Flame off, please.

My favorite 3D forum has taken a turn for the worse. The moderators put up a new sub-forum called "Rants and Raves," as a place for people to vent about their frustrations. After 48 hours, any given thread disappears.

This is the only saving grace.

Meanwhile, somehow, evolutionists and creationists have gotten into arguments, and no one is bothering with 3D. People who shared constructive criticism are now bitter and angry at each other. Expletives have been shot in each direction.

Can't we leave that shit to Fark?

Mood: resentful.

I quit piano lessons about six months ago because every time I tried to practice, the kids would bang on the keys, stick their heads under my arms, and generally make me miserable.

This evening, at K's request, I tried to practice again, and naturally nothing had changed, so after my Duke Ellington songbook had crashed to the floor at the hands of my daughter, I went upstairs in a huff to fold laundry. Whereupon I heard K get through the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, among other things, without interruption.

What's the deal with that?

Pffft.

Bored now. (Followed by my main character's skin being pulled off.)

GAAAAH! Good Fortune Alert!

In today's email:

Dear Mr [Squelch],

Congratulations.

The co-producing team of Frederator Studios and Animation Magazine is happy to inform you that <ESC> has been selected to appear in the sixth episode of the Nicktoons Film Festival, airing on Nicktoons Sunday, November 28th, at 10:00pm (ET) / 7:00pm (PT).

Encore presentations include:
Monday, 11/29, at 1:00am (ET)
Monday, 11/29, at 10:00pm (ET)
Tuesday, 11/30, at 1:00am (ET)

If you have any questions please be sure to e-mail us at Hey@Frederator.kz or NicktoonsFilmFestival@AnimationMagazine.net. Also note that a representative from our production office may contact you for marketing purposes.

Once again, thank you for your submission and welcome to our show.

Sincerely,

Rita Street, Producer
Eric Homan, Producer
Nicktoons Film Festival

The movie in question. And to think I only got cable a month ago! Okay, who's gonna be in D.C. on the 28th? Party time!

Contract imminent.

My novel is now listed at Na-No-Blog-Mo, so I guess I can start seeing those hits roll in, huh? Plbt...

I'm never going to make the deadline, but it sure is fun. That's exactly what I said each time I tried this before... just before I was sent into a death spiral.

The folly continues.

Chapter Two is up. As with most of my writings, at the moment I think it's pretty good. In a few days, I will think it sucks, get depressed about it, and burn it in the fireplace (metaphorically speaking, these days).

Well.

If you're a Rooster Spice reader who can't get enough, why not try my woefully underwritten NaNoWriMo novel?

Skeleton in the E-Closet: A Mystery of Low-Paying Summer Theater

Future chapters coming apace!

God damn it.

Aftermath.

At least I can look myself in the face. But next time around, I'll be sure to not spend so much time in the echo chamber.

It's tough to overstate how invested I was in this election. I spent money, I all but abandoned my family, I wailed and gnashed my teeth. I also really believed in John Kerry as something other than an Anything-But-Bush. He's probably going to get a lot of blame for this, but the fact is, he is a good man and a good politician. I'll stand by that statement for the foreseeable future.

Who knew that Bush and Rove could win by only going after their base and arresting those who disagreed with them? Everyone but me, apparently.

It's going to take a while for me to recover. But who cares what I think? Bush certainly doesn't.

Woo hoo!

Here I am at the Kerry-Edwards headquarters for Northeast Philly. Just hoofed through two neighborhoods, hanging literature in the first and canvassing voters in the second. Only one Bush voter swore at me, apparently because he thought I had knocked down his signs. I hadn't.

Lots of friendly faces, though. And far more Kerry signs than the other.

I've not been able to reach my wife at home, so, if she's reading this: I love you, K! Have you voted yet?

I'm off to the races.

Goin' to Philadephia to get out the vote. If any readers are in the area, you'll know me; I'll be wearing a pink carnation.

For what it's worth, my prediction: Kerry's going to break 300.

The Canvass.

I guess I should write about how it went before I forget it all.

I got up at 5:30 so I could get my wife to drive me to D.C., where the buses waited, by 7. We had to take the kids, too, but for once, they were happy to be awake so early. (The kids, that is. I doubt my wife was, but bless her heart, she didn't show it.)

Crammed like sardines into a motor coach. The bus' radio was set to a local Christian music station. On a Democratic bus! Congnitive dissonance! Aren't we supposed to be the atheist communists? I read a little bit of Seymour Hersh's Chain of Command to remind me of one reason I was there, and then slept most of the way and woke up in... Harrisburg, Pennsylvania! Swing state country! (It was somewhat depressing, I admit, to look out the window the few times I was awake, because I invariably saw Bush/Cheney signs, but as we got closer, a few Kerry/Edwards signs began appearing as well.)

The state Democratic headquarters was heartwarming. Signs everywhere, for both national and local candidates. Plenty of doughnuts to go around. And I thought we were packed like sardines in the bus...

We got a nice lecture/pep talk about canvassing; they explained that they were moving from persuasion of undecideds to energizing the base and getting out the vote (GOTV), which worked for me; I'm not much of a persuader (or so I thought). Then we broke into groups of two and three and were assigned a block of Harrisburg and dropped off to work a list of registered Democrats.

I was with Rama, a biochemist from Laurel, and Karen, a woman who had last worked on a political campaign in Michigan for McGovern. (I explained that I hadn't been able to volunteer in '72 because I was too busy being born.) We walked down a street in a predominantly African-American neighborhood. They had been canvassed before, and not by the Republicans, based on the number of Kerry-Edwards signs we already saw. For the most part, those folks who were home were very polite, considering all the politcal crap they must have been hearing. But in one case, Rama and I (who were working the right side of the street while Karen took the left) actually met a bona fide undecided voter!

Her husband was a clear Kerry supporter (he asked us for three window signs, and stapled one to a two-by-four to improvise a lawn sign while we were there), but he had forgotten to register to vote, so our household vote came down to his wife. She didn't like Bush, but she wasn't sure about Kerry--seemed to have internalized the whole flip-flop meme. So Rama and I tried a little reasoning. What sealed the deal, though, was when she asked whether Teresa Heinz Kerry really gave money to extreme causes, as has been alleged in various chain e-mails. As it happened, I had just read about this, and was able to debunk it in some detail. That seemed to impress her. I think we may have given Kerry one more vote in Pennsylvania (worth about 300 votes in New Jersey).

At 3 PM, we elected to attend a rally with Elizabeth Edwards who was just wonderful, answering every question from the audience with aplomb. My favorite question came from someone who looked like a college student, and asked, "We have been bombarded with television advertising telling us that John Kerry is a 'liberal,' and that's it dangerous to have a 'liberal' in charge of America. Could you please explain to me: what is a 'liberal' and why is it bad to have one as President?" Mrs. Edwards made a pretty good case that George W. Bush is a liberal, actually.

After the rally, we headed to the bus (I took a wrong turn trying to get back, and was chewed out by a police officer, which saddened me) and back to D.C. I was home by eight-thirty. I wish I could do it again next weekend--but I am definitely doing it on Election Day.

I'm off to canvass for votes. Wish me luck.

The end thymes.

I don't know if I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year, but if I do, I already have the first line of my novel:

Every morning I wake up and put the United States back together.

This is somewhat related to something I've wanted to blog about for a while, because I recently asked a friend whether he was going to spend November scribbling bad prose (we've both tried since 2002 and neither one of us finished). He, too, said he wasn't sure, but if he did write one, it would be "set forty years after the reelection of George W. Bush." (And just so we're clear on his intentions, he added, "the trick would be not making it exactly like The Handmaid's Tale.)

Add that to David Neiwert's excellent series on the creeping pseudo-fascism of the right wing, and, more personally, something I can't really write about which brings home (into my family, in fact) the issue of self-defense against the government, and I'm really starting to wonder whether folks like me, who are passionate about electing John Kerry, but not yet willing to entertain the speculation that, say, the Bush administration would simply not accept the outcome of an election, are kidding ourselves.

Consider the suppression of dissent at Bush rallies. It's been well-documented that hecklers are tolerated at Kerry rallies, and removed (or even arrested) at Bush events. Most recently and egregiously, three women were ejected for wearing T-shirts with an allegedly "obscene" message: "Protect our Civil Liberties."

Then there's the well-documented, but inexplicably ignored by the major media, case of Nathan Sproul and Associates, who have been going from state to state, paid for directly by the Republican National Committee. They have been posing as a non-partisan voter registration organization, but they have been refusing to register Democrats, and in at least one known case, actively throwing away Democratic registration forms. Make no mistake, this is not some fringe outfit; their own employment ads say that they're funded by the RNC.

And of course you have major right-wing figures asserting that torture is akin to fraternity pranks, and that indefinite detention of American citizens isn't worrisome. There are even reports of wholesale murder of civilians in Iraq, to puff up body counts of "insurgents." Even as I write this I worry that I sound like a "paranoid lefty."

