There's still so d--ned much outrage to go around. But I seem to be OD'ing on Crook and Liars lately. Plus, I'm re-acquainting myself just now with Supertramp's "Crime of the Century", forewarned from memory to skip past the faux psychosis of "Asylum" like I always do with "Mother" on The Police's "Synchronicity". And with a sunny--but not too warm--summer Sunday and a 70s rock soundtrack, I'm afraid that I have to work at outrage.
Two bright spots in the week's news, too: Warner's sabre-rattling at the White House and the fact that the waste/fraud whistleblower scandals caught the attention of Forbes. Normally, I'd expect the boot-licking business media to ignore anything that they can't spin to the credit of Republicans. Maybe Forbes and Fortune are trying to distinguish themselves from the Wall Street Journal, now that Agent Murdoch is busily re-wiring it for his Matrix. Who knows? I'm just tickled to see inconvenient realities like this rubbed into the faces of MBA PHBs still moronic enough to think that the Bush Regime is "pro-business" for anyone other than Haliburton, Blackwater, and Big Oil. (Ha! Swallowed the red pill by accident, did we? Welcome to the Reality-based Community. Don't take the bullets personally; The Matrix is out to get everyone.)
Oops, this post was supposed to be "lighter", wasn't it? Bad blogger!
Actually, this--meaning www.blackle.com--isn't "lighter" at all. But, then, that's entirely the point. I've already forgotten where I found out about Blackle, but the basic idea is that every time you want to make a regular Google search, you can save electricity because it doesn't cost your monitor as much energy to render black pixels as it does white. Google's Advanced Search feature isn't included in Blackle, but I don't even use that ten percent of the time. Blackle certainly won't save the world, but it doesn't hurt, so why not switch your browser's home page?
I'd say that I finished reading "Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day", except that it was more of an intensive skim for a book review needed to fill empty newsletter space. Only four more benighted issues before I hand the wretched thing off to someone who will actually relish the job--and who is guaranteed to add sorely-needed style. At the same time, I also give up maintaining the (largely redundant) website, packing it off to someone else who ~thinks~ he's going to enjoy it. That'll last for about a month. So I'll have the additional joy of watching the nitpicker become the nitpicked. He and I are both prima donnas, no question, but I'm Patton to his Montgomery. And that'll be plenty obvious after Jan. 1st, mark my words.
Speaking of books, it's a given that I won't have time to snarf the last half of Harry Potter VII before vacation, but I'm not sure I want its bulk tagging along, even for the sweet sake of whiling away two trans-Atlantic flights.
But the afternoon is starting to slink off, and I still need to go into work by way of remote access. And "Crime of the Century" has given up its seat for "Breakfast in America", which is as good a cue as any to get on with the business that pays for "the jumbo across the water"...
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Dreading the sequels
Dad and I share a love of black and white horror movies. You know, the black and white menace of Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Cheney Jr. and all that. When I was little, it was sort of my weekly treat to stay up late with Dad and watch horror flicks from the 30s and 40s. However, I was allowed to do so with the proviso that I didn't cover my eyes during the scary parts. To this day, I wonder whether Dad knew that I "cheated". I'd sit with my feet on the couch, watching right above knee-level, and scootching down ever so slightly to watch my knees if the music turned too ominous.
This early exposure to the macabre probably explains a lot of my personality. Yet I never did develop a taste for slasher flicks of the 1980s. Nay: Too vulgar for the genteel and relatively bloodless world of black and white, wherein the monster could at least be counted on to just stay the heck dead, already. (Although monsters did sometimes manage to procreate--i.e. all the "Son of" movies. Mind you, given how B&W movie-characters were as asexual as Barbie and Ken, we'll probably never know how, exactly, this procreation actually happened.)
But going on six years into the horror-show known as the GWOT, I realize that real-life horror is actually the worst of both worlds: The monsters escape after siring new incarnations.
Cases in point: GW Bush will retire to his dude ranch, having taking Reagan's place as the living Caesar-God in the pantheon of the Far Right. Cheney will withdraw to a Forbidden City-esque setup where the clamor from the enraged peasants cannot reach his ears. Suffice it to say, both will almost certainly die untried by any court save History's.
But, the optimist might object: Tho' the monsters escaped, they have been effectively neutralized, have they not? Surely one can take comfort from the fact that they will never again take the reins of state, yes?
