Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:59 PM

They printed my letter in the Boston Globe!

They edited it slightly to clarify, but that's okay.

For the record, I was responding to this letter in the Sept. 3 paper:

I didn't see the original letter he replied to, but this one put me in mind of my blog post from August 11, which I cannibalized into this response:

Now, they did edit it -- my original letter referred to "the way God intended the family to live" within quotes to make clear that was Shannon's POV; I feel their revision makes it look like I might agree with that sentiment, though I dispute the rest. But, they did print the rest of it, along with another letter disputing Shannon.

Though I agree with the Supreme Court's decision in Tasini v. New York Times, I do regret not having the foresight to download from Lexis-Nexis all the other letters I wrote to the Globe before they were removed from the database.

Ah well.

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:49 PM

Just a late update on the Diebold voting machines.

Remember back in July when I posted about how insecure they are? [See here and here in case you've forgotten.]

Well, if you (or anyone you know) have any doubts about how easily cracked their system is, here are step-by-step instructions that will enable you (or anybody running MS Access under Windows) to hack into sample voting results. Now there's a useful skill. [And isn't it amazing what you can find on the Internet?]

I wonder what would happen if enough people got ahold of this hack and knew how to work it.
On the one hand, that might be sufficient to tip the hand of election officials/Diebold to force them to get truly secure systems. On the other hand, it might further depress voter turnout by convincing them their votes don't matter. And, on the third hand (hey, we're talking about vote fraud here; extra hands seems perfectly in line with the topic), this could be an excuse for even further antidemocratic tactics, such as officials throwing out vote results altogether as unreliable.

And though we already knew the company was owned by Republican partisans, did you hear about the CEO's political fundraiser, in which he says he is:

"committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year."

That's either a near-criminal act of stupidity or an unsubtle hint of their true intentions.
Oh Doctor Freud, your slip is showing! [First seen on CalPundit]

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:30 PM

YACCS is going to be down another week at least. For the time-being, I've added commenting by enetation. Once YACCS is back up and running, I'll move all the comments over to the single system. Thanks for your patience.

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:32 PM

There are lots of things swirling around the blogosphere that I've been wanting to write about; I may do a massive compilation of links later tonight. But meanwhile, here are a couple stories that aren't getting enough press.

• Continuing the post-Labor Day workforce news, the administration is trying to take away overtime pay requirements. Sen. Harkin thinks he has the votes to block it. Fax your Senators and Representative -- this site makes it trivially simple. It takes 10 seconds to fill out your name and address and submit a fax. Longer if you wish to send a customized message. But it needs to be done today, the sooner the better, before these changes are codified. What are you waiting for? [via Skeptical Blog via Sisyphus Shrugged]
• Scary letter in the most recent Stars & Stripes (scroll down to Lack of resources) from a soldier in Iraq:

  [W]e have a nuclear power plant about 50 miles from our location. This brings me to my final call for help. We U.S. Army members, soldiers, parents, sons and brothers are being exposed, and nothing is being done about it. There are no official records being kept on the amount of radiation or possible side effects.
  This letter is meant to inform members of Congress and other influential people in the United States that their armed forces are not being fully taken care of. They'll wonder why soldiers are demoralized and ask themselves and leadership what's really going on. The Army has given me a lot. But now I think it's setting us up for failure.

  Earlier this week, Tom Spencer and Atrios noted the dangers our troops (and Iraqi citzens) are in from our military's use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions. Radiation poisoning -- the gift that keeps on giving.
• We thought the matter of military danger pay had been resolved with the administration's backtracking, but Army Times reports:

  The Pentagon may seek more flexibility in hardship-duty pays for next fiscal year -- exceeding the current $300 monthly cap -- in its unpopular attempt to oppose permanent hikes in imminent-danger pay and family separation allowance.
  But a congressional source says Defense Department officials have presented no plan and must do so quickly if they want to influence the next budget.
  "Time is running out for them to get a plan," the source said.

  Army Times also has an editorial on the matter, as well as lots of interesting news about today's military. I question one piece on the high nonhostile death toll in Iraq, because several of the news releases they quote regarding "soldiers who died outside combat" don't sound quite so accidental, particularly the vehicular accidents. [I don't know why it is, but I am able to access all the stories marked "subscribers only," so don't let that put you off.]

