Link HydrationWe're having another heat wave here in the NYC area, at least through Thursday, so be careful out there, folks! And please don't forget to stay as hydrated as possible, even if you're lucky enough, like me, to have air conditioning. Remember, AC is designed to dry the surrounding air as well as cool it, so drink, drink, drink! Here's some reading to whet your whistle: • Kameron Hurley is, as far as I'm concerned, a hero for helping that women on the train. Her tale reminded me of 9-11 and the blackout and the other times that I've seen New Yorkers immediately reach out to their neighbors. I still smile when I think of all the people sitting on the overcrowded express bus during the blackout who offered to switch with me after I'd been standing for way too long (in return I was letting lots of folks use my cell phone if they needed to), and the way we used to applaud firefighters right after 9-11. I don't take kindnesses (both big and small) for granted. Meanwhile, Roxanne has some public service advice for commuter train passengers in the DC area. • As for current blackouts, the Truffle has that covered - she's just suffered through one in Woodside Astoria, so she's keeping track of its aftermath, both practical and political. After what she's been through I'm glad she was able to get away for the weekend. • Pam Noles has a pretty comprehensive analysis of what I've come to call The Brother Panel at San Diego. As is my habit, since I wasn't there, nor do I know any of the people involved, I'm not going to opine for either "side" on the specifics of this incident. I will say a few general things, though - I thought Pam's observation about the panelists' non-familiarity with Big Two (okay, DC-produced) comics outside of the superhero genre was very telling, as was her description of how the audience reacted to the panelists' seeming dismissal of the woman's question (and subsequent character assassination!) not moments after they'd given a thumbs-up to a guy's suggestion: The women were told they have to wait for their representation, but guys? Totally all over the kung-fu movie thing! A man can get up at a panel about black comic BOOKS and ramble about black kung-fu MOVIES and be taken seriously enough for a handshake deal to go down. That man is not considered nutcase, nor is he denigrated for his size as a way of dismissing his input... Also, I wish to heck that Pam would get a comments section at least, because she doesn't put her contact information anywhere on her blog and she's precisely the kind of writer who could really engender a great discussion community if she wanted to. • Speaking of black speakers whose dismissals are frustrating, Patrick Nielsen Hayden has had it with Barack Obama and his anti-secular pronouncements. As someone who can identify a great deal with the Dobrich family (although in my day it wasn't fundamentalists, just mostly plain old Catholics who egged our house and such), I'm inclined to agree with Patrick. I thought Senator Obama acquitted himself marvelously at the '04 Democon, but lately, not so much. • Ken Jennings likens Kellogg's versus General Mills iconic characters to DC versus Marvel. I think this analogy actually works in most places, it's a lot of fun to read (as is most of Ken's witty writing). • Wow, it's Pam Spaulding's second blogiversary! And Barry's coming to NYC tomorrow and I'm majorly psyched to see him again and meet fellow Alas aficionados! Can I possibly use more exclamation points?!?!?! • Barbara's found scientific backup for her Elective Ignorance theory. I think it's just more proof that nobody enjoys having his or her worldview shaken, we're human and our egos are fragile. I hate going through the "being proven wrong" stage, even if in retrospect I'm usually grateful for having been set right. • Speaking of fragile egos, I happen to think Susie's a wonderful and kind person, even if she doesn't always. Send her some extra good mojo today, won't you? • Glenn Greenwald deconstructs the latest presidential radio address: Stability is our enemy because it breeds hatred and war. Only instability and war will breed a "lasting peace." Thus, the more instability and war in the Middle East, the better. That is the central neoconservative warmongering tenet and it is what is coming out of the President's mouth as he discusses his views of the new war in the Middle East. It's not even like they're using Orwell's 1984 as a playbook any more; it's like they're trying to write a nonfiction sequel to top the original... I'll keep adding to this throughout the day as I find more stuff I like...
No, But If You Hum A Few Bars...Just asking, does not finding this amusing mean I have no sense of humor? Note, that's a " real metal chain and plastic ball," emphasis mine.
Sweet! Dinner was lots of fun, Colleen - thanks so much for the home-grown veggies! And your mom's sweet pickles smelled so great I couldn't wait until they chilled, I'm eating this plateful right now. The cloves just make it, it's wonderful. I've really missed pickles since I cut down on my salt intake, so this was a treat beyond measure!
Liberal Coalition Top TenWeek of 7/23 thru 7/29/06The heat wave is scheduled to intensify as the week goes on, and the lethargy it brings is seeping in despite the closed windows and switched-on AC. Granted, we haven't been that hermitically sealed, we needed to do a couple errands yesterday and we'll be taking Colleen out to dinner tonight, but still, it's not like we've had a flurry of activity, and I'm still bone-tired. But never too tired to take a look at this past week's Liberal Coalition posts that caught my eye this past week: • Andante's recovery is progressing well. It appears (pun intended) that she sees better than me now! • Bora reports on a prison-based Norse cult. Sounds like a subplot from the Ultimates. • Bryan has a creepy tale of a horse's head found in a politician's swimming pool. The politician? The only Democrat in a town council full of Republicans. • Echidne's post about A Canticle for Liebowitz makes me feel better that I don't recall ever having read the book despite buying it a quarter of a century ago. Also, she's keeping cool by ranting, and examines attitudes about divorce. • Jane celebrated her birthday by getting thrown out of a Lieberman/Clinton stump speech in Waterbury simply for being recognized for who she is (and the Liebermocking float she helped create). More proof that Lieberman may as well be a Republican? Also at Firedoglake, LC member T. Rex talks about cool cell phones. • John at archy details what he can about the shooting at a local Jewish Federation, and is about as unimpressed with Dershowitz as I've always been. If you think these two stories are related, please read what Kenneth has to say about anti-Semitism, with which I agree totally. • Kathy warns us about a right-wing website. You know, usually the words "right-wing website" are all the warning I need to stay away. :) • Keith wants us to know that, somewhere in Kerala, it rained fishes. I just watched a show the other day that talked about how it rained apples somewhere in England recently, but I can't find the reference via Google so I have no link to share. • Mustang Bobby asks, " What's the one song or piece of music that makes you smile and forget the cares of the day?" Probably "Penny Lane" for me, for obvious reasons. • Steve Gilliard has a good all-original-content post up about Coulter and Clinton and sexphobia. Between starting this blogaround and finishing it, I watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin with my husband. Terrific performance by Carell, and dynamite ending, but I came away with the conclusion that most people (at least the small segment represented in that movie) are way too obsessed about sex. Steve also has an interesting overview of what's been happening in Harlem. • Norbizness presents another confusing presidential press conference. • Speaking of confusion, what's all this Miss Litella keeps hearing about nun violence? If NTodd knows, he's not saying. He's too busy starting up another blog. • Lastly, Trish is excited that Evil Dead is being made into a musical. I wouldn't be as excited unless they promise to either star Bruce Campbell or get Jim Steinman to do the music. Time to wrap this puppy up and go watch some baseball...
