Mark's Notebook

All Articles - April 2005

Sassy Sisters

My wife Mary is participating in an "open studio" tomorrow (OK, today), Saturday, April 30 from 10 am - 6 pm. The show continues on Sunday May 1, 10 am - 5 pm.

The creative art consists of jewelry, acrylic, fabrics, handmade quilts, ceramics, and a special display of polymer clay items.

Mary makes hand-dyed scarves and rubber-stamped notecards. I made this business card for her by scanning one of her scarves:

Mary has her own web page here:
www.mixed-up.com/mary/

Check out her gallery on Split Coast Stampers.

This weekend's show is sponsored by Sassy Sisters Studios, a collaboration of several Silicon Valley women. They have a web site:
www.sassysistersstudios.com

The show is held in Willow Glen, at 1664 Fairlawn Avenue in San Jose. The nearest cross streets are Curtner and Booksin Avenues.

By coincidence, the show takes place at the same time as the Willow Glen Lifestyles Home Tour, a benefit for the San Jose Day Nursery. If you're on the home tour, your route will take you near the show. Stop by and say hi!

God's Housing Crisis

by Howard A. Snyder

Interestingly, church history shows an inverse ratio between dynamic church multiplication and preoccupation with buildings. Emphasis on buildings is generally linked with relatively slow growth or even decline.

The earliest church thrived as a network of house churches, without church buildings. None of the New Testament writers complained about this lack.

Some churches have found that the most faithful option is to sell their real estate and invest the money in missions and ministry to the poor, where the long-term dividends are much higher.

It is generally a sign of church renewal when a congregation rediscovers real Christian community and Jesus-like ministry in the world—and as a result, begins either to de-emphasize church buildings or turns "God's house" into a genuine resource for multiplied ministry to those in need.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/005/24.54.html

Theological illiteracy is rampant

Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, Kansas City Star

By Bill Tammeus

"He's so theologically ignorant he thinks Joan of Arc was Noah's wife."

Michael J. Vlach, president of TheologicalStudies.org, a Web site devoted to providing Christian theological information, has reported that the most widely known Bible verse among adults and teens is this: "God helps those who help themselves."

The problem is that the verse isn't even in the Bible and its message is in serious tension with the Good Book's word of grace.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/11491962.htm

300 New Square Dance events posted to calendar

Added 300 new events to the online calendar.

From these sources:

• GMCA
• MACA
• C-Gulls
• Importers
• Scandanavia Challenge Site
• Denmark Advanced & Challenge Site
• ASDSC Calendar (Northern California)
• Ventura County Calendar (Southern California)
• San Diego Calendar
• IAGSDC Calendar
• Lawrence Johnstone's calendar of "Dances North of the Bay" (Northern California)

Happy dancing! Check out the calendar here:
http://www.mixed-up.com/calendar/

Dance of the week: SCVSDA Wing Ding

SCVSDA holds the next of its series of 5th Saturday dances this weekend, April 30, 2005. The dance features local callers Robert Algea, Harold Fleeman, Diane Gaskill, Rich Gierman, Al Knoppe, Jim Osborne, Ruth Riegelhaupt-Herzig, Jerry Silverstein, Roger Smith, Jill Sybalsky.

Wendy Jean Iannico will cue rounds.

Future SCVSDA 5th Saturday dances will take place July 30 and October 20, 2005.

Dances in 2006 will take place on April 29, July 29, September 30, and December 30.

All dances are held at John Muir Middle School in San Jose, CA.

For more information:
www.scvsda.org

Round dance of the week: Charlie Eskin and Win Robinson

Charlie Eskin and Win Robinson cue the next in their series of Friday round dance parties, April 29, 2005. The dances take place at Royer Park in Roseville, CA (just north of Sacramento). The dance starts at 6:30 pm with Phase 3-4 dancing; at 8:30 the dance shifts into high gear with Phase 4-6 rounds.

Future dances will take place on May 27, July 29, September 29, December 23, and December 30, 2005.

For more information:
http://www.mixed-up.com/round/sacramento.html

Guess the Google

A fun game ... guess the search term that returns the displayed images.

http://www.weavedigital.com/guess-the-google/

Backup Trauma

John Cleese in a very funny advertisement ...

I told you not to press the third button!

http://www.backuptrauma.com/video/default2.aspx

Square Dancing By The Numbers, Part 2

Trying to find information about local square dancing history on the internet can be frustrating. It's a question of economics. Why would a square dance club waste time and energy on fostering a sense of history, when they could be putting that same energy into promotion of new classes, new methods, and new ideas?

The SCVSDA web site, which covers my local area, has online a copy of their original 1958 bylaws. This document lists the 20-some charter member clubs of the association. Unfortunately, only four of those clubs still exist today. Two of them will merge into one club at the first of May, and one is now a part of the NCSDA organization instead. This leaves, as of May 1, 2005, only two clubs remaining from the orginal 20 charter members.

This is a sad situation, but it really doesn't say a lot about the state of square dancing. Clubs come and go, merge and split, change levels and affilliations, and change their names. It may very well be that some of SCVSDA's "lost" charter member clubs still exist under different names. A chronicle of square dance history would answer those questions. The fact that these clubs have been "lost" does not spell the demise of square dancing but a merely our poverty of good record-keeping.

The NCSDA web site lists dates for many of their member clubs. It is not clear whether these dates represent the founding dates of the clubs or the dates when they joined the association. For the purposes of this article, I assume that it doesn't matter. But NCSDA has done a little of the good record-keeping for us. Hooray!

The table below shows some dates when square dancing clubs or organizations were formed in California. The first California association appears to be the Western Square Dance Association, which is one of several associations that now cover the Los Angeles area. Perhaps not coincidentally, this happened at about the time that some historians say square dancing was considered a nationwide "fad" about to disappear. Unfortunately for the prognosicators, square dancing was still yet to enter its heyday. In 1948, Ed Gilmore was just getting started with his "new style" of square dancing that replaced the traditional "visiting" style of pre-choreographed routines with "hash" that was choreographed and called on the fly. Many of these clubs that formed in the late 1940s and early 1950s presumably used the old "visiting" style of dancing, where couple #1 interacts first with couple #2, then with couple #3, and on around the square. Ed Gilmore was based in southern California, and it's not likely that the new "hash" style of dancing spread into northern Califonia that quickly.

Gilroy Gliders celebrated their 50th anniversary hoedown in 1999, which places their inception around 1949. This makes them the oldest California square dance club still existing today. At least according to the meager information available to me. Goldancers in Nevada City followed the next year. Why would the earliest clubs be in rural places like Gilroy and Nevada City? Again, there were many other clubs forming around this time, but for most of them either records were not kept, or the clubs do not survive to today.

