Tilting at windmills for a better tomorrow.
Earlier this week former employees of Sproul & Associates (operating under the name Voters Outreach of America), a firm hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters, told a Nevada TV station that their supervisors systematically tore up Democratic registrations.
There’s more, and it’s ugly.
Thanks rinchen.
You’ve probably seen one or another variants of the “Bush resumé” floating around — here’s one. As an exercise, this year’s Political Reporting class at the J-School undertook the challenge of fact-checking the faux resumé point-by-point. It’s a work in progress — solid work.
What’s the difference between thuggery and diplomacy? Size. Dylan Tweney referred to this great little QuickTime movie “Noam Chomsky meets Schoolhouse Rock.”
Amy and Miles were at the playground, where they met little Peter and his mother, a large Russian woman. As they were getting ready to go, Miles asked for his pacifier, and Amy gave it to him. The woman walked over to Miles, bent down to face him, and said in a thick Russian accent (you have to hear the accent in your head):
“Do not let me see you with that thing in your mouth. You are BIG MAN!”
Miles just turned two.
A man entered the next bathroom stall over from me today. I heard him undo his belt, and the buckle hitting the floor. He grunted slightly as he squatted. A few seconds of silence, and then he said in a perfectly loud voice, unaware or uncaring that anyone else might be sharing the room with him, “Okaaayyyy…” as if he was sitting down to tackle the 1040 Short Form.
Been down with flu for the past 48 hours, abdominal tectonics. Just edging out of the hole now. Spent a lot of time sleeping, but did have the chance to watch a couple of interesting movies.
How’s Your News is a project by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, but you’d never guess it — a documentary wherein the two take five mentally retarded or disabled individuals around the country in a hand-painted RV, interviewing ordinary Americans on the street, at ball games, cattle auctions, etc. Two of the participants are so disabled they can’t even speak — one just waves a microphone frantically at passers-by, a sign on his wheelchair reading “Free interviews – my name is Larry.”
Given the nature of the project, and considering who’s producing it, you’d expect the primary M.O. would be to mock the attempts of these disabled people to model the newscasters they’ve seen on TV all their lives. And yes, there are some very funny moments, where you’re not sure whether you’re laughing with or laughing at. But somehow Stone and Parker have managed to make the project respectful – they’re giving these people the chance to do something they’d never be able to do otherwise. There is no mocking here, no inside joke between the directors and the viewer. The enthusiasm and joy of the participants is genuine.
The potential for misunderstanding the point of the project is high enough that they include a printed note in the DVD case explaining that “It’s okay to laugh.”
We believe that confusion, awkward moments, and humor are important parts of living with a disability. People who live with disabilities, and those who are close to them, know that if you don’t have a sense of humor, it would be hard to get through the day.
Also rented Peripheral Produce – a compilation of entries in a Portland experimental film and video contest. My favorite piece on the disc was Matt McCormick’s The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal — encouraging the viewer to look at municipal efforts to remove graffiti — usually by covering tags in large dun-toned blocks — as themselves being unintentionally artististic. The subconscious creation of Rauschenberg and Rothko-like rectangular swatches playing off the angles of the urban environment. Sounds self-serious, and it is, a bit, but also playful and partly self-mocking. Even if the idea sounds like a joke, McCormick does a good job of showing that there is real beauty left over by the removal efforts. Very enjoyable.
Kick-ass rant by the Chronicle’s Mark Morford on the State of American Apathy.
Voter turnout, comparatively, in Italy, Spain, the U.K., or Germany? Anywhere from 75 to 92 percent, every time. The sad fact is, the United States ranks 139th out of 172 countries in voter turnout. Wave that flag proudly, baby.
It goes on, gets better. On what it would take to shake America out of a stupor that, however improbable/impossible it seems, causes it to look at the smirking face of George Bush on the television and think to themselves, “I trust that man.”
Or maybe it’s something entirely different, maybe some sort of potent, unimaginable spiritual enlightenment that looks like revelation and smells like Vishnu and sounds like harmonic convergence and tastes like Buddha and has nothing whatsoever to do with fundamentalism or Christianity or Bush’s angry homophobic flag-wavin’ God. The mystics say we’re very close. They claim the next decade will offer, to those who care to participate, one helluva transformational vibrational wallop. Possible?
Worth the read.
Thanks rinchen.
Whoa – discovered by accident tonight that GMail’s browser requirements for the Mac specify Safari, Firefox, and the Mozilla variants. Try to visit the site with Internet Explorer/Mac and you get a warning:
Gmail does not currently support your browser.
However it does let you try to sign in anway. Do so, and you get another message:
Your browser seems to be Internet Explorer, and ActiveX seems to be disabled. Gmail requires ActiveX to be enabled in order to operate.
Obviously it doesn’t require ActiveX, since it works just fine with Safari and the Mozilla cousins. So is this a case of identity crisis, or of Google make subtle stabs at MS in preparation for the coming Viking battle? Probably none of the above – they just decided not to support a dying browser on the Mac, but didn’t implement their non-support very well. Still, it’s nice to see the shoe on the other foot for a change, even if in an insignificant way.
How hard is it to get Google to forget a page it once knew well? I’m finding out the hard way.
A professor approached me and explained that a two-year-old student story on our site contained verfiably incorrect information — originally supplied to the student by the D.A. The story incorrectly labeled a person as a pedophile. Today, that person is in prison for totally unrelated reasons. And in prison, being tagged as a pedophile can bring serious consequences from other inmates. The prof was worried that an inmate might find the story and go ape on the guy.
I immediately removed the story from our site. Then we realized that Google was holding onto the cached version. Finding info about cache removal on Google’s site was tricky. You have to sign up for a special account (my existing GMail acct was not sufficient). I received a confirmation email, clicked the link in it as instructed, and was told my account could not be found, even though it had just been created. Thinking maybe they needed database sync time, I waited a day. Still no dice. Correspondence with Google on the matter took about one day per reply. Finally they suggested I create a new account. I did.
This time, when I clicked the link to confirm the account, I was taken to a page on Google’s servers written entirely in Chinese. Again, began correspondence with them on the problem. They had no good answers, seemed mystified. After more experimentation on my part, discovered that the page only appeared in Chinese in some browsers — freaky deaky.
Finally I was able to confirm the account and request cache removal. The process was easy, and I was instructed to wait up to 24 hours for the cached page to be removed. That was Oct. 7. Today is the 12th, and the cached version is still up. A man’s fate potentially hangs in the balance. And I’m again waiting for a response from Google.
A couple weeks late here… Miles turned two on September 23. So many changes in two years, so much compressed evolution. Watching his mind, body, and personality develop has been an ongoing source of fascination and enjoyment for us – we’re as stoked to have him with us today as the day he was born. Amy and I just put together Miles’ two-year photo gallery: A little bit of Jamaica, the daily yogurt festival, his recent art installations, steam trains, into the woods, rock climbing, Mega-Blocks, friends, animals, climbing and sliding, 2nd birthday… 40 images in two albums.