Little Britain, which I mentioned is coming to the US in a previous post, has been photographed filming in New York City.
The "I'm a lady" transvestite character, Emily, played by David Walliams, was photographed being arrested by New York's finest, one of whom is Matt Lucas, Walliams' comedy partner.
Information about the US version is dribbling out. Several of the most popular characters will be in the US version, as well as new characters.
The fawning gay aide to the Prime Minister will be working for the US President. The show is searching for a Hollywood actor to play the president. They hope to get George Clooney.
The Republican attack machine has begun its attack on Barack Obama. Using the Reverand Wright quotes and other clips out of context, they try to paint Mr. Obama as part of the radical left and unable to understand middle class America.
By the way Republicans use Reverend Wright at Mr. Obama's quotes, they paint their party as a racist party. But that is no surprise to those who already consider it homophobic and intolerant of difference of any kind.
I've not been a supporter of Barack Obama. His actions don't match his rhetoric or policies where the gay community is concerned (he vociferously has avoided photos with gay people or those who are known for supporting us, has granted very few interviews with gay media, and appeared to have had to be convinced by Senator Kennedy to include gay prejudice in a speech after Kennedy's endorsement).
We're still living with someone whose words don't match his actions. I'm a little gun-shy.
I really have disliked the Obama campaign's attack machine that claimed that anyone who says anything that can be taken wrong is a racist. It smacked of racism against non-African Americans in the way that it was levied. Even worse it diluted the impact of the word by its casual use in the charges.
It was poetic justice when the tactic backfired on Mr. Obama when his own words were taken out of context and miscast as prejudiced against middle-class white Americans.
In truth, Mr. Obama is no more a racist than Bill Clinton or Geraldine Ferraro is. He spoke ineloquently about why some middle-class white Americans are affixed on certain issues to their own detriment, but he did not intend to express prejudice against those middle-class white Americans. He was trying to help others understand them better.
Just taking something out of context or exploiting a misspoke word does not a racist make. Words like those from Bill Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro may originate from residual or unseen prejudice in them. But we don't know that.
We know that their actions are more important than their words and they have both been active in fighting prejudice against African Americans. We should give them the benefit of the doubt.
We all harbor the prejudices of the culture in which we are raised. It is recognizing that prejudice and continually trying to improve it that elevates us from our baser instincts.
We should distinguish comments made without malice from actions and words purposely chosen to exploit our inherent prejudices. The term, "racist" should be reserved for those who purposely exploit base prejudice for their own purposes.
Bill Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro spoke ineloquently in a way that could be taken as racial. I don't believe that either of them intended to make racial remarks or exploit the inherent racism in non-African Americans.
Certainly, from the African American point of view, both remarks were insensitive and might have resulted from each person's own inherent residual prejudice, but neither deserved the label, "Racist".
We are all works in progress. We have to cut others some slack sometimes. We have to turn the biblical cheek sometimes.
It isn't that Mr. Obama can't be criticized for his own actions or views. He deserves criticism for allowing his campaign to paint anyone who misspoke on Clinton's behalf as racist.
Ms. Clinton deserves criticism for starting the "elitist" campaign that sounds too similar to "uppity" for comfort. She also deserves criticism for exploiting the Reverend Wright quote. She has strayed dangerously close to being racist in her campaign, but has just fallen short of it thus far. Still, she should immediately back off and apologize for it.
I think she was trying to make an economic distinction, but because it was aimed at a particular racial economic group, it was easily turned into a racist ploy when used by the Republicans. Now she will be painted with the same racist brush. She should have known better.
But the Republicans are purposely, willfully, trying to exploit the inherent racial prejudice in white Americans and other non-African American minorities. In the same way that they abused inherent homophobia in Americans, they are now purposefully using American's inherent racism for political gain.
The North Carolina Republican Party knows that "too extreme" will play on their audience's inherent racial prejudice. It is their code word for "not white like us". They hope that others outside North Carolina will think it means "too liberal", but in historical context of the state, it cannot be taken any other way but as racist propaganda.
We understand the context and what it means. Even more important, we know what it says about the people who used it.
It's like when someone who routinely uses the "N" word decries his prejudice and tries to make it a racial-socioeconomic label. Never mind that the stereotyping they use to defend themselves only proves the point that they are racist all the more.
Within days of Obama's comment in San Francisco, the Republican attack machine geared up and started using "elitist" and "far left" to stoke the flames of prejudice in their constituency. Meanwhile, the RNC sat back and pretended to distance itself from the ads in North Carolina and what the pundits were saying. If the RNC wasn't a racist party at its heart and core, it would be doing more to stop what it knows is racist activity in its ranks.
It is an evil tactic designed to deny African Americans their right to fully participate in political life in the same vein that Jim Crow laws of the past tried to deny African Americans (and other minorities) the right to vote.
Implicit in the tactic and the commercials are that if you are black and rise too high, those in power will cut you down to make an example of you. It is the same racism as when white people used to call African Americans "uppity" if they didn't act in the way that white Americans prescribed.
The Republican words are coded, but the meaning is clear if you look closely. Obama doesn't respect or understand real (read "white") middle-class Americans. Obama is from the "far left" and "elitist". Read that as too educated for a minority and uppity. It plays on white prejudice against African Americans by appealing to white fear.
Jon Stewart's question to Barack Obama on the Daily Show last week was poignant. "The Rev. Wright controversy, the flag pin controversy... Will you pull a bait-and-switch, sir, and enslave the white race? Is that your plan?" It was a pointed nod at the Republican use of racial fear against Mr. Obama.
The flag pen controversy. How convenient that American patriotism, made in China, can be purchased for $4.99 at WalMart. But I digress.
Most white and some minority Americans blithely accept the Republican assertions without understanding why. They fail to see that Republicans (and Clinton to a lesser degree) are playing on their base prejudices. They can't see the tactic if they can't see their own prejudice.
The problem is that white Americans and occasionally some minorities, where their nationality or race is not at issue, take an ostrich approach to American history. They are self-blinded to the prejudice and racist actions, which still occur in this country. They refuse to see the wrong in their actions or support of actions that harm others even when confronted with the ugly truth.
Up to the point of their prejudice being exposed, their actions are merely racial. But refusal to stop the prejudiced actions makes the actions racist.
None of us wants to believe badly of ourselves. It takes a self-aware and brave person who will accept his personal failings and act on it.
For instance, how many people still support sports team names that continue the stereotypes of American Indians? The Washington Redskins and its fans have argued that the racial epithet has acquired "second meaning", a technical legal concept in trademark law, to justify their continue using a team name that they know is racist.
What is even worse is that younger Indians have taken to using the team caps and jerseys, supposedly as a way to show racial pride. It speaks to subconscious self-loathing, similar to African American girls choosing white dolls instead of black dolls in the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education case.
