October 2002 Archives

Strange clicking at Project Euh. Found swimming in memepool.com

Everything you know is wrong. Prove it by taking this quiz.

Hey kids! Don't have a costume yet? Try downloading one of these CEO Halloween Masks from Forbes!

Above, L. Dennis Kozlowski, Former Tyco CEO! Spooooky! Also available: Bernard Ebbers, Ken Lay, Samuel Waksal, and Martha Stewart! And you want to hear something really scary? Bush's new appointee to the SEC's accounting oversight board headed the audit committee of a company accused of fraud! Boo!

Thanks to Ennis for the Forbes link.

Mike and Colin's posts in praise of Halloween culture got me thinking about how some of my favorite songs ever are actually pretty Halloween-appropriate. Call me a closet goth or something, but I'm a sucker for tales of occult figures, satanic carnage, mayhem and intimations of doom with catchy hooks built in.

This was going to be a canon/compilation project a la Trip's Camaro Rock or our household Winter Solstice comp tape, but these tunes are a small, elite group and they don't really fit together on one mix. Diverse though they may be, I'd recommend them all to anyone who appreciates the bloody-minded irony of, say, the Simpsons Halloween specials, or who's just done the Monster Mash too many times already.

Six(66) Songs for an All Hallow's Reprieve (The Phantom Liner Notes):

1) Daniel Johnston, "Casper the Friendly Ghost"
Now it can be told! Johnston's home-recorded, Casio-accompanied song recasts Casper as a lonely soul who fell down a well and came back to find the love he'd been denied. "Nobody treated him nice when he was alive... but everyone respects the dead." There's a lesson in that somewhere.

2) The Lord Weird Slough Feg, "High Season III"
Metal bombast has never been so loveable as in the moment near the end when the lead singer proclaims, "Now the time has ARRIVED!/For you to meet your DEMISE!/ The emptiness plagued mortal men/Upon which you FEAST and you THRIVE!!!" This is part of a multisong cycle that's sort of an inversion of Paradise Lost, and would make a great Broadway show.

3) Barbara Manning, "Someone Wants You Dead"
Singer/songwriter Manning has the creepiest ballad in this lot, told from the perspective of someone investigating the scene of an unsolveable murder: "She didn't have a Doberman/She didn't have a phone/It was not the kind of place/You'd want to live alone." Sounds like a latter-day sequel to all those crime-story folksongs that Harry Smith used to collect.

4) Goodie Mob, "Cell Therapy"
I'm amazed at how many conspiracy theories the Goodie Mob rappers manage to pack into one cut. Or maybe it's just one, big theory with government surveillance at its center. The chorus goes, "Who's that peekin' in my window/POW!/Nobody, now." Could this be the answer record to Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me"?

5) Slayer, "Raining Blood"
Yeah, you could point out that most metal bands live in Halloween Town, but the classic riff that leads this one off and the over-the-top guitar solo make this the anthem for teens to headbang to in their rooms while their freaked-out parents dial Tipper. As Jay points out, both this and the Slough Feg track feature Satan soliloquizing about what will happen when he rises and takes over the Earth--just like that song in the South Park movie!

6) Jad Fair, "Frankenstein Must Die"
Long and regrettably out of print, this is the best of the many monster songs of Jad Fair and his band Half Japanese (For an introduction, rent the excellent documentary flick The Band that Would Be King.) The climax is when, after a long, hilarious setup, Jad stands up to the monster, intoning, "Oh Mr. Frankenstein you must die!" And he triumphs, after a fashion.

You know all those times I complained about the proliferation of login screens in my life? How I can't always keep straight which one's my ATM PIN, which is my Blogger password and which is the combo on my luggage lock? Well forget I said any of it. Passwords are a wonderful solution to all manner of personal and corporate security needs! I adore them! I'll go now and memorize them some more. Just, please, step away from the forearm and keep that syringe where I can see it. Let's not be hasty, OK?

Back in my teenage years, I watched a lot of horror movies. We'd get a bunch of people over, sit around in my family room, and rent something laughably awful like Slumber Party Massacre II. But every once in a while, something like Phantasm would actually freak me out. There's nothing like a good scary flick to keep you up at night. This Halloween, we'll be watching Jacob's Ladder, a really freaky-scary movie. Last year it was The Exorcist and the year before was The Omen, I think. So, herewith, in no particular order, a brief list of some of my all-time favorite scary movies:

Welcome to Zombo.com! Via Emmanuelle.

Find out with Googlism.

OK, file this under Disturbing Gender Trends: Lingerie Barbie. (Found on monoki.)

Do parents really buy these for their little girls to play with? Perhaps as disturbing -- Barbie as Bond Girl:

.

Boy, am I glad I don't have to deal with the whole doll issue. Yet.

From Kristof's Op-Ed piece in today's Times, "The Greatest Threat":

I called Kim Myong Chol, a North Korean unofficial spokesman, who said his country would respond to sanctions not just by reviving Yongbyon [nuclear plant], but also by ramping up weapons exports.

"North Korea can export missile and nuclear technology to the highest bidder," he noted dryly. "It's a capitalist practice."

"If America tries to knock out Yongbyon," Mr. Kim added, "North Korea will retaliate immediately on New York and Washington, wipe out South Korea, wipe out Japan."

I observed to Mr. Kim that I was speaking from Midtown Manhattan. "Well okay," he said obligingly, "maybe not New York. Washington and Chicago instead."

Gee, thanks North Korea!

So, is Halloween, like, real? Or what? Turns out that it's less authentic, maybe, than you might think. (It's not even really Pagan.) Much like Christmas -- a holiday so broad in scope that my Jewish friends give me Christmas mix tapes -- it turns out that our beloved October 31st traditions were actually cobbled together in the last 100 years or so, from other holidays' leftovers, by greeting card companies and magazine writers. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's still my favorite holiday, along with Elvis' birthday (January 8th this year; don't miss it!).

I first read about the Little Green Footballs controversy over on MSNBC's Blogspotting blog. LGF, for those of you who don't know, is a blog that focuses on Mideast politics and the worst excesses of Muslim fanaticism. It's a great source of news you won't find elsewhere. It also features some opinions (in the comments section especially) that veer off into right-wing hysteria. Evidently Femia at MSNBC listed LGF in it's "featured blog" list; some folks complained that LGF was a "hate site"; Femia tagged old-school blogger Anil Dash as the leader of the anti-LGF opposition (Dash has made plenty of comments on LGF arguing with its regulars, but says he never emailed MSNBC to ask for its removal.)

