How Many Gorges Does it Take?

The last cofferdam protecting the just-completed main wall of Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is blown up as the 12-second series of blasts sent the 30-meter (30-yard) top section of the cofferdam tumbling into the river in Yichang, central China's Hubei Province, Tuesday, June 6, 2006 the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The 1.4-mile-long Three Gorges Dam now holds back the full force of the river and assumes its role in controlling the deadly floods that have regularly ravaged China's farming heartland. (AP Photo/Xinhua,Liu Chan).

And the hand of God formed it into a huge representation of ... oh, you figure it out.

Rage Against the Machines

Rolling Stone magazine's National Affairs Daily published the following interview with Howard Dean today, 6-6-06.

Portions appear below:

Rolling Stone: How confident are you Ohio in 2004 was fairly decided?
Howard Dean: I’m not confident that the election in Ohio was fairly decided. We did our own Democratic party study in Ohio with a panel of experts. We absolutely know that there was a systematic voter suppression. We couldn’t say one way or another if the election was stolen. We couldn’t rule it out, but we couldn’t prove that it was. We know that there was substantial voter suppression, and the machines were not reliable. That’s clear.

...of the reports that we’ve received, where you push the screen for one candidate and the other name comes up repeatedly — most of those reports are on Diebold machines. In the governor’s race last year, we had reports from a southwestern district in Virginia that people were in fact pushing Democrat Tim Kaine’s name and Republican Jerry Kilgore’s came up.

This is going to be a very critical election in 2006. We’re very aware that there’s huge potential for additional mischief in 2006. We have no doubt that some of the folks who were active in vote suppression will be active again. It’s very, very difficult to deal with it. We just have to keep pushing forward doing the best we can. The real question is why the mainstream media won’t write about this.

It is supposed to be bad for the Democracy to allege such impropriety, but when a great American like Dr. Howard Dean brings the subject up, one has to take another look. However, the allegations and suspicions bring up the prospect that the whole thing is sour grapes from the Democrats, which masks the potential accuracy of the story.

In other words, I'm sure there was voter fraud and I'm sure we will never be told the truth.

An Unpopular Argument

NEW YORK - As the fight over immigration reform drags on, an ominous undercurrent to the debate — racism — is becoming more pronounced. From muttered ethnic slurs to violent attacks, activists say an anti-immigrant backlash seems to be growing in America's neighborhoods and workplaces. A few political leaders have called proposed immigration measures before Congress "racist." "The climate has gotten demonstrably worse and it is racially charged," said Devin Burghart of the Center for New Community, which tracks anti-immigrant activity. "It's not simply a debate about immigration policy. It's about race and national identity and who and what we are as Americans."

Well ... who are we, exactly? We are a country that shows television programs like the ALMA Awards tonight. The ALMA Awards are sort of a Hispanic Golden Globes - as if the Golden Globes excludes Hispanics. It doesn't, of course, so why segregate a race with a spotlight on their glory and not everyone elses? Isn't that why minorities got upset with us in the first place?

We are also given the Miss Black America Pageant, which is the black version of the Miss America pageant, which also does not prohibit blacks from entering.

There are publications like Jet Magazine and entire network called Black Entertainment Television, as though People Magazine and NBC do not have sufficient exposure. There are two Spanish language channels on my cable. I do not speak Spanish.

The reason all those things exist is because there is a market for them. Minorities feel suppressed. They feel that their best interests are not being served in the traditional markets, so they have made their own. We cannot act together, so some of us have decided to act alone. It seems to me that it is the concept upon which this country was founded. So, perhaps the "racist society" remark is a bit late in coming.

The point is, we are a racist society. Each of us alone makes the effort to treat everyone the same, but somehow, society drops the ball. Not being a Sociologist, I cannot make the connection, but the forces of ignorance must be more powerful than the forces of good, because a lot of people think the way I do on the subject, and even though we have legislated other emotional issues, no amount of legislation seems to be enough to make people's attitudes change.

So, we will continue to be segregated as a society, albeit less so because many of the offending actions are now illegal. They treated a symptom, but the disease goes merrily onward. Why it is a news story is beyond me.

