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Daily Blah for... Thursday, July 31, 2003
Bear Bar None
I know, I promised I'd never write about she-who-shall-not-be-named again. Wouldn't want to be accused of pandering to my audience (that was potentially a very bad pun, for which I hope I will be forgiven in due course). But hey, I didn't promise I wouldn't post any more pictures. This one was created at the behest of Emily, who is using the bear picture as wallpaper and was becoming increasingly sad at seeing her behind bars. It's a Photoshopped, bar-free version, and I present it here for all those animal lovers who might be feeling the same way.
Pee-Wee's Biggest Adventure Yet
Last Saturday was, of course, Paul Rubens Day. Sadly, this traditional annual celebration seems to have gone unnoticed by all but one media outlet and a single brave photographer. But it did provoke one of the most interesting Craigslist missed connections of our times. Could love -- the kind that's more than just kleenex and socks -- be brewing in Pee-Wee land?
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, July 29, 2003
The Blah So Far
Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome to the hundreds who flocked to this blog during the Pelusa episode -- and haven't gone away yet, it would seem. I suppose I ought to bring the newbies up to date. As for the old gang, there's tons of things you could be doing -- wash the car, do the crossword, take the dog for a walk, make a cup of tea. This won't take a moment.
Previously on Daily Blah ... the author wrote a Time column on blogs, and to show how easy it was, used a website name he'd been sitting on for two years to set up one himself. There was some angst about how revealing he should be. Once the column came out, Daily Blah raced to the number one spot on Blogdex. Then fell back again the next day. There was much angst over this, too. Owners of blogs with smaller audiences wrote snide comments. The Sunday Times printed a review: "it is fun to watch the author's navel-gazing joy." A review of this review was promptly written. Many apologies for not actually being daily, as the title claims, were made. Amusing web links and Photoshopped images were posted alongside advertisements for the author's latest Time articles and the occasional anti-Bush tirade. Pro-Bush readers wrote in and told the author, in no certain terms, to get back to Britain. Senator John Edwards was endorsed, and promptly disappeared from the national radar screen. The weather in San Francisco was deconstructed. Some mentions were made of the mysterious "P.", whom, readers were left to deduce, was the author's girlfriend or something. Then came a purple polar bear, and audience ratings spiked. Would the author's navel-gazing integrity be compromised, like that of so many artists, by the popularity of cute and fun-looking animals? Now read on ...
Oh, Canada
Now that Toronto is no longer the world capital of SARS, Conan O'Brien joked recently, the city's number one cause of death "is, once again, crushing boredom." Well, not for me. I just spent the weekend in the Ontarian capital, and there was not a dull moment to be found there. This is partly because the place was fritzing my geographical recognition circuits. I'd look at the houses and think I was in the UK, then I'd look at the streets -- or the towering skyline -- and think I was in the US. From long experience, it seems, my brain expects itself to be located in one country or another. It wasn't prepared for the Canadian mish-mash. I'd see a lovely nineteenth century brick home with a garden that made me feel all Oxford, but then there would be a hot-dog vendor standing in front of it. I felt profoundly disoriented, like a computer crashing while trying to load two rival operating systems at the same time.
This, I soon learned from the natives, is the same identity crisis Canada itself has been dealing with for the last two hundred years -- caught between the mother country and that overbearing giant to the south. They still haven't figured out how best to blend the two, which is somewhat depressing to someone like me; someone who is just seven years into that process and still believes, perhaps foolishly, that British and American culture can produce a seamless blend. The same blend that Churchill, half-American himself, with a similar naivete, used to call "a union of the English-speaking peoples." I guess he hadn't read enough George Bernard Shaw. That common language of ours is getting more divisive all the time.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, July 24, 2003
Purple Bear: Readers Respond
The story is true. I actually saw moving pictures of the bear on BBC-World service. That's when I started looking for pics on the net to show to my girlfriend :-) Arne Bienert, Germany
Actually, the medicine used was Gentian Violet. It is a widely used antifungal medication used to treat everything from Thrush in children, Jock Itch [It's also widely used for nipple pain apparently ... no, don't think of all those purple jocks and nipples ... Gentian Violet is also the name of a South Florida rock band which "drags a back to basics rock and roll radiance kicking and screaming into the realm ruled by the 21st century technology fueled mind-set".CT] and several other skin conditions... including dermatitis. Kyle H. Davis
Meanwhile, thanks to worldwide interest in Pelusa, I'm no longer number one on Google's "purple polar bear" search. I'm not even on the front page anymore. An archived version of the Blah is still the number one result for "pelusa purple bear", but somehow it doesn't seem enough. The thrill is gone, baby. Damn you, Associated Press!
