Too Bad Your Children Aren't This Well Behaved
Yes, that's Lucy, my Yorkshire terrier, perfectly quiet and still, on my lap under the table at Kate Mantilini...
Very good-natured of her, considering what it takes to sneak her in.
By The Simplistic, For The Simplistic
Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu gives his review of the Bush administration in a Newsweek interview by Arlene Getz:
You said George Bush should admit that he made a mistake. Were you surprised at his re-election?
[Laughs] I still can't believe that it really could have happened. Just look at the facts on the table: He’d gone into a war having misled people—whether deliberately or not—about why he went to war. You would think that would have knocked him out [of the race.] It didn’t. Look at the number of American soldiers who have died since he claimed that the war had ended. And yet it seems this doesn't make most Americans worry too much. I was teaching in Jacksonville, Fla., [during the election campaign] and I was shocked, because I had naively believed all these many years that Americans genuinely believed in freedom of speech. [But I] discovered there that when you made an utterance that was remotely contrary to what the White House was saying, then they attacked you. For a South African the déjà vu was frightening. They behaved exactly the same way that used to happen here [during apartheid]—vilifying those who are putting forward a slightly different view.Do you see any other parallels with white-ruled South Africa?
Look at the [detentions in] Guantanamo Bay. You say, why do you detain people without trial in the fashion that you have done? And when they give the answer security, you say no, no, no, this can't be America. This is what we used to hear in South Africa. It's unbelievable that a country that many of us have looked to as the bastion of true freedom could now have eroded so many of the liberties we believed were upheld almost religiously. [But] feeling as devastated in many ways as I am, it is wonderful to find that there are [also] Americans who have felt very strongly [about administration policies]—the people who turned out for rallies against the war. One always has to be very careful not to do what we used to do here, where you generalize very facilely, and one has to remember that there are very many Americans who are feeling deeply distressed about what has taken place in their country. We take our hats off to them.Talking about religion, much has been said about the role it played in the White House race. What do you say to those who believe that Bush was chosen by God?
[Laughs] I keep having to remind people that religion in and of itself is morally neutral. Religion is like a knife. When you use a knife for cutting up bread to prepare sandwiches, a knife is good. If you use the same knife to stick into somebody’s guts, a knife is bad. Religion in and of itself is not good or bad—it is what it makes you do… Frequently, fundamentalists will say this person is the anointed of God if the particular person is supporting their own positions on for instance, homosexuality, or abortion. [I] feel so deeply saddened [about it]. Do you really believe that the Jesus who was depicted in the Scriptures as being on the side of those who were vilified, those who were marginalized, that this Jesus would actually be supporting groups that clobber a group that is already persecuted? That’s a Christ I would not worship. I'm glad that I believe very fervently that Jesus would not be on the side of gay bashers. To think that people say, as they used to say, that AIDS was God’s punishment for homosexuality. Abominable. Abominable.Is this bigotry masquerading as faith?
No. I think there are people who do believe things genuinely. Bush followed the example of President [Ronald] Reagan—to be very simplistic. Bush said we are the goodies, those are the baddies, [just] as Reagan said about the Soviets—that they were the evil empire. President Bush has found much the same kind of thing: that people don't like ambiguities.
Playing It By "Seer"
For my column for this week's deadline, I researched the hooey that is "psychics," palm readers, and TV mediums. Here's a smart article I just stumbled on, Cold Reading: The Tricks of the Psychics, by William Goldberg, MSW, BCD, that explains, pretty concisely, how this stuff works.
Psychics know that almost all of the questions people have will fit under one of three headings. Usually, people are concerned about affairs of the heart, problems with health, or issues around money. Therefore, the psychic might explain that he or she senses three areas that either now are giving the customer, that have in the past given the customer concern, or that will give the customer concerns in the future. There isn't time to discuss all three, so the customer is asked which one to focus on. The customer's answer, combined with an assessment of his or her age, ethnicity, socio-economic status (as ascertained by dress, car, jewelry, etc.) and a common sense knowledge of typical life crises people encounter (i.e. birth, puberty, career choice, work, marriage, children, middle age, declining years, death), narrows the field of inquiry. This knowledge, combined with a scrutiny of the customer's involuntary (and sometimes voluntary) reactions to the psychic's pronouncements can be used to quickly lead the pair in the direction the customer wants to go. If initial, highly general statements are off the mark, the customer's facial expression, breathing pattern, eye movements, etc. will let the reader know. A good reader picks up on the cues and is able to adjust the reading to fit the cues. In a short period of time, the reader is seemingly able to "discover" what's on the customer's mind. At this point, the customer, especially if he or she is inclined to fall for the psychic's hype, charisma and mystical surroundings, will often let his or her guard down and reveal the burning question or questions.Ray Hyman, a psychologist who has written about this topic, points out that all forms of communication are incomplete, and that the recipient of every form of communication becomes a creative problem-solver, looking for meaning in the communication. Hyman explains that, "the task is not unlike that of trying to make sense of a work of art, a poem, or, for that matter, a sentence. The work of art, the poem, or the sentence serves as a blueprint or plan from which we can construct a meaningful experience by bringing to bear our own past experiences and memories." The psychic's customer fills in the blanks, ignores contradictory messages and emphasizes statements that are meaningful while discarding or de-emphasizing statements that don't fit. The process is completed when the customer, in time, forgets all the contradictory "misses" and remembers only the "hits."
In their book, The Psychology of the Psychic, David Marks and Richard Kanunann discuss an all purpose cold reading developed by psychologist Bertram Forer. Students were told that this reading was developed especially for them after the administration of a personality test they had taken. Ninety-five percent of the students rated this "reading" as either Excellent or Good. See whether there are more "hits" than "misses" here for you:
"You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times, you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept other's statements without satisfactory proof, but you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself lo others. At times, you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be unrealistic."
Accomplished psychics have memorized a number of stock readings which they then modify to fit the circumstances of the customer. The fact is that there are more qualities that we share with others than that differentiate us from others. Obviously, an elderly, upper-class man will get a very different stock reading than a teenage girl. Stock readings, combined with the unique, individual characteristics that the psychics are able to trick their customers into revealing make up a cold reading. Our human tendency to focus on the "hits," to forget or reinterpret the "misses," and to fill in the blanks, complete the experience. The next time someone tells you of a wondrous "truth" that a so-called psychic has revealed, ask about how that "truth" was revealed and whether there were a lot of half-truths and non-truths mixed in
Wide Eyes Shut
Andrew Gumbel misses the America he thought he came to a few years back -- the "melting pot" America -- and reflects on what America has become, thanks to the people who elected George Bush:
Theirs is an America that is almost exclusively white, almost exclusively Protestant, almost exclusively rural or suburban. It is an America more comfortable with people who believe homosexuals should be killed on sight than it is with homosexuals themselves. It is an America that believes sex of any kind between unmarried adults is a greater moral crime than dumping toxic waste or knowingly selling unsafe medicines. It is an America that believes it is promoting a “culture of life,” even as it applauds the bombing of civilians in faraway countries, the execution of juveniles and the mentally retarded, and the use of torture in military interrogations.I started the year writing about Tom Vail, an official guide at the Grand Canyon who had written a book positing that God personally carved out the spectacular rock formations above the Colorado River in forty days and forty nights. And I finished it reading about a booklet being taught in a Christian school in North Carolina, in which slavery is characterized as both biblically justifiable and also a positive, happy experience for the slaves themselves.
Such aberrant thinking has always existed, of course, but now it is creeping ever closer toward becoming an official ideology. The kind of anti-evolutionary nonsense peddled by Tom Vail has just been voted onto the curriculum in a rural Pennsylvania school district in the form of “intelligent design,” a more sophisticated, superficially more acceptable variant on old-style creationism. The authors of the revisionist booklet on Southern slavery, meanwhile, have responded to their outraged detractors in much the same terms used by social conservatives in and around the Bush administration. “Establishment secularism can’t stand real criticism,” they proclaimed. “It can’t bear real differences.” Suddenly, it’s not about excusing slavery, it’s about the refusal of American liberals to accept God. We’ve certainly heard that one before – Bill O’Reilly and the jihad against Christmas, anyone? – and we are likely to hear it over and over in the next four years.
Old Unfaithful
In Today's Barf Bag
Is it just me, or is anybody else retching every time some CNN anchor breathily reports on the CELEBS! affected in Sumatra?
Africa By Way Of Los Angeles
What is Kwanzaa? Probably not what you think, writes William J. Bennetta, a professor who criticizes its inclusion in a Prentice Hall textbook:
It was created some 40 years ago, in Southern California, by a black racist who had begun life as Ron N. Everett but later had assumed the name Maulana Karenga.Karenga -- known chiefly as the inventor of Kwanzaa, a fake "African" holiday that he contrived in 1966 -- has enjoyed a truly colorful career. He was a prominent black nationalist during the 1960s, when his organization was involved in various violent operations. He was sent to prison in 1971, after he and some of his pals tortured two women with a soldering iron and a vise, among other things. He emerged from prison in 1974, and a few years later -- in a maneuver that even The Kingfish might have found difficult -- he got himself installed as the chairman of the Department of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach. CSULB wasn't the only American university that got the racial willies during the 1970s and set up a tin-pot black-studies department, but CSULB (as far as I know) was the only one that hired a chairman who was a violent felon.
After the brutal murder of Rio Linda High School senior Michelle Montoya, hiring a felon to teach in California schools was supposed to be prohibited. I can't find the exact passage in the California Education Code, but this passage alludes to it:
(e)(1) A person, firm, association, partnership, or corporation offering or conducting private school instruction on the elementary or high school level shall not employ a person who has been convicted of a violent or serious felony or a person who would be prohibited from employment by a public school district pursuant to any provision of this code because of his or her conviction for any crime.(2) A person who would be prohibited from employment by a private school pursuant to paragraph (1) may not, on or after July 1, 1999, own or operate a private school offering instruction on the elementary or high school level.
Here's more on Everett/Karenga:
Karenga has concocted some bits of lore, lingo, and mumbo-jumbo that are intended to make Kwanzaa look like something out of Africa instead of something from Los Angeles County, but his efforts have been feeble. If you scan The Official Kwanzaa Web Site [see note 1, below], you'll read that the origins of Kwanzaa lie in "the first harvest celebrations of Africa," which allegedly "are recorded in African history as far back as ancient Egypt and Nubia" -- but there is no explanation of why any ancient Egyptians or Nubians might have held harvest festivals around the time of the winter solstice, and there is no identification of the crops that they harvested. Karenga's formula for celebrating Kwanzaa requires the use of two ears of maize -- but maize is a New World plant, and it wasn't known at all in ancient Africa.True believers can purchase ears of maize and other Kwanzaa equipment (e.g., candles and seven-holed candle-holders and straw mats) from the University of Sankore Press, a company in Los Angeles. This outfit evidently is controlled by Us and serves as Us's marketing unit. It isn't a university press, and its name is a mockery. The so-called University of Sankore was an aggregation of Islamic schools that flourished at Timbuktu in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. No University of Sankore exists today.
