Where was Google?

Since the early 1990s, December 1 has been recognized as World AIDS Day. This year, I wasn't online too much, I was attending a funeral of an aunt. However when I got home, my partner (whose brother died of AIDS) commented that Google recognizes almost every thing with a tweak to their logo but was silent about the day of focus on the on-going AIDS situation. Why with all these previous manipulations of their logo did Google ignore December 1?

Somebody's Watching

I read, alot. Some say too much, it helps keep reality at bay. However, today reality hit me in the face again, this time with the question of the right to privacy.
One book discussion group I participate in read John Twelvehawks "The Traveler."

While the group found the book written more like a movie script than a novel, the idea of always being watched tied in to the questions circulating about the domestic warrantless wiretaps under the "war on terror" guise.
Then, last week, I got my copy of the New York Review of Books and read this: Who's in Big Brother's Database? by James Bamford: The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency by Matthew M. Aid, Bloomsbury, 423 pp., $30.00: On a remote edge of Utah's dry and arid high desert, where temperatures often zoom past 100 degrees, hard-hatted construction workers with top-secret clearances are preparing to build what may become America's equivalent of Jorge Luis Borges's "Library of Babel," a place where the collection of information is both infinite and at the same time monstrous, where the entire world's knowledge is stored, but not a single word is understood. At a million square feet, the mammoth $2 billion structure will be one-third larger than the US Capitol and will use the same amount of energy as every house in Salt Lake City combined.
Unlike Borges's "labyrinth of letters," this library expects few visitors. It's being built by the ultra-secret National Security Agency—which is primarily responsible for "signals intelligence," the collection and analysis of various forms of communication—to house trillions of phone calls, e-mail messages, and data trails: Web searches, parking receipts, bookstore visits, and other digital "pocket litter." Lacking adequate space and power at its city-sized Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters, the NSA is also completing work on another data archive, this one in San Antonio, Texas, which will be nearly the size of the Alamodome.
Just how much information will be stored in these windowless cybertemples? A clue comes from a recent report prepared by the MITRE Corporation, a Pentagon think tank. "As the sensors associated with the various surveillance missions improve," says the report, referring to a variety of technical collection methods, "the data volumes are increasing with a projection that sensor data volume could potentially increase to the level of Yottabytes (1024 Bytes) by 2015."[1] Roughly equal to about a septillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text, numbers beyond Yottabytes haven't yet been named. Once vacuumed up and stored in these near-infinite "libraries," the data are then analyzed by powerful infoweapons, supercomputers running complex algorithmic programs, to determine who among us may be—or may one day become—a terrorist. In the NSA's world of automated surveillance on steroids, every bit has a history and every keystroke tells a story.

And the New York Times ran this item just today: Ever-Present Surveillance Rankles the British Public by Sarah Lyall: Poole, England — It has become commonplace to call Britain a “surveillance society,” a place where security cameras lurk at every corner, giant databases keep track of intimate personal details and the government has extraordinary powers to intrude into citizens’ lives.
A report in 2007 by the lobbying group Privacy International placed Britain in the bottom five countries for its record on privacy and surveillance, on a par with Singapore.
But the intrusions visited on Jenny Paton, a 40-year-old mother of three, were startling just the same. Suspecting Ms. Paton of falsifying her address to get her daughter into the neighborhood school, local officials here began a covert surveillance operation. They obtained her telephone billing records. And for more than three weeks in 2008, an officer from the Poole education department secretly followed her, noting on a log the movements of the “female and three children” and the “target vehicle” (that would be Ms. Paton, her daughters and their car).
It turned out that Ms. Paton had broken no rules. Her daughter was admitted to the school. But she has not let the matter rest. Her case, now scheduled to be heard by a regulatory tribunal, has become emblematic of the struggle between personal privacy and the ever more powerful state here.

Needless to say, I have reread "The Traveler" and the next book in the series (The Dark River) and just started the third (The Golden City).
Paranoia or worrying about the right to privacy?
Right now I am not sure, but I keep thinking of the Benjamin Franklin quote:

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

Trying to end on an up note, I remembered the Sly and the Family Stone song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2umAZNVZvns

Who's Wearing PJs

(with a nod to Undergear for the pj image)

Two items from msnbc on yesterday's march in Washington.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/33268417#33268416

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/33268417#33268417

There is a lot that the man in the White House has to deal with, but as one person noted, he had the time to go to Copenhagen to try to get the Olympics in Chicago, so he should have time to live up to his campaign promises.

