Damn damn.

Goin' home for my birthday, so I have no choice but to miss this, from the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW -- link in sidebar) email list:

IVAW has been invited by the band, Rage Against the Machine to appear at the Coachella Music Festival, where Rage will re-unite for the first time in seven years. IVAW will speak from the stage and have a table set up in Rage’s tent, reaching a potential audience of the over 180,000 people expected to gather for this annual three-day event in Indio, CA.

The link to the festival is coachella.com. If you possibly can, go, go go!

"What Have I Done to Deserve This?"

A film by Pedro Almodovar. From 1984, no less, though I had no clue of this 'til the endcredits rolled by.

Remarkable, too. I'm not a "movie person" -- not any more, not since I don't control the projectors, anyway. But I *thoroughly* enjoyed this film that I just got from (where else?) the public library. It is roughly analagous to "the Third Man" in the same way that "American Beauty" is related to "Leave it to Beaver", only way the hell more so, if that makes any sense.

Not that "the Third Man" -- one of the greatest films of the 20th Century, if you ask me -- was all happyshit utopian in its take on postwar Europe. I mean, what with people being murdered and murderers disappearing in sewers and stuff, well, what *can* I say? But compared to that, "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" is downright twisted and disturbing.

I've heard a great deal in recent years of course about what biting satire characterizes Mr. Almodovar's films, yet have never actually seen *any* of 'em. To summarize the plot briefly, it's about a family that lives in one of the massive public housing compounds that spring up around Madrid after the savagery of the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. The family is a mess in ways I'll leave it up to you to watch the movie to untangle, but there's still a sort of happy ending. Somehow. Amazing.

Good Morning, Iran.

Whoever you are, wherever you are. Google maps are kinda notorious for missing even US addresses by about half a block, so I don't doubt that if my "statcounter" map said someone had visited my site from a suburb of Isfahan they would in fact have been in downtown Qom (or maybe the other way around). In fact that "hit" seems to have come from somewhere in the North of Iran. I don't know where, exactly, and hope we don't go to war to learn the region's geography. Maybe you're an ethnic Azeri separatist. Who knows. My connection is slow enough that all I can make out is that someone (who, I can't pretend to know) visited my site from inside Iran (where in Iran, I can't pretend to know). No matter who or where you are. You made my day. :)

Whoever you are, welcome to my humble (albeit long-winded) little blog, and please know we're not all oil-hungry monsters out to blow your country off the face of the earth. Some of us (I am not speaking for the US government, here) even understand the Nonproliferation Treaty well enough to know it *is* your right, as a signatory nation, to pursue nuclear energy. I personally wish you wouldn't, just because I have *some* understanding what a quagmire nuclear energy can be. But it's you're right to pursue it, and your doing so gives neither our country nor our country's allies in the region any legally justifiable reason whatsoever to attack you.

Enough of that. I want to hear about the Zoroastrian fire temple in Tehran and the Towers of Silence. I want to hear about the 16,000 ancient handwritten manuscripts in your libraries. I want to hear how you live -- whoever you are.

I doubt I'll ever hear a peep out of you. But there you have it. If nothing else, "hi". And of course, be well.

Gonzales hearing in US SJC.

Committee hearings: this is the superbowl, for me. Now if only I could get five or ten other people interested enough in it to sit around and listen with me. :)

All day: US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testifies before the US Senate Judiciary Committee.

I woke up as usual to NPR this morning. "Morning Edition" wound up getting cut off early to cut to special coverage of the hearing. And I freaked out at hearing the NPR correspondent's voice at saying certain words -- e.g., "Senate Judiciary Committee" -- thinking in my half-waking state that it was my own voice covering the state Senate Judiciary Committee. Hehe. We pronounce certain words in almost the same way.

This is a viscious bloodbath. Seeing as the gladiator in the ring is the guy who said the 3rd Geneva Convention's restrictions on torture were "quaint", I have to say I don't have much sympathy for him. Yeah, he *is* getting badgered, by committee members from both parties, but heck -- he's fully clothed, not hooded, hasn't been deprived of light and human contact for years on end, doesn't have electrodes attached to his genitals, hasn't been flown to countries that endorse torture, and isn't being subjected to such treatment as are likely to cause impending organ failure or death. Without intending to imply that *any* human being should ever be subjected to such things, I think he's being treated *very* nicely. Far better, probably, than he deserves. Chickenshit chickenhawk.

I can't help but wonder about the Bush administration's propensity to place women and minorities in the line of fire for the "mistakes" made by the rich white men who hold *real* power, higher up. On one level, oh sure, Bush appointed the first ever afro-american female Secretary of State and the first hispanic Attorney General. But that cuts both ways, and I can't help but wonder if it's purely coïncidental or deliberate.

When it comes time for *someone* from the administration to take the blame, it's *always* a lower-ranking minority type person, and the Bush Plantation seems to sufficiently reward its "house negroes" for loyalty that they are willing to stand up for him. Colin Powel gets to lie to the UN about WMD. Condoleeza Rice gets to defend Secretary Powell's lie to the Senate in her hearing whether she should be the next Secretary of State. And now, Attorney General Gonzales is held to task for what appear to be a series of improprieties.

Thus, maybe, disparate minorities look at the Bush II admministration's party and think "well, you know, they *were* the first to appoint one of us"; but at the same time, dedicated Imus listeners look at things and figure "just goes to show they can't be trusted". Ingenious. Sick.

Gonzales is going on now about "management" and "value added". Honey, this ain't Starbucks.

He's half an inch away from a "contempt of Congress" charge. If only these Senators had the sense to level it.

