David Cobbs’ ‘Safe States’ Strategy sways uncommitted delegates and nets him the Green Party Presidential nomination:

Many, like myself, are heaving a sigh of relief that the Greens, albeit by the slimmest of margins, have recognized their pivotal responsibility in defeating Bush this time around. It truly is a decision in the interests of the future of the Green Party. Going with Nader’s misguided self-centered hubris would have been the party’s last gasp of credibility with most of the progressive voting bloc, I am convinced.

“…Cheney has shown that, with obsequiousness to the president and obtuseness to the facts, a vice president can run the world. Right into the ground.” — Maureen Dowd (New York Times op-ed)

“A Canadian man, driving a car packed with weapons and ammunition, was intent on killing as many people as possible in a Toronto neighborhood but gave up the plan at the last minute when he encountered a friendly dog, police said on Thursday.” (Yahoo!)

“An exploding vending machine turned the coolant freon into phosgene, a poisonous gas used as a chemical weapon in World War One, and forced the evacuation of 10 people from a Texas hospital, officials said on Thursday.” (Yahoo!)

“Michael Moore may be prevented from advertising his controversial new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, on television or radio after July 30 if the Federal Election Commission (FEC) today accepts the legal advice of its general counsel…

In a draft advisory opinion placed on the FEC’s agenda for today’s meeting, the agency’s general counsel states that political documentary filmmakers may not air television or radio ads referring to federal candidates within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election.

The opinion is generated under the new McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law, which prohibits corporate-funded ads that identify a federal candidate before a primary or general election.” (The Hill)

“The Bush administration has decided to take the unusual step of bestowing on its own troops and personnel immunity from prosecution by Iraqi courts for killing Iraqis or destroying local property after the occupation ends and political power is transferred to an interim Iraqi government, U.S. officials said.” (Washington Post)

While the legal basis for this appears dubious, it draws some of its supposed legitimacy from the UN resolution recognizing the transitional government and supporting the ‘multinational’ force. Perhaps achieving some basis for the claim of immunity, rather than any concern about the legitimacy of the US occupation, was the real ugency behind the resolution?

What’s going on under those black robes? (The Smoking Gun)

“On the eve of the so-called transfer of sovereignty to the new Iraqi caretaker government on June 30, former Saddam Hussein generals turned members of the elite of the Iraqi resistance movement have abandoned their clandestine positions for a while to explain their version of events and talk about their plans. According to these Ba’ath officials, ‘the big battle’ in Iraq is yet to take place.” (Asia Times)

“…Cheney has shown that, with obsequiousness to the president and obtuseness to the facts, a vice president can run the world. Right into the ground.” — Maureen Dowd (New York Times op-ed)

“Even negative attacks on Kerry no longer seem to be working.” — Sidney Blumenthal (Guardian.UK)

Readers may recall my satisfaction at the 2002 Supreme Court ruling mandating that death sentences be imposed only by juries and not by ‘judicial override’ of a jury’s finding of a lesser sentence. Now the Supreme Court says its earlier ruling applies only to forthcoming death penalty cases, not retroactively to those cases already pending appeal. Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority that this is because the 2002 ruling was just “procedural” and not a “watershed” rule of criminal procedure. It seems to me it violates the fundamental dictum of equal protection under the law. (Reuters)

(Uh, Dick, I hate to break it to you, but you’re raising the wrong finger.)

Against Happiness: “Sad people are nice. Angry people are nasty. And, oddly enough, happy people tend to be nasty, too.” (The New York Times Magazine)

Rivka, the thoughtful psychologist who writes Respectful of Otters, lambasted psychoanalyst Justin Frank’s armchair analysis of George Bush even more vociferously than I did. Remarkably, Frank wrote back to Rivka to defend himself. I agree with her that his defense is not very convincing, but he joins me in wondering if we don’t have a special abiding interest in this kind of knowledge about our national leaders, particularly with an election looming (particularly with the fate of the earth looming…). On the other hand, I suspect that anyone au courant enough to become concerned on the basis of a psychoanalytic portrait is someone who had already made their mind up on the basis of more conventional evidence, as Rivka agrees.

I have previously written about how much I love year-end best lists, and have sometimes posted lists of pointers to them here. I forgot to mention that I also look forward to the spate of summer reading lists that come out about now, although I am appalled by the suspicion that they owe their proliferation to the fact that many people don’t read for the rest of the year until they are lounging around the pool or the beach on their summer vacation. Rebecca has begun to collect links to summer reading lists here, so I can point you to hers.

“This may be the most important graphic you’ll see in the entire campaign.” (The Washington Monthly)

No Skeeters, No Problem? Not So Fast The New York Times reporter calls an entomologist and environmental ethicist to ask what I venture to say most people who spend any length of time outdoors in summer have asked themselves — “what good are mosquitoes?” and “why shouldn’t there be a world without them?” Being a good environmentalist do-be, I long ago gave up on my fantasy of a world without mosquitoes even though I am exquisitely sensitive to them and am one of the people who are bitten, and bitten severely, when all around me are getting a free ride. I figured that, with the complex web of interconnectedness of all life and all that, the possibility of severe unforseen consequences of eliminating even such a pest ruled out my daydream (apart from the question of whether it is even achievable in the real world…). The scientist suggests that we are reassessing the assumption that it the loss of every species that goes extinct is an environmental catastrophe per se. She says nothing, however, of the slippery slope we enter when we try to be the arbiters of which components of species diversity are dispensible; after all, it isn’t really an issue of how appealing a species is. And, as pointed out, some insect pests, in keeping the human ‘riff raff’ out of wilderness areas, are deemed some of nature’s ‘best conservationists.’ But, if mosquitoes in particular were on the endangered species list, how hard would those among us who are not reverent Jains (the members of which religion reputedly wear surgical masks so that they do not inadvertently kill small flying insects by inhaling them, if the apocryphal stories are true…) work to protect their remaining numbers? I never have and never will use an electric bug zapper in my garden; our tastes run more to citronella candles. But I remain an unabashed fan of DEET when I go into the wilderness…

By the way, when did the term ‘Indian’ become politically correct again? Where on the political compass is Indian Country?

