Who Ya Gonna Call?
To recap some events:
- The Bush administration assures us in the breaking "domestic wiretapping" scandal — later and more accurately dubbed "domestic spying" — that they're only out to get the bad guys and they're only listening to limited phone conversations that have at least one terminus outside the US.
- The Administration lied. We now know that the NSA, at the administration's direction, was trying to amass a database of records of as many domestic phone calls as they could assemble, regardless of whether terrorist activity was indicated.
- Meanwhile, the big telecoms like AT&T are doing the full-court press with Congress to abolish the idea of "net neutrality" so that 1) they can peek inside all digital packets passing along their wires; and 2) charge a premium for "improved" service. Many old-timey network farts, myelf included, strongly believe that the network should remain as democratic as it has and that Congress should not sell out to the interests of big telecom.
- Now we learn that the big telecoms, like AT&T and Verizon, sold out to the Administration and simply gave up as many records as they could. Fortunately, some smaller companies like T-Mobile, and Qwest, still have some integrity.
- Now we learn from AmericaBLOG, in a surprising turn of events, that a bill to address the issue of wireless telecom companies selling phone-call records without customers' knowledge "suddenly disappeared" from the house agenda. As John Aravosis put it: "Legislation that no one disagreed with – legislation to protect your cell phone records – suddenly disappears from the House floor on the very day that we find out George Bush is spying on – what? – our phone records!"
- At this point, do we need reminding that the big telecoms are pushing real hard to scuttle net neutrality by saying "trust us", and that it might not be the best thing to do?
Sensitive Issues
I'm confused. It's this whole Mary-Cheney's-A-Lesbian-But-Don't-Dare-Call-Her-That thing.
Apparently John Kerry was a "son of a bitch" for saying that Mary Cheney is a lesbian during the presidential campaign in 2004. I guess it's because Repulicans have a well-known aversion to the truth. Good thing he didn't call Mary's dad a "Dick".
Oh, and I love the little bit about about Ms. C looked right at John Edwards and mouthed the words "Go F**k Yourself" — "mouthing" is so much more genteel than saying aloud, apparently. Everyone, by the way, quotes her with the asterisks — did she mouth the asterisks or did she use the Cheney-trademark phrase? Quelle butche!
But here's the conundrum. Apparently her new book is all about how normal is her relationship with her parents, about how they accept her and love her as she is without reservation,* etc., i.e., how indifferent they are all to the issue of her lesbianism.
And yet! And yet, Kerry is vilified for mentioning a "sensitive family issue", an "issue" that Ms. Cheney now is promoting as a non-issue, something that couldn't be less "sensitive".
My opinion: this dyke has a few issues to work out with herself.
———-
*Provided, of course, that she doesn't do something silly and un-Republican like fall in love and want to get married.
Have you Heard the One About the Digital Plumbers?
What an amusing set of spy-story dominoes John Aravosis set up and knocked over on his AMERICAblog this morning:
- At 12:42 am: "AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth giving the NSA the phone records of tens of millions of innocent Americans. Program goes far beyond what Bush claimed." — USAToday reports that the "limited" spying on domestic calls by the Bush administration was really much, much, much bigger than the administration claimed. According to one inside source: "The agency's goal is 'to create a database of every call ever made' within the nation's borders, this person added."
- At 11:26 am: Commentary called "Do you really trust George Bush to spy on you 'the right way'?" in which he addresses the bold-face question: Do you really trust George Bush to be competent enough to spy on all of your phone calls while at the same time protecting your privacy?
- At 11:50 am: In "Bush to speak at noon on newest domestic spying scandal" he predicts the prevarications that Bush will use to justify everything: "September 11 … limited program … leaks damage national security … it's all Clinton's fault."
- At 12:06 pm: "Bush's quick little speech to the nation defending his spying on all of your phone calls" and he's liveblogging the speech, demonstrating that his predictions were pretty much on the mark., expecially "First words, 'After September 11.'"
