It's Like Jazz On Paper
I was in Starbucks on Hill and Main in Santa Monica this past Thursday afternoon because my Internet went down, and I needed to log into their Wifi and pick up my e-mail. A guy who’s often there doing these intricate line drawings on typing paper sat down at a table on the opposite wall. The guy’s drawings are quite beautiful, and people always remark on them, but I’m so often annoyed by cell phone shouters that I usually have my headphones on, so I’d never had occasion to speak to him.
A white guy, about 55, dressed in “business casual,” set down a silver laptop a couple tables from the artist and went to get a drink. Immediately upon his return, he took an interest in the artist’s work. "Do you sell it?" he inquired brusquely, sounding very much the shrewd businessman.
The artist, on the other hand, was clearly homeless. He had his plaid shirt buttoned all the way to the top, like he was doing his best to keep up appearances, but he was unshaven and disheveled, with sun-leathered skin and the hollow cheeks of somebody who’s a stranger to regular meals. He nodded…muttering, yes, he would sell his work.
He waited for Mr. Business Casual to make an offer. He shifted uncomfortably, rearranging his pens. The offer never came. Finally, the guy spoke. “How much do you want for it?” he asked the artist. Clever. The guy must’ve read a few of those wheeler-dealer books that come in so handy when negotiating with the talented homeless.
The artist hesitated, twisting his mouth as he did the math: be true to himself or possibly get a sandwich. He hung his head. “Ten dollars?” he suggested tentatively. The buyer maintained his business cool, but the corners of his mouth curled upward into a lizardlike grin: Yes…we have a deal!
Now, even with my obvious failings as a photographer; even if the guy’s work isn’t quite your cup of tea; I think you can appreciate that his drawings are beautiful, intricate, and worth more than 10 bucks. Surely, the buyer would ultimately do the right thing, and toss in some extra cash. Wrong. He peeled off $20 for two drawings, and handed it to the artist.
After the guy picked out the drawings he wanted, he asked the artist to sign them. The artist stood and picked up a pen. "Wait!” the guy said. “Let me see your signature first!" He ordered the artist to sign the back of one of the drawings to show him how it looked. The artist made a motion to accommodate him, but the guy stopped him, saying he’d changed his mind, and he’d just take the drawings signature-free. Yeah, just erase all traces of the homeless guy, stick the thing in a $700 frame, and your friends will think you bought it at Bergamot for $7,000!
Even ickier, the discount-squeezing art patron apparently felt entitled to a little bonding time with the creator of his purchases. He started going on and on about what great art the artist was creating.
I couldn’t keep my mouth shut a moment longer. “If you do think it’s such great art –- and it is; they’re beautiful -- shouldn’t you be paying more than $10 apiece?” The creep retorted that he would have paid up to $15, but no more.
I glared at him. “I think that's disgusting. You can see that the guy probably needs the money, and you took advantage of that. Because you can get away with paying a very low price for something doesn’t mean you should.” I told him I wasn’t in a position to buy art (at least, not at what I thought was a fair price), but I thought they were beautiful, and worth at least $100.
The artist came over and took my hand in his. Still holding my hand, he looked into my eyes and whispered thank you. I told him his work was wonderful, and he should be compensated for it instead of being paid based on his life circumstances.
I turned back to the business guy. “I get my hair cut by this Vietnamese immigrant lady at Fantastic Sam’s, where a haircut costs $16. She’s amazing, and for the price, makes me look like I went to some chichi Hollywood salon. As a middle-class newspaper columnist, chichi Hollywood salons aren’t in the budget, but I tip her $10 because I don’t think she should be penalized just because her main worry is her frequently hospitalized mother, not getting a spot at Juan Juan."
Utterly unmoved and unpersuaded, he went outside, probably for a smoke.
Shortly afterward, I left.
Late the next morning, I was sitting at the Rose Café thinking about blogging about the encounter. At that moment, Business Casual marched over, clutching a hardcover copy of Peter Bart’s “Fade Out.” Leaning over my table, he snarled at me through yellowed teeth: “You made that artist feel SMALL!” (“That artist?” Did he not even know the guy’s name?)
He informed me that he and the artist had a “wonderful moment" going after he’d bought the art, and I’d ruined it by butting in.
Oh, please. “On the contrary,” I said, “It was ugly. You gouged a homeless guy. He was grateful I spoke up. He came over and took my hand in his, practically with tears in his eyes, and whispered, ‘Thank you.’”
“You probably drink organic coffee!” he bellowed. Organic coffee? Was this a continuation of our conversation -- or a pop quiz for people with ADHD? For the record, my preferred coffee is non-organic, artisanally roasted Ristretto, by Nancy Rommelmann’s husband Din Johnson (it’s like drinking velvet), but the guy did get me wondering: Are organic coffee drinkers more inclined to take issue with cheap, homeless-gouging bastards?
Turning my thoughts back to the coffeehouse creep, I explained to him the sandwich/starvation equation that surely factored into the artist’s pricing. He didn't care. It isn’t my job to say anything, he told me. “Actually, it is,” I said. “Speaking out is what I do for a living -- in my newspaper column, and on my blog."
He tried again: Who was I to make value judgments on other people’s behavior?! “Well, to quote my friend Cathy Seipp, ‘Since I have values, I'm making the judgment.’ In fact, I was disgusted by what you did, and I had to say something.”
The guy shot back that I didn’t know anything about him. Actually, I knew plenty -- from what I’d heard him say and from the way he'd behaved, which is the best way to judge anybody.
Well, he countered, I couldn’t know his financial circumstances. No, I couldn’t know for sure, from his unworn leather brogues, crisp button-down, khakis, neat haircut, his laptop and the pricey-looking wire rims that he wasn’t sleeping in doorways between pieces of cardboard.
“Do you write for the LA Times?” he hissed, out of the blue.
I had to laugh. For once, being banned from the Times’ features section was serving me. I’m imagining the guy wanted to accuse me of being…gasp!…a LIBERAL! -- which I’m really not, since I'm fiscally conservative ("just to the right of Genghis Kahn," was how Scott Kaufer once put it) and socially libertarian.
“I don’t write for the LA Times,” I told him. He could, however, could find my writing on my site, advicegoddess.com. I invited him to hop on and give his side of the story, since I was planning to write about my encounter with him and post it on my blog over the weekend.
He placed a soiled business card on my table, and demanded the name of my site. “AdviceGoddess.com,” I said. “And my name’s Amy Alkon,” I said slowly, making sure he heard me clearly. He jotted it on the back of the card.
“What’s your name?” I asked. He refused to tell me.
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “You’re probably ashamed of what you did. You know, there are very few circumstances in which I won’t give my name, because I try never to do anything I’d be ashamed for other people to know about.” I quoted him a line from my friend Sue Shapiro’s book, Lighting Up: “Live as truthfully as you can.”
He was too busy living his way out the door. As he strode off, he called over his shoulder that he wasn’t giving me his name “because I know it will bother you.”
Actually, it just confirms what I already know.
“Okay, smug girl,” I said to myself after he was gone, “What do you really know?” Is it possible I had made the artist feel bad? I didn’t think so. I flashed on the look he had in his eyes –- a mix of pain and gratitude -- as he grabbed my hand and thanked me. He did that twice –- right after I first said something, and again, as I was packing up to go home.
Because I usually see him at that Hill and Main Starbucks in the evening, I went back at 8 p.m. on Friday night. Sure enough, he was seated at the same back corner table. He smiled broadly when he saw me. “God bless you for what you did,” he said. “You’re the first woman in my life who hasn’t taken advantage of me.”
His name is Gary Musselman, and he is homeless. He sleeps on the street; in doorways, usually; and "showers" at Starbucks. He’s from Illinois, and he used to work construction, but now he just draws and draws.
It turns out he didn’t want to sell his drawings to the guy; in fact, he hated selling them to the guy. He also knew they were worth much more than $10, but he was hungry. “It's not fair; it's real cruel; But that's the way it is,” he said.
He pulled out stacks of his pictures, and showed me various examples of his style. Some were abstract; some were words turned into pictures. “It’s like jazz on paper!” I said. He loved that.
I thought the abstract stuff would probably have a better shot at selling, and explained that people might see the name stuff (while visually exciting), as illustrations, not art.
Still, I could see him earning a living, at the very least, doing graphic treatments for posters and packaging. He showed me a few he’d done with that idea in mind: the city name, “Wichita,” and others for a farm fair in Illinois.
A big Hollywood composer had taken him under his wing for a while, and even talked about helping him sell his work, but Musselman felt uncomfortable around the guy’s secretary, who he thinks has it in for him, and suspects he’ll steal something. Because of that, he says he hasn’t contacted the composer for maybe a year. He showed me the guy’s card. I wrote down his e-mail address and phone number, and said I could contact him (and get around the secretary) if he wants me to. He’s going to think about it.
Suddenly, something the creepy guy said to me at the Rose rang in my head. “What have you ever done for the guy?” He had a point. As I was leaving, I handed him a $20, “to keep you from having sell to cheap assholes a little longer.” He grinned. I told him he could pay me back when he starts making money from his work.
Still, I tried hard not to give him false hopes. I was honest with him about the pie-in-the-sky stuff he thought he could do (like making money by publishing a book of his work -- which I’m pretty sure is hard to do unless you’re already very famous and have a base of collectors.)
That said, here’s a homeless guy who’s not only talented, but seems very hardworking, sweet and rational. While I'm no art or graphics expert, I think he could actually make a living doing his art -- maybe even a moderate-to-very good one -- if somebody with art-world connections (or even graphic design connections) would help set him up. Sure, it's a nice thing to do, but I think somebody could make money by representing Gary Musselman.
And, finally, how great would it be if he got on his feet and started earning a living doing what he loves as a result of one cheapskate creep and an overheard conversation in Starbucks?
If you know somebody who has connections –- even to hire this guy to do some graphics, get in touch with me (AdviceAmy@aol.com), and I’ll go look for him. Or, just look for him yourself at the Starbucks on Hill and Main, Santa Monica. His name’s Gary Musselman, and he’s usually there after 6pm.
UPDATE: Jackie Danicki, who has offered to set up a site, free, for Gary to sell his art, just set up a free e-mail account for him. If you want to contact him, his e-mail address is GMusselman@gmail.com. I'll look for him later, tell him about it, and show him how to use it. He can pick up his e-mail for free at the library. You may want to copy me for a while, at adviceamy@aol.com. Put his name in the header so I won't think it's an advice request or spam.
SECOND UPDATE:This is getting better and better. Jackie Danicki just built Gary a Web site of his own to sell his art. Free. It's here: musselmanart.typepad.com. I looked this morning, and it seems he can get a post-office box for free. I'll see if they can set him up a bank account at one of the banks. When he has one, he can take PayPal. Jackie, who is American, but lives in London, is also sending me her old 310-area-code T-Mobile pre-pay cell phone to give to him so he's reachable.
You know, usually I describe myself as a "disappointed optimist" so I don't have to admit I'm a pessimist. Today, at least, I think I'll drop the "disappointed."
The Artist's Studio
Original art by Gary Musselman, who is homeless, but does his pen and ink drawings out of Starbucks on Hill and Main, Santa Monica. This one is an homage to Wichita. Look closely, and you'll see the word. Story coming on Sunday.
Birth Control Leads To Teen Sex Cults!
The ridiculous fundanutter idiots at the FDA are at it again, Kathleen Kerr reports in Newsday. They're contending that "Plan B," aka the "morning after" pill, might cause rampant teen promiscuity -- something it has yet to do anyplace else it's permitted:
In the memo released by the FDA, Dr. Curtis Rosebraugh, an agency medical officer, wrote: "As an example, she [Woodcock] stated that we could not anticipate, or prevent extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an 'urban legend' status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B."Rosebraugh indicated he found no reason to bar nonprescription sales of Plan B.
"This was the level of scientific discourse," Heller said in an interview, referring to concerns attributed to Woodcock. "I find it very odd that these people who are supposed to be responsible scientists and doctors are making up wacky reasons."
via Consumerist
Flight 93 Again
My old NYC pal Ron Rosenbaum, always a compelling read, wonders why United 93, now in theaters, is the third film made about the heroic passengers on that hijacked plane:
Could it be that the three films are a symptom of our addiction to fables of redemptive uplift that shield us from the true dimensions of the tragedy? Redemptive uplift: It's the official religion of the media, anyway. There must be a silver lining; it's always darkest before the dawn; the human spirit will triumph over evil; there must be a pony....But is the fable of Flight 93 the recompense that it's been built up to be? Does what happened on Flight 93 represent a triumph of the human spirit, a microcosmic model and portent of the ultimate victory of enlightenment civilization over theocratic savagery, as the prerelease publicity about the new film insists? Or is the story of United Flight 93 a different kind of portent, not "the DNA of our times," but rather the RIP?
I guess it depends on your definition, your threshold of uplift. Yes, it appears from the cockpit recordings recently released that something noble—a passenger uprising that disrupted the hijackers' plans—happened on that flight. But is it possible to separate it out from the other events of the day? In three out of four cases savage mass murderers prevailed. A "war on terror" has ensued; a war in Iraq followed. In neither case is it clear that the outcome is going to be favorable. The story of 9/11 as a whole increasingly seems a portent that Flight 93 was an aberration, and that those intent on suicidal martyrdom may well prevail over those who value human life over holy books. This possibility is something no one likes to dwell on, and in that sense the "triumphant" fable of Flight 93, genuinely heroic as it is, represents a comforting diversion. There must be a pony.
This is not a message anyone wants to hear. I recall when working on a documentary on the theodicy of 9/11 for PBS' Frontline, Helen Whitney's Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero, I had to threaten to take my name off the piece if they changed the title from our Faith and Doubt to just plain Faith at Ground Zero. No one wants to hear any doubt that "God is in charge," as the orthodox theodicy has it. But what if no one is in charge?
If you missed the book party Cathy Seipp and I threw for Ron a few years back at my house, you can get his collection of stories, The Secret Parts Of Fortune, here.
Mirror, Mirror On The Wall...
Live, Nude...?
If you're a woman, would you rather go a strip club where women strip or men do...and why? (And please answer that assuming that seeing women stripping won't be a skanky experience -– the question really is whether women, visually, prefer watching stripper girls swinging off a pole to watching stripper guys.)
Say "Cheesy," Dennis!
After a news conference at a gas station to discuss rising gas prices, Dennis Hastert slips out of the Hydrogen Alternative Fueled automobile and prepares to get back into his SUV. He wasn't the only one, either:
Hastert and other members of Congress drove off in the Hydrogen-Fueled cars only to switch to their official cars to drive back the few block back to the U.S. Capitol.
There's a reason I think of most of these people -- Democrat and Republican -- as Congressturds and Senaturds. Let's just say our choices of officials to elect are generally, well...piss-poor.
As I said in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review a while back, something along the lines of: "I loathe John Kerry, but I'd rather vote for an autistic monkey than that fundamentalist, anti-science George Bush."
A number of readers called in, angered about my slurring autistic primates, and canceled their subscriptions to the Trib-Review. I found this most amusing, since my column was not running in the Trib-Review, but in a now-defunct free alt weekly called Pulp!
Hastert via HuffPost
Dress Like A Mess
I only print love, sex, dating, and relationship problems in my column, but I answer all manner of questions via e-mail. Here's one that came in on Wednesday:
Hi. This is a fairly desperate email. I run a small ad agency. Ad agencies are supposed to be on the leading edge of information and the pop culture. My brilliant, kind (job title redacted by Amy) is a gift in these areas of understanding except when it comes to how he dresses. In non-client environments it’s spread collar shirts with the top two buttons undone and occasionally accessorized with a nice wife-beater T-shirt. I don’t care about this as much as I do the client meeting times when horribly dated suits and sport coats come out with ties that near as I can tell were never in style. How do you tell a key person in your organization to go get some new clothes, at least for meetings, without insulting them?
My reply:
You do a seminar for a bunch of people at the agency on how you're presenting more than just the ads. You don't target that person -- biggggg mistake. Also, you make a "consultant" available to talk to each person about their wardrobe. It IS part of the job at an ad agency, just as it is in a Vegas cocktail lounge for girls to wear itsy bitsy skirts and heels instead of overalls and construction boots.
I also recommended:
You might check out EngagementAlliance.com ("More needles, less haystack") for some interesting biz thinking; also, Kerabu.com.
Finally, I recommended a stylist I know in his area; a girl I've known since she was a kid in NYC:
She's diplomatic and kind, as well as talented and cool, and would probably be a good person to do this. Let me know if you'd like her contact information, and I'll send it to you. You shouldn't feel at all obligated to use her, of course -- but you might want to talk to her to see if she's the right person -- or take recommendations from photographers you've shot with on who might be good.
When I asked him, in a subsequent e-mail, if he wanted my friend's stylist-daughter's contact info, he wrote back:
I’ll let you know on your friend's daughter. Maybe I’ll just get him drunk and tell him the truth. Naaah.
Great. The mean approach is cheaper, I guess. I wrote back to tell him it was a bad idea:
No, and it probably won't make an impact, because he'll have no idea how to do what you find second nature.
I don't know for sure that this guy's motivation was not spending money, but too many people in business think getting away cheap in the short run is a savings. Idiots. If they calculated how much it costs to find, train, and retain an employee, they might find the money it takes to do something like this the nice, right way -- at least in the name of the bottom line.
