Debra Galant Explains the Universe

Save the world. It's so easy.

And the 10 easy ways to save the world?

1. Drink coffee
2. Brush your teeth and shave
3. Go to work
4. Go through your mail
5. Play the stock market
6. Raise your hand
7. Go shopping
8. Eat dinner
9. Take off your clothes
10. Turn off the lights

If you don't believe me, click on the picture above.

If they can only come up with 10 simple steps to stop terrorism or dump Bush, we'll have it made.

Oh the things you'll learn

I was a speaker last night at a local "Friends of the Library" event in my town, in which they invited about a dozen local writers to talk about our craft. It was in the high school, and while I was there, I noticed a bulletin board about Google. It featured the multi-colored Google logo and explained how to do a search, but I thought it left some important things out. So I told my audience about Googlebombs, which they listened to with rapt attention. And then, this being about writers, after all, as self-absorbed a group as I can think of (besides actors), I mentioned that other important Google activity: Googling oneself. I asked for a show of hands. I'd say about 40 percent of the people in the room (writers and non-writers) engaged in such activity.

Meanwhile, here are some of the Google searches that have led to Debra Galant Explains the Universe in the past 24 hours:

my wife won't have sex with me
open heart surgery cartoons
stupid egg tricks
Universe-The Sun
Running snoopy gif

Oh yes, I think they have plenty to learn about Google at the local high school.

Free speech on tour

I'm a little late in posting about this, but I just found out that PRI's Ira Glass of This American Life is on a speaking tour all week. I saw him Sunday in Princeton, but assumed it was a one-shot deal. Those of you in Texas and California, take a look at the schedule (link above) and see if you can get there. It's well worth the travel and the price of a ticket.

Needless to say, Ira is as charming in person as he is on the show, but the thing I thought worth reporting on is how much of his show he spent talking how Howard Stern and the FCC.

Actually, he introduced that segment of the show with a funny little trick, by referring to a morning radio host who, as people have heard, may be off the radio very soon. Everybody, of course, thought he was referring to Bob Edwards. And a very audible public-radio audience sigh spread over the room. Then he surprised us all by saying that he was referring, of course, to Howard Stern.

Ira came out in support of Howard in his March 12 show, "The Facts Don't Matter," which you can download for $13 by going to TAL's archive. He's passionate about what's going on, and he says that the FCC has put a chill on all radio shows, including his.

A Howard Stern fan himself, Ira pointed out that while some of what Howard does is dull -- how many times can you listen to girls taking their clothes off on the radio? -- he thinks that what's going on now, with Stern's daily first-amendment rants, is some of the best radio going on today.

Ira played a clip of Howard saying (on the air), "If the government's out to getcha, it's going to getcha," and then Ira went on to say many brilliant things, most of which I don't remember. But the political message was loud and clear and when in the Q&A someone asked what to do about it, Ira pointed out that we get to decide in November who runs the country.

An interesting side note: Ira compared Howard's show to Jack Benny's, in that both incorporate an entourage of sidekicks who get to react in character to whatever happens to the main man.

I don't know if Ira to Howard to Jack will go down as much as a classic as Tinker to Evers to Chance, but it sure was an eye- (or should we say ear- ) opener for soft-heeled denizens of Public Radio Land.

Is this blogging or Sesame Street?

Here's the latest meme: Ladies and Gentlemen, declare your blog letter!

After the flap about Halley Suitt's "elitist bad-ass-A-list-bloggers"-only invite for the Friday night before BloggerCon 2, everybody is abuzz about the whole letter thing.

In the comments that have rolled in on my BloggerCon post, Joshua Farber calls himself a "C-lister who talks a good game." Dean Landsman calls himself a "self-declared B-list blogger."

Josh, meanwhile, tells me "you're an A-list to me," while Dean flatters me by saying "if you're not an A-lister by self-designation, you're a B+ list at worst, I'd say."

Well, well, well. That leaves me with about a 3.4, the same grade point average I had in college.

If I had more energy, I'd make this into one of those cute quizzes, but I don't. However even a techno-phobe like me could make this little sign, and I expect each and every one of you in Blogville to replicate this (with your own personal blog-letter designation), post it on your blog, with the note: this came from Debra Galant Explains the Universe.

Hints (in case you have trouble picking a letter):
-- if you were invited to Halley's party, you are definitely an A lister
-- if you have ever been linked to by an A lister, you may be a B+ lister
-- if you traveled a great distance to BloggerCon, give yourself an extra half grade
-- if you are funny, but your talent goes unrecognized by the blogosphere, give yourself an A anyway
-- etc., etc. (your idea here.)

Now I am off to do serious high-minded things. While I'm away, spread the word.

I said "Relax my back," you fool

Let's face it. My mom is right. (Oh how I hate to write those words.) I've been working too hard, burning the candle at both ends. Harvard on Saturday for Bloggercon (a 24-hour train ride adventure), Princeton on Sunday to see Ira Glass of This American Life, and then slam into the work week.

