Shaking Spears

And you thought that rock stars...

2005-11-30T20:35:00.000-08:00

...had some self respect.

Not so.

And I thought dinner at Chilis was upping the ante for kids' birthdays...

Shaking Spears Endorses...

2005-09-03T14:34:00.000-07:00

this man for President in 2008. And this man for his VP.

Enough of all this political posturing and tweaking of policies on the margins. No more emotionalism and pandering to the lowest common denominator. To hell with photo ops and silly debates.

We need to rebuild a flooded American city (preferably after adding at least 10 feet of landfill), and we're in a global war against a radical, nihilistic ideology.

The Chinese are salivating over Taiwan, and the North Koreans are loons with nukes.

The ayatollahs of Tehran are on a jihad to enrich uranium, Chavez wants to cut off our oil and nationalize Latin America, and the Europeans have given up on fighting for their civilization.

Our borders are wide open, and our domestic oil production capability is scandalously weak.

The Huns are nipping at our heals, and domestic factions are working overtime to weaken our resolve.

This country needs street-tough leadership. Rudy's clean-up of New York City is the right model for improving the quality of life in other U.S. cities, as well as many regions of the world. We should forget about compromising our values and policies for our "allies" and the siren's song of U.N. conferences, and cut to the chase: without American leadership, the world degenerates into the equivalent of a New Orleans Convention Center surrounded by a flooded cesspool.

Giuliani's leadership on 9/11 was brilliant, and he believes in results, not posturing. The modern presidency, in this day of terror, catastrophe, and conflict, is all about crisis management. No more campaigning on midnight basketball or saving ANWAR - we need serious men for serious times.

And if his VP wants to keep a lady friend in each city on taxpayer expense, so be it. Just make sure that the 82nd Airborne arrives when the country needs it.

In my next life...

2005-08-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

...it might be interesting to come back as a pre-Columbian head Inca (Inka):

"(The Inka) was carried on a golden litter - the Inka did not walk in
public....people left the roads along which he had to pass and, ascending the
hills on either side, (his subjects) worshipped and adored him by pulling out
their eyebrows and eyelashes. Minions collected and stored every object he
touched, food waste included, to ensure that no lesser persons could profane
these objects with their touch. The ground was too dirty to receive the
Inka's saliva so he always spat into the hand of a courtier. The courtier
wiped the spittle with a special cloth and stored it for safekeeping. Once
a year everything touched by the Inka - clothing, garbage, bedding, saliva - was
ceremoniously burned."

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann. pg. 76

Premature Evaluation

2005-08-12T22:59:00.000-07:00

I'm only a third through this book but I'm enjoying it immensely, and I recommend it whole-heartedly.

Putting flesh on the bones of the Indian (yes, "Indian") civilizations in North & South America prior to Columbus' arrival. Not a romanticization, but a fresh look at what these civilizations were like, drawing on recent research and emphasizing the uniqueness and robustness of their societies.

Much of the book is speculative, but compelling evidence suggests that these peoples had a much greater impact on their natural environment and were remarkably complex. The New World inhabitants were not necessarily the backward stepchildren of Europe and Asia. Worth a look and more later.

Winner - Best Product Design:

2005-08-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

2005 Shaking Spears Awards...here.

Epiphany

2005-08-06T19:40:00.000-07:00

Spear Son angling on Paulina Lake, Oregon

Why does it often take physical separation from one's work and home to live in the moment? How do you extend the improvisation and sense of exploration that you get in a new environment to your daily life? How do you maintain the carefree fun of the vacation experience without abrogating your adult responsibilities? Or do you only appreciate the vacation because it's by definition not an everyday occurrence?

I don't know all the answers, but I'm getting closer. And it's taken over 40 years to start to figure it out. It ain't about external measures of success, or legitimacy, or worthiness. There's no objective template upon which you should gauge your life progress. And happiness isn't meant to be compared to another's experience. All of those self-help books, life plans, 7-step programs, Dr. Phil, and purpose-driven books are Fool's Gold at the end of life's rainbow.

It ain't about what others think and it ain't about what you think.

It's about setting the right rig to get a big mouth bass to bite on a spinnerbait while trolling. And if you succeed at that, everything else falls into place.

2005-08-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

Spear Shaker at Yosemite Valley

It's a sin for those within a 2.5 hour drive to fail to visit Yosemite each year. Absolve me, Lord.

It don't mean a thing...

2005-07-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

...if it ain't got that swing.

This is one of those posts that laments the greatness of times past and the decline of today's youth culture.

Only this time I have a legitimate point.

Who swings in today's popular music world? Who's got that bouncy, off-beat rhythm that gets your fingers snapping, your body movin', and makes your soul want to dance? Where are those riffs and counterpoints? Where's that backbeat and behind-the-beat drumming? Where's that breezy attitude? Where's the SWING??

And I'm not really talking about Duke Ellington or Glenn Miller jazz. My preferred genre - blues/rock - can swing just like jazz, and Charlie Watts is the Master of rock swing. Keith Richards once stated for the record: "White drummers don't swing, except for Charlie Watts."

Chuck Berry played swing. Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, not a swing band, played it brilliantly in "Sultans of Swing." (I saw him last weekend at the Greek in Berkeley). Brian Setzer, formerly of the Stray Cats, plays swing. Funk and cajun music, brilliantly performed by the Neville Brothers, swings.

But what contemporary artists are swingers? Not rap artists, not classic rock artists, not alternative grunge artists - no. All of their beats are manufactured drum loops and snare drums that sound like explosions.

David Matthews sometimes comes close, but he's too caught up with a band that has to rush the groove. Country music doesn't swing too much these days, unless you're listening to Alison Krauss & Union Station.

You've got to have a great drummer to swing. Classic rock greats (John Densmore of the Doors, Doug Clifford of Creedence Clearwater Revival) all had the jazz/swing sensibility that made the music take-off. Today's backbeats are manufactured by machines and just don't have the feel.

So my question remains: Where's the SWING? and what is this generation missing?

If they have the video...

2005-07-21T21:35:00.000-07:00

...of these two hapless terrorists who failed in their attempt at martyrdom, would it have any impact in de-glorifying the act in the minds of young, extremist Muslims?

These two scenes as described by eyewitnesses strike me as so pathetic and humiliating, perhaps replaying the events, assuming they were caught on tape, might shake some who are disposed to follow in their footsteps out of the grip of their brainwashing.

From the Sun:

“I turned round and there was a man lying with his arms outstretched on top
of a rucksack face up. “I went up to him and said: ‘Are you all right,
mate?’ But he just ignored me and kept his eyes shut.

“I looked back and saw him stand up looking disorientated and confused. He
walked to the back of the carriage, leaving the bag and his cap on the floor,
and I could see some copper wire showing out of the back of his T-shirt.

“He opened the emergency exit door and jumped down on to the tracks and
started walking away down the line heading west.”

Also from the Sun:

“There was this loud bang, I can’t describe it. Then there was a lot of
smoke coming from the bag.”

But the bomber remained where he was and DENIED he was
responsible.

“By now the bag was on the floor and he kept saying, ‘No, it’s not me, it’s
not me’. He was standing there all on his own in the middle of the carriage with
smoke coming from his backpack.

Quote of the Week

2005-07-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

I've tried to avoid commenting on the London attacks. What is there left to say about the civilizational conflict that is ongoing, but which societal norms prohibit us from dealing with directly? And that has been said better by Hitchens and Steyn.

But this quote caught my eye. From the BBC:

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams said: "It is a huge fallacy to
suppose that one community is somehow more intrinsically prone to violence or
outrage than any another."

Past Archbishops of Canterbury have a long history of speaking nonsense, and the job description requires candidates to personify a twit, with a capital T, so this one is no exception.

But it does win the Quote of the Week.

Laboratory Rat

2005-06-28T01:30:00.000-07:00

The Wichita Killer's plea today got me searching in vain for some explanation of his behavior. One paper suggests its neither nature or nurture -

Psychopathy is not associated with low birth weight, obstetric complications,
poor parenting, poverty, early psychological trauma or adverse experiences, and
indeed Robert Hare remarks ‘I can find no convincing evidence that psychopathy
is the direct result of early social or environmental factors’ (Hare, 1993, p.
170). No sound evidence of neuroanatomical correlates for psychopathic behavior
has been found, though an interesting (and highly significant) negative
correlation has been found in 18 psychopaths between the degree of psychopathy
and the size of the posterior half of the hippocampi bilaterally.

The authorities need to take advantage of Dennis Rader's guilty plea and upcoming life sentence and use him like a laboratory rat.

He needs to be scanned, probed, prodded, dissected, MRI'ed, X-rayed, zapped, interviewed, tested, drugged, interrogated, scoped, sampled, and biopsied.

We should use his capture as an opportunity to get closer to the bottom of why this behavior occurs, without concern about the subject.

Close Encounters?

2005-06-25T01:49:00.000-07:00

My 6th grade teacher in elementary school told our class a story about his encounter with space aliens.

He was sitting around a campfire while out camping with a friend and suddenly he felt "beings" surrounding him, and although they were invisible, when he waved his arms in front of him he felt a coldness and his arms being slowed by their bodies. He was very sincere, and not putting us on. As I recall in all other aspects this teacher was very rational and professional.

As a ten year-old I didn't give it much thought, but this story came to mind as we process the antics of Tom Cruise.

He believes psychiatry is a pseudo-science promoted by the Nazis (I didn't know Jung and Freud were party members), and that mental illness can be cured by vitamins.

Cruise also believes in Xenu, Body Thetans, Alien warfare on Earth, and auditing.

Now in terms of his career Cruise seems to be a pretty highly-functioning type of guy, and, like my otherwise normal 6th grade school teacher, also convinced that space aliens are part of our everyday existence.

So these thoughts raise the question - do you believe that Space Aliens have been or are among us, and am I simply behind the times in accepting this belief? Do I need one of these?

Why Hillary Won't Become President

2005-06-23T19:55:00.000-07:00

It dawned on me today: Political views aside, Hillary won't be President because a) she wants it too bad, and b) she doesn't have a compelling life-story outside of politics.

Every job that I ever got through an interview process came to me when I didn't really need it. I wasn't desperate, and I approached each interview humbly and with enthusiasm but with a quiet confidence that failure to be selected wouldn't dent my psychic armor. A similar dynamic is at play with Hillary.

Hillary reeks of requiring power, and she has been calculating her ascent for so long that the Presidential race will be viewed as an all-or-nothing event in which she's staked her entire post-Bill life. Her aura of invincibility will wear thin with the general public who will interpret her iconic image as her own sense of entitlement. People will be wary of WHY she wants to be President.

And she doesn't have a life outside of politics, Rose Law Firm notwithstanding. With a couple of exceptions, Americans prefer a leader who seems self-realized and rounded in their life experiences. Reagan had his ranch and his career, Bush One had his war heroism and foreign service career, Bush II had his baseball team and his ranch, Bill Clinton has his women. What symbolizes Hillary's life outside of politics?

She's a pretty good political hack, but humorless, overly earnest, mediocre orator, and a poor dresser. I can't see her as President.

Spear Shaker's Guide to "Wellness"

2005-06-23T01:17:00.000-07:00

The term “Wellness” is the new, New-age buzzword for our Era of Globalization and Acceleration. It’s meant to convey a more holistic view of physical and mental health, and softens the imagery (if not the practice) of alfalfa high colonics.

This seductive term has already been latched onto by the multi-level marketers and Ponzi schemes, promising ever-expanding cash flows if you just schedule one more Wellness Party and sell more jugs of dietary supplement powder. Wellness clinics are sprouting up around suburban strip malls.

Well, I’ve found the right prescription for “wellness,” and I suspect it’s more effective than a barley enema. Introducing the “Spear Shaker’s Guide to Wellness,” recently field-tested by me and certified by the Food and Drug Administration:

1) Avoid Airports – After 10 years of consistent business travel, I switched jobs and can say now, looking back, that I’d rather be bound in the fetal position on a urine-soaked floor of a Gitmo prison with rap music blaring at 150 decibels than travel on a consistent basis. Add 10 years to life expectancy.

2) Avoid Tom Cruise interviews – watching a clinical narcissist, who is physically unable to stop acting, “talk” about his myopic world view can hasten the onset of Alzheimer’s. Somebody give this man a Valium and tell him to stop PROJECTING. Add 5 years to life expectancy.