At some point the prejudice saturates the community to the point that the minority group accepts that they are not equal or as good as the majority group. Then people wonder why American Indians have problems with depression, alcoholism and suicide.
I lived for years in Kansas City where the Kansas City Chiefs are worshiped by even the Fundamentalist Christians. They do tomahawk chops and paint their faces to support professional sports business.
I didn't go out of my way to say anything. If asked, I would always say that I didn't support the team as it continued using a stereotype that is offensive to American Indians.
The reactions were almost always defensive. "Its just for fun." Or, "The name, 'Chiefs', was chosen because Mayor Bartle was called, 'The Chief', not for Indians."
Really? Then why paint your faces, wear feathers and do tomahawk chops? Why is the stadium called "Arrowhead Stadium"? Even if the team originally was named for Bartle, it is the offensive actions today that continue to perpetuate the stereotype.
They would just shrug off any logic or worse, become indignant and angry that I would question their right to ridicule and blasphemize Indian culture and religion.
My response was polite, but essentially conveyed: "I didn't bring up the subject. I've told you why it is wrong. If you refuse to change, then that is your choice. But, I'm not going to be complicit in your racism, whether you see it or not."
The actions might be benignly racial up to the point of exposure of the truth of the prejudice. Once exposed, it is the failure to act to stop the prejudice that makes it racist. Now they are purposefully performing acts that they know are racist.
When sports enthusiasts treat Indian paint sacrilegiously, they don't care what it does to American Indians who believe that paint is something that God gives a person and can only be used by their family. Implicit in the act is the belief that traditional Indian religious beliefs are not Christian, and therefore are irrelevant and unworthy of respect. All the sports fans care about is supporting their team by committing sacrilege against a people that they have wronged so long that they no longer see their actions as wrong.
Also implicit in the tomahawk chops and racist caricature logos, is that it doesn't matter what we Indians think or feel because we will never be as human as a white person or worthy of respect. The prejudice is so ingrained through history books, fiction, movies, television shows and the culture itself that we can't see it as prejudice or harmful anymore.
Now it fuels anti-Indian resentment against tribes who have gaming and are, for the first time in history, becoming wealthy enough to fully take care of their people. Some tribes can even help their people become rich.
But a rich Indian is a sacrilege against God himself it would seem. It is as though some feel that Indians should be kept in our place. No one likes an uppity Indian.
The same ingrained prejudice against African Americans exists in America today, as it does against Indians. It has been a part of our culture so long that it is difficult to even see it for what it is anymore.
For example, why is there even a need for black churches if prejudice doesn't still exist against African Americans? Why are churches still largely segregated?
It is not mere chance that Reverend Falwell fought against desegregation in churches then fought against gay rights. Those who are susceptible to one type of prejudice are more easily susceptible to another. It is in the person's character to discriminate against those she sees as lesser than herself.
So I understand why Reverend Wright rhetorically cursed America as part of his sermon. There is justification for the anti-white-America prejudice, even if it is as ugly as prejudice against African Americans or Native Americans.
The part of America that acts on its prejudice has to stop committing the wrongs before it can ask for forgiveness. It certainly has no standing to ask minorities to stop their prejudice against the majority.
You have to stop punching me in the face before asking me to forgive you, or else making me forgive you is just another form of the same abuse. Only when the actions stop, can African Americans or American Indians be expected to work on resolving their prejudice against those who wrong them.
I understand how white Americans and some non-African American minorities don't see how the Republican ads are racist. But each of us is culpable for refusing to see the prejudice in ourselves or the groups with whom we affiliate when confronted with the truth.
None of us is immune to prejudice. We are all racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and innumerable other things that make us human. It is what we do with the knowledge of our failings that makes the difference.
If we see the error of our ways and change, then it raises us up a notch in our journey of enlightenment. If we see our actions and refuse to change, then we impose our own prison of ignorance and darkness on ourselves. We also force others who are enlightened to form negative opinions about us when we refuse to see or change our prejudice.
When the Republicans use the clips of Reverend Wright, it isn't an attempt at honest political discourse. They are appealing to the base prejudice that exists in the minds of non-African Americans. They are trivializing the pain of slavery, segregation and prejudice that African Americans have endured and continue to experience.
They are whispering in our ears that African Americans cannot be fully human like us. They whisper that we should fear a black man as president.
Get behind me Satan. Prejudiced people may be good people. However, people who capitalize on that prejudice for their own gain are truly evil.
A group of young men, calling their group the Fighting Kite Brigade, following traditions from Pakistan and Afghanistan, brought chaos to the air above the Marina Green in San Francisco today. They wielded killer kites in their evil, heinous desire to bring down each other's kites.
The same group was responsible for a previous attack on Bernal Hill a few months ago. See their propaganda video here. They were even brazen enough to post an open invitation to Kite Fight to attract spectators to today's event.
The event was free. Proceeds support the charity, Crack Houses for Humanity. The charity builds crack houses for crack addicts.
The New York Times Magazine has an article about young gay men getting married in Massachusetts and even gay divorce.
What a brave new world we live in. When I knew I was gay, I figured marriage was something that I gave up with the closet door.
I'm still not sure that I'm interested in marriage. I really think that I should find the guy before getting married, you know?
But the twenty-somethings hitting the post-college pavement have no such qualms. Many of them have the same expectations of their straight peers - marriage, kids, retirement together. Some do not.
Many want engagement parties and all the things that come with making the commitment. When gay marriage turns to gay divorce, the pain and feeling of failure is the same as that felt by their straight counterparts, too. Perhaps even more guilt comes with it as marriage is a recently won right still in only one state.
As the article points out, men of my age group tended to reject the heterosexual model of marriage. Was it a response to the rejection we felt from heterosexual society or were we charting new territory? Who knows?
We oldsters tend to require emotional fidelity more than sexual fidelity. The greedy youth want both. Are they setting themselves up for disappointment or are they onto something that we missed?
We were cynical. Now the young can be optimistic. I guess that is progress. Maybe it is even a good thing.
San Franciscans will be voting on a ballot measure this fall to redevelop the former Hunters Point Navy Shipyard into a new stadium for the San Francisco Forty-Niners football team, retail, and housing project, 25% of which will be affordable housing.
Attached to this is the redevelopment of the current Candlestick Park football stadium into a new arena to attract large events and concerts. Candlestick Point, where the proposed arena and current Monster Park stadium are located, forms the southeast corner of San Francisco City and County. The largest arena space in San Francisco currently only seats 8,000. The new arena would sit from 15,000 to 20,000.
The problem is that the neighborhoods around the proposed projects is considered one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city. The only mass transit link has to go through the dangerous neighborhood to get to both Hunters Point and Candlestick Point.