When does paranoia become intelligence?

I hope that Kerry can pull out an electoral vote landslide. I am becoming more convinced by the day that unless he does, the right-wing machine will simply pick itself up and start moving inexorably back to power. We need a strong rebuke to these kind of policies, that look reality in the face and say "We make our own reality." We cannot allow the people who demand power for its own sake--not power to help people, not power as a responsibility, not even power for policy--to continue running this country.

I'll be traveling this weekend to knock on doors in a swing state, doing my small part. I hope it's enough.

Holy fucking shit.

The instant (but scientific) poll from ABC news has:

Kerry Won -- 42%
Bush Won -- 41%

But look at the party breakdown:

Republicans -- 38%
Democrats -- 30%

I think that translates into a Kerry win--big time.

Triumph of the Will...

Thousands of Nevada Dem Voter Registrations Destroyed by Repugs

(Oct. 12) -- Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.

Anyone�who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.

The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at democrats.�Thee focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.

The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America�only wanted Republican registrations.

Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.

"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.

Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.

So the people on those forms who think they will be able to vote on Election Day are sadly mistaken. We attempted to speak to Voters Outreach but found that its office has been rented out to someone else.

The landlord says Voters Outreach was evicted for non-payment of rent. Another source said the company has now moved on to Oregon where it is once again registering voters.� It's unknown how many registrations may have been tossed out, but another ex-employee told Eyewitness News she had the same suspicions when she worked there.
...
The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee.�Similar complaints have been received in Reno where the registrar has asked the FBI to investigate.�

"I love democracy." -- Chancellor Palpatine, Attack of the Clones

"The Night George W. Bush Ordered a Thug to Tell Me to 'Get the Fuck Out of Here!' "

Read this. The whole thing.

It may or may not be true, I admit. But it is hellishly frightening.

Christopher Reeve

I can't honestly say why his death affects me as much as it does. When I found out--and it may be the first time I've learned about a death from a blog--I found myself crying.

Some of it, I'm sure, is childhood memory. I was as big a fan of the Superman movies as anyone. And looking back, let's be honest--could there have been a better Superman, ever? He was a relative unknown, sure, which allowed us to project whatever we wanted onto him, but with that chiseled, square jaw and massive chest, Reeve was Superman, and with the glasses on, he was Clark Kent.

But obviously, if it hadn't been for his accident, and his tireless advocacy of scientific and medical research since then, he would be known as just another actor, most likely, and I doubt I'd be crying.

From what I understand, Reeve was seen, to some in the parapalegic community, as setting back the cause, because he wasn't working for rights for the handicapped and wasn't accepting that he would no longer walk again (at least, that's the impression I got from the admittedly few times I worked with VSA). I can understand that. But to the folks, like me, who were lucky enough to not be handicapped... well, he made us believe a man could fly, and then he made us believe a man could walk.

"Well, I just have to start with a challenge to the President. Sir, I have seen your train go by... and I think I can beat it."

-- Christopher Reeve, Democratic National Convention, 1996

Who cares?

I give it to Kerry, for what it's worth. But not nearly the blow-out of the first debate. I thought Bush was all too often condescending and hectoring, especially at the beginning. Kerry seemed to be down to earth and human. I doubt his stuttering at the end will be widely reported, because it doesn't fit into the Storyline (Bush stumbles over words, not Kerry).

But I'm just some guy, after all.

Terrorists Terrorists Terrorists!

I'm George W. Bush, and I approve this message.

Whew!

I was just making some canvassing calls--boy is that ever draining and exhilarating at the same time. (I'm also glad I now get free long distance with my phone company.) The most memorable was a nice long conversation with a couple of Ohio seniors; I could barely get my pitch in, they were so eager to tell me why Bush needs to be defeated. I agreed with them (though I am a little leery of the whole 1930s Germany comparison), but in any case they couldn't help with the volunteer effort.

But I know who can. So why aren't YOU calling? Or if you live in a swing state, why aren't you canvassing?

Are you a reporter? Then REPORT!

Straight from CNN via Atrios:

PHILLIPS: So, do Americans agree with Kerry's statement during his debate that Osama bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks and not Saddam Hussein?

Agree with Kerry's statement?

What the hell kind of question is that? Kerry's statement? It's a freakin' fact!

"The Bush administration today stated that black is white. Some Democrats still claim that black is black, however."

Impression #1.

All right, I have to get this written before my weak-willed thoughts are subsumed by the wall of spin and opinion no doubt bearing on me: the VP debate was a tie, IMHO. In my wife's opinion, Cheney won. We're both die-hard Kerry-Edwards supporters, by the way (as if you didn't know!).

Or are they Michael-Powellisms now?

This has been the problem all along in Kerry failing to run on his record in the Senate - he was a motherfucking statesman, a real one, who grappled with real issues, for years. He didn't go from 'Nam to presidential candidate. Kerry's own words are the clearest rejoinder to charges that he has lacked clear positions on Iraq. Kerry was a hawk, but a responsible hawk. He was not an appeaser. He was not beholden to his party. He just decided back then, and to this day, that we shouldn't dis the rest of the world, and we shouldn't, fer chrissake, run into this thing like a Peoria drag queen at make-up close-out day at the JC Penney's in the mall.

I might have said it with fewer Cheneyisms, but still, Rude Pundit got it right, I think, don't you?

Dear Lord.

Why hasn't this been covered in the United States?

Maher's Story in Brief

Maher Arar is a 34-year-old wireless technology consultant. Arar was born in Syria and at the age of 17, came to Canada with his family. He became a Canadian citizen in 1991 and in 1997 moved to Ottawa.

In September 2002, Arar was in Tunisia, vacationing with his wife Monia Mazigh and their two small children. On Sept. 26 while in transit in New York�s JFK airport, he was detained by US officials and interrogated about alleged links to al-Qaeda. Twelve days later, he was chained, shackled and flown to Jordan aboard a private plane and from there transferred to a Syrian prison.

In Syria, he was held in a tiny �grave-like� cell for ten months and ten days before he was moved to a better cell in a different prison. He was beaten, tortured and forced to make a false confession.

During his imprisonment, Monia campaigned relentlessly on his behalf. After many representations from Canadian Human Rights organizations and a growing number of citizens, the Government of Canada, on Jan. 28, 2004, announced a Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar.

Well, at least we have a suitable Republican response to the recent talk about outsourcing torture: Blame Canada.

Well, duh.

Paul Krugman, the New York Times:

These days, Mr. Bush and other administration officials often talk about the 10.5 million Afghans who have registered to vote in this month's election, citing the figure as proof that democracy is making strides after all. They count on the public not to know, and on reporters not to mention, that the number of people registered considerably exceeds all estimates of the eligible population. What they call evidence of democracy on the march is actually evidence of large-scale electoral fraud.

Well, yeah. But according to the Bushes, large-scale electoral fraud is democracy on the march. Isn't it?

Is anyone reading this?

An open letter to my friends who support Kerry:

There's been a lot of talk about how Bush is ahead in the polls in key states, and how Kerry needs a minor miracle (or a major one) to pull this out. Now, this could all change with tonight's debate. But I'm starting to get a sense, here in D.C., that the conventional wisdom is that the race is over.

If you don't want that to happen--if you believe, as I do, that a second W. administration would spell disaster for the country, both now and in the future--or even if you believe simply that he's done a poor job and Kerry would do better--put your money where your mouth is.

And I'm not talking about contributions, though that would be nice. I'm talking about volunteering. There's a way to do it no matter where you are. If you live in a swing state, sign up to go door-to-door. If you don't, sign up to make recruitment calls (I did this, and it's really quite painless), or travel to a swing state (I will be doing this, if I can help it).

It goes without saying that we can't give up now. What doesn't go without saying, but should, is that it's up to us. Dean taught me that, when most of his contributions came from people like me. He didn't get the nomination, but he changed the way I think about politics.

I will not stand by, I told myself once the primaries were over. W. may well steal the election, he may even win outright, but I promise myself this: I will be able to look myself in the mirror and say, "I did not let this happen; I worked so this wouldn't happen; and no one can ever say I didn't."

Don't you owe yourself the same promise?

One explanation.

Godfrey asked, "As if Frances wasn't bad enough, there's a new one, Ivan, that has a good chance of developing into yet another Category 4 hurricane. Was it something we said?" Well, no, it was something you did.

Seriously, best of luck to all our friends and relatives in Florida.

What's on my mind? Three guesses.

Greenbelt has a festival every Labor Day weekend, and we went to the first day's festivities. It was really heartening to see the sheer number of Kerry/Edwards buttons on people's shirts (the local Democratic club was giving them away). I signed up for a yard sign, though (as my wife remarked) living as we do at the end of a parking lot, not many people will be looking at our yard. Still haven't decided whether I'm going to Man The Phone Banks, as an email I recieved asked me to do. I probably will.