In Karenga's Kwanzaa-lingo, ears of maize are called by the Swahili name "muhindi." In fact, all the objects that Karenga has worked into Kwanzaa have names taken from Swahili, which The Official Kwanzaa Web site describes as "a Pan-African language" and "the most widely spoken African language." The labeling of Swahili as a "Pan-African" language is rubbish. Swahili -- a Bantu tongue that includes many words absorbed from Arabic, from Persian and from certain Indian languages -- is spoken by some 50 million people (i.e., about 7% of Africa's population). Most of those Swahili-speakers are concentrated in eastern Africa, in a region that includes Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and a strip of Zaire. The language which is used most widely in Africa is Arabic; and indeed, Swahili was originally written in Arabic script [note 2].
Kwanzaa is a hoax -- a hoax built around fake history and pseudohistorical delusions. By attempting to dignify and promote Kwanzaa in The American Nation, Prentice Hall has joined in a flim-flam.
Matt Welch On The Right Approach To Abu Ghraib
Fantastic piece by Matt in Reason about conservative commentators, and their take on Abu Ghraib. The upshot:
But we now know that many of the shocking images from Abu Ghraib that we've been allowed to see —the hoods, the dogs, the sexual humiliation, the photography, the beating —have occurred elsewhere in Iraq, Guantanamo, and Afghanistan; and in many instances they reflect nothing more than official United States policy. How we respond, whether conservative, libertarian, liberal or other, will tell us a lot about what we've become.
Locate The Sex Offender Nearest You!
This Web site is for locating California sex offenders only, due to Megan's Law:
As a result of a new law, this site will provide you with access to information on more than 63,000 persons required to register in California as sex offenders. Specific home addresses are displayed on more than 33,500 offenders in the California communities; as to these persons, the site displays the last registered address reported by the offender. An additional 30,500 offenders are included on the site with listing by ZIP Code, city, and county. Information on approximately 22,000 other offenders is not included on this site, but is known to law enforcement personnel.Once you have read and acknowledged the disclaimer on the next page, you may search the database by a sex offender's specific name, obtain ZIP Code and city/county listings, obtain detailed personal profile information on each registrant, and use our map application to search your neighborhood or anywhere throughout the State to determine the specific location of any of those registrants on whom the law allows us to display a home address.
Creeeeeepy! But, very interesting. I didn't see any neighbors I recognize -- but, do you?
Hitting Middle
George Carlin goes into rehab for alcohol and Vicodin over-use, disproving the autopilot thinking that a person has to hit bottom before they do something. For a rational approach to overcoming addictions, visit Stanton Peele.
"Oh, Excuse Me For Not Willingly Becoming An Amputee!"
That's what the US soldiers who scrounge in Iraqi trash dumps to improvise protective armor for their vehicles must think. 28-year Army Reserve commander, Major Cathy Kaus, just wanted the equipment she needed to do her job properly. The Army didn't provide her with it, so, resourceful lady, she went out and scrounged it up herself with the assistance of Chief Warrant Officer Darrell Birt. You'd think they'd each get a big pat on the back, or maybe even a medal. Nope! Try a court-martial and a dishonorable discharge:
"The soldiers were held accountable for their actions," an Army spokesman said. In other words, Kaus and Darrell were punished for breaking the rules so their troops could do their mission.But no one holds Rumsfeld accountable for undermining the mission and undercutting the troops.
The recent flap over unarmored humvees - and Rumsfeld's flip remarks to a reservist who complained about having to scavenge for armor - are part of a bigger pattern.
There's a reason why 50,000 reservists were sent to war in 2003 with outdated body armor, and why families had to raise funds to send their loved ones Kevlar vests with ceramic plates. There's a reason so many humvees and trucks are still unarmored.
There's a reason Kaus and Birt had to improvise to sustain their mission: Rumsfeld refused to recognize the nature of the situation into which he sent those troops.
Rumsfeld was so eager to test out his new, lean military machine that he didn't want to plan for the likelihood of instability after Saddam fell. The State Department, the CIA, and many military commanders all urged that more forces be available to establish order after the war.
No way, said Rumsfeld.
According to the Pentagon, the aftermath of the war was supposed to be easy. No military police were sent in to stop postwar looting, which encouraged the rise of the insurgents. Pentagon officials talked about drawing down to 50,000 U.S. troops by fall of 2003.
No wonder no one paid attention to the reservists. They weren't supposed to be on the front lines. The Pentagon never contemplated the prospect of an insurgency, in which the front lines are everywhere.
Even as the insurgency took root Rumsfeld refused to admit the situation was urgent. As late as this month, he tried to blame the shortage of armored humvees on lack of production capacity. Yet the manufacturers of humvees and armored plates for the U.S. military say they aren't running near capacity. They say the Pentagon just hadn't asked them to produce more.
Oops! Rummy makes a boo-boo! Good thing he and his boss don't have any kids in Iraq, or he might be forced to do a little more than rubber-stamp his name on those "so sorry your kid croaked" letters. Is it just me, or is this war starting to bear an increasing resemblance to Custer's Last Stand?
What The War Is About, And Why We Might Lose It
Democracy now, in Iraq. Well, maybe they'll have it sometime, maybe not, writes Thomas Friedman:
As the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum so rightly pointed out to me, "These so-called insurgents in Iraq are the real fascists, the real colonialists, the real imperialists of our age." They are a tiny minority who want to rule Iraq by force and rip off its oil wealth for themselves. It's time we called them by their real names.However this war started, however badly it has been managed, however much you wish we were not there, do not kid yourself that this is not what it is about: People who want to hold a free and fair election to determine their own future, opposed by a virulent nihilistic minority that wants to prevent that. That is all that the insurgents stand for.
Indeed, they haven't even bothered to tell us otherwise. They have counted on the fact that the Bush administration is so hated around the world that any opponents will be seen as having justice on their side. Well, they do not. They are murdering Iraqis every day for the sole purpose of preventing them from exercising that thing so many on the political left and so many Europeans have demanded for the Palestinians: "the right of self-determination."
What is terrifying is that the noble sacrifice of U.S. soldiers, while never in vain, may not be enough. We Americans may actually lose in Iraq. The vitally important may turn out to be the effectively impossible.
We may lose because of the wrong way that Donald Rumsfeld has managed this war and the cynical manner in which Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and - with some honorable exceptions - the whole Republican right have tolerated it. Many conservatives would rather fail in Iraq than give liberals the satisfaction of seeing Rumsfeld sacked. We may lose because our Arab allies won't lift a finger to support an election in Iraq - either because they fear they'll be next to face such pressures, or because the thought of democratically elected Shiites holding power in a country once led by Sunnis is anathema to them.
We may lose because most Europeans, having been made stupid by their own weakness, would rather see America fail in Iraq than lift a finger for free and fair elections there.
As is so often the case, the statesman who framed the stakes best is the British prime minister, Tony Blair. Count me a "Blair Democrat." Blair, who was in Iraq this week, said: "Whatever people's feelings or beliefs about the removal of Saddam Hussein and the wisdom of that, there surely is only one side to be on in what is now very clearly a battle between democracy and terror. On the one side you have people who desperately want to make the democratic process work, and want to have the same type of democratic freedoms other parts of the world enjoy, and on the other side people who are killing and intimidating and trying to destroy a better future for Iraq."
She.Is.Hot.In.The.Ass
It's the perfect personalized license plate for the Francophile. It's no longer available in California. But maybe you can still get it in your state. Get it past the censors by telling them it's the initials of your grandchildren, all except for that méchant little Marcel Duchamp.
P.S. There's an ass theme on my blog today (with some entries more subtle than others), and I hope you'll take the time to appreciate that fact. To be honest, it just happened that way, and then I ran with it. Of course, in a perfect world, I'd have the patience to wait and post it all on a Wednesday, but the donkey pun below is probably way beyond my groaner allotment as it goes.
Blowing Smokeless
Smokeless tobacco is 98% less likely to cause cancer than the smokeable kind, writes Jacob Sullum, in Reason, but that's not what the liars at the CDC will tell you:
In the U.S., where smokeless tobacco remains legal, this approach takes the form of a misinformation campaign that encourages people to think oral snuff is just as dangerous as cigarettes. That belief, which seems to be widely accepted by smokers, is clearly wrong.Based on the incidence of tobacco-related deaths among users, University of Alabama at Birmingham oral pathologist Brad Rodu estimates that smokeless tobacco is 98 percent safer than cigarettes. The difference is so stark that public health officials have been forced to quietly retreat from their false risk equivalence.
Last year, for instance, Surgeon General Richard Carmona told a congressional subcommittee "smokeless tobacco is not a safer substitute for cigarette smoking"—a claim that is scientifically unsupportable. But in the version of his testimony that appears on the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he says "smokeless tobacco is not a safe alternative to cigarettes"—the same true but misleading warning that appears on oral snuff packages.
Similarly, a CDC Web page aimed at children asks, "Is smokeless tobacco safe?" The answer: "No way!" But the search listing for the page shows that the question used to be, "Is smokeless tobacco safer than cigarettes?" I suspect the CDC's answer was not "You bet!"
Perhaps the most telling recent change in the official line on smokeless tobacco was made to a pamphlet published by the National Institute on Aging. When I looked at the online version of the pamphlet in March, it said: "Some people think smokeless tobacco (chewing tobacco and snuff), pipes, and cigars are safer than cigarettes. They are not." The passage now reads: "Some people think smokeless tobacco (chewing tobacco and snuff), pipes, and cigars are safe. They are not."
This change came in response to a March 16 complaint from the National Legal and Policy Center arguing that the pamphlet violated the Data Quality Act by disseminating erroneous information. Among other sources, the complaint quoted a 2001 report from the National Academy of Sciences that said "the overall risk [from smokeless tobacco] is lower than for cigarette smoking, and some products such as Swedish snus may have no increased risk" (because they're especially low in carcinogens).
The fact that public health officials seem less inclined to tell outright lies about smokeless tobacco is a small victory. They are still obscuring the issue by doggedly repeating that smokeless tobacco is not risk-free when the relevant point for a cigarette smoker who is thinking about switching is that it's much less likely to kill him than his current habit.
Why let the truth get in the way of perfectly good propaganda?!
A Fad Ass In France
According to this IHT article, it's the latest thing :
"Forget the dog," brayed a recent issue of the French weekly news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur. "Buy a donkey!"This was a year when the donkey was feted in France with its own national postage stamp. It also is glorified in a new glossy trade magazine, The Donkey, an ad-rich journal for smitten masters with pull-out posters and testimonials like this: "Martine is an excellent guard, better than our dog Syska. When someone comes to our porch she lets out a bray."
In the south of France, nutrient-rich donkey milk is being churned into lavender soaps and Ozoane face creams. Parisians are renting donkeys by the day to explore the Pyrenees and Provence.
This new appreciation appears to be spreading slowly to other countries where donkeys were long ago abandoned in rural areas for what seemed at the time to be more efficient tractors and cargo trucks.
Earlier this month, the Italian town of Treviso, near Venice, started outsourcing the work of tractor mowers to six donkeys. The aim is to reduce the town's annual roadside grass-cutting costs of €100,000, or $135,000.
Matt Welch Is An Ass-Clown
As Matt put it about the guy whose blog carries the above subtitle, "the lifelong burden of being a Red Sox fan -- in every sense of the phrase -- has finally caused one grown 'man' to snap."
