Uppity-Negro.com

Sorry, love, lost your email a few days back. Don't suppose you could re-send that?

I'd spin that into an entry on how this has been a week of lost messages for me, but am again finding it difficult to work up the enthusiasm.

Thanks to Jason for turning me on to Mother Jones WarWatch a few days back. So far, my growing sense of disgust about the ongoing "liberation" has been fueled mostly by listening to NPR and catching bits of Democracy Now while driving around.

Would like to do something with this bit, from a Guardian article:

"But it's perfectly proper for us to say 'a British defence source has said there's an uprising in Basra' and not report it as gospel truth. We attribute wherever possible to a source. The secret is attribution, qualification and scepticism," he added.

Given the tendency of the (US) mainstream media to describe Pentagon "statements" vs. Iraqi "claims" and so forth, but sifting through stories to find examples of this sort of thing is hardly likely to improve my mood.

I'm well aware this hands-off approach is something of a benefit of living here. Others:

KATHMANDU: Hundreds of leftwing students and youths took to the streets of the Nepalse capital Wednesday to protest whopping increases in fuel prices the government says were prompted by the Iraq war.

[. . .] The [Nepal Oil Corp.], citing higher international oil prices due to the Iraq war, Wednesday announced it was increasing the prices of fuel products by up to 64.7 percent with immediate effect.

Others are more directly affected by the actions of what I strongly resist calling my government.

It's not like I have any control over what they're doing.

This isn't improving my mood either.

And as George mentioned/quoted a few days back (from a New York Times piece):

Black Americans are far more likely to oppose the war than both white Americans and white Democrats, and are correspondingly unhappy with Mr. Bush's job performance.

While 82 percent of whites said the United States should take military action to oust Mr. Hussein, just 44 percent of blacks said they supported that approach. In addition, 71 percent of whites said they were proud of what the United States was doing in Iraq, compared with 33 percent of blacks.

Which I'd find somewhat soothing, if not for the certainty that some quarters will just use this to resurrect old slurs about our lack of patriotism, or point to Condi Rice and Colin Powell as proof that the statistics are mistaken or misleading.

Not feeling like re-fighting old battles, thanks.

Which sentiment extends to the war itself, actually.

Posted by Aaron at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Academy Award™-winner Spirited Away, that is, according to the good people at Nausicaa.net. Guess I shouldn't be too surprised about the DVD, seeing as there's a copy of Princess Mononoke in a box somewhere around here, but I almost slapped myself on the forehead for looking for a copy of Kiki's Delivery Service on DVD at Blockbuster the other night when I remembered that Disney hadn't gotten 'round to putting one out yet. . .

Or rather, I should'a been looking in new releases. Duh.

Want to know less? See the Slashdot post on the award, and read the comments. If you're really, really bored.

Posted by Aaron at 3:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Is Finland part of "Old Europe" or "New Europe?" I'm not quite clear on the distinction, except that the former gets to be on the receiving end of Two Minutes Hate every once in a while.

HS Home 21.3.2003 - Finland prepares to receive hundreds of refugees from Iraq:

Officials have no precise estimates of how many arrivals there would be. Nobody is speaking about thousands of refugees, but preparations have been made for several hundred.

Marja Pentikäinen of the Ministry of Labour says that the situation differs from previous crises, in that Finland already has more than 3,000 Iraqi and Kurdish refugees. This might encourage new refugees to seek out Finland, especially if they have relatives already living here.

Hang on, there's a link at the bottom of that story:

Finland laments the launching of military action by the U.S. and its allies, and says that the use of military force without the specific authorisation of the UN Security Council is unacceptable.

[. . .] There was no reference to condemning the war as such, but [President Tarja] Halonen emphasised in her news conference that Finland regarded the affair as unequivocally regrettable. She said the US actions were a disappointment, but one that had been gradually prepared for in the past days.

On the question of where Finland stood, in reference to President George W. Bush's remarks earlier that there were 35 countries in the United States' coalition of the willing, Halonen replied that Finland was naturally a member of the United Nations and of the European Union.

She remarked that she did not consider the counting of alliances to be the important issue, although she quite understood that the parties concerned might feel that way. "The most important thing is that we can with all speed get to what we have hoped for, namely action under the leadership of the United Nations", said Halonen.

Ah.

Old Europe, then.

Posted by Aaron at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Anyway, so.

Designed in the late 1970s as an anti-aircraft weapon, the Patriot was modified in the mid-1980s to defend against ballistic missiles as well.

