Listics

"D’oh"

I misdialed this afternoon and was rewarded by a talk with Doc Searls.  Doc has some window seat photos of Madison up on FlickR and I could see our place from the high resolution shots.  The barn roof shows clearly in a couple of them, and the farm is clearly visible west of the Waubesa marsh.

After that I called Dean to talk about taking a couple of comments (his and mine) down in our recent "Miracle of the Latkes" exchange (that’s pronounced "latkuhs" according to Dean).  Now I’ve decided to leave them up, but Dean cuts pretty close to the bone in identifying rural Amurican anti-semitic bullshit, and I have a hard time with satire around these issues.  "D’oh…"

Anyone want to hum a few bars of "Feelings" with me?

"Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years."

Charlie Stross, for one, is a bit upset about this.

They’re waving the Terrorism bloody shirt around a lot, seemingly in ignorance of the fact that the July 7th bombers did their stuff on public transport. But that’s about par for the level of logic I’m coming to expect from our public servants these days. It seems to be a case of "if something is possible it must be done" in respect of any and all possible surveillance technologies. Presumably because of a misplaced neo-Benthamite trust in the panopticon …

"Denise Howell of Bag and Baggage receives the award for Blawg Diva, a very special honor."
        From Blawg Review:  2024 Awards.

…and this from the transcript of the Blawggie Awards Ceremony:

Well, let’s jump right into the show. 2024 saw a tremendous growth in
the number of legal blogs, also known as "blawgs," thanks to the
word-coining abilities of Denise Howell.
What do they call it when you get thousands of lawyers, law professors,
law librarians, law students, legal consultants and others writing
blogs that focus on law-related content? A good start. (Applause.)

All that sizzle and she doesn’t have her own listing on Wikipedia.  I think that sucks.  I’ll bet she’d have her own page if her image appeared burned into a miraculous wart curing latke.  I know she’d have her own page if she was on death row somewhere.

Really what I’m looking for WikiWise is a "Who’s Whom."  We could do that — if we had gigabucks to blow on another free public service server farm.  Someone call the Mormon geneography project.  I’ll bet they’d fund it from Salt Lake. 

In all the hubbub and hectic preparations leading up to the Frankmas season, I missed another Wikipedia brouhaha.  Shelley posted a typically discerning article on Wikipedia in which she pondered how few female bloggers had found their way into that collection of information.  A "Shelley Powers" entry was posted and, according to standard practice, marked for potential deletion.  There seems to be a vetting process, and the Wikipedians go through a classic thumbs-up or thumbs-down ritual, a ritual that makes those of us on the outside resent the insiders for their willingness to judge.

But wait… I’m an insider too.  I have no clue how long I’ve had a Wikipedia log-on in my own name.  I’ve touched up a few articles.  Any touch-ups I’ve done have been anonymous though, not associated with my log-on, but if I wanted to play the Wikipedia game, I could.  I think I’d rather do Sudoku puzzles than sort out the complexities of Wikipedia community membership and content creation.

But let me return to the gated community aspect of Wikipedia content screening.  In Shelley’s original post, a woman or three scuffed toes in the dirt and looked down all humble at the ground and allowed as how she didn’t necessarily rate an article, but she could see that Shelley does.  And indeed Shelley deserves an article.  But the nature of encyclopedicity is that we are in the business of collecting knowledge and making it accessible to readers.  So why wouldn’t we create pages for interesting people?  Why should the gates close behind public persons (from Finkelstein to Seigenthaler) and not easily and readily admit Julie Leung?  For example.

Since I don’t contribute to the Wikipedia, I suppose my opinions are not too important.  I’m confident that were I to take on Wikipedianism as a project I would be welcomed, and eventually I’d learn the boundaries, the rules.  At Shelley’s Burningbird Blog someone pointed out that when we’re looking for info on people we’re more likely to Google them than look them up on the wiki.  That’s so, and the observation itself seems to foster some kind of competitive value judgment.  Actually, ain’t we the lucky ones to have all these great resources at our fingertips?

Shelley’s initial post has been followed by a few more, "Yo! Sock Puppets!" and "The Pedia Me." 

One of the latkes I made on Frankmas eve emerged from the hot peanut oil in the exact shape and image of the Virgin Michelle.  The Virgin Michelle, an inordinately shy woman and thus unsung in new testamentary prose, was Mary of Nazareth’s first cousin and Joseph the carpenter’s housekeeper.  We are storing the miraculous latke in the freezer until it can be assessed for sanctity and assigned a Vatican miracle number by a papal representive.   In the meantime if you have hives or shingles or what-not, do stop in since most conditions can be cured by a simple glimpse of the miraculous pfannkuchen.

December 24 has long been celebrated as the first day of Frankmas, a festival that doesn’t end until January 2.  And on the first day of Frankmas I was remiss in not wishing a happy birthday to Madame Levy who went to the dentist today, on Frankmas Day of all days.  I hope everything came out all right… ooo, snarf, chortle — I crack myself up!

No, but seriously…  if it was just too painful, I know where you can find a fluffy penguin to hold onto until it feels better.

The mouth, silly… until the MOUTH feels better, not the PENGUIN!

Every good Frankmas celebration requires a Yule log.

Happy Birthday to you too, Yule!

This is the story of Frankmas Eve (the night before December 27 when long, long ago, before the post war baby boom began, little baby Frankie was born into this world… no wise men, no shepherds, no manger, no frankincense, and only a little mirth).  This year a miracle occurred!  Latkes appeared on the table at the house of Beth and Frank.  The miracle of the latkes, like most miracles, was a combination of inspiration, perspiration and public relations.  Dave Winer can be credited with the inspiration.  Last week, he was fondly remembering some shiksa from his past and the latke recipe he shared with her… ("Shicksal" is German for "fate" so maybe there’s a little metaphysics there, I don’t know, I only report the news, the good news of latkes on FrankMas Eve).

Potato pancakes, how bad could that be?  I talked it up with friends, I looked it up on-line, and finally I came to a recipe I thought I could handle.  Thanks to Mr. Cuisinart, I didn’t grate the skin off any knuckles.  Neither unfortunately, did I really grate the potatoes fine enough.  Next time around I’m using the grater with the smallest holes.  I used two tablespoons of corn meal and a tablespoon or so of flour.  I was referred to Manischewitz Instant latke mix, but I didn’t have any on hand.  The recipe specifies a ridiculously small quantity of oil.  I poured about a half inch of peanut oil in the bottom of the frying pan, and it worked for the entire batch.  In fact, there was enough that I got it all over the stove, the floor in front of the stove, spattered all over my front, and on the counters beside the stove.  I’m glad I wore my glasses or I would have gone blind from hot grease spatters.

Bottom line?  Delicious!  Okay, maybe also a little coarse grained and a little underdone.  I didn’t want to burn them.  I took Danny Miller’s suggestion and froze the leftovers.  When we take them out of the freezer and bake them, they’ll probably be done to perfection.

Anyway, there’s a new Frankmas Eve tradition in this house and it’s spelled LATKES!