We've dealt with flamewars here on Ishbadiddle. It's a shame when political debate devolves into petty name-calling. In an effort to call for civility, I wrote the following at LGF:

I'm going to do something dangerous here -- wander into the middle of a flamewar. I don't read LGF religously, and I've only rarely read Anil's blog. So I'm not going to get into the who's-right-and-who's-wrong-and-who's-a-bigger-crybaby thing. I come neither to praise Anil nor to bury him.

Look, I'm a liberal New Yorker. I have a blog. I link to LGF and I read it. It's a great blog -- it's got news I won't find anywhere else. It's important for me to read and try and understand what the hell is going on in the world.

But sometimes, well, I just can't read it. I'll be honest -- sometimes it's because the news is too hard to read. It makes me too angry, or sad. And yes, sometimes it's because the news and opinions challenge my liberal beliefs. [Still on the honesty tip -- I was hoping the sniper didn't turn out to be a Muslim (just as, from some folks' comments here, it seems that some of you were hoping that he was), not only because it (likely) means that more foreign-sponsored terrorism is on the way, but also because it once again forces me to do that "but-not-all-Muslims-are-evil" thing that we liberals have to do.]

But more often, I stop reading LGF because of the tone. I've had flamewars on my own site, and when things got personal, the people who didn't agree with me (and my fellow posters) just left. They didn't come back. And that's what I fear is going on with LGF -- people who don't agree with your opinions get turned off by the tone and the breakdown of civility, and they don't come back.

The thing is, these are the very people who should be reading your blog. People like me. When I read posts like the one about the mosque that received threatening leaflets, and Charles' comment that "this monstrous leafleteer must be brought to justice before he leaflets again," well, I'm just like, WTF? Sure, one threatening leaflet pales in comparison to the daily acts of anti-Semitism the world over. But I'm sure if the same leaflet (well, with different wording, as we Jews don't eat *that* much curry) were delivered to a synagogue, the reaction would be quite different.

I'm getting off on a tangent here. (Hey, isn't that what blogging is all about?) My point is, there's so much news out there about the evils of Islamic fanaticism, and you research and present it so well, that it speaks for itself. But the commentary and flaming turn people away. The frame gets bigger than the picture.

Look, I'm not saying LGF or its commentors should be censored (they'd have to pry my ACLU card from my cold dead fingers first), and I'm glad you got up on the MSNBC list because LGF shows what good blogging is all about -- a point of view, intelligently expressed -- and because people should read what's going on. I'd just like to point out why I don't read LGF as often as I should.

I don't know. Maybe the time for civility vanished last September. I hope not. I hope we can still sit down over a cup of coffee and hash out what needs to be done next.

I didn't get much of a respone from the LGFers -- one person wrote a comment that had something to do with Salman Rushdie -- but I did get an email from Dash thanking me for my comments. Dash did the right thing -- he offered to continue the debate in person.

Flamewars are as old as the Internet itself. Any medium where folks can write quickly and anonymously on hot-button topics will get personal. (Someone might even compare someone to a Nazi.) But if blogging is going to be a better medium than Usenet, we have to act and write with civility.

Realistic Internet Simulator. Makes me glad I've got POW! to kill mine.

Flash meets flight with the Paper Airplane Flight Simulator. Found on boingboing, natch.

From the Washington Post:

Eric W. Hickey, a criminal psychology professor at California State University at Fresno, said there have been plenty of minority serial killers. In his 1995 book, "Serial Murderers and Their Victims," Hickey wrote that 22 percent of such killers were black. An additional 17 percent were women.

"It's a stereotype that . . . most serial killers are white," Hickey said. "You ask most experts and they can't name a black serial killer. We have Asians and we have Hispanics that were serial killers. We need to get away from all the myths."

But most serial killers are white. And that is one reason former police officers and profilers of serial killers predicted that the sharpshooter was an angry white male, possibly with military training.

It's here. Thanks to Fimoculous for the link.

The erotics of type. From Idletype.

Patrick sent this in:

[Maker of the rifle that was used in the DC area sniper attacks] Bushmaster's principal owner and chairman, Richard Dyke, was the finance chairman of George W. Bush's campaign for the presidency in Maine in 1999. Mr. Dyke resigned as Mr. Bush's chief fund-raiser in Maine in July 1999 after a Los Angeles police officer sued Bushmaster as the maker of a gun that wounded him in a shootout with bank robbers.

[Which is ironic because Bushmaster, which specializes in making non-assault rifles that look like assault rifles, owes its success to the Clinton era assault rifle ban.

Taken from the Times

Trip found these H.P. Lovecraft Fonts. Call out the Old Ones in Lovecraft's own handwriting! No money back if you're slaughtered by a color out of space.

Mea Culpa. Mea Culpa Maxima. I was wrong wrong wrong. They weren't white at all. Profiling may have helped them stay on the loose longer.

BTW - have you noticed patterns in terrorists ?
Shoe-bomber & Malvo: Jamaicans
McVeigh and Allen Williams Mohammed: Gulf War Veterans

Found on Anil Dash.

Dot is a new reader here at Ish; here's her blog. Boise's in the house!

It’s BlackPeopleLoveUs.com! (And who said the dotcom explosion was over? Someone’s still got time to put this stuff up.) — found at URLDJ

Men Who Look Like Kenny Rogers.com. Another waste of our precious national bandwith resources.

Read 52 projects. Then do one. Via Greg's Three Good Things.

There’s this guy, see, who’s taking a picture of himself nearly every day, and has since 1998. There are entire months, and even stretches of months, that he skipped, but it’s still kinda interesting. (First seen on Coudal.)

Cleaned some stuff up around here -- there was all sorts of old code lying around, not to mention a few broken links. I moved most of the links off of the sidebar, except for my friends' sites, and blogs with reciprocal links. The margin was just getting far too cluttered. It's still too cluttered, but hey. There are now five sections -- Archives, Clicked (the archives of the Recently Clicked bloglet on the sidebar), Movies (with all film-related posts, the still-to-be-fixed Netflix queue, and expanded movie links), WTF? (for "What's That Font?", not that other acronym, with links to the fonts displayed in the title), and Links (which I'll revamp later).

I hope that clears things up somewhat. Design suggestions and complaints can go in the comments box. Or just accost me on the street.