Silly Site o' the DayNot for nothing, but if the Sci-Fi Channel is going to do a whole Create Your Own Superhero game tying in to that Stan-Lee hosted reality show (which I didn't watch; I don't think I watch any reality shows), they might want to take a cue from one of the actual contestants and offer more than only one body type for men and one for women. I refuse to play any "create your own avatar" game that doesn't allow me to choose my body type. (Tie-in game via Keith.)
Silly Site o' the DayPam found some Jesus-themed t-shirts that parody commercial products (i.e., profit on trademark infringement). Here's a website chock full of them. Not a ™ or © in sight, I'm sure. But then, I own a (better) version of this, and my husband's current employer probably doesn't look too keenly on the sellers of those sorts of shmatas if they don't pay a licensing fee. (I like this one better anyway, but it probably still comes fairly close to a trademark no-no.) I'm pretty sure "selling for God" doesn't come under the heading of "acceptable infringement" and it might not be okay with some people either.
Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)See now, this is an example of what I sometimes talk about when it comes to the cats:  Amy is a total camera-face, she loves having her picture taken. It's a miracle when I can get Datsa to even glance in my direction at the same time as I snap the photo. This was about the fifth try, after which I gave up.
Link StormNot unlike the pending thunderstorm outside my office window, only I hope this won't give you headaches the way the change in atmosphere has done to me: • Via Greg at This Modern World, Monopoly UK has come out with a version that uses a debit card rather than their usual colorful denominations. Now what are we going to do when a country's currency is devalued and we have no basis of comparison after Monopoly money's been phased out? • Karen Healey passes on a much-needed art lesson about how not to draw a comic book cover. • David Niewert takes another look at right-wing Bizarro logic. I don't know how he does it, that sort of stuff gives me a bigger headache than I have now. I can't even deal with the "code words to the base" stuff, like the "birth pangs" phrase Digby decodes here, or weird tinly-disguised anti-Semitic nonsense like that found by John of AmericaBlog. • You've heard about that kid show host who was fired for her honesty about having a sense of humor in her past? Well, turns out Glenn Haumann has inside knowledge about the videos in question, and is helping circulate a petition to get Melanie rehired. • I can't believe the crap Lance has to go through because he's a caring and involved father. I suspect he's correct when he surmises that "They resent me because I'm doing what they wish their own husbands would do and since their husbands aren't there to take it out on they take it out on me as representative of my gender even though the reason they're filled with resentment is that I am not representative." • Speaking of representing, the Rude Pundit has a guest blogger lineup for next week that's making my head spin! Or maybe that's the storm again... • Via Cookie Jill again, Anthony Bourdain is back in the states and safe and, via Jessa at Bookslut, he's given a fascinating chat at the Washington post website. Also, via Zuzu at Feministe, he's written an article for Salon about his experience in Beirut. • Jenn examines the "colour-face" phenomenon in entertainment. Christopher Priest whines (his term, not mine) about the continued dearth of black writers and suits at the Big Two comics companies. Meanwhile at San Diego, there appeared to be a bit of a dustup at the Black Panel, detailed very thoroughly here by Rich Watson. This seems like more of the "same as it ever was" story regarding race vs. gender - to many black men, even progressive ones, it seems to be more important that they advance than that they support and join the fight with their sisters of color in similar endeavors. • Melissa again tackles one of my pet subjects, politics and humor, and her responses as to what she considers Off-Limits and Fair Game go a long way towards answering Peter's implicit question here. On the other hand, Adam's implicit question seems to be whether tragedy plus time equals comedy. Zoicks, time to get out of here and hope to beat the rain during my commute...
Cards for AlyssaSnopes just published this post about Alyssa Bruno, a brave girl battling diffuse pontine glioma who will be celebrating her sixth birthday next Wednesday, August 2. It includes addresses where you can send her cards if you wish.
Silly Site o' the Day
Dang, I told the folks at Firesign chat last night that I was going to go catch up on my blog reading and it wound up not happening. I blame the rumbly thunder, it got me all confused. But I'm not confused today, I know it's July 28 which means it's time for my annual plug of Planet Proctor! Happy birthday, Phil! Hope "The Dresser" went well. [I'm still trying to get over the fact that I never recognized John Cullum was the same guy who was in the movie 1776 (where his creepy "Molasses to Rum to Slaves" number blows everything out of the water) and the TV show Northern Exposure...] Oh, and speaking of things Firesign, Brian has done some tweaking on their main website, worth another look!
Silly Site o' the DayDang, car upkeep is expensive! What I thought would be a little cosmetic maintenance on my Hyundai, refastening a couple loose pieces on the interior, would have cost me $165! I passed on it, and opted for just the oil change (which was due) and washer fluid replenishment instead. They noted I had almost 15,000 miles on it and wouldn't I like a complete inspection and all that for the low, low price of $295? Well sure, if I were in fact made of money, which I'm not! My local shop will do the same inspection next weekend for a fraction of that price... Plus, it was hot waiting for my coworker to kindly pick me up from the dealer where I left my car, and I have a nasty headache, and Blogger is cutting in and out again like a crazy monkey. To top it off, Budgie runs a very funny set of screenshots for the version of Office 2005 with features you really need, and neither of us can trace the source ( this is as close as I've gotten so far). Anyone else want to take a crack at it? Update: Turns out David Deckert, who created the original Clippy suicide assistance bit, wants to know where the other spoofs came from as well.
Silly Site o' the Day
Gonna be another scorcher, so they say. Good time to kick back with a nice tall glass of iced tea (via Digby first, although everyone seemed to link to it a couple weeks back). Sounds like something I could make myself, though - just brew a few Twinings Peach Black teabags with the dried mint "Grandma" keeps giving me, et voila...
Why My Social Life Is DwindlingNote to self: check your damn email more than once every few days, you nimrod!
I missed another fun barbecue, and I almost missed a few other events of note.