3) Avoid Attempting to Change Your Cell Phone Contract - Analog, TDMA, CDMA, GSM 1900 – the biggest scam going today is the Kafka-esque nightmare of cellular companies’ pricing schemes. Want to add your daughter to your plan and upgrade your phone? You’d have better luck reforming Social Security. Add 3 years to life expectancy.

4) Avoid The Stands at Your Child’s Little League Game – the not-so-dirty-little-secret is that parents are brutal when it comes to whispered critiques of coaches and players. I should know, my kid DIDN’T GET TO PITCH ENOUGH THIS YEAR!! Add 2 years to life expectancy.

5) Avoid Dietary Supplements – I read in Men’s Journal about this “miracle” supplement that had no side effects but made you feel like you’re 20 (wink). All I got after a week was diarrhea and insomnia. Add 2 years to life expectancy.

6) Seek Out – Mark Knopfler as he tours the U.S. this year. And seek out “House of Flying Daggers” in the DVD store. Both to soothe the soul. Add 2 years to life expectancy.

If you follow this prescription religiously, you’ll feel years younger. But be careful, inadvertently viewing a Dick Durbin apology on C-Span can quickly cancel the positive effects.

Dipping the Big Toe...

2005-06-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

...back in the water.

...but it's just a little too cold.

And I want to avoid coming back and writing my first post about what a putz Tom Cruise is...

Hiatus

2005-05-15T21:20:00.000-07:00

hi·a·tus ( P ) Pronunciation Key (h-ts)n. pl. hi·a·tus·es or hiatus

A gap or interruption in space, time, or continuity; a break: “We are likely to be disconcerted by... hiatuses of thought” (Edmund Wilson).

Linguistics. A slight pause that occurs when two immediately adjacent vowels in consecutive syllables are pronounced, as in reality and naive.

Anatomy. A separation, aperture, fissure, or short passage in an organ or body part.

Hiatus. I'm on one. I'm also making a career change which has re-directed my meager creative energies. Time to re-charge the blog batteries and round out the work-life balance.

Regret that I won't be sprinkling the blog universe with a few more electrons for a while. Probably a month or two. Thanks for checking in and, more importantly, contributing to the site and our daily navigation through this long, strange trip. I will be regularly checking up with the regulars - you know who you are.

I've learned a ton from the discourse and you will know when I come back.

Sub Tragedy Fallout

2005-05-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

The awesome responsibility of the men and women who serve in the armed forces cannot be forgotten. In the fallout from the January submarine tragedy in which the U.S.S. San Francisco ran into an underground mountain in the South Pacific, killing one sailor, the Commander has been relieved of his command and reprimanded.

This part of the story caught my attention, and reminds us of how much responsibility are on these people's shoulders:

(Sub cmdr.) Mooney recently met with (deceased sailor's) Ashley's father and together they visited the sailor's grave in West Virginia.
"He took full responsibility, and with tears in eyes, he asked me to forgive him," Ashley said in a telephone interview from Akron.
"And I know Joey and him were very close."

The Hottest Competition...

2005-05-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

...going on right now isn't on American Idol or in Paula Abdul's bedroom. It's being waged in the capitols, boardrooms, legislatures, and industrial centers of the developing world. And we're winning.

Maybe Bonds Just Has A Good Ophthalmologist...

2005-05-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

...this issue is getting more and more interesting. Maybe we should draw the line at bionic limbs.

Tagged

2005-04-27T05:47:00.000-07:00

Tagged by the inimitable Sluggo. The rules entail choosing five from the list below, and completing the thought as a member of that profession. I then need to tag another blogger. Here we go:

If I could be a psychologist. . . I'd write a three-volume textbook entitled "The Pathologies of Joe Biden."

If I could be a Jedi. . . I’d refuse to utter a word of dialogue from George Lucas. Mediocre director, he is.

If I could be a linguist. . . of course one can’t “be,” unless one “is,” or once “was,” in which case one “isn’t,” unless the Inuits have three names for you. And I'd give my colleague Noam Chomsky a wedgie.

If I could be an athlete…I’d never use the words “fortunate,” “step-up,” “gettin' it done,” or “execute.”

If I could be a TV-Chat Show host…I’d have Christopher Hitchens, Dennis Miller, Tom Wolfe, Condoleeza Rice, Keith Richards, and Salma Hayek on every night. With Bryan Lamb asking questions.

Seems that many have already been tagged, hmmm, how about RJMcinnis @ R Cubed?

Full List:

If I could be a scientist...If I could be a farmer...If I could be a musician...If I could be a doctor...If I could be a painter...If I could be a gardener...If I could be a missionary...If I could be a chef...If I could be an architect...If I could be a linguist...If I could be a psychologist...If I could be a librarian...If I could be an athlete...If I could be a lawyer...If I could be an innkeeper...If I could be a professor...If I could be a writer...If I could be a backup dancer...If I could be a llama-rider...If I could be a bonnie pirate...If I could be a midget stripper...If I could be a proctologist...If I could be a TV-Chat Show host...If I could be an actor...If I could be a judge...If I could be a Jedi...If I could be a mob boss...If I could be an acrobat...If I could be a particle physicist...If I could be a cop...

A Step Too Far?

2005-04-26T01:16:00.000-07:00

After my first visit to China 15 years ago, and seeing the rapid development in the cities of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, I remember thinking that learning Cantonese or Mandarin would begin to displace Spanish, French, and German as offered languages in middle and high schools within our lifetime.

With the relocation of customer service departments to India ("my name is Ramesh, what is the serial number on the back of your computer?"), most people have experienced (but not accepted) the outsourcing of back-office and customer support functions to these developing countries.

But maybe the Brits have taken things a step too far. They've outsourced a teaching function, and not by importing the teachers. They ship the papers overseas to be graded:

In a new twist in the debate over outsourcing, some half a million exam papers from Britain's main secondary school leaving certificate are to be graded in India to save money.

Papers for Britain's key GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) exams are to be sent to India for marking in a controversial move to cut costs.

Papers for Britain's key GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) exams are to be sent to India for marking in a controversial move to cut costs.

So not only will Ramesh help to diagnose that spyware that's infected your hard drive, he'll also be grading the final exams of British school kids.

Now I've found that doing business with Indians can be a delightful experience, but, for the sake of the British schoolkids whose future lies in his hands, I hope Ramesh has learned that the "V" is not pronounced like a "W".

Vive La France

2005-04-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

Watched C-Span last night and saw Jacques Chirac’s TV appearance at the Elysees Palace with a group of young people concerned about ratifying the EU Constitution. Chirac’s performance apparently has backfired, leading to an increase in “non” support for the referendum. It is easy to see why.

This is how the discussion went:

Concerned youth: “I just graduated from university and I can’t find a job.”

Chirac: “I don’t understand the fear in the younger generation.”

Concerned youth: “But what would ratifying the Constitution do for us?”

Chirac: “French values of equality and human rights will be codified as European values.”

Concerned youth: “But what’s in it for us?”

Chirac: “China, India, and the U.S. are getting bigger. We need to get bigger.”

Concerned youth: “But what’s in it for us?”

Chirac: “France will be unified with a greater Europe.”

Concerned youth: “But won’t this lead to more globalization and privatization of the public sector, threatening our security?”

Chirac: “France will make its own economic decisions, even though our unemployment rate remains too high.”

Concerned youth: “But what’s in it for us?”

Both sides talking past each other. Chirac could offer no concrete value proposition to the unemployed youth, and the questioners were less interested in creating economic conditions that could lead to more opportunities than in maintaining their pathetic status quo as a subsidized ward of the state.

It’s clear that the EU constitution was written by and for the technocratic political class, and the younger generation of France has no intention of competing economically on the world stage. Vive la France.

We Know What Too Much Steroid Use...

2005-04-20T19:14:00.000-07:00

...does to the male anatomy. In full shrink here:

Calling All You Baseball Purists...

2005-04-19T01:15:00.000-07:00

...if steroids is cheating, why not this?

One Story That's Guaranteed To Change...

2005-04-19T01:05:00.000-07:00

...Sometimes I wonder why they even report these stories. Speculation on the details of the Big Bang, and the state of matter a fraction of a second some 13 billion years ago, seems frivolous at best:

Link: For a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang that scientists say gave rise to the universe, all matter was in the form of this liquid, called a quark-gluon plasma, the researchers said. "We have a new state of matter," said Sam Aronson, associate laboratory director for high-energy and nuclear physics at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

I'm no physicist, but who's going to prove this guy wrong? And us lay-folk just lap up these stories and shake our head in wonderment. In a few months we'll have another story that contradicts this story, and we'll all just be amazed again.

Johnnie Johnson R.I.P.

2005-04-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

Master of Boogie Woogie

Chuck Berry's musical muse, subject of "Johnnie B. Goode," and the father of rock and roll boogie woogie piano, is dead at 80. That masterful piano tinkling over such classics as "Maybelline," "No Particular Place to Go," and "Roll Over Beethoven" were all from Johnnie Johnson's hand. And the case can be made that the songs themselves originated from his fingers:

Johnson played an important collaborative role in the process of composition,
often hammering out the music on the piano while Berry converted it to guitar
and wrote the lyrics, but Berry claimed sole credit as performer and songwriter.
Thus, while the royalties rolled in for Berry, Johnson had little to show for
his musical career.

Johnson was the shy, retiring type who was more comfortable as a sideman; Keith Richards, himself a Berry aficionado, rescued Johnson's career and gave him the notoriety that he deserved with his "Hail, Hail, Rock and Roll" project. Johnson was ultimately inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

There's nothing like good honky-tonk, barrell-roll piano over three chord, uptempo blues in 4/4 time. This guy was the master. Chuck Berry's comments here.

I've Stolen the Log-On to Dad's Blog, And Thought...

2005-04-14T01:30:00.000-07:00

...I'd take it for a spin.

Hello. My name is Spear Daughter and I would like to say thank you for reading and commenting on my father's site. He appreciates your support.

I'm a freshman in high school and I'm working hard in my advanced courses. I'm unsure what I want to do for a career, but I guess it's too early to decide that at my age. I believe I'll study science and history, at least that's what I would like to pursue at the moment. Next year I'm going to take AP European History, and I'm quite excited about that. I was on the freshman volleyball team this past fall and I improved my skills to an extent that I may have a chance to make Junior Varsity next year. I also play softball for my city league; it's my favorite game to play because I love the adrenaline rush of facing a pitcher.

May I have your permission to rant? It's hard to be a teenager these days. To sum it up in one word, I would have to choose "drama." So, drama takes the stage during brunch and lunch. Everyone thinks about themselves and how to get attention. I hate it. Why can't people see that it's much better to think about other people and be loved? I don't know. There have been many drama performances within my group of friends, and it's not fun to listen to a friend and her boyfriend totally yell at others saying , "You guys don't accept us! Why do you hate us so much?" when it really isn't the case at all? Jeez, sometimes it gets too boring to hear. One after another after another. Very tiring. But I guess that's just a part of life huh?

Argh, Dad won't let me put my picture on this site.

Well, as you might know, I attended the U2 concert with my dad. I had a great time and was enthusiastic to see Bono perform on stage. Basically, to most people it was a sermon onstage, but in my opinion, he preaches just right. He talks in a way that's so subtle and calm, and doesn't have the extreme liberalism of Michael Moore. But don't think about his ethics - listen to their music. The creativity that they put in their songs is spectacular, and just listen to the context and complexity of the rhythm. It's outstanding. And I got a really awesome shirt out of the deal too lol.

Well, I hope this experiment went well....ttyl.

SD

Bono-ed

2005-04-12T01:50:00.000-07:00

Pastor Bono

Walking out of the U2 concert last Saturday night at San Jose's HP Pavilion, my friend turned to me and said "now I won't have to go to church tomorrow." We'd just participated in a 20,000 strong worship service dedicated to eliminating world suffering, conducted by a leather-jacket clad Bono, and delivered at 200 decibels.

And the preaching was oddly tolerable, and the vibe was surprisingly multi-denominational. I didn't even cringe when he recited the U.N. charter on Human Rights, nor when he mimicked an Abu Ghraib prisoner in a blindfold. He asked us to text-message his website for ending world poverty, and his name-dropping of the Pope, Mandela, and Bush didn't seem forced or overly self-aggrandizing. He even complimented the U.S. military's courage after a generic anti-war song that featured a video backdrop of a B-2 bomber. He ended one sermon on Africa by saying he didn't want our money but wanted our attention, and he ended the concert with a song about the 40th Psalm.

