The Semi-Intimate Journal of Robert Peate

Grammar Guru

rpeate — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:06:31 GMT

There is a certain freelance editor on Facebook who does very well, and good for him. He lives off his editing. He thinks he is a great editor, and others think he is a great editor. I do not think he is a great editor. I own a book he edited, and I found so many errors in it I could hardly believe someone paid him to edit it. He and I differ on grammar, and that is fine too. But the last straw was this post, yesterday:

One reason to love my editing client, Author Jamie McGuire, and her incredibly successful novel, "Beautiful Disaster" is sentences like this: "Locals could smell a hustler from a mile away, but I had two things in my favor that covered the scent of any con: Youth…and tits."

Let's run through the list:

1. Unless "Author" is Jamie's first name, there is no reason to capitalize "author".

2. His first two commas imply she is his only client. They should not be there.

3. His third comma implies it is her only novel. That may be true, but it should not be there, because he is discussing "her novel Beautiful Disaster". Not "her novel, Beautiful Disaster".

4. That brings me to the fact that the title of the novel should be italicized, not in quotation marks.

5. The word "incredible" is most often used improperly, and this is just another example of this. The word "incredible" means "impossible to believe". As in, "Bush's claims of WMD were incredible." NOT as in "her incredible success". "Incredible" does NOT mean "amazing" or "impressive". I blame the show That's Incredible! for twisting the meaning.

6. After the colon, the "y" should not be capitalized, because we are still in the same sentence, in my view. I know that Americans like to do things that don't make sense, so I say "in my view". But I don't like it.

7. The ellipses . . . should have spaces before, between, and behind them.

8. "One reason to love [this writer] is sentences like this"? No. He's missing part of his sentence.

How about:

"One reason to love [this writer] is her tendency to/propensity to/habit of writing sentences like this"

Or:

"Among the many reasons to love [this writer] are sentences like this".

In any case, the parts must agree.

My high-school students write better than this, and this guy is an editor? I just can't stomach it any more.

If you don't care about things like these, hire him. If you do, I'm available for $40 an hour, just like him.

I am not going to name him. I am not going to diss him on Facebook. I am not going to share my feelings with our mutual friends who employ him. But I had to get them out someplace. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! He STINKS!

Birthday Sale

rpeate — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 14:33:22 GMT

My birthday is March 8, and to celebrate, I have decided to lower the prices of all my books to the lowest levels that Amazon will allow.

Cagey and 2 Others: $5.99
The Recovery: $5.99
Gentle Tara and the Butter-Fly Ride: $4.99
Gentle Tara and the Bloodstone Locket: $3.99

http://www.amazon.com/author/robertpeate

These prices will remain in effect until March 9. If you have read my journal and liked it, you might like my actual serious work. If you have read one of these and would like to share it with someone else, now is the time to buy him or her a gift! These book prices will not be this low again for at least another year!

Portland People: PLEASE Help Us

rpeate — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:36:56 GMT

My wife and I are moving from the United States to Saipan in three weeks. (I am the only man in America who just got a teaching job. The problem is it's not in America!) We are looking into quarantining one of our two cats, whom we have had for eight years. We very much need to find a new home for the other, whom we just got last year (August 3, in fact). He's a grey-and-white tabby, short haired, with cute white paws, named Kalamazoo ("Zoo-Zoo").

Zoo-Zoo is affectionate, playful, and smart. He is neutered.

These pictures are from last year, when he was a kitten. He is still handsome.

Someone please give him a home, because our local Humane Society, Cat Adoption Team, and other no-kill shelters have waiting lists months long and I have to be on Saipan on September 1! We are trying desperately to find him a new home.

The Cat Adoption Team said, "We apologize that we are unable to take your cat, but as I am sure you can understand, there are so many folks who are unable to keep their cats due to moving and the economy we just don't have room right now like we would like to."

Before you decide we waited too long to find him a home, please know that we didn't know we were moving to Saipan until now--I only just got the job.

//

ONLY FOR FRIENDS: If I know you, I will provide a financial incentive. If you agree to provide (or find, after we leave) a home for Zoo-Zoo, we will compensate you financially. Please contact me for more information.

Le Bouchon

rpeate — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 14:12:08 GMT

As you know, I write letters of praise all the time, because I feel very strongly that good work should be acknowledged. I feel equally strongly that bad work should be. As a result, I am posting this letter everyplace I can, and this is my first public entry in a long time.

//

M. Musquin:

Yesterday evening my wife, my daughter, and I ate at your restaurant, Le Bouchon. You assaulted our daughter and insulted us, and we will never return.

It was obvious you cared more for your cheap carafe than you did for your customers. The carafe was on the table because your waitress Gigi understands customer service. She did an outstanding job. Instead of berating your staff for actually treating me well, you should have been thanking her. Tea is very important to me (I drank two carafes full). I was very conscious of the location of the carafe, and I would never spill it. To suggest that I would break your precious carafe is to imply that I am thoughtless oaf, which I am not. “I only have one,” you said. So? It was in no danger, and if you continue treating your customers like crap, soon you will have none.