That's all I have for now. More later, probably.

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:05 PM

Given the previous entry's icky bad-tidings, I feel the need to post something that made me laugh. This isn't a case of truth stranger than fiction, because it sounds more like something out of a bad roleplaying session:

From Six wives: the queens of Henry VIII by David Starkey.
The context of this excerpt is that Catherine has just found out Henry wishes to divorce her. She needs to contact her nephew, Charles V, and has decided to send the message via her servant, Francisco Felipez:

There now ensued an elaborate game of bluff and double bluff. Felipez approached the King directly to ask for permission to go to Spain, using the excuse (which was, even then, an old one) of 'visit[ing] his mother, who is very sore sick'. To divert suspicion, Catherine ostentatiously refused her consent and asked Henry to do the same. Henry immediately saw through the scheme. But instead of keeping Felipez at home, he decided to outwit both his wife and her servant. Publicly, he gave Felipez permission. But, privately, he ordered Wolsey to have Felipez picked up in France. Wolsey, though he praised Henry's cunning to his face, immediately realised that the King might have been too clever by half: what if Felipez bypassed France and sailed directly for Spain? Which of course he did.

Somehow, when reading this account, I can't help thinking of a rabbit begging its captors not to throw it into the briar patch...

"Oh, no Br'er King! Don't send my servant to Spain!"

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:19 PM

Atrios blogged this NYT story, which begins: "The Bush administration is relaxing rules that say hospitals have to examine and treat people who require emergency medical care, regardless of their ability to pay."

I cannot begin to wrap my brain around the inhumane, misanthropic cruelty involved in such a decision. Save a few dollars at the cost of countless lives. At every turn, the GOP has been hindering efforts provide affordable health care to all Americans. That's meant that poor people can't afford a checkup when they start feeling unwell, and instead become seriously ill and require emergency care. Penny-wise, pound-foolish. And now ERs may start turning people away? This is the kind of policy that makes me want to disown this administration, and possibly this nation.

Yesterday's Body and Soul made the point that for all his flaws, Clinton actually cared about and tried to better the lives of the working poor. He didn't always succeed, but at least he tried. This administration is actively making matters worse. And Atrios is right -- people will die.

This morning's Free Will Astrology : Cancer Horoscope said:

Researchers with too much time on their hands have calculated that William Shakespeare used 20,140 words in his written works. More than eight percent of those were brand new terms that he dreamed up. Some of the best: besmirch, domineering, dwindle, frugal, gnarled, hobnob, lackluster, madcap, pander, sanctimonious, tranquil, gossip, and leapfrog. While we can't expect you to reach Shakespearian levels in the coming week, the astrological omens do suggest you will have more verbal creativity than you've had in many moons. I suggest you speak the truths your heart has never had words for. Assume that your powers of persuasion will be twice as great as usual, and invent at least 20 new words.

Though I wish my talents weren't needed in that direction, I think the first necessary term will be one to describe such anti-humanity attitudes expressed by this administration.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:54 AM

First in an occasional series on historical people and events that are too bizarre to be anything but real.

From Royal Survivor: The Life of Charles II by Stephen Coote:

