Ramblin' with Roger

So what I’d like to know is what advice would you like for that new resident? It might be a baby or immigrant.

I’d like to see if we can find ways to use up fewer of our natural resources, if we could find ways to listen more and talk less, to be courageous in the midst of doubters, and to be tolerant in the midst of fear. I also suggest voting as often as possible; it gives you the right to complain. There’s a blood drive in my building, and the accompanying poster reads something like: “My dad says giving blood is as important as voting.” I thought it was funny, since half the people don’t vote, which, of course, gives those of us who do with more relative power.

It goes on with a complaint by “Ted Shaw, civil rights advocate and president of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund,” who called “for black artists to boycott Billboard.” It has a Jessie Jackson quote. Lynx was apparently distressed about Dave Chapelle’s sketch “depicting a blind, African American, Ku Klux Klan leader who was unaware that he was not white.”

The problem is: I couldn’t find this album ANYWHERE, including on the sisters’ website; they are 14-year-old twins, BTW. What made it initially plausible were the links to the real ABC News stories here (a YouTube video) and here. In fact, the first part of the Ted Shaw quote comes from the linked article. This doesn’t appear on my favorite mythbuster Snopes.com, but this is bogus. I always wonder who has the time or the inclination to make up such garbage.
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Those of you not from the area may have missed the story about 2 guilty in sting case: Muslim immigrants face up to 25 years in prison:

Two Muslim immigrants who were targeted in an FBI sting were convicted on Tuesday of charges they supported terrorism by taking part in a fictitious plot to launder money from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile.
Yassin M. Aref, 36, a Kurdish refugee from northern Iraq whom the FBI identified as their “ultimate target,” was found not guilty on 20 of 30 counts filed against him. But Aref was convicted of several key charges, including money laundering and conspiracy to support terrorism, arguably diminishing the effect of the jury’s acquittals on two-thirds of the indictment against him.
Mohammed M. Hossain, 51, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Bangladesh who arrived in the United States more than 20 years ago aboard a cargo ship, was found guilty on all 27 counts he faced, including conspiracy to support terrorism. Hossain, who co-founded the Central Avenue mosque where Aref was the spiritual leader, owns a pizzeria and was targeted only because of his close relationship with Aref, authorities said.
The case was launched in 2003, after Aref’s name and Albany address were recovered from debris or notebooks in three suspected terrorist encampments during the early stages of the Iraq war. By that time, Aref already had been interviewed by FBI agents who had been assigned to visit mosques and ask Muslims to report any suspicious behavior.
The sting case began in July 2003 when an undercover informant went to Hossain’s small pizza shop and befriended him while posing as a wealthy importer. At the time, Hossain was struggling to keep his business afloat while managing a couple of rental properties he purchased through a county property auction.
The informant offered to loan money to Hossain. The pizzamaker suggested Aref, his mosque’s imam, be brought in to witness their loan transaction, which was what the FBI had hoped would happen.
Authorities contend the pair went along with the deal, even after the informant showed Hossain a shoulder-fired missile while disclosing that he earned money selling weapons to terrorists.
Defense attorneys countered the informant never made it clear the loan was connected to a terrorism plot or a specific terrorism organization, which the indictment alleged. They also said language barriers — the three men all spoke different native languages — prevented the defendants from understanding what was unfolding.
The case drew criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union and other critics of the Bush administration’s post-9/11 counterterrorism tactics. The ACLU had joined the case at one point, unsuccessfully challenging the judge’s decision to allow the government to make numerous classified filings in the case that remain sealed.

Earlier stories noted that “Aref also faces three separate charges for allegedly lying on a green card application and while being interviewed by FBI agents about his ties to a Kurdish political party.” Much of the information was provided by an informant, who was under indictment in another matter.

This case troubled me in so many ways. Not surprisingly, the verdicts are being appealed, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the appeals are successful because:
* The informant is squirrely, and helped in entrapping the others.
* The language barrier was great. The two men convicted and the informant all had different native languages. Indeed, some of the original documents that placed them under suspicion were mistranslated by the government, with one of the men thought to have been addressed as “commander” when the actual word was something more benign, such as “fellow member”.
* Most important is the judge’s instruction to the jury, which stated that the FBI had reason for taking the action they did. It’s not only prejudicial, it seems actionable by the entity that administers judges.
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The local paper has a blog with a weekly feature, This week’s 2-faced heads. “Every Friday, we pass along a little collection of potentially double-meaning headlines culled throughout the week from newspapers, wire services and online sites.” Well, I found one in that paper Tour boat owner remains in cases. If you think of “remains” as a noun, this is a very funny headline about a very sad case, described in the subhead, “Mohican vessel operator kept as a defendant in Ethan Allen deaths”, and the first paragraph: “ALBANY — Two Lake George tour boat companies faced off in U.S. District Court Tuesday over the sinking of the Ethan Allen in which 20 senior citizens drowned.”
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One of my fellow bloggers, knowing I used to work in a comic book store, sent me a link about The Secret Origins of Batman, how Bob Kane (or his assistants) swiped a lot of work. This appeared a few months ago in a column I generally read, but somehow I missed it.