No, not really. And here's why I refuse to take that as any consolation.
Dearest actually managed to sit--nostrils pinched firmly together, methinks--through Cheney's rationalization of his 1994 description of a Saddam-less Iraq as a sectarian "quagmire". You guessed it: "9/11 changed everything."
Dearest and I had precisely the same response to that. To wit: "9/11 changed everything. Except reality." Four hijacked planes did not stop Shiite hating Sunni, Sunni hating Shiite, nor either hating Kurd. Four planes did not bestow an iota of strategic competence on the chickenhawks who milked the tragedy to share its spoils with the unholy alliance of theocrats and plutocrats who helped them to their ill-gotten offices. Four planes did not render our armed forces in any way more fit for nation-building in two very alien cultures. And, lest it be trampled in the heat of rhetoric, four planes did not change the fact that Iraq had @#$%-all to do with their hijacking or subsequent mis-use.
Any sensible person realizes that. But by repeating the lie that those four planes magically changed "everything" for anyone other than those directly affected, fledgling monsters like Guiliani, Romney, Huckabee, Brownback, Thompson, et. al. are spawned and suckled by the politics of fear and hate and shameless revisionism. And thus are electorates dumbed down by the Weapons of Mass Distraction.
That's a sad-sack "sequel" by any measure. Yet--as Ash of the "Evil Dead" movies could well tell you--we haven't run short on monsters, not even the first generation ones. As I write, Karl Rove shrinks away from the constables' flashlight-beams, slithering into the darkness in search of a new host. Dearest, I must admit, had the right of it a few years ago: "Rove-sputin" is neither a genius nor invincible. All the same, there is no question that he is still highly dangerous while at large, and most especially when out of sight. I haven't yet decided whether a Lord Voldemort or a Sauroman anology is most apt here, but you get the idea.
And, meanwhile, the latest candidates for monster-in-chief continue to seek the tanna-leaf elixir of money and the pulpiteering that will sustain them through the election cycle. They will slurp from the corporate/PAC chalices, even to the lees. And make whatever transfigurations are necessary to purge any trace of the humanity that would damn them in the eyes of right-wing priests and pundits.
Cutting the purse-strings of election fund-raising seemed daunting at best (despite the best efforts of Sen. Feingold). Finding and snipping the Dominionist puppet-strings on top of that seems downright Sisphysian. In Hollywood horror terms, this just doesn't jibe: As bad as it can get, horror movie heroes never have to fight two evils at once. They just have to pay attention to the music, really. Be that as it may, ducking behind my knees and not watching isn't an option nowadays. Not for me, not for any of us.
This early exposure to the macabre probably explains a lot of my personality. Yet I never did develop a taste for slasher flicks of the 1980s. Nay: Too vulgar for the genteel and relatively bloodless world of black and white, wherein the monster could at least be counted on to just stay the heck dead, already. (Although monsters did sometimes manage to procreate--i.e. all the "Son of" movies. Mind you, given how B&W movie-characters were as asexual as Barbie and Ken, we'll probably never know how, exactly, this procreation actually happened.)
But going on six years into the horror-show known as the GWOT, I realize that real-life horror is actually the worst of both worlds: The monsters escape after siring new incarnations.
Cases in point: GW Bush will retire to his dude ranch, having taking Reagan's place as the living Caesar-God in the pantheon of the Far Right. Cheney will withdraw to a Forbidden City-esque setup where the clamor from the enraged peasants cannot reach his ears. Suffice it to say, both will almost certainly die untried by any court save History's.
But, the optimist might object: Tho' the monsters escaped, they have been effectively neutralized, have they not? Surely one can take comfort from the fact that they will never again take the reins of state, yes?
No, not really. And here's why I refuse to take that as any consolation.
Dearest actually managed to sit--nostrils pinched firmly together, methinks--through Cheney's rationalization of his 1994 description of a Saddam-less Iraq as a sectarian "quagmire". You guessed it: "9/11 changed everything."
Dearest and I had precisely the same response to that. To wit: "9/11 changed everything. Except reality." Four hijacked planes did not stop Shiite hating Sunni, Sunni hating Shiite, nor either hating Kurd. Four planes did not bestow an iota of strategic competence on the chickenhawks who milked the tragedy to share its spoils with the unholy alliance of theocrats and plutocrats who helped them to their ill-gotten offices. Four planes did not render our armed forces in any way more fit for nation-building in two very alien cultures. And, lest it be trampled in the heat of rhetoric, four planes did not change the fact that Iraq had @#$%-all to do with their hijacking or subsequent mis-use.
