mcgees.org

I began with the intention of posting a complaint about the name “Operation Infinite Justice” applied to the terrorist retaliation efforts.  Does “Operation Infinite Justice” cause you (the reader) to shudder?  What we are hoping for (right?) is a finite struggle.   And damaging as it may have been, the attack was of finite scale, and therefore deserves finite retribution.

It is also problematic that “infinite justice” comes with heavy religious weights attached to it.  To propose that the U.S. could (let alone should) mete out such retribution would seem to offend most people.  The religious would be offended by the implicit arrogation of divine right, while the non-religious would be offended by casting a secular, military-political issue as a religious conflict.  I grimaced when George W. Bush used the word “crusade” to describe the conflict, but “Operation Infinite Justice” is not much of an improvement.  As Salon’s Scott Rosenberg writes, “The crusade, it seems, is on again.”

But good news, in the “this just in” sense: Rumsfeld announced he is “considering” finding a new name after hearing from Muslim clerics that it was offensive.  I think this can be read as a guarantee that they will change it (What else would he do?  Hold a press conference, announce that it is offensive to Muslim Americans, and then keep it?)

On two occasions in the past week I have heard television newscasters use the phrase “beg the question” to mean “leads one to ask the question.”  This is not the meaning of this phrase.  To “beg the question” has a precise definition in logic: it means to assume in your argument that which you are trying to prove.

Examples might be more enlightening than a definition.  Consider “Everything in the Christian Bible is true because the Bible tells us so.”  Or “Lying is bad because one ought to tell the truth.”  Or (from an August post) Coca-Cola’s proof that dining experiences are improved by ordering Coke, due to the fact that a program to increase Coke sales succeeded, and thus improved customers’ dining experiences.

I did a search and found a World Wide Words column on the topic (if you are interested in words and are not yet subscribed, you can sign up for a great email newsletter at the site.)  According to Michael Quinion (the author), the problems propagated from a 1581 translation of “petitio principii” as “beg the question.”  Quinion suggests that “laying claim to the principle” would have been a better translation.

If all this is confusing, I may have simply done a poor job explaining it.  Read Quinion’s column and see if that elucidates things.  If it is still confusing after that, you probably want to avoid using the expression.  While the corrupted meaning has arguably (and, in my opinion, quite unfortunately) entered common usage, using it as such will draw the condemnation of people with logic training.  To be more succinct: if you are attempting a logical argument and blatantly misuse a logic term, you have set yourself at a significant disadvantage.

If you really like the ring of “begs the question” in the incorrect usage, try saying “invites the question.” I expect that it should be comparably satisfying.

The new Nimda worm is much, much worse than was Code Red.  As of this writing, mcgees.org has been hit with over 18,000 attacks from over 1,000 machines.

[Johnson] charges himself with not rising early enough … “One great hindrance is want of rest; my nocturnal complaints grow less troublesome towards morning; and I am tempted to repair the deficiencies of the night.”

        - James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson

This seems to quite applicably describe my insomnia.  In my attempts to repair this, it would seem logical that, were I to rise early, I would be tired enough by evening to fall asleep at a reasonable hour.  This does not seem to be the case.

From the Department of Redundancy Department of CNNfn:

United Airlines … plans to cut at least 20,000 employees, or 20 percent of its workforce. … United currently has about 100,000 employees.

How can a film that announces “No animals were harmed in the making of this film” contain scenes of the actors eating meat?

Would a short diversion from tragedy be in order?  1994 saw the release of a couple of cheesy action movies centered around skydiving, one of which was the Wesley Snipes vehicle Drop Zone.  I saw this in the theatres, and was won over by a character in the film called Swoop.  In the midst of a so-so film emerged an engaging, interesting character, acted better than any of the others.  I remember having multiple conversations to the effect that “the movie stinks, but it is worth watching for the character of Swoop.”

I did not watch much television for most of the mid-nineties, so I did not catch onto Homicide: Life on the Street (which I now consider to be the finest television drama of the 1990s, bar none) until 1998, when I started watching from episode 1 on CourtTV.  Homicide is stunningly rich in acting, screenwriting, directing, cinematography, and the bravery with which they addressed issues.  One of my favorite characters was Detective Tim Bayliss, acted with enormous complexity and skill by Kyle Secor.

Today I caught the end of Drop Zone on an HBO network.  I was astonished to realize that the character of Swoop, who had stood out so prominently for me, was portrayed by Kyle Secor.

I guess it was too good to last: Michael Moore has followed up his previous, reasonably balanced column with more of his normal incorrect, knee-jerk statements that give liberalism a bad name.  Moore writes:

Back in May, you [Bush] gave the Taliban in Afghanistan $48 million dollars of our tax money. No free nation on earth would give them a cent, but you gave them a gift of $48 million because they said they had “banned all drugs.”

Unless one believes the U.S. State Department is boldly lying to the American public on all significant issues of its foreign policy, this is such unmitigated bullshit that it has my blood boiling.  I am left wondering if Mr. Moore is just an idiot or if is his aim is more sinister [Note 23/9/2001: Click here for my verdict.]

Following are the facts, as presented by the U.S. State Department.  I emphasize a subset of the points that Mr. Moore distorts.

