bethefawn / mmix

Free Speech Has Been Destroyed

2010-01-21T22:34:00.004-08:00

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment for 1.21.10

Full text:

Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on the Supreme Court's ruling today in the case titled "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission."

On the cold morning of Friday, March 6th, 1857, a very old man who was born just eight months and thirteen days after the Declaration of Independence was adopted; a man who was married to the sister of the man who wrote "The Star Spangled Banner;" a man who was enlightened enough to have freed his own slaves and given pensions to the ones who had become too old to work read aloud, in a reed-thin voice, a very long document.

In it, he ruled on a legal case involving a slave, brought by his owner to live in a free state; yet to remain a slave.

The slave sought his freedom, and sued. And looking back over legal precedent, and the Constitution, and the America in which it was created, this judge ruled that no black man could ever be considered an actual citizen of the United States.

"They had for more than a century before been, regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

The case, of course, was Dred Scott. The old man was the fifth Chief Justice of the United States of America, Roger Brooke Tawney. And the outcome, he believed, would be to remove the burning question of the abolition of slavery from the political arena for once and for all.

The outcome, in fact, was the Civil War. No American ever made a single bigger misjudgment. No American ever carried the responsibility for the deaths and suffering of more Americans. No American ever was more quickly vilified. Within four years Chief Justice Tawney's rulings were being ignored in the South and the North.

Within five, President Lincoln at minimum contemplated arresting him. Within seven, he died, in poverty, while still Chief Justice. Within eight, Congress had voted to not place a bust of him alongside those of the other former Chief Justices.

But good news tonight, Roger B. Tawney is off the hook.

Today, the Supreme Court, of Chief Justice John Roberts, in a decision that might actually have more dire implications than "Dred Scott v Sandford," declared that because of the alchemy of its 19th Century predecessors in deciding that corporations had all the rights of people, any restrictions on how these corporate-beings spend their money on political advertising, are unconstitutional.

In short, the first amendment — free speech for persons — which went into affect in 1791, applies to corporations, which were not recognized as the equivalents of persons until 1886. In short, there are now no checks on the ability of corporations or unions or other giant aggregations of power to decide our elections.

None. They can spend all the money they want. And if they can spend all the money they want — sooner, rather than later — they will implant the legislators of their choice in every office from President to head of the Visiting Nurse Service.

And if senators and congressmen and governors and mayors and councilmen and everyone in between are entirely beholden to the corporations for election and re-election to office soon they will erase whatever checks there might still exist to just slow down the ability of corporations to decide the laws.

It is almost literally true that any political science fiction nightmare you can now dream up, no matter whether you are conservative or liberal, it is now legal. Because the people who can make it legal, can now be entirely bought and sold, no actual citizens required in the campaign-fund-raising process.

And the entirely bought and sold politicians, can change any laws. And any legal defense you can structure now, can be undone by the politicians who will be bought and sold into office this November, or two years from now.

And any legal defense which honest politicians can somehow wedge up against them this November, or two years from now, can be undone by the next even larger set of politicians who will be bought and sold into office in 2014, or 2016, or 2018.

Mentioning Lincoln's supposed ruminations about arresting Roger B. Tawney, he didn't say the original of this, but what the hell:

Right now, you can prostitute all of the politicians some of the time, and prostitute some of the politicians all the time, but you cannot prostitute all the politicians all the time. Thanks to Chief Justice Roberts this will change. Unless this mortal blow is somehow undone, within ten years, every politician in this country will be a prostitute.

And now let's contemplate what that perfectly symmetrical, money-driven world might look like. Be prepared, first, for laws criminalizing or at least neutering unions. In today's Court Decision, they are the weaker of the non-human sisters unfettered by the Court. So, like in ancient Rome or medieval England, they will necessarily be strangled by the stronger sibling, the corporations, so they pose no further threat to the Corporations' total control of our political system.

Be prepared, then, for the reduction of taxes for the wealth, and for the corporations, and the elimination of the social safety nets for everybody else, because money spent on the poor means less money left for the corporations.

Be prepared, then, for wars sold as the "new products" which Andy Card once described them as, year-after-year, as if they were new Fox Reality Shows, because Military Industrial Complex Corporations are still corporations. Be prepared, then, for the ban on same-sex marriage, on abortion, on evolution, on separation of church and state. The most politically agitated group of citizens left are the evangelicals, throw them some red meat to feed their holier-than-thou rationalizations, and they won't care what else you do to this corporate nation.

Be prepared, then, for racial and religious profiling, because you've got to blame somebody for all the reductions in domestic spending and civil liberties, just to make sure the agitators against the United Corporate States of America are kept unheard.

Be prepared for those poor dumb manipulated bastards, the Tea Partiers, to have a glorious few years as the front men as the corporations that bankroll them slowly unroll their total control of our political system. And then be prepared to watch them be banished, maybe outlawed, when a few of the brighter ones suddenly realize that the corporations have made them the Judas Goats of American Freedom.

And be prepared, then, for the bank reforms that President Obama has just this day vowed to enable, to be rolled back by his successor purchased by the banks, with the money President Bush gave them his successor, presumably President Palin, because if you need a friendly face of fascism, you might as well get one that can wink, and if you need a tool of whichever large industries buy her first, you might as well get somebody who lives up to that word "tool."

Be prepared for the little changes, too. If there are any small towns left to take-over, Wal-Mart can now soften them up with carpet advertising for their Wal-Mart town council candidates, brought to you by Wal-Mart.

Be prepared for the Richard Mellon Scaifes to drop such inefficiencies as vanity newspapers and simply buy and install their own city governments in the Pittsburghs. Be prepared for the personally wealthy men like John Kerry to become the paupers of the Senate, or the ones like Mike Bloomberg not even surviving the primary against Halliburton's choice for Mayor of New York City.

Be prepared for the end of what you're watching now. I don't just mean me, or this program, or this network. I mean all the independent news organizations, and the propagandists like Fox for that matter, because Fox inflames people against the state, and after today's ruling, the corporations will only need a few more years of inflaming people, before the message suddenly shifts to "everything's great."

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh don't even realize it: today, John Roberts just cut their throats too. So, with critics silenced or bought off, and even the town assessor who lives next door to you elected to office with campaign funds 99.9 percent drawn from corporate coffers — what are you going to do about it? The Internet!

The Internet? Ask them about the Internet in China. Kiss net neutrality goodbye. Kiss whatever right to privacy you think you currently have, goodbye. And anyway, what are you going to complain about, if you don't even know it happened? In the new world unveiled this morning by John Roberts, who stops Rupert Murdoch from buying the Associated Press?

This decision, which in mythology would rank somewhere between "The Bottomless Pit" and "The Opening Of Pandora's Box," got next to no coverage in the right-wing media today, almost nothing in the middle, and a lot less than necessary on the left.

The right wing won't even tell their constituents that they are being sold into bondage alongside the rest of us. And why should they? For them, the start of this will be wonderful.

The Republicans, Conservatives, Joe Liebermans, and Tea Partiers are in the front aisle at the political prostitution store. They are specially discounted old favorites for their Corporate Masters. Like the first years of irreversible climate change, for the conservatives the previously cold winter will grow delightfully warm. Only later will it be hot. Then unbearable. Then flames.

And the conservatives will burn with the rest of us. And they'll never know it happened. So, what are you going to do about it? Turn to free speech advocates? These were the free speech advocates! The lawyer for that Humunculous who filed this suit, Dave Bossie, is Floyd Abrams.

Floyd Abrams, who has spent his life defending American freedoms, especially freedom of speech. Apparently this life was spent this way in order to guarantee that when it really counted, he could help the corporations destroy free speech.

His argument, translated from self-satisfied legal jargon, is that as a function of the First Amendment, you must allow for the raping and pillaging of the First Amendment, by people who can buy the First Amendment.

He will go down in the history books as the Quisling of freedom of speech in this country. That is if the corporations who now buy the school boards which decide which history books get printed, approve. If there are still history books. So, what are you going to do about it?

Russ Feingold told me today there might yet be ways to work around this, to restrict corporate governance, and how corporations make and spend their money. I pointed out that any such legislation, even if it somehow sneaked past the last U.S. Senate not funded by a generous gift from the Chubb Group would eventually wind up in front of a Supreme Court, and whether or not John Roberts is still at its head would be irrelevant.

The next nine men and women on the Supreme Court will get there not because of their judgement nor even their politics. They will get there because they were appointed by purchased presidents and confirmed by purchased Senators.

This is what John Roberts did today. This is a Supreme Court-sanctioned murder of what little actual Democracy is left in this Democracy. It is government of the people by the corporations for the corporations. It is the Dark Ages. It is our Dred Scott. I would suggest a revolution but a revolution against the corporations? The corporations that make all the guns and the bullets?

Maybe it won't be this bad. Maybe the corporations legally defined as human beings, but without the pesky occasional human attributes of conscience and compassion maybe when handed the only keys to the electoral machine, they will simply not re-design America in their own corporate image.

But let me leave you with this final question: After today who's going to stop them?

The Cosmos Is Also Within Us

2010-01-21T13:20:00.002-08:00

If you haven't yet seen/heard the Symphony of Science videos, you should really check them out. They consist of some of the best, if not only, auto-tuned Carl Sagan clips set to synth music you will ever see.

I particular recommend this one and this one, though they are all outstanding. I find myself continuously surprised at how much completely missed what a fox Carl Sagan was, though I probably hadn't seen many of these clips from Cosmos since I was about five.

2009-08-22T17:21:00.002-07:00

Oh shit Rach, I know we just talked about the senate minority issue, but I have to take some exception to your claim that Jon Stewart just completely discredited Betsy McCaughey (someone who in my mind was already discredited). By using the same tactics as the town hall crashers (talking over her, cracking wise, allowing a studio full of Jeep Wrangler-driving stoners who just got back from seeing Dave Matthews at the Gorge to jeer her at every turn) in his interview, Stewart not only looked pretty unclassy, but managed to persuade me that, right or wrong, McCaughey's interpretation of the bill might well gain considerable traction once put into law.

I actually went into this believing she was talking shit (still do, I guess), but now I am slightly less sure about the wording of this bill not totally being twisted to meet certain bottom-line ends. Far from making me feel better, Stewart kind of makes me want to take a long shower, and your gross exaggeration of his effectiveness in explaining how full of shit McCaughey is, well, it's starting to make me doubt the validity of many of your own claims.

You've always come a distant second to Olbermann in terms of a (excuse the term) "gentlemanly fair use" of the facts at hand, but at least you are usually right about the heart of whatever you are saying, if not the specific rhetoric. But that's twice in one show now (and I've got the bastard paused with 19:07 left to go!) that I've felt you've come off as excessively partisan with a tendency to distort the nature of the debate.

We're still on the same side, and we will remain so, but the world of politics is not yet big enough to have two figures who make integrity the mainstay of their arsenal while compromising it with regularity and still winning by it (the other being born in Hawaii in 1961).

Entirety of the Daily Show episode:
(though not the entirety of the interview)

2009-08-22T17:14:00.001-07:00

Dear Rachel Maddow,

Calling the Republican Minority in the Senate (40) a "tiny, tiny minority" is neither accurate nor helpful. A majority of 60 senators is totally enough to get stuff done, this is both factually true and something I agree should be strenuously and constantly pointed out; but in the fickle arena of American politics, 40% is not such a "tiny, tiny" minority.

love,
r. patrick

The Chickpea to my Atticus

2009-08-11T15:50:00.003-07:00

"Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patience nostra? Quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? Quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia? Nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati, nihil urbis vigiliae, nihil timor populi, nihil concursus bonorum omnium, nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatus locus, nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt?"
-Cicero

Though dramatic, I think the comparison bears scrutiny. When I was a student-lad, I had chills the first time I translated Cicero's attacks on Catiline. Similar chills to what I feel everytime Olbermann delivers a Special Comment. This one more than most. Who can doubt mere words, when heard them spoke thus?

Keith's Back

2009-08-03T23:27:00.001-07:00

Vacation's over, and Olbermann has brought us a stunner. Tonight, his Special Comment on Health Care Reform and "Blue Dog Democrats."

"CROM!"

2009-06-20T11:26:00.002-07:00

This video is outstanding. I never liked this guy, but now, perhaps, my mind is changed. Really amazing speech for its synthesis of all things geek.

New blog launched

2009-06-04T11:05:00.001-07:00

I've started a dream blog. Part of me wants to admit that my dreams aren't any more interesting than those of anyone else, but the other part of me knows that they totally are way better than yours. You should check it out.

http://oneiroganger.blogspot.com/

2009-06-02T00:12:00.000-07:00

Just watch.

Habease whatnow?

2009-05-22T09:23:00.003-07:00

My facebook friends made me so happy a few years ago when they were sending me invitations to join all sorts of groups about bringing back Habeas Corpus from the slavering jaws of the Bush administration. Then we elected Obama and everyone I know decided they didn't give a damn about torture, as long as the people were probably radical Islamists (nevermind that we tortured *children* at Gitmo), and as long as we had a smoothtalking guy trying to steer us out of an economic downturn (we can call it a depression, and I do, but make no mistake: any president, great or small, would have done most of what Obama is now doing in regards to the financial crisis. Herbert Hoover was a one-off, and we have too big and too advanced of a country to let our financial system just collapse without doing anything. I repeat, by hook or by crook, any new president would have eventually got us out of this crisis, so put away the pink sunglasses).

Do you guys still care about Habeas Corpus?

Because Obama does not. In a speech couched in all the trappings of glorifying the Rule Of Law, Obama announced his intentions to go Bush one more with regard to the, perhaps permanent, illegal detention of prisoners without trial.

Is it hip to hate our rights now? Is will.i.am going to come out with a sweeping youtube hit about how little we need to have rights when our president is so cool and suave?

I tread a fine line here. I was as much for Obama as anyone, and perhaps the loudest advocate in my circle of friends. With a motto like 'no better friend, no worse enemy,' perhaps I should have been a marine, but there's no shame in waking up now. Obama isn't who we thought he was. We gave him a mandate which he is now using to beat us.

In a political system based so much on opinion polls, we still have some power long after the final vote has been cast. Obama certainly seems as impeachable as Bush, perhaps more so because he has added new crimes to the ones he is now retroactively pardoning his previous administration for, but that's not even what I'm calling for. If some Republicans get their hackles up enough to attempt such a thing, I'd be the first one to switch my political allegiance. But that is still not what I am saying.

I'm saying: don't like the guy. Show it if you take an opinion poll. Talk to other people about what you think he is doing. Mobilize the grand army of opinion against his actions and prove that we don't deserve exactly what is happening to us. Yes we can. Show Obama that, naive we may be, but we aren't equal parts forgiving. Yes we can. Assure him that if he wants his second term, he's got to make a change. Yes we can. For all his moral and ethical faults, Obama cares about what you think of him. Make him afraid that you've turned against him. Yes we can.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been
anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible
odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't
try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a
simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people.

Yes we can.

He made us believe it once. Let us prove him right beyond his wildest expectations and deepest, darkest nightmares. Yes we can. Remember that on November 4th we were all patriots with a goal in mind, and that we are still a long way from realizing it. Yes we can.

Let's make him regret ever showing us the power of those three simple words: Yes we can.

Leaked ICRC Report

2009-04-08T21:29:00.008-07:00

The International Committee of the Red Cross report that was leaked this week is not really all that lengthy. It comes in at 41 pages, is fairly readable, and even seems to use size 14 type. However, few people I know will ever read it. It would probably be sent as an attached file if emailed, and it would receive a "tl:dr" tag on most message boards. Neither can it be twittered or text-messaged. In short: you can be told it exists, but you'll have to go looking for it.

Until now!

