Vick is in prison. The good new is that may of the dogs are being rehabilitated and have hopes of becoming peaceful house pets.

Daryn Kagan reports with the following video from her blog. Oh that it were possible to rehabilitate people with the same program.

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Brita Print Ad - copy reads "last year 16 million gallons of oil were consumed to make plastic water bottles."

Brita clearly has a dog in this fight. They want to sell water filters. Filterforgood.com is their effort to wean Americans off bottled water.

They make some good points. But I’m not sure American municipal water supplies even need that much filtering. We waste a lot of money getting the last few impurities out when others in the world can’t get any out.

At least Brita cuts out the plastic bottles and shipping from Fiji.

From filterforgood’s fact page. HT Oceans, Waves, Beaches .

In 2006, the average American used 167 disposable water bottles, but only recycled 38.

In the United States, 24 percent of bottled water sold is either Pepsi’s Aquafina (13 percent of the market) or Coke’s Dasani (11 percent of the market). Both brands are bottled, purified municipal water.

In the U.S., public water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which requires multiple daily tests for bacteria and makes results available to the public. The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates bottled water, only requires weekly testing and does not share its findings with the EPA or the public.

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DOD Public Domain

Thank you veterans, for your service to our country.

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Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The short description in the header reads “I’m just sayin’.” When I started this little project, I thought I would just write things I thought about. The kind of thing I would say to people if they listened.

That was pretty easy when no one was reading.

I didn’t know that clean water and poverty would be such a hit. I’m gratified that somebody thinks willisays is worth reading. I’m still not sure why I get hundreds of hits a day now. Even when I don’t write anything!

A new feeling of responsibility has overtaken me. I have to have something important to say for the folks. I have to avoid offending readers. What would happen if people stopped coming by? The $4.00 in Amazon kick backs would dry up.

Yeah, it sounds pretty lame when I write it out. But that’s been me over the past few days and weeks.

I’m glad that’s over.

I worked on the Yes on 8 campaign Tuesday. I live in California. I think marriage is important. It seemed like the thing to do. I didn’t have any money to give, so I worked on the campaign. (The $4 from Amazon hasn’t got here yet.)

I kept having this nagging feeling though. I saw the New York Times picture of the two gay dad’s struggling to provide for their kid. My compassion for them and others like them has really grown. They have a unique struggle. I started to worry that I was just making their struggle harder.

These people who live differently that me were just trying to make their way in life. They were no threat to me, I began to think.

Well, you probably heard that Prop 8 passed. Just before the election though, there started to be vicious attacks on my religious beliefs. The attacks continue. But the attacks have spread to all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Erinannie at Moments of Clarity and Chaos shares the too common experience of this week:

At some point in the morning I got a ‘tweet’ about the No on Prop 8/anti-Mormon rally today in L.A. At first the way this tweet was written was specifically anti-Mormon. It wasn’t about civil liberties, or the CA state constitution, or even about love and marriage. It was flat out a threat against Mormons.

Not once have I made a public comment, whether on my blog or on Twitter, about Prop 8. In fact, I have very conflicting feelings about it, and have steered far away from any conversations on the subject. The bottom line is that I don’t live in California, and therefore, don’t feel that I should exert any influence over another state’s vote. I know many people disagree in different ways over that position. I don’t really care.

So you can only imagine how shocked I was when I personally started receiving threats today all because my Twitter account has me identified as Mormon. I was told to go to hell in more ways than I can count.

I’m having a hard time maintaining my compassion. I haven’t threatened to kill, made fun of beliefs or picketed sacred places of anyone who disagrees with me. But that’s what I get in return.

The unnoticed attack on freedom of thought has been fought slowly in the past.  Now that a major counter-attack has been won, the silent enemy is revealed.

Firesign Theater did a radio sketch in the late 60s that I remember well. Several hippies are talking assuring themselves and each other with the lines “I’m groovy. Are you groovy?,” “Yeah, I’m groovy.” and “We’re all groovy.”

Another man enters the scene and they start a new chorus. “He’s not groovy.” and “Hey, you’re not groovy.” The man protests that he is too, groovy. But the group decides that, in fact, the newcomer is not groovy and needs to be sent back to for regrooving. The result, they hope, is that the man will return groovy, just like them.

I understood hippies to favor peace, love and understanding in the world. Being different was OK. We should all have tolerance for one another, according to this counter culture. Turns out, they wanted everyone to be the same different as their different. The hypocrisy of “Tolerance for me, but not for thee,” was evident to my almost adolescent mind.

I’m often reminded of the self-groovy crowd when I hear people hold forth on their political opinions. Presidential election years seem to bring out the “groovier-than-thou” attitude in many Americans. Perhaps it is that I just hear from old hippies or wish-they-were-hippies.

I don’t decry this generation or this election cycle as being any worse than others. (I’d be happy to share the details of the Jefferson/Adams nastiness in 1796 and 1800 with anyone who is interested). I’m not really surprised, for instance, by those who loudly claim that George Bush has trampled civil rights and will shout down anyone who disagrees with them.

It’s easy to lose the capacity for rational thought when you refuse to consider opinions other than your own. You believe X. You only listen to people who believe X. It becomes easier and easier to be intolerant of any one who does not passionately embrace X.

The image of standing in an echo chamber shouting, comes to mind.

