Invitation To A Dance

When you're a writer, there are certain milestones that help to reassue you that you really are a really-real for real writer:

When you're first sending out manuscripts, one of those milestones is a personal rejection note from an editor, rather than a form letter.

Your first story sale is a big milestone.

But your second sale is almost as important, or maybe even more so, because it tells you that first sale wasn't just a fluke.

And another milestone is when you've established enough of a reputation, that an editor will actually invite you (yes, YOU, you writer, you) to contribute something to his or her project.

So I opened up a recent email to find that that last had finally happened to me.

Well, sort of....

International Conference on
COMPUTATIONAL METHODS IN SYSTEMS BIOLOGY

20th and 21st September 2007
Edinburgh, Scotland
http://conferences.inf.ed.ac.uk/cmsb07/

The CMSB (Computational Methods in Systems Biology) conference series was established in 2003 to help catalyze the convergence of modellers, physicists, mathematicians, and theoretical computer scientists from fields such as language design, concurrency theory, program verification, and molecular biologists, physicians, neuroscientists interested in a systems-level understanding of cellular physiology and
pathology.

CMSB'07 solicits original research articles (including significant works-in-progress), surveys of current research and posters. These may cover theoretical or applied contributions that are motivated by a biological question and can demonstrate either actual or potential usefulness towards answering that question. They may also cover models of computation inspired by biological processes; the motivation may be as much computational as biological. Particularly relevant case studies and open issues from the biological side that demands modeling of systems are of interest as well. The introduction of formal models should be supported by theoretical arguments about the model and/or on the analyses that they enable, by comparisons with other network models, and/or by examples of representation and analysis of a biological system.


Topics of interest include, among others:

1. Biological systems and networks: inference, properties, modeling, dynamics, simulation and reverse engineering
2. Formal methods for drug discovery and design
3. Methods to predict biological network behavior from incomplete information
4. Models including symbolic evolution and learning
5. Models of self-assembly
6. Detailed case-studies on how a biological question was successfully addressed using formal models
7. Emergence of properties in complex biological systems
8. Theoretical comparisons between different formal models of cellular processes
9. Differential, discrete and/or stochastic modeling-language frameworks
10. Quantitative formal languages
11. Biologically-inspired extensions to concurrency theory, constraint programming, logical methods or language equivalences
12. Computer models in nano-sciences applied to biological domains
13. Definition and study of theoretical properties of biologically-inspired formal languages
14. Biological data bases and exchange formats for biological data and standards


Paper and poster submission guidelines

Authors are invited to submit original research papers or survey papers of no more than 15 pages in PDF format using the LNCS templates, available at the url below

http://www.springer.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-164-2-72376-0,00.html

Hoo, boy, how did I (who had less than two years of college, almost all in Humanities type courses) end up on a mailing list inviting papers for a scientific conference?

(Some of the subjects of the conference sound like they might be interesting, though I'd probably need to have a translator at hand who spoke both Academic and Tech.)

I'm wondering if there's some other Bruce Arthurs with a background in biology and/or mathematics who should have received this email. I know there's a standup comic in Canada and a long-distance runner in Australia who share my name, so why not a Bruce Arthurs who's actually a hard-science geek somewhere too?

(What? Google my own name? Why, no, I'd never be that vain. Never. I have no idea why that guy in the ski mask breaks into the house every year or so, holds a gun to my head, and forces me to Google "Bruce Arthurs". Yeh, yeh, that sounds good. That's what happened. I swear it, I swear to God.)

Knockoff Cuisine: Starbucks' Bananas & Creme

It's been a while since I've done a food post:

The last few months, Hilde has picked up a jones for Starbucks' "Bananas & Creme", one of their cold blended non-coffee drinks.

Whoops, they're discontinuing that particular choice; it's dropped off the menu boards, and while sometimes you can make a special request, the last few times the local Starbucks haven't had any of the banana puree they used to make the drink. (I figure they've probably used up leftover supplies of the puree.)

So I figured I'd try and whip up a home-made substitute, and came up with this:

Knockoff Bananas & Creme

1/3 C. vanilla-flavored liquid coffee creamer
1/3 C. egg whites (I use the packaged egg whites in cardboard cartons)*
1 ripe banana
10-12 ice cubes

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend at high speed approximately 1 minute, or until smooth. (Depending on the size of the ice cubes, you might need to add a few teaspoons of water.)


*No, I don't know how they manage to pasteurize the egg whites and still keep them liquid.

Pretty close imitation, I think. Makes a 16-oz drink, about 300 calories if I've figured it right.

Back To Work

I've finally recovered enough from the respiratory crud I've had for the last two weeks to go back to work tomorrow. I'm not used to feeling this crappy for this long; usually, when I've been sick, it's been something that I recover from in two or three days. This may be part of getting older.

