[personal/blog] [sociopolitical] 

This via Dan Gillmor:

San Francisco May Regulate Blogging

I guess they figure since the federal government has yet to step in and regulate online speech, someone's got to do it, right? If this passes, it'll give me another reason to thank God I don't live in San Francisco.

 [personal/blog] [sociopolitical] 

As we mourn the passing of a Pontiff, I'd like to echo much of the admiration others have shown for his 26 tenure. He was a man who sought compassion for the least of us, lived forgiveness, yet adhered to some of the most strict Church principles -- sometimes in the face of popular and political criticism. Instead of acting a salesman, he lived a life of stewardship, recognizing that the Church's purpose wasn't just to comfort parishioners, appease popular demands or cozy up to governments, but to follow the will of God.

Whether or not you agree with the message of John Paul II or the Roman Catholic Church, you should recognize that his leadership was based on principle. This, in an age of churches (especially in the West) that seem more motivated by filling membership rolls and collection plates than following Christian teachings. Here in America, if you aren't Catholic, chances are you attend a church that makes major decisions based on democratic rule or membership sentiment (if you attend church at all). This makes most churches into social clubs run by their members, rather than led by their leaders.

Over the past several months, I've been seriously considering the Roman Catholic Church for my own practice of Christianity and worship. It's in part because of the rigidity of the structure, because it doesn't sway or cave in to popular pressure. But it's also in part because of the example of forgiveness that I mentioned a couple days ago, in my last post on the Pope. His leadership wasn't swayed by public outcry, yet it was compassionate.

Perhaps nothing is more integral to Christianity than practices like compassion and forgiveness. These are certainly the two most important lessons one should take from the life of Christ; they are also two incredibly important lessons to be learned from the life of Karol Józef Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II.

God bless him, and may he rest in peace.

 [personal/blog] 

It came to my attention that someone thought the white background sported by this weblog for the past many months was "stark." I don't know exactly how to take that, and despite my longstanding tradition of not caring what other people think, I've seen fit to tinker with this current (green) background.

Any thoughts on the new look?

UPDATE: The green has since turned gray, but I'm still accepting feedback on the issue, and the final decision from smedley HQ is still forthcoming.

 [personal/blog] 

I didn't feel much like blogging for fun yesterday, so I didn't get a chance to point this one out in a timely fashion. But anyway, here's a momentous press release from Opera...

 [personal/blog] [rants] 

I was due for a new toothbrush, so I picked one up on my way home last night. Now here's what I'm wondering:

Why are there four hundred different kinds of toothbrushes? I don't just mean different brands, because there's only about ten different brands, but within each brand's offering, there are seemingly dozens of different variations on the toothbrush. If Oral-B sells both the Indicator toothbrush and the Cross-action Vitalizer (not to mention the many other choices in their repertoire), how is a person to know which brush is best? And if one brush is superior to the others, why even bother selling the others? I don't get it.

Of course, I used to have similar confusion with toothpaste varieties, when I couldn't seem to find Crest with both tartar control and whitening, so I had to make the difficult choice between getting rid of tartar and whitening my teeth. Thank God they finally merged the two features some years back, or I don't know what I would have done.

So as I perused the vast selection of dental cleaning tools at the local Rite Aid, I simply strove to locate a toothbrush that looked reminiscent of the brush I had purchased a few short months ago. But the crop of toothbrushes in my view looked to be an entirely new generation of dental hygiene devices, none of which looked even remotely like the last one I bought.

So now, my mind nearly overheating with the burden of choosing between soft and medium bristles, large and compact heads, single, dual, and even triple-action bristles, I almost gave up and chose the simplest, cheapest, most boring toothbrush I could find. And then, instead of toothpaste, I would come home with a fresh box of baking soda -- or at least Tom's of Maine (until I realize that even they've sold out to the demons of dental variety).

But not this time. No, I gave in and picked the super duper, cross-action, gum-massaging, indicator brush with a tongue-cleaning pad on the reverse side. For now I'll just counter the excessive technology of my new toothbrush by continuing to use the good old, mouth-burning blue Listerine a couple times every day.

But in three months, if we've already progressed to the next stage of brush evolution, I swear, I'm settling for a piece of emery cloth tied to the end of a twig and a box of baking soda.

 [personal/blog] 

Thief Steals Poop From Woman Walking Dog

Cziltang has a section of his website entitled Stupid Criminal Tricks. In that spirit, I submit the above item from yesterday's local paper.

 [personal/blog] 

I got a five dollar bill as change from lunch the other day. I noticed that someone had written a web address on the edge of it. This tactic struck me as an interesting (and cheap) way to advertise a website, especially with the way paper money gets around. Based on this thought pattern, as well as curiosity, I made a note to self that I should check out the website on the five in my wallet, you know, to make their advertising dollars stretch a little further.

