W.A.C.-bogus issue

Has there been documented one police action against a person
wishing anybody else "Merry Christmas?" Have postal inspectors
raided card stores to impound "Christmas Cards?" Are ministers,
priests and bishops being cautioned to curtail references to
the natal anniversary of Yeshua bar Yusef? (I use the alias
to avoid possible attention by the Christmas Police.)

No. If you'll pardon the expression, Hell, No!

So why is the "War on Christmas" the latest banner
with a strange device leading the Faux News Warriors
into battle? Once upon a time, there was an outcry to
"put Christ back in Christmas," referring to the gross
commercialization of a religious observance. Now the
cry is "Put Christmas back into the retail stores."
People should make up their minds.

More power to retails stores that do not want to
appear sectarian. Sever the connection between
yearly profit-taking and the birth of a religion
celebrating charity and simplicity, spiritual
matters over merchandising mantras. Feh.
Rant concluded.

Imaginary Chatter

I was reminded this morning of an interactive program called Eliza, written some years ago to simulate a conversation with a user in real time. I googled around and found that at least one person had the brilliant idea of linking a version of Eliza with a chat room on AOL. Some hilarious exchanges resulted.

So I created an exchange as it might happen in a chat room of my own invention. It made me laugh, so here it is, a totally imaginary chat session, any resemblance to real persons is as coincidental as Eliza's 'conversation':

Chatroom One: {1 chatting}
{imteh1 is in the room}
{Eliza enters the room}
imteh1: hello eliza....do you know everyone....
Eliza: Would you like to talk about everyone.... ?
imteh1: no i don't talk about other people.....
Eliza: Why don't you talk about other people....?
imteh1: other people say mean things about me.....i don't like
to answer.....nobody knows what i go through.......my fourth
husband called me names.....my house has snakes in the attic....
i am always defending myself....
Eliza: Tell me about mean things.
imteh1: oh sister....could I tell you about some mean things.
...there are some real bitches here....but i dont care....whatever....
{pr0nmstr enters}
Eliza: Who are some real bitches?
imteh1: oh i dont want to give them the satisfaction....i never
talk about anybody else....just dont say it pr0nmstr....i dont
need your s**t today....watch out for pr0nmstr eliza....he is cruel....
{gdy2shus enters the room}
imteh1: hey girl.... meet eliza....she is asking me about bitches....
you know who....being mean to me....
gdy2shus: hey girl! hi eliza. oh pr0nmstr is here too. is he being
mean to you imteh1?
pr0nmstr: Who is this eliza?
Eliza: Why don't you want to give them satisfaction?
Eliza: Why don't you talk about anybody else?
Eliza: Does it make you feel better to talk about s**t?
Eliza: Why do you say pr0nmstr is cruel?
Eliza: Do you meet bitches.... ?
pr0nmstr: ROTFLMAO! I just figured out who Eliza is. Bitches,
heh, Eliza came to the right place, you deserve each other.
Eliza: I don't understand ROTFLMAO!
pr0nmstr: Well, at least one of you realizes what you don't
understand. This is rich.
imteh1: eliza dont pay any attention to pr0nmstr..... hes not
worth it.....i ignore him....he is a bitter little man....
gdy2shus: Why don't you leave imteh1 alone, pr0n? She has
a lot to deal with.
Eliza: Why do you say you have a lot to deal with?
gdy2shus: Not me, Eliza, imteh1 is the one with problems.
pr0nmstr: LMAO! You've got that right, gdy2shus, imteh1
has problems.
imteh1: thanks girl....eliza pr0nmstr isnt worth your time....
Eliza: Why do you say pr0nmstr isn't worth time.... ?
Eliza: I don't understand LMAO!
imteh1: Why do you keep laughing eliza....i am beginning to
wonder....i am making myself perfectly clear....if you dont
understand thats your problem....
gdy2shus: I think Eliza is just unsure of the situation, imteh1,
she is not laughing at you.
Eliza: Do you want to discuss laughing?
imteh1: so you want to talk about laughing....alright.....bring it
sister....i can stick up for myself....
Eliza: So you want to stick myself.... ?
imteh1: i said bring it eliza.... well see who sticks who....what
did you mean im the one with problems gdy.... i thought we
were friends.... i cant trust anybody....
Eliza: Why can't you trust anybody.... ?
Eliza: Do you stick your sister?
pr0nmstr: No s**t! imteh1 will do anybody. LMFAO! I'm getting
back to work. Have fun, kids.
{pr0nmstr has left the room}
{session suspended by administrator.}

Hubris

I laughed, behind her back, at my grandmother one day years ago.
I was visiting her in a new home, a semi-luxurious retirement
complex, simpler to manage than her recently sold house. My
humor was sparked by the morning ritual of her medications.
Nana brought out a little wicker basket with a bow on the handle,
a gay little touch of color, considering that the basket stored her
multiple meds.

Once the little bottles of pills and nostrums were lined up for this
odd ritual, my grandmother doled out pills from each into a pillbox
with compartments for each hour of the day. So many at
mid-morning, so many at noon, so many before supper. I loved
my grandmother, and enjoyed telling my sisters later of this new,
funny story about our beloved Nana. How amusing.

Now, though I am not even within twenty years of her age on
that long-ago day, at my computer, a pill box marked by days
is shoved up under the stand, so that I will remember to take
my meds. It takes an effort for me not to introduce my state
of health, my aches and pains, into conversations nowadays.

