Fiat Lux

I was going to do an April Fool's post, but before I could write it, I noticed that an old friend from NY is off doing what I've wanted to do -- eating his way through New Orleans post Katrina. The first installment of his trip report is up.

Read 'em & eat.

Tommy, unconcerned about what hour it is, sleeps on.

Wow. Strong words coming from the Washington Post this Sunday:

Now that the GOP has been transformed by the rise of the South, the trauma of terrorism and George W. Bush's conviction that God wanted him to be president, a deeper conclusion can be drawn: The Republican Party has become the first religious party in U.S. history.

We have had small-scale theocracies in North America before -- in Puritan New England and later in Mormon Utah. Today, a leading power such as the United States approaches theocracy when it meets the conditions currently on display: an elected leader who believes himself to speak for the Almighty, a ruling political party that represents religious true believers, the certainty of many Republican voters that government should be guided by religion and, on top of it all, a White House that adopts agendas seemingly animated by biblical worldviews.

I'm not enough of an expert on 19th century American history to make a firm call on whether the extent to which today's Republican party has become dominated by religionists is unprecedented or not. You can definitely argue that other American political movements and parties have been deeply influenced by religion. Even if it is not unprecedented, though, it's still troubling.

I'm amazed that the Post had the testicular fortitude to say so, though.

Since my last post on the issue of how freaking much it has rained here in the Bay Area, it's rained pretty much every day since. If this is what Seattle is like (I wouldn't know, on my one trip to Seattle back in 2000, the weather was perfect the entire time), you can keep it.

I'm sick of it. I'm tired and cranky and generally unmotivated.

Some of this could be just regular second-half-of-the-semester workload issues combined with the job, but the weather definitely isn't helping my mood any.

Looks like this temporary worker thing is going to happen after all.

Businesses will love it.

Workers, not so much.

UPDATE: Maybe I posted too fast.

What he said:

There are well established processes for declassifying information which, in part, involve running the documents by people who supposedly should know whether revealing the information could harm national security or harm intelligence assets or whatever. So, whatever legal right the president has to declassify information at will is separate from the issue of whether any competent president would go about doing such a thing.

Whatever the legal issues, the president bypassed normal declassification procedures - put in place to ensure that revealing information does not threaten national security - in order to wage a political battle. Whether strictly legal or not, it's an act of a man who puts himself above the country. For shame.

I know, my blogging quantity and quality have both really slipped the past few weeks. The semester has entered its busy zone, the unending rain has had me down, and we're going home for Passover, which has added to the chore list considerably.

I'll try to get two or three decent ones up before we leave for New York, though.

Well, this isn't quite the post I had in mind when I promised a few new ones, but our pal Dragoncaller has posted some cute pix of his ferret Brutus.

... he's a big fan of classic horror flicks.

Comcast Corp. and Sony Corp will launch a horror films on-demand cable, Internet and wireless network on Halloween this year, an executive at the top U.S. cable operator said on Sunday.

Movies for the yet-to-be named network, which will debut on October 31 and expand Comcast's programing lineup, come from more than a thousand horror titles in the Sony and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer libraries.

Me ... not so much. That's OK though. One thing we've learned over the years together is that although we have a lot in common, some things we're never going to get the other person to like.

He's still getting mileage out of the time I got him to sit through The Piano. And I can counter with having had to sit through Species.

At least we agree that Big Trouble in Little China kicks ass!

This entry is titled with some words from the DC immigration march that I heard on the radio while I was driving home from work today. There were marches in 130 cities, I hear. AmericaBlog and Atrios got out to their local rallies & have photos posted. I wish I could have gone to one as well, but the closest I got was seeing some of the residual traffic from the San Jose march.

As I said a week or so ago, immigration is something I have strong feelings about. If America had not opened its doors to my mother’s parents – Polish Jews born in the early 20th century -- they would most likely have died in one of Hitler’s concentration camps. As much as I may complain about the things I don’t like about America, I never forget that my family and I all owe this country our lives. And I’m also not arrogant enough to think that we’re the only ones who deserve that good fortune.