Any sensible person realizes that. But by repeating the lie that those four planes magically changed "everything" for anyone other than those directly affected, fledgling monsters like Guiliani, Romney, Huckabee, Brownback, Thompson, et. al. are spawned and suckled by the politics of fear and hate and shameless revisionism. And thus are electorates dumbed down by the Weapons of Mass Distraction.
That's a sad-sack "sequel" by any measure. Yet--as Ash of the "Evil Dead" movies could well tell you--we haven't run short on monsters, not even the first generation ones. As I write, Karl Rove shrinks away from the constables' flashlight-beams, slithering into the darkness in search of a new host. Dearest, I must admit, had the right of it a few years ago: "Rove-sputin" is neither a genius nor invincible. All the same, there is no question that he is still highly dangerous while at large, and most especially when out of sight. I haven't yet decided whether a Lord Voldemort or a Sauroman anology is most apt here, but you get the idea.
And, meanwhile, the latest candidates for monster-in-chief continue to seek the tanna-leaf elixir of money and the pulpiteering that will sustain them through the election cycle. They will slurp from the corporate/PAC chalices, even to the lees. And make whatever transfigurations are necessary to purge any trace of the humanity that would damn them in the eyes of right-wing priests and pundits.
Cutting the purse-strings of election fund-raising seemed daunting at best (despite the best efforts of Sen. Feingold). Finding and snipping the Dominionist puppet-strings on top of that seems downright Sisphysian. In Hollywood horror terms, this just doesn't jibe: As bad as it can get, horror movie heroes never have to fight two evils at once. They just have to pay attention to the music, really. Be that as it may, ducking behind my knees and not watching isn't an option nowadays. Not for me, not for any of us.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
When Anglophiles go bad
Growing up 'merican an' all, I precociously appreciated the sacrifices made by our forebears to give us our way of life. And I showed my gushing gratitude by fully exercising my birthright to watch far, far, too much television. Particularly PBS, which in those days, was overly reliant on British programming. (I say "in those days" because I haven't willingly watched a TV program in years. So I have absolutely no idea whether or not PBS has "gone native" under the Bush regime.) But suffice it to say that I was indoctrinated into Anglophilia early in life...or at least that's my excuse. Ironic, when you think of it: Kicking the Brits out of their own colony, only to use our tax dollars to buy BBC brainwashing 200 years later. I mean, there's bygones being bygones and all that, but...
Anyhoo.
Two to three decades on and much appalling British history studied, I've yet to lose the Anglophilia. But as much as I despise that tendency in myself, I am very, very excited to be leaving for the UK--my first trip off my home Continent, in fact--in a few weeks.
So excited that it's taking its toll in signature "me" fashion. "Are you making lists yet?" teased Dearest a few nights ago. Ha! Mere lists aren't even the half of it. I'm amazed that I've only had my archetypal "missing the plane" nightmare once since booking the tickets.
Never fear, I'm making up for the lack of psychosis in so many other ways. I've dutifully plowed through Fodor's London guidebook and Rick Steves' London guidebook. (The latter's useful in some ways, but what a kitschy style! Gimme straight-up Fodor's any day...) I've spent evenings on the living room floor matching up the map of London with the map of the Tube--and am still not finished. And then there's the highlighted spreadsheet of opening/closing times for all the things we want to visit. To which I'm starting to add pubs (none built before 1800 need apply) and other amenities. Tickets are booked for The Globe. And I peek at the Leicester Square webcam during the early part of workdays, so that I can get an idea of how non-tourists dress before I clothes-shop. And I'm actually thinking things like, "Gee, I really need to get brown walking shoes, and within the next week or so, just to make sure that there's enough time to break them in."
Aiyee. And this with weeks to go.
Things that I absolutely will revel in, no matter how touristy or eccentric:
But we're finally, really, and truly going to England! WHEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
Anyhoo.
Two to three decades on and much appalling British history studied, I've yet to lose the Anglophilia. But as much as I despise that tendency in myself, I am very, very excited to be leaving for the UK--my first trip off my home Continent, in fact--in a few weeks.
