Saturday, August 23, 2003
A Dream Remembered
Throngs of demonstrators from Washington and across the nation gathered at the Lincoln Memorial yesterday to commemorate the unprecedented civil rights march of August 1963, but some voiced frustration that the rally drew a far smaller crowd than previous anniversaries.
Elderly African Americans in wheelchairs joined children in strollers as the crowd marked the march that culminated in the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s electrifying "I Have a Dream" speech. The 1963 march, which focused on the inequities of racial segregation and the lack of job opportunities for blacks, drew 250,000 people and created enormous public support for the civil rights movement.
Yesterday, demonstrators insisted that despite significant progress, King's goals of social and economic justice have not been fulfilled. The rally attracted not only veterans of the 1960s civil rights movement, but a panoply of activists from other causes: feminists, Arab Americans, gay men and lesbians, those seeking statehood for the District.
[full story]
Are there still people like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mohandas K. Gandhi today? The only people that spring to mind are Arundhati Roy and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and neither of these folks could be accused of spearheading a revolution. Maybe we don't need a true revolution, but we certainly need change. Who's going to lead us? I guess if we take the lead, our leaders will rise up first to follow — then eventually to lead — us.
I guess that's the plan.
Unless someone's got a better idea?
Posted by Me at 17:42 link
Friday, August 22, 2003
The Interview Game
The Rules:
1. Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I'll respond and ask you five questions.
3. You'll update your website with my five questions, and your five answers.
4. You'll include this explanation.
5. You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
My questions were provided by Syaffolee. I had read her interview here.
1. Did you ever envision yourself doing what you do now when you were a kid? If not, are you surprised at the path you have chosen to take?
When I was a kid, computer science seemed akin to rocket science; I never imagined I'd end up in this field. My answer to "What do you want to be when you grow up?" has evolved considerably over the years:
- Age 5 — Astronaut
- Age 10 — Professional baseball player
- Age 18 — Naval officer
- Age 19 — Professional musician
- Age 21 — Psychologist
- Age 25 — Wanderer/seeker/shaman
- Age 35 — Productive member of society (which has led me into computers)
If there are no good jobs available next Spring when I finish my degree, I may go back and finish my Psychology degree. Sadly, there's little remaining hope that I'll become an astronaut or a professional baseball player.
2. How did you come about naming your weblog? Did you stumble on it accidentally or is there a rationale behind it?
Both, really. In January of this year, I stumbled across my friend Ian's web log. I enjoyed reading it, and decided I wanted one for myself, since I'd long been sending my friends lengthy, link-rich e-mails. In February, I clicked the "Powered by Blogger" link on Ian's blog and realized how easy it would be to set up my own blog. I was listening to the radio while I did this. NPR was off the air temporarily, so I was channel surfing and, just as I was wondering what to name my blog, I heard "Misty Mountain Hop" by Led Zeppelin on the crusty-old-classic-rock station. Although the song has next to nothing to do with mountains, I've always loved the song's opening riff and muscular musicality, and I knew mountains would be an integral part of any journal of my life. The key mountains in my life, the Blue Ridge, are among the world's mistiest!
3. I've noticed that in many of your entries, you have included a mini-playlist at the end of each post to indicate the music you are currently listening to, which is to say the least, quite diverse. How do you go about finding these songs and what type of music (if any) is your favorite?
Music has always been a cornerstone of my life. As Duke Ellington may have said, I believe there are two kinds of music: good music, and bad music. Also like the great Duke, I tend to like the good! So I listen to everything! In the course of a single day, I'm liable to listen to classical, jazz, blues, rock, pop, rap, country, bluegrass, techno, latin, Hindi, bhangra.... If I were to list everything I heard on a particular day, that would make for an enormous blog entry! My CD collection leads me to believe that my favorite type of music must be rock/pop.
The songs I list sometimes are actually the music swimming around in my head at that moment. Shortly after I started the blog, a friend mentioned they had a particularly annoying song stuck in their head (I believe it was "The Ketchup Song" by Las Ketchup), and asked if that ever happened to me. I proceeded to list about seven songs currently running on my "internal playlist." They suggested I should post a list of the music in my head sometimes, so I've been doing that.
