Breaking out my tinfoil hat

I don't really like hats, and tinfoil doesn't suit me so well, but Yahoo!'s "Tech Tuesday" section is so creepy today I'm thinking it may be time to fashion that Gary Glitter meets X-Files piece of headgear. I remember when Tech sections focused on better video games and higher speed Internet connections. Today's? Biometrics, national ID cards, passports with super-duper security stuff. And I love this: the story on biometric security titled "Login Liberation." Or this: the company that offers school lunch checkout equipment that uses students' fingerprints to access their accounts. I know it's trite but I can't get that scene from Bladerunner out of my head where Decker is interrogating Leon with that eye scanner thingie. I think I need a vacation.

No child left intact

I know a lot of you are probably also on True Majority's mailing list, but for those of you who aren't...

Did you know that the No Child Left Behind Act has a section that forces schools to give student information to military recruiters and to give recruiters the same access to students that colleges and prospective employers have? Yeah. I didn't know. Working Assets is campaigning against the provision (and for HR 551, which would require written parental consent to pass along contact information for students).

Today

The Library of Congress is webcasting Václav Havel's speech on human rights today at 6:00 (I'm assuming eastern standard).

The problem with literature is language

Barnes and Noble's Sterling Publishing has finally solved the problem of how to extract the meaning in books without all of those pesky words getting in the way. Their new "classic starts" series (which, I'm sorry, sounds way too much like a frozen foods brand to me) presents classic children's books the way we want them: for dummies. After School Snack has the WSJ extract that explains the books "appeal to both those who struggle to read and to avid younger students whose reading skills aren't quite strong enough to let them master The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in its original. The books, which have been retold using simpler words, have been surprisingly hot sellers..." After poking around on Sterling's site, I also discovered the Young Readers Shakespeare Series which similarly vivisects the Bard "skillfully blending Shakespeare's own lines with simple, modern language."

The WSJ story quotes a visiting scholar at Harvard's School of Ed, who explains, "kids spend so much time trying to decipher the words that the meaning of the story eludes them."

WTF??? Can you hear the sound of my head exploding? I am trying to understand this distinction between words and meaning. Telling a story is not like juicing an orange. Let's just get rid of all of that pesky pulp and rind and get right to the meaning. To make matters worse, the Classic Starts titles are all children's books to begin with. We're not talking here about simplifying Gravity's Rainbow. No, this is a list with tough-to-tackle titles such as The Secret Garden and Little Women.

I'm not trying to be a total jerk here. I understand the draw of stories for their own sake. Shit, if I watch the first fifteen minutes of a Lifetime movie, I am incapable of leaving the television until the damn thing is done. I am a slave to narrative. But there are plenty of good stories that are already told in tiny sentences with one- and two-syllable words to publish. Why go marauding the classics?

Sterling's tag line: "The stories are abridged; the quality is complete. Classic Starts treats the world's beloved tales (and children) with the respect they deserve--all at an incomparable price." With respect like that, who needs abuse?

How many isolated incidents make a pattern?

I can't even bring myself to quote from Friday's New York Times story about the torture of prisoners in Bagram, Afghanistan. By now, many of you have probably already read it, but what can I say, I'm behind on life so I'm posting about it now.

The story focuses on the deaths of two prisoners who were beaten, hung by chains from the ceiling, and otherwise brutally abused. One seems to have been detained merely for being in the wrong place at the wrong time--he drove by a military base that had been the target of an attack that day.

It's deeply depressing. And of course, it underscores the madness of the administration's complaints against Newsweek. The past couple of weeks in the news has felt, in this way, to me like some sick amalgam of 1984 and Lord of the Flies where we get both the savagery of naked imperialism and the totalitarian news organ to explain our world to us. If I were a Christian, I would title this post "my god, why hast thou forsaken me"; as it is, I can only try to cherish the part of me that is continually appalled and sickened by America's actions in the name of freedom and liberty. May I never become inured to our grotesque hypocrisy.

Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever. . . . The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you have undergone since you have been in our hands -- all that will continue, and worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. . . . Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible -- and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord. That is the world that we are preparing, Winston. A world of victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning, I can see, to realize what that world will be like. But in the end you will do more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become part of it.'
1984

Oh how the mighty have fallen

Today we discovered we are now officially middle aged. We cannot deny it any longer. How can we be sure? Because The Flaming Lips are headlining at Xingolati: Groove Cruise of the Pacific.

Picture a "what if Carnival Cruises sponsored burning man" event that seemingly distills the worst of all possible worlds (floating man?).

For instance, this is from the FAQ:

The navy has a ritual for new sailors when they cross the equator. Are you doing any kind of ritual? I see there is a trident in the Xingolati logo. Is that the trident of Neptune?