While this may not harm the football stadium, where football games are largely played during the day, the arena's events will mostly be held at night. Will parents feel comfortable sending their teenagers off on the Third Street light rail through those neighborhoods to and from the proposed arena late at night?
The location reminds me of Kansas City's white elephant of an arena, Kemper Arena, placed in the West Bottoms. It is in an area of the city down the hill from downtown Kansas City, home to mostly abandoned warehouses and cattle pens.
The suburbanites never felt safe in the area where mostly homeless people resided at night. Although the neighborhood has changed somewhat in the thirty years since the arena was built, it never could recover from the perception of danger.
Further hampering the success of the site was lack of mass transportation and lack of restaurants and bars around the arena. Kansas City recently built a new arena downtown to correct its original error.
It looks like San Francisco is headed in the same direction as Kansas City. It will have a white elephant of an arena if the ballot measure passes for the following reasons.
1. Public Perception of Danger - the city will not be able to change the perceptions of San Franciscans who have believed the surrounding neighborhoods to be dangerous for their entire lives. I don't think that the Hunters Point home development project stands much of a chance for the same reason.
2. Lack of Mass Transit - there is no BART station near the project for those who live outside San Franciso to use. The closest one is several miles away in another city. They would have to bus people in from that station. The MUNI Metro train that services the area is the Third Street train. It doesn't currently go to the park, passing about a mile west of the current stadium site. Again, it would require special buses. I know I wouldn't feel safe taking the T-Line to the park or back late at night even if it went directly to the new arena.
3. Lack of Service Businesses - the area doesn't have any restaurants or bars to make it an all-evening event location. Even if the businesses succeed in Hunters Point, they are too far away from the proposed arena site, separated by the Bay itself, to be helpful to the success of the arena.
While I applaud the city's desire to redevelop the old stadium, it would be better to focus on the Hunters Point development and raze the old arena. Let the market determine the best use. Or perhaps put a great public park in the location that has draws of its own.
The arena site should be located closer to downtown in the SOMA area or in South Beach/China Basin near the AT&T Ballpark. That site has several mass transit connections and sufficient bars and restaurants to make it a successful site for concerts or sports events. It doesn't have the public perception of dangerousness to fight, either.
Walking around over the weekend with a visiting friend, I realized just how I can't remember the names of the streets of San Francisco. I still need a map to figure out where a particular street is. It takes time, I guess.
It reminded me of Paolo Nutini's song, These Streets. He wrote it about being overwhelmed by London when he moved there from Glasgow.
Nutini is one of my favorite artists. Enjoy his soulful voice. If his Scottish accent makes it hard for you to understand the words, check out the lyrics.
One of the things I don't do well is long term memorization. Short term memory cramming was my saving grace in college and grad school. I used to know French; I used to know a lot of things. Forgetting is easy, learning is hard.
But over the past 120 years, learning has been the study of psychologists. They have condensed what they have learned about efficient learning and the human brain down to an interval learning algorithm.
Hermann Ebbinghaus started experiments on learning in the late 1800s. His seminal book published in 1885, Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology, was the beginning of a new field in psychology devoted to interval learning.
The psychological studies showed that when we memorize something, it fades over time. There is an ideal time to refresh the memorization to extend the "forgetting curve".
The ideal time to review something is exactly when you are about to forget it. If you try to rememorize too soon, it doesn't help retention. A few days too late and you have to start over because you have forgotten too much.
The problem with the algorithm is that it makes one a slave to time. In order to work, the human student has to remember which day to perform the repetitions for each piece of information. If you wish to learn a lot of things, each with its own schedule for repetition, the burden to remember to do it quickly becomes impossible to manage.
But for a computer, scheduling and reminding the student or user to do the repetitions is easily performed for each piece of information. Software using the interval learning algorithm automatically extends the time between the memorization sessions for each piece of information to allow you to take advantage of how your brain works.
As one adds information to the software's database, the software calculates the ideal repetition schedule for the information and then adds it to the schedule with the other information. All the user has to do is remember to use the software.
The chief engineer of the software project that uses this algorithm is a Polish academic by the name of Piotr Wozniak. He created SuperMemo, a software program that facilitates the use of the efficient learning algorithm. Wired Magazine has an article on him, his passion for interval learning, and his eccentric habits.
His program can be downloaded at this website. Alas, there is no Mac version. Only Windows, Palm OS and Windows Mobile versions exist on the site. Prices are from $2 to $45.
SuperMemo allows you to browse the web and create new notes for new decks, select text to memorize and ignore the rest, etc. It tries to be a full learning program to use for life.
The online instruction suggests that the user try to add all new knowledge to the same database to allow more efficient learning and tracking. That surely tests one's memory as it asks you questions about unrelated topics in the repetitions each day.
He says that this also provides unforeseen creativity when you start to recognize patterns in unrelated topics. Whether or not it does, it certainly would be more efficient from a time management perspective.
New decks are downloadable from the SuperMemo Library website but few are free. This is another website with new decks.
There is also a SuperMemo online learning internet application that should work with Macs, as well as Windows computers. There are most of the normal language decks and basic science courses available on the internet application version of SuperMemo, but not a lot of less popular courses. Obviously, you cannot create your own decks or add information from the internet as with the stand alone programs.
There are unrelated Mac programs that use some version of the interval learning algorithm. Genius uses a flash card metaphor with the algorithm to help with memorization. It can be downloaded here.
It has a strong following with a lot of flash cards by users that can be downloaded reportedly. The software is free. This is the only website with flash cards that I've found so far. There is a Yahoo user group with a few more files. Not a lot seems to be available despite the claim of thousands of users.
Other Mac software using the learning algorithm include iFlash ($14.95) and Mental Case ($29). iFlash has 2000 or more decks that can be downloaded from its library for free, with registration. The library is accessible directly from within the program.
You can create your own decks in iFlash. There isn't a way to clip articles or notes from the web like in SuperMemo or Mental Case.
The developer is working on iFlash Touch for use on the iPhone and iPod Touch devices directly (i.e. it runs as actual software and is not just photos as is the case with Mental Case).
Mental Case has the most attractive user interface of all three Mac programs. Although not as full featured as SuperMemo, it is probably the most like SuperMemo in the Max OS X world.
Mental Case, similar to SuperMemo, allows one to take clips and notes from the internet or other programs and create notes to review in Mental Case later. The software can create flash cards in iPhoto for downloading to your iPod or iPhone for later review.
Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of user-created decks for Mental Case that I can find. You will have to create your own and find a place to share them with others without developer support, as iFlash enjoys.
