April 2004 Archives

Like this funny piece in The Onion, "IKEA Claims Another 10,000 Lifestyles". It hits close to home, literally (there's one 10 minutes from my house.)

"The real problem isn't the furniture—it's actually been around for years," Greeves said. "The problem is the people who spread it. Many of them are embarrassed that they have it, but they show a brave face to the world and talk about low cost and convenience. What those who've contracted it won't talk about is the fact that IKEA is mostly self-assembled."

Greeves added that many people who have lost their lifestyles to IKEA started out thinking of full-blown IKEA home remodeling as "something that happens to other people."

...Greeves continued: "Those whose homes are infested with the IKEA fittings are mostly young and newly financially independent. They're not careful with their new freedoms. In a spontaneous moment, a chrome Stalaktit seems like a sensible lighting solution. They don't stop to think, 'Hey, this could be something I'll have to live with for the rest of my 20s.'"

My favorite part:

Karl Westin is an actor who came down with a truckload of IKEA when he moved from Seattle to Burbank, CA, in 1996. In recent years, he has spent thousands of dollars eradicating it from his house.

"For me, it started slowly," Westin said. "I had a Poang—it's a form of chair—and I just couldn't seem to get rid of it. That led to a lot of other things I'm not particularly proud of. I indulged in Leksvik, Branas, even a Svingen. If you don't know what those are, consider yourself lucky."

As I was walking back to work, I saw ten taxis drive by in a row, all blue, all advertising a new shark exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (which I'd love to revisit). Then I noticed each taxi also had a shark fin atop its roof. A clever, 3-D approach to vehicle advertising!

Wonder how they'd advertise Viagra, Levitra, or Cialis on the cabs?

I just got a horrifying piece of spam. The subject line warns me:

Caffine causes pen1s shrinkage

Say it isn't so! Oh wait, I'm female! Never mind. Phew!

I'm thrilled that the March For Women's Lives drew so many people. I wish I could have been there (I consoled myself with donations to Planned Parenthood and John Kerry's campaign. So should you.)

Me being me, I have to point out two of the most annoying comments I came across about the thing.

Well, considering that abstinence education without birth control education has been shown not to work, parental notification laws are bad for kids who have abusive parents, and the partial birth abortion ban is dangerously murky, I'd have to say that we can't all work together on those things. Because we don't all support them. That sure was a lot of people in that mall, eh, Mr. President? I don't think they like you much.

I bet Mr. Muench knows a lot about the development of the unborn child...

Edited to add: I also loved the guy I heard on the radio who said "I love life, I love babies, and I love Jesus." Note the absence of love for women in that statement. (Of course, had he professed such love, I'd still be more than a bit dubious.)

So Diebold Systems finds itself in the hot seat, and it looks like California is going to stop using a bunch of their voting machines. (I've switched to the permanent absentee ballot, myself.) I found this article in the Tri-Valley Herald fascinating because of its account of a very dramatic and emotional hearing (and by the way, are Diebold's developers and executives on crack?)... but what particularly tickled me was this paragraph:

I like the way phrases from reality shows have become part of our lexicon.

Andrew Sullivan writes in a recent posting about an initiative in Michigan to allow doctors to refuse treating people they disapprove of. He fears, quite rightly, that this will be used against gays. (It certainly violates the hypocratic oath, I would think.) I'm with him on this — what a terrible, terrible idea.

Then he loses me with this sentence: "I can see why some doctors should be allowed to refuse to perform abortions on moral grounds (except I doubt that any doctors are routinely put in that position)." Why can you see that, Andrew? Why should doctors be allowed to deprive women of treatment? Where do you draw the line?

At the end, he asks a relevant question:

"Why should it always be up to gay people to point this out? Are there no straight people prepared to stand up against this kind of thing in the G.O.P.?"

Well, Andrew, I'll tell you why.

Us liberals get accused of a lot of things, but let me tell you: we're imaginative. We ask "What if?" We picture ourselves in other people's shoes. "What if I lost my job? What if I couldn't find another one? What if I needed food stamps? What if I needed to go on welfare? What if I got sick? What if I got pregnant?" I'm not gay, but I know that if I were, I'd still want to be in a relationship and settle down, and darn it, I'd want my full rights. So naturally, I want people who are gay to get those things too. I've never been faced with the issue of an unwanted pregnancy in my own life, but I know that deciding whether to carry the child or have an abortion would be hard. I'd take it seriously, and I'd want good medical care either way.

