Here and There

I can just see Bill Safire’s New York Times Magazine column in the coming weeks discussing this one. This one being “stinging rebuke.”

It’s easily the phrase of the week. Hell, even I used it in Work Blog 1.

What the hell is a rebuke? And does it always sting, or is there a less pain-inducing version out there somewhere?

First, let’s consult Webster’s Thesaurus: “Text: an often public or formal expression of disapproval (delivered a stinging rebuke to the congress, calling for an end to backstabbing and arguing).”

My god, there’s the phrase, right there in the entry for “rebuke”!

On to Webster’s dictionary: “1. to criticize sharply. REPRIMAND: to serve as a rebuke to. 2. to turn back or keep down.”

Fine. But why isn’t anyone using reprimand? I prefer it, as it conjures images of a teacher or parent beating or yelling at a kid. The entire Bush Administration stands for the kid here, and SCOTUS as the crotchety old pedagogue. Nice.

Onto that more reliable index of popular culture and collective conscience: Google. I’ll google (lowercase as a verb, or so I unilaterally decided) the phrase “stinging rebuke” and see what Google (the proper noun, and thus capped) finds for me.

Surprisingly, our beloved SCOTUS stinging rebuke didn’t even make the first page of results. In fact, not a single stinging rebuke made it on the first page more than once.

Here we have the following SRs (I take license here, yes): a comment on Hurricane Katrina, a Fox News story about John Kerry, something about the Kenyan government, a ChronWatch story about Andy Rooney, a rebuke of Kofi Annan, a British SR of “the medical profession”, a “Stinging Rebuke to the Ultra-Centrist”, someone’s blog about a tree, and an SR of liberal blogger Bob Geiger.

I just love how when phrases like this catapult into popular vernacular, they essentially lose meaning. Anyone could read a newspaper headline and realize the Supreme Court more or less told Bush “No, you can’t do that.” And in a pedestrian metaphorical sense (given the nature of what it was Bush and Co. were trying to do), the rebuke must sting.

I don’t have a strong feeling either way on this usage. It’s apt. It’s articulate. It’s everywhere.

Okay, okay, I do have a strong work ethic, as is clearly stated on my résumé. Work ethic…work ethic. What does that term really mean?

To me, it simply means when there’s work to do, I do it. I don’t complain. I love tasks and lists and scratching items off said lists. A former boss told me he was asked by a potential new employer to state a weakness of mine. He said he struggled (at which I must’ve blushed) and finally pulled this diamond out of his ass: “Well, I guess it would be that he sometimes takes on so much work that it overwhelms him a bit, and he has to scale back somewhat.”

Ha!

That said, here I am, on the clock, there’s fuck all to do. So why not jot down (key-stroke, more like it) some of the minutiae floating across my synapses? Indeed…

Been reading White Noise by Don DeLillo. It’s the June book for my two-person book club. (Crap—must read 90 pages before end of the day.)

So far, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the book (a tired expression, I admit, but I still like it). I won’t summarize the book here, but will instead note a few impressions.

First, I feel the book can’t make up its mind what it’s about. Fine, it was written in the 1980s, a decade that couldn’t make its mind either. And all the ’80s theme’s are there: the mad trappings of modern life, Doomsday gloom and despair, divorce, kids, chewing gum.

Still, a book can control its flow, what happens to its characters, its plot. Oh well, I guess I could just resign to this book’s being a “mirror of the times” (an expression I’m not particularly fond of, by the way).

The other big complaint is that everyone talks the same. This isn’t exactly DeLillo’s first novel, either (that would be Americana, written 15 years prior). I just can’t suspend that disbelief. You can’t have a man, his fourth wife, her children and his, his colleagues and acquaintances all saying things like, “What does it mean to sweat?”

What else?

OH! That’s right. In a thoroughly belated show of responsibility, the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the Bush Administration cannot hold extrajudicial trials for prisioners held at Guantánamo Bay. (Read the court’s opinion here.)

Legal scholars and experts are calling it a stinging rebuke to Bush’s presumed blank-check to fight the evildoers. I agree, and will now set out to read the text of the ruling (a favorite pasttime, I should add).

More to post later, should work remain slow…

I’m torn, and I may take this internal debate to the grave.

