It’s an easy mistake to make. When you’re asked to think about the brand of McDonald’s, you probably picture the golden arches. When you’re asked to think about the brand of Ford, I’m sure the blue oval springs to mind. It may be a little bit zen (or at least Heisenbergian), but the very act of consciously thinking about branding prevents you from experiencing it.

I’ve talked about some of these issues, independent of cigarettes, before.

To illustrate the difference consider, “And after the funeral, we’re all going to get brunch at McDonald’s”. Chances are you didn’t stop to think about their logo before deciding the Mickey D’s is a less than respectful destination for a wake. The brand of a thing is slippery; sensory cues like logos and jingles become twisted up with prior experience with the product or service to create a subconscious soup of how something feels to you.

Design considerations of the branding of cigarettes is well-tread ground. The film “Thank You for Smoking” and its fabulous opening credits does a respectful job. There’s also the series premiere of designer favorite “Mad Men”, containing this gem:

This is the greatest advertising opportunity since the invention of cereal. We have six identical companies making six identical products. We can say anything we want.

So, in many respects, the UK government finally deciding to pay attention to cigarette branding and “considering outlawing the use of logos, colours and graphics on packets and requiring them to be sold in plain packaging” is showing up un-fashionably late to the party.

The folks over at We Made This have a concept sketch of what that might look like. It’s kinda sexy and dangerous. It’s not, of course, sexy or dangerous. That’s just the transparency of Helvetica set in black on a white background allowing whatever else you already think about cigarettes to shine through. The prevalence of the International Typographical Style in modern society has repackaged “plain packaging”.

Let’s really think about logos for a moment. Do my health-conscious, eco-friendly activist friends really choose Brand “A” because of their unwavering commitment to Indigenous rights? Or even their hatred of cloven-hoofed mammals? No, it’s the subconscious soup!

Don’t get me wrong. Stripping logos off the packaging will no doubt have some effect. Analysts suggest that, “plain packaging would prompt many smokers to abandon the premium brands such as Marlboro and Benson and Hedges, and instead switch to much cheaper makes”. This is bad news for the tobacco companies and worse news for the public health folks, who were hoping to curb smoking—not drive an exodus.

The real problem here is not any cigarette’s individual brand, but the brand of smoking.

As long as guys like Don Draper include “drink and smoke constantly” in their guide to picking up women, it’s unlikely that striking the individual tobacco companies will lead to a decrease in rates of smoking.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that as a persecuted pastime, smoking could gain an even stronger brand as cool, rebellious, revolutionary, and of course sexy and dangerous. I wouldn’t be surprised to see other products try to associate themselves with smoking in hopes that the brand would rub off on them.

To be fair, the Hero’s Journey is hardly comprehensive criteria for heroism. It’s most appropriate usage is in storytelling, so let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that we’re dissecting the content of a man’s character, merely how well that character is packaged. Still, using Campbell’s original 17-step (17-meme?) path as our guide, here’s how the presumptive next president of the United States rates against other classic hero archetypes like Luke Skywalker, Neo, and—hell—let’s throw in Baby from Dirty Dancing:

1. The Call to Adventure

It begins simply enough with our hero, typically an orphan, trapped in a mundane existence with a longing to be more than they are. Luke wants to join the Rebellion, Neo is pricked by the question “what is the Matrix?”, and Baby attends her first dance lesson.

BarackObama.com’s Meet the Candidate page begins with:

Barack Obama was raised by a single mother and his grandparents. They didn’t have much money, but they taught him values from the Kansas heartland where they grew up. He took out loans to put himself through school.

Orphan? Sort of. Mundane? Check. Longing? Not explicitly, maybe it’s implied by “the Kansas heartland”… or maybe that’s just my own inference having grown up in Indiana.

2. Refusal of the Call

Heroes have to be selfless, so typically they reject the first call to adventure. They cite their obligations to family or community. Luke tells Obi-Wan he has to help his uncle with the harvest, Neo comes in from the ledge and is captured by Agents, and Baby declines the invitation to dance.

