be sure that the Joycean industry will make the most of the occasion. Ireland loves Joyce now: he helps bring in the tourist dollars.

This wasn't always true. Ulysses was banned in Ireland until the 1960s. It was considered obscene, pornographic, and profane. It's true that Joyce was an apostate Catholic who mocked the Church and that he was unusually frank about lust, sex, and excretion, but the novel is undoubtedly a work of literature, not mere base titillation.

Ulysses was also banned in the United States when it was first published in 1922 because it was considered pornographic. That ban was overturned in 1933.

Bloomsday is celebrated outside Ireland too. In many cities around the world, you will find groups of Joyce fans celebrating on June 16th. In Seattle, the Wild Geese Players have been staging readings of Ulysses for the last few years. This year, I joined them.

We staged readings from Chapters 8 and 9 at the Brechemin Auditorium in the School of Music at the University of Washington. We had a cast of about fifteen readers who read aloud from scripts, acting the parts of various characters. We were watched by about forty people, only half of whom were related to the cast.

Ulysses is very loosely modeled on Homer's Odyssey, the classic Greek epic, which tells of the wanderings of Odysseus, who took ten years to return home from the siege of Troy. (Ulysses is the Roman name for Odysseus.) Each chapter of Ulysses roughly corresponds to a book of the Odyssey. Each chapter is written in a very different style. Leopold Bloom represents Odysseus the wanderer, while Stephen Dedalus represents Telemachus, Odysseus's son, and Molly Bloom represents Penelope, Odysseus's wife.

Chapter 8 of Ulysses is The Lestrygonians. In the Odyssey, the Lestrygonians are foul cannibals who threaten Odysseus's crew. In Ulysses, Bloom wanders southwards through the center of Dublin, encountering sights, smells, food, and drink as he goes. He enters one pub in search of lunch, but is repulsed by the gorging and gluttony of the customers. He moves to Davy Byrne's pub, where he eats a calm lunch. Bloom's interior monologue takes up most of the chapter, as he observes people and places on his walk. There are a number of encounters along the way.

This chapter was difficult to stage. Bloom moves from one encounter to another. We had perhaps twenty scenes in ninety minutes. I myself played four minor characters.

I came on first as Denis Breen, the half-mad husband of Mrs. Breen, whom Bloom has spent the last five minutes talking to in the street. I shuffle unseeing across the stage, muttering to myself, clutching an enormous tome to my chest. A real stretch!

A few minutes later, when Bloom is recalling a pro-Boer student riot at Trinity College Dublin, I return, playing the part of one of those students. Wrapped in my old Trinity scarf, I stride onto the stage bellowing such slogans as "Up the Boers!" and "We'll hang Joe Chamberlain on a sourapple tree!" It wakes the audience up nicely.

For my third part, I play the barman in the first pub that Bloom enters, the one that soon repels him. I get to utter in my best working-class Dublin accent such memorable lines as "Roast beef and cabbage", "One stew", and "Pint of stout", while serving some of the customers.

My final role in this chapter was slightly meatier. I played Tom Rochford, one of a trio who enter Davy Byrne's pub as Bloom is eating his lunch. We stand around, ordering drinks and arguing about horse racing.

Chapter 9 of Ulysses is Scylla and Charybdis. In the Odyssey, Scylla is a six-headed monster, while Charybdis is a whirlpool. In Ulysses, these dangers are metaphorical, as the journey becomes becalmed in the literary debate between Stephen Dedalus and other writers of the day, We are subjected to torrents of language, in lyric, in dramatic, in verse, and in prose form, as well as Stephen's interior monologue. The debate wanders through the life of Shakespeare, especially his relationship with Ann Hathaway; Shakespeare's work, particularly Hamlet; and the nature of father/son relationships.

This chapter was much easier to stage, if harder to follow. Almost the whole chapter takes place around some tables in the National Library. We sat mostly, although we did stand for the Hamletesque play within the play, and Buck Mulligan wanders around poking into things.