Interestingly, none of the popular language software programs, such as Rosetta Stone, use the interval learning algorithm, unfortunately, although research has shown that retention of language is easier using it, instead of the usual methods. Instead, they rely on rote memorization and ill-spaced learning.
Yet, students in less-affluent countries use SuperMemo to learn English and other languages rather than the more expensive language software courses. They find that they retain the language longer, learn it faster and with less work. More importantly, they become more proficient in the language making it easier to find jobs in the West.
You can use the interval learning algorithm to learn anything, not just language. There are decks on just about every topic under the sun for SuperMemo and iFlash. You can create your own for these and any of the other software, of course.
Choice architecture is where the arrangement of the item of context influences the choice that the end user of the item makes a choice. It uses phsychology to affect the choice the end-user makes.
My favorite example is from a LA Times article on choice architecture, which describes the choice architecture of a urinal fly in Amsterdam.
One memorable example of the power of choice architecture comes from the men's rooms at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. There the authorities have etched the image of a black housefly into each urinal. It seems that men usually do not pay much attention to where they aim, which can create a bit of a mess, but if they see a target, their attention and accuracy improve. Spillage at the airport decreased by 80%!
Mothers and housekeepers rejoice! All you need to reduce splashes of urine around your toilets is drain the toilet, etch a fly onto the ideal target, then sit back and enjoy an 80% work reduction! Because you know how us men love target practice in any form.
More serious examples include arrangement of food in a school lunchroom line affect the choices made by students, how a doctor describes survival odds of a surgery can affect how many people choose to have the surgery (90% survive vs. 10% die as the leading statistic) and even ballot placement - the first listed can get a 4% boost.
How many of the choices we make are actually our own choices? I believe that persuasion is largely choice architecture.
The laws of physics say that a body in motion will take the path of least resistance. If you want to persuade people to do what you want, you make the choice that you want the person to make into the path of least resistance for them. Most of them will take the path you made easier.
Check it out next time you shop for groceries. Look at how the food is arranged. Foods that appeal to children are at their eye level. The fresh food that is healthier for you is around the edges. The junk food is in the middle sections, but placed prominently where you can find it easily. Did you really make the choice or did the food industry just make it for you by making it the path of least resistance?
When Flickr started allowing videos to be posted to its site last week, an angry cry of protest rose across all of computerdom. Videos mixing willy nilly with photos on the same site? What an affront to family values!
But one group of people weren't all that put out by the affrontery of Flickr. They began a mock protest claiming that they demanded doughnuts from Flickr.
Flickr heard their demands. Flickr (or at least an employee of Flickr) is buying one doughnut for each "protester" on April 16 at 11:00 a.m. at Bob's Doughnuts on Polk Street in San Francisco.
But since the announcement of Yahoo's concession, Flickr users around the world have taken up the cause. Groups around the U.S. and even the U.K. are meeting up to share in the sugary protest goodness.
The greenest house in the world is in San Francisco, according to this CNET article.
No, it isn't a verdant color; rather it has a net zero power consumption from the grid. Sixty percent of its power comes from photo voltaic panels on its roof. The remaining forty percent comes from a wind turbine in its yard.
The rain water is collected and used for laundry and toilets. All grey water, except the used toilet water, is recycled on the property. Used toilet water apparently gets flushed to the city's system.
There are many other features that awed San Francisco Mayer, Gavin Newsom in this video of his tour of the property.
I once joked that I had posed for Playgirl Magazine - the Braille edition. But no joke, there is a site on which you can get your jollies helping the blind, by helping the blind get their jollies.
Were one to be so altruistic, one would watch free internet porn video clips and then create and post audio files to pornfortheblind.org. Finally! A charity to which we can all lend a helping hand.
Wired Magazine brings us the article. Out of respect for the blind and salaciously inclined, there is no picture attached to this post.
Some helpful tips to get you on your way to your new charitable cause:
Perhaps, in this one instance, it won't help your public speaking skills to picture your audience in their underwear. Or perhaps it might. The decision is entirely yours.
Pron description is not the charity for those with strong politically correct leanings. Pron is the last frontier of sexism and many other types of otherwise distasteful stereotypes. ("Pron" is the internet term for "porn", by the way.)
You can't be Polly-Anna-ish about terms, either. There is nothing like a cold dose of medical terminology or child-like euphemisms to douse the flames of passion.
There is a time and place for humor and wit. This is neither the time nor the place.
In the same vein, being too artful kills the mood. This isn't independent cinema. For example, watch Steve in Coupling squirm as he has to describe the plot of Lesbian Spank Inferno at a dinner party (at mark 3:15 in the clip).
There is a skill to describing things with the right amount, but not too much detail. No one cares about the threadcount of the sheets, for instance. Unless that has relevance to a Martha Stewart fetish, which has a prominent place in the subject matter of the video clip. There are few hard and fast rules in a situation such as this.
Effective description requires a certain amount of personal detachment. Multitasking is not a marketable skill in this instance. No, it requires a steadfast dedication to the purpose at hand.
The end-users request more women's voices, so feel free to enlist the Junior League. If you are male, using a Monty Python female voice is probably not going to help. But if you are a woman, having a Kathleen Turner-like voice is probably going to take you far.
Of course, if you are describing gay pron, the above rules do not apply. Monty Python female voices are regrettably under-appreciated here, as well. Nor would describing the scene using your best Cher imitation be appropriate.
You disagree? Watch the Maya Angelou clip from the Big Gay Sketch Show in which she reads a listing from the M4M Missed Connections section of Craigs List. Pee-yourself funny, yes, but not particularly the mood you are trying to set.
If you are one of those people who talk with their hands, give serious consideration to whether this is the charity that best utilizes your talents. Gesticulations don't record well on audio recordings, no matter how artfully rendered.
Have a speech disability but still feel the need to give? Try niche marketing. For instance, if you have a stutter, use it to your advantage by marketing it to those who are prone to "premature arrival". If you speak in a monotone, try specializing in describing old black and white pron. Be creative!
Yeah. It's probably best to leave this one off your resume.
The flame is on its way to Buenos Aires. The closing ceremony was not televised. Mayor Newsom was just on the local media (KNTV NBC 11) explaining what happened.
When the bus with the Chinese delegation was stopped by the protesters this morning, along with the public walking down the middle of Embarcadero, the city police told the mayor that they couldn't guarantee public safety.
When the torch went into the warehouse and didn't emerge, it was because they were trying to decide if they could change the route our if they should cancel the event.
The mayor felt that protecting the runners was the most important task in making it a successful event. He felt that allowing peaceful demonstrations was also important to allow.
In fact, there were people in support of China as well as people protesting China over Tibet and its human rights violations. All were able to peacefully coexist in the same area with only a few arrests.