Oh, and there were rides and funnel cakes, too.

Cheers, or boos?

To this listener's ears, it sounds like both (maybe a few yahoos booing in the back, but the vast majority of the audience was cheering).

Doesn't change what I think of Bush.

Confessions of a centrist liberal.

I really should be watching the convention. Am I a bad person because I value sleep more than a speech by Dick Cheney?

Ah, well, we can't do anything, anyway... they control the voting machines.

I'll mention that to Pepco.

An excellent essay by Godfrey in the comments of his blog:

I'm fascinated by the shift in the meaning of "conservatism" since [Sen. Barry] Goldwater's time.

Today, Goldwater (whose nickname was "Mr. Conservative") would be seen as too liberal to run for President as a GOP candidate, because he was a staunch supporter of abortion, civil rights, and gay rights � but in his day, the Republican party ("the party of Lincoln") was a stronger supporter of civil rights than the Democrats. (This changed when the GOP altered its character in order to convert the solidly Democratic South; in politics, principles always seem to take a back seat to the ambition for power.)

Ironically, the direction the government has taken during the present administration � larger government, increased spending (indeed, the conversion of the country's largest budget surplus into its largest deficit), reduction of privacy, increased government scrutiny of its own citizens, legislative dismantling of the three-branch system of checks and balances, banning scientific research into certain areas, attacks on civil and gay rights � once upon a time, these were things Conservatives railed against Liberals for doing.

So it's just interesting to me that Goldwater was liberal by today's standards, and the Republican party is liberal by the standards of just a few decades ago.

It's also a little ironic that some of the things he warned about in his acceptance speech, which he claimed could be prevented by a Republican President and a Republican Congress, are coming to pass at the hands of the Republicans.

You could probably power Washington by wrapping his body in copper wire and putting magnets around his grave.

I cried.

This article in the Washington Post Magazine, a rare serious turn from one of D.C.'s best humorists, is a must-read. Don't ask me why, just read it.

Our VCR only tapes in black and white.

Tomorrow morning the political blogosphere will be all atwitter about John Kerry's appearance on The Daily Show; and for the first time ever, I can Join In The Twitter, because I have cable! I finally feel like one of the cool kids!

Of course, I still can't stay up past 10:00 these days, so I'll be videotaping it. But it's the principle of the thing.

Alert!

My email address has changed. If you know me personally and didn't get my recent adress-change note, leave a message in the comments and I'll send it to you.

Kicking and screaming.

I'm finally getting dragged into the 21st century... and all at once, no less.

First of all, we have cable TV now, which I suppose is more 20th century than 21st, but we only got it so we could get cable-based Internet, which is definitely 21st century. Since getting it (about a week ago), we have watched exactly zero non-network channels. We're not much of a TV family. I expect that will change during the Evildoers Republican National Convention, when I'll discover the wonders of C-SPAN.

Second of all, we're killing our traditional phone service in favor of a voice-over-IP scheme from Vonage. Getting cable and Vonage turned out to be considerably cheaper than DSL and local/long distance on a land line. By the way, if anyone wants to switch to Vonage, let me know, because I'll be happy to refer you so both you and I will get a free month of service.

(The unfortunate part of all this is that our cable Internet isn't working yet; there's some kind of fault at the cable box that serves our townhome. Comcast is working on it, and I hope they solve it soon, because we're due to lose our traditional phone service in 20 days--and since that means no DSL as well, that means no IP-phone, no email, no contact with the outside world at all, in fact, short of snail-mail.)

Third of all, I'm blogging from my dining-room table. Yes, I finally succumbed and bought a wireless router (Mike, WiFi evangelist extraordinaire, is no doubt chanting "One of us... one of us..."), which I suppose isn't that big a deal among the technically elite, but considering that it was the wife who was demanding it (and who unlike me doesn't have a waptop*), it's significant, if only for its utter frivolity. As I alluded above, I live in a townhouse. According to my computer, my unit is now within three hotspots--all of them password-protected. Ah well...

So there it is, my Week o' Technology. Yet, I still don't own a cell phone...

*waptop: This was a typo, but it occurs to me it's a pretty good neologism for "Wi-Fi laptop," don'tcha think?

I didn't go to Portland, but I did participate in my first-ever Fark photoshop.

Original here; my contribution here.

A poll.

So: should I go to Portland, to celebrate my first-ever acceptance to a film festival? Bearing in mind that I'm on the East Coast.

(It wasn't just me who was accepted, of course, but my whole team; but I'll leave it up to them to get their own tickets.)

Comments are welcome, in the...um... comments.

[Edit: if for some reason the link above itsn't showing in your browser, copy and paste this:

http://tinyurl.com/62h2d

Safari isn't showing the link, and I can't figure out why.]

Film critic.

Looks like Laura saw the same movie I did:

What The Heck. The new Manchurian Candidate is to the original Manchurian Candidate what the Manfred Mann "Quinn the Eskimo" is to Bob's original "Quinn the Eskimo." Bad, bad, bad. Ending "new twist" was stupid and didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. Not to mention that saying a guy's full name (?!) is about seventy-thousand times less cool than suggesting he pass the time by playing a little solitaire.

I, too, was most seriously displeased, to quote Lady Catherine de Burgh. I thought Liev Schrieber was quite good, and Meryl Streep and Denzel put in their usual solid performances. But they tried to hard to Update the story that they fouled it up beyond belief.

I'm a huge fan of the original film, and read the book for the first time about a week ago (floored me! They don't write political thrillers like that anymore). I knew the new one wouldn't be as good; I didn't expect it to be as bad as it was, though.

And, my goodness! Ray.

I don't know if it was that Ray Charles died so recently, or that my father loved Georgia on my Mind, or that I can't help but dance when I hear What'd I Say or Hit the Road, Jack. But as soon as I realized I was watching a trailer for a Ray Charles biopic, I started crying. Bawling. Tears of joy, of course, but it was embarrassing. That single trailer was worth more than ten Manchurian Candidates. That movie's gonna make Jamie Foxx a star.

Targeting teens.

This may be the best public service announcement I've ever seen. It ran as a preview in Florida movie theaters, so some of you may have seen it, but I hadn't. Take a look.

Mr. Bush, tear down this wall!

I am sick and tired of living in (well, OK, near) a walled-in, medieval city. There has to be a way to protect people's safety without destroying D.C.'s vitality and liberty, without (as Tom Toles puts it today) making a Jersey barrier into the Terrorism Monument.

Of course, I haven't seen the evidence with my own eyes; I've only read about it in the Post. So this afternoon, I'm taking the law into my own hands. That is to say, I'm taking the camera to D.C., and documenting the state of affairs around buildings which, after all, I own, as an American citizen. I hope I get arrested, being the dangerous father-of-two that I am (D and E will be in tow; I have no choice).

Frankly, I think Al Qaeda is too smart. If they find their primary target is too well guarded, then they'll move to their secondary target. The only way to truly be safe is to garrison the entire city, and I fear that's the direction in which we're headed.

The Sponge Bob Cometh.

After nine years of resistance, our household is finally getting basic cable. For so long, we were able to laugh at the people who couldn't live without their CNN or Sci-Fi Channel or ESPN2. For so long, we were able to say "we get TV for free, the way it oughtta be!" But now... we are just another affluent American family, and I fully expect that soon enough we'll get a second car, probably a Hummer with a DVD player installed.

Oh, well; at least I'll be able to watch the Republican convention coverage gavel-to-gavel. Maybe if I'm lucky, there'll be another Pat-Buchanan-in-1992 moment, which will inspire me to throw a boot into the TV set again. (I will never forget screaming You fucking bigot! at the screen that summer when he made a homophobic comment. Though there isn't as much Kulturkampf this year, maybe I'll get lucky.)

We made the switch (to cable) purely for the Internet. If we kill the DSL and get voice-over-IP from Vonage, we save a hella lot of money. And if Comcast's numbers are accurate, our upload speed will double and our download speed will more than triple.

It's nice to confuse people though: "We're getting cable so our phone bills will go down." Try it at home!

Snerk!

Courtesy Campaign Desk:

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

-- President George W. Bush.

The women in my life.

Two years ago, in a blaze of pain which accompanied a not-quite-strong-enough epidural, my daughter was born. Happy birthday, E, and congratulations to K, the amazing woman who carried her. I promise you'll never have to go through that pain again.

I'm out of town 'til next Wednesday, like it matters.

WOO HOO!

I'd say more, but I won't, even though I didn't sign an NDA. Yuk yuk yuk!

I seem to have misplaced my talent. It's a somewhat weather-beaten, bogged down kind of thing. If anyone sees it, please let me know, because the poor thing is too weak to survive on its own.

