Name That Chief Executive

About whom was the following statement made? Hint: he runs a country.

"He can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell because it is God himself, with whom he is in permanent contact, who gives him this strength."

You're forgiven if you thought this quote referred to George W. Bush (whose nutty zealotry and bizarre religious justifications for military action are well-documented). But, you're wrong!

The state radio station of Equatorial Guinea (West Africa) has declared that President Teodoro Obiang Nguema was literally "the country's God." Here's the article.

GWB has sent Marines to Liberia in an attempt to help quell the increasing unrest there. Granted, at this time they're only there to "provide logistical and communications help to the peacekeepers sent by ECOWAS" (the Economic Community of West African States), but it's a start. Of course, he's throwing $10 million at a military contractor as well, but that move is probably necessary given that we're ridiculously overextended in Iraq.

Sub-Saharan Africa is descending into chaos largely as a result of the legacy of colonialism. The French, Belgians and English, among others, did quite little to assist their former subjects after pulling out of Africa in the mid-1900s, and all across the continent people are still paying the price (heck, several dozen people were massacred in the Congo just a few hours ago).

The United States has a special responsibility in Liberia. It was founded by former American slaves, and more recently a repressive dictator there was armed and funded by the Reagan administration. An excellent article by Greg Palast lays out the need for us to do something to stop the violence in that country. We need to clean up our own messes for a change. Hopefully in Liberia, we're taking a step toward doing just that.

Science projects for creationists

I've mulled over the idea of homeschooling should Julie and I have kids... but I can't say I'm real enthusiastic about the notion if it means we'll be lumped in with the "Christian Coalition"-types who usually advocate that approach to education.

Demagogue has a post up on Christian* science fairs that is worth reading. The original site referred to in the post is here. (initially found via Liquid List)

Some of my favorite "science fair topics" from that site:

3. Make a computer model of the Flood currents.
5. What can we learn from the Amish blood disease and sixth finger? Compare this to the half Jewish Samaritans. (Bob H. may have info on this).
6. Build and run studies on a strata forming wave tank. This would confirm or disprove strata are all laid down at the same time.
18. Is intelligence influenced by physical attributes. i.e. are blondes "dumb" or does skin color influence intelligence?
26. Is energy ever destroyed or created?
35. Why does the Bible say there is one glory of the sun, one glory of the moon, and one glory of the stars?
53. Were all the animals friendly to man before the Flood? Idea: raise several baby animals like snake and mouse together to see if they remain friends as they are older.
58. Why did God create the moon to control the tides?
95. Are humans mammals? We thought they were made in God's image and not related to animals.
98. Were dinosaurs alive at the same time as humans?
102.Why do we have pimples? Did God goof?
103.Where was the Garden of Eden? Is it around today?

* N.B.: not all Christians are this irrational.

This is old, old, old (I first saw this in an email when I was still living in Cali, so we're talking early '99 or so)... but funny as heck.

Incredible jazz guitarist (and distinguished alumnus of the School of Music at the University of Miami) Pat Metheny absolutely savaged pseudo-saxophonist Kenny G a while back on his website. The article no longer exists on that site; but a copy of Metheny's rant can be found here.

Wow.

Dude, Where's My (insert noun here)?

The NY Observer has a wonderful article dissecting the usage of one of my favorite words.

Sixteen Little Words

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." - GWB, in the 2003 State of the Union address

Kind of old news- this whole Uraniumgate business- but I figured I'd do my small part to keep it in the public eye. It's not as if it were the only lie told by the American and British governments, but it's a start.

The Bush camp is, of course, spinning like mad, and the American media seems to be largely buying into the BS. Thank heaven for easy Internet access to UK media! Regarding the spin: I haven't seen this much parsing since hearing the definition of "is" from Bill Clinton.

Speaking of Bill... He essentially was impeached over 10 little words: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." Does this mean we can impeach GWB 1.6 times? If so, then... awesome!

I don't share or download music files via the Internet- mostly due to my crappy dial-up connection. I also feel kind of squeamish about the whole copyright violation issue, being a musician and composer myself (albeit an unpublished one). However, given the way the recording industry has inflated the price of CDs and repeatedly screwed artists, I can say that I sympathize with the Kazaa crowd to some extent. I'm certain that there is a middle ground which will allow the public to obtain music online at low prices and ensure that musicians can profit from their craft.

Leave it to the Recording Industry Association of America to completely frigging overreact, though. California Democratic Representatives John Conyers and Howard Berman have drafted a bill that "would land a person in prison for five years and impose a fine of $250,000 for uploading a single file to a peer-to-peer network." [italics mine]

"But," you ask, "what does this bill have to do with the RIAA? Isn't this just two Representatives taking the initiative on this issue?" Good question. Here's an interesting intellectual exercise: poke around opensecrets.org for a bit, and see how much money these two Reps have received from the entertainment industry lobbyists that are pushing for this type of legislation (these numbers are from the 2001-02 election cycle)*.