Of course, the alternative here is letting the guy dress like a schlub and running with it -- actually playing up the way he dresses (or doesn't): ie, like he's so brilliant that he can look like crap, kind of the way it went for a while in Hollywood; that the more powerful a guy was, the more likely he was to dress like he was close to homeless.
George Bush Notices His Poll Ratings
Um, I mean, George Bush suddenly notices, after all this time, and after sending lots of other people's children to Iraq to fight for oil, that many cars get rather terrible gas mileage:
President Bush on Thursday said he wants to raise fuel-efficiency standards on automobiles, as members of both parties jockeyed for political position on the issue of rising gas prices.Bush called on Congress to give him the authority to set the standards for passenger cars sold in the United States as a means of reducing the nation's demand for gasoline.
"I encourage them to give me that authority," Bush told reporters during a visit to a service station in Biloxi, Mississippi. "It's an authority I used for light trucks, and I intend to use it wisely if Congress will give me that authority." (Watch political frenzy spurred by gas prices -- 2:01 )
The president's comments, delivered as he stood next to gas pumps during his 11th visit to the Gulf Coast area devastated by Hurricane Katrina, were soon followed by a letter from Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta to the GOP House and Senate leaders.
"At the president's request, I hereby ask that the Congress take prompt action to authorize the U.S. Department of Transportation to reform fuel economy standards for passenger automobiles," Mineta wrote.
"Along with other previously announced energy policies, the president believes these actions are critical to promoting our nation's energy security and independence."
Really? Where's he been all these years? He's just thinking of this now? I just want to know: will the Ford Explosion and all those USS Nimitz-sized SUVs be included in his push to make "passenger cars" more efficient? Well, not if the standard gets set the way it has been for years:
Congress first set the passenger car standard for fuel economy in 1975, and it has remained at 27.5 miles per gallon since 1990. The mileage is a weighted average of an automaker's fleet, not a requirement for individual models.
Masoleum Ad Nauseum
What if you built yourself a shrine and nobody ever came? Death, nouveau-riche style, by Francis X. Clines in the IHT:
The modern era of McMansions and grossly luxurious SUVs has now been extended to sales of single- family mausoleums across the United States. Prices are $250,000 and up, way up, depending on extras like a meditation room, a granite patio and gilded marquee lettering. Can talk of a mausoleum bubble be far behind?The most restful spot for contemplating this new development is Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, the verdant 168-year-old burial ground that made an art form of nouveau-mort flamboyance for Victorian New Yorkers with a yen to overlook Manhattan from eternity.
Green-Wood is a pastoral 500-acre village of the dead with a hilltop view of ongoing life that sweeps from the Statue of Liberty to the Empire State Building, from tenement to townhouse.
But the plainly morbid attraction is the residents, the formerly fabled and wealthy New Yorkers who still stir curiosity from the grave. (If Boss Tweed, the great plunderer of City Hall, suffered prison and ruin, how could he afford perpetual care at Green-Wood?)
In the mausoleum boom, one Florida dealer stressed the ultimate buyer's lure: "I'm really significant in this world."Make that "was."
Friends Or Financing?
I just posted my Advice Goddess column about registering for weddings -- and not just for gifts, but for payments for the ceremony, the honeymoon, and even the house! A guy wrote to me:
My fiancee and I want the American Dream: to be married, have a family, and own a home. I’m still a student, and she has some debt, so the home-owning part of the dream is beyond us right now. My suggestion: Instead of registering for wedding presents, we could ask our guests to contribute to the down payment on a house. My fiancee thinks this is tacky and rude -- although she has no problem with signing up to get crystal and china. What do you think? --Undercapitalized
Naturally, I let him have it:
What do I think? I think it’s like going to a bar and informing the person next to you, “Hey, in case you want to buy me a drink, I should let you know up front, I’d really rather have the cash.”Is this a celebration of love you’re planning, or Live Aid for the overspent middle class? If it’s the latter, don’t hold back. Make the receiving line double as a giving line by sticking an ATM at the beginning. Let no moment go unmerchandised: “For $80, you’ll get a DVD of our wedding night. For an extra $180, we’ll even throw in the bedroom scenes!” Don’t forget to offer your guests the option of a monthly direct-debit from their bank account, which may usher them up the tiers of giving; turning, say, gold-level friends into platinum ones.
You claim you’re after the American Dream -- the idea that, through hard work and determination, anybody can have a happy, prosperous life. Um, yes, but that’s supposed to be your own hard work and determination, not that of your friends. Some couples do ask their families to chip in for a down payment instead of a big wedding -- but, at what point do your parents get to be done feeding the upstretched palm? Then there’s the tacky new trend of setting up a Web site where wedding invitees can seamlessly pay for the couple’s home, honeymoon, and more. Suddenly, they’re not just your pals, they’re also your PayPals!
There are arguments for registering for gifts: it prevents a couple from ending up with 26 blenders, saves them when others’ bad taste is not exactly their bad taste, and it’s a relief for “friends” who’d scarcely recognize the bride but for the big white dress. But, maybe people who don't know you well enough to gift you without assistance have no business coming to your wedding. And frankly, if a wedding is about the love, not the loot, is it best celebrated with a flock of lead crystal butterflies, or the $14.95 John Gottman book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work? Of course, you two could also do with a few visits to a Certified Financial Planner so “’til death do us part” doesn’t become “’til debt do us part.”
This being America, not the Sudan, what do most of us reeeally need on top of what we already have? Will your love be meaningless if you express it in a rented one-bedroom apartment while eating on Target-ware instead of Wedgwood? Unless you’re dirt poor, why not tell your guests "love is all we need," and in lieu of gifts, suggest they donate to your favorite charity? Otherwise, maybe a truly meaningful wedding gift would be a letter from each guest, perhaps to bind into a book, with their hopes for your marriage; such as, that it will last longer than the payments they'd be making on that jewel-encrusted breadbox they would’ve ordered you from Tiffany’s.
Here's an excerpt from another one of my columns on the topic. The wedding I mention was my ex-assistant's:
You probably can't make your fiance stop pining for a three-story wedding cake with a sunken koi pond, but maybe you can eventually come to the agreement that "something borrowed" for your wedding shouldn't be $100,000. One of the happiest couples I know borrowed only a house for their wedding -- for a potluck dinner after they got married on the beach, surrounded by 40 of their closest friends. Their un-extravaganza took three weeks of planning and cost several hundred dollars -- if you add the cost of their clothes, several cases of Prosecco they picked up at a wine warehouse, and "a really nice chocolate cake."Maybe there's something to be said for the simple wedding you want -- one that's more a reflection of love than liens for years to come. It will free you up to focus on what really matters...which, maybe, just maybe, isn't whether the doves fly around on cue or just hop on the bride and groom statuette and do the number they usually do on your windshield.
Spy Anxiety
Jim Hightower on The Imperial Presidency:
Richard Nixon is the godfather of the Bush-Cheney philosophy of executive supremacy. "Well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal," Tricky Dick explained to us some 30 years ago. This plenipotentiary view of the American presidency (which would send shivers through the founders) is behind the unilateral, secret and illegal directive issued by Bush in 2001, ordering the NSA to spy on ordinary Americans. It's now conceded that untold thousands of citizens who have no connection at all to terrorism have had their phone conversations and emails swept up and monitored during the past four years by NSA agents.This is against the law. First, Bush's directive blatantly violates the Fourth Amendment, for it sends his agents stealing into our lives to search our private communications without probable cause and without a warrant. Second, it goes against the very law creating NSA, which prohibited the agency from domestic spying without court supervision. Third, it bypasses 1978's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which set up a special FISA court specifically to issue secret warrants so a president could snoop on Americans suspected of being connected to terrorists. Going around this law is a felony, punishable by five years in prison. Yes: George W. Bush broke the law. He's a criminal.
When this sweeping program of presidential eavesdropping was revealed last December by a leak to the New York Times, Bush first tried lying, scoffing that the news report was mere media "speculation." Didn't work. So then he turned defiant, belligerently declaring that damned right he was tapping phones. "If you're talking to a member of al-Qaida," he announced, "we want to know why."
Of course, George, if you have reason to believe that a particular American is talking to al-Qaida, you should scoot over to FISA pronto and get a spy warrant. We don't have time to wait for no stinking court order, he shouts, we gotta jump on these traitors quicker than a gator on a poodle. The FISA system is "too cumbersome" -- we need "agility."
Yeah, well, democracy is supposed to be a little cumbersome, so guys like you don't run amok. Fact is, FISA judges can act PDQ and are hardly restrictive. Of the 5,645 times Bush has requested surveillance warrants, how many did the court reject or defer? Only six! Besides, FISA lets presidents go a-snooping all they want, the instant they want, then come back to court three days later to get the warrant. How cumbersome is that? Even GOP lawmakers didn't buy the agility line, so Bush next tried claiming that Congress had actually given him the go-ahead to bypass the law. On Sept. 14, 2001, he said Congress passed the "authorization for use of military force," empowering him to use all necessary force against the 9/11 terrorists. Yet none of the 518 lawmakers who voted for this say that it included permission for Bush to spy illegally on our people. In fact, George W. specifically asked congressional leaders to give him this permission but was turned down. Finally, Bush has resorted to spouting Nixon's maxim that a president's official actions are inherently legal. Even though he broke the law knowingly and repeatedly, the Bushites assert that it's OK, citing a dangerous and thoroughly un-American defense that, as commander-in-chief, he has the constitutional right to break any law in the interest of national security. In matters of war and foreign policy, he, Cheney, and Alberto "See No Evil" Gonzales claim that the president's authority cannot be checked by Congress or the judiciary -- indeed, they don't even have to be informed.
Nonsense. He's commander-in-chief of the military -- not of the country. He's president, not king. And as president, he's the head of only one of the three co-equal branches. Yet bizarrely and pathetically, Congress has rolled over and even cheered this gross usurpation of its clear constitutional responsibilities -- including its power to declare war, control the public purse, regulate the military, ratify treaties, make laws "necessary and proper" for the conduct of all government, provide oversight of executive actions and generally serve the public as a check and balance against presidential abuses. As Sen. Russ Feingold, the truly fine defender of our rights and liberties, wrote in a February blog: "I cannot describe the feeling I had, sitting on the House floor during Tuesday's State of the Union speech, listening to the president assert that his executive power is, basically, absolute, and watching several members of Congress stand up and cheer him on. It was surreal and disrespectful to our system of government and to the oath that as elected officials we have all sworn to uphold. Cheering? Clapping? Applause? All for violating the law?" The breathtaking notion that Bush can, on his own say-so, thumb his nose at the due process of law and even be a serial lawbreaker has astounded not only Feingold but also a slew of leading right-wing thinkers.
The Society To Promote The Death Of Catholics
...aka, the Catholic Church. That's some "culture of life" you got there, Catholics!
A powerful Vatican cardinal who nearly became pope last year has taken the radical position of saying it might be okay to use a condom -- but only with your spouse, and only if your spouse has AIDS, and only if you haven't caught the disease yet.Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini's comments are seen by Vatican experts as being crazily liberal, because the official Holy See rule is that condoms can never be used.
Bible scholars have long been confused by the Vatican's strict stance on rubbers, because there's nothing in the Bible about condoms.
The Church is so furiously anti-condom that it actually runs a global disinformation campaign to try to convince people that condoms offer no protection against sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS.
...Historians note that the Catholic Church has a well-documented reputation for just making stuff up, such as its rule that priests be celibate or the weird proclamation that Mary Magdalene -- the "Bride of Christ" and "Apostle to the Apostles" -- was actually a dirty whore!
Links within the story are hot if you'll click on the above link to Sploid...from whence it came!
How To Be A Good Christian Wife
It starts with the orange juice issue. I'm clearly lower than "whores" in the eyes of this particular "Good Christian Wife" (first, because I don't even go to the grocery store, and, in fact, oftentimes wouldn't have food in my house if my boyfriend didn't bring it to me). I certainly don't have any orange juice, fresh or frozen.
Anyway, Deirdre sent me a link to a "Good Christian Wife" how-to site, which seems like a parody, but probably isn't. Now, I'm all for being sweet and pleasant and taking care of your man (see this bit for my top three):
As I've written before, to have a happy relationship, it takes three things. First, though, you have to find a good guy, which means you have to make ethics a priority, and wait to get to know him until you see he has them. And you have to have them yourself to really be able to identify them. After you get the good guy, just do these three things:1. Be sweet to him.
2. Don't gain 300 pounds.
3. Give him blow jobs.
Something tells me if you do #3 particularly well, you can get away without the orange juice being fresh -- or even orange. To see why that's supposed to matter, check out a few salient points from Ye Olde Good Christian Advice Wife:
1. Always be up before your Husband in the morning so you can have his paper and his breakfast ready for him when he wakes. Although it is the morning, there is no need to be slovenly, always make sure you are showered and dressed with your hair fixed and your make-up on. ALWAYS serve fresh orange juice. Only whores use frozen.2. DO NOT sit down at breakfast. Your Husband will be trying to read the morning paper and the sound of your chair scraping on the floor will be a distraction to him as you get up and down to fetch him more biscuits or find his briefcase for him.
10. When choosing a dessert, remember a fat man is a faithful man and a full man falls asleep fast. Use lots of rich icings and creamy fillings.
12. Always go to bed before your Husband. He deserve a quiet time to reflect on his day and to plan for tomorrow. If he wakes you for sex when he comes to bed, give in graciously.
13. Never initiate sex yourself. Only whores initiate sex.
What's with all the whore-bashing? Slutty girls just wanna have fun. Unlike her version of "The Good Christian Wife," they rarely express an interest in sending a man to an early grave -- and in a double-wide coffin -- in hopes of getting out of getting boned.
As for "Good Christian Fun," this place sure looks like heaven.
I dunno about you, but I'm suddenly compelled to go look for a guy with a spiky leather tail waving a pitchfork around.
Will You Be Flying Coach...Or Barn?
Just when you thought airplane travel couldn't get any more uncomfortable or degrading, the airlines have come up with yet another brilliant cost-cutting idea: having "standing room only" seats! They actually forsee hanging passengers from harnesses in a standing position and propping them against a padded backboard, reports Christopher Elliott in a New York Times article. Hmmm...kind of like human dry cleaning! I have a suggestion for the next level down...how about chaining passengers together and dangling a string of them from the wings?
A Sharpie Is A Great Investment
Having surgery soon? Better hope you don't get the wrong knee or kidney operated on. It happened to a guy I knew in Michigan: Luckily, they weren't removing a testicle or anything; just gunk from around his knee.
A suggestion for anybody going in for an operation, no matter where or by whom: invest 99 cents in a Sharpie -- one of those ubiquitous permanent magic markers -- and write "NOT HERE, IT'S THE OTHER ONE!" over the wrong knee, kidney, or whatever. Here's an excerpt from the link above to the NYTimes article by Michael Bakalar on "wrong-site surgery":
The study's authors propose a relatively simple four-step procedure for preventing wrong-site surgery: First, the surgeon should mark the spot with initials or with the word "yes." Next, preoperative verification should be performed by two medical staff members, who should also compare operating room schedules and informed-consent documents. And there should be a timeout before the incision to confirm that these procedures have been followed.Third, inconsistencies should be resolved by confirmation and agreement among the surgeon, the patient and at least one inspecting staff member. Finally, the right or left side of the body should be specified where required, and the location of the lesion to be removed should be identified as precisely as possible.
"Wrong-site surgery is one of the least-common types of adverse events a patient is likely to encounter," Dr. Kwaan said.
But, she added, patients should "understand the basics of the operation they are going to have, and should pay attention to what side of the body and what part of the body is involved. They should be able to communicate this, or have a family member communicate it, to caregivers on the day of surgery."
Zippy While Parked
Gas prices being what they are, I could end up spending $250 on gas -- this year. Maybe next car around, I'll be filling up from the French fry vat at Mickey D's...and parking it in front of my solar-heated, waste-water recycling prefab home.
Eco doesn't have to be ugly. Or expensive. No, maybe it's not how you saw your dream house -- but with a prefab house by, say, Rocio Romero, you could find yourself shelling out $41,050 for building and transportation costs; coming up to between $75,000 and $125,000 with contractor costs on site. Land is extra.
Upscale mobile homes are in. In fact, a woman in my French class has made renovating and selling them her side business. Her latest mobile home renovation, on the cliff overlooking Zuma Beach, is going for 1.65. Million, that is. Yes, dollars.
Things That Annoy The Crap Out Of The Rest Of Us
Perhaps I should make this a regular blog entry. Here's mine, from a blog comment I made yesterday, for all those people who feel the need to inform us that they're collapsing in a cascade of guffaws:
Stop using "LOL." If it's funny, we'll laugh. If it's not, and you use that acronym, we'll simple want to throttle you.
Feel free to post your addition to the list below. Use of emoticons is strongly disencouraged.
Abstinence Bait & Switch
Think about what "abstinence" means -- what it really means, not just what it means in concept. Hmmm...a girl only taking it up the butt until she walks down the aisle with some boy from the church youth group? Well, basically. No formal intercourse until marriage. Until marriage. Hmmm...ask yourself something: Thanks to all the fundanutters, who gets to get married in this country? Straight people only, please! Which is why Walter Olson, of Overlawyered.com, makes a very good point -- that "abstinence" actually means no sex but biblical sex.
