randwolf

[Second version, due to LJ client kerfluffle]

( Feminism, the MSM, Chinese policy, + homily )

( Political and angry )

Having watched Hilary Clinton being pilloried one more time, by her own party and the press, and having spent some time defending her, I've decided to gather up some of my remarks and publish them here. To begin with, Avedon Carol talking sense.

"I really look forward to the day when I don't get up in the morning and find my formerly favorite blogs littered with so many stupid posts attempting to twist statements by Hillary Clinton into Proof of Evil. [...] "And, for the record, HRC was talking about nominating races that ended in June, as she clearly emphasizes that word in the clip. And she picked the two June races that were most memorable for her. Now, if you can't figure out why the '68 and '92 races were particularly memorable for Hillary Clinton, you should consider the possibility that your prejudices are clouding your judgment."

Now we have RFK junior's remarks:

"It is clear from the context that Hillary was invoking a familiar political circumstance in order to support her decision to stay in the race through June. I have heard her make this reference before, also citing her husband's 1992 race, both of which were hard fought through June. I understand how highly charged the atmosphere is, but I think it is a mistake for people to take offense."

And my takes on some of this:

Anyone's words can be twisted. In 2000, an unusually honest candidate was made out to be a liar; in 2004, a war hero was made out to be a coward. Are we trying to elect a chief executive or a speechwriter? We want someone who sounds good--let's elect an actor! Oh, wait... I also think that her remarks probably would have passed without so much comment if her opponents--in her own party and in the media--hadn't so relentlessly harped on them. That said, yes, I wish she was fairer spoken. But we don't get to assemble our candidates out of parts; we have to take them as they come. From my viewpoint, it seems to me we are trying to elect a god rather than a human being, and gods are hard to come by.

I've been hearing, again, how there's no difference between the two sides in this election and it's utter nonsense. Gore, Edwards, Clinton, and Obama would not have gone to war, killing over a million Iraqis, or secretly imprison 27,000 people. We seem to be treating this election as some kind of therapy for the US political system. Well, and maybe it is, but if it is it's therapy for a mass-murdering war criminal. Could we please not have this nonsense about how all the candidates are the same? They aren't, not even close.

Growl!

My girlfriend, apipiyalotl, has started her own journal—I just reviewed the first post. She will be writing about her upcoming travels in México, mostly, or at least that's what she says. She's an interesting writer and she has interesting things to write about; drop by & welcome her, if you feel so inclined.

A hopeful political note from me? Surely the foundations of the earth are trembling. Well...it's only sort of hopeful.

I recently reread Mark Clifton's When They Come From Space. This creaky old (45+ years) book is a personal favorite, despite its numerous flaws. Clifton was a writer best in short forms; this novel there are all kinds of problems, but also some great virtues, and the analysis of the American culture which has sent us to Iraq, and down the path to tyranny is dead on. I wonder about the "evil media mogul" character. Clifton was a personnel manager; IIRC he spent many years in Oak Ridge, Tennessee working for a computer company. Rand? IBM? In any event he had a deep and subtle grasp of character and group psychology and I wonder if the evil media mogul had an actual human model.

But where are the politics? Somewhere, late in the book, a character says to a group of aliens who've made a big mess, intervening in human culture, "So now, you've made your tests and done your exploring, and you've found that while we mix together a little of this and that and make a big bang, emotionally and philosophically we're still ignorant savages. That we've made a little progress in the physical sciences, but in the humanic sciences we are still determined not to make any progress."

And it got me to thinking. I've been writing about voting and polling and media, and it seems to me we do, at long last, know enough to do better. We could devise systems that might work better and we could test them on the small scale. We could work out an electoral and legislative system that would produce results much closer to democracy than any seen in history. We could use psychological knowledge to work out a criminal justice system which would be systematic, far more just, and far more compassionate than any we now have. We could make our world better.

That's the hopeful part. The cynical part is that, well, if this is going to happen, we would have to believe in it as a possibility, have to want it, and have to do it. In a time and place when we are still debating the merits of torture, it's hard for me to see how we are going to get there.

Prove me wrong!

This inspired by remarks in catsittingstill's journal:

( Non-partisan and you still don't have to read it )

Firedoglake is starting a letter-writing campaign. Go to it!

