Piano

OK, so this isn’t an ode. I’ve never written an ode, probably can’t write an ode, and even if I could it would probably be right up there with Vogon poetry, so it’s probably better all around if I didn’t even try. Instead, let me list for you some of my prouder moments, right up until I went away to college:

• A bridge that spanned 6 feet of table with no support in the middle (we’ll call the brass wire I needed to keep the center from collapsing a “teachable moment”)
• More towers than I can remember, including one that stood nearly 6 feet tall and had no central column for support (a la the Eiffel Tower)
• A multi-generational starship with little robots and cars like from the movie Silent Running.
• A Voltron-esque robot that broke up into multiple smaller robots.
• An operational, motor-driven minifig-scale elevator that went up and down 3 feet.
• A Klingon bird-of-prey, complete with moving wings, exit ramp out of the nose, and place for the whales, to minifig scale.

Yes, I was a Lego geek in high school. And today is the 50th Anniversary of the often-imitated but never exceeded LEGO brick. Full story »

There is a very important man in human history whose name too few people know:  Alfred Korzybski.  He’s the father of general semantics, and before you say to yourself, “Oh, it’s only semantics,” understand that improper use of semantics can absolutely, positively, kill you.  I’ll explain why, shortly.

Full story »

Did John F. Kennedy ride the winds of change into office or was he the “wind beneath our wings?” Either way, his election signified that, back on firm peace-time footing after President Eisenhower’s two terms, America was ready to move ahead with “great vigah.”

With his uplifting oratory and youthful good looks, Barack Obama has drawn comparisons to Kennedy. Nor has he been quick to disabuse us of the notion that he can recover JFK’s fallen torch.

For instance, in the spirit of JFK’s legendary challenge to “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” Barack issued a “call to serve” back in July.

Describing we Americans as “our greatest resource — not our bombs, guns, or dollars,” he promised to increase national service opportunities if elected. He’d double the size of the Peace Corps and expand the AmeriCorps program. Also, he’d create a Craigslist-like network to connect volunteers, including retirees, with opportunities for service. Full story »

SVR has been all about the music of late, and thanks to a few submissions by fellow Scrogue Mike Sheehan we’re going to continue the trend this morning. Today we shine the spotlight on what I guess we’ll call “unconventional musicianship.”Let’s start with this heartwarming tale of a country boy, a harmonica, and a dream of someday playing Carnegie Hall.

Full story »

Thanks to Guest Scrogue Natasha Chart for this piece.

This is how Democrats should use Reagan’s words. To give credit where it’s due, Obama’s speech this past Sunday at MLK’s own Ebenezer Baptist church lifted Reaganesque language and put it in a progressive context that I can only applaud. Emphasis mine:

… I’m talking about a moral deficit. I’m talking about an empathy deficit. I’m taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother’s keeper; we are our sister’s keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.

Full story »

It’s good that everybody knows that the people involved in the pro-life movement are directly responsible for the decline in abortions.

— Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee, on a report that the abortion rate nationally has fallen 25 percent from 1990 to 2005.

Yes, we won 35 years ago — but women have been losing ground, losing rights, losing options, losing access, losing availability and just plain losing nearly every day since.

— Nancy Keenan, head of NARAL Pro-Choice America, in a recent speech.
Full story »

Pastor Dan has an absolutely must-read piece on faith and politics over at Street Prophets, and while I feel wholly inadequate for the task of matching the depth of his analysis, he raises a number of issues that got me to thinking. So to use a sports analogy, he’s just crushed an overhead at me, and I’m going to see if I can get a racquet on it in hopes of lobbing something weak back over the net.

For starters, his thoughts on the history and function of civil religion are spot-on, and as I consider how dramatically our culture is changing, they lead me to an obvious conundrum. Full story »

…in this Republican National Committee fundraiser pitch, anyway.

Dear Fellow Conservative, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are raking in the campaign cash hand-over-fist.