Wiggle room.

Here follows Article Twenty of the Amendments to the United States Constitution:

Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

Section. 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

Section. 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

Section. 4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

Section. 5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.

Section. 6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.

"... the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified."

I'm no Constitutional scholar, but it seems there's a lot of wiggle room in that clause.

Un-American.

Election Day Worries

I first learned about this from Medley, but then it was only a comment from Scott McClellan (although a hellishly scary implication nonetheless). I speak, of course, of the possibility that the November elections may be "postponed." And of course, you postpone them once, you can postpone them again and again...

They're actually seeking legal ways to do this. Going to Congress to get legislation to allow elections to be postponed. They must be stopped.

I told K, "If Bush cancels the elections we're moving to Canada."

"No, we're not," she replied. "We're fighting in the civil war which would result."

From the article:

As a result, sources tell NEWSWEEK, Ridge's department last week asked the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel to analyze what legal steps would be needed to permit the postponement of the election were an attack to take place. Justice was specifically asked to review a recent letter to Ridge from DeForest B. Soaries Jr., chairman of the newly created U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Soaries noted that, while a primary election in New York on September 11, 2001, was quickly suspended by that state's Board of Elections after the attacks that morning, "the federal government has no agency that has the statutory authority to cancel and reschedule a federal election." Soaries, a Bush appointee who two years ago was an unsuccessful GOP candidate for Congress, wants Ridge to seek emergency legislation from Congress empowering his agency to make such a call. Homeland officials say that as drastic as such proposals sound, they are taking them seriously�along with other possible contingency plans in the event of an election-eve or Election Day attack. "We are reviewing the issue to determine what steps need to be taken to secure the election," says Brian Roehrkasse, a Homeland spokesman.

"... what steps need to be taken to secure the election." That's a nice Orwellian phrase, isn't it?

It's been confirmed by NPR (at least) because that's where we heard it this afternoon. I hope other news organizations pay attention.

Woot!

Kerry/Edwards. About time.

Stunned.

Just got a rare night out with K to see Fahrenheit 9/11. I hope that by tomorrow I'll have something coherent to say about it, but right now all I can do is cry and/or scream.

Make a film in ten seconds? What?

The Ten Second Film Festival

Apparently this is one of a few enterprises which are creating content for digital phones.

I don't have a cell phone, myself. But is this a service that people would actually pay for?

I don't know... the licensing is fairly unrestrictive, so I might well submit films. But most of the people I know who have digital phones use them as... phones. Somehow it seems like the mp3.com disease is spreading to video--that is, tons and tons of artists and very little market.

ARGH!

I've got an Exalted Position at the ol'

Oh, fuck this.

I feel better after saying that.

Late for America.

What do you call a political activist who shows up late for rallies?

I'm sorry, I don't have the answer to this riddle, unless it's "Squelch."*

Since voter verification is very dear to my heart, I decided to drag D and E to a rally for passage of the House bill to mandate it; it was today at noon in front of a House office building. We took the Metro, of course, because D's nuts about it, and since it was noon, I packed bag lunches for all of us, which I thought was a very progressive thing to do, even if one of the lunches was a meat sandwich.

Between trying to find a parking spot at the station, and then disembarking at Union Station instead of Capitol South (I thought it would be a nice walk, which it was, and also faster, which it wasn't), we got there forty-five minutes late. It was still going on, though. Then D informed me that he needed to use the potty, and when a four year old says that, you jump. So, off to find the stroller-accessible entrance, through the security, into the bathroom and the washing of hands, out again, and ta-da! the rally was over. We didn't even arrive in time to see Medley's spirit.

Just as well, really, as by that point the kids were so tired and hungry that even extremely entertaining oratory wouldn't have kept them from crying--D was actually just sitting whenever we stopped walking. So I found us a picnic table in a shady spot and we had lunch, then back home via the Metro we went, slightly more politically aware--or at least, more scheduling aware.

*Actual political activism not included.

A link between the U.S. and chemical weapons? Invade ourselves!

K's mother sent us this editorial by Paul Krugman, which I'm rather surprised hasn't hit the blogosphere (or at least the tiny slice which I read) yet:

In April 2003, John Ashcroft's Justice Department disrupted what appears to have been a horrifying terrorist plot. In the small town of Noonday, Tex., F.B.I. agents discovered a weapons cache containing fully automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a chemical weapon � a cyanide bomb � big enough to kill everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building.

Strangely, though, the attorney general didn't call a press conference to announce the discovery of the weapons cache, or the arrest of William Krar, its owner. He didn't even issue a press release. This was, to say the least, out of character. Jose Padilla, the accused "dirty bomber," didn't have any bomb-making material or even a plausible way to acquire such material, yet Mr. Ashcroft put him on front pages around the world. Mr. Krar was caught with an actual chemical bomb, yet Mr. Ashcroft acted as if nothing had happened.

... it sounds over the top to accuse Mr. Ashcroft of trying to bury news about terrorists who don't fit his preferred story line. Yet it's hard to believe that William Krar wouldn't have become a household name if he had been a Muslim, or even a leftist. Was Mr. Ashcroft, who once gave an interview with Southern Partisan magazine in which he praised "Southern patriots" like Jefferson Davis, reluctant to publicize the case of a terrorist who happened to be a white supremacist?

Read the whole thing.

News flash.

I feel left out and underappreciated. Yeah, I know, what else is new?

Sniff, sniff.

I'm not quite sure this passes the smell test, but as they say, it's "important, if true":

The President's abrupt dismissal of CIA Directory George Tenet Wednesday night is, aides say, an example of how he works.

"Tenet wanted to quit last year but the President got his back up and�wouldn't hear of it," says an aide.�"That would have been the opportune time to make a change, not in the middle of an election campaign but when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the President cut him off by saying 'that's it George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation and I want it now."

Tenet was allowed to resign "voluntarily" and Bush informed his shocked staff of the decision Thursday morning. One aide says the President actually described the decision as "God's will."

God may also be the reason Attorney General John Ashcroft, the administration�s lightning rod because of his questionable actions that critics argue threatens freedoms granted by the Constitution, remains part of the power elite. West Wing staffers call Bush and Ashcroft �the Blues Brothers� because �they�re on a mission from God.�

�The Attorney General is tight with the President because of religion,� says one aide. �They both believe any action is justifiable in the name of God.�

But the President who says he rules at the behest of God can also tongue-lash those he perceives as disloyal, calling them �fucking assholes� in front of other staff, berating one cabinet official in front of others and labeling anyone who disagrees with him �unpatriotic� or �anti-American.�

�The mood here is that we�re under siege, there�s no doubt about it,� says one troubled aide who admits he is looking for work elsewhere. �In this administration, you don�t have to wear a turban or speak Farsi to be an enemy of the United States. All you have to do is disagree with the President.�

I can't picture George W. Bush putting the words "I cannot abide disloyalty" together. That's just not the way he talks. Plus, the reliance on anonymous sources puts a nasty, David Brock-esque taint on the whole thing. Still, it's pretty juicy, ain't it?

(Never mind that other headline on the Web page: Prominent DC Shrink Diagnoses Bush to be a Paranoid, Sadistic Meglomaniac.)

Sigh.

When even a professionally written (and edited, dammit!) blog can fuck up the "it's" vs. "its" construction, is there any hope for the rest of us?

That, and it's wreaked havoc with my user interface habits.

Well, I had considered myself far too sophisticated for video games (except vintage ones, of course) and then I downloaded the Call of Duty demo for Mac. I surrender, and I ain't talking at the hands of the Germans, but at the hands of Activision and Aspyr. Who knew death and carnage could be so addictive?

Me being me, of course, I always wonder whether the Nazi officer I just shot had a family back home that loved him and waited for his safe return.

Still, looking at this game plus some of the on-line previews, I have to admit I've haven't given game animation a chance; I had always said to myself that I'd sooner starve than animate for video games. But if you look at this set of clips from the Stalingrad scenario (warning, huge download and non-standard codecs, but worth it), you have to ask yourself: sure, it's low-polygon, but is it not movie quality? Some of the Infocom games (and their descendants) proved there was such a thing as interactive fiction; could it be that the long awaited "interactive cinema" is already here?

"U.S. Acres I think is an abomination." -- Bill Watterson.

Since two of my favorite blogs have already linked to the Slate article about Garfield, the Movie, I figured I'd have to go my own way...

A dimension of mind.

I was once haranguing a friend. He listened to me describe my despondence regarding the inability to write, and my deep resentment of those who seemed to have success handed to them wherever they were. I went on and on, angry and bitter, and finally concluded, �But it�s all my own fault, of course; the problem is me, and that I don�t feel passionate about anything enough!�

�Really?� he said, archly. �You seem pretty passionate about this!�

He went on to explain that since I clearly had a lot of energy and so forth regarding this topic that perhaps I should think about channeling that energy into creative work, somehow.