So here’s my bottom line: unless there is a damn good reason to think that someone will not be a good citizen of America, we should allow him/her to come here and work for a better life.

Now, exactly how we do that, I’m not sure. We all know the system right now is broken. It’s not just the illegal immigrant problem – anyone who’s fallen in love with and married someone not from this country can tell you what an insane pain in the butt it can be to get their status settled, even when the person in question is here legally.

I recognize that there are some practical concerns that accompany an open door immigration policy and that not everyone who wants to come here is going to be able to come here. That’s Ok, we can work on it. But we need to start from the foundation belief that we want immigration and that immigrants are still welcome in this Land of the Free.

I’m also uncomfortably aware that this is another one of those issues that is being turned into yet another red/blue wedge issue by the Right Wing Noise Machine. As a lifelong resident of urban, coastal parts of America, people from other countries are a part of my daily life in countless ways. Immigration is not just about the people who pick lettuce or clean houses for people like me. In my America, my classmates, co-workers, friends and even family members come from all corners of the globe. For someone from Nebraska or even coastal states like South Carolina, you don’t see that so much. Small wonder they’re more inclined to see immigrants as “other” instead of “us”.

How do we combat that? That’s something else I’m not sure about. But we need to try.

Richie Gallimore.

An 11-year-old New Jersey boy saved a beer box full of kittens from a trash bin.

Richie Gallimore was taking out the trash when he found the box, which was taped shut. However, enough sound escaped for Richie to know there were kittens trapped inside.

"I heard baby cats meowing, so I thought, 'OK, I'll take them home,'" he said.

He and his mother contacted a rescue organization, and now the five kittens -- two females and three males -- are up for adoption.

Hat Tip: Renee, who also has a really sweet photo of the kitties.

We're heading home for Passover very early tomorrow morning and I need to pack, but I wanted to note a little something in the Bible that seems very appropriate both for the time of year and current events -- Leviticus 19:33-34 (NASB translation):

When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.

The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.

Hat tip: dKos.

Usually I try to get at least something on the blog when I travel but this was a particularly activity-packed 4 days in New York and I barely got online at all while we were there.

One of my favorite ways to describe New York to people who've never been there is that it's just like anyplace else, only much more so. Coming home again after a year away reminded me how true that is.

One of the things you tend to forget about NYC after you've been away for a while is the sheer sensory overload of the city. The noise, the activity level, the sights, even the smells come at you nonstop the moment you set foot outside your door. It's very intense. And you either love it or hate it.

I still love it. And miss it.

Some pix, and a cute anecdote about one of our nieces, coming soon.

The NYC pix are on Flickr. Here's one of my favorites, taken in the ladies' room of a small bistro on E 61st.

The entire upper half of all 4 walls were papered like this. At first I thought it was wallpaper but nope, it's all real labels from real bottles. Cool huh?

Who cares?

Bush gets rids of his spokesman? Ooh, big deal. The guy who is ordered to lie for him is going to be replaced by another guy who is ordered to lie for him. And this will significantly change the direction of this disaster of an administration how?

Bush also changed the head of the Office of Management and Budget - that would be his accountant, for all intents and purposes.

So, we now have a new accountant, and a new mouthpiece who simply parrots what Bush tells him.

Sundown tonight marks the ending of another Passover. And every year since I've been living on my own, the ending of Passover has meant that one or two semi-eaten boxes of kosher l'pesach matzah start to gather dust on a kitchen counter. I usually think to myself, "well, I'll eat them as a snack," but every year, sometime during the summer I admit to myself that there's no way in hell I am going to eat these now-stale objects that are taking up valuable counter space, and toss them out.

And then, of course, I'd feel guilty.

Last year, I had a small revelation. I could toss those leftover matzos into my Cuisinart and turn them into matzoh meal -- a breadcrumb substitute that Scott cooks with on a regular basis. No guilt, no waste. I have no idea why it took me so many years to figure this out, but better late than never.

So now I have a new end of Passover ritual: the pulverizing of the matzoh.

Yay me!

By way of World of Crap. The 'best' stuff is the second part of the piece, where WoC stops going into the shenanigans of Randall Terry and examines the latest sexist nuttery to come out of Wingnut World: sexual purity lockets.