Where do I find the music? I often have the radio playing, or the media player on my computer. "A friend of mine" uses this crazy thing called Kazaa Lite to sample a huge variety of music. If "they" hear a snippet of music "they" like, or hear about an artist, "they" will often download a song or three to hear what's up with it. More than a few times, that's led "them" to buy someone's CD "they" wouldn't have bought otherwise. Sometimes "they" will check out the playlists of folks downloading from (or uploading to) "them," which has led to a number of interesting discoveries. In "their" increasingly-rare spare time, "they" also check out Allmusic.com, where they can learn about artists and their music. For instance, check out Danílo Perez; after reading his bio, one might check out his music via Kazaa Lite, then perhaps buy a CD. To find other music like his, one could repeat the process with the Related Artists and other links listed on his Allmusic page. At least that's what "my friend" does. Of course, "they" share everything with me. Sotto voce: I can say no more.
4. Has there been anything that you have regretted not doing when the opportunity presented itself?
Not really! Every once in a while, I'm a little sorry that I dropped out of the Naval ROTC, or that I didn't finish my BA degree the first time around, but those were conscious decisions carefully made, and if I had them to do over, I'd probably reach the same conclusions and take the same actions.
5. In an electronics/computer store, what is the first section that you head to once you get in the door? Is there any particular reason why?
Right now, it's the CD-R media section. I'm always on the lookout for bargains. Must be the Scottish/American thing! I've paid about $10 for the last 300 CD-Rs I've purchased (counting rebates)! A year ago, I headed straight for PCs, but that ended shortly after I found a great deal (of course) on the one I'm using now. So, really, it's just whatever I'm interested in at the moment. Come to think of it, lately I've been checking out digital cameras more than a little....
In the News
Al Franken 1, Fox News 0 A federal judge in New York ruled Friday that Saturday Night Live alum Al Franken does, too, have the right to use fair, and and balanced, in that order, in the title of his new book.
....
In rejecting Fox's argument, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin called the network's lawsuit "wholly without merit, both factually and legally."
....
"In addition to thanking my own lawyers," Franken said after the ruling, "I'd like to thank Fox's lawyers for filing one of the stupidest briefs I've ever seen in my life."
[full story]
As a direct result of the publicity from the lawsuit, Franken's book has gone from being a very modest seller to being the #1 Book on Amazon.com's Top Seller list.
Alabama Chief Justice Suspended in Ten Commandments Row
A state judicial review panel suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore with pay Friday for defying a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the State Judicial Building.
An ethics complaint against Moore will be heard before the state's Court of Judiciary -- made up of three judges, four lawyers and two nonlawyers -- which can censure or remove judges from the bench.
The eight associate justices of Alabama's Supreme Court voted unanimously Thursday to overrule Moore and comply with U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson's order to remove the monument.
[full story]
[Backqround:]
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP)--A federal appeals court twice rejected requests Tuesday from the chief justice of Alabama's Supreme Court to lift an order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building by midnight Wednesday.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Chief Justice Roy Moore's request for a stay Tuesday morning, and Moore immediately asked the panel to reconsider. Tuesday afternoon, the appeals court turned him down once more, saying he had failed to ask for a stay within the legal time frame after it ruled against him July 1.
Moore, who installed the 5,300-pound monument in the rotunda of the judicial building two years ago, contends it represents the moral foundation of American law and that a federal judge has no authority to make him remove it.
The 11th Circuit earlier this year agreed with a ruling by U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson, who held the monument violates the constitution's ban on government promotion of religion.
[full story]
I have no problem with the State telling me not to murder (commandment 6), not to commit adultery (7), not to steal (8), or not to commit perjury (9). In each of those cases, I would be infringing upon the basic rights of another citizen, in other words, harming them in a tangible way. The rest of the Commandments are none of the State's business. [read more about the Commandments]
More to the point, a person placed in authority by the state has no business showcasing his religion on State property. If Justice Moore wishes to display the Commandments on his property, he's perfectly welcome to do so. Personally, I believe a lot more good can be accomplished by displaying Buddhism's Four Noble Truths. But not on State property.
What bothers me most about this case is how many of my fellow Americans support Justice Moore's actions, not realizing how much of threat such behavior poses to our most basic freedoms. Then, too, a lot of Americans probably think Fox News really is Fair & Balanced.