Now, of course, I�ve decided that I�m just not a writer, so it doesn�t matter anyway, and I should be thankful that I don�t have those problems to worry about anymore.

But it doesn�t work that way, does it?

We went to the city pool yesterday. I don�t swim, so I grabbed my PowerBook, took up residence at a picnic table, and began writing an article about a high school teacher who also happens to be an alumnus of my college. It was in my head because of my ten-year college reunion, which was also his fiftieth. I was going to attend but I was sure he wasn�t. Naturally, I missed it, and I found out that he not only attended, but delivered a talk.

In any case, I thought an article about him, and about my failed, last-minute attempt to visit the campus and catch him, would make good reading, and maybe something which the alumni magazine would publish. So, I started writing.

The news wasn�t that I failed. The news was that I succeeded. Well, I succeeded in at least the first few paragraphs, and then suddenly it was time to leave. I was dumbfounded. I was writing again! Not only that, but I was writing at a picnic table with distractions all around me. I had gotten into the closed-off zone of a working writer, where nothing matters but the words on the page. I hadn�t been there since 1999. The furniture was a little dusty, but the inhabitants welcomed me.

Of course, they reminded me that I had, in fact, only written a few paragraphs, and they needed serious revision (which was always my weak point). But the journey was significant.

If I had to guess, I�d say there were three factors that allowed me to jump into the Writing Zone, however briefly. First of all, time: a block of time in which I had nothing to do but the will to write. Second of all, company: There wasn�t any. I was for all intents and purposes alone�no kids to look after, no wife to feel guilty about abandoning. Third, and maybe most important, place: I wasn�t at home, where chores and other distractions overwhelm me. I finally understood why so many writers choose to work in diners. They aren�t technically alone, but in essence it�s just them and their coffee.

So where does that leave me? Either I need to force a block of time in my life (if I want to write), or I need to wait until both my kids are in school, and walk down to the New Deal Caf� with my laptop on a regular basis.

Then I just have to hope they don�t have Wi-Fi, because we all know what the ultimate distraction is.

Euphemisms.

All right, I get incensed about silly things. But what the fuck, really: am I stupid, or is "form factor" a snotty, high-tech way to say "shape"?

Newses.

Whew! What a week to take a vacation, huh?

Naturally, we had told our neighbor, who was collecting our mail, that she was free to recycle the newspapers as they came in. After all, no one reads yesterday's papers, right?

Unless, of course, Reagan dies and there's a state funeral in your hometown, and your local paper breaks the story of White House memos which virtually legalize torture...

Ah well. At least we listened to NPR a lot.

Sayonara!

I'm on vacation 'til Friday June 11, visiting Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine (though not, alas, Colby), and Connecticut. If you need to reach me, please contact the liar.

Pants aflame.

Read this and combat the lies.

There was only one liar in the 2000 election, and it wasn't Al Gore. Now he's doing it again.

Last Monday in Little Rock, Vice President Cheney said Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry "has questioned whether the war on terror is really a war at all" and said the senator from Massachusetts "promised to repeal most of the Bush tax cuts within his first 100 days in office."

On Tuesday, President Bush's campaign began airing an ad saying Kerry would scrap wiretaps that are needed to hunt terrorists.

The same day, the Bush campaign charged in a memo sent to reporters and through surrogates that Kerry wants to raise the gasoline tax by 50 cents.

On Wednesday and Thursday, as Kerry campaigned in Seattle, he was greeted by another Bush ad alleging that Kerry now opposes education changes that he supported in 2001.

The charges were all tough, serious -- and wrong, or at least highly misleading. Kerry did not question the war on terrorism, has proposed repealing tax cuts only for those earning more than $200,000, supports wiretaps, has not endorsed a 50-cent gasoline tax increase in 10 years, and continues to support the education changes, albeit with modifications.

Scholars and political strategists say the ferocious Bush assault on Kerry this spring has been extraordinary, both for the volume of attacks and for the liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts. Though stretching the truth is hardly new in a political campaign, they say the volume of negative charges is unprecedented -- both in speeches and in advertising.

Essential signing.

I just saw this petition linked from Medley. This is one of my personal causes, and I urge everyone to visit and sign the petition at the very least--and write personal letters to your Congresspersons and Senators, preferably.

We must act now to ensure that our voting systems produce accurate and verifiable results. Some states are planning to use machines that will not allow voters to verify their choices. This means that any flaws in the machine or software will never be caught -- and no recount will be possible.

And the head of the largest e-voting machine company -- who is a major contributor to George Bush and has promised to deliver Ohio to him -- asks that we just trust him.

Today we call on Congress and the states to require any electronic voting machine used in this election to produce a paper trail -- one that allows voters to verify their choices and officials to conduct recounts.

I have a special place in hell reserved for those who attempt to falsify electoral results, no matter what party. And, frankly, I just don't understand the strong Republican opposition to this demand for accountability; surely you realize the most patriotic thing an American can do is vote and expect his or her vote to be accurate. Beyond that, it just looks stupid politically to not demand accountability in the name of patriotism! After all, how long will it take for us lib'ruls to turn the tables and ask, "Why do you hate America?"

Lovely Rita, sitemeter maid!

Okay, I knew I was unpopular, but...


(s13rospice)

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I think, as I know of at least one visitor this week (me), that Site Meter is farked. (Oh, naturally, NOW it shows up... for the past two days it's been telling me "Service Unavailable.")

Cripes.

Why do I let this sort of thing get to me? I said something thoughtless at another blog, got raked over the coals for it, apologized, and got raked over the coals again. That, combined with loneliness (K's at a fish conference in Oklahoma), has made me very depressed, despite that it was a wonderful day in general.

I seem to be in another phase of ignoring Rooster Spice in favor of other pursuits. In addition to Duck Sauce (we didn't win the audience favorite award, by the way), I've been working on a small C program to convert Project Gutenberg etexts into Palm Markup Language files, to be used with the Palm Reader. Although I think it's been renamed to eReader. Gotta have an "e" or an "i" in all computer products these days! That's why I'm calling my little program iGute2Reader. Well, except the "i."

Now there's nothing left to watch but "Law and Order" spinoffs.

That was a worthy ending to a very good series. And like Illyria, I'm feeling grief.

And so the Universe ended.

Running Mac OS X on a PC? Yes! Holy shit.

New toy.

It arrived on Friday morning--a day sooner than expected. I should have bought a laptop years ago--what a convenience. Although I did feel somewhat ashamed when we had all three Macs on upstairs, all running Safari, tuned to three different web-pages. It's the twenty-first century equivalent to having three television sets in the same room, and it seems so wasteful. It's true, of course, that television is purely passive, not creative, but there's very little creativity in browsing Homestar Runner, Palm Digital Media, and the Apple Store.

Actually, I see now that you didn't have to read 48 Dead Horses to know that I was thinking about a PowerBook. Can you tell that I don't pay much attention to Rooster Spice anymore?

My wife, the free alternative to Photoshop.

This has been a wild week. K just had a foot operation, so I've been taking care of her and the kids pretty much by my lonesome. That wouldn't be too bad, if I hadn't gotten a thunderous head cold which has knocked me out for most of the past two days.

Fortunately, K has risen to the occasion, or at least hobbled to it. I love my wife. But man, I hate this cold.

Those of you who have been following the 48 Dead Horses know that I was thinking of getting a new PowerBook; well, I took the plunge, and it was shipped from Taiwan this morning. (For some reason, the FedEx tracking site keeps freezing Safari. I don't know why. Yes, I've been tracking it. Wouldn't you?) So I guess I really am a bourgeois with too much disposable income. And children in Africa are still making do with Commodore 64s!

Ah, disposable income. I'm indisposed.

Every once in a while I go crazy and BUY things.

It's coming up on that time again. What with the new project going on, I'm looking at buying:

• the upgrade to the latest version of my 3D software,
  
• the print-on-demand technical reference for said software,
  
• the new Apple 12-inch laptop, and
  
• an iPod mini, just because.

Well, that last one requires a bit of explanation. I ordered an iPod mini when they came out, but I ordered it from Target Direct with the understanding that it wouldn't ship 'til mid-April. Well, Target couldn't get any, so they canceled the order. But they still sent me the iPod mini Dock, because apparently that was available. So now I have a mini Dock, but no mini.

Which is like cream without coffee, salt without pepper, Bush without Cheney... well, maybe not that last one.

I completely missed Rooster Spice's second birthday. So, in its honor, you can read, in its entirety, the first post I ever wrote:

Why isn't this working?

Deathless prose... and prophetic to boot.

Like there isn't enough evidence he's a schmuck already?