The Taliban government issued a ban on poppy production.  This goes nicely with the U.S. War on Drugs, as Afghanistan produces some 75% of the world’s opium, which is then used to produce heroin.  The problem is that poppies are a very effective cash crop for poor Afghan farmers: they can harvest two crops a year, then grow watermelons or other food crops on the same land to feed themselves.  They have experience growing poppies, the poppies are drought-resistant, and since they are high-maintenance they employ many people.  The Taliban poppy ban came at a particularly bad time, as it was instituted two years into a terrible drought, and the drought has lasted another year.  The drought, coupled with the outlawing of crops, puts some 4 million Afghans at severe risk of famine.

The U.S. is by far the largest (but far from the only) provider of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan; in 2000 the U.S. provided approximately $114 million in aid.  The U.S. State Department are not idiots (unlike, perhaps, Mr. Moore.)  They realize that giving the money to the Taliban would defeat the purpose.  In the words of Secretary Powell, “Our aid bypasses the Taliban, who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it.”  Leonard Rogers (Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Humanitarian Response, USAID) expands: “The money will all go through either the United Nations or nongovernmental organizations, and some of those nongovernmentals are American organizations like CARE and International Medical Corps.”

In May 2001, the State Department announced an additional $43 million (not $48 million) in aid, in order to address the effects of the drought, the effects of outlawing poppy production, and general concerns of poverty and famine.  This raises year-to-date contributions to $124 million, a less than 9 percent increase over year 2000 funding.  And the U.S. is not flying over with attaché cases full of “benjamins”.  The disbursement includes 65,000 tons (NB: tons, not pounds) of wheat, $5 million in foodstuffs designed for therapeutic feeding programs for malnourished children (notably vegetable oil and nutritious corn-soy grain blends), and $10 million for “livelihood” assistance such as health assistance through UNICEF and seed- and tool-giving programs.  According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States, US hard wheat export prices in April 2001 were $134 per ton.  This means that ($134 * 65,000) + $5,000,000 = $14 million of this was given to U.S. farmers.  Think about it (I know this is a browbeating tone, but so few people seem to actually be thinking): take $14 million from U.S. taxpayers, buy surplus grain from America’s heartland, decrease the need for farm aid, and feed countless starving people.  What are we arguing about?

Now here is Moore’s quote again for you to read:

Back in May, you gave the Taliban in Afghanistan $48 million dollars of our tax money. No free nation on earth would give them a cent, but you gave them a gift of $48 million because they said they had “banned all drugs.”

A bit of a different picture, eh?  This aid would be greatly appreciated even if poppy production had not been outlawed; it is absolutely critical now.  I wonder what Moore would have us do: stop humanitarian aid?  Stop feeding starving families?  My sense is no: he would like us to provide this much humanitarian aid, but the voters to believe that a Republican administration wasn’t doing so.

Sorry again for my livid tone … but do your civic duty and read the State Department briefings and their responses to our questions before you start demonizing U.S. foreign aid.  I know that in my comments on the Unity piece I came out against pro-American propaganda.  But are we supposed to replace this with anti-American propaganda?  Fact: the U.S. feeds refugees in Afghanistan.  Fact: the U.S. does this without giving money to the Taliban.  Fact: the U.S. does this while retaining Taliban sanctions.  Fact: the U.S. encourages the Taliban to stop their civil war, become self-sufficient, and not starve their population.

It is taking enormous effort not to end this posting with a paragraph of anger against Michael Moore.  I’ll restrain.  Read Moore’s article, read the State Department briefings, and fill it in mentally for yourself.

A friend sent a very thoughtful and intelligent email to me regarding the recent events, prompted by the postings on this page.  He passed along two valuable links.  First is a column from Michael Moore that was far more moderate than I would have expected.  This statement (one of the few moments of rhetoric that he allowed himself) seems to land close to the mark:

Will we ever get to the point that we realize we will be more secure when the rest of the world isn’t living in poverty so we can have nice running shoes?

Second, this personal recollection makes for enlightening, if chilling, reading.

Note added 5 December 2001:  It turns out I was wrong in at least one respect.  I am now convinced that the images were not doctored: see here and here.

My apologies to those whom I harshly accused of idiocy.

If I had slightly less faith in humanity I might have seen this coming: so far 29 (see below for current number) people have hit my Live Recordings Trade Center looking for variations on a theme of “Satan/Devil face in World Trade Center”.  Can we assume there has been an imbecilic rumor floating about that if you freeze-frame one of the explosion recordings, and turn your head just right, you see the face of (whoooah, man!) Satan?

I know on an intellectual level that people are scrambling to make sense of the disaster, but the fact that this story is being gobbled up strains credulity.  Maybe they are Asimov fans: his 1956 short story Hell-Fire covered this ludicrous ground.  Regarding the Asimov story, reviewer John Jenkins writes:

This and “Silly Asses” are Asimov’s two worst nuclear war
cautionary tales, being too short, too obvious, and having nothing
of merit outside of their message. In this case, the fact that the
story’s conclusion–the face of Satan is visible in the explosion–has basically been headline material for the likes of the
National Enquirer doesn’t help it. Avoid this story, if possible.

Yes, folks: avoid this story if possible.

Note added 14 Sept 2001, 21:30:

The total searches for ‘devil in trade center’, ’satan face in world trade center’, etc. to hit my site now number 122.

