Nothing up my sleeve
It's fairly obvious that the current Shays-Meehan version of Campaign Finance Reform is actually Incumbent Protection, and does nothing to remove the influence of money from politics. (But then, nothing can.) Aside from its subtler implications (of which one is described here), the prohibition of campaign advertisements that name names within 60 days of an election is blatantly unconstitutional. John McCain (who co-sponsored the previous attempt, McCain-Feingold) told Bill O'Reilly that the bill is phrased such that if parts of it are thrown out on that basis, the rest remains in force. This is supposed to make me feel better.

The only financial reform our elected representatives are interested in is reforming themselves into office and reforming as much money as possible into their own pockets. Repeat after me: "The foxes are guarding the henhouse."

I favor removing any and all restrictions on who may give money to whom -- with full financial disclosure. OpenSecrets.org is a great start.

More at Reason Online.

The world's worst flag
Okay, I had more to say. So sue me.

The highest-scoring flags all embody the five basic principles listed in NAVA�s upcoming publication on flag design, Good Flag, Bad Flag:
1. Keep It Simple (The flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory�)
2. Use Meaningful Symbolism (The flag�s images, colors, or patterns should relate to what it symbolizes�)
3. Use 2�3 Basic Colors (Limit the number of colors on the flag to three, which contrast well and come from the standard color set�)
4. No Lettering or Seals (Never use writing of any kind or an organization�s seal�)
5. Be Distinctive or Be Related (Avoid duplicating other flags, but use similarities to show connections�)

The new Georgia flag fails all five of these principles. I defy anyone, including Governor Barnes whose pet project this was, to sketch the five mini-flags at the bottom in their correct order on the flag -- which, by the way, is not chronological. Darned if I can figure out what order they're in.

Don't get me wrong. The flag needed to be changed.

I am not among those who thinks of the Confederate stars and bars as a Symbol of Slavery. (Those who have looked no further might find it enlightening to study the other issues behind the American Civil War. I won't deny that slavery was an issue: It wasn't the issue.) That doesn't really matter. The fact is that a significant percentage of the population of the State of Georgia, rightly or wrongly, were insulted and offended by the flag that flew over us. That is reason enough to change it.

But the pre-1956 Georgia flag was a lovely flag. The basic design also dated from the Confederacy, but it carried less baggage. What was wrong with it? Well, apparently, it was felt that it would have been seen as a capitulation to the SCLC. (It's represented: Bottom center on the yellow banner.)

But nobody seems happy with the new flag, so what was gained?

LATER: Photodude got there first. Twice. And Fark.com's contributors (use caution if browsing from work) know a sucky flag when they see one.

Short takes
Life is hard when you're Miss America.

The fireplace on NBC's Olympics coverage set is fake. Well, of course it is, it's a set. No, it's really fake: It's a video monitor.

It's official: The current Georgia state flag is the ugliest on the continent, and it wasn't even close. Hey, let's go for the world title!

Wish I'd said it: People who say that money can�t buy happiness are just no good at shopping.

Stars and Stripes Forever...or at least for now
I guess America has "returned to normal", whatever that means, if people are arguing about this. John Carman, writing for the SF Chronicle, wonders how long Leno and Letterman are going to continue wearing flag pins. It's entertaining enough, for a while, but then it hits what is, for me, a massive speed bump:

"The pins have to come off sometime, if only because in another year or two, they will reclaim their original meaning: I am a conservative Republican, and more American than you."

Original meaning? Only if history began in 1968 at Haight Ashbury.

I'll admit I was disconcerted when flags started reappearing in massive numbers, in the most unlikely places, in the aftermath of 9-11. The news networks made it a part of their identification graphics and "bugs", and that really irks me. And "God Bless America" still looks out of place on the marquee in front of KFC.

Jeff Jarvis at "WarLog: World War III" summarizes some very good arguments for and against wearing one. This is one of those rare moments where Doonesbury actually gets it right, although as usual Trudeau backs into the message and nearly subverts it in the process. (For some reason the "real link" will not work for me: Perhaps this one will work for you.)