I'm starting -- *just* starting -- to understand that Senator Specter is a sharp tack, and that I *don't* have to "like him" to say that. First touch questioning on the AG scandal, and now at the end while he's got him over a barrel he's asking him about "markers" of violent behaviour and abuse of National Security Letters. Kick ass. (The words "moving forward" should be permanently banished from the vocabulary of those testifying before Congress.) Hehe -- asking about "probable cause" regarding FISA courts. He's a tough one. Totally off-topic, but he's still giving him a hard time.

It's almost over, and I'm sure KUNM will be eager to cut to music programming the moment it ends. Fine with me, I'm ready for it to end. I had many things to do today and got sucked into this, instead.

Feinstein quoting Sampson: "I was the aggregator". Who put the names on the list, comprising 10% of US Attorneys? Gonzales says he doesn't know. "I don't know that I testified that I didn't know the reasons" -- Gonzales. He doesn't know how he testifies. He doesn't recall. He "has no reason to doubt that this was a document". This guy's a *lawyer*?

Gon: "There may have been a conversation with the president" re: election fraud in Albuquerque.

This is insane. Almost as bad as the state legislature. No one knows for sure who's done what research, blah blah blah.

Fei: "I would want to know who selected that individual, and who put this individual on this list. It would seem to me you would want to know who was doing this. In fact, they're very young and sometimes very ideological people. It was a shot out of the blue. It was a shot to the gut. They had not been told there were problems. They were called and told 'you must leave'."

Gon: confuses Feinstein with Schumer re: Attn'y. Lamb (sp?) in San Diego.

Fei: "I would be curious about what my bosses think, not the flak"

Gon: "My concern about her numbers would be communicated to her."

Fei: "She has told us she was never contacted by the dept. about immigration." Runs out of time.

Gon: declines to respond to Feinstein's question.

Hatch: poorly handled. "how many times do you have to be flagellated over that?" He was softballing him before, now he gets superficially ugly. LOL. confuses himself whether USAGs serve at pleasure or by confirmation of president/senate. Now he bloviates for a minute or two to relieve the witness' pressure, without asking anything substantive. Then lectures him gently. Hatch is a total sympathizer. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Gonz. doesn't want to minimize White House liason's Monica Goodling's role. She's claimed 5th amdt. protections. If she's indemnified against prosecution by act of congress, she has to testify under subpoena. Hehe.

Maryland Senator -- name I forget -- voter intimidation. thank you whatever your name is for raising this issue. *Not* the same thing as voter fraud. "I didn't see any indication of US attn'ys being active regarding voter intimidation".

Gon: takes voter fraud seriously and wants to send "strong signal" but don't "create chilling effect or cloud" from people participating. Red herring.

Maryland: re Obama bill pending before cmte: voter fraud miniscule compared to voter intimidation. right on. A bit late but better late (seven years?) than never. He's "somewhat concerned" that balance be maintained in giving AGs tools they need to counter voter initimidation to ensure every vote counts.

Gon: "This is something that's important to me personally, I feel there needs to be a balance." Translation: bullshit.

Ten minute recess.

Here's what I've got checked out from the library right now, not counting "quick reads" that I've checked out and gone through in short order.

Diane Purkiss: The English Civil War: Papists, Genltewomen, Soldiers, and Witchfinders in the Birth of Modern Britain. Superb book, humanizing this brutally divisive religio-political conflict which gave rise, in time, to the American and French Revolution. But as all things English Civil War-related, it's *dense*, and so I've checked out other things to read between chapters in the way of "commercial breaks".

Kermit Roosevelt III: The Myth of Judicial Activism: Making Sense of Supreme Court Decisions. A surprisingly elegant model to analyse Supreme Court decisions, not in the sense of the "empty epithet" of whether judges decide cases from an "activist" perspective, a complaint levelled by politicians from *both* major parties since at least the time of Lincoln, but from a legally reasoned perspective of the longstanding "legitimacy" of court decisions.

Jeremy Raynalds: Homeless Culture and the Media: How the Media Educate Audiences in their Portrayal of America's Homeless Culture. Very dry academic study with lots of data about sampling, but the sections with actual interviews with homeless people in Albuquerque is compelling enough I plan to read that before returning it.

James Moore & Wayne Slater: The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power. Haven't started it yet but heard a compelling interview w/authour(s) on Amy Goodman re: Rove's gay father, whose funeral he flew back from to oppose the whole gay marriage thing. Rove seems to be *using* the religious right, so the author seems to claim, and I guess I'll find out what they say about it when I get to reading this.

Eric Klinenberg: Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America's Media. Haven't cracked. Seems to be about public control of the public airwaves.

Alicia C. Shepard: Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate. Seems to be a study of the persons who broke the Nixon presidency in the years *after* they did so -- but again, haven't cracked.

Sarah Chayes: The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban. Again, haven't cracked, but wanted to grab it before someone else took it and I found out it was on hold for six years.

Patrick Cockburn: The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq. Said some rather nasty things about Mum Teresa but sounds god enough on the radio that I want to read what he says about this.

Stephen Grey: Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program. Haven't cracked but have heard lots about. About the Gulfstream jets used in "extraordinary rendition", a.k.a. "outsourcing torture" to allied countries which aren't signatories to Geneva Conventions.

Marshall DeBruhl: Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden. I had relatives who survived the firebombing of Dresden so this interests me on a family level beyond just little old me being a foofy pacifist who thinks firebombing civilians isn't all that grand an idea.

And finally:

Walter Moers: Rumo and his Miraculous Adventures. Yes, he's the same guy who wrote The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear. Don't be too terribly surprised if this is the first book I finish from the whole list I've just given you. I *love* Bluebear. And I *hate* fiction. But when I love something fictitious it sometimes gets bumped up quite a bit.

We'll see. 600 pages of English Civil War plus several other hundreds of pages of real war or 686 pages of Zamonia. I may go with Zamonia and get back to the *real* stuff in time. We'll see. It'd probably do me some good.