The California Square Dance Council was formed in 1950 as an association of southern California square dance clubs, but as more associations were formed in other areas, by 1958 they had taken on the role of an umbrella organization to facilitate communication among the other associations.

The Northern California Square Dance Association (NCSDA) was the first square dance association in this general area, formed in 1951. Associated Square Dancers of Superior California (ASDSC), which covers the Sacramento area, came a couple of years later. The Santa Clara Valley Square Dancers Association (SCVSDA) came relatively late, in 1958. I tentatively date the Valley Associated Square Dancers (VASD) at around the same time, because the first Squar-Rama was held in 1958.

Meanwhile, the first National Square Dance Convention was held in Riverside in 1951. This indicates the extreme popularity of square dancing at this early date. It also shows that 1951 was probably close to the pivotal time when square dancing tilted definitively towards the new "hash" style of calling. And finally, it shows the importance of southern California in the growth of the new square dance movement. Most of the new "hash" callers and "sight" callers came out of southern California.

It should be obvious from the table that the 1950s and 1960s were the heyday of square dancing. To my mind, this explains more than anything the emphasis on 1950s-type attire even today. To try to explain this emphasis on 1950s US pop culture in terms of the French affection for flowing skirts when doing Quadrilles is evasive at best. That might explain petticoats, but what about snap buttons? The western style was popular during the 1930s and 1940s, in music, clothing, children's toys, and other facets of pop culture. Call it a romanticization of the dust bowl and Route 66. Call it a reaction against the flappers of the 1920s and the ostentaciousness of the Gatsbys. Petticoats came along later, in the 1950s.

There's no question that the formation of new square dance clubs fell off dramatically in the 1970s and has not regained its momentum since. But the record has an interesting pattern. Since 1969, starting with Silver Buckles, almost all of the new clubs were specialty clubs of one kind or another: youth, singles, family, gay, and handicapable.

The first gay square dance clubs were started in the late 1970s, and in the early 1980s they came to California (and everywhere else). Western Star was the first club in the state, in 1982, followed only two years later by the formation of the national association (later international).

The formation of clubs for these specialty groups may show that the 1950s pop culture is losing its grip on the future of square dancing. There is no question that the future of square dancing lies with these kinds of groups. This is evident in the very nature of these groups. The couples clubs of the 1950s by definition exclude singles, gay people, and children. But most singles clubs allow couples to dance, most gay clubs allow straight people to dance, and most youth clubs positively encourage parents and families to attend.

The most promising new type of club is the club for "families." These generally encourage anyone to attend - singles, couples, youth, and entire families. Some even accommodate small children.

In general, the future of square dancing lies with the younger people. Any club where a youngster can learn to dance is a club that has a future and contributes to the future of square dancing. Whether these be family or youth clubs is not important.

Also, the gay clubs tend to have a younger membership than the straight clubs, so their influence on the square dancing of the future may be larger than we might otherwise expect.

What is interesting is that square dancing, an icon and purveyor of 1950s pop culture, is evolving into something more inclusive and is adapting to changing societal conditions. An activity that was designed for young petticoated-and-snap-buttoned couples has evolved to meet the needs of singles, then youth, then families, then gay people, and most recently the handicapable.

Who knows which group will rise up next to carry the torch of square dancing? Maybe square dancing is even ready for the public schools again.

British man finds 'Moore's Law' magazine, collects $10,000

San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press

By Matthew Fordahl, AP Technology Writer

Friday, April 22, 2005 A British engineer whose wife complained about his stash of old magazines has collected $10,000 from Intel Corp. after he found a 40-year-old periodical in which the chip maker's co-founder predicted the future of the semiconductor industry.

David Clark, a 57-year-old employee of Philips Electronics, found a copy of the April 19, 1965, Electronics magazine under the floorboards of his Surrey home. The copy was in mint condition — exactly what Intel was looking for to place on exhibit at its corporate museum.

"He said over the years his wife had given him a hard time about hoarding all these magazines," Intel spokesman Manny Vara said Friday. "He told her someday they'd be worth some money."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/04/22/financial/f1
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See also:

Intel offers $10,000 for Moore's Law article

Intel's bounty offer troubles librarians

Syntax Error

Washington Post, Associated Press

By Robert MacMillan, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Associated Press reported that three graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed a computer program that generates fake research papers loaded with ridiculous gobbledygook -- and got one of the resulting papers accepted at a conference.

"The program, developed by Jeremy Stribling, Max Krohn and Dan Aguayo, generated a paper with the dumbfounding title: 'Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy,'" the AP reported. "Its introduction begins: 'Many scholars would agree that, had it not been for active networks, the simulation of Lamport clocks might never have occurred.'"

The program takes its cue from the Mad Libs books that some of us grew up with. It uses sentences from real papers, but fills in blank spots with random gems stolen from academia.

Stribling told the AP that the idea was to expose the conference "as being willing to publish any paper regardless of whether it's been peer-reviewed, which is kind of a dangerous precedent to set."

Here's a sample of what got by the conference reviewers, as posted at Blogcritics.org: "Many physicists would agree that, had it not been for congestion control, the evaluation of web browsers might never have occurred. In fact, few hackers worldwide would disagree with the essential unification of voice-over-IP and public-private key pair. In order to solve this riddle, we confirm that SMPs can be made stochastic, cacheable, and interposable."

MIT prankster Stribling told the AP that the episode highlights a continuing problem in the scientific world: "conferences with low standards that pander to academics looking to pad their resumes [and] harm the reputations of more reputable gatherings."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6622-2005Apr21.html

Challenge dance of the week: Midnight Squares

Rob French calls a C2 and C3A dance for Midnight Squares on Sunday afternoon, April 24, 2005, from 4:00-6:00 pm.

The club also hosts its usual A2 and C1 class sessions that same day from 1:00-4:00 pm.

The true meaning of a fundamentalist Christian

In Working For Change, Byron Williams poses these typical criticisms of the fundamentalist church:

It seems quite paradoxical for fundamentalists to periodically invoke the name of Jesus in their rhetoric while advocating tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, militarism and authoritarianism, along with the exclusion of certain Americans from the public conversation.

Such beliefs do not play well, however, with a Jesus who emphasized love, justice, hope and opportunity. The very idea of something called a "fundamentalist Christian" as currently practiced is by definition oxymoronic.

It is impossible to be a fundamentalist Christian and not apply a strict adherence to the belief of "love your neighbor as yourself," a concept Jesus placed as a high priority. In short, a fundamentalist Christian must be a fundamentalist to love.

Such fundamentalism is possible universally, even if one is not Christian.