- At 12:25, sort of as a punchline to the morning in "CNN's David Ensor defends Bush domestic spying", he quotes this Ensor, "CNN's national security correspondent", as saying (my paraphrase): "Well, you probably won't find that these big companies broke any laws because, well, they're big companies and they've got lots of lawyers". (To state the obvious: big companies have lots of lawyers to defend them when they do what they want.)
For me the whole shaggy-dog story would be complete if only we referred to the spying technique not as "data mining" but as "data plumbing".
Digital plumbers! How nouveau Watergate!
[Addendum:]
At 6:03pm, in "Copy this and email it to your friends", John provides a transcript of remarks Jack Cafferty made today on CNN, from which I excerpt these words:
Shortly after 9-11, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth began providing the super secret NSA with information on phone calls of millions of our citizens, all part of the war on terror, President Bush says.
[…]
The President rushed out this morning in the wake of this front page story in USA Today and he declared the government's doing nothing wrong and all of this is just fine.Is it? Is it legal?
Then why did the Justice Department suddenly drop its investigation of the warrantless spying on citizens? Because the NSA said Justice Department lawyers didn't have the necessary security clearance to do the investigation.
In: All, Plus Ca Change..., Splenetics
Pete Wentz: Truth-Sayer
I have to admit that I am not a Pete Wentz fan, because until today I had never heard of him nor the band for which he plays bass, called "Fall Out Boy". However, I'm feeling very supportive thanks to an MTV story* about some good things Mr. Wentz said and the hysterical reaction of a religious fanatic.
It seems that the zealot, a mother, took her daughters to see a concert by Fall Out Boy, in Charlotte, NC, but was shocked when Mr. Wentz suggested from the stage that
You can leave this show and say, "I think this guy is an arrogant jerk," or think, "This band is better than this one," because these are your opinions. The only thing we consider unacceptable is for you to engage in sexist, racist or homophobic behavior. If you do, we don't want you as a fan. Return our merch and leave.'
The mother, who pointed out that Charlotte is not San Francisco [!], felt that she had fallen into a "liberal homosexual rally". Whew! But enough about her; our focus is on the good works of Mr. Wentz.
When asked for a response, Mr. Wentz refused to be cowed:
I try my best to be the best person I can be. I want to be a good role model for younger kids. I don't smoke, drink or do drugs. I censor myself the best I can, but at the same time, I am not going to change in order to simply make myself more lucrative. I encourage fans of our band to grow up to become good people and to change the world. Unfortunately, I don't believe that treating other people as inhuman is acceptable. If that is offensive to you, I apologize, but we don't want you to be part of our fanbase. [Our show] is not a liberal homosexual rally, but at the same time, it will never be a Ku Klux Klan rally. We don't need to sell tickets that badly.
———-
* Thanks to Shakespeare's Sister and her appropriately titled "Lunatic homobigot falls out with Fall Out Boy", 9 Mary 2006.
Beard of the Week
In a nice post* about how "pro-life" really means "anti-sex", Shakespeare's Sister quotes someone quoting someone as saying that "contraception encourages [among other things] sexual deviance (like homosexuality)." Oddly, the logical leap isn't nearly so far as one might imagine, given the premises.
First off, this does come as a bit of a surprise to me, since I wasn't aware that my homosexual longings could be traced to the existence of contraceptive … devices or drugs isn't clear. This probably proves it, though: I have so deeply repressed contraceptive encouragement of my deviance that I no longer even remember its influence.
Second, I encourage contraception because I encourage anything that encourages sexual deviance like homosexuality. It's all part of the total recruitment strategy to the homosexual lifestyle (which, in many cases, we see simply as deprogramming hard-core Christians from the brainwashing they got as youth in their fundamentalist sects).