I was listening to a Commonwealth Club podcast featuring Joe Klein the other day. Klein was speaking to the sea change in US politics, and cited Robert Kennedy’s brief candidacy in 1968 as the last example of a from-the-gut, truly inspiring version of American leadership. Of course, he didn’t really phrase it as such, but it got me thinking: do I want leaders who inspire, who challenge my thinking and the conventional wisdom? Or do I prefer politicians who follow the advice of their pollsters and handlers, and are always telling the public (or some portion thereof) what it wants to hear?

The model over at least the last generation has been the latter. Ronald Reagan may have actually believed that cutting taxes and building up the military would revive the US economy and bring about the fall of the Soviet Union, but he got those ideas from focus groups and think tanks. Similiarly, Bill Clinton didn’t come up with the model for what is known as the “New Democrat.” His handlers saw an inroad in national politics with the demise of George H. W. Bush, and thus the end of the Reagan-Bush era.

While it’s true both men challenged some people’s thinking, overall it was their character that elevated them into public office. Which brings me to another important point: What is the value of a person’s true nature when it comes to elected office? Until the presidency of George W. Bush, I liked to think character didn’t matter. But I stopped myself when I realized one of the things I liked about Clinton was that I felt he’d be fun to share a beer and shoot the shit with.

Character (or, better put, disposition) does matter. It points to how a person goes about day-to-day activities. It matters in who we choose as our friends because we like to be able to predict our interactions with that person, at least to some degree. Since the office of president is so far removed from every member of the voting public for 1.460 out of 1,461 days, we need to have confidence that we can trust this man or woman to go about their decision making in a way suitable to the office. In truth, whether we agree with their choices isn’t the issue—rather, it’s knowing that they’re not flipping coins in the Oval Office, deciding whether to bomb this or that nation. Or, if that’s your thing, maybe flipping pennies is exactly what you want out of a president.

The point is we’re past the time where character doesn’t matter. We’ve moved away from the era in which politicians did inspire and challenge us. These days of endless war and a stagnant economy come with no price tag for the present population. There is next to no sacrifice being asked of the general public.

This isn’t a digression. If you look back to World War II and FDR (a genuine leader), there were rations and tax hikes as far as the eye could see. Rather than hand the war effort over entirely to private enterprise, the government took the reins, and employment shot through the roof. Two end results: we won the war and climbed out of the Great Depression.

And Roosevelt was, for the most part, wheelchair-bound.

But, like I said at the opening of this post, I’m torn. I’m not exactly reminiscing here. Well, sort of. I simply mean to draw a contrast. Knowing from where you came always helps you get a better handle on where you are now, and possibly where you’re headed next. I don’t pretend to know what’s good for this country, as far as what it needs by way of its politicians. I just know I wouldn’t be disappointed if a true leader were to emerge from the muck of current politics.

Relevant links:
Commonwealth Club podcast. Listen to “Joe Klein and Phil Bronstein.”
Kennedy’s impromptu speech in Indianapolis.

Spent the evening tonight playing Scrabble and drinking Chimney Rock Fumé Blanc with a certain someone.

But to spice things up, we culled a movie theater-sized box of Rainbow Nerds.

I grew up with Nerds. I should specify: I grew up with split-box Nerds, in which one half was devoted to, say, cherry, while the other side was home to grape.

Rainbow throws a true Nerds party, and everyone’s invited.

But that’s the problem—the less-desirable flavors rub elbows with the royalty of the Nerds flock.

So … what are nerds (lowercase) to do but separate the flavors out? And to do this over wine and a friendly game of Scrabble, no less.

It’s amazing what you can discover through a seemingly useless activity, but here are a few Nerds observations we gained through our piling activity:

* Wonka loves green nerds more than any other color.
* There are two variations of yellow, color-wise (see photo below).
* There was one blue Nerd, an obvious misprint of grape.

And here’s the end result:

(Sidenote: as a kid, cherry was always my favorite. I thought life would never end when Dairy Queen made Cherry Nerd Blizzards.)

Also, we developed different strategies for culling our respective piles of Nerds. My friend says, “I make little piles of the same color. I have five or six green piles. Sometimes I let piles mix, in the interest of speed, and I separate them later.

The most important thing is to create coherence in the Rainbow Nerd pile right away. The initial culling is a two-stage process. The first stage is fast and furious. You want to create basic organization, and some colors slip through. Second stage, you refine and polish it. That’s when it matters.”

My tactic was to not ever get preoccupied with any particular color. As my eyes fall back on my master pile, whatever color happens to stand out, I go full force for that color. No hesitation. Two hands is a given, and they never stop moving.