("Golden Years", my ass.)

Why Not To "How Not To Get Laid"

A friend sent me a link to How Not To Get Laid, a website by one "Stewart Fox" devoted to readers' stories of near-misses, last-minute fumbles, and fast-trains-to-Loserville in trying to have sex with another person.

A horrible confession: I like the "Cosmo Confessions" and similar features in COSMOPOLITAN magazine. I sneak looks at other people's copies ('cause you know that, like, guys don't read COSMO) when I get a chance. These are collections of anecdotes from readers telling about spectacularly bad or inappropriate sex, and/or of being caught having bad or inappropriate sex. (The type of story like having hot, noisy office sex while not realizing the intercom is on.)

So How Not To Get Laid is sort of the geeky kid brother of "Cosmo Confessions". I took a look, and some of the stories were pretty amusing, in a horrifying deja vu kind of way.

The friend who sent me the link added a note asking if I wanted to contribute a story of my own to the website.

Back when I was young, my most common method of not getting laid was, like most guys, being too scared to even try. But there were a few times when I made some motions in that direction, with, umm, less than positive results. Once, not getting laid actually turned out to be one of the most pleasant, memorable and fun evenings I've ever had. But for full dramatic effect, that story needs to be told along with its Evil Twin, an occasion so spectacular and emotionally painful that if it were filmed, it would be a wide-screen epic with an all-star cast and a red carpet premiere. And that story is one I will probably never, ever tell in public.

But I did think of another not-getting-laid story that would have been appropriate for the HNTGL website. So I clicked on the "Submit A Story" button, and saw...

...this, in the middle of the submission instructions:

By submitting a story in the box below or to the e-mail address below, you grant How Not To Get Laid an unlimited, exclusive worldwide right to republish the story online, in print, or in any form of media. How Not To Get Laid reserves the right to fully edit submissions. By submitting a story, you assert that the story you are submitting is one of your own creation and does not infringe on any existing copyright. Submitting a story does not guarantee that your story will be posted or used by How Not To Get Laid‘.

Hmmmph.

So, if you post a story to HNTGL, you also assign all rights to further use of that story to "Steven Fox". All rights, forever.

What this suggests to me is that "Fox" is using the website to accumulate material for a book. Material that the actual authors will get no recompense, at all, for.

Nope. Uh-uh. Not acceptable.

If Fox had stated up front that HNTGL might eventually be used as the basis for a book or other projects, I might have respected that honesty enough to submit a post regardless. But there's no reason for that paragraph to be there unless he is thinking of using the material from HNTGL for future (presumably commercial) projects. (His bio describes him as a writer and screenwriter.)

So, nope, you won't read my story of long-ago humiliation on How Not To Get Laid.

You're going to read it here instead:


Back in the early 70's, I was catching a flight home to Arizona. I boarded the plane and found my seat.

And noticed that the passenger sitting next to me was a nice-looking young woman of about my own age. A very nice-looking young woman.

So as the plane takes off and starts flying westwards, I'm stealing sidelong glances at this lovely young woman, and thinking, "Wow. What could I say to start a conversation with her?"

I think along these lines for fifteen or twenty minutes, trying to screw up my courage to actually speak to her. And I'm getting close, pretty close, to actually turning and saying something...

... when I feel... something.

Something... in my stomach.

Something... roiling. Something... churning. Something... taking on a life of its own. Something... taking on its own inhuman form of sentience. Something... that wants to escape.

And I feel a surge of vomit racing up from my stomach, through the esophagus, towards my mouth, and I clamp! a hand over my mouth and lurch forward in my seat, reaching with the other hand for the air sickness bag in the seatback pocket in front of me.

The air sickness bag... that is NOT there.

And the vomit reaches my mouth, and I'm struggling mightily to keep it in, but it's spurting out between my lips, between my fingers, and, oh god Jeezus, it's coming out my NOSE...

... and the passenger across the aisle sees my distress and, as quickly as possible, hands the bag that IS in HIS seatback pocket, and I'm able to release most of the vomit into the bag, gasping for breath and wishing that a trapdoor would open in the floor of the plane and just drop me out into mid-air.

For the entire rest of that flight, I didn't even glance towards that nice-looking young woman seated next to me. (It was a long flight. A long, long flight.)

But wait, there's more!

This was back during my military service, and regulations at the time required us to travel in uniform, and I was wearing a freshly starched, spotless set of khakis for travelling. So not only did I suffer an utterly ghastly personal humiliation, but I totally trashed the strong, manly, macho image of the entire United States Army.

Oh yeh, the good old days. Like Hell.