I read the smallest of the main roles in this chapter, that of Mr Best, an inoffensive young man in the mold of Bertie Wooster, who can't quite hold his own in the debate that rages between Stephen and the other writers.

He says such things as "But Hamlet is so personal, isn't it? I mean a kind of private paper, don't you know, of [Shakespeare's] private life. I mean I don't care a button, don't you know, who is killed or who is guilty..."

I enjoyed myself that night. I hope I have conveyed something of the flavor of the evening, if not much of the book itself. That's difficult to do without reading aloud passages from the book, and this speech format doesn't lend itself to that.

Cut due to lack of time

Several times in the last 20 years, I have attempted to read Ulysses. Always before, I gave up in the first half of the book. Some of it is very difficult, especially when Joyce is playing with language.

I'm rereading the book once again. I've not yet finished it but I've gotten further than I ever did before. I've learned two tricks. The first is not to give up if a section doesn't make sense. Just keep going. It'll get more enjoyable. I don't think it all makes sense to anyone on the first reading. The second trick is that sounds are very important. Joyce was a poet. Subvocalize or speak aloud the odder bits and the music will come through.

It is said that Ulysses is the most difficult of the entertaining books and the most entertaining of the difficult books.

(Originally posted to Politics at EraBlog on Thu, 12 Jun 2003 06:47:24 GMT)

I detest George W. Bush and his administration. The war, the economy, the environment, the judicial battles. I loathe just about everything that comes out of the White House. I want that man gone.

I've been following the Democratic presidential candidates with some interest for the last few months. Right now, I feel like I'm a yellow dog Democrat. I don't care who wins in 2004, just so long as it's a Democrat.

That's not really true, however. I'd much rather have a candidate that I have some enthusiasm for, rather than the lesser of two evils: such as Holy Joe Lieberman or Bob Graham. It's not enough to be against Bush; I have to be for someone. Of the electable candidates, I like Howard Dean the best.

Dean was the Governor of Vermont for nearly twelve years, winning re-election five times. He positions himself as a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. He's an MD, who managed to bring in health insurance for almost child in Vermont. He also balanced the budget every year, and signed the only civil unions bill in the nation, which almost gives marriage to gay people. He has also attracted a fair amount of attention for opposing the Iraq war.

I got to hear him when he spoke to the Microsoft Political Action Commitee during his visit to Seattle a couple of weeks ago, and I found him to be forthright, personable, and refreshing. He spoke off the cuff and he gave reasoned responses to difficult questions. Compare that to Bush's scripted responses. For example, when asked about a report that he had felt uncomfortable about signing the civil unions bill in Vermont, he replied that like most heterosexual male Americans, he wasn't comfortable around gay people, but he didn't let that blind him to the injustice of the situation.

I just watched his appearance on the Charlie Rose show that I recorded on the TiVo last week. Dean has built an enormous following on the Internet, and he's appealing to a lot of people who've never been involved in politics before.

Dean will be formally declaring his candicacy on June 23rd.

(Originally posted to Home at EraBlog on Wed, 11 Jun 2003 03:54:21 GMT)

I have recently become involved with the upcoming local celebration of Bloomsday, on June 16th. James Joyce's Ulysses takes place on June 16th, 1904. In Seattle and elsewhere, fans of the book re-enact portions of the book. In Dublin, Joyce has spawned a whole industry: ironic, when you consider how little recognition he received there during his lifetime. No doubt, the Joycean industry will go into overdrive next year for the centenary.

The Seattle group has been working its way through the book since 1998. This year, we are reading Chapters 8 and 9, "Lestrygonians" and "Scylla and Charybdis". I had been vaguely aware that readings were held every year, but I hadn't been to any of them. Two weeks ago, I saw on the Seattle Irish News mailing list that more readers were needed, so I decided to apply. I am reading Dennis Breen, Dixon, the barman in Burton's restaurant, and Tom Rochford in Chapter 8, and Mr. Best in Chapter 9. The reading will start at 8pm on June 16th, at the Brechemin Auditorium at the School of Music in the University of Washington.