Boston Globe editorial: An involuntary army:

Seymour Hersh argues in The New Yorker that Israel’s abiding security fear in the Middle East is Iran and the evidence that it is developing a nuclear weapons program. Since the US invasion of Iraq, Israel has been warning the US to seal the Iraq-Iran border to prevent Iranian incursions to foment continuing Iraqi opposition to the occupation. Given the US bungling of the Iraqi situation, the likely fragmentation of postwar Iraq and the likelihood that Iran will be the real winner of the US war, Israel is developing a presence in Kurdistan — even at the risk of jeopardizing its relationship with Turkey — to have a hand in the region and monitor the Iranian nuclear program. Kurds are being armed and trained for covert operations and intelligence missions in the region.

I will be travelling for a few days and away from keyboard or web connection. So, sadly, no posts here until next Wed. or Thurs. What in the world do you suppose may have happened by then? In any case, have a wonderful few days, see you soon…

PS: Consider some ways you might contribute to disaster relief in the Sudan, please. The scope of the human crisis there is unimaginable…

“Ten years later, we’re still picking up the pieces. And if you can’t remember what happened … maybe you’re lucky.” (ESPN) Extraordinarily (and unfortunately?), everyone I ask remembers exactly where they were when they heard the verdict, as with 9-11 or (for those old enough) the Challenger space shuttle disaster or the assassination of JFK.

“Nessie’s turned into a real recluse. The men from Mars no longer pay us flying visits. And the spooks have been spooked. Why have all the sightings dried up? Sean Thomas investigates the mysterious death of the paranormal.” (Guardian.UK)

Catalytic cotton chows down on dirt.: “In the classic 1951 film, The Man in the White Suit, Alec Guinness played a scientist who invents a fabric that never gets dirty or wears out. A chemist’s pipe dream perhaps, but the prospect of self-cleaning clothes might be getting closer.

Scientists have invented an efficient way to coat cotton cloth with tiny particles of titanium dioxide. These nanoparticles are catalysts that help to break down carbon-based molecules, and require only sunlight to trigger the reaction. The inventors believe that these fabrics could be made into self-cleaning clothes that tackle dirt, environmental pollutants and harmful microorganisms.” (Nature)

“The first virus to spread from one cell phone to another has been created, the Russian anti-virus software vendor Kaspersky Labs announced on Tuesday.

Cabir has no malicious capabilities and affects only a small slice of ‘smart’ phones that run on both the sophisticated Symbian operating system and have a Bluetooth connection. It has been written by a group called 29a.

The virus is an ‘interesting milestone’, says Graham Cluley, a consultant at the anti-virus software vendor Sophos in Oxford, UK, because it is the first virus to spread through a cell phone network.” (New Scientist)

“The finding casts serious doubt on the reliability of victim testimonies in cases involving psychological trauma.” (New Scientist) While prior research cast doubts on the accuracy of recall of traumatic events, critics felt the studies, necessarily, could not be naturalistic enough and that real trauma might actually focus the memory. But a new study by Yale researchers, partially funded by the Pentagon, studied over 500 military personnel at mock POW camps designed to train subjects to withstand capture. 24 hours after the subjects’ release from the camps, their ability to recognize their interrogators was abysmal.

After more than 80 years without surnames, picking one is as much about personality as it is ancestry: “For more than 80 years, everyone in Mongolia was on a first-name basis. After seizing power in the early 1920s, the Mongolian Communists destroyed all family names in a campaign to eliminate the clan system, the hereditary aristocracy and the class structure.

Within a few decades, most Mongolians had forgotten their ancestral names. They used only a single given name — a system that eventually became confusing when 9,000 women ended up with the same name, Altantsetseg, meaning ‘golden flower.’

By the mid-1990s, Mongolia had become a democracy again, and there were growing worries about the lack of surnames. One name might be enough when most people were nomadic herdsman in remote pastures, but now the country was urbanizing. The one-name system was so confusing that some people were marrying without realizing they were relatives.

In 1997, a new law required everyone to have surnames. The law was largely ignored, but then a system of citizenship cards was introduced. Slowly the country of 2.5 million began to adopt surnames.” (Globe and Mail)

Happy Bloomsday! It was 100 years ago today that Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus circuited Dublin on Everyman’s journey. Millions will be marking the occasion today with a pilgrimmage, a reading, a staged reenactment or simply a pint.

Addendum: Thanks to acm for pointing me to this news which threatens to disrupt the Bloomsday celebration (from comments). Somehow it seems that Joyce’s ‘high-faluttin’ fun’ ought to be immune to litigiousness if anything is:

Copyright row threat to ‘Ulysses’ centenary: “Stephen Joyce, the grandson and last surviving relative of the writer, has caused consternation by declaring that any public reading of what is regarded as the most influential novel of the 20th century will be a breach of copyright and cannot go ahead without permission and payment. Readings in both London and Dublin to launch the first ever unabridged audio CD of the book – the 22 discs last 27 hours – have been cancelled because of fears of litigation.

Much of the difficulty stems from a change in copyright law in 1996 which extended the period of copyright from 50 years to 70 years after an author’s death. This meant Joyce, who died in 1941, was out of copyright for five years – allowing readings – before becoming copyrighted again.” (Independent.UK)

Here is Ulysses online. Dig in.

Dave Winer has abruptly pulled the plug on hosting anyone’s weblog at weblogs.com anymore. Among the homeless is Craig Jensen’s venerable Booknotes. Winer has agreed to send those who request a copy of their site. I hope Craig, and the other ninety or so who have so far asked him to export their sites, will find hosts soon.

“Ashcroft is a scumbag, fire his boss and he goes too.” — Rafe Colburn

US told: charge Saddam or free him: “Saddam Hussein must either be released from custody by June 30 or charged if the US and the new Iraqi government are to conform to international law, the International Committee of the Red Cross said last night.” (Guardian.UK)

Neuroscientific corroboration that we cannot see faults in our partners or children. (Telegraph.UK)

“…(S)ources close to the Bush family say the elder Bush thinks his son has mishandled the war in Iraq.

“They disagree on the war,” says a family confidante. “Former President Bush believes the U.S. should have sought more support before invading Iraq and feels his son did not work hard enough to secure the support of allies.” (Capitol Hill Blue)

“A new book by a prominent Washington psychoanalyst says President George W. Bush is a ‘paranoid meglomaniac’ as well as a sadist and ‘untreated alcoholic.’ The doctor’s analysis appears to confirm earlier reports the President may be emotionally unstable.

Dr. Justin Frank, writing in Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, also says the President has a ”lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions … [and] pumping his fist gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad.’

Even worse, Dr. Frank concludes, the President’s years of heavy drinking ”may have affected his brain function – and his decision to quit drinking without the help of a 12-step program [puts] him at far higher risk of relapse.’