The case of CoachDeb is instructive here. CoachDeb is the Twitter name of Deborah Micek, a successful business mentor who lives in Hawaii. People follow her on Twitter, read her blogs, listen to her webinars and podcasts, buy her books and attend her seminars. People do all that because Deb helps them improve their business and make money.

To some of her followers, all the free advice and helpful instruction was not enough. Deb spoke her mind about the recent presidential debates. That wasn’t groovy, for some.

Deb noticed that more than a few people stopped accepting her free success advice because they didn’t agree with her politics. Not that it really hurt her bottom line. The incident just serves to illustrate the tendency of some people close up their minds when they get information they may have to think about. Even when it means losing access to information that could be very useful.

Those who have read this blog for very long may have already guessed my conclusion. I like to think about things and consider different points of view. I get comments from all sorts who have definite views on various topics. I thank you for sharing them. Honest discussion is valued here.

I like to think I have enough confidence in my positions to withstand criticism. And the ability to change my position when new information comes to my attention.

I’m just sayin’

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Image via Wikipedia

Amazon would like me to buy more nonfiction books. They think I might some political tomes. To get my interest, they sent me a link to their Election 2008 Political Book Buying map.

They got my interest. The map uses buying information on selected red or blue (conservative or liberal) books by state. According to the page:

Click on a state to see that state’s percentage of “red” and “blue” book sales over the past 60 days, as well as local political favorites. Or see how the map has changed over time by using the right and left arrows to choose a different two-month period during 2008. To see the changes in the map over the same periods in the last presidential election year, click the “2004″ tab. Updated daily.

Not really a statistically valid tool for predicting the outcome of the election. But interesting anyway. Check the 2004 tab. Red right before the re-election of George Bush and blue right after. Maybe a case of buyers remorse or maybe liberals drowning their sorrow in books.

Image via Wikipedia

The BrainPop team has done their usual good work with a new animated video to help talk to children about the 9/11 attacks on the United States. View it here. They explain their motivation on their blog.

Here at BrainPOP, we’ve received many emails from kids about September 11th. The anniversary raises difficult questions that educators and parents may struggle to begin answering. We’ve created a movie to help support the educators and parents who want to engage in a discussion about this sensitive issue.

BrainPop is an excellent educational resource. Much of the content is free. But paid subscriptions are well worth considering. Tim and his robot Moby answer questions in various subject matters such as Math, Science and Social Studies. The flash based animations are always well done, as this latest example shows.

Image via Wikipedia

Complaining about gas prices seems to be our national obsession. Justin Danhoff offers a little context to our misery in the Aug. 7 Christian Science Monitor commentary Congress’s Unsound Fury Over Big Oil.

With this summer’s high gas prices, Americans are trading in their traditional vacations for “staycations” – vacations much closer to home.

But compared with other things Americans might do, driving is still a bargain.

Consider, for example, the costs of going to a movie:

To take a family of four to a movie at an AMC Theatre, it will cost anywhere from $55.75 to $71.50, depending on whether the family shares movie snacks or not, and this does not even include gasoline.

For that same $71.50, the family could purchase enough gas for their car (of decent gas mileage) to drive from Disneyland to Las Vegas and back again. And for the price of tickets and extra-large refreshments, , they could drive from Disneyland to the Grand Canyon and back again.

Where are the calls for federal investigation into price gouging at concession stands?

He goes on to point out the the oil companies are a favorite whipping boy of politicians. Oil company profits of 7% pale in comparison to 75% at theater concession stands.

I’m glad gas doesn’t sell at a 75% profit. But I wouldn’t mind if the local cheap gas offered matinee prices.

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My daughter-in-law’s family has a useful question they ask when a family member gets a little too negative. It doesn’t make a lot of sense without the back story. So here it is:

A man get’s a flat tire on his car. He’s out in farm country, not many houses. It’s getting dark but he confidently goes to the trunk of the car only to find that the jack to lift the car is missing. Without the jack, he cannot change the tire.

He tries calling for help but has to cell phone service this far out. Now it starts to rain. Quite a distance away, he sees a light on in a farm house. He secures his car and makes his way toward the farm house in the now dark, rainy night.

As he walks, he goes over his misfortune. The rain. The missing jack. The flat tire. He seems to be able to list a dozen or so things that just didn’t go right. As he reaches the porch of the farm house, he has convinced himself that all is against him. It’s probably useless to even be trying to get help, he thinks. He’s so overtaken with negative thoughts that when he knocks on the door, the farmer answers and the man yells, “Never mind, you probably weren’t going to help me with my car, anyway.

The question this family asks when negative thinking starts taking over? “Do you need a jack?”

I like this example of humor to diffuse a situation. We have similar tricks around our house. We do it because that is what family does. Each member should look for ways to help the others be better. It mostly goes from parent to child. But children help. They learn how to build a family from their parents.

I work with children who don’t always have the best environment to help them. Many of them have been aided in life by government programs that were intended to help. Some times it works, some times not.

A free society depends on parents who build strong families. No government program can replace a good family.

What do you think? What tricks or tradition does your family have for helping to build each member?

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Matt Mullenweg, the original progammer of WordPress will be there with a host of WordPress glitterati. Bloggers and developers together for a day. I’m thinking I’ll become a better blogger just by osmosis.

The scheduled speakers cover the spectrum. I’ll be focusing on improving willisays. That and spending some time with my son who lives in SF.

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