BarackObama.com again:

Obama turned down lucrative job offers after law school to return to Chicago, leading a successful voter registration drive. He joined a small law firm, taught constitutional law and, guided by his Christian faith, stayed active in his community.

Refusal? Check. Responsibilities to community? Check.

3. Supernatural Aid

Once the call is accepted the hero receives aid from an older and vaguely mythic mentor, who will be their guide through the dangerous hidden world and help the hero achieve what they never could. For Luke this is obviously Obi-Wan, for Neo it’s Morpheus, and for Baby it’s Johnny.

Obama’s website doesn’t mention any figure specifically, though—and here begins a criticism of how the McCain campaign has played into the Hero’s Journey more than once—one could imagine McCain’s characterization of the counsel Obama received early in his career from William Ayers to be of this nature. From a McCain press release:

…highlights Barack Obama’s long-standing relationship with unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. From his political introduction at Bill Ayers’ house in 1995 to their service together on two boards…

Again, we’re not talking about reality, just the story being told.

Older and wiser? Check. Introduction to a hidden world? Check. Achieve what he never could? Check.

4. Crossing of the First Threshold

The deliberate decision to enter the hidden world is the first true act the hero makes on his/her own. It typically requires a great deal of either courage or faith, as there’s no going back. Luke sells his landspeeder and books passage off of Tatooine, Neo takes the red pill, and Baby agrees to fill in for Penny.

BarackObama.com again:

…Barack had come to realize that in order to truly improve the lives of people in that community and other communities, it would take not just a change at the local level, but a change in our laws and in our politics.

From there he would go to Harvard Law and on to the State Senate, politics at last.

Deliberate decision? Check. Faith/courage? Not mentioned explicitly. No going back? Not mentioned explicitly, though the commitment is there.

5. The Belly of the Whale

As crossing the threshold is a death of the hero’s former life, a rebirth is required. It typically involves the symbol of water and an emergence into a new body. For Luke, he is submerged and emerges from the garbage aboard the Death Star, Neo emerges from a pod of goo as a human battery, and Baby emerges from a lake onto Johnny’s outstretched arms.

BarackObama.com again:

Instead of being consumed by partisan politics, Senator Obama rose above it, emerging from the slime as—

Just kidding. This one’s way too specific. Nothing really comparable.

6. The Road of Trials

If a new edition of Campbell’s book were to come out today, this step would be renamed, “The Montage.” Here’s where the hero puts in time and effort to learn the skills of the hidden world. Luke put in his time on Dagobah with Yoda, Neo learned kung fu and practiced it with Morpheus, and Baby danced up endless flights of stairs to “Wipe Out”.

BarackObama.com again:

It has been the rich and varied experiences of Barack Obama’s life – growing up in different places with people who had differing ideas – that have animated his political journey. Amid the partisanship and bickering of today’s public debate, he still believes in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose…

Road as metaphor? Check. Time and energy? Not really, it’s more about holding true to the original reason he got into politics than learning the game. The Obama camp probably feels like they have to do this in order to not appear tainted by politics, since they’re running on change, but I think that’s unnecessary. Most folks would recognize that you can gain experience without compromising.

7. Meeting with the Goddess
8. Woman as the Temptress

Often combined in modern storytelling, steps seven and eight regard the Jungian archetypes Anima and Animus. That is, the male and female opposites within the self. While the (typically male) hero initially may wish to surrender their burdens to the female, destiny requires that these two halves be reconciled, so that a single self both male and female can continue the journey. Luke must transcend Leia as temptation, in a slight twist Trinity must admit her love for Neo in order for him to ascend, and Baby unites with Johnny (despite the deadly role sex has played in the film) to gain his strength.

