Cogito, Ergo Sumana for 2004

# 05 Jan 2004, 07:16PM: Happy New Year.

I spent the 2003-2004 liminal time watching a lot of TiVoed TV with Leonard (Reading Rainbow, Good Eats, and some surprisingly palatable Star Trek: Voyager; I have grudgingly accorded Voyager canon status) and transcribing interviews I did in October with Christopher Kimball and Alton Brown. Christopher Kimball says "actually" in every sentence.

This month, a few friends of friends are moving to town for school. One of them, Lisa, stayed with me for a few days in mid-December while arranging housing. She loves Trader Joe's. I think she's more excited about living near a Trader Joe's than she is about her SFSU fellowship.

The TiVo gave Leonard and me a wonderful New Year's gift: the Reading Rainbow where LeVar Burton takes you behind the scenes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Outtakes! Crossoverness!

It's that time of year; ants think my bathroom is a neat-o place to be. Ack!

# 05 Jan 2004, 07:20PM: Late last year, Comedy Central reran a Nov. 18th Daily Show with Bernard Goldberg, author of Arrogance and Bias. I didn't find his arguments very convincing. Jon Stewart asked him the $64,000 question, namely, seeing as Republicans control all three branches of the US government, how could liberals be controlling the discourse with an anti-Republican bias? Goldberg didn't answer the question to my satisfaction.

# 07 Jan 2004, 05:25PM: Truncated Dac (tyl): I hear "Ratchet and Clank" and think of Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake.

# 07 Jan 2004, 06:11PM: The Syndicate: Apparently my LiveJournal feed works again, and who knows why. Sabrina, Paul, Joe, John, &c. - care to lower the syndication cost?

# 08 Jan 2004, 11:08AM: Utter Mayhem!: Now I know why I grab the Chron's Wine section from the recycling bins to read on BART. Today's article on wine clubs drones on and on, but then kicks in:

Probably California's most unusual wine program is, not surprisingly, that of Santa Cruz-based Bonny Doon Vineyard. The winery's Distinctive Esoteric Wine Network (DEWN) is one club that customers either love or hate.
Like Ridge, many DEWN wines are made exclusively for the club. Unlike Ridge, Bonny Doon ships such eccentric blends as a fizzy Barbera, a Piedmontese grape called Freisa fermented with fresh strawberries, and a blend of 30 percent Viognier (a white grape) with 70 percent Syrah (a red grape).
"We do our best to mentally and emotionally prepare people for the utter mayhem coming their way when they join DEWN, but they don't always understand what they are getting mixed up in," says the winery's creative director, John Locke.
Adds Bonny Doon president Randall Grahm, "It's like, you signed up for weird wines, what do you expect?"

# 08 Jan 2004, 04:49PM: Out Of Context Theater: "steve schultz's blog showed me the light. i now go out to wrestling parasite goth punk raves dressed as a schoolgirl."

Filed under: Comedy

# 09 Jan 2004, 09:33AM: Just Reread Gatsby: So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the spam.

# 09 Jan 2004, 09:54AM: Exposure: Scott Rosenberg ponders cryptic spam subject lines. My favorite interpretation: "origami inflation -- Paper money is always at risk." He also links to Spam As Folk Art (recently updated!) and some well-done spam poetry.

# 09 Jan 2004, 10:20AM: I Knew Him When We Were Acquainted: Today's Qwantz reminded me of Humiliating Happenstances! by one K. Byerly. I may as well also link to his splendid Crime Over Time and How Do I Get Rid Of This Gun?. More like this.

# 12 Jan 2004, 12:34PM: Living High On the Sog (Tofog?): Mockmeat steak costs the same as mockmeat chicken or mockmeat hot dogs. I could eat soy prime rib every day.

# 12 Jan 2004, 06:45PM: "Did you find the fun you were seeking?": A plea to spend less.

# 14 Jan 2004, 01:47PM: Who Strikes the Public Sentiment, Say Who Will Be Our President?: Thanks to Leonard, I have heard campaign songs from many US Presidential campaigns. The silly lines that stick with me:

From Nixon's song: "He has friends everywhere / Over here, over there"
From James K. Polk's song: "Doubtful things are most uncertain"
From Carter's song: "I was listening to quite a man / Talking to me"

I particularly enjoy, among others, "Wilson! That's All!"

# 15 Jan 2004, 10:19AM: I Want a President Who Has Written Fanfic: Carol Moseley Braun offhandedly mentioned last night, on The Daily Show, that she believes that that the Bush administration is using fear to get us to not question their policies, and that "fear is the mind-killer". Rachel, Jeremy and I sat straight up. This was after she made the Vulcan greeting hand gesture in reference to the proposed Mars expedition.

Today Moseley Braun dropped out and threw her support to Dean. What are the odds that Dean has even read I, Robot, much less Dune?

# 16 Jan 2004, 10:58AM: Nibbling on Jerquee, baby carrots, and Christmas peanut brittle as I gird myself for customer service.

# 16 Jan 2004, 03:17PM: Thanatos: Workers are tearing down a red brick building a block away. Salon's employees are oohing and aahing by the window. Reminds me of the powerful, awesome last pages of 21 Dog Years by Mike Daisey.

# 16 Jan 2004, 07:53PM: Aha! The film was Whatever It Takes (1 and a half stars).

# 20 Jan 2004, 09:34AM: Whose Bed This Is, I Think I Know: "And then he will lie in it." More Atticus nuttiness. Atticus may be the nonromantic equivalent, to me, of Daisy Fay -- I am growing to love him so much that when I meet him it may be a letdown.

# 20 Jan 2004, 01:46PM: Partition Was A Lesson: "The insight of our age is that borders sanctify difference, but that borderlessness spurs partnership." A proposal for Kashmir, via Tapped. Another bit in a long, extensive conversation I've been having.

# 20 Jan 2004, 06:07PM: Some Salon people have the "State" "of" "the" "Union" on. I remember when I made it a point of pride to watch the SOTU. Now I just wait bitterly for an elected president to give it. Maybe next year.

# 20 Jan 2004, 07:07PM: The Spamegorical Imperative: New Spam as Folk Art is up. More Brendan-y, since I like his approach.

Hey you there medicate thy self ck
Wasn't this a Very Special Episode of ER?

Speaking of Brendan, I got some Ben Folds and Guster over the weekend. I also hung out with Alexei, Seth, Shweta, and Nathaniel, and got back in touch with Jade and with Mike Parsons. Getting back in touch with old friends makes me feel less mortal.

# 21 Jan 2004, 11:25AM: "And I think we are stuck with this.": Ellen Ullman discusses The Bug in a public Well conference. Hey, Sabrina, she says:

My model for the essay has always been Cythia Ozick. She is passionately smart. Or intellectually passionate. Or any way it's possible to express the sort of mental intensity that becomes emotional by nature of the sheer force it exerts.

# 21 Jan 2004, 01:20PM: I thought it was "champagne": A roundup of censorship and other suppression of texts through the ages told me: "1954: Cole Porter's lyric 'Some get a kick from cocaine' is changed to 'Some get perfume from Spain' for radio airplay."

I first heard of this song from a Lois Lowry book. Young Sam sings the song at the top of his lungs around the house, and his parents ask each other, "What will the neighbors think?"

# 23 Jan 2004, 09:48AM: Dreampitcher: Wednesday night, I dreamt about pledging to KQED. I dreamt that I would pledge at the $120 level and get the No Power No Problem portable crank-powered radio premium.

Yes, I slept through my alarm.

Also Wednesday night, I dreamt that my mind had posted on Slashdot, while I was asleep, asking for someone to call me and wake me up.

Last night, I dreamt I was a Dean supporter. I was trying to milk more money out of a household that had already donated to the campaign. As I left, I whispered, "Clark!" Perhaps I was undercover.

# 23 Jan 2004, 12:58PM: She's "Not A Thing Person"; I'm Sold!: I watched most of Howard and Judith Dean's interview with Diane "Straw Woman" Sawyer last night. As I had suspected, they said a bunch of interesting stuff that wasn't shown: here's the full transcript, or at least a less abridged one.

# 26 Jan 2004, 11:25AM: Over the weekend, I saw friends and had lovely conversations, food, and entertainment. But then I saw that someone had broken into my car, so that put a damper on the mood. Also, I missed part of Arrested Development. I call do-over.