So what does all this mean? For starters, Bono can fill the shoes of his own messianic complex. His singing is almost a distraction to his larger goals. Secondly, a good rock show can melt the crusty cynicism of a 40-something foreign policy hawk and convert him, if only for two hours, into a mushy one-worlder. The Realist needs a dose of Idealism to keep from being buried by the world's imperfections.

Thirdly, and most importantly, my 15-year old daughter was on her feet the whole show and thinks he's the bomb.

Great Movie Gaffes

2005-04-08T01:43:00.000-07:00

Michael Corleone fully revived

All of the Vatican coverage on TV has reminded me of the uneven movie Godfather III, which includes one of my favorite movie gaffes.

Pacino and Coppolla are great artists, but Coppolla can get real sloppy. In the movie, Michael Corleone is giving an impromptu confession to a Cardinal in an outdoor courtyard at the Vatican.

Michael suffers from diabetes, and during their discussion he suddenly lapses into a diabetic stroke. As he collapses, he frantically tells the Cardinal he needs sugar.

The Cardinal claps three times, and in a flash a servant miraculously appears from the shadows carrying a silver tray with a full pitcher of fructose-laden orange juice and a dozen Milky Way bars, carefully arranged.

Michael grabs the bars, quickly rips them open, chomps on a couple bites, and then slurps down a nice cold tall one of Florida’s finest. Total elapsed time from onset to fully ingested Milky Way is about ten seconds.

Maybe this is standard operating procedure at the Vatican, servants waiting behind each pillar with sugary sweets to respond to any potential diabetic attack. But my suspension of disbelief for the movie evaporated for the next 15 minutes.

Do you have any other examples?

What's With The Segway?

2005-04-06T12:10:00.000-07:00

Gimmick or Innovation?

How come we don't see streets teeming with Segways? It seems like a nifty gadget, environmentally friendly, electrically powered, capable of speeds past 12 miles per hour, and looks like a lot of fun...can't someone find a market for it? Two years past its European introduction, the BBC is asking why it's not a big hit:

"But walking is free, natural and we all know how to do it, so why
pay thousands for a Segway?" he says. "And if you don't want to walk why not get
a bike, again it's much cheaper. The Segway doesn't seem to have massive
practical benefits over other products or our own legs. "

And then you've got the minor problem of its legality. Only electric wheelchairs and mobility scooters are allowed on sidewalks. And with a price tag in the thousands of dollars, you want to be able to use it outside of your backyard. Marketing tends to be focused around warehouses, golfcourses, and airports.

Maybe they should be focusing more on this niche. Why haven't you bought a Segway?

Chilling...

2005-04-05T01:33:00.000-07:00

That's how I'd describe Ruth Bader Ginsburg's recent speech to a conference of lawyers:

NYTimes: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court embraced the
practice of consulting foreign legal decisions on Friday, rejecting the argument
from conservatives that United States law should not take international thinking
into account.
"The notion that it is improper to look beyond the borders of
the United States in grappling with hard questions has a certain kinship to the
view that the U.S. Constitution is a document essentially frozen in time as of
the date of its ratification," Justice Ginsburg said.
"Even more so today, the United States is subject to the scrutiny of a candid world," she said. "What the United States does, for good or for ill, continues to be watched by the
international community, in particular by organizations concerned with the
advancement of the rule of law and respect for human dignity."

So not only do we have to worry about precedents from whacked judges within the U.S., but Justices like Ginsburg will be scouring the world courts for the latest, globally-adopted penumbra of a shadow of a mirage. And we wouldn't want any U.S. law to offend the sensibilities of world public opinion.

Why not just adopt an exchange program whereby judges in the Hague and the French courts do stints on the U.S. Supreme court, and vice versa? Kind of like a study-abroad program for judges. Wouldn't we be cross-polinating all of the collective wisdom of the European sophisticates and improving our jurisprudence? And besides, we'd get judges who wear those funny wigs.

Given The Events of the Past Weekend...

2005-04-04T01:32:00.000-07:00

...you might want to re-calibrate your belief system through this test.

I'd give you my results but slight variations seem to shuffle the order pretty significantly. That being said, I don't know how you reconcile Liberal Quaker, Sikhism, Taoism, Ba'hai, and Liberal Protestantism, but maybe I can corner the market.

Give This Man His Due

2005-04-01T01:46:00.000-08:00

Funniest Man On Television

Ryan Stiles is the funniest man on television. His improv work on "Whose Line Is It, Anyway?" has got to rank up there with the greats, but he doesn't seem to get the acclaim of a Jim Carrey or Robin Williams. I've been watching WLII re-runs on a cable channel and he's dead on every night. He and his improv sidekick Colin Mochrie have developed a hilarious symbiosis that never seems forced or false. I haven't watched the Drew Carey show, so I don't know how he comes across in a character role, but he truly is King of the Improv.

WLII isn't in production any longer (although the re-runs are on nightly), and Stiles apparently isn't working. How can that be? Give this man his due, he needs a show.

He's A Nutter

2005-03-31T08:02:00.000-08:00

Psychic Powers

I knew it. Felos is a nut job.

That soft, sing-songy voice, the tilted head, the manufactured look of empathy, the half-smile, the attempts to paint Schiavo's starvation as some sort of warm and fuzzy event removed from the physical sphere, all come from a guy who, in his first right-to-die case, wrote this:

I felt the midsection of my body open and noticed a strange quality
to the light in the room. I sensed her soul in agony. As she screamed I heard
her say, in confusion, "Why am I still here ... Why am I here?" My soul touched
hers and in some way I communicated that she was still locked in her body. I
promised I would do everything in my power to gain the release her soul cried
for. With that, the screaming immediately stopped. I felt like I was back in my
head again, the room resumed its normal appearance, and Mrs. Browning, as she
had throughout this experience, lay silent.

He seems to be regularly in touch with the non-physical world:

Felos claims to have used his mental powers to cause a plane he was
passenger on to nearly crash. By simply asking himself, "I wonder what it would
be like to die right now?" the plane's autopilot program mysteriously ceased to
function and the plane descended into free fall. Felos then observed, "At that
instant a clear, distinctly independent and slightly stern voice said to me, 'Be
careful what you think. You are more powerful than you realize.' In quick
succession I was startled, humbled and blessed by God's admonishment."

Apparently Felos seeks out these cases in order to self-stimulate his spiritual release:

"As I continued to stay beside Mrs. Browning at her nursing home
bed, I felt my mind relax and my weight sink into the ground. I began to feel
lightheaded as I became more reposed. Although feeling like I could drift into
sleep, I also experienced a sense of heightened awareness."

At least Kevorkian has the guts to own up to his convictions. Felos just gets off on the whole thing while billing $400 per hour.

The French call it "le petite morte"; Felos calls it a day at the office.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

2005-03-30T05:18:00.000-08:00

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - An Egyptian stabbed a Hungarian man and woman,
slightly wounding them, after the couple kissed while pausing for a photograph
near a mosque at Cairo's popular tourist bazaar, police said Tuesday.

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Hundreds of Ugandan Muslims have demonstrated
in the capital to protest a proposed restriction on polygamy they see as an
affront to their religion.Under Islamic law, a Muslim man is allowed to take up
to four wives, as long as he can provide for all of them equally. But a domestic
relations bill being debated by Uganda's parliament says Ugandan Muslims should
have to seek approval from their first wife before marrying again.
"Islamic law has been there since it was passed on from Allah to the Prophet Mohammed, it cannot be re-written now," one of the protesters, Bukulu Haruna, told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Grim Realities

2005-03-30T01:47:00.000-08:00

The grim realities of Terry Schiavo's death are starting to surface.

George Felos, who has the audacity to patronize the public and spin the realities of Terry's condition in direct contradiction of her own family, has let it slip:

Felos said Terri "has never been on a morphine drip." She has received two small doses of five miligrams of morphine a week ago and on Sunday, but not for pain relief, he added without elaborating.

"Without elaborating." Let me speculate: The expected convulsions from dehydration have begun. The moaning we hear referenced by her family is real, and her mind and body are struggling to stay alive. It serves neither side to pretend that her death is purely a peaceful interlude.

And Felos' attempt to fuzzy-up the lens, zoom-out slowly, and have Terry fade to black ain't going to wash.

Aaron Resurfaces...

2005-03-29T09:45:00.000-08:00

creator of this, and author of Aaron's Rantblog, has rejoined the ranks of the blogosphere here after a prolonged absence. Please give him a bookmark.

Can You Say "Firetrap?"...

2005-03-29T08:17:00.000-08:00

The new Airbus A380 jetliner is so enormous that it will take almost one hour for its maximum load of 853 passengers to board. In an emergency, those same people must be able to escape within 90 seconds. . . (MORE:)

Churchill Comes To Town

2005-03-29T07:50:00.000-08:00

... and Res Ipsa Loquitur has the goods on his appearance on the UC Berkeley campus.

His schtick? As you would expect, a race card, although last I checked he was still a member of the Caucasian tribe.

RIL sums up the panel's discussion:

...those who attack Churchill are presumably white people in power, Newt Gingrich (a critic of Churchill) is "ethnically-impaired."

Good grief. Gingrich has been out of power for years. Does this stuff still sell?

My Barbershop

2005-03-28T01:04:00.000-08:00

Last Refuge?

Being deeply esconced in the homogeneity and commercial blandness of suburbia, I have to travel cross-town to avoid the Super-Cuts and Pro-Cuts and other monuments to vapidity in order to get a trim.

No teen queen is going to be seen easing my head back into a wash basin to get the shampoo and rinse. No dazed walk from the sink to the chair wrapped in a plastic sheet for me. No hip, canned music playing in the background giving the impression of a party. And I don't read US magazine.

Let me tell you about my barbershop:

Pictures of fighters and football players surround the heads of large mammals on the walls. The TV is tuned to auto racing, and a straight edge is used around the ears and neck. But beyond these standard features, I get to hear real conversations from the three barbers (two men and one woman):

Woman Barber was excited to tell me on Friday that she's getting married this week to her long lost boyfriend. He's been in prison for 20 years, and was recently released due to Arnold's prison release program. He doesn't have any prospects for work, and they ran into each other just three months ago at the Raiders game, but it all is just falling into place.

Man Barber #1 during my last visit unbuttoned his shirt to show me the stab wound he received in a bar fight. It wasn't just a scar, but a deep gash a few inches north of his left peck. Doctor told him a little lower and he'd be dead. I was assured that his assailant has his own wound as a souvenir.

Man Barber #2 a while back reached into his scissor drawer and pulled out a box full of wild boar teeth from a recent kill in the local hills. He only hunts with bow and arrow, and has had one ram its tusks into his leg.

The barbershop is the last refuge of reality in a synthetic world, where social pretense is left at the door and business is conducted in cash. Give me ex-cons, bar fights, and boar hunts any day, just don't ask if I want gel.

Crashing The Met

2005-03-26T01:44:00.000-08:00

Banksy's Opening At The Met

An enterprising artist has decided that his work is as worthy to be publically viewed as the Masters currently on display at the New York Met, the American Museum of Natural History, the MOMA, and the Brooklyn Museum, smuggling in his own art and simply hanging it on the walls.

Going by the name of "Banksy," the prankster hit all four New York museums on March 13. And this wasn't the first time:

Last year he smuggled work into the Louvre in Paris and London's Tate, attracting attention in the British media.

"My sister inspired me to do it. She was throwing away loads of my pictures one day and I asked her why. She said 'It's not like they're going to be hanging in the Louvre.'" (more pictures)

Now I don't condone vandalism in our greatest museums, but this prank has a certain charm in its democratic brashness. If Warhol can (pun intended), why not me?

It also reminds me of a fraternity stunt we executed at UC Berkeley, whose grounds are peppered with avant-guarde sculptures that don't necessarily conform to recognizeable patterns of aesthetic work.

Late one night we emptied out our garage, shed, and dumpster of old, rusty items and trash, arranged it in provocative ways in the center of a quad's lawn, and placed an official-looking name plate at its feet.