According to Gulf War - A Comprehensive Guide to People, Places & Weapons by Col. Walter J. Boyne, U.S. A.F. (RET) Signet, 1991, quoted at Frontline's Gulf War (I) site.

And we come full circle:

The Royal Air Force has confirmed that a U.S. Patriot missile shot down a British Tornado fighter earlier Sunday. It was the first reported incident of friendly fire since the war began. The two-man crew are reported as missing. The plane was returning from an operational mission when it was shot down near the border with Kuwait.

Not sure about that "first reported incident of friendly fire" line, but I haven't been following events as closely as I could.

Last time around, during the wait for "hostilities to begin" as the expression went, it seemed every day brought news of another fatal fuck-up from within our own ranks. The cynic in me said all the Iraqis really needed to do was sit around playing Uno and we'd manage to wipe ourselves out without any assistance from them.

Of course, once hostilities did begin, things got worse. "[F]riendly fire accounted for almost a quarter of the U.S. fatalities in the 1991 Persian Gulf war," according to CNN.com. "45 percent of American fatalities" is the figure given at TechTV, and like the Patriot's success rate, I'm confident you can find any numbers you want, depending on when they were released and who did the analysis.

You know. Lies, damned lies and statistics.

An update of minor note, from Warren Ellis:

It is entirely possible that more Brits have been killed by Americans than by Iraqis in Gulf War 2 thus far.

He was writing of reporter Terry Lloyd, but you get the idea.

Posted by Aaron at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Once this is over, the Iraqi people better be the freest fucking people on the face of the Earth. They better be freer than me. They better be so fucking free they can fly.

Or, there's a new Get Your War On up, and as I've noted in the past, I take my laughs where I can get them.

Nowadays, that's mostly in comics:

"What makes 'The Boondocks' so interesting is that it's on the comic page," says political cartoonist Ted Rall. Dan Perkins, who draws the political cartoon "This Modern World" under the name Tom Tomorrow, adds: "I like that (McGruder) is fearlessly outspoken. He doesn't hold himself back for fear of offending someone. And 'Doonesbury' has been around for a long time, yet somehow people are surprised to have political opinions shoved in their face."

Links added here and there.

Posted by Aaron at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Know Shock and Awe, courtesy of Warren Ellis, from over at Die Puny Humans, the link for which I suppose I should fix now that I have a minute. . . (Update: Hang on, it's already got the right link. It's Interesting Monstah I needed to fix. Tells you how much interest this place has held for me recently.)

I've been given to understand that trackbacks are ever so slightly broke, by the fun-loving criminals at Team Murder. I am weighing my options regarding either fixing this, or just saying fuckit and deleting the entire site.

Needless to say, I'm torn between the second option and the one that involves deleting shit.

Update to update: Meant to mention the Janeane Garofalo interview at Buzzflash a few days back, (noticed the second part in the Headlines at Laura's, saw the first part mentioned at Eschaton, what, Sunday night?), but was experiencing technical difficulties. And am fairly certain anyone who's interested is already aware of it. So, y'know, I'll shut up now and agonize about those options again. . .

Posted by Aaron at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Anyone laughing at that, report to the nearest re-education center immediately.

Think the update is finally, um, up. Despite the best efforts of my friendly ftp program(s) to frustrate me at every turn. And this entry should be formatted correctly, and allow comments, and have hookers and gambling!

Haven't managed to follow the news today, since I've been struggling with this. Anything of interest going on in the world?

Update: Well, that was fun, except for the part about not being any actual fun.

Posted by Aaron at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok, instead of upgrading Movable Type to 2.63 like a normal human being, I finally put in the lynx tmpl files I mentioned. . . about a month ago. Which also explains why I haven't upgraded yet. I suck.

(Note to Jianda -- sorry I haven't gotten back to you, see above re: suckage)

If all is Well and Good, a rare thing in today's world, I should be able to post this here entry from lynx, "a text browser for the World Wide Web," as they say at the site.

After confirming that it works, I'll no doubt then break it putting in the upgrade, then fiddling endlessly with the new tmpl files to get it working again.

You may ask why.

See above re: suckage.

Update. And before even posting. Amazing, that.

No joy with the new templates, for some reason they didn't include the selection list for post status. So it saved the thing fine (three times, in fact), but never allowed me to set it to Publish. Or Draft, for that matter.

So, 2.63 is now live and direct instead. Possibly. There appear to be error messages.

See above re: suckage.

Update to update: And no options in the Text Formatting list, which is why this entry looks so odd. Management is aware of the difficulties. Please stand by.