Specter again. It's almost over now. I swear. "The issue of credibility, I think your credibility has been significantly impaired by the panorama of responses you have made." This guy's fate hangs in Senator Sepcter's hands. "I know you're doing that in good faith but I think the net result is a loss of credibility. When you ask all the attorneys to resign it doesn't do any good to ask any more questions through multiple rounds of questions but we haven't really gotten answers and I urge you to put on the record all the US attn'ys you've asked to resign and you have not done that and I think it would be useful for you to do that as to your personal views." Won't offer a resignation on his behalf, is between Gonz. and Bush, but it's beyond the purview of the Senators, not questioning who wants to do it differently, but leaving it to him and Bush.

They're worn out now -- you can tell 'cause they're talking about life experiences. Leahy to close. "We're going to have to continue. I must admit this is a day that does not make me happy at all. I can not think of any time that I've been more concerned for the system of criminal justice in this country". The committee stands adjourned.

Give me a job where I can sit in committee hearings all day and I'll be happy forever.

My one-time visitors.

They almost interest me more than my regulars. This is why I don't visit statcounter too often. It's capable of leading to mild, but chronic paranoïa.

The very day after making a passing snide remark about Senator Gore the younger, for instance, who drops by for a visit than Occidental Petroleum in Tusla, Oklahoma? I can't imagine why.

And of course I still get a few people who search for "murder Carlos Esquibel". (I have to assume, mostly from well-meaning people frustrated at APD's apparent failure to investigate the matter.)

Or "H0015 Blue Cross Mississippi". Like I know how to fill out an insurance form. ;^)

So sprinkled among my readers are petroleum and insurance companies and people clearly interested in specific murders. Uhh, yeah.

To be fair, I get a lot of people searching for various specific antiquey things too, I assume because they just got such white elephants themselves, so I guess no harm's done. But it still freaks me out some of the people who find me.

That's OK. I've got no secrets.

None.

If I did I wouldn't be here.

I'm tempted to make my statcounter public, so anyone and everyone could see it. Just for the record, the only reason I don't is I've got one reader I do respect who I know wouldn't want his IP address and such being made available to the whole world.

The insanity . . .

. . . doth momentarily o'ertake me. I admit it. I'm *stuck*.

I hope my handful of regular readers may endeavour to forbear long and pretentious sentences on my part, which do result, not from any desire by my person to confound them, but rather happen to naturally arise, as the mists from an infidel bog, as consequent to what I currently find myself most deep engag'd in reading.

There's a big demonstration of some sort or other tomorrow. It's within walking distance and I think it pertains to global warming. Perhaps I'll talk the freindly next door Mexican into loaning me his F-250 to drive the two blocks so I can show up in style. Not that it's not a serious issue but it seems to have been rather coöpted by that certain Democratic Party candidate from 2000 whose investments in Occidental Petroleum rendered him utterly incapable of painting his most utterly unworthy opponent in oils, since apparently he'd rather lose a national election that divest himself of a single company's uniquely profitable stocks, whatever effect that company might have upon indigenous Uwa people.

At any rate, attending an "event" of almost any kind will do me good. I hear they're doing some creative things around the country. If I'm very lucky I'll have a conversation of two minutes duration with someone of not terribly unlike mind.

Got one last-ditch "good chance" job interview coming on Monday. If that's a wash then I am in a corner. But I do some of my best work from corners, so no worries.

Mostly I've been sitting at home reading library books and trying to get laundry done. I've gone out three or four times to the laundromat these last few days, only to find the triple-capacity washers I use already in use by such people as frighten me by their very sighting; and so I leave determined to go back the next day, each time. My best bet is to show up late at night, but I'm not keeping those hours, these days. Minor dilemma, but there you have it. You couldn't *pay* me to stick around laundromats. (I guess I've got that "Dragnet" episode permanently stuck in mind every time I look at the washers and dryers and find myself thinking "the bullet entered the wall at this angle, the murderer made off with 27 cents".)

One good thing about being a faggot: I've got clean clothes, even when the clothes that really *fit* aren't clean! I can wear the ones that only *almost* fit and pretend that I'm being "sexy" (when in fact I'm merely rather overstuffed). I'm squeakin' by. I'm wearing "bar clothes" for the first time in ages. I find myself frankly wondering whether I was more delusional or more malnourished when I wore them every day. I think it was a combination, but perhaps I'll never really know.

I seem to have misplaced my W2s. I know *exactly* where they *were*, and can only assume the cats took them to spite me. Judging from the looks they give me, I don't doubt it for an instant. I don't want to have to file for an extension, but that may be what I have to do.

Book recommendation time.

If anyone's wondering how it's possible that the Sunnis and Shiites seem to be at eachother's throats while claiming to be one united Umma in the face of a shared apostate enemy, well, the best thing I can recommend is to read something roughly parallel from our own history, to understand how human beings turn on eachother.

Yes, Virginia, even "civilized", English-language speaking Westerners (i.e., "white folks") once split up families and killed eachother viciously over arcane points of theology and ritual and jurisprudence that no one much gives a rat's ass about anymore. The trouble, these days, is you practically have to be raised Calvinist to know anything about it.

Hate to agree with the foppish and elitist State Senator Rod Adair in much of anything (not counting how impeccably he dresses and his *exquisitely* delicate sense of colour coordination, right down to his fountain pen ink), but here's something most people in this country *don't* know *near* enough about: the English Civil War.

Yes, England had a Civil War. (Perhaps you've heard of a poet by the name of John Milton, most widely known for a little haiku type thing he called "Paradise Lost" which most people have, perhaps, read *parts* of in school, *if* it was forced down their throats, but *never* in whole, *never* in context, and not otherwise, at all). To most people, if they've heard of Milton at all, he's just a self-righteous, puritanical bore.