Dr. Frank’s revelations comes on the heels of last week’s Capitol Hill Blue exclusive that revealed increasing concern by White House aides over Bush’s emotional stability.”

As a psychiatrist, I am of two minds about Dr. Frank’s conduct here. On the one hand, it is a central ethical tenet of the profession that we not diagnose people from a distance, outside of a treatment relationship with them. Furthermore, Dr. Frank’s language here is nothing short of sensationalistic. On the other hand, the mental health of the President of the United States is of abiding public concern. In a sense, since his behavior is in the public domain, so too should be observers’ opinions about his psychiatric health. By assuming the role of President, perhaps one can argue that he abdicates a right to immunity from public speculation about his mental health. There have been calls to mandate an annual psychiatric checkup whose conclusions on the President’s emotional fitness and stability would be made public, much as we feel we have a right to know of his physical health. It is arguably especially important for qualified individuals to raise informed concerns about suggestions of grave instability. Apart from the ethical qualms that may be raised, scientific ones arise as well. No one believes psychoanalytic conclusions about a subject’s “character” as much as the psychoanalysts, and character diagnosis is what Frank is doing here. The psychoanalytic situation is specially designed to elicit evidence of the deep character structure and dynamics of the subject; through a delicate balance between empathy and reserve, the analyst creates the unique relationship with the subject that encourages a ‘transference’ of deep unconscious ways of perceiving and relating to others, shaped by earlier experience, to a trained observer skilled at discerning the pattern in them. So character analysis without an analytic treatment alliance and access to Bush’s transference material is on shaky ground indeed. (Not having read Dr. Frank’s book, I hope it includes a lengthy discussion of the merits and limits of the inferences he draws.) Frank is more justified, in my opinion, whem he raises concerns about the impact of Bush’s alcohol abuse on his brain function and cognitive competency. And as to Dr. Frank’s conclusion that

“our sole treatment option — for his benefit and for ours — is to remove President Bush from office . . . before it is too late”,

well, it doesn’t take a shrink to reach such a conclusion — or to agree with it.

“The United States launched many more failed airstrikes on a far broader array of senior Iraqi leaders during the early days of the war last year than has previously been acknowledged, and some caused significant civilian casualties, according to senior military and intelligence officials.

Only a few of the 50 airstrikes have been described in public. All were unsuccessful, and many, including the two well-known raids on Saddam Hussein and his sons, appear to have been undercut by poor intelligence, current and former government officials said.” (New York Times)

Abu Ghraib Used Aggressive Tactics: “Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior U.S. military officer in Iraq, borrowed heavily from a list of high-pressure interrogation tactics used at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and approved letting senior officials at a Baghdad jail use military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, sensory deprivation, and diets of bread and water on detainees whenever they wished, according to newly obtained documents.

The U.S. policy, details of which have not been previously disclosed, was approved in early September, shortly after an Army general sent from Washington completed his inspection of the Abu Ghraib jail and then returned to brief Pentagon officials on his ideas for using military police there to help implement the new high-pressure methods.” (Washington Post)

Bush, Cheney Indictments in Plame Case Looming: “Both resignations, perhaps soon to be followed by resignations from Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, are about the imminent and extremely messy demise of George W. Bush and his Neocon administration in a coup d’etat being executed by the Central Intelligence Agency. The coup, in the planning for at least two years, has apparently become an urgent priority as a number of deepening crises threaten a global meltdown.

Based upon recent developments, it appears that long-standing plans and preparations leading to indictments and impeachment of Bush, Cheney and even some senior cabinet members have been accelerated, possibly with the intent of removing or replacing the entire Bush regime prior to the Republican National Convention this August.” (From the Wilderness)

“26 ex-diplomats and military leaders say his foreign policy has harmed national security. Several served under Republicans.” (LA Times)

The iRaq iPod advertisement sendups are now being seen around LA too.

NPR Morning Edition: “A new report indicates one in six older teens and young adults lacks the skills to take on adult responsibilities, has little family or community support and is not likely to succeed as an adult. Advocates often call these young people ‘disconnected,’ and some say their situation has taken a back seat to the needs of younger children.”

Anthropologist suggests survival of the nicest prevails: “The prevailing view in popular and scientific literature is that humans and animals are genetically driven to compete for survival, thus making all social interaction inherently selfish. According to this line of reasoning, known as sociobiology, even seemingly unselfish acts of altruism merely represent a species’ strategy to survive and preserve its genes.

But Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D., a professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, argues that this is a narrow and simplistic view of evolutionary theory that fails to explain many aspects of sociality among mammals in general and primates in particular.”

“The torture scandal continues to grow, and with it the outrage of the Arab world. As our leaders continue to blame a few rogue soldiers, a cycle of mutual suspicion and dehumanization between the Arab world and the United States deepens.

We need to send a message directly from the people of the United States , to the people of Iraq and the Arab world, telling them that, as Americans, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them in demanding justice for these sinful abuses committed in our name.

To do this, we’ve filmed a television ad with Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith leaders to be broadcast on Arabic-language television in the Middle East. You can view the ad using the link below. If you feel the message expresses what is in your heart, let the world know by endorsing the ad. You can even donate to help put it on the air.”

www.faithfulamerica.org/AdClip.htm (True Majority)

(Astronomy Picture of the Day)

The names that parents give their children illuminate cultural evolution. “Had Apple Blythe Alison Martin—the offspring of a celebrity couple, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin—been born a boy, it is quite possible she would have had been given something of a more normal name. This suggestion arises from research into changing fashions in children’s names, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Alexander Bentley, of University College, London, and his colleagues are studying the mathematics of cultural transmission. For this sort of work, birth records—which contain every instance in a country of one sort of cultural object, namely people’s first names—are a particularly good source of data.” (The Economist )

“We talk sometimes as if democracy were the natural human condition, as if any deviation from it is a crime to be punished or a disease to be cured. That is not true. Democracy, or what we call democracy nowadays, is the parochial custom of the English-speaking peoples for the conduct of their public affairs, which may or may not be suitable for others,”

cautions Bernard Lewis.

