Fafnir‘s identity revealed!!! (Or, at least caught on film)
Democratic National Convention
Obama
I turned on CSPAN last night (not the major broadacast networks), just to look at what was going on and tuned in just in time to see Barack Obama‘s keynote address. I’d seen this guy’s name on the net recently, but didn’t really know anything about him. He is definitely going places. He speech said almost all the right things. It’s hard to give a powerful speech on a weak platform. He talked for a while about how war should be a last resort and not a first resort and said a lot of sensible things about war and peace. But the Democrats want it both ways. They want to be tough and annhiliate our “enemies,” so then he talked for a while about how we need a strong military and should not hesitate to defeat our enemies and need to make sure to send in enough troops to actually win. Yes, clearly the problem in Iraq is that we don’t have enough troops. If only there were more troops and mercenaries and more Iraqis in jail and more people killed on both sides and more bombs and more tanks and more violence and more death and more guns and more bullets and more troops and more convoys and more terrified 19 year old boys with guns running into houses in the middle of the night, rousting and arresting the occupants, only then, might we have peace in Iraq. More troops = more weapons = more violence = . . . peace?
Nevertheless, Obama’s speech was excellent, especially on domestic issues, race issues, poverty, etc. Many people have commented that a major theme of the convetion is unity and true to the theme he criticized talking head for dividing the country into red and blue states. “we worship an awesome god in the blue states” and “people in red states don’t want federal agents in their library records.” Indeed. In many ways, he and many of the other bits I caught, primarily reached out to the urban base of the party. When he talked about poverty, he talked about urban, inner-city poverty and not rural poverty. CSPAN showed a DNC video about giving poor kids options and it was all about New York City. This video featured a Representative from NYC talking about growing up as a poor teenager of color and how he felt like he didn’t have options. then it showed african american young men talking about dropping out of shool and having a lack of direction. The music under the track was urban contemporary. Then, after setting up the problem, the video turned to the solution: John Kerry. It also switched sound tracks at that point. The beat driven music switched (through a quite nice audio edit) to Enya. John Kerry brought beatless, white music to the inner city and turned black kids’ lives around.
I went to a lecture last semester as music as a signifier of race and racial stereotypes. I certainly hope whoever did the audio for the video was only unconsciously tapping into that auditory shorthand. somebody at the DNC should have caught that. In that video, as in so much in society, “black” music = uneployment, thuggishness, crime, etc and “white” music = direction, uprightness, prospertity, hope. On the one hand, then Enya did fit in really well. It was that song whith the backwards synth pads. It sounded appropriately uplifting. On the other hand, it does send a deeper message. If the kids in the first half hadn’t all been people of color, I never would have picked up on it. But suddenly, there’s the picture of the white guy and the music changes.
That video was the lead-in for Obama’s speech. And Obama’s speech was quite good. I think I saw tears in the eyes of Hillary Clinton, but I’m not certain. He is clearly going to win his senate seat. He was already troucing his opponent, when it was revealed that his opponent forced his wife to go to sex clubs with him and tried to get her to perform sex acts with strangers. The dirty secrets of Republicans are soooo dirty. This was in divorce papers, which reports sucessfully sued to get released to the public. If you’re going to run for office, maybe you shouldn’t do things like that and maybe, if you do, you should be willing to give up enough money in the divorce settlement so that it doesn’t go on your permanent record.
Obama kept mentioning his “funny name.” You may recall that Bill Cosby recently criticised african americans for giving “funny” (read: African) names to their children. Obama’s father was a Kenyan immigrant, so it’s quite logical that he would have an African name, however, I can’t help but wonder if his name references were a criticism of Cosby. Let’s hope so, as I think Cosby was way out of line for making an issue of names and fashions. It’s the kind of complaints that a bitter old man would have about the young people.
