Religious conservatives don't want to see stem cell research go forward because it might destroy embryos. Others point out that religious conservatives have no problem with in vitro fertilization, even though there are a large number of embryos destroyed every year when they're abandonded by prospective parents or otherwise end up going unused.
So, how about if instead of throwing away the "leftover" in vitro embryos, we just give THOSE to the scientists to use in stem cell research? That way, no embryos are created just for the purpose of destroying them, embryos that would be going to waste end up being used for a greater purpose, and science gets to progress?
I'm sure I'm NOT the first person to ask this, but it's been bugging me lately, so I figured I'd thow it out there again.
This is from an article about the religious fanaticism that some of our leaders hold to. It's an interesting article, but that's not why I'm posting it. I had never heard of the Amendment referenced below, but given it's purpose, I couldn't have thought of a better name for it if I'd tried. Perhaps these two representatives should avoid co-authoring legislation in the future - it certainly doesn't help their case...
Mr DeLay (who is also the co-author of the marvellously-named DeLay-Doolittle Amendment, postponing campaign finance reforms)....
A lot of people don't think so, and with good reason. Below is a copy of a petition outlining the reasons why. Please read though it, and if you agree, sign it yourself. Thanks!
To: ICANN
Department of Commerce
Senate Commerce Committee
House Commerce CommitteeWe, the undersigned, who have an interest in the Internet remaining free of unregulated profiteering, petition you to recall the .com and .net registry from VeriSign for the following reasons:
1) VeriSign has unfairly exploited its position as the monopoly provider of .com and .net registry services, as evidenced by the company's attempt to install profit-making services which provide questionable benefits to end-users but huge profits to VeriSign.
Documented abuses:Click Here if you would like to sign the petition.2) To support ICANN (an internationally organized, non-profit organization that has responsibility for accrediting domain name registrars) in its defense of the lawsuit filed against it by VeriSign (a multi-billion dollar corporation) - a lawsuit which sues ICANN for operating well within its established boundaries, as outlined in the 1999 Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. Department of Commerce and ICANN.
- VeriSign's implementation of "SiteFinder" - a web address resolution service that accomplishes the following:
- Hijacks agreed-upon domain name resolution standards by directing non-existent Internet addresses to a VeriSign paid advertising page
- Illustrates the potential for compromised network security and the very real risk of a "single point of failure" for the Internet when VeriSign chooses to circumvent Internet standards
- Effectively delivers a massive "captive audience" to VeriSign
- VeriSign's proposed Wait-Listing Service (WLS) -- a domain name back-ordering service that accomplishes the following:
- Eliminates competition for domain name back-ordering when a robust market has already emerged that offers consumers a number of business models
- Replaces the current pay-for-performance model with one that charges steep annual fees and offers no assurance of success
- Charges back-order prices that are four times higher than regulated domain name prices
- Reduces customer choice by giving well-heeled speculators an advantage in obtaining deleted domain names
3) To prevent any corporation that is entirely motivated by profit from assuming "unregulated" control on the Internet.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
Back in 1998, President Clinton signed a bill that has been controversial pretty much from the start. It was intended to dissuade students from using drugs by preventing them from getting financial aid if they were convicted on drug charges, but the way it's been administered has resulted in many people who had - as President Bush described his own possible drug use - "youthful indiscretions" being unable to get any kind of financial aid, and unable to attend college. Even the author of the law - Rep Mark Souder [R-IN] contends that the way it's being applied has nothing to do with how it was intended to be used - and he has said that he believes there are "lawsuits to be had here" over the way it's been handled.
The apparent logic at the root of the bill is the idea that if tax payers are paying for someone's education, they should be out doing drugs. The problem is that the law only applies to drug offenses. Individuals who have been convicted of other crimes, including murder, rape, armed robbery or any number of other severe offenses, have no restrictions place on their ability to get financial aid.
After serving almost 10 years in prison for attempted murder, Jason Bell went straight to college on federal grants and loans. Now a senior at San Francisco State University, he helps other ex-convicts enroll in the university but often has the hardest time assisting drug offenders whose crimes were minor, certainly a lot less serious than his.In other words, someone convicted on one occasion for having a small amount of marijuana in their possession is ineligible to receive financial aid - in some cases only for a year (but if you can't afford to pay for that first year of school, you can't ever make it to your second year when your eligibility would be restored) - but someone who was convicted of murder and released could get aid with no problem. There's just something wrong about that."It's a form of double jeopardy," said Mr. Bell, 32. "They do the time, but then there are still roadblocks when they finish. I don't believe people should be punished twice."
There are, apparently, efforts underway to try and "fix" the law, but it's not clear if they'll really be much better than the current system.
Under President Bush's language, anyone who violated drug laws before going to college could get financial aid, regardless of the offense. That would be in keeping with Mr. Bush's philosophy, as laid out in his State of the Union address, that "when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life."It's not a bad idea to try and dissuade people from committing criminal offenses. But using a law with such a blatant double standard - creating an extra punishment for drug users that doesn't exist for other criminals - doesn't serve society well. If this is being done to prevent crime, then it should target criminals in general, regardless of what kind of crime they committed.But those already in college when they commit a drug offense, however small, would still be stripped of aid, for at least a year. The idea, supporters say, is to continue trying to dissuade students from using drugs, especially since they are being educated with taxpayer money.
The problem, detractors say, is that the law would still impose stiffer penalties on drug use than on any other crime.
More importantly, though, is that punishing criminals of any kind by making it harder to get an education is likely to be counterproductive. Education can be a key factor in turning someone who has committed crimes in their past into contributing members of society, and by helping people develop more marketable skills - making them more employable - education can also help reduce the chance that an individual will live in poverty. That right there can do a lot to reduce crime.
Rather than making superficial changes that don't really address the problems the law contains, the law should be scrapped as a whole. Find other ways to try and deter crime, without taking away what - for many people - is the best hope they've got of turning their lives around.
I generally don't post entire articles - and I rarely use material from FOX News. This article, though, I couldn't pass up, as it deals with a topic near and dear to my relatively healthy heart.
Recently, the CDC issued a new proclamation saying that obesity-related deaths are approaching 400,000 per year. Unfortunately, they don't make clear what "obesity-related" deaths are. In my experience, it basically, means how many fat people died and had conditions that might be related to their obesity - without always taking into account of those conditions were directly related to the death. From what I can tell, pretty much any time a fat person dies and it wasn't an accident or murder, it is considered an "obesity-related" death.
As regular readers already know, the whole anti-fat attitude of this nation is something that infuriates me no end, as does the way that fat people are demonized in this country. Reports such as the CDC's announcement do nothing to help. In fact, they can cause even more problems for the obese, since many employers view fat people not as individuals who have the potential to do a good job and be a valuable asset to a company, but rather as people who will only manage to drain their health insurance budgets dry and rack up sick-days.
Sadly, it's all too easy to perpetuate bigotry - both in attitude and in action - against fat people because society blames every fat person for their condition, even though overeating is not the sole cause, and not ever fat person you meet eats to excess. There are medical conditions that can cause obesity - there have been numerous discoveries in the last few years showing that factors as disparate as viruses to hormonal malfunctions can be at the root - and other issues such as side effects from various medications - including medications for disorders that often plague fat people, such as depression.
Yes, some people are big because they just plain eat too much - but if you don't know the person, you don't know the cause, and to assume the worst about them is no better than making assumptions about individuals belonging to any other "group."
So I was quite relieved, today, to find this article, which explains why the CDC's new numbers are misleading - even if it does come from a rather surprising source.
Obesity ObsessionFriday, March 12, 2004
By Steven Milloy
“Obesity is catching up to tobacco as the leading cause of death in America,” proclaimed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief Julie Gerberding this week. “Americans need to understand that overweight and obesity are literally killing us,” added Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.
While it’s not disputed that severe obesity may shorten life, the real killer in this case seems to be the CDC’s statistical malpractice.
The excuse for the desperate health warning is a study in the March 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association in which the CDC claims that poor diet and physical inactivity caused 400,000 deaths in 2000. That estimate supposedly represents a 33 percent increase from the 1990 estimate and approaches the 435,000 deaths in 2000 supposedly attributable to smoking.
Now it’s been said that there are two types of statistics ― the kind you look up and the kind you make up. CDC’s body counts are definitely the latter.
The CDC produced its estimates with a statistical ruse called “attributable risk” ― the fearmongers’ method of choice for alarming the public with large body counts. Attributable risk could be the poster child for the saying, “garbage in, garbage out.”
Without getting lost in the depths of statistical formulas, the key components of attributable risk calculations are statistical correlations between potential causes and effects, like overweight/obesity and premature death. But just because overweight/obesity and premature death might have been statistically correlated in some studies doesn’t mean that overweight/obesity has been proven to cause premature death.
In the few studies that have reported correlations between overweight/obesity and premature death, the vast majority of the correlations are small, not statistically significant (that is, they may be due to chance) and, in short, are unreliable. Reported correlations between overweight/obesity with premature death don’t start to inspire even minimal confidence until the obesity in question is extreme ― cases where you only need common sense, not statistical hocus-pocus.
Recklessly plugging unreliable statistical correlations into the attributable risk formula to produce sensational body counts can only be described as junk science.
But you don’t need to take my word about the folly of the CDC’s methodology.
As the New England Journal of Medicine editorialized in 1998, “Although some claim that every year 300,000 deaths in the United States are caused by obesity, that figure is by no means well established. Not only is it derived from weak or incomplete data, but it is also called into question by the methodologic difficulties of determining which of many factors contribute to premature death.”
“Calculations of attributable risk are fraught with problems … [and can produce] a nonsensical result,” noted the Journal.
And if all this is too technical, just ask yourself this question: Is it really plausible that the death rate from overweight and obesity has increased by 33 percent in the last 10 years?
Let’s not forget that despite all the hyperventilating about our health, the CDC reported last month (with much less fanfare) that U.S. life expectancy ― the most objective measure of public health ― reached an all-time high of 77.4 years in 2002, up from about 75.2 in 1990.
So what gives? Why does the CDC insist on nagging us about our waistlines? Two reasons come to mind.
First, the previously mentioned New England Journal of Medicine editorial characterized the obesity obsession as an example of “a tendency to medicalize behavior we do not approve of” ― that is, politically incorrect activities like over-eating, not exercising, smoking, drinking, and gun ownership.
Next, the public health establishment is simply running out of things to do. Preventing and controlling the spread of infectious disease, the traditional and primary mission of public health professionals, has largely been achieved. The relatively small number of infectious disease deaths that still occur annually, excluding AIDS-related deaths, decreased by 25 percent from 1990 to 2000, according to the CDC.
In former President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s famous 1961 speech warning us of a looming military-industrial complex, he also said, “The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
Were Ike witnessing the health nannies’ apparent desire to control our behavior and bigger budgets, he might warn us of the looming “public health-industrial complex.”
Steven Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and the author of Junk Science Judo: Self-Defense Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001).
I've heard about the two ads (out of roughly 1,500 entrants) in MoveOn.org's "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest that imply that Bush is "another Hitler." I'm very glad to see that neither of them made the finals.
I have a big problem with the way we so easily make comparisons to Nazis and Hitler these days. I'm sure anyone who's been on an e-mail discussion list or message board where a moderator has tried to actually enforce the rules has heard one or more participants accuse the moderator of being a Nazi, or comparing them to Hitler. On the show "Sienfeld," there was a long running joke about the "soup Nazi." And more and more over the last few months, I've heard people comparing Bush to Hitler.
When we start comparing mailing list moderators or soup chefs to the Nazis, we trivialize who and what the Nazis were. No mailing list moderator is going to round up people who write off-topic messages, use them for medical experiments, torture and abuse them, starve them, and/or finally gas them to death by the millions. And while there may be aspects of Bush's personality that might remind some of Hitler (such as his claim that God is telling him to go after Saddam), I honestly do not see America heading to the point where we're going to have concentration camps filled with people being killed at the hand of President Bush for no reason other than their race, religion, beliefs, etc. Yes, I think Bush is extremely dangerous and could well lead America from being a democracy to being a facist state, but turning a country into a facist state alone truly does not come close to matching the vileness of what the Nazis did and stood for. The thing is, when we use Hilter comparisons and Nazi metaphors in such a superficial way, we run the risk of forgetting just how awful what they did was.
I will say that I believe there are valid comparisons to be made between the economic and political tactics that Hitler used in turning Germany into a facist state and some of the economic and political tactics Bush has used, and I think it's more than fair to show the similarities in how each of them has used the power of their office. That, however, is the limit of the comparisons between them, and its very hard to explain those similarities in a 30-second ad.
As for implying that Bush is "another Hitler", unless you can honestly imagine him building concentration camps and killing millions of Americans, don't do it. Bush is bad, yes, but Hitler was far worse. Just as comparing a message-board moderator to a Nazi trivializes just how evil the Nazis were by turning them from mass-murdering, torturous butchers into people who believe in strictly enforcing the rules, bringing Hitler down to Bush's level trivializes just how evil a man he was. And when we stop looking at Hitler and the Nazis as perhaps the greatest evil force in history, it makes it easy to forget just how bad what they did was - and that is simply something we cannot afford to do.
Article edited at 3:30pm 1/6/04 to correct number of ad entered into MoveOn.org's contest to 1,500 instead of 15,000. I regret the earlier error
As most of you have probably noticed, I'm something of a Rush fan. You may also have heard that Alex Lifeson (legally, Alex Zivojinovich), their lead guitarist, was arrested New Year's Eve in Florida after a fracas with the cops. Since this is mainly a political site, I've not been posting about the situation here, but thought I'd at least post links to the information I do have, in case anyone's interested.
I run a Rush fan site named La Villa Strangiato - The Rush Fanlisting. At that site, I'm compiling a list of news articles and other information (including a link to some video footage of Alex answering questions as he's leaving the jail, comments from a Rush fan and reporter who lives in Naples and has been gathering information on the situation and the text of arrest reports for Alex's son and daughter-in-law who were arrested with him.)
Additionally, I've posted an Open Letter to Alex, his family and bandmates to let them know that fans are thinking about them and wishing them well during this time. The text of the letter itself is actually short (something of a miracle coming from me, you know,) but I think it gets the message across:
Over the years, you have given us so much joy with your music that you and your loved ones have become important to us as well, and we - your fans - want you to know that we are thinking of you in this difficult time and wish only the best for each of you. It is also our hope that this situation will be resolved quickly, fairly and justly for all involved, so that you can get back to your normal lives and doing what you - and we - love so much - your music. Thank you for all that you have given us over the last 30 years - here's to 30 more, eh? :)If you agree with the sentiment expressed, I hope you'll consider signing it. I plan to leave it posted for a few weeks and then will print it out and send it to Anthem Entertainment.
There are a couple things I do want to mention. As much as I admire Alex, and will likely give him any benefit of the doubt, I do not feel that he should be given any special treatment in how his case is handled. I know that at least one of the charges carries with it the possibility of a substantial sentence, though hopefully the fact that this is a first offense (this guy's been a rock star for 30 years, and this is the first arrest for anyone in the band that we know of) might be able to help mitigate some of that (as it would for any other first-time offender under the same circumstances), but if this goes to trial, the trial is handled fairly and he's convicted, then off he goes. It would be a tragic end to what has been an incredible career, and not hearing him play again would be a huge disappointment, but if he did what he's accused of, he's going to have to face the consequences for it. I'll just hope they deliver fan mail in the state pen. *grin*
Secondly, I have to say that I am not impressed with the reporting coming out of the Naples Daily News so far. One of the local TV stations has posted the raw footage of Alex being interviewed as he's leaving the jail. John Henderson, the reporter for the Daily News who is covering the story, took some quotes from those interviews and reported them out-of-context in a way that might make Alex look worse to some people. That he did this once, of course, leads me to question if he's done it with other comments in these articles as well.
Unfortunately, most of the stories being carried by CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post and others through both the Associated Press and Reuters appear to have been taken largely from Henderson's stories.
Just so that you can judge how serious you think the "out of context" aspect is, here is what I noticed: In an article posted to the website after Alex was released from the jail, Henderson writes:
Asked whether he felt the arrest was fair, Zivojinovich replied: "Absolutely not. That is a matter of opinion. They didn't like the way we were dancing, apparently."And here's the transcript of what was actually said according to the tape (I listened to it several times to make sure I have this correct):
Male Voice: Did you say you were treated unfairly at the Ritz? Did I catchSo what Henderson presents as Alex saying he thought the arrest itself was unfair was actually Alex saying he thought the way he was treated with the arrest was unfair, and then he tacks on the answer to a different question as if it were all made as a single statement in answer to one question.
that right?Alex: No. The question was "Was I treated fairly though out the whole thing"
Man: Right
Alex: meaning from here (the jail).
Man: Were you treated fairly at the Ritz with the arrest?
Alex: I think absolutely not. That's a matter of opinion.
Woman: They were saying that you guy were just out of hand...
Alex: They didn't like how we danced, apparently.
I mention this because I was able to notice this example because I'd seen the tape. As I've mentioned here before, I consider presenting things in the proper context to be important, and if I were to catch this kind of a out-of-context representation in an article (even if the change of context worked in favour of the side I support - for example, since some of Paul Wolfowitz's quotes were presented somewhat out of context - making them sound more damning to the pro-war stance - in a Vanity Fair interview, if I need to refer to those quotes, I always refer to the DOD transcript of that interview rather than the Vanity Fair article, to make sure that context is not an issue ), I will generally try to avoid using that author as a reference for future posts, try to determine if quotes and statements in articles by the author are presented in the proper context before using them, or at least caveat it with a notation that I tend to take what this person says with a grain of salt.
May the Gods grant you a happy and healthy holiday season that last throughout the next year!
And for anyone curious about the roots of some of our modern "Christmas" decorations, here's an article you might want to check out on Celebrating Jul "the Viking Way"
Wassail!
OSLO, Norway (AP) -- If the Vikings had seen pictures of Santa Claus cruising the skies in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, they probably would have assumed he was catching a ride with Thor, the Norse god of thunder.According to Viking traditions, which carry over into modern Scandinavian Jul -- or Yule -- celebrations, Thor's personal transport was a flying wagon pulled by a team of horned goats.
"The idea of St. Nicholas got very much mixed in with Thor's transport when it comes to the sled with flying reindeer," said Helge Soerheim of the Archaeological Museum in Stavanger.Some say the idea of Father Christmas or Santa bringing gifts stems from Norse mythology, too, since the most powerful of the Viking gods, Odin, was credited with doing the exact same thing, according to the Norwegian research magazine Forskning.
Being something of a true crime buff, I've been reading some of the stories in the UK press about the trial of Ian Huntley who was recently tried for the murder of two young girls in Soham.
The Sunday Herald, a Scottish paper, is running a number of articles on the case, including one by Denise Mina, who is described as an award winning crime novelist. I don't know anything about her books, but in an article discussing the role of Huntley's girlfriend, Maxine Carr, in the crime, she notes that the defense tried to use Carr's relationship with Hunley to prove his innocence, claiming that if he had been guilty, Carr could not have a sexual relationship with him in the dayse after the murder as doing so would go against “every natural female instinct”.
[If women have a natural instinct not to be sexual with murderers, someone obviously has forgotten to tell the jail groupies who seem to flock to notorious killers here in the states, though that's another story all together.]
Mina then provides a wonderful comment that applies not only to this case, but also to other situations - such as politics - where the main argument against it is that "it's not natural":
We should be suspicious when anyone anywhere argues that anything is natural. Nature has been used to justify slavery, homophobia and keeping the working classes in their place. Appeals to nature never mean giving up penicillin or clean water, it is a hollow term that saves right-wing polemicists and scoundrels the trouble of coming up with a rational argument.Exactly!
I had previously posted (here and here) about Marquis Jobes, a 13-year old boy who has been missing since early November. His body was located today, and apparently he has been dead for a while.
I initially took interest in this story because it was yet another case where a minority child from a lower-income family who had disappeared with little fanfare outside the local press. I was actually somewhat surprised that the case hadn't attracted more attention. The boy's mother had been found dead, and police thought that her boyfriend may have killed her and taken the boy. There was considerable concern for Marquis' safety, as the boyfriend was considered to be violent.
A few days after Marquis went missing and his mother's body was found, however, the boyfriend was found, having been shot to death. Since that time no one has had any idea what happened to Marquis. I have to wonder if the case had gotten more exposure if, perhaps, Marquis might have been found before he died. Obviously, that's not something I can know at this point, and it may never be known, but the whole situation just really upsets me because it seems like we only ever hear about the rich, white girls who disappear and not any of the other kids, unless something truly spectacular has happened.
In any event, it's very sad news to hear that Marquis is dead. The police have said that the tip they got which led them to Marquis' body will also lead them to an arrest in the case. I hope it does.
Thanks to Cat Phillips for posting the link to this story in my comments!
Usually, I save quizzes like this for my personal journal where I write when I'm feeling all wiggy or goofy or depressed or pissed (about something other than politics) or just generally feel like writing and don't have a coherent topic on which to do so, but this quiz fits the spirit of this site so well, I just had to share it.
Threat rating: High. The Bush administration is
concerned that it may not get a second term.
Therefore, we are going to change the rules so
that each Democrat vote only counts as 0.2
votes because Democrat is a shorter word than
Republican
What threat to the Bush administration are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
[Special note to the FBI or any other "snoopsy" types: This quiz IS meant to be a joke. I really am NOT much of a threat to the Bush administration, unless you consider someone being morally, politically and ethically opposed to damn near everything the President and his administration have done and working as hard as I can to convince others to vote for the Democratic candidate for President in next year's elections to be a "threat." If so, please let me remind you that holding views different from the President (or the Republican party) and encouraging people to exercise their right to vote for any candidate - even if he or she isn't a Republican - are perfectly legal acts (at least for the time being, though I'm sure you're working on that), so you can't really bust me for that. Thanks!]
Take the time to stop by Ayn Couter's site and enjoy her beautiful parody of all that is blogging:The Blogfather. It lays out the tale of Instypoobah and his sons as they battle the menace of the Liberals and the nascent League of Leftys.
Nice work, Ayn!
Apparently, there's some confusion about Larry Flynt's comments regarding his purchase of the alleged nude photos of Jessica Lynch. According to the Fox News story published yesterday, Flynt had issued a statement that he had purchased the pictures "in order to keep them out of circulation, not to publish them." But another story in the New York Daily News, also published yesterday, contradicts that statement:
Flynt said "he bought the photos last month from the men who purportedly participated in the amateur shoot with the undressed Army supply clerk. The soldiers “wanted to let it be known that she’s not all apple pie,” Flynt said.When I had read the first story, saying that he had bought the pictures to keep them from being published, I thought his behaviour was laudable. Now that his motives are less clear, I'm not so sure. I'm glad that Flynt decided not to publish them - I think the media, as a whole, has already done enough to Lynch - but I don't have quite as much admiration as I did.“My first intention was to publish them, but I don’t think it was the best, positive move I could make,” Flynt said in a telephone interview. “She’s very much a pawn for the government. They force-fed us a Joan of Arc.”
For anyone who's curious to see what's in "The Reagans" mini-series, Salon has posted a .pdf copy of the 213-page script, along with this caveat:
A few words of caution: This script is undated, and, though it most likely represents a "shooting script" matching the version of the miniseries that was originally planned for broadcast, we cannot be sure that the script itself was not further edited, and it's likely that additional changes were made during editing. Showtime, the cable network that has acquired "The Reagans" from CBS, has announced that it will "collaborate with the filmmaker to create a final film," so the Showtime version is likely to differ further from this script.While there shouldn't be any problems downloading it from Salon, just in case, I've also uploaded a copy here.
A few days ago, I posted about an Amber Alert that had been issued for a young boy named Marquis Jobes. Part of the reason I'd included it was because the case has gotten very little attention in the media - something that many attribute to either his being black or from a poor family, since children from both minority families and lower-class familes often receive little attention when they've disappeared.
There's now been an update to the Amber Alert issues. Apparently both the boy's mother and the original suspect in his disapperance have been found shot to death. There is still no sign of the boy. Here's the updated information:
The Virginia State Police issued the Amber Alert after finding the boy's mother shot to death in their Chesterfield County home.
Marquis Jobes
13 yrs., black male, 5', 110 lbs. with brown eyes and black hair. He has been missing since last week. Police say his mother was found shot to death in her home Saturday morning October 25th.
Police found the body of the original suspect Anthony Rankine in a parked van on Wednesday November 5. Rankine had been shot to death and there was no sign of Marquis.
Marquis is believed to be in extreme danger.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Virginia State Police at 800-822-4453, or Chesterfield County Police at 804-748-1832 or dial 911.
Mark at Earthly Passions has an amusing look at the new design for our nickels.
Apparently, the French are a bit miffed.
The Internet knows no bounds... We Want Your Soul can give you a free, no-obligation quotation on how much your soul is worth, and also how pure your soul is compared to others who have gotten quotes. As for mine? It's a lot purer than I had expected! According to "We Want Your Soul", my soul is worth £34135, and 24% of people have a purer soul than I do.