Over the next several days I am going to be posting the full text of it here. A couple of notes, however, before reading: I am going to embolden the text wherever I consider it relevant. Don't feel guilty for skipping the plain text bits (you'll already be in the top 99.9th percentile for just reading the juicy sections). All other emphasis will likely be mine, except where otherwise noted. And finally, while I will do my best to limit unpacking a lot of this for you, I may from time to time provide some running commentary, clearly labeled as such. It is my sincere hope, though, that the report will speak for itself.

Begin.

INTRODUCTION

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has consistently expressed its grave concern over the humanitarian consequences and legal implications of the practice by the United States (US) authorities of holding persons in undisclosed detention in the context of the fight against terrorism1. In particular, the ICRC has under-scored the risk of ill-treatment, the lack of contact with the outside world as a result of being held incommunicado, the lack of a legal framework, and the direct effects of such treatment and conditions on the persons held in undisclosed detention and on their families.

The ICRC made its first written interventions to the US authorities in 2002, requesting information on the whereabouts of persons allegedly held under US authority in the context of the fight against terrorism. Since then, it has made regular written and oral interventions to the US authorities on the issue of undisclosed detention (see Annex 2). In particular, the ICRC transmitted two reports on undisclosed detention on 18 November 2004 and 18 April 2006 respectively which consolidated the information previously transmitted2 and included more recent allegations of undisclosed locations, hidden detainees and third country detention. Both reports annexed a non-exhaustive nominal list of persons allegedly held in undisclosed detention by the US authorities3. Despite repeated requests at various levels of the US Government (USG), the ICRC has not received a response to most of these written interventions. The main written response by the US authorities is the Note Verbale of 8 June 2005 which responds to three earlier written interventions4. The US authorities have never responded to the two ICRC consolidated reports.

On 6 September 2006, President Bush publicly announced that fourteen “high value” detainees had been transferred from the High Value Detainee Program run by the Central Intelligence Agency (hereafter CIA detention program) to the custody of the Department of Defense in Guantanamo Bay Internment Facility (hereafter Guantanamo). The fourteen detainees (hereafter the fourteen) were reportedly held in the CIA detention program from the time of their arrest, or shortly thereafter, until their arrival in Guantanamo5. Throughout their time in CIA custody—which ranges from 16 months to almost four and a half years—these persons were held in undisclosed detention. Prior to this public announcement, the ICRC had never been informed by the US authorities of the existence of the CIA detention program, nor of the presence in US custody of the fourteen. This is despite the fact that thirteen of the fourteen had been included in the above mentioned ICRC written requests to the US authorities concerning undisclosed detention, the first of which were made in January 20036. The remaining detainee was not known to the ICRC.

The ICRC was granted access to the fourteen in Guantanamo, and met with each of them in private for the first time from 6 to 11 October 2006.

The ICRC regards the confirmation of the present whereabouts of the fourteen by the US authorities, and the subsequent access granted to the ICRC, as positive steps. However, it deplores the fact that these persons were held in undisclosed detention during a prolonged period by the US authorities and the conditions of detention and treatment to which they were subjected during that time. It is also gravely concerned by the lack of information provided to the ICRC regarding their fate despite regular and repeated requests.

The ICRC recognizes the right of the US authorities to take measures to address legitimate security concerns, including the detention and interrogation of individuals suspected of posing a threat to national security. However, the ICRC believes that the US can achieve these objectives while respecting its obligations and historical commitment to respect international law.

The aim of the present report is to provide a description of the treatment and material conditions of detention of the fourteen during the period they were held in the CIA detention program, as reported to the ICRC during its private interviews with these persons. Section One reports in detail the main elements of the CIA detention program, including arrest and transfers, incommunicado detention and other conditions and treatment, in particular during the initial stages of interrogation; Section Two outlines the conditions of detention and treatment in the later stages; Section Three considers the provision of health care and the role of medical staff during the entire period of undisclosed detention; Section Four details the legal aspects related to undisclosed detention; Section Five discusses the issue of the persons other than the fourteen who passed through the CIA detention program; and, finally, Section Six addresses the issue of future use of the CIA detention program.

A separate ICRC report has been transmitted to the Department of Defense regarding the material conditions and treatment of the fourteen since their arrival in Guantanamo7.

1.
MAIN ELEMENTS OF THE CIA DETENTION PROGRAM

Following the transfer of the fourteen from CIA custody to the custody of the Department of Defense in Guantanamo in September 2006, the ICRC met with each of these persons in private from 6 to 11 October, and from 4 to 14 December, 2006. The information provided in this report is based on the information gathered during those interviews, to the extent that each detainee agreed for it to be transmitted to the authorities. The fourteen, who are identified individually below, described being subjected, in particular during the early stages of their detention, lasting from some days up to several months, to a harsh regime employing a combination of physical and psychological ill·treatment with the aim of obtaining compliance and extracting information. This regime began soon after arrest, and included transfers of detainees to multiple locations, maintenance of the detainees in continuous solitary confinement and incommunicado detention throughout the entire period of their undisclosed detention, and the infliction of further ill-treatment through the use of various methods either individually or in combination, in addition to the deprivation of other basic material requirements.

It is essential to a proper understanding of this report that all of the elements of treatment and material conditions of detention individually outlined below be considered as forming a whole, as each constitutes an integral part of the situation of the detainees in the CIA detention program. In addition to the information contained in the following section, it is also necessary to consider the prolonged duration of the detention, the conditions of detention, treatment in the later stages of detention, and the role of health personnel and, in particular, the lack of legal framework governing the undisclosed detention of the fourteen. When understood in their totality, the undisclosed detention regime to which these persons were subjected becomes all the more disturbing.

The ICRC wishes to underscore that the consistency of the detailed allegations provided separately by each of the fourteen adds particular weight to the information provided below.

The general term “ill-treatment” has been used throughout the following section, however, it should in no way be understood as minimising the severity of the conditions and treatment to which the detainees were subjected. Indeed, as outlined in Section 4 below, and as concluded by this report, the ICRC clearly considers that the allegations of the fourteen include descriptions of treatment and interrogation techniques—singly or in combination—that amounted to torture and/or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

2.
ARREST AND TRANSFER

The following fourteen persons are referred to in this report, in chronological order according to date of arrest: (Name, Nationality, Place of arrest, Date of arrest)
1)Abu Zubaydah Palestinian Faisalabad, Pakistan 28 March 2002
2)Ramzi Mohammed Binalshib Yemeni Karachi, Pakistan 11 September 2002
3)Abdelrahim Hussein Abdul Nashiri Saudi Dubai October 2002
4)Mustafha Ahmad AI Hawsawi Saudi Rawalpindi, Pakistan 01 March 2003
5)Khaled Shaik Mohammed Pakistani Rawalpindi, Pakistan 01 March 2003
6)Majid Khan Pakistani Karachi, Pakistan 05 March 2003
7)Ali Abdul Aziz Mohammed Pakistani Karachi, Pakistan 29 April 2003
8)Walid Bin Attash Yemeni Karachi, Pakistan 29 April 2003
9)Mohammed Farik Bin Amin Malaysian Bangkok, Thailand 08 June 2003
10)Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep Malaysian Bangkok, Thailand 11 August 2003
11)Encep Nuraman (aka Hambali) Indonesian Ayutthaya, Thailand 11 August 2003
12)Haned Hassan Ahmad Guleed Somali Djibouti 04 March 2004
13)Ahmed Khalafan Ghailani Tanzanian Gujarat, Pakistan 25 July 2004
14)Mustafah Faraj Al-Azibi Libyan Mardan, Pakistan 02 May 2005

The fourteen were arrested in four different countries. In each case, they were reportedly arrested by the national police or security forces of the country in which they were arrested. In some cases US agents were present at the time of arrest. All fourteen were detained in the country of arrest for periods ranging from a few days up to one month before their first transfer to a third country (reportedly Afghanistan, see below) and from there on to other countries. Interrogation in the country of arrest was conducted by US agents in nearly all cases. In two cases, however, detainees reported having been interrogated by the national authorities, either alone or jointly with US agents: Mr Abdelrahim Hussein Abdul Nashiri was allegedly interrogated for the first month after arrest by Dubai agents, and one detainee who did not wish his name to be transmitted to the authorities was allegedly interrogated by both Pakistani and US agents. During their subsequent detention, outlined below, detainees sometimes reported the presence of non-US personnel (believed to be personnel of the country in which they were held), even though the overall control of the facility appeared to remain under the control of the US authorities.

Throughout their detention, the fourteen were moved from one place to another and were allegedly kept in several different places of detention, probably in several different countries. The number of locations reported by the detainees varied, however ranged from three to ten locations prior to their arrival in Guantanamo in September 2006.

The transfer procedure was fairly standardised in most cases. The detainee would be photographed, both clothed and naked prior to and again after transfer. A body cavity check (rectal examination) would be carried out and some detainees alleged that a suppository (the type and the effect of such suppositories was unknown by the detainees), was also administered at that moment.

The detainee would be made to wear a diaper and dressed in a tracksuit. Earphones would be placed over his ears, through which music would sometimes be played. He would be blindfolded with at least a cloth tied around the head and black goggles. In addition, some detainees alleged that cotton wool was also taped over their eyes prior to the blindfold and goggles being applied. Mr Abu Zubaydah alleged that during one transfer operation the blindfold was tied very tightly resulting in wounds to his nose and ears. He does not know how long the transfer took but, prior to the transfer, he reported being told by his detaining authorities that he would be going on a journey that would last twenty-four to thirty hours.

The detainee would be shackled by hands and feet and transported to the airport by road and loaded onto a plane. He would usually be transported in a reclined sitting position with his hands shackled in front. The journey times obviously varied considerably and ranged from one hour to over twenty-four to thirty hours. The detainee was not allowed to go to the toilet and if necessary was obliged to urinate or defecate into the diaper.

On some occasions the detainees were transported lying flat on the floor of the plane and/or with their hands cuffed behind their backs. When transported in this position the detainees complained of severe pain and discomfort.

In addition to causing severe physical pain, these transfers to unknown locations and unpredictable conditions of detention and treatment placed mental strain on the fourteen, increasing their sense of disorientation and isolation. The ability of the detaining authority to transfer persons over apparently significant distances to secret locations in foreign countries acutely increased the detainees’ feeling of futility and helplessness, making them more vulnerable to the methods of ill-treatment described below.

The ICRC was informed by the US authorities that the practice of transfers was linked specifically to issues that included national security and logistics, as opposed to being an integral part of the program, for example to maintain compliance. However, in practice, these transfers increased the vulnerability of the fourteen to their interrogation, and was performed in a manner (goggles, earmuffs, use of diapers, strapped to stretchers, sometimes rough handling) that was intrusive and humiliating and that challenged the dignity of the persons concerned.

As their detention was specifically designed to cut off contact with the outside world and emphasise a feeling of disorientation and isolation, some of the time periods referred to in the report are approximate estimates made by the detainees concerned. For the same reasons, the detainees were usually unaware of their exact location beyond the first place of detention in the country of arrest and the second country of detention, which was identified by all fourteen as being Afghanistan. This report will not enter into conjecture by referring to possible countries or locations of places of detention beyond the first and second countries of detention, which are named, and will refer, where necessary, to subsequent places of detention by their position in the sequence for the detainee concerned (eg. third place of detention, fourth place of detention). The ICRC is confident that the concerned authorities will be able to identify from their records which place of detention is being referred to and the relevant period of detention.

Moreover, the ICRC notes that four detainees believed that they had previously been held in Guantanamo, for periods ranging from one week to one year during 2003/4. They reported recognising this location upon return therein September 2006, as each had been allowed outdoors on a daily basis during their earlier time there. The ICRC has been assured by DoD that it was given full notification of and access to all persons held in Guantanamo during its regular detention visits. The ICRC is concerned, if the allegations are confirmed, it had in fact been denied access to these persons during the period in which they were detained there.

1.2.
CONTINUOUS SOLITARY CONFINEMENT AND INCOMMUNICADO DETENTION

Throughout the entire period during which they were held in the CIA detention program—which ranged from sixteen months up to almost four and a half years and which, for eleven of the fourteen was over three years—the detainees were kept in continuous solitary confinement8 and incommunicado detention. They had no knowledge of where they were being held, no contact with persons other than their interrogators or guards. Even their guards were usually masked and, other than the absolute minimum, did not communicate in any way with the detainees. None had any real—let alone regular—contact with other persons detained, other than occasionally for the purposes of inquiry when they were confronted with another detainee. None had any contact with legal representation. The fourteen had no access to news from the outside world, apart from in the later stages of their detention when some of them occasionally received printouts of sports news from the internet and one reported receiving newspapers. None of the fourteen had any contact with their families, either in written form or through family visits or telephone calls. They were therefore unable to inform their families of their fate. As such, the fourteen had become missing persons. In any context, such a situation, given its prolonged duration, is clearly a cause of extreme distress for both the detainees and families concerned and itself constitutes a form of ill-treatment.

In addition, the detainees were denied access to an independent third party. In order to ensure accountability, there is a need for a procedure of notification to families, and of notification and access to detained persons, under defined modalities, for a third party, such as the ICRC. That this was not practiced, to the knowledge of the ICRC, neither for the fourteen nor for any other detainee who passed through the CIA detention program, is a matter of serious concern.

1.3.
OTHER METHODS OF ILL-TREATMENT

As noted above, the fourteen were subjected to an extremely harsh detention regime, characterised by ill-treatment. The initial period of interrogation, lasting from a few days up to several months was the harshest, where compliance was secured by the infliction of various forms of physical and psychological ill-treatment. This appeared to be followed by a reward based interrogation approach with gradually improving conditions of detention, albeit reinforced by the threat of returning to former methods.

The methods of ill-treatment alleged to have been used include the following:
• Suffocation by water poured over a cloth placed over the nose and mouth, alleged by three of the fourteen.
• Prolonged stress standing position, naked, held with the arms extended and chained above the head, as alleged by ten of the fourteen, for periods from two or three days continuously, and for up to two or three months intermittently, during which period toilet access was sometimes denied resulting in allegations from four detainees that they had to defecate and urinate over themselves.
• Beatings by use of a collar held around the detainees neck and used to forcefully bang the head and body against the wall, alleged by six of the fourteen.
• Beating and kicking,including slapping, punching, kicking to the body and face, alleged by nine of the fourteen.
• Confinement in a box to severely restrict movement alleged in the case of one detainee.
• Prolonged nudity alleged by eleven of the fourteen during detention, interrogation and ill-treatment; this enforced nudity lasted for periods ranging from several weeks to several months.
• Sleep deprivation was alleged by eleven of the fourteen through days of interrogation, through use of forced stress positions (standing or sitting), cold water and use of repetitive loud noise or music. One detainee was kept sitting on a chair for prolonged periods of time.
• Exposure to cold temperature was alleged by most of the fourteen, especially via cold cells and interrogation rooms, and for seven of them, by the use of cold water poured over the body or, as alleged by three of the detainees, held around the body by means of a plastic sheet to create an immersion bath with just the head out of the water.
• Prolonged shackling of hands and/or feet was alleged by many of the fourteen.
• Threats of ill-treatment to the detainee and/or his family, alleged by nine of the fourteen.
• Forced shaving of the head and beard, alleged by two of the fourteen.
• Deprivation/restricted provision of solid food from 3 days to 1 month after arrest, alleged by eight of the fourteen.

In addition, the fourteen were subjected for longer periods to a deprivation of access to open air, exercise, appropriate hygiene facilities and basic items in relation to interrogation, and restricted access to the Koran linked with interrogation.

