I interrupt my hiatus to report the sad news that Dave Allen is dead, much too soon at 68 (obit/brief bio here). This may not mean much to my fellow Americans -- did y'all get Dave Allen At Large here? -- but I grew up with Allen's old school skits-and-monologues comedy, and he is a large part of what comes to my mind when I think "funny". He was an atheist, so I will resist the urge to send him off with his own sign-off, which is reported differently in every different story but which I remember as "Thank you; goodnight; and may your God go with you". Cheers, Dave.

(Picture swiped from the beeb, found the story at Chez Kaf; the title is a reference to a series of skits that was a favourite with my family.)

I was going to apologise for the lack of updates, but the hell with it -- I don't do this for you. Stupid readers, who needs 'em? (That was a joke! A joke! Wait, come back...)

Anyway, the spousal unit has the basics, to which I'll just add that work is a lousy way to make a living. I am one fucked unit, and not likely to get any less fucked any time soon. If you're reading this, I probably owe you email too -- sorry about that, I'll do my best. It's not that I don't love you any more, I'm just nackered.

See yer in a few weeks then, when I'm in better form.

P.S. the linky weirdness below is a glitch that appeared when I (by which of course I mean the spousal unit) had to delete trackbacks; I was getting so much spam that it took down a server. Bastards. Anyway, fixing a little glitch on my site is not high on our list of priorities right now, so it'll be staying that way for a while.

The first place the spousal unit and I sent money after December's tsunami was the Red Cross, because they always have an appeal running within hours and relief workers on the ground almost as fast. Recently I got an email update saying that the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has announced that the $1.2 billion raised worldwide in the 30 days following the tsunami was sufficient to meet the costs of the entire Red Cross tsunami relief program projected at this time. You can read the plan and get updates from the ongoing effort online. (I stole the picture from the latter link.) Damn good.



The second place we sent money was the Architecture for Humanity/ Worldchanging Tsunami Reconstruction Appeal, to which we plan to donate regularly; these guys are there for as long as it takes, and you can be part of that. To date, the appeal has raised almost $150,000, with pledges of more on the way. Here's the email update I got from AfH a bit over a week ago:

Our work in Sri Lanka is moving along with the team currently working on a number of housing prototypes. Last week they had already developed a master plan for Kirinda and its surrounding villages, and efforts are underway to realize that plan. (I swiped the second picture from this link -- ed.)

AFH is also partnering with Relief International to rebuild a school in Pottuvil. We are aiming to have the school completed by late spring and Relief International will be introducing an interconnectivity project. We previously partnered with Relief International in the spring of 2004 to help rebuild in Bam, Iran.

Our projects in Tamil Nadu and Banda Aceh are still in their infancy and I'll update the site once they become active.

Damn good.

I really must get back to writing about science. Here's a start: if you are a biologist, have much interest in evolutionary theory or are at all interested in the history of science, this charming eulogy for Ernst Mayr, replete with first-hand anecdotes, is a must-read. Don't miss the comment section either. Hat-tip: Brian Leiter.

Amp points to Rad Geek's bombing for choice campaign. I have done this sort of thing before, and I agree with Rad Geek's analysis of the results of that campaign, including Google's response. The answer to hateful free speech is not censorship but better free speech. Googlebombing is gaming the system, but it's inherently democratic: to have any impact it requires widespread adoption, and the "game" is available to anyone. So, I'm in:

Roe; Wade; Roe v Wade
abortion

I'll also, as Amp and RG suggest, add this to the sidebar over on the right, just above my links. It will be important not to overuse this idea, especially if "googlebomb sidebars" are going to become commonplace, but it seems a good way to add a little virtual weight to the right (that is, the correct!) side of the scales of public discourse concerning large-scale, enduring issues like abortion and racism.

I can't count the number of lonely hours Karl Haas brightened for me with his radio program "Adventures in Good Music". I spent most of my twenties in a haze of misery, and I used to drive around aimlessly for hours, sometimes every night for months on end. One of the few things guaranteed to make me feel better was "Adventures"; I remember with pleasure and gratitude the lift I always got from the opening notes of his theme, and then that gentle voice: "Hello, everyone." He made me laugh, he taught me plenty, and he played me lots of good music; now he's dead. Ninety-one is a pretty good innings, but I'm still very sad.

[Biographical information mostly from here and here; picture swiped from the CNN obit.]

Born in Speyer am Rhein in 1913, Haas began piano lessons at six and by twelve had formed his first piano trio. He studied at the Mannheim Conservatory and the University of Heidelberg before leaving Germany in 1936 ahead of the rising tide of Nazism. He moved to Detroit, studying at the Netzorg School of Music and commuting to New York to study with pianist Artur Schnabel. In 1950 he began working in radio, hosting a weekly preview of concerts by the Detroit Symphony. In the course of another series for the Canadian Broadasting Commission he began adding commentary to his program of piano recitals and chamber orchestra music, and in 1959 Detroit station WJR offered him a one-hour timeslot to do just that: talk about music. "Adventures in Good Music" was born, and for more than forty years, with never a script, Karl Haas spent an hour a day talking about music. The program is currently aired in over two hundred US cities and by four hundred stations of the American Armed Forces Network and 37 stations of the Australian Broadcasting Commision; Haas also recorded selected series in German and French for Suddeutscher Rundfunk and the Canadian Broadasting Commission, and translation into Spanish makes the Mexico City broadcast run 90 minutes.

