You know … that guy

Colson Whitehead on … well, you know.

Most folks don’t know much about me, apart from the feeling of injustice that hits when I walk into the room with my easy charisma and air of entitlement. I understand. It’s weird when your government passes legislation, like equal opportunity laws, that benefits one single person in the country — me, The Guy Who Got Where He Is Only Because He’s Black.

People think I have it easy, but it’s surprisingly difficult being The Guy Who Got Where He Is Only Because He’s Black, what with the whole having to be everywhere in the country at once thing. One second I’m nodding enthusiastically in a sales conference in Boise, Idaho, and the next I’m separating conjoined triplets at the Institute For Terribly Complicated Surgery in Buchanan, N.Y., and then I have to rush out to Muncie, Ind., to put my little “Inspector 12” tag in a bag of Fruit of the Loom.

It’s exhausting, all that travel. Decent, hard-working folks out there have their religion and their xenophobia to cling to. All I have is a fistful of upgrades to first class and free headphones. Headphones That Should Have Gone to a More Deserving Passenger.

Futility

Via BBC News:

Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say.

The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.

But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper.

Honesty in government: exercises in futility?

Interesting, that:

Help wanted: public servants willing to disclose major sources of income, business interests, real estate holdings and the names of their adult relatives.

Sayonara and good luck with that, said some 150 elected and appointed Oregon officeholders who walked away from their public service gigs this month rather than disclose personal data. Many said they were particularly disturbed by the new requirement — apparently unique to Oregon — that they name so many family members.

Resignations struck dozens of cities.

In rural eastern Oregon, the revolt against the state’s new conflict-of-interest disclosure law obliterated some city governments.

In Elgin, the mayor, all six City Council members and all five planning commissioners opted to quit rather than file. Lexington lost its entire council, Enterprise its five-member Planning Commission. Banks lost four council members, North Powder three; Rogue River, Umatilla and Stanfield lost two each.

Choose your poison: punch line or pulpit, there are plenty of clichés to put here.

Small dogs and astroturf

A number of things come to mind. Foremost, of course, is a simple question: What the hell?

In the first place, it is not so much that I hate small dogs as I just, um … er … yeah. I’ll figure out how to finish that sentence in rewrite. Or maybe not. On the cosmic level, of course, I try not to hate anything. And, true enough, I doubt you will ever see me going out of my way to kick a small dog or anything, but the things could, in the end, be deal breakers. They’re among the things that make a potential lover unattractive. Small dog owners are one-nighters, not potential relationships. Maybe there’s some Darwinian aspect about it, a manifestation of natural selection at work: These two people should not mate.

I won’t even start on the crazy woman at the Lynnwood Park & Ride who had a small dog in a sweater and a chihuahua in a … in a … well, it looked like a freakin’ purse for carrying a chihuahua. A dog-satchel. And, yes, she was crazy. But she actually had a boyfriend, although he seemed to like to hang at the edge of earshot, smoking cigarettes and staring sullenly in the other direction.

Flashback

There is an old Doonesbury from the 1970s, specifically from the Nixon/Ford era, in which the press corps was depicted as ludicrous and undyingly accommodating. A young Dan Rather challenged one or another spokesmen at the White House, got a vapid response, and attempted to reiterate the point only to be shouted down by his fellow journalists. The punch line that sticks out in my memory is, “Don’t be piggy, Dan.”

Dan Froomkin brings us a tale of our contemporary press corps that, while it does not read identically, reminds us at least of what we hoped was a bygone era:

Cynicism

Recalling tales of Rosie the Riveter, and the notion that World War II helped push women’s issues to the forefront in American culture—that during the Long Decade housewives grew impatient, and sometimes despondent at their return to the domestic bliss of subjugation—we should remember in twenty or fifty or a hundred years, when history finally has a chance to objectively assess the Iraqi Bush War—its causes, effects, and justifications—that were it not for George W., Iraqi women may well have languished under the passive-aggressive iron fist of monotheistic tradition.

Sabriyah Hilal Abadi began sleeping with a loaded AK-47 by her bed shortly after the war began.

It was a comforting possession for a woman who had lost her home, her husband and, last weekend, a room in a dilapidated building she shared with 27 squatter families, most headed by women.

The mother of four fought mightily to stay in the sparse, two-story building in the Zayouna neighborhood of Baghdad that once belonged to Hussein’s Baath Party, but soldiers forced her out.

Iraq’s government is intent on proving it can enforce the law. But in its determination to rid the party building of its squatters, the women say, the government has plunged them deeper into homelessness and may have pushed others toward violence.

Thousands of Iraqi women have in recent years embraced new roles as violence has claimed their men. For Abadi, 43, the turning point came when she accepted the powerful assault rifle from friends concerned about her welfare.

“Before the invasion — never,” said Abadi, who oscillated between rage and sadness during three interviews. Speaking about the army, she waggled her finger. Speaking about her son in college, she looked dismal. Speaking about her old house, she began to weep.

Times have changed, she said. “The women now take on the responsibilities of men and women.”

Empowerment, courtesy the New American Century.

Government wankers

“You know, Bart, when I was your age, I pulled a few boners.” (Homer Simpson)

What? It was the first thing to mind.

