Learn From It

Never mind Iraq my low approval numbers Scooter Libby KKKarl Rove Scalito Harriet “Quag” Miers that I'm a moron Fitzmas day the man behind the curtain [ibid. Rove], says our feckless leader, George W. (where dubya is the long form of 'duh') Bush, we have a freakin' pandemic! to worry about!

Well, ok, we don't actually have a pandemic yet, but gull durn it, we will! And after all, the Republicans have an amazing track record on paying attention to the science of epidemiology, population mechanics and the like. Right? Riiiiiight? (is this thing on?)

The idea of being ready for a flu outbreak is a terrific idea, don't get me wrong. But I have trouble believing President Bush on this one, because he's being alarmist at the same time. I mean, it makes a certain amount of sense that if the smoking gun of a viral outbreak is found, then in some sense it's already “too late”. Wait. No. Mushroom cloud. Too Late. Smoking Gun. Prettybirdprettybird!

Ahem.

So he keeps using the word “pandemic”, which actually means:

pan•dem•ic
adjective
(of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world.
noun
an outbreak of such a disease.

Whereas “epidemic” means:

ep•i•dem•ic
noun
a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time : a flu epidemic.
• a disease occurring in such a way.
• a sudden, widespread occurrence of a particular undesirable phenomenon : an epidemic of violent crime.

The built-in Dictionary.app in Mac OS X Tiger (10.4)—which I believe uses these sources, even goes so far, in notes for the definition of “epidemic”, to make the distinction among “pandemic”, “epidemic” and “endemic”:

USAGE A disease that quickly and severely affects a large number of people and then subsides is an epidemic: throughout the Middle Ages, successive epidemics of the plague killed millions. Epidemic is also used as an adjective: | she studied the causes of epidemic cholera. A disease that is continually present in an area and affects a relatively small number of people is endemic: malaria is endemic in (or | to ) | hot, moist climates. A pandemic is a widespread epidemic that may affect entire continents or even the world: | the pandemic of 1918 ushered in a period of frequent epidemics of gradually diminishing severity. Thus, from an epidemiologist’s point of view, the Black Death in Europe and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa are pandemics rather than epidemics.

And so I have to wonder why the President would use pandemic when clearly it isn't even an epidemic yet? Did he feel the need to politically elevate a potential epidemic to a full epidemic to a full pandemic?

From cnn.com:

“A pandemic is a lot like a forest fire,” Bush said. “If caught early, it might be extinguished with limited damage; if allowed to smolder undetected, it can grow to an inferno that spreads quickly beyond our ability to control it.”

WHAT?

Forgiving for a moment the alarmist misuse of the word, why aren't the Reagan asskissers out there taking Bush to task for insulting the former President's public health policies?

It all reminds me of a Peanuts cartoon, where Linus overhears Lucy telling someone that “Indian Summer” was a ruse created by Native Americans to lull the pilgrims into a false sense of complacency. Linus, tongue out, can only say, “I think I'm going to be sick.”

Is that what you're doing to the pilgrims, Mr. Bush?

Don't get me wrong, I think something like this should be in place. But I also think it should be motivated by people wanting to protect other people, gunning for the ounce of prevention instead of the pound of cure. But this isn't that. This is grandstanding and panic-inducing. This is the same tactic he used to get us into a war. This is motivating by Bush imploding.

When are the pilgrims going to realize he just doesn't care about anything but himself? More to the point, that he can and will climb over the backs of any American to get the brass ring for himself?

When?

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Posted by Jeff at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

A real leader faces the music,
even when he doesn't like the tune. - anonymous

So Photoshop is pretty good, right? But I knew this picture was Photoshopped when I first saw it. Oh, not because the artist did a bad job, but mainly because I had seen the Bush-playing-guitar picture before.

So in the interest of fairness, I'm also providing the original picture in context, so you can see the Real Bush In Action.

I suppose I shouldn't complain too, too much. I mean the President did rubberneck fly over New Orleans in Air Force One to gawk at assess the damage.. What a guy.

And I'll leave you with a handful of quotations that do a pretty good job of reflecting what my opinions are about good leadership.

