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Analysis: Neo-Confederates say they beat Gephardt

Neo-Confederates don't have much to celebrate this year. Their most potent hope, having a governor of Georgia they could manipulate into bringing back the Confederate symbol on the state flag, and supporting their other interests, has waned. So, they settle for banging the drums for some pretty silly reasons. Dick Gephardt was one of the longer shot candidates who entered the Democratic presidential race. He was never projected as a likely contender to the end by the politically savvy. So, it is no surprise that Gephardt folded his campaign Jan. 20. Other candidates, first Howard Dean and now John Kerry and John Edwards, proved more popular with the public. They raised more money. They are more telegenic. In other words, there are rational reasons why Gephard left the race. However, the neo-Confederates are claiming his departure as their victory. A member recently crowed about that in an online article.

It has been a year since Dick Gephardt kicked off his “unofficial” bid for the Democratic nomination for the 2004 presidential election. Standing in South Carolina he proclaimed that the Confederate battle flag was a hurtful divisive symbol and claimed that it should not fly anywhere.

Perhaps Governor Bob Holden actually believed that Gephardt had a chance, for he wasted no time in ordering the removal of the Battle Flag at Higginsville cemetery and the Second National Confederate flag at Fort Davidson Historic Site in Pilot Knob, Missouri.

COLUMBIA - The Confederate flag should not be flown in the United States, U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., says.

In a statement released Saturday, Gephardt said the flag that flies at the Confederate Soldiers' Monument on South Carolina's Statehouse grounds "is a hurtful, divisive symbol and in my view has no place flying anywhere, in any state in this country."

Gephardt, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, said he was releasing the statement to clarify comments in an article published Saturday in The (Columbia) State newspaper.

"I want to be crystal clear to the people of South Carolina where I stand on this issue," Gephardt said. "I think South Carolina should remove the Confederate flag from any official display anywhere in the state."

That was anathema to the member of the segregationist and secessionist League of the South. They and other neo-Confederates began to harass Gephardt and Holden by appearing at events either attended waving Confederate flags. They also urged their constituency to oppose the two politicians in upcoming elections.

The irony of this situation is that Gephardt is what my blog friend Natalie Davis terms a 'Demublican,' a Democrat whose views have sometimes veered Right. His record on racial justice is mixed as best. Gephardt has been influenced by the very active segregationist movement in Missouri, including meeting with its leadership. The Right Wing news site NewsMax described that relationship in 1999.

House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt spoke before a prominent St. Louis white-rights organization during his first run for Congress and attended two of the group's picnics after his election, says Gordon Baum, head of the Council of Conservative Citizens.

Interviewed Monday by NewsMax.com, Baum explained that Gephardt had come to a meeting of the Metro South Citizens Council to debate his primary-election opponent.

"The hall was adorned on one side of the speaker's platform with the Confederate flag, and on the other side was the American flag," said Baum. "And Dick Gephardt addressed the group and asked them openly for their endorsement."

"Gephardt is one of many local officials who dropped by the Metro South Citizens Council's gatherings in the early 1980s," according to a March 7, 1999, report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

. . .But groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, and the National Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee contend that the CCC's conservative message is just camouflage for a hidden white supremacist agenda.

Gephardt distanced himself from the CCC after segregationist Sen. Trent Lott came under fire for his links to neo-Confederate organizations.

Unlike Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who was doubtlessly approached by the neo-Confederate movement there, Gephardt has not been an unblinking advocate of racial equality.

The neo-Confederate movement's claim to have defeated the Congressman from Missouri's presidential effort is an empty one that may be a 'back at you' in response to Gephardt's cutting of ties to it as he became more involved in the national spotlight. The fact those ties once existed undermines their assertion that he is among the worst of their enemies. The fact that a presidential candidate can have had such relationships, shows a racist and secessionist movement is not as fringe as many Americans would like to believe.

Technology: But should I buy a warranty?

I was the appreciative recipient of a new iPod last week. Yes, Titania, my beloved 20 GB iPod has been retired. Her replacement is a 40 GB third generation iPod. (Haven't thought of a name yet.) I look forward to many hours of listening pleasure. Another wonderful aspect is that the big guy will hold a backup of my computer's entire hard drive easily. As someone who experienced hard drives in the megabytes for laptops, I am greatly impressed by the progress made in just a few years.

But, along with a new electronics acquisition invariably come questions:

•Should I buy a warranty?

•If so, which warranty?

•In regard to cost, how much is too much?

I don't usually buy warranties for small electronics unless they are fragile. Most products will outlive their initial warranties. Or, they will become obsolete and the consumer will want to upgrade. If the item is cheap, I don't mind replacing it after some wear and tear. Selling the warranties, even for as little as $5 each, is pure gravy for the corporations that pocket our money. So, my steam iron and my coffee maker are not under extended warranties. But, my iPod and my PDA are. Both cost $500 and are delicate. So, I believe purchasing an extended warranty is justified.

After meeting my test in regard to whether to buy a warranty, the new iPod raised a second issue. Which warranty should I buy? This was not a question with my first and second generation iPods. Only big box stores offered extended warranties for them back then. So, though I bought the first one at an Apple reseller, I purchased a warranty for it at CompUSA. No, it is not a hassle. You just take the iPod in along with your receipt and say you want to purchase an extended warranty. I purchased mine the same day I bought the iPod, so the box was unopened. But, I am aware of CompUSA selling warranties to people with used iPods bought at other stores. With Titania, since I don't like the Apple reseller I used before all that much, I bought the iPod and the warranty at CompUSA.

However, things have changed. Starting in November of 2003, Apple began offering a warranty for the iPod beyond the three months of coverage that had prevailed previously.

Every iPod comes standard with 90 days of phone support and one year of hardware service coverage. The AppleCare Protection Plan extends your service and support coverage for your iPod, its included accessories, and iTunes software for up to two years from the original purchase date of your iPod. With this plan, you get direct access to Apple experts for answers by phone and anytime access to web-based resources. If your iPod or the included accessories should need service, Apple-certified technicians will repair it or provide a replacement using genuine Apple parts. We recommend that you purchase the AppleCare Protection Plan with your new iPod to take maximum advantage of the coverage the plan provides. This comprehensive plan is available for all iPod models within their one-year limited warranty that connect to either Macintosh computers or Windows PCs.

I've generally gotten a favorable response when I've had problems with electronics covered by CompUSA's Technology Assurance Program (TAP). The store even refunded my money when my NEC subcompact laptop failed a couple years ago. (It took some prodding. Merchants hate to disgorge funds .) So, I was willing to consider TAP, too.

Price can be a factor in selecting a warranty. One reason I recommend eschewing warranties on the small (in price) stuff is because they are often a significant addition to the cost of the item. If I buy an FM transmitter for my iPod for $29.99 and pay $7.99 for an extended warranty, I've significantly raised the cost of an item that will likely be obsolete in less than a year. However, neither Apple Care ($59) nor TAP ($65) coverage of an iPod is particularly expensive.

After thinking through these issues, the deciding factor for me was CompUSA's replacement policy. If the iPod needs a repair within the two years covered, they will simply hand over a new iPod. Apple, on the other hand, will send me a refurbished iPod of the same model if I send in a broken iPod for repair. I would rather have the new one. This same policy applies to another small electronics under TAP. If your PDA or phone fails, it is likely to replaced instead of repaired, too.

There is a rumor afoot, which started at iPod Lounge, that CompUSA no longer offers extended warranty coverage for the iPod.

According to the manager, it seems that they don't offer TAP on iPods anymore.

I brought my iPod in to a customer service counter, and asked about TAP. I showed my PayPal receipt, since I bought it from someone in Boston via eBay. It was dated for September 24th, 2003. I showed her my iPod, and she took it to check the serial number to see if it was under warranty. Turns out the estimated purchase date was 9/4/03. She said I'd be fine, and the 2-year TAP would cost $44.95.

Unfortunately, when she handed me over to the cashier, he had to get the manager. He said I couldn't get TAP, so he offered the Apple Care Protection Plan.

Fine, I'm going snowboarding on Friday, I want some kind of insurance in case I don't get the iPod Armor in time. $64.94 later, I'm insured.

My recent experience belies that. Both options, Apple Care and TAP, are available.

So, you don't have an iPod. Even so, I believe that giving some thought to the issues involved in buying warranties is a good idea. Sales clerks are often under pressure to try to sell you one on everything short of bottled water. It is up to you to make an intelligent decision about whether you really need a warranty, which warranty to buy and how much to pay.

Blogospherics: The cool kids

•Wordy rappinghood

Several bloggers have added recurring word for today entries to their weblogs. Being a word-a-holic, I always stop and read those. One of the most interesting currently is at Blah3.

Word of the Day

tris-kai-dek-a-pho-bi-a
n.

An abnormal fear of the number 13.

Wanna take bets on whether there's a White House briefing today? My money says no.

Another source of new words for me is the Scrabble game on my Palm Tungsten C. The latest, Version 1.2 , which is from Handmark, contains a usable dictionary. One can actually look up words and get a definition from Merriam-Webster. Earlier versions of the game were not nearly as neat. If you haven't upgraded, do.

And, yes, George W. Bush does strike me as the kind of person who is superstitious. He is someone who avoids thinking, and that personality type often likes shortcuts that make thought unnecessary.

(Pause.)

I thought I had Stevie Wonder's "Superstition," in iTunes and I do. The perfect song for this entry, eh?

•Let's hear it for links

Filmmaker and blogger Brian Flemming has launched a blog ad campaign too promote his movie, Nothing So Strange. That required thinking about what blogs are and do.

Blogads are fun

"Nothing So Strange" is running Blogads to promote the DVD release. Because I actually know what a blog is, I have been put in charge of this particular portion of the ad campaign. It's an awesome responsibility.

I had lunch with Blogads proprietor Henry Copeland this weekend, and he gave me some excellent advice on running the campaign. Henry told me not to try to communicate too much information with the ad, as tempting as that might be. Don't underestimate the 'wtf?' aspect, he said. So I'm trying to create simple ads that create curiosity. Nothing So Strange has a densely packed website, so there's no reason not to let the website do the work.

Henry recommended on his blog a few weeks back to "update your ad text and image often," but he didn't need to tell me that. I know from reading blogs all the time that I get used to the layout of each blog and habitually tune out all the familiar clutter at the edges. Only when something changes do I notice.

Brian, for whom mischevious is an understatement, couldn't resist the urge to play around with his ad. He linked it to an entry about his belief that sort of President Bush has had plastic surgery on his (cocaine affected?) nose. Just for the fun of it , for a few hours. Now that rumor has legs. Short, stubby legs. This is the blogosphere, after all. But legs.

Brian's experience happens to segue into a recent one I have had in the blogosphere. Someone new to blogging attacked an entry I had posted because it contained links to news stories (which he thought were press releases, for some unfathomable reason) and other blogs. Well, as any blogger worth his or her salt knows, links are the life blood of blogging. The fellow has now started a blog of his own. Unfortunately, his ignorance is apparent there, too. It consists of his own run-of-the-mill thoughts, not supplemented by information. Yes, blogging is a very loose thing. However, I believe it is like any other endeavor in that a person should learn what blogs are and do before attempting to have one. 'Person' includes me. I read blogs and was a contributor to several of them for months before starting any of my own. Jumping into blogging with both feet without even knowing what blogging is a fool's act in my opinion.

