When You’re In The Mood To Be Offended…

…and don’t say something stupid, like you never are and nobody else ever is either. Since when have politically-correct lies been scarce and precious commodities?

Women as Alien Species. Safe for work, unless deliberately-tactless observations about genders & ethnic groups are unsafe for work.

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… XVI

Two things, golden needles, that should not be allowed to pass into the endless blogosphere haystack without being recorded for posterity.

Ann Coulter had a fairly useless column yesterday, I must say. Perhaps that’s a bit harsh; in fact it is, and the only reason I dish it out in her particular direction, is because I know it wouldn’t stand out compared with the other flak she gets. Nobody reads this blog anyway, right? It’s phrasing things most accurately and fairly, I think, to say I was expecting one thing and I got another thing. Questions Ann Coulter wishes she was asked…meh. Seems ilke there’s an awful lot going on in the world right now, much of it having to do with liberal hypocrisy and dishonesty, her two favorite subjects. I thought Wednesday afternoon would yield a bit more meat.

Now then, having said that. This — and the subject was Hillary Clinton — was gold. Solid…gold.

Her strength is her first name; her weakness is her last.

Let me guess, you lay awake all night thinking that one up, and you chose to write a whole column around it. For this, you may deserve criticism Ms. Coulter, but it shall not come from me. I’ll wait for someone without sin to cast the first stone.

Second thing I could not have said better myself: Day by Day, by Chris Muir. This particular strip says all that needs to be said, about…you know, THEM.

Behind the Ivy Walls

Prof. Walter E. Williams gives us some information about what college kids know. And it isn’t pretty. But you know that, because the name of his column is “Forty Thousand Dollar Numbskulls.” He tells us what is being taught…

At Occidental College in Los Angeles, a mandatory course for some freshmen is “The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie.” It’s a course where professor Elizabeth J. Chin explores ways in “which scientific racism has been put to use in the making of Barbie [and] to an interpretation of the film ‘The Matrix’ as a Marxist critique of capitalism.” Johns Hopkins University students can enroll in a course called “Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ancient Egypt.” Part of the course includes slide shows of women in ancient Egypt “vomiting on each other,” “having intercourse” and “fixing their hair.”

…and what the results are once the teaching is done.

A survey conducted by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut gave 81 percent of the seniors a D or F in their knowledge of American history. The students could not identify Valley Forge, or words from the Gettysburg Address, or even the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution. A survey released by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that American adults could more readily identify Simpson cartoon characters than name freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment.

I’m torn down the middle on this issue. This blog, which nobody really reads anyway, has a long-standing informal policy about confining commentary about the facts, to that which is known, which is indeed factual. Colleges, for me, are tricky. As a little boy, I got into a field which is supposed to be confined to college-educated folk; that being, Information Systems, back when it was called “computer programming,” and later, “software development.” Here I am, an old man, still in essentially the same field. I’ve spent a lifetime in it. No college degree yet.

And so I’m uniquely handicapped in commenting what’s going on in colleges. I can’t tell you that, because I’m in a process of trying to figure it out for myself. As far as what’s been busted as a result of it, however, I not only know a thing or two about it, but I’m uniquely qualified to comment on it — such that, were I to keep my silence on it, I’d be performing a disservice.

So let me confine my commentary to what it is I’ve seen.

First, the patterns and trends — limited to what has potential for defining the problem.

Let us say you want to assemble a new “brain trust” in your company. The brain trust is going to be packed full of bright, capable individuals, with the ability to react to extraordinary problems, to think on their feet, and to form solutions. But it must be done right, and so a brain trust is formed for the purpose of forming the brain trust. So you start talking about the brain trust you want to form. In stating and re-stating this requirement, the cliched phrase “think outside the box” escapes peoples’ lips quite frequently. Okay, so these folks are going to be creative, resourceful, and probably coming up with unorthodox solutions on a regular basis.

I have noticed something about what happens next.

From out of nowhere, arises this requirement…nobody can say who is the first one to give it voice, and it’s impossible to get a straight answer to that effect. But everyone on this panel should have a college degree.

If anyone finds his way onto it, lacking that degree, an offense will have been committed. Now, nobody actually says that outright. Nobody even insinuates there would be anything wrong with such a thing. Certainly, you’ll never find anyone who says “I don’t give a rat’s ass if new panelists have experience doing this or not…they have got to have that degree.” And yet, people behave as if someone respected and powerful said that very thing.

And it continues. If you get the five or so people on that panel, and then next year much more funding comes in and you’re authorized to expand it to, let’s say, sixteen seats, the eleven additions also must have college degrees. The five people you already have, are going to feel much more comfortable with this, than with, let’s say, ten college-educated folk and one dropout-maverick.

The requirement is to “think outside the box.” And yet, your panel has taken the form of a rolling snowball, engaged in an effort to make more of itself, matching, cookie-cutter fashion, whatever there is of itself to begin with. To augment itself with material that doesn’t match the core, is something it doesn’t find very appealing. And so we have a premise that unorthodox thoughts will be formed by a committee made out of orthodox material. This is an idea ripe for inspection…if only someone could be found willing to put their name to the college-degree rule, so they can be engaged in debate. Alas, nobody’s willing to sign onto it. Everybody with something to say about it, just acts as if that’s the way it is. It becomes an “Emperor’s New Clothes” thing.