I've got to: send in a paragraph to my editor at the Times for a profile I have coming out on Sunday, type in 18 pages of revisions my friend Adam kindly gave me for my novel and send it off to an agent who is actually waiting, strip the sound off of about 10 hours of videotape and save to CD for a project I'm doing for This American Life, show up and give a short speech tonight at Friends of the Library about my glorious writing career. And, oh yes, I'm starting a business. More on that later. And my friend Karen actually has a mockumentary assignment for us to do.

So last night, when my back started complaining -- and it's always the back that complains when I work too much -- I took a muscle relaxant.

What I didn't understand that I am the muscle that needed relaxing.

I just woke up at 10:30. Yipes! That's like teenager stuff.

I had all these dreams too, the first that I can remember for at least a month. In one of these dreams, I'm in a class, and I've scheduled an interview for a story at the same time. I ask the prof if I can leave early, and she gives me this peeved look, so I ask if I can just go home and find the phone number of the person I'm supposed to interview, and call them and reschedule, and she says OK. But of course when I go home, I can't find my notebook or my datebook. There's no record of the interview, where it is, or who it's with.... And the dreams go on like this, a succession of nightmares of incompetence... until finally I break through the gravitational pull of dreamland and wake up to my real life, which mirrors it exactly.

Oh well. Had to clean out the laptop last night. Run AdAware, Norton, De-Frag, etc. I guess I need an equal amount of maintenance.

Memo: US policy may push Iraq into civil war

The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, which represents papers like The Village Voice, breaks big news today.... and Rox, their marketing chief, has brought the blogosphere into the distribution loop. She sent me the story, embargoed for 10 am today, over the weekend.

They've come across a memo written by a US government official detailed to the Coalition Provisional Authority, which says that US policy has seriously destabilized Iraq - and may even help propel the country into civil war.

Far from facilitating democracy and security, the memo’s author fears, US efforts have created an environment rife with corruption and sectarianism likely to result in civil war.

The article describes "cronyism and corruption" within the homegrown Iraqi leadership, and says that US oversight has only made things worse.

...the memo is gloomy in most other respects, portraying a country mired in dysfunction and corruption, overseen by a CPA that “handle(s) an issue like six-year-olds play soccer: Someone kicks the ball and one hundred people chase after it hoping to be noticed, without a care as to what happens on the field.” But it is particularly pointed on the subject of cronyism and corruption within the Governing Council, the provisional Iraqi government subordinate to the CPA responsible for re-staffing Iraq’s government departments. “In retrospect,” the memo asserts, “both for political and organizational reasons, the decision to allow the Governing Council to pick 25 ministers did the greatest damage. Not only did we endorse nepotism, with men choosing their sons and brothers-in-law; but we also failed to use our prerogative to shape a system that would work ... our failure to promote accountability has hurt us.”

For the rest of the story, go here.

Going around

I found this at Mark's site, though I'm sure I saw it elsewhere....

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

I looked around and I swear the nearest book was the manuscript of my own novel, Rattled.

Finally, after three evenings of cold calling, Heather walked into the living room and announced the result of her research.

Actually, the fourth sentence is more interesting.

There was one golden hour of telephone time on weekday evenings - between 8 and 9 o'clock, late enough not to interfere with dinner, early enough not to interfere with bed - and Heather was intent on exploiting it thoroughly.

Neck and neck

What (ammo) would Jesus use?

Thanks to the newly-renamed Rox Populi, we now know about a blog called Jesus' General, which lives in a similar universe as Billionaires for Bush.

Bloggercon, from the Slithering Reptile perspective

Midway through the morning on Saturday, during the session on the Blogging of the President, I had the sinking feeling that my decision to go to bloggercon had been silly and ill-advised. Everybody else in the Room 201 of Pound Hall, which houses Harvard Law School, had a laptop out and was hooked up to something called IRC, which allowed them to chat online while the session was going on, and a number of people, particularly Jeff Jarvis, were posting running comments on their blog. I didn't have any instant messaging software installed in my machine, so I didn't even have the capability of getting on the IRC. Worse yet, I kept getting bounced off the internet altogether. Next to me, Tom Biro, who had traveled with me by train from Newark at 2 a.m., was already hooked up and beginning to post to his blog. Even though he showed me how to download the IM software and tried valiently to help with my WiFi settings, I couldn't get my computer to stay connected to the net for more than a few minutes at a time. The drama of my inconnectivity prevented me from hearing almost everything said in the session, and didn't help Tom's enjoyment either.

But it wasn't just the technological glitch that was making me miserable at that point. Here I was at Harvard Law School, and the scene felt psychologically like it was out of The Paper Chase. I was unprepared. All around me, names were being thrown out and anecdotes referred to that I didn't recognize. The whole thing seemed over my head. Of course I'd been able to follow the earlier session on Blogging and Journalism, led by Jay Rosen. But I'm basically not a political blogger and I entered this world after the Dean campaign imploded, so most of that history was just beyond me. Good and important stuff might have been said during the Presidential blogging session. I wouldn't know.