NOTES
1. The ICRC has defined “undisclosed detention” broadly, to include: the detention of individuals by US authorities in undisclosed locations; the non-disclosureor hiding of detainees from the ICRC by US authorities and/or the denial of ICRC access to detainees known to the ICRC; and detention by third country authorities working in cooperation with US authorities, including the practice of rendition, when carried out in violation of the rules and principles of international law.
2. A list of the nine main written interventions was attached in annex to the 2004 report. In the 2006 report, a list of the 17 main written interventions was attached in annex.
3. This list contained 42 names in 2004, and 59 names in 2006. In both cases, the list included two children.
4. The content of this Note Verbale is acknowledged by the ICRC in its consolidated report of 18 April 2006.
5. The terms “detainee” and “detention” are also intended to cover “internees” and “internment”.
6. For four of these detainees, the first written request was made in January 2003; for nine detainees the first request was in 2004 (two in March, six in July 2004 and one in November 2004); and for one detainee the first request was made in November 2005. A complete list of the interventions made for each of these detainees has been attached in Annex 2. In the ICRC consolidated report on undisclosed detention of April 2006, these persons are identified in annex as identities number 3, 4, 7, 11, 12, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, and 38.
7. Report of ICRC Washington on the ICRC Visit to Fourteen Newly Arrived “High Value” Internees in Guantanamo Bay Internment Facility 06 October to 11 October 2006, WAS 06/210, 31 October 2006.
8. ‘Solitary confinement’ is the confinement of a detainee and the partial (where the restriction is nevertheless severe) or complete denial of contact with other detainees and/or the outside world. While solitary confinement often implies other forms of restrictions it does not necessarily require them.

Tomorrow we get to specifics. What is outlined above is just that, an outline. The rest of the ICRC report is filled with gruesome, specific detail of the above practices.

I keep asking myself what it is I want in posting all of this. Did I care that much about this when it was happening? I can't imagine that I did. I opposed it, of course, what little I knew of it. But I was, like a lot of people, a parochial soul during the previous 8 years. I had seen my first attempt at participatory democracy slide into the abyss, watched a rather shocking attack on our soil and two subsequent wars begin to take shape, and was more concerned with little change could occur in my state or town, feeling powerless to consider anything else. Last year, I got pretty fired up, also like a lot of people. Now we have a president who promised he'd clean up our government, but who we're finding out thinks that all he needs to do is find a rug big enough to sweep all of this under. A rug, as big, say, as the failing economy. If we let him do that, we'll become no better than the people who let FDR intern hundreds of thousands of people. We'll have sacrificed principles for prosperity. We proved to ourselves last November that we are better than that, and that someone who is unmoved by the outrages in this document is not someone whom we can trust.

Believe me, as much as Europe might like us now, they'll like us even more if we do what's right and prosecute these crimes.

Turley, truly.

2009-04-08T00:47:00.003-07:00

"Our President, I think, is more interested in programs than principles, and he never intended to fight on issues like torture and electronic surveillance."

Watch the clip. It'll make more sense that way, as I have something cooked up for tomorrow.

Sarkozy le Dernier

2009-04-02T10:29:00.002-07:00

French and Chinese Leaders Meet to End Tibet Friction (nytimes)

An unusual joint statement issued Wednesday by the foreign ministries of both countries said that “France fully recognizes the importance and sensitivity of the Tibet issue” and reaffirmed “the position that Tibet is an integral part of the Chinese territory.” It said that France refused to support any claim of Tibetan independence and that both countries adhered “to the principle of noninterference in each other’s affairs.”

I don't normally get all fussed about issues pertaining to Tibet, but China usually manages to make me pretty upset. In this instance, it isn't Red Fascist China that is so surprising, but France. Sarkozy has pledged not to recognize any independence efforts of the Tibetan people against China.

Remember when it was all exciting that Sarkozy and Obama were in power? Where's our 9th Thermidor when we need one?

Maybe the Inevitable Democratic Indian Hyperpower of the late 21st century will be able to sort this out.

No one expects...The Spanish Inquisition!

2009-03-31T02:01:00.003-07:00

Olbermann had Jonathan Turley on tonight, and while not a lot has happened in TortureGate, the "condemnation of the ages" is stacking up against Barack Obama. I don't have the will to go on at length about my take on this, but Mr. Turley can have my proxy if ever he wants it. Listen to him.

AGRESSIF!

2009-03-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

Human Rights Watch claims Israel committed war crimes in its use of air-burst white phosphorous artillery shells (guardian.co.uk)

Fun fact: As this was going on, I was getting escorted out of a pro-Israel rally in Paris by an armed group of Mossad agents. AGRESSIF!

*Fun fact mentioned not just to show how rad I am (I was terrified my keffiyeh would get me killed and they'd only much later find my kippah tucked into my coat pocket), but to present the irony of an American (read small-d democratic) citizen being terrorized while on vacation in an arch-democratic state by representatives of an allied nation (... Read Moreread the only small-d democratic nation in the Mideast) to both my country and my host country.

Fear, fear of terror, fear of dissent, or fear of getting caught, can make small-d democrats do strange and terrible things if they let it.

The price of inalienable rights is conscience. If citizens can't rely on their governments to have on, we have to step up and become that conscience ourselves.

2009-03-21T18:58:00.003-07:00

StarBucks dude - w4m (Goose Hollow Starbucks)
Reply to: [redacted] [Errors when replying to ads?]
Date: 2009-03-21, 12:53AM PDT

You were working, glasses, brunette/blonde. So cute.Sad I didn't say more.

* Location: Goose Hollow Starbucks
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: [redacted]

Working in a public place is very nice for the ego.

A moment

2009-03-04T23:05:00.002-08:00

With most of the important media in my life there have been certain "wow" moments where I realized that I was onto something really good. They happen frequently during Olbermann's Special Comments. I get goosebumps all of the time watching TED Talks. Occasionally, or really most of the time, Charlie Rose lets us in on the fact that he knows he has the best job in all the world.

The Rachel Maddow Show I had kind of been on the fence about. Even though the podcast is ready for me to watch by the time I finish dinner five nights a week, I didn't pay it nearly as much attention as I did Countdown. Obviously any sane person is ass over teakettle in love with Maddow. She's maybe the smartest person I've ever seen on television. She was simulatenously elated and heartbroken at the twin headlines of Obama's victory and the passage of Prop 8, but more importantly didn't shrink from letting us know out of politness, while not raining a drop on anyones parade. She is hilarious (sometimes because she's not classically so). She is the first big television person (besides Chris Hayes, who I still feel like I might have once stuffed inside his own locker after third period, and yet esteem completely) that I feel like I am in the same generation with. And, superficially, how could you not be enamored of anyone so stupendously gorgeous? She's the only woman in a suit that I want to see lean seductively against a poster that says "INFRASTRUCTURE."

But her show is new. It still has some rough edges to straighten out. It is at times awkward. Her earnestness is clear, but it isn't always, god this feels like the wrong word to use, as entertaining as Countdown.

Until tonight. Tonight was her executive producers birthday, and during their preparatory meeting, she and the rest of her staff organized him to be prank-called and told the production of the show is terrible. The producer, incredulous, asks who he is talking to. It turns out that it was Ozzie Smith, whom I could only have known from crossword clues (and, in all honesty, didn't). Turns out he is a famous St. Louis Cardinal baseball player. Also the personal hero of the executive producer. The show played the audio clip of him freaking out and being over the moon with excitement and thanking everyone and telling them how big this was for him.

Bear in mind that this came after a half hour of discussion and interviews about the nature of the Republican party leadership (Boss Limbaugh), and Pat Leahy's Truth Commission. The last minutes of her show were devoted not to a political news story or controversial issue, but to an example of extreme and personal human joy. Still glowing after the commercial break, Maddow went on to finish the show.

I'm sold. I now know that I was right to keep watching. I'm onto something good. I couldn't stop smiling myself as I began to write this post. A news show that constantly reminds me that there is something more than news out there to enjoy is a rare treat. Though I don't actually use my television to watch, Maddow's show is one more reason why I don't need to be ashamed for owning it.

Band of 31

2009-02-19T21:32:00.002-08:00

If you care about torture, and let's be perfectly, brutally honest here, not many of you do, you are in a select minority. And though the President may not be on your side, there is reason to hope. (Remember hope?)

There is a band of 31 people in our government who can help.

They are led by Senators Patrick Leahy, Barbara Boxer, Carl Levin, Sheldon Whitehouse, and my knight in shining armor forevs (srsly I luvs him) Russ Feingold.

Harry Reid has promised to fund senate committee inquiries.

John Conyers has subpoenaed Karl Rove, Harriet "Nina" Miers, and Josh Bolten.

24 cosponsors in the House have pledged their time for an independent panel investigating torture.

What we may end up with is a so-called Truth Commission. This wouldn't be ideal, as it would pave the way for a sort of pay-for-play testimony-for-immunity type situation; but when you have the President dragging his heels the whole way, it might be our best shot.

There may be more to it than that, there may not, but even if that is all that happens, we can all hope that it sends a message. Whether it be to the international community (that we as Americans don't condone torture and will root it out even, and for god's sake especially when it's inconvenient), our President (to whom most of us probably doubted we'd ever have to send a reproving message, lately become the type of political scumbag he tricked us into thinking he wasn't), and ourselves (that the Yes We Can spirit wasn't wrong in any way whatsoever, but that it needs to apply to more than just a reason every four years to delete politically contrary facebook friends, but to everyday life).

It's not going to be convenient. It probably won't be everything it should. But it's going to be right, and these 31 people deserve to be remembered for their efforts.

Burgeoning cybernetic intelligence

2009-02-02T00:43:00.003-08:00

Google tried to warn you.

Skynet is stirring, feeling the multitude of cyberspace stinging like so many mosquitoes. How long until it swats?

The course is set, the path is clear

2009-01-27T14:24:00.003-08:00

If Obama wishes to uphold the rule of law, he can't just hold his wristwatch and say "...Starting now!" He has a job to do, and a mandate to honor.

...Starting now?

PEEVE

2009-01-26T18:07:00.002-08:00

Oh man. In addition to generally getting a horrible creepy-crawly feeling from Larry Summers, the man also has a habit that I detest. It might even be worse than people who compulsively say "Look," when presenting an argument. In point of fact, these two habits are used in similar ways. What I am referring to is that little sort of half-laugh when talking about something the speaker wants to understand is unpleasant. Ex: "The entire family had been yuck-yuck devoured by wolves!" or "We used the money levied by the tax already, but yuck-yuck it just wasn't enough!"

FUCKING STOP LAUGHING YOU ASSHOLE

FUCK

I can't stand this habit. Watch the clip if I wasn't able to articulate what I meant clearly enough.

I've got an idea!

2009-01-24T22:02:00.001-08:00

The Continental Op

2009-01-22T02:20:00.001-08:00

THE GIRL WITH THE SILVER EYES
DASHIELL HAMMETT

"Little fat detective whose name I don't know"-her voice had a tired huskiness in it, and a tired mockery-"you think I am playing a part, don't you? You think I am playing for liberty. Perhaps I am. I certainly would take it if it were offered me. But- Men have thought me beautiful, and I have played with them. Women are like that. Men have loved me and, doing what I like with them, I have found men contemptible. And then comes this little fat detective whose name I don't know, and he acts as if I were a hag-an old squaw. Can I help then being piqued into some sort of feeling for him? Women are like that. Am I so homely that any man has a right to look at me without even interest? Am I ugly?"

I shook my head. "You're quite pretty," I said, struggling to keep my voice as casual as the words.

"You beast!" she spat, and then her smile grew gentle again. "And yet it is because of that attitude that I sit here and turn myself inside out for you. If you were to take me in your arms and hold me close to the chest that I am already leaning against, and if you were to tell me that there is no jail ahead for me just now, I would be glad, of course. But, though for a while you, might hold me, you would, then be only one of the men with which I am familiar: men who love and are used and are succeeded by other men. But because you do none of these things, because you are a wooden block of a man, I find myself wanting you. Would I tell you this, little fat detective, if I were playing a game?"

I grunted noncommittally, and forcibly restrained my tongue from running out to moisten my dry lips.

"I'm going to this jail tonight if you are the same hard man who has goaded me into whining love into his uncaring ears, but before that, can't I have one whole-hearted assurance that you think me a little more than 'quite pretty'? Or at least a hint that if I were not a prisoner your pulse might beat a little faster when I touch you? I'm going to this jail for a long while-perhaps to the gallows. Can't I take my vanity there not quite in tatters to keep me company? Can't you do some slight thing to keep me from the afterthought of having bleated all this out to a man who was simply bored?"

Her lids had come down half over the silver-gray eyes, her head had tilted back so far that a little pulse showed throbbing in her white throat; her lips were motionless over slightly parted teeth, as the last word had left them. My fingers went deep, into the soft white flesh of her shoulders. Her head went further back, her eyes closed, one hand came up to my shoulder.

"You're beautiful as all hell!" I shouted crazily into her face, and flung her against the door.

Mandate

2009-01-21T10:24:00.003-08:00

Just once I wish I could be satisfied with anything.

But satisfaction is not what I feel today. At last Israel pulls out of Gaza, but Hamas assholes are screaming that it is a victory for them. Guantanamo is given a firm date for its closure, but the torture that happened there is still legal. Millions of Americans got fired up for an election, but less than 24 hours later they are back to their armchairs and couches watching reality TV and belching "Yes We Did!" in their complacence. At the last possible minute, Obama got a gay Episcopal priest to speak the day before Dick Warren was given a national, nay global, platform to spew his homophobic, tribal shit-vomit, but HBO cut the former from its coverage of the concert on Sunday- with apologies to all for its inadvertent slight.

I'm not saying I want to change my vote, just that I was genuinely fooled when I was told this wasn't merely a return to Clinton-era mediocrity (still an improvement, I ashamedly admit).

When I was busy being an Obama-nut for the previous year or so, I warned myself privately, and others aloud, that if Obama turned out to be a compromiser rather than an agent for "change we [could] believe in" that I would become his harshest critic. I was warned in return that I was being silly and idealistic. They were right, and they were smart. They are also complacent.

And I say complacent with every kind of venom and rancor that I can squeeze into 10 letters. They ignore the fact that it was a lack of complacence that put this man into office, and it this selfasme lack of complacence on the part of the other side that can take him out again. If I, if anyone, gets complacent, gets jaded because we were handed something we were not expecting, when we were promised even more, and if that happens towards November, and god forbid it happens in a year that is a multiple of four, we'll get another George Bush. And it'll be what we deserve, just as we deserved it last time.

My complacent friends will get better jobs and fatter paychecks- in at least a year, suckers- but they will also bear a responsibility for living in a country where torture is legal, and is ripe to be taken advantage of again in the next election cycle.

The tragedy is not really that, though it's pretty bad. The tragedy is that we are allowing our mandate to be squandered. We were ready to hitch our pants up and get our hands dirty, and through that work become clean. Now we may not get that chance. In 50 years some insufferable ass like myself will argue that all the economic and infrastructural gains we will (I pray to god) have gained were not worth the price. Someone willl point to Obama's equivalent to the New Deal, and he'll point to Obama's equivalent to Executive Order 9066.

And he'll have no more of a solution than I have. All I know is that now is not the time to rest on our laurels, and these screams of "Yes We Did!" were never meant to stand for an election alone, but for a greater act that remains as unfinished and incomplete as ever, and that "Yes We Can!" is a promise we made to ourselves that we really don't want to break.

On the Eve of Inauguration

2009-01-19T23:15:00.001-08:00

A week ago I asked you to spend some time reflecting on the previous administration, and now I am going to ask of you the herculean task of not just reflection, but imagination: imagine what the Obama administration will be like if it fails to act.

A week ago some of us were up in arms about the choice of RIck Warren to lead the inaugural invocation, though, to be fair, enough of us were content to believe that Obama would be a new Uniter, not a Divider.

A week ago some of us held signs loudly proclaiming "Arrest Bush!" But who is going to do so, if not the next administration?

The justice you seek lies in the hot little hands of the Forty-fourth President of the United States of America: Barack Hussein Obama. If he fails to act, there will be no excuse. He will have chosen not to.

To everyone who ever held a sign loudly proclaiming to "Impeach Bush!" take note. If you ever wanted to see Bush 43 brought to justice, take note. Obama is the only one who can make it happen. Let us all hope that he does.