*hack* *cough* *wheeze*

I'm recovering from a bad bug that started last week, starting with stuffy sinuses Saturday afternoon, developing into headache, sore throat, cough, wheezing, and deep fatigue within a few hours. Spent virtually all day Sunday in bed, utterly miserable. A lot of the syptoms improved within a few days, but the lung congestion, coughing, and fatigue are not going away. So I've seen my doctor a second time, had a chest x-ray and bloodwork, and am awaiting the results of that.

This is really annoying. I tend to be obsessive about Getting Stuff Done, and it's frustrating to try and do something that ought to be simple and effortless (loading the dishwasher, for example) and end up gasping for breath and having to (having to, dammit) sit down and rest.

At this point, I'd be glad to be able to go back to work. If I had the energy and stamina to do a day at work, I'd be well enough to get more done at home after work than I'm able to do right now, staying home all day.

A Few Reminders, And A Word, For George

Hey, George,

Remember when you invaded Iraq in 2003, after we'd pretty much whupped the Iraqi Army and it was time to hold and secure our gains, your top priority for assigning troops to guard and protect was... the headquarters of the Iraq Oil Ministry?

What you didn't guard and protect... what you barely attempted to guard and protect... were the military weapon and supply dumps scattered across Iraq.

Tons... hundreds of tons... of weapons, ammo, explosives and other supplies of war... simply vanished from those dumps within a few days and weeks, stolen, gone, to be used... against who?

Against US troops.

Remember how, after Iraq's defeat, you had hundreds of thousands of members of the Iraqi Army left without a leader? Hundreds of thousands of men, wondering what would happen to them. They could have been told to turn in their weapons, or lock them away, and then been used as a massive reconstruction team for Iraq, rebuilding war damage, rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, restoring electricity and clean water, rebuilding roads and bridges and hospitals, and, oh yeh, maybe paint a few schools too.

You fired them, George. You fired them all. "Army's disbanded. You're unemployed. Go home."

And they went home. Most of them took their weapons and went home. To watch as the work they might have done, for their own country, for their own people, be turned over to your mega-corporate friends like Halliburton and Bechtel with no-bid contracts and grotesque amounts... billions of dollars worth... of graft, corruption, fraud and outright theft.

And they thought about this a while, and then maybe they got their old weapons out of the closet and thought some more while they cleaned them, and maybe they talked with other Iraqis about this, and maybe they talked about the hundreds of tons of weapons and explosives and ammo secreted away after being taken from the unguarded ammo dumps, and maybe some of them decided that their old Army weapons, and those hundreds of tons of weapons and explosives and ammo, might still have a useful purpose.

Against US troops.

And all of sudden there were "insurgents" attacking US troops, with rifles and RPGs and IEDs and truck bombs. And then more. And more. And more. And still more, every month.

And all of that was made possible because of you, George. Because of you.

But all of that might have been chalked up to bad decision-making, incompetence, or that handy excuse "poor intelligence".

Except for one thing. Except for the three words you said, said in public, said before television cameras, three words that went around the world within hours. Three words:

"Bring it on."

You asked our enemies to attack and kill US soldiers. You dared our enemies to attack and kill US soldiers. You wanted our enemies to attack and kill US soldiers.

And they did. And they have. And they do, to this day. Every day.

To the cost of over three thousand American lives. So far. To the cost of ten times that, thirty thousand Americans, wounded, and maimed, and crippled, who've left arms, legs, chunks of their brains behind them, laying in the streets of Iraqi cities.

You armed our enemies, George.

You motivated our enemies, George.

You asked our enemies to attack and kill US soldiers.

What's the name for that behavior, George? What do you call that?

You said those words over three years ago, George. I had a word to describe what you'd done, a word I sent to my Senators and Congressmen. I thought it was an appropriate word then, and I think it's still an appropriate word now.

You should have been removed from office right then, in 2003. But you weren't. You got what you asked for, you got what you wanted: the death and maiming of thousands of Americans.

And now you want more. You want to increase the violence, you want to increase the bloodshed, you want to expand the war. In your speech a few days ago, you gave clear indications that your goal isn't merely to expand the US military presence in Iraq, but to provoke a war with additional nations, with Syria and Iran.

You are drunk on blood and power, and your words and actions are those of an enemy of America, not a leader.

You armed our enemies, you motivated our enemies, you asked our enemies to attack and kill US soldiers.

And the word for that is... treason.

BANG!

So I've had like half a dozen posts in mind to make here, including several with photos, and Gerald Ford is kind enough to die and give me an unexpected day off on January 2nd, which meant that I actually had the spare time to sit down to write and post some of them.

But first I decide to install the new keyboard I was given for Christmas (nothing wrong with the old keyboard, as long as you didn't want to use any vowels). And just as I'm in the middle of the software installation...

BANG! The friggin' computer's friggin' power supply explodes.

Really. A loud bang, a burning smell, and a quick dash to unplug the power cord before I start seeing, like, smoke and flames. One dead computer.

