Web Log Archive, February 5th through February 18th, 2006

Saturday, February 18th, 2006

"...while we all laughed, lonely Russ Feingold has been fighting in vain to slow the sure passage of the corrosive Patriot Act. While we laughed, the prospect of any real investigation of the NSA scandal has been all but laid to rest. While we laughed, the United Nations' call for a closure of Guantanamo Bay has gone unnoticed. While we laughed, new Abu Ghraib images were released and instead of reminding us of the pain this administration has inflicted on others, they stood as a reminder of the continued lack of any high-level accountability for those crimes. While we laughed, Mr. Cheney and his boss have slyly whispered that Mr. Cheney's violation of the law in authorizing the leak of classified information was permitted by a previously unknown (perhaps unwritten) Executive Order making such conduct lawful. (Of course, the question does arise: if such an order had once upon a time been written, why was it not offered as the first line of defense in the Plame scandal and rather kept more secret than Ms. Plame's identity itself?)"  Eugene Jarecki

Friday, February 17th, 2006

"One day [~1960] it hit Mao that a good way to keep food safe would be to get rid of sparrows, as they ate grain. He designated sparrows as one of 'Four Pests' to be eliminated, along with rats, mosquitoes and flies and [he] mobilized the entire population to wave sticks and brooms and make a giant din to scare sparrows off landing so that they would fall from fatigue and be caught and killed by the crowds.
There was much to be said for eradicating the other three [pests], which were genuine pests, [al]though one side-effect was that whatever slight privacy people once had in performing their bodily functions disappeared, as eager fly-collectors loitered in droves at public lavatories.
But the case for eliminating sparrows was not so clear-cut, as sparrows got rid of many pests, as well as eating grain---and, needless to say, many other birds died in the killing spree. Pests once kept down by sparrows and other birds now flourished, with catastrophic results. Pleas from scientists that the ecological balance would be upset were ignored.
It was not long before a request from the Chinese government marked 'Top Secret' reached the Soviet embassy in Peking. In the name of socialist internationalism, it read, please send us 200,000 sparrows from the Soviet Far East as soon as possible."  from Mao, The Unknown Story, pg. 449

Thursday, February 16th, 2006

Not to beat a proverbial dead horse or anything, but by now it's pretty clear to anyone with an intact mind that Cheney and his buddies were drinking last Saturday afternoon. He even admitted as much during a taped interview with a fawning reporter. But what has gotten, so far, rather little attention is who were 'his buddies' that day!
Today, bloggers were running with the rumor that among his buddies last weekend was a lady friend: Pamela Willeford. Right...Lynne Cheney was not on the ranch that day. But who cares (and don't many of us even wish that this shifty-eyed bastard would show some off-the-job interest in something other than killing for sport)? But at least the press wasn't talking about last week's release of Scooter Libby's grand jury testimony during which he claims to have only been following orders (from Cheney) when he disclosed classified information to someone (NY Times reporter Judith Miller) not authorized to receive it...except that the press was talking about it...and so was Dick (making a startling new assertion of his authority along the way)!
Gee...people keep predicting that Cheney will soon resign 'for health reasons'...but people keep being wrong!

Wednesday, February 15th, 2006

I am not being modest when I say that I know nothing about hunting. I certainly would not know how to assign responsibility for what I am told is an easy-to-happen type of hunting accident like the one that occurred last Saturday in Texas. In the early (belated) reports from Cheney's 'camp', it was emphasized that the shooting victim was at fault. Cheney friends (like ranch owner Katharine Armstrong) and spokespersons (such as Bay Buchanan) were authorized to declare that Harry failed to 'announce himself' to everyone else in the hunting party. By yesterday, however, a consensus was emerging among city news reporters that, indeed, by every standard of outdoorsmanship, it was the Vice President who bore primary responsibility for the mishap.
I emailed my buddy Skip (a combat veteran who knows a thing or two about guns) to get his opinion and his reply was succinct: "it is ALWAYS the responsibility of the shooter to know where he is shooting!"
To me, it is curious that the VP did not graciously concede that he had (simply) erred. Furthermore, it seemed most ungenerous to even allude to any perceived carelessness on the part of his long-time wealthy (and now quite injured) friend. By late afternoon yesterday, Bloggers were humming with a rumor that Cheney was inebriated at the time of the accident and, therefore, needed to stall for time (to sober up) before having to answer any questions for the Sheriff. And, as it turns out, he was not interviewed by local law enforcement people until the following morning...some fourteen hours after the event.
It does seem that there is more to this story than has so far been revealed. 