Liz and I went to see Spirited Away, the story of a girl who finds herself in the spirit realm and must rescue her parents. What an amazing film. I'd only seen one of Hayao Miyazaki's movies before, Princess Mononoke. Like Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away is gorgeously drawn, with images that are beautiful and haunting (and, when necessary, terrifying). But while Mononoke was an epic, Hayao Miyazaki's latest is a true fairy tale, and that is high praise.

The story of Spirited Away is similar to The Wizard of Oz: an ordinary girl is transported to a magic realm, and must rely on the brains, heart, and courage that she didn't know she had, in order to get home. Chihiro shares some of Dorothy's spirit, but the rich and strange realm she enters is more like Alice in Wonderland -- a dream world with its own logic that must be obeyed, but which makes perfect sense taken on its own terms. (I was also reminded of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts -- the novel, not the Byrne / Eno album -- although Tutola's spirit world seems much more threatening). Like Dogdson writing his stories to amuse Alice Liddell (and her sisters), Miyazaki has made a movie for his "young friends":

I have five young female friends who are about the same age as Hiiragi-san [Hiiragi Rumi, the 13-year-old voice actress of Chihiro] and I spend every summer with them at my mountain cabin. I wanted to make a movie they could enjoy. That is why I started this film, and that is my true purpose. I felt this country [Japan, I take it] only offered such things as crushes and romance to 10-year-old girls, though, and looking at my young friends, I felt this was not what they held dear in their hearts, not what they wanted. And so I wondered if I could make a movie in which they could be heroines.

(Full interview here.)

The wonderful thing about Spirited Away (and it's a film full of wonders) is that Chiriho is an ordinary girl. She doesn't wake up one morning to discover she's got superpowers, or that she's really a wizard, or that she's really the key to the fate of the universe.

Until now, I made "I wish there was such a person" leading characters. This time, however, I created a heroine who is an ordinary girl, someone with whom the audience can sympathize, someone about whom they can say, "Yes, it's like that." It's very important to make it plain and unexaggerated. Starting with that, it's not a story in which the characters grow up, but a story in which they draw on something already inside them.

One of the most interesting things about Princess Mononoke was that it refused to have any villains. Characters did good and bad things, but for reasons more complex than their being "good" or "evil". Miyazaki does the same with Spirited Away. Like Chihiro (and Ashitaka in Mononoke), the audience must learn to "see with eyes unclouded by hate," to see both good and bad:

This film is an adventure story, although the characters neither swing weapons around, nor use supernatural powers in battle. It is an adventure story, but its theme is not a confrontation between good and evil. It will be a story of a girl who was thrown into a world where both good and evil exist. She gets trained, learns about friendship and devotion, and survives by using her wisdom. She finds her way out, dodges, and comes back to her old daily life for the time being. However, it is not because evil was destroyed -- just as the world does not disappear, (evil does not disappear). It is because she gained the power to live.

(Full interview here.)

I don't know enough about Japanese culture to say that it's generally opposed to our Manichean, good-versus-evil worldview. But at a time when our leaders clearly have this way of looking at the world, its refreshing to see a story that shows things can be more complicated than that, and that wisdom is more important than righteousness. If you have the chance, go see this extraordinary film.

I mean here only to give you a glimpse of our nation's high courts in action. But take the following as a penis joke if you must: case 01-1615 of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, decided September 24, 2002, genuinely pitted Schwing v. Putzmeister in a dispute over "pumping equipment that is capable of moving large volumes of heavy, viscous material."

Thanks to Patrick for sending it in!

Songs My Computer Taught Me

Every Labor Day we head up to Chatham, New York, where Debbie's aunt and uncle have a house. The Lane Clan gathers, and we all go to the Columbia County Fair to look at the sheep and the 4-H exhbits, watch the demolition derby and the pig races, and drive bumper cars.

Some years ago, we were driving toward the fairgrounds, across rolling hills of farmland when Debbie spotted an "Oreo Cow." It was black on both ends and white in the middle. Since I was driving, I missed seeing this unusal cow. I therefore refused to believe in its existence, despite a subsequent sighting by Debbie's Aunt Ila. Ever since, the mysterious Oreo Cow has become a running joke between us.

Well, now I have been proven wrong. I stand corrected. The cow exists. Debbie found it on the Internet. It's called a Dutch Belted cow (or Lakenvelder):

It was first imported to the U.S. by P.T. Barnum. Not that that fact should make you skeptical or anything.

ishbadiddle: hmm, ebay bought paypal
ashidomenyc: nice
ishbadiddle: i wonder if paypal sold itself on ebay, and then ebay paid for paypal using paypal?
ashidomenyc: laughs
ashidomenyc: blog that
ashidomenyc: that is funny

David B. sent this in:

Mike,

I was thinking some more on your blognote on democracy. When I taught social studies up in Vermont, I realized that Civics was designed to be the most tedious and disempowering curriculum possible: 435 members in the House, 100 in the Senate, 3 from DC, equals number of electoral votes, (yawn) and a bill becomes law by first going through committee hearings (snore) yada yada yada.

So I did something different.

I would talk to 7th and 8th graders and ask, "Who makes up the rules that you have to live by?" I would educe from them that their parents or guardians do, along with the school, and of course the Municipal, State and Federal governments. Some add their religion.

Then I would ask, "What are some of the rules you don't like,and would like to change?" Their eyes get big at this question. After all, they are pubescents. Hands would shoot up in the air, and talk about anything from bedtimes to voting ages to drinking ages to lots of
individual pet peeves.

Often, 8th graders would say that they want the voting age to go down to 14, but the 7th graders in the same room would say, "No, 13!" to my next questions:

"How would you go about changing these rules? What would you have to do to change the voting age? And how would people decide whether to make it 13 or 14?" And then we would get into the Constitution; what it is, why it's the foundation of our entire legal structure, how hard it is to amend, and why it's important to keep it hard to amend. From there we would talk about other rules easier to change, and methods of change, from petitions, demonstrations, lobbying, all the way to civil disobedience.

Then the bell would ring.

David

This November, many of us will have to decide whether politicians' past mistakes should keep them out of office in the future. But consider the quandary for Montana third-party voters: they can pick the Green guy or the blue guy. Ask all you want about his views on the regulation of health products; just don't call him a Meanie. (Thanks to Jay for the link.)

Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist, is my new hero. In prose that is clear, passionate, and entertaining, he is documenting the disastrous policies and disingenuous (at best) tactics of the Bush administration. He speaks the truths that the Democratic leadership are afraid to. And, instead of Republican-lite, he articulates rational and progressive economic and foreign policies. How do we draft him for 2004?