Note added 16 Sept 2001, 10:30:

The total has now grown to 207.

Note added 17 Sept 2001, 23:45:

We are up to (brace yourself) 352.

Note added 19 Sept 2001, 11:15:

We have now reached 443.

Note added 20 Sept 2001, 11:15:

Another 89 hits in the last 24 hours; now up to 532.  And this has to be a very tiny sampling, since savvy web searchers would disregard the “hit” from the Google excerpt that shows on the search results page.  If one searches for “devil face in world trade center”, the following appears on page 1:

Live Recordings Trade
Center: List of Recordings
… Devil
By His Side; … In The Free World; Tuning Up for … 95,
The Delta Center, Salt Lake
City … so if you trade
with me I … Flow; Daughter > Broken Face > Real Me >
Another …
www.mcgees.org/livereclist.html - 17k
- Cached
- Similar
pages

If one searches for “satan face in world trade center”, the following appears on page 2 of the results:

Live Recordings Trade
Center: List of Recordings
… In The Free
World; Tuning Up for … Small Town; Rats; Satan’s Bed;
Once; Sonic … 95, The
Delta Center, Salt Lake City …
if you trade with me … Daughter > Broken Face >
Real Me …
www.mcgees.org/livereclist.html - 17k
- Cached
- Similar
pages

I finally gave in and looked into this rumor a bit more.  A Salon article attributes much of the hullabaloo to Art Bell.  Apparently he discussed this on his radio talk show, and posts some faked pictures on his website.  Here I will be blunt: If a viewer has even the slightest sophistication regarding, or experience with, digital images, it will be immediately obvious that these are nothing more than rather poorly-executed fakes.

Note added 22 Sept 2001, 12:00:

661

Note added 24 Sept 2001, 11:20:

This post is about to fall off the front page of mcgees.org, so this may be the last addendum.  The total is now a staggering 826.

I am still quietly fuming.  Last night, participating in a weekly Yahoo! chat, I was admonished post facto for “political” discussions.  By this is meant that “bomb the Middle East”, “go after our enemies whether or not they had anything to do with the attack”, and “torture is too good for bin-Laden; cut his balls off and let him die a eunuch” are not political statements, but urging care and restraint is.  Implicitly (and not very obscured) is the point that bilious tirades, racist generalisations, and threats of (further) unprovoked military force are harmless and on-topic; conversely, arguing in response that we should actually investigate who the guilty parties are before considering a storm of terror is “political”.  Note that for the soldiers who have been successfully brainwashed by our armed forces, the definition of “political” is actually “pansy-assed”.

Oh, I forgot that my views were also “shockingly naive”.  This, by the way, after I had left the chat.  A note to Yahoo! chat users: if a user goes “away from desk”, the browser still retains a log of what is discussed.  I vehemently reject the premise that diplomacy, research, and a respect for life are inappropriate in this circumstance.  I am cautiously heartened that Bush and Powell have so far demonstrated a willingness to think, rather than act on bigotry, the “they’re all the same” mindset, as despicable as that which motivated the attackers.

ESR, whom I did not know was capable of this level of political opportunism, sent a message to several news organizations on Tuesday afternoon subtitled First lessons from the 9/11 attack (note that the American-centric stance extends even to his date format.)  In this editorial … and I am finding it difficult to even transcribe this … he advocates arming all airline passengers as a way to prevent terrorism.  This bears repeating: according to Mr. Raymond, if you allow any passenger to carry loaded firearms onto a civilian airliner, you will prevent hijackings.

This is a complex editorial, but only in the sense that its audacity, irresponsibility, and insanity vie so closely for superiority that it is difficult to determine which comes out on top.  Situation: Armed passengers.  Result: Potential hijackers train as crack marksmen, carry semiautomatic pistols and wear Kevlar jackets.  They position themselves at various points of the plane and announce the hijacking.  They explain that anyone who resists will be shot, and will also cause two children on the aircraft to be shot.  Someone resists, is shot, as are a random four-year-old and six-year-old from among the passengers.  Someone else tries to resist, gets off a panic shot, punctures a window, and triggers an explosive decompression of the aircraft.  Now this is progress.

It “is arguable that the lawmakers who disarmed all the non-terrorists on those four airplanes, leaving them no chance to stop the hijackers, bear part of the moral responsibility for this catastrophe,” claims Raymond.  In point of fact, the crash in Pennsylvania suggests that unarmed passengers did succeed in stopping the hijackers; it seems quite likely they would not have been able to do so had the hijackers possessed firearms.

In an excellent bit of satire, one jsm ridicules and shames ESR’s and others’ rants (Thanks to Keith Dawson’s post on Media Grok for the pointer.):

Of course the World Trade Center bombings are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved.  However, we must also consider if this is not also a lesson to us all; a lesson that my political views are correct.  Although what is done can never be undone, the fact remains that if the world were organised according to my political views, this tragedy would never have happened  …  My religious and spiritual views also have much to teach us about the appropriate reaction to these truly terrible events  …  [We must] not lose sight of the fact that I am right on every significant moral and political issue, and everybody ought to agree with me.

A response by alprazolam continued the thought, sans satire: “Disturbing people assume that the best response to tragedy is to abandon reason and order.  No matter what political differences I may have with the current administration I’m glad that cool heads have prevailed and the U.S. has not erupted into widespread vigilantism.”