Here's some commentary Olson sent Dale Carpenter over at Volokh.com:
According to online reports, the Bush administration in January issued regulations redefining "abstinence" in federal educational programs to mean avoidance of sex at any age whatsoever except within the framework of conventional heterosexual marriage. Loads of tax dollars will now be spent in American classrooms to enforce the message that gays and unmarried heterosexuals, no matter how ripe in age, should never have sex at all, no matter how monogamous. To quote the regs:Abstinence curricula must have a clear definition of sexual abstinence which must be consistent with the following: "Abstinence means voluntarily choosing not to engage in sexual activity until marriage. Sexual activity refers to any type of genital contact or sexual stimulation between two persons including, but not limited to, sexual intercourse."[And later:] Throughout the entire curriculum, the term 'marriage' must be defined as "only a legal union between one man and one woman as a husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife." (Consistent with Federal law)
None for you, all you homos! No, just a life of sexual frustration, per church orders. Well...then again...there's always a life in the priesthood!
P.S. In the general population, heterosexuals are much more likely than homosexuals to be child molesters. I think you can probably chalk up the large number of priests molesting boys to the church's sick view of homosexuality as some kind of sin, which, tragically, forces believers to try to sublimate their sexuality. Altar boys and the like become easy targets -- or the only available targets.
Your Big Clothed Penis
As shown here in the lovely fuschia Undergear Extreme Silk Contour Thong.
Flash a photo of it on the Web and you might be going to jail!...if Christian Taliban, uh, attorney generalissimo Alberto Gonzales gets his way. Here's an excerpt from the CNet story by Declan McCullagh:
Web site operators posting sexually explicit information must place official government warning labels on their pages or risk being imprisoned for up to five years, the Bush administration proposed Thursday.A mandatory rating system will "prevent people from inadvertently stumbling across pornographic images on the Internet," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said at an event in Alexandria, Va.
The Bush administration's proposal would require commercial Web sites to place "marks and notices" to be devised by the Federal Trade Commission on each sexually explicit page. The definition of sexually explicit broadly covers depictions of everything from sexual intercourse and masturbation to "sadistic abuse" and close-ups of fully clothed genital regions.
"I hope that Congress will take up this legislation promptly," said Gonzales, who gave a speech about child exploitation and the Internet to the federally funded National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The proposed law is called the Child Pornography and Obscenity Prevention Amendments of 2006.
...A critic of the proposal said that its requirements amount to an unreasonable imposition on Americans' rights to free expression. In particular, a mandatory rating system backed by criminal penalties is "antithetical to the First Amendment," said Marv Johnson, legislative counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union.
The morons. First of all, "inadvertently stumbling across pornographic images" won't kill you. If you happen to stumble onto a site like RealDolls -- "the most realistic love doll in the world" -- it might make you laugh. (Or just feel really sorry for the guys whose idea of a date is $6,000 worth of molded silicone.)
But, how about you do your own damn policing if you don't want to look at porn; say, by sticking to sites called CNN -- not BigDrippingVagina.com?
Too Little, Too Late
George Bush, who's had his lips to the teat of the oil industry for his entire life, comes out for hydrogen power for Earth Day. Mr. Bush, think not "Earth Day," but "Earth Life."
Why You Should Take Religion Seriously
Because the guy standing over the corpse in the gorilla mask says so.
(Posted by one of those "Philosophically Absurd, Ethically Bankrupt" atheists he's shouting about.)
Amy On Tammy Bruce Tonight
I'll be on Tammy Bruce's radio show, KABC am 790 in Los Angeles, at 6:45 p.m. Pacific Time. You can also listen live through the Internet here (scroll down to bottom of page).
Have You Heard? The Spanish-American War Is Over!
Well, then what's with the "excise tax" you're paying on every cell phone bill? Darla Mack points out:
The Federal Excise Tax or FET was first instituted in 1898 to finance the Spanish-American War. Each month there is a 3% tax added to the bill of every wireless user in America. I'm sorry... do they not know that the war is over? An article posted last year from USA Today mentions that the general excise tax has so far cost consumers about $300 billion. The entire Spanish-American War cost only about $6 billion, adjusted for inflation.via: CTIA.org
“Today’s wireless user is buried under a heap of taxes and fees. The average wireless subscriber in America pays more than 17% of his or her monthly bill in taxes and fees. That’s nothing short of outrageous. The fact that government is punishing citizens who choose to make their lives more productive, efficient and enjoyable through innovative wireless technology makes no sense at all.” CTIA President and CEO Steve LargentAccording to MyWireless.org wireless consumers may currently seek a refund for up to 36 months of past taxes. However, one refund claim form is required for each calendar quarter (up to 3 months) of bills.
The links to get a refund, and other hot links, are at Darla's link above.
Science Just Needs A Slogan?
Great letter to the editor in the Health section of The New York Times:
Re "Eager to Tell the Stories of Science, a Biologist Evolves" (Scientist at Work, April 11): The biologist, Randy Olson, laments that scientists have failed to come up with slogans supporting the theory of evolution and are unable to provide succinct arguments to match those of creationists.I question the assumption that this is due entirely to inadequacy on the part of scientists rather than difficulties inherent in science.
Indeed I find it hard to think of any well-established scientific theory that can be explained in terms that match the mystical argument "I can't understand this, so it must be the work of God" -- a sentiment invoked to explain evolution, early death and other great catastrophes.
Just try to come up with a convincing simple argument to demonstrate that the earth is round. Having done that, try to prove that the earth goes around the sun, and not vice versa.
While I don't deny that some of my colleagues -- and perhaps myself -- are "dour, pompous and disagreeable," science can be complex, and even nice guys may have difficulty matching the glib arguments of mystical public relations experts.
Dr. William Silvert
São Brás de Alportel, Portugal
When Good Advice Goes Bad
Some people thank me for my "tough love" approach to advice. In this case, I told the woman that her sense of entitlement -- her notion that all men owe all women commitment and financial support and their lifelong lust -- was all wrong, and counterproductive to getting and keeping a man. I don't know why women don't understand this, that men don't want complainy, demanding women.
Also, in response to her complaint that she and her friends don't get respect from men, I never experience that (except for the occasional "fuck you!" from a person I suggest should stop shouting into their cell phone) -- perhaps because I act like I expect respect, and will put up with no less. Of course, it helps to not be desperate for a relationship.
If I didn't have Gregg in my life, I'd probably be alone, and stock up on a few boytoys. Being good in a relationship starts with being okay alone. If you're not comfortable being alone, you're going to be a misery to be with, and you're probably going to settle for some creep so you can try to substitute having a relationship for having a self.
As I've written before, to have a happy relationship, it takes three things. First, though, you have to find a good guy, which means you have to make ethics a priority, and wait to get to know him until you see he has them. And you have to have them yourself to really be able to identify them. After you get the good guy, just do these three things:
1. Be sweet to him.
2. Don't gain 300 pounds.
3. Give him blow jobs.
Back to my recent pen pal, let's just say she was less than grateful for what I wrote her -- perhaps because I didn't share her sense that women are entitled to anything. As I wrote about myself, and how I see what men "owe" me: "I'm entitled to shit."
Now, I happen to have a very sweet, generous boyfriend, and my worry, if anything, is that he does too much for me, and I don't want it taking him away from his work. But, perhaps I have that boyfriend because I see everything he does for me as a gift, not some obligation on his part.
Her mileage, apparently, varies:
ONE OF HER EMAILS: I don't believe you have a boyfriend. You're not entitled to trash other people. I don't believe you could be nice to a man and then such a mean stupid bitch to a stranger who did what you asked. You lied about needing a question. You don't have our permission to publish. You're not entitled to it. That was just a ruse to start some shit. I've lived life long enough to know. You're a phony - a fake. You've lost readers. No wonder you're worried about getting canned. You will be! No doubt about that. No one could stand to be married to you. You're too mean and foul-minded! Plus, you hate people and have no compassion. At least you havn't touched me. Crazy people do not touch me and you're not even in the ball park. Sianara loser. You're lost.I WROTE BACK: You asked for my opinion, and I gave it, in hopes of helping you with your problem. You didn't like my answer, but I was honest with you, not cruel. You read my column regularly; you know I don't pussyfoot around, and asked me for my opinion knowing that. If you want somebody to be not that straight with you and not think very hard, there's Dear Abby. I would never do the kind of cutting to a person you do, with all this "Cianara, loser," and the other nasty stuff you say above. What I am at the moment is somebody who finds you quite frightening. There are people I don't like or have contact with in my life, but I don't wish them ill. I just wish not to see them. I find your increasing level of hatred and bile quite frightening, but I still don't want you to get fired or be lonely or unhappy...or write me again. Why not read those books? Maybe I'm a phony, and an idiot, and maybe there's really no boyfriend in my life, but Krishnamurti sure knows a thing or two.
Another email from her...about my response to her previous email suggesting I "have my period"...(eeeeuw...tacky!):
FROM HER: Great then the whole world can see what a fool you are!MY REPLY: Oh, I'm not afraid to look like a fool. I frequently am one.
This comments and the crack about my recent therapy shows a meanness just under the surface in you that I find pretty ugly and shocking. Often that sort of thing comes from fear. The books I recommended could help you address that, if you're interested.
I went to the therapist my friend Sue Shapiro wrote about in Lighting Up, because he helped her with her writing productivity issues, and he seemed to really be wise. Not a lot of therapists are. I'll always invest in becoming a better person if I can. I mean, what better thing is there to spend money on?
I don't wish you ill. I just wish you'd get your mind out of my vagina.
Note to self: Next time, don't write back.
See how I learn?
Tom Cruise, Linguist
Just when you were getting used to Tom Cruise as an authority on all things psychiatric and a strange gourmet foods afficionado...it turns out he's a linguist, too!
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' choice of a Hebrew-flavored name for their newborn daughter has speakers of the language scratching their heads.Baby Suri's name can be traced to a Hebrew word meaning "princess" or "noblewoman," but by such a circuitous route that the connection is lost on most Israelis. Since the birth Tuesday in Los Angeles, bemused Israeli TV and radio presenters have debated the word's origins.
"Nobody here has ever really heard of it," an announcer on Israel's Army Radio said during a discussion Thursday. The Yediot Ahronot newspaper agreed in its half-page splash on the celebrity birth.
"We seem to have learned a new Hebrew word -- and from Tom Cruise, no less," said a Channel 2 TV anchorman. Cruise's publicist said Tuesday the name has its origins in Hebrew meaning "princess" or in Persian meaning "red rose."
Shopping Instead Of Writing
Trying to do less of that these days, but during a momentary lapse, I came upon a coupon for Staples -- good for $20 off a store purchase of $100 or more. Print the coupon -- good until April 25. Your online store-whore, The Advice Goddess.
Vulgar, Inc.
Vulgar Ink? Well, it would be a good name, at least sometimes, for my writing process. On a good day, I'm coarse, bawdy, and immature, to say the least.
A typical workplace conversation: I think I was reading something to Gregg over the phone and he misunderstood me. "No, I said golden bowl!" I laughed. I turned to my assistant. "He thought I said golden hole!" Laughter and more vulgarity and immaturity followed...all in a day's work.
In other words, I'm quite relieved at the news that the California Supreme Court threw out the sexual harrassment case of a former assistant on "Friends":
Sometimes vulgarity is not just acceptable but necessary in the workplace, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday as it threw out a sexual harassment case by a former assistant on the "Friends" TV show.The justices, ruling 7-0, agreed with Warner Bros. Television Productions that trash talk was part of the creative process and, therefore, the studio and its writers could not be sued for raunchy writers' meetings.
No jury would believe the writers' assistant was the target of harassment during profanity-laced script sessions "for an adult-oriented comic show featuring sexual themes," Justice Marvin Baxter wrote.
"Most of the sexually coarse and vulgar language at issue did not involve and was not aimed at plaintiff or other women in the workplace," Baxter wrote.
Amaani Lyle, 32, alleged six years ago that raw sexual remarks peppering work sessions and conversations added up to harassment against women.
Lyle said she was offended by repeated references to the actors' sex lives and to the writers' own sexual exploits as they penned the successful NBC sitcom rife with bawdy banter about six New York City friends.
She was fired after four months on the job, allegedly because she could not transcribe meetings fast enough or capture the flavor of the meetings.
A good part of my job is to sit around making rude jokes. An average day at the office might include thinking up new names for "dick" or different kinds of sex, or maybe just bantering about bestiality. When I hire assistants, I typically point to a couple of porn films I have stacked with the rest of my videos -- a present from my friend Wally. I actually have never gotten around to watching them; not out of prudishness; frankly, I'd rather see 24.
Anyway, what I say to the assistants I'm interviewing is, "I'm a woman who has porn films out in plain sight in her living room. This is a small reflection of the kind of workplace this is. If that bothers you, you'd be working for the wrong woman." So far, nobody's had a problem with any of the workplace banter -- and now, I have to say, I'm pretty relieved the Supreme Court came down on the side of free speech and free fucking expression.
And just an aside, what kind of moron gets a job on a sitcom and is shocked to hear vulgarity? Ummm...well, some people earn a living, other people just sue for theirs.
It Gives New Meaning To The Term "Cheap Labor"
Welcome to Rent-A-Womb, AKA "reproductive tourism."
It seems there's almost nothing, including pregnancy, that can't be outsourced to India. Henry Chu writes in the LA Times of Saroj Mehli, and India woman who will be paid $5,000 for being a surrogate mother to an American couple's child -- a sum that would take her "more than six years" to earn in her job as a school teacher:
"I might renovate or add to the house, or spend it on my kids' education or my daughter's wedding," Mehli said.Beyond the money, she said, there is the reward of bringing happiness to a childless couple in the United States, where such a service would cost them thousands of dollars more, not to mention the potential legal hassles.
Driven by many of the same factors that have led Western businesses to outsource some of their operations to India in recent years, an increasing number of infertile couples from abroad are coming here in search of women such as Mehli who are willing, in effect, to rent out their wombs.
...Some see the practice as a logical outgrowth of India's fast-paced economic growth and liberalization of the last 15 years, a perfect meeting of supply and demand in a globalized marketplace.
"It's win-win," said S.K. Nanda, a former health secretary here in Gujarat state. "It's a completely capitalistic enterprise. There is nothing unethical about it. If you launched it somewhere like West Bengal or Assam" — both poverty-stricken states — "you'd have a lot of takers."
Others aren't so sure about the moral implications, and are worried about the exploitation of poor women and the risks in a land where 100,000 women die every year as a result of pregnancy and childbirth. Rich couples from the West paying Indian women for the use of their bodies, they say, is distasteful at best, unconscionable at worst.
"You're subjecting the life of that woman who will be a surrogate to some amount of risk," said C.P. Puri, director of the National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health in Mumbai (formerly Bombay). "That is where I personally feel it should not become a trade."
Both sides of the debate agree that the fertility business in India, including "reproductive tourism" by foreigners, is potentially enormous. Current figures are tough to pin down, but the Indian Council of Medical Research estimates that helping residents and visitors beget children could bloom into a nearly $6-billion-a-year industry.
There are those who will scream because it's people taking control of biology. Always an issue for some...generally the "believers," who think we shouldn't mess with "god's" work.
Essentially, for a lot of people...correcting imperfections is okay; improving" yourself isn't. That's probably why it's considered okay to get breast implants if you've had a mastectomy, but not okay to get them if you just think you're a little flat. (For the record, because I know Treach will ask...mine are real!)
But, really, if you don't have an issue, in principle, with your cable company's call center being outsourced...and if the women choose to take the risk...what's the problem?
Amy On Tammy Bruce Today!
10:30 am, Pacific Time, on talkradionetwork.com. Streaming audio, click on Tammy's picture to listen. It's only available live - no downloads for later listening. So tune in at 10:30am!
Do You Look Like $20,000,000?
Let's hope not!
Hi-Hi-Hiltzik-Larious
Seems like we have yet another Internet-naive boy caught in a blogger's Web. Like the dimwits who posted on my Smart & Final entry, and the woman who I knocked for knocking off dresses, it seems Hiltzik was caught by Patterico posting under assumed names on his own Times blog and Patterico's; apparently, not cognizant that the IP address leaves a little techno-trail. Here's me catching dress knocker-offer Jane Langdon justifying profiting from the fruit of others' labor by posting under fake names, same IP address, and even using the email address of a real person who posts on my blog:
Eeeuw, creepy, it turns out Allan is also Jane Langdon! She's taking the identity of a real person who posts on my blog (Allan from Ain't It Cool) and posting under his name. And attacking Cathy, too!Allan Unregistered Commenter
I don't hate you Amy. I... View all comments on this entry If You Steal From Me, Don't Be Dumb Enough To Send Me The URL! 2005-04-03 11:00:11
View all comments from this IP address 68.118.159.129
Here I am finding multiple names and the same IP address for "Brian Snee," who said he was the kid of the guy from Smart & Final who was dumb enough to auto-dialer me and think he could get away with it:
Whoopsie, and it seems the other three negative comments, from"Kreeped-out," "shame on you," and "Brian Snee"
may be from the same person as well! (I say "may be" because there's a variation in the end of one of the IP addresses, but two out of three are from the exact same one.) See below:
Kreeped-out Unregistered Commenter
If Im reading this correctly, Amy has shown u... View all comments on this entry Stupid And Temporary 2005-10-25 17:52:00
View all comments from this IP address 66.214.229.114shame on you Unregistered Commenter
I think disturbed makes a good point. You sh... View all comments on this entry Stupid And Temporary 2005-10-25 17:00:55
View all comments from this IP address 66.214.46.236Brian Snee Unregistered Commenter
Hi I am tim snee's son you guys are fucking i... View all comments on this entry Stupid And Temporary 2005-10-25 07:12:52
View all comments from this IP address 66.214.46.236
Links to the Hiltzik thing on Kevin Roderick's LAObserved, the first place I turn in the morning (well, right after I delete several thousand comments spam on my own blog!) So...will heads (Hiltzik's) roll at the Times? Your prediction here!