     In 1675, Hortense Mancini, Duchesse Mazarin, arrived in London dressed as a man and looking for a fortune. Her life had already been colourful in the extreme. As a niece of Cardinal Mazarin she was rich and important, and while blessed with a fair measure of her family's remarkable intellect she also had a freedom of spirit and an originality that none could control. These last were her salvation, for Hortense had been married at just fifteen to Charles de la Porte de la Meilleraye, newly created Duc Mazarin, only to find that this scrupulously correct young gentleman was in fact a hopeless schizophrenic.
     Her new husband forbade Hortense company, English company especially. He insisted that she spend the greater part of her time at prayer. He refused to allow her to eat in front of men. He searched their bedroom for evil spirits. Having failed to find them, he set out to reform the world. He told Louis XIV that he was an emissary from the angel Gabriel come to tell him to sever relations with his mistress. The King blandly informed him that the angel Gabriel had already told him that the Duc himself was mad. The disappointed lunatic withdrew and, having failed to reform the public world, turned to art instead. He took hammer, chisel and scissors to the fabulous collections housed in the Palais Mazarin. Marble genitalia and voluptuously tinted breasts littered the gallery floor as his tearful curator begged him to cease his sacrilege. Then the Duc turned once again to his wife. He took her to remote Brittany where no lascivious male eye could gloat upon her beauty. Hortense responded by having a passionate affair with the sixteen-year-old Sidonie de Courcelles. She found herself immured in a convent with her friend as a result. After letting rats loose in the dormitories and failing to escape by climbing through a chimney, Hortense was eventually returned to the Palais Mazarin, where she discovered that the greater part of her fortune had been squandered by her husband on litigation. She fled to Italy and then, having conceived an illegitimate child, returned to Paris only to find that her husband now thought he was a tulip and insisted on being watered by his servants every day.
     Enough was enough, and Hortense retreated to Chambéry, where she developed a taste for philosophical study. Guided by her lover and tutor -- a man who masqueraded under the title of the Abbé Saint-Réal -- [she] published her memoirs and thereby became an international celebrity...

Hortense Mancini went on to become mistress to England's King Charles II and the Prince of Monaco. I just picked up a biography of her from the local library for further reading.

My point in sharing, besides sheer entertainment value, is simply this: Who could, or would, make something like this up?

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:15 PM

The Bush administration has just reorganized part of the Homeland Security Department. The air marshals will no longer report under the Transportation Security Administration Instead, they're now part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:04 PM

Matthew Yglesias hits the nail on the head regarding my Friday post on GOP hypocrisy/inconsistency/lies:

Once your mindset is directed toward using policy to gain power rather than using power to implement policy, it becomes very easy to lose all concern with the factual information that's relevant to the formulation of policy.

And that, in a nutshell, is precisely what's wrong with this administration. They're not really operating based upon a guiding ideology beyond the desire to enrich themselves and their cronies.

On Friday, I called it "an attitude of win-at-all costs opportunism, using whatever argument is necessary at the time. No principles involved beyond victory." But I like the way Matt puts it.

Matt is actually blogging about Josh Marshall's new article about administration mendacity. Washington Monthly also allows you to rank Presidential lies to compare the last several administrations.

And, of course, none of this is surprising to anybody who paid attention during the 2000 election. Too bad the press wasn't among them. Tom Toles nails it, too.

Following up on another comment I made this weekend, Tom Spencer links to this Atlantic article on Rupert Murdoch which might interest some of you.

I find it fascinating how unrelated posts from different parts of the blogosphere often piece together:

Dan Kennedy blogs about Virginia Postrel's NYT Magazine essay on growth-hormone for the short. In it, Postrel argues that the EEOC shouldn't get involved in preventing discrimination against "a perfectly natural, if unkind, phenomenon: preferring good-looking employees to unattractive ones."

I find that amusing, because just this morning I was reading Nathan Newman on unions, where he points out that's exactly why casino workers in Las Vegas unionized.

Early on in Vegas, the casino owners wanted to stick the youngest waitresses on [the expensive tables, where the tips are largest], so if you aged a few years as a cocktail waitress, you often found yourself consigned to siberia in the casino. Or worse, you had the best positions handed out by supervisors based on who would do "favors" for them.
<snip>
That is what unions get you-- the right not to be told you are too old to be presentable in public. The right not to have a supervisor play favoritism and demand you degrade yourself in order to feed your family.

Somehow, I find that story, from the experience of those working the front lines, more persuasive than Postrel's ivory-tower libertarianism. Just because people have illogical prejudices against other groups -- responses that have no basis beyond gut reactions, which don't actually reflect a person's competence -- doesn't mean society should cater to those attitudes.

Two new blogs worth mention this weekend. Corrente and Open Source Politics. Still in a Labor Day mood, the latter includes a Record... of an Anti-Worker Administration in case you had any lingering doubts about Bush's priorities. I've been impressed by the content, though the interfaces leave a little to be desired. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to providing a blogroll...

Finally, via The Leaky Cauldron, MIT professor Jeremy Wolfe certainly makes Intro to Psych fun by putting popular literature references into his exams. Midterm 2000 and Final 2000 both use examples from Harry Potter. Amusing.