Perhaps go to the kitchen and prepare yourself a snack.

Posted by Aaron at 10:00 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Well, there was an entry here that started off like this:

Damn you Jason for reminding me that Snarkfest exists. You people make me laugh entirely too hard.

But it quickly degenerated into an ill-considered piece of nastiness best not left for the ages.

The comments were a casualty of my deletion of same. Lauren, you're welcome for the Snarkfest link. Dru, Gray, thank you for giving me something to think about. The rest of you -- Ginger, Michelle, Jason, Scott and Ellen -- my apologies for the revisionist history.

Posted by Aaron at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

So I laughed out loud at today's Boondocks. What can I say? Perhaps I'm just easily amused.

Survived the move more or less intact, although it still looks a bit like the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark in here. Except those boxes were labeled better; Heather and I have both been experiencing the Joy of Discovery way, way too frequently.

Mind you, mostly it's been, "Wow, books!"

Ok, the first few times. Now it's more like, "Oh Jesus, more fucking books."

(Glances at The New Good Vibrations Guide to Sex sitting on the desk, considers extremely bad pun, rejects the idea)

Updates will remain infrequent, email will go unanswered, you know the drill. Nothing to see here, citizen. Good people, please disperse.

Posted by Aaron at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Anyway, so.

In an ever-changing world, it's nice that there are some things that can be relied upon. However, this does not include regular updates of either this site or Bean Soup Times.

Not sure when the current issue went up, actually, but this story was good: Blacks terror alert high since Flukie Stokes was shot, says area historian

Mr. Curry proceeded to run down a whole list of reason why [his] terror alert will never be low. �I saw the WBMX riot in the park over at Rainbow Beach, I saw Johnny �Big Gangsta� Rouse lift a sewer cover and throw it at a rival gang member, and I saw Rev. Jesse Jackson run for presidency in 1984. Man, he was really terrorized.�

There's also a brief list of other things which have terrorized the poor man, including the one noted in the title of this entry.

I just found the thing fucking annoying, but the reactions of other people to anyone fool enough to express that opinion? That was terrorizing.

As in, a reminder that condescending crackas will always be with us.

Not that I needed reminding of this. . .

Posted by Aaron at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

There's a new ani cd being released on Tuesday, which almost makes up for the Buffy repeat. Mind you, I doubt the tv will be set up by Tuesday night anyway; see Heather's place for The Very Moving Moving Journal entry.

As long as it's up by Wednesday, so I can catch Angel, it's all good. And, um, that'll be the tv viewing for the week, I expect. . .

Yes, I missed Static Shock yesterday and last Saturday, because I suck. Good thing they'll be releasing the show on DVD at some point, right? I can put the action figures around the special Commemerative Box and everything.

Sorry. Parallel universe moment. I get those sometimes.

There's probably also one where I actually bought ani's DVD. And the last cd. Or enjoyed the previous one. . .

Posted by Aaron at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Head feels like it's about to either explode or implode. Either would be an improvement at this point, but the bastard thing is probably just going to do the dull ache instead. You cannot imagine how much this prospect thrills me.

Fairly brief piece in this week's City Pages on Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir || by Joel Turnipseed.

With Gulf War II seemingly imminent, Baghdad Express is generating national attention, with a Newsweek write-up and features planned for both CBS and CNBC. The initial print run is 7,500 books--one of the largest ever by the Minnesota Historical Society Press--and the publisher is poised to produce more copies.

Turnipseed is ambivalent about the publicity boon. He's disdainful of the Bush administration's justification for invading Iraq. "Dude, you're talking about fucking killing people," he scoffs. "Noncompliance? It's not like an OSHA regulation. The argument here is, Should we go kill a bunch of people? In the newspaper every day, if it said, 'Do you support killing thousands of people, yes or no?' the poll numbers would be very different."

Well, that's two of us who were in the original but aren't thrilled about the sequel. . .

Posted by Aaron at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

Starting off with the name, "Womens' Right To Know":

"The Women's Right to Know Act provides basic information so women may be empowered with this knowledge to make decisions on a very important issue for themselves. In many times, this decision is made at a time of crisis and this is basic information that women should have," [Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, R-Lakeville] said.

The short version is, the bill mandates a 24-hour waiting period for a woman seeking an abortion, during which time she's meant to look over

information on health risks, fetal development, "fetal pain" and possible psychological problems linked to abortion.

The bill also calls for the creation of a state Web site to display the information. And doctors would have to report their compliance to the state.