I hope I don’t have to spell this one out for you. Let’s see, when has Barack Obama had to face a female version of himself and then unite both his male and her female identities to create one stronger self?

Big check.

9. Atonement with the Father

This step is about the hero confronting and redefining the system that has confined him/her up to this point. The father is often literal, but symbolically represents authority in all forms. Luke squares against Vader (a battle for which he has been preparing without even realizing this relationship), Neo faces his fears of authority in Agent Smith, Baby literally reconciles with her father (“You let me down too, Daddy.”).

This is “present day” for Senator Obama’s journey. He is, right at this moment, facing off against the symbol of the system as it currently exists.

Here again, the McCain campaign is playing right into the monomyth. Whether it’s sarcastically calling him “the one” or disparagingly “that one”, all of McCain’s negative campaigning is reinforcing the idea that this election is about Barack Obama as protagonist overcoming John McCain—not actually running against him as a peer. A loss will mean “the system” has won and the hero failed. “Country First” underscores that further, implying that Obama is running against America!

Father figure representing authority? Check. Redefining the system? Not yet, but it’s certainly the campaign promise.

Speaking of campaign promises, let’s run through some of the rest of these with an eye on foreshadowing. Afterall, merely suggesting that the following things are still to come supports the concept of Obama as hero.

10. Apotheosis
11. The Ultimate Boon

These steps are about ultimate self-sacrifice in order to achieve their personal destiny and retrieve something to benefit the community that the hero left behind so long ago. Luke throws himself from the tower instead of submit to the Dark Side, Neo dies but is reborn with the ability to change the Matrix as he sees fit, and Baby reveals her hidden world (dancing) to her family and stops being afraid.

Certainly any apotheosis for Barack Obama’s journey would coincide with a victorious election. I’m drawing a blank on any implications of outstanding self-sacrifice. This may be another “Belly of the Whale”.

12. Refusal of the Return
13. The Magic Flight
14. Rescue from Without

The new powers of the hero are so intoxicating, he/she nearly forgets that the boon was acquired for others and wants to stay in the hidden world forever. Soon they remember or are rescued by a third party and race back to the mundane world, just in time. Luke is nabbed by the Millennium Falcon as it flees Cloud City, Neo must be reminded to answer the ringing phone before Trinity can stop the robots destroying the ship, and Baby enjoys one last “time of her life” on stage.

With the “Rescue from Without” step, we’re beginning to touch on the Obama campaign again. Afterall, the quote featured most prominently on his website is:

I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change to Washington … I’m asking you to believe in yours.

This request does suggest that a President Obama would not be able to fulfill all of the promises made without help from those who have not undergone the same transformative journey that he has but nonetheless have a vital role to play.

15. Crossing of the Return Threshold
16. Master of Two Worlds
17. Freedom to Live

The final three steps involve the hero learning to co-exist in both the hidden and mundane world, then sharing their gift with everyone—who are transformed or freed from the dangers that set the hero in motion back in step one. Luke becomes a Jedi and parties with Ewoks, Neo tells the Agents “I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. … A world where anything is possible.” and Baby gets the whole room a-dirty dancin’.

Is this the ultimate promise of the Obama campaign? A world where “anything is possible” and driven by what we, as a people, want to create? Perhaps. He closed his acceptance of the Democratic nomination for president declaring:

[I]n America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one. … America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future.

Sounds like Neo to me.

Conclusion

While certainly fun, have we learned anything today? Do I mean to imply that the Obama campaign is subtly using Joseph Campbell’s monomyth to warp your brain into thinking their candidate is the hero we’ve been waiting for? Not really. Much more likely, our brains are already warped and describing a journey of any magnitude allows for such comparison. Perhaps the 17-step path is woven into the fabric of the universe, or perhaps we’ve just watched a lot of movies and the pattern feels comfortable to us.

Why not ask the candidate himself?

Oh, okay. Clearly he prefers the Superman/Christ myth. For Jor-El so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.