Like beards, it's all part of the recruitment strategy. Like so many fashion trends that begin among gay men, the current fashion for facial hair seems to have originated with my favorite gay subculture: bears. How much consternation could I cause by circulating the rumor that facial hair is really a secret signalling method in the homosexual demi-monde, different beard styles indicating different tastes for different specific deviatiant practices? Not that it is, of course; I'm just asking.
The truth can now be told: my real agenda here with the Beard of the Week is to encourage sexual deviance, like homosexuality. Go forth and deviate!
———-
*Shakespeare's Sister, 'Breaking News: “Pro-Life” really means “Anti-Sex”', 8 May 2006.
"Noble" Lies
This was an unexpected but perceptive analysis of neocon philosophy from my current reading:*
Platonic elitism, unfortunately, is not merely a matter of ancient history; it is still drastically afflicting the human race even in the twenty-first century. The architects of American foreign policy who carried out the imperialist assaults on Afghanistan and Iraq are known to be zealous disciples of political philosopher Leo Strauss, an admirer of Plato. "The effect of Strauss's teaching is to convince his acolytes that they are the natural ruling elite," said Shaida Drury, who has written extensively on Strauss's ideas and their consequences.78 "Leo Strauss," she continued, "was a great believer in the efficacy and usefulness of lies in politics" who "justifies his position by an appeal to Plato's concept of the noble lie." Straussian influence was all too apparent in the Bush administration's use of deception and blatant falsehoods to convince the American public of the need to go to war against Iraq. "The ancient philosophers whom Strauss most cherished believed that the unwashed masses were not fit for either truth or liberty, and that giving them these sublime treatures would be like throwing pearls before swine."79
———-
*Clifford D. Conner, A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and "Low Mechanicks" (New York: Nation Books, 2005), p. 145.
78Footnote in source:
See Shadia Drury, The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss; and Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right.
The full citations from the bibliography:
Shadia Drury, The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss (London: Macmillan, 1988).
Shadia Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right (New York: Palgrave, Macmillan, 1999).
79Footnote in source:
Shadia Drury, "Noble Lies and Perpetual War."
The full citation from the bibliography:
Shadia Drury, "Noble Lies and Perpetual Was: Leo Strauss, the Neo-Cons, and Iraq." An interview with Shadia Drury by Danny Postel, October 16, 2003. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5010.htm
It Takes Balls to Navigate
I'm reading a somewhat odd book at the moment: A People's History of Science.* As you might surmise, the book has an attitude and a rather overt agenda but, aside from occasional philosophical inconsistencies on the part of the author, it's more interesting than annoying so far.
At any rate, the author was talking about the remarkable achievements of Pacific-Islanders when it came to navigating their ocean-going vessels across the broad, featureless expanses of the Pacific Ocean in prehistoric times (in the chapter called "Were Hunter-Gatherers Stupid?" — detect the attitude yet?). Quite a bit has been discovered about how they were able to navigate using, predominantly, observation of the stars at night and the sun at times during the day.
But when those techniques weren't available, navigators are said to have "read the swells". Ocean swells, you see, are the undulations in the ocean's surface that are the vestiges of very, very distant, wind-driven waves. Particularly in the Pacific, swells are generally consistent in their direction of origin, so if one can detect their direction of propagation, one can determine orientation with reasonable precision. Apparently, those who were adept at reading the swells could also detect perturbations due to nearby bodies of land — another aide to locating all those little islands.
He notes, via another book,# that "One Westerm seaman reported:"
I have heard from several sources, that the most sensitive balance was a man's testicles, and that when at night or when the horizon was obscured, or inside the cabin this was the method used to find the focus of the swells off an island.
Would it be churlish of me to point out that despite the reference to "this method", no method of using the testicles as a "most sensitive balance" is actually presented here? Does the "most sensitive" method involve only one person, or are more required? Are the testicles still attached to the man in question? How sensitive is it? Is observation visual or tactile?
My interest is purely scientific, of course.
———-
*Clifford D. Conner, A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and "Low Mechanicks" (New York: Nation Books, 2005).
#David Lewis, We the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994).