Ian Buruma reviews a new collection of a half-century of Lewis’ essays. (The New Yorker)

A 10-page special Infoporn on the global battle between liberty and control: “Wired offers an atlas of the intellectual property world. The maps and charts on the following pages show how IP enforcers are manning the ramparts while IP antagonists are challenging the protection regime. We focus on four industries: media, medicine, agriculture, and software. And while the battle rages, here and there a few pioneers are redrawing the map, marking a third way that respects patent protections and copyright controls while trying to foster more opportunities for broader access. The beginnings can be found in Linux and The Grey Album, generics and the Creative Commons. Use this atlas as a guide to two worlds in collision – and an outline of a new frontier.”

A Chilling AMA Resolution: The physician who proposed this resolution to the AMA ought to be brought before his state medical licensing authority on ethics charges. (This column by Ralph Nader illustrates why Nader should remain a muckraker and keep his nose out of the Presidential campaign, by the way.) (CommonDreams)

U.S. subsidies ensure low gas prices in Iraq: “Before the war, forecasters predicted that by invading Iraq and ousting Saddam Hussein, America would benefit from increased exports of oil from Iraq, which has the world?9s second-largest petroleum reserves.

That would mean cheap gas for American motorists and a boost for the oil-dependent American economy.

More than a year after the invasion, that logic has been flipped on its head. Now the average price for gasoline in the United States is $2.05 a gallon – 50 cents more than the pre-invasion price.

Instead, the only people getting cheap gas as a result of the invasion are the Iraqis.

Filling a 22-gallon tank in Baghdad with low-grade fuel costs just $1.10, plus a 50-cent tip for the attendant. A tankful of high-test costs $2.75.

In Britain, by contrast, gasoline prices hit $5.79 per gallon last week – $127 for a tankful.

Although Iraq is a major petroleum producer, the country has little capacity to refine its own gasoline. So the U.S. government pays about $1.50 a gallon to buy fuel in neighboring countries and deliver it to Iraqi stations. A three-month supply costs American taxpayers more than $500 million, not including the cost of military escorts to fend off attacks by Iraqi insurgents.

‘We thank the Americans. They risked their lives to liberate us, and now they are improving our lives,’ said Baghdad taxi driver Osama Hashim, 26, while filling the tank on his beat-up 1983 Volkswagen.

Iraq?9s fuel subsidies, which are intended to mollify drivers used to low-priced fuel under Saddam, have coupled with the opening of the borders to create an anarchic car culture in Baghdad.

Cheap used cars shipped from Europe and Asia are flooding into Iraq. A 10-year-old BMW in good condition costs just $5,000. Since gas is so cheap, anyone with a car can become a taxi driver. Drivers jam the streets, offering rides for as little as 250 dinars – about 17 cents.

Iraq has no sales tax, no registration, no license plates and no auto insurance. Some would argue there are no rules of the road. Cars barrel the wrong way on the highway. They swoop into surprise U-turns. They ignore traffic signals.” (Columbia Tribune [via walker])

David Aronovitch: “The Reagan years were the years, perhaps, in which the cold war was won, and that is obviously good. He wasn’t the missile-mad cowboy of cartoons, and those of us who thought otherwise were wrong. But the Reagan presidency of 1981-89 was also when the dragon’s teeth of the present were sown. Reagan’s legacy to the world may be the fallen wall, but it is also the third-world landmine.” (Guardian.UK [thanks, Roger])

Also: a remarkable collection of progressive columnists share my revulsion, or at least querulousness, about the orgy of myopic praise for Reagan this week. (I am tempted to take back my contribution from NPR for joining in the almost universal hushed tones of reverence with no counterbalancing viewpoints. All Things Considered indeed! Some would invoke the cliché about not speaking ill of the dead, but I would counterpose with that the one about living your life so that no one can speak ill of you when you die.) Here is a collection of links from the Common Dreams Media Center:

• Norman Solomon:
  
  Media: Mourning in America…
• Derrick Jackson:
  
  Reagan Brought Back Black and White…
• Alison Ninio:
  
  Growing Up Reagan…
• Jonathan Steele:
  
  He Lied and Cheated in the Name of Anti-communism: From Iraq, Reagan Didn’t Look So Freedom-Loving…
• Roberto Rodriguez & Patrisia Gonzales:
  
  Morning and Mourning in America…
• Mokhiber/Weissman:
  
  Remembering Reagan…
• Sheldon Rampton/John Stauber:
  
  Wrapping Reagan in the Flag One Last Time…
• Walter Williams:
  
  Reagan’s Destructive Revolution…
• Stephen Zunes:
  
  Don’t Credit Reagan for Ending the Cold War…
• Marty Jezer:
  
  Two American Lives: Ronald Reagan & Dave Dellinger…
• William Greider:
  
  The Gipper’s Economy…
• Antonia Zerbisias:
  
  Media has Reagan Myopia…
• Harvey Wasserman:
  
  Rock & Radiation, not Ronald Reagan, Brought down the Soviet Union…
• Zeynep Toufe:
  
  Ronald Reagan, Neo-Cons and the ‘Intelligence Failures’ of the Cold War: Déjà vu All Over Again…
• Lawrence Martin:
  
  Gorby Had the Lead Role, Not Gipper…
• Sidney Blumenthal:
  
  The U-turn That Saved the Gipper: After Iran-contra, Reagan Ditched the Right and Embraced Gorbachev…
• Peter Dreier:
  
  Urban Suffering Grew Under Reagan…
• Derrick Jackson:
  
  Reagan’s Heart of Darkness…
• Matthew Rothschild:
  
  No Praise for Reagan…
• Arianna Huffington
  
  Ronald Reagan, Hedgehogs And The November Election…
• Ted Rall:
  
  Reagan’s Shameful Legacy: Mourn for Us, Not the Proto-Bush…
• Tony Horwitz:
  
  Let’s Bury Reaganomics With Its Founder…
• Matt Foreman:
  
  A Letter to My Best Friend, Steven Powsner On the Death of Former President Ronald Reagan…
• John Moyers:
  
  ‘American Idol’ Faceoff: Reagan vs FDR…
• Godfrey Hodgson:
  
  Reagan’s Legacy? Look at the Closed Minds and Hard Hearts of the Conservatives who Staff the Bush Administration…
• Geov Parrish:
  
  The Reaction from Those of Us Who Came of Age During the Reagan Presidency — and Found It Inexplicably Horrific…
• Robert Scheer:
  
  Reagan: A Nice Guy’s Nasty Policies…
• Paul Krugman:
  
  Reagan: The Great Taxer…

“The torture scandal continues to grow, and with it the outrage of the Arab world. As our leaders continue to blame a few rogue soldiers, a cycle of mutual suspicion and dehumanization between the Arab world and the United States deepens.