People are hitting my Live Recordings Trade Center as a result of searches for “live trade center pictures” and the like.  I feel awful that my inconsequential pages pull them away from their searches.

These are the accounts of my brother, who studies in Manhattan, of Tuesday’s events.  I publish them with his permission.

My morning began with several reset alarms.  I
kept getting up, and thinking that I could sleep just
a few more minutes and still be on time.

There sure were a lot of sirens, though.  I
didn’t pay too much attention to them, because of my
proximity to Bellevue Hospital.  And if there
were a few more than normal today, I didn’t think it
anything special. 

We woke up at 9:05, Jason and I.  We trudged
around a little bit.  I showered.  When I
got back to the room, the phone rang.  Jason
answered, paused… muttered “You’ve got to be
kidding me” and pushed the power button on our
TV. 

I don’t remember what station it was — it doesn’t
matter, they were all showing the same thing.  A
plane had crashed into one of the World Trade
towers.  Another had followed shortly after,
smashing into the second tower.  As I was waking
up —  just a few miles away, acts of terrorism were
being carried out.  At this point, all the rumors
were conjecture… if only one plane had hit, I
may have believed it an accident until proven
otherwise.  But two… certainly this was a
terrorist attack. 

The phone call was from my father… he told me
that he had just turned on the news, and that this had
just happened.  The south wind was blowing the
smoke away from me, or I certainly would have known of
this before.  I hung up and called the
office.  Brian answered- I told him I was coming
in, and asked if he knew.  They all knew, he
said.  They were all watching.

Sam and Will from down the hall went to look from the
roof- Sam grabbed his camera, and they headed out the
side doors of our 26th story. 

I headed downstairs, still in disbelief.  I
walked to the subway station on Park Ave.  and
23rd.  A man sat with a newspaper and a cup of
coffee.  I asked him what had happened.  He
told me the same- an airplane into each tower. 

The pillar of smoke ever in my sight, I continued to
the subway station.  I used the last of the fares
on my metro card.  There were businessmen and
women huddled together.  Once again I asked what
had happened.  A plane into each tower, the man
told me.  And one hit the Pentagon.

I couldn’t believe what was happening.  I asked
if anybody had claimed responsibility.  Nobody
knew. 

The subway was silent as I rode to Astor Place. 
I have never heard the subway silent before.  I
exited — the cloud of smoke and ash was much closer
now.  I walked on Astor to Broadway- turned
south.  A huge cloud of smoke had suddenly
erupted from the ground, under where the other flames
had been.  People began to run, screaming. 
People began running in every direction. 
“ANOTHER EXPLOSION, ANOTHER EXPLOSION!” As I walked by
an unmarked truck, I began to fear that I was next to
a car bomb.  My pace quickened… I moved
downtown against the beginning flow. 

Outside of 721 Broadway I turned.  I wanted to
see what had happened… I wanted to see it with
my own eyes.  I came to a crowd of people
standing on Green St.  Again I asked “What
happened?” A guy my own age turned and looked at me,
tears streaming down his face- “The left tower just
fell down.”

My heart stopped.  Surely this could not be
happening.  A certainly deadly terrorist attack
had just leapt into utter devastation.  My hand
leapt to my mouth, agape.  There was so much
smoke.  I kept walking toward Washington Square
Park.  The Main Building of NYU emptied. 
The word that classes were cancelled spread
quickly. 

I turned around and headed back toward 721
Broadway.  My hand still at my mouth, my heart
and mind not truly believing it.  I walked
inside, up to the third floor.  My office was
empty.  I saw Chris standing down the hall with
some students.  I walked up to him- voice
shaking- I asked “Chris… did one of them just
fall over?” He nodded at me… those always wise
eyes suddenly filled with unknowing.  We sat
there, gathered at the doorway, listening to the
radio.  Two or three other guys, one girl with
tear stained cheeks.  I had to sit down, my legs
were shaking.  As the others slowly departed to
go make important phone calls, I stood back up. 
My cell phone, 60 hours old had no signal.  Of
course, I thought — communication towers are on the
World Trade Towers. 

I walked back to the office, dropped my bag. 
Tried both friends, tried to get to CNN website
nothing was working.  All I could think about was
getting home.  I heard that classes weren’t
cancelled, but I didn’t care.  I needed to find
something else to do. 

Downstairs I saw the same girl from upstairs…
Lindsay, she said her name was.  We shook
hands.  Trying to force a smile, I said that the
next time we met I hoped it would be in better
circumstances.  And we parted ways, with wishes
of good luck. 

I reached Chelsea outside of Tisch… she hadn’t
heard what had happened.  Jenny’s parents had
just called from Beijing and asked if they were
watching the news.  She said she was just about
to call me.  It was her turn to ask “What
happened?” And I stood outside of Tisch, leaning
against the wall, sobbing.  I told her what had
happened.  New York.  Washington D.C. 
She was sobbing now, too.  “How could this
happen?” She asked.  I had no answer to
give. 