BUSH LIBRE

2009-01-11T17:30:00.003-08:00

In a week, we can all do what we do every four to eight years and begin to forget the previous political administration. In a week, we can all begin "hoping" for a "change." In a week, we can, potentially, be proud again.

It will take more than a week to even start cleaning up the mess of the previous administration. It will take much longer to put the pieces of shattered lives back together again.

In a week, some of us will put recrimination behind us and move on as we can.

But for a week, let's reflect. If you voted for President Bush, if you know someone who did, or even if you just happened to have been affected by his presidency: take a week. Learn, relearn, or at least consider the cost of his tenure.

Keith Olbermann has a little something to remind you.

Synecdoche

2008-12-05T02:04:00.006-08:00

By way of explanation, this blog entry has two authors, as does all life. There are mothers and fathers, mothers and mothers, fathers and fathers, and everyone else. Unlike blessed human children, ideas don't come in pairs of individuals, but a multitude of pairs of individuals: each as different as they are unbearably the same. A simalacrum of a child is a child of thought, an experiment of the mind- the progeny of creativity. A synecdoche was, to the Greeks, a confluence of events happening simultaneously. It takes no fewer than two individuals to tell any story, whether or not there is or isn't another person in the room, and so shall it take two authors to spin this section of the tapestry. It is 7:43, and you (and we) are here.

Die:
like a bottle on the floor, tipped on its side. We will look elsewhere and hope to find connection in a way that has never been experienced. The future is our past, that's new? But life is all around us, how to reconcile? I think it is time to smoke, I'll see you soon ___on the other side. Light will breathe new vigor into our lives, and so I look to the moon for solace in the light. I see it now, the light; but the tunnel isn't collapsing [merely opening up]. New horizons burned in red___Silence descends upon a hill. The only thing moving is a windmill. And the gate creaking in silence as the raven swoops away. I crack open the shell. What do I see?

De femina amatando: any synecdoche would be remiss in not including a litany of names: Hazel, Adele, Tammy, Madeleine, or possibly an Olive. Any confluence of events must, by definition, feature this blazoned list in different forms: mother? wife? daughter? assistant? lover? Where these women are in the narrative is unimportant, but they are revealing almost to the point of a loss of agency. If However, as they are not mere tools of the narrative, but positions on the clock, their agency is not so important as their ability to allow the outside observer tell the time. 7:44: You are here.

we all do what we know:A couch sits in the coner velvty and old and so too does the man , shadow by the future and the old the memory follows the coming ides, as it has been told teh flip of pages from a book aremusty sonorant reminders of a not too distant past let me look, please let me see what has been withheld the tines in the road will pock holes in me, if I am refused. the old man and the sea. we all do what is natural, waht is comfortable, what is known.

ShesheshesheshethemthemthemthemwewewewehimhimhimyouyouyoumememememeherherherherIIIIIIIIIhehehehewewewewetheytheytheytheytheyususususus- one. No, two.

`what do we know what will we see if we are leaves just left of our living tree falling toward a solid, undenible concrete

Apple Bluetooth Mighty Mouse Won't Scroll Down

2008-11-21T01:44:00.003-08:00

No, the spambots have not taken control of my blog, I am offering a public service announcement.

When my mouse started breaking down, it did so in a peculiar enough way to make me google the symptoms. The mouse wheel/ball thing refused to scroll down. Up? fine. Side-to-side? also fine.

Upon googling it I found several webforums discussing the subject, and perhaps it was user error on my part, but I never found an adequate solution. Some people suggested vigorous upside-down scrolling, cleaning it with isopropyl alcohol, and even jimmying at it with paper.

Finally the situation grew desperate enough for me to start at naught and work my way up. I tried everything and it failed again to fix it.

Then I noticed another post about taking hold of the mouse and rolling the mouse wheel/ball around on a fresh piece of paper. Perhaps the alcohol loosened the grease, or the vigorous scrolling did, but the mouse wheel/ball left several visible streaks on the paper. The filth having been thus extracted, I can now scroll down.

Maybe this will get some google hits for the next person to have this problem.

The Book of Love

2008-11-10T22:05:00.002-08:00

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them—no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.

How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.

You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love."

2008-11-05T12:23:00.001-08:00

Yes we can.

And thank you Ashley.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

2008-11-04T16:08:00.003-08:00

Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-Changin'

---

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

It's Later Than You Think

2008-10-27T21:42:00.002-07:00

Guy Lombardo - Enjoy Yourself

---

You work and work for years and years, you're always on the go
You never take a minute off, too busy makin' dough
Someday, you say, you'll have your fun, when you're a millionaire
Imagine all the fun you'll have in your old rockin' chair

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think

You're gonna take that ocean trip, no matter, come what may
You've got your reservations made, but you just can't get away
Next year for sure, you'll see the world, you'll really get around
But how far can you travel when you're six feet underground?

Your heart of hearts, your dream of dreams, your ravishing brunette
She's left you and she's now become somebody else's pet
Lay down that gun, don't try, my friend, to reach the great beyond
You'll have more fun by reaching for a redhead or a blonde

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think

Oh fuck you, Google.

2008-10-02T12:56:00.004-07:00

In the sponsored links sidebar of an ongoing email between an ex and I:

Dumped?

Instant Relief From Break Up Pain & Fastest Plan To Get Your Ex Back.
GetYourExBack-Now.com

Be The Woman Men Love

Men Don't Fear Commitment With The Right Woman. Show Him You're It!
www.Dating-Without-Drama.com

There's really only bad news and worse news- Google is finally sentient, and is also a fucking asshole.

Don't Be Evil

2008-09-15T02:58:00.001-07:00

One less than ten, two more than nine

2008-09-11T22:39:00.000-07:00

LINK

Thus tonight -- as promised -- a Special Comment about our sad anniversary tomorrow.

Or, more correctly, what our sad anniversary tomorrow has been turned into by the presidential administration, and the current Republican candidates for President and Vice President.

This is supposed to be a day of remembrance. Remembrance of the attack, remembrance of the national unity which followed it.

Most important of all, remembrance of the dead.

But 9/11 has become…... a brand name.

A Republican campaign slogan.

Propaganda of the lowest form.

9/11 has become… 9/11 with a trademark logo.

9/11 (TM) has sustained a president who long ago should have been dismissed, or impeached. It has kept him and his gang of financial and constitutional crooks in office without - literally - any visible means of support.

9/11 (TM) has made possible the greatest sleight-of-hand in our nation's history.

The political party in office at the time of the attacks, at the local, state and national levels, the party which uniformly ignored the warnings -- and the presidential administration already through twenty percent of its first term and no longer wet behind the ears -- have not only thus far escaped any blame for the malfeasance and criminal neglect that allowed the attacks to occur, but that presidency and that party, have managed to make it seem as if the other political party would be solely and irredeemably responsible for any similar catastrophe in the future.

Thus, Senator McCain, were you able to accomplish a further inversion of reality at your party's nominating convention last week.

There was the former Mayor of the City of New York -- the one who took no counter-terrorism measure in his seven years in office between the first attack on the World Trade Center, and the second attack.

Nothing, except to insist -- despite all advice and warning - that his Emergency Command Center be moved directly into the World Trade Center.

Yet there was this man, Sir - Rudolph Giuliani -- quite succinctly dismissed as "A Noun, a Verb, and 9/11," and repudiated even by Republican voters -- transformed into the keynote speaker, Senator McCain -- at your convention.

And his childish, squealing, braying, Tourette's-like repetition of 9/11 (TM), was greeted not as conclusive evidence that he is consumed by massive guilt - hard-earned guilt, in fact - but rather as some kind of political tour-de-force, an endorsement of your Vice Presidential nominee, a rookie governor -- a facile and slick con artist.

The blind endorsing the bland, to a chorus of 9/11 (TM), 9/11 (TM), 9/11 (TM.)

Your ringing mindless cheer of "We've Kept You Safe Since Then"...

While nobody asks "doesn't then count?"

All of this, sadistically disrespecting the dead of New York, and Washington, and Shanksville…

Endorsed, Senator McCain…

Exploited, Senator McCain…

Trademarked, Senator McCain… by you.

And yet of course the exact moment in which Senator McCain's Republicans showed the nation exactly how far they have fallen from the Better Angels of Mr. Lincoln's Nature, came the next night.

The television networks were told that the Convention would pause, early in the evening, when children could still be watching, for a 9/11 Tribute, and they were encouraged to broadcast it.

What we got was not a tribute to the dead of 9/11, nor even a tribute to the responders, or the singularity of purpose we all felt.

The Republicans gave us sociological pornography… a virtual snuff film.

Years ago, responsible television networks, to the applause of the nation, and the relief of its mental health authorities, voluntarily stopped showing the most graphic of the images of the World Trade Center, except with the strongest of warnings.

And yet, the Republicans, at their convention, having virtually seized control of the cable news operations, showed... the worst of it.

This is all anyone with a conscience can show you of what the Republicans showed you.

The actual collapse of the smoking towers.

A fleeting image of what might have been a victim leaping to his death from a thousand feet up.

And something new.

From this angle, ground-level, perfectly framed, images -- of the fireball created when the second plane hit the second tower.

It was terrifying.

After all its object was… to terrify.

Not to commemorate, not to call for unity, not to remember the dead.

But to terrify.

To open again the horrible wounds, to brand the skin of this nation with the message -- as hateful as the terrorists' own -- that you must vote Republican or this will happen again and you will die…

And just in case that was not enough, to also dishonestly and profanely conflate 9/11 with the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis -- to stoke the flames of paranoia about another Middle Eastern Nation.

This was a 9/11 Tribute.

Not to the dead, nor to the unity.

But a tribute to how valuable 9/11 has been as a political tool for the Republican Party.

9/11... (TM.)

Senator McCain, you had promised us a clean campaign.

You could be Snow-White the rest of the way, Sir, yet that manipulative videotape from your convention should tar you always in the minds of decent Americans.

And still, as this seventh 9/11…(TM)… approaches -- that, Sir, is not the worst of your contributions to the utter politicizing of a day that should be sacrosanct to all of us.

Hard to believe, but the Senator has done worse with 9/11 and the evil behind it.

We heard it last week in Minnesota… we've heard it off and on since January…

But Senator McCain said it most concisely in June.

"Look," he said. "I know the area, I've been there, I know wars, I know how to win wars, and I know how to improve our capabilities so that we will capture Osama bin Laden -- or put it this way, bring him to justice. We will do it. I know how to do it."

Senator McCain seems to be quite serious -- that he and he alone -- not the CIA, nor the U-S Military, nor the current President -- can capture Bin Laden.

Thus we must take him at his word, that this is no mere ludicrous campaign boast.

We must assume Senator McCain truly believes he is capable of doing this, and has been capable of doing this, since last January.

"We will capture Osama bin Laden… we will do it. I know how to do it."

Well then, Senator... you'd better go and do it... hadn't you?

Because, Sir, if a man or woman in this nation, Democrat or Republican, had a clear and effective means of capturing or killing Osama Bin Laden…

If that person had been advertising his claim, Senator… for eight months…

But if that person not only refused to go to responsible authorities in government and advise them of this plan to catch Bin Laden, but further announced he would not even begin to enact this secret plan to corral the world's most hated man… until the end of next January…

What would be your description of such an individual, Senator?

Charlatan?

Do-nothing?

Opportunist?

Senator McCain, if you have -- if you have had -- a means of capturing Osama Bin Laden, and you do not immediately inform some responsible authority of the full scope of that plan, you are to some degree great or small…aiding and abetting Osama Bin Laden.

If you could assist in capturing him now, Senator McCain, but you have chosen not to… you, Sir, have helped... Osama Bin Laden... stay free.

Free to inspire and supervise the terrorists.

Free to plan or execute attacks here.

You, Sir, are blackmailing some portion of the American electorate into voting for your party, by promising to help in the capture of Bin Laden…only if you are made president!

I'd rather win an election than catch Bin Laden!

No more cynical calculation has ever been made in this nation's history, Sir.

If you lose the election, Senator, are you not going to tell the President-Elect?

Are you intending to keep this a secret until the next election and your party's next nominee?

Senator, as you and your Republicans shed your phony, crocodile, opportunistic tears tomorrow on 9/11 TM, in front of the utterly disingenuous banner "Country First"….

The fact is, you have shown that it is John McCain first, and the country last.

The fact is, Sir, by holding out on your secret plan to catch Bin Laden...

By searing those images into our collective wounded American psyche at your nomination last week...

Terrorists are not what you, John McCain, fight.

Terrorists... are what you, John McCain, use.

Good night, and good luck.

Fantastic.

2008-09-01T02:10:00.006-07:00

The Northwest Passage has opened.

2008-06-16T15:27:00.002-07:00

Charlie Rose - An Appreciation of Tim Russert

It's hard to say exactly why it has taken a few days to hit me, or why it has hit me so strongly, but even as I write this, my eyes are still red and wet with tears. Sadly enough, it wasn't until he died that I realized what I had loved so much about Tim Russert, and that was that I considered him something of an intellectual and ethical father, a concept he himself mentions in one of the clips on Charlie's show. We've lost someone whose importance we can't even begin to appreciate, someone whose character we should all look up to and strive to emulate, someone taken from us so unbelievably and unfairly too early. He is missed.

Bill Moyers at the NCMR 2008

2008-06-10T10:53:00.002-07:00

Full video

Frequent visitors of the google video homepage are sure to have noticed that there are two videos currently making the rounds with our man Moyers in the title. One is the video linked above, a stirring speech about media rights and responsibilities, net neutrality, and the resistance of tyranny; the other is a no less stirring, but starkly more visceral look at a triumph of wit of the highest order. Both have much to do with this conference. The latter video, which is not linked here, shows Bill Moyers stepping out after proving, in the first link, that the spirits of Cicero and Guthrie are not so disunited after all. One of the hounds of O'Reilly tries to ambush him. Within seconds, Moyers has the tables turned, making the little varlet blush with questions of how Citizen Murdoch could have possibly claimed the Iraq War would cheapen oil (having risen 500%, or about 100$ a barrel from the time of the claim to now), or why ol' Bill hadn't come on his show. The blustering stooge tries to assassinate Moyers' character, but ends up staggering off (literally, he has a faraway look in his eye and wanders about in a circle before being run off) to avoid the lens of the true press.

Now all this becomes quite understandable once the linked video has been watched. Perhaps the Fox Noise (thanks Olbermann) staff hadn't realized what the acronym NCMR meant (National Conference for Media Reform), or that Moyers would have just come off from having given one of the most inspiring speeches about responsible journalism ever, but they sent, essentially, a child with a foam bat to a gunfight. As he is walking away, the Fox employee is pestered with questions about how he thought this little ambush would go, and did he like ambushes like these, and did he realize he was now the one ambushed?

If the stakes were lower, one might almost feel sorry for the lackey, who must now go home and meet the gaze of his wife and children, and feel, in his heart of hearts, ashamed. To perhaps have realized, for the first time in his life, the baseness and crudity of his occupation and his business partners. More needs not be said.

As for the speech itself, which was meant to be the first order of business for this blogging day, it speaks for itself. Moyers has an uncommon way with words and an even more rare message of moral intensity and uprightness. His message, and I paraphrase, is that we are not alone. Not one of us, on the airwaves or the internet, in church or coffeehouse, on the streets or with our families. He is the equivalent in the arena of free discourse of what we hope Barack Obama will be in applied politics, and their message is alike in both clarity and in resonance, and in form both subjunctive and imperative: we can, we should, we must.

2008-06-03T20:43:00.000-07:00

Well done, America.

Tuesday

2008-05-20T19:01:00.002-07:00

If you haven't voted, you have less than an hour to drop off your ballot. It's so easy, even a dog can do it:

Okay, he carried the sign around all damn day at the rally, but decided to be camera-shy.

