There's another blogger doing spastic backflips of outrage because he's not on someone's blogroll. Well. I wonder sometimes what people think of me -- I don't even make my blogroll public. I am not an advertizing agency, after all. Besides, I don't ever want you, my victims readers, to be able to leave the warm, comfy confines of Spleenville, mwahahahaha!
You know, about this whole CIA-Lady-Bush-administration-scandal-leak-blah-blah, I have just this to say:
What the hell kind of name is Plame, anyway? I mean, what the fuck*, "Plame"? Where did the boat that carried that name into the world come from? Is it German (derived from the name of the von Plämmensingenstrassenecken family that had to flee their ancient fiefdom of Höhenblücherdienstagmittwochstein in the seventeenth century due to a falling out between the morganatic Duke of Upper Farvergknucklesandwich and Count Otto of Bad Medizin)? Or English? ("There's always been a Plame to carry on the family name in our village on the Thames!") Or did some clerk at immigration come in late with a hangover, see the collection of c's, z's, and other letters God Almighty meant to be separated by vowels and say: "Fuck* it, you're Mr. Plame from now on" to the hapless Czech immigrant standing meekly before him.
Plame. It's not a name -- it's a typo.
*Copyright 2003 Andrew Northrup, aka "The Poorman" ("now with twenty percent more 'fuck'!")
Could all the trolls that have been infecting blogs since 9/11/01 be this person? Who knows. Stranger things have happened.
I've been getting comment spam. Since I will be deleting the spam as soon as I am able to, it would probably be a good idea to refrain from commenting on it ("Why is that stuff about phenylatylalinineketomine here?" Ugh, spam" -- and so on).
Also, there is a nasty little troll who signs himself "A-V," or "Analogue Voter," who has just accused me of supporting dictators because I refused to get into some sort of tedious argument with him on his chosen topic. I will be deleting this person's further comments as soon as they appear (and I am sure they will -- he's too cowardly to post from a static IP address so banning his ass is not an option) so don't bother replying to any of his droppings.
And while I've been out of touch I missed the announcement of Edward Said's departure from this mortal coil. Michael Totten doesn't want us to gloat, because that isn't nice. Okay. I'll try to think of something nice to say about the man who more than did his part in the cause of turning the Middle East from being merely a place with some problems into a place resembling that Far Side "crisis center" cartoon.. Thinking... thinking... Okay, here it is:
He's dead.
A storm took out the cable modem where I've been staying, thus the dearth of new posts. More later.
Frank of IMAO has a very good idea on a way to counteract all the negative "news" the prop media is emitting about doings in Iraq.
Men.
Babies.*
(Link to the Arlington Cemetary story via Charles Austin. Link to the Mefi prattlefest via Michele.)
*PS: I am exempting from this designation, of course, the people trying to defend the toy drive against the tiny minds that seem to comprise most of the contributors to this list. Maybe the Mefi'ers are jealous that the Iraqi kids will be getting toys and they won't.
You know, I don't care what foreigners think of us, I just wish they weren't so arrogant about their ignorance. Allow me to make a sweeping generalization: when Americans find out that they don't know enough about something out in the wide world (say, about Muslims and what they really think) they hit the bookstores and libraries like earnest students trying to make up for a failing grade. Foreigners, on the other hand, tend to show a marked disinterest in actually finding out what Americans are really like, preferring instead the notions they formed after watching American movies and teevee shows -- which as we all know are all documentaries. [/END SARCASM]
Europeans especially seem to have this idea that they already know all they need to know about the world, and that this gives them the right to sit back and lecture those upstart Americans (which means citizens of the United States, neither Canadians nor Mexicans nor anyone else in the hemsiphere ever gets this treatment) on world affairs. Europeans -- at least the citizens of certain countries cough France cough -- also have this notion that they are cosmopolitan, "citizens of the world," and thus have some sort of neutral, if not omniscient, view of life on Earth. Europeans just hate it when it is pointed out to them that their viewpoint is just as parochial, if not more so, than that of the average housewife in Iowa.
In order to protest their disapproval of of Corporate Hegemons™ and the advertising industry in general, Adbusters have taken out... an ad.
By the way, "adbusters.ws" and "adbusters.us" are still available. I'm sure they wouldn't mind someone else registering that domain name. It's not like they are a "brand" or anything.
(Pointed out by Michele.)
A bald eagle, sighted while driving down State Road 17-92 on the way to work.
Oh look, another pointless load of crap disguised as a column in a pro media publication. Someone needs to tell the people at the Guardian (and every other pro pub) that there is no need for filler bits on a website like there is in a dead-tree edition.