Business has a way of closing the gap between what people do, and what makes sense. With large amounts of money at stake on seemingly innocuous actions and inactions, business-people have a strong tendency to talk about what they’re going to do, and to do what they talk about doing. This makes sense and is effective. If something strikes a balance between opportunity and security, it will be talked about, if not, then it won’t. And if it is talked about, it will be done, if not, then not. It works that way with lots of other things in business — but not with this. When it comes to limiting the positions of creativity to the college-kids, who’ve shown themselves to be, if anything, rather uncreative…business people talk about one thing, and do a different thing.

Half of the high-tech industry, as we know it today, was founded by a Harvard dropout. The other half of it was founded by a Berkeley dropout and a Reed College dropout.

College-educated people are supposed to be uniquely qualified to do “studies.” If you were to do a study on what, exactly, our technical advancements are that we owe to the college crowd, it would appear the results wouldn’t be too terribly flattering for them. It seems on the occasions where a college-type guy achieves something worthy of note, he did so from a position he occupied which, if he were somewhere else, he wouldn’t have been able to make the accomplishment. And the position, in turn, would have been denied to someone who didn’t go to college. Artificially. And so, the trend holds across quite a few things, that the college-set has a shot at real competitive success when the competition has been whittled down. If they succeed, they didn’t compete, not with everybody; and if they do indeed compete with everybody, they don’t succeed. Maybe that seems harsh, but I’m waiting for it to be disproven — and the scenarios are constructed in such a way, that the opportunity for it to be disproven never quite materializes.

And then, oh dear me, we have the matter of Al Gore’s movie.

I’ve commented on this before. Let me bottom-line it. After seeing the movie, if you believe what you have been told about our climate and what man is doing to it, uncritically, the prevailing viewpoint is that you have succeeded in thinking critically. On the other hand, if you show skepticism and start questioning things, you will be accused of uncritical thinking. By, more likely than not, a college graduate who is exceptionally proud of his own critical-thinking skills…and accepts the viewpoints advanced in the movie uncritically.

I believe one of the commenters on my blog said it best…

I came here through the Antiidiotarian Rottweiler, and this has now become my favorite blog. It’s a breath of fresh air and a great relief from my current pursuit of a masters degree. The stuff I have to put up with from fellow students and professors! When these people talk about things closely related to their own expertice they argue constantly. When it comes to politics suddenly they all agree. I find that suspicious.

Now, what’s going on here?

You’re supposed to learn new, useful things in college. Prof. Williams gives us lots of anecdotes about stunningly useless things you can learn, and this is nothing new. I’ve seen these things presented before.

I’ve seen them defended before, too. Let’s see if I can paraphrase the defense. Here we go…yes, it’s true that “Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie” won’t help you get a job, but the point of college is not to help you get a job. It’s to make you a more well-rounded individual.

And yet, once you have the job, and you may be considered for a panel that is supposed to come up with new, resourceful, creative, unorthodox ideas…thinking outside-of-the-box…the five college-educated panelists, will want eleven also-college-educated new panelists. Because they want eleven well-rounded people instead of not-well-rounded people? Well, it doesn’t seem so. It appears the college-educated folk want to hang out with other college-educated folk, for reasons that don’t have a lot to do with being well-rounded. Birds of a feather, and all that.

When the college folk “talk about things closely related to their own expertise they argue constantly.” Understandable. A good education will expose cracks and fissures that would otherwise be muddy and unclear, not worth arguing about. And on politics, everybody suddenly agrees. Because they know better? Probably not because of that; if that were the case, people would be agreeing more on matters where they have experience and knowledge. So it stands to reason, the lockstep-agreement on politics, has to do with people not personally working behind the scene in politics. Everything looks the same to them, because they’re too far away to appreciate the real problems.

Which can only mean they lack the humility to understand what it is they don’t know.

But there must be more. There has to be some approval forthcoming, when & if everybody agrees with everybody else — and this approval has to mean something to everybody involved. And so, everybody responds. Lock-step.

You know, I suppose you could call that “thinking outside the box.” It doesn’t fulfill the definition I have in mind for it.

And it doesn’t seem likely to culminate in something useful. Like, for example, computer operating systems, electrical generators, interior lighting devices, and the like. So…it gives me cause to wonder. The correlation between industry leaders who have gotten really big building-blocks of our current technology off the ground, and college graduates, is running oh-for-three. Yet, the notion that we are destined to owe our futures to the Ivy League set, whether we have such a debt today or not…is running unchallenged. There isn’t much reason to believe in it, that I can see, other than tradition. And yet, we continue to behave as if this is supposed to be the case.

I don’t know why that is. That is Question #1.

Democrats, in early June, had some plans in place to “make college more affordable.” Someone, somewhere, motivated them to change the plank to “college access for all” within about a month and a half. That’s a different pledge. Who brought this change about? More to the point, why? That is Question #2.

I got an idea if you can answer Question #2, you’ll have the beginnings of an answer to Question #1. Can’t prove it. Call it a hunch.

Whatever Happened To Dungeons?

Nobody who has been paying attention, will greet it as earth-shattering news that the movie industry has been getting ruined a little at a time by people born after, oh, let us say, 1993 or thereabouts. The problem actually pre-dates ’93, so it’s easy to prove that it is rooted in a certain age bracket, with a revolving membership, rather than a specific birth date. But movies are made for the younger set. To their discredit.

The Hunny and I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean II, which in itself does a great job of illustrating what I’m talking about, but I’d like to discuss something else. Not too long ago I read a rather scathing review of Miami Vice. It really doesn’t matter which one I was reading. It could have been Lisa Kennedy’s review for the Denver Post.

The film, like its oddly rumbling sky, promises more than it ever delivers. Granted, it can look cool. But more often, as we wait for the lightning that never arrives, it frustrates.

