7/23/2004 07:31:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

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Okay, I'm done for a while. Off to D.C. for Mom's 75th birthday party, and then a four-day weekend of nothing in particular. Back in a week.

|W|P|109010711065845176|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com12/22/2004 07:26:00 AM|W|P|Blogger Greg Ross|W|P|Just testing Blogger comments.

G.7/22/2004 07:43:00 AM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

I think it's strange that the 9-11 Commission points to a national "failure of imagination" in anticipating the terrorist attacks. The attacks weren't unthinkable; a number of people thought of them. But there was nothing in our national experience that led us to believe it was an active possibility.

Yellowstone National Park is essentially a gigantic volcano that is overdue to erupt. It could easily annihilate the western half of the United States. We know this now, but we're not taking any active precautions.

We just don't have the resources to defend against every possible threat, so we tend to focus on the ones that have hurt us in the past. That's in fact why we're focusing on terrorism now, when global warming, North Korean nukes or the end of oil could be the next crisis. Hindsight is a bad guide, because it focuses on the catastrophe that happened first. That's too simplistic.

|W|P|109059379345422835|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/21/2004 09:55:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

"Comedy always works best when it is mean-spirited."—John Cleese

|W|P|109061253842515737|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/20/2004 08:03:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

The Onion: At what point did you realize you were a comedian and not just some guy telling jokes for fun?

Dave Chappelle: Oh, from the beginning.

O: Why?

DC: Just for the love that I had of it. I just always loved stand-up. It's like magic. You say something, and a whole room full of people laughs together. Say something else, they laugh again. The fact that people come to see that and participate in that... I don't know, it's just like magic.

|W|P|109035383151493117|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/19/2004 07:33:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

stock.xchngI'm thinking of getting back into piano. It's funny, I still own two guitars, but I almost never play them, though I'm a much better guitarist than a piano player. Piano just makes more sense to me. It's a more civilized instrument; you can focus on the music, instead of on contortions necessary to reach the music. If I'm impressed with a piano player it's with his taste or feel; guitarists usually impress me with technique, which is just not a good reason to like something.

Plus, I discovered I can generate sheet music from MIDI files using Noteworthy's freeware. They're pretty hairy files; the accidentals are notated strangely and usually I have to condense multiple staves into two. But doing it this way means I can get fairly accurate scores for all the jillions of MIDI transcriptions on the net, which are freely available and growing all the time.

The funny thing is, I have absolutely no idea how good I am. I haven't really played with another musician in years, on any instrument. That's not why I do it; I'm mostly interested in taking the music apart and seeing how it fits together. I suppose someday I'll find out.

|W|P|109010724496201416|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/18/2004 09:06:00 AM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

If conservative ideologues like to paint dreamy pictures of the American Revolution, citing the bravery of our rebellious forefathers in fighting the imperialist British. Unfortunately, being ideologues, they don't see the bitter irony here. Iraq is now the rebel colony, and we have become the Redcoats.

During World War I, Britain "liberated" Mesopotamia from the Ottoman Turks, promising statehood and democracy to the Iraqis. Two years later, though, the promised elections and constitution hadn't materialized, and when the British proposed a tax, the Iraqis rose up against them. We already know this tune: insufficient troops, a spreading revolt, kidnappings, murder, sabotage, mounting casualties, wavering support at home.

Churchill finally installed a Saudi king, kept local military bases, and enjoyed access to Iraqi oil for 40 years. Sounds good, right? The problem is that the Shiites today remember 1920 as the period when they were cut out of power by the foreign army in favor of their Sunni enemies, and they're determined not to let it happen again. The easy way out for us now would be to restore power to Saddam's old power structure, who are mostly Sunni. That may be Bush's choice. But it could easily lead to a civil war led by outraged Shiites, and an even deeper quagmire for us.

|W|P|108955123555472950|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/17/2004 03:59:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."—Antoine de Saint-Exupery

|W|P|109018084640128875|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/16/2004 08:59:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

www.eddieizzard.comA lot of stand-up comedians seem to be fairly neurotic people. They don't really seem to have anything to say, and they won't challenge the audience. Mostly they seem to want love, attention and approval. But at the same time there are a few who seem extremely healthy—who are authentically comfortable being themselves onstage.

The best example of this—and maybe the most emotionally healthy person I've ever seen—is Eddie Izzard. He's been doing award-winning live comedy for 10 years, and has appeared in a number of films, but he's still relatively unknown on this side of the Atlantic. His comedy is fantastic, addressing big topics like history, death and religion but in a winning, ingenuous, conversational way.

What I admire is this: Izzard is a transvestite, but he's neither militant nor apologetic about it. He dresses as a woman because that's how he's most comfortable. He understands that people may have questions about this, and he's tolerant and patient in explaining it, but he accepts himself so completely that within about five minutes he just drops it and gets into the comedy.