"This locket and what it stands for is the sentinel of your heart. Here's why: from this day forward you will wear this locket as often as you wish. It will send the statement that you are waiting for your husband. It is more than that though, Sue. It has a lock on it. It can only be opened with this key. I will guard the key until your wedding. On that day, I will present the key to my little girl's heart to your husband. He will take the key and open the locket, the only one ever to do so."

As WoC says, nothing Freudian going on here, move right along...

Digby and Echinde have already weighed in on this, but I'd just like to add my sense of how uttery sick and creepy I find this overwhelming paternal interest in a daughter's sexuality. It takes the normal parental impulse to protect their child and pole-vaults right over into the land of obsession and even incest.

And, of course, there's who whole "why only girls?" angle. It's not news that many religious zealots are obsessively focused on women's sexual purity. As Echinde put it:

The only difference from the past is that the wingnuts can't possess their daughters in the same legal sense, so they have whittled the process down to the essentials: the sexuality of the woman is not hers but belongs to the male members of her family. This may also be linked to the idea of honor killings and other ways in which women's sexual behavior is interpreted as affecting the esteem of the whole family while men can run loose.

I do not have kids of my own, but I have a number of young female nieces and cousins. I've worried about their possible misadventures, but the thought that they should be literally or symbolically locked up and forbidden to act like people with their own autonomy is revolting.

Slightly belated Friday Cat Blogging.

Digby calls this an American problem, but actually I don't think it is all that unique to us. At various points in time, parts of Europe and the Middle East have definitely been afflicted with this set of delusions, and I daresay other parts of the world as well.

Granting the existence of cultural differences between the North and South, can we assume that they would necessarily lead to a Civil War? Obviously not. Such differences lead to animosity and war only if one side develops a national inferiority complex, begins to blame all its shortcomings on the other side, enforces a rigid conformity on its own people, and tries to make up for its own sins of omission and commission by name-calling, by nursing an exaggerated pride and sensitiveness, and by cultivating a reckless aggressiveness as a substitute for reason.

Maybe I'm cranky, or jaded. Or perhaps totally dense. But I really don't get why everybody is so upset by the Net Neutrality thing all of a sudden.

I’ve been going online since 1993, and for a significant part of that time, the Internet has been my business. I’ve seem more iterations of "the government is coming to tax your email!" than I can count. When I was still active in the ISP world, I heard about plenty of peering shenanigans that had the potential cut parts of the Internet off from each other. I remember when cable companies started offering Internet access and there was great hand wringing about their potential to cut off their subscribers from parts of the Internet because unlike telcos, cable companies were less regulated.

So when it hit the blogosphere today, my response was, "Oh. That again." (yawn)

This is about trying to squeeze more profitability out of the data pipes, not about “the bad guys are coming to take your blogs away!” Comcast’s execs could care less what you do with the Internet so long as they can make a fat profit off it. Since the US does not have laws on net neutrality, trying to create a tiered content system is an easy way to extract more profit.

That’s not to say that the issue isn’t a real one, but I’m a little confused why so many bloggers are letting themselves be scared by the boogeyman on this one. Here’s what I think will actually happen:

1) Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, and all the other large net-based content sites will get their own lobbyists to lean on Congress.
2) The FCC will re-issue their previous rulings on Net Neutrality.
3) Prices for fast bandwidth will go up. Comcast, Verizon, et al will blame the government for not letting them save the consumer money by creating tiered access systems where the content provider pays.
4) We all continue our merry way.

Now, I could be wrong, of course, but frankly I'm more freaked out by this.

So President Bush has weighed in on soaring gas prices. His ideas?

- Stop adding to the Strategic Oil Reserve
- Encourage DAs to go after price gouging
- Relax environmental regulations
and
- Tell oil companies to build more refineries

None of which even remotely begins to address the real underlying issues -- increased demand, reduced supply and price speculation due to global insecurity. (Gee, I wonder why people are feeling so concerned about the global situation. Could it be his warmongering about Iran?)

As usual, a completely incompetent response to a situation his own incompetence helped create.

Chain e-mail from my sister in law, but this one's a hoot. And very true.