However, Mr. Williams misses the point that what he suggests is actually impossible. The message of Christ is that it is impossible to "love your neighbor as yourself." It is impossible to emulate Jesus.

A main difference between liberal and fundamentalist Christians is that liberals continue to believe that it is possible to change their world through love apart from Christ, but fundamentalists have discovered that true love is impossible to create apart from Christ. This drives fundamentalists back to the cross out of sheer desperation, while liberals push Christ into the back seat while they doggedly make "love" the true center of their lives.

If Jesus Christ is not the true center of your life, you are not a Christian at all. Jesus Christ is a real person with whom you can have a relationship. To subscribe to the "philosophy" of Jesus without having a relationship with him is just another of the non-Christian world's deceptions.

Religious Man Wants to Rename Mt. Diablo

Yahoo News, Associated Press

OAKLEY, Calif. - An Oakley man has asked the federal government to rename Mount Diablo, saying the current name, which means devil in Spanish, is offensive to his religious sensibilities.

"Words have power, and when you start mentioning words that come from the dark side, evil thrives," Art Mijares told the Contra Costa Times. "When I take boys camping on the mountain, I don't even like to say its name. I have to explain what the name means. Why should we have a main feature of our community that celebrates the devil?"

In 1866, a church group tried to change Mount Diablo's name for reasons nearly identical to Mijares', according to San Francisco Bay area researcher Bev Ortiz.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050414/ap_on_re_us/mount_diablo

Sweet Sistine: Popapalooza 2005

"They're transubstantialiscious, baby!"

http://www.drewmarlowe.com/pictures/brackets.jpg

Advanced dance of the week: Walk and Dodge Into Spring

El Camino Reelers hosts caller Pat Carnathan of San Diego for their Spring dance, April 23, 2005 at St. Andrews Methodist Church in Palo Alto. The church is located at 4111 Alma Street. The dance will alternate Plus and A2 tips.

For more information:
El Camino Reelers web page, includes a link to a PDF flier.

Dance of the week: Walk and Dodge Into Spring

El Camino Reelers hosts caller Pat Carnathan of San Diego for their Spring dance, April 23, 2005 at St. Andrews Methodist Church in Palo Alto. The church is located at 4111 Alma Street. The dance will alternate Plus and A2 tips.

For more information:
El Camino Reelers web page, includes a link to a PDF flier.

Club of the week: El Camino Reelers

El Camino Reelers is proud of almost 20 years of dancing in the South Bay. The club was founded in 1985 as an alternative to the gay square dance clubs located an hour away in San Francisco.

Regular club dancing is every Wednesday from 7:30 to 9:30 at St. Andrew's Methodist Church in Palo Alto. The church is located at 4111 Alma Street. The club provides a smoke-free and alcohol-free environment for gay men and lesbians to meet each other and socialize. The club welcomes everybody to dance, regardless of orientation.

Each year the club holds a beginner class. Intro nights are typically in September with lessons starting early October.

Gay Square Dancing

Despite traditional gender roles typically associated with square dancing, hoedowns have become a hit among Bay Area gays and lesbians who find it a fun way to socialize and meet new people.

Gay dance clubs also attract some straight dancers who dislike the dress code and "couples only" rules of mainstream square dancing.

The average age of mainstream square dancers is about 65, but the average age of dancers in gay and lesbian clubs is closer to 35. Hence the energy level tends to be higher in gay square dancing.

Some other differences between gay square dancing and other square dancing include:

• Gay square dancing has no dress code.
• Gay square dancing has no partner requirement. It is acceptable in a gay club to square up alone then raise a hand to indicate that you need a partner.
• Gay square dancing has its own particular styling variations and sound effects.
• Instead of round dancing, a gay square dance may have square dancing at alternating levels (beginner and Plus, or Plus and Advanced) throughout the evening.
• And of course, some men will dance the "girl" part and some women will dance the "boy" part. Or as the ECR web site puts it, "Gay and lesbian square dancers choose our own partners and positions without preconceived notions of gender."

El Camino Reelers is a member of the International Association of Gay Square Dance Clubs (IAGSDC). The IAGSDC was formed in 1983 by clubs from California, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Denver, Albuquerque, Houston, Washington DC, and Vancouver, Canada. The organization currently consists of about 60 clubs from Canada, Japan, Denmark, and 25 US states.

Upcoming Dances

El Camino Reelers dances every Wednesday night. During class season, a typical evening consists of one hour of Advanced Dancing, one half hour of review for beginners, and two hours of class (with a star tip at Plus level).

In addition, the club hosts several Saturday night dances at various times during the year. The next such dance takes place April 23, 2005, with caller Pat Carnathan from southern California. Future seasonal dances will take place August 6, 2005, November 12, 2005, and February 25, 2006.

Also, this year the club hosts Star Thru the Silicon Galaxy, the 22nd Annual IAGSDC Convention. This convention takes place July 1-4, 2005 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Every year this convention is hosted by a different member club in a different city. The convention typically draws about 1100 dancers from all over the world. There are already over 800 registered for this year's convention. The last time the convention was held this close to home was in 1996, when it was in San Francisco.

The IAGSDC conventions welcome everyone to dance, regardless of orientation.

This year's convention features a full schedule of dancing at all levels from Mainstream through C4. Internationally-known Challenge-level callers include Saundra Bryant, Vic Ceder, Rob French, Mike Jacobs, Kiyoshi Kikuchi, Anne Uebelacker, and Dave Wilson.

For more information:

• El Camino Reelers web page
• Star Thru the Silicon Galaxy site
• IAGSDC web page
• San Jose Mercury News article about El Camino Reelers
• Wikipedia article about Gay square dancing
• Wikipedia article about the IAGSDC

Got pump blues? So do gas retailers

San Jose Mercury News, Associated Press

By Brad Foss, Associated Press

It sounds hard to believe, but gasoline retailers' profit margins are at a 20-year low.

The average gross profit margin on gasoline sales fell to 10.46 cents a gallon last year, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores, an Alexandria, Va.-based trade group that represents the interests of gasoline retailers. As a percentage of the average pump price, that's the lowest it has been since 1984.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/11411554.htm

Mixed signals for valley economy

San Jose Mercury News

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE FALLS TO 5.8%, BUT JOB TOTAL LESS THAN LAST YEAR

By Margaret Steen, Mercury News

two reports -- unemployment numbers and a survey of local consumer confidence -- confirm that any recovery is still scattered at best.

Santa Clara and San Benito counties added 5,200 jobs from February to March, for a total of 857,300 jobs, according to a state report released Friday. But that number is down by 6,000 from a year ago. The unemployment rate for the two counties fell to 5.8 percent in March, down from a revised 6.3 percent in February, but that is partly due to people leaving the workforce.