There is depth to the name Xingolati. We didn't just create a word to be different. It's a puzzle. Ritual is an important element of any event. This cruise is about the path to getting there. . .crossing the line. . .taking it to the next level. Any kind of spiritual growth requires a rite of passage. There are many artists on board that will take us through this journey. The Mutaytor will help us make the transformation that occurs during the voyage. Neptune is the God of the Sea; we certainly want to respect the gods. There will be expressions that come from people inspired by the atmosphere, the music, and the interaction with others. It's like a seminar or a retreat. You will have to take some time to process the experience and decide how to apply it to your life. It's about accepting the broader realm of possibilities.

Um yeah. Okay. I'm thinking some serious drug use played a part in conceptualizing Xingolati (and the depth of the name eludes this blogger--it sounds to me like something a Mexican coffee lover would name his dog).

But just because you're ritualizing your spiritual transformation doesn't mean you should ignore the meat container. Because god knows, what's nirvana without maribou. The "What to Bring" section tells us:

Xingolati is a fashion fabulous event, so bring your best threads. Exaggerate your character and bring out those beautiful items you keep for special occasions. This is participatory theatre, look your best!

Evening gowns
Super heros welcome
Fake furs
Wigs
Gaudi jewelry (hmm...necklaces with colorful tilework?)
Questionable hair styles
Rings & jewels
Fake mustaches

I'm going to perform an intervention here and tell any prospective groove cruisers that, no, you should not bring your fake mustaches. There is a really useful distinction to be made between "fashion fabulous" and "you look like a horse's ass." If you're not clear on where that line falls, consult with a friend before packing. Please.

Pictures from this weekend

We went to Hollywood Forever for a screening again this weekend--this time to see The Bad and the Beautiful. I admit I'd not seen it before, and while Lana Turner is certainly beautiful, I was hoping she would be a bit more bad. Ah well. This time we had our photo op with Johnny's statue.

We'll always have Paris

Rick Santorum today on the Democrat's opposition to the "nuclear option"--their desire to retain the right to filibuster:

The rule has been in place for 214 years that this is the way we confirm judges. Broken by the other side two years ago, and the audacity of some members to stand up and say, "How dare you break this rule," it's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942: "I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city? It's mine."

Let me make sure I get this--opposition to tyranny is fascism? What I want to know is when do they take the last remaining voices of resistance into room 101 and let rats run across their faces? I love big brother.

Crooks and Liars has the video clip. And Ward Sutton is good on the subject this week as well.

Happy birthday to the blog

It's a year old today. I mean, for whatever that's worth.

So why don't I feel safer?

In the category of "things I really wish hadn't happened in the same week" fall these two stories.

First, the House passed (424 to 4) a bill (HR 1817) that appropriates more than 34 billion dollars for the Department of Homeland Security (because who needs Social Security when you have Homeland Security, right?). If anyone has the stomach to read the 105-page monstrosity and explain to me more specifically which of my freedoms are now even further limited, feel free. Despite my policy wonk tendencies, I just can't bring myself to do it right now.

The second thing that happened this week is that the FBI explained to the Senate that the single biggest domestic terrorist threat comes from animal liberation and environmental activists:

"There is nothing else going on in this country over the last several years that is racking up the high number of violent crimes and terrorist actions," Lewis said.

. . .

Lewis said the FBI concluded that after analyzing all types of cases and comparing the groups with "right-wing extremists, KKK, anti-abortion groups and the like." . . .

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the panel's chairman, said he hoped to examine more closely how the groups might be getting assistance in fundraising and communications from tax-exempt organizations' "mainstream activists" not directly blamed for the violence.

"Just like al-Qaida or any other terrorist organization, ELF and ALF cannot accomplish their goals without money, membership and the media," Inhofe said.

The FBI said 35 of its offices have 150 open investigations, with activists claiming credit for 1,200 crimes between 1990 and mid-2004.

Truly, I wish I were making this up--it's like a parody of right wing extremism--but sadly, I am not. Though I was thinking about it--this parodic nature of current events, and I thought about the history here--the Salem witch hunts . . . HUAC . . . and now "terrorism." Marx was right, the third time is farce.

This week on the 101

And people don't understand why I take surface streets

More on Wal-mart and hell

Let me say I would rather remain unattached the rest of my days on earth than meet a mate at Wal-mart singles night. A craze that started in Germany, Wal-mart singles night is spreading like a cancer throughout the world:

Romantically unattached customers who swing by between 6 and 8 P.M. are given a red bow for their cart (it indicates you're single and there to mingle); some locations even offer up a glass of champagne-or a rose to present to that eye-catching "item" you just gotta have. "Flirt points"-stations where you can taste romance-themed products like chocolates and wines-throughout the store make striking up a conversation with that cutie in the housewares section even easier.

(As I type this, my friend Becky is telling me "I want to go to that almost as much as I want to go to Hellhouse." We both agree the draw is similar in nature.)

"I wasn't talking about 'normal'; what I was talking about is 'natural'"

This from Horsley's latest incredible interview on the Alan Colmes show to explain his earlier confession that he spent his youth fucking mules. And this distinction--between what is "normal" and what is "natural"--I think pretty well captures so much of what is wrong with a certain strain of fundamentalist Christian ideology.

