Diversions in Bumblef**k, Illinois

This past winter, my girlfriend (a.k.a. The Girlfriend) was driving to Decatur, IL, on an unexpectedly snowy night. A few inches of snow accumulated on the highway, enough to make for hazardous driving conditions. The Girlfriend decided to stop at the nearest motel. And that motel was Sunset Inn & Suites in Clinton, IL. No ordinary Motel 6, this place advertised "fantasy suites" on their sign. It's like Clinton's very own little Madonna Inn! Alas, The Girlfriend was traveling on business and got herself a non-fantasy room, described by her as a perfectly ordinary hotel room.

As if it weren't enough that such a place existed out in the middle of the cornfields, they also have a website, apparently authored using Notepad or some other text editor. Check out that retro mid-'90s web design. I'm only half mocking it; while the web page's spartan appearance might be an indicator of a spartan budget, it also serves a purpose. (See the works of Russian artist Olia Lialina to find out why.)

[02 JUN 2007 18:09:00] UPDATE: The Girlfriend is wondering, if I were to stay in a fantasy suite, which one would I choose? It's a tough call. Some of them I can rule out as being too cheesy. (Space Odyssey has too much Dr. Who, and not enough Star Trek DS9.) Some of them didn't seem to get the theme quite right. (I don't care how comfortable it is -- does a Scandinavian Modern lounge chair belong in Roman Retreat?) Cabin Fever looks cozy. Also, I think Pearl Under the Sea might be cool with its aquarium and its clam shell bed.

Clark vs. O'Reilly, Soros vs. VRWC

It was already more than a week ago when I saw a clip of Bill O'Reilly interviewing Wesley Clark (link at crooksandliars.com). Now, it's my understanding that an interview should shed light on the interviewee. But the main thing we learn from this interview is that O'Reilly, the interviewer, hates George Soros. O'Reilly compares Soros to former head of the KKK David Duke and calls Soros "the most radical individual in the United States of America." Dang -- Soros must be one bad dude, right? But when pressed by Clark to explain his animosity, O'Reilly can only muster a vague reference to Soros' investment activities in France and the UK.

George Soros is not a very public figure, so I don't think a lot of people have much with which to form an opinion of him, other than smears against him. He is, at the least, a complicated man. For instance, his father was a notable academic who did work in Esperanto, and George is one of the few native speakers of Esperanto. How cool is that?

A lot of conservatives like to point to President Reagan as a major factor in the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, but you can't ignore the funding Soros provided to opposition, pro-Democracy groups. As much as his detractors like to paint him as a wild-eyed commie, Soros has a solid anti-Communist record. Where Soros stands out is that a lot of anti-Communists are more against socialism than they are against authoritarianism; with Soros, it's the other way around.

Conservatives also make much of Soros' funding of progressive organizations such as MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress, portraying Soros as this shadowy figure working behind the scenes to buy public opinion with his billions of dollars. This he does to some extent, but what he spends is a drop in the bucket compared to his counterparts on the political right. The Bradleys, the Scaifes, the Coors, and many others all have the resources of Soros, and they are all as politically active -- on the other side of the issues. Their money goes to right wing organizations such as the AEI, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute, and they support the careers of think tank denizens such as Dinesh D'Souza and Victor Davis Hanson.

I've written about think tanks before. The vast majority are right wing; their fellows are paid to promote the party line. Even in media outlets that have a reputation for being left leaning, the "expert" commentators are mostly from these conservative or conservative-libertarian think tanks. It's not for a lack of experts with a different viewpoint -- the think tanks are simply more active in getting their message out.

When you're listening to a news program, and they bring an expert on the show, they might not tell you anything about the organization this person represents. I would encourage you to pay attention to who is paying this expert's salary, and look it up on the internet. There are a few places you can do this... RightWeb by the International Relations Center is a good resource. As of last year, I wasn't so impressed, but since then they've been busy updating their database. Still better than RightWeb is MediaTransparency.org.

On the MediaTransparency site, not only can you find out where any particular "expert" is getting their paycheck from, but you can also find out the size of the foundations from which they draw said paycheck. You can find, for instance, that the Bradley Foundation alone has more than $700 million ready to spend on conservative causes. How about H. Smith Richardson's foundation? (H. Smith who?) Nearly half a billion in assets. And so on. So when I hear moaning on the right about George Soros' contributions to his pet causes, please forgive me if I roll my eyes.

[22 MAY 2007 08:40:00] UPDATE: I forgot to mention FAIR's annual study of think tank references in the media. You can find last year's report (for 2005) on their website. The 2006 results should be posted in the next few weeks.

Have they lost their minds?

I missed the latest Republican debate, but saw some pretty hair-raising clips afterward. Some of these candidates still look a little psychologically traumatized by 9/11, and that's not a good quality in a commander in chief. When asked how aggressively he'd interrogate a hypothetical group of terrorism suspects, Giuliani said the interrogators should use "every method they could think of." But not torture. But every method they could think of. But not torture. It reminded me of George Tenet's recent 60 Minutes interview where he spoke of using "enhanced interrogation techniques." Tenet would not deny that waterboarding was employed, but in his words: "Lalalalalala! We do not torture! Lalalalalalala!" (OK, I made the lalala part up.)

But Giuliani has nothing on Mitt Romney when it comes to disregard for the U.S. Constitution. Not only does he want to keep Guantanamo open, he would like to see it doubled in capacity, and he wouldn't extend to detainees any access to lawyers and due process. Habeas corpus is for wimps! Oh yeah... he's also a fan of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (unlike Giuliani, he asks for it by name!) -- but not torture. Lalalalalalala!

Can we impeach yet?