Compared with a year ago, the largest gain was 1,800 jobs in the information industry, propelled by hiring by Internet service providers and Web search companies.

Statewide, the economic picture was brighter than in Silicon Valley. The unemployment rate fell to its lowest rate since July 2001: 5.4 percent in March, down from 5.8 percent in February.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/11411482.htm

Intel's bounty offer troubles librarians

San Francisco Chronicle, Cnet News

1965 magazine with Moore's Law target of thieves

Michael Kanellos, Cnet News

Friday, April 15, 2005

A day after Intel Corp. said it would offer $10,000 for a copy of a magazine in which Moore's Law was first announced, a University of Illinois engineering library noticed that one of its two copies had disappeared.

There was a glaring space on the shelf where the bound volume containing the April 19, 1965, edition of Electronics magazine had sat for years. A librarian heard a student talking on a cell phone about the volume the same day. Ordinarily, the magazine is not a popular item.

Librarians at Stanford University and other universities say they are angry at Santa Clara's Intel for posting on eBay's online auction site a $10, 000 bounty for a copy of the magazine. The bounty was posted Monday.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/04/15/BUG3JC8
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See also:

http://www.mixed-up.com/markb/notebook/20050412f/

One sinner's repentance

San Jose Mercury News

Santa Cruz church embraces confessed sex offender, now assistant pastor

By Ken McLaughlin, Mercury News

During his morning sermon last Sunday, Senior Pastor Dave Johnston of the Calvary Chapel in Santa Cruz preached redemption. He mentioned Mary Magdalene, the prostitute chosen by Christ to be the first witness to his resurrection, as a powerful example of faith changing someone's life.

But when he began to talk about someone "closer to home," Johnston choked back tears.

One of his own assistant pastors, Johnston disclosed to 250 members of the congregation, is a registered sex offender who has spent time in prison.

Church members know him as an ordained pastor for the past three years for a congregation that is part of a worldwide network of more than 2,000 non-denominational churches founded by Chuck Smith. Smith is the originator of "the Jesus Movement," which more than three decades ago in Southern California began ministering to flower children, gang-bangers, heroin addicts and many of society's rejects.

Everyone from religious leaders to prison guards understands that true change comes from deep within. Whether it is through Jesus or hours of intense clinical therapy, sex offenders learn to understand and control the forces that led them to commit their sordid crimes. Still, powerful questions remain -- religious as well as secular.

Do those with troubled pasts -- like Mary Magdalene -- become especially vigilant Christians because they remain aware of past sins? And where does all of this leave victims?

"It is a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow," said Michelle, who heads the women's ministry.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/central_
coast/11359232.htm

Credit freeze can halt ID theft

San Jose Mercury News

If you're a Californian, you can freeze your credit so crooks can't open new accounts in your name. While that provides peace of mind, it also comes with some costs: Anytime consumers want to sign up for a new cell phone, get a new credit card or engage in a number of activities involving a credit check, they have to "unfreeze" their credit.

You won't be able to do that at the register. The process of "thawing" your credit can take up to three days -- and $10 for each period of time you want it unsealed.

The freeze law went into effect Jan. 1, 2004. It's different than a fraud alert, which also is filed with credit bureaus but only suggests to creditors that they take additional steps to verify someone's identity.

A credit freeze means no more instant credit card discounts at the department store, nor quick financing at a car dealership.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/11381363.htm

Intel offers $10,000 for Moore's Law article

San Francisco Chronicle, Cnet.com

Firm seeks pristine copy of founder's prescient words

By Michael Kanellos, Cnet News

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 Intel Corp. lives by Moore's Law, but it apparently doesn't have a copy of the magazine in which the law was first laid down.

The Santa Clara chip giant has posted a $10,000 bounty on eBay for someone who can provide a pristine April 19, 1965, copy of Electronics magazine.

That issue of the magazine contained an article by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that described how the number of components on integrated circuits was doubling every year. The article became the foundation for his famed dictum.

Moore's Law -- which has since been revised to estimate that the number of transistors doubles every 18 months -- has been the cornerstone for the information technology industry for decades as it has defined how products can simultaneously drop in price while improving in performance.

Despite its historical significance, the article at the time wasn't considered a monument.

"I didn't think it would be especially accurate," Moore said in a recent interview.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/04/12/BUG63C6
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Lagging wages amid growth puzzles economists

San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times

Steven Greenhouse, New York Times

Even though the economy added 2.2 million jobs in 2004 and produced strong growth in corporate profits, wages for the average worker fell, after adjusting for inflation -- the first such drop in nearly a decade.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/04/12/BUGCUC6
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Compliant but Confused

Christianity Today Opinion

Unpacking some myths about today's teens.

by Andy Crouch

Book: "Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers," by Christian Smith, Melinda Lundquist Denton.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/019518095X/qid=1113332422/sr=1-1/r
ef=sr_1_1/002-7269310-8141636?v=glance&s=books

No book in recent memory has as much potential to transform the practice of youth ministry as Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton's account of the findings of their National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR). Smith, a committed Christian who may be his generation's most significant sociologist of religion, carefully designed not only an in-depth phone survey of 3,290 teenagers and their parents, but also crafted 267 in-person interviews. The results overturn nearly every piece of conventional wisdom about teens and faith.

• There is no generation gap.
• Teens like church.
• Teens are not "spiritual seekers."

When the researchers asked them about pop culture or sexually transmitted diseases, they could give sophisticated answers. They could talk about Will & Grace, but not grace. Of the 267 teens interviewed, only 12 mentioned "repentance" in connection with their faith; 7 mentioned the Resurrection; and 4 mentioned "discipleship." On the other hand, 112 mentioned "personally feeling, being, getting, or being made happy."

So what is the religion that teens hold in such high regard? Smith and Denton sum it up as "moralistic therapeutic deism" — the belief that religion is about doing good and being happy, watched over by a distant and benign Creator whose purpose is largely to help us feel better about ourselves.

And where do teenagers learn this faith that so closely reflects the American therapeutic culture, and so poorly reflects the Christian gospel? The evidence is overwhelming: There is no generation gap, and they love church. So they learned it from their parents—they learned it from their churches. Even their conservative Protestant churches. The fundamental axiom of youth ministry, Smith and Denton say, is, "We'll get what we are."

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/004/25.98.html

Apple to Release 'Tiger' System in April

Washington Post, Associated Press

The Associated Press, Tuesday, April 12, 2005; 9:46 AM

CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Apple Computer Inc. on Tuesday said the latest version of its Mac OS X operating system will go on sale at the end of this month. Its shares rose in early trading.