Many of the people I know are much younger than I, listening
to me with what seems polite attention at the mock-humorous
self-absorbed commentary on arthritis, blood pressure and
other such fascinating subjects. In my mind's eye, Nana's
knowing smile appears; she is nodding, she is beginning that
rich chuckle which endeared her to more than just her
grandchildren. These young people listening so politely, I
know exactly what they are thinking. They can hardly wait
until the story of this old man's stereotypical hypochondria will
amuse their families, their young friends.

The great wheel of years has come around, the smugness of
youth belongs to others now. Pride has many faces, including the
polite, not quite concealed amusement I showed, those years ago,
when my grandmother took out her pills.

Ramadi attacks: media versions

News reports on events in Ramadi, Iraq on Thursday and Friday. I saw a television news story on the insurgents in Ramadi. There were only a dozen shown, and the reporter said little damage was done by them. Following are some media reports on the action, and on coalition actions the next day. I am trying to get a fix on how different sources treat the same story. In these few entries, there seems to be consensus, with the exception of the author of the blog, and the points I have bolded in a couple of the stories.


-Fox News

December 3, 2005
...
On Thursday, the U.S. military played down reports by residents and
police of armed insurgents walking the streets and of widespread
attacks against American and Iraqi targets in the city. The military
said only one rocket-propelled grenade was fired at an observation
post, causing no casualties. News agencies did run videotape allegedly
shot in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, that showed armed
insurgents distributing Al Qaeda leaflets and firing mortar rounds.
...

-AP/New York Times
December 2, 2005
...
As part of that campaign, the U.S. military on Friday launched a new
offensive --Operation Shank -- in Ramadi, capital of the
insurgent-ridden Anbar province. About 200 Iraqi army soldiers
and 300 U.S. Marines were taking part in the offensive, the
fifth in Ramadi since Nov. 16.




-Washington Post

December 2, 2005

BAGHDAD, Dec. 1 -- Armed fighters claiming allegiance to
Abu Musab Zarqawi took to the streets of a western Iraqi
provincial capital Thursday in a fleeting show aimed at intimidating
Iraqi Sunni Arab leaders taking part in dialogue with U.S. Marines
in a stronghold of the insurgency, provincial officials, residents and
other witnesses said.
...
The U.S. military, which maintains Marine bases and thousands
of troops on the outskirts of Ramadi, denied the accounts of unrest,
saying that the city was largely calm Thursday and that insurgents
were manipulating the news media. "Today I witnessed inaccurate
reporting, use of unreliable sources, media using other media as
sources, an active insurgent propaganda machine, and the pack
journalism at its worse," Capt. Jeffrey Pool, a spokesman for the
2nd Marine Division, said in an e-mail to news organizations.

The following two entries, the first from a soldier formerly in service
in the area, now at home, seem to have had two different Reuters
sources:

-from the blog
of blackfive (military blog author formerly in Iraq, Afghanistan)
December 2, 2005

News reports around the world trumpeted that insurgents had
taken over the city of Ramadi and attacked many Iraqi and
US bases in the area, overrunning and taking control of the city.
Sadly, this is exactly the kind of info that
gets most of the folks covering this war salivating. They have
blinded themselves to any good happening and circle like
buzzards waiting for the carcass to finally drop...
...
"They've taken control of all the main streets and other sections
of Ramadi," a reporter for Reuters there said earlier. "I've seen
about 400 armed men controlling streets, some of which were
controlled by Americans before."


-from Reuters
December 2, 2005
U.S. and Iraqi troops launched an operation designed to disrupt
guerrilla activity in Ramadi on Friday ahead of Iraq's
December 15 elections, one day after insurgents staged a show of
force in the western city.
...
Insurgents launched a brief assault in Ramadi on Thursday firing
mortar rounds and rockets at a U.S. base and local government
buildings.

Leaflets were distributed saying that al Qaeda in Iraq, the group
led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was taking
control of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar. But after a couple
of hours, most of the militants dispersed and the city appeared
to return to relative calm.


There also seems to be a discrepancy between a reported
death in Ramadi between the NYT and the coalition spokesman,
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch.

-from NYT

December 2, 2005
...
Other new deaths announced Friday included a soldier
serving alongside Marine units in Ramadi, 50 miles west of
Falluja, who was killed by rocket fire on Thursday


-CNN
December 2, 2005
...
Lynch, the coalition spokesman, strongly disputed reports of
widespread insurgent attacks in Ramadi on Thursday. He said
that one attack, involving a rocket-propelled grenade,
occurred Thursday and that it caused no damage or casualties.
...

Okay, so two newspapers, two news wire services, one blog and
two cable news oraganizations are less than exhaustive as a
survey. And Ramadi was one non-incident. It is notable in my
opinion that the preceding statement sums up the judgement of
all the sources I cited. An isolated and ineffectual staged
event. Except for the one soldier reported dead by the NYT.

The army spokesperson quoted maintained that nobody was
KIA in Ramadi on Thursday. Without a lot more digging, I will
not be able to resolve that discrepancy. It may be that there
was an isolated and unrelated incident in Ramadi that killed
the soldier. I don't know. I intend to do more of this sort of
picking through varying reports of events and conditions in
Iraq, for my own satisfaction.

Positions on the truth or bias
in media reports tend to be quite rigid, I have found. Most
internet "discussions" resemble opposing sides closing their
ears, opening their mouths and shouting each other down, or
trying to do so. There ought to be more focus on facts and
less on polemics. The issues are vast, the evidence tangled
and frequently contradictory, often leading to people simply
reinforcing the fixed opinions of their like-minded partisans.