July 2004 Archives

Feminism has "lethal effects" according to the Catholic Church.

In today's NY Times column, he rereads John Kerry's speach at the Democratic Convention and opines:

Here's the text of the whole speech. So far, it seems to match up.

I kind of cringed at first when he said the "reporting for duty" line, but then I got into it. He started off somewhat stiff, but has loosened up considerably.

He's no Obama, he's no Edwards... but he does sound presidential.

Yeah, I can live with this.

KERRY/EDWARDS 2004!!! YEAH!!!!!!!

I have a Costco membership which I hardly ever use, because I'd have to get on the freeway and wade through traffic to get there, either after work (rush hour!) or on a weekend (when I'd rather be doing something else and Costco is mobbed.) However, a friend of mine was wearing a cool jacket that she got there, and I'd like to pick one up too.

So I wondered: could I get there on BART? The answer is apparently "Yes" — but this site considers it a bad thing. Oh well. Call me naive, but I'm glad this is going to save me a car trip! I can just pop down there after work! On BART! So there!

Regarding my earlier posting about how I didn't think the Bush administration wanted to force us into antidepression treatments to make us go along with their sinister plots... maybe they actually do! Via Yahoo News:

Unhappy Workers Should Take Prozac --Bush Campaigner

Thu Jul 29, 1:50 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A campaign worker for President Bush (news - web sites) said on Thursday American workers unhappy with low-quality jobs should find new ones -- or pop a Prozac to make themselves feel better.

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?" said Susan Sheybani, an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt.

The comment was apparently directed to a colleague who was transferring a phone call from a reporter asking about job quality, and who overheard the remark.

When told the Prozac comment had been overheard, Sheybani said: "Oh, I was just kidding."

O.K., it wasn't an official policy statement or nuthin'. But it's funny how just below the service of all these Bush people, nastiness lurks. It's like those cartoonish Hollywood bad guys. You wouldn't think evil callousness would be so obvious, would you? Yet it clearly is.

Changing the tone...

Edited to add: someone on Daily Kos points out that a Bush spokesperson expressed similarly cold sentiments, on the record this time: "'The Democrats have one answer to every problem, and that is more money and a big federal government, one-size-fits-all program,' Dickens said. 'The president believes Americans should have more choices and more options.' Dickens said Bush has proposed different solutions to help the uninsured. He added, 'Most Americans who don't have health care don't have health care by choice.'

Would that be the old choice between food, a roof over your head, and health insurance? Motherfuckers.

What's wrong with this picture? Or rather, what's right? This was taken in front of a rug store on College Avenue near my house. Blasted Microsoft Word spell-checker must have failed again!

Aw... my cats can be so cute sometimes. Of course, the next minute, they can be hissing, swiping at each other, and running around the house. But they have their moments!

So when we got back into the country after our trip, and were waiting at the conveyor belt for our bags to arrive, I noticed something weirdly disturbing. There's a computer monitor overhead. No big deal, there always is, isn't there, these days? A couple of years ago, I remember seeing one that showed a video about hoof-and-mouth disease, and the importance of preventing it from coming into the country.

They still are showing that (but isn't foot-and-mouth under control now?)... and much more.

We got treated to the dubious pleasure of a multimedia presentation on homeland security (g-d, I hate that phrase — what the heck was wrong with that cozy and perfectly functional word "domestic"?). It's been several days and I was brutally jetlagged at the time, but here's what I remember of it:

The screen displayed and a voice solemnly intoned words about how most travellers who come to this country are good people, but a few have bad intentions, and therefore they have the right to search your luggage and question you if need be. There's danger out there. The Department of Whatever has multiple missions and it's good at all of them. There was some random bit about how much alcohol you're allowed to bring into the country and that they'll confiscate it if you go over the line. "Your family, friends, and others will thank us now... you'll thank us later."

And, of course, cue the waving flags.

I'm not sure what offended me more... the not-so-subtle propaganda (Bush and Co. had their mark all over this one) or the horrendous use of type and color. Multiple fonts. Many 3-D type effects. Clashing colors. GAH!

I wonder how much was spent to produce this thing. More seriously, what is it meant to convey? It wasn't really useful. It certainly was unsettling for this citizen coming off a long flight. What message does it give a new visitor? Does it make them feel safe, welcome? Or do they feel like they've entered a place under siege?

Terrorists, I imagine, would just quietly chuckle to themselves and go on about their business.

We came back from our trip to a garden of roses run amok. I think this one is my favorite...

This piece by David Fenton, "Big Brother no myth" in this week's eWeek caught my eye. Privacy invasion by the government has very much been on my mind, as it has been on many other people's. Take today's court ruling that it's OK to search people who have the audacity to use the Boston public transportation system. (The author of the TalkLeft blog says she's been getting searched a couple times a day this week!) Or the fact that your ISP has the right to read your email. Or a million other creepy examples I could name if I wasn't feeling lazy.

