Vexillological meditation
This is a letter from David Horowitz's complaint line, Students for Academic "Freedom"* where conservative chronicle the horrible oppression under the intollerant liberal academic brainwashing system.

Complaint Lodger Details: Anonymous

Class: Human Geography

Subject: Iraq

Professor: Kujawa

College: Saint Michael's College

Description of Complaint (please be as detailed as possible, including quotes from your professor where applicable): Talked about flags as symbols of states and argued that new Iraqi flag was not a result of a transparent and fair process. Argued AS FACT that new flag had similar colors to Israeli flag and that this could be problematic. Claimed AS FACT that other Arab societies had red, green and black in their flags. Very biased. Had no visual proof of this.

Action Taken: I will fact check and complain to administration. He has an English accent but claims to be an American.

I'm not sure when I developed a love of flags. I've always been a map nerd, so it might have been a natural extension of one interest into another brought on by those grade school wall maps that had the flags of the countries or states around the margin.

Associating flags with countries and parts of countries just came naturally. When I was very little, I noticed that most flags are mind numbingly unimaginative. In those days, eleven southern states used some variation of the stars and bars for their flag (Texas and South Carolina did not). Nineteen states used their state seal on a blue background. Washington is daringly original in using their state seal on a green background.

Most national flags were some kind of tricolor or another. While I was in grade school, thirty or so new countries became independent. To me, it seemed like the most difficult choice most faced in designing their flags was whether to have vertical or horizontal stripes in their tricolors. Tricolors are the bar-codes of national flags.

I mention all of this in order to establish my vexillological bona fides. I own flag reference books. I know how to use them. I have also discovered that it's possible to look up useful information of those internets.

Considering that all of the Arab countries have flags using some combination of red, green, and black and that none of them use light blue, just what is Annoymous' big gripe? Is it that the English accented Prof. Kujawa failed to mention white? Is this just another case of multiculturalism run wild. Once again the contribution of white has been minimised. Or is it that Annoymous is such a severe empiricist that he/she/it will accept nothing on auhtority unless backed by illustrations and proof that these illustartions represent an overwhelming statistical majority? That hardly seems conservative. Isn't unquestioning respect and deference to authority a conservative value?

* Okay, I added the irony quotes. But really, whose freedom are they concerned with when they go int the vapors over something like this? Big crybabies.

The funniest man in show biz
Who says conservatives don't have a sense of humor?

On February 15, the same day that FOX News host Bill O'Reilly claimed that "[n]o lies have been told about anyone" on his show, nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh boasted: "We don't retract anything we do here because we never lie and make things up on this program." Limbaugh also defended the accuracy of FOX News, stating: "You know, at FOX News, I have to tell you this, they haven't had to retract one story, major story that I can recall since they've been on the air."

Civilization in decline
WARNING: The following post contains geezer grousing and may not be suitable for readers under thirty.

The other day I was looking over some recent DVD releases. I'm not sure why; clever wife and haven't converted to DVD yet. But I found myself with DVDs in front of my face, so I looked them. Universal has oened up its vaults to release all of their classic monster movies from the thirties. They've packaged them in attactive sets of three or four movies with documentary extras according to monster. They seem to have done a very nice job. Then their marketing department slapped a sticker on the front of each one that reads "Unleash the Original Films That Inspired 'Van Helsing.'" They think the only way people will watch classic movies is if they associate them with one of the worst blockbusters of last year. I had the same reaction when I saw "East of Eden" marketed as a selection of Opra's Bookclub. Woo-hoo, I thought, this could be Steinbeck's big career break! We're doomed.

Am I missing something?
So far, I have been watching Gannongate with amusement, but have not had much to add to the whole brou-ha-ha. I do, however, have one question: how come no one has made a proper bad joke about the inability of HotMilitaryStud to get a "hard" pass from Scottie at the White House? Don't tell me no one has thought of this in-you-endo.

Toward a history of the environmental movement
I'm sure that histories of the environmental movement exist. I haven't read any, but I can predict what they are or will be. Two narratives are possible according to the most current styles of historiography. The first is a political narrative. This would be a history of popular movements, influential groups, and significant legislation. It might be told a colorful saga of powerful personalities. The second narrative would be an intellectual history. This is a tale of influential publications, magazines, books, and theses. Both narratives are valid; they tell the tale of a lineage. They tell the tale of the evolution of a an new idea, growing from a notion into a popular value. One uses personalities as the vector of transmission; the other uses publications. I'm willing to bet both leave a significant piece of the story out.

My clever wife and I are part of the first generation to grow up with the environment, or nature, as a permanent part of our political socialization. Prior to the sixties, the environment was rarely a part of political discourse. After the sixties, it is inescapable. Different positions are possible, but the issue is inescapable. You must take sides.

Our awareness of the environment did not come from political or philosophical movements. It did not come from reading great works of nature writing. Neither of knew where the national parks and forests came from or who Rachel Carlson was until we were already committed tree-huggers.