In fact, Milton coined more new words in the modern English language than *any* other single person *ever*, though this far more substantial contribution to the language tends to be "lost" on almost everyone but linguists. He was around back during the English Civil War, at the same time that our language happened to be undergoing the irrevocable change from a collection of regional, spoken dialects to a single, more-or-less standardized print-written language. And if you think the internet is a "revolutionary" step in the development of language, then you have no clue what goes with transitioning from an oral culture to a print culture in one generation's time. (Just ask your nearest local native Americans what all this entails if you disbelieve me.)

You can read this very sentence, precisely because the Milton lived when he did, and wrote what he did, precisely at the time the English Civil War happened to be occurring. There is nothing "inevitable" about the English language, or any other language, as we use it.

So I do happen to know a thing or two about the English Civil War; and I took Senator Adair's lecturing in the spirit it was offered. So when I saw Diane Purkis' The English Civil War: Papists, Gentlewomen, Soldiers and Witchfinders in Birth of Modern Britain on the library shelves I simply *had to* pick it up and dive into it, headlong. Perhaps I owe special thanks to the Senator for reminding me that this matters. I fully expected to put it down after the first hundred or so pages, but I cannot. It is compelling, and I plan to read it through to the end in the days which follow.

Senator Adair seemed to me to recommend reading about the English Civil War for completely different reasons than I'm recommending it, and he didn't recommend any particular book(s) by title. His implication seemed to be that his colleagues in Senate Judiciary, which was considering SJR 5, the Impeachment Resolution, were rabble-rousing Parliamentarian Roundheads and that in supporting the Imeachment of G.W. Bush and R. Cheney were setting themselves up to relive some sort of Cromwellian Commonwealth nightmare and subsequently suffer a parallel Restoration.

Even as I respect Member Senator Adair's learning in this affair to such degree I stand with him to urge *all* to read about the English Civil War, and even more deeply respect his lone dissenting vote on the committee in face of outright hostile name-calling from the gallery (alas, none were quite so clever as to call him "cavalier" in the sense of the day); I can not bring myself to agree with him on the interpretation of particulars.

In my eyes, the good Senator seems driven by a downright positivistic determinism born only in the Cartesian centuries which followed the events which actually passed during the English Civil War.

As I see it there is but little doubt we live in divisive times, but I do not believe we labour under anything approaching the confusions of the British populace regarding the Divine Right of Kings as pertained at the time Charles I called the Short Parliament to Order -- 367 years ago to this very day.

Happy Short Parliament Day, everyone.

I would respectfully submit that the most highly esteemed Member Senator Adair labours under the illusion of subsequent historic interpretations, misreading the events of that day in light of subsequent developments, without recognizing that he does so. I do not question his conviction. In short: we seem to disagree.

Time will tell.

I recommend reading about the English Civil War because it is a *far* more crucial turning point in Western history than *either* the American or French Revolution, having established the underlying precedent (that Kings do not rule by Divine Right, specifically, and are but human) which *made* both revolutions, and all subsequent "theories of revolution" and revolutions themselves possible.

More importantly, regarding current events, and regardless of what are now largely academic theories of revolution and "movements": the tendency in *any* armed conflict seems to be to dehumanize the opponent subject, whether that subject be "Papists", "Communists", "Fascists", "Jews", "Islamo-fascists", or whatever seeming cleverness that past and future Kings, Führers, Presidents, or other leaders (born, self-declared, elected, appointed, or otherwise) might happen to devise in order to characterise the supposed "external" threat to be worth fighting to the death. It's simple "ingroup"/"outgroup" politics, however you slice it.

Broad generalizations that "no one's who's not Muslim can't start to understand the Sunni/Shiite split" may be meant well enough, defensively, and doubtless have more than a grain of truth, but frankly plays into Western dehumanizers' hands by rendering the monolithic "other" -- in this case, Arabic speaking Muslims -- incomprehensible in the eyes of those who *know* and *believe* themselves, deeply, to be completely "civilized" -- a distinction, which in turn, rests upon projection upon some presumptive and monolithically uncivilized "Other" -- howsoever defined. (Religion will usually do well enough, since religion and language are *quite* closely tied in *every* human culture.) It doesn't *have to* be Muslims, but you know what? They'll do: they speak that funny backwards-written language, therefore they must be "evil". It certainly doesn't hurt "our" cause that "their" language is only *very* distantly related to ours.

Something like that. I don't wonder that they think the same of us. We don't speak Arabic, they don't speak English. Therefore neither is "civilized" in the eyes of the other. That simple.

Dumb reason to go to war, but there you have it. Makes better sense than some reasons people have gone to war.

Meanwhile I challenge anyone born Muslim to explain Presbyterianism versus Episcopalianism to me. There *is* a difference, and it was once a big enough deal to shed blood and fight big set-piece battles over between people who spoke the same language from birth, and it's not *even* so "crucial" a difference as the split which emerged in Christendom between Catholics and Protestants during the Reformation.

Hell. I challenge most Presbyterians and Episcopalians to explain it. I bet 98% of 'em have no clue they were *ever* at eachothers' throats, historically. (I know there are exceptions who can explain it dispassionately, too.) This whole whoop-tee-doo over gay marriage within the World Anglican Communion, or the Presbyterian Church (USA), pardon my French, ain't shit. It's not *even* a blip on the screen.

And as for you happy-go-lucky Presbyterians: I beg of you to explain the difference between the "Southern" and "Northern" Presbyterian churches, and how the so-called "Presbyterian Church (USA)" came to exist in the first place. If I wanted to be *really* nasty, I'd ask you to explain where your congregations stood, say, in the 1920s.