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:15 PM

Will Shetterly made an excellent point last week about the false dichotomy between entertainment and accuracy.
To quote:

Many people have a notion that you either entertain or get things right. Not true.
<snip>
Trying to be both accurate and entertaining can be a problem, but it's a problem that artists should seek rather than duck. You shouldn't feel obliged to be perfectly accurate when creating a story. But being as accurate as possible will usually result in a more interesting story.

I have to agree with this assessment.

For most of my life, the majority of my reading has been genre fiction. But for the last several years, I've found myself reading far more histories -- both straight non-fiction and fictionalized.

Most people have heard the common expression, "Truth is stranger than fiction" but I've discovered this expansion is more astute:

Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.

I mean, I read the journals of other writers, and I see all the work they're going through to ensure consistency and plausibility and structure.

In nature, we have to find (or impose) those patterns ourselves.

Thus, fiction writers often hold back on elements that they fear might seem too fanciful, out of worry readers will disbelieve them. But (ignoring arguments of propaganda) history happened; we have no choice but to believe. And what a wild ride it takes us on. See this post of Ian's for just a few examples.

Back to Will Shetterly's initial point: in my experience, accuracy enhances entertainment value and unintentional errors (as opposed to purposeful anachronisms, which can have a worthwhile place in fiction) detract. What's more, the more care the author takes to ensure authenticity, the better it holds up in repeated readings/viewings.

Agree? Disagree? Don't care?

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:55 AM

<blink><blink><thud>

People who were reading this journal last month may recall my desperate desire to attend BloggerCon, which I eventually quashed due to the costs.
[In fact, yesterday while I was angsting about my financial situation, I was actually expressing relief that I didn't waste the money

At any rate, to address complaints that BloggerCon was too overpriced, the conchairs decided hold a "scholarship" -- a random drawing "giving away 25 BloggerCon seats to members of the weblog community at absolutely no cost."

Guess what just showed up in my mailbox:

As you know we're giving away 25 BloggerCon seats to members of the weblog community, at absolutely no cost. Yesterday, as scheduled, we ran the script that chose the 25 lucky people at random, and.. You won!

Congratulations! We all look forward to seeing you at BloggerCon on October 4 and 5, on the campus of Harvard Law School, in Cambridge MA.

I guess I'm going to BloggerCon...

...at least, as soon as I pick my jaw up off the floor.

Added a few minutes later: Well, I'm starting to switch from shock-and-surprise mode to happy-gleeful-surprise+delight mode. Maybe this is a sign that things are startiing to turn around for us. Unfortunately, YACCS comments are still down, but you can post responses to the LiveJournal feed and I'll copy those over once the comment server is back up.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:45 AM

Well, I'm feeling much better than yesterday. One last Labor Day shot: Sure, American workers are among the most productive in the world -- it's because we get so little time off comparatively. And read this column by Denver Post business editor Al Lewis. "A scared employee is a productive employee," indeed. It's so true.

Meanwhile, Ian's been commenting upon this for a while, but somebody's finally had the stomach to sit down and (re)watch the movie for the details. Rambo III was all about putting the Taliban in power in Afghanistan. So, post 9/11, when people started asking how such a brutal regime came to control Afghanistan, just point to Rambo III. And perhaps consider that a cautionary tale for the future about the risks of arming the enemies of our enemy, in the hopes that alliance makes them our friends.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:59 AM

An amusing typo in this morning's Boston Globe Letters: "Wrong to blam troops under fire"

While that is true as written, I suspect they intended to say it was wrong to blame them. [via BT!]

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:19 PM

I can't really wish folks a happy labor day, because I'm not feeling so terribly happy about it.

This is going to turn into a life sucks rant, so folks may want to skip it. If you want more general stuff on the sad state of labor on this Labor Day, see To The Barricades Nathan Newman, Molly Ivins, this article in today's Globe, Greg Palast, this disturbing tale of desperation or this telling Clay Bennett cartoon.