Reason number 789,451 why I will never, ever work for a newspaper, magazine, or any other kind of professional media: I'd have to deal with pissant editors looking for new ways to get a power-jones. The fact that some pub's house blogger will now have his entries be combed over by the nanny board, who will sift out anything "controversial" that might cause some twit the vapors comes as an apparent shock to Glenn Reynolds and others, but I'm not surprised. There's a reason I bought the Sunday edition of the Orlando Sentinel and tossed everything but the ads and the travel section, and it's not because of all the Visit Disney! propaganda either.
One wants to wash after reading a Mark Morford column. I have already remarked upon the silliness of Revolve, a repackaging of the Bible as a teen fashion magazine. Morford somehow got hold of a copy, and went into his predictable sweaty froth:
"Revolve" devolves the teen cause. Not a word about how individuality is cool and self-exploration is way bitchin' and that they themselves are divine, are all-powerful, and that sex is a gorgeous powerful wondrous sticky joy to be respected and enjoyed and explored and consented upon and well learned. Heaven forefend. That way debauchery and hellfire lies.
There's more, bizarre assertions that the Christians behind the book want to turn its female readers into "well-Valiumed housewives" (yep, it's right there in the NT: "And let the little children come unto me, that I may administer them their sedatives..."), references to "convoluted, slithery" things, and so on. Like Eye On The Left says, creepy.
(PS: anyone get the title reference? You probably won't, unless you're my age.)
Well. That was an odd and rather upsetting email to receive: someone I have never heard of who happened to have as their email name (the first part of a yahoo.com email name) the same combo of words that I used a couple of months ago to register as a domain name (for a site not currently for public consumption) sent me an alternately wheedling and snippy missive complaining about the fact that I had done so before this person thought of it.
Strange. Back when I was trying to think of a domain name for my bit of internet real estate, I naturally searched first for my own name. At the time I found that most combinations of "Andrea Harris" that I wanted were already taken. It never occurred to me to send these people an email berating them for registering the "andreaharris" combo before I was able to. In any case, I sent a reply to this person. I was polite, I think, but I also made it clear that I was not about to "give" my domain name to this person because they had an email address using the same word combination, and because, apparently, they felt that I had registered the domain as some sort of personal attack on them.
PS: It seems that now most combos of my name are free, except for .com. Anyway, this isn't me -- my painting style is somewhat different. And I'm not her either.
Here's another idea that antiwar groups have been putting forth as a reason to be against the Bush administration's handling of the terrorist threat: the idea that their actions re Iraq and elsewhere have caused us to "lose the friendship of the rest of the world." Friendship? What friendship would that be?
But these sentiments have long prevailed in Jordan, Egypt, and France. During the 1990s, no one said good things about the United States in Egypt. It was then that the Islamist children of Egypt took to the road, to Hamburg and Kandahar, to hatch a horrific conspiracy against the United States. And it was in the 1990s, during the fabled stock market run, when the prophets of globalization preached the triumph of the U.S. economic model over the protected versions of the market in places such as France, when anti-Americanism became the uncontested ideology of French public life. Americans were barbarous, a threat to French cuisine and their beloved language. U.S. pension funds were acquiring their assets and Wall Street speculators were raiding their savings. The United States incarcerated far too many people and executed too many criminals. All these views thrived during a decade when Americans are now told they were loved and uncontested on foreign shores.
Face it, puppies: the ROTW was never America's "friend" -- for one thing, that word is meaningless in international relations. And we were never universally loved before September 11th either. What we were, perhaps, was ignorant and/or in denial of the depths to which much of the world had sunk into envy and hatred regarding the USA.
If Americans have one overriding flaw, it is this puppy-doggish need to be liked. Our national lack of self-esteem is one of the few American products that people in most other countries, especially what I call the Thug World Nations, have not snatched up. On the contrary, I think that you will find that one thing our enemies do have is plenty of self-esteem -- they lack esteem for others. (This is another unpleasant truth that many peacniks don't want to face -- the idea that their Dear Victims of American Hegemony should actually possess monstrous, Hollywood celebrity-sized egos. But that is for another rant.) And the citizens of most other countries outside the so-called "Anglosphere" seem to also lack that need to be loved by the rest of the world. They think, in time-honored tribal tradition, that wanting to be loved by a bunch of foreigners is a puzzling, if not perverted, desire. (The fact that American patriotism pales in comparison to the excessive nationalism of other nations is also for another rant.)
It's too high if these people are the ones who have to be abandoned. It makes me furious to read whine after whine from anti-war fools who claim that we never should have invaded Iraq. There are a lot of "never shoulds" when it comes to US doings with Iraq, but this particular invasion isn't one of them. But the antiwar contingent isn't really interested in Iraq or its people; they are too obsessed with their ridiculous, one-sided battle with a president they hate because (fill in the blank with some stupid, trivial reason). The Iraqi people and what they want matter not at all to the peace-at-any-price crew; in fact, happy, prosperous Iraqis give them one less victim to use as a prop for their bloated egos.