Here's a typical admission from Horsley: "I had sex with anything that moved. If we had a warm watermelon out in the field, I might give it a name." (Note to Horsley: watermelons are stationary.)

The logic goes like this: Because Eve ate the apple, Horsley was born in sin. Being born in sin, we all (well, men anyway) have a natural desire to have sex with anything that moves (as well as warm watermelons, apparently). And so, were it not for the beneficent intervention of our lord Jesus, we'd all be out humping mules.

Wow.

Yes, everyone is blogging about the interviews, and usually I don't just pile onto the fray, but having just listened to the interviews, I was compelled to provide the link. You can find them all on his wacko site.

The better part of valor

So yesterday a friend came by work to do some business and say hello. After she left, the receptionist says to me, "So she's not pregnant, huh?"

"Ah, no," I say, trying hard not to imagine the conversation that led to this conclusion.

"Well, she shouldn't wear that dress then," receptionist woman says.

Moyers on CPB the Ministry of Truth

Yelladog points us to this week's NYT story on CPB's attempts to moderate the "liberal bias" temper the left wing opinion force NPR to bend over and take W's agenda with a smile.

If you haven't read/heard Bill Moyers' speech to the National Conference for Media Reform, it's worth the click. As he indicates, Moyers has the dubious distinction of being monitored by CPB's Tomlinson (who paid $10G for said "monitoring"--jeez, I'd even watch O'Reilly for that).

Moyers, who is of course, retired now, is threatening to return to active duty:

I should put my detractors on notice: They might just compel me out of the rocking chair and back into the anchor chair.

Who are they? I mean the people obsessed with control, using the government to threaten and intimidate. I mean the people who are hollowing out middle-class security even as they enlist the sons and daughters of the working class in a war to make sure Ahmed Chalabi winds up controlling Iraq's oil. I mean the people who turn faith-based initiatives into a slush fund and who encourage the pious to look heavenward and pray so as not to see the long arm of privilege and power picking their pockets. I mean the people who squelch free speech in an effort to obliterate dissent and consolidate their orthodoxy into the official view of reality from which any deviation becomes unpatriotic heresy.

That's who I mean. And if that's editorializing, so be it. A free press is one where it’s OK to state the conclusion you're led to by the evidence.

A nod to what everyone else is talking about

I hereby acknowledge that I am the only sentient being in my country who does not care about the latest episode in the Star Wars opus. I just don't. It's like a belief in god--I've tried; I really have; I just can't muster the enthusiasm. Perhaps one day I will open some previously locked door in my psyche and find a taste for blockbuster movies alongside faith in a creator (as well as a desire to watch reality TV and a yearning for a new car though my old one works just fine). In the meantime, I share with anyone else who is a non-fan, the Village Voice review of Sith:

In debt to lurid sci-fi-novel cover art, Revenge of the Sith achieves the ultimate in what could be called Baroque Nerdism, a frame-filling aesthetic of graphic overdesign that began with The Phantom Menace and has now been jacked up to an absurd degree. Half the film takes place at dawn or dusk, so that the Marin County team can geek out on artificial roseate glow—a sugary luminence used so frequently one wonders if they developed a Maxfield Parrish plug-in to get the job done.

Hee hee. Baroque Nerdism. I love it. Anyway, the review is pretty funny and damn well written (even if they did misspell "luminance").

We're all going to hell

This depresses me so much I cannot even speak...

Looking on the bright side

Thinking this morning about yesterday's post and Galloway's use of the word "traduced" in his fervent speech before the Senate, it occurred to me that, say what I want about this administration, it hasn't been all bad. Just think of all of the words that one so rarely gets occasion to use that have been put back into frequent circulation. Venality, obfuscation, perfidy, and rapaciousness are just a few that come to mind. What's more, I've had increased motivation to brush up on history and literary classics. My heart is filled with gratitude.

My Mister Rogers' calendar today tells me that the word "caring" comes from the Gothic word kara, which means "to lament." Mr. Rogers says, "Caring is a matter of being there. . .lamenting right along with the one who laments." So, my regular readers, if no one's told you they care about you today, let me be the first.

What was that McClellan phrase?

Oh, that's right "a certain journalistic standard that should be met."

Apparently Newsweek is the only institution in the country expected to meet any kind of standards. God knows the Senate gets a pass. This from Galloway's defense of himself before HUAC HSGAC today:

Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are--let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war. . .

I think I'm going to start using that phrase--"let's be charitable and say..." As in "let's be charitable and say our country is run by a bunch of bloodthirsty criminals with absolutely no sense of accountability, ethics, or conscience.

(And as an aside, I would give my eye teeth for a president that could use the word "traduced" in a sentence.)

Scylla and Charybdis

My coworker said to me just now, "There's a thin line between deep depression and the feeling that life just didn't happen."

To get the full impact, you have to imagine the line delivered with a Russian accent.