Chapter 8, "Lestrygonians", describes Bloom's peregrination through the center of Dublin. He crosses the Liffey and heads south towards the National Library. Much of the chapter is Bloom's stream of consciousness, as he observes people and places along the way. He runs into a few acquaintances and ends up in Davy Byrne's pub to eat lunch.

Chapter 9, "Scylla and Charybdis", takes place in the National Library. Bloom is briefly observed in the background, but doesn't say anything. Stephen Dedalus, Joyce's young alter ego, is the subject of this chapter. He holds forth in a long discussion of Shakespeare and Hamlet. As usual, he's witty, erudite, and not a little insecure.

As a Dubliner, you might expect that I have an affinity for the book. I first attempted to read Ulysses in 1982, the centenary of Joyce's birth, when I was 17. I gave up after a few chapters, finding it heavy going and obscure. I've tried it again a few times since then, but have never got more than a couple of hundred pages in to the book.

I'm trying once again. This time it's going better. No doubt, because I have a motivation. But also, it makes more sense to me. I've learned two tricks. The first is that if a section doesn't make sense, don't give up. Keep going. It'll get more enjoyable. I don't think it all makes sense to anyone on a first reading. The second is that the sounds are very important. Joyce was a poet. Subvocalize the odder bits and the music will come through.

Someone once said that Ulysses is the most difficult of the entertaining books and the most entertaining of the difficult books.

I'm looking forward to the reading.

(Originally posted to Toastmasters at EraBlog on Fri, 16 May 2003 06:06:39 GMT)

I gave the following speech to Toastmasters on January 29th, 2003, as Speech #2, "Sincerity".

NATURALIZATION

Fellow Toastmasters and Guests, last September, on the first anniversary of 9/11, I made one of the biggest decisions of my life: I decided to apply for American citizenship, to become naturalized.

Like many of you, I am an immigrant. I have spent most of my adult life in this country. Fourteen years ago, I came to the US from Ireland to earn a Masters degree. I moved to Seattle in 1992, the same year that I became a permanent resident. I have made a career here, as well as many ties: those of friends, of family, and of assets. I met my wife here five years ago; together we have bought a lovely house in Seattle.

My two brothers became US citizens last year. Apart from my parents and some friends in Dublin, my ties to Ireland grow weaker every year. I have changed and grown since I came here and Ireland has changed too. It's noticeably different from the country that I left, both better and worse. I am still proud of being Irish, but I expect to spend the rest of my life living in America.

It might seem to you that it should have been an obvious decision for me to become a US citizen. Indeed, you might ask why I didn't do it much sooner. But this was not an easy decision for me. I dithered about it for years. Only my decision to come out of the closet as a bisexual in '91 was harder.

I put this decision off for so long because I have misgivings about America, the swaggering bully of the world, about the outrageous consumption of the planet's resources, about the arrogance and complacency of so many Americans who uncritically believe that America is better than anywhere else.

I am leery of American patriotism because it is so often identified with conformity, blind nationalism, and militarism. America: Love It or Leave It! My Country, Right or Wrong!

I am appalled by a rich country leaving 41 million of its citizens without health insurance. I am troubled by the intolerance and power of the Religious Right. I have no liking for the Bush administration, their war mongering, their unilateralism, their crony capitalism, their disregard for the environment, their abrogation of rights in the name of security.

This litany is so depressing that you must be wondering by now not why it took me so long to apply for citizenship, but why I haven't fled to a more congenial country.

I want to become an American because I believe in the promise of America, in the ideals of the Founding Fathers: the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I believe in the Bill of Rights, in Freedom of Speech, and in the Separation of Church and State.

I want to become an American because for all of its flaws, America has so much in its favor. This is a beautiful country, full of millions of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. Many of them are working hard to build a better society. America provides great freedoms and opportunities, not just to make money but to remake oneself.