What is interesting is that the police never made a move to stop the people walking down the Embarcadero or to remove the protesters laying down in front of the bus. It raised suspicions that the entire thing was planned to not take place along the Embarcadero.
Here are my thoughts.
1. It was successful in that people were allowed to peacefully protest. That showed China that there isn't necessarily something to fear by allowing people to demonstrate. I doubt it will penetrate China's leaders, but they were exposed to peaceful demonstrations that didn't resort to violence. Once again the city has shown it can allow peaceful protests without violence.
2. It was a success for the torch bearers who were allowed to run through the city with the torch.
3. It was a success for the Olympics - the flame didn't go out.
4. It was a failure for San Franciscans. It was San Franciscans who paid for the police and planning to allow the Chinese to bring the torch here. It was San Franciscans who were denied the opportunity to see the torch, the opening and closing ceremonies. Only the truncated opening ceremony was allowed to be televised as planned. From that point on, the Mayor failed his public.
Mayor Newsom failed his task by failing to work with the media to allow us better coverage of the torch run, as well as adequate crowd control so the event could be held safely to allow the public to view the torch.
There are ways to work with the media to allow adequate coverage. You can have a shared camera feed in front of the runners. You can have them sign contracts to not report details until a certain point. All those and more tactics have been used to report in war. Why not use them here where public safety may require changes on the fly? Instead, there was chaotic coverage and no run-along cameras to show the torch runners up close. They have no decent record of their run.
San Francisco's Police Department has problems controlling crowds. Cities like New York can handle crowds without a problem, but San Francisco had to cancel Halloween in the Castro last year because the police couldn't or wouldn't employ adequate crowd control techniques used by others. The city would rather cancel events than learn to handle them.
If the police failure to keep the Embarcadero streets free of people wasn't preplanned, it only demonstrates the department's incompetence when it comes to crowds. It amazes me how we can have large demonstrations without problems, but can't handle crowds in small areas, such as at the closing ceremony.
It was a mixed bag today. Over all, the real losers are the Tibetans and San Franciscans who have to pay the tab for today's largely failed Olympic torch run.
This ends this post. I'll provide my thoughts with coverage of the closing ceremony on the next post.
4:00 p.m. The convoy just left the city and entered Daly City.
3:55 p.m. What a traffic mess. They are heading everyone to SFO to hold the closing ceremony on the tarmac to see the Olympic Flame take off for Buenos Aires. That means the entire Peninsula rush hour traffic, which is underway, will be really jammed badly. Thank you China, may we have another?
3:53 p.m. What is interesting is that the torch runners have run or been bused through every part of town. All they need to do now is go back to South Beach to complete the circuit. I guess they didn't make it to the Embarcadero/North Beach area, but you know, most of the city.
3:51 p.m. The convoy is past Golden Gate Park, on 19th Avenue, in the Sunset District. The speculation is that the runners are on their way to meet with Mayor Newsom for an informal thank-you meeting.
3:46 p.m. The Chinese government took over the entire security operation last night with the FBI, State Department and other national level security services. The Chinese chose the route and other security measures. The reporter who ran with the torch is reporting this. The other reporters asked him about it because the level of diversionary tactics used seemed more national in scope than the local police use. The reporter thinks that they have entirely scrapped the closing ceremony.
3:45 p.m. The tour bus that was stopped earlier this morning by the protesters held the Chinese delegation, so the protesters had better intel than anyone thought. That heightened security considerably. That is what drove the dramatic changes that seemed to change by the minute.
3:44 p.m. It looks like they headed onto 101 Southbound heading toward Golden Gate Park and 19th Avenue.
3:43 p.m. Both directions of the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge have been closed to traffic. Now the convoy is coming off Doyle Drive down into the Presidio onto Marine Drive heading back into town, away from the Bridge.
3:33 p.m. Still no movement from the convoy.
3:30 p.m. The Highway Patrol went up to the Bridge. The sidewalks on the Bridge are being closed just in case, but the Bridge Authority doesn't know what is going on either.
3:28 p.m. Are they out of runners? The entire convoy has stopped.
3: 25 p.m. Torch is stopped on Doyle Drive.
3:23 p.m. Lots of California Hiway Patrolmen in the GG Bridge area now. Lots of excitement.
3:20 p.m. People at Justin Herman Plaza are starting to leave, so the word is getting out. Still lots of protesters left.
3:18 p.m. Former Mayor Willie Brown is now getting to run with the torch. The GGB webcam has moved away from the bridge to the visitor area.
3:16 p.m. The closing ceremonies will not be held at Justin Herman Plaza - it is official. They are still partying peacefully, though.
3:15 p.m. The torch is entering the freeway (Doyle Drive) to go toward the Golden Gate Bridge. Pretty smart - no sidewalks for the public.
3:14 p.m. Some sort of scuffle ahead of the runners? A bunch of bicycle cops have someone on the ground. They had to move the bicycles out of the way of the convoy.
3:10 p.m. The reporters are talking about the tourism boost from this route. It's funny because all you can see is the asphalt. You can't even see the houses around the torch.
3:06 p.m. They are almost to the Palace of Fine Arts. A few Chinese supporters with flags have joined the crowds now.
3:04 p.m. The runners are beside the Yacht Club, just before Chrissy Field.
3:00 p.m. A large highway patrolman contingent was at the Bridge, but then all but four left. It sounds like Chrissy Field will be the end point of the route.
2:57 p.m. I checked the GGB webcam - traffic seems very light on the bridge.
2:56 p.m. Increased police presence reported on the S.F. side of the Golden Gate Bridge.
2:55 p.m. Lots of speculation on local channels about whether the route will go over the Golden Gate Bridge.
2:49 p.m. This was part of the original 16 mile route, so it looks like they went back to Plan A. At one point, they planned to go across the Golden Gate Bridge. Some protesters just unfurled a banner along the route. Apparently the protesters had plans to cover the city, which seems to have worked for them.
2:47 p.m. They are passing Fort Mason and passing the Marina Safeway. That puts them on Marina toward the Bridge. Will they shut down the freeway going onto the Bridge or go through the Presidio the back way to the base of the Bridge?
2:45 p.m. The Golden Gate Bridge seems to be the more likely termination point. They are running that direction. That is the opposite direction from Justin Herman Plaza.
2:44 p.m. Reporter is saying that there are so many people at Justin Herman Plaza, that it seems impossible to bring the torch there. The crowd is peaceful, but packed. The new destination seems to be the Golden Gate Bridge.
2:40 p.m. One of the runners is a news reporter talking on his phone to his channel - they are taking the runners to the Marina District - the Marina Green. They may be scrapping the end ceremony at Justin Herman Plaza.
2:39 p.m. CNN is reporting that the torch is nearing its end destination. It is four miles away, at least.