To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against. — Christina Baldwin

Blessed is the leader who seeks the best for those he serves. — unknown

An army of a thousand is easy to find, but, ah, how difficult to find a general. — Chinese proverb

Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men. — Lao Tzu

A good leader inspires others with confidence in him; a great leader inspires them with confidence in themselves. — anonymous

Forethought and prudence are the proper qualities of a leader. — Tacitus

A good leader is not the person who does things right, but the person who finds the right things to do. — Anthony T. Dadovano

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. — Max DuPree

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Posted by Jeff at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I fucking hate dogmatists.

Absolutism carries the burden—no, the requirement!—of Being Right all the time. Every time. No exceptions. That's the rule.

And when you actually are Wrong, what do you do? You hedge, you change the nature of truth, and you claim Truth Once Again.

Bill Frist is on record and on tape as having watched a video of Terri Schiavo and concluding that there was no evidence that she was in a persistent vegetative state. Yesterday, after this,

An autopsy released Wednesday concluded that she had been in a persistent vegetative state and revealed no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused before she collapsed.

Bill Frist now says he never made any determination one way or another as to her persistent vegetative state.

He and he and they held on, held tight to the notion that she was not in a persistent vegetative state, that she clearly was alive and on the mend, and that everyone else was Wrong Wrong Wrong. All this, despite their being a martinet, an apologist and a bunch of Calvinist Catholic teens, respectively, with no evidence—much less authority—to claim truth.

They, like most of the rest of the Right Wing Machinery, came down on the side of literal life instead of quality of life. Let's call them Quantity of Life advocates, shall we? When Science failed them—as it usually does in their more strident campaigns—they turned to blame. Blame the husband. Blame his “lifestyle”. Call him names. Call him immoral. Those are easy to do, because it's all subject to interpretation, even as they call every last thing as black or white. Black or White.

Never mind that Schiavo rearranged his life to care for his wife. Never mind that he turned down $1M so that he could stay with her and make the decisions. Never mind all of that. He dared move on with his life after it was clear that his wife was gone in all but carcass. That's unforgiveable, right?

As someone who has had a partner die, as someone who never wanted to move on and yet one day, admitted defeat and finally did move on, I think I have at least some personal authority to speak on the matter. Do these people?

Regardless, they speak. And speak and speak and speak.

They were drop-dead wrong about Terri Schiavo, so what do you do when you Must Be Right And Never Wrong? Easy, you go after the husband. Ol' Jeb is investigating the husband, claiming that he waited too long before calling 911.

What total bastards!

They're going to continue to ruin this guy. Why? Because they were made fools of. Because they were wrong and they lack the humility, candor and honesty to admit that they were wrong.

You were wrong, folks. Move on. And leave that poor bastard alone.

Posted by Jeff at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Jim Wallis is a pastor who has run The Sojourners, a deeply Christian organization that is involved in politics.

While they're considered a “progressive” group, Jim Wallis was one of the people George W. Bush, back in 2000 as President-elect, brought in with lots of other evangelicals to talk about how he might address the “soul of the nation”. As I said, they are progressives, I can honestly say there's not much I have in common with their motives for doing what they do.

That said, Rev. Wallis has a lot of interesting things to say, in an already interesting article from the New York Times and truthout.org. It's an article written before the last election, but strangely—and unfortunately—it rings that much truer because what was prediction and trend in October 2004 is merely, spookily, reality today.

Rev. Wallis was asked by our faith-based-president, “I've never lived around poor people. I don't know what they think. I really don't know what they think. I'm a white Republican guy who doesn't get it. How do I get it?” That's a shockingly (today) humble admission. How did Rev. Wallis reply? “You need to listen to the poor and those who live and work with poor people.”

Later, after the inauguration, Bush told Wallis and other pastors that America needed their leadership. Rev. Wallis replied, “No, Mr. President, we need your leadership on this question, and all of us will then commit to support you. Unless we drain the swamp of injustice in which the mosquitoes of terrorism breed, we'll never defeat the threat of terrorism.”

Wow. That's powerful imagery for a powerful concept that many of us have believed for a long time.

But that's not the only thing in which I find fellowship with the good Reverend. From the selfsame article:

 Can the unfinished American experiment in self-governance - sputtering on the watery fuel of illusion and assertion - deal with something as nuanced as the subtleties of one man's faith? What, after all, is the nature of the particular conversation the president feels he has with God - a colloquy upon which the world now precariously turns?

That very issue is what Jim Wallis wishes he could sit and talk about with George W. Bush. That's impossible now, he says. He is no longer invited to the White House.