# 26 Jan 2004, 02:56PM: Really selling the car now. If you know anyone in the market for a reliable sedan, please let them know. I'm willing to drive hundreds of miles to sell this thing.

# 26 Jan 2004, 04:42PM: High school hierarchies and the attendant etiquette dilemmas are the closest I have ever come to the world of Anna Karenina.

# 28 Jan 2004, 12:51PM: Life's Medium-Sized Victories: Gail bought a $3 gallon jug of AriZona green tea (with honey and ginseng!) at Walgreens last week for a Salon party. I just discovered the last fourth of it in the fridge and will probably finish it today.

Lots of pleasant phone calls today. Example: a subscriber who had wanted a cancellation and refund, mentioned cookies and spam, listened to my explanation of said phenomena, and decided not to cancel. Whoopee!

# 28 Jan 2004, 06:41PM: Are You An Asian Woman?: Stephen Colbert says The Daily Show could use one.

# 30 Jan 2004, 02:27PM: Reminiscences: I used to say "yup" as slang for "yes." This turned into "yupper," which turned into "yupper.com." The matching negative was "nupper.com." My sister hated this.

# 30 Jan 2004, 04:51PM: Salon Brilliant Career (Mine): On a midday errand jaunt, I bought some Fitzgerald and Trollope's The Way We Live Now at Stacey's. I asked some coworkers about Trollope and we talked about Victorian novels a bit, both the IT manager and the tech VP enthusiastically recommending Middlemarch. These are the conversations I suppose outsiders think we have all the time.

Yesterday I found out that everyone but me knew that jail differs markedly from prison. One is held in a city or county jail for under a year; a state prison houses longer-term inmates. I've gone my whole life thinking "jail" and "prison" were straight synonyms.

# 09 Feb 2004, 02:32PM: I just got back from a weeklong trip to India to see my folks. It is very nice to be home. I tried to use beverages to get me on the right sleep schedule during the flights back, but I feel woozy and someone has said that I look pale (!). Maybe this is because I have now watched one episode of The Kumars at No. 42 three times.

# 10 Feb 2004, 08:44PM: Clark Ends Bid: Leonard is coming home!

# 11 Feb 2004, 10:43AM: Alone: "Leonard Richardson, software developer with the Wesley Clark for President campaign, stands in an empty Clark campaign headquarters in Little Rock, Ark., early Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2004, as he talks about his plans. Richardson said he will be going home to San Francisco later this week after Clark announces his leaving the race for the Democratic presidential nomination."

# 14 Feb 2004, 04:01PM: Sex Taboos: Two bits of news in the Bay Area that connect through the sexual taboos and laws at the heart of each issue.

First, a thrice-convicted sex offender, Cary Verse, has gone through a bunch of therapy, is taking regular chemical injections to retain his status as castrated, wears monitoring equipment at all times, and has been deemed fit for a one-year conditional release from the hospital. He tried living in a motel in Marin but was forced to leave; somehow it was chosen for him to try to live in Oakland, and various city officials want to find some legal way to make him move. He is a public hazard and has been unfairly dumped there, they say.

So: when the hospital, overseen by a government agency, pronounces Verse "fit for release," Oakland officials do not believe that. And they say they have enough sex offenders, and that Verse's last crime was committed in Contra Costa County and thus he should be released there.

Well, the way to make sure a person is never released in your neighborhood is to make sure he gets sentenced to life in a jail or treatment facility, not to play hot-potato. Or you could space out schools and playgrounds so that there is no space in the city that is more than half a mile (or whatever the required distance is) from a school or playground, and thus no space where it is legal for him to live. Or you could somehow decree that your city does not recognize any fit-for-release certificate, no matter who authorizes it.

That last one seems the most fitting for this situation. These officials are basically saying that they don't trust that certification, and are not willing to make the risk tradeoffs that respecting Verse's liberty as a citizen would entail.

The other issue: Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, directed his employees to issue marriage licenses to same-sex and heterosexual couples alike, so even as I write, huge lines of couples wait in line at City Hall and opponents of the mayor's move make speeches and legal motions.

I am incredibly sentimental. I cry when I see that "imagine a world without smoking" ad with the bubbles. I cry at really good compliments. And I cry when I think about or see people getting married. So of course even thinking about these couples getting married after years of impossibility brings me to tears.

But Gavin Newsom overreached his legal bounds as mayor. I don't think it'll hold up in the courts. California voters passed the marriage definition referendum (screw full faith and credit! they shouted), and

Vikram Amar, a constitutional law professor at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, said the two groups have a good chance of eventually winning an injunction. Newsom, he said, is taking a novel legal approach by insisting that he is merely interpreting the state Constitution's right to equal protection in ordering the city to issue licenses to same-sex couples.
He said Newsom may lose that fight because the Constitution also stipulates that a state agency must follow a law that it disagrees with until a court has ruled on the issue. The same argument probably applies to local governments, Amar said.

Newsom assumed a power I don't think he has, and I am uncomfortable with that.

On both of these issues I'm reserving further judgment. There are pertinent facts I don't know. But I want for us to pass and follow fair laws, and sympathetic people in both these situations (more Mayor Brown than Mayor Newsom) may be looking for loopholes in the law instead.

# 17 Feb 2004, 12:06PM: This weekend I reread Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter. Today a loose window in the office is letting in mournful, wailing wind.

# 17 Feb 2004, 12:37PM: Thanks to Alexei, Zack, and Patrick for a nice weekend, including movies, a game of Girl Genius, and several tasty meals with friends.

While with Alexei on Saturday, I realized that I had broken my nine-year streak of wearing black on Valentine's Day. I've gone past anger to indifference, which perhaps I intended all along.

# 19 Feb 2004, 02:41PM: Brendan, a good houseguest and a friend, visited and now he is gone. I hope he is flying safely. On the other hand, Leonard is back! Gladness.

Today a colleague reassured me that I won't be outsourced to India basically because Salon couldn't stand the bad PR. Ha ha!

Saw Seth and Zack last night; the boys played Illuminati. It seems like a bunch of math that is only redeemed by silly card names. Maybe I am just tired.

# 19 Feb 2004, 04:21PM: Calling My Ex: Wil Wheaton runs his kids' first dungeon crawl and it's tender and sweet.

# 20 Feb 2004, 07:16PM: Getting down some insights about visiting a call center while I was in India. Getting over my "you are being self-indulgent" self-censorship.

# 23 Feb 2004, 11:01AM: Car got broken into again. The asking price is now $5000.

# 24 Feb 2004, 10:07PM: I just laughed so hard and long that my face hurt. I'm glad Leonard's back.

# 26 Feb 2004, 04:56PM: "Four hours of work, twenty years of bourgeois guilt GONE!": Have now put myself on lists to volunteer for KQED and San Francisco Clean City Coalition.

Quote is from my stand-up act, re: my one day working for Habitat For Humanity.

# 27 Feb 2004, 12:39PM: I saw a lonely bit of refuse labelled "BASURA," which looked ominous. After a moment, I recognized the word as "garbage," from the "Solo Basura/Garbage Only" labels on SF residential trash bins. It had seemed foreboding because, in Hindu mythology, an asura is a demon.

# 01 Mar 2004, 12:53PM: "Ambiguous": On a nice place to live and an alternative to AAA.

# 01 Mar 2004, 07:04PM: Andy Holloway said thoughtful things about number-based roleplaying games such as Illuminati. "Perhaps I can make analogy to the way that music is mathematical in nature.....The numbers are just the rhythm to which [the story is] set."

# 02 Mar 2004, 09:18AM: bum-BUM: "An infant believed to have died in a 1997 fire actually was kidnapped and raised by a woman who set the blaze to cover her path, authorities said. Now, the child's mother -- who recognized the girl at a party by a dimple -- is eagerly awaiting a reunion."

Also: "At the party, [the mother] told the girl she had gum in her hair and pulled out five strands for DNA testing."

Law And Order twists could be:

The kidnapper is actually the girl's biological mother!
The girl at the party is a long-lost twin of the girl who died in the fire!
Jerry Orbach offers to split the child in two!