Ron Reagan
after Obama, Ron Reagan, son of our late ex president, gave a talk about stem cell research. It would have been compelling to have a scientist get up and talk about the politicization of science under the Bush administration, where scientists have been fired for reaching conclusions that did not match administration ideology and stem cell research has been halted, etc. Instead, Ron Reagan gave a creppy future scenario, science fiction like, where your cells would be implanted into a donor egg to create your own stem cell culture, which you would mine for cells whenever you had any medical problem. He was promising immortality. However, there is only so much healthcare to go around in the US. anyone who has health insurance can be immortal. And there are onyl so many donor eggs. Harvesting eggs is non trivial and allowing your eggs to be harvested has been linked to cancer. It seems to shorten the lives of egg donors. So rich people can be immortal with the eggs of the poor? Not a complelling vision of the future. Not one I’d support. Apparently what Democrats want. I know that they just picked Ron Reagan because of his name. I know that they probably care about the politicization of the NIH and the NIS and the WHO, etc. Nevertheless, I’m crepped out. I think folks not having health insurance, might, perhaps, be a wee bit more immeditaly compelling than the possibility of future research maybe finding a cure for currently incurable diseases. This is not a zero sum game. But how many people who can’t take their kids to the doctor for strep throat until it’s time for the emergency room are going to care about stem cell research. Obama talked about health care, but he talked about “buying” health insurance. Polls indicate that ther majority of Americans want nationalized healthcare. But insurance companies own the electoral process.
Kids for Kerry
I had it muted when a little orphan Annie, the founder of Kids for Kerry, (website) got up to speak. Cola insisted, eventually, that I turn the sound on. I could tell from the way she earnestly shook her head and the wide way she opened her mouth, that it would be bad, but Cola wanted to hear. We turned on the sound in time to hear her call for a “no-name calling day,” where candidates would have one day of not runnign mean ads and then she said, “The vice president said a really bad word!” Coal shuddered. “Oh god! turn it off! turn it off!” If you say that phrase to Cola now, she curls up in horror, “No! Stop! Stop!” heh heh heh. muahahahaha.
in conclusion
I always kind of want to drink to kool aid. I want to beleive. I want to look at the democrats and see hope. But, you know, it’s the insurance companies that see hope, not me. Obama, however, is a guy to watch. Running mate for Hillary? hmmmm.
Happy Birthday Pat Crane
Monday was Mitch‘s mother’s birthday. Mitch’s mom is cool.
anon blogging
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/today/news_14508dab1592c0bf0015.html“Moulitsas was talking with Duncan Black, 32, an economics teacher from Philadelphia, whose atrios.blogspot.com has made him one of the nation’s most well-read political commentators.”
Abortion and the Right Wing
There’s an urban legend going around right now that political wife Heinz Kerry donated money to extremely radical leftist groups like “Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Rights Action League, and the Abortion Action Project.” It’s not true. But first, let’s note that George Bush the elder donated a lot of money to pro-choice organizations before he fell in with Regan. Second, I’m highly concerned about the idea of Planned Parenthood as a radical organization. Abortion is a constitutional right. Planned Parenthood does not just provide women with (constiutionally protected) abortion services, it also provides them with other healthcare as well.
There is a compelling argument that the anti-abortion movement has a lot more to do with limitting women than with protecting fetuses. For example, conservatives are wont to grant exceptions in the case of rape or incest. Women can get abortions as long as it’s not thier “fault” for getting pregnant. Otherwise, it’s a just punishment for their actions. Furthermore, miscarriages are not treated like deaths. Fetus don’t have funerals, they don’t have names, they aren’t counted in the census and they aren’t dependants on your tax forms. You legal age starts from zero at birth, not conception. In no way is a fetus legally a person. The argument about where life begins is a religious argument, but most religions, similarly, are inconsistent. Fetsus are still unnamed, unbaptised and unmourned should they miscarry. No religion that I can think of has a system in place that recognizes fetuses. Also, many religions support exception for when the women is “innocently” impregnanted. Pregnancy is a punishment for illicit sex and a natural consequence of non-ellicit sex. Women should not have agency to control reproduction. And this is why Planned Parenthood is under attack, as much for their non-abortion activities as their abortion ones. Religious right wing reactionaries have increasing taken stands against birth control. Thi is true of some protestants as well as the long standing anti-birth control position of the Catholic church. It seems like birth control is a sensible way to limit the number of abortions performed. If people can prevent accidental pregnancies, then they are much less likely to terminate pregnancies. But birth control gives women agency. Women’s health clinics give women agency. A healthy, informed woman is problematic to reactionaries. These same men who will willingly take thier girlfriends to get abortions want to prevent their wives, daughter, girlfriends and the unwashed masses from making thier own choices. Agency belongs to men, not women.
Privacy
However, there is an attached concern to overturning Roe vs Wade. The supreme court ruled in that descision that Americans have a right to privacy. Abortion cannot be outlawed because it would be government intrustion in a private matter. A right to privacy is a protection against all kinds of government spying. roe vs Wade not only represents female empowerment, it’s a roadblock against having a full police state. Total Information Awereness, TIPS, and Homeland Security projects are impeeded by this constitutional right. If Roe vs Wade says that prosecutors can’t look at your medical records to see why your fetus disappeared, then they can’t snoop around them at random.