I find it a strange and interesting “dichotomy” that people have concerning the Internet (Blogs, emails). We’ve been at our company looking a User Generated Content (blogs, RSS, etc). And trying to understand this “yet another variation” of cyberspace and how it impacts our company and our clientele. A recent survey by Pew on Bloggers, indicated that Bloggers “see” their blogs as a private thing, in spite of the fact they are using a public medium where everyone and anyone can see it. I cannot help but wonder if cell phones have influenced the blurring of private and public conversations. How many people have you “heard” in a public place that speaking loud enough for everyone in hearing distance on their cell phone, some conversations that really should not be made public.

Things that make you go hmmmmm.

I thought it interesting enough to steal, er, borrow for my blog, but I thought I would ask her. In the TO: line was her name and the listserv name. I swore I had deleted the latter. That is, until I got back my own message, at which point I quickly apologized to the list. One respondent, Dan the Data Wrangler, wrote back: “Hey, no problem….at least it wasn’t one that contained highly personal or salacious content. :-)” I replied, “I try not to do salacious.”

In any case, in searching for the Pew study which the initial writer mentioned, I came across this Business Week article from July 19, 2006 entitled “Pew Blog Study Shows the Lure of Storytelling is High” by Heather Green:

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has a new study out on blogging that finds that most people who blog do it to tell stories about their lives–not to write about politics, tech, or media.
One tidbit I found particularly interesting is that 55% of bloggers write using a pseudonym…
Pew found that about 8%, or 12 million American adults, blog, while 39% of the population, or 57 million people, read blogs.

This, as these things do, led me to another study, Bloggers’ FAQ on Student Blogging:
According to a November 2005 study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 19% of online teens keep a blog and 38% read them. This represents approximately four million students who blog and is a significantly higher percentage than the adult population (7%).

Then, this one: In court, blogs can come back to dog the writers; Use as evidence increases by Sacha Pfeiffer of the Boston Globe, September 28, 2006.

Yes, I’m blogging about blogging again, how I’m a part of a growing number of people putting out whatever random thoughts come to me on a regular basis, and part a slight minority of bloggers who actually doesn’t write pseudonymously. But it’s more about how I’ve seen people in blogs making curious choices about what they put out there. I know one buddy who put out info about his trip to Florida, but it was AFTER he got back – pretty clever, that one. Another chum noted problems at work; hey, I’ve noted my disdain for my new office – the white noise that otherwise would tend to put me to sleep, and as a result, how my caffeine consumption is way up – but that is something I would say, heck, HAVE said, to the powers that be. I don’t say anything that I wouldn’t want quoted out of context. Or at least, I try not to.

The initial quote above was in response to an ongoing dialogue; the previous post was from Dan, who wrote:

Personally, I think the last thing we need is more legislation about privacy, or anything else. As the author you quote notes, and as I hope we all know, anything you ever do, or anything you ever say, put into electronic form, or on paper can probably be retrieved. If you don’t want someone to know what you think, keep it to yourself.

No matter what anyone thinks, privacy doesn’t exist. It may have at one point, but it certainly doesn’t now. Legislation will not change that one bit.

But before that, I’ve been thinking about musical storage, as a result of a question from GayProf. Back when I had a few dozen LPs, they were on a shelf in my room on the floor. In college, I used milk cartons, orange crates, and the traditional cinder blocks and planks.

Then I got hold of used metal racks from somewhere. They had a slight lean to them, so they could only be used in certain parts of the room. I remember once (or more) when a girlfriend thought it would look better somewhere not in a corner, and over my objections, I moved off all my LPs, moved the racks, then loaded the LPs. They stood for about 10 minutes, then collapsed, LPs and all. (“See, I TOLD you it wouldn’t work!”)

Finally, I bought a nice bookcase where my LPs would reside until I got married, when my wife “appropriated” it for the kitchen. My LPs are now in the entertainment center in the first floor, and in an old bookcase of hers on the third. Since the stereo is on the first, this is not what one would call…convenient.

Meanwhile, my CDs were in bookcases as well. When we first moved into this house, I put my CDs in one large bookcase, put some CDs in, then watched helplessly as it fell on top of me, because of the slope of the house. The bookcase was then braced to the wall, and that worked fine until some small person started removing the CDs.

So now my CDs are in four pieces of furniture especially designed for CDs, VCR tapes and the like. They were so hard to put together – they had arms that swing open – that I spent something like six hours putting together the first one, with help from my father-in-law, no less. So for my birthday last year, Carol hired someone to put the other three together. Item 1 contains the CDs A-Harris, item 2 Harrison-Sh, item 3 Si-Z, plus the TV, movie, and Broadway discs, then the compilation disc A-H, and item 4, compilation I-Z, plus the tribute albums, and the Christmas music.