# 02 Mar 2004, 09:37AM: Just Like "In Cold Blood": March is a decluttering fling for me, so I'll be making a trip near the end of the month to take boxes of reusable stuff to SCRAP-SF and possibly the East Bay Depot for Creative Use (although evidently the latter is on the wrong side of the Wobblies).

# 02 Mar 2004, 03:55PM: Welcome, Squirrelly!: I am absolutely mooning over Defective Yeti's baby.

# 04 Mar 2004, 09:42AM: Yay!: A gorgeous day here in SF! I am eating beet salad for breakfast and have very few support requests to answer. Life is fantastic.

# 07 Mar 2004, 10:21PM: My Share of Leonard's TiVo: Leonard graciously lets me watch TiVoed TV at his house. My Season Passes: Namaste America, India Waves, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I tape Arrested Development at my place.

# 09 Mar 2004, 05:00PM: Publishment: Tonight, Salon will publish my article on visiting a Bangalore call center.

Update: "A few subscribers have tentatively mentioned that I have a beautiful name, or that they loved 'Bend It Like Beckham,' but this was the first caller to call me out on the absurdity of my position. An American-born Indian doing call-center work in California?"

# 11 Mar 2004, 11:21AM: Aye, Caesar, And Not Yet Gone: While in India, I had a signmaker make a canvas banner that reads, "REMEMBER YOU ARE MORTAL". I hung it up in my cubicle at Salon.

Some prankster has placed a sticky note reading "PROBABLY" between "ARE" and "MORTAL".

# 11 Mar 2004, 11:32AM: Waiting for Soydot: A few months ago, I ordered a five-pound bag of Stonewall's Jerquee from Risingsun Health. Upon non-jerky-craving-frenzied reflection, the site looks a bit dodgy. But I did it.

Last week I called to ask whether my jerky would arrive anytime soon. The owner apologised profusely and told me he'd send me, at the same price, ten pounds of jerky, no, a case!

Now I await my jerky every day. I want my jerky. Where is my jerky?

Next time I am going with Vegan Essentials, which shipped on time. But still. Find me, jerky! Fly into my arms!

# 12 Mar 2004, 04:19PM: "Have You Forgotten About The Bomb?": For some reason, Leonard mentioned the painting of me upon his hypothetical fighter plane, and I realized that you could sing a song about such a thing to the tune of Barcelona's techno song "I Have the Password To Your Shell Account" (off the Zero, One, Infinity album).

I'd paint your bosoms
I'd paint your gorgeous gams
I'd paint your picture on my....fighter plane

# 12 Mar 2004, 04:53PM: I Have The Best Boss: Over IM: "hey, you should get out of here.... it's been a crazy day and everything's basically done. get out in that sunny weather!"

Have a good weekend.

# 15 Mar 2004, 03:53PM: They Call It "Whole Paycheck": Whole Foods has opened a grocery store and deli a few blocks from work. I am a variety fiend, so I adore the $6.99/pound hot bar, which is like a salad bar except that it has a hundred different dishes. I can get lots of little helpings of rice, salad, tamale, mashed potatoes, pudding, and garlic green beans in one meal. Outstanding! However, I sometimes end up paying more for lunch than I would had I gone to some outmoded pay-per-item restaurant. Also, when I pack several items into one box to eat at work, bit of food glop onto and into each other. Actually, garlic chocolate pudding is good.

# 16 Mar 2004, 01:03PM: I'd love to see "Dirty Story", and I'm concerned that Alton Brown recommends Ayn Rand (post of March 14th, 2004). And I'm sad that Patent Pending has been abandoned.

# 18 Mar 2004, 05:02PM: Blaaaah: Blah. What a workweek. At least this weekend I am going to the zoo and buying a fish (unrelated, surprisingly).

I have transferred my car to an uncle in Southern California who is selling it on my behalf. I'm very glad.

# 22 Mar 2004, 12:37PM: I Have Fish!: On Sunday, I bought two tiny goldfish at Aquatic Central, 1963 Ocean Avenue.

A week previous, I had washed off the existing gravel, put in water and some insta-ecosystem stuff, and turned on the air pump that bubbles the water in my four-gallon tank. The sound of the bubbler can be annoying and comforting; I dreamt of peeing at least once last week.

Yesterday I bought a net and food and water conditioner, picked out a fake plant for the fish to hide in (I'd wanted real but evidently a beginner shouldn't get too fancy with the ecosystem of the tank), and bought two "feeder" goldfish, one grey, one gold. (They are "feeders" not only because you can feed them to get them bigger, but also because you can use them as food for carnivorous fish.)

I had wanted pet fish, off and on, for ten years. I reasoned: I can talk to them and they won't talk back; they will not escape or chew on things or void their bowels or bladders where they shouldn't. I saw them as controllable.

But as soon as the owner passed me the plastic bag holding Dave and Betty, two little arrows hit my heart. So tiny! So helpless! The reason I wanted them is the very reason that I am keenly responsible now. They cannot fend for themselves at all.

So, yesterday, I anxiously watched them in my tank. Were they agitated? Was the water too cloudy? Had I fed them too much? What right had I to take over their lives for my own amusement? I couldn't think of any secrets to confide in them; I only thought of their welfare. In tears, I told Leonard that I just want them to be happy.

Leonard, who has owned fish, inspected my tank and my fish and reassured me. Dave and Betty have food, and plenty of room, and each other for company. They are safe from predators and have a bubbler, their reflections, an uneven rock surface, and a fake plant for stimulation. And they are getting acclimated to the tank, their new home.

So it is reasonable to believe that they are as happy as goldfish can be.

I like that my fish will be waiting for me when I come home. I worry about them, and I know they'll die, and I'll feel bad even if it's not my fault that they die. But at least they are happy right now, and I can derive pleasure from that happiness.

# 23 Mar 2004, 04:46PM: Scattered Notes:

I am on item 303 of a list of 800+ items. I began working through this list yesterday. I do not think I will finish it today.
I'd say "stay in school, kids," but I think that would mean I should go to grad school. Since my only real postgraduate options are law, academe, and education of mewling brats, I'll instead say "try not to graduate during a recession, kids."
Dave and Betty are okay. They are beginning to recognize that the flakey bits that suddenly arrive on top of the water each morning are food. Betty goes after them more vigorously than does Dave, but I've seen Dave poop, so I know he is eating.
I adore Daniel Davies, among other things, for giving me a link to a grumpy definition and history of Antinomianism. Basically, it's the bit that always bothered me about predestination/saved-by-grace theologies: if you're already saved, you can do anything you want and it doesn't matter! As it turns out, this is the Antinomian Heresy that polite society imputed to Anne Hutchinson, which got her kicked out of Boston, which helped lead to Rhode Island becoming the kind of contrarian state that kept defeating consensus attempts in Congress during the Articles of Confederation (the League of Nations' Mini-Me!). (Robin Einhorn pointed out the no-consensus-for-you! bit in Rhode Island's history when I took American History with her at UC Berkeley.)
I remember the word "Antinomian" mentioned in public school in the same breath as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. Mostly I remember an explanation involving salvation by faith and not needing churches. I wish I'd learnt the more interesting heresy of which Hutchinson was accused. But in a sense, I don't want kids to have access to such dangerous intellectual weapons. If I have kids, they won't get to read Max Weber till they're out of my house. I don't want to ever hear, "your authority over me is only traditional! I want a rational-legal framework and I want it NOW!"
An economic critique of Pound on usury and on interest in general. (Stephen Berkowitz, honors government/econ teacher, Tokay High School, 1997/1998. "What is the price of money?...[let seniors muddle through]...Interest." Magic.) Insurance and risk: steps one can take, and steps one can't take back. More reasons I'll buy Daniel Davies a drink any time he visits SF.
If I could be as good as Robin Einhorn and Stephen Berkowitz, academe and mewling-brat-babysitting wouldn't be so bad.
Item #318. The mills of Sumana grind exceeding slow.

# 25 Mar 2004, 11:41AM: I Promise No Fish In This One: The summer between sixth and seventh grade, I carpooled with a wonderful Stockton Record reporter named Dana Nichols; his niece and I went to the same summer enrichment program. He listenened to KUOP in the mornings, and since I already loved public TV I was an easy touch for NPR. Gradually I switched from the local top-40/alt-rock station (with which I'd had personal and emotional attachment, not to mention great luck in winning phone-in contests) to the local NPR affiliate.