"My Roomba is Rambo". (PDF. Ubicomp 2007. About human adaptation to the domestic robot. Not all that great of a paper, but great title.) Second best title from that journal, and a really good paper: "Merolyn the Phone", an HP Labs paper about cell phone naming.

Jump, Apple, jump!

In one of these great moves in marketing history, Apple has decided not to support UIs written in C or C++ in 64-bit apps. Adobe CS4 is going to be greatly delayed on the Macintosh because of it, if the people who need CS4 (which is likely to include the most of the entertainment industry) even bother with Macs any more. Way to go, Apple!

Latest updates at Writers Weekly

"Reports have been trickling in from the POD underground that Amazon/BookSurge representatives have been approaching some Lightning Source customers, first by email introduction and then by phone (nobody at BookSurge seems to want to put anything in writing). When Lightning Source customers speak with the BookSurge representative, the reports say, they are basically told they can either have BookSurge start printing their books or the 'buy' button on their Amazon.com book pages will be 'turned off.'"--Writers Weekly.

BookSurge has a notoriously poor reputation among POD printing services. The contract terms summarized in the Writers Weekly article are exceptionally poor; I don't regard printing costs plus 50% of each sale as reasonable for an item with no inventory cost.

We have a perspective from the viewpoint of small pagan publishers. No word yet from the excellent small sf/fantasy publisher Wildside Press.

I've been cynical of amazon.com ever since they tried to patent the idea of pressing a button to make a purchase, apparently having never heard of vending machines. And they're known as an exceptionally anti-union shop, though they share this questionable honor with Borders. On the other hand, they plan to turn off the "buy" buttons for the exceptionally noxious Publish America vanity press. One might, I suppose, love them for the enemies they make.

Have I missed the day? It seems I have. We've been dealing with a domestic drama involving my lover's daughter, and I have had other things on my mind. And at first I thought I didn't have anything to say on the subject. I mean, what is there to say other than, "torture bad?" Which has been said over and over again over the centuries, believed for a while by some, and forgotten. But filkertom and catsittingstill have both written essays, and they sparked a few reflections.

( You don't have to read it. )

A little common sense, please. The US voting system is an exceptionally poor one, but that's no excuse for not recognizing the difference between "not so good" and "spawn of hell".

Yes, I've been reading the political blogs again. Bad wolf! Bad!

The Theory of Interstellar Trade, by Prof. Paul Krugman.

I've recently read William Poundstone's book Gaming the Vote, on voting systems. It's an interesting book, and I'll probably have more to say about it. Pounstone makes mention of economic analyses which point out that the personal value to voters of any given vote is minuscule. The more authoritarian sort of economist tends to regard this as One More Reason why democracy is a Really Bad Idea and, presumably, would best be replaced by plutocracy. It occurred to me today that, while the value of any particular choice is small, the value of making a choice is very high indeed. It's the same thing that marketers and advertisers pay a high price for in their research, information about the customers. We are the customers, and you could probably even set a price on it. So the next time someone tells you vote doesn't matter, tell them it's actually worth money.

* The title of a Suzanne Vega song about alienation and voting; the references are specifically to the old voting machines with levers and curtains used in NYC.

Or at least,
( Ducks ) I love my cell phone.

I wonder what effect Castro's resignation will have on the US elections. There are a lot of old Cuban refugees in Florida--even their children are old. Bush has called for democracy in Cuba. Over 100 members of Congress have called for a review of the embargo of Cuba.

(This is your brain when you live with an interpreter...)

The words "sopa" and "soup" have the same Latin root, but actually "sopa" means "stew", at least to Mexicans. A clear soup is "caldo"--something that used to be made in, yes, a calderon.

And "raza". It has the same Latin root as English "race". But a better translation is "nation" or "people"--it refers the the multicultural Mexican identity established by the "Tres Culturas" (Mexica, Spanish, mestizo) during the 19th century; it has none of the exclusionary meaning that "race" has come to carry in English.

BTW, has anyone noticed the wonderful digression Girl Genius has taken into a story commenting on the story? I find this wonderfully funny. It's also gracefully providing backstory that explains volumes 5 & 6. Odd to think that Girl Genius may be one of the great literary comedies, but I am beginning to suspect it it so.

It's a vibrating foot massager.

"We are very clever monkeys. We can get ourselves into lots of trouble." (Idea mine; wording courtesy my girlfriend.) There is good coverage of the attack at the SF Chronicle.