This morning I finally remembered to look it up. It was at this point I finally realized that the web address scrawled on my five dollar bill was not there just for advertising purposes, though that was certainly a fringe benefit. WWW.WHERESGEORGE.COM is an informal little tracking system for bills that have that address written on them. I don't know how widely used this site is, as I have only just discovered it, but the concept seems at least semi-interesting. I found that the 2001 series five dollar note was initially tracked in Minnesota, and that I am apparently the first person since then (about five months ago) to register its whereabouts on the website.

That's okay, I'll probably spend it now that I've satisfied a part of my curiosity, and maybe I'll even check in on it to see if it turns up again somewhere even more exciting than here.

 [personal/blog] [writing/literature] 

I think of her as autumn,
whose hair recalls the shades of turning leaves
-but also of the way,
like leaves that fall in autumn's wake,
for her I do the same.

Just an impromptu rhyme that's gotten trapped in my head, in one form or another, over the past day and a half. Does it tell anyone anything?

 [personal/blog] 

I found this one at Blankbaby, who found it at Skrocki's:

Blink O Rama

-because you always wanted to have an extensive collection of your favorite celebs in mid-blink -- I should probably find something more productive to do now, like sleep...

Keepin' it real with Ronald

 [personal/blog] 

"McDonald’s is seeking to use Hip-Hop to promote their Big Mac sandwich and have offered money to rappers who include the sandwich’s name in a hit record by summer..." (the rest of the story is here)

-this came to me via Mr. Poon.

 [personal/blog] [sociopolitical] 

I get email at the address available on this page. Sometimes it's from people who actually want to offer feedback or suggestions for this site; other times, it's just spam.

Penis enlargement, online drugstores, run-of-the-mill porn sites, and every couple days, one of those polite, if grammatically-challenged, foreigners asking me to help them invest some money by sending them my bank information; they don't even make me bat an eyelash anymore. I've seen pretty much everything, or at least, I thought I had.

Sometimes I get emails from other webmasters who think I'd enjoy their site, and they want to know if we could exchange links. My linking policy, vague though it may be, is rarely contingent upon reciprocity. Usually, I link to content that I find in some way fascinating, whether or not the linked page links back to this one. A few days ago, I received what appeared to be such an email for someone's Geocities site. I went to visit the web page from their email, and I was immediately shocked by what I was seeing.
Now, as I said, I've been exposed to a good sampling of your average inappropriate web content, but this was exceptional. The page in question contained some extremely inappropriate images of underage children -- and not of the "I swear she looked seventeen, officer" variety -- the titling of the site suggested very clearly that this site specialized in "artistic" images of 5 to 13 year-old girls. Almost as noticeable as the site itself was a disclaimer that this site was not in violation of the law.

I'm not a legal expert on what constitutes child pornography, but whether or not what I was seeing fit that definition, I knew I didn't want to know anyone who found these sorts of images enjoyable, even as "art."

I promptly emailed my ISP, and then the (hopefully) good people at Geocities, and finally I sent a message to the people at Cyber Angels, just in case the first two didn't work. What scared me the most about this site is that it had slipped through the parental control software that runs on my machine (a machine which is used by my young niece from time to time).

Thankfully, I finally received feedback that the offending site had been disabled, and indeed it has, so now I feel a bit more secure in writing about it, though I still won't publish the url. I guess I'm haunted by the statement that was on the website in question, the one that boldly claimed the site was not illegal, that all children had been photographed with their parents' consent (which made me feel a whole lot better), and that it was strictly for artistic purposes, despite the fact they were charging a high monthly membership fee, and had sickeningly suggestive captions accompanying some of the front page photos.

I have to say there wasn't a whole lot of authoritative content available from my ISP to tell me where to go -- in fact, I never actually got a response from my ISP. I did end up finding Cyber Angels via Yahoo search, but I'm wondering if anyone else out there who's more security savvy would be able to suggest other good sites for reporting possible cases of exploited children. I'd like to add a couple links to the sidebar for this purpose.

Feedback is appreciated. Thanks.

And in today's miscellany...

 [personal/blog] 

Steering back away from the poignant thoughts of this morning -- thanks to Tom Carter, perhaps I have one more reason to avoid fast food: Woman Eating Chili Bites Into Human Finger, from The Washington Post.

 [personal/blog] 

I used to work with a guy named Jim. He was softspoken man, not especially impressive in any visual way. The smell of a newspaper pressroom seemed to always be with him, but that was an occupational hazard, as he did work at a newspaper facility. Jim was in his mid-forties, had to work two jobs to support his wife and kids, and I can't imagine he ever got much sleep.

He was the kind of guy who would always help you out if you got caught behind on your work, or if something came up that kept you from getting your own work done. He smiled sparingly, but it was easy to see that weariness was a factor in his expression, or lack thereof.