Or, it could have been Stephen Hunter’s review in the Washington Post.

The plot is largely meaningless, somewhere between “not a lot of plot” and “lots and lots of plot.” But the worst news about “Miami Vice” is that Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx…don’t hold a candle, a flashlight, a freakin’ match to the original guys. As the infantile, muttery “stars” of today do their thing, you keep thinking: Who are those guys?…They have zero chemistry: There’s no affection or sense of joshing, and their relationships with their women are the most uninteresting thing about the movie.

You know, it’s irrelevant which review; it’s irrelevant which movie…which was proven, when we went back to The Hunny’s place and managed to catch a clip of XXX: State of the Union. It’s exactly what I was talking about a few weeks ago with V for Vendetta and Ultraviolet. The movies aren’t any different from each other. They might as well be the same movie. Those who make movies, are siphoning back on the most expensive ingredient in the mix — creativity — because their consumers are allowing them to do so. Movies are like just so many fifty-gallon drums of…let’s just say for the sake of argument, corn oil. There’s no question about what the stuff is, or what it’s supposed to be, whether it’s good, whether it’s sub-standard. It simply is. You pay for it, you get it, you move on to the next fifty-gallon drum.

The Hunny was questioning the fiscal judgment of a young toe-head lugging around a rather miniscule plate of Nacho’s, which she knew from observation cost in the neighborhood of six bucks. See, that right there is the problem. Mom and Dad want to fornicate all afternoon, so they throw fifty bucks at the kids and send them to the movies. If Dad only has twenties, then the kids get sixty dollars instead of fifty. The kids know they aren’t expected to save anything from this outing to use in the next one, so they fork over whatever they’re told to.

And the movies do what the snacks do. They lose their quality with the passage of time. Why would they not? To keep quality over the passage of time, a product has to have a base of consumers that demand it and will accept nothing less.

So we walk down the hallway and pass a poster advertising the aforementioned Miami Vice. And I pontificated…whereupon, The Hunny, I’m sure, thought to herself “aw shit, he’s pontificating again.” Anyway. I got me a riddle, and the riddle lacks an answer. See if you can answer this.

Something is going on with attention spans, clearly. Kids are not going to sit through Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) (144 min.) and anybody who expects them to, is going to be treated like a crazy person. Rightfully so. It’s a friggin’ musical. And yet…in my day, nobody got bored. Nobody really even thought about it. If you waited long enough, Dick Van Dyke would stop singing, and the car would sprout the wings. It was just a matter of time.

Today there is no matter of time. Kids today are impatient. Call it ADD due to global warming, call it a gradual shift in societal expectations, call it dietary. Call it whatever you want, kids today get bored quickly.

And yet, here’s a script for all movies. All of them. Don’t ask me how I did it, I did it and it fits freakin’ everything.

Scene 1:

Fade from black. The hero walks into view. He is wearing sunglasses and a trench coat. He looks really angry about something. Extreme slow motion. He looks really cool.

Scene 2: The hero looks really cool.

Scene 3: The hero looks really, really cool.

Scene 4: Bad guys, doing bad-guy stuff. They look really uncool, except for the head bad guy who looks really cool. But they’re all very talkative, whereas the hero is deadly silent. They kind of act like hyenas. Except for the head bad guy. He looks sort of like a majestic hyena. Nobody knows what they’re doing, it doesn’t matter, but whatever it is is really naughty.

Scene 5: The hero looks cool. He’s doing something naughty too, except it’s really cool.

Scene 6: The hero confronts the bad guys — coolly — and pulls out from under the trench coat TWO IDENTICAL (a) .45 ACPs or (b) 50-cal. Desert Eagles, one in each hand. He shoots the bad guys, in extra, extra, extra slow motion. Bullet casings fly. The sunglasses stay perfectly balanced on the hero’s nose. Everything looks…well, just stunningly cool. Slow-motion, but cool.

Scene 7: The head bad guy gets away. Looks really cool doing it.

Scene 8: The good guy is angry the bad guy got away. A really cool angry, but still angry.

Scene 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16: The good guy looks cool.

Later on, the good guy confronts a whole new swarm of bad guys, with the head bad guy looking on, laughing maniacally. But coolly. The good guy screams at the bad guys, “Bring it ON!!!” Gunfire ensues. Something explodes. The good guy walks, toward the camera, in slow motion, unflinchingly, as behind him an enormous warehouse/hangar/battlestar explodes in a blaze of glory.

He looks cool.

Bad guy is caught in some terrible predicament. He can’t move, or if he can move, he can’t escape, and there is a grenade or rocket or missile hurtling toward him, maybe the train he is trapped on is about to collide with a mountain of pure dynamite or something. Just before the big kablooey, the film slows waaaaaaaaay down and he gets that always-present always-there can’t-do-without-it look on his face, the “Oh dear Gawd in heaven I SUCK SO MUCH!!!” look on his face. Just as he comes to the realization that the hero is so much cooler than he is, he’s blasted into a million pieces.

The hero makes a smart-ass comment to his boss, and walks off into the sunset.

He looks really cool.

Fade out.

That right there is every single movie made lately. Am I right or am I right?

And kids today, who have no patience for anything else, gobble this stuff up.

Zero patience in one place, endless patience in another place.

I don’t know what it means. There must be a way to make God-type-portions of money off of it. I mean, outside of the movie business. If I think on it further, maybe someday I’ll figure out how.

But you people who want better movies, it isn’t going to happen until we keep the under-fifteen set in dungeons. Where they belong, maybe. I dunno, not saying I’m in favor of it. But from where I sit, nothing short of that will turn things around.