You also overreacted to our daughter touching your mirror. Yes, the mirror moved, and she was surprised. But I told her to be careful, and she was studying what had happened so as not to move it again. Everything was fine until you grabbed her and gave her to my wife rudely (and impatiently) saying, “Keep your kid.” Again, you implied that we did not know what we were doing and that your physical possessions were more important to you than your customers.

The next time you grab our daughter, we will call the police and press assault charges.

Equally obvious was the reason your restaurant was empty on a Friday night. I think everyone understands that you should be alone with your possessions so that no one ever comes near them. I think you should be alone with them. You stared at us until we were out the door, baselessly afraid that our daughter would harm your restaurant. You treated us like criminals. You are a big jerk.

Equally obvious was the fact that your staff suffer a great deal under your oppression. They understand all of this, but they are powerless to tell you anything because you are their employer. I am happy to tell you for them.

I hope you go out of business soon, and I will do everything legal in my power to contribute to this happening. I will tell everyone I know to go elsewhere for a pleasant dining experience, and I have already begun doing so. For $71.50 we could have had a much better supper at Carafe.

You do not know how to run a business. You do not understand customer service. And your food? It is bland and overpriced.

Adieu.

Robert Peate

//

I have now posted this letter to CitySearch:

http://portland.citysearch.com/profile/8463278/portland_or/le_bouchon.html#profileTab-reviews

And to Facebook

And to Yelp:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/le-bouchon-portland?rpp=40&sort_by=date_desc

The Great Purge of 2009: "Everyone Must Go!"

rpeate — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 05:27:15 GMT

This afternoon I wanted to post about something that happened today, but, suffering paranoid delusions as I do, I decided I didn't feel comfortable posting about it in my journal, due to fear of someone taking it and behaving maliciously. That is no way to live, so I came to a radical solution: my biggest friends purge ever! I decided to unfriend every single reader and community I had friended (total: 638!) and start refriending from scratch, refriending only those I knew in person, liked, or otherwise trusted. So that is what I am doing.

Even those whom I had met and liked but simply weren't very involved in my journal are now relieved of duty.

There are 287 of you who have me friended. It will take me a little while to go through you all and decide with whom I feel most comfortable. If you wish to be refriended, let me know, and let me know why, if you don't mind. I think I have the right to know who is reading me and why.

Thanks. And before anyone says, "He's doing this because of what happened this past weekend," well, in a way, that's true. As a result of that situation, I have learned that I cannot trust all my readers with what I wish to post going forward, and I would like to be able to post what I like in an atmosphere of relative security.

I had dozens of persons friended whom I didn't even remember friending, whom I didn't know at all. I might as well have been posting publicly, since I was essentially posting to strangers.

To quote the Master Control Program, "End of line."

Note: because everyone is passing through the "unfriending" tunnel before emerging on the other side, I won't be able to keep track of what filters everyone was in (politics, Claire, etc.). If you find yourself refriended but not seeing the content you did before today, assuming you want to see it again :), please let me know.

[EDIT: I have now gone through all 287 and kept 66. If you wish to be refriended, just comment here.]

This Afternoon Highlights Part I

rpeate — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 04:24:23 GMT

On our way to the hike site, we stopped at a scenic overlook, where I caught this shot.
I think it's cute, even if the father's outfit is not.

The Horsetail Falls.

"He profits most who serves best," this gear next to the Horsetail Falls proclaimed.

Do you agree? Why or why not?

Just a quick establishment shot of the Ponytail Falls.
The young man in the black shorts and his dog went swimming.
By that point I wanted to dive in myself.

Taken from the same spot, looking back at the way we'd come.

Nev and Joe underneath the Ponytail Falls, in what I dubbed the Star Trek set.

Joe Cool, who didn't huff or puff once.

More in another post.

Last Night and Today

rpeate — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 17:07:38 GMT

Last night's supper at the Bridgeport Ale House, which we realised was only our second, was very good. Joe and Nev are good company, and we had a great time talking to them about New Orleans, the Northwest, family politics, Bush, religion, parking courtesy, food, and LiveJournal. Today we hike with them!

New Orleans Status

rpeate — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 22:33:39 GMT

A 50-inch water main break left the city without drinkable water, and the massive power outages caused by the storm are likely to take at least three or four weeks to repair.

Nagin said both the city's airports were under water, the Southern Yacht Club had burned to the ground, an oil tanker had run aground and was leaking, there were gas leaks throughout the city, and Interstate 10's twin spans heading east over the lake were "completely destroyed."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/30/katrina/index.html

I remain very upset by this Humanity-created disaster. The more I read the more I read that the situation is worse today than it was yesterday. No water, no food, no shelter, no law. The entire city is in a pool of unsafe, unsanitary water. Well, Bush will protect us.

Hey, this is interesting

rpeate — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:03:41 GMT

Severe weather occurrences like hurricanes and heat waves already take hundreds of lives and cause millions in damages each year. As the Progress Report has noted, data increasingly suggest that human-induced global warming is making these phenomena more dangerous and extreme than ever. "The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service," science author Ross Gelbspan writes. "Its real name is global warming." AP reported recently on a Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis that shows that "major storms spinning in both the Atlantic and the Pacific ... have increased in duration and intensity by about 50 percent" since the 1970s, trends that are "closely linked to increases in the average temperatures of the ocean surface and also correspond to increases in global average atmospheric temperatures during the same period." Yet just last week, as Katrina was gathering steam and looming over the Gulf, the Bush administration released new CAFE standards that actually encourage automakers to produce bigger, less fuel efficient vehicles, while preventing states from taking strong, progressive action to reverse global warming.