I had over 500 spams in the spam-catcher and another few dozen in the in-box to throw away before I even got to the mass emails I don't read, the job listings I'm throwing away for the next month or so, then the actual mail addressed to just li'l ol' me.
I have no idea what's wrong with my routine lately. It's not like me to blank on checking email for so long.
Silly Site o' the DayBoss day yesterday, plus a surprise data-entry type project which continues through today, so more light blogging ahead. If anyone's interested, my boss highly recommends The Devil Wears Prada, not just for Meryl Streep's performance but for Anne Hathaway's. As for me, I highly recommend the hand-puppet version of X-Men 3 (via Keith R.A. DeCandido).
Silly Site o' the DayGah, I forgot the office air conditioning isn't working. I'm melting, melting! Who would have thought a little HVAC like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness... I feel like whacking a capsule (via Hanan), but the whack-thing doesn't work on all of them.
Liberal Coalition Top TenWeek of 7/16 thru 7/22/06Dang, I really should have taken some kind of pain killers before that afternoon nap; my muscles are stiff as a board. Ah well, I'll soldier on with my weekly review of Liberal Coalition offerings, as all my other Bloglines categories are cleared, then hit the shower: • Yay, Andante, for making it through your eye surgery okay! Hope you can read this soon. • Coturnix examines capsaicin (be sure to wash your hands before going anywhere near your eyes, Bora!) and how location and income level affects food intake. • Happy belated birthday, Chris! Hope you get a breather or two at work. • Keith celebrates Armstrong Day. You know, even with the improvements, when you zoom in as much as Google Moon will allow it still shows cheese. • Kenneth battens down the hatches. • Maru bets that someone is asking why lesbians are firing at Jews, alerts us as to the garden glove thief of Westchester County, and has some cool science-related linky-tidbits. • Just go to Michael's blog and read the all the enjoyable travelogue posts from this past week of his vacation out west. (The pictures alone are magnificent!) • Mustang Bobby points out that, when the extremists are the ones with the power, either perceived or actual, it's incumbent on reporters to recognize the danger to our democracy as well as to themselves. • I had trouble playing the footage, Scott, but hey, we watched it live on the Fourth anyway. :) • Scrutiny Hooligans give us pictorial proof of how alone we are in the world. • Steve warns us, run away now, the moneyed liberals are coming! • The Count directs us to an important analysis of current US foreign policy, which sounds eerily familiar. I hope to God they're wrong. • Lastly, it could be that upyernoz has found the early 21st century version of "under the sheets" only using poems instead of fortune cookies. Okay, that didn't seem to do my shoulders any good. Off to the shower; 'night all!
Silly Site o' the DayMaybe I should have blogged before going out today. I went right from "I want to catch up on some reading before I write anything" to "oh, it's not raining, let me take care of those errands I put off yesterday" to "damn it's muggy outside and I've just lugged heavier-than-expected bags up two flights and my muscles ache, I'm watching baseball for awhile" to "screw it, both home teams are losing at the moment, I'm going to read comics" to "can't... keep... eyes... open" to finally waking up about a half hour ago. My eyes are still not focused, but at least I can give you the Kitten Cannon, via Augie, which I hasten to add is Very, Very Wrong.
Watching the LanguageOur tricky language just keeps getting taffy-pulled more and more by the radicals currently in power in the US. Remember the stirring opening of Star Trek, talking about new life and new civilizations and boldly going and all that? Well, NASA had a similar-sounding mission statement: "To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers ... as only NASA can." At least, it did until this past February, when the statement was quietly altered, with the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet" deleted. The ostensible reason given was so that the boy in the White House bubble could play with his pretend spaceships in his goal to put more people on the Moon and maybe Mars someday. The real reason? Scientists speculate that without that phrase, "there will be far less incentive to pursue projects to improve understanding of terrestrial problems like climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions." Speaking of slick talkers, Tom Tomorrow writes an open letter to his old friend David Carr at the NY Times suggesting that perhaps the Grey Lady pay less attention to mock- shock at the left blogosphere's occasional use of curse words heard in abundance on such venues as HBO, and more attention to the right blogosphere's death threats, which are apparently not obscene because they don't actually use the f-word like Cheney or the s-word like Bush, and besides the left just can't take a joke in the mean, dangerous and treasonous spirit in which it was intended. More from Glenn on this as well. Ordinarily I'd be the one saying "well, it's not all that necessary to use four-letter words in our posts detailing the atrocities of the people currently in power and their sycophants," but at this point it's all a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't proposition anyway, so I don't see what good "curbing language" would do. The mainstream media's mind seems to be as made up on the "truthiness" (™ Stephen Colbert) of "right-leaning bloggers are polite and left-leaning bloggers are filthy-mouthed" as they are on "all comic book conventions consist primarily of people dressing up in costumes," and there's not a whole heck of a lot you can do about that kind of ingrained laziness. Other bits and bobs around the blogosphere: • It's long reading, as most of her posts are, but do catch Barbara O'Brien's two-part (so far) series People with One Watch. Here's part 1, about elective ignorance, and part 2, which concentrates on stem cells and blastocysts. Barbara explains, about the series' title, "One of my favorite sayings is 'A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never sure.' The point — other than no two wristwatches in your possession ever tell exactly the same time — is that the more knowledge you have of an issue, the more likely you are to see more than one side of it. But over the years I've run into an astonishing (to me, anyway) number of people who interpret the saying to mean that it's better to have just one watch." Now see, that's what I would have said as well, because having the correct time is not a matter of opinion, it's not really an issue per se, so for me the analogy of the adage kind of falls flat. • Speaking of medical science, CE Petro examines the subversion of doctors whose otherwise educated judgment is being coopted to promote pharmaceuticals. • Greg Palast notes that Ken Lay has gotten his revenge from beyond the grave, and gives a pretty good history of how a once-competent utility has gone down the tubes. • Hanan says if he gets more than 500 comments to his post announcing his getting over 5 million hits, one of those 500 folks will get $100. Oh sure, heaven forfend he just give the money to the person who let him guest-blog for her a couple years ago. :) • The DIVX community is videoblogging the San Diego con, and their team includes Heidi MacDonald so it's worth it for her bits alone. Seeing Heidi and lots of other friends, and looking at all the pictures of those booths and whatnot, it almost makes me feel like I'm there, which I'm pretty glad I'm not (we haven't been able to afford SD in a few years and it's gotten way too, well, way too). Except I could do without the mudslides and flooding back here. That's it for now; back to reading and hoping the weather clears...
