Terms and Conditions

This is a risky business.

Unless writers conceal themselves behind careful layers of anonymity, a weblog is like standing in a spotlight before family, friends, co-workers, neighbors - and thanks to the memory of search engines, anyone you will ever meet for the rest of your life. Most of them couldn't care less. But all it takes is the right Google search to reveal everything.

Intimidating? You bet. Try it yourself if you think it's easy - especially if you are an adult with a job and commitments. For my part, from the start I have assumed that anyone and everyone could be reading. My daughter might be seeing this ten years from now, in an archive. Or somebody could have tipped off the neighbors, or coworkers I never expected.

On that last point I will reiterate something I said before: I never, categorically, write about my employer, it's customers, or fellow employees. I'm proud of the work I do, but cognizant of business realities. Search every post, you won't find those topics discussed.

Freedom of speech, ironically, works better when you write anonymously about personal items. Add in politics and cultural concerns - or offer up your real name - and you are on more tenuous grounds. Talk about professional matters and you could be in trouble.

Some cultures imagined their ancestors were always present, always watching. This cleverly encourages responsibility. If you can't stick up for yourself, and stand by what you say, don't bother talking.

Purple Reign

In the Ukraine the color of freedom was orange. But in Iraq today, many people look like they have been eating blueberry cobbler. They voted in defiance of the insurgency, and had their fingers stained purple as a safeguard against double counting.

Bush went on TV on Sunday afternoon, smirked into the camera and shouted, “Boo ya! How you like them apples?!” Behind him was a whiteboard, with the words Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran listed out. Check marks appeared after the first two items.

Actually, he gave a brief, carefully worded speech that congratulated Iraqis, thanked the international crowd, mentioned something about a march of freedom, and noted the hard work ahead. But you could see the “look at me, I’ve got political capital” attitude in the way he swaggered away from the microphone.

Democrats quickly responded by downplaying the significance of the election. John Kerry wrinkled up his brow and intoned, “It is hard to say that something is legitimate when whole portions of the country can’t vote and doesn’t (sic) vote.”

Notice this isn’t the same thing as calling the elections illegitimate. Politically, the party out of power must always say things that cannot be wrong, regardless of outcome. If the economy tanks or booms, if another terrorist attack happens or doesn’t, if Iraq is a success or a failure – folks like Hillary Clinton will make carefully-worded comments that could be considered prescient, no matter what actually happens.

Do yourself a favor, and check out Iraqi weblogs today, and read some of these accounts firsthand. Here's a good index of links. And it will be interesting to see, in the weeks ahead, if the Iranian insurgency pushes even harder against the mullahs.

Cynics on Liberty

"They don't want Democracy." This has been said to me, with a huff of resignation, by people who are firmly against everything that has taken place in Iraq.

These naysayers may feel like support for liberty in Iraq makes them somehow complicit with the policies of the Bush administration. And it's empirically obvious that some people indeed do not want democracy - al-Zarqawi and his brigade of disgruntled Sunni bombers. So for some it's enough to conclude that "they" must not want it.

This conclusion is then insured with the notion that any half-successful elections will be strictly the result of manipulation by the United States. Or a cynical (but not unprecedented) assumption is made that they will elect a crop of brutal thugs.

We'll know by Sunday. Expatriates have already started voting. Handicappers on all sides are already predicting the outcome. And network bigfeet have been flown in for coverage - which will certainly be a good story; A mix of ballots, bloodshed and bravery in a country recently ruled by tyrants.

From Bunker Hill, to Soweto, to Kabul - liberty has never taken root with ease. Iraq is risky and unique only because the bloodshed has usually been finished beforehand - not because the citizens are intrinsically less deserving.

Togetherness and Flapjacks

Local bloggers often appear to tilt Left, perhaps due to their happy hour affiliation with Drinking Liberally. I would like to attend, but I worry that I lack the proper amount of free-floating outrage over the Dubya presidency.

Perhaps I will start a group called Drinking Moderately. It will consist of myself, alone, at the rail of the local Applebee's, sipping slowly from a mug of domestic light beer. A small framed photograph of John McCain will be placed on the counter nearby, and the good Christian families at other tables will be eyeing me nervously.