--the Center for American Progress (Goodness knows America needs some!)

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=917053

So, really, Bush has had the most scientific information on global warming presented to him of any president and responded the worst, in ways that not only have increased but will continue to increase the various weather dangers.

I guess you could say that in the past four years, he has not only been neutral but actively harmful. Why, it's almost as if he had a hand in Hurricane Katrina!

rpeate — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 00:19:28 GMT

http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050829/480/laeg11408292251&g=events/ts/080304tropicalweathe

Check out these pictures. Some were actually trapped on their roofs, as in the joke about God sending relief.

Katrina and the Waves

rpeate — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 15:53:58 GMT

In advance of Hurricane Katrina, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, a major American city, New Orleans, is being completely evacuated. As usual, however, I'd better not mention global warming or Bush's responsibility.

Four years ago, when Bush consciously, wilfully, and maliciously pulled the United States out of the Kyoto treaty, he did so saying it would be bad for our economy. The larger ironies of how well our economy has been doing and how much cheaper oil is now ASIDE, I guess that means that not only is New Orleans expendable, but it is an active detriment to our economy that has to go! Good riddance, New Orleans, you DRAIN ON OUR ECONOMY! We're going to fill your drain with water but good now!

It drives me crazy that since at least 1990 I have known we needed to switch to renewable energy sources and we have yet to do so! The polluters and their supporters ARE TO BLAME, whether the Kyoto treaty would have taken effect by now or prevented this or not. Kyoto was just a good first step. Much more needed and needs to be done! Those who have supported pollution have supported its effects, and are responsible for them!

Oh, well, there's no proof of artificial climate change anyway, so let's drill in Alaska.

Read this and weep:

//

The New York Times
August 28, 2005

Mandatory Evacuation Ordered for New Orleans as Storm Nears
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 11:10 a.m. ET

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Mayor Ray Nagin ordered an immediate evacuation Sunday for all of New Orleans, a city sitting below sea level with 485,000 inhabitants, as Hurricane Katrina bore down with wind revved up to nearly 175 mph and a threat of a massive storm surge.

Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave, the city set up 10 places of last resort including the Superdome arena.

''This is a once in a lifetime event,'' the mayor said. ''The city of New Orleans has never seen a hurricane of this magnitude hit it directly.''

The mayor called the order unprecedented, but said Katrina's storm surge would likely top the levees that protect the city from the surrounding water of Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River and marshes. The bowl-shaped city must pump water out even during normal times, and the hurricane threatened pump power.

''We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared,'' Nagin said.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Interstate 10, which was converted Saturday so that all lanes headed one-way out of town, was totally gridlocked.

At 11 a.m. EDT, the National Hurricane Center said Katrina's maximum sustained wind speed had stepped up to nearly 175 mph, with higher gusts. The hurricane's eye was about 225 miles south-southeast of the mouth of Mississippi River.

The storm was moving toward the west-northwest at nearly 12 mph and was expected to turn toward the north-northwest, the hurricane center said.

The mayor said people who opted to go to the Superdome should come with enough food and supplies to last three to five days. He said police and firefighters would fan out throughout the city telling residents to get out. He also said police would have the authority to commandeer any vehicle or building that could be used for evacuation or shelter.

A hurricane warning was in effect for the north-central Gulf Coast from Morgan City, La., to the Alabama-Florida line, meaning hurricane conditions were expected within 24 hours, the hurricane center said. Tropical storm warnings extended east to Indian Pass, Fla., and west to Cameron, La.

Katrina had been blamed for nine deaths in South Florida.

The storm had the potential for storm surge flooding of up to 25 feet, topped with even higher waves, as much as 15 inches of rain, and tornadoes, the National Hurricane Center said.

Only three Category 5 hurricanes -- the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale -- have hit the United States since record-keeping began. The last was 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which leveled parts of South Florida, killed 43 people and caused $31 billion in damage. The other two were the 1935 Labor Day hurricane that hit the Florida Keys and killed 600 people and Hurricane Camille, which devastated the Mississippi coast in 1969, killing 256.

The hurricane's landfall could still come in Mississippi and affect Alabama and Florida, but it looked likely to come ashore Monday morning on the southeastern Louisiana coast, said Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. That put New Orleans squarely in the crosshairs.

''If it came ashore with the intensity it has now and went to the New Orleans area, it would be the strongest we've had in recorded history there,'' Rappaport said in a telephone interview Sunday morning. ''We're hoping of course there'll be a slight tapering off at least of the winds, but we can't plan on that. So whichever area gets hit, this is going to be a once in a lifetime event for them.''

He said loss of life was ''what inevitably occurs'' with a storm this strong.

''We're in for some trouble here no matter what,'' he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Hurricane-Katrina.html

This is extremely fucked up, and I am very upset about it.

Some more Yahoo! headline fun:

rpeate — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 15:35:04 GMT

"Sunnis reject draft of Iraqi constitution."

"Bush seeks to dispel criticism on Iraq."

