Reading the Times in California

Unnecessary parody

2005-10-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

Does Maureen Down think she's writing for the Onion?! Her article of today (which, unfortunately, is behind a TimesSelect wall of registration and money, which I get because I subscribe to the paper version, and which you can if you do, too, or if you pay the fee to get the online content) is UTTERLY FUCKING RIDICULOUS.

Let's go through it bit by bit, shall we?

Her opening line:

W. was the best Harry ever had.

is just insulting. First, it takes the liberty of assigning a Bush-style nickname to the supreme court nominee Harriet Miers. Maybe this is a nickname she already has, but, AFAIK, it hasn't come out in the press yet. It's therefore just parody -- not lampooning based on fact -- to make one up one's self. Also, the line is sexual in its overtones, which is also insulting and completely unsubstantiated.

Next, she prints the text of one belated birthday card that Miers sent to Bush in 1997. Sure, Miers can't punctuate (which is, in itself, excoriable in a supreme court nominee):

"You are the best Governor ever - deserving of great respect!"

Eh. Sure, dumb card. But were those ten words sufficient to mock for the next several hundred?

Really. I'm considering registering maureendowdsucks.com and just ripping her apart every week. Not like I don't anyhow ... Hmm ...

Steel Magnolia

2005-10-04T02:15:00.000-07:00

This is not from the Times, but it's so egregious I had to post something. Up late coding, I'm listening to the news about Bush's latest Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers. Martin Frost (who was apparently "served in Congress from 1979 to 2005, representing a diverse district in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area") says:

There are other interesting aspects to her nomination. There currently are no Southerners on the court (individuals who spent their adult life in the South) and Miers is a somewhat soft-spoken Southern woman. However, no one should mistake her quiet nature for a lack of toughness or resolve. She is a steel magnolia Â something hostile senators from both the left and right will find out when they try to embarrass her during the confirmation process.

(Sorry for the Fox News link, but it was the only hit at 2:19 PDT for "steel magnolia miers").

To hear him say it (as he just did on NPR) is disgusting. "She's a real southern lady ... she'll be a real interesting presence on the court ..." So we're looking for steel magnolias now? This is just so ... disgustingly fetishist, somehow.

NYT Archive Link Generator

2005-09-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

Shoulda found this a long time ago:

http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink

Links permanently into the archives, with GET headers telling the Times that the link is coming from a blog. Cool!

FSM!

2005-08-29T21:36:00.000-07:00

The Flying Spaghetti Monster has finally made the big time. This image is just too good to not re-post:

I first heard about this maybe a year ago (6 months? Something small), but apparently now, the FSM (not to be confused with Finite State Machine) is endoresd by many educators, and is bringing a lawsuit against the Kansas Board of Education.

Hurrah for parody! And hurrah for snarky, anti-ridiculism parodies picked up by the NYT.

Grammar warms my heart

2005-08-29T14:45:00.000-07:00

There may be many things I don't like about Roberts as a Supreme Court nominee. But I can't help it that his apparent tendency as a grammarian who sent back briefs that had sound legal arguments but stylistic holes warms the cockles of my shoulda-been-a-journalist-or-at-least-a-copy-editor heart. :)

More EW

2005-08-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

As if fish additives in your bread weren't bad enough, now, just in case you're the type of person willing to drop $45k on a fur coat this winter, you have to be sure it's not coming from THE SKIN OF FETAL LAMBS. EW.

Food additives

2005-08-11T09:37:00.000-07:00

This article is just one of the reasons why I try to eat as much of my food as possible from local, organic, and unprocessed sources. How appetizing does this sound?

On a recent summer morning, he hovered over a whirling assembly line as a waterfall of gray liquid cascaded over slabs of breaded chicken. Then the magic began.

During the bath in the liquid solution, which consisted of water and protein molecules extracted from a slurry of chicken or fish tissue, a thin, imperceptible shield formed around the meat. When the chicken was submerged in oil, the coating blocked fat from being absorbed from the fryer.

The point, of course, is the next sentence, which states that the result contained 50% less fat than normal fried chicken. But who would want to eat chicken coated with a "gray liquid ... consist[ing] of ... a slurry of chicken or fish tissue"? EW!

Apparently, lots of Americans. And this is perhaps what most disgusts me:

The most obvious way to get more fiber into the diet is to increase consumption of whole and unprocessed fruit, vegetables and beans. But food companies say that many Americans are unwilling to make significant changes in their eating choices to do this, and food companies are more than willing to fill in the gaps.

