zo-ombie. zo-ombie. zo-ombie ee ee ee…

a) We re-applied for the pittance that was once our DHS grant, today. I knew a guy back in Montana (at the School for the Deaf and Blind) named Paul. He said he used to play singer-songwriter gigs in Seattle (this was when I was 13; I had never seen Seattle). He told me a story about entertaining himself as a child in the 1950s under some bridge or other in the city. He and his friends would toss pennies and nickels to the bums, and watch them fight for the coins. Well, I can imagine the struggle with one’s pride, then deciding that, yes, I still wanted the coin, after all, enough to fight for it. I mean circa-1955 homeless people no disrespect in comparing my plight to theirs.

b) I just read an irreverent, funny, occasionally offensive essay about gender. The thesis seems to be that if women ran the world, it would look remarkably like it currently does. Not that I agreed 100% with everything, but I had some favorite moments:

I’m not trying to say men are any better, because they’re not. They commit most of the murder and mayhem on this planet but frankly, I think that’s just because they have more time on their hands.

A little more thoughtfully (and thought-provokingly):

The exact same testosterone-fueled drive that makes men fight wars also makes them build bridges and tall buildings and computers.

And the slam-dunk to get me all righteously indignant:

I’d really like to know just what in the hell makes Sally Field think women love their children more than men do.

and finally, the piece of resistors:

Even if the best mother EVER was Queen of the Planet, someone somewhere would still need to have their ass kicked, and she’d have to send somebody’s child to do it.

After many months, I just received word from my first grad school advisor (my relationship with whom has never been untroubled anyway) that the article I wrote and sent him is not suitable for publication. He cites several reasons, some of which I agree with, and some I don’t, and I still want to think that the work that went into this can be salvaged somehow, but his name is on the manuscript next to mine, and I can’t really just cut him out of the process. Plus, he’s a very good professional resource, and he still indicates he’s willing to collaborate or help out in other ways, which is nice…

So, that’s flat-out-rejection #2. I know rejections come with the territory, but they’re highly demoralizing. When other researchers talk about developing “rhino skin” from all the critical comments, I think they refer to articles that are potentially accepted, if the criticisms are fixed. So far, my batting average is .000

blarg.

Over at Mother Jones, there’s a highly informative article revisiting 18 of the more egregious inconsistencies and blunders the mainstream media in the U.S. have been responsible for, since the start of this whole “war on terror” thing¹.

I freely admit that my views of the U.S. political machinery and the war itself have changed, as things have gone along. But the Mother Jones article was a wake-up call, nevertheless. How quickly we forget the weasely words of the people in the magic box.

Second favorite:

The day before the invasion, Bill O’Reilly said, “If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it’s clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation; I will not trust the Bush administration again, all right?”

As if we needed more evidence that Bill O’Reilly was an especially heinous, right-wing-ratings puppet. And, though it’s more of a mockery of the media, rather than a media blunder, per se, here’s my favorite:

Stephen Colbert’s routine at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April 2006 is remembered for the in-his-face mockery of President Bush—but he also spanked the press, perhaps one reason his mainstream reviews were mixed at best. Addressing the correspondents directly, Colbert said, “Let’s review the rules. The president makes decisions; he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell-check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know—fiction.”

Yeah.

The democratic machinery of the nation, by its very nature, is always “broken” to some extent, but there are functional measures of how much it’s broken. Currently, I think a strong case can be made that it’s more broken than it’s been in ages. Mainstream media organizations have often been the Bush Administration’s willing minions in this process.

It will take a long time to fix what we’ve broken in the past couple of decades (especially the last 7 years). Assuming we ever get around to fixing things.

1. It just occurred to me… is a “War on Terror” pretty much the same as “Attacking the Darkness?” Surely someone else has seen this parallel of meaningless abstraction in nomenclature before now [↩]

Perhaps the squid-ink spaghetti (yesterdays’ post) broadened my mind a little. I just had a sandwich with leftover turkey, black beans, a bit of mayonnaise, and apricot preserves on some yummy whole wheat bread.

Before any of you judging judgers start to get all judgmental and judge me, let me say it was pretty good.

That is all.

This is interesting. It comes from what appears to be an openly right-leaning site. The Governor of Massachussetts apparently said,

“Among many other things, 9/11 was a failure of human understanding […] It was a mean and nasty and bitter attack on the United States. But it was also a failure of human beings to understand each other, to learn to love each other.”