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Today's Huey Long
Many years ago the Nobel Prize winning novelist Sinclair Lewis warned us that when fascism came to America it would not arrive wearing a swaztika and marching a goose-step in jack boots. It would arrive looking like a good ole boy, speaking with a twang and smiling a friendly down home smile. He meant Huey Long. His warning could apply to George W. Bush. Such a man would stop at nothing to gain power, and having gained it, do everything to consolodate his power.
[Sherman Yellen, "Bush and the Grassy Knoll", The Huffington Post, 4 May 2006.]
Walnut Ketchup & Friends
I quite enjoyed reading Cooking with Jane Austen (by Kirstin Olsen, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 2005). Talking about food that had been mentioned by Ms. Austen in her writing, the book is about Regency period eating habits, food, and cooking. There were some recipes I wanted to make a note of, and I didn't really have a better place than right here. My main interest is the recipe for Walnut Ketchup — I've been interested in the history of ketchup for awhile now, and thought about doing research for a book on it — but the others caught my fancy, too.
These are the "modern versions" of the recipes, for which the author also gives one or sometimes two contemporary versions of the recipes; she's reinterpreted into modern language and techniques with as much fidelity as she could.
Walnut Ketchup
- 12 ounces of beer
- 4 cups of walnuts
- 1 cup of cider vinegar
- 1 head of garlic
- 3 ounces of anchovy filets
- 12 ounces of red wine
- 3/8 oz. ground mace
- 3/8 oz. ground cloves
- 3/8 oz. pink or green peppercorns
- 3/8 oz. black pepper
- 3/8 oz. allspice
- 3/8 oz. ground ginger
In a food processor, grind the walnuts finely. Add them to the beer and the cider, cover tightly, and refrigerate for up to 3 days.
Peel and chop or press the garlic. Place all the ingredients, including the marinating walnuts and their liquid, into a large suacepan over medium heat. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Cool to room temperature and refrigerate overnight. The next day, strain the liquid, discarding the solids, and bottle it. It will keep well in the refrigerator and can be canned according to the directions on your canning jars and canner.
Egg Sauce
- 2 eggs
- 0.25 lb. butter
Hard-boil the eggs and separate the whites from the yolks. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat and add the yolks, stirring until the yolks are thoroughly blended. Finely chop the whites, add them to the butter, and stir until warm, about 1 minute.
Mince Pie
- 1.25 lbs. skirt teak, finely chopped, browned, and the fat drained off
- 1 lb. lard or suet: cut into 0.25" dice
- 1.5 lbs. currants
- 1 apple, peeled, cored, and chopped into 0.25" dice
- zest and jice of two lemons
- 0.5 cup wine
- 1 tsp. kosher salt
- 1 T brown sugar
- 1 good pie crust (top & bottom)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Roll out the crust about 3/16" to 1/4" thick and cover the bottom and sides of 2 pie pans, trimming away the excess. Prick the crust in a few places around the bottom and sides. Fill the crusts with mincemeat. Roll out the leftover crust and cut two circles a little larger than the upper diamter of the pie pans. Place these top crusts over the pans, trim away any excess, and pinch the upper and lower crusts together all the way around the rim. Cut 3 vents in the top crust, each about 1.5" long, with a sharp knife. Bake until top crust is nicely browned and liquid begins to bubble and ooze at the sies and/or vents, about 60 to 90 minutes.
Ragout of Onions
- 1 lb. small boiling onions, peeled
- 4 large yellow onions, peeled and chopped in 0.25" dice
- 1/4 lb. (one stick) butter
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. pepper
- 1/2 cup beef broth
- 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup bread crumbs
Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-hight heat. As it begins to sizzle, add all the onions and stir occasionally until they brown and the brown coloring is uniformly distributed through the onions. (You can reduce the heat and let them continue to brown slowly if the rest of dinner is taking longer than yo'd like.)
