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May 31, 2004

Like Motor Voter, only with comics

As I show, once again, why I don't work in advertising.

We Want Your Autograph!So here's the deal: many, many comics creators (hit the graphic for a list, among other things) will be working a table at San Diego Comic Con International (July 22 to 25 in an undisclosed location, possibly somewhere in Southern California) registering voters.

Saw the campaign mentioned, and swiped the graphic, at/from Lea Hernandez' LiveJournal, which also has that additional information thing the kids are all into these days. And I should stop overusing that expression "the kids are all into these days" at some point.

All of which text was just to flow properly around the graphic, since blockquotes don't offset for some reason. Most likely my sorely lacking HTML skills. And on preview, I see it didn't work. Damn it all. Well, guess I could mention the National Mail Voter Registration Form, linked at the site, which "is the one document that allows you to register to vote from anywhere in the United States." You can run your own off, if you have Adobe Acrobat (and don't we all? Remember seeing an absurdly high penetration percentage for that thing, along with Flash . . . which finally released version 7 for Linux a few days back. . . and ok, that's as much rambling as I'm capable of. I give up.) From the site:

"We Want YOUR Autograph" is a voter registration drive for San Diego Comic Con International from July 22-25, 2004.

We already have booth space (not enough room to say all the thanks for that) and a list of comics creators (at right) that will be participating in the "draft" for new voters. This will be a NON-PARTISAN effort... we want ALL POV's repped at the table even though no politicizing will be allowed AT the booth. Got an hour or two available at the con? Know others who might have "an hour or two available at the con"? Please e-mail us and let us know!

In the weeks to come this website will have updates for the convention as well as voter registration news, commentary from the world of comicbooks, etc... We will be sending out an official press release in the not too distant future announcing the site. Any reporting and coverage is appreciated!

I figure "any coverage" includes "in an entry on a personal web site with an unfortunate URL/name, on the Monday of a three day weekend." But perhaps someone that people actually listen to will pick this up and run with it.

Besides, everyone here is already registered, so there's hardly any reason for us to care about a registration drive, right?

Me, I live in Cook County, so it hardly matters if I either register or actually go to the polls. My vote's already taken care of.

As are those of my late grandparents. . .

May 30, 2004

You're Welcome

You know, some people would tie their ongoing shameless plugging of erotica websites into the fact that May Is National Masturbation Month.

At Good Vibrations, we know that sexual pleasure is a birthright and that masturbation is a powerful source of sexual gratification. Since practically everyone masturbates, but few people talk about it, we created National Masturbation Month, a month-long celebration recognizing the many ways we can pleasure ourselves. This year our theme is "Party of One!" Pamper yourself, enjoy your own company, take yourself out on the town -- even if you stay home to do it!

Be thankful.

I won't even mention that you only have two days left. I'm just that cool.

Noticed this a while ago in a column by Annalee Newitz, but declined to say anything.

In the "we're not sure we're part of the United States" Bay Area, we like to enjoy a little masturbation with our free speech. Politics should feel good! That's why Carol Queen and Robert Lawrence, founders of the nonprofit Center for Sex and Culture, are hosting a public Masturbate-a-thon May 15. All proceeds from the event – which is set up like a walkathon, with sponsors donating a certain amount for each masturbator – benefit the center, which is raising money for a permanent space.

I'm still declining, in fact.

Red usually means caution, or beef if it's a bouillon cube.

A film that I only saw because Gaiman mentioned a Strange Little Girl piano-playing singer/songwriter in the letter column of Sandman a zillion years ago. See what you miss from only getting the trades, and Vertigo's policy of not running the things anymore?

Well, not really, but I read about it on RDT because Tori had a song or two on the soundtrack, and I don't think I would have bought Little Earthquakes or joined the list if not for. . . never mind.

Added We Can't Tell Reality From Fantasy ("A Blog, A Fantasy Computer Game, and A Bunch of Hot Chicks Telling It Like It Is.") to the links list, albeit with some confusion as to an appropriate BtVS-themed nickname, after seeing the site in the referrer list. Currently right above the prettiness that is yano's current design, actually. Remind me to annoy her about actually reviewing Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men once she's settled down a bit. Or as much as she ever does.

Speaking of hot chicks, I'm going to be even more obnoxious about insisting that people subscribe to either Tristan's or Heather's, or both if you have that much disposable income for that sort of thing, for the duration. Lengthy, pseudo-intellectual justification regarding support for independent artists and shattering taboos about publicly acknowledging paying for one of the few supposedly profitable industries* on the Interweb upon request, but since I doubt anyone wants to read same any more than I feel like typing (not writing, typing) the thing, let's just take it as read that I've made a winning argument tying (guardedly) pro-pornographic (third wave) feminism(s) into intellectual property rights/artistic control and move on from there, all right?

No, I haven't had enough coffee this morning. Why do you ask?

* Except, of course, as independent artists, neither of them are part of that industry, and there's a qualitative difference in the work itself owing in part to the creative control resulting from . . sorry, said I'd only type that if someone asked for it.

May 29, 2004

Self-interviewing for fun and profit and Hammer and Tongs

Not that I'm not interested in the Gary Groth interview at Suicide Girls -- it's about the Peanuts/Charles Schulz collections, not about H*rl*n *ll*s*n, thank Jebus -- but found the linked The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- HHGG Interview with writer Karey KirkPatrick a better read. But that's me.

Each time we tried to clarify the [Infinite Improbability Drive], we'd look through the script and say, "It's in there, isn't it?" By lunch, we moved from coffee to wine and the I.I.D. concept was gaining clarity. By late afternoon when we moved from wine to more wine, we had deduced that we were, in fact, brilliant and that the script was flawless. So we decided to go with the "less is more" theory and left the script alone. And then we had more wine.

Because that's a damn fine writing/brainstorming process.

As the title of this entry possibly fails to make clear, it's not so much an interview, really, as there's no second party there asking questions. Which might be for the best, as someone completely unfamiliar with HitchHiker's Guide would do a horrible job, and someone overly familiar with the minutia of the various versions would do an equally, but vastly different, horrible job.

Unless it was Neil Gaiman,but I'm not sure he does interviews anymore. From that side of the mike, anyway.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I

And shit.

Despite having a cold, I decided to wash the dreads.

I hate hair dryers. So I have wet dreads. And will for the rest of the afternoon, most likely.

Not sure if I should use the opportunity to perfect my Wet Dread-Fu, a savage fighting technique which involves blinding your opponent with an unexpected deluge, then slapping him or her upside the head with, essentially, a damp, heavy mop. Works better with cowrie shells in the hair, but I only had the one, and it finally worked its way out ages ago. . .

Yes, this is taught at the Tendo Dojo, as part of the Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling, in case you were wondering.

Also tempted to take the Personality Disorder Test linked over at The GhettoFabuous Jessica's place, but prefer for my disorders to remain a matter of speculation.

For similar reasons, I'm going to take TranceJen of the Redwoods' advice and not sign up with Nerve.com.

No point, really, as I'm already doing a perfectly good job of ignoring Orkut and Friendster, and possibly LiveJournal.

Do people use LiveJournal for finding dates? This somehow strikes me as a Very Bad Idea Indeed.

Yes, I'm rambling pointlessly. Cold. Also, wet dreads. It's possible the moisture and several extra pounds on top of my head are doing bad shit to my brain.

Update: Yeah, yeah, whatever.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN (who, by the way, are dead)

Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!

-- Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, if you were wondering.

And thank you, hrie@yahoo.com, for teaching me a valuable lesson

The Search:

http://www.google.com/search?q=hrie%40yahoo.com

The Suggestion:

Try putting the email address into the blacklist. Should work like a charm. The only problem of course is that the person can easily change email addresses in which case, you're only playing whack-a-mole.

[. . .] I'm not sure that you need to, but you may want to escape the email address like user\@yahoo.com.

The Blacklist Entry:

hrie\@yahoo.com # The Problem Child

The Result:

Comment Submission Error
Your comment submission failed for the following reasons:

Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: hrie@yahoo.com

And it's all good.

Different IP addy and, ah, client for his or her entries, usually, but the same ol' email address. Easy enough to circumvent, and no doubt will be if enough MT-Blacklist users make that addition, but in the meantime?

Peace, quiet and no annoying adverts.

May 30th at the Iron Horse

That's The Iron Horse in Northampton, MA. Mentioned a bit ago that The Innocence Mission was playing there the 29th, but as it happens, the following day you can see Mindy Smith:

As a contemporary singer-songwriter determined to record her music in a style that suits her self-written songs, Smith figured she ’d start her recording career quietly and work to build it slowly. She didn’t expect to make a big, attention- grabbing splash right away. She certainly didn’t expect to gain exposure on late-night talk shows and cable music specials before her debut album came out.

But every once in a while the arrival of a remarkable talent gets the reception it deserves. Before releasing her debut album, One Moment More, Smith had already performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She appeared with a list of superstars on the Lifetime Network’s Women Rock special. She had a video in top rotation on CMT. And she had the lead-off single on the acclaimed Dolly Parton tribute album, Just Because I’m a Woman, which also had contributions from Norah Jones, Sinéad O ’Connor, Melissa Etheridge, Alison Krauss and others. "My head ’s spinning," Smith says. "It ’s all been so far beyond my expectations. It’s been unbelievable,really. I feel blessed."

That's from the press kit. I don't write that glowingly about nobody.

Well, except Tristan.

And Abigail.

And. . . ok, maybe I do. I should work on that. I have a rep to maintain, after all.

Any road up, for the quite reasonable price of $7.99 US, you can download Mindy's cd in convenient mp3 or ogg format from Audio Lunchbox, but only until June 1st. Actually, you can download any album for $7.99 until June 1st, but I got hers on the strength of Come to Jesus, after hearing it on WXRT a few days back.

Anybody see her a SXSW back in March? I should pay more attention to these things.

"Some products require assembly."

This, according to an email I just got from Ikea, announcing their Sven's Summer Sail. Wouldn't Truth in Advertising laws demand they actually say, "Some products don't require assembly, and we provide a convenient list, because it's really quite short"?

Oh, and Sin Cities residents, mark the date:

IKEA Twin Cities - Opening July 14th, 2004!

I'd have a "Write James Lileks' Inevitable Column About His Visit to Ikea with His Adorable Daughter Who Is So Fucking Fucking Adorable, Gnat" contest, but isn't there already enough cringeworthy prose on the Interweb?

Besides, I no longer think satirizing him, or most of the warbloggers, is actually possible. Unless you're The Mighty Reason Man, that is.

Just as a matter of interest, seeing as there is an election coming up that my black ass might, possibly, be allowed to actually vote in, anyone out there remember what Bush's platform was way back when? You know, goals, agenda, plan for the country, that sort of thing? I realize that Everything Changed on The Day Everything Changed, but we were advised to get back to (Bloomington-) Normal, yes? So, what did the unelected, semi-literate frat boy say he was going to do, and how much of that was accomplished?

Just curious. It ain't like I would vote for his dumb ass. Or bother pretending to have the slightest respect for anyone who did, or plans to.

Not speaking of politics -- that was just insults up there -- haven't watched, listened to or read a transcript of Gore's speech. And feel oddly unmotivated to do so.

This may be related to the whole going out like a punk thing.

In fact, given a two-party system, where one party is actively hostile to me and mine, and the other ain't up to "expending political capitol" defending us. . . kind'a hard to work up any enthusiasm for the process.

Which isn't to say I won't (try to) vote for Kerry come November, just that it ain't so much a vote for Kerry as much as. . .

Fuckit.

May 28, 2004

(checks calendar)

Ah. Last Friday of the month. Meaning Free-For-All Friday. I knew that.

I just, um, wanted to start late. To make up for all those times I started like a day early. Yes, that will do. . .

http://www.uppity-negro.com/cgi-uppity-negro/mt.cgi

  • Username: guest
  • Password: guest

Off to drown my sorrows in cold medicine. Washed down with vodka. Behave yourselves.

Update: Oh, right, your participants for the (remains of the) day:

Yes, yet more offsite javascript-y goodness. I go now.

When there's trouble you know who to call

Teen Titans!
From their tower they. . .

Never mind.

Moved the referrer script out of the previous (or next, depending on your point of view) entry into the sidebar-y thingee. Renders fine for me in Firefox and Opera in Linux, in 800 x 600; anyone having problems?

Anyone not using IE, that is. Fuck IE.

Which I can't test in Linux anymore, after deleting Crossover Office and freeing up nearly 200 MB better spent on illegally-downloaded mp3s and pornography.

You have to have your priorities correct, you know?

Anyway, I find lists like that useful when I visit other sites, since if I like the one I'm reading, odds are I'll also like a site what links to it. For those who, like me, suck at the whole reciprocal thing.

And again I ask, any questions? Comments?

A test (redux)

Update 5/28: And now it's working. I give up.

<script language="Javascript" src="http://www.truefresco.org/referrers_adult.js"> </script>

That's the "Adult Content" version of trueFresco.org's referrer tracking JavaScript thingee, which I saw being used at languagehat. Er, the normal version, not the one for those of us whose:

site/page displays links pointing to an adult(porn) website.

Which, y'know, I kind'a do. From a certain point of view.

Not sure about re-adding this -- there's already tons of links, the page is a bit busy, there's a couple external graphics already slowing things down -- so, it's up for testing now.

Update: And the script/output is now sitting uncomfortably in the middle sidebar column thingee. Yes, the green has got to go. . .

Not sure about adding this to the sidebar; there's the issue of pulling data off yet another server, slowing down the page load, plus I really don't like using someone else's space/bandwidth, even when they offer such, and there's already two lists of links, one of which is (again) external, plus there's editing the results so they're shorter or wrap properly. . .

Coffee. I think I shall have more coffee.

Update: Playing with style/div code from | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

May 27, 2004

Or, hell, Emacs/W3

Get Firefox

Well, according to the Browser Share Stats, nearly 80% of the people reading this site are using Internet Explorer.

Only a madman would tell 80% of his audience to go fuck themselves.

Luckily, this is not an issue.

Ain't saying you have to use Firefox, neither.

Get Opera

You don't even have to use a graphical browser, in fact.

Get Lynx

Which means you wouldn't see the preceeding button, true. . .

Also true, this place should, supposedly, be Viewable With Any Browser. Where Netscape 4.x doesn't fall under the category of "browser," but does anyone want to debate that point?

Point being, I wonder how many people use IE because, after trying the alternatives, they found that it best met their needs, and how many are using it because it never crossed their minds that alternatives exist.

Or I'm just cranky.

Cranky is always a possibility.

Is TranceJen of the Redwoods gone?

Good, I'd rather not make fun of her when she's around to read it. She's taller than me. As is most of the population of the Greater Chicagoland Area, another reason I like visiting Mitsuwa. But I digress.

And had to buy her smokes when we went to dinner last night, but that's neither here nor there. . .

Absolutely nothing to say today. Everyone knows about the new Get Your War On, after all. Am bookmarking some right-wing claims that any criticism of the President marks one as hating America, so if Kerry wins, I can toss that back in their faces if they even look like they're going to say something critical.

Bought some comics yesterday, and am still surprised at not paying tax on them. Stupid Minnesota. No idea how Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men will read to someone unfamiliar with the characters, and the same goes for Brian Michael Bendis' Secret War, both of which I liked, anyway. Grant Morrison's Seaguy, on the other hand, can be enjoyed by everyone equally. If you're high drunk in the proper, receptive state of mind.

What else, what else? Um, Famous Authors Series bobble-head dolls?

Didn't think so.

Knew that reminded me of something that's acutally useful

Fight AIDS At Home

The SHREK@HOME thing, that is. Saw it again at boingboing this morning, while in Windows listening to Air America; can't get their stream to work with Real for Linux, for some reason. Installed the FightAIDS@Home client, the screensaver kicked in causing Windows to fall down go boom, and in disgust I went back to Linux. Which doesn't currently have a FightAIDS@Home client, so I tried installing the Windows one using Crossover Office, and. . . yeah.

Currently running Folding@Home instead:

Our goal: to understand protein folding, protein aggregation, and related diseases

What does Folding@Home do? Folding@Home is a distributed computing project which studies protein folding, misfolding, aggregation, and related diseases. We use novel computational methods and large scale distributed computing, to simulate timescales thousands to millions of times longer than previously achieved. This has allowed us to simulate folding for the first time, and to now direct our approach to examine folding related disease.

And having a look at Project Gutenberg's Distributed Proofreaders, which isn't quite the same thing, except for the distributed model, if ya squint a little. . .

Anyway, if you're trapped in Windows, poor bastard, I'd suggest the program up top as a nice way for your computer to while away the cycles that you're not doing anything. But that's just me.

Readers are very, very strongly advised to refrain from mentioning S*T*@h*m* in comments.

No, those sorts of warning never work. . . take that shit someplace else, I know about it, I ain't interested, and my opinion of you will fall a wee bit if I find out you are. That clear enough?

Hell, given a choice between that and the Shrek thing, I'd go for the movie. . .

Luckily, it ain't between those two (the latter, in fact, is just an idle notion at the moment), and many, many more projects are listed at the Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects page.

Including that one thing you do not want to mention here.

May 26, 2004

Crossposted to. . . you know

Noticed at Gapers Block:

June 06, 2004
Up All Night: Adventures in Lesbian Sex
Join editor Rachel Kramer Bussel and writer GirlyNYC for some very naughty and very true bedtime stories from the anthology Up All Night: Adventures in Lesbian Sex, recently published by Alyson. At Early To Bed, 5232 N. Sheridan Rd.

Guess the space could work for a reading; in the latest email, Searah mentioned new bookshel-- never mind.

She also mentions:

Thong Harness $48
If you want a hassle-free harness, check out out new Thong Harness. Recommended by one of our staff members who swears by it, this non-leather, g-string style harness has adjustable elastic sides and no buckles to contend with!
(very long product URL hidden)

I really should stop signing up for these mailing lists. . .

Apropos of less than usual, any Chi types going to the Gapers Block Memorial Day Gathering on Friday? Know TranceJen is going to be off camping (yes, I laughed too, and yes, that's very rude, please stop it). . .

Update: This Machine Kills Typos. After having created them in the first place.

On the other hand, Monica Bellucci

Haven't seen the trailer (in theaters, anyway) for the next Spike Lee Joint, She Hate Me. According to the usually accurate Internet Movie Database:

Plot Outline: Fired from his job for exposing corrupt business practices, a former biotech executive turns to impregnating wealthy lesbians for profit.

So, um, yeah.

On the other hand, Monica Bellucci.

And Lonette McKee, who don't get nearly enough work, but neither does Ossie Davis. The danger of being a classically trained -- or just talented -- Negro actor or actress. Unless you want to work with one or more of the Wayans brothers, who are neither. . .

Want to know more? No, I'm not sure I do either, but there's a bit of an interview with Spike Lee at MovieWeb:

AP: So you’re making this new movie, something with lesbians...

Lee: No no no no no. It’s called ‘She Hate Me.’ It’s coming out this summer on Sony Classics, starring Anthony Mackie — he was the young brother battling Eminem at the end of “8 Mile” — Kerry Washington, Ellen Barkin, Monica Bellucci, Woody Harrelson, John Turturro, Brian Dennehy. Q-Tip’s in it. It’s about a young African-American who gets involved in some shady things and gets set up at his company and he’s fired. Because of his predicament he puts his morals and values aside and starts a business impregnating lesbians who want to have kids.

AP: Personally impregnating them?

Lee: It depends. Any way you want it. Artificial insemination or the real thing, $10,000 each. In a month he impregnates 19 women.

AP: How far into the movie before you get to that point?

Lee: That’s the first 10 minutes (big laughter). Nah, I’m joking. But really, it’s a comedy.

Uh huh. . .

I have a bad feeling about this.

Guess I could wait until I've seen the movie before commenting, but then I couldn't join those fun-filled discussions of Fahrenheit 9/11 either. . .

Are the (*snicker*) hardcore SF fans annoyed about I, Robot? Because that would make me feel better.

I'd have a look, but I'm afraid I'd get. . . whateverthefuck they have all over me.

May 25, 2004

Graphic in the extended entry

It's just a wee bit too wide to fit the current design, I'm afraid.

Towel Day - May 25th

A tribute to Douglas Adams
1952 - 2001

You sass that hoopy Douglas Adams? Now there's a frood who knew where his towel was. You are invited to join your fellow hitchhikers in mourning the loss of the late great one. Join in on towel day to show your appreciation for the humor and insight that Douglas Adams brought to all our lives.

Towel Day Tribute to Douglas Adams

Completely forgotten, because of teh suck, but noticed at Twin Cities Babelogue. Guess I could see if infocombot has HHGttG or Bureaucracy available. . .

Update: Yes, Hitchhiker's Guide is available. It should work if you just click the infocombot link and send the pre-filled message "hitchhikers_guide," if I managed to do the GoIm thingee correctly.

Everyone does remember how to get the babel fish, yes?

They'll be alphabetical later

Right, adding things to the list o'links and considering removing things I haven't read in ages. Considering and rejecting, mostly, as there's noting quite like delinking drama to liven up the day, and I like my days un-livened, thank you very much.

Not sure why I hadn't added Enjoy and Exciting! before this, seeing as Keidra is one of the few other bloggers, black or otherwise, I've actually met. The suckiness, probably. Yeah, I blame the suckiness.

She mentions the not-there-yet This Is Grand, which anyone thinking of visiting Our Fair City and relying on public transportation during their stay. . . probably shouldn't read. Much hilarity for the rest of us, looks like.

Think I only added the Barack Obama 2004 Campaign Weblog because all the cool kids were doing it, and I didn't want to be left out.

berrystained, by frequent comment-post-y-person Susan, I added ages ago, but didn't mention because, again, teh suck.

Someone want to remind me to add Ms. Magazine's blog when it's back up? Thanks, you're sweet.

Oh, and Media Matters, and the snark suppression medication I'm on doesn't allow me to say anything more about that. Be thankful.

And I'm certain I'm forgetting something. It's not rude. It's suck. If that makes a difference.

"And now, you, Buckaroo Banzai, have unintentionally helped John Whorfin with the success of your Oscillation Overthruster."

For our intelligence warns us that he intends to steal your Overthruster. If he should attempt this, we will have no choice but to disrupt world-wide electronic communications, and fire a particle beam weapon from your airspace to Smolensk, in the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics.

Amazing how quickly films become dated. Ok, not that quickly, I guess; The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension was released way the hell back in 1984. . .

For comparison, Tristan and The GhettoFabulous Jessica would have been, like, 4.

I think I shall refrain from cyberstalking either of them henceforth, as looking at it in those terms makes me feel icky.

Mentioned a while back that I was going to make more connections to the African-American community online. Yes, I did. No, I don't have a link handy, but if you can't trust me, who can you tru-- Fine. I give you my word as a Negro. If you're quite finished. . .

Joined the Blackfolk Community on LiveJournal, which quotes A different view on Cosby:

Based on a report in The Washington Post that Cosby mocked the language of poor blacks and blamed them for dragging down the rest of society, I chided Cosby for his harsh views and even called him a "curmudgeon."

So when the phone rang and it was none other than Cosby on the other end of the line, frankly, I was pretty intimidated.

That didn't last long.

"Mr. Kane? First, what I want to say is this is not an argument, this is a discussion."

For the next hour, I had a wide-ranging discussion with one of the most famous and successful entertainers in America.

And towards the end:

But I do think my column Thursday did a disservice to Cosby by not presenting all of his comments in context.

The lack of rancor and Negro infighting would be astonishing (X-Men! By Joss Whedon and Planetary artist John Cassaday! Shipping this week!), if everything you know about Black folk you learned watching Good Times, which is why I've been avoiding the right-wing response to Cosby's statements.