Hmm. Conyers received $49,859 from "TV/Movies/Music" during the last election cycle... they were the industry contributing the 2nd-highest amount of cash to his campaign. But he didn't get as much out of them as Berman; that man received $222,791 from this industry, including $61,541 from the "recorded music production industry" (read: RIAA**) alone. In fact, Berman was the #1 recipient of campaign moolah from that crowd.

Boycott-RIAA.com makes some decent arguments against some of the RIAA's practices.

*This exercise can be played out with just about any national politician and/or industry, by the way. Compare voting records with the source of the politician's money, and see how money buys access. Open Secrets is awesome. The Mother Jones 400 also chronicles specific instances of influence-peddling (with a focus on individuals rather than organizations/corporations)

** The RIAA was the largest contributor in this category for the 2001-02 election cycle, with Berry Gordy's West Grand Media a relatively close second. In 2000 Gordy only gave a couple of thousand dollars directly to Berman. According to the almost-deliberately-difficult-to-navigate Federal Elections Commission website Gordy only gave $1000 to Berman during the '02 election cycle. So it's safe to assume that the RIAA weasels are Berman's primary mother teat.

Operation Supreme Court Freedom

Bigoted, dictator-fondling demagogue (and failed novelist) Pat Robertson is on a new, er, Crusade: he's launched a "prayer offensive" (a term made more accurate by reversing the word order) directed at the Supreme Court. He would like to see three justices retire in the next month, paving the way for conservative appointees. Read about it here.

In response, I'm launching a "prayer counter-offensive," using Robertson's press release as a template (it'll be more entertaining if you read his junk first/simultaneously, as I quote from it rather liberally)-

---------------

Dear Fellow American,

It's apparently not enough that Pat Robertson cozies up to African dictators to make a profit, has no respect for the Jeffersonian doctrine of church-state separation, and regularly issues forth bigoted proclamations from his earthly throne. Now he's declaring a constitutional right justifying government intrusion into our bedrooms. The framers of our Constitution never intended anything like this to take place in our land. Yet we seem to be helpless to do anything about it. Why? Because we are under the tyranny of a nonelected corporate oligarchy. Just think, one unelected media mogul can change the moral fabric of our nation and take away the protections which our elected legislators have wisely put in place.

But there is a higher tribunal than Pat Robertson. There is the Judge of all the earth. We must earnestly come before Her now and cry out for redress of our grievances. She loves America as much as we do, and She does not wish to destroy it. But no culture has ever endured which has turned openly to hypocrisy. And no society which has been guilty of slaughtering millions of innocents has ever been spared the wrath of God.

In short, by his distorted reading of the religion clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution... not to mention his distorted reading of the Bible... Pat Robertson is bringing upon this nation the wrath of God when the precious liberties that we love so much may be taken away from all of us.

Robertson is 72 years old, and has cancer. He probably doesn't have a heart condition (thanks to the "age-defying protein pancakes" he's hawking on his website), but it's conceivable that he has other health issues of which The Lord our God is aware. Would it not be possible for God to put it in the mind of this man that the time has come to retire? If we fast and pray and earnestly seek God’s face, then She will hear our prayer and give us relief.

We can have a media that no longer promotes a medieval weltanschauung via the airwaves of this great nation, but which will earnestly seek to embrace all men and women as brothers and sisters in humanity, and will give meaning to the centuries of moral standards which have undergirded this wonderful country called the United States of America.

Please join us in a prayer counter-offensive that we are going to call Operation: Bowel-Loosening Scapegoat.

"He that is wounded in the stones [testicles], or hath his privy member [schlong] cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD. A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD." (Deuteronomy 23:1,2. King James version)

God bless you.

Yours in sanity,

The Bone

---------------

All right. We have 21 days. Let's see who has more pull with the Almighty: an underemployed musician, or a guy who sells age-defying antioxidents online.

[slightly edited 7/15/03, 5:03 PM]

[Damn it. Edited again at 11:30 PM. In the original press release, which influenced the writing of my piece, Robertson states "And no society has ever been spared the wrath of God which has been guilty of slaughtering tens of millions of the innocent." It almost sounds like the Wrath of God, instead of the nation, is what slaughtered the innocents. Crappy writing, Pat. Despite the inherent entertainment in that phrasing, I changed the word order around slightly... mostly because I wanted to say something about America there, instead of something about God]

From McSweeney's: pirate jokes for sophisticates.

