Florida

Can we please just sever it at the panhandle and let it float out to sea?

10 x 10

Jonathan Harris is at it again. I love Harris' Wordcount that presents the most used words in English graphically. Here we can learn, for example, that "mandate" is the 9804-most used word, right behind "outrageous" (9802) and "lied" (9803). "Bush" is number 2629; reading sequentially, we get "bush admits specifically agents smell." What fun. Harris' latest, 10 x 10, compiles photos and words from RSS feeds (Reuters World News, BBC World Edition, and New York Times International News) using "an elaborate process of weighted linguistic analysis" to determine the most important words and then matching images to the words. I'm not sure how scientific it is, but it's pretty nifty.

Where the blood is coming from

So I had to work today, which just feels wrong to me, and I am bone weary. Part of my job is coordinating volunteers who come in from around the world to serve on workgroups, and one of those workgroups is in town right now, so posting will be light these next few days. Today in the workgroup we were talking about race and diversity. And humanity really. In particular we were discussing the need to reach across racial lines in the work we do (which is a-political, I feel I must clarify). We were talking too about the need to keep sight of our similarities, our common bond, even while we respect and try to speak to our differences. "Aren't we all red inside," one of the workgroup members said. "Or really red and blue," he corrected himself, "depending on where the blood is coming from."

Faces of the Fallen

Saw this referenced at MyDD. The Washington Post has a chart showing a picture of every service person that has died in Iraq as well as ages, where they were from, where they were serving and how they died. Grim stuff. 1166 as of November 11.

ceci n'est pas une critique

Got this one from Harper's. It's not new (posted 15 July 2004), but it's such nice found poetry it has a timeless feel.

The following assertions were collected from public statements made by George W. Bush and his official spokesmen since 1997.

The President of the United States is not a fact-checker.
I’m not a statistician.
I’m not a numbers-cruncher.
I’m not one of these bean counters.
I’m not very analytical.
I’m not a precision guy.
The President is not a micromanager.
I’m not a member of the legislative branch.
The President is not a rubber stamp for the Congress.
I’m not a censor-guy.
I’m not a lawyer.
I’m not a doctor.
The President is not an economist.
I’m not a stockbroker or a stock-picker.
I’m not a forecaster.
I’m not a predictor.
I’m not a pollster, a poll-reader guy.
I’m not a very good prognosticator of elections.
I’m not a committee chairman.
I’m not of the Washington scene.
I’m not a lonely person.
I’m not a poet.
I’m not a very good novelist.
I’m not a textbook player.
I’m not an emailer.
I’m not a very long-winded person.
I’m not a very formal guy.
I am not a revengeful person.
I’m not an Iraqi citizen.
I’m not a divider.
I am not a unilateralist.
I’m not a tree, I’m a Bush.

Looking for the report on Gulf War Syndrome that has just been released, I went to the Dept. of Veterans Affairs...How May We Serve You? Burial. Wow.

The Gov'nor is in Tokyo this week on a trade mission.

A picture from the war

This picture, of soldiers at ease in a mosque is from The New York Times. I pinched it from Body and Soul where the concise post pretty much captures my thoughts.

Kristalnacht in Falluja

Postmortem

The Pew Research Center released a study Thursday about the election. Despite the stupid title, Voters Liked Campaign 2004, But Too Much 'Mud-Slinging' there is some interesting stuff. Most of it is predictable or over-reported already, but some ways into the report, I encountered this:

A narrow majority of Democrats (52%) think the party's leaders should stand up to the Republicans on issues that are important to Democratic supporters; 42% think Democratic leaders should try to work with Republican leaders even if it means disappointing some groups of Democratic supporters.

I cannot imagine what would possess someone who called themselves a Democrat to determine the Dems should "work with" the Republicans. I'm really thinking Rodney King here. After they beat the crap out of you, you're asking, "Why can't we all just get along"? My message to 42% of Democrats: The situation really will seem brighter as soon as you get your heads out of your asses.

News

It's a cheap laugh, I know, but apparently a man did actually bite a dog today (or at least that's what the police are saying). In fact, they say he nearly bit off the ear of a police dog. What's particularly newsworthy to me is that the police in Kansas City have enough time on their hands to chase down folks who stiff cab drivers and release their dogs on them. Geez, when I managed a store in D.C., I couldn't get a cop in to arrest a shoplifter if no blood was involved.

U2's New Album

I have tried to avoid weighing in on the "Arafat as dignified statesman" sentiment that seems to be all over the news. Obviously, the situation in Israel/Palestine is complex and I have been a little more given to simplified thinking lately. One more rant just didn't seem helpful.

That said, I have had a hard time listening to the news lately, particularly the progressive news (KPFK, for instance). It seems as though every time I turn it on, someone is saying "Well, now we'll all find out that the reason we don't have peace in the Middle East is because of the Jews." This morning I tried again, and again, they were interviewing Palestinians who were talking about what's wrong with the Jews.