I never consciously formed my opinion of Jim until after he was killed in a car accident on his way home from work one morning in January, 2000. It's funny how some people don't impress you while you're observing them, but as soon as they're gone, you notice all the things that have gone with them.

Jim's memorial service was held at a local funeral home. We were all expecting a modest turnout, but as we arrived, we noticed that the parking lot was almost full, and as we entered the building, it became clear that merely getting into the chapel for the service was going to be a struggle. The chapel room was decent in size, probably with enough room to seat two hundred people comfortably. When I finally got to sign the guestbook, I could see that I was about four hundred on the list.
As I looked around at all the other people in the room, it started to occur to me that this quiet man we'd all come to mourn must have been more impressive than any of us had imagined. There seemed to be people who had known him from every periods of his life, and you could hear the whispers of other people saying what I was thinking, that they had no idea there would be so many other people at the service. There were people he'd known in the Marines, family members, co-workers from his two jobs, old classmates and childhood friends. Some said they'd come from across the country to be there that day. I know our employer at work actually shut down a significant part of the company's operation so that they could accommodate the dozens of us who insisted on attending the funeral.

It struck me how this man who, by all accounts, barely ever raised his voice, and by his wife's account, never dressed to impress anyone (except maybe in the military), could command this crowd of hundreds in his wake. But as people lined up (and it was a long line) to eulogize, it became apparent that he impressed all these other people the same way he'd impressed me at work. People who grew up with him, people who served in the Marines with him, people who worked with him, his family -- they all spoke of a gentle man who was always willing to help out. And to think, I was just going to pay respects to a co-worker, a casual acquaintance. But as the stories continued to flow, I started thinking of ways that his helpfulness had made a difference for me, and then I looked around again and realized the same thought might well have been occurring to everyone else in the room.

That day played a part in changing my view of life, and of the world. How many of us set goals that have to do with money, possessions or job titles? How many of us achieve those goals and actually feel satisfied by them? How many of us look at our lives the other way, in terms of the effect we have on others? How many parents really understand the immense difference they can make in the world, simply by being a good parent? How many people realize the difference they can make, simply by being friendly, whether to their actual friends or to total strangers?

From that day, I started to see how much of a difference a person can make simply by being helpful. The little things you do to alleviate someone else's situation can sometimes change the whole world for them, and most of the time, you'll never know it -- unless you get to watch from above when they line up to eulogize you.

 [personal/blog] [music] 

I don't watch American Idol, but I've noticed (thanks to incessant local news items) that Southampton's Anthony Fedorov is the second Bucks County resident to make it deep into an American Idol competition; Clown-haired Doylestown native Justin Guarini was the first.

I wonder how many other suburban areas can boast such a meaningless reality show stat, and are we residents of Bucks really that talented, or is it just something in the water?

 [personal/blog] 

I came across "The Blog Cycle" via Karl at Philly Future. It's a somewhat anthropological take on blog society that I think sums up much of the activity in the blogiverse quite well. It's a good post on how we sometimes take ourselves too seriously -- a lesson that could apply equally to areas of life that have no relation to blogging.

Incidentally, I was also reminded by this article of one of my favorite little annoyances of the blog world: those self-righteous posts about "blog etiquette." That's not to say that all posts about blog etiquette are self-righteous or annoying; I've probably happened upon one or two along the way that are neither -- I can't recall any at the moment, but...

 [personal/blog] 

I saw this while I was out yesterday, and I happened to have my camera with me, so I snapped a shot of it. It reminds me of some of the daydreams I had as a kid of living in my treehouse (which was nowhere near the luxury setting this one appears to be).

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical]  [stories]  [writing/literature] 

Tattered Coat has thoughts on several political causes and activities, both locally in Philadelphia, as well as nationally. Among these happenings, Matt laments the scaling back of Philadelphia's free library system, which includes not only fewer hours of operation at most branches, but also the eradication of qualified librarians at most branches.

Sure, some people may think anyone with a modicum of intelligence and interpersonal skill can fill a librarian's shoes, but consider the following recollection from my own experience at a local Borders store a couple years back:

I was looking for a copy of Charlotte's Web to give to one of my nieces as a gift. After looking through the sprawling children's section for a few minutes, I decided that it might be better to ask one of the customer assistance folks in that section for a little help.

I approached a fresh-faced young woman who was behind a computer station in the midst the children's material alcove. She was in the 18 to 20 range and had the look of one of those hip youngsters just quaint enough to be employed by a cool bookseller like Borders. Just as I approached, she was accosted by a young man about half her age, who asked her where he could find Around the World in Eighty Days. She asked the boy who wrote the book he was looking for. He didn't seem to be able to push the author's name to the tip of his tongue, so I chimed in the name of Jules Verne.

