The Blighted Hope of Herman Cain

GOP Hopeful Herman Cain

Darn. I actually feel sorry for Herman Cain. Based on his recent interviews and debate appearances while attempting to snag the Republican nomination for POTUS, he just seems such a joke – and a rather well-scripted one at that. If all one knows about him is those statements he would be easily dismissed as a serious or credible candidate. Notice I haven't even delved into the multiple accusations of sexual harassment, nor will I except in a rather general way.

In a comment to an article on Huffington Post yesterday, someone referred to Cain having Stage IV cancer, which I hadn't previously heard. I checked his article on Wikipedia and found that this condition was diagnosed in 2006 and apparently, after surgery and chemotherapy, Cain is currently in remission.

I was stunned to learn, though, about his amazing academic accomplishments. Stunned because the buffoon he currently portrays in his campaign to date would never lead one to suspect that at one time he was capable of them.

I'm the first one to admit that I am a number dummy (except for birthdays, phone numbers, zip codes and of course, Dewey, they make my brain hurt. I believe the PC term for this condition is “innumeracy,” but as is often the case, the Anglo-Saxon is so much more expressive). The result is that I greatly admire people who do not share this condition; hence my surprise to discover Can's BS in mathematics in 1967 and a subsequent MS in computer science in 1971. I believe it was 1978 or so that WSU was offering an introductory programming class but I knew that this class was intended for those with abilities beyond my ken.

Cain's professional achievements were no less astounding. Ballistics analyst for the Navy, systems analyst for Coca-Cola. One imagines that positions like these are not handed out to just anyone. Hence the great puzzlement that his campaign has suffered so many gaffes, both at the hands of Cain himself and his staff. Something I have observed time and time again is that many highly intelligent and successful people are seriously lacking in social skills. I suspect that may ultimately be Cain's biggest albatross. Knowing his impressive background, his fall is that much more painful to watch.

My belief is that it is simply impossible for Cain to win the nomination of his own party, let alone win a general election. Face it, the harassment issues that have dogged his campaign so far are certainly not endemic to Cain alone, nor the sole province of any particular party. However, his response to those accusations shows that he is in no way able to cope with the responsibilities of the office of the president. "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown...." etc, etc.

And Hermie? No, I don't know who the president of “Ubeki-beki-beki-stan-stan” is, since there is no such country, but in case you meant Uzbekistan, it's one Islam Karimov. Isn't it great to know where to look?

Comment Moderation Bot Avoider

As a service to humanity, I have put together an alphabet for use on message boards where the general sentiment is that comment moderation is a bit too heavy-handed. There is a particular forum in mind, but I won't name it here. That forum is pretty transparent about their moderation and readers are notified that comments will be screened prior to posting. One gets the impression that an actual human is reading all these comments; however, I doubt it. On hot topics, I'll be reading comments and when I hit the icon to advance to the next page of comments, I find myself 3 pages back at comments I've already read. No human could possibly keep up with shotgun posting like that.

This site's Terms of Use are wordy and seem benign, but in actual practice I don't see much consistency in comment deletion. To avoid the key words that might not make it through filtering software, many posters resort to intentional misspellings. Frequently, though, the misspelling makes the meaning of the word unclear.

To that end, then, I present the Comment Moderation Bot Avoider™. This alphabet is not a font in the usual sense; rather, it is simply characters pulled from the character map for their beauty and resemblance to the English alphabet. Readers are free to copy the entire alphabet or individual characters at their leisure.

Αβ€ÐΣ₣ĠĦ1ĴК£МŇОΡΩЯ§ŦŨVЩХ¥Ź

āб¢∂ėƒġђïĵķ1μήоþqґşŧμύωхуž

Note: I will probably be changing some of the characters occasionally as I determine that others are better suited to a given task.

A word of advice, however. I am informed that using more than 2 special characters per word might trigger the bots, so use them judiciously.

Occupy Vancouver

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
~ Howard Zinn

Vancouver, Washington. Quiet bedroom community just across the Columbia River from Portland The current population is around 160,000, or about 4 times what it was when I grew up here. The orchard where I used to keep my horse is a couple of sub-divisions now, and due to several influxes of immigrants, it just is not the same white bread town it used to be.

Not to be outdone by the larger and more sophisticated Portland, which has been staging its own “Occupy” movement for a week or so, there was an “Occupy Vancouver” rally today in Esther Short park downtown. Despite pretty short notice (the first I heard about it was last night on The Columbian's web site) there was a decent turnout. My state assembly person and acquaintance from high school, Jim Moeller, was scheduled to speak. The thing had been going on for a bit when I got there and I didn't see or hear him. I saw Nurmi Husa, another guy I knew from high school, there and he guessed about 800 people. Vancouver police estimated 700.

At any rate, it was a peaceful gathering and the demographic was anything but “a bunch of stinking hippies smoking pot and needing a shower.” Interesting to see how many people there were my age or older. In fact, I'd say that far and away the majority of attendees were over 65. A smattering of 20- and 30-somethings, a few parents with small children, sure, but not many. And the only "fleabaggers" I saw there wore leashes and collars. My 80-year old mother has expressed affinity for the protesters but due to her health issues is not able to attend. She would have fit right in. So would my grandmother's church group.


Although the mainstream media keeps spouting the “no centralized message” meme, the signs I saw there were clear enough. When will the PTB realize that a revolution is brewing? This is not a few spoiled college kids who can't be bothered to look for work. This is turning into a global phenomenon. Curious that when people decry  abuses in the middle east, they are freedom fighters, but when they do it here they are spoiled kids, whiners and dirty hippies.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
~ John F. Kennedy

Now this is what I call equality

It Gets Better Project' Finds Support In Male Librarian Pin-Up Calendar

From the Huffington Post:

Forget the stereotypical crabby female librarian with a tight bun and nerdy glasses. The Men of the Stacks project introduces 12 steamy bibliophiles in a pin-up calendar to support struggling LGBT youth. 

Frankly, the bit about "crabby female librarian" makes me pretty crabby, but looking at the pics made me forget all about it.

Well, we knew it was coming

For those who were waiting with bated breath comes the latest in a long series of Palin attention-whoring: Bristol's "auto-bio" tome.

Comments on The BookPage's blog and Amazon are harsh, but honestly -- what did she expect?

Cute kid, though. Too bad Bristol has decided that it's okay to diss the baby daddy.