We would do better to recognize the follies which divided us, as English speakers, *long* before we set out to colonize other lands. Doing so merely allowed us to *displace* our differences onto others, glossing over them, domestically, sparing our own blood and our families' blood.

In different ways, but for the same reason, self-preservation, we all bought into the lie of colonial power. To whatever degree most Presbyterians (Southern or Northern) and Episcopalians (High Church or Low) don't know that they ever more than politely disagreed over specificities of ritual and form, four centuries of foreign wars of aggression have proven ecumenically helpful, in forging a "them" against which so-called Christians can say it is "us versus them".

The blood of all those centuries is on our hands.

As far as I can tell, this clever little trick originated, or at least "gelled" dueing the Reformation. The Irish Catholics were, perhaps, the first "others" before we all launched out to try and conquer the whole world -- and like it or not, we were motivated by theology *long* before we could pretend to understood the concept of "resource wars" -- elites notwithstanding. (Saracen gold may be gold, after all, but I, for one, strongly suspect it's *not* the promises of plunder alone that motivated the lay populace to go out on crusade, but the prospect of overrunning the so-called "Holy Land".)

Thus it is that even contemporary resource wars have to be cast in atavistic terms as religious wars to those who fight them.

And yet again we've got a King fighting to regain Palestine.

It doesn't matter that Luther had legitimate grievances against the Pope, or that Henry VIII's reasons for creating the Church of England were completely specious. Those differences, which were, in their day, significant enough for us to kill eachother, have long since been downplayed as we set out on the dark-skinned world to slay them and "regain" the so-called "Holy Land".

All that matters is that somewhere between those truths we lost hold of who we were and had to find someone to fight against, together.

I'm not playing that game anymore. You might call me a "conscientious objector".

I urge you to do whatever your conscience drives you to.

Beware the MMT.

Benzene.

Whee.

I don't look forward to putting gas into my car the next time that I think I "have to".

And that's just our little well-proven, leukemia-causing chemical friend from *way* back in the days of rubber cement, which has *still* not been banned because it's "useful" to companies more interested in profits than in public health.

No mention of Tom DeLay's favourite drink, MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether). No mention of MMT (methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl).

Watch out for MMT. If not today, then say, around 2008. Organic Manganese in motor vehicle fuel = super bad news. As in "Parkinson's Disease epidemic" bad news that *will* take us two or three decades to recognize as the public health threat that it is.

Remember leaded gasoline? Of course you don't.

I do, because my first car was a used '63 Wolfsburg VW Beetle with a very nifty cloth sunroof and a six-volt battery I had to lift up the horsehair-stuffed backseat in order to "recharge" from time to time with distilled water. Anyway -- it liked leaded gasoline *way* better than unleaded gas, before leaded gas finally got banned in this country, for reasons I didn't understand when it happened.

The lead was added as an "antiknock" agent, and I gladly drove out of my way to find the leaded gasoline to keep my stoopid car running happy. I guess I figured "lead is lead" and "lead is heavy and will settle near the pavement".

You think I knew, or cared, that the tetraethyl lead in my gas was molecularly "curious"? I certainly did not.

Winds up that tetraethyl lead is uniquely deadly because it is *organic* -- lead atoms fused with carbon atoms, meaning that the emissions get taken into and absorbed by the body far more readily than just plain old, pure elemental lead.

I honestly had no clue, whatsoever.

The Ethyl Corporation (now known as "Afton Chemical" under the name "NewMarket Corporation") which marketed organic lead as an "antiknock" gas additive (and still does in markets like China, where it's not yet banned) is currently trying to get federal clearance to market MMT (a.k.a. "HiTec 3000") as a commercial gasoline additive in the US. Indeed, it's already selling MMT to the US Navy under the name "Combustion Improver No. 2" to decrease "telltale exhaust" from jet fighter aircraft.

All of which, I am sure, is grand, except that elemental Manganese -- and MMT is an *organic* manganese compound -- is linked, directly, causally, to Parkinson's Disease, better known in the early 19th century as "Shaking Palsy".

Write your elected represenatives and senators. Or else get ready to start shaking.

One final word...

... (I hope) on who may be watching me:

I got a little "burst" of interest -- just based on the "hit counts" -- from what appear to be the east-coast law firms representing Pulte and Beazer from a casual mention I made, in passing, of both such organization's names a couple of posts back.

You might be forgiven for thinking they've bought off certain unspecified elected officials hereabouts.

Welcome to Albuquerque.

Thank you, KOB TV.

For visiting my site more often than *anyone* else in town has recently -- even more often than I get "hits" from my own station's IP address. Amazing. You do wonders for my fragile ego. I must be doing *something* right.

You might forgive me for suspecting that my colleagues in public radio have better things to do than follow me around, complete with my own little "pet stories". You might even forgive me for thinking that other newsworthy things happen, besides what I can even start to follow.

Thank you for feeding my fragile ego, then, even as you fail, repeatedly, to actually *cover* the very stories I personally consider newsworthy enough to *try* and make coherent stories out of in the first place.

It sure is nice to know *how* you narrowly maintain your top ratings in the drivetime radio news market -- even while public radio makes unheard-of inroads into privately-held licensee ratings -- each and every day. (I do continue to believe that "serving the public interest" has something to do with it, and that public radio, undeniably imperfect as it is, does a better job at it, as a rule, than you do.)

As I see it, private licensees try and pirate public content. You have my congratulations for so shamelessly trying, but I challenge you to prove that you've "broken" a single story ahead of your public media counterpart(s).

I'm sure I'd never qualify for so much as a job interview as a cameraman's assistant's attendant's lens wiper with your own organization. That's fine with me. My station asks no such things of, and makes no such subtle distinctions between, its volunteers. People who *give* their time are *allowed* to make mistakes. Prove to me who, in your organization, is allowed just such latitude and I'll be won over.