"You guys [meaning conservatives] hijacked the flag years ago, during the Cold War, especially the Vietnam era, turning it into a symbol of unquestioning, jingoistic nationalism."

No, Garry, nobody hijacked the flag. Sixties liberal philosophy spat at it, shat on it, and burned it. The right flew it because they could: You rejected it because they embraced it. It was your flag too, even then, but you didn't want it.

"Now it's back to being a symbol of patriotism and love of country, not a particular political agenda. So thanks for restoring it to ALL of us."

So now you want it again. Welcome back. We really are one country, still, and that which unites us is, as ever, more important than that which divides us.

Short takes
Okay, you people who have been Googling for "Mardi Gras 2002 Nude" for the last week (and I know you have, because you've been hitting my page, as incriminating as that sounds): Do you own a calendar? Mardi Gras 2002 is tomorrow. Nobody's gonna have any yet.

Finally, someone agrees with me about the pointlessness of grammar-school Valentine's-Day-exchanges. Why did it have to be Slate?

In the Salt Lake City Olympic opening ceremonies, did Bob Costas actually say "Here comes New Zealand, and there are no Hobbits marching in with them"?

It's a bad time to be a Britney Spears fan...
...what with every blog in creation linking back to that Weekly Standard parody. All those (not that) innocent fans, searching the web for fresh (un-) coverage (goodness knows information about, and photos of, Britney Spears are sparse on the web), and within the space of a week, their Google searches return dozens of these blog things, whatever they are, but there's nothing on 'em but text, and they aren't even about Britney Spears. Nude or otherwise.

Thank goodness I'm not playing that game.

Bloggin' foole
Why is it I find John Dvorak's discovery of blogging to be mildly annoying, yet the Weekly Standard's wicked parody has me rolling on the floor? (Or ROTF LMAO, as we webdenizens say.) Both contain valid observations, good and bad, regarding the state of the art.

I think it's because the parody is so light-hearted, where Dvorak takes his subject matter, and himself, too seriously. I've seen the attitude in professional (that is, paid) writers before: Writing is a chore they perform because it beats honest work, but they derive no great pleasure from its practice. Thus, in a community where most of us are writing purely for the love of it, Dvorak is a visitor from another planet.

No insult meant: I've learned a lot from him over the years. It's just so rare that he chooses to address a subject that I know more about than he does (and I'm no expert), that it's a little off-putting when it happens. This piece needed a little more research and a lot less gravity.

Blogging is street theater, a juggler in the virtual park. It's Sunday morning punditry gone 24/7 and roll-your-own. And, yes, it's the next generation of vanity pages. Don't worry, John, the cat photos will be back soon enough. (There seem to be plenty at Photographica: Should we tell him?)

All's Fair
Steven den Beste has a thought-provoking essay about Olympic competition, and its consequences for those who practice it.

It begins, though, with a brief discussion of World's Fairs, which is what I thought the comment would be about. It's saddening that the decline of this tradition doesn't warrant a whole essay in itself.

I'm fascinated by the 1939 New York World's Fair. (Apparently I'm not alone.) I'm not a collector of memorabilia -- but I would be if I could afford it.

The '39 Fair represented a peak of technological inspiration we spent the next fifty years trying to live up to. I find it all the more ironic that most subsequent Fairs left prominent landmarks behind, but very little remains of the 1939 Fair proper. The signature Trylon and Perisphere were torn down for scrap, for the War Effort, shortly after the Fair's closing. In a sense, though, the world we lived in from war's end through the sixties was the world promised us at Flushing Meadows in 1939.

But its dreams of the future, persuasive as they were, were eventually overrun by technology, which has a perverse habit of not developing the way its supposed to.

It may be that the construction of an intentionally short-lived theme park is less viable in these days of Disneyland, Six Flags, and Busch Gardens. Organizations who might have built a pavilion in New York in 1939, today sign a sponsorship / partnership deal with Epcot Center.