•The blogging blues

Composer and blogger Richard Einhorn at Tristero has a case of the blogging blues. Two of 'those things that happen' interfered with his ability to blog recently.

Between jury duty and a serious computer crash, I have begun to resemble the absent-minded butcher who backed into a meat grinder and got a little behind in his work. So, the next update will be March 1.

I had to send my Titanium PowerBook G4 to Apple to be repaired in December, but, luckily, the repair intersected with the holidays, when I didn't have much time to blog anyway. And, Apple, sent it back amazingly quickly considering the logic board and the screen were replaced. When I first began blogging, I worried about anything that interfered with it a lot. Now, I've learned to take distractions in stride.

The worst form of the blogging blues is when the blogger just doesn't feel like blogging. I used to wonder why some bloggers disappear for days, weeks, months or altogether, with not so much as a good-bye in some cases. Now, I realize there is a kind of malaise. The blogger gets tired of slogging through molasses. He wonders if doing the research and writing is worth the trouble. Another blogger recently expressed it as being tired of his own voice. So far, I haven't succumbed to the deep blogger blues for long enough to affect the viability of Mac-a-ro-nies. But, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Richard has a reading assignment for you while he is away.

Meanwhile, chew on this remarkable article by George Packer in the New Yorker in which Joe Biden blames the American casualties of the Bush/Iraq war on. . .I kid you not . . . Paul Wellstone and the anti-war senators.

I will be following his advice.

Reactions to Super Bowl stunt vary

More than a week after the exposure of part of a woman's breast during a televised American sports event, the wheels, they keep on turning.

•But what about the bling bling?

Some public relations firms are applauding the Super Bowl stunt. They say, whether she intended to or not, Janet Jackson acquired what every 'brand' wants -- attention, more attention and the most attention.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- For those in the business of masterminding public-relations stunts for marketers, Janet Jackson's big expose during CBS's airing of the Super Bowl Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson just before Ms. Jackson's breast covering was ripped off during the Super Bowl halftime show has raised a serious issue: how to top it.

For James LaForce, partner in New York PR agency LaForce & Stevens, the Jackson episode was "extremely successful. . . .We love stunts at our agency and she opened the door for more people to take risks," he added. "It raises the bar for all of us."

Whatever the impact on advertisers, CBS and the National Football League, few in the PR field think the stunt harmed Ms. Jackson. Desiree Gruber, president of Full Picture, a PR management company that counts Lisa Marie Presley and Arnold Schwarzenegger as clients, agreed it was a stunt gone right for Janet, and a stunt gone wrong for everyone else, but so what if she upstaged the advertisers?

"Janet is a brand, just as much as a Frito-Lay is," Ms. Gruber said. "Where does a brand begin and end? She sells and she sells directly to the public."

Mr. LaForce thinks that it will be discussed for years to come. In terms of coverage, Ms. Jackson certainly overshadowed the main event, both the game and the commercials. According to media research firm CARMA International, Washington D.C., Ms. Jackson garnered twice the number of U.S. press mentions as the commercials in the four days following the event, though much of that coverage was driven by the Federal Communications Commission investigation of the incident.

An exasperated music publicist, who did not wish to be named, said simply: "Boobs conquer everything from the networks to the media to corporate America."

One can see from her itinerary that Jackson is a good planner. The Super Bowl appearance was just two months before the release of her new album, Damita Jo. Her record company had already arranged to ship a single from the new CD to radio stations the day after before the stunt occurred. If she had not been dissed by the organizers of the Grammy Awards, she would have appeared on the nationally televised show the week after the football game. Upcoming events are also designed to raise her profile. There will be a world tour after the record release. Jackson will also star as Lena Horne in a made for TV movie.

Sometimes, I suspect I'm being naive not to realize everything in America, on some level, is about money. This is in a case in point. I had almost convinced myself Jackson is the loser in this episode -- what with the FCC investigation, sneers from some peers and being dumped by the Grammy people. But, if the Super Bowl stunt rejuvenates her career, as it appears it may, she will surely have won more than she has lost.

•The kids are all right

Young Americans are not impressed with their elders often hypocritical response to the Super Bowl stunt. Blue Fusion, a marketing firm that surveys youths about national issues and consumer trends completed a poll Feb. 8.

In response to the question "Do you think CBS is overreacting about the Justin/Janet situation?" 74 percent of youths said "Yes," and 26 percent said "No."

In response to the question, "Do you think the media would have reacted the same to any other artist?" 61 percent of youths said "Yes", 29 percent said "No", and 10 percent said "Don't know."

"Our survey showed that kids don't feel that the "crime" was proportionate with the "sentence", said Morris L. Reid, managing director of Westin Rinehart and managing partner of Blue Fusion. "While 61 percent of the respondents felt that the media would have reacted the same way to any other artist, there was a strong feeling in the other 29 percent that this act was either a ploy to take attention off of the Michael Jackson situation or that it only got such heated attention because Janet is Michael's sister. Our respondents in general felt that a bare breast was too petty a situation to have gotten so much media coverage, in an election year.

The youths overwhelming opposed the barring of Jackson from the Grammy Awards. They also wondered why R. Kelly, who is accused of sexually exploiting teenage girls, was allowed to attend and Jackson wasn't.

I wonder why these kids are so much smarter than their parents.

•Who you gonna call -- the FCC?

So, you are cruising down the freeway, balancing a tall double latte from Starbucks and listening to the radio when the disc jockey says, 'Well, piss on that." You are an easily disturbed sort of person, like that woman from Tennessee who sued over the Super Bowl stunt. You spill your coffee and rear end the car in front of you in the confusion. As the police leave and you head off to work late and peeved, you plot revenge. You decide to send an email complaining about radio personnel who say 'piss' to the FCC.

What will happen to your complaint? Most of the time . . . nothing will.

But even when the FCC does get complaints about radio programming it rarely does anything about them. According to FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, the agency rejected 83 percent of more than 500 complaints received in 2002, while many of the others landed in limbo.

Some people think the GOP dominated commission's stasis is political.

"The Republicans are caught here between deregulation, which they always assume is better, and the notions of the Christian Right, which believes deregulation is better except when it comes to talking dirty or showing things that might be sexually overt," said Fritz Messere , a professor at the State University of New York at Oswego and former FCC assistant commissioner. "As a result the Republicans find themselves talking about deregulation out of one side of their mouth, and saying they need regulation on the other side of their mouth."

Another problem is the difficulty of defining "indecency" in a broadcast. What is considered acceptable language changes over time and by context. For example, though it is on the list of the infamous "seven dirty words," the FCC has decided that using 'fucking' in a non-sexual context is not indecency. You wouldn't have any luck with your complaint about 'piss,' either. The commission has deemed it acceptable when used to express disapproval.

I suspect the phony furor over the Super Bowl stunt has given people a false impression of the FCC. Chairman Michael Powell has growled over the supposedly outrageous conduct of Jackson and Jason Timberlake. But, when that growl is put to the test, it may become a purr.

News and analysis: Life . . . and limitations

Back in my law firm days, I became fairly well-informed about the rights of the handicapped. We did large tort cases and some products liability law. However, you don't discover much about plaintiffs as people from research. One way I learned more about what disabled people were thinking was by spending some time at online forums for those with disabilities. Two news stories yesterday led me to think about something I realized there.

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida (AP) -- A paraplegic pursuing his love of auto racing struck and killed a worker picking up track debris during a race at the Daytona International Speedway, an accident that has raised questions about worker safety during races.

Roy H. Weaver III, 44, who worked at the speedway for seven years, was in the middle of turn No. 2 during a caution period when he was killed, track spokesman David Talley said Sunday.

The driver, Ray Paprota, 41, is the first known paraplegic to race in a national stock car series. He controlled his car with levers, buttons and knobs located on or around the steering wheel.

. . .Paprota, who hasn't had use of his legs since a 1984 auto accident, was trying to catch the main pack of cars after a two-car crash at the opposite end of the track brought out a yellow flag. He was driving at more than 100 mph.

Since the crash that killed Weaver is recent, it has not been established whether Paprota's reliance on a specially designed race car was a causal factor in the accident. But, what if it was?

The other incident, also involving harm to someone, occurred closer to home.

CLACKAMAS -- Rescuers found the body of a missing deaf and blind man near the Bagby Hot Springs area of the snow-covered Mt. Hood National Forest on Saturday evening, authorities said.

Monmouth resident Richard Thomas Melton, 26, probably died of hypothermia, said Jim Strovink, spokesman for the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office. Melton was dressed lightly -- in shorts and a sweatshirt -- when he went missing early Saturday morning.

The temperature in the area was about 35 degrees, with two feet of snow on the ground. Strovink said investigators didn't suspect any foul play.

Searchers found Melton's body just off the Bagby Hot Springs Trail, between the Bagby Hot Springs tub area and the Bagby parking lot. The trail is approximately a mile and a half long, and three feet wide and has rugged terrain, with steep drop offs of 20 to 30 feet.

Melton and a friend, who is also deaf, decided to go hiking and hot tubbing last weekend. Neither of them was dressed for the terrain, which is still covered with snow in places. In addition to not wearing coats, they had on unsuitable footwear. They did not take food, flashlights or blankets. Melton, unable to see after losing his glasses, became separated from his friend, possibly after they had a spat, and disappeared.

A Monmouth man who wandered off the trail Friday night at Bagby Hot Springs died of hypothermia, the state medical examiner's office ruled Monday.

Sheriff's officials confirmed that Melton was missing about 3:30 a.m. Saturday, Brandenburg said. A companion, Luana Pollock, 25, of Silverton alerted a passing motorist about 2 a.m. that she had lost sight of Melton as they hiked out from the hot springs.

After a preliminary drive-by search of the area and confirmation by Monmouth police that Melton had not returned home, the department launched its highest level of search effort about 6:45 a.m., Brandenburg said.

Pollock now says she and Melton did not quarrel and she did not walk away from him. Instead, she says, she lost him when the cigarette lighter he had been using as their only method of illumination went out. According to her, the problem was aggravated when people she encountered refused to interact with her because she can't speak clearly.

The friend of a Monmouth hiker who died after wandering off a trail said she tried to get help immediately, but no one would communicate with her because she is deaf and cannot speak well.

Luana Pollock, 25, of Silverton, speaking through her mother Sunday, described her frustration at trying to tell other hikers on the trail that she'd lost sight of her friend, Richard Thomas Melton, 26, who was deaf and sight-impaired.

"Her speech isn't good, and they just thought she was a weirdo and shrugged her off," said Pollock's mother, Sherry Pollock of Silverton. "If someone would have taken the time to listen to her, they would have known they were in trouble."