...

Food companies insist that, unlike their critics, they are pragmatists. They say their consumer research shows that convenience and taste still outrank nutrition as the top priority for most people and that consumers have no intention of giving up their favorite foods.

That is good news for the industry. If Americans stopped eating large quantities of fried chicken, sweetened breakfast cereal, cookies and snack chips, the financial health of many companies would suffer. [emph. added]

Oh, I bet they are. Remind me NEVER TO BUY ANYTHING PROCESSED, EVER AGAIN, just in case I should get FISH EXTRACT in my bread:

Coming soon to your grocery store, for example, could be ... bread containing microscopic capsules of fish oil, enabling food companies to contend that the bread is "heart-healthy" because of the cholesterol and triglyceride-lowering omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil.

Again, I say: EW! I don't suppose they'll even bother LABELLING this, so those of us that prefer to know what we're eating can avoid it, eh? Answer: no. To wit:

The label on the bread, [Jim Zallie, a food scientist and National Starch group vice president] says, is unlikely to advertise the fish oil content, but simply cite the presence of omega-3's.

Fuckers.

Sigh. All the more reason to get that sourdough starter going, and just make my own ...

Army discipline

2005-08-09T10:25:00.001-07:00

A special today on how US soldiers in Iraq can get sped-up citizenship. Good; they should.

But, a detail I did not know:

Some joke that the privilege of citizenship comes more easily now to American troops than sex or alcohol, both banned in a war zone. [emph. added]

Woah! Seriously? I'd heard the Army was Draconian, but ... wow.

Indulgences

2005-08-09T10:25:00.000-07:00

Reasons why I love the New York Times, #89,632: the following juxtaposition, from the international roundup:

Pope Benedict XVI plans to grant special indulgences -- remittances of punishment for sins -- to hundreds of thousands of young Roman Catholics expected to attend the church's World Youth Day ...

The church's practice of selling indulgences in the Middle Ages helped to spawn the Reformation.

No, really. Despite my ellipses, it reads just like that. Heh.

Nothing gained

2005-08-09T09:45:00.000-07:00

Apparently, someone else has done a lot more research on the whole daylight savings extension than I did before writing about it. I sagely said something like "who gets up that early, anyhow?"; what I didn't really consider was "getting up that early" in November means "before 8:30." I'll have you know I'm up by 8 on weekday mornings -- only my sister, who has a late shift, and my roommate's dysfunctional imbecile of a boyfriend (nothing to do with his sleep habits), who has no job and isn't bothering to try to find one, sleep that late.

So, I stand corrected. This op-ed is worth a read (they're the best part of the paper, esp. when Down/Vowell aren't writing -- pithy, short, and with license to be more direct than the rest of the articles), if for nothing else than the history of screwing with clocks in this country. Check it:

" ... the Germans were the first to try [daylight savings] in 1916, hoping that it would help them conserve fuel during the First World War. .... The fuel savings never materialized."
"That most Americans still believe we save daylight to help farmers tells you something about the quality of debate on this perennial controversy. In fact, farmers hated daylight saving." Uh, oops -- that's what I thought, too ...
"By 1965, 71 of the largest American cities practiced daylight saving and 59 did not."
"Richard Nixon infamously mandated year-round daylight saving in 1974 and 1975. This ... put school children on pitch-black streets every morning until the plan was scaled back."

Okay, great. When this provision made it into the energy omnibus, I just assumed that it had been well-researched and -vetted by dispassionate experts. Guess I still have too much faith that government is out to do the Right Thing.

Not, I'm saying, that this is the Wrong Thing. Just that it was perhaps a Poorly Researched Thing. Hmm ... guess time (no matter how you measure it) will tell.

I LIVE here

2005-08-05T10:27:00.000-07:00

An article on the tomatoes in the Berkeley Bowl in this week's Dining Out section. Oh god, the mouth waters -- and I live here! (Well, not quite in the Berkeley Bowl proper, but damn close to it!) Wheeee!

The author is clearly in as much slack-jawed, foodie-nirvana, dumbfounded ecstasy as I was the first time I went there. To wit:

You can't help it. The sun is beating down outside like some kind of Provencal demon and here amid the sawdust-strewn aisles of this bland, low-lying store, there are 20 - 20! - varieties of heirloom tomatoes stacked, strewn and otherwise arrayed, taunting you, the defenseless shopper.