If you want some good contacts from my notebook, feel free to talk to me in person. I'm not hiding anything. But please, do not be disappointed if you don't know what to ask for in the first place. Most people don't. I promise nothing. Least of all to a competitor.

I'm just a volunteer. And I believe in independent media.

Beware the true believers.

Rasta Boys?

Hmm!

Just saw that someone "commented" on, and/or linked to, my blog from www.rastaboys.com. I tried to open up that page to see what they said, and got sent to David Goodner's "Straight Out of the Cornfield" blog, which apparently has recently been forced to move, shortly following their having commented on *his* blog -- though for what, I can't even pretend to know, since I can't open their site at all.

Mr. Goodner says their site is "worth checking out". I don't for one minute doubt it, and would love to do so, and see why.

I tried. Alas, I seem to be unable to access it. Perhaps it's just a "slow Alltel connection" problem.

I'd much rather believe that it's a simple "connectivity issue" than believe some rogue Rastafarians have something against me (or my people) that they can't (or won't) say openly -- say, that they're so deeply antifeminist and/or homophobic that they'll deliberately suppress viewpoints opposed to those they consider their own, even when they share the airwaves of certain public radio stations which certain feminists and fags work day and night to keep on the air so that even *their* voices can be heard.

Know your enemies.

The converse holds true, too: know who your enemies are *not*, and leave them well enough alone, if you *ever* want to accomplish *anything*. It's *never* "black or white" clear, not even in race relation issues.

And if you choose not to leave the feminists and fags alone, prepare to be marginalized as the outlying freaks that you are.

I don't know anything about Ethiopia's government, and doubt most self-declared "rastafarians" do, either.

I do make sacrifices so you can get your music (which is amazing) on the air. And I even dare to say I know a thing or two about Marcus Garvey that you've likely never even heard. And I am confident that Mr. Garvey couldn't possibly care less whether I write about your ilk or not. Get over it.

So please: criticize me all you want, and all your critics generally, but do it openly. Four centuries of colonialism is a terrible thing, make no mistake. But it does not justify shutting out *any* voices from the debate, *ever*.

Grow up, already.

Correction:

It's not "sulfur dioxide", as I said, two posts down, in "Indecisive Weather", it's "Carbon Disulfide".

Duh. That's why flem's the organic chemist and I'm just the reporter. ;)

Two down.

Five to go.

Cats, that is.

Finally got up the nerve to actually *talk* to someone on the phone who offered to take some cats off my hands, instead of writing them off by such random qualifiers as "they don't know how to use apostrophes" or "they have children".

Drove out two cats to his place close to Santa Fe. He wants mousers for his barn but assures me he'll feed 'em and they'll have shelter regardless. I could be wrong in my assessment of his character, but somehow I do feel OK about it. Breeder or not, I liked how he was dressed (stylish thrift-store), how his car looked (once fashionable, now used but well-maintained), the bumper stickers it had on it (old school "Earth First"), and the look of his child and wife (a bit chaotic but healthy and happy), not to mention how he handled the cats -- with care.

I'm now two cats fewer, here. That's not a bad thing.

It's snowing.

I swear.

Indecisive weather.

Macrocosm/microcosm thing? Who knows. This morning, early afternoon: sunny, still, and gorgeous. This afternoon: windy enough to fly a kite (which I did). This evening, wind-chill city, "close the windows" time. And now? It's raining. This is "sampler-platter" weather, pure and simple.

Found an apartment I want to look at but really *need* to get the job situation settled *first*. And the cat situation, too. Frustrating 'cause it's in a nice building in the neighbourhood I want to live in and seems I can almost afford it. I've just got to keep patient -- things go fast in that area but they open up all the time too. The trick is to check, pretty much, *every* day.

Picked up a recording kit and went to the vigil on Iran. It was really neat -- best response I think I've ever seen in the "passing motorist" way for a small demonstration. With only three people there even the people who knew the most and felt the strongest just got microphone jitters. But I've got a good soundclip or two we can use. Not that we don't have fifteen zillion from the Dua/O'Malley interview.

This is a *new* challenge to me. It's *easy* to edit bloviating senators: they say absolutely nothing at great length with very nearly perfect grammar, and all you have to do it compress it down into something -- anything! -- that gives you a launching point for a story that their comments on wouldn't be important at all if they weren't legislators.

With these two women it's totally different. Even with only half the interview saved I go through it and isolate, say, a 30-second bit I want to use. Then I edit that down into two shorter clips. Then I edit those down into three. Their speaking is so *incredibly* tight that it's not even funny. I got about 13 usable clips and Renee has got more. There are a few "uhms" of course but they *never* ramble, and it seems as they say every line that *this* is what this story's *really* all about.

I'm reading a positively *terrifying* book. (I *love* the librarians at Erna Ferguson Branch: they pick nothing but the best.)

If I haven't mentioned it already (I forget) I just finished John Straussbaugh's Black Like Me which is, as far as I know, unique in its approaching blackface from a queer theory perspective, and unique among queer theory books at being *really* readable. I expected the story to start in the 1830s, but it actually starts in 2004 (more or less), then goes back to the beginnings of "triangular trade" and the slave/commodity/finished goods feedback loop of colonial economies before it ever gets to Jim Crow (an early blackface stage routine, long before a legal segregation system got named after him).

But that's not the terrifying book. The terrifying book is Dr. Paul D. Blanc's How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace. I got it 'cause it's got an old-school Naderish cover and looked *really* dull but potentially "useful" in that I might look up certain chemical names in the index. It's NOT dull, and it's FAR from the utilitarian "glossary of nasties under your sink" I was halfway expecting to spend a few minutes perusing. I can't stop reading. It's HORRIBLE. But I can't stop reading.

