Initiatives

Californians, vote early, vote often, vote no.

The ballot initiative process is not your friend. The ballot inititiave process is a spawn of Satan. Consider this from a review of Paradise Lost: California's Experience, America's Future.

An apparently unstoppable cycle set in, in which initiatives limiting government would be followed by initiatives ordering government to do things that were popular. Between 1911, when the initiative system was created by reformers to circumvent the Southern Pacific Railroad's iron grip on the state legislature, and the time of Proposition 13, Californians passed 42 initiatives. Since then, 40 initiatives have been passed, almost as many as in the 67 years from 1911 to 1978. A big-money signature-gathering and ad-producing ''initiative industrial complex'' has grown up, and it is probably more controlled by special interests (trial lawyers and environmentalists on the left, the familiar business groups on the right) than by the legislature.

The more initiatives pass, the more hamstrung the state government becomes. As Schrag puts it, ''there is no give left in the system,'' even in boom times. The less legislators can do, the more unpopular they become, and the unpopularity fuels more initiatives. In 1990 Californians registered their disgust by passing Proposition 140, which not only imposed term limits on elected state officials that are among the nation's most restrictive but also cut their staffs by 40 percent and severely curtailed the analysis of pending bills. The legislature now, as Schrag describes it, is practically vestigial, thanks to erosion by a torrent of initiatives. No out-of-town television station any longer maintains a state capital bureau.

Consequently, my blog is endorsing voting no on all ballot initiatives. This is especially true this time around, when most of the initiatives are bad news all around. Check out DeLong on Ezra Klein's endorsement of the LA Weekly endorsements. He says the only one worth voting yes on is 79.

Decision '08

General Zod has emerged from the Negative Zone to run for President.

Q. I have seen that another hopeful candidate for the 2008 elections is Christopher Walken. I have been a great supporter of his, but I have much respect for your authoritarian regime. I am unsure which of these two great evils I should vote for. Is there any chance for a political debate during campaign time between you and Mr. Walken? — Beth R.

A. Yes, but can Walken promise you cruel oppression and harsh totality? Why allow him to coddle you with platitudes, only to be disappointed years after the election? I promise you a future of darkness. And it's only in darkness that you see light. I promise you ascent, and elevation, living the life of austerity as you relegate your possessions and lives. Warmed in that monastic aura you shall find enlightenment and happiness. To this I say: Give me your vote, and kneel before Zod!

I say: why vote for the lesser evil?

I also note that the General has taken a very appropriate position on responding to spam.

God and the Brain

My colleague Chris tells me that the famous depiction of God reaching out to Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling is actually a diagram of the human brain, and that the painting has some spooky correspondences to brain function.

Cool. Seems like the kind of thing Michaelangelo would do.

Cultural appropriation

I've had a long post about white cultural appropriation stuck in a half-finished state for some time now. I'll get to it. But it certainly won't be as good as the introduction to Everything But the Burden. It won't even be as good as this half-sentence from it:

hip-hop culture and the hip-hop marketplace, like a quantum paradox, provides space to all Black ideologies, from the most anti-white to the most pro-capitalist, without ever having to account for the contradiction

That's going to have my head hurting for weeks.

Chicago

I have a friend visiting Chicago at the moment, and for reasons I cannot explain, I somehow got imprinted with the phrase "Chicago! Hog butcher for the world!" when we got Carl Sandburg in American Lit in high school. So I just searched up the poem --- God bless the web --- and it is pretty damned good.

Chicago

    Hog Butcher for the World,
    Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
    Player with Railroads and
      the Nation’s Freight Handler;
    Stormy, husky, brawling,
    City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;



Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
    Bareheaded,
    Shoveling,
    Wrecking,
    Planning,
    Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth,
 laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing
 as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs
 who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist
 is the pulse. and under his ribs
 the heart of the people,
        Laughing!

Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

People do not write poems like that about suburbs.

Trek

I'm not embarassed to admit that I grew up loving Star Trek. I've been to a small fistful of Trek conventions, and there was a time when the original series was so fresh in my mind that I could come into any episode somewhere in the middle and identify it by name within seconds. No, I was never the sort of fan who owned a Starfleet uniform, but do have a bit of Trek stuff kicking around somewhere; I think I still have a copy of the original writer's guide for The Next Generation, for instance.