2:34 p.m. Police brutality! One of the officers knocked down a protester, draped in the Tibetan flag.
2:33 p.m. Finally! Some Tibetan protesters finally caught up to the new route. Some sideline scuffles are occurring.
2:32 p.m. A ground cam finally joined the run.
2:30 p.m. The San Francisco Chronicle has great pics of the protesters and other people on its site. It is the source of the one, above.
2:24 p.m. A disabled runner in a wheel chair with another female runner are wheeling down the street.
2:22 p.m. New pairs every block or so. Pretty boring. It really is more of a stroll than a run. Most of the protesters are confused. They think the torch is coming by boat. The television stations are practically begging for cell phone photos to help with coverage.
2:16 p.m. New pair running the torch.
2:14 p.m. The reason for the constant stops turns out to be the bus carrying the torch bearers. The bus stops and drops off the new runners just before the phalanx of police officers reach the area.
2:12 p.m. Fourth runner (single) takes the torch.
2:10 p.m. Torch continues down Van Ness. Van Ness is a major N/S route across the city, so this has snarled traffic and cut the city in half. We're on the third pair of runners. There is a problem with the vehicles in front of the runners - they keep stopping the progress of the runners.
2:05 p.m. The torch run has begun. There are lines of police running alongside the runners so you couldn't even see the runners if you were there.
2:03 p.m. Traffic is seriously backed up around Van Ness. You can hear the drivers cursing from here. It looks like they are waiting for the police to come from the Embarcadero to help with security before starting the run. The media was not prepared for this either. The cameras that normally run alongside the runners aren't here, so it is just helicopter shots.
1:57 p.m. The torch is off the bus on Van Ness. It is too far from the Embarcadero for the protesters to reach the route. They will be running two runners at a time. There will be new runners every block and a half.
1:54 p.m. It looks like the convoy is going to do the torch run backwards from Fisherman's Wharf to the Ferry Building (Justin Herman Plaza is in front of the Ferry Building). Right now the convoy is stopped at Van Ness and Sutter. That wasn't planned, so a lot of traffic is being stopped while they figure out what to do. The route was reportedly changed 10-15 times in the last half hour. I'd say the Tibetan protesters have officially won this round.
1:51 p.m. Two shoppers held up the torch convoy by crossing in front of the buses by the Essex Hotel, to the great annoyance of a police officer. They were nonplussed and continued their casual stroll. Gotta love it.
11:49 p.m. The two protest camps remain boringly placid. They have occasional shouting matches, but no violence.
1:45 p.m. Former Mayor Willie Brown, one of the runners, verified that the torch left in the van. He was invited to go along, but declined as he was warned that it could get hairy. He is taking a boat to the Ferry Building instead to join the torch closing ceremony. It sounds like the torch run has been canceled and will just go to the closing ceremony.
1:42 p.m. A motorcade of police and vans have left the warehouse. The news is reporting that the torch is in one of the shuttle vans.
1:40 p.m. With the excitement and riveting action of a slow car chase on an L.A. Freeway, San Francisco's Olympic torch run is off with a whimper. The torch was lit, run down a sidewalk into a warehouse and hasn't been seen for 20 minutes.
Interestingly, there are about 11,000 pro-Chinese protesters bussed in for the run. There are many more Tibetan protesters.
A bus was surrounded and stopped in its tracks earlier by Tibetan protesters. They thought they saw jogging suits on the people inside the bus. So they laid down in front of the bus for about an hour. It turned out to be a tour bus. The police eventually rescued them.
I have to confess that although I don't care for China's occupation of Tibet, the cause just doesn't motivate me to march. I'm not all that excited about the Olympics in China, either. I have that American malaise: So far from me, So far from my mind.
So, it is with almost-bated breath that I will watch the news this afternoon to see how the Olympic torch run goes in San Francisco. I'm kind of rooting for the underdogs - the Tibetan protesters.
I thought about going down to watch the torch run, but in the end, it just doesn't seem worth the hassle of running the gauntlet of protesters that began assembling this morning. I probably won't even bother watching much of the Olympics later this year, either.
After all of the problems China has foisted on us - lead in children's toys, killer heparin, West Coast air pollution, and Mt. Everest-sized hubris about it all, who can be bothered to watch China brag about itself again?
There is such a thing as playing the bad boy successfully. But Mick Jagger, China ain't, and it never will be.
China so wants us to see the Olympics, see it in its glory, respect it. Power is not glory. The world has seen China and shrugged.
China thinks that it is a star. Instead it is a sad Norma Desmond. It plays to "...all those lovely people out there in the dark." But the audience gave it the go-by when Mao took over. Now it is the world's shop girl.
To paraphrase Joe's advice to Norma, there is nothing wrong with being who you are, unless you are trying to be who you are not. If you want to be a brutal ruler over billions, then be a brutal ruler over millions. Accept and glory in the world's scorn and derision. If you want to be the world's low-end manufacturer, then do so. Just don't get pissy when the world catches you killing people with illegal substitutions in the medicine to make more money.
If you are going to be evil, you can't expect love and respect from the world. You have to accept the consequences from the choices that you have made.
If China wants to trade in its rhinestone tiara for one with real diamonds, it needs to get serious about customer service and product quality. If your goods are shoddy and you refuse to satisfy your customer, well then, other third world countries are just ready and waiting to replace you in your customers' hearts. As quickly as the money came, it can go.
If you try to sweep the Himalayas under your store's carpet, eventually customers will trip on Everest. No one wants to shop in a dimly lit, unkempt shop when there are bright, clean shops around the corner.
So China is a world-sized bummer of a country. We should protest or do something about that. And, you know, I'm gonna get going any day now with doing something. No, really. Maybe.
I'm not sure if the rest of the country is even aware of the debate in San Francisco over whether or not to allow the Olympic Torch run through the city due to the recent Chinese crack down on Tibet.
San Francisco, with one of the largest Chinese populations in the country, is the only U.S. city to have the Olympic Torch. The latest from City Hall is that it will go on as planned.
This morning, the protesters scaled the Golden Gate Bridge to unfurl protest banners, captured by CBS 5 news webcams. The police are patiently waiting for them to descend before arresting them.
The city is prepared for blanket security in anticipation of protesters. According to CNN, Tibetans from all over the country are set to descend on San Francisco for Wednesday's torch run.
Fortunately, the planned route is along the waterfront mostly along the Embarcadero. In theory, that could minimize impact to traffic, except for the unfortunate tourist trapped at Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39 or commuters using the Ferry Building.
Let's hope that they don't have to end up busing the torch to Justin Herman Plaza as they had to do in Paris. A MUNI bus could never reach its destination on time.
Let's explore this via Aristotle's syllogism.
China crushes Tibetan protestors before Olympic Games.