So excited that it's taking its toll in signature "me" fashion. "Are you making lists yet?" teased Dearest a few nights ago. Ha! Mere lists aren't even the half of it. I'm amazed that I've only had my archetypal "missing the plane" nightmare once since booking the tickets.
Never fear, I'm making up for the lack of psychosis in so many other ways. I've dutifully plowed through Fodor's London guidebook and Rick Steves' London guidebook. (The latter's useful in some ways, but what a kitschy style! Gimme straight-up Fodor's any day...) I've spent evenings on the living room floor matching up the map of London with the map of the Tube--and am still not finished. And then there's the highlighted spreadsheet of opening/closing times for all the things we want to visit. To which I'm starting to add pubs (none built before 1800 need apply) and other amenities. Tickets are booked for The Globe. And I peek at the Leicester Square webcam during the early part of workdays, so that I can get an idea of how non-tourists dress before I clothes-shop. And I'm actually thinking things like, "Gee, I really need to get brown walking shoes, and within the next week or so, just to make sure that there's enough time to break them in."
Aiyee. And this with weeks to go.
Things that I absolutely will revel in, no matter how touristy or eccentric:
- Riding the top level of a double-decker bus
- Trying Wensleydale cheese (hat tip to "Wallace and Grommit")
- Sitting on the steps of Traitor's Gate (Helene Hanff's brainchild)
- Visiting the tomb of my all-time lunch box hero, Elizabeth I
- Having Yorkshire pudding in Yorkshire (hat tip to the "All Creatures Great and Small" series)
- (Most especially) Watching the mushroom cloud form over Dearest's head while we're in Leeds and Yorvik.
But we're finally, really, and truly going to England! WHEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Offshoring: A modest proposal
Being a programmer by trade, the topic of offshoring is something that typically has my rapt attention. As I understand it, it saves corporations something in the range of 20 - 40%, although you and I as American consumers, realize by 3% in savings. Something that I highly doubt Adam Smith would smile upon.
Most Americans seem to be square with outsourcing the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to the cronies of the Bush Regime. And not too much kerfuffle has resulted from the CIA's offshoring of torture. And, of course, the firestorm from last' month's revelation that even internal CIA operations are handled by contractors didn't seem to give Congress pause before they tipped yet another bottle of White-Out on the Bill of Rights.
So, when I ran into this headline about the illegal arms sale to Iraq being outed by the Italians, I couldn't help but think, "Why don't we just go The Full Monty and offshore the entire intelligence-gathering enchilada to these folks?" Let's face it: Our team's been dropping the proverbial ball at least since we were blindsided by Khomeni in 1979. Italy's spooks, by contrast, have to deal not only with foreign troublemakers using their country as the crossroads that it's been for a centuries, but the home-grown nuisance of the Cosa Nostra besides. (Naturally, this kind of offshoring won't happen--the TSA will be outsourced to El Al before you ever see that .)
After all, if we can offshore the manufacture of weaponry (and d---ned near everything else) to China, how much further down the slippery slope do we have left to slide, really?
Most Americans seem to be square with outsourcing the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to the cronies of the Bush Regime. And not too much kerfuffle has resulted from the CIA's offshoring of torture. And, of course, the firestorm from last' month's revelation that even internal CIA operations are handled by contractors didn't seem to give Congress pause before they tipped yet another bottle of White-Out on the Bill of Rights.
So, when I ran into this headline about the illegal arms sale to Iraq being outed by the Italians, I couldn't help but think, "Why don't we just go The Full Monty and offshore the entire intelligence-gathering enchilada to these folks?" Let's face it: Our team's been dropping the proverbial ball at least since we were blindsided by Khomeni in 1979. Italy's spooks, by contrast, have to deal not only with foreign troublemakers using their country as the crossroads that it's been for a centuries, but the home-grown nuisance of the Cosa Nostra besides. (Naturally, this kind of offshoring won't happen--the TSA will be outsourced to El Al before you ever see that .)
After all, if we can offshore the manufacture of weaponry (and d---ned near everything else) to China, how much further down the slippery slope do we have left to slide, really?
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Playing catch-up
The links and such that I've sent myself for passing along are piling up. In fact, a number of them have 404'd already, if that tells you anything. I'm actually supposed to be baking cookies tonight, but my sinuses are draining--the dregs of last week's cold I hope--painfully. It's been a busy couple of weeks between work and extracurriculars. I don't think that it will slow down much between now and the time Dearest and I leave for vacation.