No, I don't much like pacifists these days. It's real easy to sit there on your ass and piously proclaim your disapproval of nasssty, dirty war and violence. Making speeches and forming Committees to Frown Sternly at Naughty Dictators are much easier than actually going into the places where the naughty dictators are; you don't have to get your hands dirty, and the press loves you because they get free coffee and donuts, and don't have to get shot at. Freedom of speech isn't a substitute for the necessity of action, but you won't hear that from the moralizers preaching on the sidelines.
Article via Random Jottings.
Concerning this story about a US Army Muslim chaplain being detained for possible spying:
Yee left the Army for Syria, where he received religious training. He returned to the U.S. military soon after.
(I also commented further here.)
Update: via Kathy Kinslet, this article in the Washington Post, which has further details Yee's conversion to Islam:
He converted to Islam about the time he served a stint in Saudi Arabia after the Persian Gulf War. After quitting the military, he spent four years studying Islam in Damascus, Syria, and returned to the United States a trained imam.
And we know what sort of Islam is practiced in Saudi Arabia. It's getting more and more difficult to ignore that imam behind the curtain...
Aux armes citoyens! Defend France from the evil Friedman beast!
Amour sacré de la Patrie
Conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs
Liberté, Liberté chérie
Combats avec tes défenseurs!
(Source.)
This is very cool -- via Cronaca comes this report of some findings about pre-Columbian civilization in the Amazon:
Now Michael Heckenberger, of the University of Florida in Gainesville, and his colleagues have excavated and mapped 19 villages, roads, trenches, bridges, agriculture, open parklands and working forests in the Upper Xingu region of central Brazil. "The folks who lived there were clearly not simple," says Heckenberger.
The archaeologists used satellite imaging and global positioning technology to map the traces of the settlements.
The internet is kind of slow tonight. Is it Isabel, or all those people online blogging about Isabel?
I'd like to thank the kind reader who sent me the dvd of The Two Towers.
Via the still-dry (on the outside, anyway) Michele, this news station has set up a blog -- "(Web log)" -- for people to post their pictures and stories of Hurricane Isabel. It's up to four pages already.
The weather here in Florida was gorgeous, by the way. Not a cloud in the sky (they all headed north to join the party) and the temperatures were even a little cooler (70s) towards the late afternoon.
These US Army veterans have made this kind offer to our Islamofascist friends.
(Via Apostablog.)
I suggest that before this situation occurs again, Meryl acquire: the soundtrack to The Omen; a long, black robe (preferably high-collared, or even better, hooded -- but one of those decolletage-revealing Morticia gowns will do in a pinch); one of those long barbecue lighters; and some tall, black or red pillar candles. Put the candles on a table by the door, add a bowl (a suggestive stain of some dried substance on the bottom -- ketchup, or coffee -- will add to the effect), some dead flowers, and a figurine of a gargoyle or skeleton or something (it's Halloween -- you can probably get cheap plastic crap at the dimestore). Have the robe hanging ready on a hook by the door. Have the cd in the player cued to start. When that knock on the door comes again, flick on the cd, light the candle with the lighter (incense would also be nice, the real churchy kind), and pull the robe on. Then open the door. Of course, this would really go over well if you had makeup on that made you look like a zombie, I'm thinking white Halloween face makeup with green lipstick and black eyeshadow (again, cheap at the drugstore at this time of year!) --
Then again, maybe this is too much trouble to go through.
Na--aah!
The title is not a dis of anyone but the name of my favorite band in just about the entire universe. Some of you oldsters might remember this band, which was briefly dragged into the spotlight in the States back in the eighties by a John Hughes movie, and then dropped more or less out of site over here once the burnish of whatever-it-was wore off ("So, it's another Scottish band..." "Is that the band Bono likes?" etc.) I had stopped listening to them for a few years myself, and had almost forgotten them (or would have if it were not for the ubiquitousness of that song that the "rock" stations here still dig out every month or so). Then for some reason I dragged out some tapes I had made of my LPs, and then dug out my portable cd player. I had purchased Neon Lights a while back; it is a surprisingly good set of cover songs. I had forgotten how good Jim Kerr's voice was; in my chase for The Different!* in everything I had dismissed their post-Breakfast Club output as bland, studio-smoothed pop. (More on their music later; I'm too tired to write up my review, and I have others pending.) Their official site makes you register to read anything except the first few pages, but it's free. And they have a blog of sorts; so far it seems to be mostly the lead singer's diary, updated every week or two. The entry for this past August 1st has some amusing tidbits. On tour in countries nowhere near me, Kerr confronts a whiny fan:
Afterwards I want to sign some autographs and talk to some familiar faces. But all I get is a guy complaining that we did not play "Catwalk". I apologize sincerely. He complains again. I smile and apologize. He complains a third time so I tell him that it is not always possible to play every song, and that since last year we have played more than 50 or so songs including " Catwalk" many times and we will be playing more as the year progresses. He complains again, telling me that we always play the hit songs
and ask me why we have to do this? I tell him that there are no rules but some logical conclusions. He says, like what? I say that despite our hardcore following, the reality is that most of the people who go to rock shows are initially drawn with the prospect of hearing the hits. I tell him
further that I am sure that if we did not play the hits, then promoters would soon become reluctant to promote our shows, and no shows in our case eventually means no more band!!! He tells me to fuck off!.