I still have some love left for it. The original show can be great fun, and there is some good stuff about The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, which were sometimes very cunningly written. But the steam went out of my relationship with Trek long ago. I think I saw all of half a dozen episodes of Voyager, and maybe three episodes of Enterprise. I like babes in spandex as much as the next guy, but I don't want them to be the best thing about my Star Trek.

Is it just that I'm not a kid any more, or did Trek just wear out its original conceit? In his review of the last Star Trek film, Nemesis, Roger Ebert expresses the way I feel and suggests the latter.

I'm sitting there during Star Trek: Nemesis, the 10th Star Trek movie, and I'm smiling like a good sport and trying to get with the dialogue about the isotronic Ruritronic signature from planet Kolarus III, or whatever the hell they were saying, maybe it was “positronic,” and gradually it occurs to me that Star Trek is over for me. I've been looking at these stories for half a lifetime, and, let's face it, they're out of gas.

There might have been a time when the command deck of Starship Enterprise looked exciting and futuristic, but these days it looks like a communications center for security guards. Starships rocket at light speeds halfway across the universe, but when they get into battles the effect is roughly the same as on board a World War II bomber. Fearsome death rays strike the Enterprise, and what happens? Sparks fly out from the ceiling and the crew gets bounced around in their seats like passengers on the No. 36 bus. This far in the future they wouldn't have sparks because they wouldn't have electricity, because in a world where you can beam matter — beam it, mind you — from here to there, power obviously no longer lives in the wall and travels through wires.

I've also had it with the force shield that protects the Enterprise. The power on this thing is always going down. In movie after movie after movie I have to sit through sequences during which the captain is tersely informed that the front shield is down to 60 percent, or the back shield is down to 10 percent, or the side shield is leaking energy, and the captain tersely orders that power be shifted from the back to the sides or all put in the front, or whatever, and I'm thinking, life is too short to sit through 10 movies in which the power is shifted around on these shields.

Maybe it's that it's hard to suspend disbelief that long, or maybe it's that Trek itself can't withstand that kind of attention. And I just stumbled across something that makes me think it's the latter.

One of the things I have followed about Trek has been the career of David Gerrold, the writer who most memorably did “The Trouble With Tribbles.” He also wrote the best book about how Trek works, The World of Star Trek, and he wrote that writer's bible for Next Generation. (While I'm at it, let me plug his War Against the Chtorr novels, which have hokey alliterative titles like A Rage for Revenge; they're my favourite pulp guilty pleasure.) Gerrold left Next Generation after a couple of years, and at the time was doing the polite not-explaining-why which makes one suspect that he actually left with a lot of animosity and was biting his tongue. There were rumours that it was something like Harlan Ellison's famous anger toward Trek creator and producer Gene Roddenberry for rewriting “City on the Edge of Forever.”

My recent discovery is an article about the long, unsuccessful struggle to see gay characters on Trek. It includes Gerrold explaining about how wrote a script, “Blood and Fire,” which was an allegory of AIDS. He tells the tale of how it languished in the Trek production organization, and how he tried to bring it to the screen.

Recalled Gerrold, “He [writer/producer Herb Wright] was complaining that he had six rewrites to do. I said, ‘Let me do the rewrite on “Blood and Fire” for you.’ He said, ‘Well, go get Gene's permission.’ I went downstairs, stuck my head into Gene's office and said, ‘Look, I know Herb Wright has to do a rewrite on “Blood and Fire.” Let me do it for you guys. I'll take some of the load off.’ And Gene replied, ‘Gosh, David, I knew I could always depend on you. You're such a good friend.’ Gene said, 'Go upstairs and see if it's all right with Herb Wright.’ Instead of telling him Herb had already said it was all right, I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ ”

“The elevator was real, real slow,” recalled Gerrold about trying to rush to the writer's office to give him the good news. “When I get to the top floor, he's on the phone. Herb holds up his finger Shh! — a sign not to make any noise. On the phone he's saying, ‘Right Gene. Yes, I'll tell him.’ He hung up and said, ‘That was Gene Roddenberry. He told me to tell you that it wasn't all right with me.’ Then Herb said, “I don't lie for any man.’ ”

Sausage, politics, and Star Trek. You don't want to know how they're made.