Come hither. For $2.49 a pound.

Welcome to Northern California, ye defenseless New Yorker.

Their enumeration of the types of tomatoes available is worth reproducing in full (educational value, NYT, educational value):

The Pink Zebra looked like a cross between a Fuji apple and a peach; it was sweet, not acidic, with deep pink flesh inside. The Cherokee Purple was deep vermilion with dark green streaks on the outside. Cut open, it looked like a hunk of raw meat, with firm flesh and little juice. The Lemon Boy was pale on the inside, tart and less intense than the others. The Beefmaster looked like a gnarly pincushion on the outside; inside it had deep red flesh and burst with flavor.

I also tried the Wilgenberg hothouse, the Miyashita Nursery, the Momotaro, Big Beef, Dr. Wych's Yellow, Zebras (striped bright lime on the outside, kiwi-colored on the inside), Pineapple Stripe (squat and small), Mountain Delight (orange shaped and deep yellow in color) and the plum-colored Black Prince.

Whew.

And somehow, I've managed to miss this ... I think it's been my fast-paced weekends of late, or the fact that there are beautiful heirlooms in slices at one of the sandwich bars at Google, or my avoidance of the 'Bowl on weekends because of its craziness (which even the New Yorker acknowledges: "Such passion is not uncommon at the Berkeley Bowl, where the carts bang into one another in the narrow byways, even on a weekday afternoon. And this, I was assured, was a particularly calm hour." I think this weekend, I need to get back to the 'Bowl and get me some tomatoes. Yummmm ...

Daylight saaaavings

2005-07-27T10:26:00.000-07:00

There's a lot I could say about the broad energy bill on the table. I should maybe read up on it a little more to really comment on what's going on (though "defeat of the provisions to cut oil use and increase use of renewable fuels as well as the fact that the measure sidestepped the issue of global warming and ignored automotive mileage standards" sounds bad).

But the weirdest, perhaps, is this:

In a provision that may be most noticed by Americans, daylight savings time would be extended in 2007, beginning on the second Sunday in March and lasting until the first Sunday in November, to save electricity.

It was at this point I looked up and verified the byline on the top of the page, making sure that I hadn't accidentally picked up a copy of The Onion, or wasn't reading a post to the internal humor list at work. Uh. What?

On thinking about it for a minute or two, thought, it seems to make sense. During the summer months, when daylight savings time is in effect, it's lighter later. This means it doesn't get light quite as early, but really, who gets up that early, anyhow? This is probably what legislators were banking on, here: that by extending those months during which it's lighter later, effectively prolonging summer (if one can call it that from mid-March until early November! -- I suppose the only place in the country where residents won't feel extremely affected is California, where it's always fucking summer), people will come home while it's still light out, and not have to turn on more lights until an hour later. That's a lot of electricity to be saved, and it sounds like a good idea. (Never mind that autoefficientcy standards are also a good fucking idea, but that's another post.)

But it's certainly weird to realize in no uncertain terms that things I've perceived as facts of nature are subject to governmental whims. It makes sense, once I think about it, that daylight savings time is just something someone decided on, but it's felt like such an entrenched institution, that I would never have dreamed of suggesting it be changed. It's as if they were proposing that the east coast be less humid, to save on air conditioning bills, in my mind. It makes perfect sense that it's something someone can just decide on, and I can frame it in terms of doing something good for the country, along the lines of wartime rationing (even if it fucks with your seasons), but it still feels a bit weird, à la, "I know! Let's put 35 days in July!"

Crazy.

An unusual race

2005-07-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

I started reading this article because its protagonist was simultaneously running for Congress and calling Bush a "chicken hawk." Heh. But upon further examination, it appears that both candidates for this office are a bit
unusual. To wit:

The Democratic candidate, Paul L. Hackett, is a Marine, a veteran of Iraq, is calling Bush names for not having served in Vietnam, and is "harshly critic[cal of] the decision to invade
Iraq."

The Republican candidate, Jean Schmidt (I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND HOW WOMEN CAN BE REPUBLICANS!), has completed 54 marathons. Holy shit.

That is all. Just, these ain't your run-of-the-mill politicians.