I have observed able bodied people treat disabled people as if they have a disease that can be communicated. Shying away, averting their eyes or even making fun of the handicapped. I believe it comes from some atavistic desire to ward off harm by scapegoating those considered unfortunate.

A recurring theme I noticed in my visits to forums for the disabled was a desire by handicapped people to do things they, realistically, couldn't. Often, the things they wanted to do were physical. That is not surprising considering that most people who suffer mobility impairing injuries are young and physically active.

I don't know whether Peralta will return to racing cars or not. Arguably, if any driver could have accidentally run down a track worker, it doesn't matter that a paraplegic driver did. But, I suspect there will always be a nagging doubt in his mind, and other people's, about whether his handicap played a role in the accident.

I see the Melton incident as mainly about negligence by Pollock and he. Yes, the refusal of other hikers to try to understand her garbled words delayed the rescue attempt. However, but for the two young adults, both of whom had normal intelligence, having set out on and continued a poorly planned excursion, Melton would not be dead.

On Sunday, the mothers of Melton and Pollock shared one regret:

"There is this thing about people not wanting to connect with someone who's deaf," Sherry Pollock said. "Maybe this could have come out differently if someone had just tried to communicate with my daughter.

"Aside from that, two deaf kids never should have been up there by themselves in the first place."

So, what is to be done? There are amputees who want to break dance. Paraplegics who desire long distance swims. Deaf people who would love to perform lieder. And, there was at least one girl with bad vision who wanted to fly airplanes -- me. Yes, too many years ago, this sufferer of keratoconus, which makes my right eye pretty useless, failed the unaided vision test for flight school. I've taken up activities that don't require excellent eyes instead. There may be devices that will allow a disabled person to perform a version of the desired activity. But, often, there is no way to compensate. We can cavil with fate, but it seems to be that sometimes people just have to accept their limitations.

Analysis: Gay unions the issue for Christian Right

Christian conservatives have decided to rally around opposition to gay marriage as their focus issue for the campaign season. Having their candidate win the White House, with the help of the U.S. Supreme Court, turned out to be a mixed bag. Since, far Right Christian organizations have had difficulty attracting attention and raising money with the direct mail campaigns they rely on. One issue they've used to galvanize their public is continuing agitation to erode the constitutional safeguards against establishment of religion. Another, disapproval of gays marrying, has now emerged as prime. The New York Times recently investigated.

"Things have not gone well in the past couple of years," said Paul M. Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation. "The movement had not been gaining members, it has not been winning battles, with the exception of the pro-life issue, and those were marginal battles. This issue has come along and it appears to be turning things around."

The cause took on new energy after leading Christian conservatives congregated last summer.

Last spring, the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon of Tupelo, Miss., decided to hold a summit meeting of the Christian conservative movement.

Mr. Wildmon felt the movement was losing the culture war, he recalled in an interview on Friday. Since plunging into political activism nearly 30 years ago, Christian conservatives had helped Republicans take control of Washington but did not have enough to show for it, Mr. Wildmon said. At the same time, the election of Republican politicians had drained some of the motivation out of its grass-roots constituents.

So Mr. Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association and a crusader against sex and violence in the media, sent an e-mail message inviting about two dozen other prominent Christian conservatives to a meeting in Arlington, Va., last June. About 14 people turned up with no set agenda, Mr. Wildmon recalled.

"All we knew was we were going to get together and see if there were some issues of concern that we could agree on and combine our efforts," Mr. Wildmon said.

"The first thing that popped up," he said, "was the federal marriage amendment."

The participants carved together their initial plan for promoting a constitutional amendment to ban gay unions. Two legal decisions, SCOTUS' ruling that the right to privacy protects gays engaged in sex acts, and a recent state court opinion that held refusing homosexuals matrimony denies them equal protection, have continued to motivate the persons involved.

Several people at the Arlington meeting said their constituents were more concerned about gay marriage than about almost any other issue. "I have never seen anything that has energized and provoked our grass roots like this issue, including Roe v. Wade," said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has 16 million members.

Then, the road turned rocky. Most of the Christian Right leaders wanted language that unequivocally denied gays marital rights.

But almost as soon as the Arlington meeting began, the discussion turned to a debate over the language of an amendment. For years, the Alliance for Marriage, an ecumenical group, had pushed for a constitutional amendment to prevent courts from forcing states or the country to recognize same-sex marriages. Echoing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, the proposed amendment would allow state legislatures to recognize gay civil unions, a provision that had alienated many conservatives. Though the proposed amendment had been introduced in Congress last spring, the Christian Coalition was one of the few organizations in the Arlington group to support it.

Most of the others considered it far too permissive. "I don't care if you call it civil unions," Michael P. Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said last week. "I don't care if you call it domestic partnership, I don't care if you call it cantaloupe soup, if you are legally spouses at the end of the day, I am not willing to do that."

Though some of the most hardline left the fold, the proposal that emerged fit the model the Alliance for Marriage wanted. It offers a compromise, recognition of quasi-marital rights in lieu of allowing gays to wed. However, the proposal has run head on into the decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health, which expressly forbids civil unions for gays.

In a 4-3 ruling, the court gave the Massachusetts state Legislature six months to rewrite the state's marriage laws for the benefit of gay couples.

The ruling by the court on the Massachusetts Constitution could set new legal ground, and drew quick reaction from advocates on both sides of the issue. Massachusetts' governor immediately denounced Tuesday's decision and said he would work for a constitutional amendment to overturn it. But an openly gay U.S. congressman from the state said the amendment couldn't come before the voters before 2006, and by that time same-sex marriages will be law.

If other state courts take the same stance, the proposed amendment will be meaningless.

Leaders of the movement met with presidential advisor Karl Rove recently. They say they were told President George Bush is fully behind their proposal. However, signals from the White House have continued to be cautious, not echoing the strident tone of the activists.

So far, however, the president has yet to publicly fulfill Mr. Rove's private assurances. In a statement after the Massachusetts court affirmed its ruling last week, Mr. Bush called the decision "deeply troubling" but again offered only conditional support for an amendment. "If activist judges insist on redefining marriage by court order, the only alternative will be the constitutional process," he said, without using the word "amendment."

In addition to the proposed constitutional amendment, opponents to gay marriage in states that permit a form of it, Vermont and Massachusetts, and soon, California, can appeal to the the U.S. Supreme Court. It seems doubtful that the Court will choose to wade into the issue, though. Traditionally, states determine the rules of relationships in the domestic sphere.

The most significant change in American political scene during the last decades was the emergence of the GOP's Southern Strategy. It encouraged the exodus of working and middle-class white Americans from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. That in turn, resulted in conservative dominance of federal politics. The GOP has also increased its share of governorships and other state offices. If the Christian Right has its way, the opposition to gay unions will bolster the gains made by the Southern strategy. But, will Bush stick? The answer to that question may determine whether gay rights will be the dominant domestic political issue in this decade, as opposition to civil rights legislation was during the the 1960s.

On the same page

•Natalie Davis has posted a description of a gay marriage in (gasp!) 1973 at All Facts and Opinions.

It was love at first sight. They had met at the elevator just outside the sixth-floor tearoom of the Atlanta YMCA, September 2, 1973. They were both native Southerners; one white, the other black. They commuted, as lovers often do, 100 miles every weekend for five months just to be with each other. Not one of their friends was surprised when they decided to marry.

•Charles2 at the Fulcrum sees the similarity between separate but equal in a racial context and in regard to sexual preference.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court got it exactly right (WSJ) yesterday. And it was wonderful to hear - finally - a high court use the language of the civil rights movement in discussing this issue.

Whatever you call the legal union of two people, the rights of that couple should not be different based on; race, color, creed, national origin or sexual orientation. We've done the whole "separate but equal" thing before. You'd think we'd have learned our lesson.

•In an entry last summer, Victor at Balusubramania's Mania, referred to Andrew Sullivan's statement: "What about being homosexual obligates one to be a Democrat? Or a lefty? Nothing, absolutely nothing." It seems to me that the question is becoming an easier one. If the Bush administration fully supports the Christian Right in regard to gay marriage, which he has backed, even Sullivan may have to part company with the Republicans.

Reading: Richard Powers sings America's bittersweet song

The Time of Our Singing, Richard Powers' most recent addition to his oeuvre, is the kind of novel that comes so close to perfection that a reader asks 'How?' How does he know all the things he does? How was he able to incorporate them into the novelistic form? How does he manage to live in a society that hates very bright people like the Joker hates Batman and survive, not to mention achieve all he has?

The book is about the Strom family. The parents, Delia and David, meet at Marian Anderson's historical performance in front of the Lincoln memorial in 1939. Anderson had been barred from performing in Constitution Hall because the Daughters of the American Revolution, its owners, did not want it soiled by a Negro's presence. Despite the fact Delia cannot even drop into a coffee shop with David in segregated Washington, D.C., the classically trained singer and the physicist from Germany fall in love.

Though they have only one family between them, hers, because his has been lost in the Holocaust, the couple decides to raise its children for a colorblind society. However, they are attempting an impossible task. Perhaps somewhere in the future tides of time a colorblind American society exists. But, the Stroms' marriage will not be legal in a third of the states until 1967. (Delia will be dead by then.) De facto segregation denies them housing in New York City until a kind African-American widow takes pity. Delia is spat on during public outings and learns to ride in the backseat of cars, as if she is a servant, when her husband is driving. The doctors who deliver the three children insist on classifying them as 'colored' on their birth certificates.

The children are never deceived by their parents' efforts to shelter them from reality. In fact, they become the shelterers instead of the sheltered. From early childhood, the boys, Johan and Joseph, live in a permeable world of two. Homeschooled musical prodigies, they realize they are something taboo in the white world in which they live. Exile to a music school in Boston gives them more experience as pariahs. The youngest child, Ruth, becomes the most emotionally scarred of the three. When her mother dies in an accidental fire, based on what she has observed in her ten years, she believes it is murder. All three lack any experiences that shed light on racism from their African-American heritage because their parents have severed all contact with the Daleys.

How does Richard Powers, a white man reared without the burdens that trammel people of color, know the reality of race in America? Margie Thomson has chronicled his journey from musical whiz kid to polymathic author.

The key to Powers' writing is to be found in his life. He was born in 1957 in Chicago and, while still a boy, discovered music. He trained in the cello and vocal music but also plays guitar, clarinet and saxophone.

In Understanding Richard Powers, American literature professor Joseph Dewey writes of Powers' ""restless curiosity". I suppose that's one way of describing his educational path which meandered through paleontology, oceanography and archaeology before choosing physics at the University of Illinois.

. . .He wrote his first novel in the early 1980s and several more since then and is considered one of the most important writers of his generation. It is that "aerial view", that sense of the connectedness of all things, that is his dominant concern in his life and writing. The Time of Our Singing embodies this very thing.

With this novel, Powers has penned a major monument to that journey that transcends the boundary of race as few novels ever do. He knows racism intimately, without having had to experience it himself. And, he is able to express that knowledge clearly and convincingly.