Posted by Me at 20:07 link
Thursday, August 21, 2003
Why Chocolate Rules My World
A recent study seeks to explain why the mere thought of chocolate makes me salivate like a dog — like a DOG, I tell you!WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists who trained volunteers to react like Pavlov's dogs to peanut butter and ice cream said on Thursday their brain scans help explain why we fill up on dinner yet have room for dessert.
The volunteers were conditioned to become hungry when they saw certain abstract pictures, just as Pavlov's dogs salivated at the sound of a bell, the researchers said.
"Instead of using a bell and meat powder, which is what Pavlov originally used, we used visual pictures of little intrinsic significance and coupled those to food smells," said Dr. Jay Gottfried of the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience at University College London.
Gottfried was trying to explain what he calls the "restaurant phenomenon."
"You sit down to your eight-course meal for your birthday and you have gone though all the appetizers and entrees and just as you feel you can't fit one more thing in your tummy, then they bring the dessert menu or the dessert cart rolls by and suddenly you discover you have room for the chocolate fondant," Gottfried said in a telephone interview.
"This is specific satiation -- you are full of one thing but not another."
The phenomenon may help explain why diets fail, but it also sheds light on how the brain works. Gottfried, who reports his findings in Friday's issue of the journal Science, said he wanted to find out how the brain learns.
"We wanted to look for brain regions that showed decreased activity going from pre- to post-feeding," he said.
LIVE BRAIN SCANS
The 13 volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging -- a way of looking at brain activity "live" -- while doing what they thought were simple computer tasks.
Gottfried and colleagues showed them abstract, computer-generated images while at the same time wafting their way the odors of either vanilla ice cream or peanut butter.
"At various points before, during and after scanning we asked them to give us pleasantness ratings for the smells," Gottfried said. Unconsciously, the volunteers began to associate the images with the smells.
Then they fed them either peanut butter or ice cream.
They imaged the brains again and found strong emotional responses to the smells got weaker after the volunteers ate the corresponding food.
A person's response to the peanut butter odor changed after eating some peanut butter, but a vanilla smell made the brain light up again. Eventually, the abstract picture associated with vanilla evoked the responses, but again they weakened after the volunteers ate.
Gottfried said specific brain circuits are involved in this process. The researchers found heavy involvement of the amygdala -- the area of the brain best known for processing emotions -- and the orbitofrontal cortex.
"If every time you drove past a McDonald's and saw the golden arches, you felt compelled to go inside and get a Big Mac, this would be destructive after time," he said.
Something must tell the brain when to respond and when not to, and this does not necessarily stop at food.
"Whether we are talking about food or sex or even things on the aversive scale such as dangers and threats and predators, the brain also needs to know how to update ... and modulate these associations so you don't get stuck in a rut."
Or put on 50 lbs in two years, like, uh, this friend of mine did.
I maintain a healthy weight as long as I exercise A LOT, as in 1 or 2 hours a day. Or more. Regardless, my appetite leads me around by the taste buds. I'm having a terrible time retraining myself to enjoy fruits and veggies as much as cookies and fries. Oh crap! Why'd I have to think of cookies and fries!
For my own safety, I tune out, mute, or switch off all food advertising. This has resulted in my watching very little television for quite some time.
Probably, I should become a mountain guide. Yep.
Music In My Head:
Posted by Me at 22:42 link
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
What Now?
The Bush administration, under pressure to improve security in Iraq following the devastating bombing of the United Nations' Baghdad headquarters, revived a discarded effort [Wednesday] to win U.N. Security Council support for a broader international role in policing the country.
....
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will fly to New York [Thursday] morning to discuss a new resolution with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who criticized the administration yesterday for poor postwar planning. A U.S. official said, "It's time for the international community to stand up and do more."
....
In a letter to Bush [Wednesday], two of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's most senior members called on the president to grant a broader role to the United Nations and recruit more police and military units from other countries, especially from NATO allies. A "genuine international effort" is needed, wrote Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.).
....
It remained unclear [Wednesday] how far the U.S. administration was willing to go to win support. One official said Bush's advisers supported the effort "in principle. When we get a little farther down the road, we'll have to see what the specifics are. Obviously, if it started to go the wrong way, there would be problems."
A French diplomat described the prospective U.S. move [Wednesday] night as a "cynical" attempt to "take advantage" of the suffering of U.N. staff members. One council official said that if the resolution simply asks for money and troops but delivers no significant sharing of authority in Iraq, the measure "will be unacceptable."