Television

Much as I like The Daily Show and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I do think that, all things considered, we'd be better off if television were abolished. The main reason is political: it's corrosive to our political culture.

Today I have for you an essay by a smart cookie who argues that the Republic was founded on print, and faces grave dangers as print fades in importance.

In fact there was a time when America's public discourse was consistently much more vivid, focused and clear. Our Founders, probably the most literate generation in all of history, used words with astonishing precision and believed in the Rule of Reason.
...
Their world was dominated by the printed word. Just as the proverbial fish doesn't know it lives in water, the United States in its first half century knew nothing but the world of print: the Bible, Thomas Paine's fiery call to revolution, the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, our laws, the Congressional Record, newspapers and books.

Though they feared that a government might try to censor the printing press --- as King George had done --- they could not imagine that America's public discourse would ever consist mainly of something other than words in print.

And yet, as we meet here this morning, more than 40 years have passed since the majority of Americans received their news and information from the printed word.

It's worth reading the whole thing. Though if you don't, let me share one more witty observation from the essay:

Soon after television established its dominance over print, young people who realized they were being shut out of the dialogue of democracy came up with a new form of expression in an effort to join the national conversation: the "demonstration." This new form of expression, which began in the 1960s, was essentially a poor quality theatrical production designed to capture the attention of the television cameras long enough to hold up a sign with a few printed words to convey, however plaintively, a message to the American people. Even this outlet is now rarely an avenue for expression on national television.

It's a pity that a commentator this sharp couldn't get elected President.

Spreading freedom

The Washington Post reports new revelations about our freedom archipelago.

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.

The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.

The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.

How thrilling that prisons from the original gulag archipelago have been repurposed for freedom!

America's finest news source

Via Ericred I learn that the White House is concerned that Americans might mistake articles in The Onion for real news. I can't imagine why.

It seems that the White House will soon learn not to fuck with The Onion.

Refreshing

From the situationists at the Center for Tactical Magic, I offer you the Tactical Ice Cream Unit.

The ice cream vendor has long been synonymous with a roving oasis --- a well-spring of refreshment; a reprieve from the heat; a cool intervention. In this regard, the Tactical Ice Cream Unit (TICU) is no different. The TICU emerges at a time when most channels of distribution, communication, and social interaction are mediated and constrained by the fervor of financial exchange. Incorporating an alternative strategy of utopian potlatch, the Tactical Ice Cream Unit is envisioned primarily as a mobile distribution center for ice cream and information.

Go check out the pictures.

Hallowe'en

Merry Goth Christmas!

Via Pandagon, I am amused by yet another article in the "Hallowe'en candy and Harry Potter are tools of Satan" genre, from Linda Harvey.

This stuff is fish-in-a-barrel to mock. I'm gonna have to succumb to temptation on this one for a second.

And those who say that, if we sacrifice Halloween, we'd have to stop celebrating Christmas and Easter, haven't thought this through. Yes, there were originally pagan holidays near Christmas and Easter, but Christ's birth and resurrection have really re-claimed both of these, despite the commercialization. Worldwide, people know what both these holidays are about.

God has left Halloween untouched. There is no significant Christian spiritual or historical event that occurs near Oct. 31.

Huh? Ms. Harvey appears to not actually know the first thing about pagan holidays --- or, it seems, Catholic ones. If she's worried about the survival of pagan practice, she arguably has it backwards.

The names of Œster and Yule have survived, as have many of the key European pagan rituals. Folks paint eggs for Easter. For Yule, folks bring a tree into their living room and decorate it with lights, and kiss under the mistletoe for Goddess' sake.

On the other hand, most folks can't even pronounce the word Samhain, much less recognize it as a name for Hallowe'en. The word "Hallowe'en" comes from "All Hallow's Eve," the day before the Catholic All Saints' Day on 1 November. I'll grant her the pumpkins, but I'd think that from where she stands they aren't nearly as spooky as holly and mistletoe would be if she understood them. Beyond that, considering that most folks celebrate Hallowe'en with candy, beer, pirate costumes, and singularly un-frightening cartoon skeletons, it's hard to be impressed with the amount of pagan ritual observance going on out there. Unless you're the sort of Christian who thinks that anything fun equals evil, and evil equals pagan. (Or, I suppose, if you're the kind of pagan who thinks of the libations as the main event.)