My Kinda Broad
Coming from me, the term, "a great broad," as applied to a certain kind of east coast, power-with-wit-and-style sort of woman, is a high compliment. Newspaper columnist, Mary McGrory, who died this year, sounded like that kind of woman:
Mary always got her way -- one way or another. When her editor at The Washington Post -- where she moved after The Star folded -- told her he did not have an extra pass for her to get into the Clarence Thomas hearings, Mary was displeased. Shortly thereafter, the editor was watching the hearings on TV and suddenly saw Mary being escorted to a front-row seat by the committee chairman, Joe Biden.Mary loved The Star and Rome and rogues and children and losers and underdogs and Jack Kennedy. ''He walked like a panther,'' she told me.
She did not love, as her nephew Brian McGrory, the Boston Globe columnist, said, pomposity or self-involvement or bullies or Richard Nixon. She was very proud of being on his enemies' list. She hated blowhards. Once she wanted to get away from John Volpe, who had been in the Nixon cabinet, when he was droning on at her during a party at the Shoreham Hotel. ''Hey,'' she interrupted him finally, ''you were the secretary of transportation. Where are the elevators?'' And away she went.'
If There Were A God, It Would Be Jay Allen
He invented MT Blacklist, the anti-spam software now in use on this blog. Before we got the new version installed, which involved my leaving my server company for another, I was spending an hour a day deleting spam. Now, spam me once, and you're blocked from posting your URL again. And the reporting process is very automated now -- pretty much does it for you. Check this out -- the number of comment spams blocked since the beginning of December!
Is anybody using the new beta version of Blacklist? Any reviews?
Jackie On How To Make Christmas Crack
I don't have a photo of Jackie, who's this fab blog friend from England I finally met for real, but the above is a slice of German chocolate cake she watched Cathy and me attack from both sides of the table when she visited recently and we had lunch at Barney Greengrass, over Barney's. Actually, depending on which way you were facing, Cathy was the left-wing cake obliterator, and I was on the right, whaddya know!
Besides being a fan of Paris, like me, Jackie, like our mutual friend Nancy, is a major foodie and girl gourmet. On Gastroblog, she manages to make food and cooking very entertaining reading -- even for those, like me, whose main contact with it is ordering it made by somebody else in restaurants. Jackie didn't feel like lugging this Crate and Barrel chocolate and peppermint dealie back to London, so she just made it herself and blogged about it. Here's how she did it. (PS I would recommend the dark chocolate, myself!)
How Effective Are Those Prayers?!
If The Pope's prayers can't get through, whose can? At a midnight mass, the ailing big guy of the Christian church prayed for peace in "The Holy Land"...for Christians, Muslims and Jews to achieve a peaceful coexistence...
...through the mutual respect of its inhabitants," said one of the Mass intentions, read in German. "May it be a safe place, and hospitable to pilgrims and truth-seekers."
How soon do you predict they'll all be singing kum bayah? Do you pray? Why? What effectiveness do you think your prayers will have, or is it a bit of Pascal's Wager on your part?
"The Healthy Smoker" Becomes "The Quit Smoker"
Theo Van Gogh's prescient words about the death of Pim Fortuyn, his fierce, pro-American-ism, and more. The link above will get you to a translation (from the Dutch) of his Web site, The Healthy Smoker, now called The Quit Smoker after his murder by a Moslem extremist. Here's one excerpt:
I am too old to emigrate to America, that beacon of light in an ever darkening world. What else can you do here in Holland but to watch in amazement at the collusion of politically correct politicians with that underworld of women-hating Imams, Moroccan gay-bashers and anti-American demonstrators? You can not in Holland congratulate on TV the leader of the Green Left Party with the successful murder of May 6 at the risk of being called depraved or being cast as a village idiot. “Please let’s keep things nice and cozy." My problem is: I don’t see anything remotely nice or cozy.
via Metafilter
Just Say No To Draconian Drug Laws
Martha Stewart speaks out against drug sentencing guidelines and sentences for nonviolent, first-time offenders:
When one is incarcerated with 1,200 other inmates, it is hard to be selfish at Christmas -- hard to think of Christmases past and Christmases future -- that I know will be as they always were for me -- beautiful! So many of the women here in Alderson will never have the joy and wellbeing that you and I experience. Many of them have been here for years -- devoid of care, devoid of love, devoid of family.I beseech you all to think about these women -- to encourage the American people to ask for reforms, both in sentencing guidelines, in length of incarceration for nonviolent first-time offenders, and for those involved in drug-taking. They would be much better served in a true rehabilitation center than in prison where there is no real help, no real programs to rehabilitate, no programs to educate, no way to be prepared for life "out there" where each person will ultimately find herself, many with no skills and no preparation for living.
via Reason
Calling All The Lawyers
Somebody is subscribing to magazines in my name, and I just got a book club subscription (a box of books and an invoice arrived today). (The day I buy a book by Sean Hannity is the day you know I've gone totally insane.) Anyway, I'm trying to figure out my rights in this. One site I found says I don't have to send them back -- that I can keep the books. Clearly, this is fraud on somebody's part. Is anybody informed about the law and my rights in this arena? P.S. Judging by the contents of the box of books, let's just say it's unlikely they were sent by a left-winger or an atheist.
Claws For Confusion
Unbelievably, after I was dropped by a certain paper -- not because my column was bad, the editor told me, but because they wanted to run somebody local -- the mediocre local writer and thinker they picked up after ditching me emailed me to ask me to help her syndicate herself!
I nixed that idea, and took a quick look at her column, which contained such great original wit and wisdom as "everything happens for a reason." In a rare moment of maturity and restraint, I avoided taking any jabs at the quality of her work when I informed her why my column was dropped, and said, thanks, but I thought I'd pass on offering her syndication advice (which I really don't do for anybody, as responding via email and mail to as many requests for love advice as I can is my priority).
ME: Um, forgive me, but your editor fired me to pick up your column -- but not because I sucked, but because I am not local -- so maybe I'm not so interested in offering you syndication advice?
Besides, while I'm happy to -- and do -- help my friends, whose minds and work I respect, why would I help a stranger whose work I've never even seen? Well, the chick actually writes back and chides me for not giving her free assistance!
OTHER COLUMNIST: Obviously that's your prerogative, but I would hope you would see it as a nice thing to do rather than a disadvantage to your career....I can't speak to the reasons why the paper decided to try going the local route but they did keep one syndicated column in the line-up. I suppose the best person for the job was chosen. Have a wonderful day.
Oh, barf. I wrote back, not so mature and restrained this time, flicking in that hackneyed "everything happens for a reason" line from her column for good measure.
ME: Never assume, in daily newspapers, that "the best person" gets the job. It's kind of like assuming "everything happens for a reason," which is irrational and idiotic.
Dumb girl, she bites. And writes back:
OTHER COLUMNIST: I'm a believer in "everything happens for a reason" - it's not idiotic or irrational in my book. That said, I was not referring to my column when I said I supposed the best person for the job was chosen.
Now I just can't help myself:
ME: Oh, when little kids are killed in genocide in Sudan, what reason do you think that happens for? When all these young men and women -- and not just Americans -- are being killed in Iraq before they've lived -- what reason do you think that happens for? When a four-year-old dies terribly painfully of cancer at four? What reason do you think that happens for? And based on what? The truth is, your belief is based on zero evidence. Thus, it's irrational and idiotic to believe, and I would be embarrassed to think or say it -- and, especially, to print it in the newspaper and put my name on it. Let's just say, you're not exactly Bertrand Russell. Neither am I at this point, but at least I appear to be trying. PS You can Google him to find out who he is.
Meee-YOW!
Cents And Sensibility
This week's outrageous request:
Dear Amy:
I’m writing this letter because I need a lot of help. PLEASE READ this entire letter. I am a 47 year old domestic violence’s victim with a 13 year old daughter at home. Four weeks ago my husband asked for a divorce after 14 & a half years together. We have a lot of bills that are all in my name and a house. My husband is an alcoholic and over the years has spent a lot of our bill money. Whatever he wanted we bought. Through the years I have worked two jobs, borrowed money from my parents and friends and used all of my little bonus money to pay bills. I have worked so hard to keep our house and to keep my credit. Also through the years he has beaten me, spit on me, mentally abused me everyday, and accused me of cheating because I have to work late at the end of the month. He has pointed a rifle at me, cut up the clothes while on my body, and degraded me. He also has embarrassed me, left me to find my own way home from places and constantly calls me filthy names. After every big blow up, I have had to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness. Everyone who knows my husband thinks he is so wonderful. They do not know what goes on behind close doors. And now he wants a divorce. Even after all this, it is still very hard for me and I am completely heart broken and scared. Everyone says I will be a lot better off without him. Right now I cannot see that. I pray everyday for that serenity. I cannot believe that after 14 and a half years he just wants to get up and leave. I am a very hard worker and I’ve tried to keep him happy, but things had gotten to the point where I just started shutting up and not talk to him at all because of the mental abuse. I also found out a month ago that I was losing my job of 17 years. He doesn’t care about this either. The company I work for is moving our jobs to Tempe Arizona in June of 2005. I do not want to up route my daughter, so I will need to find another job.
The lawyer I went to see said because I make almost as much as he does I do not have much of a leg to stand on. I know that my daughter wants to live with me and have him pick her up everyday after school as usual. She will spend that time with him until I get home from work. I work in San Francisco and I get off at 5:30pm. I then take B.A.R.T. home.. When I get home, my daughter and I talk and watch TV together. This has been our everyday routine. So I will not get much child support if any. I also found out that I need to buy him out of the house. Which means I need to come up with $50,000.00 for that and pay off my share of our bills which is approximately $20,000. If I cannot do this, the court will make us sell the house. My husband does not care whether his daughter is able to stay in the house she was raised in or not. He wants to sell the house and take his share of the money and get on with his life. The town I live in is now very expensive. If I have to sell the house I will never be able to buy another. The lawyer also said I will have to show that I can pay the house payment which is $1,500.00 a month and provide a living for our daughter. Without the bills, I can do this on my two jobs. The reason for this letter is to ask for help coming up with all this money. I’m hoping that you can publish this letter. If I have to pay for this to be in the newspaper I will. I believe in people, and that they would be willing to help. Even a Five dollar donate from several people will add up. I give to the homeless as much as I can. I have helped many of my sisters and friends out when they needed it, but no one has this kind of money. I know it is terrible of me to ask but I am very desperate. I cannot refinance the house because I did that already this year. Please, please consider this. I need big time help. Thank you for reading this whole letter. I hope to hear from you. I will put my name and address on the bottom of this letter. God bless you.
Sincerely,
Name Withheld
Benicia, CA 94510
My reply:
First, I'm very sorry to hear what a hard time you're having. So, you might have to sell your house. It is not tragic to live in an apartment. Priorities. You want people to GIVE you money? If you have a house it will take $50,000 to buy your husband out of, you have much more money than I do, and you should be donating money to me:Amy Alkon
171 Pier Ave #280
Santa Monica, CA 90405...is where you can send your check. $500 would be quite nice. Next, you should take responsibility for your actions. You're setting a terrible example for your daughter. It's disgusting, in fact. For perspective on why you don't stay with an abuser, call 1800TRYNOVA. They're experts in this area. You know, every week, I hear about a newer, weirder sex act and get pictures of men in ladies underwear from my readers, but I haven't been surprised lately like you surprised me now. Where do you get off asking people to give you money? Look around lady. There are people going hungry on street corners, who haven't had a warm bed in years. You can't live in suburban style? Well, boo hoo. Try to work up the sensibility it would take to feel ashamed of yourself for asking.
Did Lincoln Like The Logs Better Than The Ladies?