I worked at KUOP, the Stockton-Modesto public radio station, for a few months in a mid-nineties summer. I particularly remember the name Duncan Lively, as my teen ears perceived it as wonderful and impossible, and because he acknowledged a grammatical error I'd found in a fundraising script.

As it turns out, Duncan is still in public radio (or is he? Why do I see no date on this "press release"?), and I didn't converse with him enough to learn the neat fact that:

For three years, he worked in the former Soviet Union as NBC's resident photojournalist and tape editor. Lively covered stories ranging from the plight of would-be Jewish emigres to the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

KUOP had a microwave that did not interperet "2:00" as "120 seconds" but as "200 seconds". This caused me one embarrassing incident.

Scott Mearns, the kind and attractive chief engineer, kept a daily diary of all the stuff he did at work. This helped him keep others accountable, among other things. Also, in my work for him, I looked up Material Safety Data Sheets on gopher, which was the first time I ever used the Internet.

I wrote Public Service Announcements based on press releases that schools, nonprofits, and agencies sent in. I devised a new filing system for them that helped DJs know which ones to read.

Greg Parsons, the father of my schoolmate Mike Parsons, was funny and smart. Carole, the administrator and poet, was wise. Jack, the news reporter, was stressed and helpful.

I served there in the morning, so every day I came in and smelled coffee everywhere and heard the voice of Bob Edwards piped throughout the office.

I continued to listen to KUOP throughout high school. On several Saturdays my mother and I spent two hours quietly preparing food while listening to A Prairie Home Companion. I learned about music from Schickele Mix and did physics homework in the early hours of the morn to The Diane Rehm Show, where I first heard sung ancient Greek.

The day I left for college, I met an ex in the Carl's Jr. near my house, the last time I ever saw him. It was a goodbye that should have come months before. What an ill-advised fling! (Actually, Angel gave me great advice; I just didn't follow it.) And that day's front page of the Stockton Record (by then, The Record: First in San Joaquin) described KUOP's upcoming programming shift - less music, more talk, more homogenous NPR.

I left just in time.

Now KUOP has lost the six-hour block of classical in the middle of the day, and KUOP as an individual station doesn't really exist. And Bob Edwards is not the voice of Morning Edition anymore. Marx and Engels were right: all that is solid melts into air. Even the air.

# 26 Mar 2004, 08:10AM: "A tale of two miseries": Gary Kamiya is in the Middle East.

I have just spent two days with decent and intelligent people, Palestinians and Israelis, who because of the stupidity of their leaders and the shameful folly of my government are living a life I would not wish on a dog.
...
...it is the checkpoint that I will remember, because it's the only one I lived, if only for half an hour. It will remain, for me, a small vision of hell, like an obscure background in a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Those silhouetted figures with guns, that smell of diesel fuel, the debris, the blank look of poor people fumbling for their papers, making their way home. One of the outer circles of hell, to be sure. But I felt in my bones it was not right. And as an American, I will carry that memory as a badge of shame. Because I pay for it, I support it. That soldier in the twilight is me.
...
Every American policymaker, every American who cares about human rights, or justice, or Israelis, or Palestinians, or Jews, or Muslims, or the Holy Land (the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the most sacred site in Christianity, was empty when I visited), or just naked don't-blow-me-up self-interest, should come to the Calandia checkpoint. They should come to the rubble-strewn streets on the outskirts of Ramallah. They should stand at the No. 19 bus stop. This is not their problem: It is our problem. And then they should walk through the gates and into the Old City of Jerusalem, that divine gray maze that all three great faiths regarded as the center of the world and the terrestrial link with heaven, and see how hollow a man's prayers ring when he has not done what is needed.

# 26 Mar 2004, 05:14PM: Track Lighting!: Salon just moved its office to a different floor in the same building. This one has more dot-commy-colored walls and I have to walk for five times as long to get to my cube or to refill my water mug. Upside: window view, for the 20-20-20 rule.

I feel off in an almost-empty old place or an almost-empty new place. Ephemeral - creepy.

Not very productive today.

# 29 Mar 2004, 10:41AM: Waah: The Other Change of Hobbit, a sci-fi/fantasy bookstore on Shattuck, will close down at the end of May.

Basically, we can't afford to keep losing money at the rate we have. My inheritance is eaten up, Dave hasn't gotten his, and there's only so far we can go with selling off our own collections. Not enough people in the door, not enough money per person coming in....
Patronize Borderlands in SF as much as you can.

The Other Change of Hobbit store cat was the first cat to ever sit on my lap and get me to not mind.

# 29 Mar 2004, 03:38PM: Sex Pistils: I am now in a row of four cubes, each occupied by a female, and each female brought in at least one flower today.

However, I am probably the only one listening to KUSF.

# 30 Mar 2004, 06:12PM: Me, to Leonard: "I have to consider how to frame this so that you're always wrong."

Filed under: Comedy

# 31 Mar 2004, 12:31PM: Jerky: My 5 pounds of Original "Wild" Stonewall's Jerquee have arrived. Huzzah! Jerky for all!

# 31 Mar 2004, 07:05PM: Our office has moved. I scavenged a footrest and a better chair.

Lighting is mediocre. Most of us have lamps; soft haloes of light escape the rows of boxes.

# 01 Apr 2004, 03:41PM: Sounds Like Leonard: I find that the excellent Everything Is Ruined (political commentary, mostly) and the fading-brilliance Dinosaur Comics make me think that Leonard wrote them, even though he didn't.

# 02 Apr 2004, 03:35PM: After a week of slogging at work (but actually getting results, which is nice), I will now ostensibly relax with two or three hours of driving to/from a concert by Brother, whom Shweta and Zack champion.

TeeVee.org parodied Salon yesterday in incredible, almost loving detail. Of course, a subscriber to Salon Premium wrote in, outraged that our new acquisition was so rude in its "Letter to Deadbeats."

# 05 Apr 2004, 03:51PM: Names, Fish, Taxes: Weekend: enjoyed driving with friends, concert was okay, lots of Bollywood music videos (Namaste America has the best commentary, India Waves has the weirdest choices and hands-down weirdest host), Zack lunch, changed aquarium water somewhat more successfully, Leonard time, "Arrested Development" (hilarious!) and "West Wing" (made my brain hurt with fiction/reality splicing), burritolike meal, cleaning, taxes, library, clock-changing.

Yes, I wince a bit at paying taxes, more because I don't trust these particular administrations to do the right thing with the money than because of some "they are stealing my money" sentiment. Yes, I am a tax-and-spend liberal. Because that is the function of government! Taxing and spending! What else should they do? Tax and NOT spend? Spend without taxing?

Dave and Betty are fine, and the aquarium ecosystem is setting up nicely. Evidently goldfish enjoy eating freeze-dried mosquito larvae ("bloodworms," a Klingon term if ever there was), which look as though they are alive but (the shop owner assured me when I called) are very dead. I use tweezers.

Puritans used to give their kids names like Flee-From-Sin and Mercy, and now rappers call themselves C-Murder and Ol' Dirty Bastard.

Filed under: Taxes

# 07 Apr 2004, 09:49AM: Reminder:

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy [of] the Head of a civilized nation.

-"The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America"

# 08 Apr 2004, 11:02AM: You Can't Violate the 4th Amendment On Television (Or Elsewhere): The wonderful Newsaic site footnotes TV shows and comics to contextualize references to law, history, and current events. My favorite bit so far comes from a discussion of an episode of "The Practice" and admissible evidence.

Remember that the exclusionary rule only applies to government action, not to actions by other individuals. If the woman had opened the closet door, that would not violate the Fourth Amendment. You as a private individual can never violate the Fourth Amendment; only the government can violate it... What this means for Batman, I'm not sure. If the courts see Batman as a private individual, then he can get evidence that the police cannot. But if the courts see Batman as a de facto agent of the police, as they probably should, then the same Fourth Amendment standards should apply to his actions. This may be the best reason why the police in DC Comics don't officially recognize Batman's existence and claim he is nothing more than an urban legend.

The best sort of geekery!

Stephen Lee, the site author, also feels as I do about Daredevil's vigilantism.