Quote of the DayIt kills me a little each day, but I'm hardly unique in that. Besides, some irritating voice inside tells me that if I truly wanted things to change I'd make it happen. How is something the little voice never tells me.
That's pretty much how I feel about not having gotten on with my comics writing (or any fiction writing) after nine years at my present occupational position. The rest of Mike's post (his thousandth!) is a real trip to read as well. We've had outage problems in the NYC area as well, and my commute home yesterday, normally around a 25-minute drive, turned out to be a nightmare that lasted over an hour and a half - here are some details that explain why. Yes, you read that right, a mudslide. I'm not driving anywhere this weekend, as more storms are in the forecast...
Silly Site o' the DayIn keeping with the peace and spirituality theme (see post below), via the Generator Blog it's the Worldwide Blessing Generator. You can even add your own blessing. When you click on the generator button, you get the blessing on top and, appropriately, on the bottom of the screen it reads "May peace prevail on earth" along with a translation into any number of languages (I got what I think is an African language, "Dunidu nabad ha ku waarto," and what looked like Cyrillic so I can't repro it here). A pretty cool project, as is the one Colleen found called the May You Be Blessed movie which, apparently, has reached its goal.
On Three Things The World StandsVia Wampum I found the website of the Jewish Voice for Peace, a comprehensive and educational site working towards peace in the Middle East. I wish organizations like this had been more visible when I was in yeshiva and, attending some rally whose details I've long since forgotten, was approached by a few JDL hoodlums trying to harangue me into joining their cause. Even then I knew that violence wasn't the way, but in those days there were precious few resources for Jews who believed in peace and justice to turn without being immediately labelled "self-hating." A'dank'n Got oif der internet!
Silly Site o' the DayHey Leah, Robin thought you might like this. Me, I think it's just so wrong... (By the way, I should mention again that Leah is the one who came up with the Silly Site concept.)
Maintenance Notes As JH would say, that is all.
Silly Site o' the DayWow, the time's gotten away from me again! It's a semi-non-Boss Day, which means he's working out of his home so I'm "on call" with my Outlook opened to his Contacts folder to give him phone numbers when he calls me for them (those that I haven't already memorized; I found out, much to my amazement, that I'd un-memorized a few of them whilst he was away, so either I'm out of practice or I found other info to occupy my brain during that time), but able to pretty much keep up with my other work. Which, I hasten to add, does not include things like this online Battleship game (via Eszter).
Lighten Up, DollHonestly, why are y'all so up in arms over this? It was obviously just our President's way of honoring the late Mickey Spillane, whose characters were also known for their courtesy towards dames. All dames. All alike, all needy, all secretly craving inappropriate massages at international summits. The rest of her body language may say "get your paws off my back and act as befits your office, you boorish, undignified oaf," but her eyes say "yes"...
On Bra CremationsOkay, that's it. My boss is gone for the day so before I go home I have just enough time to bitch about the latest example of seemingly every sensible person in the liberal blogosphere suddenly going off on a comic strip that (at least to me) does not say what they think it says. The strip in question is yesterday's Doonesbury, a very poignant episode wherein Joan dozes off and has a talk with the spirit of Lacey Davenport about the word "feminist." Quoth Lacey, "Once a social transformation is largely complete, the language that drove it loses both urgency and meaning." Everyone and her blogsister has taken this to mean that Garry Trudeau believes feminism is dead rather than the way I read it, that the word "feminism" describes a movement that has been able to accomplish so much in the past few decades that another term is needed to describe what still remains to be done in the fight toward equality. Context is all-important here, and the context is Joan bemoaning how many young woman don't relate to the word "feminist," just like people our age don't relate to words like "suffragette." This truism is not a sign that the struggle is over, just that new terminology is due. (For instance, even though women still don't have the vote everywhere in the world, those working to change that don't call themselves suffragettes.) Also of major importance is that Trudeau has a history of presenting diverse characters with differing viewpoints - even in this strip, we see that Joan and Lacey don't necessarily agree. As I recall, Lacey was a bit of a commonse-sense conservative whilst she was still alive; why should she suddenly convert to a feminist mouthpiece now? As for the punchline at the end, which bothered Echidne exceedingly, I saw it as a winking nod to the bra-burning myth, not a perpetuation thereof. I'm sorry guys, as far as I'm concerned Trudeau's feminist credentials remain intact. I think this is a matter of a lot of people reading their own interpretation into something where it really doesn't exist. But then, it's well known that the women's movement has no sense of humor.
Guy TalkNo, not the expletive-laden revelations of a non-nuanced mind, that's obviously for diplomats on a world stage. I'm talking about what the News+Views Guys on my blogroll are saying, now that I've again caught up with that mysterious network of tubes: • On Alas, A Blog (I'm psyched for next week's NYC gathering!), Tekanji examines the recent comments by Marvel editor in chief Joe Quesada about employing more women in comics. I do agree with her that "maintaining the boys' club" is partly a function of assuming a level playing field exists when all evidence points to the opposite, but as someone who hasn't gotten off her ass and written a comic book story in about a decade I know my inaction is adding to the dearth, not relieving it. • Still, I'll take the compliments where I can, and Chris Clarke said such nice thinsg about me I'm all a'blush. As I said to Chris in the comments to his post, his brilliance at parodying The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was never in doubt, and I'm a big fan of that sort of thing. It's just that it wasn't very accessible to anyone who doesn't follow the right-wing blogosphere, and there are so many good writers on the liberal end I honestly haven't either the time nor the inclination to check out the "other side." (Besides, one can hear their viewpoints on pretty much every major mainstream news outlet; our views are the ones that seem to be constantly shut out or marginalized.) • However, if you must hyper-analyze the right-wing blogosphere to death, you could do far worse than to read Glenn Greenwald's challenge to mainstream journalists and David Niewert's follow-up to that about the radical right's tendency toward extreme projection. As I said last week, these people are almost always guilty of whatever they’re loudly accusing their opponents of doing. • Chris Albritton and Stuart Hughes, probably the two best journalist bloggers around, are doing a fine job reporting from Beirut. • Hugo reminds us that Biblical "modesty" has more to do with not flashing your bling than with covering up naughty bits. That's how I always understood that part of the Biblical tale of Esther, which of course I'll get to in That Comic Book Story that I still haven't written after ten years...