The novel is tragic because lives scarred by the dehumanization that is the core of racism are inevitably painful. Yet, such lives can be inextricably bound to pleasure in doing well against the odds, something each of the young Stroms achieves. Johan becomes a virtuoso of classical music, a driving force who cannot be ignored. Narrator Joseph achieves measurable success as his brother's accompanist and the bass in a groundbreaking early music vocal group. Ruth, who despite being a broken vessel, reunites the Stroms with the Daleys, becomes the founder of a miracle working school in Oakland.

But, this is not some fantasy written to promote up by their bootstraps mythology. The Stroms bear the wounds of being 'the wrong color' in America. Johan is a self-centered, self-destructive man who feels most alive during America's recurring race riots, which he comes to seek out. Conciliatory Joseph sacrifices himself to Johan's whims and never seems to realize his own worth. Ruth is like a horse, frightened as a colt, who will remain skittish ever after.

I consider Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections an excellent literary examination of an American family. But, The Time of Our Singing is that and much, much more.

News: Fallout dogs Super Bowl stunt

A woman in the South has filed a frivolous lawsuit in regard to the Super Bowl stunt. She claims she suffered serious harm, apparently from viewing the halftime show, but the complaint is cast in language of protecting children from obscenity.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A Tennessee woman has sued Janet Jackson and others involved in her breast-baring Super Bowl halftime show, saying millions of people are owed monetary damages for exposure to lewd conduct, court records showed on Friday.

The suit, filed earlier this week in federal court in Knoxville, Tennessee, also names pop star Justin Timberlake, who performed with Jackson, CBS Broadcasting Inc., show producer MTV Networks Enterprises Inc., and the parent of those two companies, Viacom Inc.

CBS and Viacom said they had no comment on the filing.

The action seeks a court order to prevent anything like last Sunday's stunt from being repeated on U.S. network television prior to 10 p.m. local time when children might be watching.

It also asks the court to declare the matter a class action for purposes of damages. No dollar figure is mentioned in the suit, but it estimates that over 80 million U.S. viewers might be due compensation. CBS has said the game drew an average viewership of just under 89.6 million people. Advertising during the game sold for more than $2 million a spot.

The lawsuit is such a grab bag of failures to state a valid claim that I expect it to be dismissed at first glance. Most significantly, the plaintiff does not have standing to sue. There is no evidence she is member of the class she is allegedly trying to protect. Nor does she allege having a child harmed by viewing the two-second or so display of Janet Jackson's partially bare right breast. Furthermore, Congress has made violations of broadcast rules a matter of administrative law. The proper forum for resolution of such matters is the complaint process of the Federal Communications Commission. Rules against showing racy material during prime time, the remedy sought, already exist.

The rather hypocritical cavailing of some over the incident has had other consequences.

CBS has already said it would use an "enhanced delay" on its Feb. 8 broadcast of music's Grammy Awards so it can censor both audio and video as needed, and ABC also said it will use a delay on its Feb. 29 broadcast of the Academy Awards.

The lawyer who filed the lawsuit, Wayne Ritchie, a former state legislator, has been active in anti-civil rights activities for years, including opposing gay rights. His name also turns up at neo-Confederate sites, but I haven't been able to determine if he is an actual member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans or other similar groups. They are very active in Tennessee and seek out those with political connections.

There is a fledgling movement at racist sites to harass Jackson, including urging of frivolous lawsuits. This one could be the outcome of such sentiments. The worst I've seen is a site where the blogger has posted a picture of a bare-chested female gorilla to represent Jackson. He claims she is engaged in a campaign to overcome white people's aversion to the ugliness of Americans. I will not link to the entries.

Jackson's invitation to the Grammy's has been withdrawn, though Timberlake is a nominee and will appear.

HOLLYWOOD (AP) -- Even without appearing at the Grammys Sunday night, Janet Jackson's presence will be inescapable.

The singer was supposed to have presented a special award for Luther Vandross, but pulled out amid the furor following her Super Bowl performance.

Also avoiding the show will be Jackson's good friend, rapper and music producer Jermaine Dupri, who announced Friday he was resigning as president of the Recording Academy's Atlanta chapter.

"I didn't want to be a part of something that's not treating people in the right light," Dupri said.

"I feel like what's going on with Janet is unfair."

I have a feeling the event is going to be one in which the absence of Jackson casts a pall over the presence of her peers.

Jackson, Timberlake and the others involved in the prank, which I believe went farther than they intended, set out to tease a large television audience. The outcome may effect them, and us, for years.

News: 'Ten Commandments judge' may seek presidency

Speculation has been that the opportunist who made a name for himself by stationing a huge granite monument to the Ten Commandments in the foyer of the Alabama judiciary building is preparing for an eventual gubernatorial run. Now, the far Right is encouraging him to seek another office - the Presidency. Right Wing redoubt WorldNetDaily.com. has looked into the matter.

Ousted Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore is focused on trying to get his job back but will not rule out a third-party run for the presidency that could threaten President Bush's re-election chances.

At a recent speaking engagement, the man who became famous for his defense of a Ten Commandments monument was asked during a question-and-answer session whether he would run for president, reported Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund.

"Not right now," Moore said, according to Fund, who noted Moore's friends say he is undecided about whether to run for president or to wait two years and seek Alabama's governorship.

Moore most recently claimed the spotlight at a gathering of influential supporters of the religious Right in Atlanta.

About 700 conservative Christians gathered at an Atlanta church yesterday for a rally that included Governor [Sonny] Perdue, former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore and three Georgia Republicans vying for a U-S Senate seat.

The Christian Coalition's 2004 Family and Freedom Kickoff was held at Mount Vernon Baptist Church.

Members of the coalition -- considered some of the G-O-P's most loyal and active voters -- listened to speeches supporting the war on terrorism, advocating a ban on gay marriage and pushing the public display of the Ten Commandments.

If Moore can sway enough supporters of the Republicans toward a third-party candidacy, he will have achieved a feat not accomplished since some Christian conservatives defected to multimillionaire Ross Perot's ill-fated campaign in 1992.

Meanwhile, the renegade judge has continued to press to be reinstated as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. It became necessary to select a special panel to hear the appeal after his former colleagues recused themselves, perhaps fearing backlash if they again go on record as opposing him.

A special 7-member Alabama Supreme Court was sworn in Monday afternoon to hear Roy Moore's appeal of his ouster as chief justice. Former governor and former criminal appeals court judge John Patterson is serving as chief justice for the special Supreme Court.

The other members are also retired appellate court and circuit court judges. The special court was selected because all members of the regular Supreme Court stepped aside from hearing Moore's case. Moore is appealing his ouster by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary.

He was removed from office for failing to obey a federal judge's order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state Judicial Building in Montgomery.

The WSJ's Fund, who became notorious while battling claims he forced his girlfriend, a fellow Right Winger, to have an abortion, is among those providing publicity for Moore. He devoted a column to Moore Monday.

A lot of people want him to run. Last Saturday, Mr. Moore was a featured speaker at the Christian Coalition's "Family and Freedom" rally in Atlanta. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported he was "treated like a rock star, signing autographs and getting thunderous standing ovations." The week before that, Mr. Moore was the speaker at a dinner in Lancaster, Pa., sponsored by the Constitution Party, which has the third-largest number of registered voters in the U.S. and whose presidential candidate, Howard Phillips, was on 41 state ballots in 2000.

. . .There is no doubt that Mr. Moore's civil disobedience struck a chord with some elements of the population, but are they enough to sustain a presidential candidacy? "If he can get on talk shows and stir up conservative voters he could easily get significantly more than the usual third-party vote totals," says Richard Winger, a leading authority on independent candidacies and editor of Ballot Access News. He notes that while the Libertarian and Green parties are much better known, the Constitution Party has 320,000 registered voters around the country and guaranteed ballot access in large states such as California and Pennsylvania. Its national convention won't be held until June 22, giving Mr. Moore time to exhaust the appeal of his dismissal before the Alabama courts.

Moore has proven that a calculating person, with the aid of monied members of the religious Right, can attract attention and a following. However, it is yet to be seen whether the people who support his efforts to impose his values on the citizenry would select his name on a ballot nationally. Even with the Constitution Party as a threshold, he may be unable to attract enough voters to be more than a fly in the ointment. Since Moore's chances of prevailing in his effort to return to the Alabama Supreme Court are nil, we may get an opportunity to see if his brand of politics translates into actual votes.

Reasonably related

News: Jackson apologizes, Powell fumes

In the interest of research, I tried to interview a four-year-old boy about breasts. He was a tough nut to crack. First, he sang words that rhyme with breast. Some real. Some not. (We play word games sometimes.) Then he hung upside down from a chair and made faces. Just when I thought he might be about to express his outrage about the pictures of Janet Jackson's boob he had seen, he grabbed my iPod and I had to chase him around the room several times to get it back. So, I have no tearful remonstrations by a victim to report.

In a statement released Monday night, Jackson apologized and said it was a last-minute stunt that went awry.

"The decision to have a costume reveal at the end of my halftime show performance was made after final rehearsals. MTV was completely unaware of it," she said. "It was not my intention that it go as far as it did. I apologize to anyone offended -- including the audience, MTV, CBS and the NFL."

Jackson's official Web site was bombarded with angry postings. Her spokeswoman, Jennifer Holiner, said a red lace garment was supposed
to remain when Timberlake tore off the
outer covering.

The most unattractive man in America, Michael Powell, is still claiming to be shocked (yes, shocked!) by the event. Unfortunately, Powell heads the Federal Communications Commission.

Powell promised an investigation, with potential fines of up to $27,500. If applied to each CBS station, the fine could reach the millions.

In response to multiple phone calls from the public, acting Houston police chief Joe Breshears reiterated that no criminal charges would be filed.

Despite the apparent premeditation -- the display coincided exactly with Timberlake singing, "I'm gonna have you naked by the end of this song" -- all involved denied that the peep show was planned.

"This was done completely without our knowledge," said Chris Ender, entertainment spokesman for CBS, which was deluged with angry calls. "It wasn't rehearsed. It wasn't discussed. It wasn't even hinted at... This is something we would have never approved. We are angry and embarrassed."

An examination of the FCC rules suggests the conduct may not violate them.

Over-the-air TV channels cannot air "obscene" material at any time and cannot air "indecent" material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. The FCC defines obscene as describing sexual conduct "in a patently offensive way" and lacking "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." Indecent material is not as offensive but still contains references to sex or excretions.

Furthermore, in the past, the FCC has saved severe fines for premeditated acts that explicitly break the rules. This one or two second event, that most viewers did not see clearly, is hardly that.

On Monday's Nightline, veteran newsman Ted Kopple observed that more people watched the exposure on Tivo and the Internet than caught the real thing. Doesn't that suggest that at least some of the folks cavailing about the behavior sought it out?

And, let's not let Powell off the hook. Michael Powell has plans, I suspect. Po-lit-i-cal plans. Just like the other parties in the saga is he out to exploit it. Here's an opportunity for him to reap name recognition the head of the FCC doesn't usually get. And, since ole lipless has been an unpopular FCC chairman, he will play this to the hilt.