Lakoff on Dems, Language

2005-07-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

George Lakoff's is a name I've heard bandied about for a while. At Swarthmore, he was the dark side of linguistics -- they, like most institutions, taught the Chomsky party line, which is meaty enough to occupy the entirety of one's entire B.A.; but he was mentioned from time to time (more so, predictably, as I veered away from syntactical analysis and into cognitive science). I don't fully understand the rift that occurred between him and his mentor, the founder of modern linguistics (as Matt Bai says, a bit presumptuously, in the article I'm about to start talking about: "The technical basis of their argument, which for a time cleaved the linguistics world in two, remains well beyond the intellectual reach of anyone who actually had fun in college"), but I do understand that it's about embodiment -- the idea that human cognition, and therefore language, is fundamentally tied to the physical structure of our minds, and that to understand the mind is to understand the brain. More or less.

This is a fascinating argument, and I wish I knew more about it. But, embarrassingly, I've never read any Chomsky or Lakoff, and don't much feel like going back for a PhD in linguistics right now, which is the one context in which I can fathom having time to wrap my head around it to the degree I'd like to.

But Lakoff is apparently a rising star on the political scene right now, his ideas quickly becoming much more germane to the Democrats, and their approach to -- well, everything. Matt Bai has written the cover story to this week's New York Times Magazine, a nice, New-Yorker-length summary of, as Lakoff and now the DNC et al. call it, the "framing" problem. It's longish, but I'd print it out and read it on the way home from work if I were you. (That is, if I were you and not driving home from work -- it's hard to read while keeping one's eyes on the road.)

Basically, everyone knows the Dems fucked up the 2004 election big-time. What was clear to anyone watching the debates, watching Kerry's slow-on-the-uptake response to the swift boat brouhaha, was not that anyone candidate's ideas were better (or, in some cases, different) that the other's, but rather that one side did an amazing job of presenting them, and the other solidified his reputation as an intellectual elitist nuanced thinker -- to his detriment. (Sigh.)

Says Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND): "I can describe, and I've always been able to describe, what Republicans stand for in eight words, and the eight words are lower taxes, less government, strong defense and family values." That's important; the Dems can't do that. As he goes on to acknowledge: "We Democrats, if you ask us about one piece of that, we can meander for 5 or 10 minutes in order to describe who we are and what we stand for. And frankly, it just doesn't compete very well. I'm not talking about the policies. I'm talking about the language."

Enter Lakoff. Apparently, his most recent book, Don't Think of an Elephant!, has propelled the Dems to actually start listening to inside-the-Beltway consultants who have been urging them to stay on message for years. Hopefully, they will.

There's a lot more to be said about this article, but the gist is above. Now I want to read Lakoff's book, which is apparently a lot more nuanced than he lets on during his talks to sold-out audiences around the country. (It's on hold at the library for me -- such shame that I don't know my public library card barcode yet!)

As Bai points out, though, while language is clearly a crucial problem in the modern American bipartisan political arena, it's not the only one. A lot of articulating of what our core values actually are needs to be done. Lakoff proposes: "Stronger America, broad prosperity, better future, effective government and mutual responsibility"; Bai counters that these generalities are but a smokescreen for the lack of clarity of ideas. He ends: "The right words can frame an argument, but they will never stand in its place."

Pre-un-spinning

2005-07-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

Krugman, when he's writing in his area of expertise, writes a good column. (He writes well when he's out of his depth, too, but isn't always defensible then -- just ask Amelia.) Still, today's column is not surprising in the content (its author debunking the Bush administration's spin on and celebration of perceived decreases in the deficit), but rather its timing: before any such spin and celebration take place!

A year ago, I would have been more shocked at this; today, it seems normal. It's easy to predict how the President will choose to deal with these numbers -- just ask The Onion, whom Krugman quotes in perhaps the scariest part of the entire article. From a Jan. 18, 2001 article they ran:

"We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent," the magazine's spoof had the president-elect declare. "And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

So, why not preëmpt the budget-glorification song and dance today? Le sigh.

Civil disobedience

2005-07-07T11:56:00.000-07:00

Since this morning's bombings in London are way too depressing to post about, let's stick to something more concrete: Judith Miller of the Times is indeed going to jail over her refusal to divulge a confidential source. The Times presents a very cogent, well-written defense of both her actions and its in supporting her -- the kind of piece that makes me proud to be an American. And those moments are few and far between these days.

A Vowell I wouldn't buy

2005-07-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Sarah Vowell is as bad as Maureen Dowd. I rejoiced when I read that the latter was going to be on book leave (I just won't buy her new book); hoped her replacement would be someone with a little more coherency of thought, formality of speech, or at least not as insulting to her readers. It strikes me as a task not hard to do, to find that replacement.