A new book says Lincoln was gay, writes Paul Harris in the London Observer:
It is news guaranteed to make many Republicans squirm. Was Abraham Lincoln, founder of the party now seeking a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in America, actually gay himself?A new book, published next month, certainly thinks so. The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln by C.A. Tripp produces evidence that one of America's greatest Presidents had a long-term relationship with a youthful friend, Joshua Speed, and shared his bed with David Derickson, captain of his bodyguards.
Tripp, a former researcher for sex scientist Alfred Kinsey and an influential gay writer, includes asides by many of Lincoln's close friends. 'He was not very fond of girls, as he seemed to me,' his stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln, once told a friend.
It also includes a diary excerpt by one upper-class Washington woman who wrote of Derickson: 'There is a Bucktail soldier here devoted to the President, drives with him, and when Mrs L is not home, sleeps with him. What stuff!'
Scholars have long debated Lincoln's sexuality, and as early as the 1920s were making veiled references to his relationship with Speed. However, critics say that in the pioneer days men sleeping together in rough circumstances was not uncommon.
Now Tripp has discovered letters between Lincoln and Speed which supposedly betray a deep intimacy.
But Tripp's book really breaks new ground in its exhaustive portrayal of many of Lincoln's possible gay lovers, including one man who said Lincoln's thighs 'were as perfect as a human being could be'.
All that and ending slavery, too!
Waste Gas, Get A Fat Ass
Another reason America has become the land of the morbidly obese.
A Fundamentalist Against Bush
Chuck Baldwin is a fundamentalist who has protested at abortion clinics and helped Jerry Falwell register "more than fifty thousand new conservative voters" when Reagan was running...and more. But he deplores what the Religious Right has become:
The willingness of the Religious Right to give President Bush king-like subservience is easily seen in the way they demonize anyone who dares to oppose him. This is very unnerving.Are we heading for a modern day religious inquisition, this one led not by the Catholic Church but by the Religious Right? Are we witnessing the type of marriage between Church and State that America's founders originally feared?
I used to believe that liberals were paranoid for being fearful of conservative Christians gaining political power. Now, I share their trepidation.
Of course, the sad truth is, neither George W. Bush nor the Republican Party in Washington, D.C. represents genuine Christian or even conservative principles. If they did, they would take their oaths to the Constitution seriously and then neither liberals nor conservatives would have anything to fear, for the U.S. Constitution protects the rights and freedoms of all men.
Unfortunately, when the seed of Bush's unconstitutional policies come to fruition, it will produce large scale fallout economically, socially, and politically. And sadder still will be that, instead of blaming Bush's infidelity to constitutional government and conservative principles, people will blame Christianity and conservatism itself. The result of this miscalculation will doubtless be a massive tide of support for more and greater unconstitutional government, but only under a different name.
Frank Under Fire
My Faith Under Fire "Ask The Atheist" TV segment turned out better than I thought it would be. They cut out the front part of it, where I couldn't get a word in edgewise because boorish former Cincinnati Reds pitcher, Frank Pastore, kept talking over me. They also cut out the part where I threatened to walk off because he was being so rude. The rest is intact. Gregg is turning it into postable video, which you can click on here.
*You will need Quicktime to view it. It's available free, even to Windows people. Just click on the movie, and it will tell you what to do.
For a great resource for the rational, turn to the-brights.net. Lots of smart stuff there, including this link to a logically based defense of Dawkins and evolution.
Free, Free, Set Them Free!
Heather MacDonald tells a story, not-to-be-believed, but true, in the New York Post, of illegal immigrants sneaking into Vermont, who are simply let loose into this country, and warned that they'd better show up at a deportation hearing. Wooo, how intimidating. Wonder what the count is on how many of them are stone-dumb enough to show up?
Every week, agents in the border patrol's Swanton sector catch Middle Easterners and North Africans sneaking into Vermont. And every week, they immediately release those trespassers with a polite request to return for a deportation hearing. Why? The Department of Homeland Security failed to budget enough funding for sufficient detention space for lawbreakers.In May alone, Swanton agents released illegal aliens from Malaysia, Pakistan, Morocco, Uganda and India without bond. Since all these aliens chose to evade the visa process, none has had a background check by a consular official that might have uncovered terrorist connections. All are now at large in the country.
The failure to interdict northern trespassers is particularly worrisome, since Canada is a proven springboard for terrorists. Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian caught at the Canadian border with 100 pounds of explosives destined for the Los Angeles airport in December 1999, ran an al Qaeda cell in Montreal, despite having previously been ordered deported by the Canadian government. Two of the seven most wanted al Qaeda members are naturalized Canadians.
This "catch and release" policy is in force all across the country for the same reason: no detention space. On June 8, agents in the Las Cruces, N.M., station apprehended three illegal Pakistanis and promptly let them go. The same day, guards at Texas' Uvalde station released a Bosnian wanted on an Interpol warrant for aggravated rape.
The number of people caught at the southern border from "countries of interest" — terror dens — is on the rise: This year's list includes people from Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and — in greatest numbers — Pakistan. Law-enforcement authorities told The Washington Times that al Qaeda is well aware of the border patrol's detention-space crisis and resulting "catch-and-release" policy, which it hopes to exploit to loose its agents into the country.
If the government were serious about ending illegal entry and its threat to national security, it would fund adequate detention space. Instead, the Bush administration plans to add only 117 new detention beds in 2005 (while probably losing another 1,400 beds for failure to reimburse county and local jails for the space it rents from them).
The government is serious -- serious about funding abstinence programs that have been proved not to work (kids in them do wait to have sex [about a year and a half later], but when they do, they are, of course, unprepared to protect themselves from pregnancy and disease). The tough-on-terror stance? Lip-service!
Remember When Senators And Congressmen Used To Be Human?
Me neither. But David Rosenbaum calls the retiring senator, Ernest Hollings, 82, "the last of a breed once prevalent in Congress: the quick-witted wielder of the folksy metaphor and aphorism. Here are a few samples:
To opponents of government regulation:"Letting y'all regulate yourselves is like delivering lettuce by way of a rabbit."
On his marriage:
"People always wonder how Peatsy and I stay together, with so many divorces around us. And a friend of ours used to say, 'It's simple. They have a lot in common. They're both in love with the same fella.' "
[During her husband's campaign for his party's presidential nomination in 1984, a reporter called their hotel room and asked to speak to Senator Hollings. Mrs. Hollings held the phone away from her mouth and said, "Hey, mister, you Hollings?"]
Responding to a Republican challenger who dared him to take a drug test:"I'll take a drug test if you take an I.Q. test."
While debating John Glenn, the former astronaut:
"But what have you done in this world."
And my personal favorite:
On President Bush's effort to distance himself from the Enron scandal:"I did not have political relations with that man, Ken Lay."
Peek Experience
Okay, I wasn't going to tell anyone, but I've changed my mind. The show I taped, Faith Under Fire, where I debated former Cincinnati Reds pitcher, Frank Pastore, is on tonight, 10pm PST, on Pax network. It was the most unpleasant television appearance I ever made, because Pastore boorishly interrupted me each time I tried to speak. He was such a boor that the entire staff of the show came out afterward and apologized to me for his behavior, and later sent me another apology via email. Well, a lawyer friend -- perhaps just trying to make me feel better -- just emailed me from New York (where it appeared at an earlier time) to compliment me on my appearance:
You kicked that Pastore's ass so hard I may need to defend you on a manslaughter charge. WOW!!! You were so amazing. You were so calm and focused and funny. Any more TV and you won't have time for your columns.
I thought I'd been really off my game, and didn't properly debate Pastore on the points because I was working so hard just to hold the floor when I got it. But, maybe I was wrong about that. I always judge myself very harshly when I'm on TV. Let me know what you think. If it actually is good (or not too horrible, from my point of view), I'll ask Gregg to post it here.
Find out where it's showing by clicking here. In LA, it's Channel 30 on Adephia or Comcast at 10pm.
The Physics Of Laws
Leave it to law enforcement top dogs to "stretch" the law whenever it's cheaper or more convenient for them, here and in Britain -- with slightly different Nanny-gates. But, getting back to our country, where is Kerik's nanny now? What's become of her? Luis Humberto Crosthwaite wonders:
No matter how much I've read about this matter, I can't find out anything about this girl or woman. We don't know her name or place of origin. We don't know if she liked her job or how much she was paid. We only know she was undocumented. Shortly after Kerik made the phone call, his nanny disappeared, and all we know is she returned to her own country.Maybe it's because my only point of reference is my mother and other women who have worked taking care of children or the elderly, but I don't like the idea that she was forced to leave the country, summarily, for looking after the children of a man who sought a government post he didn't deserve.
I wonder if they paid her when they fired her. I wonder if she got a Christmas bonus. I wonder if she had grown to love those children she can no longer see. I wonder if Mr. or Mrs. Kerik thanked her.
It seems that if a person is interested in a political future in this country, he or she must be free of several sins – among them, hiring undocumented workers. Their résumé must be free of any undocumented gardener, maid, dishwasher, chauffeur or any worker that might get in the way of a government job.
Kerik is not the first and won't be the last to get in trouble for hiring a worker in the country illegally. This practice is common, and not only among government officials.
The presence of immigrants is apparent everywhere we look. Why deny it? It is very probable that the person who cleans your house or tends your lawn is an immigrant. The support workers at your office, the people who prepare the food and wash the dishes at your favorite restaurant, they all immigrated to this country, legally or illegally, and they make your life easier in one way or another.
But I don't think that these people get hired for important jobs, cleaning your house and taking care of your children, just as a way to avoid taxes or to pay low wages.
You trust these people because of their commitment to their work, because of the special way they treat your loved ones.
And you hire them because you know your neighbors do, too. And because the authorities accept this and don't break into your home to remove them as if they were hunting for drug traffickers.
I have no doubt that Kerik, for a number of reasons, was not the best-qualified man to lead the Department of Homeland Security. What I question is the logic behind a system that on the one hand condemns undocumented immigration and on the other depends on it.
I do love the irony, too -- that for thugs like Kerik, complete with ties to suspected mobsters, the law is something you get to enforce upon other people, but feel completely free to break yourself.
La Réalité Bites
The Japanese are clinically depressed that Paris, in reality, is ill-matched to their romantic illusions of the place, says an Agence France Presse report:
More than a 100 expatriates a year are sinking into a state called "the Paris syndrome" which is characterised by feelings of persecution or suicidal tendencies, according to the mental health facilities of city hospitals.Part of their clinical depression stems from having to reconcile their romanticism about Paris with reality, psychiatrists said.
"Magazines are fuelling fantasies with the Japanese, who think there are
models everywhere and the women dress entirely in (Louis) Vuitton," Mario Renoux, the head of a French Japanese Society for Medecine was quoted as saying.After a relatively short period of only three months or so, Japanese immigrants expecting to find a haven of civilisation and elegance instead discover a tougher existence with many problems dealing with the French.
"They make fun of my French and my expressions", "they don't like me" and "I feel ridiculous in front of them" are common refrains heard by the doctors.
The need to forcibly express one's self to be noticed - seen as vulgar in Japanese society - and exposure to a humour sometimes seen as offensive adds to the unhappiness.
"However, not wanting to give up their Paris dreams, the patients refuse to go back to Japan," the newspaper noted.