At this juncture, I think there is enough blame to go around - including Jackson, Timberlake, MTV, CBS and the NFL itself, which does its share to encourage vulgarity. I still believe the entire episode has been blown out of proportion.

On other channels

The news desk

A tourist from the United States has scandalized Brazil by abusing an infant while flying to that country.

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Poor Ronald Duffy. First he couldn't get into Brazil. Now he can't get out.

The 35-year-old Pennsylvania native was barred entry in the South American country after he threw water on a baby whose crying annoyed him on the long flight from Miami, police said on Thursday.

Duffy, who had been planning to spend Carnival with his Brazilian girlfriend in the city of Salvador, was arrested by federal police at Sao Paulo international airport when the flight landed on Wednesday.

"I think I overreacted a little," Duffy told Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper.

Police said Duffy appeared to be drunk on the flight. When the baby began to cry, he complained he could not sleep. He then asked for a glass of water and doused the toddler with it as the shocked parents watched.

The other passengers "nearly lynched him" and applauded when police boarded the aircraft to arrest him, the newspaper said.

Duffy, who said he had been taking medicine to sleep, was supposed to fly back to the United States on Thursday morning. But the Varig flight he boarded brought him back to the gate before take-off after he "acted up" again, police said.

The blogosphere is largely a haven for Right Wingers. So many bloggers express contempt for other peoples and cultures that one gets used to it. Some, such as Little Green Footballs, build their readership largely on fueling hatred. Because ugly Americanism is the norm, it usually goes unremarked. But, here, we are talking about words on a computer screen. Much more direct harm occurs when such people act on their beliefs in the real world. The Ronald Duffy story epitomizes the attitude in action. It takes an ugly American to believe he deserves to get his way to the extent that he would abuse a baby in a public venue.

The latest development in the brouhaha over singer Janet Jackson baring a breast during her halftime show at the Super Bowl is an FCC complaint.

An outraged Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell on Monday ordered an investigation into the broadcast of the Super Bowl's halftime entertainment show, during which singer Janet Jackson's right breast was exposed.

During the break in the National Football League's championship game, pop singer Justin Timberlake reached for Jackson as they sang a duet and tore open part of her black leather bustier.

"That celebration was tainted by a classless, crass and deplorable stunt," Powell said in a statement. "Our nation's children, parents and citizens deserve better."

Television networks are already on the defensive, with the FCC taking a more aggressive stand against indecency over the airwaves and Congress threatening to sharply raise the fines for such incidents.

Viacom Inc.'s CBS television network, which aired the show, and MTV, which produced the halftime bonanza, apologized for what they described as an unscripted moment.

A spokesman for CBS had no immediate comment on the probe and a Viacom spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Powell, one of my least favorite boobs, echoes the hysteria quite a few people have been expressing in regard to the incident. Ward, a commenter at Blogcritics, is typical.

. . .It isn't a big deal until it affects YOU. True, this is a free society and we all have certain freedoms. However, MY freedom is to only view controversial (kon-trow-verse-yee-all) material at MY discretion. I would not have been watching, nor allowed my daughter to watch the pitiful descent into primal lust of anatomy that was displayed tonight.

The response seems vastly out of proportion to the offense to me. Though some children saw the brief flash of forbidden flesh, I doubt they were harmed by it. If they were alarmed, it is more likely because of their parents' agitation.

I suspect the FCC's investigation of this titillating episode will turn out to be much ado about nothing. It seems unlikely they will find any proof the baring of the breast was intentional.

A Presidential candidate has run afoul of the rigid, yet arbitrary, constraints on airline passengers that are part of the Bush administration's so-called war on terrorism.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Sen. John Edwards had a penknife confiscated as part of a stepped up security search that caused a one-hour delay for the Democratic presidential candidate and others boarding his chartered plane.

Albuquerque security officials gave extensive screenings to those traveling with the senator, including hand inspections of everyone's luggage and carry-on bags.

``We must look dangerous,'' joked the North Carolina Democrat, who was forced to go through a metal detector along with other passengers, and to have all his bags X-rayed, before being allowed to board his campaign plane.

A small knife was confiscated from Edwards' luggage. [Emphasis mine.] ``It was a pocket knife,'' Edwards said. ``I didn't even know it was there.'' He said he was told it would be returned to him later.

A pair of scissors, tweezers and assorted small tools used by photographers and television cameramen also were confiscated. The extra scrutiny, which was not explained, caused Edwards to be an hour late for his next scheduled appearance, a speech at a union hall in Oklahoma City.

About three dozen people are traveling on Edwards' plane, most of them members of the news media.

The episode leaves Edwards open to the criticism that he is a 'lawbreaker.' Silly? Yes. But, as the election season heats up, I will not be surprised to see attempts to make hay out of even an incident this minor.

People are saying

Trish Wilson, who is unabashedly a cat person, has her dander up over a recent lawsuit, with good reason. A California man with a history of bipolar disorder and anxiety is suing his local library because of a scrap between his dog and its cat. He claims the spat amounts to denying him use of a public facility because of his disabilities. The case went to trial, with the plaintiff representing himself, yesterday.

I think the guy in question here is just looking for an excuse to sue the city of Escondido.

A disabled man tearfully described a library cat's attack on his assistance dog. Rik Espinosa uses the dog because he has disabilities that include major depressive and panic disorders. The cat, named L. C. for "Library Cat," has been a fixture at the library for the past eight years. The animals fought, and L. C. scratched the dog on its snout. Espinosa claims to have suffered "significant lasting, extreme and severe mental anguish and emotional distress including, but not limited to, terror, humiliation, shame, embarrassment, mortification, chagrin, depression, panic, anxiety, flashbacks, nightmares, loss of sleep..."

I don't doubt that Espinosa, who is unemployable, has the problems he describes. But, I don't believe observing the animals brawl caused or worsened his longterm medical condition. He already had the problems he is trying to make a causative link to based on the animals' scrap.

In the interim, Library Cat died, but Espinosa wouldn't settle the case.

He is suing for $1.5 million.

His actual damages (lost wages, trips to the vet and his own doctor) amounted to about $325.00.

The city offered him two settlements, one for $1,500, but he has refused.

. . .The judge in the case has ordered it to proceed. Espinosa's response made me wonder about his motives : "Here I am, a guy without a college education, and I've whipped this deep-pocket government," he said. "I've out-lawyered the lawyers. That means this case is pure."

I understand the city's response. The plaintiff did encounter at least minimal disruption of his daily schedule. And, if the city attorney who handled the case has a heart, he probably was willing to give the fellow, who probably can't afford to buy himself much, enough money to purchase something nice with a small settlement check. But, I believe Escondido may have made a mistake by treating Espinosa's case as if it were valid. The underlying premise - that a person with severe emotional problems needs to have a dog with him even in public places where the animal may cause disruption, is doubtful. Taking the case on in regard to its merits (or lack thereof) is much more expensive for the city. But, it was what was needed to dissuade him and people who might file similar frivolous suits in the future.

Over the years, I've known my share of business cats and dogs, often at bookstores. I hope what Espinosa has started here doesn't catch on. The presence of animals in businesses can give them a warmth of atmosphere and provide a nexus for conversation. I would hate to see those attributes sacrificed to the selfish motives of a few people.

Filmmaker Brian Flemming has been thinking about image, in a somewhat different way than I have below. He believes the Democratic presidential candidates have allowed the Right to determine the image that appears in people's minds when they hear the phrase 'gay marriage.' So, the ever energetic auteur has written them a letter.

Dear Democratic presidential candidates,

You guys are blowing it on the gay-marriage question.

When Brit Hume or another RNC tool interrogates you about the "homosexual marriage" issue, he's purposefully trying to draw up in red-state people's minds the image of a wedding ceremony in which a couple fag grooms in leather tuxedoes shove their fists up each other's butts while Satan looks on, laughing and stroking his giant red penis.

Your immediate obligation is to change the damn image.

Here is the image you need to evoke immediately: A woman on her deathbed in the hospital. Is that so hard? Just use some of those adjectives you learned in politician school. The dying woman's name is, oh, I don't know, Mary. (Hey, if W. can speak in code for his base...)

Now the next image: Mary's partner of 30 years. Stuck in the lobby of the hospital-- because she's not allowed to visit her dying partner . Those are the "rules," and there's nothing Mary or her partner can do about it. So Mary dies alone. And her partner is robbed of providing the woman she loves comfort in those dying moments. Because of the "rules."

Even conservatives will not be able to ignore the twinge of sympathy they will feel about this Great Injustice. Of course Mary's partner should have been allowed hospital visitation.

Well, that's what a "civil union" is. It gives Mary and her partner the civil right to hospital visitation. And of course you are in favor of that-- and you don't understand how any decent person could be against it, and you sure would like an explanation.

Advantage: you.

Say it for me three times: Hospital visitation, hospital visitation, hospital visitation.

Now say it in a damned debate and get the national conversation moving in the right direction.

Love,

Brian

Yes, Brian is the guy in the picture. And, yes, I know he is hot.

If Flemming is ever at a loss for words - interesting ones - I haven't noticed. Read more of his.

Natalie Davis at All Facts and Opinions expresses her admiration for the stance taken by multimillionaire George Soros.

Please check out an excellent commentary in the UK's Guardian, in which writer, investor and philanthropist George Soros tells it straight -- "it" being what AF&O and many voices have been saying all along: Religious fundamentalism in the US has become too powerful, and as a result, this nation is ruled by dangerous extremists who will do or say anything to achieve their foul aims.

[W]e have been deceived. When he stood for election in 2000, President Bush promised a humble foreign policy. I contend that the Bush administration has deliberately exploited September 11 to pursue policies that the American public would not have otherwise tolerated. The US can lose its dominance only as a result of its own mistakes. At present the country is in the process of committing such mistakes because it is in the hands of a group of extremists whose strong sense of mission is matched only by their false sense of certitude.

This distorted view postulates that because we are stronger than others, we must know better and we must have right on our side. That is where religious fundamentalism comes together with market fundamentalism to form the ideology of American supremacy.

Do read the article, which is an extract from Soros' new book, The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power, whose primary goal is "to persuade the American public to reject ... Bush in the forthcoming elections."

I've been doing my share to staunch the flow of Christian Right propaganda in the blogosphere lately. A longtime far Right Christian fundamentalist from Free Republic recently turned up at Blogcritics. David Flanagan regularly posts entries in which he pretends to be in pursuit of Mom, baseball and apple pie. But, each of them has an agenda detrimental to society. Most recently, he has penned lengthy pieces claiming the First Amendment's Establishment Clause denies the citizenry freedom by opposing such practices as placing the Ten Commandments in courtrooms. But, despite its conservatism, Blogcritics is not quite Free Republic. Contributors and commenters have challenged Flanagan every inch of the way.

Tech talk: A bite of the Apple

Will Hewlett Packard include Apple Computer rival Microsoft's audio format in its iPod branded MP3 player/hard drive? Online sources disagree.

Contrary to reports, Hewlett-Packard will not be supporting Microsoft's Windows Media Audio format in its forthcoming HP-branded iPod.