I also, perhaps foolishly, changed my membership to actually receive email from the Afrofuturism group, as opposed to stopping by every few months, desperately trying to play catch-up, failing, and forgetting the place exists. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And I'd stumbled upon (not using Stumble Upon, don't even have the toolbar installed in Firefox at the mo') a fairly intelligent, interesting discussion thread on a blog I'd never heard of before a few weeks back, and which I'd meant to bookmark, and of course forgot about completely. So I may be doing another guided tour of black blogs in the near future, this time trying to keep in mind that these are actual people I'm reading and possibly writing about, who may see any comments I make, positive or (far more likely) negative, and try to comport myself accordingly.

And shit.

Perhaps I'll also find someone to cyberstalk without feeling icky about the entire process, although I suppose that "stalk" bit at the end of the word indicates that a certain degree of ickyness is inherent to the. . . why the fuck am I writing like this?

"I couldn't wait to get to tear their shit up old skool."

So much wrongness. There seems no end to the wrongness. And if a picture is worth a thousand words, there's several thousand bits of wrongness hither and yon.

To the East, there's Washington's Other W Twins, Wonkette and Washingtonienne.

Here on the Third Coast, no-cute-nickname Shylo Bisnett and Wendy McClure are American Girls Gone Wild:

We were on a mission to go to American Girl Place. Why? Because American Girl dolls are creepy. They're the most desperately aspirational little moppets that a parent can hope to buy for their young Dakota or Bayleigh. American Girl dolls cost approximately as much as an eighth of good weed, and you can expect to pay as much for their outfits as you do for your own at Old Navy.

Or you can read about Wendy's Seven Homeschooled Children, by clicking her name above. Or not. "Not" might be a better choice.

And out on the Left Coast, Pornblography has. . . right, that's just a link to the Warning page. Perhaps that's for the best.

Yes, this entry could be much, much better, but then you'd spend time here instead of hitting the links. Waste of your time, that. Aren't you curious which of them the title quote is from?

np: A review(ish) of the 1954 Godzilla on Morning Edition.

This weekend: The Gapers Block Memorial Day Gathering, Friday at 8 at Danny's Tavern. Not sure if I'm going or not. . .

May 24, 2004

So drink your Powerade. . . We have quotas to meet

I'd just like to point out that I'm not nearly geek enough to have conversations like this. In public. On this site. Much.

The lovely and talented, if perpetually running on L.S.T. Abigail Garner appeared in a story on NPR's Morning Edition this, um, morning. Edition.

Studies on Children of Gay Couples Spark Controversy

The best interest of children is at the center of the debate over gay marriage. Some scientific studies show no developmental differences between children raised by heterosexual and homosexual parents. But critics charge these studies are conducted to support the legitimacy of same-sex marriage. NPR's Joseph Shapiro reports.

Which sounds a bit like the recent Fucking White Oppressor piece by Mona Charen, Are children of gay parents worse off?

Are children raised by gay parents worse off than other children? As same sex couples line up for marriage licenses in Massachusetts, the question achieves greater urgency.

Biblarz and Stacey examined 21 studies of "lesbigay" couples' children compared with heterosexual parents' children. While all of the researchers had claimed to find "no difference" in outcomes between the two groups, Biblarz and Stacey disagree. There are statistically significant differences in gender identity, sexual experimentation and promiscuity. The authors are quick to add that these observed differences do not alarm them. They are happy to embrace a variety of family forms. And if gay parenting means more gay offspring, the authors are not alarmed by this.

First, not surprisingly, both boys and girls raised by homosexuals are far more likely to tell researchers that they have experimented with or considered homosexuality themselves. This is no shock. The research further shows that daughters raised by lesbians tend to have a larger number of sexual partners from puberty to adulthood than children in ordinary homes. It also, quite interestingly, shows that boys raised by lesbians have fewer sexual encounters than boys raised by heterosexual parents.

Which I noticed at Pandagon; what, you think I actually read TownHall.com on a regular basis?

The NPR story, depending on your point of view, is either more fair and balanced, not totally insane, or displays the bias prevalent in theliberalmedia.

If your point of view is the latter, I have no idea whatsoever why you're reading this site.

Don't feel you have to tell me.

Update. Via Instapundit.

VIRGINIA POSTREL has a column on gay marriage in The Boston Globe.

Yes, that's the entire entry. Brevity is the soul of. . . something. From that column:

THE BAD NEWS for newlywed Massachusetts gays and lesbians is that, under the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government won't recognize their marriages.

The good news is that by staying "single" in the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service, they could save a lot on taxes.

I had to stop at that point.

Perhaps I'll go back to the piece later.

I mean, she might say something to change my initial impression of her.

She might, for example, point out that African slaves not only had their travel expenses to the Americas paid, they also didn't have to pay sales tax on their own sale, or tarriffs on their importation.

Template for Offensive Shit v 0.01

"I associate [negative attributes x] with [group y]. You, a member of [group y], lack [negative atttributes x] and/or possess [possitive attributes z]. So, you aren't really a member of [group y]!"

Needs work, I think. Includes <sneer quotes>straight-acting</sneer quotes> gay men, femmes, Negroes unlike those Bill Cosby described a few days back, Christians (why yes, I have caught myself on the brink of saying something as appalling stupid as, "I didn't think you were a Christian, you're so open-minded and intelligent!"), probably other people/situations that are slipping my sievelike mind at the moment. . .

Further to the Cos tip, the thing about that, or similar/comparable statements by Chris Rock, is that the speaker and (Negro) audience realize perfectly well that the statements don't apply to all Negroes. The white conservatives who jump on the stuff, more often than not in my experience, don't.

This often leads to the fun-filled interaction where one of 'em treats me like I am one of those people. And, upon realizing their mistake,then make matters oh so much worse by attempting to bond over the incident.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were one of those people."

How the fuck are you supposed to respond to that? I mean, I know, by then going off on a rant about those people and allowing the bonding experience. Because, really, bonding with racist fuckheads is always the high point of a day.

Anyway, any suggestions? Questions? Comments?

May 23, 2004

Ok, quick question

How much of this story do you even want to read?

News > Indianz.com: Hospital denies sending Native fetus through mail

A hospital in Ontario, Canada, says the package a Native mother received in the mail is not the fetus of her miscarried baby.

I'll be honest. I barely got past the headline.

This isn't a good approach to take. I know this. I also know that several of the other stories at Indianz.com deserve to be heard. As much as anything deserves hearing, anyway.

But I still can't bring myself to click on USA Today: DOI investigating BIA prison abuse (5/21), for example, or Fighter jet crashes on Tohono O'odham Reservation (5/21), or. . . you get the idea.

On the other other hand, I wasn't able to come up with a coherent -- even for me -- response to some photos someone had posted a while back, when the Abu Ghraib story first broke, of some coalition (read: US) troops giving frisbees to Iraqi youth.

It was linked quite a bit by people on the right, as an example of the sorts of stories the liberal, America-hating media didn't tell.

I mean, sure, good news for a change so people don't think the entire rest of the planet is a non-stop chamber of horrors, all well and good, but how many fucking frisbees does it take to equal someone getting a chem light shoved up their ass is what I'm wondering.

See? Incoherent.

Shorter entry: One "Aw shit" wipes out a dozen "Attaboys."

Discuss.

Or don't.

Well, duh

So it crosses my mind, after a bit of searching to find out if there's a new Finder trade either out or in the works, to put the question to some of the comics professionals who tend to lurk hereabouts. Or the more informed fans. I'm flexible.

And haven't read Mystery Date yet, which link goes to a glowing review at artbomb.net. They also have a bio of Carla Speed McNeil, if you're wondering what I'm on about.

And the blog has a brief mention of the upcoming Persepolis 2 and Birth of a Nation books, if those are more your tastes.

I mentioned this not being a comics blog, yes?

I can do politics. Sort of. I mean, reading In Iraq, the Job Opportunity of a Lifetime reminded me of why enthusiastic young white conservatives shouldn't be allowed to leave the U.S. without adult supervision, let alone being put in charge of rebuilding a country.

The next day, wearing flak jackets and helmets, Ledeen and Greco went to visit Raghad in the hospital. As they moved to embrace Raghad -- who was covered with cuts and bruises and had lost hearing in one ear -- the mother of another injured woman told them to leave, saying they should have never come, that it wasn't safe.

"It's okay," Ledeen told her.

"It's not okay, little girl," the woman snapped back. It was only then that Ledeen understood the mother wasn't worried about her safety. She was concerned about the Iraqi women who, as workers for the CPA, were seen by insurgents as collaborators.

It is good to see that sometimes smacking 'em like that has the desired effect -- making them realize that they are not, in fact, the center of/only thing of value in the Universe. Never works when I do it, but I might be smacking too hard. . . That article was linked at Eschaton, by the way. And there's probably lots to say about the Presidential Material? entry at A Small Victory that doesn't include charges of blatant hypocricy, but I admit to blanking.

Apparently, when news of Bush's bike spill made its way to Kerry yesterday, he said to reporters "Did the training wheels fall off?"

You want this petty, childish man as your president?

Wait, got it. *Ahem* "Which petty, childish man were you talking about, dear?"

No, that's no good. . .

Update: Oh, fine.

Been thinking about white skin privilege and how it totally fucks with how you see the world ever since that little disagreement with Gray several months back. Well, actually longer, but that was when it went from background speculation to overt, effnic, "Bitch, you seriously needs to back the fuck off right the fuck now" pissiness. Think part of the problem is that even white people willing to grant that such exists -- which most likely excludes the conservative children in Iraq -- generally take great pains to immediately point out how it certainly doesn't apply to them, they're down with the brown people, et fucking cetera.

There's no effective way to explain to someone, calmly, slowly, and using very small words, that yeah, it kind'a does. Well you can, God knows I've tried, but it doesn't work. Does succeed in bringing their internalized racism up to the surface, but since they're also not willing to admit that that's what it is. . .

Fuckit.

And this is why I avoid the politics more often than not these days.

Tragically Classically Hip Black

From WILL in beautiful(?) Urbana, IL for PRI, Public Radio International, it's Classically Black:

The close relationship that developed between [Roger] Cooper and [William] Warfield planted the seeds for Classically Black, a series Cooper has produced about classically trained African American musicians. "I loved to talk to him about the early days and about the musicians he knew," says Cooper. "I thought it would be great if everyone could hear his stories."

[. . .] Cooper says he sees the programs as a kind of long-term outreach project. "Hopefully, we'll get more black people interested in classical music," he says. Often, people aren't aware of the contributions of African American musicians. "I have degrees in music and I didn't hear about them. You don't learn about black composers in music history classes," says Cooper, who has completed coursework for a doctorate in voice performance and literature at the U of I. In the past, little radio programming was available about classical music of black composers and musicians, says Cooper. "There was a need for it that wasn't being met. More is available now, and maybe we've had something to do with that."

Artists featured include Leontyne Price (which program I'm listening to now. Well of course she attended Juilliard. Didn't we all?), Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson. . .

Can I mention him without mentioning his politics? This isn't a political entry. You can tell. There's no swearing.

S'weird, I know the names, I've heard a bit of the music, but you could fill several libraries with what I don't know about. . . well, anything, really, but especially the personal and professional lives of these performers. Unfortunately (for me), since the program airs on WILL FM (the [we'll say classical for shorthand, even if that is inaccurate, I know, shaddap] classical station), some background knowledge is assumed that, um, I ain't got. I thought Puccini was some fancy I-talian shoemaker.

Update: My bad, Grammy Award winner Trina Shoemaker worked with The Moon Seven Times. One of the members of M7x was Henry Frayne. The program Classics of the Phonograph: Great Recordings of the Past on WILL is hosted by John Frayne, who if I remember a'right is Henry's dad.

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything.

Nothin'

Just thought I'd mention it.

May 22, 2004

The devil bowed his head, 'cause he knew that he'd been beat

And he laid that golden fiddle on the ground at Johnny's feet.
Johnny said, "Devil just come on back if you ever want to try again,
"I done told you once you son of a gun I'm the best there's ever been! "

Can I just say that the leaks and counter-leaks and raids and what-not in/involving Iraq, the ones that kind'a point towards open hostility between different factions of our government, are just a wee bit worrying since there is this group called Al Qaeda out there that's sort-of dedicated to our destruction and all? And the whole Iraq deal has been a massive distraction from dealing with them?

Unless groups in the gov'mint that I don't know about are doing things I don't want to know about while going about preventing attacks and dismantling the group, in which case, um, that's probably the best way to go about it, actually.

Meanwhile, in that one country we pre-emtively invaded for no particular reason, Baghdad Burning/River writes:

I always enjoy a good Chalabi interview. His answers to questions are always so completely antagonistic to Iraqi public opinion that the whole thing makes a delightful show- rather like a vicious Chihuahua in the midst of a dozen bulldogs. There were several amusing moments during the interview. He kept waving around his arms and made numerous flourishing movements with his hands to emphasize some key points. A few interesting things I noted about the interview: he was suddenly using the word 'occupation'. During past interviews, he would never use the word 'occupation'. He used to insist on calling the invading army et al. 'coalition' and the whole fiasco was persistently labeled a 'liberation' by him and his cronies.

Hope he's enjoyed his brief return to the place, because it sounds like he's about to get run out the place again. If he's lucky.

Had lunch at the local(ish) Cosi with The GhettoFabulous Jessica. She disrespected their bar, which, as a lush, I suppose she has some credibility to do, but still. . . never mind.

We did decide (which may be too strong a word) to go to the local(ish) Ren Faire. The mere fact that neither of us knows when it is or where it's held means nothing.

She has the hat.

I'll. . . wear one of the less obnoxious black t-shirts, I suppose.

"sexy little girl princess" is on Geek the Girl, by the way

I suppose if I try placing that appalling L*ttl* M*ss H**t*rs contest in some sort of cultural context with prepubescent beauty contests or the trend towards sexualization of children, I'll be accused of supporting terrorism. Or child pornography. Or being a Michael Jackson fan. Or something even worse.

So instead I'll just mention that this is like every other instance when the blogosphere (n!sdctp!) starts breaking their fucking arms patting themselves on the back, and makes me pretty happy that I'm not one of them.

If you don't have the slightest idea what I'm babbling about. . . be happy.

I do wonder why, if everyone is annoyed with having to sprinkle troll-resistant pixie dust on themselves before saying anything (e.g., "Even though Iraqis are better off with Saddam Hussein. . ." or "Although the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib are horrifying. . ."), they don't just tell the trolls to shut the fuck up. Seems to work for me.

Despite the troll-resistant pixie dust of that first paragraph.

There's also a reason for the lack of links in this entry.

Try to guess what that might be.

So here's one little question that I'd like to ask

As it turns out, there are people dedicated to preserving the right of a nigga to get a table dance. From jon's mind, by way of Skippy the Bush Kanga, but in the local-for-me Sun-Times, Fearful strip clubs register voters to oust President Bush:

Strip club owners are putting a little bada-bing in the presidential campaign by asking patrons to turn their eyes away from the stage for a moment to fill out a voter registration form -- and then vote against President Bush.

''It's not to say our industry loves John Kerry or anything like that,'' said Dave Manack, associate publisher of E.D. Publications, which publishes Exotic Dancer magazine. ''But George Bush, if he's re-elected, it could be very damaging to our industry.''

Amazing, how many agree with the statement that John Kerry Is A Douchebag But I'm Voting For Him Anyway. Dot com.

Not all are convinced, alas:

On a recent night at the Isabella Queen, Christopher Ness, a 35-year-old patron, filled out a registration form. But he said if he goes to the polls in November, he'll probably vote Republican.

''I like the way it is right now,'' Ness said.

Demonstrating that voter registration isn't enough, there also has to be voter education on the issues. Well, anyone else want to set up tables at strip clubs to explain the impact of Ashcroft's crackdown on. . . do you ever find yourself unable to finish typing or saying a sentence? Keeps happening to me. I should have that looked at.

Want to know more? Wait, stupid question. There's the apparently-not-updated-recently Sex Workers' International Media Watch page, I suppose, although that's the employees, not the owners, but that gets into all sorts of discussion of labor issues and. . . yep, doing it again. See also: Sex Workers Alliance of Vancouver, if you're worried about having to flee north should bad come to worse and God the Supreme Court the electorate put Bush and company back in the White House come the fall. Can't get The International Union of Sex Workers site to load, for some reason. . .

While we're not on the subject, how often d'you think Daze Reader and a small victory find common cause? No, really, I'm curious, never given the matter much thought myself.

[Introduced by California Congressman Duncan Hunter (R), H.B. 4239, also called the "Parents’ Empowerment Act,"] allows compensatory damages starting at no less than $10,000 for any instance in which a minor is exposed to “harmful to minors” entertainment products. The bill also allows that punitive damages and reasonable fees may be awarded to the prevailing party at the discretion of the court. The bill also seeks to strengthen the current test courts utilize in determining what is obscene material by providing a separate definition of obscenity specifically for children. It is an affirmative defense to action under this bill if a parent or guardian of the minor owned the material.

From the write-up/press release at Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Perhaps comics stores, in Cali and elsewhere, could also encourage their patrons to get out and vote?

Do I want to think about the number of comics shops nationwide versus the number of strip clubs?

Think there's much crossover in patrons?

Should I have stopped typing a long time ago?

Know-what-I'm-sayin'? You-know-what-I'm-talkin'-about?
The type of bitch that turn the party out.
I met a bitch named Dynasty wit'
so much back, she made a blind man see.
What's really happenin'?
Too many clothes, not enough booty slappin'.
Now, I don't need romance.
All I need to know is CAN A NIGGA GET A TABLE DANCE?!

("SHAKE IT UP! SHAKE IT UP! WOO! SHAKE THAT THANG!")
CAN A NIGGA GET A TABLE DANCE?!
("SHAKE IT UP! SHAKE IT UP! WOO! SHAKE THAT...")

Sorry, sorry, sorry. . . Management does not approve of misogynist lyrics in hip-hop, or the use of such terms generally.

Unless, you know, the bitch deserve it.

Sorry, sorry. . .

And yes, I know it's stretching things to include the links to the sex workers' sites. But if you want to explain why, feel free.

People are sad if they're interested in such a low level sex scandal

Of course, the person who said that was involved in a low level sex scandal, so, y'know, consider the source.

And the site, namely Wonkette: WASHINGTONIENNE SPEAKS!! WONKETTE EXCLUSIVE!! MUST CREDIT WONKETTE!! THE WASHINGTONIENNE INTERVIEW!! (and you have to love that title):

Wonkette: I wanted to ask you if you had any advice for other young women starting out in Washington.
Washingtonienne: [Laughs] I think any advice I have should be self-evident from my blog.
Wonkette: What about, "Don't keep a blog about your sex life?"
Washingtonienne: Ha! I think everyone should keep a blog about their sex life, because people should be responsible for the shit they pull.

Which reminds me,

* * Paragraph deleted by emergency self-preservation system * *

. . . I really should uninstall that thing. Anyway, more details, including her real name (um, Washingtonienne's, not Wonkette's), and all like that there, in the link.

I'm not supposed to be outraged about any of this for any reason, right? It's very hard to tell these days.

Would it be tasteless to suggest that if Chandra Levy had kept a blog, she'd probably. . . yes, yes I do believe it would. Never mind.

May 21, 2004

I don't know much about praying

But I feel the need for a prayer.

np: Lisa Germano, Geek the Girl, if you don't catch the reference. And if so, you're probably reading the wrong web site.

Further expanding on this point:

Tori Amos, Welcome to Sunny Florida. Own it today on DVD!

Sugar high. Sorry.

If you're not looking to lay out cash, free Innocence Mission for download at Amazon.com Music. Where it's been for quite some time, but I only noticed it today, because I suck.

Note to the Irresistably Cute Lisa: They're playing Northampton on May 29th, if you'll be there then.

Also on the tour tip, the trigger-happy mother fuckin' Cowboy Junkies will be playing Skyline Stage at Navy Pier on July 18th. Click the name of the band for yet more dates, but you'll have to scroll down a bit if you don't live in Far Far Away. Like Germany. Or Belgium. Or the Netherlands. Or Canada.

And if you don't want to leave home, we gots somethin' for that.

Gretchen Wilson will be featured on the following TV shows:
  • Wed. 5/26: Gretchen will perform on CBS' "ACM Awards"
  • Wed. 6/2: Gretchen will perform "Redneck Woman" on The Today Show. Please check your local listings.

This is not a music blog, by the bye.

Just Imagine Stan Lee and Milestone Media, Inc. Creating the Inferior Five

Evil super-genius Cobb issues a summons to the greatest Black conservative minds blogtopia (y!sctp!) has to offer!

La Shawn Barber!

Darmon Thornton!

Baldilocks!

Some other mother fuckers I ain't never heard of!

Together, they form the greatest threat to keeping a straight face since Team Rocket blasted off for the very first time.

Yes, I feel sorry for Cobb, too.

Hard to scrape the bottom of the barrel when the barrel is so damned shallow to begin with. . .

Anyway, I'm rather looking forward to the wacky hijinks of their comic misadventures.

Seen at Giles' library and over at Prometheus 6, who do a much better job of taking this seriously than I do.

Not that this is saying much.

I would pay good money if they end each and every post with an emphatic, "Team Rocket's blasting off again!"

Or at least start them with:

Prepare for trouble!
Make it double!
To protect the world from devestation!
To unite all peoples within our nation !
To denounce the evils of truth and love!
To extend our reach to the stars above!
Jessie! James!
Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!
Surrender now, or prepare to fight!
Meowth! That's right!

I'm just not sure which one is Meowth, the annoying talking animal sidekick.

They're all pretty fucking annoying.

For that matter, I'm not sure which one is Jessie. I wouldn't want to see any of 'em in a miniskirt.

Especially La Shawn.

I believe the colloquial expression is, "Tore up from the floor up."

If you don't know who the Big Three are, you're probably. . . screw it

In the interests of making myself not look like a complete idjit, I'll decline to link the previous entry where I mentioned this here upcoming episode of upcoming series Justice League Unlimited, and just quote this bit from Dwayne McDuffie News:

"And it was Dwayne (McDuffie, story editor) who said that the best big three story of all time was 'For The Man Who Has Everything.' And we said, 'OK, let's go that.'" [Bruce] Timm said he talked to [Alan] Moore about doing the episode. "I wasn't going to do the show if he wasn't comfortable with us doing it," Timm said. "And he said, 'Oh yes, I would be honored if you would adapt that for your show.'"

That's from a story at Comics Continuum, and looking over it I realize that the overwhelming majority of readers won't be able to make heads or tails of any of this.

I should provide additional context to explain matters.

Yep.

That's just what I should do.

Tra la la la la. . .

It's very good news for those of us who are following along. Just smile and nod, the rest of you.

May 20, 2004

Dru Confessions

I'm deeply ashamed that I'm following the Washingtonienne saga at Wonkette.

This doesn't mean I'm going to stop, of course. But I know it's wrong.

I'm also slightly worried that she picked the same banner from Zenarchery that I did. . .

First link takes you to an archive of the now-removed site; I'd sum this up, but really, if you don't know, there's no reason for me to go wasting your brain cells on it.

You're all reading mimi smartypants already, so no need to point out the update, yes?

There was a story on All Things Considered this afternoon about a couple getting married in MA that actually mentioned adoption. Been weird the last few days, semi-following the news from there while reading Abigail's book and hearing nada about children, adopted or otherwise. I guess this would be a needless(?) complication to the story.

Yes, there's some weird brain thing connecting the previous two paragraphs/thoughts, but it would make even less sense if I tried explaining it.

Running lsof while downloading the Angel series finale from BitTorrent does not help the brain. Not one little bit.

And I keep forgetting that I'm meant to be cyberstalking Tristan Risk. It's sad.

But no Alan Rickman

In the trailer for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban which preceeded Shrek 2 last night.