Add the flour and stir until the mixture thickens (about 1 minute). Add the salt, pepper, broth, and mustard and stir until thoroughly incorporated (1 to 2 minutes). Turn off the heat. (The onions can be prepared up to this point and reheated whenever it is convenient.)
In a skillet, heat a small amount of oil or butter and toss some plain bread crumbs in it. Toast the bread crumbs over medium-low heat until they are nicely browned. Remove them from the heat.
When you are ready to serve the dish, reheat the onions on the stove and warm a serving dish. Spoon the onion ragout into the dish and sprinkle the bread crumbs on top.
Class Warfare, Bit by Bit
How odd. I just read a fascinating article by Blake Fleetwood ("A Nation of Frequent Flyer Junkies–25th Anniversary", The Huffington Post, 2 May 2006) about frequent-flyer awards programs. His thesis, which seems all correct and in order to me, is that these programs have created a hidden, two-class system in air travel, working to build loyalty towards vendors whose products are basically indistinguishable and providing privilege and kickbacks (legally shielded from their employers and the IRS) to corporate travelers. It was well worth reading.
It wasn't the piece that was odd, it was my reaction to it. As I read, I kept thinking that beneath the overt layer of meaning about frequent-flyer programs, there was an ironic layer beneat the surface in which Mr. Fleetwood was using frequent-flyer awards programs as a very clever metaphor to explain what would happen to the internet if the big telecom companies get their way in coercing congress to ditch the idea of "net neutrality" (for a summary of issues and links, see, e.g., Adam Green, "Mike McCurry — Hurting The Internet, Hurting His Admirers", The Huffington Post, 2 May 2006). The hidden, two-tiered structure of "preferred" customers, the "better" class of the "same" service offered to all, the kickbacks, the hidden costs — it's all there.
I waited for him to reveal the correspondance in an emotionally and intellectually satisfying "ta da!", but he never did. How odd.
In: All, Curious Stuff, Splenetics
Lies, Damned Lies, and White House Statistics
I've mentioned that I get occasional statements from Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) through the House Government Reform Committee, Minority Office. The following is the complete text of one that I got dated 28 April 2006. It's an interesting and rather petty example of the lengths to which the White House will go to manipulate facts and figures to support its own distorted view of reality.
Terrorism Attacks Surge in 2005
April 28, 2006 — Rep. Waxman issued a Flash Report today examining data released by the State Department and National Counterterrorism Center that shows that the number of reported global terrorism incidents has increased exponentially in the three years since the United States invaded Iraq–an increase of over 5,000% [i.e., of over 50 times] in the number of terrorist attacks and over 2,000% [i.e., over 20 times] in the number of deaths in three years.
The Administration claims that the 2005 data is [sic] not comparable with data from previous years because the rise in attacks is due to increased surveillance and better methodology. These are the same arguments the Administration made in 2003, when attacks rose to a 20-year high, and in 2004, when the number of attacks tripled in a single year.
When preparing this year's report, the Administration consulted with global terrorism experts who recommended that the Administration release data that could be compared to previous years. Professor David Laitin of Stanford University recommended that if the Administration changed its methodology, it should recalibrate data from previous years so we do not lose a sense of the time trends." Not only did the Administration reject this recommendation, but officials denied there commendation was ever made.
In response to the Administration's actions, Rep. Waxman stated: For the third year in a row, the Bush Administration is playing games withthe numbers to hide the truth: global terrorism has skyrocketed since the invasion of Iraq.
Interactive Toys
I can always count on my friend George to keep me up on the latest currents in popular culture. Just last week, for instance, we were talking in a casual way about recent events around the country when the conversation — somehow — naturally touched on sex toys, dildoes in particular.
I wondered whether anyone had yet interfaced a GameBoy to a dildo. "Yes!" was George's answer. Well almost: not a GameBoy but a video game controller, to achieve novelty in control and interactivity. Do dildoes these days come with USB ports, I wondered.