I joined the mass emigration moving northward along
major streets.  We all looked behind,
constantly.  There was no tremendous thunder
clap, there was no fanfare- but when I turned around
that last time and saw no more smoke coming from the
sky, and billowing clouds of ash from the ground, I
knew the second tower had fallen.  Women walking
next to me had no signal on their phones.  One
asked if she could use my phone, she had to call her
family- but once I disconnected, I too had no
signal.  The streets were filled with people
moving uptown.  Away and further away. 

Rumors filled the streets- the Sears Tower had been
hit, I heard.  Car bombs were exploding all over
D.C., I heard.  I looked up at the Empire State
Building, hoping it would last the day.  I feared
that it might be next.  There were so many people
on the streets.  I feared car bombs.  People
were staring at cell phones, willing them to work,
looking behind with dread.  As I turned on 26th
St., I started talking to some businessmen. 
“What the fuck is going on?,” I asked? As one turned
and wished us good luck, the second echoed my
question.  “Where are you headed?” I asked. 
“I’m going to Bellevue, try to give blood,” he
said. 

I joined him — I was in such shock, it honestly
hadn’t occurred to me to donate blood.  We
quickened our pace again, and made toward
Bellevue. 

It was caution-taped shut.  “Nobody comes in,”
the police officer said.  “We want to give
blood,” we said.  “Nobody comes in.”

So I parted ways with this man too — he told to me to
try again later, and to get as many people as I
could.  I told him I would certainly do so. 
And I walked back to my dorm.  Up to the 26th
floor.  Into Sam and Will’s room.  The
images from his camera on his computer already, I saw
the now destroyed twin towers smoking- as they had
stood two, maybe three hours earlier.  But I knew
they weren’t there anymore… nothing in my life
has been so surreal.  As I walked back to my
room, the thoughts in my mind were of a new day that
will live in infamy.  Of the thousands upon
thousands upon tens of thousands that must have been
dead in the destruction.  And I couldn’t really
work it out in my head… I couldn’t get it to
click. 

Zach was safe, Zach was here.  We talked about
how frightened we were, what we had seen, what we had
heard.  My concern became for Aaron — I knew
that Jason couldn’t have possibly gotten that far
downtown — he had left the dorm after me, and as all
public transit systems were down, he couldn’t have
gotten down there.  But Aaron was gone when I
woke up, and we hadn’t heard from him.  He called
relatively soon — he was safe at a friend’s
dorm. 

Jason got back to the dorm.  He had been trying
to give blood at other hospitals — St. 
Vincent’s and Beth Israel.  He had tried Bellevue
too.  They all turned him away.  Too many
patients, too few doctors.  All the TV stations
said that there was a shortage of blood — but we
couldn’t find anybody to take ours.

I couldn’t get a phone line out.  Ethernet
worked… I got Jonathan Johannsen to call my dad
and tell him I was OK, and to have my dad call Chelsea
and Josh.  Chelsea signed online shortly after,
my dad shortly after her.  I was inundated with
instant messages.  I spread the word that I was
OK, but that New York was a warzone.  There were
so many people. 

Nine or ten of my friends were downstairs, making the
trek to Laura’s.  Alive and well and accounted
for were all those that I hadn’t heard from. 

And through the day as I watched the news, I got back
in touch with my family… I found out that
Chelsea had been planning on surprising me with a
visit the next day.  She had a plane ticket to
come and see me for the next five or six days, as a
wonderful surprise.  And I begged and begged her
to wait at least a week to come again.  The last
thing I need is for Chelsea to be on a plane right now
– as if I could rest easily with that on my
mind.  As if I can now…

And that was the rest of the day… news, and
phone, and typing… letting everyone know that I
was physically alive, and mentally pretty
ragged. 

So I watched the news, and talked to friends, and
tried not to think about the things that were
happening downtown.  Sooner or later, maybe, it
will hit me what has happened.  It will hit me
that New York’s largest buildings are a heap of
200,000 tons of steel, mixed with concrete and
glass… but it hasn’t yet.  Maybe it will
hit me how many died…  but it hasn’t yet. 

But it has started to hit me how everyone came
together in this city… it’s started to hit me
that those places that are taking blood have lines
around the block, that usually gruff New Yorkers were
sharing cell phones, and wishes of peace. 

This really doesn’t change the fact that tens of
thousands died today, that I watched a building
collapse, that others were closer and others lost
loved ones and others had their planes hijacked and
flight attendants were stabbed and pilots probably
shot, that people decided to fall rather than burn,
that rescue workers simply helping out are gone
too. 

It doesn’t change any of that.  But in a hopeless
situation it gives me a glimmer of hope that I
desperately need.  And I want to side with that
businessman on the street today who said “I hope we
give a big “fuck you” to the world and build ‘em back
again, this time bigger.” And I want to send love to
those who are offering shelter and food, and to a city
always divided to come together so well.

Today it takes an attack, but that hope is there –
that someday it won’t have to come to that.  I
don’t know, but I hope.  It’s been the longest,
scariest, worst day of my life.  Good
night.  And Peace-

I expect that everyone who reads this has received a
forward of an editorial spoken by “A Canadian” (or
written by a “Canadien”, depending on
which version you receive) urging Americans to stand
proud as Americans.  The overall point of the
propaganda is that Americans get a bad rap worldwide,
but Americans should continue to believe that they are
the coolest, most generous, ass-kickingest people in
the known universe, and we should believe this because
a Canadian tells us so.  If you have not received
one of these emails yet, click here to view
a copy or wait thirty seconds for a copy to show
up from somebody in your inbox.