The Olympic Torch will be run through Streets of San Francisco, briefly flying through the air as it crests San Francisco's hills, to the delight of all who watched television in the 1970s.
Tibetan protesters fool the police by protesting on Market Street instead of torch route, effectively shutting down entire city.
A couple of weekends ago, I went to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park to capture the cherry blossoms and other blooms on silicon for those unfortunate persons who do not live in a warm climate.
The Japanese Tea Garden was created for the 1894 California Mid-Winter Exposition as part of a Japanese village was constructed. After the exposition, the garden was expanded and maintained by the Harigawa family until they were relocated to internment camps during World War II.
San Francisco and the unflushable President George W. Bush have been anathema to one another from the beginning.
Bush prides himself on never setting foot in San Francisco during his two terms. San Francisco refuses to see the need to invite him.
In the latest salvo of the "urine-elimination" match, a petition is being floated to rename the SF sewage treatment plant after the President.
The petition sponsors say the renaming is to fully express the wonderful job President Bush has done protecting the nation's infrastructure, such as the levees in New Orleans.
If it passes, the new San Francisco flushing catchphrase may become, "You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie."
April 6 is National Tartan Day. I hope that you remembered to wear your tartan kilt today. You do have a proper tartan kilt, right?
Utilikilts don't count for this one no matter how amusing the video on their site is.
Ladies can festoon themselves with a wee bit of tartan however suits them best. There are tartan ribbons and silk tartan for easy incorporation into their outfits.
I'm sick with a cold, but I still plan to at least get out once today in a kilt to honor my Scottish heritage and what Scots have done for America.
The official day was declared by Congress in 1998. It falls on April 6 every year.
It looks like fun was had by all who participated in the St. Stupid's Day parade and afterparty. The annual parade follows the Bishop of the First Church of the Last Laugh through the San Francisco financial district on April Fools Day.
More pictures of the parade and afterparty can be found on SF Weekly's site here. You have to love this city's party ethic.
Dedicated bus lanes are a fact of urban life. No vehicles other than mass transit vehicles are allowed in the lanes, to allow for speedier bus service.
Cars, however, yearn to breathe free in the wide open lanes, so it is common for drivers to take over the lane, slowing down bus service.
San Francisco, like many other cities, is considering putting cameras on buses to allow them to photograph violators so that the police can ticket them.
Manchester, England has a better idea. It put in bollards (posts) that lower into the pavement when a bus arrives and immediately rise afterwards. Drivers who tailgate are often caught by the bollards, which nets us this enjoyable video of the scofflaws receiving their comeuppance.
Flying high with WiFi access will start on American Airlines sometime in 2008. The service provider, Aircell, has obtained approval for the service from the FAA.
There is no word yet on price or expected service speed. Aircell currently only has plans to outfit American's 767-200 fleet, so other flights will not have access until later. Virgin America reportedly is working with Aircell to provide the service on its flights.
If you were uncomfortable watching Jay Leno's tortured interview of Ryan Phillipe on the Tonight Show a couple of weeks ago, there is a reason. He displayed classic Hollywood homophobia, telling far more about the host than the one being interviewed.
Ryan Phillipe's first role was as the first gay teenager on an American soap opera. Jay couldn't let it alone as he implored the straight Phillipe to give his "gayest look" into the camera for him. To Phillipe's credit, he didn't give in and participate. He held his ground.
The gays were not amused. Jay Whitty, a writer who had taken Leno to task in 2006 about Leno's homophobic jokes, wrote an open letter to Leno and posted a picture of his "gayest look" in which his middle finger figured prominently. Soon a website, mygayestlook.com was created as people began sending pictures of their gayest look for posting.
Violet Blue, a columnist for the otherwise staid and conservative San Francisco Chronicle, wrote about Leno's stumble-from-face and how homophobes are likely repressing their own homosexual desires and reactions.
What I enjoy about the article is the fun she has with people's mental images of what it is like living in the Castro, the predominantly gay and lesbian San Francisco neighborhood, where she (and I) live.
She starts with what the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells of the world falsely think goes on here, quickly debunking their debaucherous myths. She ends by stating what I enjoy about the neighborhood - it is one of the cleanest, safest neighborhoods in San Francisco.
It is one of the only neighborhoods in an otherwise urban town that I have no problem letting my mother wander around alone. Thanks to its well-deserved reputation, it is now one of the most desirable neighborhoods for straight people, like Ms. Blue, as well as gay people. You can't walk down the street without seeing strollers full of gaybies and babies with their proud parents.
But it comes with an enjoyable difference.
I often tell the story of what I think succinctly described Arizona when I lived there. A couple were driving down Baseline Road when they cut off a car full of gang members. The gang opened fire on them. The wife calmly opened her purse, pulled out her revolver and returned fire. The gang quickly broke off pursuit. That was Arizona.
Violet Blue gave me the story that describes my new neighborhood.
A street preacher wandered into the Castro, climbed onto a crate and started a loud tirade against gays and lesbians. A few minutes later, a man dressed in white lace drag arrived with his boombox. He set it up in front of the itinerant preacher, turned up his boombox playing Madonna's "Material Girl" louder than the preacher could shout and began dancing. The preacher finally gave up and left.
Now, that, my friends, is the Castro.
Oh, the stories that street preacher must have told to Pat Robertson of his day in the Castro. I hope he noticed the lube slide at 18th and Castro. It is Leno's favorite feature.
Vanity Fair has a great article by Phillip Sands on the role of lawyers in the Bush Administration's insistence on setting aside international and federal law to use controversial interrogation techniques in Guantánamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Since the advent of the faulty legal reasoning, which came crashing down around the Administration, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 2006 that the Geneva Convention and other international and federal laws did apply to Guantánamo detainees.
The administration did secure immunity for those military and other government personnel who advocated and implemented the now illegal techniques from 2001 to 2005 in the Military Commissions Act of 2006. That act makes prosecution of war crimes impossible inside the US, unless the courts find it was somehow unconstitutional.
The article concludes that the attorneys, as well as those who implemented the torture policies could be held accountable for war crimes if they set foot outside the U.S, much in the way Chile's Pinochet was tried by Spain for his human rights abuses. In fact. the passage of the Military Commissions Act might make it easier as it shows that they are unlikely to be brought to justice in the United States.
The Administration's belief that it is above the law may come back to haunt those who supported the Administration's policy after the President leaves office. PBS had a show some time ago talking about the Vice President's role in the torture debate and his manipulation of how the Administration came to define it. Glenn Greenwald writes again about it here for Salon.
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. It seems appropriate to describe Bush's historical legacy as nothing but vanity. So cocksure and ignoring all counsel to the contrary, we can only hope that he and his cronies find justice abroad, if not here at home. How ironic that they themselves might find themselves in prison one day for setting aside their humanity in their treatment of others.
