Michael Moore on the record turnout by young voters, the only age group Kerry won:

I don’t ever want to hear another adult talk about how apathetic the youth are or how they don’t have “it” in them. What you are about to see in the coming months is going to shock you. These kids aren’t going away. They have a resilience that cannot be snuffed out by older people’s whining and moaning about the state of America. THEIR America has yet to be formed as they see it, and this one setback is not going to stop them.

From my old friend Postmodern Sass comes this link to a predictive obit for the 43rd president, by Greil Marcus and Sean Wilentz. Parts of it I find brilliant and disturbing, but parts go beyond bad taste.

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I carelessly used the word “hierophant” at our family sabbath lunch yesterday and was sent off to consult the dictionary about its origin. Here’s what we learned:

Hierophant. “1. An expounder of Eleusian mysteries; 2. An interpreter of sacred mysteries or arcane knowledge.” From the Greek hiero (sacred) and phainen (to reveal or show).

Phantasy. From the Greek phantazein (“to make visible”), which comes from phainein.

Sycophant. “One who attempts to win favor or advance himself by flattering persons of influence.” From the Latin from the Greek sukophantes or “fig-shower” (not in the watery sense but as one who shows), derived from “accuser,” “from the use of the gesture of the fig in denouncing a criminal.” Informer became flatterer, and thus we get “sycophant.” The “syco” comes from the Greek for “fig,” and “phant” comes from our old friend phainein.

Elephant. From the Greek elephas, elephant. The American Heritage Dictionary says, confusingly: “el-, akin to Hamitic elu, elephant + ephas, akin to Egyptian abu, elephant, ivory. It sounds like elephant was derived from two words that mean “elephant,” but in any case, there’s no phainein in it. (“At least not much phainein in it.”)

We’re still left with that shower of figs to explain. According to Kel Richards:

There is a story, recorded by Plutarch, to the effect that in Ancient Athens the export of figs was illegal, and an informer who betrayed an attempt at illegally carrying figs out of the district was called a “fig-shower” or (in Greek) a sycophant.

The story seems to be in Plutarch’s Life of Solon (sect. 24):

He permitted only oil to be exported, and those that exported any other fruit, the archon was solemnly to curse, or else pay an hundred drachmas himself; and this law was written in his first table, and, therefore, let none think it incredible, as some affirm, that the exportation of figs was once unlawful, and the informer against the delinquents called a sycophant.

The Spelling Doctor wries:

In ancient Greece, sycophant meant “fig shower”, “accuser” or “informer”, from the custom of waving a fig leaf to denounce a criminal.

The Trumpeter, a Bible study site, says:

Literally it means ‘fig-informer’ or ‘fig-identifier’. This job involved inspecting, and consequently stopping the illegal exporting of figs, thus preventing them from leaving the country, and keeping them where they belonged – especially in times of drought. The term became synonymous with fraud and extortion. Perhaps a few figs here and there went unnoticed, for a price.

The Free Dictionary (which has some weird MouseOver crap going on that prevents you from copying what you’ve selected) says:

According to ancient authorites, the word … meant one who informed against another for exporting figs (which was forbidden by law) or for stealing the fruit of the sacred fig-trees, whether in time of famine or on any other occasion. Another old explanation was that fines and taxes were at one time paid in figs, wine and oil, and those who collected such payments in kind were called sycophants because they “presented,” publicly handed them in.

The Oxford English Dictionary says its origins are obscure, but I’m liking Plutarch actually getting forbidden figs and “sycophant” in the same sentence.

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John Perry Barlow makes the case, eloquently as always, for reaching out, understanding, tolerance and forgiveness. Oh, you can see the thread of anger weaving through as well, but, that’s the struggle so many of us are engaged in. Me, too, although I can see why you might think otherwise given my mood the past few days.

I’m not as sanguine as JP. For some segment of the population – how large? I honestly don’t know – the argument they just won wasn’t over policy differences so much as over the nature of the middle ground itself. It seems to me that we all have to become complex creatures – capable of believing deeply while tolerating contradiction – or we won’t be able to live together. That’s hard. None of us succeed at it perfectly. JP takes a step forward, a bigger step than my mood lets me take right now. But I admire him for it.

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Good news! We’re moving from green to blue!

Or for those of you feeling somewhat, oh, feistier:

And while I’m in a graphical frame of mind:

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Terry Fisher is reading from his book, Promises to Keep on Monday, Nov. 8, 7pm at the Harvard Coop. Chapter 6, in which Terry proposes his solution to the copyright nightmare, is online. Would people put up with a tax-and-royalty scheme? I’ll bet you can ask him exactly that — along with the usual briefs or bvd questions, of course — on Monday. See you there.