A lot of people are saying that George W. Bush is (or at least was before September 11) President in name only, and Dick Cheney was the real President. Well, ya know, I'm not exactly a fan of Bush. But it strikes me that a lot of people are willing to theorize and speculate, without any evidence whatsoever, and attribute just about anything bad to Bush.

It was wrong when it was done to Clinton, and it's wrong now.

(thanks to Mike for the link)

I couldn't bounce any higher.

I just got one of the nicest compliments I ever recieved from an animator I respect greatly:

So I'm looking through the Space animation contest entries on the FTP page and I stumble upon one with a spaceman on the moon and a giant Shaggy. And I knew, immediately and with no hint from the gallery page that displays the artist' names, that [Squelch] made this clip. That's a great piece [Squelch], it's really cool you've gotten to the point people can look at your stuff and know it's you.

The piece in question is here (Quicktime 5 or later required, 4 MB, 1:05).

Lunar Lopes are tough.

I really hate George W. Bush's policies, and I'm not a big fan of the man, either.

But, darn it, I want to walk on the moon.

It musta been the tacos.

A minor setback is enough to make me give up all hope for the future. What is wrong with me? Maybe I'm bipolar...

I'm still here.

But mostly I'm here. I suppose this destroys my vaunted pseudonymity, but I worry less about readers of Rooster Spice finding out who I am than people who know who I am finding Rooster Spice.

The dirty little secret is that I don't yet know whether our team has been accepted. Shhh...

Daredevil.

Giant holes where the actors ought to be.

Blind fucking rage about nothing. Was that a Seinfeld blind rage? When I look back, will my life be a blind rage?

"All I know is
What I want most of all
Is to know what I want."
-- Into the Woods

It all comes down to one fucking choice. Except, of course, it doesn't, not really; because one choice is so inextricably bound up in the person you are (and were), and that choice, even if it were different, would have been cancelled out and rendered moot by all the other choices, and the result would have been virtually the same.

Unless, I suppose, one talks about the choice of one's parents to conceive and the choice of the chromosomes to stick together in just the specific way that created you. That's a choice that could have made a difference.

Why should we care? Seriously.

Motherfucking dickhead Christ-on-a-stick asshole bunghole Izusuhole crap shit moron. Go back to the Shadows.

Just fucking bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Leave me alone. Short people got no reason to live.

Fortunately, I don't own a copy of Mein Kampf.

My one-year-old daughter loves to read books, and she oftentimes grabs grown-up books just to leaf through them. The other day she grabbed my Little Red Book, and started calling my name: "Da, da, da, da..."

"Yes, honey?"

"Da, da, da, da--dialectical materialism!"

Bizarre phone conversations: a new sub-genre.

What's the proper response to "Hello, do you have a wife who's Oriental and drives a station wagon?"

All I could come up with was, "Uh, no."

In retrospect I probably should have said, "I have a wife who's Caucasian and takes public transit."

Upon watching The Two Towers, Diarrhea Edition.

I finally got it! I was wondering where the heck I had seen this performer before. Of course! I didn't even know he was an actor!

Marvelous, Holmes, marvelous!

"If you find a small portion of your front yard is wet, you may reasonably conclude that your neighbor's sprinkler was poorly adjusted. However, should you find that your trash can, car, and driveway are wet, you must not infer that your neighbor ran throughout your property with his or her garden hose; rather, you must conclude that it has rained."

I voted.

The person for whom I voted shall remain a secret, at least until I get bored. I urge anyone from the Super Tuesday states who can vote to do so.

It seemed like an exercise in faith-based voting this year, with those shiny Diebold screens blinking at me and assuring "Your vote has been recorded" while offering no solid evidence that it had been. I want a printout, damn it.

I think it might be time to quit blogging again.

Tears.

There are two reasons I don't have the heart to write about Edwards. The first, as I've already mentioned, is my son's stomach virus (from which I'm still recovering). The second is that an acquaintance of ours died Friday night.

I say "acquaintance," but he was the brother of one of our best friends, so the word doesn't really do him justice. K and I shared an apartment with D--- (the best friend) when we first moved to Maryland, and his brother actually lived on our couch for a few months. So we knew him well. He had a little boy who is now ten or so.

The funeral was yesterday, and it was my first since my great-grandmother died in 1988 or so. D--- and his mother looked to be strong. But I suppose that's how everyone tries to look.

He was in his early thirties, and died of pneumonia.

An uncle--my father's twin brother, in fact--died last month. My father is sixty-five years old. I thought that was too young, too. It's sad to say, but D---'s brother's death actually affected me more. I have no memory whatsoever of my uncle; one half of the family didn't speak to him, and I never found a reason to get in touch.

After all, life is too short to talk to people you barely know.

Sort of as promised.

I know I said I would write about the John Edwards rally I went to last week. I intended to, really I did. Now, I can only say that the event was standing-room only, and that seemingly everyone in the room was interviewed but me, even though I was carrying my "cherubic" (so said someone wearing a Dean button) son and daughter along as eye candy. And, oh yes, I forgot my Dean sticker. Alas.

He was a great speaker. I still hope I can get to hear Kerry in person before Super Tuesday. I didn't make it when Dean came to speak at U. Maryland a few months back--a great regret.

I still don't know for whom I'll vote. I'm leaning toward Edwards, if only to keep the Kerry juggernaut from rolling him over. I could, I suppose, vote for Dean to ensure his delegates will have clout at the convention; but I doubt he'd hit the 15% needed to get delegates from Maryland.

Of course, according to the specimen ballot we got in the mail last week, I can actually vote both for a candidate and for the delegates themselves, three of whom are committed to Dean. So maybe I'll split my ticket, so to speak.

How can Cheney look his daughter in the face?

Words cannot express how angry I am at the President's endorsement of the Hate Amendment. Mostly, they can't because the words I said to my wife this morning are a federal offense.

Frankly, I find it extremely unlikely that the Constitution will be amended to enshrine bigotry. It is a difficult process, after all, as it should be.

But (to paraphrase what someone else said in a long-ago debate about the Second Amendment) if the Constitution is amended to state that same-sex marriages are unconstitutional, then I will work, for the rest of my life if neccessary, to make interracial marriages unconstitutional. Then I will work to make divorce unconstitutional. And finally, I will work to make pre-marital sex unconstitutional. Then I will move to Canada.

The sad thing is, there are probably some wing nuts out there who would applaud me for doing all this--except maybe the "move to Canada" part.

Today is Grey Tuesday.

EMI Records, which owns the recording to the Beatles' White Album, is seeking to ban DJ Danger Mouse's The Grey Album, a hip-hop remix which combines the White Album and Jay-Z's The Black Album. EMI has ordered the very few record stores which were stocking The Grey Album to destroy their copies, and has sent cease-and-desist letters to web sites which offered the songs for download.

I do not have the space to host the songs, so instead, I am joining in the protest by "going grey" for the day.

This is not neccessarily a protest against EMI asserting their copy right (and yes, I mean that to be two words), although I think their position is ridiculous, especially since they could have asked DJ Danger Mouse to pay royalties. Rather, the current copyright system is broken. It protects corporate rights for ridiculous amounts of time, and supresses new works like The Grey Album. Does anyone seriously believe that downloading this new work will discourage purchase of arguably one of the greatest rock and roll albums ever recorded?

For more information, visit GreyTuesday.org.

To download the songs, I recommend visiting Brian Flemming, to whom I am grateful for bringing this to my attention. (Incidentally, as someone who loves the Beatles and dislikes most hip-hop, I can say that this work is actually quite good.)

Today is also my sister's 21st birthday. Have a beer, A--!

Yesterday I was with my son at the emergency room 'til 4 A.M., so no Edwards report until I recover. (He's okay, just dehydration from a stomach virus.)

Talk that funky accent, white boy.

John Edwards is coming to Largo, MD this afternoon, and I plan to be there, although I'll be wearing a Dean sticker (thanks, Medley!). Watch this space for further details.

"Madam, they may have cancelled it, but BLEEEARGH" all over her evening gown.

Well, I complained in another place that I had missed the first 20 minutes of yesterday's Angel episode (I had set the VCR to the wrong channel). And so along comes the miracle of BitTorrent, wherein the episode is already available in VCD format!

I guess that means I'm a major criminal now, huh? But hey, straw man, how is this different from lending a VHS copy to a friend?

Serious thanks to Godfrey for the heads-up.

Hell with it.

Maybe you know, maybe you care, maybe you don't either one, but my son has some autistic tendencies. No one knows what to do about this, least of all me.

In general, he seems like a normal, if somewhat eccentric, kid; he is somewhat delayed developmentally, but in my admittedly subjective opinion, it's not incredibly worrisome--he's just behind the curve, but progressing along at the same rate as everyone else.

I suppose I'm trying to compensate for my own fears and parenting failures when I say this, but is it possible that all the worries about "social etiquette" and "developmental delays" are just fear of deviation from the norm? Isn't it okay for D. to be a little different from the kids around him?

