Weapons of class destruction

This was a really bad week in education news.

1. Georgia's state superintendent of schools (!) proposed striking the word "evolution" from the state's science curriculum. Referring to the term "evolution" as a "buzzword" (!!), Cox intends to replace it with the phrase "biological changes over time." Which, one should note, isn't really the same thing.

On first glance, it would seem that a one-word change in the curriculum at the state level wouldn't have a practical effect on day-to-day instruction in the classroom. If this change goes through teachers will still teach the concept of evolution under a new euphemistic "buzz phrase," and conservative Christianist groups will still freak out with their "men ain't monkeys!" schtick. All that the unfortunately-named Superintendent Cox has achieved is pissing off both camps.

The deeper issues here, of course, are the promotion of anti-rationalism, the de-emphasis of evolution as a topic on state standardized exams and the restriction of academic freedom. Georgia's students are already weak in science (some more background on Cox's pro-creationist bias can be found at that link as well), and their average SAT scores are low enough that it's a surprise any Georgia teenagers get into any college, anywhere (except for Bob Jones University). This isn't going to help.

I wonder how they're capable of writing this stuff. I mean, in a physical sense... it must be really difficult to manipulate a pen without an opposable thumb.

2. Drama students at Archbishop McCarthy High, not too far from where I live, were disqualified from a theater competition for presenting a play (with a pro-patriotism theme!) wherein they cut up an American flag.

This event actually pisses me off more than the previous article. I kind of expect Georgians to act in a manner that is, well, unevolved. But to know that bullshit censorship of this type is happening mere miles from my house is incredibly disturbing.

As a Florida arts teacher, I plan on writing letters and making phone calls of support/condemnation to the appropriate parties. And as a resident of Broward County, I'd like to apologize to the rest of the country for our antics. Between nonsense like this and our inability to conduct an effective election, it would seem that this place is populated by cretins of the highest order. And although I'm not totally disagreeing with that assessment, not all of us are this lame.

Joe at AmLeft put up an amazing post detailing Halliburton's various misdeeds. The ones we know about, anyway.

A neighbor of mine was recently working in Kuwait for Halliburton subsidiary KBR, as a plumbing installer (he's now working for another company doing reconstruction in Baghdad itself). While at home for R&R leave last fall, he told tales of KBR's overcharging for materials that made me wince. In short, the media is not overstating the problems with Halliburton... if anything, they're not covering it nearly enough.

Doubleplus Ungood: The Search For The WMDRPAs Continues!

The comparison between our government's communications and "Newspeak," the official language of Oceania in Orwell's 1984, has been made numerous times, by better writers than I. I've found this topic interesting for a while though, and was again reminded of it while reading transcripts of last week's State of the Union address. In the speech, Bush never mentioned "weapons of mass destruction..." he introduced the tortured phrase "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."

Chew on that one for a while. "Weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."

I've tried to parse this phrase, but I can't... because the phrase "program activities" is essentially meaningless. It would have worked more effectively had it been phrased "Weapons of mass destruction program-related activities," which is still awkward but at least conveys something definite.

So the question becomes, "Why was the statement phrased that way, then? Weren't Bush's speechwriters working on this address for, like, months?"

Yes they were. And I contend that they wanted a phrase that would seem to say something, but would be content-free. That line is a beautiful, leather-bound journal with completely blank pages inside.

"But why? Isn't a major point of language to communicate concrete ideas?"

Well, in Orwellian Newspeak, the point of language (not to be confused with rhetoric) was to reinforce the hold that the ruling class had on the masses, by making certain concepts "unthinkable," in the most literal sense of the word. Orwell's essay on Newspeak, included as an appendix to 1984, is the best source for Newspeak's purpose and goals.

And how would one start to achieve these heady goals? By taking terms whose meanings are commonly understood, and obliterating their signifigance. A word deprived of its meaning becomes an empty glass, a vessel into which one can pour anything they like.