But I found this article disappointing in an important respect. The scary examples he includes are 1) the GMail automatic scanning system which allows them to feed users "relevant" ads, 2) a brain implant for depression that may get approved by the FDA, and 3) a national screening program for depression proposed by President Bush.

The GMail thing? Well, if you use Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail, or just about any web-based email, your messages are already scanned for spam content. This is on top of the right ISPs already have to read anything they want.

The brain implant? Yeah, I don't want my brain touched, probed, or augmented surgically. On the other hand, if you've ever been severely clinically depressed or know someone who has been, you get pretty eager for a treatment that will help when nothing else has. I don't want to see a treatment approved which hasn't been studied carefully, and the jury is out on that one. Yet surely the author wouldn't turn down a pacemaker for his heart, and this seems analogous.

The screening program for depression? I suspect these guys have been pushing for this sinister attempt to control our brains as well. Bastards.

Fenton ends with an important point — that techies should consider the moral dimensions of the work they do and keep in mind the potential for abuse. In the five years since I graduated from the Information Management & Systems Program, and especially since 9/11 and all the Homeland Security crap that followed, I've thought about how the TIA folks, or the people trying to figure out how to screen passengers on planes, or remove ex-felons from voting rosters with greater precision, would have loved to hire some of us.

Right concerns, wrong targets, in this case, I think. And all the more surprising, since he apparently worked for the Air Force for 20 years in the area of information gathering and should know whereof he speaks...

While I was on vacation, there was apparently a fracas in California set off by some remarks by our beloved Goobernator in Ontario, where he called Democratic lawmakers whom he blamed for delaying the budget "girlie-men".

O.K., I am no fan of the guy, as anyone who knows me can attest. (Heck, just browse through this blog.)

But...

Remember Hans und Franz from Saturday Night Live? You know, the Mike Myers routine? You can rent his Best Of tape if you missed it. (I actually rarely watched SNL because I couldn't stay awake late nough.) Anyway... it's a routine about two German-accented bodybuilders who frequently invoke the term "girlie-men", and they're clearly meant to poke fun at Ah-nold.

So if it's OK to make fun of the guy, his accent, and his persona, why is it not cool for him to mock it himself? Surely a little post-modern self-referential humor is appropriate?

I hope people realize that the overreaction to this just makes the overreactors look really dumb, and, worse than that, humorless.

Hopefully by now everyone has calmed down about this and we can get back to being angry at him for relevant reasons, of which there are many.

Edited to add: yeah, like the horrible workers' comp "reform" he pushed through. Story is in the business section of the Chron today, but not on their website: "New laws cut benefits for injuries on the job" by Steve Lawrence, AP.

Makes me proud to be an American.

That is all.

Well. Turns out that "antisemitic attack" in France was a hoax by a troubled woman. It was amusing to be on vacation there while Sharon was telling French Jews that they should haul ass over to Israel ASAP. The French government and the Jewish community were Not Amused.

"He doesn't have the right to decide for us," said Théo Klein, honorary president of the Representative Council of the Jewish Institutions of France, an umbrella group of major French Jewish organizations, on France-2 television on Sunday.

My current theory is that Sharon was employing reverse psychology. Maybe he doesn't want French people in Israel, and figured that the surest way to keep them from coming over was to tick them off. Mission accomplished!

This column by Eric Alterman made me feel better and worse simultaneously.

As your good liberal Berkeley/Oakland voter, I detest the Bush administration and their horrible policies. Yet I feel uneasy when I hear people dismiss warning about future attacks as political ploys. The Bush administration is definitely using fear as a weapon against its own citizens... and yet, Al Queda does exist. September 11 happened. I'm reasonably sure there will be another attack eventually. I think that these two things, the manipulation and the danger, can both be true at once.

It's all great for Bush, who might get reelected on the basis of fear, and it's fantastic for Osama, who will have no shortage of willing recruits for years to come because the United States keeps doing things to excite them. We do such a great job of firing up the troops on the other side, don't we? I'm sure sociologists and corporate psychologists will be writing about this for decades.

It's all bad news for the people of whichever country we decide to invade next.

It's all bad news for the people of the United States. (The country which, as a liberal, I'm told I hate. Funny, that.)

In any case, it's something of a relief (in a terrifying sort of way) to read this column by Bob Herbert, who continually brings his common sense to an editorial page increasingly devoid of it. (At least Tom Friedman's on hiatus for a few months.)

If we know that bin Laden and his top leadership are somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and that they're plotting an attack against the United States, why are we not zeroing in on them with overwhelming force? Why is there not a sense of emergency in the land, with the entire country pulling together to stop another Sept. 11 from occurring?

Why are we not more serious about this?

I don't know what the administration was thinking when it invaded Iraq even as the direct threat from bin Laden and Al Qaeda continued to stare us in the face. That threat has only intensified. The war in Iraq consumed personnel and resources badly needed in the campaign against bin Laden and his allies. And it has fanned the hatred of the U.S. among Muslims around the world. Instead of destroying Al Qaeda, we have played right into its hands and contributed immeasurably to its support.