You can get the thumbnail for this post on a t-shirt here.

Quoth Howard Beale:

I don’t have to tell you things are bad… everybody knows things are bad… it’s a depression… everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job… the dollar buys a nickel’s worth… banks are going bust… shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter…

It’s hard to listen to the radio or watch television or whatever verb it is you do to blogs without noticing that several important systems are all falling apart. It’s equally hard to maintain a cheery attitude without being accused of either having buried your head in the sand or being callous to the woes so real for so many people. If you’d like to be happy, and who wouldn’t, I might suggest you embrace the concept of a market correction.

Financially speaking, a market correction is the sudden drop in a stock when a bunch of people simultaneously realize that it’s overpriced. All those tips that had seemed really good as your brother-in-law was pitching you over beers wither to dust in your hands as people come to their senses and realizes that everyone was excited only because everyone else was excited, when there was no reason to get excited in the first place.

Getting more metaphorical, it’s a way to maintain hope that an established system will ultimately regulate itself and that a short-term disaster doesn’t threaten the underlying paradigm. It’s a way to say, “Hey man, I know things seem pretty fucked up right now, but the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” Despite any sarcastic tone, I think they’re great.

Forests fires are market corrections, trading decaying oaks for nutrient-rich soil, thus ensuring the long-term life of the forest. Earthquakes are market corrections, drifting tectonic plates stuttering to catch up with one another to avoid gaping trenches of magma. When this planet finally kills off the humans to prevent more carbon from spilling into the atmosphere, it will be a market correction.

I can’t help but feel optimistic, even giddy.

Perhaps you’ve sensed that something like this was coming for a while. Admit it, things have felt a little “wrong” lately. Your intuitive self sensed a deep cancer within the body of buying houses on interest-only loans and flipping them onto the next guy who does the same like a game of musical chairs. Well, now the music has stopped and we have a quiet moment of lucidity, when the lights have come on and—although startled at first—we look around and find joy in the way things could be, should be, and will be again.

If you’ve been frustrated about the “childbirth bubble” where expectant mothers are first given pain medication and then labor inducers, and then pain medication, and then labor inducers, until finally their’s no choice but to perform a Caeserian, you’ll be happy to know that there’s a market correction going on.

If you’ve been irked by the “global food market bubble” making your food tasting bland, unsatisfying, and full of ingredients you can’t pronounce, you’ll be happy to know that eating local and urban farms are forcing a market correction.

If you think that the “partisan politics bubble” has made the national discourse too divisive, despite your sharing more and more values with your neighbors and that, “the reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than they are for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.” You probably already know that there’s some markets getting corrected lately.

And if you think the “lists of links to lists of links bubble” has left the blogosphere a wasteland of search-engine optimized lists, Digg-bait headlines, and lifehacks distracting you from the life you’re supposed to be hacking, you’ll be pleased to find out that the Internet is receiving a long awaited market correction.

Yes, there are growing pains. Yes, the coming world will destroy the current one in its wake. But I have confidence that the turmoil we’re seeing on the world stage is merely a generation of chickens coming home to roost, breaking some eggs, and tomorrow we’ll all be eating some mighty tasty omelettes.

Okay, first you need to watch the original. This is a real ad from a real politician who is really running for president of our country. No doctoring, no mashing-of-up, nothing like that. People made this sans irony.

Now you can skim through “Planet of the Arabs” which made it to the top of Digg three days ago. It’s a compilation of Hollywood movies featuring vicious stereotypes of Middle-Easterners.

The two were clearly made for one another, so I got them drunk and they got busy.

Note some important improvements to the original advertisement:

1. I removed the video footage of Benazir Bhutto. Some might consider it risky, since she was only tragically murdered a week ago, and might turn out to have been a “bad guy” after all. Oh, and Rudy himself was quoted saying, “I think it’s inappropriate to see [her death] in political terms.” So out it comes.
2. Also, if you’re kicking Arab butt, you need an action movie star. Inevitably, there will be a movie someday about September 11th starring Rudy Giuliani, focusing on he bravely prevented one of the greatest tragedies in our nation’s history. But until that day, Chuck Norris is the go-to guy.
3. Oh, and the end title needed to be in Trajan. Everybody knows that. Der.

