Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:40 AM

Flipping through the latest issue of Stars & Stripes (news for troops in the field), I came across this article about Chris Tarbassian of Framingham, MA, who's becoming very popular by sending care packages of comic books to servicemembers overseas.

I don't recognize his name, but between the physical proximity and similar interests, I'm sure somebody reading this knows him, or would be interested in assisting his efforts. You can find out more at his website Operation Comix Relief. Sounds like a good cause. Spread the word.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:15 PM

MoveOn.org is running a campaign called Fire Rumsfeld and Change Course. I'd much prefer an action geared at firing Ashcroft Anybody know how to make such suggestions to MoveOn? [via BT!]

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:50 PM

Oh yeah, and as I knew would happen, about 15 minutes after finally thinking I had enough links to post and deciding to stop and publish the previous entry, I remembered another very important point I wanted to echo.

Maybe I'll just quote Kevin Drum (Calpundit) directly. The main thrust of his post is about yet another attempt by GOP operatives to brand Wesley Clark as a serial liar (much in the way they did to Al Gore in the 2000 election):

Matthew Continetti, writing in the Weekly Standard, doesn't much care about this. He just wants to prove that Clark is a lying, lying, liar:

Unfortunately for Clark, the White House has logged every incoming phone call since the beginning of the Bush administration in January 2001. At the request of THE DAILY STANDARD, White House staffers went through the logs to check whether Clark had ever called White House political adviser Karl Rove. The general hadn't. What's more, Rove says he doesn't remember ever talking to Clark, either.

Obviously this doesn't prove anything one way or the other, but what caught my eye is that the White House is apparently willing to search Karl Rove's phone logs upon request by reporters. So I've got a request of my own: will you please search Rove's phone logs to find out if Robert Novak called him on or about July 14? Thanks!

Josh Marshall, on Talking Points Memo, nicely dissects the slur, showing a fascinating web of hearsay, innuendo and jokes taken far too seriously.

Still, if they're willing to look through White House phone records to search for Clark, why can't they do the same to see who leaked the Valerie Plame info?

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:35 PM

Part of the reason I was so stressed the other night is that we'll be on a plane this time tomorrow, and I have so much to do and so little time to do it in. But I can't do much of it here at work, so here are various recent news stories that caught my eye and seemed worth sharing, before my (probably) web-less weekend:

I haven't written too much about the California recall as (a) it doesn't directly affect me, (b) there's been so much else for me to write about, and (c) so many others are already writing about it. But the fact that Darrell Issa, who bankrolled the recall, is quoted as saying:

That proves that the reason for the recall was not because Gray Davis was unfit, because then any replacement would be preferable to the current officeholder. Instead, it was solely an attempt to game the system to squeeze a Republican in. And if they can't get a Republican governor (conventional wisdom suggests Bustamante would be tougher to beat in a general election than Davis because he has less baggage) then they don't want to play anymore. [Credit to sinboy for this observation.]

How much is this recall costing California, printing ballots and locating and staffing the polls? I find the GOP mindset jaw-droppingly... selfish. Sure, lets exacerbate fiscal crises in California and Texas to game the system. It's more and more clear that they solely want power for its own sake (to enrich their cronies?) and not to better society as a whole. Because what they're doing is directly detrimental to society, and they don't care about that.

Speaking of California, though I've heard a lot of scummy things about Gray Davis, while the camera has been off him and on the recall circus, he seems to have been slipping in some pretty good things: domestic partner protections, an anti-spam law that may have teeth, and protecting citizens' privacy from automobile black boxes -- all admirable things, IMO.

Overseas, Russians are watching in shock and horror because the US has invited Yegor Gaidar to help privatize the Iraqi government. Read what he did to Russia and weep. And the whole business about allowing 100% foreign ownership of all industries except oil? Don't believe it for a minute. Just give them a little time to bankrupt everything/everyone else in the country -- then the only way they'll have to pay their debts is through oil, and we'll "have no choice" but to "reluctantly" accept...

In random news, I heard an excellent commentary about vouchers as the cureall for public schools. Katie Davis, who helps inner-city youth in her Washington DC neighborhood, talked about two local kids that got into exclusive private schools -- how they did it, how they fared, and why vouchers alone are insufficient, without lots of further support. It's brief, and I highly recommend listening to it.

Be afraid?

