Timatollah

Tuesday, December 31, 2002
 
No Tang!

So, here I am, ready to make some snarky comment about BeneTang! the new Space Age powdered drink beverage for aging boomers. You know, Tang!, orange-flavored powdered beverage mix, with Benefiber already mixed in.

But I can't find a web site, corporate or tribute, just for Tang! How can this be?


 
What Would Mohammed Drive?: The Cartoon

Doug Marlette, editorial cartoonist for The Tallahassee Democrat and the creator and writer/artist behind southern-fried comic strip Kudzu, has generated some heat with this cartoon. I got the links from Mark (Flablog) Lane, who has some comments on the matter here.

Things I learned that have nothing to do with the current broughaha: Marlette's no longer with The Charlotte Observer, he's got an award-winning book, and Kudzu's been turned into a musical! Plus, there's a web site for The Rev. Will B. Dunn.


Monday, December 30, 2002
 
Weather Report

Tonight. Blogging, slow to middling.

Tomorrow: Possible blogging.

Five day forecast: Chance of occasional blogging.


 
Props to Florida Bloggers

Okay, I'm an old fart, but I think these here "shout outs" (heh heh) are "props". Kat, Solonor, Blogatelle/Sekimori, The World Ate My Skull, Somewhere on A1A, Hidden City, Xkot, Spleenville, and Silverfisch.

And of course Dragonleg/Shattered Buddha and Mark Lane.

And all the rest.


Friday, December 27, 2002
 
Photography and Intention

Over at Slate (one good thing to come of there being a Microsoft), Jim Lewis, motivated by seeing the first photograph, ever, has this meditation on what photography entails.


Wednesday, December 25, 2002
 
New, Improved Star Trek

If you thought, like I thought, that Star Trek: Nemesis sucked, there are, at least, alternatives. For example, there's Starship Exeter. Link from James Lileks.


 
Yule Log



Stolen from A Small Victory, which has been overrun by forces from Amish Tech Support.

Well it's not like any of the local teevee stations here decided to run a fireplace loop this morning.


 
Help Me, Children of Germany. You're My Only Hope

Michael Jackson's Christmas message to the children of Germany: Here. What is up with that?


 
The Swayziest

"A Patrick Swayze Christmas". Here.

What? Not your style? What are you, some kind of Communist? Maybe you'd like this better (from Archer Audio Archives: Stars of Christmas).


 
Doin' It Doggie Style

And now, ladies and gentlemen, here again for your holiday listening pleasures. What you've long desired, but hated to request: Jingle Bells, sung by dogs. (Real Audio format.)


 
A Daytona Beach Christmas Song

I didn't write this. It's been in a scrapbook of mine -- as a clipping from either the News-Journal or Orlando Sentinel (more likely, I believe, the former) without authorship attribution -- since sometime in the mid 1980s. Mail's been sent to Mr. Mark (Flablog) Lane asking him if he wrote it or knows who did. (Addendum: Here's Mr. Lane's Christmas column for this year.)

Nonetheless, for your holiday enjoyment, I present "The Daytona Beach Christmas Song". You know the tune: "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire", etc.
Chest hairs roasting under Coppertone
Jack Frost wearing his Speedos
Loud rock 'n' roll
Blasting through your headphones
And babes dressed up like real bimbos
Everybody knows...
Daytona is the beach to cruise
When it gets the least bit warm
Tiny tots running 'round on the loose
Are dead meat if into traffic they swarm
They say that Santa's on his way
Greased up to block out all those cancer-causing rays
And all the Harley guys just might
Drink lots of beer, raise holy hell tonight, etc...


Tuesday, December 24, 2002
 
Merry Christmas

Have a good one, folks.


Monday, December 23, 2002
 
Clash Tunes

Mike Silverman has posted his list of favorite Clash tunes here. Now I'm motivated to do the same, but without annotations.

