Mark Maynard | 2005 | September

they know their boss is crazy

By Mark | September 20, 2005

Someone made a great prank call to 700 Club’s “prayer line” and asked the fellow on the other end to join him in praying for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. I don’t know if my response was the intended one, but as I listened to the 700 Club employee talking with this caller and explaining why he couldn’t join him in praying for a man’s assassination (even though the head of the 700 Club, Pat Robertson, had called for that very thing to happen a few days earlier), it made me feel kind of hopeful… Yeah, the call was funny, and I laughed as the two men debated what Jesus would and wouldn’t find acceptable (“well, if we can’t pray that he gets killed, can we pray that he stubs his toe?”), but, beneath all of that, I also fouond it kind of touching.

I was pleased to see that, even if Pat Robertson doesn’t appear to understand the teachings of Jesus himself, this employees seem to… Or least this one employee seemed to understand the teachings of Jesus well enough to know that they don’t allow for the murder of democratically elected heads of state… Sure, this 700 Clubber wouldn’t probably bat an eye at taking the credit card information of an elderly person on a fixed income, but he wouldn’t go so far as to join Pat on the far-out fringes of the right. I know it’s not much, but that gave me a little glimmer of hope. (via One Good Move)

If you’d like to contact a 700 Club prayer counselor, and request that they join you in praying for their boss, just follow this link.

Posted in Church and State | 3 Comments

looking for a sweatshop

By Mark | September 20, 2005

A few days ago, when I put out the word that I wanted to come up with a family uniform, I thought that maybe one or two of you might suggest designs, but I wasn’t expecting anything this good.. Now I just need to figure out a way to get them made. (Thanks, Ken.)

Posted in Mark's Life | 6 Comments

one way or another, krugman will leak

By Mark | September 19, 2005

Now that the New York Times has moved their op-ed columnists behind the $49.95 iron curtain, I can no longer link to Paul Krugman’s columns… Or, more correctly, I can still link to them, but, unless you’re a subscriber to the Times, or pay the annual on-line fee for their “Select” service, you won’t be able to get to them.

So, I was just sitting here, thinking about what we could do. (As Krugman’s columns are so important to those of us on the left, I’m sure there are hundreds of people right now pondering the same exact thing.) I know that, given the laws, I can’t just reprint his entire columns here in their entirety. But, I don’t suppose that anyone would have a problem if I just posted a few paragraphs. I believe that would still fall under “fair use”… OK, so here’s an idea. What if several bloggers got together and did the same thing, each posting a small section, so that, when taken together, they formed a complete story? If we each posted a few paragraphs, and if we each linked to the blog containing the sections immediately in front of and behind ours, then it should work, right? And, if done in a organized fashion, it could be almost organic. Someone could take paragrah one, and then immediately someone else could sign up for paragrah two. It would be like BitTorrent, only on a macro scale.

So, here, as a test to see if it works, is a section of today’s column by Paul Krugman, “Tragedy in Black and White.” If you have access to the Times Select, and a website of your own, and want to post either the chunk of text directly before or after this one, just leave a link in the comments section.

…By all accounts Ronald Reagan, who declared in his Inaugural Address that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” wasn’t personally racist. But he repeatedly used a bogus tale about a Cadillac-driving Chicago “welfare queen” to bash big government. And he launched his 1980 campaign with a pro-states’-rights speech in Philadelphia, Miss., a small town whose only claim to fame was the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers.

Under George W. Bush – who, like Mr. Reagan, isn’t personally racist but relies on the support of racists – the anti-government right has reached a new pinnacle of power. And the incompetent response to Katrina was the direct result of his political philosophy. When an administration doesn’t believe in an agency’s mission, the agency quickly loses its ability to perform that mission.

By now everyone knows that the Bush administration treated the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a dumping ground for cronies and political hacks, leaving the agency incapable of dealing with disasters. But FEMA’s degradation isn’t unique. It reflects a more general decline in the competence of government agencies whose job is to help people in need…

If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but at least I tried… And, more importantly, I’m sure someone will find a way to ensure that we can keep sharing his columns. They’re too important to keep locked up… Knowledge, as they say, wants to be free.

Posted in Media | 12 Comments

september 24 in d.c.

By Mark | September 19, 2005

Are any of you planning to attend the big anti-war event in DC this weekend? If so, would you like to report on it for MM.com? If so, drop me a line and I’ll fax you and hand-drawn press pass.

Here, in case you haven’t heard about the event, is a little clip from the Washington Post:

Organizers said they are mobilizing nationwide for what could be the largest war protest since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq more than two years ago. Various coalitions are organizing buses, vans and carpools to bring in protesters from across the country.

“We can anticipate 100,000 people,” said Cmdr. Cathy Lanier, who supervises the police department’s special operations division. “There will be mothers, grandmothers and children — a huge, diverse group. They are very peaceful. We have been meeting with them regularly.”

The umbrella organizations staging the rally — United for Peace and Justice and the ANSWER Coalition — say they represent thousands of people and dozens of causes. They obtained permits for public areas that can hold about 100,000 people.

Organizers are asking protesters to gather at 11 a.m. Saturday on the Ellipse, where the rally is scheduled to take place. The march will cover a stretch of streets in the blocks surrounding the White House and Justice Department and wind up at the Washington Monument, organizers said.

Counter-demonstrators, who are planning rallies before and after the antiwar gathering, are expected along the march route.

Posted in Politics | 16 Comments

lil’ ypsi

By Mark | September 19, 2005

I received an email a few days ago from a reader who wanted to let me know that there’s a neighborhood in Ann Arbor that residents have begun referring to as “Little Ypsi.” This reader, I think it’s fair to say, was pissed, the fuck, off. She didn’t like the tongue-in-cheek tone in which the information was relayed to her, or the idea that our city was being used to either make a joke about the relative ramshackleness (by Ann Arbor’s standards) of the homes in the neighborhood, or, in the best case scenario, to make a part of Ann Arbor seem “edgier” or “cooller” than it in fact is.

When she first mentioned it, I shared her outrage, but then remembered having heard a few people here in town refer to Ypsi as “Little Detroit.” As that didn’t piss me off at the time, I don’t think I’m going to let this bother me, even though in this case it does seem, perhaps due to the immediate proximity of our two towns, to be a little more obnoxious. It’s not a perfect analogy, but I can see how, to some people, it might seem like when well-off suburban kids try to pass themselves off as street-wise by parroting things they’ve heard rapped about on television and pulling their pants down so that their Tommy Hilfiger underwear hangs out… I guess you could also look at it like a compliment though, a recognition of the fact that interesting stuff is happening here in Ypsi… Unfortunately, I’ve got too many other things to worry about right now, in the real Ypsilanti, to care one way of the other.

Posted in Ypsilanti | 10 Comments