If you go get a quote on your soul, post a note back here -- I want to know just what kind of filthy sinners are reading my blog! ;)
Or "...and the Right Wing thought Clinton was a slick little parser...."
The Wingnut Debate Dictionary evolved out of a thread at Eschaton where Atrios was discussing four of the more common tactics conservatives have been using to avoid actually discussing issues or acknowledging what Bush has actually said or done (for example, their recent defense of Bush, claiming he didn't mislead the country on the war in Iraq because he never actually said that Iraq was an "imminent" threat - even though everything he said or did gave that exact message, very clearly).
At any rate, one of his visitors took all of the suggestions and has compiled them into a webpage with all the terms and definitions laid out for easy reference. It's a priceless resource that all good Liberals should make themselves well-familiar with. :)
From the The Daily Show:
Jon Stewart: But the President's Republican allies feel strongly that our commitment [to Iraq] must remain strong.[Video footage of Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) addressing the Senate]: "One thing is very clear. As the President has said time and time again, "We will not walk away from Iraq."
JS: You mean that in a positive way, right?
Also from the dead bird boys comes word of the Federation of American Scientiests Project on Government Secrecy. It's a great resource on information on what the government is trying to keep hidden.
Just a wish for a
HAPPY SAMHAIN
to everyone!
May the next year be filled with blessings to make it ever better than the last!
Kriselda
Courtesy of gttim at Notes from Atlanta: Rush on Rush - an absolutely priceless parody/commentary, all I can say is just check it out. I haven't stopped laughing yet!
Most of the time, when we hear about "think tanks" in the news, they're groups funded by and working for the conservative side of the political spectrum. Now Progressives have a new think tank to work on promoting their issues. The Center for American Progress has opened a new website at http://www.centerforamericanprogress.org, and describes themselves as "Dedicated to a strong, secure and prosperous America that expands opportunities, extends our freedoms and ensures fairness." Not a bad goal.
There's not a whole lot of information available at the site yet, but I looks like they're working to change that quickly. They already have some interesting stuff posted, including a response to the Rumsfeld memo that was leaked recently, and a "Claim/Fact" sheet for President Bush's 10/28 Press Conference.
Their "Memo to Don" takes a stab at answering some of the qustions Rumsfeld posed in his memo, using fairly well sharpened barbs:
Q: Does the U.S. need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists?The second link in that excerpt goes to the website of the New American Strategies conference, put together by the Center for American Progress, The American Prospect and The Century Foundation and held just this week in Washington DC.A: On seeing this question, we phoned your office to make sure the date of the memo (October 16, 2003) was correct. Your briefings and Administration statements over the past two years had led us to believe that you had thought through the war on terrorism before you launched it.
We were further puzzled that you are asking this question now, considering that you and the members of the Project for a New American Century built the case for war with Iraq in 1997, six years prior to the first strike on Baghdad.
In response to your question, the answer is yes: we need a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists. We believe, however, that this war must be waged on multiple fronts and that we must move beyond preemptive military strikes to address issues that go far beyond the normal purview of DoD. We are preparing a more extensive memo covering these issues.
Their semi-Fisking of the President's press conference provides quotes from the conference, followed by quotes from other statements, news stories or relevent documents showing that what Bush said wasn't true:
CLAIM: “The world is more peaceful and more free under my leadership.” [Source: President Bush, 10/28/03]andFACT: According to Amnesty International’s 2003 annual report “The world has become more dangerous, and governments more repressive, since the effort to fight terrorism began after the 9/11, attacks on the United States.” For the U.S. specifically, “Since March, 353 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, including 229 in hostile fire.” [Source: NY Times, 5/29/03 and CNN, 10/28/03]
CLAIM: “So I’ve proposed additional measures to keep the economy on the path to greater job creation…by making permanent the tax cuts that have helped our economy.” [Source: President Bush, 10/28/03]As with any other group, I doubt I'll always agree with everything they say or do, but what they've got so far looks impressive, and I think they may have a chance to actually have some influence on - at the very least - public perceptions and debates, which can go a long ways to making actual changes in how this country is run.FACT: Since first Bush tax cut took effect in June 2001, the U.S. economy has lost 2.75 million jobs – the unemployment rate has risen from 4.4% to 6.1%. Since the second Bush tax cut took effect in May 2003, the economy has shed 124,000 more jobs. [Source: BLS]
Michael Kinsley writes and impassioned and impressive column this week on the illogical paradox at the center of Bush's stem-cell research policy.
Kinsley suffers from Parkinson's disease, so he has a very personal reason to take this issue seriously, and he points out the same question that I've been asking myself since this whole issue blew up: How can someone who opposes stem-cell research on the grounds that it destroys an embryo - which is bad as it violates the sanctity of life - but not also oppose the use of fertility treatments in which multiple embryos are formed, and any which are left unused when the patient discontinues treatment (usually after they've given birth to a child) are simply thrown out like garbage?
The unused embryos that are leftover when a couple finishes their fertility treatment are no different that the embryos needed for stem-cell research. In fact, if stem cell research were to be allowed to resume and create new cell lines, those leftover embryos would be able to provide sufficient material for stem-cell research, so no new, lab-created embroys would need to be developed to use for expirimentation.
One would think that someone who holds life sacred would consider saving and improving lives to get a good thing. Under the current rules, though, because life is "sacred" - which somehow means the stem-cells can't be used for research - not only do we still have thousands, if not millions, of people dying every year from these illnesses and disorders, but ever single leftover embroy is tossed out and destroyed.
In other words, life is so sacred that it's better to throw away and destroy unused embryos and sentence any number of people suffering from potentially treatable illnesses that it would be to take thoswe embryos that are on the verge of being thrown out and use them to develop treatments to help save (or better) the lives of the people who have these disorders.
John and Elaine Mellencamp have written an editorial that's been published at Counterpunch about the war, it's aftermath and what is needed now. Some excerpts:
Before a single bomb was ever dropped, some of us, formerly called the "anti-American and unpatriotic," have questioned or opposed this war. Now, each day, as the dust settles and the truth slowly surfaces, more and more people come to the inevitable conclusion of what a debacle this whole war was.Be sure to take a minute to read the rest - it's well worth the time.39,000 bombs later, no weapons of mass destruction uncovered, no dangerous dictators captured, no connection to Sept 11. What have we gained but relentless media coverage of a fallen statue and some stolen oil fields -- the spoils of this misadventure. Not to mention lucrative corporate payoffs and an enormous price tag of over 80 Billion dollars . . . some tax cut.
But what have we lost? We have lost the lives of over 300 Americans. Approximately 2 U.S. troop deaths each day, 193 deaths since the war was declared over. In total, an estimated 20,000 people have died, thus far, in this conflict.
In addition to the lives given for this effort, our nation has suffered the loss of respect within the world community, particularly the United Nations. We have managed to squander any goodwill we once had to now succeed in solidifying our image as the globe's leading bully. Arrogant and thoughtless.
[...]Who is to say what is or isn't "patriotic?" Do the flags that wave from every minivan really offer any support? Where is the support for the thousands of service men and women who return to the states to see their benefits cut, their health problems ignored, their jobs gone and their families living in poverty? How are they repaid for their efforts; for risking or losing their lives? So far, dismally.
This nation was founded to enable freedom and diversity of opinion, and many lives have been lost to secure that liberty. Paradoxically, some still resist the open mindedness that is the very foundation of this country.
Link via Notes from Atlanta
Oh dear... people at LiveJournal are having far too much fun translating a certain song into different - ah - languages.
First, check out the Latin versions (Parts 1 and 2), and then check out the Geek (and no, I didn't forget an "r" there.... *g*)
This may become something of a new feature around here - sometimes I run across things people have said that just don't quite work right, but I don't have any real comment to add, so I don't want to make a whole entry just for the one quote. Today, I found three that just threw me for a loop, so I figured I'd put 'em all together and let them stand on their own. The quotes aren't related to each other - theyy're just some of the stranger comments I've seen floating around today.
George Nethercutt on the comparitive value of the Iraq reconstruction story versus the Iraq war news:
"The story of what we've done in the postwar period is remarkable," Nethercutt, R-Wash., told an audience of 65 at a noon meeting at the University of Washington's Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs."It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day."
He added that he did not want any more soldiers to be killed.
Mickey Kaus on Rush Limbaugh's on-air performance while addicted:
I've never shared the liberal animus toward Rush Limbaugh. The few times I've listened to his show it has been conducted on what seems like a pretty high level.
New Republic Editor Peter Beinart responding to Bill Hemmer's assertion that the press may actually be under-reporting how bad things are in Iraq:
Peter, I think there's two sides of that coin. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) just a second here. If you're saying it's actually worse than being reported, could it also be better than what's being reported also, if you consider that these reporters, many of them tell us they want to go cover the new school opening, but they can't because there's another bombing or shooting and that prevents them from sending that story?
Talk about spin! Andrew Sullivan posits that, in a way, Rush Limbaugh's drug addiction has been a good thing for conservatives. I can only begin to imagine the ruckus it would cause if a liberal commentator has been revealed to be addicted to drugs - prescription or otherwise - and someone came to his or her defense by pointing s/he could well have been a better writer/broadcaster/etc because of it. Yet that's exactly what Sullivan is saying. Here's an exceprt:
In fact, it might be true that Rush was a better broadcaster because he was high. His particular blend of self-mocking, lacerating, funny and fluent commentary reminds me in a way of people on a kind of high. Or maybe this attitude is actually hard to sustain for so long at such a pitch - and so the drugs helped him endure the slog of daily broadcasting the way drugs can enhance athletes' performance. Either way, the drugs may well have helped him do his job well. Obviously, he got addicted in a major way - which is the mega-down-side of such meds. And he may have lost his hearing because of enormous abuse of the pills. But it behooves us to notice the upside as well: that these drugs, far from impairing his ability to do great radio, may have helped him. If there were a way for Rush to use the drugs in moderation without getting addicted, why would that be a bad thing? And how would that differ in a deep way from people on anti-depressants who aren't clinically depressed? Or casual pot-smokers? Or old-time columnists who used to write brilliant columns while under the influence of a triple scotch?Setting aside any moral issues for the moment, I do have a question. I used to be the program director at my old college radio station, and worked as a missionary volunteer at my old church's radio station in Nome, AK. Now, it's been awhile since I was last on-air, but at the time, I recall that one of the things the faculty advisor drilled into us was that it was a violation of our individual FCC licenses, as well as a violation of the stations FCC operating license, for us to be broadcasting if we were under the influence of drugs or alcohol. If we were caught, it was a $2,500 fine for each instance, and the broadcaster could lose their license for multiple violations. If it was a big enough problem, it could even threaten the station's license.
To the best of my knowledge, that rule hasn't been changed, and if it hasn't, that would cause a major problem with Andrew's idea for broadcasters to work under the influence of improperly or illegally used drugs.
But back to Andrew's big question, I'd have to say that there probably isn't much difference between someone using painkillers as a non-addicted level, and someone who isn't a depressive using anti-depressants, someone smoking pot now and then or someone having a few drinks at lunch. At the same time, however, I also have to say that I don't think that professional broadcasters/pundits/columnists/etc should be doing any of those things while they're working. Maybe it adds to the stylistic flow, but given the choice, I'll take clarity of thought.
Newsweek has a very depressing biography of Rush Limbaugh as a part of this weeks cover package. It paints him as a very lonely and sad man who has little love for life away from his microphone. If it weren't for the way the author makes a point of mentioning several areas where Limbaugh has shown hypocrisy (he was briefly on welfare when he was younger, and has admitted to "smoking a little pot and watching a little porn," as well as being into his third marriage) I'd almost think the point of the article was to serve as a bit of PR to convince people to have more sympathy for a man who not only was dealing with physical pain, but significant emotional pain as well.
What caught my eye the most, though, was a quote from Gary Bauer, in which he essentially claims that being a prescription drug addict is somehow morally better than being hooked on illegal drugs.
Will the Dittoheads forgive him? Probably. Gary Bauer, president of the conservative organization American Values, drew a distinction between a crack addict and Limbaugh’s brand of addiction. “From a moral standpoint, there’s a difference between people who go out and seek a high and get addicted and the millions of Americans dealing with pain who inadvertently get addicted,” Bauer told NEWSWEEK.That attitude really confuses me. As I mentioned in my earlier post on my own experience with pain medication, while I doubt anyone sits down and says "Gee, I think I want to become a drug addict," in order for an addition to develop, one must first choose to misuse the drugs. This thought is also echoed by Adam Felbar of Fanatical Apathy, when he says:
So if the media reports are to be believed, at some point Rush decided that his legally-obtained ultra-opiates simply weren't enough, and he opted to start making drug deals and self-prescribing. Knowingly. That's a big step. There's no way to do that without being aware that you're going behind your doctors' backs and breaking the law. It doesn't make Rush a Tony Montana. But it does make him a knowing criminal.The only real difference between the abuse of prescription drugs and the abuse of street drugs is whether or not there are any circumstances under which you can legally buy the drugs themselves. Beyond that, it's pretty much the same: Someone decides they want to soothe their physical and/or emotional pain by taking drugs in a way they know they shouldn't and that by doing so, they are putting themselves at risk to become addicted. I don't see any moral difference there at all.
As many of you may know, before I became homebound, I was on track to earn a Masters in counseling. While this doesn't make me a psychological expert by any means, it does afford me a bit of insight into how counselors work - or at least are supposed to work - and basic psychological ethics and theory. I think sometimes, that makes a story like this one, run a few days ago by the Washington Post, that much harder to deal with.
The story is about a woman, referred to as Patient C, who had gone to see a therapist about what she thought might be Attention Deficit Disorder, and ended up so dependent on her therapist that she was paying him $100 a day to rent a room in his office space so she could be near him, and believing that her father had been the leader of a satanic cult that had abused her and forced her to witness a number of murders.
There are many kind of abuse we see in this country these days - physical, emotional, mental, spiritual - all of it horrifying. Yet, in my opinion, some of the worst comes when the very people we are supposed to be able to trust to help us, use that trust to hurt us - be it a psychologist who plants false memories or a doctor who kills patients for the thrill of it - because it not only further damages someone who's already hurting (else why would they be seeking a doctor or therapist), but because when the story gets out (as they so often seem to), it also erodes the trust everyone else has with the healing professions.
Satanic ritual abuse (often referred to as "SRA") has been a hot button issue in psychological circles for years. It started in the early 80's after the publication of a book called "Michelle Remembers", which claimed to be the tale of a girl who had been forced to participate in satanic rituals as a child and was often abused as part of those rituals. According to The Ontario Consultants for Religious Tolerance (OCRT), however, three independent investigations have shown it to be a work of fiction.
It's not just the book "Michelle Remembers", though, that's been called into question. The entire SRA theory has, over the years, been discredited. OCRT says that
During 1991, the State of Virginia investigated SRA and found none. During 1994, the Federal Governments of Great Britain and of the Netherlands conducted extensive inquiries and also found none. Most recently, a US government study obtained input from over 10,000 therapists, social workers, police offices, DA offices and social service agencies. They uncovered one possible case of SRA. Although it allegedly was abusive, and did involve rituals and was perpetrated by Satanists, it had few points of similarity to classic SRA stories.In addition, as the Washington Post article notes:
The phenomenon had been discredited in mainstream psychiatric circles well before 1992, when a noted FBI behavioral scientist, Kenneth Lanning, issued an influential report saying that despite extensive investigation, there was no evidence of such cults.So how is it that in 2003 we're still hearing about cases of people believing that they were part of a SRA situation and therapists making thousands of dollars by trying to "cure" patients of SRA-induced psychosis? Unfortunately, despite it's reputation as being one of the "soft" sciences, there are a lot of psychologists, counselors and other therapists who don't worry that much about science in their practice.
In this particular case, Martin Stein, the therapist Patient C was seeing, simply didn't believe in the material discrediting SRA. (Well, it may be a question of whether he didn't believe in the discrediting information or if maybe he just saw how much money he could make by creating a need for additional treatment that he could then fulfill, but there's not enough information in the article to make that judgment). The article notes that even after Lanning's report was published, Stein continued to believe in the possibility of SRA as an explanation for behavioural problems.
Stein disagreed. In 1995, according to a teenage patient and her mother, he kept trying to convince the girl that her estranged father had been a cult member. The patient, now 22, said Stein threatened her with hospitalization if she did not "remember" the abuse.Stein's "treatment" of the woman was so aggressive, that even her Merrill Lynch broker became concerned about the amount of money she was spending from a trust fund she'd inherited.
Sadly, Stein isn't an isolated incident. There have been a number of therapists over the years who have had their licenses revoked for issues related to SRA and their own abusive treatment of patients. Among other cases are those of Dr. Bennet Braun, who was sued by his former patient Pat Burgess over her treatment that wound up with her believing she had 300 alternate personalities and had participated - by force - in cannibalism as part of satanic rituals. Braun had been the co-founder of the Rush St. Luke's Presbyterian Hospital Dissociative Disorders Unit, which was closed down, and has faced at least seven other suits from former patients making similar allegations.
Then there's Dr. Judith Peterson who worked at the Spring Shadows Glen Dissociative Disorders Unit in Houston, Texas and was sued by at least 8 of her former patients for complaints that she had used hypnosis and drugs to convince them that they had memories of SRA from went hey were children. The Spring Shadows Glen DDU was also shut down, in this case by the state of Texas in 1992.
All of these patients have had years of their lives stolen from them, first by the therapist who has convinced them to remember things that never happened, and then by the need to deal with the trauma of what the therapist had done to them. In the case of both Patient C and Pat Burgess, the therapists even brought their children into the process, causing them significant harm as well.
I remember when I was studying for my degree one of the big debates was state licensing for therapists. Some of the therapists-to-be were dead set against the idea of licensing counselors, claiming that it would allow the state too much control over their work, and might prevent them from being able to work on certain kinds of problems or make it hard for them to use "cutting edge" therapies. I can sort of under stand that - but as one who would like to see a lot more science brought into the art of therapy, I don't think licensing is such a bad thing, really. While I'm sure there are many situations in which some hot, new therapy might actually help the patient, there are a number of untested and unproven therapies out there, and little knowledge about what other effects - including harmful effects - they might have on the patient.
No, we're never going to be able to prove what, if any, therapies are 100% effective - they can't do that in medicine, either, since so much depends on the individual nature of each person's body. But while I agree that there should be room for some kinds of alternative therapies, cases like those mentioned above convince me that it is vital that there be some kind of legal authority that has the power to say when a therapist is dangerous and take steps to prevent them from being able to hurt any more patients than they already have.
Jay Leno on the Tonight Show, September 24:
"It's going to be a problem for George Bush if he turns out to be a one term president. I mean, sure, his father was a one term president, but at least his father got elected once."
My mom just sent this to me -- it's too good not to share :)
The Ten Commandments display was removed from the Alabama Supreme Court building. There was a good reason for the move. You can't post Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery and Thou Shall Not Lie in a building full of lawyers and Politicians without creating a hostile work environment.
Lately, I've gotten hooked on the British show "Spooks", being shown on A&E as "MI-5". It's your basic spy stuff, all ponced up and glamourous, but quite engaging.
What I found tonight, though, is what I find the most interesting. At the BBC "Spooks" website, they have a "Political Guide" for each individual episode, looking at some of the issues being raised and whether some of the scenarios they've shown in the episode are realistic or not.
It's not the most comprehensive way to learn about world events, but it's certainly a good way to start, and I'm glad to see that they're using what is apparently a popular show to try and help educate viewers who check out the site.
I have to admit, I'm not someone who ever listed to a lot of Johnny Cash. But I've always known that he is one of the big reasons I have the music I love to listen to so much. He always forged his own path with little regard to what was expected or popular, and blazed many trails that have remained for others to follow. When I first heard that he was doing a remake of Nine Inch Nails "Hurt", I could hardly stop laughing. The idea to me seemed preposterous - and if it had been anyone but Cash, I would have assumed that it was something being done by a desparet old man hoping for a little fresh glory in a fading career. But Cash was never the kind of person who would do that, and so even though it sounded hilarious, I wanted very much to hear it, and was quite impressed when I finally did.
One thing I've really appreciated today is the outpouring of kind words and high praise from many of today's artists.
Cash garnered acclaim most recently from a new generation of music fans thanks to his cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," which appears on his latest album, American IV: The Man Comes Around.While I may not always have liked the music he did - I'm just not a bit fan of country music in general - I have a great deal of respect for the skill he demonstrated in his performances, and am grateful for the mark he's left behind."To hear that Johnny was interested in doing my song was a defining moment in my life's work," said NIN's Trent Reznor. "To hear the result really reminded me how beautiful, touching and powerful music can be. The world has truly lost one of the greats. My heart goes out to his family and friends."
The Nine Inch Nails Web site, www.nin.com, was all black on Friday in tribute.
"Hurt" was the latest cover converted into a hit in the American series. With producer Rick Rubin at the helm, the Man in Black basked in a new wave of cool when American Recordings, the first LP in the series, dropped in 1994.
"He's an outsider, never been part of a trend," said Rubin, who also noted that he wasn't a country fan but a Johnny Cash fan. "A rock star is a musical outlaw and that's Johnny."
Audioslave's Chris Cornell agreed with Reznor that being covered by Cash is a great compliment. "Rusty Cage," by his former band Soundgarden, was remade for Cash's 1996 album, Unchained.
"The highlight of my musical career," Cornell called it. "When [Johnny] sings a song, you listen to what he has to say. And he draws from his own experience to make that song believable and get people to understand it."
If we burn our wings
Flying to close to the sun
If the moment of glory
Is over before it's begun
If the dream is won
Though everything is lost
We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost
When the dust has cleared
And victory denied
A summit too lofty
River a little too wide
If we keep our pride
Though paradise is lost
We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost
And if the music stops
There's only the sound of the rain
All the hope and glory
All the sacrifice in vain
And if love remains
Though everything is lost
We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost.
- Neil Peart (Rush), Bravado
Rolling Stone just informed me I have no taste in guitarists. (Which wouldn't really matter if I weren't already feeling crappy). I'll tell you, though, if I hadn't decided long ago that Rolling Stone is full of shit, this list would have done it for me.
Ok. Whenever a magazine puts together a list of the top 100 guitarists of all time, I don't necessarily expect Alex to make the top 10 - but I certainly DO expect him to make the top 100 - and, even more than that, I expect him to outrank Joan Jett, who came in at 87. That's right, Alex didn't make the list at all. I'm sorry, but there's little argument that when it comes to drummers and bassists, Geddy and Neil are easily in the top 10 - and there's no way that a guitarist who has not only kept up with them musically for over 30 years with them, but has always blended in perfectly and helped keep the overall sound of the band top notch shouldn't rank up there pretty damn high! If Alex was truly worse than all these other guitarists they picked for the list, believe me NO ONE would complain about Geddy's voice, because the guitar work would stick out like a sore thumb. Maybe he doesn't shine as brightly as Geddy and Neil, but damnit, he's fucking GOOD!
Oh, as for the rest of my favourites? Well, Clapton made #4, David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) is #82, but Trevor Rabin (Yes - 90215/Big Generator Era), The Guy from Savatage, Yngwie Malmsteen and John Petrucci (Dream Theater) were all left off the list.
Fuckers.
As some of you may have gathered from my blog name, I'm something of a serious Rush fan. As a severely-amateur guitarist, Alex Lifeson (nee Zivojinovich - which I think is a really cool sounding name, but I do understand why he'd change it... from what I understand, though, "Zivojinovich" translates roughly to "Life's Son", explaining where his more well-known surname comes from) has long been one of my favourites. It was bad enough that when I used to work for a company that has too many people who's names started out "Kris..." I got nicknamed "Alex" to help keep us all straight. I think in some ways he almost got a bum deal out of the whole "Rush" thing - he's a phenomenal guitarish, but he ended up in a band with Neil Peart, without a doubt one of the best drummers ever - rock or any other style; and Geddy Lee, probably the most well-respected bassist there is. Alex just sort of gets a bit lost back there sometimes, but even if he's not gotten all the acclaim I think he should, I'm still glad I've had a chance to hear him play over the years.
At any rate, today's his 50th birthday, and I just wanted to wish him a happy one (like he'll ever see this, I realize, but still... *g*)
Cheers!
My husband, Matt, has started his first blog. At 31, he's finally figured out what he wants to be when he grows up - a professional musicial. Not a rock star, but able to earn a decent living working with and around music. It's a modest, but attainable goal, and I'm really proud of him - and pleased with the direction he's heading. Matt has always had a lot of creativity in him, but not always a clear way to channel it - and while he's enjoying and doing well at his "regular" job, he's not really ever been someone who's cut out for the corporate world.