Personally, I think I see where the Gov is coming from, and from (what I hope is) his perspective, I agree. However, the folks at proteinwisdom.com saw the comment in a different light. From the blog response:

“Well, okay. But in fairness to those 3000 people who died in the WTC attacks, they were never given the choice between ‘send al Qaeda some flowers and a box of chocolate covered cherries’ and ‘death by immolation or grudging 100 story swan dive.’”

And from the comments,

“Ooooh, oooh, I can play too. Here goes:
The . . . Holocaust . . . was a failure of human understanding.
What do I win. (I hope some pie?)”

GODWIN’S LAW!

A couple of nights ago, my friend Brad and I had a discussion. It got me thinking, as I often do, about mi patria (the United States), its role in the world, and its future on the international stage. This morning, while trying to find a citation for homicide rates as (lousy) indicators of overall crime rates, I ran into a 2005 article titled “The next 50 years: Unfolding trends,” in what appears to be a good peer-reviewed academic journal.

The article has a section titled “America’s Retreat.” He predicts the end of U.S. international dominance by about 2050, with clear signs starting a few decades ago, and becoming more apparent very soon. He cites a lot of economic indicators, such as national debt, increasingly weak currency, and huge (and increasing) trade imbalances. He has graphs (pretty ones) and apparently rigorous data analysis. Some nifty excerpts from the article, after the jump. Continue reading →

The Virgina Tech shooter did something horrible. That’s his fault. But he existed in an environment in which he knew with a certainty that he would become famous for it. That’s the news media’s fault. That’s our fault. All of us.

The news media’s predictable vulture-like picking at the corpses of the victims is sickening. The most revolting thing about this, however, is the fact that the media are giving the killer everything he ever wanted. And, of course, this is because they’re giving us what we want. So, in the end, we are the problem. Continue reading →

::headdesk::

So, um, this crossposting plugin has been keeping my posts from my blog from appearing on other people’s “friends” pages. I think I fixed it, but I’m not sure. If you see this post, can you make a token comment to let me know you see it? I don’t know if I fixed the code or not.

Oh, and the pic was of some random girl in the SBS building, passed out in the afternoon a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know why I love the sight of people sleeping on campus, but I do. I really do. I always smile or giggle. Shoot, this picture is even making me do it.

Last Saturday I acquired (for better or worse) this Centurion Cavaletto for $40: Continue reading →

On my way to work today, I passed a Lotus in the visitors’ parking area. Yes, a Lotus. At least it was in the visitors’ area, not in the administrators’ parking spots. I think the car was one of the models here (the Exige or the Elise). What’s this car doing in our parking lot? We’re a university. Actually, now that I thik about it, perhaps it belongs to some wealthy person giving a donation to the school. That would be acceptable. If there must be huge income inequalities in the world, some of the filthy lucre should trickle down to the educational system. You know, for the students’ increased learning outcomes. And my paycheck.

On the other hand, I looked up the prices on these things, and it looks like the Elise only (heh) costs between about $40,000 and $50,000, while the Exige goes for approximately $50,000 to $60,000. If I’m not mistaken, you can buy an SUV for the same price. OK, so that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement; it’s still luxury car pricing (a la Acura or Lexus), but despite the extremely sexy looks of this Lotus, it’s not in the price range of a quarter-million-dollar Lamborghini or Ferrari, or the million-plus McLaren F1. So I guess conspicuous consumption has fine gradations of magnitude.

Discussion of British cars (like Lotus) Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw on an MG once: “The parts observed falling from this car are made with the finest British craftsmanship.”

Roof puppies in Oaxaca also like the sun

It was sunny outside! For only a few hours, true, and now it’s back to an overcast thingy, but at least it’s a bright overcast thingy. I got up late (7:45), fooled around with stuff, then finally left the apartment at 9:00, got to work at 9:30 (I took the extremely long way; my commute is actually about 7 minutes if traffic cooperates), and didn’t even mind all the mud on my bike. And on me. It’s been lead-dark and cloudy for 2 weeks, now. And ridiculously cold for this part of the world. maybe we’re starting to have a normal winter again (i.e., sunny and warm).

In other amazing and excellent news, I went into the locker room in the gym, where I have a locker in the non-faculty area (menos cool). I shower, however, in the faculty lockers, because it’s a much better shower experience. So, I browsed around the locker area (as is my wont, from time to time) and saw what I was looking for: a free locker! I’ve waited for a year and a half. So, I snatched it. With the requisite paperwork, of course. I now have a faculty locker. No more wandering the length and breadth of the undergrad locker room in nothing but the way-too-small university towel, on my way to and from the shower. Yay! Plus, if your gym shorts are really stinky, you can hang them on the outside of your locker without worrying that the staff or the other students will trash them.