It may be that the world of the twenty-first century and beyond has easier, more cost-effective ways to celebrate itself. Part of what excites me about the Internet is that it may be one of those ways.

Why, I'm... outraged... outrageously outraged...
Since every other blog is saying it, too, I won't run on, I'll just say it and move on:

Our congressmen have no room to get sanctimonious in the ongoing Enron investigations, in light of their handling of our money (the consequences of which they diligently shield themselves from).

I love this.

Friday Five
1. What's the most romantic thing you've ever done for someone else? That's not for me to judge. I've never gone to a great deal of trouble to set up something romantic, if that's what you mean. However, I am the one who remembers our anniversary. And my wife seemed to appreciate the cartoons I used to draw on the envelopes of the letters I sent her back when we were in college. ("Why didn't you just e-mail?" There wasn't any such thing, youngster.)
2. [pardon the cosmo question] What are your erogenous zones? That's really a need-to-know kind of thing.
3. How old were you the first time you had sex? Care to expound? 18. As with so many first times, it was no one's finest moment. We decided to stay together anyway. It's 29 years later and we are still together.
4. What's the most unusual place you've ever had sex? I am hard pressed to think of any unusual place.
5. Do you have plans for Valentine's Day or is it just another Thursday? At this point, it's just another Thursday.

Feeding the inner blog
Chris Taylor, Time correspondent, discovers how fleeting is fame: After one day in the number one most-linked-to position at Blogdex, the Time article in which he announced his blog plummets to... 2. (Of course, this link might just push him back up to #1. Sigh)

Meanwhile, your humble correspondent weeps at cruel fate (as he languishes at Blogdex ranking #13430, zowie, make it #11245, but who's counting).

"Time to do what all mainstream media types must do when ratings plunge. Celebrity nudes, anyone?" Worked for me.

In a small moment
This from the March Premiere magazine, describing the 2001 Oscars:

7:03 p.m.: While Randy Newman and Susanna Hoffs performed the nominated song "A Fool in Love", [Itzhak] Perlman and [Yo-Yo] Ma came into the backstage area and slowly climbed up the steps to the platform from which the two men would perform. Casually, unheard by anyone except a handful of nearby crew members, Perlman and Ma began to play along with Newman's song.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall...

Myself, the anti-intellectual
Arts & Letters Daily, a valuable compendium of popular philsophical thought, exposes me to viewpoints I might not otherwise consider. Take Mark Crispin Miller, for example, professor of media studies at New York University. In this essay, Miller divides the country into intellectuals and anti-intellectuals (no points for guessing in which category he places himself).

The categories themselves require further definition. At first I thought by "anti-intellectualism" Miller must mean that those who have not attained his degree of academic enlightenment have evaded it by specific intent -- that they are "anti-intellect", meaning opposed to thinking, convinced that excessive thought is, if not the root of all evil, at least not required in today's spoon-fed world of sound bites and weakest links.

As I continue reading, though, it becomes apparent that I misunderstand. By "anti-intellectualism" he means those who do not accept that his perspective is the correct one. He means people who disagree with people like him (who, being born of intellect and academia, are obviously of a superior breed).

In short, I realized with a start, he means people like me.

What really seems to have Miller's boxers in a bunch, it develops, is the treatment he received at the hands of Bill O'Reilly, on whose program he appeared last June as he was promoting his book, The Bush Dyslexicon. (Last June? Has this article been sitting on the shelf that long, or does Miller really hold a grudge?)

I have to wonder, though, why he bothered. Did he find out what O'Reilly was like in advance (somehow I suspect Miller does not regularly watch Fox News), conclude "I can take this guy" (or the academic equivalent), and prepare for the tactics he was likely to encounter? Or did he decide to "wing it" on a major national talk show?

If he believes what he says about the complicity of O'Reilly specifically, and Fox News in general, in promoting the image of Bush as a Real President (and I don't doubt that he does), did he really think six minutes' exposure to his presence would turn it around? Does he think that highly of himself? Or did he just assume he would look golden by comparison to O'Reilly because he's an Intellectual?