Anyway, as part of his goal, he's decided to start taking classical guitar, and is keeping a blot about his experiences with that and I suspect he'll add other stuff that crosses his mind from time to time. If we've lucky, maybe he'll decide to post some of the short fiction he's written (it's pretty gorey - he's a horror nut - but very good!). At any rate, if you think of it, you might stop by, drop him a note and wish him well. I think he'd be totally chuffed at that :)
Someone recently posted a question about having kids to one of the Heathen lists I'm on, wondering if it was considered "unHeathen" to choose not to have children. It's led to some interesting debate. Heathens, being about as agreeable as any other group of religious people, don't have only one view on much of anything - including, it seems, childbearing. There's no question that family ties - both to your ancestors and to your descendants - are a major theme in much of the lore that we have to guide us, as well as what's been found in many archaeological digs at Nordic and Viking sites, but there's a lot more to Heathenism than just that.
As with most tribal societies, the need to have children was very strong, especially in a land where harsh and long winters could easily kill. Children are, without a doubt, vital to the survival of the tribe as a whole. Even now, that is one of the main reasons cited by those who feel that someone who refuses to have children is not fulfilling his or her religious or spiritual duty. There are several different branches of Heathen faith (all based on the ancient Norse/Viking lore and ways, but which, like the different Christian denominations, vary in the details), but even taken all together, Heathenism as a whole isn't a huge religion at this point. And, since we don't proselytize in order to gain new converts (if someone is interested in learning more, we'll gladly talk to them about it - but it's rare you'll find someone trying to tell you to accept Odin if you want to go to Valhalla or that Heathenism is the One True Way™,) Heathens having children and raising them in the faith is one of the best ways for Heathenism to continue through the next generations.
There are, however, a couple of realities that I think people - even religious people - need to keep in mind when it comes to deciding how important it is for other people to have children. First and foremost is that Jord (the Norse Goddess who embodies the Earth) doesn't have an infinite capacity for humans. Overpopulation is a genuine concern, and its known that where people are plentiful and resources are scarce, violence is a likely result. While Jord periodically takes matters into her own hands and will bring about famine, earthquakes, fires, storms and other natural disasters to thin out the population, I firmly believe that humans need to help out by not necessarily reproducing quite so frequently.
Secondly, it is very clear that there are some people who are well-suited for parenthood, and some who quite simply aren't. Sadly, because religions often put a heavy focus on the idea that having children is a religious obligation, and because even when religion doesn't lay the "obligation" guilt-trip on someone, society often will, we end up with a lot of people who probably would choose not to have children if they thought that was an actual choice open to them.
Now, granted, we're not going to solve the overpopulation problem by making it easier for people to voluntarily opt-out of the gene pool, but it is a good place to start, and it doesn't require government involvement, unfair or inequitable restrictions or other draconian measures to enforce it. All it requires is for people to start understanding that having children is a personal decision, and one that only those who would be responsible for raising said children are qualified to make.
I can understand why different faiths want people to have kids - and why some even encourage people to have lots and lots of kids. It is a good way to help ensure the propagation of the faith. Most people stay in the faith they're raised with, and raise their own children the same way. I would think, however, that it would be in most religions' best interests to go for quality over quantity. Rather than focusing on raw numbers, it would be more logical to make sure that the kids who are born into the faith are ones who have every opportunity to become people who can contribute not only to society at large, but to the faith community as well. It's true that people from bad homes can, and often do, become very valuable members of society - but it seems that by allowing people who think that they have the potential to be abusive, neglectful or otherwise "bad" - as well as those who just don't want kids for whatever reason - to remain childless, you'll have more kids with a good chance for success - making for a stronger community overall.
Now, if, along with finding a way to change societal attitudes so that there is less pressure on people who wish to remain childless to go ahead and have kids anyway, we could also find a way to effectively help people who have kids without having first given any serious thought to whether they should or not, we might actually start making some good headway on the population issue. I'm not saying we don't need kids. Obviously, as a species, and within our faith communities, we do. There's no question about that. But the goal shouldn't be to have as many kids as possible and spend time, money and other resources trying to fix the problems caused by avoidable bad parenting, but rather on making sure that every child that is born is one that is loved and wanted, and will be raised by parents (either their biological ones or an adoptive family) who are willing to undertake the task.
A couple weeks ago, Slipshod over at Morons.org posted a piece about how the State of California was refusing to allow him to give his daughter the name he wanted.
Now, granted, the name was a little on the unusual side - he wanted to give her the Peace Symbol as a middle name - but it was, in a sense, following a family tradition; his own middle name is also a Peace Symbol.
The hospital and the vital records office had a problem with that, though. They claimed that, according to the California State Constitution, Article 3, Section 6, only the 26 characters of the English language could be used on a birth certificate. This, however, created a bigger problem than just the hospital refusing to allow Slipshod to give his daughter the name he wanted - it also meant, they said, that Slipshod himself could not sign his own daughter's birth certificate because he is required to use his full, legal name, and, well, there's that pesky peace sign again.
Well, he decided to fight the situation, and yesterday reported he'd had success - his state representative, Sally Leiber, had her staff attorney look into the situation and he determined there was no reasonable basis for the vital records office to have turned him down and spoke to the State Registrar on Slipshod's behalf. After a bit more discussion, the State Registrar's office backed down, and Slipshod can now give his middle name to his daughter for her middle name - which is all he ever wanted.
Be sure to stop by Morons.org and read Slipshod's accouns (part one and part two) of what all he went through, and maybe drop him a note of congratulations in the comments thread. There's a lot more than what I just summarized up there, and it's well-told. I'm just glad to see the "little guy" (or girl) win one now and then.
Large parts of the northeastern United States, as well as parts of the Midwest and Canada are currently experiencing a major blackout, which MSNBC (TV) is now reporting appears to have been caused by an overload in the Niagra Mohawk Power Grid. Even before a cause had been ascertained, however, were were told that
[o]fficials of the Homeland Security Department said there were no indications that terrorists were responsible for the blackout, which remained unexplained.Yes, it was important to reassure people, but I have to admit I sometimes find it amusing when people say, in essence, "we don't know what happened, but it wasn't..." X, Y or Z (in this case, terrorists).
As for the extent of the outage, here's the MSNBC (web) description of it:
The blackout stretched over huge areas of the Northeast, the Midwest and Canada. Affected cities included New York, Buffalo, Albany and Syracuse, N.Y.; Hartford, Conn.; Detroit, Lansing and many other smaller cities in Michigan; Cleveland, Akron and Toledo, Ohio; and Toronto and Ottawa in Ontario.Much of New England, however, including all of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, southern Vermont and eastern Connecticut, were unaffected, as were other areas of Canada, including Montreal and Quebec City. Washington D.C. was also not impacted.
The Federal Aviation Administration shut down Newark, John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia in the New York area. Otherwise, however, it said its facilities were operating normally on backup power and that planes in the air were in no danger.
FAA officials told NBC News that individual airport terminals could be affected, however, and Detroit Metropolitan Airport was temporarily closed.
Ok, I just saw an ad saying that if you buy food from Taco Bell you can win free gas....
...not that this is any big surprise, I think that's how it's always been - I've just never heard it referred to as a "prize" before....
[I'm beginning to think that advertising and PR firms should hire professional comedians to help them avoid ideas such as this that just lend themselves far too well to jokes....]
This is one of those stories that I think is important enough to at least let you know about, but I'm not yet sure what my own position on it is - so excuse me while I think "out loud" a bit.
There are currently two proposals that will be raised in Washinton this fall that would eliminate the Constitutional requirement that the President and Vice President of the US be American-born.
One of the proposals, by Schwarzenegger political friend Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, would allow anyone who has been a U.S. citizen for 20 years and has resided in the country for 14 years to be elected president. Hatch denies that he proposed the amendment on July 10 with Schwarzenegger in mind, but it turns out that the 56-year-old actor-businessman was naturalized in 1983.I just have to note that I find it amuzing that Schwarzenegger would just meet the qualifications for this law.... I still think, though, that Hatch has just watched "Demolition Man" a few too many times....
The other proposal, by a bipartisan group in the House whose ranks include conservative Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista (San Diego County) -- who spent more than $1.5 million to put the recall election on the Oct. 7 ballot -- would allow anyone who has been a naturalized citizen for 35 years to be eligible to become president. The House legislation, whose co-sponsors include liberal Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., was proposed long before the recall movement blossomed in California.The first thing to be worked out, of course, is what the concern is with having a foreign-born President. Conflict-of-interest is an obvious answer to that. The idea that even after having spent 20 to 35 years being a citizen of the US and having lived here for at least 14 years, someone might still have loyalties to their birth country isn't entirely unreasonable. Sometimes it seems we can't even be entirely sure that the loyalties of a American-born President are entirely with the US (especially when his actions seem to indicate he's trying to protect a foreign government, even though that country may have been instrumental in the commission of a crime against our nation), so questioning the loyalties of a foreign-born President would be natural.Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, drafted in 1787, says that only natural-born Americans at least 35 years old who have lived in the country for 14 years can serve as president or vice president.
Aside from basic conflicts-of-interest, though, the big question would be if someone would be patient enough - and lucky enough - to be able to move here, become a naturalized citizen, work their way up through the political ranks for however long it takes for their eligibility to kick in, get elected President - and then, somehow, betray our country to our enemies. Is it possible that could happen? Well, technically, at least, yes, it would be (and it would make for a great spy novel concept, too, wouldn't it?). But realistically? I don't know.
It certainly wouldn't be easy - electoral politics are notoriously unpredictable. Here we are, a bit over a year to the next election, and we can't even predict who the Democratic candidate will be, much less who's going to win. To imagine someone would try to engineer an entire career and spend that many years of their life on a plan that probably has a better chance of failing (in that he never gets elected President) than succeeding could only be charitably called far-fetched.
So, of the two, I think the potential for a conflict of interest is the stronger concern, and it one that we should seriously consider. In all honesty, I would have less problem with someone who was born in another country, but moved here before they were out of their childhood and had lived here since then - not so much because of the length of time they'd have been here, but because they wouldn't have had a long time to "bond" with their native land. People who've lived here since they were children and have become naturalized citizens tend - in my experience - to think of themselves as Americans first and have few strong ties to the country of their birth.
Right now, I'd have to say that I'm less than comfortable with the idea of a foreign-born President. Maybe it's just that all of my life I've lived with the notion that the President must be American by birth. Maybe it's some latent xenophobia. Maybe it's just that the idea of Schwarzenegger as president bugs the hell out of me. And it may be that my opinion will change as the pros and cons of the idea are debated more in public forums (at least I hope it'll be debated). As it stands, though, I don't think it's a change we should be making.
Blogcritics started publishing a year ago this week. They've got a few stats up on what they've accomplished this last year in addition to all the great content they have to offer. Stop by if you get the chance!
Jan over as Secular Blasphemy pointed out yesterday that Daypop has blog statistics that include a list of blogs similar to the one you're reading about. Interestingly, mine apparently came up as the one most similar to his. I say "interestingly" because, even though he and I do blog about a lot of the same topics, we don't always agree (he does make a lot of good points, though, which is one of the main reasons he's long been one of my daily reads), and also because we each started our blogs at roughly the same time (different strings was born September 17, 2002; Secular Blasphemy on September 25, 2002).
At any rate, if you've not checked it out yet, do yourself a favour and head on over.
Oh, and if you're curious, Secular Blasphemy actually comes up as the third most similar to mine on my list. Road to Surfdom and The Mind of Man are one and two... sad to say, I've never read either, but I will have to check them out.
[Of course, it's probably good to keep in mind that a computer's idea of "similar" can be interesting in and of itself... MusicMatch Jukebox analyzes what I listen to and tells me I should like Pantera, Megadeth, Iron Maiden and Bing Crosby.]
There's a "Viral Interview" going around, and I seem to have caught it from Norbizness. The basic concept here is that the Interviewer (in this case, Norbizness) asks each Infected Interviewee from his site 5 questions, and the Infected Interviewee answers the questions at his or her own site. There are some basic rules for participating, which are as follows:
IMDb offers a daily poll that is usually good for a few laughts. Today's question is "What Arnold Schwarzenegger movie line do you see best summing up his political philosophy/message?", with several of his more famous catch phrases from his movies for you to choose between.
Well, I don't know which one best sums up his political philosophy or message (I'm still not even quite sure what they are), but THIS one, from True Lies (a movie title that sumes up just about everyone's political philosophy, near as I can tell) is the one that I think is opponants should insist he make his official slogan:
"If I break it, they can take it out of my pay."Hey, he makes enough, and it might be the only way to fix the California economy, eh?
Yet another bizarre and somewhat scary concept from our friends at DARPA - developing implants that can read thoughts and allow at least some functions of the brain to be remotely controlled.
The $24 million enterprise called Brain Machine Interfaces is developing technology that promises to directly read thoughts from a living brain -- and even instill thoughts as well.And no, I didn't get that from the "National Enquirer" - while the source I first read it in is the Charleston, SC based "The Post and Courier", the byline is sourced to The Boston Globe.The research, some of which is being done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is already surprisingly advanced. Monkeys in a laboratory can control the movement of a robotic arm using only their thoughts. And last year scientists in New York announced they could control the skittering motions of a rat by implanting electrodes in its brain, steering it around the lab floor as if it were a radio-controlled toy car.
[The Globe's copy is already in their archives and can only be accessed for a fee. I did go ahead and purchase a copy, though, to make sure the Post and Courier version was presenting the story in the same context as the Globe originally published it. Some of the quotes below are from the Boston Globe's original version of the article, which was considerably shortened for publication in the Post and Courier.]
While the concept does sound more than a bit scary, it does offer some potential benefits:
More recently, DARPA officials have focused on a subject that captivates science fiction writers and leading neuroscientists alike: Can human knowledge-that is, the information contained in our neurons-be transferred into the kind of information used by computers? If machines could read human thoughts directly, for example, the military could then hook a pilot's brain directly into the controls of a jet, allowing him to maneuver far more nimbly than today.The article notes that as the technology advances, there will certainly be ethical consideration, and several of the possible scenarios that come out of the idea of being able to read or control minds are terrifying in their implications. Yet the idea that this kind of technology could help people who are paralyzed or who have other motor control diseases is tantalizing.At the same time, if computer-coded information could be downloaded into the brain, then commanders, indeed everyone on the battlefield, could keep a stream of the latest intelligence present in their mind. Of course, these are outlandishly ambitious ideas, especially when scientists don't even know how people remember what they are for breakfast. The most ambitious potential applications, which tend to be emphasized when a research program is under fire, lie for now in the realm of only slightly plausible fiction.
[...]
More probable than the military applications is the possibility that the research will yield ways for the severely injured, even those who are locked in a totally paralyzed body, to move around and communicate.
The recent demonstration that a monkey can control a cursor on a screen, or a robotic arm, using only its brain counts as dramatic progress. Before that, ''people really doubted whether anything like this could work,'' said Michael S. Gazzaniga, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth College.
In some ways, I think my interest in that particular possibility comes from my own struggles with Tourette's Syndrome, in which misfirings of the brain may play a significant role. I've been lucky in that I don't have a lot of the worst symptoms of Tourette's that many sufferers are afflicted with such as tics that involve wild arm swings, grotesque facial movements or other severe physical actions. The tics I have generally look and sound like someone who's just been badly startled - I usually make a gasping sound and "jump". If I'm sitting in a chair with wheels, I've been known to propel myself back a few feet, but that's pretty much the worst of it.
I do have to make a few though, in order to "fit in" with the rest of the world. For example, because my tics end up looking and sounding like I've been startled, when I was still able to go out, it was usually a good idea to let me drive, so my acting startled didn't scare the driver and make him or her think they were about to have a wreck. And I once when I was working two jobs and my new boss found out I had Tourette's, I actually had to have my regular boss (who knew about the 2nd job) call the new one to convince her that I actually am capable of working customer service on a phone without swearing at or otherwise making funny noises at the customers. [It is possible for some people with Tourette's to temporarily suppress their tics for a while, though if they do, when they "loosen up" again later, it's like all the "saved" tics come out all at once - not the least bit fun, but sometimes necessary to hold a job.] As for the involuntary swearing that so many first think of when they hear "Tourette's", I never have had that - but I can well imagine how awkward it would be if I did - the gasps are embarrassing enough. Still, it was always possible for me to function as a part of society - something that, unfortunately, many Tourette's sufferers can't say.
The worst part for me has been with the behavioural problems - in particular obsessive-compulsive disorders. Trying to fight those impulses - and failing more often than not - has been the hardest part of my life, and has even pushed me to the point of trying to commit suicide out of frustration.
As you might be able to imagine, the idea of an implant that would give me better control over my thoughts and actions would be like mana from heaven. Knowing how relieved I'd be - and knowing how mild my own problems are compared to some of what other Tourette's sufferers have to deal with, let alone what people dealing with paralysis and other, severe neuro-muscular and neuro-motor disability have to go through - this kind of technology could be an incredible boon.
The problem I have is with the government funding it - especially though a Pentagon agency. The article notes that the research into the Brain Machine Interface is unclassified and will eventually be published in scientific journals. Somehow, I would feel much more comfortable with scientists in charge of the program than the Pentagon. Yes, I know, not all scientists are ethical - there are bad people in all fields - and I know there are good people in the Pentagon. But the Pentagon just seems more likely to abuse any kind of technology would give you the ability to control, well, anything.
Still, I hope this one may get a chance at survival - even if it gets cut down as another DARPA scandal, hopefully the unclassified nature of it will allow academic scientists to continue the research. It will just take a great deal of watching over to make sure it is used only for benevolent purposes. Easier said than done, but I hope humanity has grown up enough that it's at least possible.
I found this over at Atrios this morning and am more than just a bit impressed. It's called Persophone Plus, and is a shop exclusively for plus-size Goth women. Not only does the propriatress offer some exquisit designs, but if you need something larger than one of her standard sizes she will do that for only an extra $20 (which is quite reasonable).
I know where I'm telling hubby to shop for my birthday and Christmas this year!
Maybe this is more common than I realize, but my husband just cracked me up. It seems that there's a site called Screen It! Entertainment Reviews for Parents that actually fills a very useful purpose: It tells parents what kind of potentially objectionable material a movie might have. In addition to providing extremely detailed lists of exactly what kind of objectionable material they find, they also provide a review, called "Our Take", that looks at the artistic merit of the movie without taking the morality of the material into account (which is actually nice to see).
Just as an example of the kind of detail they have on their detailed lists, for the new movie "American Wedding", they make note of 37 separate sexually oriented scenes or scenes featuring nudity, 14 of alcohol and drug use, 3 of blood and gore (though how "wine on the tables at a wedding reception" counts as blood or gore, I'm not exactly sure), 2 featuring disrespectful or bad attitudes, and 10 instances of behaviour that may be imitated by kids or which shows a character imitating someone else (which can give kids the idea of imitate it themselves), plus they have information on jump scenes, scary/tense music, inappropriate music, profanity, smoking, guns, violence, frightening scenes and tense family scenes.
They also offer a list of suggested topics the movie might raise for a family to talk about.
Here's the funny part, though. My husband is a HUGE "gorehound" - he loves horror movies, and is always thrilled when the special effects crew finds a new and dastardly way to dispatch a hapless teenager. Sadly, many of the horror movies put out these days are total crap. Ok, so they've always been total crap, but the more recent crap seems to be getting piled higher and deeper than usual. And with movie ticket prices being what they are, its getting to be important to do your research before committing to a major purchase.
This is where "Screen It!" comes in. Hubby and his fellow gorehounds have found it's a great resource for finding out if the death scenes in upcoming horror films are worth the price of admission. Not exactly what the folks at "Screen It!" intended, but, hey, at least it drives up their traffic, no?
I have to say, though, that I think "Screen It!" is really an excellent service. I'm sure their idea of what's "objectionable" is quite a bit different than what mine would be, but because they provide such detail, they allow parents to make an informed decision based on their own standards. If "bad" words or booze and alcohol don't both you, you can ignore that list. Unlike some of the other "screening"-type services I've seen - which just sort of give you notations like "a lot of bad language", "sex and nudity" and so on, with no idea of what kind of sex, nudity, violence etc., there is or what context its presented in - "Screen It" gives you enough information to understand how that material is being used.
Still, I'm not sure the good folks at "Screen It!" would be too happy with hearing that their lists help people who want objectionable material find exactly what they're looking for - but it is rather funny. :)
I think I've mentioned before about how terminally adorable my hubby is when he's sleeping all snuggled up with our dog, Tasha (well, HIS dog Tasha - she's made it very clear that she's a "daddy's girl"). Well, now you can finally see what I've been talking about. Take a look at this and tell me it's not just too damn cute!
Anyway, hubby may kill me for that, but I had to share it... :)
Just wondering if anyone's heard anything from or about Richard Einhorn at Tristero. His blog hasn't been updated since a week ago Tuesday, and there's no note about him being on vacation or anything. I'm sure everything's fine, but, being something of a professional worrywart, I figured I'd at least ask.
I just learned about the Internet Pundit Fantasy Camp where us amateurs and wannabes can learn from the true giants of the "self-published, unsyndicated volunteer opinion columnist" ranks! I hope my Mommy will let me go - the list of camp features is impressive - and you even get your own, personal .jpg of a "signed, personally autographed photograph of the pundit of your choice (limit one per camper)". Wow! I could get my very own .jpg of Scott Rosenberg!
What more could one ask for from life? ::swoons::
I have to say, it's very hard to loudly sing with Savatage while in mid-laughing fit from reading Mad Kane, but it's definately worth it. Even without the Savatage it's worth it.
Never underestimate the power of good progressive metal at a loud volume to improve the outlook of ANY day.
[Just FYI: My wonderful husband recently earned a new speaker set from his job - they're getting a bit of a workout today, and boy am I feeling GOOD! hehe Blogging may be slow - I write best when I'm really, really pissed]
[Yes, I know, everyone's going to use that title, but it is so very appropriate....]
Lo, there do I see my mother, and my sisters, and my brotherMark at Virtual Occoquan is planning an issue on Death and Poetry and is asking for submissions.
Lo, there do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning
Lo, they do call to me, they bid me take my place among them
In the halls of Valhalla, where the brave may live...
forever-- The Thirteenth Warrior
I haven't been very good at writing for other special issues, mainly because the topics just haven't been things that I'm very good at writing about, but death? Death I can do! In fact, it's probably my 2nd best topic for creative writing - following depression/dispair/angst/et.al. (Hey, I was goth before goth was cool. Back then, we didn't have a name for it. I was just "weird").
In high school, I took a creative writing class. We were given an assignment to write a story using the phrase "Suddenly, everything was peaceful." The day it was due, we all took turns reading our stories out loud in class. Most people wrote nice little stories about people out on a picnic with bunnies hopping nearby and how "suddenly, everything was peaceful" and they knew how great life was ::happy sigh:: Basically, they all focused on the "peaceful" aspect of the phrase.
Me? I got hung up on the "suddenly". My story - which I have since lost (which is extremely depressing, because it was really quite good), was about a soldier in a war and how hearing the screams of his fellow soldiers around him as they were dying had worn him down to a point where he simply could no longer go on. Sitting in his foxhole one day, he hears a gun fire and the familiar whine of the bullet headed his direction and he decides to stand up. It was all written from the first person, and I had a really neat little section where I described the bullet going through the guy from his point of view, and then how his throat was now letting lose that awful scream that had so haunted his soul. "Then suddenly, everything was peaceful. It was the only way out."
My teacher sent me to talk to the school counselor.
I don't know if that's how the guys in the trenches ever feel. At the time I wrote it, I was only 16. I was too young to remember anything from the coverage from Vietnam, and we hadn't yet had any kind of a significant military conflict following it. I'm not sure why I even though to write about a soldier because, in the span of my life to that point, war wasn't that much of a reality, except for the spectre of nuclear war - and with that, the only impression I had was that everyone died pretty much immediately, so warfare with guns just wasn't part of my thought process.
But death was. And it still is in many ways. On one of the Norse Pagan lists I'm on, I usually don't have a whole lot to say, but since we started discussing how we want to be buried, I've been popping in the conversation a bit more and have been looking forward to reading the messages with a bit more entheusiam than usual. My favourite kind of books are True Crime storys, which almost always involve death, and if I can't find anything else on TV, I can always sit through hours of True Crime documentaries (not that they get my whole attention - I almost always am doing something else at the same time - like writting this, for example.)
But even with all that, I can't really explain why I have such an interest in death. When it gets right down to it, I'm quite frankly terrified of the concept. Much of that has to do with the way I react to anesthesia when I've had to have surgery. Rather than just drifting off to a nice, peaceful sleep, I seem to be acutely aware that there's a passage of time going on, but that none of my senses are working. It's almost like being trapped, falling into an infinite void in which I cannot see, hear, smell, taste or feel a thing - I can only "exist" and wait for something - anything - to change. I worry that this is death will be like, except that I'll have the knowledge that the "anything" will never come, and there will never be a change. Even writing about this right now, I can feel my heart pounding faster and my throat constricting just a bit.