They begin 2008 having raised more than $200 million combined. In the first eight days of this year, Barack Obama’s campaign bragged they had raised over $8 million — and Hillary Clinton’s campaign is right there with him.

Last year, Democrat presidential contenders and Democrat party committees combined raised more than Republicans. Liberal special interests are raising hundreds of millions of dollars from Big Labor, Hollywood elites and radical protest groups like MoveOn.org to defeat Republicans in November. Full story »

Today, National Public Radio reporter Guy Raz reported that the Bush Administration is in negotiations with the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki to create an “enduring relationship that will ensure that the United States occupies and guarantees the government’s safety against threats both foreign and domestic for at least the next 10 years. One Representative, Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts, has been trying to get both Administration and Pentagon officials to testify as to the nature of the negotiations, thus far with no success. Rep. Delahunt’s guess as to why? Because the agreement may qualify as a “treaty” instead of an “agreement,” and thus require Senate ratification, something that President Bush doesn’t want and doesn’t believe that he, as President, needs.

This represents yet another example of this administration’s expansive view of Presidential power, and it needs to be the one that breaks Congress’, and the public’s, back. Full story »

 

How the heck does Obama’s letter to the US ambassador at the UN on January 23 (at bottom) jibe with his transcendent speech on January 20 (excerpt immediately below)?

“Unity is the great need of the hour — the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it’s the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.”I’m not talking about a budget deficit. I’m not talking about a trade deficit. I’m not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans. Full story »

I’m not usually one to post celebrity news, preferring as I do news with more substance. But pretty much anything the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas does grabs my attention. And the nominal ringleader (now that the founder, Rev. Fred Phelps, is getting too old to picket effectively), Shirley Phelps-Roper has announced that her church and kin will be picketing the memorial services of recently deceased actor Heath Ledger. Their reason?

He played a gay cowboy in the movie Brokeback Mountain.

Oh, and according to Phelps-Roper, they’ll be picketing the Academy Awards this year too. Assuming that there are any that last longer than a press conference, that is.

For more on the Westboro Baptist Church, see the following links:
God hates the Westboro Baptist Church
Michael Moore’s messing with Rev. Fred Phelps
BBC’s interview of Louis Theroux, who lived with them for a while
Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report on WBC
The Anti-Defamation League’s report

Kudos to Jentifred’s Livejournal friends list…

Devraj Kori set off a firestorm near our nation’s seat of gross incompetence last Thursday when he called a Fairfax County, Virginia public schools’ administrator, Dean Tistadt, to complain about not getting a snow day off. We don’t know exactly what Kori said in his message, but we do know what Tistadt’s wife, Candy had to say in her voice reply, because Kori published it on YouTube.

It wasn’t pretty. Candy kinda lost it, reading Kori the riot act in a voice that could strip paint (you really have to listen to this voice to believe it) while explaining that her husband hadn’t retured Kori’s previous calls to his office because he had been out almost every night that week in meetings for “snotty-nosed little brats.” Candy then told Kori, who says he has a 3.977 GPA, to “get an education.” Full story »

The governor of New York, Elliot Spitzer, has decided to raise $13 million for his proposed $124.3 billion budget by requiring your local purveyors of illegal drugs to affix state tax stamps to your nickel bag of horse or the fixings for your evening speedball.

His administration says the program will enhance enforcement and tracking of illegal drug sales. Riiight. That surly-looking fellow slouching on the street corner each night will be sure to run right down to the state Department of Taxation and Finance to buy those tax stamps. Surely that will make law enforcement happy, eh? Good for the fuzz to know who’s selling the fuel for your bong, right?
Full story »

I warned you last month that although Chris Dodd and a grassroots push from the blogosphere succeeded in stopping the reauthorization of laws that grant the government vast new spying powers (and immunity from prosecution for telecoms that abet and provide them), this bill would be back, and the fight would come again.