Conciliatory middle ground is difficult to maintain.

And on the heels of the outing of everybody's favorite member of phylum Porifera, we have a new clash between the preachy PC crowd and schoolmarmish conservatives over yet another animated character. PBS's "Buster" has been tried and found guilty of consorting with syrup-harvesting Vermont lesbians and encouraging children to treat others with kindness and respect.

Casus Belli

You know you are getting old when an evening's entertainment consists of decaffeinated tea and a book by a noted historian.

In "A History of Warfare" John Keegan examines the notion of war as a continuation of politics - an idea formulated by Prussian military theorist Karl von Clausewitz. World War One already discredited this idea - Europeans simply went starkers, and slaughtered each other wholesale after a century of Clauswitzian militarization. But Keegan's asserts that war is more accurately a continuation of culture.

He analyzes the Zulus, the Easter Island people, and samurai Japan, and finds evidence that these warlike nations fought to extend or preserve their culture, often with brutal finality.

Reading along, I sometimes had to stop myself. Politics and culture appear identical in a Red vs. Blue State era. Is our "culture war" a continuation of irreconcilable politics? If a Schnauzer and a Great Dane have more in common than Barbara Boxer and Tom Delay, is it only a matter of time before we pick up weapons?

Keegan's does better with history than recent events. The book, written in the mid-1990s, imagines an end to war, and has little to say about the asymmetrical nature of terrorism. But the template is easily applied. Do we choose to view the Western-Islamicist conflict as a matter of politics and policy, or a battle between cultures?

Family: Pitman Marine killed in Iraq

Family: Pitman Marine killed in Iraq
Planned to re-enlist

anchors and reporters tired or Iraq
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40184-2005Jan26.html
editorial bioterrorism
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40077-2005Jan26.html

Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy

Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy

Lost in the Supermarket

Lest you imagine it's an native problem, look across the sea to the Emerald Isle. The Irish are struggling with runaway development, which has run smack against a hill enshrined in myth.

In America we build highways and lay concrete without fear of upsetting the ancestry. In America the future is already here:

Driving to the office, parking, working for a corporation owned by far-flung shareholders, and getting back in the car at the end of the day. Driving to the big-box retailer, parking, buying items produced by corporations, offering up your credit at the automated checkout station, and getting back in the car with plastic bags. Driving to your local entertainment center, parking, paying corporations to be entertained, and getting back in the car with the faint buzz of escapism that lingers until the cycle is repeated.

In my city they are building eleven more Wal-Marts, three more Meiers, and lord knows what else. Homogeneous sub-developments are multiplying like snowy white rabbits. Planned or not, this is the culture that has come into existence around us.

The Jakarta Post - The Journal of Indonesia Today

The Jakarta Post - The Journal of Indonesia Today

24

In the past I have sniffed at people who have to watch "their show" on a given night of the week. But Fox's 24 is appointment TV at it's best - a show where no moment is wasted on filler, and the phone rings at commercials from friends and family who are watching.

The writers have placed two families at the center of the story. One is made up of the dissident son and loyal daughter of the U.S. defense secretary. The other is comprised of (apparently) assimilated middle-eastern folks. The mother, played by Iranian actor Dina Araz is by herself worth the ticket.

The action in every episode relentlessly turns the screws on these fictional families with the moral exigencies of modern terrorism and civil liberty. The show could be a graduate seminar on masterful scriptwriting: The art of ruthlessly hooking audiences with a lock-tight intersection of character and plot.

La Revedere, Baby

It was one of those cutesy tidbits they stick at the end of the broadcast to buck you up after the housefire that killed a family of seven, but before the dismal weather report:

A news item which percolated through the media about a couple that actually named their baby Yahoo after meeting over the Internet.

Except it was all a pile of bunkum. Nonetheless, the Romanian tabloid apprently had no less integrity than Les Moonves and company. At least this reporter was creative.

Local Heroes

The Cincinnati Enquirer published an article today about the role that local web-based communities play in connecting neighbors, resolving disagreements, and airing grievances. From euchre night at the sub-development clubhouse to snow removal around the local township, why not put it online? (Tip to Cincinnati Blog.)

One year ago I saw firsthand how e-media could stir genuine change.