Just on the off chance that Rudy happens to win the Republican nomination and subsequently the presidency, I’ve taken the liberty of already starting a “Pre-emptively impeach Rudy Giuliani!” petition over at Care2. Feel free to go ahead and make some protest signs, too. Oh, and somebody should tell CodePink.

Just last week, AT&T was in the news for two major stories, revealing them as… I think the legal term is “dicks”.

On Tuesday, classified documents were released confirming that they did indeed help the NSA with their warrantless wire-tapping activities. They didn’t just look the other way while the NSA did all the work but coordinated with them, re-routing traffic and purchasing equipment to make surveillance easier. The first of these “spy rooms” was constructed in San Francisco, about four blocks from my office. To be clear, this is not stepping out of the way to let justice be served—the wiretaps are illegal—it’s more like approaching a mugging in progress and offering the mugger a bigger gun.

Then on Wednesday, AT&T announced plans to “filter content” over the internet. They’ve outlined a plan where their servers will monitor the data packets sent through them and delete any that are found to by infringing on copyrights. They feel that somehow, by contributing to the infrastructure, they own what it carries. Imagine your water company deciding when you’re allowed to have water or your power company deciding when you’re allowed to have power. For even less of a stretch, imagine your telephone company (quite possibly AT&T) deciding which phone calls you can make or receive. Consider further that something like “copyrighted content” is not uniformly illegal, as legality depends on usage, and you’ve got a real bull-in-a-china-shop situation (fitting because filtering internet content is a criticism often aimed at the Chinese government).

Put these two together and you see an AT&T that uses their power irresponsibly and, quite possibly, illegally. Not an ideal partner for Apple, whose been trying to keep their image clean. Yet when the iPhone comes out on June 29th, the only way to get it is along with a Cingular/AT&T plan. What’s a nerd to do? Here are a few possible solutions.

Steve’s “blog” has recently had some fairly landmark posts on it about Apple’s perspective on DRM and their environmental policies, both of which have been in response to popular activist campaigns (the Free Software Foundation and Greenpeace, respectively). Perhaps they’d be willing to listen to reason on why telecommunications companies constantly monitoring our communications is not an ideal feature for “our digital life“.

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) continues to fight the bully telecoms in multiple arenas. Oh that’s right, AT&T is also starkly against Network Neutrality and even funds astroturf groups to represent a non-existent public outcry in their favor. Almost forgot that. So the second possible solution is to set up a monthly donation to EFF equal to or exceeding your monthly donation (i.e. bill) to AT&T.

The last option is to wait for the iPhone to become available on Verizon (only marginally better on the Net Neutrality front) or another service. This could happen after the exclusive partnership with AT&T is over (see, even Apple gets locked into lame 2-year contracts) or by someone unlocking the iPhone so it can be used with other carriers.

My current plan is to wait on the iPhone. Mostly this is because I’ve learned my lesson on buying 1st generation new product lines from Apple, having purchased one of the first G4s back in 2000 and one of the first MacbookPros last year. Both are phenomenal machines, with just a few kinks that have since been worked out. But, unless I wait the full 5 years, this doesn’t address the political aspects of avoiding AT&T. Also to consider: does it make a damn difference? I’ve been boycotting Sony for almost ten years now and I don’t think anyone but my mom even knows. Ultimately, I think it’s a “can you look at yourself in the mirror-like shiny Apple logo?” issue. And that’s a question we need to ask ourselves over more than just the phone we use.

Last year I managed to make it to three films:

“Who Killed the Electric Car?”