According to Paul Thurrot's WinInfo newsletter, HP is working with Apple to add support for WMA to the iPod. Thurrot's report was widely circulated online on Monday.

However, a spokesman for HP denied any such plans.

"We're not going to be supporting WMA for now," said Muffi Ghadiali, product marketing manager for HP's digital entertainment products group.

"We picked the service that was the most popular (Apple's iTunes Music Store)," said Ghadiali. "We could have chosen another format, but that would have created more confusion for our customers."

He added, "Most customers don't care about the format they're downloading."

Last week, HP made the surprising announcement that it will be reselling a HP-branded iPod this summer. HP will also bundle Apple's iTunes digital jukebox on all new consumer PCs.

That means Apple's Advanced Audio Coding (ACC) will be expanded into another customer base.

Apple uses a proprietary, copy-protected scheme based on Advanced Audio Coding. While AAC is a proposed standard for Internet audio developed by a consortium of companies, Apple has wrapped its songs in a Digital Rights Management scheme that puts some restrictions on playback devices.

Meanwhile, the majority of Apple's competitors -- Napster, Wal-Mart, Musicmatch, Best Buy and dozens of others -- sell music encoded in Microsoft's WMA format, which is also proprietary.

The problem is that Apple's iPod -- the most popular portable player on the market -- will not play music encoded in WMA.

Likewise, none of the other portable music players from the likes of Dell, Rio or Creative Technology will play Apple's AAC files.

In the interest of playing nicely with others, an argument can be made that Apple should make iPods of all flavors compatible with WMA. However, if it does so, it will be surrendering thousands of possible converts to its competitor.

I don't think we have heard the last about this conflict. Stay tuned for additional maneuvering.

It appears that biting into an Apple has proven a sour experience for some iBook users. Apple Computer has agreed to repair problem displays for them at no expense.

Apple Computer began a three-year, worldwide repair program Wednesday for certain of its iBook notebook computers that can have problems with their internal or external display monitors.

Apple declined to comment on the exact number of iBooks affected, but said it will repair these components for free and offer a full refund for customers who already have paid for the repair. Apple will pay for shipping costs, the company said.

In the last several months, there has been increasing chatter on Mac community message boards about problems with the logic board, one of the building blocks of a computer. Apple said that problems can include scrambled or distorted video, unexpected lines on the screen, an intermittent video image, video freeze and the computer starting up to a blank screen.

Though the repair agremment is limited to iBooks, I had problems with the screen on my PowerBook G4 before the computer was repaired, gratis, in December. There was a darkening of the lighting, about two inches wide and one high, right above the centered name on the display frame. Intermittently, a cobalt blue vertical strip would appear on the screen. And, occassionally, the screen would go pinstripe, usually when there was a power surge. These problems, which existed about two months, ceased when Apple replaced the logic board in my computer. The only blemish now is a new top clamshell frame that does not close completely.

From a legal perspective, it is revealing that Apple has decided to refund money to customers who paid for the repair. It is practically an admission of liability for a corporation to disgorge funds without being forced to.

The dean of the school of engineering with the third fastest, and cheapest, supercomputer in the world believes this innovation may spark a revolution in what institutions and businesses can afford a big machine.

In the words of Hassan Aref, the dean of the college of engineering at Virginia Tech, thanks to Apple: "Yesterday's supercomputers have suddenly become affordable."

Discussing the comparably low cost of the Virginia Tech supercomputer in an article for Cnet, Aref explains: "That is extremely good news for universities and corporations and for society at large. It follows that any institution or company that can afford to set aside 1,000 desktop machines - and invest in the communications software to link them - can own a supercomputer."

He continues: "Some are predicting a minor revolution in computing similar to what happened many years ago, when the VAX computer became "everyman's mainframe." Small cluster computers have already been popping up in departmental labs and within academic research groups. Now, clusters at the frontline of performance can be assembled and run anywhere, more or less. The consequences could be truly dramatic."

Regarding the plans to [upgrade] the Tech's supercomputer to Xserve G5 cluster nodes - as announced earlier this week - Aref predicts that they will: "Gain even more industry-leading price performance benefits."

Virginia Tech made history by using Macintosh G5s to form its cluster supercomputer.

News and analysis: What becomes a legend least?

My fellow Tarheel, the much admired sportsman Julius Erving, is at the center of a seamy story. After 31 years of marriage, many of them marred by infidelity I suspect, his lovely wife, Turquoise, is divorcing him. Someone has thrown a Molotov cocktail into the mix - a video of Dr. J. having sex with another woman. A scandal sheet, Page Six of the New York Post, broke the story.

The tape was apparently shot several years ago. It shows Erving - who went to the NBA finals four times and led the Philadelphia 76ers to a title - in a hotel room wearing a sleeveless undershirt, boxers and metal-framed glasses. The Afro of his early years is gone, and the gray of his later years has yet to arrive.

His co-star is a voluptuous, dark-haired young woman with cinnamon skin wearing a negligee. A radio in the background is playing "Sea of Love" by the Honeydrippers as Erving adjusts the camera. The couple sips white wine and chats inaudibly before the kissing begins and they get naked.

The two unhurriedly run through several positions, including a Kama Sutra-like contortion. At one point on the radio, an early morning weather report of fog is announced for San Jose, Santa Cruz and Monterey.

Erving has had two childen out-of-wedlock since marrying Turquoise - tennis player Alexandra Stevenson, 22, and a 6-year-old identified in divorce papers last year.

Mrs. Erving's camp denies it is responsible for the release of the video.

The Seminole County, Fla., court ordered Erving, who listed his net worth at $9 million, to pay Turquoise $1,500 a week, plus household expenses and $8,000 a month for credit card bills.

"He made agreements to do things. He did not do those things. We're about to have a hearing for enforcement and sanctions," Turquoise's lawyer, Andrea Black, said.

As for the video, Black said, "I'm sad it's reached this point. We've been trying to resolve this amicably. Making something like that public would help no one."

I recall hearing of Erving's wondering eye when I was growing up and, again, when I lived and worked in Philadelphia. It isn't hard to understand why his wife stood by her man until now. As the girl who fought her way out of the hardscrabble life of people of color in Winston-Salem by marrying a star, Mrs. Erving had won a prize. The perks that come with being the spouse of a celebrity are difficult to give up after one has become accustomed to the lifestyle. So, I suspect she just accepted that her husband was far from hers sexually for more than three decades. In case she forgot, there were paternity cases to remind her.

A friend and colleague who knows Erving well, Pat Williams, has expressed his disappointment, tempered with awe.

"These guys have opportunity, finances, time, and the temptations that face all of us face them in abundance," said Williams, now the vice president of the Orlando Magic. "They have opportunities beyond opportunities and temptation that us commoners couldn't imagine."

He prefers another image of Erving.

The story takes Pat Williams back almost 23 years, and even now, his voice cracks and quivers over the telephone as he tells it. This was the summer of 1981, and Williams and Julius Erving had just finished renegotiating Erving's latest contract with the Sixers, and Williams had one more condition: He asked Erving to come to the mountains of northern New York State to help him coordinate a youth sports camp.

Erving agreed, but the day before he was to appear at the camp, he was in Colorado. He landed in Philadelphia at midnight, caught a 7 a.m. flight to Albany the next morning, and arrived in time to spend the day coaching the children.

"All those kids, they were so overwhelmed," Williams, the former general manager of the Sixers, said last night from a hotel room in Houston. "He just poured himself into that day - teaching, demonstrating, posing for pictures. When I drove him back that afternoon and left him at the airport, I sat behind the wheel and started weeping, that this giant of a man had given so much and didn't have to."

But, Alexandra Stevenson has said her father never contacted her during her childhood and snubbed her when she turned up at an elemetary school autograph session. Don't misinterpret. Erving seems to have been a perfect noncustodial parent in regard to child support. It is another kind of support that was lacking.

So, which of the images is the right one:

All of them, I think. The celebrity machine simplifies its fodder before we're fed it. Pete Rose becomes just crooked. Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes just another liberal, not a revolutionary. Sylvia Plath? Some silly woman who committed suicide. Julius Erving as Dr. Player may be next on the menu. However, we are naive to accept such simplification. People are complex and people with opportunities tend to become even moreso.

Philadelphia columnist Mark Sielski has been thinking about celebrity athletes. He talked to Williams about Erving, but formed his own opinion.

But the hard truth is that Julius Erving can't be encapsulated by this anecdote from the Adirondacks, just as he can't by the scandalous videotape sent to the New York Post by his wife's legal team. [As I stated before, Mrs. Erving's team denies throwing the incendiary device.] As a basketball player he was held up as a hero, always gracious, always giving. Since his retirement his indiscretions have seeped out - his fathering two children out of wedlock while married to Turquoise, this tryst he and a lover videotaped somewhere near San Jose 15 years ago - and have painted him as a hypocrite, left him as a punchline for off-color jokes.

Nothing is so simple, and sooner or later everyone who watches sports will learn the lesson of Erving, Kobe Bryant, Mickey Mantle and every other athletic giant hoisted onto a house of cards: Stop being surprised. Stop believing you know them. Stop thinking they're pure. They're only men. They're only us.

Yes and no. Celebrities are only us, but with a plus when they deserve their name recognition. Each of them does something extraordinarily well. I believe we are right to appreciate the gifts they confer on society, but wrong not to suspect their feet may be resting on clay while they write that brilliant book, break that home run record or play a guitar riff so beautiful that it could awaken our ancestors. People are complex.

Tech talk: Better than Wi-Fi?

If you have a laptop, you've probably received correspondence, by email or post, about signing up for wireless enhanced access. It also called digital cellular data service or wWan - Wireless Wide Area Networks. Solicitors usually describe it as a giant step above 802.11 accessibility. A pitch from Sierra Wireless is typical.

What if you could turn downtime into productive time? All that time you spend in hotels and airports. All that time between sales calls or meetings. Even the time you spend driving in a cab or traveling by train. . . With just one click from your laptop, you can check your important email messages, instant message friends and colleagues, make travel reservations, download directions - whatever you need.

The manufacturers say the cards, which are inserted into one's PCMCIA slot, access the Internet at speeds up to 144Kbps.

The key to the greater usability of these wireless cards is that they don't rely on hotspots. Even in cities with reputations for good Wi-Fi access, such as Portland and Seattle, finding available sites can be tricky. I've pretty much given up on Personal Telco, a local free network that gets good press, but is rarely available when one needs it. Of the dozen or so of hotspots it lists in my home area, at least half are unavailable, often because they were never really established or closed down without informing anyone.

Until recently, only owners of Microsoft Windows laptops running later OSes need apply for wireless enhanced access. That has changed. MacCentral reports on software that will make at least one Sierra Wireless card Macintosh-compatible.

Stretched Out Software Inc. has released a Mac-compatible data driver for the Sierra Wireless AirCard 555 - a PC card that enables laptop computers to communicate through cellular telephone networks. The software works on both Jaguar and Panther, and is available for online purchase for US$29.95.