And you can tell I'm totally out of it as I just used the word "preceeded," probably incorrectly.

Reached by way of the source of all a great deal of the evil and suffering on the earth, Die Puny Humans, there are several lovely graphics for your use at Zenarchery.com: Download My Banners!

Which I did.

La Shawn Barber says:

Irrational, treasonous and death-inclined is no way to go through life, libs.

Multiple choice responses:

  1. Yes, it fucking well is, actually.
  2. Have you looked in a mirror lately? Do you, in fact, cast a reflection?
  3. Whatever, Jesus Girl.
  4. This criticism might, possibly, have slightly more impact if you didn't approvingly quote Ann Coulter. Just a suggestion.

Yeah, I must be out of it, because that last one seems like the best of the lot. . .

The banner would link to Zenarchery.com itself, if it wasn't instead linked to a popup with the full-sized graphic. Others have asked for smaller versions, if your design, like mine, really won't allow the 468x60 ones to fit properly.

I liked Shrek 2, possibly more because I hadn't read any real reviews/plot summaries, and wasn't sure what to expect. Be nice to those who havn't seen it yet and avoid the spoiler things, if you want to jump in with your opinion.

Also avoid the spoiler things for the Angel series finale, which I'd really meant to remember to tape. . .

Finally, I suck. For a variety of reasons, many of which I was reminded of last night.

May 19, 2004

I'll reimburse you, honest

From the Families Like Mine Book Tour Dates page:

June 8, Tuesday
5:30-7:00 p.m.
Kieran's Irish Pub
330 Second Ave. South
Minneapolis, MN
612-339-4499

If you're not a big fan of the standard reading/signing in a bookstore, this event might be more your style. Co-Sponsored by The Rake and The Loft, "Raking Through Books" features a local author once a month in a fun and informal setting. There are happy hour drink specials, and if you arrive on the early side you can enjoy a free buffet.  Kieran's validates parking in the Midtown ramp on 4th Street. Books will be available at the event at a 10% discount from Ruminator Books.

Free food. Free parking. Cheap drinks. Discounted books. Everybody wins.

I still owe Abigail a beer, so if one of the Twin Cities contingent wants to buy the girl a drink for me, I'd be much appreciative.

Meanwhile, the previous evening, and equally if not a greater distance away, Kathy Y Wilson will be doing a reading at West End Library in Cincinnati, OH on Monday, June 7 at 6pm. You may remember Ms. Wilson as author of the column Your Negro Tour Guide, or the book of the same title.

I don't owe her a drink.

I don't think the library has a bar, anyway.

Then again, since Columbus has drive-through liquor stores, guess Cincinnati does t-- never mind.

This is not a classy, high-falutin' literary blog, by the bye. You want that, go annoy Jessa at Blog of a Bookslut.

I've been meaning to post about Charlize Theron's casting as Jinx. She's playing the lead in the adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis's brilliant comic Jinx. But every time I try to write about it, it usually ends up along the lines of "AHHHHRRRRGGGTTKJLADLJKLA. STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS. She's not anything like the goddamn comic book. God Fucking Damn It."

See?

Classy.

May 18, 2004

100 or so comment spam messages later. . .

Well, that was fun. And almost enough to convince me to learn to write regular expressions.

And that was just the first "You gotta be fuckin' kidding" moment of the evening. From Sisyphus Shrugged:

Texas comptroller decrees narrow definition of god

Unitarian Universalists have for decades presided over births, marriages and memorials. The church operates in every state, with more than 5,000 members in Texas alone.

But according to the office of Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a Denison Unitarian church isn't really a religious organization -- at least for tax purposes. Its reasoning: the organization "does not have one system of belief."

Uh-huh.

Unlike the rigorous, internally-consistent other religions out there.

Also ran across some hideously homophobic commentary I'm not even bothering to link to, because those idiots always decide to come back here.

And I really ain't in a welcoming mood right now.

Sitting at the Heartland Cafe, abusing the free WiFi again. I really should be using it to read something intelligent or interesting instead.

Update: But instead, I find a non-registration link to the story.

Bradenton.com: Texas official says Unitarian church not a tax-exempt religion:

But the denials of the Red River Unitarian Universalist Church in Denison, the North Texas Church of Freethought in Carrollton, and an earlier denial by Sharp for the Ethical Culture Fellowship of Austin, were ordered because the organizations did not mandate belief in a supreme being.

The disputed tax dollars don't amount to much, but the comptroller has taken a stand on principle, Ancira said.

"The issue as a whole is, Do you want to open up a system where there can be abuse or fraud, or where any group can proclaim itself to be a religious organization and take advantage of the exception?" he said.

Those who oppose the comptroller's "God, gods or supreme being" test say that it can discriminate against legitimate faiths. For example, applying that standard could disqualify Buddhism because it does not mandate belief in a supreme being, critics say.

Snarkiness fails me.

D'you think Mexico would take it back?

Since, you know, we'd be including the residents?

Policy statements

First off, calling anything posted on what amounts to a personal web site a "Policy statement" seems like the height of arrogance and delusional self-importance.

Secondly, although I really don't want to see Bush get elected -- note that I do not say "re- elected" -- I also really don't want to see Iraq blow up in his face/on his watch, so the kind'a gleeful partisan observations of the various setbacks ain't doing a thing for me. The partisan suggestions that policy over there be conducted more with an eye for his domestic election campaign have precisely the same effect, which happily means I can avoid explicitly political blogs on both sides of the aisle at the moment.

Third, "both sides of the aisle" is an incredibly depressing way of having to look at things, and I've moved from wishing a pox on both your houses to "fuck all y'all." Not sure what difference that makes in practical terms, but the swearing conveys the sentiment better, I think.

Lastly, if you're pleased with the use of Sarin against anyone, anywhere, because it helps you score political points, you're a monstrous excuse for a human being, and should kill yourself at the earliest possible convenience. Preferably with Sarin, for that extra bit of irony that the kids are all into these days.

Any questions? Comments?

This can probably be disregarded in this instance

The Rumor Barrier one encounters before reading All the Rage, that is. Since, rather than unsourced gossip, it's an interview with creator Colleen Doran:

One of the incidents I discuss on camera [in the documentary Scenes From the Small Press: Colleen Doran] was particularly interesting because I am describing the behavior of what we would now call stalking. Well, when this happened in the 1980s, stalking was not against the law. A man could follow you around, call you at all hours, send you frightening letters, and generally make your life a living hell and there wasn't much you could do about it. Other than that, I had to settle matters out of court with these people. I tell you, it was incredibly frustrating.

Colleen Doran, best known for her series A Distant Soil, also illustrated the just-out-in-paperback Orbiter graphic novel, written by Warren Ellis.

She's also working with him on the upcoming series Stealth Tribes.

This is not a comics weblog, by the bye.

May 17, 2004

Or perhaps Donald Rumsfeld

From the very, very end of Topeka's 'Biggest' Day: Bush, Kerry and Brown Ruling:

Bush is scheduled to be joined onstage by a member of the pop group Destiny's Child. School Principal Gies said he wasn't sure which high-powered personality would thrill grade-schoolers the most.

"It's not every day a student gets to see a sitting U.S. president," he said. "But truthfully, they'll probably be more excited to see the singer from Destiny's Child."

So many possible jokes. So very, very many.

Activist judges, legislating from the bench

Which I'd thought was the criticism leveled at Brown v. Board of Education by the right.

Which decision President Bush is heading to Topeka to observe the anniversary of.

Which sentence ends in a preposition. Back off man, I'm a scientist linguist.

Given what's going on in Mass., I'm curious to see how the President walks the not-at-all-fine line between celebrating that act by them evilnastybad activist judges, and still playing to his homo-hostile base regarding gay marriage.

Glenn Reynolds provides a possible strategy:

TODAY IS THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION, a momentous event and one that shows the value of an extended commitment to justice.

Leaving shit out.

Again, take class into consideration

Wasting me breath mentioning that, I know.

But not all Blacks celebrated. Some worried that desegregation would further alienate Blacks in white society; that it would lead to the elimination of jobs for black school teachers; that it would do little to eliminate the racism in people's hearts and minds.

Zora Neale Hurston, a noted African American author, put it this way: "How much satisfaction can I get from a court order for somebody to associate with me who does not wish me near them?"

From Tolerance.org: Teaching Tolerance: BROWN V. BOARD: An American Legacy; went looking for Zora Neale Hurston quotes after Skip Gates mentioned her during the Black, White and Brown discussion at the Times Book Review.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of the Book Review, moderated a discussion of the historic ruling between Cornel West, whose new book, ''Democracy Matters,'' will be published in September, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose latest book is ''African American Lives,'' edited with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham.

The Hurston mention isn't in the transcript, so you'll have to watch the video, I'm afraid.

He also mentions a point of agreement with Clarence Thomas. But still takes pot-shots at the guy, so that's all right.

Want to know more? You won't really find it reading Dwayne McDuffie's old Brought to You By columns, but again, pot-shots at Clarence Thomas. Always a good thing.

"Chief Chad Smith"?

Think one of the reasons I suck at this whole weblog thing is, I figure the bias/framing in this here story is so fucking obvious:

News > Cherokee Nation seeking to ban same-sex marriage

The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma is moving to ban same-sex marriages after a marriage application was issued to a lesbian couple.

"We believe the definition of marriage is only between a man and woman," Chief Chad Smith told The Daily Oklahoman. "Any other marriage application would not be valid."

A tribal court deputy clerk approved the application last week. Officials found out and began searching for ways to make that won't happen again.

That there's no point saying anything. Which approach only works if you're preaching to the choir, I guess. Maybe. Or something.

Want to know more? The Indianz.com article links to Cherokees working to ban gay vow at The Daily Oklahoman. I only looked this up after seeing the story mentioned in comments over at Eschaton.

Which entry mentions events in Massachusetts which I'm confident everyone is aware of.

See also: Cambridge Plays Host to a Giant Celebration at Common Dreams.

Update: From that second comments link:

Smith confirmed that in the Cherokee language the words for husband and wife are genderless. The word for husband means "my companion and the one I live with." The word for wife means "my cooker."

I'm tempted to put up the LanguageHat symbol on that one. . .

May 16, 2004

Also: Short-term expediency always fails in the long-term.

Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and predator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself -- a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those atrocities thus bred.

--The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib

From Children of Dune Quotations, a division of The World of Dune.

Please note that Management does not recommend seeking solace or explanations in made-up religions.

Particularly the nastier major ones.

Update: Also note that Mgt. can, in fact, spell the word "note" properly. Most days.

A suggestion:

Always include a valid email address when posting a comment, particularly a very long, unrelated comment to a very old entry.

That way, I can at least forward it to you when I delete it, along with a further, individualized suggestion that you, yes you a@b.com, think about starting your own weblog. Or a zine. Or just ranting at random strangers in public, which is very similar to posting long, unrelated comments in very old entries at someone else's weblog.

That pub etiquette thang, don't'cha know.

May 15, 2004

I see what time it is

Then: p e a c e d i v i d e n d: 14/09/02: but no cat buses

Spirited Away is coming! Oh boy oh boy!
I got to see this film over a year ago, when I was working at Pixar; Miyazaki brought it over to share right after it wrapped. It was so amazing, I wanted to sit through it again immediately after the first screening. It's finally being released here, and while it's dubbed in English, I expect it to be finely done - John Lasseter is the executive producer of the U.S. version.

Now: apophenia: May 11, 2004 11:52 AM: Shrek 2 is stunning:

Go see Shrek 2 when it is released on May 19 - it is stunning.

I love movies and i often see them opening night. When given the opportunity, i love going to movie premiers. Of course, the only movie premiers that i'm ever invited to are the ones with computer graphics in them. This doesn't bother me because i love an audience full of geeks and/or animators. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the geek premier of Shrek 2. I admit, i was a little worried because a sequel is often horrifying. But, omg, i was totally impressed.

It's 2:15 on Saturday, May 15th, is what time it is.

One moment of perfect pissiness

So, I noticed something at Slashdot a while ago.

On Red Hat selling a commercial version of Linux:
  Wah! They're making money from someone else's hard work! They should pay Linus!

On Red Hat trying to hire Linus to do kernel development:
  Wah! They're trying to take over Linux!

On Red Hat going public:
  Wah! They're making money from someone else's hard work! They should let the developers in on the stock!

On Red Hat grepping the kernel source and sending an invite to everyone who'd contributed anything ever:
  Wah! Why are they spamming people!

On Red Hat creating Fedora instead of trying to shift box sets at retail:
  Wah! Why are they abandoning the retail market!

I actually stopped reading regularly a while before that last one, but noticed it when I dropped by a few months back. I'm confident I've missed some other bitchfest in the interim.

And my life is so much poorer for it, I'm sure.

Got a very similar vibe reading some of the trackbacks regarding the MT 3.0 announcement(s). Yes, there were some valid points and complaints, but they were buried in an avalance of, "under the combined fury of the blogosphere, the evil Six Apart has backed down from their evil, greedy license scheme" type shit.

Luckily for me, reading these had the happy side effect of reversing that pesky gypsy curse.

Meaning I can respond to them with no restraint whatsoever.

Most of you have never seen me responding to things with no restraint whatsoever.

You don't want to. Trust me on this one.

Smile.

Registration-required, but after the MT 3.0 thing I have zero patience for overprivileged geek whining, so shut the fuck up: Chicago Tribune | Prison photos evoke ghoulish memories:

When Monique Guillory saw photographs of Iraqi detainees being tortured in a Baghdad prison, it was the smiles on the faces of American soldiers that haunted her.

"They don't understand how the outside world will perceive them because they're in their own culture," she said.

As director of "Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America," an exhibit at Jackson State University in Mississippi, Guillory has seen those smiles before.

They are the expressions of grinning, laughing whites milling around bodies of African-American men, whose dangling torsos and charred remains serve as ghoulish centerpieces for gatherings that otherwise look as innocent as a community fair.

"When people look at the pictures and they see all those faces next to the grisly horror, you always ask yourself: How can they be happy at a time like this?" she said.

Link added.

But if you've seen it before, once was probably enough.

The Girl in Question

ANGELUS
That's why he had us tossed. So he could violate—

DARLA
He didn't—

ANGELUS
Violate our women!

WILLIAM
(points angrily)
Violate in succession!

DARLA
Concurrently.

ANGELUS
Concurrently?
(frowns)
You never let us do that.

DARLA
(touches Drusilla's hand, talks into her ear)
Come on, Dru. Let's have a bath so the boys can weep in private.

DRUSILLA
Will you hold me under the water?

DARLA
If you wish.

The women walk into the next room giggling.

Like the title says, from The Girl in Question.

Look, in the very near future -- as in, after next Wednesday -- I'm not going to have any new Mutant Enemy tv shows to quote from, so just let me get it out of my system now.

Honestly, you meet the most appalling people, as Giles once said. No, not that Giles, the one who's currently giving me a Server 500 Error, which given the recent MT kerfluffle is leading to all sorts of unwarranted speculation on my part, the other Giles.

Not speaking of, we all know All About George, but do you know The Truth About George? Do you, punk?

I mentioned the pre-caffeinated state, yes?

Happily, this means I feel no shame in pointing out that that, were you a member of Tristan's site, you could see a clip of her in Slasher Flick. As it is, you'll have to content yourself with Tristan's Chibis.

No, that's not what that means, you sick fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck,

Mother motherfuck
Mother motherfuck fuck
Motherfuck motherfuck
Noise, noise, noise
1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4
Noise, noise noise
Shmokin weed, shmoking wizz
Doin' coke, drinkin' beers
Drinkin' beers, beers, beers
Rollin' fatties, smokin' blunts
Who smokes the blunts?
We smoke the blunts!
Rollin' blunts and smokin'-

Right, perhaps I should make some coffee. . .

Update: Originally Published on: 15-MAY-1970:

peanuts2004029283514.gif

Just added this to me wish list.

Be a few books/years before they get to the point where that strip appears, yes, but I'm patient.

Generally.

Visited R.I.P. Charlie Brown after seeing it mentioned at Bellona Times Pseudopodium.org, but it seems to be gone now. Shame, that.

And I still can't remember the name of the pre-Boondocks Boondocks-y strip that Kris Dresen mentioned at the art show a few weeks back. C.P. something. I think.

And at this point I'm really just adding text so it flows properly around that iframe on the monthly archive index page. Could go for the Latin, but that's such a cliché, don't you think? And it looks like vspace and hspace don't work within the iframe tag after all. That's a bit annoying. Tried adding them to the img within the frame, but in Firefox at least, this had no effect. Or I should have cleared the cache. Should'a worked, according to HTML IFRAME - HTML Code Tutorial, at least. Weird. Might be a bug in the implementation; guess I could check Bugzilla, or open another browser. . . except that the only other browsers I have installed are Dillo, which I don't think will render the thing at all, and the ever-popular lynx, which definitely. . . that's enough? Good.

Update 2: . . . and I'll never volunteer poor George for anything again, I promise.

Promises made while veiny, evil, pre-caffeinated or over-caffeinated not applicable in certain states.

I'm going to my spam comment assassin

Jay Allen, I gotta ask him
Yo Jay, you're a developer, are Ben & Mena really that type?
"Don't believe the hype"

Sorry.

CORDELIA
(stops reading, looks up)
Remember how I said, "Let's not have your department looking for those symbols I saw in my vision. Let's do this like we used to, you and me cracking the books"?

WESLEY
Yes.

CORDELIA
Well, that was dumb. What'd you ever listen to me for?

WESLEY
I don't know. I think I sort of missed this. You and me and the books,
(speaking in a "hip" manner)
kicking it old school, as they say.
(winces, shakes his head)
And I never will again.

You're Welcome. And sorry again.

For those of you not using Movable Type -- the DiaryLand scum, for example -- the large-scale wailing and gnashing of tooth of the last few days must have left you feeling either confused, grateful or superior.

I only question that last one. There's really never any reason for you lot to feel superior.

Pre-caffeinated and therefore veiny and evil. I suggest having a look at Jay's entry or The Company Line before commenting here on the MT 3.0 pricing structure.

Strongly suggest, in fact.

Update: Added a link. Guess which one!

Update 2: And another and another, and a sister and a brother, tried to add a link that was a DT undercov--

Ok, now I've had too much coffee. There must be a middle ground somewhere. . .

May 14, 2004

Don't send e-mail on your cell phones or read comic books in Parliament while in session

Said Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, according to Sunday Gazette-Mail: Japanese prime minister scolds rookie lawmakers for reading comic books in Parliament :

"You can be seen very clearly from the prime minister's seat. You should really stop that -- it's disgraceful.''

Meanwhile, we get one guy with an iPod and people act like it's the Second Coming. And no, I'm not sure what that comment is supposed to mean, either.

Story seen. . . oy, seen at Sarah's Journal, reached by way of a trackback to Wonderland: Painful, which was linked at Boing Boing. And yes, every single link in that chain. . . I did not just say that. . . is worth a look.

not np, because I don't own it yet: 12 Tales:

A beautiful collaboration of music and art, 12 Tales ventures deep into the dark forest with a picnic basket full of ethereal and haunting tracks. 12 Tales comes in a limited edition digipac containing fantasy artwork by Amy Brown and original fairy tale interpretations by Rasputina. Expect lush and intrepid tales by Cranes, Rasputina, The Creatures and many, many more!

Many, many more includes Miranda Sex Garden, if you needed more reasons to buy it.

For me, that is.

Update: Sorry, I should explain what some of those other links are.

Illyria: Crash. . . Bandicoot?

There ya go.

No, it wasn't

The now-redacted ending snarky comment in previous entry actually linked to the MovableType 3.0 announcement, thank you very much.

Having read some of the trackbacks to Mena's announcement, I decided to remove it so as not to get lumped in with the idiots.

I bought a license for the current version (or rather, donated and received a license), and plan to get one for the 3.0 release. Seems only fair.

And I'd prefer if the cheap bastards who don't want to pay for things would just up and say, "I'm a cheap bastard who doesn't want to pay for things," rather than delusionally taking some moral high ground. Then again, I'd prefer if people who don't want to be shot at would would admit that, rather than babbling about how a draft violates their deeply-held libertarian views.

There's nothing wrong with not wanting to be shot at. Can't say I enjoyed it myself.

Being a cheap bastard, well, the phrasing sort-of implies a moral judgement, doesn't it?

Keep in mind, this is coming from someone who donated to the developer of BitTorrent, but uses the program for the odd copyright violation. I don't even bother trying to reconcile that. . .

At any rate, there's still going to be a free version of MT, so quit your whining. Or, as noted at Slashdot, there's always WordPress or any of a number of alternatives.

Some people would rather switch than bit-- complain excessively.

And list valid reasons for doing so, causing me to rethink my position somewhat. I hate when that happens.

Update: Bugger. Michelle (and the folks in her comments) are being all sensible and stuff too. Meaning more rethinking and possible disavowing of previous statements in this entry. I really hate when that happens.

Update 2: Oh, for Mike's sake.

The long version: MT-Blacklist/Comment Spam Clearinghouse: The Collective Deep Breath.

The short version: alaina is: sweet and sour: Dear Blogosphere

My name's Bennet, and I ain't in it.

Trade-off, really

I mean, on the plus side, an interview with Rasputina. On the negative side, it's at SuicideGirls, and the interviewer states up front that she "[hasn't] done anything Journalism related since High School. I'm a poet. I don't know what I'm doing, but I know Jonathon [TeBeest]," whose nickname you'll have to read the click through to find out:

Sarah (or Sara, I'm flexible): Do you have any nicknames within the band?

Melora: (points to self) "Autistic Dwarf". (points to Zoe) "HeSheHeShe"

Zoe: Someone wrote in an email, "I swear she's a dude."

M: "I swear she's a fucking dude."

Z: So I'm the "Fucking Dude".

M: They wrote really bad stuff about each one of us, but somehow we all loved it and latched on to it and took it to heart.

His really isn't suitable for a family-oriented site like this one.

Which just linked to SG, and included the phrase, "fucking dude," which is now going to show up in my referrers. Despite this page probably being on the 3,000th page of results. Because some people are just that darned psychotic persistent.

There are also some new photosets, but you don't want me to deliver a boring lecture on supporting independent artists, do you? Thought not. Off you go, then.

Update: Nothing to see here. And never was. These aren't the ending snarky comments you're looking for.

Grudges

Half-cocked notion about how some are not only permitted but encouraged by mainstream society, while others aren't even acknowledged. Not feeling like writing about hypocricy at the moment, for some reason.

Chicago Tribune | Honored by city, still disdained by cops:

During a lifetime of soapbox oratory for myriad radical causes, Lucy Parsons loved to bait the cops. So it's only fitting that police chose to continue the fight six decades after her death, objecting to naming a vest-pocket park on the Northwest Side in her honor.

Over the vigorous protests of the local police union, the Chicago Park District's board on Wednesday named the park after Parsons, a woman long associated with the notorious Haymarket bombing of 1886.

Here's a link to The Lucy Parsons Project, if you wanted to know more. The site presents her favorably, and although I'd love to link to a more fair and balanced (read: negatively biased) source, not really up to looking for one of those, either.

Chilly, overcast, a constant rain that wouldn't be causing as much flooding if the gutters weren't blocked by seeds, and I made the mistake of looking at some of the entries in MaxSpeak's Exciting Contest:

Submit your entries here for the most vicious thing posted by someone on the Instapundit blogroll. (Naturally, IP posts are eligible too.) Please limit your verbatim entry quotation to one hundred words. Don't forget to include the link. Comments are excluded, unless posted by the blogger hosting the site.

Saw it linked at Pandagon, and very much regret following the thing.

Which is, of course, why I share it you.

May 13, 2004

A Message From Emily!

Emily Saliers, that is.