Eventually, and to the singer's relief, the troll -- I mean, fan -- stomped off after declaring he would never attend another Simple Minds show.
Kerr gets a phone call:
My ex wife Chrissie Hynde calls. We have not spoken for a few months but I always enjoy hearing from her. Read Daniel Pinchbecks " Breaking Open The Head"
Any unconscious irony there? Nah. He doesn't strike me as the type. Right.
Kerr is greatful for modern inventions:
I need to go to bed somewhere quiet, somewhere with air conditioning. I need to go now!
Train food seems to have gone even further downhill in Blighty than the depths it had reached back in '81 when I went:
I am not complaining and I should appreciate my seat in the first class compartment, but after the buffet trolley comes round the whole place stinks of cheese and pickle sandwiches. Ohhhh! Get me back to the continent please!
Cheese and pickle sandwiches in first class? (Shivers.)
By the way, if my nattering on about some defunct eighties band has bored you, then.... Bwahahaha! Made ya look!
*The Different! was mostly Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, and suchlike bands. They don't really seem as Different! now as I once thought.
Update: edited a zillion times, because I really should be sleeping.
Update the second: what does Jim Kerr and Saddam Hussein have in common? All is revealed!
If being conservative means being this ridiculous, count me out. Michele has apparently been relieved of her VRWC membership, and isn't the least bit sorry.
For the record, I believe that the government's duties should be confined to: the upkeep of the roads, the defense of the country (which yes, often means giving the enemy, whoever he might be, an ass-kicking on his own soil if necessary), and to provide for the weak and helpless in order that they may become strong and productive. I have always been told I was a conservative because I didn't think any of these measures could be forced to include paying for a bad artist's bad art, or Penile Implants for Hermaphrodite Wannabes, or what-have-you. I didn't think that the very idea of providing a piece of meat, a slice of fruit, and a roll to some poor kid was the slippery slope to Communist Doom. But what do I know. Let's just keep on paying for that War on (Some) Drugs, try not to pay any attention to that gun-control regulation quietly breeding under the fridge, and keep the budget to name every footpath and birdcage in West Virginia after Senator Robert ("Grand Wizard") Byrd full! That's not a waste of money -- that has entertainment value. And you can get a good deal at the auction on BMWs snatched up by the RICO act. In the meantime, I hear the uranium mines need small workers; hey, single ma, we've found a way to make your kid pay for those lunches!
Ken Layne has has put a band together. They are recording a CD. (Read this classic account of a studio management mishap.) Take that, music biz!
At last, a web site language course that teaches one the important phrases. Samples:
We would like to buy some blubber.
Orssorsiniarpugut.
Have you stolen my budgie's turban?
Tu ai furat turbanul canarului meu?
I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear.
Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.
Thanks, Tex!
Update: and perhaps the most useful phrase ever, in 102 languages! Thanks to reader Don. Hey, it could happen!
Check out this animation: Drawn Girl. I like it.
The beat-down goes on. (See this post for my response to the Twenty Chores Things.)
Autumn is approaching: the fogs have begun. I went out today and saw a nice thick mist had made everything beyond about fifty feet disappear. Gollum would have approved.
It will burn off quickly today, though. The temps are supposed to go into the nineties.
Meryl Yourish fact-checks Reuter's ass. Again.
Allah Is In The House. (A funny site, but it gets serious here. No really, go visit. Via Out of Lascaux.)
Via Amy Welborn comes this news of a new edition of the Bible -- one "designed to resemble a fashion magazine," called Revolve (yes, they even renamed it). It's supposedly aimed at teenage girls, because as we all know, teenage girls are stupid:
We at Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville did some research and found that teens don't read the Bible. They say it is too freaky and too big and it doesn't make sense. The only thing they read is fashion magazines, so we thought, What if we made the Bible look like a magazine?
What if you left them the frack alone? Oh well, all babies have to eat...
Badgers. And Mushrooms. And a snake and something blew up. Hold me, Mommy... (Bad influence.)
(Update: okay, I'm back in my silly mood so this is back up. I changed the date to today's.)
All the kitten armpits you could possible need!