And yet even though that's what I fear death will be like, I still hold to my faith that after death, I won't be enveloped in a conscious state of nothingness, but that I'll be with my beloved Gods, roaming the lands of Asgard and living in Thor's great hall of Bilskirnir, dining and drinking with my ancestors and reveling in all his glory.
The challenge, then, has been to find a way to reconcile my fear with my hope, so that by the time death comes - buy the time I can see the line of my kin, calling me to take my place among them, I will be able to go with a joyful heart, and not the dread that now goes so deep that there are times I've chosen to live with more pain than might really be necessary just to avoid the brief experience of surgery.
I think humanity in general, though, has always had kind of a weird relationship with death. While we may try to deter it or even avoid it all together, death is really just one more phase in the cycle of life - and it is the one force we have absolutely no power over at all. We just go to a lot of work to try and convince ourselves otherwise.
How often have you heard a news story talk about how "researchers have found that people who do [behaviour x] have a [y] percent greater risk of death than those who don't" or "[Behaviour x] has been shown to increase the risk of early death"? People make life altering changes based on such statements, and yet the statements themselves are all but meaningless. Doing or not doing [x] won't change a thing about when you die. You may be healthier until then, and you may feel better, but even if you don't end up dying from the negative effects of [x], there's always a Mack truck handy for death to drive your way.
One part of the problem is that we seem to have decided that since we know how long the average person lives, each of us are thus supposed to be able to live that long. If we don't, then we died early. Given the "entitlement" attitude that seems to permeate so much of this country, it's really not all that surprising that we'd also decide we are "entitled" to a certain amount of life, but the Universe has made no such bargain with us. When death decides it's our time to go, there's no negotiating, no compromise, and no option to extend our lease on life.
Yet even though I understand the above sentiments all too well, when my husband and I were planning on getting married, I made him promise me that he wouldn't try skydiving until we'd been married at least 15 years. I figured by then, I'd have had a good long time with him and if he died in the process (he's a bit of a klutz, so you'll understand my lack of faith), at least I wouldn't feel quite so cheated.
It seems to be a place where my instincts - my desire to avoid experiencing death (be it my own or someone else's) runs up against my beliefs, and it's a conflict that never quite gets resolved. I fear a void, but hope for peace and joy. I know it can't be stopped, yet I want to stop it from taking someone I love and avoid taking planes unless absolutely necessary. And none of that matters. Death will do what it wants to do, and what, if any, afterlife there may be will be what it is. Yet I still keep trying to understand, and I still keep wanting to know.
Death comes in and takes what's his
Leaving sorrow in his wake
But do not fear for peace is found
In the stillness of the night.-- Kriselda Jarnsaxa
July 26, 2003Man charged with making weapons of mass destruction in America
Now, that's a headline that would make a lot of people sit up and take notice. The kind of headline a ratings-hungry producer might use on a semi-sensationalistic local news show or that the editor of a tabloid might cook up. Using today's hottest phrase of menace, it brings to mind images of people in chemical warfare suits, skin blistering, a massive number of people dying in the streets and a myriad of other horrors. It's a story people would certainly want to read or watch.
Thankfully, in reporting the actual story, it looks like the newspapers and TV news shows in northwest North Carolina have a bit more restraint. Too bad their prosecutor doesn't. In a move guaranteed to attract attention - and which will also, hopefully, draw attention to the fact that this is just one of the ways in with our new, amped up anti-terrorism laws can be turned into something a bit different than they were initially intended to be - Watauga District Attorney Jerry Wilson has decided to charge Mardin Dwayne Miller with manufacturing a nuclear or chemical weapon - using a "weapons of mass destruction" law - for manufacturing methamphetamine.
Now I'm not going to pretend that meth isn't highly destructive. It is. The process of making meth in a home laboratory runs the risk of the various chemical compounds exploding. The sale of meth leads to any number of crimes - not just from users robbing people or stores to get the money to buy the drugs, but also the cuthroat competition that goes on between the dealers, and even some of the gang warfare plaguing so many inner cities. Then there are the lives it destroys through addictions, and the impact those addicts have on their families. So, yes, meth is an incredibly dangerous drug, and one that causes almost incalcuable devestation. As a metaphore, calling it a "weapon of mass destruction" even make some sense - even if it technically meets the requirements of the law being used, using the law in this way strikes me as inappropriate expansion of what is really meant by "weapon of mass destruction".
As for the law itself, here's what is says, in part, as included in the article:
...[T]he term nuclear, biological or chemical weapon of mass destruction applies to "any substance that is designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury and ... is or contains toxic or poisonous chemicals or their immediate precursors."Obviously, the law was written to be vague enough to include chemical weapons that be created in the future. Unfotunately, it's also vague enough to include a lot of other substances whose manufacturers I highly doubt will be charged with criminal conduct.I don't know about you, but I would be very surprised if a prosecutor anywhere - especially one in North Carolina - would consider charging someone who manufactures cigarettes under this law, yet it is a clearly a substance that can cause death or serious injury and contains toxic and poisonous chemicals. Pesticides could also qualify (and, indeed, many chemical weapons are very similar to pesticides in their composition). I'm sure many household cleaning products could qualify as well. I think you get the idea.
When, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, legislatures start creating laws intended to make it easier to prosecute terrorists and subject them to harsher punishments, many were concerned that the laws could then be used for purposes other than intended at the time. I think this case is a good example of just how real those concerns can be. It's not hard for a overzealous prosecutor to find a way to describe a set of actions in such a way that they can be made to fit into a law intended to be broad enough to cover situations we may not have yet imagined.
If we're going to have terrorism and weapons of mass destruction laws, then we need to use them judiciously and in the manner for which they were created. Drugs are a huge scourage - don't get me wrong - but we have drug laws under which the proper methods of prosecution are spelled out. If the legislature intends to have drugs punished in the same manner as terrorism, then let them write laws that do so.
July 24, 2003Sweet irony
I'm watching Jon Stewart interviewing Joseph Wilson, and Wilson says he thinks that maybe the White House has decided that it's time to let by-gones be by-gones, and that he'd just received a letter today from Dick Cheney - asking him to contribute to the Re-Elect Bush/Cheney campaign.
I haven't laughed that hard in a while :)
The latest on Valerie Plame
The Valerie Plame story (she's the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, and recently had her identity as a covert CIA operative blown in an article by Robert Novak, who appears to attribute the information to "two senior administration officials"), is getting rather interesting.
On the 21st, Newsday confirmed the central point of the story:
Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday Monday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity -- at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.Both Tom Maguire and Mark Kleiman have been following the story closely, though with divergent viewpoints.For Maguire, one of the primary issues thus far has been in determining who it is that passed the information to Novak. Novak, for his part, was a bit cagey in how he reported the leak.
Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.Note that the actual line stating that Plame is a CIA agent is not directly sourced to anyone. The presumptive sourcing comes in the next sentence where he refers to "two senior administration officials". This phrasing seems to have left open a great number of questions.In most of the news reports about this situation, there seems to be a bit of switching back and forth between using the terms "senior administration officials" (who would be understood to be deputy-secretary-and-above level officials who work in the White House) and "senior government officials" (also deputy-secretary-and-above level official, but from other agencies and offices). David Corn's original piece about the Novak story seems to have started some of the confusion with the following paragraph:
Novak tells me that he was indeed tipped off by government officials about Wilson's wife and had no reluctance about naming her. "I figured if they gave it to me," he says. "They'd give it to others....I'm a reporter. Somebody gives me information and it's accurate. I generally use it." And Wilson says Novak told him that his sources were administration officials.Note that he says Novak said "government" officials while Wilson - quoting Novak's conversation with him - said Novak's sources were "administration" officials. Furthermore, Time noted that they were given the information by "government" sources, and implied that Novak's sources were the same.[Note: Time has run two slightly different versions of this story. A portion of the original version of this paragraph is available at Tom Maguire's "Just One Minute" blog, and is quoted below, but the original story has been removed from the web and the original URL no longer works. The story itself was moved to a new URL when it was updated. First is the current version, then below that, the quoted section of the original story. I'm not sure how significant the change was or what other changes were made to the story, but wanted to provide this comparison.
[Ed note: as currently published] And some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.So, what are we to make of this? It's hard to say because Novak, himself, wasn't clear in his initial report on the story.[Ed note: as originally published, before the above revision]...Some government officials, noting that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, intimate that she was involved in his being dispatched Niger...
Maguire makes quite an issue of this difference, and says that from his analysis of the various stories, he believes that there is some consistency with the use of "government officials" as being the ones who actually spilled the beans regarding Plame being covert CIA, and "administration officials" as being the ones who allege that she recommended her husband be the one who goes to Niger. He has suggested that the leaking of Plame's CIA status may have been the result of an internal fight within the CIA, taking the fluctuation between "government" and "administration" officials as the main clue that the source may not be from within the White House.
I had noted, in my posts, that if the CIA outed one of their own as part of an internal feud on the handling of intelligence, that is still a big story and bad for Bush. Bad in a different way then if the source was the White House, arguably not as bad, but still bad.Personally, I find that idea to be a bit hard to swallow. I could understand the CIA wanting to make Bush look bad, easy. They're not happy with him right now for trying to make them the fall guys for the whole Niger/uranium fiasco, and I can't say that I'd put it past them. I could even see the CIA maybe trying to smear the NSC - who until the last two days have been content to let their own part in the Niger/uranium story go by the wayside while the administration has piled on the CIA. Of course, that would presuppose that someone in the NSC would have had to have known that Plame was a covert officer or operative, which I suspect isn't very likely. But I just can't see the CIA burning themselves, even if they're undergoing some kind of internal feud.In contrast, Kleiman has consistently referred to Novak's sources as "two senior administration officials", which I would tend to agree with since Novak's original column, while not directly sourcing the information that Plame worked for the CIA to the "two senior administration officials", he does cite them as the source of the information that Plame suggested her husband to the CIA. The only reason that the idea Plame had suggested her husband to the CIA is at all newsworthy is because of the particular combination of relationships here; specifically that Plame is a CIA agent, that she and Wilson have a romantic relationship and that she made a recommendation. Take any one of those three away, and the tidbit becomes meaningless.
Looking at just the employment angle for a moment, if someone who had no special status, had called the CIA to suggest her husband as an envoy to investigate a claim like this, not only would it not be newsworthy, but it also would probably have been tossed aside with a shrug. By the same token, if the wife of a former ambassador, who had no other special status, made the call, I can't imagine it would get any warmer of a reception. There simply wouldn't be any reason for the CIA to pay attention to it. At most, the CIA may be thinking that the woman wants her husband to get some kind of a feather in his cap, or that they, as a couple, have something else to gain from the assignment - but unless she holds some kind of status that would increase the odds that the CIA would listen to her, there's hardly anything scandalous, or newsworthy, about it.
As a CIA employee, however, Plame would have the kind of status that might give the CIA reason to consider her request. As such, its only makes sense that whomever told Novak that she suggested the CIA use her husband would also explain why that request would be worth reporting: the implication that Wilson used his connection to the CIA, via his wife, to pull the Niger assignment. To get that point across, her status had to be revealed.
At this point, it's likely that there will be an investigation. Senators Richard Durbin of Illinois and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, both members of the Senate Intelligence Committee (Rockefeller is the vice chairman) have said they feel an investigation is necessary and Senator Orin Hatch of Utah has "agreed the committee will probably investigate the matter, but he dismissed the charges of White House strong-arm tactics as "typical political talk; unjustified political talk.""
In the meantime, I think bloggers can be counted on to keep spinning out theories as to what may have happened. Today, Maguire posits that perhaps one reason the story hasn't received much attention in the mainstream press (so far, coverage by the New York Times and Washington Post has been virtually non-existent) is that they may be "smell[ing] a rat", specifically in the form of Joseph Wilson. Maguire notes that during interviews about the outing of his wife, Wilson has commented that "...the release to the press of her relationship to him and even her maiden name was an attempt to intimidate others like him from talking about Bush administration intelligence failures." He says that this complaint is misleading, however, since Wilson's own biography on the Middle East Institute says that "He is married to the former Valerie Plame and has two sons and two daughters."
Even if the fact that they were married and her maiden name weren't exactly a total secret, I could understand that he might be upset about the way that information was published in the Novak column. The focus of the story as written was not that Plame worked for the CIA (though that was a necessary component as noted above), but that Wilson and Plame may have tried to use her position with the CIA as a way of getting him the Niger assignment. Mentioning that she was his wife served as a slur against him without actually having to make any kind of accusation, following the standard line of thought: "Why would she suggest her husband be given the assignment? I wonder what's in it for them?"
As for the use of her maiden name, I don't know if she typically used "Valerie Plame" or "Valerie Wilson", but from the use of "former Valerie Plame" on his biography, my guess would be that she was commonly known as "Valerie Wilson". For friends and family, then, to suddenly see her mentioned in print as "Valerie Plame" could raise a variety of questions about the status of their marriage. I could understand a man being upset about that. While this concern would have nothing to do with any aspect of the actual story, it is still a bit of a personal fallout for a family already under stress.
Neither of those theories, though, would explain why he would have said that releasing that information to the press would be part of their attempt at intimidation, not only of him but also of others who might be tempted to step foward, unless he was trying to imply that he believes the White House would release that kind of personal information about other targets it might have.
That is, of course, speculation, and while I don't know whether I consider it to be likely or not, it is, at the least, as plausible as Maguire's apparent implication that Wilson, himself, is somehow responsible for the leak, in an attempt to discredit the White House.
Kleiman suggests another possiblity altogether. He starts by noting that the story itself doesn't really make much sense.
We're being asked to believe that an Administration that makes a fetish of security deliberately blew the cover of a secret agent who was gathering information about the acquisition by foreign governments of weapons of mass destruction, merely as a way of getting back at her husband for having embarrassed Bush. And you have to believe that they did so in a way that was completely traceable back to the Administration, even though burning one of our spies in that way would constitute an aggravated felony. Even if you think that the people around Bush are that thuggish -- which, even for me, was a real stretch -- it's hard to imagine they could have been so reckless.He suggest that possibly the incident is the result of gross incompetence and recklessness, but not maliciousness. Under this theory, someone in the administraiton was aware that the CIA has asked Plame to talk to her husband about possibly going on the trip (which seems to be what actually happened, rather than Plame lobbying "...to have her husband, the father of her two young children, sent to an unappetizing part of Africa on an unpaid secret mission."), but didn't realize Plame was a covert operative or official. As Kleiman explains it:[The reason I find it hard to believe that the Bush people would burn a spook, even though I believe that they've done lots of things I find equally repugnant, is that I don't think they regarded, for example, accusing John McCain of fathering an interracial bastard as really evil: to Bush and Rove, that was just good, clean fun. But my understanding of the Team Bush ethic would make burning a spook just about the worst thing one could do.]
Then, two weeks ago, when the order went out from the center to slime Wilson, someone remembered that detail and thought that the suggestion that Wilson had only gotten the assignment through his wife's influence might reduce his credibility a little. Without checking back with the CIA -- with which the White House is not, at the moment, on very good terms -- whoever it was then peddled the tale to Novak, and had someone else (these are two senior officials we're talking about) confirm it when Novak called to check.The purpose of the smear - that Wilson required his wife's assistance to get a job - would be to subtly suggest that Wilson isn't "a real man".I have to say, I think it's more plausible than the idea that Wilson decided to damage the White House by blowing his wife's cover himself, but I'm not sure I'm convinced, either. Honestly, I'm not sure what I think is actually going on or what the "real story" is, but it's sure interesting to look at all the pieces and try to figure out where they all go.
July 21, 2003It's true....
A scientist with a sense of humour decided to find out if Kansas really is as flat as a pancake. It turns out, Kansas is even flatter than that.
Essentially, he took the elevation pattern of the state of Kansas and the elevation pattern of a pancake and using a "flattening ratio" looked at how they would compare if they were the same size. The pancake won. Even though he used serious methodology to make the determination, Mark Fornstad, a geographer at Southwest Texas State University acknowledged that he did the study "just for fun".
When we first moved to Kansas (when I was 11), we were coming from Illinois - not exactly renowned for topographical diversity, either - my Dad warned me that Kansas was flat, but I didn't believe him until the day we went on a trip and drove through the vaunted "Flint Hills". Dad told me where we were, and I recall looking around and asking where the hills were.
It really is that flat here.
Soap opera to deal with harassment of pro-peace character
Much as I sometimes like to keep it my "dirty little secret", I have to admit I'm something of a soap opera fan. One of my longtime favourites is ABC's "One Life to Live", which has long prided itself on trying to deal with various social issues. It was one of the first soaps to deal with interracial romance, gang violence, literacy and racial prejudice, among others, and received wide acclaim when, in 1992, it did a story featuring a homosexual teen (played by a young Ryan Phillipe), homophobia and AIDS, and which culminated with a display of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.
They've got a new storyline they're just starting that I have to say I'm really looking forward to. Recently, they introduced a young woman named Marcie to the show. Marcie is unusual for a soap character. She started as a kind of dumpy outcast girl desparate for a friend who let herself be used by a very popular bitch. She was awkward socially and larger than anyone else on the show - yet there was something about her that really hit home with me (probably because I was also very socially awkward and have always been larger than most people around me). I must not have been alone, because what was supposed to have been a 5-episode part has now turned into a long-term gig. Marcie played a critical role in helping one of the show's "young hunk" characters (Al) in getting off drugs, and the two of them have begun something of a romance, dealing with issues regarding her insecurity and difficulting believing someone could really want to be with her. They've quickly become one of the most popular couples on the show, and Marcie is frequently voted as the favourite female character on the show in the weekly polls that some of the soap magazines run.
Now they've added another twist, and this one should be very interesting. Marcie decided to hang a flag with a peace sign on it in her dorm window. When she came back to her room, she found her room trashed and her peace sign flag torn. The show spoilers say that she will find her personal safety in danger from people opposed to her pro-peace stance, and will deal with her, her boyfriend, and one of the more powerful women in town's efforts to deal with the harassment she receives.
The main writers for the show, Josh Griffith and Michael Malone, are ones who have written many of the previously lauded social commentary storylines, and are well-known for tacking controversial issues sensitively and powerfully. I expect no less from them this time around. I love that they are taking one of the shows most popular heroines and putting her at the middle of this storyline because she's someone so many people identify with.
Interestingly, this isn't the first time they've tried to bring up the subject of the debate over the Iraq war. Initially, they had planned to have two other characters with a rather long and complicated history have a series of debates and tension over differing opinions of the war, and had even intended to have them tape some scenes closer to the air date than usual (there's typically a three-week lead time between taping and broadcast), but the "major combat operations" of the war itself were over so fast that they never really got a chance to implement it very well. As a result, they've decided to take this route instead - having a popular character suffer serious harassment for making her feelings against the war known.
So, here's a tip of the hat to the writers and actors on OLTL for being willing to take on yet another controversial subject, and to ABC for letting them (ABC owns all of it's soap operas, so they tend to have final say on what gets on the air and what doesn't). Here's hoping it's every bit as good as I know they can make it. I'll let you know how it goes.
UPDATE (8/6/2003 1:33 am): I just found out that one part of the above story came from an exceptionally well-written parody that I hadn't realized was a parody. The 2nd to last paragraph, about an earlier plan to tackle some of the same subject matter in a series of debates between two characters actually came from a message posted to a mailing list I read, written by Brad Beam. The rest of this post still stands though, based as it is on my actual viewing of the show *g*. Sorry for the misinformation - I was working from memory when I wrote it, when I should have made sure I knew where the information came from, first.
Dr. David Kelly Update
If you're interested in reading the full text of the BBC's confirmation that Dr. David Kelly was the primary source for Andrew Gilligan's report, and Gilligan's confirmation and explaination of his story, they is now available online at the BBC website. Just use the link above.
They've also made available the original audio report by Andrew Gilligan that started the firestorm, as well as two other reports by reporter Susan Watts. Watts reports much the same thing that Gilligan does, and the BBC has said that Dr. Kelly is also the source for those reports. Gilligan notes that even though the content of his report and Watts' reports are very similar, the are from separate interviews with Kelly - meaning that if there was an error in how the BBC reported what Dr. Kelly said, two different reporters erred in substantially the same way even though they did separate interviews.
In his original report, Gillian does stress that the biggest reason the "source" (now known to be Kelly) was upset that the "45 minute claim" had been included was because he knew it had come from only one source, and not from two as most of the other claims had done. Regardless of the question of who wanted this claim added to the report, it's important to keep in mind that the claim itself was very weak, and the government has acknowledged that it was confirmed for them by only one source. That same claim is giving Bush a bit of trouble as well, since he had cited it on two or three diffrent occasions as part of his case against Iraq, and the CIA never had cleared it as being valid or reliable.
The reports are available at:
Gilligan's original report - Audio
Watts' June 2nd report
Watts' June 4th report
July 19, 2003'Dark Actors'
I finally found the NY Times copy of the story by Judith Miller and Warren Hoge about the death of Dr. David Kelly. While I have to admit to a bit of reluctance about any "big scoops" in a Judith Miller article after all the controversy regarding a number of her articles from Iraq and use of Ahmed Chalabi as an anonymous source, the information in this article is at least important enough to be given consideration until such time as it is either confirmed independently or disproved.
According to Miller and Hoge, before heading out on his final walk, Dr. Kelly sent a number of emails including a couple to reporters, mentioning both his concerns about the situation and his plans on how to handle his turn in the spotlight.
In an e-mail message to a reporter sent hours before he left for his walk, Dr. Kelly gave no indication that he was depressed. He said he was waiting "until the end of the week" before judging how his appearance before the committee had gone, and referred to "many dark actors playing games." Based on earlier conversations with Dr. Kelly, the words seemed to refer to people within the Ministry of Defense and Britain's intelligence agencies with whom he had often sparred over interpretations of intelligence reports.The reference to "dark actors" is certainly tantalizing, but it's hard to know who he would be referring to, or what, exactly, he thinks these "dark actors" are up to, without seeing the full e-mail or knowing the history of discussions between Dr. Kelly and the recipient. Perhaps more ominous, though, is the reference in the second message cited, regarding his desire to return to work in Iraq and his determination to get through the current scandal.Another associate who also received an e-mail message sent by Dr. Kelly shortly before he left the house said the message was combative and expressed a determination to overcome the scandal encircling him and an enthusiasm about returning to Iraq.
While it's very easy to conclude from these fragmentary statements that Dr. Kelly had no intention of killing himself, it's also important to remember that there are people who are intent on committing suicide who will intentionally avoid giving off any signals of their intentions and who will even make comments that would seem to indicate they have no plans on dying anytime soon, simply to avoid alerting anyone to their real plans, thus preventing them from being able to intervene and perhaps prevent the suicide. Again, without more complete information, its hard to know exactly what Dr. Kelly meant or what his plans were.
Expect that people who want to believe that Dr. Kelly was murdered, however, to cite this message as evidence that he had no plans to die and therefore his suicide must be faked. While that certainly is a possibility, right now I'm leaning toward the idea that he simply didn't want anyone to think there would be reason to go looking for him when it took longer for him to return than usual, thus making it more likey that he would be dead before searches were started. I suspect that most of us, when we think about someone committing suicide, are familiar with the typical scenario that involved a person acting morose, giving things away and otherwise taking action that, in retrospect, indicate that the person is attempting to tie up all the loose ends before their death. These behaviours are very common, and sometimes watching for them in a depressed person can help tip someone off to the fact that the person is contemplating or planning a suicide.
In many cases, though, those kinds of actions are actually intended to draw attention to the fact that the person is considering suicide, in the hopes that someone will stop them. Someone who takes steps to hide their intentions, however, is generally someone who is very serious about ending their own life, to the point of intentionally misleading people into thinking nothings wrong, so that it will be easier to find a time to commit the act when they're ready.
Some of this I know from personal experience. I've been dealing with clinical depression for as long as I can recall, and have previously tried to take my own life. I know that I was displaying many of the classic "warning signs" of potential suicide beforehand, and as I've reflected on it in the years since then, I've realized that I truly was making more of a desparate cry for help than having a serious intention to die. I also known that if I ever was truly serious about it, I would actually go out of my way to make it appear that everything was fine, just to avoid suspicion that I might be thinking about it. Obviously, my own experiences aren't everyone's experience. Many people who demonstrate the classic signs are extremely sincere in their desire to die - I'm not trying to say that no one ever is. By the same token, I also realize that if someone dies in an apparent suicide and hasn't given off any real indications they were considering it, that it very well might be foul play. But for the reasons outlined above, I do tend to believe that Dr. Kelly's death was a true suicide. Still, I remain open to the possibility I'm wrong about that.
I'm just not sure which outcome I would think is worse.
The death of Dr. David Kelly
According to an article by Warren Hodge and Judith Miller of the New York Times (the copy I found was published by SF Gate), Dr. David Kelly's wife has confirmed that the body found yesterday was his, and that the police have told her he committed suicide. She also noted that the police have asked her not to speak about the case.
