dglenn

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:10:23 GMT

"Along with that we've got to continue through legislation and legalism. I know there are those who say that this can't be done through the courts, it can't be done through laws, you can't legislate morals. They would say that integration must come by education not legislation. Well I choose to be dialectical at that point. It's not either legislation or education. It's both legislation and education. We've got to use both. Now it's true that you can't legislate morals in a sense, and that isn't what we try to do through the law. You see, through the law we don't seek to change one's internal feelings, we seek to control the external effects of those internal feelings. That's all we try to do through the law. Now it's true that the law can't make a man love me; that's, religion and education will have to do that. But the law can control his desire to lynch me. See that's what we call on the law for, and we must continue to struggle through legislation and legalism." -- Martin Luther King, Jr. (b. 1929-01-15, d. 1968-04-04), 1957-01-01 [emphasis added by the friend who pointed this out in hir own journal (locked entry)]

[Also: good luck to anyone observing National Coming-Out Day in the fashion suggested by its name -- and more power to you! (I'm not sure I still know any closeted people ... but if I'm wrong, I suppose this would be a suitable day to correct me.)]

HCB Gig Tomorrow: Anne Arundel

dglenn@panix.com — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:44:33 GMT

I haven't been posting much, or really commenting all that much aside from one or two threads -- I've not been feeling well. But I did manage to drag myself out to Homespun Ceilidh Band rehearsal on Wednesday, and we'll be performing at the Anne Arundel Scottish Festival And Highland Games tomorrow, Saturday, 11 October. The festival opens at 9:00 and runs til 17:00; we're scheduled to play from 12:30 to 14:00, but bear in mind that stage schedules at festivals sometimes get shifted a bit earlier or later depending on how everything else is going.

The festival is held at the Anne Arundel County Fairground, in Crownsville, Maryland, a stone's throw from the site of the Maryland Renaissance Festival -- if you've been to the MDRF, you know how long it'll take you to drive to the AASF&HG. The last time I looked at a weather forecast, Saturday looked to be pleasant.

Other entertainers at the festival will be Carl Peterson, Some Assembly, and Fair Warning.

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:10:33 GMT

"She riled people up, and that's all that counts for these folks. Of course, the same sort of 'riling up' used to be used to energize a lynch mob." -- zoethe, 2008-09-04

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:10:44 GMT

"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it." -- John Lennon (b. 1940-10-09, d. 1980-12-08)

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 09:10:49 GMT

"In those days [1978-1979], if you showed [the VisiCalc demo] to a programmer, he'd say, 'Well, that's neat. Of course computers can do that - so what?' But if you showed it to a person who had to do financial work with real spreadsheets, he'd start shaking and say, 'I spent all week doing that.' Then he'd shove his charge cards in your face." -- Dan Bricklin, one of the creators of VisiCalc, quoted in a 1989 Byte interview

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:10:58 GMT

"Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else." -- Lyndon Johnson (b. 1908-08-27, d. 1973-01-22; US President 1963-1969)

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:11:07 GMT

"Will this Nation succeed in keeping its prosperity? Will it preserve its high standards of living next year, and the year after, and the year after that?

"I know of only one way to get assured prosperity. That is by cooperation of agriculture with labor, cooperation of agriculture and labor with business, large and small.

"When these groups work together in a common cause, this country can achieve miracles. We saw that during the war. We saw it before the war. [...]

"So long as the farmer, the worker, and the businessman pull together in the national interest, this country has everything to hope for.

"But it is terribly dangerous to let any one group get too much power in the Government. We cannot afford to let one group share the Nation's policies in its own interest, at the expense of the others.

"That is what happened in the 1920's, under the big business rule of the Republicans. Those were the days when big corporations had things their own way. The policies that Wall Street big business wanted were the policies that the Republicans adopted. Agriculture, labor, and small business played second fiddle, while big business called the tune.

"[...]

"You remember the results of that Wall Street Republican policy. You remember the big boom and the great crash of 1929. You remember that in 1932 the position of the farmer had become so desperate that there was actual violence in many farming communities. You remember that insurance companies and banks took over much of the land of small independent farmers--223,000 farmers lost their farms.

"That was a painful lesson. It should not be forgotten for a moment.

"[...]

"The Wall Street reactionaries are not satisfied with being rich. They want to increase their power and their privileges, regardless of what happens to the other fellow. They are gluttons of privilege.

