28.11.04

Questions for Review

After a Thanksgiving Week hiatus, I return much as an embittered middle school teacher, rewarding your avian genocide with a pop quiz:

Question 1: My dormitory was charged $105 last weekend so our regular maintenance worker could clean three accounts of spit, yet a) Oregon's minimum wage is $7.05/hr, and b) my friend cannot find work. What's bullshit about this?

Question 2: a) There is a single-page paper called "Flush" taped inside the doors of all of our bathroom stalls. b) Most of my hallmates find it neccessary to use their foot to press the urinal handle. c) Recently I found myself attempting to pee in a trashcan. d) I pay $800 dollars per month to live in these facilities. How are these facts related?

Question 3: Using 200 words or less, justify this website. Remember, the answer must be in the form of a question.

Question 4: If "con" is the opposite of "pro," then isn't Congress the opposite of progress? Or did I just fucking blow your mind?!?

15.11.04

Happy Peace Day

"The dog yelps once, perhaps from the prick of the needle, perhaps from the restraint. Waugh's patter never changes. 'Aww, what are you yelping for. we didn't hurt you, we just killed you,' he croons. He hugs the dog tight while it dies, then gently lays it on the table. After a moment, he checks for a heartbeat. A quick nod confirms none remains."


Alicia Gesner from the Mosaic annual tabloid newspaper. An interview with Bill Waugh, a Senior Kennel Officer at the Lane County Animal Regulation Authority, Eugene, Oregon.

14.11.04

Cartigans and Cartograms

Well, for those of you out there who are still in mourning after the results of the election and the conservatism sweeping the United States, I offer a measure of hope for you in the form of a different perspective.

Nearly everyone has seen the political maps plastered about the news media; the blue "bastions of sanity" (as one of my friends put it) swimming in a sea of stalwart red states. No doubt those maps have proven it quite difficult to believe the election was all that close at all, and all the more disheartening. However, several people from the University of Michigan sat down and put a little more thought into it than the button pushers at Fox News. They found that the simple political map was proving to be an entirely inefficient method of displaying the electoral results, and offered a superior method of communicating our democracy in a much more fair handed manner.

Mark Newman and the rest of his compatriots took a cue from Robert Vanderbei over at Princeton University, and developed a cartogram basing the geographical size of a state on its population. This creates a map that is much more in line with the polls rather than the archaic electoral college. Cartograms also counter the massively discouraging county-based electoral map such as that produced by USA Today. By applying the same kind of population based algorithms you can see the ugly puke-colored distortion that is our nation.

And remember, if that deformed image doesn't warm your heart, you can always get your political maps from the Daily Show.

4.11.04

Nakba Frenzy

This goes out to all those smirking people out there laughing madly as the poor Cassandra-democrats sit in their political hovels announcing the end of the world: stop. I have had enough of your blindness. You stereotype us as drug-smoking hippies in every sentence. You believe that Bush will do nothing but good for this country. You faithfully belief that a government pandering almost entirely to corporate interests will also look out for your own. It is a fucking lie, and I am so sick of hearing it. You know what just got passed in Oregon? A law which requires full compensation to a land-owner when land-use laws interfere with what they want to do with it. If the state does not comply then the law is voided. Do you know what that means? When a company buys a park in your downtown, they can plant a garbage dump there, or just say so and then get paid for it. The state was just bankrupted, all in the name of private interests.

How can you even start to talk about "what a great job Bush is doing with our education?" Have you seen public schools lately? They are such shitholes. Class sizes are only getting bigger, teachers are hardly paid, turn-over is increasing, students spend half their time studying for federally mandated tests that prove nothing more then your ability to take them. In the meantime, tuition rates for universities are steadily increasing, ensuring that fewer and fewer citizens are receiving adequate education. Do you really think that cutting more tax funding for schools and imposing more useless tests are going to save those schools? Hardly. What about health care? A president that has systematically ensured that your personal health is directly associated with your pocketbooks. He pulls apart Social Security, he pulls apart Medicaid and Medicare. He allows prescription costs to skyrocket so foreign-owned companies can profit. There are no benefits here. Bush is not interested in helping out the poor if they are sick. All of his plans for the healthcare system are purely financial, and no one can attest that he is trying to help out the lower-classes here, he never has. This list goes on and on. Bush is not providing security for Americans. He is not stopping terrorists. How could he? America's invasion of Iraq did more to promote anti-American sentiment than any other event in the last twenty years. For every 19 year-old Iraqi they kill another three sign up to defend their nation. Are they going to depopulate the country? What is going on here? What is he doing that is providing security? What, exactly, is his plan? Setting up permanent military installations throughout the Middle East? Supporting Israel as it incenses the entire region with heavy-handed tactics? Spout off propaganda about peace and prosperity while every other country watches Iraq devolve into a 5th world nation? All that the war has done is remind other nations that nuclear weapons are the only real defense against American Hegemony.