We need to send a message directly from the people of the United States , to the people of Iraq and the Arab world, telling them that, as Americans, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them in demanding justice for these sinful abuses committed in our name.

To do this, we’ve filmed a television ad with Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith leaders to be broadcast on Arabic-language television in the Middle East. You can view the ad using the link below. If you feel the message expresses what is in your heart, let the world know by endorsing the ad. You can even donate to help put it on the air.”

www.faithfulamerica.org/AdClip.htm (True Majority)

Who Says? “If you’ve been following the election coverage, you know how angry you’re supposed to be. This has been called the Armageddon election in the 50-50 nation, a civil war between the Blue and the Red states, a clash between churchgoers and secularists hopelessly separated by a values chasm and a culture gap.

But do Americans really despise the beliefs of half of their fellow citizens? Have Americans really changed so much since the day when a candidate with Ronald Reagan’s soothing message could carry 49 of 50 states?

To some scholars, the answer is no. They say that our basic differences have actually been shrinking over the past two decades, and that the polarized nation is largely a myth created by people inside the Beltway talking to each another or, more precisely, shouting at each other.” (New York Times)

“On May 10 Steven Kurtz went to bed a married art professor. On May 11 he woke up a widower. By the afternoon he was under federal investigation for bioterrorism.

What began as a personal tragedy for Mr Kurtz has turned into what many believe is, at best, an overreaction prompted by 9/11 paranoia and, at worst, a politically motivated attempt to silence a radical artist.” (Guardian.UK)

“A clever border collie that can fetch at least 200 objects by name may be living proof that dogs truly understand human language, German scientists reported on Thursday.

Rico can figure out which object his master wants even if he has never heard the word before, the researchers say.

The findings, reported in the journal Science, may not surprise many dog owners. But they are certain to re-ignite a debate over what language is and whether it is unique to humans.

Rico’s abilities seem to follow a process called ‘fast mapping,’ seen when young children start to learn to speak and understand language, they report.” (Wired)

from POE News [via Dennis]

I have previously written about the arms race between Apple and those who seek fair use of the tunes they buy from the iTunes Store. Ver. 4.5 of iTunes defeated Playfair’s de-DRM strategy; Hymn renovated it. Now Apple’s up to ver. 4.6 and, if you really need to upgrade (?perhaps to avail yourself of AirTunes’ functionality?) you will find that Hymn’ed songs won’t play. Hymn embeds the user’s name and email address in the unprotected .mp4 file it makes as a sign of good faith, as if to insure that the unprotected files are not redistributed. Well, iTunes 4.6 looks for the embedded identification information and simply refuses to play those files. Here is a method of getting past that in iTunes 4.6 by taking a hex editor to your unprotected songs.

Paul Boutin: Virus-proof your PC in 20 minutes, for free:

“So I whittled the world of options down to three steps that, on most PCs, can be done in less than 20 minutes. (Once you’re done, you’ll need to run some programs that take longer than that, but there’s no need to sit and watch.) Just as important, they’re all free, thanks to a mix of promotional offers and hacker idealism. Some of these instructions might seem obvious, even dumb, but I was surprised to find that many of my friends’ PCs had missed one or another of them. Any computer user who got hit by the Sasser worm hadn’t bothered to do the second step. Do all three, and you’ll be protected against the most common infections and still be left with time and money for lunch.” (Slate)

Four adult epilepsy patients who had had a grid of electrodes implanted on the surfaces of their brains (for the purpose of accurately localizing their seizure focus) learned to move a computer cursor on screen with their mental processes alone and, with only hours of practice, play a simple computer game with their minds. As boing boing, which pointed me to this item, suggested, I wonder how long it will be before the Pentagon starts implanting these grids into their clientele.

This observance of the 35th anniversary of the 1969 release of David Bowie’s Space Oddity made me recall the Pan Am “First Moon Flights Club”. If you remember, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) put Pan Am’s name on the shuttle the protagonists ride to the moon. When the airline announced in late 1968, during a break in ABC-TV’s coverage of the Apollo 8 mission, that it would begin accepting reservations for the first commercial flight to the moon, it was deluged with requests and quickly established the club, which was essentially a waitiing list dignified by a wallet card. I was one of the charter members of the First Moon Flights Club and showed off my increasingly dog-eared membership card, with a number somewhere in the low 1000’s, to anyone who did not believe my boast that I was on the waiting list for a moonflight. I swore that I would do anything to raise the airfare by the time my name rose to the top of the list. By the time Pan Am stopped taking reservations in 1971, club membership stood at over 93,000 strong, and rival TWA had a similar arrangement. I don’t know what ever happened to my card, although I doubt the waiting list was transferred anywhere else when Pan Am went out of business in 1991. And although some opine that space activities will never be profitable until tourism services begin, I don’t suppose I am going to break my terrestrial bonds in this lifetime.

“Live Bonnaroo offers downloads of high fidelity, mastered, soundboard recordings of entire sets from many artists performing at this year’s Bonnaroo Music Festival. Sets are available in both MP3 and CD-quality lossless formats (FLAC), powered by nugs.net’s state-of-the-art delivery system.” [via largehearted boy]

“Reversing itself, the Army said Tuesday that a G.I. was discharged partly because of a head injury he suffered while posing as an uncooperative detainee during a training exercise at Guant?namo Bay, Cuba.

The Army had previously said Specialist Sean Baker’s medical discharge in April was unrelated to the injury he received last year at the detention center, where the United States holds suspected terrorists.

Mr. Baker, 37, a former member of the 438th Military Police Company, said he played the role of an uncooperative prisoner and was beaten so badly by four American soldiers that he suffered a traumatic brain injury and seizures. He said the soldiers only stopped beating him when they realized he might be American..” (New York Times)

Riemann hypothesis may have been solved… for a cool $1 million:

“A mathematician at Purdue University claims to have come up with a proof for the Riemann hypothesis, often called the greatest unsolved math problem, though the work has yet to be peer-reviewed.” (CNET)

“What tricks will BushCo pull to attempt to win the election in November? Well, he’ll probably try something around or before October to swing or steal the vote. Welcome to October Surprise, where you can predict what will happen before the November 2004 election. Take the poll here.” Announcing the capture of Osama bin Laden is currently the leading contender, with around twice the votes as the next most popular alternative. My only question to the poll originator(s) — why are we only allowed to choose one??

Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right: “Christopher Ricks, the newly elected professor of poetry at Oxford, is also the Warren Professor of Humanities at Boston University, where he has a large and elegantly furnished office overlooking Storrow Drive, and he bikes to it every day from his house in Cambridge. The bookshelves contain a complete vellum-bound set of Johnson’s Lives of the Poets and copies of the many books Mr. Ricks has himself written or edited — books about Keats, Milton, Beckett and T. S. Eliot; editions of Tennyson, Housman and Eliot’s early poems; anthologies of Victorian verse and of English poetry from the anonymous author of “Sumer is icumen in” to Seamus Heaney. In a corner by the desk there is also a boom box. Mr. Ricks brings this to lectures when he wants to talk about another of his favorite poets: Bob Dylan.

Mr. Ricks, who is 70 and was born in Britain and educated at Oxford, is a professor’s professor, a don’s don. He is courtly, charming and fond of wicked anecdotes about academic backbiting. He is also immensely learned. It’s a tossup whether he or Harold Bloom knows more English verse by heart, but Mr. Ricks surely knows more Led Zeppelin lyrics than Mr. Bloom does, and can recite them on request. His love of Mr. Dylan’s work is not an affectation, though — the pathetic impersonation of an old prof trying to prove how cool he is — but a genuine passion. He has just added to the not inconsiderable body of Dylan scholarship with a book of his own, his longest to date, Dylan’s Visions of Sin (Ecco Press), which devotes some 500 pages to a close analysis, line by line sometimes, of the master’s greatest hits.” (New York Times )

“Although it won’t ship until July, the Express has already lured many gadget fiends into placing early orders. Apple won’t talk numbers, but according to one of the leading online Mac retailers, CDW MacWarehouse, advance orders for Express base stations have been lighting up their Web site.

Clearly, Express’ primary allure is moving digital music off the desktop and into the living room, the office, or wherever a user happens to be. A plethora of consumer-electronics and PC vendors have introduced products trying to do more or less what Apple seeks to do with the AirPort. But, in most cases, configuration remains tricky and a stumbling block for Joe Public.

That usability gap is where the Express truly shines. Rather than reinvent the wheel, Apple has just added some new twists to make the router an extension of the already popular iTunes and iPod famly. A new piece of software, AirTunes, promises seamless synching between a computer — PC or Mac — and any Wi-Fi-ready speakers within range via the Express router.” (BusinessWeek)

“It appears that what they were contemplating was the commission of war crimes and looking for ways to avoid accountability.” — Tom Malinowski, Human Rights Watch (Washington Post)

Said to Be ‘Victim of Ancient Albanian Jinx’: “While heavyweight pundits ponder the ‘real reasons’ behind CIA director George Tenet’s sudden resignation, a Tirana newspaper on Friday offered a typically whimsical explanation; he fell victim to an ancient Albanian curse.

The Korrieri daily said the CIA chief’s resignation on Thursday fell a day before he had been due to visit Albania.

‘If he had not planned a visit to Albania, probably he would have not been struck by the curse of the Pojan jinx,’ editor Alfred Peza said in his column, citing a supposed evil spirit that jinxed the villagers of Pojan back in the mists of time.

Tenet was clearly felled by the jinx, wrote Peza, as were the late Soviet Army Marshal Georgy Zhukov, former West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and others who were demoted or quit after becoming involved with Albania.” (Yahoo! News)

New Service by TiVo Will Build Bridges From Internet to the TV: “TiVo, the maker of a popular digital video recorder, plans to announce a new set of Internet-based services today that will further blur the line between programming delivered over traditional cable and satellite channels and content from the Internet. It is just one of a growing group of large and small companies that are looking at high-speed Internet to deliver video content to the living room.

The new TiVo technology, which will become a standard feature in its video recorders, will allow users to download movies and music from the Internet to the hard drive on their video recorder. Although the current TiVo service allows users to watch broadcast, cable or satellite programs at any time, the new technology will make it possible for them to mix content from the Internet with those programs.” (New York Times)

Indoor toxins may be worse for you than outdoor smog (SF Chronicle)

““Port out, starboard home” is the origin of the word posh. Right? Wrong – as are so many of those etymology tales we love to believe… Launching a new series on myths about our language, Michael Quinion examines the outlandish stories that surround English words and phrases – and explains the truth behind them” (Telegraph.UK)

“This isn’t a problem that started in this Bush administration, though the combination of ignorance and arrogance in President George W. Bush’s foreign policy has proved especially lethal.” — Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University (International Herald Tribune via CommonDreams)

today’s transit of the sun by Venus? (Astronomy Picture of the Day)

Christopher Hitchens almost manages to redeem himself with a devastating piece on The stupidity of Ronald Reagan (“…nothing could make me forget what the Reagan years had actually been like…”) until he loses it in an almost incoherent final paragraph. (Slate)

“Forget drug-free and nuclear-free zones. A growing grassroots movement seeks to make the United States a Patriot Act-free zone, one city at a time.

Or, at the very least, the people behind the movement hope to make their cities constitutional safe zones.

In the past two years, more than 300 cities and four states have passed resolutions calling on Congress to repeal or change parts of the USA Patriot Act that, activists say, violate constitutional rights such as free speech and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

Barring that, the resolutions declare that their communities will uphold the constitutional rights of their residents should federal law enforcement agents come knocking on the door of local authorities for assistance in tracking residents. This means local authorities will insist on complying with federal orders only in ways that do not violate constitutional rights. The resolutions are not binding, however, and do not affect the federal government’s actions.” (Wired)

Declan McCullagh:

“It’s time to abolish the Federal Communications Commission. The reason is simple. The venerable FCC, created in 1934, is no longer necessary. Its justification for existence was weak 70 years ago, but advances in technology since then have eliminated whatever arguments remained. Central planning didn’t work for the Soviet Union, and it’s not working for us. The FCC is now an agency that does more harm than good…” (CNET)

Simplistic headline belies more provocative content:

Causes of violence traced to human nature: “Artistic cruelty is hardly a thing of the past,’ writes Steven Pinker, Harvard psychologist and author of The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.

In explaining human thought and behavior, Pinker, whose courses include ‘The Human Mind,’ ‘Cognitive and Behavioral Genetics’ and ‘Evolutionary Psychology,’ argues that to refuse to acknowledge our evolutionary human nature distorts both the science and scholarship of today. Contrary to the title of his recent book, Pinker believes and argues with clarity, human beings are not born with a blank slate on which parents, environment, culture and society write. [This does not contradict the title, IMHO. The title makes it clear that Pinker thinks the ‘blank slate’ concept is misguided. — FmH]

Although the book covers a variety of topics including nature versus nurture, it is the chapter on violence I turned to upon learning of the recent revelations of human abuse once more against humans.”