Someday the story should be told in full: The highly regarded principal at my local Catholic parish was fired without provocation by an oddball priest. The community was outraged, and with the help of a key website*, organized protests, meetings, and media outreach. Miraculously the principal was reinstated, due in part to these efforts.

That glib summary cannot describe the roller-coaster of emotions that was experienced by the thousands of people in the Pleasant Ridge community in those weeks. It was a matter of dignity, trust, and old-fashioned faith. But it can also be an object lesson in how a collective sense of "we're not putting up with this", by people equipped with good communication tools can get the job done.

* The site is now down, but still remembered by the Google Cache.

Birding Babylon

Birding Babylon

NaughtyPundit

NaughtyPundit

Goodnight, Johnny

In an age of soul-deadening reality television, pointless ass-waggling by nonentities like Ashlee Simpson and Paris Hilton, and the callous materialism of Donald Trump - the death of Johnny Carson is a reminder that once upon a time our entertainers were giants.

Celebrities didn't always abandon their dignity to stay in the spotlight. Carson’s act was not only funny and quick – but also decent and good-natured. And he knew exactly when to say goodnight. It's sad to consider how a whole generation has already grown up without him.

Pipes, Polls, and Paranoia By Habib Siddiqui

Pipes, Polls, and Paranoia By Habib Siddiqui

Friday Roundup

Hitch up your spurs, cowpokes. The roundup is underway.

• JibJab is back with a Second Term hoedown.
  
  
• Ditch your Badonkadonk and upgrade to the Bad Boy HMT, from Homeland Defense Vehicles in (where else?) Texas. This is the mack-daddy of anti-terrorist hardware. Options include nuclear, chemical and biological agent protection packages.
  
  
• McSweeney's has replaced The Onion for me, in part because it can be reached from behind my corporate firewall. Check out these quotes from actual vegan products.
  
  
• The Hasselhoffian Recursion causes irreparable mental harm. (Kids, ask your parents permission before clicking.)
  
  
• This early photograph of Bill Gates in the early '80s, in a come-hither mood, may also promote brain damage.
  
  
• Can anyone explain this tsunami kids game from FEMA? (REQUIRES JAVA)
  
  
• And, in case today's roundup is too lighthearted, brace yourself: This article will scare you off the crystal meth. And this local article, from a male Philippine nurse, is a simple and powerful example of kindness in the face of obdurate racism.

God and Empire

Bush is often accused of bringing a fervent religiosity to the office of the president. There's no question he does nothing to disavow the most fundamental Christian Conservatives. But our rights are said to be “endowed by our creator” – a powerful phrase that links freedom directly to God. God pops up everywhere in our civic discourse all through American history.

Does the Left want to make that a relic of the past? Or is it simply this single-minded, unapologetic president that they find alarming?

And now, if I am reading the inaugural speech correctly, freedom and democracy have become not merely strong suggestions, but a choose-or-lose international policy. I agree these represent the best principles on which a society can be based. And I don't think any nation is unworthy or incapable of getting there eventually.

But don't free societies require some deeply rooted institutional foundations before democracy can be supported? Can social norms that encourage closed-mindedness be simply shaken off almost overnight? And will America be willing to stand aside if emergent democracies reflexively vote the old tyrants back into power?

Swearing In Roundup

Coverage today is wall-to-wall on Bush and the inauguration. The speech is said to be about hope, freedom around the world, and unity. But on this final point a CNN/Gallup poll suggests that there is work to be done here at home :

Forty-nine percent of 1,007 adult Americans said in phone interviews they believe Bush is a "uniter" ... another 49 percent called him a "divider," and 2 percent had no opinion.

That clears that up nicely.

Meanwhile at the NYT, Tom Friedman describes how this American election matters more to Europeans and Middle Easterners, emotionally, than their own elections. Read it for the description of the Pakistani who simply wanted to watch as an American student at England's Oxford University filled out her absentee ballot.

Wonkette collects the frustrations (both practical and political) of urbane Washingtonians dealing with the Lone Star hoedown. And the WaPo has twin coverage. (Watch those V&Ts, Jenna.)