"Adventures" was aimed at the casual listener; Haas chose a theme ("The Joy of Sax"; "Baroque and in Debt"; yes, they were often howlers) and illustrated it from his truly astounding encyclopaedic knowledge of music (think about it: more than 12,000 hours without a script). He played recordings, talked about the music, related anecdotes from his own experiences as performer and conductor, told stories from the history of music and illustrated his points on the studio piano. In addition to "Adventures", Haas maintained a lively performance schedule as pianist and conductor as well as a variety of musical and diplomatic appointments (conducting the Boston Pops; consultant to the Ford Foundation; US delegate to congresses of the International Music Council of UNESCO; visiting faculty at universities all over America; and on and on). He won two Peabody Awards, a National Telemedia Council Award and the National Endowment for the Humanities Charles Frankel Prize, was WGBH's Person of the Year, received the first ever lifetime achievement award from Fine Arts Radio International, was appointed Officier d'Académie and awarded the Chevalier d'ordre des arts et lettres by the French goverment, received the First Class Order of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany and eight honorary doctorates from American universities and colleges, released three best-selling CDs, wrote a book that is currently in its tenth printing and was the first classical music broadcaster inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. I'm sure I missed some, and I'm sure he wouldn't have cared: it was the music that mattered.

Thank you, and -- auf wiederhören, Dr Haas.

Chris wants to know, what thing (material possession) do you value most? I like to think that I don't place much value on things, but that's an easy question anyway:

I know from experience that when there's a fire alarm, this is the first and only thing I reach for (I don't wear it around the house). Spouse, cats, wedding band, in that order. It's platinum, and heavy; we liked the weight. Cat's is an exact match. The inscription reads "Senn and Kitty 2002" -- our online names, since that's where we met. It's getting a little beat up now, and I rather like that. It's a symbol and reminder of the best thing that ever happened to me, and is the only material possession whose loss would cause me lasting sadness.

PBS has decided not to distribute the "Sugartown!" episode of the children's animated series Postcards from Buster because it features a family with two female parents. Individual affiliate stations can decide for themselves whether or not to run the episode. You can find your local PBS station here; for me, it's Oregon Public Broadcasting. They do run Postcards from Buster, but it appears they won't be running "Sugartown!". My letter:

Dear OPB,

I am writing to ask you to air the "Sugartown!" episode of "Postcards from Buster", over which Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has created an absurd controversy. (I searched both the OPB site and the TV schedule and could not find evidence that you plan to run that episode.)

I am a PBS subscriber for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I believe I can rely on PBS to promote diversity and tolerance, and to be a voice for minority groups. This is particularly important in children's programs. A hateful but vocal minority in this country would like to see broadcast media reflexively self-censoring all mention of gay issues. Please do not let that happen. Please continue to send, particularly to our children, a message of inclusion and tolerance. Please air "Sugartown!".

Sincerely, etc.

Margaret Spellings is BushCo's brand-new Secretary of Education. According to the LA Times, last Tuesday she wrote to PBS asking them to consider removing her department's logo and returning public money spent on "Sugartown!". Hatefilled nutjob and self-confessed dachsund abuser James Dobson thinks that's just peachy, and his Focus Obsessively and Exclusively on the Straight, White, Evangelical Christian Family Foundation has provided a handy web form for use in patting Ms Spellings on the back. It shouldn't surprise anyone that I put it to better use:

Dear Ms Spellings,

I write to protest your recent complaints over the "Sugartown!" episode of the PBS children's program "Postcards from Buster". The positive portrayal of gay characters is in no way at odds with the educational goals that inform the public funding of such programming. According to the 2000 Census, same-sex couples make up about 1% of all US couples, and over 400,000 children live with same-sex parents. Gays and lesbians are a significant thread in the rich tapestry of American society, and the Education Dept should strongly support children's programming which reflects that fact.

You wrote that "many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in this episode", and that is certainly true. Those parents are (perhaps unwittingly) harming their children, who will only suffer by taking on a regressive and intolerant outlook. It is not the job of the Education Dept to reinforce the preferences (or prejudices) of any particular group of parents. Rather, the nation relies on you to ensure that programs like "Sugartown!" are available to parents who want their children to value diversity and tolerance.

Sincerely, etc.

So, where did I hear about all this? SpeakSpeak, a website (and a 501(c)?) for those of us who are fed up with the lunatic fringe dominating public discourse:

SpeakSpeak will campaign for those of us who feel we’ve been unfairly written off as Popular Opinion’s pipsqueak kid brother. We know we’re not a minority fringe. We know we’re not bereft of morals or family values. We know that if the country were headed for damnation because of Janet Jackson’s boob, the scenery would probably be much more interesting.

And we know we have to work harder.

We must stop whining about the election. We must learn lessons from it. The winners won because they were organized. They mobilized. They did a very, very good job.

And on that note, welcome to SpeakSpeak’s inaugural campaign issue: "indecency," "obscenity," and who gets to define it.

SpeakSpeak’s first campaign comes in response to the chokehold the Parents Television Council (http://www.parentstv.com) has on the FCC. This has been a banner year for obscenity fines—$2 million so far, more than SIX TIMES the combined totals of 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003. By its own account (which it is today denying—see speakspeak.org/news.html for more), the PTC is responsible for the increase.

The FCC is not a policing agency. It does not monitor the television—it responds to citizens who watch the television. The FCC is required to keep "obscenity" off the airwaves, but it has been given a very vague definition of the term—one that involves the "average person" applying "contemporary community standards." Yet they’re only hearing from a very specific community, one that doesn’t represent most of the country.

And this is where we come in.

SpeakSpeak is still getting off the ground, and seems to be largely a labour of love for founder Amanda Toering, but there's a blog and you can sign up for email alerts (both of which, as you can see, I find useful). If you too are sick of the soi-disant Moral Majority, please consider joining SpeakSpeak and myself as we take arms against a sea of assholes.