Look, I'm not saying that Kerry is some messiah here. What I'm saying is that we have made a mistake, and it is a mistake that we could be paying for in spades. Our deficit is skyrocketing. As Republican party members fill the government our control of it is slacking. They control all three branches of our government, the Executive, the Congressional, and the Legislative. Look at how quickly we invaded another country. How much control did the public have then? The party does not need us. It has billion dollar ad campaigns; it has a thoroughly whipped media.

American voters proved only how unforgivably obtuse we have become as a nation. We focus on rejecting each other's beliefs, our differing moral and ethical values. By allowing such thorough conservative control we have silenced millions. Abortion could easily be overturned. Gay marriage certainly will be. Even if you very much in favor of such horrible things, I very much doubt that you think it is a good idea to silence such a large part of our population, which is exactly what these laws are doing. Foreign communication will be increasingly limited as other nations begin to realize how abhorrent we have become. I mean, we just elected a president who lied to our country and then invaded another on false pretenses. And don't even start with crap about how he didn't know. It's bullshit. Regardless, there is little to do but continue with our lives. We will still go to supermarkets. Iraq will still be fighting. Classes will still be boring. Enjoy.

1.11.04

Transitory Unrest

As an American, I live in a society that is perpetually beset by a political pseduo-crisis every four years. Activists of all kinds take to the streets, the phones, the news, and the internet, all trying to sway voters to their causes. Change is in the air. Dueling documentaries. Explosive headlines. The nation is set ablaze with a political fever unmatched by other countries. Election day, the Western world comes to a screeching halt. Stockbrokers stand with laymen as they peer into televisions broadcasting the latest polls, CNN devotes itself to monitoring the official tallies, making small comments that equate to nothing more than filler...

And yet, regardless of the media attention and the seriousness of the event. Many people seem unaffected. Voter turnout averages around fifty percent. Local news headlines include as many sports events as political rhetoric. People seem as excited over drinking games as election results. There is a schism of public interest, betwen those who are "jacked in" and the apathetic.

And there is little wonder. This is one of the most important elections of the last fifty years, the national identity is in question, and foreign affairs hang in the balance. On the other hand, 527 groups circumvent "soft money" legislation. Special interest voter registration groups systematically disenfranchise citizens with opposing views. Intrusive political canvassing creates resentment as people feel victimized by political activism. Negative advertising blankets televisions and newspapers. Above all, however, candidates seem to be destroying whatever concept of integrity or dignity that was left in American politics. Voting is slowly assuming the air of rejecting the worser of two evils rather than choosing the best leader for our country.

There is a need for a reevaluation of our democracy. We need to be taking a closer look at the methodology of our electoral college, at our two-party system, at the advent of political extremism, at the prevalance of personal attacks rather than the discussion of issues between politicians, at the impact of corporate lobbying, at the social responsibilities of news media. However, it seems unlikely that any of this will occur. Washington has become a self-supporting system that, to quote Jon Stewart's wonderful new satire, "neither needs nor particularly wants voters". Corporate lobbying and party politics ensure an obscenely high incumbency rate, leaving politicians to pursue their personal ideology while tending their diminuitive constituency.

However, there is hope. Grassroot campaigning and increasing awareness of the problems in our bureaucracy is restoring the power of populism. The exponential growth of the internet as a communicative medium, as well as the success of community (as opposed to commercial) projects such as Slashdot, WikiWiki, and Linux, is reminding our society of the potential inherant to intelligent and passionate groups of people willing to work together. Together, these events could enable the populace to regain some modicum of their power.