And so another fifteen minutes of fame draws mercifully to a close. I promise to write no more about this rave-colored arctic refugee -- except to offer my commiserations to her mate, Arturo, who has reportedly been "a bit grumpy" since the couple have been kept apart for 20 days. Arturo, old chum, I know how you feel.
Yes, It's That Bear Again
Perhaps I should start selling banner ads above each of these photos. Hey advertisers! Your link here! Reach hundreds, yes, literally hundreds of purple polar bear fans! Sell them stuffed toys, purple fur rugs and buckets of purple dye -- as used on Pelusa!
And now, without further ado, back by popular demand, courtesy of SFGate, thanks be to Dan, here she is. The anthropomorphic Argentinian. The ursine oddity. The dame of dermatology. The bear that broke the color barrier. PELLLLLLOOOOOOSAAAAAAAAAA!
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Bears Sell
It's incredible. I'm getting my largest audience numbers since this time last year when Blogger featured me on its home page. The ratings are through the roof. And it's all down to me becoming the Internet's no. 1 resource for bloody purple polar bears. People are even writing poems about it. Who'd have thought? Never mind all that political, social, cultural clever-dicking, my lad. What people want today is animals in strange colors, preferably with a bit of mystery attatched to how they got that way. Coming soon: a maroon mongoose! An ochre octopus! An elephant in eggplant!
Speaking of the time I was featured in Blogger's "top ten recently noticed", I happened to be down at Google today and spent some time with the lovely Ev and Jason, also known as the Blogger guys. Charming folks they are too. I pointed out the strange coincidence about that moment -- that I was featured just days after signing up for Blogger Pro. Jason simply smiled and said: "We're very kind to our Blogger Pro customers." Mysterious, no?
Audience murmurs, shuffles feet, looks towards exit.
Wait a minute. Did I tell you he was colored aubergine at the time? Here's a pic-
Daily Blah server crashes.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, July 22, 2003
Purple Bear Update
First of all, sorry about my comments section being down. (Blame the oft-unreliable klinkfamily.com from which it comes -- anyone have any better sources for a free comments feature, let me know directly). I know a lot of you have been coming to the site after doing a Google search for Pelusa the purple polar bear. Daily Blah is the top result when you type "Pelusa purple bear" into Google, which makes me feel moderately proud, somewhat absurd, and a little nervous because I still don't have the definitive answer to Pelusa's purpleness and I don't want to feel like I'm wasting your time. I know also that five of my visitors were from Argentina, and I'd hate to think one of you had an eyewitness report from Mendoza zoo but weren't able to leave a comment to tell me so.
Grizzled (and grizzly?) cynic that I am, however, I am leaning towards believing the bear is for real. The report has appeared anew -- albeit briefly -- in three independent locations: Australia's Sunday Tasmanian, KPIX-5 in San Francisco, and Pro-8 News in Texas. The latter added details not found in the Reuters report, to wit: Pelusa is undergoing skin treatment for another two weeks, and the treatment contains a purple-staining liquid, suggesting for the first time that it is sprayed on. That would explain the purple stains on the cage bars. Then again, if this is a treatment common enough to be commercially available, how come we haven't seen purple polar bears before? Why do they put purple dye in a treatment for polar bears, and not white dye? Why put dye in at all? Is this all a conspiracy on the part of purple dye manufacturers? If so, where do I sign up to be part of that conspiracy?