So I changed the station to KCRW, which was playing music. I really like Nic Harcourt's Morning Becomes Eclectic. Nic comes on and says he has a track from the new U2 album. Oh good, I think, maybe it will be some good old fashioned anti-war U2. The song begins:

Bow down

Lay down
Lay down
Lay your sweet lovely on the ground
Lay your love on the track
We’re gonna break the monster’s back

Lay down your treasure
Lay down now brother
You don’t have time
For a jealous lover
As you enter this life
I pray you depart
With a wrinkled face
And a brand new heart

At this point in the song I'm wondering if it's going to do that U2 turn to address war. Sure enough the next stanza goes like this:

I don’t know if I can take it
I’m not easy on my knees
Here’s my heart, I’ll let you break it
We need some release, release, release
We need love and peace
Love and peace

And then comes this:

Lay down
Lay down your guns
All your daughters of Zion
All your Abraham sons

Am I being paranoid here? I could just be ignorant or misunderstanding the song, but it does appear to be telling the Jews to lay down their arms. I'm not sure I want to get into a big debate here about culpability--I just wanted to say it really disappointed me.

For Veteran's Day, or the ten minutes remaining, here are some posters from National Archives

This one is special for K

A very LA-type war poster

sweaters

My oldest friend A's conversation with a sales clerk yesterday:

A: I see the regular sweaters and I see the petite sweaters, but I don't see the fat people sweaters anywhere.
Clerk: You mean the beautiful women sweaters? They're over behind the petites.
A: Well, that figures. What were they thinking to make us shop right next to the petites?
Clerk: Honey, we rule.
A: You know how you know that?....Because we eat all their food.

I really love this woman.

Godly America and Worldly America

I don't really agree with the oversimplification of this piece by Simon Schama, but the guy just writes so damn well I had to share it.

Schama on reaching across the divide:

I don't want to heal the wound, I want to scratch the damned thing until it hurts and bleeds - and then maybe we'll have what it takes to get up from the mat. Do we think the far-right Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, in the ashy dawn of his annihilation in 1964, wanted to share? Don't think so. He wanted to win; sometime. And now, by God, he has.

And on the inefficacy of technology to persuade:

For most of us purblind writers spend our days in Worldly America and think that Godly America is some sort of quaint anachronism, doomed to atrophy and disappear as the hypermodernity of the cyber age overtakes it, in whatever fastness of Kentucky or Montana it might still circle its wagons. The shock for the Worldlies is to discover that Godly America is its modernity; that so far from it withering before the advance of the blog and the zipdrive, it is actually empowered by them. The tenacity with which Godly America insists the theory of evolution is just that - a theory - with no more validity than Creationism, or that Iraqis did, in fact, bring down the twin towers, is not in any way challenged by the digital pathways of the information age. In fact, such articles of faith are expedited and reinforced by them. Holy bloggers bloviate, Pentecostalists ornament their website with a nimbus of trembling electronic radiance and, for all I know, you can download Pastor John Ashcroft singing the Praises of the Lord right to your Godpod.

I was feeling pretty blue, it being Veteran's Day and all (did you know more part-time reservists died Monday than any single day in the last year and half?), but Schama cheered me up a little (and so did my haircut).

Colonization

So I have been thinking about this whole what-to-do-now issue. We all know the solutions being proposed: emigrate, secede, get busy... But I am thinking...what about colonization? By my figuring, Florida needs something like 400,000 democrats to turn blue again; Ohio needs 130,000 or so. We can round up 530,000 people from places like California and still have a solid majority there. Don't get me wrong: I have no desire to move to Miami (though "jobless recovery" is strong there due to the hurricane apparently--natural disasters having done for our unemployment what the administration cannot), but if I were going with 529,999 other folks I could sacrifice. And maybe some of you fine folks from Boulder, Colorado or Athens, Georgia or Austin, Texas would be willing to abandon your islands in the red seas and join up. Anyone in?

Mary Cheney

I find it fairly amazing that Mary Cheney has been referenced in more than 100,000 news citations in the last six weeks. This according to a study of political buzzwords by The Global Language Monitor. I really must live in deep denial most of the time. I have no idea what interests most people I think.

Among the lists of buzzwords:

Colossal Error: Kerrys judgment on Bushs Iraq policy. Evidently following California Olive Growers Association Guidelines for measuring the size of olives -- Large, Extra Large, Jumbo, Gigantic, Colossal and Super Colossal. This leaves wiggle room for a 'super-colossal error'.

Shopping

Can I just say how much I love the Unemployed Philosophers Guild? Myself, I have the Freud and Couch finger puppet set in my office (frighteningly appropriate), but check out the link above to the Disappearing Civil Liberties Mug. Pour in coffee and the Bill of Rights vanishes. Though of course, were it truly reflective of our time, the Second Amendment would still be in place. I also really love the Axis of Evil finger puppet set.