Between a iRack and a Hard Place

Even during the “glory years” with the Not Ready For Prime Time Players, I believed that Saturday Night Live just wasn’t that funny. Oh sure, there were always random moments of savage comedic brilliance, but most of the time I felt as though I needed a few shots and a bong hit for the jokes to work. I thought shows like SCTV,, The Upright Citizens Brigade, In Living Color, The Kids in The Hall, and MADtv were much funnier. My laughter was genuine, spontaneous, and deserved. And MADtv illustrates how good it is with a comedy sketch that satirizes both Steve Jobs and the War in Iraq. It’s intelligent, well-crafted, ruthless in its’ logic, and doesn’t overstay its’ welcome. Only the humorless disciples of the Cult of Mac wouldn’t find this textbook example of a perfect comedy routine funny, and even then I’ll bet a treacherous chuckle will sneak out when St. Jobs isn’t looking.

Daniel Tammet on Asperger's and "fitting in"

Also posted at Street Prophets, My Left Wing, and Booman Tribune Last week when I listened to Audio on NPR's Talk of the Nation: A Look at an Autistic Savant's Brilliant Mind, I noted the points in the discussion with Daniel Tammet that I wanted to revisit. Since my next work project starts tomorrow, and I have a quiet house at the moment, I thought I'd transcribe some of those spots in the program for you. The first such point in the program came when a caller asked Daniel if he thought that damage could be done to people with Asperger's Syndrome/Autistic Spectrum Disorders by trying to get them to "be normal". Daniel Tammet: I think that's actually a very good point to make--that, for many people with autism, there is a real challenge to feel that you can fit in with society, and also a question in your own mind, as to whether you *should* fit in, and to what extent you should sacrifice the things that make you different in order to fit in. As a child, I would have given everything to be normal. I would have given up all of my abilities in numbers and language, just to be like the other children. Just to feel that I belong. You know, I would sometimes actually stay awake at night in my bedroom, I would look up at the ceiling, I would close my eyes, I would imagine what it might be like to have a friend. Because I had no friends at all, and I had no idea what it would be like to belong, to feel like I could connect with other people. And that was profoundly isolating. And profoundly frightening, actually, although I didn't necessarily know at the time the words for those feelings I was experiencing. And now it's a little bit different. I feel that I've reached a point in my life where I have a partner who loves me, I have friends, I have a career, and I've overcome so much to reach the point that I have now. And part of what I wanted to write about in the book was to show that such a journey is possible, from profound isolation and sadness to achievement and happiness. Real happiness--not just the happiness that comes from giving yourself up to the trends and expectations of others. But the real happiness that can only come from finding what it is that is unique about you, and having the courage to live that out. That piece ended just after the 15 minute mark of the program on NPR. I found the whole segment fascinating, but that was the first point where I thought, "Wow, that's important!", and noted the time so that I could go back to that part and share it. You can find my previous post about Daniel Tammet, Living Together in Different Worlds, here.

Four More Years! A look back at Iraq.

click to enlarge We have spent four glorious years in Iraq. Four years of lies, deception and greed. Four years of squandered international good will. Four years of violence and turmoil. Four years of torture. Four years of losing civil rights. Four years of civil war. Four years of losing the hearts and minds. Four years of funerals. Feel free to add to the list…