We were brought to the environment by popular culture. When we talk about the environment, four influences stand out: the movie "Bambi," Smokey the Bear, the anti-litter campaign, and the near extinction of the buffalo and bald eagle. Bambi and Smokey personalized nature. The anti-litter campaign showed us graphically how widespread human influence on nature was. The thought that two big animals so important to the American mythos might disappear made the consequences a matter of national pride for us.

That's not the whole story. There were other important influences; I have a whole narrative that involves the interstate highway system. You don't want to hear it. We are the generation that saw the change from conservation to environmentalism. Those simple messages are the ones that worked on us.

There is a lesson here for the Democratic Party on how to construct messages. Effective messages need to be simple, they need to connect at a gut level, they need to fit into a narrative, and they need bears. Remember that.

Is it time to panic now?
I heard this on the radio this morning while trying to struggle up from dreamland. It woke me up fast.

President Bush on Thursday named John Negroponte, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and currently the administration's top representative in Iraq, to be America's first national intelligence director.

[...]

"John will make sure that those whose duty it is to defend America have the information we need to make the right decisions," Bush said. "We're going to stop the terrorists before they strike."

"[S]top the terrorists before they strike." Those are pretty chilling words coming from a guy is alleged to have had close ties to Central American death squad leaders back when he was Reagan's ambassador to Honduras. At least now Alberto Gonzales will have a kindred soul to sit with during cabinet meetings. These two between them control the intelligence and law enforcement communities, the CIA and the FBI. My paranoia meter just went to eleven.

I'll have more to say about this later.

The Axis three are one
Yesterday Bradblog demonstrated that CNN's website was using the same photo of some kind of compound in stories about two different nuclear programs in both Iran and North Korea. Atrios asked if this was proof that Iran and North Korea were one and the same country. According to the Institute for Science and International Security, the photos are of the gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility near Natanz, Iran.

Today, Bradblog has pictures discovered by EarlG (see comment 63 "Important Update"), an administrator over at Democratic Underground, of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty using a photo of the same facility in a story about the North Korean program last March. The filename of the photo used in the RFE/RL story is "Iraq-nuclear.jpg." Bradblog has all of the pictures nicely lined up for comparison here. Although funded by the US government, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is normally a highly dependable source of news for areas of the world that are not well covered by other American new media.

If the CNN gaffe was the whole story, it would be easy to believe that it was an honest mistake. But the RFE/RL angle is particularly disturbing. For one thing, they printed a different picture that the one CNN is using, so this is not a case of one mislabled picture circulating through news circles. Secondly, the RFE/RL is mislabled as yet a third country. All three countries are members of the "Axis of Evil" targeted by the administration as the sources of most of the evil in the modern world.

So what is going on here? At this point, I don't think it's conspiratorial to say it looks like they are all being fed information by the same source. Bradblog has communicated with both CNN and RFE/RL and requested that information (RFE/RL is run out of Prague, so it may take some time for him to get a response). At this point, I'd say the safe money will bet on the executive branch of the US government. At least, that's where I'm putting my money.

Thanking our friends
Some liberals wanted to thank Sen. Barbara Boxer (forces of good - CA) for leading the floor fights against confirmation of Bush’s appointees, especially Gonzales, so they decided to send her some roses for Valentine’s Day (375 dozen to be exact).



Barb says thanks over at Kos.

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The sad last days of Heckle and Jeckle
Bryant asks the question of the day, “So, like, whatever happened to Heckle and Jeckle?” I hate to have to be the one to have to tell him the sordid tale. The following is mostly a summary of chapter seven of “Cartoon Babylon” (New York: Permanent Press, 1997).

It was the usual story of show biz egos run amuck. Jeckle got tired of playing second fiddle and broke up the act to pursue a solo career in music. He recorded one album that was generally ignored by fans and critics alike. Heckle tried to retire, soon bored of that, and wrote a tell-all memoir of his days in toons. Both went through a series of high profile Hollywood marriages and expensive divorces.

After about ten years of obscurity, they had a tearful reunion on the "Merv Griffin Show" and tried to revive the old act. By then, however, kids’ tastes had moved on to more sophisticated fare like "The Chan Clan," “Scrappy Doo,” and "Josie and the Pussycats." Jeckle took to the bottle while Heckle tried, without luck, to sell another spicy memoir. Heckle also tried, unsuccessfully to create a new act with Baba Louie after the latter’s famous split with Quickdraw McGraw.

Throughout the eighties and nineties, Jeckle drifted in and out of rehab, became born-again, and was briefly a fixture on “The 700 Club.” Heckle paid his many alimony bills by accepting any kind paying acting gig he could get, usually undignified sitcom walk-ons. Now days they can occasionally be seen doing dinner theater on the Carolina coast or signing autographs for money at old cartoon conventions. It's really quite sad.