Silly Site o' the DayDang, what's the name for that headache that starts right around the left ear then curls around to pretty much take over the entire left temple? Oh yeah, Boss Day. Although it hasn't been too bad yet, he's even researching his own flights for his next international pleasure trip! And it could be far far worse, I could be working at a job that would require me to be outside today. At this point I wouldn't go outside even for a way-cool public art project, like the ones Hanan lists here. Of all the ones she lists I've witnessed Moose in the City (Toronto) and the NYC Cow Parade. Which ones have you seen?
What's Wrong with This Article?Is this NY Times article about missiles in South Lebanon a rerun? Sure seems like it to me and Robin (who found it). Quick, let's check the screen capture!  The second paragraph starts, " As the Bush administration moves to confront Iraq, some officials are concerned that Hezbollah could step up its attacks on Israel..." Which is weird, but that's not all. The sixth and seventh paragraphs (highlighted by Robin) read: Still, officials worry that the buildup of so many rockets could tempt Hezbollah to expand its operations. Adding to this worry is the fear that Iran or Syria might encourage Hezbollah to stir up tensions along Israel's northern frontier to divert attention from Iraq and complicate the Bush administration's plans to topple Saddam Hussein.
According to some analysts, neither Iran nor Syria wants to see an American occupation of Iraq because they fear that it could be a platform for Washington to project more power throughout the region.
It gets better; page 2 mentions "Secretary of State Colin Powell." This is obviously recycled news/propaganda with today's date haphazardly slapped atop the article. So much for, you know, editorial professionalism. Update: And now we begin to see why the Times might have recycled this bit, as Juan Cole notes Israel's possible plans for a ground incursion into southern Lebanon.
Tidbits for a Sunday AfternoonIn between dozing, reading comics (the new DC comp box arrived a couple days ago) and trying out my new microwave rice cooker and veggie steamer, I thought I'd catch up on blog reading again, as I probably won't be able to again for a long while with my boss back in the country (so consider this a heads-up as well for Light Blogging Ahead): • Anthony Bourdain reports in from Beirut: "Thanks for the good thoughts and well wishes. We are all of us... in good health, good spirits and working ferociously on our tans and sipping blender drinks while watching the fireworks from a secure location. Our masters at Travel Channel have made sure we are being well looked after. Though I'm not sure the 'gold-plated, monkey-navigated rocket-sled' I requested as an exfiltration vehicle will be laid on imminently...we have nothing to complain about. Particularly compared to the locals who are having an atrocious time of it. This is a great city--filled with many lovely, proud and generous people and it's heartbreaking missing so much of it. Worse seeing all that pride and hope and tolerance turn overnight to grim resignation." Thanks to Cookie Jill for the initial alert. • Speaking of which: I wish for peace. Don't you? (Via Arthur.) • Barbara wrote something that caught my eye during her analysis of Bushonomics: "In the United States, income inequality declined from 1947 to 1968; since 1968, inequality has increased." So really, what we think of as the halcyon days of American economic growth and stability, where citizens lay down real stakes in this country because they had more of a stake in it, came about because a system was in place that played fairer with those citizens. And as the fairness decreased, so did many citizens' hopes and dreams. Not for nothing do a lot of folks think the last great Republican president we had was Eisenhower. • Once again it looks like I'll miss the deadline to contribute to the second Carnival for Feminist SF/F Fans, this time at Kalinara's blog. There's a lot I'd love to write about my many years of reading science fiction and fantasy but I just don't foresee having the energy by the end of today. Heck, I still haven't even read the first Carnival over at Ragnell's place. Maybe next time... • Kath is the alpha human to her family's cats, and I'm extremely jealous, as Robin's definitely the alpha human in this cat-owning household. • Frank has the go-to site for information on the Joe and Valerie Wilson civil suit and its funding initiative. When patriotic service like this is deemed unpatriotic, you know you're living in an upside-down world. Germany in the '30s, anyone? • It's always a treat when both The Firesign Theatre's Phil Austin and Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre's Merle Kessler update their blogs at the same time. Near as I can tell, Phil reminisces about the Dead. I've never quite grasped Phil's stream of consciousness style, but it's always fascinated me anyway. Meanwhile, Merle heads to Wisconsin to talk philosophy and enjoy his father-in-law's Dixieland band. And another old favorite acquaintance from the days when I was publishing Firesign's newsletter, sf writer Rudy Rucker, treats us to pictures from his son's wedding with, as you might expect, lovely text accompanying them. • Fafblog - how I've missed them! - is indignant that some pesky ol' court would take away our imperial president's right to torture and, perhaps, eat babies and such. If he felt like it! Presidents don't live on boar alone, you know! • Jill has a great take on why the idea of PMS-alleviating chocolate disturbs fatphobic writers with little knowledge of either feminism or facts. Off to read the rest of the News+Views Guys and watch some baseball...
Liberal Coalition Top TenWeek of 7/9 thru 7/15/06Special insomnia edition, featuring at least two times ten posts from Liberal Coalition that I liked this past week: • As you might imagine, Bora/Coturnix celebrated Tesla's birth anniversary in style. John joins in by showing us some Tesla gelt. • Bryant sends up three cheers for train travel, and so do I! Yet another way in which the US lags sorely behind Europe and other civilized areas. • Chris illustrates his review of An Inconvenient Truth with one of my favorite Alex Ross pieces. • Echidne finds an interesting Friday news dump (i.e., a government-issued news release timed for a Friday afternoon on purpose to garner the least amount of publicity possible) about the merits of public education and examines mother-based insults. • Hooray, my Bloglines feed for Firedoglake is working again! It's been very interesting watching Jane & co. follow the CT Democratic race, and I particularly liked Jane's posts about NARAL and Planned Parenthood kissing up to the anti-choice Lieberman. • Guy doesn't get why Pee-Wee's Playhouse is rated PG for TV. Me, I'm amazed it doesn't have a more mature rating than that! I remember how much I used to love all the double entendres in that show. • Kathy examines the comedy stylings of Vladimir Putin, who's apparently on a bit of a roll at the G8, although I can't understand why he hasn't yet lifted Bush's shirt and kissed him on the tummy. • Ken examines anti-Hispanic racism in Florida, which can ill afford such sentiments. • Oh no, run, it's the Tasty Cicadas! Thanks a lot, Maru. Also, the saga of a certain type of traffic noise becoming too much for a busy intersection, and a three-dimensional crop circle in Oxfordshire, where some artists clearly have way too much time on their hands. • Michael is vacation-blogging in Vegas (my parents don't have DSL at their Vegas place either), Utah and environs and wishes us all a Happy Bastille Day. • Another 100%-original-content post from Steve, this one about how a bad 'net rep can affect your future dealings in the real world. • NTodd, currently partying outdoors in Manhattan with, I'm sure, lots of interesting people while we're up here in our air-conditioned Bronx apartment, has the skinny on city name changes in India, something about which I've been confused as well. • Scott remembers Syd Barrett. I didn't, really, but Robin did. Which is a little weird because I'm four years older than him, but then he's 44 years more British than me. • Steve notes that another race for the moon (and Mars) is underway, only this time it's really only one misguided country kind of limping along. • Lastly, Trish muses about Lizzie Borden. And on that note, I'm actually going to try sleeping through the night now?