"Wi-Fi" wireless networking access through AirPort (IEEE 802.11b) or AirPort Extreme (IEEE 802.11g) is ubiquitous across Apple's product line. Finding a "hot spot" - a location where you can actually connect online - can be vexing when you're on the road, however. More and more hotels, coffee shops, bookstores, airports and convention centers feature Wi-Fi hot spots, but in most areas, cellular telephone access is far more widespread.

Sierra Wireless Inc. manufactures a line of PC Card expansion cards that communicate through cellular telephone data networks. Their AirCard 555, for which Stretched Out Software developed its Mac-compatible data driver, is just such a product. It uses the CDMA2000 1X protocol supported by some carriers in the United States and Canada (Sierra's Web site has more information).

Sierra's own card offering requires various flavors of Windows - and even with Stretched Out Software's drivers, still requires pre-activation on a Windows PC. But once you've done that, Stretched Out Software's own drivers can enable that card to function on a Mac laptop.

The flip side? The cost of enhanced wireless is greater than for 802.11. The wireless cards sell for about $300. The customer must commit to at least a one-year contract with Sierra Wireless or other providers. If she signs up through an Internet service provider, there will likely be additional monthly charges in the $30 range.

Hewlett Packard offers an enhanced wireless access service that is less restrictive than others.

Wireless Wide Area Networks (wWAN) provides access to information anytime & anywhere you have cellular (data) coverage. What that means is that you can possibly get your e-mails, browse the web and access other corporate information while you are away from the office.

HP provides you a one stop shop for your wWAN solution. You can purchase your card and activate through HP!

Should you already have an existing account with a carrier, no problem. HP Wireless can still activate your wireless modem under your existing account to ensure proper billing and related activation credits. As an additional benefit, we may provide [an] activation rebate when you activate with us.

I believe enhanced wireless access might be a boon to someone who really needs to be able to go online at any time or who can pass on the bills on to her employer. With its lower cost, Wi-Fi, though less convenient, seems suitable for the average user of wireless data services.

Reading, too: Phillips' take on Bushes a must read

When a book by Kevin Phillips is reviewed, it gets reviewed. Books maven Michiko Kakutani examines his new book, about the Bush dynasty, in a New York Times column today. She finds it a crazy salad with some pretty substantial slices of substance among the lettuce.

In American Dynasty, his furious jeremiad against the Bush family, Kevin Phillips does not explicate the many differences between President George W. Bush and his father, or their very different brands of foreign policy. Instead he delivers a high-decibel, high-dudgeon rant against what he sees as their dynastic ambitions and their shared biases and motives.

"Dynasties," he declares at the start of this book, "tend to show continuities of policy and interest-group bias - in the case of the Bushes, favoritism toward the energy sector, defense industries, the Pentagon and the C.I.A., as well as insistence on tax breaks for the investor class and upper-income groups."

Mr. Phillips worked in the Nixon administration and made his name back in 1969 with "The Emerging Republican Majority," a book that predicted the ascendancy of the G.O.P. In recent years, however, he has become a populist social critic, increasingly focused on the gap between the rich and poor, and to his mind the Bush family embodies the worst sort of elitism. In these pages he accuses family members of Machiavellian deception and "blatant business cronyism" with ties to big corporations, big oil and the military-industrial complex.

"After four generations of connection to foreign intrigue and the intelligence community, plus three generations of immersion in the culture of secrecy (dating back to the Yale years of several men in the family)," he writes, "deceit and disinformation have become Bush political hallmarks. The Middle Eastern financial ties of both Bush presidents exemplify this lack of candor, as do the origins and machinations of both Bush wars with Iraq."

Those charges are not difficult to substantiate. The Bushes' latest maneuvers, the invasion and occupation of Iraq and tax cuts that favor the wealthy, fit right into that pattern. George W. may say the U.S. is in Iraq to forward a war on terrorism, but the winners there will likely be Halliburton and other elite corporations.

Kakutani is less pleased with what she considers Phillips' scattershot approach to analysis.

Mr. Phillips is eloquent on the continuing fallout of American decisions, beginning in the 70's, to pour huge amounts of armaments into the tinderbox of the Persian Gulf and Middle East, into countries "menaced by religious and resource conflicts." He also raises disturbing conflict-of-interest questions about the Bush family's intertwining political and business relationships around the world, relationships embodied by Bush Senior's post-presidential affiliation with the Carlyle Group, a merchant bank with military-sector investments.

The narrative of American Dynasty, however, is so discursive, its ambitions so amorphous, that the book all too often devolves into a simple litany of accusations against the Bushes, some grounded in careful research, others based on little more than innuendo and speculation.

I trust Kakutani's judgment enough to respect her opinion. But, I have found Phillips' previous works to justify close reading, despite their imperfections. I will be purchasing American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, and encourage other people concerned about our political future to do the same.

Additional reading

Reading: Hugo nominee is a worthy sci-fi novel

The novel is mature, so exploited in its potential that nerve is required to dare to test its limits. In his latest novel, Kiln People, speculative fiction writer David Brin, best known for The Postman, does just that. Characterization and plot are stretched and reshaped in innovative ways.

Detective Albert Morris makes a modest living tracking down copyright thieves who steal the clay facsimiles, called dittos, of famous people, usually artists, and make cheap copies for resell. His chief client is Gineen Wammaker, an interactive pornography star who regularly requests his services in retrieving dittoes of herself from Beta, a master copyright thief. Morris' girlfriend, Clara, is a part-time soldier in modern wars, which appear to be based on computer games, but have real life consequences. His best friend, Pal, is a paraplegic who has a capacity for imprinting novel, not necessarily humaniform, golems. Both become important to the plot in the second half of the book.

Morris' career seems to be on the upswing when he is hired to investigate the murder of an executive at Universal Kilns, the Microsoft-like corporation that produces most of the clay blanks for the dittoing process. But, is Morris really operating in a new realm when he accepts the assignment and delegates several of his dittos to it? He begins to wonder when he keeps in encountering golems of his nemesis, Beta, as he is consumed by the investigation.

The detective's facsimiles provide the fulcrum through which the reader develops an understanding of life in a ditto dominated world. Hired in his real form, Morris sends a gray ditto, the type that performs most administrative work, to interview the decedent's partner. Another gray is dispatched to a meeting with Wammaker, which results in orders to penetrate Universal Kilns in search of illegal technology. That is a conflict of interest, so that gray cannot contact either realAlbert or other dittos of him. Meanwhile, Morris' green ditto is relegated to doing the kind of things greens do -- house-cleaning and shopping. (That won't last long. Unbeknown to Morris, he has produced a 'Frankenstein,' a freak golem that is self-directed.) A black ditto is imprinted to perform the intense analytical work involved in tracking the disappearance and subsequent death of the UK co-founder, Yasil Maharal, who invented dittotech. In following the dittoes, the reader explores different facets of Morris' character and how they interact with his world. That world is one in which most experience has been relegated to dittos and real people attempt to fill their empty lives with various kinds of entertainment. It is the philosophical question: 'What would you do if you did not have to do anything?' that haunts the novel.

Without realizing it, Morris has stumbled into the most important conspiracy in his world. Who will control the direction of dittotech is being decided and the candidates are anything but wholesome. It isn't long before Morris, and several of his dittos, find themselves on the defensive among the nefarious players as they try to solve the mystery of who killed Maharal -- and save their real and imitation lives. Clara and Pal are needed to help save realAlbert from other people, real and not, who have no qualms about killing him or millions of humans to reach their ultimate objective.

Brin's daring and the book's flaws are related. It can be difficult to keep up with where each Morris is, and, of just as much significance, what each Morris knows. Instead of an integrated personality, the reader must try to make sense of the Several Faces of Albert -- and of the antagonists, too. The metaphysical nature of 'soul imprinting' makes it a difficult concept to grasp. Time becomes so nebulous the reader is sometimes not sure when it is that actions take place.

However, the overall effect of Brin's experiments is to produce a memorable novel. Kiln People, a runner-up for the Hugo Award, is well worth reading.

Blogosphere: Blogger offers list of standards

Yvelle at Radical Rejection has compiled a list of standards she believes bloggers should meet in response to my entry about blogging boondoggles.

In it, I said:

Yesterday, Doug Mohney, a reporter for the Inquirer, angered some Blogcritics by briefly alluding to blogs as 'losers.'

Blogging, in combination with dead half-finished web pages, has the potential to give Google and anyone trying to find information on the increasingly cluttered web high-blood pressure. Advocates say it's a democratic way to counter the mass media so anyone can post a screed against The Man. Not that anyone would want to consider the old-fashioned values of editing and reworking text before posting. And maybe I don't care what albums or books you are reading.

. . .But an examination of data about weblogs mostly supports what he said: They are mainly web clutter. Does that mean your blog is just clogging up Google? Probably not, especially if you are on the blogroll at Mac-a-ro-nies, but most of the five million or so are. Their proprietors usually abandon them sometime between one day and four months. Even while publishing, blogs are too often sources of disinformation and misinformation.

Yvelle has expanded on the thought by describing ways bloggers can produce more reliable and credible weglogs. I heartily endorse them. Let's look at my favorites.

"Titles - Every entry should have a title that is descriptive and topically singular. Its the easiest way to distinguish an informative weblog from an online journal. If mulitiple topics are covered in the majority of posts, then the web log probably isn't a reliable source for information. An exception would be a "what i've been reading" entry that is identified as more of a bibliography than a commentary. But, in general, posts that cover multiple topics leave the reader prone to confusion and allow the writer to make off-the-wall connections by jumping topics. As a weblogger, its best to link to your own posts if you are trying to make analogies between topics.

Links - Every entry needs to include a link. With a very few exceptions, you probably got the idea for what you are writing about from another webpage. Link your sources, etc. . . . The point being, if you aren't willing to back up your claims with links, then people aren't going to respect your writing.

Comments - If you don't have comments you aren't allowing for correction. If you aren't allowing for corrections then there is something inherently wrong with the information you are presenting. Obviously print books are not correctible, but they have two things web logs do not have: Editors and Readers with Pens. Editors take care of (or should take care of) most of the inaccuracies. And where editors fail, a polite reader will leave a brief citation in a margin for other readers to refer to for accuracy. (Yes, some books are still helpless - like Anne Coulter's books).

Quotes - The writer should have an effective way of delineating quotations. Its as simple as indenting or using some CSS with a Blockquote tag. But it really is more effective than quoting things inline. Unlike print, which has standard page widths and font-sizes, people's browser widths and font sizes can vary based on many circumstances. The 32 word (or 42 word depending on your citation system) cutoff to distinguish inline and blockquotes are not really effective. I say only use blockquotes. They are easier to read and just more effective. Besides, the way websites go up and down, chances are you want a large chunk of information. We can't rely on links to be working in a months so you have to make sure you have enough context to prove your point."

My current method of freshening up this now ten-month-old blog is to use pictures more often. I hope you like the change.

Be sure to go to Yvelle's site and read her entire list of blogging standards.

Internet: Pesky pop-ups are on their way out

The 800-pound gorillas are signing on to the movement to end one form of annoyance on the Internet -- pop-up advertisements. The New York Times reports Time Warner, owner of AOL, and its competing portals, have decided it is time for the weasel to stop popping.