The highly anticipated upgrade, code-named "Tiger," will hit shelves at Apple's retail stores and authorized resellers on April 29. An individual user license will sell for $129, while a five-user pack will be available for $199.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46241-2005Apr12.html

Firms saving instead of hiring

San Jose Mercury News

LITTLE TRICKLE-DOWN EFFECT FROM GUN-SHY TECH COMPANIES

By Chris O'Brien, Mercury News

In 2004, Silicon Valley's 150 largest companies made more money than ever -- profits were up 169 percent from the year before.

So why didn't it feel like a boom year?

Because for the most part, companies aren't hiring locally. They're simply banking the cash.

During the dot-com bust, companies learned to sell more with fewer people. At the same time, demand for tech products has picked up, along with revenue. The result: The 10 Silicon Valley companies with the most cash on hand increased their stashes from a total of $21 billion in 1997 to $73 billion in 2005.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/11367760.htm

Tech layoffs continue

San Jose Mercury News

PACE GROWS IN FIRST QUARTER, STAFFING FIRM'S REPORT SAYS

By Nicole C. Wong, Mercury News

Tech layoffs nationwide continued to climb during the first three months of the year, hitting the highest quarterly total since the end of 2003, according to a report released Monday by Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The tech industry accounted for almost 21 percent of all layoffs, up from 11 percent a year ago. Mergers among telecommunication companies ushered in the uptick in pink slips, resulting in more than 30,000 layoffs.

John Challenger, chief executive of the outplacement agency, noted that computer, electronics and e-commerce companies have grown smarter and more realistic, which is prompting them to pull the plug more quickly on projects that don't pan out.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/11374277.htm

Best Square and Round Dance Web Sites

Here are two different evaluations of the best square and round dance web sites based on the quality of the sites. One is a list of the top-ranked sites according to Altavista and Google, popular search engines. Then my own list of the most useful sites, based on the ability to find cue sheets, challenge information, beginner class information, calendars of local events, and lists of local clubs.

Top sites according to Altavista and Google

These are the top square and round dance web sites according to Altavista and Google, with my comments.

Alaska-Yukon Square and Round Dancing

• Altavista ranked #1.
• Last updated 8 April, 2005.
• Has dance event calendars for April 2005 through February 2006/
• Lists eight clubs in Anchorage, four clubs elsewhere in Alaska, and one club in Whitehorse, Yukon.
• Lists two beginner classes that started in January 2005.
• This is one of my personal favorite square dancing web sites.

North Texas Square and Round Dance Association

• Altavista ranked #2.
• Last updated 4-3-2005.
• Covers the areas of Dallas, Ft. Worth, and surrounding areas.
• Shows nine square dance classes including a 3-week "blitz."
• Lists a total of five clogging clubs, six round dance clubs, and more than 50 square dance clubs.
• Has a schedule of dances April through June 2005, including three beginner-level dances.
• Overall, a very useful page.
• Problems: has lots of un-necessary animated graphics, requires a wide window/screen.

Tennessee State Association of Square and Round Dance Clubs

• Altavista ranked #3.
• Last updated recently, but no note exactly when. "Copyright 2000-2004." The only news item regards a meeting in June 2005.
• Covers the entire state of Tennessee, broken up into seven different areas (Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Oak Ridge, Johnson City, and Fayetteville), which correspond to six different local associations.
• I would estimate that the total number of clubs in the state exceeds 100 (but I was unwilling to count them all). Each club has phone contact information, but few if any have email or web addresses.
• The site contains lots of association-level information like insurance and bylaws that are not of interest to a general audience.
• Overall, a very useful site.

Square Dance Center and Campground, Lolo, Montana

• Altavista ranked #4.
• Probably last updated October 2004.
• Has calendars for October 2004 through September 2005.
• This site represents a commerical interest, not a dance club.
• There is lots of round dancing, and there is a link to a beginner class which does not yet have an advertised start date.

border boosters square & round dance association

• Altavista ranked #5.
• Last updated Thu, 27 Jan 2005.
• Covers the Lake Champlain and St. Lawrence Seaway area (USA and Canada - Montreal and Ottawa).
• Has a list of 20 clubs, of which four are round dance clubs, and nine of the others (more than half) are now running beginner square dance classes.
• Has a calendar of events from January through September 2005.
• Overall, a useful site for anyone in the area looking for a beginner class or a round dance class.
• Problem: has some unnecessary animated graphics.

Grand Canyon Square Dance Association

• Altavista ranked #6. Google ranked #5.
• Supposedly last updated in 2003, but it is much more current than that. The next event on the calendar takes place April 30, 2005.
• Has links to 20 different clubs in the Phoenix and Prescott areas.
• Overall, a useful site for anyone in the area looking for a beginner class.
• Includes a sparse events calendar that starts in April 2005 and goes out through 2007.

Vic and Debbie Ceder's Square Dance Resource Net

• Altavista ranked #7.
• Last updated 09-April-2005.
• Overall, one of the three most comprehensive square dance web sites on the net (the other two being Dosado.com and Mixed-Up.com).
• This is a database-driven site to which anyone can contribute information about their club, event, caller, or choreography.
• This is one of my personal favorite web sites.

54th National Square Dance Convention, Portland, Oregon

• Google ranked #1.
• Last updated 2004?
• This site has everything you might want to know about the national convention, which takes place June 22, 23, 24, 25, 2005.
• Overall, a well-planned site that you will find useful if you plan to go to the national convention.

46th California State Square Dance Convention

• Google ranked #2.
• Last updated 11122004.
• This site has almost nothing important you might want to know about the state convention, which takes place April 15, 16 & 17, 2005 (next weekend).
• Problems: the site has one annoying aminated graphic in a prominent location. It has no useful information about the levels or programs that will be called at convention, which halls they will be in, and which hours those halls will be open. The information about callers and cuers is way out of date.

Idaho Square and Round Dance Festival 2005

• Google ranked #3.
• Last updated when??
• Has minimal information about the festival, but has a link to the official festival web site. Unfortunately, the link does not work.
• The convention takes place June 9 - 11, 2005.

Swedish National Square Dance Convention in Gothenburg 2005

• Google ranked #6.
• Last updated 2004-11-27.
• Has lots of information about the convention, which takes place May 14-16, 2005.
• Has separate pages in Swedish, German, and English.

Top sites according to Mark

This page of links shows my top picks, not in any particular order: http://www.mixed-up.com/search/links.html

This list includes six sites catering to round dancers, three sites catering to challenge dances, and four sites catering to dancers in general.