Tuesday, February 14th, 2006

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.  

"What did that God mean who advised man to 'know thyself'? Did he mean: 'Cease to matter to yourself! Become objective!'?" Nietzsche

"Prisons are to crime what greenhouses are to plants." Harry Whittington...as quoted by Molly Ivins.

"Don't be a jerk to me personally when I'm asking you a serious question.'' David Gregory...as quoted by John Nichols.
Now...Mr. Nichols claims to be quoting from yesterday's White House Press Briefing and the words are said to be directed toward (that poor slob) Scott McClellan. However, after reading through the posted transcript of the Briefing, I can find no such quote therein. Was it excised? Or did it never happen? 

Monday, February 13th, 2006                Happy Birthday, Debbie!

I'll understand why people play golf before I understand why they hunt 'for pleasure'. Of course I understand (and 'accept') the activity if it is done for food not-easily-obtainable-any-other-way. A friend of mine considers going hunting (for sport) to be a veritable rite of male passage! Maybe it's one of those activities that you can only appreciate after you've done it! But how does shooting and killing a quail (or a rabbit or a pheasant or a duck) bring pleasure to a wealthy man?
But Now, having met a few, I do understand why someone would take up goose hunting! ^_^

Alas! I have been informed that my use of  '^_^' must cease!
Yes!  I have been informed, by a knowledgeable teenager, that it is dorky and so 1998! 

Sunday, February 12th, 2006    Happy 197th Birthday to Honest Abe!

"...he called me ‘Brownie’ at the wrong time. Thanks a lot, sir.” 

Saturday, February 11, 2006

"The best thing about animals is they don't talk much." Thornton Wilder (1897-1975)

Friday, February 10th, 2006                Happy Five Oh to Bernie, my former cellmate.

Nice try "but he got the name of the building wrong, saying the "intended target was Liberty Tower." He meant Library Tower, now the US Bank Tower, that at 1,017 feet high is the tallest building in the United States west of the Mississippi River."
The [LA] mayor said he was watching Bush's speech on television Thursday when he first learned of the new details about the hijacking plot.

Thursday, February 9th, 2006

"Imagine a universe in which your feelings, thoughts, and memories are not your enemy. They are your history brought into the current context, and your own history is not your enemy."  Steven Hayes

Wednesday, February 8th, 2006

Turns out, he used to be able to talk! Who woulda thought?

"Your mistakes are responsible for terrible suffering, but you stand among your victims and urge public support for your policies as a sign of support for the people those policies have injured. This is a plot worthy of Shakespeare." Garrison Keillor

Tuesday, February 7th, 2006

I am told that the most difficult thing about living with a practicing musician is listening to him or her play the same song over and over. One of my cell-mates in the Gulag (who was ten years longer in tooth than myself and is now no longer with us) often spoke of "having to listen" to his wife (a formally-trained-professional church organist) play (practice on?) her $50,000 Steinway concert grand in their crappy old mansion high in the Oakland hills.
One man's ceiling is, indeed, another man's floor.

I have spent most of the last month working on recording just one song...and I may keep working on it for another month! Mindful of  Einstein's dare to "stay with problems longer" (and steadfastly insensitive to how sick anyone else might be of the song...if they ever liked it), I have concluded that to focus on one song is the only way I can nail down what I have learned in the last fifteen months working with Pro Tools.
And just in this last month---I have been encouraged. Using the program has, at last, become (almost) intuitive. And the better I understand it, the more impressed I am with its (fwoabw) 'architecture'.

Monday, February 6th, 2006            The 55th anniversary of the Woodbridge, New Jersey, train wreck.

I mean, if ya can't take a joke, then "later" for ya!

Sunday, February 5th, 2006

"My personal recipe for getting through a state of the union address is a gin and tonic and an ephedra (...legal again in the US). Aware of the crushing tedium of such speeches, their writers have learnt over the years to insert a couple of lines every now and again just to see if the audience has already slipped into a coma.
...this year George W Bush told Americans that they were “addicted to oil”. It was like being warned by Kate Moss of the dangers of Red Bull." 
Andrew Sullivan

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