Conservatives, on the other hand, often seem to judge others by their own standards (even if they can't live up to them themselves.) "I've never needed welfare, so why can't those people just get a job!??!" No compassion for "deadbeats." They didn't need help, so why should anybody else get it? Angry white men yelling at women walking into Planned Parenthood clinics. Hell, they didn't get pregnant, and maybe nobody they know did either (or at least didn't tell them about it), so those women who did "just made bad decisions." Christians who think it's their right to impose their religion on nonbelievers in public situations. They can't understand why people don't share their views or experiences. Surely everybody needs Jesus in their lives!

See, I suspect that if Andrew Sullivan wasn't gay, he wouldn't be so sensitive to the ramifications of the policies conservatives are trying to foist on us, because it wouldn't affect him personally. As a conservative himself, he just lacks imagination. Since he'll never need an abortion, it's easy for him to brush that issue off. And his fellow G.O.P. members who are straight don't have to worry about a doctor disapproving of their lifestyles, so should they rush to comment on an issue that doesn't apply to them?

They can't imagine why they should.

Updated to add: Michael asked me if I would want to force somebody to do something they believe is wrong. No, of course I don't. I believe people should only do work they believe is ethical. I also believe women have a right to get medical care that reflects what is best for them, not just the doctor's beliefs. Maybe there's a clash between the two, and it's certainly not a simple issue. I stand by my point that Andrew seems to have trouble imagining all the ramifications of his casual statement, and that his straight buddies have trouble imagining the problems with laws that won't impact them directly, no matter how much they may hurt somebody else.

Saw this on TalkLeft tonight; it's apparently been making the rounds by email.

None whatsoever. Heh.

Last week, I finished reading Sleepwalking Through History, about Reagan's tenure and its legacy. (Hint: we're living in it.) After that, needing a bit of a break from depressing nonfiction, I read two graphic novels in quick succession: Goodbye, Chunky Rice and Mail Order Bride. Fast reads, they are, but they've stuck in my mind. Goodbye, Chunky Rice is a whimsical tale about two creatures, a mouse named Grendel and a turtle, the Chunky Rice of the title, who part when the turtle goes on a long sea journey. The story is told partly through flashbacks showing their past relationship, and partly by showing the two of them going their separate ways, as Chunky settles in on the boat and Grendel ponders a life alone. Another plot concerns the man who takes Chunky down to the pier and has his own stories of loss to live with. Although some of the elements of this book are grotesque (those easily disturbed by violence against animals might have nightmares about one page), it is overall a sweet and touching story about the endurance of love.

The central relationship in Mail Order Bride, on the other hand, is anything but sweet. Monty, a geeky toy-store owner with a fetish for Asian beauties who lives in a small town in Canada, decides he can't stand being alone any more and sends for a "mail order bride." He wants a loving, subservient wife who will be happy to stay home and help him with his shop. What he gets is Kyung Seo, a woman who speaks English perfectly and yearns for "change." She takes art classes, models nude, and makes new friends, while he sits at home and fumes.

Naturally, the shit hits the fan eventually, and they have a violent confrontation that leaves them both with greater knowledge and understanding of each other, but no love.

Perhaps it's because I read the two of them so close together, or perhaps it's just because I am a pretentious ex-literature major at heart, but I found myself thinking about the themes these books have in common. There's definitely something in both of them about the importance of accepting the person you love for who they are. Grendel lets Chunky go, because she knows that he needs to. Monty and Kyung Seo, on the other hand, are tragically unable to appreciate each other or share anything about themselves.

What struck me even more about these books, though, was the way they touch on the way that people's possessions become a stand-in for love and connection.

In Mail Order Bride, we see Monty's collections, and his obsessiveness about them, through his bride's horrified eyes. She thinks they're tacky, but more than that, she senses that he uses them as a substitute for human interaction. But as things that become loved beings, the toys also get to be the target of immense cruelty. One small wind-up toy appears throughout the book, clearly adored by Monty (we see the relief on his face when it is tossed towards him and he catches it in one scene), only to be violently crushed towards the end by Kyung Seo as she takes out her anger upon the shop. She knows very well by this point that there is no greater way to hurt her husband — not even leaving him would sting so much.