Freedom of speech is taken seriously here: Europe has chilling libel laws instead of the First Amendment. In the US, I have the right to dissent. I can call the Clintons foul fiends from Hell or write that Bush is a dangerous dolt, without fear that the secret police will kick down my door one night and haul me off to the gulag. This is why Operation TIPS and the Pentagon's Office of Total Information Awareness are so unAmerican.

In Ireland, the Catholic Church had a "special position" written into the Constitution for several decades, though its authority has been much diminished in recent years. In America, the principle of Separation of Church and State means that I am free to be a godless atheist and my wife is free to be a Wiccan. Some people may object to that, but the state does not privilege their religious beliefs over mine, nor mine over theirs.

No other country has come close to the technological ferment of Silicon Valley. Only in America could Microsoft have been such a success. The Internet was born here and still remains deeply American. My early exposure to the Net in the mid-to-late Eighties played a big part in my initial decision to come here.

Millions of people move here every year, making America the most heterogenous society in the world. For all of its flaws, this is a good place to be! There is no perfect country! Every country, every nation has problems.

Permanent residents have all the responsibilities of citizenship, save that of jury duty. I pay taxes, I am subject to the laws of this country. Had I been slightly younger when I got my green card, I would have been required to register for the draft.

As a permanent resident, I also have many rights in the US. But there is one right that I do not have, perhaps the most important right of all: the vote. I have been of voting age for almost 20 years, but I have only once had the opportunity to vote in a national election in Ireland or the U.S, seventeen years ago in 1986.

Even though I have been active in the community for many years, giving time and money to causes that I care about, I diminish myself by forgoing the full experience of being an American.

Like many others, I found the events of 9/11 profoundly disturbing. I was heartened when the country pulled together afterwards, then disappointed when it drifted back to business as usual.

Nevertheless, in honor of 9/11, I chose to apply for American citizenship. I hope to become a citizen within a year.

It was time for me to move past my fears and embrace America wholeheartedly. This is my home now. If there are things that I do not like about it, then I must work harder to change them.

I'm proud of much that is good in America: its fine people, its beautiful lands, its Constitution. I'm proud to be part of a country that gives rise to leaders like Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson. America is the wellspring of modern democracy and it continues to inspire the world.

Naturalization was the right choice for me. I hope American citizenship is also the right choice for you.

I heard from the INS last week. My "initial interview" is scheduled for late July.

(Originally posted to Toastmasters at EraBlog on Thu, 24 Apr 2003 06:08:36 GMT)

I gave the following speech to Toastmasters on March 5th, 2003, as Speech #3, "Organize Your Speech".

SLEEP APNEA

My wife is a cyborg.

That's not to say that she's the Terminator. Nor even that she's the six-million dollar woman, although I do value her greatly. She calls herself a cyborg because she sleeps with a breathing machine. At night, she wears a mask over her nose to force air into her lungs.

When I first met her, she complained of being tired all the time, of not getting a good night's sleep, of feeling stupid. When she drove for any length of time, she'd have to pull over for a short nap every hour. It was that or fall asleep at the wheel.

Once we started spending the night together, I quickly learned that she snores. Loudly. But it was a different kind of snoring than I was used to. In my experience, most people snore steadily, in a seesaw pattern like this: <snore in> <whistle out> <pause> <snore in> <whistle out>

Not so Emma. She would be very quiet for a minute or so, hardly breathing at all. Then she'd breathe in very loudly, almost gasping for air: <SNNNNORKKK!!> She'd go quiet for a minute or so, then snore loudly again. And so the cycle would repeat. All night long.

Naturally, I didn't enjoy this much. Sometimes, it would keep me awake for hours, and I'd have to move to the spare room just to get some sleep.

After one such episode, when I snarled "I can't take this anymore!" at her, she decided to see her doctor about it.

Emma's doctor thought that her symptoms sounded like sleep apnea, even though she didn't fit the stereotype of being an overweight, middle-aged man.