Vanity Ring Tones

For the past few years I have resisted cell phones. In most other ways I am wired; I check email with heartbeat regularity, and surf my share of the Internet. But cell phones lead to constant, banal conversations: "We're leaving the restaurant now!" Or: "Hi, here I am at the store!"

I used to like being unreachable - in more ways than one. But my woman lured me into the modern age. This was done by giving me a new phone with cool features, including a camera. Here's me, looking ill-tempered, riding an elevator:

Howard Rheingold makes a lot of fancy talk about mobile ecologies, and the citizen journalism that becomes possible when people can, for example, send pictures directly from cell phones to weblogs. This is all very thought-provoking and high minded. But in keeping with tradition, the first use of any new technology, and the corresponding public debate, often involves naked ladies.

JibJab.com - Second Term

JibJab.com

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: A List of Actual Quotes Taken From the Directions and Mission Statements of Organic Products Belonging to My Vegan Room

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: A List of Actual Quotes Taken From the Directions and Mission Statements of Organic Products Belonging to My Vegan Roommate.

Bring back the monkey suit. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to make space entertaining.

Bring back the monkey suit. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to make space entertaining.

Obama on Rice

Barack Obama, the immensely likable junior senator from Illinois, did an impressive job asking Condeleeza Rice respectful questions during her confirmation hearings.

I caught a few minutes of coverage, and there was quite a bit of the usual posturing, with two exceptions. Erratic Democrat Joe Biden, to his credit, told Europe to get over it. And Obama asked a question to which I would like an answer myself: How (and why) do we distinguish between tyrants and terrorists when applying U.S. foreign policy and going to war?

The answer was hazy, and boils down to "It depends." The overall performance, however, appears to have pleased conservatives to the point of comparing her, curiously, to an Egyptian queen.

Politically, for Democrats, it must be demoralizing to be reduced to noisemaking and obstructionism, with all three branches of government out of their control. But if Hillary chooses Obama as a running mate, the Republicans are in very serious trouble.

My Picture

My Blogger profile has been updated with what momma gave me. Not the most flattering, and the premature grey hair is longer than I usually wear it. But not the worst picture either. I was loading in some items from my new digital camera, and figured - why not.

Wave and Ghost

Today's Wall Street Journal includes a "fourth column" front page article about the post-tsunami ghost problem in Thailand. The local belief system is such that the roadways and beaches are crowded with ghosts that keep meandering around. Since they died unexpectedly they are unable to leave this world.

A crack team of monks has been dispatched to hurry around the country to say the prayers necessary to move everyone along. They see it as a practical matter. It's harder to get the tourist trade back when you've got the spirits of German families loitering around the sand volleyball court.

I would link to the article, but the WSJ is only available online with a paid subscription. I pay for the print media in this case because it's worthwhile. Meanwhile I've noticed print newspapers are adding more hyperlinks in articles and editorials. They look silly jammed into the body text with all those dots and backslashes.

Like those ghosts, newspapers were caught when the world changed, and now they are stuck with an inadequate form.

Blue Expeditionary Force

In last Sunday's Washington Post, Red State America is the focus of a brave expedition, conducted by a reporter to the hick hinterlands, to poke and prod at the political motivations of it's rural denizens.

He discovers to his surprise that these folks do not fit keenly into one monolithic demographic of gay-bashing, bible-thumping, Iraqi-baby-stompers. Instead they vary widely in their values, religious and otherwise. Many are lukewarm to Bush but trusted John Kerry even less. The writer also seems aghast that people actually live in such rustic locales, and sneaks in some deft sarcasm as he interacts with the natives.

But the red-staters are cautious, and know how they will be portrayed. After all, no expeditions are necessary from Nebraska to Manhattan to learn about the media's values, when movies and network TV are available in the most remote hamlet of the U.S.

Misperceptions, no doubt, ultimately go in both directions. But the media firehose is one way. The article creeps up to the point of condescension, and finally (reluctantly) concludes that Democrats are going to have to do something to connect with these people.

No kidding.

UPDATE: Email from the author: Well, thanks for reading. I don't know where you got "to his surprise," and "hick hinterland" is yours not mine. I prefer to call it "home." But it's a free country, so twist and spin as you see fit. - David Von Drehle

To be fair, you don't actually express surprise. But there was a coyness and subtlety to the way you describe "the Big Empty" and its residents. When one man talks about his pets you say he is offering an explanation for his vote. You drop asides about "sameness" and "conformity”, and the cover photograph is a masterpiece.