The front page of BlackBoxVoting.org (which has been exposing the vulnerabilities of Diebold's voting machines):

Due to a dispute with Diebold, Incorporated, and its wholly owned subsidiary Diebold Election Systems, Inc. (collectively "Diebold"), which is claiming links to certain materials that do not reside on the blackboxvoting.org website constitute  copyright infringement, blackboxvoting.org has been temporarily disabled.

Banner on the front page of Diebold's corporate website:

The Constitution protects our democracy.
 We protect the Constitution.
The Bill of Rights protects our freedoms.
 We protect the Bill of Rights.
The Declaration of Independence secured our freedoms.
 We secure the Declaration of Independence.

Given Diebold's record, saying 2 + 2 = 5 seems quite appropriate.

This move comes the day after a Salon article shares the most damning evidence to date that the company knew about these vulnerabilities and refused to close them. [via DailyKos]

Don't these people ever learn?
Conservatives are trying to defend Ashcroft by further attacking librarians. Rich Lowry's the latest, writing about "the fundamental inability of leftist librarians to distinguish between maintaining minimal public standards and creeping fascism." [via Librarian.net]
I just wish to remind these critics of the Librarian Avengers: "Librarians wield unfathomable power. With a flip of the wrist they can hide your dissertation behind piles of old Field and Stream magazines. ... Librarians rule. And they will kick the crap out of anyone who says otherwise."

On the subject of libraries, much has been made of the OCLC's suit against the Library Hotel for its use of the Dewey Decimal System. OCLC has explained its legal actions as necessary to protect its trademarks, and says they have tried several times to make arrangements with the hotel to "acknowledge and attribute ownership of the Dewey trademarks to OCLC. The Library Hotel refused to do so." [via Library_Grrls]
I've thought the Library Hotel sounded nifty since I first heard of it, and I've wanted to stay there sometime, though Neil Gaiman did, and was disappointed.

Neil Gaiman is also rebutting Harold Bloom's haughty claims that Stephen King is unworthy of receiving literary awards. Mostly here, but with shorter takes here and here.
Also somebody has registered a new LATimes login for anyone else who dislikes their intrusive registration scheme. Username and password: gaimanfans. [I found this dot_cattiness thread with tautological defenses of literary merit to be amusing.]

The Bush administration are such liars that they have even demonstrably lied about reading the Bible. [BTW, I'm in the middle of reading Lies and the Lying Liars and find it a lot of fun.

My heartfelt admiration to those who managed to listen to Bush's speech enough to analyze it, including RoseFox.

"Events during the past two years have set before us the clearest of divides: Between those who seek order and those who spread chaos; between those who work for peaceful change and those who adopt the methods of gangsters; between those who honor the rights of man and those who deliberately take the lives of men and women and children, without mercy or shame." The events of the past two years have also clearly placed you in camp #2, Mr. President. Care to comment on that?

Some more statistically minded bloggers noted that sexual slavery covered 14% of the wordcount and half the paragraphs. Don't get your hopes up for anything too humane, though. It looks like this is yet another club to whack old enemies, while ignoring the offenses of allies. In fact, the administration is rewarding government contractors to DynCorp, a chronic offender.

Kicking Ass, by the Democratic Party, is a pretty darned good blog. And soliciting reader suggestions for anti-GOP ads? Brilliant. What a great way to harness the collective creativity and wisdom of the web. Given some of the really lame ads they've offered (anyone remember the horror that was Bushenstein?) I think this is an excellent approach.

Finally, a great quote by William Rivers Pitt (as seen on HNN):

A moment will come on January 20th, 2005. It will be cold in Washington D.C. A man who is not George W. Bush will raise his hand and swear and oath to preserve, protect and defend the United States of America. The words "So help me God" will be snatched by the wind and carried across seas and mountains to the furthest corner of the planet. When that happens, all of the Earth will be joined together in the deepest and most profound exhalation of relief. When that happens, George W. Bush will have become in his absence what he completely failed to be with his presence: A uniter.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:10 AM

Is anybody planning to see Midsummer Night's Dream at MIT on Tuesday, Sept 30?

Is anybody planning/interested in seeing David Starkey, author of Elizabeth: the struggle for the throne and Six Wives, reading and signing at Barnes & Noble Burlington on Thursday, October 2nd?

Just checking whether anybody wants to get together for either of these.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:03 PM

Yesterday, Ian and I had our annual physicals. In the waiting room before my appointment, I was so engrossed in what I was reading that the nurse had to call my name three times before I noticed.
Its title?