Either the Times just didn't try to hard, though, or they were actively looking for a Dowdy clone. Vowell's was a name I recognized when a coworker showed me a book of hers he was reading; I have only her current article to go on. But it alone is enough to make most reasonable people quickly close the paper on a Wednesday or a Saturday when they reach the Op-Ed page, or, if you're me, masochistically read on.

Vowell's article starts off in the same tone as Dowd's do -- chatty, but not yet stupidly offensive. Not grammatically pleasing, but I'm not screaming yet:

Or when [Pat Robertson] said, "The husband is the head of the wife"? Or when he warned the city of Orlando that the flying of homosexuals' upbeat rainbow flags might incite divine retribution in the form of hurricanes or "possibly a meteor"? Yep, good times.

[Sentence fragments; a snarky colloquialism]

So far, not too bad. The first five paragraphs are factual, discussing Robertson's apparent about-face about the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, and Live 8. The sixth could be included, if you wanted to squeak in there that it was factual that Vowell has a recurring dream about shaking Republicans' hands.

The end of the sixth paragraph is, I think, where my nostrils really flared in annoyance for the first time. Sentence-fragmenting, she says:

But Robertson? He's always been a solid "No way!" as he sulks by the punch bowl with Strom.

One of my pet peeves (and I know I've done it; shows how damn insidious it is) is calling women -- especially women in power -- by their first names (c.f. "Condi," "Hillary"). One could argue that calling Strom Thurmond by his first name is a form of retaliation, of fighting fire with fire. If this is her tack, though, it just scratches another one of my pet peeves: there are so few occasions in which this is appropriate, from partisan mudslinging (from which I'd like to exempt myself and my party, but apparently Vowell -- who asserts that the main strength of the Democrats, of whose ranks she numbers, is "writing exceedingly eloquent concession speeches" -- would disagree) to all things feminist. Why does everyone else in that paragraph get two names, but "Strom" only one? (Yes, it's enough to identify him uniquely, but that shouldn't be reason enough, and it smacks of unprofessional familiarity.)

The seventh and eighth paragraphs could be construed as on-topic, were she to say something relevant afterwards. But instead, taking a leaf directly from Dowd's book, she proceeds to launch into the topic of Supreme Court justice confirmation hearings. Uhh ... what? This is only tangentially relevant at best, and that only if you count her previous paragraphs as tangentially relevant (which, you may recall, I granted only on a condition that she's now nullified).

Somehow back on the topic of the G8/Live-8 a few paragraphs later, she cites a statistic that the performers at the latter are apparently echoing in support of their cause: "Every three seconds, one person dies." Fact, one must assume.

But Vowell apparently thinks facts are "moronic":

That fact, that every three seconds an African human being dies from hunger or AIDS or, honestly, mosquito bites in this day and age, is literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Way, way, way dumber than that [Robertson's] thing about Orlando and a meteor from God. That every-three-seconds statistic is so moronic, and having the richest countries in the world do something about it is such a total no-brainer, that Pat Robertson will join up with Dennis-bloody-Hopper of "Blue"-bloody-"Velvet" to spread the word.

Aside from the gratingness of her iteration of "way" and the infixation of "bloody" into several public figures' names, why is this fact moronic? I agree that it's a no-brainer that the richest countries in the world should be helping out the poorer ones. That's a fundamental plank of most things Democratic. Maybe Vowell meant that it's moronic that that's not happening? (Note: I have no idea what aid the US is currently sending to Africa. I'm sure it's insufficient, but I'm not sure it's negligible. It's also notable that not all money given in aid goes directly to the source of the problem, as another Op-Ed from Sunday's paper points out -- worth a skim. The problem of hunger and poverty in Africa, apparently is anything but a "no-brainer.")

Conclusion: If the Times was looking for a replacement for Dowd as incompetent, poorly-lettered, and in general offensive to its pages as the original, they've found one.

Coffee on the Subway

2005-07-03T14:31:00.000-07:00

On the one hand, it's awesome that New Yorkers can drink coffee -- and whatever else they like -- on their subway. They should be able to, and as this article points out, their feeling of ownership to the subway is justified: not only are they taxed for it, but some "55 percent, use public transportation to get to work, and the majority of them use the subway".

So, now rules are on the table that would make illegal "drinking from open containers, moving between subway cars or straddling a bicycle on a moving train," and of course the city's riders are up in arms.