Whose God is it, Anyway?

WASHINGTON - Is Tuesday's date 6-6-6 merely a curious number or could it mean our number is up? Something about the number 666 brings out the worry, the hope and even the humor in people, said the Rev. Felix Just, a professor of theology at the University of San Francisco. A Jesuit priest, Just has taught both apocalyptic theory and mathematics and maintains a "666-Numbers of the Beast" Web site that contains history, theology, math and precisely 66 one-line jokes about 666.

Oy. So, what happened on the original occurance of this date, June 6, 0006, and the subsequent one on June 6, 1006 to cause theologians and other people of a confused mindset to think that something was going to happen on Tuesday?

They're just numbers on a calendar that we made up and doesn't necessarily coorespond to calendars in other parts of the world. So what makes us think that our calendar is the one on which God deems to act? Are we that pompous as Americans to think that God singles us out for special treatment? Apparently we are. He's our God, after all.

On behalf of the United States of America, to whom I pledge allegiance, I apologize.

Civilization Finishes Second

The time-period premiere of "Gameshow Marathon," 5.8 rating /10 share, put CBS on top at 8 p.m. ABC was second with the live (tape-delayed out West) final rounds of the National Spelling Bee, scoring a 5.0/9 for the hour. A repeat of "So You Think You Can Dance" was third for FOX at 3.8/7. Two episodes of "The Office" averaged 3.4/6 for NBC. A "Smallville" repeat on The WB topped UPN's "Everybody Hates Chris" and "Love, Inc."

It was close, but the Bee was second. Still, 9% of the sets in use were being used watching it (approximately 5.5 million viewers), while the precious American Idol usually gets around 25% and 17 million viewers. So, any ideas Simon had of asking contestants to spell the titles of the songs they're singing went right out the window.

Thursday's top 4 shows represented 32% of the sets in use. What are the other 68% watching? Judging from all the chatter, you would have thought that more people were watching the spelling thing. I hate to question the accuracy of the sainted Nielsen people, but ya gotta wonder.

The End of Civilization

HIGH DRAMA IN OUR NATION'S CAPITAL

WASHINGTON - Spellers took to the stage minutes before the television broadcast, huddling and chanting "1-2-3, Spell" before taking their seats. Their parents sat on stage, too, across the aisle.
The broadcast had the flavor and style of a sports program, opening with a montage of the competitors and including a short profile of the first speller before he got his word. Profiles of other spellers followed during subsequent commercial breaks, and each pause in the competition brought a groan from the audience. Each word or grimace by spellers triggered a blast of camera shutters, and the live TV camera followed the losers into the arms of comforting parents.
Even gamblers got into the act, putting money down on questions including whether the final word would have an "e" in it and whether the winner would wear glasses. Simon Noble, CEO of PinnacleSports.com, said his offshore Internet sports betting company had received about $70,000 in wagers on seven propositions about the bee as of noon Thursday.

I watched the television show for a grand total of about 3 minutes. The opening montage featured one young competitor with what the commentator described as his "game face on". It was at that point that I recognized that if I didn't turn off the television, I would have to explain my actions to God at a later date. The people who are gambling on spelling will have many more issues to account for.

As it turned out, the show would have been turned off for me, ironically, by God, as a huge thunderstorm blew through the area, knocking out the power at what would have been a half hour before the thrilling competition ended - if I was still watching at the time. So, my early exit spared me the frustration of missing the ending.

We have now elevated spelling to the level of Little League by having youngsters subject themselves to self-inflicted pressure on national television, as they do for the grueling weeks of the Little League World Series.

As I watched the opening minutes, I wondered if we have not, as a society, completely numbed ourselves to the presence of media. Young teenagers are now regularly being exposed to National media, and seeming to be none the worse for it. Is it possible that such exposure is welcome and even expected?

Presumably, millions of Americans tuned in to watch kids spell words we don't even use, or know, for that matter. It was supposed to be captivating TV, but I don't get it. I cannot use ursprache in a sentence, or give you another word for icteritious. If someone used the words maieutic, poiesis or tmesis in front of me, I would ask which language they were speaking.

But, there it is on the TV, so we watch.