Am I trying to imply that our government is trying to implement something like Newspeak? Not really. But the George Administration is scared to death that they won't find WMDs in Iraq (unless of course the CIA plants some there just prior to the elections). If they can come up with a phrase that makes it sound like they were concerned with WMDs, but doesn't actually state it outright, then they've achieved the goals of reminding Americans that there was WMD stuff going on, while abdicating responsibility for their actions should those weapons not be found.

When I first read 1984, it was considered a cautionary tale. It's frightening to think that some people have been reading it for pointers.

Button-making

I'll get back to ranting about politics soon, I promise.

I've decided to craft some link buttons for this site, based on the ones found here, here, and here. Taylor McKnight has a whole slew of them for download from his site (that's where the "blogger," "haloscan," and "creative commons" buttons found lower in the sidebar come from).

I modified the "blank" buttons found at gtmcknight.com in Photoshop (the original colors for those buttons didn't work with my site design), and used Kottke's "silkscreen" font as the typeface. Here are some of the results, with more to come once I build additional pages:







UPDATE: After spending the time to make these buttons, I decided to tinker with the site's look... mostly to get rid of the ugly grayish column on the right-hand side. I also added an about me page onto the blog (yay blog*spot plus!), which will have some content someday soon. If the three or so people who visit this site with any regularity can give me some feedback on the new-ish look, I'd appreciate it!

On a whim, I took a detour today which took me past a canal. I hopped out of the car to take some snapshots, got down near the water... and saw a manatee.

Manatee no. 1 (these pictures will be found at my Buzznet photoblog for a while)

My first one, after living in Florida for four years. I'm pretty new at photography, and didn't know how to best capture something swimming underwater. So it's not a great shot... but dude!

And then, after the manatee slowly swam away, along came... another manatee! This one didn't stick around long, but it did partially surface for air.

Manatee no. 2

So I saw two manatees in one day, almost completely by accident. I feel so good right now.

The following sign is located on SW 31st Avenue in Fort Lauderdale, which is also known as "Martin Luther King, Jr." Avenue. I drive by it every day (I live a couple blocks away), and am always mildly disturbed by the presence of this sign on a street named after Dr. King:



The Sons of Confederate Veterans are a national organization dedicated to "preserving the history and legacy of these heroes, so future generations can understand the motives that animated the Southern Cause."

I can write all day about them, but won't- I spent an hour or so on the phone yesterday with Casey deconstructing their silliness- but I would like to make a couple of points:

A link goes from their website to a "Southern heritage" website called Southern Messenger. On the main page for SM, there is a prominent section called "The Whiner's Call" where, with adorably faulty logic, they make fun of people that use the phrase "The flag is a painful reminder of slavery." There's also a Photoshopped image of Jesse Jackson as Osama bin Laden in that section... very classy, guys. Not at all racist.

And yet, for all of this portrayal of Confederate flag protestors as "whiners" by Southern Messenger, the SCV has a whole mechanism in place to report "heritage violations," and states, "Any disrespect [italics mine] shown to our Confederate Heritage should be considered as serious." They even have a national Chief of Heritage Defense whose job is apparently to contact "heritage violators" and coordinate "heritage defense" on the organization's national level. The "Department of Heritage Security," if you will.

So to recap... on one hand, you have Southern heritage proponents decrying "whininess" on the part of those who believe that the Confederate flag, to some extent, symbolizes a legacy of human slavery (and I count myself among them). On the other, you have Southern heritage proponents actively and fervently combating "any disrespect to [their] Confederate heritage," thus demonstrating their own essential touchiness. I wonder if the psychic pain caused by this cognitive dissonance keeps some of these folks up nights.

If you want to know more about the SCV, you can call them at 1-800-MY-DIXIE. Or, as Casey said yesterday, "1-800-MY-DIX-ERECT."