Here are some quick comments:

General sites:

• The EAASDC site is notable for its broad scope: it indirectly includes links to every association and club in Europe.

• Dosado.com was the first large square dancing web site and it is still one of the best. It gets its information from contributions that quickly go stale when the clubs don't update their information. Their system of state representatives to keep tabs is ineffective. However, this is the best place to start when you're looking for a square dance club.

• Callerlab is the best resource for both callers and students. Its resources are mostly caller-related, but the lists of programs are useful for anyone learning a new level up to C3A.

Challenge sites:

• Texas and Oklahoma Advanced and Challenge Page is most noteworthy for its extensive events calendar, which covers far more than just their local region.

• Vic and Debbie's Resource Net is a general site that has lots of challenge level information, including the online form of the popular "Ceder Chest" books.

• Lynette's Challenge Dancing Home Page has lots of technical articles about challenge calls and concepts.

Round dance sites:

• The Roundalab site is most noteworthy for the cue sheets for classic dances, and for the rounds of the quarter going back several years.

• The URDC site is most noteworthy for the list of cuers and higher-level round dance clubs throughout the world.

• The best sites for cue sheets are Roger Ward's Round Dance Internet Directory and Martin Prufer's Round Dance Server.

• Susie Rotscheid's site has many cue sheets, plus interesting articles.

• The Round Dancing Instruction Manual has descriptions of most basic round dance figures in most rhythms.

Square Dancing By The Numbers

Altavista shows that there are about one million web pages devoted to square and round dancing. There are about 877,000 pages devoted to square dancing only, 102,000 pages devoted to round dancing only, and 73,000 pages that deal with both square and round dancing.

I ran these numbers on both Altavista and Google, but the Altavista numbers were more consistent and credible. The Google numbers did not all add up properly.

The following table shows the numbers of pages devoted to square and round dancing.

Measures of Page Quality

It's really hard to evaluate the quality of these web pages. I'm working on a project that can evaluate the quality of a web page by examining the its source code. That project is only in the planning stages now.

One easy measure of web page quality when the page was last updated. But it's not easy to determine when a page was updated using a search engine like Altavista. Search engines typically allow searches based on the page text, but not file dates.

So, if we can find the string "2004" or "2005" on a web page, this might suggest that the page was last updated within the past year (well, 15 months). This is not foolproof. It is possible that a page has the string "2005" but it was actually written in 2003. We can easily see this by searching for web pages that have the string "2006" ... we'll find plenty of pages that match. Most of them are web pages or fliers about square and round dance events happening in 2006.

It is also possible that a page could have been updated in 2005, but it does not have "2005" anywhere in the page text, just because the web designer did not feel it important to put any kind of date on the page. Since some users might search for a page based on some kind of date encoded in the page, it is considered good practice for web authors to put a date on their pages. Most of the pages on the Mixed-Up.com web site have a tag at the bottom that says something like "Last updated 08 April 2005." That way anyone who looks at that page can know how current or stale it is.

Overall, about 28 percent of square and round dancing web pages give some sign that they were updated in 2004 or 2005, and about 71 percent do not give any such sign.

Measures of Page Usefulness

Another measure of page "usefulness" is a reference to a class or classes for dancers. This is not really a measure of page "quality" as it is a measure of the "utility" of the page for the non-dancer and for the future of the activity for those already dancing. Most of us would agree that beginner classes are necessary for the long-term survival of both square dancing and round dancing.

So how many of these pages refer to a class or classes? It looks like about 30 percent of square and round dance web pages refer to classes.

What Does This Mean?

So what? Is this good or bad? Does it mean anything at all?

If only 30 percent of square dance web pages have been updated within the last year, this means that a lot of the square dance information on the web could be out of date. This is particularly true of information that changes a lot over time, like club pages, classes, fliers, and calendars. But it is less true of reference information like call definitions, cue sheets, and music lists. That kind of information does not go out of date very quickly at all.

It seems that most square dance web pages do not have any indication of publishing date at all. For example, this link shows that only 384,000 square and round dance web pages have any year indication from 1994 (the beginnings of the internet) until 2005. This means that about 77 percent of square dance web pages that indicate any date at all have been updated within the last year. But it also means that only about 38 percent of square dance web pages give any indication of their last update. This suggests that it is important to address the issue of general web page quality and standards, while in addition hoping to keep the pages current.

I more than most know how difficult it is to keep the information on a web site up-to-date. This site has many hundreds of pages, and many of them were written years ago. I try to remove information that is more than one year old, but I am aware of some pages that refer to classes that took place in 1999 and 2000. Trying to keep up with everything is nearly impossible when the data is edited by hand.

If only 30 percent of square and round dance web pages refer to classes, this says more about the hobby in general than it says about the web pages themselves. It is hardly possible to put up a page about a beginner class that does not exist (or got cancelled due to lack of interest). But many clubs don't post class information on the web because it changes too quickly. This is unfortunate because it short-changes both the newcomer looking for a class, and the club looking for new members.

Callerlab has proposed a system whereby square dance classes can register with a national database. This would allow prospective dancers anywhere in the US to find a class near them, if one exists. However, implementation is slow and gaining the confidence of technophobes is difficult.

Future Explorations

In the future, I hope to break down these figures by country and state, to find out which states and associations have their acts together. I also hope that by running these same figures in the future, we will find that the overall situation is improving.

Hidden Treasures

Here are some treasures hidden away on the mixed-up.com web site. Perhaps you have not noticed these.

• Square Dance Associations in California and Nevada.

• Mark's Portal to Dosado.com - a quick way to access the long club lists on Dosado.com.

• Planning Calendar for the San Francisco Bay area.

• Figure lists contributed by Sharon and Casey Parker. There are separate lists for each Phase 1-6, and separate lists for each rhythm, plus combined lists.

• Some dances recommended by the wise guys on the round dance mailing list.

• Lyrics to your favorite round dance songs.

• Marks list of the most popular round dances.

• The best square dance calendars sorted by type and location.

• NCRDTA ROMs - dances selected recently by the members of the Northern California Round Dance Teachers Association, posted recently.

• Links page - a list of the 400 best square and round dance web sites, hand-selected by me.

• Mobile Edition - view the web site on your Palm Pilot or other small-screen device.

Happy treasure hunting!