1. I'm feeling much better. Hooray for industrial-strength antibiotics.

2. Started taking voice lessons again today. I've not studied formally in many years (since '98 or so), and have developed a number of bad habits. The first lesson went well and I'm looking forward to continuing with this process over the course of the summer.

3. Julie and I are tentatively holding "let's-have-a-baby"-oriented conversations. The biggest obstacle to parenthood, I think, will be the name issue. If it's a girl (and no, J.'s not pregnant now!), we're already set with a name... I think. If it's a boy, there's gonna be trouble in River City. I prefer standard, solid, normal (not to say, "boring") names such as William, John, Andrew, and so on. Julie likes more contemporary (not to say, "lame") boy's names, e.g. Tyler, Shane, Cody, et. al.

Part of a conversation we had on this subject a couple of years ago:

CHRIS: Sorry- none of those names are any good.

JULIE: How about "Ty?"

CHRIS: "Ty?" That's not a name; that's a verb.

Updates will be forthcoming as this diplomatic summit continues.

I spent a goodly portion of today at the hospital- came down with epididymitis. Not fun.

Despite the excruciating pain when I walk, two good things came out of the experience:

1. I was reminded of the inherent humor in the word "scrotum." Go ahead, say it. Scroh-tum. Elongate the "oh" sound, and overpronounce the "t." I'm giggling as I type this (which isn't making me any more comfortable).

2. I've been prescribed the antibiotic Cipro, so if I'm exposed to anthrax anytime in the next few days I needn't be overly concerned.

Doing a Google search on pirates and ninjas revealed this tidbit of information: they're apparently mortal enemies. Who knew?

This site attempts to quantify the merits and flaws of each tribe. Another site throws robots, zombies, vampires, triceratops and Batman into the mix. And posters on the completely infantile message board at The Official Ninja Homepage also deconstruct the phenomenon (other then the message board, that last site is sweet).

Neither ninja nor pirate (unless you kill one and have a voodoo houngan raise it from the grave in a shuffling mockery of life), zombies are also rad. Funny zombie site: http://www.brains4zombies.com (brought to you from the folks at Goats).

Pirate jokes! Yay!

Listened to The Desert Music a few times yesterday, and went to bed dreaming of altered dominant chords.

One More Reason To Be Jealous of San Diegans

As if there weren't enough already.

The Bad Plus is playing 4th & B on Tuesday, September 23. I hate all of you now.

The closest they're coming to me is Clearwater. 4+ hours away. On a Friday, meaning I would have to leave directly from work, drive to Florida's west coast during rush hour, and possibly miss the opening of the show. Under those circumstances, I probably won't go. Bah.

Here's a review of a performance they gave in England.

Right now I am listening to The Desert Music for chorus and chamber orchestra by minimalist composer Steve Reich, and absolutely loving it. Oh, my God. I need to get back into composing. (This CD was purchased earlier this evening, along with a CD of Terry Riley's seminal minimalist composition In C).

I've been on a Steve Reich kick ever since my last trip to California. I bought a CD of 20th-century keyboard music while there (mostly because it had three of John Cage's prepared piano works on it), and really enjoyed Reich's composition Four Organs (which is essentially 20 minutes of a repeated chord growing incrementally longer. Much cooler than it sounds from my description). While at Amoeba Music in Hollywood a few days later, I picked up another CD of Reich's early works (with two tape compositions, a piano piece, and Clapping Music).

Minimalism is kind of an acquired taste. The style is very meditative, and these compositions unfold veeeeery slooooowly (particularly Four Organs and In C). Minimalist composers are not as interested in eliciting an immediate emotional reaction as they are in developing a process and exploring sonorities through repetition/rhythmic augmentation. Some works in this genre are extremely accessible, though- I'd recommend the Reich CD I'm listening to now (which includes recordings of Tehillim and Desert Music) and the choral works of Arvo Part (who's not really a minimalist, but hey!) for someone interested in minimalism who has not experienced much music in that style, and wants something that will carry an immediate emotional impact.

Now that I have a CD burner, I'll be glad to make a sampler CD for any friends that want to hear this stuff. If I don't know you, please don't bother asking, though. Buy 'em on Amazon:

Reich: Tehillim/The Desert Music
Reich: Early Works
Stravinsky, Cage, Reich: Artistry (includes Four Organs)
Riley: In C
Part: De Profundis (choral works) (yeah, I know there should be an umlaut over the "a" in Part's last name; Blogger won't display the character properly, damnit)

It's Fun To Stay At The DOJ

In the interests of homeland security, I'm publicizing this alternate threat level system. (Via Metafilter)

Summer Reading

My three main reading goals for the summer: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Underworld by Don DeLillo, and Kurt Vonnegut's entire body of in-print work.