Chance has it that this will just crumble and be "shouted out of the system," like the ill-advised prohibition on photography within the subway last summer. No wonder it was buried in the front section.

But I'd like to point out, as does the article, that:

In other cities, passengers don't seem to mind tough restrictions. The Chicago El completely bans food and drink; it allows customers to carry bottled water during "periods of extreme heat." The Washington Metro is so adamant about keeping its uniform stations spotless that in 2000, its police officers handcuffed a 12-year-old girl for eating a single French fry.

I'm not advocating banning water (anyone who's spent a summer in DC will realize that that's impossible) or jailing preteens for minor infractions. But I would like to point out that the DC Metro is one of the cleanest of any I've seen in the world, with the possible exception of Vienna, Austria. It's certainly the cleanest Stateside -- no eau de urine wafting up from hot corners; relatively few rats scuttling about in the dark; well-lit. All this contributed to me feeling safe in every subway station in the District, even if above-ground were the more unsavory neighborhoods.

New Yorkers probably won't change their caffeination habits over a proposed rule. But they might do well to look at this one a little harder than they did the photography ban -- that is, if they value cleanliness ...

Grokster

2005-06-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

I haven't actually read the opinions on the Supreme Court case on Grokster vs. MGM Studios et al., and I suppose I should. But what I've read about it seems to be entirely reasonable. At first, when I read that the courts had ruled against Grokster, it seemed like they were stifling digital innovation, à la disallowing video tapes on the basis that they would make copyright infrigement possible. But it seems that this is being explicitly avoided here:

Grokster's supporters warned before yesterday's ruling that if the peer-to-peer networks lost, it would stifle new technology. But the court emphasized that developing a technology that could be used to infringe on copyright is not enough to make the developer legally responsible. The decision limits liability to companies and individuals who induce others to break the law through "purposeful, culpable expression and conduct." It "does nothing," the court underscored, "to compromise legitimate commerce or discourage innovation having a lawful promise."

Another article, actually reporting on it instead of just giving opinion, is here. Worth reading and thinking about. Take, for example, its opening sentence:

The Supreme Court handed a major victory to the entertainment and recording industries on Monday by reinstating a copyright-infringement suit against two file-sharing services.

Well, yes, in the good-guys-versus-bad-guys sense. What people fail to realize in lots of these digital rights cases is what Lessig keeps trying to hammer home (go renew your subscription to WIRED!): that it's not copyright infringement that is the digital democracy's goal, but rather the innovation of new technologies, and their use for awesome. It's easy to equate the RIAA et al. with The Law, and the little anarchist kids with their computors as The Lawless Punks, and forget there are people in the middle trying to use new technologies in ways that have been legal in an analog world, and should be legal in a digital world.

Conclusion: While the decision appears to be a good and well-reasoned one, the reporting on it misses some of the point.

Free as in speech, flag-burning

2005-06-22T09:57:00.000-07:00

I thought it was already settled that one could burn the flag with impunity. Well, in these kneejerk-patriotic, post-terrorist times, apparently that's up for debate again.

Apparently my impression was correct, though, at least since 1984 (when I was too young to remember anything different):

... the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson that a protester who had burned a flag at the 1984 Republican National Convention, in Dallas, was protected by free-speech rights.

What I didn't know, though, is that all 50 states have some kind of "resolutions against debasing the flag." Really? How does it then follow that you can burn a flag in any state, and, while you're not held accountable federally, be accountable on the state level? It seems kind of weird.

Why this is all upsetting is that I completeley agree with Rep. Ackerman of NY:

"The reason our flag is different is because it stands for burning the flag," Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York, said in a speech on the House floor, wearing a flag-print necktie.

(It's unfortunate that he followed that comment up with one about "small men with press secretaries.")

I hope this goes nowhere. I'm not going to go out and burn a flag, but I want the freedom to do so, if that's how I want to express myself. Jesus. This seems so fundamental.

Global warming: Just a theory

2005-06-18T11:16:00.000-07:00

The headline alone here is enough to depress: G-8 Draft on Global Warming Is Weakened at U.S. Behest. Why, it makes you (well, me) want to tear your (well, my) hair out and shriek loud enough so they'd hear it in Washington. (But something tells me that, even when I was in DC, had I done that, my voice wouldn't have even carried the two blocks from my office to the White House; or, had it, I would have been promptly sniped, or at least surrounded by a cadre of FBI agents.)