I'm assuming that the timing was sheerly coincidental, and that Logitech's software isn't that incompatible.

We're past due for an upgrade (128k RAM was a lot when we bought the machine), so we've decided to shop for a newer computer. Then we'll have to take the old hard drive from the dead machine and transfer the data to the new. It may take a week or two to get things back together where they were.

In the meantime, I'm using Michelle's computer in the living room to do things like check email and write this post. But I don't like to use other people's machines unless I have to.

Regular (i.e., semi-regular) posting will resume as soon as possible.

Geekmas

Over in a post at Will Shetterly's It's All One Thing, I posted a comment that there had been enough Star Wars Christmas ornaments issued over the years to decorate a good-sized tree without using any duplicates. And that someone had almost certainly done so.

I was right: The Geek Tree (with Star Wars, plus Star Trek, LOTR, Harry Potter, and Batman)

The Geek Tree's Flickr photoset

I Am Not Scotty

Remember all the episodes of Classic Trek where you had a scene like:

KIRK: Scotty, give me more power!

SCOTTY: Cap'n, the engines canna' take the strain!

KIRK: Scotty, I need that power!

And about four minutes later, after Scotty applies his Manly Scottish Mojo, the warp engines are running at 180% and the Enterprise's butt is saved again. Remember those episodes?

What brings this to mind is the situation at work.

I don't want to say too much about this. But consider the words "dysfunctional management" and "Toxic Boss" and "delusional thinking". Those are the polite words; the ones I'm trying to keep strictly in my head are words that would probably get me an unpaid involuntary vacation.

The Postal Service has always had a reputation for being one of the worst-managed organizations around. Mostly, if you're a long-time employee, you get used to it, you learn to deal with it, you do your job as best you can in spite of it.

But in just the last week, things have changed for the worse. They haven't just gtten worse, they've gotten exponentially worse. Management is demanding a performance level from employees that is impossible to attain. Literally (and I'm not *pet peeve here* misusing the word "literally") impossible. And when we say that we can't achieve those impossible goals, and then we don't achive those impossible goals, we're treated like lying sacks of shit.

The last time stress levels at work got this bad, in 1995, I ended up in the hospital (and off work for three months) with what felt like a heart attack. I don't want that to happen again. For one thing, I'm eleven years older, and that much more likely to have a genuine heart attack next time. (In my paternal family line, no male has gotten to age 60 without a major heart attack.)

Short version: I've seen my doctor, and am having to go back on an anti-depressant again (Lexapro), backed up with an anti-anxiety pill (Xanax), plus a recommendation for a shrink for stress-management counseling.

I don't like being on anti-depressants. I had to do that in 1995, after my stint in the hospital, and one of the side-effects of the med (Paxil) I was taking then was that my urge to sit down at the keyboard and write... vanished. Gone. On the Paxil, I'd look at the keyboard and feel... nothing. Just an empty spot there.

Considering that I've been writing at least occasionally since age 14, and how much of my self-identity is contained in the word "writer", that was not a happy time. (If I hadn't been taking anti-depressants, I would have been really miserable.) I'm hoping, with fingers crossed and crossed again, that the Lexapro won't have the same effect.

But right now, I'm feeling very close to the edge, that same edge I crossed in 1995, so the meds seem to be necessary.

Damn it. Damn them.

Star Trek was fiction. Scotty was fiction. And this is what you would have seen on STAR TREK: THE REALITY SERIES:

KIRK: Scotty, I need more power.

SCOTTY: Cap'n, the engines canna take the strain!

KIRK: Scotty, I need that power!

SCOTTY: Uh, cap'n, did you hear what I said? The engines canna take the strain.

KIRK: Scotty, give me that power, damn it!

SCOTTY: [smacks forehead] Dude, listen up. The engines are maxxed out. They are redlined. There isn't any more power to give. It can't be done, dude.

KIRK: I'm giving you an order, Scotty! We're surrounded by hostile Romulan ships! Give me that power, NOW!

SCOTTY: And just who flew us into the middle of the friggin' Romulan Zone in the first place? It's my ass being snapped at by alligators, too. If I could do anything, I would!

KIRK: Damn it, Scotty, if you don't give me that power, we're all going to DIE!

SCOTTY: No fucking shit, Sherlo---

[Enterprise explodes]

Those Who Fail To Remember History Class, Are Doomed To Repeat It

CostCo's monthly in-house magazine, COSTCO CONNECTION, has a regular feature titled "Informed Debate", where guest writers give opposing opinions n various issues of the day. The following issue will generally include letters from readers, giving their own opinions on the issues raised.

The November debate question was: "Should airport security procedures include ethnic and religious profiling?"