Okay, her strategy is more of a strategy-strategy. We debated making this “Nerd allotment” the game tonight, letting it take precedence over Scrabble.

In the end, we got our color-coordinated piles. We scratched our respective autistic itches, and we didn’t spend any extra money. I mean, really, who needs Netflix when you have a big box of Rainbow Nerds?

* (This post contains wine reviews by the world’s least well-equipped wine reviewer. For more refined descriptions, go somewhere else.)

A good friend and I headed up to Napa Valley yesterday. The goals were (how original?)—escape the city, taste some good wines, do some camping.

Just across the Golden Gate Bridge, we were greeted by Summer. Ah, hot hot heat experienced through cracked windows in a moving car. So many memories, of various categories, rush through my mind that I can’t settle on one, thus rendering the experience free of nostalgia, and full of … sweat.

I’m not complaining, but my god it was hot. Note to self: next time, find a place to swim.

We started things off with the usual missed turn, 180 on St. Helena Highway, and back to Silverado Trail to Clos du Val.

A man at the register was nice enough as we walked in, insisting he recognized my friend. He’s mistaken, clearly, but still.

His attitudinal opposite poured our wine, though. It was a typical flight—a Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir, a Merlot, a Cabernet Sauvignon. Five dollars, not bad. But apparently, you pay for service with a smile. You also pay for portions. We decided to split our tastings, based on our need to save money for future travels. Was it that? Was it the fact that we came in with smiles? Was it our age/socio-economic status?

Whatever it was, the woman was terrible. She never spoke a word to us. Not a “this is the blah blah, which blah blah,” not a “hello.” Nothing.

The wine sucked. Especially the Merlot. And the interior design was cold and lame.

On to Chimney Rock, just up the road. Immediately, this place contrasted with Clos du Val. It was well-lit, by natural light, very open and airy, and had warm elements like (surprise) a fireplace and tacky art. Most importantly, the woman pouring for us was a convivial little lady, with a nice, friendly glow.

She made us feel legitimate, in other words.

The $10 flight began with their Fumé Blanc, which was pretty amazing. I tend to only like California Sauvignon Blancs, The rule was proved yet again. Like I noted in the disclaimer at the top of this page, I cannot really go into a detailed description of what notes hit upon entry, or anything remotely fancy. I can say the wine was sweet but not too sweet, that it felt smooth going in and down, and generally made me feel good.

Next was Cabernet Franc Rosé. I neither like nor dislike rosés, but this one was likeable. Not much else to say. Onto the reds.

First, the Elevage, which is a fancy way of saying “Merlot blend.” Merlot grapes are the Tom Cruises of the oenological world—everyone likes them, but everyone also knows they’re a joke. The Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, and Cabernet Franc grapes couldn’t save this wine, unfortunately, because, like Cruise, the Merlot grapes took over the ensemble. Thumbs down.

Finally, Chimney Rock’s Cabernet Sauvingon. This wine was strong but palatable. I hate this term, but it was full-bodied and warm. It tasted like red wine should taste. That’s my review.

We left the place with a $20 bottle of Fumé Blanc.

Next was Stag’s Leap, named for the region of the valley where it’s located. This place felt like Disneyland, only with a more palatable product. Upon entrance, you have a choice—portfolio ($10) or estate ($30) tasting. Again, owing to limited financial backing, we had to choose portfolio, and therein, I’m sure, lies our mistake.

Another impersonal pourer, though this guy had at least the semblance of an excuse: it was busy. Still, unlike anywhere else, we got carded, and also had to pay up front. He announced the Chardonnay as he poured it (and it was good), but mutely poured the others. In fact, he stopped pouring before we got to the Cab. None of the wines was fantastic, or even close. Overall, a let down. Next time we’ll go estate.

Finally, we went to Robert Sinskey, which has a nice garden and koi pond out front. They also serve appetizers with their tastings. Nice touch.

We lucked out and ended up with another very personable pourer. She started our “gluttonous” flight with a Pinot Blanc. It was great. Next was Sinskey’s 2004 Los Carneros Pinot Noir, which was perhaps my favorite wine of the day, despite the heat. It might have been that it was paired with a pesto and goat cheese snack. Who knows.

The next wine was their Merlot. No comment. They tried.

Finally (we thought) was a Cabernet Franc. Great, well-rounded red.