The fact that the Midwest was once home would appear to be a foil, when you speak so openly about how all of your peers in D.C. were stunned or weeping over the election. Many people move away from places like Nebraska and never look back unless they hope to trade on that ersatz authenticity when speaking for "the folks".

Hmm. How hard it would be to track down the people interviewed, and see how they feel about their portrayal in the article?

Driving While Inaugurated

After the raise-your-hand-and-swear routine the bulletproof limousines will set sail down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the cheering throngs and protest marchers with their arrhythmic 'hey-ho' chanting, into four more years of West Texas democracy. I have some questions.

Lefties/Democrats:

Are you so thoroughly disgusted with George W. Bush that you hope the country goes to hell in a handbasket, just to debunk his ideology as dangerously wrong, and prove to Red America that voting Republican is not what's done by reasonable people? Or do you hope that America prospers anyway? (Or is it too dangerous to hope for prosperity, because then we may get another Republican president?)

Righties/Republicans:

How long should we stay in Iraq, and when will we know if we won? Since we recently just gave up on WMDs, won't that hurt our credibility in the future? Are we any safer? Do Republicans simply plan to ignore Democrats for the next four years, and debate among themselves? Is the future of the Republican party Rudy and Arnold, or is it Rick and Newt redux?

One final note, it sure is cheaper to be a protest marcher. A puppet or an armband are all it takes to join the funeral procession. Republicans however need a pile of jack, and/or business before the government before they can step into the inuagural dance.

Lunch In the City

Five impeccable young women, a fashion spread come to life, were sitting in the food court of the downtown mall on an average workday, engaged in brisk, snappy conversation with each other. Cell phones, hair clips, and sandwiches were in motion around the table.

I caught snippets from my table: an intransigent boyfriend, the merits of grad school, a new restaurant, a fiancée's stuck-up family. Meanwhile, wheelchairs were being silently glided up to an adjacent table. People with apparent disabilities and poor motor skills were having chicken fingers and pizza placed in front of them by assistants. As they began to eat, one young man made a deafening "AAAAAAA!" sound. To my untrained ear, it didn't sound like distress. He was possibly just enjoying his Sbarro's.

The gabbing hens at the other table became silent. They exchanged looks. It was impossible to ignore, and it disrupted the timing of their dialogue. After a few minutes, the conversation picked up, with more cautious enthusiasm. But once the dishing and nodding and listening was in full force, the sound returned: "AAAAAAA!"

The psychology of the moment was frozen on the faces of these young women. Sympathy and shame did battle with annoyance. It would have been incredibly rude to move tables, but the big lunch had been completely ruined.

As the father of a 9-year-old daughter, I can see how Barbie dolls may promote strange, unrealistic ideals. But I wonder sometimes if a steady diet of NBC sitcoms and savvy urban TV doesn't cause older girls to expect other, unrealistic ideals. It extends beyond the food court, and the only real danger is bitterness when you discover you're not quite the star you had imagined yourself to be, and the crazy scriptwriter has a taste for irony.

Met By Moonlight

The real-time news story of the day actually took place a few hours ago, more than half a billion miles away, on a moon of Saturn.

The first pictures appear to show oceans and rivers on Titan.

Props to (the beleaguered) ESA and the kids at NASA for this breathtaking mission. Not everyone agrees, but as far as I am concerned, they can spend my tax money exploring new planets. Good sites for coverage include NasaWatch, Space.com, and the Cassini-Huygens site itself.

Preliminary pictures would seem to confirm earlier theories that hydrocarbons may not be unique to the Earth and in limited supply.

Pimp My Ride

If your blinged-out SUV just won't do the trick anymore, try upgrading to the Badonkadonk Tank. They're available today from Amazon.com for $20k, shipping and handling not included.

The 'Donk is perfect for everything - from defending the perimeter of your tribal homeland to picking up the kids at a soccer game. And it's got an armored shell to repel small-arms fire.

(Note to neurotic Ohio exurbanites who think the big city is mean and scary: Now you can dine downtown again! Between this and the conceal-and-carry law, you have no excuses.)