"These gluttons of privilege are now putting up fabulous sums of money to elect a Republican administration.

"Why do you think they are doing that? For the love of the Republican candidate? Or do you think it is because they expect a Republican administration to carry out their will, as it did in the days of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover?

"I think we know the answer. I think we know that Wall Street expects its money this year to elect a Republican administration that will listen to the gluttons of privilege first, and to the people not at all.

"Republican reactionaries want an administration that will assure privilege for big business, regardless of what may happen to the rest of the Nation.

"The Republican strategy is to divide the farmer and the industrial worker--to get them to squabbling with each other--so that big business can grasp the balance of power and take the country over, lock, stock, and barrel.

"To gain this end, they will stop at nothing. On the one hand, the Republicans are telling industrial workers that the high cost of food in the cities is due to this Government's farm policy. On the other hand, the Republicans are telling the farmers that the high cost of manufactured goods on the farm is due to this Government's labor policy.

"That's plain hokum. It's an old political trick. 'If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em.' But this time it won't work."

-- Harry S. Truman, 1948-09-18

You're Doing It Wrong

dglenn@panix.com — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:27:20 GMT

Dear web page coder and/or automatic webification tool author,

If I have to make use of the ability in my browser to edit the page source in the 'view source' tab and have the changes reflected in the tab where I'd been trying to view your page, in order to read the damned thing, then you're doing it wrong.

If enlarging the font to make it easier to read causes horizontal scrolling because you hard-formatted the text into non-wrapping lines, unless I hand-edit the source first, then you're doing it wrong. And additional points off if the page starts off wider than my browser window when I initially load it, before any zooming.

There's at least one right way to convert man(1) pages into web pages. And, as I've observed this morning, at least one dead wrong way to do it.

no love,
Cranky Reader

PS: "SEE ALSO" instead of "SEE ALSO"? I am not impressed. Though that, at least, did not affect readability. What did you do, work from the nroff output with the embedded backspaces for bold, or something, instead of translating from the nroff source to HTML? Sheesh!

[In other news: not feeling at all well lately -- feels kinda like the flu minus a) the respiratory symptoms and b) the fever (as far as I can tell using a (very well cleaned) darkroom thermometer instead of a medical thermometer). Hot and cold flashes, dizziness, weakness, nausea; no fun, really no fun. Makes dragging myself out of the house to the grocery store difficult, though I'll try to go pick up a few things before the Ravens game if I can.]

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:11:16 GMT

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2007-01-31:

"Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are." -- Harry G. Frankfurt, _On Bullshit_ (Princeton University Press).

(submitted to the mailing list by Stig Hackvan)

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 09:11:26 GMT

"Remember the fifties, those fat complacent days
When the future seemed a century away?
Then up went Sputnik, gave the world a butt-kick,
And made it clear tomorrow starts today.

Beep beep, boop boop,
hello there! (Gazhupa!)
Sputnik sails giggling through the sky.
(hey! hey! hey!)
Red flags, red faces, jump in the race as
The space age begins with a surprise.
(surprise!)"

-- first verse and chorus, of "Surprise", by Leslie Fish

[ full lyrics (search within page for first line)]

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:11:34 GMT

"Have you accepted the scientific method into your heart and given your life over to empiricism and reason?" -- door-to-door science-proselytizers, in the comic strip Abstruse Goose

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:11:42 GMT

"If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. " -- US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (b. 1908-07-02, d. 1993-01-24)

"You can't win, Book Banner. If you censor these books they will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!" -- from Unshelved, 2002-10-16 (comic within a comic; Dewey as a librarian Obi-Wan Kenobi)

"Because they never learn. The inevitable result of trying to ban something -- book, film, play, pop song, whatever -- is that far more people want to get hold of it than would ever have done if it were left alone. Why don't the censors realise this?" -- Philip Pullman, "The censor's dark materials", Guardian, 2008-09-29

[I didn't mean to let so much of Banned Books Week slip past before posting a relevant quote. Whoops.]

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:11:52 GMT

"America is like a large ocean liner, sailing for a long time on the same course. When the course is changed, it is changed for a long time." -- Jean-Marie Colombani, "We Are All Americans", Le Monde, 2001-09-12

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:12:01 GMT

"A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit." -- D. Elton Trueblood

[To my Jewish friends, happy new year!]