For LGBT, the hate crimes bill that has been considered in the Congress since from a quick search 2007 is one step, but there is much more needed. ENDA, and end to DADT and DOMA.

Politicians want our money and our votes. We want equality

Now, can we talk about who wears pajamas?

"I grow old

I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled"
A few days ago a friend posted some of T.S. Eliot's 1915 poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html), which was one of my favorite poems from my high school English days. The Facebook posts took off in silly directions and I didn't think of it until today when I was reading this week's New Yorker, and came across a notice about kylie minogue who had a hit with the song Locomotion in the 1980s finally touring the U.S.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcPofgs7vSs
Nice to hear an old song redone
Which reminded me of another version of the same song by Grand Funk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSQOeQakExU&feature=PlayList&p=EEE6A473BCF6E70E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=17
That took me back to the first time I heard it on a record. Little Eva, the record version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su8weltdZQE
which, of course, had a different sound to hearing it on tv shows of the era. Little Eva on tv: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5OoQadZTPk&feature=related So I investigated where it came from and, like the inspiration of this blog, we have Carole King to thank for the song, done here recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hdMbr1rZic&feature=related
Made me remember a friend's win of a singing contest in a Philly Black Pride. Josh sang Killing Me Softly and in his blog (http://justjoshfunk1.blogspot.com/) he referred to the Lauryn Hill version (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KpeCk6NyZU), which made me remember the Roberta Flack rendition (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpNdMIAnKko)of the song by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel. I mentioned it in a comment on Josh's blog, and someone said I was nasty to do so. I just thought he would appreciate the info on another version. Oh well, perhaps in my old age, I rely too much on history. At least my hair isn't thin. But, do I dare to eat a peach?

An apology, for the wrong reasons

In an earlier post, I noted an email I got from my cousin. In it she sent a photo of Obama carrying a book and ran on about his reading The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria (and the email noted he also was a Muslim). I usually ignore her political and religious notes, but had to respond to this one, since the book examines a world that is facing a number of rising economies and how the U.S. will fare in the future.
Here's a brief review: "This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else." So begins Fareed Zakaria's important new work on the era we are now entering. Following on the success of his best-selling The Future of Freedom, Zakaria describes with equal prescience a world in which the United States will no longer dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm cultures. He sees the "rise of the rest"—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States understand and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.
My cousin sent an apology, but only apologizing if she "offended" me, ignoring the really offensive part: the ignorance and malice in the matter she forwarded.