This produced the following reader's response:

YES. It's unfortunate that it has come down to this, but people of certain ethnic and religious backgrounds have a much higher probability to commit terrorist acts against the U.S. at this time. Anyone acting suspiciously also has to be checked." ---Bruce Shimizu, Kaneohe, Hawaii

Ummmm... excuse me, Bruce (do you mind if I call you Bruce? Cause us "Bruce" guys, we're all supposed to be cool and smart, right?), but that last name of yours, "Shimizu", isn't that like... Japanese?

And would that make you a... Japanese-American? Or at least of Japanese-American ancestry?

And wouldn't you think that that heritage of yours might behoove you to be a little bit aware of Japanese-American history? Like, say, the forced internment of thousands of Japanese-Americans during WWII on racial and ethnic grounds?

Wouldn't you think that that cultural background, that history, would make you just a bit hesitant to endorse profiling of "people of certain ethnic and religious backgrounds"?

Wouldn't you think?

A Small, Inconsequential Death

Yesterday, I was driving Hilde to a doctor's appointment across town, taking the 101 freeway, in the middle lane, when I glance over, and I see...

Oh, jeezus, there's a kitten in the right-hand lane!

And I'm just starting to think, Can I pull over? Can I stop and run back and...? and we're already past the kitten and I look at the right-hand sideview mirror and I see the kitten vanish underneath the wheel ("OH SHIT! JEEZUS!") of another car. Gone, in a split second.

I drove on, shaken, knowing that I had just watched something die.

This is a bad story, isn't it? No happy ending. But these things happen. Animals, pets, stray onto roads all the time. These things happen.

These things happen.

Wait. I haven't told you everything.

When I first saw the kitten, in the traffic lane, it wasn't trying to cross the road, and it wasn't standing still, paralyzed with fear.

The kitten was sliding and spinning across the asphalt, scrabbling desperately for footing.

I think...

...I think it had, just a second before, fallen out of someone's car.

These things, these things, DON'T have to happen. If you're carrying a pet in your car, you DON'T let it run loose inside. You DON'T leave windows open enough for your pet to squeeze out. You DON'T. You DON'T do that, you stupid, careless, senseless fucker, whoever you were.

(link to a short guide on transporting pets: Carrying Pets Safely)

Since The Election...

...I've been:

a) working. More 12-hour days at the Postal Service. They suck.

b) at TusCon. TusCon is an annual relaxacon in Tucson, that we try to make it to every year. A chance to catch up with some old friends, meet new or online people (waves to Will & Emma), usually eat out once or twice (discovered, close to the hotel, the Mei Mei, with very good walnut shrimp and curried chicken), browse books and the art show (got some very nice Leslie D'ellesandro-Hawes colored pencils of young foxes, plus a few other pieces for gifts), and participate in the annual chili-tasting at the Dead Dog party.

c) sick. A few days after TusCon, I came down with what may have been post-con crud, with nausea, chills and headache. Recovered quickly enough to go back to work after one day off, but Hilde came down with a stronger case of it this morning, so I've been plying her with ginger ale and TLC.

d) dealing with an incredibly dumb cat, which I'll tell you all about in a separate post.

Some Links

Some interesting sites:

Mona Lisa On The Web Galleries, resources, and links to hundreds of versions of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Some of the links to versions I particularly liked were:

Robot Mona
Devil Mona
Mona Lisa Simpson

Harold McGee, author of the fabulous food-tech resource On Food and Cooking has a blog, The Curious Cook. Postings aren't that frequent (about once or twice a month), but they're always interesting.


Jason Hill Design Hill is a local artist/designer whose work has been labeled as "Retro-Futuristic", with influences from Pop Art, 1930's travel posters, and The Jetsons. Groovy, man. He's best known for his series of paintings of architectural landmarks; his depiction of the Phoenix Financial Center (aka "The Punch-Card Building") has been gaining ground as a well-known icon for the city of Phoenix.


The Arizona Opera has some particular striking publicity art for its 2006-2007 season. (The link goes to a page showing the art for all five shows; clicking on a particular piece will take you to a page with a larger version.) I particularly like the art for MacBeth and Madama Butterfly; either would not be at all out of place if they appeared in the annual Spectrum best-of-year compendium of sf/fantasy art.

The Day After

Elections are over. A solid shift to the Democrats in the House of Representatives, numerous other Democratic wins in state-level races.

Democrats may have a 49-49 vote split in the Senate (the Virginia race, between Webb and Allen, is narrow and certain to be recounted, with Republicans pulling out all the stops to win; it will be ugly, probably with things like the mob of Republican operatives that near-rioted to stop the Florida recount in the 2000 election, or worse).

Two "independents" (Sanders and Lieberman) were elected, but they probably will effectively cancel each other out. Senate votes along party lines will end up 50-50, with VP Dick Cheney casting the tie-breaker vote. At least this will mean that, unlike the past few years, Cheney will be spending a lot of his time in a disclosed location.

