Blog of Billy

Sneaking up on us from the unexpired term that Mick Cornett left when he was elected mayor is an election for the now vacant Ward 1 spot. Conveniently, I am in that particular ward, and so I get to feverishly find out all that I can about 2 nearly invisible people who are vying for the spot. Surprisingly enough, (or, not surprisingly at all) I have been able to find precious little info on either candidate. In fact, I had to go to a paper that shamelessly promotes itself as the paper for the most affluent 50 square miles of Oklahoma to find the names of these people. The first, Richard Buchanan, actually sent out a mailing that I got, promoting him as a highly conservative businessman and member of a local Southern Baptist church. Troubling to say the least. The second, Gary Marr, seems to have been a little quiter, though his claims to fame are quite a bit weightier. He, as the former Fire Department Chief of Moore has testified before Congress about terrorism prevention and inter-agency cooperation. This is certainly not something that I let concern me in this day and age of endless fear, but it's good to know that he's at least paying attention to things outside of the city. In all, I think I'll default to the public servant above the businessman, even if it does amount to the lesser of two evils...conservatives...whatever.

In other political interest: John Kerry has apparently decided that he is against the death penalty. This marks the first time since Dukakis that a major-party candidate has taken such a stance. Hopefully it will go better for Kerry than it did for Dukakis. It's probably about time we quit killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong.

Several of my friends have decided that they want tattoos in recent days. Ideas have ranged from a simple triangle on the bicept to a full peacock feather down the length of the spine. I've decided I actually want another one (yes, slowly getting addicted to the ink), and I'm pretty sure I've decided on what I want next. To complement the very passionate political tattoo on my left ankle, I need an emotionless, rational, perfectly logical mathematical formula. Conveniently, , which is a very elegant way to describe the basis for digital signal processing, and by extension, all of digital tech, has a basic term that fits very well on an ankle. is what I want to get on my right ankle. Each descriptive mark will be on a leg controlled by a hemisphere of my brain that is associated with that way of thinking. It will be like my will is tied directly to my feet. This way, I can give some of the slower kids the joy of education with a simple jerk of my leg. If someone starts to talk about how poor people are necessairly stupid, they recieve a swift kick in the pants from the left leg. If they start disrespecting the purity and perfection of math, they get a pop from the right.

Be careful that I never have to give you a well-rounded education.