"Compassionate Colonialism"
It's a term Michael Hirsch came up with in a Newsweek piece he wrote about how we might never be able to leave Iraq. Yes, it's the old we broke it, we have to stay to fix it story...but maybe we have to stay there for many, many years, as we're the only thing keeping the country from breaking totally apart:
What's clear to me after two weeks here is that despite some success at handing off matters to the Iraqis, progress is so frustratingly slow that we Americans may never be able to leave. The new Iraq is growing up around our presence and is as dependent as a child. Nothing illustrates this better than the endless bickering over the new Iraqi government. This is what the Americans and British have been calling for, agitating for, and banking all their hopes on. If only the Iraqis would "get governing," President Bush said recently, then the U.S. withdrawal timetable and hopes for a Mideast model could still be borne out.Yet the more the parliamentary stalemate drags on—and make no mistake, even if a new prime minister is announced soon, the haggling will continue over myriad cabinet posts—the more it becomes clear the center may not hold in Iraq without a long-term American presence. Not necessarily the 140,000 troops we have now, but at least a core force that's left behind. Why? Because the centrifugal forces that are tearing the country apart are moving faster than our laggard efforts to keep up. On the ground here, you can feel this society fissuring every day, as you watch the Americans desperately try to paper over the cracks. And what the American people need to understand is that there is really only one dominant cohering force left in the country: the American presence.
...How does compassionate colonialism work? First, you create an Iraqi army that will never be able to stand on its own (the postwar Japan and Germany model)—an army as addicted to U.S. logistical support and know-how as any junkie on heroin. Washington just recently awarded humvees to the Iraqi Army as its "heavy armor." But forget about tanks ("[The Iraqis] shoot at everything and anything," says a frustrated Sgt. Diaz). American helicopters and planes rule the skies here, and that's not going to change for many years. Then, you insist on a friendly government, while letting the Iraqis think it is they who are deciding to be friendly (though this "good will" is driven by the always hovering threat of a withdrawal of support). And finally, you give your companies an inside track on long-term oil contracts—again by noting that their presence in Iraq guarantees U.S. support—without actually expropriating the oil.
What "Freedom Of Speech" Doesn't Mean
Leave it to a college professor to be desperately in need of remedial American Government. Greg Lukianoff hands it to to professor Sally Jacobsen of Northern Kentucky University (NKU), "for showing me the most perverted inversion of the concept of free speech I have seen in a long time":
Jacobsen, a professor at NKU, invited students in one of her classes to “to express their freedom-of-speech rights to destroy [an anti-abortion] display if they wished to.” The anti-abortion display had been erected by an NKU student group with permission from university officials. You can see a picture of her apparently actually helping destroy the display (which was a field of approximately 400 tiny crosses) in The Northerner On Line....Thankfully, NKU president James Votruba does not appear to need a lesson from FIRE about what is free speech and what is condoning violent repression of speech:
"Freedom-of-speech rights end where you infringe on someone else's freedom of speech," Votruba said. "I don't buy the claim that this is an act of freedom of speech, to destroy property."
Votruba also told the Cincinnati Post that Professor Jacobsen and those involved could face disciplinary action and even criminal prosecution. "In my mind, this is a serious violation of a faculty member's responsibilities and undermines what a university is established to do," Votruba said. "If people are occasionally offended by points of view on a campus, that's what a university is all about."
Make no mistake: I'm totally pro-choice and anti-fundanutter. But, nobody has a right to shut anybody else up; only a right to speak their piece, no matter how idiotic or offensive it is.
via ifeminist
Julia Child
365 Ways To Cook Placenta:
If the idea of eating raw placenta leaves you cold, said Mr. Cruise, there are numerous methods for cooking placenta. One of the simplest is placenta aglio, olio e peperoncino (placenta in garlic, olive oil, and pepper).Gently blanch one pound of placenta that has been cut into one-quarter-inch-thick discs. After blanching the placenta for no more than thirty seconds, drain and set aside in a deep-heated serving dish.
Heat one cup of extra virgin olive oil in a pan. Add three to four cloves of crushed garlic and one hot chili pepper pod. When the garlic cloves begin to brown, discard them or they'll overwhelm the flavor of the placenta.
Pour the olive oil over the placenta. Sprinkle with black pepper and one teaspoon of chopped Italian parsley. Stir well and serve immediately with fresh-baked crusty Italian bread and a sweet white wine.
Mr. Cruise said his favorite placenta recipe is placenta meat loaf. Begin by chopping one onion and combining it with one teaspoon of black pepper and one sleeve of crushed saltines. Then combine one pound of ground placenta with the onion, pepper, and saltines. Add one teaspoon of bay leaves, one teaspoon each of white and black pepper, a clove of roasted and minced garlic, and one cup of chopped tomatoes. Mix well.
Place in a buttered loaf pan, cover, then bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for an hour and a half, occasionally pouring off excess blood. Serve with smoky wines such as Barolo or Barbaresco.
In addition to these recipes, Mr. Cruise mentioned others "that highlight the placenta's versatility." They included placenta smoothies and placenta jerky, retro-favorites like placenta Wellington and placenta under glass, and "that week night favorite," lasagne Placenta Helper.
Thanks, Norm!
There's Big Money In Gullibility
Just ask Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard:
"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars he should start his own religion."
Do You Need A Nanny Or An Off Button On The Remote?
Tom Fontana's new WB show sounds like it's a victim of networks' increasing fears of getting fined by the FCC:
Emmy-winning writer-producer Tom Fontana ("Oz," "Homicide: Life on the Street") anticipated strong opposition to "The Bedford Diaries."He thought it would come in the ratings race, because his new show was scheduled Wednesdays at 9 p.m. EST against formidable hits like Fox's "American Idol" and ABC's "Lost."
Instead, Fontana's WB drama, about the emotional lives of college students signed up for an elective course on "sexual behavior and the human condition," some of whom keep video journals of their activities, got zapped by its own network even before it aired.
With the Federal Communications Commission fining broadcasters as never before for programming it deems indecent, scenes of two young women kissing and another opening her jeans were edited out of the premiere episode by WB censors, much to the producer's dismay.
"I can't imagine that the majority of Americans want their programming decided by fear," he says. "I don't think they want it decided by four or five commissioners. The Federal government does such a rotten job of things in general, why would we suddenly expect that the FCC would be the one thing that works well."
Not Just Fab, Pre-Fab
I'm increasingly interested in pre-fab housing. Some of it's pretty ugly, but there are cooler and cooler models out there; many or most of them eco-friendly -- like the house built out of demolished Massachusetts freeways, in this article by Robert Campbell in The Boston Globe:
''The design began with the challenge of the materials," says (architect John) Hong. ''The materials tell you what to do." It was almost as if he was told to assemble a house out of a pile of pre-cut pieces he had no part in selecting.The materials were free. Pedini (the homeowner) paid only to ship them. Pedini is an engineer who specializes in highways and tunnels. He supervised much of the building of the new Artery tunnels. He was able to act as his own general contractor on the house, bringing in help and heavy equipment as needed. As a result, he says, the final cost was a modest $150 per square foot.
The house was framed up -- steel frame and concrete floors -- in four net days, Pedini says with obvious pride. ''I cut and drilled the steel with two ironworkers."
It's a house built of huge chunks of steel that function as beams and columns, with large expanses of glass. The floors are concrete stained dark gray. The exterior walls are finished in cedar or zinc siding. In one place, a big X of crossed steel cables is used for wind bracing.
You'd think such a house might feel like a garage. It's sober, certainly. But the high spaces are exhilarating, they are filled with daylight, and they offer views everywhere of the wooded site. Some of the details are satisfyingly dramatic. The fireplace in the great room, for example, which is made of basaltic stone in a color called Inca Gray, is spanned by a monster steel beam. No one, you feel, will successfully invade this house.
For more prefab houses, check out Inhabitat, which has a whole section on them...which is where I spent much of my Sunday night!
The Tom Cruise Diet
Baby placenta, with a little pepper and salt. Mmmm-mmm...HURL!
Thanks, Eric...cough, choke, gag...for the link.
The Real Riots In France?
If they ban smoking. P.S. I'm all for it. Here's the Reuters story:
Relieved French smokers can muse that every cloud has a silver lining as they enjoy a cigarette at the bar with their morning coffee.The government, weakened by a battle with unions and students over a controversial youth jobs contract, backed away from a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants this week to avoid a confrontation with France's many smokers and tobacconists.
The image of Parisian cafes filled with smoke from pungent Gauloise cigarettes has changed since Socialists forced hostelries to clean up their act in the 1990s, but the idea of a total ban in public places is still a source of controversy.
"Sell Out!" fumed anti-smoking campaigners who accused the government of sacrificing the health of millions.
But smokers, taxed to their filter tips in recent years, quietly puffed their approval after what they saw as a surprise last-minute reprieve.
"I love my daily coffee and cigarette," said Louisa Bunz, 47, as she smoked in a central Paris bar.
The idea of making restaurants tobacco-free and forcing smokers into hermetic, ventilated phone box-style cabins without drinks and food was ridiculous, she said.
"It would be like a little smokers' prison cell," she said.
I think it sounds just charming!
Oh yeah...and while I would never say such a thing...it has occurred to me that the perfect response to somebody who asks "You don't mind me smoking?" is "Not if you don't mind me farting."
Revenge Of The Bright Blue Bowl
An Andership Township, Ohio couple got revenge when their zoning board got prissy about them putting up a six-foot fence around their own property. First, the board told them they'd have to get a zoning variance to do it:
We had to pay a fee of $250 for the hearing and the Twp runs an add in the paper announcing the hearing, sends letters to all our neighbors within 200 ft. of our property and puts a cute little sign in our front yard about the hearing. Oh yeah and we had to submit a lot of paperwork. And make 10 copies.A few days before the hearing we get an official letter from the Development Service Staff with their findings recommending to the Zoning Appeals Board that we get the requested variance because the fence would look best coming off the corner of the house. Also it would be fair to us to be able to use most of our back yard. So we go to the hearing.
Let’s pause a moment to review our Twp government structure. Anderson Twp residents elect a Board of Trustees. (For interesting info on Trustees politics click here). This Board appoints five residents to the Zoning Appeals Board. Three are appointed for 5 years and the other 2 are called alternates and appointed for 1 year. This is a political appointment, "cronyism", no credentials or experience in zoning required. For instance one current board member is a veterinarian. The Development Service Staff are hired professionals who give their recommendations to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Get it?
So now we are back at the hearing. First the Development guy gives his recommendation (I should get my fence 21 ft. from the road), then I present my case (simple, I want some privacy since you are running that stupid sidewalk through my yard and I want to use as much of my back yard as I can), then people who wish to speak in favor of the variance (a neighbor I didn’t know before this hearing said the place was an eyesore before we moved in, we are good neighbors, we did a good job improving the outside and give us our fence).
There was no one at the hearing to speak against us. We had one letter in favor of the variance and one letter against. The letter against was from our neighbor whose house runs along the back of our yard. They have no windows or doors on the side of the house and there is a line of trees and tall brush that runs the length of the property. In other words they can’t even see the yard unless they are driving by in a car. They wanted my yard to be open because it “would fit in with the look and feel of Anderson Twp.” They wanted us to plant 6 ft. trees instead. Trees don’t give privacy and what little they do give is years away. And it’s much more expensive than a fence.
Back to the Board who asked me all kinds of questions about what kind of landscaping I was planning on planting on the outside of the fence. I had some suggestions they didn’t like and I said that I would be agreeable to what they might want to plant. They never addressed the recommendation from the Development Services people or the fact that I could choose to run the fence 45 ft. into my yard. Their decision was to deny the variance. One board member used the quote from my objecting neighbor. The "look and feel" crap.
Which finally brings us to the toilets. Around sixteen running the length of our back yard where the fence would have been. We thought we should get some decorations or else it would just be a bunch of toilets. So we turned them into yard art. Planters to be exact. But we were mindful of the concerns of the Appeals Board. When we were discussing landscaping for the fence, they wanted it to be evergreen. So we have cemented various plastic flowers and greenery to the bowls so that they can remain evergreen (and red, pink, purple, etc).
link via BoingBoing/permission to use the photos granted by Robin Sutton and Allen Lade
I'm Nuke Positive, Are You?
Even the Greenpeace guy has come out in favor of nuclear energy. Patrick Moore writes in The Washington Post:
In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.Look at it this way: More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely.
...And although I don't want to underestimate the very real dangers of nuclear technology in the hands of rogue states, we cannot simply ban every technology that is dangerous. That was the all-or-nothing mentality at the height of the Cold War, when anything nuclear seemed to spell doom for humanity and the environment.
...I am not alone among seasoned environmental activists in changing my mind on this subject. British atmospheric scientist James Lovelock, father of the Gaia theory, believes that nuclear energy is the only way to avoid catastrophic climate change. Stewart Brand, founder of the "Whole Earth Catalog," says the environmental movement must embrace nuclear energy to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. On occasion, such opinions have been met with excommunication from the anti-nuclear priesthood: The late British Bishop Hugh Montefiore, founder and director of Friends of the Earth, was forced to resign from the group's board after he wrote a pro-nuclear article in a church newsletter.
...The 600-plus coal-fired plants emit nearly 2 billion tons of CO2annually -- the equivalent of the exhaust from about 300 million automobiles. In addition, the Clean Air Council reports that coal plants are responsible for 64 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions, 26 percent of nitrous oxides and 33 percent of mercury emissions. These pollutants are eroding the health of our environment, producing acid rain, smog, respiratory illness and mercury contamination.
Meanwhile, the 103 nuclear plants operating in the United States effectively avoid the release of 700 million tons of CO2emissions annually -- the equivalent of the exhaust from more than 100 million automobiles. Imagine if the ratio of coal to nuclear were reversed so that only 20 percent of our electricity was generated from coal and 60 percent from nuclear. This would go a long way toward cleaning the air and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Every responsible environmentalist should support a move in that direction.
Crucifiction, Anyone?
Um, if you're into self-flagellation, why not just write humor (I mean, the kind that's actually funny). It is torture, but with practice, it can pay pretty well...and best of all, it leaves no visible scars!
Perhaps it's a wiser career choice for guys like Dominik Diamond, a British game show host who'd persuaded Philippine authorities to allow him to be nailed to a cross at a hillside Easter ceremony:
Diamond would've been only the second Westerner to participate in the senselessly abusive ritual.But as he watched the man in line before him have nails pounded into his hands and feet, Diamond had second thoughts. He began sobbing uncontrollably.
"I can't do it, I can't do it," Diamond, 37, was heard to say through his tear. "God wanted me only to pray at the foot of my cross," he sobbed. He then fell to his knees in prayer as the locals and tourists booed him. He was soon led away to an ambulance for no apparent reason.
Luckily all this was caught on film, as Diamond had been planning to turn the experience into a TV documentary tentatively titled "Crucify Me."
Diamond was trying to reconnect with God after years of unheeded prayer. He had been afflicted with insomnia and spent countless sleepless nights begging God to let him sleep.
"I thought this was such a simple thing to ask and He could not do it," Diamond said.
...Despite the title of his project and the setting, Diamond insists he never guaranteed he would be crucified.
"At no point was it ever conveyed that I would definitely be crucified. At all times in this journey I have been guided by my God in ways I could never have predicted. Having experienced the humility of bearing my own cross through the streets, I felt my God wanted me only to pray at the foot of my cross."
Needless to say, the title is subject to change.
Well, let's help him out! Title suggestions?
Will I Disrespect You In The Morning?
Respect the beliefs of others? Depends on what they are. No, I won't respect yours -- if you believe, sans evidence, in Zeus, Allah, Santa...oh yeah...or god. A few days ago, I was criticized for failing to show respect for "believers." Here's an excerpt from an essay by Scott Adams that puts that kind of "respect" in perspective:
People keep telling me that I should respect the beliefs of others. That sounds entirely reasonable, at least until you think about it. The problem is in knowing where to draw the line. I can understand why, for example, Presbyterians should respect the beliefs of Methodists. They’re practically the same thing.But what about those Heaven’s Gate guys who believed they should kill themselves so their souls could follow a comet? Am I obligated to respect those beliefs too? How about the people who give away all of their possessions because they have determined the exact date that the world will end? Do I respect their opinions up to the predicted end-time and then, after it passes, keep on respecting their opinion while they are begging the neighbors to give back their crap?
I respect the Mormons for doing a great job of creating good citizens. Whatever they’re doing seems to be working. You rarely hear about a gang of violent Mormons terrorizing a town. But must I also respect their practice of wearing special underpants to ward off evil? Is it a package deal, no pun intended?
I suppose you could argue that we should respect any religion that is peaceful and has good intentions at its core. And I certainly agree with treating all people with respect even if you’re not feeling it on the inside. But it seems to me dishonest to display respect for all beliefs equally. Surely there are beliefs that deserve slightly less respect than others.
This has to be an even bigger problem for those of you who have a religion of your own. You’re thinking something along the lines of “My prophet talked to a real angel whereas your prophet was evidently taking a drunken forest wiz and thought a tree stump was talking back to him.”