Perhaps the most convincing piece of evidence, though, is that I've tracked down another Pelusa picture. It does appear on the blog of a self-confessed Photoshopper -- but if this is a fake, frankly, it is significantly better than the rest of his work.
Daily Blah for... Monday, July 21, 2003
Blair and the Beeb
I've struggled hard to find a positive angle on the whole sordid row between Tony Blair and the BBC, and the tragic suicide of former weapons inspector David Kelly that seems to have happened as a result. The only thing I can think of is this: that it puts to rest the misconception, surprisingly common in the US, that the BBC is either a state-run network (Downing Street can only wish) or as sleep-inducingly dull as PBS (could you imagine Jim Lehrer having this kind of stand-off with W.?)
The BBC is neither of these things. It is also not the New York Times, to address the devil's advocacy from my friend Mac down there in the previous post's comments section. Mac, a former Times employee himself, pointed out that the Gray Lady conducted somber internal reportage which the editors themselves were not allowed to edit; why isn't the Beeb holding itself to the same standard of self-examination? Easy: because the two situations bear absolutely no resemblance to each other.
In Jayson Blair, the Times was faced with a serial fabulist, a reporter who made stories up out of whole cloth. What the Beeb is faced with -- at worst -- is a reporter who may have sexed up the quotes of his major source in order to show that the government sexed up its intelligence dossier. In fact, there is no real evidence that the reporter in question did anything of the sort. And now, with the untimely death of the source, there may never be. In his testimony before Parliament, Kelly never actually denied the accuracy of the BBC report or that his quotes were used -- saying only that he couldn't remember saying such things or that they didn't sound exactly like the sort of thing he'd say. What else would a shy scientist with a fear of being scapegoated tell a Parliamentary committee? Kelly was aware of maneuverings around his testimony; as he ominously put it to an NYT reporter before his death, there are "dark actors playing games."
Were individual quotes sexed up? Probably; that is a long-running tradition in British journalism. Was the substance of the report wrong? To my mind, the fact that the BBC is being attacked so vehemently shows they got unnervingly close to the truth. Think of the way the Washington Post was relentlessly pounded by the White House in 1972 for its dogged investigation of a "third-rate burglary." Some of their evidence, Woodward and Bernstein knew, was pretty shaky. Some of it was plain wrong. But their instinct was correct. As unlikely as it seemed at the time, there were dark actors playing games in the corridors of power. And now? Now we know just how hard it was to prove a weapons of mass destruction case against Iraq. Now we know what a flimsy house of cards other intelligence sources were. As for sexing up statistics before you present them to the House of Commons -- that, too, is a long-running British tradition.
The BBC has no anti-Blair agenda; if anything, Broadcasting House should fear the Conservative alternative. It is belligerently neutral in its wartime reporting -- a paradox which, to the combatants, can look like bias. Winston Churchill once famously complained that the network took neutrality to the point of "being neutral between the firefighter and the fire." But sometimes being neutral, and rational, and curious, means lighting a few fires yourself. I say fair play to the Beeb for continuing to do exactly what most of the media in the US is not: raising the tough questions, listening to whistle-blowers, playing the agent provocateur.
Daily Blah for... Saturday, July 19, 2003
Hey, Who Photoshopped the Bear?
What do you think? Photoshop, right? No polar bear in its right mind could possibly be that purple. Well, according to the UK's Ananova, this is a real story. Emily forwarded it to me this morning, and there went my Saturday afternoon. I just had to trawl the web in search of the truth (purple, after all, is by far my favorite color). Jumping on Nexis, I found a mere three newspapers -- all Canadian -- had printed the picture of the bear in today's editions. All offered Reuters as a source, and quoted some variation of the following caption:
I'VE NEVER SEEN A PURPLE BEAR . . .: Pelusa, a 14-year-old female polar bear, turned violet after veterinarians administered a medicine to treat her for a skin condition. Her doctors said her coat should turn a normal white again within a month. But for visitors on Friday to the Mendoza Zoo, 1,100 kilometres northwest of Buenos Aires, Argentina, she was quite a sight.
