Thursday, May 29, 2003
Groundhog Day
Yesterday, as I drove home from lunch, a huge, blue Chrysler New Yorker was in front of me, on a street near my house. It normally would have been completely unmemorable to me except that for some reason I considered, "That's a big-ass car," and "I didn't think they made those any more."
It soon lazily turned right down a dingy, semi-paved road lined with run-down, concrete-block duplexes and out of my life.
Or so I thought. As I drove home from work later that night, the same big-ass blue Chrysler New Yorker was in front of me at the very same point of the very same street, then lazily turned down that same dingy street.
Current mood: Mystified
Posted by Lynniechan @ 08:11 AM EST [Link]
Big Boy
There's a neighborhood cat the BF and I call Big Boy, who comes around to our house to say hi a few times a week. He's a sweetie and greets you by using your sneakers as a scratching post. He's declawed, so all he ends up doing is rubbing your feet. He's missing part of his lower lip, and the tip of his tongue peeks out of his mouth.
Lately, Big Boy hasn't looked so hot.
He used to be plump, but now he's rail thin. He's lethargic.
Previously, he'd come around occasionally sporting a new collar. Sometimes it was light blue, sometimes it was a flea collar, sometimes it was pink. He now wears a royal blue collar with a bell. He's worn it for quite some time.
And his fur is matted and dirty.
I wonder if his owner has moved away, abandoning him. Or just stopped taking care of him. Or died. If his owner isn't dead, I am furious that someone would neglect a sweet cat like Big Boy.
I poured him a small bowl of cat food yesterday during his visit. He devoured it.
I'm worried about Big Boy. I need to find his owner.
Current mood: Worried
Posted by Lynniechan @ 07:45 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Pretty cool
Many are ugly, but this is still a cool function, and there might be some ideas worth stealing.
Posted by Lynniechan @ 05:26 PM EST [Link]
Monday, May 26, 2003
OMG
The photo gallery of my trip to Japan is finally online!
Current mood: Exhausted
Posted by Lynniechan @ 06:14 AM EST [Link]
Blair bitch
I have to admit to being completely shocked that the Jayson Blair story got as much attention as it did.
When the story broke, I was packing my bags for Japan. It was still in the news brief stages.
I didn't follow much news while I was in Japan. But I did keep the TV on CNN International (our lone English-language TV station) whenever I was in our hotel room, and there was never any mention of Blair or the New York Times the whole time I was there.
I came home and was surprised to find that it was front-page, cover-story news. Blair's name was splashed across the cover of every magazine, featured in every newspaper. His story even made for plenty of stand-up fodder.
I figured that news must have been slow while I was gone. The ubiquitous coverage I returned to just smacked of the media being fascinated by itself -- or enjoying ripping apart the highfalutin NYT like a pack of wolves.
The feature stories I've read on Blair's history, drug use and arrogance, however, have been thoroughly interesting.
Current mood: Unmotivated
Posted by Lynniechan @ 02:48 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, May 22, 2003
RTFM
Whoo hoo! I just figured out why my iTunes hasn't been able to make audio CDs. I hadn't burned one for two months until now.
Of course, in the end, nothing was wrong with iTunes. It was operator error (er, really operator ignorance).
Anyway, my membership dues to The Burning Sensations are all paid up, and I'm back to full privileges!
Current mood: Cabbage-patching
Posted by Lynniechan @ 09:15 AM EST [Link]
Sorry for the silence
I've been feeling very burned out since I came back from my two-week vacation, discouraging as that is.
The trip took a lot out of me, with all the walking and jet lag and all, but I should be fully recovered by now, and I apparently am not. The BF and I both had colds when we came back from Japan -- no, it wasn't SARS -- and I wonder if it's lingering.
Yeah, that's it. Must be that.
I've felt contstantly run down and fatigued. Two nights ago, I fell asleep in front of the TV while watching one of my favorite programs after work. I awoke, surprised, an hour later, the TV still on. I don't typically fall asleep watching TV, and I never fall asleep that fast. I've never had a hard time staying up until 4 a.m. Mostly, it's not even by choice but just my body clock. But lately, I've had to go straight to bed after work because I can barely keep my eyes open.
I nearly fell asleep at the wheel this morning on the way to rowing practice.
Mentally, I'm not much different. I haven't been sloppy, but I've been numb and apathetic to work.
I thought taking off two weeks would rejuvenate me, help to boost the negative attitude I often feel for my wheel-spinning career until my next week of vacation rolls around. The BF and I even commented before we left that eight days in an unfamiliar country was about as long as we'd probably be able to stand being away from home. It didn't help. If anything, exploring a fascinating country and connecting with my roots has made it harder for me to concentrate on my mundane tasks at work.
At any rate, I'm still strugging to get back into my daily routine. It's been much tougher than I expected it to be.
Current mood: Tired
Posted by Lynniechan @ 08:55 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
News flash
Logging is actually beneficial to forests!
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted Tuesday to accelerate tree cutting on 20 million acres of overgrown woodlands that are prone to the wildfires that scorched millions of acres across 15 states last year.