Everyone was skeptical about the USB ports — there might be a patent in there someplace — but interested in this concept of the XXXBox + Dildo. There's even a name for it, George explained. Naturally, we bated out breath in anticipation.
"Teledildonics," he said.
Teledildonics. We rolled the name around in our mouths, trying it out. It's a little awkward, perhaps, but it does have a certain ineffable je ne sais quois.
Sure enough, I'm behind the curve on this one. Google returns some 112,000 results for "teledildonics". The idea, it seems, is bigger than just a dildo plus a video-game controller — it's more like a total-body experience between you and your computer, assisted by one or more friends out on the network somewhere.
Wikipedia claims (entry for "Teledildonics") that the word was coined by Ted Nelson in the 1980s — see also "cyberdildonics". Boing Boing mentions it briefly ("Violet Blue's Teledildonics show-'n'-tell photoblogged"). Wired News has a story on it ("Ins and Outs of Teledildonics" — it seems the puns are irresistable). Even Time magazine has a story about it ("Will Cybersex be Better than Real Sex?"). Teledildonics.com wants to be our one-stop resource for all things teledildonics, but it's way too heterosexually oriented to be a success.
The concensus seems to be that teledildonics will be a great new thing in the future, but that the technology isn't even close yet. Sort of the AI and natural-speech recognition of the sex industry. Still, those pioneering efforts can be, um, satisfying.
In: All, Curious Stuff, The Art of Conversation
Beard of the Week
This beard, a lovely specimen of the modern version of the van Dyke, reminds me of one of the more extraordinary beards I've ever seen.
I saw this extraordinary beard only once some eight years ago. There were no bells that rang nor sirens that sounded; I was simply eating lunch at (of course!) my favorite Taco Bell. It was a workday lunch hour, so there were a number of other people eating. My attention drawn to him, no doubt, because he displayed facial hair, I noticed one patron who had, I thought at first glance, a van Dyke style beard.
As I studied the patron's beard more closely, I discovered an additional feature. Notice how the beard in the photo tapers along the side of the mouth and then ends just below the chin. The beard I observed that day indeed tapered down the side of the patron's mouth, but it did not end below the chin. Instead, it continued in a tapered fashion so that his beard continued in a progressively thinner strip down under his chin, down his throat and across his Adam's apple, whence it disappeared into his open shirt.
What an amazing visual effect it was! It's hard to say what images it evoked, but they tended towards the provocative. Did it look like an arrow pointing towards mysteries hidden below his shirt, or more something like the chasing lights on a movie marquee, or just a beard-fall that slipped off his face and beneath his collar?
Regardless, it was a sight that has remained vivid in this beard connoisseur's memory.
Call It Macaroni
He [Parson Woodforde, writing in his diary c. 1820, in England] also, on more than one occasion, notes eating a somewhat exotic starch: "Maccaroni," which had been popularized in England by young men returning from the Italian portions of the Grand Tour. (Some of these aristocratic young men, in the mid-eighteenth cnetury, formed a club called the Macaroni Club, in which they met to reminisce about the Italian journeys and to calculate how best to shock their parents and the public at large. They adopted outrageous fashions designed to draw comment and succeeded admirably. They and their imitators were satirized and lionized in numerous series of prints, and "Macaroni" became a term for someone who was self-consciously fashionable or truly cutting edge. This is the reason that the song "Yankee Doodle" contains that odd, apparently nonsensical reference to macaroni. The song was originally sung by British soldiers to taunt the Americans: you are such bumpkins, the message ran, that you stick a stupid feather in your hats and think that's fashion.)
[Kirsten Olsen, Cooking with Jane Austen (Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut) 2005.]
In: All, Eureka!, Such Language!
On Turning 50
My birthday is 30 April. This year I turned 50. It struck me that this is, for some reason, a landmark age at which one is expected to reflect and offer wisdom. I don't, however, really have any wisdom to offer.