This is a great opportunity to speak out for choice. Proceeds from the sale of 'Wax Bush---Vote 2004' tee-shirts will help fund the documentary 'A Voice for Choice'.

This film documents 'The March for Women's Lives' that took place on April 25th, 2004 in Washington, DC and gathered approximately a million people to fight for women's reproductive rights. Ten different crews set out to capture the stories behind the women and men on their way to and during the march. With their stories coupled with interviews from politicians, activists, and artists this film will raise the awareness needed to inspire women to get out and vote.

Our civil liberties are being lambasted on all sides by the Bush administration. With your support we can all work together to vote out the Bush administration and usher in a revitalized commitment to choice and civil liberty for all. Thanks, Emily

More information: http://www.waxbush2004.com

From the Indigo Girls email list, so I have a feeling most of you have already seen this. . .

Equal time: Daemon Records: Amy Ray - Stag, because if you don't like Amy Ray and the Butchies, you're no friend of mine.

Hobgoblins of little minds

And speaking of the available tracks at Connect. . . well, got "Come Talk to Me" and "Don't Give Up" from Peter Gabriel's Secret World Live, which is just as much on his Real World label as several albums that weren't there, and neither was much of his other back catalog.

On the other hand, Rasputina's Thanks for the Ether, which isn't on eMusic, is on Connect. Got two tracks from that, too. Try to guess which ones.

On the other other hand, there's several Jimi Hendrix albums that I'm fairly certain hadn't been released when he passed away. I went for the non-posthumous "Little Wing" and "Hey Joe," figuring that he might have not put some of the other stuff out for a reason.

Anyone else worried that when Prince goes on to his great reward, we're going to be buried in cds of every half-ass session he ever recorded?

Mind you, some of the older half-ass sessions are probably better than the recent. . . that's the kind of thinking that leads to exactly what I'm bitching about, isn't it?

I really don't have any complaints with the service. The tracks downloaded sequentially rather than concurrently, but, um, who cares? Playing 'em back now from the MiniDisc I transferred them too, and have no problems with the sound quality. And considering it's "only" USB 1, they transferred pretty quickly. Yes, there's all sorts of horrible DRM restrictions blah de blah, but, see, there's this output jack on the MiniDisc player, yes? And an input one on the computer? Or, hell, I could burn the songs to an audio cd and rip them easily enough.

I'm confident that if I had a high-quality audio system, I'd actually be able to detect the degradation in quality resulting from this. Plus, if I had that much disposable income, I wouldn't have anything better to whine about.

Sorry, the reviews on Slashdot and a few other tech sites made the service sound utterly abominable, This is probably because you're meant to actually pay for the music, and as we all know, infomation wants to be (supplied to me for) free. Except they usually leave out the bit in parenthesis.

One maybe-valid criticism: longer (over the seven minute mark) tracks are $1.99 rather than 99 cents. So one of the Gabriel songs was almost two whole dollars. For just one song. My god, the humanity of it all.

Oh, and I shot a $10 donation to BitTorrent author Bram Cohen. Just because.

True, the President can't pronounce 'nuclear' properly, but that's beside the point

From Fact-Index.com:

A Public Lending Right program is one which pays authors for having works in public libraries.

Fifteen countries have a PLR program, and others are considering adopting one. Canada, the United Kingdom, all the Scandinavian countries, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand currently have PLR prgrams. There is ongoing debate in France and the United States to implement one. There is also a move towards having a European wide PLR program administered by the EU.

With links to the PLR International Network website and the Public Lending Rights UK website added or swapped in, for no particular reason.

And it's good to know there's an ongoing debate in the United States about this. That this is the first I've heard of it just indicates that I'm not paying attention.

I mean, there was a mention on Crooked Timber last September. In a comment. In a discussion of Micropayments and their discontents.

And in the report on the 1999 Ottawa conference, PLR International Network says:

A particular theme of the conference was PLR in the Americas. To date only Canadian authors have been successful in getting lending rights recognised. Kay Murray of the Writers Guild in New York described how PLR has made little headway in the United States and is not currently a priority issue with American writers.

And then in the report on the 2003 Oslo conference (yes, the date at the top confused me too. . .), er, we're not mentioned at all, actually, but there was promising news from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

. . .

We have nuclear weapons, you know.

So do the French, but:

14 July 2003
IT’S OFFICIAL - PLR HAS ARRIVED IN FRANCE

Legislation to recognise the right of authors and publishers to receive payment for the lending out of their books from libraries was finally adopted by the French Senate on 10 June. The Senators accepted the wording of the legislation as passed by the lower house on 2 April. The new PLR system is expected to be in pace by the autumn. A PLR fund of 20 million Euros is to be set up and to be divided equally between publishers and authors. There is also provision for a social welfare fund for authors.

So much for Fact-Index.com. . . the bit about the EU is out of date as well.

And you can add Slovenia to the list of countries that have a program.

. . .

Did I mention the nuclear weapons?

Update: Someone with greater mad writing and editing skills than I want to modify the Wikipedia entry on Public Lending Rights, based on recent developments reported at PLR International? Yes, I know I could do it, and that's the entire point, but have you read some of the entries here? I prefer to keep my suckiness to myself, thank you very much.

While we're waiting for that BitTorrent download to finish

Seeing as my dumb ass missed Angel again last night. . .

  1. D.C. Thornton can now be read at http://www.dcthornton.com/; those of you who like that sort of thing, adjust your links accordingly. Not an issue for me, since I don't.
  2. LIMBAUGH: Even this latest picture of a dog and a nude Iraqi -- you seen that one? A couple of Americans are holding -- it looks like German Shepherd, some kind of vicious big dogs, the dogs are barking, bow wow arf arf arf, this big dog -- you know and the Iraqi prisoner is cowering there in fear, he's all nude. And the picture caption "Dog attacks Iraqi." No, the dog isn't attacking anyone, the dog's on a leash. The dog is scaring an Iraqi prisoner. [gasp] "No! We're scaring them, too? Is that allowed in the Geneva Convention?! We're scaring then with dogs?" Yes, my friends we are. The dog didn't attack anybody. The dog's not attacking anybody. The dog's on a leash. Both of them are. I've seen the pictures. ...
  3. His bad. He later corrected himself. So, you know, that makes it all right.
  4. My bad. Wrong photo. No idea how I could possibly have made a mistake like that.
  5. I've mentioned my dislike for dogs, yes? And for white people who can't understand why on Earth I would have one?
  6. Yes, Virginia, you can use Gaim and Firefox with Aim: links.
  7. Mozex, the extension that's mentioned, can also be used with mailto: links in Windows, if that's the sort of thing you're looking for.
  8. Could everyone stop treating photos and video footage of torture and murder like a battle of fucking press releases? And generally acting like war is a public relations campaign? Thanks.
  9. A bit ago, Nalo wrote:
    And just so you know it isn't by any means all thorns: today's mail brought my annual PLR cheque. To quote from their site: "The Public Lending Right (PLR) Commission was established in 1986 to administer a program of payments to Canadian authors for their eligible books catalogued in libraries across Canada." The intention of the PLR Commission is to help compensate writers for royalties not earned because multiple people borrow the same book for free from public libraries.

    Any of the librarians in the house know if we have something similar here in the States? My Google-fu fails me, leading me to believe we don't. And I'm fairly certain the people who loudly insist that file sharing is no different than using a library would have mentioned that whole compensation thing.

  10. That previous really deserves an entry to itself, actually.
  11. Currently on loan from various libraries (thank you, Interlibrary Loan Service): What?
  12. Oh look, the download rate is higher than the upload rate for a change. And only another three hours to finish receiving a one-hour (more like 40 minutes after subtracting ads) television show. I think there's a slight flaw in my logic here.
  13. Book links up there to their respective All Consuming pages, which if nothing else lets you see who else is reading or has mentioned them on their sites. Not sure about the idea of online book clubs, as I'd thought books clubs were just an excuse to get drunk while maintaining an air of respectability. . .

And that's enough of that, I think.

May 12, 2004

Note to self: Pay more attention

For instance, I could add a link to Your Negro Tour Guide, so I actually remember to read it on a regular basis.

Then I might also have noticed that

Kathy's collection of columns, Your Negro Tour Guide: Truths in Black and White, is available in bookstores now.

A convenient list of bookstores and prices is available at isbn.nu, something else I tend to forget about. Or, you know, order directly from the publisher,

From a column of only a few weeks ago, and which probably doesn't appear in the book, seeing as it's been out since February:

On last weekend's Saturday Night Live spoof of the 9/11 hearings, Janet Jackson did a better Condoleezza Rice than Rice herself, who did a far superior impression of Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth during the real 9/11 commission ass-grill than Omarosa herself ever did on her way to being blackballed from The Apprentice.

This is America now.

. . . what's an Omarosa?

Actually, I know, which worries me slightly, as I never watched The Apprentice. Are they just beaming this shit directly into our brains?

Does it seem like Condoleezza's testimony was a zillion years ago at this point?

And could someone fill in the metadata at All consuming, since I'm pretty confident I'm going to forget to, despite actually typing this as a reminder to myself?

Did I mention that the list format in the previous entry was because I was feeling too scatterbrained to do a proper job on anything, and reading through this one, realize that that was probably a good idea, and I should go back to it?

I'd put this stuff in the sidebar, but it's too cluttered as it is

Random stuff. Totally random. It is painful, the random.

  • GarageBand.com: The big bunch of music formerly known as MP3.com.
  • Bed of Roses, another of the infinite number of Preston Klik bands, at IUMA. As none of 'em appear to be at GarageBand. . .this one (the band, not necessarily the tracks at IUMA) features vocals by Yvonne Bruner. You might remember her from such bands as
  • Big Hat
    The visionary Preston Klik, Yvonne Bruner, Char-Malloy Baum, and James Stallman once produced a spectacularly captivating combination that captured and catered to all six of the senses. When they, years ago- urged onward by Preston- decided to get together and make some music, the world was blessed with Big Hat. It has not been the same since. Seeing and hearing them perform live was once best described as "experiencing ethereal bliss." That's about as accurate as it gets. Theirs is an almost indescribable genius, which can only be heard to be truly understood and savored.

    You'll not be seeing them perform live. They broke up ages ago. Sucks to be you.

  • The Official Website of Shakara Ledard, linked in a very old entry that had a comment posted to it today.
  • Tristan Risk: Blue, because I was meant to be cyberstalking her, but it slipped my mind. Management apologizes for the inconveni-- wait, was anyone inconvenienced by that?
  • Other Magazine:
    It’s official: mixed race people are sexy. Reflecting our racially swirly world, the fashion and pop industries seek people whose beauty reflects a combination of ethnic strands. Sure, there’s more than a bit of “exoticism” involved in these images (like Christina Aguilera wearing Arab/Indian drag). But for a media culture that scowled on interracial marriage a few decades ago to adore its fruits seems like a step forward. And pundits claim “Generation Y” takes racial interweaving for granted.
    Well, yes, we know we're sexy, but external validation is always ni-- never mind. Determining why this link follows the previous two is left as an exercise for the reader.
  • Watch the frickin' commercial so you can read Breaking GOP ranks over at Salon:
    The revelations of repeated torture and extraordinary humiliation of Arab prisoners in Iraq have obviously appalled lawmakers, Republican and Democrat alike. But there is a lot more to it than that. For the first time in this administration, Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska no longer look like an incorrigibly romantic idealist (Hagel) or an embittered, jealous presidential wannabe (McCain), both with Vietnam on the brain. Suddenly they look like prescient leaders of their party and the good consciences of the Senate.

    Fair and Balanced: Joe-probrium, about the Goofus to McCain and Hagel's Gallants, Joe Lieberman

Will just add to this, um, randomly, as the day goes on. Or not.

An obsessive focus on marginal pop culture to avoid dealing with current geopolitical events

Not that I need to justify not wanting to talk about beheadings, ethnic cleansing, and other unpleasant shit.

In a BAD SIGNAL list mailing thingee, Warren Ellis, he say:

The titles of the four Apparat books, along with the names of their illustrators, follow: Further information will be released next month.

Couldn't find an official web presence for the latter, sorry. Regular readers will recognize Carla Speed McNeil as the writer/illustrator of FINDER, which I really should take up reading again, and I'm pretty sure I bitterly regretted once mentioning/linking Laurenn McCubbin's XXX Live Nude Girls because I doubted the people searching for that and ending up here were really interested in a comic series by that name.

If you're looking for a stroke comic, it isn't one. Actually, if you're looking for a stroke comic, um, ick. Go away.

Of course, Apparat is being published by Avatar Press of beautiful Urbana, IL. In addition to the Ellis and the Alan Moore and the Antony Johnston,they do also bring the ick, but I thought I'd asked you to go away. . .

But wait! There's more!

On the Champaign-Urbana tip, kind'a, if you squint a little, there's Thank You For Not Breeding, "a new animated documentary by Nina Paley (in production)."

The mentions of Final Fantasy and Gojira notwithstanding, I am not Asian. Which is good, as I'd have to give credit to McDonald's for using their copyrighted phrase, "I am Asian™." Noticed at Boing Boing, which has lots of other interesting links I'll not bother copying, so go visit them.

Seen at Stomp Tokyo, the is-that-still-on? Drew Carey Show, is, um, The TV show that's quietly going away:

For all the attention given to this week's "Friends" finale, another long-running comedy taped its final episode a few weeks ago -- and few people outside its Hollywood set were aware of it.

The finale of "The Drew Carey Show" is expected to air on ABC sometime this summer.

[. . .] ABC didn't even bother putting it on this season. New episodes will premiere on June 2, and the network will show two first-run episodes a week during the summer -- the television equivalent of an afterthought.

Which is why I were confused. That, and there's that timeslot thing:

The program premiered on Wednesday nights, an evening where it has inhabited four separate time slots. It's also been shown regularly on Tuesdays. And Thursdays. And Fridays. And Mondays.

That article is at CNN.com, an arm of the AOL Time Warner empire. Which produces the show.

There's an article in the current edition of Time about DC trying to revitalize the Superman franchise. The surprising thing is that they name-checked Mark Millar's Superman: Red Son miniseries; the not terribly surprising thing is that DC is also part of Borg Warner.

Sorry. Time Warner. Those names confuse me sometimes too.

If you're wondering why this surprised me:

Note logo on chest

I've done this more like the Golden Age Superman where the story really starts with him coming from the Russian farmlands to the big city of Moscow, as idealistic and trusting in the system as our Superman is with regards to capitalism and the American Way. I didn't want to make fun of communism because it's such an easy target. I wanted to do something more Shakesperean and start with a man who just tried to do the right thing and ended up making some terrible mistakes along the way. It's a commentary on the collapse of the Soviet Union, of course, but like the best science fiction I use it as an allegory for the world we're living in and Superman's takeover of the world with pre-emptive strikes is really a very fair dissection of what's been happening in America over the last ten or fifteen years. It's all about Empires and the fact that these monolothic structures are doomed from the beginning. It's actually a very serious work, moreso than you might expect.

No reason.

Right, think that's enough rambling for one entry. Hell, for one day.

No, not Gamera

Trying to figure out which of Godzilla's old adversaries are most likely to show up in Godzilla Final Wars. King Ghidorah and Mothra, naturally, even if they were just in Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. MechaGodzilla, maybe? Megaguirus?

Oh. Google ruins the fun by bring up a list. Screw you guys.

I'm going to continue to engage in idle speculation anyway.

Let's see, deadly foes, deadly foes. . . um, Matthew Broderick?

Jean Reno?

Roland Ermerich?

As the title says, not Gamera, he's from a rival studio, and thankfully (if the reviews of JLA/Avengers I've seen are any indication), Japanese film studios aren't as into the whole crossover thing. . .

What?

RZA, GZA, Joie Lee. . . and Iggy Pop

Oh, that wacky Jim Jarmusch.

That's just some of the cast of Coffee and Cigarettes, coming soonish (May 28th) to a theater nearish (The Music Box).

Mind you, I was trying to find out when Godzilla was playing, and ended up downloading this 13 MB PDF, because heaven forbid Music Box just put the info up in HTML. . .

Anyway. That previous link lists the current when and where, including, but not limited to:

  • May 21st-June 3rd, 2004 (Silver Spring, MD) AFI Silver
  • June 18th-July 1st, 2004 (Minneapolis, MN) Oak Street
  • July 2nd-15th, 2004 (Chicago, IL) Music Box
  • July 2nd-15th (Dallas, TX) Angelika
  • July 16th-22nd, 2004 (Plano, TX) Angelika

Dallas and Plano, but not Austin. Could someone explain that one to me?

And although I know a statistically improbable number of people from Silver Spring, I don't think any of them currently reside there, so I'm not sure why I bothered listing that one. . .

As for Godzilla Final Wars, according to CNN.com:

"Godzilla: Final Wars" is set to premiere in Japan in December, with a U.S. release to follow. The giant, genetically altered dinosaur will fight to the finish against 10 different foes, new and old.

[. . .] "We have done all we can to showcase Godzilla, including using computer-graphics technology. And yet we haven't attracted new fans," Tomiyama told The Associated Press. "So we will make the 50th anniversary film something special, a best-of-the-best, and then end it for now."

I reversed the order on those paragraphs. Because I can.

Want to know more? The Godzilla & Other Giant Monsters department of Stomp Tokyo should have all the info you could ever want. And then some. And then more.

Update: Yo, Michael.

That close to you?

May 11, 2004

He's back. She's still dead.

Final Fantasy VII Advent ChildrenWhich are only spoilers if you have any idea what I'm babbling about, and I figure if you do, you already know that much, so meh.

I should point out that I was one of the. . . thousands? millions?. . . who bought a Playstation as a result of Sony's Final Fantasy VII ad campaign back in the day. And since my memory card saves show that I put at least 80 hours into the thing, I'd say it was money well spent.

Mind you, I never actually finished the game. And sold it a few years back. I'm trying to convince myself that I don't really need to buy it again, even if it is around $15 these days, as opposed to the $50 I paid for it the first time around.

Don't ask what I got for selling it. It would make you cry.

Ok, it would make me cry, anyway.

Could'a sworn I saw something about Advent Children coming with the original game bundled, only on one PS2 DVD instead of a 3-cd set. And since I am a mark and a tool and will be buying the thing, might as well wait, eh?

Well, no, I don't have a PS2 yet, but with that price reduction, not to mention the three games I have already. . .

I mentioned the mark and the tool things, yes?

Oh yeah. One more thing.

jump-007.jpg

When I said he was back. . . did you think I just meant one?

Advent Children / Dear Friends

Last things first.

The US orchestral performance of Nobuo Uematsu's compositions for the Final Fantasy series took place last night, as a sort-of E3 warmup. It was covered, before the fact, in the New York Times:

Video Fantasy Replaces Mozart (But Who's Keeping Score?)

The Los Angeles Philharmonic, which typically plays scores by composers like Beethoven and Brahms, will perform music tonight more often heard while keeping score.

The Philharmonic's program will consist entirely of excerpts from the Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu's soundtrack music for "Final Fantasy," a popular series of action-adventure video games.

[. . .] A decade ago it would have been difficult to imagine that the beeping and whirring that accompanied most video games would have been worthy of the concert hall. But with the introduction of high-powered video-game consoles like Sony's PlayStation2 and Microsoft's Xbox, games could finally play on cue large audio files containing recordings of acoustic instruments instead of cheesy synthesized sounds. And as the game industry grew into an annual business of more than $7 billion, having high-quality music provided a competitive edge.

In the standard, "wacky" tone the press reserves for that sort of thing. Why yes, those were sneer quotes. What can I say? Not impressed with the article.

Some,like the gent linked way up at the beginning and the person who wrote Square Enix rocks Los Angeles, were impressed with the actual music:

The packed concert hall was greeted by a superb performance of Liberi Fatali, the well-known opening theme from Final Fantasy VIII. The evening's emcee (and voice of Final Fantasy X's Tidus), James Arnold Taylor, then appeared to introduce the man who made tonight's event possible: Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu. An apparently stunned Uematsu immediately received a standing ovation (the first of many for the evening) right in his seat. The Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Master Chorale went on to play many old and new favorites from the series' long history, to the constant delight and rabid applause of the assembled fans.

But, y'know, game programmer and someone writing for a games web site. There is the slight possibility of bias.

As for Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, well, you probably know as much as I do.

This is the first you've heard of it?

Well, yeah. There ya go.

There's a trailer at 1UP.com, and a description that should make you more confused:

The sequel to Square's immensely successful RPG Final Fantasy VII, entitled Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, is not, in fact, a game. That part of it is not so hard to parse. The hard part is getting Square Enix and the sequel's creators -- character designer Tetsuya Nomura and director Yoshinori Kitase -- to precisely explain what it is instead. The phrase they use is "visual contents," at least when it's translated into English. What's a "visual content"? Therein lies the rub. It's made of pre-rendered computer graphics, 60 minutes of fine animation from the talents at Square Visual Works, and it's not interactive, at least not in the way we've come to think of it as regards videogames. Square doesn't like to use the word "movie" in this context, though. That would apparently imply a release in theaters, which obviously brings back unpleasant memories of Hironobu Sakaguchi's misadventures in Hollywood. So is it direct-to-video instead? Well, maybe, and maybe not. Though Advent Children is scheduled for release in the summer of 2004, according to the producers' comments at its press conference debut, Square has yet to officially decide on a delivery medium.

But DVD has been mentioned. You can play those in your Playstation 2. And if you don't have a Playstation 2, they're down to $149 these days. Including the network adapter, possibly Sony's way of going for more of that phat monthly-fee cash. Possibly.

Want to know more about Advent Children? You could do worse than AdventChildren.net, for more trailers (including one from E3) and logos and suchlike. I mean, Final Fantasy Finland doesn't seem to have much about it at all, and what they do have?

Advent Childrenin traileri on nyt saatu ripattua. Traileri on hyvälaatuinen ja siinä on monia uusia kohtauksia, mitä emme aikasemmassa trailerissa nähnyt. Elokuvasta tulee noin 70-80 minuuttia pitkä, ja se julkaistaan Japanissa kesällä.

It's, um, in Finish.

Go figure.

Update: Oh. Duh.

From Advent Children.net: Dear Friends Concert:

The official tour program featured a brief overview of each of the games in the Final Fantasy series, including Advent Children. Although the information is nothing new, here is what it had to say:

Two years after the Advented Armageddon, the city of Midgar stands in ruins, but the world has survived and continues on in peace. However the people of Gaia now face a new menance. Cloud, who fought for the sake of his world once before has rejected society to live in solitude, must step forward yet again.

Final Fantasy VII Advent Children presents a CG animated sequel to Final Fantasy VII, the seminal 1997 PlayStation title. The story continues not in a game but in a motion picture DVD format. Revisiting the central characters two years after the epic conflict of Final Fantasy VII, technological advancements allow a visually stunning update to the city of Midgar and it's residents.

Fans have yearned for a sequel to this beloved story, and because of the overwhelming demand, Final Fantasy VII Advent Children was born.

Right, think that answers that, then.

Meanwhile, in fuckin' Glasgow, Edinburgh and godsforsaken Manchester

TORI AMOS Set to Release Her Live DVD!
On May 18, 2004, critically acclaimed songstress, Tori Amos, will release her first commercially available live concert DVD, Welcome To Sunny Florida. The 18-song show was recorded on September 4, 2003 at Sound Advice Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, FL. A six song bonus CD of previously unreleased songs, Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, is included. Pre-order your copy now and get a limited edition Tori Amos poster! Find out more:
http://www.toriamos.com

From one of Sony's email lists, that is. At the site in question, we see:

ATTENTION UK FANS:
To celebrate the release of Welcome To Sunny Florida, there will be screenings (of the 2 hours of live concert footage) at 5 Odeon Cinemas across the UK on Monday, May 17th (8:30pm door; 8:45pm start). Tickets are £6 . Tickets can be purchased via: www.odeon.co.uk OR call centre 0870 50 50 007 OR at local box offices:
  • Odeon Glasgow
  • Odeon Edinburgh, Lothian Road
  • Odeon Birmingham
  • Odeon Manchester
  • Odeon Covent Garden

I'm going to go be bitter now.