Well, I have been seeing this message in peoples' blog comments from "Haleh" -- for example, the latest one appeared here, and I am sure that one of my posts had this same comment in it a while back -- about this "BLOG-IRAN" thing. I was (and still am, a little) rather suspicious -- what if this was a link to a kyddie pr0n site, or a viagra-reseller, or something of that nature? But it seems legit enough, and there are lots of links to matters Iranian. I don't have the time or the inclination right now to research it, but it looks like an interesting site. I wish they'd use something other than blogspamming to get the word out, though. Hint hint, guys -- off-topic posts in peoples' comments piss them off, no matter how worthy the cause. If there is a way for you to get the word out via email without being spied on by the mullahs, you might want to look into that instead.
And that is my semi-good deed for the day.
I had a silly post up here but I decided that I was too pissed off to leave it up so it's gone to draft status for now. My apologies to the person I trackbacked; the post will be back later.
Kim rules, everybody else (including me) drools:
And for those Perpetual Handwringers who wonder when we're all going to Get Over It and Move On, my answer is:Never.
To use one of my favorite quotes from the movie Tombstone: "You called down the thunder; well, now you've got it."
I also like Rumsfeld's quoted statement about all the Taliban fighters "pouring" into Afghanistan: "The defense secretary said this week the Taliban's regrouping gave the U.S. an advantage, since larger groups of Taliban fighters are easier to find and attack." Dumbasses. A further note to the French: this is what a culture that has never grown up on cowboy movies thinks is a real smart move. "Hah! We shall throw all our mighty warriors at the American forces at once! When the infidels see so many of us coming to kill them, they will be overcome in terror and turn to flee! Then we shall cut them down with our swords!" Sure, Ahmed, we'll skedaddle right on out of there, just as soon as we press a few of these here buttons...
What is this all this moaning about how "graphic," and "shocking" and "disturbing" the photos of the people falling off the World Trade Center are, and how we "shouldn't show these images" on teevee or on the internet or anywhere, because it is all somehow "too upsetting." What utter b.s. I don't remember all this fussing and fuming last year. Why is it suddenly too disturbing now?
Update: LOOK. REMEMBER. Or don't. You don't have to click.
Eric Muller is mad at Glenn Reynolds for briefly posting a photo of one of the people who fell or jumped off the World Trade Center two years plus one day ago. Here is my open letter to Mr. Muller (I was going to post this in the comments but I decided it was too long for Haloscan):
Dear Mr. Muller:
At the end of your rant, you say: "I'm arguing that a responsible journalist (of Instapundit's sort) ought to give his readers at least a measure of control over when, and under what circumstances, they see such an image." This sentence, an updated addendum to your post, has so many things wrong with it that I hardly know where to begin. Let's start here:
With all due respect, what the hell are you talking about? There's this thing in most browsers called a back button. You use the mouse thingie or use the trackball or pad thingie to put the cursor thingie over said button, and click. The bad web page will go away. You can also close the browser entirely, or you can avoid all media including the internet. That way you will never be bothered by any bad news that is not under your "control."
I'm really not understanding your position here. You are angry at someone for posting a picture of something everyone commenting on your site has already seen? (You don't mention never having seen pictures of the people falling from the towers. If you have not, then maybe your shock is understandable.) Can we say "misplaced anger"? What about focusing your anger at the proper target -- at the terrorists who made those pictures possible by causing the event so pictured, and at their many fans, supporters, and apologists?
Oh, but I see that you already have a position on that. You think that blogs, like newspapers, need an editorial board akin to that of a newspaper. And you somehow -- by some twisty thought process that I can't fathom -- think an elite group (which is what an editorial board is) deciding what goes into a paper somehow gives its readers control over the content of that paper. Right. Does that mean that I can call up the Orlando Sentinel and demand that they run whatever story I want to read? Because that would be really cool.
No really, this is ridiculous. Massive readership or not, Instapundit is a personal blog. There is no way you can demand or expect him or any other blogger to dumb down, pretty up, or safety-net any of the content of their personal blogs beyond whatever anti-pr0n rules their hosting services demand. Reynolds is not a "journalist" -- he writes opinion columns for some publications, and links to news he feels is of interest on his own website, but he is under no obligation to post or not post anything at anyone else's demand. I can only echo the sentiments of most of the other people who were so mean to poor little you, and tell you that if you really can't stand the idea that you might go to someone's website and be confronted with something that is shocking and disturbing, then you need to stop going on the internet.
You may now re-assume the fetal position. Everyone else visit Jessica's Well.
Update: even better said.
Last update I swear: here is Glenn Reynolds' post on the matter. He has links to even more articles -- some featuring The Pictures.
Johnny Cash and John Ritter are both dead. Links to the stories are on Primal Purge.
I am not surprised to hear about Cash; his wife passed away a few weeks ago I expected him to follow her soon. John Ritter apparently had a heart problem no one knew about, though. I liked him even though I couldn't stand his most famous work, Three's Company. (Link to CNN story from Daimnation.)
And speaking of blinders, the New York Times continues to act as if Arab terrorists give a shit about Westerners killing other Westerners:
Death came from the skies. A building — a symbol of the nation — collapsed in flames in an act of terror that would lead to the deaths of 3,000 people. It was Sept. 11.But the year was 1973, the building Chile's White House, La Moneda, and the event a coup staged by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
(Via The Daily James.)