Chunky tries to hold onto his possessions as well, but is not permitted to take most of them with him on the boat. He watches in horror as the captain tosses away his beloved Motown records into the water. He sits on deck and gazes longingly at a picture of him and Grendel, but then a big storm comes and the photo is washed away in the confusion. In the end, though, it's clear that the connection with Grendel remains, with or without all the stuff to remind him of her.

Good books.

"National security adviser Condoleezza Rice yesterday delivered a chilling warning that terrorists, emboldened by their deadly pre-election bombings in Spain, could strike the United States before the November election in hopes of influencing the presidential race. " says the Boston Herald.

If terrorists attack the United States, I will definitely vote against President Bush and for John Kerry.

If terrorists don't attack the United States, I will definitely vote for John Kerry and against President Bush.

Of course, if the terrorists happen to attack the Bay Area, and I am among the casualties, I won't be voting, but dammit, I would have voted against Bush!

Just wanted to be perfectly clear...

From CNN today...

Cheney, looking out for our freedom!

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney portrayed President Bush and himself as champions of the Second Amendment -- and Democratic candidate John Kerry as a potential threat to gun owners -- in a speech at the National Rifle Association's 133rd annual convention Saturday.

"John Kerry's approach to the Second Amendment has been to regulate, regulate and then regulate some more," Cheney said, citing votes against legislation that would protect gun makers from lawsuits and in favor of allowing federal authorities to randomly inspect gun dealers without notice.

And in a stunning display of the compassion and sensitivity one expects from Bush supporters...

Earlier in the day, Tom Mauser, whose son, Daniel, was killed with an assault weapon in the Columbine High School killings five years ago, tried to enter the convention hall where the NRA was meeting, seeking to urge Cheney to support extending the assault weapons ban.

Mauser was turned away by a security guard as several conventioneers applauded. A couple of conventioneers yelled "Get a life" and "Vote for Bush."

Lovely. Just lovely. Would that be compassionate conservatism in action, then?

From today's Chronicle forecast for Pieces: "Emotions erupt under the influence of volatile Uranus." EW!

So, what would you do if you were a drug company with a drug that was supposed to help men, um, you know... er... achieve, um... gosh, I can't say it! I'm blushing!

Drop the shyness and euphemisms, that's what! The latest ad for Levitra apparently does just that, according to CNN. 

The Levitra ad, slated to begin airing Thursday, features an attractive brunette saying the drug improves erection quality and how that experience increases her partner's desire to "do this more often."

"For him Levitra works -- just look at that smile," she purrs.

Meanwhile, Viagra is trying to capitalize on brand-name recognition and loyalty, while Cialis plans to stay the course. "Cialis' marketers have no plans to substantially change their campaign. The ads mention erectile dysfunction because it was the only way the companies believed they could fully explain the benefits of a 36-hour window of opportunity." Do tell.

If the makers of Levitra and Cialis are trying to gain name recognition, I have a modest proposal. Based on the amount of junk email and comment-bombing I receive invoking those two brands, I say we retire the word "Spam", give Hormel a break, and retitle those unwanted communications. "Oh, man, all that Cialis brought my server crashing to its knees." "If I get any more Levitra in my Yahoo Mail account, I'm going to have to upgrade to a bigger mailbox." Who's with me on this one? Anybody?

In the last couple of days, I have inspired controversy and debate, and earned the ire of 1) a guy who isn't really Japanese and thinks the Palestinians shouldn't have a country because they don't have their own currency or language and 2) a South African practitioner of the Nigerian scam. So I'm going to pick a topic that shouldn't inspire any controversy at all or piss anybody off.

What the hell is going on with store alarms lately? You know, the ones that detect if someone's trying to walk out the door with merchandise that hasn't been paid for. For some reason, I've been setting off alarms at several shops, from Dress Barn to Longs, lately. Not just when I leave, though — it happens when I walk in the door. It's very annoying. Is it my phone? Do I just look guilty or something? What? What did I do? Did the South African spammers sic them on me?