Our display lasted for a month, receiving critical acclaim.

ABC News Crucifies Terry Schiavo

2005-03-24T01:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was driving to work when I heard the ABC national polling director on the network feed explain, in authoritative tones, that the effort to save Terry Schiavo was out of step with American public opinion. Citing the results of their new poll, this authority on the collective consciousness of America definitively stated that a 63%-28% plurality favored removing Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube.

I was stunned by their polling result, and began to question my own, conflicted instincts.

But it, like almost everything else it spews forth, was a manufactured lie.

Nor did the polling question mention that she anticipates pain. Or that her face smiles and brightens in response to familiar persons, and laughs with others. Or that she experiences the pain of menstruation, and is comforted with aspirin. I heard her recorded voice when her feeding tube was extracted and I don’t believe it was purely a reflex.

I’m not prone to religious imagery, and this is not meant as a metaphor:

ABC News is crucifying Terry Schiavo. They are a modern day Roman centurion that has taken a vinegar-soaked spear and thrust it into her side.

The Limits of Rockstar-dom

2005-03-23T01:34:00.000-08:00

Dissed in Uganda

Bob Geldof has his heart in the right place. But now that Live Aid is a distant memory, and after being eclipsed by Bono as the Rockstar/Robin Hood-for-the-Third World, he has to put up with certain indignities. His latest effort to effect change in Uganda by calling for Presidential term limits has created a backlash:

Hundreds of people have marched through the streets of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, to protest Sir Bob Geldof's call for the president (Museveni) to step down.

They held placards which read: "Geldof sober up and shut up", "No to drug addicts and Rock Homos." (link)

Ouch. There are plenty of Rockstars that deserve those comments, I'm not sure Geldof is one of them. For example, he had the guts to publically give Bush credit for his commitment to Aids:

"Clinton talked the talk and did diddly squat, whereas Bush doesn't talk but does deliver." (Link)

Geldof has had a tumultuous personal life, watching his wife Paula Yates run off with Michael Hutchence of the band INXS, who subsequently committed suicide. Yates eventually died of a drug overdose, leaving him in charge of their three kids and one child from the Hutchence union.

Geldof still works on Africa aid and debt-relief, working under the radar while Bono takes the limelight. I was never a fan of his music, but I give him credit for committing to his moral passion and walking the walk for those who are weak and dying - not unlike those undertaking the vigil in Florida.

It seems to me that it's going to take a Bob Geldof type organizing a new "Live Aid for Terry Schiavo" if Terry is going to make it through the weekend.

Jihad: The Musical...

2005-03-22T07:36:00.000-08:00

...has opened to rave reviews and standing room only audiences. Here, via Beautiful Atrocities.

Personally, I got all misty-eyed when John Walker Lindh took center stage and sang A Long Way From Whole Foods. A real show-stopper.

Chirac Draws A Digital Maginot Line

2005-03-21T09:06:00.000-08:00

Jacques Chirac is feeling a bit beleaguered. The French might not pass the E.U. Constitution, French wine may not be all that it's cracked up to be, Agence France-Presse feels threatened by Google, and Google's announcement that it is to offer access to some 15 million books and documents currently housed in five of the most prestigious libraries in the English-speaking world has France's chief librarian in a tizzy:

"It is confirmation of the risk of a crushing American domination
in the definition of how future generations conceive the world."

It would have been "deleterious and detestable" for the image of France if the only texts popularly consulted around the world for an interpretation of the revolution were English-language ones, he said.

So Chirac is launching a digital Maginot line, quickly financing the Gallica project which has put some 80,000 French works and 70,000 images on-line, hoping to slow the digital advance of the Anglo-Saxon culture. But the budget for this effort is less than one thousandth of the 200 million dollars that the US is prepared to spend.

Given the success of the original Maginot line, one would think that Chirac would best adopt the Vichy strategy and cede the war to the Anglosphere; that being said, no one is arguing, including me, that French language shouldn't be fully represented on the internet. The only barrier to entry is the conviction with which one stands behind their country's culture.

I Know Dylan Is Multi-Dimensional, But...

2005-03-21T06:41:00.000-08:00

...this is taking things a little too far:

Bob Dylan has finally given permission to a Hollywood studio to
make a film about his life. He will be portrayed by seven actors – one of them a
black woman.
It is traditional in films spanning a lifetime for characters to be played by more than one actor, but rare for them to change sex or race. (Director) Haynes is considering female actors, including the pop singer Beyonce Knowles, the tennis champion Venus Williams and the television presenter Oprah Winfrey.

Interesting. Venus Williams goes electric at Newport. Oprah lets it rip on the harmonica. Beyonce rides into town in the Rolling Thunder Review. Don't people realize that the only thing Dylan has played straight is his songs (and never the same way live) and his recent memoir? Everything else is a diversion to throw you off his scent. He won't let you know him outside of his art, only occasional glimpses on his own terms.

That being said, does this mean I've got a shot at playing Tina Turner?

Bring Back The Stirrup

2005-03-19T06:35:00.000-08:00

Frank Robinson Stirs It Up

Recent postings from Sluggo on Roberto Clemente and Mr. Snitch on the Zen of baseball, along with my recent visit to the Cactus League last weekend, and Mark McGwire's national self-destruction, have prompted my own metaphysical search for the ultimate baseball truth. And I think I've found it. Bring back the stirrup.

Yes. The professional sterility of the full length baseball pant, and the occasional monotone bobby-sock/knickers look of J.T. Snow and a handful of others, are draining the cheer and boyish charm out of the aesthetics of the game. We need to see some stirrups, low or high, striped or single-colored - but only with a white sanitary undersock (no A's gold or yellow undersocks! Charlie Finley, eternal shame.). Stirrups are as important to the game as a dark blue-clad umpire, a white-chalked field, a dark-green fence, or the team logo on the cap's crown.

And where did this uniform feature come from? It's roots are deep in the lore of the game and date back to the early 1900's, when real players like Ty Cobb ran amok:

Because clothing dye was not colorfast, colored socks bled onto a
player's legs and feet when mixed with his inescapable sweat seeping from his
skin. According to one history reading, this was particularly dangerous because
a player could get blood poisoning if the bleeding dye infected the bleeding
wound of a freshly spiked shin. The less-dangerous reason is that players didn't
especially enjoy their feet turning various shades of the rainbow, thus the need
for a solution. (link - a great read)

That's a pedigree that's worthy of preserving. As a Little Leaguer in the early 70s, the fashion was to pull the stirrup up as high as possible. You'd even doctor the sock by cutting it at the bottom of the stirrup, and sewing in a wide elastic band to let the arch reach high up on your calf and shin (high arch always in back). Frank Robinson is credited with pushing this fashion envelope. But I'd prefer the low arch variety as a standard.

We need to cleanse the game from the taint of steroids and the corrupting influences of fame and money. The easiest way would be to bring back the stirrup.

How to Save California's Schools

2005-03-16T08:27:00.000-08:00

I am what you might call a "super user" of the California Public School System: Spear-son and Spear-daughter in middle school and high school respectively, and Ms. Shaker a teacher's aid studying for her full teaching credential.

So when California spends over $9,000 per student (including local, state, and federal sources) in 2004, and yet ranks near the bottom in many state-by-state comparisons, it's going to take more than just the Governator to turn things around.

I've got two mandatory core curriculum changes that will improve the value of a California education and set our students on the right path for the future:

1) eBay Lab: If my son can sell his used Nintendo Gamecube, along with a set of old games, on eBay for 3/4 of its original value, then others need to be introduced to this service. Not only did he learn how to market an item (the gallery photo, description, and product listing are critical), but also how to price (reserve or no reserve price, review of comparable listings), transact an auction, interact with a buyer, pack and ship a product, receive electronic payment, provide feedback, and potentially manage any return issues. In others words, he became an online entrepreneur. Think how efficient our economy would be if all school kids were taught how to use this tool and apply the learnings to other businesses.

2) Apprentice Studies: There hasn't been a TV show that more accurately presents the concepts of responsibility and meritocracy in the corporate world better than the Apprentice. Granted there is plenty of gamesmanship and contrived drama, and corporate life can be dreary and corrupt, but the lessons of project management, task management, teamwork, planning, competition, and accountability are invaluable and sorely lacking in the school system. And these skills don't just apply to big business. Students would study the episodes, write papers on lessons learned, and then be assigned their own community service tasks in a competition. We'd have to scale back some of the awards, however.

eBay and the Apprentice - two of our best pop culture inventions that just might save the younger generation.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

2005-03-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

Alarm! Alarm! We're all going to fry! The Great Flood will be unleashed! The end is nigh! The snows of Kilimanjaro are melting! Or maybe not for the reason you might expect. Link.

Avenging Emma

2005-03-14T01:54:00.000-08:00

The Real Emma Peel

Maureen Dowd says she conjures up images of Diana Rigg in the 60s when she wants to trash someone in her column:

"When I need to work up my nerve to write a tough column, I try to think of myself as Emma Peel in a black leather catsuit, giving a kung fu kick to any diabolical mastermind who merits it."

Well I'm no John Steed, but I don't like Emma's memory to be co-opted by a boozy, bitter, bitchy and increasingly incoherent New York Times columnist. Can you recall a column by MoDo that had any policy insights whatsoever?

Meanwhile, Emma Peel lives o n as the witty, brilliant, attractive, seductive, and self-assured character that she was.

These episodes, along with the Prisoner, were 60s British television at its best, and pushed the envelope in intelligent, provocative, and creative ways that today's commercial crap could only dream of.

Patrick MacNee (Steed), once said of Emma's character: " I was the woman, and she was the man." For some reason that's not how I want to think of Diana Rigg's character. But the question of whether she was simply a cult icon or a role model with larger cultural implications is worth debating.

It's Lonely At The Top

2005-03-14T01:10:00.000-08:00

Being President of a small African nation has its challenges. Aides to Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika explain:

"Sometimes the president feels rodents crawling all over his body
but when lights are turned on he sees nothing."

I hate it when that happens.

Caption Contest

2005-03-11T01:42:00.000-08:00

Michael Jackson's Career

Jose Canseco's credibility? The French work ethic? A380 test flight? Barry Bonds' back? Tehran in five years? Hillary Clinton close-up?. . .

Taking Off Or Crash Landing?

2005-03-10T01:10:00.000-08:00

This helps answer this question.

"This Is No Arab Glasnost"

2005-03-09T01:54:00.000-08:00

. . . the best shot of realism I've seen in a few weeks:

The Arab leaders have worked out how a democratic gift-horse is
never looked in the mouth. So many in the West are easily hoodwinked by just the
semblance of democracy, as long as it helps them win arguments with opponents
back home.
Economic development, human freedom, full property rights and a
pluralistic political culture are the conditions for democracy. They can grow,
but, without them, any democracy project will fall. So we are still at stage one
in the Middle East.
And any chances of proceeding to stage two mean keeping up the
pressure - and not being fooled by decoys thrown up by Arab despots.
Spreading democracy is the only way to win the war on terror. We
are, alas, still a long way from this victory.

There's a fundamental cultural chasm between the Arab world and the West that will never be reconciled; we are seeing a flurry of people power in the Mideast that has yet to feel the harsh realities of an Islamic backlash.

The region may seek to adopt a veneer of political modernization, but it will not likely westernize. Any movement toward liberalization is a good thing, and worthy of our war effort, but the best outcome won't meet the standards of secular democracies.

Channeling the energy of religious fervor and sectarian hatred inwards towards political goals within the context of a system governed by man's laws, fairly adjudicated, is the best result for these countries.

Another Reason to Promote Economic Globalization...

2005-03-09T01:52:00.000-08:00

. . . to bring people like this out of the Dark Ages. Other comments on Bangladesh here.

Airport Observations

2005-03-09T01:48:00.000-08:00

I happen to spend a lot of time in airports because of the travel requirements of my job. As such, I fairly often run into, as others would describe them, "celebrities," or public figures, such as politicians, TV and sports personalities, and talking heads.

What's fascinating is that these public figures are rarely recognized within the airport, as people are entirely focused on their own travel experience. With our celebrity-obsessed culture, these same figures would cause a stir if they were in a restaurant or shopping area, but seem able to hide in the anonymity of the airport frenzy.