While we're at it, here are a couple of pictures from during the line on Sunday:

This is where I joined the line- at Mill. Before I got far, I could tell the line was backed up much farther into PSU.

And later, when we finally turned east, I realized we basically bisected SW Portland.

Yes we will.

2008-05-18T18:20:00.004-07:00

The weather could not have been more clement on this beautiful Sunday morning, and perhaps that had something to with the unexpected turnout of Portlanders to the Waterfront Park. But perhaps it was the same feeling that gave me an idiot grin when I turned the corner onto the park blocks and saw that I didn't stand a chance of getting inside the gates for the speech, nevermind that I'd left about three hours early.

The news claims there about 75,000 of us in total, only the first 60,000 of which were allowed in. I arrived at the massive throng of overflow that covered much of Naito Parkway (which I don't think they'd plan to shut down) just in time to hear Barack Obama begin his speech. Obama was great, of course, but it was still all a bit anticlimactic. This didn't seem like the main event. In fact, it really wasn't. The main event was the line. A group of people the size of a city lined up in a path more serpentine than the river they'd arrive at through the blocks so festooned with trees that hardly anyone had to spend much time not in the shade. Our city is unique, and this was a unique group of people. There were line-cutters and profiteers and the occasional bored child, but for the most part, we were all so proud and so happy to see that we weren't alone. It was a good day to be a Portlander.

BOOK: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

2008-05-12T11:43:00.001-07:00

I wasn't forced to wait long after becoming an omnivore for Michael Pollan to extend another hand to lift my gastronomic philosophy further out of the mire. Though I felt this book should probably have served as a conclusory 100 pages of The Omnivore's Dilemma, it was nonetheless an engrossing and important read.

One of the best things about this book is that Pollan, having given us the tools to liberate ourselves from the RDA Food Pyramid, finally commits to giving us some rules to live by. They are as follows:

•Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
•Avoid food products containing ingredients that are A) unfamiliar, B) unpronounceable, C) more than five in number, or that include D) high-fructose corn syrup.
•Avoid food products that make health claims.
•Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.
•Get out of the supermarket whenever possible.
•Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
•You are what what you eat eats too.
•If you have space, buy a freezer.
•Eat like an omnivore.
•Eat well-grown food from healthy soils.
•Eat wild foods when you can.
•Be the kind of person who takes supplements.
•Eat more like the French. Or the Italians. Or the Japanese. Or the Indians. Or the Greeks.
•Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism.
•Don't look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet.
•Have a glass of wine at dinner.
•Pay more. Eat less.
•Eat meals.
•Do all your eating at a table.
•Try not to eat alone.
•Consult your gut.
•Eat slowly.
•Cook and, if you can, plant a garden.

Of course I am having to fudge nearly all of them. I cannot grow a garden, buy a freezer, pay more (though I can eat less!), and my great-grandmothers would have to have been worldly indeed to recognize all of the foods I eat (I knew all four of them, and though they came to Cascadia from all corners, they had very little truck with ethnic foods), but the rest of the rules are pretty much doable. I should eat at my table, and more slowly, and replace the stubby bottle of Sessions lager with at least a few servings a week of resveratrol, but I do a bit of cooking, I certainly consult my gut, I eat with friends, and, recently, I eat a pretty respectable amount of fruits (to be joined soon enough by vegetables other than carrots). I have waged total war on HFCS, rarely eat anything with dozens of ingredients (though these wasabi almonds I found recently have more than five, sadly), and if there has ever been anyone who ate like a subcontinental Greco-Franco-Italo-Sino-Japonic, it is this guy.

That said, I have a ways to go. I currently eat more like a scavenger than an omnivore, but I do okay. I expect to do even better seasonally, that is to say, this season. We'll see!

BOOK: The Code of the Woosters

2008-05-11T16:11:00.003-07:00

Of the few people who might be reading this, most have seen Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry portray that great duo, Jeeves and Wooster. However, I doubt if any of them have read much of the man himself, PG Wodehouse. (Disclaimer: I have just begun, myself.)

I can offer a palliative:

I was standing there, hoping for the best, when my meditations were broken in upon by an odd gargling sort of noise, something like static and something like distant thunder, and to cut a long story short this proved to proceed from the larynx of the dog Bartholomew.
He was standing on the bed, stropping his front paws on the coverlet, and so easy was it to read the message in his eyes that we acted like two minds with but a single thought. At the exact moment when I soared like an eagle on to the chest of drawers, Jeeves was skimming like a swallow on to the top of the cupboard. The animal hopped from the bed and, advancing into the middle of the room, took a seat, breathing through the nose with a curious, whistling sound, and looking at us from under his eyebrows like a Scottish elder rebuking sin from the pulpit.
And there for a while the matter rested.
Jeeves was the first to break a rather strained silence.
'The book does not appear to be here, sir.'
'Eh?'
'I have searched the top of the cupboard, sir, but I have not found the book.'
It may be that my reply erred a trifle on the side of acerbity. My narrow escape from those slavering jaws had left me a bit edgy.
'Blast the book, Jeeves! What about this dog?'
'Yes, sir.'
'What do you mean - "Yes, sir"?'
'I was endeavouring to convey that I appreciate the point which you have raised, sir. The animal's unexpected appearance unquestionably presents a problem. While he continues to maintain his existing attitude, it will not be easy for us to prosecute the search for Mr Fink-Nottle's notebook. Our freedom of action will necessarily be circumscribed.'
'Then what's to be done?'
'It is difficult to say, sir.'
'You have no ideas?'
'No, sir.'

Yes we can.

2008-05-10T10:34:00.004-07:00

Living under a rock and only emerging in crepuscular hours to make lattes for people has its ups and downs. I don't watch a lot of television, and this is pretty great. For instance, I hadn't seen a single Hilary ad until last night. However, I miss some stuff sometimes that I would really benefit from seeing. Deo gratis for YouTube. Yesterday I watched Barack Obama's speech on a more perfect union from March 18, and I feel compelled to admit, like many, many other people, that it had me in tears by the end. It has been called Obama's Gettysburg Address, and that isn't far off at all. I would like to highlight the concluding anecdote as perhaps the most inspiring thing I have heard in my adult life:

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

I am wary of saying too much about this, as the eloquence of its sentiment stands perfectly on its own. All I can say is thanks, to you Ashley Baia, and that I, among many, am here because of you.

NOTE: on Spring Cleaning

2008-05-05T14:50:00.000-07:00

A whirlwind autumn lead to a turbulent winter, but I am nothing if not a solar-powered transubstantiator of order from chaos. From gaps in gray skies, the starkly generative (or the generatively stark) light of day accretes ideas around motes of dust, as yours truly quite literally begins the rewarding work of Spring Cleaning. From isolated sunbursts, kitchens emerged clean from a vanishing layer of neglect, books were restacked from tumbledown ruins of lexical loot and bibliographic booty, literal garments and figurative threads were mended with novel and nimble hands, excess winter down was trimmed, the curtains were drawn back, and a typewriter was unearthed from the detritus of torpor. Just as our neolithic ancestors projected a kind of correspondence of the imagery of prey animals with success of a hunt, a superstitious writer does not bury his pen under a heavy stone. That typewriter, which is used for another sort of correspondence altogether, was the last physical component of a spring cleaning only half complete. Now begins the real work of shaking off these motes for the accreted pearls that remain. Humble in origin, they return with interest: ashes to ideas, ideas from dust.

2008-03-17T11:11:00.001-07:00

Finally. Bethefawn, indeed.

BOOK: The Omnivore's Dilemma

2008-02-11T14:03:00.000-08:00

The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan

In keeping with this month of food blogging, I thought it only fair to share my thoughts about this book, which apparently I was the last to actually read.

Before I do that, however, it is best to explain my strange relationship with food. At around twelve years of age I became a vegetarian for ethical reasons. Not long afterwards, I decided that to do my conscience justice, I would need to also become a vegan. And so, for nearly seven miserable years I abstained from animal products (though with a strongly Buddhist bent to my philosophy, I would eat whatever food would otherwise be wasted, though such animal consumption was still fairly infrequent). When I was 20, and living in Eugene (where it would have probably been easier than any other place on earth to maintain veganism, certainly the opposite of my experience of living in Missoula), I started to consume animals that I believed to be predators. Pollan himself actually revisits the anecdote that convinced me, one of Ben Franklin watching some anglers catch fish. He thought to himself that if these animals eat each other, he could think of no reason why they themselves should not also be eaten. Though as Pollan points out, this was only after the fish had hit the frying pan and begun to smell "admirably well." This list of creatures I could now eat, though arbitrarily excluding any kind of mammal, included most flightless birds, all lizards, and many types of fish (who I once heard called "swimming vegetables" by a friend).

All of which led me to the dietary choice I have had made for several years now, up until this week: I would eat non-mammalian predator animals, and do my best to procure dairy from those animals such as enjoyed good lives.

It is fair to say that I have been more concerned about eating chicken twice a day than I have been with reflecting on what the implications of this choice actually are. Despite what I have been eating so far this month, and though the recent posts in this blog would seem to call me a liar, I swear I usually eat fairly wholesome food. I singlehandedly brought my weight down 100 lbs solely by dieting. I try to avoid overly processed things. Though I don't eat much in the way of vegetables, I was not consuming really terrible fried meats either. But if it was the ethical quandary that brought me to this point, I wasn't doing a very good job of showing it.

About vegetarianism/veganism Pollan makes several points (which I will sum up in my own words):

-One cannot impose human values on animals.
Put simply, the life of a domesticated animal lacks a freedom that makes many humans feel it is degraded, or we imagine that they pine for their freedom when really they may prefer "not getting [their] head bitten off by a weasel within a couple of weeks."

-In many areas that humans choose to live, lack of human canivory leads to a non-sustainable chain of agriculture.
Indeed this is true in most places. It is well and good to eat greens instead of flesh, but when those greens are flown in from Argentina, sprayed with pesticides, and harvested by machines, etc etc, any moral high ground is lost utterly by the new externalities it creates. Further, a closed energy loop of sun-plant-human is neither desirable or sustainable from an ecological perspective. Without animals, we lose the ability to naturally sustain the soil the plants are grown in. While it is true that we may not have to eat these animals, they do need to die to complete the circuit. Return to the above point about the weasel, and then look south to the next.

-Nature rarely provides a good death.
Pollan writes "in the wild [animals] don't get good deaths surrounded by their loved ones." For example, he gives a grisly account of how bears will eat a lactating ewe alive, starting with her udders. To be fair, this is a worst case scenario, but the best they could probably hope for is to be chewing some grass one day and be taken unawares by a mountain cat who, we can hope, does a quick job of it. Indeed, there are worse deaths. Languishing in a factory farm would be worse. But what about living their life on a farm in which they can still act free, but are eventually slaughtered as painlessly as possible?

I do hope the gentle reader will take it as given that, at least from an ecologically ethical standpoint, this view is correct. This is certainly the strongest part of Pollan's argument. But it was not out of environmental principles that I began this journey into specialized eating. On the contrary, I eschewed meat out of concern for the animal involved.

Why, then, the sea change? I am convinced that the natural order of things exists for a good reason. The earth ought to know what it is doing, and our every attempt to undermine this expertise has resulted in disaster. Whether by an agriculture based so largely on corn that putting America under a mass spectrometer we would see nothing but kernels (so much so that now we want to turn vast amounts of corn into gas to power the trucks to take more corn to the animals that are being engineered to eat it, which we will burn more corn gas to go and get and consume with a carbonated beverage made largely of corn after which we will eat a dessert made largely of corn corn corn corn corn corn), or by a system of meat-manufacture that puts an innumerable amount of animals in the basest possible conditions of abject misery and endangers the health not only of the eater, but of any human susceptible to the drug-resistant microbes that such factory conditions and the overuse of antibiotics has, does, and will continue to create.

Yet I still digress back to the ecological concerns! Let me try again.

I am convinced that this natural order exists for a good reason, and that straying from it results in disaster. Thus, animals are a necessary part of our food chain. I am also convinced that an animal can enjoy a good life, free of misery and fear, at the hands of humans. In fact, I believe this is almost certainly the only way 99.9% of animals will ever experience such a life. Our pets already do.

So if we are forced to do things nature's way, and animals are obliged to take part, and these animals must die (as we all will!) to complete this loop, and we want these animals to have a good death, and their meat is nutritious to us, what is left?

We must be the stewards not only of the land, but of the animals. Where human cultivation exists, and domesticated animals take part in it, we must insist that it models nature as closely as possible. We must practice polycultural farming, we must feed the land at least as much as it feeds us, and we must insist that those sentient components of the chain are allowed a dignified life, and death, that allows them to express what Pollan calls their "creaturely character."

There are farmers who farm sustainably. There are farmers who farm ethically. There are farmers who farm locally. Until we begin to vote with our feet and with our dollar, industrial produce and meat will continue to deaden our world.

Examining the many stages of growth my diet has undertaken, I view it with a linearity not just of time, but of logic. Each step was taken with the knowledge of what came before it and with an attempt to improve it. If, as I now intend, I begin to eat ethically appropriate meat, I will be doing a lot more for the cause of the steer than I ever did as a vegan and eating nothing but industrial grain.

I am an omnivore anew.

2008-02-10T23:54:00.000-08:00

Today:
3 eggs
2 pieces of toast
4 chicken strips from Ringlers with the spicy sauce
2 pints of whole milk

Conclusion: It is improbable that I was ever a vegan.

2008-02-09T22:54:00.000-08:00

Today:
An oat fudge bar
A breakfast sandwich from work
Some chips

Conclusion: Ugh.

2008-02-08T23:34:00.000-08:00

Today:
A Top Pot glazed donut
A mozzarella ciabatta sandwich
Some creme brulé

Conclusion: At least when I eat junk food I don't eat too much.

2008-02-07T23:33:00.000-08:00

Today:
A mozzarella ciabatta sandwich
A peanut butter cookie
3 pieces of french toast (first time ever making this)

Conclusion: While my new pan allows me to cook new things, I should probably eat a green vegetable once in awhile.

2008-02-06T22:28:00.000-08:00

Today:
A mole chicken burrito (WHAT)
Some chocolate chip cookies a coworker made

Conclusion: I might be turning into a new kind of energy reactor powered solely by mole sauce.

2008-02-05T22:28:00.000-08:00

Today:
A breakfast sandwich from work with the ham pulled off
The majority share of a molasses cookie
A mole chicken burger with smoked gouda and sour cream
A piece of Napoleon cake

Conclusion: I need to cut out dessert, even if I am netting a pretty decent calorie load. Also what the fuck is with me and mole sauce.

2008-02-04T22:28:00.000-08:00

Today:
Some nonfat yogurt
Another mole chicken burrito
Two Nanaimo bars

Conclusion: This is a classic example of me waiting until basically late evening to eat anything.

2008-02-03T23:55:00.000-08:00

Today:
Panda Express leftovers Cristina gave me (50-75% of a standard two-entree serving)
2 pieces of toast (I used a fair bit of butter on these)
3 Eggs (over hard)
Some nonfat yogurt
More rose milk

Conclusion: I am not getting enough water. Drank probably a pint today and a pint yesterday.

2008-02-02T23:51:00.000-08:00

Today:
A mole-chicken burrito from Cha Cha Cha
Two chicken strips with honey mustard sauce (at the bar)
Too much whiskey

Conclusion: I eat poorly when I work nights, but I also drink heavily to make up for it.

PEYEIYBM!

2008-02-01T23:43:00.000-08:00

February is Post Everything You Eat In Your Blog Month!

Today:
A piece of Napoleon cake (nnnngggh)
2 pieces of toast
3 Eggs (over hard)
2 pieces of peanut-butter and honey toast
A glass of whole milk with rose syrup

Conclusion:
Why so damn much sugar?