I describe this movie, whenever I get a chance, as the Schindler’s List of Electric Vehicles. To watch the amazing EV1 get shredded to bits because some fat cat is trying to hide that they’re better than the stuff GM currently makes is absolutely heart-wrenching. Well, it wrenched my heart at least. Plus, I’m dating one of the supporting actresses.

“American Blackout”

I acknowledge that Cynthia McKinney is a little batty, if not very batty. But the House of Representatives is supposed to represent America and I know plenty of people who share both her politics and her penchant for conspiracy theories. Ignoring her controversial ego, the much stronger part of this film was the rigorous documentation of how systematic the campaign to suppress the black vote has become. The Republicans have quite an impressive playbook for that game.

“The DaVinci Code”

Okay, so I didn’t quite make it to three. Embarrassing, I realize. Given that both of the above films are the kind you can’t just walk into a theater in Middle America and watch, it’s truly a crime not to take better advantage of this festival.

Keeping with that sentiment, here are the ones I’m planning to catch this year, alphabeticalish:

“The Deal”

The writer/director combo of “The Queen” swings their attention to Prime Minister Tony Blair and shady backroom wheeling and dealing among Labour Party. Intrigue! World politics! British accents!

“Everything’s Cool”

As I work for an environmental non-profit, this one’s hard to miss. Promising to be a vaguely comedic send up of what my girlfriend calls (only quasi-ironically) the “Non-profit/Industrial Complex”, the film follows the re-explosion of environmentalism thanks to climate change going mainstream. My only hope is that Nordhaus and Shellenberger aren’t framed as the heroes.

“Paprika”

It’s only got one show time, which I’m going to miss, but someone really should see this just to make sure it’s as wonderful as it looks. I’ve been an anime fan for a long time and very pleased that the genre has grown up with me (Thundercats, on the other hand, is completely unwatchable now).

“Reprise”

A group of 20-somethings determined to stick together whose careers take them in different directions. Considering that very well describes the last year of my life, I’m treating this one as a documentary—and praying that it doesn’t with the death of the main character or something suitably tragic.

“When the Levees Broke”

Spike Lee. Katrina. Documentary. Should be intense.

“Aria”

I have a feeling that this one’s going to be very Murakami-esque. Maybe because it takes place in Hokkaido, a place inextricably linked in my mind with magical sheep and a seemingly perfect destination for vaguely surreal character-driven drama. Of course, I might be off.

I’m planning on going fully Ebert (sans the missing jaw) this year and posting reviews as I cross the above off my list. You may have to sit tight for a bit though, as I mentioned before, I’ll be in Mexico next week.

I really will be in Mexico next week, but if I wasn’t, that would be a great way to end every post, eh? “Thanks for reading and, before I forget, I’m going to be in Mexico next week.” Kind of like, “Most likely kill you in the morning…“

From the first words, “Corrupt/You’re corrupt/Bring corruption to all that you touch” softly sung like the beginning narration to an epic story, British rockers Muse introduce a theme running through their entire latest album.

The radical pose is definitely struck. Activists marching in black-and-white and slow-motion protesters wracked with passion fill the enormous video screens behind singer Matt Bellamy as he belts out “During the struggle they will pull us down/But please, please let’s use this chance to turn things around.” (The video for “Invincible”, available on their website, is filled with similar imagery.)

A certifiably catchy blend of all things Britrock, Muse can sound like Radiohead, Queen, and Led Zeppelin all in the same song. Three great tastes that taste great together, it’s difficult not to sing along or bang your head (as appropriate) when called upon to do so. In this way, I was reminded more than once of Third Reich marches; when the man on stage, clearly cooler than you with his custom Manson guitar with built in Kaoss pad is screaming, “War is overdue/The time has come for you/To shoot your leaders down/Join forces underground,” you kinda want to do it right then and there.