During the O.J. trial, the weekend before the verdict I was flying down to L.A. from Oakland seated behind Christopher Darden, the co-prosecutor with Marcia Clark. Granted he's not a recognizeable figure now, but at the time his face was splashed on every tabloid and newspaper in the country. He had been on cable TV for months, and the fate of O.J. lay in his hands. And the media coverage was wall-to-wall with the deliberations and the pending verdict. I made a point to walk through the terminal right behind him to see if he was recognized. No one made the connection during the transit through the concourse, recovering his baggage, and out the door.

Similar experiences with politicians. Governors, Bush Cabinet officials, Senators, TV reporters, etc. seem to travel fairly anonymously. More important politicians are often the last called onto the plane, emerging from a holding room near the gate. Gate agents seem to be trained in how to accomodate celebrities, either whisking them into first class prior to boarding, or making sure they're the last to board. I once had to compete with George Stephanopoulos for a seat; the little dork won.

Maybe politicians just aren't celebrities, and it's only politics junkies like me who see them as such. The point is, if you're into celebrity-spotting, keep your eyes peeled at the airport. You won't have any competition.

Now This I've Got To Try:

2005-03-08T01:46:00.000-08:00

Here, via Slings and Arrows. Put me down for Al Pacino's final speech at the Baird School in "Scent of a Woman." What would you choose?

Blogger Tip

2005-03-08T01:41:00.000-08:00

For those of you with your own blogs. Never lose a post. Here, via Harvey. (I'm still beta testing.)

Irrelevance,

2005-03-08T01:39:00.001-08:00

and impotence, defined.

Genocide for Dummies

2005-03-07T01:18:00.000-08:00

Little Chomskies

I've watched the Real Time with Bill Maher interview with Ward Churchill twice, and I don't know whether to laugh or cry, but I certainly can't ignore it.

Please watch the clip here and give me your thoughts below.

Maher brings on Churchill, who either is heavily sedated or adopting a victim pose, and tries desperately to have his guest make the incendiary point that the stock traders in the World Trade Center were complicit in genocide and therefore culpable for their own murders.

How does Churchill make this connection between selling IRAs over the phone and genocide? Granted, I'm on the Do Not Call List, but I'd draw the line somewhere short of their murder.

Those young brokers, he says, were actually "technocrats" (shudder), engaged in a "technical function" whose "by-product is eviseration and mass annihilation." You see, they help to "maximize profits by displacing labor into the sweatshops of Malaysia." Hence, they're "little Eichmanns."

A little self-disclosure here. When I got out of college I trained on Wall Street to be a broker, and spent time in downtown Manhattan dialing for dollars, trying to land wealthy clients (my degree of success should be self-evident.) We were the sales force on America's used-car lot of equity financing during the 80's economic boom, but I don't recall gassing any Kurds or hacking away at any Tutsis.

And a word about Malaysia. Sporting one of the world's most phenomenal airports (Kuala Lumpur International), home of the Petronas Twin Towers, and the country of origin of most hard drives, disk drives, and memory chips, Malaysia is a high-tech success story with an incredible infrastructure and a GDP per capita much higher than China, Thailand, Indonesia, or the Philippines. Doesn't seem to be much genocide in those Malaysian sweat shops.

So Churchill is either a rube, a fraud, a poseur, a dunce, or a little of each. As for Maher, he praises Churchill for "walking out on the edge" and calling attention to the fact that some people hate America for "valid reasons" - (this got heavy applause.) Maher is an intellectual in his own mind.

But maybe I'm biased given my past life creating global collateral damage over the phone. How did you interpret these performances?

The Politics of Pygmies

2005-03-05T01:29:00.000-08:00

Pygmy Politics

All the excitement in the news about finding a new race of Hobbits is obscuring a deep conflict in the paleontology community, and causing the replaying of similar disputes that popped up a few years back when the Kennewick Man was discovered in Washington State:

Since the discovery of the hobbits was announced in October the extraordinary find has turned into an extraordinary feud, with its roots in national pride and an Indonesian reverence for age. (link)

It seems that the head Indonesian Paleoanthropologist isn't too keen on calling this find a new species, and apparently isn't very concerned about preservering the bones:

A jawbone that is crucial to the discovery team's claim that more than one hobbit lived in the Flores cave had also been cracked and badly repaired while in the care of (Indonesian anthropologist) Professor Jacob.

What's going on here is the concern, similar to the Kennewick finding, that modern science will break taboos and somehow reflect poorly on the heredity and lineage of one's ancestors. In the case of Kennewick Man, assigning Caucasoid or Asiatic/Ainu lineage to the 8,400 B.C. bones disrupts the myth of a pristine American-Indian race, and the claims of eminent domain that emanate from that belief. To this day the Kennewick man remains in legal limbo.

With Homo floresiensis, the new Hobbit species that measures three-feet tall, presumably the Indonesians aren't too keen to suggest that their ancestors looked like anorexic Willy Wonka munchkins. But how can anyone, regardless of their sensibilities, not be blown away with wonder at this new find?

Despite recent tests that suggest the Hobbit skull was not microencephalic but representative of a normal adult, it's far from certain that these early finds will fully validate the Hobbit theory. But hopefully scientists will keep the pressure on for full disclosure, and keep the politics and national sensibilities out of the equation.

R.I.P. . .

2005-03-04T01:56:00.000-08:00

. . . Blogger craps out while publishing my most amazing, inciteful, inspirational, and important piece ever. I had finally developed a Grand Unified Theory, reconciling quantum mechanics, evolution, intelligent design, science, religion, human behavior, and the U.S. tax code.

All down the Blogger drain. Because the inspiration was like a lightening bolt, the words flowed directly onto the post with no file back-up. And those words ain't coming back.

It was like that Dylan song, when he sings:

"everyone of those words rang true and glowed like burning coal, pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul. . ."

But Blogger took the Post, like a Dennis Rader neighbor. . .

I'll have to carry the burden that Man now won't live up to his full potential. C'est la vie. R.I.P. to the Post That Never Was.

Economics 101

2005-03-04T01:41:00.000-08:00

Deficit as % of GNP

From AP:

WASHINGTON -More states are requiring students to learn about managing money, but personal finance remains a fringe topic in schools and a major source of federal concern. In a national survey last year, only 52 percent of high school seniors answered correctly questions about personal finance and economics. The students struggled, for example, with questions on income tax, stocks and bonds, credit card liability and retirement plans.

It's a good thing that the National Council on Economic Education recognizes there's a problem, but the bad news is that it's this generation that's going to have to come to grips with the entitlement programs and account deficits that are a drag on the economy.

And nobody seems to be teaching the benefits of free trade, dynamic labor markets, de-regulation, savings and capital, low taxation, time value of money, and compounding at the high school level where basic macro & micro-economic principles can prepare students to be informed citizens and financially independent. If they did, perhaps this guy wouldn't be so popular at his college.

But the least prepared people to address economic issues seem to be in the news media. Outside of the business-related shows like Kudlow's, the White House beat reporters are terrible at reporting economic news.

The federal budget deficit should never be reported as simply a number, but always as a percent of GDP. And this percentage has to be viewed in light of the prevailing interest rates and corresponding debt service. But reporters love to breathlessly announce a really big number, "the biggest deficit ever!."

And Social Security: one's "benefits" are simply IOUs on a future generation's ability to pay. There ain't no account with money in it, compounding away with your name on it.

And the mysterious descriptor "lower than expected." Pre-election, every economic statistic was lower than expected. After the election, those doing the expecting seem to have vanished.

And the constant reporting of the change in the consumer confidence survey numbers serves no purpose other than to confuse the public and distract from the fundamentals: "consumer confidence drops unexpectedly!" Oh my. Better sell.

Economics, finance, and investing should be required in the high school curriculum. Then kids could understand and appreciate good news like this.

Lucky He Didn't Try For A Soda Refill. . .

2005-03-03T01:15:00.000-08:00

. . . Colorado police protect the integrity of the Chuck E. Cheese salad bar:

Aurora police have reviewed a weekend incident in which a man accused of stealing salad from a Chuck E. Cheese salad bar was hit with a stun gun twice by officers and said that proper procedures were followed. (link)

In a related incident, a Denver man was beaten with nightsticks for taking one too many "towelettes" from a local Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Here Comes the Sun

2005-03-02T01:07:00.000-08:00

Could it be that freon and similar gases may not be the biggest contributor to upper atmosphere ozone depletion? Maybe that big bright star that rises in the East has something to do with it:

A dramatic thinning of Earth's protective ozone layer above the Arctic last year was the result of intense upper-level winds and an extra dose of space weather, scientists said Tuesday.
In a new study, scientists conclude that an intense round of solar storms around Halloween in 2003 was at the root of the problem.
"No one predicted the dramatic loss of ozone in the upper stratosphere of
the Northern Hemisphere in the spring of 2004," Randall said. "That we can
still be surprised illustrates the difficulties in separating atmospheric
effects due to natural and human-induced causes."

Condi Places Spiked Heel. . .

2005-03-02T01:01:00.001-08:00

. . . firmly on Bashar's backside.

Bono in Pinstripes?. . .

2005-03-02T01:01:00.000-08:00

. . . hold on to your wallets.

Looks like he will have some competition.

Play Mideast Revolution Lotto!

2005-03-01T01:31:00.000-08:00

Place your bet on which Mideast country will experience a democratic revolution, similar to the Ukraine's "orange" revolution, within the next year. Place your "bets" in the comments below. Opening odds are based on Shaking Spears' initial assessment, subject to change:

Official Wager Form

Lebanon – 6:5. . . . . . . . . . . . in progress?
Jordan – 2:1. . . . . . . . . . . . . Abdullah abdicates?
Egypt – 5:2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hosni gets hung?
Syria – 3:1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bashar takes a Baath?
Iran – 4:1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Mullahs get turban-limited?
Saudi Arabia – 7:1. . . . . . . . . Abdallah abdicates?
Pakistan – 8:1 . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pervez purged?

Other countries:

North Korea – 20:1. . . . . . . . . Kim Jong takes ill?
Russia – 25:1. . . . . . . . . . . . .Putin gets putsched?
France – 500:1. . . . . . . . . . . . French try again?

Winners get a choice of either a) plucking Thomas Friedman's moustache, b) poking holes in Sandy Berger's socks, or c) whacking Richard Clarke with a hardcover copy of the 9/11 report.

Questions for the Wichita Police

2005-02-28T02:21:00.000-08:00

The BTK killer has been apprehended, and this guy's profile fits everyone's expectations. It's easy to say "why didn't you catch this guy earlier?," but I have to ask "WHY DIDN'T YOU CATCH THIS GUY EARLIER?!!!":

1) It was clear that the killer was male and lived within Wichita and its suburbs for many years
2) Wichita and its suburbs have a total population of only 300,000
3) It had been determined that the killer went to Wichita State University
4) It was clear that the killer had a detailed knowledge of the area, its geography, and its streets
5) It was clear that the suspect would have routine or official access to people's property and homes
6) One of the victims lived on the suspect's street
7) The killer's voice was caught on a 911 tape
8) The killer had sent numerous communications over the years to authorities, pleading for more attention

The suspect, a Wichita State University grad and 30-year Wichita resident, is a code enforcement officer who routinely snooped around people's property, taking pictures. Neighbors described him as strange, "two-sided," and prone to odd behavior. If this guy wasn't on someone's suspect list, then they should be fired.

One other, unsettling note. This guy kept some of the belongings of his victims, and spent a lot of time over the years communicating to authorities. I remember a scene in the great movie "The Dead Zone" where Christopher Walken divines that the mother of the serial killer knew of her son's activities. This may be grossly unfair, but I want to know what the wife knew.

Update: Here's a video - he apparently also worked as a home alarm technician.

Tales of the Middle East, Part I

2005-02-26T01:53:00.000-08:00

Bahrain, Arabian Gulf

(or how I corrupted Saudi Arabia’s youth)

“Mr. Mark, can we go see ‘The Show?’”

In the mid-90s I was tasked with training the overseas agents of the global shipping firm of which I was employed.

This assignment brought me to the island of Bahrain - a small Arabian Gulf sheikdom fueled by its oil reserves located directly off the coast of Saudi Arabia. Because of its declining oil reserves, it has had to diversify and liberalize its economy into banking and tourism. It’s where many in the region go to play, and Manama, the capital, is where we scheduled the training sessions.