[full story]
Everybody's in a tight spot. The U.S. faces a dilemma: give up some control in Iraq, and lose the ability to claim we won the peace; or, don't give up any control and risk losing the peace completely. Ordinary Iraqis are caught in the middle of a violent political tug-of-war among a number of factions: the U.S., radical Islamists, self-interested exiles.... and of course, a number of other countries. As for the U.N.,The UN has been in a difficult position in Iraq - one which, if not redefined, may become impossible.
It has been subservient to the US and UK and has not restricted itself to humanitarian operations only. If it had, there might not have been an attack.
But, using its mandate under Security Council resolution 1483, it has played an advisory role in setting up the Iraqi Governing Council, many of whose members are anti-Saddam veterans.
According to Iraq specialist Toby Dodge, Senior Research Fellow at Warwick University, UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello himself, who died in Tuesday's bomb, was "clearly associated with the formation of the Iraqi Governing Council.
"This helped to make the UN a target," he told BBC News Online.
"The attack might also have been intended to block off any American retreat using the UN. This was a potent and diabolical message - that even the UN is unacceptable."
The decision has to be taken therefore about whether the UN does more in Iraq or does less.
If it does more, it lays itself open to further attack. If it does less, it shows itself to be irrelevant
[full story]
I hope the international community can rebuild Iraq to the point that it can govern itself — quickly. Otherwise, it appears the situation is going to keep getting worse.
Meanwhile, I have a new hero....
ROME, Italy (Reuters) -- Active 102-year-old Italian looking for love and marriage. Promises can still deliver the goods.
Centenarian Salvatore Bordino, a father of five who is an avid clay-pigeon shooter, can't understand why he is having trouble finding wife No. 3.
"I have a house, a pension and I can carry out all my manly duties," Bordino, who lives on his own in the southern Italian region of Calabria, told online newspaper Il Nuovo Wednesday.
"I'm looking for a beautiful woman, who is in the best of health. I still haven't called it a day on certain activities."
[story]
Ladies? I mean, seriously, sounds like you could do a lot worse....
Posted by Me at 23:06 link
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Iraq Manages To Get Even Uglier
Despite yesterday's post, I'm a little baffled by this latest horror:BAGHDAD, Aug. 19 -- A truck bomb exploded outside U.N. headquarters here today, killing at least 17 people, including U.N. special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello, in one of the deadliest attacks ever directed at a U.N. facility.
Witnesses said that at about 4:30 p.m., a cement truck crashed into a security wall under construction on one side of the Canal Hotel, which has served as U.N. headquarters since 1991. The explosion brought down the entire corner of the three-story building where Vieira de Mello's office was located, sending flames, smoke and dust high into the air and leaving a five-foot-deep, 15-foot-wide crater. It also heavily damaged the National Spinal Cord Injury Center hospital and a tourism training institute next door and scattered pieces of the truck's twisted chassis up to 200 yards away.
Red Crescent ambulances and U.S. military helicopters ferried dozens of wounded workers, guards, visitors and patients from the spinal hospital to medical facilities throughout Baghdad. American soldiers, Iraqi police and fire rescue workers dug with their bare hands to find survivors and bodies.
[full story]
I've been lobbying for the U.S. to turn over control of Iraq to the U.N.. I would have thought the Iraqis would also favor the U.N. as opposed to the U.S., but maybe they just want all foreigners out ("they" meaning whoever bombed the U.N. Headquarters).
Somebody explain this to me, please. Better yet, just wake me when it's over— or rather when it's time to vote.
Posted by Me at 20:11 link
Monday, August 18, 2003
Welcome to Reality 101
Lesson One — Mother NatureBeneath its dreamy mantel of snow, Mount Rainier is an active volcano, and it is rotting from the inside out, especially on its western flank, which drains toward population centers. The volcano has a long, spotty history of spontaneous collapse and massive mudflows called lahars.
About 150,000 people now live atop lahars that have rioted down the slopes of Mount Rainier over the past 5,000 years. The lahars ran all the way to what are now the ports of Tacoma and Seattle, distances, respectively, of 50 and 75 miles.
No volcano in the lower 48 states packs so much risk so close to so many people, Scott said. Mount St. Helens, which erupted in 1980 and killed 57 people, is more active than Rainier, but it is not near large population centers.