And now, let the coveting/Christmas wish list begin. These are in order by release date:

The River in Reverse- Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint
Released: June 6, 2006
My first album by this artist: Get Happy!, 1980 (Costello). Oh, yeah, he’s only 49.
While I have songs on compilations, and certainly songs that he wrote for other artists, I have no Allen Toussaint albums.

Highway Companion-Tom Petty
Released: July 25, 2006
My first album by this artist: Damn the Torpedoes, 1979

Modern Times-Bob Dylan
Released: August 29, 2006
My first album by this artist: Blonde on Blonde, 1966
Covet. Covet.

Overnight Sensational-Sam Moore
Released: August 29, 2006
My first album by this artist: Best of Sam and Dave, 1969, though my sister had some earlier albums.

Duets: An-American-Classic-Tony-Bennett and a whole bunch of folks
Released: September 26, 2006
My first album by this artist: Basie Swings, Bennett Sings, originally released 1958

Ray Sings, Basie Swings- Ray Charles and Count Basie
Released: October 3, 2006
My first album by this artist: Early Ray Charles, don’t know the date, but it was an LP of his 1940s music, when he was still trying to sound like Nat “King” Cole. (Basie previously cited.)

Songs from the Labyrinth-Sting
Released: October 10, 2006
My first album by this artist: Outlandos d’Amour-the Police, 1979

Also, a good friend of mine recommended that I should get some Howard Tate, and I’m going to add Rediscovered to my list.

Finally, there is the Cirque du Soleil mashup of Beatles tunes for ‘LOVE’, which is supposed to be out next month, and which I will HAVE to get.

The priority list is probably, excluding ‘LOVE’: Dylan, Petty, Costello/Toussaint, Sting, Moore, Bennett, Tate, and Charles/Basie.

But what I did mostly was read newspapers and watch TV. And not just any TV. I watched about a week’s worth of the evening news. I think I was depressed.

Of course, there’s the shootings at the Amish school in Lancaster County, PA, the county adjacent to where Carol and Lydia were going, actually, so I’ve seen those horse and buggies coexisting on the roadway with the cars of “the English”, which is what the Amish call the non-Amish. I was interested to note that the strongest reaction to this event by my wife, more than sadness, more than the initial shock, was anger. This is a woman who just doesn’t get all that angry, but I would define her reaction as really ticked off. I’m sure it was the victimization of girls, and that following the victimization of girls in the Colorado school shooting. For me, the Amish shootings were such shock, I had little reaction until I saw the deputy coroner describe how her job was to count the number of bullets in each of the dead girls’ bodies, at which point, I actually cried about the incident for the first time.

Then there is the war in Iraq. It’s easy to get inured to the death toll of American soldiers, not to mention the Iraqi body count. One friend of mine suggested that the “mainstream media” were underplaying the American deaths; I don’t think so. I think it’s that TWO SOLDIERS DEAD IN A ROADSIDE BOMB happens so often that it’s, I’m afraid, NOT NEWS anymore. It’s only when the number of American deaths spike, as they did during the first week in October, that it becomes particularly noteworthy. (Chris Black, from across the pond, gives excerpts from a Time magazine article about the war.

Of course, there’s former congressman Mark Foley, who bugged lots of people not just because of his inappropriate e-mails, but because he was such a hypocrite, pushing legislation to protect children from Internet predators. Ben Stein complained on CBS Sunday Morning that there are more important issues, such as civil war in the Congo, genocide in Darfur, and the war we’re losing in Afghanistan. True, but I think policy wonk Stein is being disingenuous; the issue has largely ceased to be about Foley and children, and more about power, and who’ll control Congress come January. Should Hastert resign his post? Don’t think it matters terribly much; he’ll be gone as Speaker by January one way or another.

And there are lots of stories people care about, such as the state of Matt Lauer’s marriage, and other celebrity gossip that I don’t care a whit about.

A real Page 3 story is about these unexploded explosives, about a million of them the size of soda cans, that Israel dumped on Lebanon during the 34-day war with Hezbollah. The munitions, mostly American-made, have been injuring three people per day, and killing a few, since the Lebanese have returned to the towns they had evacuated during the fighting.

Which leads me to the story I thought was most inspiring this past week. It’s about a number of white South African mothers who are providing breast milk for black South African babies whose mothers have died from AIDS and are in orphanages. It was such an inspiring story that a woman in the Midwest with a 10-month old heard about it, and she and her friends are sending frozen breast milk to the orphanage, shipped for free by DHL. I’m so glad for some of these upbeat stories to leaven the melancholy that 22 minutes of the news would otherwise cause me.

BTW, I tried to find the story on the ABC News website, searching for “breast milk” and I got: “You’ve entered a Search search term that is likely to contain adult content.” This SO cracked me up that it didn’t bother me that I couldn’t find the story until I Googled it. There’s a link here that does link to the ABC News story.