Before I get started on her dread of Harry Potter, I want to get to the real reason I was struck by Ms. Harvey's essay.

Robert Anton Wilson said somewhere that he first saw a t-shirt reading "reality is just a crutch for people who cannot handle science fiction" at a speaking engagement in Kansas, and was astonished by this sign that his philosophy was more pervasive than he thought. Even midwesterners could joke about reality being ontological Silly Putty on a t-shirt.

So, too, I detect a threshhold being crossed. Harvey says:

Halloween marks and highlights the forces of darkness. It's a showcase for mediums, fortune-telling, occult beliefs, to become more and more mysteriously appealing to uninformed children, all whilst they are surrounded in today's America by the lure of "magick." We're not in Kansas anymore.

Whoa, wait a minute! Does everyone know these days that occultists spell magick with a 'k'? How can she be stone ignorant about Œster and Yule, but know that?

Fever

In the last few years, I've caught a succession of bugs that have made me feel crappy enough that I do nothing for a couple of days but whip through another season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. So this weekend makes it Season Six: Life is the Big Bad.

The writing on the show is terrific, as usual. The famous musical episode is very impressive, though I thought the last couple of numbers were not as strong as the others. The evil nerds are fun. I don't exactly recommend it as uplifting to watch when you're feeling crummy to begin with, but now I'm deep enough into it to want to finish.

With only one season of Buffy left, I'm hoping this means that I only have to get sick one more time for the rest of my life.

Scandal

It looks everyone else is safe, at least for now, but we have indictment on five counts for Libby. From the Washington Post:

The vice president’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr., was charged Friday with obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements in the CIA leak investigation, a politically charged case that will throw a spotlight on President Bush’s push to war. Libby resigned and left the White House.

This is only the first round. Investigations are ongoing. The Post explains why this matters.

Any trial would dig into the secret deliberations of Bush and his team as they built the case for war against Iraq.

There you have it. Where does the trail lead?

Consider the Clinton “scandals”. It turned out that Clinton was clean when Whitewater was investigated. He did have some extramarital affairs — and he lied under oath to hide the one with Monica Lewinsky from his family — but tawdry as they may have been, they were all consensual, and there was no substance to allegations of sexual harassment. He didn't perjure himself to hide a crime, he did it to hide embarassment. There was nothing political, nothing about his service as President. Where does the trail lead? Nowhere.

In contrast, Watergate started from the particular incident of the break-in to the DNC headquarters, which was bad enough, because it was specifically about the election. But the important thing in understanding it is the trail from the crime to the cover-up of the incident, to Nixon’s involvement in the coverup — “what did the President know and when did he know it?” Which then leads inside of the Nixon White House, revealing Nixon’s whole political “dirty tricks” operation. Nixon resigned to stop any more of that from being revealed. If you want to be a truly paranoid Nixon-hating lefty like me, you can speculate about what else might have turned up in that investigation: the bombings in Cambodia, his knowledge about the Kennedy assasination, or aliens in Area 51. I’m paranoid enough to suspect that there was something dirty that would have come to light, even if it wasn’t something so melodramatic. But even without such speculative stuff, we know that Watergate definitely pointed toward Nixon’s electoral dirty tricks. Where does the trail lead? Politics, serious enough to destroy his presidency.

How about the Valerie Plame story? This isn’t about the conduct of an election campaign; the trail leads directly to the justification for the Iraq war. Libby blew Valerie Plame’s cover to punish her husband Joseph Wilson for debunking Bush’s claims about Iraq’s nuclear program. So just as Watergate led to electoral dirty tricks, so too this will lead to Iraq intelligence dirty tricks. Since we now know that Iraq had no WMDs, and the administration, including the President himself, insisted that they did, dirt throughout the administration, about the most serious issue imaginable, is a certainty. Where does the trail lead? Lies used to justify the Iraq war. Serious. More serious than Watergate.

Everywhere

Whaddaya know. George Takei, who played Sulu on Star Trek, just came out as gay.

You know, it’s not really coming out, which suggests opening a door and stepping through. It’s more like a long, long walk through what began as a narrow corridor that starts to widen. And then some doors are open and light comes in, and there are skylights and it widens. Brad’s my partner, we’ve been together for 18 years. So, I’ve been "open," but I have not talked to the press. In that sense, maybe that’s another opening of the corridor there.