Dr. Blanc purports to tell "the hidden histories of 'modern' hazards", and by so doing, analyze the means by which dangerous products are repeatedly "rediscovered", ineffectively regulated, and ultimately kept in the market for generations on end.

I never knew Benzene caused Leukemia. Hell, I never knew what Leukemia *was* -- thought it was just one of those more-or-less-lookalike "find a cure" things that big corporations' public relations departments sponsor "ribbon campaigns" and "walks" for. Uh, it may be, but it's *much* worse than that. It's a *nasty* disease. And it's caused by Benzene, as is Toxic Aplastic Anemia, *another* really gruesome disease. And the labelling requirements on things containing such fun chemicals like Benzene, Toluene, and Hexane are *worse* than useless.

That's all *just* from the chapter on glue.

Then there's the chapter on bleach. I *have* read Erich Maria Remarque's Im Westen Nichts Neues, but somehow it never "clicked" in my mind that "what I use to make things white" is essentially a chemical weapon. (I read that chapter yesterday, and today heard about the Chlorine truck bombing in Ramadi that left 27 dead. It came alive as news from Iraq *rarely* does.)

And I never knew some things about Fritz Haber of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, either, that I won't tell you (although I *did* know *some* of it). It's more that just a deeply tragic story -- it's FUCKED UP in a way few things *ever* really are. Suffice to say it has to do with the gas chambers of the Holocaust. I've visited the ovens at Dacchau and can attest that most Holocaust museums have a lot of similarities; after a while I start to think I've taken it all in and more or less absorbed what there's to learn. I obviously haven't. I was absolutely *shocked* by what I read about it in this book.

And I *never* imagined that *all* of WWI's trench warfare gases remain with us to this day -- not as obscure chemicals the MacVeighs of the world steal or hijack from strange remote locations -- but as more or less everyday products.

I'm on Sulfur Dioxide, now. He's *teasing* me. "Read just a little further -- here's what horrible thing it did back in the 1800s -- but read just a bit further and find out what it was *first* used for, and no, they never *did* ban it -- and then what it's used for that you've probably got at least a hundred of around your house -- and how it's used in food packaging" and on and on and on.

I can't stop reading.

I think my new apartment's gonna be bleach free.

Speaking of which they came by yesterday and drilled test wells (that's not the right word, I know, but they were drilling and taking like 30-foot deep soil samples from the back of a truck) right out in front of my apartment. You see, now that *important* people will be living here -- not just Mexicans and Queers and Indians -- but "important" people gullible enough to buy quarter-million dollar lofts put in by Mayor Chuckles' big developer campaign contributor buddies as "affordable" housing (while eliminating the last $300 apartments in town) -- it's *vitally* important that the land be tested for contaminants.

And yes, I have lived *very* happily for almost four years behind a decomissioned military contract jewelry factory from the 'forties. The son of the guy whose father built that factory kinda chuckled and said "you don't want to know what they'll find". Now I'm curious.

Gawd only knows what I'll turn up with if I *ever* see a doctor. I'm not planning on it anytime soon. :)

Stand by.

Funny the things you never hear on air. It's true.

No, this is not a shocking exposé.

You know the joke, a la Robin Williams. A DJ walks into a control room, tired as hell and everything's wacked out and nothing's where it *needs* to be. He's (or she's) swearing, right and left (and up and down besides, just for good measure) as the clock counts down unstoppably -- "standby" -- to the magic moment -- :56 -- :57 -- :58 -- :59 -- :00, and at that very instant the room falls silent as a Kyoto rock garden the instant before a mellifluous voice goes out over the airwaves seducing countless listeners, telling them "everything's all right, what a lovely day we're having! Our politicians are not just corrupt, but unaccountable; our boys and girls (but not the open queers) are dying in Iraq; the planet's warming up alarmingly, and not to imply a causal relationship here, but we are having floods and wildfires and tornadoes like we've never had before. At the same time, our elected governor's too busy running for higher office to do anything about any of it. But we're alive and well, the time is such-and-such o'clock, so have yourself a great, great day."

Or something like that, before we cut away to NPR just long enough to handle whatever the crisis of the moment actually is.

The things the voice reports are almost uniformly horrible. The frustrations getting the voice to air are almost seemingly insurmountable. But suddenly, without warning, whatever the words say, whatever the facts are, the *tone* of voice says, all at once, both "it's incredibly important" but just as importantly, "it's ok". It is the voice of conciliation. "The world's a mess. We know that. It's OK. We will get through this."

And in the minds of listeners, they somehow sort of "get it". (If they didn't, or if the voice sounds insincere, they will tune out. They don't. We're doing *something* right.) Gawd only know what they've just been through when they walk out to their cars to turn on their radio. Maybe they just got fired, or diagnosed with HIV *and* cancer. Maybe their dog just died. Maybe their stewpid motherfuckin' asshole sorry excuse for a boyfriend just walked out in a huff (and slammed the door). Maybe they just found out that the fugly Pulte/Beazer/whatever snout-house that they borrowed a quarter zillion dollars against their minimum wage jobs in order to buy won't sell for more money than they spent buying it just last quarter and now realize they face bankruptcy (if they're allowed to file for bankruptcy at all, given the recent change in the laws). There's no telling. Their lives suck, and for reasons that we can not start to imagine.

It doesn't matter. That voice comes on and weaves its magic web around them. Calms them down just long enough to realise that *way* worse things, and more important things, are happening that still affect them which *maybe* they stand a chance in hell of doing something about. It's OK. We will get through this. Nothing's ever really totally impossible.

So I went to the office this afternoon where I was supposed to get an after-hours access card for the station, and they sent me back saying I needed a letter from someone on letterhead -- everything but notarized -- explaining *why* I needed such-and-such access. The basketball coach gets enough of a car allowance to buy a new Lexus each year, but I can't be trusted to have access to a stack of used minidisks when the legislature finally recesses. Whatever.