“Faith can cut in so many ways,” he said. “If you're penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it's designed to certify our righteousness - that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside. There's no reflection.

”Where people often get lost is on this very point,“ he said after a moment of thought. ”Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflection and not - not ever - to the thing we as humans so very much want.“

And what is that?

”Easy certainty.“

I am not a person of long-throw, Capital-F Faith. There are a bazillion more concrete, more localized things that I have a lower-case faith in—friends, family, my brain, the compassion of others, the family of humanity, eventual equal rights for all, the natural trend in the world towards Better. Not Good, not Evil. Just Better Than It Used To Be.

If I were certain of that last thing, it wouldn't require faith—or Faith. I'd just be certain. It's faith that carries one over doubts to get to the good stuff.

And, Ever Optimistic God of the Chocky Biscuits always has faith—not Faith—that there's always Good Stuff ahead.

Posted by Jeff at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Being 41 years old presents a bounteous set of advantages, if you choose to look at them that way.

For instance, I am old enough to remember when MTV went on the air, even though our shitty cable company didn't carry it then. I'm also old enough to remember when NIN started up.

Both had a certain mystique to them, both raising a counter-cultural middle-finger to Middle America. MTV had bumpers featuring Cyndi Lauper and her multivariate hair, Billy Idol bumpers and quick-cuts and special effects and the little moon man logo. Nothing quite like the feel of something new!

Trent Reznor and NIN kicked America in the nuts with its album, Pretty Hate Machine, and his version of a love song, “The Only Time”, which contained the !@#$!@# awesome lyrics: “Lay my hands on heaven and the sun and the moon and the stars, while the devil wants to fuck me in the back of his car.” Nothing quite like the feel of something new.

Today? What's left of videos on MTV? What's left of MTV itself? Apparently not much: over the weekend, NIN withdrew from the MTV Movie Awards Show because MTV wouldn't allow an image of George W. Bush (which was unaltered and “straightforward”), so NIN withdrew.

MTV says: “[We were] uncomfortable with their performance being built around a partisan political statement”

Trent says: “Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me.”

I suppose these days, MTV's lack of interest in free speech is a better match for the American public than Trent's.

And sometimes, I suppose, having to remember when youth railed against authority instead of embracing the braces on their brains instead of just seeing it everywhere today is one of the disadvantages to being 41.

Who watches the watchdogs, if the youth won't do it?

Posted by Jeff at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

• I coined the phrase “Culture of Life”
• I wrote about the dignity and rights of those who work
• I spoke out against the widening gap between the world's rich and poor
• I opposed the Gulf Wars—both of them
• I expressed my outrage at the abuse at Abu Ghraib
• I have spoken out against the death penalty, calling it “cruel and unnecessary”

Who am I?

Posted by Jeff at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, today's the day that George W. Bush comes out of his hole and we find out if there's going to be four more years of monocultural, pro-Christian, anti-everything-that-he-doesn't-like, just plain bad weather.

Or do I have my holidays mixed up?

Posted by Jeff at 01:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I had considered “going dark” today, just like so many sites are, in protest of the Bush Inaugural. There's even a website with graphics stating why the website is dark—a paradox in and of itself—and I went so far as to change my index.html and had it displaying for all of 45 minutes late last night.

Why did I drop that and return the site to its usual content? To be honest, my heart wasn't really in the blackout. It's one of our Typicals, this protesting-if-it-doesn't-cost-us-much. This time around, Bush was elected, apparently by a wide-enough margin that no one is really contesting the victory. True, it's a victory based on lies, a victory based on a fraudulent election the first time around, a victory based almost single-handedly and single-mindedly on the Republicans' fear-peddling and strict-father-model dogma, but it was a victory as the system of election and government describes one.

I'm sitting this one out. Sitting out the Inaugural, too. It just makes me plain sick that he's still in office. Sick that so many Americans only care about revenge and nationalism instead of justice and patriotism. Sick that so many Americans don't even know the difference between nationalism and patriotism.

I love my country because of its ideals—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—not for what it is these days. I have no interest in preserving this way of life, I have an interest in improving the ways of life of every person on this planet.

You think the christians out there—the ones who so virulently and vituperatively supported Bush and the Republicans—would want the same thing.

They don't want you to be won over in your heart by Jesus; they just want to win.

Posted by Jeff at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)