Takei is an all-around cool guy: friendly to Trek fans, still a hardworking actor, involved in civil rights and other political stuff --- not least talking about how he spent a good chunk of his childhood in an internment camp. Bravo to him for taking what is still, alas, a tough step.

Today's quote

From Warren Ellis. You may want to click through to see the illustration of the point.

$207 million to remake a flick about a giant monkey?

$207 million?

I mean, when the new Superman flick was reported to have gone to US $250 million, I assumed they were, you know, literally making Brandon Routh fly. For $207 million, you can grow your own giant fucking monkey.

NASA and ESA put satellites into orbit around Mars for less money.

I myself am looking forward to the giant monkey movie.

Countdown

While we’re impatiently waiting for Fitzmas, DeLong offers us a Platonic dialogue on the subject.

Glaukon: Victoria Wilson AKA Valerie Flame AKA Valerie Wilson AKA Valerie Plame AKA Valerie Plame Wilson.

Thrasymakhos: Do you understand it?

Glaukon: No. Does anybody?

Thrasymakhos: Tom Maguire might. I doubt it.

Glaukon: Well, you don’t claim to understand it.

Thrasymakhos: Indeed not. But my not-understanding is at a very elevated and sophisticated level.

Glaukon: Do tell: what do you not understand?

I love Platonic dialogues!

Stories

I forget who passed this one on to me. Elie Wiesel, in The Gates of the Forest, tells this parable.

When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.

Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Magid of Mezritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: "Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer," and again the miracle would be accomplished.

Still later, Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say: "I do not know how to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient." It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.

Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: "I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient." And it was sufficient.

God made man because he loves stories.

Read that last sentence a few times.

Scandal guide

I'm hoping to find time to blog about the recent doings in the developing Rove / Plame / Wilson / Fitzgerald story. In the meantime, a few resources to help folks make sense of the recent news.

Digby clearly lays out the Plame story as of July and dKosopedia has a very thorough entry for “Valerie Plame affair”.

A while ago, I wrote a post about how this reflects the ongoing feud of the CIA and State Department versus Rumsfeld's Pentagon. It’s a long post, but it’s the one piece of topical news analysis I’ve done on this blog that I’m truly proud of, so please do check it out if you don’t remember it.

2000

The Second Thousand

Honored sons and daughters of America

I don't know what to say. You may want to see what I said about the first thousand. You may want to go read some names. Or go to a vigil tomorrow night.

It's not the sex

It's the perjury.

Still speculation, mind you. The perjury, that is, not the big fat hairy lie.

The only cloud in this silver lining is that we might get Condi as VP.

A hero passes

Rosa Parks
1912-2005
Civil rights mover

Let me remind you that she took her stand by refusing to stand in 1955. That's still in living memory; I had breakfast with my father Saturday, and he was twenty-six at the time she was arrested. If you look at her mugshot, you don't see an oil painting of some Historical Figure in a corset or a sunbonnet, you see a photograph of someone who wouldn't look conspicuous sitting next to you on a bus tomorrow.

A lot has changed in that very short time. It's a little hard for someone my age to entirely believe that separate entrances and segregated buses were real, but at that time most Americans never thought they would see them change ... and many Americans fought hard to keep them from changing.

I imagine that we'll get a few days of America congratulating itself for turning that part of itself around. A little bit of celebration there is a good thing — it is an achievement — but let's not break our arms patting ourselves on the back, shall we? Let's take this moment not as a marker of the justice we secured yesterday, but as a challenge for the justice that will already be overdue tomorrow. There's still lots to do.

Film school

Okay, last time, we talked about soundtrack and editing, focusing on the soundtrack. Let's do that again, only this time, let's focus on the editing.

Science

It is important to read Roger Ebert's reviews of films he does not like. He gets bored of reviewing the movie, and wanders far afield into speculative territory. For instance, he sure didn't like Doom.

The monsters are still there on Mars. They are big mothers and must have awesome daily caloric requirements. How they survive, how they breathe earth atmosphere in the station and what, as carnivores, they eat and drink -- I think we can all agree these are questions deserving serious scientific study.

I am reassured that I am not the only one who wonders stuff like this.

