In this season I am always reminded of the robot Santa who stood in the window of the inflatable boat store on Powell.

It was a neon cartoon which was supposed to wave at traffic by lighting one of four arm positions at a time, but a problem with the synchronization caused it to be animated improperly.  Its arm would first be displayed at the top of its arc, then at the bottom, then we would see two arms, drawn at the first and third positions, then at the second and fourth.  Finally, gloriously, we would see four arms at once, a kind of Kali-killer-robot-Santa image, like when the Terminator's flesh gets shot off and its true nature is revealed.  This was followed by a pause where no arms were drawn, when we could think about what we had just seen.

I spent a lot of time in that intersection.  I would cross Powell there on my bike, and the signal timing for the cross street was terrible.  I stared at that sign.  I felt that it told me a lot about Christmas.  Robot Santa was probably put there to attract attention to the store, and to genuinely express good holiday feelings.  It was a 2-D cartoon which pretended to be a 3-D mythical person, a blinking light which tricked us into thinking it was moving, and an automaton simulating cheer with its empty, dead motions.

The store owner activated him year after year, not knowing or caring that he was presenting a Futurist vision of a mechanized, sterile dystopia.  Or maybe he did know.

U.S. Prepares to Lift Ban on Guantánamo Cases

In this New York Times article from today's paper, waterboarding is referred to as a "drowning technique".  This is interesting, because Times articles have previously described waterboarding as "simulated drowning", or as a tactic which "creates a drowning-like sensation", or in similar ways.  Is this the first time the Times has admitted that waterboarding is drowning?

Their topic page says that waterboarding uses water "to create both the feeling and fear of drowning".

I've always been been dissatisfied with the way the Times gave this torture method a pass by claiming that it somehow didn't count as drowning.  It seems to give the act support, and it's just clearly wrong.  When a person is suffocating because their mouth and nose are blocked by water, they are drowning.  When you pull somebody from the water because they can't breathe, you are rescuing a drowning person before they die of drowning. Waterboarding is a method used by a torturer to begin drowning a subject in a way that is easy to interrupt.  This is why it is useful as a torturing technique; the torturer does not want the subject to die of drowning.

I learn of a friend's death when I see shared messages sent to her on Facebook.  After seeing one which refers to her in the past tense, I visit her page and see many remembrances posted.

Over the next few days, I see more goodbyes in my Facebook feed, intermixed with the usual chatter.  It's strange to see them together, but it's reassuring in a way, it reminds me that she lived with us and we will continue living as we remember her.  She wasn't a series of events that we remember, she was breathing and fighting as we were.  A few of the messages have notes attached from people who don't realize what happened, asking if someone is planning to travel.

I like the practice of reinforcing our connection by sending letters, even though they won't be received by the person we're sending them to.  I talked with some friends yesterday about sending email and phone calls to people who've died.  I've done it with a postcard.  It's more fulfilling than shouting from a bridge.

Public postings are a little different.  They spread the news and remind us that the people we are close to will think about us after we are gone.

The postings are as ephemeral as headstones.  Eventually their neighborhood will get seedy, and maybe the landlord will hide them someday.  Already, the algorithm used to place ads around them is producing some gruesome dark humor.  The longer remembrances are in the photographs we have, the things she left behind for us, and the stories behind them.  Goodbye, Glenna, I'm very sorry to have to say goodbye.