Closing your eyes and listening to the lyrics alone would suggest you’re attending a Rage Against the Machine show, but Muse is shiny, modern, and articulate (almost to the point of over-processed) compared to the raw, dirty, but “authentic” guys from Rage (whom you wouldn’t be surprised to run into while dumpstering some ramen). Rage, who’s classic eponymous album served as the twixt-set music at the Muse concert, looks like radicals. Muse looks like glam rockers. Who exactly is adopting the radical pose and who is content with radical ends?

Bellamy’s beliefs go deeper than the studio. His uncle was killed by the IRA, which has forced him to examine terrorism, its root causes, and how its used by governments to further their own causes. He’s publicly offered strong criticism of Project for the New American Century (bringing it up in interviews) and worn a shirt promoting projects of Alex Jones (no relation) on stage.

During the third song of the second encore my attention drifted to two drunken and half-naked girls merrily dancing around one another while only 100 feet away, in full Queen-like three part harmony, Muse proclaimed, “No one’s going to take me alive/The time has come to make things right!” before launching into thrashing metal ending complete with lasers, pyrotechnics, 10-foot wide balloons bursting into glitter, and jets of fog firing in all directions. The celebration seemed out-of-sync with the message, but walking home—ears ringing—I couldn’t help but feel invigorated to kick more ass.

Over the last six years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have written the most authoritative study on Climate Change to date. It has been penned by over 800 scientists and reviewed by an additional 2500 from over 130 countries and represents the very best science we have on the subject. The Summary for Policymakers (pdf) is available online. In brief, the findings were:

1. “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” (p.4)
2. There’s a 90% chance that humans have caused it. (p.3)
3. Emissions are so out-of-control that warming will “continue for centuries” even if they’re stabilized. (p.12)

I’ll let you take a moment to go through the fives stages of grief before we move on. By move on, I mean, introduce the other team. Yes, coming out on the other side—against the report—is a well-oiled machine of energy companies, PR hatchet men, and legislative puppets.

ExxonMobil (via one of their “unbiased third party” think tanks, American Enterprise Institute) has already gotten caught offering bribes to any scientist willing to dispute the report. No research required, just disagree. All they want is a climate of confusion (pun intended).

Next, PR hacks like self-appointed “Junkman” Steven Milloy (to whom I will not befoul myself by linking, but do read his profile on SourceWatch), have tried to deliberately misrepresent the report by accusing the media of deliberately misrepresenting it. Having long since given up trying to prove the contrary to any scientific findings, the best they can do is shed doubt on what knowledge real science has rendered. Nice try, but it turns out I can read.

Similarly, Senator James “At-least-I’m-not-Senator-Stevens” Inhofe (R-OK), has gone on record calling the report “a shining example of the corruption of science for political gain“. The statement is so ironic it attracts magnets.

I am not given to hyperbole. Phrases like “worst” and “best” I reserve for the actual “worst” and “best” subjects of a category. Similarly, if I say something like, “I love this movie,” I have often already considered marriage before someone taunts me with the suggestion. I note this because it will ground my following opinion as beyond a stereotypical enviro-exaggeration, but the truth as far as I am concerned. These people who would place their profits, their salary, or their kickbacks ahead of the health and safety of not only our natural world but the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet cannot be called anything nicer than traitor to the human race. They’ve been deceiving, deluding, or dragging their heels for far too long. I search my heart for some scrap of compassion for them to forgive the terrible crime they’ve committed against all of us and find none.

Let’s leave them to their petty machinations and meddling and pay them no more mind. In the meantime, the rest of us will Step It Up and try to get Earth back on the right track before things get even worse. Hesitation is over and done. Do all you can, as soon as you can. We meet this challenge and our great-great-great-grandkids will sing the victory in their songs. We fail and no songs will be sung.

It’s not the first time O’Reilly has expressed his unmitigated hate toward the city of San Francisco. Almost exactly a year ago, he told Al Qaeda, “You want to blow up Coit Tower? Go ahead.” This time, his current rhetoric is more aimed at our gay pride parades, “pot shops”, and mocking of Christianity.