Participants flew in from across the region, including Iran, Oman, and Kuwait (the war aftermath had died down), but most of the attendees were from Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Many of them were young, probably the sons of each agency’s owner.

The training got off to a bad start because the customs agents had seized the training video that was buried deep inside my checked luggage. Even in the relatively liberal Bahrain, inappropriate video tapes were strictly forbidden. The clerks in the Bahraini customs agency must have been seriously disappointed with their late-night viewing of a confiscated tape on the joys of cargo containerization.

As per custom, the first night I hosted a dinner for the entire assembled group. After an enjoyable meal, I began to hear rumblings about some after-dinner activities. Finally one of the Saudis approached me and deferentially asked: “Mr. Mark, can we go see ‘The Show?’”

Being the polite American host, and mindful of international relations, I quickly acceded, although not knowing what to. Soon we were at the top of one of the few office towers in Manama, seated at a club overlooking the city.

The long causeway joining the Saudi Arabian mainland and Bahrain is notorious – Mercedes’ and BMWs were crashed nightly along the guardrails heading in a westbound direction, as young Saudis, resorting to binge drinking, returned home from an evening of partying in the “liberal” Bahrain, where alcohol could be purchased from one of the few clubs. As my young cadets took their seats at “The Show,” and awkwardly ordered their drinks, I began to wonder if things might get out of control.

But my bigger concern was the building anticipation amongst my guests of “The Show” and how to maintain some level of professional decorum in what I expected might become a compromising situation. Anxiously awaiting the curtain, the group looked both eager and reticent at the spectacle to come. I didn’t think this would be a routine night out in Tehran or Jeddah.

Lights dimmed, smoke swirled around the curtain. A soft, slinky jazz music began to play. Spotlights focused, and out stepped the star of the show.

The group’s eyes widened, their jaws dropped, and they sucked in every moment. . . Me? I couldn’t believe what I was seeing:

A stocky, middle-aged Russian woman with a butch haircut and expressionless face, loosely wrapped in a light-colored fabric that only left her hands, upper neck, and a small section of the top of her feet bare, legs firmly planted, slowly waving her arms in a see-saw motion to the music. Sheer ecstasy.

Thirty minutes later the siren was gone and the show was over. My group fumbled for cigarettes and quickly lit up in the afterglow. And luckily no one wrapped their cars around the Bahrain causeway.

You see I learned that night that excess is an unquenchable thirst, but deprivation is just as unsatisfying as well. The world is supposedly getting smaller and smaller and more interconnected, but our collective cultural norms might not ever find significant points of convergence. And that's a reality that weighs on our expectations for peace and harmony.

There’s a lightyear of distance between the poles of Vegas and Riyadh. And those two shows aren't likely to end.

The Mullah and his Daughter

2005-02-25T01:52:00.000-08:00

A joke from Khaled Hosseini's fine novel "The Kite Runner":

"Did you hear what Mullah Nasruddin did when his daughter came home and
complained that her husband had beaten her?"

"What?"

"He beat her too, then sent her back to tell the husband that Mullah was no
fool: If the bastard was going to beat his daughter, then Mullah would
beat his wife in return."

The battle over how Sharia is to be applied to women in Iraq is beginning. And it's not culturally insensitive to say that the treatment of women in many Muslim countries that practice traditional Sharia is horrific, from honor killings, to burqas, female circumcisions, no-rights divorce, and sanctioned beatings. Inspired by the Koran or not, extremists in these tribal societies are locked in an obsession with subjugating women to maintain their own "honor."

From a newly liberated Iraqi woman:

"They said what I am wearing is devil clothes," she says of the time she was
recently turned away from the main mosque in Baghdad's Shiite Kadhimiya
neighborhood. She pulls incredulously at the shapeless black robe that got her
banned because openings between the fasteners revealed flashes of the long
formless dress underneath."

This is the canary in the coal mine. It's the treatment of women that will decide if Iraq succeeds, and if the Middle East can throw off its barbarity.

No iPod Gold Rush

2005-02-24T08:31:00.000-08:00

No Gold Rush

Apples adjusts its iPod Mini assortment. . . I never did understand the buzz around the device's color options, when this is the critical accessory.

Shifting The Debate

2005-02-24T08:11:00.000-08:00

. . . Has Bush shifted the debate from Climate Change to "cleaner" air and "standard of living?" And from CO2 caps to break-thru technologies? It seems so. After all, when did CO2 become a "pollutant?"

The Shakespeare Charade

2005-02-24T07:16:00.000-08:00

. . . is in full view here. (via Andrew Sullivan). The rest of the story is here.

Before You Book Your Summer Vacation. . .

2005-02-23T02:25:00.000-08:00

. . . consult these exotic destinations. Via Indepundit.

What We've Suspected All Along. . .

2005-02-23T02:03:00.000-08:00

Does this mean we can take a discount at the register?

A Stunning Revelation. . .

2005-02-23T01:34:00.000-08:00

from DailyKos:

"One of my dirty little secrets -- I read very few books. In fact, the only time I read books is when I'm traveling, at the airport and on a plane. There are only two authors I have ever gone out of my way to read everything they've written -- Hunter S. Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr."

Now I've enjoyed the writings of both Thompson and Vonnegut, but for the Left's leading blogvoice to confess to a reading list that is limited to these two writers is another indicator of the intellectual paralysis and myopia that has gripped that side of the political spectrum.

A side comment on Vonnegut: I attended one of his few speaking engagements in the late 80's, as he was a favorite of mine at the time (he since has become overwhelmingly morose and misanthropic, never able to shake his experience during WWII when he witnessed the firebombing of Dresden as a POW).

During the lecture he explained that all stories map to the shape of either a "V," in which the protagonist starts off with good fortune, falls into predicament (the bottom of the "V"), and then heroically recovers, or an inverted "V" in which the protagonist starts off in bad circumstances, achieves success (top of the inverted "V"), and then ends in his misfortune.

Vonnegut concluded his lecture by explaining that his stories didn't map to these universal truths, but resembled a flat line at the bottom of a page. You can see why Vonnegut just might be the next Thompson.

More interesting insights on Thompson here from TigerHawk:

The Trouble With Barry

2005-02-22T01:27:00.000-08:00

Orange, Beetle, or Jamba?

In three weeks I'll be making my annual pilgrimage to Scottsdale, Arizona to watch my team gear up for opening day. And being a Giants' fan seems to carry a certain stigma around the country, as if the team has somehow facilitated the diminishing of Ruth's and Aaron's legacy by organizing itself around the perceived cheater, Barry Bonds, who is likely to surpass both men in the record books.

But this post isn't an apologia for Bonds. Barry will have to live with his legacy and his kharma. And I think the full truth will out over time. The trouble with Barry is he's a damn good ball player, absolutely riveting to watch, and his talent can't be simply dismissed as steroid-enhanced. Asterisks, doubts, and before/after pictures will forever be associated with Bonds' career, but whatever his sins, you're not likely to see them displayed in the shards of a corked bat or a bookie's betting slips. Whatever line was crossed, it will remain elusive and unquantifiable.

And Barry has made it difficult for fans to rally behind him. His aloofness, underlying shyness, and perpetual chip on his shoulder doom him from ever being the people's favorite. But I've watched him for too long to not appreciate the intensity with which he plays, and the physical genius of his performance at the plate.

When you sit in the right field boxes at Giants Park (no corporate names for me), near the visiting player's bullpen, you need to bring your glove for protection. Bonds' line drives are vicious, and you need some defense from that change-up that he tags just a little too early. Barry has to live with his actions, but his critics will also have to live with what I expect will be another record-breaking season. And that's the trouble with Barry.

UPDATE: Bonds' press conference here:

Are Zoos An Anachronism?, Part II

2005-02-20T01:32:00.000-08:00

Elephants on Prozac?

In response to my recent posting on the health of elephants in zoos around the country, and the bigger question of the continuing utility of zoos, I received two impassioned emails from a docent in a midwestern zoo (names withheld) taking issue with the article's suggestion that zoos are no longer needed:

There are at least four aspects of a well run zoo: education, conservation, research, and recreation. The thing most commonly seen at zoos is the recreation aspect because that is the most obvious and is easily observed. However, being a docent, I am involved in the education aspect. We give tours; we have classroom presentations, mostly for grade school kids; we recruit and train teen volunteers who then do some educating of their own, but mainly help out with the grunt work of running and maintaining a zoo (receiving more education in a hands on way).

(Our zoo) does have at least two African elephants, but I have never seen them engage in the kind of repetitive behavior you seem concerned about. Of course enrichment, i.e., offering significant mental challenges to the brainier species (and even the not so brainy species) probably explains why the elephants here don't lapse into that kind of behavior.

Are the animals better off in this setting than in the wild? If you're interested in saving threatened and endangered species I'd say yes. But that's a value judgment. You can offer arguments that zoos are an anachronism, and I'll agree with you that some of them should just go away, but facilities such as (ours) permit research and conservation that wouldn't otherwise be done.

The original article cited elephants being given anti-depressant drugs to modify their repetitive behaviors; it seems that there are facilities with committed volunteers such as the good docent writing above that do not have that problem.

Alive! Comes Alive

2005-02-19T01:05:00.000-08:00

The Andes, known for its unique cuisine

Remember this book? In 1972, the Uruguayan rugby team's plane crashed high in the Andes while on its way to a match with Chile.

72 days later, 16 of the 45 people on the flight survived their ordeal. They had to eat their dead teammates to survive.

And this week an American hiker has unexpectedly stumbled on the wallet of a survivor of the crash. Via Sydney Morning Herald:

The wallet's owner, Eduardo Strauch, said memories came flooding back to him of the harrowing 72 days stranded on the mountain at freezing temperatures.
(The wallet) will be handed to Strauch next week. "It reminds me of some happy moments we had up there on the mountain, spiritual moments as well as all the suffering and pain we went through," he said on television.
After 10 days on the mountain, the survivors heard on their radio that rescuers had given them up for dead. That was when they decided to dig up some of the dead bodies they had buried in the snow nearby and eat them.
Of the 45 people on the flight, sixteen survived 72 days on the mountain. They were only rescued when two of the survivors struck out to find help and ran into a Chilean man on horseback.

Shaking Spears has obtained an updated picture of Mr. Strauch, which can be seen here.

Schumer's Fuzzy Math Calculator

2005-02-18T01:44:00.000-08:00

Will he do tax returns too?

Charles Schumer, senior Senator from New York, is now in the financial services business, doling out advice from his website on the negative rate of return of the Bush personal savings accounts for Social Security.

Negative rate of return? How can that be, when the existing Social Security program returns about 1% on the money you pay in, and for certain minorities with lower life expectancies results in a negative rate of return over the life of the cash flows. You could put your money into U.S. Treasury bonds and get 4-5% guaranteed, right?

Well, check out Chuck's new Social Security to Social Insecurity calculator on his website. Just like Fidelity, Chuck is providing the tools for you to make sound financial decisions.

According to Chuck, if you are 25 years old, with an average salary of $50,000, your promised annual Social Security benefit would be $26,584, but your Bush plan benefit would be $18,198, leaving an annual cut from Bush's plan of $8,386, or a 32% reduction!

Wow! That's a lot! But wait, what are these assumptions? Chuck ignores the reality of the stock and bond markets, and how, with virtually no incremental risk, you could achieve a rate of return 3-4 times the existing program. Here's where his calculator uses fuzzy math - it avoids the rate of return comparison altogether, and factors in "price indexing," and its potential benefit reductions, to provide the negative comparison between the existing and proposed, partially privatized, system.

Price indexing refers to the pegging of benefits to increases in the cost-of-living, instead of the rise in wages. This policy, along with the raising of the retirement age, and the potential lifting of the cap on payroll taxes, are all being considered in various iterations as potential solutions to the Social Security program's pending insolvency. Private accounts would require borrowing to pay for the initial redirection of cash flows, but, over time, the greater rate of return should increase the pie of benefits to payout. But the long-term problem can't be solved by the modest personal account initiative alone, and will require other reforms to close the gap.

So Chuck's calculator isn't really a calculator at all. It's a slick assault on Social Security reform as a whole, and offers no solutions to those of us who aren't likely to see its "promises" kept.

Update: via PrestoPundit; Krauthammer tells it like it is. And we could use more ideas like this.