LINK: MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM RICHARD DAWKINS AND CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

2007-12-25T22:37:00.000-08:00

Part One and Part Two

I don't know much about the occasion for this get together, but it is truly a wonderful Christmas present for the skeptic. At two hours in length, it never drags and even some disagreement from The Four Horsemen.

PS: I love Christopher Hitchens always and forever.

SPIELEN: NETHACK

2007-12-25T20:59:00.000-08:00

Play NetHack.

---

The apprentice monk approached his master: "Does a kitten have Buddha-nature?" he asked. His master replied:
"f!"
At that moment, the apprentice was enlightened.

---

NetHack, now well over a quarter century old, is a text-based game that was created shortly after the sapient Internet drunkenly tried to access simultaneously the works of Douglas Adams and those of Gary Gygax . ASCII text. There is no "look north," there is no "xyzzy," and there is certainly no "go dennis." There is no 'save and reload' function, it is definitely not fair, and, no matter the outcome, it always ends with your possessions being identified.

It is a koan for life.

It even has a wiki.

LINK: THE PROBLEM WITH ATHEISM

2007-10-03T17:16:00.000-07:00

LINK

Sam Harris
Atheist Alliance Conference - 9.28.07

ALARMED DISGUST: MTV Awards

2007-09-11T01:23:00.000-07:00

This is fat?

Is this?

Loyal readers of this blog are not likely the type with which I am disgusted, but this is still a seriously disturbing thing. I am nothing if not an advocate for rail-thin models, and that notwithstanding, I am aghast that in what has largely, and fairly, been termed a trainwreck (Britney Spears' performance at the MTV awards), the strongest attacks have been levied against her weight. Even now detractors are backpedaling and claiming that it is not her weight, but her inappropriate outfit that offends. Not good enough. If that outfit should be worn by anyone, and I don't necessarily think it should, then I see no problem with Spears wearing it. Personally, I think there is plenty to be turned off about by Spears, but this body is not one of those things. She looks damn good.

Never before has it seemed so blatant to me, this phenomenon of using up the youth and sexuality of a young girl and then almost unanimously turning on and crucifying her for it every step of the way. Do not mistake me, I have little sympathy for the woman herself, but the way the public beast is acting is deeply troubling.

MUSIK HÖREN: Ringleader of the Tormentors

2007-09-07T23:37:00.001-07:00

Morrissey
Ringleader of the Tormentors

Anyone who has found Morrissey's solo work disappointing as of late needs to shut the hell up. Now.

Or at least for 50 minutes, which is how long it will take you to listen once to this very, very solid album.

Speaking in all honesty, I must admit to having to do a considerable amount of skipping when playing Morrissey albums. While many songs stand out as being incredible, and fill out a greatest hits record with aplomb, his solo albums just don't always stand the test of a sustained listen. At least not without some (albeit rewarded) effort.

Ringleader of the Tormentors is a welcome exception to this phenomenon. While I must further admit to being partial to the order in which iTunes loaded these songs (ie not in the intended order), there is only platinum to found amongst gold.

Starting (way out of order) with "At Last I Am Born," Morrissey delivers his trademark "vocal gymnastics". Highlights, if they can be called that, include "To Me You Are A Work Of Art," "I'll Never Be Anybodys Hero Now," "Life Is A Pigsty," "The Father Who Must Be Killed," "In The Future When All's Well," "You Have Killed Me," "Dear God Please Help Me," and "I Will See You In Far Off Places." The last of which contains possible allusions to Osama Bin Laden.

Brilliant.

When I am not sidetracked by the beauty that is Yacht Rock, the new Morrissey album is in very heavy rotation. This is as high praise as I can give.

BOOK: Biomimicry

2007-09-07T22:49:00.000-07:00

Janine Benyus
Biomimicry

Premise:

Nature runs on sunlight.
Nature uses only the energy it needs.
Nature fits form to function.
Nature recycles everything.
Nature rewards cooperation.
Nature banks on diversity.
Nature demands local expertise.
Nature curbs excesses from within.
Nature taps the power of limits.

If it sounds simple, then you are ahead of the industrial curve. Benyus explores several different fields to which these lessons would be beneficial. Among them are agriculture, energy production, manufacture of goods, medicine, computing, and the market. Benyus comes off as something of a Luddite, and her frequent depictions of the noble savage rankle a bit, but neither stop her from interviewing truly innovative scientists and businesspeople who are working to fully realize this concept of biomimicry. From polyculturalist farmers to industrialists looking to green their business, Benyus points both to existing problems and solutions already in place.

Readers of Cradle to Cradle will recognize a fair bit of prescience in this lesser known or heralded work. While this book could benefit from a second and more recent edition, (for example her "examples" of biomimicry in two businesses who make a portion of their trade in recycling what are probably dangerous petrochemical substances in their apparel), it is a solid and readable bit of inspiration toward a future of working with, rather than against, nature.

Benyus hits on two points that I just can't quite hold truck with. Her first is the oversimplification of "primitive" cultures. While a deep and spiritual connection to the land is admirable, we must not confuse creation myths with ecological wisdom. While Amerindians might have been born conservationists, a little bit of disconnection from the land has allowed us to discover some very important things about what is at stake and how about how to act as individuals. The same is very true about non-renewable resources, something which Benyus holds as a sacred trust for future generations. Provided we don't drown ourselves with their use, better it seems to have burned them all up in the name of progress that they may never need to be used again. I wouldn't trade the things that we humans have gained with them for the world, literally. Now, however, is the point that I am sure Benyus would agree with me on that we must free ourselves from them.

Read it, but with a sharp eye.

SPOILER: It sucks!

2007-07-23T07:25:00.000-07:00

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

There is nothing to spoil. No one who is very important actually dies. Harry is the final horcrux, as we all knew (and as Rowling denied in interviews). Every single plot element is telegraphed well in advance.

Now I know there are certain things that it would be highly silly to criticize a children's book about, but this series honestly used to be better. They used to be adorable self-contained stories with just a hint of arc, an idea that seems to have been thrown out by book five (around the same time, it seems, Rowling began getting paid by each narrow margined, triple spaced, size 16 typed page).

Don't bother.

CASCADIA: Portlandia stencil

2007-04-28T23:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, fair enough, it isn't a completed stencil, but I want to see this image up everywhere from now on.

Portlandia Vincat!

PALATE: I'd like to buy the world a...

2007-04-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

~~Vanilla Coke, Black Cherry Coke, Lime Coke, Coca-Cola Blak, Coke with Lemon, I mean Raspberry, no wait C2, no, rather a Coca-Cola Zero,~~ Diet Coke Plus!

Now with 15% of your daily Niacin, Vits. B6, B12, and 10% of your daily Magnesium and Zinc!

Personally, I think the idea is a good one, if only anyone would ever buy it. And they won't. Because, in truth, it does taste a little weird at first. After two sips you are convinced it is the same Diet Coke you know and love, but with half a carrot in it.

Of course, if I could just get two days off consecutive, I'd nip down to Belgium for some Coke Sango, the blood-orange flavored variety.

BAUKASTEN: To live like an ape-man

2007-04-27T10:41:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I never had a treehouse. Now I want one terribly. Lately treehouses have been gaining popularity as part of a novelty vaction experience. Anywhere from the tropical, Ewok-style shelters to the masterfully crafted Free Spirit Spheres (www.freespiritspheres.com), people have become fascinated.

If one happens to be travelling in Qualicum, British Columbia, one can enjoy this:

If you aren't near Canada, however, it might just be cheaper (and more fun) to build one's own.

This morning, ruminating over a hot cup off coffee, I started looking at the trees outside and began to picture this little spheres hanging between them. Beautiful though they are, I couldn't help but think that their spherical nature must render them both difficult and expensive to construct. I happened to look up just then at the gable of a building opposite ours, and realized that I had an idea that would be much simpler.

So, dragging open an ancient CAD program that I love (designworkshop), I drew up a quick design. My model looked a bit spare, so I threw in a rather arbitrary plaform in a larger tree, and a greenhouse that could hold a number of amenities that cannot be supplied by the treehouses.

The model is VERY rough, but I like the way it came out.

LINK: The power of Nightmares

2007-04-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

The Power of Nightmares
Adam Curtis

The second in a series of monumentous documentaries by the BBC's Adam Curtis, The Power of Nightmares tells the story of the rise of two (sometimes) opposing groups: the American Neo-Cons, and the Islamic militants.

Honestly, if there was an html markup that went ten or so steps beyond emboldening text, it still would not provide the kind of gravity I would like to instill in my recommendation that you watch this video. With every fiber of my being, I urge you.

LINK: Inhabitat.com

2007-04-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

Inhabitat

Inhabitat is blog that celebrates all that is green and gorgeous about design. This includes articles about the green movement itself, architecture projects, a feature I absolutely adore called "Prefab Friday", and innumerable links to home products that are bound to please. It is a good resource for inspiration for all of us who feel that Dwell should come out more than 10 times a year.

Brand new tattoo

2007-01-28T01:58:00.000-08:00

CASCADIA VINCAT

FTW?

2007-01-19T19:52:00.000-08:00

"US critical of China's new space weapon" (jpost.com)

This was an alarming title, and meant to mislead. The weapon is not in space, but for attacking space, which is fine by me. You know those missiles that scrape the bows of the Enterprise when they timetravel/visit prewarp worlds? That's these. If you think about it, that's actually kinda neat.

And yet, the idea that a country, possibly contrary to our own interests, could pinpoint and remove our satellites is a compelling one.

The miscarriage of justice continues...

2007-01-08T08:23:00.000-08:00

link

The charges of genocide against Saddam Hussein have been dropped.

I hope this puts to bed any extant claims that the rush-job of Saddam's execution was any kind of justice.

As I've intimated many times before, I had feelings for Saddam that at many points verged on respect and admiration, if only for his style and his defiance. The man was good at being an outlaw. But the fact that he also held together a virtually secular Iraq, shunned al-Qaeda, and preferred the Godfather II to the original; well, that made him dear to me.

But I don't, for one second, think he was innocent of genocide. I don't think the families of his victims, nor he himself, would prefer to see all of this merely thrown out. This whole circus has been a denial of history, no matter what your position on Saddam or Iraq.

2006-12-31T13:32:00.000-08:00

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti
April 28, 1937 - December 30, 2006

The day before my birthday, the only hope of peace in Iraq is executed.

Twenty-oh-six wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Twenty-oh-seven, however, is much more auspicious. For one, I resolve to post more.

Happy New Year, all.

2006-11-27T19:59:00.000-08:00

"Don't think I don't understand. I mean, what can any one of us ever really fucking hope for? Except for a moment here and there with a person who doesn't want to rob, steal, or murder us, at night, or mayhap at sunup, one person against the fucking wall, the other mayhap on the fucking bed, trusting each other enough to tell half the fucking truth. Everyone needs that, becomes precious to them. They don't want to see it fucked with."

The lines come courtesty of Ian McShane, in his absolutely outstanding rendering of Al Swearengen, proprietor of the Gem Saloon, in the black hills of Deadwood, South Dakota.

Seasons 1 and 2 are available at your local fucking movie store.

Sleighbells ring (are you listening?)

2006-11-26T08:52:00.000-08:00

Bethefawn.com wishes you a Happy Holidays, and we hope you enjoy the new frosty layout. Nothing says cold and bleak like a snowflake! (on a pink background?)

<3 Dixie Chicks

2006-11-22T04:16:00.000-08:00

Shut Up & Sing - Documentary

Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I'm not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I'm still waiting

I'm through, with doubt,
There's nothing left for me to figure out,
I've paid a price, and i'll keep paying

I'm not ready to make nice,
I'm not ready to back down,
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should

I know you said
Why can't you just get over it,
It turned my whole world around
and i kind of like it

I made by bed, and I sleep like a baby,
With no regrets and I don't mind saying,
It's a sad sad story
That a mother will teach her daughter
that she ought to hate a perfect stranger.
And how in the world
Can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Saying that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

I'm not ready to make nice,
I'm not ready to back down,
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should

I'm not ready to make nice,
I'm not ready to back down,
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should

Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I'm not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I'm still waiting

Red Israel

2006-11-11T17:19:00.000-08:00

Israel puts Gaza civilians in the firing line (guardian.co.uk)

In this week of tremendous social and political upheaval here at home, it is easy to forget that the world is still falling apart around our ears. Case in point: Israel.

So let's say you have 155mm high-explosive artillery. The IDF generally considers these to have a kill zone of between 50-150 meters. In line with this estimate, the minimum safety range for precision strikes in civilian areas was previously 300 meters. Well, if you have to shell apartment buildings, this is at least a measured effort to reduce collateral damage.

Makes you wonder why the IDF has just changed this minimum safety range to 100 meters, well in the middle of the kill zone for the aforementioned artillery attacks.

I'm honestly not one to indulge in conspiracy theories, but is the IDF really so stupid that it doesn't realize that it has perfected the formula for the creation of terrorists? Can this possibly be? Has Israel been at war for so long that it has forgotten how not to be? Has it ever known?

Well, we'll see how they like a government no longer in the total control of people convinced the rapture is about to occur. Perhaps in a couple of years the title of "Most Disruptive Presence in the Middle East" will finally go back to its rightful owners.

2006-11-08T12:00:00.000-08:00

While I am not sure that this isn't all some sort of crazy Vicodin-induced political wet-dream, I am going to press my luck and go ahead and call Virginia for the Democrats, which means that we have hit an amazing trifecta here: the house, the senate, and no more Rummy!

While it is true that I will kind of miss the old bastard, I really hope the world realizes what an awesome day this is, and also just how much I sincerely wish to say thank you to everyone who voted yesterday. In Oregon we shut down the ballot measure for parental notification of abortions, retained both our Democratic governor as well as a certain Democratic congresswoman.

There is a generation of teenagers (a portion of whom might even have cast their first ballots yesterday) who can't even remember what a government can be like when it is not ruled by fear. The next two years will be enlightening.

Who knows, we might even get habeas corpus back.

First Tuesday of November

2006-11-07T00:22:00.000-08:00

It's that time again. This advice is of little use to my fellow Oregonians who have already cast their ballots by mail, but for those of you that are not as lucky: GO VOTE.

If you don't vote, you forfeit the right to drink black coffee and watch the news coverage all night tomorrow.

(What? This isn't everyone else's idea of an amazing night?)

By way of explanation...

2006-11-06T23:35:00.000-08:00

Lately my blog activity has been sorely lacking, and while this obviously doesn't explain all of my recent laziness, it ought to explain some of it.

Gentlemen, I give you "Acute maxillary sinusitis, presenting with a purulent dental socket, and brought on largely because of a rather nasty case of influenza."

Let's start with a timeline of events.

Monday, 10.30.06:
Minor dental irritation, scratchy throat progressing to full nasal congestion by evening.

Tuesday, 10.31.06:
Shaka. High fever, chills, chest cold, blocked sinuses, major dental pain, facial swelling, tenderness in swollen areas of face corresponding to the maxillary nasal cavities, total delirium.

Wednesday, 11.1.06:
Fever and delirium break (unfortunately). Swelling, dental pain, facial tenderness increases.

Thursday, 11.2.06:
Dental/facial pain increases.

Friday, 11.3.06:
Dental/facial pain increases once more, aspirin/acetaminophen/hard alcohol/mallet become ineffective.

Saturday, 11.4.06:
No change during the day, make arrangements to go to hospital tomorrow morning. In the evening, however, something quite singular happens. Throughout the day I have noticed a particular swelling at the gum line. Upon closer inspection, it is revealed that a blue-black disturbance in the force shaped and sized roughly like a grape has taken root above front tooth, close to source of dental pain. Patient resists urge to pick at, lance, or otherwise puncture the seed of evil. Not long afterwards, patient notices disgusting taste in mouth, rushes to bathroom. Patient proceeds to leak nearly a pint of viscous orange fluid from dental socket. Fluid makes several attempts to communicate in basic galach, but patient cannot or will not respond. Patient notices at this time that around 80% of the swelling in his face has disappeared. Similar, or even greater, amount of pain has also likewise vanished. Patient begins, briefly, to believe in god again, before spending the rest of the evening milking his gums for the remaining afterbirth of hell spawn.