Well-Oiled Machine

Via our blogger friend Karol at Alarming News, we find out about Charlie Rangel’s alleged plan — ravings — to resign his seat if Democrats don’t take back the House this fall.

“Charles Rangel, the dean of New York’s congressional delegation, said yesterday he’d resign his seat if Democrats don’t take control of the House in November.”

Update: Rangel’s remark was first reported in this Washington Post story, which doesn’t quote him.

Huh. Okay, so we click open the Washington Post story, and we get this nugget. Learn something new every day.

Top Democrats are increasingly concerned that they lack an effective plan to turn out voters this fall, creating tension among party leaders and prompting House Democrats to launch a fundraising effort aimed exclusively at mobilizing Democratic partisans.

At a meeting last week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) criticized Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean for not spending enough party resources on get-out-the-vote efforts in the most competitive House and Senate races, according to congressional aides who were briefed on the exchange. Pelosi — echoing a complaint common among Democratic lawmakers and operatives — has warned privately that Democrats are at risk of going into the November midterm elections with a voter-mobilization plan that is underfunded and inferior to the proven turnout machine run by national Republicans.

The Senate and House campaign committees are creating their own get-out-the-vote operations instead, using money that otherwise would fund television advertising and other election-year efforts. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) — who no longer speaks to Dean because of their strategic differences — is planning to ask lawmakers and donors to help fund a new turnout program run by House Democrats. He recruited Michael Whouley, a specialist in Democratic turnout, to help oversee it. [emphasis mine]

Isn’t it odd that some things get talked about a whole lot, and other things get talked about not-very-much-at-all?

Someone is deciding that stuff, and whoever that someone is, wants Democrats to win.

The Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman no longer talks to the Party Chairman. Zowee. Well gee, I was going to invite them both over to dinner this weekend and seat them next to each other, but I suppose that plan’s out.

I find this really hard to believe. Personally, I have seen people in fairly awesome positions of power, get all pissy at other people in fairly awesome positions of power. But, then, somehow, work things out. I’ve never seen it turn into a Brady Bunch episode in which Marcia says “Peter, can you please ask Jan to pass the butter, since I can’t do it myself, because she’s not talking to me and I’m not talking to her.” I haven’t actually seen that with grown-ups. But, then again, we are talking about Democrats here.

I want to know more. Frankly, I would have to wonder about someone who could read that little tidbit, and not want to know more.

It’s a little strange that the WaPo didn’t actually say a little bit more.

Remember that scene in “Life of Brian” (1979) where they’re getting ready to crucify Brian? The scene around the table where the Apostles, under the direction of John Cleese, repeatedly pounded the table and said things like “Yes, it’s time to stop this pointless discussion, and take immediate action! Right, so let’s get going! It’s time for deeds, not words!” And then they kept on doing it. The first half of the WaPo article reads just like that.

These guys want to run the country.

Windows Password Myths

The author of this password-myth article makes some good points. Particularly this one toward the end, which, I think, should have been moved to the top.

Some may disagree with individual points I have presented here, but that is the whole purpose. A myth is a half-truth. Many of the myths that I have attacked here were once good advice or they still are good advice but only in specific scenarios. But to many this advice has become a set of solid rules that are generally applied to all scenarios. Password advice, including my own, is nothing more than advice. You must determine which rules work for you and which do not. Perhaps the biggest myth of all is that there are fixed rules when it comes to password security.

In my professional experience with security issues, I’ve found that to be a big breakdown in the process. Information assurance professionals, be they highly-trained or very lightly trained, will get it in their heads that their way is the way. A little bit o’knowledge is a dangerous thing, they say. That is probably not quite as true anywhere else, as it is in Information Security. Everybody wants everything to work the way it worked in their last job, and all those other IS guys who want it to work a different way, are just plain wrong.

On the other hand, I find this highly disagreeable.

Myth #7. You Should Never Write Down Your Password

Although this is often good advice, sometimes it is necessary to write down passwords. Users feel more comfortable creating complex passwords if they are able to write them down somewhere in case they forget.
:
Sometimes passwords need to be documented. It�s not uncommon to see a company in a panic because their admin just quit, and he’s the only one who knows the server password. You should discourage writing down passwords in many situations, but if writing them down helps or is necessary, be smart about it.

There are personal passwords, and there are role-based passwords. I set a database administrator password, I get sick, you need to do something administrative to the database and so you call me to get the password. If the database lacks the ability to have two separate user accounts with the same privileges, and sees the administrator as a role rather than as a specific person, then this is acceptable. But in a system with the sophistication to recognize rights & roles as two different things, and roles & users as two different things, the justification for sharing dissipates, and with that any reason for writing things down likewise vanishes.

Simply put, passwords, whenever possible, should be purely personal. And security is all about treating personal things as personal. Who gets rights to what, is based on who’s who, so the system needs to know people are who they say they are. It’s the atomic building block: the individual identity.

So my take on it is, if you’re writing down a password because you have trouble remembering it, the system is already broken. Under this system, you aren’t “Bob,” you’re a guy who knows Bob keeps the password locked in his desk drawer, and who has Bob’s key. This is not acceptable. People get sick. People go on vacations. And even in a workplace with a great security culture, people do not think about security all the time. The security goon and/or the auditors leave the room, and people go back to getting the work done on time, lending and borrowing passwords as needed.

Their reviews are conducted based on how they got work done, not on how they kept their passwords secret.

So muscle-memory is the key. The fingers know what the password is. Even the hunt-and-peckers who don’t know how to type, can “memorize” eight-character passwords this way in just a few minutes.

