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October 2003

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I've decided to adjust the format of the blog.  I was going to wait until the turn of the year, but I'm so excited about my new idea that I just want to start now.  I'm going to switch to a week-at-a-time format.  Each week will be filled in with updates, and then the next Monday I'll start with a blank page again.

Liberia has withdrawn diplomatic ties to Taiwan.  The kind of thing that insures politicians have direct access to hell.

Hooray for the pizza man! Ten year pizza delivery man intervenes in attempted rape.

When women around you develop a habit of falling down the stairs and dieing...

...eventually you get put in jail.  For life.

Other news in justice: A convicted child molester who was placed in the same Florida jail cell with one of his victims was beaten unconscious Thursday. (WRAL)

Actually, I just fell down the back stairs.  The second time in a year.  The first time was the ice storm, so that's a good excuse.  This time it was slimy wet deck.  Last time my butt was perfectly black.  This time I think I got my butt, both shins, and both arms.

     I screamed for Lawrence, who didn't hear me (either time).  This time I got some commentary after I hunted him down: "Is the deck okay?  Or you broke the deck too?"

From Will's blog:

"That’s when I stopped talking to the Major and started talking to God. At least I know that he has answers."

Abbie the Cat has built herself a fort.

There has been a very bad smell coming from my book bag for the last two weeks.  In the car, or sitting at work, the smell would waft by.  I searched through my bag a few times looking for a scrap of food or whatever was making the smell, but I didn't find anything.

     When I got to work this morning, I decided to get serious about it.  I took out my books, my planner, my papers.  I cleaned out the bags and scraps of paper at the bottom of the bag.  Here's a photo of what I found (it was flattened from the books, so I just put it in the scanner):

fast  |  good

The dh watched Gangs of New York for the third time this morning.  The accents are hard on his English skills and he fills like he is still missing some main elements of the movie...

Saturday we went and saw Anne Garrels, on if 16 U.S. reporters to remain in Baghdad throughout the war, speak about her Memoir, Naked in Baghdad.  Yes, she wrote the book in a month.  She said the only time she talked to her husband was when the phone rang and they both picked up at the same time.

     Usually I'm completely surprised by the appearance of people that I've only spoken to or heard on the radio, but Garrels looks exactly like I imagined.  Nonetheless, it was strange to see a real human being talk with that weird speech pattern she has.  If I had one question to ask her, it would be what accounts for that accent.

     She was charmingly aware that she is having her 15-minutes of fame -calling herself the "flavor of the month"- and withering about her fellow reporters that created the phenomenon. She explained that she is still the same person she was before and that she had done much more dangerous reporting.  She rolled her eyes at the "one of only 16 reporters to stay" label.

     Okay, so Anne Garrols is getting her 15-minutes, but who better to hold up in front of our young women?  An intelligent mature woman, with principles and courage.  A lot better than the last female war correspondent to get 15-minutes, the self-proclaimed slut Deborah Copaken Kogan (Salon article here).

     She spoke of the evaporation of Saddam's people when U.S. forces entered the city.  Not only that all the journalist minders disappeared, but that there were empty uniforms laying in the street.  Apparently soldiers had been prepared to simply strip off their uniforms and go on in their civilian clothes.

     She mentioned the statement by a U.S. spokesman that (aprox. quote) "we don't count Iraqi deaths", which I also heard on the radio.  She explained that that press conference was broadcast inside Iraq and Iraqis heard him say that they count U.S. military deaths but not Iraqi civilian deaths.  Could I comment on how outrageous that statement is?  Every job I have ever had, I am accountable for my work product.  Men whose job it is to choose life and death are held under less accountability than I am?!!  I've been meaning to write my representatives...

     For the most part Anne Garrels doesn't discuss political opinions or predictions.  She held to that during her speech, and after dodging several questions one person asked her, "How hard is it for you to avoid making a statement about the [US] administration?"  She explained what she had already ably demonstrated, which is that she simply doesn't.

     That being said, she made the statement that "we can't afford to fail" in Iraq.  Explaining that even if there aren't serious weapons or threats there now, there will be if this is badly done.  The response that prompted in me is "isn't that what a quagmire is?"  We thought that we couldn't afford to fail in Vietnam.  Communism would take over the world; America would soon be threatened.  And the fact is that we did fail and it wasn't that big of a deal for the world (though it was disastrous for the Vietnamese).  So I get worried when I hear that "we can't afford to fail."  In a certain since, it guarantees an excursion into playing God.  It is a statement that says that God cannot be trusted to order the world.  And it is fundamentally a paranoid and insane statement.

     That being said, I understand that insanity empowers people to do great acts and change the world, and that God works through such people.  But still, you've got to be very careful with stuff like that.