Here, from Telegraph Online:

It cost £14,000 to create, but clearly no-one at the smart London design outfit that came up with the new logo for HM Treasury thought to turn it on its side.

The logo, for the Office of Government Commerce, was intended to signify a bold commitment to the body’s aim of “improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement”.

Instead, it has generated howls of mirth and what is likely to be a barrage of teasing emails from mandarins in other departments.

According to insiders, the graphic was already proudly etched on mousemats and pens before it was unveiled for employees, who spotted the clanger within seconds.

Staff have apparently now stripped their office of souvenirs bearing the logo, which could appear on eBay within days.

Government wankers. At least the British have a sense of humor about it.

A spokesman for OGC said: “It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters OGC – and it is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on Government spend.”

Scratch this

A thought arose of late when considering a recent Italian court decision that apparently makes it illegal for a man to scratch or adjust himself in public.

The Italian ruling clubs together all forms of “crotch-scratching”— prompted by discomfort or by superstition — as offensive. Certain actions are considered inappropriate for public viewing. They not only offend the “average man” — a useful alibi for legislators — but also taint the sanctity of the public sphere. The issues raised by the Italian ruling go beyond the obvious question of violating an individual’s right to touch himself. Suddenly, this behaviour becomes as suspect as a range of other ‘uncivil’ activities — spitting, peeing or bathing on the streets — which would be severely condemned in any Western society ….

…. There is nothing inherently dangerous about crotch-scratching. Unlike spitting or peeing publicly, it does not ‘pollute’ in any physical sense. It is rather like a moment of unconscious intimacy with oneself, like biting fingernails or tugging at one’s hair. The West remains unmoved by unabashed public display of sexual affection, but is perturbed by a superstitious habit.

The Italian legislation is the outcome of a history of sensibilities that is unmistakably Western. These sensibilities have been formed as much by increased awareness of civic norms as by a heightened self-consciousness (as in the flatulent woman on the plane). It is unlikely that India will ever have a law that forbids men to touch their privates in public (in which case, every second man would have to be fined by the minute.)

Little Chimp’s not-so-great Hong Kong adventure

(Note: Cross-posted from the Southern California Writers’ Conference weblog.)

The illustration website Little Chimp Society reported last week that a Hong Kong company has plundered its artwork and published the images and a number of artist interviews conducted by Darren DeLito in a $100 book without permission.

DeLito, on his personal blog, notes,

The book is available online and in book stores and every image in it has been stolen from my community website and the websites of the illustrators featured – with the interviews being the backbone of the publication. Before anyone asks – the internet is publicly accessible not public domain, copyright still applies.

“The worrying thing is all images are included on a CD in the back. This seems to give the impression that all the featured images are clip-art or copyright free which is certainly not the case.” – Jonathan Edwards

The images’ file-names on the CD have not even been renamed in anyway, so you can see exactly where they were taken from. The interviews are word for word with all the typos and switching between English and American grammar. Also according to the Book the interviews were produced by the Art Director Bernadette J with no reference to the LCS.

DeLito has posted a gallery at Apefluff showing the extent of the alleged plagiarism, and it appears to be a disaster. He also has updated (1, 2) the situation a couple of times in his quest for information: “If we find the source, then we have someone to sue.”

A tip of the hat on this to artist Mark Kauffman, from whom I lifted the above image, and who has also noted, “I know I no longer snicker when large multi nationals like Microsoft or Time Warner bitch about piracy.”

Good men with honor

Just how far have we come? When you’re a child, twenty years is a theoretic span; as an adult, that period is a paradox. What seems so far away passed by so quickly. What seemed so familiar recedes into strangeness, transforms into myth.

I don’t remember what I said. I mean, it had something to do with the Reagan administration, and characterized someone, or some people, within that cadre as criminals. I despised Reagan; my political conscience came online about the same time he was elected. I cannot recall ever thinking nice, or merely positive things about the man.

I was seven when he was elected. The only thing I remember clearly from that election was that Reagan struck me as condescending and dishonest, exactly the kind of person my parents would repeatedly through my childhood tell me I didn’t need. And that stuck with me. By the time we got to Iran-Contra, the pretense (that later proved at least partway true) of Reagan’s senility was insufficient to excuse him in my eyes.

What? It was how I was raised; those conclusions reflected the principles impressed upon me especially by parents, but also teachers, my pastor, and any number of talking heads inside the idiot box.

But this isn’t about indicting Reagan. He’s dead. He’s gone. Whatever.

This is about a moment that stands out despite the dissolution of its details. My father, disgusted, glaring at me. “You can’t say that about people,” he stormed. “These are good men. They’re trying their best. You can’t say that about people.” It was not an explanation. It was not a retort. It was an order.

Whatever condemnation I had poured over the Reagan administration had upset him. And, yes, there is also a story to the difference between the man I remember and the one I know today. Maybe someday I’ll try to tell it.

Perhaps it had to do with an adolescent daring to condemn the president. Maybe he was so fiercely Republican during those years that he could not face the possibility that his president was a sack of shit. Maybe it had to do with respecting elders, and respecting authority. Maybe, maybe, maybe ….