President Bush supported the bill, which was approved 256-170, and urged the Senate to act on it quickly.
"For too many years, bureaucratic tangles and bad forest policy have prevented foresters from keeping our woodlands healthy and safe," Bush said.
Current mood: Disgusted
Posted by Lynniechan @ 07:58 PM EST [Link]
Monday, May 19, 2003
Work in progress
I made my first DVD today, a slideshow disk of our trip to Japan. No soundtrack or flashy transitions, just one of the canned templates that comes with iDVD. But hey, it's a start -- and I just wanted you to know that I'm working on getting pix online. Wal-Mart still hasn't relinquished the negatives from my roll-and-a-half of good ol' fashioned film I took. So when I get those back, I'll scan in the best of those and get going on the online gallery.
Current mood: Chatty
Posted by Lynniechan @ 04:54 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, May 18, 2003
At the movies
I saw the new Matrix movie and loved it, despite being completely confused by that Architect character at the end. Of all the characters in the movie who could have spoken above people's heads, it had to be the person who Explained It All. I'm sure it's all a sinister plot by The Man to make you have to go see it again to figure out what the heck he said. And of course I will.
Current mood: Lazy
Posted by Lynniechan @ 12:55 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, May 15, 2003
I'm back
Just checking in with ya. I'm home from Japan and doing well, despite a little jet lag. The trip was everything I'd hoped and more. Sitting here at my desk at home, I almost can't believe it was real. All these years I'd dreamed of going back there, of seeing it as an adult and meeting relatives I'd either never met or hadn't seen since I was a kid. I finally closed that chapter in my book. It was so great I find myself wondering how and when I'll ever go back.
Have lots to tell and show you, but I'd like to get settled in first. Here's a preview: This is the view outside our hotel, which was in an area of Tokyo called Shinjuku.
Current mood: In need of shower
Posted by Lynniechan @ 08:50 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, May 6, 2003
Family matters update
My mom called me the other day while I was working out at the gym, which is noteworthy in itself in that my parents never call me. I can count on one hand the number of times my mom has called me for anything; she also had never seen my previous apartment. My parents get on me all the time for never calling or too infrequently stopping by to visit, but apparently it's not a two-way street with them. But I'm not bitter. I'll psychoanalyze my close-from-a-distance relationship with them another day.
Anyway, the caller ID on my cell that afternoon was a number I did not recognize. I checked the message, and it was my mom asking me to call her. Was she calling from a friend's house? I panicked, thinking someone must either be dead or in the hospital to warrant the call. I dialed the IDed number; no answer. I called my parents' home number -- which incredibly has not changed since they bought their house 20 years ago -- to leave a message, and my mom picked up. "O Reen. Kaoru call." (My immediate family and some of my close friends call me Lynn because of my middle name, and that's how my mom pronounces it in Engrish.)
She explained that my second cousin Kaoru, whom I had e-mailed a couple of weeks ago, only recently read my e-mail because he was in the hospital. He sent his apologies for not responding.
Whew. He's the only relative I have there who speaks both English and Japanese. I really had my fingers crossed that he'd get back to me. I was hoping he'd accompany us to my mom's hometown. It's a rural area, and the chances are good that there aren't nearly as many English-speakers there as in Tokyo.
I'm sorry to hear that he was in the hospital. My mom wasn't sure what for. He's out of the hospital now, but he's probably still not 100%. So I don't know whether he'll be able to accompany us out of Tokyo. He at least wants to take us out to dinner one night. I'm looking forward to that but have to admit to being a little nervous about meeting relatives I don't know or haven't seen in nearly 25 years.
Wish me luck.
Current mood: Restless
P.S. The unidentified phone number from which my mom called was her cell number. I had no idea she had a cell phone. "O, I have long time." Thanks for telling me.
Posted by Lynniechan @ 01:30 AM EST [Link]
Friday, May 2, 2003
Paranoia will destroya
"The media believe -- and I can't say they're wrong -- that people just enjoy being scared," says Caltech president David Baltimore. "And because their readers and viewers enjoy it, the media play to it." He wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Monday: "People fear whatever scary new thing TV shoves under their noses. But those of us professionally devoted to rational analysis need to do more than wag our fingers now that the press routinely swells the fear factor toward a level that could itself become a danger."
American culture thrives on fear. And this administration thrives on maintaining that.
Current mood: Outraged
Posted by Lynniechan @ 01:39 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, May 1, 2003
Image is everything
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) -- It is one of the most famous images of the war in Iraq: a U.S. soldier scaling a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and draping the Stars and Stripes over the black metal visage of the ousted despot.
But for Harper's magazine publisher John MacArthur, that same image of U.S. military victory is also indicative of a propaganda campaign being waged by the Bush administration.
"It was absolutely a photo-op created for (U.S. President George W.) Bush's re-election campaign commercials," MacArthur, a self-appointed authority on U.S. government propaganda, said in an interview. "CNN, MSNBC and Fox swallowed it whole."
In 1992, MacArthur wrote "Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War," a withering critique of government and media actions that he says misled the public after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
In MacArthur's opinion, little has changed during the latest Iraq war, prompting him to begin work on an updated edition of "Second Front." U.S. government public relations specialists are still concocting bogus stories to serve government interests, he says, and credulous journalists stand ready to scarf up the baloney.