I now have a digital camera... a Nikon Coolpix 2100. With 2 megapixels of yummy resolution, I can now learn photography and have the same instantaneous feedback I'm used to as a musician; I can see my experiments as soon as I get to my computer, rather than undergo the interminable wait for photo finishing. I also have access to Photoshop, which is fun.

Because I hate creating in a vacuum, I started up a photoblog. In "The Riverland Project" (named after my neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale), I'll be taking shots of my neighborhood. Eventually I'll host TRP here, since I get 25 MB of server space from having Blog*Spot Plus, but it won't be real soon. I'll have to code the page myself, and my HTML chops are teh sux0rz.

The photoblog is currently being hosted by Buzznet. It's free, looks nice, and has kind of a pseudo-Live Journal community feel.

Oldish, but goodish: Seanbaby has been a columnist for Bay-area magazine The Wave for a while now.

I only mention this because I just read his article DorkStorm: The Annihilation- The Ten Geekiest Hobbies, and it is a work of sheer brilliance. As someone who indulged in at least four of those hobbies at one point or another, I found this piece both hysterical and not a little horrifying.

Thirty-one

As of today I am no longer thirty... I am now officially "in my thirties." Happy birthday to me.

In what will likely become an annual birthday tradition, I threw the I Ching tonight (I explain a little about the method in that last link). I use a couple different translations: the Wilhelm/Baynes translation that is the standard English translation of this classic Chinese oracular text (Jung swore by Wilhelm's German translation), and a more contemporary translation by Taoist master Alfred Huang. I'll write a longer post about why I use the I Ching in a couple of days.

Here are the results:

Lower trigram: Li (fire)
Upper trigram: Li (fire)

Hexagram no. 30: Li (alternately translated as "Brightness," "Clinging" and "Fire").

I may write more about what this means later. It's hard to distill several pages of translation and interpretation into a couple of short phrases, but inherent in the gua of Li are qualities of attachment (a fire attaches itself to the object being burned) and an attitude of compliance and dependence (a very Taoist concept). I know it's all very esoteric, but it makes more sense when one meditates over the texts. More on that in the upcoming "why?" post.

The first line was a "changing line," meaning there is an additional element in this fortune to be considered. The Wilhelm/Baynes translation states:

"It is important then to preserve inner composure and not to allow oneself to be swept along by the bustle of life. If one is serious and composed, he can acquire the clarity of mind needed for coming to terms with the innumerable impressions that pour in. It is precisely at the beginning that serious concentration is important, because the beginning holds the seed of all that is to follow."

For a number of reasons, this is particularly apt in my case.

For my friends that are writers, musicians, artists, or whatnot- you should probably read this email interview on the problems with the phrase "selling out." Dave Eggers gets it.

Handicapping The Dems, Part II: Electric Boogaloo

On the eve of the Iowa caucus, my thoughts on the field of contenders for the nomination. Full disclosure: I've been a registered Green for a long time. But, as much as the national Democratic Party frustrates me, I'm taking a close look at the Dem candidates hoping that I can find one for whom I feel comfortable voting.

Carol Mosley-Braun was my fave, but she's dropped out and endorsed Howard Dean. I like Kucinich... I won't be able to vote in the FL primary since I'm not a registered Dem, but I'd be willing to go out and wave signs for the guy. Assuming that he hasn't dropped out by the FL primary, which he may well have. Sharpton is saying incredibly interesting things... but is getting no press in which the words "Tawanna Brawley" aren't mentioned.

So, on to the others:

JOHN KERRY: I've decided I like him, and can probably vote for him for President. His environmental record is great and he's the most liberal of the "major" candidates.

His war vote is troubling, but it's explained to my satisfaction here. Besides, he was a prominent member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War who was on Nixon's "enemies list." Good enough for me.

JOHN EDWARDS: I don't know any more about him now then I did in June. UPDATE: A couple of my coworkers love this guy, so I'm gonna give him a more careful once-over.

JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: Not impressed.