As a clinical psychiatrist, this finding is of professional interest in terms of adjusting the assumptions I bring to bear when assessing and treating hoarders. But the more crucial impact is the questions the researchers raise about the basis for diagnostic classification. Lumping disorders by symptomatic appearance makes sense if you are trying to talk to your patients about the pattern and sources of their distress. If, however, it is biological adjustment that is your main concern, it has to be done differently.

: “New research into the brain patterns of compulsive hoarders shows the disorder may have been misclassified and victims could be getting the wrong treatment, U.S. scientists reported on Tuesday.

Brain scans show the biology of America’s estimated 1 million compulsive hoarders is significantly different to that of other people diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, the team at the University of California Los Angeles found.

Hoarding is usually classified as obsessive-compulsive disorder, a catch-all term for a range of symptoms such as constantly repeating actions like handwashing or checking to make sure a stove is turned off.

‘Our work shows that hoarding and saving compulsions long associated with OCD may spring from unique, previously unrecognized neurobiological malfunctions that standard treatments do not necessarily address,’ Dr. Sanjaya Saxena, who led the study, said in a statement.

“In addition, the results emphasize the need to rethink how we categorize psychiatric disorders. Diagnosis and treatment should be driven by biology rather than symptoms,” Saxena added. ” (Yahoo! )

“The IQ test is 100 years old – but do its multiple-choice sums and sequences really measure anything, or is it just a way to make money? Matthew Sweet examines the bizarre world of cleverness, and attempts to join Mensa, the club for smart alecs” (Independent.UK)

Book Review: Forever Young: A cultural history of longevity by Lucian Boia:

“Where did we go wrong? Adam lived to the age of 930 and his grandson Methuselah to 969. The first generations of Chinese and Indian people are said to have lived for thousands of years. In our time, however, Jeanne Calment only clocked up a measly 122 years.

Historian Lucian Boia of the University of Bucharest, Romania, is as much concerned with the mythology of longevity as the reality. In Forever Young, he demonstrates how little our obsession with cheating death has changed.” (New Scientist)

Does Anil Dash deserve an iPod more than some other link spammer? Can he make it to the top?

“The Bush campaign is seeking to enlist thousands of religious congregations around the country in distributing campaign information and registering voters, according to an e-mail message sent to many members of the clergy and others in Pennsylvania.

Liberal groups charged that the effort invited violations of the separation of church and state and jeopardized the tax-exempt status of churches that cooperated. Some socially conservative church leaders also said they would advise pastors against participating in such a partisan effort.” (New York Times)

Several people have pointed me to this weblogger’s account of another curious intersection in Nicholas Berg’s life. He was apparently interviewed by Michael Moore for Fahrenheit 9/11, although the footage did not end up getting used in the film.

“Berg seemed to live quite a life of adventure with very marginal means of support. You have to wonder whether he had a secret sponsor. His propensity for ‘running into’ certain people is beginning to look like a pattern.” (xymphora )

• ABC: Tenet’s Resignation, ‘Strictly Personal,’ Says Brother
• Reuters: Bush Says He (sic) Sorry Tenet Left CIA
• Defenselink.mil: Rumsfeld Says Tenet’s Work Helped Save Lives on Battlefield
• The Australian, Australia: Bush ‘didn’t ask Tenet to resign’: “US President George W Bush did not ask CIA director George Tenet to resign and had no advance notice he would do so, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said …”
• Seattle Post Intelligencer: Bush: Tenet leaving shouldn’t hurt morale
• E-Commerce Times: No Shock at Tenet Departure: “… Tenet’s departure was the worst-kept Washington secret this side of John Kerry’s political vacillations — his fate sealed when Bob Woodward outed him as …
• New York Post: Tenet Exit Has Spooks Spooked: “The stage has been set by CIA Director George Tenet’s resignation for major reforms in the nation’s intelligence networks that …”
• International Herald Tribune, France: CIA after Tenet: Terror warnings are not enough: “Some critics of America’s intelligence services will mistakenly see George Tenet’s resignation as director of central intelligence as a reaction to …”
• East Valley Tribune, AZ: Scuttlebutt about Tenet: “The scuttlebutt in Washington is that George Tenet is resigning as director of the CIA because several harsh reports were about to descend on his head like …”
• Pacific News Service, CA: Tenet or Not, CIA Must Learn Mideast’s ‘Secret Language’: “The resignation of George Tenet as CIA director, following a string of disastrous failures at the agency, underscores the greater failure of the US …”
• Common Dreams: Bush’s Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides: “… The President’s abrupt dismissal of CIA Directory George Tenet Wednesday night is, aides say, an example of how he works.”
• Providence Journal, RI: RI delegation surprised by timing of Tenet resignation
• Peoria Journal Star, IL: LaHood shocked at Tenet’s timing
• Bloomington Pantagraph, IA: Durbin, LaHood say Tenet not the problem
• Pacifica Radio: Fall Guy for the Bush Regime? “Geoge Tenet resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency for “personal reasons,” but many analysts say that Tenet is a fall guy for an …”
• NewsMax, FL: Report May Have Hastened Tenet’s Resignation: “…Tenet’s resignation comes just as a critical, 400-page report from the Senate intelligence committee was readied for public …”
• GOPUSA: Pelosi: Tenet Only first of Many Who Should Go
• SunHerald.com, MS: Tenet out; CIA debate rages: “George Tenet’s resignation as CIA director does little to solve the many inherent problems plaguing US intelligence, say former spies, lawmakers …”
• Dallas Morning News: Did Tenet jump or was he pushed?
• NDTV.com, India: Chalabi slams Tenet: “Former Iraqi governing council member Ahmed Chalabi has launched a bitter attack on Tenet saying the former CIA chief is to blame for false information on …”
• CNN: Chalabi blames Tenet for feud with US
• NewsMax.com, FL: Hillary Clinton: ‘Pro-Chalabi Supporters’ Forced Tenet Out
• Miami Herald: Text of Tenet’s Letter of Resignation
• Duluth Weekly, GA: Collins Surprised at CIA Director George Tenet’s Resignation: “… Georgia Republican Congressman Mac Collins, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was surprised Thursday that Tenet decided to …”
• Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil, IA: Harkin: No sorrow for loss of Tenet: “Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, doesn’t feel sorry for George Tenet, who resigned Thursday as CIA director. … He (Tenet) misled the president and everybody,” Harkin said. …”
• The Spoof (satire): Tenet Starts Avalanche of Resignations: “Within hours of throwing in the towel, newly resigned CIA chief George Tenet has unwittingly started a domino effect in the Bush cabinet. …”
• Town Hall, DC: “Tenet stacked up an impressive number of failures during his tenure, but pinning America’s atrophied intelligence capabilities on him is a little like blaming …”
• Capitol Hill Blue, VA: With Tenet Out, FBI Chief Tries a Power Grab: “… Mueller on Thursday proposed the creation of an intelligence service within the FBI, a move that came on the heels of the ouster of CIA Director George Tenet. …”
• NewsMax.com, FL: Daschle Wants Real Reason for Tenet Resignation: “Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle told interviewers that he was taken by surprise when he heard of George Tenet’s resignation, but that he looks “forward to …”
• Providence Journal, RI: “… No great insight is needed to figure out why George J. Tenet resigned Thursday as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. His …”
• The Rolling Head, Chattanoogan, TN: “George Tenet got Washington-ed. George Tenet got Bush-whacked. George Tenet got fed to the angry volcano gods. … Tenet was a high paid bellboy. … ”
  