Silly Site o' the DayUgh, induced insomnia sucks. I feel the very opposite of cute, and this is why. (I'm so glad this site is back, I'd been trying to link to it for ages...)
Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)It's the evening for cats in (relatively) unusual places:  Datsa settles in atop Robin's cap beside his drawing board...  ...whilst Amy pokes her head up from under my upright tray (as I recall, back when we had a dining room she delighted in poking her head up from under the dining room table as well).
Silly Site o' the DayOkay, as Melissa says this anti-christofascist video is totally NSFW (Not Safe For Work). Good thing it's almost the weekend, then! The lyrics scan exceedingly well and the performance is faaabulous, so enjoy.
Dem's Good Reads - Friday the 13th Come on a Thursday EditionSaved up from the last few days, and into a post I started this morning and never got a chance to finish during daylight hours: • The only review you'll ever need of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, by Heidi MacDonald, naturally. If you know Heidi you don't need to be told how deeply in love she is with the whole pirate milieu, and how keenly she reviews films, so as far as I'm concerned she's the Voice of Authority here. • Laura found a really inspirational article (and follow-ups) about random acts of kindness. • John at AmericaBlog has a couple interesting posts on crime in his homebase of Washington DC. • Over at Pandagon, Amanda discusses the nature of oppressive taunting, as it's much in the news what the Zinedine Zidane incident in the World Cup final, and Zidane's press conference yesterday apologizing for his head-butt but insisting that Marco Materazzi had indeed insulted his mother and sister. (And I believe him; Materazzi says Zidane "has always been my hero" and "I didn't say anything to him about racism, religion or politics," but according to the same article he's also acknowledged he insulted Zidane. Why insult your hero? Frankly, none of what Materazzi says seems to add up. I just hope FIFA makes good on all its anti-racist rhetoric that was so overhyped this year!) Also good observations about the matter from Bryan, and Angie finds this game that I should perhaps have saved as a Silly Site. • Patrick on why many artists shouldn't always draw from life or, more accuately, why they should vary their subjects. • The Poor Man chronicles the continuing battles in the Great Annoying Video War of Aught-Six. • Digby observes how Democrats need to be agents of change. I'd add that people aren't going to believe Dmocrats can change things unless they (the Democrats) actually talk about changes they've sought whose implementation was blocked by the fact that they ran up against too much opposition, so the obvious solution is strength in numbers. If the Demos don't run on a "strength in numbers" reform platform this year, well, there goes another golden opportunity. • If you care at all about something the liberal blogosphere is referring to as the Deb Frisch matter, you want to read these two posts by Glenn Greenwald. Even if you don't really care about the minutiae, exposing hypocrisy is probably a very productive pasttime. Me, I can't manage much more than a quick series of kips...
Silly Site o' the DayI have no idea if it's the change in weather (I mean, a tornado a few miles north of here, really!, and those scary yet fascinating thunder and lightning storms last night - but this morning it was so blessedly cool that I drove to work with the windows open for the first time in ages) or getting a decent workout on the stationary bike yesterday or, more likely, having way too many vividly frightening dreams that lurched me into consciousness in the night... but man, am I wiped. Still, it's been way too long since I've done a "link dump" so expect one of those shortly. In the meantime, for your game-playing pleasure, say hello to Krazy Dad (via Eszter).
Resistance is FutileExercising on our stationary bike has been increasingly frustrating for me, to the point where there were many days I didn't even bother. I've mentioned my debilitating back pain before (my lumbar pillow with built-in heating/cooling pad pouch just arrived, yay!), and chalked up my inability to get to the requisite "ten minutes minimum then start increasing" as yet another sign of me going downhill. I was almost to the point of seriously considering looking into a scooter and ground-level living space, when Robin noticed I hadn't turned down the resistance on my bike. Well yeah, I said turning down the resistance is like cheating, isn't it? It means I'm not really doing what I need to be doing to get my cardio workout. At which point he patiently explained to me, using the analogy of lifting weights: What I'd been doing was the equivalent of lifting weights by starting with too many pounds, rather than starting with the lightest weights and increasing the repetitions of the lifts. To build fitness and endurance, you either use lighter weights or less resistance and you do more repetitions or longer on the bike, and you then gradually build up the time or repetitions until you get to your optimum number or length of time you want to exercise. Then and only then you start increasing the weight or the resistance. Using heavier weights for shorter amounts of time (Robin said) is what you do when you want to build up strength and muscle mass, not endurance. And I primarily need to build endurance and increase my heart rate. So the key is "little and often," with a gradual increase in time then in resistance. I did 11½ minutes on the bike today, and actually felt like I'd done a real cardio workout. Have I mentioned how much I love my husband?
Silly Site o' the DayRobin fixed my Bluetooth! It always helps to be taught how to work the volume control; not everything electronic is self-explanatory or user-friendly. Just in time for me to call him up on my morning commute bitch about the nasty little accident that tied up the northbound Henry Hudson/Saw Mill. At least six emergency vehicles and someone on a stretcher; I shuddered. Heaven forfend that make other drivers think, though; whilst going 60mph in the fast lane of the Cross County, I kept getting cut off by weaving SUV drivers with obvious phallic issues needing to go 70+ (well beyond the speed limit) who kept passing me on the right then sliding smack into the "3 second" safety zone I try to maintain between me and the vehicle ahead. Made me want to recommend that everyone take this safe driving video test. I turned the annoying sound off so I'll have to wait until I get home to take the test myself.
Silly Site o' the DayVia an issue of Entertainment Weekly that's at least a month old (like I said, I may be caught up in comics reading but I'm way behind in magazines), it's The Norman Rockwell Code.
RIP June AllysonShe was one of my Mom's favorites, right Mom? Update: Uh, not right. Mom says she didn't care for her, but Dad liked her...