Oh, and I can't resist controversy or politics after all. John Ashcroft nobly testified today that it was all the Clinton's administration's fault. And Bush is on now speaking inspirationally and eloquently. They're both lying sacks of shit. I am so, so tired of having lack of support for Bush's stupid policies being equated to lack of support of the troops. Poor guys. There's nothing like slaving away and knowing your boss is an idiot, is there?

Oh, and memo to Bush: "Suiciders" is not a word.

So the White House has finally released the text of the August 6, 2001 briefing that President Bush received before going on vacation for a month. Condi Rice said that it was "history," and I suppose that, if you skipped the title and didn't read all of it, you might come away with that impression.

Still, you'd think that "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US" might imply some threat, no?

Not to mention "Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks."

and

"Al-Qa'ida members -- including some who are US citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks."

OK, so "We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ... (redacted portion) ... service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists. " is somewhat reassuring.

But then it's followed by "Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."

What would it have taken to get Bush and his administration to sit up and pay attention? A really simple PowerPoint presentation with a big bulls-eye in the middle of the White House?

I know, I know. Nobody was taking this kind of stuff seriously before September 11. Clinton's administration could have done more. Had Gore gotten to take office, the attacks could have happened on his watch. So we should talk about what Bush has does since September 11. Oops, that's been a colossal cockup too. I bet Gore wouldn't have responded to an attack from Al Qaeda with an attack on Iraq.

According to an L.A. Times poll, more Americans are opposed to gay marriage than support it.

I'm glad that a sizable majority are against writing discrimination into the Constitution, but discouraged that so many are in favor of it. We'd do well to remember that opposition to interracial marriage was even higher than this, several decades ago, and that perhaps individual life choices and civil rights shouldn't be dictated by popularity contest.

The same article also included a photo with this caption: "A supporter of the Federal Marriage Amendment demonstrates alongside a gay American flag at a march in San Francisco last week. The event was to affirm love and tolerance, but not same-sex marriage." Oh yeah? Since when do fundamentalists get to insert their marketing copy directly into "impartial" news websites? Grumble grumble grumble. I got news for you people. If you favor making your personal prejudices the law of the land, that ain't love and tolerance.

And one of their leaders there wants there to be no picnics, for real. Customarily Moroccan Jews have annual celebrations each year at the end of Passover, when they invite people into their homes and have lavish cookouts in parks. But now, this is somehow considered a bad thing.

"Sam Ben-Sheetrit, chairman of the World Federation of Moroccan Jewry, said Thursday that the yearly outdoor 'Maimouna' celebration boosts the stereotypes, and he wants it to stop 'because it humiliates us...We don't want to see any more Maimouna television pictures of Moroccans jumping up and down with glasses of (liquor) in their hands.'"

OK, first of all, those picnics sound totally cool. I wanna be invited to one. Second, Morocco has this amazing culture that nobody should ever look down upon. Also, I have a cookbook of Jewish recipes from around the world, and let me tell you... as much as I love matzoh ball soup and the odd gefilte fish, it's the Sephardic recipes that really make me drool. Perhaps the mocking stems from a culinary/cultural inferiority complex from somebody else? Hmmm?

So if I were one of those Moroccan/Israeli Jews, I'd happily ignore pronouncements against my picnic and go light the barbeque. Frankly, that sounds like a tradition that needs to be spread far and wide.

I don't have anything brilliant to say about Condi Rice's testimony (bad) or how the war in Iraq is going (worse). Bleh.

But there is this great article in The Onion this week.Information management can be such a dry subject; it's great to see a little search engine humor.

SUNNYVALE, CA—Hoping it will push them to the top of an increasingly competitive market, Internet portal Yahoo has added soul-search capabilities to its expanding line of search tools, company executives announced Monday.

"Capable of navigating the billions of thoughts, experiences, and emotions that make up the human psyche, the new Yahoo soul-search engine helps users find what's deep inside them quickly and easily," Yahoo CEO Terry Semel said. "All those long, difficult nights of pondering your place in this world are a thing of the past."