Bjørn Stærk on the tendency by many Europeans to ignore or downplay the terrorist threat in their own countries in favor of trendy anti-Americanism:
Part of the problem is the investment we've made in the idea that the Americans had it coming, or at least are only making the problem worse by fighting back. This makes it even more difficult to swallow that we too are targets. The implications are too shattering for our worldview, so we take the easy way out, and downplay the danger. The terrorists will be more than willing to allow us this illusion - up to the very moment they strike.
Yup.
Well. Instead of saying anything about September 11th I ended up not saying anything at all. Except.... I'd like to thank Greg Hlatky for posting the quote that is now featured in my header. I think I used to have it up there, but I had forgotten about it.
And here is this from Richard Bennett's entry today about his memories of that day:
I've seen a lot of the world outside the United States, living in Libya as a child and in India, Singapore, and Malaysia as an adult, and I've seen a lot of politics as a former lobbyist in Sacramento, but this was beyond politics. It was also beyond the usual goofy fanaticism of the Muslim religion with its call to prayer five times a day, its strict dietary rules, its fear of women and its maniac fasting month when people sit on the curbs in Malaysia with bags of fruit juice in their hands waiting for the Imam's call to break their fast at the official sunset. This was insanity and a viciousness that breaks all the human boundaries around conflict and war and aggression. This was a direct attack on perfectly innocent people who had no stake in the governance of the Middle East, no responsibility for the backward condition of Arab states shackled to outmoded values by corrupt mullahs and political leaders mis-educated in Western universities suffering under the burden of fashionable ideas long ago and no interest in oppressing their counterparts halfway around the planet. This was beyond all of that, a new standard of bad behavior that could only be captured in old-fashioned words like "evil".
Yes.
Update: what marc said, especially this:
I may not entirely like the way the war is being fought, but there is a war going on. One declared upon us. You can pretend it isn't or doesn't have to be there, but don't give me a surprised look should the gun ever come to your head. The choice is not between fighting this war the way it is being fought now or walking away. The war will be waged by them whether we fight back or not. The division of with us or with the terrorists was not made by the President, merely acknowledged. The terrorists are the ones who divided up this world. So you're damned right I'm going to be angry. I'm angry that I've been marked for death along with everyone else in this world. Not subjugation, but death. I'm angry that when they attack, my death is the goal, not an unfortunate part of getting their target. I'm angry that I am that target, not because I'm special or that my name is on some list, but because I exist. I'm angry that should these people manage to kill me, someone else they want dead will shake their head and try to blame me in the shameful hope that their tsk-tsking somehow protects them.
Wandering back to elderly post on Harry Potter, it occurred to me that there is a certain type of hyperintellectual personality that is unable to enjoy any work of art that does not have any depiction of overt sexuality, and who therefore are unable to understand how anyone else could have any sort of interest in a book or movie or what-have-you that did not have a scene of someone humping someone else (or at least have a lot of thinly-disguised allusions to sex, sexual organs, and so on). See the frequent utterances of commenters in the thread complaining that there is "no sex" in the Potter books (about a character who is a preteen and then only a young teen, yet).
Also, the "sex" so sought is invariably that which traditional society once saw fit to call "deviant" -- everything but sex between husband and wife for purposes of procreation -- but which these days is almost boring in its ubiquitousness if not its respectability. In other words, maybe there was something to those admonitions of bourgeois grandparents to their charges to "get your nose out of that book before you go blind!"
I'm sure they truly feel this way, I merely want to throw up:
September 12 can be our ongoing reminder of those positive emotions, a way to remember and repeat that surge of warmth and togetherness.This year we're launching a simple experiment to create a cascade of positive emotions on the 12th: Let's each commit to making ten people smile on that day.
Michele isn't interested either.
Note to self: perhaps I should go back to black; apparently that color scheme is a pest deterrent.
No, I don't like it, but I am too tired to futz with this thing any more tonight. The background image is okay, but I am really dissatisfied with this color scheme. I hate "web safe" colors.
Don't mind me, I'm just futzing around with the look again. Today was the first day that the weather had that autumnal feel (or as much of one as Central Florida gets): the sunlight had that certain silvery cast, the lower temps are down in the low seventies instead of the mid-seventies... and so on. Time for some changes.
Apparently there was some sort of PBS show on the World Trade Center, that was stuffed with useless commentary from the usual pack of fools. In her commentary on the piece, Sheila says some very wise things about the value of anger. Sample:
We need to remember. Not to dwell, not to sink into victimhood, cherishing our wounds. No. We need to remember, because we will need our anger to get through the tough times ahead. We will need to remember what was done to us, in order to face the challenges. Are we up to it?