Trouble is, the story can't be found on the Reuters news feed. There is a Mendoza Zoo in that location, and Pelusa is a common pet's name (it means fluff or fuzz in Spanish, and is also slang for jealousy). But I'm thinking some bored Reuters employee thought he'd have a little Photoshop fun. Perhaps he or she had just read Purple Cow and wanted to pay homage to the idea. I'm still hoping against hope that it is true, however. Anyone have contacts in Buenos Aires? Better yet, frequent flyer miles?
Daily Blah for... Friday, July 18, 2003
In Space, No One Can Hear You Say 'I Do'
What the world needs right now -- not to mention its moribund attempts to explore the cosmos -- is love, sweet love. That may happen if Space Station cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko gets over his case of cold feet and goes through with a planned wedding to his Earthbound sweetheart. But wait: what is the idea with the (extremely) long-distance nuptials? Couldn't NASA get over its Shuttle anxiety and transport her up there? Think of the movie rights!
Daily Blah for... Thursday, July 17, 2003
How Very INTJ of Me
I have way too much fun with personality tests. Or indeed any archetypal system that claims to predict past, present or future behavior, which explains my obsession with Tarot cards. (The one exception to this rule: I get bored by astrology). Here's what I've been getting into over the last couple of weeks: the Myers-Briggs system. For those who don't know it, Myers-Briggs breaks your personality down into sixteen types based on four categories. Are you more introverted (I) or extroverted (E)? Rely more on the evidence of your senses (S) or intuition (N)? Make decisions based on thinking (T) or feeling (F)? And are you happier perceiving (P) or judging (J)?
Of course, nobody is entirely one thing or another, and a comprehensive Myers-Briggs test -- like this one -- adds how far you skew towards one side or the other in terms of percentages. For the record, I am a whopping 89% more I and N, 57% more T, and swing closer to J than P by a mere 11%. If you haven't got the time to take that full test, here's a good quick one that will give you your basic categories.
What use is it all? Well, career counselors and consultants seem to think it enormously important. You'll get along great with the human resources guys at work if you happen to casually drop in your Myers-Briggs score. Myself, I think it's simply enormous fun -- and I'm amazed at how many resources there are for each personality type on the web. There are dozens of pages devoted to INTJs -- my people! -- known also, apparently, as the "Mastermind" group (I think that just means we're difficult to get along with). And most amusing of all, lists of famous INTJs throughout history and fiction, in which have been included JFK, C.S. Lewis, Thomas Jefferson (did they get his corpse to take the test?), Mr. Darcy and Gandalf the Grey. What would Austen and Tolkein say?
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Learning to Trust
Remember the classic of game theory, the Prisoner's Dilemma? It's a variation on what John Nash was talking about in A Beautiful Mind, that whole bit with the blonde: in general players do better when they cooperate than when they distrust each other. Here is the Open University's online version of the game.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, July 15, 2003
Return of the Killer Smart Mob
It's back: the San Francisco smart mob that time forgot. And this time, it means business. Here's the e-mail:
You are invited to take part in MOB, the project that creates an inexplicable mob of people in San Francisco for ten minutes or less. Please forward this to other people you know who might like to join.
INSTRUCTIONS - MOB #1
Start time: Wednesday, July 16th, 6:27 pm
Duration: 10 minutes
(1) At some point during the day on July 16th, synchronize your watch.
(2) By 6 PM, based on the month of your birth, please situate yourselves in the bars below. Buy a drink and act casual. If you are attending the MOB with friends, you may all meet in the same bar, so long as at least one of you has the correct birth month for that bar. January, February, March, April: Union Square Sports Bar near Powell and O'Farrell. May, June, July, August: Gold Dust Lounge near Geary and Powell. September,October, November, December: Red's Corner at Ellis and Mason.