The big ads that flash in separate windows above or below Web pages are among the most intrusive, and to many people, the most obnoxious features on the Internet. Not coincidentally, the pop-up format is also among the most effective for advertisers and the most profitable for Web site publishers.

But the potential reach of these ads is starting to be sharply curtailed as major companies, like Time Warner's AOL unit, Yahoo and Google, distribute software that blocks pop-up ads from opening. This summer, Microsoft will put a pop-up blocking feature in the next release of Internet Explorer, the dominant Web browser.

Earthlink has taken the lead in the backlash, providing pop-up blocking software to its customers.

"There is a consumer revolt as forms of advertising get more intrusive," said Rob Kaiser, vice president for narrowband marketing at EarthLink , the first big Internet service provider to distribute pop-up blocking software. The reaction to pop-ups, he said, is similar to the rush to join the government's do-not-call list to block telemarketing calls and the increase in the use of video recorders to block TV commercials.

I haven't tried Earthlink's blocker, but I do rely on the feature when I am surfing with Apple Computer's Safari, which I use about 80 percent of the time. In fact, it is one of the decision makers in regard to which browser I open. Internet Explorer renders more web pages effectively, but does not block ads. It is also slow compared to Safari and OmniWeb. But, a world in which pop-ups are stymied is not perfect surfdom. There is inconvenience in not having ancillary windows open when signing into a service such as Wi-Fi hotspots or completing forms. Ideally, it would be possible to have pop-up windows without them being taken over by intrusive advertisers.

A shill of the advertising industry says Internet users should appreciate pop-up ads.

"I haven't spoken to any people who say I love pop-ups, send me more of them," said David J. Moore, the chief executive of 24/7 Real Media, an online advertising firm. "But they are part of a quid pro quo. If you want to enjoy the content of a Web site that is free, the pop-ups come with it."

Not necessarily. There are methods of advertising that don't make spectacles of themselves. This user has responded to sites that insist on bombarding her with pop-up ads or else, by choosing 'or else.' I avoid About.com sites precisely because they wallow in pop-ups that appear to slow browsers equipped with blockers. Similar sites also get shown to the door.

An estimated 20 to 25 percent of Internet users are believed to enable pop-up blockers. The proportion has doubled in just one year. I suspect more surfers would employ the option if they were aware of its existence and/or how to use it. The lack of awareness is likely to change.

"In the year and half since EarthLink offered blocking software, one million of its five million customers have installed it. AOL added pop-up blocking to its software in 2002. Google added a blocker to its toolbar, a small program that adds some features to Internet Explorer. Yahoo, more recently, added a similar feature to its toolbar. And Microsoft's MSN just added a pop-up blocker to its most recent software.

The biggest potential impact will come this summer when Microsoft releases its Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, which will add a pop-up blocker and many other features to Internet Explorer. For now, Microsoft says Internet Explorer will not block pop-ups unless users enable the feature."

Some advertisers and web site owners are responding to the change as if they have a divine right to intrude into our lives. "A guy has to make money," says a proprietor of tourism and pornography sites. My response is a guy doesn't have to make his money in such an annoying way. I look forward to the elimination of pop-up ads. Next, I hope something can be done about redirects -- bots that grab users' browsers and take them to unrequested webpages.

Reasonably related

Analysis: The Jonathan Luna case

The investigation of Maryland prosecutor Jonathan Luna's murder, which some people had blamed on a rapper and his associate, has stalled. Current evidence does not direct attention to the the duo. They are not considered suspects.

Renee Graham at the Life in the Pop Lane has the back story.

Hip-hop didn't kill Jonathan Luna.

A federal prosecutor in Baltimore, Luna was found dead Dec. 4. He was stabbed multiple times, and his body was discovered face down in a creek in rural Pennsylvania. An autopsy later revealed that Luna, 38, may have been tortured before he drowned. When Luna's death was reported, attention quickly turned to the lawyer's recent cases, in particular his prosecution of two men accused of trafficking heroin. Yet what the headlines and sound bites blared was that one of the men was an aspiring rapper.

From CNN to CNBC to National Public Radio, there was an implicit nudge-and-wink that if Luna, at the time of his death, was prosecuting someone even marginally connected to rap music, then that person had to be involved with the lawyer's murder. In a Dec. 4 story on NPR's "All Things Considered," correspondent Brian Naylor spent a sizable chunk of his report talking about the men who ran a "violent drug ring in part from a recording studio in Baltimore they called Stash House Records." CNBC's Brian Williams opened his report saying Luna was "in the middle of a major drug case against a rap artist." CNN flashed a smiling photo of Luna, with the words "was prosecuting a rap artist," as if that caption was supposed to connect the dots and explain everything.

In an example of the media's dunderheaded tendency to sanctify the victim first and ask pertinent questions later (if at all), few seemed willing to consider that Luna's caseload may have had nothing to do with his death. Those two men Luna had been prosecuting -- Luna was reported missing after he had failed to appear in court for their trial -- were already in jail when Luna was killed. Furthermore, the men had pleaded guilty to some of the drug charges in exchange for the government dropping the more serious conspiracy charges. Satisfied with the plea agreement, the men had no reason to want Luna dead, their lawyer said.

But associating rap music and hip-hop culture with the brutal death of a dedicated, hard-working prosecutor was just too sexy for the lazy media to ignore. There was little focus on Luna's other cases, which included others facing drug charges.

. . .In the weeks since Luna's death, attention has shifted from the prosecutor's caseload to his personal life. Some believe Luna, a married father of two, may have been leading a double life, possibly involving secret sexual assignations. "Nothing has been ruled in or out [as a motive]," FBI special agent Larry Foust told People magazine. "Everything is on the table." Still, there's no longer any talk about Luna's prosecution of a rap artist. (Now, the men are referred to as "heroin dealers.")

The Baltimore Sun has continued probing the mystery.

From its grim beginning in a rural Pennsylvania field five weeks ago, the mystery of who killed Baltimore federal prosecutor Jonathan P. Luna has only deepened as initially promising leads have soured and potential evidence troves have failed to identify a suspect.

Privately, investigators have expressed frustration that their efforts have yet to produce a break in the high-profile case. Agents again retraced Luna's final movements this week and visited a Pennsylvania Turnpike tollbooth to ascertain how well workers can see into the backs of vehicles. A source close to the investigation called those steps "desperation stuff."

The source, a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there has been little clear progress and some setbacks in the case in recent weeks. Most significant, though authorities collected DNA and partial fingerprint evidence, they have not matched those clues to a potential suspect.

. . . In the first weeks of the investigation, the killing drew widespread media attention and inspired far-reaching theories by armchair and Internet detectives.

The 38-year-old prosecutor had disappeared as he was preparing to conclude a drug conspiracy trial in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, but authorities have found no evidence linking the killing to Luna's work and instead have closely reviewed details of Luna's personal life for possible clues to explain his mysterious death.

There's a certainly an object lesson about jumping to conclusions in this episode. The desire to believe the worst about some people is one of the more unpleasant aspects of human nature. It seems to become even stronger when the targets are of the 'wrong' race, nationality or profession. I am seeing the same rush to judgment in regard to the sexual abuse of a child case filed against megastar Michael Jackson. I believe it best to wait and see whether the prosecutor can present convincing evidence against him.

Neo-Confederate commemorates King

Different people have different ways of doing things, including celebrating holidays. Linda Sewell of Alabama wrote this poem in commemoration of the birthday of civil rights martyr Martin Luther King, Jr.

From: LindaLee4dixie (Original Message)

Sent: 1/16/2004 9:19 AM

It is a fright, a horrid shame,
that Monday I will know dismay;
how soon the South has sold her soul,
R.E. Lee for MLK.

It pains me so to see how close,
one honoured, one of low degree;
tis shame to mention in one line,
MLK and R.E. Lee.

A whorish man, decietful (sic) lies,
on bended knee, pretends to pray;
who could not write one paragraph,
but signed them all with MLK.

Compare the honour, duty, strength,
that fills one with integrity,
a Godly man, a Southron son
is what we have with R.E. Lee.

It is a fright, a horrid shame,
so many now have gone astray;
For R.E. Lee is pushed aside
and people worship MLK.

LL

Sewell has been the very energetic doyen of the state's neo-Confederate movement. A member of the Daughters of the Confederacy and associated with the segregationist and secessionist Council of Conservative Citizens, she heads Alabama's Heritage Preservation Association. She and her organization have been adept in obtaining recognition of Confederate holidays and situating Confederate flags and statues around the state, often in predominantly black areas. But, Sewell suffered a setback last year. Despite wearing a disguise, she was photographed accepting an award from the Ku Klux Klan by local media. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which knows her well, shares the details.

Like most latter-day Confederate groups, the Atlanta-based Heritage Preservation Association (HPA) says it cares about preserving history, not promulgating racism. "We do not foster hatred, nor do we tolerate those who do," the HPA's Web site declares. "Our organization is built on the love of our heritage and not [on] hatred or bigotry towards our fellow Americans."

But the president of HPA's Alabama branch, Linda Sewell, has been keeping company that calls the group's tolerant nature into question. On Jan. 25, a clumsily disguised Sewell joined a coalition of hard-line neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan and Christian Identity hate groups in a protest outside the Southern Poverty Law Center.

She then gathered with about 60 of the white supremacists at a post-rally meeting in the Clanton, Ala., Shoney's Inn, where Sewell accepted a "certificate of appreciation" from Bradley Jenkins, imperial wizard of the Aryan Nights of the Ku Klux Klan.

"This is somebody who needs to be recognized," Jenkins said, introducing Sewell. Then, before she came forward, he lapsed into a racist reverie: "The only people I hold grudges against is the Jews, the niggers, the Mexicans, the mud race," Jenkins ranted, before coming back to the matter at hand. "This certificate of appreciation is presented to Linda Sewell in appreciation of all her hard work and dedication to our cause."

Other neo-Confederates in the state stood by Sewell during her debacle. Though she was reported to have submitted her resignation, the president of the national HPA said she had done nothing wrong and retained her leadership position. Among those who refused to criticize her, even after the pictures of her accepting the award were shown on television, was the town's mayor, Mike Dow. More recently, she is said to have decided to lower her profile.

Ultimately, Sewell bowed out. On April 22, Ben George, Mobile's leading neo-Confederate activist, sent an E-mail message to Mobile Mayor Mike Dow and other city officials announcing that Sewell had resigned from the Atlanta-based HPA. . . .

Whether or not the Heritage Preservation Association tolerates haters, Linda Sewell does not appear to be sticking around. Sewell's one-time ally, George, says that she and her husband - who has been a local leader of the Council of Conservative Citizens hate group - have left public life, vowing never to be heard from again.

Sewell may have curtailed her other activities somewhat, but she is still very active in the neo-Confederate forums I have monitored for years. Her poems, a mixture of maudlin sentiment, misspellings and malevolence, are staples of the sites she visits.

Note: The photo of Sewell in camouflage is from the SPLC's report on the controversy.