We did not get a signed book.  I used to get signed books, but it causes a couple of problems.  First, you have all the competition and trouble of fighting to buy the book on time, get a good seat for the speech, and then get in line for the signing.  In this case the speech was in a separate building from the signing, and some people got up early and went over to get in line.  And how messed up is that?  Then, you are stuck with this signed book.  I have a bunch of signed books that I don't know what to do with; I don't necessarily want them any more.

     The dh is heavily inclined to avoid unnecessary competition and hassles.  As I've gotten older, so am I.  Competition warps your mind, and you end up doing crazy and rude things like walking out of someone's speech so you can meet her smiling to sign your book.  How do you look her in the eye?

     One strange little old man was desperate to ask Garrels a question.  Actually, considering his desperation I can be sure that he was going to be making a statement rather than asking a question.  I sincerely hoped that Ms. Garrels would use her 15 minutes to put the rude little old man down.  Actually, I think she may have chosen him a one point, but a quiet woman thought she had been chosen and asked a question instead.   Rude little old man should get a blog.

Watched Gangs of New York last night, and A Man Apart last weekend.  Which did I like the most?  After I watched A Man Apart I was left wondering why the formula is the way it is:

1. There is a good man and a bad man.

2. The good man loves his wife and friends.

3. His wife and/or friends are killed, injured, or threatened.

4. The good man tries to do his duty but he is foiled because he has the tragic flaw of having the mind and the self control of a child.

5. Eventually the good man captures/kills the bad man anyway, usually because the bad man is even more childlike in terms of mind and self control than the good man.

Is this grounds for Freud or what?  The "good" latency age child kills the "bad" infant.  But here I am watching Vin Diesel, and I wanted to see a manly movie about manly men.

     Contrast, Gangs of New York.  It seems like it isn't a U.S. movie; it seems like an Asian movie.  Story:

1. There is a child and a bad man (but just how bad is he really?).

2. The child grows into a teenager, who may be good or may be bad.

3. We learn more and more that the bad man might just be a little bit good.  Some really good (rich) people visit, and we see that they live in a childlike work (like Vin Diesel does in A Man Apart).

4. What is the teenager doing?  Is he just doing his best to get along in the world, or is he biding his time until he can commit a great moral act?

5. The teenager makes decisions about what to do.  It involves moral compromise.  His moral win is void the moment it is created.  Maybe the only person it changes is himself.

Gangs of New York it is- I want to watch movies about adults, thank you.

Another good movie: Hondo, with John Wayne.

Super Secret CIA Agent Married to Public Figure.  What I think is strange about this story is that revealing that she is with the CIA was supposedly (as the tale is told) a plot to discredit her husband. How, exactly, does that work? Is this requiring a presumption that the CIA is disgraceful, disgracing... whatever? Does the CIA want to be saying the opposite of what the husband is saying? So his association with the CIA (via his wife) and nonetheless his desire to say the opposite of what the CIA wants... isn't that more credible rather than less credible? I don't get it. (yes, I wrote this as a comment on someone else's blog and then stole from myself and put it back here...)

     The original Novak article- Mission to Niger

     The follow-up article- The CIA Leak

Rush Limbaugh.  A few comments.  First of all, ESPN is a bunch of morons.  It isn't like they didn't know exactly who they were hiring.  And then Rush Limbaugh isn't that far behind.  Not because he made a comment about a player being preferred by the media for being black.  If it were true, go ahead and say it, and if you think it is true, go ahead and say if you are Rush Limbaugh.

     What ranks Rush Limbaugh on the moron list is that he is the arch purveyor of the "they said" argument.  I think I would like to start a campaign to stamp out the "they said" argument.  If you think that journalists are overrating a football player, for whatever reason, then your argument should include references to specific statements from specific journalists.  As it is, however dumb the journalists may be, some team owner just laid out a lot of cash for this guy, so I can't imagine his value is just talk...

Citizen Smash has unveiled himself as the Indupundit and combined the websites.  You don't have to look back very far in my blog to see how clueless I have been.  Actually, I never really read Indupundit before, but I did think that Citizen Smash had never been a blogger before

I've been reading Yourish a bit lately, friend of Smash.  She considers her writing about cats to be an embarrassing embellishment on her otherwise deep-thinking blog, but I just loved this.

     Her week-at-a-time blog structure is also kind of an interesting idea...

Pink is not my favorite color.  I've always known that red is my favorite color, but I was experimenting with pink.  I'm trying to expand my understanding of femininity.  So far I've learned that is it isn't that I don't like pink because I'm avoidant of femininity.  I don't like pink because I like red better.  More, better, later.

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This page last updated 12 October 2003.

thecactus@loafingcactus.com

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