I know most blogs have been reporting that it was him since yesterday, and it's been pretty obvious all along that it was, but on a story like this I'm trying to avoid jumping the gun on much of anything. It's going to be an explosive enough situation as it is - it doesn't need help from people passing on speculation as if it were fact. There's already a lot of haziness surrounding the story. After reading several reports in a number of British papers (The Guardian, BBC, Independent, This is London by the Evening Standard, and Financial Times), here is what I understand happened as of this point.
Andrew Gilligan, a reporter for the BBC who also works for the Daily Mail, issued a story indicating that the September dossier (which, I believe, is the same one that Bush and company are relying upon when they say that the British published a report saying that Saddam was trying to get nuclear materials from Africa), which had been compiled by the British intelligence service, had "sexed up" on the orders of Alastair Campbell, who is Prime Minister Blair's communications chief. In the story, the source was identified as a "senior intelligence official".
Immediately, Campbell started demanding that the BBC identify who had made the accusation, and demanding apologies and retractions. The BBC, however, choose to stand by the story and by Gilligan. Meanwhile, Dr. Kelly was concerned that he might have been a source for the story, and spoke to his manager at the Ministry of Defense. The MoD then gave his name to The Intelligence and Security Committee, and disclosed it to the BBC governors in a private letter. According to the Financial Times, if Parliament could show that Dr. Kelly has been the source of the report - and Downing Street felt very confident that he was - it would be very embarrassing for the BBC, because they had claimed their source was a "senior intelligence official" and that description could not be applied accurately to Dr. Kelly.
Dr Kelly's name then became public when the description of the MoD official who had admitted speaking to Gilligan was released. While his name wasn't mentioned specifically, there aren't many MoD officials who would fit the same description, so it wasn't difficult for people to figure out.
The phone calls to David Kelly's home and office from journalists began shortly after the BBC report which sparked the controversy over whether the Government had "sexed up" its Iraq dossier.One part of the story is a bit puzzling to me, because the information I've read about it seems to be rather contradictory. One article notes that Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of Defense and Kelly's boss, had said that Kelly had come forward to report that he'd had an unauthorized meeting with Gilligan, but that he had not mentioned Campbell in his interview. It then goes on to say that "[t]he BBC has not denied that, but did say that its source did not work for the Ministry of Defense", and notes that the "Oxford-educated microbiologist, Kelly, 59, has been the senior adviser to the Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat in the Ministry of Defense for more than three years", which would seem to exclude Kelly as the source for Gilligan's story.At first the calls were tactful approaches from specialist reporters, many of whom Dr Kelly had spoken to unofficially over the past 10 years for guidance on the issue of arms control, to ask whether he was the "senior British official" cited by the BBC.
By early this week, the media maelstrom had become so intense that Dr Kelly moved to a secret address. To add to his discomfort, newspapers on Wednesday were full of reports lampooning his performance before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and pointing out his resemblance to Britain's most prolific murderer, Harold Shipman.
For the media, the notion of a mole within the higher echelons of Whitehall with the power to damage the Government was impossible to resist. Within hours of the original BBC report by Andrew Gilligan on 29 May a race was on to find the latterday "deep throat".
As noted above, however, another article says that Downing Street was confident that Dr. Kelly was the source of the report, but that "...Mr Blair's spokesman said the person who had made himself known to the MoD "did not work for the MoD . . . but was a technical expert who had worked for a variety of government departments, including the MoD, with whom he was currently working. His salary was paid by another department."
At any rate, Dr. Kelly ended up having to testify before a Parliamentary committee, something that seems to have been very difficult and very upsetting for him.
A soft-spoken civil servant in the Defense Ministry accustomed to working behind the scenes, Kelly was pressed repeatedly by committee members to say whether he was the "fall guy" in the bitter dispute that has pitted the government against the BBC.Meanwhile, a friend of Dr. Kelly's is now saying that, contrary to what Dr. Kelly told the committee, he did believe that he was the primary source for Gilligan's articles, though he maintained that he had not spoken of Alastair Campbell nor the British claim that Saddam could have weapons of mass destruction ready to use in 45 minutes after giving the order. If this is the case (which, unless Gilligan decides to reveal his sources, we'll really never know), it would mean that Gilligan had lied in writing his story (by adding that "his source" had told him that Alastair Campbell had insisted on adding the 45-minute claim, and that Dr. Kelly lied before Parliament yesterday when he said he didn't believe he was the primary source.The implication of the committee's questions was that the scientist had been set up by British Prime Minister Tony Blair's communications and security director, Alastair Campbell, to rebut BBC reports about possible government manipulation of intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
Tom Mangold, a journalist for the British news network ITV and a friend of David Kelly's, said that he had spoken on Friday morning to Jan Kelly, who said her husband had been "very, very angry about what had happened at the committee" on Tuesday.
"She didn't use the word 'depressed,' " Mangold said, "but she said he was very, very stressed and unhappy about what had happened and this was really not the kind of world he wanted to live in."
Mr Mangold said Dr Kelly had maintained that he had not spoken of Alastair Campbell adding the 45-minutes claim.Outside of Britain, the coverage gets almost bizarre. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) in Iran is reporting that the Telegraph and Daily Mail are calling for at least Campbell and Hoon to resign (though I've not been able to find any online articles from either paper to support this), and the Turkish paper Zaman goes even further with a story that called Dr. Kelly's death a "murder" (despite no such finding - either way - having been released yet), says the BBC has confirmed that Dr. Kelly was their source (despite no other paper nor anything on the BBC site that I can find supporting that) and indicates that Britain's Sky media (owned by Fox's Rupert Murdoch) has said that "Campbell has no choice but to resign" and that Hoon is also at risk. It worries me that people will start repeating things from this Turkish story (or others like it), even though by looking at the British coverage, it doesn't appear that any of their claims have much current validity (though if any of them are true, my guess would be that their statement about Campbell and Hoon being at risk of losing their jobs is by far the closest of the three to being supportable at this time, though, of course, until more is known about how Dr. Kelly died and as the row between Campbell and the BBC continues, anything is still possible)."He was keen to explain that he felt the JIC [Joint Intelligence Committee] assessment was a little bit hyperbolic for his taste and that it wasn't quite as simple as the assessment appeared to show," Mr Mangold said.
"At the same time he certainly told me he never mentioned 45 minutes and he knew nothing about that."
Asked why Dr Kelly had told the committee that he was not the main source, Mr Mangold said: "I think his famous ... precision let him down there, because what he said to me was that there were parts of the Gilligan transmission that he did not recognise, but that did not mean that he wasn't the main source."
Mr Mangold's statement adds fuel to theories that Mr Gilligan may have "sexed up" his stories. The judicial inquiry may also present further concerns for Mr Gilligan and the BBC if they are asked to reveal his "major source".
Prime Minister Blair, who is traveling in Asia as the story broke, was questioned about Dr. Kelly and whether or not Hoon and Campbell should resign.
He was also asked if defence secretary Geoff Hoon or his communications chief Alastair Campbell would resign over the affair, but refused to be drawn.Blair has said that there will be an independent judicial inquiry into the death of Dr. Kelly."I don't think it is right for anyone, ourselves or anybody else, to make a judgment until we have the facts," he said.
"The person who can conduct this inquiry is someone who is highly respected and will get to the truth of what has happened."
This is a story that will likely take some time to unfold, and has the potential to have an impact on both sides of the Atlantic. Obviously, the effect will be greater in Britain than here, but since the testimony Dr. Kelly was called to give related to the September "dodgy dossier" that the British had published, and given that the dossier is what Bush is now relying on to help back up his "uranium from Africa" claim, if the investigation into Dr. Kelly's death turns up anything that discredits the September dossier further than it already has been - and in particular if anything is turned up that would refute the uranium claim, it would certainly have an effect here as well.
In the meantime, my heart goes out to Dr. Kelly's family. These last weeks have likely been hard on all of them, and for him to have died - and under circumstances like this - will only compound that a thousand-fold.
[Note: I republished this so that it would be above the cartoons and book ad. No text has been changed from the original publication, however]
Buy the Book
I've become a great fan of Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World comic and his This Modern World blog. He's got a book coming out soon, and trust me, you'll want to buy this one. :)
July 18, 2003It's not official yet, but everyone's acting like the body found is Dr. Kelly
The identity of the body found in the woods won't be official announced until either later today or, more likely, tomorrow, but the media and British officials are acting as if they are reasonably certain that Dr. David Kelly is dead.
Blair spoke to top officials about the case from aboard a flight to Tokyo from Washington.From what the article says, it sound as if Dr. Kelly was having a very difficult time dealing with being in the spotlight and under the pressure he's been under, even as officials were saying that they don't believe he was responsible for the leak, but instead had been set up as a "fall guy".
''The prime minister is obviously very distressed for the family of Dr Kelly,'' a spokesman said aboard the flight.
If the death is confirmed the defence ministry would hold an independent judicial inquiry, presided over by a judge with access to all government papers, he added.
'It's too early to comment on any circumstances'
CNN just showed the very tail end of a press statement by David Pernell, the superintendent of the police in the area where Dr. David Kelly is believed to have gone missing. He confirmed that the body does match the description of Dr. Kelly and the clothing Dr. Kelly was wearing, but they have not yet confirmed the identity. He used the phrase "unexplained death" in describing the situation, but given that the post-mortem has not yet been conducted, it would certainly be premature for them to know or speculate on a cause for death, so I don't see that as any kind of a "clue" as to what's going on. Its one of those situations where the police just aren't going to say anything very meaningful until they get more information and evidence gathered, not only because saying the wrong thing now could cause problems with an investigation (such as tipping off a suspect to information they have), but - like the infamous 'white van' of the DC snipers last summer - it can come back and bite them on the ass if they aren't careful.
Basically, his main point was that it's really too early to comment on any circumstances, and may be a day or more before we have much info to go on.
More on Dr. Kelly
A poster as Eschaton says CNN is reporting that they've identified the body as Dr. Kelly's, but I've not seen or heard anything to that effect yet, so I'm still considering it unidentified and unconcerned. I'll be sure to note it when I do hear anything.
I also wanted to let you know that CNN International has a nice FAQ-style page with information about Dr. Kelly and the circumstances around his involvement with the Iraq/WMD questions. More updates as we learn anything.
I had posted a comment over at Eschaton (in response to their coverage of the story) about my concerns over people jumping to conclusions, and Scarpia posted this in reply to my comments:
Agreed, kriselda. But if there is any obstruction of the investigation of his death, or a lack of supporting evidence for the conclusion of "suicide," that would indicate a certain desire to close the case prematurely. Britons should be demanding a very public inquiry that leaves out no possibility.I would agree with that. Demanding that there be a thorough and accurate investigation into the situation is certainly the logical thing to do. I just don't want to start seeing the death/disappearance of Dr. Kelly listed as part of the "proof" that we've been lied to unless we have some strong, credible evidence to support that.
Possible 'mole' possibly missing
Here's a story that's likey to be getting a lot of play on the blogs today. It seems that a scientist, believed to be the man who told Andrew Gilligan, a BBC reporter, that Britian's infamous "dodgy dossier" had been "sexed up" did not return to his home last night. He had been questioned by Members of Parliment yesterday about what he might have told the reporter.
Dr David Kelly, 59, went missing from his home near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, at around 3pm yesterday after telling his wife he was going for a walk, Thames Valley Police said.A lot of people are going to jump on this as part of a possible conspiracy. I remember when the officer from Enron committed suicide, there was a great deal of speculation that maybe he'd been murdered, but to the best of my knowledge, nothing ever came of that.The family called police when he had failed to return by 11.45pm last night.
[...]
Dr Kelly was described by police as an avid walker with good local knowledge of the many footpaths surrounding his home, which is near the River Thames.
In this case, it's important to keep in mind that there may be any number of explainations as to what's happened, some benign (he ran into an old friend, they got to talking, he forgot to call home and lost track of time), some which could possibly bring a government down (he was kidnapped and murdered by members of the government to keep him quiet about whatever he might have known regarding the leadup to the war). It could even be something as simple as he took a bad fall and has been unable to let anyone know he's injured.
It's also important to remember that there really wouldn't be a lot of point in someone killing him now, as he's most likely already said whatever he was going to, and closing the barn door after the horse escapes doesn't keep it from getting out, eh?
In other words, until Dr. Kelly is found, there will probably be a lot of speculation that he "was disappeared" by the government because he "knew too much" about the evidence used to justify the war - but until we actually know something, we won't actually know anything [Gah! That's a bit more Rumsfeldian than I generally like to be, but I'm going to presume you know what I mean], and wild speculation isn't going to do anyone any good.
Hopefully, Dr. Kelly will show up soon and none the worse for wear.
UPDATE: (5:21 am) The Guardian just posted a story noting that police searching for Dr. Kelly have found an unidentified male body about 5 miles from his home. They also provided additional details about the situation and Dr. Kelly's testimony yesterday in Parliment:
With two MoD police sitting behind him, Dr Kelly confirmed he met Gilligan in a central London hotel on the same day that the reporter said he met his sole source at a central London hotel.UPDATE: (5:42 am) If you want to learn more about the situation Dr. Kelly was being questioned by Parliment about, the Guardian has a detailed timeline available.[...]
"I believe I am not the main source. From the conversation I had with him I don't see how he could make the authoritative statements he was making from the comments that I made," Dr Kelly said.
[...]
However, the Ministry of Defence has stood by its claims that Dr Kelly was the sole source of the story, pointing to Gilligan's evidence that he had relied on one source and that three other sources mentioned had not discussed the September dossier or had done so only later.
Dr Kelly has been under enormous pressure since he admitted making contact with Gilligan. He was officially reprimanded for having an "unauthorised" meeting with a journalist, and recently complained that his home was surrounded by journalists.
This morning a ministry of defence spokeswoman said that Dr Kelly had not been in work for the last couple of days, he had however been in regular contact with his line manager. She added that Dr Kelly's reprimand was considered the end of any disciplinary action.
[...]
Conservative MP Richard Ottaway, a member of the foreign affairs committee, said Dr Kelly had recently alluded to the level of pressure he was under.
"At the meeting last week he did hint at the sort of pressure he was under," Mr Ottaway said.
"He was asked to provide some evidence and he replied that he would do so but he could not get into his house because of the media pressure."
[...]
Police said it was not unusual for him to walk for two or three hours at a time, but unusual for him to do this alone.
July 04, 2003Independence Day
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
- For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
- For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
- For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
- For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
- For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
- For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
- For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
- For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
- For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew ThorntonMassachusetts:
John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge GerryRhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William ElleryConnecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver WolcottNew York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis MorrisNew Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham ClarkPennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George RossDelaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKeanMaryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of CarrolltonVirginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter BraxtonNorth Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John PennSouth Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur MiddletonGeorgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
'No Blood For Cappuccinos'
I may get criticized for linking to this article today, but it's just too good. Partly-serious and partly-satire, this column by John O'Farrell gives an interesting look at America's new imperialistic aims.
There is a certain irony that today the American empire is celebrating an essentially anti-imperialist event. But, outside it, July 4 is becoming the focus for a new campaign - a declaration of independence from America. Today at US bases in Britain, such as USAF Fairford in Gloucestershire or at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, parties will celebrate the idea that maybe one day we could live in a country that does not automatically assist in the star wars programme, does not send British troops in support of US foreign policy and where we are not forced to call Marathon bars "Snickers".But being against US government policy should not be lazily extended to general anti-Americanism. If you're a US citizen please do not think I bear you any personal ill will (unless you yourself happen to be reading this, George W - which, let's face it, is unlikely, given the absence of pictures). So Happy Independence Day, America; you did a fantastic job throwing off the hereditary monarchy of George III. But now would it be okay if we declared independence from the hereditary presidency of George II?
July 03, 2003ROFL!
From Chris at readme.blog:
1) Go to Google and type "weapons of mass destruction" in the search field.
2) Press the "I am feeling lucky" button.
3) Soak in the vast right wing conspiracy.
June 29, 2003I didn't think I'd ever see it....
I didn't know if it was possible, but yes, there is someone out there with more links on their sidebars that I have. Note: sidebars, as in 2 of them. But there's more to The People's Republic of Seabrook than just incredible sidebars (and I have to give him points - his sidebars are mostly text links instead of graphics, but....). He's also got adorable kitten pictures that you should be sure to check out.
June 22, 2003Lack of Ethics
Susan Tifft has a good look at the repercussion of the sheer amount of public dishonesty we see in America today and the impact it has on American kids.
This Pinocchio culture has made kids alarmingly cynical: 43% agree that a person has to lie and cheat sometimes to get ahead, up nine points since 2000. The irony is that on many issues - school prayer and abortion, to name just two - young people today are more conservative than their elders. Yet they are surprisingly blasé about shading the truth.I was born when Lyndon Johnson was in office - a year after JFK was assissinated. I didn't know anything about the Vietnam war and I didn't understand the "Gulf of Tonkin" incident until recently. My political "awakening" was Watergate. I was still in grade school then, but part of my nightly routine was to watch the news with my Dad - and he was always willing to try and answer any questions I had about what was going on. We also had a subscription to Newsweek which I skimmed through every week (I've always been a rather obsessive reader - in the days before I discovered BBSs and the Internet, I'd been known to read the phone book when I was seriously bored and didn't have anything else to read in the house).They weren't born that way. They learned it from us.
One day soon they will be our politicians, lawyers, teachers, CEOs, auto mechanics and pilots, and they'll bring to those jobs the values they're absorbing now. Honor codes? Who knows whether they make a difference on college campuses? But the moment has come for our country's leading adults to sign one.
A lot of it was over my head at that age, but I read it nonetheless, and would then as my folks to explain what it all meant. They did their best - they had to try and simplify some of the concepts and smooth over some of the rougher spots - I was well under 10, after all - but I got the basic idea. They were also careful to explain to me that what President Nixon did wasn't the normal behaviour we expected from our leaders. They carefully told me that part of why everyone was so upset was because our President was supposed to be honest with us - unless there was something he couldn't tell us because it would put us in grave danger.
I accepted it, but part of me would always doubt after that. It's all well and good for my parents to tell me how honest our leaders have been (at least to the best of their knowledge), but when the first thing you become aware of politically is a scandal that least to a Presidential resignation, well.... trust just doesn't come quite so easily.
I found myself being rather fond of both Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, but once Reagan took over the White House, something about him triggered that deep laid mistrust. Even today I can't put a finger on any specific thing - it was just the way he presented himself, the way he often "didn't know" things... along with the way things he said and plans he supported (trickle-down economics and Star Wars, to name a couple) didn't make much sense. The first George Bush, being his Vice President, and one who claimed to be "out of the loop" at that, was fighting a losing battle with me.
Then, of course, we got Clinton. I wanted to like him - I really did. I thought his policies made a great deal more sense, and he seemed to have a better idea of what was fair to the greatest number of people (as opposed to what best served the interests of the rich, something I had picked up very quickly as being of utmost importance to Reagan and Bush), but the man couldn't open his mouth without hedging, tap-dancing or outright lying.
And now. Now we have Bush the second. I don't need to recount all the questionable things he's said, claimed or done - just look through the blog and you'll find a pretty good accounting right there. Suffice it to say I don't believe anything he says. I can't.
I look at how cynical I've become over the years - how much I've been let down by this country's leaders over the years - and I wonder how any child growing up now can have any kind of faith in our government. Worse, I look at all the other scandals - be they with corporations, celebrities, academics, the legal system, among cops or wherever - and I don't know how they can have any trust whatsoever in the very institutions we're supposed to be able to rely upon to keep the country running.
Even moreso, I wonder how they're supposed to ever get the idea that being dishonest not only shouldn't be the norm, but should be viewed as wrong. I try to imagine what I would do as a parent, but I have no idea, really. There's so little we can point to any more and say "See, THIS is the kind of person you want to be."
I worry a great deal about the future - not just the future of the country, but of humanity in general. I remember when I was in school, if you got caught cheating, you got flunked. It was pretty simple. Now if you get caught cheating, it's more likely that someone's parents will sue the school than it is that the students will actually be punished for it.
What's the solution? No clue. Nothing's going to change if adults don't start acting like adults are supposed to - and if we don't start holding people in the public eye to a higher standard - you know, actually expecting them to be honest. But it seems these days that we only criticize dishonesty in people we are otherwise already opposed to. You hear it a lot, but it's very true - imagine what the reaction to the Bush administration's deceptions would be if Clinton were still in office - or if he were just a Democrat in general. There'd be so many investigations that nothing else would ever get done!
When we're to a point where the only reason dishonesty is ever pointed out as being a bad thing is when you can use it against someone else whom you want to bring down, there's something seriously out of whack.
June 18, 2003...and the problem is?
IMDb is reporting that there are concerns that, by the time "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" is ready to be filmed, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint will be too old for their roles.
Although analysts have suggested that the three young stars of the Harry Potter movies are quickly outgrowing their characters, the Reuter News Agency on Tuesday, citing an industry source familiar with the matter, reported that they will likely return for the fourth Potter film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, due to be released in November 2005. By that time, Daniel Radcliffe, who portrays Harry Potter, will be 16 years old. Reuters quoted Seth Siegel, founder of The Beanstalk licensing and marketing consultancy group, as warning that if the stars are not replaced by younger actors, "licensing will fade away." Wendi Green, an agent for child actors with Abrams Artists Agency, told the wire service, "If [they] are too old, kids can't relate to it."I suppose I can understand some of the concern - that kids might not relate to teen-aged performers - but I think those concerns are a bit unfounded. The thing is, each book in the Harry Potter series takes place in sequential school years.In the first book, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", Harry, Hermione and Ron were 11. "Goblet of Fire" is the 4th book - meaning that the characters at that point are 15 years old. In other words, the Harry Potter character in GOF is only one year younger than Dan Radcliffe, the actor playing him, will be in real life.
Kids who are reading the series have had no problem with adjusting to a 15-year-old Harry. Somehow I think they'll do OK with a 16-year-old playing him. And if the level of anticipation for "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is any indication, kids are ok with him aging even more beyond that.
Laugh of the Day
Plastic Bag.org has deigned to share with us the Ten Commandments of Weblogging. Very funny, and pretty dead on, too.
Damn. Makes me wish I was good a humour writing, you know?
June 17, 2003From People for the American Way
I just received this message from PFAW - you might want to check it out:
Dear Friend,The time has arrived to focus on the Supreme Court - the final arbiter in matters of U.S. law.
With a retirement possible in a few weeks, now is the time to start organizing to get the word out to the press, to our Senators and to our friends and neighbors about what is at stake should the High Court tilt any further to the right.
President Bush said on the campaign trail that his favorite justices now on the Court are right-wingers Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Rest assured, we can take him at his word on this matter.
People For the American Way Foundation has set up www.SaveTheCourt.org to coordinate a get-the-word-out campaign. We want you - and everyone you know who cares about the environment, workers' rights, family planning rights, public education, civil rights and civil liberties - to join us.
We need a critical mass of patriotic Americans pounding away on what hangs in the balance should a Supreme Court Justice retire - if we are going to Save the Court.
Review our publication - Courting Disaster - to find out what another justice or two like Scalia and Thomas would mean to decades of progressive accomplishments.
See our flash movie highlighting the Right's anticipation of an extremist nominee.
June 15, 2003Go Yawp!
Go, read this - and see if it doesn't make you want to go find a baseball game to sing at!
It pisses me off that my country, my flag and my National Anthem have been kidnapped by a gang of fascist wannabes who think it's their own private property. I've got news for you chicken hawks. I'm taking it back. I started tonight by singing the anthem at the Bells game. I know how to sing that sucker and, by God, I made it mine!
June 04, 2003Can big words lead to small steps?
It looks like there may be some progress coming out of President Bush's recent meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and King Abdullah of Jordan. If the leaders can stick to the statements they've made this week, and find a way to control individuals and groups who may hope to disrupt the process, it may be possible for there to be some movement towards peace. As with any task as difficult and fragile as this, any progress may be small - but any progress would be good.
As to the specific comments, Sharon has pledged to get rid of settlements and outposts that are currently illegally being set up and maintained in Palestinian areas. Abbas, for his part, has renounced the use of terrorism by Palestinians and says that the use of "violence against Israel by Palestinian security forces [is] inconsistent with Palestinians' Islamic faith and the establishment of an independent state they have long sought. In addition, each leader also accepted the principle that each nation - Israel and Palestine - have a right to exist.
Also important to the process, the spokesman for Hamas, Ismail Abu Shanab, appeared on Nightline this week and said that if Israel ends the occupation, "Palestinians are willing to live in peace and stop all kinds of violence".
All of this is, of course, very tentative still. It remains to be seen how effective Sharon is at removing the settlements and outposts from Palestinian territories, and how well Abbas can control both the Palestinian security forces and groups like Hamas. But having each leader recognize that both states have a right to exist, and agreeing to work on what have been some of the more difficult issues involved in the problem is a good start.