Best Buy Has Man Arrested for Using $2 Bills

Slashdot

Posted by Zonk on Friday April 08

From the buyer-beware dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mike Bolesta of Baltimore thought he would protest Best Buy's not-so-great customer service and pay his bill with 57 $2 bills. For his trouble he got to spend some time in the county lock-up." From the article: "..Bolesta was contacted by the store, and was threated with police action if he did not pay the [installation] fee he was told before did not exist. As a sign of protest, Bolesta decided to pay using only $2 bills, which he has an abundance of because he asks his bank for them specifically. Unfortunately for him, the cashier did not seem to understand that the $2 bill is indeed legal US tender, since the bill itself is not often used. After rudely refusing to take the money, the cashier accepted the bills, only to mark them as though they were conterfeit."

http:yro.slashdot.orgarticle.pl?sid=0504082213237&from=rss

http://web.morons.org/article.jsp?sectionid=8&id=6131

Here's another similar story, an internet classic, written up in humorous fashion:

http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/2-at-Taco-Bell.html

Patients warned of security breach

S.J. Medical Group notifies 185,000 after computer theft

By Julie Sevrens Lyons, Mercury News

In one of the largest cases of stolen medical and financial information nationwide, San Jose Medical Group is alerting 185,000 current and former patients that their sensitive personal data may have been on computers taken during a recent break-in.

In a first-class letter to patients dated Monday, CEO Ernie Wallerstein said two computers were taken March 28 from the physician group's administrative offices. The computers, he wrote, ``contained names, addresses, confidential medical information and Social Security numbers, perhaps including yours.''

Patients were encouraged to alert a credit bureau that their personal data could be used for fraudulent reasons. And they were warned to look over their credit reports carefully to see if new credit cards are opened in their name.

It was unclear whether the billing records contained credit card numbers. Patients might want to close their credit card accounts and open up new accounts with different numbers, just to be safe, said Stephen Gibbons, a Santa Clara County assistant district attorney.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/the_vall
ey/11342759.htm

Mark says: We got our letters yesterday. Sigh.

Get Perpendicular!

Hitachi achieves industry-leading areal densities via Perpendicular Recording. In March 2005, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies demonstrated an areal density of 230 gigabits per square inch on perpendicular recording technology, the highest areal density achieved to date based on vertical recording. This accomplishment represents a doubling of today’s highest data densities on longitudinal recording technology. At the current rate of growth, Hitachi expects to see products shipping at 230 Gb/in2 in 2007, translating into storage capacities of up to 20 gigabytes on Hitachi’s one-inch Microdrive and up to one terabyte on the Hitachi 3.5-inch Deskstar hard drive.

For a quick and entertaining look at the benefit that perpendicular recording delivers, view our animation "Get Perpendicular."

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/recording_head/pr/PerpendicularAnimation.
html

Apple Contracting For Multimedia Chips?

Macrumours.com, SiliconValleyWatcher.com

In an unconfirmed report published at SiliconValleyWatcher.com, Apple has contracted to use a new multimedia chip from Broadcom, who aquired Cambridge, UK based Alphamosaic in 2004.

From the press release about the new chips:

Building on the success of the VC01, Alphamosaic is now sampling VC02, the world's most advanced mobile multimedia processor. The VC02 can display video on 3.5 inch color LCDs and capture 8 megapixel images, making it ideal for watching TV, making videos or taking studio-quality photos on a cellphone.

This new technology could be used to create a video version of the iPod, with high-resolution graphics, game playing possibilities, digital photographs, as well as wireless communication options. Alternatively it could open the gate for a new wave of multimedia devices yet to be introduced.

Broadcom says the chip uses very small amounts of battery power and "excels in high-quality 3D graphics performance with the capability to support pixel shading and volumetric lighting with low power consumption, making it ideal for use in mobile gaming applications and comparable in performance to home consoles."

http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/04/20050406103913.shtml

http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2005/04/_siliconvalleyw.php

Smithsonian Institution Plans MP3 Music Store

Yahoo News - Techweb

A new MP3 project, Smithsonian Global Sound, is planned for formal launching at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in June. Initially, the service--which plans to charge 99 cents a song--will offer tracks from the Smithsonian's Folkways Recordings archives. The archives comprise a broad array of music with American roots, including Woody Guthrie songs and songs from the civil rights movement.

"Smithsonian Global Sound is a virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical traditions, available through a website that offers digital downloads," the Smithsonian announcement states. "Its purposes are to make diverse cultural expressions broadly accessible to the public in an educational way."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cmp/20050402/tc_cmp/160401401

The Making Of A 9/11 Republican

San Francisco Chronicle Opinion

By Cinnamon Stillwell

I was raised in liberal Marin County, and my first name (which garners more comments than anything else) is a direct product of the hippie generation. Growing up, I bought into the prevailing liberal wisdom of my surroundings because I didn't know anything else. I wrote off all Republicans as ignorant, intolerant yahoos. It didn't matter that I knew none personally; it was simply de rigueur to look down on such people. The fact that I was being a bigot never occurred to me, because I was certain that I inhabited the moral high ground.

So, what happened to change all that? In a nutshell, 9/11. The day after the attacks, I dragged myself into work, still in a state of shock, and the first thing I heard was one of my co-workers bellowing triumphantly, "Bush got his war!" There was little sympathy for the victims of this horrific attack, only an irrational hatred for their own country.

Thoroughly disgusted by the behavior of those on the left, I began to look elsewhere for support. To my astonishment, I found that the only voices that seemed to me to be intellectually and morally honest were on the right. Suddenly, I was listening to conservative talk-show hosts on the radio and reading conservative columnists, and they were making sense. When I actually met conservatives, I discovered that they did not at all embody the stereotypes with which I'd been inculcated as a liberal.

Indeed, liberals had become strangely conservative in their fierce attachment to the status quo. In contrast, the much-maligned neoconservatives (among whose ranks I count myself) and Bush had become the "radicals," bringing freedom and democracy to the despotic Middle East. Is it any wonder that in such a topsy-turvy world, I found myself in agreement with those I'd formerly denounced?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2005/02/24/cstillwell.DTL

Surgery puts pair on speaking terms

San Jose Mercury News

By Barbara Feder Ostrov

Talk about a communication gap: Gope Mirchandani couldn't speak. His wife Kamala couldn't hear. Now the San Jose couple can do both.

Last year, Kamala received a cochlear implant to restore her hearing. For nearly 25 years, as her hearing degenerated, she had communicated with Gope through lip reading, notes and a series of hearing aids that helped only a little.

Gope's voice too grew weak over time, the result of throat cancer. In 2000, doctors at Kaiser Permanente-Santa Clara removed his larynx, replacing it a few months later with a throat valve that allows him to speak in a raspy voice.

The first word Kamala heard from Gope -- "Congratulations!" -- might have sounded like gravel to anyone else, but not to her.