But, like the guy said in the bottom-paragraph that should have been the top-paragraph, it’s a matter of perspective. Or at least, it is until you have an actual security incident. It’s been my experience that things change a little after that.

Murtha Sued

Congressman John P. Murtha (D-PA) has been sued by a Marine involved in the Haditha incident. For defamation. For that crack about killing civilians “in cold blood.”

Good.

This is one of the things Democrats do that personally, I find to be most reprehensible. It’s not the defamation, it’s the much broader issue of “rights.” Over and over and over again, you see them promoting themselves as the defenders of the rights we’re supposed to have, even defining specious things as rights, things nobody guaranteed to anybody to begin with. And then they tack on those two words, “for all.” They stand up “for the little guy” and get the rumor mill chugging away, that boy oh boy, if it weren’t for them, nobody else would defend that little guy, because after all he’s the little guy. Supposedly, in America we’re up to our eyeballs in people who want to defend the big guy. Riiiiiiiiggghhhhttt.

But this is the part that gets me pig-bitin’ mad. The “for all” part. When they defend child molesters against prosecution, and advance the free-speech rights of terrorists…start filing papers so Muhammed Al-Hoozeewatzit can get cream cheese on his bagel down in Gitmo…supposedly, they’re defending “the least among us.” Implication being, the suit on behalf of Al-Hoozeewatzit succeeds, the rights of everybody else have been protected, but if it went the other way, it wouldn’t work. Something people believe by implication, but isn’t articulated, outright, anywhere.

Nevertheless, a lot of people are quite exuberant about the notion that Democrats are all about defending the rights “of us all.” The universality of these rights, is the primary issue; from whence we supposedly got the rights, is a purely secondary consideration. Take a look at their platform. Better-paying jobs, dignified retirement, lower gas prices and college access — for all.

And then they do crap like what John Murtha did. Just as the Gitmo boys haven’t been given a fair trial, neither had the Marines; and yet the Marines were guilty. So, it’s not “for all” after all, is it? What would happen if a Republican congressman took to the floor and said “I want to stop calling Muhammad Al-Hoozeewatzit a ‘detainee’ because, well, screw it, I know he’s a terrorist. I’m going to start calling him a terrorist.” What would Congressman Murtha himself have to say about that? Probably something about innocent-until-proven-guilty, and protecting-the-rights-of-the-least-of-us, and rights-guaranteed-to-us-ALL.

And that’s my point. NOT “all.” That’s what I find really odious. Democrats act like they surrender the definition of “all” to the masses, to dictionaries yet-unwritten, to generations-yet-unborn. But they don’t. The definition of a word, is something they guard jealously. “All” is given the meaning, moment-to-moment, that helps them out best.

Clearly, it doesn’t include Marines and sailors.

A Marine Corps staff sergeant who led the squad accused of killing two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq, will file a lawsuit today in federal court in Washington claiming that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) defamed him when the congressman made public comments about the incident earlier this year.

Attorneys for Frank D. Wuterich, 26, argue in court papers that Murtha tarnished the Marine’s reputation by telling news organizations in May that the Marine unit cracked after a roadside bomb killed one of its members and that the troops “killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” Murtha also said repeatedly that the incident was covered up.

Godspeed, Sergeant Wuterich!

And Republicans. Can you make an issue out of this so we can have a referendum on it? Just something to force the Democrats to defend us all, when they so frivolously toss around the word “all.” Even if the Haditha charges turn out to be true, press the issue anyway. Surely, our left-wingers would do the same, if only a conservative had the stones to call an accused terrorist an actual terrorist.

In fact, do that for everything. When Democrats say they want to help “all working families” make an issue out of stinkin’ rich working families. Do they get help? When Democrats talk about free speech for all, ask about free speech for Republicans. Is that included? Make ’em give an answer; they’re the ones who are supposed to explain what they’re all about.

Democrats have gone my entire life, and then some, not being called-upon to answer it. It’s a simple question. Does “all” mean all?

What Really Happened

Don’t miss David Drake‘s explanation of what really happened with Mel Gibson.

Makes perfect sense. When you think about it. Looking back, I’m amazed it’s taken this long for someone to figure it out. Well done, Mr. Drake.

How To Start A Blog

I like this particular posting. It’s supposed to tell you how to start a blog. I’ve already started one, and it so happens I did everything it says to do. So you can tell the article is loaded with common sense, since it contains a lot of things that I’d do if I were you, because I actually did them.

But it’s also reasonably well written. Better than average. She even used the word “vituperative.”

Fiction You Couldn’t Write

The backstory begins with a government boondoggle spanning decades and running billions of dollars overbudget. The present-day story begins with an entirely avoidable fatality, and the project architect resigning in disgrace. And yet, before it’s over, the squabbling diminishes into a finger-pointing contest over whether an antiquated term may be used as a racial epithet or not.

Yeah that’s right, it starts with a woman getting killed, and it ends with people running to their dictionaries with phony righteous indignation.

You say, Freeberg, what are you smokin’ and can I have some? Politicians don’t get into arguments over innocent people getting killed, and end up nit-picking over arcane tidbits of slang, over supposed derogatory racial implications.

Well, um…actually, yeah. Yeah, they do.

Governor Mitt Romney yesterday apologized for using the expression “tar baby” — a phrase some consider a racial epithet — among comments he made at a political gathering in Iowa over the weekend.

“The governor was describing a sticky situation,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, the governor’s spokesman. “He was unaware that some people find the term objectionable, and he’s sorry if anyone was offended.”