May 30, 2003Video games help increase processing of visual information
Another submission from the "It should be obvious" department:
CNN.com - Study: Playing video games not so mindless - May. 29, 2003Gee. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that in action-packed video games, you have lots of information coming at you quickly, and you have to be able to process it fast if you want to keep playing - and get to the higher and more challenging levels?Researchers at the University of Rochester found that young adults who regularly played video games full of high-speed car chases and blazing gun battles showed better visual skills than those who did not. For example, they kept better track of objects appearing simultaneously and processed fast-changing visual information more efficiently.
To rule out the possibility that visually adept people are simply drawn to video games, the researchers conducted a second experiment. They found that people who do not normally play video games but were trained to play them developed enhanced visual perception.
Exactly why video games have this effect is not clear. The researchers said more study is needed.
May 26, 2003America's Einherjar
Today is a day to honour America's Einherjar - the brave men and women who chose the lives of warriors and were called to their ultimate destiny as a result. They are rightly considered heroes.
This should also be a time for reflection - and for making sure that the Einherjar have not had their lives taken by wars that are fought for ill purpose, or are predicated on lies, half-truths, "bad" information or are otherwise decitful. In choosing the life of a warrior, these people are saying they consider the good of the nation to be of higher value than that of their own lives, and they then put their lives into the hands of our government leaders. Those leaders have an obligation to use those lives carefully - not just to "send a message" or prove how tough America is.
Yes, getting rid of Saddam Hussein is a good thing. He was an evil man and he treated his own people horribly. There is no question about this. Yet that isn't why we fought this latest war. As has been noted by many others as well, if getting rid of evil dictators were sufficient justification for war, there are many other who deserve the same treatment, in many countries around the world, yet we aren't going after them. And while we may have succeeded in getting rid of Saddam, as Senator Robert Byrd noted, we have hardly brought the Iraqi's anything resembling "liberation":
What makes me cringe even more is the continued claim that we are "liberators." The facts don't seem to support the label we have so euphemistically attached to ourselves. True, we have unseated a brutal, despicable despot, but "liberation" implies the follow-up of freedom, self-determination and a better life for the common people. In fact, if the situation in Iraq is the result of liberation, we may have set the cause of freedom back 200 years. Despite our high-blown claims of a better life for the Iraqi people, water is scarce and often foul, electricity is a sometime thing, food is in short supply, hospitals are stacked with the wounded and maimed, historic treasures of the region and of the Iraqi people have been looted, and nuclear material may have been disseminated to heaven knows where, while US troops, on orders, looked on and guarded the oil supply. Meanwhile, lucrative contracts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and refurbish its oil industry are awarded to Administration cronies, without benefit of competitive bidding, and the United States steadfastly resists offers of UN assistance to participate. Is there any wonder that the real motives of the US government are the subject of worldwide speculation and mistrust?No, the war in Iraq was fought because we were told Saddam was more than just an evil dictator who treated his own people horribly. We were told he was an immediate threat to the US - that he had thousands of gallons of biological and chemical weapons and was pursuing nuclear weapons as well. It was because of these weapons - and the liklihood Saddam would give them to al-Qeada - that was the justification for killing not only hundreds, if not thousands of Iraqi citizens, but which also took the lives of our soldiers - adding them to the ranks of America's Einherjar.Many in America seem to think that it's no big deal if we never find these weapons or any evidence of their existance. They accuse those who opposed the war - and who still feel the war was wrong - of not being "patriotic" or of not supporting our soldiers. Yet it is their own attitude that dishonours the memory of our Einherjar, by trying to cover up the fact that they died in a war that - when judged by the reasons offered to us prior to the start of the war - has not been shown to have been justified. The weapons that made Saddam such an immediate threat have not yet been found, and unless they are, the lives of those soldiers were sacrified in vain.
What's worse, the Pentagon is now talking about possible "regime change" in Iran, and the same people who told us that there was no question that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction are now telling us "[T]here's no question but that there have been and are today senior al-Qaida leaders in Iran, and they are busy."
The Pentagon has proposed a policy of regime change in Iran, after reports that al-Qaida leaders are coordinating terrorist attacks from Iran.We cannot allow this administration to make more Einherjar without first demanding unquestionable proof that, if al-Qeada are active in Iran, it is with the knowledge and the support of the Iranian government. If our leaders start to make claims about Iran having Saddam's WMD's (which they earlier suggested about Syria), we need to demand evidence that those weapons do exist and that they are, indeed, in Iran - again with the government's knowledge and support. After the debacle in Iraq, we cannot simply take their word for it.But the plan is opposed by the US state department and the British government, officials in Washington said yesterday.
The Pentagon plan would involve overt means, such as anti-government broadcasts transmitted to Iran, and covert means, possibly including support for the Iraq-based armed opposition movement Mojahedin Khalq (MEK), even though it is designated a terrorist group by the state department.
The state department and Britain have objected to the plan, saying that it would backfire, undermining the moderates around President Mohamed Khatami.
On this Memorial Day, let us honour the men and women who are willing to make that great sacrifice for this country by holding our leaders to a higher standard of justification before supporting futher wars (or other military action - regardless of how they choose to term it), and make sure that the war is truly needed, sufficiently warranted, and will not result in a worse life for the people who live in whatever country we target next. We owe them at least that much.
I wonder why....
Gay Teen Killer Film Wins Cannes(Cannes, France) Gay filmmaker Gus Van Sant won the coveted Palme D'Or award Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival for Elephant, a movie about two gay students who go on a shooting rampage at their high school.
The film has chilling similarities to the Columbine massacre. The real Columbine killers were rumored to be lovers but neither the police nor the killers themselves have commented on the speculation.
May 21, 2003Explosion at Yale
There has been an explosion in the mail room of the Yale Law School. AP and NBC are reporting that it is a bomb, but that no one has been hurt, though part of the floor may have collapsed. President Bush has been in that area today, giving a commencement address at the Coast Guard school.
These details are likely to change as news becomes clearer, so don't be surprised if they do, but this is what information is available right now.
UPDATE 4:37pm: Now they are reporting that this is a "suspicious act" rather than definately a bomb, and in a first floor classroom, not the mail room (told you the details would change *g*). I'll update as I learn more - I'm just keeping the entry open so I can enter new information as I hear it. Oh, and the former profiler, Clint van Zant, that MSNBC uses, has already begun mentioning that, in the wake of the anthrax letters last year, there "are always concerns" about biological or chemical aspects of an attack. (Nah, no wild speculating there....)
UPDATE 4:43pm: The New Haven NBC station, WVIT, is running a banner saying that police have confirmed that this is a bomb.
UPDATE 4:50pm: CNN reports that, at this point, it is best to assume that Bush's being in the area (New London) on the same day that Yale was bombed is just a coincidence. They also say it's too soon to presume that it is related in any way to the raising of the threat level. On a side note, they are also reporting that tomorrow, the US Embassy in Oslo, Norway will be closed as a result of a threat made on a tape that the al-Jezeera news channel broadcast.
UPDATE 5:05pm: Links! MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, CBC, and the Google News page with links to many more stories. I probably won't post more on this for a while now - we've gotten the intial reports and are now going to be heading into the "mass confusion" phase of the story, where there will be equal parts speculation and actual reporting, so I'm going to wait for more facts to shake out before posting more.
May 17, 2003Politicians lie? Well, call me surprised!
Actual headline at MSNBC: Politicians lie, new study shows
The article says that this study concludes that not only to politicians lie, but that lying is an "important part of democracy" and "[p]oliticians need to be more honest about lying"
Newey said lying by politicians can occasionally be entirely justified, such as when national security is at risk, and the public even has a “right to be lied to” in cases where they do not expect to be told the whole truth, such as during a war.If the government would realize that the voters have a right to know certain things - maybe not the details of their personal lives, but certainly actions that are relevant to the performance of their jobs or may have an impact on their ability to uphold their duties and obligations to the citizens - maybe we wouldn't have to ask so many questions, no?But the main cause of lying is increased probing by the public into areas that the government would rather not discuss candidly. If voters only asked fewer questions, politicians would tell them fewer lies.
I do understand that, in the interest of national security, there are times when the government must not necessarily tell us the absolute truth. However, I believe those times are few and far between, and do not include matters that may be embarassing to the government, but which do not actually threaten our safety or security in any way, or which may show that the government is corrupt - something I think citizens have an absolute right to be able to find out.
Aside from those rare circumstances where being totally forthright could cause serious problems (such as revealing the whereabouts of troops or troop movements, the timing of an attack or other such military information that rely upon surprise or secrecy for the protection of the troops and effective action), I feel that government should be open and relatively transparent. It is supposed to be government "of the people, by the people and for the people" which means the people are a rather important part of the equation and need to know what's going on in order to make wise choices about who we will elect to govern us.
May 14, 2003Ok, maybe it wasn't exactly a hoax....
This one just keeps getting weirder. First we hear that Microsoft is planning the "iLoo" - a portable toilet featuring an internet connection. Then yesterday, Microsoft said the whole thing was a joke, and they were sorry for any confusion. Now? Well, it seems that it wasn't a joke initially, but after the project became the, uh, butt of so many jokes, Microsoft's USA office cancelled it, and then tried to claim it was a joke. Here's the latest version of this bizarre tale.
Two weeks ago Microsoft's MSN division in the United Kingdom announced plans to equip a portable toilet with a computer, waterproof keyboard, wireless Internet connection, surround-sound speakers and plasma-screen display on the exterior.Anyone want to guess what tomorrow's version will be?The kiosk was to be used at music festivals this summer in England.
In years past the division equipped a park bench and a beach chair with wireless Internet access to encourage people to try MSN services.
Other companies provide digital advertising displays in urinals so the concept wasn't too far-fetched, but it still drew potty jokes such as the one about Microsoft's new Pee-C.
After a few weeks of wisecracks, Microsoft's spokesmen on Monday said the iLoo was a joke.
"I can confirm it was an April Fools' joke," Noury Bernard-Hasan, a director in the public-relations division, told the C-Net news Web site.
Yesterday the company revised its story. Gurry explained to reporters that it was real, and the U.K. group has leeway to do its own projects, but that executives in Redmond decided the iLoo was inappropriate.
"It didn't really map to our global branding objectives," Gurry said.
Suing to be Valedictorian
The latest trend in high schools seems to be suing over who gets to be valedictorian. In this case, it involves a student who was mathematically able to earn a higher weighted GPA because of differences in her course load required by her disability than any other student could possibly have earned. Her school decided to name two other Seniors who had "near-perfect" grades as co-valedictorians, and were sued for $2.7 million as a result.
Blair L. Hornstine, 18, who aspires to be a lawyer, asked a federal judge to prevent the school from declaring valedictorian anyone other than the student with the highest GPA.Something I find very ironic about this case is that the school claimed that it wanted to name the co-valedictorian because of "unfair advantages" the student had due to her disability. Several of the "advantages" she had, however, such as the elimination of physical ed classes and the ability to take some classes at home, were initially instituted in the nation's schools to help "level the playing field" for the disabled students - to take into account their inability to do some of the things other students did and to help ensure that they received both a proper education and a reasonable opportunity to compete, fairly, for such things as being valedictorian. Now, these very same measures - intended to help compensate for the "advantages" non-disabled students supposedly had, are being called "advantages" for a disabled student.Hornstine has the top GPA at Moorestown, her lawyer said in papers filed yesterday in U.S. District Court.
However, the Moorestown Schools superintendent, Paul Kadri, has concluded that other students should be eligible, too, given Hornstine's status as a disabled student, according to court filings.
Kadri said Hornstine, who suffers from an immune deficiency that has limited her class schedule, received an unfair advantage over students who took a regular load of classes at school. Hornstine, for example, was exempt from physical education class, which is weighted less in GPA calculations than regular classes.
The superintendent said two other seniors with near-perfect grades could not have earned high enough weighted grades to surpass Hornstine because they are "subject to the rigorous in-school grading standards employed by certain advanced placement teachers."
That said, I am disappointed that the courts ruled in her favour and awarded her the title of sole valedictorian. Given that the modifications in her schedule allowed her to earn a weighted grade-point-average that was higher than any other student in the class could possibly have done, I feel that the school's initial decision to share the valedictorian status was fair. I also feel that the girl's decision to sue - and request damages of $2.7 million - shows both a lack of maturity and a lack of judgement on her part.
She was accepted by a number of the top schools in the country and has chosen to accept Harvard and their offer of a scholarship - all made available to her prior to her being named either sole valedictorian or shared the honour with others. Obviously, then, her valedictorian status would have no impact on her college career, and it is doubtful that it would have much impact in the future, since by then, she would also have her college and graduate school achievements to validate her academic abilities. As it stands, I find it hard to see what damages her school's initial decision caused, aside from, perhaps, some wounded pride or self-righteous indignation, neither of which requires the use of our court system, nor the payment of cash, to remedy.
Note: None of the articles I located on this case indicated if the student was given any kind of a cash award, and, if she was, how much she received. The $2.7 amount mentioned is what she had sued for.
May 13, 2003"iLoo" is a hoax
I suppose if the concept wasn't suspect enough, at least the name should have been a tip-off. For the last two weeks, stories have been circulating - and jokes have been made - about an announced MicroSoft product called the "iLoo" - a porta-potty with a built-in internet connection. Snopes, however, is reporting that the "iLoo" is - thankfully - a hoax.
The iLoo? A portable toilet complete with wireless keyboard, plasma screen, and URL-imprinted toilet paper? Plus additional "Hotmail stations" so people queueing up for the toilet can "do something useful"? If the announcements touting Microsoft's supposed latest innovation in consumer computing convenience had been issued on April 1 everyone (presumably) would have spotted them for a gag, but since they were issued on April 30 everyone from The Wall Street Journal to the Associated Press fell for the joke hook, line, and sinker. After the gullible were left twisting in the wind for a few weeks, Microsoft finally let them off the hook and announced the iLoo was a hoax perpetrated by one of the company's British divisions:Microsoft Corp. said a company news release that it was developing a portable toilet with Internet access, called an "iLoo," was a hoax perpetrated by its British division."This iLoo release came out of the UK office and was not a Microsoft sanctioned communication and we apologize for any confusion or offense it may have caused," Microsoft spokeswoman Bridgitt Arnold said late Monday.
May 12, 2003The Kentucky Derby photos
Photos of the Kentucky Derby winning jockey, Jose Santos, who rode 12-to-1 longshot Funny Cide, are raising questions about whether he may have had an "illegal object" (such as an electronic device that can be used to shock a horse making it run faster) in his hand during the race.
This isn't a story that I really have much to say about, but after reading about the controversy, I was curious to see the pictures for myself, and it took me a bit to track them down. I figured I'd go ahead and post the links I eventually found so if anyone else is curious, they can see the pictures, too. The full photo (along with an article on the possiblity of an investigation) is available here. The Miami Herald also has an interesting side-by-side close up of two pictures - the one in question, and one taken by an Associated Press photographer at almost the exact same moment, but from a slightly diffrerent angle.
April 27, 2003Something smells a bit funny, here...
Some school children in Illinois have been served food contaminated with ammonia according to state records, after education officials failed to notify schools that the food had been tainted.
Dozens of children were sickened.How, exactly, something like this happened is a bit unclear. What is known is that a USDA inspector was aware of the leak around the time it occured, and the warehouse was put under quarentine, yet, according to Missouri and St. Louis officials, the USDA ignored the quarentine and allowed Gateway to ship the food to schools. Education officials suspected that 3,800 cases of contaminated food was shipped, according to documents the Chicago Tribune (which initially reported thestory) had access to.The food was contaminated when a ruptured pipe leaked 90 pounds of ammonia refrigerant at Gateway Cold Storage in St. Louis on Nov. 18, 2001.
The results were at least somewhat predictable:
Nearly a year after the leak, 42 children at Laraway Elementary School in Joliet were rushed to a hospital after eating chicken tenders from the warehouse that state health officials said contained up to 133 times the accepted level of ammonia.Now, to me, the obvious question is "Why wasn't the contaminated food destroyed upon discovery of the problem?" Apparently, the food was kept while St. Louis health officials tried to find a way to "treat and "salvage" it. I don't know about anyone else, but if it were my kids, I would not want them eating food that had been contaminated and "salvaged". I realize that destroying and replacing the food would have cost a fair amount, but the inevitable lawsuits that will be resulting from this malfeasance are going to cost a lot more.One of our national mantras has long been that we must do things "for the good of the children" or "to protect the children". Senator Rick Santorum has tried to justify his belief that there should be no right to privacy and that the government should be able to regulate private, sexual behaviour between consenting adults because some behaviours are detrimental to "healthy, stable families" and happy, stable families are necessary for the good of, you guessed it, the children. Yet the USDA and Illinois Board of Education couldn't be bothered to tell schools that they were receiving food contaminated with ammonia or, better yet, stop the food from being distributed - knowing that children would be eating it? The anecdotal "Adam and Steve" giving each other blow jobs in the privacy of their own bedroom are too dangerous to children for their actions to be legal, but it's ok for them to eat food that's been tainted with ammonia? I'm sorry, but I just can't follow that logic.*
The Illinois Board of Education, the USDA and the FDA are all investigating, and the Will County state's attorney's office is bringing the situation before a grand jury. This is all well and good, but given that the USDA and the Illinois Board of Education both apparently knew about the problem and did nothing, I'm not quite sure what their investigations are likely to show, and the fact that it happened at all is simply inexcusable.
As the mother of one of the girls who was sickened by the food said: "How could they care so little about the kids that they would just look the other way and serve them any old food?"
*For the record, I don't believe that private sexual behaviour, reading material or other entertainment choices and so on, should be regulated "for the good of the children". I think kids can - and should - be protected from inappropriate material by their parents, without having to deny all adults access to it. My point, though, is that it makes no sense to me that, if we're not going to worry enough about the health and well-being of kids to do something as basic as avoiding serving them contaminated food in the schools, then how on earth does anyone get off trying to justify restricting adult behaviour "for the good of the children"?
April 26, 2003File-sharing companies not liable for illegal use by customers
Two file-sharing networks, under fire from the music and movie industries, received a favourable ruling from a federal judge today, saying that they are not liable for the illegal use of their software by their customers.
The 34-page ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson was a blow to recording companies and movie studios that had sought to stem the illegal copying and distribution of their copyright works.Basically, the judge ruled that there was no evidence that either Grokster or StreamCast (the distributors of Morpheus) could "supervise and control" the use of their services by their customers. The difference between these file-sharing services and Napsters is that Napster maintained directories of files available through its software on their own servers, which theoretically gave them a much greater abililty to control and filter what was allowed to pass through.[...] In his ruling, Wilson cited the movie industry's efforts to hold Sony liable for video cassette recorders that can be used to make illegal copies of copyright works.
Obviously, the ruling will be appealled, but based on the precedent from the Sony VCR case, my guess is that it could well be upheld.
April 25, 2003The world as a blog
When you have a few minutes -- or a few hours - be sure to stop by the Geoblog, a very interesting use of the Weblogs.com recently updated list.
This site features a map of the world, and as posts are made to blogs around the world, Geoblog grabs the information from Weblogs.com, snatches up a short excerpt from the newest entry and shows that to you, along with where the post is being made. It's not quite in real time - the author estimates, though, that the posting to the Geoblog is made within 1 to 3 minutes of the blog being updated.
It's quite fascinating, really.
April 24, 2003Lawsuit: Singer to "impaired" to perform
Creed, a band mostly known for their near-interchangable songs and status as "maybe Christian" band has been hit with a lawsuit alleging that Scott Stapp, the lead singer, was "so intoxicated and/or medicated that he was unable to sing the lyrics of a single Creed song.
Four fans of the rock group Creed filed a suit Monday demanding their money back for a Dec. 29 concert at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont at which, they claim, the band's singer was too drug-addled to remember his own songs.The plaintiffs are request class-action status on behalf of all who attended the concert that evening and have said that Stapp "left the stage on several occasions during several songs for long periods of time, rolled around on the floor of the stage in apparent pain or distress, and appeared to pass out on stage during the performance."Now, for a rock performer to be stoned, drunk or otherwise "altered" on-stage is nothing unusual, but I'm not aware of any circumstances in which fans have been able to get their money back for a sub-par performance. Of course, with the way ticket prices have escelated over the years, there's a lot more money at stake now if the show ends up being poorly done. According to the suit, the four concertgoes had spent $227 total in tickets, service fees and parking. That's roughly $54 per person - not a cheap evening out.
What will be most interesting, however, is the impact this suit has among Creed's many Christian fans. The suit itself alleges that Stapp has a known drug or alcohol dependency that the other band members and their management company were aware of, yet the band has been hailed by many a good band for Christian teens. Even the "Focus on the Family" publication "Breakaway" has written about them. The article notes that Creed does not claim to be a Christian band and that they describe themselves more as asking questions and searching for the answers they don't have. It also says, however, that "Creed is by far the best option in a dark musical genre".
I don't know if the plaintiffs in this suit have any kind of a realistic chance of prevailing in this suit, but I have to say I really feel for them. I've been to over 50 concerts in my life, and know how angry I'd be if, after the usual mad scramble and hours waiting in line to get decent tickets, unbelievable ticket prices, trying to find a place to park that's reasonably near the venue and everything else that goes into just getting to the concert, the band or artist I was there to see couldn't perform their own songs because he was just a bit to wasted - regardless of what he might have been wasted on. Good luck, guys!
April 23, 2003Friendly neighborhood public service announcement - W32/Coronex-A worm
Just as an FYI: There's a new computer worm on the prowl that takes advantage of concerns about SARS to get people to open e-mail attachments, thus infecting their system. As always, the best rule of thumb is to not open e-mail attachments, even if you think you know who it's from.
Anyway, here are the details, courtesy of the Sidney Morning Herald.
Anti-virus software maker Sophos has issued a warning about a new computer worm that takes advantage of the worldwide concern over the virus causing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).Additional information available at the link above.
The mass-mailing worm, which has been named W32/Coronex-A, sends itself to all contacts in Outlook address books and attempts to dupe innocent computer users into opening an attachment offering details on the current SARS epidemic.The worm uses different subject lines, message bodies and attachment names to try and lure users into opening the attachments, including: "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome", "SARS Virus" and Hongkong.exe
Paul Ducklin, head of technology for Sophos in the Asia-Pacific, said the worm had no destructive payload. "The first time the worm is run, it shows a message with the text "SARS Virus, corona virus", and then copies itself to the Windows folder as Corona.exe. It then creates a registry entry so that corona.exe is run automatically each time Windows is started," he said.
"Every time it runs, it sends mail to everybody in your Outlook address book."
Virtual march for VA support
From the Watch:
Support The Troops, Fund The VA A Virtual MarchYou can also get information on how to reach your Congressional representative by scrolling down a ways and looking for the "Contact Congress" form on my sidebar. Just plug in your zip code and it will take you to their contact information.Having gotten a lot of enthusiastic response to a suggestion to hold a virtual march in favor of supporting our troops via educational and health care funding, we're going to go ahead and work on getting the word out.
Steven Charest of To The Barricades made the very good suggestion that instead of doing it on May 1st, we do it on Memorial Day. This year, Memorial Day falls on Monday, May 26th. But having a suspicion that our legislators don't want to work on Memorial Day weekend anymore than most the rest of us, I called the Capitol switchboard, and it turns out that government offices will be closed that day. And for the remainder of the week, congress will be out of session.
But they'll be there the week before that, so I propose Thursday, May 22nd. This will give stragglers enough time to get their calls in before the weekend, and still sends the message.
What you can do: If you know anyone at Move On, Win Without War, or whatever your local flavor of peace organizer goes by, get in touch with them. Ask them to spread the word about this to their membership. Also, get the word out to people you know, your friends, anyone you can find. Include the number to the Capitol switchboard with any announcements, and the numbers for your area representatives if you want to target the message to a particular location.
Tell everybody. Tell them if they can't get through the first day, try back the next.
Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
For local numbers, you can look them up at Congress.org. You can always call local offices when the main DC numbers are busy.
April 20, 2003SARS underreported in China
Secular Blasphemy notes that after the president of China demanded that health officials release accurate information on how much SARS has been affecting the nation, the official number of cases in Bejing alone has jumped from 37 to 334.
According to CNN, the Health Minister and Mayor of Bejing have both been fired as well.
April 18, 2003Probable cause for Shuttle Columbia explosion identified
ABC News is reporting that investigators are almost certain that the Shuttle Columbia was doomed at takeoff when a piece of the foam from the external fuel tank struck the orbiter.
The evidence comes from an old magnetic tape recorder that is part of the Orbiter Experiment Support System, sources said.
It shows an unusual temperature increase in a key sensor just behind the leading edge of the left wing near the spot where foam that fell from the shuttle's external fuel tank is suspected of striking the shuttle, just 81 seconds into the flight.