Apnea is Greek for "without breath". Sleep apnea is a breathing disorder, where the sufferer repeatedly stops breathing during sleep. After a minute or two without breathing, which leads to a reduction in blood-oxygen saturation, the brain forces the upper airway muscles to open the airway. Breathing resumes, usually with a loud snoring sound or gasp. These frequent arousals means that the sufferer doesn't get much deep, restorative sleep: the REM sleep that you need to be well-rested.

The effects of this lack of deep sleep build up over time. The sufferers often feel very sleepy during the day. Their concentration suffers. They lack energy. They become irritable and they have difficulty learning things. They may fall asleep while driving and they are significantly more likely to have accidents. Occasionally, they may even die in their sleep.

Sleep apnea occurs in all age groups and both sexes. It's estimated that four percent of middle-aged men have sleep apnea, and two percent of middle-aged women, with perhaps twelve to eighteen million Americans suffering from it. Most cases go undiagnosed.

The primary kind of sleep apnea is due to an obstruction in breathing. This can be due to a physical abnormality in the nose, throat, or upper airway. Many, but not all, sufferers are overweight and have an excess of soft flesh in the airway. When they sleep, the muscles in the soft palate, at the back of the roof of the mouth, relax, closing the airway. This can make breathing difficult, or it can stop it altogether.

One analogy is that it's like putting your hand over the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner. Your hand blocks all air getting in, like the upper airway collapses, even though the vacuum cleaner is still applying suction, just as the body continues to try to breathe. The vacuum cleaner is straining and so is the human body.

Under managed care, Emma's doctor couldn't send her for a sleep study directly. Instead, she was referred to an ear-, nose-, and throat-specialist. He also joked that she didn't fit the stereotype of being fat, fifty, and male. He looked at her small mouth and nose and her undershot jaw, and he agreed that it probably was sleep apnea. He referred her to a sleep specialist. The sleep specialist also trotted out the line about her not fitting the stereotype, but he did schedule her for a sleep study.

She spent a night at the sleep clinic in Swedish Hospital in Ballard. They attached electrodes all over her head and torso, as well as other instruments that made her look like the Bride of Frankenstein. The instruments were hooked up to a plotter that graphed all kinds of body functions continuously. When I came back in the morning to collect her, the plotter had produced a pile of fanfold paper that was a foot thick.

When Emma went back to the sleep specialist for her follow appointment, he told her that she had stopped breathing about twenty-six times an hour. It was no wonder that she had such difficulty in getting a good night's rest.

He told her that she could either have surgery or learn to sleep with the help of a breathing machine. The surgery would have involved removing excess tissue at the back of the throat and moving her jaw further forward. Emma was not keen on that, especially as the success rate of surgery is only about fifty to sixty percent.

She opted for a CPAP sleep machine instead. She straps a nose-mask around her head. This nose-mask is connected by a hose to a continuous positive air-pressure machine. This forces air through her nose and into her lungs.

She had to have a second sleep study to calibrate her CPAP machine for her breathing. It starts out at a low pressure and ramps up to the right pressure over a twenty-minute interval.

It took her a few weeks to get accustomed to the CPAP machine. It's not a very natural feeling to have air forced into your nose continuously. She now sleeps far better with it than she did before. Sometimes, she doesn't bother to put on her mask before taking a nap, and she usually regrets it, because she wakes up feeling less rested.

It took me a while to get used to the CPAP machine too, because it makes white noise all night long, as it's huffing away. It's a little like sleeping beside Darth Vader, and it's not very romantic, but it certainly beats her snoring.

When we travel, we bring the CPAP machine in an overnight case, along with an extension cord and a selection of adapters for foreign electrical outlets. The CPAP machine means that we can't go camping for more than a night or so, or Emma doesn't get enough rest.

In retrospect, Emma probably had sleep apnea for many years before it was diagnosed.

Now, not everyone who snores has sleep apnea. Only if they also have difficulty in breathing and chronically can't get a good night's rest, are they likely to have sleep apnea. Most undiagnosed sleep apnea sufferers are unaware that they repeatedly stop breathing because they don't wake up far enough to realize it.