The book girl looked up at me, apparently surprised that a passing stranger would know such a thing. She then started typing into her computer workstation. A few brief seconds later, she informed the boy that Borders apparently didn't carry that book. Incredulous (not just me, but the inquiring boy as well), I leaned a little over her desk and quickly noticed why she couldn't find what the boy was seeking; she'd entered the words "Jewels Vern" as her search terms. I politely corrected her spelling and she proceeded to find that there were a whole bunch of different titles in stock that had been authored by this mysterious Verne fellow. She then pointed in the direction that the boy would have the most luck finding his book, and she turned to me.

She marveled at how I could know so much about books. Rather than say something to make her feel like a total idiot, I explained that I'd majored in English in college (a lie, but one told to spare her fragile, if naive, psyche). This made perfect sense to her, as she explained that she was only studying sociology. She thanked me for helping with the boy's book, and then she asked if she could help me find something. I gave a soft "no thanks" and went back to searching the children's section myself, not wanting to find out if she'd have similar trouble spelling E.B. White's name.

For days after, I wondered about the sorry state of professional bookselling, that we couldn't find college students familiar with names like Jules Verne to staff the information desks at major bookstores.

As if that wasn't bad enough, just imagine the horror that would have overwhelmed me if this episode had happened at the local library.

This isn't to condescend to anyone out there who would have been just as lost as the girl in the store, because to be honest, I grew up reading a lot of books; it's entirely possible I'd be more familiar with this information for that reason alone. The point isn't whether the typical person knows a lot about books, or even whether or not the typical person should. The point is that the person directing a city's knowledge-hungry youth around the local library should know at least this much.

And as Matt points out, in a city (and state) that sinks hundreds of millions of tax dollars into lavish pro sports complexes we should at least have few million lying around for something as socially redeeming as a decent public library system.

 [personal/blog] 

The inimitable Mr. Keeme has brought his usual flair to answering the five questions I sent his way earlier this week. You might want to go check out his responses -- go ahead, it's okay.

 [personal/blog] 

I had a few things come to mind over the weekend that I wanted to publish, but unfortunately, I managed to screw up the databases associated with this humble weblog.

I am extremely happy to be able publish once again, and I would like to thank Fahim and Tyran for their generous technical support in helping to resolve issues that I personally have no expertise in resolving on my own.

More new posts to come...

 [personal/blog] [sociopolitical] 

Fred Clark at Slacktivist has been posting some pretty well thought out stuff on the current bankruptcy bill in Congress. If you're interested in the subject (and most people should be), I encourage a visit to his blog, but I especially like this grass-roots method of fighting the credit card madness:

Free Your Campus

[personal/blog] 

Apparently there's this thing going around the blogosphere where one blogger asks another blogger five questions, and the blogger that answered the five questions then asks yet another blogger five questions. And this routine theoretically carries on until all 75,892,306 of the active bloggers in the universe have had a chance to answer five questions from someone else. Well, thanks to Mr. Funky Dung over at Ales Rarus, it's my turn to answer five queries tailor-made for me. So here goes:

#1 "Smedley" has the ring of a cartoon name. What are the origins of your blog's name and did you consider any others?

The origins of Smedley are somewhat documented in my oldest surviving blog post, but for the short version, Smedley was the chronically unfortunate creation of a junior high classmate of mine. Smedley J. Rabinovich, as I believe his full name would have been spelled, inspired in me a sort of everyman character, and that's the approach I took in starting to blog here.

Of course, there were a few other names considered at the time. One of the other finalist was "Struggleville," which would have been somewhat dedicated to the songwriting of Bill Mallonee and his now-defunct Vigilantes of Love. Another of the contenders that I can still recall was "The Southpaw Diaries," but in the end I decided that "the smedley log" was both the most unique search-wise and the least pretentious -- which was a consideration, as I had no idea starting out which direction to take, so a name that had absolutely no widespread associations seemed appropriate.

#2 How long have you been blogging? How and why did you start?

I've been blogging for a bit under a year and a half (I began in late November of 2003).

I began blogging because, quite simply, I've been addicted to writing, and up until the blogging bug bit me, I hadn't been published, except in a couple letters to the editor in the local paper, amateur literary journals and student newspapers. I found the idea of publishing a blog incredibly intriguing because, while it was entirely likely that nobody would read it, there was the possibility that the whole world could read it. Maybe I got drunk on the potential influence of it.

All that aside, I didn't realize I could actually pull it off until I came across the closest thing I have to a blog mentor, Cziltang, and his site, The Ratlands. It was there I was first introduced to Fahim Farook's blog software, which I promptly downloaded and started tinkering with. That, and some free webspace from my ISP, was all it took to get me hooked.

#3 What aspects of blogging do you most love? loathe?

I most love the interactivity of it. Even for a site like mine, which is still averaging less than triple digit hits per day, I find that, at least once in a while, a comment can change the way you see something. For someone who grew up venting in journals, with almost no real feedback, this is a whole new world.