Lanuage
Through excessive reptition, reactionaries somehow turned “liberal” into a dirty word. It is imparative that they not be allowed to also do this to abortion. Right now, a vast majority of Americans, especially young Americans, are in favor of the legallity of abortion. If the right wing successfully demonizes the term, well, opions will change and you can kiss your rights and your privacy goodbye.
The best way, I think, to fight their over the top rhetoric is to mock it whenever possible. “Abortion on demand!” why, yes, that would be terrible! Imagine if we could get other medical services on demand like wisdom tooth removal or apendectomies! Conservatives are in favor of liposuction on demand! have they no shame??
What’s going on right now in Iraq
Reccomended read The power is out. US troops are shooting people. The new government is looking increasingly like the old government in actions, but is directly controlled by the US. “No one knows how many Iraqis have died or are dying. British reporter Robert Fisk estimates nearly a 1,000 people a week are dying from crime, American errors, the settling of feuds, and other reasons.” Nobody can travel. Snipers shoot everybody that moves. Up to 90% of prisoners (according to US estimates) are innocent, yet still we torture them.
some people say we need an “exit strategy” a way to get out without causing chaos. It’s way too late for that. Maybe we could get the UN in and remove every single member of the “coalition of the willing,” but how likely is that? Probably, we’ll continue to use contractors (read: mercenaries) to pacify (read: muder until submission) the populace and keep our 4 or more permanent military bases. The cradle of civilization. An American shooting gallery.
Why do we do it? Why do we have the Phillipines for so long? Why did we slaughter Native Americans? Why did we feed Chinese children poisoned candy? In pursuit of power. Let’s all go read 1984. Then let’s go read some anarchists. Power is violence. The power of the state is the power of the sword: to kill or allow to live. International relations are eerily similar to the school yard bully. The US is big and bad and has some synchophants along who will beat Iraq for it’s lunch money and savagely for that time it said, “no.”
Will Kerry fix this? no. being in the street will fix it. revolution will fix it. we need to get out of Iraq now. The much-feared power vacuum has come to pass. We don’t care about anything but killing communists and destroying the economy.
War on drugs / Get Tough on Crime / Let’s throw everybody in jail!
US criminal numbers hit new high
The US has nearly 6.9 million people – roughly 3.2% of the adult population – in prison or on probation or parole, a Justice Department report reveals
That’s more than double the number of people in the military. The US Census Bureau reports that there are 15.9 million college students. 2.3 Million college students are black. So 14% of college kids are black.
The report also revealed 41% of people on parole last year were black, while 40% were white.
The Bureau of Justice reports, “At midyear 2003 there were 4,834 black male prisoners per 100,000 black males in the United States in prison or jail, compared to 1,778 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 681 white male inmates per 100,000 white males.”
The rise in the number of people in prison or on probation or parole has happened despite nationwide crime rates remaining relatively stable and despite efforts by some states to introduce softer sentencing laws in an attempt to cut prison costs, the New York Times newspaper says.
Maybe this is because the Bush adminstration has decided that “Pot . . . may pose a greater threat than cocaine or even heroin,” which I beleive is also in the introduction to the movie Reefer Madness.
So lets’ get this straight: prison populations are up despite non-rising (some say falling) crime rates and African Americans are overwhelmingly over-represented. We have, by a huge margin, the higest incarceration rates in the first world and are running much higher than several third world countries. Are we a free society or are we a police state where people are criminalized on the basis of race and victimless, common behaviors? Discuss.
TOO! MUCH! COFFEE!
If my internet connection went down, I’d get a lot more work done.
I was gone camping from Friday morning till Sunday afternoon. I get back today to find more than 125, possibly 150 posts to the blogs I read. I read too many blogs. Also, you all were a talkative bunch this weekend. Please stop posting! I’m still behind.