In his first major political trip out of the state since a ceiling collapse in a Big Dig tunnel killed a Boston woman on July 10, Romney told 200 people at a Republican lunch Saturday about the political risks of his efforts to oversee the project.

“The best thing for me to do politically is stay away from the Big Dig — just get as far away from that tar baby as I possibly can,” he said in answer to a question from the audience.

The expression “tar baby” has had different meanings over the years.

A definition from Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary traces the expression to the tar baby that trapped Br’er Rabbit in an Uncle Remus story by Joel Chandler Harris, which became popular in the 19th century. The dictionary now defines the expression as “something from which it is nearly impossible to extricate oneself.”

But it also has been used as a pejorative term for dark-skinned blacks.

In 1981, author Toni Morrison published a novel titled “Tar Baby,” and she has compared the expression to other racial epithets. She says it’s a term that white people used to refer to black children, especially black girls.

Reached at her home near Princeton University, where she teaches, Morrison called the expression “antiquated” and one that’s “attractive to some people, when they begin to search for hints of racism.”

She described it as a “forbidden word” that she sought to restore to its original meaning, one that illuminated an old African tale about the connection between a master and slave.

“How it became a racial epithet, I don’t know,” she said. “It was my attempt to rescue the phrase from its low meaning. I wanted to annihilate the connotation and return the meaning to its origins. Apparently, I haven’t succeeded.”

Now, that was not subtle at all, and I hope you caught it. The reference material that qualifies the slang term for its negative qualities as a derogatory epithet — the only one mentioned in this article — was constructed in an effort to restore the term to its stature of relative respectability and harmlessness. Apparently, it failed.

For the record, there is a specific story involved in the “tar baby.” It really was a ball of tar, wrapped up in baby clothes. Brer Wolf left it out in the open for Brer Rabbit, and Brer Rabbit got his paw (hand) stuck in the tar baby’s face when he went to smack it. You see, the precursor to Bugs Bunny got pretty huffy-puffy when that insolent baby refused to answer his questions, so he chose to smack it. Of course, his paw got stuck. So Brer Rabbit told the baby to let go. Of course, the baby just sat there. So he smacked the baby with his other paw. Now, Brer Rabbit has two paws stuck to the baby. And he’s getting madder and madder…and, of course, the baby still isn’t talking to him. So he takes his rabbit foot…well anyway, you can see where that’s going.

You can also see the applicability of this old legend to political life, especially with regard to overly-expensive construction projects that kill people. “Tar baby,” it turns out, is not only a wonderful phrase, but it’s irreplaceable. Something is a tar baby; you start messing with it; you getting stuck becomes a “when,” not an “if.” It is pre-ordained from the moment you start messing with it. And furthermore, when problems arise, and you start trying to sort through them, your efforts to sort through them pre-ordain yet more problems.

Two words, three syllables, that describe all this stuff, which pertain to so many things in public-sector work. Tar. Baby. It turns out that when Gov. Romney made the comment for which he would later apologize, he was being prophetic. In getting nailed on this artificially-ambiguous phrasing, he is demonstrating how correct he was. The damn thing’s a tar baby. To simply touch it, is to get in trouble, and to try to get out of the trouble, is to get in more trouble.

What a great slang term. In the racially-neutral form, that is. “Conundrum” simply doesn’t do. “Dilemma” doesn’t cut it. “Kerfuffle” doesn’t get it said. Even “Phusterkluck” somehow falls short.

I look at it this way: It would be a litmus test, generous to the offended parties to a demonstrable fault, to say, just find me a witness. Find me someone who will affirm, in an affidavit, or on merely unsworn testimony in a town square, that he, himself, is offended by the term. No proxies. Just find me, let’s say, three people. Three people willing to say “I, myself, am offended by this term and I am willing to say so” and then let us proceed with putting Gov. Romney in the ducking-stool, or get him ready for pie-in-the-face, or whatever else we want to do with him.

That would be extravagantly generous, as a standard for offense.

And yet, this article fails it. Once again…we have advocates, winning face time in front of the cameras and the microphones, being offended on behalf of someone else.

As for Romney’s use of the expression, Pastor William E. Dickerson of the Greater Love Tabernacle in Dorchester called it “a poor choice of words.”

“There are some words that we should eradicate from our vocabulary, so we don’t use them inappropriately,” he said. “Saying someone is a ‘tar baby’ is like calling them the black sheep of the family. Kids with darker skin were often teased, and they would cringe at hearing it. That’s why we should avoid it, especially a public servant.”

Pastor Dickerson, that’s a great argument! Or…it would be, if there was a substitute term that provided all of the connotations provided by “tar baby.”

Or…if someone could be found, who would give a non-anonymous, on-the-record, first-hand interview about how they, personally, were offended. Not someone else. They. Speak on your own behalf, or shut your pie-hole.

Or…if some more substantial evidence could be found, to indicate that this is indeed a racist term, or was one.

Or…if we were talking about something in which an innocent woman wasn’t killed for Chrissakes. Good heavens. Billions of dollars have been poured into this big ol’ pig-in-a-poke, and now it’s falling apart getting people squished. I would think the phony racial-epithet-bickering could wait for another day.

You just can’t write fiction like this. No responsible publisher would accept it.

Update: The Whore is similarly peeved.