I most loathe... hmmm... probably the feeling that I need to post something just to maintain a level of consistency, even when I know I've got nothing to say that hasn't already been said so much better by someone else. In recent months, I've made a conscious effort to curb this practice, and it's brought my posting average down a little, but I think it's good to wait until something good comes along sometimes. And it helps me keep up with my real life, too.

#4 Describe your ideal presidential candidate. Think of him/her as a Mr. Potato Head doll. Each part is a policy or plank borrowed from a real public figure. For example, you might want Bill Clinton's economic policies, Richard Nixon's foreign policies, Gorbachev's social policies, etc.

I think I'll start with the man of the hour here in Pennsylvania, Robert Casey, whose social agenda seems almost flawless to me. And it's funny you mention Clinton's economic policies, because that's right on target for me, though I'm certainly not that much of an econ expert. It seems like he had more of a knack for fiscal restraint than the "conservative" administration that's in power now. Past that, I'd have really liked to see Colin Powell exercise the brand of foreign policy that was closer to his heart, because I have a feeling I would have liked that better than his boss's brand of diplomacy. And then, last but not least, I have a lot of respect for Pat Buchanan when it comes to trade theory, which I guess means I'm something of an isolationist on something.

#5 Tell us about some aspect of your personality that drives you nuts and you'd love to change but just can't seem to control.

Condescension. It's not intentional, which is what makes it so hard to control, I think. It's something in my basic approach that definitely rubs certain people the wrong way. It wouldn't bother me so much, except a couple of the people who are most bothered by it are people about whom I care, and I don't want to act toward them in a way that will make them feel stupid or self-conscious. But like I said, I don't always notice when I'm coming off that way, or even what I'm doing to come off that way. I have a feeling it may come from having spent all that time in my own head while I was growing up.

BONUS: Name a few blogs that you think deserve a lot more traffic than they currently get.

Well, there was this old favorite of mine called "Scribbled Lines" -- but I haven't been able to find it for some time now.

But seriously, I'd have to mention The Ratlands, mostly because it was an inspirational weblog to me when I was starting this thing, but also because Cziltang offers a lot of good insight into many issues. He's even got a few good essays in the non-blog section of his site. He doesn't post nearly as often as the more obsessive bloggers among us, but when he does, it's usually worth reading.

After that, I'd mention The Virtual Salt yet again. It's not your typical blog, in that it doesn't deal with typical current events or entertainment or technology. It's just the straightforward chronicling of someone who's friends with a schizophrenic man. It's one of the better slices of life out there.

I'd like to offer more than that, but the truth is I don't get around the blogosphere as much as I'd like, and it seems that many of my regular reads are already fairly well-traveled.

Now that I've answered the last of them, I'll ask if anyone out there reading this would like to be interviewed in kind. If so, drop me line (by email or comments), and I'll see how efficiently I can conjure five questions to ask of you.

 [personal/blog] [sociopolitical] 

Thanks to Karl at Philly Future, I came upon Dan Gilmor's post on the Apple court decision regarding bloggers as journalists.

I share Dan's fears on this subject. Having studied journalism a bit, I'm extremely uncomfortable with the court's ideas of what constitutes a "legitimate" journalist -- it suggests a little too much on the regulatory side. Dan, who is a former "legitimate" journalist and does a fine job "imitating" one on his blog, shouldn't be automatically barred from the same protections he enjoyed when he wrote for newspapers simply because he writes for his own website now.

Of course, many people might want these protections without following the same rigors that ethical journalists need to follow. While we shouldn't limit legitimate journalism to just those who write for major news organizations, we also shouldn't confuse anyone who has an blog and an opinion with a journalist.

Some bloggers are just as legitimate as any other journalists; others aren't. Some want to be; others don't. I don't consider myself a journalist, mainly because I deal almost exclusively in my own personal opinions on matters. But if I were to engage in what I know to be legitimate journalistic practice, whether as a reporter for a major news outlet or as a simple blogger with a basic journalistic background, I'd like to think the constitution would still protect me to a reasonable degree.

Of course, Dan's post goes on to discuss further threats to online free speech, including the fray over some alterations to FEC rulings, another part of the ongoing issue about which anyone concerned with our most basic rights should be concerned.

Whatever your view of the haphazard manner in which many online pundits gather and disseminate their information, journalism isn't something that can be rightly limited to just those who labor under the umbrella of major news organizations, especially when so many major organizations don't seem to adhere to basic ethics anymore.

 [personal/blog] 

For those who haven't noticed, this blog has just been moved. This is the end result of an effort that has taken the better part of the past week, but I'm glad to say it seems to be over now.

If you have me bookmarked or blogrolled, you may want to take notice of the new address, http://thesmedleylog.com (hopefully easier to remember?). Those who don't update the link will most likely still have no trouble reaching this page, as there is now a redirect script at the old address.

Thanks for visiting...