"Church: God punishing GIs over gays."

What Are Moral Values?

rpeate — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 16:37:16 GMT

What Are Moral Values?

by Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers
Mayflower Church, Oklahoma City

As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, a church in northwest Oklahoma City, and professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for six years, and hold the record for the most number of angry letters to the editor.

Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by those who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian.

We've heard a lot lately about so-called "moral values" as having swung the election to President Bush. Well, I'm a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country, about exactly what constitutes a moral value -- I mean what are we talking about? Because we don't get to make them up as we go along, especially not if we are people of faith. We have an inherited tradition of what is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does. Let me give you just a few of the reasons why I take issue with those in power who claim moral values are on their side:

When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act as if your deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will, and that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some of us who have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral.

When you live in a country that has established international rules for waging a just war, build the United Nations on your own soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral.
When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and yet fail to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching, or turn them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount stuff like that we must never return violence for violence and that those who live by the sword will die by the sword), you are doing something immoral.

When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse to even count them, you are doing something immoral.

When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then question the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight, and came home a hero, you are doing something immoral.

When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the gospel, which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate ethical test, by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral.

When you wink at the torture of prisoners, and deprive so-called "enemy combatants" of the rules of the Geneva Conventions, which your own country helped to establish and insists that other countries follow, you are doing something immoral.

When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good guys and the evil doers, slice up your own nation into those who are with you, or with the terrorists -- and then launch a war which enriches your own friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted, instead of helping us to kick the habit, you are doing something immoral.

When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask us to pay for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of our children, you are doing something immoral.

When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that was once the most loved country in the world, and act like it doesn't matter what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, you have done something immoral.

When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turn out record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.

When you favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be a follower of Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the old way, not the way of the kingdom, you are doing something immoral.

When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth which is God's gift to us all, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton.

When you claim that our God is bigger than their God, and that our killing is righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.

When you tell people that you intend to run and govern as a "compassionate conservative," using the word which is the essence of all religious faith -- compassion, and then show no compassion for anyone who disagrees with you, and no patience with those who cry to you for help, you are doing something immoral.

When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer of the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in her pocket, you are doing something immoral.

When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and will set women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing something immoral.

I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm a Christian, I must be a supporter of President Bush, or that because I favor civil rights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith. I'm tired of people saying that I can't support the troops but oppose the war.

I heard that when I was your age, when the Vietnam war was raging. We knew that that war was wrong, and you know that this war is wrong -- the only question is how many people are going to die before these make-believe Christians are removed from power?

This country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt. The claim of this administration to be Christian is bankrupt. And the only people who can turn things around are people like you--young people who are just beginning to wake up t owhatishappeningtothem.It'syour country to take back. It's your faith to take back. It's your future to take back.

Don't be afraid to speak out. Don't back down when your friends begin to tell you that the cause is righteous and that the flag should be wrapped around the cross, while the rest of us keep our mouths shut. Real Christians take chances for peace. So do real Jews, and real Muslims, and real Hindus, and real Buddhists--so do all the faith traditions of the world at their heart believe one thing: life is precious. Every human being is precious. Arrogance is the opposite of faith. Greed is the opposite of charity. And believing that one has never made a mistake is the mark of a deluded man, not a man of faith. And war -- war is the greatest failure of the human race -- and thus the greatest failure of faith.

There's an old rock and roll song, whose lyrics say it all: War, what is it good for? absolutely nothing. And what is the dream of the prophets? That we should study war no more, that we should beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. Who would Jesus bomb, indeed?

How many wars does it take to know that too many people have died? What if they gave a war and nobody came? Maybe one day we will find out.

Time to march again my friends. Time to commit acts of civil disobedience. time to sing, and to pray, and refuse to participate in the madness.

http://www.mayflowerucc.org/

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9707.htm

Thanks to davidfcooper.

Bike-Deep in the Big Muddy

rpeate — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 14:48:59 GMT

Bike-Deep in the Big Muddy
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: August 27, 2005
WASHINGTON

W. has jumped the couch.

Not fallen off the couch, as he did when he choked on that pretzel.

Jumped it.

According to UrbanDictionary.com, "jump the couch" has now become slang for "a defining moment when you know someone has gone off the deep end. Inspired by Tom Cruise's recent behavior on 'Oprah.' Also see 'jump the shark.' "

The former stateside National Guardsman who was sometimes M.I.A. jumped the shark by landing on that "Mission Accomplished" carrier. (With Tom Cruise cockiness.)

Then, as president, he jumped the couch by pedaling through the guns of August - the growing carnage and chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He did do a few minutes of work this month, calling a Shiite leader in Baghdad a few days ago to lobby him to reach a consensus with the Sunnis, so Iraq doesn't crack apart. But the Shiites and Kurds ignored the president and skewered the Sunnis.

Iraq, it turns out, is the one branch of American government that the Republicans don't control.

W. had a barbecue for the press on Thursday night. (If only the press had grilled him instead.) He mingled over catfish and potato salad with the reporters, who had to ride past Cindy Sheehan's antiwar encampment to get to the poolside party.

Dan Froomkin wrote on the Washington Post Web site that many of the reporters "fawned over Bush, following him around in packs every time he moved." W. chatted about sports and the twins, still oblivious to the cultural shift that is turning 2005 into 1968.