Here's a question:

What do you think Dem-primary-loser Joe Lieberman secretly promised to Karl Rove and the Republican Party in exchange for having Republican support and Republican votes channeled toward his "independent" run?

1) A kidney.
2) A lung.
3) His spine.
4) His soul.
5) All of the above.

Still and all, yesterday's elections seemed like a good smackdown to not just the Republican party in general, but to the Bush administration and to the neocon/fundamentalist extremists behind it.

But a smackdown is only the start to a fight. This isn't a staged, pre-planned WWF wrestling match, where the participants get up at the end, wipe off the sweat and makeup, and go home to the wife and kids. This is a street fight for the soul of our country, and we need to finish the fight.

We've knocked the Republican Party into a gutter. Letting them get back up and start swinging again is not the way to win this fight. While they're in that gutter, kick them in the head.

I want to see facts revealed, and truth spoken. I want to see subpoenas, investigations, public hearings, criminal charges and impeachments.

I want to have pride in my country again.

- - - - -

Here in Arizona...

Jon Kyl retained his Senate seat, but it took an expensive and nasty campaign against Jim Pederson to do so.

The good news, though, is that Congressman J.D. Hayworth was defeated by Harry Mitchell. So long, you cretinous embarassment; maybe you can get your old job as a television sportscaster back.

Nut Jan Brewer (hmm, I meant to type "But", but that's too good a typo to correct) got reelected as Secretary of State. Fout. Frack. Dammit.

There was a long list of voter-initiated propositions on the ballot:

Arizona voted against the so-called "Protect Marriage" act. I was surprised, but pleased.

Before assuming that Arizona has become a left-wing hotbed of Frenchified liberalness, though, a number of anti-illegal-immigrant measures on the ballot DID pass, by nearly 3-1 margins. These included measures to deny bail to illegal immigrants charged with crimes, deny punitive damages in lawsuits filed by illegal immigrants, to deny state educational programs, grants, tuition waivers, and child-care assistance to illegal immigrants.

(Y'know, if you really wanted to reduce illegal immigration, the answer isn't to make life here as miserable as possible for them, it's to arrest and jail the scofflaws who keep hiring them. Put enough businessmen in pink underwear, and there will be laws passed to legitimatize hiring "guest workers", with actual decent wages, working conditions, and *gasp* maybe even some benefits.)

And of course, as always, a new ('cause the ones passed previously were declared unconstitutional) "Official English" amendment passed. Or, as I tend to call it, the "We White People Are Too Dumb And Lazy To Learn A Second Language, But You Brown People Shouldn't Have A Problem With That" measure.

(One bright spot is that State Representative Russell Pearce -- he who sent out links to a White Supremacist website in email to his supporters, and who authored or supported all of the anti-immigrant measures -- was defeated in his reelection bid.)

Update, 2/4/07:In comments, "MB" questioned Pearce's defeat, since he was still listed as a member in the current legislative roster.

I double-checked, and found MB was correct. I hadn't realized, when reviewing the election numbers back in November, that the race for District 18 was to elect two representatives to the state legislature, rather than the one I had assumed. Pearce came in second out of three, so yes, alas, he retained his seat in the State House. Damn. Apologies for the error.

Blogger "Feature" of the Week

I did a first draft of "The Worst Job In The World", which you'll find down below the next post, back on October 27th, and got around to finishing and posting today. . .

. . . to find that it posted under that first draft's date, after the 10/29 "Republican Kool-Aid" post, rather than the completion and posting date.

Blogger used to have an option at the bottom of the editing screen to change the date and time of a post. It seems to have vanished. I'm not sure when, or why.

*grumph* Annoying. Looks like I'll have to kluge in future such instances, by copying a completed draft into an empty fresh "New Post" screen.

Thanks, Blogger!

Republican Kool-Aid, Arizona Style

Sweetened with rattlesnake venom.

The Republican mayors of three Arizona cities have been asked to resign by the Arizona Republican Party's District 4 committee.

3 GOP mayors asked to quit
Backing of Napolitano brings heat from party

Scott Wong
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 28, 2006 12:00 AM


Arizona Republicans have begun to turn on some of their own for not marching in lock step with their party, and it all may have started because of a miscommunication.

GOP leaders from Legislative District 4 on Friday called for the resignations of three West Valley mayors, all registered Republicans, because of their endorsement of Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat.

Other current and former Republican officeholders also have crossed party lines with endorsements this election season in local and state contests as well as in an East Valley congressional race.

Friday's move by GOP activists underscores deep fissures in the Republican Party, political observers said. Conservative members hope to pressure those holding more moderate views to remain silent in deference to Len Munsil, Napolitano's Republican challenger.