This article doesn't even state the most appalling parts that I heard on NPR yesterday, but it still provides reasons to be appalled:

Drafts of a joint statement being prepared for the leaders of the major industrial powers show that the Bush administration has succeeded in removing language calling for prompt action to control global warming.

... Among the changes reflected in the May 27 draft was the deletion of an introductory statement, "Our world is warming." The annotated American copy of the document also offered comments to negotiators for the other nations like "we should avoid the term 'targets' " and "we should leave the definition of what constitutes 'ambitious' to each leader, given their respective national circumstances."

... Mr. Bush has said global warming is too uncertain a matter to justify anything more than voluntary measures to slow growth in fossil-fuel emissions.

What can one possibly say to this, other than to stand with mouth agape?

There was a recent three-week New Yorker series on global warming. It's well worth reading, if you can get your hands on it (if you can't, email or comment me your postal address, and I'll send you copies -- they're from the mid-May issues). One of the most memorable parts of that series was the bit that said that while usually it's the laypeople who are up in arms about any perceived environmental issue, while the scientists say that the actual risk is small. But in the case of global warming, the pattern is reversed: it's the scientists who are issuing warnings, hundreds of papers at a time, and the public -- and especially, those in power -- is/are taking no heed.

More omitted bits, this time from an article in the UK's Times Online:

[A] sentence in jeopardy is: “We know that the increase [in global warming] is due in large part to human activity”.

The US has also objected to: “[There is] increasingly compelling evidence of climate change, including rising ocean and atmospheric temperatures, retreating ice sheets and glaciers, rising sea levels and changes to ecosystems.

“Inertia in the climate system means that further warming is inevitable.”

The White House wants it to read: “Climate change is a serious long-term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the globe.”

To have the fucking president of the United States, which, despite our ever-weakening credibility, is still a global authority, state point-blank that "global warming is too uncertain a matter to justify any more than voluntary measures to slow growth in fossil-fuel emmisions" goes beyond incendiary -- it illustrates the willful disregard this administration has show for all types of science, and, by extension, for humanity.

I tell myself that I want to understand Republicans. But it's shit like this that makes me feel completely at a loss. Tell me: if you were in charge of the world (or at least, a significant part of it), would you:

Allow the policies of your country and those like yours to gradually push the earth into a massive global climate shift, slowly destroying the planet; or

Fucking set an example, and do your utmost to clean up?

I can't fathom choice (a). But apparently that's the strategy that Bush is aggressively pursuing.

Just what we need

2005-06-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

I'm almost torn. Dean is apparently making disparaging comments about Republicans. Some part of me wants to pull out the it's-a-free-country rhetoric, yell that we shouldn't be centrists just because that's the only way to get anything done, and that I don't respect a lot of what Republicans stand for, either.

On the other hand -- what the fuck, Dean?! I'm allowed to say that kind of shit as a yelling-into-the-void blogger with an audience of two; you, as Chairman of the DNC, are most certainly not!

The quotes in question:

"The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people," Dr. Dean said during a roundtable discussion in California this week. "They're a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same, and they all look the same."

And now Dean's accusing Republicans of using this as a "smoke screen," a distraction from the issues at hand:

... Dr. Dean dismissed the consternation. "You know, I think a lot of this is exactly what the Republicans want, and that's a diversion," Dr. Dean said.

"We haven't had any discussions about what's going on in the media circus and all that stuff in the last two weeks," he said. "What we're focused on is how to have a decent Social Security system, how to have a strong national defense, how to have jobs in America again, how to deal with incredibly high gas prices and get a decent energy bill which actually will do something about gas prices."

Well, yes, the Republicans are past masters at diversions. But jesus, Dean -- when you open yourself for attack like that, you have only yourself to blame. I honestly don't think that the position of party Chairman is the platform from which to air generalized opinions about the character of your opponent.

Das Keyboard

2005-05-26T12:51:00.000-07:00

Oh my god: they make no bones about being übergeeky, here.