We did manage to have a busy weekend, though. My preoccupation last week was preparing for the first Annual Meeting of the Board of Directors of Ars Hermeneutica, the nonprofit science-education and scientific-research corporation that I founded in 2004. Before this year I'd slowly been committing myself to Ars as my future, and this meeting was a milestone because we elected four new directors; before then it was just myself and Isaac. Four new people who agreed to share the vision and said "yes" to lending their names. It adds a certain amount of reality to something that had pretty much existed only in my own head before.
That meeting was Saturday night. This also is the time of year when there's a good surge of work for me to do in my paid consulting work maintaining the website for The Fund for Peace, yet another nonprofit in our lives. I've done their website since 1999; Isaac has worked for them since 2002 or so. Anyway, they now do an annual project with Foreign Policy magazine called "The Failed States Index", and there was quite a bit to put together before we offered that up for public consumption last night, just past midnight.
Isaac was busy, too. We have friends, a mixed-gender married couple, who both teach clarinet and saxophone. They have an annual recital for their students at which Isaac has provided the accompanying piano for the past several years. The recital was yesterday; the four-hour rehearsal with all the students was Saturday morning. The recital itself was actually quite pleasant this year: the music was interesting and the students all were in top form.
On Friday night it was theatre! The ten-year-old daughter of some other friends was playing "Mowgli" in "The Jungle Book Kids" at a local elementary school, so we went to that. It was also great fun. Such energy these kids had — and lots of talent, too! Some of the production values — costumes and stage set — were quite creative and lavish. Just imagine one person sewing all those animal costumes for a couple dozen kids. The forest was quite impressive. The Mowgli-mother choreographed the kids' dances, and they did a good job. She'd also done the choreography for our own "Crazy for You", which our theatre troupe did a month ago. Those of us watching "Jungle Book" who'd been in "Crazy for You" thought we recognized a number of the steps the kids were doing. It was an odd sense of dance déjà-vu.
I guess I was just too busy this weekend to reflect and collect up wisdom to share. When I have a few spare moments I'll try to give it some thought — I'll let you know when I have some.
Today's Reactions
- Don't you wonder how any working person in America is getting any work done? There are so many polls going on to show how low W's "approval rating" has sunk (down to 32% and dropping) that one imagines everyone spending all their time on the phone answering pollster's questions. (Love this title: "God's Foreign Policy Approved by 32 Percent")
- Pam Spaulding called Elizabeth Dole "Sugar Lips Dole" and I had a good laugh.
- I'm very much enjoying the pieces written by Dr. Peter Rost at The Huffington Post; today I read "Winners and Losers in the Medicare Drug Lottery".
- For a day or two, there's been interesting talk of state legislatures taking the initiative, according to "obscure" parliamentary rules written by Jefferson, with resolutions of impeachment (in Vermont and Illinois, at least).
- In a few years' time: with all the authors who will undoubtedly be busy writing exposés about the currrent administration's mendacity, will anyone be available to write the book about the manufactured "gasoline crisis"?
- Speaking of the oil industry, I'm wondering whether the reaction to Lee Raymond's "compensation" while at Exxon-Mobile, not to mention his retirement package, will lead to any effective outrage over the disparity between CEO "compensation" and that of their average worker.
- Misty related a very amusing, Seuss-like poem about sex toys, in honor of South Carolina. The concept that using a sex toy is "adultery" is pretty odd, but who can be surprised?
Spend Less, Get More
The U.S. Health system looks especially dysfunctional when you consider how much money we spend per capita on healthcare — $6,000 plus per year, twice as much as any other country — and how little we get for it.
Canada spends $2,163 and boasts a life expectancy of 79.8 years, two and a half years longer than the US. Their infant mortality rate per thousand is also better than ours, as is their adult mortality rate.
Switzerland spends about 11% of its Gross Domestic Product on universal health care for all its citizens, while the U.S. (with 50 million uninsured this year) spends 15% of GDP with embarrassing results.
[Blake Fleetwood, "Cuba has Better Medical Care than the U.S.", The Huffington Post 24 April 2006.]