And if he had such a low opinion of Fox News' audience going into the broadcast, who did he think would be impressed by him?

The nature of the e-mails he received from Fox' viewers should not come as a surprise, but somehow, to Miller, they say so much more than they say. One man comments that he borrowed a copy, read it, and... well, he didn't like it. But Miller deduces that he couldn't possibly have read it; why, he wouldn't even know anyone who would have a copy, therefore he must be lying. And so, therefore, he "could not be said so much to hate it as to have despised the very thought of it." By the end of the paragraph, Miller is comparing GWB to Hitler, as a leader who commands this kind of loyalty from that kind of people.

"Anyone who flips out at the thought of personal analysis is really asking for it himself", Miller says, awash in unintentional irony. "Such venters tend to tell us more about themselves than any self-respecting person wants to know."

In this, Professor, we agree completely. I think that's a good place to stop.

UPDATE: Kayjay at Irving Place left a comment (Thanks!): She seems to think that the foul language and simplistic tone used in the e-mail Miller received (which Miller quoted, and I didn't) makes it clear that the writer hadn't read the book. I don't follow that, but as I consider it an unprovable point, I won't pursue it further.

In any case, I do not fault Miller for blowing off such "criticism". I fault him for using nuclear weapons where a flyswatter would do. I fault him for drawing the conclusion that anyone and everyone who disagrees with him does so out of ignorance, hostility and bias, and not for any intellectually acceptable reason. That is the textbook example of academic elitism. "I'm right, you're just jealous, nanny nanny." Does this argument work in academic circles?

Even if he had stopped short of equating Bush to Hitler (as Justin Slotman points out, the invocation of the spectre of Adolph Hitler is a well known "hallmark of a goofy argument"), it makes me question everything else he says, and does nothing to convince me that Miller has a valid point to make.

Good publicity?
Boy, I wish I could advertise my blog in Time magazine...

Seems that "real" journalists are joining the cutting edge in blogging, even if they won't call it that.

There are advantages for the individual journalist: Self-imposed deadlines with no printing delays. You write when you can, post it when you're ready -- and no editors. Well, "no editor" is really a mixed blessing: With no external fact-checkers, you'd better get it right, 'cause there's nobody but you to blame if it's wrong.

The trick is convincing someone to pay you for it...

[UPDATE: That wasn't a hint.]

[UPDATE 2: Chris Taylor of Time magazine mentioned me in his blog, the Daily Blah -- and my traffic shows about a 10% surge just from that exposure, so far. (I can tell because my counter tells me where you came from, but you regular bloggers know that.) I find this fascinating, and I hope he does, too. "This thing is getting too big. I never intended it to compete with anything..." Welcome to the blogosphere. If you can do it, someone else can measure it -- and will. Have fun.]

[UPDATE 3: Make it a 30% surge. But, "We are not competitors ...we are actually a resource for each other," as Perry de Havilland put it over on Libertarian Samizdata, and I agree. The blogosphere feeds itself: The more voices, the more interesting the mix.]

Why "they" hate us
That's it. That's exactly it.

Any ideology which can only survive through the suppression of foreign ideas is now doomed.

The small-time blogger from Georgia cedes the floor to the Captain of the USS Clueless. (It's not a description of the Captain, it's just the name of the ship.)

Information wants to be free
It isn't often that technology news brings a smile to my face, but this article by James Fallows in The Atlantic does. (Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for drawing attention to it.)

Perhaps the hundredth time you receive the same spam e-mail, you'll remember this article and be renewed with hope for the medium. If anything, you'll resent the spam more -- but at least you won't pull the plug and move to an island somewhere. I don't think any of the mailing lists I'm on could hope to accomplish anything so worthy, but it's nice to know one could.

Happy Groundhog Day
A few friends and I were chatting about Punxsutawney Phil, the Official Groundhog, who apparently predicted six more weeks of winter this morning. Now they're going to ask him who'll win the Super Bowl. (No, I'm not kidding.) This is the first year they've been able to do that, since this is the first year the Super Bowl has been played after Groundhog Day.