The events of 11 Sept have hit all of us very hard,
some devastatingly.  My brother lives in
Manhattan and I am overwhelmingly relieved that he is
safe.  The irresponsible images broadcast by CNN
of a small number of Palestinians cheering have left
many Americans affronted, but we do need to keep our
wits about us.

Surely there are some things that should strike us as
odd about this widely distributed email.  “The
Canadian” writes:

Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded.
They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless
they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American
dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.

The present tense of the statement (”are here”, “are
getting”) seems odd considering that there has not
been an American draft in effect for thirty
years.  Among the patently incorrect statements,
this stands out:

Does any other country in the world have a
plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed
Tri-Star, or the Douglas
DC10?  If so, why don’t they fly them? Why do all
the International lines
except Russia fly American Planes?

Well, the Airbus
(with a 50% market share and growing) comes to
mind.  Airbus planes are flown by airlines
worldwide, including U.S. airlines.  And the
seemingly irrelevant comment:

I’d like to see just one of those
countries that is gloating over the erosion of the
United States dollar…

Why does “The Canadian” bring up the erosion of the
dollar?  The reason is quite simple: this text is
taken out of context from a radio
editorial, spoken by Gordon Sinclair in 1973,
regarding the collapse of the American dollar
following the US withdrawal from the Vietnamese War
(before Airbus’ first plane had reached production
status.)

Statements by world leaders in the past few days
should show Americans that the world is united with
us, but it strikes me as irresponsible to usurp a
thirty-year-old monologue on a different topic to
prove it.

Cinna, Brutus, and other conspirators have just assassinated Julius Caesar.  Marc Antony has raised the crowd to riot via an eloquent speech.  The crowd, spilling to the streets, encounter a man called Cinna, a poet.

“Your name, sir, truly.”

“Truly, my name is Cinna.”

“Tear him to pieces!  He’s a conspirator.”

“I am Cinna the poet!   I am Cinna the poet! …  I am not Cinna the conspirator.”

“It is no matter; his name’s Cinna! … Tear him, tear him!”

      - Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 3.

This is no more rational today than it would have been more than two thousand years ago.

Please take a moment to read this and this.

Some time ago I received one of those insipid and banal email forwards full of “strange” things about our language; the “Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways?” sort of drivel.  But this one had an entry that annoyed me significantly.  It asked, “If price and worth mean the same thing, how come priceless and worthless are opposites?”

There are several levels to complain about here.  First is the fact that, no, price and worth are not synonymous.  This is true even before we venture deeply into the moral and aesthetic realms.  Worth expresses the concept of the collected attributes of an object that renders something desirable; price refers to “the amount, as of money or goods, asked for or given in exchange for something else” (American Heritage Dictionary.)  The reason worth and price can seem synonymous on the surface is what I will call the “appraisal effect”.  If an appraiser tells you that a painting is “worth” $150,000, this is linguistic shorthand for “this painting possesses a collection of attributes such that, were you to price it at $150,000 or less, someone would likely buy it; but if you were to price it over $150,000 no one would likely buy it.”  This is admittedly efficient and useful shorthand, but like so many other linguistic shorthands it is only appropriate if we keep in mind the true meaning.

If one does not keep in mind this distinction, or if the distinction never occurs to one to begin with, what is implied?

1. Pricing is optimal in terms of information dispersal; i.e. markets are efficient,
2. all value judgments are based on financial analysis,
3. and (implicitly) something cannot be with price but without worth, or with worth but with price.

Point one excludes bargains and price gauging from possibility; there would never be a situation where anything were priced higher or lower than what it should be on a global economic scale.  But even globally efficient markets would not imply synonymy between price and worth, since point two excludes any other criteria from the definition of worth.  This strikes me as slimily and naïvely capitalistic: everything I own is worth only what people will pay me for it; likewise for everyone I know.  Point three, if points one and two have not convinced you, should show that the construction reduces to a logical absurdity.

On Tuesday, KQED radio’s Forum with Michael Krasny was on the topic of bats.  The educated and eloquent guests included Patricia Winters, education and rehabilitation director for the California Bat Conservation Fund; Rachel Long, farm advisor on pest management with the Cooperative Extension in Yolo/Solano County; and Don Clark, former research wildlife biologist for the US Fish and Wildlife Department.  Their claim was simple, predictable, and unfortunate: bat populations are decreasing markedly around the world, due to a combination of misplaced fear, superstition, pesticides and habitat destruction.

The guests went into great detail regarding bats’ harmlessness to humans, their role in managing insect populations, and their roles in pollinating and reseeding.  According to Ms. Winters, bats are responsible for pollinating 450 cash crops^*.  Someone suggested that they were responsible for pollinating cocoa; Winters ruefully remarked that, no, “If bats pollinated chocolate I would have the battle won.”

Particularly troubling were the stories of bats becoming trapped inside houses, especially A-frame homes.  Apparently bats will mistakenly enter, fly up to the rafters, and will die of thirst because their terror of the people below prevents them from descending.  There does not need to be much space for them.  Guess the smallest crack the average bat in California can crawl into (width by length) according to the experts.

OK, have a guess?