"I have a human right to be who I am," he told The Times Magazine in 1998. "This is my space. This is me. I'd be quite happy to be a woman, but I'm not. I'm a bloke."

And the audience comes with him. That's what I love—he's a completely self-possessed grownup, and he's modeling that, perhaps unwittingly, for all the uncertain, self-conscious members of the audience. We need more people like that, not just onstage but everywhere.

|W|P|108992514935228639|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/15/2004 08:01:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

"No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race."—Richard Feynman, "The Uncertainty of Values"

|W|P|108993616159393350|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/14/2004 07:39:00 AM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

No one really noticed, but in spring 2000 a new ocean appeared. The International Hydrographic Organization delimited the Southern Ocean by borrowing parts of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific. Essentially the new body extends from the coast of Antarctica north to 60 degrees south latitude. That makes it the fourth largest of the world's five oceans (it's larger than the Arctic Ocean).

This fascinates me for the same reason that Antarctica does. It's huge—more than twice the size of the United States—and inhospitable, with freezing seas and the strongest average winds found anywhere on Earth.

Add to that a huge icepack that grows sixfold during the winter months, and surround it with the world's largest ocean current, which circles in an endless freezing ring around Antarctica.

There are possibly giant oil and gas fields on the continental margin, but most of the region is remote from sources of search and rescue, and anyway they'd have to contend with monstrous icebergs. Maybe this is one area that will at least stay pristine.

|W|P|108981957107706090|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/13/2004 08:41:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

stock.xchngI may be the only person in America who doesn't use a cell phone. I have one; I just never use it. Who are all these people talking to, in Starbuck's and on the interstate and in doctors' offices? What needs to be said that can't wait 20 minutes? And whose life requires so many of these urgent conversations that they need a phone that they can carry around with them?

For a new study, Motorola sent behavioral researchers to conduct observations and personal interviews in nine cities, from New York to London. Among other things, they found that women use cell phones to express themselves and communicate socially, while men see them as interactive toys. They also distinguish "innies," who use their cell phones discreetly, from "outies," inconsiderate pinheads who broadcast their personal lives indiscriminately. (Okay, that's my wording.)

The report also labels teenagers "The Thumb Generation"—after hours of text messaging, they now use their thumbs to point and ring doorbells. I suppose there's some final Darwinian significance to that: the apotheosis of the opposable thumb. I just don't find I need these gizmos.

|W|P|108836167322720881|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/12/2004 09:07:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

"It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."—Andrew Jackson

|W|P|108966285371093817|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/11/2004 03:42:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

More fuel for my obsession with the emptiest continent: Here's a collection of Antarctica dollars, issued to raise funds for scientific projects. "The notes are not legal tender in the Antarctic, but may be used there if the giver and the receiver agree."

|W|P|108957529343946608|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/10/2004 02:40:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

stock.xchngJesus, what an unpleasant way to wake up. I just put on Last.fm and the first thing I got was Bob Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues." I think we can say objectively that this song is bad in every possible way.

I wouldn't be so pissy about this if Dylan weren't held up to be a great musician, songwriter and performer. He's none of those things. He never was. And this song is held up as one of his best: It appears on his Highway 61 Revisited, Greatest Hits Vol. 2, Masterpieces and More Greatest Hits, as well as numerous concert albums and bootlegs, and it's been covered by Judy Collins, Freddie Fender, the Grateful Dead, Nina Simone and even the String Cheese Incident. I'll never understand this. He's just completely incompetent. Look:

  • Writing. The lyrics don't scan or rhyme, and there's no chorus. It's just a long series of verses, with a (bad) harmonica solo at the end.
  • Performance. Dylan's singing is bad and off-key, the guitar's badly out of tune, and the band manages to be uneven and plodding at the same time (though, to be fair, he's given them very little to work with).
  • Production. The recording's bad even for this era, and the mix is terrible.

Also, I think his famously bizarre singing style arises because he likes to hit the wrong note at the end of each melodic phrase. I'm afraid he thinks that's hip or sophisticated. Jesus, how embarrassing.

|W|P|108836161955438815|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/09/2004 07:56:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is."—Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut

|W|P|108906819703224374|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/08/2004 09:41:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

stock.xchngWe get the News & Observer here. It's not a bad paper, though indifferently edited. I find I rarely read it. Sharon goes through each issue pretty closely, and often she'll star items and leave them for me to read. But I find I'm already familiar with most of the stories. Lately I've been noticing that print media, and even broadcast, are almost never as quick or accurate as the net.

In fact, I'd venture to say that an American citizen can stay reasonably up to date now by reading some combination of Blogdex, Daypop and Popdex. (Blogdex seems the most timely.) And that's not just current events, it's entertainment, politics, technology, religion—basically every beat you'd find in a good newspaper of any size.