"The concept of a self-governing American republic has been crippled by this propaganda," MacArthur said. "The whole idea that we can govern ourselves and have an intelligent debate, free of cant, free of disinformation, I think it's dead."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan denied the existence of any administration propaganda campaign and predicted the American public would reject such notions as ridiculous.
A Pentagon spokesman also denied high-level planning in the appearance of the American flag in Baghdad. "It sure looked spontaneous to me," said Marine Lt. Col. Mike Humm.
In fact, a recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that Americans were happy with Iraq war coverage, though many wanted less news coverage of anti-war activism and fewer TV appearances by former military officers.
But MacArthur insists that both Gulf wars have been marked by phony tales calculated to deceive public opinion at crucial junctures.
BABIES AND BOMBS
On the eve of the 1991 Gulf War, Americans were asked to believe that Iraqi soldiers tossed Kuwaiti infants from hospital incubators, leaving them to die. Not true, he says.
This time, MacArthur says the Bush administration made false claims about Iraqi nuclear weapons, charging Baghdad was trying to import aluminum tubes to make enriched uranium and that the country was six months from building a warhead.
The International Atomic Energy Agency found those tubes were for artillery rockets, not nuclear weapons. And MacArthur says a supposed IAEA report, on which the White House based claims about Iraqi weapons-making ability, did not exist.
"What's changed is that there's no shame anymore in doing it directly," MacArthur, 46, said of what he views as blatant White House and Pentagon propaganda campaigns.
Cynthia Kennard, assistant professor at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism, said the Bush administration has mastered the art of building favorable public images and shaping messages to suit its own interests.
"It's put the journalism profession in somewhat of a paralysis," said Kennard, a former CBS correspondent who covered the 1991 Gulf War. "This is not a particularly glowing moment for tough questions and enterprise reporting."
As Harper's publisher, MacArthur oversees a 153-year-old political and literary magazine he helped save from financial ruin 20 years ago with money from the foundation named for his billionaire grandparents, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur.
While MacArthur accuses news outlets generally of avoiding opposition stands, his own magazine has been vitriolic toward Bush, describing the president in its May issue as a leader who "counts his ignorance as a virtue and regards his lack of curiosity as a sign of moral strength."
MURDOCH'S CIRCUS
But MacArthur is not troubled by the thumping patriotism displayed by cable TV news outlets like Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel, which leads CNN and MSNBC in viewer ratings.
"All that means is that Murdoch knows how to run a circus better than anyone else. War and jingoism always sell. But the real damage was done by the high-brow press," MacArthur said.
"On the propaganda side, the New York Times is more responsible for making the case for war than any other newspaper or any other news organization."
He blames the Times for giving credence to Bush administration claims about the aluminum tubes. And when Bush cited a nonexistent IAEA report on Iraqi nukes, he says, it was the conservative Washington Times -- not the New York Times or Washington Post -- that wound up refuting the assertion.
The New York Times also reported an Iraqi scientist told U.S. officials that Saddam destroyed chemical and biological equipment and sent weapons to Syria just before the war.
The only trouble, MacArthur says, is that the Times did not speak to or name the scientist but agreed to delay the story, submit the text to government scrutiny and withhold details -- facts the Times acknowledged in its article. "You might as well just run a press release. Let the government write it. That's Pravda," he said.
Times spokesman Toby Usnik dismissed MacArthur's claims regarding the Times' war coverage as a whole: "We believe we have covered the story from all sides and all angles."
Fox had no comment on his remarks.
Editors across the nation also worked hard to avoid the grisly images of war, especially scenes of dead Iraqi civilians and Americans, while Europeans saw uncensored horrific images.
The Pentagon's decision to embed journalists with U.S. forces produced war footage that the 1991 war sorely lacked. But the coverage rarely rose to the standard MacArthur wanted.
"Ninety percent of what we got was junk ... I think probably 5 or 10 percent of it was pretty good," he said.
MacArthur says the character of the news media, and the government's attitude toward it, was best summed up by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a Pentagon "town hall" meeting.
Asked by an audience member what could be done to reverse the media's "overwhelmingly negative" war coverage, Rumsfeld said: "You know, penalize the papers and the television ... that don't give good advice and reward those people that do give good advice."
MacArthur said that translated as: "You punish the critics and you reward your friends. That's what he means. That's the standard currency of Washington journalism ... To show reality becomes unpatriotic, in effect."
But the Pentagon's Lt. Col. Humm said Rumsfeld had not been talking about unfavorable reporting but about inaccurate reporting. "It is Department of Defense policy with regard to working with the media that we do not penalize or reward for the nature of what they report on," he said. "The standards we demand and expect are professional standards of conduct."
Current mood: Angry
Posted by Lynniechan @ 04:28 PM EST [Link]
More feelings of inadequacy
If I lose any more weight, I think my breasts will wink out of existence.
Current mood: Plain Jane
Posted by Lynniechan @ 01:11 AM EST [Link]