(3) Then or soon thereafter, a MOB representative will appear in the bar. He or she will pass around slips of paper with your instructions. Commit the instructions to memory and put the slip in your pocket. ONCE YOU ARE AT THE MOB SITE, NONE OF THESE SLIPS OF PAPER SHOULD BE VISIBLE.
(4) Leave the bar and walk to the MOB site. If you arrive near the final MOB destination before 6:27, stall nearby. NO ONE SHOULD ARRIVE AT THE FINAL MOB DESTINATION UNTIL 6:26.
(5) The MOB begins at the designated location at 6:27.
(6) At 6:37 you should disperse. NO ONE SHOULD REMAIN AT THE MOB SITE AFTER 6:39.
(7) Return to what you would otherwise have been doing.
* * * * SPECIAL NOTE: We need FOUR VOLUNTEERS to assist in passing out instructions. Please reply only if:
(1) You will absolutely positively 100% be at the mob and can be in the area by 5:30 on Wednesday.
(2) You are not a squealy.
(3) You are not concerned that passing out small slips of paper may harm your future chances to run for office.
If you meet the above criteria and would like to volunteer, send a message with your cell phone number to mobproject@yahoo.com.
-The San Francisco Mob Project (writing credit to "Bill")
I'll see you tomorrow at Red's Corner. Be there, or don't be part of an inexplicable and fun dadaist performance art piece.
Pat Robertson is Losing It
In the most magnanimous display of Christian charity since he and Jerry Falwell claimed 9/11 was God's revenge on gays and lesbians, Pat Robertson has launched a 21-day prayer-a-thon aimed at unseating three liberal members of the Supreme Court. "One justice is 83-years-old, another has cancer and another has a heart condition," points out the 700 Club supremo in this snitty little letter. "Would it not be possible for God to put it in the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire?" The first is Stevens, the second, presumably, is Ginsburg, who had cancer surgery four years ago, and nobody seems to know who the third Justice is supposed to be. But I'm betting it ain't Scalia.
Amazing, isn't it? At a time when the global economy is balanced so precariously, when mistrust among nations is rife, this is what we're being asked to focus our spiritual energies on. It is, of course, all about the court's decision in the Texas sodomy case. This has nothing to do with any actual religious doctrine; if that were so, Robertson would be leading 21-day prayer-a-thon against people being very, very rich, something Jesus said repeatedly was a bad idea if you wanted to get into heaven. (Number of times Jesus spoke out against homosexuality: 0). It has everything to do with sheer, unabated ignorance and a belief, as Scalia put it, in the existence of a "homosexual agenda." (Ah yes, the famous homosexual agenda. They have copies of it posted up on noticeboards around the Castro, you know. Item one: no one is to ever wear black and navy blue in the same outfit!)
I do hope there will come a day when televangelists preach love instead of bigotry. When the majority of the Christian right does not believe, as Robertson does, that gay rights open the door to "bigamy and incest." Perhaps that will take another generation or so, but I always like to hold out hope that old-school bigots will come to their senses -- maybe once they discover that the legalization of sodomy has not caused the end of the world. In the meantime, would it not be possible for God to put in the mind of Pat Robertson that the time has come to retire?
Heads Up, Congress
The Bush-has-really-screwed-up-this-time train moves ever onwards. Now MoveOn.org -- which one expert I spoke to for the Dean story described as "the Christian Coalition of the left," and isn't it about time we had one of those? -- is circulating an online petition. The petition, asking for an immediate, independent, bipartisan inquiry into WMD intelligence, will be automatically sent to your Congressman, whomever he/she may be. All you have to know is your zip code.