Normally, I don’t talk about my activities because I obsessively photograph everything and post the pictures, but I felt like drunken car camping was a risk to my camera. Cola, Heidi and Becky, who I just met, packed up a car full of camping gear friday morning and drove for several hours towards the camping spot. I will niehter confirm nor deny that inebriation was involved with the non-driving passengers, however, I think I had one of the most surreal grocery store experiences of my life. I just wanted some donuts, man, but I couldn’t buy less than 2 pounds of them. And, well, it was just weird. We all sort of just wandered off and took a loong time to reconviene
We bought OJ and some other necessities and then pitched camp and relaxed with some Compari and OJ. Car camping is civilized You get to drink apertiefs. There was merriment and drinking and I did some BBQing on my tiny grill, then set a big fire in the fire pit. The camping spot was in the central valley. hot as hell. Next to a river. There was a cool breeze right off the river, but every other part of the campground was an oven. I purchased a raft which doubled as an inflatable paddle pool. I drug it over to where folks were lying around and lay amongst them in my cool pool. I knew nearly nobody of the 30+ people in the group, so I was mostly quietly relaxing. while others speculated at the probably extremely late arrival hour of the remainder of our group.
And in the middle of the night, there was extreme merriment. Fireworks were set off. I got up at like 3:00 am to use the bathroom and it seemed like the late comers had just arrived, or perhaps the party celebrating their arrival had not wound down. The next morning, stuff was everywhere. People crawled from their tents for breakfast. Somebody brewed a ton of coffee. Beer was loaded into coolers. I dumped Compari into the remainder of the OJ. Rafts were inflated. We climbed onto a bus with a trailer. Rafts were put in the trailer. People jammed onto the standing room only bus. The bus driver was blasting country music and a large portion of the bus, apparently, made up of locals, were singing along. Being surrounded by large groups of heterosexuals actually alarms me a bit. I don’t want to stereotype country-music fans, but I do know that there was a promised “family values” section in the next day’s eddition of the local newspaper. I feel comfortable stereotyping the central valley as red state Governator voters. anyway, the bus had no brakes, which ought ot have been more alarming but wasn’t, maybe because I was hung over. who knows.
We got to our destination without incident and unloaded the rafts from the back of the truck and carried them to the river. the water was cool and slow moving and the sun was beating down at 106 degrees farenheight. (apparently 41 C) I was slathered in sunblock and wearing a long sleve t-shirt. in low humidity heat, wearing something with long sleeves that you can dampen is a great way to cool down and keep the sun from beating on you. anyway, I tied the compari oj to the outside of my raft so it was cooled by the river and we started boating downstream. Cola’s raft was made for children and had an inflatable dragon head on the front and a dragon tail in back. It was too silly. after a while, I tied my raft to hers and then tied on to Heidi and eventually tied on to other groups and then onto yet differnt groups until we had something of a tangled floatilla, like the Raft in Snow Crash only not. We stopped a couple of times to eat and drink. Some of the other bus passengers in a different group had a beer bong. I’ve never seen beer consumed so quickly. I went to a women’s college, where beer bongs were not common, you know. Weird idea.
We floated for hours, drinking and relaxing in the direct sun. I was covered in spf 45 and wearing long swim trunks, a long sleeve shirt, shoes and socks, and a very wide brimmed hat, so now only my ankles are really sunburned, where my socks rubbed off the sunblock. My raft/paddle pool came with a pillow, so i was reclining fully. I heard someone behind me talking about how I clearly have a full grasp on the concept of relaxing. I think the speaker lives in NYC. I love that NYC people think I’m mellow. Not that I don’t have a talent for lying around doing nothing.
We arrived via the river, back at the camp. All the Compari OJ had finally caught up with me. I was fully baked from the heat. I drank much water then injested addtional inebriation and lit a cooking fire and then lay around, trying to cool off for a long time. I was very confused. I am unsused to partying, I am.
Woke up the next morning in the tent/ sauna and started packing up. the trip organizer’s step dad started having a seizure. I took first aid / cpr in 1998, so went to see if I could help, but it’s definitely past time to get recertified. Somebody in the adjoining camp was a firefighter and she was much more help, so I backed off. He went to the hospital.
On the way back, we stopped at an IHOP. I hadn’t been to one for years, but had been pondering organizing an IHOP protest on april 1st in 2002 or 2003, I can’t remember. We were going to dress conservatively and demand that IHOP rename itself to “Unilateral House Of Pancakes.” The nation was in an ungly mood. It was a dark time. I didn’t organize it because I was afraid we’d be mistaken for real fascists. And I’m lazy.
Came home and lay around for a while. Band practice was cancelled. I felt somewhat ill. Nicole went out and drank more. Ye gods. I’m not drinking any more for a good while I think. we went through half a bottle fo Compari between the two of us in the weekend. Normally, I just have a single glass of it with OJ before making dinner.