City council, school board and other local elected offices traditionally are nonpartisan. But District 4 party leaders said they followed orders from Arizona Republican Party Chairman Matt Salmon in demanding the resignation of any GOP elected official who endorsed a candidate from another party.

On Friday, District 4 GOP leaders hand-delivered letters to the offices of Mayors Elaine Scruggs of Glendale, Joan Shafer of Surprise and Ron Badowski of Wickenburg, demanding that they step down for publicly supporting Napolitano.

"We're letting the public know that if you are a Republican, you should stand by your party or remain silent," said Lyle Tuttle, chairman of the Republican Party of District 4, which includes parts of Phoenix, Glendale, Peoria and Surprise. "It's fine if they want to vote for someone else, but for them to endorse a non-Republican is not following the party line."

However, a spokesman for the state Republican Party clarified that while Salmon issued a directive, it applied only to precinct committee members. He added that the "grass-roots activists" from District 4 acted without consent of state party leadership.

"The chairman appreciates these Republicans' enthusiasm and loyalty to their party, but Matt Salmon would not have personally recommended this call for the mayors' resignations," spokesman Garrick Taylor said.

Glendale's Scruggs, who also has endorsed Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, called the letter insulting and an example of "precinct committeemen gone wild."

She said certain members of her party are more interested in "mind control" than in a person's right to back a candidate based on qualifications, integrity and track record.

"This reminds me of Reverend Jim Jones saying, 'Stand in line and drink the Kool-Aid,' " Scruggs said, referring to the cult leader responsible for the 1978 Jonestown, Guyana, mass suicide. "That's how this message comes across to me. What this says is, we are not to think; we are not to make decisions."

That some Republicans would try to impose party discipline on their local elected officials was an unusual tactic, said Marilyn Dantico, associate professor of political science at Arizona State University.

"The Republican Party has started to lack discipline," Dantico said, adding that she sees major divisions within the party. "There is a lot of pressure to hold the line, but it surprises me that it's taken this form."

Dantico said local races became nonpartisan in response to disillusionment with political machines operating in places such as Chicago and New York. Many believed that in local elections, citizens should vote for individual candidates rather than along party lines when it came to community interests.

The three mayors are not the only Republican officials who have crossed party lines.

Arizona House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, endorsed state Rep. Leah Landrum Taylor, a Phoenix Democrat who is running for a state Senate seat.

Former state Attorney General Grant Woods has thrown his support behind Napolitano, as have Mesa Mayor Keno Hawker and Phoenix Councilman Tom Simplot.

And at least three sitting Republican Tempe council members have endorsed Democrat Harry Mitchell over incumbent J.D. Hayworth for the 5th Congressional District seat. So did the president of the Kyrene Elementary district school board.

On the flip side, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, a Democrat, has endorsed Weiers.

To get a better understanding of why the mayors would endorse a candidate from the other party, you need to know that Janet Napolitano's opponent in the gubernatorial race is Len Munsil. Munsil can't properly be called "conservative"; he's a far-far-right fundamentalist, and "radical" would be a much more accurate description. He's probably the most extremist candidate the Republican Party has run for governor in Arizona since Evan Mecham.

I'm also dubious about the claim that the decision to demand the resignations did NOT come from Matt Salmon's office. This strikes me as the handy-dandy "overenthusiastic Republican aide" excuse trotted out again. Particularly when you remember that Matt Salmon was Janet Napolitano's opponent in the last Arizona gubernatorial race, and that he was skunked fairly handily by her. No personal issues to see here, move along, move along....

I sent personal emails to Scruggs and Shafer (Badowski doesn't have an email address listed on Wickenburg's website), saying:

Tell them to go to hell. And to take a copy of the
Bill of Rights with them to study.

Do you really feel comfortable belonging to a
political party that only believes in freedom of
speech when that speech is in their favor? Give it
some thought.

The Worst Job In The World

A long time ago (last week), White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was publicly proclaiming that George Bush had only ever used the phrase "stay the course" eight times. This was followed by Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's COUNTDOWN (how appropriate) show presenting a video collage of George Bush saying "stay the course" twenty-nine times. When instances in print were added in, there were about one hundred sixty examples.

How does one explain, or understand, people like Tony Snow?

Is he proud of what he’s doing? Does he enjoy lying, repeatedly and publicly?

How does he look at himself in the mirror? How does he look his family in the eye? How does he live with the shame?

I’m not joking with that last question. If someone told me “For this job, you will have to stand up in public and lie, repeatedly, blatantly, and obviously,” I wouldn’t have that job. And if for some unfathomable reason I couldn’t walk away from such a job---

---I would get myself a straight razor and slash my throat. I’m not joking; I would not want to live doing what Tony Snow does everyday.