I also wonder if showing respect for all beliefs is causing more problems than it’s avoiding. The only thing that keeps most people from acting on their absurd beliefs is the fear that other people will treat them like frickin’ retards. Mockery is an important social tool for squelching stupidity. At least that’s what I tell people after I mock them. Or to put it another way, I’ve never seen anyone change his mind because of the power of a superior argument or the acquisition of new facts. But I’ve seen plenty of people change behavior to avoid being mocked.
How To Raise Taxes Without Raising Taxes
Cathy Seipp blog commenter David Cay Johnson also writes about taxes for The New York Times. Here's a piece he wrote on the increased tax burden for the middle class in 2006:
Unless Congress takes action, one in four families with children — up from one in 22 last year — will owe up to $3,640 in additional federal income tax come next April.Few of them realize that their taxes have increased, because Congress has not voted to raise taxes. Instead, Congress let a tax break expire. That break limited the alternative minimum tax, which takes back part of the tax cuts sponsored by President Bush.
Mr. Bush has asked Congress to temporarily restore the tax break, known as the A.M.T. patch. He has also asked Congress to extend another break that lowered the tax rate on most investment income to 15 percent.
Leading Republicans and Democrats agree that there is simply not enough money to do both. Congress was unable to reach an agreement on tax breaks before adjourning for vacation earlier this month.
The expiration of the A.M.T. patch and the tax break for investment income almost balance each other out this year, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonprofit organization whose computer model of the tax system has been deemed reasonable and reliable by the Bush administration. The impact will be felt primarily among taxpayers of two different income levels.
The A.M.T. will cost Americans who earn $50,000 to $200,000 nearly $13 billion more next April. That is about how much people who earn more than $1 million will save because of the break on investment income like dividends and capital gains. Both figures were provided by the Tax Policy Center, which is a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute.
Taking action on either measure will require more government borrowing, adding to the federal budget deficit, which is projected to reach $423 billion this year.
Racism By Another Name
I loathe "diversity" programs where newspapers, for example, give handouts in the form of jobs and fellowships to "people of color" rather than who they should be giving them to: people who grew up without a lot of cash at hand. Well, now, it seems a lot of people -- with skin as pasty-white as mine -- may be able to take advantage of these leg$ up. From an unbylined piece in The Wall Street Journal, this news about DNA testing:
Some Americans are trying to use DNA testing to win success or riches in the diversity sweepstakes. A New York Times article Wednesday opened with the story of adopted twins, born of white parents. Since DNA tests purport to show that the boys have a bit of Native American and African blood, their father hopes the newfound ethnicity will help them qualify for college financial aid. Is this the new "one-drop rule"?Then there is the 98% "European" woman who applied to college as an Asian after a DNA test found a 2% "Asian" strain. And with all that casino money out there, it's no wonder that some Indian tribes face people demanding a share of it based on only DNA "evidence."
Evidence is in quotation marks because DNA testing for genealogy involves as much supposition as science at this point. Human beings have so many genes in common that assigning slight variations to countries of origin or specific ethnic groups is often just guesswork. Even so, it is not that difficult to imagine a flood of Americans trying to milk the preference cow this way. Now picture officialdom struggling to respond. In a world where everybody is a rainbow, where does the sorting begin?
Come to think of it, though, this was always the ultimate goal of people of goodwill: no sorting by race, color or creed. It may just happen by ways and means we never expected.
Is That A Corpse In Your Carry-On?
That's a question I sometimes ask myself when I see these people toting these huge carry-ons on the plane. Naturally, they expect me to remove my small computer backpack from the overhead and jam it under my seat so they can have all the overhead space. Wrong! Well, Salon's Ask The Pilot, Patrick Smith, has an interesting suggestion:
Assigned overhead bins. As it stands, carry-on etiquette, aided and abetted by a total lack of enforcement from the airlines, is a lost cause. Evenly dividing the available real estate would keep people from stealing more than their share and make it harder to sneak aboard with blatantly oversize bags. And assigned bins would be at or very near your assigned seat. Part of the reason it often takes 20 minutes to get on or off a plane is because, during the boarding process, passengers stuff their belongings into the first empty bin they come to. The forward bins then quickly fill, forcing people to store their luggage down the aisle and then backtrack against the flow of traffic, which they'll have to do again when they retrieve their things.
This Cat's Got Blog
Literally.
On Boulevard Montparnasse, just around the corner from our apartment and about halfway down the block, sits a non-descript cream-colored stone building. From one of the apartment windows on the ground floor, a cat of not insignifiant girth lazes away the day, watching pedestrians. This cat is Pollock. How do we know? Because there is a little piece of paper, about the size of a Chinese fortune from a fortune cookie, that reads “Je m’appelle Pollock.”Today as we were walking by we noticed a new piece of paper below that one alerting passers-by to the presence of Pollock’s blog...
via TheParisBlog (formerly InParisNow)
Today's Embarrassing Error In The LA Times
In a story about the rise and fall of a black screenwriter, prominently placed as today's "Column One" story, John L. Mitchell quotes the guy:
"I'm never that far away from a blockbuster hit," he says. "They can tell me 'no' a thousand times, but all I need is one hit again and I'm cool and the gang."
Um, try Kool And The Gang.
Just a suggestion, but they might try hiring a few more people over there at the Times who have left the house and experienced culture, pop and otherwise, from time to time.
Am I being unfair? In fact, it's even more embarrassing than it seems. In the words of the late David Shaw, quoted on Kausfiles:
When I or virtually any other mainstream journalist writes something, it goes through several filters before the reader sees it. At least four experienced Times editors will have examined this column, for example. They will have checked it for accuracy, fairness, grammar, taste and libel, among other things.
In other words, in addition to this writer, and the copy editors over there on Spring Street, "at least four experienced editors" have never heard of Kool And The Gang. Scary.
Hot Scoop - Reduced Price Theater Tickets
This very cool friend of mine, Jim McCarthy, has a very cool company, GoldstarEvents.com, that he started with a couple of college buddies, and which has Ticketmaster running a bit scared! Goldstar offers half-price (and sometimes even free) theater tickets, and discounted tickets for massage and comedy, among other things (although generally not in the same venue!).
Well, thanks to Jim, special for all you Advice Goddess Blog readers, I'm publishing a link to get substantially discounted tickets to Black Rider at the Ahmanson, available on their site today, but not announced until Monday. You have to sign up for Goldstar membership, but it's free, so no biggie. Here are the details:
Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets (website)
Venue: Ahmanson Theatre (Los Angeles, CA)
Full Price: $60.00 - $85.00 Our Price: $30.00 - $42.50
The Ahmanson Theatre presents The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets, a triumphant collaboration between Robert Wilson, Tom Waits and writer William S. Burroughs. Based on a story from Germanic folklore, The Black Rider is about making a pact with the devil -- what people will do when they want something too badly. Whoever sells his soul to the demon hunter receives seven magic bullets, which will not fail to hit their desired mark. If the bargainer finds another victim for the devil, he will receive a fresh supply of magic bullets; if not, his life is forfeit.
Special link for you to get your tix is here.
Heather Has Two Mommies
And they're on their way to Washington, to roll eggs on the White House lawn:
...It seems not all Christians are egg-cited about having the White House Easter rituals conducted amongst so many children with two mommies."For crying out loud -- at the Easter Egg Roll? This is a family event," Andrea Lafferty of Traditional Values Coalition told the New York Times.
Lafferty said it was "very distasteful" to let homosexuals roll eggs.
And I find it "very distasteful" to let Lafferty leave the house without a muzzle.
Let's get this straight: Lafferty is very, very interested in how other people have sex, and with whom. Next, her religious beliefs lead her to advocate excluding little children from a public event because their parents have sex in a way that doesn't work for her.
Also, what makes up a family? Does it have to be people who are biologically related -- or is it just people who act like they're family?
Traditional values? You could call it that -- or, for short, "homophobia" and "hate."
Stalling Head Over Heels
I just posted an Advice Goddess column about a guy whose dad has health problems -- which the guy uses as his excuse for weeniehood. Here's an excerpt:
It’s a good thing other species aren’t evolved enough to be as counterproductive as we are, or the food chain would empty out in about a decade. Come on, do you think a male deer on the make sniffs doe pee on a branch, and says to himself, “Naw, Ma’s been having a bit of the mange lately, I think I’ll take seven-year mating sabbatical”?So, your family tree has a bit of bark rot. Join the club. The essence of being human is being something of a screwup. Everybody’s got problems. Smart people view them as opportunities for growth (see The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton). Others, such as yourself, prefer to repurpose them into excuses for acting like a wuss: “I can’t ask you out -- it’s too hot, it’s too cold, Daddy’s too poor, Daddy has a goiter named Fred.” Well, unless Fred’ll be joining you on your dates, and Daddy, too, in a wheelchair and leashed to his breathing machine…what’s it to you?
Then again, humiliation has excellent entertainment value. Nobody bonds with you over tales of your greatness. People want to hear about how human you are. They want to know about that time you were so poor you had to dress up as a chicken, clucking as you handed flyers to pedestrians; or rather, as you chased pedestrians, trying to hand them flyers so you could get paid before you died of heat exhaustion.
There is, however, a difference between serving up a splash of self-deprecation -- suggesting you have confidence to spare -- and inviting others to look on as you drown yourself in a bottomless vat of self-perceived loserhood. Extricating yourself from that vat could take years of therapy and a forest of motivational Post-it Notes -- reminding you not only to replace the refrigerator bulb, but to like yourself intensely while doing it. Or, you could just stuff a set of walnuts in your underwear (the faint clacking will remind you they’re there -- if the discomfort or a band of rabid squirrels doesn’t get you first)…and go out in the world and hit on girls.
The rest is here. P.S. That was me in the chicken suit.
The Sopranos, Old Testament Version
Not surprisingly, it seems Satan was just an invention by the Church to keep its flock in line, and the biblical satans (there were a number of them) were an early version of mob errand boys, but in god's employ:
Christians believe in a character called Satan who rules an evil empire and is constantly trying to make people have sex or drink beer, but a Medieval Studies professor is on a bold mission to tell the truth about the so-called Devil.According to Dr. Henry Ansgar Kelly, the Evil One feared by Christians is just an invention of the Roman church still used by "fire and brimstone" preachers even today. Over the centuries and especially during the Middle Ages, the Satan character became ever more detailed.
As the Christian religion was put together from a diverse collection of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean mythologies and cults, the church fathers found it useful to combine dozens of different characters to make a scary devil monster that would keep people in line, according to "Satan: A Biography."
The "satan" in the Old Testament isn't even a specific character, Dr. Kelly writes. In the famous Book of Job, for example, the Hebrew text describes a class of angels that do cruel experiments for a bored and vicious God.
These entities are known as "ha-satan," or "the adversaries" or "the prosecutors" -- the hit men or district attorneys working for God.
...Dr. Kelly says he wants this true history of "Satan" to spread so that Christians may one day learn the Devil they know doesn't actually exist in their own Bible.
Incidentally, my part-time biblical scholar mother once told me that, in Judaism, there's no concept of heaven or hell.
The Expensive War On Drugs
How much does the criminalization of pot cost? Billions, writes Rob Kampia. And it has yet to curb pot use:
Last year, Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimated that the federal government spends about $2.4 billion annually on enforcing anti-marijuana laws, which is on top of about $5.3 billion that local and state governments spend annually. Under prohibition, we also forgo the roughly $6.2 billion in tax revenues that Prof. Miron says would be generated if marijuana were regulated and taxed like alcohol and tobacco.But that's only part of the cost of marijuana prohibition. The federal government has spent over $1 billion since 1998 on TV, radio and print anti-drug ads that have focused overwhelmingly on marijuana, often neglecting far more dangerous drugs like methamphetamine. And the government spends millions of additional dollars conducting and publicizing research that's designed to justify marijuana prohibition -- and an unknown amount campaigning against state and local efforts to reform marijuana laws.
The goal of all this is to choke off the marijuana supply and put a stop to marijuana use. Are we getting our money's worth?
In a word, no.
According to the U.S. Justice Department's 2006 National Drug Threat Assessment report, "Marijuana availability is high and stable or increasing slightly." In another recent federal government survey, 86 percent of high school seniors said that marijuana was "easy to get" -- a figure that has remained virtually constant since 1975.
All this, despite an all-time record marijuana "eradication" campaign in 2005, with over four million plants seized. Marijuana arrests have also set a record: 771,984 in one year. That's the equivalent of arresting every man, woman and child in the state of Wyoming plus St. Paul, Minnesota -- every year.
By cherry-picking the most favorable statistics, the White House has tried to convince us that marijuana use has dropped in a big way, but this simply isn't so.
Although changes in survey methodology make direct comparisons difficult, the latest edition of the federal government's National Survey on Drug Use and Health, released last September, reports a higher percentage of 12- to 17-year-olds using marijuana at least monthly than when President Nixon first declared a "war on drugs" in 1971. The number of Americans who admit to having tried marijuana has reached an all-time record -- nearly 100 million.
Nearly 15 million say they use marijuana at least monthly. That's more people than attend all college and professional football games in a typical month, more than three times as many as buy Apple's red-hot iPod in a month, and eight times as many as attend rock concerts in a month.
Then think about all the lives that are ruined or compromised -- not because a person is some hopeless, gutter-dwelling junkie -- but because they get caught with a joint instead of a martini.
This Week In Ugly-Town
High fashion? Well, yes. Because anybody who thinks it looks good has to be high.
Free Money
No, really. Not a scam. It's addictive, don't say I didn't warn you, but look yourself up here, and see if any states are holding funds for you. I already looked up about 20 people, and found about three thousand dollars they were missing. Not sure how much my waiting TV talent payments check is for -- going to see if I can get the letter notarized at my bank to get it.
You Don't Need To Believe In The Big Imaginary Friend To Have Character
No need to waste your life on some hard bench closing your eyes and making wishes to a figure there's no evidence exists. Just copy The Six Pillars Of Character and start living by them:
Trustworthiness
Be honest • Don’t deceive, cheat or steal • Be reliable — do what you say you’ll do • Have the courage to do the right thing • Build a good reputation • Be loyal — stand by your family, friends and countryRespect
Treat others with respect; follow the Golden Rule • Be tolerant of differences • Use good manners, not bad language • Be considerate of the feelings of others • Don’t threaten, hit or hurt anyone • Deal peacefully with anger, insults and disagreementsResponsibility
Do what you are supposed to do • Persevere: keep on trying! • Always do your best • Use self-control • Be self-disciplined • Think before you act — consider the consequences • Be accountable for your choicesFairness
Play by the rules • Take turns and share • Be open-minded; listen to others • Don’t take advantage of others • Don’t blame others carelesslyCaring
Be kind • Be compassionate and show you care • Express gratitude • Forgive others • Help people in needCitizenship
Do your share to make your school and community better • Cooperate • Get involved in community affairs • Stay informed; vote • Be a good neighbor • Obey laws and rules • Respect authority • Protect the environment
These points are found at charactercounts.org, via The Josephson Institute For Ethics -- secular ethics. And I'll let them answer the question that maybe came to mind for some of you:
But Isn’t Ethics Relative?No. There are many areas in which we legitimately differ: politics, religion, sexuality, wealth, ethnicity, personality, ambition. But there is such a thing as right and wrong. Coalition members believe that adults and institutions have a duty to teach the young, in word and deed, that honesty is superior to lying, responsibility to dissolution, fairness to greed and caring to callousness.
OK. Whose Values, What Values?
Everyone’s values: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship.
See? For those who think being an atheist means being absent an ethical framework, when it's merely refusing to live according to primitive superstition, you don't need to believe in god, Santa, or little green men to be good. You just have to want to be good, and live accordingly. Think long and hard about the kind of person you want to be. Be comprehensive, and maybe even write your requirements down. Then, when you're confronted with an ethical choice, ask yourself what I ask myself (inserting your own name, of course): "Is that how the Amy Alkon I want to be would behave?"
No fire, no brimstone, no fear-based morality; just readily available answers for how you're supposed to behave in a given situation, once you've set standards for the kind of person you want to be.
I recently read one tip that resonated with my personal standards in my friend Sue Shapiro's book, Lighting Up. It's advice from her therapist:
"Live the most truthful life you can."
While I don't reveal other people's confidences when I'm asked to keep them, there's little about my own life I won't talk about. Frankly, my greatest concern isn't keeping secrets; I'd just hate to bore anyone.
But, generally speaking, because I have a well-articulated personal code of behavior, I don't do stuff I am or would be ashamed of. When I do behave badly, I try quickly correct my behavior, and any flawed thinking that went into it, and I do my best to make amends.
For example, on Amazon, I sell review copies of books I get that aren't right for me for mention on my blog or in my column. After a guy bought one of these, and I went to mail it to him, I realized that it had "review copy" stamped along the side. I wrote him to let him know and said I'd refund his money if he wanted. He did want a refund, which I gave him right away. Of course, I said I was sorry, too.
But, I realized something -- because I was careless, and didn't look the book over too well before I posted it for sale, he'd wasted time and energy, and was probably a little annoyed, too. I dropped him a couple of bucks in the mail, too, and a note apologizing for being careless and wasting his time.
He e-mailed me to tell me he was bowled over and truly appreciative. The experience highlighted something I believe -- what really bothers people is not that others make mistakes, but that they don't take responsibility for them or show accountability in any substantive way. By sending the guy the cash and the note -- a small gesture -- I showed him that I cared that he wasted his time, and truly felt sorry about it...beyond just giving him the easy-out lip-service of a verbal (or, in this case, e-mailed) apology.