From AP news via AOL:

"Officials prepared for larger crowds than normal because Groundhog Day fell on a Saturday, and concerns about rowdy drinkers coupled with the Sept. 11 attacks led to stepped-up security at Phil's home. For the first time ever, organizers sold all 38,000 bus tickets to the event."

[Emphasis mine.] Well, if an innocent groundhog can't waddle out of his den to find a little female groundhog action (what, you think he's looking for his shadow?), then The Terrorists Have Won.

(Insert your own joke here about OBL's al-Jazeera interview surfacing so close to Groundhog Day.)

Thirty-eight thousand tickets? To see a groundhog? (I wonder how many of those people were reporters?)

Here in Atlanta, we have our own groundhog, thanks: General Beauregard Lee, who makes his home at the Yellow River Game Ranch in Lilburn, GA, near majestic Stone Mountain. This is the General's 22nd year, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

And admission is free, so there, Phil.

But wait a minute. According to my sources, groundhogs rarely live longer than 8-10 years. (I can't believe I'm looking this stuff up.) There's obviously a scandal here waiting to be investigated. Either the General is a world record long-lived groundhog (if so, why not mention it in the publicity?), or they've been slipping ringers in all these years. Ah, the death of innocence!

Next I'll be looking at satellite photos of the North Pole trying to find a gingerbread cottage. Some things just shouldn't be questioned.

I read the news today...
Media Minded is the kind of blog I'd want to write if I actually had any newspaper experience (as opposed to talking through my hat with an unused journalism degree, which is what I am doing). (By the way, the mystery person behind Media Minded says that the New Orleans "Times-Picayune" is "perhaps the greatest newspaper name in history". Personally I'm partial to the now-changed, unintentionally-honest Chattanooga "News-Free Press".)

Friday Five
1. Have you ever had braces? Any other teeth trauma? No braces: My teeth were within tolerances. I was always told that my parents signed me up to play trombone in the school band because the mouthpiece would correct whatever slight overbite I had. Either it's a baldfaced lie, or it worked.
Now, as to teeth trauma, you so do not want to go there. I hate dentists. Nothing personal. Every visit is trauma. Even if it's just a cleaning, I get so tense that I must schedule them such that I never have to go back to work after a dentist's appointment. When I was little I bit and fought the dentist (so my mother tells me). He sent me home with a sedative for mom to give me, then bring me back when I was too groggy to fuss. I have always hated going to the dentist.
2. Ever broken any bones? Broke a finger doing something stupid. (Playing on a broken trailer, if you must know.) No, not that finger. My left ring finger.
3. Ever had stitches? Once, when I stepped on a tent stake.
4. What are the stories behind some of your [physical] scars? Well, scars from 2. and 3. above are still visible, but I have no scars that have deep and complicated pasts. Why should they? I don't. I have a scar on my shin where hair doesn't grow that I have no idea where it came from. I hope I was having fun. Goodness knows what I'll find on my head when what's left of my hair departs. (Aargh.) I remember once waking up in my grandmother's bed with a goose-egg on my head, but I don't remember the actual fall off my bicycle.
5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? What is this obsession with weekends? Make every day count, not just the weekends. I hope to spend it working on scripts, voice tracks, and web page updates for my radio theater. (And watching the rest of my Buffy DVD set.)

Plaigarism?
MSNBC is using the "Smart, sharp, and a little bit sexy" tagline to advertise... Chris Matthews? (Okay, I'm cheating. The commercial begins just like That CNN Promo, except that when we get to "A little bit sexy?" the response is "Look somewhere else.") So it's okay to call someone "sexy" in a commercial -- so long as they're not? No, wait, I get it. It's okay to acknowledge that some people might be sexy so long as it's not presented as a reason to look at them. Hm. Doesn't make sense that way either. Oh, it's a joke, that makes it all right.

So, a priest, a minister, and a rabbi are in a rowboat... What?