Then on the way back I pick up an application for admission to the University 'cause there's just no tellin' what crazy things I'll do when I get *really* desperate. And I'm almost really desperate, finally.

Then I walk in to the station and start madly emailing all the people I know who are working on Iran because there is a rumour about 7 April possibly being a significant day in US/Iranian relations. (Not just 'cause Carter cut off dimplomatic ties on April 7th way back when.) One of the people that I email is a female Presbyterian minister who just got back from a two-week trip to Iran. (I wouldn't even point out that she's female if it weren't Iran, specifically -- but it *is* kind of an "issue" in Iran.)

Renee walks in -- she's the evening news director -- and basically asks me what's up and if I really am finally doing my story on Iran like she's heard, 'cause so is she, and she's got these two women who just came back from Iran set to come in for an interview in fifteen minutes. Amazing -- not two minutes prior, I'd emailed one of 'em asking if they'd be willing to come in on short notice, but stating that I'd gladly go wherever she was if she just couldn't. I tell Renee as much. She invites me to sit in on the interview that *she* set up. I can't jump at the chance near fast enough. And then she lets me ask questions, though realistically, by this point, I have done little more on this particular story than be in the right place at the right time.

Rev. Barbara Due and Dr. Kathleen O'Malley show up. With just 45 minutes 'til Renee's set to go on air to host "Democracy Now" we start our interview on one of the most complex and explosive topics of the day -- but only after making both of them run back down to the parking lot 'cause parking is a bitch at UNM.

It's a *great* interview. Renee asks questions about human beings and culture, eliciting vivid responses that will *make* even disengaged people *want* to listen. I, on the other hand, ask arcane and somewhat stilted questions about centrifuge technology and treaty obligations, which will bore most people stiff, but will establish credibility in certain other listeners' ears. In short, we cover *all* the bases.

BINGO. There, in 31 minutes, between the two of us, we've got all the interview we need to do not *one* but *two* jam-packed five-minute stories, save maybe some opposing voice explaining why Iran just can't be allowed to enrich its own Uranium, and some levelheaded narration to weave it all together.

The story is -- or better yet, the stories are -- half done. Visions of sugarplum AP awards dance through our heads.

At least that's what we think until I go and listen to the sound file that was actually created. By this time Renee is on air.

It may be the sampling rate, who knows. But what *was* an incredible interview about Iran in person comes out sounding, at best, like Lincoln Perry doing a parody of his stage persona doing his best impersonation of molasses in January. "Eeeeeuuuuurrrrraaaaattiiicck! Nip dissshhhhhht iiiiiiiiinnnnnnngglat biisssrinnmiglatt gssshhhuuungft pup!!!" What the fuck is this? We can't use this! It's garbage!

Renee *did* put in a minidisk to back up the interview a few minutes after it started. We lost a lot, it's true, but she saved a lot as well. And Liz (the new IT person) is so insanely "on top of" computer problems that it's not completely hopeless that we'll *maybe* even be able to recover the computer file which has the whole interview. I maintain hope that it's one of those "Microsoft only" so-called compatibility "issues".

OK. It's a pain in the ass at this point and we *can't* use the file at least not now, and not from other computers on the same network, but we *can* download the MD recording (in real time) and get at least better than half of the interview we conducted.

Or so we think.

I go into Studio D and download it. Crystal clear, as it records! But the computer's totally screwed up. I hear it *perfect* on the MD as it plays, but when I go to edit what I've downloaded, I find out it's made a file full of goopy glitches we can't use. I listen to the same five-second stretches time and time again, to determine whether it's just a playback problem or a recording problem. It's a recording problem. We get the more or less rambling bits on file ok -- no digital "slow talk" problems here -- but when it comes time to explain that "the president won -- policy is not a matter of -- matter of -- p-p-p-p-uh huhblic . . . bbeing shut-t-t . . . bbbbut most imp-p-p-portantl-l-l-ly djib bjib glvbpl to replace the president", we're screwed.

Oy vey. This is useless! I can't very credibly explain to people that "djib bjib glvbpl" is Rev. Due's cogent explanation of Iranian parliamentary procedure (which in the original recording, it really was, I swear).

We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by.

Meanwhile Renee's running control and I'm running to get the messagebook and calendar and write down phone numbers to call and desperately, apologetically tell the ladies we just interviewed: we're so sorry, but if you *possibly* can, we'll *both* be here tomorrow within this two-hour window, and we'd *love* to get just some of it again, if it's not too much trouble.

And then I've got one phone number written down wrong (my fault -- human operator error) and wind up calling some guy named "Ray" who's never heard of me and doubtless wonders why I'm asking him about Iran. Poor guy. I apologised profusely, double-checked my numbers, and left messages everywhere I could without sounding like a complete and total NUT.

I still wonder whether the file will play right on the computer in studio C. I need to try it.

And the Newsbooth computer wouldn't even let either Renee or me sign in to it in the first place. We were locked out. And so will Steve be tomorrow morning, most likely.

The good news is we've got Liz who is *so* on top of things computer network-wise it *isn't* even funny. She used to maintain teletype machines -- seriously -- and understands what we're up against and dealing with in terms of deadlines.

If she can't fix it well enough for us to get something to use by Friday morning, probably no one can.

But damn it, we'll have *something* on air for Friday, about Iran, so help me.

And then we'll likely get the calls -- "how come you didn't ask about this, or that?" To which I'll have to say "we did, I swear, but lost the tape, and so I can't prove it". Yeeh. Sometimes it's really not about bias, but just about technology.

I love the News. We weren't exactly watching V1 rockets land on London from the rooftops but in our own far more mundane way I'll be damned if we weren't still doing the very best we could. :)