Years of cruising the Web from Huffington Post to Democratic Underground to Talking Points Memo, with a diversion to Joe.My.God, Towle Road and Pam’s House Blend for gay-related news, and suddenly, on Sunday, I stopped. A simple reason, I was off to PA to take my parents to a family reunion. With a glass or two much wine the night before, a late wake-up call from the dogs and a mother-imposed deadline (“We have to be there at noon”), I didn’t have time to post, so I just directed my mailing list (Madame Thérèse Defarge's Knitting News -- renamed when my own email carrier rejected my daily titles as possible spam Madame Thérèse Defarge's Knitting News – what can I say, in addition to the degree in graphics, my first degree was in English Language and Literature and Dickens is an author who ranks up there, just not quite with Didion or Fitzgerald) to my often neglected blog, along with those readers who only want to be BCC’d because of their jobs here in a very political DC.
Then today, I once again got up late with Bill (or, as I referred to my partner in the Knitting News, Bill-at-home to distinguish him from the other Bills who were on the mailing list) getting up early, so I didn’t have much computer time (my own choice, it was nice to just relax with a cuppa and then get ready for my day at the office (not that I am efficient, I still had to call B-a-h to read me a list that I was supposed to take to work but left on the table where my books and mail and whatever ends up).
Tonight, we chose to break our habit of Netflix and Bill is reading and listening to music. I chose to catch up (in addition to not posting my morning news-read and (sometime) comments, I had not had time to read my Sunday Washington Post or New York Times).
My mistake, the addiction is still there and I was jones-ing to draw attention to items I usually send via email:
First, I missed some e-mail reader input:
CLSB sent a Slate article on health care: Do American Doctors Get Paid Too Much?
And David sent an email from San Francisco where he is visiting his brother about a Chronicle letter to the editor (in its entirety): “Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst durning President Obama’s speech was outrageous. If I had been there, I would have thrown my shoe at him.”
And, favorite Frank Rich’s NYT editorial was another excellent piece (but aren’t most of his?): Obama’s Squandered Summer “Obama recently stated, ‘My job is not to be distracted by the 24-hour news cycle.’ … After a good couple of years of living with the guy, we know the drill that defines his leadership, for better and worse. When trouble lurks, No Drama Obama stays calm as everyone around him goes ballistic. Then he waits — and waits — for that superdramatic moment when he can ride to his own rescue with what the press reliably hypes as The Do-or-Die Speech of His Career. Cable networks slap a countdown clock on the corner of the screen and pump up the suspense. Finally, Mighty Obama steps up to the plate and, lo and behold, confounds all the doubting bloviators yet again by (as they are wont to say) hitting it out of the park.
So it’s a little disingenuous for Obama to claim that he is not distracted by the 24-hour news cycle. What he’s actually doing is gaming it for all it’s worth. “ Meanwhile, according to Rich, a certain damage has been done – to Obama and to the country.”
And my sometimes-she-is-spot-on and sometimes she-is-over-the-top-trying-too-hard-for-cleverness Maureen Dowd was the former, as she wrote about racism in the recent political actions: “Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t.
But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!
The outburst was unexpected from a milquetoast Republican backbencher from South Carolina who had attracted little media attention. Now it has made him an overnight right-wing hero, inspiring “You lie!” bumper stickers and T-shirts.
The congressman, we learned, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol and denounced as a “smear” the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the ’48 segregationist candidate for president. Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.
I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.” Which I immediately linked to another Sunday NYT’s article (Politics and the Age Gap) about how Obama and health care aren’t making it with those who have government-run coverage, the voters over 65 who, covered by Medicare, are speaking out against reform (and, as one blogger noted, some were even using their government-paid wheel chairs to attend the weekend protest against Obamacare.
Joe.My.God posted his weekly must read, “This Week in Holy Crimes:” Over the last seven days....
California: Pastor James Ray Guerrero charged with molesting "two young relatives" beginning when the boys were 11 years old.
Italy: A yearlong Associated Press inquiry uncovers 235 male victims of priest molestation.
Connecticut: Father Michael Jude Fay dies in prison 18 months after being convicted of stealing $1.3 million from his congregation. Fay spent the money on luxury trips, imported cars, jewelery, and shopping sprees at Saks, Nordstrom, and Bergdorf's.
Ohio: Pastor Hence Hamblin charged with gross sexual imposition for fondling underage female.
Florida: Pastor Rodney McGill sentenced to 20 years in prison for mortgage fraud.
Arizona: Pastor Charles Carfrey sentenced to two years in prison for sexually abusing congregants, including an underage female.
Mexico: Pastor Jose Marc Flores Pereira surrenders after hijacking an Aeromexico jet, telling authorities he was "on a divine mission" to protect the country from earthquakes. A total of 104 passengers and crew were on board when Pereira took over the plane by falsely claiming he had explosives.
Kentucky: Registered child molester of an 11 year-old boy, Pastor Mark Hourigan to be ordained as the preacher of a local Baptist Church. Parishioners unsurprisingly described as nervous.
Pennsylvania: Pastor Dennis Spangler charged with exposing himself to 13 year-old boy.
Washington DC: Pastor Jennifer Michelle Brennan charged with ten counts of sex with a minor. Brennan is a "youth minister," of course.
This Week's Winner-
Tennessee: Pastor Henry "Defender of Marriage" Lyons has been defeated in his bid to retake the presidency of National Baptist Convention. The three-times married Lyons was convicted in 1999 of stealing $4M from the organization, but totally wanted to run the show once again. He used the stolen money to buy luxury homes and support his mistresses (plural!), but after five years in prison he felt God had called him to lead the 7.5 million member organization one more time. Almost 20% of National Baptist conventioneers agreed and supported Lyons' failed bid.
J.M.G also posted a link to a YouTube video: A musical montage of hate
And the weekend rally in DC has some passing or posting a photo to show just how many teabaggers there were.
Unfortunately, the image used is years old, as the American Indian Museum should be in the photo if it was taken this past weekend. While there was a crowd, it stretched from the capitol grounds to 3rd Street, not to 17th Street as the photo shows.
On the gay-related news, I didn't even have to go to the blogs, the NYT editorial touched on the problems LGBT people have with employment discrimination: "It is remarkable how little progress gay people have made securing the basic protection against discrimination on the job. In 29 states, it is still legal to fire workers for being gay."
And, finally, my only rarely-aroused sports interest noted that while the WaPo almost could have tweeted their coverage of my alma mater's 28-7 win over Syracuse, the NYT gave the early-in-the-season seventh place Nittany Lions a quarter-page article. Seems like my political-preference-paper was, at least this past weekend, my athletic supporter too.
Maybe it's the fall-like weather (doesn't start until next week, right?), but sleeping in has taken some time away from my news peruse. Maybe I'll get back to it once I catch up on my sleep.