And if not, it pleases one no end that Dick Cheney might have to sit inside the U.S. the rest of his life not daring to leave the country for fear of a tap on his shoulder.
Coworkers over the years have ooed and ahed at my desktop wallpaper and my screensaver.
No foolin' I'm going to share my sources:
1. Interfacelift.com is my source for great desktop wallpaper for my Macs and Windows machines. I tend to like nature and city skyline pics.
The pictures are scaled for different resolutions, so pick the one that fits your resolution and download smug with satisfaction that others will beg you for your source, too.
2. Electric Sheep make the best screensavers. Electric sheep are mesmerizing animated pictures that almost put you in a trance. If you have an internet connection, the program downloads new sheep for your electric flock in the background.
Both sites pics and software is free. You can donate to the Electric Sheep site, if you enjoy your flock.
The San Francisco Art Institute has canceled its art exhibition of Algerian-born Paris artist Adel Abdessemed. Even artists supported censoring the material.
The show generated controversy for the inclusion of video of six animal executions. The animals were being put down as part of the process for food production, but that didn't set well with animal rights groups.
Ironically, the piece was intended to demonstrate how separated people in modern cultures are from how our food gets to our table. The artist feels that people are in denial as to how animals have to die in order to provide meat on our tables. It was intended to provoke a reaction. On that front, it greatly succeeded.
I'm not so sure it would have received the same visceral reaction in Des Moines that it did in San Francisco. The closer you are to the farm, the less likely you are to be in denial of how animals are killed to provide the meat we eat and the clothing that we wear.
It reminds me of an online conversation I had with some Scottish folk who did not like the traditional full mask sporrans (men's purses worn with kilts) where the head of the animal was included as part of the sporran.
Scotland is requiring that sporrans containing animal fur be registered as part of an animal rights legislative agenda. It had wide support for those with whom I was chatting.
As an American Indian, I have a different view. I feel that we have become so removed from nature that we no longer respect animals in a balanced and healthy way. Either we regard them as inferior and beneath consideration or we place them on pedestals above humans and plants. Neither approach is balanced nor respectful.
As an Indian, humans, animals and plants are all part of the same world in which we seek balance. There is no hierarchy of one type over the other. Killing a plant or taking its fruit is just as damaging to the plant as killing an animal or taking its young.
But balance doesn't mean that there should be no hunting nor farming. Let's be rational.
A lion doesn't concern itself about being humane when it kills the gazelle. It knows that to live, it must eat. Likewise, the gazelle doesn't concern itself about whether the grass can regrow after it eats it.
If we are brothers to the animals and plants, we do have differences: we can think about such things and find ways to maintain ecological balance. Balance means finding a middle road and having respect for the things we kill, both plant and animal so that we may live and be protected in our world along with both.
If we are going to kill foxes or muskrats, I think that creating a full mask sporran more respectful to the fox than dumping the head in the trash and just using part of its pelt. In fact, it serves as a visual reminder to people that we live only because another species died.
It doesn't mean that I want baby seals clubbed so I can have a sealskin sporran (sealskin sporrans are illegal in the U.S.). They are endangered; that is not balanced. Since we don't eat their meat and they don't present a harm to our livestock or farms, then the need to cull them at all seems specious.
Just like the Makah tribe ceased culling whales while they were endangered, I don't think we should be hunting or farming while an animal is on the brink of extinction.
When the whales came off the endangered species list, the Makah resumed culling whales as an important part of their religion and culture. I trust them to do it with respect and balance. Animal rights activists didn't like that either.
What I suggested to the Scots in our conversation was that they shouldn't let outside groups force them to quit something if it is culturally important to them. American Indians had to take their religions and cultural practices underground for a century or more as the U.S. wouldn't grant them freedom of religion or culture.
The Scots told me that I didn't understand what was going on over there. They didn't feel that it was important to their culture. I don't live there and don't understand all the issues, but I also silently suspected that they didn't realize what they were doing to themselves either.
Doubtless, foxes and muskrats will continue to be killed in Scotland. Their carcasses will now just be destroyed or left to rot. It seems to demean their existence more to me than to make use of their pelts. The Scots moved further away from balance and respect, I suspect.
Likewise, I think that those of us in developed cultures have become so separated from nature that we no longer can handle being confronted with the reality behind our supermarket purchases.
Let's not lie to ourselves and pretend that cows didn't die to provide us hamburger or chickens for our children's nuggets. Let's find balance that it takes food to survive and that we have the right to exist. The animals also have a right to exist, so we have to be balanced and humane in culling them.
I think that the reaction to the Abdessemed exhibit was a bit hysterical. He wanted us to face that our consumption of meat had meaning for which we've ducked, evaded and sought to ignore.
Instead, those reacting affirmed the need for his art piece. They felt that the blow to the animals' heads was cruel and inhumane. Shooting the animals seems to me to be just as bad by their measure. I'm not sure that asphyxiation would be less inhumane.
I don't think there is any method that will meet their approval. Their position strikes me as very unbalanced and they are in denial of their own humanity.
For example, the groups behind the backlash against the exhibit are suspected of a systematic campaign of credible threats of rape, violence and murder against the SFAI staff, according to SFAI's press release concerning its closing of the exhibit and the planned public forum to discuss the matter.
Threatening violence against humans because of violence against animals only highlights the lack of balance and reason in the persons who make up these groups. It completely undermines their self-perceived moral superiority. They have placed animals above both plants and humans destroying the harmony and natural balance.
For example, why don't they flinch when they see a video of a combine killing the corn plant and stealing its seeds? Why is it okay to steal all the fruit of a watermelon plant denying its right to reproduce? On the face of it, it seems like gross prejudice against plants, to me. Vegetarians have no moral high ground in the Indian world.
There is both good and bad sides to being human. The need to eat, wear and make shelter from animals and plants is not, perhaps, the most pleasant aspect of who we are. But denying that aspect of ourselves is not healthy nor desirable either.
We should be brave enough to watch Abdessemed's art pieces, feel how uncomfortable it makes us, and understand a little bit more what it means to be human. It helps us respect nature and ourselves in a far better way than by furthering our denial.
If you are guilt-stricken with this aspect of life, take a page from us Indians: You should feel guilty. That's entirely human and respectful. Instead of being cowards, we should be man or woman enough to acknowledge our dependence on other life to survive.
Say a little prayer of thanks to the animals and plants who gave up their lives so that we might live, be warm and protected. Acknowledge their sacrifice by being respectful. Downplaying the sacrifice by hiding our heads as to how it came to be only cheapens us all.
Little Britain, which I mentioned is coming to the US in a previous post, has been photographed filming in New York City.