In today's column:

When Ronald Reagan cut taxes on rich people, he didn't deny that that was what he was doing. You could agree or disagree with the supply-side economic theory he used to justify his actions, but he didn't pretend that he was increasing the progressivity of the tax system.

The strategy used to sell the Bush tax cut was simply to deny the facts - and to lash out at anyone who tried to point them out. And it's a strategy that, having worked there, is now being applied across the board.

Just to keep the meme alive, and because it looks like Google pulled the page from its cache, you should go look at Dave Winer’s screen capture of Microsoft’s pathetic (and, apparently, faked, if that’s not a double negative) imitation of Apple’s switch campaign.

go fish makes a ''faux punk boy'' cry. One of the funniest blog posts I've read in a while.

Sadly, Arts & Letters Daily has gone Chapter 11. It's still worth looking through their archives, but we'll miss their daily dose of culture. Another good site gone.

Over at Greg's Asian American Film site there's a monthly haiku contest. Last month's contest subject: Speed Racer. Not to be outdone by Trip's masterful CSS haiku, I tried my own hand at the form. Despite my traditional invocation of nature in the first (and better) poem, alas I was not successful in winning a DVD of Kung Fu Cult Master. Judge for yourself, o reader:

The dry autumn leaf
Spinning in the empty air:
The Mach 5 has passed.

Wanting to tell you
The mystery of your life:
"He's your brother, Speed."

Next time, I'll go for funny.

Why AOL sucks. Cited in Trip's post on the evils of Netscape / AOL and their bad grammar.

I've been thinking about this latest terrorist in the DC area. We don't call him that of course, even though he is committing murder in order to terrify others, since that might mean that terrorism is more complex than just the post 9/11 manichean dichotomy. I'm not trying to imply any sort of moral equivalence with Bin Laden here, but simply to point out a similarity in type.

So, my guess is that this guy is white otherwise we would have heard about his race by now. In these neighborhoods, a brown man would definitely have been noticed, as would a black man. It's possible that he's East Asian, but I think it's more likely that he's white, which is why he's "invisible". So where are all the advocates of racial profiling now ? What about all the people who protested at being stopped for crimes that they claim they couldn't possibly be suspected of. I figure the black men of DC deserve to drive freely without being stopped -- c'mon, why not just stop the white guys driving the white vans ? He can change his van much more easily than his race.

Also, now that there has been an attack in Indonesia, are we going to start seeing profiling of east asians as well ? Somehow I think not, and it's not because people don't have enough racial suspicions about east asians (witness the recent spy scandal). No, I think we wont see profiling of yellow men and women because that would dilute our mental image of the enemy. And what the right wants now is clarity. Our image of the "dangerous" islamic world is one of swarthy arabs, while the real islamic world is far more diverse than that.

Oh, and that “Neighbors from Hell” over in “Recently Clicked” (though it might not be there when you, gentle reader, are seeing this post) is, I believe, a certifiable meme now. How I know this is that I was first told about it when in Florida at my grandmother’s funeral (what, we were supposed to weep and wail and rend our garments for three days?); my cousins and aunt and uncle, all resident in the South (some in the New, some in the Old) were hysterical about it, as was my sister a few days later when looked at it. She even mentioned in an email that she was sitting at her work computer crying from laughing at it. Though I didn’t find it quite that funny, I hereby stamp it MEME.

That’s all very nice, Mr. Ish, but did you know that there’s a new Wallace & Gromit short (2 mins.) out? Yes, provided you have QuickTime, you can watch the whole gadget-riffic thing. (To boot, it’s only the first of ten new shorts.)

I was surprised at the reaction to last week's post about my loss of faith in democracy. Between the many comments and the follow-on posts, you'd think I'd announced that I liked to kick kittens. It's interesting -- political involvement, amongst my friends, is considered a categorical imperative. Would that the rest of the country were as politically knowledgable, committed, and active. Yeah!

Well, I haven't called my reps yet, or the (p)resident, but I'm planning on it. This week. Sometime. However, I shouldn't be so hard on myself. After all, Ishbadiddle has forced me to actually formulate my positions, helped share news and information, and encouraged others to act. It may not be activism, but it's something.

Speaking of activism, Liz L. sent this in for our consideration. Is politics broken? How can we fix it?

A thought for (I hope) discussion:

Our current methods of participating in democracy are leaving us unheard - or feeling unheard, which amounts to the same void.

We write letters to our Senators. We get automated replies.

We make a phone call. We get re-routed to a voice mail box that tells us "our concerns will be registered." Yeah, right.

We read a pamphlet. We agree or disagree. So what?

We vote for president . . . the machines break.

For god's sake, we couldn't even get them to keep recycling glass. How can we stop a war?

An acknowledgement would be nice. It probably be too much to expect that we'll get agreement. But the
opportunity to be listened to would be . . . well, let's say, appreciated.

So I think: we need to develop new methods of political participation. Or different methods. Methods which move us from feeling atomized, individual, and quashed, to at least feeling like we're taking part in a decision which is affecting our society and our lives.

We are smart, creative, and, on our good days, still idealistic people. We shouldn't give up so easily.

I propose the following for serious discussion.

1. Debates. And I mean a real debate. Not just posturing on the House or Senate floor. Not even a politically staged Town Hall meeting, or a listening tour. I want our networks to donate air time to real people, with real opinions. Or at least we have an Internet site which airs ongoing discussion, phone calls, and emails. Surely there are foundations out there which would fund this.

2. Dialogue groups. Put ten hawks and doves in the same room. Recruit a couples counselor or Brian Lehrer. Broadcast as above. (See the dialogue project for one example of this)

3. An on-line poll where our real votes are tallied. We can vote on the Survivor candidates. We should be
able to vote on national policy during a debate of any kind. And, yes, I know that will disenfranchise
people without computers - but surely we can open our schools that night.

You see what I'm aiming at here? Any opportunity for real dialogue, not just shouting at a brick wall. I know these ideas as suggested aren't all practical, but they can be shaped, and there are other ideas out there. . . .

Let's start here. What do you think?

Great ideas, Liz. I would also add the idea of deliberative democracy that was put forward by Yale prof James Fishkin. The basic idea is that you empanel citizen juries to consider specific policy questions, to listen to experts, and to debate. What you come up with, ideally, is an informed public opinion. It sort of combines ideas 1, 2, and 3 above. Some folks have actually gone ahead and done this in various political contexts. I offer it as another alternative to the atrophy and apathy of our current polis.

Lynn H. writes:
This is my good friend Laura ... and possibly the most retarded thing ever. Brooklyn Woman has Stoops to Conquer.