Guns 'N Redheads
You'll have to pry it from my cold, wet hands.
Photo by Swiss journalist and glamorous Locarno International Film Festival host Claudia Laffranchi
Is It god Or Just REM?
Research suggests all those "white light"/near death experiences have a biological explanation, not a spiritual one:
The US team said the same parts of the brain are activated when people dream as in near death experiences.The study, in Neurology, compared 55 people who had had near death experiences and 55 who had not.
Those with near death experiences were more likely to have less clearly separated boundaries between sleeping and waking, the scientists found.
People who have had near death experiences commonly report being surrounded by a bright light or gazing down on themselves in an operating theatre.
Many of these sensations are also common to experiences of being in the dream state, or rapid eye movement (REM), stage of sleep, the researchers said.
Thanks, Norm.
My Accountable Isn't Their Accountable
I agree with Stephen Elliott, who writes on the HuffPost about Fitzgerald, Bush, and the public trust:
But the problem is that they have not been held accountable. And now, two years into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity, with millions of dollars spent on investigating this serious breach of public trust, after reporter Judy Miller spends 80 days in jail, after George W. Bush promises to reckon with anyone in his administration responsible for the leak, we're told George Bush is actually responsible for the leak after all.So why have the investigation? Why this egregious irresponsible use of tax money from an administration so adamant about tax cuts? If the information was declassified and the president authorized it, what were we investigating? This administration is so used to not being held accountable that it means nothing to them to waste millions of tax payer dollars investigating a leak that they knew all along was their own.
And what else did they know? Well, it seems they knew there was no attempt by Saddam to buy uranium in Niger. But that didn't stop them from including it in the state of the union. Or from going after an administration critic for spreading information they knew to be true, from selectively declassifying information for purely political reasons.
Hey, that was years ago, we should move forward right? Why are we all so hung up on this coverup that happened so long ago? Because the administration needs to be accountable. Because thousands have died in a war that was based on false pretenses. And we are not moving forward, and we are not making progress, and Iraq is a mess, the biggest mess imaginable. The public trust is broken. And we will never be able to fix the damage until officials, particularly the president, show accountability for what they've done. Our failure to hold our politicians accountable is exactly what has led to the current state of things, to corrupt officials like Tom DeLay and Bob Ney, to the disastrous planning and execution of the war in Iraq and the billions wasted on companies with no-bid contracts there. To hold an investigation into a coverup knowing all along where it was coming from and who was responsible. One can only shake one's head at the boldness, the gall, the absence of principles or conscience. To stall the truth at the taxpayers expense. To finally not care about the truth at all as if truth was not an ideal, not a value, but a nuisance, something that gets in the way of the greater good.
"Get The Market To Tell The Ecological Truth"
The sky really might be falling.
Greg Ross of American Scientist interviews environmental analyst Lester Brown, who sees signs global development has exceeded our supply of natural resources -- a situation which toppled prior civilizations. Brown says:
The key to building a global economy that can sustain economic progress is the creation of an honest market, one that tells the ecological truth. The market is an incredible institution, allocating resources with an efficiency that no central planning body can match. It easily balances supply and demand, and it sets prices that readily reflect both scarcity and abundance.The market does, however, have some fundamental weaknesses. It does not incorporate into prices the indirect costs of providing goods or services, it does not value nature's services properly, and it does not respect the sustainable-yield thresholds of natural systems. It also favors the near term over the long term, showing little concern for future generations.
Accounting systems that do not tell the truth can be costly. Faulty corporate accounting systems that leave costs off the books have driven some of the world's largest corporations into bankruptcy. Unfortunately, our faulty global economic accounting system has potentially far more serious consequences. Our modern economic prosperity is achieved in part by running up ecological deficits, costs that do not show up on the books, but costs that someone will eventually pay.
The first step is to calculate the indirect costs of the various goods and services we buy. Since we are all economic decision-makers as consumers, corporate planners, government policymakers and investment bankers, we rely on market prices to guide our decision-making. The problem is the market is giving us bad information. The result is bad decision-making.
He used the cost of cigarette smoking (from a CDC study, which included the costs of treating smoking-related illnesses and loss of productivity) to illustrate his point:
They concluded that the cost to society of smoking a pack of cigarettes was $7.18. If we assume that the cost of growing the tobacco and manufacturing the cigarettes is roughly $2 a pack, then the price of cigarettes should be roughly $9 per pack. This not only justifies raising taxes on cigarettes, which claim 4.9 million lives per year worldwide, but it also provides guidelines for how much to raise them.If the cost to society of smoking a pack of cigarettes is $7.18, how much is the cost to society of burning a gallon of gasoline? Fortunately, the International Center for Technology Assessment has done a detailed analysis, entitled "The Real Price of Gasoline." The group calculates several indirect costs, including oil industry tax breaks, oil supply protection costs, oil industry subsidies and health care costs of treating auto exhaust-related respiratory illnesses. The total of these indirect costs centers around $9 per gallon, somewhat higher than the social cost of smoking a pack of cigarettes. Add this external or social cost to the roughly $2 per gallon average price of gasoline in the United States in early 2005, and gas would cost $11 a gallon. These costs are real. Someone bears them. Now that these costs have been calculated, they can be used to set tax rates on gasoline, just as the CDC analysis is being used to raise taxes on cigarettes.
He continues with an example of the record flooding in the Yangtze River basin, which caused $30 billion in damage. At first, the government attributed it to nature. Weeks later, the government acknowledged a human contribution -- deforestation -- and took an unusual step: Banning the cutting of trees in forests throughout China.
Officials justified this action by pointing out that the value of trees standing was three times that of those cut. What they were recognizing was that the flood control services provided by forests were three times as valuable as the timber in those forests. In the scientific world, this is known as an "aha" moment. The Chinese government was recognizing the ecological truth in the market. It is, in a sense, what the entire world needs to do across the board with all goods and services.
His words echo those of the late English economist A.C. Pigou, written about by Paul Hawken in his book, The Ecology Of Commerce:
Pigou argued that competitive marketplaces would not work if producers did not bear the full costs of production, including whatever pollution, sickness, or environmental damage they caused. Pigou's solution was to impose a "tax to correct maladjustments" on producers, a tax that would be comparable to the avoided cost or unborne expense. Pigou cited prematurely peeling paint on a house near a cole-fired mill as an example of an external cost that should be paid by the producer. He theorized that when the producer was forced to bear full costs, it would have incentives to reduce its negative impact, thus lowering those costs.
The full text from my earlier blog item on that is here.
Life Amongst The Barbarians
The U.N. finds that one quarter of married Syrian women have been beaten, writes Katherine Zoepf in The New York Times:
Hana Qaddoura, a spokeswoman for the General Union of Women, said that breaking the silence on domestic abuse was an essential first step to combating violence. Many Syrians, she said, do not believe that violence in the home "counts" as violence."There are some forms of violence against women that our society doesn't even see as violence," Ms. Qaddoura said. "It all depends very much on education and income level, but many people see a woman who is beaten as being in a bad relationship; they don't see her as a victim of violence."
...Bassam al-Kadi, a rights advocate, said the report was part of a growing openness about many forms of domestic abuse. He has been working on a public information campaign to curb the practice known as honor killings — the killing of women who are believed to have dishonored their families by engaging in illicit sex.
"Until two years ago, discussion of honor killing was banned in the Syrian media," Mr. Kadi said. "The incidents might be discussed individually, as 'accidents,' but talking about honor killing as a phenomenon was forbidden. Now these subjects are becoming much more open."
Women's advocates say that though any attempt to broaden discussion of domestic violence is welcome, they have seen little effort by the government to address the topic in practical terms. Shelters for battered women are few and poorly publicized, and there are no formal channels for abused women to seek assistance.
"As it is now, there are still no mechanisms to report violence against women," Mr. Abdul Salam said. "We hope that this study will soon lead to practical action on the ground."
Hmmm...maybe all those Muslims rioting how the West treats them should first riot over how they treat themselves.
The American Way
No, no, no...not here. Look over there, to France -- if you can see anything at all while you're getting boned senseless by your monopolistic cable TV provider, the phone company, and your broadband ISP -- and check out the beauty of marketplace competition:
In 2000, government regulators decided to break up France Telecom's monopoly. However, instead of the Ma Bell breakup, which just produced several regional monopolies, the government forced the company to open up access to independent data providers -- a trust-busting solution well suited for the internet age. Since then, prices have dropped dramatically for the "triple play" ($36/month from one company), speeds have shot up, and providers have introduced unique products into the marketplace. Importantly, France has young entrepreneurs trying to improve the internet marketplace, something you'd hope to see in such an important and evolving area. It's quite embarrassing that while the FCC is protecting low-quality, expensive monopolies, France, of all countries, has gotten it right in fostering competition, and demonstrating that free markets do benefit the consumer. Now they just have to get their labor situation sorted out.
And here's even more competition -- overseas, of course.
I Walked On Water!
You probably have, too. The frozen variety. It's a bad week for Jesus fans. First, they lost the Jews as a scapegoat, thanks to The Judas Diaries (like The Princess Diaries, only it's men in long dresses running around yelling about god, sans sparkly fingernail polish).
Next, there's this bit at National Geographic News from a writer named Amitabh Avasthi (refraining from immature jokes, you can thank me later) that suggests a freak cold spell could be behind the Jesus walking on water tale:
According to biblical accounts, the disciples of Jesus crossed a freshwater lake known as the Sea of Galilee, in northern Israel, before Jesus went up a mountain to pray.On their way back at night, a violent storm trapped the disciples' boat in the middle of the sea. It was then that Jesus walked out to the boat and calmed the storm, according to the Bible.
"A rare set of weather events may have combined to create a slab of ice about 4 to 6 inches [10 to 15 centimeters] thick on the lake, [making it] able to support a person's weight," said Doron Nof, an oceanographer at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida.
His findings appear in this month's issue of the Journal of Paleolimnology.
Nof bases his theory on a unique freezing mechanism he calls "springs ice."
This forms when warm, salty springs flow into a freshwater lake, preventing the lake from freezing entirely in cold weather.
Springs linked to this kind of freezing are found in Tabgha, Israel, a region where many archaeological features associated with Jesus have been found.
Now, if Jesus did a triple lutz or something, then I'd really be impressed.
One Cheese Museum Apparently Wasn't Enough
Let's have everything our tax dollars get spent on in each state listed on a Web site, with the reason why. Then there'd be a lot less of this.
"Consider The Stunning Magnitude Of The Failure"
That's Iraq they're talking about, of course. A few words from those bleeding-heart centrists at The Brookings Institution:
Consider the stunning magnitude of the failure. Iraq has been the top priority for the world's only superpower for the past three years, and a central one for many regional and international powers. The United States, intent on keeping Iraq together, has spent more resources in that country than any state ever has spent on another in the history of the world....Once the institutions of sovereignty are destroyed in any state, especially one with a heterogeneous society, the odds are against any effort to build a stable alternative in the same generation. In the absence of effective central authority, all it takes is a small, determined minority to prevent unity.
...The tragedy of civil war lies not only in what it means for Iraq's people but also in what the consequences would be for international security. The danger of drawing other states in, the spillover potential involving neighboring countries, the erosion of the balance of power in the region in favor of Iran and the creation of a hospitable environment for international terrorism. In the end, it is mostly these international consequences that propel international interventions that justify intrusion into the sovereignty of states.
But despite the prevalence of troubled and troubling governments, states remain the most effective entities for enforcing security. Confronting them is sometimes necessary, but dismantling them is altogether different. In the security arena, both locally and across borders, states remain the best enforcers of order. Many states need to be improved or enhanced; others challenged, sometimes fought. But dismantling states remains one of the greatest dangers in our international system.
As we consider options toward other states not to U.S. liking, such as Iran, the removal of some governments may seem desirable from many vantage points, but not any cost.
The next user of weapons of mass destruction is more likely to be a terror group, such as al-Qaida, than any state. In its history, the United States has deterred the most ruthless and powerful states, including the Soviet Union. Groups such as al-Qaida are constrained only by the limits of their capability. Where there is absence of central authority, they expand. Al-Qaida didn't exist in Iraq before the war but now thrives there despite the presence of the most powerful military in the world.
A Radish By Any Other Name
The Boulevard St. Germain carrot and radish cutter. Photo by Emily Tarr.
Health Insurance Like Car Insurance
Milt Romney finally does what I've been insisting America should do -- insist that everybody have health insurance of one kind or another -- but health insurance of their choosing. And that means everybody, including those people who are gambling that they won't get sick -- and don't see putting monthly money toward health care as a necessity. Here it is from The Economist:
To make the plan work, Massachusetts will offer a mix of penalties and subsidies. Individuals will be allowed to buy health insurance with pre-tax dollars, just as firms currently can. Those who don't will be penalised through the tax code, and then fined. At the same time, private insurers will receive subsidies to offer bare-bones insurance to those who cannot afford fancier packages.Of the 6.2m people in Massachusetts, about 500,000 lack insurance. They fall into three overlapping groups. Some are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, but have not enrolled. Some are not quite poor enough for Medicaid, but get no insurance from their employers and cannot afford to buy it themselves. Others could afford it, but just don't buy it, perhaps because they are young and healthy.
Massachusetts has already done a good job of reducing the size of the first group. A new computer system uses the Social Security numbers of those who show up at hospital to see if they qualify for Medicaid, and automatically enrolls them if they do. The other two groups will be shrunk by imposing a levy on firms with more than ten employees that do not offer health insurance, and by forcing everyone who still lacks insurance after that to get some.
With more healthy people in the pool, average premiums should fall, or at least rise less quickly. The burden on emergency rooms should be reduced, because insured people are more likely to go to a doctor before a problem becomes critical. Overall, the plan will cost no more than the state currently spends on the uninsured—about $1 billion a year, says an optimistic Mr Romney.
Here's more from Wired. What I'm opposed to is employers being forced to provide health care. I pay for my own health care via Kaiser, which isn't the Cadillac of health care by any means, but it's there for the basics and in case of catastrophe or just plain serious illness...which can end up costing you bigtime. I've always had health insurance, even at my churchmouse-poorest, because I didn't want to put my parents in the position of paying for me if something went dreadfully wrong (or, worse yet, be stuck in with "My doctor is the state government!").
How To Look 50-Cent Fabulous
Warning: NSFTWAWOFH (Not Safe For Those Who Aren't Women Or Flaming Homosexuals).
Leonor Greyl, whom Hillary Johnson rightly called "The Couturier Of Hair" in an LA Times Magazine piece (after she sent me to her salon in Paris for a little investigative hair care), makes some of the best shampoo and hair products on the planet. In fact, Madame Greyl changed my life, via my hair, which now looks more like a field of new pennies than a field of Brill-O.
Madame Greyl took two looks at my hair (on my head and under a microscope!), and told me, "You Americans wash your hair too often." She said to wash it no more than twice a week. That's where her Lait Lavant a la Banane comes in. It's a shampoo substitute, gentle enough to use daily, should you need more than the one or two weekly shampoos. It looks and smells like banana juice!
Then there's Crème Moelle de Bambou, which, Hillary also rightly said, makes your hair feel like butter. It's incredible. And it doesn't lather -- because, apparently, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, the stuff that's in most shampoos to make them froth up, dries out your hair. So, when I'm not using Crème Moelle, I use Kiehl's All-Sport, which barely lathers at all.
The thing is, with the dollar vs. the euro, Leonor Greyl has gotten outrageously expensive. (Not that it wasn't before.) It's now $29 for a six fluid oz. tube. Granted, if you're only shampooing once a week, it lasts longer...but still! And I don't pay the regular price of $25 for Lait Lavant. I got a case of six for six bucks each on eBay.
But, I ran out of Kiehl's, and had only a bit of Crème Moelle left, and I got to thinking. Lucy's fur (which, on a Yorkie, is actually hair, more like a human's, not really fur) is so soft and smells so great after her bath...
Yes, I used dog shampoo on my head, and what a revelation. Not just any dog shampoo. I get this all-natural lavender-mint stuff called Buddy Wash for about $15.59 for TWO BIG bottles at Amazon.com. Two 19 fluid oz. bottles. And about same for the conditioner. My hair, which is thick and wavy/curly-to-frizzy (with most shampoos), came out completely soft, unfrizzy, and fabulous. What a revelation.
I called Cloud Star, the San Luis Obispo-based company that makes Buddy Wash, because I was wondering about the "coconut base" listed on the label. The woman I spoke to said that's what makes the shampoo lather, and that everybody who works there uses it on their hair. And now, I do, too. I can maybe buy an apartment in Paris, like a friend of mine did, with the money I'll save on shampoo!
UPDATE: An e-mail about Buddy Wash from an Advice Goddess Blog reader's girlfriend...
Dear Amy:
My boyfriend is a loyal reader. He turned me on to the idea of the Buddy wash and Buddy rinse products. My shower which looks like the closeout outlet for hair products could just barely hold another product touted to be "the greatest thing ever" for your hair. But the similarities of our hair texture and ensuing issues compelled me to give this just one more try, (I wish I had a nickel....).
Well, I am never letting another product touch my head - EVER. I swear I can see myself in the shine and here in So. Florida where frizz is king, my hair is smooth and my curls like a toddlers. The smell is wonderful and the feeling of clean along with the softness and shine has me hooked for life!