"So if someone in your comments says that all white people are bad, we should assume that is your view as well?"

Why are conservatives so fucking fond of hypotheticals and false analogies, is what I want to know. . . a better question would be, "So if someone in your comments says that 'Miss vietnam usa was a complete rigged..the winner already knew the judges ahead of time,' we should assume that is your view as well?"

Not the same sitch, of course, since I have the advantages of lower traffic, fewer comments, more intelligent readers, charm, good looks and a shitty attitude. So it's easier for me to read each and every comment, and delete anything I don't like the looks of.

This is no more infringing on free speech or suppressing alternate points of view than walking away from some idjit at a bar.

Except I own the bar and I'm the bouncer.

Which is stretching that metaphor within an inch of the poor thing's life.

No, if someone in comments says that all white people are bad, it means someone very stupid has managed to find their way here and figure out how to post a comment. If several someones have an extended conversation about how all white people are bad, and I don't step in. . . you might have a case.

Usually, though, it's someone posting "WHITE POWER" for several screens, or telling me how ignorant I am, me being a nigger and all. I've been linked by what I'd consider racist black folks, but they rarely pipe up. Racist white folks, that's a whole 'nother story.

As evidenced by recent events.

Hope that answers your question! Now you know, and knowing's half the battel!

Not much Biko on the web

Understandable; there's not much King on the web either, but we can chalk that up to the family tightly enforcing copyright. Has the same effect of rendering the man an empty , but highly regarded symbol anyone can project any meaning onto.

Do I have to link some right winger claiming King would have opposed affirmative action? Again? Can't you just Google it your damn self?

Anyway, Biko:

We are not concerned with that curious bunch of non-conformists...that bunch of do-gooders that goes under all sorts of names - liberals, leftists, etc. These are all the people who argue that they are not responsible for white racism...These are all the people who claim that they too feel the oppression just as acutely as the blacks and therefore should be jointly involved in the black man's struggle.... In short, these are the people who say that they have black souls wrapped up in white skins.

Put that up before, but it always bears repeating.

Reminded of it by the comments for Open Source Politics: Black Identity (see also: Okay, I am Pissed at In Search of Utopia, as well as You might be able to tell I'm a bit peeved (which is currently giving me a 404. . .) at Prometheus 6), as well as Michael's comment right here.

Or the debate/policy/whatever of allowing or restricting comments at misbehaving; in that case, bit difficult to have an in-depth discussion of women in technology when you're constantly being interrupted by men who reject the entire basis of the discussion, but still decide to contribute. Well, post comments. Contribute, not the right word, but I still hate sneer quotes.

Similarly, if obviously not directly analogous, bit difficult for black folk to have a meaningful debate about anydamnthing if we not only have to deal with our own tendency to accuse the other of being an Uncle Tom or working on the Democrat's plantation, but also constantly have to stop the conversation and explain, slowly, and using very small words, that we should be able to conduct it in the first place.

Explain is a transitive verb, but do I really need to say to whom the explanation or justification is given?

Thought not.

Biko's point, or one of his points, or my take on one of his points, was that a conversation between two clearly unequal groups isn't really going to go anywhere, which is why there's frustration in dealing with the Democratic party/leftists/liberals on the one hand, and just as much dealing with Republicans/conservatives on the other.

Except the latter have the added benefit of being evil, racist fuckheads, of course.

This holds for relationships all the way from the personal on up to the geopolitical, but that gets into all sorts of concepts like white privilege and institutionalized racism, and since liberals (by and large; I'm perfectly aware I'm painting with way too broad a brush here, but loud protestations that this doesn't apply to you is just going to lead me to believe that it does. Funny, that.) tend to dismiss the impact of these things, and conservatives (by and large; etc.) flatly deny they even exist. . . it makes for a terribly fun experience. You have no idea.

But I do hope you see the problem.

If not, well, that's what comments are for. I just hope some other Negro is up to writing slowly and using very small words.

Nope

See, I figure the debate about reparations -- note carefully I express no opinion on the issue myself -- could, if nothing else, allow for a calm, reasoned discussion.

Discussion of what?

Oh, history, economics, the contemporary state of race relations, the legacy of colonialism not just in Africa but across the planet, underdevelopment, that sort of thing.

Anyone claiming the debate itself is divisive is sort of missing the point entirely. Like paying more attention to the photos coming out of Abu Ghraib (note to self: check spelling on that) than to the torture itself.

Oddly, since I do try to follow the debate, I'd never encountered the term "race tax" before.

"Millions of white Americans who have no reason to dislike blacks may find one the moment they're forced to pay a race tax," [Steve Dasbach, executive director of the Libertarian Party] said. "The only people who will benefit will be the pandering politicians who get to dole out the money - as race relations get worse.

Still expressing no opinion on the reparations issue myself, I gotta say, threats of backlash? Been there, done that. Most recently regarding gay marriage, but going back to every god damn step we've ever taken towards equality. I'll resist the urge to check and see if anyone argued against emancipation in the first fucking place because of a possible backlash against free people of color.

Because finding such, as I'm fairly confident I would, might ruin my good mood.

As will some idjit telling me that the PartyofLincoln was responsible for emancipation. Yes, I remember that being mentioned one or two million times. Thank you, it might have slipped my mind.

But back to the previous talking ranting point, Gay Marriage - A Libertarian Perspective:

What gay people are asking for is not equality or freedom, but rather a big public ceremony that endorses their deviant activities. Gay people are saying “we are victims, we are a minority, therefore we deserve special privileges.” It’s just typical liberal politics at its worst. The libertarian does not believe in this sort of group identity politics. Gays should be free to practice their unusual activities so long as they don’t harm others, but they are not entitled to have the government attempt to legislate how straight people feel about them. (Gays, of course, are free to take their case to Hollywood, and they are certainly doing a darn fine job of promoting themselves in this manner.)

Unfortunately, some who call themselves libertarian have come to the opposite conclusion with regards to gay marriage. Some libertarians support gay marriage. Maybe they haven’t thought out the issues as thoroughly as I have. Maybe they aren’t real libertarians. But that’s why the title of the essay is “gay marriage – a libertarian perspective” and not “gay marriage – the libertarian perspective.”

That's Michael Kantor, writing his take on the issue, at The Calico Cat. And I may have something in common with John Ashcroft, after reading that.

Ignoring the cognitive dissonance of trying to find the Official Libertarian Party Line on anydamnthing at the Libertarian Party Home Page, there's. . . well, use the search function. Other than opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, the best I can come up with is Libertarians oppose government involvement in marriage:

Marriage is a religious institution and, as such, should not be regulated by bureaucrats and politicians, Libertarians in Sarasota County, Fla., agreed recently. They joined other groups across the nation -- including the state Libertarian Party organizations in Oregon and California -- in calling for our government to get out of the marriage business.

"I believe that religious ceremonies -- whether marriage, bar mitzvah, confirmation, baptism, or canonization -- should not be subject to permission, licensing, or regulation by government but by the institution or deity under which these covenants are pledged," said Jim Theriault, chair of the Sarasota County LP.

You need a license for a bar mitzvah? Ok, I can see how that could be an effective source of revenue in Florida, but. . . did I just cross the line again?

I'll just step back over here.

And have a quick read of the Tech Central Station piece, Libertarians and Gay Marriage:

Libertarians love to duck fights, but on gay marriage they must take a stand.

[. . .] Some have suggested that we should sidestep the issue of gay marriage by having the government privatize marriage. I explained here in TCS why this is a horrible idea. To summarize my argument, I pointed out that marriage is a valuable brand name that has strength only because it stands for something very important to many people. Consequently, if anyone could set the conditions under which they got married, the marriage brand name would have no value and consequently marriage would be essentially abolished, not privatized. True, abolishing marriage would prevent the state from having to take a stand on gay marriage, but this position seems a little extreme even for a radical libertarian.

I'll just keep stepping backwards now. Are you supposed to avoid or maintain steady eye contact in these sorts of situations? I can never remember.

Bugger, I'm meant to be distinguishing between big-L Libertarian and small-l libertarian with this stuff, right? Ok. Other than hitting the shift key on the keyboard, could someone explain the difference?

And I can't bring myself to read Andrew Sullivan. I just can't.

I will point out that, by suggesting the elimination of marriage completely, those wacky libertarians or Libertarians are, in fact, helping fuel the backlash against gay marriage.

Kind'a like how, in using the phrase "race tax," they're helping fuel hostility towards black folks, regardless of how we feel about reparations.

Good job, kids. Between you and the Republicans, all I have to say is John Kerry is a douchebag but I'm voting for him anyway.

Fuckers.

I believe in one War

The Father, the Almighty, destroyer of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. Eternally begotten of the Father, War from War, Bomb from Bomb, begotten, not made, of one being with the War. Through War all things were made for us and for our salvation War came down from heaven: by the power of the Human Spirit it became incarnate. . . and was made man.

For War's sake humans are crucified, suffer death and are buried. On the third day no one will rise again and no one will ascend into heaven. War will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and its kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Human Spirit, the taker of life, who proceeds from the Father and the War. With the Father and the War it is worshipped and glorified. It has spoken through its profits. I acknowledge one War for the commission of sins. I look for no resurrection of the dead, and to the Wars of the world to come. Amen.

Praise the Father that Greg Carter transcribed that from get your voltr on; I was worried I've have to type the thing meself. . .

Any road up, in the words of the immoral Doctor Clayton Forrester, today's experiment stems from Yes, Democrats DO take black folks for granted:

Unfortunately, most folks who begin to recognize this fact are reluctant to even take a second (or for most a first) glance at the Republican or Libertarian parties, opting instead not to vote at all.

Left the <sarcasm> tags out again, didn't I?

All right, then. Fine. Today, I shall be taking a first glance at the Republican and Libertarian parties.

Which seems like the political equivalent of SUPER SIZE ME, really.

Our first stop, setting the stage and illustrating your tax dollars at work, US Dept of State - African Americans and the 2004 U.S. Elections:

Question: In 2002, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies asked black respondents in its national survey to identify themselves as either Democrats, Independents or Republicans. Although 63 percent claimed to be Democrats, the number was down from 74 percent in 2000. Is this trend continuing and is the Republican Party making special efforts to bring African Americans back to the party of Abraham Lincoln?

Walters: The Republican Party in each election cycle has claimed that they are making such efforts, but it's very difficult to see them. African Americans will say, for example, that they have changed their party identification. Right now, however, the growth in party identification is for neither major party, but with Independents. Yet, when you look at how people actually vote, African Americans voted 90 percent Democrat in the last election in each age group. So, although some of the past Joint Center studies show that younger blacks below the age of 35 were more conservative on some issues, still, when it came to political behavior, they voted pretty much like their elders.

Here's that context thing all the kids are into these days:

In a recent interview, Dr. Ron Walters, director of the African American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland, spoke with Washington File staff writer Darlisa Crawford about the role of African Americans in the 2004 election. Dr. Walters is a recognized expert on African American involvement in electoral politics and a frequent political commentator on network television. Also see this issue's Campaign Highlight feature which includes a discussion of outreach to minority voters by the Republican Party.

Links added.

And I could'a sworn I read something recently about how outreach, by and large, never fucking works, and unless you've built your organization from the ground up with participation by whoever you're outreaching to, they're gonna feel like the estranged Other. But I'm pretty sure I read that about women of color in feminist groups, so that rather dismal conclusion couldn't possibly apply here.

So. Let's have a look at those "special efforts to bring African Americans back to the party of Abraham Lincoln."

From the founding of the Republican Party to today, African Americans have been central to the GOP. The leadership of President George W. Bush provides an opportunity for us to work together and better include everyone of all backgrounds in the Republican Party. Bringing African Americans back to the Party of Lincoln has been a central priority of President Bush, RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie, and is the mission of the RNC's African American Team Leader Outreach program. President Bush has been a champion of real policies that will make a difference to African Americans - from the No Child Left Behind Act that improves education through choice and accountability, to strengthening faith-based and community organizations, to welfare reform that helps people find work. Working together with African Americans in communities across the country, we can make the Party of Lincoln stronger and more diverse than ever before.

That's from either GOP.com or RNC.org, depending on if you look at the page title or the actual URI. Interestingly, the repeated use of the phrase "Party of Lincoln" ain't outreaching. Reminds me of some other, considerably more dramatic instances of similar rhetoric appearing on official Republican Party pages and on government sites, but that's probably not the desired effect. And do they use that phrase constantly, or just when they're outreaching? To sort of underline the outreachiness? Because I'm very close to deciding that's an immutable word rather than a phrase, and running it together like wimmenandminorities or gassedhisownpeople.

And they probably don't want me asking either the teachers or people with children that I know how that No Child Left Behind deal is working for them.

Faith based?

Two months ago, a black minister in Chicago told the New York Times, "If the KKK opposes gay marriage, I would ride with them."

Can we run some sort of tests on the faithful? Intelligence, empathy, pain tolerance, I'm quite flexible. . . the black minister (Baptist, of course) was Gregory Daniels, of United Voters for Truth and Change.

Which name, I suppose, is like how the old Soviet republics used to have the word "Democratic" randomly tossed into them.

And welfare reform? Which the Clenis shamelessly stole as an issue, if I remember a'right?

Another little suggestion. Remember just a very few short paragraphs ago when I said the whole PartyofLincoln thing, when only used in outreaching, kind'a turns me off?

If I have to explicitly complete that thought, I will kill you once I'm done.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wash their stink off of me before proceeding to the Libertarian portion of our program.

May 10, 2004

The Well-Tempered Clavier, Prelude No.2 in C Minor

Performed by Mieko Miyazaki on koto. You know you want it.

Ok, you may not know yet, but give it a try. Couldn't hurt, might help.

Nothing from her, or from East Current, up at Calabash Music, more's the pity. They do, however, have songs from Suzy:

Suzy was born and raised in Turkey but is now living in Israel. Suzy sings in Ladino, an old Judeo-Spanish language still spoken today by the Turkish, Greek and Bulgarian Jews whose ancestors used to live in Spain during the 14th Century.

*cough*

Therefore, we, with the counsel and advice of prelates, great noblemen of our kingdoms, and other persons of learning and wisdom of our Council, having taken deliberation about this matter, resolve to order the said Jews and Jewesses of our kingdoms to depart and never to return or come back to them or to any of them. And concerning this we command this our charter to be given, by which we order all Jews and Jewesses of whatever age they may be, who live, reside, and exist in our said kingdoms and lordships, as much those who are natives as those who are not, who by whatever manner or whatever cause have come to live and reside therein, that by the end of the month of July next of the present year, they depart from all of these our said realms and lordships, along with their sons and daughters, menservants and maidservants, Jewish familiars, those who are great as well as the lesser folk, of whatever age they may be, and they shall not dare to return to those places, nor to reside in them, nor to live in any part of them, neither temporarily on the way to somewhere else nor in any other manner, under pain that if they do not perform and comply with this command and should be found in our said kingdom and lordships and should in any manner live in them, they incur the penalty of death and the confiscation of all their possessions by our Chamber of Finance, incurring these penalties by the act itself, without further trial, sentence, or declaration.

"We" way up in the sentence was King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, some time in early 1492; the quoted document is The Edict of Expulsion of the Jews:

The Edict went public during the week of April 29, 1492. The charter declared that no Jews were permitted to remain within the Spanish kingdom[.]

In case you were wondering why Suzy's ancestors used to live in Spain.

Meanwhile. . .

Sultan Bayazid II's offer of refuge gave new hope to the persecuted Sephardim. In 1492, the Sultan ordered the governors of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire "not to refuse the Jews entry or cause them difficulties, but to receive them cordially";.

[. . .] Immanual Aboab attributes to Bayazid II the famous remark that "the Catholic monarch Ferdinand was wrongly considered as wise, since he impoverished Spain by the expulsion of the Jews, and enriched Turkey". (7)

[. . .] Over the centuries an increasing number of European Jews, escaping persecution in their native countries, settled in the Ottoman Empire. In 1537 the Jews expelled from Apulia (Italy) after the city fell under Papal control, in 1542 those expelled from Bohemia by King Ferdinand found a safe haven in the Ottoman Empire.(8) In March of 1556, Sultan Suleyman "the Magnificent" wrote a letter to Pope Paul IV asking for the immediate release of the Ancona Marranos, which he declared to be Ottoman citizens. The Pope had no other alternative than to release them, the Ottoman Empire being the "Super Power" of those days.

I'm not doing any of this any justice whatsoever, mind. Getting back to the language, Ladino:

Ladino is a Romance language, derived mainly from Old Castillian and Hebrew (Spanish). Speakers are exclusively Sephardic Jews. The language is also called Judaeo-Spanish, Sefardi, Dzhudezmo, Judezmo, and Spanyol; Haquetiya, Hakitiya, or Haketia (from the Arabic haka, "tell") refers to the dialect of North Africa, especially Morocco, while the dialect of the Oran area of Algeria was called Tetuani or Tetauni.

Ok, like every other entry I've posted today, this is turning into a monster.

Trying to wrap things up quickly, "In Israel today there are an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 people with varying degrees of passive Ladino knowledge," or were in 1998, anyway. Worldwide, the language is "spoken today by approximately 160,000 people," but "is considered a 'seriously endangered' language."

I'm a firm believer in maintaining linguistic diversity myself, as long as nobody expects me to learn the damn things.

Attention Conservation Notice, buried way the fuck at the end: Go listen to Suzy, and see if you can find the Mieko Miyazaki cd for me someplace.

Make money fast! Buy the leftover prisoner hoods from Iraq, paint them white. . .

. . . and sell them to the kids at The Command Post.

If that seems unwarranted, please read the comments in the following entries:

And then lecture me about what is and isn't warranted.

If clicking links is too much trouble:

The thing to remember is that Mandela is an old line commie. he was brought up to hate America because of our capitalist system. Forgotten, it would seem, is the pressure we helped bring to bear on the old South African regime who’s demise lead to his ascencion.

You know the best way to set up an impoverished African Nation?

Is to set up a prosperous one, hand it over to them, and wait.

Feel free to ask the person who wrote that last one, Redneck Texan, who he or she means by "them," if you're feeling masochistic.

And, from the second link:

Who cares what that race hustling, bastard-fathering P.O.S. has to say about anything?

Jackson has done more in America to keep poor people poor, ghettos well stocked, racial inequality as a reason to continue social programs that have totally failed, time and again.

Glenn Reynolds and James Lileks like The Command Post. There are blurbs from then in the sidebar and everything.

So that's two extra hoods too, then.

I expect I'll be accused of not being civil for posting this. And for implying that conservatives are evil, racist fuckheads.

Anyone cares to explain why, precisely, I should be civil with people who consider me subhuman, please, go right ahead.

Oh, and to hell with implication. Conservatives, this lot at least, are evil, racist fuckheads.

What puzzles me is why they get so defensive when someone points this out.

But not despair

I'd like to lie and say this entry is going to be good news for a change, but it's more like positive signs. Or what I think are positive signs, anyway.

From DearMary.com:

Activist Judges
Coretta Scott KingPresident Bush implied in his State of the Union that the only prominent Americans who support marriage equality for gays and lesbians are "activist judges." Knowing our president would never attempt to mislead the country about something so important in an address before both houses of Congress and the entire nation, we thought we'd look a little deeper at all these "activist judges" in support of marriage equality for gays and lesbians. Here's what we found:

And also Mayor Richard Daley, Governor (still can't type it with a straight face) Arnold Schwartzenegger, the NAACP's Julian Bond. . . didn't know all these people even had their JD, let alone that they were judges. My bad.

Further afield, and registration-required, Chicago Tribune | Turkey orders sermons on women's rights:

Turkey's young governing party, with roots in political Islam, has confounded critics and some supporters alike by transforming the nation's 70,000 mosques into bully pulpits from which preachers advocate women's rights and other democratic reforms.

The government's Directorate of Religious Affairs, which dictates the all-important Friday sermons, has instructed the nation's imams to turn their spiritual guidance to the arena of human rights and ridding Turkey of unwanted vestiges of traditional society.

Rather than the calls to holy war that echo through mosques in some parts of the world, worshipers here are being told that "honor killings," in which men murder female relatives suspected of tarnishing the family name, are a sin as well as against the law.

Those attending services also are hearing about formerly taboo subjects, such as a need for equality of the sexes in the home and the workplace and women's reproductive rights.

[. . .] The architect of the transformation is Ali Bardakoglu, the head of the Religious Affairs Directorate, which regulates religious practices in Turkey.

A former academic with a mild manner, Bardakoglu has taken the unusual step of consulting numerous women's groups and physicians as part of an effort to craft sermons addressing women's issues.

"To have the head of the Religious Affairs Ministry seeing women's rights as important may in itself bring about change," said Yakin Erturk, the new UN Human Rights Commission's representative on violence against women. "He can reach people the human-rights advocates often cannot--the 15 million men in Turkey who attend services every Friday."

Could have done without the "calls to holy war that echo through mosques in some parts of the world" bit -- wee bit too LGF-ish for my tastes -- but I find it encouraging.

By the bye, would I have to totally drop any interest in the rights of women and the GLBT contingent to be a Republican? Because that's kind of a deal-breaker. I mean, yes, the Democratic Party having a near-monopoly on the African American vote is (in some ways) damaging to African Americans, Democratics and everyone else, but since we do only have the two political parties, and most Republicans are just too fucking evil for me to consider working with 'em. . .

Right, positive thoughts.

Coming July 16th through the 29th to a theater not that far, the Century Centre Cinema (and starting the 16th at the Lagoon in Minneapolis), it's The Corporation:

One hundred and fifty years ago, the corporation was a relatively insignificant entity. Today, it is a vivid, dramatic and pervasive presence in all our lives. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the corporation is today’s dominant institution. But history humbles dominant institutions. All have been crushed, belittled or absorbed into some new order. The corporation is unlikely to be the first to defy history. In this complex and highly entertaining documentary, Mark Achbar, co-director of the influential and inventive MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, teams up with co-director Jennifer Abbott and writer Joel Bakan to examine the far-reaching repercussions of the corporation’s increasing preeminence. Based on Bakan’s book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, the film is a timely, critical inquiry that invites CEOs, whistle-blowers, brokers, gurus, spies, players, pawns and pundits on a graphic and engaging quest to reveal the 4corporation’s inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures. Featuring illuminating interviews with Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn and many others, THE CORPORATION charts the spectacular rise of an institution aimed at achieving specific economic goals as it also recounts victories against this apparently invincible force.

Saw it mentioned at The Liquid List, which also has an entry on that Emmett Till thing, but again, positive. And what's more positive than a documentary with Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, Vandana Shiva, Anita Roddick. . . no, I am being positive, honest.

Speaking of, my sunny dispostion prevents me from quoting South Africa, Israel-Palestine, and the Contours of the Contemporary World Order: An Interview With Noam Chomsky.

Anti-Arab racism in the U.S. is endemic. It is extreme. In fact, in a sense it is the only legitimate kind of racism. Harvard professors can write articles with openly racist condemnations of Arabs which are not noticed. I've sometimes given talks there in which I take those statements and put in "Jew" instead of "Arab," and people say, "My God, this is horrible. How can anyone say this?" You tell them it's just Arab, not Jew, and they relax.

Good thing, that.

Wonder if he's taken the LGF Quiz?

Yep, positive. I'll work on that.

Update: Ok, keep meaning to mention this, and keep forgetting, so here's a totally random link to the online e-comic, The Spiders. Seen most recently in a comment at either Electrolite or Making Light, I'm not sure which. Or where I'd originally seen it. But, um, it's really good. If not exactly the feel-good online e-comic of the summer. . .