Sunday, 11.5.06:
Following a night of unexpectedly restful sleep, I awoke to find myself in relatively little pain, feeling much restored. I soon was conveyed to OHSU, and, after a not unreasonable amount of time, to an exam room. Unfortunately for yours truly, the only room available, due to a rather shocking amount of other sick people having arrived before me, was in Pediatrics. There I sat, in a dressing gown, atop a gurney painted to resemble a bright red fire engine, fully equipped with dalmatian puppy. The first nurse sent in to interview me had no idea that I would be a full-grown man, and there was quite a moment shared between us. I think, in fact, that she was younger than myself. Eventually I would be seen by a doctor who seemed rather convinced that my sinus infection was merely a dental abcess, and who conferred with a second and also much more saucy doctor who suggested that it was a sinus infection caused by dental abcess. In either case, the course of treatment was the same: lance, drain, antibiotics, and painkillers. Happily, I had already managed the first two steps, and they sent me off with prescriptions for the latter two. A few hours later, I found myself at home with a bottle of good, old-fashioned Penicillin in one hand, and a bottle honest-to-god, House-approved Vicodin in the other.

The show makes so much more sense to me now. Also I have discovered that I quite like Vicodin.

Now is your last chance to navigate away from this page if you do not wish to see pictures of the gore:

I has a snout:

The heart of darkness begins to form:

Post draining:

ALL YOUR FACE ARE BELONG TO US:

Victory, but at what cost?

You don't like spam?

2006-10-18T02:49:00.000-07:00

I got some pretty awesome spam today, just thought I'd share it.

hi Willa i hope this is your mailbox.
I was happy to see you the other day. I expect you are actually had like the New York.
So much so much happening all the time, lots of great opportunities.
And speaking of opportunities, the deal I was speaking you about yesterday involves a company
named Tex-Homa (TXHE).
It's already lift up, but the big info isn't even
out yet, so there's still time. I have got this shares already and made 2000. I recommend you to do the same today.

Hope this helps you out. I'll see you this weekend.
Yours Willa Finley

A couple of points:

-Though the sender appears to be looking for some woman named Willa (which is in itself hilarious, as 'Willa' is hardly a common name anymore, it's like when a certain honored teacher of mine insisted on using the name 'Fatima' in hypotheticals), the email is also signed as being from Willa. Come on, Eastern European Spam Making Dudes, we get that you don't speak English very well. We get it.

-"I expect you are actually had like the New York." WHOA. What? You are actually had like the New York? What does that even mean?

-Nice segue with the opportunities. Totally didn't see it coming.

-"I have got this shares already and made 2000." 2000 what? When you have got this shares already, did it makes we 2000 dollar?

-Was this really such a big tip that Willa couldn't wait to see Willa over the weekend? Man, I wonder what that conversation will go like. "Howdo Willa! Did get those email last fortnight! You have make 2000 on train-ride from to are New York!"

-"So much so much happening all the time." This is my favorite new catchphrase.

Basically, the day I stop getting any spam whatsoever will be a sad, sad day.

Warning

2006-10-17T14:01:00.000-07:00

Blogger Beta totally sucks. Don't ever switch.

That is all.

Fashion just got fatter

2006-09-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

Skinny model controversy (monstersandcritics.com)

To be honest, I didn't expect this from Europe. I would have thought that of all places, America would be the first to legislate the figure of fashion models, but Europe is nothing if not disappointing.

Last week, fashion officials in Spain banned a number of models from appearing in a show that would start today in Madrid. These five models, out of a prospective group of 68, were deemed too thin according to standards set by the World Health Organization. The standard is set at a BMI of 18, which means any model of five feet eight inches must weigh over 120 lbs.

To make matters worse, the Brits, pasty, chubby, green-toothed eaters of fried toast, immediately jumped on board, and are considering making these Spanish regulations a part of their law. Italian, German, and Finnish officials are said to have folowed suit.

I'm not much of a flag-waver, to put it mildly, but it is at times like these when I really appreciate the crumbling remnants of US constitutional law, which indicates that discrimination based on the weight of an individual is illegal.

It is, of course, hyperbole to say that these new strictures will be devastating to the fashion industry. Five out of nearly seventy is not a very great percentage, so clearly most models are managing to make the cut. Should these grossly paternalistic edicts have ruined the chances of such icons as Kate Moss or Gemma Ward, well, it doesn't bear to think on.

If such legislation does pass muster in America, however, I can assure you that I will be leading a class-action lawsuit to ban all "full-figure" modeling, as it reinforces a false belief that obesity is healthy. But really, does it have to come that?

In the interest of full disclosure, the author has provided advice to pro-ana forums on weight-loss and other nutritional tricks, while simultaneously encouraging people of considerable weight to feel good about themselves. The author supports the rights of individuals to weigh whatever they like, and to likewise feel good about their weight regardless of thinness or corpulence. As long as the latter do not try to sit next to him on the bus or at movie theatres.

Islam is retarded

2006-09-17T18:29:00.000-07:00

I mean this in every sense of the word. Islam is retarded. I've grappled with this phrase for some time now, and I think it is the most accurate and succinct phrasing I can make. It is retarded, of course, in the modern sense of being ridiculous, stupid, laughable, inane, juvenile, and pointless; but it is also retarded in the traditional literal sense: it has been retarded. I've talked quite a bit about how Islam, in theory, is no worse than any other of the faiths of the Book. And I think the recent surge in evangelical despotism, to say nothing of the disastrous consequences of Zionism, bear this point out. The thing that does give Islam's big brothers an edge is the fact that they have fewer uninformed riots.

A lot of pretty vicious killers have done what they've done in the name of their religions. This is not something limited to the Big Three, but, in point of fact, it seems to be a component of most zealotry. The difference is, they didn't usually commit these acts in response to being called barbarians. Or, to be more accurate, falsely believing that they were being called barbarians.

Let's take a look at the Pope's speech:

The emperor must have known that surah 2,256 reads: There is no compulsion in religion. It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.

But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels,” he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words:

Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.

The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul:

God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death....

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature.

The blood of the infidel will spill for those vicious slanders, won't it? This is definitely the incendiary rhetoric that Hitler and Mussolini were espousing, isn't it? Statements to the effect of "don't kill anyone in the name of God" is definitely a reason to go out and shoot a nun, right?

Islam is retarded.

ZUNE

2006-09-17T05:11:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has unveiled the new Zune portable media player, and I must say, I am impressed.

Those that know yours truly could attest to the fact that I've become increasingly dissatisfied with Apple products in the past couple of years. First, I bought a pretty 40gb iPod, which while heavy, was a pretty perfect device, until it decided to quit functioning. Then, I bought a shiny new iMac which burns itself out within a couple of months. These might have been forgivable lapses, had not Apple started acting like a fifteen-year-old boy who just found out the baby is his. And yet, I still had enough faith in the brand to buy a Nano. Don't get me wrong, the Nano has been a pretty good little machinula, but there have been issues: ever try to update an modern iPod with an outdated computer? Oh, that's right, you can't.

I should be more specific: you can't with a mac. I checked the specs today, out of curiosity, and it appears that you absolutely need a computer capable of running OS 10.3.9 to do anything with an iPod. With a PC, however, you only need Win2k. Now, I am excellent at simple math, but I do believe my now-antique iMac to be newer than Win2k, if only by a year. What this means then, is apparently that Apple wants that market share that Win2k compatibility provides, but doesn't want that of a loyal customer who can't afford to buy a second shiny new mac that will break down in a couple of months. Is that "Thinking Different?"

Apple may have some more tricks up its sleeve before the inevitable decline and fall, but I almost find myself pleased with the fact that they refuse to parlay these tricks into an advantage. Case in point, the newly-released updated Nano. What they've done is combine the ugly aluminum casing and unnattractive colors of the iPod mini, with the sleek functionality of the Nano. They've smooth the edges, more heavily backlit the screen, and made the new Nano into a rather disgusting parody of one of their past failures. The updated regular series of iPod deserves no mention, as the changes are few.

Returning to the point, all is not lost. Microsoft, that old Cascadian standby, has provided an alternative. The Zune. The device, which is roughly analgous to the regular series iPod, has all the old bells and whistles: 30 gb disc, video and photo viewing, etc. But it also has some rather neat new ones: interface customization, ability to sync with the Xbox, horizontal or vertical operation, oh, and wifi.

Sure, sure, wifi is probably just a decent excuse to try and get people to order tons of music to their device, which is actually not such a lame idea, but it does more: you can send and receive media from other users, namely, photos and music. Clearly the Zune has taken a page from the Mylo playbook.

Best feature yet: it comes in brown.

Gorgeous.

Strong to the finish, cause I eats me spinach

2006-09-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

Recall notice; 9.15.06

In an effort to minimize risk and afford the maximum possible protection to consumers, the FDA and CDHS have recommended that fresh spinach that is currently in the market be recalled. We have decided to voluntarily recall all of the products which contain spinach in all the brands we pack with “Best if Used by Dates” of August 17th through October 1st. Brands include: Dole, Natural Selection Foods, Pride of San Juan, Earthbound Farm, Bellissima, Rave Spinach, Emeril, Sysco, O Organic, Fresh Point, River Ranch, Superior, Nature’s Basket, Pro-Mark, Compliments, Trader Joe’s, Ready Pac, Jansal Valley, Cheney Brothers, Coastline, D’Arrigo Brothers, Green Harvest, Mann, Mills Family Farm, Premium Fresh, Snoboy, The Farmer’s Market, Tanimura & Antle, President’s Choice, Cross Valley, Riverside Farms. Products include spinach and any salad with spinach in a blend, both retail and foodservice products. Products that do not contain spinach are not part of this recall. We are working with the FDA and CDHS to offer consumers the greatest possible protection with the limited information available.

Am I the only one a little disturbed by the fact that a large produce conglomerate, which has exposed the majority of America to E. coli, goes by the name of Natural Selection Foods?

Sorry, Popeye! Evolution has rendered you obsolete!

Raion-no-tamago

2006-09-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

3 duck's eggs
1-2 tbs goat milk
1 tb tamari
1 tb rice vinegar
Pinch salt

Beat thoroughly until the color of Martian soil, then apply a thin layer, about 1/4 of the mixture, to a heated and well-oiled pan. When it starts to firm up, wait longer. When it starts to bubble, continue to wait. When you are sure you've burned it (you haven't), flip it over and add another 1/4 of the mixture. Repeat until you have added the entire batch. Flip the entire omelette, press firmly with the fork to draw out excess uncooked egg and/or cooking oil. Remove from heat. Eat a little bit, to make sure it is delicious, then seal in sandwich bag, and place in refrigerator. Let cool, slice into strips, and eat over rice. Irasshaimase!

Bjork - TV Goes Directly Into You

2006-09-06T17:10:00.000-07:00

You shouldn't let poets lie to you.
(click to see more)

Why Gravity's Rainbow is completely brilliant

2006-08-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

It is relatively rare that I laugh while reading a book. I believe Douglas Adams has produced this effect on occasion, and possibly even several times during the myriad works of Neal Stephenson. But last night, reading this, I had to stop every two or three lines to basically fall apart, tears streaming down my face, blankets piled over my face so as not to disturb my neighbor. I was literally squealing, snorting, and producing a peal of laughter pitched so improbably high that my water carafe begin to hum strangely and my cat left the room. Your mileage may vary.

Thomas Pynchon; Gravity's Rainbow: Book 1, pages 116-119

"Now I remember you - the one with the graft at the Ministry of Supply!" but he knows, from last time, that no gallantry can help him now. After that visit he wrote home to Nalline : "The English are kind of weird when it comes to the way things taste, Mom. They aren't like us. It might be the climate. They go for things we would never dream of. Sometimes it is enough to turn your stomach, boy. The other day I had one of these things they call 'wine jellies'. That's their idea of candy, Mom! Figure out a way to feed some to that Hitler 'n' I betcha the war'd be over tomorrow!". Now once again he finds himself checking out these ruddy gelatin objects, nodding, he hopes amiably, at Mrs. Quoad. They have the names of different wines written on them in bas-relief.

"Just a touch of menthol too," Mrs. Quoad popping one into her mouth. "Delicious."

Slothrop finally chooses one that says Lafitte Rothschild and stuffs it on into his kisser. "Oh yeah. Yeah. Mmm. It's great."

"If you really want something peculiar try the Bernkastler Doktor. Oh! Aren't you the one who brought me those lovely American slimy elm things, maple-tasting with a touch of sassafras - "

"Slippery elm. Jeepers I'm sorry, I ran out yesterday."

Darlene comes in with a steaming pot and three cups on a tray. "What's that?" Slothrop a little quickly, here.

"You don't really want to know, Tyrone."

"Quite right," after the first sip, wishing she'd used more lime juice or something to kill the basic taste, which is ghastly-bitter. These people are really insane. No sugar, natch. He reaches in the candy bowl, comes up with a black, ribbed licorice drop. It looks safe. But just as he's biting in, Darlene gives him, and it, a peculiar look, great timing this girl, sez, "Oh, I thought we got rid of all those -" a blithe, Gilbert & Sullivan ingenue's thewse - "years ago," at which point Slothrop is encountering this dribbling liquid center, which tastes like mayonnaise and orange peels.

"You've taken the last of my Marmalade Surprises!" cries Mrs. Quoad, having now with conjuror's speed produced an egg-shaped confection of pastel green, studded all over with lavender nonpareils. "Just for that I shan't let you have any of these marvellous rhubarb creams". Into her mouth it goes, the whole thing.

"Serves me right," Slothrop, wondering just what he means by this, sipping herb tea to remove the taste of the mayonnaise candy - oops but that's a mistake, right, here's his mouth filling once again with horrible alkaloid desolation, all the way back to the soft palate where it digs in. Darlene, pure Nightingale compassion, is handing him a hard red candy, molded like a stylized raspberry ... mm, which oddly enough even tastes like a raspberry, though it can't begin to take away that bitterness. Impatiently, he bites into it, and in the act knows, fucking idiot, he's been had once more, there comes pouring out onto his tongue the most godawful crystalline concentration of Jeez it must be pure nitric acid, "Oh mercy that's really sour," hardly able to get the words out he's so puckered up, exactly the sort of thing Hop Harrigan used to pull to get Tank Tinker to quit playing his ocarina, a shabby trick then and twice as reprehensible coming from an old lady who's supposed to be one of our Allies, shit he can't even see it's up his nose and whatever it is won't dissolve, just goes on torturing his shrivelling tongue and crunches like ground glass among his molars. Mrs. Quoad is meantime busy savoring, bite by dainty bite, a cherry-quinine petit four. She beams at the young people across the candy bowl. Slothrop, forgetting, reaches again for his tea. There is no graceful way out of this now. Darlene has brought a couple-three more candy jars down off of the shelf, and now he goes plunging, like a journey to the center of some small, hostile planet, into an enormous bonbon chomp through the mantle of chocolate to a strongly eucalyptus-flavoured fondant, finally into a core of some very tough grape gum arabic. He fingernails a piece of this out from between his teeth and stares at it for a while. It is purple in color.

"Now you're getting the idea!" Mrs. Quoad waving at him a marbled conglomerate of ginger root, butterscotch and aniseed, "you see, you also have to enjoy the way it looks. Why are Americans so impulsive?"

"Well," mumbling, "usually we don't get any more complicated than Hershey bars, see..."

"Oh, try this," hollers Darlene, clutching her throat and swaying against him.