Protests, Signs and an Email

Yesterday was a day of protest in DC, with teabaggers coming to town to demonstrate their unhappiness with Obama (interesting that a lot of their signs were anti-Democrats and Obama when the fiscal bailouts they were protesting were started under the previous administration).
They also were opposing the proposed health care reform. It was here that I found the signs most revealing. Many of them were the typical death panels will go after grandma and Obama with Hitler's moustache, ideas and images that have gotten lots of coverage. Others were confusing:
How does this protest link Obama's health care or government spending with the twin towers that we should never forget? How is Obama's health care related to the large image of Terri Schiavo, also with the never forget slogan? Wasn't that the case of the Republicans in the government trying to intervene against the wishes of her husband and what he said she would have wanted and wouldn't some counseling have been preferred over diagnoses made via video tape for political gain instead of patient care?
I have chosen two signs that really made me wonder about their carriers:


Here I was focusing on the hands off sign in the front of the image. I find it amazing that this line is being used by Michele Bachmann who is anti-abortion. Is there a contradiction in this? I can't speak for the sign carrier, but the question does come up whenever I hear the statement or see signs like this.


The second image is about the sign on the far right referring to freedom and security.
Again, I wonder about the views of the sign carrier toward establishing free speech zones, screening attendees at public events based on assumptions about their political views, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps, kidnapping and rendition, and, of course, advanced interrogation and torture.

Finally, I recently got an email from a cousin. She and I have had quite a few political discussions, which end with agreeing to disagree, but this posted message made me angry as well as feeling despair for the future:

"An 'eye-opener" photo. And I checked the authenticity of this on "truthorfiction" site, and the photo is authentic. It was taken by Doug Mills for the New York Times when Obama was i Bozeman, Montana. (surprise this got out, New York Times is LIBERAL)
This will open your eeyes .. What does Obama read?
"The name of the book Obama is reading is called "The Post-American World" written by a fellow muslim. Post-America -- the world After America???
"Please forward this picture to everyone you know, conservative or liberal to expose Obama's radical ideas and intent for this country!
"photo verified by snopes"
Usually, I don't respond when I get emails like this, I have never been able to convince my cousin that Hillary probably isn't a lesbian (and what if she would be?) so what's the point of wasting my time and raising my blood pressure? However tis time I had to make another (probably futile) attempt:
And what's the book about? From a review: "The author sees the "rise of the rest"—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States understand and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination."
Zakaria, a U.S. citizen, was educated at Yale and Harvard, is editor of Newsweek International and writes weekly on foreign affiars. He was also a supported of Ronald Reagan and initially backed the Bush invasion of Iraq, although arguing that it should be a UN-sanctioned invasion with a much larger troop count. His book, that President Obama is reading, is concerned with how his chosen country can continue to prosper in a global economy where other countries are taking the lead in the production of goods and services.
Unlike other countries (for example Germany), the U.S. chose to devest in manufacturing (where the profits were averaging only 4 or so percent) and put its economic future into a deregulated finance system. Look where that got us, lending institutions that were concerned with only maximizing profits and a populace hoping to cash in on one or another bubble, using their inflated real estate to keep up with rising costs, while their wages stagnated.
Meanwhile, a lot of the rest of the world became centers of manufacturing (look at China as an example). As a result, I don't know about your things, but my cell phone and one of my toilets (ironically an American Standard, ince when most U.S. citizens say American they mean U.S., discounting a lot of the other countries that occupy this continent as well as the continent that is South America) was made in Mexico, my car in Sweden (although over a year ago the U.S. company that owned Volvo was planning to sell it b ut I can't find any reference to a sale), my TV in Japan and my keyboard and mouse made in China (as was the landline phone), my stereo from Canada.
Don't even let me commence on the "fellow Muslim" part of the forwarded message or the liberal media notation.
See why I worry about the country?