The temperature spike happens within the next 40 seconds. Usually during this phase of flight, the temperature would be decreasing or holding steady, sources said.
"All the evidence is pointing there," a knowledgeable source told ABCNEWS. "It's kind of like the lady in California. Everybody knows it's her, but they just can't officially say it yet." The data comes from a temperature sensor behind the front spar of the left wing near a shuttle's protective thermal panels known as reinforced carbon carbon panels, or RCC. These panels are supposed to protect the shuttle from the heat of re-entry.
April 16, 2003SARS virus found
Scientists have confirmed the identity of the virus that causes the lethal new disease known as severe acute respiratory syndrome, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, marking an important step toward developing new drugs to combat the disease.
In experiments conducted at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands, scientists infected monkeys with the coronavirus suspected of causing of SARS and found that the animals developed the same symptoms of the disease that humans do.
The test was a crucial step in verifying the cause of the disease, which so far has killed 161 people worldwide, mostly in China and Hong Kong, and made 3,293 people ill in 22 countries.
I'm impressed with how quickly the world's medical community has jumped on this disease and found the virus that is causing it. This kind of quick action can save many lives, by being able to develop tests and treatments to deal with the illness.
Yet, I can't help but think about how the response to SARS has differed so much from the initial response to AIDS. Even after AIDS had killed 150 people and made 3,500 ill, the scientific response - and the funding necessary to mount a scientific response - was severly lacking. My hope is that SARS was just an easier nut to crack, which is likely, since it is a varient of a fairly well-known virus, and not that it got more attention since it's victim profile includes nearly everyone and not just primarily a group of people who - unfarily and wrongly - are often disliked and subjected to any number of forms of discrimination.
Maybe science - and those who hold the scientific pursestrings - have realized that not jumping on a new, contagious disease is dangerous and foolish, and so have been willing to pursue it more aggressively. Similar effort can be seen in the work being done to find ways to stop the spread of the West Nile virus as well.
Still, it's sad to look back on the start of the AIDS epidemic and wonder how many lives could have been spared if doctors, scientists and governments had jumped on solving that mystery with the same fervour that is being shown now with SARS and West Nile. I hope that the lesson's been learned and that what we're seeing now is the result of the realization that diseases need to be addressed on more than just the popularity of the victim profile.
April 13, 2003'I don't know all of the answers but I refuse to be quiet anymore'
I think Rebecca at Suddenly Routine has one of the best explainations yet for having started a blog - and I have a feeling that, at it's root, its not that different than the reasons many bloggers took the plunge.
April 09, 2003Taking an artistic break
Both CalPundit and Atrios today have blurbs about an oratorio by Richard Einhorn called "Voices of Light". I must join them in offering the piece my highest recommendation. My husband picked it up on a lark a couple years ago and it was love at first listen. It is one of the most impassioned works I've heard in quite a long time, and I feel very lucky to have discovered this gem.
The music was inspired by Dreyers "The Passion of Joan of Arc", a movie with a history which is almost as fascinating as the movie itself. Below is a summary of that history, paraphrased from the liner notes of "Voices of Light":
"The Passion of Joan of Arc" was made in 1928 by Carl Theodoral Dreyer. The movie itself has an interesting history. The script was taken, mostly, from the actual transcripts of Joan's trial - though the action was compressed from several months into a single day for dramatic purposes. The Catholic Church censored the film somewhat prior to its release, but it was still hailed as one of the greatest films of the day, and Maria Falconetti, the lead actress, gives what is still considered one of the most extraordinary performances ever filmed.
Shortly after the film's premiere, a fire destroyed the negative and virtually all prints of the movie. Dreyer ended up reconstructing the entire film from outtakes that were left over from the original filming and had survived the fire. Sadly, this second print was also destroyed in a fire. Rather than making a third print, Dryer gave up and moved on his next project.
Over the next several decades, various prints of the film that had not been destroyed by the fires, but were these were highly corrupt versions of the movie. Another copy, though it was clear which version it was, was found in the vaults of Cinémathèque Française. Then, in the fourties and fifties, a version of "Passion" was put together by the French historian, Lo Duca. It is thought he may have used prints of the various versions then in circulation. He added a Baroque score to the film. Dryer was so displeased with this version of his film that he completely disowned it.
Amazingly, in 1981, in the back of a closet at a Norweigan mental institution, several film cans that has been shipped to the Norweigan Film Institute were discovered, including what was determined to be a print of the original 1928 masterpiece, with Danish intertitles (the screens of text between scenes used during the silent area in place of spoken dialogue).
In 1988, composer Richard Einhorn, who had been thinking of writing a work about Joan of Arc, came across the film in the New York Museum of Modern Art. He had never heard of the film or the director, but says that when he finished watching "Passion", he "walked out of the screening room, shattered, having unexpectedly seen one of the most extraordinary works of art that [he] knew".
Inspired, he wrote "Voices of Light", one of the most stunning works of music I have ever heard. Its not something I can easily describe. It was written to go with the film, but also to stand alone. The lyrics are taken from the writings of female medieval mystics, including Joan herself.
The Criterion Collection has put together a DVD containing both "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (with English intertitles) as well as "Voices of Light". One thing that is nice about the DVD is that you can watch it with no background sound, the way it was originally created, or with "Voices of Light" as a soundtrack. The music works incredibly well as a soundtrack, and has the combination has been known to bring me to tears.
April 08, 2003Required reading for the day
No comment on this - none is needed. Just go read Paul Krugman today - he does an excellent job discussing what real patriotism (as opposed to the neocon version), and why we need more of it. An excerpt:
The biggest test of a politician's patriotism is whether he is willing to sacrifice some of his political agenda for the sake of the nation. And that's a test our current leaders have failed with flying colors.
Consider the case of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, who also piled on Mr. Kerry last week. As it happens, during the war in Kosovo Mr. DeLay was a defeatist, and blamed his own country for provoking Serbian atrocities; any Democrat who said similar things now would be accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
Mr. DeLay's political agenda hasn't shifted a bit now that we're at war again. He's still pushing for huge, divisive tax cuts that go mainly to the rich: "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes," he says. And he's still eager to slash any and all domestic spending. In the midst of war he pushed through a budget that included sharp cuts in, yes, veterans' benefits.
'Ignorance and prejudice and fear go hand in hand'
Witch Hunt
Lyrics by Neal Peart
Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson
From the 1981 album Moving Pictures
The night is black, without a moon.
The air is thick and still.
The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torchlit hill.
Features distorted in the flickering light,
Faces are twisted and grotesque.
Silent and stern in the sweltering night,
The mob moves like demons possesed.
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right,
Confident their ways are best.
The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will.
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill.
They say there are strangers who threaten us,
Our immigrants and infidels.
They say there is strangeness to danger us
In our theatres and bookstore shelves,
That those who know what's best for us
Must rise and save us from ourselves.
Quick to judge,
Quick to anger,
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand.
I first heard this song 22 years ago. At the time, I remember thinking that - from what I could tell anyway - things weren't at all like the song made it sound. I figured that Neal Peart (Rush's lyricist) must have been looking back on the 50's and the blacklisting, or something of that nature. I couldn't really imagine people holding the kind of attitudes the song portrays.
Over the years, though, I've seen the song become more and more relavent - more reflective of what's happening in the world, to the extent that on most sites that ask for a "favourite quote" or something of that nature, I almost always cite the last line of the song - "Ignorance and prejudice and fear go hand in had". (Yes, I have a bad habit of quoting Rush [the band, not the idiot] on a somewhat regular basis. Most Rush fans do *g*)
While it may well be that part of why I see it as more relavent now than I did when I was younger has to do with my own move from trying to fit into the mainstream - where it's sometimes hard to see what's really going on - to standing on the sidelines, looking in (and being quite content to stay there), when I read about the threats of violence against protestors, things like the USA PATRIOT act and PATRIOT II, Total Information Awareness, bigotry against Muslims, people of Middle Eastern origin (or who just look like they might be), French people (or anything with French in the name) and the lengths some are willing to go to try and silence dissent, I realize that this is a song that, sadly, will never be out of date.
April 05, 2003Violent 'solutions'
I just finished reading through all of the comment currently posted at Eschaton regarding the "baths for baptisms" chaplain, and I noticed something I found very disturbing.
Many of the comments suggested actions along the line of saying the chaplain should be sent home as soon as possible 'in a shipping container' or that he should be shot and other, similar violent actions.
In the last week, we've seen a number of posts both here and at other blogs decrying the use of violent images and language by the pro-war crowd and aimed at the anti-war advocates. A prime example is the outrage over Richard Condon's comment that anti-war protestors deserve a bullet to the head.
While I am completely outraged over this chaplains actions and insensitivity to his fellow soldiers and their individual spiritual needs, it is just as wrong for any of us to suggest he should be beaten, shot or otherwise sujected to violence for what he is doing as we say it is for the pro-war forces to engage in offering violent "solutions" to their problems with us. We can't expect them to play by rules we aren't willing to follow ourselves - no matter how good saying "he should be shot" feels when we're filled with anger at what he's doing.
April 02, 2003Supreme Court ruling on HMOs
In a blow to the managed health care industry, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously yesterday that states have a right to force health maintenance organizations and other health care networks to open themselves to all doctors, hospitals and other providers who agree to abide by their terms.
The ruling upholding Kentucky's so-called any willing provider (AWP) law struck directly at the economic linchpin of HMOs, which attempt to hold down health-care costs by creating limited networks of providers that are willing to accept lower fees in return for a higher volume of business generated by HMOs. [Washington Post]
Had a law like this been in effect a few years back, it could have saved a friend of mine a great deal of pain, frustration and money. At the time, he needed surgery to correct a problem from an operation he'd had a few years previous, before he had to switch his insurance to an HMO plan. The surgery, however, wasn't exactly routine, and both he and the HMO's doctor felt it would be better for him if the surgeon who did the original surgery did the new one as well. The original doctor agreed, and told the HMO that he'd be willing to accept the same payment that they would give their own doctor, so it wouldn't cost them any more. The HMO refused.
Now, I suppose that what happened next could have happened anyway, but the original surgeon is a known for being more than a bit fanatical about sterilization, so it seems it would have been at least somewhat less than likely. The HMO's doctor went ahead and did the surgery, but my friend developed an infection - one that wasn't at all easy to treat. The procedures required to treat the infection made it impossible for my friend to work, and he wound up losing his job. He was able to keep his insurance through the COBRA plan, but it cost a lot more, and he no longer was able to get any benefits from the short-term disability plan his job had provided him. He had to have more surgical procedures to help clean up the infection, and the original surgery had to be redone for a third time before the ordeal was over. In total, it took over a year before he'd recovered enough to be able to go back to work, at which point, of course, he had to find a new job.
Oh, and by the time he had to have the original surgery done that third time, the HMO decided that maybe it reall was best to let the original surgeon do it. It went off without a hitch.
I know that HMO's gain a financial benefit from being able to work with specific doctors on a regular basis, and that HMO's exist to make money. Yet it seems to me to be simple common sense that if a doctor outside the system is willing to provide care for a patient without it costing the HMO anything more than it would for one of their regular doctors to do it, then there should be no reason not to allow them to do so. Not only does it not cost the HMO anything extra, but it makes the patient happier, and a happy customers is usually considered to be a good thing by most businesses, no?
The lighter side of things - Blogshares
There's a new "virtual stock market" that's been opened for - yes, blogs! It's called "Blogshares" and is actually a lot of fun.
It works on the same kind of a concept as the "Hollywood Stock Exchange" in that you're given a certain allotment of "virtual" cash (it has no real value, but it doesn't cost you anything, either), and you can use that to buy "shares" in different blogs. The overall value of a blog is determined by who all links to it, and each blog's outlink (from your blogroll or links included in posts) has it's own value. For example, a link from a site that generates a great deal of traffic, such as Popdex or Movable Type, is going to have a high value, because it helps bring each blog it's linked to a fair amount of referral hits.
So far, Blogshares already has listings for many blogs. If yours is listed there, you can claim ownership of it (by posting a small graphic link on your blog, which Blogshares then checks for to verify that you do own the blog), and get 1000 shares in your own blog to help you build your capital. Also, since the number of shares available in any given blog is limited to 5000, scarcity can help make a blog's shares more valuable in the long run.
At any rate, Blogshares is a lot of fun - and right now, I think we can all use a bit of amusement in our lives, no? Check it out and see if you're listed there already! :)
April 01, 2003Presidential criticism
Found on Ornicus' site - an excellent quote from Theodore Roosevelt that should be taught in all American History or political science classes. A shortened version of this has been floating around for a while now, but this longer excerpt from the essay offers a better view of what he is saying:
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
"Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star", 149
May 7, 1918
So maybe he's not the devil incarnate, afterall....
Bill and Melinda Gates' medical foundation has awarded a $60 million grant to the International Partnership for Microbicides to help in the development of microbicides - cremes, gels, films, sponges and other topically-applied products - which may be useful in not only helping slow the spread of HIV, but also in giving women a product that they can use to protect themselves from HIV transmission.
Women are at greater risk for HIV infection than men, said Helene Gayle, director of HIV, TB and Reproductive Health for the Gates Foundation.
There are also social and economic reasons, such as whether a man uses a condom and the low availability of female condoms, for finding ways that women can protect themselves, she said.
"The imperative to find something that women can use to protect themselves from HIV is clear and urgent," Gayle said. "The only technology we have is a male-controlled technology -- a condom."
The foundation found little interest among major pharmaceutical companies because of the absence of a clear moneymaking potential for microbial products, she said.
March 26, 2003Light echos in space
And through it all, the Universe just keeps chugging along:
From ABC Online (Australia) - Light echoes through space: this sequence from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the January 2002 eruption of V838 Monocerotis reverberating through dust clouds - in May (top), September (middle), and December 2002 (bottom). At the centre is the expanding red supergiant (Pics: NASA/ESA/STScI)
March 25, 2003On anniversaries
I noticed that Jan from Secular Blasphemy ihs celebrating is 6 month anniversary - CONGRATULATIONS! You've been doing a great job, and while we don't always agree on everything, I find your posts to be illuminating.
When I saw his post about his 6 month anniversary, I realized that I had missed my own 6 month mark (can you say "overfocused"? I knew you could!) on March 17th. I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who have visited this site, who read it regularly, and who have given me so much encouragement in working on it. Even if you haven't left comments, just by turning up in the hit counter, you've helped me keep going, and I am deeply grateful. Being homebound and cut off from so much of the world, the response to 'different strings' helps me feel "useful", and you have no idea how much that means. So thank you all, and I hope you'll continue to find reasons to stop by here on your travels in cyberspace.
Kriselda
March 20, 2003Sending prescription samples
See, this is just wrong (Item 47):
In an apparent move to depress them further, about 300 Florida residents with a history of depression open their mailboxes to find free samples of Eli Lilly's new product, Prozac Weekly, along with a letter that enthuses, "We are very excited to be able to offer you a more convenient way to take your antidepressant medication." A class-action suit filed in July accuses Eli Lilly, Walgreens a local hospital, and five doctors of violating the patients' right to privacy.
First off, mailing prescription medicine is just plain stupid. There are usually good, medical reasons why certain drugs are sold only by prescritption (though, admittedly, there are also skanky, financial reasons for some companies wanting to keep their drugs available by prescription only, since they usually can sell them for a great deal more than they can over-the-counter). Some drugs can be dangerous if taken incorrectly or by people who don't have the condition they are supposed to treat. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) antidepressants, such a Prozac, are among those. Taking too much Prozac (or other SSRI), or taking it unnecessarily, can lead to serotonin syndrome, which can cause such symptoms as fever, tremor, seizure, coma and death.
Yes, many pharmacies deliver drugs by mail every day, and yes, there is always the risk of people coming along and stealing shipments. In my own experience (I use a mail-order pharmacy because my insurance gives me a huge break on the cost if I do), the shipments are packaged in such a way that it's not obvious they are drugs, and when they are delivered, they're generally put between the screen and front doors, and are hidden by the metal base of the screen door. If other mail-order pharmacies work the same way, it reduces the risk of people stealing the drugs. In addition, a person who had ordered drugs from a pharmacy knows that they're expecting the shipment, so if they don't show up, it can be reported.
With unsolicited samples, however, there's a greater risk -- no one knows they're coming, so no one will miss them if they don't show up. Plus, the boxes are likely to be emblazoned with the the product's name. Even though Prozac isn't one of those drugs that tends to be used "recreationally", It's likely to be of value to someone. Not a brilliant move by any stretch of the imagination.
But that, of course, isn't the main issue. The real issue here is that Eli Lilly sought out and got the names and addresses of people who take Prozac so that they could try to sell them on a different form of the drug. Why would they want to change people over from "regular" Prozac to a "weekly" version? Well, the fact that the initial patent on Prozac has run out probably has something to do with it.
Fluoxetine, the active ingredient in Prozac, is now available as a generic drug, meaning Eli Lilly stands to lose a large portion of the fluoxetine market. To help combat this, they have, in recent years, introduced Sarafem, a much-advertised drug that is nothing more than Prozac, under a new name, and used to treat "pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder" (PMDD). By advertising and promoting it under a new name, Lilly has a chance to keep selling Prozac at a higher price, since many consumers may not realize that it's the same thing as Prozac, Lilly is counting on them to insist to their doctors that they want Sarafem, not fluoxetine. (This, by the way, is pretty much the whole concept behind advertising prescription drugs - to get patients to request specific drugs from the doctor and insist on them, even if the doctor feels a different medication or generic form of the drug would be just as good, if not better, for that particular patient).
Prozac Weekly is another way Eli Lilly is trying to keep making as much money as possible off of fluoxetine. It's the same medication, but processed in such a way that you only have to take one pill a week, and it will be released gradually into your system. Now, for my own part, the idea of swallowing something that would stay in my system for 7 days is a bit creepy, but that's just me. But may patients might see this as convenient and want their doctors to prescribe to it for them, and Eli Lilly wants to reach as many of these patients as possible. What do they do? They get the names and addresses of Prozac-takers from doctors, pharmacies and hospitals and mail it to them!
What business, exactly, do the doctors, hospitals and pharmacies that sold Lilly the names and addresses of their patients and customers, have doing such a thing. Pharmacies, I can understand somewhat better - I'm not aware of any legal concept of "pharmacist-customer privilege", so they are not forbidden to sell that information (though, in my opinion, they should be). But doctors and hospitals? They're not supposed to be doing that - and telling someone what medicine you're taking should be a clear violation of your rights to have your medical information kept confidential.
I know that if I received a "free sample" of any of the medications I take, I would furious. I may talk freely about my medical issues, but that's my choice. It's not up to anyone else to give that information out - and I hope that the jury in this case decides to make it clear to the medical and pharmaceutical industries that seeking out or providing such information is inappropriate, and a stupid business decisions.
March 19, 2003Senate rejects ANWR drilling
Good news out of Washington today:
WASHINGTON, March 19 — By a 52-to-48 vote, the Senate on Tuesday defeated an attempt to open part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. With war looming in Iraq, proponents of drilling, most of them Republicans, had focused on energy security as they tried to lift a congressional ban on drilling in the refuge.
In the end, lobbying by Vice President Dick Cheney and others were unable to persuade two key Republicans, Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, to support drilling on in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The United States could save more oil than the refuge will produce “by just getting the SUVs to have the same fuel economy as autos,” Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., argued Tuesday night.
Oscar updates
It looks like the Oscar's won't be quite as "repressive" as had been previously reported. While I still feel that the Academy has the right to set whatever ground rules they want, and to invite whomever they feel is best to appear on the show, I'm really glad to see that they're not going to pressure the winners to avoid making political statements, and may be including noted anti-war activists as presenters.
Oscar Winners Can Have Their War Talk
Oscar producer Gil Cates has given this year's Academy Awards winners carte blanche to have their say about America's war with Iraq - but he's urging presenters to stick to the script. Faced with anti-war activists like Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon as presenters, Cates is hoping they remember they're movie stars on Oscar night, but he feels winners have the right to say what they want - in 45 seconds. At a press conference in Hollywood late yesterday, the producer said, "People who will present have received their scripts it would be inappropriate for them to make changes. But those who have been nominated when they take to the stage that's their 45 seconds and there's nothing we can do to stop them from saying what they want to say." His comments come after speculation about a new Hollywood blacklist, on which celebrities speaking out against the war are placed.
The producers have also decided to cut back a bit on the glitz and "razzmatazz" that usually acompanies the ceremony, doing away with the bleacher seats where fans can watch the stars arrive, as well as the red-carpet star arrivals in general. This is being done, the producers say, as a mark of respect for our troops. I'm not exactly sure how not having the stars show off their outfits and talk to reporters on their way into the theater shows respect for our troops exactly, but there are a lot of things Hollywood does that I can't quite figure out, so that's not much of a surprise really.
March 17, 2003Go. Read. NOW!
Don't miss this weeks Virtual Occoquan! Read the best of the Salon Blogs all in one handy space... and thanks again to Mark Hoback for all his hard work in putting VO together each week :)
Battle for Evil
Earlier this evening, my husband found a poem he had written several years ago... it still seems somewhat appropriate. While there's no denying that Saddam Hussein is an evil man, it doesn't necessary follow that anyone who opposes him is automatically on the side of good. Here is his poem, "Battle for Evil", and his comments on the situation and finding the poem again.
Earlier this evening, I was reflecting on the political climate today, and the impending war with Iraq. I couldn't help wondering how the events of America's history wound up leading up to this point, and whether or not Karma had some role to play in our electing someone so hell bent on forsaking peace in favor of starting a war. Admittedly, I've been trying to distance myself, as much as possible, from the issue, either by surfing the net, watching TV (avoiding the networks), or playing hours upon hours of Dark Age of Camelot. I'm not so much trying to pretend reality doesn't exist right now, but I feel a desire to try and pretend that it's better.
Tonight, the writer in me was feeling inclined to relieve some of the stress I've been feeling by putting my emotions on paper. Unfortunately, I'm still too taken aback by everything to even conceive of the words that would adequately describe just what it is that I am feeling. As luck would have it, I just happened to have found a folder on my hard drive that contains every poem I've ever written. One poem, Battle For Evil, though written as a period piece, sadly draws a very poignant parallel between what I'd invisioned when I wrote it, and what we could face in the next few days. I'd like to share it with you now...
Battle For Evil
By Matt Hutchinson
Knights in armor
Clothed in black
Blades glaring
In the moonlit night
Riding on mighty steeds
Eyes full of anger
Conquest in their faces
Ready for the fight
The ground is solid
Grass trampled, life lost
The sound of men
Drowning out the innocence
Of nature
Animals confused
Wondering what has invaded
Their home
Fog provides a curtain
For the soldiers which come tonight
To fight the battle
The battle for evil
The sound of trumpets
Echoes through the air
The battle begins
And all is lost
Forest crumbled
Trees afire
Smoke rises
Carrying the souls of the dead
To the night sky above
Was it worth it?
To fight the battle?
The battle for evil?
March 14, 2003
March 11, 2003
March 02, 2003...and now for something completely different...
If you've been curious about how the "Flash Mind Reader" trick works, Snopes has the answer here.
If you're not familiar with Snopes, it is one of - if not the - best sites on the web for finding out the truth behind all those e-mails that seem to circulate forever. You know the ones - lists of "amazing but true" facts (that may not be true after all), promises that if you forward a message to "x" number of people you'll get something free, petitions, "news" stories, the infamous "friend of a friend" stories, and general urban legends. I cannot recommend this site too highly!
March 01, 2003The Memos of Doom
It become a regular part of the American Tragedy Ritual. Something horrific happens, and investigators swear they will get to the bottom of it. We are told that the incident could not have been forseen nor could it likely have been prevented. The nation mourns, and then it begins. We begin to hear first rumours that there was concern about 'just this sort of thing' happening, followed by the release of memos or other evidence showing just what those concerns were.
The Shuttle Columbia disaster is no different. The investigation has begun, and the memos of doom are being released. The Smoking Gun has posted copies of four of the memos so far, some of which seem fairly prescient given how things worked out.
Some select quotes:
- Any more activity today on the tile damage or are people just relegated to crossing their fingers and hoping for the best? - Robert Daugherty, engineer, to veteran NASA controller Carlisle Campbell
- These are all some interesting questions that some smart people in the engineering community could go investigate if they have not already. Here's my take on it from an operations perspective.
[...] If there was hot plasma sneaking into the wheel wells, we woudl see increases in our landing ger [sic] temperatures and likely our tire pressures. If we actually saw our instrumentation in the wheel wells disappear during entry then I suspect that the gear will not deploy anyway because the wires that control the pyros and all the hydraulic valves would burn up too. Ultimately our (MMACS)recommendation in that case is going to be to set up for a bailout (assuming the wing doesn't burn off before we can get the crew out). The rest of the cases are great big what-ifs. [...] - Jeffery Kling, controller, to several people (recipient list is on the copy of the e-mail at the site)
- First, why are we talking about this on the day before landing, and not the day after launch? [...] Anyway, if there were evidence on this flight that we were missing tiles/RCC, I might be worried.