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Nov. 1, 2004

Nov. 4, 2004

(No kidding. This hurt.)

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Wow. I just gave a talk to 30 editors of trade journals. Even though the title of my talk was “Bloggers Are Not Journalists (But Blogging Will Change Journalism),” the session taught me that one should not say say, imply or gesture that the community of bloggers could provide a depth of expertise that might come close to that which professional journals offer. I also learned that pointing at the window and saying “Look over there!” will not distract them long enough, especially the second time.

There were, in truth, a couple of people who were vocal in their contempt for bloggers: It’s a fad, it’s bad information, it’s wanking by unemployed losers who have enough time for blogging but apparently not enough to change out of their pajamas. The rest of the group seemed to be open to looking into this blogging thang. It was more fun than I’m letting on.

At the session I paid some but not sufficient homage to the virtues of professional journalism. But, I’m so dismayed by how broken journalism is that I tend to under-emphasize the hard-won value it still brings us. We’re going to have to invent a way of take full advantage of the courage and professionalism of journalists, a way that rewards them for telling us the truth they’ve earned, without requiring them to erase their own point of view.

We have to invent it? Nah. Journals and journalists will invent it. They already are.

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Dan writes up his thoughts about last night’s session at the Berkman Center about the Internet and Democracy. Snippet:

I pointed out that in the last day or so, the word “blog” was sometimes as common as “newspaper” or “telephone” (and more than “mailed literature”) when we listened to major participants in the election on TV. Who would have thought that such a young technology would rise so fast to such prominence?

He goes on to compare podcasting with, well,…:

Just as blogging has an analog in the old activity of pamphleteering…, listening to recorded talks by noted individuals and passing them around has been used for years with audio cassette tapes and is still used. I remembered how we keep hearing of discoveries of cassette tapes of speeches when terrorist hideaways are raided…

Halley also blogs last night’s discussion and captures the mood just right. Here’s a snippet of what she’s concluded:

1. Let’s not let the energy of these new democratic muscles were flexing just dissipate; let’s keep at it;

2. Blogging the truth about your life and being there to inspire or give permission to other people to be do that, or simply giving them the encouragement to be BRAVE and try things is what the blogging infrastructure we’re building is all about;

3. We need to study what happened with all that momentum towards citizen democracy in the Dean campaign, understand why it wasn’t channeled into electing Kerry and not let that ever happen again.

(You know what makes me feel good about last night’s session? When Halley and Dan blogged about it, they both wrote more about what they thought about afterwards.)

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Andrew Leonard, the guy who edited my piece on the myth of echo chambers, thinks maybe there’s more to the echo chamber idea than I credited.

I think there’s truth in what he says, but I’d add a big “nevertheless”: Nevertheless, living on the Net brings you more divergence of thought than if you live only in your daily newspaper or favorite network news shows. The mainstream media are the real echo chambers.

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The honeymoon for the Bush second term consisted of 24 hours of debilitating, news-avoiding, chocolate-cramming depression. As of this morning I am officially declaring the honeymoon over. (Who put me in charge? Didn’t you hear? ABB Land is now officially a permission-free zone. Huzzah!)

Salon* runs advice from a dozen or so notable notables. They range all over the lot. That’s ok because only Harvey Weinstein says “Let’s work together.” Fuck it. Let’s work against the force of intolerant fear-mongering that has swept this country.

Speak truth to stupidity. Speak truth to thuggery. Speak truth to douchebaggery. Better we each become Michael Moore than we all become Winston Smith. The power of testifying should give us, if not hope, at least something to do.

Sure, we need to reach out to the people who happily voted for a man who lied to get us into a war he came into office determined to pursue. We need to understand them. And then we need to defeat them.

We need to respect them. And then we need to thwart them. We need to fight their every effort to impose their small-minded god’s views on us.

Are we all Americans? Of course. Do we share goals and aspirations? Absolutely. Us vs. Them? Fucking-A, especially on the issues that count the most.

If they’re the center, then we’ve got to get ourselves a new map.

ABB Land is bigger than we know. You can read all about it in our blogs, millions of ’em. And, unlike the cold days of yore, our voices are already linked. A movement like none we’ve ever seen is one shout away from forming.

Honeymoon’s over. Time to get back to inventing our better world.

*BTW, it’s also time to renew your suscription to sites like Salon that help keep us going. Now more than ever.

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