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:12:09 GMT

"In the dictionary, the word elitist, it says, is a person enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status. Now both Obama and McCain by definition then would be elitists -- they are members of the most exclusive club in America: they're in the US senate. This anti-elite crap are just both sides trying to appeal to the working man. You want to appeal to the working man? Here's how you do it: create jobs so he has some place to go to work!"

[...]

"There are two elite men competing to govern the country. I say that is the way it should be, by the way. I'm fine with that. I'm fine with elistists running the country. Y'know, people say 'Oh, I want the president to be somebody just like me.' Not me! I'm an unreliable drunk and a pathological liar! We don't want someone-- We can't vote somebody like me into the White House like that ... again! We can't do that again!"

-- Craig Ferguson, in the opening monlogue for the CBS television program, The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, episode aired wee hours of 2008-09-19 (presumably recorded 2008-09-18)

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:12:18 GMT

From the Quotation Of The Day mailing list, 2008-09-20:

"It seems that the Republican Party in the United States has made an audacious bid to retain power by running Mr. Burns and Marge Simpson as candidates for president and vice-president." -- John Doyle, TV critic, in his September 2, 2008 column.

(submitted to the mailing list by Mike Krawchuk)

How I'm Doing; and, Plans And The Unfortunate Limitations Thereof

dglenn@panix.com — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:59:19 GMT

My apologies to various people I've neglected this week (and, uh, the week before, and the week before that); and a moment to reassure everyone that I'm still breathing...

Some progress on the health front -- I was feeling okay enough ("sufficiently spoonful"?) to get out of the house and take care of a couple of overdue errands (including refilling prescriptions). The long spell of hyperacusis has diminished enough that cars passing over the steel plate the utility company laid across a hole they dug in a travel lane of Fulton Ave sound like muffled, distant cannon fire, instead of feeling like my house was being shelled, and since I'm feeling able to cope with sounds I've turned my phone back on (and am letting my ear canal recover from the bruised feeling I got from wearing foam earplugs for so much of the time). I'm a little concerned though, because I've been having trouble hearing voices on television without turning up the volume enough to make the background music and Foley work uncomfortably loud. I hope it's just some bad recording at the studio or bad adjustments at the station, and not hearing loss in the human-speech frequency range. (It seems much worse in the wee hours, and much worse on channel 54 than on other channels ... and worse on dramas than on talk/news/documentary/debate programs. So maybe it isn't my ears. OTOH, it was also worse when my hearing was hyperacute otherwise, so maybe it is. I'm not due for a regular hearing test for a while, but I'll bring it up the next time I see my doctor.

By yester-evening I was feeling pretty ragged despite having not started until mid-afternoon. I did not make it to a friend's birthday gathering at a restaurtant in Virginia that I'd a) wanted to go to but b) probably couldn't really afford anyhow. (Hmm. I wonder whether missing that was part of why I really wanted to grab fast-food on the way home last night instead of cooking something for myself -- my subconscious had the eating-out expectation all ramped up?). I'd put some hope into making it to another party tonight, and had planned on asking here for a ride to it (so I'd only need to feel well enough to handle going, not also well enough to drive safely for a while) ... but last night/this morning I haven't been able to stay asleep for more than ninety minutes at a stretch before odd dreams wake me again, so I'm feeling more than a little brain-fried right now (and various muscles are screaming at me -- lack of sleep makes the fibro worse). I'd feared last night that I might have burned too many spoons yesterday to get out tonight (and if I could've gotten away with procrastinating on yesterday's errands, I would have) ... effectively not sleeping has compounded that. :-( tonight's going to be a little too iffy for trying to coordinate a ride with someone else, I think.

And I've got a couple of wee projects outstanding that I'd promised people I'd get done, that I'm still working on -- I'd hoped to knock those off last night. Argh.

So my current plan is: try to sleep, hope I wake again in time to go to the party but not too soon to feel refreshed enough to go, and see whether I still have time and energy after finishing up the stuff I need to send to folks. Party tonight looks unlikely, but I can't quite afford to give up hope because I'm waving the prospect of it in front of myself as a potential reward for getting things to come out right.