Then she surprised us with another appetizer (garden-grown zucchini) paired with the estate Cabernet Sauvignon. Wow.

I won’t bore you with details of the rest of our day. We had a picnic, but only after discovering that Niebaum-Coppola changed its name to Rubicon estate, and began charging a $25 entrance fee. We can’t decide whether it’s to discourage rampant tourism or to elevate the status of the winery and make more money. Or both. But it came as a shock. We only wanted to borrow their shaded parking lot to enjoy our lunch.

We also stopped off at St. Supéry, mostly out of a sense of irony. The highlight, other than the fact that the tour is self-guided, was the sniff tubes. Two stations (white and red), and four notes each. My companion decided to end our visit upon looking into the “olive” tube and seeing, down there at the end of the bong-like plastic tube, a bunch of rotting olives. The remarkable thing for me was how many of the notes (things like bell pepper, oak, berries) smelled like bad soap.

We ended up not camping, mostly because coming into that kind of contact with Americans made us miss the city.

But overall, it was probably my best trip up to wine country. It had everything to do with my company and our 50 percent average of good wineries.

The U.S. Senate yesterday rejected a measure to raise the national minimum wage from an even-by-1992-standards pathetic $5.15 to a still-abject-by-2006-standards $7.25. It was the ninth time the GOP-controlled Congress has rejected a hike in the base pay rate of Americans since 1997.

I decided to bust out the old Dashboard calculator and see what $5.15 an hour really means, when you count those paltry beans.

At that rate, a worker would earn a whopping total of $206 per week. Rental rates in that reddest of red states, Utah, average between $375 and $500 per month. At $206 a week, monthly income would hit $824, before taxes, mind you.

I won’t get into the intricacies of the tax code (mostly because I’m too lazy to look into it), but I will use the common 15 percent rule. Assuming that rule, after taxes, monthly income would be $700.40. Let’s say you’re this poor (literally and figuratively) Utahan in one of these one-bedrooms on the higher end of the average range (because it was all you could find). You’re left with $200.40 disposable income per month. We haven’t even factored in necessities like food and power, much less “luxuries” like a cell phone, gasoline, and car insurance, if you’re lucky enough to have one and not be in the middle of paying it off.

Also, at $206 per week, assuming you work 52 weeks in a calendar year, you’d be taking home $10,712 per year, pre-tax. After tax (using our agreed-upon 15 percent rate), you’d end up with $9,105.20. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services puts the single-member household poverty level at $9,800 in the 48 contiguous states and D.C. Wow. Not even close.

IN OTHER WORDS: Totally unrealistic, unless you like having a lot of poor people around. And you have to want your poor people to not advance themselves, because given this scenario, they’re probably going to be, well, not too happy. Who knows where that’ll lead, but more times than not, it doesn’t lead to community college.

I can’t imagine that most people reading this think too highly of the Republican party. But I can’t assume anything here. Also, the Democrats’ effort to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 isn’t the only (or a sufficient) solution. Businesses need incentive to pay workers more, whether it be because workers’ skill sets have improved, or out of some sense of unabashed philanthropy.

Needless to say, it’s a very, very complex issue. It’s just that in a society that has evolved away from a strong sense of central planning and regulation, one of the few tools the government has in its dwindling arsenal to help provide for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is to ensure that companies pay their workers aptly. I guess what I’m saying is: Shame on you, Congress.

It’s come up a lot lately, ever since that time a few months ago I (embarrassingly) first learned that a group of crows is referred to as a “murder.”

What about other groups of animals? What is a groups of jellyfish called? (smack)

Well, of course the Internet can answer just about any question posed to it.

Enchanted Learning has a wonderfully infantile page with the names of species’ babies and groups.

Some of the best group names:

* a shrewdness of apes
* an obstinacy of buffalo
* a coalition of cheetahs
* a convocation of eagles
* a business (I like to think it’s pronounced BUSY-ness) of ferrets
* a troop of monkeys
* a parliament of owls (my favorite)
* a rookery of penguins
* a crash of rhinoceros
* a descent of woodpeckers

I didn’t find too many charming baby names, though tumbler (baby mosquito) stands out, as does spat (baby oyster). A baby platypus is called a puggle.

Okay, time to get some work done.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t call you back.”

“Oh god, I totally forgot I was supposed to be there.”

“Yeah, I just never got around to it.”