As the news correspondent Dan Harris noted on ABC on Wednesday, the mood is much different now from what it was when the Dixie Chicks got pilloried for criticizing the president just before the war began.

The No. 1 music video requested on MTV is Green Day's antiwar song, "Wake Me Up When September Ends," about the pain of soldiers and their families. On Sunday, Joan Baez sang peace anthems at Camp Casey, including "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" The N.F.L. did not cancel its sponsorship of the Rolling Stones tour, even though the band has a new song critical of Mr. Bush and the war.

Gary Hart began his Washington Post op-ed piece this week by quoting from an anti-Vietnam War song, "Waist-deep in the Big Muddy, and the big fool said to push on."

The former campaign manager for George McGovern's antiwar campaign in 1972 wrote: "We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began. Who now has the courage to say this?"

Anxiety is growing among politicians on both sides of the aisle. More and more Americans don't want to stay-the-course on stay-the-course.

You'd think that by now, watching the meshugas in Iraq, the Bush crowd would have learned some lessons about twisting facts to suit ideology, and punishing those who try to tell the truth. But they're still behaving like Cinderella's evil stepsisters, who cut their feet to fit them into the glass slipper: butchering reality to make the fairy tale come out their way.

Eric Lichtblau reported in The Times this week that the administration was dumping the highly respected Lawrence Greenfeld, appointed by President Bush in 2001 to head the Bureau of Justice Statistics, because he refused superiors' orders to delete from a press release an account of how black and Hispanic drivers were treated more aggressively by the police after traffic stops. The Justice Department study showed markedly higher rates of searches and use of force for black and Hispanic drivers, compared with white drivers.

Fearing that the survey would give ammunition to members of Congress who object to using racial and ethnic data in terrorism and law enforcement investigations, Mr. Greenfeld's supervisors buried it online with no press release or briefing for Congress.

Mr. Lichtblau wrote that when Mr. Greenfeld sent the planned press release to the office of his supervisor, Tracy Henke, then an acting assistant attorney general, the section on the treatment of black and Hispanic drivers was crossed out with a notation: "Do we need this?" Ms. Henke herself had added a note: "Make the changes."

Like Condi Rice, Stephen Hadley, John Bolton and others who helped spin reality to suit political ends, Ms. Henke was rewarded by the president. She has been nominated for a senior post in the Homeland Security Department.

I feel safer already.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/27/opinion/27dowd.html

Of Potential Interest to Us All

rpeate — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 14:40:20 GMT

As blogging grows, companies eye legal pitfalls
By Martha Graybow

Fri Aug 26,11:32 AM ET

As Corporate America wades into the burgeoning world of Internet Web logs, companies are being warned they could face legal hazards when employees are let loose in the free-wheeling blogosphere.

Blogs, online journals that are proliferating on the Web, are attracting attention from big businesses looking for new ways to connect with customers. Sun Microsystems Inc., Microsoft Corp. and General Motors Corp all have officially sanctioned corporate blogs for employees to write about products and strategy.

But lawyers see possible legal pitfalls for companies looking to join the blogging phenomenon. What, for instance, would happen if someone at a publicly traded company unwittingly divulged confidential financial information or a trademark secret on one of these Web diaries?

There already have been cases of people being fired for writing about life inside their companies on blogs not affiliated with their employers. Experts say the real test will come when courts must consider the legal ramifications of what employees say on corporate blogs.

"There's very, very little case law at this point," said Paul Arne, co-chairman of the technology group at law firm Morris Manning & Martin LLP. He recently conducted a telephone seminar for other corporate lawyers to discuss blogging.

It's no surprise that big businesses are increasingly interested in blogs. An estimated 40,000 to 50,000 new blogs are created each day, according to Intelliseek, a technology company that tracks developments in the medium.

At Sun Microsystems, about 2,000 employees blog, including President and Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Schwartz.

Schwartz's Web columns touch on everything from how businesses can keep customers happy to his brush with national recognition when he was mentioned on the "Late Show with David Letterman" in a list of the "Top 10 Signs Your Kid is Spending Too Much Time on the Internet."

In a nod to potential legal dangers, Schwartz abandoned attempts at an April Fool's Day practical joke entry earlier this year, telling readers it would have been difficult to post such a blog without "serious engagement from the corporate legal team."

Sun was one of the first companies to publish a blogging policy for its employees. Workers are reminded that talking about Sun's revenue outlook or stock price on company blogs "is apt to get you, or the company, or both, into legal trouble."

Sun's bloggers also are cautioned to protect corporate secrets and that "using your Web log to trash or embarrass the company, our customers, or your co-workers, is not only dangerous but stupid."

The blogging handbook does not "really set any new policies -- it just points people to the ones that already exist and apply," said Tim Bray, Sun's director of Web technologies.

But he said the policy was needed because many of the company's bloggers are scientists and engineers who don't typically discuss company business in public.

KEEPING TABS ON EMPLOYEE BLOGS

Companies also are grappling with how to deal with workers who write personal blogs that discuss their employers.

In one case, a Delta Air Lines Inc. flight attendant contends that she was suspended, then fired, because she posted pictures of herself wearing her company uniform on a personal blog. She filed a sexual discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying Delta did not fire men for similar conduct.

