Benjamin Kepple's Daily Rant

2003-06-06T11:11:00.000-04:00

If you can't read the post below ... ... GO HERE.

2003-06-06T09:36:00.000-04:00

What? You’re still here?

It’s over. The site’s over.

Over here, that is, at the new benkepple.com. So go. Go there.

Yes, we here at The Rant have finally made the crucial decision to switch publishing systems. Thanks to the good, fine people at Dean Esmay’s site – did we mention they’re good, fine people? -- we now use Movable Type 2.6.4, an excellent program which has a lot of noteworthy features. These features include archives that don’t disappear; a type-setting that’s easier to read; disturbingly-high levels of reliability; and a posting system that makes a point of not swallowing our posts into the ether, and then subsequently throwing them up as a foul-smelling, noxious rush of half-digested computer code.

As such, we here at The Rant will be able to post more medium-high to high-quality content than ever before. No longer will we have to subcontract with our veritable army of cheap foreign laborers to have each entry lovingly type-set. No longer will we incur great expense having each entry telexed to our satellite offices in the Caribbean before publishing, just so our professional staff can “give it a once-over” before they “throw it out on the stoop.” Yes, thanks to Movable Type and Dean Esmay, Benjamin Kepple’s Daily Rant now has state-of-the-art technology—a move which we think means great changes in the weeks and months to come.

But it will also mean changes for you, the loyal Rant reader. They include:

“ON-DEMAND ARCHIVES” – Want to read a back post on The Rant? Now you can -- with just a click of the mouse. That means no searching for lost files; no trying to remember the old site’s weird file-naming system; and no unpleasant hassles when trying to figure out why the old site suddenly swapped The Rant’s archives with those of a blog written by an embittered lumber-yard manager in Vancouver, Wash.

“READABILITY” – Want to read The Rant at any time of the day or night, when it’s convenient and easy for you to do so? Now you can – just type in the address or click from your favorites, and the site loads almost instantaneously. That means no more frustration when the site doesn’t load; no more wondering if Blogspot hit its supposed bandwidth quota for that day; and no more wondering whether the sheer volume of hideous faux- English from teenagers’ text messages has again clogged the Internet.

“COMMENTS” – Want to give instant feedback about an entry at The Rant? Now you can! No more … oh, never mind. Look. We brought ‘em back, they’re working, they’ll let everyone rant back, yada yada. And lo! The Lord saw the Comments Section, and saw that it was Good. Because, the Lord said, it was about damn time that Kepple got them up and running again.

“BRANDABILITY” – When we here at The Rant first came up with the idea of a “personal Web journal to express our views, meet interesting people and make use of the precious down time we have left in life” (or “blog,” for short), we had no idea that people whom we didn’t even know would begin visiting it. As such, we gave the site a name that meant a lot to us. BJKINNH stood for Benjamin Kepple in New Hampshire. Sadly, we soon found this was about as memory-friendly as a random ham radio call sign. Now that we’ve switched, we have the much easier to remember “benkepple.com” address.

“COMPATIBILITY” – Now that we here at The Rant are “far out” and “with it,” as the kids say today, we can take advantage of all the neat MT “doo-dads” that let us connect with other users. For example, we can automatically let other sites know that we’ve linked to them, for instance. Also, we can get notify folks about updates, and all that jazz.

So – to recap. You’re still here? This site’s over. Go to the new one – at benkepple.com. As the saying goes, we’ll leave the light on for you. Or something.

Sincerely,

Top Management
Benjamin Kepple’s Daily Rant Inc.
Manchester, New Hampshire
“Your Hometown Nostalgia Source”

2003-06-04T23:42:00.000-04:00

It's An Offer You Can't Refuse
Say, everybody! Blogger-extraordinaire Dean Esmay, a gentleman and a scholar, has offered to help folks whose blogs are subject to the tender mercies of a Certain Unreliable Service move their blogs to Movable Type, the blog-publishing system whose archives don't disappear!

As one of the three bloggers who have greatly appreciated Mr Esmay's free assistance -- the only cost to you is $15/year for a domain name and a mere $5 -- $5! -- per month for a hosting service -- I can vouch that Mr Esmay is not kidding. Not only is Mr Esmay not kidding, he will provide you the Rotarian Ideal of Service as you go about moving your blog to this new setup. How easy is it, you ask? Well, let's just look at this dramatization:

DEAN: OK, it's easy. I have this blue pill and this red pill. If you take the blue pill, you forget all about this and you wake up, believing whatever you want to believe. But if you take the red pill ...
ME: I'll have the blue pill.
DEAN: What!
ME: I'll have the blue pill. I'm serious. If I switch, I'll be cast adrift into some sort of technological nightmare, and ...
DEAN: No, no, you don't understand. It's easy. Really easy. And look at all the benefits you'll get -- your own domain, a new e-mail address if you want it, the ease of the MT system with its undisappearing archives, quick and fast publishing, cooler layouts, cooler graphics, and ...
ME: Gimme the blue pill.
DEAN: Dammit! Will you let me finish!
ME: Now look, I'm set, really I am, and ...
DEAN: Your archives won't disappear. It's easy to post. The service is really reliable. There really isn't any downside to this.
ME: That's what they told me at college!
DEAN: What has that got to do with it?!
ME: Nothing, but you see where I'm going with this.
DEAN: You don't even know where you're going with this.
ME: No, but I have plans!
DEAN: Wretched little ... !
ME: Bring it on! BRING -- IT -- ON!
DEAN: Yeah?! Well, you just ...

(a scuffle ensues)

ME: All right, all right! Criminy. I'll do it!
DEAN: Honestly, you're the only person I know who would put up such a fuss.
ME: Well, it's not my fault I'm a technofeeb. Now, anyway, let's try this MT thingy ... publishing easy ... fast ... quick ... dear God ... I'm having chest pains ...
DEAN: Oh, God. He's going into cardiac arrest.

Ha, ha! I am actually kidding. Dean will provide you with helpful and friendly and courteous service all through the process, which is actually less painful than having to read the above dramatization. Furthermore, if you're somewhat computer literate, it will probably be really simple for you -- and only take a short amount of time. So I would encourage anyone laboring under the tyranny of ... you know ... to go consult Mr Esmay today. Hey, he freed me, and he can free you too. And in all seriousness, I do say this is probably one of the best choices I have ever made during my 18 months as a blogger.

DEAN: Yes, but what is choice? And did you ...
ME: Grrrrrr.

---------------------
NOTICE:

DUE TO A SURPRISING AMOUNT OF PROGRESS on The *Mostly New* Benjamin Kepple's Daily Rant, I am pleased to announce the New Site Will Go On-Line on SATURDAY, JUNE 7. That's Saturday, JUNE 7.

2003-06-04T20:36:00.000-04:00

Proposed U.S. Expansion Horrifies Guardian Man
Rod Liddle, writing in today's editions of The Guardian, is concerned that a select group of people in the United States have designs on Mars. Yes, that Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun.

As Mr Liddle tells it, there are hundreds upon hundreds of influential groups in America which want to terraform Mars and make it a human-friendly habitat. Such a proposition horrifies Mr Liddle, who warns that these patriotic Americans want to seize Mars from the microbes which currently inhabit it, and claim the planet for their own. He further argues that we humans ought not focus on space exploration when we have so many problems on Earth with which to deal, but this quasi-conclusion is secondary to his main claim: that the Americans want to conquer Mars, and they're going to ruin the place.

Now, I take great umbrage at this sensational and silly claim, especially considering that it comes from a skinny-toothed, round-shouldered, wretched Englishman.

This is not to say that I do not care for the English; I do very much. In many ways, that great and proud nation has much we as Americans ought to respect, just as Greek civilization rightfully received great respect from the Romans. But let's make no bones about this. When it comes to lording it over foreign territory, the British have few equals in history. As such, to have to suffer through a lecture about colonisation from this embittered scribe is nauseating. Perfectly nauseating.

But this got me to thinking. Why shouldn't we Americans take over Mars? No, really. I mean, Mr Liddle notes that we Yankees "have all the science," and it's not as if any sentient intelligence is doing any good with the place now. If we could ever make it economically feasible, I would say we ought to give it the old college try -- because so many non-economic factors and even some economic factors are in our favour.

For one thing, I don't doubt that we could find plenty of colonists willing to escape the wretched corners of the Earth where they now live, such as Sheffield. For another, if we provided that the American system of Government -- the best form of Government ever designed -- was imported to far-off Mars, we could ensure that the place would not turn into a wretched despotism in space. If we provided the proper tax incentives for people who moved to Mars -- let's start with no federal income tax, for instance -- we could jumpstart investment into the new realm. Finally, such a system would likely have great benefits for the people back home -- after all, it'd paralyze the bureaucrats from doing anything too rash if the common people could hitch a permanent ride off-planet.

Sadly, there are complications to this plan. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 forbids any national polity from laying claim to space itself or any non-Terran celestial bodies therein. As an American citizen and alumnus of the University of Michigan -- the only two institutions whose flags have been placed by Man on lunar soil -- I find this treaty useless and dumb.

After all, just think what we could do if we made the perfectly reasonable claim that the Moon belonged to the United States. Not only could we do something important with the Moon -- such as store lots of really powerful weapons there -- we could easily ignore the carping of other nations and start developing it. I mean, surely there have to be precious metals and minerals someplace on the worthless rock. No one would care about nuclear power plants damaging the environment. The low-gravity environment would have all sorts of neat advantages. It would, for lack of a better term, rule.

Besides, as an American, I think I should note that the world's problems exist largely because most non-American Governments are corrupt and despotic. If the rulers of these said nations would clean up their act and grant their long-suffering inhabitants some measure of freedom, and develop a system of law which respected private property, they'd probably be much better off. So don't blame us, Mr Liddle, for the fact that most Governments on Earth still take great joy in looting the public fisc and sending irregular combat forces into their neighbors' territory to loot and pillage. It's not our fault, pure and simple.

So, I say we press forward with an agressive and far-reaching plan to seize the Moon and other celestial bodies in the Solar System, and claim them for our own. With so many positives on our side, combined with America's long-standing respect for the rule of law and private-property rights, we could make a really good go of things. And it might even have positives for folks like Mr Liddle. After all, if we Yanks are all working on colonizing Mars, we're probably going to care quite a bit less about the problems elsewhere on Earth. For someone of Mr Liddle's views, I suggest that could just be a win-win situation.

2003-06-04T18:27:00.000-04:00

Whoops!
Because we here at The Rant value honesty and transparency, we present the following letter from our dear friend, Christopher Weinkopf:

"Um, Ben, you do know that Peyton Manning plays and
always has played for the Indianapolis Colts, right --
not the Patriots?

See you in next year's pool!"

-- Chris, the MMPF (Mighty Mighty Pats Fan -- Ed.)

--------

(seeth)

See? I know nothing about football! I meant to say Akili Smith was the Patriots quarterback!

Ha, ha! No, really. The answer is Tim Brady. Or was it Tom Brady? Wait. Is this Brady person even with the Patriots anymore? Anyway, I don't care who the quarterback of the New England Patriots is -- I will find out when they next play the Steelers. So let me rephrase my earlier statement. I want the Pittsburgh Steelers to come crashing down on (insert current Patriots quarterback at the time of next year's AFC playoffs) at least nineteen times in that game, and I do not really care how it happens.

Or, for that matter, who on the defense makes it happen.

2003-06-04T01:00:00.000-04:00

New Site Under Construction
You know, I wasn't kidding when I said I would have a new site soon. No, really. It's well on its way.

I am far too tired to write much more about the new site just now, but I have to say it's really cool. I also have to thank Dean Esmay for doing the yeoman's work of getting it all set-up. At this point, about all I have to do is the fine-tuning.

Because I am a technofeeb, I have given myself an extended time-frame in which to do this. As one might imagine, I will spend much of this weekend and certain parts of next week doing all these little things, as well as make brave attempts to move portions of my archives, and work on other projects related to it. However, I am pleased to announce that I can tell everyone that the new site will debut on Thursday, June 12. On this date, I will post a really cool entry announcing it and properly thanking Dean. I will also set up links to it, and then get down to other nitty-gritty tasks such as telling everyone I know about the changes. I do hope folks will like them.

I plan to use this site as a backup, as well as for some other things that could come up. I also plan to keep posting to this site in the interim, even as I work on the other -- although blogging may be light sometimes. But I am excited about this new endeavour, and confident that it will mean a better product for all concerned.

That, and it has a kick-ass top banner.

2003-06-03T23:19:00.000-04:00

Sports, and the Single Journalist
ESPN Page 2 columnist Stacey Pressman, in one of her recent essays on the athletic life, argues that men do not care for women who have an in-depth knowledge of sports.

In reality, Miss Pressman writes, we men believe that women with such in-depth knowledge somehow encroach on our masculinity. She also writes that despite our claims to the contrary, we men actually do not care for women who are knowledgeable about sports, but rather women who will tolerate our own sports-watching. Furthermore, she argues that when we men realize that the object of our affection can "actually tell the difference between a flea-flicker and a reverse, differentiate between a blitz and a dog, or identify the soft spot in a zone defense," it "scares the crap" out of us.

But she is not finished there. Miss Pressman also writes that men do not take women seriously when they expound on the subject of America's Greatest Sport, by which I mean Football, and that we can get annoyed when they do venture their opinions on subjects unrelated to basic fundamentals. The end result of all this, as Miss Pressman writes, is that she and other women who like sports then make excuses for this knowledge when around prospective dates, because said fellows would otherwise act shocked or blitz them with trivia questions.

That is a long summary of Miss Pressman's excellent column, which I encourage you to read in full. But that was necessary, since her column is also quite long. And after reading it, and doing some serious thinking, I have come to the only reasonable conclusion a man in my position can: that either I or Miss Pressman exist in some sort of strange parallel universe.

Don't get me wrong -- that's not intended as criticism at all. It's just, because of my own particular set of circumstances, that I know no men like that. I mean, none. Zero, zilch, nada. Few of my friends have given me indication that they have any interest about sports. Further, when one includes those friends of mine with serious loyalties to a sporting franchise, I would venture to guess that only one or two of them have such intricate knowledge as Miss Pressman describes; and even then, only one when the issue at hand is American football. And because this last friend is a true gentleman, he would not comment on such things.

Furthermore, I personally have little knowledge about the inner workings of the game. Even though I consider myself a ravenous football fan, and have some idea what a "blitz" is, I haven't any idea what a "dog" is at all. I mean, none. Zero, zilch, nada. Miss Pressman also writes about something called a "4-3 defensive scheme" -- again, I have absolutely no idea what that means. Indeed, I am so unknowledgeable about the intricacies of football that I would not even venture to embark on conversations about the game that went beyond which-team-is-what.

On the other hand, Miss Pressman is extremely knowledgeable about football. I know this not only because she writes on the subject for a major sports television network, but also because she has dealt your humble correspondent some serious ass-kicking in a mutual friend's seasonal football pool.

Because we here at The Rant believe in honesty, I must say that this ass-kicking is on the scale of that opening scene in "The Matrix" when Trinity goes into action against some hapless policeman. You know, the scene where the camera zooms around 360 degrees as Trinity prepares her swift-kick-of-death-'n-destruction, and the cop flies through the flimsy wall of some roach motel. Indeed, the ass-kicking that I received from her and other players in Christopher Weinkopf's football pool was so intense that I was routinely taunted for it (by Mr Weinkopf, usually).

Then, because I work like a dog, I would occasionally miss a week and compound the error. As the cycle continued, I became so anguished and depressed that I gave up entirely. This then caused Mr Weinkopf much distress. But that is another story altogether. The point is that I am not nearly as knowledgeable about football as some other people, and I quite frankly don't care all that much. All I really care about is that the glorious and valiant Pittsburgh Steelers, the greatest football franchise in the history of the game, crush and destroy the New England Patriots in the AFC playoffs. I want the Steel Curtain to come crashing down on Peyton Manning at least nineteen times in such a game, and I do not really care how it happens. I want one for the thumb.

But this brings us to an important question -- if I do not know anything about football's intricacies, and few of my guy friends do, where are these other men who can talk shop about the game? I mean, really, are they people I just don't hang out with? Did I somehow not get the memo issued to men everywhere that I was to study football for at least an hour a day, and watch all that old footage on ESPN Classic? Am I missing out because I don't often go to sports bars?

I don't doubt they're out there -- but really, what am I missing? Gee, I mean, the way Miss Pressman talks, you'd think nobody but me and a couple of other people I know really care about things like the implications of the strong-dollar policy or variations in how the stock market moves during the last hour of trading. And I don't think that's the case, because I have conversations about this all the time.

However, a sneaking suspicion tells me that I may be in the minority here.

---------
UPDATE 12:31 AM: OK. Went and had a glass of milk before bed, came back and re-read this essay. I don't think I wrote it well at all, which annoys me, so I'm appending this point. First, you should go read the whole thing, and second, I think she's right.

This "self-editing" feature is kind of nice, eh?

2003-06-03T02:36:00.000-04:00

Manufactured Beauty
There's a fascinating if short post over at Ken Layne's site about how high-definition television sets reveal the physical imperfections of actors and actresses which prior technology had successfully masked. Specifically, Mr Layne links to a post from Jeff Jarvis on the subject, in which Mr Jarvis notes how the actress Cameron Diaz appears on a high-definition set. We learn that Ms Diaz has suffered from the occasional outbreak of acne, the scars of which become visible on the ultra-clear picture which the new format provides viewers.

It's a fascinating story in many respects. First, it shows the entertainment industry's amazing ability to package and promote certain of its actors and actresses in ways that highlight and exaggerate their natural beauty, and to a degree which those who have no connection to the industry would not realize. Second, it says a lot about our own society, which unfortunately prizes physical beauty over intellectual and spiritual matters. Thirdly, such technology could help liberate us from this genetic bondage we have imposed upon ourselves. And last, but not least, it lets me tell my story about how I met Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Yes, really, but let me be clear. As readers of The Rant know, as a younger man I spent three years living in Los Angeles. For the first two of these three years, I worked in a capacity that gave me a peripheral connection to the entertainment industry. By this, I mean I would occasionally see or meet famous if not A-list actors in my professional capacity, had the opportunity to have drinks once in a while with capable if not-yet famous actors, and learn a small bit about an industry which seems glamorous and amazing to many folks unfamiliar with it. Also I began to suspect that pop musicians were manufactured in secret at some hidden warehouse-factory complex in Van Nuys, but that is neither here nor there.

Anyway, I met them. Or to be more precise, I once shared an elevator with them in the building in which I used to work.

You should know that this building, a badly-designed and modest mid-rise structure on W. Pico Blvd., was where I worked for the first two years of my employ in the City of Angels. On the top floor of this structure, there was a management firm which handled the affairs of screen actors and actresses. So I suppose it was only a matter of time before such an incident took place. To fully understand how this came about, you should also know that this building had but four elevators, all notoriously inefficient and slow (I was stuck in one once, with all my coworkers, in another weird story), and this building further had a confusing layout. The end result is that these elevators would become packed, and visitors would have no idea which floor they needed to exit upon to get to the attached parking garage, so on and so forth.

Now sometime during the day I had reason to take the elevator down -- I think I was going to the pharmacy next door -- and I got on to find myself with one anonymous suit, Mr Broderick and Ms Parker. It was an uneventful experience, to say the least. Mr Broderick and Ms Parker -- who are both awfully short people, at least compared to my six-foot-four frame --were not exactly in movie-star form. They seemed like regular, normal folks, except Mr Broderick seemed dressed a bit, um, casual. But you can get away with that when you're a creative type, though.

We'll leave it at that -- I can give you more details in private, if you'd like -- but the point was they acted like regular, normal folks. And no, neither I or the suit said anything out of the ordinary or asked for their autograph or anything like that. Dammit, we were Angelenos -- we didn't do that type of thing, because we were "with it." Besides, what was I supposed to say? "First floor. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?" No! And it wasn't as if I could say, apropos of nothing, "Boy. Godzilla -- did that suck. What in the hell were you thinking?" The only thing I did say was to the suit, after the two had left the elevator:

"Was that who I thought --- ?"
"Yeah."

I will note that I was given much grief when I returned to the office from the women therein, who demanded to know why I had not brought Mr Broderick up for a round of introductions.

But it is incredible how Hollywood is able to package up its actors and actresses. I have always found it about as amazing as the medical miracles which have artificially prolonged my own life in these past 27 years. One of the commenters -- that's not a word, but it's late -- over at Ken's site put it very well when he described being at a party with the actress Natalie Portman, and not being impressed (!!!) with her looks: "We all agreed: Wow...is film makeup a wonderful thing, or what? I could look like Tom Cruise with that kind of magical makeup." Now, this commenter must look better than I do, because no amount of makeup could make me look like Tom Cruise. But really, even in the high school plays I attended as a teenager, I was always amazed to see just how much makeup was caked on to the faces of those performing in them.

Still, speaking as a former Angeleno, I think one's constant exposure to the entertainment industry sours one on it. That's because you see it for what it really is -- a service industry like any other. Aye, it's a different and specialized and meaningful service, to be sure. But when you strip all the glitz and glamour away from it, and you see movie stars not at premieres but at the frozen-yogurt place at Olympic and Westwood, it goes from the new and exciting to the mundane. That's not to say that I don't have respect for actors: I do, because I know I couldn't do what they do and it takes a lot of hard work to succeed in that jackal-infested business. But I don't worship them or even really revere them like so many Americans seem to do.

Which brings us to the next point -- why is it that we value physical beauty over intellectual pursuits as a society?

I can't say I have the answer to that. I've often joked about my Patented Inverted Sense of Celebrity (e.g. "Oh my God! It's Laurence Tribe!") that makes me jumpy and act nervous around intellectual heavyweights as opposed to famous people who also happen to be beautiful and appear on the silver screen. Perhaps it is merely the market at work -- everyone, I think, wants to be seen as beautiful or attractive, and beauty is a more sought-after and rarer commodity than intellectual production. There are plenty of smart people out there, and there's a glut of work for them to do, and a glut in terms of their production.

What I do know is that beauty without intelligence does nothing for me, personally. I mean, really -- nothing. Oh, sure, I can appreciate that beauty on an intellectual level, judge whether a woman is beautiful or a man handsome on first glance. But if said beautiful person is not all that bright, the novelty wears off quite quickly, and it usually means I end up politely excusing myself from the conversation three minutes later. I am too old to waste my time frantically racking my brain for trivial bits of information about the latest fads I likely know little about. Conversely, though, I am young enough so that beauty combined with intelligence will do quite a bit for me, and if I happen to meet an extremely smart woman who also happens to be quite pretty or even beautiful, it will generally leave me a bit weak in the knees. On rare occasions, if the stars are right and all the ingredients combine together, I can be a wreck for a good week -- or until reason reasserts itself.

But I digress. Even though Mr Layne sounds a discouraging note about the effects of high-definition television (to wit: "Nobody needs to see anybody that goddamned close up in such perfect detail."), I actually think this could be a great boon for our society. It could prove to be a great equalizer which we could really use: one that brings the self-appointed yet horribly vapid beautiful people down a good peg, and which subsequently scraps or diminishes the foolish and irrational value system which certain elements in our society have trumpeted for so long. As that diminishes, we can hope that it will mean more opportunity for others engaged in creative professions, as well as for those involved in the intellectual pursuits at which so many in our society labor.

2003-06-02T23:59:00.000-04:00

Employees Made Redundant Via Text Message
We're not just talking a few employees, either -- we're talking two thousand, four hundred employees of an insurance-firm in the United Kingdom.

2003-05-31T23:28:00.000-04:00

Deo Gratias!
The Vatican has published a modern-day Latin dictionary with NEW Latin words for the modern age -- and it is only $115! Sadly, the translations only go from Latin to Italian, which does me absolutely no good. But we can hope that an English translation will soon be on its way.

2003-05-31T21:23:00.000-04:00

Oregon Now Less Weird, Albeit Only Slightly
Mental-health officials in Multnomah County, Ore., have decided against hiring a Klingon-speaking interpreter, commentator Michael Nevin reports. It seems the county, in which the city of Portland is located, has now declared the move to hire such a person was not only a mistake, but an "overzealous attempt to ensure that our safety net systems can respond to all customers and clients."

Despite the obvious crack we could make about the inmates running the asylum, we will refrain from doing so. For one thing, the county made the right decision in the end, and for another, it is likely that the person who thought up this dim idea has been properly chastened. As such, we at The Rant now declare Oregon to be less weird a state than it was previously. However, in doing so, it must be noted that among the fifty states, we still believe Oregon ranks second only to Vermont in terms of its inherent weirdness.

"But wait," some readers will say with a concerned look on their faces. "I've never thought of Oregon as weird. How can you say that?"

Well, that's a reasonable question, even if I would venture to guess that many of these same readers would privately admit they have never thought of Oregon period. However, we here at The Rant were forced to once travel to Eugene, Ore., on business during one long lonely weekend back in 2000, and the experiences we had therein ~~scarred us for life~~ cemented our view of that state in perpetuity. We're sorry, but they did.

For one thing, you can't pump your own gasoline in Oregon. Now that's just weird. New Jersey is the same way, we might add, but at least in New Jersey we can chalk it up to protectionism and graft. We would note that there is absolutely no reason why a man should not be allowed to pump his own gasoline in this day and age; but such a rule is even stranger when one considers how rural Oregon is. Gad. And it's not like you get the old Fifties-style treatment at Oregon gas stations either, when some friendly clean-cut gent offered to change your oil. No! With the service I got while I was in Eugene, I'd say I was lucky the gas cap got correctly replaced.

For another, everything in Oregon -- or at least Eugene -- seems to have a forest-green/bright-yellow colour scheme, right down to the municipal airport. This is weird. The colour-scheme exists because green and yellow are the (weird) colors of the University of Oregon. The University, we might add, has a correspondingly weird name for its sports teams: the Ducks. (Good gravy, what were these people smoking when they came up with "Ducks" as a sports-team nickname? I mean, not only is it not so weird as to be pretty cool -- e.g. The University of California-Santa Cruz Banana Slugs -- no respectable athletic squad would be stricken with fear or desperation when they learned they were playing the Ducks next week).

Please realize that we could go on for hours, discussing everything from Oregon's Government to the state's fanatical dislike for Californians, as reasons for why the place is just weird. But this would be time-consuming and psychologically ill-advised. So, instead, we would also say we believe Oregon to be caught in a strange time warp.

You see, when we visited Eugene, we didn't think anyone had bothered to do any redecorating since the Seventies. Certainly our motel, with its faux wood paneling and hideous decor, was Straight Out of Seventy-Eight. The one Chinese restaurant we saw? If we recall right, the one that was painted bright yellow? That screamed Seventies. Other parts of the city were similarly faded and worn-down. And we won't even mention the University itself, where most folks probably wished we were all still back in the Seventies. But that is neither here nor there. Just take my word for it -- the place is weird.

Weird, weird, weird.

Anybody know how to translate that into Klingon?

2003-05-31T01:47:00.000-04:00

This'll Put a Grimace on Your Face
The Italian operation of the McDonald's Corporation has sued food writer Edoardo Raspelli for $25 million after a scathing review of its cuisine supposedly hurt business, The Washington Times reported in Friday's editions. While the firm's U.S. headquarters has disavowed any knowledge of the affair, the issue has caused a torrent of controversy in the Italian press.

We here at The Rant present the Times' summary of Mr Raspelli's criticism as a public service to our readers, and leave it up to them to draw their own conclusions:

"It takes a big effort to imagine this food as healthy," wrote Edoardo Raspelli in the Italian newspaper La Stampa in December. "The ambience was mechanical, the potatoes were obscene and tasting of cardboard, and the bread poor. I found it alienating and vulgar," he continued, adding that McDonald's signature Big Mac hamburger is nothing more than "fodder" and that the restaurant "symbolized oppression of the palate" ...

The 230 McDonald's restaurants in Italy, which employ 10,000 people, are perhaps a bit fancier than those on the turnpike. Their dishes include a local fiordiriso salad with rice and tuna, and a McMusic outlet in Naples features a Dolby surround-sound system, a music-video screen and sculptures. But Mr Raspelli says he was doing his job.

"I wrote what I thought about the fast-food kitchen. I find it repellent. But I have insulted nobody," he countered, comparing his McDonald's dining experience to filling up at a gas station. "I cite my right to make food criticism."

To be fair, the Times reports that the company says it only uses the finest ingredients, and will make a point-by-point presentation on the matter.

2003-05-30T13:53:00.000-04:00

Someone -- Anyone -- Please Call Nelson Mandela,
And See if He'll Work on the Zimbabwe Matter
Why should we do that? It's because Thabo Mbeki, Mr Mandela's successor as President of South Africa, will do absolutely nothing to fix things even though his nation would likely have the most influence on Zimbabwe's Government, that's why.

You should know that Mr Mbeki has written an op-ed in The Guardian, in which he blames Zimbabwe's past colonial overlords for its recent troubles. Now, I'm not arguing that the United Kingdom could not have done more to assist Zimbabwe when it made its transition to (its then-) democracy in 1980. Nor have I ever felt sympathetic to the plight of the whites that have remained in the country. Old Rhodesia's racial-caste system was so oppressive -- even worse than South Africa under apartheid -- that it would appall any decent person. But to write about Zimbabwe now, without mentioning the name of Robert Mugabe once, is to write nothing.

Why Mr Mbeki saw fit to write such an empty article is not the right question to ask, for it is more than likely he had no hand in writing it. We can ask, however, why this is his position and hence that of his Government. Sasha Castel-Dodge has already taken Mr Mbeki to task for his nonsensical rambling; we here at The Rant shall do the same.

Mr Mbeki writes:

Our experience in the African National Congress tells us unequivocally that no lasting solution to the challenges that face Zimbabwe will be found unless that solution comes from the people of Zimbabwe themselves. It tells us that no self-respecting Zimbabwean with any pride in his country will accept that another should determine his destiny.

That's very nicely put. Therefore, I soon expect Mr Mbeki to demand Zimbabwe's Government hold free and fair elections -- untainted from intimidation tactics, ballot-box stuffing, sporadic violence, and general oppression of the people. I also expect that Mr Mbeki will demand that the Movement for Democratic Change and its courageous leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, be allowed to operate as a legitimate political force. Oh. Wait. He's not going to do that, as we see later on.

In the heated atmosphere that surrounds the issue of Zimbabwe, the tendency to pose as high priests at the inquisition, hungry for the blood of the accused, has taken root - as though to demonise and punish is the way to solve the most difficult problems. In this situation, as in war, the truth soon becomes a casualty.

Yes, we can see the truth has already become a casualty, and you're only in your second paragraph. Sir, might I suggest that Zimbabwe's Government are the ones who are acting like high priests at the Inquisition? They certainly seem to do a lot of demonising and punishing.

From its very beginning as an independent country, Zimbabwe understood that it had to address the domination of the socio-economic sphere by the white minority - a legacy of colonialism. However, because of agreements reached during the independence negotiations in London, which counterbalanced the principle of black liberation with the protection of white property, the issue of land distribution was virtually quarantined. London inserted into the political settlement the racist notions of black majority rule and white minority rights.

Well, despite the understandable feeling to exact rather a lot of payback which Mr Mbeki addresses, one can't exactly just take the land from the people managing it and expect everything to run smoothly. You can't do much in this world smoothly unless you have a reasonable transition scheme and time frame in place, much less create a new Government and legal system. Sadly, as we have seen, no decent transition plan -- for land distribution or anything else -- was agreed upon.

Beyond this, the new democratic state worked to advance the socio-economic interests of the liberated majority. It focused on meeting the needs of the people, changing the state machinery to reflect the new political reality, and encouraging black participation in the economy and society in general, so that the majority joined their white compatriots as actors for development, rather than mere consumers and employees.

Well, now that the democratic state has turned into a one-party authoritarian state, it apparently stopped working at that a long time ago.

To advance these objectives, the government ploughed considerable resources into education, with dramatic success. Significant state expenditure went into health too, resulting in an increase in life expectancy from 55 to 59 years. Spending on rural development resulted in the small farmers' share of marketed maize rising from zero in 1980 to 70% in 1989.

There's a "Yes, but ..." coming.

By 1991, the civil service wage bill accounted for 16.5% of GDP, a burden on the economy caused by the rapid expansion of state services and the drive to achieve equal pay for black civil servants. Spending on the social sectors during the same year amounted to 13% of GDP. To alleviate poverty, the state decided to adopt measures that would keep the cost of living low. This was done through a system of subsidies, which has been maintained for two decades. By 1990, such subsidies absorbed a staggering 3.7% of GDP.

It's one thing to have subsidies for certain necessary staples, and another thing entirely to put 35 percent of a nation's gross domestic product under Government control. Ten percent would have worked nicely; twenty percent, what we have here in the United States, would have still been reasonable. But I have a feeling that the whole "rapid expansion of state services" had a bit more to do with the economic problems than the "achieve equal pay" aspect.

Now, I'm sure that there will be a few hackles raised among the libertarians in my audience for my argument that in impoverished nations, certain subsidies for basic staples are necessary. But it reflects the facts of life. Some people will not be able to afford even these goods at free-market rates. When people go hungry, they tend to get angry, and when they get angry, they go out to foment civil discord. And even subsidies running at 3.7 percent of GDP would not have caused problems if other spending was controlled.

These extraordinary expenditures could only be sustained by running a large budget deficit and through foreign borrowing. In other words, live now, pay later. By the end of the first decade of independence, public sector debt stood at 90% of GDP. The capital needed to finance economic growth began to dry up. Contrary to the false assertions about the socialist Mugabe government, Zimbabwe remains an overwhelmingly capitalist economy; but by 1987 private investment had dropped to less than 8% of GDP, compared to an already low 12% in 1985.

One cannot correlate public-sector debt with the availability of private investment capital in this case. In this case, they have very little to do with each other. Consider that many industrialized nations have debt-to-GDP ratios of over 100 percent, and even here in the United States it is about 60 percent. The trouble comes when debt is denominated in the form of dollars, and one's currency has a tendency to float downwards against the dollar because the conditions are not good for investment. When investment dries up or even leaves, economic health is correspondingly affected. Hence the troubles the nation faces.

As early as 1984, when the government had to appeal to the IMF for assistance, it was clear that the path it had chosen was unsustainable. But, contrary to what some now claim, the economic crisis currently affecting Zimbabwe did not originate from the desperate actions of a reckless political leadership, or from corruption. It arose from a genuine concern to meet the needs of the black poor, without taking into account the harsh economic reality that we must pay for what we consume.

Well, one would be a fool to say that reckless political leadership and corruption have little to do with the problems now facing the nation. I imagine that Executive President Robert Mugabe has personal means at his disposal that are far more than he could legitimately place a claim, but we shall never known until we find out about the hidden bank accounts and lines of credit to which he likely has access. I would also imagine that this lack of ethical concern at the top has not gone unnoticed by Mr Mugabe's subordinates in Government.

The longer the problems of Zimbabwe remain unresolved, the more entrenched poverty will become. The longer this persists, the greater will be the degree of social instability, as the poor respond to the pains of hunger. The more protracted this instability, the greater will be the degree of polarisation and social and political conflict.

So we'll have free and fair elections, then, and a system of Government based upon the rule of law? A system that would invite investment from abroad and economic help from the outside world? Oh. No, I suppose not.

To respond to this, the state will have to emphasise law and order. As it responds in this way, the less will it be able to address anything else other than law and order. The more it does this, the greater the absence of order and stability. None of this will happen because there are demonic people in Harare. The internal logic of society compels all of us to be carried along by events, to destinations we may not have sought. As has happened with us at various times, Zimbabweans too will have to break the vicious cycle.

It's all happening because there are demonic people in Harare; they're in charge. Although, I agree this vicious cycle can be broken, perhaps if Mr Mugabe were to conveniently die. However, since that appears unlikely despite his advanced age, we would suggest that he quietly resign and go live abroad in exile. France has never minded before when other despots moved to its shores, so I'm sure they would be amenable to this.

As neighbours, we will encourage Zanu-PF and the MDC to sit down together to agree on a common response to the challenges their country faces. As patriots who occupied the same trench of struggle with Zimbabwe when we, together, battled to end white minority rule in our region, we will do what we can to enable Zimbabweans to enjoy the fruits of their hard-won liberation. Righteous and self-serving indignation will achieve nothing.

And neither will this. Neither will this.

2003-05-30T10:20:00.000-04:00

Feng Shui Doesn't Sway Me
Allison Barnes has a nice post up in reference to her home-office space, and how it notably does not conform to the principles of feng shui.

Feng shui, as most probably know, is the ancient Chinese art of arranging one's furniture in such a way so that it maximizes harmony and productivity, while minimizing disruption, bad luck, natural disasters, and so forth. Since this protocol requires that one believe in weird spiritual phenomena that I don't happen to believe in, I find it useless. On the other hand, lest I be seen as insensitive, I must give the Chinese credit for thinking this up. From a capitalist point of view, it is pure genius. Consultant A is able to make a handsome profit dispensing advice all while gaining the psychological satisfaction of watching people frantically redecorate. Customer B, meanwhile, feels better about his or her life. Customer B also reaps the benefits of not having to worry about other people who really buy into what Consultant A is selling, and as such wouldn't come over to his place of residence for dinner if Customer B's chi, or energy, was inadvertently being sucked into the heat vents.

Anyway, after a cursory examination, I realized that my office completely fails to conform to the principles of feng shui. Let's examine some of the principles set forth therein, which I take from those masters of feng shui, the good people at Better Homes & Gardens Magazine:

Do position the work surface so that you are facing the door of the room—positioning your desk this way is the number one rule of thumb to follow when applying principles of feng shui to a home office. Experts say that if you place a desk so that your back is to the door, you'll always feel jumpy, as if you are vulnerable to being "stabbed in the back."

Yeah, whatever. I live in a four-room apartment. There is absolutely no way I can arrange the work surface without it violating the ancient art of "not making one's home look like a cesspit." The work surface also happens to be attached to a very large faux-wooden desk/office set-up which it takes two people to lift. Furthermore, since my father helped me move the damn thing into my current abode, moving the desk would violate the most important of Confucius' Six Relationships. Not only are these far more important than feng shui, we both knew this was the best place for the desk, and as such, that's where the thing will stay.

And I don't feel jumpy because I have my back to the door. That door has a dead bolt, and the door itself is thick enough so that anyone attempting to enter without my permission would break his bloody foot. So there.

Do unclutter your office so that chi, or energy, can naturally flow through the space.

If I uncluttered the office, I couldn't find anything. My current pattern works fine, if I do say so myself. Besides, right now my energy flows naturally from the keyboard to the computer screen, and I want no changes to a system that works so well. And if I changed it, we all know the computer would start acting up, and the blue screen of death would start showing up with alarming frequency, and I'd have to take the thing down to Mike at the computer store, and he charges $35 an hour. Thirty-five freaking-dollars. Gad.

Do cover up your computer and workspace every night if it is located in your bedroom or else you'll feel the constant need to work.

I already feel the constant need to work. Working prevents idleness. Idleness is the devil's workshop. Q.E.D.

Do place a red object in the wealth corner of your desk (top left corner) or office (left corner) to stimulate good luck.

What! Look, I'm not wasting my good luck on things like having my Blogger archives all show up at once. I need my good luck for the next time -- and there will be one, knowing me -- that I end up in hospital for emergency surgery. If luck is a finite resource, then God knows I've used up a significant portion of my luck reserve in my 27 years on His Green Earth. And that's not good. I fully intend to live for at least another half-century more, and some medical experts have told me that I will live to 110, just out of pure spite. Hence, I need to carefully hoard what luck I have left, lest I end up in a tight spot down the line.

So away with this feng shui stuff. I have more important things to worry about, such as what I'm going to have for lunch. Although I must say that at this point, I've got quite a yen for Chinese.

UPDATE: OK, so I post this, and the page gets all bolluxed up. Well, I'm still not using up my good luck reserve. For - get - it!

2003-05-28T00:24:00.000-04:00

Oh, Dear God, I Need Sunlight
The sun came out for three minutes today. These three freaking minutes were the only time we have seen the sun here in Manchester in ... God. I don't know. I swear it's been at least a week, that's for sure. Perhaps this damp, dreary, wet, cold, miserable weather has lasted for more than that, but to be honest, I'm starting to lose track. This is not good for a sickly fellow like your humble correspondent, especially considering your humble correspondent used to live in Los Angeles.

There, you see, he was treated to endless sunny days with clear skies. The cool, crisp nights would take away the heat, making the weather perfect for a nice walk after dinner along the ocean. Before the walk, of course, he would sit outside of Mercedes' Grill in Venice after a fine meal of Caribbean/Cuban cuisine, listen to the Pacific surf just yards distant and smoke cigars with Rubush. Other nights, he could traverse the three blocks down to James' Beach on Venice Blvd. and do much the same.

(sermon)
Oh, sure, he suffered when things went bad. Sometimes, in January or February, the city would go two or even three days without seeing the sun. And the people DID wail and gnash their teeth, and GRIMLY faced the death and destruction that awaited them on the concrete freeways, and were most BUMMED OUT when the life-sustaining sun failed to appear on schedule. But did he have horrible sinus headaches? Did he suffer from colds and the flu? Did he grow pale and withdrawn, cursing the dreary existence that was visited upon his city day after day? NO! For these things were UNKNOWN to him there!
(end sermon)

OK, I'm whining. I admit it. But you would too if your weather forecast called for rain today and rain tomorrow and rain on the day after that, and -- it could happen -- rain on the day after that too. I mean, this just isn't right. It's as if we're stuck on Ray Bradbury's Venus, where it constantly rains and men go mad due to the constant downpour. Oh, if only we had Sun Domes here -- those wonderful places where folks could sit for a while, have some coffee, and get out of the muck and the rain and the ever-present, soul-deadening gloom.

Sadly, we don't. So I'm forced to do the next best thing.

I'm going to turn on every light in this apartment -- the kitchen light and the bathroom lights and the floor lamp and the two lamps I have on this computer desk for reasons I can't explain, and even that lamp on top of the bookshelf in the room I never use. Even though it's just after midnight, even though it will waste electricity, even though the neighbors whose names I don't even know will secretly chalk up another reason to avoid that guy at the end of the hall. And then, I'm going to get a Diet Coke, and stare at the overly-bright kitchen lamp for a good hour or so.

And I'm going to count down the minutes until fall.

2003-05-27T21:16:00.000-04:00

Just a Reminder: Agent Smith Rules
So does Lileks, for that matter. Just read his deconstruction of The Matrix: Reloaded:

The Matrix may be fake, but so is lo-fat soft-serve dessert. Zion is that crappy homemade ice-cream that has chunks of salt and carob instead of proper chocolate. Everyone’s commented on the infamous rave scene, in which the population of Zion crams into the Temple Of No Particular Faith and confronts their imminent death by dancing ecstatically. Big huge slo-mo close-up of feet squishing in the mud. All of a sudden I was channeling my inner Agent Smith. I can’t stand the smell, he said of the Matrix. Buddy, if you thought an average air-conditioned office was bad, try 3 AM in a huge nightclub packed with a quarter-million sweaty people who live on beans.

Now I liked The Matrix: Reloaded. But I don't think I've ever read a better review of the movie, or had more enjoyment reading a review of it.

2003-05-27T19:59:00.000-04:00

Florida Woman Demands Veiled License Photo
A Florida woman has demanded the right to wear a veil for her driver's license photograph, the Power Line blog reports.

The Power Line informs us that while one veiled photograph of Sultaana Freeman was already taken for her current driver's license, the State of Florida later ordered her to appear for an unveiled photograph. If she failed to comply, the authorities warned, Ms Freeman would have her license summarily revoked. As one might expect, Ms Freeman has vigorously challenged this decision. She alleges the ban on veiled photographs violates her Constitutional right to practice her faith. Also the photograph is that bad, and she just hates it.

All right, so she didn't allege that second part. But on legal grounds, that second excuse makes about as much sense as the first.

Those of us who were afforded a taxpayer-financed driver's education course in high school should recall the many admonitions from our instructors that driving was a privilege, not a right. After all, the State -- as is its right -- can and does take away this vital mode of transport from people all the time. This is done for a variety of reasons: if they drove while intoxicated, if they can't safely operate a vehicle, if they're minors and they received a citation, and so on. Hence, the State can grant and rescind the right to operate a motor vehicle for any reason it wishes, provided those reasons apply to all citizens -- without regards to their race, color or creed.

So if Florida demands that a resident submit to a photograph to receive a license, he or she shall, unless he or she really develops a fondness for mass transport.

The Power Line also notes: The state will contend that the Islamic religion does not, in fact, prohibit Freeman from being photographed. Freeman's lawyer says this is irrelevant, since under Florida law it makes no difference whether his client's objection is based on a tenet of an organized religion, or is unique to her.

This is an entirely backward argument. It has well been established that one's religion does not prevent one from being subject to secular law. For instance, if a man argued that under his religion, he was obligated to play John Philip Souza music over loudspeakers at three in the morning, he would still get hauled before a court for violating municipal noise regulations. As such, if Ms Freeman does not want to be photographed, she should not apply for a driver's license.

Finally, we would note that Ms Freeman is particularly fortunate not to live in Saudi Arabia.

You see, it's not only that she would not be allowed to drive a car there, or otherwise enjoy many of the basic freedoms which America has rightfully given women over the years. It's that she would also be forced to unveil her face for her identity card photo.

-------
(via Sheila)

2003-05-26T21:00:00.000-04:00

Fear and Justice in Ohio
What in the hell ... ?

You know, I don't mean to be overly cruel about this ... but this town is a disgrace.

2003-05-26T19:24:00.000-04:00

Report: Europe Will Fail
Well, all right, that's not what the British Broadcasting Corporation said today. Actually, it reported that former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing has unveiled a draft proposal for a Euoprean Union Constitution. But trust me. It will fail.

For one thing, there's the issue of what to call this new super-Europe. There are reportedly four possibilities: the European Community, the European Union, United Europe, and the United States of Europe. Now I can assure you that the last choice would not only immediately thaw any ice that has formed in the relationship between America and the old European Powers, we on this side of the Atlantic would see it both as a sign of respect and a signal that Europe was committed to true reform vis-a-vis its economic and political systems.

So, naturally, it has no chance of passing at all, as the BBC reports. Of course, I don't see what good the other three names are going to do either. The European Community is politically correct and has a weak aura, like the old European Economic Community. The European Union is blah now. Meanwhile, United Europe suggests not that the new entity would be an alliance of sovereign states, but rather some proto-fascist regime. This may be why it is the favoured choice of the Brussels elite, as the BBC reports.

For another thing, M d'Estaing has suggested that crafting this Constitution is similar to the process which the American Founding Fathers went through to draft the U.S. Constitution.

Well, no. You see, this assertion would only be true if, say, South Carolina had told everyone else at the Constitutional Convention that John Rutledge was going to supervise it, whether they liked it or not. Further, if the other states had not agreed to this, South Carolina would have ensured that there was no Constitution at all.

Furthermore, the Founding Fathers didn't demand a lavish salary, personal retainers or a year-long stay in a hotel, such as M d'Estaing did. Indeed, if M d'Estaing's demands for compensation had been met, the BBC reports they would have run into several million euros. Contrast that to the situation in 1787. Then, to take one example, the two delegates from the Great State of New Hampshire were forced to pay their own expenses to, from and during the Constitutional Convention.

This is yet more proof that New Hampshire rules, I might add. But I digress. The point is that Valery Giscard d'Estaing ain't George Washington.

Anyway, the proposed EU Constitution is only a skeleton document at this point, which news reports say means that M d'Estaing has managed to come up with chapter headings. Of course, Constitutions ought not to have chapters, which is yet another reason why Europe will fail. Consider that the American Constitution, the finest framework for Government ever established, only has seven rather brief articles. It was easy and simple to understand, and we left all the angry bickering over what it meant until later.

But what can one expect when one looks at the makeup of the EU's convention?

The convention includes representatives of EU governments, national parliaments - including those of applicant states - the European parliament and the European Commission. Part of its work is public consultation - it has canvassed opinion from a wide range of European players, including academics, trade unions, think-tanks and non-governmental organisations.

See? I'm telling you, it will fail. After all, if the EU wanted a really decent Constitution, they would have done what we did back in 1787. Namely, we took a small body of reasonable citizens, locked them in a room, and told them to hash things out and get back to us. Now that Governments are involved, it will ruin everything. One country will insist on a weak union, while a second will demand industrial protection, and a third agricultural subsidies. Then, after years of wrangling, the French will threaten to shoot it down if it's not tweaked to serve their own interests.

This is not how you go about nation-building. Not at all.

2003-05-25T21:57:00.000-04:00

Just a Wee Test Post
I may regret this, but I'm sorting through some technical issues here in the People's Republic of Blog Software, so let's try it.

2003-05-23T23:25:00.000-04:00

Truth in Advertising Department
So I was over at Lileks' site tonight and looking at all the neat old matchbook scans he has, and I came across a particularly neat one for something called TROPISAN. TROPISAN, as we learn, was at one time an anti-psoriasis tablet. Nothing special about that, you say? Ah, but what's cool about the little advert is its tagline:

"COMBATS HORRID SYMPTOMS."

Gad! Now these people were on to something. It's also proof positive that at one time in American life, medicinal advertisements were designed to tell consumers what exactly their products did. Unfortunately, American advertising has become so ~~degraded~~ sophisticated that my allergy medicine does not only purport to cure my allergy symptoms, it also promises me that I can frolic in some Elysian field of wonderment with a cute blonde girl while driving a nice automobile. And the only way that's going to happen is if I write a best-selling novel and somehow turn into a professional athlete.

Gah. Anyway, just out of curiosity, anybody know whatever happened to Tropisan, the amazing anti-psoriasis tablet? I said, it's just out of curiosity. I may have six different health problems going on at one time, but flaky-scalp ain't one of 'em. At least not yet.

2003-05-23T22:04:00.000-04:00

Say, Everybody! There's a Party at Dean
Esmay's House, and Everyone's Invited!
Well, OK, maybe not everyone -- the last thing we need is for Casa Esmay to turn into Andrew Jackson's inaugural, when the then-President made the egregious mistake of literally inviting everyone into the Executive Mansion. But do note that Dean, an excellent and gentlemanly soul whose virtue knows no bounds, has charitably invited bloggers and blog-readers to his house in Michigan for a party on Saturday, July 19. That means us, or at least those of us who are able to get to Motown. So if you want to go, hop on over to his neato Web site and leave a comment, and you'll get all the details.

Also: if you want to drink, you'll have to bring your own liquor. Dean is a very generous fellow, but I am sure he is also plotting to save for his own retirement. And the way bloggers knock back the demon rum ...

2003-05-23T17:39:00.000-04:00

We here at The Rant realize that many readers, especially those without blogs of their own, may not fully realize the amount of work that goes into updating and maintaining our site. Thus, we present the above camera shot from our spacious offices here in Manchester, N.H. to show what exactly it is that we do.

At left, seated, is Benjamin Kepple, The Rant's chief content provider, as he scans the Associated Press "wire." At right is Ned Smith, The Rant's MIS officer and chief archivist. In his hands are a) The Rant's archives for Sept. 2002 and b) a communique from a reader. The machines throughout the room process, scan, spindle and otherwise contort each Rant entry as it is composed into "electronic" format. As odd as this might seem, they represent a major advance from the site's capabilities just a few years ago. Back then, we actually had to have each entry laid out the old fashioned way -- and have you any idea how annoying it is to have these things type-set?

But we can assure you that both Messrs Kepple and Smith -- indeed, all of us, here at The Rant -- are quite excited about New Technological Developments which are close at hand. We estimate that within two weeks' time, we can roll out an entirely new Rant to the public. We'll still have the same sort of high-quality cantakerous outrage which you've come to know and expect, and with a new format that will have easier-to-search archives -- heck, archives that don't suddenly disappear, more graphics, and more opportunities for photo-based expressions of anger and despondency.

The most amazing thing, of course, is that this is all due to the kindness of others. We can assure you -- and them -- that they will be properly recognized soon.

So keep your eyes peeled. Things aren't changing right away, but they'll soon be changing for the better -- and you'll certainly notice the difference. But we thank you for your continued patronage, and hope you'll keep on stopping by.

Cordially,

Top Management
Benjamin Kepple's Daily Rant, Inc.
"Your Hometown Nostalgia Source"

2003-05-23T15:50:00.000-04:00

After Two Years and Two Months in His Apartment,
Kepple Notices Convenient Appliance-Thingy

I must apologize for the dearth of posting as of late. Sadly, the unpleasant realities of modern life were much in force this week, and I was kept busy doing lots of mundane tasks, such as the laundry and counter-cleaning and dusting and all that.

You should know that at some point during this week -- specifically, last night at about eleven -- your humble correspondent was washing his dishes when he noticed that the sink had one of those convenient water-hoses normally only seen in upscale apartment houses. The appliance itself isn't all that remarkable, of course -- one presses a button and water is diverted from the spigot to the hose-mechanism, thus providing a directional spray of water. What is remarkable is that I have lived in this apartment for nearly two years and three months, and last night was the first time I noticed it.

What bothers me about this whole thing is that I can't understand how I missed it. I do my dishes regularly at this very sink. I have a pretty good eye for things that tend to stare me right in the face. So how in the name of all that's holy did I not notice this stupid thing for over two years? Gad! I mean, I'm only twenty-seven years old. Just because I act like someone from the early Sixties does not mean I should have troubles as if I was in my early sixties.

Ach. Maybe I just need to get more sleep, eh?

2003-05-19T21:28:00.000-04:00

Science Devises Neato Miracle Cure for Men
CBS News reports that the good, fine people at Auxilium Pharmaceuticals Inc have developed a gel containing testosterone:

Patients rub it on their arms and shoulders to restore normal levels of the hormone and combat the sagging sex drive, low energy, depression and dwindling muscle mass and bone density a (testosterone) deficiency can cause.

Now this is good news! Clearly, from my reading, this development means that men will remain young and virile and healthy forever, without any need to do anything useless and frustrating, by which I mean sit-ups. Well, either that, or we're going to see a lot more bar fights as hordes of newly-invigorated manly men degenerate into Neanderthals before our very eyes. I don't know which.

Actually, now that I think about it, this may not be good news after all. That's not to say the health aspects for men aren't wonderful news. But physicians will have to give this to everyone who needs it. So, what if the gel is given to men who have failed to properly hone the traits and skills a gentleman has spent years learning? I'm warning you, we'll have guys in their forties busting a cap in somebody else's ass because they got their toes stubbed at some discotheque. Further, what if such men take more than the prescribed dose of their medication? Will we have even more crazed, oversexed louts roaming our streets? We have enough problems with this already.

Based on my long observation of my own gender, I have found that those men who develop their bodies at the expense of developing their minds usually find weird things to be a fun time. I include randomly breaking private property, engaging in asinine contests where the goal is to drink one's opponent into a state requiring hospitalization, and showing one's buttocks to God-fearing, law-abiding citizens on the street in this category of weird things. What if they get their hands on testosterone? Also, in addition to the above, such men could even develop a fixation with the opposite sex -- which is fine, but not if they're not intending to honor the obligations which society has laid upon them in such instances! This could lead to outbreaks of social disease, or even to an explosion in the prevalence of reality-based or sleazy daytime-talk programmes on television:

PROGRAM HOST: "So, Curtis, you were sleeping with Tarlene even though Boodles told you that she had quit her job, moved from northern Arkansas to southern Arkansas, and had taken up a job as a chicken-plucker just to be with you?"
CURTIS: "Yeah, Jerry. Thanks to this new testosterone gel, both of 'em don't mind my bad dental work!"
AUDIENCE: (incoherent screams of disapproval)
HOST: "Wasn't that ... I don't know ... kind of cruel, backhanded, and downright treacherous?"
CURTIS: "Dude. Step off! Ain't no one gonna tell me how to live my..."
HOST: "Oh, but wait. We've got Boodles right here in the studio! Come on out, Boodles! ... oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, that's got to hurt."
AUDIENCE: "JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!"

So I will close by saying that I am concerned about this development, and fear its effects upon society if it is not strictly regulated. In the meantime, I may try to acquire some testosterone gel. I clearly don't need it, but there's no denying it could prove useful someday. It's entirely possible that I could some day find myself at a bar competing in a drinking contest against some lunkhead ex-fraternity type, who was enjoying his newfound freedom after posting bail on an indecent exposure charge.

And all to gain the attention of some beautiful girl.

2003-05-19T07:49:00.000-04:00

When Worlds Collide
On Sunday, The New York Times published a pretty interesting article about blogging. Specifically, the Times takes a look at how items posted on one's blog can occasionally cause one headaches, in terms of how those items affect one's relationships with family and friends:

While personal blogs have been around for years, their proliferation has caused a wrinkle in the social fabric among people in their teens, 20's and early 30's. Inundated with bloggers, they are finding that every clique now has its own Matt Drudge, someone capable of instantly turning details of their lives into saucy Internet fare.

"It's like all your friends are reporters now," said Douglas Rushkoff, a blogger and author of "Media Virus" and other books about the impact of technology on society.

In the rush to publish, many bloggers are running headlong into some of the problems conventionally published memoirists know too well: hurt feelings, newly wary friends and relatives ...

Wasn't it some Times man who quipped that if you wanted to make an omelette, you had to break a few eggs? Ah, never mind. Give the Times credit for this one; they wrote a good article about blogging that, when all was said and done, didn't repeat the same old tired copy we've read before about the art. That, and they did touch on an issue that's probably affected every blogger at least once. God knows it's affected me. My parents read my blog regularly. My non-blogging friends complain if they think I've been snarky about them here on The Rant. Acquaintances drop the fact they've read the blog in casual conversation, as if it was the most regular thing in the world.

It's very cool, but also very weird.

So how does one deal with this? In my case, I set limits. The blog would be a better read if I broke those limits, of course -- Living Vicariously Through Kepple! -- but it wouldn't be worth it in terms of the human cost. That's why I keep my family life pretty closely guarded and try to say only nice things about my friends. After all, in this particular sphere, I'm the only gatekeeper. I'm the only one who controls what goes on blog and what stays off. With that comes a responsibility to those whom I write about and who don't have a forum of their own in which to respond.

That said: if I go on a date -- HA! -- and end up in a relationship -- insert hysterical, mocking laughter -- would I blog it?

Damn right. But I would keep to the old saying that discretion is the better part of valor.

(via Dean Esmay, who wrote his own post on the matter.)

2003-05-18T02:27:00.000-04:00

Oh No! Kepple's Blogging at Midnight AGAIN
Oh, yes. Since it is Sunday morning here in Manchester, and your humble correspondent is alone at home again, he has been reduced to writing a stream-of- consciousness blog entry.

* In a spontaneous action most unlike me, I went and saw "The Matrix: Reloaded" on Thursday night.

Holy - shit - is - this - a - good - movie. Never mind the plot for right now; like most fans, there's no way I could explain it coherently, even if I was caught up on my sleep. But let's just say the whole endeavour is very well done, and expands well on the principles set forth in the first movie. It also makes the smart move of forcing moviegoers to see the third movie if they want to understand all the plot twists and other developments in this installment. The special effects were better than ever, naturally, and there was plenty of acting involving my favorite character in the series.

What's that? No, it's not Morpheus. It's Agent Smith. People! This is me we're talking about here. Agent Smith rules.

* They had a huge blogger bash in New York on Friday night. Since the last one I went to -- that was back in November -- was incredibly fun, I can imagine all the folks attending had a great time. It's a shame that such things seem to be a phenomenon purely of the major cities, although it makes sense from a logistical presence. But hey -- we can always hope that a Northern New England blog-fest could be arranged at some point in time.

I mean, really. Imagine how fun it would be. Actually, you don't have to imagine, for we here at The Rant have dramatized it for you:

JULY 2005: BOSTON-AREA blogger Oliver Willis (right) stays cool at the First Annual Northern New England Blog-Bash as Benjamin Kepple, a lesser-known blogger from Manchester, N.H., makes a point about social policy.

(PHOTO: VFX shot from The Matrix: Reloaded.)

* I told you. Agent Smith rules.

* Sara Grace has a nice post about pub crawling along Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica on Friday night, which got me all misty-eyed about my days back in Los Angeles. Although I never realized that one could actually go bar-hopping along Pico.

I did remember one bar that she and her compatriots went, though. That was The Joker, which was rightfully described as "a dank hole in the wall." Not that I ever went there -- I mean, the thing looks like a dank hole in the wall from the outside. But I will always remember what the bar's proprietors had put on their marquee after California's smoking ban went into effect: "Non-Smokers -- Where Are You When We Need You?"

You have to give style credit to the place just for that alone.

* We here at The Rant are pleased to see that we are the 1955th Most Popular Blog, according to the good people at blogstreet.com. That's out of about 136,000 blogs in total. As such, we take pride in this. We're also quite pleased to see that we rank 542 out of about 136,000 blogs in terms of the blog's importance, a model which eyes not just how many links you receive, but who they're from.

This is a very cool thing, although I do hope that we're not dragging any of our friends down because of our own links to them.

* Andrew Castel-Dodge has put up a link to a short film he starred in recently. If you're like me, and you're on a dial-up connection, you should be warned that it is an 8.7 Mb file which is annoyingly Flash-based, meaning you have to wait for it to load instead of downloading it. Still, it's quite cool. It's about vampires, which if you ask me are an under-rated horror concept.

* Finally, we pass on this interesting quote from Patrick Ruffini, who estimates that 100,000 people read blogs daily, not counting multiple-page reloads: Blogging's comparative advantage is that it does attract for its readership a fair percentage of influentials, technorati, and other miscellaneous type-A early adopter types.

Damn right!

2003-05-16T22:59:00.000-04:00

Casablanca Blasts Kill at Least 20
It's too early to tell if al-Qaeda are involved, U.S. intelligence officials say.

2003-05-16T22:36:00.000-04:00

A small matter can become a great one.
-- Japanese proverb

As Japan moves ever closer towards ending its long-standing pacifist foreign policy due to developments involving North Korea, we might want to keep such thoughts in mind. Personally, I don't see a problem with Japan having a stronger conventional military, but I'm leery about the idea that we should let yet another power in East Asia develop nuclear weapons. For one thing, it's awfully destabilizing. Second, to borrow from another proverb, things are working out pretty well with the eight corners of the world under our roof.

-------

Oh. If you haven't read Edwin Hoyt's "Japan's War: The Great Pacific Conflict," you really ought to do so. It'll run you about $18 or so but it's well worth it. Not only is it the source of the above neat sayings, it's a treasure-trove of information in terms of the war.

2003-05-16T22:01:00.000-04:00

I am Shocked and Appalled
A certain disgraced ex-reporter for The New York Times has hired an agent to seek out potential book and television deals, the New York Daily News reports. The tabloid informs us that this ex-reporter could net somewhere in the mid-six figures for such endeavours. Unless, of course, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office -- and/or his former employers -- were to prove successful in any attempt they might make to seize the ex-reporter's gains.

Gad.

By the way, Ben Domenech has more on this, if you're interested. I'm going to simply sit here in silence while I develop a good case of apoplexy.

2003-05-15T02:05:00.000-04:00

Administrative Note
The archive links on the home template here at The Rant are being spotty again, so if anyone is looking for particular posts ... well, they're all somewhere on this page anyway, right? Have a looksee, make a game of it, and such. Although I have to admit this state of affairs is even annoying me. I mean, I don't understand how they can just show up one day and disappear again the next. The files are still there, of course, it's just that the display is gone.

Thanks for your patience as I work these things out.

2003-05-15T01:54:00.000-04:00

C is for Cookie, But That Wasn't Good Enough for Some Frisco Lawyer
Who Decided He Would Sue The Good People at Kraft Foods Inc.
(Until, That Is, He Got Bucketloads of Free Publicity)

I about had a heart attack this evening when I saw that a San Francisco lawyer had sued Kraft Foods, makers of the popular Oreo cookies we all know and love, because they contained so-called "trans fats" which are patently unhealthy.

Afterwards, though, I realized that I had worried too soon. This lawsuit, which would have banned the sale of Oreos in the Golden State, has been voluntarily withdrawn. The Associated Press reports that Stephen Joseph, the lawyer behind the lawsuit, merely "wanted to get the word out about the dangers of unlabeled fats contained in the popular black and white cookies."

Good, I thought contentedly to myself, as I prepared to retire for the night. Then I made the mistake of going to Mr Joseph's Web site. As I read it, I about had a heart attack for the second time this evening. After I recovered, clutching my sides and praying to God above that He would let me live to smite this idiocy where it stood, I realized that some sort of response had to be given to the commentary published therein. To Mr Joseph's credit, that commentary is what I believe is called "very good lawyering." To Mr Joseph's blame, some of it is quite silly.

But let us look at this posting, drafted as a press release from Mr Joseph, in depth:

I am pleased to announce that we are voluntarily dismissing the Oreo lawsuit. The factual and legal basis for the lawsuit when it was filed was that the American people did not know about trans fat. At best, perhaps 10-15 percent knew. The American people were being kept in the dark by the food manufacturers. The word “trans fat” is not even on food labels. That was then. This is now.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see how Big Food can keep the American people in the dark when we're discussing a byproduct that the Government did not and does not require on food labels. Now, if such disclosure was required on food labels, and certain corporations lied about the amount of trans-fats in a product, then that might prove a reasonable statement to make. Also, folks like Mr Joseph might have a good class-action on their hands. But until those things change, Mr Joseph, I have news for you: we still live in a society organized on what we call "democratic capitalist principles." This means that companies are going to try to convince people to buy their products, whatever they are, not scare them away with big splotchy graphics proclaiming said products' detrimental effects: "NOW MORE PRONE TO CAUSE GOITER & GOUT!"

After three days of incredible national publicity, everyone in America knows about trans fats, and if anybody doesn’t, I don’t know where on earth they’ve been hiding. The factual and legal basis for the lawsuit has totally disappeared. I certainly could not tell a court now that nobody knows about trans fat. Here is an e-mail that I received from a lady that made me realize that the lawsuit was very important, and had been successful, and that it was no longer necessary:

“You have me reading labels! I picked up only two out of many boxes of children’s cereal’s yesterday in the grocery store, and two of them contained partially hydrogenated soybean oil – also saw it in Cool Whip and Nestles instant hot chocolate. My God there’s a monster out there. My husband came home with a package of Chips Ahoy “Light” cookies, and I grabbed them and read the label. You guessed it – they have partially hydro oils!”

Did that lady have a right to know? Or would you have preferred Kraft and the other food manufacturers to have kept her totally in the dark? I have received thousands of similar e-mails.

Ah, see my above point. Clearly this lady did not have a right to know, since it was not a Government requirement that she know. Of course, she could have actually called the firms herself, and consulted with her doctors and other authorities, and learned about foods that contain such trans-fats. Then, she could have avoided them. That's not to say I don't think it's good that this lady is taking more of an interest in her nutrition. That is good. But really.

It is just great that Kraft has now announced in response to the lawsuit that it is “actively exploring ways to reduce trans fats in Oreo.” Kraft is accepting that there is a problem that must be solved. Good. Hopefully, we will see a trans fat-free version of the Oreo soon, so that those of us who love Oreos (I really do) don’t have to eat unsafe trans fats to enjoy them. We have that right, don’t we? Kraft should give us all a choice.

Mr Joseph is being lawyerly again. He either fails to realize or willfully ignores the very real choice that we all have in such an occurrence, which is that people have a choice not to eat the stupid things if they don't wish to do so. And no, sir, at this point in time, you don't have the bloody right to have specially-made Oreos just because you want them that way. Go make your own if you're not happy with the way they are now, or accept that Oreos contain these trans-fats. Please.

It is now is up to each food manufacturer to decide how to respond to the new public awareness of the existence and danger of trans fats. Let’s hope that they respond responsibly. No money was ever requested in the lawsuit. There is no greed factor. No one has made a penny out of it. And it did not cost one penny of taxpayers' money.

I can't complain about this ... but only because I don't have the facts at hand I would need to complain about it.

Incidentally, I am generally against lawsuits against food manufacturers, and I am certainly against the MacDonald’s case which I think is totally ridiculous. I've said that over and over again this week. Everyone knows that fast food is unhealthy and they have to be responsible for their own actions. Trans fat was a unique situation, because so few people knew about it, it isn’t on the label, Kraft was opposing trans fat labeling saying it would be “confusing,” and the FDA says that we should eat none of it.

Yeah, but dude. Just because you don't like a state of affairs which is completely legal doesn't mean you commence legal action. I mean, really. That's like suing your neighbor because he plays his stereo at night, and doing so before you even ask him to turn the music down.

There should be no more trans fat lawsuits, because everyone now knows about it, and if anyone files one they should consider me to be an opponent. The existence and danger of trans fats is now common knowledge as a result of the last three days of publicity and as far as I am concerned there is no longer any basis for suing anyone.

Oh, well we can all rest easy then! I think. No, I can't.

And to those of you who thought I was infringing your freedom, remember, when the facts are suppressed you have no freedom. You had a right to know about trans fats, and now you do. What you do with the information is entirely your concern. If you knowingly want to continue to eat trans fats, enjoy!

Gee, thanks. Would it be unfriendly of me to point out that the reason people were so worked up about this was because it seems kind of obvious that cookies are bad for people? Obvious that such things are to be eaten sparingly? Obvious that, given the two previous points, people should have enough knowledge based on those two common-sense principles alone to know better?

Thank you to all of our supporters, each and every one of you. We made a difference. A big difference. And thanks Kraft for working on a trans fat-free version of the Oreo. I hope that I get to taste the first one.

He had supporters. I could weep!

2003-05-14T23:53:00.000-04:00

Only Wretched Sub-literate Morons Would Not Enjoy The Scotsman
Because we here at The Rant believe in providing our ever-loyal readership with the best commentary that has been written lately, we have decided to showcase a selection of opinion articles from The Scotsman.

From our examination of its pages, we believe that The Scotsman succeeds mightily at doing a few things very well. For instance, it provides "Scottish News direct from Scotland." This is very important for those of us with ties to the old sod, because most of us still can't understand how the place decided that Eastern Europe under the Soviets was the perfect model for its Government. Sure, we quasi-Scots used to have an enjoyable time blaming certain southerners for this malaise, but things seem to have gotten worse since Holyrood took the reins. Furthermore, we are convinced that certain of our Scottish ancestors, who did not care at all for said southern-dwellers, are practically spinning in their graves at these developments. Still, we have The Scotsman, which through it all continues onwards.

The Scotsman also has a penchant for being direct, which we like very much. We very much like its dry wit, its blunt manner, and its devil-may-care attitudes. We also like top-quality writing, and writing that makes us laugh so hard we practically vomited up the meagre supper we managed to scrape up out of the freezer this evening. As such, this work should be shared, and rightfully so. Hence, we present a selection of five articles from The Scotsman, all of which should make you laugh heartily and forget your worries for a while:

Drink Makes Men Vomit on My Begonias
Why the Royals Should be Kept Well Away from Public Transport
Euro Crusader Liddell Won't Let Facts Get in Way
Oafs at the Oath Ceremony Enough to Make You Swear
Scalpel-sharp Words Failed to Have the Operating Staff in Stitches

We think these selected works from the paper's repertoire will convice readers that they too should read The Scotsman on a regular basis. Also, we would like to say we very much approve of Fiona McCade.

2003-05-13T22:24:00.000-04:00

Chinese Example Proves Unfortunate Names
Not Merely an American Phenomenon

Before I begin tonight's round of postings, I must apologize to my ever-faithful contingent of readers for not posting as frequently over the past few days. For one thing, I was in Maine. For another, I have been working like the Devil himself. But the key reason for my lack of posting was sort of a general malaise, in which I couldn't get really bothered over any silly news item or cultural calamity which came down the pike. This is why the previous two entries were awful, but never mind.

However! We at The Rant have learned this evening that a Chinese couple named their newborn son "Saddam Sars" in response to world events taking place around the time he was born. We have further learned from the Sydney Morning Herald that the boy's full name is Saddam Deng Sars, with Deng being the familial surname. Finally, we should also note that we originally learned of this development from Sheila Astray, who smartly considered what things would have been like had her parents done such a thing when she was born.

I do know that if my parents had done such a thing when I was born, I would have been the object of ridicule and scorn throughout my childhood. Somehow, I don't think I would have enjoyed life as Whip Inflation Now Kepple, Gas Rationing Kepple, or Ford Administration Kepple. What's even more disturbing is that those examples aren't the worst of them. These were the Seventies, after all, when a lot of things we rightly now consider stupid were considered "with it," "groovy," "solid," and "far out" -- you know, dy-no-MITE*!

As such, I thank God and all His Saints and Angels that my parents did not consider it a dy-no-MITE! idea to name me Disco Duck Kepple. But of course, they would not have ever considered doing that. My parents were responsible, level-headed people who were too busy working hard to spend hours thinking up cutesy names for their first-born child. Instead, they spent their time looking for open gas stations.

But this incident in China got me to thinking. First off, what does possess otherwise rational parents to give their child -- or children -- cutesy, smarmy, faddish, just-plain-foolish names that could help push their children into a life full of self-doubt, self-pity, and mockery at the school bus stop?

I mean, really. Take, for instance, one boy's name which I particularly do not like: Dakota. Now, I'm sure plenty of parents were well-meaning when they chose this name, but did they ever stop to consider that they were naming their offspring after a Dodge pickup**? No! They did not! Sadly, when the cruel years of junior high school come around, the boy's vicious and spiteful peers will start calling him names like "Gremlin" and "F-150" just to pull his chain.

I am willing to admit that in a few instances, such cuteness does work -- either if one's last name fits well, or one is able to shorten one's Christian name into a catchy nickname. But note the key word in the above phrase: few. Ninety-five percent of the time, such a project will fail miserably, and it will show for all the world to see.

And don't get me started on badly-thought out names for girls, because that's even worse. The way I see it, girls ought to have pretty and flowery and wonderful names that roll off the tongue like that! and send a man off dreaming the moment he hears them. Girls ought not to have names that remind a potential suitor of his particular brand of gin, the exotic dancer he saw last month in Las Vegas, or the city where he lost his wallet. And I can assure you that, when I eventually get married and have lovely daughters, that I will hold to those naming principles.

But the story does not end here. My second complaint has to do with names that are spelled oddly.

Friends, I beseech you: help your poor correspondent understand why otherwise rational parents would do such a thing. And I'm not talking about common, widely-accepted variants either, such as whether to spell Elizabeth with an S or a Z, or whether one likes Laurie or Lori. I'm talking about cultural sins such as naming one's daughter "Gennifer," with a freaking G. I'm talking about the base corruption of perfectly decent if faux-snobbish names like Brittany into "Britney." God.

I mean, at least with Brittany it means something: it's a region that was absorbed into France centuries ago, yet still maintains its own regional dialect and traditions. It's not the first girl's name I would choose for my daughter, but I can see why it is popular, and it's a perfectly fine name. With "Britney," on the other hand, it comes off as if there was some sort of communication problem between the parents and the hospital attendants. I would go on to say that it would also cause problems whenever one had to identify oneself to a data-entry clerk or police officer, except that's not as powerful a complaint as it was in the old days: I've met people who have had trouble spelling Benjamin.

Yes, Benjamin. Now, I can understand Kepple, because there are so many variants. But BENJAMIN?

The incredible thing is that this gets worse.

During my painstaking inquiry into this most sensitive of subjects, I discovered baby names so badly-thought out and so hideously mangled that they constitute offenses far worse than the two I previously cited. If we consider names like Dakota a sin of incontinence, and Gennifer a sin of malice, then we must consider these names sins of treachery. They are in the lowest pit in Baby-Naming Hell. They are diabolical in their intent. They are proof that even the simplest of God's providential gifts to man, the right to name other creatures, can be twisted and warped to serve Lucifer's evil schemes.

Now, because we believe in time-honored principles like "research" and "investigation" here at The Rant, we sallied forth this evening to see whether anyone else had written about this. As it turns out, a Google search for "stupid baby names" turns up an astounding 259,000 entries. But what astounded us the most here this evening was Item No. 4 which Google turned up for us.

This page apparently originates from an America On-Line communique from aeons ago, by which I mean 1996. Now, this page does serve to debunk the myth that some parents actually name their children Male or Female. Such names, we are told, occur on birth certificates when the parents of the newborn infant have not yet selected a name, and hospital officials must put something -- anything -- on the paperwork. But in the course of this investigation, these tireless researchers also found that there were rather a lot of odd baby names. Really odd baby names. Disturbingly odd baby names.

Specifically, we refer to names such as Beautiphul, Lisa (that was a boy), Boat, Tangerine, Tequilla, Abyss, Tall, Sin, and He. He, if you're wondering, was a girl. Again, we here at The Rant have no reason to doubt the existence of these names, which were supposedly gathered from birth records compiled in New York State for the year of 1994. By the way, given the panoply of truly awful names we have presented here, it will come as no surprise that 30 children in the Empire State were named Unique in 1994. As the old saying goes, Unique meaning different, Unique meaning singular, Unique meaning one. Well, not in this case.

I would humbly submit that a child's name is too important a thing to take so lightly. That's not to say that I think that a name implies one's destiny, but I do think it can express some very important features of a person: things ranging from their heritage to their personality, from their family history to the heroes their parents had so long ago. And for the child, his or her name becomes a very keen part of his or her being, so much so that for most of us, we can't readily imagine giving up the names our parents gave us.

So while I am not a parent or an expectant parent myself, I would hope that those who are expecting a new entry into their life give the names they've thought out very long and very hard looks. That, and express your veto power. After all, it takes two to tango.

------
* Despite our researches here at The Rant, we have not successfully identified the meaning of "stella," a Seventies-era slang term. According to our on-line research, it is a derogatory name for a "disco queen." Unfortunately, we don't know what a "disco queen" is either. We hereby present this as further proof that the Seventies were such an awful decade that people couldn't even come up with decent slang.
** We have willfully disregarded the possibility that people did consider they were naming their offspring after a light truck, and then decided they rather liked the idea. We still believe in the inherent goodness of people here at The Rant.

2003-05-13T00:19:00.000-04:00

The Bulls Are Back in Town
8726. Boy! Now that's nice to see. Of course, it's nowhere near those psychologically important benchmarks we used to hear about (12,000; 11,000; 10,000) but hey. It will do. Now if we could get it to 9,500 by the end of the year, I'd really be pleased.

2003-05-13T00:01:00.000-04:00

Kids! It's Time for MORE Cultural Depravity!
Providing proof positive that being a newspaper columnist is one of the best jobs ever, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel scribe Jim Stingl wrote his entire May 8 column on the tempest-on-a-teapot surrounding Wal-Mart's decision to ban certain men's magazines for having naughty cover illustrations.

As we would expect from such an endeavour, Mr Stingl uses important time-honored journalism techniques in ferreting out the "big scoop" behind the whole story. Namely, he goes out and spends $15 for one copy of each of the three proscribed publications. He also manages to find a Young Person to talk about the lure of these magazines:

Derek, 18, gets his copy of Maxim from a friend in Wauwatosa who has a subscription, so he doesn't care what Wal-Mart does. He says the magazine's raunchy jokes, advice on fashion and music and such, and, yes, the perfect babes in their tiny underwear are an antidote to the fare he reads for school, such as "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Now, I myself do not read these magazines on a regular basis. This is primarily because I think they're crap. I mean, really. If I wanted to read raunchy jokes, receive advice on fashion and music and such, and see artificially-rendered photographs of attractive women, I would not purchase the low-grade equivalent of Playboy. Instead ... I'd go out and I'd buy a Playboy.

Of course, I don't think much of Playboy either. Sure, it will occasionally have something decent to read in it, but the last time I read an issue -- years ago -- the thing was incredibly boring, to the point where it made me dread turning the next page. Maybe that was just an off issue, or the magazine has changed since then, but I doubt it. I will, though, give its publishers credit for not making it boring and stupid, which to me seems the real cardinal sin which these lesser men's magazines commit all-too frequently. I mean, how many variations on a theme can even the most talented magazine staff think up, before they all start to sound flat?

2003-05-10T22:08:00.000-04:00

Oy Vey
Maybe THIS will fix the archiving problem. Eh? Ya think?

2003-05-10T18:22:00.000-04:00

Cesspit Boston
Wow. It only took ten minutes of my time, but I found two wonderful reasons why I'm both incredibly happy to live in New Hampshire and will never, ever, ever voluntarily go to Boston unless it is an emergency situation. These two reasons, you see, are this post from Deb at Insomnomaniac, and this other post from Deb at Insomnomaniac.

We learn in these posts that Deb, a Boston resident who pays approximately $2,000 a month for a two-bedroom apartment in that miserable city, has a juvenile crime problem in her neighborhood. As Deb tells us, surly gangs of white youth regularly sally forth from the public housing projects one mile distant to occupy her neighborhood, and proceed to get involved with mayhem and common thuggery. Actually, it's quite a serious situation -- several law-abiding citizens in her district have been brutally assaulted by these roving packs of degenerates, a figure which nearly included her husband. Fortunately, Deb has learned the First Rule of City Living -- if one demands action from the local authorities and discusses things with the neighbors, things will be done.

Now, some questions Deb asks in her posts seem reasonable to me, such as, "What is wrong with this place? What is wrong with this state?" Of course, as a resident of New Hampshire, I have plenty of opinions on what exactly is wrong with Massachusetts in general. But it seems to me a pretty simple equation, when looking at these delinquents. Broken families + lack of moral or religious training + lack of intelligence or drive + Sixties-style socialism and permissiveness = urban trauma.

The way we fix these problems is a subject for another post. In the meantime, I say: the next time these kids get locked up, we offer them a choice. They can go to jail, or they can go join the military. With the first option, they are removed from the streets, and as such are not a clear and present danger. With the second option, the military offers wayward youth a family-like structure, moral and religious training, and an orderly, hiearchical structure to which they will adhere. Because the word "permissive" ain't in a drill instructor's vocabulary.

2003-05-09T10:32:00.000-04:00

THIS IS a key reason why I left California. Look at that beautiful freeway -- ten lanes of concrete, straight, well-kept -- and traffic is moving at about three miles per hour! The lanes at the left are the westbound lanes of the 101* in the San Fernando Valley, so it means this picture was probably taken sometime during the mid-afternoon rush (3 to 8 p.m.) on some idle weekday.

Let me be clear. This is normal out there.

The above congestion could be slightly alleviated if two diamond lanes** were built along-side the freeway. But suggestions to do just that have been met with the standard "they're paving paradise to put up a parking lot" chorus.

Now look. As a former California resident, I can say with authority that all of its metropolitan areas need more freeways, and need them now. You can't double-deck the existing ones because of the earthquakes, so the only reasonable course of action is to fire up the bulldozers and start paving -- from Oakland to Sactown, the Bay Area and back down, as the saying goes. Otherwise, they really will have paved paradise for a parking lot.

(PHOTO CREDIT: Bob Carey / Los Angeles Times)

HELPFUL NOTE FOR EASTERNERS:
* In Los Angeles, the 101 is the Ventura Freeway, except when it is the Hollywood Freeway, or when it is the Santa Ana Freeway. Got that? The break-point between the first two freeways is the 134 junction; the second two, the 110/101 interchange. The Santa Ana starts at that really big interchange near downtown where the 5, 10, 101 and 60 all come together at once. The above explanation should show why we refer to the roads by number out there.

** a "diamond lane" is California-speak for a high-occupancy vehicle, or commuter, lane. To folks like me, we have found them as useless in California as they are Back East.

UPDATE, Friday Morning
Hey, Angelenos! Check out Sigalert.com for live traffic updates. I wish we had something this cool back when I was in Los Angeles.

2003-05-09T09:15:00.000-04:00

It's a Catfight, But an IMPORTANT Catfight
Warren Buffett and Alan Greenspan square off about the value -- and danger -- of derivatives, The Telegraph reports in today's editions.

A derivative, for those who are not skilled in the financial markets, is generally an investment that you should stay away from, unless you work at a stock exchange or brokerage house and know better. That's really all you need to know. You see, they're incredibly complex and are based on things like frozen orange juice futures.

The Telegraph story is an interesting article and worth reading, though, no matter whether you have any interest in the financial markets. Of course, we here at The Rant live for things like this, thanks to our patented Inverted Sense of Celebrity. It's much more cerebral than hearing about the latest spat between Ben Damon and Matt Affleck, or whoever they are.

2003-05-08T21:00:00.000-04:00

As Authorities Raid Boston Cat Lady's Apartment,
Oliver Willis Finds Himself Next Door to the Action

Hey, everybody! Read those stories in the Boston Herald about the infamous Cat Lady of Boston? Oliver Willis is right next door to it all -- literally. Gad. Yep, it's just one more reason I'm glad to live in New Hampshire -- because even when that type of thing occasionally happens here, it is far, far, far away from me.

2003-05-08T20:30:00.000-04:00

I Hate Hospitals, Part II
You should know that when your humble correspondent comes home from his daily toils, one of the first things he does is check his voice mail. We here at The Rant detest voice mail, as we find it almost daemonic that people can contact us at any time of the day or night. If we are not answering the telephone, we are not doing so for a reason. It's because we're not here, or we're busy doing more important things, or what not. Besides, everyone who knows me knows that if you want to reach me, you should drop me a text message.

I arrived home this evening to find three voice mails. One was from a local car dealership, promising me -- the prospective car buyer -- Big Savings on the latest models they were offering for sale. Sadly, this voice mail came from a particular make that I do not care for at all, which again reminded me that I needed to sign up for the federal Do Not Call list. The second voice mail was from my mother, and it was a very nice message thanking me for the Mother's Day gift which I had sent her earlier (Mom -- you can call and leave a voice mail any time). But it was the third voice mail that really infuriated me.

This third voice mail, you see, was from the hospital which treated me for my appendectomy in January. Being a hospital, and thus having a billing department that prizes Communist-run Eastern Europe as a model of efficiency and quality service, it noticeably failed to send me any bills at all until the end of March. Of course, when the bill arrived, it was completely inaccurate and thus went unpaid until they got their house in order.

Their house was put in order a full four months after the operation took place: to be precise, on April 28. On May 8, I received a dunning call -- just one week after I received a valid bill from this institution. What was that old saying? First, do no harm? Oh, wait. That only applies to the doctors, doesn't it? And things were not helped when I discerned the tone of this dunning call. Not only did it sound as if the person on the other end of the line had suffered a bout of irritable bowel syndrome not seen since Leonard Part 6 hit theatres, the delivery was given in a grating, harsh tone that reminded one of a guard at Checkpoint Charlie. No please, no thank you, just that low growl -- "Papers, Herr Kepple!"

Gad. Oh, and the fact I was disconnected when I called, after holding on the line for ten minutes? Not exactly the Rotarian Ideal of Service, people.

So I have resigned myself. I will call them at 10 a.m. tomorrow and hash this all out, and be unfailingly polite and pleasant on the telephone. I shall attempt to explain the situation as best I can to people who probably could care less, and placate them with the thought that the check will be in the mail sometime this month; you know, when I get around to it. I trust that they will be receptive to this. If they aren't, I shall have to politely and sweetly ask them to send me a full line-item of the bill so I can examine it myself. After all, it was for $10,109 in total, so I should make sure I'm getting my money's worth from my insurance firm.

2003-05-06T20:31:00.000-04:00

It Hurts. It Just Hurts.

2003-05-06T20:30:00.000-04:00

So Much for My Al Gore Look
There are many among us who inform us, with the utmost gravity, that we should all strive to learn something new everyday. They will be glad to know that yesterday, I learned a very important lesson. However, because my learning experiences tend to involve emotional anguish, physical pain or both, I think this whole striving-and-learning bit is crap.

On Monday morning, I learned that it was a bad idea for one to attempt shaving before one has his morning shower.

Now, in general, men know this is a bad idea. It's a lot easier to work with a straight razor when the stubble on one's face has suffered through a blistering assault of shampoo, skin cleansers, soap and scads of similarly overpriced products which tout their pseudo-alchemic properties. But as I stumbled into my bathroom on Monday morning, my body pleading and begging for more sleep, I decided that I could get a head start on my day by shaving before my shower. The beard only needed a little bit of a trim anyway, and as such ...

Given the picture at left, I realize that some readers may be surprised to learn that I have -- or rather, had -- a beard. I grew it after I had my appendectomy back in January. Following the tradition of men everywhere who have found themselves temporarily laid up, and seeing that my chances of finding a nice girl to date were even lower than they are usually, I decided back then that I would flaunt the social convention that discriminates against men with beards. So I grew the stupid thing out. Further, I took the second step of purchasing a rather expensive beard trimmer. This device, which cost me $50, allows one to use either the biting edge of its electric straight razor or trim one's beard to a desired length by means of an adjustable cap.

So guess who forgot to put the cap on yesterday morning> Guess who, in one fell stroke, practically shaved off the right side of the beard he had spent months cultivating. Guess who, in the ensuing minutes, indulged in much wailing and gnashing of teeth? Guess who, despite his valiant attempts to avoid profane language here on The Rant, spewed forth curses and blasphemies that would shock and appall a 16th-century English sailor? And lo! the heavens trembled, and the earth fell.

Of course, even worse was the fact that I had to shave everything else in the 23 minutes I had until I left for work. God's truth, I went in to the office looking like I was twelve years old. Matters were not helped any when I sliced my lip with the electric razor, which fortunately did not draw blood but merely hurt like the sting of a bumblebee. Then I had to endure two full days of polite inquiries about why I had shaved off my beard. Because I am a fool, I told my coworkers the truth.

So consider it a lesson learned. At the rate I'm going, my next lesson will involve the importance of looking both ways before crossing the street, a municipal construction project, and a cement mixer.

2003-05-04T11:34:00.000-04:00

The Great American Diner
I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while, but I must say I was pleased to see Ken Layne has noticed my public call for him to have breakfast at Jack’s Coffee Shop, a diner in Sparks, Nev. Mr Layne writes:

I've been meaning to get over there -- the idiot local paper even managed to note the establishment -- but the place is only open for breakfast/lunch. I like my diner breakfast around 3 a.m.

Now I'll admit this is a respectable argument. There is something wonderful about going to a diner at three in the morning, as I full know. It’s not merely that the food one eats is good, old-fashioned American food. It’s just nice to go to a pleasant place with friends, hang out and have some coffee, talk with the old-style waitresses who really work hard for the overly large tip that you should rightfully give them, and kick back a while from the world at large -- and all in the wee hours of the morning.

But there is ALSO something to be said for going to a diner in the true morning, when it is still quiet out and the sun is just rising above the horizon. Not only does it make for a great start (or finish!) to one’s day, it gives a man time to think about life. What his plans are, what his dreams are, what he hopes to accomplish in the time he has left. Afterwards, he can rise from that booth or table feeling refreshed, and leave behind all the cares and worries he had when he came in.

So despite its restricted hours, I would still encourage Mr Layne to try the place, at least once, perhaps on some idle Saturday morning when the rest of the weekend looks shot. They open at seven; you’ll want the pancakes.

* * *

By the way, you can also get some good pancakes at a place right here in Manchester, and do so 24 hours per day. It’s weird to think that Manchester would have a place like Reno beat in the diner category, but there’s a hell of a good place downtown on Lowell Street. I mean, it’s fantastic.

The Red Arrow Diner is one of those unchanging facets of American life that seemingly has been, is, and ever will be. It’s not merely that you’ll get the true diner experience there as you have breakfast at its long counter—everything from the décor to the waitresses’ no-nonsense attitudes is just so fitting—but it has a true aura of history to it. The place opened decades ago, but despite the ownership changes along the way and a recent decision to go smoke-free (I say recent in Manchester terms, by which I mean years and years ago), it is essentially the same place, and worth going—especially for breakfast.

But no discussion of American diners would be complete without mentioning the semi-famous Dick’s Diner in Murrysville, Pa. I can say with authority that it is the best diner in the 48 contiguous states.

Of course, because we here at The Rant believe in transparency and honesty, I must admit that a relative did and I think still does own it. As I understand it, it’s named for my great-uncle Dick, who handed it down to my second cousin Dick. However, while I don’t know who runs it now—I want to say it is my second cousin Betty—I can say that it still maintains the same type of atmosphere and food that has made it a veritable local institution.

Don’t take my word for it, however. Reviewer Sam Edelmann, writing for Citysearch.com, notes:

There are three criteria for judging diners: breakfast, hot sandwiches with gravy, and pie. Dick's grades an "A" in all three.

Oh, and that’s another great thing about the American diner: pie. It doesn’t matter what kind of pie, you just have to order it. Not only is it part of the experience, it’s usually really well-done. Consider this semi-anonymous reviewer who advises patrons to order dessert with every meal at Dick’s, including breakfast. But if you are still not convinced, Mr Edelman writes:

As for pies, Dick's is well known in the area. There are usually at least 10 varieties available, including the exceptional Boston cream. You can't make a bad choice here.

Exactly. You can’t make a bad choice. So if you’re in northern Nevada or southern New Hampshire or even western Pennsylvania, you have no excuse not to visit any one of these fine establishments. Indeed, it is your duty and obligation as an American citizen to partake of the cultural heritage your nation has given you. So bid farewell to the corporate monstrosities that dot the modern landscape. Drive on in, take a seat, have some coffee, and just relax. You’ll be glad you did.

2003-05-03T23:24:00.000-04:00

Technical Milestone Achieved
We here at The Rant have long struggled with Soviet-era blogging technology. This is primarily because we are a) cheap 2) have little time and c) so technologically inept we could not install Movable Type if someone held a loaded gun to our heads while simultaneously threatening to club a baby seal with a truncheon. A large, spike-enhanced truncheon.

Furthermore, we are often distracted here at The Rant. Occasionally this is due to weird things, such as the pushpin which may have just entered your correspondent's foot. Oh, dear God. Oh Jesus. Oh. Oh oh oh. Wait a moment, will you? (meaningful pause) THERE. Gad. But usually this is because we have eight million things running through our heads at any given time. Ideas that really are quite good are sometimes never given the space they deserve, and long projects are as such impractical. In addition, because we are cheap, we refuse to pay people to do these things for us.

However, tonight a major technological innovation has appeared. We have successfully installed a "blogrolling" feature thanks to the Good People at Blogrolling.com. We do not entirely understand how it works, but we do know that it lets you, the reader with a blog of your own, easily see when we have updated the site. We also know that with the simple push of a button, we can manually update this feature so you will constantly know when we have updated. Indeed, after this post is completed, we will "ping" the site, which will "send" an electronic notice over the Internet to a main "server," which will in turn "send" notices out to readers.

We're very pleased to announce this technological innovation, as we feel it brings more value to our readers, clients, and most importantly the corporate office. For more information, kindly direct your attention to the left-hand column, all the way down at the end. Thank you for your time and consideration.

2003-05-03T20:07:00.000-04:00

Well, THIS Hits Close to Home

(via Super Fast Computer)

2003-05-03T11:47:00.000-04:00

The Acclaim Rolls On In
Wow. I think I've received the Blogosphere's version of a post-prizefight victory party, a development which has shocked but still delighted me on this Saturday morning.

As readers of The Rant know, your humble correspondent unleashed great vengeance and furious anger upon a fellow who believes it reasonable to compare bad movie reviews to fascism. Much to my surprise, this post received praise from such notables as Andrea Harris and Dean Esmay. It also received a nice mention from Sheila Astray, who did the yeoman's work of compiling the reviews of "Battlefield Earth." Again: if you have not visited her site, please do so. You shan't regret it.

But the praise was not universal.

For we have also heard this morning from the brave dissenting voice we may call "Gene." Gene has taken exception to my post eviscerating his enfeebled logic, and contends that I am working in concert with similarly-minded people to crush our common foes. Witness for yourself:

One more voice joins the choir. Let us unite in our hatred of this movie and crush all who dare oppose us. (and since you asked, I use a Mac because the processor runs cooler thus eliminating the need for a noisey (sic) fan)

As a matter of clarity, I should note that the issue of liking or not liking "Battlefield Earth" is somewhat separate from the issue at hand, which is that Gene compared critics of that film to the top echelons of the Nazi regime. If Gene had merely to come to the defense of the film, things would be entirely different. We could discuss the non-existent virtues and myriad flaws of "Battlefield Earth," and we could agree or disagree like civilized men. But no. That would have been too easy.

Instead, Gene went beyond the pale in his argument, which is why the cognoscenti have cruelly taunted him. Nor was it the first time he did so, either. Indeed, in his first post criticizing Sheila's work, Gene wrote:

This is the problem with democracy. Whenever a mob gets the taste of blood, the strong become cruel and base, and the weak cheer them on.

Now, how movie reviews can be compared to the virtues and deficiencies of a political system is beyond me. The two things are as different as apples and weapons-grade plutonium. Yet we originally gave this a pass, because we are not inclined to respond to every idiocy that crosses our desk here.

And Gene's original comment was an idiotic thing to say. After all, were we truly living in a less-free state, Gene's thoughts would have never reached the public sphere. Yet under the American system of democratic capitalism, the greatest and most enlightened system of Government which has ever been devised, Gene's thoughts are allowed to compete in the marketplace of ideas along with those of his compatriots. He has only himself to blame for the fact that they're stuck in the bargain bin, along with old copies of Michael Moore documentaries and anything which Yoko Ono ever wrote.

2003-05-03T00:01:00.000-04:00

On Indolent Progeny and The Adults They Become
Illinigirl has a nice post about a recent John Derbyshire column in which he Worries About His Children.

Mr Derbyshire writes that his two children are ages ten and eight. He wonders whether he should be concerned about the possibility that they will end up like some older children of his friends: namely, irascible, indolent, immoral and generally irritating.

It's certainly a worry that every parent probably has. As such, I can see why he is writing about it, although I do think he perhaps worries a bit too much. No matter how wayward the kids may SEEM to be when they are in their late teen years, I would argue that most of them wise up by their mid- to late-twenties. That's when I generally did, at any rate. I say generally because I am not perfect, and I still manage to bollux things up, but I like to think I have an OK moral compass and hopefully have learned the lessons my parents taught me.

Now Illinigirl writes, in her commentary on Mr Derbyshire's article:

In some respects, I occasionally feel that I have disappointed my parents. Despite all my success with aptitude testing, I have yet decided to seriously pursue a graduate degree. My career isn't very high-profile. They think I may have married too young, not traveled far enough, experienced the world a bit more first. But I know they love me and I know that they respect me as a person. "The Life!" of college partying and craziness may have proved alluring to me for several months in my late teens, but I returned to my senses before irreparable damage was done. I thank God every night for whatever it was that they did to instill those values deep within me, likely all the nagging and rules that I thought were too strict and stupid back then.

I know that general feeling, although in my case I often feel that I have disappointed my parents. I must say, though, that my parents did the best they could to raise me. I also don't know how they managed to imbue in me all the values they did, but I too thank God they worked so hard to do that.
---------

Mother, Dad, I know you read the site. Do not panic. I know you love me and think very highly of me. It's just I have a bit of an inferiority complex. This is not your fault at all. It's just that your son gets down on himself rather a lot because he holds himself up to very high, if not impossibly high, standards -- similar to how Don Music acted whenever he tried to compose a children's song on the piano. This video, btw, dramatizes how my creative process works.

UPDATE, Saturday morning:

I do think that I should clarify, for the record, my above thoughts.

On rare occasions, when I post a blog entry late at night, I find that I feel quite differently about the whole matter after I get a good eight hours worth of sleep. That's sort of the case with the latter part of the above entry. When I wrote that I often felt that I have disappointed my parents, I certainly didn't mean to imply that I had done so. This morning, they very gently and nicely made it clear that wasn't the case. In that vein, I'd like to make it clear that I had no intention of even implying they were disappointed in me. Rather, I should have said that I was often disappointed in myself.

I like to think that I hold myself up to high standards. The reason I do so is that it's a way to keep myself on the straight and narrow path towards being productive, being sharp, being a hard worker. I hate being idle, and I hate it when I'm not on top of my game. Perhaps I have realized the importance of being driven without having realized some of the lessons that go along with that, such as that no one can be perfect. Last night, I imperfectly wrote what I was feeling. And if I broke the Fourth Commandment in my attempt to keep it, then I deeply and sincerely apologize for my transgression.

2003-05-01T23:37:00.000-04:00

The Dumbest Thing I've Seen in Years
An enjoyable collection of movie reviews pummeling the horribly bad movie "Battlefield Earth" has been compared to Nazism.

No, dear readers, I am NOT making this up. I never make these things up; I have no need. Mankind contains enough wrong-headed dolts within its ranks that I could blog continuously until I am at death's door, and I would not run out of similar happenings on which to comment.

However, even I recognize certain instances of human stupidity to be so rare and remarkable they deserve a special place of honour in the Great Pantheon of Idiocy; the Hall of Eternal Foolishness; the Horn of Plenty-Bloody-Dumb. They are truly precious and multi-splendoured things. Right-thinking people should all look on in awe as these so-called thoughts rise up, like a great burst from a geyser. Then, in an equally beautiful burst of rhetorical flourish, they should throw such thoughts down to the ground and trample upon them.

But wait, you say. Surely, Kepple, this is not as stupid as you make it out to be!

Fine. You'll see what I mean. Here's the quote, from that brave dissenting soul we call .... "Gene."

OK, maybe comparing the trashing of a movie to mob violence is a bit of exaggeration, but I get a feeling of darkness from these reviews, overly exuberant cruelty, like Adolph and the boys sitting around some beers telling Jew jokes.

HO-kaaaaaay. Whew.

It does kind of take your breath away, doesn't it? We are, after all, talking about movie reviews. Further, we are talking about movie reviews of a particularly awful film, a film that is so bad that its very badness is the only reason it still exists in human consciousness. For culture generally only remembers the very best and the very worst of things: the mediocre, the semi-decent, these all go out with the wash. The American people do not, for instance, eagerly await the upcoming 30th anniversary of "Mitchell,"; nor will they recall 1978's "Corvette Summer" unless otherwise prompted. So instead of criticizing the thoughtful writer who actually preserves Battlefield Earth in legend and song, Gene should instead thank her for her yeoman's work in pulling this all together.

But no. Gene must compare these movie critics, and by extension our thoughtful commentator, to the Nazis. Never mind that these critics' collective effort may have spared thousands, if not millions, of people from the worst movie since "Ishtar." Never mind that their effort saved the hapless moviegoing public so much of their hard-earned cash. Never mind that such a comparison defies any sort of logic, sense of history, or moral sense that human beings possess. Yet he does so anyway.

The result is a mealy-mouthed and wretched argument; an argument that brings with it not one iota of the quiet power which accompianies a well-reasoned case, or the consternation that comes with a cruelly disingenous one. It is neither hot nor cold, and as such I spit it out of my mouth.

Let us pause for a moment, though, to thank the writer who pulled together those movie reviews, and who did do that yeoman's work. If you do not read Sheila at Redheaded Ramblings, you very much ought to do so. For one, she was as stupefied as I was to see that Gene compared her work both to the tyranny of a fascist police state and, in an earlier riposte, to crime-syndicate violence. For another, she is an eloquent writer, writing on a variety of subjects with verve and wit. The second point deserves more mention.

The amount of copy that Sheila produces is noteworthy in itself, but more noteworthy is that it is all done well. It is a rare and refreshing thing to see posts covering ancient history to modern culture, or Catholicism to breaking news; but to have those posts consistently prove thought-provoking and enjoyable for the reader is quite nice. So I would encourage readers to visit her site, and visit it often.

Besides. Her dispassionate yet witty responses to folks like Gene are cleverly crafted too.

2003-05-01T00:40:00.000-04:00

Holy Schneik-ies, There's a Lot of Good Stuff Out There Today
Key among all the good things to blog about is the April 30 edition of The Bleat, in which James Lileks discusses Apple's new on-line music venture.

Mr Lileks takes issue with one aspect of the new service, which is that it comes with a pre-installed playlist of music from the Sixties. While as usual you really ought to go read the entire thing in detail, he writes in part:

Why does Apple presume I want a 60s playlist? I’ll tell you why: it’s marketing. The 60s were, you know, when people were, uh, thinking differently. If they’d had Macs in the 60s, all the protest rallies would have been set in the San Francisco font. (Shudder.) The inclusion of this playlist is supposed to bestow on the Mac some sort of counterculture cred - if John Lennon were alive today, he’d have a Mac! Windows = Debbie Reynolds, the King Family, Wayne Newton, and the rest of the horrid anti-boomer pantheon ...

I do think this is spot-on.

That said, I must say that I don't understand the whole hoopla about Apple computers, even with the new music service. By that, I mean that I don't personally, on a gut level, get it.

I know that educational institutions continue to find them popular, and I know that many users of graphic-intensive programs swear by them. This suggests that they may have some practical applications that I do not fully comprehend. On the other hand, I do know that -- according to statistics in The Wall Street Journal this week -- that 97.7 percent of Computer-Using Humanity Has Seen Fit to Choose an IBM/Windows/Linux/Etc. format for its machines. So why do 2.3 percent of people, those rebels, have such a devotion to their Macs?

Now, I don't mean this to cause some sort of horrible flame war between myself and devotees of the Macintosh. That would be very collegiate. Besides, such arguments would be futile. One, neither side would convince the other. Two, even if the assumptions in Item One were proven false, the conversion of one person to the other would change little to nothing. And Three, we have seen the future, and it is this:

(PHOTO: In 2029, Chairman Kepple reminds Americans of their duties to God and country. CREDIT: Mac - 1984).
----

Oceania! OCEANIA! O-CEANNNNNNNNNNNN-IIIAAAA, 'tis of thee ...

Ahem. Sorry. Anyway, if someone can explain to me why a Macintosh is far superior to a Windows machine -- without doing so in hagiographic terms -- I would appreciate it very much. You would also have to explain to me why it is so good that I would want to give up a standard which nearly everyone else uses in today's world. Because that's what would make me consider buying a Mac in the future, not some advertising campaign, or countercultural affinity.

And with that, I also wish the good people at Apple all the best in their venture. If they succeed at it, they'll have managed to make money in an arena where no one else really has, which would be an accomplishment in itself.

2003-04-30T22:55:00.000-04:00

New York. New York ...
The Bloomberg Administration has banned fun and merriment in America's greatest city, Brian Linse reports:

I did manage to walk around a bit, and I found that the mood on the south end of the island is very different from my last, pre-9/11 trip to the city. At 11pm on a Saturday night there were 6 beat cops at the intersection of Bleeker and McDougal. Three of them were standing in the street, and my business partner and I watched in amazement as they pulled people over and wrote tickets for not wearing seat belts! Seat belts!

Later, my partner and I were told that we would have to move our drinks inside from the sidewalk table we had claimed earlier, because the cops were also writing tickets to the bar managers if any patrons were outside with alcohol after 1am. The crowds were thin on the street, and not a lot of fun was being had.

This does not bode well for the city's fortunes. Part of what makes New York great as a city is that one can travel there and have a great time -- nay, even engage in reckless abandon -- yet do so with relative safety and convenience. For instance, there is nothing in New York that prevents one from getting blitzed. There are plenty of safe and warm establishments with plenty of liquor available, and one can easily hail a taxi or stumble back on the subway to one's lodgings.

On the other hand, it's a heck of a lot less fun when you can't hang out with everyone you've gone with to the bar. It's also a lot less fun when you're forced to move from outside to inside, as Mr Linse described. It is extremely un-fun if average citizens, minding their own business, are forced to help contribute to erasing the city's budget deficit because they were not wearing restraining belts. Gad. (Here in New Hampshire, we don't even have laws regulating adult seat-belt usage. That's because we do not see the need to regulate that aspect of folks' lives. Also, we rule).

And if it's not fun to go to New York anymore, than the occasional tourists like me -- and even worse, those from surrounding areas -- will find other places where we can spend our money and our time. That's not good for the city or its residents, so many of which rely on tourism dollars. So while it is certainly up to New York to decide how to regulate its own affairs, I would suggest that it focus its efforts on keeping crime to a minimum and its public-services working at their best, as opposed to micromanaging the lives of those who work and play there.

2003-04-30T21:33:00.000-04:00

ON-LINE EXAM ACCURATELY DEPICTS SINS, PUNISHMENT
KEPPLE'S SOUL TO SUFFER "ONLY RELATIVELY BAD" TORMENT
IN AFTERLIFE, TOP THEOLOGIANS CONFIRM

------
"I don't think anyone here was surprised at this," says Kepple
------

MANCHESTER, NH -- Benjamin Kepple, who heads the city-based purveyors of Benjamin Kepple's Daily Rant(TM), will spend eternity at the Fourth Level of Hell, according to an on-line survey. The result, which is in line with Kepple's own determinations, will mean Kepple shall spend eternity rolling forth heavy weights back and forth against countless other avaricious or greedy souls.

"Really, I don't think anyone here was surprised at this," said Kepple as he plotted his latest scheme at The Rant's lavishly-decorated headquarters. "Clearly, I know best of all my sinful history, and I certainly can't disagree with the test's results. I can only hope that I can somehow change my ways before it's too late, although at this point I'd say I'm relying on grace to see me through."

"Hey, wait a minute," added Kepple, whining. "Wasn't it just yesterday that I told people I thought a dishwasher was a luxury item? And I've been really good lately with my budget, even if I did spend a bit more than I ought've on my vacation. Shouldn't I get kicked up to Level Three, at least?"

Level Three, which represents Gluttony, was one of three areas where Kepple has a high probability of ending up, according to the quiz:

---------
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Fourth Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test
---------

Kepple did take heart, however, from the reaction of some leading theologians.

"Kepple should consider himself lucky," said Catholic University of America professor Paul Christopher Charybdis IV. "He has a *high* rating in the all-important Purgatory category, which would mean he *could* find himself eventually redeemable for salvation if he shapes up. Also they have a nice beach there. He could also improve his eventual place in the afterlife if he would stop eating rich foods with dinner and ordering the soup when he really doesn't need to. In addition, he has not repented for having that really good glass of wine when Bocky took him out to eat in Washington last December. That's gonna stand out like a sore thumb."

"I mean, $15 for a glass? Sure, it was Morton's; sure, it was a special event to celebrate great things; sure, his friend was very generous and gave him carte blanche. But Gad. No wonder he's headed for the fourth level," Charybdis said.

Kepple's friend, whose full name could not be ascertained as of press time, is thought to be destined for the Heaven of the Sun.

"But there is a bright side to all this," said Loyola Marymount University religion professor Erich Maria Bruckner. "It could be a hell -- pardon the pun -- of a lot worse for Kepple. He has a moderate rating down near Level Eight -- the Malebolge. You do not want to go there. Criminy. I mean, it's not like swimming in the Serchio! He's going to need to have an attitude adjustment though, just to make sure he doesn't really screw things up. Of course, it would be better if he figured things out while he's still around topside."

However, the terrible wolf-daemon Plutus said that if Kepple were to enter his domain, it would not be pleasant.

"Now look. When you come here, you're in for a world of hurt. I mean, that's my job," said the cruel spirit, who oversees the Fourth Level and was temporarily restored to sentience for this interview. "And I can assure this wretched person -- whomever he is -- that we're making the weights doubly heavy just for him. We'll see how he likes living the high life when his rib cage is continually crushed with massive boulders."

"His day of reckoning will come due, don't you worry," Plutus added, as he crashed back down to his eternal posting.

-- 30 --

2003-04-29T23:36:00.000-04:00

This is Important
Now that I have your attention ...

Andrew Castel-Dodge has posted today that he will need a cornea transplant soon, due to problems with his left eye.

Like many people who are facing such things, Andrew is quite calm about the whole matter, although he has said that those close to him are in shock over the news. I was also shocked and saddened to hear it. For writers -- as Andrew and I both are -- the sense of sight is one of the most important things that we have.

So while he has not asked outright for support, I would appreciate it very much if readers of The Rant would follow the above link and drop him a line to let him know we're keeping him in our thoughts and hearts. This is something that can be beat, and there are few things more useful in doing so than a strong support network.

Thanks. I appreciate it.

-- BJK

2003-04-29T18:49:00.000-04:00

I Never Would Have Thought THIS

China -
Debatably the most ancient and longstanding
culture around, it is nowadays viewed as a
heavily populated but impoverished nation.

Positives:

Big.

Eclectic History.

Communist-Run (Control).

Worldwide Manufacturer.

Negatives:

Communist-Run (Bitterness).

Technologically Outdated.

Dissent.

Which Country of the World are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

---

But I'm an anti-Communist! I always HAVE been!

2003-04-27T10:03:00.000-04:00

Getting a Grippe
I hate it when Irony decides that it must make an entrance into my life.

Now you should know that the title for this entry is not original. Rather, it was the headline to a well-done article about the SARS pandemic in the most recent issue of The Economist. As I read the story on Friday evening, I found the headline to be extremely witty and resolved then that I would find a way to use it -- somehow -- on The Rant. Surely, I reasoned, there was some way that I could fit it in.

The irony was this. As I was reading, I was enjoying a particularly rich and satisfying meal at a local restaurant. The name of the restaurant isn't important -- it was one of those mediocre chain restaurants which seems to drown all of its food in horrible whiskey-baced sauces, and whose business model bets a diner will be too focused on the startlingly-large intoxicant he has also ordered to notice. But little did I know that as I chuckled over The Economist's headline, the chicken-and-pasta dish I was eating was infecting me with the Grippe in a particularly nasty way.

Oh, readers, I say to you that Sancho Panza did not suffer such horrors when he took Don Quixote's curative elixir. Talk about a weekend killer. Not four hours after I had finished my meal, I found myself genuflecting before the porcelain altar within my apartment, groaning in agony as that chicken-and-pasta dish came back up with a force rarely seen in nature. And after expelling the toxins from my system, I crawled back to bed, praying that I would not find my Saturday -- my precious Saturday, the greatest of all days in my week -- shot to hell.

Well, the good news is that it wasn't, although it was a close shave.

The odd thing about food poisoning is that one's system generally picks up steam from the moment it hits; it is a rapid yet annoyingly steady recovery. As I write on Sunday morning, I feel surprisingly refreshed. But yesterday, however, I was still feeling quite drained. In the morning, I made sure to drink plenty of water, and sipped some Diet Coke to calm the raging beast within. Then I went back to bed, hoping I would feel better later in the day. That was when I was planning to travel to Massachusetts to see Chris and Mary Kate Weinkopf, my good friends from California, and their baby daughter.

I woke up at 3:30 in the afternoon, feeling tired but generally all right. After taking a strange cocktail of medication, I called Chris and informed him I would in fact be heading down to Massachusetts, albeit an hour later than I had planned. Drove through a blinding rainstorm down to Concord, Mass., where I met all three.

Now all babies are cute, but the Weinkopfs' daughter, Monica, is especially so. Of course, she cried whenever I held her, but I fully expected this to happen. After all, you can imagine what she was thinking -- Mommy! Who is this strange guy with the beard?! He's not holding me right! I don't like this one bit! That and I'm hungry, and tired, and want a nap!. So it was natural that she would express herself in the only way she knew how. Besides, Mary Kate informed me that babies generally don't begin talking until they are two, which is when they learn the vital skill of screaming in the grocery when Mommy does not buy them the sugar-coated breakfast cereal they demand.

But Monica did perk up mightily when she was in -- I want to call it her bassinet, but I don't know its proper name -- cooing and gurgling as happily as one might expect. This allowed Monica and her Uncle Ben to have Important, Bonding Conversation:

ME: Aw, you're so sweet.
MONICA: (smiling)
ME: And did you hear your Dad? You're going back to California tomorrow, away from all this horrible New England weather!
MONICA: (cooing happily)
ME: And you won't have to stay in over-regulated Massachusetts any more.
CHRIS: Hey! California's pretty over-regulated!
ME: Yeah, but she doesn't know that yet.

Monica soon fell asleep on our drive to the restaurant, which it took us approximately one hour and twenty minutes to reach, despite being a mere four miles away. It also was the fifth restaurant on our list. Due to my infirm nature, Chris and Mary Kate wisely decided not to take me out for Chinese. But we could not find the other restaurant where we had hoped to go on our ensuing drive, and decided to pass on the two restaurants we later came across.

Apparently, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has decided that it can no longer afford road signs properly marking certain streets. Instead -- and I blame this entirely on its recent austerity drive -- it has forced certain municipalities to mark only ONE street at key intersections. Combine this with roads designed when the major form of transport was the horse and a few badly-placed traffic rotaries, and much hilarity results. There's nothing like driving through a blinding rain when one's only navigational tools are one's internal compass and a set of MapQuest instructions -- instructions that themselves require that one know minor things like the name of the street on which one is driving.

But despite this predicament, Chis, Mary Kate and I had a wonderful Italian dinner at Papa Razzi. It's on Route 2 in Concord; provided you can find it. Perhaps it was because the meal was the only solid food I had eaten in about 36 hours, but it truly was phenomenal. I had a nice simple lettuce salad with an olive-oil and lemon dressing and a nice, simple meal of ziti with tomato sauce. Perfect. I only had about half of each, but it was exactly the type of food I could eat after feeling so particularly awful just 18 hours before. Afterwards, I drove back to Manchester, feeling drained but well; and woke up this morning feeling much better.

So I'm glad to see that I was able to salvage my weekend. My lesson, if I learned one, was simple -- if one orders chicken out, one should make sure it is fully cooked.

2003-04-27T08:39:00.000-04:00

Daily Telegraph Scores Again
This time, with documents which reveal that the Iraqi regime worked with Osama bin Laden.

2003-04-24T01:42:00.000-04:00

Well, At Least I'm Doing My Part
Everyone's been talking about this "Earth Day Footprint Quiz" lately, so I thought I would give it a go. Now, the idea behind this quiz is that it takes a hard look at one's personal consumption patterns, calculates how much effect one has on the environment as a whole, and informs one how many Earth-like planets humanity would need if everyone lived as the quiz-taker did.

Well, I must report that if everyone lived like Benjamin Kepple, mankind would need a full ten Earth-like planets to sustain itself. It seems that not only do I live a life that's twice as consumption-oriented as the average Yankee, I live one that's a full ten times more so than the average.

Clearly, this result means that we must step up our globalisation efforts immediately. After all, one of the reasons why I am able to live this wonderfully luxuriant life of mine is because of the economic benefits which globalisation has brought. Further, as an American and a capitalist, I see no reason why I shouldn't take advantage of American economic might to procure a shockingly excessive amount of personal goods and services.

And just imagine what the result would have been if I owned my own home!

2003-04-24T00:46:00.000-04:00

California is Broke
You know, if I didn't know people unfortunate enough to still live in California, I would really, really, really take a perverse glee in this news.

My friend Chris Weinkopf, who writes for the Daily News of Los Angeles, noted in a recent column that Sacto has thought up a full 117 different tax measures in its attempts to solve the state's budget crisis. The proposed or new tax measures affect gasoline, automobiles, light bulbs, general sales taxes, Internet commerce, credit unions, telephone lines, and myriad other goods and services.

Even all those levies might not be enough. Things are so bad, in fact, that the state is considering issuing IOUs to pay vendors who do business with it. At that rate, Los Angeles will have bread lines and striking coal miners within a year.

2003-04-24T00:19:00.000-04:00

Britain is Lost
Oliver Willis has informed us that a particularly, um, naughty play was performed on-stage in London recently. The dispatch comes courtesy of The Sun, a news outlet we can regularly count on to provide us with tales of such public decadence, and reports in part:

FURY erupted yesterday over a perverted play featuring shock hardcore sex scenes. During the show — called XXX — an actress dragged a man from the audience and performed a lurid act on him. Spectators watched stunned as close-ups were projected on to a huge screen. They were even urged to phone-text filthy messages which were also shown. Naked gay and group sex scenes and portrayals of torture and mutilation were among some of the most explicit ever performed on a British stage.

Perhaps the most shocking part of the story is the next sentence: "Most were too graphic for The Sun to show here." Now that's telling. But then one would expect that from a play which The Sun informs us is based on an 18th-century novel by the mad Marquis de Sade.

Now, Mr Willis lets this story pass almost without comment, except to say that "the Brits are getting in on the mainstreaming of sex." This is not entirely accurate. Britain, like the rest of degraded Europe, is far more accepting of such filth than the United States*. Indeed, despite the supposed fury that has erupted in the United Kingdom, I can't imagine that anyone over there is all that shocked. I would be quite surprised were, say, Peter Hitchens or some Daily Telegraph scribe were to opine on it; and would be even more surprised if any civil action was taken to suppress this so-called art.

I would add one note of protest, as well: Oliver, you can't think this is a good thing? Can you? I mean, Gad.

And no, I am not giving you a link to the story. You can go to Mr Willis' site and access it there, if you really must.

------

* Kindly do not e-mail me with protests that Britain is not part of Europe. It's not that I don't see your point and even agree with you nine times out of ten; it's simply that in this particular area, Britain -- for all intents and purposes -- has fallen as low as France or Germany in terms of what is acceptable in popular culture. Besides, it's only a matter of time before you're all stuck using Euroroubles anyway.

2003-04-23T19:05:00.000-04:00

My, Aren't We Defensive?
Gad! I go on a particularly pleasant vacation and while I'm gone, I missed out on a denunciation of my person. I really need to check my referral logs more often.

As my readers might well expect, I have learned that The Raving Atheist was behind this slap directed my way. Of course, I have come to expect and even enjoy such condemnations from this individual -- let's not forget the infamous Kepple's-head-on-a-pig image -- as I take it as proof that the ages-old tradition of theism remains strong. After all, if it's the best he can come up with ...

Interestingly enough, though, I warranted a mention on The Raving Atheist's site during his condemnation of Prof Eugene Volokh, the noted legal scholar and blogger extraordinaire.

It seems that Prof Volokh took issue with certain atheists' attitudes towards the religious. According to our atheist, Prof Volokh believes that the " 'mockery of religious faith is inexcusable' -- not to mention ineffective." This displeases our atheist much, for our atheist enjoys mocking the religious. As readers of his site may know, that mockery is often expressed in language that would impress a 16th-century English sailor for its pure saltiness. Indeed, he refers to the esteemed Prof Volokh as, and I quote, a "stupid and evil evangelical agnostic fucktard."

This is not exactly how one wins friends and influences people. But perhaps our atheist was merely bitter that Prof Volokh thought so little of him that, as our atheist says, Prof Volokh neglected to provide a link to -- or even a mention of -- our atheist's newly-redesigned Web page in his pronouncement.

Gee. It seems our atheist is a bit -- what's the word? -- ah, yes: defensive. That, and thin-skinned. Oh, and wrong-headed, too.

Of course you don't win any arguments if your conduct is nasty and spiteful. You especially don't win them if you are discussing religious matters. As I mentioned here, being nasty and spiteful is perhaps the worst thing that a religious believer can do if he is attempting to reach out to others about his faith. It's true that such tactics may make you look witty and sophisticated to your fellow believers in a certain cause, and may find favour from the friends in your set. But I like to think that's not why people discuss such matters in the first place.

That's why I'm amazed our atheist believes his nastily-written commentaries help convert people to his position. Now, I do not know him personally, so I can't say for certain whether that is the case. It could be that he merely wants to appear witty and sophisticated to his fellow atheists, and receive praise and hosannas from them. Or, we could take our atheist's writing on the matter at face value:

Volokh himself begins with the usual cutesy and ironic references to “evangelical” atheists with “religious fervor” -- he had a friend who, presumably like me, was the “atheistic equivalent of the religious proselytizers that give religious proselytizing a bad name.” Now, I do advocate the truth of my position and there are plenty of Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim blogs that do exactly the same thing. And to the extent Professor Volokh espouses agnosticism, he also does the same thing. But why is it that what I do, as opposed to what the other religious blogs do, “proselytizing”-- and the “bad” kind of proselytizing at that? Because it attempts to actually convert people, and does so by calling their beliefs stupid and false instead of taking the more “tolerant” position that all belief systems are equally true, and that everybody should stay precisely where they are?

I'll admit that I'm surprised to see such a forceful statement against such moral relativism coming from our atheist.

Of course, not all belief systems are equally true. That said, why would a committed atheist care whether they were? I mean, really. Why should he care, on a spiritual or intellectual level, what his fellow men believe in? Why shouldn't he be happy simply to live his own life according to his own moral principles, and be happy to let other people live their own lives with their own belief systems? After all, to our atheist, the soul dies when the body dies, so converting others to atheism shouldn't matter one jot. Thus making his proselytizing pointless and futile.

And I'm not talking about whether religion should be part of the public sphere. That's an entirely separate debate. What I want to know is why The Raving Atheist believes that converting others to his position is important, when his own position dictates that arguing the matter is pointless. I will await his explanation for how his contradiction is allowable.

To save space -- plus, I've got to get dinner -- I've taken out quite a bit of our atheist's post which covers his argument with Prof Volokh, but I did want to address his last paragraph, which I find particularly stunning for its logical stretches.

Which brings me to his last point, the one about which he’s “pretty sure” he’s right: that “[r]egardless of the merit (or lack of merit) of the argument, publicly calling non-atheists stupid will win atheists about the same number of converts (and the same level of alienation even among their sympathizers) as publicly calling people who don't believe in religion X stupid wins for members of religion.”

Never mind pretty sure, Volokh's dead on right. This is not even a matter of religion, it's a matter of public relations. If an atheist constantly attacks religious believers for being stupid, then many people -- being people -- will bring up a lot of rather uncomfortable questions. Such as, "Why does the atheist have to be so hostile about the whole thing? Aren't his opinions strong enough to stand on their own merits? Is he just unwilling or merely incapable of referring to people in terms other than, and I quote, 'stupid and evil evangelical agnostic fucktards?' "

First, as a preliminary matter, the Professor lacks standing to discuss conversion strategies if he’s against proselytizing in the first place.

That's only if one considers proselytizing the only conversion strategy out there. And it ain't. There are differences to advocating one's position and beating someone over the head with it.

Second, suggesting that’s it’s bad strategy to publicly call non-atheists stupid is itself a bad strategy, if the strategy is revealed in a public blog.

It's not bad strategy at all. For one thing, it shows that because certain parties couldn't figure this out on their own, they had to be instructed from on high. This makes them appear foolish. For another, it serves as a salve, so to speak. It makes Prof Volokh appear as a reasonable champion of his position, and thus makes his position more palatable to others. Not that I agree with him, but he at least shows respect for those who do not agree with him.

Third, I call people stupid because they are stupid and because calling them smart would only make them think they were right. Finally, by calling them stupid I have not alienated any of the Godidiots on my list, particularly not Benjamin Kepple, Minute Particulars, The Secularist Critique or Veritas, and I suspect that all of them has secretly converted to atheism because deep down they know I am right, oh so fucking right.

I cannot speak for the others on this list, but I can say that The Raving Atheist has not alienated me. I expect these type of shenanigans from him, and actually find it pretty amusing. But he is wrong in his supposition that I have converted to atheism or otherwise jettisoned my faith. It's not merely that I'm right and he's wrong -- it's that I would lose all the great benefits that come with it. Like happiness, for instance.

2003-04-22T00:58:00.000-04:00

Lord Haw-Haw of Glasgow Kelvin Exposed
The Daily Telegraph in London has published an incredible report about the activities of Labour Party MP George Galloway, who has led the charge in Britain against his nation's anti-Iraq policies for the past decade.

According to captured Iraqi documents, Galloway received over 375,000 pounds per year from Saddam Hussein's regime for his work. The documents also said that he met with Iraqi spies; received payments via a complex commercial structure which used the oil-for-food program and other aid schemes as a cover; and wanted even more money as time went on. Nor did Saddam's money go to waste, either. The Telegraph helpfully notes that Galloway -- who will henceforth be known here on The Rant as Lord Haw-Haw of Glasgow Kelvin -- called on UK soldiers not to fight against Saddam's regime even as the war was being fought. That was not the first time he'd lent support to Saddam's regime, either.

Given all this, I would hope that Her Majesty's Government will soon put Lord Haw-Haw through a particularly nasty public trial charging him with treason. If he is then found guilty, I would also hope they'd find some way to reinstitute capital punishment, and send him off to the hangman.

2003-04-21T22:35:00.000-04:00

Now THAT'S what I call God-fearing True American Coffee.

(Photo Credit: www.ptanderson.com).
(Shot on location at Jack's Coffee Shop -- Sparks, Nev.)

2003-04-21T00:35:00.000-04:00

The Horror of Natural Foods
Andrew Castel-Dodge reports that he was subjected to visiting not one, but two so-called natural-food stores in a day's time recently. We here at The Rant wish to express our sincere condolences to Mr Castel-Dodge for his unfortunate and harrowing experience, as we try to avoid so-called natural foods as much as possible.

Really, it's amazing that such an odd fad has gone on for so long. I mean, it's one thing to stick to a vegetarian diet, or insist on free-range chicken. It's another thing entirely to start eating soya, or wheat germ, or insist that your kids eat organic breakfast cereals. The first item has a particularly horrid nutty taste and a bitter after-effect, the second has been proven to make men grow ponytails and goatees, and the third is about twice as expensive as a good bowl of Special K. Besides, aside from the fact that natural foods can cause haughtiness and arrogance among their most-fanatic devotees -- as Andrew's wife, Sasha, reports -- the occasional case of botulism crops up. Or so they say in the movies.

2003-04-20T23:46:00.000-04:00

Coffee Conundrum
So The Washington Post reports today that the beatnik-types over in Seattle are upset because Starbucks has bought their favourite trendy coffee chain. Actually, in its dispatch, we learn that "upset" does not go far enough: certain parties in that gloomy city are practically wailing and gnashing their teeth over the news. The local NPR affiliate convened an hour-long panel discussion; young, trendy urbanites are encouraging others not to consume "corporate swill," and coffee experts warn that with Starbucks, you don't know when the coffee beans are roasted. They say that's important.

I find this incredibly amusing, so much so that it has brought me out of my funk from yesterday. This is because when it comes to coffee, I am not merely old-fashioned, I'm practically retrograde. For one thing, unless I am in truly dire straits when I am out and about, I refuse to pay more than a buck for the stuff. For another, the coffee I usually consume comes from pre-sealed, vacuum-sealed containers. Then it gets parboiled and spat out of a coffee machine that saw its best days in 1973. Throw in a styrofoam cup and I'm all set. There's something great about knowing that the cup I drank from today will be there tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that ...

That's not to say, of course, that I don't enjoy good coffee. Jamaican blue is worth the $100 per kilo you'll pay for it, and I especially like a good cup of Kona. However, I'm not going to ruin my palate by drinking the good stuff all bloody day long like these hippie-trippie types. The way I see it, if I deprive myself and generally subsist drinking bad coffee, I can really enjoy good coffee when it comes along. Conversely, were I always to drink good coffee like these spoilt brats, I would someday find myself unable to cope with any bad cups of coffee I was served.

Well, mister, let me tell you: I'm not going to fall into that trap. I'm sticking with God-fearing True American Coffee: the stuff you get at diners, the stuff you get at Denny's, the stuff you get when you're flat broke busted and stuck on the outskirts of Reno. For despite its banal mediocrity and often-bitter aftertaste, such coffee is in reality a spiritual boost. It reminds a man to be humble; it reminds him that he's got a long way to go; it reminds him that he can someday do better, provided he gives the other fella hell. And in this day and age, we as people need as many reminders of that as we can get.

So the next time you're in some place like Needles, Calif., or Gallup, N.M., or Enid, Okla., remember well: those bitter draughts you take from your cuppajoe at seven on a Tuesday morning ain't meant to serve as punishment. Just think of them as inspiration, in a mug.

2003-04-20T00:10:00.000-04:00

Gad! What Happened?
Well, there's no time like the present to deal with the pile of Administrative Tasks and Updates on my desk, so I suppose we'll get to them.

The first thing I should do is apologize for my dearth of posting lately. Yes, I know that I still have two full travelogue entries to write, a plethora of societal outrages to comment upon, and a host of people that I have to fully recognize or write back from my trip. I've just been beat, that's all. I came back from my vacation to find myself working three overtime shifts at the office and dealing with a virtual maelstrom of e-mail, bills, and chores around the house. It's been awfully tiring, and at the end of the day I haven't had the energy to blog. That's not to say that I couldn't blog, of course, but it's just that I don't like it when I write something that isn't up to the Standards of Quality and Purity which You, My Readers, Expect. Further, the way I see it, if it gets on my nerves all that much, it must really grate on yours. So when I don't feel up to it, I take a break.

See. Now I'm rambling. Gad.

Although, as I write now, I am finding to my horror that it is officially the Close of My Weekend. Good heavens, where the deuce did this weekend go? Where did this week go, for that matter? It flew by like a Stealth bomber. And it's not like I can get this week back, either. I suppose it's a irritating feeling because I don't feel like I've accomplished anything at all. Sure, I did a lot of work, and that's always a good thing; but boy! I wish I had worked more on The Great American Novel, or discovered some new restaurant here in town, or even filed my bills. I did none of these things. Instead, I was feckless and indolent. Even worse, the last thing I want to do right now is sleep, despite the fact I have to be at work ... ah ... nine hours and thirteen minutes from now.

No, wait, nine hours and twelve minutes. Shit.

Perhaps part of my lethargy is related to the neoisolationist feelings I've been having lately. Perhaps neoisolationist isn't the right word, but I certainly do feel a bit withdrawn. For instance, I am finding, much to my surprise, that I really don't give a damn about the bleating of Hollywood actors who claim they've been subjected to the dark forces of the New McCarthyism. Nor, at present, am I giving a damn about U.S.-European relations, the Stanley Cup playoffs, or how much my sinus medication costs. All of these things can usually get me in an excitable state, if not downright hysterical one. Instead, I feel blahed.

What to do about the situation? Right now, at any rate, the answer is simple: get some sleep, and lots of it. Perhaps in the morning I shall feel better and find myself out of this particularly dismal funk. Or, then again, maybe not. But hey, it's worth a shot.

2003-04-15T00:27:00.000-04:00

I Hate Hospitals
So I went to my tiny mailbox tonight to empty a week's worth of mail, and I found two rather interesting notices therein. The first was from my insurance provider, informing me that I was only responsible for a tiny portion of the obscenely large hospital bill I had racked up back in January. You know, when I had the appendix put down. The second was from the hospital itself.

Of course, the two didn't match up. They never match up. But this is actually fine with me.

You see, this means I can delay paying the tiny portion that I rightfully owe the hospital for months on end. Even better, I can also probably take advantage of the confusion to escape some of those legitimate obligations. The way I see it, there's no way that I can be held spiritually or temporily liable for either paperwork delays or someone else's human error. And, if I'm going to be stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare for months on end, then I have a duty and obligation to myself to come out a winner via any means necessary.

But this isn't my real complaint, for it's clear even to me that the errata on these forms was created due to a one-week time-lapse between hospital and insurance provider. My complaint has to do with the bill from the hospital itself, which is reasonable in some areas but not in others.

Now, the total bill itself was for $10,109.36. Room and Care was $1,252.00, which seems reasonable even to me. I did get to stay for three days and two nights in the hospital's care. Besides, the nursing care alone probably makes up a considerable chunk of this line item; and a reasonable room charge also makes sense. The $3,307.90 Surgical Services charge also seems a reasonable dent for saving my life on very short notice.

I just want to know how I racked up $1,807.30 in pharmaceutical charges.

Oh, I'm sorry, this must have been a misprint. Surely the hospital meant $807.30, which seems a reasonable charge for the Clicker-Thingy full of Demerol and various other medications. No, wait. They do want $1,807.30. Now that seems a bit high. What did the extra grand go for? I mean, come on. I know I used a lot of that Demerol, but I can't think that I really abused it all that much. Nor could the Percoset --- mmmmm, Percoset --- cost all that much. So where's the extra grand going? Jesus.

But the $3,356.01 for "Supplies" clearly isn't a misprint, and that really bothers me. What, did they have to burn the hospital bed and everything else with which I came in contact after I left? Are the hospital gown companies colluding to drive up the costs of their wares? Do these hospitals buy new supplies for each patient? Good God. It's not like all those hypodermic needles were gold-plated, after all.

And, as if to add insult to injury, they didn't even include a business reply envelope. Do they really think I'm going to have 37 cents left to pay for a stamp after I'm done dealing with them?

2003-04-13T22:17:00.000-04:00

Devil's Highway to Get Name Change
Boy! The war and my vacation have really left me out of the loop. But since my vacation was a road trip of semi-epic proportions, I think I'm uniquely qualified to hold forth on whether U.S. Highway 666 -- yes, US 666 -- should be renamed. Some folks -- alarmed that the road's connotation with Beelzebub has caused economic loss, life-altering accidents, and general suffering -- are pushing for the move.

Now, this subject has garnered much attention from The Raving Atheist. Our atheist is appalled that the Governors of New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, have petitioned for US 666 to be changed to the proposed US 393. He writes:

You should care that the Governors of three states are going to institutionalize the stupidity of people like you who think it’s possible that The Beast stalks U.S. 666 by changing the highway’s name. You should be embarrassed that the Federal Highway Administration finds it necessary to post a lengthy explanation on its website that the numbering was coincidental rather than part of some Satanic conspiracy.

Actually, it's really an interesting summary, or at least I think so. But I will admit I don't see his point. I mean, if the number is changed, then the Federal Highway Administration will save valuable tax dollars, because it won't have to continually update or revise that Web page, to say nothing about paying the bandwidth costs of hosting it. Besides, if the change brings more economic activity to the area, then that's a good thing for all concerned. So there are reasonable, non-religious, public-policy considerations for making the move.

The only reason for keeping the US 666 designation is that US 666 is a hell of a road. For one thing, it starts out in Gallup, N.M., which is practically God-forsaken; and ends in Monticello, Utah, which is about as barren. And just read this 1991 description from The Washington Post, quoted in the FHA summary:

No structural evidence of Coronado's passing remains, but the verdant countryside, abloom in summer wildflowers, is largely untouched, and it must look now as it did when he struggled through. The route was a struggle for me, too. An almost empty highway to nowhere, U.S. 666 climbs to above 9,000 feet along the Coronado Trail in a cliff-hanging series of twists and turns so sharp the speed limit often drops to only 10 miles per hour. The reward for this little test of nerves is a picture-postcard panorama of pine-draped ridges leap-frogging across the horizon.

Now that's a drive. I am so there.

But anyway. When you get right down to it, a sort-of cachet isn't enough reason to keep that number. Consider that US 66 -- of which US 666 was kind of an off-shoot -- doesn't really exist any more, so the US 666 designation is archaic. Furthermore, US 393 is a perfectly innocuous number, with no connotations of which I can think. So I'm again mystified why the atheist cares so much. I mean, it's not as if the number was changed to 777 -- a traditionally Christian number, and a lucky one for some folks -- or 515, Dante's designation (the "DXV") for the future champion of Christendom. The highway number will not contain an 8, a traditional lucky number for the Chinese (signaling prosperity), nor will it contain 4, which is quite unlucky (signaling death). So what's all the fuss about?

In the meantime, I've got to put this on my itinerary for Kepple's 2006 Road Trip.

2003-04-13T11:28:00.000-04:00

Baghdad Bob Comes Into His Own
You know, I can't help but think that the Iraqi Information Minister was a right bastard before the invasion. That said, there's a really cool site featuring a selection of the best quotes from Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. Yes, unfortunate pronouncements such as "Our initial assessment is that they will all die" and "We will kill them all........most of them" have been saved for posterity. You can get them emblazoned on T-shirts and mugs, too!

Also: al-Sahaf throughout history.

2003-04-13T11:22:00.000-04:00

Oh No! It's a Dispatch From ...
KEPPLE'S SPRING 2003 ROAD TRIP
(Or, "The Shock and Awe Tour")

DAYS SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE: YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN, BUT ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich., April 10-12 -- I left Ann Arbor for the last time about five years ago. When I returned on Thursday I couldn't figure out why I had left.

Oh sure, there were little matters like "gainful employment" and "needing a roof over my head." But despite my subsequent moves to Los Angeles and Manchester, I suppose I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Ann Arbor. On the face of things, that might seem an odd thing for me to say. The weather was awful for six months out of the year, and it was expensive to live there, and the majority of inhabitants seemed to live in some kind of strange parallel universe where Marxism remained a viable economic and political force. But when you get past all that, you're left with a place that is remarkably and strangely alive with human activity. You can get seemingly any book you want from a shelf, not a computer; you can see an old movie at midnight; you can get great food and have smart conversation at four in the morning.

It was quite nice, all things considered; and for a short while I wondered why I had ever left. It was silly to do so, of course. Opportunities present themselves elsewhere, and for all the things to its credit, Ann Arbor is still not one of those places where the Hard Work of the Nation is Done. But there were plenty of things that set me smack on a nostalgia rush for days gone by.

Key among those was the 20th Anniversary celebration of The Michigan Review, my old college newspaper. Back in the day, I somehow stumbled into the editorship of this fine institution, and five years later, it remains a strong force on campus. Actually, to be fair, it's a stronger force than it was when I had run it. Its frequency has picked up, and they've got a strong core of committed folks running the thing. Proof of that commitment was seen in how well the anniversary celebration turned out.

For one thing, about 30 alumni showed up for the event -- ranging from two co-founders to last year's editor. While not an alum, Thomas Bray, a columnist for the Detroit News, attended and spoke. Alum John Miller, of National Review, did as well. To make things even better, dinner was held at The Original Cottage Inn (512 E. William St., Ann Arbor) .

Now, anyone who has ever spent time in Ann Arbor can tell you that this particular Cottage Inn restaurant -- there are delivery outlets too, which are good but not comparable -- has the best pizza in the city, if not all of Southeastern Michigan. It's that good. As students, we'd probably go about once a month to this fine institution as kind of a splurge. Great pizza, great beer, great friends -- I mean, it really was a hell of a night out. As such, you can imagine the anniversary celebration was as well.

What was really amazing, though, was the fact the students now in charge of the paper put it all together on their own. This wasn't anything that I could have done back when I was editor, and the other folks I knew from back in the day agreed. Indeed, I can't recall if the 10th anniversary was even noted, and the 15th was celebrated only with a front-page tribute-cartoon and Inspiring Words from the Then-Editor (namely, me).

But credit has to go out to the Review's editor -- James (Justin) Wilson, and the whole staff for putting on a great show. I don't think I've ever felt as confident that the paper will remain a strong and vibrant force on campus for years to come, and I look forward to seeing it progress over the years. It feels good to have been a part of such a great institution. Perhaps that's what fueled a lot of my old nostalgia; that, and being welcomed not just as an elder statesman, but as a friend.

Speaking of friends, I had dinner on Thursday night with my good friend Geoff Brown, who is now well on his way out of Michigan Law and into the real world. We ate at Good Time Charley's (1140 South University, Ann Arbor), a good place for a really cheap burger and cheap drinks. He's doing well for himself, even though he doesn't update his Web page as often as he should (Geoff! I'm not working in L.A. anymore!).

As for the rest of the trip to Ann Arbor ... well, let's just say it was a fun time out with Justin, Jacob, Jim, and Schwartz. I will say, this, though. Manchester needs a coffee shop and deli that lets you sit on the roof. On Thursday afternoon, I sat out on the second-floor roof patio of the Rendevous Cafe on South University and had some iced chai, and watched the traffic and the people below. Even though it had been five years since I had really last been in Ann Arbor, I felt like I had been away for about a week.

Sure, I was probably looking at things through rose-coloured glasses; but perhaps there's something to be said for that in this day and age.

----

Do note: Yes, you'll learn about the rest of the trip. I just wanted to get this posted.

2003-04-09T10:54:00.000-04:00

Oh No! It's a Dispatch From ...
KEPPLE'S SPRING 2003 ROAD TRIP
(Or, "The Shock 'n' Awe Tour")

DAY ONE: ROAD FROM PERDITION

HAMILTON, N.J., April 4 -- I am the logistics king.

Yes, that's right. Today's (Friday's) trip has certified me completely as the frickin' special master of logistics. For was it not I who -- being more clever than most -- rose at a hideously early hour to beat the ice storm heading to New Hampshire? Was it not I who charted out his course with machine-like precision? And, finally, was it not I who traversed five states, to arrive here in New Jersey a good 45 minutes early?

Yes, it was. Not that it was easy, mind you. Dear God.

Now you should know that despite my decision to wake up early on Friday, that New Hampshire was a bear of which to get out. A fast-moving winter storm was moving in, rush-hour traffic was quite busy, and my goal was to get out as soon as I could. The further south I could travel, I reasoned, the wintry mix moving into the area would eventually turn into rain, and hence I would have few driving problems.

Yeah, right. For, you see, I had failed utterly to take into account the behavior of "commuters on the 495-South," (homo sapiens massholiae) which as you may know is a road that sort-of circles around Boston.

I mean, is it really that hard to let the guy from New Hampshire merge into your lane when there are minor troubles ahead? Troubles like a three-car accident that have drawn rescue crews from all over? Apparently it is for these people. Ignorant of the finer points of driving courteously -- which everyone from New Hampshire does -- these people seem compelled to drive along, willy-nilly, at speeds approaching Mach 3. Then, when their lane inevitably comes to a dead halt, they refuse to give people stuck in other lanes a hand.

What's even worse is when these commuters pretend you're not even there. Like that lady in the red VW. Yes, you. I mean, you didn't even look at me when you cut me off. You could've at least given me some acknowledgement; or said you were sorry but you were late for your big morning meeting with the clients from Secaucus, but noooooo. You just blithely zoomed on by, uncaring and unknowing about the world around you. It must be nice for you just to not give a flying two cents about anyone else. Isn't it?!

But that's not to say everything was particularly bad driving down from New Hampshire. For one thing, another nice commuter driving a truck did let me merge into the lane in which I needed to be shortly after the VW passed on. The rest of the drive was a breeze too, except for one part around the New York area. For a prelude on what happened, let's examine some reaction to this story, from friends you'll meet later:

------
SIMON FROM JERSEY: HAHAHAHAHAHA!
GREG T. "Eeesh. That sounds like fun."
-----

'Kay, so I'm driving the impressive speed of about 30 mph on the Cross-Bronx Expressway, when all of a sudden traffic comes to a dead halt. No reason for it -- it just did. Everyone's driving quite antsy, like they're riding on eggshells, and suddenly what had been a slow crawl turns into the dreaded start-stop-start-stop-start bit. A little ways up, I see why.

There's glass all over the g----d'd road. I mean, Gad. Tiny little shards just looking for tires to puncture. You see, instead of sweeping it off the road, the clean-up crews pushed it all into the approximate side boundaries of each driving lane -- and not very well at that. So everyone's moving forward, all thinking the same thing -- Don't let me get four flat tires in the middle of the g----d'd Bronx, don't let me get four flat tires in the middle of the g-----d'd Bronx -- and in general, getting through with their prayers answered. Still, it wasn't clear what happened at that point.

Well it turns out that a truck from something like Bob's Convenient Great American Discount Plate Glass Emporium has dumped its load all over the bloody highway. That makes me feel even better. Because I drive a relatively older car, I'm still always a bit antsy when I hear odd noises, even if they're just the result of the tires hitting the road. I swear, I was a wreck all the way out to Paterson. The last thing I needed was to get a flat tire which would grind up the axles and cost me two grand to fix and ruin my trip.

But I made it. After getting past the George Washington Bridge, Jersey was a breeze. Of course it started with me going into horrible, miserable, industrial North Jersey, with its endless sea of refineries and chemical plants. Newark and Paterson and E Rutherford flew on by and finally I got towards the greater Trenton area. It's a comfortable part of the country -- green, pleasant, relatively moneyed -- but in a way, it also seems sanitized. It's almost as if you can feel the unswavering embrace of corporate life -- that idyllic place where everyone is paid well, and no one has any problems which are out in the open, and the big questions of life are of secondary importance compared to how Bobby and Teddy's team did in the high school lacrosse tournament. But that is a story for another day; perhaps when I have kids I'll be able to offer a better criticism. In the meantime, though, I had made it to Trenton; and went on to have a lovely Friday night.

More soon.

2003-04-01T23:46:00.000-05:00

Oh No! It's Time For ...
KEPPLE'S SPRING 2003 ROAD TRIP
(Or, "The Shock 'n' Awe Tour")

MANCHESTER, NH -- So I'm over at Moxie's site tonight and I notice that she's updated her blogroll. I scroll down the list of names, looking to see where my humble site has found itself, and I see that I've found myself under the "Wilshire Blvd." Now, as a former Angeleno, I can assure you that this is not a bad listing to find oneself under. I was never all that partial to Wilshire when I was in the city -- I lived on Venice Blvd., after all -- but hey, it's just a link list, and I suppose Mox could have thrown me under a heading like "La Tijera" or "Century." Oh, God. Century.

But then I noticed that there was a section labeled "the 405," which really brought back some memories. For I always liked the 405, that congested beast of a freeway which moved millions each day along its choked arteries. I mean, that was a road, a real challenging stretch that kept you on a knife-edge every second you drove it, that kept you pushing forward at 75 miles per hour come hell or high water. It was a drive.

Starting in about 36 hours, I've got a lot of driving to do, and I am looking forward to every bit of it. There's something about driving that's invigorating. It lets you see the heart of America -- the small towns where the real work of the nation is done, the open spaces that inspired our forefathers to head west, the roar and bustle of our great cities, where industry and commerce plow ahead to make life better. There are an untold number of stories that one can find on that open road: stories of happiness and despair, wealth and poverty, fulfillment and alienation.

Over the course of the next ten days or so, I'll be heading down to the under-rated but surprisingly pleasant central area of New Jersey; to Washington, that proud yet lovely city; to Pennsylvania, the land where my fathers made their claim; to Ohio, where my family now lives; and to Michigan, the great state in which I spent my youth. It is a trip that deserves a month's time, but I will make the best of it where I can, and savor every moment that I can spend on it.

I'll do my best to keep a log of things as I go along, too. Promise. I swear it!

2003-04-01T20:22:00.000-05:00

Where is Raed?
I hate to say it, but I'm wondering if we shall ever know.

2003-04-01T20:19:00.000-05:00

Smart Thinking from North of the Border
Canadian MP Monte Solberg (CA-Medicine Hat, Alta.) has written a great commentary which serves as both a rhetorical slap to his anti-American colleagues in Ottawa and Canadian anti-Americans in general.

2003-04-01T20:13:00.000-05:00

Depraved French Vandals Descecrate War Cemetery
Oh, and as if this wasn't bad enough, a recent Le Monde poll shows that 25 percent of the French people are openly rooting for Iraq to defeat the United States in the war. 30 percent have no opinion, leaving about 31 percent who say they want the United States to win the war. 31 percent. Gee, that's just lovely.

On a darker and even more serious note, the BBC article linked above reports that anti-Semitic attacks in France have risen sharply since the Sept. 11 terror-attacks on New York and Washington.

2003-04-01T19:49:00.000-05:00

Why We Fight, and Why We Must Remember
Sasha Castel has a phenomenal post up on her site about September 11 and the war in Iraq. It's truly a first-rate piece of writing. As such, I would advise readers to stop reading my site for a moment to read her essay.

But do read it slowly. You'll want to soak in every word.

2003-04-01T19:40:00.000-05:00

POW Jessica Lynch Rescued From Within Iraq, FNC Reports
Dual Rangers-SEALs operation near town of An Nasiriyah rescues POW. Family jubilant.

2003-04-01T19:32:00.000-05:00

CENTCOM Briefing
The run-up to CENTCOM’s unusual briefing tonight reminded me of a scene in a book. That’s not meant to be any sort of criticism, don’t get me wrong, it just reminded me of this scene. You see, near the end of Orwell’s masterpiece 1984, Winston Smith is sitting in the Chestnut Tree Café when a trumpet-blast comes over the telescreen, warning of impending war news. Half an hour later, the announcement comes through, declaring good news.

Meanwhile, I’ve been waiting for a good hour for war news to come through. Unlike the scene above, though, we already know it’s extremely good news. (Unlike 1984, I should add, the good news we heard is delivered by a free news media to a free nation).

True, it’s not the absolute best news we could have hoped for—Saddam Hussein dead, body dragged through the streets by cheering Iraqi citizens—but it is still very, very good news. Fox News is now reporting that Coalition Forces have recovered a U.S. prisoner of war, which should be a big relief to the soldier’s family and friends. It should also serve as a welcome boost for the American people, and a reminder that we are winning this war, that we will win it, and that’s that.

The news tonight is rather interesting. Evil Saddam Hussein promised to be on live TV today, but instead we had the Iraqi information minister. I haven’t decided whether he is loathsome or despicable yet.

There are plenty of new explosions in the center of Baghdad this evening, and the major ground offensive against Republican Guard forces in Karbala has started. I do hope that those Iraqi divisions will give up. We have softened them up considerably, and their defeat is certain.

Well, here’s Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, commenting on the rescued prisoner of war:

“The soldier has been returned to a coalition-controlled area. More details will be released as soon as possible.”

And that’s that. Still, very good news all around.

2003-04-01T19:11:00.000-05:00

A U.S. prisoner of war has been rescued in Iraq, Fox News reports.

2003-04-01T01:03:00.000-05:00

BLOGGER ATE MY FREAKING TEMPLATE
I am NOT happy. NOT HAPPY AT ALL.

2003-04-01T00:55:00.000-05:00

Blogwolves Chat Continues Yet Again
The nightly Blogwolves chat continued yet again last evening, and as semi-official chronicler of the event, I have been directed to reveal the hidden affiliations which members of this fine and upstanding group have. We in the Blogwolves group feel that, as a friendly club of like-minded individuals, we should disclose these affiliations to provide the American People with the resources to make their own decisions about our well-documented activities. While this is only a partial list of attendees, we provide this summary of last night's talk as a public service.

First, we were graced with the presence of Andrew Castel-Dodge. We were gratified that Andrew took his precious time to join us, as he spends much of his time fighting to save the Cities of Man from the indomitable will of Cthulhu, the horrific god-like daemon-ruler of the ocean depths who lies dreaming in his house at R'lyeh.

We were also joined by Laurence Simon, who has cunningly disguised his Amish roots by providing unhelpful or downright deceptive technical support to "the English," as he calls them. However, we are assured that "the English" does not actually refer to subjects of the United Kingdom.

Ravenwolf was also part of the discussion, having taken out time from her work as a junior member of the Illuminati.

AlexPGP took some time off from (No Such Agency), a super-secret entity that is so secret we can't even reveal its very name here at The Rant. But we are assured that everything is fine with the agency's facilities in Nevada and New Mexico, despite the disciplining of one XF-36 pilot for inadvertently turning off the force shield on his suborbital fighter. Now that caused trouble for weeks!

John Cole, who may or may not be a member of the Masons, was also present. As such, we're not all that sure whether Mr Cole has access to one of those little cars in which the Masons are sometimes seen driving.

Billy of Two-by-Four also joined us. Billy was last seen representing the Blogwolves at Davos in Switzerland.

Quana Jones, who serves as liasion to the Very Tall Grays of Epsilon Edriani IV, was also present. Ms Jones informed us that work on creating a working Tesla coil continues deep in the Nevada desert. However, we have made significant progress in reverse-engineering the Very Tall Grays' "DVD-2" technology.

Tex from Whacking Day -- or as we call him, No. 16 -- also was present. He informs us that the Australian component to our plan is working perfectly. You'll be informed about this on a need-to-know basis.

Noel at Sharp Knife gave us all an update on his work with the Federal Reserve, which we really ought not discuss here. But we appreciate learning about the interest rate moves in the next few months, we really do.

Finally, we were joined by me, Benjamin Kepple. By the by, I would hereby like to dispel any and all rumours that I am actually an agent of The Trilateral Commission. I would further shoot down any and all rumours that claim that I'm supposedly working in secret to insure my own immortality. Like my fellow Blogwolves, I'm just a humble blogger, just like you.

2003-03-31T23:48:00.000-05:00

Not Really A Joke, Sadly

2003-03-30T00:20:00.000-05:00

Blogwolves Chat Continues
The uncertainties of war may have caused the Coalition Forces to temporarily halt their advance towards Baghdad, but it hasn't stopped the Blogwolves nightly war chat from continuing. We here at The Rant have always had a great deal of respect for this fine group of warbloggers, who do so much to keep the American People informed about happenings in the Gulf during these trying times.

Has the general lull in war-related news affected the group? Not in terms of the quality of discourse. Tonight, participants ~~argued about~~ discussed Oliver Willis' thoughts about Fox News on The Command Post; the merits of acclaimed musician James Taylor; why various professional classes are full of arrogant, careless shysters; and frustration with the Reuters news agency. However, there were also discussions about reports of Iraqi tortures; and other war-related topics.

Particpants in last night's forum included Andrew Castel-Dodge, Sasha Castel-Dodge, John Cole, Mean Mr Mustard, Ravenwolf, the pretty-goodly-private Alex, this guy who argues with signs, that lawyer guy, and that other guy from New Hampshire who writes little of note but keeps begging people for links.

Whoops -- dinner's just about out of the oven. In the meantime, go visit some of these folks' sites, if you haven't already done so already!

2003-03-29T23:07:00.000-05:00

Sky News: Iraqi Missiles Fall Back on Baghdad
It would appear that the Iraqi Government launched the missile strikes which have killed 65 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, Sky News reports, although there is no evidence yet that the Iraqis did this on purpose. However, the incompetence of Iraq's commanders has not gone unnoticed. Saddam Hussein has reportedly sacked the fellow in charge of the city's air defenses. But it's still not known whether "sacked" is a euphemism for "being taken outside and cruelly tortured before being put out of one's miserable existence."

UPDATE: See The Command Post for more.

2003-03-29T22:59:00.000-05:00

Shock 'n' Awe
Allied air power is taking apart the Republican Guard, according to this news account. We'll see just how fanatically loyal they remain after a sustained air assault.

2003-03-29T22:57:00.000-05:00

FOX News Chides, Derides Nearby Protestors
It would appear that a sharp-eyed Bergen (NJ) Record newsman noticed that Fox News poked fun at about 200 protestors during a demonstration near its New York headquarters. Witness the event:

The news ticker rimming Fox's headquarters on Sixth Avenue wasn't carrying war updates as the protest began. Instead, it poked fun at the demonstrators, chiding them.

"War protester auditions here today ... thanks for coming!" read one message. "Who won your right to show up here today?" another questioned. "Protesters or soldiers?" Said a third: "How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them."

Still another read: "Attention protesters: the Michael Moore Fan Club meets Thursday at a phone booth at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street" - a reference to the film maker who denounced the war while accepting an Oscar on Sunday night for his documentary "Bowling for Columbine."

Needless to say, this has all the journalism professors in an uproar. Although I find it quite funny, actually. You can't deny that a bit of wit went into that overt display of one's editorial position.

2003-03-29T13:47:00.000-05:00

Attention Iraqi Elite: You're Next
The Washington Post reports that CIA and military commando units are inside Iraq as we speak, hunting down and destroying key targets and top leaders.

2003-03-29T13:28:00.000-05:00

When Protestors Screw Up the Drive
From The Washington Post, an interesting story on the disruptive and illegal tactics which some anti-war protestors are using to get their message out.

Motorists who are blocked by the demonstrators are often angered by the delays. A couple of drivers yesterday seemed to want to accelerate right into the protesters, [protestor Andrew] Willis said.

Lon Anderson, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, said: "We have such a fragile transportation system that it essentially takes very little to destroy the commutes of tens of thousands of people. It puts our area motorists as hostages."

The protesters said they were aware of the problems and were even sorry. They were accompanied by fellow antiwar activists who handed out cards to commuters apologizing for the delays and explaining their opposition to the war.

All right, look. If these people are so sorry for the delays they're causing, why don't they stand on the damned sidewalk?

Now, no matter what one thinks about protesting during wartime, everyone can agree that lawful and peaceful assembly is a cherished American political tradition. These types of protests, in which demonstrators form human chains and block intersections, are not lawful and peaceful assembly. They are dangerous and damaging stunts which should be dealt with accordingly. Not with a small fine, and not with a simple court summons, but with jail time. I would also like to say that if such protestors have disrupted emergency services because of this playacting, they should be held liable for any suffering or loss of life that was caused due to it.

Not that the protestors involved in such tomfoolery care all that much:

But Willis said that blocking traffic generates media attention, which helps spread the antiwar message. And disrupting life in Washington, he said, seems a small inconvenience compared with the destruction wrought by U.S. military action.

I have spent a few minutes thinking of a polite way to say how I feel about such an arrogant comment. As of now, that statement is: "You rebel scum."

2003-03-29T12:49:00.000-05:00

What to Do About Al-Jazeera?
Andrew Castel-Dodge has some interesting thoughts on the Arab satellite television network, the cultural differences that exist between the Western and Arab world, and how it affects the station's news coverage.

2003-03-29T12:38:00.000-05:00

Blogging Business
Say. Potential Democratic Presidential candidate Gary Hart has a blog. Apparently, Mr Hart thinks so much of certain bloggers that he has added them onto a link list of his very own. These include many of the standard left-of-centre bloggers we all know about, notably Oliver Willis.

Now, I'm happy for Mr Willis in this regard, and I don't want to be considered a troublemaker. But didn't Mr Hart's people notice that Oliver supports Sen John Edwards (D-NC) for President? To the point where he has a link button promoting this fact, a link button which leads to an entire section of his site devoted to promoting Sen Edwards?

2003-03-28T11:09:00.000-05:00

Boy! Steyn is Good
Check out his latest column in The Spectator. It's really top-notch.

But I do have one quibble about the piece. You see, Mr Steyn writes:

If things were the other way round, if Iraq invaded Vermont and some diehard Yankees holed up on the outskirts of White River Junction and started firing on Saddam’s forces as they attempted to advance up the valley, the Republican Guard would think nothing of levelling the entire downtown area and everyone in it.

Now hold on just one minute. Since when did White River Junction have outskirts?

2003-03-28T10:40:00.000-05:00

And Now, A Deliciously Cruel Interlude
(Note: contains rather offensive language and healthy dose of schadenfreude)

Heh, heh, heh. The NY Press has come out with its annual "50 Most Loathesome New Yorkers". Oh, it's a wonderfully nasty article, it really is. Each sentence drips with viciousness and spite and general disgust; each person listed upon it is painted in the cruelest of lights. It's not a perfect article, of course -- Gigot unfairly gets No. 47, Kissinger unfairly gets No. 11, and Safire unfairly gets No. 10, and all for partisan reasons -- but in general the article is about 75-80 percent spot-on in its gleeful maliciousness.

In part, here are some notable entries:

No. 50. Naomi Campbell: It’s easy to hate models; we'd all like to make a living getting fucked in speedboats and staying hooked on other people's heroin. But a model who's an ungrateful asshole to boot actually deserves the inevitable cruel fate of her lot.

No. 44: Naz and Jay-Z: These endlessly feuding rappers should be merged to form one, giant, illiterate organism called Notorious S.U.C.K. Either that, or they should stop pretending and jump into bed together already.

No. 31: Sam Waksal: Just another bloodless monster whose greed helped to sabotage the national economy in return for the miserable, fleeting privilege of a spot on the A list.

No. 29. Jack Grubman: Winner of the "Most likely to cause angry mobs to run through Wall St. with pitchforks" award.

Go read the whole thing!

(link via Sasha and Andrew).

2003-03-28T09:29:00.000-05:00

Well, You Can Kiss Your Reconstruction Role in Iraq Goodbye
The duplicitous and vile French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, refused to say which side he wanted to win in the American-Iraqi conflict, The Telegraph of London reports in today's editions.

M de Villepin added insult to injury when he praised Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle for their work in liberating France from the Nazis, but in doing so left out the minor contributions that one President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made in that effort.

It seems to me that, until President Chirac takes some action to repair this and other errors, the United States should punish the Fifth Republic until it learns how to behave. We should end all military cooperation, engage in punitive trade sanctions, tighten visitation requirements for all Frenchmen who are not already permanent residents, and generally make things difficult and irritating for them. I mean, zut freaking alors. Either they're being incredibly stupid or they're downright perfidious, and as such they should be dealt with. Such actions are not those of a true ally and an old friend.

That's not to say that all French people don't see what's up, and are rightfully ashamed of their Government's actions. Consider this second Telegraph article:

In Paris Match this week, the editor, Alain Genestar, writes: "War is ugly. This one, like others, should be condemned. But to this ugliness is added this unhealthy rejoicing at the difficulties faced by those who decided to launch war.

"Here and there, never, of course, officially in the chancelleries, but in the streets and demonstrations, people take pleasure in mocking the American troops for their suffering, their mistakes and reverses as if these obstacles in the path of war prove they are right to be against Bush."

It's incredible how the rot has spread, isn't it? But while M Genestar's comments should give us hope, as the saying goes, that there are still good men in Sodom; it does not appear as if the Fifth Republic is going to repent any time soon.

2003-03-28T08:59:00.000-05:00

Report: American Public Cares Little for Protest Coverage
A consultancy's research reveals that only 14 percent of Americans think broadcast news programmes pay too little attention to anti-war protests, the Washington Post has reported.

The Post cites a report from Frank N. Magid Associates, a television news consultancy. This report also says that war protests "were the topic that tested lowest among 6,400 viewers across the nation," and that only 13 percent of viewers surveyed thought that TV news should pay more attention to dissent during wartime. In short, as the Post put it, "the (firm) put it in even starker terms: Covering war protests may be harmful to a station's bottom line."

As one might imagine, the very idea that few care about anti-war protests has anti-war protestors rather upset. The Post, again:

"The antiwar movement in this country is far bigger than it was during the first few years of the Vietnam War, but you wouldn't know it from the coverage," said Adam Eidinger, a Washington activist. "I think the media has been completely biased. You don't hear dissenting voices; you see people marching in the streets, but you rarely hear what they have to say in the media."

Of course, it might very well help if the protestors in question had a coherent message which they were able to deliver effectively. I don't know about the rest of you, but the message I've gotten from the people marching in places like San Francisco is that they not only want an end to war, they want an end to capitalism, eating meat, wearing fur, racism, sexism, classism, armaments production, and the fact their local coffee house still doesn't serve organically grown java, the bastards.

Perhaps it would also help if the protestors on scene focused on their message and not on silly stunts, such as screwing up the rush-hour commute. It would also help if the protestors gave their full names. As I wrote here, it is problematic for news reporters to call you "Venus" instead of calling you by both your Christian name and your surname.

However, the news director for WTOP-AM/FM, a Washington radio station, had this to say about the coverage:

"It's important for us to cover the dissent and we have. Our listeners have told us we cover too much dissent, but it's always a question of balance. . . . The consultants who tell stations to ignore the antiwar side of the story don't seem to have the same conscience as the news people. That kind of advice goes against the grain of a journalist. I would not follow advice like that," (said Jim Farley).

This to me seems a reasonable point. Anti-war coverage shouldn't be ignored, and no news outlet in the country does ignore it. That said, there are very real considerations any news outlet must give in terms of the play such coverage receives. Everyone involved with a story wants that story to get the best play it can get, naturally; but quite often that just doesn't jive with the cold hard reality of the news business. The vast majority of Americans are more concerned about what's happening in the war and what it means for them, rather than stories about anti-war protests. Until anti-war protestors figure out how the media works, instead of simply griping about corporate dominance or other silliness, they'll continue to find themselves buried inside someplace.

2003-03-27T23:57:00.000-05:00

The Tikrit Option
Andrew has an interesting argument -- that the Iraqi city of Tikrit is serving as a Hiroshima of sorts. By that, we mean that it is being left as an "example" city in case Saddam's regime uses weapons of mass destruction.

2003-03-27T23:48:00.000-05:00

Canadian Senator: "Screw the Americans."

The Ottawa Citizen, one of Canada's finest newspapers -- perhaps only second to the National Post -- has this interesting report:

A Liberal senator has been thrown into the firestorm of shaky U.S.-Canada relations after the Senate's Debates quoted him shouting "Screw the Americans" during a Senate sitting this week.

The quote was attributed to outspoken Senator Laurier LaPierre, who has expressed anti-American sentiments in the past, in the official transcript of Tuesday's Senate sitting. Opposition MPs and senators were quick to jump on the quote as another example of the Liberal government's strong anti-Americanism.

What ever happened to, "The Americans are our best friends, whether we like it or not?"

2003-03-27T23:20:00.000-05:00

United Way Calls Off Sarandon Event
The United Way of Tampa Bay has called off a charity event featuring actress Susan Sarandon because it received three dozen complains about Sarandon's anti-war stance. Sarandon's "people" have described the move as follows:

"People have a right to believe and say what they want," (Sarandon's person) continued. "For us to see this type of censorship and political pressure to control the agenda and personal opinions of what people think is just disheartening."

I am not a big fan of "disinviting" someone to a speech, primarily because I think it's rude. Of course, we also know that, sometimes, a speaker's recent conduct makes it impossible for them to carry out a previously-scheduled engagement. Here, though, I think one could assign blame to both sides.

As I see it, the United Way probably should have known that Ms Sarandon was quite outspoken on a number of things. Since it wanted to avoid controversy, it should have never invited her in the first place. It's not like a simple Google search couldn't have drummed up a number of -- well, pointed -- things that Ms Sarandon has seen fit to declare. She has been so prolific in this regard that I am surprised her handlers do not simply doctor up each pronouncement, label it "Communique No. ---", and send it off to Variety.

That said, it is also silly to say that disinviting someone to a speech is somehow "censorship." It's a private event, and its organizers have the right to run their event the way they see fit. For reasonable Americans, this is not a difficult concept to grasp. Sadly, there are many folks who believe that they have the right to say whatever they want and expect folks to just go along with it, as if it doesn't matter. Such a state, by its very nature, causes their words themselves to not matter.

2003-03-27T22:36:00.000-05:00

New Bombs Target Presidential Compound
We'll blow it up, and then we'll blow it up again. I like this idea.

2003-03-27T22:32:00.000-05:00

Well, We Didn't Get Him
Fox News is reporting that U.S. officials believe Saddam Hussein is in control of his military. It's a perfectly reasonable assessment. The Iraqis aren't giving up, and a key reason for that is because Saddam is still pulling the strings. Once we're able to liquidate him, we'll end the war.

The report does have some good news, however. Qusay Hussein, Saddam's evil younger son, may very well be "out of commission." The thinking behind that idea is that Qusay, who controls Iraq's western military district, hasn't been seen all that much lately. Officials also point out that no missiles have been fired from the western district, an important point because missiles from there could strike Israel or other neighboring nations.

So it's not an all-bad report. In short, what we can learn from this is that we've likely killed one major bastard, and we have two major bastards to go.

2003-03-26T23:48:00.000-05:00

You Know, This Could Just Be Important
Before everyone goes attacking the source in this report, let us consider that our military will be the ones to make the final determination. Besides, if true, the facts presented in this report would certainly explain why the Iraqi regime had all those chemical suits and atrophine shots ready near Karbala.