Read the whole thing. (Via Give War a Chance.)
Concerning the use of a piece of steel from the World Trade Center in a new boat the Navy is building, aldahlia says:
I'm glad that the steel is being put to use, but on the other hand... isn't that kind of tacky?I mean... here you are on a boat made out of steel that fell down on top of and tragically killed many, many people. It's obviously not the luckiest steel on earth.
I don't think that I'd want to be on that boat. It'd be kind of like bringing up the Titanic and making a bunker out of it.... it's just.. morbid.
Plus, I mean... here's steel that was used to kill people, being used on a boat that will be used to kill people. It'll be the roving death boat.
And, what happens if the thing sinks or dissappears into the Bermuda triangle? Aren't they taking a risk with that?
If I still thought there was any possibility that I could communicate with aldahlia I'd ask her just what the hell she was talking about. Am I to believe that a comparison can seriously be made between the sinking of the Titanic, which was wholly the result of human error, and the deliberate destruction of the World Trade Center by religious fanatics? And what is this strange superstition that a piece of steel, inorporated into the body of the ship, will somehow make it an "unlucky" boat because... because... Help me out here. And... "tacky"? This whole post -- it's just sad.
And the dummies just keep on coming. What am I, the Iraq of blogs? Oh well, you send 'em, I'll destroy 'em.
Once again, the rumor (long debunked) that Bin Laden family members were ferried "secretly" out of the country while the post-September 11th flight ban was still on is oozing back into the light, here, and in the comments here. This really pisses me off.
You know, it hasn't been even two years. They are still burying people killed in the attacks -- or at least burying what they can of them. Another videotape of planes going into the Towers has surfaced. It is still clear, at least to me, that Americans had war declared openly on them by power-hungry totalitarian fanatics, and we can't afford to go back to our previous stance of "Oh, they are just blowing off steam, ignore them, they are only foreigners." But some people would rather focus their rage on the victim, because that victim was us. This stance of -- I don't know what to call them, blame-the-victimers? -- reminds me of the attitude of wife-beaters towards the spouses they have just battered: "It's your fault, you made me angry. I wouldn't hurt you if you didn't make me angry."
Okay, I have had it with the apparent plague of stupidity that has rendered people unable to grasp the very simple and (I thought) obvious points I have been making in my last few posts. And now I find that not only are some people not getting the points of my individual entries, they are not even understanding what this website is all about. Case in point: one "cj" leaves this comment in the previous post:
Nonetheless, your comments seem to proscribe certain "sensitivities" based on your personal likes or dislikes.
After calling me a wanker to boot. Well, I'd rather be a wanker than a total numbskull. Allow me to expand upon this for the slow:
FOR THE LAST TIME -- YEAH, RIGHT, EXACTLY, IT'S MY OWN OPINION BASED ON MY OWN LIKES AND DISLIKES. NO FUCKING SHIT, EINSTEIN.
Jesus, people are stupid. Do they actually come here thinking I give a shit about what they think and do with their own lives? What, am I supposed to be Ann Landers? Hello, this is my personal website diary thingy. It's all about me. ME, Andrea Harris. I never thought of this website as more than a venting place, a place where I could practice my typing and my web-stuff, and blow off steam.
Sure, I think the world would be a peachy-keen place if everyone thought like me. Yeah, we should all be middle-aged spinsters who spend too much time indoors on their asses. You know, I never thought of my blog as the the Holy Sepulchre of the Church of Spleen, and that I was the purveyor of the Truth that will lead to mankind's salvation; this idea comes from somewhere else, maybe the dumb saddoes who are earnestly lecturing me that I am only expressing my own opinion. Yeah, and water is wet, fire is hot, and you shouldn't drink Draino. Who knew?
Follow Shell's advice. Jim at Jimspot isn't interested in following these instructions. Probably a good idea; stalkers are so 1999.
Seriously, I can't be a woman, none of this stuff makes me think of "melting" at all. And I can't even think like this -- "Give her the remote"? "Give" me, hell. My fuckin' teevee, Mister, get you're own and play with your own goddamn remote. And I don't use makeup much, and I certainly don't have orgasms over those few shades I like. "Oooh, honey, you got me Satin Plum from Avon! Let's have hot monkey sex right now!" It's not World War 2, whale fat isn't being rationed.