# 10 Apr 2004, 11:51AM: Fascinating: On Thursday a beauty school student cut my hair to resemble that of T'Pol from Star Trek: Enterprise. However, my hair defies the Vulcan Science Directorate in its unruly, emotional curls and cowlicks. And I will not sully my medicine cabinet with "glaze" (am I a ham?!) to keep my bangs hanging straight. But perhaps if I raise one eyebrow at you, it'll still work.

# 12 Apr 2004, 09:11AM: Report and Request: Zack and I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and enjoyed it a great deal. Great performances, fun dialogue and visual effects, a simple story ramified well. Also, it tickled me that David Cross played virtually the same character he plays in Arrested Development. I didn't recognize Elijah Wood or Mark Ruffalo, either, which seems good.

My sister suggested that I should spend more time with children. She's right. Anybody need a free babysitter? Conditions: one kid at a time, for stretches no longer than 5 hours.

# 12 Apr 2004, 10:57AM: Funnymen: My sister and I adore Seth Stevenson's work in Slate. Case in point: "They seem to say that we are all just transient shadows, not long for this world - it's our diamonds that are forever."

Also, Obaid Kadwani on Namaste America Gold yesterday completely inserted his own opinions on viewer shout-outs and celebrity gossip. Lots of fun. I would read his weblog.

# 13 Apr 2004, 06:31PM: SPAA: Zed has pointed out to me my inconsistency in bashing Indians who use Western or Westernized names. When I got picked as an audience participant for his improv nights, I called myself Vicki. Fair cop, guv. No more.

Nandini and I, in varying amounts, put up with the like of "Sandy-uh." Back when my sister lived in the Bay Area (she's in DC now), we diverted ourselves with spas, the one decadence we shared. Whether we visited the boojie-but-down-to-earth Piedmont Springs or the wildly luxurious Kabuki, we have uncovered a hankering for hot baths and seaweed wraps. You see, it's "good for you," like working out, only you don't have to do anything except loll! And complain about Anglicized names.

When we treated ourselves to Kabuki a while back, I had to adjust to the nudity. Miles of surface area! One gets used to it, but not completely. (On co-ed days people have to wear swimsuits, so if you don't want to stick out for wearing trunks or bikinis, go on Tuesday.)

Of course, Kabuki has to do some maintenance during spa hours, so one has to try to relax, naked, while a clothed low-wage (probably) worker does some very non-relaxing task. How do rich people get used to this? I feel insta-conflicted if I see building maintenance people at Salon, even when both they and I are working.

The title refers to a tenth-grade mnemonic: Socrates, then Plato, then Aristotle, then Alexander. I make no claims as to the usefulness or veracity of this mnemonic.

# 13 Apr 2004, 06:53PM: Tax Tips: According to Taxes And People In Israel by Harold C. Wilkenfeld, not only does Israel have a Tax Museum, but that selfsame Tax Museum's exhibits go beyond famous people's tax returns. The museum also shows old smuggling devices! Also, it's good to have meetings with taxpayers in private offices, not large open areas where taxpayers can hear each others' cries of outrage.

Filed under: Taxes

# 14 Apr 2004, 12:25PM: Also "The Screwfly Solution"!: Thanks to Sarah for pointing to the Sci Fi Channel's online archive of classic and recent SF/fantasy stories. Includes Nancy Kress!

# 14 Apr 2004, 03:09PM: Who lives in the username next door?: Every week Salon Premium Help receives a few autoresponse emails of the type "this email address doesn't work anymore because I've changed it to avoid spam; here is the new address."

Everyone's in the witness protection program, hiding from the spam Mob.

# 14 Apr 2004, 04:33PM: "I forgot to hook up the hose to the server!": Perhaps Leonard will get a campaign-related kick out of "You know you are working too much when.....". Example: "sitting in your cube you think about how much more relaxed you'd be if you were in jail right now".

# 15 Apr 2004, 12:28PM: It Would Explain That Crazy Scott Rosenberg: A nursing mother in our office pumps breastmilk. When I catch a glimpse of her apparatus drying, it looks like drug paraphernalia. "Who's smoking crack at the office?! ... oh."

# 16 Apr 2004, 12:44PM: Letters, I Read Letters: Some people use dashes instead of, say, quote marks, which makes me think Emily Dickinson has reincarnated as a Salon Premium subscriber. Others use no punctuation at all; maybe they bought cut-rate keyboards off the back of a truck, or they treat all communications with the urgency of 911 dispatches.

# 16 Apr 2004, 02:58PM: "Piles of meth"?: Jason Kottke knows my weakness! Comments on "Ten weird state taxes (Illegal drug tax!)" include an Al Capone reference, always welcome hereabouts.

# 19 Apr 2004, 07:18PM: On The Night-Table:

Science Fiction/Fantasy: Le Guin's The Word For World Is Forest (heavy-handed and unappealing) and Birthday of the World And Other Stories (nonbad ratio of good to boring stories). Kress, Beaker's Dozen (fun!). Chiang, Story Of Your Life And Others (many good stories, although the recursion theme gets predictable). Currently reading The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead. I like the pacing and characters; Whitehead slightly overdoes the elliptical, lyrical prose, but I don't especially mind.
Tax History: Finished Taxes and People in Israel and am reading The Political Origins of the US Income Tax by Jerold L. Waltman. Did you know the Union imposed a temporary income tax during the Civil War? That's right, the idea didn't just suddenly appear during the Progressive movement.
Children's Books: The sparkling and wonderful Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White - very much rewards rereading. Popcorn, a nice novel by Gary Provost and Gail Levine-Provost, chiefly memorable because I randomly picked it up when I was younger. The Toothpaste Millionaire by Jean Merrill, the author of The Pushcart War. I'd already read and loved Millionaire and had zoned out during a fourth-grade reading circle of The Pushcart War, which I'll read soon. I wonder whether she wrote the most of all children's authors on business and capitalism.

I could try to combine these trends by reading a sci-fi children's book about taxes, but I don't much care to reread Anthem.

Filed under: Taxes

# 21 Apr 2004, 03:08PM: Maybe Some Of That Philip Glass (or, Usually I Listen To KUSF, I Swear): You know, there is really no good melody for singing "guaranteed 35-minute music set."

# 21 Apr 2004, 05:57PM: A Lot Of Days: I didn't know that Gavin Newsom is dyslexic. Nor that his favorite game is Twister.

Nikolai Kisler, a fourth-grader, said he wished Newsom had explained how he became mayor. But he hastened to add that he's sure Newsom is qualified.
"He knows a lot of things since he's been mayor for 100-and-something days," he said. "That's a lot of days."
...
One little girl asked Newsom whether he is married, and he told her all about former San Francisco prosecutor Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom -- and which news shows to watch for her legal commentary.
"You can see my wife -- she's on TV. She's a legal analyst, which means she's a lawyer," he said. "She's amazing. She's beautiful and smart! She's not dyslexic. She's got it easy -- so easy."

I guess the average non-dyslexic does have it easier.

# 21 Apr 2004, 07:54PM: Perhaps "Not Passive-Aggressive" Is Too Much To Ask: I am trying to figure out the best way to let jerks on BART know that they may not hog two seats by sitting in the aisle seat while the window seat goes empty. Generally I do what other riders seem too timid to do (namely, walk up, say "Excuse me," and take the seat) without any fanfare or edification. But soon my thought experiments will provide a concise, courteous, and non-passive-aggressive technique for hitting these jerks upside the head with the cluestick.

# 22 Apr 2004, 07:38AM: Also Sneezy: Grumpy. Last night I dreamt that I wanted to go back to high school to brush up on math and foreign languages, but the teachers would recognize me and tell them to stop wasting their time and resources, and that Leonard was being a spoilsport about an interesting Gordon Korman book.

In real life, one reason for grumpiness: I start on the eleventh month of a job where I've made maybe one friend ("friend" defined as "person who actively initiates conversation and asks me out to lunch and/or other social outings"). Practically everyone else has been working there for 3+ years. Like joining a grades 3-8 school in 7th grade, which I have done and which also marooned me socially.

# 22 Apr 2004, 02:12PM: Yay!: Some NYPD officers have little magic boxes, okay, special cell phones, that automatically connect them to call centers where the operators speak lots of languages. That way officers can communicate with who don't speak English, and get almost-simultaneous translation. Huzzah for technology and call centers and multilingual people leveraging their skills!