[And it is, too. Ian's decided to hold off on reading the first book in the series, The Eyre affair, until he can manage to read Jane Eyre first. This evokes in me both adoration/admiration and annoyance (because I can't talk to him about the book until he reads it) in about equal measures -- a typical feeling in this relationship.]

By the way, these quiz results should be completely unsurprising, but I like the artwork:

Which HP Kid Are You?

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:45 PM

I'll confess, I haven't yet given my heart or my support to any of the ten Democratic candidates. There are some who I have low opinions of, but I have no favorite. I feel rather pragmatic, and my basic goal for Election 2004 is ABBA -- Anyone But Bush Again.

That said, I've noticed a lot of sniping amongst the Democratic candidates, and among their followers. Therefore, I'm taking the Pledge:

Chris Andersen, who wrote the pledge, talks more about its genesis, purpose and offers further clarifications. I think the pledge is an excellent idea and think that others in the ABBA camp should seriously consider it. If you do decide to take it on my account, I'd be interested to know. Chris is also keeping a list of people taking the pledge, if you wish to add your name there.

Oh, and following up to my previous post, that's actually not a bad question to ask of all the candidates: How do they get their information on current events? I think you can tell a lot about a person by finding out how they get their news.

Posted by Lis Riba at 3:25 PM

From Associated Press reporting on Bush's interview last night on Fox:

Bush said he insulates himself from the "opinions" that seep into news coverage by getting his news from his own aides. He said he scans headlines, but rarely reads news stories.

"I appreciate people's opinions, but I'm more interested in news," the president said. "And the best way to get the news is from objective sources, and the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world."

[Full transcript]

I find that so boneheaded, that I considered posting it without comment, but I can't quite leave it alone. Instead of taking the usual tack of comparisons to the Emperor's New Clothes or why his father lost in 1992, I'd like to directly address the content of his argument.

I don't know whether I believe totally objective sources are possible. Personally, I've found the best way to get the news is to read as broad a variety of news sources as possible. By reading enough different reports on the same event, it can provide enough data to (a) separate what actually happened from the spin, and (b) help one recognize which outlets are more reliable than others. I've characterized this as a Rashomon approach, and it's worked for me for years.

I find it astonishing that someone could be President of the United States with so little curiousity in the world. And I can't help wondering what a librarian saw in George W. Bush enough to marry him. Unless she considered it an improvement project... [via BT!]

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:52 PM

I am feeling very very stressed right now.
That is all

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:45 PM

I love my husband, but sometimes his emotions seem so fragile.

He came home from work in a radiant mood -- class (he teaches Sunday school) went well today. He spoke about how happy and lucky he was to have two jobs (teaching and bartending) that both leave him energized.

And then, less than a half-hour later, he got an email from some antisemitic netkook who was trying to entrap Ian into either a falsehood or putting Jews in a bad light. [Added later: Ian's description of the message]

And his mood plummetted.

I know that logically, clinical depression is a chemical thing involving brain chemistry, but when causes and effects seem so obvious as right now, it's hard for me not to look for reasons at other times he's depressed. And it's even more difficult not to believe that I have it within me to elevate his mood when he's depressed, by purchase or action. I sometimes wonder, is that codependency?

Anyway, as I said at the beginning, I do love my husband very much. We've got our annual physicals scheduled for tomorrow, and I'm running ragged with everything I have to keep track of and arrange. If y'all can think of any ailments I've mentioned in my blog (or that Ian's mentioned in his) that I should bring up with the doctor, can you remind me of them in the comments? Thanks.

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:40 PM

Posting may be a bit light this week and next. We're going to Florida to see my family for Rosh Hashonah (leaving Thursday AM and returning Monday night) and I've got a boatload of things to do so we can actually be ready to leave.

I wish I were organized enough to give y'all a recommended reading blogroll for while I'm away, but (a) that's been a lower priority task on my list for months now, and (b) any attempt to do something like that in a slapdash fashion is going to omit somebody important.

If you want further updates on how Ashcroft is faring against the combined might of America's librarians (hint! poorly), I've enjoyed these posts by TalkLeft and these two by Sisyphus Shrugged.

<snrk>

An article on bullying in today's Boston Globe begins:

Read "Harry Potter" and you quickly realize Lucius Malfoy is a classic bully.

That may be so, but if the author of this piece actually read the books she's recommending, she'd realize that the character she's referring to is Draco Malfoy.