In no particular order...
  • Spanish Bombs
  • The Right Profile
  • Clampdown
  • The Card Cheat
  • I'm Not Down
  • Up in Heaven (Not Only Here)
  • Lose this Skin (a cover)
  • Career Opportunities
  • Police on My Back
  • Wrong 'Em Boyo (another cover)
If I had to pick my favorite three, they'd be The Right Profile, The Card Cheat, and Lose this Skin.

What's really gotten to me about Strummer's passing is that he was older than me by a few years. At the time of London Calling and Sandanista, when I was playing music, I just figured the members of the Clash were younger than me. But then, I didn't realize I was a punk.


 
Zappa Lives

Well, actually, no. As they say at alt.fan.frank-zappa, Frank be jammin' up in hebbin' with, oh, Joe Strummer (see several items below).

But after griping about Charles Johnson's "idiotrarian" poll (immediately below), I checked out his LGF site for the first time in a while, and I found this log entry pointing to this piece by Mr. Frank Zappa regarding the music of Mr. Edward Varesse.

The larger point here is that besides the important behavior of getting input regarding points of view that are different that one's own, people with whom we don't necessarily agree often are interested in the same things we are. Or interested in things we're not interested in, but in a way that makes the world better, even with their politics. Choosing friends or acquaintences solely by their politics is not well-founded, in my opinion at least.

Political agreement is important in political matters, but there's more than politics to this world, even in times when our existence might be threated. For example, there's music, and, as FZ said (Warning, Will Robinson! Cheezy link follows!!) "music is the best".


 
The Idiotarian Concept Must Die

Lawrence, Kansas, blogger and good guy Mike Silverman, in his Red Letter Day blog encourages people to go to Little Green Footballs and vote for "Idiotarian of the Year" in this post.

Longer-term readers will recall that I'm very much ag'in' the entire "Idiotarian" concept. (You don't recall? You're not a longer-term reader? Go here for the evidence.) Even when applied to accurately identified specious thinking, it's a cheap schoolyard name-calling shot that doesn't exactly lead fence sitters to think well of the one who did the accurate analysis. So while I'm all for folks going and reading Mike's blog -- or Little Green Footballs for that matter -- I think taking a pass on this exercise is probably the wiser course.

I know. I know. It's pointless to insist on the distinction between stupidest thing said and most idiotic person. Well, I gotta have a few pointless quests. There might be an argument that I could better pick mine. Go ahead. I'm all ears.


 
"Long Live Your Laundry"

I don't understand what it means, but I saw the phrase "Long Live Your Laundry" here at Dragonleg's blog, Shattered Buddha, and I wanted to see it again. So there.


 
Self Defense

In this log entry, Jeff Sover at Alphecca takes on gun control and hate-crimes legislation, all in one fell swoop.

Meanwhile, back here in Volusia county, the Sheriff's department is questioning whether a woman appropriately fired warning shots when two men were trying to break her door down. Story here from the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

Timatollah says: Given that no one died and the alleged perps were kicking her door, the Sheriff and his minions oughta back off and leave her be. People should think twice before kicking at someone's door.


 
R.I.P., Joe Strummer

Joe Strummer, of the Clash, has died. Story here from CNN.

Like several other bands of that era that I really really loved, particularly Minutemen, I never could stand the Clash's politics -- Sandanista this, Sandanista that, Sandanista out the ass -- but their tunes were great, their energy was entirely appropriate for the moment, and they and their members, particularly Joe Strummer, deserve credit and respect and rememberance for what they created.


 
VaxGen AIDS Vaccine Trial

According to this story in The Boston Globe, trials of the VaxGen candidate AIDS vaccine have been completed and the analysis of effectiveness has begun. Results are expected in March or so.

Details of VaxGen's candidate vaccine, AIDSVAX, can be found here.


Sunday, December 22, 2002
 
That Second Tolkien Flick

We went with some friends to see The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers last night. As spectacle goes, it was fine: pretty pictures, pretty computer-generated graphics, an awesome computer-generated character (Gollum) that makes Jar-Jar Binks look even more pathetic than ever. (Hell, Gollum makes the new, improved Yoda of Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones look pathetic.)

As story goes, though, it left a lot to be desired. I am no student or fan of the Tolkien books. I couldn't make it far enough into The Hobbit way back in the hippy days to have any claims of knowledge about them. And so, lacking certain knowledge (and being cheap enough or maybe even smart enough not to rush out to buy or rent the DVD of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings), I found The Two Towers lacking. Substantially lacking.

First, there's very little character development. The only characters we learn very much about are the very conflicted Gollum mentioned above, and Frodo Baggins's gardener, Sam. While there's a hint of a love story about the human male lead and an elfen female, it's fragmented. There's little to grab onto.

And there's very little to suggest why the ring is so desirable. Yes, it exerts influence on Frodo and starts to drive him nuts, but is there any reason outside some preface material to the first movie -- material I have a hard time remembering -- to explain just what it is about the ring that's so important that everyone wants to have it? None is given, and the result is that there's very little motivation for the characters to act the ways they do.

Finally, there's lots of bloodshed -- well, not so much bloodshed, but lots of bone-crunching Foley sound effects -- but huge amounts of it are of the zombie, manufactured army created by magic by the Christopher Lee villain. There's so much, in fact, that it has little emotional impact. These aren't bad guys who except for different choices could be good guys: these are just instantiations of pure-D evil without any alternative for good. There's no reason to feel anything when they get offed. And most of the good guys who die in almost similar numbers are to the story as the actors who played them were to the studio: extras.

There are some good themes: The importance of confronting evil, and the importance of loyalty, bravery, and honor. But those themes don't have the support of well-rounded characters that the moviegoer might actually care about. To be honest, even though it had a high action quotient, it was boring.

I'll go see the third and concluding movie, but it will be only for the spectacle.


Saturday, December 21, 2002
 
The Ormond Loop

A few photos of the Ormond Loop can be found here. They're not great: In fact, they're minimal, quickly worked with, and not thought about much. They don't capture the beauty of The Loop itself.

The Loop itself is a mix of low, overhanging trees creating a dark, cool (cooler, today) tunnel, with open marshy spaces. It's vegetation, and vegetation, and vegetation, and some water. It's green and dark and blue and light and life abounding. It's where a gator almost got our dog (read about it here).

Jimmy Olson sez: Jeepers, Mr. Lane. Thanks for the photo assignment!


 
Mark Lane Forgets that The History of America is The History of Real Estate Development

Here.

I'm both sympathetic to his point of view and completely cynical that much can be done to stop the developments in question. In the most recent local elections, the developers' candidate beat the more slow-growth candidate for the county-wide at large seat. That means it's going to be difficult to stop anything, at least for the next few years, because the county commissioners -- or whatever they're called here (I'm just semi-native) -- can use the defeat of Big John (yes, he changed his name so that that's really his name now, and, yes, I voted for Big John) to hide behind every one of these pro-development votes they take.

I'm also not just cynical, but trying to avoid the "I just moved here, development must stop now" mentality, which lots of non-natives have. Trying, not always successfully.

Also, we moved here a few years ago from Memphis, Tennessee, where you can literally see the development in concentric circles around downtown. Midtown = Roaring Twenties; East Memphis = Post WWII / Sixties; Cordova = Reagan Eighties. And, the local history always reminds us that Memphis and Shelby County began as a real-estate development by Andrew Jackson, John Overton, and [blanking on name] Shelby.

Mack and I are headed out here in a few to ride The Loop. Back later, hopefully with photos. Lane's got a beautiful pic up with his post.



 
Curriculum Vitae

Josh Marshall is having the occassional pissy moment (here) about the contents of Bill Frist's CV. That's CV as in curriculum vitae, a study of life.

Marshall is confusing a good, complete CV, like Frist's (here), with a resume. An honest-to-God CV really ought to be full of nonsense like high-school awards, summer jobs, and the like.

Politics aside, my own feeling is that it's a good thing to have someone who's still publishing research papers leading the (currently) majority party in the Senate.


Friday, December 20, 2002
 
Lott to Step Down

Drudge, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, et al. are all reporting that Trent Lott is going to step down as Senate Majority Leader.

Let the gloating begin. Any predictions on who will gloat the loudest? Who will counsel humility?


Saturday, December 14, 2002
 
Another Lunar Anniversary

Thirty years ago, humans last walked on the moon. This page from NASA has more info. Link from The World Ate My Skull.


 
Bring Me the Head of Rick Berman

From: Sumner Redstone, Chair, Viacom
To: Rick Berman, Star Trek
Subject: Star Trek: Nemisis

Rick,

I know you've worked long and hard to keep the Star Trek franchise alive. Since taking over from Roddenberry, you've overseen ST:TNG, Deep Space 9, Voyager, Enterprise, as well as numerous Star Trek movies.

Let's face facts, Rick. IT'S OVER. DRAINED. PLAYED OUT. Whatever creative forces you had way back when that somehow managed to capture the Star Trek spirit have completely and totally oozed out from you. The result is boring, formulaic, wimpy attempts at entertainment and storytelling that aren't achieving what viewers -- both longstanding Star Trek fans and just random moviegoers -- want.

Take Star Trek:Nemesis. PLEASE. Any near-rational individual looking at the trailers would think, this is a high-energy movie with exciting scenes including dune buggies, an inter-space-ship jump, a collision between starships, and some major battle action. What does that individual get when she or he plucks down their hard-earned money at the theater. BORING talk talk talk between Jean-Luc Picard and his pouty-lipped supposed clone. Yak yak yak. Yap yap yap. Is this dramatic dialogue we're talking about here? No, it's bad philosophy coupled with pep talks.

I mean, Rick... How can you make the collision of two spaceships BORING. How can the aftermath of the collision of two space ships play out in such a pathetic no-action way. "Tractor beam"? Nah. "Board the Remulan ship"? Nope. Instead, the Remulans simply back away. And then sit there.

If you hadn't heard, two spaceships sitting in space is BORING. Did you honestly lie to yourself that there was some kind of dramatic energy that had been pent up over the course of the story to that point? If you did, I hate to tell you what's hopefully obvious to you now. THERE WASN'T.

This Star Trek franchise is too important to allow you to continue its slow destruction. The only sensible thing for the Paramount to do now is to put it -- all of it, and that includes Enterprise -- on ice for ten or so years until someone comes along who can bring something fresh to that universe. There's no reason to believe that anyone who's been associated with the show in any of its renditions has an ounce of creativity left.

I'm doing the only sensible thing left, Rick. I'm pulling the plug.

It's been a good run, and you've got a lot to be proud of. But the time has come for you and for Paramount to move on to other things.

Best wishes,

Sumner



Friday, December 13, 2002
 
Why You Should Water Your Christmas Tree

I know I kinda made fun (here) of the brief media frenzy regarding turkey-frier safety, but one look at this video (AVI format, QuickTime format) from the National Institute of Standards and Technology shows you why you ought to water your tree daily. An NIST report on scotch pine Christmas tree flamability in .pdf format is here.


 
Ford CFO Allan Gilmour

Allan Gilmour was once the CFO of Ford. After being passed over for the CEO slot and then retiring from day-to-day management at the company, Gilmour come out of the closet. Here's a story from The Advocate on the event, and here's an interview he did with Alex Taylor, III, for Forture as republished at the Business 2.0 site (whatever Business 2.0 is).

Last May, Bill Ford asked Gilmour to return to the CFO position. Here's a San Jose Mercury News story on that event.


Thursday, December 12, 2002
 
Hot Dog!

Following up on my comments here, about cooking hot dogs with 120 VAC power, a little bit of Googling yields the following links:The second link claims that (as ought to be expected) the resistance of the dog changes as it cooks, but it doesn't give numbers.


 
Solaris

Mack and I saw Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's Solaris last night. I enjoyed it. It left me with one of those 2001: A Space Odyssey what the hell was up with that ending moments, but that was okay in the context of the story.

George Clooney seemed fine. The part he was playing fit nicely with his understatement of the character. Natascha McElhone was really interesting as his "visitor". The rest of the cast was good, and the score, by Cliff Martinez was excellent.

Soderbergh, as Peter Andrews, was his own cinematographer. It really is an interesting flick to look at. The purported memory sequences have a warm reddish tone, but the space-station sequences have a cold flourescent blue overcast. That coding is part of what makes the ending, er, interesting.

I haven't read this particular work by Lem, but I've read enough of his to know that the nature of reality, its representations, and how we come to know/believe them, are among his recurring themes. The ending, in that context, has multiple possible meanings, ranging from a "realistic" interpretation about what might've actually happened to the characters had they happened to have been real and had these things happen to them, to "literary" comments about the nature of characters in books and movies and what happens to the characters, what it means to know a character in a movie, how is that like knowing someone in reality, etc.

If you like subtle, thoughtful, sci-fi complete with philosophical musings on the nature of existence, I'd guess you'd like it. If you're looking for space opera, this is not the right movie for you.

One small complaint: There is one brief moment when the film breaks into full-blown Star Trek technobabble mode. My own sense is that the story could've developed in almost the same way without resorting to such. Yeah, they had a machine, and yeah, the machine poofed the "visitors" out of existence, but was it really necessary to start yapping about "Higgs bosons", etc. It's not a no-go sticking point, but it might be a point of irritation.


 
Hot Diggity Dog

Local columnist, all around nice guy, and Flablog owner Mark Lane points all (here) to a reprint of his recent Sunday column on kitchen appliances from the Daytona Beach News-Journal as it appears (here) in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (Dig the linkage density!) The Journal-Constitution presentation adds a vote on the most useless kitchen gadget you own, and Lane is lobbying for the Hot Dogger.

I have some vague memory -- well, possible memory, possible fantasy -- about constructing a hot-dog cooker with a two prep-school kitchen forks, some lamp cord, a board, and a couple of nails. I'm responsible enough now (aw shucks) to say, "Kids, don't try this at home until after you find out the resistance of a hot dog -- I'd say all of frozen, uncooked, and cooked -- and make sure the contraption won't draw so much current that it'll either blow a fuse or melt the lamp cord." Remember amps = volts over ohms and watts = volts times amps.

Personally, we love our Black and Decker Steamer for cooking veggies and for cooking rice. Since it gets used on a nearly daily basis, I dread the day when it finally fails. The newer ones are, somehow, different: more bells, more whistles. I want one-onto-one replacement of my old appliance with my new one.

Within the past couple of years, we had to put down a waffle iron / griddle that my folks had had when I was a wee one forty-some-odd years ago, and its replacement, while it does have teflon coating, just doesn't seem to get it right. It makes about 1/2 as many waffles / pancakes at a time as the older one did, and the temperature is uneven between the two sides. And I doubt that it will last forty-plus years.


Wednesday, December 11, 2002
 
Love

"...[L]ove is not a feeling but an act -- a series of tiny acts repeated over time until they turn into what, with any luck, turns out to be a lifetime." -- Norah Vincent in the 10 December 2002 Advocate.


 
Roker Visits Lileks

Do I even have to point you to this?


 
Harold Ford, Jr.

Here's a Time piece on Tennessee congressman Harold Ford, Jr. (Link via Andrew Sullivan.)

Ford is a sensible, thoughtful, politician. Not only does he have the constituent-services base totally covered -- okay, there had to be some good things to learn from his father -- he's economically progressive but thoroughly committed to the national interest in matters international and defense. He's somewhat socially conservative, but not, to my knowledge, any kind of homo hater or supporter of restricting abortion access.

Unfortunately, Ford gets denigration from lots of sides. The article describes some of the negative ways the Congressional Black Caucus has treated him. And while Ford gets a good collection of press clippings from Washington-based columnists, he still has to deal with Trent-Lott style entrenched racisim among not only white Republicans voters in Tennessee, but also those of the Tennessee Democratic Party.

I recently argued with my brother back in Tennessee that Ford would've made a much better nominee to run against Lamar Alexander for U. S. Senate than do-nothing previous-statewide-loser Bob Clement, but my brother (in small-town middle Tennessee) assured me that there were still too many white folk in Tennessee who would never vote for a black man, even if his politics were substantially to the right, not just centrist like Fords. I'm not sure I buy the conclusion of that analysis -- if I had been kingmaker, I'd've still run Ford -- but the very fact that the analysis can be given serious consideration indicates that there are still problems unrelated to policy or even personality -- that is, problems related to race -- to overcome for politicians like Ford.

On the downside, he has an uncle, Tennessee state senator John Ford, who is a complete yahoo and total whacko.


 
The Rim of the New World

Today's installment in the Washington Post's series on ethic and racial diversity is here. It concerns an immigrant from Mali (west Africa) who has a cleaning job at the Atlanta airport.

Yesterday's feature is here and has to do with the pressures on a young Vietnamese woman.


Monday, December 09, 2002
 
The Invaders

"A Quinn Martin Production..."

But seriously, it doesn't matter whether you're talking Californians moving to Prescott, Arizona; Michiganders moving to Central Florida; or New Yorkers moving to rural Vermont. The story's pretty much the same, isn't it?

Speaking of SUVs -- What? I wasn't? Yes, but Jeff Sover was in the link above -- in this blog entry, Mark Lane points all to this Washington Monthly article about the hulking metal boxes and their owners.


 
Southern Justice

While there is a certain ironic justice to aspects of the Lott affair related to Republicans having tacitly played the race card for so many years in the South, there's also no denying (to me at least) that there are (1) plenty of southern Republicans cut from the same cloth, (2) still quite a few white southern Democrats (e.g., Robert Byrd of West Virginia) who are no more respectable regarding race issues than Lott and his Nixon-era cadre, and (3) plenty of non-thinking black Democrats all across the nation who cling to a currently untenable model of race relations that can never evolve toward formal colored blindness coupled with what I call the "soft identity-politics" model.

The soft identity-politics model recognizes that individuals will often choose to associate and identify with others who share similar, often historical or socially-based attributes, whether those are racial, ethnic, vocational, sexual-orientation derived, etc. But while we recognized such behavior and identification on the part of individuals, we shouldn't cast those identifications in concrete when it comes either to consitutional matters (voting districts), legal matters (hiring quotas), or political matters (block voting).


 
Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Trent Lott Has Got To Go

Numerous internet pundits are pointing out the horrendousness of Trent Lott's stupid "It would've been better if Strom had won in '48" (paraphrase) comments at Strom Thrumond's birthday party last week. Some are calling for his resignation as Senate Majority Leader. Many of those are conservatives; some are Republicans. A few examples: Howard Owens, Virginia Postel, Arthur Silber, Glenn Reynolds, Andrew Sullivan, and Daniel Drezner.

So, where are the Dems on this one? Excepting, of course, Josh Marshall. Good question.

This just in: Jessie Jackson has called for Lott to resign. Details here. It's about time.


 
More Lake Monroe News

In other matters related to the Lake Monroe I-4 crossing, The Orlando Sentinel has this story about the building of the new bridge there.


 
Smokestacks Coming Down

According to this story in the News-Journal, Florida Power and Light is dismantling two tall smokestacks at its plant on the St. Johns River in Sanford. The oil-fired boilers they're attached to have been replaced by gas burners. The smokestacks have been there, near the I-4 bridge across the St. Johns at Lake Monroe, since I can remember. FPL's information on the changes at the Sanford plant is located here.

There's an old municipal power plant (Enterprise, Florida?) on the other side of the bridge that's, to my knowledge, unused. It's a yellow brick building with five or six small stacks; i.e., it looks like a lot of older municipal power plants. I'm surprised it's still standing.


 
Diversity in Atlanta, Part II

Here's the second article of four in the WaPo's series on racial/ethnic diversity in the Atlanta suburbs. Today's article focuses on a young woman, native of Mexico but wanting to be an American, and her attempts to balance love, school, work, and a young child.


Sunday, December 08, 2002
 
Stonewood

Stonewood Grill is a locally-based (Ormond Beach) chain of upscale but casual restaurants. They really are nice: the food is good, and the service is great. Today's Daytona Beach News-Journal has this feature article in its business section on the small closely-held chain.


 
Diversity in a Suburban Atlanta Dairy Queen

Here's a long -- think LA Times long -- piece from the Washington Post on the wide ethnic/racial mix of employees at a suburban Atlanta Dairy Queen. It may not be the world we thought we'd have when the civil rights movement took hold, but it's better than the one we left behind.


 
Phish is Back

Long-lasting jam band Phish (band site, fan site) has a new album coming out this Tuesday, will play Madison Square Garden on New Years Eve and then Hampton Collesium, Hampton, Virginia, over the next few nights, and then have a brief but nationwide (in an east-west sense) tour in February. The accompanying increment in Phish-related media activity includes appearances on SNL (14 December, hosted by Al Gore) and Letterman (19 December).

There's also this article by Jon Parales in today's New York Times, which has a mutlimedia companion feature. (The New York Times web site requires registration.)


Saturday, December 07, 2002
 
Lockheed Martin

According to Independent Gay Forum columnist Steve Miller, Lockheed Martin has finally added sexual orientation to its non-discrimination in hiring policy. He adds that the company is going to offer domestic partner benefits beginning next year. His column entry (here, then scroll down to "Shareholders Rule") points to this article in the Rocky Mountain News.

An interesting aspect of this is that the pressure to make the change came from students at Swarthmore College. Swarthmore's press release regarding the matter is here.

Addendum: The Human Rights Campaign has this press release on the Lockheed Martin policy change.


 
Minor Updates

Made some minor updates to the blog template this a.m. Talk about painful and unintuitive. Blech.

I also made a rancorless update of the permanent links to the left. These are people that I read regularly.

I anticipate a move to something like Moveable Type over the holiday break, but no promises!


 
Pearl Harbor Vets

Several years ago -- I believe it was in 1996 -- I had the opportunity to be in Honolulu on Pearl Harbor Day. Numerous Pearl Harbor vets were there. I talked with them and took some photos.

They were, of course, mainly in their 70s and 80s. It seemed as if some of them had already resigned themselves to their no longer being a major feature of the collective national consciouness: That they knew that sometime after the 50th anniversary of the attack that the attack's importance would fade. Some of that is just demographics: There are just fewer of them alive to remind us of what happened. Some of that is the reality of intervening events.

Several of the vets had very strong opinions about the politics of the time. They continued to believe the FDR had allowed the attacks to happen, had even ensured that the entire Pacific fleet would be in harbor. The motive was to make sure the US entered WWII. How much of those sentiments were resentment, how much were lingering pro-German attitudes that were against entering the war period, I don't know.


 
Pearl Harbor Day

Regardless of the intervening awfulness of 09/11/01, December 7 is still the anniversary of the day in 1941 that the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor was attacked by surprise by the Japanese. Like the 09/11 anniversary likely will, the Pearl Harbor anniversary remains a good opportunity to reflect on the pointless loss of life, the horrendousness of any kind of sneak attack, and the repulsiveness of smug self-righteousness of either militaristic or religious stripe.

My own reflections on such suggest that preparedness for and a willingness, ultimately, to engage both in rapid retaliation and in prolonged struggle, coupled with the will to use force, even extreme force, in locales around the world, are more likely to secure our collective freedom than just about any other strategy.


Thursday, December 05, 2002
 
Cracker Barrel Changes Its Corporate Mind

Cracker Barrel has added sexual orientation to their non-discrimination policy. An HRC press release is here. Link from Mike Silverman.


 
No Skins

The racist/neo-Nazi skinhead rock show has punted on Daytona as a location. The Daytona Beach News-Journal story is here.


Wednesday, December 04, 2002
 
Hammerskin Update

Here's this morning's News-Journal story on the neo-Nazi/skinhead/racist concert planned for the Daytona Beach area.


Tuesday, December 03, 2002
 
Blogger Hates You

Apparently, it's not just me. It won't even let me fix my typos in the post below. And it's been refusing to publish most of the day.

Mark Lane has Blogger haiku and other poetry of various ups and downs here and here and here.