# 24 Apr 2004, 04:24PM: More Gross Fish: I saw Betty poop. Awesome!

# 26 Apr 2004, 04:01PM: Enjoy: Sometimes people offer to me, say, a chance to go out and do something with them, or to share a dessert, and I refuse and say "have a good time." Leonard pointed out to me that I do this. I'm not sure what to make of it.

# 27 Apr 2004, 11:04AM: It's Been A Quiet Week in Riyadh: The Religious Policeman, Saudi Arabia's Salam Pax, has read Garrison Keillor.

# 27 Apr 2004, 12:59PM: Shopping Is Hard; Let's Do Math: I spent my first 21 years hating shopping for clothes. I still find shopping laborious, not fun. But recently I've begun dressing more professionally for work as part of my "don't work in customer support forever" career plan. So I am acquiring new items.

Yesterday, after a blah day at work, I wandered for the first time into the San Francisco Centre, a creepy mall in the middle of downtown SF. Curved escalators! Too many floors! To its credit, its bottom floor connects to the Powell Street BART/Muni station to expedite fleeing.

# 27 Apr 2004, 04:27PM: Spring: At a BART station, birds have nested on the stanchions, and I saw an egg.

# 28 Apr 2004, 09:16AM: Dave: Dave, my grey goldfish, is dying, or at least very ill. He was lethargic this morning, floating sideways, getting caught in the fake plant. I isolated him and did what I could, but by the time I return this evening he may be dead. Betty, the orange goldfish who eats more, is fine. I don't know why.

# 30 Apr 2004, 09:46AM: Dave, my grey goldfish, died yesterday. Leonard and I buried him in my backyard. I hope he did not suffer too much in his death, and that I helped him live a happy life while he was with me.

# 30 Apr 2004, 11:00AM: Compare And Contract: Currently reading Confessions of a Tax Collector: One Man's Tour of Duty Inside the IRS by Richard Yancey. I find it quite enjoyable, as I did Scott Turow's One-L (memoir of his first year at Harvard Law School) and Mike Daisey's 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com.

Yancey got me with the premise and one of the first lines: "I had just turned twenty-eight, and was wearing a ten-year-old suit with a ten-day-old dark blue tie." Lots of close observations, complex cases nicely narrated, and a sense of suspense in the author's personal transformation. Like Daisey, Yancey uses dark humor and extended metaphors to persuade the reader that the demands of his job pressure him to act amorally and to become an amoral person. Yancey's story, though, is weightier; it tells more and covers a more formidable institution. And he doesn't paint his ethical dilemmas with the broad strokes that Daisey uses; I really won't know till the end of the book what he thinks of what he has done.

Just got to a section on clashes with tax protestors. Oh, the tax protestors. Leonard was kind enough to point me to a report on tax protestors from Reason that softened my heart:

Their attitude toward the Constitution and the statutes and legal decisions regarding the income tax are uniquely Protestant, relying on a layman's ability -- indeed, obligation -- to read and study and parse the original documents himself, to come to his own personal relationship with the law and the cases, and to prefer his understanding to that of the priesthood of lawyers, judges, and accountants.
...
Not merely Protestant, the tax honesty people are strangely reminiscent of fandom -- of the comic book, fantasy, science fiction, role-playing-game variety. They have the same obsession with continuity and coherence within a created fantasy world of words. It's just that, in this case, that world of words isn't a multivolume fantasy epic or a long-running TV series -- it's U.S. law. When these people try to reconcile the definition of income in this subsection of Title 26 of the U.S. Code with the definition in a 1918 Supreme Court case, it's like hearing an argument over the inconsistencies between a supervillain's origin as first presented in a 1965 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man and the explanation given in a 1981 edition of Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man.
The tax honesty movement's vision of the world is fantastical in another way. It is not merely obsessed with continuity; it is magical in a traditional sense. It's devoted to the belief that the secret forces of the universe can be bound by verbal formulas if delivered with the proper ritual. There are numerous formulae in the tax honesty spellbook, with rival mages defending them. Which spell is best: The summoning of the Sovereign Citizen? The incantation of the Constitutional Definition of Income? The banishing spell of No Proper Delegation?
The tax honesty folks similarly believe that their foe the IRS must also be bound by these grimoires of magic: that without the properly sanctified OMB number an IRS form holds no power, that without uttering the mystic word liable no authority to tax can truly exist.
And always, always, the ultimate incantation, The Question: Where does it say that I owe income taxes? Show me the law!

Filed under: Taxes

# 03 May 2004, 12:07PM: The Replacement Swimmer: Betty now swims happily alongside her new tankmate, Bill. I did not realize until after naming Bill that I'd created an homage to Pleasantville.

# 03 May 2004, 05:21PM: Women: Last night I stayed up too late watching Part I of the original Prime Suspect. Yes, the critics love Helen Mirren for a reason.

Women I have wanted to be (an incomplete list):

Jane Tennison.
Tina Fey.
Once upon a time, Cokie Roberts. (A fantasy of my younger days. On today's Morning Edition she said that the Madrid terror attacks had affected their election results, ignoring the fact that pre-attack polls and post-attack polls both strongly favored the challenger. Yeah, she's off the list.)
Casey Singleton, possibly the only appealing character Michael Crichton ever wrote, in Airframe.

# 04 May 2004, 08:47AM: Cherry Blossoms: Once upon a time, during my senior year in high school, my classmates and I all applied to the University of California at the same time. UC asked me to look at their list of scholarship categories and list the five I thought I was most eligible for. I remember codes for "first person in family to attend college," "descendant of Union veteran of Civil War," and, of course, "Jewish orphan studying aeronautical engineering." Who can forget "Jewish orphan studying aeronautical engineering"? Well, if I kill my parents and convert....eh, I don't really want to be an engineer.

Then, around this time of year, everyone in the AP English class got rejections and acceptances at the same time. What a tense morning.

# 05 May 2004, 08:56AM: As Though They Cater To Me Specifically: Berkeley Repertory will host Mike Daisey this summer for performances of 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com! I wonder whether the performance will live up to the book derived from the performance.

# 05 May 2004, 09:12AM: Hoji-Cha: Drinking "hoji-cha," a toasted green tea that a coworker gave me. The tea smells like some interesting intermediate of black and green tea, and he wasn't lying about the fuller flavor. I can really taste the toast.

# 05 May 2004, 04:56PM: How Do Dead Godzillas Stomp?: Preparing for a trip to Japan?

"After your bath put on your "yukata" robe which you can wear throughout the ryokan. Put it on left-over-right (unless you are dead)."

"DO NOT PLACE YOUR CHOPSICKS STRAIGHT UP IN THE RICE. This is how rice is served to the dead."

# 06 May 2004, 10:47AM: Now I Have Seen Norm Howard: This morning I volunteered to take pledge calls for KQED-FM. Let me say that when you ask for public radio listeners who are willing to come into the Mission District at 6:30am to take pledge calls, you are selecting for an odd crew. I ended up talking to the same type I always meet, libertarian guys who use esoteric operating systems and consider improvements to the game of Risk in their spare time. I have to branch out.

# 07 May 2004, 08:33AM: I Be Walkin' Down The Street (to the Marsh's Mock Cafe): I'm doing stand-up again. SAGE, a nice-sounding UC Berkeley mentorship program, asked me to do a $50/head fundraiser on the 26th, so between now and then I'm hitting area open mics (info may be out-of-date). Last night I did the Brainwash, to no acclaim but some guffaws. Let me know if you want to come along sometime.

People at the Brainwash last night (at least, the first 10 or so) made surprisingly funny. Has the scene gotten better since I withdrew last year?

Filed under: Comedy

# 09 May 2004, 08:26AM: You're Not Scottish, Stop Macking On Me: Friday and Saturday had comedy stuff. Evidently people do not know who Robert Rubin is. Also, evidently there are unfunny male comics who will awkwardly try to pick up any given non-white-haired woman, regardless of her obvious bemusement. Pretty tacky.

Filed under: Comedy

# 09 May 2004, 09:03AM: The Apple Cobbler's Children: My mother taught me frugality in buying shoes -- twenty dollars per pair, tops. However, yesterday I paid fifty dollars for a pair of black flats (work/comedy shoes). I required more than one reassurance from my shopping companion that I had not paid too much.