Other than two trips to Mom's house and a few runs to the drug store, I've not been out of the house for a couple of weeks. I could really use an outing. (I'm in the mood to wear something short, that shows off my legs. I'm also in the mood to paint my toenails -- something I haven't done in, oh, about twenty five years, if I remember right -- but none of my shoes really leave my toenails visible anyhow.) OTOH, I could also use having enough spoons left on Monday to get to 3LF rehearsal.

Forget "one day at a time"; right now I'm in "one half-hour at a time" mode. (And this half-hour, procrastinating by writing this ... whoops.) If I do get out, I'll see some friends I've not seen in far too long; if I don't, it won't be for lack of desire.

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 09:12:27 GMT

"You have to remember that Americans trying to run an election are like Neanderthals trying assemble and operate a jet engine (actually 51 jet engines, all with slightly different specifications). You don't complain if some of the engines don't work. You marvel if they get to the end of the process and nobody has been sucked through a turbine." -- james_nicoll, 2008-09-05

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:12:36 GMT

"As we observe the seventh anniversary of the attacks of 9/11, we again hear politicians hurl the familiar 'soft-on-terror' charge of having a 'September 10 mindset'. In truth, no American who experienced the horror of September 11, 2001 will ever again know the luxury of a September 10 mindset. The greater concern is being stuck in a September 12 mindset, unable or unwilling to understand the lessons we've learned since those terrible early days. This is the mindset that undermines America's long-term security." -- Suzanne Spaulding, "Stuck in a September 12 mindset", Guardian, 2008-09-11

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:12:45 GMT

[Responding to the "don't you have a sense of humour?" 'defense' from someone being called out for being offensive:] "I have a fucking sense of humor, I think beating bigots with a clue-by-four is hilarious. Stop fucking tempting me." -- bluestareyed, early September 2008 (community-locked entry on LiveJournal, quoted with permission)

Photography Thought (Light and Beauty)

dglenn@panix.com — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:37:30 GMT

[State of the Glenn: not feeling well; not sleeping well; really poorly timed hyperacusis, since recent utility work left a steel plate over a boomy hole in a travel lane of Fulton Ave., and even with earplugs in, it sounds like a damned cannon going off every few seconds. Wearing earplugs enough of the time that my ear canal feels bruised even though the plugs are soft foam (haven't tried the moldable waxy ones yet). So ... not keeping up well with communication, especially the phone. Hoping to finally make it out of the house today to refill prescriptions.]

This afternoon when something dramatically lit by sun through a window caught my eye, a thought struck me regarding photography:

Anything, even ordinarily ugly subjects, can be made beautiful with the right lighting. (Though in extreme cases, the right lighting may be to turn off the room lights and draw a picture on the object with a laser pointer.)

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:12:53 GMT

"Homeland Security has provided local law enforcement agencies with almost unlimited funds to purchase militaristic equipment to fight the war against terrorism. Once agencies equip every officer with black tactical suits, full body armor, dark-visored helmets and assault weapons and train them to respond to highly unlikely terrorist events, police administrators are much more likely to deploy overwhelming force against political protesters, who usually constitute a pain in the ass rather than a real threat to public order." -- William Cox, "RoboCops: Professional Policing of Political Protest, An Insider's Viewpoint", Global Researcher, 2008-09-09

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:13:03 GMT

"[T]he right wing argument that 'the left does it too' [...] justifies bad behaviour and evades responsibility by asserting moral equivalence.

"In short 'my bad conduct is acceptable and moral because my enemy engages in similar conduct.'

"In shorter 'my bad conduct is justified by what I *believe* my enemy is doing.'

"Let me explain something: If your moral floor is defined by what you imagine to be the worst quality of your enemy.... you have no moral floor. You have no morals."

-- Den Valdron, 2007-03-14 (emphasis strengthened)

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:13:10 GMT

"To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring." -- George Santayana

[Astronomical autumn begins 11:44 EDT/15:44 UT, for folks who like to know such things. Is Mabon on the day containing the equinox, or is it always the 21st even when the astronomical event occurs a day earlier or later?]

QotD

dglenn@panix.com — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 09:13:21 GMT

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2005-07-22</a>:

"The only moments I have when I play that are worth anything to me are when I can blissfully ignore the people I am supposed to be entertaining." -- William Kapell, pianist, in a 1953 letter to his friend, pianist Shirley Rhoads.

(submitted to the mailing list by Mike Krawchuk)