The United Christian States Of America
That's what one teacher's trying to preach, uh, teach, in a Silicon Valley public school, writes Andrew Gumbel:
If you haven’t spent the past couple of weeks tuned into right-wing talk radio and Fox News, you might not have heard of Stephen Williams. Out there in the land of Rush and Sean Hannity, though, he has already been enshrined as a folk hero of the triumphant new right, a saint and perhaps also a martyr.Williams is a fifth grade teacher in Silicon Valley and practicing Christian who fell foul of his school principal because he was overeager to emphasize the religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers in his history classes. So far, so banal. He wasn’t suspended or fired. The principal at Stevens Creek Elementary School in Cupertino simply became a little alarmed when Williams distributed a handout entitled “What Great Leaders Have Said About The Bible,” which quoted a handful of Republican presidents (all pro!) alongside Jesus himself. She became more alarmed still when he asked his class to read a chunk of St. Luke’s Gospel to help them understand the meaning of Easter. So, at the end of the last school year, she asked him to submit his lesson plans to her in advance to make sure his classes didn’t violate the separation of church and state.
When Williams edited down the Declaration of Independence to include only its references to a higher being, or when he reproduced chunks of George Washington’s prayer journal to the exclusion of the Father of the Nation’s more obviously political reflections, the principal drew the line and told him to take the discussion in a different direction.
There the affair might have ended had it not been for Williams’s friends in a Phoenix-based fundamentalist Christian outfit called the Alliance Defense Fund, who persuaded him that what was going on was a brazen attempt by Left Coast liberal heathens to airbrush God out of the public arena altogether. The ADF started spreading stories that he was the victim of an out-of-control principal who was as allergic to religious references as vampires are to garlic and rosewater. And they bankrolled a federal lawsuit against the school district, filed last month, in which Williams alleged that his First Amendment and other constitutional rights were violated.
Note to Hannity: It's "DEMocracy," not "THEocracy."
How To Glam
Order a subscription to French Vogue via Amazon. I just did. It's $53.69, which works out to $5.37 an issue, delivered to your door -- much better than you'll pay at the newsstand, if you can even find it at a newsstand.
Know any girls who walk around looking like unwashed homeless people, yet whine pitifully that they don't have boyfriends? The perfect gift for them. First of all, because it's so heavy, so you can knock them over the head with it, perhaps knocking some sense into them. Then, you can leave it by their side, so they'll have something inspiring to look at when they wake up. The pictures are amazing even if you can't speak French. And even if you can.
Be Cool-er
Drive a 66mpg Honda Insight (specs here).
The trailer to Be Cool, the sequel to Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty, just came out, and my little hybrid, the Honda Insight (pictured), is one of the stars of the show. Here's an excerpt from the end of the trailer, with Travolta and Danny DeVito's characters talking outside The Viper Room valet parking:
DeVito: Is that your car?Travolta: It's the Cadillac Of Hybrids.
(Some outrageously expensive sports car pulls up behind the car)
DeVito: But, what about speed?
Travolta: If you're important...they'll wait.
Similar logic applies to public cell-phoning. If you're truly important, you probably have a battery of assistants and secretaries who keep you from being reached. You are not shouting your business into a cell phone over a lunch tray at The Rose Cafe. Recently, I was in the Rose Cafe, enjoying lunch, when some young guy, probably late 20s, came in and started bellowing show biz lingo into his cell at high decibel. (No, we don't think you're important; we just think you're permanently damaging our hearing.)
This went on for quite some time, and a woman actually got up and moved away from him because he was so loud. Not wanting to have some toxic exchange that might give me indigestion later, but not able to drown out his conversation with the loudest setting on my iTunes, I politely asked him to lower his wheeling and dealing volume. He seemed shocked that I asked, apologized, and went immediately back to his shouting. No need to go into my whole dull exchange with yet another person who must have been an orphan (because if he'd had a mother, she probably would have taught him manners!).
He eventually accused me of "trying!" to listen to his conversation. I replied that I actually would have given anything not to hear it, if that had been humanly possible. Still, the suffering almost became worthwhile when the guy actually defended himself by announcing, "That's Tom Cruise on the other line!" as if I should be ashamed to interrupt his shouting for a little peace and quiet because he's talking to A FAMOUS PERSON!
First of all, I'm sure Tom Cruise would fire any of his minions who announced anything of the kind. Second, I would simply DIE before I, 1. told somebody who I was talking to as if it made me important, or 2. think it made me important in any way, shape or form! Naturally, I practically fell out of my chair laughing when he said that, and others around me looked like they were working pretty hard to stifle some guffaws. I told him that I didn't care if he was talking to the garbage man -- as if my life should stop because Tom Cruise (who most certainly wasn't on the line!) makes movies for a living instead of bagging groceries or selling futons.
Of course, it's always best, in this town, to remember that you never know who you're talking to. If I did think it was Cruise on the line, and if I didn't think even stars deserve some privacy, the guy would have been in some trouble. An old assistant who'd worked at Warner Brothers a while back gave me a printout of the movie star portion of her ex-boss' Rolodex. Perhaps some of the numbers have been changed by now, but I do have Tom Cruise's home number (from the Nicole days), his personal cell, and personal assistants' cell numbers floating around here somewhere. It is just a little tempting to think of picking up the phone and saying, "Yo, Tom, that's some ill-mannered cur you've been doing business with!"
'Roid Rage Of A Different Kind
Dr. Andrew Bernstein, a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute, says (as I have continued to say) the government has no proper role in banning steroid use by athletes -- or any other drug use:
The use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs by major league baseball players has drawn threats from the United States government. Major league baseball had better institute strict drug policies, warned Senators John McCain and Byron Dorgan, or it will face Congressional action.But the government should not be granted the power to dictate to consenting adults what they can and cannot ingest, stated Dr. Andrew Bernstein, senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. Major league baseball is a private organization that has the right, if it chooses, to ban steroid use among players by contractual agreement. As with any private individual or organization, it has the right to lay down the terms under which it will associate with others--leaving it to the voluntary decision of players to accept the terms or play elsewhere.
More broadly, Bernstein pointed out, in a free society an adult has the right to think and decide for himself in the pursuit of his own happiness. A necessary consequence is that he may choose self-destructive actions--whether to drink harmful amounts of alcohol or use toxic drugs. A legal prohibition on drugs, as on alcohol, is a violation of the right of the individual to determine the course of his life. Bernstein concluded that Congress should butt out and let Major league baseball determine its own course of action regarding players’ use of steroids.
They Don't Make Catfights Like They Used To
MeeeeeYOW! A fabulous little snittyfit, between LA newsreaders Paul Moyer and Ann Martin. It was recorded back when they shared the anchor desk on the Channel 7 Eyewitness News, from about 10 years ago, and posted (as text) by Kevin Roderick, at LAObserved:
Can't tell what they are fighting about, but this snippet is bound to be a classic in local TV lore, if it isn't already. I especially like that the specter of working with Harold Greene is viewed as a threat.
P.S. That cat in the photo is up that tree because it, apparently, saw my termite-sized Yorkie, Lucy, as a threat. How comforting that someone or something does!
The Lurking American Taliban
"The American Taliban" is usually hyperbole used by those limp of minds who compare something to Naziism or The Holocaust. In this case, Christian Reconstructionist beliefs -- not held by all Christian Reconstructionsists, Free Inquiry article author Skip Porteous maintains -- are truly odious and dangerous, and are correctly compared. Here's one example of what some believe: That gays (caught in the act of sodomy), adulterers, and abortion doctors should be executed. The man advocating this in the discussion below is Gary DeMar, a leading reconstructionist author and lecturer, who poisons young minds at a Christian summer camp. People who voted for that lame-ass Bush (as opposed to that lame-ass Kerry) out of some misguided idea that he's fiscally conservative or tough on terrorism don't get it -- how dangerous it is to let religious fanatics get a foothold in this country. Here's an excerpt from this sick man, Gary DeMar's talk:
DEMAR: The definition of Christian Reconstruction is simply this: The Bible applies to every facet of life. That means not just the judicial aspects of life, such as civil government, church government, but business, economics--every facet of society. The Bible has something to say about each area. For example on homosexuals: We do not believe that homosexuals ought to be executed. The Bible doesn't say that homosexuals ought to be executed. What it says is this: If two men lie together like man and woman, they are to be put to death.PORTEOUS: What the hell do you think that is?
DEMAR: Well, wait a minute. If a guy comes up to me and he says, "I'm a homosexual," that doesn't mean he's to be executed. If you understand the scriptures, it says very clearly, if a man comes up to you and says, "I've murdered somebody," that doesn't mean that person ought to be executed.
GONZALES: Oh, so what you are saying Gary, is, if you catch homosexuals in the act, then the Bible says to execute them.
DEMAR: The Bible lays forth the severest penalty, which would be capital punishment for two men who publicly engage in sodomy.
GONZALES: Does it say "publicly" in the Bible?
DEMAR: You've got to have at least two witnesses who would come forth and testify against the two people who had engaged in sodomy. The severest punishment would be capital punishment. It doesn't mean that has to be the punishment.
PORTEOUS: Now, there was a case a couple of years ago, and I believe it was Georgia....
DEMAR: It was Georgia.
PORTEOUS: Two men were seen by the police, because the police came in the house for a different reason, and saw them having sex, engaging in homosexual activity in bed.
DEMAR: Sodomy.
PORTEOUS: They were arrested. So you're saying that these two men, according to the Bible, could receive the death penalty?
DEMAR: Well...
PORTEOUS: Is that what you're saying?
DEMAR: First of all, remember, the Supreme Court upheld Georgia's law. Second, yes I agree that the Bible lays the death penalty for two men who are engaged in sodomy in public.
P.S. I landed on this link by Googling information while reading an excellent article on sex-mad Jewish mother and discredited researcher, Judith Reisman. Worth a read. By the way, in the current issue of Hustler (marked February), I have an article that uses data to say what the actual effects of porn are on women. And no, porn does not cause violence against women. It's utterly idiotic to say it does. Just look at the logic: Supposedly, if a person sees a porn film, he then is compelled to rape? Riiiight. The logic, in terms of human behavior, simply doesn't play out. I mean, I saw Oceans 11, and I didn't feel compelled to rob a casino afterward.
Based on meta-analysis (a look at many legitimate, peer-reviewed studies) by professor Catherine Salmon, my piece points out that there's only one way porn, specifically, "hurts" women -- economically -- by reducing their sexual bargaining power for men's resources. I am for complete free expression and complete free speech by consenting adults. If you aren't, I'm sure the other Taliban would be thrilled to have you.
A May-December Relationship
Gregg thinks the pickup is a 1950 Ford F-1 fender-side. The little car is an "R" Car, an EV (electric vehicle). It almost makes my dinky little eco-mobile look like a Hummer by comparison!
What It Means To Win
We are winning the war in Iraq, aren't we? Of course we are! But what does "winning" mean, exactly? James Carroll gets to the truth of the matter in The Boston Globe:
Why don't we Americans look directly at the war? We avert our gaze, knowing that the situation in Iraq grows more desperate by the day. Vaunted "coalition" efforts to "break the back" of the "insurgency" have only strengthened it.The violence among Iraqis would surely qualify as civil war - except that only one side is fighting. The structures of relief and repair are gone. Whole cities are destroyed, populations displaced. The hope for elections is mortally compromised. Coalition members are dropping out. The mission of American force is to secure the country, but it can't even secure itself. The performance of U.S. intelligence has been consistent: Its strategic failures caused the war, and its tactical ignorance of the enemy is losing the war.