Of these projects, the latter will by far be the easiest to complete; I'm about halfway through the Vonnegut corpus now, and will hit the library this week to replenish my stock. The other books are on a bookshelf to my right, their spines leering at me. I've read two other novels by DeLillio: White Noise (loved it) and Libra (enh). Underworld seems daunting, but I am assured that it's worth the time. Even though I read quickly, I'm intimidated by the size of these two books: over 800 pages each. I've just gotta roll up my sleeves (in a metaphorical sense) and get cracking.

Other things I'm reading now include:

Steve Reich, Writings on Music 1965-2000. Reich is one of the founding fathers of minimalism in music, and I've recently been getting into his work again.

Dave Eggers, Sacrament. This is a slight revision of an earlier novel (You Shall Know Our Velocity). Enjoying it.

Here's a chronological list of Vonnegut's work, with asterisks by the novels/collections I've read:

Player Piano
The Sirens of Titan
Mother Night*
Cat's Cradle*
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater*
Welcome To The Monkey House (short stories)
Slaughterhouse-Five*
Happy Birthday, Wanda June
Breakfast of Champions
Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (essays)
Slapstick*
Jailbird
Palm Sunday (essays)*
Deadeye Dick
Galapagos (reading it now)
Bluebeard
Hocus Pocus*
Fates Worse Than Death (essays)*
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (radio commentaries)*
Timequake*
Bagombo Snuff Box (short stories)

Pinch Me, I Must Be Dreaming

I've long felt that no single group of people in America has least represented the core values of Christianity than conservative Republicans. Long on Old Testament fire and brimstone and short on New Testament compassion, they've often forced me to consider converting to another belief system with their embarrasing antics. If intolerant bigots like Strom Thurmond and Antonin Scalia, as well as hypocritical malingerers such as 'Dubya' Bush and his coterie feel comfortable calling themselves Christians, I don't exactly want to be part of that club. (Fortunately, for every Strom Thurmond there's a Martin Luther King, Jr., so I don't think the whole Christianity thing is exhausted yet.)

So imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this article. Some highlights:

Alabama's conservative Republican governor has created a new convergence of faith and politics. Citing his Christian faith, he's calling for a $1.2 billion tax hike, largely on the backs of wealthier taxpayers, for the benefit of the poor.

"Jesus says one of our missions is to take care of the least among us," the governor told the Birmingham News after announcing his plan. "We've got to take care of the poor."

Granted, it seems as though most Republicans would like to "take care of the poor" the same way thay "took care of" Saddam Hussein. So this is a nice change... a conservative Christian publicly performing a Christian act that is more in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount than the Book of Leviticus.

Son of "Anagram Fun"

[edited 10:45 PM, 7/2/03; added additional anagrams]

In all likelihood, there are very few people who know this blog exists. Here are anagrams of some of their names:

JULIEANNRIEDER=

Injure red alien.

Julian Reindeer

June rain lieder. [I find this one oddly beautiful]

De jure, I earn nil. ["de jure"= legally]

JOHNPHILIPRIEDER=

J. Philip: heroin red.

J. Philip hired Nero.

J.P.: iron Delphi heir.

JENNDERILO=

Dr. Joe Lenin

Lord Jennie

JASONLESHOWITZ [who hopefully won't kick my ass] =

Ah! Zion's lost Jew!

Nazi Jews? Oh, lots!

CASEYGILLY=

Icy gay sell.

Gal's icy ley.

Cagey, silly.

AMANDAPRESCOTT=

pandatreats.com

pandataster.com

BENJAMINNAHOUM=

Aha! Jumbo Men Inn!

Inhuman name job.

Jam, bohemian nun!

ANTHONYMILAZZO=

A lazy month in Oz.

No lazy math in Oz.

ANTHONYMILAZZO, PROGRAMMER =

Grizzly rape! Moan, math moron!

Hmm? Rape? Not on a grizzly! Amor...

A man... meat... grizzly... Honor romp!

Man rape nth grizzly! Amor! Moo!

Ah... Mormon man to rape grizzly.

Anagram fun

Coming up with anagrams of my name is not only more fun than job-hunting, it's arguably more productive.

Be forewarned: some of these are rude, so if you're easily offended please don't read on.

CHRISTOPHERANTONRIEDER=

Reader: thin orphic stoner

Shit tenor, choir panderer

Thirteen inches! Drop! Roar!

Record penis in her throat

Once-rad "Irish Peter North" [Half-Irish, actually]

Rad tenor is her hot prince

Horned theocrat inspirer

The porn director's hernia

Y'know, I used to really enjoy Dennis Miller's work.

So it's depressing to find that he's sold out to the conservatives. He's even got an upcoming gig for FOX, for cryin' out loud.

My dismay was somewhat ameliorated by this article, wherein Dennis meets... Dennis. You'll see what I mean- it's pretty funny.