Poetry Friday Saturday

[personal/blog]  [writing/literature] 

"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden

This is the long lost poem I've been searching for. I remember reading this poem in an American Lit class about a dozen years ago. Of course, I promptly forgot both the poem and the author, and I didn't rediscover them until I recalled the poem's theme just a few days ago (which led to a quick Google search).

This short poem serves as a reminder to me of how much more important it is to demonstrate our love by our actions, as opposed to the more popular, far easier practice of merely talking about how much we love our dear ones. I've mentioned this before in tribute to my father, but it bears repeating, as he's always been the kind of man to show his love for others by his actions more than by his words. I think that's why this poem stuck in the back of my mind for all those years.

[personal/blog]  [music] 

Well, at least there appeared to be a lull. Here's the smedley update after not blogging for a few days:

On Saturday, I went to a Bill Mallonee show in West Orange N.J., sort of a one man thing, just Bill up on stage with his guitar, a harmonica and a few dozen friendly folks. It was definitely the most intimate setting I've seen him in. The next smallest crowd I saw him performing in front of was at the Chameleon Club in Lancaster, PA, about nine years ago, and that was at least three times more populated than this one was. But, as I alluded to earlier, this time was more intimate, and definitely enjoyable. As always (at least from my experience), Mr. Mallonee delivered a heartfelt, clean, acoustic performance, digging back into the ancient past of his Vigilantes days. He was even joined by his opening act, a soothing Irish female voice otherwise known as Vesper Stamper, to perform his five-year-old tune "Resplendent." Vesper filled in reasonably well, singing the part that originally went to Emmylou Harris.

After being bogged down ever since coming back from Jersey, I finally saw my schedule start to free up yesterday, upon which I promptly misplaced forty dollars I had just withdrawn from the bank, and then I proceeded to lock my keys in the car (it only took the AAA guy about 95 minutes to get there and help me break in to retrieve them).

In the hour and a half I waited for Triple-A, the crisp, cold air seemed to send my mind spinning, and I sensed a clarity I haven't had in months, but as soon as I got back into the car and fired up the heat, somehow the clarity all but disappeared. Oh well, I hadn't intended to write much until the weekend anyway.

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

Following Gannon-gate isn't one of my usual pastimes, but I came across this CNN interview via The All Spin Zone. I think it's telling that a guy with dubious-at-best press credentials who's been pretty much sponsored by Republican partisans can't just come out and admit what side his bread's buttered on, or why he felt the need to use an alias.

[personal/blog]  [sociopolitical] 

"In desperate times, you know everybody's part;
it's your own lines you'd like to forget-
-'til what you were meets what you've now become,
grins and says, 'Hey, haven't we met?'"
-Bill Mallonee

What is normal?

I have heard many people bemoan the lack of normalcy -- in their jobs, the people they meet, and in everyday life -- but I'm not always sure what they mean. Is there really such a thing as normal? Aren't things always changing, society always shifting, gradually sliding to new places on the scale? Isn't normal whatever we happen to have grown used to?

Case in point: I was watching CNN yesterday afternoon, when I noticed the streamer at the bottom of the screen informing me of the current terror threat level, which -- surprise, surprise -- was sitting at yellow. Again. It's been so long since I'd seen it at anything below yellow that I was almost thinking that yellow was the color for "everything's just peachy; everyone just go about your business without any worries." I had to look it up when I got home to find that yellow actually means "elevated: significant risk of terror attacks." Then I had to give myself a refresher course on what other colors were on the chart.

I did already know that yellow was the color for "elevated," but I was mildly surprised to be reminded that there were actually two colors, not just one, beneath yellow in the hierarchy of the DHS color code. I actually forgot that there was a color blue on the chart -- which may be just as well, because what are the chances we'll ever see it again in the daily briefings? And green? -it seems relatively safe to assume that we won't be hearing that color called in the near future (if ever). Perhaps the fact that blue and green remain on the chart is a testament to the inexplicable optimism of an agency that never seems to have any good news, but I can't recall what it was actually like before yellow became a way of life in America. Would I recognize the sensation of a day without the specter of yellow or orange in our lives? Would you?

If the President's many warnings about the ongoing nature of the War on Terror are accurate, shouldn't the government come to grips with the reality that, while it may technically signify "elevated" risk, yellow is the new normal. Like it or not, that's the way it comes off to the general public, if they're even paying attention. Your average citizen doesn't see the terror threat level at yellow and scramble to find ways to be more observant or vigilant; he simply looks at it and says, "oh, look, it's yellow again. Hmmm..."