[...] If you lost all the hydraulics, you won't have to worry about whether to deploy the gear, or ditch, etc. Bailout is your only option (probably won't even be able to do that). [...] - William Anderson, in response to Jeffery Kling's message (above)
As Anderson notes, a bailout probably would have been possible - especially given the additional evidence that parts of the shuttle were falling off before they began noticing the odd readings in the wheel well, and then lost telemetry from the instruments located there. Still, there's something disturbing in memos like these - especially when you can see parallels between what the technicians were hypothesizing and what we, the public, knows at this point about what happened.
They say that hindsight is always 20/20, and it is much easier to look at these memos now and find the passages that fit the events than it is to look at them before anything happens and know what, if anything, is of serious concern - but I hope that at some point - and sooner, rather than later - those who are entrusted with our safety and the safety of those who are risking their lives in the service of this country will be able to better determine what kinds of warnings need to be heeded, and what to do about them.
February 27, 2003Sad news...
Mr. Rogers passed away today.
Not sure much else needs to be said, really.... just feeling very sad at the moment.
February 23, 2003More organ donation discussions
An additional update to the "Second Chances" piece: A more rational discussion of organ donation has been started at MetaFilter, if anyone is interested in checking it out.
Second Chances
While what happened to Jesica Santillan is tragic, her parents' refusal to allow any of her organs be donated to others - including the new heart and lungs that were implanted 2 days ago - is unbelievable.
Like most everyone else, I don't understand how such a mistake - using organs of the wrong blood-type - could be made in the first place. In an interview I heard with a doctor who is familiar with transplant procedures, he commented that there are usually at least 5 checks made to ensure that the organs will be compatable with the patient, including blood type. Additionally, Duke University has admitted that the organs were properly labeled as being Type A, when the patient was Type O, and that the Dr. James Jaggers had failed to double-check the blood type before implanting the first set of organs.
I cannot deny that when an error of this magnitude is made, there should be some special considerations given when deciding how to handle it. The problem is, after the initial error was made, Jesica's body underwent horrific stresses while on life support, waiting to see if a second transplant could be done. By the time the new organs were located, doctors believed she had little chance of surviving - her own doctors put it at no better than 50% - even with a 2nd transplant, and it was unclear what kind of life she might have if she did survive.
Doctors not connected to her case, however, were pessimistic. The one-year survival rate for transplanting a heart and both lungs as a unit is ordinarily about 60 percent, but Jésica's case is far from ordinary.
Heart transplant surgeons from other hospitals said there were no studies to provide specific odds of survival, but they put them at less than 50 percent short term.
``It is a long shot for her to recover,'' said Dr. Robert C. Robbins, who directs the heart-lung and lung transplant center at Stanford.
Unlike Jésica, most patients who receive second heart transplants do so because their immune systems reject the donor organs. Because the heart and lungs Jésica received came from a person with a different blood type, her body mounted a monster attack on the mismatched organs.
The blood type incompatibility is generally more serious in transplanting lungs because lung tissue has a propensity to react very strongly immunologically, the doctors said.
One of the most cruical factors in dealing with any kind of a transplant situation is time, and, according to the Boston Globe, the hospital may have wasted as much as a week by not immediately admitting that an error had been made.
Yesterday, Mahoney said he believes that the Duke doctors had wasted valuable time by not publicly admitting their error for more than a week. ''Life support ruins kidneys, it ruins brains, it ruins all the organs of the body,'' he said, accusing hospital officials of having ''played with that little girl's life'' as they tried to decide whether to admit to making a mistake.
It easy for me to sit here and look at the situation in the abstract - I have no personal connection to the Santillans or anyone else involved, and have never even known someone in need of a transplant. What I do know, though, is that many people wait for years on a list, hoping and praying that they will get that second chance a transplant can give them. Jesica herself had been on the translant list for three years before her first operation. Yet after the error was admitted, after her body had already been brutally damaged by its own attempts to fight off the immunological effects of the botched transplant, and after the case became known to the media, it was less than a week before new organs were found to make a second try. It was less than 2 weeks overall from the date of the inital transplant attempt.
It's hard to say this, as I'm sure many will think me cold and unfeeling, but would compassion have not been better served if those 2nd organs had gone to someone who had a real chance of survival? If there hadn't been anyone else who could have used them (and I don't know for sure if there was - but given the number of people awaiting transplants, I have to think that the odds are good that there would have been), then, by all means, try the 2nd transplant for Jesica - but wouldn't it have made more sense to have given them to someone else who had also been waiting for years, whose body would have been strong enough to accept them and make use of them?
Regardless, I find it unimaginable that her parents would not have allowed whatever of her organs could possibly have been used for someone else to have a chance to live. I have no doubt that there will be a debate rise from this entire incident - part surrounding the questions I raised above, and part from two other factors: her parents refusal to donate her organs to anyone, and the fact that her parents illegally entered this country 3 years ago in order to get a transplant for Jesica. It will be interesting to see what shape the debate takes, as we strive to balance practicality, hope and compassion.
Update: Reading a bit further, it seems that after she was declared brain dead, her doctors stopped giving her medication that was keeping her heart beating. In a discussion at MetaFilter, many are saying that this should help mitigate the parents' decision not to allow any of her organs to be used for transplant, especially since it was massive medical negligence that killed her. I can understand the sentiment, but I don't agree. If the girl was brain dead and her body was only funcitoning because of machines and medicines - and there was no hope at all for her recovery (not just no meaningful hope, but no hope whatsoever), then, tragically, Jesica was dead.
Others have noted that its likely none of her organs could have been used - but that is speculation only. Because her parents refused to even consider donating any of her organs, the viability of doing so wouldn't have been checked. Maybe there wouldn't have been anything that could have been used - and if that were the case, then that would be the end of it. But even though I know her parents are going through a horrific time right now, I still cannot comprehend or agree with their decision to not try to help someone else. Their daughter's only chance depended on the kindness of strangers who had also just lost a loved one - in this case, specifically a child, as only child-sized organs would work for Jesica. In the last two weeks, two sets of parents have lost their children and been able to overcome their grief and emotional turmoil enough to say "yes" when asked about donating those organs. Because of that, Jesica was able to have two operations to try and save her life.
February 22, 2003
February 18, 2003When bows attack...
For your viewing amusement, a collection of frighteningly bad ideas from a variety of bridal fashion advertisements.
The first page is mainly scary hats and veils, but at the bottom of the page is a set of links leading to other bridal fashion disasters, including the all-important horrid flower girl dresses.
I don't even know what to say about this one....
Oh, and be sure to check out the patriot's dream wedding dresses.... it is NOT to be missed!
No 'Precious' Oscar?
Gollum: Dissed by the Oscars?. Andy Serkis' computer-aided performance was one of the best things about "The Two Towers." But the Academy isn't ready for digital actors. [Salon.com]
I was really disappointed that Andy Serkis didn't get nominated for an Oscar - doing a performance that you know is going to have to be able to be transformed in a computer is something that would be rather difficult - especially since nothing on this scale has really been done before. In addition to the usual requirements for a performance, Serkis also had to keep in mind that everything he was doing would have to be "painted over" or otherwise recreated by the computer technicians.
Given the emotional depth that Gollum brought to the film, I find it hard to imagine that if the character had not been computer-altered that Serkis would have gone overlooked in the nominations. Gollum is not only Frodo and Sam's guide, but he is, in a sense, also our guide. He shows us what may happen to both our hero and the world if evil triumphs over good. If Frodo fails in his task, he faces a future in which he may well develop into a Gollum-like creature himself - and the world, too, will become drawn, and thin; a shadow of its former self, barely able to recall what it was like before the evil took over, weak and feeble, only knowing that at one time, it was so much more.
I've always felt that the mark of a good performance is when you can't take your eyes off the screen anytime the action is on (though that can also be the mark of just a really handsome actor, too, but that's another matter *g*), and I found that happening whenever Gollum was present. In watching the movie, I was much more caught up in the story of Rohan than in what any of the hobbits were doing, but Gollum was something else again.
Peter Jackson has spoken of the importance of Andy Serkis in the creation of Gollum:
"What was important," Jackson explains, "is that there was one person, an experienced, skilled actor, making all of the decisions on behalf of Gollum. [Andy] would decide how Gollum would move, how he would act, what emotion he would have, what pauses he would put where, what weight he'd put into a particular scene -- just as any actor, like Elijah and Sean, would be doing for their characters."
To me, it sounds like, in the long run, the computer animated Gollum was less a "computer-generated" character than just a very unique costume for the very human actor portraying him. I know that Hollywood worries about actors being replaced by computer-generated characters, but when you compare the performance of Serkis as Gollum to, say, the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, Godzilla in the recent remake of that film, the really annoying critter from "The Phantom Menace" (I have been blessed by the inability to remember his name) or even the Hulk in that upcoming film, there really seems to be little for actors to be concerned about. A purely computer-generated character can't hold a candle to a character with the mind, heart, and skill of a human performer - and somehow I doubt that will change anytime soon.
Of course, it's interesting that both "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Two Towers" have not garnered much in the way of big awards in general, despite the near universal acclaim that has greated them and the sheer delight so many Tolkein fans take in them. Peter Jackson and all of the performers in these films have done was many considered impossible - they've taken one of the most important works of modern literature and translated it to the screen in a way that respects the source material while creating an overwhelming visual spectacle that knocks most people off of their feet. I'm hoping that maybe Hollywood and the other award-givers are simply waiting for "The Return of the King" to be released to make sure that Jackson carries through on the promise these first two films have made - and will reward him appropriately at that time.
February 15, 2003I love my husband (and damn well better love fortune cookies!)
We have a local Chinese restaraunt that has FANTASTIC food, and extremely reasonable prices. Too reasonable, actually. They have a $10 minimum order for delivery, and my usual order is a pint of Sweet and Sour Pork and a side order of Crab Rangoon. I can't eat all of it, but those are the smallest quanities I can get. It only costs $8.01, thought, including tax, so I have to send hubby down to pick it up when I'm in the mood for it (which lately has been a lot.)
Today, I knew there was no way he'd want to go out and get it, though - in addition to being fairly lazy (which he readily admits to), he's also been kinda tired all day, and the weather is a bit messy. Rather than being my usual bitchy self who tries to talk him into it anyway, I thought I'd see if I could figure out how to get my order up to $10 so they'd deliver it - without wasting food (and I don't like reheated Chinese take-out - no idea why, just picky about it). Enter the one food that Chinese restaurants order that (a) last for a while and (b) don't have to be reheated.
Fortune Cookies.
And here we have those damnable reasonable prices again. Fortune Cookies are 10 cents each. And I had a bit over $2 to make up. So, right now I'm waiting for a pint of Sweet and Sour Pork, an order of Crab Rangoon and two dozen Fortune Cookies. (I did have to have him call it in though - I couldn't stop laughing enough to do it myself.)
February 14, 2003No More Salon?
Not exactly the news I want to hear....
Posted on Fri, Feb. 14, 2003
Salon warns it may not survive beyond February
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO -- Online magazine publisher Salon Media Group Inc. on Friday warned that it may not survive beyond this month if it can't raise more money to pay its rent and other bills.
The San Francisco-based company painted a grim financial picture in a quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Things are so bad, Salon said, it stopped paying rent for its San Francisco headquarters in December, prompting the landlord to issue a Jan. 29 demand for a $200,000 payment.
To raise money, the company said it may sell its rights to $5.6 million worth of advertising on a Cablevision Systems Corp. subsidiary for as little as $1 million.
Friday's was the latest in a series of dire projections made by Salon. The company warned late last year it might go out of business, but then raised enough money to stay alive temporarily. Salon's troubles caused its stock to be delisted from the Nasdaq Stock Market in November.
Although its news coverage and commentary have attracted a loyal audience, Salon hasn't been able to make money. The company said it lost another $1.3 million during the final three months of 2002, bringing its cumulative deficit to $81 million.
Unable to drum up enough advertising to pay the bills, Salon started charging subscriptions to read some of its stories in 2001. The company began charging fees for all its once-free content late last month as part of its last-ditch survival effort. At of Dec. 31, Salon's site had 47,300 subscribers.
Happy Happy
As one who loves bad weather, I'm kind of in heaven right now. Looking at my local TV's weather-warning graphic (you know the ones, that sit in the lower corner of your screen so you constantly see what the severe weather threat is, except, of course, during commercial breaks), we're currently under both a winter storm warning and a severe thunderstorm warning (I love it when Thor decides to stop by for a visit), plus the counties immediately south of us have a severe thunderstorm watch in effect. If you don't hear from me for a bit, it may be that our cable has gone out. <laughing happily>
February 13, 2003A Living Memorial?
Each issue, Newsweek magazine publishes a column called "My Turn", which, I suppose, could be considered a glorified "letter to the editor", but I've usually found it more interesting than that would imply. It's a column written by, well, pretty much anyone, on whatever subject they choose - and often focuses on topics that I know I wouldn't have though of otherwise.
This week's is on the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, and is written by the wife of one of the men killed in the attack. She has a very interesting suggestion for the memorial, and one I think would be an excellent way of commemorating the lives lost:
Instead, I like the idea of an eternal flame, and a space for trees—living, growing trees, 2,792 of them, each bearing a plaque with a name. You could visit Glenn’s tree, or Dominick’s, or Leo’s, or Jane’s. Over the years New Yorkers would watch these trees grow, and family and friends could leave tributes by their trees on special occasions. This would be meaningful to every visitor without feeling morbid to any. And how better to remind those who pass these trees on the way to and from work each day, or who lunch in their shade, of the lives that once thrived here?
The idea of a living memorial has a certain beauty to it, and I hope that something like this would be given serious consideration.
February 12, 2003On a lighter note....
X-Men 1.5 ROCKS. Excellent commentaries, good behind-the-scenes stuff, and 6 scenes that were left out - all worth seeing.
I've never read any of the X-Men comics, seen any of the animated shows, or otherwise been made familiar with the X-Men universe - and I had NO desire whatsoever to see this movie. When it came out on cable, though, my husband prevailed upon me to give it a chance, because he loved it so much. It's been quite a while since I lost count of how many times I've seen it.... What a ride :)
February 08, 2003A Puzzle
I'm sure that most of you who've listened to pop radio remember Meat Loaf's enigmatically titled "I'd Do Anything For Love, But I Won't Do That". One of the most distinctive things about that song, aside from the fact that whatever "That" is is never identified, is the woman who sings the song with Meat Loaf.
Her name is Patty Russo. She's a singer from New York City, and has shown up in a number of places as a "featured singer" or doing "guest vocals". She has one HELL of an expressive, powerhouse voice, and has not only performed with Meat Loaf (on a number of other tracks besides the one mentioned above, including a duet version of "Is Nothing Sacred"), but also with Trans-Siberian Orchestra ["After the Fall" - clip 1 and clip 2; "I'll Keep Your Secrets"], and, more recently, in concert with Queen, singing lead on "Another One Bites the Dust" and "The Show Must Go On".
What's weird is that she has never, as far as I can find, released a single or a CD of her own. She's apparently putting together a demo, but I'm not even sure why, with what is already available of her performances, why no one has just snapped her up and given her a contract.
No, this isn't really of any significance in terms of "the big picture", but its one of those things that just keep nibbling away at the back of my mind... I really do hope that if she's simply been overlooked so far that someday someone with some authority will realize what a gem she is and let her get out there and sing for herself...
[Special Kudos to MeatLoaf, or whomever designed his multimedia website. In addition to providing information on Mr. Loaf, along with audio and video clips of his performances, the site also has subsections focusing on many of the artists who have performed with Meat over the years, including Patti. What a great way to let those who have helped make his music good shine a bit for themselves!
Several years ago, I saw MeatLoaf in concert, and one thing that really struck me was how genuine his gratitude was to the audience and his "backup" performers. He made it very clear that he knows that his popularity isn't his alone, and he was very generous in sharing it with the others on stage. I'm glad to see the same attitude extended to his website.]
February 07, 2003Fat, health and science
Jan, at Secular Blasphemy, has a post today about the journal Science, focusing an entire issue on obesity - an issue that has been getting a great deal of press lately. While not a scientific or medical journal, last week, The New Republic ran a very interesting article [free registration required, I believe] regarding the issues of obesity, health and dieting.
From the introduction:
A careful survey of medical literature reveals that the conventional wisdom about the health risks of fat is a grotesque distortion of a far more complicated story. Indeed, subject to exceptions for the most extreme cases, it's not at all clear that being overweight is an independent health risk of any kind, let alone something that kills hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. While having a sedentary lifestyle or a lousy diet--both factors, of course, that can contribute to being overweight--do pose health risks, there's virtually no evidence that being fat, in and of itself, is at all bad for you. In other words, while lifestyle is a good predictor of health, weight isn't: A moderately active fat person is likely to be far healthier than someone who is svelte but sedentary. What's worse, Americans' (largely unsuccessful) efforts to make themselves thin through dieting and supplements are themselves a major cause of the ill health associated with being overweight--meaning that America's war on fat is actually helping cause the very disease it is supposed to cure.
The article challenges many common beliefs about obesity, including the oft-cited figure that 300,000 deaths a year are attributable to obesity. The authors note that the study which produced that number did not account for any confounding variables except gender, age and smoking - meaning that there may have been deaths included in those studies which may not have actually been caused by obesity.
There are any number of people who die each year from heart attacks who appear to be in excellent physical condition. In some cases, they may have inheirited an enlarged heart, or their heart may have become diseased from other factors, such as previously untreated infection. If such things can happen to thin, fit patients, there's no reason that a fat patient can't have the same kinds of problems. Unfortunately, if the patient is fat, the doctor may decide that the obesity is the "obvious" cause of death, and not look for anything further. Those cases then get counted toward the "300,000" figure, but aren't actually obesity-related deaths, as the patient may well have died at the same age, from the same cause, even if they had never gained any excess weight.
Similar scenarios exist with other causes of death or illness - yet in many cases, obesity may be a co-existing condition without actually being the causitive factor. In my own case, some doctors have tried to say that my weight caused my arthritis - but while I know it hasn't helped any, the arthritis is the result of a misalignment in my kneecaps that existed when I was born - and the pain of the arthritis as I was growing up is one of the main reasons I have never been able to be very physically active (which, obviously, can contribute to weight gain). It's frightning, though, how many doctors seem to assume that obesity can be blamed for almost anything. I have them try to attribute the migraine headaches I get from time to time to my weight, disregarding the fact that my mother and my grandmother both suffered from migraines as well - and that I had headaches before my weight became excessive. I was told that the tendonitis I developed in my wrists was because of my size, and not the 12 to 16 hours a day I was spending typing on the computer (8 hours at work, and another 4 to 8 hours of "play" when I got home).
By contrast, even though medical science has claimed for years that obesity causes diabeties, high blood pressure, heart disease and high cholesterol, despite my weight, I have none of those conditions, nor does my father, who (until recently) has also had a life-long battle with his weight. By contrast, my mother, who's weight is well within normal ranges, does have heart trouble, as did her normal-weight mother. Obviously, there is more that goes into these health conditions than just obesity.
As noted in the New Republic article:
In a decided majority of studies, groups of people labeled "overweight" by current standards are found to have equal or lower mortality rates than groups of supposedly ideal-weight individuals. University of Virginia professor Glenn Gaesser has estimated that three-quarters of all medical studies on the effects of weight on health between 1945 and 1995 concluded either that "excess" weight had no effect on health or that it was actually beneficial. And again, this remains the case even before one begins to take into account complicating factors such as sedentary lifestyle, poor nutrition, dieting and diet drugs, etc. "As of 2002," Gaesser points out in his book Big Fat Lies, "there has not been a single study that has truly evaluated the effects of weight alone on health, which means that 'thinner is healthier' is not a fact but an unsubstantiated hypothesis for which there is a wealth of evidence that suggests the reverse."
In regards to claims that losing weight is a way to help ensure a longer life, the article has this to say [Emphasis added]:
Tens of millions of Americans are trying more or less constantly to lose 20 or 30 pounds. (Recent estimates are that, on any particular day, close to half the adult population is on some sort of diet.) Most say they are doing so for their health, often on the advice of their doctors. Yet numerous studies--two dozen in the last 20 years alone--have shown that weight loss of this magnitude (and indeed even of as little as ten pounds) leads to an increased risk of premature death, sometimes by an order of several hundred percent. By contrast, over this same time frame, only a handful of studies have indicated that weight loss leads to lower mortality rates--and one of these found an eleven-hour increase in life expectancy per pound lost (i.e., less than an extra month of life in return for a 50-pound weight loss). This pattern holds true even when studies take into account "occult wasting," the weight loss that sometimes accompanies a serious but unrelated illness. For example, a major American Cancer Society study published in 1995 concluded in no uncertain terms that healthy "overweight" and "obese" women were better off if they didn't lose weight. In this study, healthy women who intentionally lost weight over a period of a year or longer suffered an all-cause increased risk of premature mortality that was up to 70 percent higher than that of healthy women who didn't intentionally lose weight. Meanwhile, unintentional weight gain had no effect on mortality rates. (A 1999 report based on the same data pool found similar results for men.) The only other large study that has examined the health effects of intentional weight loss, the Iowa Women's Health Study, also failed to find an association between weight loss and significantly lower mortality rates. In fact, in this 42,000-person study, "overweight" women had an all-cause mortality rate 5 to 10 percent lower than that of "ideal-weight" women.
It has also been known for many years that even when people do lose weight - whether via calorie-restrictive dieting, bariatric surgery (stomach stapling, gastric bypass, etc), diet drugs or other intentional methods, very few are able to maintain the weight loss for 5 years or more. In fact, studies have shown that as many as 95% of all diets fail to result in the intended weight loss or the dieter eventually regains whatever weight they did lose (and, in many cases, more).
The article also notes that it is physical fitness and activity that is more associated with overall good health and longevity than size. A fat person who is otherwise physically fit and active is likely to be healthier - and have a longer life - than a thin person who is sedentary. Perhaps, rather than focusing our national health resources on combating obesity, they could be focused on increasing physical activity in general. As long as obesity itself is viewed as being some kind of scourge, fat people will find themselves viewed - and treated - as somehow being "lesser" than our thinner counterparts. Focusing on actual fitness rather than obesity might help to alleviate at least some of that stigma, in addition to increasing overall health and reducing health-care costs - something that would be good all the way around.
Service
Dave at No Code has a great piece reflecting back on the elimination of the draft and what impact that appears to have had on society. While I'm not exactly a supporter of the draft itself, I think his final conclusion has a lot of merit, and that a program of that nature could do a lot to help young people gain a better connection with the idea that this country is our country, and we have both civic responsibilities and the right to have a voice in what is done here.
February 06, 2003
February 05, 2003Hey, is that a new car? No, it's a new automoblie....
Because I'm homebound, my doctor has to visit me in my home when I need care. Luckily, I have found a wonderful doctor who is willing to do so. Of course, because it's a medical situation, it requires the intervention of my medical insurance, but I'm lucky there, too. My coverage provides for my doctor to come to my home, and it doesn't cost me any more than if I were to go visit him in his office.
My doctor recently told me, though, that he's been having some problems with getting paid by my insurance company. They keep telling him that he needs to have the visits pre-authorized, but then, of course, when he calls in to get it authorized they tell him it's not necessary - doctor visits in the home are covered.
Well, I finally called the insurance company today to try and clear things up, and discovered - much to my surprise - that the whole problem was simply a matter of terms. It seems my doctor's office have been submitting the bills saying that he made a "Home Health Visit". This, it turns out, is a big no-no. "Home Health Visits", apparently, come from an agency - such as a "visiting nurse" program through one of the local hospitals - and must be pre-authorized. If, however, he had been submitting his bills listing a "House Call", then they'd pay the bill without requesting any questions.
Now, maybe it's just me, but if you get a bill from a doctor's office, showing that the doctor had gone to the patient's home, and there were notes on the customer's files saying that she needed to doctor to come to her home, might it not make sense to either (a) realize that the "Home Health Visit" is actually a "House Call", or (b) just call the doctor's office and ask if maybe they meant to list it as a "House Call", rather than deny the bill?
At least I can call my doctor's office now and let them know we've found the answer.... but you'll have to excuse me if I laugh about it more than just a little bit
February 04, 2003WTC Replacement Finalists
According to BBC reports, two finalists have been chosen for the new design of the World Trade Center.
Studio Libeskind
The Think Team
A separate contest will be held to design a memorial to those lost in the attack.
Both the Libeskind and the Think Team designs feature towering structures that would become the tallest in the world, and it is expected that whichever one is chosen will take about a decade to complete.
Personally, I prefer the Think Team's design -- though I have to say that neither one of them really "speaks" to me the way I would hope a replacement for the WTC would. Hopefully, whatever memorial is designed will have more of the kind of emotional impact I think the sight should have.
February 03, 2003