I love that part of it. Time was when writing to your Congressman involved admitting you didn't know for sure who your Congressman actually was, driving down to the local library to find out, then hunting for an address, an envelope, a stamp and some loquacious inspiration. Now you can do it all in three seconds, while goofing off at work. This is a sea change, and we are only beginning to see its effects. Congress, sooner or later, is going to have to start paying more attention to highly-wired, highly-sensitive constituents -- and a little less, one would hope, to briefcase-full-of-campaign-cash lobbyists.
Today's Dada Broadcast
Welcome to Zombo.com. This is Zombo.com. You can do anything at Zombo.com.
Daily Blah for... Sunday, July 13, 2003
Lying About Uranium
Eagle-eyed Blah regulars will have noticed a new look to the toolbar on the left. This goes some way towards fulfilling the Progress Index idea I had some months ago. More and more, it seems, Americans are awash in an ocean of news: there is little consensus on the stuff that really matters in the long term; important stories can sail right by, left to fester on the more obscure pages of the papers. "Daily Blah 10 To Watch" is my attempt to solve that. These are the ten stories of the present moment that, in my humble opinion, future generations will be most interested in. Powerful people may want them to go away, and in the current media climate, they will often succeed. But history will remember.
Case in point, and number one on the list: the State-of-the-Union uranium debacle. The Bushies really, really want this story to disappear. George Tenet was made to stand up in public and deflect the blame. Rice and Powell, the administration's most human faces, have been wheeled out on the Sunday talk shows to tell us this fuss -- over a mere "16 words" -- is overblown. You'll notice the "16 words" part parroted in every administration statement on this matter. Republicans are very good at this essential component of modern politics: taking one soundbite and repeating it until we all get sick and stop asking questions. It's just 16 words, people. What's the big deal? Sure, we said Iraq was buying uranium, but it was just 16 words in the State of the Union. You media types are making a fuss out of nothing. Did I mention it was 16 words?
Funny thing is, I remember a lie that was a mere nine words long: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Now that lie was a very, very, very big deal, and it wasn't even in the State of the Union. Apparently lying about sex is an impeachable offense, but lying about national security? Lying about reasons to go to war? Lying about the most serious and deadly thing an enemy country can try to do to us? Nah, that's overblown. We were going to war anyway, and the CIA cleared it, and even though they nixed the exact same topic in a presidential speech in Cincinnati the previous year, we had no idea the intelligence was dubious at best. Honest. Would we lie to you?
Daily Blah for... Friday, July 11, 2003
Hi Ho, It's Off to Geocache We Go
Looking for a new weekend hobby? Something to get you into the great outdoors without boring you to tears? Try geocaching. Basically, it's treasure-hunting with a GPS device. There are all these weird kinds of treasure that have been hidden across the landscape -- mostly in California, Oregon and Washington, but other states are playing too -- and your job is to go find them, GPS locator in hand, and add your name and comments to the piece of paper there. There are 184 caches within ten miles of Walnut creek alone. Here is a comprehensive San Francisco Chronicle article about this growing sport.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, July 10, 2003
Rrrrr!
This is easily the funniest pirate joke I've ever seen.
Achievement Angst
Being at the tail-end of your twenties can be a panicky time, looking back at the last ten years (where did they go?) and wondering if you did enough with them (where did that novel go?). It is absolutely no help at all when a study like this comes out and tells you that most of the great scientists (and, for some reason, the great criminals) of history did all their best work by the age of 35, that they did so to impress women. Once they settled down and got married, their testosterone levels dropped off, and so did their desire (or ability) to make headline-grabbing breakthroughs. Good thing I'm not on the verge of settling down or anything like that. Ahem.
All of which achievement angst is why I'm glad I picked up a copy of a book called Tolstoy's Bicycle in the fabulous Powell's City of Books some years ago. It describes itself as "an amazing compendium of human history in which all mortal achievement is grouped by age from birth to death." This turns out to be somewhat hyperbolic -- it's not all mortal achievement, of course -- but its overall effect is to calm all fears of the "I'm too old" genre. The eponymous Russian author had his first bicycle lesson at 67, you see, and that is probably the most trivial achievement in the book. Flip it open to any page, any age, and certain things become apparent.