I should know better than to assume anything O’Reilly says is rooted in reality, but assertions that San Francisco is some sort of secular playground is ridiculous. I’ve attended services at Glide with a Jewish friend and managed to make it to a Solstice or Beltane party every once in a while, too. Further, the Mission District is very Catholic and there are neighborhood celebrations around Confirmations or Baptisms every week.

So what exactly are “San Francisco Values”?

He’s hitting on something with the gay pride parades. San Francisco definitely values diversity. The tremendous Chinese New Year Parade has been named one of the world’s top ten parades. I loved going last year and seeing all the little kids dressed like puppies for the Year of the Dog. Last week’s Dia de los Muertos celebration was a beautiful colored stone in the mosaic of cultures that is San Francisco.

The “pot shops” crack may be a crack at our hippie heritage and I’m pleased to say that the treehugger’s have left a lasting legacy. San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland are all in the Top 20 greenest cities in the U.S. according to the Green Guide. Personally, I take one of the four excellent forms of mass transit San Francisco has (none of which use gasoline) to work every day.

One thing that Bill has left out, however, is San Francisco’s value of innovation. I’ve long said that the DNA of San Francisco contains, across the board, the “I wonder what’s West of here?” gene. That spirit of imagination and adventure has given the world some amazing things. Considering just the illustrious internet marvels, the Bay Area is home to Apple, Craigslist, Flickr, Google, Yahoo, and YouTube among many, many others. Let’s not forget popsicles and fortune cookies!

One more invention that had its root in San Francisco that Bill O’Reilly may be especially thankful for and not even know it. On a foggy day in September, back in 1927, Philo T. Farnsworth brought to life a device without which the world would never come to know the No Spin Zone, the motherfucking television.

Diversity, sustainability, and innovation? Those are San Francisco values and Congress could sure use all of them.

10 PRINT "Stan is awesome."
20 GOTO 10

BASIC programs in the 80s were written as one big heap of code. This line number sent you to that line number, as labyrinthian as the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books popular at the time. I faced a hard game of catch-up when I went to college and had to discard the monolithic BASIC for the, by comparison, fractured and disjointed C++. Classes? Libraries? I want my code all in one place!

<%= 1000.times {puts "Stan is awesome."} %>

It was an evolutionary hurdle to understand that the functionality I had relied on could be abstracted into functions, to be written once and called upon whenever I needed them. Ruby on Rails is a step beyond C++ in terms of abstraction, built upon a MVC framework that separates what the program does (the Controller) from what it does it to (the Model) and how it looks when it’s done (the View). These “three branches” got me thinking about abstraction in government.

First there were monarchies, these were BASIC. A single leader who did all the governing single-handedly: judge, jury, and executioner (though of course, they didn’t use that phrase because judges and juries hadn’t been invented yet). Lots left to be desired here, obviously. There’s a big jump in 1215 with the Magna Carta, which introduced functions in the form of Barons (who could throw exceptions with the best of them).

The U.S. government is more like an MVC framework than any before, with clearly defined roles of each branch. Looking closer, the legislative branch contains two classes, Senate and House, that contain methods like Pass, Reject, and the wickedly recursive Direct to Subcommittee.

What would a truly agile government look like? How could programming methodologies like YAGNI or DRY be applied to the passage or even execution of law? Is the inevitable babbling about a “litmus test” whenever a Supreme Court Justice is nominated really just unit testing?

This is getting dangerously close to the dorkiest post I’ve ever made, so I should point out that the trend toward abstraction exists in environments other than just programming and government. In storytelling, we’ve gone from epic oral mythologies to self-contained novels to hypertext that links to pre-written content. In occupations, we’ve gone from hunting/gathering to raising specific crops for trade to trading representations of those crops in futures markets. At each step, the subject of the old level becomes an object of the new.