Yes, I know, I'm being cruel to a sister. But geez, why can't we stop perpetuating this Harlequin Romance bullshit? It's destroying more marriages than the cholera killed Bangladeshi children. Take that "Don't try to figure out what is bothering her just hold her" myth. I can tell you right now (and this is not just from my own experience but those of female friends and things I have read and Deep Female Intuition and I am also breaking the rule of the Sisterhood by telling the world a secret of the female psyche so this may be my last blog entry, mwahahaha...) that when a woman is mad -- excuse me, "upset" -- the last thing in the world she wants to hear, see, touch, smell, or taste is the man in her life. Men, if your wife/girlfriend is stewing about something, my advice to you is, if you can't flee to Alaska, to just start a fight. You'll get into one anyway, best to just get it over with. See, if you try to do that figuring out thing -- and you know this -- you will catch forty kinds of hell. But if you take Shell's word and try the cuddly approach, the first thought that will go through your dearest's mind is: "He wants to have sex! When I am so pissed off/depressed/whatever! How could he be so insensitive!" The fact that this is true does not mean that men deserve the resultant tongue-lashing/frying-pan attack for what is, after all, a natural (and otherwise welcome) reaction.
Then there is the laughable idea that men should take their female partners out and select a "fabulous" outfit for them. Unless your husband or boyfriend's last name is Blackwell, you know what that will really mean: a beeline straight to Victoria's Secret. Not that there is anything wrong with that store, but come on. Most men think women look "fabulous" when they are naked, except for a red lace garter belt. I don't think that qualifies as "an outfit." (If his last name is not Blackwell and he uses the word "fabulous," well, ever, then you have a different sort of problem altogether.)
"Always take her side." Great, bring back that old notion that women are basically amoral, emotional creatures with no sense of honor, reason, or accountability. Thanks, Melvin Udall.
"When she's working on something, come up behind her and kiss the back of her neck. Just because." When she jumps and shrieks, and the back of her head hits your nose and breaks it, blame Shell.
"Write a message on the mirror with your finger. When she gets out of the shower, the fog will show it." I don't suggest "Redrum."
"Schedule a professional portrait sitting for the two of you." Oh my god. I would kill anyone, male or female, who did that to me.
"Dry her after her shower." Far from making me melt into a pool of amorous reflection, this sends me straight back to childhood, and my mother rubbing me down with a towel after my bath. In other words, I would feel as if I were being treated like a toddler. "I can dry myself, thank you," is likely to be my reaction.
Shell is a woman Unlike Me, in that she likes that whole being treated like a fragile, delicate thing routine. I on the other hand hate that kind of crap, because it means I have to just sit there and I can't do any fucking thing I want. I'm not five, I'm not at Grandma's wearing my Sunday dress and the white gloves with the warning that I had better not get them dirty and look she's so sweet she's mama's precious angel oh god spew. I can't go on, I really can't. I made it to "read her a fairy tale every night," and I have to stop. Any further that way madness lies.
Crooked Timber mocks this choice bit of blog buffoonery (bloffoonery?) from YACB (Yet Another Conservative Blog -- sorry, but they are no longer an amazing and rare phenomenon) Right on the Left Beach:
Lefties just cannot stand back and take an honest look at their agenda and supporters and admit the truth — they would rather be living under Stalin’s Soviet Union than the United States headed by President George W. Bush — they will defend without logic any lefty miscreant that supports the lefty agenda. Lefties crave power at all costs."
Heh heh, yeah, that is pretty stupi--
Uh oh, what do we have here, from the comments to the Crooked Timber post (scroll down to "anna's" comment):
Actually, I doubt that we should even be called lefties. We’re not actually “on the left”. I just think that we have the ability to take a few steps back and see the whole picture. That is probably the only generalization about conservatives that I am willing to make, they cannot (or perhaps just don’t want to) see the whole picture.
Never mind.
Oh, look, I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy and stuff. Apartment hunting and getting used to the new job (remember that scene in Office Space where they took the fax machine out to the field and smashed it up to hip-hop music?) and so forth. Also, I haven't had any interesting thoughts lately. My apologies to those people who got into my previous blogged arguments, I haven't forgotten the subjects I raised, I just haven't had the time or inclination to sit down and get into anything again.
So anyway. I have Ken Layne's new cd to listen to (thanks, Ken!) and I'm working on a new project (just a personal one, and I really haven't been working on it very hard) but mostly I am dead-dog tired. Bleh. Oh well, that's the end to this edition of the dread Personal Blogging Stuff That No One Important Cares About. (No links, I am sure that people of that opinion are legion.)
Castro-admirer Leesa, in this post on September 11th, provides an object lesson.
Out of lemons, Tim Blair makes lemonade.
In this post I asked, considering a certain fuss over maiden-in-distress:
But I wonder -- would there be a similar linking of arms and presenting of shields for a single mother-to-be who was a not-particularly-attractive or intelligent person of no importance who was unknown to any of these doughty males?
Here is the latest comment, from brave knight Ray James:
i dunno, andrea. maybe if you could get yourself laid, we'd find out.
It's always a great boost to the ego to get compliments from around the world. I am sure that Ray's way with words has females flocking to his door; I know my aged heart fluttered just a little bit. Enjoy your new friends, MADAME SESE-SEKO and all her cousins, and that nice "Vickie" who has so much Viagra she is willing to let go at EIGHTY! PERCENT! OFF! Something tells me Ray needs her services.