…by Tod Goldberg. Poor MZD.

New York Times: “A consortium of major universities, using Homeland Security Department money, is developing software that would let the government monitor negative opinions of the United States or its leaders in newspapers and other publications overseas. Such a ‘sentiment analysis’ is intended to identify potential threats to the nation, security officials said.”

This is not the United States of America I know. The America I’m familiar with is a place where the actions of our leaders, whether Republican or Democrat, are regularly questioned, both by trustworthy patriots and those who observe our follies from abroad. It is a place where one can utter, “President Bush sodomizes goats in the Rose Garden during the winter,” without fear of imprisonment. It is a place where one is not labeled a terrorist threat because one expresses a view that differs from what the majority answers in the latest Gallup poll.

What good can come from “sentiment analysis?” Will this sentiment analysis understand that a person often writes strongly when they are pissed off or when they have feelings to express? Will this sentiment analysis detect subtext, nuances, and hyperbole? Will it have a head for satire? Will we bomb another nation or imprison a few writers because this “sentiment analysis” says so? Because someone misunderstood this decade’s answer to Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal?”

Here is the DHS’s m.o.: “to identify common patterns from numerous sources of information which might be indicative of potential threats to the nation.”

Let us consider that bold objective. Potential threats from mere words.

Words are unarmed components assembled together with care (and sometimes not) by a writer to articulate a series of ideas and emotions. The series of ideas and emotions, expressed through articles and books, is then examined by a reader. It is the reader who decides whether to feel happiness, despair, fear, anger, resentment, and the like. It is the reader who interprets this series, using the thoughts and knowledge at his disposal, and who may or may not change his mind as a result.

Again, these thoughts and emotions come not from the words themselves, but from the readers who parse the work, which, as any English lit major knows, will have millions of interpretations. A reader might be inspired enough or give a damn enough to actually do something astonishing, but perhaps the kick was there all along and reading simply jump-started the inner drive.

The threat then resides with a population capable of being subverted or motivated by whatever criteria the “sentiment analysis” determines is bad. But is this really fair? Was A Catcher in the Rye the thing that caused John Hinckley, Jr. to attempt an assassination on Reagan? Or was Hinckley a looneytune to begin with?

Is it really the words or the people that the DHS is afraid of? What happens next? Books and websites banned? The ability to read, write, and express banned?

It must not. Civilization has advanced too long and hard for a bunch of authoritarian pricks to take away human ambition with the stroke of a pen. What they don’t know is that we have the power to use that pen too.

MSNBC: “The star — who publicly sought help for his alcoholism less than two months ago — was spotted drinking beer in Austin, Texas, according to the upcoming issue of the National Enquirer.”

Editor & Publisher: “Former Miami Herald Publisher Jesus Diaz Jr., who announced his resignation Tuesday in the wake of the recent uproar over reporters accepting payments from government-sponsored broadcasts outlet, actually quit two weeks ago, the paper reported Wednesday. His earlier departure plan stemmed from a ‘blow-up’ over a related column by Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen.”

The question now is whether any of Hiaasen’s satirical novels will cause any fiction publishers to resign.

Why is Lars Ulrich at Litquake? Yeah, I know it’s for a gala of musicians inspired by literature. But this is Lars Ulrich we’re talking about. Perhaps he’s the only member of Metallica who still bothers to read.

BBC: “Pop star Madonna is in the African country of Malawi on a mission to try to help orphaned children living with HIV and AIDS. The singer plans to launch six projects to help underprivileged children.”

Here are four of the six projects:

1. Madonna will hire out three of her 280 personal assistants for exactly one hour to offer services to one underprivileged child, including carrying suitcases, providing foot massages, driving out to the nearest Whole Foods to purchase a snack (is there a Whole Foods in Malawi?), and reading the Kabbalah out loud.

2. To brighten up a few lives, Madonna will allow three children to star in the roles of Little Foot Soldier #1, Little Foot Soldier #2, and Little Foot Soldier #3 for an upcoming music video representing a sexual allegory of the Battle of the Bulge. The Little Foot Soldiers will get the opportunity to fire off several squibs, thus providing these cute and cuddly malnourished tots with a small thrill to brighten their hungry days.

3. Madonna will allow one carefully selected malnourished child to touch the hem of her khakis, showing great grace in enduring the child’s dirty and squalid hand. The khakis will be immediately laundered after the encounter. The child will be allowed to walk within ten feet of Madonna for twenty heartfelt minutes of joy — perhaps the greatest moment in the child’s life, better even than a rare day with three meals.

4. Madonna will give ten children copies of her complete discography for their listening pleasure. It is Madonna’s hope that her music will provide the children with great inspiration to conquer their grumbling stomachs. If the children do not possess a CD player, she will demand that the Malawai governemnt provide them. If they do not possess electricity, she will have one of her dancers beat somebody up — perhaps another starving child, if nobody else can be found.

Graham’s back.