Why do shoe stores and departments fill their women's shelves with frippery? Ribbons, straps, buckles, and I'm not even going to start with heels. Heels -- argh! OK, I started on heels. Freaking prescriptions for foot pain.

I just want durable, comfortable shoes to wear to work and gigs that will go with lots of outfits, that don't require dead animals for their material, and I don't want to pay more than thirty-five dollars per pair. Unreasonable? Suggestions?

Update, May 10: Leonard's extended family agrees that it's worth it to pay extra for quality.

Also, I forgot to mention yesterday that I also prefer shoes made in countries that have actual labor standards. Man, I'm demanding.

# 10 May 2004, 04:36PM: Atari Bihari Vajpayee: A little joke. Anyway, Slate covers India's elections so I don't have to watch Namaste America and blink through the Hindi.

# 11 May 2004, 11:54AM: Probably No Connection: Over the past three days, I met The Poor Man and The Claw, and got a free "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" mug as a "thanks for taking pledge calls" raffle prize from KQED. Also, I had a dream involving the birth of a baby and a snake.

Leonard cooks awesomely. Caesar salad, pesto, pastries, cookies. Maybe he should open a tiny illegal restaurant inside his house. How hip would that be?

# 11 May 2004, 08:05PM: Silly Word Munging: Will update Spam As Folk Art with reader submissions soon, really.

Today I can't even compliment myself with the epithet of hack. Maybe tomorrow.

# 12 May 2004, 04:32PM: Again, Free Bagels: Today my seat neighbor during the KQED pledge drive professed to have gone to school with one R. Kelly (some singer). He also flirted with women who called to pledge their support. Well, that's one way to avoid the singles bars.

# 13 May 2004, 09:55AM: Media Revue: All three of these bits of media experience have something to do with the Middle East! And I didn't even intend it.

Last night's Enterprise provoked even more US/Middle East Allegory babble in me. The sphere-builders are... Ahmad Chalabi! No, the neocons! Ahmad Chalabi is the leader of the Reptilians. No, the reptilian is Prince Bandar! Tucker is Ted Olson! And the Council is... OPEC? a "Mirror, Mirror" UN?

The Council seems really legitimate as a government to everyone in it except the Reptilians, which I guess makes the Reptilians like the US. Are the Insectoids Britain?

Also, Enterprise pulled off a surprisingly assertive mix of heavy exposition, lighthearted banter, trippy sci-fi sets, and suspenseful plot. Good stuff.

West Wing broke my heart in "Gaza." The West Wing thesis on Israel/Palestine resembles Everything Is Ruined's:

"Forget it Jake, it's Jerusalem." Jerusalem is Chinatown. There's nothing you can do. It's a place where there is no right answer. You ask Jake what he did in Chinatown, and he says, "As little as possible." (That's also what he murmurs to himself at the very end of the movie.) "Chinatown" means basically what Heart of Darkness means for Conrad: it's the dark place where every action is a mistake.

The new NSC character, I like. Will Bailey's impatience with nuance discussions, not so much. The huge expository dialogue chunks, a crazed hive-mind talking to itself, I liked. How else to think about the Middle Eastern ourobouros?

Reading Conversion and the Poll Tax in Early Islam by Daniel Dennett, Jr. From the Introduction:

...Nevertheless, all the contributions to the literature of Muslim taxation within the last forty years have been monographic in character and limited in area to particular provinces of the Arab Empire, with the result that there is no single work to which a student who might be interested in the general problem to turn; and if he attempts to master the secondary literature, he will discover so many conflicting data and opinions that his confusion will be increased rather than resolved. This book, therefore, attempts to present a broad view of the system of taxation as it existed in East and West throughout the lands once subject to the Persians and the Greeks, and it is based on all the evidence the writer has been able to discover. It is not, however, a synthesis of the latest opinion, for, as the reader will presently discover, I have views of my own and an axe to grind....

The Introduction's breezy style belies the density of the main text, well, to me. I don't know much about the Ottoman Empire or really a systematic world history at all. Perhaps Charles Adams's For Good And Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization will provide me with a proper framework.

Filed under: Taxes

# 13 May 2004, 10:50AM: THIS is India Shining: The Congress party won the Indian elections, defeating the "Anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat? What anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat?" BJP. All right! I hope this portends badly for radical religious parties elsewhere as well. I'm talking to you, Likud.

# 13 May 2004, 07:56PM: What's Wrong?: I am volunteering. I am reading tax history to figure out whether I want to study that sort of thing in graduate school. I am taking care of my fish. I am editing my wardrobe and home. I am preparing for the stand-up gig. I am trying to be a good friend and girlfriend. I am trying to do everything right!

Joe and I will hang out, I'll sleep, it will be better in the morning. It always is.

# 14 May 2004, 09:24AM: Better: Joe gave good advice, and I slept off the despair. Well, most of it.

This morning, at the Powell Street BART station, three different musicians set up shop too near each other. One Asian stringed instrument, one cello, one recorder. Not a pleasant cacophony, but silly.

# 15 May 2004, 03:45PM: Another Obituary: Bill, my new grey goldfish, has also died. One day he was as lethargic as usual, perhaps a little frayed, the next he had passed away. I am going to leave Betty alone in the tank for a while.

# 17 May 2004, 01:12PM: The Underground Sound: Fortune has gifted me with a new work computer, one that makes it much easier to listen to audio streams. I have discovered the usually-rocking college station KSCU. Recommended!

# 17 May 2004, 02:34PM: Death, Taxes, And Sumana Writing About Taxes: Reading Conversion and the Poll Tax in Early Islam. Dennett writes clearly and entertainingly, even though it's a university press book with a tiny audience. Good job! Also, he amuses me by saying, "Let us examine the Byzantine tax system of Syria" and actually meaning "Byzantine."

The Arab Empire experienced, of course, some of the same problems that the modern US and modern Israel have. If you use reduced taxes as an incentive for some behavior (such as conversion to Islam or investment in state and municipal bonds), then people will do that and your tax receipts will go down. If you reduce the incentive, then the interest group you have just created will grumble or rebel. If you tax everyone else more heavily to make up the difference, you're fomenting class war. If you try to make up the difference with deficit spending or spending cuts, you might lose credibility, or even the ability to govern effectively. (You can only cut police and military spending so much!)

Finally, from Waltman's Political Origins of the U.S. Income Tax:

If we accord the income tax a high place in the patheon of bequests from the Progressive era, we must sadly note it is a legacy bequeathed only by racism. Were it not for the Democratic leadership in Congress being in the hands of those who wanted to spare the common man much of the taxes he bore in 1913, we would not have had the progressive income tax. But who were these economic humanists Ratner and others have praised? Kitchin, Simmons, Underwood, Hull, Williams, Garner. Every one of them was from the South, and they were all guardians of white supremacy. In fact, even their homilies on taxes are laced with crude racist stories and jokes. When they turned to such issues as black soldiers being armed during World War I or antilynch laws, their venom knew few bounds. To be sure, some were worse racists than others, and to be sure it can be argued that had they deviated from the "party line", their replacements might have been worse. And it is almost certainly true that without their votes and leadership we would have had much more exploitative tax policies. Yet, it is a sad tradeoff. Progressive tax policies were bought with impediments to any progress along racial lines. Before we celebrate the virtues of our income tax therefore, a tear is in order for those to whom taxes were secondary.

Every action has an opportunity cost. If you are sleeping, you can't be writing, and if you are sleeping or writing the Great Customer Service Novel then you cannot be hyping your new one-woman show.

Filed under: Taxes

# 17 May 2004, 04:54PM: Is Something Missing?: An old Jon Carroll.

The incomplete life is the only life. People who live in Paris do not live in Fiji. People who run successful businesses are unable to compose folk songs. If they quit to compose folk songs, they still can't spend all day every day windsurfing in St. Kitts.

# 18 May 2004, 01:52PM: Bobby Flay, Tina Fey, Liza Dei: Happy 34th birthday to Tina Fey!

Filed under: Comedy

# 18 May 2004, 04:34PM: Fascinating: If I am not careful, I will spend two hours reading Malcolm Gladwell's archives on Saturday Night Live, SUVs, khakis, zoning laws, corporate memoirs, what have you.

