Stop telling me where to live!

Atrios:

For some reason I'll never stop being surprised by the number of people who read a post which says something like "maybe it'd be a bit better if suburban developments didn't have a single access point" or "maybe it'd be a bit better if people could actually walk to the shopping center which is half a mile away but on the other side of the highway" and interpret it as "ATRIOS IS TELLING ME I HAVE TO LIVE IN MANHATTAN!!!

/snark

“At some point,”

At some point,
you start counting—
because for all your life
you want someone to love
and someone to love you.

And then, later,
you want to stop counting—
because for all your life
you want someone to love
and someone to love you.

What is in a name?

People of Lesbos take gay group to court over term 'Lesbian'

Three islanders from Lesbos — home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised love between women — have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word lesbian in its name.

One of the plaintiffs said Wednesday that the name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, "insults the identity" of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians.

"My sister can't say she is a Lesbian," said Dimitris Lambrou. "Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos," he said.

[...]

Very little is known of Sappho's life. According to some ancient accounts, she was an aristocrat who married a rich merchant and had a daughter with him. One tradition says that she killed herself by jumping off a cliff over an unhappy love affair.

Lambrou says Sappho was not gay. "But even if we assume she was, how can 250,000 people of Lesbian descent — including women — be considered homosexual?"

Using the term lesbian to describe a female homosexual is part of our culture now. And I understand the desire to differentiate female from male homosexuals. But I also understand the plight of these islanders. They are victims of identity.

Exonerated after 27 years.

A Dallas man who spent more than 27 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit was freed Tuesday, after being incarcerated longer than any other wrongfully convicted U.S. inmate cleared by DNA testing.

From letters:

Feb. 25, 1981: "I'm in jail while (her) murderer is walking the streets ... My Social Status in society is below you but I think everyone is entitled to justice don't you?"

June 24, 1984: "I don't know your `philosophy' of life, but I assume you wouldn't take a man's freedom just because you can. That's why I keep sending these letters to you in hope that you will realize that a grave misjustice has been done to me ... I've been locked up 3 1/2 years now and it's been really `frustrating,' but I won't allow anything to prevent me from obtaining what God gave me at birth and what is rightfully mine, my freedom."

It turns out this was more than a wrongful conviction: Illegally withheld evidence probably caused a man who will be exonerated today to spend more time behind bars than anyone in the country cleared by DNA, the Dallas County district attorney's office and the Innocence Project of Texas said Monday.

Mr. Woodard, 55, was sentenced to life in prison in 1981 for the strangulation and rape of his 21-year-old girlfriend, Beverly Ann Jones.

But information that Ms. Jones was with three men – including two later convicted of unrelated sexual assaults – around the time of her death was not disclosed to the defense nor was it thoroughly investigated, said prosecutor Mike Ware, who oversees the Dallas County district attorney's office conviction integrity unit.

Evidence that could benefit a defendant is required by law to be turned over to a defendant, though there is no criminal punishment for not doing so.

Mr. Ware said Mr. Woodard received a "fundamentally unfair" trial. He said he believes the evidence is something that prosecutors at the time should have investigated, "or at least turn it over so the defense could investigate."

Before the district attorney's office agreed that the DNA that exonerated Mr. Woodard of the rape also exonerated him of the murder – in itself an unusual step – a forensic pathologist examined the file and concluded that Ms. Jones was killed about the same time she was raped.

How do you we a man 27 years back? How do we prevent this from happening again? What if he had been sentenced to die?

On Reagan

I came across the following essay I wrote several years ago, when I was known as Honorable Mouse. I thought I would resurrect and share:

---

On Ronald Reagan

After thinking I would say nothing, other than the usual platitudes—that Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease and I wouldn’t wish it on my bitterest enemy and how I understand, to some degree, what the Reagan family is going through—worthy of a leftist who hated living under the Reagan administration, I have read with interest the condemnations and commendations, the hagiography and historiography, the hero worship and the anti-hero desecration which has accompanied the death of Ronald Reagan. I have reached a few conclusions.

Ronald Reagan is God. A hungry god, a benevolent god, a god who will not be appeased until every building, every highway, every park, every coliseum, airport, petting zoo, municipal water authority, auditorium, dog, cat, and every person, every single human being, is called Ronald Reagan. His name must be everywhere.