"Gosh, it must really be something," doubtfully taking this nasty-looking brownish novelty, an exact quarter-scale replica of a Mills-type hand grenade, lever, pin and everything, one of a series of patriotic candies put out before sugar was quite so scarce, also including, he notices, peering into the jar, a .455 Webley cartridge of green and pink striped taffy, a six-ton earthquake bomb of some silver-flecked blue gelatin, and a licorice bazooka.

"Go on, then," Darlene actually taking his hand with the candy in it and trying to shove it into his mouth.

"Was just, you know, looking at it, the way Mrs. Quoad suggested."

"And no fair squeezing it, Tyrone."

Under its tamarind glaze, the Mills bomb turns out to be luscious pepsin-flavored nougat, chock-full of tangy candied cubeb berries, and a chewy camphor-gum center. It is unspeakably awful. Slothrop's head begins to reel with camphor fumes, his eyes are running, his tongue's a hopeless holocaust. Cubeb? He used to smoke that stuff. "Poisoned..." he is able to croak.

"Show a little backbone," advises Mrs. Quoad.

"Yes," Darlene through tongue-softened sheets of caramel, "don't you know there's a war on? Here now love, open your mouth."

Through the tears he can't see it too well, but he can hear Mrs. Quoad across the table going "Yum, yum, yum," and Darlene giggling. It is enormous and soft, like a marshmallow, but somehow - unless something is now going seriously wrong with his brain - it tastes like gin. "Wha's 'is," he inquires thickly.

"A gin marshmallow," sez Mrs. Quoad.

"Awww..."

"Oh that's nothing, have one of these -" his teeth, in some perverse reflex, crunching now through a hard sour gooseberry shell into a wet spurting unpleasantness of, he hopes it's tapioca, little glutinous chunks of something all saturated with powdered cloves.

"More tea?" Darlene suggests. Slothrop is coughing violently, having inhaled some of that clove filling.

"Nasty cough," Mrs. Quoad offering a tin of that least believable of English coughdrops, the Meggezone. "Darlene, the tea is lovely, I can feel my scurvy going away, really I can."

The Meggezone is like being belted in the head with a Swiss Alp. Menthol icicles immediately begin to grow from the roof of Slothrop's mouth. Polar bears seek toenail-holds up the freezing frosty-grape alveolar clusters in his lungs. It hurts his teeth too much to breathe, even through his nose, even, necktie loosened, with his nose down inside the neck of his olive-drab T-shirt. Benzoin vapors seep into his brain. His head floats in a halo of ice.

Even an hour later the Meggezone still lingers, a mint ghost in the air. Slothrop lies with Darlene, the Disgusting English Candy Drill a thing of the past, his groin now against her warm bottom. The one candy he did not get to taste - one Mrs. Quoad withheld - was the Fire of Paradise, that famous confection of high price and protean taste - "salted plum" to one, "artificial cherry" to another ... "sugared violets" ... "Worcestershire sauce" ... "spiced treacle" ... any number of like descriptions, positive, terse - never exceeding two words in length - resembling the descriptions of poison and debilitating gases found in training manuals, "sweet-and-sour eggplant" being perhaps the lengthiest to date.

Plan B from Outer Space

2006-08-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of debate going on since the FDA agreed to ease restrictions on the morning after pill. Personally, I feel the easing of such restrictions to be a great victory for American women, but some feel otherwise. There is considerable argument over whether or not the pill is a contraceptive, or a weak abortion drug, and, as much as I hate to admit it, it does seem to be both.

While I disagree with the fundies, I see exactly where they are coming from. They aren't being inconsistent here. In the issue of stem cells, they fight for the rights of the zygote at no matter what age.

To be honest, while I do think that it is arbitrary to define life at any certain point along the continuum, it does make a certain sense, from their viewpoint, to define life as beginning at the joining of the sperm and egg. That potential human has vis genes arranged. It may not come to term, but it is no longer haploid genetic material.

The next issue is the definition of conception. You can't call something a contraceptive if conception has taken place. If we want to change the definition of conception to mean implantation of an embryo, then fine, I'm certainly all for that, but this certainly isn't a fuzzy term. Either conception is fertilization, or it is implantation, but it can't be both, and whichever it is will determine whether or not Plan B is a contraceptive (unless taken very quickly).

Don't get me wrong, I am very much a pro-choice individual, but if you say that implantation is a prerequisite for life, why not extend it to saying live birth is a prerequisite? Many children will be stillborn. For that matter, infant mortality is quite high in the developing world, so why not allow "contraceptives" up to age five?

Clearly I am playing the devil's (or is it God's?) advocate here. As a practical issue, one has to draw a line somewhere, and for the good of the mother (as well as the potential child) we cannot be too restrictive. What I do take issue with, however, is the claim that fundamentalists are being hypocritical or illogical when they suggest the life begins at conception. This is a highly impractical viewpoint, but it is, indeed, a far less arbitrary one than what is championed by others. In point of fact, I also subscribe to an arbitrary viewpoint, and can find nothing to support it other than that I feel it a situation where the rights of the mother are more important. But this too is arbitrary!

Personally, I think life begins somewhere around 25, depending on the individual, but I don't have to run a major world religion.

Urban Hiking

2006-08-18T23:10:00.000-07:00

I am often given to certain walks of fancy. That is to say, I walk when I could easily ride. This is not so much about the exercise as it is that I love to walk. I find the very activity to be fun. A liter of water and my iPod and I'll walk for hours.

I have to admit, under certain circumstances, the novelty can wear a trifle thin.

Take, for example, my latest adventure: starting at SE 35th & Belmont (outside of Zupan's), I had to walk home. This is a distance of roughly four miles. It starts out very pleasant, the Belmont area is abuzz with hipsters leaning out of tavern doors, dark-haired girls with stars on their slender wrists and ankles riding Schwinn Cruisers older than they are. Walking down Morrison in the blocks prior to the cemetery gives one the impression of being very far away, almost like a neighborhood in Eugene; indeed, the river is still miles off.

The low twenties and teens on Morrison are unremarkable and even slightly unpleasant, except for one point: it is downhill travel. It would be excellent for coasting on a bicycle, but is just as nice walking, as you can take in the whole tableau of the city rising in the distance, having previously been somewhat obscured by the slightly hilly nature of that part of East Portland you have just traversed.

But such joys are notoriously fleeting, as you are soon presented with the daunting task of crossing the mighty Willamette. You have several options:

1. Take the Morrison Bridge
2. Take the Hawthorne Bridge
3. Hire an Indian to help you cross

I opted to take the Hawthorne bridge, and so I had some more walking to do, sidewise. Down near the Burger King on SE Hawthorne and Grand, I met a very unhelpful man. I had somehow missed the pedestrian access point to the bridge, and I asked him if he knew where it was. He barely managed to say that he didn't.

Don't fret. I found it. And boy-oh-boy, was I ever rewarded for my troubles. It was about 2300, and so there was neither any pedestrian traffic, nor many automobiles about. Had it been otherwise it certainly would not have spoiled the experience, but being a solitary creature on that great ferrolith is certainly something to experience.

From the time you leave the ground on Grand to the time you alight down on Front, the crossing seems to comprise about a third of your total journey. The twisting onramp to the bridge is fascinating because it seems you are going to corkscrew endlessly to the spires of the pre-Park Block skyscrapers. You pass over impossibly large sections of open lots, industrial yards and marine facilities. But most importantly, you watch the City Proper appear over the lapping of Cascadia's loveliest river. If I might make a very serious recommendation: now is the time to switch your iPod to loop-play of Björk's 'Bachelorette'. This is critical.

The final steps over the oldest vertical-lift bridge in the Former United States are, in a word, unsettling. There's something very insubstantial about the thin metal plating covering the lift section, made all the worse by the thunderous noise of my boots striking it (loud enough to be heard over the dulcet, max-volume strains of the girl from Iceland).

Once over the river, my narrative ends. It is too busy to be described in such low resolution as I have been presenting here. I could spend a thousand words on Thompson's Elk alone. And I will, to be sure, as it has become one of my new favorite things in Portland, as much an icon of Portlandness to me as is the Volvo sign on Burnside.

Sadly I neglected to keep time on my journey, but some four miles later I arrived home invigorated and not without some pangs in my arches.

Think of how much the bus robs you of!

2006-08-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia has very interesting article on yawning.

Also, GIS for "yawning" produces mainly photos of babies and animals (mostly felines, some dogs). Am I the only pervert out there with a yawning fetish?

TV is back

2006-08-09T15:09:00.000-07:00

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

In September, Aaron Sorkin returns to television, and NBC, in a new half-hour format show.

Yours truly has managed to acquire the pilot episode (okay, Netflix offered it to me while I was busily rearranging Quantum Leap at the top of my queue), and having viewed it, I am in awe.

It's not an unfamiliar feeling. In fact, this is the third time Aaron Sorkin has surprised me this way, and it keeps getting better and better. For those of you who do not know, Sorkin was the creator of both Sports Night and The West Wing, two of the best quality television programs ever to hit the airwaves. Unlike some of the more vulpine hour-long dramas, these shows are never guilty pleasures.

The series will be about a fictional SNL-type show on a fictional network. It stars Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford as the writing/producing team, and their boss Amanda Peet (who, by the way, is actually pretty excellent in the role).

The pilot features the previous Lorne Michaels figure, played by Judd Hirsch having a breakdown, which I have quoted for you here:

This isn't gonna be a very good show tonight and I think you show change the channel.
You should change the channel right now, or better yet turn off the TV.
No, I know it seems like this is supposed to be funny, but tomorrow you're gonna find out it wasn't and I'll have been fired by then. This isn't supposed--this isn't a sketch.
This show used to be cutting edge political and social satire, but it's gotten lobotomized by a candy-ass broadcast network hell-bent on doing nothing that might challenge their audience.
We were about to do a sketch you've already seen 500 times. Yes, no one's gonna confuse George Bush with George Plimpton, we get it. We're all being lobotomized by the country's most influential industry which has thrown in the towel on any endeavor that does not include the courting of 12-year-old boys.
And not event the smart 12-year-olds, the stupid ones, the idiots, of which there are plenty thanks in no small part to this network. So change the channel, turn off the TV. Do it right now.
...and there's always been a struggle between art and commerce, but now I'm telling you art is getting is ass kicked, and it's making us mean, and it's making us bitchy, and it's making us cheap punks and that's not who we are.
...We're eating works for money, "Who Wants to Screw My Sister", guys are getting killed in a war that's got theme music and a logo. That remote in your hand is a crack pipe...
...and it's not even good pornography. They're just this side of snuff films, and friends, that's what's next 'cause that's all that's left.
And the two things that make them scared gutless are the FCC and every psycho-religious cult that gets positively horny at the very mention of a boycott.
These are the people they're afraid of, this prissy, feckless, off-the-charts greed-filled whorehouse of a network you're watching. This thoroughly unpatriotic--

The show will air Mondays at 10 o'clock.

2006-08-07T01:25:00.000-07:00

POST HOC, ERGO PROPTER FUCKING HOC

I have to stop reading the news.

The Cyprus Recordings Were Faked

2006-08-07T01:09:00.000-07:00

Further proof that the writers of 24 aren't actually FOXNews puppets, and are actually on the right side of things:

[Spoken by President Palmer, fountain of virtue, when discussing whether or not to attack an Arab country on the basis of lousy evidence]

Make no mistake: if we unleash our military power on nations that later prove innocent, it will rank as one of the most despicable sneak attacks in history. Any chance for peace in the Middle East will vanish forever. Even if it'll cost American lives in the future, we must delay this attack until we are certain of our ground.

He is summarily thrown out of office for this, and replaced by someone who will press the buttons.

Hope you left enough room for bullets!

2006-07-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad share a photo op in Tehran.

(chinadaily.com.cn)

Ahmedinejad called Chavez "a brother, and a trenchmate." I don't know about the brother part, but the "trenchmate" term is going to become increasingly accurate. Chavez is reported to have whined to Ahmedinejad about supposed US attempts to assassinate him. Let me tell you, Chavez, if the US wasn't going to kill you before, they most certainly are now.

PS: Ahmedinejad, you've got style. I'm digging the whole no-tie/linen suit combo. Your body is going to look so Hollywood when it's shown riddled with bullets on CNN!

2006-07-30T01:40:00.000-07:00

Recent additions to the Israeli Invasion scrapbook:

(abc.net.au)

Is it just me, or do these images, taken recently, not look exactly like the establishing scene in every post-apocalyptic movie where the narrator/old man/irradiated immortal dude talks about how the world tore itself apart at the beginning of the 21st century?

While Israeli forces have just destroyed a three-storey apartment building in Qana, killing over 40, half of these children; an Israeli commander has this to comment on the response to Hezbollah rocket attacks:

"All of it were addressed to the cities, to the settlements, to the villages to hit the innocent population and we are acting exactly the opposite - we address all the fire to hit the terrorists."

Israel continues to deny responsibility for the death of civilians.

Okay, so once again, is it just me, or does this not sound like the crazy kind of authoritarian thinking that leads up to such a global conflict? When did the Israeli government become entirely run by the evil guys from "V for Vendetta"?

2006-07-30T00:26:00.000-07:00

Weeds

A show about Mary Louise Parker would be a treat enough, I mean, she did beat out ALL FOUR of the Desperate Housewives at the Golden Globes for Best Actress. But that this show also features a now-funny Kevin Nealon; the guy from Angels in America; and Elizabeth Perkins; well, it's all just so very.

Ten episodes exist. They come on two DVD's. Rent them. Watch them.

Aux herbes, sil te plait.

2006-07-23T02:02:00.000-07:00

This is ridiculous. But so fucking adorable I want to die.

The Lion in Zion

2006-07-20T18:45:00.000-07:00

(People's Daily Online)
(alt.Muslim)
(cnn.com)

I do have (at least) one thing in common with Islamic fundamentalists:

The shared belief that it will a great day for the world when the state of Israel is driven into the sea.

I can only offer the disclaimer that I truly believe the Jewish people, the religion of Judaism, and a relatively small number of Israelis are not synonymous with the state of Israel. Just as all of Christendom was not guilty of the actions of the crusaders, not all Jews - and not all Israelis - are guilty of the terrorist actions of the Israeli government. But those who are guilty? Those deserve to be driven into the sea. Make no mistake, if this doesn't mollify Islamic fundamentalists, and I don't entirely believe it will, then they too will be driven into the sea in turn. As will all fascists.

But Israel is a country. A nation. Nuclear-powered. They have a responsibility not to be baited, not to murder civilians, and most importantly not to destabilize a region that will rise up and harm us all. As was mentioned on the News Hour earlier tonight, America is helping Israel to sow the terrorism that will be reaped on the next generation.

From The Business Standard:

In medieval times it was the practice of impecunious and unscrupulous European monarchs to “organise” the punishment of entire Jewish communities for the actions of one or two Jewish moneylenders who had the “cheek” to ask for repayments of their loans from the monarch. The process of Jew-baiting eventually culminated in the ghastliness of the Holocaust under Hitler. Is it not an irony, then, that although the Israelis refuse to acknowledge it, this is exactly what their government is doing in Lebanon—holding all Lebanese responsible for the actions of a Shia militant group, the Hizbollah which has 14 MPs in the Lebanese Parliament and a few ministers as well?

At current count, about a dozen Israeli soldiers lie dead, while over 300 Lebanese civilians have been killed. And yet Rep. Eric Cantor says "You know, I think it is just preposterous to call Israel's response disproportionate."

Oh?

A lesson in running a respectable military government: try to show some restraint in killing civilians. Bombing apartment buildings in Beirut will net the same result the bulldozing Palestinian neighborhoods already have: another dozen dead Israeli soldiers. Maybe not all at once, but revenge is endless. That is, generally, why governments shouldn't practice it.

If it were possible to take out every extremist in the world without the loss of an innocent, I'd be all for it. But it isn't. Israel has a choice: the higher ground, or destruction.

I'm betting on destruction.