Tuesday August 22

more on morons from Harry Shearer

Maybe Brad Pitt meant that it's impossible to prepare oneself to witness the devastation in New Orleans. Which is probably true.

I'm often critical of CNN, but I must admit that CNN has done a fine job of covering Katrina. A woman working in a N.O. hospital reported the flooding of the city in a live phone interview while it was happening. I was watching CNN at the time, so I knew what was going on in N.O. long before FEMA did.

HARRY RESPONDS: What CNN didn't do a "fine job" of covering was why the levees failed--the culpability of the Corps. Without the "why", the story has become just a series of victim portraits on the network--leaving many people wondering why they should care. They should care because their tax dollars bought the flooding.

I posted a comment about one of Harry Shearer's blog entries in The Huffington Post. Above (in italics) is my comment and his response.

Shearer is on a crusade to tell the world about the recent Corps of Engineers scandal. Their construction of a hurricane protection system around New Orleans in the years before Katrina hit SUCKED due to incompetence and criminally negligent corruption.

New Orleans still has no hurricane protection system. Why are people being encouraged to move back there?

I posted another comment. As follows.

The Corps of Engineers scandal is a significant news story. I agree that it has been underplayed in the mainstream press. But does it take this scandal to get us angry about New Orleans? The world witnessed FEMA's incompetence. The horse is out of the barn.

If the Democrats win control of the House or Senate in November, every aspect of this mess--the Corps of Engineers, FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security--will be the subject of Congressional investigations and hearings.

Shearer recommended a book review by Michael Grunwald in The New Republic magazine titled Hurricane Katrina Was A Man-Made Disaster, citing Grunwald's "well-informed overview of the history of the Corps." The Storm and Path of Destruction are two books mentioned in the review that are probably worth reading. One of Shearer's fans recommended Socks on a Rooster: Louisiana's Earl K. Long for some historical background.

Brad Pitt isn't the only celebrity to stimulate Shearer's bile. He is especially critical of CNN's Anderson Cooper. I asked the following question.

Have you impersonated Anderson Cooper on Le Show? A single lampoon is worth a thousand blog entries.

No response. I'll dig up the answer myself. You, dear readers, will be the first to know if I uncover his Anderson Cooper impersonation in the Le Show archives.

Here's a shortcut to all of Harry Shearer's blog entries in The Huffington Post.

Thursday August 17

cartoons for the blind?

Cartoons 4 the Blind seems like a good idea. It's a fledgling project in Malaysia. Something like a Braille embosser is used to generate bass relief cartoons.

I'm a cartoonist. I have visually impaired and blind friends. James Thurber, one of my favorite cartoonists, went progressively blind in his adulthood. Late in his life, he couldn't see his own cartoons.

I'm researching accessibility. I'm not a professional designer, but I do code the HTML of my own web pages. "Keep it simple" is my mantra, out of pure necessity.

I've been working on a theory. Could it be that clean and accessible HTML is the best possible way to go? Not for altruistic reasons, but because the HTML loads faster and works okay on almost every browser variant? Someday I hope to write a book titled Ethics for Sociopaths. Smart sociopaths, needless to say.

One of the tools that I'm using to improve the accessibility of my web pages is a text-only web browser called lynx. If a webpage looks okay text-only, chances are it's at least somewhat accessible.

I've been using the W3C Markup Validation Service for years. Error-free HTML is easier than you might think. It's mostly monkey-see monkey-do. I'm no hacker. If I can get it done, just about anybody can.

This online version of HTML Tidy will test your web pages (one at a time) for U.S. government Section 508 compliance according to the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 1.0) that are not perfect but a good beginning.

A web-based tool that I just started using yesterday is called WebXACT. It's a "free online service that lets you test single pages of web content for quality, accessibility, and privacy issues."

Thursday August 03

those wacky Nielsen Haydens

"Barack Obama can kiss my ass" says Tor Books editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden. He explains why in his blog. "I've had it with Sistah Souljah moments. No more."

Is Patrick Nielsen Hayden having a Ralph Nader moment? It would be political suicide for Barack Obama to openly oppose the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, which is what Patrick wants him to do. If the Democrats lose again this November, they're history.

In his blog entry, Patrick indirectly blames Barack Obama for the recent persecution of a Jewish family in southern Delaware. Guess what. Most Jews don't object the phrase "under God." They side with the majority of Christians and Muslims on this issue. I'll never encourage any thinking person to march in lock step and parrot Democratic party talking points, but Patrick's "kiss my ass" rant is uncool.

I posted a not unfriendly brief comment that was only somewhat tangental. It solely consisted of a reference to Harlan Ellison. Young Harlan was the only Jewish kid at the elementary school in Painesville, Ohio. He was the smallest kid in his grade. It was not a totally happy childhood. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the next day that my comment had been deleted. Later I found out that I'd been banned from making comments, presumably by the moderator who happens to be Patrick's wife Teresa Nielsen Hayden.

It was the first time that I'd ever tried to post a comment to their blog. I posted nothing obscene, nothing even remotely threatening.

I can't wait to be blacklisted and censored by the likes of Patrick and Teresa if their crew ever takes power in the USA. That said, I should thank Patrick for compelling me to defend Barack Obama. If the Nielsen Haydens think that I'm a net nut, I'll just have to prove them wrong. They've handed me a golden opportunity on a silver platter to do just that. It's now my ambition.

the ocean's full of sea wolves

Accelerando by Charlie Stross--a 2006 Hugo Award finalist in the Best Novel category--can be downloaded for free in eight different text formats, including HTML, PDF, RTF, Palm DOC, Microsoft Reader, and ASCII.

The tenative World Con program schedule has been posted to the web. Geoffrey Landis and John Scalzi will be on a panel about extraterrestrials. I'm so there.

Precis: Where are the Extraterrestrials? Why haven't we been contacted? A gold mine for SF ideas, the academic study of this problem has come a long way in the last 10 years. Are we victims of a galactic conspiracy, or is the forest full of wolves?

We've already encountered alien consciousness. No, I don't mean fans. Intelligent undersea mammals are the aliens. Rod Serling made this observation while narrating The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, I think. Although they're not extraterrestrial, whales and dolphins do live in a radically different environment. Our interaction with them is a test. I hope we don't fail it.

Some of the human race will become extraterrestrials when other planets are colonized. Over a period of many generations, they'll adapt to their new environment, wherever it may be. They'll possibly become so different from us in appearance and behavior that they'll resemble the aliens on TV shows like Star Trek. They could ultimately become even stranger than we can now imagine.

I'm spinning the exhortation to "go forth and multiply" quite a bit here. Why should it be the exclusive property of religious fundamentalists?

None of these thoughts are new or original, but they're on my mind.