Remembering Ronnie Ray Gun

Now that a respectful amount of time has past since they buried poor old Ronald Reagan's body, maybe it's a good time to push back against the crass and opportunistic hero-worship and grandstanding that took the place of any serious, substantive reflection. Might I mention now that he was actually a pretty lousy president? Now that the credits have finally rolled on Ronnie's body, it's time to call bullshit on some of the stupid ideas that have been floated as to what might be a proper memorial. I was listening to the radio a few days ago, and I heard the repulsive troll Grover Norquist say that Reagan was the greatest President of the 20th century, and that he belonged on Mount Rushmore.

What???

Mount Rushmore?

Can you imagine that?

What the hell gives Norquist the idea that Reagan is in the same class as Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt?

Can you imagine George Washington secretly selling arms to Iran? And then lying to the American people about it?

Can you imagine Thomas Jefferson secretly funding terrorists and death squads in Nicaragua and El Salvador from the proceeds of that sale, in direct defiance of the expressed will of Congress? And then lying about who was really responsible for the whole mess?

Can you imagine Abraham Lincoln supporting the brutal apartheid regime of South Africa? And the thug Jonas Savimbi?

Can you imagine Teddy Roosevelt claiming that trees cause air pollution? Or appointing the right-wing nutcase James Watt as the Secretary of the Interior?

Reagan did all these nutty, stupid, evil things, and so much, much more.

I think it's instructive to ask ourselves, what would a Mount Rushmore President do about Saddam Hussein? When Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons on his own people, Reagan thought that was just fine. Reagan even pressured Congress to do nothing about it.

What would a Mount Rushmore President do when our Salvadoran "allies" brutally rape American nuns? What did Reagan do? Nothing, that's what.

Is that really the kind of hero we put on Mount Rushmore?

As part of the obligatory GOP bestowal of godhead upon Reagan, Grover Norquist said on the radio that every state, and each of the 3000+ counties in the United States, should put up some sort of monument to Ronald Reagan. OK, I'm good with that. Maybe we can find 3000+ prisons to name after him. Maybe we can find 3000+ brownfields to name after him.

I personally think the best idea, though, is to name our national debt after him. Our hero, you may remember (or maybe you don't), campaigned for President in 1980 on a platform of eliminating the federal budget deficit. Once in office, though, he proceeded to rack up budget deficits like no other president in history (until George W. Bush came into office, that is). In fact, Ronald Reagan never even sent a balanced budget to Congress.

Therefore, I propose that we rename the current federal debt to The Ronald Reagan Memorial National Debt. It's his lasting achievement and greatest legacy, after all, and it will be with us for a long, long time to come.

Meanwhile, 100 Km Up...

... Space Ship One has become the first private vehicle to fly into space. This is very exciting news. I have always had faith that space travel would someday become practical and affordable; that day seems a little closer now. I may actually live to see it. Imagine that!

I Feel So Hollywood Today

Today is the first day of shooting for Hack the Vote, the short film that Yellow Taxi Productions is making based on my play of the same title. I wrote the screenplay for the film. They've assembled an impressive roster of people to make the film, and I'm very excited to see the finished product. This will be the first film I have written; hopefully, it won't be the last!

Current Electoral Vote Predictor 2004

The Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 is a good place to keep track of the current Presidential horse race. Check it out!

The Monday After the Festival

The Playwrights' Platform Summer Festival is finally over. <sigh of relief/> I have been deeply involved in producing this festival, while also working to salvage my own play's production (as part of the festival), which had stalled with the loss of the director and two out of three actors. Between these two commitments, not to mention keeping my day job, the last couple of weeks leading up to the production have been extremely stressful. Fortunately, it all worked out in the end. We had a really good turnout, it was a very good set of performances, and the audience enjoyed themselves tremendously. On a more personal note, my play Hack the Vote was successfully staffed and rehearsed (in about four days!!), and it tied with Geralyn Horton's play Speed Dating With a Divorce Lawyer for the Playwrights' Choice Award... and I didn't even vote (honest).

Hack the Vote Production in Boston

My new short play Hack the Vote is being performed in the Playwrights' Platform Summer Festival in Boston tonight through Saturday. Bringing this play to the stage has been a very rewarding experience for me; there were lots of opportunities to improve the script, and working with three very talented actors and an excellent director has been a delight. It's been pretty stressful, too, for a number of reasons unrelated to the quality of the script or the people involved, so I'll be very glad when it's all over. Nevertheless, I'm happy about the final product and I'm proud of the play -- which is what matters -- and I'll be even happier to rewrite the script with the new changes incorporated into it.

The Problem With Computerized Voting Machines

The shortest and most straightforward statement of the problem comes from Verified Voting:

"Computerized voting equipment is inherently subject to programming error, equipment malfunction, and malicious tampering. It is therefore crucial that voting equipment provide a voter-verifiable audit trail, by which we mean a permanent record of each vote that can be checked for accuracy by the voter before the vote is submitted, and is difficult or impossible to alter after it has been checked. Many of the electronic voting machines being purchased do not satisfy this requirement. Voting machines should not be purchased or used unless they provide a voter-verifiable audit trail; when such machines are already in use, they should be replaced or modified to provide a voter-verifiable audit trail. Providing a voter-verifiable audit trail should be one of the essential requirements for certification of new voting systems."

-- Verified Voting Resolution (http://www.verifiedvoting.org/resolution.asp)

As a technical professional, I am in favor of applying computer technology to the administration of elections. I believe that the way it's being done by Diebold et al. is exactly the wrong way to do it, and it leaves us vulnerable to all kinds of mischief.

Tell It, Al!

Don't you wish he was this direct and plain-spoken during his campaign in 2000? I sure do. It's a real shame that we lost the opportunity to retain this man's service to our country. Then again, maybe he would never have been this direct and plain-spoken had he not had his Rehnquist-Scalia wakeup call. We'll never know.