In short, it's a keyboard with no markings on it, claiming it'll speed up your typing by not having the option to look at the letters. I can totally substantiate this, and I've already done so. Having switched to Dvorak, people said my speed would improve. It didn't -- here's my theory as to why:

People who type a lot -- and by a lot, I mean the upper echelon of typers -- are likely to be geeks. Geeks as a whole type way more than the population at large, who use computers for sporadic email and word processing, but do not code up pages upon pages of TeX documents about obscure keyboard layouts just for the hell of it.
Geeks, therefore, are more likely to develop wrist problems than other people.
Being resourceful like that, geeks will look for a tech-y solution, and will find rumors of Dvorak.
Those intrepid enough to try the switch will be forced to learn to type (a) with the correct fingers, and (b) without looking at the keys.
Now, geeks are also the type to never have learned to ``touch-type'' in the first place. Given a manual, the geeks will take it as a challenge, and disregard it for as long as possible, trying to figure out how to work their new toys by themselves. This is why they break so much shit, and also why they end up knowing how to fix it all. Many geeks I know taught themselves to type by putting their fingers somewhere on the keyboard and moving them as little as possible to get the job done, but without much thought as to correct position, wrist angle, &c. (this is probably why so many of them developed tendonitis or carpal tunnel in the first place!). I can't tell you how many three- or four-fingered geek typists I know.
In learning Dvorak, as mentioned above, these same geeks will have to learn to touch-type, unless they intend to relabel not only their keyboard, but the keyboards of everybody on whose computer they'll ever need to type. So, this will be the first time in their lives said geeks will ever learn to type both (a) with the correct fingers, and (b) without looking at the keys.
It is precisely that touch-typing which brings about speed.

I learned to touch-type QWERTY when I was six years old with Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. Because of that, I learned to type really fast from the outset, so I could do all my friends' typing assignments for them in school and then play QBasic Gorillas with them all class period long.

Touch-typing was not new for me when I got to Dvorak, so my speed did not increase. It did not decrease, either, but it led me to believe the speed thing is a myth.

Similarly, typing without looking will force you to touch-type. It's cool and geeky (and therefore I want one), but won't increase my speed.

I should just take some whiteout to my M$ Natural ...

Things I Will Never Understand

2005-05-23T09:57:00.000-07:00

Not that I understand clubs to begin with. Not that I'd probably ever be caught at an event that offered mango caipirinhas and capoeira dancers (but that does sound cool) ... oh wait, except for that super-wack Red Bull party I went to at the Seaport Museum in Philly last year. But never mind that.

But club-like parties -- with oxygen bars -- to sell condos?! Something is totally wack in the state of Miami.

The theme was "A Day in the Life of Aqua [the condo complex]." Dancers in fringed shorts coaxed some guests to salsa to a 10-piece band while other guests hovered around giant pans of paella and ropa vieja. A lounge singer belted out "Respect" in a model living room while chefs whipped up crepes in the model kitchen. Near a newly planted mango grove, guests drank mango caipirinhas and gazed at the Intracoastal Waterway.

Ooh ... I could go for that "whipping up crepes in the model kitchen" part. Heh.

Seriously, though. To so blatantly play on people's need for image, social acceptance, and conformity ("Live with us, the parties say, and ooze wealth, sex, fitness and mystery") is just kind of amazing. Then again, I'm amazed whenever I happen to see a TV ad, and slinky women selling ice cream just by licking a spoon seem to have an effect, too.

Okay, so I'm out of touch with the mainstream. I'm still shocked this kind of shit works.

Newsweek's imbroglio

2005-05-17T08:50:00.000-07:00

Accounts this morning that Newsweek has retracted the bit they wrote about the Koran being flushed down a toilet in Guatánamo Bay. It did so at request of the Pentagon and the White House, who say they found it

... "puzzling" that Newsweek had not retracted the article. "There is a certain journalistic standard that should be met," [White House spokesman Scott McClellan] said, "and in this case it was not."

The Pentagon has apparently also expressed "surprising" anger (read that a day or two ago; will link once I find the quote), having been given a chance to vet the article, and not objected to the bit about the descration of the Koran.

The White House also says:

After Newsweek retracted the article in the afternoon, Mr. McClellan called it a "good first step."

Mr. McClellan and other administration officials blamed the Newsweek article for setting off the anti-American violence that swept Afghanistan and Pakistan. "The report had real consequences," Mr. McClellan said. "People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged."

WOW. Blame the press for inciting this violence? Blame Newsweek for people (read: Americans) losing their lives? This strikes me as dangerous spinning, folks. Of course it has nothing to do with anything the administration may or may not have had an indirect hand in -- America's treatment of prisoners all over the Islamic world, from Guatánamo to Abu Ghraib ...

I have to run to work. Maybe I'll try to figure out wireless on the shuttle today and finish this. But -- holy crap!!