I'll go you one step further. A drugstore.com another product came up in my search called BUDDY SPLASH. This product is advertised as a between shampoo deodorizer and tetangler. For $5 bucks I figured "what the heck?" Well, let me tell you...If your hair even thinks about losing that lovely fresh clean smell or refrizz. This stuff stops that nonsense in a flash, with no negative results of any kind. The shine is boosted, the smell returns, tangles are banished and curls spring back all defined and sperate - no frizz in sight.
I am tempted to post a review on the drugstore.com site, but my selfishness stops me. I know you found that the employees use the products but I fear that widespread publicity would create the cult following these products richly deserve and the company might triple the price for sure and then of course discontinue it as is the fate of all my favorite products,
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. As a woman my hair is so important to how attractive I feel. I have an absolute mane of dark brown curls down to my waist and if they didn't rock my fiance's world I would have considered shaving my head!! But thanks to you both I am one happy puppy! LOL! And your newest fan!
Try the Buddy Rinse and tell me what you think if you want. And renumber.....Mum's is the word.
Very Truly yours, Andrea
Oops, I guess I should have made it clear -- I used both the shampoo and Buddy Rinse. They're both just fab! Great for anybody with thick, curly hair -- and as for how it works for the hair-like-spun-flax types, you'll just have to write and let me know. P.S. And, FYI, Andrea did give me permission to print her e-mail.
Why Not A Religion By John Grisham?
I mean, what kind of moron takes his medical advice from a mediocre (at best) sci-fi writer? Here's the latest on TomKat and the silent birth:
“A woman who wants her child to have the best possible chance will find a doctor who will agree to keep quiet especially during the delivery, and who will insist upon silence being maintained in the hospital delivery room as far as it is humanly possible,” Hubbard wrote.Scientologists have spoken out in support of Cruise and the silent birth principle despite rumors and media criticism.
The “Mission Impossible” star this week denied one tabloid magazine report that he had bought an adult pacifier to muffle the moans and groans of his 27 year-old fiancee.
According to another report, large posters have been given to the Catholic-raised Holmes reminding her to “Be Silent and make all physical movements slow and understandable.”
Scientologists John Travolta and his actress wife Kelly Preston were among those explaining the method. “Screaming is fine....it’s the words. If you can avoid saying certain phrases and words...Of course you’re going to groan and yell. It hurts. Just keep it to the minimum,” said Preston, mother of two.
“As a mom, I am going through a very painful experience and my child is going through a very traumatic and painful experience. So I didn’t want to say anything that could affect him later in life,” Preston added.
She seems to have no problem bringing him into what Time magazine called a "cult of greed." Here's a link to the whole article, by Richard Behar. Yeah, it's a little old, but it's pretty fascinating.
French Fraud
Now, the 419 letters are bilingue. (And that's Chère Amie to you, pal!)
Cher Ami,j'ai bien reçu votre message et je vous avoue que cela me ferait plaisir de lier plus qu'une amitié avec vous. Longtemps, j'ai réfléchi et enfin je me décide. Mais avant, je tiens a me présenter a vous. Je me rejoui que vous avyez enfin pri contact avec moi. Mon nom est madame Villaran Nenita,je suis une citoyenne philippienne a part entiere et la veuve du défunt ministre des finances philippien qui est mort le 15 mai 2002.
Mon mari est tombé gravement malade est a donc été conduit en Europe pour des soins intensifs, mais plus tard il est décédé des suites de sa maladie et a été enterré. J’ai donc hérité de mon défunt mari la somme de 12.000.000 de dollars américains (douze millions de dollars américains).
When Your Need To Not Be Maimed In A Crash Gets In The Way Of Their Phone Calls
Yet another in a series. I'd just picked up my mail, and I was waiting to turn right from Pier onto Ocean Avenue. On Ocean, a car was coming toward me in the lane closest to the curb. It slowed down considerably, and its turn signal was on, so I inched forward to make my turn when...the blonde dimwit in it kept coming right toward me instead of turning...holding her cell phone to her ear, yammering away. Grrrr.
It was, once again, my driving M.O., based on the notion that everyone on the road is blind and a moron, that averted a crash. At least she gave that little "Oh, did my phone call almost turn into a car accident? So sorry!" wave.
She turned into the parking lot on the next block, and I followed her, hoping to put her face on my bad driving blog wall of shame after she parked her car. She kept going through the parking lot, slowly turning back onto Main, and slowly and cavalierly running a red light...and in the area that's usually thickest with pedestrians. Charming!
Unfortunately, The police can't do anything about traffic violations unless they see them.
The idiot must have noticed me behind her, because she turned off Main Street. I followed, and yes, driving like granny, not Mario Andretti. I know that area of Santa Monica very, very well, so it was easy to follow her without breaking any laws or driving like an assclown myself.
I do love that she had to stop going whereever she was going to get away from me -- which maybe taught her a little lesson about paying a little more attention to the road while driving...which might mean she won't be hitting you in your car in the future.
Finally, the nitwit drives up Second Street, pulls up a driveway, and drives into the back! Now, I don't know if it's actually her home, but chances are either she or somebody she knows lives there. Bright. If you've got somebody who's a little tweaked about your driving following you, do you really want them to know where you or your friends live?
The driveway is 240-242 Second Street (between that house and the next house over), and maybe, just maybe, there's some dumb blonde who thinks her car is a four-wheeled phone booth in residence there. Silver Mazda. Anybody know her?
Maybe The Missing Link Isn't So Missing
John Noble Wilford writes in The New York Times that scientists have discovered fossils of a creature that seems to be the missing link in the evolution of some fishes from water to land animals. (Lena, who sent me the link, reminded me to tell people to look at the amazing graphic):
In two reports today in the journal Nature, a team of scientists led by Neil H. Shubin of the University of Chicago say they have uncovered several well-preserved skeletons of the fossil fish in sediments of former streambeds in the Canadian Arctic, 600 miles from the North Pole.The skeletons have the fins, scales and other attributes of a giant fish, four to nine feet long. But on closer examination, the scientists found telling anatomical traits of a transitional creature, a fish that is still a fish but has changes that anticipate the emergence of land animals — and is thus a predecessor of amphibians, reptiles and dinosaurs, mammals and eventually humans.
In the fishes' forward fins, the scientists found evidence of limbs in the making. There are the beginnings of digits, proto-wrists, elbows and shoulders. The fish also had a flat skull resembling a crocodile's, a neck, ribs and other parts that were similar to four-legged land animals known as tetrapods.
Other scientists said that in addition to confirming elements of a major transition in evolution, the fossils were a powerful rebuttal to religious creationists, who have long argued that the absence of such transitional creatures are a serious weakness in Darwin's theory.
The discovery team called the fossils the most compelling examples yet of an animal that was at the cusp of the fish-tetrapod transition. The fish has been named Tiktaalik roseae, at the suggestion of elders of Canada's Nunavut Territory. Tiktaalik (pronounced tic-TAH-lick) means "large shallow water fish."
"The origin of limbs," Dr. Shubin's team wrote, "probably involved the elaboration and proliferation of features already present in the fins of fish such as Tiktaalik."
In an interview, Dr. Shubin, an evolutionary biologist, let himself go. "It's a really amazing, remarkable intermediate fossil," he said. "It's like, holy cow."
Two other paleontologists, commenting on the find in a separate article in the journal, said that a few other transitional fish had been previously discovered from approximately the same Late Devonian time period, 385 million to 359 million years ago. But Tiktaalik is so clearly an intermediate "link between fishes and land vertebrates," they said, that it "might in time become as much an evolutionary icon as the proto-bird Archaeopteryx," which bridged the gap between reptiles (probably dinosaurs) and today's birds.
"Love Me Or Go To Hell"
Well, that's precisely how I feel! Well, truth be told, it's the title of Donna Barstow's just-published cartoon book.
Donna will be signing Love Me or Go To Hell - True Love Cartoons tonight at Book Soup. Since she's a cartoonist, she will not be speaking, I will. I'll be giving advice and answering questions about sex, dating, and relationships. 7pm, Book Soup, Sunset Blvd. Bring your issues...The Advice Goddess is IN!
Our Criminal-In-Chief
That's how it's sounding. Apparently, the mysterious leaks came straight from the top, despite President Bush's strong words about going after leakers. R. Jeffrey Smith writes in The Washington Post:
The White House did not challenge the prosecutor's account of Bush's and Cheney's role in orchestrating the effort to discredit Wilson yesterday. Both Bush and Cheney have been interviewed by Fitzgerald, but the details of what they told him are unknown. Fitzgerald's new account is based on Libby's grand jury testimony that Cheney told him Bush had authorized the declassification and disclosure of some of the information.Bush has been a major critic of leaks of classified information, and his aides have repeatedly said they want to "get to the bottom" of who leaked the name of Wilson's wife, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, to the media, which touched off Fitzgerald's investigation . But in the past 33 months the White House has never disclosed Bush's apparent involvement in the deliberate disclosure of information meant to undermine Wilson.
Three months before Fitzgerald began his probe in December 2003, Bush said at a news conference that "I've constantly expressed my displeasure with leaks, particularly leaks of classified information. . . . If there's a leak out of the administration, I want to know who it is. And if a person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."
And from a CNN story:
He added that he did not know of "anybody in my administration who leaked classified information."
Hey, Bush apologists: Is he dumb...or are we?
If Only He Were A Cash Cow
Car Thieves R Stoopid
How dumb is my car thief? He's supposed to be paying me $120 a month in restitution. I haven't gotten a check since January. Well, he thought he'd just shut off his cell phone and his email and be rid of me! Yeah, right, genius.
This morning, I yanked out the last UPS overnight letter he sent me, called this nice lady at UPS, and found out where he's working, and called him right up and bitched him out. Of course, he used the business' UPS account to send his letter. I expected no less. Of course, it is possible that he reimbursed them for using it. Possible...but unlikely!
Oh, by the way, I'll be on Tammy Bruce's radio show across the country today, live from about 9:30am-9:45am Pacific Time. There's a free web stream here (but only at the time she's live).
Sorry, I was wrong about it being on KABC at the same time!
Thieves Are People, Too!
Cassi Hunt is an MIT student accused by the RIAA of stealing music. She refers to herself as a "pirate," and doesn't claim she was wrongly accused. Her idea of remorse? Whining about being told by the RIAA that they've sometimes suggested students drop out of college and/or go to community college to pay their settlements, and implying that she's a "victim":
There you have it, fellow Techsters: proof of the fantastic levels of absurdity to which the RIAA attack has sunk. The Recording Industry of America would rather see America’s youth deprived of higher education, forever marring their ability to contribute personally and financially to society — including the arts — so that they may crucify us as examples to our peers. To say nothing of wrecking our lives in the process. I finally understand what the RIAA meant when they told me “stealing music is not a victimless crime” — the victims hang for all to see.Please, RIAA — if any competent representative happens to enjoy flipping through The Tech — please tell me Bowie is a moronic tool who can’t help what the Superior Gray Coverage Golden Blonde hair dye does to her mental facilities. Please tell me you actually care about the futures of the age demographic that buys most of your music (http://www.riaa.com/news/marketingdata/pdf/2004consumerprofile.pdf). Your evil pirates are people too, people who enjoy music and almost always still purchase it legitimately. Each has an individual life and circumstances that deserve consideration, if not for the sake of empathy for your fellow man, then for the sake of business sense.
Sure, if you commit a crime against someone, you should be held accountable. But I find it horrifying that anyone would single-mindedly and without compassion process people like a meat grinder set to purée. So while the RIAA continues to play the part of shark, I’ll continue to stand behind the glass, tapping away, wondering which of us is on display.
Oh, boo frigging hoo.
Consumerist, one of my favorite sites (and where I found the link to the girl's story), messes up this time, asking:
Does the RIAA’s evil know no bounds? No? Okay, good, didn’t think so.
The point is, unless they've got the wrong girl and she never downloaded a tune, and she randomly called herself a "pirate," it seems the girl stole music. People laughed at me for not doing it, and roll their eyes when I won't go downtown with them to buy knockoff Chanel and Fendi handbags on Santee Alley. (I used to live by the handbag dealers on NY's Canal Street, and I didn't buy them then, either.) Why not? Well, I have copyrights, and a trademark, and I don't want them violated -- how can I have that attitude then willfully violate other people's? I'm always most amazed by fellow writers or creators who run around with knockoff bags. Hellooo?
As for Consumerist's post on this, you can't be against lacking corporate ethics but all for lacking consumer ethics at the same time. And how much money Madonna makes or record companies make is immaterial. The music belongs to them. They can sell it for whatever price they want, and all we can do is choose not to pay for it. And if Miuccia Prada wants to sell mundane nylon bags for hundreds of dollars, and if there are dumbshits out there who will pay her for them, that's her business and theirs. The bags belong to her, she can sell them for any price she can gouge, uh, get, for them.
Death Becomes Him
Art Buchwald chooses to die with dignity instead of sticking it out with plastic tubing:
Art Buchwald is living dying to the fullest.Weeks after he was expected to die from his decision to forgo dialysis, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist is holding court in a hospice salon to a procession of family, friends and acquaintances.
It's a kind of "group therapy," he says, but one they seem to need more than he does.
"It's a funny thing," he says of these final days, "but it's a good life."
Buchwald has found funny things everywhere in his 80 years; now the political satirist is getting the same charge out of his drawn-out ending.
Buchwald says he's not afraid of death, isn't depressed and is, in fact, having the time of his life. He spends his days writing columns from his room at the hospice as well as reminiscing with visitors.
"It's a great way to say goodbye," Buchwald said in an interview.
"They sit here and we have group therapy," he said. "We talk about everything."
The French ambassador brought a medal from his country; Buchwald wrote his first columns from Paris, about nightlife in the City of Light. The Marine Corps commandant also visited; Buchwald was a Marine during World War II, dropping out of high school at age 17 and joining the corps underaged. He get visits several times a day from his three children and his grandchildren; his wife, Ann, died in 1994.
"I'm going out the way very few people do," Buchwald said.
Vascular problems led doctors to amputate his right leg below the knee in January. Buchwald said losing it was "very traumatic" and that it probably influenced the decision to reject dialysis for his kidney failure. That would have meant being hooked up to a machine three times a week, five hours each time, he said.
"I just decided 'To hell with it,' " said Buchwald, seemingly at peace with his imminent fate. "I haven't been afraid to die. I'd had a wonderful life. I'm 80 years old, so I'm not afraid."
Thanks for reminding me, Snakeman!
Can You Think Of An Uglier Use for $59.99?
12" Gold Closed Bud Rose in a Vase, at Amazon.com:
Gold Roses are made of real roses that were hand picked from California nursery. It is carefully selected for quality and shape, sized in 12"and 17", formed in natural bud shape,and electro-plated in 24K gold and platinum. It takes over 40 steps and over 3 months for the whole processing. They are naturally romantic, and lasting Forever.
Much like toxic waste.
The Poor, Persecuted Majority
Being persecuted in this country means being chased around your school and called "dirty Jew," and having kids egg your house and write similar slogans on your garage in shaving cream. My father had to meet with the principal, Mr. Townsend, in junior high school, when a group of bigger, older girls were throwing chairs at me in the hall and yelling anti-semitic epithets.
What being persecuted isn't? Well, how about not being allowed to knock down the wall between church and state? But, suddenly, Cathy Young points out in Reason, it isn't "liberals" doing all the whining, it's the fundies:
Now, the right is embracing a victimhood cult obsessed with slights toward a group that makes up 85 percent of the American population.According to a Washington Post report, one conference speaker, Navy chaplain Lieutenant Gordon James Klingenschmitt, compared himself to Abdur Rahman, the Afghan convert. Showing slides of himself and Rahman, Klingenschmitt inquired, "What do these two Christians have in common?" and answered: "Perhaps we are persecuted." His persecution consisted of being disciplined by a commander for saying sectarian prayers at a sailor's memorial service.
DeLay, ousted as House majority leader after being indicted for money laundering and conspiracy, was touted as another victim of religious bigotry, targeted for being outspoken about his faith, and his legal and political woes were compared to a crucifixion. (Isn't that offensive to Christians?) One is reminded of race-obsessed zealots who see a racist conspiracy in every prosecution of a prominent African-American, from O.J. Simpson to a corrupt politician.
There is a nugget of truth in some complaints of anti-Christian bias. Many people in the academic and journalistic elites do turn up their noses at anything that smacks of faith. Some activists, courts, and public officials have misconstrued the prohibition on state establishment of religion as banning any mention of religion in the public square, from a tiny church with a cross on a city seal to a reference to God in a high school graduation speech. The "War on Christians" conference featured such an incident: An artist's three paintings for a Black History Month art show at the City Hall of Deltona, Florida, were rejected because they included a man in an "I love Jesus" cap and a minister with a Bible. (The ban was reversed under threat of a lawsuit.)
Such bizarre secularist excesses should be condemned. But the complainers go much further. They cry persecution when religious conservatives are denied the ability to impose their beliefs on everyone—for instance, to ban abortion or gay unions. In fact, much of the hostility they encounter is directed at this political agenda, not at religion as such: People who bash the religious right seldom object when faith is invoked to protest war, poverty, or racism. This is a double standard, to be sure, but it's just as hypocritical for religious conservatives to suggest that Christians who don't subscribe to their brand of values aren't "real" Christians.
On a positive note in my own situation, years later, when my column started running in a Detroit paper, one of these girls emailed me to apologize for how they'd all treated me in seventh grade. The boys who egged our house, wrote epithets on our garage, and toilet-papered our trees still have yet to say a word. I hope they wake up some nights thinking about what they did. P.S. I still haven't been brought to trial for killing Jesus.