Jerry and Jennifer

2005-02-17T01:52:00.000-08:00

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown continues to offer up solutions. Which are having an effect. And he knows how to blog. (h/t Instapundit.)

He has a regular weekend TV segment here in the Bay Area where he talks with a local reporter over coffee at a downtown Oakland Starbucks. And, despite my initial encounter with this man, he comes off as the most creative and free-thinking politician around.

My initial encounter with Jennifer Lopez in the Elmore Leonard classic Out of Sight suggested that she was loaded with talent. . . but after seeing her performance in the Grammies, it's no surprise she's decided to take some time off for re-tooling. . .

Speaking of Elmore Leonard, there isn't a better crime writer out there today. Check out this, this, and this.

"Sod Off, Swampy"

2005-02-17T01:23:00.000-08:00

As a UC Berkeley undergrad, the Communist Worker's Party used to barge into my lectures from time to time, banging drums, blowing whistles, and chanting slogans. We'd just sit there in bewilderment.

Looking back, I wish I'd acted more like a British Oil trader. According to one of their "victims," when Greenpeace attempted to interrupt their livelihoods to make a political statement in support of Kyoto, the reaction was swift:

Via the Times Online:
“The violence was instant,” said Jon Beresford, 39, an electrical engineer from Nottingham. “They grabbed us and started kicking and punching. Then when we were on the floor they tried to push huge filing cabinets on top of us to crush us.”

Last night Greenpeace said two protesters were in hospital, one with a suspected broken jaw, the other with concussion.
Talk about your Clash of Civilizations. Green "swampies" vs. Spivs. There isn't likely to be a rematch.

"There Is No Time To Lose"

2005-02-16T09:47:00.000-08:00

BBC's Global Warming Proof - Mt. Hood in Late Summer

"I call on the world community to be bold, to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol and to act quickly in taking the next steps," he said. "There is no time to lose." - Kofi Annan, Feb. 15, 2005.

And so it begins. 141 nations have signed on to the pact, with much fanfare and political posturing. What Americans may not realize is how much this issue dominates the news coverage in Europe, where virtually every weather "anomaly" is presented as another sign of the gathering climate-change storm. Tony Blair is making it a centerpiece to his upcoming campaign. Chirac is calling for a 75% cut in emissions by 2050, and the Euro-press is filled with evidences of pending apocalypse, including the BBC's website showing pictures of glaciers and mountains that are offered as de facto evidence of man-induced warming.

But how do you square this hysteria and support for Kyoto with the pact's best-case scenario?:

Even if fully implemented, Kyoto would brake rising temperatures by just 0.1C by 2100, according to U.N. figures, tiny compared to forecasts by a U.N. climate panel of an overall rise of 1.4-5.8C this century.

Nevermind the absurdities of climate modeling that produces outcomes that differ by 400%. Kyoto is not meant to produce a result, but to constrain, isolate, and politically wound the U.S. It's why Chirac feels he can keep upping the ante relative to further cuts: it's a risk-free way to score political points.

Meanwhile, with respect to these pictures: I've been flying over the Sierra Nevada mountain range for years; some years the snow is heavy (this year), some years are light. And glaciers recede and grow. Is this news?

Update: via Samizdata, and here: "Aliens Cause Global Warming"

Peter Jennings Gets Out of the Office

2005-02-15T01:45:00.000-08:00

When Bill Clinton became President, he nominated his friend Webster Hubbell to be Associate Attorney General, and gave him instructions to find out two things: Who killed JFK, and whether UFOs were for real. This story struck me at the time as speaking volumes about Clinton's character. Both are interesting discussions, but not the sort of thing you give priority to when nominating your Associate Attorney General.

Along those same lines, Peter Jennings is now on the UFO case. And he explains his choice of topic by saying:

"One of the great frustrations common to people like me ... is not getting out enough."

Okay. Peter Jennings' idea of "getting out" and meeting the average American is chasing down UFO stories. In Jennings' world, isn't that what's going on in those Red states?

Are Zoos An Anachronism?

2005-02-15T01:11:00.000-08:00

One of the best fiction books published in the last few years is Life of Pi, a highly imaginative novel about, among many other things, a young Indian boy's survival in a lifeboat following a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean.

Pi Patel is the son of a zookeeper. And in the early sections of the book Pi puts a unique spin on the essential goodness of zoos, arguing that it is the Wild that stresses animals and limits their capacity for happiness and play. The zoo becomes protection from predators and the daily uncertainty of finding food.

It was a charming section of the book, and most of the zoos I've seen recently have made a concerted effort to expand and naturalize the habitats of the animals. But elephants seem to be the biggest draw to zoos, and they are often the most difficult to manage, leading to stories like this:

Oxford University researchers contended 40 percent of zoo elephants display so-called stereotypical behavior, which their 2002 report defined as repetitive movements that lack purpose. The report said studies have shown zoo elephants tend to die younger, are more prone to aggression and are less capable of breeding compared with the hundreds of thousands of elephants left in the wild. Moreover, critics say many zoo elephants, though hardy, spend too much time cramped indoors, get little exercise and become susceptible to infections and arthritis from walking on concrete floors.

And these challenges lead to this:

Some zoos give animals behaving stereotypically the same antidepressant drugs found to ease compulsive behaviors in people.

With the Crocodile Hunters and Animal Planet channels, you wonder whether the zoo is still required to familiarize the public with exotic animals. And you wonder whether or not Pi Patel has a point.

What's In A Name?

2005-02-14T01:43:00.000-08:00

. . . via TigerHawk, check this out and put your sense of identity into historical perspective. . . for some reason I couldn't find "Spear."

Has The Shi'ite Hit the Fan?

2005-02-14T01:17:00.000-08:00

. . . Robin Wright isn't the most objective source for this analysis, but the question remains: Have we sowed the seeds of a transparent, secular, democratic Iraqi government, or have we just created a greater Iran?:

From the Washington Post:

"Thousands of members of the United Iraqi Alliance, a Shiite-dominated slate that won almost half of the 8.5 million votes and will name the prime minister, spent decades in exile in Iran. Most of the militia members in its largest faction were trained in Shiite-dominated Iran. "

And our guys didn't do too well:

"Conversely, the Iraqi secular democrats backed most strongly by the Bush administration lost big. During his State of the Union address last year, Bush invited Adnan Pachachi, a longtime Sunni politician and then-president of the Iraqi Governing Council, to sit with first lady Laura Bush. Pachachi's party fared so poorly in the election that it won no seats in the national assembly."

Which leaves us with the $64,000 question:

"There's the assumption that the new government will be close to Iran or influenced by Iran. That's a strong and reasonable assumption," (Arab analyst) Khouri said. "But I don't think anyone knows -- including Grand Ayatollah [Ali] Sistani -- where the fault line is between Shiite religious identity and Iraqi national identity."

Iraq's Arabs and Iran's Persians have had conflicts throughout history, but we can't bank on this to trump a pan-Shi'ite alliance. The ultimate goals of our geopolitical strategy in the Mideast are to "drain the swamp" of terrorism, secure the free flow of oil, and inhibit the development of nukes, primarily through the promotion of democratic forces. I don't take anything away from the history-making precedent of the elections, but it might have resulted in a buffer around Iran and emboldened Shi'ite clerics. The Shi'ite might have just hit the fan.

John, Better Check The Pre-Nup. . .

2005-02-14T01:08:00.000-08:00

Teresa is giving hints . . . and as predicted here.

Christo's Clothesline

2005-02-12T09:28:00.000-08:00

Christo Hangs His Laundry

From USA Today:

The weather was windy and cold as the first fabric dropped from one of the 7,500 16-foot-high gates, creating what the artists billed as "a visual golden river" along 23 miles of the park's footpaths. More than 1 million square feet of fabric was used by the artists.

Its official title — "The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005" — refers to the artists' conception of the idea 26 years ago. It was expected to take about two hours to drop the fabric from all the gates.

"It's a waste of money, but it's fabulous," said student Shakana Jayson. "It brings happiness when you look at it."

"It's a bit insane, but that's why everybody is here," said Ali Naqui, who was brought to the unveiling against his will by his fiancee.

Bold, avant-guarde art, or waste of money? You've got to give the guy credit for visually stunning, creative ideas, but the (clothes) line between art and crap can be as thin as orange fabric. What do you think?

Dinosaur Eating Dogs. . .

2005-02-11T01:40:00.000-08:00

Puppy Chow

. . . have been discovered from the Mesozoic Era, some 130 million years ago:

"Scientists in China have uncovered the fossil remains of two mammals that lived around 130 million years ago. The finds will revolutionize current thinking about life during the Mesozoic era (248 million to 65 million years ago), a time when both dinosaurs and mammals arose.

One incredibly well-preserved fossil—of an early mammal known as Repenomamus robustus—had the remains of a small dinosaur in its belly. It is the first evidence that mammals dined on dinosaurs.

R. giganticus was a squat, powerful mammal with large fangy front teeth," Anne Weil, a paleontologist at Duke University said. "And believe me, it's not something you'd like to have hold of your leg."

The two early mammal species were probably predators, not scavengers, say the scientists. Their teeth were large and pointy, and their jaw musculature was strong. This suggests that they were capable of capturing, holding, and ripping apart their prey. The juvenile Psittacosaurus dinosaur found in the stomach of the R. robustus fossil looked to have been dismembered and swallowed in chunks, rather than chewed.

You Know the Stratford Case is Lost. . .

2005-02-11T01:32:00.000-08:00

. . . when they have to resort to the theory that Shakespeare suffered from syphilis to explain his erratic, illiterate signatures and his odd "retirement" in his late forties - (From the Feb. 1 issue of the research journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.) and World Science:

Shakespeare mentioned sexually transmitted disease (STD) symptoms – and treatments – in several of his plays and poems, including Troilus and Cressida, As You Like It, and Sonnets.

In Shakespeare’s time, one of the treatments for syphilis, inhalation of mercury vapor, was worse than the disease. Ross suggests that Shakespeare’s tremulous signature on his will, his social withdrawal in later years, and even his baldness might all be due to a mild degree of mercury vapor poisoning.

I've got another explanation.

Global Warming Reporting Par Excellence

2005-02-10T15:29:00.000-08:00

Don't wait for the data, just report it. . . and it will be true. Global temperatures are now being predicted by NASA and Reuters:

A weak El Nino and human-made greenhouse gases could make 2005 the warmest year since records started being kept in the late 1800s, NASA scientists said this week.

Apparently both a weak El Nino and a strong El Nino cause a rise in global temperatures, and nobody in this story seems compelled to explain the apparent contradiction:

The spike in global temperatures in 1998 was associated with one of the strongest El Ninos of recent centuries and a weak El Nino contributed to the unusually high global temperatures in 2002 and 2003, NASA said.

The story goes on to reinforce the point that specific geophysical events can impact global temperature:

Short-term factors like large volcanic eruptions that launched tiny particles of sulfuric acid into the upper atmosphere in 1963, 1982 and 1991 can change climates for periods ranging from months to a few years.

But this point can't be left hanging because it de-emphasizes the impact of your SUV on CO2 levels:

While climate events like El Nino. . . affect global temperatures, the increasing role of human-made pollutants plays a big part.

And to add to the general confusion, the piece ends with

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Thursday the current weak El Nino will diminish and end during the next three months.

Does that mean warming, or cooling? Get your stories straight.

There's a Cancer Growing. . .

2005-02-10T01:52:00.000-08:00

. . . on a certain media organization. Meanwhile, John Dean, who said there was a cancer growing on the Nixon presidency thirty years go, is debating the ethics of confidential sources, and the identity of Woodward's informant.

Interesting that there is one man who straddles both the Eason Jordan and the Watergate stories. . .

Bono: Pro Bono a No No

2005-02-09T10:46:00.000-08:00

Via the Englishman and Socialized Medicine; Bono gets taken to task for his private property rights hypocrisy. . .

. . . but I'll still be going to his concert at San Jose's HP Pavilion on April, 9. . . .Will Carly be there?

The Definition of Gesture Politics

2005-02-09T01:36:00.000-08:00

Does anybody actually believe that the E.U. initiative to curb Iran's nuclear program will yield results? The Iranians certainly don't. They're even getting surly about having to go through the motions. . .

UPDATE:

Condi gets tough (with Europe).

Iraq's Jefferson?