Not Articulated Outright

This blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, likes to make observations about the yawning chasm that lies between the realm of what people do, and what actually would make sense. One of the ways we do that, is by examining the things people imply but don’t actually say on a word-for-word basis. In order for people to say things outright, in a forum that verifies their personal identities beyond a reasonable doubt, the things they say have to generate some respect — or, at least, not generate disrespect. Those things, there, have to be somewhat logical. But in order for people to produce gutteral sounds calculated to get people around them to think a certain thing, that thing doesn’t have to be logical at all. After all, by producing the gutteral sounds, the speaker isn’t actually taking any real responsibility. For anything.

That said, I have an observation to make. It’s about hot weather. In Northern California, my radio tells me we have broken twelve records in July. New York, meanwhile, is at or above the century mark. There are brown-outs. Blackouts. People without air conditioning. It’s a pretty hot summer.

You don’t have to wait very long at all, I see, to observe someone saying something about the hot weather we’ve been having…and then, you don’t have to wait very long for someone to say something about global warming. To hear someone put those two things in the same sentence, also, you can hear that several times a day. Even in the news. Many times a week you’ll hear someone “tease” a story about global warming, with a casual mention about how hot it has been outside lately — and then, cut to some egghead scientist guy who will reiterate what is known about “global climate change,” and what we’re still trying to find out. The implication is clear.

But I think everybody, in their heart-of-hearts, understands this is a sham. Because to hear someone actually string all the words together into a coherent sentence, a sentence that actually says something with gravity — “we are having a hot summer and it is because of man-made global warming that we are having it” — I don’t remember anyone actually doing this. Nobody on the news. No scientists. Not even man-off-the-street type strangers, looking for something to talk about.

Certainly, nobody with a name and reputation worth defending.

People won’t actually put the words together, and spew it out, presenting it as something in which they honestly believe. Not in a forum in which they care what people think about them. Not without that little chuckle on the end.

Spew out a lot of crap that motivates your audience to conclude on their own that this is what’s going on…that’s much easier. Much more common. Deep down, we all know it isn’t true.

Update 8/3/06: Oops. Pat Robertson, you wild and crazy guy you. Oh well, I do believe my exact words were, “nobody with a name and reputation worth defending.”

I’ve been living alone for two and a half years now. That doesn’t mean a whole lot, not enough even to me to warrant any mention. Except when you consider I had not lived alone for a whole fifteen years before that.

It is therefore inevitable that I’ve learned something about myself over the last two years. I’m not as inflexible or rigid as I thought I was. I don’t really have a strong preference about my living situation, certainly not as strong a preference as I used to think I did. I should hasten to add, I’m still against “fuck-buddies” living together when they’re not married. Things get too messy too quickly. Let’s word that last one with a little more surgical precision: The prospect of things getting messy, is bolstered with far too much certainty. Another thing I should add, is that as far as getting lonely goes with the passage of time, I’m slower than Yoda. People, in general, irritate the hell outta me.

But over the last two years, I’ve learned my ability to function day-to-day in the presence of others, surpasses what I thought I had. There are people with whom I can’t live, but my sense of discrimination doesn’t apply against certain types of people, quite so much as in favor of certain rules. And the rules are not unreasonable. They don’t go on for page-after-page. I’ve never had a problem with anyone who was nice enough to comply with them, and there are no rules that a reasonable person would say are out-of-place or hard to understand.

They are:

1. False accusations should be confined to the breaking of things that are irreparably broken, or the murder of people who are verifiably dead. If I’m going to be accused, I want to be guilty.
2. Show how mature you are. All things do not necessarily have to be said.
3. Redneck-Wimbledon matches are forbidden. After the second “huh?” or “what?”, STOP the conversation, WALK into the room where the other person is (or within 15 feet), and CONTINUE.
4. To move something, is to make an implied promise that you’ll remember where you moved it when I come lookin’ for it.
5. If I’m reading or writing, and you say something, and I go “meh” or “erm” or “guh” to get you to be quiet — that is not a “promise.”
6. You are in undisputed control of the kitchen, the bathroom, the computer, or the bed. Not all four at once.
7. You call me on the cell phone, and my situation is more complicated than it was before you called, for whatever reason…and then you do it a second time…my cell phone is going to start having “problems.”
8. Manage the food supply. If you can’t open the cereal without ripping the bag all the way down the side, get help. If the first jug of milk is already open, leave the second jug alone.
9. You may attempt to expand my horizons, if it doesn’t involve teaching me to like country music or spectator sports. To learn why I dislike those two things, let alone attempt to convert me, is an enterprise unworthy of your time. Expand my horizons somewhere else. You are getting dirty, and annoying the proverbial pig, much more quickly than you think.
10. Learn to choose things. Contradictions that exist in your life, exist in mine. You love babies, OR pit bulls. You’re sleeping with me, a straight man, OR you have some man-hating girlfriends. You have a passion for fine furniture and carpeting, OR stupid dogs that can’t be housebroken. We live in a crappy neighborhood, OR you have a $50,000 Dodge Viper. Decision-making; learn it, love it, live it.

And the extra-special rule…
1440. You want me to do something that involves going somewhere, tell me 24 hours beforehand. No reason for it to be a single minute less than that.

And then of course there’s all that other stuff. Flushing the toilet when I’m in the shower, paying your share of the utilities, buying toilet paper or at least saying something when it’s gone. Really, I think everyone has the same rules.

Update 11/19/10:
Can’t believe I missed this one. It’s a vital:

11. If I have to do it all by myself while everyone else does their own thing, or goofs off, or sits around and watches, or attends to other matters that are more important…no timetables. It’ll get done when it gets done.

And They Don’t Agree Often

Via our blogger friend Good Lieutenant at Mein Blogovault, we learn Alan Dershowitz and James Taranto agree on something.