Liberal Coalition Top TenWeek of 7/4 thru 7/8/06Well, half a week, h'anyway. Lots of good posts from Liberal Coalition members this week: • Echidne hints that she may or may not be working for PayPerPost, and notes the strange changes in her garden possibly due to global climate change. • John catches us up on his hectic life. • Kathy has a great essay on how a country's maturity is accomplished more easily when no outsiders screw with it. I don't think it's the whole story, though - I think with the US it's as much former outsiders' willingness to bring their own talents and views into the mix to enhance things. • Michael reports on yet another organization bitching about how the English language is too hard for people to learn because of spelling and pronunciation, so everything needs to be changed so that it all makes sense to their rigid minds. Whenever I hear about such a wrongheaded exercise in futility I always Google the organization's website (I can officially do that now, NTodd's reported the verb "google" has now made Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary) and try to find out who's actually behind such time- and money-wasting efforts. By sheer coincidence I'm sure, the link to their Board Member listing is broken. • I'm ashamed to admit it but, somewhere along the line, I deleted Moi's name from the LC blogroll. Which is a shame, I really love her posts. This week she exhorted readers to send in their birthday greetings to the 60-Year-Old-Boy in Chief. • Mustang Bobby asks, what's the point of having a Statue of Religious Liberty when non-Christians aren't free to practice their religion even to having their sacred symbols recognized on their grave markers? Isn't the whole point of religious freedom to allow for the practice of non-dominant religions? The dominant ones aren't in any danger, despite all the whining coming from rich church heads. • Lots of goodies from Steve G. as usual, but also as usual most of them consist of a really lousy citation-to-original-writing ratio (i.e., a long copied-and-pasted article written by someone else with a few sentences of commentary tacked to the end). Thoughts of the Stupid is a notable exception, 100% original content, and the kind of thing I'd love to see Steve do more of. Also of note are his observations on the latest Aunt Thomasina and an article he passed along about fellow LC'er Jane Hamsher, whose blog's RSS feed is still not working on my Bloglines after over two weeks. • Norbizness celebrates the 4th by updating the Declaration of Independence. • Scott shows us Oak Point Yard, which I've never seen because I don't tend to hang out in that section of the Bronx, and links to an amusing animated editorial cartoon from Newsday to the tune of the Wizard of Oz score... • Steve B's wife is getting all kissy-face again... aww... • Trish has had enough of courtroom cell phones and prairie muffins. Separate stories. • Lastly, upyernoz muses about people who have the bad luck to commemmorate special events on days that currently live in infamy. Tell me about it, Leah's birthday is 11 September. Now to bed again, having given up on trying to figure out the newest mysterious comment on my blog. It's anonymous again (so I can't ask the commenter for clarification) but not religious in nature, unless one counts worshipping "Weird" Al Yankovic (which I have been known to do in my misspent youth), and it's in response to a post from so long ago that neither Robin nor I could identify it. Newcomers, you're quite welcome here, but please note that Blogger and Haloscan don't "talk" to each other that directly, so if you're going to leave a comment on a post that I made a long, long time ago, please at least mention the title of the post!
Silly Site o' the DayHere's a creepy website via PZ Myers - the Face Transformer. I don't think it works all that well, but then I used my sidebar photo, and the program seems to respond best to a passport-style photo with the head straight upright rather than tilted. Still, when you click on "child" and it just flattens the face a bit, or "manga" and it just widens the eyes, it seems like a pretty basic applet.
Weekend GoodiesTo be added to as I actually get through the blogroll as promised earlier, a promise broken by the World Cup third place game and much baseball (a Mets doubleheader and the Yankees game; hey, after tomorrow it's the All-Star break, I gotta save up) but made moot now as I just accidentally clicked "read all blogs" under my Bloglines uberfeed and now have 900+ posts to either skim through or ignore: • Wil Wheaton has a meaningful conversation about his writing with his Internal Critic. Long but lots of fun. • Barbara O'Brien is one of the many folks remembering yesterday's grisly anniversary, and expanding upon it to take in the current state of British (English, Scottish and Welsh) politics. • Now this is the kind of "blog wars" I actually enjoy. Dueling YouTube videos, apparently from the '80s (I'm too behind in things to sit through any of them). Ilyka Damen catches us up. I watched a lot of MTV in the '80s, I harbor no regrets. • Jenn at Reappropriate has some choice words for Sony's advertising agency on the World's Stupidest Billboard Campaign, at least the stupidest one this week. • Kalinara is disturbed by the tendency of shoujo (girls') manga to feature female protagonists who start out plain or wimpy or otherwise mediocre, whereas the male protagonists in shonen (boys') books tend to be somewhat perfect paragons. Kinda like the difference between your typical fairy tale and a Homerian epic. • Jill at Feministe passes along a couple of excerpts from a really horrid advice column supposedly run by people who live in the 21st century. • Cory at BoingBoing announces that Kyle, whose adventures I've been following ever since he put his one red paper clip online, has finally traded, up and up and up, for his dream house in Saskatchewan. Bravo, Kyle! Can I interest you in this here pair of tweezers? • Oh Liz at Blondesense, thank you so much for linking to the movie trailer for The US vs. John Lennon! I miss him a great deal as well. • Lastly, some Independence Day thoughts from Digby. More as I start the long dark read-through of the mark-reads... Update: Okay, that's done. A few more: • Melissa expands on Echidne's post about activism being seen as a dirty job done by invisible elves. I think a lot of people aren't activist not because of the hard work factor so much as the time management and organization necessary to be an activist. John Adams may have called it commitment, but there are only so many things to which one can be committed in one's life. [And some of us have deep convictions but are completely burnt out on activism by this point, not in the least because we've seen the fruits of our efforts go by the wayside as people after us go in different directions and don't maintain what we began.] • Melissa also has a terrific post about odd puzzle pieces, which as far as I'm concerned is a Koufax 2006 best post nominee. • Glenn Greenwald asks why hypocritical right-wing pundits think it's okay for some papers to leak classified information which could actually impact national security but other papers publishing publically-known information in puff pieces that have nothing to do with security are somehow treasonous. • And Hugo Schwyzer has one of the better analogies I've seen of late, comparing bladder control to control of sexual desire and where blame is assigned for each. Hmm, do I have time for a quick morning nap before heading out to and back from the supermarket in time to catch Drew Carey's live World Cup Final webisode? Yeah, why not...