Playing Dress-up

Visiting Auschwitz, as an exercise in education against the moral dangers of fascism - that's a good idea for everybody, not just Prince Harry. Can we send Bob Jones III too? And maybe the staff of The Nation, on a return trip from Sulaimaniya in Kurdish Iraq?

But if we want to teach a lunk-headed 20-year-old a memorable lesson, and some manners, try this on for size:

Force him to attend his next royal event in the company of Jacqueline Duty, Kentucky-born teenager who sued her school for the right to go to prom in a homemade, sequined dress decorated with the Confederate Stars and Bars.

Betcha Harry's pals would think that's pretty funny.

Market Specials

Earnings are in season once again. Big winners include techs (AAPL, INTC), hospitals (HCA) and big oil (CVX). Americans, apparently, have every intention of continuing to drive around in their SUVs while gabbing on cell phones, and eventually having traffic accidents.

When choosing a good earnings report, look for plump revenue and firm cash flow that yields slightly to the touch. Beware of discoloration, obvious SEC probes, or earnings that may have died as the result of being stunned with tasers. Serve immediately with a zesty capitalist sauce. Hungry shareholders will thank you.

Apple Editorial

Everybody always goes bonkers over new products from Apple. The NY Times up and wrote an editorial about the latest goodies. Aren't editorials usually reseved for lofty opinions, intellectual debate, and public policy?

The Shuffle and Mini are slick, but check out Apple's next product.

Truth to Power

The baby boomer generation can never get past their formative experiences. Every national issue is shoe-horned into the same overdone, tedious intellectual framework.

Every new idea about the U.S. space program, for example, is inevitably compared to the faded glory of Apollo. Every young Democratic politician must be weighed on the Kennedy scale of handsomeness and intelligence. And each newsworthy racial issue - no matter how unique - is always tinged with the sepia tones of civil rights-era struggles.

Another sacred cornerstone of their generational identity is the role the media played in Vietnam and Watergate.

Now Howard Fineman deconstructs how that former glory led the mainstream media right into the jaws of the CBS memogate debacle. He acknowledges some partisanship in the water, and even nods to the emergent blogger media. It's rare, refreshing candor.

Lively Up Yourself

I have spent the past four days buried in the narco-dental machine. Some highlights:

First, doctors, dentists, and surgeons have very peculiar, and differing, opinions about what drugs work, and what drugs do not work. Second, when nerves are removed in a root canal, there are sometimes smaller, hidden "micro-nerves". (Surprise!) Third, the people who work at my pharmacy are a great bunch of folks. And finally, there's a talking purple chinchilla sitting on my monitor, who may work for GlaxoSmithKline.

When I haven't been waiting around in small, fluorescently-lit rooms, I have spent my convalescence watching insane amounts of TV. I've become absorbed by both the remake of the classic sci-fi 70s opera "Battlestar Galactica" and Fox's "24", which weaves together all of the moral conundrums of terrorism into a throat-gripping story.

Not that I have time for TV now. I have many things to catch up on - more in later posts. Meanwhile, how about the news that Bob Marley is being exhumed and reburied in Ethiopia?

New exhibition examines bizarre bible syndrome - news from ekklesia

New exhibition examines bizarre bible syndrome - news from ekklesia

Gentler religion on the rise ...
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600103792,00.html

Throwing off the burqa ...
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/todaysfeatures/2005/January/todaysfeatures_January20.xml§ion=todaysfeatures

Out of Office

The past weekend has been almost completely lost, due to sickness. Posting will resume when I get closer to full health. Stay tuned.

Test

This is a test.

With links.

Friday Roundup

Surplus items for you ranch hands out there. Thanks to link tipsters Creamy Stevens, whiskeypriest, and D.L.

• Surely most Americans have seen plenty of TV that has made them want to leap from the chair, run smack into a doorjamb, and start heaving. This guy hopes to use it to net a cool $2.5M.

• Click the watchful Baby Jesus!

• Notice to our Palestinian friends: Many Americans are perplexed by Richard Gere too.

• The quasi-lifelike videogame 'Sims 2' has been the subject of eerie, metaphysical hacks, where dishwashers are named Candance, and espresso balms the soul. Via Slashdot.