Oh, right, it has bits of poems by Jalaluddin Rumi.

Let go of your worries
and be completely clear-hearted,
like the face of a mirror
that contains no images.
If you want a clear mirror,
behold yourself
and see the shameless truth,
which the mirror reflects.

Not that one, mind.

Oh, go look at the comic and read the poems and quit yer whining.

More details

But that previous entry was getting way too long. So, from the top, Bloomberg.com: U.S. Renews Probe of 1955 Killing of Black Teenager (Update1):

The Justice Department said in a statement it will help local officials determine ``whether any prosecutions remain possible under state law.'' The federal government can't prosecute the case because the applicable law in 1955 required charges to be filed within five years of the killing.

Two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were charged in the slaying of Till, 14, whose mutilated body was found by fishermen in Mississippi. An all-white jury acquitted both defendants, who have since died. The maker of a recent documentary on the case has said that some people involved in the murder are still alive.

[. . .] Police arrested Milam and Bryant, who were indicted on charges of kidnapping and murder. At their trial, Till's uncle identified them as the men who had taken the teenager. After 67 minutes of deliberations, the all-white jury acquitted the two men.

That, and previous articles made it sound certain that further prosecutions are possible, while this one makes that sound like something they're looking into.

See also: Promethus 6: I am seriously wondering what's the point and { a burst of light }: Emmitt Till Case Reopened.

Just Cynicism

To: National Desk

Contact: Candace Sandy of the Office of Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, 718-949-5600

ST. ALBANS, N.Y., April 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY) released the following statement today:

"Thanks to the daring research by Keith A. Beauchamp, a documentary film maker from Brooklyn, and his colleague, Kenneth P. Thompson, a former federal prosecutor, new evidence has been uncovered in relation to the brutal, unsolved and unresolved murder of Emmitt Till nearly 50 years ago. While making his documentary on the life and times of the 14 year old Till who was kidnaped, mutilated, and murdered while on a visit to family in Mississippi, Mr. Beauchamp came across eyewitness accounts that have never been heard in a court of law.

"Emmitt Till's murder back in 1955, is an unclosed, unhealed wound that haunts the conscience of our nation. The pictures of Emmitt Till's remains sears the consciousness of all those who have seen the photos. Americans of good will who came to maturity in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s have never forgotten the inhumanity of the methods Emmitt Till's murderers employed. Americans born in later generations cannot escape the revulsion and horror in voices and on the face of their parents and grandparents when they recount this awful deed -- nor, their anger over the continuing lack of justice. I can remember the pain on faces and the anger in the voices of my parents."

Emphasis added. That's from a press release from, as noted, April 13th.

Today:

The Justice Department said Monday it is reopening the investigation into the 1955 murder of Emmitt Till, a teenager whose death while visiting Mississippi was an early catalyst for the civil rights movement.

[. . .] Pictures of the slaying shocked the world. Two white men charged with murder - Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam - were acquitted by an all-white jury. Both men have since died.

Justice Department officials did not say what prompted them to reopen the case. Details of the renewed investigation, which also involves officials in Mississippi, were to be announced Monday by R. Alexander Acosta, assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Again, emphasis added. I expect they'll describe the "new evidence" found while making the documentary.

Emmett's mother, Mamie Till Mobley, passed away back in 2003:

Though [Roy] Bryant confessed to the lynching in an interview with Look magazine, both men were acquitted by an all-white Mississippi jury.

Mrs. Mobley became a teacher and reading specialist for the Chicago Public Schools from 1961 to 1983. In 1973 she also founded the Emmett Till Players, a civil-rights-related youth theater group. On Dec. 8, Mrs. Mobley attended an event organized by the Murder Victim Families for Reconciliation to call on Gov. Ryan to commute death penalty sentences in Illinois.

"She saw the death penalty as a modern extension to what was done to her son and to blacks in the South in the 1950s. She characterized it as legal lynching,'' said Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins, head of the national board of Murder Victim Families for Reconciliation and a Northfield resident.

More emphasis. Sorry. Nervous habit.

No, not nervous. Fucking pissed off.

I just have an odd feeling any right-wingers proclaiming this as proof of anything -- other than a cynical election-year ploy by a president who got less than 10% of the black vote last time around -- aren't going to mention that whole opposed to the death penalty thing.

Sorry, in addition to the election year thing, there's possibly the hope that re-running those grisly photos will take people's minds off the ones coming out of Iraq.

Guess I could look for contact info on Congressman Meeks' site and ask him what the point was, but this would involve not pointing out that they spelled 'Emmett' wrong in their press release. Then again, so did AP.

Update: But the New York Times didn't.

Two men were acquitted by an all-white jury, but for years family members and journalists who have reported on the case have said that other people may have been involved as well.

"If indeed others are implicated and they can be identified, they can still be prosecuted," R. Alexander Acosta, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said at a news conference this morning. "While the five-year federal statute of limitations in effect in 1955 has since expired, prosecution can still be brought in state court."

Mr. Acosta said that justice department has formed a partnership with federal prosecutors, the F.B.I. and local law enforcement officials to begin a new investigation of the murder. Their findings will form the basis of any new prosecutions.

[. . .] In the mid-1990's, long after the trail had grown cold, a young documentarian named Keith Beauchamp started to make a film about the case. He interviewed several potential witnesses, including one who was jailed in another city at the time of the trial to keep investigators from calling him to the stand.

Mr. Beauchamp has asserted that there were actually 10 people — several of them still alive, he said — present at the murder. Family members and members of Congress have urged the federal government to investigate this case, just as it has several other civil rights murders that were committed decades ago but were solved only recently.

Perhaps I'm missing something.

Statute of limitations on what?

They also have another AP article, U.S. to Reopen Investigation of Emmett Till's Murder in 1955:

R. Alexander Acosta, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said a recent public television documentary about the killing and other new information brought to the Justice Department's attention suggests that additional people still alive were involved in the killing.

``This brutal murder and grotesque miscarriage of justice outraged a nation and helped galvanize support for the modern American civil rights movement,'' Acosta said. ``We owe it to Emmett Till, and we owe it to ourselves, to see whether after all these years some additional measure of justice remains possible.''

The five-year statute of limitations in effect at the time on any federal charges has long since expired but a state case could still be brought, Acosta said. The FBI and Justice Department prosecutors will work on the investigation with Joyce Chiles, district attorney for Mississippi's 4th Judicial District.

[. . .] The NAACP and other individuals and groups have called repeatedly for reopening the case, which has been the subject of documentary films and books. In a 2003 letter to Mississippi officials, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said it was ``time to address what remains an ugly mark'' in state and U.S. history.

Oh. General statute of limitations. That's. . . bizarre.

And at least some of the suspects are still around. And at least in their 60s. One hopes they're at least in their 60s.

And since there have been calls to reopen the case for a while, perhaps I shouldn't assume that just because this announcement was made a politically convenient time. . .

Wait, that's right. Bush and company. They've not only given one fucking reason to give them the benefit of the doubt, they've gone out of their way to give reasons not to.

In 1956, Look magazine published an account of the slaying in which Milam admitted that he and Bryant did the killing, which occurred a few days after Till purportedly whistled at a white girl in a store.

``'Chicago boy,' I said, 'I'm tired of them sending your kind down here to stir up trouble,''' Milam was quoted as saying. ``I'm going to make an example of you, just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.''

Milam said he beat Till and shot him in the head with a .45-caliber pistol, then tied a heavy metal fan to the body and dumped it in the river.

And I'm not sure where to begin with admitting to a murder in a magazine interview. And getting away with it.

They used to be classy. They used to show 'Son of Svengoolie'.

That's WFLD, our local Fox affiliate here in Chicago. Because I suck so very much, I missed Wendy's appearance last Wednesday on their news program. Luckily for me, and for you, she's posted a meticulously detailed recap:

NEWSCASTER VOICE-OVER: "Wendy McClure says she was bitten by the blogging bug four years ago."
Um, no, I didn't.

The problem being, local or not, it's still Fox News. They report, or at least make up shit, you decide.

For reasons she does her very best to explain, the piece included a clip from The Blob. Which I don't remember ever being shown on Svengoolie, but like I said, he had class. . .

This is a bit too Chicago-centric, isn't it? I should include something for visitors from elsewhere. Like downstate. Like Pocahontas, Illinois, home town of Gretchen Wil. . .

Skip it.

No, not Colored People Time

CPT.org is actually the site for Christian Peacemaker Teams:

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) offers an organized, nonviolent alternative to war and other forms of lethal inter-group conflict. CPT provides organizational support to persons committed to faith-based nonviolent alternatives in situations where lethal conflict is an immediate reality or is supported by public policy.

CPT seeks to enlist the response of the whole church in conscientious objection to war, and the development of nonviolent institutions, skills and training for intervention in conflict situations. CPT projects connect intimately with the spiritual lives of its constituent congregations. Gifts of prayer, money and time from these churches undergird CPT peacemaking ministries.

You know that old joke, "What's the difference between Jane Fonda and [insert name of chickenhawk here]? Jane Fonda actually went to Vietnam"? It's like that:

CPTnet
April 14, 2004

IRAQ: CPT delegation and team leave Baghdad as advised by Iraqi colleagues

CPT's Chicago office received a phone call early this morning from CPT's Iraq team, saying they and the CPT delegation had left the country on the advice of their Iraqi co-workers. Both team and delegation are currently in Amman, Jordan.

The extremely aggressive actions of the U.S. and Coalition Forces throughout Iraq and especially in Fallujah have created widespread suspicion and fear of the intentions of these foreign armies. This suspicion puts all internationals at risk. Reports from Fallujah indicate that 60% of the fatalities in that city are women and children. The U.S. has bombed one hospital there and confiscated another for use as an emergency command center for its troops. Coalition Forces are detaining massive numbers of people throughout Iraq and Iraqis are afraid that residents of Najaf will soon experience the same treatment as the residents of Fallujah have.

CPT's most trusted Iraqi partners have urged the team to leave, saying that the current situation will make it impossible for the team to engage in normal, honest engagements with Iraqis or fulfill their mission to deter violence. They have also suggested that CPT's presence might actually endanger their local Iraqi partners in the emerging violent chaos.

Well, went and got the fuck out, but that's still more than you can say for. . . I should stop being unkind. Sorry. Looked 'em up after seeing the name of the group in Chain of Command at the New Yorker:

There is at least one other report of violence involving American soldiers, an Army dog, and Iraqi citizens, but it was not in Abu Ghraib. Cliff Kindy, a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, a church-supported group that has been monitoring the situation in Iraq, told me that last November G.I.s unleashed a military dog on a group of civilians during a sweep in Ramadi, about thirty miles west of Fallujah.

More details, and more photos, in the link.

Wasn't there some meme a while ago about liberals/progressives and Christia-- no, wrong of me to think that a group dedicated to "organized, nonviolent alternative to war and other forms of lethal inter-group conflict," and that actually listens to the people they're working with, is progressive. My bad.

I'll think that because their site used to be hosted on Prairienet.

So you may as well keep your black ass home election day

After all, even if your ballot gets counted to begin with, and you're not purged from the rolls because you have a name that kind'a sort'a resembles that of someone convicted of a felony in the next millennium (see The Writings of Greg Palast for details, if you really need or want them), there's the shocking fact that Black Democrats see racism in party:

"The Democratic Party acts as if they own black people," said Delegate Clarence "Tiger" Davis, Baltimore Democrat. "The state party is racist to the core."

Another insult, said Delegate Nathaniel T. Oaks, Baltimore Democrat, is that party leaders press black candidates more than white candidates to vote for tax increases, which could cause them to lose their seats in coming elections.

"I think the Democratic Party takes black people for granted," Mr. Oaks said. "I think what [the Democratic Party] does in the state is just a reflection of what it does as a whole on the national level."

The state in question is Maryland, the source of the story, the Washington Times.

But I suppose dismissing the story on that basis is just as bad as ignoring Palast because. . . why is he dismissed again? Other than that he's saying the wrong things?

Any road up, in the interests of fairness and balance, I suppose I should look for a story about elected African American politicians possibly, possibly, seeing racism in the Republican party.

This involves first finding elected Republican African American politicians. As opposed to the appointed sort, like Condi and Colin.

. . .

Bit thin on the ground, aren't they?

And since reading anything from white Republicans about why there aren't more black folks voting for them generally gives me yet more reasons not to vote for them, well, I expect there's no point voting at all, right?

That is what this story was trying to convince me of, yes? Or is it foolish to think it was targetted at me in the first place?

Why am I asking you?

May 9, 2004

May 17th

Should be an interesting day, what with the historical observances and weddings in Massachusetts and all.

From that first link:

Brown 50 Years & Beyond: Promise & Progress

By the 1950s little had changed, and many blacks, believing that the best hope for racial equality lay in education, looked to the NAACP to mount a concerted legal attack on school segregation. A modest beginning had already been made with the organization's victory in a 1938 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that the University of Missouri's grant of an out-of-state scholarship to keep a black student out of its law school denied the student equal protection under the law. After World War II, the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund, under the leadership of future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, set its sights on winning a case that would overturn the 1896 Plessy ruling. In 1951 the NAACP coordinated the filing of lawsuits challenging segregated schooling in South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, the District of Columbia, and Kansas.

On December 9, 1952, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on all five of the cases on the Brown docket but postponed its ruling and requested a rehearing, which took place the following year. In the interim, Chief Justice Fred Vinson died and the newly elected President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren in his place. Even after a second hearing, the court debated the case for months as Warren negotiated for a unanimous decision which he felt was crucial to ensure southern compliance with what was sure to be an unpopular ruling. Eventually the two dissenting justices were won over but a major compromise was required--agreement that the ruling would be implemented gradually rather than at once, as the NAACP had requested.

The historic ruling was announced at 12:52 p.m. on May 17, 1954, by Chief Justice Warren. Stressing the fact that public education was "a right which must be made available to all on equal terms," Warren voiced the court's opinion that separating black children "from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone." The crucial reversal of Plessy came in the most famous part of the ruling: "We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of `separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

Not the end of the story, of course. There's a piece in today's Chicago Tribune on how well that's been working for us:

Fifty years after a landmark court decision brought the promise of better schooling for black students, most of Illinois' black children are still relegated to segregated and inferior schools, a Tribune study has found.

A black child is about 40 times more likely than a white child to attend one of Illinois' worst-of-the-worst "academic watch" schools. A child at a majority black school is about six times more likely to be taught by teachers without full certification than at a white school.

And majority black grade schools have larger class sizes and larger enrollments on average, though research has shown the benefits of small and nurturing learning environments, particularly for disadvantaged children.

The inequities stretch from Chicago to the suburbs to communities across the state, creating conditions for black children that many white parents couldn't imagine.

Maybe closer to the day itself I'll have a look at how things are in the south.

Closer to the day and after several good, stiff drinks.

As for the second link, that's

GLAD: How to Get Married in Massachusetts

The process for getting married in Massachusetts basically requires an eligible couple to submit an application for a license, along with the results of a blood test and a fee, to any city or town clerk in Massachusetts. After a three-day waiting period (unless it has been waived by a court), the couple will receive the license from the clerk, and must then have the marriage solemnized (i.e., have a ceremony) within 60 days of filing the application. Once the ceremony has been performed, the person who performed it will state the time and place of the wedding on the license, sign it, and send it back to the city or town where the couple received it. The clerk will then register the marriage and the couple can receive an official certificate of their marriage.

Bit more complicated than that, of course -- there's a reason for that linking thing, other than the pretty colors -- but I'm guessing anyone thinking of heading out that way in the near future has a better grasp on the whole "planning" deal than I do, and will already know this stuff.

I expect there'll also be people managing to simultaneously condemn desegregation, push for the same-sex marriage amendment (or a local equivalent, even if one is already on the books) and declare that they're neither racist nor homophobic.

And then, if there's any justice at all in the Universe, their heads will promptly explode.

Needless to say, I'm not counting on the 'splody.

Second Verse

From Charles Dodson, by way of Avedon Carol, Boston.com / News / World / Indians say they were held against their will in Iraq by U.S. Army to do menial labor:

''We have seen the reports and are looking into them. We take all reports of abuse seriously and all allegations of mistreatment are investigated,'' Kennedy said. ''We are committed to treating all persons under coalition authority with dignity, respect and humanity.''

That's David Kennedy, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, addressing allegations from four Indian citizens that they were. . . "shanghaied" both seems completely appropriate and totally inappropriate a word. . . into performing menial tasks at a US base in Iraq.

Of course, they don't have photos.

Video would be better.

Sorry, been thinking about the Rodney King beating, and how our concerns about police brutality were pretty much ignored up until that video came out.

Didn't see it until long after the fact myself, as I was in Saudi Arabia at the time. See, Iraq had invaded Kuwait and their troops were pulling babies out of incubators. . . no, wait, that last one, while untrue and not backed up by video or photo evidence, was accepted immediately.

That's the joke, see. Let's face it, if a bunch of Iraqis came forward and alleged the things we've all seen entirely too many photos of recently -- with more to come, it seems -- is there anyone out there who would have believed a word of it?

Especially if our government either gave a neutral comment like Kennedy's quoted above, or better yet issued a complete denial?

Luckily, there's reports of a lockdown on access to email by service personnel. This should have the effects of decreasing morale and making it look like we have something to hide. And probably won't actually succeed in hiding whatever that is; checking for discs is all well and good, if the Sony Mavica is the digital camera of choice over there, but CompactFlash and Smart Media cards are just wee things to smuggle or send out by snail mail. . .

But that's getting far afield.

Some Indians have made (thus far) unsubstantiated allegations regarding mistreatment by our forces in Iraq.

Innocent until proven guilty, the burden of proof lies with the accuser, yadda yadda yadda.I know that's how white folks like to think our justice system works, and normally I don't have the patience to even try arguing otherwise. Just another quick question: after seeing and hearing about what went on in Abu Gharib, are you just a wee bit less inclined to immediately dismiss the allegations?

I don't think there's a right answer to that one either.

May 8, 2004

Hello, my name is Scott McNealy, and I pronounce Solaris. . .

Never mind.

So, checked the referrers, and up comes:

Have you stopped beating your wife, sir? - reprise

Interesting debate over the effectiveness and/or desirability of mandatory arrests in domestic abuse cases happening here, for those who'd like to offer an opinion...

I'm not going to ask what Jeff used for the rotating sidebar quote that, I'm guessing, is what brought the tourist in for a visit. Comes with using a Creative Commons License, I expect.

And using that title for a discussion of that subject. . . ok, humor is idiosyncratic. The title I used for this one may not even make sense to most of you. But domestic abuse? Jokes about the photos coming out of Abu Gharib?

Can we all break kayfabe for a minute here?

Taking on a public persona for weblog entries and comments, as Jeff and Laurence (among others) do, is all well and good. God knows I've done it myself, which is why writing this feels distinctly like stepping outside my glass house to throw stones.

I'm not. Or I'm trying very hard not to, at least.

Like everyone else, including Michael King (and how long have you had the domain?), I saw A Frank Guide to a Cordial Political Discussion a few days back. And the comments there. And a few of the places linking it.

And a few of the other entries at places linking it.

And saw that Rachel Lucas is back, too, from an entry at Protein Wisdom. Which reminds me of something:

http://www.uppity-negro.com/cgi-uppity-negro/mt.cgi
  • Username: guest
  • Password: guest

I'll explain that in a bit.

Anyway.

Kayfabe
The act of acting or being ‘in character’. When a wrestler ‘breaks kayfabe’, he is no longer playing the character that he is in the wrestling world. In the past, there was unwritten rule that wrestlers should never ‘break kayfabe’ in the presence of a wrestling fan. Today however, this rule has largely disappeared, with wrestlers regularly speaking out of character on talk shows and the Internet. At some points a wrestler may even break kayfabe on a wrestling show, in order to appeal to ‘smart’ fans. For example, Raven used to regularly break ‘kayfabe’ in his WCW days by referring to Diamond Dallas Page and Eric Bischoff as neighbours – a true fact. Chaz Warrington famously ‘broke kayfabe’ on a WWF show, refusing to continue with his Harry ‘Beaver’ Cleavage gimmick.

Not the first time I've compared blogtopia (y!sctp!) to, as Vince would have it, professional sports entertainment. And the whole left/right name-calling stuff (moonbat, asshat, rethug, take your pick and please deposit it in one of the dustbins located by the exits) feels like a storyline that's seriously played out.

Time for something new.

Only not that new.

ambra took me to task for my lack of civility here a short while ago. Conversation didn't really go anywhere, and I'm sure if I just ask nicely for us to all sit down and talk here and now, the same thing'll happen.

Which is why I've turned that guest login back on.

So you can say whatever you'd like.

Only, the real you. Not the character you use at your own place, Tell me about a book you've read and enjoyed, or a band you like, or a film you saw or are looking forward to seeing. Something. Anything.

Just not in character. As an actual person.

I'd like to think that's not too much to ask.

Update: Minor edits here and there; knew them sics in the previous entry were gonna come back to bite me in the ass. Also turned off trackback autodiscovery, in the hopes that it'll prevent the thing from re-pinging the MT entries at other sites that are linked. Is that a standing issue, or just something I have configured wrong?

The news at 1100ish GMT, read by Aaron Hawkins

I think it's important -- and, with this Interweb thingee, pretty damned convenient -- to read non-U.S. news sources, just to see how events are covered elsewhere. Sure, they're biased, but at least it's a different set of biases than you get here, and going in with full knowledge of those biases allows one to. . .

Gina LollobrigidaBBC NEWS | Americas | Canada MPs argue over sex symbol

Tempers flared when an MP accused an ex-minister of "rubbing shoulders with Gina Lollobreegeeda", reports said.

The apparent mispronunciation prompted Human Resources Minister Joe Volpe to yell: "It's Gina Lollobrigida, idiot!"

Opposition MP Jason Kenney hit back, saying he was sorry for "offending the ageing sex-kitten community".

. . . wonder why the fuck one bothers.

Mr Volpe later told reporters he too had some regrets over the row.

"I'm sorry I called him an idiot. I should have referred to him as an imbecile," he said.

It's also good to have visitors from other places, to put this sort of thing in context. Nalo? Lauren and Emira? Tristan?

Does this sort of thing happen often up there?

And do you younger sex kittens have any sort of political organization to condemn these sorts of abuses? Or is there some internecine conflict between you and the previous generation?

And does anyone know who that actress was playing the CEO of the Italian branch of Wolfram & Hart on last week's Angel?

These are the sorts of questions that fail utterly to keep me up nights.

Things I leave out of the actual entry, for reasons which should become obvious as you read:

I do worry that people will think I only mention this story and ask after the actress because I have a thing for busty Italians.

Actually, it's half-Italians.

The top half.

On second thought, since my Physical Attraction Test at Match.com spit out busty redheads, guess it's not half so much as. . . right, that's not going anywhere good. . .

ampersand mentioned something that caught me attention on Angel, but that I let go without comment:

But what's with the ending, in which. . .

Freeze.

Spoilers ahead, in case you're watching on tape/TiVo delay. Not feeling like doing the <font color="same as bgcolor"> thang, and there's no ^L equivalent for MT (and no, I'm not writing Ben and Mena to suggest such a thing, because it would be very, very silly).

Ok, go.

. . .the visual representation of Andrew's growing up is that he's going out for a night on the town with two gorgious [sic] babes (female variety)? The implication is that "growing up" consists of a movement from not-very-closeted homosexuality to the adolescant [sic] vision of heterosexuality represented by James Bond - and, in the sixth season of Buffy, represented by Warren.

Those sics are gonna come back to bite me in the ass, I just know it.