Face it, people hardly wince on the occasions the level reaches orange, which I believe is the color right beneath end-of-the-world red. I'm not suggesting these color-coded warnings should be simply disregarded; in fact, I strongly feel they should mean more, because once we've all become numb to the effects of yellow status, what's the point? And for those who do live in constant fear of the "elevated" threat of terrorism, what kind of life is that? Bruce Schneier, an author and security technologist, wrote an essay on the subject wherein he makes this parallel to the vague earthquake threat that people in California live under:

"According to scientists, California is expecting a huge earthquake sometime in the next 200 years. Even though the magnitude of the disaster will be enormous, people just can't stay alert for 200 years. It goes against human nature. Residents of California have the same level of short-term fear and long-term apathy regarding the threat of earthquakes that the rest of the nation has developed regarding the DHS's terrorist threat alert."

He makes other equally (if not more) compelling points about the approach taken by other countries, like Israel, whose history with combating domestic terrorism is much longer than our own. They don't use color-codes. He also argues that by maintaining a ubiquitously elevated terror threat level we help instill a brand of fear in our more responsive citizens not unlike the fear many terror groups seek to inspire.
I lament that this is the new version of normal. I hate admitting that the incessant terror warnings have worn on me quite a bit, but they have. Like most people, I can't live in a constantly fearful state, dreading what might possibly go wrong if the worst happens. It's almost necessary to good health that I ignore the constant alerts, that I wait for something more substantial than unspecified threats and vague warnings.

It could also be likened to parents who resort to yelling at their children. It works once in a while, but when it becomes a constant, kids adjust and learn to tune it out -- in some cases, they tune it out as a necessary defense mechanism. The problem comes when the parent resorts to yelling to warn his child of truly imminent danger. The child who's gotten used to being yelled at every time he ties his shoes the wrong way, or spills a glass of milk, will be more likely to dismiss the urgency of parental hysterics, even if the hysterics are to warn the child of oncoming traffic.

The same happens when a government elects to speak in a constantly raised voice. Some of us still flinch, but most of us have managed to tune it out. Now what happens when the danger truly is imminent? Too many people were joking about the last orange threat level -- will red be taken that much more seriously? Or have we gotten so used to the myriad unnamed dangers that we'll just shrug it off like we already do with the ever-present yellow?

Has our government gotten into the practice of crying wolf? Should the local traffic report announce that the auto accident threat level has been raised to elevated every morning and afternoon during rush hour? Should McDonald's announce a heart attack threat level of high as the customers walk in the door? Should we wear bells when walking down a hallway at work, just to remind everyone else of the risk of collision as we walk around corners? Maybe, maybe not.

I may not have all the answers, but I'm seriously wondering if, in the absence of a credible and imminent threat, I need to warned every single day of my life about the possibility of a terrorist attack. While I know I can't speak for everybody else, there's a certain indelible image forever on standby in my head: it's the image of an airplane striking a tall building. If the government chose to stop warning me on a constant basis, would I ever really forget that? Isn't that the only thing I really need to remain aware of the possibility of another terror attack?

I'm not saying I don't want to be warned when there's real news for the DHS to report, but in the meantime, I could really do without all the yellow noise.

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I had intended to add more ruminations about the wondrous marketing opportunity that has become of St. Valentine's Day, but in all my busy-ness this past weekend, this is all I could come up with, so far. It's about the latest Bin Laden videotape, via The Onion.

And with that, I wish you all a happy Valentine's Day. May we all recall just a little of what it's supposed to mean -- by which I refer to the over-sized teddy bears, lingerie and chocolate candy assortments. Oops, I only meant over-sized teddy bears, not the other two. (Of course, I suppose over-sizing the candy assortments could lead to an over-sizing of the lingerie, but that wasn't the point...)

[personal/blog]  [movies] 

A couple days ago, things started off well. I got a letter from her, the first one I'd gotten. Then I went to work and everything started going downhill -- fast.

Evelin is a little Salvadoran girl I sponsor, you know, "for the price of a cup of coffee a day..." -she's seven, and she was born on the same day of the year as I was. On Tuesday, I got a letter from her. Inside it was a crayon-drawn picture. I don't mean to draw comparisons to the movie About Schmidt, but it crossed my mind. I was touched by the picture she drew. I guess the letter was physically written by someone else, because she doesn't know how to write yet, but still, it was all quite touching.

I was going to show the picture to someone at work who I thought would appreciate it, but as soon as I arrived, I was cut off by a little bit of hostility. Since then, things just haven't been as pleasant as I would hope. All the unpleasantness had pushed the thoughts of the letter to the background, but today I finally sat down to write a letter back to Evelin. I made sure to remember to mention how pretty the picture was, the way I would with one of my younger nieces or nephews.

I think of the smile a little child gets when you compliment their artwork, how appreciated they seem to feel. I remember how appreciated I felt when I was a kid and someone would compliment a picture I drew or something I built with my Legos. Come to think of it, I guess even into adulthood, most of us still appreciate positive feedback when we do something good. It was kind of a cool thought to bring me back from the unpleasantness. That's all.