That's because the readers themselves will always know what they want better than some newspaper editor. I don't agree that bloggers are the new journalists—anyone can do journalism, but you do have to pick up the phone. Most of the stories on these meme indices come from traditional media, but they're filtered through the collective consciousness of the net readership, which strips out all the crap, and the stories are ranked by pure merit, rather than media muscle.

That can only be a good thing, and I say that as a journalist myself.

|W|P|108836170537846901|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/07/2004 10:46:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

"For 100 pounds sterling plus travel expenses I will push an assortment of garden vegetables through your letterbox." Every man has his price, and You Whores knows all of them.

|W|P|108888756101668766|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/06/2004 09:00:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

A recent report by Reporters Without Borders, titled The Internet Under Surveillance 2004, documents repression of Internet use in more than 50 nations and regions, from Algeria to Zimbabwe. Some samples:

  • Syria has only two ISPs, both of which are state-controlled. The government limits access, filters content and monitors e-mail.
  • Thailand has passed a measure against child pornography, but is censoring material criticizing the king and web pages that mentions official corruption.
  • Cuba regulates the sale of computer equipment and monitors e-mail closely. "Cuba is the world's biggest prison for journalists and free expression is banned."

In the West, it's the war on terror that's responsible for most government measures restricting freedom. "It's understandable that the price of our safety is some encroachment on our freedom," writes RWB secretary-general Robert Menard, "but only as long as parliaments approve all such measures, which doesn't always happen, and police always act only at the request of judges, which sometimes isn't done."

Consequently, the United States comes in for some fairly harsh criticism, receiving only a "middling" rating for its contributions to global freedoms online.

That's because American technology and culture drive the global internet, and consequently our incursions on freedom (the Patriot Act) affect everyone else, and because our firms are supplying the technology and know-how for other nations (China) to repress their own people. A worrisome trend.

|W|P|108880561702181156|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/05/2004 07:03:00 AM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

"If I can't light one single dwarf on fire without being scolded, that means the terrorists have already won."

|W|P|108886699803069174|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/04/2004 02:42:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

stock.xchngAs I write this, Europe is going psycho over the Euro 2004 soccer finals. "The European elections didn't bring people together," said Charles Grant, director of the London-based Center for European Reform. "But football does."

The game has famously few fans in the United States—although the ones we have are equally rabid: New Republic editor Franklin Foer recently published a book called How Soccer Explains the World. We're psycho ourselves for American football, favoring it by a two-to-one margin over our purported national pastime, baseball, according to a 2002 Harris Poll.

That puzzles the Europeans, in their turn. As a nameless British comedian put it, "What you call soccer we call football, and what you call football we call pointless."

What's strange is that, as the names imply, both games evolved from the same sport, trying to kick a ball through a goal without using one's hands. (Already in 1531, Sir Thomas Elyot was calling this "nothynge but beastlye furie and extreme violence.") In 1823 a student from England's Rugby School moved the ball while holding it in his arms, and rugby was born, which sailed to America and started wearing a helmet. And that's where we are now.

American football is commonly cited for its war metaphors, most famously by George Carlin. But it's the undercurrent of patriotic nationalism that makes European fans so rabid. Occasionally, during World War I, European troops would roll a soccer ball into the enemy's trench to signify the start of a battle. The ball would become a symbol of victory in that contest. Some things don't change.

|W|P|108836172389450769|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/03/2004 10:28:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

The Fallacy Files, the online index of logical fallacies (produced by a philosophy graduate from dear old Bloomington), now has its own weblog, which debunks everything from movie blurbs to Bushisms to action-figure packaging. Happily, he takes whacks at both political parties. They both deserve it.

|W|P|108821692517456308|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/02/2004 10:26:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

According to this pretty evenhanded quiz at the Christian Science Monitor, I'm a liberal:

Liberals ...

  • Are wary of American arrogance and hypocrisy
  • Trace much of today's anti-American hatred to previous US foreign policies.
  • Believe political solutions are inherently superior to military solutions
  • Believe the US is morally bound to intervene in humanitarian crises
  • Oppose American imperialism
  • Support international law, alliances, and agreements
  • Encourage US participation in the UN
  • Believe US economic policies must help lift up the world's poor

Examples: Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter

Here's what I'm not:

Neoconservatives ...

  • Want the US to be the world's unchallenged superpower
  • Share unwavering support for Israel
  • Support American unilateral action
  • Support preemptive strikes to remove perceived threats to US security
  • Promote the development of an American empire
  • Equate American power with the potential for world peace
  • Seek to democratize the Arab world
  • Push regime change in states deemed threats to the US or its allies

Examples: Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan

I hope that's not an accurate description of a neoconservative. Scares the hell out of me.

|W|P|108873518353539835|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com7/01/2004 10:42:00 PM|W|P|Greg Ross|W|P|

"I'm sending Chesterfields to all my friends. That's the merriest Christmas any smoker can have."—Ronald Reagan, from a series of cigarette ads in the 1940s

|W|P|108862816076458493|W|P||W|P|greg.ross@gmail.com