Let it pass without comment because I'm not sure that was the auctorial intent, though I don't deny it's a possible reading.

Hey, at least I get weasely about scenes in a canceled television show, rather than our nonelected leaders doing it about our national security.

Another bit in that same entry mentions never-seen-it My So-Called Life, then transitions smoothly to:

But then I got to thinking: Why is it that we can't seem to get away from viewing the black civil rights struggle as the Platonic civil rights struggle, the struggle that all other struggles must resemble or else be illegitimate?

Think of the debate, in recent months, over if same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue. It's almost always presented in the same way: as a question of if the gay rights movement is similar to or different from the black civil rights movement (those who are pro-SSM say "similar," those who aren't say "different"). It's rarely presented as a question of if justice and equality are being denied to same-sex couples, taken on their own terms.

Something else that's been annoying me for a while. I'm completely hypocritical about this, of course; no problem with people protesting Chief Illiniwek saying no one would debate for one second about the propriety of a white guy in blackface performing during halftime shows, but towering self-righteous rage when someone starts claiming that the only group it's acceptable to mock/discriminate against nowadays is men/heterosexuals/Christians/fat people/smokers/et fucking cetera. First time I hear a dog owner say something like that in response to a sign outside a store or coffee shop politely requesting they not bring their little flea factory inside is going to have a hell of a time explaining to the people at the ER how they managed to get the thing shoved up their. . .

Ahem.

Anyway, the comparisons usually also carry at least the implicit suggestion that the (black) civil rights struggle is not just over, but that the Good Guys (that's us, by the way) won. I'd argue both of those contentions, if I thought there was any point in doing so, but since white conservatives generally know so much more about what it's like to black in the US these days than I could (presumably from watching Good Times and either having a black friend [who, curiously, never, ever posts to their site, in the case of the warbloggers] or having fucked at least one black person at some point) that I figure my time is better spent trying to find decent photos of Gina Lollobrigida, really.

Bonus round: Kenyon Farrow - "Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black???" at just-added-to-links-list Anzidesign:

Since the Christian Right has money and access to corporate media, they set the racial/sexual paradigm that much of America gets in this debate, which is that homos are rich and white and do not need any such special protections and that black people are black � a homogeneous group who, in this case, are Christian, asexual (or hetero-normative), morally superior, and have the right type of �family values.� This, even though black families are consistently painted as dysfunctional and are treated as such in the mass media and in public policy, which has devastating effects on black self-esteem, and urban and rural black communities� ability to be self-supporting, self-sustaining, and self determining. The lack of control over economic resources, high un/underemployment, lack of adequate funding for targeted effective HIV prevention and treatment, and the large numbers of black people in prison (nearly one million of the 2.2 million U.S. prison population) are all ways that black families (which include non-heterosexuals) are undermined by public policies often fueled by right wing �tough on crime� and �war on drugs� rhetoric.

Which really deserves an entry, rather than passing notice.

But isn't that enough for one day?

May 7, 2004

My goodness! Tears won't get you anything

Just a shiny red nose
Go on, paint up, powder up, put on your swellest clothes
Men: go and get 'em by the score
Neglected girls shouldn't worry
That's what God made sailors for!

Don't cry for him or chase him
Just go out and replace him
With some good looking Tom, Dick or Jack
'Cuz if your kisses won't hold the man you love
Then your tears won't bring him back

If Your Kisses Can't Hold the Man You Love, by Rasputina, who's site I think I've linked quite enough times recently, from Frustration Plantation. Previous link to the album page at eMusic, since the other places (as far as I can tell) don't let you do that.

Plus, you know, levity. It's a Good Thing.

Following the disclosure in December 2000 of the black voter purge in Britain's Observer newspaper, NAACP lawyers sued the state. The civil rights group won a written promise from Governor Jeb and from Harris's successor to return wrongly scrubbed citizens to the voter rolls. According to records given to the courts by ChoicePoint, the company that generated the computerized lists, the number of Floridians who were questionably tagged totals 91,000. Willie Steen is one of them. Recently, I caught up with Steen outside his office at a Tampa hospital. Steen's case was easy. You can't work in a hospital if you have a criminal record. (My copy of Harris's hit list includes an ex-con named O'Steen, close enough to cost Willie Steen his vote.) The NAACP held up Steen's case to the court as a prime example of the voter purge evil.

The state admitted Steen's innocence. But a year after the NAACP won his case, Steen still couldn't register. Why was he still under suspicion? What do we know about this "potential felon," as Jeb called him? Steen, unlike our President, honorably served four years in the US military. There is, admittedly, a suspect mark on his record: Steen remains an African-American.

And somewhat necessarily to prevent killing sprees. That's Greg Palast again, from Vanishing Votes, available now on his site and in the May 17th edition of The Nation.

Which would be the previous edition, apparently, as their site currently lists the contents of the May 24th one. One of those contents, How to Get Out of Iraq: A Forum:

[T]he orders issued by proconsul Bremer are illegitimate and should be rescinded, including those designed to place the economy effectively in the hands of Western (mostly US) banks and MNCs, and the 15 percent flat tax, which, apart from its injustice, bars the way to desperately needed social spending and reconstruction. Without economic sovereignty, prospects for healthy development are slight and political independence verges on formality.

It also follows that Washington should end the machinations to insure its long-term military presence and control of Iraqi security forces, in defiance of the will of Iraqis, who call for Iraqis to control security, according to Western-run polls, which record only minuscule support for the occupying military forces and their civil counterparts (the CPA) or the US-appointed Governing Council.

Bit of Noam Chomsky's contribution there. He's paying much better attention than I can claim, as I wasn't even aware of the tax thang:

Sunday, November 2, 2003

The flat tax, long a dream of economic conservatives, is finally getting its day -- not in the United States, but in Iraq.

It took L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Baghdad, no more than a stroke of the pen Sept. 15 to accomplish what eluded the likes of publisher Steve Forbes, Reps. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) and Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.), and Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) over the course of a decade and two presidential campaigns.

"The highest individual and corporate income tax rates for 2004 and subsequent years shall not exceed 15 percent," Bremer wrote in Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 37, "Tax Strategy for 2003," issued last month.

Voilà! Iraq has a flat tax, and the 15 percent rate is even lower than Forbes (17 percent) and Gramm (16 percent) favored for the United States. And, unless a future Iraqi government rescinds it, the flat tax will remain long after the Americans have left.

That's from a registration-required Washington Post piece, I'm afraid. Had a quick look for a nice, unbiased review of such things by someone like, say, a Nobel-winning economist, and came up with nada. Lots and lots of terribly enthusiastic pieces by conservatives who favor the idea, and a few criticisms by progressives, like this one from Molly Ivins, but nothing I'd call objective.

Guess I could look some more, but since I doubt the majority of people living in Iraq are aware that this is their tax system, why should I know more than they do about it? Other than the 'net access and free time to do research, that is?

As for the massive disenfranchisement of African American voters in Florida or nationwide, well, seeing as we've tried the bullet, the ballot, and everything in between, it's hard for me to work up much enthusiasm at this point.

Especially since bringing up Florida/Election 2000 is just going to cause the right wingers to look up from their latest screed about what Kerry did or didn't do with his or someone else's ribbons or medals to insist that I get over it and stop living in the past.

The Pixies, Ghost in the Shell, Connect

Damn, those descriptive titles are boring. . .

Closed the download window my own self, and it took forever, so I wish you the very best of luck trying to download The Pixies 2004-04-13 Minneapolis (MP3). It's a BitTorrent thing, if you don't understand, ask somebody. Or, you know, read FAQ. Or not. I'm flexible.

Other shows can be found using the simple, very simple, downright Google simple search page at BiTower.

Along with lots of other stuff. Most of which probably shouldn't be there.

Speaking of which, beyond the copyright issues the Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex trailer is friggin' huge, so I doubt I'll leave the thing up past this weekend. Anyone with a high-speed connection or a lot of patience mind telling me what that song is playing in the background? Well, foreground, seeing as it's the only soundtrack, but you know what I mean.

If you know what I mean, could you explain it to me, please?

There's a description of the show at Production IG, but I'm not sure it made sense in the original Japanese, and the translated English comes very close to word salad. It looks pretty. That's the important thing.

As does Ghost in the Shell: Innocence. So you have lots of options.

And as everyone and his uncle has pointed out, Sony's Connect music service is live, direct and getting lots of unfavorable reviews, most of which are cheerfully ill-informed. And even if they were right about it only working with Sonytech™, seeing as I have a MiniDisc player, I still wouldn't agree with 'em. Like Audio Lunchbox and eMusic, they have Rasputina-y goodness, which I've decided is going to be my benchmark for music download services. eMusic seems to have a larger selection, but they don't sell individual tracks anymore; Connect and Audio Lunchbox do, and since the latter also does that mp3/no DRM thang. . . s'funny, a minute ago I was saying nice things about Connect.

No one comes here expecting consistency, right?

Thank Christ, I thought it was just me

So Jesse also expresses some confusion on this issue, in a little entry we like to call, "Pandagon: Word Derivation":

Okay, I understand where "wingnut" came from. Someone is a right wing nut...they're a wingnut. I don't understand where moonbat came from. And it seems to have become the all-purpose response to wingnut, but it just looks like a seven-letter compound word.

Where did it come from, and how did it come to refer to members of the far left (which may or may not include every liberal, depending on your partisan stance)?

There's links to some (slightly sketchy) answers in the comments over there. I'm still holding to my initial definition, "Something the warbloggers call people who disagree with them for no particular reason whatsoever."

Don't think I've ever been called that. Lots of other things, yes, and tourists are encouraged to use the convenient MT Search function to make sure they're at least being original with their insults.

Missed that final episode thingee. My life is the poorer for it, I'm sure. On the other hand, finally got 'round to reading Casualty of War over at GQ:

On the basis of her indignation, Rice may have sounded convincing, except that a few days earlier, Powell's chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, had told me just the opposite. As he put it, Taiwan is "another place where you get a lot of tension, because there are literally people from the Defense Department on that island every week. Every week. And have been for three years. And many of those people—I know, because some of them are my former colleagues and friends—are delivering messages to Taiwan that Taiwan needn't worry. Meanwhile, we're trying to maintain a more balanced attitude."

And yet even after I had read Wilkerson's quote aloud to Rice, she refused to budge from her script. "As a government," she said weakly, "we use all of the elements together in order to effect policy. They're working always in concert."

Of course, this was even more absurd. The notion that the departments of State and Defense are "always in concert" is not only false; it has never been true and isn't supposed to be. If anything, a certain level of tension between the two departments is a good sign, a reflection of a working government, of the push and pull between diverging interests, the balance of power between military might and diplomatic maneuvering. The idea that the departments of State and Defense are "always in concert" is actually somewhat scary and Orwellian. Fortunately, it's a lie. Unfortunately, the truth is scarier than the lie.

Sometimes I wonder why Powell and Rice are so often lumped together, seeing as the former is (despite his service with the current administration) well-known, respected not only across the political spectrum here in the US but also abroad, and appears at least competent, while the latter. . . not so much.

Then I remember, or rather Google for the exact quote, James G. Watt, Reagan's Secretary of the Interior describing an advisory panel:

I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple.

And it all becomes. . . ok, not clear, exactly, but I remember how their brains work. Or fail to work. Or something.

May 6, 2004

Satire insists it isn't dead, it's just having a lie-down

Stop it! STOP LIVING IN THE PAST!

--James Lileks, keeper of:

I think Satire is a fucking liar, is what I think.

And I'm feeling like death warmed over myself today to boot.

The only bright spot is that last night's Angel was absolutely hilarious.

So, in my brain-dead state, should I bother watching the last episode of Friends? Which would actually be the first episode of Friends I'd ever have seen?

Did I want to use future conditional in that question, or. . . yep, brain-dead, death warmed over, I go now.

Welcome to Paradise, Boys and Girls

From Tuesday's Democracy Now!:

GREG PALAST: Well, Help America Vote Act. As soon as the Bush family tells us, Amy, that they're going to help us vote, I immediately start investigating. And what we have here is, under the guise of a reform, we have a prescription for another, basically a "Jim Crow" election. And one of the things, you know in the last election I discovered that there's tens of thousands of black voters illegally purged from the voter rolls on the grounds that they were felons. You know, people listed with conviction dates of 2007, and 3007. That gave us the current guy in the White House. But now I'm finding something else. That's going to be, by the way, extended, those purges, to all fifty states under the Helping America Vote Act. Now, there's something else we're finding. In the last election, I was working with the raw statistics from the Harvard University Law School's Civil Rights Project and the United States Civil Rights Commission statistics. Rooting through that, it looks like we had 1 million – this is an astonishing figure – 1 million black votes were cast in the year 2000, and were never counted. Altogether, 1.9 million Americans, in the United States of America, to which we stand, so 1.9 million votes cast not counted, they were thrown away, they were called "spoil votes." And about half of those were cast by African-Americans. Now we discovered this – I was first investigating for BBC in Florida – and I stumbled upon this when I went to Gadsen County, the blackest of 67 counties in Florida, and 1 in 8 votes, it turns out, were simply thrown out, thrown into the dumpster. Never counted.

Heard Mr. Palast talking about this on Operation PUSH on Saturday, and tried desperately to convince myself I'd heard him wrong.

Guess not.

Not feeling much anger or outrage. Can't even say I'm surprised, really. Guess the right wingers finally succeeded in killing that last flickering bit of faith in humanity.

Thank you so very much.

I'm really not sure how to repay you for this.

I am, of course, open to suggestions.

May 5, 2004

I do play requests sometimes

Right, in her most recent entry, La Shawn Barber writes:

Praised by liberals and conservatives alike, [Oliver L. Brown et.al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka (KS) et.al] was and is still hailed as a great decision.

Except American Renaissance, in The Decline of National Review, claims:

In fact, the National Review of the 1950s, 60s and even 70s spoke up for white people far more vigorously than Pat Buchanan would ever dare to today. The early National Review heaped criticism on the civil rights movement, Brown v. Board of Education, and people like Adam Clayton Powell and Martin Luther King, whom it considered race hustlers. Some of the greatest names in American conservatism�Russell Kirk, Willmore Kendall, James Kilpatrick, Richard Weaver, and a young Bill Buckley�wrote articles defending the white South and white South Africans in the days of segregation and apartheid. NR attacked the 1965 immigration bill that opened America up to Third-World immigration, and wrote frankly about racial differences in IQ. There were always hints of compromise, but passages from some back issues could have been lifted right out of American Renaissance. Not so today. NR still supports immigration reform and is not afraid of the IQ debate, but Mr. Ponnuru�s article is just one example of its complete abandonment of the interests of whites as a group. What used to be an important part of the NR message it now dismissed as illegitimate �white identity politics.�

Emphasis added.

They don't provide quotes to back this up, unfortunately. Anyone got back issues of National Review dating back to 1954 or so?

Trade you for some old issues of Ebony me grand-dad has going back to the 60s. . .

Any road up, her main contention is that, "Although its outcome may have been just, Brown was decided unconstitutionally."

Despite its role as interpreter of law, the judiciary has improperly made law, leaving a paper trail of rulings arrived at by circumventing the very document it is sworn to uphold, including Plessy (by finding a basis for race discrimination in the Constitution), Roe v. Wade (by finding a right to privacy to kill unborn babies), Grutter v. Bollinger (by finding a basis for race discrimination in the Constitution), and Lawrence et. al. v. Texas, (by usurping the will of the Texas legislature and striking down a sodomy statute).

She's not arguing in favor of government-mandated segregation, mind, and provides a basis for a favorable decision which actually does fit her interpretation of the Constitution. It's actually a "legislating from the bench/activist judges are Bad" piece, more than anything.

Not sure how or if Hansberry v. Lee, which did away with restrictive covenants, fits into this, and mostly mention it so I can ask if anyone saw P. Diddy in A Raisin in the Sun, and if so, how bad did it suck.

Instead of celebrating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. The Board of Education, we should be remembering that judge-made law, no matter how beneficial to certain Americans, threatens the freedom of all Americans.

Which is why the Legislative branch can then make, um, legislature-made law. Amendments banning cross [Update: ]flag burnings or abortions or same-sex marriages, for example.

Then there's that line from Andrew Jackson, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." So, y'know, the Executive can always flip the Judicial the bird and kick a bunch of Indians off their land, if there's profit in it.

On the other other hand, there's former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore to consider:

Chief Justice Moore�s opinion describes the lives of gay and lesbian people as �abhorrent,� �immoral,� �detestable,� an �inherent evil,� and �an intolerable evil.� He condemns homosexuality as �so heinous that it defies one�s ability to describe it.� He finds the �consequences [of it] inherently destructive to the natural order of society.� Relying on ancient sources of criminal law, rather than current knowledge about lesbian and gay parents and their children, he emphasizes that, in his mind, any person in a lesbian or gay relationship is unfit to have custody.

From Lambda's Ethical Misconduct Complaint Against Chief Justice Roy Moore; saw him quoted while reading Families Like Mine this afternoon. Wasn't that frothing at the mouth of his some of that nasty "judge-made law" we're meant to not be in favor of?

That the sort of thing you were looking for, love?

More update: Corrected the burning issue from covering crosses to flags. No idea why I would have had cross burnings on me mind. None at all.

Was it Johnny Fever or Venus Flytrap who wouldn't play requests? I'm pretty sure it was the former, but didn't want to put either name in the title (as in, "Like Johnny Fever, I sometimes. . .") without being sure.

Oh yeah, holes in logic I'm fine with, but getting the wrong character on a sitcom in an entry title, that's a deal-breaker. . .

I observe Greek Orthodox Cinco de Mayo, which is the 17th

We're all clear that Abbie The Cat Has A Posse, yes?

HELlo my name today is Profesor Abbie the CAt
and I amhere to teach y ou all about the science of being acat
this is catology 101 though what the 101 means I do not know
all classes start with 101

Which site I first saw at Dru's place, and this is just one of the reasons I adore her so.

And was reminded of it -- and added it to the links list, so I don't forget, because of course I read each and every one of those 100+ links every single day -- by the current-as-of-Cinco-de-Mayo entry at luvabeans.

Went to see the Betty Rules preview (which was a capella, Latin for "our electrical system cannae handle their equipment") at Women & Children First tonight. Me and like five other people. Way to convince the hot chicks to enjoy their stay in our city, people.

If you'd like to try that again, and help a good cause to boot, there's a benefit performance for Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area on Wednesday, May 26th. Tickets are $50, all proceeds to the organization. Click that previous link to purchase tickets or to make a contribution.

Oh, and there's complimentary beer and wine before and after the show. Your host is Gloria Steinem, and there's a meet and greet with the band after the performance. The previous sentence is me typing because I like the feel of me fingers on the keyboard, as I'm sure the lushes in the audience stopped after the bit about free booze.

Faerieworlds Festival 2004

(checks site name)

Ok, yeah, that fits in well. . .

Imaginosis and Woodland Productions are proud to present the 2004 Faerieworlds Festival in the beautiful coastal forests of North Plains, near Portland, Oregon. This years festival will feature pre-eminent artists, writers and musicians from around the world who continue to preserve the folkloric faerie tradition through their work.

What?

It's mentioned in today's Rasputina email list thingee. Which also includes a list of shows I could go on a road trip to see, as I missed them here in Chi due to suckiness. Mine, not theirs. They rawk.

Fri-May-21 DENVER, CO BLUEBIRD THEATRE
Sat-May-22 FT. COLLINS, CO STARLIGHT
Sun-May-23 SALT LAKE CITY, UT IN THE VENUE
Tue-May-25 PORTLAND, OR DANTE'S
Wed-May-26 Vancouver, BC Richards on Richards
Thu-May-27 SEATTLE, WA CHOP SUEY
Fri-May-28 EUGENE, OR WOW HALL
Sat-May-29 SAN FRANCISCO, CA GREAT AMERICAN
Sun-May-30 SANTA ANA, CA GALAXY
Tue-Jun-01 HOLLYWOOD, CA EL REY
Wed-Jun-02 TUCSON., AZ CLUB CONGRESS
Fri-Jun-04 San Antonio, TX?
Sat-Jun-05 AUSTIN, TX STUBB'S
Mon-Jun-07 NEW ORLEANS, LA HOWLIN WOLF
Tue-Jun-08 TALLAHASSEE, FL BETA BAR
Wed-Jun-09 ORLANDO, FL THE SOCIAL
Thu-Jun-10 Jacksonville, FL? TBA
Fri-Jun-11 Columbia, SC? TBA
Sat-Jun-12 Richmond, VA? TBA
Sun-Jun-13 Washington, DC? TBA

Or so I have been given to understand.

Well, it's that or the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, I expect.

Not that I've ever been to a RenFair. . .

The dreads really don't scream historical accuracy, do they?

No, it doesn't mean someone from Manchester

What is Bush's overall ethical world view? He is a conservative, yes, but also a blind, deceitful ideologue about Iraq. He speaks of duty, but makes consequential calculations when it suits. He demonizes "evildoers" in the name of Christian belief, but is open to negotiation on the sacredness of life and the value of individual freedom. Indeed, Bush often trumpets his Christianity, but he really resembles the Manicheans, the early-church heretics condemned by Saint Augustine because their good-versus-evil world view undermines personal responsibility.

From George W. Bush: a muddy morality, a review of The President of Good and Evil: The Morality of George W. Bush by Peter Singer.

Management does not unconditionally endorse the views of Saint Augustine, by the way. With the sorts of rhetoric that gets flung about these days, I half-expect some Bush supporter to attack me for some damn fool thing Augie wrote back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.

And that's if it's one of the Bush supporters who believes in dinosaurs, and not that God was just fucking with us burying fossils here and there.

Not doing so good on my conversion to conservatism, as you can see. For a start, I read Angela Davis: An Autobiography back in me formative years.

From a childhood on Dynamite Hill in Birmingham, Alabama, to one of the most significant political trials of the century, Angela Davis describes in full the story of her life: from Carrie A. Tuggle Elementary School to the U.S. Communist Party; from her political activity in a New York high school to the Soledad Brothers; from the faculty of the Philosophy Department at UCLA to the FBI's list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.

In spite of voluminous print devoted to Angela Davis, a curious privacy has always surrounded her--a privacy still intact. Until this publication, no one had managed to provide us with the whole story: What was her childhood really like? How deep were the influences of a Southern and a European education? What precipitated her into political activism? What was her relationship with the Soledad Brothers? How did she elude the FBI? Where did she go? What did she do? Who helped her?

This book tells not only what happened, but more important, how she felt about the events, the people, and herself.

A powerful and commanding story told with warmth, brilliance, humor and conviction. Of the turbulent sixties, Angela Davis is the last and, perhaps, the only triumphant figure.

So when someone casually dismisses her as a "moonbat character," oddly, it doesn't sit well.

However, I'm confident Michele has perfectly valid reasons for not caring for Angela Davis.

I'm resisting -- not very well, had to delete a sentence to that effect -- the urge to toss some snarky little accusation of bigotry her way. Because, you know, starting off by putting someone on the defensive goes such a long way towards creating an environment conducive to adult conversation.

Let's try this the grown-folks way. Michele, have you read Angela's autobiography, or another of her books, or heard her speak? Or did you just select her name at random from the author list at Seven Stories Press?

May 4, 2004

My Dis-United Blogs of Whatevah

This entry would consist of choice quotes from the racist assholes who comment at Little Green Footballs, followed by a list of blogs which link the cesspool, but to be honest, I can't be arsed reading that shit.

Do I mean the comments at LGF or the blogs that link it?

Yes.

If you'd like to do this yourself, here's the Technorati results for LGF. Please do keep in mind that there are just so many comments there, that Charles can't possibly police the threads for. . . anything other than non-complimentary stuff, apparently.

Sorry, saw some right-wing idjit babbling about how linking Ted Rall or Micah Wright or Democratic Underground conclusively demonstrated something or other.