2005-02-09T01:07:00.000-08:00

Ayatollah Sistani

Put me in the camp that is hopeful but skeptical of Cheney and Rumsfeld's optimism about the direction of Iraq's new political class. I want to be optimistic, but the euphoria of the elections can't hide the fact that Ayatollah Sistani now holds all the cards, and I don't know if he's playing with a full deck.

From MSNBC:

"Iraq's women are encouraged to vote as they want but, under Sistani's teachings, they won't be able to shake the hand of any man other than a father, brother or husband. (Sistani also forbids music for entertainment, dancing and playing chess.)"

Not exactly Mr. Enlightenment. And then there's the fact that he's not even an Iraqi. He's Iranian. And he couldn't vote in the elections because of his nationality. And the Shi'ite alliance list he put together includes

religious parties who in the past have openly advocated an Islamic state on the Iranian model. Hussein al-Mousawi, who heads the Shiite Council, a secular party, called the leading members on the victorious list "extremist Shiite Islamists who believe in the rule of religious clerics."

Sistani apparently has not met with any Americans, but maintains his power by rising above the competing interests at play, and keeping silent on the key issues, like Sharia, that will shape the future of Iraq. The Iranians know that they want his ear:

Iranians have poured into Shia areas in southern Iraq, and even bought up some of the houses in Sistani's neighborhood, either to be close to him, or to keep an eye on him. Recently the Ahl ul Bait World Assembly, a religious charity closely linked to Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, opened an office in Najaf to promote the doctrine of clerical rule.

So an Iraqi democracy, free of the control of the clerics and the stifling practices of traditional Islam, is no certainty. And the man who has the power to be Iraq's Jefferson isn't talking. Yet.

Tell Me That It Isn't True

2005-02-09T01:01:00.000-08:00

. . . and you thought Philadelphia Eagles fans are crazy. . .

Holy Shi'ite

2005-02-08T01:14:00.000-08:00

On Fox this past weekend, I caught a snippet of Bob Beckel, Democratic campaign consultant, and Charles Krauthammer, columnist, discussing the emerging political situation in Iraq, and how the newly elected Shi'ite majority might drift toward radicalism.

Why Fox felt that Beckel and Krauthammer would be equally matched on this subject is beyond me, what with Beckel's penchant for home massages while his wife is out shopping, and Krauthammer's doctorate degree in psychology and overall brilliance in foreign policy discourse.

Beckel noted that Allawi's ticket was losing, and that the Sunnis would be extra upset about seeing one of their own relegated to the back bench.

The problem is that Allawi is a Shi'ite, and Krauthammer had to say that Beckel was an uninformed idiot on national TV. Of course that was no revelation.

But the bigger question remains. Will the Shi'ite's go radical? Is Sharia Law the ultimate destiny for Iraq? We've got contradictory reports. First, we heard that Ayatollah Sistani, spiritual leader of the Iraqi Shi'ites, was supporting Sharia as the sole source of law and legislation in Iraq, and then we heard the retractions. The issue really comes down to the difference between "the" source and "a" source:
The current wording in Iraq's interim constitution, approved in March by the country's main political parties including secular-leaning Kurds, Christians, and others, is that "Islam is the official religion of the state and is to be considered a source of legislation".

There is a huge amount hanging on that determinant. And Rumsfeld, Rice, and Cheney are banking on Sistani's moderation to carry the day in the drafting of their new constitution.

In 1926, Kemal Ataturk of Turkey formally abolished Sharia law. As a result, Turkey has a fully secular legal framework, taken directly from Swiss civil and Italian penal codes. In 1930, Turkish women gained the right to vote and to run for election. Had this reform not been undertaken, Turkey wouldn't be leading the Islamic world in terms of their being a fully functioning, modern democratic state.

If Sharia takes hold as the principal basis of civil life within Baghdad, our work there in overthrowing Saddam will be overshadowed. But the scenes of Muslim women queuing to dip their fingers in blue ink suggest that there might not be any turning back.

Uncovering Shakespeare: Why it Matters

2005-02-05T13:15:00.000-08:00

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
1550-1604

Six years ago I absently grabbed a magazine prior to boarding a plane for a cross-country flight.

That magazine was the Atlantic Monthly, the set of articles titled “The Ghost of Shakespeare.” When I landed six hours later, I was stunned with what I had read. And my ability to appreciate the greatest writer of the English language would be radically changed for the better.

Sure, I’d heard about the authorship question. I’d chalked it up to another meaningless pursuit of cranks and conspiracy theorists. But this article was a sincere effort to present scholars from both sides of the issue, and to let them each make their respective cases. But it could never be a fair fight when all of the facts are laid on the table.

I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, Da Vinci codes, or Area 51. I think Oliver Stone and Art Bell are certifiable nut cases. But this isn’t about conspiracies or contrarian thinking, it’s about history, biography, politics, literature, and the Elizabethan milieu. And it has monumental importance to appreciating the most brilliant written works that the world has yet seen.

I, along with Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Charlie Chaplin, Sigmund Freud, John Gielgud, Justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens, Kenneth Branagh, Derek Jacobi, Orson Welles, James Joyce, Benjamin Disraeli, Joseph Sobran, Malcolm X, among a legion of others, believe that the plays weren’t written by Stratford Will, but one of the “wolfish Earls,” - Edward De Vere, 17^th Earl of Oxford - the "best at historie and comedie,” nephew of the originator of the Sonnet form, literary prodigy, tutored by the translator of the Ovid (key source of many of the Works), patron of the Chamberlain’s men acting company, and Court insider, yet who stopped writing under his own name as a young man.

And this matters not only to set the historical record straight, but because it can, like it did with me, make the context of the plays and sonnets come alive, finally giving voice to the real man behind the pen. Art comes from the inner Self, you need to know who that Self is. By knowing the man, you will better understand and appreciate his work.

And I’m convinced that one of the reasons that Shakespeare is not more accessible to high school kids and grownups alike is due to the insistence on promoting the empty and contradictory biography of the grain merchant from Stratford, and the inability to draw a relevant connection between the cardboard cutout caricature of Stratford Will (Shakspere) and the majestic themes of the plays. If you believe that a writer’s work is a mirror into the soul of the artist and reflects his life narrative, then Oxford, as Lord Chamberlain to the Queen, scandal-plagued, erratic, yet brilliant, was ground zero of Court intrigue, drama, disappointment, politics, envy, and ambition within the Elizabethan court. And the plays directly reflect his life, loves, scandals, tragedies, and direct observations of the ongoing Carnival that surrounded Elizabeth and royal life as a whole.

I’m no Elizabethan or Shakespeare scholar, just the average middle-age guy trying to expand his literary vocabulary and sort through my interpretation of the facts. And this issue has been boiling for centuries. But the scholarship has heated up over the last few decades, and the evidence for Oxford is becoming stronger and stronger. Perhaps the tipping point has been reached with the recent discovery of Oxford’s bible (tellingly found within the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington), meticulously footnoted and underlined with phrases, verses, and margin notes that correlate closely to references within the Works. But let’s look more closely at the evidence leading up to this latest find.

There are few things as patently fraudulent as the 5-inch thick “biographies” of Stratford Will when all that is known of this man is three signatures indicating marginal literacy, some grain merchant transactions, illiterate daughters, petty business dealings and bit parts in London, and a will that is absent any suggestion that he had ever written a letter, let alone the English Canon.

What we do know about Will simply cannot be reconciled with the Works – being born into a countryside home devoid of books, leaving school at 13, getting married at 18, having three children, working at the butcher’s shop and stables, and then miraculously in his mid-twenties, writing poems and plays from source documents in French (eg Hamlet), Latin, Italian (eg Othello), and Greek, referencing geographies, countries, and cities that he had never traveled to, and courtiers to whom he had never met, including documenting obscure court battles on the Continent (Love’s Labour’s Lost, dated by many to the late 1580s – Will would be mid-twenties - was a play written for private performance in court circles, and includes allusions to an obscure visit of Catherine de Medici to the Court of Henry of Navarre at Nerac in France, and parodies of several other courtiers). Upon his “retirement” to Stratford in his late forties (what writers do you know stop writing and retire in their forties?), Charlton Ogburn notes:

“(Stratford Will’s) last years were spent in affluent leisure in a fine house he had owned for two decades, and this house remained in the possession of his daughter and granddaughter while three collected editions of Shakespeare’s plays were published in which their author was hailed as his nation’s triumph. Are we really to imagine that nothing in the form of a letter, a note, a bit of manuscript, would have remained of Shakspere’s (Stratford Will's) had he been the greatest of writers?”

Most Elizabethan poets wrote eulogies of Queen Elizabeth upon her death in 1603, but not “Shake-speare.” Nor did King James summon, as he did other poets, Will to participate in the translation of the Bible. Indeed upon Stratford Will’s death in 1616, nary a peep or mention from anyone throughout England. His Sonnets, published when Stratford Will was forty-five, but after De Vere had died, are prefaced with these words: “From our ever-living poet” (not a phrase for a living person) and reference the author’s “high birth” (does that sound like Will?) and his bearing of the Queen’s funeral canopy - which Oxford had done.

Stratford Will may not have left anything literary for his wife, but he did ensure she got his second-best bed.

And there are few things as compelling as mapping Oxford’s life to the plays and Sonnets. Many have tried to impute Will’s biography into Hamlet because of its psychological force and intimacy, of course to no avail. In fact, Hamlet reads like Oxford’s autobiography:

Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth’s head minister, has long been recognized by scholars as the model for the character Polonius in Hamlet. In the play Polonius counsels Laertes, his son, “to thine own self be true,” “be thou familiar but by no means vulgar,” in a series of lines similar to Burghley’s famous published precepts. Except Burghley published them in 1618. Hamlet first appeared in Quarto in 1603. How Stratford Will could have had intimate knowledge of the Queen’s minister’s sayings and write a caricature of the man is brushed over by Stratfordians. But for Oxford it would have been easy – he grew up in Burghley’s household as his royal ward and married his daughter.

And Oxford, like Hamlet, was captured by pirates in the English Channel, and both were scholars, athletes, poets, and patrons of acting companies. Hamlet’s famous soliloquy was derived from a book to which Oxford wrote a preface, and Ophelia and Laertes directly overlay the lives of Oxford’s wife and brother-in-law, including his rocky marriage. Oxford’s mother, like Gertrude in the play, quickly remarries after his father mysteriously dies.

This post couldn’t possibly summarize all of the scholarship that has gone into this question, but Tom Bethell’s Atlantic article is a good place to start. From the Sonnets, which are dedicated to a suitor to Oxford’s daughter, through to the plays which draw upon all of the experiences (tours of Italy and France) and knowledge to which Oxford was trained (law, history, language, as well as royal skills such as falconry), you can feel the man’s life crying out from the pages.

And Oxford had lots to cry about. The theater, and even public writing in general, was discouraged amongst Noblemen and Gentlemen within Her Majesty’s service – the Globe Theater was viewed as slumming. Pseudonyms were common, and references to brilliant men suppressing or hiding their works to avoid retribution are common amongst observers of the time. With Oxford, I believe it was well known within the inner circle of the court who and what he was; but for the public at large his authorship required a mask.

Yes, there remain questions. Oxford died in 1604, and some of the plays have historically been dated after this year. But on deeper review it is clearly shown that conventional dating of the later works was based more upon performances rather than original references or manuscripts, and Stratfordians for years have been trying to explain clear, early references to key works which don’t fit into Will’s biography. Oxford’s early sonnets, written as a teenager, bear remarkable resemblance to Shakespeare’s great works, and suggest an early version of great things to come. Yet Stratfordians prefer to discount this poetry as inferior. Take up the issue and make up your own mind.

Oxford was praised in a written speech during one court appearance with the interesting metaphor “thy countenance shakes spears. . . " and his crest features a roaring lion brandishing a spear. In Sonnet 76, the author notes “That every word doth almost tell my name, Showing their birth, and where they did proceed.” I think it’s time that the words are married to the man.

All of this does matter if, to you, the Works have seemed difficult, remote and from a different world. Pick up this storyline, as I did, and see for yourself if it doesn’t make a difference.

References: "The Case for Oxford" - Tom Bethell, October 1991
"The Man Who Was Shakespeare" - Charlton Ogburn 1995
Links: Harper's, Oxford Society, Oxford Authorship, Alias Shakespeare