Now, there's a quality of life crime we need to crack down on. Forget about squeegee men, let's take on those dangerous stoop sales!

I have to admit, Mike, that I was rather surprised at the depth of your despair in your recent post about political activism. Then, two things immediately happened. First, a familiar notion suggested itself to me, namely that our depths are a natural expression of our heights. This showed me (in relief and to my relief) just how strong are your concern for the world and your committment to politics as a tool to improve it. I'm completely impressed, though no longer suprised, and I applaud the intensity of your emotions in the past, present, and future. As you know, no emotion is permanent, so I look forward to a day when we're all enjoying a well-earned victory together.

Second, adjacent in my mailbox to your email, was an update from Eli Parser of MoveOn.org regarding the Iraq resolution vote and the impact of citizens' calls and emails on Robert Byrd and the other 22 Senators who voted no. I really admire MoveOn and I found this extremely encouraging. I apologize in advance for a long post, but I think it's worth a read. I hope it bolsters the conviction of other Ishers who need bolstering and undermines any tenacious pessimism it encounters. Note especially the post script with Byrd's comments.

It's a lovely day at the coast. I think I'll call my Senator.
_____________________________

Dear MoveOn Member,

Over the last five days, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) and our friends in Congress fought a pitched battle against a hasty and dangerous war resolution. Senator Byrd fought with every tool at his disposal, from an array of parliamentary tactics to his pocket copy of the Constitution. Joined by Senators Kennedy (D-MA), Sarbanes (D-MD), Durbin (D-IL), and Boxer (D-CA) in outrage, he launched a furious filibuster, demanding that our elected representatives give this issue the lengthy and deep consideration it deserves.

In the House, Representatives Doggett (D-TX), Lee (D-CA), Kucinich (D-OH), and Pelosi (D-CA) took a stand against House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO) and worked unstoppingly to deliver a defeat for the authorization of force. In doing so, they risked political retaliation from both within their party and outside of it, but they spoke out anyway.

Early yesterday afternoon, the House voted 296 to 133 in support of the President's resolution. Surprising nearly everyone, a significant majority of Democrats stood with Pelosi and Doggett in opposition to the resolution.

And around 1 in the morning last night, the Senate voted to support President Bush's proposal, 77 for to 23 against. Senator Byrd said, "I have fought the good fight. I might as well talk to the ocean."

For those of us who are worried about a war on Iraq -- worried what it will do to our country, our future, or our world -- this is a dark day. Our Congress has been stampeded into supporting a unilateral, pre-emptive war that could set the Middle East on fire and turn the world against us. In the immediate aftermath of this decision, it's easy to feel, like Senator Byrd, that we might as well have talked to the ocean.

But that is just plain wrong. This vote hurts, but without our work it would have been much worse.

Let us not undersestimate what we're up against. In the Bush Administration, we have a cadre of men hungry for war. Iraq has been on the agenda since President Bush and Vice President Cheney were on the campaign trail. When September 11th happened, the President immediately tried to link it to Saddam. No dice. When anthrax brought our capitol to a halt, the FBI was dispatched to find connections to Baghdad. Nothing surfaced.

The President has demonstrated that he is willing to use every Machiavellian trick in the book to force our country to war. He hasn't hesitated to use our national tragedy to push his agenda. He hasn't hesitated to play off the fear of Americans. He hasn't hesitated to take advantage of this election year to divide and conquer his opposition. When the President of the United States, a man with the loudest megaphone in the world, chooses to use such tactics, he is an extremely formidable opponent.

Make no mistake: the President did everything he could to make this vote a unanimous one. He failed. And the dissent in Congress will resonate throughout our country.

The New York Times today interviewed Representative Susan Davis (D-CA), from southern California: "Ms. Davis's San Diego district includes thousands of active and retired military personnel in the West Coast's largest Navy base, many of whom, she said, may not be happy with her decision to vote against the president's wishes. But having agonized over her decision until a few hours before the vote, she said she was persuaded by a large number of calls and e-mail messages from voters who were deeply uneasy about the prospect of a new war that could be fought with terrible weapons." That was us.

And when Senator Byrd was speaking out on the Senate floor, he knew we stood behind him. When Representative Pelosi spoke out against the House leadership, she knew that we were with her. Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota is in the political fight of his life against a candidate hand-picked by the White House to defeat him. But even though it could damage his re-election campaign, Senator Wellstone voiced his conscience. Our work helped to make that possible.

Our impact can be felt far beyond Washington, D.C. The American people are a lot smarter than politicians think, and support for this warmongering is paper thin. With each dissenter, with each dissenting vote we will gain the support of more of our fellow citizens. President Bush may now have the legal authority for a war, but thanks to the concern we've voiced in the media and in our representatives' offices, he does not have the mandate of his constituents.

This vote will not stand. We will keep fighting this thoughtless war in every way we can. We will fight it over the next weeks and the next months, in Washington and at home.

For now, though, we should take a moment to reflect on the hard work we've put in, on our successes and our failures. Remember: we're not talking to the ocean. We're turning the tide.

Sincerely,

--Eli, Wes, Carrie, Joan, Peter, and Susan
MoveOn.org
Friday, October 11, 2002

P.S. The pressure we've put on Congress has been overwhelming. Over the last two months, we've met with Senators' offices in every state. We've mobilized a team of volunteer lobbyists who worked with over 400 Congressional offices. We've written over 3,600 letters to the editor on Iraq. And we've made, at the very least, a staggering 143,000 phone calls to Congress. With countless emails and a petition with over 200,000 signers, we've communicated a deep and broad concern to our elected representatives.

Here's what Senator Byrd had to say about the grassroots feedback he received:

"I have heard from tens of thousands of Americans ˆ people from all across this country of ours ˆ who have urged me to keep up the fight. I am only one Senator from a small state, yet in the past week I have received nearly 20,000 telephone calls and nearly 50,000 e-mails supporting my position.

I want all of those people across America who took the time to contact me to know how their words have heartened me and sustained me in my efforts to turn the tide of opinion in the Senate. They are my heroes, and I will never forget the remarkable courage and patriotism that reverberated in the fervor of their messages." (From http://byrd.senate.gov/byrd_newsroom/byrd_news_oct2002/rls_oct2002/rls_oct2002_3.html)

P.P.S. Below is a list of the Senators and Representatives who voted against a war on Iraq. If you feel like calling some of them to thank them for taking a stand, it will certainly be appreciated.