“It’s true, I haven’t posted in forever. For this I am eternally sorry.”

The “busy” excuse is a euphemism. It translates roughly as “you (whether a person or activity) mean less to me than whatever else it is I was doing or tending to.”

It can also speak for a scatterbrain syndrome, in which the guilty party is simply too engulfed in too many activities to properly attend to others. There’s only so much room in the mental queue. Sometimes the mind pushes aside what it doesn’t deem vital, and in such cases, those items often disappear from the mental radar.

But it’s crap, really. It can be said to be indicative of a failure to prioritize, a failure to attempt to manage things. There are way too many devices and programs to help us remember things these days. There just also happens to be too little discipline. I speak for myself here.

Okay, so that’s my comment for the day. I use my own inability to post regularly to Here and There as a segue (I still love that word) to talking about something that bugs me: the busy excuse. No matter how true (and in this case, let me just state for the record that it’s the whole truth), it just shouldn’t slide.

So I resolve to be more diligent about posting. Trifles or no, minutiae it may have to be. I hope you enjoy.

After finding myself on the winning side of a bet with a good friend last week (over whether Stephen Hawking was dead), I saw this article, in which Hawking states…well, the obvious. Humans are spending the goodwill of their home planet (if indeed this is the home planet) and need to start looking to other worlds to inhabit. And quickly.

Which leads me to another thought I have from time to time: Dammit if it isn’t going to be the rich, white assholes who’ve had such a large role in screwing this planet up who are going to be the ones who get to colonize other worlds.

Oh well, the meek shall inherit the earth.

Read this in the Washington Post today, about how Democrats are making an honest run at out-fundraising Republicans in this years’ mid-term elections.

Funny thing, though. I read and read and read, through all the percentages and dollar signs, all the scorecarding, and not once did I see any mention of what the parties stand for, what they intend to do when and if they win this fall.

This article may as well have been in the Post’s Sports section.

Sure, in an age where money equals votes and power, this is a valid story for a major paper. And a scenario in which Democrats are making inroads on the ages-old dominance of the GOP when it comes to fundraising, this story is vital, even, rightly deserving its above-the-fold treatment (online, anyway).

I’d just like to see some context. As it stands, the story’s only significance lies in the possibility that the government could change hands next year. There’s no mention of what that might mean, for the individual or the nation as a whole.

I’m pleased to see that the candidate I chose to half-heartedly support (almost at the last minute) won yesterday’s Democratic Primary in California.

It’s a little bit of “lesser of two evils,” until I learn more about the man I will most likely vote for in November.

I’m not trying to brag or anything here. The way voting is sometimes perceived in this society, it would seem saying “I voted” would cause quite the opposite effect.

Nope, just posting a few thoughts on voting with the meager hope that I may be able to inspire even one individual to take five minutes out of their schedule and head to the polls.

I do think it’s pretty remarkable that, in the face of the axiomatic phrase “All politics is local,” turnout gets more and more pathetic the closer to home the election is.

And today’s San Francisco City and County Consolidated Election is no exception.

Statewide (we’re voting on two ballot propositions and for several other statewide positions, including choosing the Democratic challenger in November to incumbent governor Arnold Schwarzenegger), turnout is expected to be dismal at best.

I just don’t think the issues of public education and transportation (both of which are on the ballot here in SF) are any less important than the national budget, war, and U.S. trade.

So, simply, please vote.

Post-script: I’m not a registered Democrat, so I couldn’t vote in the primary today. But I did finally take a deeper look at the two front-runners, Steve Westly and Phil Angelides.

It’s really hard for me to differentiate these two would-be Arnold foes. But ultimately, I’m pinning my hopes on Angelides, mostly because of a louder endorsement by prominent environmental activists. Plus, I just don’t like the idea of “Governor Steve.” Sounds like someone’s little brother went to Sacramento to run the state.

Today over lunch, I went to one of my favorite pages on the Internet: Wikipedia’s list of the 42 (Remember: Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms) U.S. Presidents. My objective today was to tally all the men who died in office, whether by natural causes or assassination. (Final count: eight—four of illness, four by homicide.)

I knew no one since Kennedy had kicked it while living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., but my browser happened to have scrolled all the way to the bottom of the page, where I noticed this:

I rushed off to tell a good friend this hilarious news, but by the time I got back and showed a co-worker (couldn’t have been more than three minutes), the link was restored to its more dubious name: George W. Bush.