Most current intelligence analysts agree with Secretary Ridge that Al Qaeda will try before long to strike the U.S. mainland once again.

We've trained most of our guns on the wrong foe. The real enemy is sneaking up behind us. Again. The price to be paid for not recognizing this could be devastating.

A price I really hope we don't have to pay.

Not a story you want to read right before you go to France for vacation if you're Jewish... Swastikas Drawn on Woman in Paris Attack.

Not a story you want to read a few months before the November elections if you're looking forward to voting your president out of office... Feds Plan for Disruption of Elections.

There's less than six months left of 2004, but it promises to be a looooooong year.

On a more frivolous note, on my drive home from Palo Alto, I heard an ad on the radio for a program on VH1 called "I love the 90s". I don't think I'm ready to love the 90s yet. I mean, I was promised a booming economy, a Democratic administration (big-D and small-d), and years more Sex and the City episodes and albums by Kirsty Maccoll. Now I'm stuck with Dubya, a shitty economy, reality shows like "The Simple Life", and more albums from Britney Spears. I need some time to get over the feelings of betrayal and disillusionment.

Read all about it. (I enjoyed this "letter" that someone came up with in response.)

And remember, we can all return the favor via the ballot box in November!

Sigh. This kind of exchange, which I had recently on a discussion board, is probably part of the reason why people are afraid of computers, and quite possibly helps explain the tech gender gap. People names deleted to protect the (very, very) guilty. Product names altered just because I felt like it.

Another piece I finished in my PMC jewelry class tonight. It's a strange abstract design... or actually, not so abstract, because it was based on a picture I took on a flight from Oakland to Phoenix, as we flew over Southern California.

Large parts of California look something like the photo below. It doesn't look like a nice place to visit or live, but from above, it does indeed look like an abstract painting, doesn't it?

It might be a little hard to see the similarity, but, um, it's art. Or something.

It's sad, and a little strange, to be reading the local Jewish paper and see an obituary for a family friend. I knew he hadn't been well, but still...

Anyway, his life was interesting — even more interesting than I thought. I didn't know he worked for the FBI during World War II, or that he was an amateur cartoonist!

(Yet somehow, I doubt he and his wife have been married since 1932. That would mean they got married when he was 15...)

http://www.livejournal.com/community/bush_sucks/1441663.html

While riding BART a few weeks ago, I noticed a Taster's Choice ad which said "Introducing the great new look of Taster's Choice!" My reaction was "Well, what about the taste? It's not called Looker's Choice!" I guess I wasn't alone in my skepticism, because Good Experience noticed it too.

The clincher came below the product photo, a call to action that I could only admire for its chutzpah:

    Pssst...tell a friend.

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm no stranger to telling friends about products and customer experiences that I like. (I wrote a free guide to recommend products at www.unclemark.org - download the guide, if you're interested.) But telling your friends that a coffee brand changed its graphic design is absurd.

That absurdity is matched only, I think, by the marketer who spent untold thousands of dollars spreading this message all over New York City, perhaps the country. "Pssst...tell a friend that I wasted my ad budget!" would perhaps be more accurate - and get more people to participate.

Think about it from the customer's perspective. Heck, you've drunk coffee before - think about it from *your* perspective. What's the essence of the product - the customer experience - that would determine whether you say "pssst" and tell a friend? I'd guess that the list of criteria would look something like this:

1. Price
2. Taste

I doubt if "label" or "packaging" would be a top concern. After all, if a coffee brand was expensive and tasted bad but had a great logo, would you buy it? Would you recommend it to your friends?

Me, I'm sticking with Peet's. Tell a friend.

Of course it's spam, but when I saw the subject line

"diddle dipole ciceronian mettle..."

for a second I thought it was a very peculiar nursery rhyme...

But of course, like I said, it's just spam.

Why is this man dressed like Abraham Lincoln, lounging in a bathtub, and flying a kite? Maybe the question is... why aren't you?

OK, maybe not. This is our friend Jason, who is promoting the board game Who? What? Where?. It's one of the first products from his company, Pazow!, and it's a terrific game — think Pictionary but three times loopier and funnier.

You draw three cards, and then you have to sketch the scene that results from the card combination. The other players must try to guess hat your picture represents. Jason is reenacting one of the more interesting possibilities, which is... you've guessed it... Abraham Lincoln, in a bathtub, flying a kite. (If you'd guessed "Amish", you would have still gotten points, but not as many, I think)

Check it out at your local game store!

Yes, I'm excited that Kerry picked John Edwards. Things definitely got a lot more interesting, and anything that makes it difficult for Bush and Cheney to sleep at night (you'd think all the horrible things they've done so far would do that, but that would require a conscience, or at least, consciousness) is just fine with me. W00t!

http://www.johnkerry.com/index.html