It's been about a year and a half since I wrote about the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program. I took the trouble of actually reading the FISA statute, from which I learned that there appeared to be no legitimate reason for the President to act outside that law. Furthermore, by performing searches without warrants, President Bush was violating the 4th Amendment of the Constitution he has sworn to uphold.

Yesterday, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey gave testimony before Congress about the events of March 10, 2004. It was like something out of a soap opera. Attorney General John Ashcroft was in the hospital suffering from pancreatitis, which I hear is painful enough to make you wish you were dead, and he had temporarily transferred his authority to Mr. Comey. It so happens that Bush's wiretapping program needed to be reauthorized by the very next day, but Comey et al were of the opinion that the program was illegal and would not sign off on it. Since Comey was acting A.G., that should have been the end of it -- the program would not have been reauthorized. But the Leader of the Free World can't let a little thing like the law get in his way!

Comey testified that he learned Bush's Chief of Staff Andy Card and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales were on their way to the hospital to visit Ashcroft (how sweet). I know I'm not the first to make the observation that what happened next bears a vague similarity to a scene in the movie The Godfather. Basically, Bush and company were trying to get an incapacitated Ashcroft to sign off on the wiretapping program -- over the objection of the acting A.G. Comey raced to the hospital with emergency lights flashing and beat Card and Gonzales to Ashcroft's bedside, and with that heroic act, the rule of law was saved. (There is more good stuff in the transcript, but I'll wrap it up for brevity's sake.)

In summary... President Bush had this program that was of dubious legality and violated basic civil rights. Then he and others in his administration went around the law to reauthorize this program. What does he have to do before it is considered high crimes and misdemeanors? Now can we talk about impeachment?

[17 MAY 2007 08:40:00] UPDATE: I looked for this story in Wednesday's Chicago Tribune. Apparently when we find that the U.S. Attorney General has perjured himself before Congress, when we find he has abetted the President in committing misdeeds -- this isn't front page material. Instead, we got an article about a hairdresser ("Is offbeat stylist cut out to be a 'Shear Genius'?") and an obituary for Jerry Falwell. The Gonzales hearing was tucked away on page 4 ("Ashcroft ex-aide details wiretap infighting").

[17 MAY 2007 18:05:00] UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald wrote an article about this on his blog at Salon.com and really nailed it. It's a must read. Also, when I was discussing this at lunch, one of my coworkers tipped me off to a Frontline episode titled "Spying on the Home Front" that aired on Tuesday. It deals with the NSA wiretapping program and related 4th Amendment issues. I missed the broadcast, but it is available for viewing online at Frontline's website.

Too much music makes the concert go long

My band had its spring formal concert this past Saturday. When I broke my wrist, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to play, but I managed. Here is a photo from the concert (note: copied from the band director's flickr page without his permission):



The guy in the lower right of the picture is me. If you look carefully, you can see the brace on my right hand.

I think the concert went fairly well. As usual, the program was probably a little longer than it needed to be, and I think it was the most difficult program we've ever played. The band director wants to keep pushing the band to do more, but he should realize that we're just volunteers. We did have a couple professionals play for this concert: Gene Pokorny, principal tuba of the Chicago Symphony, and Gene's wife Beth Lodal, both played with us in the tuba section. Pokorny and Buffalo Grove Village President Elliott Hartstein were the featured soloists in our performance of Tubby the Tuba.

Too much heat makes the roof go up in flames

Two weeks ago, I was coming back from the mailbox one morning as I was about to go to work. I noticed an unusually large number of people milling about the building to the south of mine. Then I noticed there was an alarm sounding. Then I noticed there were fire truck sirens off in the distance. Then I recalled there had been a fire in that building just a few years ago, and I broke into a sprint through the gangway to the back yard.

Were those wisps of smoke rising from the roof? It only took a few seconds for the tiniest signs of smoke to develop into impressive flames. Then, when the fire truck came, it only took a few seconds to douse them. The fire was apparently confined to the roof and was started by roofers heating tar.

Too much business makes the restaurant go open its doors

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how I found AJ's Grill closed in the middle of the day when they'd normally be open. At the time, I wasn't sure what their status was and thought they might have closed for good, but I went there again this past weekend, and they were open. (I plan to correct my earlier entry when I get a chance.)

Too much soup makes the lid go pop

A few days after I started wearing the brace on my broken wrist, I decided to make a can of soup for dinner. Progresso has recently started putting pull tops on their soup cans, but after this last experience with one, I think I'll stick with the can opener. Because of the wrist, I tried to open it with just my left hand, curling one finger through the tab while gripping the sides of the can with the other fingers. Pop! The whole lid popped off at once, and one end of it sprang up and embedded itself right into the side of my pinky. Reflexively, I flung the can away from me, spilling its contents all over the kitchen walls, counter, and floor. Blood was streaming from my left hand, and my right hand was still pretty much out of service. Oy vey. Stay away from those pull tops. That's all I can say.

Too much falling makes the wrist go snap

I thought I'd save the condo association a little money and prune the crabapple trees in the front yard (the same ones mentioned in a small Chicago Tribune article last fall -- they're still alive). This was April 14. Coming down a seven-foot ladder, I missed a rung and fell. The first thing to hit the ground was my right hand, and while it made a troubling snapping sound and hurt afterward, everything still seemed to work. It wasn't until three days later that I saw a doctor, who sent me to the hospital for X-rays. Turns out I cracked the end of my radius. Fortunately, it's very minor fracture.

Too much X makes the Y go Z

I haven't had time lately to update my blog much. That means it's time for another blitz round of blogging. In the vein of the Neo-Futurists' long running show, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (TMLMBGB), I'll attempt to write as many entries as I can in as short a time as possible.