If you know someone who may have the symptoms of sleep apnea, please, urge them to see their doctor. You could save their life.

(Originally posted to Personal at EraBlog on Tue, 22 Apr 2003 16:04:19 GMT)

I've been too busy in the last few weeks to post anything here. Mostly because I've been busy with work. Partially because I'm too disgusted with Iraq to say anything useful: Win the war and lose the peace. Feh!

In the last few days, I've been at home taking care of Emma. On Friday morning, she had a Morton's neuroma removed from her left foot. A nerve running through the space between a couple of her toes had become enlarged to about a centimeter in diameter, and it had been causing her a lot of pain. She wasn't able to stand or walk for more than 20 minutes without discomfort, which rapidly grew worse the longer she stayed on her feet. It first became a serious problem when we were in Ireland during Christmas 2001, when her foot gave out on Christmas Day. She was in great pain and spent the rest of the vacation on crutches.

For the first week or so, she has to keep her foot elevated as much as possible, and she's under doctor's orders not to put any weight on it. Even if she were inclined to flout the orders, any time that she's accidentally jolted it has been intensely painful. I'm staying home for a few days to help nurse her.

After she goes back to work, I'm still going to have to look after her for the next six-to-eight weeks. She's supposed to minimize the amount of walking or standing that she does, which means that she can't wait for the bus and she can't drive, so I'll have to bring her to and from work. I'll also have to bring her to physical therapy several times a week.

She's bearing up well, considering the amount of pain that she's been in and the frustration she feels at being able to do so little for herself. I dislike seeing her in pain, so I'm looking forward to the time that she'll be able to walk comfortably again.

(Originally posted to Humor at EraBlog on Sun, 30 Mar 2003 03:06:43 GMT)

Emma got this list of "why did the chicken cross the road?" jokes off one of her mailing lists. I've seen most of these before, but some are new, and I can't find this selection on Google.

EMMA BARTHOLOMEW

To show the possum that it could be done.

GEORGE W. BUSH

We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here.

COLIN POWELL

Now at the left of the screen, you clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

HANS BLIX

We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed access to the other side of the road.

MOHAMMED ALDOURI (Iraqi ambassador)

The chicken did not cross the road. This is a complete fabrication. We don't even have a chicken.

SADDAM HUSSEIN

This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

RALPH NADER

The chicken's habitat on the original side of the road had been polluted by unchecked industrialist greed. The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.

PAT BUCHANAN

To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American.

RUSH LIMBAUGH

I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I'll bet it was getting a government grant to cross the road, and I'll bet someone out there is already forming a support group to help chickens with crossing-the-road syndrome. Can you believe this? How much more of this can real Americans take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by their tax dollars, and when I say tax dollars, I'm talking about your money, money the government took from you to build roads for chickens to cross.

MARTHA STEWART

No one called to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the farmer's market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

JERRY FALWELL

Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the other side. That's what they call it -- the other side. Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like the other side.

DR. SEUSS

Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, The chicken crossed the road, But why it crossed, I've not been told!

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

To die. In the rain. Alone.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

GRANDPA

In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

BARBARA WALTERS

Isn't that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting and went on to accomplish its life-long dream of crossing the road.

JOHN LENNON

Imagine all the chickens crossing roads in peace.

ARISTOTLE

It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

KARL MARX

It was an historical inevitability.

VOLTAIRE

I may not agree with what the chicken did, but I will defend to the death its right to do it.

RONALD REAGAN

What chicken?

CAPTAIN KIRK

To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

FOX MULDER

You saw it cross the road with your own eyes! How many more chickens have to cross before you believe it?

SIGMUND FREUD

The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

BILL GATES

I have just released eChicken 2003, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook - and Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of eChicken.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken?

BILL CLINTON

I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by chicken? Could you define chicken, please?

COLONEL SANDERS

I missed one?