Senators who voted against the resolution:

Akaka (D) -- (202) 224-6361
Bingaman (D) -- (202) 224-5521
Boxer (D) -- (202) 224-3553
Byrd (D) -- (202) 224-3954
Chafee (R) -- (202) 224-2921
Conrad (D) -- (202) 224-2043
Corzine (D) -- (202) 224-4744
Dayton (D) -- (202) 224-3244
Durbin (D) -- (202) 224-2152
Feingold (D) -- (202) 224-5323
Graham (D) -- (202) 224-3041
Inouye (D) -- (202) 224-3934
Jeffords (I) -- (202) 224-5141
Kennedy (D) -- (202) 224-4543
Leahy (D) -- (202) 224-4242
Levin (D) -- (202) 224-6221
Mikulski (D) -- (202) 224-4654
Murray (D) -- (202) 224-2621
Reed (D) -- (202) 224-4642
Sarbanes (D) -- (202) 224-4524
Stabenow (D) -- (202) 224-4822
Wellstone (D) -- (202) 224-5641
Wyden (D) -- (202) 224-5244

A full roll call list for the Senate is available on our website at:
http://www.moveon.org/senatevote.html

A full roll call for the House is available at:
http://www.moveon.org/housevote.html

You can help decide the direction of MoveOn.org by participating in the discussion forum at:
http://www.actionforum.com/forum/index.html?forum_id=223

I’ve posted a new list, in order this time, of the songs that wash me in nostalgia I don’t really have for gunning around in the Camaro in the late ’70s. For your added pleasure, I found a post to Bleahh from mid-2001 discussing this concept for the first time. (Only the fans care about this post, though I have gotten several hits off people searching for strange parts of its content.)
Comments are welcome by email or through the handy comments system herein.

Sigh. Will we ever learn? It would be nice to ask whether “they” will ever learn, but the community of humanity is a community for good and ill.

When I first read a journalist recalling "the crash of the Internet bubble," I assumed it was a typo. But it turns out that the phrase is enjoying a certain currency among tech business hindseers, and the copygeek in me is getting a little concerned that it may prove truly sticky...
--"Gran'ma, tell me again about the crash of the Internet bubble!"
--"Ah, yes, son. That was when the New Economy pulled the plug out from under a sinking tide of mixed metaphors."

Via fellow NYCblogger, chestertodd.

Rec'd this email from my Aunt Martha. Thought everyone who lives and drives in NYC should know:

By the way, here's a little known NYC fact for you. Jackie [my cousin] has been studying explorers in social studies, and informed me that Verrazano, like so many of the explorers, met an unfortunate death. He was eaten by cannibals. I asked her if she remembered going over the Verrazano Bridge when we came to visit you. I also commented on how expensive the toll was. Her response was that no, she did not remember the bridge, but the toll was expensive because it guaranteed that you wouldn't be eaten while crossing the bridge.

And... (this is the important part for all of us relatives)...if you do happen to get eaten, the city of New York pays the toll back to your family. Bet you didn't know that!

Also on SI bridge trivia: the Outerbridge Crossing isn't called that because it's, well, an outer bridge. It was named after the first head of the Port Authority, Eugenius Outerbridge, who was also a Staten Island resident. I guess they figured that "Outerbridge Bridge" sounded far too silly.

Nicholas Kristof, in today's New York Times: "These days, we see Iraq as an imminent threat to our way of life, while just a couple of years ago it was perceived as a pathetic dictatorship hardly worth the bother of bombing."

IJASMITEWAP and other new IM acronyms. TY, Trip.

I seem to remember an awful lot of crowing here, during our debates on civil liberties, that those of us who still thought the Constitution was a good idea were out of step with America. That the poll numbers showed that the majority of Americans supported the Bush Administration's actions at home and abroad.

Well, what do you say now, fellas? The polls are in, and it seems that the U.S. people are in no rush to attack Iraq, unlike our President. Let's look at the numbers, from the CBS poll:

63% say we should give the inspections effort more time

65% say we should wait until our allies are on board

51% believe that Congress hasn't asked enough questions

67% favor use of military to remove Hussein
...but if substantial U.S. losses 54%
...but if substantial Iraq civilian losses 49%
...but if prolonged war 49%

60% believe attacking Iraq will lead to a wider Middle East war

50% believe that attacking Iraq will increase the danger of terrorism.
16% believe that it will decrease that risk.

Only 33% believe in pre-emption as a valid policy. Except if it's the US making the pre-emptive strike, in which case 43% believe it's justified.

53% believe that the aim of Bush's policy is to remove Saddam from power. Only 29% believe that it's about disarming him of WMD.

You can also read the details of a similar Harris poll here and a Gallup poll here.

I'm starting to get mad enough, I may actually do something.

One of the annoying things about using Blogger is the inability to categorize posts, or do much of anything with them once they disappear into your archives. So I've put up a new thing (over on the ever-crowded sidebar; I simply must do a full-on redesign one of these days) that displays a featured post from the past. (It randomly changes on re-load. Go on, hit refresh!) I selected posts that had original writing, so "Check out this article that proves that John Ashcroft is the Devil" and "What 'My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult' Song Are You? Quiz" posts aren't included. I'm also about halfway through the selection process, so right now it only pulls up posts from 5/27/01 to 2/10/02. Hope you enjoy.

More evidence that Bush doesn't care about the evidence:

White House Sure of Iraq Threat Despite CIA Letter

The Bush administration on Wednesday defended its view that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction threaten the United States despite a CIA assessment that Baghdad was unlikely to use them unless attacked. A CIA letter made public on Tuesday cited a low chance of an unprovoked Iraqi attack and a "pretty high" chance of Baghdad striking, perhaps with chemical or biological weapons, if the United States struck first.

The CIA letter, sent to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham, said, "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States. "Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions," it added.

And from the UK Guardian:

White House 'exaggerating Iraqi threat'

President Bush's case against Saddam Hussein, outlined in a televised address to the nation on Monday night, relied on a slanted and sometimes entirely false reading of the available US intelligence, government officials and analysts claimed yesterday.

Officials in the CIA, FBI and energy department are being put under intense pressure to produce reports which back the administration's line, the Guardian has learned. In response, some are complying, some are resisting and some are choosing to remain silent. "Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA," said Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counter-intelligence. . . .

Mr Cannistraro said the flow of intelligence to the top levels of the administration had been deliberately skewed by hawks at the Pentagon. "CIA assessments are being put aside by the defence department in favour of intelligence they are getting from various Iraqi exiles," he said. "Machiavelli warned princes against listening to exiles. Well, that is what is happening now."