The mind-boggling answer is three-eighths of an inch by an inch and a half.  They are apparently quite content in this tiny space.

The organization Bat Conservation International was strongly endorsed.  The Organization for Bat Conservation also looks promising; their mission to “Teach the World About the Benefits of Bats” involves providing information, offering “Adopt-a-bat” programs, and selling bat supplies such as bat houses and plans thereof.

^* The other interesting thing as that I doubt if I could name more than 100 cash crops; this illustrates my cluelessness, the inability to extrapolate globally from U.S. practices, or both.

KROQ radio in Los Angeles held a Labor Day countdown of the three hundred “best” modern rock songs of the ’90s.  I was skeptical; my experience with modern music countdowns has been that there is usually a bias towards recently-released songs.  I was afraid that a great many of the songs would be from ‘98 or ‘99.

I did not listen to much of the countdown, only catching a few songs while driving, but KROQ posted the full list the following Tuesday.  I classified the songs by the release date of their parent albums, which range from 1988 to 2000^*.  Inspecting these numbers, we get the following (click here to download the Excel spreadsheet):

	Median	Mean
Overall	1995	1995.1
1 - 100	1994	1994.3
101 - 200	1995	1995.1
201 - 300	1996	1995.7

I was pleasantly surprised.  The overall countdown was very balanced, and, if anything, older songs seemed to do better.  I charted it to help me visualize:

The chart is oriented with 300 on the left and 1 on the right.  The heavy black line is a period-seven floating average to help smooth the data.  The green line is the best linear fit (with a correlation coefficient of only 0.19); this suggests a slight bias in favor of older songs.  So I was wrong.

From a subjective standpoint, a few things bothered me.  REM seem dramatically under-represented, with only one song on the countdown (what happened to “Man on the Moon”, “Drive”, “Shiny Happy People”, “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”, etc?)  I am far from their biggest fans, but how did Counting Crows not make the list for “Mr. Jones”, perhaps even for “Einstein on the Beach”?  Tori Amos only shows up twice, but Sublime shows up nine times (I think this absurdly over-rates them, but my brother may disagree.)  If you are curious, here is a list of artists who show up at least five times on the countdown:

^* There were a few judgment calls that I had to make.  “Everlong (Acoustic)” by the Foo Fighters (#18 on the countdown) was classified as 1998.  “Jane Says (Live)” by Jane’s Addiction (#75) was classified as 1988.  In both of these cases I am not sure what live performance KROQ has been playing.  Nirvana’s “Verse Chorus Verse” (#243) was assigned to 1993.  Finally, “Sweet Jane” by Cowboy Junkies (#170) was not assigned to 1988, the year The Trinity Session was released, but rather to 1994 when the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, which popularized the song, was released.

My Nokia cell phone gets hot enough in prolonged use to feel like it is burning my ear.  I hung up twenty minutes ago and my ear still feels sunburnt.  Be careful.

In one of my joke books as a child, there was a bit of insecure racist commentary disguised as a joke.  The setup was that a man went into his mechanic claiming that his expensive import car was only getting twenty miles to the gallon, compared to the known extreme efficiency of 35 miles to the gallon.

The mechanic suggested that he “could do what all the other import owners did.”

“What’s that?” asked the customer.

“Lie about it,” replied the mechanic.

It is hard not to find a parallel in the Linux/Windows debate.  I use a Windows PC for browsing, word processing, etc., and a Linux PC as my web server (for the site you are currently reading, for instance.)  My Linux PC is probably less stable than my Windows PC.  It freezes and crashes all the time.  And unless I am a far bigger idiot than I believe, this is not my fault.  I am not doing anything fancy; in fact, the machine will crash when the system is simply left at a login prompt (thus, there are only daemons running from time to time.)

Why is my Linux system (and my one at work, by the way) much less stable than what is “known to be the case for Linux?”  I suppose I could ask a newsgroup.  I expect that, if I happen to catch them at a moment of honesty, I would get some very helpful tech support: “Do what other Linux users do.  Lie about it.”

Welcome back to school, David!  Have a great year.  I will see you at Christmas if not sooner.

I just discovered, quite accidentally, that if you press Ctrl-V to paste into Microsoft Outlook’s main window, Outlook will launch a new blank message and paste the clipboard text as the message body.  While we are on Outlook tips, note that you can right click in an email message window to raise a context menu including a “view source” option.

I posted the following to a Blogger developers’
discussion,
and thought it might be useful reposting it here as
search engine fodder.

TV notes:

TLC will air episodes of Police, Camera, Action today at 3, 4, and 8 p.m.

MTV are bringing back their acclaimed Unplugged series but (and here is the catch) they will be airing it on MTV2.  If you do not get it and would like to, contact your cable company.  If you have Adelphia, then please contact them because they (my provider) do not carry this station.  Maybe they can get Metallica, Staind, and Tool on this time around.  And of course I would not mind seeing Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots record new programs.

Looking for a web site that does meta-searches on library collections, I was thrilled to find that the U.S. Library of Congress offers a Z39.50 gateway to 381 worldwide library databases.  I still did not find a meta-search site, and the LoC makes you search each of the libraries one at a time, but I wrote a small Perl script that iterates through each library, runs a search, and collates all the results.  If you want a copy just email me.