Am I the only one who takes the point that we, the US, wastes an amazing amount of "health-care" money on an insurance system that itself wastes a great deal of money to see to it that a large number of people do not get the health care that we could easily afford — if only we provided it for everyone?
Feingold on Honesty
"They're not very good at running the country," [Russ Feingold] said of the GOP, "but they're brilliant at intimidating Democrats." As for his fellow Democratic contenders for the 2008 nomination, he suggested that many of them are still dominated by fear of a Rovian attack on their patriotism or national security credentials.
Feingold argued that reluctance to be baited on national security cost Democrats the Presidency in 2004, and that "most Democrats don't know how to talk straight to the American people about what they believe."
[…]
"Just tell people what you believe," said Feingold. "They may or may not agree with you, but they'll respect you."
[R.J. Eskow, "Feingold And the 'Foxhole Democrats'", The Huffington Post, 24 April 2006.]
Gore on Equality
Former Vice-President Al Gore was the keynote speaker at the Human Rights Campaign's Gala event on 25 March 2006 (apprarently in Los Angeles, CA). IN Los Angeles magazine excerpted parts of his speech, of which these are only a few paragraphs.
As I was on the way here, I reflected on why is there so much controversy about the question of equality for gays and lesbians. Why? This fight has been so long and so hard for something that is so simple and so right.
President Harry Truman once said in the White House, "I spend 95 percent of my time trying to persuade people to do what they ought to be doing in their own best interest anyway. And the Human Rights Campaign has the right to say the same thing. After all, for God's sake, you're asking for monogamy and military service. Is that too much to ask for? You're asking for the simple right to be who you are and to be free from intimidation and persecution and discrimination and injustice designed to make you hide from who you really are. You're asking to make your life alongside the person you fall in love with. You're asking for the right to have full and equal recognition for that relationship and to form a life-long bond. That's not too much to ask for. You're asking for the right to fight for our country and if necessary, to die for our country. That's not too much to ask. You're asking as Americans for individual dignity and that's not too much to ask. This cause, this vision of what is right and what is just seems controversial because it does trigger a vulnerability to those fears that are continually inspiring.
[A] future generation will look back and truly wonder how this could have happened [this controversy], just as we look back and wonder how some of the strange practices that embody such horrific injustice in ages past but never have been tolerated — they will look back at this period of time and feel puzzled and they will see and understand that the vision that has brought all of us here inspires a passionate devotion to justice and necessary change and the feeling of camaraderie among us all.
[first seen at Pam Spaulding, "Al Gore's evolution on gay marriage?", Pam's House Blend, 22 April 2006.]
Beard of the Week
This week we double our fun. The young gentlemen — unknown to me, alas — are showing off two styles of beard that are probably the most popular in current fashion: a van Dyke (on the left) and a trimmed, full beard (on the right).
The van Dyke — a chin beard with mustache that may or may not be attached — is commonly called a "goatee", but this is a misnomer, at least until the shift in terminology is fully adopted. The "goatee" properly refers only to a small beard on the chin, without a mustache, rather in the manner of a goat.
As an aging curmudgeon, I find it irritating when previously unambiguous terminology becomes muddied and loses its utility, at least for awhile. In my writing, when I refer to this style of beard, I will call it a "van Dyke", or sometimes a "mouth beard" — to distinguish it from a "chin beard" — when I want to conjure up the definite image. Not surprisingly, I begrudge calling it a "goatee", so I avoid that moniker altogether.
If I start to feel like a crusade, perhaps I'll start insisting that the van Dyke, rather than being called a "goatee", be more appropriately called a "schnauzer".
Back when I was working at the University of Maryland, I had a colleague who had wirey, wavy hair and who wore a van Dyke. He drove a Volkswagon Beetle, and whenever I saw him drive by, I always had the initial impression that the car was being driven by a Schnauzer. For some reason, this never alarmed me.