Which is why this entry is almost link-free.

This conclusively demonstrates something or other.

Those folks were a lot more fun to satirize back when they were slightly less shrill and still had some grasp, no matter how tenuous, on reality.

Which is going to make my conversion to conservatism either much more difficult, or a hell of a lot easier, depending on your point of view.

I do think I understand the right's dislike for race-based affirmative action, though. Since the, you'll pardon the expression, "talent pool" is so shallow, you have totally, clearly unqualified Negroes getting nationwide newspaper columns, or getting named to the Supreme Court just because they're black and conservative. The right-wingers extrapolate from this, rather than realizing that, by and large, they ain't dealing with the cream of the crop when it comes to the opportunistic, self-promoting. . . right, I'm planning to be one of them. I should be less critical.

This is going to mean a rather complete overhaul of my links list, obviously. I'd feel very silly jumping into one of the "why are there so few women bloggers?" discussions, for a start.

Update:

And then this chick comes up to me,
and she's all like, hey, aren't you that dude,
And I'm like, yeah, WHATEVAH!

Because it always bears repeating.

For Dru

Linked at Blog of a Bookslut (and I just wrote Jessa adding my plug for Quimby's as somewhere to buy the things), Chicago Tribune: A new twist for Chicago zines: Success:

Launched as improbable experiments, Chicago's small-press journals range from [Marshall] Sahlin's austere, type-only polemics to the most recent, all-poster issue of Select magazine -- which aims to inspire an "interventionist art" of utopian street propaganda and peace activism.

Blowing in from various precincts, the journals share a certain common ground -- a schoolyard freshness, an outsize ambition and a refusal to be defined by what you've read before. Seizing their place at the interstice between art and politics, several find themselves unexpectedly tipping toward financial stability.

[. . .] Chicago is a kingdom of these fussed-over labors of love. And if this burgeoning industry has a local epicenter, it is Quimby's bookstore, at 1854 W. North Ave.

There, self-published journals are stacked in bright rows on wire racks. The offerings morph constantly. One shelf groans with thick zines that review and digest other zines.

Well, I'm going to say Zineguide even if they don't.

And SPEC Chicago.

Which is starting to make it sound like I know what I'm talking about, which of course I don't, but don't I fake it terribly well?

Actual links, as the Trib couldn't be arsed:

And I'm going to mention a shout in the street because, I can. And I rather liked the issue I bought, even if I have no idea where it is now. . .

This has been your literary content for the day.

How dare you sir, that's my child-woman you're speaking of!

Ok, last time. . . kelly sue says nice things about dangerDAME.com, so tool that I am, I pass this along.

Pretty Miss 50s Polka Dot Dress Click the image for a better look at the dress. And ignore how the size of the thumbnail keeps changing as I play with this entry.

And if someone could order the thing, perhaps they won't come after me for, ah, borrowing that image in the first place. . .

And what good is a Miss 50s Polka Dot Dress without smokes? American Spirit has a sample carton offer, which possibly isn't legal for you to receive in your state, so check your local listings. And I'm fairly certain those of you visiting from outside the US are SOL on that deal, but then again, you don't have to deal with the sorts of people who do live in the US on a regular basis, so I'd call it even, really.

Cigarettes for posing purposes only, smoking is a filthy habit and you shouldn't do it. Despite how cool it makes you look.

Especially if, like TranceJen, you're having those menthol things taste like inhaling a York Peppermint Patty.

Finish this sentence: "When I inhale a York Peppermint Patty. . ."

Equal opportunity promotion: Beqi Clothing.

Funny, this didn't start off as one of those babbling sorts of entries. . . for actual content, drop by Alas, a Blog, which even on supposed hiatus and at a temporary address, still manages to make this place look bad. It's a skill, it is.

Also, Echidne of the Snakes (which I'm fairly certain I saw linked at Amp. . . and could check, because Firefox does include this sort of thing under Page Info. . .) cooks up an evil scheme:

I've become a conservative anti-feminist. I'm going to join the Independent Women's Forum and the Republican party's extreme right edge. I'm going to turn into a commentator for Faux News, and I'm going to have my hair beautifully permed. Everything in this snakepit will be ladylike and smell of violets, and the heels in my shoes will be so high that just looking at them will make people go dizzy.

Suppose I could become one of them there African American Conservative/Republican types. I'll outflank Michael King! I'll condemn Cobb for being too liberal! I'll point out that I have much more interesting hair than La Shawn Barber! Not that that's saying much, but every talking point helps.

So I just have one moment of perfect happiness, causing the other part of the gypsy curse to kick in so that pesky soul goes away, and. . . wait, no, that's the other broody guy. Bugger.

Post title, yet again, taken from "pj + vincent & matthew + björk," by Rasputina, lyrics at revolution freedom.

If you have some weird issues with eMusic, you can also get their music at Audio Lunchbox:

Audio Lunchbox was founded in April 2003 by 4 individuals with a common vision: to increase exposure and availability of great independent music. Audio Lunchbox is not just a digital download site, it is a lifestyle. We strive to make the purchase of digital music quick, easy and affordable. When you download from our site, you are not restricted by DRM (Digital Rights Management) like some of the other download services. When you purchase audio from us, do with it as you please, as long as it's for personal use.

Most songs are .99 cents and most full-length albums are 9.99. Purchase a lunch card and get a price break on bulk purchases.

ALB is cross-platform and entirely web-based. No need to download any extraneous applications or software to get our system to work. Just connect to the net and browse away

No Candye Kane, I'm afraid, but lots of indie goodness.

And while on the digital music tip, apparently CONNECT is live and direct. They're too Linux-unfriendly for me to tell. . .

May 3, 2004

Good/Evil : Real/Virtual

From the Newsarama interview with Marjane Satrapi, writer/illustrator of Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood:

There have been so many misjudgments because today’s world is divided into two parts. It’s so sad that we talk about East and West, Christian and Muslim, and the country’s north and south. It’s so stupid. In real life things aren’t that easy. If it was that easy then part of the world would be bad and the other part would be good. Your president calls us the Axis of Evil. If it was that easy then let’s exterminate the bad ones and let the good ones live happily. The human being wants to point the finger at what is bad.

At one time the evil was the Soviet Union then Ayatollah Khomeini then Saddam Hussein then Osama Bin Laden then Saddam Hussein again. It could be UFOs from another planet. When I left my country again in 1994 for France, there was also a lot of misjudgment. People would ask me about being Iranian. It was real close to asking me if I was driving a camel in my country. There are no camels in my country because it’s cold in Tehran in the wintertime.

She also mentions a French proverb, “Translation is like a woman that is either beautiful or faithful.” Yes, she's from one of the Axis of Evil countries and currently resides in France. I can't imagine anyone stupid enough to hold either or both of these against her would be reading this site, but I've been wrong before.

Also on the women authors of color tip, How Deep Shall We Dig? by Arundhati Roy:

But in the heartland too, the schism between knowledge and information, between what we know and what we’re told, between what is unknown and what is asserted, between what is concealed and what is revealed, between fact and conjecture, between the ‘real’ world and the virtual world, has become a place of endless speculation and potential insanity. It’s a poisonous brew which is stirred and simmered and put to the most ugly, destructive, political purpose.

She's writing of India, but I think the passage applies equally well to the U.S. I'd prefer it didn't, but can't convince myself to even pretend otherwise. Maybe I'd fit in better in this society if I could.

Not that I really want to fit in better in this society.

Open Thread Zero-One

And man said, “Let there be light.”

And he was blessed by light, heat, magnetism, gravity,
and all the energies of the universe.

The prolonged barrage
engulfed Zero-One in the glow of a thousand suns,
but unlike their former masters,
with their delicate flesh,
the machines had little to fear
of the bombs’ radiation and heat.

Thus did Zero-One’s troops advance outwards
in every direction,
and one after another,
mankind surrendered its territories.

So the leaders of men conceived
of their most desperate strategy yet.

A final solution:

The destruction of the pants.

--THE SECOND RENAISSANCE, PART II

Mind your manners, and mind the gap.

Feminism, middle class het white bias, blah de blah

From A Few Things About the Cheneys by Laura Flanders:

[Lynne Cheney (the wife of the Vice President)] liked to write; she hated to cook. But finding rewarding employment was not so easy. Her first ambition had been to be a movie star; her second, a college professor. "This was before people were enlightened about women and married women in particular," she told Fox News. A prospective employer asked her point-blank: "Are you interested in the job, Dr. Cheney, or are you married?" "That was illegal at the time," she comments. (Employers didn't simply become "enlightened" after all, movements mobilized and Congress passed laws.)

Although women of color and working-class women were in the workforce before the enlightenment and passing of laws and what-not.

All of which has been covered ad nauseum and I'm not faulting Laura Flanders for not mentioning it. Just one of the little things one runs into even among progressives that results in a certain distancing from. . .

This is explicitly political, isn't it?

Never mind.

Excerpted from the New York Times bestseller,' Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species' (Verso Books.) "The Laura Flanders Show" can be heard weekends, 7-10 pm on Air America Radio.

We're without an Air America Radio affiliate here in Chi at the moment. So I listed to WBEZ last night driving home from. . . seeing the movie and hanging out at Moody's for a bit. Heard Karen Grigsby Bates on Wait Wait; I remember some confusion on my part as to if the woman working for NPR was the same Karen Bates who wrote Plain Brown Wrapper. Yep. Attended Wellesley College, according to her bio.

You can always tell a Wellesley girl.

But you can't tell her mu-- geez, tough crowd.

Interesting

Or rather, the opposite.

Tried wringing something out of Michele Catalano and Glenn Reynolds bum-rushing Micah Wright, but couldn't even get past the premise of war supporters and Bush defenders screaming "Liar!" I'm starting to think the right wing is no longer capable of even rising to the level of decent self-parody.

Or maybe I was once more easily amused.

Bit about this incredibly urgently pressing issue in the current Lying in the Gutters, along with further justification for my low opinion of Wizard Magazine and a link to pixlife.com:

acknowledging the creativity of and possibilities for women artists, of all ages and sorts

The only name I was familiar with was Lynda Barry, because I'm uncultured like that.

As the entry gently drifts from politics to art, because I just can't work up any enthusiasm whatsoever for the former. I mean, take GOP making history with record number of contenders, linked over at Black Electorate:

''As the Democratic Party has grown over the years, it has grown more out of touch with the African-American community,'' said [Cobb County House candidate Nick Chester, a] 30-year-old insurance adjuster from Mableton.

Chester said the time is right for conservative black voters to consider the Republican Party, especially after this year's session in which many Democrats worked to fight against a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, as well as another proposal to let faith-based groups use taxpayer money for charity work. ''When the Democratic Party started moving away from there, the values that created America, that created a void that the Republican Party is filling,'' Chester said.

[. . .] ''There is not a single African-American Republican in America who's holding public office that has been elected from a majority-black district,'' said [Rep. Tyrone Brooks, D-Atlanta and president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials]. ''They can only win in a majority-white district.''

Brooks says this year's surge in black GOP candidates doesn't mean the Democratic Party has lost its most faithful voting bloc.

''The Republican Party is trying to change the face of their party by having token African Americans serve in various roles,'' he said. ''That's showcasing. That's tokenism. At the end of the day, the African-American community will not be fooled by this strategy.''

Don't suppose any black supporters of that amendment banning gay marriage are wandering around here, and are actually willing to speak up? I'd actually like to hear the reasoning behind this, unless you're just going to start quoting scripture instead of presenting evidence that you're capable of using your fucking brain. Ever read any scripture-based arguments in defense of slavery? Because that's pretty much what you sound like.

As for the Democratic Party guy, he lost me at the mention of "the African-American community." Perhaps he didn't mean we're part of some monolithic group. I expect I could ask, but again, there's that whole not particularly caring thing.

If these are my choices. . . yep, art. Photography, music, comics, erotica, something, anything but reading a bunch of zealots frothing at the mouth.

So yes, you're looking at even fewer explicitly political entries hereabouts. Sorry if that's a deal-breaker.

Update: Ah me.

  1. Lying on your résumé is Wrong.
  2. Lying, generally, is Wrong.
  3. I'm not particularly interested in paying for the privilege of being attacked by people willing to attach their names to the insults. Someone using a pseudonym to do so? Not going to happen.

Any questions? Comments?

I'm loving it - to do these things that aren't necessarily elfin.

Shaolin Soccer isn't a total leave-your-brain-at-the-door film, but anything you know about physics can safely stay home and water the plants while you're gone.

Alice & Friends should be open today, as the sign on the door had "Saturday May 1" crossed out and replaced with "May 3" yesterday evening.

Warren Ellis, despite ample evidence to the contrary, really does love you all and offers links to free comics, specifically his first issue of Ultimate Fantastic Four, due in shops June 16th. Also, Ministry of Space #3 should be along shortly. If you have anything to say about the delays in the latter, or about returning to working at Marvel/doing superhero comics regarding the former, feel free to express these no doubt fascinating thoughts somewhere else. Because you're not doing it here.

If hopping into a live volcano feels right, I say do it.

Tune in to WTIM Talk Radio, 97.3
(if you're in Taylorville, Decatur, Springfield and surrounding areas)
For "Open Line"
An interview with Abigail Garner
about her book "Families Like Mine:
Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is."

Tuesday, May 4, 2004
9:10-9:30am (Central Time)

Turn your speakers up: East Current - March 23, 2004 - Shakuhachi and Koto Performance. Yes, you missed the show a while ago, but the page does have a brief sample of one of their performances. Just to make you regret having missed them that much more, I suppose.

Dozan Fujiwara and Mieko Miyazaki are acknowledged in Japan as young masters of their instruments, and it was obvious from the first notes of the concert that they deserve every whit of acclaim they have achieved.

Fujiwara coaxes ethereal, seemingly other-worldly tones from the shakuhachi, a bamboo instrument vaguely resembling a recorder or wooden flute. But the extraordinarily subtle sounds that Fujiwara can produce on an instrument of such modest design, from bent pitches that defy traditional Western scales to gentle tones rivaling the expressiveness of the human voice, transcend listener expectations.

Miyazaki is at least as dexterous on koto, a plucked-string instrument that, on this occasion, at least, played mostly an accompanying role.

"These instruments are very simple," Miyazaki told the audience, between selections.

But what alluring timbres and sophisticated ideas these players articulated with these ostensibly rudimentary tools.

From a (registration-required) Chicago Tribune write-up of the performance I saw back in March, which seems much longer ago than it was.

And that's the state of my brain right now.

More or less.

May 2, 2004

Musical Sneak Preview: BETTY RULES

At Women & Children First, natch:

Time: Wednesday, May 5, 2004 7:30 PM
Location: 5233 N. Clark
Title of Event: Musical Sneak Preview: BETTY RULES

Musical Sneak Preview: BETTY RULES
BETTY band members Alyson Palmer, Amy Ziff, and Elizabeth Ziff sneak into WCF to do a few songs from their off-Broadway hit musical BETTY RULES, chronicling the trials and tribulations of an unsigned band in a signed-band world. BETTY RULES opens for a six-week run at the Lakeshore Theater on May 6.

Those of you not familiar with the group, check the band site and pay close attention to that audio clip, so you're not surprised when the crowd marks out at the intro. . .

This afternoon W&FC hosts a Local Action Debrief on the Washington, D.C. March for Women's Lives at 4:30:

Whether you got to the April 25th march or not, come talk about how we can use the momentum to make change in our own community! Presenters: Tracy Smith, League of Women Voters; Sheryl Ann Pethers, Circuit Judge; Veronica Arreola, NOW-Chicago; Mattie Weiss, League of Pissed-Off Voters.

Er, pretty sure I'll be at the sneak preview, but this afternoon I'll be, um, seeing Shaolin Soccer instead of being a politically active member of the community. Yes, I suck. Shut up.

They

Where "they" might be Canadians, although Melissa Ferrick seems to like 'em:

Everyone at this club is so cool and supportive as well tonight i had two musical guests One woman named Martina who playes violin, she played on two new songs , Bad Bad Girl and another new one called Anythign Anywhere and then this guy named Jay who plays Jembay,. do not know how to spell that word so you can figure it out ,..you know it is that drum that people play he he he LOL ok,..ya well you get the idea he played that on North carolina , Every Three Words, and The Stranger,..it was so fun to hang and play i think for jsut over 2 hours with locals and feel at home so far away from home. Tomorrow or later today..in about twelve hours I play in Calgary. This is a great city[.]

Clearly, we should not permit this woman back in Our Great Nation, writing such things on Loyalty Day.

"They" might also be artists, like the ones I spent last evening with. Oh, and my date ditched me halfway through the evening. Thanks for nothing, Dresen. I did check in with Pamela and Olivia before leaving, and we would have told cruel jokes at your expense, if we weren't all terrified of you. So, um, there. Yeah.

(I'm not thinking about how, when I go somewhere with theater people in attendance, they ask if I'm one of them, while last night I was asked if I had anything on display. It's the dreads, I'm sure. The folks last night must have mistaken me for Zombie Basquiat.)

Mostly, though, when I talk about them, I mean people like the ones in this here thread:

Sure, that sounds lovely. A nice party with one year olds and joyous parents. Swell. Norman Friggin' Rockwell.

Let's see what happens to these kids as they grow up. Let's see how well-adjusted they all. Maybe they'll be fine. Maybe you're right about gay parents just being parents. But maybe not. Maybe you're very, very wrong. In either case, it's way, way too premature to declare this experiment a success.

Save the victory lap for when you have some evidence that your hypothesis is correct. For now, all you have is wishful thinking, and that goes double for your amen corner.

---

Unless I completely misunderstood 8th grade biology class, the two women are not the child's parents. The child's parents are one of the women and the gay man.

There are no such things as "gay parents", only parents, one of which is a man and one of which is a woman. Wishing it were otherwise does not make it so.

Traditionally there has been a social and psychological cost to children raised in broken families. If your "families" based on homosexual relationships really catch on, one of the social outcomes will be abrupt decline of the human population.

---

"Gay" parents are NOT "parents". It is amazing that one has to explain in this day and age that a child's parents are its mother and father. Why do PC ideologues insist on lying about something so basic and obvious? It is sad that every child cannot have a loving mother and father. A strong family requires both quite different functions. But the answer to that inescapable biological need is not to pretend that mixed-up permanent adolescents can fill either or both roles at whim.

That's comments in an entry about attending a fucking birthday party, where there were some gay parents and their children in attendance.

My fault for looking for that sort of thing, or rather looking for reviews/mentions of Families Like Mine, as there was mention of homo-hostile people who seemed very, very down on the very idea of gay parents.

One of the things Samuel Delany mentioned in his lecture at Northwestern a few weeks back is how valuable it can be to talk to people who hate you. Preferably in an envirionment where you can get the fuck away quicklike should they decide to become violent.

I'm not sure if the 'net counts, since there's that anonymity thing which tends to make people. . . anyone got a link to the recent Penny Arcade strip about that sort of thing?

I'm also wondering if there's any benefit to talking to people you hate.

Can't think of anyone I actually hate, so there's no way to find this out. There's folks I seriously dislike, and wouldn't piss on if they were on fire, but that's not quite the same thing. I think.

Sorry. Babbling. Did I mention the Two Buck Chuck Merlot at the art show last night?

Update: Goes right to me head, the wine does. . . should mention that the author of the entry I pulled the hate speech quotes from does not subscribe to their beliefs. And also that my current attitude towards those who did (and warbloggers/right wingers generally) is, since you kids clearly don't want to live in a diverse society, rather than having your prejudices written into the Constitution, why don't you just go the fuck away? No, really, find a nice country full of hateful het white folk like yourselves and leave the rest of us in peace? You'll be happier, we'll be happier, seems like a win/win to me.

Oh, and a couple weeks back I added Protein Wisdom to my MT Blacklist, um, blacklist, because Jeff was annoying the fuck out of me. I expect I should remove that, since that's really not what the list is meant for.

True, I had to delete two comments and MT Blacklist caught and rejected a third, but perhaps he's caught on to the whole "not feeling like dealing with your bullshit" thing,

May 1, 2004

Law and Loyalty

Well, last May 1st was proclaimed both Law Day and Loyalty Day by the President. This year, so far, not so much. Hope they come up with something; God forbid we observe May Day like the rest of the planet or anything.

'course, if you want to:

Sat May 1 TranceZenDance May Day Celebration @ Healing Earth Resources Chicago, 3111 N. Ashland, 6:30p-1a, $15)

DJ's Spinning progressive/world/house/tribal electronic trance dance music with live drums and vocals,
+Video projections, yoga, peace circle, energy/body work, readings, Aromatherapy, face painting, henna body art, Sound Healing Experience, performance art, vegetarian buffet and community vibe.
"http://www.tzdtribe.com"

From the latest DivaNation email. None of the bands are performing, they just thought it was cool.

I'm thinking the same thing about Betty Rules:

Like a lot of rock bands, the female trio Betty has had its disappointments on the road to stardom. What with shortsighted record company executives, the rigors of low-budget touring, the humiliations of opening for bigger-name bands, not to mention the internal rivalries and personal crises that arise with long association and not-so-good times, Betty has nearly come apart more than once — evidently as recently as last year — since it was formed in a suburban basement in Fairfax, Va., in 1985.

Still, out of dedication to the music and to one another, the three women — Alyson Palmer and the sisters Amy and Elizabeth Ziff — have persevered long enough to tell their story onstage, which they are now doing with driving energy, blunt self-deprecation and lovely three-part harmony at the Zipper Theater.

The show, titled modestly without an exclamation point, "Betty Rules," is an odd grab bag of cabaret act, stand-up and sketch comedy, roadhouse rock and Broadway savvy. And even though the narrative may be familiar, the education of these young women has a a refreshingly uncynical conclusion. Their roller coaster ride takes them back largely to where they started: that is, in love with the music and with the rewards of playing it in public. In the end they're innocent again, which isn't exactly the tradition of rock 'n' roll, though it is of musical theater.

From an NYTimes review of the show, which is arriving here in Chi on May 6th. Six week run. I'm confident I'll actually manage to see it. Ok, not confident. Fairly doubtful, in fact. Because, as previously noted, I suck.

Found the link to the show site from the Betty band site, which was on the links page at kellysue.com, which I got to following a link in a review she wrote for artbomb. . . are you keeping up with me here?

Follow the links to find out what this has to do with Disgruntled Housewife, which (checks) was the first external site I linked after changing over to MovableType, way back in June 2002.

Ok, at this point I can't keep up with me here either.

Thanks to all the Free-For-All Friday contributors, and a very happy Law and Loyalty and Order: Crime Scene Investigation Day to all.

Updates, notes, no desire to create another entry:

  1. I also followed the link at Kelly Sue's place to Trashy Lingerie. No, I'm not sure why either.
  2. Added a link to the TranceZenDance May Day Celebration and reformatted the quote from the DivaNation email list.
    Folklore says that Beltane is one of the three "spirit-nights" of the year when the faerie can be seen. The celebration of life and light at the midpoint of Spring. Celebrate with us...

    There will be didjeridoo. Come on. You know you want to go, after you leave the art show. Hell, possibly instead of going to. . .

  3. Apparently, I didn't kill Karma Sutra after all; they have a show coming up in June, in Milwaukee, and some more later in the year. Weird. Remember, you can hear samples or buy their music outright at eMusic, or download a song, for free, at IUMA.
  4. Yes, I spend an inordinate amount of time plugging stuff I like, from people I know. Shut up.
  5. People I don't know, I just Googlestalk. Like Tristan, for example. Artist, singer, actress, model. . . you may ask yourself, "Is there no end to her talents?" And I would reply, "Yes. Spelling."

And I'm thinking I should add links to me LiveJournal and Orkut profile to the main page, like the cool people have.