“Mike Epstein is not a terrorist, but if a proposed ban on photography on New York trains and buses goes into effect, he might very well find himself treated like one.

‘How can they ban photographing unusual sights aboard trains and in stations?’ wonders Epstein, who operates Satan’s Laundromat, a website dedicated to ‘urban decay, strange signage, and general weirdness.’ …

You bet. The MTA’s move to stop the shooting of unauthorized pictures or video has pissed-off everyone from photobloggers to subway advocates and free-speech activists. To show their opposition to the ban, a group of photographers plan to gather at the main information kiosk in Grand Central station this Sunday, June 6, at 1 p.m. They’ll fan out across several train lines, shooting photos throughout the system in a peaceful demonstration.” (Village Voice)

Only good Catholics are entitled to be self-centered (SF Chronicle)

A Guide To the Most Efficient Things in the World: “The information presented here will be of interest to those who wish to live more simply and self-sufficiently.

Incorporating the tools and techniques outlined here can dramatically decrease your dependence on petroleum, electricity, gas for heating and cooling, municipal water and sewage utilities. Once implemented these sources will be available to you perpetually.”

Capitol Hill Blue: Bush Knew About Leak of CIA Operative’s Name: “Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative’s name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq.” (Capitol Hill Blue) It was this testimony that led the worried Bu**sh** to seek private counsel earlier this week, God love ‘im. (You can tell how much I am enjoying this; if the Democrats have it in them to act with alacrity, could this be the scandal that brings the dysadministration down?)

“Web logs, or blogs, which started out as a labor of love, are becoming a moneymaker for writers who are selling advertising on their sites.” (SF Chronicle) It probably goes without saying, but there will never be advertisements on Follow Me Here.

Or Mass Distraction?: “From the moment this office opened for business last December, I felt I could not write about what had been published in the paper before my arrival. Once I stepped into the past, I reasoned, I might never find my way back to the present.

Early this month, though, convinced that my territory includes what doesn’t appear in the paper as well as what does, I began to look into a question arising from the past that weighs heavily on the present: Why had The Times failed to revisit its own coverage of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction? To anyone who read the paper between September 2002 and June 2003, the impression that Saddam Hussein possessed, or was acquiring, a frightening arsenal of W.M.D. seemed unmistakable. Except, of course, it appears to have been mistaken.” — Daniel Okrent, New York Times ombudsperson

An evocative portrait of the music of The Mountain Goats, a.k.a former psychiatric nurse and elliptical poet John Darnielle, the discovery of whom has been just about the best thing (along with John Vanderslice, the Fiery Furnaces and Broken Social Scene) about my personal indie rock awakening:

“Songs begin with acts of God: ‘First thing that happened was a river overflowed’; ‘Let the stars come out, and the moon shine bright / We’re sleeping on the porch tonight / Wind blew all the power lines down / Watch where you step if you go walking around.’ Characters are summoned up in a matter of seconds: ‘That fifteen thousand dollars / That turned up in your purse / You’ve done something awful / I’ve done something worse.’ Questions are raised about just what sort of species is being addressed: ‘I get letters telling me since I moved away / You’ve taken to hanging out on that rock about a mile from shore.’ Doomed relationships are summed up in two lines: ‘I know you hate it when I get my headaches / Well I’ve got a real prize tonight.’

We don’t always follow characters, however; sometimes we follow the lyric itself as it metamorphoses into animals, shimmies up trees, or heads north toward Alaska ‘where there’s snow to suck the sound out from the air.’ We hear it describe the continent eroding, or the rising flames of burning ships 73 years before the start of the Christian era. We hear the singer’s heart become an onion rising up in his throat with the first spring thaws. We are warmed by a western sun that always seems to be sending out ‘signals’ as it sets; we hear the old songs of Bacchus crackle through transistor radio static. Above all, we hear the strumming and that unmistakable nasal tenor, and we are made aware of every word that is sung.” — Jim Fisher (Salon)

Elijah

streak the windows.

smear the walls with coconut oil, yeah.

fill a cast iron kettle with water and magnolia blossom.

let it boil.

let the water roll.

let the fire take its toll.

i’m coming home.

i’m coming home.

dust off the idols.

give them something to eat.

i think they’re hungry.

i know i’m starving half to death.

i know you’re waiting.

i know you’ve been waiting for a long long time.

and i’m coming home.

i’m coming home.

set the table.

those three extra places —

one for me,

one for your doubts,

and one for god.

let the incense burn in every room.

feel the fullness of time in the empty tomb.

feel the future kicking in your womb.

i’m coming home.

i’m coming home.

— John Darnielle

“Joe Previtera, a twenty one year old student at Boston College, was arrested Wednesday and charged with felonies after dressing as a hooded Iraqi prisoner in front of a military recruitment center on Tremont St. in downtown Boston…

Previtera faces misdemeanor charges of disturbing the peace and felony charges of making a false bomb threat and using a hoax device. The charges apparently reflect the District Attorney’s concern that Mr. Previtera might have been mistaken for a terrorist.” (Boston.Indymedia)