[Thanks to Mike Watkins for sending the Guardian article.]

We're being lied to.

Patrick writes: Remember when people cared about GenX enough to give it a name? Well, we're back and bitchier and whinier than ever. Get out your plaid shirts, dust off your Nirvana CDs: the early 90s are here again!

FilmWise Title Quiz. I only got half of these right; can you do better?

Blue Bloggy is a brand-new blog and the latest to link to Ishbadiddle. Thanks, and welcome to the blogosphere!

When did I stop believing in democracy?

War clouds are gathering, but I'm treating it like the weather: I'll check the paper every day to see what'll happen, but there's nothing I can do about it. My friends urge me to contact Congress, but I say to myself: what's the use? Will it actually change their votes? Will that actually have any effect on what the president does? I see notices for marches, town meetings, rallies, but I treat the proferred leaflets as I do ads for yoga classes, psychics, and cheap men's suits. No thanks, eyes forward, keep walking.

When did this happen to me?

I got an email from Michael Watkins, asking me to update his piece Is the Bush Administration Over-committed on Iraq? posted here last week. Also Clint sent in this link to the CIA report on Iraq's WMD program.

A reasonably good summary and assessment of recent events in Ivory Coast, with context

Right Wing / Afrikaner Coup Plot in South Africa (Did you know they were linked to a US based wacko who ... played around with WMD?)

When you have a (future) lawyer as Miss America

Collateral Compassion: should the families of innocents killed in reprisal for 9/11 be compensated?

Who is this guy. It's a short quicktime film about a 17 year old Sikh kid in CA.

I wrote this up in response to an inquiry from a journalist at the Wall Street Journal who asked: "How do you come across new blogs worth reading?" Matt and Liz gave their advice, so here goes:

My annotation to the annotation of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen v2 #1 was included. Thanks, Jess!

In a recent NYT article on Sex and the College Newspaper quotes a columnist for the Yale Daily News and her advice to incoming freshpersons:

You are young, you are hip, you are beautiful and you are smart, and if you're anything like any one of your classmates, you are ready to bonk. You are ready to bonk a lot. Well, freshmen, you have come to the wrong place. At Yale, it seems we discuss sex far more than (admittedly) we actually have it.

In which Chris reviews Beck's & Gabriel's latest; Liz wants Chuck Palahniuk's sperm; Emily lists the worst movies she's ever seen (although I can't agree with one of her choices); The Virtual Stoa connects High Noon with Kant; Herself reveals that Spike and Willow are fans of Philip Larkin's poetry; go fish wonders about the wisdom of booby-trapping one's own home; and Colin gets back to his small town roots.

The Game Neverending.

This one in the UK. Click here for the whole story. He seems quite interesting though - he's married to a Chinese woman and has an African girlfriend, yet:

"The prosecution say the defendant's intention was to stir up in the white European population in this country a groundswell of hostile reaction to that graffiti campaign and therefore to excite racial tension."

"Police have claimed that Tovey planned to kill hundreds of Sikhs and Moslems with guns and home-made napalm. His reported target was a mosque in Swindon."

"He was said to be obsessed with bombs and handguns and had built up a large collection of deadly weapons."

It looks like Trip is going to be wearing the comfortable black shoes again. His maternal grandmother died of lung cancer, and he's off to Florida for the funeral. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Times Square subway station, 10/2/2002

Judging by some of the other posts here, I'm not the only one concerned about what seems to be our impending invasion of Iraq. I'm shocked (though maybe I shouldn't be) by the Bush administration's aggressive push for war without regard for: (1) any logical or empirical justification, (2) the precedent-setting consequences of their unilateralist policy statements, or (3) the likely human and economic costs of war and subsequent "nation-building".

I'm also very disturbed by what, according to the press, is the likelihood that Congress will pass a resolution authorizing this invasion.

As you may know, Congress is supposed to begin consideration of the Iraq resolution in the next few days. For your consideration, please find below some ways to take action, along with some further fulminations by yours truly.

=============

Go to www.congress.org. Type in your zip code to get contact info for your Senators and Representatives.

=============

To send free faxes to your representatives in Congress (both House and Senate) asking them to give United Nations Inspectors a chance or to learn more, follow this link to True Majority.

WHY WON'T PRESIDENT BUSH TAKE 'YES' FOR AN ANSWER?

Iraq said Yes to the United Nation Inspectors. Tell Congress Yes is at least a start: Give the U.N. Inspectors a Chance!

1. President Bush goes to the United Nations and demands unconditional weapons inspections in Iraq or the United States will invade.

2. Iraq responds with an agreement of complete and unfettered access.

3. Bush says No, doesn't matter, I'm going to send in our troops anyway and I'll make sure Congress goes along.

This is a perfect 3-step plan to A) make the U.N. irrelevant, and B) make our country look like close-minded warmongers. Tell your representatives in Congress that U.N. inspectors must be given time to do their jobs and America shouldn't embark on a unilateral war.

=============

FURTHER FULMINATIONS

As I mentioned above, I am shocked by the Bush administration's aggressive push for war without regard for: (1) any logical or empirical justification, (2) the precedent-setting consequences of their unilateralist policy statements, or (3) the likely human and economic costs of war and subsequent "nation-building".

The Bush administration says we must end dictatorial, oppressive regimes, unless those regimes are run by our buddies (see Saudi Arabia, Syria, China, etc.) Bush says we must invade countries that try to develop nuclear weapons (well, except for Israel, India, or Pakistan). Bush says we must make war against Iraq to enforce UN resolutions, but we won't give Iraq the time to abide by the resolutions, even if they want to. There's no question Saddam Hussein is a very bad man, but the fact is he has not attacked or threatened to attack the US or any of our allies. Shouldn't war be used as a last resort (i.e. when our country or an ally is attacked without provocation)?

From what I can tell, the Bush position is that we can invade any country any time, if we think they might, maybe, someday, possibly be a threat to us. (Does this policy permit other countries to invade us, too? It seems that we're a threat to almost every country in the world, now.) I fear that Bush's willingness to unilaterally make war against Iraq will usher in a Newer World Order, in which the only rule is that might makes right. That may be fine for the U.S. now, but will we always be the most powerful nation in the world?

As John Mearsheimer explained recently on NPR's Talk of the Nation, the US historical record on successfully effecting regime change is very mixed. It worked in Japan and Germany after WWII, but the consequences in Iran, Guatemala, and Chile were disastrous. After "regime change", will we get a better Iraq, or a nation of Iraqis who hate us even more and happily send their children to Al Qaeda training camps? And what will war and nation-building do to the already foundering US economy? (It's no coincidence that I have the time to write all this.)