You know you're from New York when...

1. You're 35 years old and don't have a driver's license.

2. You ride in a subway car with no air conditioning just because there are seats available.

3. You take the train home and you know exactly where on the platform the doors will open that will leave you right in front of the exit stairway.

4. You know what a 'regular' coffee is. (For you non-NYers, this is a coffee with milk and sugar)

5. It's not 'Manhattan'; it's 'The City'.

6. There is no north and south. It's "uptown" or "downtown." If you're really from New York you have absolutely no concept of where north and south are.... (and east or west is "cross-town"!)

7. You cross the street anywhere but on the corners and you yell at cars for not respecting your right to do it.

8. You move 3,000 miles away, spend 10 years learning the local language and people still know you're from Brooklyn the minute you open your mouth.

10. You return after 10 years and the first foods you want are a "real" pizza and a "real" bagel.

11. A 500 square foot apartment is large.

12. You know the differences between all the different Ray's Pizzas.

13. You are not under the mistaken impression that any human being would be able to actually understand a PA announcement on the subway.

14. You wouldn't bother ordering pizza in any other city.

15. You get ready to order dinner every night and must choose from the major food groups which are: Chinese, Italian, Mexican or Indian.

16. You're not the least bit interested in going to Times Square on New Year's Eve.

17. Your internal clock is permanently set to know when alternate sides of the street parking regulations are in effect.

18. You know what a bodega is.

19. Someone bumps into you, and you check for your wallet.

20. You don't even notice the lady walking down the road having a perfectly normal conversation with herself.

21. You pay "only" $230 a month to park your car.

22. You cringe at hearing people pronounce Houston St. like the city in Texas.

23. The presidential visit is a major traffic jam, not an honor.

24. You can nap on the subway and never miss your stop.

25. The deli guy gives you a straw with any beverage you buy, even if it's a beer.

That's New York, baby! Ya gotta love it.

Yesterday, I was chatting with a classmate who's graduating in three weeks. She mentioned that even though her MBA is almost done, she really wasn't sure what she's actually learned.

Obligatory snark about a couple of useless classes aside, you actually do learn something in B-school. For example, if I hadn't taken Macroeconomics, I would never have thought this was funny.

I could do without the "We're Columbia, we rule!" verse at the end, and it might be a bit unfair to slam Bernanke when he's only been Fed chair less than 3 months, but still, I laughed and sent the link to my econ prof.

While half of Columbia (or so it seemed) was hitting my blog today, I was out at PacBell / SBC / AT&T Park watching my Mets kick the Giants' butts. It was a great game. Perfect weather, good seats (Thanks Brendan!), and exciting play. I'm hoarse, sunburned, and exhausted, but I had a great time.

Unfortunately Bonds hit his 711th home run in his first at-bat (the bottom of the 9th) to tie the game, but even that turned out OK because his 2nd at-bat was a pop fly out to end the game.

After seeing Bonds in action, I've come to think that Aaron's record may be safe after all. Bonds' mobility is shot. He'll be lucky to make it through this year, and unless he leaves the Giants and becomes a DH somewhere else, I don't see how he'll be able to play through to another 45 home runs. He can barely take the field.

And in the "It takes all kinds to make a world" department, here's a guy who was sitting nearby in the stands:

Bear being lazy.

The news about a sex scandal in Congress might wake him up though.

Or maybe not.

Now you won't have to go to Amsterdam for that "special" vacation.

Possessing marijuana, cocaine and even heroin will no longer be a crime in Mexico if the drugs are carried in small amounts for personal use, under legislation passed by Congress.

The measure given final passage by senators in a late night session on Thursday allows police to focus on their battle against major drug dealers, the government says, and President Vicente Fox is expected to sign it into law.

That's going to be one hell of a tourist boon for Mexico.

Yes, I too saw the C&L video of Colbert at the White House Correspondant's Dinner last night. I think I annoyed Scott a bit when I went so far as to say, 'I want to have this man's baby,' but WOW did he kick ass.

Shakes & co came up with a bunch more ways to say how much Colbert rocks, and even granted him the coveted "Brass Balls" award.