First of all, yes, certain people tend to group the real achievements of their lives into their 20's and 30's. And yes, these do tend to be people in certain fields like science and (especially) music. But there is no preordained age for genius, and the ones that peak early are also the ones that flame out early. Most of us tend to plod along, and as long as we don't loose faith in our pursuits, that seems to be okay. Opening the book at random, I see that Darwin didn't write Origin of the Species until age 50. Ditto with Bram Stoker and Dracula. That was also the age at which James Herriot, having been told by his wife "you'll never be a writer," started churning out books. I suppose marriage can have a positive effect on creativity after all.
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Dean There, Done That
For the How Dean is Winning the Web story in this week's Time, I spent one evening last week with a bunch of Dean supporters up in San Rafael. These were people who found each other online, and got together in the kind of numbers you just don't see at political meetings these days. It was a cathartic, democratic experience out of another era. Everybody got to introduce themselves and get exactly what they hated about the current administration off their chest. There were a lot of lovely sensitive types (artists and software engineers), but they were by no means in the majority. These were decent, honest folk who were sick of the direction this country is taking. There were, as I say in the story, even a couple of Republican turncoats (a stockbroker and a venture capitalist).
The release of tension was palpable. This was, you could tell, the first time most attendees had felt able to say really nasty things about Bush in public. It was like a group therapy session. And with Dean's campaign gathering steam, it also felt little like San Francisco in the middle 60's. To quote one of my favorite Hunter S. Thompson quotes:
There was this fantastic, universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail ... We had all the momentum. We were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave ...
The mood was so buoyant, I practically signed up on the spot, and I don't think Dean has a hope in hell of winning. I mean, have you seen this little movie where Rob Reiner introduces Dean? The governor looks short, shifty, uncomfortable, and he has his fists clenched in his pockets the whole time. He may tell truth to power well, but he has all the charisma of Dukakis. I know the Dean supporters I met in Marin don't see this, because they are in love with the man. As I told P. on my return, I loved being part of their catharsis. I just don't want to be around when their hearts get broken.
(And if by some miracle I am proved wrong in November 2004, by the way, I will gladly eat every piece of headgear I own.)
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, July 08, 2003
War Without End
So now, according to the CIA, we have another renegade Arab leader in hiding making tapes exhorting his countrymen to attack Americans. Saddam and Osama: two Emmanuel Goldsteins for the price of one. You have to ask yourself why neither has been caught yet. Is our intelligence really that bad, our reward money really that laughable? Are we waiting for the right moment in the 2004 campaign, perchance? Or worse, are these guys being deliberately let alone -- emasculated, but still able to look and sound threatening on the evening news -- to scare the bejesus out of the home front?
I'm not asking you to believe it. I don't necessarily believe it myself. But I do like to keep an open mind, and think we do freedom no service if we refuse to consider who gains from the current situation. When international evildoers remain at large, defense budgets increase. Whether it is conscious of this or not, the fact is that the defense establishment -- contractors and the Pentagon both -- stand to benefit financially from some form of continuous, low-level war. Nothing so gauche as another Vietnam; nobody wants to see that number of body bags on the evening news. Elections get lost that way. But half a dozen GIs being killed every week or so -- well, nobody seems to be taking to the streets to protest that. After all, we're supposed to be supporting our troops, right?
But perhaps supporting them means wanting to bring them home as soon as possible. Perhaps living in a free society obliges you to be skeptical of what authority, any authority, tells you. Perhaps, just perhaps, the lure of unimaginable wealth -- trillions of dollars, in this case -- continues to have the same corrupting influence that it has had throughout all of human history. Perhaps we need to start asking the difficult questions that arise in our gut, even though they sound outrageous out loud, even though we have no answers yet.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, July 01, 2003
Mo' Mobs
Some more details on the whole mob thing, and then I'm clocking off for the night.