The Bush administration's priorities should be to fix the economy, to do what they can to prevent further terrorism against the US, and to apprehend those responsible for Sept. 11th. Invading Iraq will accomplish none of these goals. And the push to invade Iraq looks suspiciously like a ploy to change the national conversation in order to gain electoral advantage. My hope is that voters will voice their opposition to Bush and his war on Iraq.

=============

Please comment below if you have further ideas for taking action or if I got something wrong.

NYCbloggers has made the Village Voice Best of New York 2002:

Best Way To Peek Into Your Neighbors' Lives There are thousands of New Yorkers with weblogs, and NYCBLOGGERS.COM has taken it upon itself to organize them all geographically. At this point, they've got over 1300 of them. A lot of them aren't updated very often, even more are consistently dull, and a few are Way Too Much Information. But there's a certain illicit thrill to reading the diaries of the people at your subway stop, even when they're open for the world to see.

Thanks, Douglas!

A preemptive strike
against Home Depot, where box
cutters can be bought?

Read other haiku against the war over on randomWalks.

Sept. 26 - When the White House released its Sept. 12 "white paper" detailing Saddam Hussein's "support for international terrorism," it caused more than a little discomfort in some quarters of Washington. The 27-page document - entitled "A Decade of Deception and Defiance"-made no mention of any Iraqi ties to Osama bin Laden. But it did highlight Saddam's backing of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), an obscure Iranian dissident group that has gathered surprising support among members of Congress in past years. One of those supporters, the documents show, is a top commander in President Bush's war on terrorism: Attorney General John Ashcroft, who became involved with the MKO while a Republican senator from Missouri.

Full story at Newsweek. Found on fellow nycblogger Kerim's news blog.

I was surprised to receive an email today from Bernard Shifman, requesting that I remove a post from last January about him:

From: "Bernard Shifman"

To:
Subject: Hello
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2002 10:17:44 -0500

Dear Sir,

Can you please remove the content about Bernard Shifman from your
website. This entire story is false. This situation is being escalated
because people like you are linking to the story. Please help me by
removing all content about Bernard Shifman from your website.

Thanks,
Bernard
773.391.0595

Since I don't feel like being threatened with a lawsuit today, I'll take no position on whether or not Shifman is a spammer -- you can read the other guy's side here and decide for youself -- nor will I respond to his email. However, since Shifman fails to provide me with any evidence that the charges are false, I see no reason to remove the original link. Shifman has become the bête noire of the anti-spam community -- one guy even has registered bernardshifman.com and posted his own resume there with his main qualification being "I'm not Bernard Shifman." But if Shifman thinks that emails like this are going to clear his name, he doesn't understand bloggers. Every blogger he emails will refuse to remove their post on principle. Not only that, they'll post about the whole thing again -- meaning that more stories about his (alleged) spamming activities will show up on Google. My advice, Bernard? Change your name.

The secret to Beethoven's enduring power lies not in nostalgia but in the fact that the idealism embodied in his music resonates with our own latent beliefs. Modernity may well be a myth, but most of us are still under its sway at least some of the time. I think this is a good thing. As we presently are struggling with people who seek to destroy our culture, I think we would do well to affirm the ideals, hopes, and visions that define it while at the same time being cognizant of how we have often gone wrong.

Read the rest of MS's defense of modernity over at Zeek.

A few movies we've watched:

The Royal Tenenbaums

I just posted this in repsonse to Chris' piece on Igby and "Movies That Rock", which compares the former to The Royal T's. We just rented TRT and were disappointed. It's the filmic equivalent of a Dave Eggers book -- its cleverness and snarky attitude get in the way of any real feeling you might have toward the story and characters. Plus, they pulled the same trick "As Good As it Gets" did: setting up a quirky/crazy asshole (Hackman/Nicholson) that you're supposed to hate, but don't really because he's so quirky and crazy even as he does these assholic things, and then "redeeming" him by the end of the film through the Power of Love (the real Hollywood religion). The whole thing felt false, a sham, as cheap as having that stupid falcon return to Luke Wilson's character. And why didn't they cast Luke and Owen as the actual brothers? Owen Wilson seemed to be just going through the motions here, playing the same look-at-me-I'm-stoned-and-amusing guy he's done. Putting him in the Ben Stiller role, on the other hand, might have required him to act. Or something.

If you happened to rent the DVD, though, check out the "interview" with 5 of the supporting actors on the supplemental disc. It's a hilarious send-up of the Charlie Rose format, and actually more entertaining than the movie itself.

One Hour Photo

More than just Oscar bait, Robin Williams' performance in One Hour Photo is the first serious role that's worth taking seriously. Sy, William's character, a technician at the one-hour photo lab at a Wal-Mart-like store, is masterfully underplayed in his obsession with a suburban family. When we first realize the enormity of his obsession -- the camera pulls back from Sy sitting in his grey & brown apartment of quiet desparation to reveal a wall of photos of the family -- it comes as a shock. Director / writer Mark Romanek wisely makes this film more of a character study than a thriller. As Debbie pointed out, he could have very easily turned up the creepy-stalking-pounding-chase elements up a notch, which would have turned this into yet another psycho thriller, qu'est que c'est? (By the way, has anyone seen "Static," Romanek's last non-music-video work, from 1985?)

Romanek makes great use of color, with many shots looking like photos that have come back from the lab with too much cyan or green or whatever. Also of note: Sy's ruminations on the meaning of photography; I wonder if he's read any Susan Sontag?

Spoiler alert: Ishbadiddle is using its advanced ColorMask technology to avoid giving away the ending. Merely select the text below to read on.

Debbie and I went back and forth over the ending. Was it necessary to reveal that Seymour was himself a victim of abuse? Was it done to make him more sympathetic? Although Sy definitely scores high on the creep-o-meter, by the end of the movie he's still both pathetic and somehow sympathetic. It seems unnecessary.

On the whole, I don't think the reveal was done to absolve Sy of responsibility, although some may read it that way. But it does help explain his desparate need to be part of a "normal" family, his sense of betrayal when that family is threatened by infidelity, and his choice of "punishment" to the philandering dad -- the same treatment he probably received himself. (Also why he pulled his punches with that empty camera). Which of course raises the question: what would drive a man who'd been "photographically abused" as a boy to enter photography as a profession?