A former Google Inc. software programmer was fired in January after commenting on his personal blog about the goings-on inside the Internet search company.

Mara Levin, an employment attorney at law firm Herrick Feinstein, said she has been busy helping companies update their employment manuals with blogging policies.

"They are enacting clear guidelines in order to ensure that they are not exposed to liability," she said. Some companies also "are looking to see if an employee has a blog before they hire them. You learn a lot about a person by reading their blog."

While blogging is growing at the corporate level, few top executives have embraced the technology themselves. Bob Parsons, CEO of privately held domain name registrar GoDaddy.com, says that's because many executives fear speaking their mind.

Parsons has a personal blog that discusses business as well as topics such as his combat experiences in Vietnam. He said he never vets his content with lawyers, but that he might have to reconsider if his company were ever to go public.

"The blog is unsanitized," he said. "Most executives are too conservative, and too play-it-safe to do this."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050826/us_nm/bizfeature_blogging_dc

The Reality of the War.

rpeate — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 16:30:58 GMT

Another post from Sergeant Strickland.

21 July 2005: The Worst Day of My Life

I remember having a hard time focusing, what seemed like hours of tasks and seconds to do them. Beneath me was the road, black topped, six foot embankments dropping on either side, a canal to the north reeded and muddy, and farmland stretching everywhere else. It was the Mulla Fayad expressway screaming "welcome to the cootch of civilization" its mouth split wide by a 250 lb aerial bomb and two propane tanks wired together as a carepackage from the insurgency...

Six foot down lay Ingram, next to his rolled truck, forearm severed but for a 3 inch chunk of skin. The lower arm made a 120 degree angle halfway between his wrist and elbow, and two, yes two, tourniquets were trying to stop the growing blood puddle and failing.
Six foot down lay Brown, face first in the mud, shoved into by the weight of the truck he´d been tossed from, crushed by. He spoke through red chunked teeth, a jaw broken in two places, and gurgles, and curses.
Six foot up was the lieutenant being command-like and frozen in his truck.
Six foot up was the cyber-one (Still waiting on that charicature to be posted deanmoriarty77) blanking on the medevac request.
It was the enlisted men and I who went six feet down to help our friends. 3 on the guns. 1 securing detainees. The rest treating wounded, wide eyed, breathless. We had to do anything.
Check Joe for breath.
Bleeding?
Bones?
I blank. Get Doc.
Yelling 2 litter urgents to Reggie, get him on the medevac request.
Check security.
Get hextend (blood clotter) to Ingram, open the flow.
Calm him. Me. Pray. Tighten tourniquet.
The puddle is growning and somehow his sleeve is making a sickly balloon of blood.
He gets quiet. Keep him talking.
Yell stop standing around, get stretchers, prep medevac site.
I say goodbye to Brown, levelling with him on the extent of his injuries, trying to joke, trying to calm. he and i had a conversation 45 minutes prior. we both agreed these hasty planless, aimless patrols to nowhere was a waste of manpower. That we were sure to get hit. Same old story two months into this year.
We load the wounded and I gain some focus while pulling security, waiting for recovery assets, waiting to be attacked again. Focus gets me into the downed humvee, forcing it gas down, oil spewing, up the embankment, surprised it still ran (sort of). Sitting there waiting to be towed (I stayed behind the wheel) I lost focus again, going from wide pan frantic scan to close in fixation. Shrapnel in the windshield, bloodstains and pools lingering inside. A persistent hanging odor, a mixture of freon and mortality had me a the heave. Anyone who´s worked in a slaughterhouse or grocery store meat department knows the stink I speak of. The meat locker. Processed and reprocessed air. Stale. Soaked. Heavy. once it got in my nostrils I smelt it with and without the air on, in and out of the truck, and two days on.
Mixed reactions of Iraqis we drove past won fixations as well. Faces. Reactions, and no sound. Children not trying hard not to look at the wreckage we towed through their city. Adults had a hard time not reacting likewise. Eyes not averting, pointing fingers and mouthed words just barely held back. Quickly hidden smiles, doubletakes, stares. The first impression that destruction leaves. My windshield catching their thoughts before they saw me, torquing the wheel behind it.

Yep, shitty day.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/rev_wayfarer/52446.html

I am going to think of Sergeant Thomas Strickland every time I think of this war. He was twenty-seven, to be twenty-eight next month. I am thirty-five. I can imagine dying at twenty-seven, but it is wrong, very wrong, to die for nothing, in a sinkhole on the other side of the World in Iraq, a place we have no business being, simply because Bush had wet dreams involving Saddam Hussein in prison.

Yahoo! Headline.

rpeate — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 15:29:55 GMT

"CIA Panel: 9/11 Failure Warrants Action."

You think?