First of all, it seems there's an appropriate level of confusion over what to name these Dada-ist groups. I've seen "Inexplicable Mobs" and "Flash Mobs." I like the latter. Flash mobs, like flash floods. To the clueless downtown public who witness them, they appear from nowhere, gather for ten or twenty or thirty minutes, do something wacky, then dissolve as quickly as they came, like a force of nature. We seem to be riding the crest of the flash mob wave right now. There's the aforementioned Flash Mob group in New York (photos of the whole Love Rug thing here), which is about to do its third gathering tomorrow in Grand Central, plus one in Minneapolis, and a weird Agent-Smith-from-the-Matrix one in Tokyo.
Secondly, San Francisco's first attempt at a Flash Mob sucked. I showed up at the bar a few minutes early, contrary to instructions, thinking I'd set the "before" scene in journalistic fashion. The quiet before the storm, etc. I sat at the bar and ordered the special, a $2.75 margarita. The guy next to me, doing shots, berated me for getting it frozen rather than on the rocks. The appointed minute came. And went. A geeky-looking couple in pony tails crept in, looking nervous. More followed over the next few minutes. I recognized one person. Eventually we had a grand total of sixteen -- critical mass enough for us to recognize each other, but barely enough to beat the number of regular patrons, let alone pack the place out or start working on our "cocktail chain" shtick. SantaCon this wasn't.
A bold attempt, nevertheless, on the part of Rob Zazueta, the cheery web development guy who set this all up and vowed to keep trying. A few more days, a few more hours, and the network effect may have kicked in. The 4:46pm thing was a little weird, we all agreed -- not the best time to try to get people downtown with bang-up-to-the-minute efficiency. And perhaps next time we could do something a little more imaginative, along the lines of the Love Rug. This, after all, could easily have been a promotion for the Gold Dust Bar and its cheap margaritas. Not that cheap margaritas are a bad thing. The world needs more flash mobs, but it could just as easily do with more cheap margaritas. You think if I keep saying the name of the drink enough times, eventually someone will bring me one? Frozen, please. Not on the rocks.
Everyone Loves A Mindless Mob!
Seems the smart mob that's about to happen -- in forty minutes, mark you! -- is a direct descendent of Manhattan's Mob Project, a dada-ist culture jamming e-mail group which swarmed on Macy's last month, demanding a "love rug."
Meanwhile, I mailed the SF mob info to Howard Rheingold, who immediately posted it (and thanked me) on smartmobs.com. I love this kind of instantaneous online culture. Everyone has a part to play, even if the purpose is highly silly.
San Francisco Smart Mob
This made its way to me today. It's a dry run for the city's first self-aware smart mob. I have to go. Can't resist. Neither should you.
"Synchronize your watches to the Pacific timezone at http://www.time.gov. At exactly 4:46 pm, proceed to the Gold Dust Bar located near Powell and Geary in San Francisco. If you arrive early, walk around until the time arrives. Try not to be more than a couple of minutes late. If the bartender asks you what's going on, tell him you are part of a chain cocktail party that began in a speakeasy in Manhattan in the 1920s and that, if the chain is broken, you will all experience bad luck. Feel free to enhance the story with tales of those who have left the group and died gruesome deaths or lost their fortunes. Mingle with your fellow mobbers or even just random strangers. If there is no room in the bar, try to start cocktail chatter with folks on the street just outside. At exactly 5:16 pm, quickly finish your drinks and disperse."
Please Remain Calm
Feeling stressed? Stop it immediately. A new study says you're releasing quantities of a carcinogenic chemical into your bloodstream every time you fuss and fret. The chemical is called Interleukin-6, which sounds like a planet that bad guys come from in 50's sci-fi novels. But this stuff is serious: it's been linked to heart disease, diabetes and a bunch of nasty cancers. You can get rid of it by (surprise, surprise) exercising, reducing the fat in your diet, getting a proper amount of sleep, and of course, meditating. All together now: Ohmmmmmmm ...
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