And this morning, I decided to go ahead and brew up a full pot with my insanely large french press. Most people don’t know that french presses come in such large sizes. Soon, I will calm down to normal and then embrace all kinds of temperance.
The moonies own Kaplan
The GRE and SAT prep people. Really, they do. They also own the Washington Post. Recently, the Rev Moon had some US Senators crown him, which I thought was covered under treason laws of this country, but oh well. He’s the second coming of Jesus. He hates gay people. He’s not so fond of jews. But, man, he loves hyper conservatives. And they love him. How can fundies get along so well with him? False messiahs are a sign of the End Times. The Rev Moon is all good news. We don’t need to protect the environment cuz the world is about to end! Huzzah! Let’s plunder the Earth before the meek get it!
I was hung over but energetic yesterday evening and wrote a 10K char history of US relations with Iraq, which I posted to Jen Savage’s LJ comments, but I didn’t save a local copy of it. And then she killed the post, thus sending my overly-long rant to the big bit bucket in the sky. Alas. I feel the need to summarize, however: Hussein became our friend when the people of Iran overthrew the US-backed despot, the Shaw. We gave Hussein arms and bio-weapons for the war with Iran. We also gave Iran weapons covertly, which is how Ollie North got so popular. Hussein nationalized the oil industries of Iraq and we were pissed. He called us, his military backers, up and asked if it was ok to attack Kuwait. We said sure. He conquered the whole country. We were pissed and blocked all of Iraq’s attempts at a peaceful solution and then decimated his military as we drove them out of Kuwait and shot them as they retreated unarmed towards the Iraq border. Then we set up two no fly-zones, including one in the south that took up about half the county and covered the shiite areas. We bombed them weekly for 11 years, hitting all sorts of military and non-military targets, terrifying the populace and killing lots of people. However, when there was a popular uprising against Hussein, we allowed him military access to the southern no-fly-zone to put down the rebellion, because we didn’t want a democracy, we wanted a new thug who would re-privatise the oil industries. We had the strongest emabrgo in modern times, preventing Iraq from importing many medicines and equipment to rebuilt the infrastructure destroyed in the war. 5 million children died from the sanctions. UN weapons inspectors destroyed more than 90% of Iraq’s weapon-making capabilities until Clinton ordered them to leave in 1998, so he could bomb the country. We bombed Baghdad but did not get into a “war.” The Bush team was making plans to invade before he was even president. As soon as 9/11 happened, Bush had military officials drawing up battle plans against Iraq. There was no credible evidence of WMD. Osama hated Iraq for being too secular. Al Queda and Hussein traded insults and certainly were not aiding each other. We invaded anyway, and Iraqis, after 11 years of bombings and sanctions, were not so happy to see us. More and more of them are taking up arms against us. Oil imports to the US, which were at their highest point during the embargo have fallen drastically as insurgents use sabotage against us. Anti-American rage is at an all time high in the Arab world, causing al Queda membership to swell drastically. Iraq’s chaos has actually harmed the potential for foreign investment. The only chances to make money off it are from US taxpayer-funded war-profiteering and possibly future oil revenues after our new thug slaughters the country into submission, but that’s long term possibilities. In the meantime, we’re not safer from terrorism. We’re less safe. However, we’ve long been promoting instability in the region. Buying oil from the Middle East means sending them our money. We can get it back by selling them weapons. Therefore, we want them to want to buy lots of weapons. Also, we don’t want them to nationalize oil industries. We want those to be owned by multinational corporations. So now we’ve made an example of Iraq. Nationalize your oil and you’re next. So we’ve accomplished our real objectives, which is war for private profit. go USA!
I had way too much coffee this morning. If I can find my original, longer comment (as if this post isn’t long enough), I’ll post it…
Social grid
Rememeber the geek code? You put a bunch of symbols in your .plan that indicated your proficiency with various computer langauges and gave other geeky stats bout you? It has been re-invented as the “google searchable” Social Grid. Part geek code. Part friendster. I’m posting my code here. It’s in an alphabeta sort of stage (tell a friend). Some things I would have indicated, I couldn’t, but whatever. Here it is:
update
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCS/MU$ dx s+:- a- C++ UL/M++ P++ !L E- W++ N(+) !o K w--- !O M+++ V? PS+++ PE-- Y+ PGP->++ t+@ 5? X+ R- tv! b++ D++++@ !D G e++>+++$ !h r+ z* ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------