He certainly seems all right with it.

Of course, at his age, and in his school, there really aren't any bullies yet. I suspect he'll be teased mercilessly when they appear. The only thing he may have going for him is that he's all-American-looking, unlike yours truly; I think I read somewhere that blond-eyed, blue-haired kids don't get teased as much. (If not, well, I just posted it on the Internet and that makes it true.)

When do bullies appear, anyway? I remember they were in full bloom at kindergarten, but I don't remember being made fun of in nursery school. What's the trigger? When do these kids get the Mean Gene?

Does anyone else feel like that kid who got pushed around and beaten up all the time? Or, conversely, if you were the kid who beat other people up, HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITH YOURSELF, YOU SICK FUCK, AND I HOPE ALL THE PAIN YOU CAUSED ME FROM MIDDLE SCHOOL TO NINTH GRADE IS VISITED ON YOU THROUGH THE END OF YOUR PATHETIC LIFE, YEAH, I'M TALKING TO YOU, BILLY--ahem. Sorry. Got carried away there, but gosh, it felt good.

I used to imagine that at the very least they would have menial jobs and I could meet them later on and say, "Could you look under the Lexus' hood for me, Troy?" But, as has been well-documented in this space, I never had a career I was proud of even before I left the work force. So, so much for that.

Besides, maybe not all the high-school jerks, but certainly all the college jerks were jerks because they were rich and well-connected; so they're the ones with the Lexuses now. And probably the connections to the current administration, too (all the jerks were Republicans, though not all the Republicans were jerks).

I don't even want a Lexus, but it's the principle of the thing.

(Does anyone else think this blog has gotten boring since I went pseudonymous and stopped blogging about the bad times?)

(And why, even when I try to explore my feelings about my children, am I such a narcissist that I wind up whining about myself?)

As close as I'll get to the Frontier House.

I felt like getting back to nature, and enjoying the fresh, crisp feeling of air-dried clothes; that slight stiffness that tells me, "this shirt took time to get this way." In other words, the clothes dryer broke this weekend.

I don't know, I thought last season was great.

This pretty much sums up my feelings with regard to the Joss Whedon oeuvre. And here's what he had to say about it (according to a commenter on Fark):

Some of you may have heard the hilarious news. I thought this would be a good time to weigh in. To answer some obvious questions:

No, we had no idea this was coming.

Yes, we will finish out the season.

No, I don't think the WB is doing the right thing.

Yes, I'm grateful they did it early enough for my people to find other jobs.

Yes, my heart is breaking.

When Buffy ended, I was tapped out and ready to send it off. When Firefly got the axe, I went into a state of denial so huge it may very well cause a movie. But Angel... we really were starting to feel like we were on top, hitting our stride -- and then we strode right into the Pit of Snakes 'n' Lava. I'm so into these characters, these actors, the situations we're building... you wanna know how I feel? Watch the first act of [Buffy episode] The Body.

As far as TV movies or whatever, I'm not thinking that far ahead. I actually hope my actors and writers are all too busy. We always planned this season finale to be a great capper to the season and the show in general. (And a great platform for a new season, of course.) We'll proceed ahead as planned.

I've never made mainstream TV very well. I like surprises, and TV isn't about surprises, unless the surprise is who gets voted off of something. I've been lucky to sneak this strange, strange show over the airwaves for as long as I have. I don't FEEL lucky, but I understand that I am.

Thanks all for your support, your community, and your perfectly sane devotion. It's meant a lot. I regret nothing (except the string of grisly murders in the 80's -- what was THAT all about?) Remember the words of the poet:

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn."

Peak Popeye?

Hm, does anyone have any thoughts on this?

I'm inclined to be skeptical of any doomsday scenario, but a quick Google search hasn't given me any skeptic's pages. Of course, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; perhaps the argument hasn't really begun yet.

Interesting, in any case. But I'll wait for more information, please.

Oh well. The dream was nice. Now it's time to do some more research before March 2.

It was all about the money, for me... lots of people, like me, giving money to a man and a cause they believed in. Maybe I'm misjudging Kerry, but he seems like a $2000 a plate kind of guy.

And I'm not sure I can, in good conscience, vote for a half-term Senator. I mean, beating Bush is a great thing, to be sure, but so is experience.

Goddamn lyrics. . .

Misanthropy.

I hate Valentine's Day. Not because it's a fake Hallmark holiday, although it is; not because it's based in Christian lore, although it is. I hate it because it is a day of GUILT for men.

The GUILT began when K's mother sent the entire family and then some a digital photo of the "beautiful roses" her husband bought for her. Then there was more GUILT when K left me a Kit-Kat bar this morning after I had implored her to not get me anything.

Am I missing anything else? Well, I was going to write a song for her (and make it an Almost Daily Song for you wonderful folks). Unfortunately, this is the chorus I came up with:

When we're together, nothing is ever the same
And if they ask me why,
I just reply,
"Because of my dear... um... whatsername?"

I don't think that would go over well, although if anyone wants to use it to facilitate a divorce, it'd probably be quite effective.

A list of things to do.

In no particular order.

• Jump up and down.
• Break pieces of crockery over one's head.
• Do a handstand while--

No, I'm sorry, that was a list of things to do, but it was a list of things one could do; I don't plan on doing them. What I need to do is send a critique off to Clarence, write more songs, decide who I should invite into the paperback book chain letter. Write a song or two for Valentine's Day. And, of course, the ever-popular sleep.

Oh, and "Baby What You Want Me to Do" was written (?) by Jimmy Reed. There's a sample linked from here (Windows or Real Media only, argh).

I never should have endorsed Dean--after all, it was only after I did so that things started going south for him. And now we're just plain screwed; I'd love to believe Kerry could actually beat Bush, but frankly, W. is a charmer, and Kerry ain't. And charmers always win.

Today's Almost Daily Song.

A techno based on quotes from the old Match Game. MP3 format, 1.5 MB. Find it here, or here if you like context (or want to hear the other ones). You don't get my mellifluous voice in this one, just Gene Rayburn's. This may not be a bad thing.

Mature content to follow; not recommended for the very young or easy queasy.

This weekend was terrible, and I could, I suppose, go on and on about it. I probably should, in fact. But as a corollary to the horrible weekend, I'm really bloody tired.

Ah, what the hell. I don't think there's ever before been a time when all four family members were sick at the same time. There was the food poisoning episode, where D and the wife got sick emergency-room-style, but I escaped because of my strong, principled aversion to spinach-related foods. And since E was born, I hadn't gotten sick at all--new babies are wonderful incentives for continual hand-washing, and that, my friends, is better than Echinachea, Vitamin C, or whatever flavor of the month gets your cold gone in a week while the poor uninitiated have to suffer seven days. (I did get a nasty cough that stuck around for almost a month recently, but that was because E hacked the entire contents of Lake Michigan onto my bare shoulder while trying to sleep one night; and let's face it, there's not much you can do after that.)

The weekend, one could argue, began on Tuesday night (yes, a long weekend, six days of fun! fun! fun! 'til our daughter took the wellness away), when E woke up around 9:30 P.M. with vomit and diarrhea galore. Fortunately she was more stunned than upset, staring out into space, maybe wondering "Did I do that?" Yes, dear, you did. Several changes of sheets later, she finally stopped upchucking, and K and I settled down to bed, making plans as to what we'd do if she was still sick the next day. Fortunately, she was completely over it by Wednesday morning, laughing and enjoying her new-found superpower of Walking On The Dog's Tail. In fact, everything was great all day Wednesday.

On Thursday, the crap started to pass the fan in earnest for me. At first I thought, well, okay, last night's pizza didn't agree with me, and I didn't make a connection with E's bug because I wasn't throwing up. Also, it was manageable; I was able to drop Drew off at school and pick him up three hours later, but by the time I was done with that, I had to call K and demand that she come home. I had a stomachache, a headache, and muscle aches all over my body, and I still had to run for the toilet more often than I'd like.

K takes transit to work, so I was in for an hour and a half wait at least, so we watched the "making of" documentaries for Temple of Doom and Last Crusade, with strategic placement of hands over eyes during the scary bits.

Anyhow, K came home and I slept for a week. Or at least a few hours. I didn't feel much better and couldn't even watch the videotape of Angel from the previous night. I do remember that when I woke up at 11 after judicious use of Kaopectate, I almost felt back to normal. I also remember the reason I woke up at 11. D was sick all over his bed.

So, victim three; unlike his sister, D can communicate when he feels the need for bleah, so we placed a bucket by his bed and managed to only have to change the sheets once; but we still got up every few minutes with him, each time he did the deed.