(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Mon, 24 Mar 2003 06:56:07 GMT)

A friend of Emma's sent her a link to an article by Thom Hartmann at Commondreams.org.

The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.

It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)

---

I'm not quite paranoid enough (yet) to buy the analogy, but the numerous parallels are eerie and discomforting.

[permalink: http://EraBlog.NET/filters/10246.post]

(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Fri, 21 Mar 2003 08:04:55 GMT)

Peter Turnley is a photojournalist who covered the first Gulf War. The Unseen Gulf War is his collection of previously unpublished photos from that war. The photos present no political viewpoint, but what they do "represent is a part of a more accurate picture of what really does happen in war". Warning: there are a number of graphic images of corpses.

(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Fri, 21 Mar 2003 07:38:19 GMT)

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Teddy Roosevelt, 1918

We're at war. The anti-war protests have ratcheted up, with hundreds of thousands protesting all over the country.

Emma joined the protest outside the Federal Building in Seattle early this evening. She went back to her office after an hour because her bad feet were killing her. Not long after, I arrived in downtown and followed the protesters as they marched up to Westlake, then back down to the Federal Building, where Emma joined me again.

I have no hope that this will make any difference to Bush. But it's important to be counted.

Senator Robert Byrd gave a fine speech yesterday, on the arrogance of power. Michael Kinsley wrote Unauthorized entry - The Bush Doctrine: War without anyone's permission, in today's Slate. Mike Duncan dissects the speech that Bush gave on Monday night, giving Saddam 48 more hours in Lies, Damned Lies, and Ultimatums.

(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Tue, 18 Mar 2003 06:41:46 GMT)

Almost, but not quite, at war with Iraq. Saddam has forty-eight hours to quit Iraq and avert war, but no-one expects him to do that. Feh.

I would feel slightly better about the new war if Bush had managed to forge a broad-based coalition. Instead, in their heavyhanded way, Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Perle have managed to piss off most of the world.

Paul Glastris has a good article in Slate about how Bush repeatedly botched the opportunities to get the UN and NATO on board, in contrast with Clinton in Kosovo and his own father for the first Gulf War.

(Originally posted to Ireland at EraBlog on Tue, 18 Mar 2003 06:52:18 GMT)

Roy Foster has a good op-ed in Monday's New York Times about the origin of St. Patrick's Day, and how it's celebrated in the U.S.

[Sorry, the piece is now behind the Times Select firewall.]

(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Mon, 17 Mar 2003 06:59:33 GMT)

MoveOn.org organized a rolling wave of candlelight vigils across the world today, held at 7pm local time on Sunday, March 16th. Emma and I joined three of our friends at the vigil at the Seattle Central Community College, at Broadway and Pike. I estimate that there were 300-400 people there, and probably thousands more at the other vigils in the Seattle area.

It looks certain that Bush will declare war on Iraq in the next day or two. I'm still against the war. I would very much like to see Saddam gone (the poor bloody Iraqis never deserved thirty-plus years of that thug's misrule), but I don't trust Bush to do it right. Look at how badly they've followed through in Afghanistan: the country has reverted to warlordism outside of Kabul.

Nor has he made a compelling case for going to war. Instead, he and the neocon hawks have managed to alienate the whole world. Eighteen months ago, after 9/11, the world reacted with horror, and made sincere gestures of friendship. Now, practically everyone loathes and fears Bush.

I want the inevitable war to end as quickly as possible, with as little bloodshed as possible. But Mark LeVine at Alternet points out that 'Bush Wins' could be a nightmare scenario for the Left.

Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War are coordinating further peace rallies in the Puget Sound area. (Tip for candlelight vigils: punch a hole through the bottom of a Dixie (translucent wax-paper) cup and push the candle through that; the cup will catch dripping wax and it will also protect the flame from the wind.)

(Originally posted to Humor at EraBlog on Wed, 12 Mar 2003 00:31:42 GMT)

The Onion has a piece on Irish-Americans Gear Up For 'The Reinforcin' O' The Stereotypes'.