• More mesmerizingly awful record covers.

• Music-loving math nerds, try the Pi.

• Local Item: If you're short on entertainment, check out the Know Affair on Saturday, the big annual fundraiser for the best alterna-pendant theatre in Cincinnati.

Also, this blog has acquired quite a few readers from Bahrain, if I am reading my whizbang web reporting correctly. Welcome! I'm not sure how you got here -- but make yourself at home. One of my network savvy friends did suggest this might be the explanation, a software tool for making connections more anonymous. Ah well.

First Person Singular

Michael Meckler suggests, partly in jest, that MSNBC should re-factor it's broadcast along Red and Blue state lines. Targeted segmentation and one-to-one marketing theory would give credence to that approach as a sound business practice.

Advertisers would likewise split right down the middle. Some politically motivated shoppers have already drawn up battle lines.

But count me among the curmudgeons who feel the need to defy the increasingly powerful data algorithms that seek to vivisect every attribute of our economic and political lives.

I watch MSNBC often, partially because it's a train wreck of disparate political views, sometimes in the same show. I also trade Kroger scanner cards with my friends to combat grocery profiling. And I regularly answer phone surveys with slightly implausible answers to the demographic questions. I'm the disabled Asian American low-income earning Libertarian your parents warned you about.

In the tradition of old Emerson and Thoreau we should resist any invisible agency that erodes our resolute individualism.

Exotic Pet News

News from Canada about an Alberta millionaire with a penchant for exotic animals, including what sounds like every bachelor's dream pet, a poker-playing monkey. But the money quote from the article is about his pet moose. Read it to yourself with a BBC accent:

The moose, which the family erroneously believed was a male and dubbed Murray, was turned over to the Calgary Zoo where her true sex was determined and she was renamed Anne Murray.

No official word from Canada's Songbird in response. But surely everyone can agree that, as usual, our neighbors to the north have a great knack for funny.

Goin' to the Chapel

Thank you to well-wishers who have responded to the news of my engagement. Some have asked about wedding plans. This is the second time for both Rachel and I, so we're weighing various options.

1. Nuptial attendees will ride through town in a wagon train pulled by oxen, followed by an army of banjo-pickers and harmonica players. Rites will be given on a bandstand by a wise old cowboy with a handlebar mustache.
   
   
2. Bride and groom will recite vows while being lowered slowly into twin silver cauldrons filled with warm chocolate. Tibetan monks will chant softly nearby. Mirrored balls and bubble machines will add ambience.
   
   
3. Bridal party will be carried aloft on gilded platforms through the misty moors of Finland, and the marriage performed by a centuries-old warlock near his mountainside cave.
   
   
4. Rachel and I will don mechanized body armor, and fight a duel to the death using chainsaws with spinning blades, all the while reciting Spenserian sonnets to each other in robotic voices.
   
   
5. An intimate ceremony with close family.

Quite a tough pick, as you can see. More news as it breaks.

Disaster Assessment: U.N.

Hey kids. Play along at home, and pretend you're the blogger!

Today's game works like this. Search the news for any stories about the United Nations doing one damn practical thing so far about the tsunami. "Fund money" doesn't count. Send me any hard news. Winners could include pictures of U.N. helicopters, planes full of relief supplies, or dudes with blue helmets performing kindly acts.

On a more general, less sarcastic note: I support some kind of international body that can act together in these situations. Yes, I know, democracy doesn't mean always mean boo-yah Americanism. But nor should it mean corrupt, unrelenting bureaucratic impotence.

Actions speak louder than words.

Dar Al Hayat

Dar Al Hayat

Abusive Powers

Judge Dallas Powers sounds like a prototypical sexist, racist, egomaniacal country bastard right from central casting. Any screenwriter that invented such a character would have the script handed back, because it's been way overdone.

If Ohio's Warren County exurbs are the new paradigm for electoral politics and 21st-century convenience, it's time to upgrade the municipal software. These were rural communities in the 1970s, and some of the local leadership apparently hasn't advanced past those backwater days. (Niether, apparently, have some hair styles.)