Go on, read it

My phone just rang three minutes ago. No number showed up on Caller ID, but I foolishly answered it. "Hello?" Long pause, and then an accented male voice, clearly Indian, said, "Hello Ma'am, I am calling on behalf of Sprint..." So I did my usual number. "Please put me on your do-not-call list." Normally, that little phrase works its magic, and the telemarketer will read me standard legalese ("I will change our records, please allow 4-6 weeks, during which time you may receive additional calls until the changes go through..." blah blah blah) and hang up. Not this time.

"Ma'am, I have no such list."

"You obviously aren't familiar with the law in the U.S. May I speak to your manager?"

Shuffling, then a woman's voice, also Indian. "Hello?"

"Hello. Apparently your employee isn't aware that he's totally breaking the telemarketing laws in the United States. You are required to honor requests from callees when they ask to be put on the do-not-call list."

"Oh. Heh-heh."

"So are you going to honor my request? Or do I have to totally sue you?"

More shuffling, then silence.

They actually broke two laws — apparently now companies are also required to unblock their telephone numbers so they display on Caller ID.

I think I remember getting a previous call from Sprint like this. The fuckers are using low-paid slave workers in India and weasling out of the telemarketing regulations.

In case you couldn't already tell, I'm really annoyed. Anybody else have this experience? Anyone have any luck nailing their sweat-shop running, third-world employee-exploiting, consumer-bugging asses?

A piece on the Pledge of Allegiance case in the Supreme Court:

"Patriotism is certainly a mark of a polity's moral soundness, and the Pledge is one of many splendid instruments for making patriots; but patriotism, as even the solicitor general notes, is a secular value. To cherish religion for its political utility is to cherish it narrowly, selfishly, consequentially, because it allows you to accomplish one of your objectives, because it works. American conservatives love to chant Richard Weaver's old slogan that ideas have consequences; but if you are chiefly interested in the consequences, then you are not chiefly interested in the ideas."

Hear, hear! And read...

This is a really creepy example of why the Unborn Victims of Violence Act is a bad idea. Many states already have similar laws on the books, and the result is incidents like this...

All part of our "war on drugs" I suppose. Ech. Wow. What about mothers who smoke during the early months of their pregnancy? Women with diabetes who aren't as vigilant as they should be about monitoring their blood sugar? Women who still exercise and injure themselves during pregnancy? How far is this going to go?

UPDATE: I have since learned that I needed to add an aliased email address to my list of addresses to watch. Since doing that, Postini is doing much, much better and I consider myself impressed now.

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I'm trying out FastMetric's Postini spam-catching service at work. So far... I'm not so impressed. Even with my settings cranked up to "agressive", I've gotten several false positives (mail that I actually wanted to receive getting intercepted by the service) while 80+ spams have merrily made their way to my inbox... or would have done, if not for the fabulous and free SpamBayes plugin for Outlook. SpamBayes "learns" what you consider spam, and learns it fast. 

The trouble with it, of course, is it can only do its thing once the spam hits our network. If Postini actually worked properly, it would be great because our server would be totally spared. I imagine Postini is somewhat handicapped by the fact that users can't train it easily. It has to rely on a set of easily broken rules for how to recognize spam, and as we have all learned, spam mutates by the day.

Meanwhile, at home, my Mail.app seems to have totally lost the ability to recognize spam of any kind or learn from previous examples. I don't know what happened... I tried a couple of suggestions I found online, but no dice. Sigh...

SouthKnoxBubba.net has a great post documenting Clinton's words and actions about fighting terrorism, and Bush's lack thereof. A sample:

Clinton's letter to Congress on the 4th of July, 1999, warning that "the actions and policies of the Afghan Taliban pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States" because they were hosting bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

Clinton's appearance on PBS's Newshour in January 2000, when he said that even though everyone kept talking about missile defense, the real threat was from "the likelihood that you'll have terrorists and narcotraffickers and organized criminals cooperating with each other, with smaller and smaller and more difficult to detect weapons of mass destruction..."

Clinton's letter to Congress in January 2001 as he was leaving, when he mentioned — yes! — that Osama dude again.

Bush, on the other hand, did some significant faffing when he got into office.

Could Clinton have done more? Yep. But at least he didn't waste time getting into a war that seems to be serving little purpose as far as international stability or national security are concerned and trying to pass it off as part of a "War on Terror."

(And for some reason, the Bush administration is suddenly awfully concerned about producing Clinton's records...)