WESLEY CLARK: Well, Michael Moore endorsed him, and makes a compelling case. Clark could destroy Bush in any debate on national defense issues. But his war flipflops and his past votes for Reagan and Nixon disturb me (even though Moore addresses them in his endorsement letter). Color me undecided... I'll have to see how he mutates after the primary season.

HOWARD DEAN: Sigh. I really want to like Dean. But he's a straight-up centrist, his rhetoric on the war notwithstanding. Mosely-Braun endorsed him, and that might be the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down should Dean be nominated. But right now I'm really not convinced.

UPDATE: Kerry won in Iowa... I would not have predicted that a week ago.

Of course, nothing's certain until March 2nd: Super Tuesday. Dean could regain momentum, Clark could eat a live puppy on national television... who knows.

Theme and Variations on "We Shall Overcome"

1.

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome someday
Oh deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome someday.

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2.

This infuriated me. Not to step on the other fine folks to whom I have linked, but if you only check out one link on this page it should probably be that one for right now.

Among "bodyandsoul's" observations: Protestors at Bush's shameless MLK Day photo-op were blocked from George's eyesight... by buses.

Buses. Think about it for a second. Probably unintentional, which makes it all the more appalling.

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3.

I went to the MLK tomb once, in 2002. It was so profoundly moving... he was America's Gandhi.

He would be so fucking pissed right now.

Now that I think about it, that link (to his historic anti-war speech "Beyond Vietnam") is absolutely worth reading as well. I have it in a book of King's speeches, and will be reading it on Monday's holiday.

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4.

In Democratic political news today: Carol Moseley-Braun (the only African-American woman ever elected to the Senate) dropped out of the Presidential race. It is a shame that a woman as amazing as Moseley-Braun can't be taken seriously as a Presidential candidate.

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5.

In Republican political news: President George remarked in a statement that "America has come far in realizing Dr. King's dream, but there is still work to be done... In remembering Dr. King's vision and life of service, we renew our commitment to guaranteeing the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans."

He showed how much he meant those words today by appointing Charles Pickering to the federal appeals court in New Orleans, bypassing the Senate via a recess appointment. Pickering has often been accused of pursuing an anti-civil-rights agenda. Convincingly.

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6.

But if we have learned anything from King, it is that we must struggle for justice. It won't be given... rather we must demand it. And it is absolutely worth the struggle.

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7.

"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again."

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8.

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome someday
Oh deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome someday.

Current events

1. Neil Bush, patron of Bangkok's finest sex workers, apparently thinks he "had" herpes. Not "has." Guess he hasn't gotten the memo that herpes is incurable.

2. Arnold Schwarzenegger has revealed his budget. He has appropriated $20,000 for "sticking fingers in [vaginas] and sliding tongues into [anuses]."

3. President George is expected to announce his program for space exploration pretty soon, which apparently includes plans for a manned mission to Mars. As a result of the positive public reaction, his re-election bid is now being touted as a "mission to Uranus."

PoemGate, and why Neil Gaiman rules

I blogged about George Bush's poem to Laura in this post.

I was obviously delighted with the Presidential doggerel. The only thing better than finding out that George wrote a horrible poem would be... finding out that he didn't write it at all!

So much to say... but I'll leave the savaging of Bush to pros like incredible author Neil Gaiman, who writes about this news item in his blog. Comedy gold.

via MoFi

Somebody Set Up Us The Blog

(yeah, I know "All Your Base" references are so 2001. Get over it.)

Last Friday, I broke the Internet. Tone was trying to walk me through FTP stuff over the phone, and I managed to somehow completely screw up my publishing settings. This has obviously impacted my ability to post, and I've been sadder than a goth on sedatives.

The kind folks at Blogger (thanks, Kimmy!) have been on the case since Monday, and it looks like all my problems have now been resolved. Also, props to Blogger Forum for their suggestions.

I created a backup blog, wherein I mostly whine about this site being defunct:

all your blog are belong to us