Well, it’s here. Bush is pushing for permanent authorization of the odious Protect America Act, and the extraordinary incompetence of Harry Reid is poised to let him have it. Full story »

The Bush administration must hate the state of California with a passion bordering on fanaticism. First the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission of the Department of Energy declares most of southern California a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor. Then the EPA ruled against California and 16 other states in their request to waive federal requirements on carbon dioxide emissions right after Bush signed the new energy bill into law.

Well, today, ThinkProgress has news that EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, the guy who rejected California’s request for a waiver, issued his rejection over the recommendations of his own staff. The EPA staff apparently thought that they’d win a likely lawsuit against the automakers but lose to the state of California (and 16 other states).

Check out the rest of the post at ThinkProgress.org.

That Bush and his inner circle of neocon zealots lied and cooked the books to get us into a war we never should have fought is not news, of course. But to see the number of lies told and analyzed in such a fashion as Lewis and Reading-Smith have done beggars the imagination–the sheer amount of bullshit spewed by this cabal is astonishing. Consider: Full story »

The World Future Energy Summit is taking place this week in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Conference topics include solar and wind power, clean transportation, carbon, waste-to-fuel conversion, biofuels, geothermal and other energy sources. There’s also an exhibition where 214 corporations, NGOs, media groups, financial institutions, and government organizations are showing off their latest “future energy” options. Included are five national pavilions where national governments are hosting even more of their local companies, and exhibitions range from new energy generation techniques to energy efficiency technologies to carbon offsets (the conference itself is being billed as carbon neutral, via the CarbonNeutral Company). This conference and exhibition is being paid for and hosted by Abu Dhabi, an emirate that is wealthy precisely because of the vast reserves of carbon – in the form of oil – beneath its desert and coast. Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan announced that his government would offer a $2.2 million prize “to three individuals or organizations that have made significant contributions in the global response to the future of energy”, to be judged by an international panel of environmental and energy experts. Other information to come out of the conference already include and agreement between Iceland and Djibouti to supply Djibouti with geothermal energy and subsequently displace of the diesel generators that currently power most of the small nation’s electricity. Full story »

The CIA announced today that there had been several successful hacks into city power grids by criminals trying to extort money out of the city. When the city(ies) refused, the hackers successfully caused multiple cities to go dark.

Upon hearing this, I was amazed about two things. The first was that the CIA would release this kind of information. Apparently the CIA carefully weighed their options and decided to declassify this information, according to CIA analyst Tom Donahue (from the Washington Post article). I can only guess why, but it probably has a great deal to do with lighting a fire under intransigent utilities and companies who don’t want to spend the money to upgrade their cybersecurity.

The second thing that amazed me was that it hasn’t happened more often, and that the U.S. thus far appears to be unaffected. Full story »

Today I’d hate to be the managing editor of The Los Angeles Times, John M. Arthur, 60, or its innovation editor, Russ Stanton, 49. That’s because rumor has it they’re on the short list to be the next top editor at one of the nation’s finest newspapers.

If named, this is what publisher David Hiller will expect of either: Cut The Times’ approximately $120 million budget by 1 percent. That would mean firing people. If either wishes to keep that job, they’d better do it — because Hiller fired the previous two editors who refused to make cuts he demanded.
Full story »

Today, the 22nd of January, is George Gordon’s (née Lord Byron’s) birthday. He’d be 220.

Byron was acknowledged as the first Scrogue, or Scholar/Rogue by this blog, and it seems only fitting that we should mark the anniversary of his nativity while noting a few of his more interesting cultural and literary contributions.

- Byron first gave us the style of open collared shirts on men. This isn’t to say that such hadn’t been worn before – rather, Byron made wearing one’s shirt collar undone (by either neckerchief, ascot, or other ancestor of that bane of male fashion, the necktie) into a fad that became standard fashion – sort of the way that 60′s counter culture helped denim become a wardrobe necessity; Full story »