Sergeant Thomas J. Strickland

rpeate — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 14:51:15 GMT

LJ user rev_wayfarer, a.k.a. Sergeant Thomas J. Strickland, 27, has died in Iraq. Stationed in Al Mahmudiyah, he was one of those who died when his vehicle overturned in a sinkhole on August 15. I heard about that on the news and thought it was just about the most senseless example of death in this whole senseless war: dead because they drove over the wrong patch of ground. Their vehicle flipped into the sand and buried them alive, choking on sand, trapped in their own vehicle. Now I learn one of these unfortunate victims of Bush was an LJ user. This fascinating excerpt was written two days before his absurdly horrific death, on August 13:

The insurgency is on the rise in our area, with a most impressive coordinated assault on one of my sister FOBs (St. Joe) under their belt. Apparently they have enough folks and sophistication in my back yard where they can simultaneously place accurate mortar rounds on three seperate locations (at least 30k apart) to tie up any ground mounted quick reaction forces, as well as offer up multiple RPG strikes on the guard towers at Joe. These RPG attacks really bring out the QRF who face their own ambush as they come out the gate, at least 12 insurgents occupying buildings with an overwatch position to Joe's only entrance armed with more rpg's and small arms. The only possible responses are tanks or Apaches. Luckily we have both on call. 12 dead insurgents, destroyed buildings, a compromised FOB, sustained, accurate and unaswered indirect fire and lots o [sic] unanswered questions later... I'm here.

What the fuck has my chain of command been doing? We were winning somewhat when I left. And now we're being pinned down in our own fucking homes? Insurgents are pushing locals out of their homes and taking over my area at will? What kind of fucktarded plan have we been half-assedly executing? Obviously the kind that neglects sound contact with locals. Obviously the kind that gives further distance to unbridged gaps between soldiers and locals. Obviously the kind that has shown enough weakness when confronted by the insugency [sic] that it has been encouraged to grow.

Back home (the USA kind) I have no home, no job, and my commander in chief is on vacation (he's about 20 days behind Ronald Reagan right now in the race to become the most vacationing president ever. Hey W! we all got our fingers crossed! Here's to you and two more years of presidency...er vacationing!). Luckily pretty much everything that is important to me can fit into the back of a truck. Luckily I just paid off one of those.

In their fear to build relationships and get out of their hiding holes the FOBbits above me have fucked my friends and I.

We've just completed the first 1/4 of our tour. we've sent 4 of 24 members of this platoon home with injuries.

Thankfully we're not like another who has sent 8 home in body bags...but we got 9 months to go.

The full entry: http://www.livejournal.com/users/rev_wayfarer/54995.html

From now on, whenever anyone suggests that those who oppose this war or its execution are harming troop morale, I will simply quote him: "What kind of fucktarded plan have we been half-assedly executing?"

Obviously it's a good thing this anti-American communist is dead, because also obviously he was against our Illustrious Leader, and that is not allowed. Even more obvious is that his destruction of unit cohesion is to blame for the accident that led to the deaths, so he got what he deserved, the unpatriotic traitor. It's just a shame he had to take good Americans with him on his descent into HELL.

On second thought, it was worth their sacrifice just to get rid of such a bad apple.

Really, he must have been an ENEMY COMBATANT ON A SUICIDE MISSION, to destroy one of our vehicles!! Oh, the evil of our enemy knows no bounds! It will even masquerade as American!

From his user-info page:

A friend asked me to keep a journal of my tour in Iraq. He said he'd want to read it when I got back. I think he'll expect a recounting of days, a memoir of events and actions. I don't expect it to be a record like that at all. What I'm after is an outlet, an escape, a hiding place for the me that takes a back seat when I put on my uniform, when I wear the face of a soldier (the only me most of you have met). Don't get me wrong...I've never been directly pressured by a fellow serviceman of any rank to be anyone but myself, and I don't want anyone who might read this to understand my second self as anything but the me I CHOOSE to hide, the me I want SECURED in my own words. Losing that me is my irrational fear, because it is me who has set that self aside with each wearing of the uniform, since the beginning of my enlistment.

Back to topic: Whether this and my paper journal remain an expression of myslf that is poet, critic, intellect, and humanist or they become the ritual memory of the me that is soldier, scout, trained killer, I can't predict. I expect what I write to be as full of contradictions as I am. I expect what I write to be warm, cold, complicated, simple, contrived, honest, direct and abstract. I expect it, above all, to be an imperfect reflection and expression of that greatest contradiction, humanity.

And now I see he was a member of ljdemocrats. Wow.

Bush, you fucker.

New slogan: SUPPORT THE TROOPS. PREVENT MORE SENSELESS DEATH.

Thanks to tittergrrl.

Gas

rpeate — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 04:30:56 GMT

"Polls show that the public blames politicians — after oil companies and foreign oilproducing countries — for the high prices.

. . .

"Gas this week reached a record nationwide average of $2.61 for a gallon for self-serve regular, according to AAA."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20050825/ts_latimes/gopfearsgaspriceangermayspillover

What IS the official reason for the skyrocketing fuel prices? The average price per gallon of gasoline has gone up 50% since January. What is the official reason for that, and what is the real reason, if they differ?

Here's a chart of the average price: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8533441/

rpeate — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 15:58:38 GMT

Can anyone provide to me the exact quotation and source for Bush in late 2001 urging everyone to go shopping to fight terrorism?

[I believe this is the main one:

"And one of the great goals of this nation's war is to restore public confidence in the airline industry. It's to tell the traveling public: Get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010927-1.html

But I honestly don't find it egregious.]

