Selectricity

Had a busy morning off and on, and I hope nobody minds that I took the time to wander through a fascinating set of posts on the history of modern typewriters, etc.

As the brother of a professional graphic designer, I've been exposed to enough stuff of that nature to have an amateur's interest (which includes a visit a couple of years back to the Cooper Hewitt Museum of Design in New York City).

Anyway, Jeffrey at Library Chronicles had pretty much the best link--to Hunter at DailyKos.

However, while debate rages as to whether or not you could add a superscript "th" to a document typed in the early 1970's (and whether there is discernable Kerning, or proportional fonts, etc. etc. etc.), well, there are plenty of folks in places like Iraq who couldn't give a shit as to what sort of typewriters TANG used.

For instance--the boatload of Iraqis who discovered that it didn't make a damn bit of difference who was in charge there, they were going to be secretly detained with lord knows what happening to them behind closed doors. The hairsplitting at DOJ, DOD, and the other executive branch offices would be comical, if it wasn't so sad. Hell, I can easily picture the same sort of arguing over the minutiae of torture coming from the mouths of the Baathist officials we overthrew. And, use of the term overthrew is apparently quite accurate--turns out that a number of ex-officials of Saddam's regime have found new employment as present officials of the American regime. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Makes you wonder just what Bush meant when he barked about "democracy" in Iraq.

On other fronts, Dick Cheney seems to have discovered the power of Ebay--you know, I was wonder what he did to pass the time in the various undisclosed locations he calls home. Must get awfully lonely, and we know Dick's no soft shoe. In response, John Edwards noted that Dick hasn't yet factored in other sources of income like bake sales or lemonade stands. Jeez--if only the data had been compiled accurately...who knows? Maybe we HAVEN'T been in recession since MARCH of 2001.

No word on when the data will also factor in income derived from babysitting, yard sales, car washes, pancake breakfasts, and other examples of entrepenurial spirit.

Speaking of faulty data: despite the sometimes desperate efforts by Rethuglicans to suggest that somehow Saddam might have transported or his his Weapons of Mass Destruction, cooler heads have carefully analyzed the information available and concluded what pretty much any rational person could've told you in March 2003--the weapons didn't exist. Now, the wingnuts will wail, gnash their teeth, bark, and even bray about how "the Democrat party believed they were there, too," to which I'll say fine. Anyone who's ever read more than a post or two on this blog knows I'm not a blue-believer (I'm a lesser of evils). No defense on the failure of Democratic leadership to challenge the Bush spin. But there WERE people out there noting the logic--finite shelf life, sanctions preventing imports of any "dual-use" chemical (including chlorine, a MAJOR component of both chemical weapons and water treatment facilities. The fact that impure water was being consumed in Iraq as a result was a big factor in the high rate of infant mortality during the 90's)--also, manufacture of chemicals in sufficient quantity to provide a genuine threat could easily be detected by satellites or reconnisance jets, both of which were trained in abundance on the nation.

The idea that we've done anything of lasting good in Afghanistan is a joke. While I'm skeptical as to what the Taliban can and can't do, the fact is that we've lost focus there, while Bush, displaying the A.D.D. type behavior so manifest in his early life, has basically forgotten about the follow up to the fun "blowing up the rubble and making it gravel" part. If he wanted to truly do a number on terrorism, he should have devoted several tens of billions of dollars THERE, instead of diverting most over to Iraq at the first chance he had to divert the public. But instead, we seem to be hanging on just long enough to really put the country out of Americans' minds before pulling the rug out from under Karzai, who truly is wearing a target.

Finally, Dick "Graveheart" Cheney "clarified" his remark the other day to the effect that a Kerry win meant duck-and-cover or at least run for the bomb shelters. I dunno. Maybe what Dick meant to say was "oh my god I'm having chest pains! Where the hell are my nitro pills? Scooter, get over here--open the goddamn child proof cap--NOW!" Yesterday I was reading the James Wolcott blog which had a post comparing Cheney to a tired Ed McMahon (and Dubya to Johnny Carson). Wolcott closed the post with apologies--to Carson.

That's about right.

One more thing: since I began this post on the subject of typewriters, it's only fitting to end with a link to--a giant typewriter eraser. If you never had to use one of these things, well, consider yourself lucky.