Saturday, May 12th, 2007

"The last time a senior government official quit over his own job failure was more than twenty years ago, when Robert McFarlane, President Reagan’s national-security adviser, resigned during the Iran-Contra scandal and, taking accountability to a Roman level, swallowed an overdose of Valium, out of “a sense of having failed the country.” (He survived.)"
George Packer

Friday, May 11th, 2007

On Envy

"Is someone enjoying privileges, opportunities, and honors that you crave?
Remember that you will never earn the same rewards as others without employing the same methods and/or investment of time and spirit! It is not reasonable to believe that we can earn rewards without paying a price.
Remember that those who "win" at something have no advantage over you, because they had to pay the price for that "victory".
It is always our choice whether or not to pay the price for a particular reward and, often, it will turn out to be best that we had not done so...because we could sacrifice our integrity and, for example, be required to praise and flatter someone whom we do not respect."
Epictetus (55-135)

Thursday, May 10th, 2007

"It's hard to remember our job was to drain the swamp when we're up to our necks in alligators."

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007

From The No-Spin Zone

"I think that withdrawal from Iraq — it obviously gives al Qaeda a huge victory. Huge victory. On the other hand, if we stay in Iraq, it gives them the opportunity to kill more Americans, which they really like. One of the things, though, that I think the antiwar crowd has not considered is that, if we’re putting the Americans right within their arms’ reach, they don’t have to come to Wall Street to kill Americans. They don’t have to knock down the trade center. They can do it around the corner, and convenience is a big factor when you’re a terrorist."
Dick Morris on Fox News, 5/7/07

Tuesday, May 8th, 2007

"...one way that scientists try to test the effectiveness of a given antidepressant in the lab [is to] put a laboratory rat into a beaker of water and see how long it struggles to get out. When it stops, remove it from the beaker and treat it with the drug. Repeat the test. If it struggles for a significantly longer time than before, the drug is considered to have antidepressant potential.
For some, these drugs may be a lifesaving treatment. But for most of us troubled or even...anguished by life’s difficulties, does our long-term reliance on these drugs become more of a convenience than a cure? And once we start taking them, how do we find the wherewithal to stop?
If my psychiatrist had told me, “I think you can do this without taking any drugs,” would I have done just as well? If I had been told how difficult it would be to get off the drug, would I have so readily started on it? Even the doctors and researchers who most believe in the effectiveness of antidepressants acknowledge that the “chemical balance” paradigm...makes things seem simpler than they actually are." 
Bruce Stutz, excerpted from a lengthy NYT Sunday Magazine article wherein he chronicles his use of (and his struggle to discontinue) Effexor (an SNRI ).

Monday, May 7th, 2007

Yup! I've just confirmed that last week I sent out (at least) two emails that were never received by their intended recipients! One was sent last Monday (a week ago) and the other, last Wednesday. Bummer!  
OK. If I've recently sent you an email that never arrived, then please lemme know! 
%^$#*&* computers! They're gettin' to be just like women! Ya know...can't live with 'em and...can't live with 'em!

Sunday, May 6th, 2007                                    It's Five Six Seven!

Friday, May 4th, 2007

"Hancock was speaking with a female acquaintance about baseball and baseball tickets...the conversation ended abruptly, apparently when the accident occurred."  Sports Illustrated

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007                       Happy Birthday, Vic!

The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghost-like.

 There are few things in the world more dangerous than sleepwalkers.

 Life is to be lived, not controlled...

Ralph Ellison (1914-1994)

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007

"Today, the average age for someone moving into a nursing home is 81.But...judging by TV commercials, right when we get out of baby diapers, we have to prepare ourselves to get into adult diapers. And look how young the people are in the ads for Viagra. It's as if Madison Avenue is saying that it's over for you once you're past the...age of 25!"
Lloyd Garver

Tuesday, May 1st, 2007

Oh Boy Oh Boy! A Mr. Wayne Glover, whom I haven't seen in nearly forty-one years, has forwarded to me a set of recordings of me and Ruth made on the evening of July 23rd, 1966 at a coffee house (on Walnut St. in The City of Brotherly Love) called 'The Artist's Hut'. There are forty-two cuts on four CD's and, so far, I have listened to fewer than ten because to hear this music again is an intense (or, in the lingo of the sixties, 'mind-blowing') experience! I was nineteen (almost twenty) and Ruth had just turned eighteen. It is sobering to hear one's own 'footsteps' from a time of innocence: when everything seemed possible...and before Reality intruded. And Reality, as we all come to understand, is a great name for a band if only because it is a hard act to follow. 

The original tapes were made, according to Wayne, on a portable Norelco tape recorder, and so I assume that these used the old three-inch diameter reels, which recorded at either 1 ^7/8 or at 3 ^3/4 ips (that's 'inches per second') reels. What was not generally known in the 60's (and even into the 70's) was that tape recordings were not forever. That is, they did not enjoy an indefinite 'shelf-life'.  In storage, no matter how well-controlled the environment, they tended to degrade. The magnetic backing of the tape tended to come away from the substrate. There was also an issue that, in storage, the magnetic domains (representing the recorded signal) tended to 'wander' toward and away (i.e., 'radially') from the center of the reel. This not only introduced extraneous signals (similar to a radio frequency bleed-in) but also reduced the signal-to-noise ratio and caused a falling off of higher frequencies, giving old tapes a somewhat 'tubby' sound. But Wayne has gone to the trouble of having these tapes 'restored' by a Mr. Don Richmond who, evidently, knows something. There are still some dropouts and some objectionable noise and tubbiness, but most of the cuts are quite listenable. I have, for now, posted only one. It's a beautiful old Gordon Lightfoot song which, frankly, I had forgotten that I ever knew. ;-) Before posting, I uploaded the track to Pro Tools to edit out some chatter and clatter and then I (slightly) rolled off the frequencies below 100 Hz...and added a fade. 

Monday, April 30th, 2007

I watched the Sixty Minutes interview last night with former CIA Director George Tenet and either he's on psychotropic medication or he should be! Fidgety and combative...he sounded like a gangster. His tone was menacing...even threatening ("Now, you listen to me!"), but then defensive, indignant...and sulky ("It's personal! "). He feigned 'hurt' that anyone might 'impugn his integrity' or dare to imagine that he didn't do the "best job that I could". 

He explicitly condoned the torture of detainees (by 'enhanced interrogation techniques') and then, in the same breath, denied that he had done so! "We do not torture!" At times, he acted as if the Sixty Minutes interviewer (Scott Pelley) had interrupted him at dinner [to ask such impertinent questions as "How did you get the intelligence so wrong?"] while, in fact, it is public knowledge that Tenet's tongue has been oiled by a publisher's advance of four million dollars!

I recommend this interview to anyone interested in how US foreign policy got so screwed up. George Tenet, part of  both Bubba's and Alfred's inner circles, is a hot-headed, loud-mouthed clown, once drunk on self-importance but now hung-over on self-serving retrospective. With this book and with this interview, he has shown himself to be only one more rat gone from a sinking ship, whining that "They threw me overboard!"

I just noticed a piece on Alternet.org which refers to Tenet as the "Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community".

Sunday, April 29th, 2007

"...once you can fake sincerity, the rest is easy!"
Bernard Weiner

"When George Romney ran for president in 1968, he opposed the war in Vietnam. When it came out that he'd earlier supported the war, he blamed that on having been "brainwashed." At the time, Senator Gene McCarthy, noting that Romney wasn't known for being too bright, commented that brainwashing him wouldn't have been necessary, since 'I would have thought a light rinse would be sufficient.' Now comes a chip off the old block..."
Jim Hightower

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