And it must be everywhere because Ronald Reagan was the greatest President in the history of the world—its all down-hill from here, America! His face should be engraved on Mount Rushmore, indeed all of the faces on Mount Rushmore should be his—let there be five Ronald Reagans on Mount Rushmore, smiling at us benevolently.

Ronald Reagan single-handedly mud-wrestled Communism to death. He rode Gorbachev through Geneva like a cowboy on a mule—angry that the beast couldn’t go faster. He is single-handedly responsible for saving Central America from Communism—he ordered the killings of Communist nuns in order to save Central American school children from the harsh rod of Communist atheism. Central Americans, and we don’t know who the hell they are, rejoice whenever they hear Ronald Reagan’s name. They rejoice even more now that he is dead.

Ronald Reagan won World War II. He went down with his bomber over France, died, and was resurrected. He rescued Jews from the death camps. He told a young, impressionable Yitzhak Shamir, pointing towards the death camp guards, “Be like them.” It explains a lot.

Ronald Reagan was a chimpanzee’s best friend. Off camera, he would groom the chimpanzee and the chimpanzee him. Bonzo was always Reagan’s best hair stylist.

Ronald Reagan made a deal with the Iranians, as part of his clever plan to be friends in secret and enemies in public, to not release the Embassy Hostages until after he had taken the oath of office. Ronald Reagan agreed to sell arms to the Iranians in order to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon, all the while saying, “We do not negotiate with terrorists”. Ronald Reagan thought Iran was, next to America, a better bulwark against Communism than Iraq. Ronald Reagan thought Armageddon should be between two peoples who believe in God, not between believers and non-believers. Non-believers made him feel funny, like perhaps there was more to life than simple platitudes and blind conservatism. He didn’t like them.

In a previous life, Ronald Reagan had been an aborted child. In this life, Ronald Reagan achieved enlightenment: he would oppose abortion and it would strengthen his political base. Ronald Reagan thought fetuses should have guns.

Ronald Reagan was all this and more—he would go out in cognito in his other identity as Don Regan to find out how his policies affected the working man. He was happy when they were poorer and more miserable—“At least you are not homeless,” he would say, “homeless people make me really mad.”

Ronald Reagan could never understand why people would be mad at him. The students at Berkeley when he was Governor, the AIDS activists, and anti-nuke protestors. Didn’t they understand, Reagan thought to himself, I’m not doing this for them, I’m doing this for my vision of America.

And what a vision it was: the shining city on the hill. A city of light and grace and beauty. Surrounded by squalor, and filth, and poverty. Unspeakable squalor. Forgotten squalor. Unimportant squalor.

That, Ronald Reagans everywhere, was Ronald Reagan.

lucida

These photographs are moments of movement—
Bedouin racing their arab stallions
across the sand—dancers walking through air
with the same ease as Jesus on water—
how can I translate this for you

these pictures of goalies mid-lunge,
of these racers caught without time
of these smiles made without effort—
you who have arrested my heart
forever paused in the shutter’s eye?

Much ado about nothing

Be afraid, be very afraid, of hackers!

The video, produced for the Homeland Security Department and obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday, was marked "Official Use Only." It shows commands quietly triggered by simulated hackers having such a violent reaction that the enormous turbine shudders as pieces fly apart and it belches black-and-white smoke.

The video was produced for top U.S. policy makers by the Idaho National Laboratory, which has studied the little-understood risks to the specialized electronic equipment that operates power, water and chemical plants. Vice President Dick Cheney is among those who have watched the video, said one U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because this official was not authorized to publicly discuss such high-level briefings.

[...]

The electrical attack never actually happened. The recorded demonstration, called the "Aurora Generator Test," was conducted in March by government researchers investigating a dangerous vulnerability in computers at U.S. utility companies known as supervisory control and data acquisition systems. The programming flaw was quietly fixed, and equipment-makers urged utilities to take protective measures.

First there's no money in it--almost all malware currently out there is designed to either garner personal information, or take over a computer so it can be used as a spam-bot (or both). Second, such an attack has not happened, and is not likely to happen. Regardless, everyone needs to take steps to better protect their systems and computers against hacks. Keeping supervisory command and control computers off-line seems to be common sense.

General Zod in 2008

Zod 2008 Campaign Headquarters

When I first came to your planet and demanded your homes, property and very lives, I didn't know you were already doing so, willingly, with your own government. I can win no tribute from a bankrupted nation populated by feeble flag-waving plebians. In 2008 I shall restore your dignity and make you servants worthy of my rule. This new government shall become a tool of my oppression. Instead of hidden agendas and waffling policies, I offer you direct candor and brutal certainty. I only ask for your tribute, your lives, and your vote.