Meanwhile, in America, this, the gravest foreign policy crisis in a generation, source of a crisis of conscience for tens of millions of citizens, is not a subject of political debate. For many months, overt opposition to the war was sublimated in the effort to defeat George W. Bush in the November election. John Kerry's fatal ambivalence about Iraq sealed the war off from the great quadrennial decision, with the result that the voices of those who hated the war were muted, and the uneasiness of those who were troubled by it was never addressed.
Astoundingly, the Democrats cooperated with the Republicans in assuring that the war in Iraq - the one thing that might have defeated Bush - was not an issue. That marginalization of the antiwar impulse continues in the suspended animation of a period after the American election and before the Iraqi election.
The new Bush administration has moved to reconfigure itself in most ways but one. The president's affirmation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in combination with his naming of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, reflects a blind determination to "stay the course" in Iraq, never mind that the course is heading off a cliff.
I have a new anti-SUV campaign now, cards that read:
Because I put my email address on them, I get replies from time to time, from people whose behemoths I've "carded." Here's one of them:
SUV driver:
Since you have such an allegiance to mother's of dead marines, let me ask you a question. Are you one?
My reply:
Aren't we all? I'm actually not a mother of anyone, but your lack of solidarity with people who are dying on behalf of our country is shocking. Then again, considering your narcissistic choice of vehicle, maybe it's simply to be expected. There are others on the planet besides you, selfish bozo.
Amy's Floor
I didn't know my floor was a source of amusement until I woke up and noticed my boyfriend photographing it, but I guess juxtaposition is everything.
The Sunnier Side Of Slavery
A North Carolina Christian school is teaching children "a different side" of slavery, writes T Keung Hui. No, this is not a joke (just a sick fact). Check out a few of the quotes from the booklet about slavery they're using -- co-authored by a pastor and a member of the Alabama-based League of the South (classified as a "hate group" by an Alabama-based civil rights group):
"Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care." (page 25)"Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." (page 24)
"But many Southern blacks supported the South because of long established bonds of affection and trust that had been forged over generations with their white masters and friends." (page 27)
Of course, the justifications for teaching the "kinder, gentler view" of "owning" other human beings because they have more melanin in their skin -- well, they're kind of similar to the justifications for teaching creationism:
Angela Kennedy, whose daughters have attended Cary Christian since 1996, said all the booklet does is help students learn about both sides so that they have a basis to form their own opinions. She pointed out that the students also read Abraham Lincoln's speeches."They really do get both sides of the story," Kennedy said. "In public schools, all they get is one side of the story. That's not education. That's indoctrination."
Luckily, there are Christian schools to teach how sweet and lovely racism is -- when they aren't too busy telling kids that the Grand Canyon was formed in 20 minutes by the big guy (perhaps he was out of finger bowls?), and damn the fossil record!
Osama Who?
Could the Bush administration's retarded response to the WTC bombing (we get hit by Osama; we bomb...Saddam?!) be part of what's foiling the search for Bin Laden? James Risen and David Rohde write in The New York Times:
More than three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and New York transformed Osama bin Laden into the most wanted man in the world, the search for him remains stalled, frustrated by the remote topography of his likely Pakistani sanctuary, stymied by a Qaeda network that remains well financed and disciplined, sidetracked by the distractions of the Iraq war, and, perhaps most significantly, limited by deep suspicion of the United States among Pakistanis.
Lucky we're winning in Iraq, huh?!
Sister Of Twisted Sister
There's something even creepier about this one than the one I posted yesterday.
A Land Of Primitive Religious Fanatics
That would be ours -- at least compared to Spain and Canada, which don't let all the religious nuts dictate who does and doesn't get equal treatment under the law based on their sexuality. A number of my gay friends -- some of them valuable minds in universities, industry, and public policy -- are considering a move to Canada now. My French teacher told me she's had dozens of people inquire about taking private French lessons since the election, since fluency in French is one way to get enough "points" to become a Canadian citizen. Yes, Canada is pretty cold, but it can't be any chillier up there than living in a place that treats gays and lesbians like second-class citizens, but requires them to pay full fare in taxes. The least we could do is recognize how we're discriminating, and lets gays and lesbians pay a discounted tax rate since they aren't allowed full rights and benefits of citizenship like the rest of us.
P.S. Canada might not stay cold for long. No, that's not a crack about global warming. There's a petition to make the British colony of Turks and Caicos part of Canada.
French Twist
The French offered to help in Iraq, writes Brian Knowlton; the U.S. simply ignored their offer:
Although Secretary of State Colin Powell called pointedly on Europeans this week to provide new assistance to Iraq, French officials said an offer made nearly a year ago by France to train Iraqis as military police remains unanswered. A similar offer from Germany has been accepted.A reminder by a French diplomat of that untaken offer came at the beginning of a week in which the United States wrangled with six NATO members, including France, over their refusal to take part in a NATO plan to train Iraqi soldiers at a site near Baghdad.
Trained Iraqi security forces are one of the most crying needs in Iraq, the United States has said. The U.S. ability to draw down American forces will depend largely on the pace of Iraqi training.
"We are ready to help" by training hundreds of gendarmes, the diplomat said, underlining other French contributions: the forgiveness of Iraqi debt and participation with NATO peacekeepers in Afghanistan.
The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not blame the United States for blocking the earlier French offer to train gendarmes somewhere outside of Iraq. That left an unspoken implication that the interim Iraqi government was behind the decision.
The United States had been particularly angry with the French for their leading role in opposing the war. On various levels the administration has appeared quicker to forgive the Germans for their own opposition.
Twisted, Sister!
A window display at the Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica.
What is this girl thinking?! Insert your caption below!
The Hallucinate-tivity Scene
Government anti-drug thugs won't be allowed to prohibit a New Mexico church from using hallucinogenic tea in their Christmas ritual, the Supreme Court ruled:
The church, which has about 140 members in the United States and 8,000 worldwide, said the herbal brew is a central sacrament in its religious practice, which is a blend of Christian beliefs and traditions rooted in the Amazon basin.Hollander said the tea is drunk in a ritual similar to the Catholic Communion. Church members then sit in a circle and meditate; they believe the tea brings them closer to God.
The tea is brewed from plants found in the Amazon River Basin and contains DMT, which officials say is a controlled substance under an international treaty.
However, Bronfman's complaint contends the tea is "non-addictive, is not harmful to human health and poses none of the risks commonly found with the use of certain controlled substances."
The church had drawn parallels to federal protection for members of the Native American Church using peyote, which also has hallucinogenic properties.
I'm still not sure why the government should be allowed to tell us what we can and can't put in our bodies -- as long as we aren't operating heavy machinery -- which is probably not exactly first on your to-do list if you just gulped some 'shroom tea or something. Why is this constitutional? I can't see how it could be.
For a great book on the serious use of hallucinogens (not just to get happy, but as a form of self-help -- and I'm not kidding), check out Archaic Revival, by Terence McKenna. I knew Terence and Os Janiger, both. Os was the one who worked with Cary Grant and others with LSD, and thought hallucinogens could have had a lot of promise in drawing out certain kinds of patients (terribly repressed, etc., and in improving creative work).
Unfortunately, there can be no inquiry into this, thanks to the anti-drug police, who are all about "just say no!" (and please don't engage your brain or anything before doing it). Listen to my other friend, Stanton Peele, whose most recent book is Resisting 12-Step Coercion: AA replaces one addiction with another. All drug use is not abuse. And addiction is not a disease, but a choice. Sure, some people are more biologically prone to make that choice, but it's basically choosing short-term gratification over longterm. Radical stuff, but he backs it up with good data -- something the DEA is completely opposed to doing, because it would get in the way of their fun playing police state.
A Tale Of Two Mercy Killings
Amy Langfield compares the sentences of Jack Kevorkian and a U.S. soldier who put an Iraqi "out of his misery."
Watch Amy On Web Teevee!
For a limited time only, to see my Dennis Miller appearance from last night, click here. They said they liked me and want me back, although I did get chided by Dennis for my Cheney remark!
Here's Paul, who's very funny and absolutely darling, asking somebody out there to give us a show together: "Lucille Ball! Lucy/Desi reality show!" I told him we should do an advice show together on the radio on Sunday nights. Any takers out there?!!
*You will need Quicktime to view this. It's available free, even to Windows people. Just click on the movie, and it will tell you what to do -- just like me!
It's Miller Time!
I'll be on Dennis Miller tonight, with comedian Paul Rodriguez and Joseph Phillips. 6pm and 9pm PST, on CNBC. Check your cable guide to find the channel in your area.
Barry Nanny-State Of Bush & Co
Matt Welch decries the revenge move against Barry Bonds and other athletes by the government for alleged steroid use:
...The federal justice system should be about apprehending serious criminals, not "sending messages" to schoolchildren by abusing the grand jury process to compile and illegally leak publicly damaging information about non-criminals.Thirdly, in an era when testosterone and other hormones are being used safely to treat various illnesses, isn't it time to ask why, exactly, they can't be used to help men who use their bodies for a living recover from the daily strain as they reach retirement age?
And finally, think back to poor Barry Bonds, if you can call a jerk who makes $19 million a year "poor." What if he told the truth under oath, and never knowingly took illegal or banned substances?
If that's the case, then the man who had the season to end all seasons was rewarded for it by A) being made the prime target of a multi-agency federal investigation backed directly by the president and attorney general; B) having his reputation (and endorsements-earning potential) deliberately shredded; and C) being forced to fend off continuous hostile cross-examination, even while compiling the best four-year run in baseball history.
There is such a thing as the presumption of innocence, no matter what you read in the sports pages. As it stands, Barry Bonds has not even been formally accused of violating a single baseball rule, let alone federal law.
President Bush has indeed "sent a message" to the kids of America: We can make you look guilty, even when you've never been charged. It's a rough lesson, but they might as well start getting used it.
Winning The War On Terror
Or something like that:
A classified cable sent by the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief in Baghdad has warned that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and may not rebound any time soon, according to government officials.
Osama who? The guy doesn't even need to recruit anymore. With our invasion of Iraq, we're like the ROTC for terrorists.
Why Fundamentalists Drive Cadillac Escalades
More on "The Rapture." Doesn't it seem, well, un-Christian, to run roughshod over the planet, fouling the air, water, and food we all eat? Bill Moyers, like George Monbiot, contends it's quite the contrary:
Remember James Watt, President Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true - one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index. That's right - the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the twelve volumes of the left-behind series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious right warrior, Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.
I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious, and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelation where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 - just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.
So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist, Glenn Scherer - "The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened - as a sign of the coming apocalypse.
Primitive thinking has a very high cost -- for the rest of us. Enjoy breathing and eating fish that isn't a birth control pill with gills? Maybe you should vote, the next time around, for people who don't think allowing pollution will be their ticket to flying out of their pajamas into heaven while all the rational people (and religious nutbags of other stripes) burn alive. For people who don't base their policy on stuff like the notion that Barney is the anti-Christ:
Barney the Dinosaur Because John, the writer of Revelation, would never have known what a dinosaur looked like, it's logical to assume he would have identified any vision of Barney as one of a dragon. Taking this into consideration, you might find the following Scriptures quite revealing: Revelation 12:3, "And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon…," Revelation 13:4, "And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?" Revelation 20:2, "And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years."