Raskolnikov Goes To The Valley
It was, like, totally packed at the movies, so we couldn't get into Inside Man. There was, like, nothing else worth seeing, so we went to Tower, where I spotted this, like, totally horrifying DVD:
The description on the back: "This contemporary urban fable, loosely based on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment..." Please. If you must steal from Dostoevsky, keep it to yourself.
Why Priests Can't Get Laid
I never knew this, but it seems (naturally!) it's all about the money. Found this on Sploid...
The Vatican invented the "vow of celibacy" for priests in order to keep priests from having children. Without heirs, any property owned by priests would always go back to the church.
That charming little factoid about the business of religion was the story within a story about the latest in reality show reaches, also at the link above:
Catholics are furious about a new "reality TV show" that pits men called to the priesthood against sexy young gals."God or the Girl?" will premiere on Easter Sunday, of all days, on the A&E network.
The five-part series tracks the lives of "four young men trying to decide whether to enter the Catholic priesthood," according to Fox News.
All of the men are in their 20s, and all apparently are sexually attracted to women.
Joe Adair, 28, Dan DeMatte, 21, Steve Horvath, 25, and Mike Lechniak, 24, are the real-life stars of the program.
To either weed out these seemingly normal young men or make them crazy enough to take the Vatican's vow of celibacy, the four would-be priests are commanded to do ridiculous things to prove their faith.
"Adair goes on a pilgrimage with no money or food, relying completely on the kindness of strangers to help him get to his destination -- a religious center in Niagara Falls," reporter Catherine Donaldson-Evans writes.
"DeMatte builds an 80-pound cross and carries it 22 miles. Horvath travels to a mission in Guatemala to work with people living in extreme poverty. Lechniak goes on a retreat and stays with nuns."
Hey, Adair...get a job. DeMatte, you twit. Go carry some beams over at Habitat For Humanity. The guy who's working with the people living in poverty -- well, that at least makes some sense.
As for the guy camping out with a bunch of nuns -- oh, please. There's a bar on every corner with women who aren't wearing black and white bathrobes and little tents on their heads...or, at the very least, are dressed as if they woke up in April, 2006, not some day in 1955. Real charity would be some non-primitive women who take it upon themselves to teach the god boys what they're missing.
Wonder Where Your Tax Dollars Are Going?
Why, to schools and unfinished clinics in Iraq! Ellen Knickmeyer writes in The Washington Post of the fate of one of those contracts handed out for the rebuilding of Iraq:
A reconstruction contract for the building of 142 primary health centers across Iraq is running out of money, after two years and roughly $200 million, with no more than 20 clinics now expected to be completed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says.The contract, awarded to U.S. construction giant Parsons Inc. in the flush, early days of reconstruction in Iraq, was expected to lay the foundation of a modern health care system for the country, putting quality medical care within reach of all Iraqis.
Parsons, according to the Corps, will walk away from more than 120 clinics that on average are two-thirds finished. Auditors say the project serves as a warning for other U.S. reconstruction efforts due to be completed this year.
Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps commander overseeing reconstruction in Iraq, said he still hoped to complete all 142 clinics as promised and was seeking emergency funds from the U.S. military and foreign donors. "I'm fairly confident," McCoy said.
...By the end of 2006, the $18.4 billion that Washington has allocated for Iraq's reconstruction runs out. All remaining projects in the U.S. reconstruction program, including electricity, water, sewer, health care and the justice system, are due for completion. As a result, the next nine months are crunchtime for the easy-term contracts that were awarded to American contractors early on, before surging violence drove up security costs and idled workers.
...The Corps of Engineers says the campaign so far has renovated or built 3,000 schools, upgraded 13 hospitals and created hundreds of border forts and police stations. Major projects this summer, the Corps says, should noticeably improve electricity and other basic services, which have fallen below prewar levels despite the billions of dollars that the United States already has expended toward reconstruction here.
Billions of dollars to Iraq? Plus Bushie's tax handouts for the wealthy? Aren't you glad you didn't vote for some big-spending, nation-building Democrat?
Meat Me At The Third Street Promenade
"Hey, Honey, I've got a great idea for something new and fun to do on Saturday night!"
"What's that, Dear?"
"Let's go to the Third Street Promenade and learn about the horrors of eating meat!"
"I dunno...do you think we'll be able to see the presentation with all the crowds they must draw?"
Just in case you were among those worrying about being able to get space up front, they had plenty of spots on Saturday night. And I'm sure Inside Man, as great as the reviews have been, has nothing on the one playing on the sidewalk about "California's Unhappy Cows."
Yes, the above was posted by Amy Alkon, who likes her steak served "still mooing." Yes, yes, I'm joking. But, one nice thing about going to France, or to some French restaurants here, or to restaurants like Joe's in Venice: you order steak "rare" and they don't automatically edit it for you to "medium" when they cook it. Before I got the hang of it in France -- that they bring you what you ask for, typically, at least when it comes to ordering meat -- I ordered my steak "bleu" (ie, "blue") -- which pretty much means "still mooing." I've since learned.
And while I think it isn't right to slaughter animals in inhumane ways -- and it sounds like the Kosher process of bleeding them out without stunning them is completely barbaric -- I don't equate animal life with human life, and find nothing wrong with eating meat, providing it's slaughtered in a way that doesn't involve unnecessary suffering. Here's more on the problem with Kosher slaughter from John Robbins, author of Diet For A New America:
"Animals being ritually slaughtered in the United States are shackeld around a rear leg, hoisted into the air, and then hang, fully conscious, upside down on the conveyer belt for between two and five minutes-and occasionally much longer if something goes wrong on the killing line before the slaughterer makes his cut. "It is difficult for us to imagine what these poor animals must suffer. The cows are exhausted and terrified to begin with.
"The animal upside down with ruptured joints and often a broken leg, twists frantically in pain and terror, so that it must be gripped by the neck or have a clamp inserted in its nostrils to enable the slaughterer to kill the animal with a single stroke, as religious law prescribes."In actual practice, kosher deaths have become a hideous perversion of the original intent of the dietary laws; the procedure adds incalculably to the agony they must suffer.
You may think that today, because relatively few people "eat kosher," only a very small percentage of animals would be "killed kosher". You may also think that even including the non-religious people who seek out kosher meat, mistakenly believing it to be better, this still wouldn't amount to a significant percentage. And finally you are probably quite sure that if you buy meat that isn't labeled kosher, you are certainly not consuming meat from animals killed in this fashion.
But, I'm sorry to say, you'd be wrong on each account. You see, for meat to be passed as kosher by Orthodox Rabbis, it is not enough for the animal merely to have been conscious when killed and to have its throat slit in the required way. A kosher Jew is also forbidden to consume the blood of an animal, so the veins and arteries must be cut out of kosher meat.
In many parts of a cow, however, removing the blood vessels is very costly, and so the meat packers have resolved this difficulty by removing the blood vessels only from those parts of the animal from which they can be cut out inexpensively. Thus, even though the whole animal was killed kosher, only these parts are then sold as kosher meat. In other words, there's a lot of meat left over. This means that a great deal of the meat in our supermarkets and restaurants, while not labeled kosher, is in fact from animals hoisted and slaughtered according to kosher regulations. One authority states:
"It has been estimated that over 90% of the animals slaughtered in New Jersey - whose slaughterhouses supply New York City as well as their own state - are slaughtered by the ritual method."
Once again, religion proves to be primitive and barbaric! Sure, they're now trying to require hoisting the animal in a pen instead of a harness, but the dumb requirement that the animal be conscious while being killed is creepy and barbaric.
Come on, everybody, I'm sure there were reasons people came up with this superstitious crap centuries ago, along with prohibitions on eating pork (lack of refrigeration was a problem back in the day), but it's now April 2006. How about we all start acting like it?
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité...
And a set of bare-ass tits. (NSFPWDWFPLM: Not safe for people who don't work for people like me.) And no, I don't know what she has on her head. It looks like a felt lobster.
But, do note from the site address above the link that the photo appears to be from the newspaper. Yes, they may have a lot wrong with the way they do business in France, but their society doesn't seem to be falling apart at the sight of exposed titties in the newspaper. Just a little something we, who go apoplectic at the slightest "wardrobe malfunction," could learn from.
Link via a comment from Emmanuelle's post on how a CNN USA presenter said the images in France "reminded her a bit of Tiananmen." And no, I don't think she was talking about the half-naked part. More on the thinking there here, in an entertaining but disturbing IHT piece.
And don't say I never did anything for you, Will From OC!
The Axis Of Snivel
I just posted my Advice Goddess column about a man who tried to go with his girlfriend on an all-girls spa weekend -- and threw a tantrum when he was told he couldn't. Here's an excerpt from my answer:
Wait, is he a man, or a 4-year-old who lost his mommy in the bread aisle? “MOMMEEEE! DONNN’T LEEEEAVE MEEEEE!"The great thing about not having given birth to him is that you can leave him. And you probably would -- if he hadn’t been “fantastic until now.” Yes, until now, when he refused to accept that a fundamental element of the “girls’ weekend out” is the “girls.” In other words, if you have a penis, a prostate, and a five-o’clock shadow, don’t come.
...The guy’s at least smart enough to couch his stupidity in the language of love: “You can tell me anything!” -- as if love is cause for issuing somebody an all-access pass to your head. Yes, and “Wither thou goest, I will go!” Perhaps this sounds romantic, especially with all the wither and thithering. Basically, what it proposes is a relationship modeled on a persistent fungal infection: “Hey, baby, I’ll be all over you at all times like an itchy rash!” This isn’t a sign that two people love each other but that one is so much of a missing person that he can’t be left alone, not even for a weekend.
The last thing you need is a guy who can’t live without you. A better idea is one who can, but would rather not. You won’t find a guy like that gathering up his hoop skirts and storming out of the building, sobbing about being excluded from your bikini wax festival. No, he’ll be too busy thanking his lucky stars and planning his night out making man-grunts with the boys.
Ditch the “fantastic except…” logic that women so often use in hopes of hanging onto an ultimately unacceptable man: “He’s fantastic except…well, except for those bodies under the sun porch...”
The rest, including the woman's question, is here.
The Existential Angst Is Just Killing Him
Birth Control, Baby
Sonia Nazario, author of the dreadfully written but Pulitzer-winning illegal immigration story, "Enrique's Journey," has a piece in today's LA Times about the kids left behind by illegal immigrants:
IT STARTED AS AN OFF-THE-CUFF question to María del Carmen Ferrez, who came to clean my house twice a month. Did she plan to have more children? Carmen, always chatty, suddenly went silent. She started sobbing. She told me about four children she had left behind in Guatemala. Her husband had left her, and Carmen simply couldn't feed them more than once or twice a day. They would ask for food. She didn't have it. So she left them in Guatemala with their grandmother and came to work in El Norte. She hadn't seen them in 12 years. Her youngest daughter was 1 year old when she left.Carmen's answer stunned me and sent me on a journey of my own. How could a mother leave her children and travel 2,000 miles away, not knowing when or if she would see them again? After nearly two years of research in the U.S. and in Latin America, I found some answers — and many more Carmens. Regardless of the law, regardless of the danger and pain, millions of women, often single mothers, come to the United States from Mexico and Central America and send dollars to the children they leave behind. And after years apart, their children, desperate to be with their mothers, often make their own harrowing journey through Mexico to find them.
These mothers and children offer up almost certain proof that the legislative "solutions" that Congress is debating — and that brought thousands out into the streets in protest — can't and won't make a difference in the nation's illegal immigration problem.
What will? Dumping dumbass "abstinence" education, in the U.S. and around the world, and developing a strong message (and training) about birth control --- and even free sterilization programs, free patches, and free birth control pills to women in developing countries. These women need lessons in economics -- that having too many children means starving all of them. I couldn't deal with four children, and I'm a middle-class American citizen. Hell, I'd have a hard time paying for one.
Finally, I have an off-the-cuff question for Sonia Nazario: Is your cleaning lady legal? Another question: If she's not, do you pay her what you'd have to pay somebody who was? People who hire illegals are half the problem. A lady from Mexico and her family clean my house and others on my block. They're American citizens, and I pay them accordingly: $75 for a tiny one-bedroom. I could pay less, by far, by hiring illegals. But, that's unpatriotic and skeevy -- contributing to the problem of illegal immigration just to save a few bucks.
A Stop Sign Is Not A Suggestion
Not even if you're in the middle of a very, very important call, as this woman must have been Friday afternoon when I jammed on the brakes to avoid hitting her.
Her cell phone held to her ear, she didn't even feign a stop at the stop sign at a crossing near my house on Friday afternoon. No, she just blazed on through, full speed ahead. Yes, I had the right of way, and no stop sign at all, but I always drive as if everybody else on the road is blind and a moron -- a driving style that's saved me from wrecks, serious injury, and maybe even death on numerous occasions.
Unfortunately, as you can see, it's still not a form of asshole-proofing.
The day was just brimming with rudesters. As I was leaving the ATM a minute or two after photographing the girl in the rolling phone booth, I spotted a woman tossing her cigarette on the sidewalk -- and two blocks from the ocean, too.
"The world is not your ashtray!" I snarled at her. Then I told her I was going to take her picture for my blog. Dumb, because she scurried into the bank before I could turn my camera on. That's her -- the blonde on the left. I was too late in getting home to wait for a shot of her litterbug face, so her half-ass will have to do:
Most hilariously, she did have the audacity (the stupidity?) to tell some poor employee in the bank that a woman was photographing people at the ATM. He came out just as I was photographing her cigarette butt on the pavement. I explained the real purpose for my photography. I suggested he tell her that if she won't litter, I'll have no interest in taking her picture and putting it on my blog!
What The Scumbags In Congress Have Been Up To This Month
No good, what else? By passing H.R. 3997, they effectively gut California's laws that allow citizens like me to freeze their credit and be notified when there's a security breach. In the words of Senator Deborah Bowen:
“Congress has taken the first step down the path to strip Californians of their right to place a freeze on their credit report in the name of creating a national standard. The freeze is the most important tool people have to protect themselves from becoming an identity theft victim,” said Senator Bowen, who is the author of several of California’s identity theft prevention laws, including SB 168, which created the first credit report freeze law in the nation in 2001. “Privacy is the number one concern of most Americans. I don’t see how making life easier for would-be identity thieves, as Congress seems intent on doing, and setting the identity theft prevention efforts back five years does anything to help people protect their privacy.”...“Preventing people from freezing access to their credit reports unless they’re an identity theft victim is a little like saying people can’t buy flood insurance until their house is six feet underwater,” continued Bowen. “The whole purpose of the freeze is to let people take a pro-active, preventative step to ensure they don’t get ripped off. Why Congress wants to tell people, ‘Hey, there’s this great thing that will help you from becoming an identity theft victim, but you can only use it if your identity has been stolen and the thief has racked up thousands of dollars worth of bills in your name’ is beyond me.”
...“Clearly some of the identity theft prevention laws we’ve put on the books are starting to have an effect, which means now certainly isn’t the time to start weakening the protections we’ve set up for Californians as many folks in Congress are looking to do,” concluded Bowen. “The security freeze lets you lock down your credit history so criminals can’t assume your name, get approved for loans and credit cards based on your good credit rating, and then send the collection agencies chasing after you. The freeze lets you maintain control over something you probably never thought you’d be in danger of losing – your good name.”
This week, Senator Bowen is circulating a letter among her colleagues in the Legislature that will be sent to the members of the California congressional delegation, urging them to pass strong identity theft prevention laws that don’t preempt or weaken California’s laws.
How about we urge the rest of the creepazoids in Washington to remember they're on the taxpayer payroll so they might take a moment to vote in our behalf -- instead of doing their part to bend us over so the credit industry can stick it to us more easily? Here's another article on this -- and the suggestion that you contact your Congressturd and yell to have this law thrown in the trash bin.
Bureaucracy Kills
Great Reason mag piece by Jeff Taylor on how the FBI let 9/11 happen:
Anyone paying attention to the Zacarias Moussaoui trial gets it now. All the 9/11 blanks are filled in, and the picture is complete. Sorry, conspiracy freaks and blind partisan hacks. Dull, common, gross incompetence is again at the heart of a deadly government cluster-hump.... The testimony of FBI agent Harry Samit forever buries the quaint notion that 9/11 was unforeseen and unpreventable. Beginning with Moussaoui's August 16, 2001 arrest Samit mounted a global and indefatigable investigation of the man and concluded that an attack involving hijacked airplanes was imminent.
...One exchange from the Moussaoui trial makes clear what happened in the weeks running up to 9/11:
"You tried to move heaven and earth to get a search warrant to search this man's belongings and you were obstructed," MacMahon said to Samit."Yes sir, I was obstructed." Samit replied.
No disaster, it seems, can force reform on the Bureau. The same people are still manning the posts at the FBI and Main Justice. They are going to miss the next terror attack because they are dead-certain to stop the last one. That's what bureaucracies do: cover ass. The Bureau's poisonous Andersen Consulting–with-arrest-powers culture remains unreformed and dangerously low-tech. New York City agents do not have enough e-mail addresses to go around, for example.
Instead of an effective anti-terror agency, the Bureau is morphing into a kind of Stasi Lite, keeping tabs on domestic subversives: assorted peaceniks, communists in Texas, and the League of Women Voters in Michigan, who had the gall to invite a critic of the PATRIOT Act to a panel discussion. There is a sort of logic to such surveillance: This what the FBI is good at, so this is what it does. Kinda of like looking for your car keys under a street light because the rest of the street is dark.