Gope, 77, helped her relearn sounds long forgotten -- this is the wind, these are the birds. Today, the Mirchandanis talk freely about their three children and six grandchildren. Kamala listens to the wind chimes outside their apartment. She converses with her children on the telephone, which she vastly prefers to their former e-mail chats. The couple, who emigrated from India in 1987 and have been married for nearly a half-century, now bicker without resorting to written notes.

"It's so much better now," said Kamala, who is 74. "We are both very happy."

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/health/11305768.htm

S.J. salt ponds opened to bay for the first time in 60 years

San Jose Mercury News

By Paul Rogers

With a dramatic gush, state and federal leaders on Thursday opened tidal gates from nine former industrial salt ponds on San Jose's waterfront, allowing millions of gallons of water in them to mix with San Francisco Bay for the first time in 60 years.

The ceremony allows bay waters, complete with their fish, worms, shrimp, plankton and other species, to expand into 2,512 acres of salt ponds that had been blocked off by levees since the 1940s.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/health/11284518.htm

Colorado Court Bars Execution Because Jurors Consulted Bible

New York Times

DENVER, March 28 - In a sharply divided ruling, Colorado's highest court on Monday upheld a lower court's decision throwing out the sentence of a man who was given the death penalty after jurors consulted the Bible in reaching a verdict. The Bible, the court said, constituted an improper outside influence and a reliance on what the court called a "higher authority."

The ruling involved the conviction of Robert Harlan, who was found guilty in 1995 of raping and murdering a cocktail waitress near Denver. After Mr. Harlan's conviction, the judge in the case - as Colorado law requires - sent the jury off to deliberate about the death penalty with an instruction to think beyond the narrow confines of the law. Each juror, the judge told the panel, must make an "individual moral assessment," in deciding whether Mr. Harlan should live.

In the decision on Monday, the dissenting judges said the majority had confused the internal codes of right and wrong that juries are expected to possess in such weighty moral matters with the outside influences that are always to be avoided, like newspaper articles or television programs about the case. The jurors consulted Bibles, the minority said, not to look for facts or alternative legal interpretations, but for wisdom.

"The biblical passages the jurors discussed constituted either a part of the jurors' moral and religious precepts or their general knowledge, and thus were relevant to their court-sanctioned moral assessment," the minority wrote.

Legal experts said that Colorado was unusual in its language requiring jurors in capital felony cases to explicitly consult a moral compass. Most states that have restored the death penalty weave in a discussion of moral factors, lawyers said, along with the burden that jurors must decide whether aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors in voting on execution.

"The court says we're asking you to be moral men and women, to make a moral judgment of the right thing to do," said Thane Rosenbaum, a professor of law at Fordham University School of Law in New York City, and author of the book "The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What's Right" (HarperCollins, 2004). "But then we say the juror cheated because he brought in a book that forms the basis of his moral universe," Professor Rosenbaum said. "The thing is, he would have done it anyway, in his head."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/national/29bible.html?ei=5090&en=49f9ed0a28323
aaf&ex=1269752400&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&adxnnlx=1112810080-QUAn/vnHY0Mm0XfIziIFqg

Dance of the week: Circus Circus

Rafter Rockers sponsors their annual hoedown Circus Circus to be held on April 9, 2005 at John Muir School in San Jose. John Muir School is on Branham Lane in south San Jose, near the intersection with Almaden Expressway.

This is always a fun dance with great rounds and squares, zany costumes and decorations, and great food.

Rafter Rockers has a web page at
www.rafterrockers.com/

Club of the week: Rafter Rockers

The Rafter Rockers club will be celebrating their 50th anniversary in April, 2005. They dance on Wednesday evenings in Campbell. Caller Gary Carnes will be retiring at the end of April.

Rafter Rockers will merge with the Jokers starting May 1, 2005. The new club name will be Rockin' Jokers.

Club History

The Rafter Rockers Club was organized in 1955 by Jack and Neva Johannes, with Neva as the first club caller. Callers through the years include:

• Neva Johannes (1955-1967)
• Herb Jackson (1967-1974)
• Bob Tripp (1974-1980)
• Ken Kenmille (1980-2000)
• Gary Carnes (2000-2005)

The club started with 17 couples but grew to about 30 couples during the 1960's. They eventually reached nearly 100 couples and maintained that level through much of the 1980's and 1990's.

Activities

Rafter Rockers has a rich history of social activities that have continued to the present time. These activities have included campouts, picnics, mystery trips, theater parties, progressive dinners, house tours, sailing on the bay, hiking, whale watching, ice cream socials, and more. The Club has also been very active in supporting square dancing. In addition to attendance and participation at local hoedowns, these activities have included membership for many years in SCVSDA, participation in festivals and special events such as the Jubilee, Winterfest, Silver State, Napa, and the Nationals at Anaheim and Portland, and demonstrating square dancing at the Fair and other locations.

The Club has also been involved in many charitable activities over the years. These have included, a Rafter Rocker booth at the De Anza Flea Market to raise money for the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Marathon, volunteer nights at Second Harvest Food Bank, and annual visits to (and performance at) local convalescent homes.

Rafter Rockers sponsors the Circus Circus hoedown every year in April. This year, the dance will take place on April 9, 2005 at John Muir School in south San Jose.

Jokers

The Jokers square dance club also dances on Wednesday nights in Campbell. The club started dancing in October 1951 an unfinished store in the Quito Shopping Center. The first caller was Johnny White. Callers through the years include:

• Johnny White (1951-1978)
• Dick Lawrence (1978-1980)
• Johnny Robertson (1981-1982)
• Kip Garvey (1983-1987)
• Scott Slocum (1987-1990, 1992-1996)
• Doug Davis (1991-1992)
• Gary Carnes (1996-2000)
• Bob Elling (2000-2003)
• Roger Smith (2003-present)

The Jokers sponsor the Hawaiian Luau hoedown every year in May. This year, the dance will take place on May 21, 2005 at John Muir School.

Rockin' Jokers

Gary Carnes is retiring at the end of April. Roger Smith will be the caller for the new Rockin' Jokers club. The new club will be a great place to dance, and they hope to have 8 to 10 squares dancing.

The new Rockin' Jokers will dance at the American Legion Hall in Campbell where the Jokers now meet. Allen Glesser, the current Jokers president, will continue as president of the new club starting May 1. Rockin' Jokers will hold elections in the fall.

The Rockin' Jokers will continue to sponsor the Circus Circus hoedown and the Luau hoedown.

For more information:

Rafter Rockers has a web page at
www.rafterrockers.com/

Rafter Rockers has a club history posted at
www.rafterrockers.com/History.html

Jokers has a web page at
www.thejokers.org/

Jokers has a club history posted at
www.thejokers.org/info.htm

Archives

Last updated Monday 3 August 2009