Democrats could try to exploit stories like this, and claim certain people in these communities possess troglodyte, anti-progressive values; but taking this too far would alienate needed voters. Tricky.

UPDATE: Some history. What a vicious, crazy S.O.B. Also Red-State provides a good summary of the case, with a solid perspective on the judicial and electoral processes in play.

Beowolf 2600

Gamer magazine 1UP.com roped together a group of precocious pre-teens, and sat them down in front of classsic videogames from the 80s and 90s, with entirely predictable results.

While playing the Atari classic "Adventure", one kid, Parker, keeps observing that the fearsome dragon looks more like a duck, and suggesting that "Street Fighter" could use more blood and gore.

Listen, kid. These videogames were not made with multi-million dollar budgets, Hollywood actors, or an army of graphics programmers dedicated to making each part of Laura Croft jiggle alluringly. In my day we had to use our imaginations, Parker, that dusty corner of your wit which, owing to it's neglect and malnutrition, is only able to render the world bleak and gray during those fleeting seconds when you are plucked from the nipple of mass-media stimuli.

In my day games like "Adventure" had to be translated from the original Prussu-Hungarian before we could play them. We often built joysticks by hand, using cast-off balsa wood and tin coils, which we obtained by trading buttons with the ragpicker.

So stop calling it a duck, Parker.

Sprawl Transit Systems

Bob Herring makes an eloquent case for expanded mass transit in Cincinnati. But before this can happen two issues need to be addressed.

The first is behavioral. People have moved "out" of town to avoid crime. They have already traded longer commutes in their automobiles for the perceived safety of the exurbs. Psychologically they see disturbing crime stories as a vindication of that choice. They do not want mass-transit arteries taking criminals to their doorstep, no matter how many times you inform them that even scholarly studies (PDF) suggest this won't happen. Unless exurbians are persuaded, no one should expect municipal approval or funding help.

The second issue can best be illustrated with a large bag of M&Ms and a length of string. Scatter the M&Ms all over the floor. Try to connect the most closely grouped Ms with the shortest length of string.

The same game can be played with a city map. Run a mass-transit system through any neighborhood that would be within walking distance, thereby negating the need for cars. The more people can walk to access it, the more beneficial the system, right? But the nettlesome corollary to this game is, the closer you get to densely-populated areas the more you will pay for the line, due to disruption to residential and commercial districts.

There may be answers that work hand-in-hand with transit. What about giving tax credits to developers who put up shopping or residential areas with more non-automotive access? What about rebuilding burned out strip malls instead of leaving them to waste?

Hat tip to Walk-In-Brain. Link to post and discussion.

Red Angel Dragnet

Myths are running wild in the newspaper debate, and those of a political bent have naturally turned the discussion towards their favorite topic: Discrediting new media, including blogs, this time by emphasizing the marginalia and junk science that has arisen in some corners with the tsunami story.

The NYT cites the Democratic Underground. But that site is not, technically, a blog. It's a bulletin board, and the political equivalent of the Free Republic, another general forum for hot-faced sputtering.

(A nerdy quibble? Well, what if we confused these guys with these guys when opining on newsprint media?)

In the wake of events from Southeast Asia blogs have again demonstrated they can respond with more agility, veracity, and even (this must really gall them) emphasis on the social good than the paper behemoths of the old media, working on the daily cycle of tree destruction. Even the people in the region see this.

UPDATE: You have to get up pretty early to beat Instapundit, and my alarm literally didn't ring this morning.

Year of the Rooster

As 2005 commences I've decided on the following resolutions.

1. Marry the girl of my dreams.
2. Continue to drop mad knowledge on my Spacetropic readership.
3. Keep up the exercise, and visits to the gym.
4. Be a supportive Homework Dad to my daughter every day.
5. Participate more actively in the best Catholic parish in town.
   

I'm doing well so far, especially on the first item. Last night I asked Rachel to marry me, gave her a ring, and she said yes.

This weblog has never been about excessive reflections and journalizing about the author's interior life. But this qualifies as a momentous occasion. We waited a long time. We really love each other, and share humor and a sense of perspective towards everything important. I am absolutely sure there is no better person with whom I would like to adventure through the days I have on this planet. In this new year, and from now on, I resolve to be the best man I can be for her.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.