Speaking of whom, Dearest sent this along tonight. The ancients used honey to preserve bodies because of honey's antibacterial properties--a sometime nuisance for we mead-makers. (Actually, there's a schadenfreudish, possibly apocryphal, story about a couple tomb-robbers getting their comeuppance that way--but that's another tale for another time...) But apparently the observations of the ancients are taking up the slack for the shortcomings of modern antibiotics.
Actually, I've since forgotten where I found this piece of spot-on defiance in the face of egregious fear-mongering. The FDR and Churchill bit darned near had me cleaning off my monitor screen, 'cuz it caught me so out of left-field. I sooooo wish I knew enough about this dude to look him up. He could knock back pints on my tab all night.
I nabbed the following off Slate.com. It Just Says It All, doesn't it? Sad thing, is, this was published slightly before the Ninnyhammer Sissypants Wing of the Democratic Party wedged dynamite in the cracks of the trunk and pushed the plunger:
But stepping away from politics... It's a good thing that I don't believe in St. Peter--well, not the "Saint" part, anyway--because I certainly wouldn't want his job when Bill Gates rings the doorbell of the Pearly Gates. I have a mixed admiration for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and this just adds to the "mixed" part of it. It's part of what I call the "Marshal Petain" conundrum, namely the illusion that by staying on the inside, you can offset the negative effects of your collaboration by mitigating what would otherwise have been a much harsher situation. I hope to never have to make Petain's decision.
And, in the "News of the Wierd" category: Disciplinary protocol for Thai police officers apparently now involves a day of wearing pink "Hello Kitty" armbands, which--despite a few quasi-feminist scruples--I have to applaud as highly efficient creativity. Understand that this is not about police officers in particular. I've actually had many positive experiences with the constabulary of my state. One of them gave me a lift to the auto shop (and hung around while the tow truck was called). Another even changed my tire in a bitter, windy November night. My applause stems more the fact that the people in question could keep working...and were not likely to fall down on their duties in the near future. Rather like Harvey McKay's description of the black armbands at the "stand-up strike" of disgruntled Japanese corporate workers. If we could concoct similar sanctions for the cowboy coders who have made my work life particularly annoying these past few weeks, it would be well...
Speaking of whom, Dearest sent this along tonight. The ancients used honey to preserve bodies because of honey's antibacterial properties--a sometime nuisance for we mead-makers. (Actually, there's a schadenfreudish, possibly apocryphal, story about a couple tomb-robbers getting their comeuppance that way--but that's another tale for another time...) But apparently the observations of the ancients are taking up the slack for the shortcomings of modern antibiotics.
Actually, I've since forgotten where I found this piece of spot-on defiance in the face of egregious fear-mongering. The FDR and Churchill bit darned near had me cleaning off my monitor screen, 'cuz it caught me so out of left-field. I sooooo wish I knew enough about this dude to look him up. He could knock back pints on my tab all night.
I nabbed the following off Slate.com. It Just Says It All, doesn't it? Sad thing, is, this was published slightly before the Ninnyhammer Sissypants Wing of the Democratic Party wedged dynamite in the cracks of the trunk and pushed the plunger:
But stepping away from politics... It's a good thing that I don't believe in St. Peter--well, not the "Saint" part, anyway--because I certainly wouldn't want his job when Bill Gates rings the doorbell of the Pearly Gates. I have a mixed admiration for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and this just adds to the "mixed" part of it. It's part of what I call the "Marshal Petain" conundrum, namely the illusion that by staying on the inside, you can offset the negative effects of your collaboration by mitigating what would otherwise have been a much harsher situation. I hope to never have to make Petain's decision.And, in the "News of the Wierd" category: Disciplinary protocol for Thai police officers apparently now involves a day of wearing pink "Hello Kitty" armbands, which--despite a few quasi-feminist scruples--I have to applaud as highly efficient creativity. Understand that this is not about police officers in particular. I've actually had many positive experiences with the constabulary of my state. One of them gave me a lift to the auto shop (and hung around while the tow truck was called). Another even changed my tire in a bitter, windy November night. My applause stems more the fact that the people in question could keep working...and were not likely to fall down on their duties in the near future. Rather like Harvey McKay's description of the black armbands at the "stand-up strike" of disgruntled Japanese corporate workers. If we could concoct similar sanctions for the cowboy coders who have made my work life particularly annoying these past few weeks, it would be well...
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