I agree too. The case against John Bolton, as I understand it, is that he sympathizes with the United States over & above the United Nations. Taranto himself points out a reason for that, brilliant in its simplicity. And Bolton sees the status quo, as it exists at the U.N., as something somewhere between needs improvement and pretty Goddamned U.N.acceptable. And when he sees something that’s not quite up-to-snuff, he says so. Is that the case against him? Because everything I’ve learned outside of that, is just so much huffing-and-puffing and bluster and must-ought-should-ought-gotta-gotta-gotta quasi-European nonsense.

Memo For File XVIII

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had this weird itch between my ears. It perks up when people drop names behind some opinion I find dubious, as in, “Bob Smith says the best way to get red wine out of a silk blouse is with a bottle of bleach and a brillo pad,” with no qualifiers whatsoever after Bob’s name, like I’m just supposed to automatically know who he is. Anybody who’s even somewhat seasoned at reading news, knows what I’m talking about. Especially when that same article will qualify something else that doesn’t need qualifying, unless the anticipated readership has been living in a cave somewhere. “George Bush, President of the United States, may have been referring to an incident in late 2001 in which planes were flown into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a remote field in Pennsylvania.” Like, that which shouldn’t need qualifiers, gets ’em, and that which really should get them, is perceived to not need them. Just plain weird. Makes me want to do more digging.

Said itch-between-ears has yielded some fruit on occasion, like when I learned all about the career of Robert “Quoteboy” Thompson. The guy just makes his living being quoted.

So anyhow, my curiosity was aroused when I was reading about Mel Gibson. Gibson was busted for driving with a BAC of .12 last I heard, and sometime today the DA is supposed to figure out whether or not to pursue charges. Oh, Mel Gibson has starred in Lethal Weapon and Mad Max, and is the director of such fine films as…well, y’know. Anyway, Mel gets busted. And he starts babbling away about how his life is fucked, all the wars are the jews’ fault, etc. Gibson has since apologized.

Now for the record, if I was a movie guy and I was Jewish, and I had been working with Gibson, I would find it personally difficult to ever do so again. And yet, once again, here is the scoreboard: Movie People Who Say They Can’t Work With Mel Gibson: Zero; Movie People Instructing Other Movie People To Not Be Able To Work With Mel Gibson: One. People telling each other to be offended. Some guy whose name I’m supposed to know. Those two things always get me curious; they got me curious this time, too.

Meanwhile, top film industry agent Ari Emanuel issued a statement on HuffingtonPost.Com in which he called on Hollywood to stop working with Gibson.

“At a time of escalating tensions in the world, the entertainment industry cannot idly stand by and allow Mel Gibson to get away with such tragically inflammatory statements,” he said, adding:

“People in the entertainment community, whether Jew or Gentile, need to demonstrate that they understand how much is at stake in this by professionally shunning Mel Gibson and refusing to work with him, even if it means a sacrifice to their bottom line.” [emphasis mine]

Ol’ Ari. That agent Ari. Top agent. Not just one of them middle agents.

So who is this guy? I looked him up, and I found he seems to be the Courtney Peldon of Hollywood bigwig type people. Not that I have room to talk, mind you, writing for The Blog That Nobody Reads — but then again, nobody’s quoting my comments regarding what should happen to Mel Gibson’s career, and expecting everyone else to know who I am. His Wikipedia entry lists the following accomplishments.

Ariel “Arie” Emanuel is an Israeli-American literary agent at the Endeavor Agency in Beverly Hills, California. Jeremy Piven’s character on the HBO television show Entourage is based on Emanuel.

He is the brother of U.S. Congressman Rahm Emanuel.

Emanuel represents Michael Moore, Mark Wahlberg, and Larry David among other celebrities. [emphasis in original]

But it’s his CV as listed under Internet Movie Database that I find really impressive. Just…damn.

Miscellaneous Crew – filmography
(2000s) (1990s)

1. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) (thanks)

2. Mr. Show and the Incredible, Fantastical News Report (1998) (TV) (special thanks)
… aka The Best of Mr. Show: The Incredible, Fantastical News Report (USA: video title)

Filmography as: Miscellaneous Crew, Himself

Himself – filmography

1. “Entourage”
– Pilot (2004) TV Episode (uncredited) …. Himself

Omigosh, that Mel Gibson, star of Lethal Weapon and director of many fine films, was right. His life is really fucked. Look at the Hollywood glitterati just come out a-swingin’ against him. That guy listed as “thanks” in Fahrenheit 9/11 has already come out and said not to work with him. That’s just a freakin’ avalanche. A tidal wave of criticism.

No, based on what has found its way to me here, it seems Ari Emanuel is known for his Huffington Post material. Some twenty-or-so entries in the last ten months.

Ari seems to have a very “European” style of writing: lots of must, ought, should, gotta gotta gotta. Bottom line: Every scintilla of information I can get on this fellow, and it’s not exactly easy pickin’s I can tell you, seems to make his opinion about Gibson less newsworthy than it was left following the scintilla that came before. Ari Emanuel has an opinion about what people must stop doing, well, no shit Sherlock. Ari Emanuel seems to form such opinions six times a day before breakfast.

Now, what about the validity of Mr. Emanuel’s opinion? Don’t know. It would appear he is Jewish, and I’m not, so his opinion there is worth much more than mine. But telling other people what to do based on their feelings?

Eh…why don’t you go piss up a rope, Mr. Emanuel. If I’m a jewish movie producer and I’m personally peeved about what is on Gibson’s police blotter, the last thing I need to help me decide not to work with him anymore, is some Huffington Post piece by some guy I probably don’t even know.