Eighteen months ago, my salary was more than twice what I'm making now. After a year of unemployment during which time I finished earning a master's degree, I emptied my savings and now have a job doing the same kind of work I got right out of college, for less than half of what I was earning before layoffs, and I'm now sitting here looking at bills trying to figure out which ones I can defer for a month to keep my bank balance from dropping below zero. And that's just covering necessities that I have advanced bills for -- not even including things like groceries or gas for the car, or slightly larger ticket items like shoes to replace my two year old ones that are falling apart, or a new chair for Ian's computer (which just broke), or clothes for Ian (I wish he'd remember to change slacks before using any bleach-based cleaners) and I've only really got two pairs of pants that fit well myself due to fluctuations in my weight and wear and tear... I feel so effing poor...

I intended to do some fun things this weekend, but it looks like none of that's going to happen. I was going to hang about and browse Harvard Square on Saturday (and return an overdue library book that they won't let me renew because my fines are too great), but a prospective tenant asked to see the place again, and it was during Ian's shift at the gas station (yes, Ian's working in a gas station; it's the only work we've been able to find). So I killed my afternoon waiting about the house, only for him to call about 7pm that he decided to take someplace else instead. So, the big September 1st moving day has come and gone and our apartment is still vacant, costing us even more money we can't do without. And there went Saturday.

Yesterday, Ian's father came over to help us with the repairs to the first floor. Things seemed to be going pretty well until my mother-in-law phoned, demanding he return home shortly. So, I think he rushed the plumbing job to get home in time. After the tenants moved out, we noticed a slight rushing noise from the first floor toilet; rather than running up our water bills, we just turned off the water to that toilet. Now even with the water turned off, we have to keep a bucket under it because it's actively dripping. Ian's father is coming back this afternoon to take care of it, but since Ian's got another shift at the gas station, that means it falls to me once again.

<self-pitying sigh>And I had hoped I'd get the chance to see Spy Kids 3D at a matinee at the second-run theater this weekend with Ian. But no chance of that happening now. Maybe it'll still be playing next weekend and we'll have a little time.

Thank heavens for libraries, where I can borrow books and check out videos & DVDs for free (as long as I remember to return them on time). It feels like that's the only form of entertainment I can afford. Is it any wonder I find escapism into history and fantasy is so damn appealing?

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:49 AM

The Bush administration commits too many outrages to blog about them all. (I've had Elayne's recent essay bookmarked to share for a while) Fortunately, I just discovered the Scorecard of Evil which is a useful tool to keep things straight. [Also, uggabugga has useful table of Bush's record on his compassionate agenda.]

One of the latest is lying to New Yorkers after 9/11 by telling them the air was safe to breathe before the EPA even conducted any tests, endangering the health of everybody who lived and worked in the area. Naturally, New York lawmakers are pushing for investigations, but since Congress is controlled by the GOP, few expect anything to happen. But the Bush Lies blog points up an interesting tidbit for schadenfreude: The 2004 GOP Convention will be held in NYC near the 9/11 anniversary! This could so backfire on the President, particularly as survivors and family members start organizing to protest. [Be sure to check out this article about the Moms who met Mueller, via different strings]

Incidentally, the GOP is now backtracking over its reasons for holding the convention so late. They now say it's not to capitalize or politicize the anniversary, but rather to avoid conflict with the Olympics. Fortunately, they still don't quite have Big Brother's ability to erase older news stories, so the truth is coming out. Another blogger (I can't remember who to give credit) pointed out that such a late convention will be an advantage, given Bush's announcement that he'd forgo public financing and spending limits for the primaries, but may follow the rules for the general election. Nobody's running against Bush, so who's he going to spend all that money against? And he gets to keep spending his primary money until the convention, so the later the convention is held, the longer he can spend his war chest. [Can you believe the sob story he's trying to pull about being underfunded? Puh-leeze!

Something that's gotten me curious. Since Schwarzenegger's name was first mention in terms of California politics, I've been seeing stories about constitutional amendments to enable foreign-born presidents. And I'm just wondering... have any of Rupert Murdoch's media outlets made any statements on these? I can't help wondering if Arnold is somehow a trial balloon to make the idea of high-ranking foreign-born politicians palatable, thus possibly opening the door for somebody else who's more interested in shaping policy...

As Teresa Nielsen Hayden has written, "I deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist."