In case you missed it, The Daily Show was in rare form last night. As part of their election coverage, they are spending the week at Ohio State for their so-called “Midwest Midterm Midtacular.” Go here and click on “Monday, 10/30 Pt. 1″ to view the opening segment, where Jon Stewart and company gave my former home state the smack upside the head that it so very richly deserves.
Archive for October, 2006
Sunday October 29, 2006
Posted in Other on 29 October 2006 by JohnnyI just had to comment on something. Surely all of you have seen this advertisement, which Chevrolet has spent a mind-boggling $400 million on airing ad nauseam.
I cannot beat the retort sent in by a reader of Bill Simmons’ ESPN column: “What is your problem with the ‘This is Our Country’ Chevy truck ads? Whoever thought that Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War, Watergate, western wildfires, Hurricane Katrina, and 9/11 should be bunched together to sell a truck is a marketing genius! When Chevy opens a new ad campaign for the Malibu, they should use the same song with a montage of the AIDS crisis, the Rodney King beating, Kurt Cobain’s suicide, the O.J. trial, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine massacre, and the Abu Ghraib prison photos. You’re telling me you wouldn’t want to buy a Malibu after seeing that?”
*applauds* As they say in the business, “Well-played.” Honestly, how did this get through a focus group? Perhaps I wouldn’t loathe it so if I hadn’t seen it in excess of 83,000 times, since it was featured in EVERY commercial break of EVERY postseason baseball game. I hate advertising in general that doesn’t actually talk about the product in the slightest … but what is the message? “Chevy remembers when black people couldn’t vote … and when they drowned in New Orleans. Buy our truck!”? This advertisement just convinces me that Chevrolet is responsible for this country’s demise. And in some small way, perhaps, it is, because General Motors is the quintessential example of why America is doomed: a company that has just coasted since the 1950s, failing to reward innovation, then wonders why no one wants to buy their cars — and expects taxpayers to bail them out. Great work, GM. You deserve to die a slow, painful death — especially when you spend $400 million on a sickeningly crass, vile advertising campaign instead of actually, y’know, BUILDING BETTER CARS. I know that I’m certainly never buying a car made by an American company. My Honda Accord has 75,000 miles on it and still runs the same as it did six years ago. If it was a Taurus or a Sunfire, it’d likely be falling apart by now.
And Mr. Mellencamp … you have sold your soul. Unless you were broke, man, you have no excuse for this.
Sunday October 29, 2006
Posted in Other on 29 October 2006 by JohnnyI’ve just seen my first Christmas commercial of the season (on WNYW Channel 5 for Lowe’s, touting their wide variety of “holiday decorations”). Advertisers used to have the decency to wait until at least Election Day, but no longer. Of course, ten years ago, all this used to begin after Thanksgiving. At this rate, by 2025, Christmas shopping will begin as soon as the local baseball team is eliminated from playoff contention.
Sunday October 29, 2006
Posted in Thought on 29 October 2006 by JohnnyTo avoid depressing all of you (and myself), I offer you positive news of the world around us from the blog of Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip:
As regular readers of my blog know, I lost my voice about 18 months ago. Permanently. It’s something exotic called Spasmodic Dysphonia. Essentially a part of the brain that controls speech just shuts down in some people, usually after you strain your voice during a bout with allergies (in my case) or some other sort of normal laryngitis. It happens to people in my age bracket.
I asked my doctor – a specialist for this condition – how many people have ever gotten better. Answer: zero. While there’s no cure, painful Botox injections through the front of the neck and into the vocal cords can stop the spasms for a few months. That weakens the muscles that otherwise spasm, but your voice becomes breathy and weak.
The weirdest part of this phenomenon is that speech is processed in different parts of the brain depending on the context. So people with this problem can often sing but they can’t talk. In my case I could do my normal professional speaking to large crowds but I could barely whisper and grunt off stage. And most people with this condition report they have the most trouble talking on the telephone or when there is background noise. I can speak normally alone, but not around others. That makes it sound like a social anxiety problem, but it’s really just a different context, because I could easily sing to those same people.
I stopped getting the Botox shots because although they allowed me to talk for a few weeks, my voice was too weak for public speaking. So at least until the fall speaking season ended, I chose to maximize my onstage voice at the expense of being able to speak in person.
My family and friends have been great. They read my lips as best they can. They lean in to hear the whispers. They guess. They put up with my six tries to say one word. And my personality is completely altered. My normal wittiness becomes slow and deliberate. And often, when it takes effort to speak a word intelligibly, the wrong word comes out because too much of my focus is on the effort of talking instead of the thinking of what to say. So a lot of the things that came out of my mouth frankly made no sense.
To state the obvious, much of life’s pleasure is diminished when you can’t speak. It has been tough.
But have I mentioned I’m an optimist?
Just because no one has ever gotten better from Spasmodic Dysphonia before doesn’t mean I can’t be the first. So every day for months and months I tried new tricks to regain my voice. I visualized speaking correctly and repeatedly told myself I could (affirmations). I used self hypnosis. I used voice therapy exercises. I spoke in higher pitches, or changing pitches. I observed when my voice worked best and when it was worst and looked for patterns. I tried speaking in foreign accents. I tried “singing” some words that were especially hard.
My theory was that the part of my brain responsible for normal speech was still intact, but for some reason had become disconnected from the neural pathways to my vocal cords. (That’s consistent with any expert’s best guess of what’s happening with Spasmodic Dysphonia. It’s somewhat mysterious.) And so I reasoned that there was some way to remap that connection. All I needed to do was find the type of speaking or context most similar – but still different enough – from normal speech that still worked. Once I could speak in that slightly different context, I would continue to close the gap between the different-context speech and normal speech until my neural pathways remapped. Well, that was my theory. But I’m no brain surgeon.
The day before yesterday, while helping on a homework assignment, I noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I hadn’t considered. A poem isn’t singing and it isn’t regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.
I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe it’s just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.
My brain remapped.
My speech returned.
Not 100%, but close, like a car starting up on a cold winter night. And so I talked that night. A lot. And all the next day. A few times I felt my voice slipping away, so I repeated the nursery rhyme and tuned it back in. By the following night my voice was almost completely normal.
When I say my brain remapped, that’s the best description I have. During the worst of my voice problems, I would know in advance that I couldn’t get a word out. It was if I could feel the lack of connection between my brain and my vocal cords. But suddenly, yesterday, I felt the connection again. It wasn’t just being able to speak, it was KNOWING how. The knowing returned.
I still don’t know if this is permanent. But I do know that for one day I got to speak normally. And this is one of the happiest days of my life.
There is still wonder and amazement in the world around us. Mercifully. Keep your eyes peeled for it.
Sunday October 29, 2006
Posted in News on 29 October 2006 by JohnnyLibertarian candidate in Texas target of police harassment
Philip Smart is a CPA who, along with running as a Libertarian candidate twice in the last two years has been asking questions of local officials and carrying out his own investigation of local corruption. He probably should have made sure in advance that he had a support network but he is something of a loner although he has been working and supporting issues for a number of years now. He most probably did not realize how vulnerable he might be when he became a target himself.
Today he has been in jail in Ellis County, Texas for three weeks. He is being denied access to essential medications and yesterday the system nearly killed him. His mother received an emergency call for the list of prescriptions he has not had for three weeks because the same system refused them to him. Now is condition seems to be stabilizing.
His incarceration is illegal now and has been on every occasion in the past. His home has been ransacked, he has been accused of being a terrorist before because of his collection of antique guns. It is possible that those in power in Ellis County will attempt to use the cancellation of Habeas Corpus to justify holding him without due process now and previously making this case a test for whether or not Americans still have the protection of the 4th Amendment.
Here are a few facts.
Phil Smart is a Certified Public Accountant who runs his own business in a small town in Texas in the Dallas area. He runs his business out of his home, which is out in the country, allowing him the freedom he wants to indulge in his hobbies. In his hours away from the computer and pencil and paper Phil likes to restore old cars. He loves animals and has for years rescued abandoned dogs and cats, feeding them himself and finding loving homes for them.
Smart graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas with degrees in business and psychology, going on to get another degree that allowed him to practice his profession. Phil is a quiet kind of guy except when he attends debates and forums. He started getting interested in politics several years ago and then two years ago decided to run for County Commissioner as a Libertarian to better carry the message.
He was arrested three weeks before that election and not released until after the vote was in. This election season Phil is running for State Senate, again as a Libertarian. The timing for his arrest is similar this time, a strange and unaccountable coincidence.
His interest in politics caused Phil to ask questions for those in charge of the local government. His background in accounting enabled him to see things that are inconvenient for the powers that be. The pattern of harassment is an attempt by those in power in Ellis County, Texas, to protect themselves from exposure. Speaking up upsets the local establishment. Along with asking questions at forums Phil posts signs and bumper stickers declaring his love for freedom and belief in Libertarianism. This tendency to ask questions of persons in positions of authority is, according to his girlfriend, Donna Watson, the reason Philip Smart has been arrested six times in the last two years. Donna is a financial counselor at an Oncology facility in a town nearby and fully supports Phil’s efforts.
On the first occasion Philip was upset that his bank would not give him cash for a CD he was cashing in to pay for an antique car. All the rest of the times the cause of his trips to the local jail have been traffic issues. On one of these occasions a female officer stopped him on his motorcycle, demanding his license. She then searched his motorcycle over his objections, also neglecting to note this on her report. But the motorcycle bears her fingerprints.
They are resorting to this level of harassment because Philip does nothing illegal personally.
On this last occasion Philip was stopped for bringing his car to a stop six inches over the line at the stop sign. The arresting officer, a Sargent Rogers, then insisted on searching Smart’s car, finding the daytimer that holds his medications. Since he had failed to carry these in the bottles that had the prescriptions included he was arrested. The next day Donna offered to bring down the prescriptions. She was told not to bother. Ms. Watson was told by Lisa Moon, the officer staffing the desk, that it is illegal to carry prescription drugs unless they are in bottles that have the prescribing physician, the pharmacy, and the name of the patient. Since nearly all of us do this as a matter of routine this is also a wake up call for how vulnerable we may well be as individuals.
Philip Smart has been incarcerated in the Ellis County Correctional Facility located at Wayne McCollum Detention Center, 300 South Jackson, Waxahachie, Texas 75165. He has no blanket and so at nights he is cold. While you would think that given his good character and the nature of the charges he would be placed with other nonviolent offenders. But instead he is incarcerated with hardened criminals. On the first of these occasions he was placed in solitary confinement, lights on 24 hours a day for two weeks.
Phil Smart lives on a cul de sac street. Last year his beloved dog, Puppy, a Shelty-mix, turned up dead on his lawn, the victim of a hit and run. The neighbors were shocked and believe that Puppy’s death was caused by Smart’s political activism, the activism that so upsets the powers that be in Ellis County. Philip is well liked by his neighbors and has lived in the same place for 20 years.
Now Philip Smart is suffering from the lack of the prescription drugs he needs to survive. His family is bewildered because they are ordinary people who believe that government intends to do the right thing. They are now understanding that those in government use that structure and power to advance their own agenda.
Far from being a threat to society, Phil attends a tiny local church when he does not attend his girl friend’s church. Professionally, he refuses to charge more that $100.00 an hour for his professional services and often works for free for people who need help and cannot afford to pay.
Certainly Phil did not expect that running for office as a Libertarian would prove to be so hazardous to his health. But Donna received a call from a consulting psychiatrist who was allowed to view Philip Smart remotely from his office in Gainesville, Florida. The doctor is worried. Philip Smart’s physical condition is deteriorating rapidly and he is shaky and disoriented from cold and the lack of his prescriptions.
Evidently Texas has different rules than other places in America – or, as some have come to fear, is Texas and Homeland Security about to declare Mr. Philip Smart, a quiet CPA, a threat to National Security? If that is the case, and with Habeas Corpus extinguished, Philip Smart may be up for an extended vacation in one of the Homeland Prison Facilities in Texas that are even less attractive that the Ellis County Jail.
In America today there are evidently no rules we recognize.
That’s right. Political prisoners. In the United States of America. Bush’s gutting of the Bill of Rights will make this a lot more common. Enjoy the dictatorship.
Sunday October 29, 2006
Posted in Other on 29 October 2006 by JohnnyFriday October 27, 2006
Posted in Sports on 27 October 2006 by JohnnyYou all had an 83-win Cardinals team with a shaky rotation, rookie closer, and one-man lineup that nearly performed a monumental choke job winning it all, right?
I mean, c’mon, obvious prediction. I was completely joking when I said they’d lose in the first round in four games …
Friday October 27, 2006
Posted in Sports on 27 October 2006 by Johnny… is on the board for this Sunday in the NFL: NY Jets (+1.5) at Cleveland.
Can someone explain how a 1-6 team (only win: at home against 1-6 Oakland) is favored against a 4-3 squad with a dynamic offense that’s a legit playoff contender?
The Jets seem like a no-brainer pick, which usually means the oddsmakers know something that we don’t … but I’ve watched these teams. This is a no-brainer pick.
Of course, this post explains how Cleveland won 20-13.
Wednesday October 25, 2006
Posted in News on 25 October 2006 by Johnny“Omaha’s elected leaders and police department are urging residents who see violations [of the city's anti-smoking ordinance] to call the 9-1-1 emergency system for an immediate response.” (link)
Wednesday October 25, 2006
Posted in News on 25 October 2006 by JohnnyUPDATE (3:50 pm): SCNJ rules that “the Court cannot discern a public need that would justify the legal disabilities that now afflict same-sex domestic partnerships.” The state legislature has 180 days to either modify the definition of marriage to include gays or to construct a civil unions statute that confers equal rights. (link)
[1] The Supreme Court of New Jersey will be issuing its opinion at 3pm today on gay marriage. New Jersey, unlike Massachusetts, happens to have no law requiring those who obtain a marriage license here to be residents of the state … so if the court legalizes it, gay couples from all over the country are expected to show up, get married, and start legal challenges all over the country. Conservatives are in the midst of hand-wringing, but business owners are expecting an influx of tourism from gay couples. New Jersey never did come up with a state tourism motto, so might I suggest “New Jersey: Come for the Sodomy, Stay for the Turnpike!”? I kid, of course. We have plenty of other roads in this state.
[2] Meanwhile, New Jersey took a pass on $800,000 worth of sex education funding from the federal government. The reason why is pretty clear-cut: According to new rules from the Southern Baptist Convention Department of Health and Human Services, teachers can’t mention contraception at all and must say that sex within marriage is the “expected standard of human sexual activity” (expected by whom, exactly?) and the only way to avoid the “harmful psychological and physical effects” of sex. Interestingly, state health commissioner Fred Jacobs said the following: “Having the government of New Jersey dictate these things for families is not something we wish to do.” Would you consider applying this to, um, other things as well? That’d be great.
Midterm Election Update: Polling data shows that the House will fall into Democratic hands, with a predicted 228-230 seats (they currently hold 204; it takes 218 to claim a majority). The Senate is a jump ball; Democrats appear to have 49 seats fairly secure while the Republicans have 48. Whoever wins a majority of the three remaining toss-ups (Missouri, Tennessee, and Virginia) will have control.
Topic: “Separate but equal” is coming back to public schools nationwide — this time segregating by gender. It allegedly raises girls’ math test scores. Discuss.