Low Marks For Bad Stats
A UC Berkeley study by sociology prof Michael Hout and his grad students showing anomalies with Florida e-voting used a faulty equation, reports Kim Zetter in Wired:
The study, released three weeks ago by seven graduate students from the University of California, Berkeley's Quantitative Methods Research Team and sociology professor Michael Hout, presented analysis showing a discrepancy in the number of votes Bush received in counties that used touch-screen voting machines versus counties that used other types of voting equipment.But Bruce McCullough, a decisions science professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia, and Binghamton University economics professor Florenz Plassmann released an analysis (.pdf) of the Berkeley report criticizing the results.
According to the Berkeley study, the number of votes granted to Bush in touch-screen counties far exceeded expectation, given a number of variables -- including the number of votes those counties gave Bush in 2000 -- while counties using other types of voting equipment gave Bush a predictable number of votes.
The analysis was not peer-reviewed, although Hout and the students said that seven professors examined their numbers. They would not speculate about what occurred with the voting machines, but voting activists on internet forums seized the study as proof of faulty voting machines or election fraud. Drexel University's McCullough, however, found fault with the study.
"What they did with their model is wrong, and their results are flawed," McCullough said. "They claim those results have some meaning, but I don't know how they can do that."
McCullough said they focused on one statistical model to conduct their analysis while ignoring other statistical models that would have produced opposite results.
"They either overlooked or did not bother to find a much better-fitting (statistical) regression model that showed that e-voting didn't account (for the voting anomalies)," McCullough said.
Charles Stewart, an MIT political science professor, called the study "the type of exercise that you do in a graduate data-analysis class" rather than as an academic paper.
"If I were to get this article as (an academic) reviewer, I would turn it around and say they were fishing to find a result," Stewart said. "I know of no theory or no prior set of intuitions that would have led me to run the analysis they ran."
Some red faces up there in Birkenstockville, I think.
Please Stay In Detroit
Professional sap Mitch Albom makes the right decision. Sniff, sniff. Boo-hoo.
via Romenesko
They Never Say "God Thought She Was A Crappy Person...
So he took her out!" when people croak in accidents. A woman survived being impaled by a 12-foot metal fence post that pierced her through the mouth and exited the back of her neck after a car crash. When the emergency crew freed her, the fire chief instantly attributed her survival to god -- not simply random luck that she didn't end up two inches to the left or right:
"Talk about having an angel as a co-pilot," Fire Chief J.R. Rosencrans said. "On her rearview mirror she had a picture of the Madonna. You can tell she is a religious person."
Oh, and religious people never die horribly or anything, do they, chief? (I wonder if he thinks god makes a special effort to smite you if you have fuzzy dice or plastic titties dangling from the rear-view.)
Pee-Wee's Rig Adventure
A computer programmer says a congressman ordered up vote fraud code, writes John Byrne, at RAW STORY:
The programmer, Clinton Curtis, said that he was told the program needed to be “touch-screen capable, the user should be able to trigger the program without any additional equipment, [and that] the programming was to remain hidden even if the source code was inspected.”Curtis asserts that he told Feeney it would be nearly impossible to write a code to change the voting results if anyone were able to view the source code.
“However,” he added, “if the code were compiled before anyone was allowed to review it then any vote fraud would remain invisible to detection.”
Nevertheless, he says that he was asked at the meeting by Yang to build the prototype anyway.
Curtis states he initially believed that Feeney’s sought to stop Democrats from using such a program and “wanted to be able to detect and prevent that if it occurred.”
It was not until after the prototype was delivered that he says he got wind of its possible, more nefarious usage.
According to his affidavit, Yang, his employer, later informed him that the software might be used to “control the vote in South Florida.” He says that he would never have developed the software had he known its alleged ultimate purpose.
The claim of naivité by the programmer is a little hard to believe...kind of like squealing, "Oh, I had no idea what they wanted with this huge facility filled with plutonium rods! They said they had a whole lot of toast to make."
via Metafilter
Jesus Of Staten Island?
Well, maybe not, but Time and Newsweek both have stories debunking the born-in-Bethlehem notion, along with a few other more sacred "truths":
Among the conclusions in Time and Newsweek: Jesus was born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem; there is little evidence of three kings following a star, and the story of the virgin birth may have been borrowed."The Nativity saga is neither fully fanciful nor fully factual but a layered narrative of early tradition and enduring theology," Newsweek writes in examining the Sunday-school version of the birth of Christ.
This may be unwelcome "news" to most Americans. A Newsweek poll found that 55% of Americans believe every word in the Bible is literally true, 67% believe the entire Christmas story is literally true and 79% believe Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary with no human father.
Now, I know that the virgin birth story is quite popular as the unquestionable truth among "the faithful," despite the flagrant lack of anything more than the printed page to "prove" it actually happened...but how many believers who are dads would buy that one if little Ashley came home knocked up?
I just had three of these people trying to convince me to "accept Jesus as (my) personal savior" in a Detroit Starbucks this weekend. I explained that while I am highly rational, and thus have no idea whether there is or isn't a god, and really couldn't care less; I had, in the past, accepted Jesus (pronounced: "Hay-zeus") as my personal mechanic -- until that lummox cracked my carbureter.
When I tried to talk reason to one of the women, she told me she just knows there's a god because "Jesus is inside her." (Hmmm, and I thought she just needed to cut down on portion size.) Unfortunately, she was short on cash, or I might have made a killing selling her the bridge to Canada.
Jeff Jarvis Bitchslaps Brent Bozell
Brent Bozell, like Michael Powell, is vying to be the mommy of us all, with an attack on our freedoms combined with a personal attack on Jeff Jarvis. Jarvis comes to our rescue:
And I am an American but you do not speak for me. This is a nation built on free speech and a belief in tolerance and the value of the marketplace of ideas and the blessing of diversity. You are against all that. You try to stop the rest of us from watching what you think we should not watch. You disdain and condemn your fellow Americans and our culture because it does not match your idea of what it should be. That, sir, seems distinctly unAmerican to me.You think you have some God-given right to tell us what we should and should not do. You do not.
But you know what? I think you should be able to watch whatever you want to watch, even if it is the 700 Club with its hate and homophobia. I would not presume to try to get it taken off the air for hate speech. I simply turn the channel. You should do the same.
And so now I'll get to the second fisking in two days (that's fisking not fisting, sir, a bloggers' word; please call off your complaint factory) with my response to King Prig. Note that I cannot do this on Bozell's site because he does not allow comments. I've already had a dialogue with one of his people in my comments and I continue that here because, Bozell, I'm an American and I believe in the free marketplace of ideas. So, to Bozell's "column":
Ever since exit-pollsters discovered a significant chunk of voters were casting their ballots based on which candidate stood for moral values - and most of those who chose that reason for their vote said they picked Republicans - the Hollywood crowd has tried to pick the idea apart, as conflicted, even ridiculous.This is fun already. First, you know damned well -- oops, goshdarned well -- that exit poll in question was full of crap. In fact, you know what should really scare you (based on your own skewed mathematical analysis below): It should scare you that 100 percent of voters did not say they valued moral values. What about those other 78 percent, Brent? Are they all Democrats?
But, of course, the real truth is that all 100 percent of those voters do have moral values and value morals; they simply don't all have your moral values. And that is what makes America great. That is why this country was founded. That is the essence of America.
For you to say as you do here that morality = GOP is the clearest indication of your true agenda.
The anything-goes gang is suggesting we live in a pretty hypocritical country if we can profess our desire for moral leadership and make our number-one smash on television the ABC smut soap "Desperate Housewives."You call it a smut soap. I call it a fun show. Fine. You change the channel and I won't. That's why we have tons of channels now. Go enjoy something else. Watch Bambi. I'll watch Desperate Housewives. Just leave me alone and we're both happy. Oh, but you don't want to leave me alone. You want to tell me what I can and cannot watch. I keep forgetting. You're our self-appointed censor. The unAmerican.
"Protecting" Away Gay Rights
Bigoted Michigan voters who passed the so-called “marriage protection amendment” are yanking more than marriage from gays and lesbians in the state, writes Detroit News metro columnist Laura Berman:
But how much more? And what, really, does it say?Gov. Jennifer Granholm doesn't know. Her minions negotiated same-sex domestic partner health benefits for 50,000 or so state workers beginning next Oct. 5 -- and then she put them on ice last week, citing "the legal cloud," created by the new amendment.
The attorney general doesn't seem to know. His spokesman, Randall Thompson, said nobody at the AG's office has researched the issue. But that's because not a single legislator or state official has asked Mike Cox for a legal opinion on what the amendment means.
He hasn't been asked about those six murky words that gunk up the amendment, making it mean more than a ban on marriage between same-sex partners. No Democrat is likely to ask him and no Republican has.
"If anyone says they know what 'similar union for any purpose,' means, they're either a fool or a liar," insists David Fink, who heads the Office of the State Employer.
So the state and UAW agree they're stuck. They can't, in the governor's words, "move forward," with the new benefits until they get clarification from a court.
But after news stories reported that Granholm had "yanked" the provision, and her office was deluged with angry phone calls and e-mail, she released a statement saying she "continues to support same-sex partner benefits."
What's clear, though, is that civil rights language that's standard across the country is now being scrutinized in state government as if it was weird. Now in doubt are benefits - including tuition discounts, medical and life insurance - that have been in place for Wayne State University employees, for example, for a decade.
Sick. While, as a fiscal fascist, I don't believe in relationship-privileging for anyone (ie, that you get to stick your husband, wife, or partner on your healthcare and your employer or the state picks up the tab), if that option is available to heteros it should be available to everybody.
Michael Powell As Mommy
This New York Times Letters To The Editor writer has a point: It's ridiculous and wrong that the FCC is stepping in for parents who aren't doing their job, thus narrowing the field of programming for the rest of us:
To the Editor:Re "Don't Expect the Government to Be a V-Chip," by Michael K. Powell (Op-Ed, Dec. 3):
The most common reasoning I have heard quoted for greater government regulation over television and radio is that we must protect our children from programming that leads to moral degradation.
It strikes me as odd (as a parent) that parents have the wherewithal to determine which programming is unsuitable for their children, but apparently lack the capability to communicate this to their children by changing the channel, setting rules for television viewing, or simply removing the television completely.
Instead, it seems that parents would prefer to spend time complaining to the Federal Communications Commission in hopes that it will assist them in parenting their children.
When I was growing up, my parents shut the TV off during the weekdays, and allowed restricted viewing of programs during the weekend; somehow that approach today seems much more effective than looking to the F.C.C. to solve the problem.
What we need in our culture is more parent intervention, not more government intervention.
Mark Lisi
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., Dec. 3, 2004
We weren't allowed to watch TV as kids, save Disney on Sunday nights, and a few other programs. Then again, my parents acted like parents (ie, fascists), not overgrown friends.
WeHo Bridges The Discrimination Gap
West Hollywood, CA, is registering gay partners so they can collect health benefits, among other things, writes Richard Fausset in the LA Times:
When Aimee Wilson asked about adding her gay partner to her corporate health insurance plan earlier this year, her employer told her it would be easy. All she had to do was get a government body to sanction the relationship.But for Wilson, a resident of Frisco, Texas, that was going to require some fancy bureaucratic two-stepping, because the Lone Star State doesn't officially recognize same-sex partners.