Watching him, and the other habitual liars in this administration, just creeps me out.

How do they live with themselves?

I've always had a hard time dealing with lies and liars. Lying is a common social skill. Some people are even great at it; they do it well, they do it frequently, and they do it with such charm and brilliance that even after you find out what they've told you is utterly bullshit, you still want to forgive them and like them.

Not me. I suck at lying. It's almost physically impossible for me to tell a flat out untruth; I can think of probably five or six times in my entire life when I've tried telling a direct whopper, and every time has been followed by weeks or months of shame and guilt.

This doesn't necessarily make me honest. (Sometimes I've felt it makes me a cripple.) I've learned to be evasive when occasions warrant. I've learned that sometimes telling all the details, all the truth, isn't the wisest course of action. And I've especially learned that sometimes you just need to keep your damned mouth shut completely.

But goddammit, lying may be common as dirt, it may even be useful in the short term, but in the long term... it makes it so damn much harder to deal with the world. The real world.

Back a ways, there was the piece in a news story about an unnamed White House official who said "We create our own reality." And the context was that the power and influence of the White House/Bush Administration/United States government was so great that whatever they proclaimed would come to be. That if you just proclaim a lie forcefully enough, persistently enough, willfully enough, that lie will come to be fact.

(Iraq. Katrina. North Korea.)

How DO Tony Snow, and company, live with themselves?

The America I Want, Not The America I Get

Over at Political Animal, one of Kevin Drum's posts on Iraq closes with the following passage:

"I wonder how long it will take America to recover from George Bush's uniquely blinkered and self-righteous brand of ineptitude? In the past five years he's demonstrated to the world that we don't know how to win a modern guerrilla war. He's demonstrated that we don't understand even the basics of waging a propaganda war. He's demonstrated that other countries don't need to pay any attention to our threats. He's demonstrated that we're good at talking tough and sending troops into battle, but otherwise clueless about using the levers of statecraft in the service of our own interests. If he had set out to willfully and deliberately expose our weaknesses to the world and undermine our strengths, he couldn't have done more to cripple America's power and influence in the world. Beneath the bluster, he's done more to weaken our national security than any president since World War II.

So how long will it take — after George Bush has left office — for our power and influence on the world stage to return to the level it was at in 2001? When I'm in a good mood, I figure five years. Realistically, ten years is probably more like it. And when I'm in a bad mood? Don't ask. It's really all very depressing."

The comment thread that follows is interesting, and deeply pessimistic; most of the commenters seem to feel that the Iraq war is a tipping point in American (and world) history, and that the American Empire (not only militarily, but culturally and philosophically) will never fully recover from the damage done to that former image of America as the "shining beacon" of the world.

I consider myself deeply cynical and pessimistic, particularly regarding politics, but I find myself in the surprising position of believing (perhaps "hoping" would be a better word to use) that America might someday be that beacon again.

Many things would have to go right for that to happen. *koff*votenovember7th*koff It can be done.

But I think it will take at least two generations, fifty years (yes, fifty), to regain the trust and respect the world held for America a mere five years ago.

Those who have come to hate and fear us in the last five years -- and I think that's probably a majority of the world's population -- will not easily trust us again. We have shown the depths we're capable of sinking to -- torture, invasion, imprisonment without trial, the abandonment of (my God!) our own legal protections and rights -- and forgiveness will not be an easy task.

I don't think the current generation will forgive, or forget. And they will pass on that mistrust, and fear, and hatred of the US to their children. I think it will only be the generation after that, the grandchildren, that will be far enough removed from this dark lustrum to risk giving America (an America that has tried to restore its ideals, and its guiding principles) its trust once more.

I want that to happen. I want it.

Dammit, I want my country back.

We're #50! We're #50!

Arizona is the dumbest state in the USA.

Fie! Fie, I say! We'd have only been #43 if not for Russell Pearce!

And The #1 Idiot In The State of Arizona Is...

...State Representative (R-Mesa) Russell Pearce.

Pearce, already under fire for using the term "Wetback", followed that up the succeeding week by sending out an email to political supporters that included a link to a White Supremacist article and website.

Shit, meet fan. Fan, shit.

Pearce has issued an apology, saying that the article in question had been sent to him by a friend, and that he had read only the first few (relatively innocuous) paragraphs before deciding to include the link in his email to supporters.

Shorter Russell Pearce: I'm not a racist. I'm just an idiot.

The odds of Pearce's returning to the State legislature after next month's elections appear somewhat dimmer. (Assuming he doesn't follow a number of public calls for resignation.)

(And what the heck is it about the city of Mesa? In a state that routinely elects fakes, snakes, rakes and fruitcakes to political office, the fruitcakiest almost invariably seem to hail from Mesa. In a town that seems so incredibly boring on its surface, where do they find these people?)