Crusading For Justice & Peace: A Podcast Interview With Activist Marisa Handler

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal. Marisa Handler lived in South Africa until she was twelve. Both her parents are Jewish liberals and they actively opposed South Africa’s racist apartheid system. Their values heavily influenced Handler during her formative years. Perhaps she was destined to become an activist as early as nine years old while attending Camps Bay Primary School in Cape Town. One day during recess, a pre-adolescent queen bee named Joan, held court on the playground and asked several peers whom their parents were voting for in an upcoming election. One by one, the other students answered “Nats,” meaning the longtime ruling white supremacist National Party. Eventually, Joan turned her scrutiny on the self-conscious Handler who whispered “PFP.” The PFP were the Progressive Federal Party that preached equality and represented a constituency of white liberals. Joan proceeded to interrogate Handler and asked if she really wanted to turn South Africa over to the majority blacks she called “stupid.” Fearfully, Handler held her ground and the foundation for a future activist was established: she had demonstrated the fortitude to take an unpopular stand and subject herself to ridicule. Now thirty, Handler is a well-traveled and seasoned veteran in the pursuit of global justice and peace. Her book, Loyal to the Sky: Notes From an Activist (Berrett-Kohler Publishers, Inc.) is a stirring memoir about her personal evolution and experiences. Handler’s journey spans the playground in Cape Town, relocating with her parents to Los Angeles at the age of 12, Berkley University, Israel, Nepal, India, protesting the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement in Miami, Ecuador, Peru, protesting the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City and talking with soldiers in Fort Benning, Georgia. Handler has worked as an organizer in the global justice and peace movements as well as written about socio-politics and globalization. Her work has been published in Orion Magazine, Tikkun, Salon.com, the Earth Island Journal, Alternet.org, Bitch Magazine and the San Francisco Chronicles. Currently, Handler resides in San Francisco where she is also a singer-songwriter. She plays regularly around the Bay Area and her album Dark Spoke is currently available on CD. Handler agreed to a podcast interview with me and among the topics we covered were her book, music, work, spirituality, life experience, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Hindu/Muslim tensions inside India and the overall quest to achieve global justice. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST

On Being Mr. Buttle

I was pondering just yesterday the plight of Mr. Buttle. How many of us are going to end up just like him; tortured to death because of a typo? See I can never decide what's worse. The loss of our civil liberties or the mind numbing incompetence of the people in whom our precarious freedoms are entrusted. Here's what brought this to mind. Yesterday my internet service was out for most of the day. In my frustration, I called Verizon, who owns all the pipe around here, and keeps it functioning about as well as the duct-work in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil." But when I called them, a customer service rep (the lot of them are the bane of my existence) told me that he could not tell me anything, because when I told him the name on the account, he insisted that I was wrong. I explained, "A bill manages to find its way here every month and we pay it." This confused him terribly. I asked him if the name on the account was the one for which we receive a myriad of calls; the previous owners of our dialing digits... yes. Well that explains why we're getting so many wrong numbers six months later. So I was gaffed off because of a data entry error by the same company that left us without phone service for a month when they botched our order. I loathe Verizon. I was inconvenienced yesterday because of bureaucratic ineptitude. But it will not be an inconvenience if I am, or someone like me is, secreted away to Egypt in a rendition program, because of typos, or any of the growing number of snafus that plague Americans daily. This morning I learn from the Washington Post that the FBI has been abusing the Fourth Amendment even more heinously than previously known, in spite of growing concern from its own attorneys. Under pressure to provide a stronger legal footing, counterterrorism agents last year wrote new letters to phone companies demanding the information the bureau already possessed. At least one senior FBI headquarters official -- whom the bureau declined to name -- signed these "national security letters" without including the required proof that the letters were linked to FBI counterterrorism or espionage investigations, an FBI official said. The flawed procedures involved the use of emergency demands for records, called "exigent circumstance" letters, which contained false or undocumented claims. They also included national security letters that were issued without FBI rules being followed. Both types of request were served on three phone companies. . . . A March 9 report by Fine bluntly stated that the FBI's use of the exigency letters "circumvented" the law that governs the FBI's access to personal information about U.S. residents. The exigency letters, created by the FBI's New York office after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, told telephone providers that the FBI needed information immediately and would follow up with subpoenas later. There is no basis in the law to compel phone companies to turn over information using such letters, Fine found, and in many cases, agents never followed up with the promised subpoenas, he said. But Fine's report made no mention of the FBI's subsequent efforts to legitimize those actions with improperly prepared national security letters last year. But whose phone records is the FBI illegally obtaining? Mine or the previous owner of my phone number... Mr. Buttle's or Mr. Tuttle's? I leave you with the latest from Bill Maher: And finally, new rule: liberals must stop saying President Bush hasn't asked Americans to sacrifice for the War on Terror. On the contrary, he's asked us to sacrifice something enormous: our civil rights. My good friend Renee has done the leg work and provides a full transcript of Maher's remarks here. Crossposted from The Blogging Curmudgeon.