The monkey's paw

This little tale starts with the classic "It was a dark and stormy night.", which is longhand for "fantastically good".

This is just sad.

It seems that whales can live a long long time: 19th-century weapon found in whale.

Just amazing

Go and watch.

Viva Roma

Rome Reborn.

Neat but I wish it had more web-tools.

Intensify

Another from Way Out West, from Intensify.

Let the beats roll

Let the beats roll, the latest from Tim Deluxe.

See you all when I get back.

spam blogging and nota bene

This blog has been identified as a spam blog.

Just another headache. (The headache is having to do the word verification at the bottom of each post... which I invariably have to do twice. I can't tell when letters are capitalized or not--or maybe its a mild dyslexia.)


N.B.: I will be away from my computer starting early tomorrow morning. So minimal posting at best until I return. Sometime next week.

Discourse and Intercourse, I. Prologue

Poetry is a martial art—
    its rhythms
                are the rhythms
   of combat—pacing—
  its words
                are etched with blood
                           with sweat
                           with body blows
its meanderings
        are long arms
                entwining
  its punctuation
                kicks,
                trips,
                hits to the head
its messages
              conveyed
                    in the silence
              after
                     the scream.

The Future of the Future

The Future of the Future from Deep Dish's first album, Junk Science.

Edmund the Confessor

The pay phone is broken.
The night manager reads the horoscopes
     from the day before—
does he ever think,
     “These aren’t for today.
          They were yesterdays”?
I don’t know,
and I don’t know if the pay phone
     has succumbed
     to heart break, existential pain,
          abuse, being used,
       or if it's waiting for an assignation.
I hear a woman, at the phone next to mine, say,
          “I’m here now”—
but I’m not,
          I don’t know where I am.
     My ink has already stained the bed spread.
     The ink bleeds now
          in the phone book.

I think Edmund the Confessor
will be waiting for me in hell.

The woman next to me gets up—
          I think she’s disappointed.
     I want to offer her a cigarette,
but more than that
I want to use the phone.
What am I doing here, I think,
     because I know this shouldn’t matter,
yet it does
and I don’t know why
I just move on.

A king, I remember, must always be a king.
A lover, once consigned to the role,
     must be a lover,
even if it's wrong.

Ajare

Ajare from Way Out West's first self-titled album which is sadly out of print.

the limit

                           “I confess to find
          Myself astonished by the outskirts of things:”
               —Sarah Hannah, from Cassetta Frame (Italy, circa 1600)


At first there were these little strips of wood,
then larger pieces, connected pieces—
I dislocated my jaw a few times—
large stretches of painted chamfered poplar
and when that picture frame was done—no rest—
my distorted mouth would open wider
for a rococo niello frame.

I wondered if I had swallowed some strange
emetic. For hours each day I retched
increasingly complicated pieces
carved gilded painted molded all designed,
or so it would appear, for some canvas
or photograph or painted panel.
(I began to feel incomplete.)

What was the meaning of this, this vomit,
that drove me away from my family
with my strange gurgling sounds of agony
and interrupted my work with visits
to my doctor, who, despite this piece
of walnut extruding from my
mouth, could find nothing wrong with me?

Perhaps my mouth became an artisan—
a form of glandular psychosis—
with dreams and ambitions and emotions
all unto its own, separated.
What could I tell the rest of me?
“Let’s stick together boys. The mouth
will come around. He’ll come around.”

But without my mouth to echo my speech—
strange how resonance adds authority—
parts of my body deserted me.
My left leg became a dancer,
jumping about in odd rhythms
and at odd times of day. My ears,
annoyed with my mouth, stopped listening.

Lame, deaf, and muted—spewing brushed alum-
inum with gold inlay—and writhing,
I had long lost what dignity
I may have thought I might have had.
I scolded my mouth, little good
that it would do: “It’s all your fault.
Why not make art? Why only frames?”

But we are all caught by the edges—
the edges between life and death,
hatred and desire, reason
and insanity, between breaths,
longing, friendships, loss, and heartache.
The border is where my heart gasps
and I redefine who I am.

I dance more often now, listen
more acutely, and speak more freely,
no longer hindered by spewed wood
(however beautifully ornate).
The absurdity of it all
confounds me. I should learn to paint,
if only to show off these frames.