Citizen Cindy!

rpeate — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 19:07:04 GMT

"Bush is trying to rebuild support for the Iraq mission in the face of a growing opposition led by Sheehan . . . "

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050824/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

Wow. That's pretty impressive, Mom!

The America in which we live today.

rpeate — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 14:53:08 GMT

Demonizing Dissent

As dissatisfaction with the administration's Iraq policy mounts, President Bush's approval ratings have plummeted to just 36 percent -- three points lower than President Nixon's approval ratings during the height of the Watergate scandal in the summer of 1973. According to Gallup, "Americans have become negative about the war in Iraq more quickly than they did for the Vietnam War." The most recent quarterly data found "50% say it was a mistake to send troops. ... In the comparable quarter for the Vietnam War, Gallup found 41% saying the conflict was a mistake." On the surface, Bush claims to respect people who disagree with him. On Monday, a White House spokesperson said Bush "believes that Americans, obviously, have a right to express their views. That’s part of being American. That’s one of the things we’re fighting for.” In actuality, the administration has launched an effort to demonize Bush's critics. It's an underreported aspect of a coordinated public relations campaign by President Bush and his allies to rebuild support for the war. Real leadership means accepting real debate.

BUSH SPOKESMAN SAYS CRITICS WANT TERRORISTS TO WIN: Aboard Air Force One Monday, "Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman ... said that President Bush believes that those who want the U.S. to begin to change course in Iraq do not want America to win the overall 'war on terror.'" Duffy said that Bush "can understand that people don't share his view that we must win the war on terror ... but he just has a different view."

RUMSFELD COMPARES CRITICS TO COMMUNISTS, STALINISTS: In a press briefing yesterday Donald Rumsfeld, referring to Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), noted that "it's been alleged that we're not winning" in Iraq. Rumsfeld made it clear that he has no respect for people who question his policies or progress in Iraq. He noted that "[t]hroughout history there have always been those who predict America's failure just around every corner. At the height of World War II ... [m]any Western intellectuals praised Stalin ... [f]or a time, Communism was very much in vogue." Rumsfeld added, "those being tossed about by the winds of concern should recall that Americans are a tough lot and will see their commitments through." Apparently, our most important commitment is a reflexive acceptance of Rumsfeld's policies.

BUSH SAYS SHEEHAN DOESN'T SPEAK FOR MOST FAMILIES: The White House touts the "private meetings" President Bush has with the families of fallen soldiers. Yesterday, at a resort in Donnelly, Idaho, Bush dispensed with confidentiality to score political points. Speaking with reporters, Bush claimed Cindy Sheehan -- a war critic who lost her son in Iraq -- "doesn't represent the view of a lot of the families I have met with." Bush was met in Donnelly, a town of 130 people, by more than 200 protesters.

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=914257&ct=1350881

Bush Lies Some More

rpeate — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 19:57:38 GMT

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/23/bush.iraq.ap/index.html

I found this article interesting, in that it serves Bush' interests to tarnish and slander all who oppose his war in Iraq. He can generalize that all who oppose his war want all the troops brought home immediately.

"Those who advocate the immediate withdrawal ... not only from Iraq but from the Middle East are advocating a policy that would weaken the United States," he said.

And that is true. But that is not the issue. I advocate the immediate admission of error, the immediate apology to the U.N., and the immediate humble request that the U.N. take over the situation in Iraq, with our force being just one equal part of a larger one. This would, of course, mean bringing some of our troops home but more into Iraq from other countries. Only the legitimacy of the U. N. can bring peace and order to Iraq. Unilateral occupation is what has created the resentment giving rise to the armed resistance there. I will always wonder why that is hard for the Bush supporters to understand. It's the arrogance and domination, stupid.

Bush, who is seeking to quell growing criticism at home over the Iraq war, told the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Salt Lake City on Monday that "a policy of retreat and isolation will not bring us safety."

That is also true. No one has advocated that. But I understand, again, that it serves Bush's interests to misrepresent the opposition to his gross blunder in Iraq.

Robertson Today Calls for Assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

rpeate — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 01:16:22 GMT

Pat Robertson, host of Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club and founder of the Christian Coalition of America, today called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

From the August 22 broadcast of The 700 Club:

ROBERTSON: There was a popular coup that overthrew him [Chavez]. And what did the United States State Department do about it? Virtually nothing. And as a result, within about 48 hours that coup was broken; Chavez was back in power, but we had a chance to move in. He has destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and he's going to make that a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent.

You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger and the United ... This is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced. And without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200508220006

Thanks to joiseyguy.

Unfuckingbelievable.

Gasoline: a Controversial Thought

rpeate — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 15:19:59 GMT

Before the ascendancy of the internal combustion engine IN CERTAIN PARTS OF THE WORLD, we all travelled by horse (horse and wagon, et cetera), sailboat, even bicycle. (Much of the World still does.) The end of fossil fuels, at worst, would mean a return to those methods. What is fearsome about this? I do not understand. But that is not even what would happen, as we are creating new ways to harness the power of the Sun, water, and wind. So: even the worst case is simply what we had before, and that is not what will happen.

Let's drop fossil fuels today! (By "drop" I mean the decision to switch gradually, not an instant cessation of use.)

Is there something I'm missing here?