Brazil

Some things I noticed about Brazil in my short stay there:

• Guidebooks say that Brazilians dine around 10:00 pm. Brazilians actually plan dinner for 8:00 pm. But "plan" is too strong a word — chaos typically ensues at 8:00 pm. Thus Brazilians actually end up eating dinner around 10:00 pm.
• São Paulo is the most bustling city I have ever seen. And I have been to the Shinjuku district of Tokyo.
• Rio really is that beautiful. Green lumpy mountains just pop right out of the city at random.
• No, I am not saying that Rio is beautiful because I saw a bunch of nearly-naked young women on the beach. It was not the season for that sort of thing. The beach is spectacular anyway, and I'm not even a beach kind of guy.
• Actually, Rio is kind of a conservative town. Together with my pale skin and long hair I wore a coat and tie, as I usually do. I recognize that this is eccentric-looking even here in eccentric San Francisco, but it made me more conspicuous in Rio than I have ever been anywhere else. In São Paulo, some people gave me a second look, but in Rio lots of people stared.
• This may have had something to do with being taken for a rock star. Really. Slipknot had played there just before I arrived, and one person actually asked me if I was in the band, and didn't seem to believe me when I denied it.
• I'm jaded from hanging around with witches in the US. The words “witch” and “witchcraft” aren't scary for me any more. But hanging around with Brazilian witches, they refer to bruja and bruxeria, which sound pretty spooky to me!
• When I'm King of America, when a woman sitcom-ish-ly asks if a pair of pants makes her ass look fat, she will get a trip to Brazil for three days. Women in Brazil have a false reputation for having unusually terrific figures. Not so. They just all wear very tight pants, which is much more flattering on perfectly ordinary women than most folks in the US would think.
• When a tourist attraction is a spectacular work of art, the tourist kitch they sell at the little shops is much better
• The amount of Spanish that an attentive white guy in California picks up is extremely counterproductive in trying to quickly learn some conversational Portuguese, because it completely screws up your pronunciation. But one can read a lot of things.
• The ubiquitous caipirinha is unbelievably tasty, and more alcoholic than it tastes.
• Rio has suco (juice) stands on every corner in many districts, serving fresh juice from every fruit you can imagine and a few you cannot. We need this in the US.

Back on the air

Sorry to drop out for so long. I'm going to try to go back to daily again.

Serenity

I'm still in Brazil, but here in the internet café it occurs to me that I should start planning Serenity opening night now. I'm getting a posse together to see it open at the Metronomicon on Friday night, the 30th. Leave a comment if you're a browncoat who wants in; I work near the theater, so I'll score us all tix.

Today's quote

From Charles Gatewood, when asked "What's the weirdest place you've ever been?"

San Francisco

This is someone who has been some very weird places. His site is definitely not work-safe.

Radio silence

Yes, I know that it's been ages since I've been blogging lately. I'm embarassed. I have long overdue posts I want to get to about forgotten TV shows, cultural appropriation and racism, national service obligation, vigorous urging for you to see Serenity opening weekend, and of course the many failures of the Bush administration, so I will get back to it eventually.

But not immediately. I'm going on the road again, for a little over a week, off to Brazil. I'll be living a phone- and computer-free existence. So if you can't reach me, it's because you can't reach me.

Unhappy anniversary

Four years since 11 September 2001.

Time again to read what Phil Agre said four days later.

The people who conducted those terrorist attacks are entirely responsible for what they did. They are evil, and they made themselves evil by choice. Nearly as evil are the religious authorities who provided the ideological basis of this terrible self-making with their spurious justifications for suicide bombings. Yet the call to war is precisely a call for us, formerly citizens of a democracy, to remake ourselves in the image of that evil -- to ignore all evil deeds of our own, and instead to project all of our own failings into an enemy who grows ever bigger, ever more inhuman, with every exaggeration of the extent of the danger and the need for revenge. The call to war is not legitimate: it is not capable of delivering what it claims to deliver.

I've posted before about Mr. Agre, using the words "scary and prescient." At this point, though, I'm realizing that things are worse than he forsaw, in many important ways.

First things first

Having returned from Burning Man, before I say anything else, for those who haven't given yet, let me offer you Billmon's list of places to donate to relief efforts for New Orleans.