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"I know a girl who you've got to keep an eye on -
Every time she goes outside
she barely gets home alive ..."
-Fountains of Wayne

It's taken me a couple days to get back to the blog since Super Bowl Sunday, not as much because of the game's outcome as something that happened at the party I was attending.

I had been graciously invited into someone's home for a Super Bowl party on Sunday evening. I was forewarned that one of my hosts had a tendency to be melodramatic any time something "bad" happened in the game (i.e. - the Eagles would fumble, get intercepted, or the Patriots would score), which I didn't think much of, as I'm generally positive in these situations -- yes, I sink and swim with the home team like everybody else, but I manage to do it with a little more optimistic attitude.

As we were watching the game, there were many points at which the particular host I'd been warned about voiced her misery over what I thought were relatively harmless events in the game. As a matter of course, I tried to respond with a more positive spin on what was happening. Little did I know as I was doing this, but this person may have become annoyed with my attempts at a positive mindset, hence my comments, which were meant to counterbalance her overly pessimistic observations, only served to worsen her attitude -- or so I was told the day after the party.

The person who told me this didn't seem to know for a fact that I was a problem for the other person, but admitted that I'd been annoying to her personally, so she assumed I was also annoying to the other, more vocally negative person. This got me thinking about why I make the effort to counterbalance negativity when I notice it.

It occurred to me that I've had the occasion to know people who've been prone to depression, sometimes to the point of self-damaging tendencies. I think, having had the experience of being around people who get that way, I have been conditioned to respond by looking on the bright side of even the most seemingly negative situations. I obviously don't do this to annoy anyone, but I see how it might be annoying.

If you are a person who is bent on being negative all the time, it can be frustrating to have someone else constantly contradicting your pessimism. But if you're like some of the people I've known in my life, contradicting that pessimism can be useful, if not absolutely necessary. My positive words in situations like this aren't to annoy, but rather to buoy -- sometimes there meant to buoy my own perspective from being dragged down into the muck by the negativity around me. Not to mention the fact that people who are constantly negative can be pretty annoying too. I had been warned about the negativity, but I wasn't aware that warning meant I couldn't respond or try to balance it a little.

Now the negative energy at the Super Bowl party the other night wasn't threatening to drag me under the waves or anything like that, but it was striking me as being a bit over the top. And one thing about people who are stuck on negative mindsets is they tend not to notice how negative they are being. It's one thing to sound the alarms when your teams down by twenty points in the first quarter, but I was hearing predictions of Eagles doom when they were up by seven.

Did the game work out the way I would have hoped? No. Was it the blowout that many "experts" expected? No. Most Eagles fans I've talked to in the past day or so are fairly positive about the future of football in Philadelphia, as opposed to the vocal few who will be selling tales of gloom and doom.

So, that's why I do it -- at least I think it is. I guess it can be annoying, but I find it funny that people who get annoyed by me having an alternative mindset to theirs don't often realize that by expecting me to curb my optimism they're really doing at least as much to me as I'm doing to annoy them.

Oh well, I guess I won't be invited back if the Eagles make it to the Bowl next year ...

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"We want to take over the city, turn it into Phillyville, our new hometown."
-Philadelphia Eagles Linebacker Ike Reese (NY Times quote)

Almost two weeks ago, under the lights at Lincoln Financial Field, following the Eagles first conference championship in 24 years, Pro-Bowler Ike Reese apparently had his finger on the pulse of the Philadelphia fanbase. He dedicated the victory to the fans, and followed that with a challenge to them: Come down to Jacksonville and turn it into "Phillyville."

He didn't have to be that visionary to make such a challenge. Eagles fans are notorious for their "travel" ethic. Every year there are a couple away games, in places like Dallas or Miami, where you can tell by the sound of the cheering that a massive number of Eagles fans has invaded enemy territory. Eagles players know what it's like to hear that swell of vocal support, even a thousand miles from the home field.

Various news reports have noted the presence of thousands of Philadelphia Eagles supporters in Jacksonville these past few days, one radio report suggested that between forty and fifty thousand of the fans at today's game will be entrenched Eagles fans, which, if true, would be more phenomenal than any previous occurrence of a Philly fan invasion -- especially given the corporate-dominated atmosphere of the modern Super Bowl. Of course, Jacksonville is also the hometown of two of the Eagles three Pro Bowl defensive backs, so there is probably some local support for the boys from Philly, even among people not from Philly.

I wonder what it will sound like. I wonder how many Eagles fans will actually be in attendance. Whatever the case, I'm looking forward to it, as someone who has vivid memories of the last Super Bowl Sunday that featured my favorite football team (The Eagles had better than even chances against the Raiders going in, but we didn't get to see much of it; the TV picture tube went out just before the game turned really ugly -- a sign from above?).

This time around, the consensus choice appears to be New England, which is fine with me. My general rooting interest is with the underdog, unless the hometown team is in it, so this game is perfect for me.

All that's left is to wait for the kickoff.