Silly Site o' the DayAs of last night I've made a nice inroad into the last of my unread comics; I should get through the rest of it (pretty much only Vertigo and Wildstorm left to read) by the end of the day, which usually means a new DC comp box is due to arrive. Of course, I'm months behind in magazines, graphic novels and collections, etc. and I need to get caught up with "the internet" (blogs) again but, of course, there just aren't enough hours in the day to read everything and function as a somewhat productive member of society. I do plan to do a short linky-dumpy this afternoon, as well as my usual Liberal Coalition blogaround tomorrow. I don't plan to read Saddam Hussein's trial blog (via Susie Madrak) all that regularly, but I think it's the most amusing blog idea since the Hulk's Blog, or perhaps the pigeon blog...
Dominant ReligionSomething odd is happening in my comments sections today. I don't think it has anything to do with the Pay-Per-Post people, but it's remarkable enough to not necessarily be coincidental. I've had two comments show up so far from folks who appear to be hit-and-run commenters with no email addresses nor websites listed, just their names. Jenni's totally left-field comment was attached to a thread from May, and was deleted because I have no idea what she was going on about - something having to do with me attacking rosaries which I don't recall ever doing. (I'm not even in the habit of discussing rosaries, since they're symbols of a religion which I don't practice. On the other hand, they do represent ritual, which fascinates me no matter the religion. I attended a funeral mass last week, and was utterly entranced by the ritual throughout which I thought was very appropriate and moving.) Harold Barnett's comment was attached to a post from back in January, and was about how some theory used to disprove the historical existence of Jesus was itself in doubt because the main figure in that theory was himself fictional. (That one I kept because I thought it interesting rather than confrontational; remember, blog comment sections are not "free speech zones" but rather the online equivalents of cocktail parties, so if I as the host perceive a guest to be rude, particularly a party-crasher I've never encuontered before who doesn't present any "paper trail," I see nothing wrong with showing them the door.) I don't think anyone but me even noticed these comments. As I said, they were attached to posts from months ago, and I would imagine very few Pen-Elayne readers check in with my comments sections at all; I only saw them because I subscribe to the Pen-Elayne comments section via Bloglines. So, given that they're both apparently from folks who've never visited (or delurked) before, feeling a sudden need to leap at me in defense of some aspect of their religion that I never attacked, buried in the archives from months ago - well, I wonder what's going on. Is this something like radio and TV programs from decades ago just now making it to the outer reaches of our solar system? Have past posts of mine that have touched on religious matters just been archived at some holy search engine visited by devout believers prone to misinterpretation? For the record, then: I blog about religion at times, particularly from a historical perspective (I love all those Biblical history documentaries), but don't tend to get too much into it, because I believe the practice of religion is like the practice of sex - a private matter between a consenting adult and his or her deity/deities of choice. As stated above, I also enjoy many of the rituals associated with religion (as well as those associated with sports, nations and other organizations) and often blog about certain celebrations. And events which happened to me when I was younger as a result of anti-Semitic prejudice contributed to who I am and what I believe in general today, so I will occasionally point out those injustices the same way I blog about other societal evils. But the actual liturgical worship aspect? Not so much. Because how or whether you worship God/Allah/" Bob"/The Great Cosmic Muffin/The Flying Spaghetti Monster is none of my business. It only becomes my business when you push your worship in my face, particularly if you expect me to then join in. I don't like second-hand religion any more than I like second-hand smoke. I have my own religious beliefs which suit me just fine - and which, unless I choose to discuss them, are really none of your business either.
A Modest Call to ActionThe people who currently hold the most power and influence in this country (and their followers) seem to be characterized by two defining qualities. The first is that they are almost always guilty of whatever they’re loudly accusing their opponents of doing – and not just guilty, but egregiously, extremely so, while their opponents are usually not just completely innocent of whatever wrong they are said to be committing but have actively and historically fought against it. All the lip service about fascism and religious oppression and eroding freedoms, it’s all them doing it and trying to misdirect citizens by pointing fingers at those with whom they disagree. It’s part and parcel of their MO to hang on to power at any cost, even if it means cheating to acquire and maintain it. Secondly, the perpetrators control the means of disseminating their accusations, as well as the pursestrings to continue beating the other side into the ground with them. This means a good many more citizens believe them because they’re effectively only hearing one side of the story, the side that repeatedly connects their personal misfortune and paranoia to some supposed evil brought on by anyone who doesn’t agree with them. These citizens aren’t stupid; they know something’s up, suspect things are worse than a decade ago, but they can be led to believe that their fear and unease and bad economic luck is actually the fault of the people trying to prevent it rather than the people perpetuating it, in large measure because the main news access they have or know or trust (usually TV) keeps implying or outright saying it. So they go against their better judgment and instincts and even beliefs (few of the people in power who profess to be Christian seem to follow Christ’s actual teachings against poverty and hatred and public displays of religious fervor) and keep supporting the same crooks and liars and Pharisees and bigots. But we’ve made tremendous inroads, despite the powerful trying its hardest to control our megaphones and marginalize our common sense. Thanks in large measure to the internet, citizen activists and court jesters are lightning-quick to respond to, for instance, right-wing radicals playing the religion card not by taking their bait, but by pointing out examples of actual religious discrimination (which is almost never against a country's dominant religion) and shining a light on the true instigators. Hard-working investigators continue to make connections and publish their findings in books that top the Amazon sales charts as soon as they’re released. We’re ripe to take matters into our own hands by calling these people on every bit of bullying they try – by repeating our own message, over and over, that these are the badguys and their track record proves it, that citizens need to watch what the radicals do and not what they say (especially not what they say their opponents are doing), that it’s essential they pay attention to the men and women behind the curtain. And we need to stop being so hard on our fellow citizens who aren’t moved to action as quickly as we are. We need to have more faith in the people of the United States, to remember that these folks are hungry for truth and justice. Even those who have no interest in foreign lands are tired of our country being despised by the rest of the world because of a few radicals’ disastrous policies. Even as they keep falling back to the corporate media’s line that the only solution is for the same radicals to keep blundering through and hoping for the best – with less oversight and fewer friends and believers all the time – they’re eager for a way out of this depression and morass. That way out can only be through infusing citizens with hope and courage, not fear and paranoia; by engaging them, not accusing them; by focusing on the best of what unites us, not on our differences. By being everything the hatemongers aren’t and, by their nature, can never be. And by touting our accomplishments and beliefs rather than letting the radicals define us as everything they are and we’re not.
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