# 19 May 2004, 10:48AM: Articulation: If a commentator decries the overuse of Reservists in the conflict in Iraq, and notes that the government has instituted stop-loss policies and extended Reservists' tours of duty, then other commentators often respond, what did they expect when they joined the Reserve? they are part of the military and they have to earn their pay.

J. Bradford DeLong articulates why the Reservists actually are getting a raw deal:

But the more important thing is that we have already reinstituted the draft--in a peculiar way. Reservists--who thought that they were standing ready to reinforce the regular army in a serious war while the general draft and total war mobilization got underway--have discovered that that's not their role. Their role is to be drafted at a ferocious rate precisely so that the government can fight its war in Iraq "on the cheap," without disturbing the lives of college students who might demonstrate and attract TV cameras.

# 20 May 2004, 10:19AM: Easily Swayed: On the one hand, this summer's stoner movie Harold and Kumar go to White Castle remakes and explicitly references Dude, Where's My Car?. On the other hand, it has an Indian. So maybe I will see it. Then again, I never did see American Chai, nor fillum star: the Peter Patel story.

# 20 May 2004, 10:39AM: Oh no: Reginald Zelnik, an awesome and wonderful Russian History professor, has died. A goddamn delivery truck backed into him on campus. He was so funny and smart. He taught the most detailed, insightful lectures. It took me half the semester to realize he didn't need notes. I miss him.

# 26 May 2004, 09:51AM: "Coming Out as a Human": Leonard's phrase for Real Live Preacher's announcement. "My name is Gordon Atkinson. I live in San Antonio, Texas, and I'm the pastor of Covenant Baptist Church."

# 27 May 2004, 12:48PM: She Said Yes: "Told that a banner would take two days to print, Mike grabbed some colored file folders and improvised a simple sign. The next day, as he crossed the stage, he kneeled and held it up for the entire Greek Theatre audience to see: "MARRY ME Jackey!!!"

Of course, I am so enlightened that I find the man's burden/privilege of proposal oh-so-obsolete. I prefer continuing, mutual discussion as a means to such huge and momentous decisions. Like the SALT talks.

But these stories still make me sniff.

Filed under: Comedy

# 30 May 2004, 11:38AM: Books: Reading The Greedy Hand by Amity Shlaes, a WSJ writer with whom I vastly disagree, which means John might like it.

Also reading James Morrow's Only Begotten Daughter, in which Jesus Christ's sister is born to a Jewish bachelor in Atlantic City in 1974. James Morrow loves probing ethical systems and religions in the context of fantasy.

I'm sure tonight I'll dream of a booming voice directing me to render unto Him what is Caesar's.

Filed under: Taxes

# 01 Jun 2004, 04:27PM: Life, Drugs, And: On Wednesday I performed stand-up comedy for a SAGE Scholars graduation ceremony/fundraiser. I did okay. They loved the immigrant jokes, not so much the satirical opening (clichéd quotes and axioms). I'd say that no one reads Yeats anymore, except lots of people in the blogosphere have the same poem on our minds: The Second Coming. Maybe we grope for meaning and find this bit of Yeats, as after the 2001 terrorist attacks we found Try to Praise the Mutilated World.

On Thursday I went to Cobb's and viewed Nick Leonard, Joe Klocek, and Brian Regan. As per usual (how quickly I forget!), the openers were funnier than the headliner. Mr. Regan has a gift for caricature, and he resembles Alton Brown, but I only laughed maybe 20 times in the hour he performed. That's 40 straight-faced minutes. Well, one man's meat.

Cobb's brands its Cosmopolitan (a mixed alcoholic drink) as "The Cobbsmopolitan". Next: Cobb salad, corn on the Cobb, a male swan as the mascot.

On Friday I met Leonard's old friends from the Clark campaign over dinner at Pomelo, which had more vegetarian entreés in my recollection than on the menu. The week had left me a bit jaundiced, but they handled my bitterness with good grace. I drank sake.

On Saturday Leonard and I left for Bakersfield to visit the Richardson/Whitney clan. Leonard's grandfather seems stable, which is good. I got to see A Day Without a Mexican, which sprawled but had several nice touches.

"Boomers," the Bakersfield minigolf/arcade, has a Disney-branded Dance Dance Revolution machine. Among other tunes, it plays "M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E" and "Macho Duck," a "Macho Man" derivative starring Donald Duck. Creepy.

Leonard and I came back to San Francisco, visiting some friends in Mountain View (evidently not a total wasteland) along the way. I checked on Betty, my one surviving goldfish. She seems fine. I wish she would poop in my presence so I could verify that her whole digestive system is working, but you take what you can get.

Today I am listening to KSCU and answering customer email. The Religious Policeman has posted several new items. I should get more tea. This week I will actually write that article I've been postponing for months. Life is okay.

Filed under: Comedy

# 03 Jun 2004, 05:06PM: Poor Akshay!: From 9 million to 265 to 2. The winning word: autochthonous. Second place: Akshay Buddiga, who fainted but recovered to spell "alopecoid" perfectly. I hope he is all right.

# 04 Jun 2004, 08:33AM: I Was Also Right About Carbs: Bruce Sterling said,

I have plants at the party. Who are there secretly and sort of organized with one another. And they aren't really made clear to the party members that they are there at all. They are covertly there. They are covertly organized. They have secret handshakes and recognition symbols.
What is their job? Their job is to monitor the party and see if enthusiasm is moving into an area of untoward radicalism. So they don't do anything blatant. What they do is stage small but effective party spoiling scenes.

I remember, when I was very young, I thought a similar scheme could stop the stock market from crashing or boiling over. A cadre would buy when everyone else was selling, and sell when everyone else was buying. People told me that such a scheme was unnecessary, since markets self-correct and investors act like that anyway. Now I believe that the pool of investors does not contain enough contrarians, and that probably buyers-in to my childhood fantasy would do well by doing good.

# 04 Jun 2004, 09:38AM: "Scum-Sucking Bottom Feeders": The writer of a letter to the editor used this epithet, which doesn't quite work, in my view.

Jon Stewart has had the hilarious David Cross and the "Talking Points Memorized" Thomas Friedman on The Daily Show this week. Cross (who plays Tobias Funke on Arrested Development (Fox renewed it for another season! Yay!)) persuaded me to buy his CDs. Friedman whipped out his "more secular than Iran, more federal than Syria" message, leading Stewart to write down a recipe for "Thomas Friedman's Democracy Brownies". As Belle Waring said, "More federal than Syria? Frickin� awesome!"

Is Syria's government really that monolithic? I mean, when I think "Syria", I don't think federalism or lack thereof is really the main problem. But what do I know, I majored in political science.

Speaking of Crooked Timber: these eminently contrarian, geeky people skewer all sorts of conventional wisdoms!

...apples and oranges are both fruits, both about the same size, cost about the same and have similar nutritional value. They're about the most eminently comparable things I can think of....
I will accept "chalk and cheese" as a valid metaphor.... Readers of a literary bent might have a go with "lightning and a lightning bug", but I've never really got it to work....

In taxation news: I walked through a corridor at work. Two coworkers occupied it, leaning against the walls while conversing and forming a narrow meniscus for passers-by. As I negotiated my way, one joked that I would have to "pay the toll". Most of the time, someone telling me that is a boyfriend asking me to kiss him, so I blushed bright red.

Well, a brighter shade of brown.

Filed under: Comedy Taxes

# 04 Jun 2004, 02:44PM: How Could I Have Missed This?: Josh Kornbluth interviews Richard Yancey (Love And Taxes monologuist and Confessions ex-tax-collector, respectively).

I guess the answer is that I missed it because I only bothered to register at the Washington Post two weeks ago.

Filed under: Comedy Taxes

# 04 Jun 2004, 09:06PM: Annals of Compassion and Genius: I was unduly cold and harsh to a customer today. I thought something like "why can't these people follow directions? why do they do any old thing and then whine that they didn't get the thing they wanted?" and snapped and wrote a snappish, condescending reply to someone who, as it turns out, was right, right, right, and I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

My boss found out and wrote me a gentle rebuke.

I thought I was going to have a performance evaluation today. I couldn't really concentrate on my work this afternoon, as the meeting got postponed, from 1 to 1:10 to 2:30 or "whenever the room goes free" to Monday morning. So now it will happen while my uncharacteristic and wholly without-basis outburst is fresh in everyone's mind.

Aren't I clever.