Well, I did, anyway. Soon enough K was just reading in the bathroom. Yep; victim four. I think she may have got hit harder than the rest of us. She didn't go to work on Friday; nor did D go to school, although it had been cancelled due to weather anyway. By this time, the only one of us at 100% was E. I instructed her to take care of us, and I think she did her best, but it wasn't enough. I suppose I ought to cut her some slack, I mean, she is only 18. Months. I was better, but still sickly, full of pain, and witness to the occasional evacuatory need. But things seemed to be turning a corner, and at midnight, I had never been happier to have a constipation attack.

Saturday. (Yes, gentle reader, the actual weekend had finally begun!) This day was an anticlimax, with K and I feeling our way with caution, and D and E grabbing said caution and throwing it to the winds. We got through it mostly unscathed. Sunday was to be the real test; K had to go into the office to make up some of the work she missed, and just as this was about to happen I had a wave of exhaustion and dizziness. She still had to go, of course, even though she was starting to get a bad headache herself, so D took over my care, letting me know that I felt like I needed to throw up and handing me the bucket, just like we had done to him. He even patted me on the shoulder: "It's okay, Daddy, you can frow up in the pucket."

We settled down to watch The Muppet Movie, which my brother had given me for Christmas. I teared up at "The Rainbow Connection." Maybe it was because I saw the movie in theaters, and that would have been just before my parents' divorce; more likely, I was just experiencing my usual Coke-commercial sentimentality times ten. I felt better after drinking a lot of water and grabbing a little nap with the kids. When K came home from work, she saw us all napping and joined us for a half-hour (or so she said; I was deep asleep), and that, my friends, was the only good part of the weekend.

Over dinner I had a panic attack in anticipation of today, when I dropped the cat off for dental work, dropped D off at school, brought E to the doctor for a checkup, picked D up, took care of them alone for much longer than usual because K was in a major meeting (I had actually forgotten about the meeting during my panic attack; probably would have shot myself if I hadn't), made dinner, picked the cat up at the vet, and finally greeted K at home, and now here I am, blogging about it, when all I should do is

Oh, go away.

Support requested.

My body is telling me to not have that leftover pizza for lunch. I generally trust my body's instincts; however, it seems to be telling me to not have anything for lunch. Its instincts may be compromised.

No entries today, including the research on the original version of Baby What You Want Me to Do, becuase I am incredibly ill in the tummy. And that's as specific as I'll get.

A lot of left-leaning people (myself included) have wondered whether the Patriot Act and other erosions of civil liberties have a parallel in the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930. In order to give us all a little perspective, I recommend an article in today's Washington Post by Anne Applebaum. There are gas chambers in North Korea.

Sharpton and Bush?

Holy shit...

More Singin' Squelch!

Go here, scroll to the bottom, and listen to Johnny Cash spin in his grave.

V of VJ makes the best argument against the "If Kerry is nominated, I'm not voting for him" school:

If Kerry gets the nod we will have plenty of time to have this argument, but I disagree with many of you. The time for purity of heart and support of the most ideal candidate is now, with our money and time and energy.

If our guy doesn't get the nomination, in November it will be time for recognition of practical realities, namely that all the hundreds of appointments a President gets to make that don't make the headlines but affect people's lives should NOT have Republicans in them again for the next 4 years.

Kerry might well appoint some of the same people Dean would have, or at the least he won't be appointing cracked theologians like John Ashcroft.

Exactly. What are the chances that the next Supreme Court justice will be someone like David Souter--appointed by a Republican, but a closet moderate? (No, NOT a closet liberal. This country has gone so far rightward that all moderates are called liberals.)

I can't speak for John Kerry--but I doubt anyone, on either side, would agree today with Nader's 2000 contention that George W. Bush and Al Gore were the same politician.

A weird, non-Elvis version of "Baby What You Want Me to Do"? You mean, like, the original? Sigh...

Oh, well, I have to admit--it took me forever before I realized the Beatles didn't write Twist and Shout.

Mmmm... like butter.

Good Morning Good Morning.

In the bizarre coincidences department: The Post has a story in today's Style section about the Weekly World News (apparently its longtime editor just died), but I swear I wrote yesterday's entry before I found out.

And in the bizarre combinations department: one of the songs the Gonnas cover is "Come Sail Away," that high school anthem, and since the party on Saturday I've had that and another, lesser-known song in my head, which has resulted in an unholy lyric which only one of my readers will understand:

I thought that they were angels,
But to my surprise,
They climbed into their tiny car
And headed for the skies!
Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me...

SHOCKING!

My wife brought home the Weekly World News, from which I discovered that not only is there an all-nude town in New Hampshire (who do you suppose they voted for, I wonder?) and that Titanic survivors were found frozen, but alive, but that there's a new "Homeland Security Alert: Tiny Terrorists Disguised as Garden Gnomes!"

"Man," I said to her, "I wish I lived a life as exciting as this! I'd create a Weekly World Blog!"

"As exciting as what?" K asked, patting our son Bat-Boy on the head.

"As exciting as in the Weekly World News!" I paused to glance out the window at the flying saucer landing in our back yard. "Think of all I could write about!"

K shrugged, and our pet land shark bit her left arm off. "You'd just write about being depressed as usual."

"Yeah," I admitted, "I would," and spontaneously combusted.

"Our life is plenty exciting enough," K said as she spread Miracle Gro where her missing limb was.

My spirit possessed the Brie cheese in the refrigerator. "You can say that again!" I shouted (the fridge door was closed). "Remember the dead rat under the dishwasher?"

K nodded sagely. "And how it spoke the complete works of William Shakespeare?"

"Those were good times!" I had possessed the oranges by this time and amused myself by drawing the Virgin Mary on my husk.

K, meanwhile, was growing three new arms. The doorbell rang, and she used one of them to open the door. We recognized our neighbor immediately. "President Kennedy!" K said. "What a nice surprise! Need another cup of sugar?"

The former President nodded, and said, "Ask not what coffee is like without it!" We all laughed heartily, and a thousand tiny cameras recorded this information and transimitted it to the Illuminati. (I know because I was possessing one of them.)

After Jack had left, we settled down for a nice evening of reality television and mind control. Our dog barked, and when we asked him what was wrong, he seemed confused, and said, "I think it was Bigfoot, but it might have just been Joe Lieberman." We smiled--our superintelligent, genetically altered puppy was so cute.

As we settled into bed (in my case, literally--although I had to be satisfied with possessing only the box spring), I thought I saw a movement out the window. I checked the front yard. For a second, I thought our garden gnome moved--but it was only my imagination, surely.

Are you feeling lucky... punk?

Nemo Dory Sharpton?

Howard Kurtz, reporting on an exit poll produced by the major networks and others:

... on one of the two questionnaires being used, there's this zinger: "Regardless of how you voted today, do you think Howard Dean has the temperament to serve effectively as president?"

That, of course, raises the possibility that he might not, and the results could be cited endlessly in the primary coverage.

No other question asks for voters' views on Kerry, Edwards, Clark or any other candidate.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe the press does have it in for Dean.

Close harmonies.

Saturday night my band, the Gonnas, played a party--our first performance since April or something. We had played at the same party last year, but with bongos instead of a drum kit. This year we did the whole lineup: drums, guitars, all that.

And again, it was like we were rock stars (well, except we didn't screw groupies or shoot heroin. Only one of us is single, and none of us use drugs). What a feeling.

My favorite was the third set, where we threw the script to the wind and just made music. I sang "Twist and Shout" and "I Saw Her Standing There" (usually I only sing "Peggy Sue" and Rex takes lead vocal on everything else), and I dueted with an audience member on "Respect." I may not sound like Aretha, but she did. We even improvised a song about the party's hostess.

I have got to get a solid-body electric that stays in tune, though. My current Les Paul knockoff cost me $50, plus about $100 or so in repairs. So maybe I'm not surprised that I had to switch to my acoustic-electric after the third song. Usually, since I'm a dues-paying member of the No Solo Society, that's not a problem, but we do have one song where I love to let rip with an approximation of a screaming solo. Unfortunately, we (or we should) close with that song, though, so there's no way in halibut I could keep the Les Paul in tune that long.

I love my acoustic, don't get me wrong. But sometimes, you just need that chunky Les Paul sound. (I've never played a Strat.) Even my first guitar, which resembled what George Harrison used circa '64, didn't really keep tune. (But then I never should have sold it. Sigh...)

That's all there is to say, except that if there had been parties that good back in college, I would have gone to a lot more of them.

And of course, after Iowa, even a second-place finish in New Hampshire would be a win for Dean. That's the great thing about being declared dead while your heart is still beating.

Who's more presidential?

Brian Flemming gets it.

Value Judgment gets it.

And thank goodness Idiom Studio got it.

Let's spread this meme all over the web and get the truth out.

[Edit: To clarify, Value Judgment is mirroring the Idiom Studio video, but Brian Flemming has created a new work based upon it. It could be considered inflammatory, but it does get its point across.]

I've just made my second donation for Dean. Have you?