Above from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune piece on this.

Thoughtful of them to go empowering people (specifically, women-type people) with knowledge during National Women's History Month.

Ok, maybe "thoughtful" isn't the word I'm grasping for here.

Meanwhile, in the Land of Lincoln, Illinois House approves birth control coverage bill:

Illinois insurers would have to offer coverage for birth control for women under a proposal that the Illinois House passed Friday.

The bill would require policies to cover the costs of contraception and of necessary visits to a doctor.

[. . .] "This is an issue of healthy women and healthy families," said state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago. "And this is also simply an issue of fairness."

Although the cynic in me says there's really no difference between the major parties, guess which state went Democratic in the last election, and which one went Republican, based on these pieces of legislation.

Three guesses, the first two don't count.

Posted by Aaron at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (1)

As suggested by not me Aaron, but him Aaron: Daily Nexus Online :: 'Boondocks' Author Visits UCSB.

McGruder began his speech by saying he is bored by static lectures. He invited the audience to shout out questions or subjects they would like to hear his view on. When an audience member yelled that she would like to hear his views on the possible war against Iraq, McGruder said if people came to his speech expecting an anti-war rally, they would be sorely disappointed.

"There's three things Bushes do: Make lots of money for themselves and their friends, kill brown people and try to take over the world," McGruder said. "Knowing this, you all should have been trying to do something a few years back when Bush stole the election. It's too late now."

Opinions expressed in quoted material represent those of the speaker, and not mine.

Well, ok, in this case I agree with the guy, but as a general rule. . .

You can also find out which national political party asked the 28-year-old McGruder to run for an office described in the Constitution as closed to persons "who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years."

Or take a wild guess.

Posted by Aaron at 6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (1)

Still no DVD release date for The Business of Fancydancing (although there is a showing in Minneapolis, at Birch Bark Books, coming up in April -- don't worry, I'll have forgotten it by then, too), but Sherman Alexie does have an essay at TheStranger.com, Relevant Contradictions, In defense of humor, irony, satire, and a Native American perspective on the coming war on Iraq:

George W. is the leader of the free world, but he doesn't hold press conferences unless the questions are limited in number and delivered to him in advance. Ha, ha, ha, ha! The White House emphatically states that George W. personally writes many of his speeches. Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States and the so-called "axis of evil," Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, are four of the leading practitioners of capital punishment in the world, while France and Germany, our greatest obstacles in the war against Iraq, abolished capital punishment in 1981 and 1949, respectively. Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States is the only country that has used the ultimate weapon of mass destruction and wants to build more of the same! Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States is the freedom-loving country where Americans fought each other over the right to own slaves! Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States is the democratic country that didn't allow women to vote until 1920! Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States is the moral country that accepted Jim Crow laws until 1964. Ha, ha, ha, ha!

There are some serious bits, too, including a mention of Gulf War Syndrome and the general refusal to discuss same in polite company. And there's a link to an essay by Neal Pollack, imaginately and provocatively titled "Just Shut Up," if you like that sort of thing.

I don't, but I try to keep in mind that not everyone shares my tastes.

Which is why Daredevil is on a gazillion screens at the local multiplex, while I'll be lucky to catch Business of Fancydancing at a bookstore. . .

Posted by Aaron at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

For the toon-watching, comics-reading contingent, about this weekend's episode of Static Shock, which features the Justice League. I'm fairly confident I'll manage to miss it in a few hours, because I'm just that damn good dumb.

More details at Dwayne McDuffie News, which can be reached from the now-lynx-friendly-but-do-I-take-the-time-to-mention-this? DwayneMcDuffie.com.

No, I haven't seen Daredevil. Yes, I only got 'round to seeing Spider-Man a few nights back. No, I have nothing to say about it.

Well, nothing good, anyway. Go read Christopher Priest's take and send him the hate mail.

Oh, and Marvel Enterprises has filed suit against Sony Pictures over a licensing agreement pertaining to last year's hit Spider-Man movie, according to the (linked) story at Slushfactory.com, which I noticed having a look at The Fifth Column archive. Which is the archive of Dwayne McDuffie's, um, fifth column. Older archives of older columns are also available.

I was also randomly reading some of the late iBrotha's old columns this morning. Think I'm the only non-Mac using Black man on the planet. . .

Um, when I'm not using Heather's Mac, anyway. Which I finally convinced her to try Mozilla on yesterday, through the simple expedient of installing the thing while she was taking a Lush bath.

And having PugPalace.com be the first thing she saw.

Posted by Aaron at 7:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)