Rainier, which has more glacier ice on it than all the other 12 Cascade volcanoes combined, is the only mountain in the contiguous United States where regional roads are marked with large white arrows and signs that say, “Volcano Evacuation Route.” The signs are a coveted curiosity — people keep stealing them, and county emergency management officials keep buying more.
Another lahar (an Indonesian word that has come to mean “volcanic mudflow”) would almost certainly be an existence-ending event for the fast-growing town of Orting, Wash., about 30 miles downstream from Mount Rainier. Orting is in a valley flanked by the Puyallup and Carbon rivers, both of which originate in toes of glaciers up on the mountain.
The 3,760 residents of Orting live atop 50 feet of mud, boulders and tree stumps that used to be on the west slope of Mount Rainier. About 500 years ago, which was the last time the mountain shrugged its rotting shoulders in a major way, mud came roaring down the valley. The rot in Rainier is caused by gas inside the volcano, which degrades rock and turns it into more fragile clay. With the consistency of concrete and traveling about 40 miles an hour, that lahar shredded a forest and reamed out the valley. The USGS calculates that Mount Rainier burps this way every 500 to 1,000 years.
[full story]
The volcano doesn't care that you've invested your life's savings in the path of its inevitable mud flows. The volcano doesn't care that you built cities, or even something like a culture, beneath its flanks. The volcano doesn't care if you live or die. Do whatever you like, smart or foolish: the volcano doesn't care.
Lesson Two — Human Nature
KHAN DHARI, Iraq, Aug. 17 -- Guerrillas fired mortars at a large prison west of Baghdad overnight, killing six Iraqi inmates and wounding almost 60, U.S. officials said, in a spree of assaults on U.S. troops and important Iraqi infrastructure.
Saboteurs blew up yet another section of a major oil pipeline to Turkey today, the second time the route had been hit in three days. Black smoke and flames swirled into the cloudless sky just a few miles from where U.S. soldiers and Iraqi engineers had battled a fire caused by explosives Friday. The two blasts, north of the town of Baiji, abruptly halted crude oil exports that had begun Wednesday. The disruption costs Iraq $7 million a day in revenue, officials say.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, two men on a motorcycle unloaded an explosive device at an exposed water main. As they sped off, a blast tore a foot-wide hole in the pipe. Water gushed into a street below, depriving 300,000 homes in the sweltering capital of running water. Boys frolicked in an instant lake that stretched 500 yards along an underpass, while adult onlookers fretted about interrupted water supplies.
[full story]
The Iraqis don't care that we mean well. The Iraqis don't care that we bombed, invaded and occupied their country for their own good. The Iraqis don't care that American prestige and prosperity may hinge on how well the nation building goes. They want us out — NOW — and beyond that, they don't care.
Posted by Me at 22:24 link
Sunday, August 17, 2003
Don't Panic Now....
No, really. Remain Calm. I MEAN IT, PEOPLE!Another Sept. 11-style terrorism attack is "highly likely" in the United States, which ranks fourth in an index assessing the risk to 186 countries, a research company said Sunday.
The London-based World Markets Research Center ranked Colombia, Israel, Pakistan, the United States and the Philippines, in descending order, as the five countries most likely to be targeted in a terrorist attack in the next 12 months, Guy Dunn, author of the company's World Terrorism Index, said in a telephone interview.
The goal of the index, to be published Monday, is to assess the risk of terrorism in 186 countries and, "crucially, against those countries' interests abroad over the next 12 months," he said.
....
"Another Sept. 11-style terrorist attack in the United States is highly likely," the report states. "Networks of militant Islamist groups are less extensive in the U.S. than they are in Western Europe, but U.S.-led military action in Afghanistan and Iraq has exacerbated anti-U.S. sentiment." [emphasis added]
[full story]
Okay, everybody take a few deep breaths, chill out — and take a vow to vote for leaders intelligent enough to pursue foreign policy that makes us safer. Take a vow to do the necessary research to determine which candidates will pursue foreign policies in line with real American values; to register to vote (if necessary); to find out where you'll vote — and to go to the polling place on Election Day and cast your vote for real, adult leadership for this country.
Thank you. I'm starting to feel a little better now.
Posted by Me at 22:51 link