I tried writing the script such that it forks 381 different processes to run the searches in parallel, but A Certain Something happens.  No, I don’t know what.  My guess is that it gobbles up too much of some resource or another, because the machine slows to a crawl, stops accepting user input, and even if I do get it started again all the requests after a certain point simply fail.  So for now it iterates, which takes a long time.

If you change your Blogger weblog from a weekly to a monthly archive format but do not want to break search engine links to these pages, add the following lines to either the archive directory’s .htaccess file or (if you are the sysadmin) to httpd.conf, assuming you run Apache:

RewriteEngine   on

RewriteRule     ^(200._..)_0[^1]_index.html$      $1_01_index.html [R]

Line one turns on URL rewriting.  Lines two through four take file names of the form 200X_XX_XX_index.html, keep X_XX, but change XX to 01.  This will redirect, for instance, requests for the weekly logs of July 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29 of this year all to 2001_07_01_index.html.  The reason for the three lines is so that you do not trigger an infinite loop (i.e., the server changes the filename to 2001_07_01_index.html and redirects, the server picks up the redirect, changes the filename to 2001_07_01_index.html….)

If we call XX the “day” digits, then line 2 handles day digits where the first digit is not 0 and the second digit is not 1, line 3 handles situations where the first digit is not 0 but the second digit is 1, and line 4 handles situations where the first digit is 0 but the second digit is not 1.  With full-powered regular expressions, this should be compressible into ^(200._..)_([^0][^1]|[^0]1|0[^1])_index.html$, but Apache does not seem to handle this properly.  Yes, there are other ways to code the regexps.

As I was driving home from work listening to KUSC, Jim Svejda played a hauntingly beautiful piece by Benjamin Britten, a composer with whom I am completely unfamiliar save “having heard of him before.”  I arrived home before the piece ended, but I rushed inside to continue listening.  KUSC’s RealAudio stream seems to be down, unfortunately, but I was able to get details from the website:

11:00 pm   Benjamin Britten: Hymn to St. Cecilia Op. 27 for
unaccompanied chorus

                       
St. John’s College Choir / Christopher Robinson

                        Naxos 554791

I just purchased this recording from Tower Records, a process that I would strongly recommend if

a) You would like to hit yourself in the head repeatedly with a cinder block but

b) Do not happen to have one available just now.

With all the good e-commerce software available, it is surprising that a national company would have such a miserable online shopping implementation.

Soundex is a classic algorithm for hashing a name, using phonetic heuristics, to allow “fuzzy” matches.  A telephone operator, for instance, can type “John Smith” and retrieve records for “John Smith”, “Jon Smith”, “John Smythe”, and “Jon Smythe”.

Curious what buckets “Joshua” and “McGee” hash into?  Here is a sample:

J200: Jace, Jack, Jackie, Jacko, Jacks, Jacqui, Jacy, Jake, Jakie, Jaqui, Jaska, Jaws, Jazy, Jazz, Jess, Jesse, Jessie, Jewish, Jiggs, Jo-Jo, Joac, Joasia, Jochi, Jocie, Jock, Jockey, Jocko, Jojo, Jookie, Jos, Jose, Josey, Josh, Joshua, Josiah, Josie, Joska, Joss, Josue, Josza, Joszia, Joyce, Joycie, Jozsi, Jug, Juice, Juiz, Juke, Jussi

M200: M’sieu, MC, Maacah, Maas, Mac, MacKay, Macci, Mace, Macey, Macho, Mack, Mackay, Mackey, Mackie, Macque, Macy, Mag, Magee, Maggi, Maggie, Maggio, Maggs, Magi, Magoya, Mags, Magua, Maish, Maisie, Maize, Maizie, Maj, Mak, Maki, Makie, Mako, Masai, Masao, Mascha, Masha, Mask, Massai, Massey, Massieu, Max, Maxey, Maxie, Maxse, Mays, Maz, Mazai, Maze, Mazie, Mc, McCay, McCoy, McCue, McGee, McKay, McKee, Meaux, Meche, Meck, Meekie, Meeks, Meg, Mejia, Mesa, Mess, Messua, Micah, Micha, Michio, Mick, Mickey, Micki, Micky, Miegs, Mieke, Mieux, Mieze, Migg, Miggs, Mike, Mikey, Mikha, Miki, Mikie, Mikki, Mis, Mischa, Misha, Misi, Miso, Miss, Missy, Miyagi, Miyaji, Mizzi, Mizzie, Moaka, Mochow, Moco, Mog, Mogg, Mohock, Moisha, Moishe, Moke, Moki, Moko, Moochie, Mooka, Moose, Mosca, Mosch, Mose, Mosey, Moss, Mouche, Mouse, Mousie, Moxie, Moyoko, Moze, Mozo, Mozuya, Ms., Much, Muche, Muck, Muckeye, Mug, Muggs, Muggsy, Mugs, Mugsy, Musi, Mussa, Musso

Neat, eh?  This way I can easily change my nationality …

• Jose Mejia
• Josue Mieux
• Josza Miyagi

… or get a really cool name …

• Jewish Moose
• Jock Macho
• Jazz Magi
• Juice Mug
• Jug Miso
• Jiggs MC
• Jockey Mugsy

… and people could still call directory assistance and find me!