Wilson found her solution 1,400 miles away at West Hollywood's City Hall, where, for a $25 fee, the clerk placed Wilson and her then-pregnant partner, Margaret Richmond, on the city's domestic partnership registry in March. The couple dropped their check and a notarized application in the mail. Richmond made the company's health insurance rolls in time to deliver twins.
"It really felt weird, especially having to go all the way across the country to get it," Wilson said in a phone interview recently. "But it was kind of neat. We even got a certificate."
As the new gay rights battles rage across the American landscape, creating a conflicting, state-by-state patchwork of rules on marriages and domestic partnerships, West Hollywood is among a handful of state and local governments that have been quietly reaching out to gay couples beyond their borders. The city offers to officially sanction unconventional relationships and, just as important, to do it by mail, saving out-of-state partners the cost of a plane ticket.
The policies are by no means as dramatic as those in San Francisco, where Mayor Gavin Newsom allowed gay couples to marry this year, until the actions were blocked by the California Supreme Court. Despite its cachet with insurance programs, the registration has no legal status outside the city boundaries.
But the registrations exemplify the peculiar jurisdiction-shopping gay couples are employing to maximize their rights in a deeply divided country.
Other governments that allow nonresident couples to register by mail include the city of Seattle and the states of Hawaii and California. The Golden State enacted its domestic partners law in 1999. A California secretary of state spokeswoman said the out-of-state provisions were necessary to extend pension benefits to former state employees who had moved elsewhere — and also to help non-Californians sign up for corporate health insurance benefits.
But it is West Hollywood's pioneering domestic partner registry, created in 1985, that remains one of the country's best known, with its mail-in procedures listed on a number of gay rights websites. This year, the city's loose registration rules have enticed 193 out-of-state couples to register — accounting for about 60% of West Hollywood's total domestic partnership rolls for 2004.
They are gay couples who are not allowed to marry and straight couples who choose not to. Many of their hometowns — such as Grain Valley, Mo., and Waveland, Miss. — are cultural galaxies from the raucous boys' town bars of Santa Monica Boulevard.
This brings up an interesting point -- straight couples who choose not to. We are legislated by religious hand-me-down to have only marriage as the recognizable form of committed relationship. If my boyfriend gets sick, I won't be allowed to visit him in the hospital. Committed partners aren't allowed on each other's health insurance. If you love somebody from, say, Italy, you must marry them if you want to be with them, or they might not be allowed to stay in the country. We need a registered partner agreement in the USA, like the PACs in France, to allow people to make a commitment to each other in the way that works for them; not necessarily lifelong, but dissolvable, like the PACs is, by one or the other partner going to city hall and saying it's dissolved. Oh, and P.S. Don't make me laugh by saying marriage is a lifelong commitment. Seen the line at divorce court lately?
Frozen Tundra
I'm in Detroit, frozen solid, after arriving on the red-eye. More blog items after I thaw.
And A Lump Of Coal To You, Too!
The 10 Least Successful Holiday Specials Of All Time. Hilarious. Here's my favorite:
Ayn Rand's A Selfish Christmas (1951)In this hour-long radio drama, Santa struggles with the increasing demands of providing gifts for millions of spoiled, ungrateful brats across the world, until a single elf, in the engineering department of his workshop, convinces Santa to go on strike. The special ends with the entropic collapse of the civilization of takers and the spectacle of children trudging across the bitterly cold, dark tundra to offer Santa cash for his services, acknowledging at last that his genius makes the gifts -- and therefore Christmas -- possible. Prior to broadcast, Mutual Broadcast System executives raised objections to the radio play, noting that 56 minutes of the hour-long broadcast went to a philosophical manifesto by the elf and of the four remaining minutes, three went to a love scene between Santa and the cold, practical Mrs. Claus that was rendered into radio through the use of grunts and the shattering of several dozen whiskey tumblers. In later letters, Rand sneeringly described these executives as "anti-life."
Then again, how can't you go wrong with Zbigniew Brzezinski?
A Muppet Christmas with Zbigniew Brzezinski (1978)A year before their rather more successful Christmas pairing with John Denver, the Muppets joined Carter Administration National Security Advisor Brezezinski for an evening of fun, song, and anticommunist rhetoric. While those who remember the show recall the pairing of Brzezinki and Miss Piggy for a duet of "Winter Wonderland" as winsomely enchanting, the scenes where the NSA head explains the true meaning of Christmas to an assemblage of Muppets dressed as Afghan mujahideen was incongruous and disturbing even then. Washington rumor, unsupported by any Carter administration member, suggests that President Carter had this Christmas special on a repeating loop while he drafted his infamous "Malaise" speech.
(via Reason's blog)
Tough Girls
My friend, Cathy Seipp, who will bolt you to the courthouse wall and make you pay -- triple -- if you try to screw her over...and my friend, Emmanuelle Richard, who just graduated from private detective school, and posted this comment about the picture of her shooting a gun on Cathy's blog:
On the pic, I'm actually killing innocent bystanders on a simulation video at the FATS range (Firearms Tactics Scenario) so, any shooting tip is very welcome!Did much better at the real range, though. The instructor suggested I hang the perforated target on my garage door with the inscription: "We shoot trespassers. Survivors will be shot again."
Lucy will just bite your head off. (If you have a head the size of a Ken doll's, that is.)
Larry, Moe, And Condi
There's a scathing report by a Pentagon advisory panel, delivered in September, "but silently slipped onto a Pentagon Web site on Thanksgiving eve, and barely noticed by the U.S. press." That report, writes Sidney Blumenthal, calls Bush's "war on terror" an unmitigated disaster:
The Bush administration, according to the Defense Science Board, has misconceived a war on terrorism in the image of the Cold War -- "reflexively" and "without a thought or a care as to whether these were the best responses to a very different strategic situation." Yet the administration seeks out "Cold War models" to cast this "war" against "totalitarian evil." However, the struggle is not the West vs. Islam; nor is it "against the tactic of terrorism." "This is no Cold War," the report insists. While we blindly and confidently call this a "war on terrorism," Muslims "in contrast see a history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration" against "apostate" Arab regimes allied with the U.S. and "Western Modernity -- an agenda hidden within the official rubric of a 'War on Terrorism.'"In this conflict, "wholly unlike the Cold War," the Bush administration's impulse has been to "imitate the routines and bureaucratic responses and mindset that so characterized that era." So the U.S. projects Iraqis and other Arabs as people to be liberated like those "oppressed by Soviet rule." And the U.S. accepts authoritarian Arab regimes as allies against the "radical fighters." All of this is nothing less than a gigantic "strategic mistake."
"There is no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-U.S. groundswell among Muslim societies -- except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as apostate tyrannies that the U.S. so determinedly promotes and defends. (Original emphasis.)" Rhetoric about freedom is received as "no more than self-serving hypocrisy," daily highlighted by the U.S. occupation in Iraq. "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies." The "dramatic narrative since 9/11" of the "war on terrorism," Bush's grand justification, his story line connecting all the dots from the World Trade Center to Baghdad, has "borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars." As a result, jihadists have been able to transform themselves from marginal figures in the Muslim world into defenders against invasion and attack with a growing following of millions.
Thanks, Colin, for playing good soldier and going along, and thanks Condi, our Cold War go-to girl, who moonlights cleaning up PR messes.
Why All The Broadcasters Are Bending Over
Jeff Jarvis explains why 1994 was the last time a broadcaster challenged an FCC ruling:
Why? Well, because the FCC holds the broadcasters by their shrunken balls. The FCC holds it in its power to not only fine them but revoke their licenses and shut down their businesses -- as the FCC warned it would do in its Bono F-word decision.And that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely why 66 stations in this great nation refused to air Saving Private Ryan: They had been told by the FCC that airing the F word was illegal and could cost them their businesses.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is also why Viacom just castrated itself by paying a $3.5 million consent decree with the FCC that includes all kinds of onorous clauses and why the dickless Clear Channel settled its fines ... and why every broadcaster has settled every fine for a damned decade.
Thus, the First Amendment never gets its day in court. Thus, the fined broadcasters -- not to mention we, the people -- never get the chance to test the constitutionality of what the FCC is doing to free speech in this nation.
As for what the rest of us should be doing...
But in all fairness, it's not just the broadcasters who should be fighting.Newspaper editorialists should have been defending the First Amendment when the FCC was going after Howard Stern. They didn't. They waited until they went after Private Ryan.
We on the internet should be fighting the FCC -- for they'll come after us next.
There is still a chance. Only 22 members of the House had the balls to vote for free speech and against the indecent indecency bill. The rest sang soprano because they didn't want to go home and be accused of voting for smut. Well, we need to give them cover. We need to pressure them to vote for free speech and the First Amendment and the Constitution and everything America holds holy.
So let's hear it, TV and radio executives and personalities. Let's hear it, editorialists. Let's hear it, journalists. Let's hear it, cable executives (they want to get you, too). Let's hear it, satellite executives (they want to get you, too). Let's hear it, internet executives. Let's hear it, bloggers.
It's time to fight back.
Today's Dopey Advice Requester
**Updated at bottom of entry!
In a message dated 11/30/04 2:59:13 PM, DopeyAdviceRequester@yahoo.com writes:
I have been whollped with bad energy and have lost alot of my life. Is it best I leave the area I am in (Rochester, NY) I would love to do what you do and I am an intuitive counselor and healer Besides the money to market my self, wha tis in my way?
--DopeyAdviceRequester (name changed to protect the idiotic)
Amy's response:
I'm highly rational, and I limit myself to giving love advice not career advice. There are books on writing for newspapers. It's pretty much impossible to syndicate yourself unless you're famous and a highly talented writer. "Wholloped with bad energy?" How about you take responsibility for your life. Read Nathaniel Branden, The Art Of Living Consciously, and Guide To Rational Living by Ellis. How about using reason instead of woo-woo intuition? It will get you far.
In a message dated 12/1/04 6:50:16 AM, DopeyAdviceRequester@yahoo.com writes:
Well, thank you foir responding For someone who give "love" advice, you hav eno compasssion I am a gifted healer and counsler who has been seriously harmed. Taking responsibility for my life has nothing to do with it I'll be sure to send you a lesson to adjust that for mind oriented attitude. Find your Heart
--Dopey Advice Requester
Amy's response:
Really? How are you harmed? Because I told you to take responsibility for your life? Woo, aren't I a bitch! You'll send me a "lesson"? So, let's see, you're a woo-woo feel good nicey-nicey person...except when you're sending out little packages of "bad karma"? You're hilarious. Thanks for the laugh. My heart is directly behind my lungs, last they looked at the doctor. Rationally yours, -Amy
UPDATE: Dopey writes back with a threat!
In a message dated 12/1/04 6:35:15 PM, DopeyAdviceRequester@yahoo.com writes:
More rude, tactless and hurtful words You need HELP I will send this to your editors
Amy's response:
Yes, this was a terribly shocking exchange, filled with suggestions that you boil puppies -- well, probably, somewhere between the lines of all that "be rational/take responsibility" advice. If you read my column, you'd know the editor picked it up because I don't mince words. I didn't with you, either. It's right in character. You simply don't like hearing my opinion that you should take responsibility for your life, not blame your problems on bad energy. Oooh, harsh! You can read more of the same in the paper every week. You might check out those books. One can never be too rational! Cheers! -Amy
